Work Text:
*
The first time Louis does it, they’re drunk.
Warm, dizzy, bubbling. Fizzing insides. Recollecting the feeling of being in love. Drunk.
They’ve been toiling their days away on second, and third jobs, on extra shifts for a little extra cash under the table. To afford heating. To afford anything , really . Harry had chosen to go out to a bar despite just coming home smelling like one. He could forgo another night of beer-battered fish and nauseating fits of body odour on the dancefloor to stay in.
But, frankly, the kitchen had turned into their dancefloor these days. It was wonderful the way it was like always, but they ought to change things up too.
Harry was exhausted; only wanted to fall asleep to soaking his blistered feet, but something told him that they were staying in far too much for a pair that was always out working.
Louis naturally didn’t know how to say no to him. Not even after all these years.
He didn’t object though they stood outside the bar in the cold and Louis didn’t let up wrenching his mouth open to a chain of jaw-splitting yawns. Harry almost felt bad for forcing him out until they got to their beers. Well, Louis- the beers and Harry; just about anything. Together, with their drinking choices, could barely hold on to their liquor.
By the time they got back to their flat, the alcohol had gone south and Harry was fighting a battle between getting Louis’s clothes off in the hallway outside and singing to the moon.
“You’re going to wake the neighbours,” Harry panted out as if his hand wasn’t working on the button of Louis’s trousers.
“That’s the point.”
Fuck.
“Open the door,” he hissed at Louis where he had him pressed to the wood.
Louis stopped kissing him, driving his fingers into the nape of Harry’s neck. He had that look in his eyes like he was about to treat their time together orderly. Honestly, Harry loved being put in his place. “You have the keys,” he accused.
Palming the front of his trouser pockets, Harry pulled them out.
Louis scoffed and then bit his collarbone through his shirt, his spit dampening on the fabric.
When the cold air hit him, Harry couldn’t help but giggle. “Wait,” he gasped.
“You didn’t want to wait earlier,” Louis pointed out. “What makes you think I-”
Harry’s fingers fumbled with the set of keys- they juggled in the air before splatting down on the carpeted floor.
Louis pulled back to look down, their heads bowed in the space between them, heaving in tow. “Butterfingers,” Harry muttered, guffawing at himself.
Thankfully, Louis being the gentleman he is, bent down to pick up, except-
Like it’s straight out of a film, he’s on one knee, extending the key ring to Harry in offer. The maniacal grin on his face makes Harry forget where they just where they were in terms of stripping each other.
This is a film, Harry told himself.
He pressed his lips together and stood upright, catching his reeling head. Just to indulge Louis, he offered back his left hand- fingers spread expectantly.
Louis slid the too big key ring down the length of his second finger.
Just the sight of them in that space, in that plane of existence. At that moment, with those feelings in their heads. With all that they had and all that they didn’t. It’s enough to make Harry swing forward and titter with laughter. A second later, they’re a web of limbs on the floor laughing raucously at absolutely nothing until an adjacent flat door opens to a scolding face.
**
Harry was buzzing by the time he climbed the stairs to the flat.
He knew Louis was already home in the way the doormat was askew outside. “Baby,” he called into the small interior as he unlocked it. “Baaaaaaabyyyyyyy!”
No answer.
He sauntered deeper into the flat, as much it allowed, and peeked past the room divider. Louis was sitting in their unmade bed, sheets like garlands around him. His laptop was the only thing illuminating his face, lost in the music flowing through his earphones, one of its wires caught between Louis’s teeth as he gnawed away at it. Filthy habit, that. When Harry stepped out and into the room, the sudden movement made Louis startle.
“Jesus,” gasped Louis, pencil rolling away. He plucked his earphones out with a flick of his hand. “When did you come home?”
“Just now,” Harry said as he shuffled in to duck under the strap of his shoulder bag to get it off. “Dinner?”
Louis pouted. “All you, my love.”
“All me every time,” muttered Harry. “Lucky for you, we’re going to feast like kings tonight.”
Louis scrunched his eyebrows together. “Are we?”
Harry reached back into his bag. “I went to see Niall after my shift and he gave me some leftovers from the cafe,” he pulled out a squashed paper box, flipping open the lid. “Tadaaaa!”
