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Harry’s fountain pen splurts a blob of ink all over his Flat Food for Nialler shopping list. He sighs and lets his gaze drift upwards from his cross-legged seat on the bed. His guest room looks almost the same as ever - soothing greys, delicate fabrics, unlit Diptyque candle on the dresser, cashmere blanket folded neatly on the bottom of the bed. The only difference from the usual is the unpacked rucksack, propped by the door that leads into the walk-through dressing room and bathroom - the door that has been locked shut for 36 hours now.
Harry rips the spoiled page from his journal, crumpling it into a ball and batting it from hand to hand for a (frankly impressive, where’s an audience when you really need one?) 3 minutes, before it drops to the floor. So then, all he’s left with is flipping his pen and trying to catch it with between his teeth - which is going pretty well until he tastes the tang of ink. He blots his bottom lip against the back of his hand and sees blue splotches stain his skin, spilling over the cross tattoo.
OK.
Enough waiting. He clearly needs to put a cap on this. (Ha! Good one!)
He stands at last, stretching out the ache in his back.
“Hey, Niall,” he calls to the closed door, keeping his tone casual, “just going to go shop for some grub. You coming?”
There’s a delay, then a muffled, “No. Thanks, bro.”
Harry nods to himself. It was worth a shot.
“Want me to get you anything?”
“No. ‘M alright.” sounds back faintly.
“Right,” Harry mutters to himself, “That’s OK.”
Yes. That is perfectly OK indeed. He picks up the crumpled paper from the floor.
///
Niall still hasn’t opened the door by the time he gets back.
Harry knows he shouldn’t but he can’t help but feel slightly pleased about it because now he gets to execute his quite excellent and innovative plan.
“Um, hey?” He calls, his forehead pressed lightly against the wood.
“Yeah. Hi.” Niall’s voice coming back from the other side of the door sounds hoarse through lack of use, like a rusty hinge.
“Got you some food, if you want it?” Harry drops his bag of flat food onto the floor beside his suede boots, his ankles twisting uncertainly. He hasn’t actually seen Niall’s face since he arrived late, late two nights ago. Not since Niall pushed passed him quickly, walking towards the guest room he always stayed in, muttering something about crashing for a couple of days, and keeping it on the down-low, a dark frown creasing his expression. Then Niall had crossed the threshold of the dressing room and closed the door behind him and … that was it. Closed door. Silence. Blank wood reverberating under Harry’s gently tapping knuckles the next morning while Oh Blow Niall! trended on Twitter.
“Not hungry.”
“That’s OK.” Harry answers instantly, his breath misting onto the varnished wood in front of him. He drops to his knees and rustles through the plastic shopping bag. “I’ll just squeeze these through for you. In case you need a snack, like later, or whenever,” he calls out, shunting cheese singles, cream crackers, and beef jerky in through the narrow gap at the bottom of the door. He sends in a few bits of grape leather for dessert. “There’s more. If you want it. Let me know. Just, like, text … or whatever.”
He plunges a straw into a capri-sun carton and maneuvers the other end under the door too. “This straw is for juice that isn’t really juice but if you’re up for an infusion of toxic additives it’s all yours, kid! Just take it in your mouth and suck.”
And then he claps his hand over his forehead because yikes that was definitely not a good phrase to use in the current circumstances.
Harry stares at the gap, waiting, thinking that maybe the laugh will come. He eventually gets too uncomfortable crouching on his knees and he hauls himself up and backs slowly away.
///
Two hours later, the silence in his house has come to feel like a hostile invasion, and Harry is fighting the urge to scratch his own skin off to ease the irritation. He can’t settle. There’s laundry half-loaded into the drier and a recipe book open beside empty bowls on the marble kitchen counter and unsent emails drafted on his computer and a groove worn into the carpet along the corridor from his creeping to check on developments in the guest bedroom (of which there have been exactly none.)
He’s trying to think of something that’s going to help but this quiet has become oppressive now and he takes a break from thinking to pull out his phone. He taps open his music app, selecting the option to hook it up to his house-wide sound system. Fleetwood’s warm, layered sounds gush from the speakers embedded into the walls of each room.
And two seconds in, Harry’s hand has clamped again onto his forehead because Lindsey Buckingham's voice is singing out - “Loving you, isn’t the right thing to do…”
Niall’s getting this, in his little room.
Harry rushes pick up his phone again, frantically prodding it to shuffle along onto the next song. It jumps to Little Lies - shit! - so he prods again and then … the gentle guitar picking of Landslide.
OK. Maybe this one is OK.
He finds his feet drifting along the corridor, once again, into the empty guest room, letting the music envelope him. When he gets to the closed door, he turns and leans his back against the wood, and slowly slips down till he’s on the ground, legs splayed in front of him, his head resting back. He finds himself singing gently along.
Well I’ve been afraid of changing, cause I’ve build my life around you. But time makes you bolder, even children get older. And I’m getting older too.
