magicalrocketships

EASY AS ALL THAT FUTURE SNIPPET

Originally posted here.

One day I want to write the Nick/Harry sequel to Easy As All That and Forever and a Night, and I mostly want to write it so that this scene can happen:

Nick looked down at his phone. “It’s your mum.”

“Well, answer it then,” Harry leaned back in his seat, and crossed his legs. God, his smile.

“If she bollocks me, you and me are having words.” He swiped his thumb over the answer button. “Anne.”

“Nicholas. Have you got my wayward son with you?”

Nick poked at Harry’s ankle with his toes. “Yeah, he’s here.”

“Well, if you wouldn’t mind telling him that the next time he runs away from home, leaving me a note that says more than, gone off to London town to seek my fortune, might be in order.”

“Oh my god, he didn’t.”

“He did.”

Harry was smirking at him across the table. “Harold, did you really leave your mum a note that said, gone off to London town to seek my fortune?”

“He also signed it Dick Whittington,” Anne added.

ALWAYSEVEN ASKED 8. Louis/Nick: Humiliated

Originally posted here.

[prequel to this ridiculous sprain verse, but can probably be read independently to any of those bits :)]

“I’m not going to his party, that’s ridiculous,” Louis says, lobbing himself onto Harry’s sofa, and sprawling out, legs apart.

Harry sits down on the arm of the sofa, and carefully unpeels his banana. “I’m just saying,” he says. “The last three times you’ve got drunk, you’ve had something to say about Nick.”

“Shut up,” Louis says, chucking a cushion at Harry’s head. “It’s not fair, bringing up shit I’ve said when I’m drunk. That’s, like, an unwritten rule of drinking. What happens when I’m drunk, stays when I’m drunk. Or whatever.”

“Hmm,” Harry says. He makes a face round his banana. It’s quite deliciously rude. Louis chucks another cushion at him. It’s a good thing Harry has an almost limitless collection of stupid, squishy cushions. “I’m just going to repeat this when I’m sober, then. If we’re living by your stupid rules.”

“They’re not stupid,” Louis says. Petulantly.

“It’s all right if you fancy my friend,” Harry says, slowly.

Louis goes red. “Shut up.”

“It’s all right if you fancy my friend, and that my friend has a cock.”

“Harry–”

“It’s all right if you want to make friends with his cock,” Harry goes on. “I’m sure it’s just as friendly as the rest of him–”

It’s not Louis’ fault that Harry ends up with banana smeared across his face and in his hair. It’s perfectly reasonable behaviour, all things considered.

~*~

Louis ends up going to Nick’s party.

~*~

He drinks a lot of vodka.

~*~

Like, a lot.

~*~

“Your face is stupid,” Louis says, when Nick finally comes over to talk to him. “Did you know that?”

“No,” Nick says, and sits down. “Did you know you’re sitting in my bath?”

“I’m king of the sea creatures,” Louis says. “Why do you have a duck wearing a beret?”

“It’s a French duck,” Nick says. “And, um, I sort of want to go for a piss.”

Louis makes a big show of pulling the shower curtain over. “There,” he says. “Privacy.”

“This is my bathroom.”

“I know,” Louis says, from behind the shower curtain. He stares up at the ceiling. “I’m at your party.”

“Yes,” Nick says, from the other side of the room. Louis listens to him putting the seat up and then unzipping his sinfully tight jeans. Louis really would quite like to make friends with Nick’s dick. He resists pulling the curtain back to sneak a peek. “This is weird, you know that, right?”

“Girls go to the loo together all the time.”

Nick starts to piss. “Yeah,” he says. “Is there any reason at all you’ve taken up residence in my bath?”

“I told you,” Louis says patiently. The room is spinning in a nice sort of circle thing. “I’m king of the sea creatures.”

“I don’t have any sea creatures,” Nick says, as he finishes pissing. He runs the tap and then comes over to pull the shower curtain back. He sits on the edge of the bath. “I’ve got a French duck.”

“Who accepts me as his rightful king,” Louis says. He’s cradling the rubber duck to his chest.

Nick smiles at him. He’s got a nice smile. It does queer things to Louis’ insides.

Very queer things.

“Are you going to get out of the bath at any point? Someone else is going to want the loo at some point.”

“I have loyal subjects,” Louis says, patting his duck’s head.

Nick rolls his eyes. “You can bring the duck.”

“Fine,” Louis says, giving the most exaggerated sigh he can manage. He makes an effort to stand up. It mostly fails. “If you insist. Although you should call me King too.”

“King Louis. Like in the Jungle Book?”

“Whatever,” Louis says, as primly as he can manage when he’s mostly seeing two of Nick. “Can I have more vodka?”

“Absolutely,” Nick says, and he holds Louis’ hand to help him out of the bath

Very queer things.

~*~

There are three more vodka cocktails in Louis’ post-bath party experience, and every one of them is delicious. He makes Nick put cherries and slices of orange and umbrellas in each of them, and in return, he draws a moustache on Nick’s face in navy Sharpie.

“There,” he says, tapping Nick’s cheek with the lid of the pen. “Much better.”

“Always thought I’d look good with a moustache. I’m proper lazy, though. Can’t be bothered with the upkeep, you know?”

