Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Have you seen this absolute piece of shite today?!” Louis snarled as he slammed the newspaper onto the table in the break room. Zayn glanced briefly at the offending item before going back to rolling his cigarette, heavy boots propped up on the table top.

“The Manchester Gazette? Yeah Lou, think I’ve probably seen our local newspaper once or twice since living here,” he replied, tucking the now finished roll- up behind his ear and running a hand through his tall dark quiff.

Louis threw himself into one of the garish red chairs opposite Zayn and slammed a hand on the table in front of them, causing Zayn to fix him with a questioning stare.

“I swear to god Zayn, I will murder this bloke me’ self! That’s 3 bloody headlines he’s had this week, one of them was about saving a bleedin’ cat!” Louis gestured to the newspaper which sported a picture of the back of a man in a heavy firefighter’s uniform climbing a tall ladder that was resting against a tree, the headline reading ‘Local Firefighter Strikes Again and Saves Cat from Tree’. “Honestly, all I knew about firefighters before was what I saw on me naked ‘men at work’ calendar and now it’s this same bloke probably vying for a lifetime achievement award rescuing cats and old ladies! Why are they reporting about this dullard and not about, you know, actual news….that’s all I ask from my trusty local paper!”

Zayn surveyed him with dark eyes, looking suitably disinterested. “I have never seen you read the paper in all the time I’ve known you, Lou.” Which had definitely been a while, with Louis immediately dragging him into his friendship group when he spotted new kid Zayn reading a Batman comic outside the science lab in year 9, and them both making the move to Manchester University at 18 and never leaving after graduation.

“Excuse me, I’ll have you know I like to catch up on all the local news and events, thank you… supporting me community an’ that,” Louis replied indignantly, “And I’d much rather hear about important things than some bloke who’s obviously got a ‘saving people thing’,” He huffed as he swiped a sip from Zayn’s steaming mug of coffee, pulling a disgusted face when the bitter taste slipped down his throat.

Zayn pulled a face at him, “He’s a fireman, Lou, pretty sure saving people is in the job description? Besides, you’re just whinging because it’s Monday and I know for a fact Simon has got four new titles for you to look over that all belong in the erotica section.”

 Louis groaned and rested his head on his blazer clad arms at the mention of his upcoming morning. He’d worked at Cowell Publishing Ltd for the last 3 years, straight out of university at 21 with a degree in English and hopes of becoming the next Oscar Wilde. Instead he was given piles and piles of manuscripts of potential books of varying subject matter, depending on his long- suffering boss Simon’s mood and animosity towards Louis on any particular day, that ranged from mills and boon esque romantic tripe to mass alien invasion. Zayn worked in the illustrating department, which Louis claimed was a piece of cake because ‘all he did was doodle on scraps of paper all day’ which usually earned him an unfortunately, not unusual, eye roll from Zayn.

“Don’t bloody remind me,” Louis replied, standing up and heading towards the kitchen side of the mismatched break room and flicking the switch on the kettle, grabbing a tea bag and his usual mug from the cupboard as he went, the mug reading ‘employee of the year’ which Louis always claimed Simon had bought him (he hadn’t, Louis bought it himself, but a boy can dream). “One day Simon will see all I do for him and craft me a throne in his office made out of all the stationary I have yet to steal, and praise my literary prowess.”

Zayn offered another eye roll and picked up his briefly stolen coffee, taking a sip. Louis finished stirring the milk he found in the fridge, complete with post- it reading ‘Tim’s Milk, DO NOT USE, THAT MEANS YOU LOUIS,’ into his tea, sparing a raise of his curved eyebrow at the note. He turned round just as Niall bounded into the room, bleach blonde hair stuck up in tufts and bright smile grinning at both of them.

“Lads!,” Niall exclaimed, “What’s the craic?!” his Irish accent still very noticeable despite moving to Manchester for Uni at 18 and joining Louis and Zayn’s posse, which Louis likes to refer to as ‘Tommo’s Team’ and then wonder why it hasn’t caught on yet.

“Nialler!” Louis exclaims, heading over and draping his more petite form over Niall’s taller back, spilling tea all over the linoleum floor on his way. “Niall, light of my life, fire of my loins… you understand me don’t you?! You get all my worries and woes, right?” Niall laughed and petted at Louis’ fringe where his chin rested on Niall’s shoulder.

“What’s up Lou? What is it this time? Have they replaced the coffee machine again? I remember last time you sulked for 3 weeks, wrote Simon some strongly worded letters that I’m certain he immediately shredded and attempted to start a petition that was what? Signed by you and Martha from downstairs simply because you agreed to listen to her tell the story of how she acquired each of her cats?” Niall cackled at the memory, ignoring Louis reproachful look as he peeled himself off Niall’s back and perched on the edge of the mustard yellow sofa Simon claimed he got from a flea market (cough skip, cough).

Zayn chortled and said “No, he’s trying to get some heroic firefighter bloke the death penalty for being in the newspaper a couple of times, you know, the usual Tommo tripe.” Louis shot him what he considered his best death glare and gestured to the newspaper, still crumbled on the table in front of Zayn’s unmoving Doc Martens.

“Look Niall,” he whined, “That tosspot has had the front page headline three times now for saving stupid people and cats who get themselves stuck up trees, I just want to see news, is that too much to ask?!”

Niall spared the paper a glance and looked at Louis with a smirk, “Get over it LouLou, you’re just jealous ‘cuz they never put your ugly mug in the paper!” Louis gifted him the middle finger and drained his mug of tea, placing it in the sink with a clang before surveying the cracked plastic clock on the faded green wall, another relic of Simon’s skip dives, presumably.

“Bugger it lads, it’s 10 past bloody 9, Simon’ll have me head!” Louis smoothed down the crease in his light blue shirt and made sure his blazer fit snugly around his curvy waist and his hair was artfully windswept (aka took him half an hour and 3 handfuls of VO5 wax to perfect this morning). Zayn slowly got up from his chair and swung his cracked leather jacket over his shoulder, waiting for Niall to grab a biscuit (or 6) from the tin and make his way to the door, Havania’s slapping on the floor.

Louis surveyed his friends with narrowed eyes, “Oi, how come you two get to wear bloody bad boy jackets and ruddy flip flops when I wear braces and a stripey shirt one time and Simon goes off on me about ‘work- place etiquette’ and makes me read through SIX non- fiction proposals about planets, SIX.”

Niall cackles as he barrels though the door with a, “Probably because they like us better Lou!” and Zayn spares him another eye roll before heading upstairs to illustrations, to do colour with numbers, Louis presumes, whilst Niall skips towards the lift down to- well Louis isn’t actually entirely sure what it is Niall does…something with computers? Maybe?

“Love you too,” he mutters under his breathe but watches them go with a fond smile, they do put up with his nonsense, after all, although in Louis opinion that is really more of a privilege.

Louis is shocked out of his thoughts by Simon’s booming voice echoing around the office floor, “Louis! Where are you? You’re fifteen minutes late and I do not have time for your tardiness. My office NOW or you’re on cabinet duty for a week.”

Louis jumped and immediately scurried towards Simon’s office, feet scuffing on the worn grey carpet. Nothing is worth cabinet duty. Nothing.

*

Louis had spared no more thought to the dreaded newspaper that day, instead losing himself in reading new manuscripts and editing existing work to make it suitable for Simon’s consumption. He’d resisted pulling his hair out as he read what was basically 300 pages of porn, so originally titled ’20 shades of brown’ and yet another vampire fantasy that was actually ‘attractive teen that does everything all other teens do but with sharper canines,’ tossing both into his ‘absolutely not’ pile. He had, however, appeared to have a found a bit of a winner with a book about a boy band making it huge around the world but hiding secret gay relationships between band members whilst dealing with an inept management team and satisfying millions of fans, titled ‘all these directions’. He’d show that to Simon on Friday in the weekly board meeting and was sure to wow him, Louis was the best at PowerPoint presentations, he knew all the good animations.

Louis had returned to his and Zayn’s flat that evening, tired but without a moody Zayn who had stayed behind to finish drawings for a new book, refusing to do it at home since Louis had found his sketches of two turnips holding hands for ‘Adventures With The Turnip Twins’ and laughed for 2 straight weeks, taking pictures on his Iphone and emailing them to his entire contact list.

Louis threw himself onto the large cream sofa and stared at the blank flat screen, willing it to turn itself on without him having to lean and get the remote off the battered coffee table. They’d had this flat straight from uni when they still had hopes and dreams, and although it was small and sparsely decorated, it was homely, cosy and theirs. Zayn was just happy it had a small balcony for him to smoke out on and be alone with his thoughts or whatever, whilst Louis was happy it was open plan and meant he didn’t have far to walk from the sofa to the fridge.

Louis stretched, shucking off his blazer and toeing off his brown brogues. Damn Simon and his dress code that seemed to exist purely just for him, he thought bitterly, Niall was allowed to wear bleedin’ flip flops…he felt another letter coming on.

Louis’ stomach grumbled and harshly reminded him that he was actually a functional human being that required being fed and watered several times a day. He stood up, cracking his joints and headed towards his messy bedroom, selecting a pair of comfy joggers and a worn red jumper to change into off of the floor, which he termed ‘ordered chaos’ before heading back out to the kitchen.

He opened the fridge and surveyed the inside, noting a 6 pack of Sol, a carton of double cream and a lime presumably leftover from the last ‘tequila night,’ a tradition Niall coined in their second year of uni when he clearly decided his end game was to kill them all and take their dignity. Louis grimaced at the fridge’s lack of content and made a mental note to force Zayn to go food shopping, he had far more important things to do of course such as watch the new episode of Made in Chelsea and wank, maybe not in that order. He spotted a bag of potatoes in the cupboard next to the hob that had probably just below the amount of tentacles that required immediate disposal, and stared at them dubiously.

Now Louis could cook…he definitely, 100% could cook. Except that he couldn’t and normally relied on ready meals, his friends, and if all else failed, his cereal cupboard. But he was starving and c’mon, how hard can cutting up some potatoes be anyway? It turned out very, as he couldn’t find the chopping board or potato peeler for a good ten minutes, but eventually managed to produce a mound of potato chunks in varying sizes that could probably resemble chips if you squinted.

Louis vaguely remembered watching his Nan make homemade chips when he was younger, and figured it couldn’t be too difficult. He poured what was probably enough oil to solve the fuel crisis into a large frying pan and set it on the hob at the highest heat. When the oil was hot enough he threw the chips in and smiled in satisfaction at the crackle, see, he was so good at this cooking lark. Just wait until he showed Zayn, smarmy bastard.

He wasn’t too sure how long the chips would take to cook but he hypothesized it would take a while so he headed into his bedroom to grab his MacBook. Sitting cross- legged on his blue and black striped bedspread he quickly checked his Facebook news feed, occasionally snorting a laugh or wincing at the antics of his not so grown up uni friends alongside his very grown up friends with their partners and assorted children. Louis contemplated vomiting at their multitude of videos of their babies doing literally nothing but laying there like a potato (he often wondered whether he’d go to hell for thinking things like this but figured at least he’d go there with Zayn) when a sharp scent caught his attention and flooded his nostrils. He sniffed a few times and frowned, puzzled, not sure where to place the smell. It was only when the acrid smell of SMOKE became evident that he leapt up from his bed, nearly missing flinging his laptop across the room and tripping over the odd van shoe on his haste to open his bedroom door.

Upon sprinting to the kitchen Louis was engulfed in the strong smell of smoke as it billowed around him, eyes immediately going to the chip pan which sat ablaze over the hob, flames licking up the walls.

‘SHIT BOLLOCKS FUCK WANK,’ Louis screamed, dancing around in a panic, unsure what to do. The smoke alarms then chose their time to kick in and the incessant wailing filled his ears, doing nothing to help the roaring in his mind, brain frozen as he took in the scene with rising panic.

He grabbed his Iphone off the counter and fumbled to dial 999, screaming for the fire brigade to the operator.

‘Me bloody flat’s on fire!’ he yelled to the bored sounding bloke on the other end of the phone as he babbled his address. He spotted a mug on the side from this morning (sporting the words ‘best roommate ever’, courtesy of Zayn…or not…) and ran to the tap to fill it with cold water.

‘Now sir, whatever you do, if it is a hob fire, do not attempt to put it out with water,’ the operator said in a calm voice, just as Louis had bloody hurled the mug of water into the air towards the alight pan.

Upon impact the reaction caused what can only be described as a fireball around the pan and Louis screamed (not at all like a girl thank you, except yes) and threw himself to the ground, missing the dancing flames that licked across the wall and set the pale yellow curtains alight framing the small kitchen window.

Louis was still very bravely of course, cowering on the ground when a series of knocks banged on the front door, followed by a thump and a muffled ‘ow’.

Louis leapt up from the tiled ground, coughing and spluttering and ran to the front door, wrenching it open.

His relieved face soon changing to one of confusion as he surveyed the fireman before him sprawled on the carpet outside his front door, wincing and muttering as he tried to climb to his feet whilst wearing bulky fire gear and a large helmet with a clear visor that obstructed most of his face.

“Oops,” the fireman said, sounding slightly more cheerful than was necessary for the current situation, “I tripped over your welcome mat! Now, I heard something about a fire?”

Louis took one look at the gangly limbs still evident in the bulky uniform as the other man finally got to his feet, spotting a wide grinning mouth below the visor. Louis arched his eyebrows.

“Hi, um no, no not today thanks,” and made to shut the door, there wasn’t a chance in hell he was letting this bumbling idiot to put out a fire in his flat thank you very much, he couldn’t even walk straight.

“Um….,” the firefighter said, pointing towards the ceiling, “I hate to point out the obvious or whatever, but I’m pretty sure that’s smoke pouring out of your flat there.”

“Ah no, that is uh…steam…from my bath. Yes, I’m having a bath. So. Steam...” Louis mumbled, trying and failing to shut the door when the firefighter’s hefty booted foot was in the entryway.

“You’re having a bath…,” the fireman echoed, the words drawling slowly from his wide mouth, staring at Louis as if he was a strange, yet amusing child.

“Harry! What are you doing?!” A deep voice echoed from down the corridor, another firefighter striding towards them, his wide set shoulders filling out the uniform in a way Louis’ small frame never could, brandishing a large fire extinguisher.

Both Louis and the first firefighter, Harry apparently, jumped. Louis had almost completely forgotten his beloved flat was slowly scorching away and possibly endangering the lives of several hundred people, and he quickly yelled, allowing the firefighters to barge past him and battle the blaze within.

They had the flames under control in seconds and in no time at all Louis was surveying the damage, just some scorch marks up the wall and some burnt plastic on the hob, nothing major, although Zayn’s Grandma’s yellow curtains were akin to singed rags. Zayn was going to murder him.

The first firefighter had taken off his helmet and was surveying the damage. Louis was pleasantly surprised to see a pair of startling green eyes, smooth pale skin and a mess of dark curls under that god awful helmet, and made a note to set fires more often if this was his reward.

It was only when Harry held up the now decimated frying pan full of scorched ‘chips’ with a dimpled smirk did it click in Louis mind just who was in his kitchen.

“You!” He exclaimed, pointing a finger at Harry.

“Me?” Harry replied with a questioning smile, “It is I!” He beamed. Louis did not.

“You! You’re bleedin’ headline queen aren’t you! Knight in shining uniform or whatever, saving the city in all your helmet wearing glory. You’ve taken over the bloody papers, can’t seem to read anything else,” Louis stated with a grimace. He couldn’t believe that paper idiot was this idiot stood in his kitchen, who he actually thought was hot as hell, as if!

Harry blushed and twisted his glove covered hands, “Oh well…yeah I guess? Was just doing my job, right? They didn’t have to write about it, yeah?” He phrased everything as if it was a question and stammered, supposedly to seem modest, Louis thought with a sneer, bet he’s loving all the attention, probably wallpapered his bedroom in all the articles so he can stare at his own stupid face saving the entire feline population. Louis was about to open his mouth with a cutting reply when the second firefighter came over, his helmet now off and revealing short brown hair styled at the front into a sort of quiff (what is it with quiffs these days, Louis thought, soon quiffs will have a life of their own and start taking over the world or summat), warm brown eyes and an earnest smile.

“Hi! Louis right? I’m Liam, great to meet you, although not in the best circumstances, aye!” Liam chuckled and Louis forced an attempt at a genuine smile and not a grimace, shaking the offered hand.

“Now, I’ve just got some paperwork for you to fill in,” Liam continued, “and then some insurance stuff, and then me and Harry here will be out of your way! I’m sure you can’t wait to start cleaning up!” Louis coughed a laugh at that, he hadn’t voluntarily cleaned in about 10 years.

Harry stayed dithering in the middle of the kitchen, which annoyed Louis no end, what kind of firefighter hero superman was all dithery and annoying, booted feet turned inwards towards each other and hands clasped behind his back. Every time Louis looked over to give him a pointed glare Harry beamed, dimples and all, which was definitely not cute and endearing, more like childish and stupid. Yes. Of course.

Just as Louis was finishing his final signature, he heard a gasp of horror and braced himself, not needing to turn around to know who it was.

“Louis!!!’ Zayn screeched, “what have you done?! You bloody idiot, I told you never to cook!” Zayn gasped again, “Louis!” he squealed in a higher pitched tone, “Grandma Malik’s curtains!! She made them especially for us! How could you?!”

Louis braced himself and turned around, “Jesus Malik, don’t get your knickers in a twist, I’ll apologise meself, curtsey an’ all,” he pasted his most apologetic and sorrowful puppy- eyed face on and looked at Zayn, who was no longer glaring at him with outrage but was looking in the direction of Liam, mouth open, and wait, was that a hint of a blush on his cheeks?! Surely not, Zayn Malik was far too cool to blush….

“Oh um...hi there…,” Liam stammered, staring at Zayn, a hint of red staining his own tanned cheeks, his eyes wide with what looked like recognition. Zayn gawped for a few more seconds before stammering something unintelligible and practically sprinting towards his room, slamming the door.

Louis looked after him with raised eyebrows, Zayn was normally quite odd but that was pretty abnormal behaviour, even for him. Louis shrugged though, deciding that Zayn not screaming bloody murder at him was a lucky escape. Louis Tomlinson wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth.

He turned to Harry who was watching the exchange with a furrowed brow and coughed loudly. “Right, well, if you’ll excuse us, Headline Harry and your nobel prize for firefighting, thanks and all that, Leon, it’s been a pleasure…” He missed Liam’s frown at his mistake and frowned when Harry snorted with laughter, clearly not on the same level to understand Louis sarcastic wit actually being a biting insult, and headed towards the door, guiding Liam who still appeared a little dazed and kept glancing back towards Zayn’s bedroom.

“Nice meeting you Louis!” Harry threw back over his shoulder in a sing song voice, causing Louis to give a ‘hmph’ back and a grimace, flat out refusing to believe that a) he’d nearly burned down his flat attempting to cook of all things, not even something cool and funny like lighting Niall’s farts on fire, and b) that he’d had the misfortune to meet and be aided (Louis refused to say rescued) by the paper prick who’d been dominating the local headlines with performing activities any normal human being could do if they had access to a tall ladder. And also, what the bloody hell was going on with Zayn? Louis made a mental note to grill him as soon as he’d ordered a pizza (he took the fire as a sign he should never cook again) and watched at least 4 episodes of Geordie Shore. Because he needed to recover from his ordeal, yes, that was it.

*

The next day saw Louis again stomping into the break room at work to grab his ritual cup of morning tea and hopefully an ear to rant to.  He spotted Niall, fresh faced and this time wearing a pair of chunky high top trainers (honestly, there was literally a dress code for just Louis and no one else) chatting with Perrie, the bubbly pink haired receptionist from the main desk. Louis purposefully made as much noise as possible and punctuated the air with heavy sighs that were not at all over the top as he made his tea, frown becoming more evident as Niall and Perrie continued their conversation about the pros and cons of onion rings and resolutely ignored Louis, a testament to how well they knew him and had learned to ignore his mood swings. Louis made a mental note to go out and make new friends immediately.

He’d just seated himself at one of the round tables with a heavy pout when Zayn walked through the door, hair messy and not in its usual styled quiff, carrying his sketchbook and complete with what Louis termed, ‘crazy eyes’. He’d not seen Zayn since the bizarre incident last night with Liam the fireman, despite Louis’ relentless knocking on his bedroom door which was received with a resounding ‘go away’. He’d even whined and mewled like a cat on the floor outside Zayn’s bedroom for 10 whole minutes and didn’t even receive a ‘shut up Lou’ for his efforts. Louis decided he was feeling very wounded and ignored and was therefore mad at Zayn, childishly folding his arms turning away in the opposite direction when Zayn plopped down in the chair next to him with a sigh, slapping his sketchbook down and gazing into space morosely.

Niall and Perrie had seemingly finished their conversation on the note that onion rings were socially acceptable unless on a date which may involve potential snogging. Perrie left with a can of coke from the fridge, a smile and a wave with an “I’ll leave you to deal with the gruesome twosome, Nialler!”

Niall perched on the counter and swung his feet to rest on the table top next to Louis’ folded arms, chunky shoes knocking Zayn’s sketchbook on the floor in the process, sheets of thick drawing paper flying everywhere. Zayn barely seemed to notice and Niall responded with a simple shrug, producing a packet of quavers from what looked like nowhere and munching loudly. Louis was absolutely not going to pick them up for Zayn, he was very mad at him after all. He was doing a good job of sticking to his resolve until one of the sketches caught his eye, causing him to frown at the stirrings of recognition at one of the images.

Louis knew Zayn was working on some illustrations for a new line of comics now that Simon had decided he needed a finger in every literary pie, and he’d seen sketches of a group of superheroes teamed ‘The Alliance,’ including heroes such as ‘Eagle Eye’, ‘Steel Man’, and General England’. Louis tended to regard most of the requests Zayn had to draw with distaste (he still hadn’t forgotten the turnip twins) but he was a bit of a fan of superhero movies and the like, so he’d thought this idea was pretty cool. He spotted a picture of what he supposed was meant to be General England but something about the characters face and stature seemed familiar. He stared at the sketch on the floor with a puzzled frown, until he realised with a gasp who it was.

Both Niall and Zayn looked up at his disturbance in surprise, as Louis pointed open mouthed at Zayn and then the drawing. Oh he was going to enjoy this.

“Um Zayn,” he began, adopting a tone of mild curiosity with a hint of mirth, “just a bit curious, why have you based one of your superhero characters on the David Beckham look- a- like fireman from last night, you absolute pathetic loser?” Louis smirked as Niall let out a guwaff of laughter, spitting bits of quaver all over the room. Zayn let out a whimper and buried his face in his hands, although not quick enough to hide his blush.

“Oh god,” Louis laughed, “you’ve got a crush on him haven’t you?! You want to be Mr Liam fireman, mount his red engine, slide down his pole!” Louis was almost breathless with glee, Niall chortling whilst still managing to stuff crisps in his mouth.

“Don’t,” Zayn groaned, voice sounding muffled through his fingers, “please don’t, I’ve already completely humiliated myself and ruined any chance I may ever have had with him, so.”

“What ‘cuz of last night? Nah mate just show him these drawings, one look and he’ll sweep you right off your feet, fly you straight up to the top of Beetham Tower and profess his undying love of your pencil skills,” Louis replied, secretly thrilled that he had even more ammunition to humiliate Zayn with, he still needed to get him back for witnessing all of Louis’ fashion disasters over the years, his salmon trouser phase still haunted his dreams to this day.

“No you don’t understand”, Zayn whimpered, “I’ve met him before last night, god he must think I’m a complete nutter.” He proceeded to bang his head on the stained table top, muttering curses.

“What happened last night?” Niall asked casually, swinging his thin skinny- jeaned legs and thumping them against the side of the counter.

“Oh Louis just happened to nearly burn our whole flat to the ground and kill us all, no biggie,” Zayn replied sarcastically, forehead still pressed onto the table top.

“Oh right,” Niall said, shrugging and going back to chomping on his crisps, seemingly completely unfazed.

“Oi!” Louis cried, “It wasn’t that bad, even if we had to call out that bloody wanker fireman from the papers and the apparent love of Zayn’s life to put it out, barely any damage!” Louis had actually attempted to wipe off the smoke stains after his reality TV marathon last night but theorized it was probably best to paint over it. Maybe he’d get Zayn to do a mural, although he wasn’t sure he wanted an ode to Liam the fireman’s bum on his kitchen wall.

Louis shot Zayn a glare after he gave a muffled snort, and continued with the conversation. “Anyway, how come you’ve met this bloke before then? Been stalking the local firehouses have we? Couldn’t you have slyly strangled that stupid Harry bloke with a hose whilst you were at it, might have had a decent front page then.” He grinned as Niall barked a laugh and Zayn groaned again, finally sitting up and surveying them with a defeated look, a hint of red still evident on his light brown cheeks under his dark scruff.

“Oh god, well, you know I sometimes go to that coffee place down the road after work to finish some of my drawings,” he shot Louis a pointed look, Louis tried to stop a shit- eating grin from taking over his whole face, before continuing, “well I’ve seen him in there a few times…and I always thought he was like really hot you know? And he just seemed really like, nice and sweet, always chatting to the baristas and like being all polite and shit. But I could never really think of anything to like say to him, he said hello once and I bloody just stared at him and couldn’t make my stupid voice work to reply, he must have thought I was a bleedin’ idiot.” Zayn sighed and rubbed his temples, Louis and Niall listening with interest. It was normally Louis crying to the other two about embarrassing experiences with potential coitus partners, like the time he was so drunk he couldn’t successfully get it up AND ended up vomiting on the blokes cream carpet, or the time the other guys mum walked in on them doing it on the dining room table. Ah memories. Louis liked to think of them as character building, and not completely move to Tibet and change your name humiliating.

“Anyway, this one time I was like sketching and he actually came over to me and was like ‘oh what are you drawing, these are wicked!’ and I like jumped, ‘cuz I was in the zone y’ know, and knocked me bloody tea everywhere and he was all panicking trying to help me mop it up and he saw it. He saw the drawing of him…and he just stared at it all confused and was looking at me and I just got up and grabbed my shit and legged it, he must have thought I was a fucking head case!” Zayn sighed dramatically and slumped back in his seat.

“Well, you are…’ Louis replied with a smirk, earning him a middle finger from Zayn. “But god mate, that sounds bloody humiliating, no wonder you looked like you’d seen a ghost last night, I bet he’s looking into a restraining order or summat” he chuckled. Zayn whimpered again.

“But no, I am sorry mate, seems like you liked him and kinda blew it….best not do drawings of fit blokes you don’t know and let ‘em see in the future then.” Zayn nodded a reply and Niall grinned, jumping off the counter top and stretching.

“C’mon lads, time to start the working day! I’ll take you both to that pub down the street at lunch for pints! Cheer us all up an’ that!” Niall said, bless him. Niall thought every woe could be solved by pints, maybe it could in Ireland… Louis thought that was highly probable.

Louis got up from his chair and quickly gathered up Zayn’s discarded sketches and handed them to him, trying not to smirk at the ones of superhero Liam. He made a mental note to check Zayn hadn’t stabbed himself with a pencil before lunch time and said a hasty goodbye to the lads, hurrying towards his desk, Simon’s earlier threat of cabinet duty still ringing in his ears.