When the song finishes, he replays it, almost unconsciously, and he might be imagining it, but it’s like the wood at his back presses more firmly into him, grows warmer, like Niall might be resting there too on the other side, mouthing the words along with him.
And if you see my reflection in the snow-covered hills, will the landslide bring you down?
///
Harry has finally had a better idea. He has drawn up another list - Stuff Niall Loves.
The flat food probably wasn’t his best thinking. It was kind of enabling, now he considers it. He had taken the wrong tack there. He should have been thinking about luring, instead. Luring and baiting. In a nice way, like.
His pen is splurting ink again but he’s not going to criticise because this is brainstorming and it’s all about getting it all out there, no judgments, no moderating. He’s got a fairly broad and encompassing list so far: Music, Beer, Spicy Food, Also - non-spicy food. Golf and General Sportsing, Playing Guitar, His Lads, Laughing, Bobby & The Fam, Seeing New Places, Dick - apparently/possibly/tbc, Barry’s Tea, 1D (oh ya, scream, scream!), Doing Accents, Justin Bieber, Selfies, Sleeping in his own bed, me…
Harry tried to bite back the grin at the last one. But he couldn’t quite resist drawing a cute little heart around the word, and adding a few blue-birdies and starbursts and then his bottom lip turned numb from the chewing it was receiving and his pen vomited a splodge of ink over the whole thing.
His pen might have a valid point.
///
So yeah, he’d probably need to book another session with his chiropractor after hauling the 40” TV up the stairs but this is definitely a better plan.
There will be luring. There will be tempting.
He pushes the TV stand into place opposite the closed door and hooks up the cables, still gently humming Landslide to himself. He connects an extension cord for the electricity cable and flicks the on switch. It only takes him a couple of seconds to find the sports channel. He rams up the volume. Loud enough to penetrate the wooden barrier to where Niall’s … doing whatever it is he’s doing in there.
“Hey!” he calls against the door. “Your boy’s about to tee-off.”
He turns, calling over his shoulder, “I’ll be downstairs if you want anything,” over the sound of the commentators agreeing that Rory’s high-hitting swing suits Augusta’s course and that this is definitely his year.
///
Harry’d be feeling a lot more confident right now if he hadn’t burnt the garlic. Jamie Oliver might be a national treasure and all that, but he really needs to get a lot more specific in his recipes about the importance of garlic supervision. Anyway, Harry was a brave little soldier and ploughed dutifully onwards through the instructions (even with the cinnamon? Jamie thinks chili should include cinnamon??) until he had a tray loaded with bowls of chili, chips, guacamole, a few ice-cold bottles of beer with lime wedges jammed into the rims.
This is Luring - Part II.
He’s going to position the fragrant bowls of chili right by the door, and then position that fan from his office right behind them, so the scent will waft (gloriously, temptingly) under the gap of the dressing room door and … well … it’s Niall. It’s food. This is going to work.
He carefully carries the tray up the stairs while battling a last-minute crisis of confidence and wondering if his accountant would ever forgive him if he orders a private plane to fly over some Nandos instead. He keeps going nonetheless, elbows his way into the guest room, and there it is - the door to the dressing room is open.
The door is open.
He nearly drops the tray, but saves it just in time and slowly makes his way over, white knuckles gripping tight. He peeps in, careful to stay near the edge of the doorway. The golf crowd is applauding on the TV behind him.
Niall’s slumped against the far wall of the walk-through, tucked into a nook between the shoe shelves and the doorway to the bathroom. He’s fixed onto the TV, peering over his drawn-up knees, his finger tips tapping along his shin-bones. His eyes look Snapchat-filter-huge.
Harry edges in and places the tray onto the floor. (The flat food has disappeared without trace.) He kicks off his boots and settles into a cross-legged position, running his hands through his hair before handing a bottle of beer over to Niall without looking at him, twisting instead to squint at the TV back through the doorway.
He clears his throat and asks, “How’s he doing?”
Niall swallows a gulp of beer before answering. “Not great,” he rasps eventually. “Bogied the last two.”
“It’s windy.” Harry comments, pushing the tray of food closer to Niall. “God, poor Els though? Did you see that on Thursday? Three feet and it took six putts?”
Niall reaches to dip a chip into the guacamole. “Yeah. He fucked up a bit, didn’t he?”
They don’t really talk much after that. Just slowly munch through the food and watch Rory slowly slip down the rankings. Harry starts to get excited when Willson comes back from five shots down but keeps it contained. He finds he’s moderating all his instincts in front of this Niall. He thought they’d all seen every version of each other by now, but he’s never seen this Niall before - unsmiling, subdued, still. And while WATCHING SPORTS even.
Harry gets them some more beer instead and when the game is over and Willson puts on the stupid green jacket, he flops back onto the floor, and straightens out his legs, toes curling into the stretch.
“Going to bed?” he asks, yawning into the crook of his elbow.
