Archive of Our Own ^beta

**

smiling softly, nick tucks his nephew in, folding up the edge of the blanket so it fits just right underneath his chin. the boy snuffles in his sleep, rolling over to his side and pulling at the neatly made quilt to mess it up already. still with the fond smile upon his lips nick pets at the ruffled mop of hair and puts the little white bird by l.m. barrie back upon the bedside table. he then slowly backs out the room quietly, flicking off the light switch, and shutting the door as silently as possible. he tiptoes back downstairs to the lounge room, stepping over the fifth stair from the top because it creaks and heads into the kitchen to make a cuppa.

whilst the kettle is boiling away types out a quick text informing his sister that everyone is in bed and sleeping soundly and everything’s fine. she’s a bit a worrier at the best of times, and nick hopes it will soothe her nerves and let her enjoy the night out with her husband. he gets a simple ‘thnx  :)’ back and pockets his phone once more, gathering sugar and tea bags from the kitchen cupboards, spoon making a high pitched tinkling noise as it knocks against the mug.

yawning, nick takes his freshly brewed tea back out to the lounge room and makes himself comfortable upon the couch. there’s far too many pillows and he pushes half of them off, they tumble across the floor like some kind of giant, colourful marshmallows. nick tells himself to pick them up in the morning, his sister won’t even notice they were moved an inch, and curls up with his mug and the remote. he flicks through the channels, too fast to really tell what’s on and settles on some mind-numbing looking cop show with far too many characters to keep track of. the story’s too fast for nick to follow, but it’s nice to have something to not worry about getting all worked up into, and he can feel himself get tireder and tireder.

eyes dropping, nick puts his half empty mug of tea upon the coffee table, his sleepy mind giggling at the irony, because he doesn’t want to drop it and spill it. despite kicking half the cushions off the lounge, it’s still incredibly soft and pillowed, and nick feels himself drifting off, resting down upon the pillows and eyes unable to focus upon the scene on the television. the sounds send him off to sleep, the quiet murmur of voices and the rumbling of car trips a lullaby.

**

there’s a loud crash, like someone’s tripping over the coffee table and nick sits bolt upright, glasses askew upon his nose. the room’s dark now, except for the glowing light of the television playing some late night talk show, and it’s a little cold. nick shivers, automatically reaching out for his cup of tea, but it’s cold and he pouts into the darkness for a few moments before remembering his sweater is in the kitchen and gets up to make another hot drink.

as the kettle boils once more nick struggles with the sweater, slipping it on the wrong way around and twisting the neck hole around. he just pulls it over his head, material warm around his neck when there’s a flash of movement out the corner of his eyes. freezing, nick picks up the closest thing, which so happens to be yesterday’s rolled up paper, and brandishes it like a club. for several moments nothing stirs, the only noise the heavy pants of nick’s breath and the kettle boiling happily. putting his makes-shift weapon down, nick turns back to his hot drink and stirs ridiculous amounts of sugar into it.

he’s just about to pick up the mug when there’s more movement, a flickering of shadows that makes nick stop and think about picking up the newspaper once more. he pauses again, body not very alert but his senses feeling like they’re at an all-time high until the shadow of a boy without an owner darts across between the lounge and kitchen bench. nick blinks rapidly, stares at the spot and wonders if he’s gone mad, maybe –

a boy darts across after the shadow, dark jeans and a band shirt on, taking a leap off the ground as the shadow climbs up the walls to get away from him. mouth open, nick stares as the boy flies after the shadow, swearing loudly under his breath. something sparkling and shimmering much like a firefly follows along behind the boy, darting like it is also chasing the shadow around the room. blinking a few more times, nick decides he must be dreaming, or something, and goes over and flicks the lounge room light on, hoping to get a better perspective on this.

“fuck yes!” the boy yells, gripping onto a foot of the shadow, holding it tightly in his grasp and the sparkly firefly-like thing hovers at his shoulder, chittering so loudly that nick can hear it from all the way across the room,

“my god,” nick says, staring and picking up his hot mug for comfort and warmth, stepping around the kitchen bench back once more into the lounge room. he stops by the lounge, too afraid to walk the rest of the way to the boy, although unsure if he’s afraid he’ll wake up from this dream or not at all.

“how on earth do you put shadows back on zee?” the boy asks, holding the foot of shadow up and shaking it, standing on one foot himself and tries to almost stick the shadow back to the bottom of his converse. nearly unbalancing, the boy hops upon one foot to keep himself steady as he struggles to put his shadow where it belongs. the boy drops his foot to the ground and turns around to search the room for something to help, eyes landing straight upon nick.

“perhaps you should sew it on,” nick says into the quiet, eyes trained to the pixyish features of the pretty boy in front of him, bright, hectic blue eyes and rumbled, wind-blown hair across his forehead. he’s got arching eyebrows that nick wouldn’t mind running a thumb over and pink little lips, “although, i’ve never really considered sewing a shadow on before, but surely that’s how it works.”