Louis craned his neck to get a gander. “Doughnuts?”
“Stale doughnuts,” corrected Harry. “Which are great bread alternatives. Cheese toastie?”
Taking a moment to think about it, Louis hummed. “Do you mind doing it yourself, H? I’ll do the dishes and clean. I really need to finish this up and send it to the boss in fifteen.”
That’s how Harry found himself in the kitchen, singing a low melody to the walls as he scraped the glaze into a chipped tea cup. It would serve as a great sugar replacement in their tea for the next couple of days. He’d have to refrigerate it, of course. Their near-pauper status afforded Harry with brains for saving like nothing else. However, he hadn’t known that Niall was going to give him a dozen doughnuts for free, he was grateful nonetheless.
The makeshift cheese toasties were ready with a pot of tea in no time, just as Louis walked into the kitchen. It was a travesty of a kitchen; how they had to step past the divider of their ‘bedroom’ towards their cupboard of pots and pans, and their cooker small enough to look like Toys R Us threw it at them . A complimentary platform like a last-minute pity.
Clearly, Harry was feeling too reflective about their state of life. It’s hard to look past it though, he could insist there’s more to it.
“That doesn’t smell too bad,” Louis mused from behind him.
“Where do you want to eat?”
“Here,” Louis grimaced. “I need to get back to work in a bit.”
Harry bit his tongue. “Okay,” he slapped a toastie down onto a plate and handed it over.
First thing he did, Louis pressed his face to the plate, taking in a lungful. “You’re a genius.”
“I know.”
“How was your day?”
Harry shrugged. His shoulders hurt and shrugging only reminded him. He was actually glad he didn’t get screamed at or get something thrown at the whole day. Might even be a good day. “So-so. You’re busy, though. You haven’t moved an inch since I left.”
“Year-end submissions,” he replied darkly with a benign eye roll. “Fucking hate when March rolls around.” He bit into his smashed doughnut and let out a yelp. “Oooh, fuck, that’s fuckin’ hot, innit?”
Harry laughed at him.
“But, it’s good,” Louis stretched the word through his clenched teeth. Without an afterthought, Louis bent down to make himself comfortable on the kitchen floor against the stained cupboard. Without a secondary afterthought, Harry flipped his own toastie onto another plate and grabbed a jar of Nutella as well as the doughnuts before sitting down beside him.
“It’s just March, isn’t it,” he offered gently. Both of them knew that wasn’t true. It was Louis pulling his hair out for all the months of the year and then a little extra during March like it was a tipping point.
“Yeah, I guess,” he muttered.
“Lou…”
But Louis knew him all too well. In that tone and his name, he knew very well that Harry would try to placate him about the morbid state of their lives as much as they tried to forget it. But no one told them how much of a thought process goes into suddenly being stripped of everything and having to deal with it. Louis with his fuck-all, low-paying job with long hours and Harry with his master’s course and part-times. They were holding onto a utopian future like it was a fucking buoy.
“I don’t want to talk about it, H,” he bit out . “If that’s okay.”
Harry fell silent- tight-lipped and empty-minded at once. “Yeah,” he said quietly.
Louis sighed. “I don’t want to think for the five minutes that I get to eat, you know what I mean,” he said. “Especially not about work. Not around you.”
“Okay.”
Save for a few hums from Louis as he ate, there was silence loud enough that the heartbeat in Harry’s ears took it for space. “I just think we have to wait it out,” he said for the millionth time.
He knew he was starting an argument with Louis in all honesty, being a realist over an idealist. But for once, Louis just nodded as he chewed. “Wait it out,” he agreed, surprising him.
They finished their toasties in silence and drank their fill of tea while the kettle was hot. It was between the third or fourth cup that Louis idly picked up a doughnut from the box and swirled it around on a finger as Harry watched over the rim of his cup with sleepy eyes. Then, Louis reached for his left hand. He steadied the doughnut and slipped it onto his ring finger.
Harry nearly inhaled his tea through his nose with a laugh. “Is this gonna be a habit with you?”
Louis shrugged and the first smile of the evening finally made an appearance, and along came Harry’s relief. Then he leaned in and chomped down on the doughnut, tearing away a bit while Harry laughed at him and bit in as well .