Niall frowns and lowers his head onto his knees. He’s barely changed position in hours. Harry is wondering how he hasn’t got cramps by now. His ass must definitely be completely numb.
Maybe he should offer to massage it better.
Maybe his brain could employ a better sense of decorum.
“Later, probably,” Niall interrupts Harry’s mental self-admonishment. “I’ll work up to it.”
“It’s just there…” Harry points through the doorway at the made up bed, thinking about the 280 count cotton sheets he had chosen specially because he knew how cool and smooth they’d feel against skin, how Niall hates to be too hot when he sleeps.
“…just a mere six feet away.”
Niall shrugs and mutters something Harry can’t hear into his knees.
“D’ya sleep last night?” Harry asks then.
Niall shrugs again. “A bit.”
Harry rolls onto his side and slides his hand across the carpet until he can lightly clasp Niall’s ankle. He rubs his thumb over the bones, over the edge of his patterned socks and onto his pale skin.
“You’ve got to sleep Niall. Everything always seems worse when you don’t sleep.”
“Oh, so there’s a version of this that isn’t this bad?”
“It’s just a stupid photo.”
“It’s just-? It’s everywhere, Harry!”
“You can just say it’s a manip. Lots of the fans are saying that anyway. Just don’t let-”
Niall groans and thumps his head back against the wall behind him, a loud thunk sound fills the small room. “I’m not leaving,” he huffs eventually.
Harry frowns but rolls himself up off the floor, saying, “OK. OK.”
He squeezes past the TV in the doorway and goes into the bedroom. He drags pillows and the duvet off the bed, tripping over the fabric as he edges back into the dressing room and dumps them in a heap at Niall’s feet. He gathers up the empty bottles and bowls onto the tray and brings them downstairs.
Further luring required, obviously.
///
“Hey,” Harry’s saying 30 minutes later into to the cave-like gloom of the now darkened dressing room.
The white heap of bedding on the floor shifts slightly.
“What, Harry?”
Harry edges into the room. He can see the tousled tips of Niall’s hair just peeking out from the duvet.
“I brought you a guitar.”
“Thanks. I don’t want it though.”
“Right. I’ll just leave it here in the corner. In case.”
Harry pauses at the doorway and taps his fingers into the frame. There’s a mental coin-toss going on in his brain on whether he’s going to continue ignoring the increasingly cross texts from Jeff about missing that dinner they’d scheduled for tonight.
In the end, he turns around, unbuttoning his jeans and sliding them down his legs. He kicks them free and swings his necklaces up over his head and hangs them on the door handle. He leaves his t-shirt on. In deference to the situation.
Niall grumbles when Harry crouches to the floor and slips in beside him. “You don’t need to babysit me, Harry.”
“Shush. Sleepy time.” Harry tells him, shuffling so he is lying on the section of bedding Niall had laid out on the floor. To the get portion of duvet on top to stretch over them both, Harry has to scoot in very close to Niall’s bare back, who huffs in exasperation, but wriggles over into the fold to make room. They end up spooning of course, Harry curled along Niall, his arm lightly around his waist, his face turned into the back of Niall’s shoulder.
Harry takes a deep breath in and releases it, two days of tension draining away because this feels good, this is where he should be. Luring can join him on the hiatus for a few hours. This is all nice and familiar - Niall’s body is the same as always, firm and a bit too boney in places, but his skin is smooth and warm, and he smells the same as he always has. He feels the angles of Niall’s wonky toes when he slides his feet back against Harry’s shins.
His boy.
Harry squeezes him close, very briefly, and presses a kiss into his shoulder, whispering, “’S’alright pal. Sleep now.”
///
Harry isn’t sure how long he’s been asleep when the light of Niall’s phone wakes him later. They’re still spooning but Harry isn’t pressed as tightly against Niall anymore, and the back half of his body is cold where the duvet has slipped away.
He blinks into the dark and rubs at his eyes before he lifts his head to peer over Niall’s shoulder. He sees he’s scrolling through the Oh Blow Niall! tag, and that image comes up over and over and over. Taken in low light, it’s greyish and murky, but there’s no doubting it’s Niall.
Naked. On his knees. Eyes focused upwards on whoever is taking the photo.
Lips tight around a thick, hard dick.
Harry stretches his arm over Niall’s shoulder and slaps his broad palm across the phone screen.
“Stop looking at it Niall,” his voice a rumble, deep and thickened by sleep. “Why are you doing that to yourself?”
“I need to know what they’re all saying.” Niall says, shaking off Harry’s hand. “I need to know if anything else comes out.”
Harry freezes. “There’s more?” He tries to keep his voice even.
Niall wriggles out from under Harry’s arm and sits back up into the coiled position he had been fixed in all day.
“It’s a video,” he says quietly into his knees. “There’s just one, but it’s a video.”
“Right. OK.” Harry sits up too. He’s going to use all his newly acquired acting skills now to show that he’s totally cool about all this. He’s ice, actually. He’s a berg. He’s Mr Frosty.
