Archive of Our Own

“Two souls don’t find each other by simple accident.”  Jorge Luis Borges

♡♡♡

Harry is, for lack of a better word, terrified.

Just a moment ago Gemma was standing next to him, his sweater sleeve pinched between two of her fingers as she and her friends lead him through their campsite towards the main stage area, and now he’s by himself.

Well, at least with no one in his immediate vicinity that he knows or recognizes.

He stands on his toes, squints, tries to see if he can spot the back of Gemma’s or Sarah’s or Lizzie’s or even Jake’s head, but there’s no sign of any of them—not Lizzie’s thin black and red braids, not Sarah’s pink hoodie, not Jake’s bright green bobble-topped beanie, and definitely not Gemma’s flouncy blue dress with the little daisies printed all over it—nearby. It’s not like he’d be able to hear their voices shouting over all the passing conversations, nearby DJ booths and buzzing speakers anyway.

Still.

Harry then pats around his trouser pockets only to remember that Gemma has his phone in her bag so he can’t even call her, and he’s far too intimidated to ask a stranger if he can borrow theirs. She has his wallet, too, so all he has on his person are the stick of gum in his back pocket and his muddy wellies and a too-long scarf he’s ready to ball up and throw the ground, because he’s only sixteen and he’s just a shopboy in a bakery and he’s about to cry twenty minutes into his first music festival that he had to beg to attend, all because he lost his big sister and her uni friends, who didn’t even want him to come in the first place, and—

“Oi, y’alright, mate?” a bright voice asks, just as his eyes start to water.

Harry sniffles abruptly, embarrassed, and turns to see a boy—and Harry swears he’s never seen a boy so pretty before—about his height, his age or close to it, with shaggy brown hair and the dreamiest blue eyes, staring right at him. Before he can find the words to answer though, the boy is swiftly wrapping an arm around his shoulders and leading him away from the muddy, bustling area they’re standing in, to a slightly grassier area off the main path.

“Sorry to, ehm,” the boy’s voice is raspy and unsure in his ear, “there’s some lads, alphas I think, that were watching you back there? And I don’t think they were in a helping mood, so—”

Confused, Harry rubs his stuffy nose into his cardigan sleeve and looks over his shoulder, where sure enough, amongst the thick clusters of people shifting from the amenities booths into and out of the performance area, is a group of four young men, solid and unmoving through the wave of passing bodies, staring pointedly in his direction. Their gaze is one Harry can only label as ‘hungry’. One of them even seems to be trying to inconspicuously scent the air as he keeps his eyes locked on Harry and his savior.

His savior, who, when Harry focuses hard and breathes a little deeper, smells divine. Even over the wet earth and salty, hot oil from a nearby chips stand and brackish mix of natural scents swathing all around them, he can make out the boy’s distinct smell over everyone else’s.

He’s surprised by it, only because he’s still coming into his own scent and his senses have yet to fully mature, but this close? The boy smells familiar, homey even, but not in the way his own house does with the fabric softener that’s sunk into all of their laundry and the soft vanilla candles on the coffee table and chemical hairspray-peppermint sugar scrub-cool water cologne of his and Gemma’s shared bathroom.

It’s something entirely different, unlike anything he’s smelled before, but somehow he knows it. Sweet and buttery but simultaneously crisp and brightly smokey. Warm caramel, too-green firewood, zested citrus.

Harry stumbles a little but the boy grabs him before he can fall arse-first onto the lawn.

“Oops,” is all Harry can rasp out, embarrassed as he clutches onto the boy’s arms.

“Hi,” the boy replies around a chirp of a laugh, then moves to lightly clap Harry on the back. “Really though, are y’alright?”

Harry thinks he could lie and nod his head but then the boy might leave or see through him and make him feel even more dazed and embarrassed, so he shrugs one shoulder and clears his throat.

“Dunno, uhm, I, lost my sister and her friends? I was with them but then I turned around and they were gone, and she’s got my, uhm, my mobile and wallet, so I can’t call her or anything, so, uhm, yeah.”

The boy blinks at him a few times. Surprised. Harry tries not to let the ground swallow him whole.

“Sorry, I didn’t expect your voice to be so bloody deep with that adorable little baby face.” Harry inadvertently flushes at the comment and feels his ears warm. The boy smiles at him, the gentlest upwards tilt of his mouth, and adds, “Anyway, ehm, should probably introduce me’self—I’m Louis, I’m from Doncaster, and, ehm, I’m eighteen.”

He then gestures to Harry with a wave of his hand and an expectant raise of his brows.

“Oh, right—I’m Harry? I’m sixteen, from Holmes Chapel.”

The boy, Louis—so unfairly pretty and fitting—laughs again; Harry in turn grows even warmer, but at least he doesn’t feel as panicked or on the edge of crying as he did a minute ago.

“Alright, Harry, sixteen, from Holmes Chapel,” Louis starts, giving Harry a pointed, sparkly-eyed look from under his fringe, and Harry can’t help the giggle that escapes him, “seeing as I kind of know my way around here and you don’t, d’you want to stick with me ‘til we find your sister?”

Immediately Harry nods in agreement. He’s pink-cheeked, trying not to seem so eager that this stranger with a name as pretty as his face and smell, has saved him from a pack of hungry-looking older alphas, eased his panic, and taken him in like a stray kitten in under five minutes.

In turn, Louis beams at him and leads them into the main stage area, returning his arm to its previous spot swung around Harry’s shoulders.

He does it with the comfort and familiarity of them being old friends and it should be too forward of him, regardless of whatever his class is—though with how he’d so quickly manifested at Harry’s side, concerned and overtly aware of the alphas watching him nearby, he’s very likely not an alpha—but Harry doesn’t complain.

In fact, he might even bring his own arm around Louis’ middle. Louis might even laugh in turn.

♡♡♡

Harry and Louis end up collecting a few other wanderers as the first day of the festival progresses.

First they find Niall, with fluffy dyed-blonde hair and a thick Irish brogue and bright, loud laugh, who they find swearing colorfully at his dead mobile near the toilets while they’re racing between stages—who exactly decided Arcade Fire and Bad Religion should have nearly overlapping slots, Harry would like to know—an hour later they meet Liam—sandy brown swooped hair, rumbling yet kind voice, and toned arms Harry’s a little jealous of—and Zayn—who, with his earrings and baby mohawk and the baggy of ‘smokes’ clearly tucked in his back pocket, Harry might’ve mistook for a ‘bad boy’ if not for his almost shy demeanor and the way he very politely says please and thanks, mate, when asked if he and Liam want to join their little group—after rescuing the two from being dragged into a rather muddy mosh pit during Paint It Black’s set.

It turns out they’ve all been separated from whoever it is they’ve come with: Niall’s brother and crew started drinking immediately upon arriving and wandered off while Niall was puttering about a merch table; Zayn’s older sister said she’d meet back up with him at the Indie Stage after they’d split up for a show and just didn’t; Liam’s cousins had found a gaggle of omega girls around their age and had taken it upon themselves to show them around; Louis’ mates had likely done what Harry had with Gemma and just lost sight of each other.

The comradery between the five of them is instant though, and it’s nice not to feel so foolish and alone at what Harry hoped would be the most exciting weekend of his life. So far at least.

By the time they’re done briefly introducing themselves and decided they’ll find their company better while in a group, Niall’s already walking between Liam and Zayn with his arms slung around their necks and Louis’ guiding Harry forward with a gentle hand on his lower back.

Together, they spend most of the muggy August afternoon busying themselves running from stage to stage, sometimes breaking off into two’s or three’s if they want to see different sets or try to hunt down merch—luckily avoiding actually separating from each other by establishing a unique call of oi oi! to locate one another—but the few breaks they do take between blusters of excitement and adrenaline, are spent relaxing in the clearing, by the campsites.

They lay out on the grassy patches of the festival grounds, soaking in sunshine and the occasional cool breeze, stacked in a puppy pile. Under the sweat and grass stains and dirt, even with his still-maturing scenting abilities, the combination of their scents brings Harry a strange sense of comfort.

Louis though, is the first to verbally make note of it. He even makes Liam blush by telling him he smells like freshly fallen rain and something green, Christmas-like. Says he smells clean—even with sweat dabbing his hairline and the underarms of his t-shirt.

“Well don’t just single me out, what about the rest of them?” Liam demands, all rosy-cheeked with his arms crossed over his chest.

Louis dismisses him with a wave of his hand, but he doesn’t protest. Instead he removes his head where it rests on Harry’s thigh, and sits up proper. He crosses his legs and leans back on one hand, pinches one eye shut and sticks his tongue out as he moves his index finger between the rest of them, singling out his next victim like target practice. Harry hides an eager smile under his scarf.

“You,” he decides on Zayn, who regards him with raised brows and an amused smirk, “are a bit of a spicy lad there, Zayner.”

Zayn scoffs out a chuckle. “Care to explain?” he muses, almost dreamily.

Harry’s stomach twists when Louis wiggles his brows in turn.

“Mm, not like, dunno, chilis, but more like pepper? And something kind of, I guess, pretty—maybe wood and flowers, at the same time?” Louis wrinkles his nose and pointedly sniffs a few times. “Like them bowls with the pinecones and dried flowers and cinnamon sticks, but a lot nicer than the one in me gran’s house.”

“Patchouli?” Harry guesses helpfully, which makes Niall snort into his palm and Zayn look unimpressed, even as Liam pats his knee sympathetically.

Louis nods proudly before turning back to Zayn and clicking his tongue at the disparaging look pointed his way. “Oi, I said nicer, didn’t I? Are ‘spicy’ and ‘pretty’ not good enough for you?”

Zayn only seems satisfied when Harry leans in close to him and mentions sandalwood as a form of recovery, as Zayn then reaches across the little blobby circle shape they’ve formed to shake Harry’s hand.

Louis does Niall next, who dramatically tips his head to the side and bears his neck, hand to his forehead like he’s likely to fall under a fainting spell. Harry stiffens as his stomach twists again, harder this time, because Louis actually humors Niall and dips in close to take a few audible sniffs. When he pulls away, he rubs his button nose with the back of his hand.

“First off, cool it with the spray—y’smell just fine on your own. Save your Axe for the lads that don’t shower enough,” he observes, not unkindly, but with enough condescension that Harry snorts and Niall shrugs one shoulder like he might agree, “but...not bad, not bad. Kinda like me mum’s herb garden and, hm, maybe lemon? Or them big pink ones you put sugar on. Definitely not like lemon curds or some’at though. Not that sweet.”

Harry feels a little better by that, but he doesn’t know why. While Niall seems to be mulling over his results, even offering Zayn and Liam his wrist for extra confirmation, though, Harry very awkwardly blurts out, “What about me?”

The others all shoot him looks ranging from wide-eyed surprise to smirking amusement and Harry wants to burrow himself inside of his shirt. Maybe wrap his scarf tighter around himself so he can’t feel or hear their judgement, but then Louis tsks at him. Gives his nose a gentle prod.

“Don’t get your knickers in a twist, Curly, s’plenty of my world class sniffer t’go round.”

Liam snorts, and when Louis glares a him, he says, “S’just ‘cause you’re the oldest,” and shrugs.

Louis just scoffs as Niall and Zayn lowly ooh in a teasing manner. Harry remains quiet but brings his hand to his mouth as if scandalized. Secretly, he thinks Liam might just be jealous.

There’s definitely a tangible air of parental protectiveness about Liam and not being the oldest of them or even having the most developed senses, is likely bothering him. He and Louis had already bickered a bit when trying to develop an earlier gameplan for what to do should they all get separated. Luckily Louis didn’t steamroll him, didn’t growl or snap either, and had seemed only slightly irritated by Liam’s insistence to be heard, even as they’d already decided what to do beforehand.

It’s not like Harry can directly relate, anyway, but he can see where they’re seemingly coming from. He’s the baby of this group—in more ways than one, because the others seemed just fine being off on their own while he was on the verge of tears barely two minutes after losing Gemma—and his family, and he’s younger than about half of his school friends.

He’ll go along with whatever the others decide, easy. Even if he might end up taking Louis’ side more often than not.

Louis drops his affronted scoffing quickly though. “Well I’d hope so,” he blusters playfully instead, “because if I couldn’t smell for shit, I wouldn’t have found young Harold here, or likely noticed any of you lot either, so you’re quite welcome, Liam.”

Harry gaze shifts between them, the two sitting on either side of him. Liam doesn’t seem offended by the quip. He simply purses his lips and shrugs instead, gestures to Harry and tells Louis to get on with it then, it’s Harry’s turn.

Nodding shortly, likely swallowing down snark, Louis redirects his attention back to Harry—which Harry is really rather fond of—and smiles kindly. “Right then, let’s see,” he coaxes. Harry tentatively turns and Louis’ thumb meets the crook of his jaw, then tilts his head more, giving Louis full access to the milky expanse of his neck. “There we go, babes,” Louis praises quietly.

Harry just—he burns with it.

He thinks he’s shaking when he feels the tip of Louis’ nose ghost up the side of his neck, over the thin, sensitive skin meant to one day scar with a bite, and accidentally locks his eyes with Niall across the circle. Niall’s flustered look only confirms his doubts.

Harry tries to lock his muscles when it feels like Louis is there for far too long, but he’s thankfully saved when he hears maybe Liam clear his throat. Louis withdraws easy and unbothered while Harry’s left quivering, rubbing the side of his neck to quash the leftover tickle of breath.

Or maybe brand the feeling into his skin; he’s not quite sure.

He manages to croak out a, “So?” but keeps his hand cupped over his marking spot.

The others—save Louis this time, as he’s busy wriggling his nose and hm-ing to himself and looking up at the cloudless sky besides the rest of them—are back to staring at Harry, but now there’s this weirdly knowing look on their faces. Liam seems to see through him, Zayn past him, and Niall right at him. He doesn’t know what it means but he also doesn’t have the chance to ask, because Louis’ ahem-ing rather loudly.

Niall eagerly leans forward. “And?”

Louis hums happily and closes his eyes. “Very pretty. Young Harold here—“

“You do know Harold isn’t my real name, right?”

“Hush.” Louis pinches his side playfully. “As I was saying, young Harold here smells rather sweet, but more creamy than candy-sweet. Like a custard. Or ice cream.” His eyes open halfway and his gaze, a striking blue that rivals the summer skies, is already locked on Harry. “A bit green, too, but not like Liam’s. There’s almost something dark underneath it—we’ve all got them, the undertones, but Harry’s is like, really there for some reason.”

Harry can’t break his gaze to see, but he knows it’s Zayn that speaks this time, asking with a definitive note of curiosity, “What d’you mean by ‘dark’, then?”

“Gold star question there, Malik.” He’s still only looking at Harry. “Y’know like, when you think of the sun or the ocean or grass, there’s a color that pops in your head?” Everyone but Liam, who just tilts his head to the side, nods. Louis tips his head in confirmation, only then briefly breaking eye contact with Harry. “Just like that. First he’s all like—to me, at least—a bit sweet. Makes me think of pink or that nice gold color when you bake a cake just right, and that sort-of green; but there’s something else too, right under those. Makes me see like, dark red or plummy-violet, so maybe it’s a fruit.”

Harry’s never heard anything like that about himself before—not even from his close, more developed friends, alphas or omegas alike—so he curiously sniffs his own wrist.

His scent is much lighter there, but it is present. Mostly he picks up the polished wood and worn thread on the bracelets he’s wearing, but under that is the faint, albeit familiar aroma of his mum—black tea and roses—and her long term live-in partner, Robin—homey suede and amber—because he’s young enough that he still smells more like his family than just himself, his own scent still flowering into a full-bodied bloom.

“I dunno,” Harry murmurs, unsure.

Niall motions for him to come closer. “Let’s see then, Harry,” and Harry awkwardly knee crawls across the short patch of grass separating them and offers his wrist, which Niall takes and deeply inhales into. “Mm, I‘m gonna guess y’still smell a bit more like your ma and dad, ‘cause I’m not getting much of what Louis was just talking about here.”

With a displeased noise, Harry instead offers his neck, but doesn’t bow as much as he did for Louis, and Niall doesn’t get as close as Louis did, nor linger half as long. He pulls away after a few seconds and hums affirmatively.

“Well?”

“It’s not half as strong for me, at least not yet, but I get what Louis means; there’s definitely something else there.” He claps a hand on Harry’s shoulder almost proudly. “Good on you, lad.”

Because they’re seemingly on a mission now—he wonders how weird this must look to the other people lazing in the field or catching them from the distance of the campgrounds and performance strip—Harry lets himself be man-handled by Zayn, then Liam, who both keep a distance similar to Niall when they inhale against his neck.

Zayn’s the one that makes the most on-the-nose connection though, because Liam guesses herbs and berries, dunno though, and then Zayn snaps his fingers, beaming.

“Cherries, man,” he says smartly. “And I think—that green, Lou? Before you mix it up, roll it in paper, when the tobacco’s fresh, s’bit like herbs—the leafy green ones. Doesn’t get smokey ‘til after you’ve lit up.”

Louis seems satisfied with the answer, beaming at Harry and wiggling his eyebrows again to make him laugh.

Harry can’t wait to see his friends next week and tell them how Leeds went—shows were fucking mental but I made friends with four lads that sniffed me and apparently I smell like a baked cherry tart and pipeweed, can you imagine that?

When the rest of them then collectively agree it’s only fair they give Louis a whiff in return, he tries to crawl away, fruitlessly. Harry gets to him first and drags him backwards by the ankle before pancaking on him, then Zayn, Liam and Niall all pile on top of him, and Louis threatens to take back all his compliments, squawking that they all just actually reek, you smelly little bastards!

Structurally unsound, they tumble off each other and fall into a fit of laughter.

The aftershocks of their gigglefest cease shortly though, and they all easily fall into nonlinear conversations about everything and nothing all at once—what bands they’re excited to see, how they feel about school in a few short weeks, what they want to be when they grow up.

Harry knows they all just more or less scented one another and while it is a common thing to do when you’re young and curious, Harry’s never felt so close to calling people he’s only known a few hours and already bared his neck to, his friends.

Although, even with the addition of three friendly faces, he still finds himself particularly drawn to Louis.

Not to say he doesn’t care about what the others have to say, or that he isn’t a little mystified by how many overlapping interests, opinions and experiences they all seem to share, but there’s just something about Louis that he can’t seem to shake or put words to.

Like when they get to the point of starting to introduce their own minorly controversial opinons and end up bickering about the right way to enjoy tea—which Niall just wrinkles his nose at and scoffs about the fucking English and their fucking tea—Louis vehementally defends sugarless Yorkshire tea to the point Harry’s convinced he’s been enjoying his morning cuppa wrong all along, when he’d normally just shrug and settle things with a decree of mediation.

When Harry comes under fire because he admits he actually prefers a different brand of beans than the go-to, Louis gathers him up in his arms—Harry feeling very much so like a housecat being carried around by a toddler—and points an accusatory finger at the others.

“Oi, stop with your tings, man, at my boy!” he accuses, soothing a faux-pouting Harry by petting his chest and smacking dry kisses to the crown of his head.

When Louis ceases his pecking and petting, Harry still remains half-sitting in his lap. He might be pushing his luck, but Louis secures him by locking his fingers over his tummy, and brings his legs up beside Harry’s, keeping them stuck together.

Eventually Liam asks about their families and their hometowns and the like and it gets to Louis’ turn, he speaks so fondly of Doncaster; of his best friends—Oli, Stan, Luke, Calvin, Nizam—that are probably looking for him right now. Seems almost wistful detailing how the little flat he grew up in with just his mum always smelled like fresh picked flowers. Even happier, now, in the house he shares with his mum and stepfather and four younger sisters.

He laughs when he makes a point of how much he loves the girls, even when they storm into his room without warning and demand his attention and call him rude names when he’s just doing his job as the helpful eldest.

Harry’s heart swells.