*

Zayn was still alive by home time, which Louis considered a successful day, although he’d opted for a ‘walk to clear his head’ instead of heading back to the flat with Louis, resulting in Louis calling him a “melodramatic sod, you better not start writing heartfelt sonnets” and earning himself a slap across the head.

Louis opened the door to their flat and tossed his keys on the small wooden table next to the coat rack in the entry way, sparing a grimace at the mottled black paintwork above the cooker, the acrid smell of burnt plastic still evident in the air and seeping up his nostrils causing him to scrunch his face in disgust. Louis didn’t need another reminder of his failures in life plastered all over his kitchen wall, truth be told he was actually quite annoyed at himself and his reckless disregard for safety, and was thankful it hadn’t been worse and actually ruined their beloved flat. He was still fuming about the fact it had to be that stupid fireman from the papers that came to the rescue, as if he needed another good deed to add to his growing list that portrayed him as an actual successful human being and not a slightly on the short side and just a little bit too camp 24 year old who had spent his day reading a story about garden gnomes that came to life and performed a variety of musical numbers when humans weren’t looking.

It wasn’t that Louis was unhappy with his life, he really wasn’t, he had a great group of friends, was obviously attractive enough to get laid on a semi- regular basis and did actually enjoy his job when he wasn’t forced to read badly written novels about straight white people in Paris or listen to Simon harp on about the state of the industry or ‘find me the next J K Rowling Louis or I swear to Lucifer I’ll halve your pay don’t think I won’t’. It was just he thought he might have actually achieved a little more by now, done something worthy that actually meant something to others instead of occasionally taking a shit on people’s dreams when he told them reading their book was akin to stabbing himself in the eye repeatedly or sodomising himself with a hairbrush. Maybe that was why he resented the Harry bloke so much, who was actually making a difference even if it only seemed to be rescuing small animals and helping old ladies cross the street. Louis let his mind wander to Harry’s wide set mouth and what looked like a long, lean body under the bulky uniform before chastising himself for it, god, he really needed to get laid if he was fantasising about that bumbling idiot who could barely walk straight, qualities which were ridiculously annoying and not at all endearing, of course.

As Louis was contemplating which curry house to order in from and how it might be amusing to trick Niall into eating a vindaloo by telling him it was a korma, when he heard it. A high- pitched beeping sound that caused him to jump and spill half the glass of water he was carrying over his light grey joggers, of course managing to spill directly onto his crotch area and make it look like he’d had an ‘accident’. Cursing, he placed the glass down onto the kitchen counter and looked around the flat for the source of the noise. Seeing nothing, he shrugged and turned back around, perusing through the pile of take out leaflets him and Zayn kept in a messy pile at the end of the counter along with a stack of unopened bills they hoped would magically disappear if they left them long enough. The loud beeping noise happened again and Louis grimaced as the sharp tone echoed through his ear drums, it was starting to become a real fucking annoyance. Frowning, he contemplated the source before the beep sounded again and he spotted the red flashing light on the round, white plastic smoke alarm situated on the ceiling above the sofa. He groaned internally when he realised it was probably playing up from the fire the previous night. He tried to push the only visible button and cursed his small fingers as he struggled to reach, the incessant beeping bouncing round his brain like a loose ping pong ball.

After balancing precariously on the arm of the sofa, Louis fiddled around with the device but with no avail, the beeping starting to cause a knot of ache in his right temple. With an exasperated sigh, Louis grabbed his mobile off the coffee table and dialled the number of his landlord, Alberto, pacing as he waited for him to pick up.

“Louis. What have you done now?” Came Alberto’s flat voice when he answered the phone.

“Alberto!” Louis exclaimed in sarcastic delight, “Lovely to speak to you too! I’ve missed you.”

“Well I haven’t missed you,” came Alberto’s weary reply, “Now tell me, what is it this time? Tried to fix the leak in the sink yourself and ended up flooding both your and Mrs Moss’s apartment downstairs again? Get drunk and attempt to swing from the light fitting? Lock yourself out and lose your keys for the 8^th time this year?”

“Alberto!” Louis exclaimed, shocked, “How can you accuse me of such things?! I am a delight and undoubtedly the best tenant you’ve ever had.” Alberto snorted loudly, which Louis thought was very rude and not at all justified.

“Anyway, so last night we had a fire and now the-“

“You what. You had a fire?! Louis!” Alberto’s panicked voice came through the speaker and Louis grimaced.

“Chill your beans alright, it was fine, no damage at all, a lick of paint and everything will be right as rain! I’ll even do it meself.”

“Please don’t,” came Alberto’s strained voice, “I can’t believe you didn’t call me Louis, it’s in your contract you have to inform me of things like this.” Louis thought their contract may as well be one written on a napkin in wax crayon these days but he didn’t say anything to agonize Alberto even further, he’d once pranked Alberto telling him the ceiling was caving in only to have him rush round and be rewarded with a cackling Louis letting off party poppers in his face. He’d blanked Louis’ calls for 3 months and only dealt with Zayn, the ‘sane one’ as Alberto referred to him, he clearly didn’t know Zayn at all, Louis should show him Zayn’s Liam drawings.

“Sorry Bertie old pal but it’s really fine, cross me heart! Anyway, the bleedin’ smoke alarm keeps beeping and shit, it’s right annoying, I tried fiddling with it but it’s still doing it, can you sort it out pretty please with cherries on top?”

“Please DO NOT touch it again,” came Alberto’s harried voice, “I don’t want you setting off the sprinkler system and ruining the whole block.”

 Louis was amazed, he didn’t even realise they had a sprinkler system. He made a mental note to borrow Zayn’s lighter and attempt to see if it was true at the nearest opportunity.

“I’ll sort it, send someone round,” continued Alberto, “please don’t touch it again Louis I mean it! I’ll ring you when I know more.”

“Thanks Bertie!” Louis replied, relieved. “Love you!”

“Don’t call me Bertie.” Alberto said, before promptly hanging up. Louis was disgruntled at the lack of affection before contemplating stuffing his ears with cotton wool, although he wasn’t sure if that would work. Maybe he should use tampons, he imagined Zayn had some for when it was his time of the month, moody git.

Louis attempted to drown out the beeping by turning the TV up to maximum volume but was rewarded with Mrs Moss smacking on the floor with a broom. Louis made sure to be extra heavy with his footsteps from then on.

Alberto rang back an hour or so later just as Louis was contemplating drowning himself in the kitchen sink, informing him someone should be round in a minute to sort the alarm.

“My mate has a friend who’s a fireman, so he’ll come and sort it, alright Louis? Kindly do not ring me for several weeks.” Louis raised his eyebrows and hit end call just as a light knock came from his front door. It was only when he was shuffling over to answer it did Alberto’s words sink in. A fireman? Surely not…surely fate could not be this unkind to him…

Louis must have kicked puppies in a previous life because he swung open the front door to reveal two dimples and a mass of dark curls held back in a ridiculously patterned orange head scarf. Louis hated it immediately.

“Hi!” Harry said with a bright smile, “I’m here for the noise complaint!” He grinned widely at his own joke. Louis deadpanned him and stepped aside, sweeping an arm for Harry to move past him.

“Kindly make the bloody thing shut the fuck up so I can watch Hollyoaks in peace.” Louis said, gesturing to the offending alarm on the ceiling.

“Oh a Hollyoaks fan are you?” Harry asked, “I prefer Eastenders meself, always liked the London accent you know? And there’s the theme tune, a classic, du du du du du dum dum dum,” Harry hummed to himself as he walked towards the alarm, pulling a screw driver out of his pocket in the process. Louis considered bargaining with a higher power to have this over with as soon as humanly possible. It didn’t help that Harry was clearly out of uniform and wearing a pair of sinfully tight black skinnies which hugged his long legs and small bum, and a red checked shirt that would have looked silly on someone else but suited Harry perfectly.

“Just hurry up and get it done, Curly, some of us have things to do…places to be…”

“Well you don’t seem to,” Harry said with a grin and a pointed look at Louis joggers and ratty Stone Roses t- shirt. Louis frowned, how dare this imbecile cheek him in his own home. He would end him.

“I’ll have you know this is the attire of a very busy man, young Harold,” Louis said, watching Harry unscrew the plastic lid of the alarm, reaching it easily. Stupid lanky wanker. Harry just snorted and carried on unscrewing, brow furrowed in concentration. Louis moved around the flat, picking things up and placing them back, unsure of what to do, a bit put off by Harry not feeling the need to fill the silence with pointless chit chat. The thing was it didn’t even feel awkward, Louis rarely felt this comfortable with strangers and always strived to fill any silences with jokes or loud chatter. He didn’t feel this with Harry though, and it was quite disconcerting, especially as he’d already labelled Harry as an attention- seeking goody two shoes and had no desire to be his friend, thank you very much.

“So, Curly, how long have you been in the business of fighting fire?” Louis asked casually, watching as Harry frowned as if mentally counting back.

“Uhhhh, about 4 years, I think? I started training and stuff when I was 18, straight out of A levels. Just always been something I wanted to do, really.” Harry drawled and spoke at an achingly slow pace, Louis fidgeted in annoyance. “What is it you do anyway, uh….Louis right?” Louis was furious Harry hadn’t immediately recalled his name and vowed to trip him at the nearest opportunity.

“I work at Cowell Publishing in town, dunno if you know it? I like read book proposals n shit, it’s alright, I love books so…”

Harry’s face immediately lit up in excitement as he prodded at the now exposed wires in Louis’ smoke alarm. “Ooh me too! I love reading, it must be great doing it for a living!” Louis was a bit taken aback at Harry’s enthusiasm and offered him a small nod instead of a reply, causing Harry to wilt a little in disappointment. Louis felt a strange stab of guilt in his lower abdomen and immediately squashed it, refusing to feel bad for being rude to the man who probably had it all.

Harry finished screwing the alarm back in in silence, before tucking his screwdriver away and fiddling with the edge of his headband.

“Right well, that should have taken care of the noise then,” Harry said, dithering a little instead of moving towards the door.

“Oh, well, uh, thanks I guess. Good of you to like take time out and come here so yeah, thanks.” Louis replied, supposing this was another one of Harry’s good deeds for the day.

“No problem!” Harry exclaimed, “I’m really happy to help.” His green eyes brimmed with sincerity and Louis felt a bit uncomfortable under his gaze, he inched towards the door and made to open in. Harry took the hint and walked towards the doorway, turning around and flashing Louis a bright smile.

“It was really great seeing you again Louis, let me know if you have any other problems or anything, hope to see you around!” He seemed genuine but Louis supposed this was just all part of the beloved hero act, and he refused to fall for it. Harry lifted his hand in a wave and Louis gaze was drawn to the few inches of pale stomach as his shirt rucked up. He spotted a dash of ink before Harry lowered his arm and felt a strange desire to know the lines etched into Harry’s skin, before frowning at the smirk on Harry’s face when it was clear he’d seen Louis’ look.

“Right well, bye bye Harold, must dash,” Louis rushed to shut the door after Harry, flustered, not liking the thought of the younger man knowing he may have had an effect on him. He turned and glanced around the flat, suddenly having an overwhelming urge to take a hammer to the smoke alarm and call Harry back, before recoiling at the thought and attributing it to his obvious hunger pains. Besides, he and Zayn didn’t even own tools. He was clearly delirious.

*

Louis managed to make it to Friday without starting any more fires or having any incidents that may involve a certain curly- haired individual. He considered it a successful week, although Simon had decided to singlehandedly attempt to ruin Louis’ weekend, and life for that matter, by handing him a stack of typed manuscripts at 5pm Friday evening, for ‘weekend reading’. Louis thought it would probably go against Simon’s ‘work place etiquette’ if he punched him in the face, so he decided stealing Simon’s favourite fountain pen and snickering whilst watching him turn redder and redder with frustration as he turned his office upside down was punishment enough until he next got drunk and persuaded Niall to piss on Simon’s car door handles.

Now, Louis was a great believer in reinforcing and rewarding himself for good behaviour and saw his restraint in not attempting bodily harm on Simon as deserving of a treat. He grabbed a couple of bottles of the ‘medium price range’ wine (boy, he was splashing out) for him and Zayn to consume tonight, Zayn still in a funk and moping about ‘he who must not be named’ (‘He’s not bloody Voldemort Zayn, Jesus’) and in need of a good drunk rant, cry or impulsive illegal activity. As Louis was such a marvellous friend and roommate, he decided to pop into the bakery a few streets down from their flat that he occasionally frequented when he was in need of a sugar rush or a cake for a work do he would always claim to have baked himself, which no one believed, arseholes.

Sparrows Nest bakery was a cosy little place with warm lighting and rickety wooden tables and chairs, always making Louis feel transported back to his mum’s kitchen as soon as he stepped through the door. He was just bending over eyeing the large glass cabinet full of goodies, trying to decide between a large chocolate éclair, he was partial to cream after all, and an iced bun when he realised he was now staring into a wide pair of green eyes at the other side of the cabinet.

“Jesus bloody Christ!” he yelled, jumping about 5 feet in the air and clutching his chest, wine bottles clanging in the plastic bag around his wrist.

“Just Harry’s fine, thanks,” the tall boy straightened with a smirk, eyeing Louis with glittering eyes, white and blue striped apron covering his plain clothes, outfit complete with matching striped head scarf. Louis glared at him icily, slightly affronted his baked good perusing had been interrupted.

“What are you doing here, Curly? Shouldn’t you be out saving puppies or spraying yourself down with a hose or whatever it is you do?” He needed to get that image out of his brain right now, immediately and attempted to gaze around the room, giving off an air of nonchalance.

Harry chuckled, “something like that…but no I work here some evenings, used to work in a bakery back home during school and just missed it I guess, so here I am!”

Louis raised an eyebrow, “And I suppose you knitted all those tea cosies over there as well,” he gestured to the shelf of cosy covered teapots on the far side of the small room and upon seeing Harry’s obvious blush wondered what on earth was with this kid, was he Mary Poppins reincarnated? He looked around the bakery pointedly for an umbrella.

“So Louis,” Harry rushed on, “what can I get for you? There’s a fresh batch of blueberry muffins, baked them myself,” he smiled proudly. The muffins looked delicious.

“Definitely not.” Louis shot back.

“Oh um okay, how about the cinnamon swirls? Iced them meself, thought I’d go for like a sort of checked pattern instead of the usual zig zags you know? Bit different and I get to use my artistic licence or whatever…” Harry trailed off when he noticed Louis unimpressed look which he wasn’t to know was actually straining all of Louis’ facial muscles to maintain and not slip and crack a smile.

“What is there that you didn’t bake, or ice, or wave your magic piping bag on?” Louis asked, gesturing across the cabinet.

Harry gave him a puzzled look but pointed towards a tray of cookies on a lower shelf with a big hand, assorted rings dotted on various fingers.

“I’ll take six.” Louis stated, not missing the way Harry flinched, a hurt look flashing across his face before being masked with one of cool politeness only achieved through years in the hospitality business. Louis felt an uncomfortable feeling in his gut that he knew, but didn’t want to admit, was guilt, the sarcastic cynic in him trying to will it away as the sort of nice part that occasionally emerged berated him.

“Alright, and two of the cinnamon swirls,” Louis blurted out before realising what he was saying, feeling slightly amazed ‘the nice one’ won, a certainly rare occurrence. Harry’s answering smile was rather breath- taking, dimples on full display which caused a flickering in Louis’ stomach that he took to be his craving for the sugary treats, obviously, his face this time betraying him by smiling back, his eyes crinkling in the corners.

Harry bagged the goods using sparkly pink tongs (because why not) and if his hand brushed slightly over Louis’ smaller one when handing him his change for longer than was necessary then it was obviously accidental. Louis attributed the tingle of heat following the brush of Harry’s fingers as a reaction to the air conditioner kicking in, after all there was no way he could have such a reaction to this ham fisted oaf, even if a tiny part of Louis he was trying to shut up with chocolate chip cookies wanted to trial the lines of the two swallow tattoos inked on Harry’s collarbones with his tongue, clearly visible as it would seem Harry didn’t believe in doing up the buttons on his plaid shirts. It would seem cleavage was not just for women, after all.

*

To compensate for his rather bizarre experience at the bakery where he acted like he was on some sort of class a substance, Louis and Zayn got spectacularly drunk that night and ended up prank calling Niall with their best Jigsaw from ‘saw’ impression, the added bonus being that he was on a date and got so freaked out he locked himself in the bathroom for 20 minutes before clueing in when Louis couldn’t contain his giggles and calling them a ‘shower o’ cunts’ before rushing out to find his date had, indeed, left. Because it was Niall, instead of yelling at them he turned up with a bottle of Jack and they all proceeded to get absolutely slaughtered, resulting in Louis bringing back his freakishly accurate rendition of 'If I could turn back time’ on Singstar and Zayn and Niall shouting insults at people in the street off the balcony before one guy ended up yelling back “I’m gunna come up there and find you and kick your miserable arses, you little wankers” which saw them both hiding under Louis bed for half an hour whilst forcing Louis to check the peep hole ‘until it was safe’.

All three of them woke up Saturday morning in a similar state, as Niall so eloquently put it ‘mouth like a cat’s bum hole’ and their weekend saw them moving from a pile on the sofa in front of the entire X men filmography only to make copious amounts of tea and order from their favourite takeaways.

Come Monday morning, Louis had finally recovered and was in a surprisingly good mood for a Monday as he drove to work, he even smiled at fellow drivers when he was next to other cars at traffic lights and then wondered why they gave him weird looks and edged over in their seats. Typical British, he thought, always so bloody stand offish! And his smile was blindingly gorgeous so it can’t have been that, maybe it was his canines, they were a little sharp.

He was debating the pros and cons of teeth filing all through parking his car behind Cowell Publications and on his ritual stroll to the front of the building, passing through the ‘ornamental gardens’ that was Simon’s latest project, he wanted somewhere for employee’s to ‘relax’ and thought it might solve the issue of people trying to throw staplers at his head on a weekly basis, the moron.

Louis was just beaming at the vendor on the newspaper stand near the front entrance (who looked rather disconcerted- poor Sven was used to Louis’ usual snarls and ‘stop trying to make ‘The Mirror’ happen Sven, ‘The Mirror’ is never going to happen’) when something caught his eye. Of course, it was ‘The Manchester Gazette’ and of course it was a close up of Harry the bloody fireman’s grinning face, pink frosting smeared on his cheeks and nose, beige fedora perched on top of his wild curls. It would seem Monday’s just loved taking a shit on Louis.

Frowning, Louis grabbed the paper, his immediate change in demeanour and rushed move causing Sven to jump back and knock a stack of ‘The Daily Mail’ on the floor, fitting, Louis thought, making no move to help. He noted the headline (‘Local Fireman Styles Raises Thousands for Charity by Baking Giant Macaroon’) and concluded that of course Harry fireman would have a surname like ‘Styles’ how very fitting. He scanned the article and was disgusted to find the story thawed even the cockles of his heart. Harry had dedicated weeks into planning and implementing a huge bake sale for a local children’s hospital, raising thousands to help the sick kids and even baking a huge macaroon deemed ‘mouth- watering’. Louis wasn’t sure macaroons could even be mouth-watering, didn’t they taste like paper? But anyway he couldn’t help but feel impressed by Harry’s dedication, he even forgot to be annoyed that the younger boy had scored yet another headline and even he wasn’t so cynical to think that Harry was doing such things to get attention and make himself look good…maybe Louis had been to judgemental on his first impressions of Harry…maybe…Louis didn’t really like to be wrong, like, ever.

By Wednesday, Louis had undergone many internal conflicts about a certain fedora wearing individual and was feeling rather frustrated with it all, he only liked to spend this amount of time thinking about one person, and that person was himself. He was also still recovering from the fact under a fit of madness he had cut out the unbearingly cute picture of Harry from the newspaper, which Niall had found in his desk draw when rooting for snacks, and had proceeded to run around waving it and singing ‘Boo Bear loves Cupcake, BooBear Loves Cupcake’ at the top of his voice. Louis only managing to silence him by pouring Niall’s entire tube of pringles into the bin. He’d be lying if he said Niall did not eat the shards of crisp out of his waste paper basket, as Zayn cried tears of laughter rolling under Louis’ desk whilst Louis ripped the picture into a thousand pieces and looked up the cost of living in Bora Bora. At least this picture probably fared better than the others of Harry Styles printed in the paper which Louis had drawn Hitler moustaches on, as well as ‘The Louis Special,’ which was just penises of varying sizes. He was a very mature adult, after all.

Louis face was probably still beetroot red after ‘The embarrassing incident that saw the beginning of the end of Niall Horan’ on Friday as he walked home from work, his little red Peugeot failing to wheeze into life this morning despite his pleading, most likely because he’d been ignoring the check engine light for six months… technicalities. To top it all off it was absolutely pissing it down with rain, standard with autumn in England, or, any season in England if he was being honest. Louis’ coat choice this morning was not on par, it would seem denim actually absorbed liquid instead of protecting his standard order Topman shirt, who knew.

He was just sheltering under the green and white striped awning of a yet to open French restaurant when he spotted a figure in the distance, hunched in on themselves on a rusting bench, seemingly unaware to the droplets pounding on the pavement. Louis squinted and recognized embarrassingly fast the wide set shoulders, gangly legs and sopping curls. Harry appeared to be only wearing a dripping grey jumper, and there was no hat in sight, Louis wondered what on earth he was doing, was it some sort of fireman ritual? Guinness world record, perhaps? Louis paced outside the restaurant, yet another internal conflict raging inside his brain before he braced himself and headed out into the road, rain attacking every inch of his body and sopping his fringe to his forehead, the drowned rat look was so in these days, anyway.

Louis’ stomach sunk slightly as he approached the hunched figure, Harry’s eyes were glassy and appeared to be staring into the distance, large hands twisting in his lap being the only sign of movement. He was the epitome of a dejected individual, looking like he belonged in an Edgar Allan Poe verse, not a crummy street in the middle of Manchester.

“Harold! What you doing out here?” Louis mentally berated himself for the overly cheerful tone that came out of his mouth, no wonder Zayn had a go at him for his lack of tact sometimes.

“Lo’ Louis,” Harry barely glanced up, body language wary, tone hoarse.

Louis plonked himself down next to Harry, shivering when his bum met the cold, wet metal of the bench. “Why are you out here, Harry? It’s pissing it down…you’re soaked.”

“Am I?” Harry glanced down at his sodden clothes as if in surprise, black jeans sticking tighter to his thighs than usual, which was definitely saying something. “Oh”.

Harry’s shrug made it apparent the chill and wet mattered little to him, passing through him like he wasn’t even there, the boy on the bench mattering little in the grand scheme of all things weather.

“Yeah…” Louis adopted a cautious tone, eyeing Harry’s pale face and bitten red lips. “Are you okay Harry? You seem…off.”

Harry flinched slightly but otherwise stared hard at the ground, teeth back to worrying his lip. “I’m fine. Go home, Louis, get out of the rain.” He said tiredly, two fingers pushing into his eyeballs, seeming desperate for relief but leaving nothing but white marks pressed into flesh.

Louis was torn, normally he knew when to leave someone alone but something was pulling him to comfort this boy, vulnerability peeking through despite Harry’s attempts to mould a mask of indifference.

“No you’re not, Harry, you’re sitting out here in the rain… I’m here to like, chat or something, whatever you want.” Louis fidgeted awkwardly, out of his depth but wound tight with desperation to know what was making this boy who always seemed a second from a smile look so torn apart.

Harry turned and looked deep into Louis’ eyes, green meeting blue, imploring, searching. Louis did not look away.

Harry seemed to find whatever it was he was looking for, because he sighed slightly and rubbed his hands over his knees, looking on the brink of an utterance but not knowing where to start.

“Was just…a bad day I guess…I dunno what you know about us firefighters but it’s not all about burning buildings…we deal with a lot of accidents too, like car accidents n’ stuff.” Harry paused, fiddling with a loose thread on the bottom of his jumper. Louis nodded encouragingly, the pounding rain seemed to have melted into background noise by now, their bubble of intensity impervious to the droplets.

“There was one today,” Harry’s voice cracked slightly, Louis resisted the strong urge to reach over and clasp one of Harry’s trembling hands, not knowing if it was something he could do yet. “It was a mother, and her two kids…little they were, only about 4 or 5. It was wet… she must have skidded, lost control…the car had flipped…we’d got the mother out but the kids were trapped…she was screaming, thrashing against the straps on the ambulance trolley, the kids were crying…I…I was trying to comfort them but I just… How could I? They were so scared…and I could smell the petrol...it was all over the road and the kids…th- they were trapped and we were trying so hard, so hard to get them free and anything could happen and it would go up in flames an- and I couldn’t let that happen, not again, I couldn’t let them burn, I- I couldn’t…” Harry buried his face in his hands, shoulders shaking, small hiccups and whimpers puncturing the still air around them. Louis placed a gentle hand on Harry’s lower back, rubbing small circles and occasionally sshing him and murmuring ‘it’s okay, it’s okay love’. Louis’ heart was aching painfully for this boy and how he must have felt, waves of guilt sweeping through his body as he thought of how he’d mocked Harry for his job, been so insensitive.

Harry hiccupped and raised his head, eyes rimmed red and hands clenched into fists. “Sorry,” he muttered, hanging his head, “I didn’t mean to lose control like that, s’ just…it brought back some bad memories an’ stuff…”, Harry trailed off, meeting Louis’ wide eyes with a look aching for understanding, for comfort. Louis didn’t hesitate this time to take Harry’s larger hand into his own, squeezing reassuringly.

“You can say…if you want? Like I don’t mind…I’ll listen.” Louis tried to smile at Harry and received a watery one in return, before Harry bit his lip again, leaving his hand in Louis’.

“Well um…kinda the reason I got into firefighting really…was ‘cuz my, um, my best mate when I was younger…he uh, died. In a fire. When we were 13. He...he was my best mate,” Harry choked out, Louis could feel his hand shaking, eyes welling up once more. Louis rubbed soothing circles with his thumb onto Harry’s palm.

“I’m so sorry, Harry. So Sorry.”

“Thanks,” Harry stammered, “I never really talk about it…but I dunno…jus’ today kinda brought it all back…I remember waking up in the middle of the night… I heard screams, yelling. I could smell something, smoke I guess, it was faint but something didn’t feel right. I looked out of my window, Johnny…my mate…he lived just down the street but I couldn’t see his house…it was just orange and red and black and screams and sirens….I just froze…I just didn’t get what I was seeing, you know? Everything was a blur…I remember leaving my room and running out of the house. I was running down the street in my pyjamas, I didn’t even feel the ground, like all I knew was the pounding in my head and I could see the flames they were so tall and the firemen were there, they had huge hoses trying to put it out but it wasn’t doing anything, I didn’t understand…it was water, it was meant to stop the fire, right?” Harry was really shaking now, gripping Louis hand with white knuckles, rain mixing with the salty tracks running down his face.

“I- I saw his mum and dad…his brother, but I couldn’t see Johnny…I didn’t get it, he was meant to be there but his mum, she was screaming and his dad was being held back and all I could think was ‘Johnny, Johnny, Johnny, Johnny,’ and I remember just running and trying to get to the house but the men kept grabbing me and I was screaming and fighting but I couldn’t get in…I couldn’t save him.” Harry was really crying now, nose streaming, rain drops mingling with tears and dripping from his nose, the ends of his hair. Louis barely noticed his free hand snaking up and stroking Harry’s damp curls, making soothing noises, heart breaking but knowing he had to let Harry finish, let him talk.