“So …” he attempts, “dudes, then.”
Niall shrugs. “You were the one who said I shouldn’t knock it till I try it.”
“So I did, so I did,” Harry nods, agreeably.
“Didn’t see it coming, though, to be honest,” Harry adds eventually. “So, it’s like, what? A little experimentation? A hiatus-inspired exploration?”
Niall shrugs again.
“It’s just,” Harry tries again, drawing circles on his own thigh, unsure if the hurt is actually audible in his voice or if he’s just imagining it, “it’s just, you never, like, before…”
The duvet slips down and pools around their legs as Niall draws up his knees and thumps his forehead repeatedly onto them.
“Hey, hey, stop that.” Harry reaches out to stroke Niall’s head, but he angles away from Harry’s outstretched hand and instead, Harry ends up tracing his fingers along the scar that slashes vertically across Niall’s knee.
“I’m really fucking sorry Harry.”
Harry’s hand drops away from Niall’s knee and he finds himself clutching at his ankle again. “Sorry?”
“Yeah,” Niall mutters, “For embarrassing you all, or whatever.”
“I’m not embarrassed.” Harry says. He’s not. He’s feeling a lot of shit, definitely, but not that. “Why would you think I’m embarrassed?”
“’Cause it turns out your ex-band-mate is a skanky cocksucker?”
“But enough about Louis,” Harry finishes and blinks in shock when Niall guffaws. He made Niall laugh. So it is still possible to make Niall laugh. Cool. He tries not to let his delight with himself show on his face.
He fails.
His grin splits his face open.
////
It’s, like, god-only-know-what-time-o’clock, and they’re still cross-legged on top of the duvet on the dressing room floor, and Niall’s got the guitar resting on his bare thighs, strumming with less-than-usual finesse as he and Harry work through the Coldplay song catalogue in various regional European accents. They’ve been swigging in turn from a bottle of Randy’s tequila for the last hour. (It is a definite fact that Harry will never get through the leftover supply from Jeff’s birthday party, but they were making good progress tonight.)
They were halfway through their very-accurate-if-Harry-does-say-so-himself Germanic “It voss oll Yellow” when Niall stops abruptly and says, “What the fuck is wrong with your mouth anyway? That blue stuff …”
Harry frowns and sucks at his bottom lip, tasting a very faint tang of ink.
“Oh, my pen, earlier,” he explains, “a bit temperamental.”
Niall peers intensely at Harry’s lips, frowning deeply. Harry finds his lungs filling up uncomfortably.
“It’s annoying me now.” Niall tells him. “Can you just …” He sucks his own bottom lip into his mouth.
Harry copies him for a minute, sucking hard, but then his bottom lip pops loose from between his teeth. It feels slightly swollen now from his efforts. He’s breathing harder than he can explain through his slightly parted lips, acutely conscious of Niall’s continued gaze.
Niall is still frowning as he dips his own thumb in his mouth and licks, then he leans over the guitar in his lap to rub it against Harry’s stained bottom lip.
Harry’s watching Niall’s face the whole time, the intensity of his focus, feeling the hard slide of Niall’s thumb as it drags back and forth across his lip. Niall pulls back to lick again against the pad of his thumb and bum-shuffles closer, his legs still lotus-position. Harry feels a brush of cool wetness against his mouth, and his slack bottom lip is being pushed back against his teeth as Niall rubs a little harder, and then his thumb slips in, touching inadvertently against the tip of his tongue, and it’s warm, slightly salty. It must be the tequila-fog, but this is taking up all Harry’s awareness now, like the whole universe has reduced to only this, the flavour of this, the roughness of this touch.
“Did you get it?” Harry breaths when he feels Niall stop moving, his fingers resting lightly along Harry’s jaw.
Niall shakes his head, his brow still furrowed, his focus still intent on Harry’s bottom lip. He shuffles even closer.
“Maybe if I…”
“You could maybe try …”
Their whispers disappear into each other’s mouths as Niall leans into Harry and sucks Harry’s bottom lip between his, his tongue running gently over and back. Then his fingers are in Harry’s hair, over his ear and running over the nape of his neck, and Harry can’t help the shudder that wracks through him. He grips at Niall’s shoulders, pressing against his mouth, sliding over until he is taking Niall’s lips between his, their tongues meeting, and he’s moaning softly into the sensation.
///
Niall’s put a distance of three feet between them, a white-knuckled grip on the neck of the guitar. He’d abruptly pulled back from the kiss, pushing Harry away, muttering “Sorry. Bit drunk.”
Harry’s nervously shaking out his hair and flipping it back, tucking it behind his ears, trying to look like he’s listening properly to whatever it is Niall’s strumming. It doesn’t sound like anything. But then, his brain feels like scrambled eggs just now. Maybe this is the way life is going to be from now on. Scrambled and weird and confusing. And happening exclusively in a tiny, tiny room alone with Niall.