Sure, Liam’s got two older sisters who he very clearly loves despite the constant teasing he seems to get from them, and Zayn’s got three sisters—two younger than him back in Bradford and one older who’s attended the weekend with him and his two best friends—but it’s not quite the same.

Harry’s chest tightens in a much different way, though, when Niall asks if anyone of them are courting, especially because Louis draws out his mobile to proudly show them all a photo of him...and his girlfriend. He should have figured, maybe, because Louis is so funny and sweet and attractive, but he can’t deny the swell of disappointment that settles like a rock in the bit of belly.

More so a boulder than a pebble, though.

Apparently her name is Hannah and she has long blonde hair and pretty brown eyes and in the photo—Louis’ wallpaper—she’s beaming at the camera while Louis’ arm is tight around her, eyes closed and sweetly nuzzling into her cheek with his nose, and Harry’s, well, he’s not jealous because he has no right to be, but his face still falls when Louis starts flicking through his pictures.

There’s Louis and Hannah dressed smartly with his hands low on her waist as they stand front-to-front at prom. Her head tipped back kissing his jaw as they cuddle in an unmade bed. A dirty mirror and camera flash only partially obstructing the view of Louis perched on a sofa arm while they smile into a kiss, Hannah’s hands anchored on his thighs as she leans into him.

All Harry can do when Louis looks at him for, for something, is smile weakly and nod. “Very cute,” he manages, strained.

Louis though, he doesn’t seem to notice as Niall’s too busy ribbing him, and Liam is very politely saying that they look nice together.

Thankfully, or at least seemingly sensing Harry’s discomfort, Zayn then shows them all a picture of his older sister without letting them know who it is first—as if they don’t look scarily alike, with their tan skin and golden brown eyes and long dark lashes—and Niall makes this terrible purring sound at the photo.

Which has all of them, save a rather flushed Zayn, rolling around in laughter.

When Zayn rightfully pins Niall down in the grass and aggressively tickles his armpits, threatening to enact vindication for his sister’s honor, Louis lets out a battle cry and involves himself in keeping Niall pinned down while simultaneously fighting off Liam, who just tries to pry them all apart while trying not to laugh.

Harry, with his sudden and misplaced heartache momentarily forgotten, stays on the sidelines cheering in amusement until the tickle attack is transferred unto Louis—which is his own fault for giving Niall a wet willy and pinching Liam’s nipple in the scuffle—and then he’s wriggling his way between Louis’ body and the others’ offending fingers, shielding him, and dramatically proclaims between giggles and snorts, that he’ll be the one to protect Louis.

And as they’re hurrying back to the performance area for a signing they’d nearly forgotten about shortly after, Louis suddenly takes his hand. Cackling and whooping, he drags Harry along with him, even as both their palms are sweaty and Harry’s fingers itch from the grass. Harry, who can feel the sunshine baked into the marrow in his bones, can only try not to stumble as he loses his breath running.

♡♡♡

Louis is the one who finds Gemma that evening.

It’s after dark and the five of them are at—what Harry thinks is—3OH!3’s set.

Niall is perched precariously on Liam’s shoulders belting out the introductory verse to something Harry can only vaguely make out—something about someone’s boyfriend being a vegetarian—with so much passion and conviction, punching his arms out with the words that Liam starts to wobble. Harry and Zayn play spotter on either side of them so neither boy topples over and breaks something, or flattens an innocent bystander.

It’s then that Louis, who’s tucked close to Harry’s side with a hand on his hip, suddenly stiffens and turns to look off in three different directions. Harry notices this out of the corner of his eye, thinking nothing of it, but then Louis is shouting something unintelligible in his ear, and disappearing into the sea of gyrating, sweating, muddy bodies before Harry can ask him what he’s doing.

Harry keeps his hold on Niall’s knee as he keeps an eye out for Louis, distractedly mouthing along with she wants to touch me, she wants to love me, when over the cheers and chants and blaring speakers, somehow, he catches Louis’ voice—

“Harry! Harry! I found her!”

His heart leaps into his throat and he spins around a few times, disoriented, but to his left a ways he eventually spots a beaming Louis. He’s jumping up between people who have yet to move for him, and trailing behind him is Harry’s beautiful-amazing-lovely sister.

The other lads seem to have noticed the commotion as Harry starts matching Louis’ bubbly energy and begins jumping in place a little, rocking poor Liam as he exclaims, “Louis found Gemma!” and points in the direction they’re coming from.

He hears Louis tell some rather bulky older man to jog on, mate, when the man doesn’t move, and Gemma follows the comment with a flip of her daintily painted middle finger as she shoves past the man with surprise force. She’s squinting between heads and pumped fists, but when she does see Harry, she lets out a heavy, relieved breath he swears he can hear over the fuzzy sound system and choral shouting.

Louis reaches out for him and Harry’s pulling them through a handsy couple with matching razored haircuts, reeling them in, ocean to land, until Louis nearly stumbles into him.

“I found her,” Louis says again, grinning and breathless, only then letting go of Gemma’s wrist.

And all Gemma gets out is, “God, you,” before she’s tugging Harry into a rib-crushing hug.

She cups the back of his head with her palm to keep him tucked against her. Harry holds her back just as tightly, inhaling a spike of calming honeysuckle and jasmine where his nose is tucked into her shoulder.

“I’m alright, Gem,” he mumbles.

She promptly pulls away, her hands suddenly gripping his arms, and demands, “Buggering hell, Harry, where’ve you been, we’ve been looking for you for hours! I only found you because Lou, Louis? He asked me my name and I thought he was going to like, flirt with me,” she briefly casts Louis an apologetic smile, which he just grins and shakes his head at, “but then I saw he had your sweater on, and—”

Harry had almost forgotten, has to look at Louis to remember, but after kindly paying for both his curry for supper and a package of crisps earlier in the day, the least Harry could do in exchange for all of Louis’ kindness was offer him his cardigan as the country air cooled and he began to shiver under the darkening sky.

“—swear Mum was going to murder me if she’d called and I hadn’t found you yet, but I have now, and you’ve been okay, right?” she asks, smoothing away some of the hair sticking to his sweat-slick forehead, a fretful habit she picked up when they were children. “You haven’t been sick or overheated or anything?”

Harry bats her hand away, giving it a reassuring squeeze. “‘m fine, Gem, honest. Louis found me like, immediately after I lost you and took me in, then we ran into the lads and we’ve been having a, uhm, I’d say a damn good time so far.” When she regards him with an unconvinced crease of her brow, he sighs and adds, “I’m alright, really.”

It seems to be enough reassurance for her as she nods. Sighs again. She tells him to meet her and the others by the NME tent after the set’s over, an or else going unsaid but very much denoted.

And while Harry wants to be relieved that he’s finally found Gemma, should thank Louis proper for being able to track her down in the thriving crowd around them—like what an incredible feat that proved, with all the sweaty people and spilled beer and dirt—instead he feels unsettled by it, because this means he’ll likely have to leave the boys behind now.

He doesn’t want to leave Louis or the others, though. He wants to ride out the rest of the weekend with them, sharing paper trays of hot crisps that leave their fingers greasy and crusted in salt, slipping through and nearly falling on their arses in sticky strips of mud as they race between setlists and stages, stealing sneaky nips of Irish whiskey out of the silver flask Niall snuck in—any and all of it.

If he sticks with Gemma and her friends, he knows she won’t let him go off on his own again. He’ll miss half the shows he wants to see because her friends won’t want to see them, and he won’t get to partake in any of their sideshow fun, either.

Like, when Jake eventually pulls out his stash—Harry knows he brought it with them because his rucksack was the one that made the back of Lizzie’s car smell acrid and skunky—and smokes them out in his tent, Harry will be the only clearheaded one amongst them because Gemma will tell him, likely with her lips already touching the end of a joint, to do as I say, not as I do, before shooing him off to their own tent so she can enjoy her high without guilt.

She also won’t let him partake in any of the numerous baby liquor bottles he’s seen stashed amongst their socks and underwear, jammed in spare shoes and sleeping bag rolls, because if either of them comes back home with any sign of a hangover while together, their mum both won’t let him out of her sight for the next year and she won’t let Gemma take the car back to uni in the fall.

He tries to enjoy the remainder of the set. He still jumps along to the beat and hollers out with the others when the band asks for the audience to make some fucking noise, England!, but Harry can’t help but let his anticipatory disappointment dilute the euphoria. Louis must sense it, too, because as they’re filing out into the main strip of the performance area—Niall now back on the ground using Zayn as a reluctant crutch as he walks on jelly legs, and Liam complaining about how damn boney Niall’s arse is—he rests one hand on the back of Harry’s neck.

Upon reaching Gemma’s group—who seem to also have adopted a few new members, although Harry doesn’t quite like how one of said new members, a boy with pale skin and shaggy brown hair and a thick silver ring strung through his bottom lip, is resting his hand terribly low on Gemma’s waist—Harry’s ready to argue with her to let him stay with the lads. That he’s not a baby who needs his beta big sister to protect him. That he has his pills and emergency suppressants now if he actually needs them, thank you very fucking much.

When he opens his mouth, though, Gemma holds up one finger and briefly digs through her rucksack. Harry stands fishmouthed when she wordlessly presses his mobile, wallet, emergency meds, his bloody inhaler, into his hands. All he can do is keep that dumb, clueless look plastered to his face, as she smiles hard enough that her cheeks dimple.

“We’re not telling Mum about this, alright?” she says sternly. An insistent look and Harry nods. “Don’t take anything you’re not supposed to, don’t go off with, well,” her gaze flickers to the rest of the boys but lingers on Louis, who still has his fingers pressed against Harry’s neck, “other strangers, and check in with me in The Village let’s say around...noon and suppertime? Oh, and–”

“Gem—” Harry whines, ears heating as he picks up on multiple snickers around them.

“Shut up and let me finish—and if you’re not sleeping in our tent for the night,” her gaze stays focused unwaveringly on Louis and Harry really wishes he could see how Louis’ reaction to it, as he actually squeezes a little tighter, “please at least text me first so I don’t think you’ve gone off murdered or prostituted? Or, even better, stop by ours before you go to bed—”

He interrupts her sweetly with, “Anything else?” and bats his lashes.

She flicks him pointedly in the forehead and the handsy lad next to her snorts. “Yes, actually. Last and most important thing? Do not forget to ring Mum. We’re going to a little meet-up later and then probably crashing for the night, so when she calls me, you’d better have talked to her already.”

She raises her eyebrows and crosses her arms in a manner eerily reminiscent of their mum, but instead of giving her a verbal affirmative, Harry’s suddenly so overwhelmed with the realization of what this all means that he just crashes into her chest hard enough she stumbles and oofs. Gemma returns the gesture shortly though, squeezing him tight around the middle before giving his cheek a teasing pinch.

“Be good,” she teases, then looks to the other boys, “that goes to you lot as well; I don’t want to explain to our mother that I’ve got to drop out of school because I’ve adopted a pack of lost festival children.”

Harry thinks the others must give her the affirmative, as Gemma nods shortly before she’s starting off in the opposite direction, her friends already ahead and weaving through a crowd of thirty or forty-something year old men dressed in an assortment of cheap Halloween costumes.

Once they’re far enough away though, the lads cheer and holler while cocooning Harry in one-armed hugs and congratulatory back pats. Louis even frees his gently insistent hold on the back of Harry’s neck to pull him into an all-consuming squeeze.

It’s not enough celebration of his newfound freedom though—Louis’ arms around him and holding him tight enough he can smell the sweet musk of sweat on his skin, his own grey cardigan with its sleeves rolled to Louis’ elbows, because Harry’s ducking down and scooping Louis up without second thought or warning, and spins them in circles.

He only briefly catches Niall suddenly hunched over and cackling wickely, Zayn hiding in Liam’s shoulder as both poorly conceal shocked laughter. In his arms, Louis briefly gasps and peers down at him under his eyelashes—they’re so long they touch the tops of his cheeks, Jesus—with something like surprise and wonder. And Harry thinks to set him down, to apologize, but before he can Louis is winding his own arms around Harry’s neck and locking his knees at his hips, crowing out a victorious noise towards the sparkling stars overhead.

Gemma’s voices rings out, albeit farther away and stifled by the buzz inside NME’s tent, with, “Call Mum!”

Harry ignores her in favor of spinning Louis around once more.

♡♡♡

As the five of them stumble through the field, nearly pitch now save some far-off lanterns and stadium lights, back to the campgrounds, their arms all linked together as they occasionally stub their toes on unseen rocks and trip into hidden burrows, Niall, totally unprovoked, wistfully tells Harry, “Your sister’s quite fit—”

Louis joins Harry in chasing a cackling Niall through the dark.

♡♡♡

Harry and Gemma are back in Holmes Chapel enjoying their first real meal since Thursday supper—just after they’ve had their first real showers since Friday morning as well; Harry swears he shampooed a whole clump of grass out of his hair and turned the bottom of the bathtub brown with dust and dirt—and Harry’s bubbling his excitement all over the dinner table reciting the events of the weekend to his mum and Robin.

He tells them about finding out him and the others were all hilariously camped on the same grounds, rather close together as well; that they shared big group breakfasts every morning after the first and all their additional company had thankfully gotten on pleasantly; that Harry and the other lads raced each other to the BBC main stage the second afternoon and all five of them slipped in a monstrously large and gum-sticky mud pit; of Louis hoisting him up to see around a rather tall, heavily tattooed man at Guns and Roses’ show and accidentally getting dropped onto said man (who was actually very kind and let them stand in front of him afterwards, sans Harry on Louis’ shoulders); sleepovers with Louis every night where they’d babbled excitedly about what their favorite bits of the day were, and nonsense about their dreams and wishes and all their was to look forward to.

As he’s reaching the end of his recollection, though, Harry suddenly realizes that he’s told them more about Louis—the lads, too, although the scale is very deftly tipped—than the festival itself.

Gemma seems to have been only half-listening, offering nods on the occasion that he looks to her for confirmation of some incredulous event. Harry can’t really bring himself to be offended because he talked her ear off on the drive home. Well—he talked off everyone’s ear on the drive home.

She also keeps looking at Mum and Robin, and will raise her eyebrows at or smile in a weirdly knowing way in their direction now and again. Harry chooses not to address it when he sees it, not even when he sees Mum and Robin do the same thing back, because he doesn’t quite want to know what inside joke they’ve got going on at his apparent expense. Asking will likely just invite things to get worse.

“It sounds like you’ve made a lovely bunch of friends, darling,” Mum says as she pours him a fresh cup of tea, “especially this Louis; I’m glad you had such great time.”

Harry wrinkles his nose smugly. “And you weren’t even going to let me go until the night before,” he teases, as if he hadn’t begged and bartered and whined about needing Gemma’s extra ticket, until she had caved.

Robin chuckles into his cup while Mum pinches his cheek.

And like the mindful child Mum raised him to be, Harry helps Gemma clear the supper dishes and wash up afterwards. Even rings Robin his shortbreads and Mum her raspberry Kaffereps as they settle onto the sofa together for a Sunday evening film.

Normally he’d join by snuggling up between them or claiming the armchair for himself, but really he’s—so tired. And his back hurts. It’s been a few since his last proper sleep and the weighted pressure behind his eyes is telling him to just turn in early. Gemma has already retired for the evening and he knows once he goes upstairs, he’ll likely hear her snoring through her shut door.

As he sleepily excuses himself to his bedroom, bidding his parents a goodnight around a yawn, Mum reaches over the back of the sofa and stops him with a hand on his arm. “Before you turn in, will you leave your camera by the door? I’m popping down to the shop early tomorrow and I can get it developed for you.”

“Camera…” Harry pats the pockets of his sleep pants to only find his mobile, then awkwardly straightens. “Oh. In m’bag.” Fumbles upstairs to hastily retrieve the disposable thing from his grassy, muddied knapsack and set it on the table by the front door. Harry pokes his head back into the room and gives a thumb’s up. “Got it, Mum. Thanks”

When he makes a move to go back upstairs properly this time, she beckons him over with a wave of her hand. Robin is still sorting through DVDs. Harry complies, albeit with a tired sigh, and leans over the couch so his chin rests on her shoulder. He turns an expectant eye to her and she smiles, bare faced and with her eyes pinching up in the corners with the force of her grin, and kisses his cheek to pull away with a loud smack.

“Now you may go to bed, before you fall over, please.”

Harry does just that. He leans his door shut, strips out of his t-shirt and flannel bottoms, crawls between the cool sheets, and is out before he can shiver from the temperature shift.

♡♡♡

After the wilderness of the festival weekend, everything in Holmes Chapel feels...frankly underwhelming. The bright colors of a dying summer quickly desaturate and days truly end at sunset.

It’s so quiet. Sleepy, almost, like everyone is preparing for winter hibernation. It leaves something to be desired now that Harry’s had a taste for more.

With many of his friends still off on trips with their families, too, his most reliable option for company right now is Gemma, but she’s also been busy visiting friends that returned for summer and will be off to Uni again soon. So—Harry spends most of his time alone.

He has more hours at the bakery outside of term and he’s taken as many more in addition as he’s allowed after all the money he’d spent during the festival, but outside of that, there’s not much for him to do. Sometimes he plays footie at the park or helps Mum tend to the garden, reads in the sitting room with his earphones in and the windows open for the occasional summer breeze.

It’s moments like these where he wishes they had a dog, or at least a particular housecat. He’s learned not to bother Dusty when she’s enjoying a moment—see: half day—of peace sunning on the carpet, as he had to learn the hard way that most cats aren’t nearly as fond of you laying on their warm bellies as dogs can be. Wore the scratches he’d earned after with far more pride than he should have, but definitely took the lesson in stride.

What does bring Harry some semblance of joy though, making him in part wish for the days to stay long and term to remain on a distant horizon, is the constant conversation had between him and his newfound festival friends.

Mostly Louis though.

Because while they all share a group chat and have each other added on all the necessary social media, Harry definitely speaks with Louis individually the most.

If they’re not texting, they’re chatting on the phone, and if they’re not chatting on the phone, they’re on a video-call through Skype. Talking music, films, exchanging silly life stories—although Louis’ got more funny ones to offer than Harry, who now can only reflect on his peak comedic moments as more embarrassing than anything else. Anything and everything they can think to talk about, they do.

Over a grainy webcam he even meets Louis’ mum Jay and his stepfather Mark, as well as his sisters Lottie, Félicité, Phoebe, and Daisy. Sometimes Mum pops in when she hears Jay saying hello—even as Louis whines and asks her to please give him some privacy—and they end up chatting briefly over the back of his and Louis’ desk chairs, so all he and Louis can do is make funny faces at one another and wait for their turns to speak again.

Harry is introduced to Hannah one afternoon over video chat, too. He answers the call ready to be on his best behavior because Louis had asked—pleaded, really—for Harry to meet her, as if she was the one he’d only just met instead. And how could he say no to Louis’ puppy dog pouting?

Hannah calls Harry adorable right off the bat, and before he might’ve preened at the attention from a pretty girl, even if she is dating his newfound maybe-or-close-to-best friend, but now he finds he can only grimace in response to her doting. Finds himself staring at Louis more than her over the screen, even when she’s the one speaking. Even tunes her out at times and only nods along half-convincingly.

But when she moves from her chair to Louis’ lap halfway through their call, after she’s just asked Harry what groups he liked best at the festival, Harry can’t stop a frown from overtaking his face.

Agitation prickles in his gut, bubbling acidic enough to threaten an ulcer, and his cheeks flash with a heat akin to fresh slap. His voice loses its cheeriness, even drops to a near growl at one point, and he stops speaking altogether when Hannah’s arms loop around Louis’ neck. Doesn’t even complete his thought.

Harry can’t bring himself to care even though he knows he looks petulant and childish getting upset over their casual affection. They are together. And normally he wouldn’t want Louis to see him like this, but this misplaced—something, has consumed him, covered him, tar sticky.