***
There was a patch of grass a little way from where Harry was seated on the bench. He stopped spinning the wad of floral tape around his finger as he watched a blindfolded girl chase the air for her friends who darted away in rapid bursts of laughter.
He could feel himself smiling at the sight. The light tinge of sadness was quick to follow - that’s just how nostalgia worked.
Something heavy plopped down next to him. “Stole you some food.”
Harry looked away and at his boyfriend. “What do you mean ‘stole’?”
Louis flicked his head over his shoulder.
When Harry turned to glance, he saw a gaggle of children attacking a picnic table laden with trays of food. Even from so far away, he could spot the violent fisting and throttling between each one and the subsequent sacrifice of the food in question. He looked away and at the plate that Louis brought him. “Is that safe to consume?”
Louis snorted and went to nick a crisp off it before he got back to playing with a sprig of baby’s breath that he had snatched up. It wasn’t until Harry ate the proffered food that he realised he was hungry at all . Spending his whole morning teaching loud, young girls how to make flower crowns could do that to one. Before he knew it, he was scarfing down the rest of it.
“So,” Louis began. “How were your duties?”
He groaned. Making flower crowns with a group of prepubescent kids was far more relaxed in his mind than out. When faced with it, he had to take away flowers from a pair who were attacking each other with them, safeguard the scissors, work the first-aid kit, and patrol the rest like a prowl car. “I want to go home and sleep for two whole days. And I don’t want to see another kid for a month.”
“Don’t let my mum catch you saying that,” guffaws Louis.
In a short panic, Harry looks about and finds that Julie is busy with some kids by the bounce house where Louis was first posted. “She took over from you,” he noticed.
“Probably because I looked like I was gonna faint,” Louis revealed with a snort. “Yelling at kids takes quite a bit of energy.”
“Remember when you told me you wanted six kids,” said Harry. “Changed your mind?”
“I was seventeen, Hazza. What did I know?”
Harry hummed in agreement. “I like your sisters and they have good taste. So does your mum. She’s a saint for arranging this whole birthday party, but twenty kids on sugar?”
“Yeah, she should have paid us,” mutters Louis.
They glanced away from the kids and at each other and couldn’t help but laugh.
“So, that’s a no to six kids?”
Louis glared at him. “What do you think?”
Harry tamped down on his grin. “What do you think?”
“I think,” Louis began. He takes Harry’s hand into his and slides a makeshift ring on his finger. There’s a singular daisy poking out, its stalk curved around into a band, stuck together with a fat wad of floral tape. He had been so occupied watching the kids that he didn’t notice Louis and his abstract artwork. “We have other things to get done before kids.”
Harry raised his brows at the ‘ring’ and then at Louis, amused. “Didn’t take you for a traditional man,” he mused. “I guess this is you courting me, then. Should I wave my handkerchief at you?”
Just then, a bedraggled Julie called for Louis from the other side of the lawn. Wordlessly, Louis got up, but not before scowling at him. “I’ll have my servant deliver my love letters to you!” he called, waving his left hand in the air, the ring already falling apart.
****
Harry raced against the cold in his face. Despite what Google Maps said and his own god-given stamina, it took him an extra ten minutes to make his way to Turtle Bay on Argyle Street, what with all the crossing and the Saturday night crowd. Niall had picked a peak time to meet, but he understood because they all had to unwind.
What he didn’t understand was why it took him so long to walk from his advisor’s office (bless her for the off-hour meeting, really) and why it was fucking monkeys outside and why he thought it was a good idea to forgo wearing a jacket. His measly jumper stood against nothing now.
Soon enough, the familiar yellow silhouette of a turtle appeared before him and he ran towards it like it was the pearly gates. Through the windows, he saw Niall and Louis talking to themselves over a plate of sweetcorn fritters. Without a pause, he pushed his way into the warmth of the pub and made a beeline for them.
Niall looked up just in time and passed him a token grin. “Hiya, Haz. Alright?”
As Harry opened his mouth to speak, he realised he was out of breath. “Don’t ask, mate,” he gasped out gravely and moved to give him a one-armed hug. “Time to get pissed.”
While Niall cheered and hooted, Harry turned to give Louis a kiss and hopped onto the barstool. He rubbed his hands together and pulled his sleeves lower. “Did you decide on the food?”