“I haven’t ever done that before, you know,” Niall says then, the hoarseness back in his voice.
Harry raises an eyebrow.
“No. I mean, let someone film. I only did it cause… it was … I thought he was …”
Harry blinks at Niall, wishing he hadn’t had knocked back quite so much tequila. Because Niall doesn’t have that blank look on his face anymore. Now, Niall is looking really, a bit sad.
“I’m so fucking stupid,” he says, crumpling, and Harry feels his heart flip over and he crawls across the duvet-padded floor to where Niall is clutching his head between his fists.
“No, no, no, don’t - ” Harry pulls the guitar away and gathers Niall up in his arms. And he wants to bury him inside his chest, wants to tuck him deep into the folds of his heart so nothing can ever hurt him again.
“I don’t fuck up like this, it’s so embarrassing,” Niall is saying as Harry rocks them back and forth.
“Niall,” Harry breaths into his tufty hair, “it’ll be alright. The legals will sort it. Do the Cease and Desist stuff and all that.”
A shudder wracks through Niall then and Harry’s not sure if its a laugh or a sob but Niall grips tight onto Harry’s t-shirt, his fists twisting the cotton against Harry’s back. He nuzzles up Harry’s chest until he can dip his head into the crook of Harry’s neck.
“I don’t know why I …” Niall’s muttering, “I’m always careful, like.”
“I know. Of any of us …”
“I just got caught up or something.”
“Yeah. In the moment. I get it. It’s OK.”
“Do you want to see?” Niall asks then, in a whisper against Harry’s skin. “Do you want to see the whole thing?”
Harry swallows. No. He doesn’t. He definitely doesn’t. And he really sorta wants to cut off his own dick right now because it’s showing a level of interest he cannot, in conscience, endorse.
“I kinda want you to see,” Niall continues, “’Cos, if the rest gets out, I need to know … I need to know how people are going to react.”
“I’m not people,” Harry reminds the back of Niall’s head but Niall is already fumbling for his phone and he taps for a few seconds before planting the phone in front of Harry’s face and shit, there it is, Niall smiling bright and open into the camera, laughing lightly, saying “All right then, you little perv, let’s do this.” And then, as a man chuckles off-screen, Niall’s slowly sinking to his knees, eyes twinkling even in the poor light, and he’s unbuttoning his shirt, slipping it off his shoulders and then the focus goes shaky for a brief while and then it’s that frame that’s everywhere now - Niall looking up, his mouth full. A low groan issues from the speakers and then Niall is shutting his eyes and Harry bites his lip so hard he thinks he might taste blood as Niall slides his lips up and down this guy’s cock, his fist gripping around the base, then moving up and down to meet the reach of his mouth. He’s stopping every now and then to catch a breath and glance up at whoever’s behind the camera before closing his eyes again, tonguing around the tip and taking him in deep.
Harry can’t help it, his hand involuntarily goes to his crotch, pressing hard down. Fuck. Video-Niall is now choking slightly as the guy thrusts into his face, then he’s pulling off a bit, pressing his hands to the front of the guy’s hips to steady him. Then he smiles. He fucking smiles. Even with his mouth around this guy’s dick, he smiles and laughs again like he’s having the best time ever, and Harry has a tiny part of his brain left that is still operationally rational and it’s telling him he isn’t actually going to expire from this, but he’s spinning, and video-Niall is getting even more into it, humming as he sucks and slurps around the guy’s dick and then the camera pulls back enough to see that Niall has his own pants pushed half-way down his thighs and his dick is in his hand and he’s wanking fast, his fist flying up and down over his slick cock and Harry can’t take it any more and he hears himself swallow back a pitiful moan as he grips his rock-hard dick through his boxers.
Real-Niall pulls his head up from where it was buried into Harry’s neck at the sound, and Harry’s face is on fire when Niall looks sharply into it.
Harry slaps the phone out of Niall’s hand, and it falls into the sprawl of duvet that’s entangling Niall’s legs, but even then the sounds of the guys’ orgasms emanate, muffled, through the soft material.
“Sorry. It’s just like, it’s really hot. You’re hot. Fuck. Sorry - I don’t ... I …” Harry can’t seem to catch his breath, and he shakily tries to pull back from the way Niall’s body is draped across his.
“What? Really?” Niall is saying, and Harry’s too busy trying to pull his t-shirt down to cover up his tenting boxers to answer.
“It turned you on? That turned you on?” Niall asks.
Harry feels like the heat radiating from his face could roast a turkey just now, but - Mr Frosty - he reminds himself and tries to shrug casually. He chances a glance up at Niall’s face. The fucker is smirking, looking pleased with himself. And this won’t do. Harry’s got to bring out the big guns.
“You’re pretty sexy, Niall. You know that,” he says, dropping his voice to an even lower than usual register. He blinks really slowly, like a relaxed cat, and fixes Niall with his Look. He knows what his Look can do to a person. Everyone knows what Harry’s Look can do. He directs it full beam at Niall now - intense, open, unwavering. The look that could sink a thousand ships.