“Harry? Are you alright?” Hannah asks.

Her fingers are playing with the trim hair at the base of Louis’ skull, and Harry’s jaw clenches tighter. He’s about to make some nonsense excuse like the cat’s under the table and scratched him, or he’s got a stomach ache, but he’s saved by Louis.

Dear, sweet, amazing Louis.

Because Louis leans in and whispers something to Hannah that causes her brow to furrow. She mouths something back to him, pouting, but all Louis offers in turn is a sympathetic look and shrug. Harry watches, genuinely surprised, as Hannah awkwardly clamors off of Louis’ lap to her own seat again. She looks embarrassed and apologizes for cutting him off or making him uncomfortable, and Harry finds he’s able to finally shake the stoniness in his posture away. Flick the boil of his blood down to a healthy, quiet simmer.

And he really does his best to ignore the sick swell of joy it brings him, when Hannah eventually reaches out for Louis’ thigh, and Louis tucks himself closer to the desk so she can’t reach him, but he can’t completely stamp it down. He does give her the kindness of covering his smirk behind his hand with a poorly executed cough, though.

Harry expects his contact with all of them to stay like that for the most part—chatting over the phone or on the computer, maybe getting to meet up once in a while somewhere between all their hometowns or over a prolonged holiday, likely with Niall joining them through a screen in Ireland—up until Louis tells him that he and his mum are moving his things into his uni’s dormitories a week before Harry starts school, and I know it’s not quite on the way but Mum said she’d be fine stopping by if your family is and I’d quite like to see you again before classes start?

When he pleads with Mum if Louis and Jay can please stop by to visit on their way to Manchester and she easily permits, Harry spins her around, euphoric, and kisses her on the cheek. Leaves her stunned in the kitchen while he hurries to get things perfect for Louis’ arrival.

In fact, he spends the next few days trying to keep the house meticulously tidy. He re-organizes his entire bedroom and scrubs every surface in the upstairs washroom, handwashes and dries and puts away every dish that ends up in the sink over the course of each day, even vacuums and mops the entirety of the downstairs by himself.

Robin comes home from work the initial evening and gets tutted allowing his shoes to leave the doormat; when Harry promptly brings him his house slippers, muttering about messing the floors, Robin just asks if the queen is coming to visit. Mum giggles something about you’d think so, wouldn’t you? and Harry scuttles off to clean the oven.

And when Mum, leaving for a brief run to the store the next day, catches him wearing her baking apron while dusting the piano and calls him ridiculous, he just asks for her to pick up Yorkshire tea and some milk chocolate buttons too, please? as he’s carefully inspecting the keys.

The morning of Louis’ arrival, Harry glues himself to an armchair in the sitting room and stares out the sitting room window like their own fluffy-haired guard dog. If he had the ability to just not blink while doing so, he would, but after attempting to not do so and causing his eyes to dry out and burn, Harry gives up and just tries to be more aware of how much he’s blinking.

Dusty joins him after she’s had her breakfast. Lets him scratch her chin and stroke over her back until she’s vibrating him with the force of her purring, then sets herself on the windowsill. Harry likes to think she’s stuck around for moral support rather than bird watching, or catching sunshine.

Louis and his mother arrive just shy of noon, their car packed with stuffed cardboard boxes and luggage. Harry’s nearly got his face smashed into the glass—he cleaned the windows last night and he’s not going to smear them with fingerprints now—trying to see as far down the road as he can, when a compact fitting Louis’ description comes into view.

Harry is able to keep his composure until the car slows to turn into the drive, and then he promptly abandons it. Launches himself out of the armchair, nearly knocking into the side of the sofa and coffee table as he makes a mad-dash for the front door. Mum’s yelling for him to stop something, but he’s already thrown the door open before he can make sense of what she’s saying.

“Lou-eh!” he shouts, hopping—and thankfully clearing, for once—the front gate. “Lou-eh!”

He receives a bright, “Oi oi!” and familiar cackling in turn, just as Louis’ clamoring out of the passenger door, still partially tangled in his seatbelt.

The car’s engine is still running and the handbrake has yet to be engaged as Jay shouts at Louis needing to wait until she’s at least got the car parked, you menace, but her berating is cut short the instant Louis collides into Harry’s chest.

That, or Louis stumbling into his arms makes the rest of the world go quiet. Harry’s not sure. All he can feel is Louis’ laughter tucked into his shoulder and strong arms looped around his waist, squeezing him tight. And after the remainder of the appropriate hello’s have been exchanged, Mum excuses them to go enjoy lunch in the back garden.

There, he and Louis lay out on a blanket that saves their bare legs from the sting of cut grass, a plate of ham and cheese sandwiches to share between them.

Their mothers let them be, chatting animatedly in the kitchen over a boiling kettle, while Louis details more on the hall he got into—a mixed class coed dorm—and who he theorizes what his perfect roommate would be like. He lists of a series of random traits—brown curly hair, big green eyes, clumsy as a baby deer—and then turns Harry’s way and grins, you.

Harry playfully shoves his shoulder in lieu of blushing, makes the lame excuse of fetching them drinks to try and calm the butterflies in his stomach. He licks melted butter and bread crumbs off his fingers as he goes, distracted and hyper aware of Louis watching him and wolf whistling until he disappears into the house. There, he meticulously fixes Louis’ tea just the way he likes and their mothers watch him with clear interest, giggling behind their hands only to feign innocence when he shoots suspicious looks their way.

When he returns shortly with two cups of tea, they’re scalding and steaming so much that the hot porcelain stings Harry’s knuckles when they bump the body of the cup. Louis catches him rounding the corner as he accidentally splashes the side of his hand with hot tea, and immediately comes running over to take both the cups from him.

“Gotta be more careful there, babes,” he tuts, “can’t have you in A&E over tea now, can we?”

It’s so silly and Harry wants to argue he’s not a child, but Louis fawning over him in any capacity makes him feel tingly all over, so he puts no stop to it.

He did at the very least sure to prepare Louis’ cup just the way he’d described before, so he doesn’t need babying in that department. And thankfully upon the first sip Louis is shaking Harry’s hand overenthusiastically, congratulating him on a damn good cuppa like he hasn’t just burnt his tongue on it, before he’s pinning Harry down on their blanket, faded yellow and pilling at the corners, to blow a raspberry on his stomach.

Harry protests through cackles and wheezes, stealing Louis’ beanie and aggressively mussing his hair in revenge. Louis steals his hat back and crowds over him, Harry’s feigning terror even as Louis moves to pin his wrists down to try and get him to actually surrender. It’s only when Louis hides in the crook of his shoulder and actually nips him, that Harry is forced to actually cry uncle.

Lest he overthinks Louis’ playful intentions and stirs something under the belt, which he’d really rather not do now, especially with nowhere to hide and their mums in the kitchen.

“C’mon,” Louis says after letting Harry up, “let’s see your room then.”

Harry’s still wiping the spit from his neck with the corner of his shirt but agrees easily. He encourages Louis to go off before him though as he has to shake the blanket out and fold it before following him inside—lest his mum have a fit and reprimand him for leaving it outside in front of Louis, which he knows he won’t live down emotionally for years to come.

Being witness to the one time Gemma was shouted out for leaving all their clean sheets drying on the patio caught the rain, after she’d gone running off to neck her then-boyfriend, he knows what’s waiting for him lest he make a similar mistake.

Inside, after he’s put the blanket in with the wash, Harry has to wander through the house a bit before he finds Louis—chatting with their mothers in the sitting room. Both of their mums are sat on opposite ends of the sofa while Louis leans on his forearms over the top it, situated a bit closer to Jay but mostly centered between them. His focus is carefully trained on Anne as she explains something Harry can’t pick up right away, and Jay is grinning, rubbing over his back in soothing sweeps as she laughs along.

He’s just a little too busy being little captivated by the afternoon sun as it touches Louis’ gently carved profile with a streak of gold, at first, to realize that his mum is telling both Louis and Jay a very embarrassing story that has to do with his aversion to clothing during childhood. He won’t say it’s a trait he’s completely shed, but still. The mortification strikes and he loudly squawks his protest with a scandalized Mum! before immediately storming over to tug Louis away from the offending story, and upstairs to the privacy of his bedroom.

“Oh Harry darling, don’t worry, I told your mum some good ones about Louis when he was small too!” Jay calls up to them, her and Mum’s laughter poorly concealed.

Harry’s cheeks just burn even as Louis indignantly replies, “Doesn’t make either of us feel better, Mum!”

They both seem to try to be willing their own embarrassment away, as Louis also flushes crimson at the mention of what Harry swears is something like ‘boobear’, whatever that is, as they trudge the rest of the short distance in silence.

The top floor hallway isn’t interesting on its own, at least not to Harry as he walks through it nearly every day, but there are several photos stacked up and down the cream colored walls that immediately steal Louis’ attention.

Framed for reminiscence and admiration are baby photos of both Harry and Gemma; their first Christmas years back with Robin’s family where Harry, in primary school at the time, is being cradled like a newborn by Robin’s son Mike; Anne and Robin grinning while lounging side-by-side on a beach in Jamaica; Harry and Gemma about two years ago with Harry beaming at the camera while cradling their newborn nephew, Archie, and Gemma smiling softly at his side with her finger in baby Archie’s tiny fist.

Louis seems to be particularly fixated on the frame showing off Harry, Gemma and Archie. Harry watches as Louis smiles, maybe fondly, at his younger self’s toothy grin in the photo. He remembers the first few months when every time Archie needed a nap and they’d be over at Amy’s, that he would be promptly moved into Harry’s arms and immediately fall asleep.

(Gemma did not have the same luck, as he’d only perk up or cry when she held him.)

After a minute of playing bystander though, Harry starts feel a bit creepy watching Louis as he admires the family album that’ve exploded across the walls of their upstairs hallway. He awkwardly clears his throat.

“Well, here’s me,” he proclaims lamely, gesturing in the direction of his bedroom.

When Louis turns away from the picture frame to him and wanders over, they stand side-by-side outside a door with a stickered nameplate of ‘Harry’ nailed to the center of it, as well as a few photographs of Harry’s old band and a portrait from his last school dance, taped around the sign. Harry wiggles both his fingers and eyebrows, a cheesy grin plastered on his face. At the very least, Louis rolls his eyes.

“Alright, let’s see then,” he prompts, smirking.

“Prepare to have your mind blown, Tomlinson.”

Louis just snorts and pokes him in the ribs, egging him on.

As he opens the door, there’s definitive temperature shift from the slightly muggy upstairs to his bedroom; having left his window open all day, the air within is fresh and grassy as opposed to the usual stale, heady smell of locked doors, boyhood, and spiking pheromones.

He awaits a compliment or a smart remark, but Louis is oddly quiet as he enters the space. His fingers trail over peeling tape pinning up posters Harry’s plucked from magazines, the dusted windowsill, the cool metal of the radiator. Easily drops his rucksack on the floor like he’s been here a thousand times already.

After a minute of quiet, Louis lets out a surprised huh. “I just realized,” he says, as Harry moves past him sit on the bed, “I’ve never asked what your classification is.”

Harry pauses before he reaches the mattress and blinks at the wall, his back to Louis. A little dumbfounded. He hadn’t realized it either.

It’s not necessarily important information, but it is a typical introductory piece given with pronouns and the like; something one tends to find out or ask typically upon first meeting someone as opposed to some time later. He knows about Niall, Zayn and Liam and thinks they in turn know him. It just—it somehow never came up between him and Louis.

“Oh,” Harry tells the bedroom, then looks over his shoulder at Louis, suddenly feeling sheepish and see-through. “You couldn’t tell when we—?”

Louis wrinkles his nose with a smirk and comes closer. “S’bit rude to assume, innit, Harold,” he chides, playful, and pokes Harry in the hip. Harry squirms away from his offending pokes as he haughtily adds, “I thought a polite young chap like you would know as much.”

“I did know that, actually, but thank you for reminding me, Lewis.”

He doesn’t answer the question intended; not yet at least.

It’s not long before they’re laying next to each other on Harry’s bed, though, and Harry’s pointing out the magazine clippings and photographs and posters tacked to the walls around them, when Louis finds a beat of silence to tell him first.

So nonchalantly, just, “Well in case you were wondering, I’m an omega.”

Harry gracefully chokes on his saliva, sitting up to cough into the inside of his polo. Louis doesn’t coo at him like he had over his scorched knuckles in the garden; instead he laughs and gives Harry’s back a few gentle pats. Even when Harry’s coughs have subsided a moment later and he’s wheezes out that he’s fine, honest, Louis’ hand remains on his back, switching from thorough, lung-clearing pats to smooth, soft rubs.

“Sorry,” he hoarsely gets out.

Louis snorts. “I didn’t think it’d surprise you that much.”

It’s devastatingly unfair that even when Louis teases him, Harry has to bury the gut-deep desire to preen and purr in response. His self control should be highly enviable, especially at this weird, uncomfortable age of being constantly overwhelmed by pheromones and desires and undeterminable cycles. Coming into his own at such an inconvenient pace—paint trying in a rainstorm.

“It didn’t,” he insists instead. Louis throws him a sort of sarcastic look in response. “I was surprised you just said it like that, s’all.”

Louis nods and now he’s got this goofy, unreadable look on his face. Like he’s not saying something he wants. Harry hunches over himself a little and peers down at him more pointedly, as Louis’ still laying back on the bed. His hand, now stilled, is a present weight on the middle of Harry’s back.

In all honesty, Harry isn’t surprised. Since the first time Harry had tucked himself into Louis’ shoulder and picked up his scent, so strong it nearly overwhelmed him when he could barely smell himself still, something in his gut had him suspecting Louis was an omega. Or something akin to that, not necessarily by way of his classification.

A question forms in Harry’s head then because Louis has a girlfriend, and he has to wonder—but Louis, somehow, beats him to the punch.

“Before you ask, Hannah’s an alpha,” and Harry’s only given half a second to pray that Louis can’t actually read his mind, because Louis adds, “we, ehm, we broke up, actually,” and his voice falters slightly at the end.

Harry’s brow creases deeper as he turns so he’s almost leaning over Louis when he asks, “How—I thought you two were together just a few days ago?”

Louis shrugs and the side of his mouth quirks up. The half-smile is clearly a sad one, but he doesn’t look as torn up, as wrecked and shaken as most people would be after calling it quits with someone they’ve been dating for a year. Especially at their age, where emotions are a constant high tide and each minor heartbreak or misunderstanding brings the world crashing down around them. Louis’ almost wistful about it.

“We thought it best to break it off before school. I mean, I’ll be in Manchester, she’ll be in bloody Oxford, and we’ll both be really busy with school. Bloody sucks but, s’for the better.”

Harry nods in awe, understanding. It’s very—mature of him. Gemma had a boyfriend when she’d first gone off to uni but the distance and lack of time they’d had for each other ended things poorly; for Louis—and Hannah—to suspect the space and loss of attention would be harder to handle than ending things, Harry finds it almost admirable, in a sad kind of way.

With Hannah going into law and Louis into, well, Harry’s not exactly sure, as well, their schedules and courseload would very likely oppose one another as well, and make things even more difficult.

And Harry suddenly feels very, very guilty for the way he’d acted when he’d Skyped with them both not that long ago, when he’d fallen all sullen and steely when Hannah had tried to perch in Louis’ lap. The sick sense of joy replaced it after, too, with Louis’ soft rejection of returning her affection in Harry’s presence.

“I’m sorry, Lou,” he mumbles.

It’s not even close to enough to balm the hurt he must be feeling, but it’s all Harry can find the words for. He then settles back down so he’s laying on his side, turned towards the wall and Louis, so he can see his face properly. Tries to read his expression, search for more than what Louis’ let on, but—nothing. So, in place of asking, he peers between their bodies, where Louis’ fingers restlessly flex into his comforter, and without a second thought, he takes Louis’ hand in his own and squeezes gently. Just to show him he’s here—a purely friendly gesture. I’m sorry, I’m here, I’ve got you. Everything’s going to be alright.

And Harry means to let go after a few seconds, really he does, but can’t find it himself to do so. He stays staring down at their clasped hands. Holding tight. At first Louis’ palm barely cradles his, but as Harry laxes his grip, there’s an effective squeeze that he instantly returns.

A dreamy sigh then tickles his cheek, but Harry doesn’t dare look up. He knows his cheeks have gone the color of ripe strawberries.

“Oh, Curly,” Louis sighs wistfully, “I think we’ll both be alright.” He then releases Harry’s hand and Harry thinks it’d be wise to enstate some distance between them again if only for his sake, but before he can roll away or sit back up, Louis’ arm is winding around his shoulders and pulling him in close. “A little cuddle might ease me bleeding heart, though,” he softly adds.

Harry can’t help snorting in disbelief. As if won’t still fulfill Louis’ wish.

He inches closer so his front is pressed totally flush to Louis’ side, wraps one arm around Louis’ middle and folds the free one against his own chest. His cheek is squished against Louis’ shoulder and his hair must be tickling Louis’ neck, but there are no protests to be heard.

They bask in shared warmth for awhile. The sun has been steadily climbing through Harry’s window since before they came upstairs. Where it had started to toast the comforter and their bare feet, it’s moved to blanket most of their bodies in its warmth. It pales Louis’ tanned ankles where he’s got his jeans rolled up; the frayed end of Harry’s shorts, cut just above his knees, is bleached in the light, as the downy hair that dusts his pale calves turns gold under it.

In one ear is the constant drum of Louis’ heart, the other the faint sound of the telly flicked on downstairs and their mothers conversing unintelligibly over it. He just might be able to fall asleep like this—safe and sunbaked, Louis’ calming scent so thick in his nose, arms holding him something precious.

“I’m an omega, too,” Harry whispers to the room, to Louis, because it feels like the perfect moment to do so.

Louis just pulls his other arm around Harry’s waist and holds him tighter.

♡♡♡

The very beginning of the school year feels somewhat anticlimactic. It’s more the cause of groans and mild annoyance than anxiety and bitten nails. So rinse-repeat with the same classmates, same things to do.

At first he suspects going into sixth form and barrelling closer to unprohibited adulthood, he’s just oddly at peace with the process he’s known for over a decade now, but the comfortable feeling unfortunately disappears just as quickly as it had come.

With Gemma back in Sheffield for term and his shifts at the bakery mostly concentrated to weekends and the occasional afternoons after school, the lads back in school in their hometowns and Louis busy with uni courses sprinkled throughout the day, sixth form has taken control of his life and is starting to feel simultaneously under and overwhelming.

While he finds more freedom down some avenues, like no longer being strictly confined to a uniform of starchy blazers and itchy dress shirts, the new workload of focused course work he has to sort through and small decisions that weight heavier than they should, quickly convince Harry that, despite his dreams and determination, they’re all too young to make these kinds of decisions.

Or at least he’s too young to make these kinds of decisions.

Whenever his teachers ask—more like beg—for everyone to keep their future in consideration in everything from class discussions and exams to lunch hour and the goings-on outside of the school grounds, all Harry can come up with is how, now that he’s properly looking at the requirements and preparatory work and uni specifications, he doesn’t know if he truly wants to go to school for law anymore.

He’s not like, intimidating enough to a lawyer of any variety, he thinks, and from what he’s heard Gemma darkly mutter under her breath when she’s been home with the evening news on, he’s starting to think he doesn’t have all that much faith in the system he’d be helping uphold either. Doubts he’d have the power to dismantle the broken parts that need replacing, regardless of his gumption and drive.

Plus he can’t lie; what in god’s bloody name would he do if he went into a specific kind of lawyering where he’d have to try and convince a room full of people that whoever he’s defending didn’t intentionally lodge a kitchen knife in their partner’s chest fifteen times—that it was just an accident from tripping on the rug and not being able to catch themself, is all! He’d end up in the clink right there with them, or fired. The worst lawyer all of England had to offer.