Louis rocks back against the kitchen counter. The flat is full of noise, music and conversation and people, all at once too much and not enough. His heartbeat flutters; his mouth’s dry. Nick is grinning at him, stupid twirly pen-moustache twisting across his face. He has crinkles at the corner of his eyes. They’re pretty.

“Pretty,” he says, pressing his thumb to Nick’s temple. “No, not there.” He moves his thumb down a bit. His gaze keeps dropping to Nick’s mouth and back up again. “There.”

“Louis–”

Louis surges up onto his feet and presses his mouth to Nick’s. He’s drunk and off-centre and it’s a mess, but he kisses him anyway.

He kisses him, one hand to Nick’s hair, and his heart’s pounding, but Nick–Nick isn’t kissing him back.

Nick pushes him away.

The kitchen goes very, very quiet.

“What was that?” Nick asks, wiping his mouth. He steps back, out of Louis’ personal space.

Humiliation sweeps through Louis like a forest fire of embarrassment. “Nothing,” he says, trying not to look over Nick’s shoulder to all of Nick’s friends, all staring.

“You’re drunk,” Nick says. “What were you–god, Louis. You’re proper pissed.”

That doesn’t make his dick less capable of making decisions about who he’d like to have sex with. Louis kicks at Nick’s kitchen cupboard with his heel. There were only a handful of people who knew he liked dick, or at least, there had been up until two minutes ago. He’s going to be sick.

Nick hadn’t kissed him back. He’d kissed him, and Nick hadn’t kissed him back. God. God.

“I should go,” he says, trying not to trip over his feet. He’s still clutching Nick’s French duck.

“Yeah,” Nick says, one hand still touching his mouth. “Yeah, um. You probably should.”

~*~

Louis doesn’t talk to him again after that.

Nick makes it especially easy by not talking to him, either.

Louis still has that fucking duck, hidden in a box under his bed.

ANONYMOUS ASKED: Larry 5. Lonely

Originally posted here.

(AU where Louis and Harry meet by accident in a youth hostel one weekend. I had this whole story planned out but it never went anywhere, so here, have an attempt at the beginning of it)

“Why aren’t you with your friends?” Louis asks, sinking down onto the grass next to the boy with the curly hair. He’s just bought a Calippo from the shop down the road, and the juice is running down his fingertips and over the back of his hand. It’s so, so hot, and the ice lolly isn’t doing anything to reduce Louis’ body temperature to anything even vaguely beneath boiling fucking hot. Who’s fucking idea was this holiday, honestly. He’s just watched a group of lads troop onto a bus, laden down with rucksacks and walking socks. When they’d shown up last night, Louis had been sure this boy had been with them. Rather them than him, honestly. Walking, in this weather? Well, walking in any weather, but today was hot as hell.

“Dunno,” the boy says. He shrugs, and wraps his arms around his knees. They’re on the little hill round the back of the youth hostel, the pitiful shade from the apple tree over the back wall hardly stretching as far as their shoulders. “Didn’t fancy it?”

It’s not that a boozy post-A-level weekend in a youth hostel had been a bad idea exactly, more that when Louis and his friends had booked it back in May, it had been raining outside and really fucking miserable. The total lack of air conditioning or windows that didn’t actually open hadn’t made that much of an impact when they’d booked their beds.

Stupid, all things considered, because now, instead of a cheap alcohol fuelled weekend away, they were all slowly baking in their own skins, like potatoes in a campfire. Which, coincidentally, it was far too hot to actually have.

Louis never could sleep when it was hot, so whilst all of his mates snored away last night’s hangover, Louis was stuck trying to entertain himself in the arse-end of fucking nowhere, whilst slowly burning up from the inside.

“I’m Louis,” Louis says, holding out his sticky hand.

“Harry,” the boys says. He doesn’t grimace at Louis’ handshake.

“It’s your lucky day,” Louis says, “because I’m so bored my head might fall off, and it looks like you’ve got precisely nothing to do either, if your friends have all fucked off.”

“They’re not my friends,” Harry says, but he doesn’t look too distraught about it. Sad, perhaps.

Louis cocks his head to one side. “Really?” he asks. “Who goes away with people who aren’t their friends?”

“Thought I might try and make some new ones,” Harry says. He plucks at the grass by his feet with his fingertips. His hair falls into his eyes, and he pushes it back out of the way with one grubby finger. “This lot were my first attempt.”

“Take it from me,” Louis says sagely, because you can be sage if you’re doling out advice to good looking boys who are clearly younger than you, “if you’re in the market for new friends, you don’t want to pick the ones who decide to go rambling. That should be your first fucking sign they’re the wrong ones. Nobody likes a rambler, Harry.”

"I bought walking socks especially,” Harry says. He looks a little bit less sad, though.

Louis has achieved greatness, and it’s only nine-thirty on a Saturday morning. “A terrible waste of money,” he says. “Think how many Calippos you could have bought for the price of those socks.”

“I know that now,” Harry says. “What are you doing in the middle of the lake district if you don’t like walking, anyway?”

"Post A-levels drinking weekend with the lads,” Louis says. “Except they’re all passed out like losers, and I can’t fucking sleep.” He bumps the toe of his Vans into Harry’s bare foot. “What happened to your old friends, if you’re in the market for new ones?” He always had been inquisitive.