Niall’s grin slips,his mouth dropping open, but then narrows his eyes for a calculating split-second and sits up straight. To Harry’s shock, he fires his Look back at Harry, the one that’s sparky, hungry, amused. The look that could detonate a thousand fireworks.
Goddammit. Harry should never have spent those hours coaching him on this. Spectacular back-fire Styles. Well done.
“What’s going on with your phone tonight anyway?” Niall asks suddenly, breaking their intense eye-balling to frown at Harry’s phone that’s been flickering like a florescent bulb with text messages all night.
Ha! I win, Harry thinks before explaining, “Oh, its just Jeff and some of them. There was this meeting with this director chap tonight, a dinner thing. They’d been chasing him a while. But it’s cool. If it’s meant to be and all that.”
Harry shrugs, flipping his hair, and then meets Niall’s eyes again and freezes. He’s looking at him again. Fixing him with this look. But it isn’t Niall’s Look look. It’s something different. Something tender maybe.
“You missed a meeting to stay with me?” Nial is asking and Harry doesn’t know what to say because, yeah, of course?
Then Niall’s touching Harry, one hand cupping the back of his neck, one gripping his shoulder, guiding him down until he is lying back on the floor. Harry suddenly can’t seem to catch his breath, his heartbeat thrumming along his limbs and he falls pliant under Niall’s hands.
“Harry,” Niall is saying and Harry isn’t sure what’s happening but then he’s gasping as Niall’s fingers wriggle under the waistband of his boxers and wrap around Harry’s still-throbbing cock. “It turned you on? That turned you on?” Niall’s asking again and Harry’s face is still on fire and someone’s whimpering and oh actually, it’s him, while Niall’s deft fingers are pulling him even harder, and Harry’s panting and his hands are in Niall’s hair, gripping and tugging and Niall’s rucked Harry’s t-shirt up over his nipples, his lips and teeth gnawing against the skin of Harry’s chest, his stomach.
And then Niall is going even lower, his mouth working along Harry’s hip-bone, sucking the flesh in between his teeth and, shit, Harry’s going to lose it in a second but then Niall is pulling Harry’s pants down lower, shuffling them over his hips and down his legs and free over his feet and then Harry’s completely naked, flat on his back for Niall and so fucking hard it hurts and they’re both staring at each other, their breaths loud and ragged.
Harry reaches up to press his palm into Niall’s face, stroking his thumb gently along Niall’s right cheekbone.
“It’s OK,” he tells him. And he means - whatever. It’s all OK. “Only if you want to, OK?”
And Niall is staring so intensely and so long into his eyes it’s like he’s reading a novel there and Harry still isn’t sure he’s definitely not dying and then Niall’s leaning into him, his lips pressed against Harry’s, and he’s saying “You’re so fucking sweet, Harry. You’re a feckin’ sweetheart.”
They kiss. And it’s always been a joke, aha, isn’t it so funny/annoying the way Harry’s always touching and groping at Niall’s body. It’s always been hilarious, not quietly thrilling, not that, all those times Harry’s managed to summon a bloom of pink across Niall’s cheeks. And Niall’s so flushed now. But this hasn’t happened before. Harry’s never had Niall leaning over him,his mouth hot and open against Harry’s, his arms either side of his head, his fingertips scraping over his scalp, their hard dicks sliding along the other’s stomach’s as they grind roughly into each other.
Suddenly it’s too much, and Harry is pressing the heels of both hands into his eyes, stoppering up the tears that were burgeoning, refusing to allow them to slide down his cheeks.
“Harry.” Niall is breathing against his skin, into the hollow of his ear, his voice spine-vibratingly low, “Fuck, Harry, I didn’t know.”
And Harry can’t ask what Niall didn’t know because his lips are captured in Niall’s again, his mouth opening for Niall’s tongue. Niall takes Harry’s hands, pulling them away from where they were clapped over his eyes and he entwines their fingers.
Niall keeps Harry’s hands in a tight grip when he dips down and takes Harry’s dick into his mouth. And that’s it. Harry’s definitely dying and no one ever told him dying would feel so, so fucking good. Niall’s mouth is amazing, and this isn’t fair, and there are noises escaping Harry’s throat he’s never heard before. Niall has rearranged his hold on Harry’s hands, flattened out their fingers, and now he’s running their shared touch all along Harry’s bare, sweating, torso, dancing over his nipples,the grooves of his ribs. And shit, Harry can’t help it and he wriggles one hand free to cup around the back of Niall’s neck. He’s battling the urge to rock into the heat of his mouth when one of Niall’s hands winds through the air until it finds Harry’s again and he clasps on tight, guiding him to press on the back of his head, humming encouragement when Harry grips his hair in his fist, the sound reverberating along Harry’s dick and into his spine.