That, and in his guilty daydream fantasies? Harry’s not in a court room or office. He’s not shaking politicians’ hands or sifting through paperwork, not sitting in on confessions or anything even mundanely rewarding.

Instead, Harry is swaying around a homey little kitchen, and there’s a baby in his arms. There are jammy biscuits baking in the oven and something like ABBA or Fleetwood Mac echoing brightly through the room, nearly inaudible under the tinkling glass sound of baby’s laughter, the gentle pad of his bare feet on the tile as he swings them around a sunlit room.

Sometimes he’s grown into being a painter and his colorful masterpieces line the walls of his home. Sometimes magazine spreads that he’s photographed for, or has his face printed on, maybe even written for, litter the countertops. Sometimes there are awards stacked on bookshelves—mostly Grammys, but sometimes he can make out BAFTAs or Oscar’s, too—and gold, platinum, diamond records presented behind glass.

Sometimes though, he has no idea what he supposedly ends up doing and any giveaway details blur into the background, but he at least can tell he’s happy. Happy as sunshine streams through the open windows and catches flour particles dusting the air under its spotlight, maybe warming a cat or two snoozing on the wood floor. Maybe there’s a dog as well, whining excitedly at the front door as the lock turns, and Harry’s bouncing the baby in his arms as they excitedly pat their chubby hands against his chest, and—

But he always stops himself there.

He doesn’t know if it’s because he’s unsure of who he’d like on the other side of the door, or if he’s instead afraid of who actually is there, and keeps them locked out on purpose.

Either way, when it reaches that point, it feels like too much. Like he’s either expecting too much of himself, or overestimating how much he can accomplish. Maybe a little guilty, too, thinking he deserves any promise of limitless bliss when he doesn’t really know what he even wants to do with his life.

At least past the archetype of mate, house, babies. And likely in that order.

He and the boys have taken to doing their schoolwork together on Skype as much as possible, though, which has been a nice distraction. Being the youngest of the group, they’ve all got a bit of a lead on him and are plenty helpful in offering any advise he asks for.

The catch though, is that Louis’ current course schedule runs later in the day—which he’d plentifully boasted about because I’m not getting up out of bed at half six for classes anymore unless me room’s on fire—and often has him missing out on their study-slash-hang sessions, or only able to join in on weekends.

And while he chats with all of them enough on the sideso it’s not like he’s completely missing out on things, Louis did privately admit that he speaks to Harry the most directly, but don’t tell the others that, I don’t need them fighting for my attention more than they already do.

Harry definitely keeps it to himself, but not because he’d suspect jealousy. Rather, because it makes him feel special, being the prime target of Louis’ attention in their little group. Maybe in general now, too, that he’s no longer dating anyone. No distractions to cut in or steal time away.

So—overall things are okay. They’re going fine. Everything is slowly falls into place like it always does a month into term, and Harry will be back to easily juggling school-job-friends the way he’s taken to. Cyclical, typical. No skin off his teeth.

That is, until one particular afternoon in late-October, when everything is tipped sideways.

And by bloody Niall of all people.

They’re on another group call and done with their coursework for the evening, all of them save Louis, who’s just sending updates and begging for a mercy killing through Harry as he’s stuck in a lecture on the history of Shakespearean theatre. Zayn briefly excused himself fifteen minutes ago for a shower, so when it happens, it’s just Niall, Harry and Liam on the call.

It starts when Niall makes this cheeky remark about how much Harry’s checking his phone so it must be Louis he’s talking to, and Harry’s initial plan is to just hey at him in that slightly affronted way he does and then ignore what comes after, when Liam hums in agreement and Zayn re-enters the call at just the right moment, only now with damp hair and bundled in an oversized jumper, and tacks on his own scoffed seriously.

And Harry doesn’t—he doesn’t care for that one bit.

He sets his phone on his desk and squints, accusatory, at his laptop screen. “What’re you all on about?”

Zayn plucks a towel from his lap and starts drying his hair as he easily replies, “You and Louis, who else?”

“There something wrong with me texting my, our friend?” Harry folds his arms over his chest. He feels rightfully defensive, but he also knows he doesn’t stand a chance if this is an honest case of three against one. “He’s been stuck listening to Shakespeare for two hours, and not even like, cool Shakespeare; I’m doing him a favor, keeping him distracted,” he points out.

Niall scoffs. “Yeah, alright, Harry,” he tosses a grape in the air and nearly falls off his desk chair trying to catch it, “whatever you say, man,” from off-screen.

“We’re just—we’re mates, friends. Just like I am with all of you.”

His argument falls flat with his desperation to be convincing. He’s perfectly aware of it.

“Oi, no one's making fun, Harry,” Liam lightly soothes, even though Zayn and Niall both shrug in defiance. “You two’ve got your own thing going and that’s fine with us, right?”

Zayn tilts his head to one side while Niall then tosses a crisp in the air—where is even he keeping all these snacks?—that lands on his forehead instead of his open mouth. Liam and Zayn snort as Niall makes a second attempt, this time hitting himself in the eye, before he’s jamming both crisps in his mouth and dusting himself off with the bottom of his flannel. Harry can’t even laugh.

Niall then scoffs around a cheekful of crisp. “Friends,” snorts, tosses another crisp back, “if I acted that way with any’o my friends here, we’d be halfway to a bonding ceremony already, I‘ll tell you that.”

“We get on really well, s’all,” Harry insists weakly.

He blushing, he knows it. Can even see it in on his monitor—a blurry fuchsia framed by violet and green pixels. It’s definitely not helping him convince the others. Even Liam, sweet understanding nagging beta Liam, won’t even give him the benefit of the doubt.

Of course Niall would think it was a bit too much for simple chumminess. Maybe it’s an alpha thing, or just a Niall thing for that matter, to associate showing a bit of extra affection to your mates as interest in courting them. Harry’s still not sure what Zayn is because he won’t be straight with it and loves to get a rise out of telling them all no regardless of what they guess, but he’s got his head on straight enough that him and Liam agreeing with or without Niall on their side, makes Harry suddenly very self conscious of how he actually acts around Louis.

After they hang up for the evening, he tries to reason with himself as to why the other three think there’s something more going on, or at least potential for it, so next time they’re all chatting without Louis present he at least has a case to defend himself with.

He rips a piece of paper out of his notebook and uses that to jot down his points.

First, he and Louis are the only two omegas in their group, so there’s a degree of solidarity there that has to count for something. He also met Louis before the others did, spent every night at Leeds in Louis’ tent, and likely talks to him the most one-on-one out of their group. Louis is even closest to him geographically now that he’s up in Manchester. They’ve really clicked is all—

Right?

It would appear, as Harry looks down at his notes, that he’s losing the war. And the battle. The scuffle that starts everything off, he’s even lost. All he has to reference in his own case are the clear ramblings of someone desperately trying to convince themself of something other than the truth, and that’s no way to win anything.

So the next day at school, Harry asks his close friends—Mac, Nick, Abigail, Ellis, Bianca, Michael—if he seems to act weird when it comes to Louis. But he immediately realizes it as a mistake, because even though none of them have properly met or talked to Louis directly, they all offer their own deadpan confirmations that line right up with what Liam, Niall and Zayn had implied the night previously.

That being: yes, obviously, of course, no shit, and you’ve finally caught on, have you?

And they also, very kindly, lay it out that: one, Harry’s definitely got feelings; two, he’s not subtle about them in the slightest; and three, Louis might even be on the same page as him.

Harry thinks at this point, he just needs new friends. If they’re all so obsessed with two people getting on well and thinking it has to mean something more, they’re the ones with skewed priorities.

But still, he basks, ruminates, marinades, in the theory. Scrolls through their texts, their Skype messages in and out of their group chat, annoys everyone he can with a barrage of questions as to why they think what they do about him and Louis. Does his research properly and comes to an eventual conclusion.

In the middle of lecture.

Everything falls into place like runes or tarot cards, or a junk drawer desperately emptied out on the carpet, because friends don’t act the way Harry did with Hannah on Skype around their friends’ girlfriends or boyfriends or whatever, if things are strictly platonic. And because he can’t deny that he’s felt particularly drawn to Louis from the moment they met. Drawn to his smell, his laugh, the goofy facial expressions and funny voices he does, the way he’s so unabashedly tender with his baby sisters, how he loves his Mum—everything, actually.

Fuck. Fuck.

“Styles, language,” his English professor snips, eyes narrowed over an old paperback.

Harry burns red, only mildly mortified. “Sorry, sir.”

That he hadn’t meant to say aloud. Mac snorts next to him, nudges his arm playfully, and goes back to taking notes. But how can Harry go back to taking notes when he’s in the middle of a revelation?

He splutters out an excuse about needing the toilet and practically sprints to the hall washroom. Thankfully Harry finds himself alone as he locks himself in a stall and sits on the toilet lid, head heavy in his hands. Stares down at the sticky linoleum floor until his eyes burn.

Because he likes Louis. Really likes Louis.

And now he’s inevitably going to muck everything up because he’s aware of it now. He just knows going to overthink everything he does and says like an absolute muppet so if there’s any chance in hell Louis’ even slightly queer and into him—because those two things being synonymous isn’t promised—Harry will very quickly and very un-involuntarily get Louis uninterested him in.

He thinks he might feel better if he had the figurative balls to just talk to Louis about the whole thing, clear the air for the sake of his conscience and all that, but he knows if he tells Louis how he feels and it’s not mutual, Harry’s heart will break and things wouldn’t be the same between them again. It’d hurt more than if he choked down his feelings and kept his aching heart staved away under lock and key forever.

And it’d be his fault, if that were to happen. Big mouth never shut. Apt karmic response to his own dumb-arsery.

So, Harry resolves to keep it to himself—his realization, his vow, everything. Does his best to keep things up as normal when he’s texting Louis, when they’re calling one another, when they’re hanging out one-on-one or in a group video call with Niall, Liam and Zayn—who, for the record, are all doing an absolutely terrible job not meddling, because for every ounce of energy Harry expends in keeping things as they are, the three of them sacrifice double the amount in trying make the very opposite happen.

But it works, at least, for a while.

♡♡♡

Things hit a turning point when Louis asks if he’ll come up to Donny for New Year’s.

In hindsight, he should’ve seen it as an omen, a flashing neon sign indicating danger ahead!, but he was just too excited at the prospect of getting to spend time with Louis for more than a handful of days at a time.

And while neither Harry or Louis could convince their parents to let them spend Louis’ birthday and Christmas with the other and away from family, they were able to reach a compromise to spend New Year’s together if their families were to join as well.

After their mothers expressed what a lovely idea it’d be to see each other again as well as properly meet the others’ family seeing as how close you two are already, plans were quickly drawn out and cemented, and just as winter hols start, Harry’s eagerly counting down the days until he gets to see Louis again. His plan, his messy feelings and the potential fuck-ups born of either be damned—he wants to see Louis. Misses him terribly, in any and every way.

In reality, he’d seen him just short of a month ago during an extended weekend. Louis claimed to be homesick enough after his midterm exams that he very nearly pleaded with Harry over the phone if he could come down for a few days, and Harry had easily agreed (with a little begging towards Mum and Robin on his end, first).

Luck was on his side that time, thank god, as he was actually able to be normal in Louis’ physical presence.

They spent the weekend together lazing about, Louis mostly in borrowed clothes from Harry because the detergent your mum uses smells like the kind my mum does—it doesn’t, not really, but Louis’ nose is more developed than his and he’d be stupid to deny himself the sight of Louis lounging around in his Jack Wills and old t-shirts—and being doted on by Mum like he’s just another one of her babies. Just as at home as ever cuddled up on the sofa after supper, and bumping Harry’s elbow playfully with his own as they brush their teeth side-by-side over the tiny bathroom sink, and snuggled up in on his side of Harry’s bed that Harry now leaves cool and available when he’s not there, just in case.

The quilt folded at the end of Harry’s bed still smells like him—buttery sweetness and crisp, greened smoke.

Harry’s ability to be normal ended there, though, because he knew Robin and Mum were playing nice by not mocking his very obvious and very embarrassing crush on Louis the whole he was there, and from what he’s seen and heard of Louis’ family? There will be no mercy to be had if he slips up just the same in their presence.

He’s not going to deny the treat of ringing in the New Year with his favorite person on planet Earth, though, so when Robin gently shakes him awake far too early on the thirtieth of December, Harry sleepily albeit quickly rolls out of bed, and does his best to look presentable despite being only half awake.

It’s freezing cold outside and likely to get colder as they move north, but even the sobering December air can’t fully wake him up. He just crawls into the backseat of Robin’s car using his waistcoat as a blanket, nursing a piece of toast slathered in Nutella that Mum shoved in his mouth at the door, a thermos of black tea balanced in the cup of his hands.

Gemma is no better state of alert, but she doesn’t have anyone to impress, so she hobbles into the backseat after him with her eyes half-open, hair in a lopsided bun, dressed in knit leggings and an oversized jumper and the Ugg boots she received for Christmas with a travel cup of coffee pinned between her knees.

At least he’s fully dressed—distressed jeans that do his non-existent arse a favor, dark boots to withstand ice and snow, and a fit dark blue jumper he hopes will have Louis giving the minuscule muscle in his arms some recognition. Hopes his effort is at least apparent.

It starts snowing once they merge onto M6, but it’s dry, powdery, drifting down from the grey skies in little cotton fluffs. Holiday music plays on the car stereo much to Robin’s chagrin, but Harry’s too busy blaring a playlist Louis’ made for him through his headphones to grouse at it. Even on shuffle, The Saturdays and Estelle end up peppered between the likes of Oasis and The Strokes, which he can only expect given their shared eclectic taste from alt rock to catchy pop.

And thanks in part to Louis’ playlist as well as nips off of Gemma’s milky, overly sweet coffee, Harry’s wide awake and jittering with excitement—as well as sugar and caffeine—before too long.

The coffee hadn’t worked in Gemma’s favor it seems, as she’d fallen asleep shortly after they’d left home, and is still snoring softly against the car window when they finally pull to a stop in front of the Tomlinson house.

Harry finds Louis already bouncing in place on the front step before Robin’s even put the car in park and watches, biting into his lip to stifle his laughter, as Louis comes sprinting up—nearly landing on his arse when his boots hit an icy patch on the walkway—to suddenly strike Gemma’s window with his palm.

She shoots awake with a shout and promptly smacks her head on the window, in turn causing Louis to jump in surprise away from the car, his eyes wide and hand affronted on his chest. Everyone else to falls into a fit of laughter as Gemma rubs at a bruise likely already forming at her temple and scowls at Louis through the glass. She then reaches over and pinches a still-cackling Harry in the side, too giggly to escape her fingers.

“Alright, out of the car then,” Mum says, wiping her eyes when Gemma also shoots her an affronted look for laughing at her misfortune. “And Harry, I want you to take your luggage inside before you and Louis go running off; it’s not Robin’s job to—”

Harry cuts her off with an exasperated, “Yes, Mum,” that reddens his cheeks, causing Mum to catch his eye in the rearview and frown, and Gemma to snort.

As everyone else piles out of the car, yawning and stretching and shivering as small powdery flakes fall from the endlessly grey sky, Harry hesitates in getting out of the car. He’s trying to dampen the grin threatening to spread across his face into a less frantic, ecstatic smile. Trying, again, to be normal once more for Louis.

Don’t be obvious, don’t be stupid, is his current mantra. Don’t fuck this up.

He watches Louis greet Robin in the street with a grin and a hug. Asks something about the drive up that goes muffled in part by the glass. Then he moves to Mum and Gemma to gift them their own hugs and friendly pecks to their cheeks, even rubs Gemma’s arms a bit when her teeth chatter in the cold.

Louis’ only met his mum in person twice before, Robin and Gemma once—and are any of Harry’s other friends this close to, this comfortable with his family, years on?

Harry’s so busy trying not to overanalyze everything Louis does and how he’ll react to it, that he ends up doing the very opposite of that and turning himself into a flustered mess before anything even happens, because when his car door suddenly opens and he’s so surprised by it that he chokes on his own saliva.

Louis is standing mere centimeters away wrapped up in a chunky knit and puffy winter waistcoat, all rosy cheeked and fluffy-fringed, just blinking at him while he hacks and wheezes. He thumps Harry on the back a few times, chuckling a Jesus, Harry, until he’s able to calm down.

Peering up at him with watery eyes and red cheeks, Harry manages a weak, sheepish smile; what a fucking first impression. “Quite the welcome, eh, Lou,” he wheezes, going for his buckle with awkward, gangly fingers.

“What, me nearly scaring the pants off your sister, or you choking to death at the sight of my gorgeous face because you missed me so much?”

Harry shoots him an exasperated look in trying to mask the sudden flash of warmth that’s shot up his spine. It turns the brisk, wintery air warm to spring and swears he can feel his lower back and underarms already dampening with a nervous sweat. All because Louis just grins down at him. So completely oblivious as to what he does to him. Prick.

“The former, please, for the sake of my dignity.”

“Well,” Louis steps aside to let him out of the car all the way, but immediately scoops him up the instant both of his feet are on the asphalt, and nuzzles right into his shoulder where he mutters, a smile clear in his voice, “only the best for you, Curly.”

Harry doesn’t have time to bluster or make a poor show of laughing it off, as Robin’s calling him over to fetch his luggage out the boot of the car. With Louis’ help they make quick work unloading—Louis insists on taking Harry’s suitcase for him, making Harry beam smugly as they pass by Mum, who just rolls her eyes—before being lead up the front walk to the house.

The path is dusted with falling snow that hides surprise patches of ice. and the stone is lined with, what Harry’s seen in photos, dormant bulbs that will bloom in pinks and violets come spring. The front door is dressed with silver tinsel along its frame and a holly wreath pinned to its center, stifled laughter coming from behind—home.

Louis is just reaching for the handle when it’s pulled out of his reach, seemingly on its own for a moment, and the only thing heard before the ambush is a shouted, joint chorus of Harry’s name as the littlest of Louis’ sisters come barreling out at top speed to crash right into him.

The force of the blow nearly knocks him back into Gemma, but he’s kept steady by the twins’ boa constructor grip around his hips keeping him upright. They peer up at him under chopped, sandy colored bangs, giggling with jack o’lantern grins and matching red tutus around their waists.

“Oi, you two, easy!” Louis scolds. “Break poor Harry in half, you will!”

Daisy—although Harry’s not positive—promptly turns to Louis, her arms still tight around Harry, and quips, “Well you ran out in the snow!”

“Which Mummy told you not to do,” maybe-Phoebe adds smartly.

That of course, has Gemma, Mum and Robin chuckling, while Harry holds his tongue in solidarity with Louis’ exhausted sigh. Harry just whispers his hello’s and pats the twins on the shoulders, tries to walk with them still glued to his middle as Louis ushers them out of the winter winds and growing snowfall.

Louis calls out that their company has arrived once they’ve shed their coats and shoes in the front hall, then leads them all into the main living area—Harry with the twins still glued to him after Louis was able to temporarily wrench them off to let him take off his coat—where Jay and Mark are fussing with some ornaments on the Christmas tree and whispering hurriedly to one another.

Harry hasn’t seen Mum this excited to see a friend since maybe ever—he exchanges a wide-eyed look with both Gemma and Louis, who both seem genuinely surprised by the way that their mothers immediately join in a tight hug and kiss each other’s cheeks in joyous greeting—while Mark and Robin greet each other with a more casual handshake.

“Our mummy and your mummy talk all the time,” one of the twins whispers to Harry.

The other nods and giggles. “They talk about Mummy’s telly programs. And you and Louis.”

But before Harry can ask for clarification on that, Jay’s squeezing Harry’s middle over the twins’ heads and kissing his forehead hello, then offering the same warmth to Gemma. She then shakes her head, amused, at the twins before she excuses herself back to the kitchen to finish preparing brunch, while Mark asks Louis to get Harry and Gemma settled in with a tour.