Harry shrugs. “You know,” he says. “You think everything’s great, but it’s not.”

That isn’t an answer. “That’s a terrible story,” Louis says. “I was going to give you the end of my Calippo, but you don’t deserve it now.”

“Fine,” Harry says. “I agreed to this stupid dare, and the police came, and everyone lied and said I did it by myself. Didn’t much feel like being friends with them after that.”

“Hence the ramblers,” Louis says.

“They’re practicing for their Duke of Edinburgh,” Harry says. “They practice all the time. I think they just like it."

"That’s a bit creepy, that,” Louis says. “Do you think they’re secretly pod people, out there right now, plotting our destruction?”

“Maybe,” Harry says. “Did you know there’s a stream at the bottom of the hill?”

“No,” Louis says. The very idea of a stream is quite delightful, because there’s the smallest possibility that it might be colder in the stream than it is everywhere else. He can only hope.

“I wanted to build a dam across it last night,” Harry says, “but the lads wanted to plan their route for today.”

“Literally the worst potential friends in the world,” Louis says. “Do you want to dam it now?”

When Harry smiles, his whole face lights up.

There’s a queer sort of feeling in the pit of Louis’ stomach. He clambers awkwardly to his feet, and holds out his hand to help Harry up. “Come on,” he says, trying not to show his confusion on his face. “Let’s go.”

“All right,” Harry says, and he doesn’t look quite so sad anymore, so Louis counts it as a win.

ANONYMOUS ASKED: Lilo, 9. bullied

Originally posted here.

“Where the fuck’s Liam?” Louis asks, dropping down onto the sofa in the green room. “Isn’t he always the one who’s always, oh my god, do not be late by even one second or else the world will end and I will tell you off?” He pulls his best Liam face. Niall laughs, but he does it at the same time as he’s kicking him in the thigh and telling him to stop being a dick.

Louis isn’t being a dick. It’s just that Liam Payne is the most annoying part of this whole X Factor experience, and he’s annoying and in Louis’ face and worse than all of that, he’s deadly, deadly dull, and practically the easiest person to wind up Louis has met in forever.

“But seriously,” he says, “I’m like, fifteen minutes late. I’ve been hanging round for ten whole minutes just to see if he’ll make that stupid face like his brain’s about to explode, and he’s not even here?”

Harry rolls his eyes. “Liam’s nice.”

“I know,” Louis knows he’s nice. He doesn’t not like him. He just doesn’t get him, or why he’s determined to take every single second of this experience so fucking seriously. “He just does my head in. Where is he, anyway? Even Zayn’s here.”

“Shut it,” Zayn says. “I’m always here.”

“Hmmmm,” Louis says, and then looks over Zayn’s shoulder to the door, where Liam’s coming in. “Where have you been, Payno? We were just having a band meeting about whether or not to chuck you out the band. We’ve voted with letting you go, sorry, you’re too late. You’re out.”

There is a single, desperate moment where terror is scrawled across Liam’s face, so painfully obvious that Louis feels the weight of it across every inch of his skin.

“It was a joke,” Louis says, because Liam looks like he’s about to hyperventilate. “Liam, it was a joke.”

“Fuck you,” Liam says, red-faced, and he turns tail and walks right back out again.

“Lads,” Louis says, looking wildly from Harry to Zayn to Niall. “It was a joke. You know it was a joke, right?”

Niall looks desperately awkward. “Are you going to go after him? One of us should go after him.”

“It was a joke,” Louis says, but he’s clambering to his feet. Guilt weighs him down. “It’s not my fault he can’t take a joke.”

“He got bullied,” Harry says, like Louis hasn’t figured out by himself that Liam is and probably always has been a blatant target for every school bully in a five hundred mile radius. Louis is already half out the door, but he waves a hand behind him to say, I know.

He really fucking knows.

*

It takes him almost twenty minutes to find Liam in the end, and he finds him curled up on a windowsill at the top of the building, knees drawn up to his chin.

“You’re not out of the band,” Louis says, awkwardly. “You should learn never to listen to a fucking word I say. Always fucking ignore me, Liam, I’m all mouth.”

Liam wipes his nose on his sleeve. “Everyone always looks at you,” he says. “They walk into the room and all they see is you. I walk into a room and all I can see is you.”

“Liam–”

“You’re always fucking there,” he says. He rubs at his eyes with his hands. “I think about you almost all of the time, and I can’t make you like me, and I can’t ever make anyone like me, but it’s worse with you. You’re the fucking worst.”

Louis’ heart feels like it’s going to burst right out of his chest. He wants to cry, because he’s the one who made Liam look like this. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m so sorry.”

“Why don’t you like me?” Liam asks, and a sob catches in Louis’ throat, because this is the worst. Liam’s been crying, and over something Louis said, and he looks so desperate and so broken that Louis has literally zero idea how to fix it.

“I do like you,” Louis says, and he doesn’t know what to do, so he covers Liam’s fist with his hand. “I was joking, but I’m not funny, I know it. I’m the least funny person ever, and I am so sorry. I never meant to make you cry.”

“I thought i was doing okay,” Liam says, and his voice catches. “I was trying so hard, but I still couldn’t make you like me.”

