Archive of Our Own ^beta

The art for this fic (which can be found in its full sized glory here and here) was done by Ace, and is so, so wonderful. She also made a fanmix, which you can find here. She's been amazing, and we cannot thank her enough for her contribution. It's all truly amazing.

“So, like– What should we do?” Harry asks, shifting around on the couch and tucking a stray lock of hair behind his ear. He seems nervous, fidgeting with his rings and darting his eyes around the room. Someone off-screen says something that the microphone doesn’t quite pick up, and Harry rolls his eyes before responding with, “I know that we’ve done this a thousand times before, you arse. It’s never been just the two of us for something like this though. Like– A documentary is different than a five minute interview.”

“Well it’s not exactly just the two of us now, is it?” Niall laughs, walking into the shot and pressing a fleeting kiss to Harry’s cheek before taking a seat on the other side of the couch.

The meaning of his words is made apparent right away when three more bodies throw themselves into view, scrambling over each other to take their places on the couch as well. The two eldest, twin boys who look just like Niall, crawl up on either side of him. Their faces and outfits are identical, but they couldn’t look more different.

The one that sits in the very center of the couch, James, seems eager and bold for his five years. His hair is styled up in a faux-hawk, and his arms are adorned with an array of temporary tattoos that match as best as they can to Harry’s. His eyes are bright, and his smile wide, and it’s obvious that he’s eager to do this.

His brother, William, is far more reserved, wedging himself under Niall’s arm and hiding most of his face against Niall’s chest. He wears glasses, unlike his brother, and there are no traces of any tattoos, temporary or otherwise, on his arms or legs. His fingers curl into Niall’s shirt, and the arm around him tightens until he relaxes.

The last member of the trio pats impatiently at Harry’s knee until he lifts her up to sit in his lap. She’s got a mess of straight black hair pinned away from her face by purple bows, and her light blue-grey eyes contrast strikingly with her dark skin. She doesn’t look like the rest of her family, but she fits into the picture like a missing puzzle piece, and everyone visibly relaxes once she turns to face forward with a brilliant smile. It’s clear, even from the outside, that she’s a charmer of epic proportions.

“Alright.” comes a deep voice from off camera. “Now that we’ve got the whole clan gathered, how about we get the introductions out of the way? We can start with Harry, and work our way down to Willie.”

“William.” the shy boy pipes up, face turning red while he pushes his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. “I’m not Willie. I’m William.”

“Yeah, he really doesn’t like that.” Niall chuckles, his face incredibly fond as he strokes his thumb over his son’s shoulder. “Stick to calling him William.”

“Sorry.” the off-screen voice says gently. “Won’t happen again, William.”

“Thank you, Ben.” William says with a small smile before tucking his face back against Niall’s stomach.

“Since William decided to start it off, why don’t you go the other way?” Ben asks.

“Well I’m Niall Horan-Styles, and if you’re watching this documentary, you probably already know that.” Niall hums, nodding for James to go next.

“I’m Jimmy.” he says proudly, with just a bit too much swagger for a five year old. “Call me James, and I’ll kick you in the leg.”

“You will not!” Harry hisses, a stern expression crossing his face while Niall claps a hand over his own mouth to stifle a snorting laugh. “Behave yourself, for god’s sake.”

Jimmy just smirks and settles back against the couch, rolling his eyes at the camera the moment Harry turns away.

“I’m Harry Horan-Styles, and I won’t be as presumptuous as my cocky husband is, and just assume that you know who I am.” Harry says with a captivating smile. “In two-thousand-ten, on a show called The X-Factor, my husband and I were put into a band with three other lads. We called ourselves-”

“Shut up.” Niall giggles. “Ben’s already adding that whole part in, aren’t you, Winston?”

“We have a segment dedicated to it, yes.” Ben confirms.

“Well, fine then.” Harry huffs. “Ava, can you introduce yourself?”

“I Aibhlinn!” she announces enthusiastically, looking off camera towards where the interviewer is presumably seated. “I two!”

She holds up her fingers, showing everyone just how old she is, and all four lads on-screen absolutely melt. William smiles brightly at her, and Jimmy holds his hand up for her to high-five, which she does eagerly. Harry and Niall have twin looks of adoration on their faces, the pride of parents radiating off of them palpably, even through the lens of a camera.

“So that’s it.” Niall says, looking back towards the camera. “This is our family. The Horan-Styles household in its entirety.”

“Nuh-uh, Dad.” William interjects. “You forgot Wolf and Bastet.”

“Those are our dog and cat respectively.” Harry explains. “We got them at the same time, and the twins each named one.”

“Bet you can’t guess who named which pet.” Niall laughs, rubbing his hands over both of the twins’ arms. William flushes a bright red, and Jimmy rolls his eyes again, but he doesn’t shrug his father’s hand off. “We had a bird that Ava named Tweety, but Bastet – helped her escape.”

“I thought that she ate-” Jimmy starts, Niall’s hand clapping over his mouth just in time.

“Quiet.” Niall hisses. “She helped her escape. Understand?”

Jimmy looks over towards where Harry is distracting Ava by pretending to munch on her fingers, and then nods. He mumbles something against Niall’s hand that the microphone can’t pick up over Ava’s shrieking giggles, and Niall moves his hand away from the boy’s mouth.

“As you can see, we’re generally just like any other family.” Niall hums, looking in a sweeping motion from William on his right all the way over to Harry and Ava on the opposite side of the couch.

“Except we happen to be musicians.” Harry adds. “Who happen to be about to start a small world tour with our family along for the ride.”

“No big deal.” Niall grins.

“Well, I guess I should start with the obvious question.” Ben says, clearing his throat. “How did you guys come to the decision to do a tour?”

“You mind if I take this one?” Niall asks.

“Go ahead.” Harry nods.

“They’re down.” Niall sighs, collapsing on the bed. He doesn’t bother kicking off his trousers. He doesn’t have the energy. The twins didn’t go down for a nap until late, so they needed to be worn out a bit first. Half an hour of chasing them around the living room later, Niall is remembering that he isn’t in his twenties anymore.

“You look like hell.” Harry chuckles.

“Well, dear husband of mine, that’s because you’re a bloody useless oaf.” Niall grumbles, smacking his hand out against Harry’s thigh. “Why do I always get stuck putting the twins down?”

“Because I put Ava down every night.” Harry hums, placing his hand on top of where Niall is too exhausted to pull it back away from.

“How the hell did you con me into this racket?” Niall huffs, rolling onto his side to glare at Harry. “Ava falls asleep at the drop of a dime. The twins practically have to be wrestled into their sleep clothes, let alone their beds. Not that they bloody stay in separate beds for longer than five seconds once I leave the room. The door barely closes before Jimmy climbs into William’s bed.”

“They’re rowdy.” Harry agrees. “Must be that Irish blood.”

“You used to be quite rowdy yourself.” Niall scoffs. “Humping mic stands and everything else in sight.”

“Including you.” Harry grins.

“Among many others.” Niall snorts.

“Hey.” Harry whines, jutting his bottom lip out in a pout that’s long lost its efficacy.

“Do you miss it?” Niall asks.

“Anonymous sex? No. No I don’t.” Harry huffs angrily. “Do you? Because if you’re telling me that you want to shag other people, I will cut off your-”

“I meant music.” Niall interjects before Harry can get started on an asinine rant. “Do you miss performing? Do you miss writing songs for yourself, instead of other people? Do you miss recording a song and hitting it perfectly after running it so many times that you’re ready to give up?”

“Oh – I, uh– Do you?” Harry asks.

“Every single day.” Niall admits.

“Me too.” Harry breathes out in a sigh of relief. “God, I fucking miss it. I love this life, love our life, and the freedom we have, but I miss it. But I feel like-”

“Like you can’t say it.” Niall finishes for him. “Because it feels like it’s wanting too much.”

“Because we’ve been blessed.” Harry says quietly. “We have three beautiful kids, and success, and a great marriage. Wanting more on top of all of that seems – I don’t know – greedy.”

“I know.” Niall sighs. “I just – I miss being exhausted because I’m coming down from adrenaline. I miss singing somewhere other than the shower. I miss watching you grind on rails and shit just to get me riled up.”

“I could have a pole installed in here by tomorrow night if you want to watch me grind on something.” Harry smirks.

“And watch you fall on your arse and break your back? No thanks.” Niall snorts.

“Well obviously I’d take a class before I tried to do anything too adventurous.” Harry huffs.

“Walking is too adventurous for you sometimes.” Niall grins. “You twisted your ankle last month getting the mail. You and a stripper pole is a recipe for a trip to the A&E.”

“I only twisted my ankle because your damn dog lunged at me.” Harry grumbles.

“He’s not ‘my dog’.” Niall hums. “The bloody mongrel only likes the kids.”

“You’re the one who wouldn’t stop pouting until we brought him home along with Bastet.” Harry argues. “The kids weren’t even there.”

“He seemed sweet back then. I had no idea Jimmy would turn him into a weapon of mass destruction.” Niall sighs. “I don’t have a single pair of shoes left that aren’t chewed to hell.”

“Maybe he can go the same way Tweety did.” Harry says thoughtfully.

“I’m not sure that Bastet can eat Wolf.” Niall snorts. “He’s four times her size.”

“What can we get that could eat Wolf?” Harry asks, looking legitimately curious. “I don’t think you can own an alligator big enough to do it, and I don’t think you can own a bear at all. Oh! Has it been long enough that I could call and ask Siegfried and Roy about their pet tigers?”

“No.” Niall scoffs. “It will never not be too soon to ask someone who was assaulted by an animal, about owning that kind of animal.”

“So– Ask about the lions instead?” Harry questions.

“How did I ever fall for such an idiot?” Niall chuckles, scooting closer to plant a soft kiss against Harry’s cheek.

“I believe it was because of my relentless pursuit of you over the course of several years.” Harry hums, tangling his legs with Niall’s.

“Wore me down, you did.” Niall laughs. “Pummeled me into submission with your endless comments and stupid come-ons.”

“You took ‘playing hard to get’ to a completely new level.” Harry huffs.

“Well, if memory serves, that’s because you took ‘being easy to get’ to a pretty new level too.” Niall snorts.

“You weren’t exactly an innocent little angel yourself, Niall. And if you keep calling me slutty, I’m going to have to go chaste for a while to prove you wrong.” Harry growls.

“Good. I could use a rest.” Niall snorts. “Between you, and the kids, and work, I can’t get a minute to myself anymore. I could get some decent sleep for once.”

“Oh really?” Harry asks incredulously, taking his tongue between his teeth and narrowing his eyes dangerously. “You’d rather sleep than make love to me?”

“Especially when you call it ‘making love’.” Niall nods. “When are you going to stop calling it that like you’re living in some chick-lit novel? Call it ‘shagging’, or ‘fucking’, like a normal bloody person.”

“Never.” Harry hums, closing the space between them until their noses are rubbing together and Niall can’t see him properly without going cross-eyed. “Because it’s more than ‘shagging’ or ‘fucking’ with you. So much more. It was ‘shagging’ and ‘fucking’ when I was in my slutty phase. It’s making love when I’m with you.”

“Ugh, such a fucking soppy arsehole.” Niall giggles, butting his forehead against his husband’s. “That’s it though. It didn’t have anything to do with your relentless pursuit, or your endless comments, or your stupid come-ons. It’s your stupid, soppy heart.”

“You must be exhausted if you’re admitting to that.” Harry smiles.

“I am.” Niall admits. “But I think I have a bit of lovemaking in me if you’re interested.”

“Mm, very.” Harry hums pulling Niall closer and cutting off his giggle with a hard kiss.

“Why’d you let me sleep so late?” Niall grumbles, scratching his stomach with one hand while he pours his coffee with the other.

“Because you needed the sleep after last night.” Harry chuckles, pressing a kiss to the back of Niall’s neck. “You expended quite a bit of energy.”

“Well how was I supposed to deny you round two when you started it by sucking my-” Niall starts, only to be cut off by Ava’s loud squeal as she runs through the kitchen.

She’s got something gripped in her chubby little fingers, but Niall barely catches a glimpse of it before she rounds the island and heads off towards the living room. Jimmy bursts into the room, wild-eyed, and Harry just points towards where Ava ran off towards. They learned a long time ago that it’s easier to let the kids work things out between themselves as long as neither blows nor harsh words are exchanged.

Jimmy takes off, following Ava’s trail, and William stumbles into the room a moment later, blinking and squinting while he tries to follow Jimmy and Ava. Niall reaches out and catches him before he walks straight into the corner of the counter.

“She’s got my glasses.” William sighs.

“I can tell.” Niall chuckles, pulling William against his side. “Jimmy will get them back. You just wait here, buddy.”

“How did she get your glasses?” Harry asks.

“We were helping her get dressed, and she wanted to try them on, and then she decided she wanted to keep them.” William explains.

“Got ‘em.” Jimmy announces, walking in with William’s glasses in one hand, and Ava on his hip. He’s big for his age, and she’s small for hers, but Niall still reaches out and grabs her as soon as Jimmy comes close enough, for fear that one, or both, of them might get hurt if he keeps carrying her. “Here you go, Willie.”

“Stop calling me that.” William pouts, taking his glasses and wiping the lenses with his shirt even though they all already know that Jimmy would have done that in the other room.

And Niall gets it, he really does, because Jimmy owns the role of ‘big brother’ pretty well, despite the fact that he’s only actually fifteen minutes older than William, and Niall remembers how annoying it can be to be the little brother. He remembers how shitty it felt to be the powerless kid who needed to be protected. He didn’t have asthma or myopia like William does, but he was small and sensitive, and his own brother did his fair share of being almost condescendingly overprotective.

That doesn’t mean he approves though, so he squeezes William’s shoulder until the boy mumbles out, “Thank you, Jimmy.”

“Whatever.” Jimmy mutters, stomping out of the kitchen.

Niall sighs, because he can already tell it’s going to be a long day, and they have a meeting here in the house at two that Niall absolutely cannot mess up. They’re pitching a song for Ed that he knows can get them their second ‘Song of the Year’ Grammy. It’s been three years since they got their first, and even though they’ve gotten nominations every year since then, he’s been craving another win, if just to have a reason to make Harry move this horribly ugly sculpture he bought that’s been sitting on the mantle.

“Why does he have to do that?” William asks quietly. “I could have gotten them back myself. And he knows I hate being called Willie.”

“Even if you could have gotten them back yourself, which we both know would have probably ended with you hurting yourself because you’re blind as a bat without your glasses, he wanted to help you.” Niall says gently. “He likes helping you, William.”

“I don’t need his help.” William huffs, heading off in the opposite direction.

“Christ.” Niall sighs, rubbing at his temple with his free hand while he shifts Ava on his hip with the other. “They always do this on important days. Can’t they at least save the row for until after the meeting?”

“Yeah, um – About that.” Harry says sheepishly. “I cancelled the meeting.”

“What?” Niall asks angrily, turning on Harry with a glare. “We’ve been working for two weeks just trying to find a time that fits with Ed’s schedule in order to pitch him this song, and you cancel the meeting without even consulting me?”

“I – I was thinking about what you said last night.” Harry mumbles.

“Refresh my memory on what exactly I said that could possibly make you reconsider one of the biggest meetings in the history of our careers!” Niall hisses.

“About us and- And performing.” Harry says softly.

“I’m trying really hard to follow your train of thought here, Harry.” Niall sighs. “But I can’t believe you’d cancel this meeting just because you want to talk about the good old days.”

“I didn’t.” Harry assures him, grabbing Niall by the hand and leading him over to the table. They both take a seat, Ava climbing off of Niall’s lap as soon as his bum hits the chair so that she can run off after the twins, and Harry adds, “I need you to keep an open mind about this, okay?”

“I swear to god, Harry.” Niall growls. “If you are trying to convince me to move our family out to New York again, I will murder you.”

“It would be better for business. More serious musicians live in New York than Los Angeles anymore.” Harry huffs, making Niall’s eye twitch. “But no, that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about. I – I don’t want to give the song to Ed.”

“And why not?” Niall asks. “It’s bloody brilliant. I know you were having doubts about the bridge, but I thought that we-”

“I want to keep it, Niall.” Harry cuts him off. “For us. You’re right, it is bloody brilliant. I think it could be absolutely huge, and I think we could make one hell of a comeback with this song.”

“You can’t be serious.” Niall breathes out. “Harry, we– We aren’t performers anymore.”

“But we could be.” Harry urges. “Niall, you said it yourself. You miss performing. I do too. Every damn day, I miss it.”

“We have kids, Harry.” Niall points out.

“So we bring them with us.” Harry argues.

“We’ve built a life, Harry. A good, solid life.” Niall says quietly. “The twins are starting kindergarten in a few weeks. We can’t just write, record, and produce an album, and then go on tour.”

“Why not?” Harry asks. “We have an entire library of songs that we never gave to people. We can record and produce it over the course of the next few months, release it in late spring, and tour come summer when the boys won’t be in school. Nothing massive. Just a few dozen shows spread out over four months in America, and maybe Canada and the UK.”

“You’re insane.” Niall mutters, digging the heels of his hands into his eyes. “Completely bloody insane.”

“Tell me you don’t want to do it then.” Harry murmurs, grabbing ahold of Niall’s hands and pulling them away from his face so that their eyes meet. “Tell me you honestly don’t want this, and I’ll drop it. I promise I won’t say another word about it if you really don’t want to do this.”

“How many shows?” Niall sighs.

“Louis and I were thinking thirty six.” Harry tells him.

“You– You brought Louis into this delusional head-trip before you talked to me about it?” Niall asks incredulously.

“I had to see if he thought it was even possible for us.” Harry mumbles. “And he does. He thinks we could have a real shot, just from the demo of our song. He said that he’ll sign us right away if you want to do it. One year, one album. Limited tour with plenty of time between shows to focus on the kids. He’s even willing to let Liam help produce the album.”

“He must be serious if he’s willing to talk to Payno, then.” Niall says quietly. “After– You know.”

“Yeah, he is.” Harry nods. “Ni, I really think we could do this. Please, at least say you’ll think about it.”

“There’s no need to think about it, Harry.” Niall sighs, standing up from the table. Harry’s face crumples immediately, hurt taking the place of cautious enthusiasm so easily it makes Niall’s heart clench. “We’ve got work to do.”

“I’ll call Ed and see if he can reschedule.” Harry mutters, turning away from Niall and squeezing his eyes shut. “Can you go check on the kids?”

“No.” Niall answers. “I’m going to be too bloody busy trying to rearrange this song into a duet.”

“And here we are, seven months later.” Niall finishes. “It’s been difficult, trying to manage all of this without disrupting the kids’ lives, but they’re all pretty excited about this whole thing, and so are we.”

“And how did you come to the decision to make this documentary?” Ben asks.

“Louis insisted on it.” Harry admits. “We didn’t want to do it at first, but it was the one thing that he just wouldn’t let go of in contract negotiations. We almost refused to sign, but he promised that it would be minimally invasive, and that we’d have time to ourselves as a family, and we decided to let him have it.”

“There’s only so much you can do when negotiating with Louis Tomlinson.” Niall chuckles. “So we countered with a Netflix or HBO documentary about our family’s lives on tour, rather than a tour-slash-concert film with a theatrical release, and he took it after about ten minutes straight of sighing heavily. Netflix signed on right away, agreed to let us have you and Morgan, and– Well, you know the rest.”

“That I do.” Ben agrees. “Right now though, I’m more interested in going back to the beginning of the relationship. It’s a question that you two have avoided answering for years, quite deftly, I might add, but have agreed to answer for this. When did you two first get together?”

“My turn!” Harry laughs excitedly. “Okay, so-”

“Niall?” Harry asks groggily, rubbing his hand over his face in an ineffectual attempt to wake himself up. It’s half three in the morning though, and very little could actually do that at this point. Ever since the hiatus started, sleep has been easier to come by, so Harry’s been getting used to a full eight hours every night, generally uninterrupted.

“We broke up.” Niall mumbles around the fingernail wedged between his teeth, shifting nervously back and forth on his feet with his eyes glued to the floor. And yeah, that’ll do it. Harry’s hand falls away from his face, and his eyes snap open. He’s definitely awake now.

“Come on in.” Harry says softly, stepping to the side to let Niall shuffle past him. He closes the door once Niall is inside, and steps forward to give Niall a hug, only to have the blond flinch away from him. “Niall, what’s-”

“Don’t.” Niall whispers, his tone just on the verge of begging. “I don’t– I don’t want pity. Especially not yours. I just didn’t want to go back to my place tonight. Or a hotel. I’ve been in enough hotels lately.”

“There’s a difference between pity and sympathy, Niall.” Harry murmurs, reaching forward again and placing his hand on Niall’s shoulder. “But if all you want is a bed, I have one.”

“Thank you.” Niall breathes out, letting himself be led back to Harry’s bedroom. The house is still dark, and while Harry knows where everything is by now after his last redecorating phase, Niall doesn’t. Harry has to maneuver him, which gives him an excuse to hold Niall close, even though he’d refuse it if he knew it was because Harry wants to try and comfort him. Niall hates that kind of thing.

When he’s upset, Niall goes through two phases. First he’s withdrawn, and it always looks like he’s folding in on himself. Harry hates that phase. He hates seeing Niall be anything less than larger than life. Then Niall gets angry in his second phase. He snaps at anyone, for any reason. It’s only slightly better than the first phase.

Harry has seen it all enough times to know how to handle it, even if it’s been over two months since they’ve last seen each other, or even spoken really. To be honest, Harry is a bit more surprised than he probably should be to see Niall here at all, let alone for something like this. But even more than surprise, Harry’s feeling a bit of pride. He knows that Louis and Liam both happen to be in town right now, along with several of Niall’s Los Angeles circle of friends, but Niall picked Harry to come to out of everyone he could have chosen.

Niall doesn’t shy away from stripping down to his pants in front of Harry, just dropping his clothes on a chair in the corner before crawling into the bed. Harry climbs into the other side, keeps himself on the edge of the bed even though he’s gotten quite used to spreading himself out over the entire surface of it.

Niall breaks the silence after a few minutes, his voice low and strained when he asks, “Are you going to stay over there, then?”

“I figured that you wanted space.” Harry mumbles.

“Your bedroom is bloody freezing.” Niall huffs. “Thought you moved here for the heat, but I feel like I’m in an icebox. Explain that, Styles.”

“I don’t answer to you, Horan.” Harry fires back with a laugh, scooting more towards the center of the bed. “Still big spooning it?”

“Actually-” Niall says weakly, leaving the request hanging in the air without giving it a voice. Harry complies immediately, rolling over and molding himself to Niall’s back with an arm thrown over his ribs. Niall breathes out with something that sounds like relief, placing his hand over Harry’s and whispering, “Thank you.”

“Shush up and go to sleep.” Harry hums, knocking his forehead against the back of Niall’s skull. “I have to be up in a few hours to go for my run before it gets too hot.”

“Weak.” Niall snorts, but he relaxes nonetheless, and Harry feels his breathing even out in just a few minutes before his soft snores fill the air. It doesn’t take long for Harry to drift off after that.

“You look like hell.” Niall mutters around the lip of his mug.

“Good morning to you too.” Harry scoffs, opening up the fridge and grabbing a bottle of water. He downs half of it before he speaks again, adding, “I threw in an extra five miles on top of my usual routine so that you’d have some extra time to sleep before I came back and started making noise.”

“God, I forgot how much you love to toss around subtle brags about yourself.” Niall bites out.

“I’m going to go take a shower.” Harry sighs. He really doesn’t have it in him to have an argument right now. He makes his way out of the kitchen, but stops in his tracks when he hears Niall mutter under his breath. The words make his blood run hot, and he turns on Niall to growl out, “Care to repeat that to my face?”

“I said ‘go ahead and run away. It’s what you’re good at.’” Niall snaps, glaring harshly right back at Harry. “Haven’t heard a word from you since this whole break started. Ran off to LA as soon as you stepped off the stage, and haven’t looked back. Haven’t talked to any of us in-”

“I’ve talked to both Louis and Liam quite a few times, thank you.” Harry cuts him off. “Hell, I had both of them, and Briana, over for lunch a week ago.”

Niall looks like he’s been slapped, his eyes widening in shock, and some sadistic part of Harry decides to open the wound further, so he continues with, “You’re the one who hasn’t kept in contact with us, Niall. And don’t try to deny it, because both of them pulled me aside separately to ask if I knew why you’ve basically gone ghost on them. Of course, I didn’t have any real answer for them, because I don’t know who the fuck you are anymore. I never thought you’d be the type to ditch everyone the second you had the chance, but I guess even five years of living on top of each other doesn’t teach you everything about a person.”

“I – I didn’t.” Niall stammers.

“Oh really?” Harry scoffs. “Because, from what I can tell, there’s pretty much only one person you’ve really been talking to, aside from your travel group, and she definitely wasn’t a member of the band. Don’t you dare try to turn this around on me because you got dumped. I’m not the one who’s been the problem, Niall. You are.”

“Fuck you.” Niall hisses.

“You’re the one who showed up in the middle of the night, and then who’s trying to make me seem like the asshole.” Harry argues. “I’m not going to be a doormat for you to take out your post-breakup rage on when you haven’t even bothered to call or text for the last three months. Don’t come here and expect me to be the punching bag for your misplaced anger.”

“Misplaced?” Niall asks bitterly. “Misplaced? You’re the bloody reason she broke up with me!”

“How in the hell am I-” Harry starts to protest.

“She thinks I’m in love with you!” Niall snaps, cutting Harry off this time. “She thinks that I was using her to try and distract myself from you! She thinks that the reason that I haven’t texted, or called, or even bloody tweeted, is because I’m terrified of my feelings for you, even though it’s complete bullshit.”

“Tell her that, not me.” Harry hisses.

“I tried.” Niall breathes out. “Only I couldn’t. When I tried, nothing came out. And– And I’m terrified it’s because she’s right. I’m terrified that it’s not complete bullshit.”

“Oh thanks.” Harry mutters.

“Harry, you’re my best mate in the entire world.” Niall says quietly, dropping his mug against the table and standing up from the table to walk towards Harry while he continues speaking. “You’re– You’re one of the only people I know who really understands me. One of the only people who even can. Because, yeah, Liam and Louis were there for all of it too, and Zayn was there for most of it, but the two of us have always been a team. You’ve always been my favorite.

“It’s Louis and Liam, and then me and you. And that’s not something I can lose. I know that I’ve been shit since this break started. I didn’t call you on your birthday for god’s sake. But I needed space and I needed time, and I’ve been flying all over the world trying to get that. I needed to not want to fall into you, because you’re a black fucking hole, Harry. I couldn’t escape your pull if I tried. Not once I let myself get caught up in it. I needed to put you to the side until I could fall in love with someone who doesn’t have the kind of power over me that you do. Someone that I can lose and still keep breathing if things go tits up. That’s not you. I can’t lose you. You’re my best friend.”

Niall is so close now that Harry can see the flecks of gold in his eyes, along with the strain of what he’s saying. He can see the way that Niall is begging to be rejected, because that’s the only way that he can keep himself guarded.

“Why do you always do that?” Harry sighs, brushing his fingertips across Niall’s forehead to move the untamed pieces of his messy fringe out of the way to see those blue eyes properly. “Why do you always convince yourself about the terrible end before you even give something a chance to begin?”

“Because the last time that I let myself get my hopes up for a relationship to work out, my parents still got divorced.” Niall mumbles. “And, yeah, they get along alright now, mostly, but they didn’t for a really long time, and it’s still always awkward and tense when they’re around each other. They’ll never really be okay together again. I could stand that with anyone except you.”

“And what makes you think that I’d ever let you go if you ever finally gave me a chance?” Harry asks in a whisper, leaning his forehead against Niall’s. “You’re my best mate too, Niall. You’re not just my favorite member of the band, but of the entire human race. You’re stupid if you think I’d ever let you slip through my fingers, you silly boy.”

“I can’t lose you.” Niall repeats, his voice cracked and pleading.

“Then don’t start something with me with one foot out the door.” Harry murmurs, cupping his hand around Niall’s cheek. “Stop thinking about the possible tragedy, and give me the chance to love you like I’ve been trying to do for all these years. Fucking aliens in space could see how massive my love for you is. Why can’t you?”

“I– I can.” Niall admits. “I always could. I’m just scared. What if-”

“No ‘what if’s.” Harry says, putting his thumb over Niall’s lips to silence him. “I’ll keep waiting until you’re not scared anymore, Niall. If that’s what you need, then I’m more than happy to give you that.”

“Maybe what I need is for you to stop giving me the chance to psych myself out.” Niall mutters. “Maybe I need you to just man up and-”

Harry cuts him off with a kiss, sealing his lips against Niall’s and pivoting them so that the blond is pressed against the wall with one of Harry’s hands around the back of his neck, and the other spread flat over the small of his back. Niall opens his mouth without even being prompted, whimpers when Harry’s tongue swipes over his own, and clutches the fingers of both hands so hard on Harry’s love handles that they’re sure to bruise.

“Yeah– That.” Niall breathes out when Harry finally releases his lips, the taste of the tea he’d been drinking has been wiped away until all that’s left is the taste of Harry instead.