“The firefighters…they tried so hard to save him. They went in the house even though it was burning, falling down…but they couldn’t find him…couldn’t save him. Turns out he was hiding under his bed. We always used to go under there, me and him, make dens and forts and stuff,” Harry smiled sadly at the memory, before continuing, hiccupping slightly. “I can still smell the smoke…god, Louis, I have to- I have to stop the smoke now…that’s why I do what I do, I have to stop it, save people like I couldn’t save Johnny…I had to save those kids today…I had to.”

Louis stroked down Harry’s damp hair and back, “S’ okay Harry, there was nothing you could do, it’s okay. I’m so sorry Harry… so sorry.” He kept hushing him as Harry sniffled, waiting for him to gain composure and come back to himself. Minutes passed and Louis kept stroking, kept squeezing Harry’s hand, the rain never lessened, beating down on them relentlessly, passers-by hurrying from the harshness of the elements, barely sparing a glance towards two soaked boys pressed too close together on a peeling green bench.

After a while Harry’s sniffles became less frequent and he straightened, catching Louis patient gaze and giving him weak smile.

“Harry…” Louis began, “The kids…did they-…?” he trailed off, fearing the answer.

“Yeah, no we got ‘em. We got them out. They were all fine, thank god,” Harry said gratefully and Louis sighed with relief, feeling a slight pang when Harry withdrew his hand to rub at his swollen eyes.

Harry suddenly jumped slightly, twisting to look at Louis with wide eyes. “Oh god, Louis I am so sorry. I can’t believe I’m putting all this shit on you and I barely even know you! You must think I’m a pathetic idiot, I am really sorry.” He looked so worried and earnest, once again chewing on his poor battered lips, Louis couldn’t help but feel endeared.

“Haz.” (Louis didn’t have a bloody clue where that nickname came from but he decided to just roll with it). “It’s really fine, I did ask! I’m glad you spoke to me…and I hope it made you feel a bit better ‘n stuff, talking about it. And I really am sorry…for everything.”

“Thanks,” Harry’s smile was brighter this time and he squeezed Louis’ hand quickly. “And thanks for listening, it did help, yeah….God look at me sitting in the rain crying, could I be any more of a cliché?!”

Louis barked a laugh, “I’ve seen cooler things in my time, like myself of course,” he winked, and Harry chuckled. “But it’s really understandable.” He suddenly had an idea and rushed it out before he could change his mind. “Hey, um, if you wanted to take your mind off it or anything, I’m heading out for some drinks tonight with a couple of pals, you’d like ‘em, you could come...bring a friend maybe? Up to you! Just an idea of course,” He added hastily, not wanting to seem too eager. Harry literally beamed at him and Louis could swear blind the rain stopped and the sun peeped out at the exact same moment. He made a mental note to slap himself, hard, later, for being such a cliché.

“Yeah that sounds really great! Thanks Lou!” Clearly they were at the nickname stage in their relationship now, and Louis found he didn’t mind at all.

“Give me your number then and I’ll text you my mate’s address, we’ll have some drinks there first before heading out, you could meet us there? You know, if you want…”

Harry immediately rattled off his digits and if Louis saved his number as ‘Harry Cupcake J J’ then no one had to know. Ever.

Louis and Harry parted ways with solid plans for later on in the evening, and Louis walked back to his flat feeling a bit of a mixed bag of emotions but with a grin he couldn’t seem to get rid of. He did a bit of a skip as he walked and ended up falling into a puddle. It would seem Louis was not made for The West End, or anything that involved dancing. Or skipping. Or walking.

*

Louis was an imbecile. An absolute pillock. A blithering idiot, if you will. Why on earth had he invited Harry out with him tonight? He had clearly become delusional with all the rain and the crying and the feelings. Because inviting Harry out meant that Louis had to look absolutely fabulous, not to like impress him or whatever, of course not, but to replace the drowned rat appearance from earlier that was probably ingrained into Harry’s memory with one of a sex god. Not that he wanted to have sex with Harry. Because he did not.

“Zayyyyynnnnnnn,” Louis whined for about the sixteenth time since he’d got out of the shower and stood in front of his mess of a wardrobe with absolutely no clue what to wear to make him look a combination of ‘really fucking hot’ and ‘casual enough to not look like he’d tried to hard’. Life was difficult sometimes.

Zayn ambled in wearing slim fitting black jeans, a white t shirt with the black silhouette of Bob Marley’s face and a dark brown leather jacket. Combined with perfectly styled hair, just the right amount of facial hair and the obligatory Marlboro red stuck between his lips, Zayn looked like a model. A ridiculously gorgeous model who Louis was going to impale on a coat hanger.

“Sup Louis,” Zayn drawled, “Stop bloody whinging and put on some clothes, I’ve seen far too much of you today than I’d like, cheers.”

“Oh shut up Malik, I’m sexy and you know it!” Louis started wiggling his black boxer clad bum and humming the LMFAO beat whilst Zayn mimed vomiting into Louis’ sock draw.

“But seriously,” Louis continued, “what do I bloody wear? We haven’t been out like this in a while, I need to look smokin’ and all that.” Louis stared critically into his jumbled wardrobe, pulling out a pair of purple trousers and pulling a disgusted face, chucking them in the general direction of the bin.

“Please burn those and all other primary coloured bottoms at nearest opportunity,” Zayn said, “and I’m sure this has nothing to do with a certain curly- haired fire fighter who you oh so randomly invited out with us, especially as I thought you hated his guts?”

“I’d say it’s uh- more of a moderate dislike now actually Zayn…and he was all like telling me a sob story and it made me want to wrap him in blankets and feed him hot chocolate and watch re- runs of ‘Friends’ with him and I didn’t know how to feel about that because before I just wanted to drown him in cake batter but then I went insane and invited him out with us and for some reason my tummy is doing this funny wriggly thing like I’m bloody nervous which is obviously not real, I don’t get nervous, but anyway I need to know what to wear Zaynie because I’ll feel better if I know I look good and then I’ll deal with not going into cardiac arrest when we get to Niall’s.” Louis panted out a breath after his babbling monologue, sending Zayn another pleading look.

Zayn sighed, but looked into Louis’ wardrobe for a minute before seemingly deciding. “Right, wear those black skinnies which I’m 99.5% sure are actually women’s leggings and a black tank, show off your tats, and that dark denim jacket ‘cuz it’s a bit cold out. You’ll look good Lou, it’ll be fine.”

Louis shot him a grateful look and pulled on the tank, shooing Zayn out because it actually took him about 5 minutes to squeeze his bum into his jeans (which were not leggings thank you Zayn) they were just tight. Cutting off bloody supply tight but they made his thighs and bum look pretty damn incredible. Louis watched ‘Next Top Model,’ he knew sometimes you had to suffer for fashion. And pretty boys. Whatever.

After fixing his fringe and dithering for about 10 minutes on a text that was ‘casual and not too keen’ to Harry letting him know directions to Niall’s, Louis was ready to go.

He slipped on his black vans and jacket, doing the obligatory ‘phone, wallet, keys, condom,’ (Louis was nothing if not prepared…or hopeful and desperate, whatever) before bounding down the 4 flights of stairs to grab Zayn, who was smoking out front. Louis was a ball of nervous energy on the 10 minute walk to Niall’s which resulted in a request from Zayn to ‘walk 10 paces behind, you look like you’re on drugs, and I’m too pretty for prison’ which he pointedly ignored.

Louis wasn’t sure why he was feeling so out of sorts…he barely knew Harry and before today had managed to resolutely ignore how attractive he was and focus on berating him for the headlines, Harry being a source of annoyance and ridicule, a bit of a distraction to the monotony of everyday life. But earlier had made him realise he’d been a bit harsh and far too quick to judge, Harry had been open and unafraid to show his emotions, something which Louis found he envied a tad, and actually seemed a decent guy, someone Louis would actually like to be friends with. And jizz in his curls. Wait, what?

Louis squawked loudly when this thought entered his brain, causing Zayn to jump and stop his rambling about ‘the effects of Banksy on everyday graffiti’ which Louis hadn’t been listening to and give him a weird look.

“Sorry- uh stubbed my toe on the… pavement…you were saying about stencils or summat?”

Zayn was keen to start up the topic again which left Louis to debate his sanity for probably the eight time today for the rest of the walk, trying to get dimples and sinfully wide lips out of his brain by picturing Simon in hot pants, twerking. He really needed a shot of vodka, like, yesterday.

Niall opened the door with a cry of ‘lads!’ and gave them both a tight hug, planting a sloppy kiss on both their cheeks before beckoning them inside his flat. Niall’s place was kind of a 3D version of his personality, incredibly random items dotted around but with a chilled and welcoming vibe. Anyone who entered would have real difficulty in telling Niall was Irish, not like the giant Irish flag on one wall and huge inflatable shamrock gave it away or anything. Niall hung their jackets on a traffic cone by the door before grabbing them a bottle of beer each from a large tub filled with ice in the middle of the room, before settling on the large red sofa.

“Cheers!” Niall said, raising his bottle to Louis and Zayn who echoed his sentiments, before draining it completely in one and grabbing another. Louis would be impressed but he’d seen Niall do much more impressive things with alcoholic beverages, he certainly lived up to the Irish stereotype.

“So, we all ready for tonight lads?” Niall said, “We’re getting on it like Sonic!” He grinned widely before grabbing the remote and pointing it at the flat screen TV on the far wall, turning on MTV Hits and laughing delightedly as naked Miley swung towards him.

“God yeah, I need a bloody drink after the week I’ve had, s’ been a nightmare!” Louis exclaimed, gulping from his bottle, sighing contentedly when the cool liquid slipped down his throat.

“Simon been up yer’ arse again?” Niall asked with a smirk.

“I wish,” Louis replied, sticking his tongue out. “Nah just in need of a night out with my boys! Hope you don’t mind that I invited that Harry guy though, bit of an impulse thing…”

“Nah mate, the more the merrier!” Niall said with a grin, raising his bottle. “When’s he getting here anyway? I’ve got some new drinking games to show ya from the last time I was back home! Gunna be legendary!”

Zayn groaned and Louis laughed delightedly, he remembered last time Niall had forced them into a game of alcohol Russian roulette and Zayn had had to shot vodka mixed with sour milk. Before vomiting. A lot.

“Soon mate, I texted him the address and said 8 o’ clock so shouldn’t be long now, hope he’s not against consuming 20 times the recommended daily intake á la Niall Horan…oh god I bet he’s bloody t- total or sumat’ wouldn’t be fuckin’ surprised!” Louis groaned just as three quick knocks sounded on Niall’s front door, causing Louis to freeze and look pleadingly at Niall to answer it.

Niall jumped up and pulled the door open to reveal a fidgeting Harry, looking fan- bloody- tastic in his usual tight black skinnies, wearing a rather bizarrely patterned black and white shirt which he somehow managed to pull off, dark curls pushed back from his face with a royal blue head scarf.

“Hi mate,” Harry smiled warmly at Niall, “m’ Harry, this is for you.” He held out a bottle of Glenfiddich which Niall took gleefully, before pulling Harry into a hug, Harry leaning into it and not looking at all awkward that a strange Irishman was plastered to his front.

“Fucking ace!” Niall exclaimed, pulling back. “You can stay! I’m Niall by the way, I think you’ve met these two idiots before.” He gestured to Louis and Zayn. Zayn raised a hand and gave a small smile, always slightly reserved with strangers, whilst Louis bounded to his feet, meeting Harry’s warm gaze and not being able to stop the smile from spreading over his face.

“Hi.”

“Hi.” Harry replied, beaming. They stayed staring at each other for just a beat too long before Harry walked further in to the flat, looking around.

“Great place,” he said to Niall, “I see you’re uh- Welsh?” He grinned menacingly as everyone burst out laughing, Niall crying out ‘Blasphemy!’ before shoving a tall green hat adorned with shamrocks on Harry’s head, cackling madly.

Niall made to shut the door behind Harry but Harry put a hand out to stop him. “Wait a sec, I invited my flatmate, hope that’s alright, he was just held up helping a little old lady with her shopping bags down the hall.”

“How very chivalrous of him!” Louis exclaimed, plopping back down onto the sofa and grabbing his beer.

“Typical Liam,” Harry smiled back. Liam. Louis froze and turned to Zayn, matching looks of horror. Zayn’s face went through several micro expressions before landing on a mix of fear and desire to mould himself into an armchair, á la Horace Slughorn.

Niall was, of course, clueless and peeked his head out of the door, “Here he is!” he exclaimed, cheerfully, as Liam entered the flat, white t shirt tight on his biceps, blue jeans loose with what appeared to be a red bandana hanging out of the back pocket, which Louis was 90% sure was some sort of secret homosexual code. He wondered if Liam knew.

“Sorry, sorry,” Liam said hurriedly, bustling in and dropping a Tesco bag on the coffee table, “I had to put away about 60 packets of custard creams, honestly…” he turned around with a wide smile, which quickly faded into a look akin to that of a dear in headlights when he spotted Zayn, who was cowering in his seat trying to look as small as possible.

“Oh uh Hi!” Liam babbled, “Hi everyone! I’m Liam…uhhhh yeah, hi!” Harry looked on, puzzled at the exchange as Louis, Zayn and Niall exchanged wide eyed looks before Niall clapped his hands a little louder than necessary, trying to diffuse the tension by lunging at Liam and grabbing him into an enthusiastic hug. Liam looked a little taken aback and gingerly patted Niall on the back, sneaking covert glances at Zayn.

“I’m Niall! Great t’ meet ya! Lemme get you a beer…yes…alcohol, brilliant.” He let Liam go, who staggered slightly, before bounding to the tub, pulling out beers for Harry and Liam.

“Sit, sit!” Niall gestured to the sofa and free arm chairs, throwing himself down on a green beanbag covered in small dancing leprechauns.

Harry sat down next to Louis on the sofa, whose heart rate did not pick up thank you, and gestured to the plastic bag Liam had dropped on the table.

“Bloody hell’s that?” He said, leaning forward and peeking into the bag. Louis couldn’t help but notice the stretch of his muscles evident as the shirt tightened across his back and felt a swooping sensation in his stomach which he shut up by downing the rest of his beer.

“Oh it’s uh- peppermint liquor…the old lady gave it to me as a ‘thank you,’ it’s probably been in her cupboard since the 80s,” Liam replied, sitting rather stiffly in the armchair next to Niall’s beanbag.

Louis, Niall, Zayn and Liam gave matching looks of disgust at the bag but Harry clapped his hands delightedly.

“Ooh I love peppermint!” He exclaimed, grabbing the bottle of what looked like very gone off cough medicine and unscrewing the cap, taking a sip. “Yum!”

Louis tried and failed to not be endeared as Harry held the bottle to him, grinning widely. Louis took a swig and tried not to think about the echo of Harry’s lips on the glass rim brushing his own, wincing as the liquid slipped down his throat with a sharp tang of what tasted like mouthwash. He quickly pasted a fake smile on his face and nodded overly- enthusiastically at Harry’s hopeful look, before passing the bottle to Niall, who shrugged before downing about a third of it.

The next couple of hours passed quickly, Harry and Liam fitting seamlessly into their little group, laughter, jokes and banter passing back and forth as if the five had been friends for a lot longer. Even Liam seemed to lighten up after a few of Niall’s ‘homemade concoctions,’ Zayn also relaxing and joining in with the games and ribbing, occasionally meeting Liam’s eyes and blushing, looking away hurriedly.

The more Louis drank, the more he found himself leaning into Harry’s side, the warmth from the taller boy spreading through his skin, joining the heat of the alcohol and making Louis feel fuzzy and content. The thing is, was that Harry was dorky, and funny and nice and just lovely, and Louis felt more and more of his animosity slipping away as the night went on, finding himself giggling and blushing like an idiot as Harry helped him out of the taxi when they’d decided to head on to their favourite bar, stumbling a little and grabbing on to Harry’s bicep, appreciating the hard muscle he found there.

“Steady, you,” Harry mumbled softly, steadying him, hands fitting perfectly around Louis small waist. Louis blushed and bit his lip, noting the way Harry’s gaze dropped to his mouth, the moment suddenly heated, the alcohol encouraging them like a dedicated supporter, yelling from the stands.

They were broken out of their moment by Niall yelling “C’mon ya twats,” as he held the door open to their usual haunt, music and voices blaring through the opening.

The Rope and Anchor had been a favourite since their uni days, drinks cheap enough for them to manage but still had a great atmosphere, and a dance floor. Because after a few drinks, Louis liked to get his Beyoncé on, and what.

They entered the place and were greeted by a wave from Paul, the barman that had got to know them and all their embarrassing drunk incidents rather well over the years. The small dance floor was already crowded with gyrating couples and groups laughing at each other’s awful dance moves as the speakers blared out Katy Perry.

Zayn had already commandeered their usual booth up on the small platform overlooking both the dance floor and bar, and Louis slid himself in just as Niall yelled ‘shots!’ grabbing Liam’s arm and pulling him with him. Harry slid in next to Louis and gave him a dopey grin, Louis attributing the respective flush with the raised temperature and shrugged out of his jacket. He noted Harry’s gaze as it tracked down his collarbones and along his tan arms, not missing the darkening of Harry’s iris’s and peep of white teeth as he nibbled at his plump bottom lip.

“Sick ink,” Harry said softly, voice slightly deeper than normal. He ran the pad of his thumb over the stag on Louis’ right bicep, leaving a trail of goose bumps in his wake, causing Louis to tremble slightly.

“Thanks,” he said, huskily, Harry’s intense gaze interrupted by Niall slamming down a tray of shots on the table, liquid jumping from the small glasses.

“Nialllll,” Zayn whined, “you’re wasting it!”

Niall grinned, “spillage is lickage,” he winked, causing a burst of laughter from Harry.

“To that!” Harry exclaimed, grabbing a shot glass from the tray and passing it to Louis before picking up his own and raising it, the others following suit.

“To that!” They echoed, all draining the clear liquid before reaching for the second and draining that.

Louis felt the familiar burn of the vodka settle in his chest as he observed the groups laughter, Harry once again pressed into his side, engaging in a fierce debate with Niall over Sambuca vs. Tequila.

*

Several shots and a few fruity drinks later, Louis was pleasantly buzzed, standing at the bar with Zayn as Harry, Liam and Niall jumped around on the dance floor together, laughing.

“Harry seems really great Lou,” Zayn said with a knowing look, casually sipping his beer although Louis could tell by his eyes that Zayn was as far gone as he was.

Louis couldn’t help the slight smile that took over his face, “Yeah he’s pretty wicked…Liam seems cool too, now he’s loosened up a bit.”

Zayn blanched before slapping a hand to his face and groaning slightly, “I’m still so embarrassed…and he’s been lovely tonight, like hasn’t tried to make me feel awkward or anything…I dunno…he’s so bloody fit Louis!”

Louis laughed and patted Zayn’s shoulder consolingly. “For what it’s worth, I think he likes you! He keeps looking at you and stuff…” He tailed off as he gestured towards the dance floor and saw Harry throwing his head back with laughter at something Niall had said, lights from the dance floor catching his face and illuminating his silhouette. He was beautiful. And fuck, Louis was drunk.

“You think?” Zayn replied, hopefully, snapping Louis out of his daze, slight vulnerability shining through now the alcohol had loosened his inhibitions.

“Of course babe,” Louis replied with a grin, “who wouldn’t want you, you’re bloody stonking, even if it pains me to admit it,” he teased.

“Thanks man,” Zayn grinned at him and brought him in for a quick hug, hooking his chin over Louis shoulder.

“Oh bloody hell,” Zayn said suddenly, “12 o’ clock.”

Louis loosened himself from Zayn’s embrace and slowly turned around, face contorting in disgust as he noticed the figure striding towards him, gaggle of friends in tow.

“Oh Christ,” Louis muttered, “It’s night of the living quiff.” He drew himself to full height as the figure approached him, tall and skinny, made to look taller by the gelled quiff of dark hair hanging off his forehead, smirk evident even in the soft lights of the pub.

“Well if it isn’t my favourite little publishing mogul,” the figure exclaimed, tone dripping in mirth.

Louis’ jaw tightened as he met the taller man’s dark eyes, he was not little.

“Grimshaw.” Louis said, shortly. “How’s things down at Westman Press? Still crying over the fact we get more deals than you? More revenue than you? More authors on the bestseller list than you? I could go on…”

Nick’s shoulders tightened as he eyed Louis with contempt. Nick Grimshaw had actually worked at Cowell Publishing a year or so ago, but had left to join a rival company with two of their most valued authors, so it was safe to say he wasn’t very well liked at Cowell’s. Louis was pretty sure Simon had seriously considered hiring a hitman and having Nick murdered, but called it off when the next books by the stolen authors had bombed.

Nick and Louis’s rivalry had begun when Louis started at Cowell’s and had continued ever since, both always vying to be the wittiest, the most sarcastic and funny, get the most shags… the list continued. Louis thought Nick was a pretentious hipster twat and Nick thought Louis was a tiny northerner with a god complex. Safe to say they weren’t exactly bosom buddies.

“Give it a rest, Tomlinson,” Nick drawled, looking bored. “You’re just jealous that I will always be much funnier, much more successful and much better looking than you.”

Louis raised an eyebrow and made sure to give Nick an icy once over at an achingly slow pace, pulling a face at Nick’s pink paisley shirt and white trousers.

“Don’t get ahead of yourself, Grimshaw, you’ll become too big for your quiff.” Louis was about to turn away dramatically, thrilled at getting the last word, when he was pushed aside as a gangly figure brushed past him, leaping at Nick with a cry of ‘Grimmy!’

Louis was preparing his best dirty look as Nick threw his arms around the very rude person and swung him around, when he realised who it was.

Harry’s arms were tight around Nick’s back as he laughed at something Nick whispered in his ear, pulling back and beaming delightedly.

“Louis! You know Grimmy?!” Harry looked thrilled as Nick looked on with a wicked smirk, Louis felt his stomach drop because of course, of course this was happening. Just when he thought Harry was pretty damn perfect, he had to ruin it by being friends with this gargantuan twat.

“Oh, we go way back,” Nick replied with a sly grin, putting a hand round Harry’s broad shoulders and pulling him in to his side. Louis knew immediately this was Nick’s way of staking a claim, he may as well have worn a neon sign flashing ‘MINE’ around his neck complete with possessive dance routine.

Harry smiled happily, blissfully unaware of the death glares Louis was shooting at Nick, he was nowhere near drunk enough for this shit.

“Well, Grimshaw, it’s been a pleasure, as always, give my regards to the quiff…” Louis turned away, not before seeing Harry’s face fall slightly into a frown.

Louis needed tequila, stat, to combat the rush of thoughts seeping into the corners and crevices of his mind, his back prickling in annoyance. Bloody Grimshaw and his bloody quiff, swooping in and trying to ruin Louis’ night, the idiot. Even with his back turned Louis could sense Nick’s smirk, hand curled possessively around Harry’s shoulder, touching him a bit on the side of ‘too much’ and teasing him with the perfect level of humour and flirtatiousness. Louis knew his techniques well, and the fact Nick was using them on Harry did funny things to Louis’ insides that may or may not involve the need to choke Nick with the logoed towel on the bar used to mop up spillages.

After Ben had supplied him with two tequila shots that he downed in quick succession, Louis surveyed the pub, searching for his friends. Niall was on the dance floor, as always, surrounded by a group he’d probably met about five minutes ago who already thought he was the best thing ever. Louis noted with a raised eyebrow, Liam and Zayn, huddled together in their booth from earlier, talking quietly, faces close. Louis saw Liam smile softly and place a hand on Zayn’s forearm and he grinned, pleased for Zayn and also himself for no longer having to put up with Zayn’s whining. His eyes moved to Grimshaw’s little group of happy hipsters and his smile faded. Harry was pressed close to Nick, talking animatedly to an orange haired girl on his other side. Louis could feel the tequila ebb away at the tension in his muscles as he started to relax. He could do this. Oh it was so on. Nick wasn’t going to know what hit him.

A small smile took over Louis’ features as the first few bars of Beyoncé’s ‘Drunk in Love’ came on over the sound system, now knowing exactly what was needed to get himself back in the game. Beyoncé was his jam, and he knew exactly how to use her. Pushing himself off the bar, Louis made his way over to the dance floor, finding a spot for himself between others but knowing those near the bar area had a good view of him.

As the song started up, Louis started to move his hips, slowly at first, arching his back just so, running his hands up his torso and into his hair. He closed his eyes and let the music flow through him, alcohol helping eradicate any embarrassment. He knew he could dance like this, knew just how to move his bum and hips, drive a guy wild. His movements quickened as the chorus kicked in, eyes still squeezed shut as he gyrated, hands running down his own body and up, through his hair. The beat slowed slightly and Louis really went for it, arching his back further to show off his bum, moving his hips tantalizingly and biting his lip. It wasn’t long before Louis got exactly what he wanted. Two large hands suddenly rested on the dip of his waist, hold far too tender to be anyone else, Harry’s spicy cologne filling Louis nostrils.

“Lou…” Harry’s voice was slightly hoarse, his touch light. He was still, not pressing into Louis’ back yet, but Louis could see when he tilted his head up how dark Harry’s eyes were, lips bitten raw. “You look…fuck,” he trailed off, grip on Louis hips tightening.

Louis looked up at him with hooded eyes, looking loose and blissed out. “Dance with me.” He pushed his hips back slightly and felt Harry gasp quietly, hesitating for just one second before sliding his hands to Louis’ hipbones and pulling him back towards him, arse to crotch. Louis moved his hips in slow, teasing circles against Harry’s crotch, reaching up with one hand to the back of Harry’s neck, pulling his head down slightly and pressing their cheeks together. Harry fit in to him perfectly, matching his movements to Louis’ as they danced, grip on Louis’ hips tightening the closer their bodies got. It was ridiculously hot and Louis’ could feel a stirring in his groin, becoming hotter and hotter as they danced, bodies moulded together, Harry’s short pants in his ear, curls tickling his face. Every time Louis pressed his bum back with particular force Harry would emit a small gasp, fingernails digging into Louis’ torso as he ran his hands up and down Louis’ body. Louis could feel Harry’s half- hard cock against his back and he wanted, wanted to wreck him, have him completely fucked out, moaning Louis’ name like a mantra. Then he would mail Nick a large inflatable hand with its middle finger up to his work place.

Louis and Harry were in their own little bubble of teasing movements, heat, and arousal, not noticing the sexy beat of the music fading out. They were burst from their intensity when the loud chords of ‘Teenage Dirtbag’ thrashed through the sound system, quite a dramatic difference really, and Niall bounded his way over to them, screaming the lyrics in their faces. Both of them sprang apart, flushed and sweaty, bodies still compared to the jumping others on the dance floor around them, mood completely gone. Louis and Harry stared at each other, both panting slightly with exertion and arousal and unsure where to go from there when they were jostled by Liam and Zayn joining the group, jumping and singing the lyrics until they were all pressed together laughing and dancing.