Louis leans forward until his forehead is resting against Liam’s knee. “I’m sorry,” he says, and he doesn’t mean for what he’s just said. He means for everything, for all the times people have made Liam feel like shit, for all the times he has too, by accident and on purpose and everything in between. “I do like you, I swear.”

There’s the longest, longest time before Liam touches his hand to Louis’ hair. Louis shifts position, his cheek resting against Liam’s thigh. Liam’s eyes are all red. His cheeks are tear-stained.

“What can I do?” Louis asks.

Liam shrugs, and Louis slides his hand into Liam’s, squeezing.

“We do want you,” Louis says. “God, have you heard yourself? You can sing so fucking well, and you’ve got this hair, and you’re cute, okay? You think the rest of us wouldn’t give a fucking kidney to sound like you do? Because we would. I would.”

“I’ve only got one kidney that works,” Liam says, sniffling.

“Well, then,” Louis says. “You could probably do with another one. You can have one of mine if you’ll let me have your vocal range.”

“Louis.”

Liam’s hand is shaking in his. It’s impulse for Louis to lean in and kiss Liam’s cheek. It’s what he does to his sisters when they’re upset. Liam turns his head to the side, just a little, just enough. He breathes against the corner of Louis’ mouth, and Louis nudges forward, one breath, two. He pulls away, but doesn’t let go of Liam’s hand.

Liam ducks his head. “How did you know?” he asks, gaze still down in his lap, and Louis thinks, oh, fuck. “I never told anyone.”

“Me neither,” Louis says. He wraps his hands around Liam’s. “There you go,” he says, and his voice shakes. “That’s a secret in return. That’s what cements a friendship, isn’t it? Sharing your secrets.”

Liam swallows. “Friends?” he asks, softly.

Louis nods. “Friends,” he says, and tries not to concentrate on the memory of an almost-kiss. “Friends until the bitter end, Payno. Can’t get out of it now.”

“Wouldn’t want to,” Liam says, and he almost smiles.

Originally posted here.

LOVERAVE ASKED: in the science can't explain it verse did Nick and Harry just end up with the two children? How badly did the clique and 1D dote on these children? I imagine there was much dotage.


The Robin and Amelia were both accidents, and they’re careful not to do that again. I mean, Nick and Harry adore their children so much that they barely know what do with themselves half the time, but when Harry was pregnant with Amelia, he was on tour for part of that, horny and alone the other side of the world from Nick. It was awful, and they missed each other so much it hurt, and even though Nick isn’t the most organised person in the world, neither of them are, they don’t want to do that again.

But maybe when The Robin is seven or eight, and pestering them to get married so he can wear a suit and be the most important person all day (it’s possible The Robin has a vaguely confused idea about what happens at a wedding), and Amelia has started school, there’s a morning where they’re alone for the first time in forever, the house quiet around them, and Nick says, “they’re growing up, aren’t they?”

“Yep,” Harry says. “Do you ever wish—” he shrugs. “We didn’t plan them.”

“We could, you know,” Nick starts, “well. We’re better planners now.”

“Yeah,” Harry says. “Plus we wouldn’t be going into it blind. Like, we both know how to change a nappy.”

“And how to get peas out of nostrils,” Nick says. That one had been a learning curve for all of them, but Amelia the most. “So.”

“I’m up for planning,” Harry says. “If you are.”

And then they hold hands a bit and talk about nothing and then eighteen months later, there’s a tiny baby boy cradled into the curve of Harry’s elbow, Nick pale and exhausted in the hospital bed beside him, Amelia asleep in the corner, and The Robin taking pictures on his daddy’s phone.

“What do you think about Nigel?” Nick asks. He makes a face like he’s pretending he’s serious.

“Perfect,” Harry says, deadpan. “Although I’ve always liked Clive.” He still can’t rid himself of that terrible fear, sitting low in his belly, that today would go like the last time Nick was in hospital, when Harry thought he’d lost both him and The Robin. He’d remember that feeling until the day he died.

“I don’t think he looks much like a William,” Nick says, at last. The Robin has clambered up onto the bed next to him, and is holding Nick’s hand. William was the name they really had picked out for the baby, but Nick’s right. Their baby doesn’t look like a William.

“Kit,” Harry says, softly. “He looks like a Kit.”

“Kit Styles-Grymshaw,” Nick says. “What do you think, Robin?”

“The Robin is better,” he says, steadfastly. “But Kit’s nice.”

“We’ll see what Bean thinks when she wakes up,” Harry says, but their baby looks like a Kit.

Nick catches his eye over the top of Robin’s head. Yeah.

Originally posted here.

ANONYMOUS ASKED louis x nick fic where louis' a single dad who lives next door & his kid keeps 'accidentally' stealing puppy whilst home sick from school & hiding her in various places around their house & louis' oblivious until nick turns up on his doorstep AGAIN, resigned smile on his face & an autographed 5sos picture as a bribe that louis works out his kid is a dog-napping rascal (except maybe his kid's ulterior motive all along is just to get the cute neighbour his dad is always staring at to come over)

THIS IS SORT OF YOUR PROMPT, ANON. Sort of. /o\

Louis/Nick, kid fic + puppy

The doorbell rings when Louis is just about done with making tea. They’re having beans on toast, which is just about the level Louis can achieve in the kitchen without having to concentrate really hard on not fucking things up. This week he’s achieving spectacular levels of fucking things up across the board, so he’s reverting to nice and simple in the kitchen.