“I don’t want to push you into anything, Niall.” Harry tells him. “Because I can’t lose you either. Especially if it’s because I moved too fast.”

“Been waiting five years for that kiss.” Niall hums, reaching up to thumb across Harry’s cheekbone. “You’ve been moving too damn slow, if you ask me.”

“And then we went back to my bed and-” Harry rambles, continuing the excruciatingly detailed account of the catalyst that led to this point in their relationship.

“Christ, I think you’ve gotten the point across!” Niall cuts in. “This is a documentary, Harry. Not an adult-film.”

“That would have made more money.” Harry says with a cheeky grin.

“Anyways!” Niall says loudly and pointedly, cutting Harry off before he can make some other remark. “That’s pretty much how it went down. I mean, I wasn’t drinking tea, it was coffee, but he got everything else more or less right.”

“You were definitely not drinking coffee.” Harry argues. “It was tea.”

“It was coffee.” Niall says firmly. “I felt like hell when I dragged myself out of your bed, and I needed the caffeine.”

“I distinctly remember your tongue tasting like my cinnamon and rose hips herbal blend.” Harry fires back.

The screen cuts to black, and white words pop up that reads: ‘This went on for several minutes, and for the sanity of our viewers, we decided to skip to the important bits. The crew, on the other hand, was not so lucky.’

“Fine!” Harry huffs, throwing his hands in the air with an eye-roll that is near legendary in the amount of sarcasm dripping off of it. “It was coffee!”

“I’m glad that you can admit you’re wrong.” Niall hums, leaning over an extremely exasperated looking Jimmy to press a kiss to Harry’s cheek.

“Dad!” William whines. “Stop being gross!”

Harry giggles and turns his face to plant a loud smacking kiss to Niall’s lips, earning a chorus of groans from the twins, and a shrieking laugh from Ava.

“Anyways-” Niall says again, once everyone is settled back into their seats. “That’s how it happened. There were no secret relationships within the band. We weren’t being bearded, like some fans think. We just needed quite a long time to get our crap together.”

“You did.” Harry snorts. “I was ready ages before you were.”

“Yes, yes. I’m quite slow. I get it.” Niall laughs. “Still got a ring on my finger, didn’t you?”

“Why, yes I did.” Harry preens. “Quite a nice one too, if I do say so myself.”

“He still likes to throw around those subtle brags about himself.” Niall grins. “But I keep him around anyways. He’s not half bad with lyrics. If you don’t include ‘Olivia’, that is. He’s gotten less lazy since then.”

“Hey!” Harry squawks indignantly.

The screen flashes to black again, but this time it reads: ‘This went on for even longer than the first fight. The kids got bored and wandered off. Several crewmen left for the evening before it was resolved.’

“Well – you snore.” Harry says haughtily as the screen flips back to them.

“Your morning breath could kill the dog.” Niall scoffs. “And it’s still better than rhyming ‘I live for you’ with ‘Olivia’.”

“Lads.” Ben cuts in, sounding wearied. “Is this row really relevant?”

“It will be in the divorce proceedings.” Harry growls.

“Hey.” Niall pouts. “Not funny.”

“Take it back then.” Harry says adamantly.

“Fine. ‘Olivia’ was a lyrical masterpiece.” Niall huffs.

“I’m glad you can admit you’re wrong.” Harry echoes Niall’s earlier words, linking their fingers together.

“Never mind.” Niall grumbles. “Divorce is back on the table.”

“Don’t be like that.” Harry hums, using his grip on Niall’s hand to tug him over closer. His face ducks behind Niall’s, hiding his lips from view of the camera as he whispers something too quietly for the microphone to pick up. Judging by the smirk that tugs at Niall’s lips, that might be for the best.

“So-” Niall says once Harry pulls back. “Next question, Ben?”

“Just one question left for today.” Ben announces, clearing his throat. “It’s for the whole family though.”

“Oi, kids!” Niall hollers. “Get your bums back here! Jimmy! Don’t you dare touch that! You don’t know what it does! Don’t give me that look, young man. Don’t make me block the internet access on your tablet.”

That seems to do the trick, because Jimmy streaks back onto the screen almost instantly. He’s seated on the couch between Niall and Harry before William and Ava even show up. William passes Ava off to Niall this time, and then takes a seat beside Harry. Once everyone has settled in, Niall nods his head for Ben to continue.

“How are each of you feeling about the upcoming tour?” Ben asks. “William, if you could start us off again?”

William just gives a halfhearted shrug, pushing his glasses up and staring down at his knees. Harry gives his shoulder a squeeze, so he sighs and says, “I guess it’ll be neat. I’m excited to travel.”

“Anything that you’re not looking forward to?” Ben asks.

“Dad’s snoring.” William says immediately. “You can barely hear it in our room at the house, because it’s all the way down the hall, but now it’ll be one room over.”

“Oi!” Niall hisses.

“He asked.” William mumbles, burying his face in Harry’s side.

When nothing else seems to be forthcoming from William, Harry says, “I’m definitely most excited to get up on stage again. We’ve got some really great material lined up, including a few songs that we couldn’t fit on the final cut of the album, but we still want to perform. As for what I’m not as excited about– The beds. We have a really great bed, and sleeping on hotel beds instead of it for the next few months is going to be rough.”

“Jimmy?” Ben asks. “Same questions.”

“Dad promised to teach me guitar.” Jimmy beams. “I’m going to be a rock star by the end of summer. I don’t really mind dad’s snoring, so I guess I’m just not going to be happy about leaving Wolf behind.”

A keen-eyed observer will notice Niall making a quick sign of the cross and looking towards the ceiling at the mention of Wolf’s name.

“Guess I’m next, then.” Niall says once Jimmy finishes. “I have to go with Harry on this one. I can’t wait to be up on stage again, and I’m definitely going to miss our bed. And my kitchen. Room service and catering is nice and all, but we do a lot of cooking as a family, so it’s going to be difficult to go the next few months without getting to do as much of that. Ava? Are you excited about the tour, love?”

“Gramma!” Ava squeals. “Gramma and gramper!”

“It’s going to be her first time meeting my parents in person since she was born.” Niall explains. “We’ve skyped a lot of times, but she’s never actually met them that she can remember, because she was just a newborn the last time my folks came out. Anything you’re going to miss, Ava?”

“Toys.” Ava adds with a pout.

“You’ve got plenty of toys packed, love.” Harry hums. “A whole bag full.”

“Need more.” she says adamantly. “Two bags. I two, so I need two.”

“We’ll talk about it later, love.” Niall laughs, pressing a kiss to the top of her head and receiving a beaming smile in return. “As for you, Ben– The next time you see us, we’ll be-”

“On the road again!” Harry crows, receiving an eye roll from Niall.

“Please– Stop.” Niall groans. “We’ll be starting our ‘Wonderland’ tour. Stop saying that at every opportunity, or people are going to get the completely wrong idea about this tour.”

“No fun at all.” Harry pouts.

“I’m just trying to save several million people from an entire documentary of your One Direction puns.” Niall snorts.

“They’re hilarious!” Harry squawks.

The screen fades to black one more time, and the white letters simply spell out: ‘They’re really not.’

“I’m not dressed!” Harry whines.

“Nobody expects you to be.” Niall snorts. “But you lost the coin toss, which means that you have to deal with them all setting up while I make the kids presentable. Not sure how much I really count that as a win, but still.”

“What If I offer to blow you?” Harry asks, waggling his eyebrows. And the offer is tempting, really, but Niall isn’t really sure that they’ll have time for anything like that for a while, and Harry will forget about it within a couple of days if it doesn’t happen before then, and Niall will too.

“What if you just put on some clothes and go answer the door?” Niall hums, walking out of the bedroom.

“See if I blow you any time soon!” Harry hisses after him.

Niall gives him no response other than exaggerating the swish of his hips as he makes his way down the hall to make his arse stick out more. He smirks when he hears Harry give a loud groan and close the door a bit harder than is strictly necessary, and he knows he won this round. Harry’s definitely going to be on him by tonight, begging for a quickie in the venue loo if that’s what has to be done to give them one last hoorah before the tour really kicks into gear. Considering they’d had about six last hoorahs last night while the kids all slept over with friends to say goodbye before the tour, Niall isn’t sure that it’s strictly necessary, but he’ll make sure to throw lube in the bag he’s taking to the venue anyways.

He steps into the twins’ room, and it’s like an air-raid siren has gone off. William is scurrying all around, his glasses magnifying the panic in his eyes, and Niall has to catch him by the chest just to stop him before he has an asthma attack.

“Whoa, bub, what’s got you so freaked out?” Niall asks, crouching down so that he can look William directly in the eyes.

“I– I– I-” William pants out. Niall decides to wait for him to slow his breathing down on his own, and he does after a few seconds enough to rasp out, “I have to clean the room.”

“William, the room is clean.” Niall tells him.

“No it’s not.” William huffs. “Not clean enough to let them put it in the documentary.”

“Well, then why don’t you have Jimmy help you, so that you don’t have to run around like a mad man?” Niall questions.

“Dad.” William scoffs, rolling his eyes. “Be serious. Jimmy doesn’t clean. He just moves the mess around.”

“It’s true.” Jimmy says from the bed, where he’s resting against the pillows with his eyes locked on his tablet, and Ava napping curled with her head on his stomach. “You should see under my bed.”

“Don’t.” William breathes out, gripping hard onto Niall’s arm. “Don’t look. Wolf came out from under there earlier with half a sandwich. I don’t even remember the last time we ate in here.”

“Harry!” Niall calls loudly, relieved when he hears the door wrench open and feet padding down the hall.

“What’s wrong?” Harry asks, looking around wildly. “What are we missing? We still have time to go to the store.”

“I’ll take the camera crew.” Niall tells him. “You can handle the kids.”

“Why?” Harry asks, narrowing his eyes suspiciously.

“Because you wanted it.” Niall says, putting on his best smile.

“And?” Harry asks expectantly.

“And because Jimmy is as big of a slob as you are, and William is going to have a panic attack trying to deal with all of it.” Niall sighs. “And Jimmy might have an ecosystem growing under his bed.”

“So you want me to play bad cop.” Harry snorts.

Niall stands up and walks over, leaning in to whisper in Harry’s ear, “You play bad cop for me right now, and I’ll pack handcuffs for you to use on me the first chance we get.”

“Jimmy, get off of the bed.” Harry says quickly. “I’m going to move it, and you’re going to clean every bit of rubbish.”

“Love you.” Niall hums, pecking a kiss to Harry’s cheek before rushing out of the room.

They’ve spent the last few days making sure that the house is completely spotless to prepare for the cameras. He steps into the kitchen to make sure that all of the dishes from breakfast have been cleaned and put away. While he’s wiping down the counters to get rid of the little bits of flour that he’d missed earlier, a pair of arms wrap around his knee, and he smiles.

“Up from your nap, princess?” Niall asks, glancing down at where Ava is winding herself around his leg.

“Daddy cleaning.” Ava mumbles, rubbing her face against his leg.

“Come here.” Niall chuckles, reaching down and plucking her up off of the floor when she raises her arms. She’s got her blanket wrapped up in one hand, and Niall arranges it over her back when she rests her head on his shoulder. “Still sleepy, princess?”

She gives the barest of nods, well on her way to falling asleep again, and Niall heads into the living room. They have about twenty more minutes until the cameras are due to arrive, and that’ll make all the difference for Ava’s mood later. She’s sweet as can be most of the time, but if she doesn’t get a proper nap, then she can be a terror. That’s really not how they want to start off this tour or documentary.

So he settles onto the couch, letting Ava continue to sleep on his chest while he searches for a game on mute. Bastet wanders in and lays curled up on top of his feet, which usually annoys him, but he knows he’s going to miss her over the next four months, so he doesn’t scoot her away like he normally does. He keeps a wary eye on Wolf over in the corner though. He’s not going to miss that dog one bit. He doesn’t want anything to happen to it, because the kids will be devastated, but he definitely wouldn’t shed a tear if it happened to be hit by a car while they were gone. The poor house-sitter is going to have a hell of a time with that mongrel.

He hears the front door click open, and footsteps approaching.

“Hi, Mr. Horan.” Kayla, their babysitter turned tour-nanny, says brightly, setting her bags down in the foyer. He points to Ava sleeping on him, and she smiles sheepishly and nods, before whispering, “You want me to take her?”

“No, you can go ahead and make sure that you have everything that you need for the tour before we leave.” Niall tells her. “The camera-crew will be here soon, so we’ll need you to keep the kids corralled for a while. It’s better for you to get this part out of the way now, in case there’s anything that you need to have picked up. You can leave your bags in the guest room until the second bus shows up for it.”

“Thanks.” she says with a small smile, grabbing her bags again and heading down the hall.

Her family lives just down the street, and Niall and Harry have known her since the twins were born, so she knows her way around. Originally Niall was worried about letting a freshly graduated high-school senior come along to act as a nanny, even though she’s practically a member of the family, but he knows that she’s well behaved and smart. She isn’t the type to neglect her responsibilities.

“Our son is vile.” Harry mutters, showing up in the doorway. “He’s– Oh my god. You should have seen under that bed, Ni. I don’t know what kind of weird, rubbish hoarding monster he is, but he’s not right in the head. I swear I saw things moving in that pile.”

“Color me surprised.” Niall snorts.

“I don’t know how he managed to completely miss your anal-retentive genes, but I have never regretted that more than I do right now.” Harry says with a shiver. “I can’t believe I let you talk me into that with just handcuffs as a bargaining chip.”

“Kayla’s down the hall, so maybe keep that a bit quieter.” Niall says with a roll of his eyes. “You, uh– You locked the box, right? Don’t need the house-sitter looking in there.”

“Put a bloody padlock on it.” Harry confirms. “Then I hid it in the panic-room. Inside the safe.”

“Jesus.” Niall laughs, cutting it short when Aibhlinn starts to stir against his shoulder. “Good job, though.”

“I still don’t see why we can’t bring it with us.” Harry huffs.

“Because a padlock will take the twins about ten minutes to get through, max.” Niall points out. “And the bus doesn’t exactly have a lot of space to hide it. Besides, since when do we actually need the box? When did just you and me and a bottle of lube stop being enough?”

“Oh, it definitely won’t ever stop being enough.” Harry smirks. “It’s just nice to have options in the ways that I can fu-”

“Dad!” Jimmy groans, walking into the room, dragging a bag of rubbish behind him. “William is flirting with Kayla!”

“Kayla?” Ava asks sleepily, lifting her head off of Niall’s shoulder. “Kayla here?”

“She’s in the guest room, princess.” Niall tells her.

She wastes no time crawling down off of Niall and tottering down the hall with her blanket forgotten.

“There you go.” Niall laughs. “Ava will distract Kayla.”

“Fine.” Jimmy grumbles, dragging the bag behind him as he leaves to take it outside. Wolf scurries after him, probably hoping to get scraps or something.

“I can’t tell if he has a little crush on her, or if he hates William paying attention to anyone except him.” Harry sighs.

“I think it’s probably the second one.” Niall chuckles. “You know how he gets. He loves to be the big brother, but he needs William every bit as much as William needs him.”

“More, in some ways.” Harry agrees. “Think we should talk to a professional about their codependence issues?”

“Maybe if it’s still the same a few years down the line.” Niall nods. “I think it’s pretty natural in twins their age though. They shared a womb, so they’re bound to be pretty close.”

“What’s wrong with you?” Niall asks when William comes marching in a moment later, arms folded over his chest a lip jutted out in a pout.

“Kayla was talking to me about the college she’s going to, and all the cool courses she’s taking, and then Ava showed up.” William mumbles.

“That’s not great flirting on your part, bub.” Niall laughs. “You might want to be glad she got distracted.”

“I wasn’t flirting!” William says, rolling his eyes. “Kayla’s too old for me to flirt with. Don’t be weird, dad.”

Niall glances up at Harry, and he just mouths ‘definitely jealous’. Harry snorts out a laugh, and then ruffles his hand through William’s hair, which just makes William pout all the more. He walks off again, grumbling something as he tries to rearrange his fringe into the meticulous style he normally likes, which makes him look a little too close to the ‘Marcel’ character in the ‘Best Song Ever’ video if you ask Niall. Especially considering he prefers large-frame glasses. But they’ve always been very adamant about letting the kids express themselves through their appearances. It costs about fifty dollars a month in temporary tattoos alone for Jimmy, and lord knows how much in sweater-vests for William, but they really want the kids to be comfortable with who they are and how they look, and for them to be able to explore who they are, even at this young of an age.

“Can you go check on Jimmy while I make sure the other two don’t drive Kayla crazy?” Harry requests. “He’s been putting that bag in the bins for way too long. He’s probably trying to sneak something back in.”

“We’ve got to keep an eye on him once we’re on that bus.” Niall sighs, turning off the television. “If he hides a sandwich in his bunk, I’ll box his ears.”

“You’ll have to get in line.” Harry calls over his shoulder, heading back to keep Kayla from getting too distracted.

Niall stands up from the couch and makes his way to the front door. When he opens it up, his heart stops in his chest out of reflex. They have a gate, and the kids know better than to talk to strangers, and yet Jimmy is letting someone through the gate that Niall doesn’t recognize.

He races down the path, paying no mind to the flecks of rock digging into his feet, and places himself between Jimmy and the stranger before saying, “This is private property. Leave, or I’ll call the police.”

“He’s with me, Horan!” calls a familiar voice from a body that’s half submerged in the trunk of a car parked just outside of the gate. “He’s my personal assistant, and you should be nice to him. Somebody should, at least.”

“Tommo, what are you doing here?” Niall sighs.

“Just came to watch my investment.” Louis waves him off. “Don’t get your knickers in a twist. I told Jimmy it was okay to let him in.”

“Don’t.” Niall says flatly.

“Won’t happen again, mate.” Louis concedes. “You want to help me with all of this?”

“What exactly is it?” Niall asks.

“Presents for the kids, of course.” Louis grins.

“Absolutely not.” Niall growls. “We’ve barely managed to get them all down to two suitcases apiece. It took us a week. You are not making us redo all of that.”

“Oh, come on.” Louis whines. “You never let me spoil them!”

“How did you feel when Harry bought Freddie a play-castle?” Niall counters.

“Dad!” Jimmy whines, tugging on Niall’s fingers.

“Fine.” Niall sighs. “If you can find room for whatever uncle Louis got you, then you can bring it. You have to pick what to take out yourself, and I don’t want to hear you whinging about whatever you sacrificed to bring it later.”

“Don’t worry, buddy.” Louis grins, holding up two smallish bags. “You and your brother’s presents aren’t very big. You should be able to just slip it in your bags.”

“What is it?” Jimmy asks excitedly, rushing forward and reaching for one, only to have Louis jerk it up with a sly grin.

“Where’s my hug?” Louis hums, keeping the bags out of reach while Jimmy jumps for them. Niall sees Jimmy wind up his fist, and barely manages to catch him by the elbow before his son can hit his former bandmate in the balls.

“Don’t even think about it.” Niall hisses.

“Oh thank god.” Louis sighs in relief.

“You used to do it all the time.” Jimmy pouts. “I’ve seen the videos.”

“I didn’t throw a right hook into his bollocks.” Niall snorts. “Gotta do it like this.”

His hand darts out quickly, and, with a precision honed through over a decade’s worth of friendship, his palm smacks right into Louis’ dick. He crumples to the ground immediately, whimpering as he curls in on himself.

“Cunt!” Louis squeaks out.

“Watch the language.” Niall snorts. “Jimmy, take the bags inside, give your brother his gift, and tell your father that uncle Louis is here.”

“Will do.” Jimmy nods. He grabs the bags off of the ground, and takes off towards the front door again.

“You’re raising a little monster.” Louis grunts.

“He’s a handful.” Niall agrees. “Which is more than I can say for you. I swear you’re shrinking in your old age.”

“Oh, kick a mate while he’s down.” Louis scoffs.

“Get off of my driveway or I will.” Niall grins. “We have a camera crew coming any minute, and I don’t need this being the opening shot of the documentary, or worse, ending up on tonight’s news. ‘Fat old man on the ground getting assaulted by Niall Horan hours before his new tour starts’ would be a disaster for ticket sales.”

“Fuck you.” Louis grumbles, pushing himself up into a sitting position and reaching out a hand, which Niall grabs to haul him off of the ground. “You’re such a dick, Horan.”

“Missed you too, Tommo.” Niall hums, pulling Louis into a hug. “How have you been for the last few weeks? Besides a massive pain in our collective arses, of course.”

“Shut it.” Louis snorts, pulling back and patting Niall on the shoulder. “I’m good. Freddie is good. He’s joining – I can’t believe I’m about to say these blasphemous words – a peewee ’soccer’ league.”

“Oh, it’s like a kick to the gut.” Niall laughs. “I’m so thankful the boys don’t really want to do sports. I couldn’t deal with calling it that. Nasty American word, that.”

“Jimmy doesn’t want to do sports?” Louis asks in surprise, leading Niall back to his car.

“Nope. He’s all about becoming a rock star.” Niall explains proudly.

“Who’s he going to learn that from?” Louis asks with a wicked grin. “Certainly not you two. Take this. It’s for Ava.”

He reaches in with both hands and grabs what might just be the world’s largest stuffed unicorn, shoving the massive thing into Niall’s arms before he can protest. Niall can’t even look around it to glare at him before Louis is marching off.

“Hank, go out and get coffee for me, the lads, and the crew. A dozen should do.” Louis rattles off, and there’s a thump that sounds like keys hitting a body. “Go to that little cafe I like. You know the one.”

“Yes, Mr. Tomlinson.” Hank says dutifully.

“He should file a suit against you for employee abuse.” Niall mutters. “I didn’t have to see that to know you didn’t look before you threw those keys. You realize that we’re liable if you injure him on our property, yeah?”

“Then it’s not me he’ll be suing.” Louis cackles.

“Why the hell did I ever pick you to be my kid’s godfather?” Niall sighs.

“Same reason you gave my middle name.” Louis chuckles. “Because you love me. And at least I get the good one if you and Harold kick the bucket. Liam can have Jimmy. He deserves the difficult one.”

“Be nice about my kid.” Niall growls.

“Oh relax, you know full well that I adore all three of your kiddos.” Louis hums. “I’d kidnap all three right now if I thought I could get away with it. I still don’t know why you won’t just let them stay with me for the tour.”

“Would you, if the situation was reversed?” Niall asks. “Would you leave Freddie with us so that you could chase the spotlight again?”

“No.” Louis admits. “But I’d only be bringing one eight year old along if it were me, not a husband, twin kindergarteners, and a toddler. That’s a lot of people for one tour bus.”

“Same number as we were in the beginning.” Niall shrugs, placing the floppy unicorn on the foyer floor. “And the kids don’t take up as much space as five teenagers. Besides, Harry and I have a separate bedroom on the bus, so we have our space, and the kids have theirs.”

“It’s cute that you’re still this optimistic.” Louis smirks. “Call me in a week and tell me if you still feel the same way.”

“I’m not stupid. I know it’s going to be rough going for a while, but we’re staying in hotels relatively often, and we’re used to spending all day every day with the kids. That’s one of the benefits of working from home.” Niall explains. “We couldn’t do this without bringing the kids. I’m not sure I could go four days without seeing them, let alone four months.”

“I understand.” Louis says with an uncharacteristically soft smile. “Freddie wants to go to this camp with some of his friends for a few weeks, and I’m running out of excuses to say no besides ‘I’ll miss you too much’.”

“I know it’s a cliché, but they really do grow up too fast, don’t they?” Niall asks.

“I’m terrified to blink, because I think he’ll be in college by the time I open my eyes.” Louis says quietly. “Enough about that though. We have things to do, because you two are due at sound check in five hours, and we have some last-minute things we need to work through.”

“Uh-uh.” Niall tuts. “Harry is dealing with all of that. He can say ‘no’ to you easier than I can.”

“Why do you think I’m talking to you?” Louis smirks. “So, about your UK opening act-”

“Unca Lou!” comes a shrieking cry, accompanied by the clumsy footfalls of Ava streaking down the hall to tackle Louis around the leg. She gives him a few seconds of attention, but it’s quickly coopted by the massive stuffed toy at Niall’s feet. “Is that for me?”

“Of course, love.” Louis beams.

“I love him!” Ava screams, flopping on top of it.

“You’re the absolute worst!” Niall hisses.

“Don’t be rude.” Louis laughs. “She loves him.”

“He’s Phil!” Ava announces. “He’s Phil, and I love him very, very much.”

“Well, shit.” Niall sighs. “She only names the ones she really likes. I’m going to have to find room on the bloody bus for this thing, or the next four months are going to be hell.”

“That sounds like a great big pile of not-my-problem.” Louis snorts.

“I’ll make it your problem.” Niall grumbles. “I’ll buy Freddie a horse. A real horse.”

“I will drop you and your husband from my label before you can blink.” Louis says flatly, narrowing his eyes in a way that Niall knows means business.

“You declared war, Tommo.” Niall shrugs. “But I’ll be the winner.”

“I bought a toy for my favorite baby girl. That’s all.” Louis hums, turning on his heel and walking down the hall. “And we both know I’ll be the winner, Horan. Don’t try to play a master at his own game. You’ll lose, and it will be embarrassing.”

Niall really isn’t sure that he should start a prank war against Louis, but watching Ava cuddle with ‘Phil’ tells him that it’s probably going to happen anyways. It’s just so bloody big, easily twice Ava’s size, and now they’re going to have to find a way to cram the bloody thing on the bus, because she will kick up a shit storm of epic proportions if they try to leave it behind now.

“Come on, princess.” Niall says gently, picking Ava up in one arm, and using the other one to lift Phil up. “Let’s go see if your father knows what we’re going to do with Phil.”

“I love him.” Ava repeats with a gleeful smile, patting her hand on Phil’s head.

“I know, princess.” Niall chuckles, unable to help himself when he sees the pure delight written all over Aibhlinn’s face. Maybe he’ll leave Louis alone after all. He can’t be angry when his daughter is this happy.

“I’m going to kill Louis.” Harry growls when Niall finds him in the hall outside of the boys’ room.

“It’s just a unicorn, Harry.” Niall snorts.

“What?” Harry asks, looking at Phil when Niall shakes him. “No. I don’t care about that. He bought the boys mobiles.”

“He – what?” Niall asks disbelievingly.

“He bought them the new iPhones.” Harry grits out, pointing to where Louis is seated between the twins. Sure enough, they both have a mobile in their hands, and are excitedly chattering back and forth while Louis shows them how to operate the devices. “With full plans.”

“I know exactly how to deal with that.” Niall assures him. “Don’t worry.”

“Where do we hide the body?” Harry asks.

“Just let me handle it.” Niall tells him. “And you can handle figuring out how to store Phil on the bus. That’s the unicorn, by the way. She named him already.”

“I love him.” Ava offers in explanation.

“Of course you do.” Harry sighs. “We’ll find something. The two of us might have to sleep in the shower, but we’ll find something.”

“Sounds about right.” Niall nods. “Take her? The crew will be here any minute, and I have to be out there to let them in and talk things through with them.”

“Give them here then.” Harry huffs, taking Ava in one arm and grabbing Phil with the other. “And make sure that they know we don’t have a lot of time to get all of this done. Lou has already mentioned our check-in for sound check twice.”

“No reshoots, got it.” Niall agrees with a nod. “Then make sure that the kids are all as calm as you can get them. Especially the twins.”

“Might as well ask me to hog-tie an elephant.” Harry scoffs.

“I believe in you.” Niall hums, pecking Harry on the cheek when he rolls his eyes.

He drops another kiss on Aibhlinn’s forehead, and then walks back out to the front door just in time to see a van pull up in front of the gate. He recognizes Morgan Spurlock in the front seat, so he uses the screen by the front door to open up the gate to let the crew park behind the bus in the drive.

“Good to see you, Morgan.” Niall grins when he approaches the vehicle. “If anybody can show the world that we’re normal, it’s you.”

“Normal is relative.” Morgan replies offhandedly, opening up the side door of his van. “I’m here to show the truth. If you two are just boring parents who happen to be doing a four month long concert tour, then that’s what I’ll show.”

“I wouldn’t say we’re boring exactly.” Niall hums. “But I wouldn’t say that we’re particularly interesting, either. Just an average family with a not so average career.”

“Let’s get around to proving that then.” Morgan laughs, waving his hand for the crew to start unloading. There are four guys, so Niall is guessing that it’s one for him and Harry, one for the kids, and one for insert shots of the house and the bus today, and then the last for sound. More will likely join them on tour. They’ll want a camera for each family member at least, and one or two for other material, plus the sound guys and all of the other stuff. The thought of it makes Niall’s head spin. He’s not sure why they agreed to this. “Boys, this is Niall. Niall, these are Carl, John, Travis, and Chuck. They’ll be four of the crew that are joining us on tour.”

“Nice to meet you, guys.” Niall nods, shaking each of their hands as Morgan introduces them.

“Anything we need to know about before we get started?” Morgan asks.

“Yeah. We have twin five year olds, and a two year old. It takes us an hour and a half just to get out of the house to buy groceries. Reshoots aren’t a thing we can really do.” Niall explains. “Now, let’s get you set up.”