“Ni -” Harry pants, “Gonna … Fuck! Gonna …”
“Mmmm,” Niall’s humming into him, sucking deeper, and Harry hears a slick slap, slap, slap as Niall impatiently wanks himself, just like in the video, and the thought that that image has come to life and he's init, brings Harry to an oxygen deprived, dizzying edge.
When he comes, Harry feels like he passes out for a second, a weird blackness and buzzing noise enveloping him, but then, he’s back, gasping, Niall’s face burning his skin where he seems to have collapsed on top of Harry’s stomach.
Harry tugs at him, pulling him up, until Niall is snuggled into his collar bones. “D’you come, love?” he slurs lazily against Niall’s sweaty forehead.
He feels Niall’s body shake when he laughs, “You capable of doing something about it if I didn’t?”
Harry presses a kiss into Niall’s hair. “Could figure something out.”
“’M good. Was good.” Niall’s muttering softly.
“Was so good,” Harry agrees and holds up his palm to where Niall can see it, and he feels him laugh into his chest again when he reaches up to slap his palm against Harry’s.
And Harry falls asleep to the sensation of Niall chuckling into his neck.
///
“So, who was it?”
Harry’s been quietly aware of Niall’s wakefulness for a while now. He felt him shift inside his arms and then there was the tell-tale blueish glow against his closed eye-lids and he knows Niall’s looking up the tag again.
Niall doesn’t answer, so Harry cracks his eyes open and wriggles so that they’re lying face-to-face, close enough to kiss the tip of Niall’s nose. Which he finds he can’t resist doing, actually.
“Come on, Niall. Tell me. Who was it?” he asks again.
“No one, Harry. Fuck. No one.” Niall tosses the phone behind him, and grunts slightly as he nuzzles into their shared pillow.
“Just a nobody?”
“Yeah.”
“Some randomer?”
“Well…”
“Or … it was a thing? A real thing?”
Niall dips his head, so Harry presses a kiss now to his forehead.
“Was it Bieber?” Harry asks. He has to know.
Niall jerks back a bit. “What?! Harry! No! What the fuck?”
“If it was Bieber I swear to God, Niall. I’ll … I’ll hurt him bad, Niall. I mean it. I’ll - ”
Niall laughs out loud. “No, Harry. Seriously. It wasn’t him. Jesus!”
“Then who? Like, was it that big lad from home? Breslin, or whoever? Was it him?”
“No! Sweet fuck, Harry! No. Stop asking.”
“Cause I could take him, I reckon Niall. Yeah, he’s big, but I’m wily. I’d outsmart him.”
“What ya gonna do, Harry? Smile at him until you’ve charmed him to death?”
Niall’s chuckling into Harry’s chest now and Harry’s not quite sure when their bodies got this close, but it feels good again, like before when they were spooning, feels comfortable, feels right.
“You don’t have to beat anyone up Harry, seriously. It’s fine. It’s over. It was a mistake. I trusted someone I shouldn’t have. Lesson learned.”
Harry doesn’t like the empty feeling that’s opening up inside of him, swirling like a vortex. He tugs Niall in even tighter.
“I am ready to exact vengeance , Niall. Just say the word. You don’t even have to say who out loud. Just like, drop a piece of paper in my path with a name on it, and I’m on it. I’ll be stealthy. I’ll be stealthy and deadly.”
“OK Harry. I appreciate it.”
“And ruthless.”
“Sure. Thanks.”
“I mean it.”
“Shush.”
“OK.”
“Night Harry.”
“Goodnight Niall. Love you.”
///
A twinge of pain shooting along Harry’s spine accompanies his wakening the next morning as he pulls himself from the hard floor up onto one elbow. It’s quickly joined by a throb across his skull and a jolt of nausea dashing round his stomach. He looks down at the tangle of cotton around his naked body, the half-empty tequila bottle tipped on its side on the floor nearby, the red swirl of carpet burn against his right hip.
He blinks blearily around the empty dressing room.
“Ouchie,” he whimpers.
No one answers.
///
Twenty minutes and one forceful shower later, Harry’s managed to make it as far as the kitchen and is huddling over the Nespresso machine, shivering slightly as he watches the thin stream of coffee spill into his cup, when he hears the patio door swing open and then Niall’s back.
And its his Niall, grinning, shining, a chirpy energy emanating from him, even behind the large shades that swamp his face.
His boy.
Something massive whumps inside Harry’s chest. It might be joy or something like that.
It might be a coronary issue.
“Howya head,” Niall blusters. “Brought you breakfast.”
He thrusts a paper bag at Harry, spotted with translucent grease stains, then a clear cup filled with something bright green. Harry can’t seem to summon a response.
“You went out,” he manages to croak eventually.
“Yeah,” Niall huffs, tossing his shades onto the counter. “Got papped too.”
“No!”
They were asleep on the floor, like, five minutes ago. And now, there’s events that Harry must grapple with. It’s challenging, is all. Anyone would have a lump in their throat and stingy eyes in these circumstances.