“On its way,” supplied Louis. “Got you a cider, babe.”
Harry sighed out of relief. “Cheers,” he muttered, immediately, navigating the standalone bottle on their table and tipping it back.
“Busy day?”
He slid his eyes to Niall’s inquisitive gaze. “My advisor fucked me.”
There was an off second while it clicked in Harry, but almost immediately, Louis choked on his beer and dribbled it down his front. It set off a reaction of Niall’s boisterous laughter that rang around them, following up with Harry’s illegible sputtering. “I meant- that’s not what I- she, it’s not that,” Harry felt his face grow hot. “That’s not what I meant!”
“No shit,” barked Niall, face equally red from laughing.
“I’m fucked,” he conceded. “I have to redo a whole lot!”
“As long as you’re not doing your advisor,” quipped Louis, having recovered.
Harry glowered at him, switching between the pair of immature idiots.
After a few minutes of their giggles, the table settled down as Harry continued to nonchalantly make his way through his cider . “Done?” he asked eventually.
Niall let it go with one last smile. “Yea, soz, mate. Couldn’t pass up,” he said. “Lou was just saying you’re staying here for Christmas?”
Harry glanced at his boyfriend and then shrugged. “Can’t go back home. You know how the tickets are,” he pasted on a smile. “Why d’you ask?”
“Want to make Boxing Day plans?”
Harry hummed into a fritter with his hand cupped under his chin as he chewed thoughtfully. “Yeah, sounds alright,” he gave him a knowing look. “Maybe we can meet your new girlfriend.”
Niall grimaced. “She’s a nurse,” he said. “She might have to work through the month but I’ll talk to her.”
As Harry and Louis nodded in unison, a comfortable silence fell over the table. Until-
Niall snatched his wrist. “What’s that?”
“What?”
He poked Harry’s finger. “This.”
Glancing down, Harry noticed the flimsy little metal trinket wrapped around his finger. Louis had fashioned it out of a broken paper clip while on his lunch break at work the previous day. A loop of thin steel and the rest of it twined around it like a vine; however he managed it. When he jokingly slid it on Harry’s finger at home, he was sheepish about it. Harry couldn’t comprehend how he went to work and his advisor with it on his hand and no questions in return; essentially the whole day.
He was still protective over the scrap metal, pulling his arm away from the tabletop. He glanced over at Louis who only grinned at him. “Nothing,” he muttered with a playful roll of his eyes.
Niall wasn’t stupid, though. He looked between them beadily. “Plonkers, both of you,” he muttered. “I shouldn’t even ask.”
As if on cue, their curry arrived and effectively shut them all up.
*****
Honestly, Harry thought he was quiet until he heard Louis call out to him.
He had his work pried open before him. Minutes in, he didn’t quite know how it started, but he was sitting there and sobbing and biting into his sweater paws, alternating between mopping his tears with the material of it. He wasn’t sure how to stop or if he wanted to at all . Nothing was making sense; not the work that he spent months on, not the fact that it was torn apart under a professor’s scrutiny, not even that he had to start over with the same shit he had in the beginning.
It would be simpler to set all of his work on fire and throw it out the kitchen window, and maybe forget why he wanted the academic life in the first place. He was stupid- not just for thinking he could do it, but for having to think about giving it up more than halfway through.
“Hazza?”
Harry paused mid-hiccup. He craned his neck past the lounge to find Louis puttering out of their bedroom, rubbing his eyes. He sat frozen, hoping Louis wouldn’t actually come to find him or see him in all that he was being.
But Louis turned and found him anyway. His shoulders fell immediately. “H, what are you doing?” he asked softly.
As if one breakdown wasn’t enough, Harry crumpled in on himself, no longer able to keep the ugly wailing under his breath. He buried his face in his hands to contain the sounds but to no avail.
“Oh no , no, no, no, no, no, no,” Louis started as he zipped to him and fell beside him. “Why are you crying? Is something wrong, babe? What do I do?”
He began to shake his head. “I don’t want to do this anymore,” he wailed. “Lou, I don’t think I can.”
“What, babe? What are you talking about?”
“This,” he gestured roughly to the papers strewn around him. “I don’t need a stupid master’s degree. I’ll be fine without it.”