“Max,” Louis yells, dropping his knife down onto the counter, turning the hob off under the beans, and darting out into the hall, “do not answer that door–"

Max is nowhere in sight, which is weird, because since they’ve moved in, Max has maintained that he has to answer the door to every visitor, under all circumstances. Max is naively, desperately in love with people, which is normally fine, except he's five. Louis is fairly sure he shouldn’t be in charge of answering the door and the phone, regardless of how much Max whines he wants to.

Louis answers the door to find a terribly tall, ridiculously quiffed guy on his doorstep, who Louis immediately recognises as Nick Grimshaw. Louis is aware that Nick Grimshaw lives next door, but he’s never actually met him. They’ve only lived here a few weeks, for a start, and Louis has been busy bunging Max into a new school and starting his new job, and that hasn’t left much time for anything other than a general aroma of harassed and exhausted.

"Hello,” Louis says, still looking around behind him for Max. Max is never quiet, which is partly why Louis is exhausted ninety-eight per cent of the time, and he’s never not under Louis’ feet.

“Hi,” quiffed Nick Grimshaw says, raising his hand in greeting. He looks a bit awkward, which Louis would like to delve more into, because Nick works for Radio 1, and Louis has been listening to the Breakfast Show his entire life, and Louis doesn’t really know what to do with the way his heart is speeding up in his chest at the sight of his secret idol. “Uh, not to be rude, but has your kid got my dog?”

Louis bristles. “No, my kid has not got your dog, whatever you might mean by that.” He is terribly defensive of Max, who is, by all accounts, a bit of a menace. He has a subscription to The Beano and has counted Dennis the Menace as his hero since he was old enough to pick his own bedtime stories. Louis is ever so proud of him, at least he is when he’s not too exhausted to keep his eyes open. Now he’s just weary.

“Right,” Nick Grimshaw says. “I’m just asking because the last time Puppy went missing, your kid had him tucked away under a bush in your garden, and now my dog’s gone, and–”

“Have you been talking to my son?” Louis asks, sharply. “Without me there?”

“I only leaned over the fence and asked him if he’d seen Puppy–”

“Max hasn’t seen your stupid dog,” Louis snaps. “He’s upstairs playing, so don’t come round here with your stupid accusations.” He shuts the door in Nick Grimshaw’s face. “Max. Max, answer me.” He goes upstairs, and stomps into Max’s bedroom. “Did the next door neighbour talk to you?”

Max is sitting in the middle of his bedroom, hugging a dog that does not belong to either Louis or Max, and the dog is, rather unfortunately, wearing a pink princess dress. At least Max looks guilty.

“Crap,” Louis says. “Max, where did you get that dog?”

The dog woofs. Louis rolls his eyes, and scoops him up and out of Max’s arms. Max woofs too.

“No barking,” Louis says. “Tell me, because now we’re going to have to go round to bloody Nick Grimshaw’s house and give him his dog back, and I’d quite like to know how he ended up in your bedroom anyway.”

“There’s a hole in the fence,” Max says, looking put upon.

“And the dog crawled through?”

“I crawled through,” Max says.

His son is a dog thief. Glorious. His job is shit and he hates it and he’s hundreds of miles away from his friends, and now he has to go and knock on Nick Grimshaw’s door and give him his stolen dog back. “Right,” Louis says, and he lets out a breath and takes Max’s hand. “Come on, let’s go and give Nick Grimshaw his dog back, and then you and me can have a little talk, all right?”

“Don’t want to,” Max says, and his lower lip wobbles. “My dog.”

“He’s not your dog, love, and his owner’s worried about him.”

God, going tail between his legs to Nick Grimshaw’s front door is hardly his idea of fun. Max is crying by the time they get there, and it’s all Louis can do to ring the doorbell and bundle the dog into Nick’s arms and apologise, before he’s having to lift a sobbing Max up and hug him tight. Max is wailing about wanting a dog, and Louis tries to blink away tears too, because moving has been so hard and he just wants to be able to curl up and cry too, because being a parent is hard.

They end up spending the rest of the evening curled up on the sofa, eating cold beans on toast, under a blanket watching Monsters Inc., talking quietly about dogs and stealing. When it’s bedtime, Louis avoids The Beano in favour of the Rupert annual. Max is asleep even before the end of the story, and after Louis has made sure his nightlight is on and his door is ajar, he goes into his room and faceplants into his bed and tries to work out how he got to this point in his life.

~*~

Nick Grimshaw turns up the following evening after tea, when Louis and Max have just had a competition to see who could eat the most chocolate mousse without using a spoon, so Louis is still wiping his face on a tea towel even as Max is opening the front door.

“Max–” Louis says, trying to get to the door first, but it’s too late. Max is literally covered in chocolate mousse, and Louis is fairly sure he is too, although at least he’s got the worst of it on the tea towel. “Sorry, hi.”

“Hi,” Max says, clutching on to Louis’ hand. “Hi.”

Nick is holding Puppy in one hand, and the pink princess dress in the other. “I think this is yours,"

"That’s mine,” Max says, holding out his chocolatey hand.