Are you guys ready for the start of this tour tonight?

“This is always the worst part of a tour.” Niall says into the camera. “Always. Trying to pack your whole life into a few suitcases always feels weird. Plus– My husband is kind of a diva. He has two bags just for his shoes.”

“Don’t lie, you twat.” comes a voice from off-screen. Harry shows up a moment later, sitting two cases beside the large pile that Niall is standing next to. “I only have one for shoes.”

“Diva.” Niall repeats with a snort.

“Who’s the one bringing five guitars?” Harry fires back at him.

“Because I need them on-stage.” Niall laughs. “You know, for music.”

“And I need shoes to walk.” Harry huffs. Niall’s ensuing eye roll is very poorly concealed.

“Worse than him is the kids though.” Niall explains. “Trying to get them to pack is like herding cats. William and Jimmy want to pack their entire wardrobes.”

The screen switches from the fathers to the twins. Jimmy is sitting on top of a suitcase, and William is trying valiantly to zip it. It isn’t until Harry steps in and takes over with both of them on top that the bag finally closes.

The screen flips back to Niall, and he says, “And trying to get Aibhlinn to narrow down her toys enough to pack them for the trip required more negotiation than our contract did.”

The screen changes again, to Ava this time. She’s wearing a plastic tiara, a green feather boa, at least a dozen necklaces, and she’s dancing with a ridiculously huge stuffed unicorn. It’s impossibly cute.

“There’s a balance you have to find.” Harry says when the screen goes back to them. “You want to be prepared for anything, but you don’t want to overload yourself. Living on the bus is going to limit our storage space, so we have to be smart about all of it, but we still have to be ready for a day out with the kids as much as a public appearance.”

“It’s like walking a tightrope.” Niall adds. “But not nearly as dramatic, because we can always buy what we forget to pack. The goal is to reduce any extra additions to the already cramped living space that we’ll have to fit in.”

“Which some people clearly don’t respect.” Harry says with a pointed glare off-screen. He’s met with a cackle that fans will be able to identify easily, despite the fact that its owner isn’t shown onscreen.

“Let’s just say that our life is going to be like one really big game of Tetris for the next few months.” Niall chuckles.

“What’s Tetris?” William asks, walking onto the screen and dragging a suitcase behind him.

“Oh god.” Niall groans, gripping onto Harry’s shoulder and doubling over. “I have never felt older than I do right now.”

“It’s an old videogame, bub.” Harry tells him.

“Did somebody hit dad?” Jimmy asks as he drags his bags in behind him. “He looks like he’s in pain.”

“He’s old.” William explains, pulling a snorting laugh from Harry and another cackle from off screen.

“Well, yeah. What else is new?” Jimmy scoffs. The person off screen loses it completely, and Niall grabs one of the decorative rocks out of a bowl on the foyer table, chucking it at the source and receiving a yelp in return, followed by a long bleeping noise and a lot of giggles from the twins.

“I may be old, but I’m still a good shot. Remember that next time you feel like getting mouthy.” Niall smirks. “Is that everything for both of you?” He asks, turning his attention back to the kids.

“Yeah.” William says with a nod. “Want us to go grab Ava’s bags?”

“Please and thank you.” Harry says with a nod. Both boys rush back out of the frame, clearly excited to be given an important task. Once they’re gone, Harry turns back and says, “Ask them to gather their laundry, and it’s an hour long struggle. Ask them to help with Ava, and they’ll scramble over each other to be the first one to get there. Go figure.”

“I’d rather that than the other way around.” Niall says with a shrug. “The kids are packed. Are you?”

“I’ve gone over the checklist three times.” Harry tells him.

“Did that include the things we talked about this morning?” Niall asks.

“Oh, no. Give me your bag.” Harry requests, taking the messenger bag that Niall has over his shoulder and running off.

“You’d be amazed the things that you forget to put on a list until the last minute.” Niall laughs. “I forgot about toothpaste until last night. Toothpaste. I’m sure the second we’re outside of city limits, I’ll remember something else that we’ve forgotten. Then I’ll have to have the driver stop at the first store he finds to pick up some completely random, mundane thing that we use so often that we forget we need it.”

There’s a series of coughs off screen, but anyone paying attention can clearly make out a well-known voice saying ‘sex stuff’ through the noise. Niall rolls his eyes, but the blush that pinks up his cheeks is definitely telling.

“Fuck.” Niall groans, slumping back against the couch in the dressing room. “Remind me why we weren’t doing this during all our other tours?”

“You were terrified of your earth-shattering level of love for me.” Harry hums, pressing the words into Niall’s neck with a smirk like he’s trying to inject them under his skin.

“It’s a much better way to use that excess adrenaline.” Niall chuckles. “Would you mind undoing the cuffs?”

“Who says I’m done with you yet?” Harry asks, giving a lazy roll of his hips to bring attention to the fact that he’s still fully hard within Niall.

“We have to be back on the bus in ten minutes.” Niall points out with a groan, his cock already starting to fatten back up as Harry presses a kiss behind his ear and gives another shallow thrust. “We promised the kids.”

“Think you could get off again in the next five minutes?” Harry asks.

“No.” Niall laughs. “You’re good, but not that good.”

“I resent that.” Harry growls, leaning down to bite at Niall’s collarbone. “I’m definitely that good.”

“Maybe, but I don’t want to risk being wrong and either end up being late and setting a precedent, or not finishing and being frustrated all night.” Niall tells him. “Let’s just quit while we’re ahead.”

“If you insist.” Harry huffs, pulling out while kissing Niall to distract him from the sensation. It doesn’t work. “You want a flannel to clean up with, or should I use my tongue?”

“You’re insatiable.” Niall snorts, squirming as Harry’s thumbs dig into his hips. “But I suppose that if you insist.”

“Oh, but I do.” Harry hums, dipping his tongue into Niall’s belly button and scooping out what Niall coated himself in a minute ago. He licks and slurps his way up cleaning Niall thoroughly until he’s digging his toes into Harry’s thighs because there’s nothing left to lick up, but Harry’s tongue is still working over him in methodical strokes that are threatening to shake him apart at the seams.

“If you don’t stop, we’re going to be late anyways.” Niall moans, shivering when Harry bites down lightly on his nipple. “You might as well have just fucked me again.”

“Still could.” Harry offers, snaking his hand down and pressing the tips of two fingers against Niall’s hole. “Feels like you’re practically begging for it.”

“Stop!” Niall giggles. “We owe the kids for putting up with this tour. I’d love to go again, but we should spend the night with them.”

“Fine.” Harry pouts, pressing a quick kiss to Niall’s forehead before reaching down around Niall’s back and undoing the cuffs. Niall grunts and flexes his wrists, making a note to remind himself that they can’t do this with his arms behind his back again if he’s going to be laying on it. “Think Louis is at least distracting them?”

“He’s probably in the corner crying by now.” Niall snorts. “He hasn’t dealt with all three of them by himself before.”

As it turns out, five minutes later when they stumble onto the bus as a pair of disheveled messes who can barely keep their hands out of each other’s pants now that there’s nothing going on to use up the adrenaline in their systems, Louis is handling the situation rather well. Sure, there’s half a bowl of popcorn on the floor, and pretty much every toy the kids own (including a few that Niall doesn’t recognize, which are surely more gifts from Louis to make things more difficult) is strewn about the seating area, but everyone is gathered up on the couch, watching a film peacefully. They barely get any attention at all, in fact.

“Hey, how was the show?” Louis asks, though his eyes never leave the screen.

“Amazing.” Niall breathes out, letting his eyes slip closed. He can almost still feel it, the sound and energy of the crowd rolling over him in waves. The audience was smaller than the crowds they had at the end of One Direction, but every person in that auditorium was just as enthusiastic as their fans ever were before, even though it’s just the two of them now.

“It was bloody brilliant.” Harry hums in agreement, wrapping his arms around Niall’s waist from behind and setting his head on Niall’s shoulder. He sneaks a hand under Niall’s shirt, teasing his fingers over Niall’s stomach, and the blond doesn’t have it in him to tell Harry to stop.

“And how was the, um– After party?” Louis snorts, taking in their hastily put together appearances.

“Completely necessary.” Niall grins. “Also, completely fantastic.”

“The crew will be offended that you didn’t join them for the actual first show after party.” Louis points out.

“We thought about that.” Niall chuckles. “So we paid the bill for the entire night. All the booze and food was on us.”

“That’ll do it.” Louis laughs. “Well, as much as I’d love to stay and chat about you two living the dream, I’m insanely jealous and I kind of want to put your eyes out, so I should go.”

“If you ever want to make a guest appearance-” Niall offers.

“Absolutely not.” Louis says firmly, wiggling his way out of the mass of children on top of him until he’s standing up again. “I’ll never be able to go back to my job if I do that. You two can keep the stage. I’ll stick with being insanely rich and owning an incredibly successful label.”

“Deal.” Harry hums, pressing his fingers to his lips and blowing a kiss over to their ex-bandmate. “Now go away. We’ve got to be on the road if we’re going to be in Portland on time tomorrow. It wouldn’t look very good for your ‘incredibly successful label’ if your artists were late for their second show.”

“True.” Louis nods. “The kids were great. They’re pretty much dead to the world now. You should just be able to pack them in their bunks and retire for the night. Keep it down if you decide to have another after party though. That door is thin.”

“We’ll keep that in mind.” Harry says, pressing a grin into Niall’s neck before murmuring, “Looks like we’ll have our chance anyways.”

“Don’t get your hopes up.” Niall mutters. “I can feel the crash coming on soon.”

“I can work within those time constraints.” Harry purrs in his ear.

“Let me get off the bus first. Jesus.” Louis groans, making his way towards the door.

“Thanks for doing this tonight, Lou.” Niall says quietly, catching him by the elbow. “Actually, thanks for this whole thing.”

“You two are a solid investment.” Louis shrugs. “The album debuted at number one, the tour is basically sold out, and the advertising you two have agreed to do is all extremely profitable. I’m making out like a bandit because of you two.”

“Just say ‘I love you too’ like a normal person.” Harry huffs, smacking Louis in the arm. “Stop trying to pretend you’re not happy for us.”

“Never.” Louis says with a wicked smirk. “Don’t let me down, boys.”

“Have we ever?” Niall scoffs.

“You don’t want me to answer that question.” Louis hums, opening up the door and stepping down to the ground outside. “See you around, boys. I’ll be making random visits to see how the documentary is going, so you should probably get my tea.”

“There’s a box in the cupboard.” Niall grins. “Just make sure to call ahead.”

“I won’t.” Louis laughs, letting the door close behind him as he walks away.

“He really won’t, will he?” Harry sighs.

“I made a deal with his assistant earlier.” Niall admits. “He’ll let us know ahead of time when Louis is coming. He’s cheap too, considering the fact that Louis will have his balls if he finds out.”

“Good for us.” Harry chuckles. “Now let’s get the kids to bed while we still have some energy to burn.”

“I love the way you think.” Niall grins, walking up to the couch. “Who’s awake enough to walk?”

“I’ll do it.” William mumbles sleepily.

“Take him. I’ll walk.” Jimmy says, lifting himself up off the couch and tottering back towards the bunks. William doesn’t even put up a protest, letting his eyes slip closed as Niall reaches down and plucks him up. Harry is right behind him, scooping Ava into his arms.

Niall doesn’t even bother setting William in his own bunk, instead just placing him in alongside Jimmy so that neither of them hurt themselves trying to climb around in the dark when they’re this tired. Jimmy smiles at him sleepily, and William just wraps himself around his brother and starts snoring lightly. Harry places Ava in the bottom bunk on the other side, settling her in with Phil.

They each kiss all three of the kids good night, and then they turn off the lights and head into their bedroom. They really should clean up the other room, but they have better things that they could be doing at the moment.

“God, I am still so fucking hard for you right now.” Harry groans, practically tackling Niall onto the bed.

The words are barely out of Harry’s mouth when the bus lurches forward to start their journey, and it’s like a switch flicking inside Niall’s body. His limbs, which were buzzing with energy just a moment before, suddenly feel like lead.

“Oh god.” he whines.

“It happened, didn’t it?” Harry sighs against his neck. “The crash?”

“I’m good.” Niall mumbles. “I’ll get a second wind. Just– Just give me a minute.”

“Niall.” Harry scoffs.

“Really.” Niall urges him. “Just like– Do the groundwork, and I’ll be good in a few minutes.”

“You’re sure?” Harry asks.

“Yeah.” Niall nods, letting his eyes close. “Yeah, I just need you to get things started. Get my clothes off and such.”

“Lazy.” Harry snorts, pushing his hands under the hem of Niall’s shirt and lifting it up. “Sit up for me.”

Niall does the best that he can to help, pushing up until he’s sitting, and letting Harry wrestle him out of his shirt. He flops back down as soon as it’s over his head, thanking god that they’d thought to outfit the bed with their own linens and pillows rather than keeping the ones that came with the bus. They smell like home, like their detergent and Harry’s shampoo and Niall’s soap. And it’s comforting.

Niall missed touring, missed singing on stage and feeling a rush like a hundred-thousand volts are running under his skin. He missed seeing the world, and meeting new people, and experiencing life in new ways every day. But he also already misses home, even though they’re not even out of the city. He misses the comfort and familiarity of the place that they’ve been living for so long.

Because, they’ve had houses, yeah, but this is the only real home either of them have had since they were teenagers still living with their parents. It’s the center of the life they’ve built together, the point around which they’ve based everything for their family. So, as much as he’s anticipating this new adventure, he’s also already missing their home.

“Where’d you go?” Harry asks softly, kissing at Niall’s neck. His torso presses bare against Niall’s, and he realizes that he must have zoned out a bit more than he thought, because both of them are now stripped down to their Calvin Kleins.

“Just hit me how much I’m going to miss home.” Niall admits. There’s no point in trying to hide it. Harry has been able to see through him since they met, let alone since they got together.

“Need to talk about it?” Harry questions, pulling back to look Niall in the eye.

“No.” Niall says, shaking his head. He reaches up and cups a hand around Harry’s cheek before saying, “I’ve got you and the kids here. I miss our house, but you four are what makes it home. You’re the only thing I need to be at home.”

“Are you always going to be this soppy after shows?” Harry asks with a fond smile. “Because I could definitely get used to this.”

“Arse.” Niall snorts, patting Harry’s cheek with a light slap. “We were in the middle of something, yeah?”

“Think I hit my wall.” Harry sighs, flopping down on top of Niall. He presses his lips to Niall’s neck and blows a raspberry, sucking all the sex and romance out of the room as Niall squeals and thrashes underneath him.

He manages to roll Harry off of him after a moment, and bats at his chest while he growls out, “You are the absolute worst.”

“Hey.” Harry hums, turning onto his side and tangling himself up with Niall’s limbs. “Did you know that I love you more than anything?”

“Think you’ve mentioned it once or twice.” Niall murmurs.

“I’m so glad that you agreed to this.” Harry breathes out.

“How could I not?” Niall chuckles. “Being on stage with you again– It’s fucking magical. And getting to show our kids new parts of the world is just the icing on the cake. This is everything I want, even if it is a bit on the crazy side.”

They fall asleep like that, twisted together so thoroughly that it’s impossible to tell whose limbs are whose in the dark of the room. It doesn’t last long though, of course. It can’t be half an hour before Niall is woken up with a pointy elbow to the ribs and the sound of high-pitched whimpering.

“What’s wrong, princess?” Niall asks immediately, scooting apart from Harry to give Aibhlinn space to settle between them.

“Phil got scared.” Ava mumbles, stuffing the unicorn in beside herself as she crawls under the blankets.

“Ah.” Harry hums. “You two want to sleep in here with us then?”

“Yes please.” Ava says quietly.

“Can we come too?” comes a small voice from the door. Jimmy is standing there with William, tears evident on the younger boy’s cheek.

“Of course.” Niall nods, scooting to the edge of the bed as Harry mirrors him.

The boys waste no time climbing in, Jimmy cuddling up to Niall, and William over by Harry so that Ava can stay in the middle. It takes a couple minutes for everyone to settle in, but eventually it happens. Niall has a leg hanging off of the bed, and Jimmy has got his arse on Niall’s chest, and William’s foot is dug into his pelvis from all the way across the bed, and he can barely breathe through Phil’s mane being shoved in his face, but he already feels better than he did before. He’s definitely going to kill Louis though, because Phil is one body too many in this bed.

Once the kids start to drift off, Niall and Harry lace their fingers together across the throng of bodies, and give in to their exhaustion, but realization dawns on Niall just as he almost falls asleep, and he groans, “Harry, did you remember to pack the shaving kit?”

“Fuck.”

“Budge over.” Harry whines, batting at Niall’s shoulder.

“Where?” Niall scoffs, glancing around the tiny shower stall they’re both crammed into with an incredulous look. And, yeah, he has a point. “My arse is already shoved into the wall.”

“I’m freezing.” Harry grumbles, giving an exaggerated shiver against Niall’s shoulder just to prove his point.

“Then you should have waited five minutes for me to finish up instead of climbing in here with me, you knob.” Niall scoffs, turning around as best as he can without jabbing Harry, and ducks his face under the spray. He might have a point, but they haven’t showered apart in ages. It was habit that drove Harry into climbing into the shower, and the goosebumps covering his skin are the consequence.

“But then I’d have missed the opportunity to see you all naked and wet.” Harry muses, sneaking his hand down Niall’s backside to pinch his bum.

He should have seen what happens next coming, because it literally always does, but they’re not normally this close when it happens. So when Niall jumps in surprise, and his shoulder knocks into Harry’s bottom jaw, it’s really his own fault.

“Shit!” Niall hisses, turning around quickly to fuss over Harry. “I’m so sorry! Are you okay?”

“’M fine.” Harry mumbles, sucking his bottom lip into his mouth to stop the small bleed before it can really get going.

“I’m so sorry.” Niall repeats, chewing on his thumbnail with his eyes locked on Harry’s bottom lip.

“It’s fine.” Harry assures him. “Don’t get too worried, Ni.”

“Don’t get too worried?” Niall echoes incredulously. “We have a show in twelve hours, and a shoot for the documentary tomorrow. You can’t go out there with a busted lip. Everyone will think I beat you or something.”

“Oh, I see how it is.” Harry snorts. “Have to protect the public image.”

“Shut up.” Niall mutters. “You know I didn’t mean to hurt you. I’d never do that.”

“I know.” Harry says softly, cupping Niall’s cheek. “It’ll be fine. The swelling will go down in a little while. It’s not that bad.”

“Does it hurt?” Niall asks.

“Not much. Nothing that couldn’t be fixed by letting me under the water.” Harry says with a grin.

“You’re fine.” Niall huffs, turning towards the door. “But I can wait to take a proper shower at the venue.”

“At least we’re going to be in a hotel for the next few days.” Harry sighs contentedly, stepping under the spray now that he has the tiny stall to himself.

“You act like that’ll make things easier.” Niall scoffs. “But you’re forgetting one very important thing.”

“Oh?” Harry asks. “And what’s that?”

“On the bus, the kids are contained.” Niall points out. “In a hotel, they can run about freely. If you think Jimmy is going to behave himself whenever our eyes aren’t on him, then you’re overestimating our son.”

“That’s what we brought Kayla along for.” Harry tells him. “If our eyes aren’t on the kids, then hers will be.”

“Mark my words, hon. There will be trouble.” Niall says before he steps out of the room.

‘Room’ is generous though. It’s more like a slightly larger stall around the shower stall. They should have paid out of pocket the extra amount past what Louis was willing to go to, and gotten the deluxe bus. It isn’t much different, but the ‘bathroom’ is a bit bigger, and it has two sinks. They figured that the frequency of the hotel stays would be enough to offset it, but, four days in, Harry is about ready to break down and tell Louis to have a new bus waiting for them in the next city.

He hears the door slide open again a few minutes later, and Niall rushing out, “Stay in the shower! Stay in the shower! Stay in the bloody shower!”

“Why?” Harry asks, wincing at the sound of the toilet seat slamming open. The unmistakable sound of a stream of urine starts up, and Niall sighs in relief. Incredulous, Harry opens the door to ask, “Are you pis-”

“I said stay in the shower!” Niall yelps, closing the door on Harry before he can finish his question. “Ava asked to use the toilet. We just had to start potty-training her right before this tour, didn’t we?”

“Potty!” Ava squeals enthusiastically over the sound of her weeing.

“I was hoping she’d be done by now, so that we’d save the space it takes to store her diapers.” Harry sighs.

“And you thought that two weeks would be enough time?” Niall fires back at him.

“Okay, the timing could have been better.” Harry admits. “But it’ll still help out if we can get her potty-trained before the end of the tour.”

“I suppose.” Niall acquiesces. “You all done, princess?”

“Done!” Ava squeaks.

“Alright. Wipe for me?” Niall requests, before a moment later adding, “Now let’s wash your hands.”

He starts running the sink at the same time he flushes the toilet, and Harry pays the price. The water goes from hot, to absolutely boiling in the blink of an eye. He shrieks and backs up flat against the wall, diverting the spray to the other side to avoid the scalding temperature.

“Sorry.” Niall groans. He at least does sound apologetic. That does nothing to soothe the red-mark burning angrily on Harry’s chest though. “Forgot about that.”

“I did too.” Harry mutters. “I don’t know how, though. Louis used to do that to us all the time.”

“It’s been a while since we all went around on a tour bus, Harry.” Niall points out.

“Hurry up and get her out of here.” Harry sighs. “This is the worst shower I’ve ever taken, and I’m going to get out before anything really bad happens.”

“Let’s go, princess.” Niall hums, shutting off the faucet. “Your father is in one of his moods.”

“I am not in ‘one of my moods’.” Harry growls, opening up the shower door just enough to glare out at Niall’s stupidly attractive smirk. “I don’t have moods. I am completely pleasant all the time.”

“Sure.” Niall scoffs, leading Ava out the door and closing it behind him.

Harry huffs and shuts off the water, resigning himself to using the venue’s shower after Niall finishes his own. Or maybe he’ll sneak in with Niall again. They’ll probably have enough room for that. They might even have room for a bit more. That might just be wishful thinking though. They haven’t had the time or privacy to do much of anything together since the night that they left Los Angeles. There’s a possibility that it’s getting to Harry just a bit.

His suspicions are confirmed when he towels off and dresses, joining the rest of his family in the dining area. Niall is setting out breakfast for everyone, bowls of cereal for the kids, and fruit with yoghurt for Harry and himself. All three kids look at Harry when he enters the room, and then quickly look back to their food and start shoveling it in their mouths without so much as a ‘good morning’.

Harry takes the cup of tea that Niall offers him, and sits in the booth next to Ava. He’s about three bites into his meal when he feels the twins looking at him. He glances up, and catches as their eyes dart back down. They were obviously looking at him, but they look guilty for being caught.

That happens three more times before Harry finally snaps and asks, “What is going on?”

“Nothing.” William squeaks, keeping his head down.

“Dad said that you’re in one of your moods.” Jimmy admits.

“Is this a thing?” Harry asks, looking over at where Niall is sheepishly hiding behind his coffee cup. “Like– Is this something that you’ve put into their heads?”

“Kind of.” Niall says with a slight shrug. “But I didn’t put it in their heads. They noticed it themselves. You do have some pretty intense mood-swings sometimes. Mostly it happens when we’re stuck on a song, but I have a feeling this time is a different kind of frustration.”

“I might be a bit on edge.” Harry sighs.

“We’ll take care of that later.” Niall says softly, brushing the damp hair off of Harry’s forehead. “Let you get all of that out. Until then, try to relax a bit. We can all switch over to the other bus if you want to chill out alone. I’m sure Kayla wouldn’t mind that much.”

“No. Stay here.” Harry pleads softly, climbing out of the booth and resting his forehead on Niall’s shoulder. He wraps his arms around Niall’s waist, tugging him close and burying his face in his husband’s neck. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize it was that bad.”

“It’s not.” Niall murmurs, pressing a kiss to Harry’s temple. “Even on your worst day, you’re not half as bad as I am when Derby loses. It’s just a bit – disconcerting – whenever you aren’t your usual happy self. I’m used to it, but the kids aren’t.”

“I’ll keep it under control.” Harry promises.

“Not completely under control, yeah?” Niall requests. “It’s proper sexy when you lose it a little bit.”

“Dad!” the boys groan at the same time. It’s really creepy when they do that. Harry’s almost positive that they’re mildly telepathic with each other.

“Oi, shush it you two.” Niall fires back at them. “You should be eating, not eavesdropping.”

“You’re right there!” Jimmy huffs. “You’re two feet away. How are we not supposed to hear you two being gross?”

“Mm, just wait until you all grow up and fall in love.” Harry chuckles. “You’ll be gross too.”

“Never.” both boys grunt, yet again in terrifying sync.

There’s a noticeable difference in the quality of the video as the shot opens up. The view is on a heavily decorated tree, surrounded by an obscene amount of presents. The camera shakes, and there’s a long bleep before it steadies with a loud click. Niall walks into the shot, several years younger than the last time he was on camera.

“Alright, it’s set up, and it’s recording.” Niall says towards someone off screen. “Bring them in.”

“You’re sure it’s recording?” Harry asks, staying out of view of the camera while a shuffling sound can be heard.

“Christ, it’s like you think I’m my grandfather or something.” Niall mutters. “Yes, I’m sure that it’s recording. I know how to work a web-cam, Harry.”

“I’m just checking.” Harry huffs, finally entering the shot. He has two babies in his arms, both dressed in identical elf costumes. It’s really fucking cute. He passes one of the twins, Jimmy, given the large J on his outfit, to Niall and then turns towards the camera. He takes William’s hand in his, waving it towards the camera, and uses a high pitched voice to say, “Hi everyone! Hi grandmas and grandpas! Hi aunts and uncles! Hi cousins!”

“Harry, there’s nobody on the other end.” Niall sighs. “We’re sending this later, remember?”

“I know that, Niall.” Harry says with a roll of his eyes. “But it would be nice if we actually acknowledged the people who’ll be receiving it, and didn’t just make a video of us opening presents. That’ll be too boring.”

“Will you get over here and actually get started then?” Niall grumbles, sitting down on the floor and clipping Jimmy into a seat. “I’m bloody starving.”

“Don’t mind him being a Grinch.” Harry says quietly into the camera. “He was up half the night wrapping presents for the boys. Then he took their feedings so that I could sleep.”

“Also, Harry wouldn’t let me eat.” Niall says at the screen. “We have to do this part first, apparently.”

“It’s tradition, Niall.” Harry says, waving him off as he crosses over the space between them and sits down next to him. He buckles William into a seat beside Jimmy, and says, “We have a family now. Traditions are important.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Niall huffs. “You’ve given me the spiel already, and I agreed to it. You don’t need to keep selling your point. Now, let’s see what Santa brought everyone.”

What’s happening today?

“Family time is very important to us.” Harry explains into the camera, shifting Ava on his hip as they walk down a dock. Makeup does a good job of hiding his partially swollen lip, but it’s still noticeable. There’s no explanation offered as to what happened. “Now more than ever. Back when we used to tour with One Direction, we didn’t get to really see the places we visited so much. But, now that we’re touring with the kids, we wanted to make sure that they got to experience the world, since we’ve taken them so far from their home.”

“And since we’re in Seattle, we decided that today we’d go to Seafair.” Niall offers up, holding tightly to both of the twins’ hands. Given the wonder on William’s face as he gazes around, and the mischievous glint in Jimmy’s eyes, that’s a good idea. “When we started planning this tour, we knew that we wanted to come to this, so we put a rental on a boat for the day to watch everything from the water.”

The boat, as it turns out, is closer in size to a yacht. One would suppose that it would have to be, in order to fit the entire Horan-Styles clan, as well as the documentary crew, and what appears to be several coolers of food and a grilling station.

“Of course, once we did that, someone decided that they just had to fly over and join us for the day.” Harry says with a sneaky smile. “Some – extended family - if you will.”

The mystery person in question is revealed a moment later when the boys’ faces light up, and they break free of Niall’s hold shouting, “Uncle Louis!”

The screen switches to a shot of Louis Tomlinson standing on the end of the dock as both boys careen into him. He’s dressed in a striped shirt that will be a major throwback for fans from the early days of One Direction, and red swimming trunks. The ensemble is completed with an askew captain’s hat that just spells trouble for everyone involved.

“Hey boys!” Louis beams, scooping both twins into his arms and teetering dangerously with the effort. He stays upright though, and receives two tight looking hugs from Jimmy and William in response. He carries them both onto the boat, nearly missing the deck when he takes the step, and the camera flashes to an extremely worried looking Harry for just a moment.

Niall helps Harry onto the boat afterwards, and then climbs on himself.

The twins are running around excitedly, peering at everything, and Harry is helping Ava pull on her water wings and life vest. She squirms around, trying to follow after her brothers, but Harry doesn’t let her loose until everything is securely fastened in place. Once it is though, she takes off like a rocket, bare feet pounding on the deck as she shrieks and chases after the twins.

“Where’s Freddie?” Niall asks, looking around.

