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.

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.

GREEDYDANCER ASKED Nick/Harry take care of hurt!Louis >.>

The phone call comes at four in the morning, when Nick’s asleep with Harry sprawled out on top of him like he’s got a little bit mixed up about whether he’s man or blanket. Nick is used to waking up early, but four is early even for him, and anyway, it’s the weekend.

“Nrgh,” he manages, trying to shrug Harry away so he can reach for whichever one of their mobiles is vibrating off the bedside table. “Hello?”

“Haz,” Louis’ voice says, and he sounds slurred and fucked up. “Haz, I fell over.”

“It’s for you,” Nick says, poking Harry in the shoulder. Their phones both sound the same when they’re on vibrate. “Louis. He’s drunk.”

“‘m not drunk,” Louis says, and Nick can still hear him even as he’s handing the phone over. “Haz, I broke my phone.”

“Hi, Lou,” Harry says, sleepily taking the phone, and bunging it on speakerphone. “What’s up.”

“I fell over,” Louis says. “Hit my head. Wait. Didn’t fall over. Tripped.”

“Louis,” Harry says, carefully. He spreads his fingers across Nick’s bare stomach, sitting up. “What happened? Where are you?”

“Hospital,” Louis says. “Need picking up. Discharged myself. Feel sick. Haz, my screen’s broken.”

Nick’s already climbing out of bed and pulling on a pair of pants, even as Harry’s trying to get out of Louis where they need to be.

~*~

The thing is, Louis is a terrible patient. He’s whiny and grumpy and all of his dickhead tendencies are exaggerated beyond the normal level of Louis Tomlinson frustration, and so far the only time Nick’s had to deal with Louis being sick is the giant fucking cold and subsequent chest infection last winter, when Louis had taken up residence in Harry’s spare bedroom and spent six days telling Harry his squash was the wrong sort. Nick had put up with it only because he’d been officially going out with Harry for about six seconds then, and because Louis was Harry’s best friend.

This time, well. He’s not going to put up with it.

Except this time, Louis is quiet. He’s quiet and sleepy and curls up on Nick’s sofa with blankets and the pillows from Nick’s bed, and he spends the first day drifting in and out of sleep and hugging Nick’s dog.

It’s weird, is the thing.

“Did he tell you what happened?” Nick asks in an undertone, once Harry has deposited two slices of hot, buttered toast next to Louis’ sick bed, alongside an almost-cold cup of tea that Louis had barely touched.

“Only what the doctor told us.” The doctor had said that Louis had been knocked out when he hit the pavement, but quite how he got there, Nick isn’t entirely sure.

“How’d he get knocked out?”

“I am here, you know,” Louis says, but he doesn’t open his eyes. “I’m not actually dead.”

“You’re doing a fairly good impression of someone who is,” Nick says. “What happened?”

“Got drunk, someone started sounding off, I fell over my feet and ended up knocking myself out,” Louis says. He still doesn’t open his eyes. “Embarrassing but not life threatening. Remind me to be humiliated later, when my head stops hurting.”

“What were they sounding off about?” Nick asks, since he’s attuned to that kind of thing.

“You know,” Louis says. “The usual. How I like cock, that kind of thing.”

Louis’ coming out story had held the news cycle for a full seven days last month. Nick and Harry’s had held it for two days, six months ago. Sometimes Nick felt bad about that. “All the best people like cock,” Nick says, which is as helpful as he can manage.

“Yeah,” Louis says shortly, and he doesn’t eat the toast.

~*~

By day two, Louis is back to being a dickhead, and Nick is back to considering the best ways to hide the body.

“Your toothpaste is weird,” Louis declares, padding into the kitchen in a pair of Nick’s pyjama bottoms with the bottoms rolled up. “I threw it in the bin because it tastes revolting.”

“Thanks,” Nick says, after Harry kicks him in the ankle. “Do you want tea?”

“You don’t make it right,” Louis says, and he elbows Nick out of the way. “I’ll show you how to do it right.”

“There’s toast,” Nick says, as mildly as he can.

“Thanks,” Louis says, and Nick waits for the punchline, but there isn’t one. Harry smiles at Nick over the top of Louis making tea, but Nick isn’t entirely sure he understands any of this.

“It’s just because he wants to be your friend,” Harry tells him later, when Louis has taken up the whole of the sofa again, and Nick and Harry are relegated to sharing the armchair in the corner if they want to see the TV.

“I heard that,” Louis says, without looking up from his tube of yogurt. Nick had had to go on a special trip to the supermarket when Louis had demanded kids’ yogurt. “And I don’t want to be his friend, that’s stupid. My head hurts, someone make me tea. I’ve been through a very trying ordeal.”

“You fell over your feet,” Nick points out, since the rest of it feels a little confusing to him.

“Whilst defending your honour,” Louis says. “Someone get me a biscuit.”

Which, what.

“What?” Harry asks, carefully.

Louis concentrates on his tube of yogurt. “Oh,” he says, “didn’t I mention that? It wasn’t just me liking cock that they were bothered about. It was sort of, you know, us.”

“Oh,” Nick says. “The three of us.”

“Yes,” Louis says. “And then I fell over my feet.”

“Right,” Nick says.

“Right,” Louis says. “Do you want to get me another blanket? This one’s itchy.”

“Are you sure this is him wanting to be my friend?” Nick asks Harry, as Harry makes a big deal of licking Nick’s neck, probably just because he can.

“This is him going all out,” Harry says, kissing the corner of Nick’s mouth. “He’s pulling out all of the stops.”

“Right,” Nick says again, and stands up to get Louis a blanket.