“Sorry,” Louis says. “We were just, um, having a race.”

“A chocolate race,” Max supplies.

“I can see,” Nick says, crouching down so that he’s on a level with Max. “Did you win?”

“Daddy did,” Max makes a face. “But he cheats.”

Louis does sometimes. It’s a thing. “Only a little bit,” Louis supplies. “Come on, let me get you cleaned up, Max.” The tea towel is ineffectual, and they’re both probably a mess. Nick drops the princess dress down onto the side table by the door, and looks a bit awkward.

“I was wondering,” Nick says, “and only if it’s okay with your Dad, but if you might want to play with Puppy sometimes.”

Louis lets out a breath, and tries not to sag back against the wall. He’d really like a dog, but there is literally no way at this point in time that he could cope with Max and their lives and a dog on top of that, regardless of how much he might want one.

“Is that a yes from your dad?” Nick asks, and he looks hopeful.

“It’s a yes,” Louis says, and Max does an actual victory dance right there in the hall. “Do you want a cup of tea?” he asks Nick, because he has a feeling he was way too short with him yesterday. “As an apology for yesterday. And for me being a dick.” He says dick quietly, but Max is already clamouring to play with Nick’s dog, and Nick’s dog looks just as excited as Max does.

“Okay,” Nick says, and then he motions towards Max, and his dog. “Can I?”

“Go ahead,” Louis says. “Place is a big enough mess as it is, a dog can only improve matters.”

He washes his hands and face, and Max’s hands and face as the kettle boils, and afterwards he and Nick sit in Louis’ messy living room whilst Max and Puppy run round the house in loud, untidy, complicated circles, chaos following in their wake, both of them barking madly.

“Puppy’s my new best friend,” Max tells him, tumbling into Louis’ lap half an hour later. Puppy does the same with Nick’s lap. Max gives Louis a messy kiss on his cheek, and Louis gives him one right on back. “Can Puppy come over every night?”

Louis glances over towards Nick, who is looking a little flushed. Louis tries to ignore the way his heart beats a little faster in his chest at Nick’s cautious smile.

“Nick’s busy, love.” Louis says, carefully.

“I don’t know,” Nick says, “I think I could come round sometimes. If your dad’s okay with it.”

Louis swallows. “I’m okay with it,” he says.

“And maybe,” Nick says, “if you’d like, the two of you could come round for dinner. See where Puppy hangs out.”

“Right,” Louis says, and he’s glad there’s a massive framed picture of him and Max and Louis’ friends at Pride on the wall, waving a massive rainbow flag in the air, because it reduces the questions required for actual coming out. “I could bring a bottle.”

“That’d be nice,” Nick says, eyes on Louis, and Louis is fairly sure he’s been asked out on a date, which is weird. And nice. And scary. It’s been almost five years since he’s been on a date. He’s not entirely sure that this is actually one, but it feels like it might be. He’ll figure out the details later.

“Puppy needs a present too,” Max reminds him, and Louis nods.

“You’re absolutely right, Maximillian,” Louis tells him. “We will bring puppy treats, all wrapped up in a bow.”

“Yes,” Max says, and snuggles into Louis’ side. “That’s right, Daddy.”

Over the top of Max’s head, Louis offers Nick a cautious smile, and Nick smiles right on back.

originally posted here.

ANONYMOUS ASKED: I'm not sure if you're still taking prompts, but if you are I'd love to hear about Louis and Harry from your Won't Get To Space verse taking Liam to see the new Captain America movie.

Now, there is a sequel in the works for Won’t Get To Space, so this probably doesn’t quite fit with that timeline, but WHO CARES.



“What time do you finish work?” Louis asks, as soon as Liam picks up, and Liam’s so used to Louis and Harry constantly using each other’s phones that it doesn’t bother him that it’s Harry’s name that flashed up on his screen. It’s a picture of all three of them that comes with it, anyway, Harry in the middle with Louis on his back with his arm in the air, Liam holding the camera out and pressing in so that he’s in shot. It’s one of Liam’s favourite pictures.

“Half five, why?” Liam asks. He’s supposed to be seeing them at the weekend, but it’s only Thursday. There are half-arsed plans to go and see the new Captain America film, and Liam’s desperately trying to cover up his desire to see it sooner rather than later.

“We’re coming to pick you up,” Louis says. “We’ve got plans for you.”

“It’s Thursday, though,” Liam says, puzzled. He had plans for tonight that involved putting a load of washing on and eating beans on toast in front of the telly. It’s the part of his life he tries to hide from Louis and Harry, who are surely only here for the exciting bits.

“We know,” Louis says. “You’re not busy, are you?”

“Nope,” Liam says, although he’ll have to figure out when to do the washing now, so he’ll have clean pants for work on Monday. He’s very much in love with Louis and Harry, but he does have a Monday to Friday job he has to work the two of them around, which they don’t.

“Brilliant,” Louis says. “We’ll see you at half five. Love you.”

“Right,” Liam says, but Louis has already hung up.

~*~

Half five shows up, but Louis and Harry don’t. Liam sits outside the garage with his jacket zipped up, and passes his phone from hand to hand, waiting for them. He doesn’t want to ring in case they’re driving, so he sits outside and hopes that he hasn’t got the day wrong.