The twins take it upon themselves to give Gemma her own tour though, and immediately unlatch from Harry—who might have bruises around his waist now from the grip they had on him, Jesus—to take her by the hands and lead her upstairs in a flurry of unintelligible, bubbly conversation. Gemma is barely able to throw Harry or Louis a surprised look before she’s disappeared out of their sights.

Harry doesn’t feel the need to rescue her though, and stops Louis before he can chase after the little ones. Even if Gemma were less keen on children than she is, he doesn’t think she’d try to get out of the little girls’ fun just yet.

Louis shakes his head in mock exaggeration, children, do they ever tire?, and motions for Harry to follow him upstairs, still carting the luggage for him.

The narrow staircase nearly mirrors the one in Harry’s house. The tight walls are lined with photo frames, school ribbons and certificates are kept safe behind glass, and a few decorative keepsakes promising love and devotion to family hang in the bare spaces between. There are a few random crayon marks flecked across the walls, a chipped green handprint on the railing, too, as to be expected in a house almost constantly full of children.

Amongst the old photographs, Harry can make out a blonde Louis at toddler’s age sat in his mothers laugh gnawing away on a carrot, another of him holding what looks to be baby Lottie, him slightly older in a footie kit and crinkle-eyed smile with his two front teeth missing, out of the corner of his eye as they traverse upwards.

“Gem’s not sleeping in the twins’ room, is she?” Harry asks, once they reach the first floor.

“God no,” Louis barks a laugh, “she’s staying with Lottie and Fizz. If she sleeps in the twins’ room they either won’t let her sleep, fuss over her nonstop because they’ll insist she sleep in one of their beds, or she’ll wake up on the floor tomorrow with Barbie shoes stuck to her bum.” The grimace on Louis’ face at the mere mention of the Barbie shoes makes it obvious he’s awoken in that exact predicament, and likely on more than one occasion. “Lotts and Fizz are just bringing gifts to their friends who live down the road. I promise they’ll be back before Gemma’s given a makeover or stuck in a three hour long tea party.”

“Speaking from experience?”

As Louis’ opening the door to the bathroom, he quirks a brow at Harry over his shoulder. “You think any of my sisters would save me from being tortured by each other?”

Harry just snorts on a laugh and shakes his head. Of course not.

Louis points out where extra toiletries are stored in the bathroom cabinet, shows him the girls’ rooms and the hall closet should they need an extra blanket in the night, and then tries to distract Harry from more his—very adorable, in Harry’s opinion—baby photos, before coming upon his bedroom.

While Harry doesn’t get a big lead-up or terrible joke like he might’ve expected from Louis, Louis does rest his hand on the small of Harry’s back as he guides him inside. He tries very hard not to let it affect him, even as he can’t deny that Louis’ touch prickles the base of his spine and shoots out in every direction like a sparked wire.

Louis’ bedroom, he’s surprised to find, is far cleaner than he remembers from the grainy webcam’s perspective. Albeit the few hints that one of his sisters must be staying in here part time now that he’s at uni—some of the magazine clippings over the bed are unusual to Louis’ tastes, Louis’ few childhood stuffies now live tucked along the edge of his mattress in his dorm room and are absent from the few tucked at the end of the bed here, and some of the knit headbands and hair elastics on the dresser aren’t really his style—it’s very much still Louis’ space. It smells more like him than what Harry’s faintly picked up of Jay’s orange and clove or Mark’s earthy oakmoss that he proudly picks up, gently permeated through the rest of the house.

What Harry does find it a bit odd though, is that there’s not a sleeping bag or air mattress on the floor for him. But, there is a fresh set of towels on the desk chair and extra pillows on the bed, so it’s not like Louis hadn’t prepared at all. Louis doesn’t make mention of the clear lack of sleeping arrangement either; he just lets Harry poke around as he wheelies the luggage next to his own, setting it on the floor at the end of the bed.

Suffice to say, the realization strikes Harry a little late that they’ll be sharing Louis’ bed.

It’s never been a question between them, if either has been alright with sharing. They’ve shared the same mattress, sofa, bedroll, every sleepover since they’ve met. Even on that first night, they’d decided to zip their sleeping bags together and share warmth when the festival grounds grew colder than anticipated.

Somehow it’s always been a thing between them, a happenstance since day one. The realization that he’ll be spending the next week lying next to Louis every night stirs at the warmth already puddled in Harry’s stomach. He hides a private smile behind one cuff of his jumper, pretending to itch his nose.

The mattress creaks suddenly as Louis’ flops back onto it. Harry turns to see the movement dislodge a stuffed rabbit wearing a pink gingham bow around its neck, causing it to fall to the ground with a soft thump. Harry scoops it up and dusts it off for good measure, before deciding it fit to join Louis back on the bed. He holds the rabbit in his lap as he politely settles cross-legged next to Louis, who promptly rolls over and rests his cheek on Harry’s knee.

“Hope it’s alright with you—sharing m’bed. Mum was going to bring some bedrolls and extra blankets to lay down for me so I could give you the bed, but I, ehm, told her it’d be better with your sleepwalking that you not step on me in the middle of the night.” He then wrinkles his nose. “Or have you brain yourself on the stairs because you don’t know the house.”

Harry scoffs, mostly for show and like he’s totally unaffected by Louis resting on his leg, and flicks him gently on the forehead. “I don’t sleepwalk all the time.”

“Well forgive me, young Harold, for valuing your safety and the state of my internal organs,” Louis sniffs, patting Harry’s knee in mock sympathy before giving it a brief squeeze. The way his fingers curl around Harry’s knee and dig in, present but not persistent, has Harry very nearly kicking his leg out in surprise. “Tragic fate then, Hazza.”

He can’t play along with Louis’ dramatically comedic antics for long, because he always breaks into laughter before he can properly try. Just like now.

Harry sucks on his teeth, says, “Very much so,” in agreement.

That causes Louis to peer up at him and wink, then move so his cheek rests higher up on Harry’s leg, now properly on his thigh. Makes no sign that he’s going to move his hand from Harry’s knee as he curls up closer. Louis’ warmth spreading along his leg makes him shiver involuntarily.

His internal mantra of be normal be fucking normal don’t muck up is already proving to be a broken and easily breakable record. Now he can’t even remember if he and Louis are always this touchy with one another and his revelation of feelings has just made him realize just how much physical contact they share, or if this is something entirely new they’ve not done before. Either way, he’s acutely over-aware of it, and the intent behind it.

It’s very likely Louis can smell the nervousness on him now, but if he does, he doesn’t say anything about it. He seems rather content, actually, resting partially in Harry’s lap. Likely able to hear the thrum of blood pulsing under the tender skin of his inner thigh. Harry’s hand finds itself in Louis’ hair before he realizes it, but he doesn’t move it away when he realizes the feather-soft under his fingertips. Instead, he starts to rub at Louis’ scalp with small flexes of his fingers, experimental little circles, and Louis starts to actually purr under his hand.

He definitely doesn’t want to move his hand away now. If it means Louis will keep on purring for him forever, he’ll never pull away again. Harry can’t recall ever having made someone do that before, it usually being very intimate and something only freely released in privacy.

Selfishly Harry hopes that he’s the only one capable of coaxing it out of Louis again.

The air of peace that falls over them is broken maybe five minutes later, much to Harry’s disappointment, when Lottie and Félicité make a noisy return from playing Father Christmas with their friends. He’s still petting at Louis like a cat when a pitchy screech followed by he’s here already? Why didn’t you tell me Mum, I look horrible! echoes through the house, causing him to jump slightly. Louis rolls his eyes and bats a passive hand in dismissal when Harry immediately looks down at him, concerned.

There’s some commotion Harry can’t quite make out following the outcry, but he does catch a blustered scoff and two pairs of feet making quick work of the staircase. Louis in turn groans at the sound and turns his face further into Harry’s thigh so he’s breathing into the denim. The warm puffs of hair send an outbreak of goose pimples across Harry’s skin under it.

Whispered chatter accompanies the footfalls growing in clarity, but both suddenly stop as they come to what must be the top of the staircase.

“Lottie thinks you’re cute,” Louis mumbles into the fabric. Harry blinks at him in surprise as Louis moves to sit up more with a tired sigh, now leaning on one elbow. He cranes his neck around Harry to peer at his open doorway and adds, carefully, “Be your usual charming self but don’t be too charming; she’s somehow under the impression that you’re some posh little alpha who’ll—”

And as if on cue, Lottie sticks her head into the room and shuts Louis up.

She looks about the same as she had over his and Louis’ earlier video chats, with her long sandy hair and big blue eyes and uncanny likeness to their mum and the rest of their siblings. The only noticeable difference now is she’s clearly wearing some makeup—lashes thick with mascara, lips glossed a soft pink.

She leans against the doorframe awkwardly, making Louis hide a snort in Harry’s side, and she purses her lips, shyly greets with a wave. “Hi, Harry.” Then, “Did you, ehm, have a good drive up?”

There’s poorly concealed giggling behind her that she briefly turns to violently shush, and when she turns back the pink to her nose and cheeks from the likely cold has deepened to a proper red. Oh. Harry feels quite silly for not realizing it before; he’d given her the benefit of the doubt in thinking she was just shy.

But because he’s had a crush now and again on some of Gemma’s friends growing up, he does understand. Although, being on the other end of a crush like this, is a bit weird. He definitely grasps now why any sixteen year old might feel more pity or awkwardness than flattery at a friend’s younger sibling being sweet on them.

He smiles sheepishly in turn and sends her a friendly little wave. “Hi, Lottie. It was, yeah. Uhm. It started to snow? Very atmospheric.”

Louis’ shaking with laughter next to him now and doing a damn poor job hiding it. Harry blindly smacks him on the hip in retaliation, hopefully conveying for him to be nice, but it only makes Louis cackle harder, falling over to cackle into the duvet.

Harry tries to make his smile to Lottie look more apologetic in recovery. She at least seems to be trying to ignore Louis’ entire presence, even as the tips of her ears start to burn.

“Cool,” she says, voice strained, then, “ehm, well, Mum says we can eat soon? And that there’s probably going to be enough snow after that, ehm, if we want, we can all go outside?”

Harry has nothing to offer but an awkward, “Oh, nice,” that makes him internally cringe, Louis’ to pound his fist on the bed. He offers a, “We’ll be down in a bit then. Right, Lou?” but makes sure his tone is overtly pointed when he addresses Louis.

Louis nearly wheezes. “Yeah.”

Lottie nods and hesitates in the doorway, clearly not knowing if she should stay or leave. Harry is just awkwardly looking at her when Félicité pops up to her left, the obvious culprit of the previous unseen giggling.

“Hi, Harry,” she mocks in Lottie’s dreamy tone, which promptly turns Lottie crimson.

Unfortunately for Lottie, not even Harry is impervious to that, and he snorts before he can cover his mouth with his hand. Louis rolls over full-on howling and Félicité disappears from the doorway as suddenly as she appeared, now screeching in laughter.

Lottie swiftly turns on her heel and chases after her. Harry tries not to reach Louis’ level of stomach-cradling, eye-watering cackling as the hallway is filled with shouted threats of pouring milk in Félicité's snow boots and telling someone by the name of Lee something, which in turn sets Félicité off with a dramatic gasp and dramatic whine of Lottie, you wouldn’t dare!

Jay, of course, shouts for the girls to stop yelling and running in the house, Louis’ barely coming down from his fit and Harry’s scrunching his nose to quash a smile, still shushing him despite the fact no one can hear them. But when Jay then yells for Louis to stop making fun of your sister’s crush on your boyfriend, he shuts up so quickly his jaw audibly clicks, and immediately he rolls away from Harry, leaving his right side cold for the first time since they settled on the bed.

Harry’s giggling also promptly dissipates once Louis moves away from him. He can’t even think to ask what’s wrong though, because Louis hastily pushes himself off the mattress and starts nervously scratching the back of his neck, his back now turned to Harry.

Only after a moment, he stutters, “Should, ehm, should probably head down to eat, now,” and motions to the door with a flick of his chin, and he’s still not looking at Harry.

Harry barely manages a nod Louis doubtfully even sees. Trails a few feet behind him down the stairs, too, because it feels like Louis might not want to be so close to him all of a sudden.

He didn’t think the thought of being Louis’ boyfriend, in a joking capacity or otherwise, would put Louis off so much or so swiftly, but apparently the idea unsettles him so much that they’ve shifted from their easy touching and laughter to Louis falling somber and quiet and putting space between them, at the drop of one teasing word—boyfriend.

Their newfound tension doesn’t dissipate when they’re back in everyone else’s company, either. Harry awkwardly follows Louis to the entrance of the small kitchen to find quite the spread already out on the counters. Mum, who’s busy at the stove finishing a scramble, asks if they can help set the table, please, and Louis skirts Harry carefully on his way to the cutlery drawer.

More careful distance is inserted between them while they carry dishes full of sliced veg, finger sandwiches, savory pasties, from the kitchen to the dining table. Steaming teapots of freshly brewed tea accompany carafes filled with cream and sugar, forks and knives find napkins, mismatched empty cups and glasses—everything finds its place at the table while they quietly work around each other. Both Mum and Jay throw them glances over their shoulders, but no one says anything.

And when Gemma’s invited to the adults’ table, instead of joining Harry at the smaller fold-up table for the ‘children’, Louis takes the remaining spot beside her instead, and the once welcoming, savory smell of breakfast scramble and buttered toast and herb-roasted steak and potatoes curdles Harry’s stomach. Louis’ prompt rejection is a swift slap, a sudden punch. Makes him feel childish and stupid, even as he took no offense to Jay’s clear joke.

He suddenly wants to bury his face in his mum’s shoulder and stay there, letting her scent and warmth replace the hollow so swiftly carved out in his chest. Harry just stabs at his potatoes; he didn’t think he was so terrible a prospect that Louis couldn’t even laugh off a joke about it, but apparently he thought wrong. And horribly so.

Realistically, he knows he shouldn’t let it bother him. That if he just focused on getting through the meal, he’d be fine, but eating is the last thing on Harry’s mind right now. He just, he knows Louis is interested in alphas—and likely alphas that are girls—and has never dropped hints to being anything other than being straight, traditionally attracted. So how could some awkward, gangly, omega boy like Harry, be good enough to change Louis’ mind on that?

Louis is still his best friend so maybe this is just a sign that Harry shouldn’t ever make the stupid decision in the future of spitting out some stuttered, overly hopeful confession, to ruin their friendship. But that’s only to say if Louis can even recover from the joke of it, first, so it doesn’t feel like the blessing in disguise the rational, emotionally-disconnected part of his brain wants him to believe.

Instead, it just hurts.

Harry knows the indirect rejection has deftly soured his scent. He’s thankful to be alone at the children’s table now because the girls are all too young to properly pick up on scent shifts yet, and likely just think his downturn into quiet, standoffish behavior is just because he’s hungry or tired from getting up early. Daisy—he can tell by the red ‘D’ she’s got scribbled on her left hand—even puts one of her sausage rolls on his plate, and puts her finger to her lips when he tries to say something about it.

His fear over his soured scent is only confirmed when Gemma suddenly comes over with her plate and takes the seat next to him initially reserved for Louis. Ted, the family’s black Lab who has strangely taken to her and followed her around since proving calm enough to be let back into the house around company, even follows her over from the other table and settles at Harry’s feet under his chair.

She easily joins in on the girls’ conversation about what Christmas gifts they’d all received that year and squeezes his knee under the table in a comforting way. Quirks the side of her mouth in a sympathetic, knowing smile.

It does help a bit, actually, and enough so that he pipes up for the first time since they all said their thank-you’s for the meal, and compliments the new Lego pieces Daisy and Phoebe snuck to the table. Learns they’re trying to build some sort of dungeon for their princess castle and refuse to break until it’s complete, even to eat.

Lottie shoots them a disturbed look at first, but when Harry asks if they’re going to put a moat around the castle, too, she changes her tune. Félicité just rolls her eyes and makes a sickened gesture behind her when Lottie’s not paying attention.

When Harry does dare to steal a glance back at the adults’ table, it’s only once he’s nearly done eating, and immediately he sees Louis just shoveling his eggs and potatoes into a pile on one end of his plate, his food barely touched and eyes downcast to his plate. Totally disconnected from the conversation at hand, it seems.

It stirs something bitter and mean inside of Harry for a moment. In his mind he dares Louis to mope so obviously when his feelings are the ones that have been hurt, but when he sees Jay has also taken notice to Louis’ shift in mood, his anger dissipates slightly.

She briefly withdraws from whatever story Mark is telling, her brow knit. She wipes her hands with her napkin and reaches out to her left where Louis’ sat, smoothing his hair out of his face. Jay then leans in close and whispers something to him that Harry can’t make out, causing Louis to shake his head, still not meeting her eyes.

Harry knows he’s not being subtle in his staring, but no one’s seemed to have noticed.

Jay says something else he also misses. Sends a small smile to Louis and watches him carefully, her fingers never straying from combing at his hair. Only after a beat does Louis nod, his mouth just barely quirking in the corners, and there’s more imperceptible whispering, another nod and Louis finally peers up from his plate.

Louis catches Harry staring almost immediately, but he doesn’t flick his gaze away. Harry feels his cheeks burn at being caught, but he also can’t seem look away. Instead, he watches as Louis tucks his bottom lip between his teeth, almost bashfully, and offers a small smile. Harry only feels himself go warmer.

But, after a moment, the slightest quirk finds the corner of his mouth and the heavy weight settled in his gut dislodges ever so slightly. He doesn’t know what it means, what Jay’s said to Louis, or what comes next, but it feels a little bit like hope.

♡♡♡

After their tense brunch exchange—or lack thereof, really—things oddly shift back into place like nothing ever happened.

In fact, Louis is even more touchy and sentimental with him than before.

His hand is permanently on Harry’s hip or lower back when and wherever they’re walking; when they’re sat it’s next to each other and Louis is always pressed flush against him, arm around the back of whatever seat they’re sharing; when they’re out in the snow engaging in an epic snowball fight—more so war, because christ are Louis’ sisters relentless—after brunch, Louis praises every hit Harry lands, is constantly leaning on and pressed up against him; his touch scalding even though their coats and gloves.

It causes this confusing mix of simmering irritation and fluttering butterfly wings to live in Harry’s belly the whole day, and because they’re so busy being bullied into going along with every whim of the little ones, Harry can’t find a moment to steal him away and ask what the hell is going on with him.

He can’t even go to Gemma for advice without coming off as obvious, especially because if the twins aren’t hanging off her every word and trying to goad her into playing with them, then Félicité and Lottie are trying their very best to impress her by coming off as years more mature than their ten and twelve, so there’s no opening for him to he steal her away for even a moment.

At the same time though, it’s hard for him to be too angry with Louis. Finds himself more confused than anything else. He just wants to understand what is going on, what’s happened, what he’s done—anything. How the sudden cold shoulder melted away to blanket him in a new kind of warmth without any clear rhyme or reason. Maybe he’s searching for an answer that doesn’t exist, and a question that doesn’t need asking in the first place.

Either way, how the fuck is he going to last another week of this, especially after Mum, Robin and Gemma leave without him on Sunday morning?

♡♡♡

The first evening, they have a smaller, secondary celebration of Louis’ birthday spent with all of them sat in the living room, smushed together across the sofa and armchairs and rug on the floor, enjoying a vanilla sponge decorated with thick buttercream. Harry just scraping the leftover frosting from his plate with his fork when he finds his plate snatched out of his hand and set out of reach on the coffee table. He’s then unexpectedly tugged up off the floor and upstairs by Louis, without warning.

“Sorry,” is all Louis tells him once they reach his bedroom, closing the door. He doesn’t seem sorry at all though, not by the coy smile he’s failing to conceal. His lips are slightly blue from the frosting’s food coloring. “I just, ehm, I’ve wanted to give you your Christmas present all night, but I think it would’ve bit a bit awkward with an audience.”

