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After shows, after the performing and the screaming that was sometimes deafening and would overwhelm you if you didn’t hold it at arm’s length; after taking time to celebrate a good show with the whole crew and stopping in dressing rooms to splash their sweaty faces with water; after getting stalled on their way to the bus by eager fans wanting an autograph, a smile, a moment to take home with them; after all the madness and loudness and straight-up unrealness, the boys always ended up in one of their hotel rooms, finishing the night alone, together. Shows left them wound up for hours afterward, so that long after the rest of their team had retired for the night, the boys were still wired, vibrating with energy from the performance, the crowd, the night, the promise of everything in front of them racing through their bloodstreams, potent and exhilarating and intoxicating. So instead of lying awake and sleepless in their own beds, they spent these sleepless midnight hours together, letting the energy slowly dissipate in swapped stories of the show, memorable and outrageous moments from stage that became inside jokes, collapsing together on couches and chairs and beds – whatever was available in that room, in that city, on that night – from laughter and giddiness and exhaustion.
Tonight they were in Louis’ room. There was enough seating in the small “living” space for all of them – Niall, Louis, and Liam sprawled together on the couch, a comfortable chaos of limbs that sometimes felt shared they interlocked so much, Harry and Zayn each in an armchair across the decorative coffee table from them. Louis was tangled up with Niall and Liam, hitting Niall with a throw pillow every time he said something completely ridiculous and sometimes randomly just for good measure, but he couldn’t stop sneaking looks at Harry, who was slumped in his chair with his feet propped up on the table, watching their antics with sleepy amusement. The smudgy quality Harry’s face took on when he was tired never failed to cause Louis’s heart to experience a pang of fondness. He looked away in an attempt to ignore it, unsure what it meant. Zayn was texting somebody, a little removed like he often got when he was tired. The night was winding down, even for them. Louis could feel it.
Liam was the one to break the spell. “I’m beat,” he said, extracting himself from the tangle on the couch and standing up. “Think I’ll turn in.”
“Yeah, good idea mate,” agreed Niall. “Me too.”
Zayn pocketed his phone and stood up, too. Louis glanced at Harry, waiting for his move. Their eyes locked and that wordless something passed between them, in which Louis was sure Harry understood Louis’ gentle plea of, “Not yet.”
“Uh, think I’ll stick around for a bit. Not too tired yet,” said Harry, who was visibly heavy-lidded and heavy-limbed with sleepiness.
Louis bit his lip against a smile.
“Suit yourself,” Niall muttered, yawning.
Zayn darted a look between Louis and Harry as he stepped over Harry’s legs on his way out but said nothing. Maybe Louis imagined it. He thought he might be imagining a lot of things lately, but he wasn’t sure. The other boys were already at the door, tossing “’Night’s” over their shoulders and disappearing into the hallway. Then they were gone, and it was just Louis and Harry.
“Come here,” Louis said, nudging Harry’s foot with his own across the coffee table. The room felt big and kind of vacant without the other boys filling it up with their laughter and their jokes and their presence, and it felt dumb to sit alone on the spacious couch when Harry was there to share the space.
Harry heaved himself out of his chair and stepped up on the table to cross the space between them before flopping down next to Louis. He landed half on top of his friend, half next to him, bodies overlapping, but he didn’t adjust himself. Shared personal space was normal for them, a given, and besides, Harry liked the warmth of Louis, the soft firmness of his body next to/on top of/underneath his own. Harry sighed, at once tired and relaxed and content. He let his head fall to rest against Louis’ shoulder and sighed again, softly, when Louis’ fingers slid into his curls, massaging his scalp.
They were quiet for a while. During the day, they were firecrackers, igniting off each other and emitting sparks of wit and goofiness and mischief that lit up the area around them and drew people to their crackling energy like moths to light. But at night, after a long day, when it was just them nestling into the quiet, safe pocket of midnight, their glow dimmed, became softer, a nightlight in the darkness instead of a star. Their bantering became quiet conversation and unspoken communication; their playful, pouncing physicality softened, became this comfortable sharing of space, overlapping of limbs. By day, they shared their friendship with anyone, everyone; at night, it was just for them, something special, private, secret.
“Harry,” Louis murmured after a while, breath stirring Harry’s hair.
“Yeah?”
“We’re lucky, aren’t we?”
Harry nuzzled his face against Louis’ shoulder. “Yeah,” he said. “We are. Never would have thought, a few months ago… all the fans... crowd gets crazier every night, don’t it?” Harry had trouble speaking in full sentences when he was tired, but Louis always understood, was able to fill in ellipses with the missing words.