They don’t show up until ten to six, by which point Liam is already about ready to leave to go home. Harry pulls his Range Rover up in front of the garage though, parking it totally skewiff, and Louis is already tumbling out of the passenger door even as Liam is standing up to meet them.

“Hello,” Louis says, bounding over and pushing Liam up against the wall. “Happy Captain America Day, Steve.”

“What?” Liam says, but Louis is kissing him hello. Liam can’t quite bring himself to be bothered about who might see.

“Captain America Day,” Harry says, carefully pushing Louis out of the way and kissing Liam gently. “Here, we got you a t-shirt in honour of the occasion.”

Louis pulls open his denim jacket to display a t-shirt with Captain America’s shield right there in the centre. Harry is wearing one with a giant Avengers A in the middle. The one they’re holding out for Liam is royal blue, with a white star in the middle and red and white stripes at the bottom.

“What—”

“Suit up,” Louis says. “Here, preferably. Where we can stare at how hot you are.”

Liam swallows, and looks down at his t-shirt. “Why are you here?” he asks, because ninety-five per cent of the time, he has no idea why Louis and Harry even bother with him.

“Because Steve’s your favourite, and because you’re our favourite, and because we wanted to take our boyfriend out,” Harry says. “We’ve got tickets for the eight o’clock showing, we’ve got a table at that burger place near that bowling alley that we went to first, and then we’re all going to go back to yours afterwards and let you talk about how hot Captain America is whilst we fuck you.”

“That last part’s my favourite,” Louis says, leaning in. “That was my idea, that bit. You can talk about how you’d like Steve to fuck you, if you like. Whilst we jerk you off. Make you come all over yourself.”

“Oh,” Liam says. Luckily he works on a nice, quiet road. It’s good, that, because he’s sporting a semi. “Right. That’s good, then.”

“Brilliant,” Harry says. “Now, are you going to change your top, or what? It’s been a whole week since we’ve seen you topless, and we’re getting withdrawal symptoms.”

“All right,” Liam says softly, and pulls open his jacket.

Originally posted here.

ANONYMOUS ASKED: Lilo breakup/makeup

They break up two weeks before the end of tour, after weeks of arguing over nothing and bickering over stupid, ridiculous stuff like who ate the last of the Coco Pops or who got to pick the DVD. Louis is snappy and bad-tempered, and by the time he and Liam break up, he can barely remember why he’d ever thought sleeping with one of his bandmates was a good idea.

It had seemed a great idea at the time; sneaking around and snogging a lot and fucking on hotel beds. Coming out had been accidental, and easy: the two of them hadn’t closed the hotel room door properly, and they’d been caught snogging up against the bathroom door by Zayn and Niall and Harry. They’d immediately accepted them as together, even before Liam and Louis had talked about taking it to the next level and being boyfriends.

Breaking up was even easier: Liam had eaten the last of his pop tarts, and Louis couldn’t do this anymore. He couldn’t do the fighting, or the snapping, or the lack of fucking. They’d barely done more than perfunctory snogging in weeks, and Louis could put up with fighting if there was spectacular sex coming alongside it, but there hadn’t been anything, literally nothing, for over a week.

“You ate my last pop tart,” he says, suddenly exhausted.

“I’m sorry?” Liam says. “I thought they were mine.”

“They’re not,” Louis says, and then, “I can’t do this anymore.”

“Do what?” Liam asks, but Louis can tell that he gets it. He knows it isn’t working too. His shoulders drop.

“This,” Louis says, and he waves his hand between the two of them, and all of a sudden he feels too exhausted to sugar coat it. “The two of us. It’s not working.”

Liam nods, and doesn’t try to stop it, and that’s when Louis knows it’s the right thing to do. He spends the rest of the day hiding in his bunk, iPod on high, blankets pulled up to his chin. In the gaps between the songs, he can hear Liam’s snuffled, hitched breaths from the bunk next to his, and Louis cries then too, silent and painful, tears sliding down his cheeks.

And then: they just have to get past it, work through the strained silences and the long, endless nights where sleep doesn’t come and Louis stares up at the ceiling of his bunk and tries not to think about what it felt like to fall asleep next to Liam, or to know that he could sprawl out across the sofa and have Liam slide in behind him, wrapping his arms around Louis’ middle. He tries to forget what it felt like to kiss him, to be able to think, boyfriend, and see Liam’s face. He tries to forget what it felt like to be in love.

The shows are strained, and although they try to hold it together, there are shards of Louis’ heart that are slowly splintering away with every time they have to stand next to each other on stage, with every lyric that they sing, with every time their eyes meet and Louis has to look away.

It hurts, is the thing.

It really hurts.

Every time he looks at Liam his heart contracts.

It takes him a week to realise he’s made the wrong decision.

Making up is the hardest part of it all, harder than kissing him for the first time, harder than being away from his family, harder than turning around and walking away from Liam the first time.

Liam won’t look at him when they’re off stage, ducking his head and walking away, looking the other way.

“Liam—” Louis says, the night before the end of tour. He grabs Liam’s sleeve, but Liam shrugs him off. “Liam, please.”

“I can’t,” Liam says. “I know you’re probably over me or whatever, but I can’t. Not yet. Just give me a bit more time before we go back to whatever we were before.”