Harry blinks at him a little dumbly for a moment. “I—yeah, I suppose,” he manages, then, “I should probably give you your birthday, well, birthday-Christmas gift I guess, too, while we’re at it.”

Louis is too busy digging through his mess of a suitcase to give any indication that he agrees, so Harry just awkwardly settles next to him on the floor and, in contrast, carefully sorts through his nicely folded clothes to find where he hid his gift.

While it’s not fragile, he did purposely cushion it between his shirts so the wrapping wouldn’t come undone. Mum had assisted in holding down the edges while he taped and folded them together, and he didn’t want his hard work undone in trying to keep the surprise.

When Louis finds his, though, he feels a little silly in trying so hard putting his own together. He snorts in trying to conceal a laugh when he sees what looks like a mess of leftover paper trimmings and discarded gift wrap, striped metallic red and green, taped together haphazardly and set with a shiny white bow.

“Well now I feel like a bit of a dunce,” Louis frowns, looking between their gifts. “I was actually impressed with me'self for managing this.”

Harry does his best to not break into a giggling fit right there, not to wound Louis’ ego more than he already has himself. “It does look a bit like you had the twins do the wrapping for you.”

Louis shrugs and makes a face like he might agree. The bow even starts to peel off as if it has heard him, but he holds it firm to the paper with a scowl. Harry bites into his lip to not salt the wound.

“No, I think the twins’d do a better job than me.” Louis carefully turns the package over in his hands a few time and, yes, he’s confirmed it, they definitely would. “I mean—it’s wrapped, innit? Maybe that should count for something.”

Harry nods. If only to humor him. He’s not actually that surprised by it; if Louis had pulled out some immaculately wrapped box with perfectly tucked corners and even sides, that would have genuinely shocked him.

“You go first, it’s your late birthday after all,” he insists, and pushes his gift across the carpet with a single finger.

Louis playfully tuts, “Alright, pushy,” and sets his monster of wrapping paper and tape down.

He brings Harry’s gift to his ear first, giving it a careful shake and frowning when he hears nothing. He then sets it in his lap and, with far more care and precision than he would’ve anticipated, Louis starts carefully unfolding the tucked edges and peeling the tape off. Harry holds his breath as he goes, waiting for Louis to give up and just start demolishing it, but he doesn’t.

“Oh, what’s this then?”

Louis gives him a goofy look before giving the book in his lap a thorough once over. While he’d only been able to buy a simple photo album given his wages, Harry dressed it up by covered the front with magazine and newspaper clippings, each one intentionally hand-selected and carefully torn, cut, glued together.

Admittedly, it’s not the cleanest looking thing. Even as Gemma had helped him seal the paper with a glaze so it wouldn’t fall apart over time, he’d applied too much at once and caused the glaze to make the ink run and paper go thin in parts, and had dried with applied brush strokes visible in others. The glitter glue he’d tried to write with also came out chunky and uneven so he’d swirled it in random parts over the papers, and the placement of his stickers are haphazard at best.

He can’t say he’s not like, impressed with himself, though. Gemma’s always been the more skilled one out of them by way of arts-and-crafts while Harry’s always been better with things he hasn’t had to piece together, like music, photography, sometimes writing projects—although he is strangely good at wood tech and helping put together Ikea furniture.

All Louis’ done so far though is stare at he cover and make little quips about the photographs and letter cut-outs, and that’s not what Harry wants to see him react to.

“Open it,” he encourages shyly.

He holds his breath as Louis slowly pulls the cover back to reveal the opening page. Louis splutters in apparent surprise as his fingers fan over the glossy photos, the decorative tapes holding them in place, the old stickers and cut-outs artfully dolloped over any blank spaces.

“I, Harry,” Louis fish-mouths a few times before meeting his gaze, “did you do all this?” and peers down at the album again. “These are—”

“They’re all from the festival,” Harry answers for him. He worries a patch of skin at the edge of this thumb. “They’re not the best, uhm, quality, because they’re all instant film and I didn’t want to lose m’nice camera,” he explains—mumbles, more like—with his thumb still pressed to his bottom lip, as Louis starts eagerly flicking through the pages, “but yeah, I made the whole thing with Gemma’s help. I’m not like, really crafty or anything, but I hope you like it.”

He shrugs, no big deal, as if it’s not all an act and he’s hoping wishing praying that Louis actually likes it and isn’t just like, trying to humor him and his poor collaging skills. Homemade sentimentality might’ve been a cheap shot to take seeing as it very much looks like Harry pieced it together himself, fitting the reality, but purchasing a jumper or wool socks or candles felt too impersonal a gift for someone so important to him.

Louis scoffs, but doesn’t stop going through the filled pages. “‘Like it’, please, you’re so modest, Harry.” He briefly flashes a smile that Harry can really only describe as fond, and he swears it’s not the hope talking. “Seriously, H, this is bloody fantastic, I had no clue you took this many photos there.” He points to one of him, Harry, Niall, Liam and Zayn, all of them dressed in a combination white, blue denim and brown—completely unintentional—take on the second afternoon while they were at a karaoke booth, doing an impromptu acapella of ‘Torn’ that they did surprisingly well at. “Who took these ones of all of us?”

“Oh, Gem snapped a few when she was with us.” Harry carefully scoots closer to Louis’ side, unsure, but Louis moves his gift out of the way and even slings an arm around Harry’s shoulders, holding him that much closer. Harry just prays Louis can’t smell the tangy nervousness rolling off of him. “Like this one,” and he tries to distract himself by flicking to the next page, where all five of them are dressed in their own onesies, tired and sat smushed together on a staircase behind one of the stages on the last morning, “I still can’t believe we all had one, and brought them with us.”

Louis chuckles next to him, his arm around Harry’s neck tighter. “I still want to know why Niall’s got one of the American flag.”

“What, you think he’d have the union jack instead?”

“Niall? Hell no.” He makes an affronted face clearly on Niall’s behalf. “I’dve expected Ireland if anything. Or one with the Nando’s logo all over it.”

They end up carding through the full album like that—sat on the floor, Harry tucked close to Louis’ side with Louis’ arm slung around his shoulders—instead of moving straight to the other part of Harry’s gift. Louis makes the occasional comment on the different paper Harry’s layered under some of the photographs, as well as the random stickers and paper clippings thrown in to give the whole thing more character, and together they reminiscence over the photos from the festival like it were years back as opposed to not even half of one.

The last spread is decorated on one side with a Leeds flier Louis had spilled tea on the second morning as well as some daily ticket stubs they’d found on the grounds, and a photo of the two of them from Louis’ homesick weekend spent in Holmes Chapel on the other, but there’s a good three-fourths of the book empty after. When Louis turns the page over and finds nothing, he shoots Harry a quizzical look.

“Now you have something to put your photos in, or whatever else you’d like to, I guess, because I know you get homesick a lot and I thought like, maybe this’d help,” Harry explains, flicking through the blank pages leftover quickly. “And there’s one more thing, uhm, if you look on the last page.”

Louis makes a surprised hum and shimmies his shoulders, “Huh. You’re just full of surprises, aren’t you,” and he pokes Harry’s nose gently, making it scrunch a few times, “young Harold.”

“Shut up, just look.”

Louis removes the arm around his shoulders, leaving him feeling far colder than he should, and wriggles his fingers playfully before flipping to the back cover. There, Harry’s folded up the last part of this gift. He digs his fingers into his thighs instead of worrying his thumb again, as carefully, Louis extricates the paper from where it’s tucked, and spreads it out over their laps.

“Holy shit, Harry,” he breathes.

Printed on a large sheet of poster paper, is a faux graphic Harry crafted of Louis’ old band, The Rogue.

He’d stolen the pictures on it from Louis’ MySpace and Bebo, none of them particularly well-shot or composed, but with some tweaking he was able to make them look like black and white behind-the-scenes polaroids groups like The Beatles or The Stones would have snapped haphazardly while on tour. All shots that belong tacked to the walls of recording studios, forgotten between cushions of tour buses. Maybe used as throwaway filler in album booklets.

The band name is also blown up with a monospaced slab serif—typewriter style—and set with a shadow over the edited photographs. Text overlays the bottom of the poster advertising a one night only sold out show, with Harry’s own group—currently on hiatus, after their drummer graduated last summer and them having no no one to properly fill his spot—advertised as the opening act.

Louis doesn’t say anything as his eyes dart around the page. Harry is stuck only watching him, unsure, as his jaw remains dropped open in surprise, and he hardly blinks.

“D’you like it?” he asks, unsure, after a moment.

“Do I bloody like it,” Louis chuffs down at the poster, “Harry, Haz, this is so much—too much, maybe. Like,” he peers back at Harry and for a sliver of second, just enough time for the faith to come and swiftly leave him, Harry swears Louis is going to kiss him, “you made me bloody band a fucking, a touring poster, and then personalized a whole book,” his eyes widen as he taps the cover of the photo album, “just for me, because I’m a big, sentimental baby who misses his mummy too much sometimes.”

Harry doesn’t know what else there is for him to say besides saying he’s grateful Louis likes everything—never one to know how to take compliments past red cheeks and blustered thank-you’s.

And he says as much, with, “I’m just really glad you like them,” then, less bashfully, “but I did get you tea and chocolates as well, just incase these were shit.”

Louis scoffs, affronted, and lightly punches Harry in the forearm. “Please, Harold, your complete lack of ego is truly wounding me.” He then slings his arm back around Harry’s shoulders and pulls him close with a sigh; so close, actually, that Louis’ nose brushes his cheek for a moment and Harry gulps so hard he nearly chokes on his spit; at this point that’s how he’s going to die, it seems. “They’re amazing Haz, seriously. I’m honestly beyond chuffed, like, I don’t even have the right words to tell you how absolutely blown away I am,” he says, and his gaze is as clearly unwavering as the honesty in his voice.

He keeps his eyes focused on Harry until Harry finally concedes, and nods in agreement. Takes the compliment with a shy smile, then rests his forehead against Louis’.

“Should I keep the tea and chocolates, then?” he teases, as he tries to will his stomach to stop doing excited somersaults.

Louis hums. “Well, if you brought them all the way here just for me—”

Harry just rolls his eyes and pulls away to dig the small box of Yorkshire tea and milk chocolate buttons out from under his sleep pants. Pushes them Louis’ way with a smile full of mirth.

Louis insists that Harry have his gift now, Christmas is for everyone, Curly, as he carefully folds the poster back up inside the album, to set both atop the pile of clothes in his suitcase. He passes the precariously wrapped thing over, and Harry is surprised to find it soft under the wrapping, almost squishy in his hands.

As he starts at the paper, which is terribly sticky with tape residue, and despite how wrinkled it is, is surprisingly sturdy and hard to tear open with the layer of scotch tape it’s wrapped in, Louis promptly breaks into the chocolate buttons. Smacks his lips. Milk chocolate—his favorite.

“It’s gonna look like right shit, just so you know,” he insists, balancing a nib of chocolate on his nose before trying to flip it and catch it in his mouth—and misses. “Fuck. I’m the idea guy, not the one who successfully pulls the plan off, so you better not make any smartarse remarks that it doesn’t look as good as yours.”

Harry plucks the bow off with a grunt and a tug, then sticks his tongue out as he sets it on the carpet next to him. “I won’t—at least not to your face,” as if he were even capable of doing that.

Louis, clearly knowing his bluff, just tuts at him. Encourages Harry to go faster by leaning heavily into his side. Balls up bits of red and green wrapping that fall to the carpet. And when Harry finally gets it unwrapped, he finds—a blanket. It’s white with little pink rings dappled across it. When he pinches the fabric between his fingers, it’s all soft, cottony-fleece.

“It matches mine, the blue one.”

Harry turns at the sound of Louis’ voice, and finds him with one knee now pressed to his chest, his chin resting atop it. He’s not looking at Harry, though—his gaze is instead fixated on the ground, where his pinky toe is just barely nudging Harry’s thigh. He flicks his chin minutely to the bed, where surely Harry’s blanket’s twin in blue is, tucked just under Lottie’s stuffies at the foot of the bed.

He pets over soft material almost in disbelief. There are no words he can find to voice what the gesture means to him. Because they match. In what way can he safely confess how much this makes his heart seize, clenched in the fist of emotion, in his chest?

Louis must think it’s too quiet between them, because he quietly adds, “I just—it’s nice and warm, and they came as a set, so when I saw it, I thought you might like one as well. The pink. And that’s why I got it.”

So not only do they match, but they came together. They came as a pair. Louis bought a set of blankets because he thought Harry would like the pink one, and kept the other for himself, and they’re a fucking set, a pair, a match.

The rational side of his brain, the one that always goes quiet when it comes to anything Louis-related, whispers to him that Louis could’ve been gifted them and just decided he didn’t want the pink one and kept it, unused, to pawn off on someone else, but he doesn’t need to know if that’s the case. Or if the truth is something adjacent to that. He’s going to take Louis at face value and to heart, and hold his words there forever, maybe.

“Thank you,” Harry nearly whispers, and clenches the soft fabric between his fingers.

Later, he’ll have to steal a moment and find out if it smells like Louis, too. He hopes so, even as it’s embarrassing and maybe a little shameful, to want to roll around in Louis’ scent—the only scent that he’s picked up on so quickly and strongly, so far—as badly as he does.

He’s no better than a dog having found something sweet and putrified hidden in the grass, or a house cat taken to a pile of nip, but he can’t help it, not when just a faint whiff of Louis on his sheets urges his animalistic hindbrain to shift its occasional murmurings to deafening shouts. Encouraging him to act upon his most feral whims and make an utter fool out of himself, flushed and mortified even in his singular presence.

He’ll leave the blanket on Louis bed until it’s time for him to go home, he thinks. Save himself a little dignity when there’s no fear to be had of being walked in by any four culprits under thirteen, or the innocent cause of his guilty affections.

“There’s more, inside. That’s what I meant about the, uhm, not laughing in my face part.”

Curious, Harry unfolds the blanket to find a vinyl sleeve. He picks it up for examination and realizes it’s a little heavier than a typical sleeve, filled or otherwise, and that he doesn’t recognize the graphics on the outside of it.

Rather than a mass-produced graphic decorating the sleeve, it’s instead covered in random scraps of paper that hide most of the original design. The random scraps are mostly thin, likely printer paper, but some look glossy and smooth like that in magazines and pamphlets, all under the carefully laid packing tape set over the whole thing, to keep everything sealed. The new title, ‘Harry Styles’ Infinite Playlist’, is spelled out in Louis’ messy scrawl on bright pink duct tape sprawled across the front cover. Harry fails at biting back a grin; he’s only mentioned the film once when talking about how he sweat all over some nice alpha girl’s hand when she invited him to see it on a cinema date.

I think it’s romantic though, he’d told Louis, them staring up at the stars under the open flap of Louis’ tent, the whole like, custom playlist thing.

Doubtful Louis intended this in that way. They met at Leeds Fest for god’s sake—it only makes sense music play a heavy part in their friendship.

There are more scribblings on random paper scraps around it, some in printed script and some looped illegibly, alternating in blue, red, black streaked sharpie, but none of them matching Louis’ handwriting.

After a beat, he realizes they’re all signatures.

“This isn’t...” Harry hesitates and traces over some vaguely familiar loops.

Louis laughs once, dryly. “It is, actually.”

Harry swears his brain stops functioning in that moment. Emma Richardson, Alice Glass, John Franchesi, fucking Mark Hoppus—and so many more signatures, all scribbled on messy scraps of paper, napkins, stained fliers. Each is even labeled accordingly in messy ballpoint pen, the script almost unreadable at first glance.

“How the hell did you even get all of these?” he rasps.

“I mean, some of them I just got as we were walking around, like when I’d go run off somewhere to get a Coke or use the loo. But d’you remember on the third day, when we got up at arse o’clock in the morning? And I went wondering off to the toilets and was gone for ages?” Harry nods slowly, but he’s unable to draw his gaze away from the vinyl case. “Well, I was barely awake so I somehow forgot where the toilets were closest to us, and I went wondering around the grounds like an absolute dick, and somehow ended up in some VIP area where a bunch of the acts were hanging out having breakfast.”

Harry shoots him such a wild look that Louis chokes on a laugh.

“Jesus, Curly, calm down—it wasn’t all of them, but there were enough people I recognized just like, hanging out, having breakfast and a smoke and that. I guess some of them felt bad because I was so bloody lost and out of it I couldn’t even tell them where I was supposed to be, and they just—let me hang out for a mo’ and like, offered to sign one of the fliers for me.”

Harry scoffs in disbelief. “And you didn’t tell us? Niall thought you caught someone shagging in the loo or something and were so shocked by it you went blind for twenty minutes and got lost!”

And, admittedly, that is far more realistic than Louis just being so tired he got lost finding the toilets within easy walking distance of their camp, and magically found where a bunch of the performers were hiding out having their morning smoke and cuppa. That they, willingly, let some lost teenaged omega sit with them for a bit while they signed a poster for him free of charge, and then sent him on his merry way hoping he wouldn’t tell people where they were?

Louis shrugs nonchalantly and Harry kind of wants to throttle him.

“It wasn’t personal, Harry. I didn’t even believe it happened ‘til I got home and started unpacking and found the flier crumpled up in my pocket.”

He just—he can’t process this right now. “And you’re just, you’re giving these to me?”

At this point he might just kiss Louis first, but by the grace of god he’s able to stop himself from leaning over and tackling Louis to the floor, instead tugging the vinyl and blanket close to his chest.

“I didn’t give you all the ones I got,” Louis’ chides. His eyes crinkle in the corners in that soft, particularly fond way they always seem do when he looks at Harry after he’s teased him. Harry swears his heart fully stops beating for a moment and he can’t decide if he wants to cry, laugh, or kiss Louis even more than he did a few seconds ago. Or keel over and let that be the end of it. “But, yeah, I’m giving you a few of them, because you—and the rest of the boys, really, but mostly you—made that weekend one of the best fucking times of my life, Harry.”

Louis’ pressing their foreheads together again before Harry can even react, so overwhelmed with foreign, unlabeled emotion that he’s cemented in place.

But Louis keeps going, speaks into his skin, murmured like a promise, “I thought I was just gonna spend the weekend sloshed with me mates before uni, getting up to god knows what mischief between shows to come home hungover off me arse, but instead I found you—and the boys,” almost like an afterthought, but Harry would never tell them that, “and I wouldn’t trade that for the fucking world, because now I’ve got you in me life. Like, you’re probably my favorite person on fucking Earth, honestly.”

Harry can’t find any words in response to that.

In fact, he’s so overwhelmed by the confession that he might actually go comatose for a moment, and in turn Louis starts to get nervous due to his lack of answer, at him hardly even blinking, and has to look away from him. Out of the corner of his eye, Harry watches him fidget with his fingers, cheeks burning a scarlet to rival the festive wrapping paper balled up beside him.

Something about Louis’ bashfulness shakes Harry out of his trance, though, because before his mind can even catch up, his heart and his body decide for him, and have him tackling Louis to the floor in a fit of euphoric laughter.

He buries his face into the side of Louis’ neck and breathes deeply between fitful cackles that Louis swiftly catches, contagious. Wraps his arms around Harry’s back, too, squeezing him tight and holding them flush together as if trying to force their bodies into one.

Later, when he finds out that there’s a new collection of personalized mixtapes waiting for him inside the vinyl sleeve as well as the festival weekend bracelet he thought he lost at the campsite, they’re laying side-by-side in Louis’ bed, and he pins Louis down laughing all over again.

♡♡♡

Harry’s—a little tipsy, maybe.

Twenty-eleven is ten minutes away and his belly is full of savory hors d’oeuvres and Christmas pud and punch vodka-spiked by Louis’ hand for himself, Harry and Gemma. Harry’s on his second cup and he knows he’s acting a little silly giggling even more than usual at whatever Louis’ saying while he’s half-sitting on his lap in the armchair they’ve stolen for themselves, but he doesn’t really care. None of their parents have said or done anything besides throwing a few playfully suspicious looks their way—Harry even suspects Robin may have snuck off to get a topper himself at some point—so he figures they’re all in the clear.