Louis caught Harry’s eyes and grinned a crinkly eyed smile when Harry sang, ‘Listen to Iron Maiden baby, with me, ooh- ooh- ooh- ooh,’ directly at him across the group, dimples on full display. Louis was fucked.

*

The level of intoxication crashed into Louis like a freight train a short while later, his body deciding the appropriate response was to go into sleepy mode. By this time they were all back in their booth, relaxed, chatting aimlessly about this and that, all slurring and laughing in their varying levels of drunkenness.

Louis sat with his head reclined back against the padded seat, eyes closed, listening to the conversation around him and the sounds of the pub winding down, the last few couples still holding each other up on the dance floor before they would stumbling home to get lost in each other’s bodies.

Harry nudged his shoulder and Louis opened his eyes, seeing a lazy, drunk smile on Harry’s face.

“You okay?” Harry asked, shuffling closer to Louis which he disguised under the pretence of adjusting his gangly limbs.

“Yeah, m’ good,” Louis slurred, “jus’ drunk ‘n a bit tired.” He lifted a hand and patted at Harry’s soft curls, getting right in the springy bits. “You okay Hazza Bear?” It was testament to how drunk he was that Louis didn’t immediately freeze up and make some joke to stave off his embarrassment, the nickname slipping easily off his tongue.

Harry just smiled, as if pleased, leaning into the hand still petting his curls. “M’ good, yeah,” He said, “m’ drunk and I would very much like to lie down.”

Louis smiled fondly at him and turned to usher the other boys into leaving. They normally just crashed at Niall’s when out as it was within walking distance, and Harry and Liam followed them easily, too drunk and tired to care or make other plans.

Once back Niall headed to his room with a sleepy ‘night lads, great night, love ya’ whilst Zayn commandeered the reclining chair and Liam collapsed on the beanbag. Louis was with it enough to pull out some blankets from the cupboard in the hall and drape them over Zayn and Liam’s already fast asleep forms. It hadn’t really registered that it was just the sofa left and that he was going to have to share it with Harry, but there were worst things that could have happened, really.

Louis ambled towards the kitchen, still a little hazy and headed towards the kettle. Harry gave him a questioning look.

“Can’t sleep without a cuppa tea,” Louis admitted, flicking the switch and grabbing a mug. “Want one?”

“Yes please,” Harry replied, opening the fridge and grabbing out the half full carton of semi- skimmed, the two working together seamlessly and leaving the kitchen with a mug of steaming tea each.

They perched on opposite ends of the couch, facing each other. Harry looked at him expectantly.

“I had four sisters growing up”, Louis explained, “I’d put ‘em all to bed and me an’ me mum would always have a cuppa at the end of the day, just chat about like, our day and stuff. Kinda turned into a bit of a habit.” He smiled fondly at the memory and sipped his tea, world slowly restoring back to its natural balance.

“Blimey,” Harry said, “four sisters…bet that was interesting!”

Louis laughed, “You could say that…I’ve got five now, and a little brother. My mum had another set of twins a couple of years back, going home is always a shock to the system!”

“I bet!” Harry exclaimed, “where is home, anyway?”

Louis went on to explain about his Doncaster upbringing, and Harry told him about growing up in Holmes Chapel, his mum and stepdad and his older sister Gemma, who he seemed to adore. The two swapped stories and giggled quietly, sipping tea until their eyelids grew heavy and words started to slur, this time solely from tiredness. Louis got up and turned off the lights, before surveying the sofa situation, suddenly unsure of where to place himself.

Harry made the decision easy by shifting himself so he was lying down and scooting over, patting the empty space next to him. Louis went easily, lying next to Harry and pulling blankets over their clothed bodies. Without hesitation, Harry pulled Louis close to him, snaking an arm beneath his head to act as a pillow and wrapping the other around Louis waist, pulling his back to his front so they were spooning.

“This okay?” Harry whispered in Louis ear, hot breath tickling his cheek.

“Yeah,” Louis replied, shifting back closer to Harry and placing his arm on top of the one wrapped around his waist. “More than okay.”

Truth be told it had been a long time since Louis had been held like this, it felt so intimate and just so comfortable having Harry wrapped around him that he drifted off easily, warm and content, thinking how strange it was that a week ago he’d have crossed the street to avoid Harry but here he was now, so wrapped up in him that it was hard to know whose limbs were whose but feeling like it may not feel quite so wrong after all.

*

The next morning Louis woke up a little disorientated, with a dry mouth and what felt like a marching band going to town over his skull. It took a few moments for him to blearily open his eyes and blink a few times, soon becoming aware of the warm weight pressed against his back, little sleepy snuffles next to his ear and a big hand spanning over his tummy. Memories from last night, some hazier than others, slowly crept back into his brain and he remembered the Grimshaw incident and dancing with Harry, being so aroused it felt like his balls might jump and wrap his dick in a choke hold, and stumbling home, body pressed against Harry’s, the talking and storytelling before bed, falling asleep wrapped in Harry’s arms as if it was something he did every night.

That thought no longer made him want to make a Louis’ shaped hole in the front door.

Louis felt Harry sleepily stir slightly behind him, arms tightening and pulling him closer back into his body, nuzzling slightly into Louis neck and the wispy ends of his hair.

“No no, you stay,” Harry murmured groggily, evidently still half asleep and slightly incoherent.

Louis smiled softly to himself and patted Harry’s hand, “Don’t think I could move even if I wanted to, to be quite honest.”

Harry gave a happy sounding little ‘hmm’ and squeezed Louis even tighter, a minute or so passing before sleepy snuffles could be heard once more. Louis tried and failed to not be hopelessly endeared and compare Harry to a cute little puppy in his mind, making a note to find a show on monster trucks later and force himself to watch it and reassert his manliness.

Louis must have dozed off again because the next thing he knew was the delicious aroma of fried goodness filling his nostrils, opening his eyes and seeing Niall at the stove wearing just a pair of green boxer briefs and a grey vest, frying pan in front of him spitting.

“Mornin’!” Niall sang cheerfully, grabbing tongs and turning over the cooking bacon.

“Oh Nialler…I think I love you,” Louis said with a yawn, slowly easing himself out from Harry’s octopus limbs, the younger boy still sleeping silently, curls falling over his soft features.

“Don’t let Harry hear you say that!” Niall said with a cackle, transferring what appeared to be several packets worth of cooked bacon onto a large plate, and spooning fluffy eggs into a dish.

“Shut it,” Louis replied, standing up and stretching out his limbs, a small niggle in his back from the night spent on the sofa. “Nothing happened…we just fell asleep.”

Niall raised his eyebrows and carried the plate of bacon and another loaded with slices of bread over to the table. “S’ not what it looked like last night! I saw you two dancing, blimey, nearly had to have a wank in the middle of the dance floor!” He laughed as he grabbed the dish of eggs and sat down, immediately making a large stack of bread and bacon into a layered sandwich, squeezing tomato sauce over the pile.

Louis gave Niall a dirty look but for once in his life couldn’t think of an appropriate response. He had been a little out of control last night with his attempt to woo Harry and keep him away from nightmare on quiff street, so he started to help himself to bacon in lieu of replying, the glorious scent slowly rousing the others who engaged in a ritual of yawning and stretching before making their way towards the table.

Louis held up the plate of bacon, “Mutilated pig carcass anyone?” He asked.

Harry laughed and bounded towards Louis, grabbing the plate out of his hands. “Definitely,” he said with a grin, sitting down next to Louis and shovelling food onto his plate.

The atmosphere wasn’t at all awkward which Louis found he was glad of, everyone chatting and shoving food into their mouths despite their hungover state. Louis recalled how close Zayn and Liam had looked towards the end of the night and watched with a smile as Liam piled bread and eggs onto a plate and handed it to Zayn before sorting his own, Zayn blushing slightly and stammering his thanks. Zayn had been blushing like a school girl far too much recently, it was really rather disconcerting and did nothing for his ‘bad boy brooding artist’ image. Louis was going to have to have words.

After stuffing themselves so it was difficult to move, Harry and Liam got ready to leave, Harry waxing poetic about a toothbrush, hot shower and a marathon of ‘Breaking Bad’ on his sofa. Liking Breaking Bad was another tick in The Harry Styles box and Louis may have found himself clinging a little tighter than normal when Harry made the obligatory round of farewell hugs. It would seem the other two had been widely accepted into their social circle as Niall forced them to promise to come to their next tequila night. Louis sympathised greatly, newcomers always fared worse.

Louis and Zayn stayed a while longer, alternating playing Niall at fifa and laughing and cheering until their hangovers started to ebb away. Louis attempted to grill Zayn about Liam but he was being surprisingly evasive, just muttering about how nice Liam was complete with blush that seemed to be permanently etched into his cheeks these days.

“Besides!” Zayn exclaimed, “what about you and Harry?! I saw the two of you cuddling on the sofa.”

“Spooning leads to forking.” Niall said with a straight face, before bursting into laughter.

“No…,” Louis stammered, his own blush colouring his cheeks. “S’not like that…it’s just…y’ know…I dunno.” He was nothing if not eloquent. The other two raised their eyebrows at him but otherwise let it slide, knowing Louis sometimes had problem wording how he was feeling.

“For what it’s worth,” Niall continued, “I really liked ‘em. They were top lads, it’d be cool to hang again or whatever.”

“Yeah,” Zayn agreed, “Definitely. And I think you were wrong about Harry, Lou, he seems pretty great.” Zayn’s gaze was knowing, as if he could tell that Louis had basically been catapulted from his original feelings towards Harry to wanting to do very sickening things like buy him flowers and trial rose petals at his feet wherever he walked. Louis blamed the alcohol.

They eventually dragged themselves away from Niall’s flatscreen and made to head home, Zayn claiming if he wasn’t in his bed in the next half an hour he was going to spontaneously combust.

Louis slipped on his shoes and looked around for his jacket, frowning when he couldn’t see it where he’d chucked it when they got in last night. He was just about to ask Niall when he recalled Harry picking up a jacket earlier on his way out, despite not bringing one with him the night before. And, well, bugger. This meant he had a definite reason to see Harry again and Louis’ stomach fluttered at the thought, the anticipation feeling a bit foreign.

His phone was dead but when he plugged it in and turned it on later when he was back in his bedroom, the message icon flashed up with a text from Harry causing Louis to flush slightly and nearly put a thumb through his phone screen in his haste to open it.

Harry Cupcake :) :) : I put my jacket on earlier and realised it had shrunk in the wash. And then I realised I didn’t own that jacket. And then I realised it was your jacket. .xx

Louis Tomlinson: They take a hand for thievery in some countries young Harold. Consider yourself warned. X

Harry Cupcake :) :) : I seem to recall telling you it was just Harry, not Harold…and I’d offer you a hand any time. Is that too forward? .xx

Louis laughed out loud at that and straightened himself on his bed. Oh he could get his flirt on.

Louis Tomlinson: Alright ‘Just Harry’, I may just take you up on that offer… ;) x

He added the winky emoticon which was universally known to basically stand for ‘WE ARE FLIRTING, THIS IS FLIRTING, LOOK AT HOW FLIRTY WE ARE’ and leaned back against his pillow to wait for a response, wondering slightly if he had gone a bit too far. Damn those bloody emoticons. His phone dinged after he had reordered all of his hair products and alphabetised all of his DVDs, and upon hearing it Louis forced himself to finish dusting his photo frames before he answered it. He was not desperate and needy. He had the appropriate levels of self-control. The wait was much harder than it should have been.

Harry Cupcake :) :) : We’ll see… I am sorry though, I’ll drop it by yours later? I know where you live, I know what you did last summer etc etc .xx

Louis frowned a little at the cryptic ‘we’ll see’ but couldn’t help the thrill that tizzed up his spine at the thought of Harry coming over. He quickly texted a confirmation and ran out of his bedroom, grabbing used mugs and putting them in the sink, throwing away old takeaway containers and straightening the cushions as he went. Once the flat looked slightly more presentable (Louis refused to think about the fact he was voluntarily cleaning for this boy, there was definitely something seriously wrong with him) Louis took a breath, surveying his handy work. It definitely looked better, didn’t even look like it’d been recently set on fire at all.

Louis knew Alberto proper loved him because a day or so after their last phone conversation he’d sent around a painter and repair man who’d touched everything up, and hadn’t even sent them the bill. Legend. The singed curtains were still up, but Louis thought they added character. This flat had definitely seen some things.

After a long, hot shower that eased the ache in his muscles always evident after a night out and uncomfortable sleeping arrangements, Louis put on his pair of black trackies without the suspicious looking ‘toothpaste stains’ and a patterned white tank, pulling a red beanie over his drying hair that flattened his fringe to his forehead. Satisfied he looked the appropriate mixture of ‘soft’ and ‘sexy,’ Louis plonked himself down on the sofa and turned on the TV, settling on a singing competition programme he was pretty sure was ‘The X Factor’.

He’d just watched someone butcher ‘Someone Like You’ by Adele when three soft knocks sounded on the door, causing Louis to jump up and immediately straighten his clothes, checking his somewhat distorted reflection in the kettle.

He opened the door and found Harry stood there, smiling sheepishly, wearing his trademark black jeans and boots, looking cosy in a white jumper with black zig- zags, his curls flowing freely and not pulled back by his usual headscarf. Louis kind of wanted to live in them.

“Hi.” Louis said, not being able to contain his smile upon seeing Harry, even though it had literally been about 8 hours.

“Hi.” Harry beamed back, holding out Louis jacket that was draped over his arm. “I believe this is yours?”

Louis stepped back to let him in and took the offered jacket, chucking it on a stool by the breakfast bar.

“Thanks. I suppose you’ve stretched it out with your big man shoulders?”

Harry chuckled. “Pfft, I’m sorry we can’t all be so small and perfectly formed.” He teased.

Louis’ insides were too busy doing the can- can at Harry’s use of the word ‘perfect’ to chastise him for calling him small, and he perched on the arm of the sofa, trying to regain some form of self- control and not do something ridiculous like propose. The effect Harry had on him was really quite scary.

“So last night was fun…” Harry continued, “Even if that sofa killed my back, it was definitely worth it.” He looked so sincere Louis felt his insides clench with the effort to not grin like an absolute madman and scare Harry away. He needed to regain control of the situation and he did it in the best way he knew how.

“You might say you needed some time spent flat on your back to recover…” Louis said, suggestively, throwing in an exaggerated wink to convey just the right amount of humour as he flirted.

Harry chuckled quietly before slowly making his way towards where Louis was perched on the sofa. Every step he took added another layer of tension to the atmosphere around them, Louis feeling his pulse quicken slightly and his mouth turn dry. His tongue darted out to lick his dry lips, slowing the movement to a more seductive pace when he noticed Harry tracking it with a hooded gaze.

“Perhaps.” Harry said, quietly. He was crowded up in Louis space now, head bowed down as he caught Louis’ eyes in an intense gaze. Harry’s fingers trailed slightly over Louis’ clothed thighs, the tips brushing a slight pattern that inched its way higher and higher, causing Louis’ breath to hitch, arousal pooling in his gut.

Their gaze was still locked as Harry bent slightly further down, this time flicking his eyes to Louis’ plump lower lip and biting his own at the sight, hands moving to grip tightly at Louis’ soft hips.

The atmosphere seemed to crackle around them as Louis tilted his head back further, Harry was so near his hot breath tickled Louis’ cheek. Their lips were so close to meeting Louis could almost feel the ghost of a soft kiss, before Harry pulled back completely and took a step back, a teasing smile playing on his lips when he saw Louis’ crinkled forehead as he frowned slightly in confusion.

“Such a shame I have to leave for work now though…” Harry’s voice was slightly deeper than usual and sent a shiver up Louis’ spine, he was still sat on the sofa arm trying to figure out what had just happened, the tension in the air still thick as his body remained in a wired state of arousal.

Louis was still gaping like a fish (definitely his most attractive look) as Harry slowly made his way towards the door, walking backwards so his gaze remained locked on Louis face.

“But why don’t you stop by the fire station tomorrow? I can show you around… I might even let you slide down the pole…” If anyone else had said it, it would have been completely corny but in Harry’s soft drawl the mere thought sent a spark straight to Louis’ dick, the jolt almost causing him to nearly fall off the sofa which elicited a satisfied smirk from Harry, who slipped out of the door before Louis could even comprehend coming up with a witty retort.

So Harry Styles was a tease…and a bloody good one at that, Louis was still semi- hard in his joggers and they’d barely touched. He scowled at the realisation that Harry had played him at his own game, and played it well but he couldn’t help being impressed, as well as feeling a knot of anticipation in his stomach at the thought of what tomorrow might bring.

He got up, legs feeling slightly unsteady (he was going weak at the knees for this boy what the bloody hell was his problem) and ambled towards the kitchen, needing a cup of his favourite Yorkshire tea to calm his nerves and help him start planning for tomorrows wooing attempt. He spied the jacket Harry had brought on the stool and picked it up, hesitating slightly before burying his face in it, sighing in relief when the familiar scent of Harry’s spicy cologne filled his nostrils, paired with the faint scent of baking and something that was just Harry.

A snort broke him out of his sniffing reverie, and Louis snapped his head up to see a sleep- ruffled Zayn doubled over with laughter, smacking a palm on his bare knee.

Louis threw a tea bag at him.

*

“I can’t go. That’s it, I’m not going.”

“You’re being ridiculous, Lou. Of course you’re going.” Zayn sighed in exasperation as he watched Louis pace around their flat for the twentieth time from his position sprawled on the sofa. Louis had changed his mind about a hundred times over the last half an hour, nerves completely taking over and leaving him a bit of a wreck. Or, a huge, ginormous wreck.

“But Zayn, I can’t, have you seen him?! He’s so fit… god his shoulders, the curls, the bloody dimples… I can’t Zayn, I’m going to humiliate myself.” Louis stopped pacing to send Zayn a panicked look. He’d been cool as a cucumber when he’d got up this morning, showering and styling his hair with no qualms at all, even picking out an appropriate outfit without throwing a paddy. It wasn’t until an hour before he had to leave that the panic had hit him and the pacing at started. But hey, at least he’d burnt off the twix he had for breakfast.

Louis was not normally a nervous person, preferring to charge into a situation all guns blazing and take control. Which was probably the reason why Louis had caught Simon trying to slip Valium into his tea on several occasions. Simon was probably not the most conventional boss. Or the most covert.

But it was something about Harry that made Louis feel like he was turning into a mush like substance, something that made his palms sweat and his heart beat erratically. Louis was naturally quite smooth when trying to pull men, his wit and charm often leaving them laughing and looking at him like he was all they ever wanted. It was a shame that look often seemed to slowly merge into one more likely to be described as exasperation, fondness curling up like leaves in autumn and slowly dropping to the ground until nothing’s left but empty arms and final words.

But Louis wouldn’t let himself think about things like that, especially right now, preferring to bottle it up and paint over negative feelings with loudness and laughter. Harry felt different, and Louis was planning on finding out just exactly where this could go. He stopped pacing.

“I’m going.”

Zayn just looked at him. “I know.”

*

On the walk to the station, Louis felt calm slowly flow through him like drugs in the blood stream, pace slowing from frantic to one more leisurely. He was wearing the jacket, Harry’s scent still lingering when he zipped the collar fully up as a protest against the biting wind.

He knew not to get into his own head, not let the needling voice of ’not good enough’ that sometimes made an appearance cause him to resort to the only defence mechanism he knew. Becoming overly loud and so boisterous it often bordered on arrogance was a way Louis sometimes behaved when he was feeling insecure and nervous, berating himself when he saw the curled lips and unhidden looks of dislike but being unable to stop, people turning away never knowing it wasn’t really him, never knowing it was just a mask, a role, a part to play.

He refused to be that person with Harry. Whatever might happen, he’d be the real Louis, he was determined of that.

The large fire station came into view and Louis felt his gut twist slightly with nerves and anticipation as he approached, dodging puddles from the previous night’s unrelenting rain. The two- storey red doors stood open to reveal one of the huge, standard issue red engines, an empty space next to it where another would usually sit. Louis took in the tall practise tower behind the brick building, blackened slightly from so often being set on fire for training exercises. Just as Louis stepped through the cavernous entrance, a broad man strode out of a side door in a tight fitted navy t- shirt and baggy fireman’s trousers held up with red braces, a large hose slung over his left shoulder. Louis recognised Liam immediately and greeted him warmly, Liam hugging him with his right arm and clapping him on the back.

“Harry’s upstairs!” Liam said cheerfully, shifting the hose to his other shoulder with ease. “You should see him, most of the other guys are off in the other engine on a job.”

Liam’s smile faltered slightly and he hesitated, booted feet shuffling slightly on the ground.

“Umm…how’s Zayn doing?” Liam fidgeted but looked at Louis with slightly desperately as if he really wanted to know the answer.

Louis raised an eyebrow, Zayn had told him earlier that despite asking for his number, Liam hadn’t texted or called Zayn since their night out. Zayn had said, whilst blushing furiously, that they’d talked a lot on Friday and that Liam loved Marvel almost as much as Zayn and said he was actually really flattered by the drawings, and that he’d wanted to talk to Zayn before but didn’t know what to say. Louis wasn’t sure what was going on with Liam but he would definitely set the ball rolling if he needed to.

“He’s great yeah, just at home getting ready to go out, I think he might have a date actually…” This was a bare- faced lie, Zayn’s ‘date’ was actually playing GTA in his pants with Niall and smoking weed but Liam never had to know. Louis was nothing if not a great friend, and the panicked look on Liam’s face said it all.

“Oh…oh right.” Liam looked quite stricken and Louis felt slightly bad.

“Well, I say date but I’m not sure Zayn sees the guy like that…I think he likes someone else actually.” Louis was a genius.

Liam’s face lit up. “Oh really? Who?!”

“I’m not sure…” Louis said casually. “Anyway, bye Liam!” He scampered through the side door, leaving an open- mouthed Liam standing stock still on the entryway.

As he made his way upstairs, Louis was faintly surprised to see the shining metal pole standing tall through a large circle in the ceiling, he’d always thought they were a bit of a myth, to be honest.

He spied a couple of other uniformed men sat at a long table, playing cards. One was pretty fit actually, looked to be in his thirties with floppy dark hair, the other slightly older with short reddish brown hair. Just as Louis had concluded that Harry wasn’t in what appeared to be a break room similar to the one at his work but larger and without all the stolen goods, the man in question strode in, whistling softly, wearing his full uniform with his jacket open, and swinging a luminous yellow helmet by the strap. Harry stopped as soon as he saw Louis and beamed, face lighting up. If Louis swooned slightly then he covered it up well, probably.

“Lou! Hey! So glad you came.”

Louis couldn’t doubt the sincerity in Harry’s words and he found himself smiling widely back, heart jumping slightly on just seeing Harry again.

”And miss you wave your giant hose around for all to see? Never.” Louis grinned wickedly and Harry laughed out loud, doing an exaggerated wink before gesturing to the men sat at the table.

“Louis, this is Ben and Cal, my most devoted followers and sadly inferior firefighters, and this is our break room!”

Harry received the middle finger from the fitter one, Ben, Louis thought before they greeted Louis politely, eyes fixed on their cards. Harry sidled up behind the older one, Cal, and held up 3 fingers behind his back for Ben to see before doing an exaggerated curtesy and hand movements that appeared to be him crowning himself. Louis fancied a moron. Ben however, grinned slyly and immediately tossed more chips on the table, causing Cal to frown and quickly look around, Harry having made it back to Louis side with surprisingly quiet coordination.

“I’ll give you the rest of the tour shall I?” Harry suggested innocently, causing Ben to snicker slightly and Louis to wonder if that was a euphemism. He hoped so.

Harry quickly showed him a small kitchen and what appeared to be an office crammed with two small desks, babbling happily about the people he worked with and the pranks they played on each other, before leading him into a room right at the back.

“This is the locker room.” Harry said, sweeping his hand across the room. It didn’t look dissimilar to one you’d see in school, with wooden benches and rows of tall blue lockers.

Louis sensed this was the end of the tour and was increasingly aware of Harry’s bulky form pressed against his back.

“This is where we all get changed, see,” Harry said into Louis’ ear in a quiet voice, his breath tickling the back of Louis’ neck. “At the end of the day when we’re all hot, and sweaty…or just out of the shower...all us firefighters taking off our uniforms…can get a bit crowded…”

Louis squeezed his eyes shut and swallowed, knowing the slight edge to Harry’s voice was mostly teasing but he couldn’t stop the twitch in his groin, acutely aware of how close Harry’s body was to his. He felt Harry’s hands go to his small waist, pulling Louis back into Harry’s body.

“Bet you’d like seeing that, wouldn’t you Lou?” Harry followed every couple of words with a light brush of his lips on Louis neck, the barely there sensation feeling so ridiculously sensual Louis felt his legs weaken and he struggled to keep himself upright.

“Just you” Louis breathed as he tilted his head back on Harry’s shoulder, allowing the taller man better access to his throat. With one last nip to the skin on his neck that caused Louis to whine out loud, Harry span Louis around, their eyes meeting in a heated gaze for a few seconds before Louis stretched up as Harry leaned down, lips meeting and crashing together.

It should have been harsh and clumsy except that it wasn’t, Harry’s lips were soft and pliant and he opened his mouth easily for Louis to lick into, tasting of mint, and a hint of banana. Louis sighed with content as he locked his arms around Harry’s neck, pressing himself closer into Harry’s body. Harry’s hands roamed down his back before sliding over his arse, giving the cheeks a quick squeeze before lowering them, hoisting Louis up and swinging him round so he was pressed up against the lockers. Louis didn’t hesitate to wrap his legs around Harry’s slim hips, running his hands through Harry’s thick curls and pulling slightly, causing Harry to gasp into his mouth and nip at his lip. It was without a doubt the hottest kiss of Louis life.

Harry detached from Louis lips and started slowly kissing down the shaft of his throat, pausing slightly to bite and suck at the skin. Louis moaned unabashedly and threw his head back against the metal locker, the clang echoing around the room and mixing with their panting breaths.

Louis shifted slightly and rolled his hips, both of them groaning in unison when their cocks brushed, Louis feeling Harry was just as achingly hard as he was despite his bulky trousers.

“God I want you.” Harry panted into his ear before running his tongue over Louis’ earlobe. “Wanted you since the moment you refused to let me in to put out that fire…you’re so fucking hot Lou.”

Louis attacked Harry’s mouth again, fitting their tongues together and gripping hard at Harry’s shoulders, his sweaty palms slipping slightly off the tough material.

“Fuck,” Louis gasped when he finally pulled back. “Want you so fucking much…want to fuck you so bad.”

Harry gasped slightly before kissing Louis hard, only pulling back to nod frantically.

“Fuck yeah, I want that, fuck.” Harry stepped back from the lockers, hands still under Louis’ bum and holding him up. He quickly walked over to a pile of spare fire jackets in the corner of the room and sat back on them, pulling Louis so he was now straddling Harry’s lap, knees either side of his thighs.

Louis didn’t hesitate to dive back in for another kiss, shifting slightly so their cocks were in line and rutted against Harry, groaning at the friction, hands gripping Harry’s red braces.

“Off, off.” Louis pulled at Harry’s trousers impatiently, struggling with the clasps of the braces holding them in place. Louis quickly took off his jacket and pulled off his t- shirt, causing Harry to stop his own attempts at unfixing the braces and stare at Louis’ torso with hooded eyes, gaze raking over Louis’ tan skin and slim but slightly curvy waist.