“Finally broke down and let him go to camp.” Louis sighs. “He wanted me to say ‘hi’ to all of you for him, though.”

“That’s rough.” Niall says, clapping Louis on the shoulder. “Want a beer?”

“I can’t drink and drive the boat.” Louis hums.

“Of course.” Niall nods. His head snaps up after a minute, and he asks, “Wait, what?”

Louis is already gone, heading into the cabin with Niall scrambling after him.

“That’s, uh– That’s not good.” Harry says quietly.

As it turns out, Louis isn’t that bad of a boat driver. Apparently he has one docked in a marina back in Los Angeles that he takes out with Freddie on weekends. Harry wasn’t aware of that.

“What happened to ‘family time is very important to us’?” Niall asks, dryly poking at Harry’s side with a wet toe so cold that it makes Harry shriek and fall off of his chair.

“Tanning is also very important.” Harry huffs, glaring up at Niall from the deck. “Vitamin D is good for the skin.”

“You’ll get plenty tan playing with the kids.” Niall chuckles. “Stop lazing about. The crew isn’t getting anything worth using from you.”

“We’ve got another six hours out here.” Harry argues. “How much footage do you actually think they need? It’ll be– What? Five minutes max of the entire documentary?”

“You remember last time.” Niall says with a shrug. “Ben said that there’s over a month’s worth of footage all together for that, but the film was only seventy-five minutes.”

“Why did we agree to this again?” Harry sighs.

“Because, it was either this, or Louis would have found some other asinine way to make money off of us.” Niall hums. “I have no interest in finding out what that would have been. Do you?”

“No.” Harry agrees. Louis is fantastic at the ruthless side of being a music mogul, and Harry is positive that he had other bullets in the chamber if they hadn’t agreed to the documentary.

“Listen-” Niall says quietly, crouching down across the chair from Harry. “In a little bit, the crew will be done until the fireworks show tonight. Just– I don’t know, take the boys out with Louis on the jet-skis or something. Give them some good shots while I do all of the cooking, and then the cameras will shut off and we can all relax.”

“Wait– Fireworks?” Harry asks, narrowing his eyes angrily.

“Just little ones, babes.” Niall chuckles, pressing a kiss between Harry’s furrowed eyebrows. “Nothing to be scared of.”

“I’m not scared of them!” Harry hisses. “I just don’t like them!”

“Just like spiders.” Niall says with a shit-eating grin.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Which one of us screamed and ruined a harmony because a bee flew by him?” Harry counters.

“It was a wasp, and it came straight for my face.” Niall growls.

“It was at least three feet from your head when you shrieked like Aibhlinn does if she doesn’t want to take a bath.” Harry smirks.

“You are so sleeping on the floor tonight.” Niall grumbles.

“Don’t start shit, won’t be shit, honey.” Harry muses.

“Just go play with the kids while I make lunch.” Niall sighs, rubbing at his temple.

“Give me a kiss first.” Harry grins.

“No.” Niall says firmly. “Not unless you admit that it was coming right at me with every intent to sting.”

“It was definitely trying to sting your pretty face.” Harry hums. “Now snog me.”

“I thought you just wanted a quick kiss.” Niall chuckles, stepping around the chair and dropping down to straddle over Harry’s legs. “That’s all you bargained for.”

“I’m greedy like that.” Harry muses, grabbing ahold of Niall’s neck and drawing him down into a kiss. He hums into it contentedly once Niall starts kissing him back properly, and, soon enough, hands are wandering as Niall licks into his mouth.

“Fucking hell!” Louis yelps. “There’s a bloody film crew here! Stop going at it like horny teenagers!”

“Shouldn’t you be driving the boat?” Harry sighs when Niall stands back up off of his lap.

“We’re anchored, Harry.” Louis huffs. “And we have been for a while. Niall, you were supposed to be getting Harry up, not getting ready to make him go down on you.”

“It wasn’t planned.” Niall shrugs, biting at his kiss-swollen bottom lip. “Not a terrible idea though.”

“I can’t think of a worse one.” Louis counters. “My company’s name is going on this documentary, and it will destroy all three of us if this thing turns into a porno. Get it together, you two.”

He storms off after that, grumbling loudly as Harry and Niall exchange sheepish looks.

“So– I kind of hate that he’s basically our boss now.” Harry says after a moment.

“You’re the one who called him.” Niall scoffs, holding out a hand to help Harry up off of the deck. “Could have gone with Simon, but no – you wanted to keep it ‘in the family’.”

“Honestly, I was a little afraid that I’d call him ‘Uncle Simon’ again, and I’m almost thirty, so-” Harry trails off.

“Fucking idiot.” Niall snorts. “I love you.”

“Love you too.” Harry beams, pulling Niall into another quick kiss before wandering off towards the sound of high-pitched shrieking that should indicate where their children are probably harassing one of the documentary crew members.

Are Harry and Niall really as perfect a couple as they seem?

“Yeah, they’re, uh– They’re kind of disgustingly in love.” Louis says with a small smile. “It’s like– It’s like the kind that you only think exists in movies and novels. And, the thing is, it’s really annoying, because nobody should still be in the honeymoon phase after so long, but it’s also kind of inspiring, you know?

“Like, I know it’s kind of a cliché, but you can literally feel the love radiating off of them whenever you’re around them. Everyone should want what they have. It’s just, like– Can you imagine loving someone just as much as you did the day you fell for each other, over a decade later? That’s crazy.

“And, like– I think a lot of us figured it out before they did. I know that sounds kind of pompous, but they were both really obvious, and yet really oblivious for the longest time. And then Harry stopped being oblivious, and kind of realized that he was completely arse over tits for Niall. Then he was just obvious. Like, really bloody obvious.

“Niall was a lot harder to read back then. He was always really private, and it was difficult to tell what he was thinking a lot of the time. That said, it was easy to see if you really knew him. He was maybe even farther gone than Harry was, actually. He always laughed longer and louder for Harry than for anyone else, always had this dopey smile on his face after they’d spent time together, maybe, uh– Maybe got a bit withdrawn whenever Harry was seeing someone.

“Overall, they were kind of stupid for waiting so long to get together. They could have saved themselves a lot of problems back in the day if they’d just gotten together sooner. It might have made things a bit harder on the band, but we would have supported them to the ends of the Earth.

“Hell, I would have thrown them a damn parade if it would have gotten some of the fans off of my back. You remember what it was like back then, yeah? People were constantly saying that Harry and I belonged together, and I would always sit back and think, ‘Do you people even have eyes?’ because Harry was so blatant about being in love with Niall, even before they were together. And, you know, I’m straight.”

He sits back and takes a drink from a glass of water on the table, adjusting the captain’s hat on his head. There’s muffled noise coming from off-screen, and Louis turns his head to watch with a laugh.

“No, leave them to it. Don’t break up their fun.” Louis answers to a question that the audience didn’t hear. “They’re such a perfect family. They– I don’t know. They figured it out somehow. Those kids are really lucky, because they’ll never, ever come second. Sure, Niall and Harry may be touring, but they don’t spend any less time with the kids than they did when they were working from home. They somehow found the perfect balance of family time and being able to have a successful career, and they make it look so easy.

“When Harry called me up about the possibility of the two of them doing an album, my business side just saw dollar bills flooding my office. I was never worried about what it would do to them as a family, though. I never had a reason to be. I knew, without a doubt, that they were all going to be fine. Harry and Niall will always prioritize the kids, and that’s good with me. They’re a good investment, but they’re a better family.”

Louis looks like he has more to say, but there’s a loud crash that interrupts whatever was coming next. His eyebrows practically spring off of his forehead, and the camera just barely catches his dramatic leap and roll off of the couch as a stream of water hits where he was sitting only a moment before.

Louis scrambles and ducks behind the bar, but reappears a moment later with what can only be described as a water cannon, rather than a water gun, and a roar of, “Did you think I came unprepared, boys?”

The screen flashes to Jimmy and William standing in the doorway to the yacht’s seating area with their own water guns pointed presumably at Louis. They scramble over each other to flee when a jet of water streams towards them. The camera pans out to watch Louis give chase, and then follows after the trio through the small hallway that leads outside.

The twins break off in separate directions once they get out to the deck, abandoning their guns behind them, and Louis raises his arms over his head to crow in victory. His pride is short lived though, as two streams of water dump onto him from above, and he shrieks indignantly.

Harry and Niall’s distinctive laughs can be heard, and the view on screen switches again to the two of them leaning against the railing on the upper level of the boat with buckets in their hands, cackling.

The point of view switches again, this time to a side view from a bit farther out that allows the viewer to see all three adults as Louis yells, “You set a bloody trap for me while I was shooting my ‘talking head’?”

“More than one!” Niall calls down to him with a mischievous glint.

Ava races on-screen a moment later, water balloons taped haphazardly all over her life-vest, as she squeals, “Unca Lou!”

The camera switches again to Niall and Harry up top, collapsing into each other in twin fits of laughter, over which a very long beeping noise can be heard, followed by, “Is that beer?” which only makes them laugh harder.

It’s in their twelfth city, Chicago, when Niall’s prediction about trouble finally comes true. They’re fresh off of their post-concert adrenaline shag, and Niall is still relishing the small amount of energy that he has left. It’s a nice calm kind now, like the reverse of getting drunk, and he’s coming down from being completely intoxicated until he’s at a nice pleasant buzz.

Harry had left the shower when his crash started, but Niall is just now finishing up. They’ve sprung for one of the good suites, the kind that has a private water-heater, and Niall wanted to use every last drop of the hot water that he could. It’s become so rare for them to have a long, hot shower anymore, and Niall knows better than to take it for granted.

He steps out of the shower and towels off, leaving it to dry on the rack once he deems himself dry enough to sleep without leaving the sheets damp. Harry, as expected, is still nude and already asleep and spread out like a starfish over the entire mattress.

No sooner has Niall pulled on a pair of pants when a furious banging starts up on the door. He shakes Harry awake enough to tell him to cover up, and then heads over to answer it before whoever is on the other side breaks the thing down. He’s not expecting Kayla, but when he sees her puffy eyes and tear-streaked cheeks, he knows something is seriously wrong.

“They’re gone!” Kayla chokes out. Niall’s heart stops in his chest, and he swears time slows down for just a moment as his brain starts jumping to every horrible scenario possible. “I– I just went to the bathroom. I was only gone for a minute, but when I came back, the door was open and-”

“Kayla, go back to the room and call down to the front desk.” Harry orders from behind Niall. That’s good. Harry’s good in a crisis. Niall isn’t. He isn’t authoritative or commanding like he needs to be in this emergency. He can’t stop the panic welling up in his chest, but Harry can help bring it down enough to force him to focus. “Then call our security and tell them to block off all of the entrances because the kids are missing.”

“Okay.” Kayla rushes out before turning and running back into the suite that she and the kids are sharing.

“Niall.” Harry says firmly, turning the blond by the shoulder and looking him in the eyes. Oh, he put on joggers. Good. He’s so good when the shit has hit the fan. “I know you’re freaking out, but we need to start searching now. Can you do that?”

“Yes.” Niall answers.

“I’ll take this way, and you go that way.” Harry tells him, pointing down the hall. “Call for me if you find them.”

“Okay.” Niall says a bit numbly, taking off in the direction that Harry had indicated.

He starts calling their names, over and over again, but they aren’t responding, and his panic is threatening to rise up and overwhelm him again with every frantic step he takes. This can’t be happening. It fucking can’t. The kids know better than to leave the rooms unattended, or to answer the door without an adult. Niall and Harry had made sure to go over every possible scenario with them, over and over again until the kids could parrot back to them what they were supposed to do in a situation like this.

And he knows that it isn’t Kayla’s fault, that she would never do something like this on purpose, but he’s not sure that he can ever look at her again if something happens to the kids. She’s like a part of the family, but the kids are family. They’re Niall’s heart and soul, and he’ll never recover if something happens.

Someone has to have taken them. Someone has to have taken them, and they’ll never see their kids again. The fear becomes more real with every call of their names, this stabbing dread in Niall’s gut that he’ll never see his children again. Someone has taken them, and that’s why they aren’t calling back to him.

Then he hears it– Ava’s screaming cry, and he takes off so fast that he’s not even sure that his feet are still hitting the floor. He pounds his way through the hall, a spike of adrenaline ten times stronger than any concert forcing him to move faster until he’s crashing into a wall when he tries to pivot at a turn. It doesn’t slow him down. Not once he looks down the hall and sees the twins standing with Ava in the door to the little room that has the ice and vending machines.

Niall has never moved so quickly in his life. He calls out Harry’s name as loudly as he can, and rockets towards their children until he’s collapsing on his knees and sobbing as he pulls all three of them into a crushing hug.

“Are you hurt?” Niall asks shakily, pulling back and looking each of them over. Ava and William are both crying, and Jimmy doesn’t look that far off from it himself. “Are you all okay?”

“We’re all okay. They got scared when they heard you yelling.” Jimmy explains quietly.

“Why did you leave the room?” Harry asks breathlessly as he pads up behind Niall.

“A-Ava was – was hungry.” William says through a choked sob. “We just want- wanted to – to help. We were– Were trying to be big brothers.”

“You should have waited for Kayla.” Harry sighs, kneeling down beside Niall. “You guys know better. Part of being big brothers is helping, yeah. You guys are so, so good at that. But another part is knowing when something is or isn’t safe. It’s not safe for you guys to go around without an adult. Especially when you don’t tell anyone where you’re going.”

“We’re sorry.” Jimmy whispers, looking down at the floor while tears begin to pour down his cheeks as well.

“We’re not going to tell you that this is okay.” Niall says gently. “You scared us and Kayla. But we understand what you were trying to do, and we aren’t going to yell at you either. You had good intentions, even if what you did was wrong. You both understand that, yeah?”

“Yes.” Jimmy and William say in unison.

“Let’s get back to our room, and get into bed, alright?” Harry asks.

“You take the kids and go tell Kayla that we’ve found them, so it’s okay to call off the search.” Niall tells Harry. “Think I messed up my knee a bit when I fell on it, so I’ll walk back on my own.”

“Are you okay?” Harry questions. “I can carry you back, Ni.”

“I’ll be fine.” Niall says, waving him off even as he grunts in pain from forcing himself back up to his feet. “The kids are safe, so I’m okay. Go on. I’ll be there in a minute.”

“Alright.” Harry sighs, pressing a kiss to Niall’s cheek. He picks Ava up and slings her over his hip before walking down the hall with the twins at his side.

Niall is glad that Harry didn’t push the argument any farther, because he was about one minute from taking Harry up on his offer. His knee is throbbing painfully now that the fear has subsided and the adrenaline has stopped flowing, but he still has his pride. He may be wandering the halls of his hotel at eleven, limping and nearly nude, but that’s arguably more dignified than being carried around by his husband. It’s a very close debate, and Niall is starting to regret his damnable pride with every step he takes back towards the room.

When he finally gets there, four minutes and what feels like a gallon worth of sweat later, Kayla is pacing nervously outside of the door.

“Mr. Horan-” she starts nervously once she notices Niall. “I’m so sorry. I never meant for this to happen.”

“Kayla, it’s okay.” Niall assures her. “It’s not your fault. We all know how the boys are. I warned Harry about this a few weeks ago.”

“It’s not okay, Mr. Horan.” Kayla says quietly. “You trusted me with your kids, and I lost them.”

“No, they wandered off.” Niall counters, leaning against the wall. “There’s a difference. We talked to them about this at least two dozen times before this tour started. They knew better, and they did it anyways. The blame in this isn’t on you, Kayla. You’re not at fault for this. I– I think we are, actually. We’ve put a lot of responsibility on the boys’ shoulders to help us take care of Aibhlinn, and that’s our mistake. They’re smart, and they want to help, and that’s made them, and us, forget that they’re only five years old.

“It’s not like you did a line of coke off of a stripper. You weren’t being irresponsible. You went to the bathroom, and, rather than wait for you, or come across the hall to us, they decided to take care of things on their own. We’ll all sit down and have a talk in the morning, explain to them again what to do in situations like this one, and that’ll be that. We don’t hold you responsible for their actions, Kayla. I promise that we don’t think any less of you, or trust you any less with them.”

“Mr. Styles said that you’re keeping them in your room for tonight.” Kayla mumbles.

“Not because we don’t trust you.” Niall tells her again, placing his hand on her shoulder. “When– When something like this happens, you just need to have your kids close. It would be the same if they’d wandered off in the supermarket or something. Having them stay with us tonight isn’t a reflection on you. It’s just us needing to keep them with us to remind ourselves that they’re okay, and they’re here.”

“Are– Are you going to fire me?” Kayla asks quietly. “I understand if that’s what you want to do.”

“There’s nobody in the world that we’d rather have watch our kids, Kayla.” Niall says with a soft smile. “I don’t want you gone unless you don’t want to do this anymore.”

“I do.” Kayla says firmly. “I love those kids, and I promise that nothing like this will happen again.”

“Alright, then.” Niall nods. “I’m going to bed now, because I’m exhausted. Have a good night, Kayla. We’ll see you in the morning.”

Kayla shuffles into her room across the hall, but, before she can close the door, Harry’s voice erupts from the room behind Niall as he yells, “Oh my god! What is wrong with you? Go give that back! Right now!”

“Oh lord.” Niall sighs, watching as Jimmy marches guiltily into the hall. He stops in front of Kayla and holds up– fuck, is that a wallet? “Fucking hell.”

“I took this to buy Ava’s snack from the vending machine.” Jimmy explains as he hands it back. “I’m sorry.”

“Get back inside, you bloody thief.” Niall groans, steering Jimmy back into the room. “Kayla, I am so sorry. I have no idea why he ever thought that going into your purse would be anything close to resembling decent behavior.”

“It’s okay, Mr. Horan.” Kayla chuckles.

“Is it– Is it all in there?” Niall asks cautiously.

“Yeah.” Kayla confirms after checking. “It’s all still here.”

“Oh thank god.” Niall breathes out in relief. At least Jimmy isn’t a total thief. “See you in the morning.”

He slumps back into the room after that, rubbing at his temples with the stress of the night, and having to explain to Jimmy (again) that stealing is wrong. Breakfast is going to be such a fucking ordeal.

By the time that he reaches the bedroom, all four of the others are passed out. Harry is lying right in the center of the bed with the twins tucked into his sides, and Ava snoring on his chest. If Niall grabs his mobile and takes a picture of them before he turns out he lights and crawls in with them, that’s his business.

So, what exactly is going on here?

“This is a family tradition.” Niall explains as he sets Aibhlinn on a stool by the counter. The boys immediately stand off to her sides, flanking her and tying on identical white aprons. “Every Sunday, we make pancakes together as a family. It’s been something that we’ve tried to keep up while we’ve been touring, too. Most of the time, we’ve managed to be in a hotel on Sundays, and most of them have been really good about letting us use one of the griddles for half an hour or so to do this. We’ve only missed two so far, and one of those was on the bus.”

“I still think we could have used the hotplate.” Harry huffs.

“We are not trying to cook breakfast for five on a hotplate in a moving bus.” Niall says firmly, rolling his eyes at the camera. “That would take ages, and you’d somehow find a way to set the bus on fire.”

“No sense of adventure.” Harry groans loudly, earning a chorus of giggles from the kids.

“That’s not what you were saying– No! No, I am not getting baited into a flirting war with you.” Niall scoffs.

“Oh, we’ll see about that.” Harry smirks.

“Alright, kids-” Niall says, looking pointedly at Harry on the word ‘kids’. “Who’s got what job this morning? I can’t keep track.”

“Jimmy is mixing to keep it from locking up.” William beams.

“And William is pouring it on the griddle.” Jimmy smiles.

“Blue-bewwies!” Ava squeals, pointing ecstatically towards a bowl of the aforementioned fruit seated on her lap.

“Harry– Cooking or initial mixing?” Niall asks.

“Mixing, please.” Harry requests, already scooping flour into a large bowl.

“Perfect.” Niall hums, reaching over and plucking a few blueberries out of the bowl to pop into his mouth. He chews them and adds, “Means I don’t have to do anything for a while.”

“Niall James Horan-Styles!” Harry squawks, flicking flour in the blond’s face. “Don’t talk with food in your mouth! Set an example for the kids!”

“Why you-” Niall growls, wiping the flour off of his face.

He reaches into the bowl and throws a fistful of the powder right back in his husband’s direction. Harry is too quick though, and manages to grab Jimmy and lift him up as a human shield, blocking most of the flour. Jimmy squawks and squirms, trying to escape Harry’s grip while William grabs Ava off of the stool and helps her down so that they can duck under the counter.

All hell breaks loose once Jimmy manages to get his hand on an egg, smashing it back behind his own head, and onto Harry’s. Harry shrieks at that, and then the kitchen explodes in a cloud of white as Jimmy knocks over the bowl of flour on his dash for cover.

The camera moves to a safe distance, capturing what appears to be a full-fledged food war. In response to getting doused in flour by Jimmy, William grabs a handful of blueberries from Ava’s bowl, and throws them, hitting Niall instead. Ava, in retaliation for her stash being depleted, dumps the bowl over William’s head. There’s a storm of food flying through the air, baking powder and blueberries and eggs being thrown without reservation, and seemingly at random, by all five parties.

There’s the sound of a door slamming open, and the camera shifts to show a professional looking man in his forties with a red face and bulging eyes as he roars, “What is going on here?”

“He started it!” Niall and Harry both yell in unison, pointing at each other. Harry is covered in eggs and smears of butter, while Niall is coated in a thick layer of flour with smatterings of blueberry mashed on it. The kids, being closer to the ground, have managed to avoid most of the mess, except for William. He’s dripping blueberry everywhere and his glasses are caked in grime. That was probably Jimmy’s doing, given the wicked grin on his lips.

The screen goes black after that, white text popping up to read: ‘Two hours of the manager yelling and the Horan-Styles family cleaning themselves and the kitchen later-’

“That doesn’t normally happen.” Niall says to the camera, flipping a pancake on the griddle.

“Once or twice a month at most.” Harry adds with a grin. “And we almost never get threatened with being kicked out of a hotel.”

“But, whenever we have, it’s always been Harry’s fault.” Niall huffs.

“That’s not true.” Harry scoffs. “It was your fault in Dublin, when you got absolutely pissed and tried to bring that sheep into the elevator.”

“I have no recollection of that event, and therefore it never happened.” Niall muses, clearing out the pancakes and helping William pour the next several ones.

“I still have no idea where they got the sheep.” Harry deadpans to the camera. “All I know is that it took me four hours to talk the manager down, and find a farm for the sheep.”

“Yeah, well Harry flooded an entire suite in New York when he fell asleep in the tub.” Niall counters. “And, once, in Paris, he almost got us thrown out for-”

“Nope!” Harry shouts over whatever Niall says next. “We’re done with this game. You win.”

“Always do.” Niall smirks, going back to focusing on the pancakes.

“Dad, I’m hungry!” William whines, tugging on the hem of Niall’s shirt.

“Blame your father.” Niall says, the lack of attention in his words making it sound almost like a habit. Harry’s ensuing eye-roll seems just as routine.

“But there’s already a big stack of pancakes.” William points out.

“You know the deal, buddy.” Harry says gently, patting his hand on William’s shoulder. “Everybody eats at the same time. Same as always.”

“This is the last stack, bud.” Niall assures him. “Why don’t you guys start getting everyone’s plates ready? We’ll be eating in a few minutes.”

“Okay.” William says with a bright smile, rushing off with Jimmy, who takes it upon himself to carry the plate containing the tower of pancakes.

Ava wriggles, trying to escape Harry’s hold and follow her brothers, but Harry keeps her in his arms. He hands her a couple of blueberries, and she settles down to munch on them happily, resting her head on Harry’s shoulder to watch Niall finish up. She and Harry both share twin looks of wonderment and fondness, which Niall doesn’t seem to notice as he pours one last pancake without William there to do it for him.

It only takes another couple of minutes before he plates up the last of them, passing one to Harry, and keeping one for himself.

“What happened to the bottom one?” Harry asks. “It looks all funky.”

“Ah, I made that one special for you.” Niall grins, walking over towards where the boys are standing by the door with their plates. “Thought that it was something you might like.”

Harry shifts Ava on his hip, using the fork to lift up his other pancakes before letting out a howling laugh. After he follows the other boys out, the screen plays a slow-motion capture of Niall pouring and flipping the ‘special’ pancake, which is more than vaguely phallic-shaped. It’s a fluffy piece of buttermilk penis art.

“You’ve almost got it.” Niall beams, reaching out to adjust Jimmy’s fingers on the strings. “Your hands are small, so you’ll have to stretch a bit more.”

“Like this?” Jimmy asks, strumming out the chord.

“That’s perfect, bud!” Niall laughs, pressing a kiss into Jimmy’s fringe.

“Thanks.” Jimmy says quietly, looking down at the guitar.

“What’s wrong?” Niall asks, carefully checking over Jimmy’s features for any sign of impending illness. He’s not flushed or pale, doesn’t have the same sag in his shoulders that he normally gets when he’s coming down with something. This is different.

“I– I wanna go home.” Jimmy chokes out, rubbing the back of his fist over his eyes to dry up the beginnings of tears that are leaking down his cheeks.

And, oh, if that doesn’t just break Niall’s heart. He lifts his guitar off of Jimmy’s lap and sets it to the side in order to pull the boy against his chest. Once Jimmy is in the safety of his father’s arms, his last barrier breaks, and he starts sobbing in earnest. Niall just holds him tighter, petting his back and hair. With Jimmy, you have to let him get it all out before you talk to him, or he just gets pissed off. He gets that from Niall.

It takes so long that Niall loses track of time, watches the sunset fade into darkness outside the bus’s bedroom window, but Jimmy eventually calms down again.

“Feel better?” Niall asks him.

“A little bit.” Jimmy mumbles. “I still want to go home, though.”

“I know, bud.” Niall murmurs. “Can I tell you a secret?”

“Yeah.” Jimmy says quietly, nodding against Niall’s chest.

“I do too.” Niall admits. “I missed this job, but I feel like I’m letting my favorite job, being your dad, slip through the cracks.”

“No, you’re still a good dad.” Jimmy says firmly. “But I miss my friends, and I miss Wolf, and I miss our beds. I hate hotel beds. They smell funny.”

“Yeah, they do.” Niall chuckles. “It’s because you’re used to our detergent. It took me two years of touring to figure out why it always felt so weird in hotels. I’ve got a trick for it though. Want me to show you?”

“Yeah.” Jimmy whispers, nodding his head again.

“Come lay down with me.” Niall tells him, setting him back on the bed and crawling up to the pillows. Jimmy crawls up next to him, settling down beside Niall on the pillows. “Close your eyes and think of home.”

“Okay.” Jimmy mumbles.

“I wash your father and I’s pillowcases with the detergent from home. Then we use those in the hotels.” Niall explains. “Do you want me to start doing it for you too?”

“Yes, please.” Jimmy whimpers, clinging onto Niall’s arm. It’s a few minutes before he quietly asks, “Dad? Can you keep it a secret that I cried?”

“Of course, bud.” Niall hums.

“I don’t want Willie to know.” Jimmy mutters. “He’s having so much fun seeing everything, and I don’t want him to think I’m a baby.”

“He wouldn’t, but I’ll keep your secret anyways.” Niall tells him. “Does that mean you aren’t having any fun?”

“I– I am, but– I don’t like being on the bus all the time, or sleeping in hotels.” Jimmy admits. “Willie and Ava don’t need me as much anymore, because Kayla is always around. And– And I’m tired of those guys always following us around with cameras. I don’t want to mess up and embarrass you guys and ruin this for you.”

“Bud, you’ve got to stop worrying so much.” Niall says gently, pressing a kiss to the back of Jimmy’s head. “We could never be embarrassed of you. You’re our son, and we love you. We love you so much more than this tour, or this job, and we’ll never stop.”

“But I’m a fuckup.” Jimmy chokes on the words, turning his face into the pillow. Niall’s heart stops for a moment at that, and his body goes stock still. It’s only for a moment, though.

“James Gregory Horan-Styles, where did you hear that?” Niall asks, sitting up in the bed and rolling Jimmy over.

“One– One of the camera guys said it after we took Ava out of the room back in Chicago.” Jimmy explains. “He said it must have been my idea, because I’m a fuckup. He said that I always mess everything up for everybody.”

“Come with me.” Niall growls, springing up off of the bed. He storms out of the room, slamming the door open so hard that it makes Harry, William, and Ava all yelp where they’re sitting on the couch. Niall doesn’t even bother explaining, walking quickly up to the partition that separates the bus driver from the family’s cabin. He knocks on it harshly, and then tears it open and says, “Pull over, and tell the doc crew’s bus to pull over too.”

“Yes, sir, Mr. Horan.” the driver, a kind man in his late fifties named John, agrees with a nod.

“Niall, what’s wrong?” Harry asks.

“Keep William and Ava on the bus.” Niall grits out, walking over to the door. “Don’t let them out. You stay here too.”

“Niall-” Harry starts, but Niall is already stepping out of the door as the bus stops.

The documentary crew’s bus pulls up behind theirs, and Niall is walking as quickly as he can with Jimmy at his heels. The door to the crew’s bus opens up, and Morgan steps out.