If any of them were falling over sloshed, trouble would definitely be had with Louis’ sisters all twelve and under around, but he doesn’t think the goal tonight is for any of them is to make drunk arses of themselves.

The only bad part of this is, with the spiked punch numbing out his nerve a bit, Harry’s feeling quite brave.

Ever since Louis’ swift one-eighty that just as quickly came back full circle, topped by their private, heart-bearing gift exchange yesterday, he’s been further unable to ignore Louis’ growing touchiness. It’s never moved into what Harry would call, well, sexual territory—like Louis’ not been aiming to cop a feel of his bits or feeling up his arse or lingering a hand on his inner thighs—but it’s definitely suggestive. Feels intentional.

Like, if Louis were just consistently brushing against him just because they’re sat close and he talks rather animatedly, hand gestures and that, Harry would think nothing of it. Louis’ hand on his knee to push himself off his seat, or keeping an arm slung around his shoulders, or even prodding at the softness of his tummy and hips to tickle—that’s just, that’s just lads things.

The clear suggestive tone though, comes from everything else Louis does to him, and that much more often. They’ve escalated past wrist-grabbing for attention and playing with each others’ fingers—what is Harry going to do, not play into it?—to having bloody spooned in their sleep last night, practically sat on each other’s laps all day, even eaten off the same plate for both noonsies and supper, and that’s just to start.

Now, they’re trying to see who can unwrap and eat the most chocolate coins in a minute—although Gemma is just watching amusedly on the arm of the chair, playing judge—and even squished together on a single cushion, Louis just had his hand resting above Harry’s knee with his fingers curled in and stroking softly over his chinos.

Harry’s fumbling through another piece of gold foil, scraps all over their laps and the carpet and bits of chocolate melted on their fingers, as Louis is stuffing a coin in his mouth.

“Ugh,” Louis chuckles, one cheek full, “the wrapper’s still in it—”

Harry cackles and tosses another coin in his mouth, balling up the foil and tossing it at Gemma. Louis is trying to mess up his pile to distract him so he rightfully goes for Louis’ stack. His is spilled precariously over one thigh versus Harry’s, which is laid across the opposite chair arm, so when he makes a grab to toss the coins onto the floor, Louis squawks.

He’s grinning like a maniac as Louis stuffs another coin into his mouth, tosses some wrappers over him, then hurriedly plucks more off the floor to rain them down. All Harry can do is make a happy little keening sound, covering his face with his arms, and—

“Now kiss me, you fool,” he giggles.

And Louis’ still working on the gob of chocolate in his mouth, but he’s also digging his fingers into Harry’s hair messily and diving in, only just missing Harry’s mouth so they end up rubbing their noses into each other’s cheeks, instead. Harry nearly shoves Gemma off her perch as he kicks one leg out—watch it, Harry!—and twists his fingers into the back of Louis’ beanie.

Louis pulls away just a moment later, now pink-cheeked and with his beanie mussed from Harry’s hands, and proclaims, “So I won!” with his cheek still full of chocolate.

“Fine,” Gemma concedes, quickly hopping off of the arm as Louis throws his fists up in victory, having been caused enough injury already, “but only because you two threw the foils around like children and I don’t want to count them. And because Harry nearly kicked me off the chair.”

Harry just giggles, unapologetic, and dusts some of wrappers off onto Louis. “Keep the change, you filthy animal,” he poorly mimics, prompting them to immediately both burst out into another round of laughter.

Gemma just rolls her eyes. As Louis fixes his beanie, she throws Harry a very direct and knowing look, raising her eyebrows and making her eyes go wide just for a moment, before she leaves them to find peace in a beanbag by the fireplace. Only then to, of course, be immediately joined by the twins, who launch themselves at her mere seconds after she’s settled in.

Mum tuts him then for making a mess and tells him to pick up the scraps before the dog gets to them. Harry pries himself out of the chair with a groan but obeys. Louis just shakes himself free of the gold and silver foils and splays himself out in the chair. Pushes his cold, bare toes into Harry’s arsecheek as he bends over to pick any pieces up off the carpet.

A few minutes before the countdown starts on the telly, Jay brings out two trays of Christmas crackers with Lottie’s help, and swiftly passes them around the room. Everyone stands in a blob of a circle around the coffee table and promptly yanks on her count of three!, sending rolls of colored paper and tiny packages of pound toys and joke cards flying around the room.

“Careful around the fire, girls; we’re not having a repeat of that one time—”

Harry trades Phoebe—there’s a faded ‘P’ on her arm—her purple crown when she pouts at the blue one she’s plucked off the floor, and sets it upon her head delicately before bowing comically low. And nearly toppling over. She just giggles and curtsies with about as much grace as him, before she’s left him to ask what toy her sister received in her cracker, and if she wants tradesies.

“They like you a lot,” Louis notes, just as Harry settles back down next to him in their armchair. He plucks the still-rolled crown from Harry’s hand and carefully unfolds it. “Not just the twins, or just Lottie with her, ehm, misguided crush,” which makes Harry snort and cast a careful glance Lottie’s way, but she’s currently preoccupied trying to bat Fizzy away and not let her put her crown on, all stop, I’m not a baby, Fizz, “but all of them.”

It’s a sweet thing to say, but Harry only shrugs in response. Doesn’t take it straight to heart. Not because he’s too modest or doesn’t believe him, but rather because it feels Louis’ implying something from this, alluding to something, and he doesn’t know what. Sentimentality for sentimentality’s sake isn’t something Louis’ dropped on him so far.

So Louis continues after a moment, “Stan and Oli and them’ve always been nice to the littlest ones when they’ve been over, playing with them and that, but they treat Fizz and Lotts like their own sisters and tease them terrible, sometimes.” With a soft smile, he gently sets the blue tissue paper crown atop Harry’s head. Tucks any stray curls into the fragile band. Louis’ fingertips just brushing over his forehead send tingles of electricity over his skin. “I just—I’m just trying to say that I’m really glad they already like you so much,” he concludes.

“I mean, I know how it feels when all your older sibling’s friends tease you or treat you like you’re an actual baby instead of like, a person. That’s all it is.”

It’s a lame excuse. Harry diverts any comeback by taking the liberty of bestowing Louis with his own crown, red in color. He unfurls the paper with just as much care and places it over Louis’ beanie, giving him the poor resemblance of a vaguely familiar comic book character. Louis just adjusts his crown and beams, then quickly softens his smile, gaze unwavering. Harry watches him in turn for a moment, as Louis reaches out for him once more.

He thinks Louis’ just going to flick him in the forehead or poke him in the nose to break up the sticky, sappy exchange, but instead he finds another lone lock of hair that he moves past the band of the paper crown. The butterfly wings in his belly flutter again, and at this point it happens so much in Louis’ presence he shouldn’t even note it to himself, but he can’t ignore any of the bubbling, prickling feelings Louis causes in him. An allergic reaction, almost, but in the best way. If nervous hives or a turned-over belly could ever mean a good thing.

“I mean it, Harry,” and Louis’ voice is soft, private all of a sudden, “I really do.”

He squeezes his hand but before Harry can return the gesture, Jay and Mum are passing them little glass flutes filled halfway with champagne, and Louis lets him go. But, he does so to offer him the same hand to pull him out of the armchair. It’s only then that Harry realizes they’re less than two minutes to countdown.

And while Louis’ sisters hurriedly go to crowd Jay and Mark on the sofa, Louis stays by his side. Gemma squeezes to stand between him and Mum, who’s now leaning against Robin’s side with their own champagne glasses. Harry bumps Gemma’s hip with his own and she bumps back with a smirk.

With forty-five seconds to go, Louis’ arm, instead of finding its home around his shoulders, presses against his back with his hand resting tentatively, almost hovering, at Harry’s waist. Harry jolts slightly at the first touch and grips his champagne flute tighter, but Louis doesn’t let him go. In fact, his fingers rest delicately over the dip of his waist. Harry tries to focus on the numbers decreasing quickly on the television screen.

Anticipatory quiet fills the room for a brief moment, conversation pausing until they reach ten, when everyone in the room starts calling out the countdown. Louis squeezes his waist at five!, so Harry steps impossibly closer to him at four! and bravely runs one finger over Louis’ back at three!.

The clock strikes midnight and everyone’s cheering around him, a chorus of laughter and happy new year! set with confetti poppers and metallic streamers being thrown across the living room that the dog barks and tries to snap at. Champagne flutes clink and fireworks crack to life outside, bursting neon red and blue and green glitter against the stars.

And Harry is ready to just be yanked into a hug by Louis following their brief toast and downing the dry sparkle of champagne, to then only find kisses of the embarrassing, familial variety from his mother as she peppers them all over his cheeks and forehead, but Louis throws him off track when he swiftly spins him sideways, and kisses him straight on the mouth.

It’s so chaste he hardly registers it at first. Just a press that’s half on his lips, half on his chin. But it was definitely that—a kiss.

Louis kissed him.

The realization strikes him stupid. How was it only yesterday that Louis was giving him the silent treatment just at the tease of Harry being his boyfriend, and now Louis has just kissed him mere seconds after the clock struck twelve? Was yesterday’s flux of confusion just his Cinderella’s curse, while Louis’ kiss was the perfect glass slipper fit to undo it?

Because, because Louis doesn’t withdraw from him right after. He doesn’t go wide-eyed and fall silent, or mutter an apology and run away with his tail tucked between his legs, mortified with his own impulsiveness. In fact, his hand is still on Harry’s waist two, six, ten seconds after their lips met and he’s fucking—beaming, laughing, crinkle-eyed and red-cheeked, and only letting Harry go to hug Gemma, Mum, Robin, his own family. Ducks down to peck the twins’ foreheads as they squeeze him by the waist, yanks a giggling Félicité and flushed Lottie into their own cuddles as he kisses their temples and ruffles the paper crowns off their heads.

Everything moves in half-speed as Gemma tugs Harry into their familial group hug. Their well-wishes on a good year come through a cotton filter in his ears. He only dazedly feels Robin rub his back and Mum kiss chapstick into his cheek while Gemma graces his other side with a playfully loud, vanilla-glossed smack of her lips. He steals a glance around Gemma’s back and finds Louis with Félicité perched on his lap, tucked close to his mum’s side, and smiling right back at Harry.

But—he doesn’t get Louis alone until they’re getting ready for a bed, an hour later, and is dangerously left to stew in a flurry of questions and constantly shifting emotion.

He’s at the very least a little more in his head as he helps Louis and Gemma bring the empty champagne glasses into the kitchen and pick bits of metallic streamers and confetti shapes off the floor, but he’s not totally present.

The little ones promptly knocked out in the beanbags five minutes after midnight and while Lottie and Félicité insisted on staying up late, by the time the living area is slightly back to being in one piece, Harry finds Félicité curled up in a ball, sound asleep in the armchair, and Lottie’s laid out on the sofa with her eyes glued on the television—nobody home.

Mum coos about how tired all the girls are—do you remember when you used to fall asleep on the floor in front of the telly and cried when we woke you up after midnight?—before she comes to kiss Harry goodnight.

“Just keep the volume down while us old people turn in, will you, darling?”

And Louis, always the charmer, scoffs, “Old people? Anne, you don’t look a day over twenty-five,” which makes Mum jokingly fan herself, and go to pinch his cheek.

She then follows Robin to the den to get ready for bed, while Louis promises a fretting Jay, surveying all the sleeping children, that we’ll take care of the girls Mum, it’s alright, and sends her and Mark off to bed like they’re the stubborn youths insisting on staying up late. In turn leaves Harry, Louis and Gemma alone to take the girls to bed.

They briefly exchange looks between each other, trying to decide how to tackle the situation at hand; Louis points to the twins, his brows raised, and Gemma shrugs one shoulder—Harry stands between them feeling a little foolish—before Gemma bats her hand at him and goes over to the armchair. Scoops Félicité up with a huff. Félicité, likely still asleep, immediately loops her arms and legs around Gemma, very reminiscent of a koala to a tree.

Harry only stands there awkwardly, nearly blending himself into the tilted Christmas tree, as Louis then goes over to the sofa, where Lottie hasn’t made any sign of moving, and crouches on the ground beside her. He whispers something to her Harry doesn’t catch, and after a moment Lottie nods and lets Louis pull her up. Lets her rest her head against his chest for a moment, leaning heavily against him. He chuckles and kisses her forehead with a tut of go to bed, Lotts.

Gemma waits nearby with Félicité still blissfully asleep in her arms as Lottie sleepily stumbles over. She nods sleepily, coming off so small when Gemma asks if she’s alright to go upstairs by herself, a question that’d definitely cause Lottie to blush and insist she’s not a child under any other circumstances.

And as they slowly ascend upstairs, Gemma taking the rear, she throws Harry what he thinks is a wink, but he’s not quite sure—she’s gone out of sight before he can even think to ask.

Now it’s just him and Louis and the twins. Alone.

Perfect.

Harry is startled out of his momentary panic by Louis patting his shoulder and whispering, “You get one, I’ll get the other,” then flicks his chin to the now snoring twins, to which Harry stupidly nods.

Louis is especially careful as he squats down and eases Daisy—Harry thinks—and her ragdoll limbs out of the beanbag, and up into his arms. Her chin immediately comes to his shoulder and she buries her face into his jumper, clinging tightly to him. Harry tries to do the same with—maybe—Phoebe, but he’s far less practiced and her head rolls dangerously back as he tries to scoop her up. Thankfully the jostle doesn’t wake her, and as he adjusts her in his arms gently, he finds Louis only watching him bemusedly.

“What?” he whispers, but Louis just shakes his head.

“After you, Curly.”

When they reach the twins room, Harry blindly searches for their beds in the near-dark to immediately knock his knee into the footboard of one—Louis snorts and then promptly does the same, karma—and starts tugging back the sheets with one hand, a movement he’s also far less practiced than Louis at.

“Don’t worry about tucking her in, Haz, she’s a bit particular,” Louis rasps in the dark, only the outline of him visible from the hall light sneaking into the room, “you can go wash up, I’ll take care of ‘em.”

He lays whichever twin he’s been entrusted gently down on her bed, and while he barely misses walking into the bed post again, but does end up stepping on some small, sharp thing gone previously averted on the rug. He curses under his breath, causing Louis to laugh lightly. Harry just sticks his tongue out to feel a little better.

Louis being preoccupied with getting the twins properly settled in for sleep gives him the advantage of preparing himself for what come next, so Harry quickly makes work of changing into his pajamas and washing up before bed, just to give himself ample time to prepare. Prepare for what, he doesn’t know, but he graciously takes the alone time.

As he’s brushing his teeth, he fluffs his hair a few times, his crown somewhere downstairs to be found in the morning. Glares at what what he swears is now a permanent flush to his cheeks in the mirror. He splashes his face with cold water to try and alleviate some of the rouge, but all it does is make water run down his sleeve and get it wet. Upon returning to the bedroom and finding himself still, blissfully, alone, he arranges himself across the mattress in a demure sort of pose, oh, you’ve stumbled into my bed chamber, but immediately moves out of position feeling more than a little silly.

Harry instead perches himself on the edge of the mattress in wait, his ears tucked to his shoulders to try and muffle the random, sudden shots of nearby fireworks until Louis returns. They’re far enough away that he’s not too bothered by noise, but the occasional resounding boom still leaves him jumpy without distraction.

He thinks about what he’ll do when Louis inevitably rejoins him, now that they’ll be alone. Like, what is there for him to do? Tug him into the bedroom, pin him to the door and kiss him silly? Close the door behind him and demand an explanation for earlier? The most detail Harry reaches in his plan is something. And he knows he won’t be able to fall asleep tonight not knowing what’s going on, so he has to do that something.

Only a minute later is Louis’ back, though, entering the bright room from the darkened hallway wiping his mouth and shaking water droplets from his fringe—already cleaned and with no more outs for Harry to cleverly take. If only he had actually utilized his time actually planning instead of sitting there like an idiot and thinking he’ll do a vague something. Should’ve tried to text Zayn or Liam for advice, or even popped out to see if Gemma was still awake and talked to her.

“Sorry,” Louis starts, closing the door behind himself—and there goes Harry’s escape route. “Daisy woke up, and then Phoebe woke up, so I had to sit with them for a minute to get them back to sleep.”

Harry shrugs one shoulder lamely, still sat tense. “S’alright.”

Louis briefly shoots him a quizzical look over his shoulder, before going to his wardrobe to change. He tugs his jumper up over his head and flicks his hair out of his eyes, stretches his arms over his head—so casually, unfairly dreamy like that. Harry fights with himself to keep his eyes trained on the floor after that lest he try to make light-hearted conversation while Louis undresses and inadvertently make what Niall calls ‘heart eyes’ at him. He’s weak, though, and his gaze shoots back up while Louis finds a clean sleep shirt, to catch the way the lean muscles in his back ripple and tense as he cards through his prospects.

As Louis undoes his belt and unzips his jeans, letting them fall open and loose halfway down his bum, he also reveals the dimples that typically sit out of sight, just under his trouser hem, and Harry wants, he wants to bite into them—match his canines with the dips and sink his teeth into the soft skin. They’re hidden just as quickly by Louis tugging on a hoodie. Shimmies and kicks out of his jeans. Harry has to dig his thumbnail painfully into the side of his hand to not stare when Louis’ underwear starts to slip down.

He hears clothes fall into the laundry basket with a dull thump, and his time is up.

“You want to turn in already?” Louis asks, barefoot and cozy in baggy Hollister, already crossing the room to the light switch.

He’s a coward, it would seem, but sleep could be his way out of an awkward conversation or poorly received confrontation, so Harry starts shuffling under the covers and setting their pillows back in their rightful spots.

“Yeah, if y’don’t mind. I’m a bit tired,” but it doesn’t come out apologetic like he’d hoped.

“Oh.” Louis’ hand hesitates over the switch, so surprised by Harry’s prompt response. “Ehm, I’m gonna muck around on m’computer for a bit then,” and gestures to his laptop sitting on his desk, “if that’s alright with you.”

Harry shakes his head before settling it down on the pillow. “Fine with me, mate,” before he turns over onto his side to stare at the pale blue wall, washed out in yellow by the overhead lamp.

But his cowardice proves him foolish once again, because Harry would like to think Louis would just sit at his desk and leave him alone on the bed, instead of doing what he actually does, which is taking his laptop and headphones sitting wayside and setting them both on the end of the mattress. Harry burrows further into the cool blankets as the light flicks off and, now with only the guiding glow of the neighbor’s streetlamp snuck in through the curtains, Louis moves Lottie’s stuffie collection haphazardly onto the floor—Harry was the one that replaced it that morning after making the bed—before also tucking himself under the nest of blankets.

It’s only for a moment, but the fresh gust of cold air makes Harry shiver in his cocoon of sweats and slowly warming sheets. Louis wordlessly shuffles about and smoothes something over the comforter; he turns his head just slightly to sees it’s their matching blankets.

But Louis’ not left Harry his and claimed his own for his undetermined area of the bed, oh no—both of their blankets are spread over them, overlapping Harry’ pink with Louis’ blue. Louis has even made sure the pink one is tucked against the wall with the comforter, because last night Harry woke up cold to find all their blankets stolen and had made a proper fuss about it over breakfast that morning.

God help him.

Louis wordlessly turns his laptop on and slips on his headphones while Harry tries to fall asleep, but the glow of the screen cast over his shoulder with the restlessness settled in his bones keeps him too alert to drift off, and deservedly so. He rolls over with a tired sigh to watch Louis meddle about on his computer, instead. Is careful to keep minute space between their bodies, even though Louis quickly senses him watching and moves closer for Harry to see the screen better. He even stops his music and takes his headphones off.