“God you’re so fucking hot.” Harry stated, running his hands down Louis’ sides and leaning his head in to nip at Louis’ tattooed collarbones. Louis whimpered slightly before noticing Harry’s trousers were free and quickly worked them down Harry’s long legs, unlacing Harry’s heavy boots when he got there.

Louis bent to kiss lightly at Harry’s bare thighs, eliciting a low groan from Harry. He could see Harry’s erection tenting his tight black boxer briefs and he was massive, Louis was itching to get his mouth on him.

Harry went to shrug out of his jacket, braces still on but lose and dangling, when Louis put out a hand to stop him.

“No…” Louis muttered, “Leave it on.” Harry raised his eyebrows but obliged, pulling Louis to him for another heated kiss. Despite its bulkiness, Louis was pretty into Harry’s uniform and it wasn’t every day you got to live out of the fantasy of basically every single middle- aged housewife.

A small part of Louis brain was registering that they were in an unlocked room that someone could walk into at any time but he found it very hard to care when Harry’s fingers were fumbling with the button and zipper on his jeans, hand brushing against his aching cock with every attempt causing him to buck his hips forward slightly.

Louis quickly pulled off his jeans and shoes and resumed his position straddling Harry, whining in both relief and arousal as their cocks brushed together with just the thin material of their boxers between them.

Harry cupped Louis’ bum with both hands and started to grind up against him mercilessly, both of them moaning far too loud for two people who hadn’t even taken their underwear off yet.

Louis pulled back from the kiss and brushed his lips down Harry’s jaw and throat, stopping at the side of his neck to suck a mark into the pale skin there. One look at Harry’s head thrown back in pleasure, a sheen on his forehead and mouth wide open caused Louis’ hard cock to twitch in his boxers. He wanted to wreck Harry.

Kissing softly down his chest, Louis’ tongue darted out and brushed Harry’s left nipple, the bud immediately hardening as he took it into his mouth and sucked, causing Harry to moan loudly and buck his hips up.

Louis gave the same attention to Harry’s right nipple, causing the younger boy to writhe beneath him and pant loudly. Louis noticed with a wicked smirk what appeared to be two extra nipples on Harry’s torso and he attacked those as well, marking his skin until he reached the soft trail of dark hair leading into Harry’s boxers.

He nosed along the line of Harry’s cock and breathed in the slight scent of cum along with what he knew was pure Harry and he mouthed at Harry’s cock through his boxers, causing Harry to moan loudly, thigh muscles twitching under Louis’ hands.

“I bet you taste as good as you smell, hmm?” Louis muttered, sucking at the wet spot of pre-cum that had soaked through Harry’s pants and relishing the slightly salty taste that spread across his tongue. “Can’t wait to get your huge cock in my mouth, really wanna suck you.”

Harry groaned and huffed out a “Please, please,” as Louis slowly hooked his fingers over the waistband of Harry’s Calvin’s, inching them down at an achingly slow pace and causing Harry to fidget restlessly.

When Louis had finally pulled the pants over Harry’s feet he sat back and took in the sight of Harry, naked from the waist down but fire jacket and braces still on, curls matted to his forehead and eyes dark with lust, achingly hard cock curved up slightly and leaking pre- cum onto his defined abs.

Now Louis knew that the male genitalia was perhaps not the most attractive thing in the wold, but Harry’s cock was lovely, long and thick and smooth- looking. Louis may or may not be salivating.

He ducked his head to kiss the soft skin of Harry’s inner thighs, brushing his lips up along Harry’s groin but never quite near enough to his cock. Harry was polite enough to not buck up his hips and shove his cock directly into Louis’ face but Louis could see the twitch of his muscles at the effort not to, knowing he was being a tease but trying to pay Harry back slightly for his tricks the other day that had resulted in Louis getting himself off three times in two hours.

“Please.” Harry panted again, hands gripping so hard against the coats beneath him that his knuckles were turning white.

Louis paused for a second before wrapping his hand around Harry’s thick cock, stroking him once softly and causing him to moan loudly at the contact.

After a few more quick strokes that had Harry trembling, Louis bent down and licked at the head of Harry’s cock before suckling it into his mouth gently, swallowing down the small blurt of pre- cum that spurted out as Harry moaned loudly, his hands finding Louis’ hair and gripping hard.

Louis ducked his head and took as much of Harry into his mouth as he could, finding a rhythm and moving his hand in time with his mouth on the part he couldn’t reach as Harry’s breathy moans punctuated the air.

After a short while Louis pulled off Harry’s cock with a pop, continuing to shallowly stroke him with his hand.

“Have you got stuff?” Louis panted, knowing they couldn’t continue without lube and condoms and contemplating throwing himself headfirst down the pole if Harry didn’t.

“Yeah,” Harry breathed, gesturing towards a brown leather bag by the nearest bench. “In the side pocket.”

Louis retrieved the goods from the bag with a relieved sigh, raising an eyebrow at the passion fruit flavoured lube before settling between Harry’s legs once more and licking a stripe up his cock in one motion that caused Harry to groan loudly.

Louis gently kissed and licked up Harry’s shaft whilst managing to slick up three fingers, his lips finding the head as he trailed a wet finger up and down the crack of Harry’s arse, causing him to whine needily and try and push down on nothing.

Louis slowed his finger, hovering around Harry’s entrance before slowly starting to rub around his rim, Harry arching his back and panting out little ‘please’ ‘s and ‘more’ ‘s.

Louis slowly eased his finger past the thick muscle and up to his first knuckle, giving occasional kitten licks to the head of Harry’s cock as he worked his finger fully in and moved it in and out slowly, giving Harry’s body time to adjust to the small stretch.

Louis slowly eased in a second and watched Harry’s face for signs of discomfort. Seeing nothing but a gaping mouth and eyes tight with pleasure he began to fuck his fingers in and out of Harry, pushing deeper and searching for the thing he knew would make Harry shout.

Louis skilful finger soon located the firm nub and he rubbed against it relentlessly, Harry arching his back and pushing down onto Louis’ fingers with a breathy cry.

“Fuck! There, there, fuck.” Harry panted, letting out a squeal of surprise when Louis added a third finger.

Louis drove his fingers deep into Harry and took his cock in his mouth once more, his own neglected and aching, still enclosed in his boxers.

Harry’s hands were tight in his hair, the slight burn feeling more pleasurable than painful as he swallowed Harry down, gagging slightly when Harry’s cock hit the back of his throat but worth it when Harry let out a string of expletives, timing the bobbing of his head with the push of his fingers in Harry.

Harry pulled at his hair gently with a “Lou, Lou. M’ ready, fuck me, please, I need you.”

Louis pulled off Harry’s cock and slowed his fingers, bringing them to a stop and leaving them inside Harry, filling him up.

“You sure?” Louis asked. Harry nodded a frantic yes and Louis slowly eased his fingers out before quickly shucking his boxers and reached for a condom, the foil packet slipping slightly in his wet fingers.

Harry sat up and pulled the packet from Louis hand, long fingers quickly tearing it open. Harry held Louis’ gaze with an intense look as he rolled the condom down Louis length, hauling him in for a kiss when the condom was fully on.

Louis pushed Harry back down onto the jackets, partly wishing he had Harry completely naked but not wanting to end the experience of fucking Harry in uniform. Louis slipped his hands under Harry’s knees and pulled his legs up so they were draped over his shoulders, and made to line his cock up with Harry’s entrance before something caught his eye.

“Put that on.” Louis said, gesturing to the yellow helmet on the floor near Harry’s left arm. Harry groaned and grabbed it without protest, jamming it on his head and panting up at Louis. Louis was all about ‘go big or go home’.

He looked so fucking hot, a blurt of pre- cum spurted out of Louis dick into the condom. Louis wanted to write a complete retelling of this moment complete with illustrations and force Simon to publish it, he made a mental note to suggest it Monday, although so far Simon hadn’t published any of his suggestions, wanker.

“Look so fucking hot Haz.” Louis grunted as he pressed the head of his cock against Harry’s rim, moving it in slow teasing circles.

“Mpphh just fuck me, please Lou.” Harry groaned, trying to push his arse down against Louis’ hard cock.

Gripping Harry’s thigh with his other hand, Louis slowly pushed his cock against Harry’s rim, gasping at the tight sensation as he eased himself in.

Louis went agonizingly slowly, not wanting to hurt Harry but also relishing the feeling of Harry’s hot, tight walls around his cock.

When Louis finally bottomed out, they both moaned in unison, Harry’s hands coming up to grip Louis biceps, face screwed up in pleasure, lips bitten red raw. Louis stayed sunk into Harry for a few beats, causing Harry to whine and wriggle his arse on Louis cock. Louis pulled out nearly all the way and thrust hard into Harry, causing him to moan so loudly Louis wouldn’t be surprised if Ben and Cal were mostly likely stuffing the playing cards into their ears by now.

Louis set a fast pace to begin with, slamming into Harry whose cock was so hard it was almost purple rubbed between their bellies. Harry felt so fucking good, and he was so responsive, chanting Louis’ name and moaning and whimpering, moving his hips in time with Louis’ thrusts and carding his hands through Louis’ hair, the bulky sleeves of his jacket rubbing against Louis’ shoulders.

When Louis started to feel the familiar warmth pooling in his stomach he slowed his pace slightly, driving into Harry deeper and hitting his prostate with every thrust, causing Harry to cry out continuously. Louis snaked a hand between their bodies and grasped Harry’s leaking cock, pumping it in time with his thrusts which were now becoming more erratic as he chased his orgasm.

Louis pressed his body down, practically bending Harry in half and tipped the helmet off Harry’s head slightly to give him a chaste kiss, it being not much more than them panting into each other’s mouths.

“M’ close, so fucking close.” Harry murmured against Louis’ lips. Louis drew back slightly and doubled his efforts, aiming for Harry’s prostate with each thrust whilst still stroking his cock until Harry was coming, hard, spurts of white hitting both their chests as Harry threw his head back, mouth open but with little sound coming out. Louis milked him through it as Harry’s body trembled before Louis’ own orgasm coiled and struck him, hips stuttering as he filled the condom, still moving in weak thrusts inside Harry.

After the aftershocks had finally finished sizzling through Louis’ body, he gently pulled out of Harry and pulled the condom off, tying it and chucking it over his shoulder where it bounced off a locker and fell to the floor with a squelch.

Louis lowered Harry’s trembling legs off his shoulder and collapsed over Harry’s chest, feeling strong arms wrap around his back and hold him there.

“Bloody hell.” Louis panted, nuzzling his face into Harry’s neck and feeling the rough material of Harry’s jacket rub against his torso.

“Bloody hell, indeed.” Harry replied with a chuckle, shaking the helmet off his head and running a hand through his sweaty curls. “That was fucking amazing.”

“Well I do love a man in uniform.” Louis stated as his heart rate started to slow and he felt the inevitable weariness settle over his bones after a really good orgasm start to kick in.

“You’re a bloody cliché!” Harry laughed, sitting up and pulling Louis with him so he now sat naked in Harry’s lap. Harry shrugged off the jacket and limp braces with a sigh of relief, Louis feeling slightly bad about how hot Harry must have been but figuring it was completely, 100% worth it.

They stayed cuddled close together for a little while, Harry’s arms engulfing Louis’ small form on his lap, the hold slightly too intimate for a first fuck but Louis found it felt completely comfortable and natural, probably too much so as he felt his eyes start to feel heavy, Harry rubbing soothing circles into his back and kissing the side of his head gently.

Louis was shaken from his doze by the sound of voices and thumping boots slowly inching closer, resulting in him and Harry leaping up and grabbing at their clothes, giggling and finding excuses to touch each other as they dressed hurriedly, feeling like naughty teenagers caught in the act by their parents.

Harry pulled Louis in for a soft kiss when they got to the door, the hustle and bustle of the fire station melting into background noise as their lips moved against each other, the sweet kiss a stark antithesis to their urgent fucking earlier but still meaning just as much. Louis sighed into Harry’s mouth contently, gently rubbing a thumb over Harry’s cheek. He was completely, utterly, fucked.

It was only when Louis’ got home after several lingering kisses from Harry outside the fire station and a somewhat dazed walk back that he realized they’d left the used condom on the locker room floor. Oops.

*

Monday morning saw Louis positively skipping into the break room (a far cry from his usual behaviour, people practically gawped when he beamed a good morning, poor Sven almost dropped his frappuccino) grinning widely when he spotted Zayn and Niall sprawled on the sofa pouring over some of Zayn’s latest drawings. The sketches that had previously displayed Liam Payne’s face in all its glory had been rubbed out, the new faces not looking dissimilar to what happened to the Mona Lisa painting in Mr. Bean. Clearly Zayn was dealing with some issues.

“Boys!” Louis greeted them cheerfully, bending down to smack a kiss on the tops of both of their heads before sashaying towards the kettle.

Perrie stumbled in, a bit bleary eyed and hair this time a bright, peroxide blonde.

“Pezza!” Louis exclaimed, dashing over to give her a tight hug.

Perrie looked slightly taken aback before locking her eyes on Louis’ face, pointing at him accusingly. “You had sex!”

Louis laughed and wiggled his eyebrows. “I ding diddly- did!”

“Oh no,” Niall groaned, “He’s gone into his ‘Flanders’ phase again…always happens after he gets a shag.”

Zayn immediately gathered up his drawings and exited the room with a blunt “No.”

 Perrie gave Louis a swift high five before hefting a large canvas bag over her shoulder and exiting with a mug of coffee, leaving Louis to plonk down next to Niall who was munching on a chocolate bar.

“Well, I’m happy for ‘yer mate. That Harry is a top lad.” Niall said, reaching a hand forward to tweak Louis’ nipple, who slapped it away with a squawk.

“Thanks Nialler! Can always count on you.” Louis beamed at him, flicking the peak of Niall’s cap. “Ya’ know…as a celebration for me being crowned ‘top of the year’…maybe you could tell me what exactly it is you do for a living?”

Niall just smiled slightly and shook his head. “Oh, Louis, Louis, Louis.” He said, clambering over the back of the sofa and bounding out of the door.

“I’m taking that as you being Simon’s personal sexretary!” Louis yelled after him, another possible answer to the ongoing ‘what exactly is it that Niall does’ debate.

He grabbed his tea and started to walk towards his office, humming ‘Let it go’ (the Demi Lovato version, of course) as he ambled dreamily across the office floor, resulting in Oli the intern to ask him if he wasn’t feeling well. Honestly, what was wrong with these people, Louis was always a little ray of sunshine at work, well, except for days that ended in a ‘y’.

Louis was busying himself drawing little stick men on post it notes with squiggles on that look suspiciously like curly hair when Simon strode into the room. He was often barging straight into Louis’ small office to yell at him for not doing any work, to throw various bits of paper at him or to reprimand him for emailing things like ‘It’s okay that it’s cloudy outside today Si because your teeth are brighter than the sun’. Louis thought they had a brilliant working relationship, to be honest.

Simon zeroed in on Louis’ slumped form and made his way to the desk, slapping some files down on the wooden surface with a smack. Louis noted with surprise that the line of Simon’s trousers clearly visible through his tight black t- shirt were only at just above belly- button height today, a stark contrast to his usual up to the shoulders proportions.

Louis opened his mouth to say so when he was interrupted by Simon. “Tomlinson, these are todays approved proposals, get onto the agents stat to arrange a meeting.”

Simon was always saying things like ‘stat’, probably thinking he was much more cooler and important than he really is. Louis raised an eyebrow, barely looking up from his doodle that had now surprisingly developed into the curly figure on its knees. Shock.

“Of course Simon, right away sir!” Louis replied, tone slightly mocking.

Simon pursed his lips but made to turn back around, pausing slightly at the door.

“Oh and Tomlinson…don’t think I didn’t notice the incredibly graphic 2000 word gay sex scene that snuck its way in to the latest proposals, submitted under the name ‘John Green.” Simon regarded him shrewdly but Louis swore he could see the corner of his lips quirk, just slightly. “And it’s a no from me. An even bigger one if you count the drawings that came with it.”

“But Simon!” Louis protested, “That was my best work!” He smacked a hand over his heart and adopted an expression of a wounded animal, trying really hard to make his eyes water. He was definitely an actor in a previous life.

“If that was your best work then I weep for humanity.” Simon retorted.

With a last glare that Louis always took to be Simon’s way of expressing fond admiration, he swept from the room, leaving Louis feeling slightly confused. He’d thought his piece was rather brilliant, he’d described, in vivid detail, the hottest sex of his life. He bet Simon secretly wanked to it, and made a mental note to look in his bin for suspicious looking tissues next time he went into Simon’s office to steal from his endless supply of mints. Beat doing any real work, anyway.

A minute later, Louis’ phone buzzed on his desk. Seeing the Snapchat icon saying it was from Harry saw Louis breaking out into a ridiculous grin. He was truly pathetic.

Harry’s Snapchat was his grinning face, curls askew and clutching a tiny kitten with leopard like spots next to his cheek, a half taken apart car in the background and the caption reading ‘curiosity didn’t kill the cat!’

Louis ignored the voice in his mind that sounded suspiciously like Zayn mocking him for the fact this was one of the things Louis had disliked Harry for in the first place. It was so cute, he almost sobbed pathetically into his paperwork. Almost.

*

Louis’ slightly manic grin only seemed to get bigger as the week went on. He and Harry were texting, snapchatting and facetiming virtually non- stop, Louis was surprised he hadn’t passed out with the amount of times his heart had fluttered every time his phone beeped with a new notification. The more they spoke, the more Louis’ heart swelled whenever he thought about Harry (so basically, all the time, he would soon resemble The Grinch at Christmas). Harry was clever and funny, his texts often making Louis laugh out loud or cringe at one of his god awful puns or knock- knock jokes. His snapchat’s were something else- when Louis’ received one on his lunch break of wet, shirtless Harry courtesy of a fire station hose prank- he’d almost choked on his piece of melon (and surreptitiously rushed to the toilets at work to wank himself into a frenzy- he’d like to say it was the first time that had happened but, he’d definitely be lying).

All in all, things were going great. Louis was the epitome of everything he hated when people had a crush: giggling whenever he received a message from Harry complete with butterflies and a pounding heart, constantly thinking about Harry and finding reasons to name- drop him into conversations (resulting in Niall screaming ‘I feel like I’m the one shagging Harry the amount you go on about him!’ Louis may or may not have thrown a shoe at his head in a jealous rage), and even being on the receiving end of one of Simon’s hour long lecturers because he’d only submitted vomit- inducing soppy novels for publishing (‘We are not running a Nicholas Sparks fan club here, Louis’) and had wasted so many post it notes doodling hearts he was being threatened with a bill. His face seemed like it was a permanent shade of fuchsia and what was especially worrying was that he only grinned dopily at people when they teased him instead of his usual death glare and scathing comeback that usually had his co-workers crying into their coffees.

The only issue was the distinct lack of replication of that mind- blowing experience in the fire station locker room. Louis had popped down to the bakery a few times on the evenings Harry was working, which hadn’t been much more than flirting outrageously (complete with a lot of ‘cream’ related jokes) and Harry feeding Louis bits of pastry from the kitchen, but that had given them little more than a peck over the counter. Louis thought he was going to explode in a sperm- related apocalypse, his near semi- permanent erection was so bad he had taken to wearing looser trousers and cold- showers were now the norm every morning.

They’d managed to squeeze in a couple of walks in the park when Harry was on his break from the fire station, even holding hands was enough to make Louis’ heart pump faster and skin prickle. Honestly, he might have a problem. He could have shoved Harry up against a tree or gone behind a bush and ravished him but quite frankly that type of public sex was definitely overrated, he’d rather not get leaves down the back of his trousers and he knew what a cold breeze could do to one’s erection. Plus, Louis Tomlinson was a bit of a romantic, and would rather not get arrested for indecent exposure or conducted into a dogging circle on the second date.

However, Louis was a man with a plan, and had told Harry that he had no choice but to let Louis commandeer his next evening off. Harry didn’t seem to mind very much. Louis had shooed Zayn out of the flat with a twenty- pack of Marlboro’s and a brand new lighter with the Batman silhouette on it to appease him, had ordered in from his favourite Thai restaurant and had even decorated the flat with a few dotted around tea lights, Ed Sheeran’s latest album crooning in the background. He could definitely pull off this romance lark.

Louis put on his tightest pair of black skinnies, the ones that made his arse and muscular thighs looks sinful, and a navy blue button down shirt, styling his hair in a sweeping fringe and leaving just the right amount of scruff on his face so he looked edgy and sexy. Or thought he did, anyhow.

He placed the bottle of white wine (that had cost him over ten quid, he must really like this boy) in the middle of the laid table and perched on the sofa, flicking through his battered copy of ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ he found under the coffee table. Harry was due at 8ish and Louis had a few minutes to go so he curled up on the sofa with his book, getting lost in a myriad of teen thoughts and drama.

When 8 o’ clock came Louis sat up and waited. And waited. And waited.

At half past 9 he sent Harry a whatsapp message, attempting to seem light-hearted despite the sinking feeling in his stomach.

Louis Tomlinson: Get lost on your way Hazza? Wouldn’t be surprised! Let me know when you’re near J xxxx

His heart sunk even further when ten minutes later he saw the dreaded two ticks meaning Harry had seen the message. Another 10 minutes passed, then twenty, then forty and his phone was constantly flashing on/ off as Louis checked for a message that never came.

At 11 o’ clock he blew out the candles, put the wine back in the fridge and threw the unused crockery in the sink. He overly aggressively stabbed at the ‘off’ button on the remote to the speakers as ‘we’re not friends, nor have we ever been,’ filled the room. He walked into his room and stripped off his fancy clothes, tossing them into a pile in the corner and threw himself under the covers with clenched fist and a growing ache in his stomach.

Louis replayed scenes and moments from the last couple of weeks in his mind, Harry throwing his head back to laugh at one of Louis’ jokes, Harry stroking his thumb over the back of Louis’ hand as they walked, Harry’s sparkling eyes and soft smile as he pulled back from a kiss, expression open and awed. Louis wondered where he’d gone wrong, maybe he’d teased too much, pushed too far, moved too fast. Maybe he’d been so typically himself that Harry had done what all the others had done before him and when they’d cracked the surface they’d seen something they didn’t like. He was always too sarcastic, too cynical, too loud. Always too much.

Or there was the one that had hurt the most, when he’d been left with broken picture frames and empty boxes, left with the words that still haunted him on bad days, the script running on a loop across the back of his eyelids. ‘I can’t do this anymore. I can’t be what you need.’

Louis turned over with a sigh, the ache in his chest still prominent. A part of him thought he might be overreacting, that there was a logical explanation and that maybe, maybe Harry still wanted him and had a perfectly acceptable excuse. It wasn’t enough to ease the pounding of words in his mind, words that only made an appearance on a black day and swarmed Louis’ brain likes bees, stinging and pinching and biting until he was shaking.

He willed the words away and shifted onto his side. It took a long time for him to fall asleep.

*

Louis woke after a restless night’s sleep to the weight of a skinny figure clambering onto his bed and draping themselves over his curled- up form, all sharp elbows and pointy knees. Louis groaned at the disturbance and was about to reach around and tickle Zayn until he cried when the memories of last night slowly came back to him, crashing over like waves on the shoreline and leaving him drowning.

Louis squeezed his eyes shut and willed Zayn to just leave without any questions or innuendos, knowing completely that he wouldn’t.

“Louisssssss wake upppp!” Zayn sang, fingers prodding up Louis arms and sides sharply. “You’re alone? Does that mean you didn’t put out on the first date?! What’s happened to you?!” Zayn chuckled slightly, his smile quickly fading into a frown of concern when Louis didn’t respond, choosing to curl up smaller into a ball and hide his face.

“Lou?” Zayn said curiously, “what happened?” He rubbed soothing circles into Louis’ back until Louis knew he’d have to give Zayn something, even if he’d much rather stay under the covers for the rest of his life.

Louis turned over and sat up slowly, ducking his head to avoid Zayn’s questioning gaze.

“Nothing. Just didn’t happen is all.” Louis said quietly, gaze fixed on his hands which he twisted in his lap.

“Why not?” Zayn asked gently. “Did he not want to?”

“Well I have no idea about his needs and wants because he didn’t bloody turn up, alright Z? Is that what you wanted?” Louis replied sharply, refusing to look up and meet Zayn’s sympathetic stare, feelings of humiliation and rejection thrumming through his body.

Zayn seemed to sense that he didn’t want to talk about it, and instead wrapped Louis up in his arms, curling around him seamlessly as they always knew to do when they found the other buried under the covers, wrapped in a blanket of hurt and seeking comfort only the other could give.

They lay together for a long time before Zayn murmured something about putting the kettle on. He disentangled his limbs from Louis’ before leaning over to stroke his hair gently.

“I’m sorry, Lou.” Zayn said softly, “But maybe don’t give up quite yet?” Zayn got up and padded out of the room without waiting for a reply.

*

So Louis didn’t. It took 4 unanswered text messages, 3 voicemails which never received a reply and 2 trips down to the bakery, for Louis to give up.

It wasn’t until he caught the flash of a blue and white striped headscarf holding back a mound of curls through a door way as an elderly lady told him ‘sorry dear but Harry isn’t in today’ that he deflated completely, trudging back to the flat and Zayn’s waiting arms, knowing it was all over before it had even really started.

Louis wasn’t sure why he was feeling so much, why losing Harry felt akin to losing a childhood friend or someone he’d known for years. But the near constant weight in his stomach didn’t lie, Louis knowing that it was probably the ‘what if’s’ that hurt the most. He’d just clicked with Harry like he never had with anyone before, and the boy had already carved a curly shaped hole in Louis’ life in the short time he’d been around, bringing with him lightness, and laughter. It was the severed possibilities that hurt Louis the most, which left him with downturned lips and etched in frown lines, sinking with the weight of a thousand stones as he dragged himself out of bed every morning, going about his everyday routine with forced movements and downcast eyes.

About two weeks later, when the sympathetic smiles and overly cheerful greetings of his co-workers were just about building him up for an explosion, Louis was called into Simon’s office.

He trudged in with a sigh and a wary expression, expecting another lecture or threat of bodily harm from Simon to really make his morning.

However when he walked in, shutting the door behind him, Simon was sat behind his desk, looking at Louis and lips curled into what Louis assumed was meant to be a smile. It was all rather disconcerting.

“Sit, sit.” Simon said with a sweep of his hand towards two straight- backed chairs in front of his large wooden desk.

Louis sat perched on the edge of the chair, jiggling a knee impatiently as he fixed Simon with a questioning stare.

Simon leaned forward across the desk and sought Louis’ gaze. “How are you doing, Louis?” He said, no trace of sarcasm in his voice.

Not only was the use of his actual name bizarre (Simon normally addressed him with his surname, or mostly just an ‘oi you’) but Simon inquiring after the well- being of another human being was similar to if Voldemort skipped down the street handing out sweets instead of killing curses.

Louis expression was probably a picture but he quickly schooled it into a blank canvas. “Me?” He replied, “Oh I’m just fabulous thanks, never better, really.” Louis was still waiting for the other pin to drop, like Simon sending him for ‘smiling lessons’ or something equally ridiculous. Instead, Simon sighed a little before pulling out a file from one of his desk drawers, hesitating slightly before opening it.