“Niall, what’s up?” Morgan asks.

“Call your crew out here, now.” Niall orders, putting his hand on Jimmy’s shoulder.

“Boy’s come on out here for a minute.” Morgan calls into the bus.

“I want you to tell me which one it was, and then go back to the bus, alright?” Niall tells Jimmy, crouching down to look in his eyes. “When you go to the bus, don’t look back, no matter what you hear. Promise me.”

“I– I promise.” Jimmy says weakly.

The crew shuffles out of the bus, and Jimmy points towards the one in the middle, Travis. That just pisses Niall off even more, because Travis is the one who’s been tasked to be the kids’ videographer. Niall and Harry picked him over all of the others, because they trusted him. He has two kids of his own, and then he goes and says shit like that. Niall is livid.

“You, stay out here. The rest of you can go back inside.” Niall says, turning Jimmy back towards the bus and making sure he isn’t watching.

“Mind telling me what this is about, Niall?” Morgan asks as the rest of the guys leave again.

“Yeah.” Niall nods. “I’m going to kick his ass.”

He launches himself forward, a fist already pulled back, and punches with the momentum of his movement to knock Travis down onto the ground. Travis has barely landed on his back before Niall is on top of him, raining down blows with his left fist over and over again.

“Who the fuck do you think you are?” Niall roars, planting a blow to the guy’s nose that makes blood spurt out.

“Niall, stop!” Morgan yells, tugging on Niall’s arm.

It’s not his hands that grab Niall by the shoulders and haul him off though. It’s not Morgan who holds Niall back against his chest as the Irishman struggles to get back into the scrap. Travis jumps up, but Morgan stops him from getting any closer.

“Niall, what the hell are you doing?” Harry asks, turning the blond around and pressing him up against the side of the bus. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Jimmy overheard that bastard calling him a ‘fuckup’.” Niall spits out, eyes locked with Travis’. He sees the man blanch at that, sees him falter in his outrage, and he knows that he’s not in the wrong.

Harry’s eyes burn, but he manages to calmly say, “This is not how you handle that.”

“You’re right.” Niall huffs, turning towards the cameraman. “You’re fucking fired.”

“Now, hold on a minute-” Morgan starts.

“He called my five year old a ‘fuckup’.” Niall spits out. “Either he goes, or you all do. This is not a negotiation, Spurlock. I want him gone as soon as we reach the city. If he comes near my kids again, I’ll break more than just his nose.”

“Expect a call from my lawyer.” Travis mutters, slamming open the door and climbing onto the bus.

“You don’t fire my people, Niall. Only I get to make that choice.” Morgan sighs. “But, for what it’s worth, I would have done the same thing if anyone talked about Laken like that. He’ll be gone in the morning, and I’ll try to talk him out of a lawsuit.”

“Let him sue.” Niall grumbles.

“Shut up.” Harry says harshly. “Morgan, thank you. Whatever you can do to help would be appreciated. We’ll be going now.”

His hand is firm on the back of Niall’s neck as he steers the blond back towards the bus. The two have been joined by the other bus, the one Kayla stays on, and she’s standing outside of the door to that one.

“Kayla, we need to send the kids over for a few hours. Is that okay?” Harry asks her.

“Of course.” Kayla calls back with a nod.

“Go wash your hands.” Harry growls, pushing Niall onto their bus. “Kids, come on. We’re going to go see Kayla.”

William and Ava scurry out the door quickly, but Niall catches Jimmy before he can get outside to crouch down and say, “Hey, no matter what that man said, we could never, ever think of you that way. Do you understand me?”

“But I do mess everything up.” Jimmy mumbles, rubbing at his eyes.

“No you don’t.” Niall says adamantly, pulling Jimmy into a hug. “You are one of my favorite people in the entire world, and I love you more than you can even understand. My life has gotten better every day since you came into it, Jimmy. Every single day.”

“Thanks, Dad.” Jimmy whispers, wrapping his arms around Niall’s neck and squeezing him tight. Niall squeezes back just as hard, making sure not to get any of the bastard’s blood on Jimmy’s shirt.

“Jimmy, get a move on.” Harry yells into the bus.

“My fault, Harry.” Niall calls back to him.

“Sorry I got you in trouble.” Jimmy sighs.

“Totally worth it, bud.” Niall hums, pressing a kiss into Jimmy’s fringe. “Go on. I’ll see you later. We’ll pick up where we left off on the guitar lesson, yeah?”

“Yeah.” Jimmy nods, squeezing Niall one more time before running off of the bus.

Niall decides that it’s probably best not to piss Harry off any more than he already has, so he scurries into the bathroom and washes his hands off like he was told. He braces himself to get yelled at. Maybe he deserves it, but he’d do the same thing every time given the same situation. Niall doesn’t regret what he did, even if it has negative ramifications.

“Get in the bedroom.” comes a growl from the door, making Niall shiver with the intensity in Harry’s voice. Niall shuffles obediently under Harry’s glare, and only flinches a little bit when Harry slams the door shut. “Take off your pants.”

That is really not what Niall expected, and he says as much with an arched eyebrow and an inelegant, “What?”

“That-” Harry purrs, gripping the hem of Niall’s shirt and pulling it off over his head. “Was the absolute hottest thing you’ve ever done.”

“You’re not mad?” Niall questions, trying not to choke on the words when Harry sinks down to his knees and begins undoing the button on Niall’s jeans.

“Oh, I’m furious.” Harry tells him. “But I’ve also never been this turned on, and I’m going to need you to fuck me right this minute. I can yell later. We have three hours.”

Niall can work with that.

It’s loud. It’s early, and it’s loud, and Harry doesn’t want to be awake yet. He’s exhausted, and his ass is sore, and he’d really prefer to stay in the warm, pleasant feeling of Niall’s embrace than get up and open the door that someone is banging against so harshly. Turns out, he doesn’t have to, as the door flies open all on its own.

“You two need to learn to answer a damn door.” Louis growls menacingly. He looks like a pissed off terrier, and that’s never a good sign. “We need to talk. Now.”

“We couldn’t do it on the phone?” Niall asks groggily.

“I got dragged out of bed by my team of lawyers having a collective strop, at four in the morning, so no.” Louis snaps, slamming the door shut. “What the hell were you thinking beating the shit out of a cameraman, Niall?”

“He deserved it.” Niall mutters, letting go of Harry and sitting up.

“Niall, I don’t think you get it!” Louis snarls. “He has a really good case to put you away! I might have to drop you two from my label!”

“He called Jimmy a fuckup!” Niall spits out. “And Jimmy overheard it!”

“Did you put your weight into it?” Louis asks, narrowing his eyes.

“Of course.” Niall scoffs.

“Alright then.” Louis nods, dropping down in the chair across from the bed. “Good on you, mate.”

“Wait, really?” Harry asks, sitting up. “That’s it? You come in here, spitting fire, and now you’re done?”

“Well, I’m not happy about it, but I’d have probably joined Niall in kicking the bloke’s arse if I’d been there.” Louis says with a shrug. “If somebody said something like that about Freddie, I’d have a hit out on them.”

“Hello!” Harry squawks, pushing his fringe out of his eyes. “Are you both ignoring the whole ‘Niall may possibly be going to prison’ thing?”

“No.” Niall sighs.

“Yeah, that’s definitely a problem.” Louis nods. “But I think that we can come to some sort of deal to settle outside of court. It’s going to cost all three of us though. If we want to keep it off of the news, that is.”

“I should have broken his jaw.” Niall growls.

“Stop.” Harry groans, adjusting the sheet on his lap to cover the way he started to thicken up at that. Why is that so fucking hot to him?

“Be glad it stopped where it did, Niall.” Louis agrees. “The damage that you managed to do was mostly superficial. Breaking his jaw, while probably more satisfying, would have made things a lot worse. I think we might be able to get off the hook for two mil.”

“Two million dollars for a few punches to the face?” Niall squawks.

“An unprovoked attack by a popstar that ended with a broken nose?” Louis scoffs. “You’ll be lucky to get off for that little. You’ll need to apologize to him too. In person.”

“No.” Niall says adamantly. “I’ll pay him off, but I won’t apologize. He deserved everything that-”

“Niall, stop it!” Harry snaps, shocking both Louis and Niall silent. He turns to his husband and glares, adding, “I get it, I do, because there’s nothing I wouldn’t do to protect our kids either, but you handled this situation completely wrong, and you will do whatever is necessary to make up for it!”

“But-” Niall starts.

“No ‘but’s!” Harry cuts him off harshly. “Have you thought about the consequences of this, Niall? Really thought about them? Have you thought about the kind of problems you could avoid by just saying ‘I’m sorry for the way I handled this situation’?”

“Is this bloody tour that important to you?” Niall asks angrily. “You really want me to apologize for defending our kid so that we don’t have to stop the tour?”

“It’s not about the tour!” Harry yells, climbing out of the bed to work out some of the rage building up in his muscles by pacing back and forth. “It’s about our kids! How do you think they’ll feel watching their father be arrested, Niall? How do you think Jimmy will feel if he has to watch his father go through a very public trial, condemning you for defending him?”

“I– I didn’t think of that.” Niall admits.

“Because you didn’t think!” Harry shouts, grinding the tips of his fingers into his temples. “You didn’t think, Niall! That has consequences! Beating the shit out of someone has consequences, and you are going to fucking face them, or, so help me-”

“Alright.” Niall interjects. “I’ll apologize.”

“Damn fucking right, you will.” Harry huffs.

“Okay, now that that’s settled, how about everyone in the room joins me in wearing pants? Hmm?” Louis requests.

“Fuck off.” Harry growls, narrowing his eyes dangerously at Louis.

“Mate, you’ve got a massive boner, and that’s still not my thing.” Louis scoffs.

“Apparently yelling at me turns you on as much as watching me beat the shit out of someone.” Niall hums, looking Harry over lecherously. “I totally get what happened with you last night now. Wanna switch positions?”

“I am right here!” Louis squawks.

“Nobody asked you to be here, and you broke into the room.” Harry points out, moving closer to the bed.

“I knocked for at least two minutes, and I have a job to do.” Louis sighs. “Which, unfortunately, entails keeping you two in line.”

“Since when do CEOs personally oversee individual acts?” Harry questions.

“Since I knew that Niall would probably punch a lawyer if I sent one out here instead of myself.” Louis shrugs. “I wouldn’t jump straight to litigation if Niall decided to clean my clock, but I’d have to if he hit one of my employees.”

“I’m not Mike bloody Tyson!” Niall groans. “I’m not walking around beating the hell out of anyone I can find. I hit one guy.”

“All I heard was that you broke a cameraman’s nose, and that he was ready to sue.” Louis counters. “His lawyer didn’t exactly advertise that you were defending your kid. They’re a bit sneaky like that, in case you didn’t know.”

“Lou, it’s been lovely to see you, but I’m going to need you to go so I can fuck my husband.” Harry tells him. “Or, stay and watch. Doesn’t make a bit of difference to me. I’m doing it one way or another.”

“You’re bluffing.” Louis scoffs.

He practically screams as he flees the room when Harry proves him wrong by tearing the sheet off of Niall and rolling the blond over to plant a firm smack on his ass. The debauched moan that Niall lets out at the contact may also have something to do with it.

So, tell us about Larry Stylinson?

“Ah, Larry Stylinson. Can’t believe you actually got Tommo to talk about that. Yeah, it was, uh– It was a problem for a while.” Niall admits with a nod. “Honestly, it used to drive me crazy, you know? There was just so much of it, all the time. It was really rough when we finally started dating, because there was a lot of hate from people who claimed to be fans. They thought that I’d stolen Harry from Louis.

“And that’s so stupid, because they were never together. Facts didn’t matter to those people though. They still don’t to some of them. I still get tweets at least once a week calling me a rebound. And, believe it or not, there are still people who, like – photoshop the two of them together and stuff like that. I’ve built up a thicker skin over time, but it kind of drove me insane for a while at the beginning of the relationship”

“Get off of me.” Niall growls, pushing at Harry’s shoulder until the brunet rolls off of him with a squeal, followed by a drunken giggle.

“Aw, come on, babe.” Harry pouts, walking his fingers up Niall’s thigh.

“Take your hand off of me, or you’ll pull back a stump.” Niall says flatly, rolling over onto his side to face away from Harry.

“What’s wrong?” Harry sighs. “I thought we had a good night.”

“You did, maybe.” Niall mutters. “I was fucking humiliated.”

“Is it that story I told about your butt?” Harry asks. “Because you swore that was okay.”

“Look at this.” Niall spits out, grabbing his mobile off of the side-table and opening up Twitter. He opens up the trending topics page and passes it over.

“Hashtag, let Larry love?” Harry asks. “Hashtag, Horan is a homewrecker? What the fuck is this?”

“This is what happens when we’ve only just come out as a couple a month ago, and you spend all night hanging all over Louis!” Niall snaps, climbing out of the bed. “Nobody fucking believes we’re actually in a relationship. They all think I’m just a cover up for you two until Louis is ready to come out. I’m nothing but a prop to them.”

“It’s not like I did this, Niall.” Harry says defensively. “Don’t get pissed off at me when we talked about this before we decided to come out. You told me over and over again that you were ready.”

“I thought I was!” Niall yells, lashing out and knocking the lamp off the bedside table. Harry flinches at that, and Niall just feels even worse than he did before. He sits down on the edge of the bed, dropping his head into his hands and adds, “I– I wasn’t expecting it to be this bad, Harry. Look at my feed. Look at the things people are saying about me.”

“Oh– Oh god.” Harry breathes out. “I don’t– Even Taylor never got it this bad. How long has this been going on?”

“Since we came out.” Niall admits. “But it’s been worse tonight. You and Louis were photographed at the bar by a fan. The pictures are pretty easy to find. The cheek kiss was pretty much the breaking point for a lot of people. That’s when the homewrecker trend started.”

“Ni, you know that wasn’t anything.” Harry says quietly.

“Of course.” Niall scoffs. “I don’t think you’d cheat on me. Especially with Louis.”

“With anyone.” Harry murmurs, draping himself over Niall’s back and nuzzling into his neck. “I love you, Ni. I didn’t mean for all this to happen. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I promised myself that I wouldn’t let it get to me.” Niall whispers. “I’m with you, and that’s all that should matter, but-”

“But it hurts.” Harry finishes for him. God, Niall fucking loves that, loves that Harry can practically read his mind, not that he’d admit it.

“You’ve been so excited, because you’ve gotten all the supportive messages.” Niall mumbles. “I didn’t want to ruin it by telling you about all the shite people were saying about me. And it’s not like it’s all been bad. There’s some good stuff in there too, but you have to sift through all of the other crap to get to it. That’s normally enough to get me to ignore that kind of stuff, but – but tonight I just couldn’t find anything. Not one kind word from anyone. I’m sorry about your lamp.”

“It’s just a lamp.” Harry chuckles.

“Knowing you, it was probably a couple grand.” Niall scoffs.

“Nope. That was from my thrift shop phase.” Harry tells him, pressing a kiss to Niall’s cheek. “But I wouldn’t care either way. I just wish you’d told me that it was this bad. I know we’re still pretty new to this, but that seems like the kind of thing you share with someone you love. You shouldn’t be dealing with this alone. I want to be there for you when things get rough, Niall. That means you have to stop hiding things from me though.”

“Why ruin things for you?” Niall mutters.

“Because I love you.” Harry says firmly. “And that means I want to share your burdens. I want to make you happy when you aren’t. I want to be someone you trust when you’re hurting, and I want to be the one that helps make it better if I can.”

“Can’t make this better, Harry.” Niall sighs. “It’s not you they hate. It’s me.”

“Well, they’re just going to have to get over it.” Harry hums, lifting up Niall’s mobile in front of them and opening the front-camera. “Now, what do you say we show everyone what a real kiss is?”

“The reaction to that picture was – unexpected.” Niall laughs. “For every bad response, there were ten good ones. After we posted it, things calmed down a bit. Some people insisted that it was just publicity, that we posted it to cover up the stuff that had happened at the pub. Our supporters started speaking up more after that, though, and it started to drown out the conspiracy theorists.

“By the time the engagement was announced, there were a lot more people rooting for us, than against us. Then, by the wedding, there were very few people left who still believed we weren’t really together. Most of the leftover hate died around the time that the twins were born. Now there’s just a few diehard stragglers, hanging onto a delusion that they’ve spent too long believing in to let it go. I won’t say it doesn’t still get to me from time to time, because it does, but Harry’s pretty good about getting my head level again when that happens.

“It’s funny, because, nine times out of ten, I’m the sensible one. Harry’s the one who comes home and throws out all of the bread and cereal in the house, because he read that gluten is toxic in some rag at the checkout counter while he was getting the shopping. He’s always got his head in the clouds, but he’s also the best person in the world at pulling you out of your head and putting things in perspective.

“Sometimes, it’s still crazy to me that I get to wake with him every day, you know? I haven’t always been the most confident guy, but that’s not really it. It’s just– He’s Harry, you know? He’s smart and funny and still so fucking gorgeous that it’s almost blinding. He’s not perfect, I know that, but he’s pretty damn close. He’s like– He’s like the living embodiment of music. Every day I spend with him, even the bad ones, feels like the first time I picked up a guitar, and it’s just the greatest feeling in the world. Nothing else comes close.”

Niall said that no feeling in the world comes close to being as amazing as spending his life with you, but are there ever any fights?

“He said that?” Harry asks, rolling his eyes and ducking his head to hide the light blush that’s visible even under the makeup on his cheeks. “He’s such a soppy git. Like, nobody expects it, because he’s such an Irishman most of the time, but he really is. It’s one of the hundreds of reasons I fell in love with him.

“You’ve heard our songs. He mostly does the composition while I take lyrics, but he wrote the lyrics on ‘Of Demons and Angels’ and ‘Down the Rabbit Hole’. I think those are two of our strongest songs, and they were pretty much all him. And the wedding vows he wrote– I cried, alright? Almost ruined my tux, because I couldn’t stop crying. They were so bloody beau-

“Alright, I’m sorry, Ben. I got off track. What was the question again? Do we fight? Of course we fight. We’re just like any other couple. We have our problems from time to time, but we made a promise back towards the beginning of the relationship that when it’s something big, a real issue, then we’d take some time to ourselves to calm down so that we can talk it out rationally without getting overly emotional about it. Not too long though. I know it’s a cliché, but we never go to bed angry.

“We’ve had some knock-down, drag-out fights, times when we’ve had to have the babysitter come get the kids because we don’t want them overhearing us yelling at each other. But we never let anything be said that we regret. We always recognize that a fight is just a fight. It never means that we don’t love each other. It just means that we have some things that we need to work out, because we aren’t perfect.

“Most of the time when we have a fight, it’s generally just because we’re too stressed out. When we decided to have kids, we also decided that we wanted to work from home. It’s important to us that we’re the ones to raise our kids, and not a nanny or anything. And it’s really amazing that our work has given us the opportunity to do that, but sometimes it also drives us a bit stir-crazy.

“There are things that you can’t really do or say around kids, and neither Niall nor I have ever been known for being terribly appropriate. I accepted before the twins were born that Niall wasn’t going to stop cursing just because we had kids. You try getting my husband to keep the language clean during a match where Derby is losing. You’d have an easier time lifting our bus with one hand. The thing that I didn’t count on was how rarely we’d get some private time. Nine times out of ten, the reason behind our fights is that we need a good, old fashioned roll in the– Hey! Ben, where are you going?”

Niall is pretty sure he’s going to throw up. Again. He really can’t afford to do that though. Well, financially he can, but there’s a team of lawyers in the room, and worse, Louis, so throwing up all over the conference table isn’t really an option. That’s the thing though. He feels like he’s ten again, just waiting to find out exactly how much trouble he’s in because his parents are standing there silently before they yell, and it’s just making things worse. Plus, he really doesn’t want to ruin another suit today.

Harry’s hand slips into Niall’s beneath the table, and he whispers, “Everything will be okay, babe.”

“I really should have eaten that bagel you offered me earlier.” Niall mutters.

“Or maybe you should have just limited yourself to, I don’t know, anything less than four cups of coffee.” Harry snorts.

“Can you wait to make fun of me until after this?” Niall huffs.

“Just trying to take your mind off of it before you break my fingers.” Harry murmurs, flexing his hand in Niall’s to bring attention to just how hard the blond is squeezing.

“Shit, sorry.” Niall sighs, loosening his grip and bringing Harry’s hand up to kiss the back of it. “I didn’t realize my grip was that tight.”

“It’s okay.” Harry murmurs. “I just want you to relax. This’ll all be over soon.”

“You hope.” Niall scoffs. “I still might be walking out of here in handcuffs, remember?”

“Oi, will you cut that out?” Louis hisses. “Will you please try to think positive? And put a bloody smile on, for God’s sake. You look weird without one.”

“Arse.” Niall laughs. “Why were you my best man again?”

“Because if I’d been Harry’s, none of us would have heard the end of it.” Louis grins. “And I looked better in the black suit for your side than the white one that Harry picked out to match that hideous thing he wore.”

“Yet, I still looked better than you.” Harry says flatly.

“That wedding was a waste of my time.” Louis returns with a shrug. “Neither of you had any bridesmaids, so I wasn’t looking to hook up. Why waste my A-game on it?”

“Because you brought down the collective aesthetic of our wedding photos by at least fifty percent.” Harry says with a smirk.

“And you brought it down further with that ugly, floral suit.” Louis replies, quick as a whip.

Of course Niall thought, and still thinks, that Harry looked stunning on their wedding day, but he laughs anyways. It’s not because what Louis said was particularly funny, but because it feels like old times, and that takes the tension away just a little bit. If Liam were here too, it could be nine years ago.

But it’s not nine years ago. It’s now. Liam and Louis can’t be in the same room without biting each other’s heads off. Harry has traded his plethora of rings for one on his left hand that matches the one on Niall’s. They have three kids, and Louis has Freddie, and Niall has a huge mess on his hands, has stained everyone’s hands, because nine years older doesn’t mean nine years wiser, apparently.

Something smacks Niall in the forehead, and Louis grunts out, “Get out of your head. You’re either stuck up there because you’re being self-deprecating, or you’re remembering your wedding night, and neither is good.”

“Oh, our wedding night was very good.” Harry hums, picking up the missile of wadded paper that Louis had launched and tossing it back. Unfortunately, Harry has all the aiming capabilities of a blind shot-putter when he uses his left hand, which he has to, since his right is still laced with Niall’s, and it smacks against the window well to the side of Louis’ head instead. “Fuck.”

“I just got word, Mr. Tomlinson.” Hank says, shuffling into the room. “They’re on their way up.”

“Where’s my coffee?” Louis asks haughtily, waiting until Hank scurries back out of the room to laugh.

“You never asked him to get you a coffee.” Harry points out.

“That’s the point, pet.” Niall sighs, rubbing his thumb over Harry’s knuckles. “He’s just being a bastard.”

“You would not believe how fun it is.” Louis grins. “You should watch him try to run with four coffees and a box of donuts. Fucking hilarious.”

“All that sugar must be why you’re so thick around the middle these days.” Harry scoffs. “That, and your daily helping of evil.”

“Do you want me to take my fancy team of lawyers and walk out of here right now?” Louis asks, leveling a glare at Harry that makes Niall shiver sympathetically. He’s been on the receiving end of that glare before, and, when he woke up the next morning, his watch was attached to his braces. “How about my agreement to cover half of the settlement? Because I’m not the one that’s being sued here. Niall is. I don’t need to be here or waste my money if you’re going to be an asshole about the fact that I weigh fifteen pounds more than I did in my twenties.”

“Is that what you’re going with?” Harry fires back, making Niall wince. “It looks closer to thirty.”

“Stop antagonizing him!” Niall hisses.

“He’s not going to walk because I called him fat, Niall.” Harry laughs. “Despite the fact that he’s sold his soul for success, he’s still our Tommo underneath that layer of fat and icy heart. He’s here because he supports you, and he’s not going to stop that for a joke.”

“Fuck.” Louis sighs. “Never could bluff your hippie ass.”

“No, you couldn’t.” Harry smirks. “So stop pretending to be a hard ass. We all know you’re secretly soft.”

“They’re here.” Hank announces, shuffling into the room with a cup of coffee in his hand, and a muffin on a plate. He places them in front of Louis and adds, “They’re coming from the elevator at the end of the hall.”

“You can do this.” Harry whispers in Niall’s ear, doing very little to calm the sudden wave of nausea that rolls in his stomach. It calms a bit more when Harry places a kiss on his cheek and murmurs, “Everything will be alright.”

“Mr. O’Grady.” Louis says, standing up, along with his entire team of lawyers when Travis enters the room with his own attorney. “Please come in and have a seat. Is there anything we can get you?”

“No thanks.” Travis slurs out. It looks like he can’t do much more than that, honestly. His face is covered in mottled bruises, dark and angry in contrast with his red hair and pale skin. It’s the first time that Niall has actually seen the results of what he’s done, and his stomach feels like it drops out of his arse.

“Alright, well, we’ve come together to arrange a settlement agreement, but Mr. Horan has something he’d like to say first.” Louis announces, looking expectantly at Niall.

Niall stand up on shaky feet, buttoning up his jacket, and looks over Travis’ face. The thing is, as bad as he feels about hurting someone like this, he’s still pissed off. He’s mad as hell, and it starts to overwhelm him. Until he sees the pitiful look in Travis’ eyes that is. Because Travis O’Grady doesn’t look mad, doesn’t look like he’s here to collect a payday. He looks remorseful.

“I, um– Everyone here, my husband included, has told me to apologize.” Niall starts. “Harry did it because he’s a good man. Louis did it because he knows better than me. The lawyers are just covering our asses. I’m not sorry, though.”

“Niall!” Louis growls, jumping back up to his feet and glaring harshly across the table. While Louis looks absolutely furious, Travis’ lawyer looks like he’s just won the lottery. “What the fu-”

“What you did was wrong.” Niall says firmly, cutting Louis off. “It was unforgivable. You insulted my child, and he spent weeks carrying around the feeling that he just wasn’t good enough. He’s five, and he should never have had to hear that. Especially from someone that we told him that he could trust. I’m not sorry about what I did, but I am sorry about how far I took it. The way that I handled it was also unforgivable.

“I should have just fired you. I never should have laid hands on you, and I know that that was wrong. I’m not going to apologize for it, though. I’m not going to apologize, because I can’t bring myself to think that defending my son was the wrong thing to do. Not ever. There’s nothing that I wouldn’t do to protect any of my children.

“But, I know that you have me by the balls here. You can have me arrested if you want, and I’ll probably go to prison. Or, we can settle this now. The lawyers have drawn up a contract that says that I’ll pay your medical bills and make a cash settlement of two million dollars for your pain and suffering. In lieu of an apology, I’m willing to add a five-hundred thousand dollar trust fund for each of your girls, Amanda and Savanna, as well as paying the rest of what you were supposed to earn for the documentary shoot.

“Or you can take this to court, and we can work this out there. Personally, I’m hoping that you’ll take my deal. I don’t want to put my children through seeing me go to prison, let alone have to grow up without me for the next five to ten years.”

Everything from there is a storm of chatter, Louis and the lawyers insisting that this wasn’t what they agreed upon, and Travis’ lawyer telling him not to take the deal because they can get a better one from the judge, and Harry trying to tell Niall to just apologize, until Travis says, “I’ll take it.”

“Travis, I strongly urge you to reconsider.” the lawyer tells him.

“No.” Travis says adamantly. “He’s right. I would have done the same thing if someone had insulted my kids the same way that I did Jimmy. He’s not the one who should be apologizing here. I am. I want one more thing from the settlement though.”

“And what would that be?” Louis asks suspiciously.

“I want the chance to tell Jimmy that I’m sorry, and that he’s a great kid.” Travis says quietly, looking back down at the table. “I should never have said what I did. No kid deserves to feel like that. I’d been drinking, and that isn’t an excuse, but sometimes I say stupid shit when I’ve had a few. I need to tell him that I was wrong.”

“I think something can be arranged.” Niall nods.

“You’ll all have to excuse my husband.” Harry laughs, earning an even bigger one from the audience. “He’s run into a bit of trouble with his hand, so his guitar skills might not be up to snuff tonight. That’s what you have me for.”

“Oi!” Niall scoffs. “Someone’s looking to sleep on the couch tonight.”

The audience laughs harder at that, and the camera follows Harry as he flits over to Niall, pressing a kiss to his cheek. Niall is relatively stationary at the concert, choosing to keep himself confined to a stool at most times. Harry, however, is incredibly mobile. The stage is smaller than the ones that they used in the later days of One Direction, but Harry covers every inch of it as if it were a stadium anyways.

“Just telling everyone not to expect too much from you.” Harry giggles, bouncing away before Niall can smack him in the shoulder like he tries to do. “It’s advice that has served me well over the years.”

“Couch!” Niall growls into his mic.

“Love you!” Harry hums, blowing a kiss over to Niall that the blond catches and smacks to his own ass with a roll of his eyes. Harry throws back his head and laughs with the audience before adding, “As most of you may know, this is the last American show of our tour. Some of you may also have noticed the cameras, and guessed that we’re currently in the middle of shooting a documentary about life on the road. We’ve tried not to make it a concert film, because those are so ten years ago, but tonight is a special occasion.”