“No,” Louis says. “I want to talk to you.”

Liam shakes his head, and pulls away. “I seriously can’t.”

Louis doesn’t sleep. It’s almost four in the morning when he crawls into Liam’s bunk, and wraps his arms around Liam’s waist. “I’m sorry,” he says softly, into the back of Liam’s neck. “I’m so sorry, babe. I miss you so much.”

“I can’t be your friend yet,” Liam says, and he sounds exhausted. He doesn’t pull away.

“I don’t want to be your friend,” Louis says and he presses his nose to Liam’s skin, trying to breathe him in. “I want to be your boyfriend. I miss you so much.”

Liam’s breath hitches. “Louis—”

“I want to try again.”

“Lou—”

“Please,” Louis says, and he holds on tighter. “Just give me another chance. I love you.”

Liam doesn’t say anything.

Louis gives him another minute before he loosens his grip. If he can get back to his bunk before he breaks down then he’ll count it as a win.

Liam lets out a breath. “Don’t go,” he says. “Stay.”

“God,” Louis says, but he stays, and Liam slides his hand into Louis’ and keeps holding on.

Originally posted here.

A few people have asked me what Louis names his mouse in Hold Me Fast, and I absolutely knew the answer to this when I wrote it, but then it didn't quite fit with the narrative so it didn't go in. So, here we go.

Harry/Louis, tiny ficlet set after Maybe This Time and Hold Me Fast

Age play, daddy kink, thumb sucking, soft toys.

"What are you going to call him?" Harry asks, late the following night, when Louis is nestled up against him, legs over his lap, cheek pressed to Harry's shoulder. Harry rubs the pad of his thumb over Louis' soft toy mouse. "Doesn't he need a name?"

Louis tucks his mouse up against his chest, and buries his face in her fur. "Not a he," he says, because she's so soft, and he really loves the way she feels when he rubs his nose against her fur. "She's a she."

"Oh, well, then," Harry says, and kisses the top of his head. "What are you going to call her, then?"

Louis shrugs, pressing a little closer and wriggling. "She's grey," he says. "Like a cloud."

"A rain cloud?"

Louis' pyjamas are all messy again, and they stick to his dick a bit from where he'd come in them earlier, Harry's hand on him through the cotton. His onesie is in the wash; Harry's promised him he can wear it again tomorrow. "She's grey like a cloud," he says again, a little obstinate this time around.

"Well, okay," Harry says. "Is that going to be her name, then?"

Louis shakes his head, and slides his thumb into his mouth. "Puddle," he says. "She's grey like a puddle."

Harry strokes Louis' hair away from his forehead, and leans in to kiss him again. "That's a good name, baby," he says. "Puddle."

"Puddle and Patch," Louis says, and he tucks her into the curve of his elbow as he reaches for Harry's hand, lacing his fingers with his daddy's. "They're mine?"

"They're yours," Harry agrees. "They're your toys, Louis. All yours."

"Mine," Louis says softly, and he feels warm and quiet and little and loved.

Originally posted here.

Snippet from a Louis-centric WW2 AU, which owes much of its WW2 detail from Nevil Shute’s Pastorale.

The first bit ends mid-sentence, sorry.

February

Louis wasn’t speaking to anyone, and out of the people he wasn’t speaking to, he definitely wasn’t speaking to the Wing Commander. It was a good thing the Wing Commander never ate in the mess, else Louis was going to have to decide between his righteous anger and his military training, and neither of those were going to end well.

Everyone else did, though.

“Louis,” Harry said, ignoring Louis’ do not disturb vibes and sitting down next to him. They were supposed to be eating some kind of bully beef hash, with overcooked potatoes and not enough gravy. Louis pushed it around his plate and didn’t look up. “Louis.”

“Of all the people I don’t want to talk to,” Louis said, “you’re right up there with the best of them.”

“I didn’t do anything,” Harry said, taking precisely no notice of



June.

Louis sat on the edge of his bed and watched the moonlight glint through the open curtains and onto the washstand at the foot of the bed. It wasn’t quite light enough to read the time off his wrist watch; he flicked the catch on his lighter, light enough to see the time.

Twenty to three in the morning.

The familiar dull roar of the Wellingtons’ engines as they landed had started to fade into something less frequent at some point after two. He hadn’t counted the planes down, but there had been engines enough that most, if not all, the planes had returned. He could time landing down to a t, after so many raids as part of the R-for-Robert crew. Landing, and then taxi-ing to dispersal, and the familiar handover to the ground crew before ten minutes in the truck to Wing Headquarters. Another twenty minutes giving his report, and then the truck to the mess for tired, quiet tea and buns and toast before calling it a night. Bed before three, if you were lucky.

Louis didn’t turn the light on, not wanting to alert anyone to the fact he was still awake. He stood by the window instead, even though there was no view of the aerodrome from this side of the building. In daylight, he could see across the valley and the wood and over to the mill pond at the other side of Combe Magna village. Nothing of the aerodrome.

Somewhere in the distance, he heard the faint sound of someone whistling don’t sit under the apple tree. He closed the window, and straightened the covers on the bed.

One minute. Two.

The faint knock on his door.

Louis opened it, standing back from the door to let him in.

“Hello,” he said.