Louis gulped, oh god, he was going to be fired. Not only had he been through the biggest rejection of his life but he was literally about to get fired. What even was his life? Louis mentally ran though the meagre amount of savings in his bank account and how long he could live on it when Simon interrupted his frantic calculations.

“Are you sure? It’s just…a lot of the work you’ve been submitting lately has been, well, on the more angsty side of things…bordering on bloody depressing if I’m being honest.” Simon said, shuffling through the papers slightly uncomfortably.

“Maybe they were just all brilliant pieces of work.” Louis replied defensively. Just because he’d spent an entire evening crying into his pack of hobnobs over the stories didn’t mean they were depressing, Jesus.

“Louis, there’s one here about a girl whose parents die, friends die, pets die, and then she dies. It is without a doubt the worst story I’ve ever heard of.”

Louis rolled his eyes. He’d eaten a carton of Ben and Jerry’s to that story.

“Anyway,” Simon continued, leaning forward across the desk. “I hope you’re alright. You’re a good worker Louis, I probably don’t tell you enough.”

Louis thought Simon would rather read graphic fan fiction about him and the deputy CEO Mr. Walsh than ever admit that but here he was. Miracles do happen, apparently.

Simon extended a hand towards Louis’ own before looking quite intensely into his eyes, hesitating slightly before ploughing on. “Louis…I just wanted to say-“

Louis interrupted him by jumping to his feet and dramatically clutching at his heart, pretending to swoon. “Oh Simon!” He gasped dramatically, “I’ve been waiting for this moment for 3 years! I always hoped you feel for me what I feel for you…yes, yes I will marry you!”

He pretended to swoon, giggle and blush for about 5 minutes before Simon kicked him out of his office when Louis attempted to take a selfie with him, for their ‘wedding announcement’.

Louis went back to his desk feeling quite impressed with his performance, and a little cheerier for the first time in weeks.

*

It was only when Louis was picking bits of dorito from his hair after the sixth consecutive episode of ‘Here Comes Honey Boo Boo’ that he truly saw the extent of the rut he and Zayn had found themselves in. They’d both turned down any offers of outside contact and had preferred snuggling on their sofa to reality television and carbohydrates for the last two weekends in a row, not bothering to change out of their pajamas or even brush their teeth for the entire weekend. They were living the male version of Bridget Jones’s Diary.

Despite Louis’ attempts at kicking Liam into action, he still hadn’t made contact with Zayn. Zayn had even frequented the coffee shop in which they were both regulars a few times, but had never seen Liam, instead staying for an afternoon of dark drawings and black coffee.

Zayn was the epitome of not judging a book by its cover, his outward appearance giving off a cool and mysterious vibe but you’d open him up to find a slightly geeky, insecure mess. Zayn had been the first at the door to join Louis’ pity party, and instead of encouraging Zayn to get out there and over Liam, Louis had opened up his blanket for Zayn to dive right in to his island of misery. They were really, quite pathetic.

Louis was just rearranging his rather sticky beanie as he decided what ready meal to put in the microwave when he heard a clatter by the front door. Zayn glanced up from where he was choosing a DVD and pulled a face at Louis, crossing his arms over his bare, tattooed chest.

Another bang came from outside the door before the sound of a key twisting in the lock filled Louis’ ears, he thought that maybe it was Alberto coming to whinge about the smell, Mrs Moss had probably complained, the miserable old hag.

The door was pushed open and two skinny legs entered, arms clutching boxes the piled up only to reveal a shock of bleach blonde hair. Neither Louis nor Zayn had ever given Niall a key but, Niall was probably magic. Or had nicked one when they weren’t looking.

Niall staggered into the room and dropped the boxes on the floor, wrinkling his nose in disgust when he eyed the stack of empty pizza boxes and their dishevelled state.

“Blimey,” Niall said, “good thing I came for an intervention!”

Niall had been trying to cheer them up for weeks, suggesting pints and a range of other mostly alcohol- related activities, whining when they chose ‘Keeping up with the Kardashians’ over him.

“What?” Louis mumbled distractedly, ambling over to where Zayn was choosing between ‘The Notebook’ and ‘P.S I Love You’ and throwing himself onto the sofa. Zayn had barely bothered to glance up at Niall from his position on the floor.

“An intervention.” Niall stated, “You two’ve been moping for far too bloody long. We’re going out. No arguing. Get up and get showered and dressed, you both look bleedin’ awful.”

Louis supposed he should probably be registering some shock at Niall’s firm tone, he was rarely demanding, but he was far too comfortable on the sofa to have any kind of strong feelings.

“Nah,” Zayn said sleepily, “we’re staying in tonight, got DVD’s.” He waved the cases up at Niall from the floor.

Niall stomped his foot, “No! You’ve stayed in the last two weekends, bloody ridiculous. And it’s starting to smell like someone has actually died in here. Up!” He grabbed both of their hands and pulled them both up onto their feet with surprising strength for his skinny arms. Louis and Zayn swayed on the spot slightly, both looking disgruntled.

“You need to go out and get laid or summat’, n’ stop being so miserable, s’ bringing me down!”

“Sorry Nialler,” Louis mumbled. It must be pretty serious if their mood was affecting Niall’s sunny disposition. They really needed to snap out of this funk.

Niall’s face softened, “S’ okay Lou, I get why you’re feelin’ shit, Harry’s a twat.”

Louis flinched slightly at the mention of Harry’s name, he’d been trying not to think about him, every time he did his brain decided to play some sort of video montage of Harry moments in his head, complete with Daniel Bedingfield’s ‘If You’re Not The One’ as a soundtrack. He really was disturbed.

“But,” Niall continued, “what’s wrong with you Zee? I mean I get Liam never texted you or whatever but I thought nothing really happened with you two?”

Zayn just shrugged and shuffled his feet slightly, fingers itching for a cigarette.

“Nah, he just wants someone to paint or snog or whatever, miserable twat.” Louis said affectionately.

Niall studied both of them for a second, a strange expression on his face.

“Oh bloody hell,” he said, before lunging forward towards Zayn, crashing his lips against Zayn’s and kissing him with all his might. Zayn froze, hands in mid-air as Louis gaped at them, eyes widening as he saw Zayn start to kiss back slightly.

Niall pulled back with a smack of his lips, grinning at the shocked expressions on Louis and Zayn’s faces.

“That oughta do it, bit ‘a snogging for ya, plus kind of wanted to see what all the fuss was about… now bugger off or I’ll get you next, Lou!”

They both immediately ran to the shower to get ready, Niall’s display of homoeroticism the shock to the system they needed. Zayn scuttled off looking slightly flustered and Louis trotted off, not wanting to be the next on Niall’s list of endeavours… that was just plain weird.

*

A couple of hours, and several glasses of the homemade sloe gin Niall produced from his boxes later, Louis was feeling better, thinking that he actually might be able to have a good night, maybe even pull an attractive stranger. He’d definitely heard that getting over someone by getting under someone else was a thing, anyway.

The three of them arrived at the bar they were meeting some co- workers in all pleasantly buzzed, Zayn loosening up and laughing at Niall attempting to pay the taxi man with a Nando’s loyalty card as Louis watched on fondly.

They shuffled into the bar and Louis felt himself grinning widely as he spotted his co- workers, Perrie chatting with Jesy and Jade from HR, Josh and Sandy from archives already doing tequila shots at the bar whilst Greg and Ashton from finances cheered them on.

Louis had had a bit of a brief fling with Greg at the last office party, and as Greg turned around and spotted him, giving him a wide grin and a wave, he thought it might be something he’d find himself continuing if given the chance. They’d had fun last time, and Greg might be just what he needed.

Louis’ smiled widened at that thought and he walked towards his co- workers, giving them all with hugs and pecks on the cheek, them all cheering as he bought in a round of shots and downed two in quick succession.

As the night went on, Louis was feeling more and more like himself, laughing and chatting with everyone and even testing the waters by flirting with Greg, feeling pleased when Greg echoed his advances. He felt his confidence come back in drips and drabs, and he grabbed Zayn and Niall on the dance floor, shouting out thanks and appreciation at Niall for forcing them to come out, Niall replying with a screech of ‘everything’s solved with pints!’

His mood couldn’t even be ruined when he spotted Nick Grimshaw on the other side of the dance floor, Nick raising his hand in a cocky wave, smirking, Louis replying with a blank stare and a raised middle finger, mouthing the words ‘I hope you die’ before turning back around, making sure to grind back on Greg slightly. He may be slightly childish, and what.

Louis was leaning against the bar with Greg and Sandy, Greg’s arm loosely around his shoulders, watching Zayn and Niall twirl Perrie and Jesy on the dance floor when he thought he spotted a familiar face.

Louis frowned, his eyes slightly hazy with the alcohol and searched for the figure again, wrinkling his forehead as he tried to place the familiar stocky build and warm smile as the figure flitted through the crowd.

It hit him like a ton of bricks who he was, his heart beat immediately quickening at an alarming rate as his eyes roamed around the room, begging not to find what he was looking for. If Liam was here, then chances were-

Louis saw the tall quiff of Nick Grimshaw before he saw whose shoulders his arm was snaked around, before it clicked just who it was leaning up to giggle into Nick’s neck and whisper in his ear, curls brushing Nick’s cheek as Nick threw his head back with laughter.

It was as though the crowd around Louis had sped up, but he was frozen in place, staring as the lights bounced off pale skin and glittering eyes. And because fate was oh so lovely to Louis, it was at this point that Harry glanced up, eyes immediately locking on Louis’ despite the packed room, face dropping as the ghost of a smile died on his lips.

The air stayed frozen as the two of them locked eyes, Louis’ heartbeat pounding in his ear. It wasn’t until Greg nudged Louis’ cheek with his hand, Harry eyes tracking the movement and Greg’s closeness to Louis with a frown, that Louis snapped out of their bubble of intensity, head swimming. He stumbled slightly as he made to turn around, Greg grabbing his shoulders and steadying him, a concerned look on his face.

“You alright Louis?” Greg asked. “You look really pale.”

Louis just stared at him for a second before turning away, stumbling towards the door of the men’s room and pushing it open, relieved to find it empty. He headed over to a porcelain sink and braced his hands on it, leaning in to stare at himself in the cracked mirror before closing his eyes and taking deep breaths to control his erratic breathing.

Louis should have known really as soon as he saw Grimshaw that Harry might be here, but he was too wrapped up in having a good time, flirting with Greg and loosening up for the first time in weeks. And suddenly Louis was angry, how dare Harry be here, how fucking dare he ruin Louis’ night. How fucking dare he blow Louis off without an explanation then spend the night cosying up with The Incredible Likeness of Quiff, right in front of Louis’ face.

The door clicked open and Louis knew without opening his eyes who it would be.

When he did, he was met with wide green eyes in the mirror and quickly turned around, shoulders set. Harry took a step forward, shoulders dropped and eyes beseeching.

“Louis, I-“

“Go fuck yourself, Harry.” Louis spat out, striding past Harry with a shove and barrelling his way out of the door, leaving Harry standing open mouthed, face stricken. He’d found himself too paralysed by anger to even want to hear an explanation from Harry, even though that’s all he’d been wishing for over the last couple of weeks, he just needed to get out, needed to get the image of Harry’s hurt, fucking beautiful face out of his mind.

Louis pushed his way through the crowd, ignoring Greg’s cries of ‘Louis! Louis!’ as he headed for the exit, not bothering to grab his jacket from the cloakroom, too angry to care about the disgruntled people he shoved out of his way.

Louis squeezed out of the door into the cold air, rain just beginning to spit on the already damp ground. Louis immediately stalked off down the street, angry footsteps fading into slower ones as he calmed down and his fury slowly ebbed away, leaving him feeling dejected and so tired.

He slowly trudged down the empty streets, shivering in his t shirt as the rain quickened its pace, quite fitting for his mood, Louis thought bitterly. He found himself with no regrets about leaving Greg behind, the flings intended purpose seeming stupid. How on earth was it meant to help him get over Harry when one look from those stupid green eyes of his sent emotions crashing over Louis like a waterfall, one glance sending him from drunk, warm and fuzzy to sober, cold and empty.

Louis hunched his shoulders as the wind cut down to his very bones, the rain picking up speed and trickling down the back of his neck. He’d felt his phone buzz in his pocket several times but he found he couldn’t bring himself to look, the guilt of a worried Niall and Zayn eating him up alongside the other swell of emotions that gnawed at him with sharp teeth.

He kept putting one foot in front of the other as he headed towards god knows where, empty streets matching his empty heart.

Louis’ footsteps stilled slightly when he heard the distinct slap of leather on stone echoing around the dark, empty street. Louis heart sank. This was it… he was going to be mugged. No other possibilities, definitely a mugging.

He glanced around nervously as the footsteps grew louder, tightening his arms around himself as if it would give him some protection against whatever was coming.

“Louis!” The voice shouted, the exclamation ringing shrilly through the night.

Oh bloody hell. The mugger knew him by name. Perhaps this was the end. Louis quickened his pace (the possibility of him outrunning anyone was really quite laughable) and flinched when he felt a strong hand curl around his bicep, sharply pulling him back, fear jolting through his body. This was it. He was definitely not being over dramatic in the slightest.

As Louis was yanked around he came face to face with the mugger. Who was in the form of one, very wet, Harry Styles. Harry was panting heavily, chest heaving, sopping curls stuck to his forehead as the light from a street lamp behind them lit up the planes of his face, droplets catching on his eyelids. He looked serene. Louis thought they should repaint the Sistine Chapel entirely with Harry Styles’ face at this very moment. People would flock from around the world to see it, surely.

Louis stood stock still, taking in the damp figure before him before remembering the last time they’d been face to face like this, and he wrenched his arm away fiercely.

“What do you want, Harry?” Louis asked tiredly, all previous fire sizzling out with the rain, poised to stalk off as soon as another imminent rejection was voiced.

“Please,” Harry gasped, resting his palms on his knees as he fought for his breathe back. “I need to explain.”

“Explain what exactly?” Louis spat back. “I think I got the message loud and clear thanks when you stood me up and then proceeded to blank any form of communication from me. Consider me well informed.” He turned and made to storm off, skidding slightly on the wet pavement as the rain beat down relentlessly around them.

“No! Lou, wait!” Harry pleaded desperately, grabbing Louis’ arm again and forcing the shorter boy to turn and look at him, Louis having to crane his neck up, scrunching his nose slightly when droplets hit his face.

“I’m really sorry…I didn’t want to do it alright...I just…” Harry trailed off, a pained look flashing across his face.

“Just what? Forgot about our date did you? Lose your phone the second after you saw my message? The old lady at the bakery sabotaging your love life by telling me you weren’t there when I could clearly see you through the window is she? Kindly don’t insult my fucking intelligence and try to make some bullshit excuses, Harry. I’ve watched all the bloody films alright, I know what it looks like when someone’s not interested. I guess you got your shag and that was it.”

Harry visibly flinched, his grip still tight on Louis’ forearm.

“No!” He pleaded. “It wasn’t like that, I swear! I really fucking like you okay, if you’ll just let me explain everything-“

“You keep blabbing on about explaining but so far I’ve heard fucking nothing!” Louis shouted. “Bullshit you really like me, you wouldn’t have fucking left me waiting like an idiot if you did you fucki-“

Louis was cut off by Harry groaning and pulling him forward sharply by his arm and crashing his lips into Louis’ own. Louis struggled and made an indignant noise for a second before relenting and sighing into Harry’s soft mouth, lips working together seamlessly. Harry let go of Louis’ arm and wound his arms around Louis’ back, pulling him in tighter to his body as Louis threaded his fingers in Harry’s dripping curls.

The rain continued to pound around them but they were oblivious, breathing erratic and tongues sliding against each other frantically. A muffled voice in the back of Louis’ brain was attempting to put up some form of protest but he was mostly lost in Harry’s kiss and the taste of fruity cocktails, feeling like his lips had actually missed Harry’s, which was ridiculous in a way but really fucking true in another.

Harry pulled back slightly with a sigh, cupping Louis’ face and pecking his lips once, twice, three times before pulling back completely, brushing his thumb across Louis’ cheek, wiping off stray droplets.

“Sorry…” Harry murmured. “I just really wanted to fucking do that. You look so hot when you’re angry and wet.” Harry smirked.

Louis stepped back slightly and eyed him dubiously, wondering how on earth he could feel a mixture of deflated and ecstatic at the same time. Harry’s smirk lessened and a slightly guilty look flooded his face as Louis’ silence stretched on.

“Well,” Louis said eventually, “I say I’ve seen all the movies but they certainly seem to make kissing in the rain look a lot more romantic. Quite frankly me’ feet are fucking freezing and me’ pants are wet, so…”

Harry chuckled slightly. “We could…go somewhere? And I can explain? If you’ll let me. Please, you so deserve an explanation, Lou.”

After a kiss like that, Louis knew there wasn’t a chance in hell of him sending Harry on his way. And he really wanted to hear why Harry had been ignoring him, hardly letting himself think that there might be another reason than that Harry was just not that into him. There was a small flickering of something in Louis’ chest. It felt like hope.

“I live kinda near here…” Louis said, gesturing to a road on their right. “If you want?”

“Yeah,” Harry nodded eagerly, “Yeah please, if that’s okay?”

Louis nodded and turned to walk up the road, Harry following and staying close to his side, both of their heads bent against the onslaught of rain that was luckily starting to ebb a little.

“So, um, that guy…” Harry started, somewhat nervously. “That guy from earlier you were with at the bar, was he, um?”

I probably would have fucked him tonight, yeah.” Louis said shortly. He saw little point in trying to hide the truth, now.

Harry flinched slightly before catching himself. “Oh.” He said. “Well…I’m glad you didn’t.”

“Me too.”

*

The walk back to Louis’ flat was a tense one, the air full of electricity and unanswered questions. Louis unlocked his front door and walked in, immediately heading over to the kitchen sink and filling a glass full of water, draining it in one go.

Harry ambled in behind him and shut the front door with a sharp click. Louis turned around after placing the glass in the sink with a clang and eyed Harry, who was dithering awkwardly by the door.

They looked at each other for a few seconds before Louis shuffled awkwardly, mumbling something about grabbing dry clothes and towels.

When he made it into his bedroom he shut the door behind him and leant back on it, throwing his head back with a thump. He was in no way mentally prepared for this conversation. Or potential snogging. Whatever.

Thoughts rushed through his head as he stripped off his wet clothes and pulled on dry joggers and a ratty old band tee, rubbing a towel through his wet hair until it was a fluffy mess. He tried to think of other reasons why Harry had ditched him. Evil twin perhaps? Alien abduction? He’d definitely been reading way too many crappy book proposals. He blamed Simon entirely.

Louis stretched out getting changed way longer than it would have taken on a normal day, knowing as soon as he faced Harry he’d know for sure whether or not it was over. He dithered over choosing some trackies and a t- shirt for Harry borrow before pulling himself together and leaving his bedroom.

He walked back into the other room to see Harry leaning against the counter, two steaming mugs next to him.

“I made tea,” Harry said quickly. “I hope that’s okay?”

Louis resolve almost completely shattered and he had to physically restrain himself from mounting Harry there and then. The way to his heart was definitely through tea.

Instead he just nodded and chucked the spare clothes at Harry who accepted them gratefully, pulling his sopping shirt off with no inhibitions and starting to unbutton his jeans. It took all of Louis’ will power to turn away and sip his tea as Harry changed, thinking his leering would probably not be appropriate for the very much serious super adult talk they were about to have.

When Louis turned back around, Harry had changed into the trackies that were short enough to reveal skinny ankles and jumper which was fairly short on the arms and tight on the shoulders. Louis thought it served him right, lanky twat.

Harry’s curls were still sopping wet and before Louis could really stop himself he’d walked towards Harry, grabbing the towel he’d brought with him and putting it on Harry’s head, rubbing Harry’s hair dry. Harry stood there surprisingly still, and when Louis pulled back slightly the towel slipped and their eyes locked, faces just a little bit too close and tension filling the cramped flat.

Louis’ breath hitched slightly as their gaze locked for a beat too long, but pulled himself back, slapping the towel down and grabbing his tea, hurrying to take a sip and burning his mouth. Smooth.

Harry’s eyes followed him as Louis walked over to the sofa, dithering for a second before sitting down, adjusting his position several times and only highlighting his nervousness.

Louis cleared his throat before gesturing for Harry to sit, not being able to help trembling slightly when Harry brushed past him and settled on the other side of the sofa. Louis turned so he was leaning back against the armrest and facing Harry, being sure to tuck his feet up so his knees were close to his chest so he wasn’t touching Harry.

Harry looked down at his lap, grabbing one of the yellow sofa cushions (another gift from Grandma Malik, Louis was half tempted to take a match to them, at least then they’d go with the curtains) and hugged it to his chest like a lost child and its favourite teddy.

“So-“

“I-“

They grinned at each other slightly before Louis nodded his head at Harry.

“You go,” He said, tension pooling in his gut as he almost didn’t want to hear what Harry had to say.

“Well…” Harry said hesitantly, crossing and uncrossing his ankles where his long legs were stretched out in front of him. “Can I just say, first, that I was really proper excited about our date, and I had every intention of, well, y’know, turning up…?”

“Just not excited enough to actually show your face?” Louis said wryly, although his words had little bite.

Harry frowned slightly. “No… It was bloody obvious I liked you, Liam said I was like a walking heart- eyed emoji.” He chuckled softly and Louis couldn’t help a slight smile. He’d probably looked similar, if not worse.

“So…” Louis said pressed quietly, “Why didn’t you come…?”

Harry sighed, fiddling with the zipper on the cushion cover. “It’s a bit of a soap opera to be quite honest… Might put you off even more!” He laughed softly but there was no humour behind it.

Louis raised an eyebrow. “I don’t scare easy, kid. I’ve heard some stories in my time…you’ve met Niall, right?”

 Harry laughed properly this time, angling his body towards Louis and taking a deep breath.

“Well… I was just like getting ready to come over to yours, like I’d just got dressed and someone knocked on the door which was pretty weird ‘cuz like I wasn’t expecting anyone. And it was Nick-“

“Oh god,” Louis interrupted with a groan. “Quiff of the year isn’t going to feature prominently in this story is he? If yes I may as well chuck meself off the balcony now.”

Harry laughed softly. “A bit, but he’s important! Anyway I like Nick, he’s a good friend.”

Louis pulled a face. “I saw him earlier, he was all over you. Definitely wants to get a house with elevated ceilings and have quiff babies with you. The twat.”

Harry rolled his eyes but he was smiling. “We’re honestly just friends, I swear!”

Louis gave him a look but stayed silent. He believed Harry but had no doubt Nick was just waiting to ensnare him in his creepy tentacle grip. Maybe he’d give Simon another nudge in the hitman direction. Maybe.

“Anyway,” Harry continued, “It was Nick and he looked like, pretty fucking stressed. Looked like he’d run to mine which if you know Nick he does not run for anything.” Harry smiled fondly. Louis was immediately tempted to send Simon an ‘SOS Operation Quiff’ text. He’d know what it was about.

“So I was like what the fuck and then Nick came in and was acting all angsty, saying he had something to tell me… and basically he told me and we were talking for fucking ages and it wasn’t until you text that I realised I was like hours late…and then after that I really wanted to speak to you but I didn’t want to drag you into all my shit or like completely scare you away or whatever so I just didn’t…M’ really fucking sorry Louis, if I’d just had the balls to actually speak to you properly then maybe I wouldn’t have seen you all wrapped up in another fucking guy tonight.” Harry huffed out, frown lines etched deeply into his forehead and he gripped the cushion until his knuckles turned white.

“Fuck sake Harry, I was only with that guy because I’d been a right miserable twat over you for the last few weeks…I thought if I was with someone else I might have started to forget about you… I largely doubt it would have worked though, you’re pretty unforgettable, Mr. Styles.” Louis poked Harry’s thigh with his toe, coaxing a small smile from Harry. Louis tried not to think of what it was Nick could have told him, immediately jumping onto the worst possible outcomes. Like murderer!Harry or druglord!Harry. Harry being in prison might just put a dampener on their already short sex life.

“Just- fucking- tell me please Harold, you’re kind of freaking me out to be quite honest.”

Harry sighed and dug his nails into the cushion, clearly reluctant to start talking. Louis shuffled about on the sofa nervously, wanting to demand answers from Harry but knowing the younger boy would tell him in his own time. Louis just crossed his fingers and prayed it wasn’t anything that might involve, like, the mafia or something. Was there even a mafia in this country? Louis wasn’t too sure. Mybe he’d ask Simon, he probably had some dealings with them, let’s be real.

“Well…” Harry began slowly. “A while back, I had like a group of friends like Nick and stuff that I used to hang out with sometimes- “

Oh god, Louis thought, it’s going to be like some sort of swingers club. Fuck his actual life. He’d watched a documentary on dogging once, they wore animal masks. It was pretty bizarre.

“And there was this one lad,” Harry continued, shaking Louis out of his internal debate as to whether he’d suit a chicken or a rabbit mask better. “Called Lucas. I didn’t like really know him that well, he was closer with Nick’s friend Sam than me so I didn’t really mix with him… Anyway like out of nowhere he started like texting me a bit more, and calling me. He even turned up at my house a few times, and like, I thought it was a bit weird but he obviously like wanted a friend? Or what, I dunno, so I was like nice to him and stuff but then he started like… ringing me at weird hours and telling me someone was following him or like people were trying to get into his flat. And at first I believed him ‘cuz who would even lie about stuff like that? So I always used to go but I’d never see like any evidence or whatever of it actually happening? God it was so fucking weird now I look back on it but I just didn’t see it at that time…”

Harry bit his lip and looked down at his lap, face flooding with colour and shame evident. Louis’ mind raced, who the fuck was this nutter? It was typical of Harry to immediately rush to help someone else and not even consider their intentions. Despite not knowing him all that long, Louis knew Harry didn’t have a bad bone in his body, and if Louis knew something it was that being naive to the manipulating and cruelty of others can leave you stomped into the ground. Which was why Louis was never shy to stick up for himself and for the people he loved.

Anger spread through Louis’ veins like fire, leaving him feeling furious at how someone could take advantage of Harry’s kindness like that. He took a deep breath and willed himself to look at Harry and nod for him to continue, fighting to keep the myriad of emotions coursing through his body from showing on his face.

“It started to get worse after that…” Harry continued. “Like he’d literally ring and text me like fifty times a day…he’d turn up at my house, bring me like coffee and food and stuff, drop by the firehouse… Like it was starting to get fucking scary. Then I caught him trying to get into my flat one day and I just snapped. I’d not really said anything before, tried to be nice about it, laugh it off. No one really knew the extent of it so they didn’t think anything was up with him. But when I saw him doing that I literally flipped my shit… screamed at him, told him to leave me alone, that I didn’t ever want to see his face again…some pretty bad stuff.”

Harry looked visibly distressed, running a hand through his curls and pinching the bridge of his nose.

Louis edged closer on the sofa and placed his hand gently on Harry’s knee, trying not to recoil when Harry jumped a little at the contact.

“Hey…” Louis said gently, “you did the right thing Haz, if that was me I’d have sent him to the bloody cleaners long ago, he sounds like a right nutcase!”