Harry felt Louis nod. “Not just that, though.” He paused, then, and Harry thought that might be it. But then Louis voice came again from above Harry’s head, vibrating in his chest against Harry’s cheek, and that was such a good, cozy feeling that Harry almost didn’t bother following the actual words. “This, too,” Louis added, voice soft enough to sound almost shy. “Us, you know? We’re lucky. We all have each other, the whole band, but only we have this. You and me.”
You and me. Harry’s heart felt full, so full it leaked out into his bloodstream, spreading a sort of humming headiness throughout his body. He sat up a little until they were face to face. He meant to say something, to respond and tell Louis that yes, yes they were lucky, the luckiest, but their eyes locked and Louis’ face was soft and serious in a way that was different, somehow, from how it had ever looked before, and it made Harry’s breath get caught in his throat and he forgot all about words. Louis fingers stilled their stroking in his hair, coming to rest pressing against the nape of his neck. Harry’s heart banged against his ribcage and his guts twisted in a way that was also not normal but not unpleasant, either. He let out a breath he’d been holding and knew, because they were sitting so close, that his exhaled air washed over Louis’ face, and for some reason that knowledge caused a funny, tingling warmth to spread beneath his skin. Louis’ eyes were wide and unblinking, watching Harry, watching, waiting. Waiting for what?
“Lou,” Harry whispered. He wanted Louis to tell him what he was waiting for, to tell him why Harry felt so strange all of a sudden, strange but not bad, not bad at all.
Louis’ eyes fell shut. He couldn’t tell if he was imagining Harry leaning almost imperceptibly closer to him with every passing second – they were already so, so close and Louis’ skin burned with it – or not, so he closed his eyes so that he wouldn’t have to decide what was reality and what was not. But that was hardly any better. He’d escaped the guessing game of gauging how close Harry was coming by sight, but removing sight left him prey to the onslaught of his other senses. Was that Harry’s breath on his lips? He hadn’t felt that a minute ago, had he? So did that mean Harry was closer? Louis’ breath hitched, nerves buzzing.
A door slammed somewhere down the hall. Louis’ eyes jerked open. Harry’s head had turned away from Louis toward the sound and there was no way to tell how close he’d been or not been a second sooner. They both waited for a few beats of their pounding hearts to see if more noise would follow, but the disruption had been swallowed by nighttime’s blanketing silence and all was quiet again. Louis exhaled deeply, unsure whether from relief or disappointment, aware only that he had been strung up tightly out of nowhere by some invisible cord that had just as easily loosened, for better or worse setting him free.
Harry turned back again. He couldn’t help but feel like something tenuous but powerful had just stretched between them, only to be snapped by the sudden interruption. He didn’t know what it had been, but he felt its loss like a dull pang of regret in his gut. He wanted to go back to that moment, to that pregnant, shrinking space between them, but it was slippery and he didn’t know how to get a grip on it again. He didn’t know how he’d gotten a grip on it in the first place.
“I… I should get to bed,” he said, at a loss for what else to do. “S’late and all.”
Louis nodded wordlessly – reluctantly? – blue eyes shadowed and unreadable in the semi-darkness.
Harry waited a moment, not really wanting to get up. But, unsure what else to do and already committed, he slipped out from Louis’ embrace – for lack of a better word to describe their sharing of space, though it felt oddly… intimate, especially in light of whatever tenuous something had just stretched and snapped between them – and stood up. The air touching the planes of his body that had been overlapping Louis felt chilly. He looked back down at Louis, still tucked into the couch, watching Harry with a vulnerable expression that looked at once expectant and resigned, and something deep and mysterious inside Harry ached. He ran a hand through his hair, messing it up but beyond caring.
“Well… goodnight, then,” he said to the floor.
“’Night,” said Louis, so quiet he might not have said it at all.
Harry glanced at the door, then back at Louis. He didn’t want to leave. The fierceness of the ache at the thought of walking out the door and leaving Louis alone in that dark, empty hotel room surprised him. But what else could he do? He turned and walked slowly toward the door, praying without really knowing what he was praying for that Louis would stop him. He throbbed with it, the ache of leaving and the hope of… of not.
His hand was on the doorknob when Louis said, “Harry.” Just that – “Harry.” So simple, and yet that one word felt so laden with more that it sank into Harry’s skin and stopped him in his tracks like a lead weight. It wasn’t loud but it didn’t have to be. Harry stilled at the door, not yet turning around but making no other movement. His heart was racing like it knew something he didn’t. He pressed his forehead against the coolness of the door and only then realized how warm he was, like he was fevered.
He heard Louis stand, and the soft padding of his socked footsteps as he crossed the room. Arms slipped around his waist and Louis’ face pressed into his neck. He felt Louis’ heartbeat heavy and irregular against his back.
“Don’t go,” Louis mumbled into Harry’s neck, lips moving against Harry’s skin, sending chills up and down along his fevered skin. “I don’t want you to go.”