“We’ve got a few special guests here tonight.” Niall explains. “You see, three of them have never been on stage before, so we’re expecting you all to be nice, alright?”

There’s a collective shout of ‘yes’ from the audience, followed by a lot of cheering and clapping that makes Harry beam.

“Come on out.” Niall calls into his microphone.

Louis is the first to step on stage, carrying Aibhlinn, who’s wearing a large pair of headphones, on his hip. The twins walk out after that, also wearing headphones, William pressed close to Jimmy’s side. The audience coos at them all, and Ava rubs sleepily at her eyes, suddenly startling when she notices all of the people. She scrunches up her face, and Harry is across the stage in a flash, plucking her out of Louis’ arms and cradling her against his chest.

“Looks like she’s feeling a bit shy.” Harry says into the microphone. “Boys, do you want to say hello to everyone?”

“Hi!” Jimmy says enthusiastically into the microphone that Harry holds down for him, waving the hand that William isn’t clinging to. William just squeaks and dislodges himself from Jimmy to hide behind Louis.

“C’mere, bub.” Niall says gently, holding his hand out to William.

William crosses the stage quickly, crawling up onto Niall’s lap when his father puts the guitar in the stand next to his stool.

“It’s okay, bub.” Niall murmurs, pressing a kiss to William’s forehead. “I still get nervous on stage too.”

“’M not nervous.” William mumbles, the sound getting picked up by Niall’s microphone. “’M just sleepy, dad.”

“Ah, well that’s not surprising.” Harry laughs, walking forward with Jimmy and Louis trailing behind him. “It’s past bedtime for the kids, but we wanted to share this experience with them, because they’ve been amazingly strong to be able to handle this tour. It hasn’t been easy all the time, and we’ve had some rough spots, but we owe everything to these three rugrats of ours.

“In fact, this album of ours wouldn’t exist without them. You see, the inspiration for a lot of the songs on this album actually came from our kids. Most notably, from ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’, which Niall and I read to them as a bedtime story. That’s why we decided to call the album and tour ‘Wonderland’. Because every day is magical and fantastic when we get to spend it as a family.”

“Sop.” Niall snorts into his microphone, though he doesn’t deny it. The fond look on his face says that he never would. “Louis, do you have anything to add?”

“These kids are better than you two knobs deserve.” Louis says into his own mic with a shit-eating grin. “And you’d make me a lot more money if you guys made it a family act. Like the Partridge Family, but gayer and slightly more hippie-like.”

The audience seems to agree heartily if the laughs and cheers that echo through the auditorium are anything to go by.

“What do you think, Niall?” Harry asks. “Want to dress the whole family in matching outfits and teach the kids each to play a different instrument?”

“Well, Jimmy’s already better than you at guitar.” Niall laughs. The audience is amused, but Harry doesn’t appear to share that feeling if the way he narrows his eyes is any indication. “And William can play a bit of piano. What do you say, kiddos? Want to show everybody what you’ve got?”

“Yeah!” Jimmy shouts, jumping up to make sure his voice is caught by Louis’ microphone.

“William?” Niall asks.

“Okay.” William agrees with a shy nod.

“Let’s bring out the instruments, shall we?” Louis asks into his mic, gaining another loud cheer from the audience. Several stagehands rush out, carrying equipment with them. One sets up a keyboard in front of Niall and William, and another helps Jimmy put on his guitar, which is more appropriately suited to his size than Niall’s would be. The last one passes off a brightly colored tambourine to Ava, which she immediately starts banging on and shaking. “Alright Horan-Styles family, what have you got for us tonight?”

“Well, we normally avoid any One Direction songs-” Niall says with a laugh, earning a raucous shriek from the crowd. “But, we’ve got three of us here, and I think a throwback is good every once in a while. Who wants a little ‘What Makes You Beautiful’?”

Louis’ groan is covered by the crowd. Just barely though.

“Boys, sit down.” Niall grunts, adjusting the hat on his head to cover his eyes. “I promise, there isn’t any more to see than what you’ve already seen.”

“But, dad!” Jimmy whines. “It’s so cool!”

“We’re so high up!” William squeals, staring out of the window.

“At least they aren’t scared.” Harry chuckles into Niall’s neck from where he’s settled on the blond’s shoulder.

“Do you think they’d let us into the cockpit?” William asks, rushing down the cabin until Niall reaches a hand out and catches him.

“No, bub.” Niall says firmly. “We’re only allowed out here.”

“Oh.” William sighs, bottom lip jutted out in a pout. “Okay.”

“I’ll talk to the pilot when we land.” Niall tells him. “Maybe he’ll give you a tour then, yeah?”

“Thanks, dad.” William beams, rushing back to where Jimmy is staring out the window to climb into the seat with him.

“They remind me of you, when we were young.” Harry hums, adjusting just a little bit. He doesn’t want to wake up Ava though, so he makes sure not to let his movement disturb her sleep. “Except they won’t sneak off halfway through the flight for a wan-”

“Shut it.” Niall hisses, cutting Harry off. “That’s not what I was doing.”

“Sure.” Harry scoffs.

“I swear.” Niall insists. “I, uh– I used to get really nervous on flights. They made me anxious, so I’d sneak off and call my mum.”

Harry gasps dramatically, following it up with, “You aren’t supposed to use mobiles on planes, Niall!”

“Oh, shove it.” Niall snorts. “You’ve made two calls on this flight so far.”

“They changed the law.” Harry returns with a shrug.

“Because they proved that it was pointless.” Niall huffs, pouting cutely. Harry would kiss it off if it wouldn’t risk waking Ava for him to crane his neck that far. He settles for blowing a raspberry on Niall’s neck instead. Niall squeals and ducks away, giggling out, “Stop it, ya git! I’m trying to catch a kip before we land. You’ll do the same if you know what’s good for you. You know how my parents are. We won’t get a wink until close to midnight.”

“Good point.” Harry agrees. “You sleep. I’ll wait until the twins go down to try and nap.”

“Gimme Ava.” Niall says through a yawn, holding out his arms. “That way you can move around if you need to.”

“Here.” Harry says quietly, bundling Ava up in her blanket and passing her over as carefully as he can once Niall reclines his seat all the way back. And, God, that is a sight that Harry will never tire of. Niall holding their children will always, always, be breathtaking to Harry.

Niall mumbles out something that Harry can’t even begin to discern, tightening his arms around Ava as she squirms to get comfortable on her new bed, and then immediately begins snoring.

“Alright, boys-” Harry says when he finally manages to tear his eyes away from his husband and daughter sleeping soundly. “Time to settle down.”

“But, dad!” Jimmy whines.

“Don’t you ‘but, dad’ me.” Harry snorts. “I know you guys probably aren’t tired, but it’s going to be a long day, and you’ll thank me later for making you nap now.”

“We’re too big for naps.” William insists.

“And what is your father doing?” Harry counters.

“He needs naps because he’s old. Old people need more sleep. Our teacher told us so.” Jimmy argues, making Harry choke out a strangled laugh that he has to cover with a hand over his mouth.

“Don’t let your father hear you say that.” Harry says after he regains his breathing. “I’ll make you a deal. We’ll watch a film, and then we’ll take a nap, okay?”

William and Jimmy turn to look at each other, and then back when William says, “We want to pick the movie. Yours are boring.”

“Let me guess-” Harry drawls out. He knows exactly what they want to watch. “Kingsman?”

“Kingsman 3.” William corrects.

“I should never let your father pick the film for movie night.” Harry sighs. “Set it up.”

“Yes!” they both cheer, rushing over to the bag where Niall keeps his laptop and DVD collection.

This is going to be a really long flight, but Harry doesn’t mind so much when he joins the boys on the couch, the laptop set on the chair across the way, and they both cuddle into his sides.

“No, ma. Ma!” Niall groans into his phone. “We already left the airport. We’re at our flat.”

“Well, what, in heaven’s name, are you doing there?” Maura asks wearily.

“Unpacking.” Niall sighs. “We told you this was the plan. We wanted to make sure that everything was set up before we went out with you guys, that way we could just put the kids to bed when we got back.”

“Your father swears that we were supposed to meet you at the airport.” Maura huffs.

Niall then hears a loud, “Don’t go tellin’ lies t’ ‘im. Yer the one that t’ought this was where we were supposed t’ meet.”

“Oh god.” Niall mutters. “Ma, did you two drive up here together?”

“Of course.” Maura confirms. “No sense taking two cars if we’re going to the same place.”

“It’s going to be a long day.” Niall tells Harry, holding his phone to his chest to keep his mother from hearing it.

“You don’t say.” Harry snorts.

“Ma, just meet us at the flat.” Niall tells her after rubbing at his temples through listening to his parents bickering with each other. “We’ll finish up by the time you get here, and then we’ll all go out for lunch, yeah?”

“Send me the address.” Maura requests. “It’s been years since you’ve been there, and I can’t remember it.”

“Alright.” Niall agrees. “See you in a bit. Love you guys.”

“We love you too.” Maura returns before ringing off.

“Why did they have to come together?” Niall sighs, tapping out the address in a text that he sends off to his mother. “It’s bad enough that they’re both going to be living here for the next two weeks.”

“Well, we need someone to watch the kids.” Harry points out. “And, since Kayla’s starting uni next week, it was either them or your brother.”

“Oh god.” Niall says with a shiver.

“That’s what I thought.” Harry chuckles, crossing over from the wardrobe to press a kiss to the back of Niall’s neck. “Everything will be fine. You know how they are once they’re around the kids. They’re too busy being proud grandparents to have any rows.”

“Let’s hope so.” Niall mutters. “I don’t want the kids seeing the way they can get. You remember what they were like in the days leading up to the wedding. This is basically the first time Ava will be meeting them, and the twins are old enough to actually remember this time around. I don’t want their first memory of my family being about my parents arguing.”

“Looks like you’re on buffer duty for a while, then.” Harry hums, wrapping his arms around Niall’s waist.

“And here I thought that staying in one place for two weeks would actually make our lives easier.” Niall scoffs, dropping his head back against Harry’s shoulder.

“Oh, it will.” Harry murmurs. “Because our room is all the way on the other side of the flat from all of the other ones. You know what that means, right?”

“That I can ravish you, and you won’t have to bite a pillow the whole time?” Niall guesses dryly.

“Exactly.” Harry giggles, slipping his hands down Niall’s waist to settle on his hips. “And the other way around too, of course.”

“Do you ever think of anything else?” Niall scoffs.

“Rarely.” Harry smirks, nipping at the base of Niall’s neck and tightening his grip just a bit. “You should see what you look like when we go at it. Fucking gorgeous. All the cameras around lately make me want to record it some time.”

“You know we can’t do that.” Niall groans, though he doesn’t deny that the idea turns him on. “If it leaked-”

“Everyone would see how perfect you look when you’re taking my cock.” Harry whispers, snaking a hand into Niall’s cut offs and giving his semi a squeeze. “Why do you think I haven’t done it already? You’re mine. Nobody else gets to see you like that.”

“Harry, we don’t have time.” Niall breathes out. “My parents will be here soon.”

“They just left the airport. Dublin lunchtime traffic means that it’ll be at least thirty minutes before they get here.” Harry argues. “We have time for a shag and a quick shower.”

“The kids.” Niall tries.

“Are sleeping.” Harry counters. “Get on the bed, Niall.”

And, well, Niall doesn’t really need any more encouragement than that. He was mostly arguing out of obligation anyways. He has to put up a cursory protest for appearance’s sake, or else Harry will get a big head from knowing how crazy he can still drive Niall after all these years. Bigger, actually. Niall’s not always that great about covering it up.

“Better make this quick.” he mumbles, crawling onto the newly placed sheets. Leave it to Harry to decide to stain the linens before Niall even gets the duvet on it. Typical. “We don’t have time for your usual method.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Harry muses, tucking his fingers into Niall’s pants and pulling them off with his shorts at the same time. Harry’s own clothes hit the ground just a moment later, before Niall can even get his shirt off over his head. Well, that certainly was quicker than usual.

“Eager.” Niall snorts.

“It’s been seventy-four hours since the last time I got to touch you like this.” Harry murmurs, crawling into the bed to hover over Niall. “That’s way too long.”

“The fact that you know exactly how long-” Niall starts, only to be cut off by Harry sealing their lips together. Niall was going to say that it’s ridiculous, but now, with Harry kissing him softly, he knows exactly how Harry feels. It’s only been a little over three days since they’ve gotten the opportunity for more than a peck here or there. Even just this much is heavenly.

“Don’t have time to talk, babe.” Harry mumbles against Niall’s lips, pecking them one more time before crawling down the blond’s body. He plants more kisses as he goes, occasionally nipping and sucking and licking on his journey down Niall’s body.

Harry’s pressing a kiss to his hip when it happens, mouth teasingly close to Niall’s cock. A soft knock, the product of small hands against their door, and a choked sob that they’d know anywhere.

Harry is out of the bed in an instant, Niall following close behind as they both tug on their trousers and head for the door.

“Ava, what’s wrong?” Niall asks when he throws open the door.

“Phil got hurt.” Ava chokes out, holding up the unicorn to show where his horn has torn at the base so badly that it’s just barely hanging on.

“Oh, thank God.” Harry breathes out, plucking her off of the ground and shoving Phil into Niall’s arms. “Your father can take care of Phil, princess. He’ll be good as new, soon enough.”

“How come I get stuck sewing him up?” Niall huffs. Harry just shoots Niall a glare, and, yeah. It’s probably Niall’s fault. He just kind of shoves Phil around without being careful. The thing is just too bloody huge. So Niall throws his free arm up in surrender and mutters a, “Fine.” as he trudges down the hall.

They haven’t spent any time in the flat for years, not since they originally planned on trying to set up their operation in Dublin, rather than Los Angeles, to be closer to their families. Unfortunately, Dublin isn’t exactly known as a major music scene, and they found a broader range of clients in Los Angeles after they bought the flat. They rent it out to offset the cost, so he’s not sure if anything is actually where he last left it.

He finds a scantily stocked sewing kit in one of the kitchen cupboards after searching for a bit, setting out to work on making Phil whole again. It’s very slow work. Niall’s not exactly used to this sort of thing.

“You’re doing that wrong.” comes a sleepy voice before slim arms wrap around Niall’s leg.

“And how would you know that?” Niall snorts, reaching a hand down to ruffle William’s sleep mussed hair.

“Because it looks really weird.” William mumbles rubbing his face lazily against Niall’s hip. They may be his biological sons, but they both definitely have picked up a few traits from Harry, including that one. “You’re taking the thread up too high. Ava won’t like it.”

“Doing the best I can, bub.” Niall chuckles.

“Phil’s horn is pink.” William points out. “Your thread is blue.”

“It was either blue, or gold.” Niall explains with a shrug, tipping the kit to show the spools to William.

“Gold.” William says through a yawn. Niall’s response is interrupted by the doorbell, which makes William say, “I’ll get it.”

“Hold up, bub.” Niall tells him, flipping on the monitor that shows the security camera feed. Apparently Niall has been fixing Phil for longer than he thought, because his father is waving into the camera, and Niall nods for William to go get the door, calling after him with, “Don’t pull grandpa’s finger!”

“Grandma and grandpa!” Jimmy squeals, racing through the flat, to try and get ahead of William. The doorbell must have woken him up. He looks like a total mess, his trousers completely gone, leaving him in his pants and a shirt rucked up under his armpits, with his hair sticking out wildly from his head. That’s another trait they picked up from Harry.

He hears a lot of noise, a clamor of greetings and laughter, and then the shuffling of flats across the floor that’s still familiar, even after all these years apart.

“Hey, ma.” Niall beams, turning to hug her.

“Oh, I missed you.” Maura says softly, clinging tight to Niall’s chest and burying her face in it. It’s uncharacteristically gentle of his brash, Irish mum.

“I missed you too, ma.” Niall chuckles, kissing her forehead.

“Then why haven’t you been out to see us in ages?” Maura huffs, reaching up and smacking him in the back of the head. That’s more like her. “You’re a bloody millionaire, and all we get is monthly skype chats? I raised you better than that, Niall James Horan!”

“Ooh, somebody got middle-named!” comes a cocky laugh from the doorway where Harry is grinning smugly with Ava on his hip. “Hey, Maura.”

“Oh, my lord. She’s so big!” Maura coos, immediately letting go of Niall to cross over and take Ava from Harry. “Aibhlinn, darling, do you know who I am?”

“Gramma?” Ava guesses, cocking her head to the side.

“That’s right, my love.” Maura beams.

“Gramma!” Ava squeals, wrapping her arms around Maura’s neck and squeezing tight. “Gramma, Phil hurt.”

“Who’s Phil?” Maura asks worriedly.

“Meet Phil.” Niall snorts, holding up the plush in explanation.

“His head hurt.” Ava says seriously. “Daddy try to fix him.”

“Well, he’s doing it all wrong.” Maura sighs, passing Ava back over to Harry and shuffling over to knock Niall out of the way. “Honestly, Niall. Blue?”

“I told you!” William hums, walking into the kitchen with Bobby in tow. It’s made a bit difficult by Jimmy, who’s wrapped around Bobby’s leg, but they all seem to be having fun, so Niall doesn’t scold him.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m a musician, not a costumer. Sewing isn’t my specialty.” Niall grumbles, watching as Maura uses the miniature scissors to destroy all of Niall’s work up to that point. “Mind showing me what I did wrong, for next time?”

“Pay attention.” Maura hums. Though, how she expects Niall to be able to keep up with the rapid motion of her hands after that is beyond him. She switches to the gold thread, and that’s the point where Niall loses track of her movements. She’s such a mum. It only takes her a few minutes to finish, and then she ties it off and asks, “Did you catch that?”

“Sure.” Niall answers, though the roll of her eyes tells him that she isn’t buying it.

“I’ll teach you some other time.” Maura chuckles, patting his shoulder. “Now, give me my granddaughter back.”

“Bobby took off with her a minute ago.” Harry informs her, nodding his head towards the living room.

“Of course he did.” Maura huffs, dropping Phil on the counter and marching purposefully into the room and around the corner. That’s not going to end well.

“Louis is nothing but trouble.” Niall mutters, looking over the job his mother did on Phil’s horn.

“You never told me how you were going to get back at him for the mobiles.” Harry says curiously.

“I told the boys that they could make as many in-game purchases as they wanted as long as they only did it on the mobiles.” Niall grins.

“Niall!” Harry hisses. “That’s going to cost us thousands!”

“Ah, but the mobiles are on Louis’ account.” Niall smirks. “He’s the one paying for it. So far Jimmy alone has spent over three thousand dollars. Those things rack up quick.”

“You’re an evil genius.” Harry giggles, pressing a kiss to Niall’s cheek. “How long until he notices?”

“I’m surprised that he hasn’t yet.” Niall admits. “I think that Hank is the one that pays all of his bills for him though, so-”

“Payback.” Harry laughs.

“The kid deserves it.” Niall shrugs. “Louis is a monster to him.”

“Your mum is a wicked old woman.” Bobby grumbles, walking into the room and nursing his shoulder.

“I heard that, Robert!” comes a loud call from the other room.

“Christ almighty, be glad this one got my temperament, Harry.” Bobby scoffs, pointing at Niall before dragging him into a hug. “C’mere, boy-o. It’s been too long.”

“I missed you, da.” Niall mumbles into his father’s shoulder, holding him tight.

“Missed you too.” Bobby murmurs. He lets go of Niall and then hauls Harry in for a hug that looks absolutely bone crushing. “I missed you as well, Harry.”

“Missed you, Bobby.” Harry wheezes out. Bobby lets go with a loud laugh and claps Harry on the shoulders. “Been hitting the gym?”

“There may be a special lady I’ve been trying to impress.” Bobby admits sheepishly.

“Finally.” Niall snorts. “You two have been single for too long. It’s good to know that you’re finally getting back on the horse.”

“I know that you married a man, Niall, but women generally don’t enjoy being referred to as horses.” Maura chides, walking in with Ava in her arms, and the boys each following behind.

“Oh, really?” Niall asks dryly. “Here I thought it sounded like a great pickup line. Guess I’ll just stick with, ‘Hi, I’m Niall Horan’.”

“Styles.” Harry growls. “‘Niall Horan-Styles’. Remember me? Your husband? AKA the only person you should be using pickup lines on?”

“Hi.” Niall smirks. “I’m Niall Horan-Styles. Wanna have it off?”

“Niall!” Maura groans, laying another smack to the back of her son’s head. “There are children here!”

“Why is that working on me?” Harry asks incredulously, staring at Niall as if he’s grown a second head.

“Because I’m Niall Horan-Styles.” Niall hums.

“Amazing. Fourteen years since you’ve met, and neither of you have matured a bit.” Maura scoffs.

“What can I say?” Harry grins. “He keeps me young.”

“That’s because he’s a Horan. It’s in our blood.” Bobby laughs.

“Hopefully you can do better at maturing your Horan than I could with mine.” Maura says flatly to Harry, walking back out of the room. “Niall, come help put your father and I’s things in our rooms.”

This is going to be a really long two weeks.

Were there any fast ones ever pulled on the media back in the early days of your relationship?

“The engagement actually happened a few months before it was announced.” Niall admits, blushing sheepishly. “Our publicist said that the public would never believe an engagement after only four months of being a couple. That, and most celebrity engagements last about five months until the weddings. We needed a lot longer than that to plan ours. Harry is a bit of a romantic, so everything had to be perfect.”

“And Niall is more than a bit anal retentive.” Harry adds with a shit-eating grin. “Believe it or not, he was the groom-zilla.”

“I have told you a thousand times, that is not a word.” Niall sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “And I wasn’t that bad.”

“You reduced our wedding planner to tears because she suggested beige napkins.” Harry snorts.

“Beige napkins only belong in the trash!” Niall growls. “They are boring and classless and tell your guests that you care about the wedding as much as you do about-”

“I know.” Harry laughs, cutting him off and grabbing at Niall’s hands where he’s waving them emphatically. “I’ve heard the whole speech before. All twenty seven minutes of it.”

“Beige napkins!” Niall scoffs.

“Anyways-” Harry says exasperatedly. It’s obvious he’s heard this more than once. “We’d only been together for four months, but, when you know, you know. You know?”

“Not to mention we’d spent five years in very close company.” Niall points out.

“When you know, you know.” Harry reiterates firmly. “And I knew for a long time. Long before this one came to his senses.”

Niall rolls his eyes, but doesn’t argue, instead saying, “Nobody who knew us was really that surprised. It kind of took the fun out of telling people, actually.”

“That’s true.” Harry laughs. “Bobby just said ‘About damn time.’ and hung up on us. Even my mum was pretty unimpressed. And then Louis and Liam just rolled their eyes at us.”

“They knew beforehand that Harry was planning to propose.” Niall explains. “I don’t know why he expected them to be surprised.”

“They didn’t know exactly when it was going to happen.” Harry says with an eye-roll. “They just helped with the outlining of the plan, not the follow-through.”

“You only waited two days.” Niall scoffs.

“I didn’t want to wait.” Harry says with a slight shrug and a soft smile. “The sooner I asked, the sooner I could be married to you.”

“And yet, you turned down my offer to elope in Vegas.” Niall smirks.

“Because I knew how much you really wanted a wedding.” Harry hums, tucking a stray lock of Niall’s hair behind his ear. “It was enough to yell about beige napkins for twenty seven minutes.”

“Beige napkins!” Niall groans loudly, throwing his hands up in the air.

The screen fades to black, simply reading, ‘The rant is 27 minutes on the dot. We timed it.’

“Hello, all you lovely people.” Louis crows into the microphone. “Are you ready to rumble?”

“There will be no rumbling.” Liam says firmly, pulling the microphone over towards his own mouth.

They look dashing, standing there next to each other in suits that are complete palette swaps of each other, like an actualized version of the ‘angel on one shoulder, devil on the other’ trope. Louis’ grin is mischievous and wide, his eyes surely scanning the room for anything he can possibly do to make a scene. Liam, on the other hand, looks happy and proud and elated to be right where he is, keeping a strong hand on Louis’ shoulder to keep him there.

“Any rumblers will be asked to leave.” Liam continues. “Without a gift bag, at that. Absolutely no rumbling.”

“Is anyone here surprised that it’s Harry’s best man sucking the fun out of things, and not Niall’s?” Louis asks dryly. “No, I seriously doubt you are. Luckily for all of you, I’m in charge of the proceedings tonight to keep them from getting boring.”

“No. No, he isn’t.” Liam says flatly.

“Boys!” Gemma says sharply, standing up from the table a few seats down from Liam and Louis, and smacking her hands down against it. Even angry she looks stunning, clad in a white and black gown that makes her look every bit as elegant as a princess. “You are giving a toast, not hosting the Oscars! Zip it with the banter!”

“Ooh, we should totally host the Oscars.” Louis giggles, slapping at Liam’s arm. He sounds a bit past tipsy. “How does that happen? Do you apply for it? Is there a committee that we need to appeal to? What’s the process there?”

Gemma hikes up her skirt and begins to storm over, but Harry catches her by the arm and hauls her back into her seat.

“Webster’s dictionary defines love as-” Liam starts reading off of his cards, in an attempt to regain control of the situation, only to be cut off by a loud booing from the audience and Louis’ trademark cackle.

“These arseholes-” Louis hums, bumping Liam away with his hip. “Are meant to be. They’re a big old romantic cliché. They’re soppy and gross and I’m pretty sure that they had sex in that closet over there, like – half an hour ago, because they can never keep their hands off of each other.”

“We didn’t, just to make that clear.” Harry says loudly.

“It was blowjobs, forty minutes ago, and in that closet.” Niall announces, pointing to the other side of the room from what Louis had indicated. Harry slaps his hands over his eyes, blushing heavily while everyone in the room laughs or groans. Niall just giggles into his drink and places a sloppy kiss on Harry’s temple.

“Ha!” Liam laughs in Louis’ face. “It was blowjobs! You owe me two hundred pounds! I told you that Harry wouldn’t risk ruining his suit for a quickie!”

“Damn it, Harold!” Louis groans, reaching into his pocket and slamming a wrinkled set of notes into Liam’s hand. “Why do you have to be such a diva?”

“Will you two just make the bloody toast?” Harry huffs, glaring at them sharply.

“Oh, yeah.” Louis snorts.

“I don’t think anyone here would disagree with me when I say that these two set an example of what love is supposed to look like.” Liam says with a soft smile, laying his notecards down. “Sometimes it takes a while to get it together, but when you do, when you find that one person in the world who’s meant to be your other half, it’s obvious to everyone around you.

“Niall and Harry have a kind of love that we should all aspire to find. They’re more than just lovers or partners, they’re best friends. Back in the day, there were, uh– There were five of us. We were all best friends, but some of us were naturally closer to others. Some of those bonds changed over time. Some got weaker, or even broke, but some of them got a bit stronger.

“Niall and Harry, though. Theirs has gotten stronger every day since they met. In the beginning, I never would have thought that that would be possible. Right off the bat, they hit it off. I think the rest of us could tell from the start that these two would always be in each other’s lives, one way or another. I wouldn’t have guessed back then that it would be as each other’s husbands, but I was always a bit dense about things like that. But, I wasn’t the last one to figure it out, eh, Niall?”

“For once.” Niall snorts.

“This is where most people would add in a part wishing for the happy couple to accomplish everything they ever dreamed of, and for them to love each other the same way that they do right now, for the rest of their lives.” Liam continues. “I’m not going to do that. There’s not really any need for it. I know, without a doubt, that they aren’t going to love each other the same way they do right now. It’ll get stronger and stronger, every day, for the rest of their lives. So my toast is this-”

“To long lives, and short fights!” Louis interrupts, raising his glass. “To good times, and great shags!”

“Yeah, that.” Liam sighs, raising his glass in time with the rest of the room.

“Any chance there’s anything left for us to do here before we have to head back to the flat?” Niall asks, jamming his pre-concert clothes in his bag. He’s just wearing cut-offs and a t-shirt that he must have nicked out of Harry’s suitcase. His hair is damp and flat, and his eyes are tired, even though they’ve only showered since they got off-stage. His voice is the thing that really gets Harry though. He sounds almost desperate for an affirmation that they have something else to do.

“How are you feeling?” Harry asks, brushing Niall’s hair off of his forehead. “Are you sleepy-tired, or just drained?”

“Drained.” Niall admits, dropping his face against Harry’s chest. “I don’t want to go back and deal with my parents right now.”

“Then how about I call them, and have them put the kids to bed, so that we can go out for a bit of a date?” Harry offers.

“It’s nearly midnight.” Niall points out.

“It’s Dublin.” Harry counters. “Personally, I could go for a pint, and some pub food, and a bit of footsie under the table. And I think you might need it. You’re starting to get that look you get in your eyes whenever Derby is on a losing streak for weeks at a time. Besides, when is the last time that we spent time alone, together?”

“It’s been a while.” Niall mumbles. “Too long, actually.”

“Come on, babe.” Harry hums. “Go on a date with me.”