Harry gave him a weak half smile before turning his eyes downwards, teeth once again sinking into his already bitten raw bottom lip.

“It gets worse, Lou.” Harry said with a sigh. “After I yelled at him we didn’t see him around for a bit… like he didn’t speak to anyone and I just didn’t say anything…I kinda hoped he’s just go away and I could move on with my life.”

Louis squeezed Harry’s knee gently, trying to ignore the deviant voice in the back of his mind urging him to move his hand up higher by visualizing Niall in women’s underwear. It worked.

“We had this party at Nick’s one night and I ended up staying over with everyone else. Like I slept in Nick’s bed with Nick and Aimee- nothing happened!” He exclaimed as Louis’ grip on Harry’s knee tightened. He was currently trying to repress the urge to commit a double homicide. Nick’s quiff being the secondary being, of course.

“But when we woke up the next day we went downstairs and someone had poured like drink everywhere, all over the carpet, the sofa….all of the food out of Nick’s fridge was everywhere, his crockery and stuff was all broken….it was a fucking mess. Nick blamed it on someone he obviously didn’t know from the party but I knew it was him. Lucas.” Harry practically spat the name out, anger still evident at the incident even now.

“Fucking hell Haz.” Louis muttered.

“I know.” Harry replied, bouncing his knees up and down and raking a hand through his hair. “Then some other shit happened, but the worst thing was what he did after. I had this friend, Davey, he really wanted to be a fireman, so he came over sometimes and I talked him through some stuff and helped him with like the tests and whatever. One night he’d been over with Nick and our friend Megan and he’d just left and we heard like yelling and screaming from down below by the main door. It sounded like Davey so we legged it downstairs and he was fucking on the ground and Lucas was hitting him with a fucking baseball bat.” Harry was visibly shaking now, Louis maintained his grip on Harry’s knee and delicately lifted a hand to stroke through Harry’s curls gently, feeling relieved when Harry’s shoulders seemed to relax slightly and he leaned into the touch.

Louis felt nausea and rage pool in his stomach, the urge to gather Harry up in his arms and protect him becoming stronger with every word of Harry’s story. Louis wanted to do some terrible things to anyone who had ever hurt Harry in his life, and the fierce strength of his emotions kind of scared him a little, the urge to shield Harry from the harsh ways of the world stronger than the memory of his own minor heartbreak.

“Me and Nick managed to like restrain Lucas and Megan called the police. Davey wasn’t really hurt thankfully but Lucas was going mad, screaming about how I was his, that we were together and that Davey was trying to steal me. It was fucking horrible. The police searched his house and found like…pictures of me and letters he’d wrote to me but never sent… but they couldn’t charge him ‘cuz he hadn’t really caused harm to Davey and like…he hadn’t done enough to warrant fucking arrest apparently. I just took out a restraining order in the end.”

Louis was fucking disgusted at the complete lack of punishment given to a complete delusional nutcase like Lucas.

“That’s what should be making the fucking headlines.” He muttered to himself.

“What?” Harry asked.

“Nothing.” Louis said quickly. “So… what happened after that? Please tell me he was at least sent to get some serious help or whatever.”

Harry sighed. “No… I had the restraining order and he disappeared, went back to live with his parents in Bournemouth, about a year ago now.”

“Oh well that’s good isn’t it? He’s out of your life….” Louis cut off abruptly when he saw Harry’s pained expression, his mind whirring and finally connecting the dots, causing his stomach to drop and the back of his neck to prickle.

“Oh shit.” Louis said. “He’s back? Is that what Nick told you?”

Harry nodded miserably. “That’s why I didn’t… speak to you, Lou. I really liked you but I couldn’t fucking let myself bring you into this shit,I couldn’t let another Davey happen, or worse. Not to you.”

“Haz, I can take care of myself. Besides, you’ve got the restraining order, right?” Louis couldn’t believe that was the reason for his heavy heart over the last few weeks. He sort of understood Harry’s reasoning but so many hurt feelings could have been saved if Harry had just told Louis what was going on. Harry really did seem to have a ‘saving people thing’. Louis guessed he knew why.

Harry shook his head. “I don’t think that would stop him, to be honest.” He said tiredly. “Grimmy already spoke to the police and they basically said they can’t do anything unless he actually fucking does something, it’s bloody ridiculous. And I’m not risking you, Lou. I can’t not save someone else.”

Louis looked down at Harry’s clenched hands and slid himself up further on the sofa, reaching over and unclenching Harry’s fingers before weaving them into his own.

“Haz,” he said gently. “Look at me, love.”

Harry peeked up at Louis through his eyelashes, eyes still slightly cautious and body language guarded, although he’d interlinked his fingers with Louis’ and was clutching his hands tightly.

“It’s going to be alright, sweet. We’re going to be fine, and this Lucas character is going to get what he deserves. I won’t let him get to you. Or us. If you still want an us, of course.”

Louis dropped his eyes then, his earlier feelings of rejection threatening to seep into his mind and ensnare his senses, a wave of panic rising at the thought that even after all of this, Harry still might not want him.

He felt a gentle hand touch his chin and tilt it up slowly. Blue met green and Louis could practically sense every emotion radiating off Harry: fear, determination, something that may resemble an echo or a promise of love, and most importantly at that current moment, lust.

Harry’s eyes flicked to Louis’ lips and after a moment, they both rose together, lips and teeth clashing with the heat and forcefulness of their embrace.

The kiss was different from the one in the rain, it was gentler, but also more heated, their tongues quickly slotting together and exploring each other’s mouths. Harry ran his hands up and down Louis’ back as Louis’ gripped Harry’s broad shoulders, his hands soon finding their way into Harry’s still damp curls as Harry broke the kiss and attached his lips to Louis’ neck, passionately attacking the soft skin under Louis’ ear and causing him to let out a breathy moan.

Spurred on by the noise, Harry moved down to lick and nip at Louis’ tattooed collar bones, his tongue lightly tracing the lines of the letters inked there as his hands moved down Louis’ lower back until he was cupping Louis’ arse in both hands, kneading at his soft flesh before running a finger down his crack, fingers ghosting over his hole through his joggers.

Louis let out a gasp at the light brush, arousal immediately spreading south, and Louis was overwhelmed with how much want he felt.

Harry pulled off of Louis’ neck and pulled back to look at him, his eyes already blown out, with black only giving in to a slither of green. Louis’ surged forward and connected their lips in another fiery kiss, both of them panting into each other’s mouths until Harry pulled back gasping.

“Fuck,” Harry panted, “I need- please can I-“

“Yeah,” Louis gasped back, knowing exactly what it was Harry wanted because god did he want it too. “Please, fuck, I need you.”

Without hesitation, Harry’s hands slipped from palming Louis’ arse down to his thighs, pulling Louis so he was straddling Harry’s lap before gripping his legs tightly and standing up, lifting Louis’ easily (which was probably more arousing than it should have been). Louis wrapped his legs around Harry’s back to anchor himself, lips ghosting over the hollow at the base of Harry’s throat as Harry carried him to the bedroom, not being able to help letting out a groan as he shifted and brushed his achingly hard cock over Harry’s slightly through their clothes, causing Harry to pick up the pace to the bedroom. Harry kicked the door shut with his foot before whirling Louis around and pressing his back against the solid wood, their lips crashing together once again as Louis found leverage and moved his hips in slow circles as he rutted against Harry, not being able to stop the little whimpers that escaped him as his lips moulded against Harry’s.

They rutted against each other for a short while, alternating between panting into each other’s mouths and pressing their foreheads together, Louis wondering if Harry was feeling as overwhelmed at the intensity and passion of their closeness as he was.

“Harry,” Louis panted, “Please, can we-“

“Yeah, yeah of course, fuck I want you so much,” Harry breathed back, tightening his grip on Louis’ thighs before turning them both around and walking towards the bed. Harry set Louis down gently so he was on his back on the bed, pausing a second and letting his eyes rake over Louis’ body, taking in Louis’ flush and the rapid rise of his chest. The desire in Harry’s eyes seemed to match Louis’ own.

“Get here, you big idiot,” Louis groaned, “You’ve deprived me for weeks and I need you NOW.”

Harry jumped and paused only to rip the borrowed t-shirt over his head before he climbed on top of Louis, knees bracketing Louis’ hips. Louis pulled Harry down to meet his lips with a tug on Harry’s hair, eliciting a gasp of pleasure, knowledge that Louis’ stored away to use later.

Their tongues collided for a brief moment before Harry pulled back, running his hands down Louis’ sides until he reached the hem of his t- shirt. Louis took the hint and sat up slightly so Harry could ease the top over his head, Harry muttering a soft ‘oops’ and them both laughing giddily when the collar of Louis’ t shirt got stuck on his nose, causing him to give a muffled ‘ow’. After Harry had chucked the offending t- shirt over his shoulder, they stayed grinning at each other for a moment, before the smile died on Harry’s lips and his eyes darkened.

Harry surged forward and started attacking Louis’ neck and collar bones, slowly kissing and biting until he got to Louis’ chest, raking his teeth over Louis’ left nipple before moving over to his right and taking it in his mouth.

Louis gasped loudly, he’d never usually admit to loving having his nipples played with but Harry seemed to know the exact amount of teeth and tongue to give to each one, before moving down and sucking marks into Louis’ stomach and at the sensitive skin just above his waistband.

The thing is about joggers is that they’re rather unforgiving around the male crotch area, and Louis’ hardness was very much apparent through the flimsy material. Harry slowly moved down and began mouthing over Louis’ cock, sucking slightly, his tongue leaving damp patches on the material.

Louis groaned loudly and quelled the urge to buck his hips up towards Harry’s mouth, waves of pleasure shooting through him despite the seemingly minor action.

Harry raised his head slightly and motioned for Louis to lift his hips (Louis complied rapidly, and if he happened to tap Harry in the face with his clothed cock slightly then it was clearly a complete accident) before pulling his joggers off and over his feet in one movement.

Harry sat back slightly and let his eyes roam over Louis’ naked and flushed body, lingering on Louis’ hard cock that was laying against his torso, leaking precum.

Louis caught the dart of Harry’s tongue as it came out to lick his lips and felt overcome with how much Harry was desiring him, how much he wanted him, and it made his heart swell just a touch.

“So fucking gorgeous Lou,” Harry breathed, running a palm up Louis’ thigh and squeezing the fleshy bit at the top.

Harry closed his eyes for a second before quickly standing back up and pulling off his own bottoms, giving Louis’ his own opportunity to greedily take in Harry’s toned body, practically salivating at the sight of Harry’s large cock red and leaking between his legs whilst at the same time wanting to bite and suck on the love handles settled around Harry’s hips. He’s never wanted to jizz on someone’s love handles before but, clearly there’s a first time for everything.

Harry settled back down to his previous position between Louis’ legs, sucking marks painstakingly slowly into the soft skin by Louis’ groin and the tops of his thighs, beginning to inch closer and closer to Louis’ cock which was throbbing with need.

“Haz,” Louis panted, head thrown back against the pillows and toes clenching with the need for more. “Haz please.”

Harry shot him a smirk that confirmed he knew exactly what he was doing to Louis, so in retaliation Louis’ bucked his hips up, his dick hitting Harry’s face slightly and leaving a smear of precum across his cheek, causing Louis to giggle at his shocked expression.

Harry raised an eyebrow at Louis before smirking again, and before Louis could even react Harry had grabbed his hips and flipped him over with surprising strength so he was lay on his stomach. Louis gasped slightly at the immediate feeling of friction on his aching cock, before letting out a load moan when he felt a soft, although still with a bit of a bite, smack on his arse cheek.

“Naughty,” Harry whispered as Louis whimpered into his pillow, grinding his hips in small circles so his cock rubbed against the bed sheets.

Louis’ groaned again when he felt Harry’s big hands grab his hips and hold him, stopping his movements and was all set to make a sniping comment about Harry ruining his fun when he felt the light touch of Harry’s tongue slowly running up the crack of his arse, before the hands left his hips and moved to his arse cheeks, spreading both of them open, the movement of Harry’s tongue slowly running closer and closer to his hole.

Louis moaned unabashedly, his body quivering with anticipation of what was about to happen, hands already fisting the sheets. Now Louis was certainly not opposed to a good rimming, but it was not often blokes got down there so eagerly by their own volition, and the little noises Harry was making as he trailed his tongue close to Louis’ hole made it seem as if he was getting off on what he was doing to Louis himself. And well, Harry Styles may or may not be a sex god.

After all the teasing, Louis practically screamed into his pillow when Harry finally ran his tongue over Louis’ hole, swirling it around his rim gently before probing his tongue inside, the hands pulling his cheeks apart kneading into his flesh, just adding to the pleasure party that was going on at Louis’ arse right now.

Harry alternated between small kitten licks and lapping up and down Louis’ hole, occasionally fucking his tongue in and out and leaving Louis a quivering mess. When Harry easily slipped a finger in alongside his tongue and fucked his rim, Louis thought he may have died and gone to some sort of sex heaven.

Harry added a second finger and slowly fucked them in and out of Louis, moving back to brush his lips and suck at the soft flesh of Louis’ arse cheeks, trailing his tongue up until he was kissing at the dimples at the bottom of Louis’ spine. When a particular twist of Harry’s fingers slid against his prostate Louis let out a loud moan, whimpering as Harry relentlessly rubbed against his spot and grinding his hips for some much needed friction on his cock.

Louis groaned and swore when Harry added a third finger, not being able to stop the mewling sounds from coming out of his mouth as he gripped the bed sheets until his knuckles turned white. He sounded worse when Harry seemed to think it was a spectacular idea to trail his tongue around Louis’ rim where his fingers were buried deep inside of him, scissoring him open. Honestly, he’d never made these noises before, Mrs Moss must be cementing her ears shut.

Louis felt Harry’s tongue leave his rim and whined slightly at the loss, jumping slightly when Harry sunk his teeth into Louis’ left arse cheek.

“You feel so fucking good Lou,” Harry murmured, his voice slightly muffled. “You taste so fucking good.”

Louis groaned at that, almost jizzing into his bed covers at the sound of Harry’s voice, made deeper by the situation, and well, all the rimming.

“Please,” He panted out (he’d said ‘please’ more times in the last half hour than his entire childhood). “Please Harry, need you. Now.”

Harry chuckled softly to himself, “So demanding,” he muttered, kissing Louis’ arse cheek before slowly easing his fingers out of Louis’ hole, Louis whining slightly at the loss.

Harry’s hands slid up to Louis’ hips again and once more flipped him over onto his back (honestly, how was he doing that).

“Want to see your face when you’ve got my cock buried in you,” Harry murmured, running his hands up Louis’ torso to pinch gently at his nipples. “Want to see your face when you cum.”

And well… Louis never thought he could jizz purely from dirty talk but sit him in a room with Harry Styles’ tape on repeat and he’d wank himself into oblivion.

“Just fucking fuck me,” Louis panted. “Please.” He spread his legs further apart so he was open, smirking with satisfaction when he heard Harry’s slight intake of breathe as he took in the sight of Louis spread out in front of him, Louis’ legs trembling slightly and his back arched in anticipation.

Harry snapped out of his arse induced reverie when Louis fumbled with the draw in his bedside table, chucking the condom and bottle of lube in Harry’s general direction and chuckling when Harry’s squawk informed him he’d got him in the face.

Louis lifted his head off the pillows slightly and watched Harry roll the condom down his length before uncapping the lube and slicking up his cock, eyes dark with lust as he whined slightly at his neglected cock finally having some contact.

Harry settled between Louis’ legs, one hand gripping his hips whilst the other guided his cock towards Louis’ entrance. Harry locked his gaze with Louis’ as he pushed just past his rim and slowly slid into Louis, the familiar burn only adding to the pleasure coursing through Louis’ body, paired with the intensity of their locked eyes as Harry finally bottomed out.

They were both panting heavily, and Louis’ groaned and wriggled his hips as Harry stayed sunk into him for a few beats, throwing his head back and squeezing his eyes shut at how good it felt, and how much he liked having Harry fill him up, the feeling of Harry inside him and their bodies connecting.

Harry began to move slowly, shallow thrusts before he suddenly pulled out almost the whole way and slammed back into Louis’, causing him to moan loudly and grapple at the bed sheets.

“More,” he panted. “Harder, Haz, please…”

Harry gripped his hips and started fucking into Louis relentlessly, leaning his torso over Louis’ so he could crash their lips together, their kiss consisting of pressed tongues and swearing into each other’s mouths.

Louis wrapped his legs around Harry’s back, making a noise that he wasn’t sure was entirely human when Harry adjusted the angle and hit his prostate, continuing to nail it with very stroke after that had Louis’ head thrown back with his mouth open, ripples of pleasure vibrating through his whole body.

“So fucking tight, Lou. You feel fucking amazing.” Harry panted, his curls sticking to his forehead and a gorgeous flush spreading down his tattooed chest.

“M’ so close,” Louis breathed back, his cock was flushed between their bellies, but despite the lack of friction Louis’ was teetering so close to the edge it was making his whole body feel boneless.

Harry rocked into him gently for a few strokes before moving his hands down to grab at Louis’ hips and fuck into him, one, two, three strokes and Louis was cumming untouched, the pleasure spreading through his body in waves as he threw his head back, face contorted in pleasure as his muscles spasmed. Louis’ orgasm seemed to last forever and amidst the high he felt Harry stilling, releasing himself into Louis’ with a ‘fuck, fuck, fuckkkkk’. Louis was vaguely aware of Harry pulling out of him and he winced slightly at the feeling, pulling a slight face at the squelch of Harry removing the condom and tying it up.

Harry collapsed over Louis’ torso, them both breathing heavily and still riding out the high of their orgasms. Louis felt completely blissed out, the pleasure still sizzling under his skin as he slowly came back to himself and opened his eyes to see Harry with his chin on Louis’ chest, grinning at him dopily.

“Blimey.” Louis said weakly, lifting a hand and gently running his fingers through Harry’s sweaty curls.

“Hi,” Harry replied, his face relaxed and open, making him look younger somehow, the harsh lines from the heavy emotions earlier smoothed out. “That was fucking amazing.”

Louis smiled lazily, trailing a finger down Harry’s spine, recognizing the feeling of his own drying cum between their bodies but finding he didn’t really care. “It was.” He agreed. “10/10 would recommend.”

Harry chuckled and made to pull himself off Louis and stand up. Louis whined at the loss, making grabby hands at Harry and pouting when Harry continued his atrocious act of leaving the bed.

“Just getting you a flannel babe, as much as dried jizz looks good on you…” Harry smirked as Louis gave him the finger, before ambling off to the bathroom.

Louis watched the jiggle of Harry’s perky little bum with a smile, his heart clenching slightly at the endearment that flowed easily from Harry’s mouth. He was slightly too fucked out to think about the implications of the situation they were in, figuring talks of rejection and homosexual stalker nutjobs could wait until he’d had a good spoon and at least 8 hours sleep.

Harry came back with a damp flannel and gently wiped Louis clean, rubbing softly between his legs. Louis welcomed the soreness he’d feel tomorrow, the knowledge of it being Harry that made him feel that way outweighing the potential embarrassment at his inevitable duck waddle.

Louis lay back against the pillows feeling content, even more so when Harry slipped under the covers next to him and gathered Louis up in his arms, pressing a soft kiss to the top of his head.

Louis fell asleep to the sound of Harry’s heartbeat, knowing he might soon be facing a storm but content with the thought that in Harry’s arms was exactly where he wanted to be.

*

Louis stirred the next morning to the feel of the sun on his bare skin and the weight of a warm body pressed up against his back. He blinked a few times blearily, the sun pouring in through his window and onto the bed where they’d been too preoccupied to shut the curtains the night before.

The soft snuffles in his ear told Louis that Harry was still asleep, although the prominent hardness that poked into his naked back indicated to Louis that waking him up was definitely within his best interest.

Louis shifted around so he was facing Harry and smiled dopily at the younger boys sleeping form, his curls in a disarray around his head and his features soft, the left side of his mouth curled in a slight smile. It took a couple of minutes of fond staring for Louis to realise he was being a bit of a creep, so he leaned forward slightly and nuzzled his nose against Harry’s face softly, grinning when Harry scrunched up his nose and twitched his eyebrows, sighing softly as he was slowly roused from sleep.

“Lou?” Harry murmured sleepily.

“Morning love,” Louis answered with a smile, his voice still slightly sleep- laden and a bit hoarse.

Harry’s face lit up in a smile and he snuggled closer to Louis, sighing contentedly before eliciting a soft gasp when Louis rolled his hips slightly, their semi- hard cocks brushing against each other.

Harry groaned softly and pressed his crotch closer to Louis, seeking out Louis’ mouth without opening his eyes and making a content noise when he found it. Louis pressed his lips against Harry’s and let out a moan when Harry teased his tongue along Louis’ bottom lip, rutting against him softly. Louis could feel warmth pooling in his gut as his cock hardened and he opened his mouth for Harry to lick in to, the concept of morning breath not a thought either of them even registered.

Harry groaned softly and reached a hand down between their bodies, grasping both of their cocks in his large hand and beginning to work them, swiping his thumb over Louis’ slit and spreading the precum to help with his movements, eliciting a gasp from Louis.

Harry worked them both slowly as they kissed, occasionally pausing to smile at each other sleepily and rest their foreheads together. Louis soon came with a low groan, spilling over Harry’s fist and kissed Harry hard until he followed suit moments later with a gasp, continuing to pump them both until they’d ridden out their orgasms before stilling his hand and looking into Louis’ eyes with a soft smile.

“Hi,” Louis said, poking at the dimple prominent in Harry’s cheek with his pinky.

“Hi,” Harry replied, poking Louis’ own cheek but with his messy hand, spreading cum over Louis’ cheekbone and chuckling at Louis’ affronted expression. Louis realized he may be in a bit too deep when he even found Harry laughing because he smeared cum on his face endearing. What was happening to him?

“You’re grim.” Louis stated, grabbing Harry’s forearm as the younger boy tried to grab at him with his sticky hand, giggling madly.

“You looooveeee it,” Harry taunted, still giggling as he fought off Louis’ defence easily.

“I’d love a shower more, I think.” Louis replied, slipping out from under the covers and Harry’s reach, “And I think you need one as well, dirty boy…” Louis threw in a lude wink causing Harry to guwaff (no, he actually guwaffed, what even) and nod vigorously, arranging his gangly limbs and easing out of bed before standing and stretching with a yawn.

Louis eyed the taut muscles of Harry’s back as he stretched his arms towards the ceiling, eyes sweeping over the assortment of tattoos dotted over his torso, gaze lingering on his almost soft but still pretty damn impressive cock, stickiness still slightly evident from their earlier activities. So Harry was pretty damn stonking and Louis thought he might die. No drama intended.

Louis blushed slightly when Harry turned and caught him staring with a smirk, shaking his cute little bum slightly and causing Louis to giggle softly, ridiculously endeared.

“Shower please.” Harry said, holding out a hand for Louis to take and leading him to the bathroom.

After a slightly longer than usual shower that saw Harry on his knees and eagerly giving Louis probably the best blow job of his life as he washed his curls, a lot of kissing and definite groping as well as some soapy mohawks, Louis and Harry settled in the kitchen with some tea and toast, smiling softly at one another every so often but not feeling the need to fill the comfortable silence with chat.

Louis thought they were both probably prolonging the inevitable slightly, the information Harry had disclosed last night still hanging over their heads. Louis wasn’t entirely sure where they’d go from here but if he knew something it was that no one was going to stop him from being with Harry, as long as Harry was on the same page, of course. Part of him was still slightly wary that maybe he liked Harry more than Harry liked him, and although he understood Harry’s reasons, a lifetime of poorly written romcoms and cheesy novels had instilled a certain belief of if you want to be with someone, then you will, no matter what the obstacles.

But still, Harry was here now and he was smiling dopily at Louis over the breakfast bar, curls drying into perfect corkscrews and evidence of crumbs in the corner of his mouth. Louis’ heart may just explode all over the flat. He dreaded explaining the clean-up job to Alberto.

Louis’ returning smile slipped off his face into a frown as he pondered what to say to start the conversation, tearing the slightly burnt crusts of his toast in his hands.

“So,” Louis began, “What do we uh, do now?”

Harry frowned slightly, pausing to take a sip of his tea before uttering a resigned sigh. “I don’t really know, to be honest.” He confessed. “I’m kind of hoping he’ll just go away, back to whatever he was doing before and just fuck off out of my life. But… he might not, y’ know?”

Louis nodded sympathetically, reaching over the counter for Harry’s hand and holding his fingers.

“Can I just put something out there?” Louis asked, hesitating slightly before ploughing on. “Fuck it, here goes. But yeah, alright the last few weeks did really fucking suck not gunna lie but last night was bloody incredible if I do say so meself, and quite frankly, I like you a whole bloody lot Harry Styles and I’d be quite happy if all this,” he gestured between them at their mugs and breakfast leftovers, “might become the norm, because unfortunately, I’m pretty into it, really.” Louis stopped and eyed Harry with a bated breath, the usual armour getting ready to make an experience and clang shut around Louis’ slightly battered heart if Harry uttered anything that may hint at a let-down.

Harry’s slightly surprised face at Louis’ monologue slowly transformed into a blinding smile, his eyes crinkling and dimples as big as craters popping into his skin as he squeezed Louis’ hand.

“I would like that very much a lot,” Harry replied sincerely. “I know I was a right idiot but even if I hadn’t seen you last night it was only a matter of time before I was banging on your door begging for forgiveness. I could never forgive myself if I let someone like you to walk out of my life, Lou and thank you, thank you so much for forgiving me and giving me another chance. I promise I’ll make it up to you.”

Louis beamed back at Harry, hoping his eyes displayed the depth of emotion he was currently drowning in. Who even was Harry Styles? Who knows, but Louis was pretty intent on keeping him.

“So, this Lucas character…” Louis said slightly regretfully, his heart panging slightly as Harry flinched and his smile fell. “I say fuck him, Haz, we can deal with him. We’ll wait and see, hopefully he crawl back into whatever hole it was he came from. But we’ll deal with it together, alright babe?”

Harry smiled again and nodded, squeezing Louis’ hand gratefully which did nothing to quieten the chorus of Disney songs that had been singing in Louis’ heart since last night.

“Besides,” He continued, “Zayn taught me some Jiu- Jitsu, look.” Louis got up off his stool and attempted a high kick compete with ‘Hiyah’ that saw his foot colliding with the underside of the breakfast bar, resulting in him hopping around cursing in pain as Harry laughed so hard he fell of his stool.

*

Seeing Harry out so he could go to his shift at the bakery took probably about 20 minutes longer than it should have done seeing as Louis couldn’t stop snogging Harry’s face off outside the front of his building. Harry didn’t seem to mind so much if his clenched fists on the back of Louis’ t- shirt said anything, them both even indulging in the clichéd holding hands until the last minute as the other had to pull away and walk off moment. It was sickening, and instead of butterflies it appeared giant, man- eating eagles were beating around in Louis’ stomach as he watched Harry walk down the street, turning to give Louis’ a smile and a wave before disappearing round the corner.

Louis became sharply aware that he’d been standing on the front step grinning dopily for far much longer than was socially acceptable, although he refrained from berating himself. It would seem his kicking days were over.