“do you know how to sew?” the boy asks and nick watches as he tugs on the shadow, familiar stories stirring in his mind, watches the glorious movement of those tanned arms, the black marks of tattoos up and down them.

“no,” nick says and steps forwards, curious as he watches the sparkly firefly-like thing sprinkle some brightly coloured dust upon the end of the shadow as if in hope that would make it  stick, “are you peter pan?”

“no, i’m louis,” the boy replies with a laugh.

“i’m nicholas peter grimshaw,” the names all come out in a rush, like nick’s still five himself and proud he’s got a middle name and louis pushes off the floor with the balls of his feet, thick, luscious thighs straining as he moves, to once again try stick his shadow back.

“nick will do,” he nods, tongue sticking out the corner of his lip as he focuses once more upon the bottom of his feet, the sparkly firefly-like thing chittering loudly next to him, “oh, and this is zayn, he’s an ink-talent fairy.”

“hello zayn,” nick puts his cup of tea back upon the coffee table, dipping down to place it there and straightens himself out as he stands up, “how did you lose your shadow anyway?”

“puppy jumped at me earlier this evening, got me at the window,” louis shrugs, crossing his legs like he’s sitting upon the floor, but in mid-air, still desperately trying to reattach his shadow.

“what were you doing there?” nick thinks back to before, when he was reading his nephew a bedtime story and the dog had barked at nothing, barked and barked and got his nephew all worked up so it took him longer to get to sleep.

“listening to the stories,” louis says, and nick takes pity on him, goes searching for that sewing basket he knows his sister has somewhere, pulling out some thread and the biggest needle he can find, “i like them, i tell them to the lost boys when i get back home.”

“the lost boys? – oh, yes of course the lost boys,” nick sits back upon the lounge and motions for louis to do the same, zayn flickering to stand upon the coffee table with his hands on his hips as louis holds his leg out straight for nick to try and crookedly sew the shadow back in place.

the work is messy, and nick pricks himself many times because he doesn’t know what he’s doing. the shadow doesn’t quite match up to louis properly, there’s patches at the bottom of it that don’t fit exactly and the shadow’s leaning more to the right than louis is, but louis looks pleased. he jumps up, replacing nick’s tea that nick did not realise he’d stolen and parades around the room, testing his shadow out.

nick watches the way louis moves, darting along and floating to the ceiling, watches as he cartwheels across in front of the television and hides a snort behind a hand as louis tumbles into an armchair. he walks across the ceiling like perhaps a two legged spider would, long strides that are restricted by the tight jeans. the band shirt rucks up around his armpits due to gravity, showing off lean tanned muscles and a little pouching belly, and nick looks elsewhere to regain any resemblance of coherent thoughts.

louis moves with a grace that nick’s never seen anyone master before; he’s kind of compact and boyish and nick probably really wants to snog him. completely breathless.

when louis finally settles, giddy energy seemingly used up for the moment he sinks back upon the lounge next to nick, hands reaching out automatically for the tea. he makes a frankly pathetic attempt at reaching for it, and nick willingly leans over and passes it back to him. they sit in silence, louis sipping away at nick’s tea and zayn chittering loudly from the table, stamping his foot every so often as if to make a point. louis snorts into the drink, giving zayn a look.

“he says you’re a big, ugly man.” louis laughs, poking nick in the thigh with a foot, shadow taking it’s time to follow along, catching up eventually.

“oh. well, i think he’s lovely.” nick says, which almost seems to infuriate zayn upon the table more, stamping his foot once again. nick shifts and picks up the remote from underneath his leg, wondering when it had fallen upon the lounge and glances back over at louis finishing up the last dregs of nick’s tea.

“you should come to never land with me and tell stories to the lost boys,” he says in a rush, holding the mug out for nick to take and put back to the coffee table, making sure not to knock zayn.

“never land?” nick asks, and he feels the strangest urge to ramble on about happiness and packing and he thinks maybe he’s watched peter pan far too many times with his nephew.

louis turns abruptly, feet upon the lounge and leaning forwards, peering at nick as if he’s some kind of interesting bug or something. nick stares back, mouth drooping open a little as louis’ dainty little hand reaches up to trace freckles upon nick’s cheeks. huffing, he stops and pushes back so he’s sitting properly upon the lounge once more. a frown worms its way between his brow, confusion lighting up his features softly.

“are you going to kiss me?” he asks.

“i don’t have any thimbles, sorry.” the words are out nick’s mouth before he even realises what he’s saying, spilling out his lips and he mentally slaps himself for saying no, can’t believe it. louis, on the other hand, looks delighted. He laughs, a light, sweet sound and rocks back up onto the balls of his feet, dirty shoes upon the carpet and takes nick’s collar in his little hands.

“i don’t have an acorn either,” he says, and up close nick can see a cluster of freckle’s on louis’ own cheek, the last thing he thinks before louis’ soft, pink lips are pressing against his own is this is going to be an awfully big adventure.