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The summer air's warm, but not unbearable, wafting in from outside in occasional breezes that billow the curtains, and tickle Niall's bare neck. Harry's piled his ever longer hair on top of his head with one hand, the other one shoved down a pocket of his jeans, looking for a hair tie. He doesn't seem to find one, since he repeats the process with the other three pockets before groaning and letting his hand and hair fall down again.
Niall can't help but laugh at the forlorn expression on Harry's face.
"There's never hair ties around when you need them,” Harry pouts.
"Let's go outside," Niall says. He's never yet known Holmes Chapel to be too warm during summer nights.
Harry doesn't look convinced.
"We'll grab a blanket and look at the stars and make up names for them. It'll be romantic,” Niall coaxes.
That at least gets Harry to laugh. "Wooing me, Horan?”
"For the past six years,” Niall nods solemnly, prompting another laugh. Their mutual crush was never as serious as that; 90% friendship and only a little kissing and loneliness.
"Well, then. Let's go have a midnight stargaze,” Harry says, pushing himself up from the floor before ambling over to the hallway closet to grab a blanket they can put on the ground outside. Niall watches the lines of his legs and arms, the ratty t-shirt that hangs off his shoulders like effortless high fashion, and grins to himself. You can take the boy out of the spotlight, but you can't take the mega star out of the boy. Not this boy, at least. They did always say Harry was the born popstar among them.
"'s almost two," Niall says belatedly, just as Harry returns with the blanket.
“Sh,” Harry shushes him. "Midnight sounds better.”
"Harry Styles, always writing songs,” Niall comments and follows Harry's laugh outside.
They don't go far, just to the edge of the bungalow's property, where Liam once stood on the lower bar of the wooden fence and shouted into the night so a cow wouldn't come murder than in their sleep. Well. Something like that.
The moon is full and bright tonight, the grass under their bare feet still dry. lt's not cold out, but it is a little cooler, breeze a little more pronounced as it rustles the leaves of nearby trees and makes the blades of grass underfoot tickle at Niall's ankles. Elsewhere, in a different moment, by himself, it might freak Niall out a bit, but Harry doesn't pay the noises of the night any mind, placing the blanket on the ground humming to himself. So Niall closes his eyes, breathes in the scent of a summer night far from a city, and focusses on the sound of Harry's voice. A grin tugs at Niall's lips, brain supplying the lyrics automatically.
All my favourite conversations always made in the AM.
"Talked to Tommo the other day,” he says, lying down on the blanket while Harry's still smoothing out a corner.
"Yeah?” Harry says, lying down almost perpendicular to Niall, his head on Niall's chest. Niall oofs exaggeratedly and then lifts a hand to card through Harry's hair.
"Hm. The voice memos he and Leemo send are getting more and more ridiculous. I'm not sure they know how to do this break thing.”
Harry laughs a little. “They sent us a song all about cronuts. I think they're fine.”
Niall laughs as he remembers Louis’ voice crooning "what the fuck are you supposed to be?” over a few plaintive piano chords, Liam laughing in the background.
"True,” he says.
They fall silent for a while, both lost in their own thoughts, but Harry's head on Niall's chest a heavy, warm reminder that Niall isn't alone out here under all these stars.
"That one kinda looks like a cronut,” Harry says, pointing upward,
Niall laughs and doesn't bother following the line of Harry's arm, twisting a strand of Harry's hair around his finger instead.
Definitely not alone.
The End