Louis sauntered back into his building and set about climbing the stairs, even giving Mrs Moss a dazzling grin as he passed her on the stairs, the latter responding with a suspicious glare. Well, he tried.

Louis was still in a bit of a sex love daze when he opened the door to the flat and ambled in, toeing off his battered vans as he went. It wasn’t until he properly entered the room did he realise that there was a half-naked Liam Payne in his kitchen. A half-naked Liam Payne who was flipping pancakes at his stove, humming some boyband number.

“What is happening here?” Louis exclaimed in his best Will Mackenzie voice, blinking bewilderedly at Liam as he turned off the stove and turned around, fixing Louis with a bright smile.

“Hi Louis!” Liam grinned, “Pancakes?”

“Umm, I’m good, ta.” Louis replied, somewhat taken aback. “Any particular reason why you’re practically naked in my kitchen or is this just a thing you do?”

Liam chuckled awkwardly, blushing slightly and running a hand through his tousled hair.

“Ermmm,” Liam began, shuffling from one foot to the other and trying to surreptitiously shield his crotch, only clad in a pair of tiny black boxer briefs. He needn’t have bothered, Louis only had eyes for one dithering idiot.

“Morning Lou,” Zayn entered with a yawn, ambling into the kitchen and flicking the switch on the kettle before shyly dropping a soft kiss onto Liam’s bare shoulder, receiving a soppy grin in response.

Louis gaped at the display, “What is happening here…?” He repeated, gesturing between the two of them as Zayn busied himself pulling mugs and teabags out of cupboard casually, seemingly unaware of Louis’ gawping and rising confusion.

“We’re making breakfast Lou, what does it look like?” Zayn replied with a smirk as he helped Liam pile pancakes onto two plates, both of them smiling softly at each other and blushing whenever their hands brushed.

Louis rolled his eyes, “I can see that, idiot, but what the bloody hell’s this?! You two shagging or what?”

Both Liam and Zayn stared at the ground sheepishly, glancing at each other and blushing.

“Well,” Zayn started as he hopped up to sit on one of the breakfast stools, grabbing the sugar bowl and sprinkling some on his pancakes. “We saw each other again last night…and well, we straightened some stuff out. Or not…” Zayn snickered, dodging as a laughing Liam flicked a piece of pancake at him. They were sickeningly adorable.

“Oh god I think I may actually vomit,” Louis groaned, pretending to clutch at his stomach as he helped himself to more tea.

“Shut it!” Zayn said, shovelling pancake into his mouth in sharp contrast to Liam who nibbled his politely. “What happened to you last night anyway? Greg said you’d gone a bit weird and then you left…guessing you saw Harry?”

“Oh…I saw Harry,” Louis replied with a wicked smirk, “Quite a lot of him, actually!”

This time Zayn mimed vomiting as Liam blushed, staring resolutely at his breakfast.

“Gross!” Zayn exclaimed, “So, what happened? Fill us in then?”

Louis replied with a lewd wink, causing both boys to groan and roll their eyes at him. Louis hopped up onto a stool as Liam and Zayn ate, quickly telling them about Harry and Lucas. Liam got paler and paler as he went on, stabbing vehemently at his pancakes.

“Can’t believe Harry didn’t tell me that twat was back,” Liam said harshly. “I knew he’d been weird the last few weeks, I just assumed you two had like fallen out or something but he didn’t say… fuck I can’t believe this!” Liam kneaded at his temples, letting his fork drop with a clatter.

Zayn reached out a hand and rubbed Liam’s forearm soothingly. “It’s alright babe,” he said, blushing slightly as the endearment slipped easily off his tongue. “You didn’t know… What can we do?” He turned to Louis, worry causing a little furrow between his eyebrows.

“Nothing,” Louis said with a sigh. “Unless he does something, the police can’t do anything… s’ fucked up.”

“Be careful Lou,” Zayn urged, “He sounds like a nutjob.”

“Yeah,” Liam added. “Maybe I should uh- hang round here a little bit… make sure he doesn’t turn up or whatever?” Louis disguised his snort of laughter with a cough as Zayn beamed up Liam. Dude was smooth.

Louis’ phone buzzed on the table then and he couldn’t help the way his stomach leapt when he saw the text icon from Harry, resoundedly ignoring Liam and Zayn who laughed at him. Wankers.

Sex God Styles <3: Can’t stop thinking about your arse Lou, looked so good all spread open for me last night, can’t wait to get my cock in you again, bet you’d look so hot riding me… .xxxxx

And, well, bloody hell. Louis visibly gulped, arousal shooting straight to his cock until he was basically hard from a sext, for god’s sake. Harry was right though. He would.

“Right, uh, lads, just uh…” Louis hopped down and edged down the corridor towards his bedroom, ignoring Zayn’s amused look and Liam’s blush. Harry Styles would be the death of him, Louis was sure.

*

After a bit of an intense sexting session that resulted in Louis wanking furiously, his face pressed into the pillow Harry had slept on last night, Louis was still blushing slightly as he headed downstairs, wanting to drive to the big Sainsbury’s across town to buy all the ingredients on Harry’s list that he’d given him when Harry had informed him that he was cooking tonight ‘for safety reasons’. Christ, Louis had only set the place on fire one time, chill.

He was still debating what exactly ‘Gnocchi’ was when he crossed over the street to where he’d parked his car yesterday, snapping out of his wonderings when he trod on something thick that cracked under his foot.

Louis looked up with a confused frown and his stomach completely dropped. The windows on his beloved Peugeot were all completely smashed out, glass in shards all over the pavement and road within a two metre radius. The bonnet, roof and side doors were all sporting some impressive dents, and the front two tyres were completely deflated.

“Oh blimey,” Louis whimpered quietly, walking completely around the car and surveying the damage, groaning loudly and kicking the side of the driver’s door in anger, it’s not like it could do any more damage, the loud clang doing nothing to ease his fury.

Louis knew immediately who was behind this. Although Louis was angry that his car was completely totalled, he was more furious about what the knowledge would do to Harry. Harry was obviously still suffering the effects of Lucas’ previous attacks and Louis was worried what this knowledge would do to his already shaky demeanour.

Cursing, Louis pulled out his phone and dialled the police, knowing in the end the car was just plastic and metal and the loss would be nothing compared to if anything were to happen to Harry. Something had to be done.

After the police had left with a claim they’d file a report but couldn’t promise an outcome (bloody typical- they’d humoured Louis’ accusations but Louis could tell they remained sceptical about the involvement of Lucas) and Louis had said a heartfelt goodbye to his battered little car as it was towed away, Louis reluctantly dialled Harry’s number.

Harry had answered cheerily before his tone changed to anxious at Louis’ quiet request that he come by as soon as he’d finished work.

A little while later Louis answered the door to a nervous Harry, pulling him in for a chaste kiss and allowing the familiar lips to ease some of the tension from earlier that weighed heavy on his shoulders.

“Hi,” Louis said with a soft smile, leaning up to peck Harry’s lips once more.

“Hi,” Harry replied, brushing a thumb softly across Louis’ cheek, leaning down to brush his nose against Louis’ softly before pulling back and worrying on his lip, a frown settling into his features.

“What’s going on, Lou?” Harry pressed.

Louis sighed and took Harry’s hand in his smaller one, leading him over to the sofa and sitting so they were pressed together.

“There was a bit of an incident, earlier,” Louis began, squirming uncomfortably.

Harry frowned, “An incident? What- you’re okay, right?!” Harry grabbed Louis’ arm and raked his eyes over Louis’ body quickly, clearly looking for any signs of something not being right.

“I’m fine, Haz,” Louis reassured him quickly, stroking Harry’s arm softly. “But earlier, when I went to drive to the shops, well, my car was a bit, erm…mangled….”

Harry looked at him confusedly, “What do you mean, mangled?”

Louis didn’t think it was really an appropriate time to be endeared by Harry looking like a confused baby deer, it didn’t help he had flour dusted over his jeans and jumper and smelled like gingerbread, and was therefore even more mouth-wateringly devourable.

Snapping out of his reverie and making sure he wasn’t suddenly sniffing Harry like some sort of inappropriate mongrel, Louis hesitated, choosing his words carefully. “Well… it looked like someone had taken a bat to it and uh, smashed out all the windows and let down the tyres and kind of battered it a bit…”

Harry gasped, looking aghast. “Oh Lou, it was him wasn’t it? I’m so sorry! I can’t believe I dragged you into this…” Harry trailed off looking mortified and went to bury his face into his hands before Louis reached out and gentle grasped Harry’s wrists, pulling them away from his face and shifting himself so he was sat in Harry’s lap, looking at him gently.

“Haz… it’s okay, really. Like yeah it was a shitty thing to do to my beloved Percy but I told you we’d deal with this together and we will. I’ve got insurance, it’ll be okay.”

Harry wound his arms around Louis and pulled him close, managing a weak smile. “Percy?” Harry asked teasingly.

“Hell yeah Percy! You got a problem with that, curly?” Louis replied, flicking Harry on the nose gently and smiling when Harry scrunched his face up cutely, before leaning in and pressing a kiss to his dimple.

Harry pressed his forehead against Louis’ for a moment, inhaling softly before pulling back, the wrinkles in his forehead prominent once more.

“What are we going to do, Lou?” Harry asked quietly, tracing patterns into Louis’ back with his fingers, front teeth back to worrying his already bitten raw bottom lip.

Louis sighed, opening his mouth to reply with more words of comfort, when his phone rang, blasting out ‘Sir Mix- A- Lot’ that could only be courtesy of Niall.

Louis grabbed it off the coffee table, frowning when he saw Alberto’s name flashing up on the screen. He hadn’t done anything too terrible recently had he…? He’d even smiled at Mrs Moss this morning! She’d probably taken it as his conscious desire to murder her probably, the old bat. Sometimes she wasn’t far wrong.

“Alberto!” Louis answered in greeting. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Louis.” Alberto’s low voice filled the speakers, his tone unintelligible. “Are you home currently? I’d quite like to pop by, if that’s okay.”

“Umm yeah, I guess? If this is about The Old Bat I swear all I did was grin a bit! She’s a homophobe, I’m telling ya!”

“No, no,” Alberto replied, hurriedly. “Nothing like that, I’d just like to show you something.”

“It’s not naked pictures of you, is it?” Louis asked uneasily, trying to stifle a snicker. He loved winding Alberto up.

“What!? NO! Of course not!” Alberto squawked. “Why would you-? …Anyway, I’ll be round in about half an hour or so. Please answer the door wearing pants this time, Louis, I won’t tell you again.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Louis replied with a yawn, “See ya later.”

“Who’s Alberto?” Harry asked casually once Louis had hung up, squeezing Louis’ hip where he was still perched on his lap.

“My landlord.” Louis replied, reaching for the television remote before settling back in Harry’s comfy lap.

“Bit of an erm… interesting relationship with your landlord… Mine’s a 60 year old woman who smells like cabbage.” Harry said, pulling a face.

Louis just smirked, flicking through the channels before settling on reruns of The Great British Bake Off, falling just that little more when Harry squealed excitedly and engaged him in a fierce debate of Paul Hollywood vs Mary Berry (Louis was Team Paul of course, the silver fox) whilst they waited for Alberto.

*

By the time the sharp rap on wood signalled Alberto’s arrival, Louis and Harry were so intertwined on the sofa it was hard to know whose limbs were whose, both of them dozing slightly, content and warm wrapped up in one another.

The sharp noise roused Louis and he groaned slightly, not wanting to move basically ever from his spot in Harry Styles’ arms.

“I’ve gotta get up H,” Louis mumbled, stifling a yawn. “N’ your octopus limbs are holding me in.”

Harry grunted in response, unravelling himself from around Louis. “I do not have octopus limbs,” he replied indignantly, before sitting up and yawning as Louis slowly got to his feet, not feeling the hurry to let Alberto in when chances are he was just coming round to chastise them about the ‘suspicious plants’ Zayn may or may not be keeping out on their balcony.

He ambled towards the door, pulling it open to reveal a fidgeting Alberto who stood tall and broad in the doorway.

“That was fast,” Alberto said sarcastically in lieu of a greeting, “What were you doing?!”

Louis quirked an eyebrow and shot him a smirk, causing Alberto to shout out a hurried “actually I don’t want to know!” He never had to know instead of some horizontal shoe shuffling both he and Harry had described in detail what they would serve for each course if they were to feature on ‘Come Dine with me’.

Alberto brushed past Louis without waiting for an invite, looking slightly uncomfortable and holding a black laptop bag.

Louis contemplated caring when Alberto made his way over to the kitchen, placing his bag on the counter and switching on the kettle, pausing only to scoff at Louis’ ‘best roomate’ mug, but decided it was far too much effort. Instead he beckoned for Harry to get up off the sofa, wrapping his arm around Harry’s waist and pulling him into his side when he joined him.

“Al,” Louis said, “This is my- uh- my Harry… Harry, this is my long suffering landlord, Alberto.” Smooth Tomlinson. ‘My Harry’, honestly…

“Pleased to meet you,” Harry said politely, holding out a hand for Alberto to shake but not without a quick smirk in Louis’ direction to let him know his slip up hadn’t gone unnoticed.

“Likewise,” Alberto replied, probably crushing Harry’s fingers in his signature iron grip “Kudos to you for putting up with this one, he’s quite the peace of work!”

Louis squawked, feeling mortally offended, and opened his mouth to defend himself.

“Oh I like a challenge,” Harry slipped in smoothly, throwing a wink at Louis that actually managed to shut him up. Interesting. Deciding to ignore the two who quickly struck up a conversation about incredibly boring topics such as real estate, Louis busied himself making the tea, grabbing the box of green off the shelf , knowing that’s what Harry tended to drink in the evenings without even having to think about it before having the realization that he was becomingly incredibly domestic whilst he was pouring the hot water, his minor existential crisis doing nothing to help him steadily pour the boiling liquid, wincing when he missed the mug and poured it on the counter.

Louis came back to himself when he felt a familiar hand brush his and take the kettle, the familiar fond gaze of Harry snapping him out of his dramatics. Hell, he’d quite happily adopt several podgy children with the kid at this point. Nothing to be afraid of.

After they’d settled onto a stool each with their tea, Louis fixed Alberto with a questioning stare. “So, Bertie, what did you want to show us? It’s not videos from your dance competition is it? I thought I heard you muttering about tango lessons a while back…”

Alberto blushed slightly “No,” he muttered, “and it was ballroom…ANYWAY, no, it was this.” Alberto slid his sleek Dell laptop out of the bag and proceeded to open the screen, the machine slowly beginning to whir and flicker into life.

“A run of the mill laptop thousands of people own, thrilling…” Louis said sarcastically, grinning at the well- rehearsed dirty look Alberto shot in his direction.

Alberto let out a sigh in lieu of replying and set about clicking various folders on his desktop, Louis’ frown deepening as a slightly blurred picture filled the screen that Louis clearly recognised as the front of his building, the code and time stamp in the corner of the picture indicating it was video footage.

“Bloody hell’s this?” Louis asked suspiciously.

“This is the CCTV footage from the camera I have installed at the front of the building.” Alberto explained calmly. Clicking the mouse so the picture became animated, blurred figures speeding through, some passing Louis’ building and other’s going in.

“There’s like 20 flats here Al, you own 3 of them… why the hell are you setting up bleedin’ CCTV?”

Alberto fidgeted slightly, staring resolutely at the screen instead of catching Louis’ eye. “Well I can tell you what it was not for and that was spying to see if you had any wild parties…”

Louis snigger was cut off when a familiar image filled the screen, the scene from this morning still looking passionate even in the blurry video.

Louis felt Harry squeeze his thigh in surprise as the image of their snog-a-thon filled the laptop screen. Watching a video of him snogging someone with his landlord was definitely not how he thought this day would go, to be honest.

“Can I just ask why you’re showing video of me and Harry snogging? Is this some sort of creepy fetish because I can tell ya now, I ain’t joining no wanking ring.”

Harry chuckled slightly but Alberto’s death glare could rival Louis’ own. Alberto waited until the smirk had died off Louis’ face before he paused the video, gesturing to the far right where a clump of overgrown bushes were.

A lone figure was crouched slightly behind the biggest bush, a baseball cap pulled down low over his face. Even with the low quality Louis could make out the young man’s angry face and the way he cautiously looked around him before running off in the opposite direction when Louis and Harry broke apart.

Harry’s hand tightened on his leg and Louis didn’t even need to look at him to know the furrow that would be between his eyebrows and how his teeth would be worrying his bottom lip. Louis reached out and squeezed Harry’s hand assuringly, trying to ignore the nauseating feeling in his own stomach.

Wordlessly, Alberto clicked his mouse a couple more times and the next image that filled the screen was of the same hatted figure, this time holding an all too familiar bat and beating the living shit out of Louis’ beloved car.

Louis winced as the front windscreen exploded all over the road, cringing at Harry’s horrified gasp combined with the death grip Harry had his hand in.

Alberto clicked the video to a stop.

“Is it him Haz?” Louis asked quietly.

Harry nodded. “It’s him. I’m sure.” He loosened his grip on Louis’ hand slightly and let out a shaky sigh, running his fingers through the front of his hair so it stood on end.

“I’m guessing you know who this is, and why he’s doing it?” Alberto asked seriously, his mouth setting into a deep frown as the two nodded wearily.

“Right,” Alberto continued, authoritatively. “We’re going to the police station, grab your coats, boys. I ain’t having no one messing with my tenants.”

*

Either Louis had watched too much ‘Brooklyn Nine- Nine’ or police stations actually were this incredibly dull. Harry, Louis, Liam, Zayn and Niall were all sitting on uncomfortable plastic chairs, all tense and not really speaking. Nick was unfortunately also present, lounging back on a leather chair and surveying the station with the hint of a smirk playing on his lips. Louis had caught him exchanging flirtatious eye contact with the officer on the front desk who was at least 50. Louis contemplated vomiting but figured Nick was fairly near that age group, anyway.

They’d all been interview by the police (even Niall who had no clue what was going on until Louis had called him an hour ago, he just didn’t want to be left out of ‘the fun’, idiot), the only glimmer of excitement being led into the questioning room because there was a two way mirror. Louis pulled faces into it and sincerely hoped there was someone on the other side.

It turned out that the police weren’t all that surprised by the footage Alberto showed them, as Lucas was actually wanted for questioning for several other incidents, including one of actual bodily harm from his time spent in Bournemouth.

Louis held Harry’ hand tight, the two not being able to keep from smiling softly at each other, both of their eyes alight with hope but not wanting to voice anything in case they jinxed it.

When Alberto finally walked back into the waiting area, the five boys all leapt to their feet at the same time. It was quite impressive, maybe they should form a boy band, Louis thought with a smirk, scoffing to himself at the idea.

Alberto rubbed his hands together, his face impassive. “They’ve brought him in.” He said, face void of emotion. “They’re questioning him at the moment but they found glass on his clothes, along with some other evidence in his residence. It’s looking pretty good that they’ll charge him, and considering his other offences, he’ll probably do time.” Alberto finally allowed himself to smile slightly as Niall whooped, Liam and Zayn both heaving sighs of relief as they turned to smile at one another. Nick got to his feet with a yawn and gave a mock salute before strutting over to the officer behind the desk with a smooth ‘officer, I’d like to report a crime please…’

Louis just looked at Harry and saw the same look of relief and happiness echoed back at him, them both not having to utter words to know the possibilities that were in front of them.

And when Harry had Louis spread out on his back later, both of them sweaty and panting with frantic lust, and Louis let out a breathless, “want this forever,” did Harry’s answering beam show him that everything would probably, definitely, work itself out.

“Okay,” Harry agreed, his eyes light and full of something that Louis thought might be love or something equally soppy and disgusting.

“Okay.” Louis echoed, tilting his head back for Harry to continue exploring his neck, the promise of forever ringing in his ears.

Epilogue

“Lou! Lou c’mere a minute!” Harry’s excited voice rang through the flat just as Louis was mentally cursing himself for owning so many pairs of shoes, and he quickly dropped the box he was carrying to rush towards the kitchen.

Harry greeted him with a dimpled smile and held out his hand, grasping Louis’ own and pulling him into the kitchen.

“Right,” Harry began, a playful smirk already forming on his lips. “Above your head here is the fire alarm, and to the left here,” he gestured with his free arm, “is the fire blanket. And over here,” Harry pulled Louis towards the edge of the kitchen, “is the fire extinguisher. Just y’know, if you feel like doing anymore cooking…” Louis met Harry’s mocking grin with his own signature filthy look, pulling his hand from Harry’s and crossing his arms, pouting slightly.

“I’ll punch you in your stupid mouth, Styles, less of your cheek.”

Harry just giggled softly and pulled Louis’ stubborn form towards him, gripping his shoulders softly and pressing soft kisses all over Louis’ face which was contorted in effort to maintain his frown and not break into his crinkly- eyed smile which had certainly become more of the norm these days.

“You love me,” Harry sang giddily, “and my stupid mouth. Told me so just this morning.” He gave an exaggerated wink causing Louis to groan, hiding his smile by trying to wrestle away from Harry’s puckered assault.

Harry just tightened his grip and slid his arms down to Louis’ waist, pressing their bodies together and continuing to smile dopily like an idiot despite Louis’ rather pathetic attempts to wriggle free. “Besides… it’ll be Tomlinson soon,” Harry muttered softly, brushing a kiss to the soft spot under Louis’ ear.

Alright, so maybe now Louis was grinning like a love sick idiot too but, well, he was allowed. “We’ve barely just moved in together and I’ve already agreed to marry you, what am I thinking,” he replied teasingly, stroking a hand through Harry’s curls softly before rubbing his thumb gently over the spot on Harry’s spine where his neck meets his back, the unspoken place where a touch from the other is a reminder of comfort, and stability.

Harry just smiled and rested their foreheads together, both of them remembering. Louis had just come home after a long day at work, revelling in the promotion Simon had finally offered him after deciding he was worthy or whatever, although not without making a big show of ‘handing over the metaphorical reins’ or some shit, which was basically an excuse for Simon to make Louis do his job whilst he played ‘desk golf’ and updated his Tumblr blog.

Louis had been tired after a long day and slightly crabby after he’d had to explain that no, he couldn’t just ‘make my book good’ to a wannabe Stephanie Meyer who had been phoning his office three times a day for the last week.

Harry, despite working his own long shift at the firehouse, had been cooking a delicious smelling concoction when Louis opened the front door, singing along to ‘I will survive’ and jigging around the kitchen, only wearing his boxers and Louis’ ‘Tomlinson 17’ football jersey he’d gotten when he played in the companies charity match against Westman Publishing (which saw them winning 3-0 and Louis’ tackling Nick and not so covertly kicking grass into his quiff, it was probably the best day of Louis’ life).

Louis had had to stand in the doorway for a moment and just watch, the soppy smile the lads called his ‘creepy love stare’, threatening to take over his whole face, the fond erupting and spreading through his body until he thought he might actually explode with love and happiness. He was a walking pile of mush and he loved it.

Harry had turned then, spotting Louis and his face spreading into his own soppy smile (which the lad’s had termed his ‘creepy serial killer frog stare’ so Louis had probably got the better end of the deal, there).

“Hi babe,” Harry had said, placing down the wooden spoon he’d been using as a microphone and leaning back against the counter, the fond on his face not lessening even when he watched Louis do something ridiculously mundane like take off his shoes.

“I’m making herb crusted chicken and gnocchi and I know you said you don’t like it because you’re ‘not sure if it’s pasta or potato and you don’t like ambiguity with your food’ but honestly give it a try because it really is yummy and it’s all squidgy and kinda cute if you think about it so-“

“Marry me,” Louis had blurted, Harry’s widening eyes and slack mouth would have been almost comical if Louis’ face hadn’t been the exact same. He’d not really sure where that had come from but fuck it, here it fucking goes.

“Wh- what?” Harry had stammered, he’d finally closed his mouth but his eyes were still wide with shock, although Louis had sensed something else in them and that gave him the courage to barrel on.

“I’m thinking out loud,” Louis had said, only with a slight stammer as he slowly started to walk towards Harry. “I’m so ridiculously in love with you Harry Styles and I’ve never been this happy and content in like, forever? I mean some intern flicked a rubber at me this morning and I responded by smiling at them? Like what even is that? And quite frankly seeing you in that jersey has sealed the deal and I want to keep you until we’re old, grey and pudgy, so, I’d very much like it if you’d marry me.”

Louis had taken a deep breath after his speech and when he’d let it out it had been a little shaky because there were tears in Harry’s eyes and he was smiling so hard and when Harry let out a chocked ‘of course I’ll marry you, you tit,’ that was it and Louis was so, so gone for this boy.

Louis let out a shaky laugh as the memories in each other’s eyes faded and they were back stood pressed together in their brand new flat, stroking Harry’s cheek and pressing his lips to Harry’s.

Harry responded in kind and soon they were locked in a tender embrace, the mood however, broken as they heard the slam of a door and a ‘less of that, fuckers!’ as Niall looked on in fond disgust.

Niall was carrying a box labelled ‘pillows’ (typical really) which he plonked down on the floor, yawning pointedly and throwing himself onto the sofa.

“Where’s Zayn and Liam?” Louis asked, turning to face Niall and wrapping an arm around Harry’s waist in the process.

“Probs still snogging in the removal van,” Niall replied casually. “Honestly, with you two practically living in the suburbs with four beautiful children and a Labrador and them two snogging and harping on about their ‘backpacking around Europe’ m’ gunna have to find some new friends.” He grinned though before digging a chocolate bar out of his pocket.

“What about that girl you’ve been seeing? Bar-?” Harry asked, tightening his grip on Louis’ waist and sliding his thumb under Louis’ t- shirt to rub at the soft skin on his lower back.

“Oh Barbs? Yeah, pretty sure it’s love so, there ya go. Look at us all so happy ‘n shit!” Niall laughed and took a bite out of his crunchie before cheering loudly when Liam and Zayn walked in, both looking slightly dishevelled and not carrying anything at all, honestly, Louis and Harry had picked the worst moving helpers.

Louis watched fondly as Zayn and Liam settled practically on each other’s laps on the sofa, both of them laughing as Niall threw himself on top of both of them with exaggerated kissy noises.

Louis was distinctly aware of the warm body pressed against his and the familiar touch on his skin, knowing no words were needed between the two to show just how happy they were.

Harry dropped a gentle kiss into Louis’ hair as they watched Niall try and smear chocolate on Zayn’s perfect face, before he let out a battle cry and charged to jump onto the pile of bodies.

Louis held back a second, watching fondly as he rubbed his thumb against the band on his ring finger that matched Harry’s. He’d come a long way and heck, he’d never admit it but he was seriously considering sending his and Harry’s wedding announcement in to the Manchester Gazette. He owed it a lot, after all.

With his own war cry, Louis leapt forward to join the pile, working effortlessly with Harry to tag team Niall and pin him to the floor, smearing chocolate all over his flushed cheeks. Harry and Louis high fived each other, letting their palms linger together and their fingers intertwine.

Harry pulled Louis into him as Niall clambered to his feet swearing revenge, Liam and Zayn probably snogging again. Louis leaned back against Harry and let out a content sigh as he felt Harry’s lips brush his temple.

He was pretty looking forward to his forever.