It was quiet for a moment before, Louis shuffled to get comfortable on the ground next to him, facing him while Harry looked anywhere but at him. He took Harry’s hands from where they were pressed to his eyes. “Do you really think that, Hazza?” he asked under his breath, tilting his head down and in so that they could match gazes. “Is it?”
Harry’s chest hitched with a swallowed sob. “I dunno,” he muttered through his nose. “But, I can’t do it. I can’t,” and then came the onslaught of tears again. “Lou, don’t make me-“
Louis shushed him immediately, folding him into his arms and tucking Harry's head under his chin. “I’m not gonna make you do anything, babe, alright. Let’s just - Go to bed, yeah? Do you want to go to bed?”
Harry shook his head harshly and tried pulling away in vain. “I have so much to do,” he gasped. “I can’t leave any of it!”
“Alright,” said Louis. He smoothed Harry’s hair, completely still despite their tangled limbs. “Let’s not leave it then. Do you want to work on it?”
“I don’t want to,” cried Harry. “But, I can’t not. I dunno what I’m…”
Then, Louis pulled him away to look him in the face. His eyes were earnest, hand never stopping their strokes down Harry’s scalp. “We can do some work,” he complied. “I can double-check your citations while you work, yeah? I can put it on that Harvard thing if you’d like.”
“Harvard referencing,” supplied Harry.
“Yeah, that,” agreed Louis in haste. “I can do that. Let me put the kettle on?”
Harry gripped him harder and shook his head.
“Or we don’t need tea,” Louis said breezily. “We can take a breather and get to work. Alright?”
His sobs having dwindled into little wheezes, Harry glanced up at his boyfriend and found that even in the dark he could see how Louis’s face sagged down. “Okay,” he said meekly.
“Okay,” Louis parroted. He brought his hands to wipe Harry’s face, smiling sadly as he swabbed the rest of Harry’s wet face. “Okay. There’s my Hazza, there he is. We’re going to work on this together and get it done, yeah.” He paused between ruffling around and peers into Harry, lips pulled down. “I think you’re so smart, love,” he whispered. “The education system is wonky, but you’re much more than that. You can do this, you know . But , if you decide tomorrow, or in a week, or whenever, that it isn’t for you, it’s completely okay. You’re still my smart boy, alright?”
Harry nodded tentatively, sniffling.
“Good,” said Louis. “Good. Now, let’s get to work.” He tucked the frizzy mess that was Harry’s hair behind his ears, pressing his lips to Harry’s forehead. “Now, smile for me, please. There’s a good lad.” He reached into the clutter of Harry’s things to pick out a bobble. They must look so strange; Harry with his large limbs curled into Louis’s lap.
Louis combed his hair out of his face, tilting his head away by his chin and drawing all of his hair into a hand to snap into a bobble. “Good,” he repeated, smiling at Harry’s wreck of a face. He second-guessed reaching and then decided against as he reached through the pens once more and pulled out another bobble. This time, he took Harry’s hand and wrapped it once and then twice around Harry’s ring finger, not before kissing his knuckle.
He could just cry once more.
But, before any of that could conspire, Louis rubbed his back and reached for Harry’s laptop with the other hand. “Bring me those Harvards now. I’m gonna fuck ‘em up.”
~
He might not know it, but Louis was humming along to the Christmas music he claimed he abhorred to hell. Louis complained all week as Harry ran his Spotify to the ground. But there he was, singing from the corner of his mouth like he wasn’t aware he was doing it. Harry knew better to not to point it out.
The lights were dim, wrapped around the plastic Christmas tree and lying on the floor in all their length. There were empty mugs of cocoa left out to dry on the tea table and the pair of them were on a duvet spread on the ground like they were children at a sleepover. It’s the least they could do. They had Skyped their families earlier. Then, they followed it up with a feast of roast chicken, and cauliflower cheese, with the lights turned out to just the tree. Somehow their set-up made Harry feel like a child. Which reminded him-
Harry jumped to his feet. “Got you something,” he told the silence around them.
Louis lolled his head towards him. “Huh?”
Socks skidding on the cold floors, Harry zipped back and forth with a large rectangular box wrapped in a red ribbon around it and placed it softly beside Louis’s feet. “Open it.”
“I thought we said no gifts,” said Louis while he looked down, puzzled.