“Changed your mind?” he softly teases.

Harry only huffs, “Well now I’m not tired.”

Louis just chuckles and opens a new tab for MySpace. There are blurry photos from a recent party, likely from tonight, all over his homepage as it loads. Harry recognizes a few of Louis’ friends together in them, posed with tongues out and middle fingers up, throwing plastic cups and brown beer bottles in the air while crowded in someone’s darkened living room. Then there are kissing couples faded into the background of selfies, close-ups of body shots out of a pink pierced navel on someone’s dining table, spilled brews from a chaotic match beer pong.

Then come the tags of Louis’ name, wishing he’d been there to join them, asking why he’d been a pussy and hadn’t shown his face, and suddenly, Harry feels very guilty.

“You were supposed to hang out with your mates tonight, weren’t you?” he asks as he keeps his gaze focused on the photos rather than Louis’ face.

“I got invited, but didn’t say I was going to go,” Louis supplies. It’s a happy medium kind of response. “I told Stan and them you were coming up anyway—be pretty shit of me to just leave you here while I got wasted with old friends. Not like I could bring you along, either.”

The balmed words quickly smart and makes Harry feel worse. There’s barely three years between them—Louis won’t even be nineteen for two months before he’s seventeen—but instances like these show how different their lives can be, even being so close in age.

Harry’s barely in lower sixth whereas Louis’ already in uni. Louis can buy his own liquor and be out late whenever he’d like where Harry’s age is known at every shop in town and if his mother caught him out after dark, parental punishment still exists as consequences for his action. Louis’ already had at least one long-term relationship and sex and Harry’s only had short-term schoolyard girlfriends and fumbled awkwardly in the dark with a good mate he dated for two weeks before they decided friendship was their choice course.

Louis might have kissed him at midnight but Harry’s only fooling himself if he thinks anything between them would actually work out. He’d only be holding Louis back with his sleepovers and shy hand-holding and homework dates. A thorn hooked into his side.

It’s not like Louis can successfully take him out for a brew, or to a proper club with his fake ID and dead giveaway of a baby face. He doesn’t know any of Louis’ uni friends or how uni life actually works and all of Louis’ Donny friends already think he’s just some cute little omega Louis’ taken under his wing because he’s too nice to let him down, anyway.

“Oi, what’s gotten into you?” Harry blinks up at Louis, reasonably startled. The light of Louis’ laptop highlights the sudden yet soft furrow in his brow. “You’ve just gone all sour, Curly, what’s wrong?”

That’s right; he somehow forgot Louis is right there next to him, too, and that he can actually pick up on scents where Harry’s still developing the sense for it. Who did Harry piss off in a past life to deserve this, he’d really like to know.

He readjusts his position so he’s not speaking against Louis’ shoulder, and focuses instead on the light-up keyboard. “Nothing. M’fine.”

A tired sigh, followed by the laptop lid quietly clicking shut. “You’re a shit liar, Harry, c’mon.” Louis even dips off the side of the mattress to tuck his computer and headphones under the bed so there’s no distraction to be had. He flips back over onto his side so they’re facing one another this time. “Talk to me,” he insists.

There’s no running now. Nothing left to blanket his shame. Louis’ staring right at him, unrelenting, and he’s not going to let Harry get away. So, very maturely, Harry pulls his hood up over his head and yanks the drawstrings so only the tip of nose and his top lip are exposed. Shakes his head.

“For god’s sake, Harry—”

Another sigh and he’s being rolled over—far too easily—onto his back, and Louis’ is suddenly laying on top of him. Pinning him down. Harry lets out a groan of upset and wriggles, trying to dislodge him, but Louis is stronger than him and remains unbudged. He even pries Harry’s fingers from his drawstrings and takes his wrists in one hand, stiffly pinning them between their bodies. Uses his free hand to loosen the hoodie and reveal Harry’s face to the inky blue of the room.

It feels as if Harry’s whole body could catch on fire any moment, now, and his eyes itch with the frustration of pressing everything down. It’s horribly unfair that Louis makes him want to cry so much, in so many ways.

“Stop,” he insists, but it’s weak and only holds a partial truth; the way he shifts underneath does nothing but make Louis’ legs spread over his lap and lock his knees against his thighs, “Lou, please, get off—”

“Not until you tell me what’s bloody going on with you.” His voice soft with worry, but stern in its indication. “I know something’s up, Harry, and I’m not talking just right now, or even just yesterday,” and his hold on Harry’s wrists goes tense for just a moment, “I know something’s been going on. Even when we Skype or just talk on the phone, I can tell.”

Harry whimpers—actually whimpers, a wounded little kitten sound—and shudders, feeling the tears start to sting the corners of his eyes. He can’t see Louis’ face very well with the shadow cast over him, but he does feel the way Louis immediately frees his wrists to cup his face in his warm hands, once he shivers. Harry squeezes his eyes and shakes his head, weaker this time, as he feels a few small tears spill hotly over his cheeks to find Louis’ fingers.

“Harry—”

“It’s so stupid,” he surrenders, his walls finally breaking as he starts sniffling, “so bloody fucking stupid, and embarrassing; that’s why I didn’t want to tell you.” He manages to free one hand and rub his nose with his sleeve cuff, as Louis thumbs softly at his tears in a way that only encourage more. “You’ll hate me, you’ll never want to hang out with me or talk to me again and I couldn’t blame you—”

And Louis sounds so stung when he says, “How could you think I’d do that to you? I could never do that, Haz; you could tell me to go fuck me’self or jump off a cliff or some’at and I still couldn’t hate you.”

Harry shakes his head. “You would, you will,” he promises, voice quaking like all the faults in the earth are driving into each other at once, “you kissed me earlier, Louis. You kissed me even though yesterday, yesterday all your mum did was joke about it, and you acted like it was the worst thing she’d ever said to you. You wouldn’t even look at me.”

Louis’ voice is so thin, almost hysteric now, as he wipes at Harry’s face. “Joke about what, love? Kissing you?”

Love. Harry shakes his head, wilder this time. Trying to will this all away like a bad dream gone on too long. Like if he could pinch himself hard enough, he’d shoot up out of his own bed in a cold sweat, just as Robin comes into his bedroom to wake him up for the trip north, and he’ll have undone all his wrongs.

But he knows this isn’t a dream. As cruel his vivid imagination is capable of being, there’s nothing more grounded in reality than Louis’ hands actually touching his face, and his weight actually leveled on Harry’s.

So he tries to explain—

“She told you to stop teasing Lottie, because she has a crush on your, your boyfriend.” His skin burns and prickles under the match of his hysteria, the weight of Louis’ body still shackling him down—a twin pyre to set ablaze. “And you just, you wouldn’t sit with me or talk to me, and then out of nowhere everything was fine again and you were touching me like nothing even happened.”

“I’m—”

But Harry can’t stop now that he’s finally started. The words spill out in a flood, his tears and sniffling and shame momentarily forgotten for the sake of finite honesty. Laying it all on the line. Like each raw admission is pried out out him, and he’s cracked his ribcage open and is clawing the weight out of his truth out with bloodied, shaking fingers.

“I just like you so much but I don’t, I don’t know what to do because you’re my best friend,” and Louis’ thumbs stop wiping his tears away so saltwater trails over the tips of his fingers to disappear in maroon cotton and brown curls, but Harry can’t stop, “and I can’t lose you because I let my stupid feelings get in the way of that—”

“Harry—”

“But if it’s too weird for you I—”

“Harry,” and Louis cups his hand over Harry’s mouth until he stops babbling. Shakily swallows once. “Calm down, babes, please, you’re all out of sorts.” He laughs but it’s soft and almost sad, and takes the ribbing of his hoodie sleeves between his fingers to dab up Harry’s face. The rough cotton makes Harry’s cheeks itch, but the tenderness smarts sharper. “Just take a breath and let me speak, alright?” he asks.

Harry can only give him the faintest nod in turn. Louis is quiet as he continues to dab at his cheeks before moving gently along his lashline. Save his stuttered breathing and the distant but occasional car horn or firecracker, the room is filled with a tense sort of quiet as Louis cleans him up. The ends of his sleeves are damp by the end and Harry wants to apologize for it, but he agreed to let Louis speak first.

When he deems Harry presentable enough, Louis slides off of him and settles back where he was laying before. He’s back on his side now, facing Harry again, but Harry stays laid on his back. Spites the burn of Louis’ gaze scalding the size of his face by not moving.

“Can you look at me, please?”

There’s no fight left; Harry concedes so easily. Already defeated. He can’t meet Louis’ eyes directly, only knows where they are by the invading glow coming from the window lighting up the tips of his eyelashes, but Louis doesn’t berate him for it. Just facing each other seems to suffice for now.

Eventually he starts talking.

“I don’t hate you,” his tone is feathery but Harry stills jolts at the first word, “I mean that, I couldn’t—I won’t ever hate you.” Another a long, long pause, follows that, allotting time for Harry to absorb the honesty that drips from his whispered proclamation. It’s so quiet, are either of them even breathing? Eventually though comes a shuddered inhale, and Louis timidly asks, “Do you really like me? Like—more than friends, like me?”

Harry only burrows his wet, stinging face into the cotton pillowcase that smells faintly like Louis’ coconut shampoo. Prolonging his answer is supposed to stop the other shoe from dropping. It takes a quiet, aching whisper of his name met with a careful thumb suddenly stoking the soft curve of his jaw, to coax the confirmation out of him.

Yes, he nods down into Louis’ pillow, then croaks, “So much.”

“Why do you think I’d hate you for that?”

Harry shrugs. It’s the most plausible outcome, he imagines, even if it’s not immediate. Because, now that he knows, Louis will realize the weight of each tender word and touch shared between them and out of the kindness of his heart, to soothe Harry’s, he’ll withdraw, slowly then all at once, yanking the rug out from Harry’s feet when he’s least expected it. And then every time after that Harry begs to know why Louis’ gone so far from him, the disgust and anger will slowly add themselves into the equation as he grows tired of having to reaffirm Harry’s feelings when he has no desire to return them.

But because he’s carved out and scrubbed raw, the most vulnerable he’s ever been, and takes the shortcut instead.

“Because you’re not gay.” Only then does Harry look to him, even though Louis’ mostly just blurry and painted in shades of static blue. “Like, I can’t change your mind on that.” And Louis is still stroking his jaw—how cruel the tenderness of that is, right now. If he were more angry than, well, whatever he is, Harry would push his hand away. “And it’s not fair to you to have to like, save my feelings when you’re the one not interested,” he explains thickly, “so even if you’re okay with me liking you now, you won’t always. It’s just—it’s inevitable.”

Louis’ thumbpad stops its gentle stroking, but his hand remains resting against his neck and cheek. “Harry,” almost tiredly, “why are you so sure that’s how I feel? Or how I’m going to feel? I haven’t even told you how I feel now—like how can you be sure that’s all what’s going to happen?”

He wishes Louis would stop asking him questions and just be straightforward with what he wants to say. This isn’t about reasoning Harry’s feelings.

“‘Cause I do,” Harry snips, wincing slightly at the cut of his own voice, “and we’re friends so you’re just, you’re just being nice to me about this. It’s why you’re not telling me how you feel—it’s not what I’m going to want to hear and you feel bad about it.”

He knows he sounds hysterical and that his logic is faulty at best. Maybe he’s just addicted to his own mental self-flagellation at this point. Doesn’t believe himself worthy of Louis’ affections anymore now that they’re standing on uneven ground.

“I,” and Louis immediately pauses. His hand shakes the slightest bit and he retracts it now, leaving the side of Harry’s face prickling with the loss of contact. “I’m,” he tries again, “god, I’m so shit with words when it comes to you, swear t’god.” He rolls onto his back with a groan and presses his palms to his eyes. “I didn’t say anything because I thought I wouldn’t have to,” he tells the ceiling, instead.

It’s not an answer, not really. There’s still a fifty-fifty split this could move in either direction.

Harry’s brow furrows and he sits up on his elbows. He asks, “What do you mean?” softly but insistently, growing impatient now.

Louis drops his hands and crosses his arms tightly over his chest, tucking his hands into his armpits. “I acted like such a knob yesterday, didn’t I?” Harry nods minutely and he lets out a little displeased hum. “When Mum said that, I thought...I thought you knew. Like I just, I panicked, ‘cause I thought you knew.”

Harry feels his heart leap into his throat. He scoots closer, tentative, and nudges, “Thought I knew what?”

“C’mon, Harry, that I fucking,” and Louis yanks his hoodie up over his eyes, reversing their roles as it muffles his voice, nearly pouting, “that I like you too, you stubborn wanker.”

And surprisingly, the confession doesn’t prompt Harry to laugh incredulously, or lay himself over Louis and kiss him—nothing grand like that. There’s no sudden shot of exhilaration and relief coursing through his veins. No new high to be found. Instead, Harry feels the tension that’s gripped every tendon in his body drain to half full, and something like relief replaces what’s been lost. He’s strung brittle and tight, but also floating on his back down a river of stars.

It’s not something he’s ever experienced before. He’s a little disappointed at how calm he feels, actually. But—maybe the part of him that he thought was only hoping, actually knew.

Harry reaches over and feels for Louis’ hand, still tugging the fabric into place and keeping it snug, protecting him. “You like me too?” he asks. Louis nods feebly after a beat. “Hey, if I couldn’t hide then you can’t either,” he grouses. Louis’ fingers loosen their hold on the cotton and Harry smoothes away what’s shielding him, even if its only thin outlines of his nose and brow and cheekbone. “But seriously—you do?”

“I do,” so meekly and not at all like Louis, “a lot.”

More relief washes through Harry and he’s smiling for the first time since maybe their midnight kiss. “What changed, then? Why’d you go back to, uhm, not normal,” Louis nudges him with a grunt and Harry dips down to release his giggle into Louis’ shoulder, insisting, “I didn’t mean it like that!”

He can tell Louis’ pouting without having to see the jut of his lip. “Well—how’d you mean it then?” he grumbles.

“You’ve been kind of like, all over me since your mum talked to you at brunch yesterday.” He rests his cheek against Louis’ shoulder with an ease he feared he’d never know again just a minute ago. “So, I guess, what’d she say to you?”

Louis only turns his head then, but it says enough. “That I was being a knob. And an idiot,” he admits, causing Harry to immediately snicker, “in a nice way, Harold, Jesus, she’s my mother—”

“How exactly did she tell you that ‘nicely’, then?”

He scoffs to the ceiling. “Nuh-uh, you just had a laugh at me, I’m not telling you now,” and he flops heavily onto his side, close enough once more that Harry can feel the intensity of Louis’ body heat through both layers of their clothes, “but, she told me I didn’t have anything to worry about in the first place so I should stop being such a prat and just, I dunno, let things happen?”

Harry tilts his head just slightly so Louis’ chin grazes his nose and—oh, there it is. There’s that spark, that trill shooting up his spine, the somersaulting tummy and fireworks in his veins. He swallows thickly and waits, as Louis licks his lips—

“But the big thing was that I, ehm, I was being a knob to you for literally no reason,” and his voice is breathier now than Harry’s ever heard it before, “and that I was an idiot for not seeing that you looked at me the exact same way I looked at you.”

“H, how do I look at you, then, if we’re, uhm, looking at each other the same way?” he rasps, moving slightly up the mattress, putting them level on a shared pillow.

Louis’ steadying breath is warm and tingling with mint, and then his hand is on Harry’s cheek, thumb tracing the subtle curve of the bone. Harry bravely finds Louis’ waist under the tangle of blankets and limbs, steadying himself there as he braces for—what he hopes to be—the inevitable. Louis shivers at his touch.

“Funny you should ask, because I can’t really see right now,” and they both laugh quietly, “but I figure it’s with, oh what does Niall call it—?”

Harry can’t help how he blusters in surprise; those fucking arseholes they call friends have been playing double agent this whole fucking time. Acting like they didn’t even know. God, he and Louis are definitely going to have to make those three pay for this.

“Heart eyes?”

“Mm, that. I’ve also heard ‘creepy love stare’, but that’s not very flattering, is it?”

He curls his fingers into Louis’ hipbone and brushes their noses together. “Definitely not. Sounds pretty jealous, if you ask me.”

“Quite.” Louis’ bottom lip barely grazes his top one, but before he closes the near-nonexistent space left between then, he nearly whispers, “I’m going to ask you this time, because I’d rather not fuck things up again by trying to be spontaneous,” Harry nods and grins, giddy, in the dark, “can I kiss you, Harry?”

Harry doesn’t dignify that with a verbal confirmation; he’s too busy pressing their mouths together.

Upon impact his toes curl and his free hand twists into the fitted sheet. It’s just a dry, close-mouthed press of their lips, but it still sets his every nerve ending sparking with electricity. Harry only pulls back first to sigh at the faint taste of peppermint lingering on Louis’ lips, now tingling his own. Louis chuckles and promptly reels him back in to overlay more and more chaste kisses until their fronts are pressed flush together, legs tangled and free hands clasped between mirrored heartbeats. Until they’re breathless and have no choice but to pull away.

And between pauses to catch their breaths and giggle their glee into each other’s necks and cheeks, they kiss over a stretch of time only measured by the point that their eyelids finally grow heavy and the brushes of their mouths go sloppily and half-missed. Harry falls asleep with his fingers fisted in the back of Louis’ sweatshirt, and for the first time in months,

♡♡♡

It still takes until the last day for Louis to properly ask him. Even as they trade kisses every moment they can steal away together, and hold hands under the dining room table, perch on each other’s laps with reddened cheeks that advertise anything but worry, Louis doesn’t find the words until he’s taking Harry to the train station nine days after their new year confessional.

Harry’s standing on the platform wrapped in a scarf and his warmest coat with his spotted blanket bundled in his arms. Even under the cover of the vaulted awning, the pavement underfoot is slick in icy patches hidden by dirty chunks of snow, and the wind is a biting chill around him and the other waiting passengers.

He’s still warmed by the mumbled promise of ringing the instant he’s back home, and his cheek is still damp from Louis’ last kiss, but still he finds himself hoping for one more miracle to take back with him. It’s then, as he’s checking his mobile for a text he knows he won’t receive until the train is out of the city limits, that he hears a call of his name in the direction of the entrance hall. With barely five minutes until his train is set to arrive he’s running to Louis stood at the opposite end of the platform, like he has any kind of choice to just leave him there.

“M’train’s almost here,” is the first thing he says, standing in front of Louis expectantly.

It’s not like he can’t ask, or that he doesn’t want to. Yes, Harry’s previously held fears of rejection have dissipated to nothing thanks to each sparkling blue, crinkle-eyed smile he’s received in the last week—definitely accompanied by the earthy, warm way Louis’ mouth always tastes like black tea—but Louis keeps telling him that he wants to make it up to him for making Harry cry—as if wasn’t Harry’s own self-dug pit of despair that invited his tears—so he’s waiting. Impatiently.

Louis just shakes his head, his teeth chattering slightly in the cold, and bundles Harry’s scarf around him tighter. “I know,” so exasperated, “I just, one more thing before you go.”

“What’s that, then?”

Harry takes one step closer so their toes touching. Grins, his nose scrunching with the force of it. He watches Louis’ knead his lips together a few times, rub his hands together—telltale fiddling like he does whenever he’s nervous.

“I’d rather like you to be my boyfriend,” Louis mumbles, so shy and rosy on his cheeks. Harry wants to tease him for his bashfulness, but before he can, Louis’ taking his hands in his own and bringing their foreheads together, going cross-eyed as he reiterates, slightly more confident this time, “I’d really like you to be my boyfriend. Or partner. Or whatever you’d like for me to call you.”

And this time, Harry doesn’t give his confirmation through a kiss.

Well, he nods and giddily babbles, “Yeah, yes, I’d love to, fuck, please,” first, presses his gloved hands to Louis’ burning cheeks, and then kisses the smug grin off his face, more than happy to see his face when he does it, this time.