“Alright.” Niall nods, and Harry can feel the quirking of the blond’s lips against his chest. “But you have to actually make the call. No passing it off on me just because they’re my parents.”

“Promise.” Harry agrees, kissing the top of Niall’s head. “But that means that you have to throw everything in the car.”

“Much easier.” Niall chuckles, standing up straight and pressing a quick peck to Harry’s lips before grabbing each of their bags and heading out the door.

Niall’s assumption turns out to be true, as explaining to Maura that he and Niall are going out ends up taking almost ten minutes. He puts it elegantly, in an attempt to spare her feelings, but he can tell that she knows the truth.

Niall’s parents are – exhausting. They’re great people, and Harry loves them both every bit as much as his own parents, but they’re definitely easier to deal with individually than they are together. It’s like they have to fight as soon as they’re together. He doesn’t remember them arguing this much last time he saw them in person, but he figures that he’s blocked it out.

“Took you long enough.” Niall snorts when Harry finally joins him in the car.

“Your mum kept insisting that she wanted to wait up until we got home so that she didn’t worry about us, and it took a while to remind her that we’re not exactly kids anymore.” Harry admits.

“She’s still going to be sitting up waiting when we get home, isn’t she?” Niall asks with a laugh.

“It’s very likely.” Harry sighs.

“That’s not our problem, and I’m not cutting this short just to help her get into bed at a decent time.” Niall says decidedly.

“Planning a long night?” Harry asks with a grin as the car starts moving.

“Not necessarily.” Niall chuckles, refocusing on the road. “I just thought that we could see how it goes. There’s a pub that Bressie recommended about halfway between here and the flat. It’s just a couple blocks from that park that we used to go to at night.”

“When the whole world was asleep.” Harry murmurs. “And it was-”

“Just the two of us left awake.” Niall finishes for him. “Never get that feeling in LA, or London, or New York. Here, though– Here it was easy to feel connected, and, yet, like we could be alone, all at the same time.”

“Maybe, when the tour is done, we can come back for a longer visit.” Harry offers.

“When the tour is done, the kids are starting school.” Niall points out.

“Then we can do it next summer.” Harry hums. “We could stay the whole time.”

“That sounds – not terrible. As long as my parents don’t stay with us again.” Niall laughs.

“Oh, that definitely won’t be happening again.” Harry giggles. “Your mum is wrecking my diet with the breakfasts she keeps making every morning. I can handle two weeks of extra workouts to keep healthy, but I’d gain fifteen pounds if she stayed with us for a whole summer.”

“That wouldn’t be so bad.” Niall grins. “I miss your baby fat from when we met.”

“I did not have baby fat when we met!” Harry squawks.

“Just a bit, love.” Niall muses. “A little on your stomach, and some on your cheeks. Maybe a smidge on your thighs.”

“You’re lying.” Harry huffs.

“Babes, I saw you naked about six thousand times in the X-Factor house alone.” Niall laughs. “And, believe me, I was definitely looking. I committed every bit of your body to memory back then.”

“Mm, and what did you do with that image?” Harry asks, placing his hand on Niall’s thigh.

“What do you think?” Niall snorts, making a crude jerking gesture with his hand on the gearshift.

“And, does the real thing live up to your wank fantasies?” Harry questions.

“Exceeds them, actually.” Niall grins. “You blow yourself out of the water.”

“Good.” Harry smirks.

“Of course, I was young and naïve about sex back then.” Niall adds. “Most of my wank fantasies just revolved around you kissing me while you wanked me off.”

“So sweet. So innocent.” Harry giggles.

“Not entirely innocent.” Niall scoffs. “I spent quite a bit of time picturing eating you out, too. I overheard you telling Liam about it when you were trying to make him squirm, because he was so squeamish back then, and, after that, I couldn’t stop picturing it for weeks. Nearly pulled my dick off.”

“Just imagine the fun we could have had back then.” Harry hums.

“I wasn’t interested in being another of your conquests.” Niall shrugs. “If we’d slept together back then, I don’t think we’d be together now.”

“You always make it sound like I only cared about sex.” Harry grumbles.

“Not at all.” Niall chuckles. “You’ve been a romantic for as long as I’ve known you. But, you also had a tendency to fall for people really quickly, and then you broke things off when they turned out not to be everything that you thought they were. I didn’t want that to happen to me. I’d have left the band if you’d broken my heart. We both needed to grow up a bit before we could properly be together.”

“Alright, I can see your point.” Harry acquiesces. “Still not a great start to our date, though.”

“Sorry.” Niall says softly, shooting Harry a quick, apologetic look. “You know I always loved you, right? Always. Long before we got together, I knew you were the person I was meant to end up with, even if I wasn’t ready yet.”

“I know.” Harry smiles. “Sometimes I’m glad for the time that we had to grow before we got together, because it helped shape us into who we are now. But, sometimes, I just wish that we’d figured it out a bit sooner.”

“It was worth it in the end, though.” Niall says gently, reaching his hand down from the wheel to lace his fingers through Harry’s. “We have the rest of our lives to make up for those first five years.”

“Oh god, are you trying to kill me?” Harry groans, staring forlornly at the basket of fish and chips that Niall has set in front of him. “You know I can’t eat this on my diet.”

“Go ahead and cheat. I won’t tell anyone.” Niall smirks before stuffing a few of Harry’s fries in his own mouth.

“Well don’t steal them.” Harry huffs, pulling his basket towards his chest protectively. “If I’m going to cheat, I want the full thing.”

“Just trying to take some time off the workout for you.” Niall hums contentedly, settling back against his side of the booth. “I’ve got your back, babes.”

“You’re so obnoxious.” Harry snorts. “Remind me why I love you again?”

“Because I always laugh at your jokes.” Niall decides. “Or because I put up with your morning breath, and I know exactly how you like your tea, and I’m the only one who can work the knots out of your back when you pull it.”

“You left out about a thousand other reasons, but those are a few, yeah.” Harry giggles. “You’ve also gotten really good at sucking my dick, which doesn’t hurt.”

“I’m sure.” Niall muses. “The surest way to your heart is through your dick.”

“It is not.” Harry scoffs.

“Harry, for our last three anniversaries, you’ve given me coupon-books for sexual favors.” Niall points out.

“That’s because you always snoop around and find your gifts when I have no time left to shop!” Harry huffs.

“I don’t snoop.” Niall protests. “I just always end up trying to hide your gifts in the same place you hid mine.”

“I got a storage locker in Anaheim to stash your gifts last year.” Harry says flatly. “The next day, you were wearing one of the shirts I got you.”

“Okay, to be fair, I found the key, and I thought that you were hiding something from me.” Niall sighs. “Like when you bought a Ducati that you didn’t tell me about. I didn’t think you’d rent a storage space just for some clothes.”

“Fair point.” Harry huffs. “Next year, we’ve got to figure out a way to do this more efficiently.”

“Actually, I quite like those coupons.” Niall grins. “Especially the one that lets me make you-”

“We are in public!” Harry hisses. “Do not bring that up!”

“Think I might use that one on the spot this year.” Niall laughs.

“I need at least twenty-four hours to prepare when we do that. You know that.” Harry points out. “A lot of work goes into that.”

“Then I guess you should make sure to be ready when you hand it over, huh?” Niall smirks.

“What if I don’t put that one in this year?” Harry asks.

“You will.” Niall says smugly, taking a pull off of his beer. “You enjoy it every bit as much as I do.”

“Well, yeah.” Harry laughs. “It gets you all riled up. You always do your best work when we do that.”

“Then why do we only do it, like, twice a year?” Niall asks.

“Because if we do that too often, you’ll lose your enthusiasm.” Harry returns. “Then it’ll just be another thing that we used to do until it became old-hat. Like when we used to shag in public loos for the adrenaline rush that comes with the possibility of being caught.”

“You know-” Niall hums. “There’s a loo right over there, and I could use an adrenaline rush.”

“Well, I think it’s safe to say we won’t be welcome back in that pub.” Harry giggles as they stumble through the door to the flat. It’s after two in the morning, so he knows that they should probably be quiet, but everyone should be sound asleep by now.

Of course, Maura proves him wrong when she stands up from the chair, turns on the lamp, and asks, “What did you two do now?”

“Jesus Christ!” Niall yelps, springing back from where he was attached to Harry’s neck by the lips and grasping at his own chest. “Ma! You can’t fucking do that! Nearly gave me a bloody heart attack!”

“Watch your language, Niall.” Maura says halfheartedly through a yawn. “I’ll see you boys in the morning, and you can tell me all about your date. It’s too late for my tired bones.”

She shuffles off down the corridor, and Niall sighs out, “I told you she’d still be up.”

“That you did.” Harry hums, pulling Niall back tight against his chest. “You also told me that, when we got back, you would return the favor I did you in that pub, since you didn’t finish me off.”

“Well if you hadn’t been moaning so bloody loudly, we wouldn’t have gotten caught.” Niall counters. “But, fair is fair.”

He starts to sink down to his knees, but Harry catches him and says, “Not out here. In the bed. I’ll meet you there in a minute. I’m going to grab us some water for the morning.”

“Good thinking.” Niall nods before taking off towards the back of the flat where their bedroom is located, shedding his clothes as he walks like a trail of sexual breadcrumbs. God, Harry can’t wait to follow them.

He heads into the kitchen first though, plucking two bottles of water from the fridge. It’s only when he’s halfway back to the room that he realizes that he’s grabbed two bottles of carbonated water, and that upsets Niall’s stomach in the mornings, which makes him cranky all day. So he turns back to go to the kitchen, half of Niall’s kit in hand, and finds something that he wasn’t expecting.

“Um, Bobby?” Harry asks cautiously.

“Holy hell!” Bobby yelps turning and clutching at his chest just like Niall had. He really takes after his father. In a lot of ways, it appears, causing Harry to divert his eyes to the ceiling.

“Why are you naked?” Harry squeaks out. “And why are you holding strawberries?”

“Um, midnight snack?” Bobby tries. It’s not at all convincing.

“You don’t like strawberries.” Harry sighs. “Same as Niall. Bobby, I want the truth. Do you have your lady friend over? Obviously I won’t be mad if you do, because you’re a grown man, and it’s your business as long as it doesn’t affect the kids, but it would be nice if you’d warned us ahead-”

“It’s Maura.” Bobby says sheepishly, making Harry choke on air.

“What?” Harry hisses. “You can’t be serious! You two fight constantly!”

“We make up even better.” Bobby hums, and Harry can practically hear the smirk in his voice.

“Oh my god.” Harry groans, rubbing at his temples. “Why– Why didn’t you tell us?”

“It’s still kind of new.” Bobby admits. “We didn’t want to give Niall false hope if it doesn’t work out again. Greg doesn’t even know. So we’d both appreciate it if you didn’t tell him.”

“Bobby, he’s my husband.” Harry sighs.

“We’ll tell him before you guys leave.” Bobby says firmly. “I promise. It would just be better coming from us.”

“Alright.” Harry agrees. “But I will if you don’t.”

“We’ll tell him.” Bobby repeats.

“Can you hand me a bottle of the purified water?” Harry requests, placing the carbonated bottle on the counter and reaching out blindly.

“Here you go.” Bobby says, pushing the plastic into Harry’s hand. “And you don’t have to keep looking away. This is what you have to look forward to in about twenty-five years or so.”

Before that thought can gain any ground in Harry’s mind, he turns on his heel and rushes back through the flat until he’s closing the door to the bedroom.

“What took you so long?” Niall asks from the bed, face half buried in a pillow. He looks to be more than half asleep already, and Harry is more than alright with that. He’s suddenly completely without any desire for sex at the moment. Unlike Bobby and Maura, apparently, which is exactly why he can’t even think about getting it up. “You have to piss or summat?”

“Nothing important.” Harry mutters, setting the bottles on his side of the bed and stripping off his clothes. He climbs under the duvet and adds, “I just ran into your father.”

“You ready for reciprocation?” Niall asks through a yawn, reaching over and placing his hand on Harry’s stomach.

“I’m a bit tired, actually.” Harry tells him. “Catch me in the morning?”

“Sure.” Niall agrees just before the sounds of his snoring starts up.

How do you boys feel about the tour?

“I think it’s really cool.” Jimmy beams. “It’s shown me a lot about what it’s like to be a rock star. Dad’s taught me all about the electronics and how everything works to make their shows look and sound good. I know all the secrets now.”

“He thinks he does, anyways.” William scoffs. “He spilled a bottle of water on one of the sound control panels, so they stopped letting him near the expensive stuff.”

“It was just a little spill.” Jimmy grumbles, crossing his arms over his chest. “They freaked out for no reason. I didn’t break anything.”

“Luckily.” William says with an eye roll. “He’s right about it being cool, though. Not a lot of people get to see the kinds of things we have, especially at our age. We’ve gotten to learn about some really neat stuff.”

“And we’ve gone to some really cool places.” Jimmy grins. “Most of our friends have never even left California. We got to travel all around America, and Canada, and now we’re in Ireland.”

“And we get to go to England next week.” William adds. “Our dads are going to take us all over London, and we’re going to Stonehenge, and-”

“We’re going to see our grandparents there too.” Jimmy interrupts.

“And our Uncle Liam.” William says with a wide smile. “He was a part of our dads’ band back in the old days. Ava was just a little baby the last time we saw him, but he’s really cool.”

“Oh, and Auntie Gemma!” Jimmy says excitedly. “She’s awesome! When she came for a visit last year, she dyed my hair blue.”

“Dad was really mad about that.” William giggles. “He even called Grandma Anne.”

“Auntie Gemma is the best. She’s going to be staying with us in London to watch us when our dads are doing their concerts.” Jimmy explains. “I want her to make my hair purple this time.”

“Dad’s not going to be happy with that.” William sighs.

“I’ll look like a proper rock star.” Jimmy grins, apparently ignoring William’s statement. “Dad had purple hair once. I saw it in some old pictures from back when they were in that other band.”

“We didn’t even know about One Direction until our dad’s told us they wanted to go on a tour.” William admits. “We knew that they wrote music, but we didn’t know that they were like, really famous.”

“They’re just our dads, you know?” Jimmy asks. “They’re special to us, but we didn’t know they were special to the whole world.”

“When they told us that they wanted to go on tour, we were confused.” William explains. “We didn’t understand, because they were just songwriters. Then they showed us all these old pictures and videos and songs from back in the day with Uncle Liam and Uncle Louis. It was crazy.”

“We didn’t know what to think at first.” Jimmy says quietly. “They wanted to take us away from all of our friends and have us live on a bus for a few months. And, like, that’s cool. It’s been really awesome. But it was also scary at first. We didn’t know how it was all going to work.”

“They sat us down, and explained all of it to us after that, and then they asked us if we’d be okay with it.” William adds. “It was weird. They’re our dads, but they asked us for permission. I’m glad we didn’t say no.”

“Me too.” Jimmy grins. “This is all so much better than school.”

“What are you doing?” Niall sighs. His eyes are bloodshot, and there are bags under them. His shirt is covered in a mixture of fluids that are probably best left to the imagination, and both of the twins are sleeping in his arms. They look about three this time around, with big heads and chubby cheeks and fat fingers that have found each other across Niall’s chest.

“Making a home video, obviously.” Harry scoffs from off-screen. It’s pretty obvious that he’s the one holding the camera.

“Harry, I haven’t slept in two days.” Niall mumbles, settling back against the chair he’s reclining in. “The boys and Princess are finally giving me the chance. Can you be weird later?”

“I’m not weird for wanting to document the beginnings of this new stage in our family, Niall.” Harry huffs, turning the camera around just to capture the roll of his eyes before turning it back. “Wait– Where’s Princess?”

“The only place that she’ll sleep.” Niall says, nodding his head towards a car seat on the floor between his feet. “Tried her in the crib, in my arms, in the bouncy chair– This is the only way she’d take a nap. Where have you been?”

“Trying to figure out this new camera.” Harry admits sheepishly. “The instructions were needlessly complicated.”

“And what exactly is wrong with just using your phone?” Niall asks.

“It’s different.” Harry grumbles. “Using a video camera makes it like the home videos our parents used to make.”

“Alright.” Niall nods, clearly too tired to argue it. “Well, have fun, I guess. Not much to record here.”

“I disagree.” Harry muses, walking around behind Niall and changing the angle to capture the three boys on the couch, as well as the baby. “I see my entire world right now.”

Niall leans his head back, looking directly into the camera, and says, “You’re a soppy git.”

There’s no bite to it though. The lazy smile that stretches across his face actually tells a completely different story. It speaks of fondness and love and pure adoration when combined with the sparkles in his tired eyes and the little wave he does with his fingers.

“Have you thought of a name for the baby?” Harry asks with a giggle. “I think a week of calling her ‘Princess’ is enough.”

“I have.” Niall hums. “But it’ll make me sound like a soppy git too.”

“Let’s hear it then.” Harry says, zooming in on Niall’s face.

“Aibhlinn.” Niall says with a soft smile.

Why Aibhlinn?

“It means ‘longed-for child’.” Harry explains.

“We were warned that adopted children often have trouble in their later years, worrying that their birth parents didn’t want them.” Niall says, looking down at his fingers. “We wanted her to know that she’s wanted and loved every time she sees or hears her name. We never wanted her to think that she isn’t every bit as important to us as the twins.”

“A lot of people thought it was weird at first, you know, adopting after we’d already had kids through surrogacy.” Harry sighs. “I guess they expected us to do the same thing if we ever wanted more kids.”

“People weren’t so kind about us adopting a middle-eastern child.” Niall admits. “There were a lot of nasty things said at first. Some of it you’d expect, because people are racist or homophobic arseholes. The ones that shocked us were the people saying that two white people shouldn’t be raising a child of color.”

“It was unexpected.” Harry nods. “For people to disapprove of us as parents just because our daughter has a different skin color than us was shocking in this day and age.”

“It doesn’t change anything, though.” Niall says adamantly. “Not for us. Aibhlinn is every bit as much our daughter as Jimmy and William are our sons. Blood isn’t necessarily what makes a family into a family. Love is. Nothing anybody says will ever change that.”

“Not ever.” Harry agrees with a firm nod.

“Family is the worst.” Niall grumbles, taking a pull off of his beer.

“Uh-oh, trouble in paradise?” Liam asks. “What’s wrong with you and Harry?”

“What? Nothing.” Niall scoffs. “I was talking about my parents. They’re shagging. Well, they’re calling it dating, but you get my point.”

“You know, some people would be happy if their parents got back together.” Liam points out.

“What would you know about it?” Niall asks harshly. “Your parents are still together.”

“Alright, forget I said anything.” Liam mutters.

“Sorry.” Niall sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose is self-flagellation. “Christ. I’m just not handling it very well. It’s like – if they end up back together, then what was the bloody point, you know? They put Greg and me through hell when we were kids for this divorce. Why go through all that fighting and the rest of that shite just to get back together now?”

“They’re different people now than they were then.” Liam says softly, placing his hand on Niall’s elbow. “People’s relationships to each other change over time. At the time they got divorced, they obviously weren’t right for each other. They might be now, though. Are they happy?”

“Yeah. They still fight a lot, but, apparently, that’s because they like the makeup sex.” Niall explains.

“Oh god!” Liam snorts. “I did not need to know that!”

“You think I did?” Niall asks with an eye roll that is thankfully hidden by his sunglasses. The last thing he needs is Liam pouting at him. It was one thing when they were younger, but they’re in their thirties now, and it’s not endearing anymore, despite Liam’s belief to the contrary. “Speaking of makeup sex- You know Tommo is flying out here in a few days, right? You going to do anything about that?”

“Shut up.” Liam scoffs. “You sound like the fans back in the day.”

“Answer the question, Liam.” Niall grunts, taking another pull off of his beer.

“I’ve tried, Niall.” Liam sighs. “You know I’ve tried.”

“Don’t you think this has gone on long enough?” Niall questions. “Isn’t losing one brother enough for you guys?”

“It was a stupid mistake.” Liam spits out. “I’ve told him that I’m sorry a million times. Why does it still fall on me to fix it? Why do I have to be the bigger person, six and a half years later, when he’s the one who refuses to forgive me?”

“Because you’re the one who started it.” Niall says simply. “You turned your back on him first, Liam. I know you regret it, and I know you’ve tried to make things better, but, at some point, you have to acknowledge that it wasn’t just a mistake. It was a conscious decision.”

“I have.” Liam whispers. “I’ve done a lot of stupid things, but that was the stupidest. It’s not like I walked away unscathed though, Ni. I lost a lot.”

“I know.” Niall says gently. “I’m not– I’m not saying that you didn’t get the shit end of the stick, Liam. But you know how he is, and he’s never going to be the first one to break. It has to be you that makes it better. We’ll make sure he listens, but you’re going to have to try one more time if you really want him back in your life.”

“I miss him.” Liam admits. “I mean, we’ve been fighting for almost as long as we were friends now, but I really do miss him.”

“I think he misses you too.” Niall tells him. “Not that he’d admit it. He’d rather die than talk about his feelings.”

“You really think so?” Liam asks, and Niall can practically feel the hope laced into the words.

“He’s threatened to string me up by the balls if I tell you this, so keep it to yourself, yeah?” Niall hums, waiting until Liam nods to continue with, “He said you did really good work on our album. He was a bit pissed off when Harry said we’d only do it if we could have you produce it instead of one of his in-house people, but he said it turned out brilliant with your work.”

“Of course it did.” Liam scoffs. “I do good fucking work.”

“I know.” Niall chuckles.

“Not that I really had to do too much.” Liam adds. “You guys do good fucking work too.”

“I know.” Niall repeats smugly. “Got the Grammys to prove it.”

“Not for this album.” Liam smirks. “Not yet, anyways. My sources say that there’s a lot of buzz from some of the NARAS voting members, and that there are probably going to be quite a few nominations.”

“You looking for one?” Niall asks with a grin.

“I’ve produced quite a few ace albums this year.” Liam says with a shrug that doesn’t do any good at coming off as nonchalant. “I wouldn’t be completely surprised if I got my second ‘Producer of the Year’ Grammy nom.”

“You deserve it.” Niall hums. “But I might be a bit biased.”

“Too bad you can’t vote.” Liam sighs.

“You’ll get your recognition one day, Liam.” Niall says with a soft smile. “We’ve been lucky with our single win.”

“That wasn’t luck.” Liam says with a roll of the eyes. “You deserved it. And you guys were fucking robbed last year. I still cannot believe you didn’t take that one home. Fucking bullshit.”

Niall is about to open his mouth to agree vehemently, because they really were fucking robbed, but is cut off before he can begin with a hum of, “Don’t get him started, Liam. He can go on about it for ages.”

“Oh, like you didn’t bitch for three-” Niall is interrupted once again, this time by Harry dropping into his lap unexpectedly and making him grunt before he can wheeze out, “Weeks.”

“I did.” Harry muses, rearranging himself on Niall’s lap to shove his face into the blond’s neck and mouth at the skin while he mumbles out, “But I got over it.”

“Lord, you know that I’m right here, right?” Liam groans. “And that this is my house?”

“Yeah.” Harry smirks before nipping harder at the skin beneath his teeth. “And we’ve never had sex in this one.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Liam asks, narrowing his eyes dangerously.

“Means we tossed off all over your last place.” Harry returns with a smug grin before biting down on Niall’s clavicle and making him whine, digging his fingers into Harry’s hips. “All over it. Made some real special memories in your-”

“Shut up!” Liam hisses. “I don’t want to know!”

“Bed.” Harry finishes with a giggle before going back to his task of sucking Niall’s collarbone completely purple.

“Bloody fucking hell!” Liam yells, climbing off of his chair and heading towards the house, loudly yelling about how he still has that bed in one of the guest rooms and his mum might have slept on it. Niall isn’t sure. He’s a bit focused on other things.

“What, did you leave Jessica to watch the kids all by herself just to come and have it off in the garden?” Niall scoffs.

“Nah, she wanted me to send Liam inside.” Harry giggles, pressing fluttering kisses to the mark he’s made. “I should get back inside. William likes Hope and Jean, but I don’t think Jimmy does. I need to keep an eye on him.”

He slides back off of Niall’s lap after that, sauntering towards the house with a swish in his hips and a bark of laughter when Niall calls after him with, “I’ll make you regret this later!”

What happened to One Direction?

“It wasn’t supposed to go down the way it did.” Liam sighs, fidgeting awkwardly in front of the camera. “We had every intention of getting back together when we went on the hiatus. Things just got– Complicated, you know? Like, Louis got really involved in being a dad. We always knew he’d make a great one, but I don’t think any of us really knew how much actually went into it back then. None of us were parents yet, so we thought it would be easier than it actually is.

“And then Niall and Harry came out, and they got engaged so fast, and then the wedding happened. Anyone who was paying attention knew it was coming soon, because, once they finally got together, they never wanted to be apart again. Still don’t, I reckon. By the time the tour would have rolled around, their life together was just beginning to kick off.

“And then, a couple months before we were about ready to come back, there was– There was the feud, I guess you’d call it, between me and Louis. A lot of hurtful things were said on both sides, and we really couldn’t stand to be around each other after that.

“It was kind of the final straw, you know? Everybody said that something was going to go wrong. They said we weren’t going to end up coming back together, and I guess they were right.

“That’s not how we meant it to go, though. We all wanted to get back together. We planned to get back together. Louis and I, as well as Niall and Harry, had written songs for the sixth album. They never got recorded though. I still have some of them in the back of my safe.

“Life just got in the way. And, it’s funny, because we all wanted the break to pursue solo projects. We each wanted to try our hands at making our names for ourselves individually. None of us went out and actually chased those solo careers, though. I fell in love with the production side of music, and Louis’ label took off, and Niall and Harry started writing. They were the ones we all expected to go out there and make their way as solo artists, but they never did. They wanted a family more than they wanted the spotlight.

“But, now, they’re actually kind of doing it. They’re not solo, of course, but they’re doing it the way that they’re supposed to. Together. And, it’s not like the old days, but each of the four of us had a hand in this album. Harry and Niall wrote the whole thing themselves, and they’re obviously the artists as well. Louis managed them and made the whole thing possible. And I produced it. It’s not the way we ever expected it to go, but it’s not a surprise to any of us, I think, that they were the ones to bring the band back together in a way.”

“Oh, fuck no!” Louis growls, slapping both of his hands down on the table and standing up so fast his chair clatters against the ground when Liam walks into the room. “What the fuck is he doing here?”

“He’s here to talk, and you’re going to listen.” Niall says firmly, leveling Louis with a glare that everyone knows means business. Niall doesn’t often get this serious, this fierce, so he knows it’ll be enough to at least somewhat penetrate Louis’ thick skull. “Sit down, Louis. You too, Liam.”

“Who put you in charge?” Louis scoffs.

“You two did when you decided to keep putting us in the middle of things.” Niall bites out. “We’re tired of it, alright? We’re tired of this endless, petty argument. And it’s all over what? A woman that neither of you are even with anymore?”

“It was El, Niall!” Louis roars. Niall’s glad that he’s the one doing this, and that Harry is the one taking care of all the kids, out at the park with Jessica. Harry would just piss Louis off more, because he loves to antagonize him. “El, as in my first love! El, as in the woman that I thought I’d spend the rest of my life! El, who was my entire world for four years, and he fucking dated her!”

“You two had broken up years before it happened, Louis.” Niall says flatly. “And, yeah, it was a shitty thing to do, but he’s sorry about it.”

“Sorry isn’t enough.” Louis mutters, lifting his chair back up and sitting in it again. “Sorry doesn’t make up for stabbing me in the back like that.”

“We never meant for it to happen, Louis.” Liam says weakly, still standing in the doorway. “It just– It just did.”

“I’ve heard it all before, Liam.” Louis says icily. “From both you and her. And I get better than anyone that sometimes shit happens that’s outside of your control, but this wasn’t. You don’t accidentally date someone, and especially not your best friend’s ex. You don’t do that.

“But, do you know what hurt even worse? Do you know why I’m still so pissed off after all of these years? Because you chose her. I begged you to stop seeing her, and you told me that you wouldn’t. You picked her over me, and that was the last fucking straw. I could have forgiven you for dating her if you’d realized that I was supposed to be more important to you. Hell, I would have forgiven you if you’d shown any signs that you gave even the tiniest shit about me, but you-”

“She was pregnant!” Liam chokes out, his face paling as he grips onto the counter. “She was carrying my kid, Louis! Of course I chose her!”

And, well– That’s fucking news. Niall trusts Liam though, because the pain in his eyes is too strong to be a lie. It really happened, and this is the first Niall is hearing about it. He can’t help the way his breath hitches, the way it contributes to the sensation that all of the air has been sucked out of the room.

“And, we didn’t– We didn’t want to tell anyone before she was out of the first trimester.” Liam admits. “She never made it out, though. She– We– We lost the baby two days before the first trimester was supposed to end. The doctor said it was stress. I didn’t choose her because I didn’t want you to be a part of my life anymore, Louis. I chose her because she was pregnant with my child. And then, after we lost the baby, there was nobody left for me to turn to. You hated me, and Niall and Harry took your side at first, and Zayn was long gone.