“Open it!” he pounced down beside Louis.
“Are you proposing to me?”
Harry glared at him. “As if you’d ever let me live that down.”
“Keep that in mind,” said Louis pointedly as he pulled the ribbon loose. “Don’t want any unsolicited proposals.”
“Unsolicited,” Harry muttered under his breath with a snort. “It’s not much.”
Without another word, Louis undid the wrap and pulled out the box, giving it a little cursory shake. “Earphones!” he exclaimed. “Perfect, I needed a pair!”
“After you literally chewed through the last ones,” teased Harry.
Louis pretended to not hear as he turned a deaf ear in the air. “What’s that? A mosquito? I wonder where it came from.”
Rolling his eyes, Harry knocked a shoulder into him and then snuggled into the warmth of the duvet around him, resting his chin on Louis’s shoulder.
“I didn’t get you anything,” said Louis, quietly.
Harry hummed, closing his eyes. “’S alright. We did say no gifts.”
Louis didn’t answer.
There was a lull that hung around too long, enough to make Harry notice. He budged his head against Louis’s throat and turned to look at him. “Alright?” he whispered.
“I don’t know, Harry,” murmured Louis, tone serious. “I don’t know what to think.”
With a minute jerk, Harry lifted himself to glance at him. “What do you mean?”
Louis shrugged lazily, peering back at Harry with sorrowful eyes. Alarms began to go off in Harry’s head. “I didn’t get you anything,” he repeated.
Harry opened his mouth to protest but found himself simply confused. “I didn’t need anything,” he insisted. “We discussed this already. The earphones were a last-minute purchase, I promise.”
A beat passed through the air like it was made of lead.
“Are you happy, Harry?”
Sputtering, Harry shuffled away to get a full glance at him. “What are you talking about? Why are you,” he cut himself off, nearly stammering in an attempt to get all his words out at once. “Of course, I am. Louis, I am. Are you not?”
“Even though we live like this?” demanded Louis. “In this flat? While I can barely make time for you? Or give you a ring?”
There it was.
Harry almost laughed at Louis’s stupidity- because frankly; that’s what it was. Sheer stupidity to think that a ring meant more to him than everything the years had to show for them. “Louis,” he began, trying to keep his voice levelled. “We’ve been struggling. Both of us. It’s a tough time but it’ll pass. Tell me you know that.”
Louis just stared.
“This isn’t about happiness. We can be happy or unhappy, comfortable or broke, I couldn’t care any less,” he said fiercely. “You’re here with me, aren’t you? You didn’t stop once or thought you wanted out. I’m doing this with you,” he sighed. “I’m having a life with you.”
There was a crack in Louis’s constructed face, and it gave way to the rest of it falling. “I knew I would marry you when I was fifteen,” he said quietly. “Might have been insane for thinking it that time. I told myself I had ten years to ask you. Ten years to grow a pair. Now, I’m twenty-eight.”
Harry smiled at him; nothing he could insult as a habit but one nonetheless. “Got there sooner, didn’t you,” he said. “We wouldn’t have lasted if things were how fifteen-year-old-you thought they were. He didn’t know anything.” When Louis hummed, he took it positively. “Give yourself some credit and let go of that boy. Listen to me for a change.”
Solemnly, Louis nodded, looking away and hands busying in plucking at a corner of the duvet.
“Lou…”
Then, Louis nodded harder, looking back at him like he both wanted to Harry to hold him and not address it too.
When Harry reached for his cheek, Louis leaned into it, sighing. As he leaned in to kiss him, Louis only graciously kissed back, letting Harry rub the crease between his eyebrows as they kissed over and over again .
~~~
Harry is locked out of his own email.
For a second, he panics, mouse jerking in his hand as he roves over the ‘forgot password?’ until it hits him. It’s Louis’s doing. He chews on his lip, narrowing his eyes at the screen before he throws his head over his shoulder and hollers for his boyfriend. “Baby!”
A second later, Louis’s head peeks past the room divider. “You called, H?”
“Did you change my email password?”
The rest of Louis’s body follows as he steadies himself on his feet and fiddles with his tie. “Sorry, didn’t hear you.”
