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"I can't believe you kissed me! And on stage," Liam said, following Louis into his dressing room after the show.
"I didn't kiss you," Louis replied. He grabbed a beer and cracked it open, not looking at Liam.
Lots of things that happen on stage tended to blend together, but Liam was absolutely certain about this. "Our mouths bumped together! That's kissing," Liam said.
"What kind of shitty kissing have you been doing," Louis said.
Liam refused to be baited. "Actually, if you think about it, kissing is a really weird thing to do. Like, who initially thought, hey, I know, let me put my mouth on someone else's mouth, that sounds nice."
"It wasn't on purpose so it doesn't count, anyway," Louis said, apparently still on that.
"Sure it does, we just accidentally kissed," Liam said. This wasn't exactly the conversation he had expected to have about this.
"You can't accidentally kiss someone," Louis said. He drank his beer and still wouldn't look at Liam.
"What if you didn't meant to kiss someone, but then in the moment you just did it without thinking?" Liam was pretty sure he had him there.
"Were you thinking about kissing me? Because I wasn't thinking about kissing you. So it wasn't a kiss, it was just--mouth touching," Louis said, peeling the label from his bottle.
Liam took a step back from Louis, suddenly uncertain. "Are you--are you angry with me?"
Louis finally looked at Liam. "No," he said, but it wasn't very convincing. "I'm not angry at you, it just wasn't real."
Somehow that hurt in a way Liam hadn't know Louis could hurt him. "Our mouths touched, which is what kissing is, so yes it was," he said stubbornly, folding his arms over his chest.
"Why do you even want it to have been a kiss? It wasn't even good!" Louis shouted.
"I wouldn't care if you weren't being so weird about it! But it was a kiss!" Liam yelled back, feeling more and more out of control.
"Listen, if I ever kissed you for real, then you would know it was a kiss," Louis said, pointing the neck of the beer bottle at Liam.
"That doesn't even make sense, I don't--" Liam was cut off when Louis suddenly surged forward and pressed his lips against Liam's, the hand not holding the beer curling around Liam's neck.
At first Liam was too shocked to respond in any way, other than to mentally compare it with what had happened on stage. If he was honest, he didn't really have a clear memory of what kissing (or mouth bumping, or whatever they were calling it) Louis had felt like. It had happened in a split second, one more moment on stage that seemed to exist in this strange is-this-reality space. Mostly he remembered the hard pressure of Louis's mouth and the immediate knowledge in his gut that somehow after years of dick tapping and water fights and wrestling Louis onstage, this was a line he'd never expected they would cross.
But then Louis's lips moved against his softly, slowly, but with obvious intent, and Liam forgot about comparing it with what had happened on stage, because he could only focus on Louis's mouth on him now. He moved with Louis, their lips slotting together like they'd done this a thousand times before. Louis sucked Liam's bottom lip into his mouth, a possessiveness in it that made Liam gasp, his mouth dropping open, and suddenly the kiss changed from being soft and almost gentle to being electric. He got his arms around Louis, fingers digging into his shoulders, and he heard the thud of Louis dropping the bottle of beer on the floor, his free hand now tight around Liam's waist.
Their mouths moved with each other, Liam's tongue sliding into Louis's mouth. He pressed Louis closer, hands finding their way up into Louis's hair and tugging back gently, angling their heads so the kiss could deepen further. Liam's heart was pounding in his chest, the overwhelming rightness of this moment drowning out every other thought in his mind. It was a give and take, a discovery of want and need that slotted into an empty, waiting space of him that he hadn't even known existed until it was filled. Every movement and choice was driven by instinct, by the knowledge that this was Louis, and he knew what to do.
So he bit Louis's lip and tugged, grinning when Louis gasped and began to shake in response. And he let Louis take control from there, overwhelming Liam with his mouth and his hands and his everything, until he pulled back and invited Liam to chase him. It was utterly, perfectly familiar and completely unknown, all at once, and Liam never wanted to stop.
Finally, Louis pulled away from Liam's mouth. He was looking down, his forehead pressed against Liam's, and Liam suddenly needed to lean in and kiss him again quickly, just to reassure them both. Everything had changed, and yet nothing had, because he'd loved Louis so much his body sometimes felt like it would explode from it for ages, and a little kissing didn't affect that at all.
Louis still wouldn't look at him after Liam pulled away from that second kiss (although Liam was unsure of how exactly they were counting kisses now). But Louis was smiling, the tiny dimple in his cheek a sign that Liam had done well. Louis shifted closer, his cheek sliding along Liam's as he leaned in to whisper in his ear. "See, that was kissing."
Liam shivered at the puff of Louis's breath against his skin. They had stood like this a million times before, had a thousand conversations on stage with their arms wrapped around each other in just this way. But the press of Louis's fingers at the back of his neck felt completely new, like somehow there was still another level of learning Louis's body that he'd unlocked without ever knowing it was there.
Liam let his fingers dance up and down Louis's spine, astonished to discover how different that felt now than it had thirty minutes ago. His entire body went hot with excitement and a need that had hidden inside him, dormant, for too long. He angled his head to whisper back, "I'm not sure I'm clear on the difference yet--show me again?"
Liam felt Louis smile against his cheek before pulling back from him. Louis's eyes burned bright as he said, "Pay attention this time, then," and leaned in.