Harry turned around, tried to look at Louis, but Louis kept his face buried against Harry’s chest the way he did when he was embarrassed, or scared. Heart pounding, barely breathing, Harry took Louis’ face in his hands and tilted it up so Louis was looking at him.
“I don’t want to go,” Harry said, in a low voice that hit Louis in the base of his belly and traveled in a tingling beeline up his spine.
Louis met Harry’s eyes, the words beating, beating between them.
It wasn’t something Harry consciously decided to do, but when he did it was something that seemed like it didn’t need to be decided, or had been decided a long time ago.
Louis’ cheeks were hot against Harry’s hands, as he slid his thumbs across the skin under Louis’ eyes, then slipped his fingers through Louis’ hair to his neck, unconsciously tipping Louis’s face upwards until it was angled toward his own. Their faces were getting closer, closer, the space dissolving between them, flimsy barriers breaking, and then – without knowing why, without knowing that he even wanted to, without knowing anything except that this felt right, righter than anything – Harry’s lips pressed themselves against Louis’ mouth.
Louis kind of gasped into the kiss, not in surprise exactly but something more like disbelief. His arms moved instinctively to Harry’s neck and he stepped closer so that he was standing on Harry’s feet, clinging to him and pressing their bodies as close together as clothing would allow. Harry took advantage of Louis’ slightly open mouth to suck on his lower lip, lightly tracing the outline with his tongue before slipping it entirely into Louis warm, waiting mouth. A moan vibrated between them but neither could be sure whose it was.
With that the kiss became desperate; they were clutching at each other’s clothes, deepening the kiss like they were trying to climb into each other’s skin, like they were making up for lost time or snatching at something future, fragile but precious, in need of protecting. Harry’s head swam, like he’d taken several shots of vodka one after another and they were all hitting him at once. It was all he could do to cling to Louis to keep from falling as the world spun around him and Louis was the only solid thing – had always been the only solid thing. He wasn’t sure he was breathing.
Louis backed Harry into the door with a thump that, had anyone else been awake to hear, would have been audible enough to attract attention, a knock on the door and a probing “Everything all right in there?” Louis didn’t care. He didn’t care if they made too much noise and woke someone up; he didn’t care that it was long past when they should have gone to bed to be well rested for tomorrow; he didn’t care that he was kissing Harry with such desperation that it should have been embarrassing. He wasn’t embarrassed. Harry was clutching at him fiercely, one hand wrapped around Louis’ waist and the other bunched up in Louis shirt, causing it to ride up and expose a stretch of skin above his low-riding waistband, and Harry’s naughty, naughty lips (Louis had known lips that could quirk into such mischievous grins could be nothing but trouble, and he was right) had moved from Louis’ mouth – thin lips puffy now from the force of their kissing – to his neck, leaving a trail of hot, wet kisses along his jaw. Louis knew he was panting, but he didn’t care about that either. He reveled in the clumsy, desperate, undone reality of it because for once he was sure, he was sure he wasn’t imagining things because his imagination could never conjure up something so messily exquisite, so realistic as this.
After long minutes they finally pulled back to catch their breath. Their eyes met, and they couldn’t help but start to laugh. But when they quieted, Harry’s perpetually crinkling, smiling, joking, teasing, flirting eyes were serious, and they were trained on Louis with a soft intensity that got under his skin and made it burn.
“I couldn’t let you go,” Louis whispered, “not without… that moment, on the couch? I’ve never felt… I had to know… if… if…” he couldn’t finish, still breathless, cheeks flushing afresh.
Harry’s nimble lips captured his in a searing close-mouth kiss that Louis felt run all the way to his feet, making his knees go weak on the way down.
“I didn’t know what it was,” Harry said, his lips brushing against Louis’ as he spoke in a way that made it hard for Louis to pay attention, “but walking to the door was like trying to rip my heart out with my bare hands.”
It was such a typically Harry sentiment, as genuine as it was dramatic, that Louis couldn’t help but smile and bump Harry’s nose affectionately. Then he sighed, let his forehead come to rest against Harry’s and tried to take deep breaths, to calm the all-over clamor of his body.
“Don’t go,” he said, echoing his earlier words. “Promise me. Not now, not ever.”
Harry’s arms tightened around him. “Baby, if you say you want me to stay, I’m not going anywhere,” he said, fierce and sincere as only Harry could be. And Louis has known he loved Harry for a long time but it’s even more powerful like this, it’s almost too much to contain, he isn’t sure he can stand to feel that much all at once.
Louis looks Harry in the eyes and twists his fingers into Harry’s shirt, clenching. “Stay the night,” he says, and it’s not really a question at all so much as a demand. Harry answers anyway, wordlessly hooking his hands under Louis’ thighs and lifting him up, walking him toward the bed, eyes fixed on Louis’, leaving the door safely behind them.