“Did you- “
“Sorry, Hazza, don’t know what you’re- “
Before Louis can slip out of the room, he snaps, “Louis, get back here!” Then, sheepishly, Louis dallies into the lounge and folds his arms across his chest. “Did you change my password?”
Louis stares him down.
Harry raises his eyebrows
“You check it like, every five minutes! You need to be restrained!”
“Don’t talk to me about being restrained,” he barks. “You’re the one who messed with my email !”
“I’m sorry,” said Louis, hotly. “It’s your email, you can check it all you want. I want you to get into a good PhD program, babe, I do. I also want to celebrate you being done with your masters before that news comes. I just want,” he sighs. “Can we dress nice and have a fancy dinner date to celebrate my smart boyfriend before he becomes smarter?”
Harry will be damned if that doesn’t make him smile. “Fine,” his voice comes out wobbly . “You’re right. But, that doesn’t make changing my password-“
Louis hoots and zips back into the bedroom. “It’s ilovedicks8===D.”
Horrified, Harry gawks after him. “How many equals is that? And are there any capital letters?”
Tie fully done, Louis steps out of the room to give him a shrewd look. “Where’s your blazer? I don’t see it on.”
Harry knows when to accept defeat. He shuts his laptop, jumps up to snatch the blazer off the arm of the sofa and shrugs it on. He runs a hand through his hair and shakes it off. “Do I look okay?”
As Louis gets closer, he can see the suit fitting him in all the right places. Harry will have fun taking it off tonight, and he has the bus ride over to contemplate the order of clothing to come off. “Perfect, babe,” he says shakily. He looks up at Harry with so much pride that it’s hard to match his gaze. “Are you, erm. Are you ready? To go?”
“Yeah, let’s.”
“Sure?”
Harry glances down at himself; his suit and dress shoes and then the length of Louis. “We’re set,” he says confidently.
Louis nods, gulping. “Be a love and grab the keys, will you,” he says. “I’m right behind you.”
He drifts past Louis and reaches for the key hanger beside the door only to lose his breath.
They’re all unoccupied, save for one. A little silver band hangs from it, stark against the dark wood. There. Waiting for Harry, almost.
He flips around to find Louis on his knees on the floor.
“Lou,” he breathes out.
“Forgive me, H,” Louis says with a watery laugh and he’s crying already, but Harry isn’t far behind. “I’ve grown a little old. Can’t do one knee. Should have practised this.” There’s a tear that falls from the corner of Harry’s eye and straight into his mouth when he lets out a garbled laugh. “Forgive me for not proposing at the restaurant. It’s a great restaurant to be proposed at, trust me. I had it all planned. I would give them the ring and they would hide it in a quenelle of ice cream and top it with a chocolate dome. Quite dramatic, you would have loved it.”
“Louis, I…” he begins.
“But,” Louis says, sniffling. “I thought what’s better than that? Bringing it full circle to the first time I pretended to propose. In the same shitty flat. I’m gonna miss it when we start moving out next week.”
Harry laughs at him, pawing away his stupid tears with his hands.
“I’m getting distracted,” huffs Louis. “I’ve been carrying that ring in my pocket every day for the last four months. You almost found it a dozen times in the laundry, I’ve left it in the shower too many times, I’ve practised proposed to Niall so much that he probably would have agreed to marry me.” Louis pauses to smile when Harry laughs. “I just wanted everything to be perfect for you, Hazza.”
It is though, and Harry wouldn’t ask for more, nor would he think that this moment with Louis on his knees and his wonky speech were any less. It’s beyond perfect. It’s nothing if not immaculate. Right in all the ways.
“Now, be a good lad and give that to us, babe,” says Louis. “Don’t put it on yourself. I’ll never forgive you!”
Harry giggles as he hands over the ring.
Louis offers it right back to him. “Alright, now. Hazza, will you marry me? I’ll be very cross if you don’t.”
After all that, and everything Louis had to say, Harry can only manage a thorough nod. He laughs as Louis cheers and slides the ring onto the finger that’s begun to feel familiar. It’s just as sweet as all the trials before this. It’s more jarring, if not. He looks down at his hand in awe and wriggles it to see if it’s really his.
“Like it?”
Instead of answering him, Harry crouches to kiss the ever-living fuck out of his fiancé. Many proposals or not, that’s a first one. And he bloody loves it.