Like, Niall is laughing again. He’s laughing, saying, “Yeah, outside that breakfast place we went to before? That’s the one you like right? The kale and apple thingy?” He’s nodding at the cup that he’s still thrusting at Harry, who has yet to respond.
“Thank you,” Harry finally gets around to, taking the drink from Niall, “that’s very thoughtful of you.”
“Yeah,” Niall continues, getting himself a cup from the cupboard and swapping it with the full one under the Nespresso spout, rummaging in the little drawer where Harry keeps the pods. “There were a few of them just hanging there, dunno, maybe they were waiting someone else? But when they saw me they were all up in my face.”
“Shit,” Harry breaths, “Niall -”
“So I got meself a popsicle,” Niall says then, whirling around to beam at Harry, eyes twinkling.
“You…? You did what?”
Niall cackles, and Harry’s going to pour the remaining few gallons of his tequila store down the sink because it has clearly broken either Niall’s brain or his own.
“I ate a popsicle!” Niall exclaims, miming the actions of plunging an invisible popsicle in and out of his mouth, sticking his tongue into his cheek. It’s filthy and he’s so delighted with himself that Harry can only grin back. Actually, he’s leaning forward before he can stop himself and planting a kiss onto Niall’s squishy little cheek.
“Good for you, Niall.” Harry tells him, a bit confused still, but probably happy, overall. He can’t really seem to make an accurate assessment of what he’s feeling right now but other people being happy usually makes Harry happy so he’ll just go with that. Everything’s just so …
“You called me a sweetheart,” Harry blurts, suddenly remembering, a warm rush filling his veins, “before that spectacular blowie you gave me.”
Niall blinks. “Thought you might go for the oh-god-I-was-so-drunk-I-don’t-remember-a-thing-defense, to be honest,” he says eventually.
“Oh no. Definitely not. No way.” Harry shakes his head vigorously, which makes him feel a bit spinny.
“Grand so.” Niall looks content, swinging his feet over and back as he perches on a tall stool.
“It was, like, a mind-blowing blow job, Niall.” The details are coming back to Harry now and it’s making something bubble up in his stomach that might be impending giggles. Or else he’s about to hurl. Hard to tell sometimes.
“Thanks, pal.” Niall’s looking at him with a very Look-related look, all cheeky and bright, but Harry thinks it’s sorta nice, nothing calculating in it.
“You feel asleep plotting to murder my dear friends.” Niall reminds him.
“I still will, if you need me too,” Harry is reassuring, meaning it.
“And you gave me a post-sex high-five.” Niall’s saying, looking up at the ceiling, his face studious.
“Oh God.” Another throb of pain accompanies the rush of blood to Harry’s face.
“Yeah. Dork.” Niall’s laughing. Harry’s so happy to hear that laugh.
“Today will be requiring pain killers and fro-yo, and then all will be well,” Harry announces. He’s decided. He’s cool. Blue-sky’s out. The sun’s out. Everything’s out. More or less.
“And maybe a quick round somewhere?” Niall’s suggesting.
Harry freezes. He mentally runs through the meetings he’s going to have to cancel to make this happen but he’s definitely making this happen.
“Let’s do it,” he says.
///
Harry’s hauling his clubs into the boot of his Range Rover and is about to sit into the driver’s seat when he sees that Niall’s still just inside the house, a few feet back from the door threshold, looking a bit stuck or something.
Not this again.
“Now come on, you’re nearly there” Harry tells him. He lightens his voice - “Come on, boy!” He pats his thighs and whistles encouragingly. “Come on, who’s a good Nialler?! C’mere! C’mere boy!”
Niall isn’t laughing so Harry stops and straightens. He slowly walks back to the house, to Niall.
“You really took care of me, Harry.” Niall says, his eyes, clear and wide, looking directly into Harry’s.
“Of course,” Harry is responding, instantly, no thought required, “I’ll always take care of you. I love you.”
“Yeah.” Niall says, “I didn’t know.”
“You didn’t?”
“No. No. Not … like … I didn’t know. Did you?”
And Harry frowns, confused, and then it hits him and oh.
Oh shit. Oh fuckery fuck.
Wham! Right in the chest.
Love.
Niall’s spluttering into laughter at him. “OK then. You didn’t know. It’s fine. No rush. Let’s go. Let’s see if your swing is as awful as usual.”
Harry can’t seem to speak or move.
Niall laughs again. “Come on, pet.” He holds out his hand. “Take me golfing.”
Harry’s bug-eyed at him.
“Oh God, this is going to take a while, isn’t it?” Niall's snickering to himself, but he throws an arm over Harry’s shoulder and pulls them together out through the open doorway. “It’s OK, Harry. It’s alright.”
And Harry’s arm winds its way around Niall, a smile creeping onto his face all by itself.
Maybe, he’s thinking, pressing his lips against Niall’s forehead as they move towards the car, it mightn’t take that long at all really.