“I had nobody, and I got so angry, and she left me. She left me because I could barely control myself anymore. I still don’t know if I was in love her, but I do know that losing her didn’t hurt half as bad as losing you. I needed you, I needed my best friend, but, no matter how many times I apologized, no matter what I did, it wasn’t enough for you.”

“You should have told me.” Louis breathes out. “Fuck, Liam– You should have just told me.”

“Yeah, believe it or not, I figured that out for myself.” Liam scoffs. His voice is choked and wet, thick with the tears that are still threatening to pour down his cheeks. “But it was too late by then. You refused to talk to me.”

“Well, fuck.” Louis sighs. “I guess I’m the asshole if I keep holding onto the chip on my shoulder now, aren’t I?”

“No.” Liam says quietly, shaking his head. “You’re right. I never should have let it happen in the first place. I just– I missed you guys, you know? You were in Los Angeles with your kid, and Niall and Harry were in Dublin being disgustingly in love, and– And when I ran into her in London, it felt like I had a bit of you back.

“Dating someone doesn’t happen by accident, no, but that first date wasn’t even supposed to be a date. We were just catching up over coffee. It wasn’t supposed to be anything. I didn’t even realize that it was something until we’d been meeting up a couple of nights every week for over a month. It just happened, Louis. I know that might sound stupid, but I swear, I never would have let it get that far if I realized that I was falling for her.”

“I get it.” Louis says with a soft smile. “She has a way of doing that. She’s disarming.”

“If I, uh– If I leave you two alone to do this, is there going to be any blood?” Niall asks. It would be better for them to work through this by themselves, without Niall sitting in, intruding on it. He knows that they might need a referee though, and that’s why he’s even here. It seems like they’re past that stage of things though.

“No.” Louis says flatly, rolling his eyes. “I’m sure we can just speak to one another without any bodily harm. We’re both professional men, who-”

“Alright, yeah, sure.” Niall scoffs, climbing out of his chair and heading over to the fridge for a beer. “Like you didn’t have a live tarantula delivered to our dressing room two weeks ago because you know that Harry is scared of spiders. Real professional.”

“Did he piss himself?” Louis asks with a wicked grin. “Did they leave the top off of the tank? I told them to leave the top off of the tank.”

“No, he didn’t. And yes, they did.” Niall sighs, twisting the cap off of his beer and tossing it in the bin. “I spent ten minutes finding that thing and getting it back in the tank, and Harry spent the whole time, standing on top of the makeup table screaming. That’s exactly my point. Can you to handle this alone without being dicks?”

“Yes, dad.” Louis groans sarcastically.

“Liam, are you good with me giving you two some privacy?” Niall questions, locking eyes with him and ignoring Louis.

“Think we could use it, yeah.” Liam nods, giving Niall a quick smile. “Thanks for doing this for us, Ni.”

“Just make sure it’s fixed, yeah?” Niall hums, giving Liam a quick pat on the back before walking away and looking back over his shoulder to add, “I’m expecting love, boys. Call me if you need condoms.”

“Get out of here, you wanker!” Louis laughs.

Niall ambles towards the living room and drops onto the couch, turning the volume up on a footy match enough to block out the conversation coming from the other room, but not enough so that he won’t hear it if things get heated again. He texts Harry that he thinks that the worst of it is over when he hasn’t heard any fighting for a full ten minutes.

As it turns out, he’s right. By the time Harry, Jessica, and the kids get back to the flat that Harry and Niall are renting, there’s actually laughter coming from the kitchen. It’s nice. It feels a bit like old times, except they all have their shit together now. Mostly.

Louis still needs to find the Wizard of Oz and ask for a heart. Liam needs to nut up and ask Jessica to marry him, because it’s been three years, and he loves that woman and her daughters. And Niall and Harry, well, they’re pretty good, most of the time. Niall can still be a bit thick, sometimes, can have trouble talking things out. And Harry still gets frustrated easily and cuts himself off from everyone around him. They’re working on it, though. They’re working on themselves, and that’s what really matters.

“Dad! Dad!” Jimmy squeals, running over to Niall and tugging at his arm, literally pulling him out of his thoughts. He’s still getting used to the purple hair, and it startles him more than it should. He likes it, despite the vibrant shade being a bit much. Harry does not. At all. “I caught a squirrel!”

“You– You caught a squirrel?” Niall asks confusedly.

“And it actually liked him.” William adds, bounding up behind his brother. “It let him pet it and everything.”

“Harry!” Niall calls loudly, sitting straight up. “What the hell? A squirrel?”

“I put a stop to it as soon as I saw it happening.” Harry huffs, walking up behind the couch and dropping Ava into Niall’s lap. “When it was happening, I had to go change Ava’s outfit, because she got so excited playing that she had an accident.”

“Sorry.” Ava mumbles guiltily.

“It’s okay, princess.” Niall hums, pressing a kiss to the tip of her nose. “Accidents happen. Next time will be better, yeah?”

“Yes.” Ava beams before yawning. “’M sleepy, daddy.”

“Wore yourself out at the park, did you?” Niall chuckles, earning himself a small nod in return before Ava buries her face in his chest. “I think it’s better if you nap in the bed, princess.”

“I’ll take her.” Harry offers. “I need to change my shirt anyways. The squirrel peed on it when I took it away from Jimmy. Where’s Gems?”

“Lord only knows.” Niall shrugs, lifting Ava back up to pass her over to Harry. “She left right after you guys did, saying something about hitting the shops and meeting up with someone in town while she has a free minute.”

“Alright.” Harry nods. “Do you know if she’ll be back in time for dinner?”

“Yeah.” Niall confirms.

“Okay.” Harry hums. “How are they doing?”

“Listen.” Niall tells him, muting the telly.

There’s another burst of laughter, followed by some quiet talking that they can’t quite make out, and then a roar of, “Niall! I’m coming after your balls!”

“Fucking Liam!” Niall hisses, springing off the couch and running back towards his and Harry’s bedroom when Louis storms out of the kitchen with a furious expression. Liam follows close behind with an apologetic smile. At least they’re getting along now.

“Dad?” William asks quietly, closing the door behind him when he walks into the room. “Can I talk to you about something?”

“Of course, bud.” Harry nods, setting his writing journal down on the bedside table.

“Am I a freak?” William asks, the tears building up in the corners of his eyes magnified by his glasses.

“Absolutely not.” Harry says firmly, patting the bed to tell William to hop up. He climbs in, next to Harry, but flinches away when Harry tries to pull him in close. “Bud, what’s making you think that?”

“It’s Jean.” William mumbles. “Every time I see her, I feel weird. My tummy feels all funny, and I can’t stop laughing at everything she says, even when she isn’t being funny, and my hands get all sweaty.”

“Oh, buddy.” Harry coos, cupping William’s cheek and thumbing away a tear that’s escaped. “That’s so normal. You have a crush. All that stuff happens because you like her.”

“But I’m not supposed to like girls.” William chokes out, scrubbing at his eyes with the sleeve of his shirt.

“Where in the world did you get that idea?” Harry asks gently. “William, it’s perfectly fine for you to like girls.”

“But you and dad like boys.” William points out. “So does Jimmy. I don’t want to be different.”

And, really, Harry never thought he’d be having this conversation. He’s pretty sure no parent expects to have this conversation. It’s the exact opposite of the one he’d had with his mother half his life ago.

He puts aside the tidbit about Jimmy, which he had absolutely no idea about, and says, “Buddy, there’s nothing wrong with liking girls. Not one bit.”

“But I’m the only one in the family who does.” William whimpers.

“That’s not true at all.” Harry says lightly. “Your father and I both like girls as well. I dated, um - a few - girls before your dad and I got together. So did he. Just because we ended up with each other doesn’t mean that we never liked girls. It just means that we liked each other more.”

“Does that mean that I’ll like boys and girls too?” William asks.

“Not necessarily.” Harry tells him.

“But I could, though?” William asks desperately. “I could make myself like boys, and then I wouldn’t have to be different than you guys.”

“It’s– That’s not how it works.” Harry explains gently. “It’s not something that you get to choose. It’s just the way you’re born. Some people just like boys, and some people just like girls. Some, like me and your dad, like both. There are also people who don’t like either, and people who like everyone, no matter what they identify as. And, for some people, who they like can change over time.

“It doesn’t matter who you end up liking, as long as you’re honest with yourself, bud. None of that matters to your dad or me. What matters to us is that you’re happy. Don’t ever try to change who you are just because you want to be the same as somebody else. That won’t make anyone happy, least of all you. We love you, no matter what.”

“So I can just like girls, and you guys won’t love me any less for it?” William whispers.

“Exactly.” Harry confirms, pressing a soft kiss to William’s forehead. “I promise, nothing you do will ever make us love you any less. That goes for liking people as well.”

“Thanks, dad.” William mumbles, climbing into Harry’s lap and giving him a tight hug.

“I love you, buddy.” Harry hums, wrapping his arms tight around William to try and drive his words home. He never expected to have this conversation, so he really hopes that he said the right thing.

“Love you too, dad.” William says quietly.

“Now, what makes you think that your brother likes boys?” Harry asks.

“He had a boyfriend, dad.” William sighs wearily, rolling his eyes. “Kelvin, remember?”

“What do you mean a boyfriend?” Harry squawks, his stomach plummeting. They’re five years old. They can’t be having girlfriends and boyfriends yet. Harry can’t handle that. “Kelvin was just his friend!”

“Nuh-uh.” William says, shaking his head. “They were boyfriends. They liked each other for a week, and they kissed, and then Kelvin broke up with Jimmy because he liked somebody else.”

“Oh my god.” Harry breathes out shakily, digging his knuckles into his temples. “This cannot be happening.”

“Well, it’s not anymore.” William says, like it’s obvious even though Harry is still trying to process all the information flying at him. “I told you, they broke up.”

“Listen-” Harry sighs. “It’s totally okay if you like Jean, but I don’t want you guys kissing. You’re too young for that.”

“Okay.” William pouts.

“But, if she lets you, you can hold hands with her.” Harry offers, which makes William blush.

“We already did.” William admits. “Yesterday at the park, she held my hand while we were on the swings. And she said she likes my glasses, because they make me look smart.”

“You’re smart with or without your glasses.” Harry tells him. “But I’m glad that you’re happy, bud.”

“Can I go play, now?” William asks.

“Go on.” Harry nods. “I need to talk to your father anyways.”

“Alright.” William says, hopping off of his lap and leaving the room with Harry close behind.

He finds Niall in the kitchen, and drags him away from whatever he’s cooking by the elbow to hiss out the question, “Did you know that Jimmy likes boys?”

“Um, yeah.” Niall says with a shrug. “It’s not news, Harry. He had a boyfriend. Kind of. It’s that little kid version, you know?”

“You knew about Kelvin, and you didn’t tell me?” Harry asks incredulously.

“I thought that you figured it out yourself, the same way I did.” Niall scoffs. “He never stopped talking about him for weeks, and then he cried for two days when Kelvin didn’t want to hang out with him anymore. Remember?”

“Did you know that they kissed?” Harry asks suspiciously.

“Really? Good for Jimmy.” Niall barks out in a laugh.

“They’re growing up way too fast. Jimmy had his first kiss and boyfriend, and William is holding hands with Jean. It’s too soon.” Harry mutters.

“Our parents probably thought the same thing.” Niall muses. “Like when you had your first kiss with that little girl Emilyne at seven.”

“Why aren’t you upset by this?” Harry asks.

“Because they’re kids, Harry.” Niall says softly, lacing their fingers together and bringing their hands up to kiss the back of Harry’s. “Growing up too fast is what they do best. They’ve still got a long, long way to go though. They may be kissing, and holding hands, and having crushes, but William still cries when his trousers get muddy, and Jimmy still gets scared during thunderstorms. They’re still our little boys, and they will be for the rest of our lives.”

“They’re breaking my heart.” Harry whimpers, resting his head on Niall’s shoulder.

“I know, babes.” Niall hums, circling his arms around Harry’s back. “Mine too. I can’t even think about their birthday next week.”

“Oh god!” Harry chokes out, burying his face in Niall’s neck. It’s too much. These kids are going to be the death of him. He couldn’t ask for a better one though.

How are you guys feeling about this final show?

“I don’t know how I feel, to be honest.” Niall admits, giving a slight shrug. “This tour is– It’s been different. The ones back in the old days, they were longer, and more grueling, but I always felt a bit sad when they came to an end. But, it was a different time, you know? It meant being apart from the people I was closest to whenever it finished up, because I didn’t really have much waiting for me back home in those days. Sure, I’d get to relax, and see my family, and faff around for a bit, but it was a bit lonely. This time, all the most important people in my life are coming home with me.”

“Exactly.” Harry nods along with Niall’s answer. “Like, of course we’re going to miss performing again, but there’s not that same sense of happiness and sadness mixed together that normally comes up right before the last show. This tour has been good to us, but it’s also been hard on the kids at times. They got to see some of the world, and spend time with parts of the family that they usually don’t, but I think they’re glad to be going home soon.”

“We haven’t really discussed if there’s going to be another album or tour.” Niall adds. “We can’t really rule it out, because we may want to do this again someday, but it’ll be a while before it happens again, if it ever does.”

“For now, I think we’ll probably be more than satisfied to go back to the way our lives were before.” Harry hums. “Giving the kids a stable home life– That’s our priority. Music is secondary to that. Maybe, somewhere down the line, we’ll do more. We know that it’s possible now, and we could do it better if we ever did it again, because we’ve learned what works and what doesn’t this time around. For now though, going home sounds good.”

“After tonight’s show, of course.” Niall grins. “It’s probably going to get a bit wild.”

“Gotta go out with a bang, you know?” Harry smirks.

“Will you please stop yelling?” Niall whines, hiding his face in the crook of his arm.

“I’m literally whispering.” Gemma sighs. “You’re just being a baby.”

“My head hurts.” Niall whimpers.

“Well, then I guess you shouldn’t have gotten totally pissed and stayed up all night having sex with my baby brother.” Gemma says smugly, making Niall wince because she’s definitely not whispering.

“How did you even hear that?” Niall asks. “You were asleep on the other side of the house.”

“Yeah, you two? Not quiet at all.” Gemma snorts. “I heard things I never, ever needed to hear.”

“It was good though.” Harry giggles, walking into the room. He looks fresh as a fucking daisy, and Niall hates it. He drops a kiss on Niall’s forehead, and then moves to the kettle to make himself some tea. “We used up every bit of that adrenaline going out with a bang, didn’t we, babe?”

“And then some.” Niall mutters. “Think I might be technically dead.”

“Better not be.” Harry hums. “We have a birthday party to host in a few hours.”

“Fucking hell.” Niall groans. “I forgot about the party.”

“That was obvious around the twelfth shot, babe.” Harry chuckles. “Don’t worry. I’ll take point. You can just go shower for now, if you’re feeling up to it.”

“When I finish my coffee.” Niall sighs, sitting up and closing his eyes against the early morning sun filtering in through the window that Gemma had already so cruelly opened before Niall came into the room. “Not sure I can stand through a whole shower without the caffeine.”

“I could help.” Harry smirks.

“A blowie isn’t going to help this time, Harry.” Niall mutters, taking a drink. “It’s too bad for that.”

“I meant help you shower.” Harry says with a roll of his eyes. “Wash your back and all that.”

“Sure you did.” Niall and Gemma scoff in unison. Niall would laugh, but his head is already pounding from just talking. He might have an aneurysm if he actually hears anything too loud right now.

Of course, the universe apparently hates him today, and sends two very excited, newly minted six year olds into the room, arguing at the top of their lungs.

“I get to choose what we eat, because I was born first!” Jimmy huffs.

“It was fifteen minutes!” William groans.

“Breakfast is pancakes.” Niall cuts them off. “Just like every Sunday, boys. If you don’t want pancakes, then you can have cereal.”

“But I wanted French toast!” Jimmy whines.

“Me too.” William adds.

“They’re so American.” Gemma chuckles, making Niall shoot her a hard glare. “Are you denying it?”

“No, I’m not.” Niall grumbles. “And, if you both want the same thing, then why are you arguing?”

“We didn’t know.” William says with a shrug.

“Niall, are you good with eggy bread?” Harry asks, moving to the fridge.

“Fine.” Niall sighs. “I’m going to go take that shower now, and contemplate my mortality.”

“Is dad alright?” Jimmy whispers to William.

“Dad is fine.” Niall tells them, pulling them both into a tight hug and adding, “Happy birthday, boys. I love you guys loads, and I’m really proud of you.”

“For what?” William asks. “Growing older?”

“For being such great kids.” Niall hums, pressing a kiss to each of their foreheads. “I’ll see you guys in a bit, and then we’ll have some fun for your birthday, alright?”

“Okay.” they both agree with beaming smiles.

“Gemma, think you can make the eggy bread?” Harry asks.

“Why?” Gemma questions.

“Because I’m joining my husband in that shower.” Harry smirks. “I still think I can help that headache go away.”

“Who am I to deny you the chance?” Niall hums, releasing his grip on the twins and strolling out the door. “They like strawberries with their eggy bread, Gemma.”

“Keep it down this time!” Gemma hollers after them.

“No offense, mate, but you look like hell.” Louis snorts when he finds Niall hiding in the kitchen.

“Oh thanks.” Niall scoffs. “Love you too.”

“Long night?” Louis asks, stealing one of the biscuits that Niall is putting on a tray and ignoring the blond’s scowl.

“The longest.” Niall sighs. “I haven’t partied like that in years.”

“It’s different in your thirties.” Louis hums. “It hits you harder.”

“Harry’s absolutely fine.” Niall mutters. “I have no idea how he does that.”

“I do it by not drinking half a keg’s worth of beer, and more tequila than Mexico produces in a year.” Harry hums, wandering into the kitchen with Ava in one arm, and an empty serving platter in the other. “I stopped at three drinks, like I told you to do.”

“I was already four beers in by the time you told me that.” Niall shrugs. “Your timing was lousy, as always.”

“So, instead of stopping, you decided ‘in for a penny, in for a pound’, and that’s somehow my fault?” Harry asks.

“Obviously.” Niall nods, plating up the rest of the biscuits and passing them off. “And everything we did when we got back was your fault too.”

“Hey, you were the one literally begging for me to stick it in your pretty-” Harry starts, only to be cut off when Niall shoves a biscuit in his mouth.

“Not in front of Louis.” Niall says sternly. “Get back out there. If you’re in here, then that means nobody is watching to make sure that everyone in the family behaves themselves. If your sister and my brother spend too much time together, somebody is going to end up hurt, and it’s probably Greg. He’ll probably deserve it, but I don’t need to listen to him whinging about it for the rest of the party.”

“Alright.” Harry mumbles through a mouth full of chocolate chips and crumbs, heading back out.

“So, what exactly was the end to that sentence?” Louis asks with a wicked grin.

“If you’re asking about our sex life, then you seriously need to get in a good shag.” Niall snorts, turning to the fridge and pulling out the meat he’s been marinating for lunch, along with a platter of black-bean burger patties for the vegetarians in the group gathered out in the garden.

“I called El.” Louis blurts out, slapping a hand over his mouth as his eyes go wide. “Not– I– Not like that. I’m not trying to hook up with her or anything. I just, uh– I called her.”

“Oh?” Niall asks curiously. He knows it’s better not to dig when it comes to Louis. He has to reveal it all in his own time. Pushing Louis is a good way to end up on the receiving end of a prank, even if he is in his thirties.

“After what Liam told me, I knew I had to.” Louis admits. “I said some pretty horrible things to her, and I just– God, I had to apologize. I was horrible to her, to both of them. Even without the miscarriage, I should never have acted the way I did.”

“No, you shouldn’t have.” Niall agrees. “But nobody blames you for it. It’s pretty obvious you were still in love with her.”

“Did you know?” Louis asks.

“No.” Niall sighs. “Neither did Harry.”

“Well, at least I wasn’t the only one out of the loop.” Louis mutters, taking a pull off of his beer. “I thought you were all just hiding it to spare my feelings.”

“Louis, are you still in love with her?” Niall asks carefully.

“Wouldn’t matter.” Louis says with a shrug. “She’s married now. Got hitched to some guy last year.”

“Oh, Tommo.” Niall says gently, pulling his friend into a hug. “I’m sorry, mate.”

“Stop it. I’m fine.” Louis huffs. Despite his words though, he clings back to Niall just as hard, his voice choked when he repeats, “I’m fine.”

“You’ll find someone.” Niall tells him.

“I always knew I’d be the last one of us to get married.” Louis mumbles into Niall’s neck. “I just didn’t think it would take Payno this long before I could finally get on with it. He’s such a cock block.”

“Well, hopefully he’ll pop the question to Jessica soon.” Niall hums. “Then you can have your turn.”

“He’s going to.” Louis says quietly, pulling back from Niall’s embrace. “This Christmas he’s taking her and the girls up to a cabin, and then he’s going to ask her.”

“How is it you know this, and I don’t?” Niall asks incredulously.

“I might have bullied him about it until he told me.” Louis grins. “Told him he was a git for not already having a ring on her finger. Then he pulled out his mobile and showed me the ring and told me to suck it. The thing is bloody massive. She’s going to have to pay someone to carry it around behind her wherever she goes.”

“Sounds like Liam.” Niall snorts.

“Has a heart as big as his head.” Louis nods. “I missed him, though. I hate you for setting me up, but I’m glad that you did.”

“Speaking of set ups-” Niall hums, grabbing the containers off of the counter. “I’ve got a friend back home you might be interested in. Could set something up there, too.”

“No thanks.” Louis scoffs, heading back towards the party. “Your taste is awful, mate. Look at who you married.”

And Niall does once he reaches the garden. He takes Harry in, in all of his glory. The flashing smile he shoots at Niall when he notices the blond staring, and the way he laughs so unabashedly, and the way he’s so good with their kids, carrying Ava on his shoulders as he chases after the twins. Liam was right, Louis can suck it. Niall is the luckiest man alive.

“Wolf!” Jimmy squeals, running forward and wrapping his arms around the dog as it jumps up against him. They’re quickly joined by William and Ava in a big pile of fur and little limbs and giggles and barking.

“Oh sure, we’ll just put all your stuff away then.” Niall huffs, dragging two suitcases behind him, and carrying at least four bags that are slung over his chest and shoulders. “No need to help, kids.”

“Thanks, dad!” Jimmy laughs, running towards the back of the house with Wolf, William, and Ava all in close pursuit.

“Apparently we’ve failed at teaching them sarcasm.” Niall deadpans into the camera. “I’m going to have to fix that at some point.”

“Let them have their fun.” Harry chuckles, coming in through the door with an equally large load of baggage as Niall is removing. “They missed home, and they’ve been cooped up on an airplane for the last twelve hours.”

“And that’s different from me, how?” Niall grumbles, dropping the last of his bags to the ground.

“They’re kids.” Harry snorts. “Just let them settle back in however they need to.”

“You know what I need to do?” Niall smirks.

“Well, it’s either going to be laze about in the bed, or cook something, knowing you.” Harry laughs.

“Right on the money, babes.” Niall grins. “You’ve just figured out my plans for the next week, at the very least.”

“That’s fine.” Harry giggles. “Think I’ll probably spend that time tanning and catching up on my shows.”

“God, I missed this.” Niall hums, grabbing Harry by the waist and pulling him in for a quick kiss. “It’s good to be home.”

“Mm, very.” Harry muses. “Now let’s get rid of these guys and go back to our boring, normal life, yeah?”

“You heard him.” Niall says, turning to the camera. “Tour’s over boys. It’s been a blast, but there’s nothing to see here anymore. Just a family. Nothing more, and nothing less.”

“What are you doing?” Harry asks, looking up from his writing journal when the tickling feeling of Niall’s eyes on him finally gets to be too much to handle anymore.

“Nothing.” Niall replies with a shrug.

“You said you were going to sleep an hour ago, and you’ve just been staring at me since then.” Harry sighs. “You’ve been staring at me for days, actually. Ever since the birthday party. Is there something we need to talk about? Are we in a fight and I don’t even know it?”

“Not unless I don’t know about it either.” Niall chuckles, propping his head up on his hand.

“Then why are you staring?” Harry questions.

“Because I love you.” Niall hums. “And you’re beautiful, and I really like looking at you.”

“Oh.” Harry breathes out. That was really not what he was expecting. Niall rarely says stuff like that. There’s never been any doubt in Harry’s mind that Niall loves him, because he shows it every day, in a thousand different ways, but he rarely says things that are so outright sweet.

“I would marry you all over again, every day.” Niall murmurs.

“How much did you have to drink?” Harry sighs.

“Just two beers, and they were hours ago.” Niall huffs. “Why do you automatically think I’m drunk every time I say something nice to you?”

“Sorry.” Harry muses, rolling onto his side to meet Niall’s eyes. “You’re just not usually this soppy. What’s got you so sweet right now?”

“Everything is good right now.” Niall smiles, wrapping his arm around Harry’s waist. “Like, I know I’m probably cursing us by saying it, but everything is really good in our lives in this moment. The kids are happy, and Liam and Louis are getting along again, and we got to do this whole touring thing again. It’s been nice. I just– I’m glad I got to do this with you. I’m glad I get to do everything with you.”

“I’m glad I get to do everything with you too.” Harry hums, leaning forward to catch Niall’s lips in a soft kiss.

“Harry?” Niall asks. “What’s next?”

“I’m not sure.” Harry admits. “Got anything in mind?”

“A few things.” Niall grins. “You give me lots of ideas.”

“Care to share?” Harry questions.

“All in due time, babe.” Niall hums. “And we’ve got loads of that now. In the meantime, how about we revisit the idea of installing that pole? Don’t know if I can stand not watching you grind on things every night.”

“I think we can work something out.” Harry grins before pressing his lips against Niall’s in a bruising kiss. “What’s say we break into the box tonight?”

“I think we can work something out.” Niall echoes.

What’s next for the Horan-Styles household? More music from Horan and Styles, perhaps?

“We’ve been back home for two weeks now.” Harry smiles. They’re back on the couch from the first interview, sat in the same order they were the first time. William looks a bit more confident this time, sitting up straight instead of tucking himself completely into Niall’s side. Jimmy has traces of purple dye in his hair, and even more tattoos on his arms than Harry. Ava looks ecstatic, her hair pulled up in twin pigtails and the head of a massive stuffed unicorn in her lap with the rest on Harry’s. “The kids are starting school in a couple days, and we’re opening back up for business.”

“We’ve come up with a lot of new material during the tour, and we have a few people in mind for some of it.” Niall adds. “And others are being kept in our personal vault.”

“That doesn’t mean that there’s a new album on the way, necessarily.” Harry smirks. “We’ve got quite a bit on the way before that’s an option.”

“You see–” Niall hums. “Recording a new album and planning another tour would be too much right now, because we’re planning to renew our vows next year on our anniversary.”

“We’re going to be groomsmen.” Jimmy explains with a huge smile. “Whatever that is.”

“We’re still in the very early planning stages.” Niall adds. “I, uh– I proposed this time. It was two nights ago.”

“It was better than mine.” Harry huffs. “He had both our family’s skyped in, along with Liam and Louis, and each of the kids holding a sign that read ‘Marry me again?’ when they were put together. There was a bunch more too, but I was crying too hard to remember much of it.”

“I’ve been planning it for a while.” Niall grins. “I wanted it to be a surprise, but I wasn’t sure it would be. Quite a few people knew, and I was afraid someone would drop the ball.”

“We kept it a secret though.” William says proudly.

“That’s not the only secret we’ve been keeping though.” Harry muses. “We’ve got a doozy.”

“In fact, nobody knows about this one.” Niall adds. “Not even the kids. We wanted to wait until we were sure to announce it.”

“What is it?” Jimmy and William ask in unison.

“Here.” Harry hums, picking up some bags from the side of the couch.

He passes one to each of the kids, and they pull out three matching shirts. The twins’ each read ‘I’m going to be a big brother again’, and Ava’s has the same basic message, but instead says ‘sister’ and lacks the ‘again’.

“Daddy, I can’t read it.” Ava huffs, ignoring her brothers’ loud cheering.

“It says that you’re going to be a big sister, princess.” Harry beams.

“I not gonna be the baby?” Ava asks.

“Not anymore.” Niall tells her with a soft smile. “You’re going to have a baby brother or sister soon.”

“A baby!” Ava squeals, flopping her unicorn up and down. “Phil, there gonna be a baby!”

“We’ve decided to adopt again.” Niall explains to the camera. “This trip really hit home for us how important our family is, and that just made us want it to be even bigger.”

“We’ve met with an agency, and we’re going to start meeting with mothers in the next few months.” Harry beams.

He looks well and truly thrilled, almost glowing with the happiness spread over his face. Niall looks the same, his face lit up like a Christmas tree. The kids are even matching every bit of their excitement, chattering animatedly to get details out of their fathers, and discussing whether they want a brother or sister, and what color the baby’s room should be. They’re a picture perfect family.

“So, anyways-” Niall hums when they manage to settle the kids down. “We won’t be making another album for a while, at least.”

“We’ve got some other pretty big adventures planned though.” Harry grins. “It’s like living in Wonderland.”

The screen fades to black with a chorus of groans from the rest of the family.