#he was assigned niall (and group) one day and took them around to where they wanted to go | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

h-styles-babes · 5 years ago

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Something Wicked

Hi guys! After a couple years of telling myself that I’m going to write a fic for Halloween, I’ve finally done it! I’m honestly kind of proud of myself, but I don’t think I would’ve gotten it done if not for my wonderful cheerleaders and ego boosters: @thicksniall @stylishmuser @harrysdodgyankles @takemedancingmaine @harrytheehottie @feminarrie @booksncoffee @fireawaynjh @midnghtcities @pagesuponstpages @almondharry

(I’m sure I missed someone, but ya’ll know who you are.)

This ended up being a long longer than I originally intended, so I will be posting it in two parts. Second part will be up tomorrow afternoon.

Thank you so much for reading!

Words: 13k

Warnings: Smut

Leaves crunched beneath three sets of feet as they trudged through the thick layer of fallen foliage that covered the forest floor. A crisp wind blew past the trio, whipping the girl’s hair around her face and ruffling the thick strands on the boys’ heads. The younger one was glad in that moment for the dramatic haircut he’d gotten just the month previous. Nothing was worse than trying to brush out his curly locks out after a windy day.

“Why are we doing this, again?” Harry asked, trying to shove his hands further into the leather jacket he was wearing. He’d much rather have been in a nice comfy jacket, maybe a nice fluffy jumper underneath, but no. Niall had been very adamant about both Harry and their other friend, the only girl in the group, Andie needing to be dressed in dark, “witchy” clothing for this occasion.

Niall was a photography major and needed some fall themed photos for a project. Andie had been his first choice as a model because…well, she already fit the aesthetic so well.

Andie, whose full name was even Andromeda (how much cooler could she get?) dressed year round like the epitome of a modern witch. If an item of clothing wasn’t black, it was blood red or deep purple, and she wore jewelry with symbols of the occult on it, and sometimes cats and bats. But that was because she thought the animals were cute. Whenever anyone ventured to ask why she dressed as she did, she simply shrugged and said, “I look cute.”

And she wasn’t wrong. The dark pallet of her clothes contrasted with the pale smoothness of her skin and flaming red of her hair. Her eyes were the most peculiar part of her, though. While they were most typically a pale blue, nearly grey colour, if you looked at her long enough, her friends would swear they’d turn purple.

So, Andie had been the obvious choice for the female model. Niall had mostly chosen Harry as a favour. Don’t get him wrong, Harry was an extremely attractive man and had the looks for a model, but Niall was especially being a good friend.

For as long as the two had known each other, Harry had harboured a huge crush on Andromeda.

They’d first met their first year of uni in an English class, where they’d been the only two people who’d completed the summer assignment of reading Pride & Prejudice. They’d joked together about the incompetency of their peers, and the rest was history.

Harry had obviously been first taken with her looks, because she had this almost otherworldly quality about her that was hard not to be drawn to upon first glance. But, very quickly, he’d realised her personality was exactly the type to which he responded most. She was quick and witty with enough dry humour to catch him off guard for just a moment before he started laughing. When he’d first brought her around his other mates, like Niall and Louis, they’d initially been a little taken aback by her appearance, but one joke about one of her professors that both Louis and Niall had the semester before, and it was like they’d all been the best of mates for years. She’d been hanging out with them ever since.

It had now been two years, and Harry had still not done anything to make it known that he was interested in her romantically. Everyone except for Andie knew about it, so his other friends had taken to trying to work their magic to get them together in different scenarios that had them spending ample amount of time together. Harry had yet to make a move, though, and he was running out of time. This was their last year at uni and then who knew where they’d all end up?

“Because the wind will do great things for Andie’s hair. And the leaves are pretty. Just stop complainin’ and this’ll go quick,” Niall told him.

Andie chuckled at both Harry’s whinging and Niall’s snappy response. Those two were like and old married couple. Andie found it endearing.

“Oh, perk up, Harry,” she encouraged, shoving her shoulder into his own. The heeled boots she was wearing got them closer to a similar height, so when she looked at him, she didn’t have to look up to meet his eyes. “It’s a beautiful day out, even with the wind. Now, put on your Blue Steel and take some proper photos for our dear Niall.”

Harry grumbled nonsense under his breath until they reached the clearing Andie had suggested to Niall as the setting for his photoshoot. It was a place she liked to come to get away for a little while when the constant happenings of the world for to be too much. It had an energy pulse to it that was calming and cleansing. It was good when she needed a breather.

It was also her prime spot for casting spells that required more than she inherently possessed in her being.

This particular spot in the forest just outside of the bustling center of Surrey was filled with ancient energy that had been infused by witches before her. There was an ancient enchantment placed around it that connected it directly to the energy at the core of the earth, coupled with the ageless magical energy. It was like a safe haven for all witches of pure intentions and those that needed its protection. Andie had chosen to attend uni here specifically to be close to this magical wonder.

Meeting Harry and Niall had been a happy coincidence. And keeping her status as a certified witch the whole time was nothing short of a miracle.

“This is beautiful, Andie,” Niall exalted, looking around. “It feels so…” Niall took a deep breath and sighed, “good.”

Even mortals could feel the good energy of this place.

This spot in the woods was almost completely cleared of trees and plants, aside from the plush grass. However, sat directly in the middle of the clearing was a large, pitch black rock. It was an obsidian boulder, which was a great medium for harnessing magical energy when more than a witch possessed was needed for a spell. Andie had spent many a full mood with artifacts surrounding the rock, incantations falling naturally from her tongue.

“This is pretty sick, mate,” Niall awed, running his fingers over the smooth surface of the stone. Andie couldn’t be sure if mortals could feel it, but the rock emitted a thrumming flow of energy, like a satisfied cat purring in your lap. She wasn’t even touching it, and the stone was sending a steady vibration through her being. Just standing there was making the magic that flowed through her system surge with the need to be used. This was not one of those visits, however.

“I figured it would be good for the shoot. It’s very autumn-y,” Andie agreed.

Harry joined them and ran his hand over the stone. His eyebrows raised in surprise. “It’s warm,” he marveled. He looked up to the sky. It was completely overcast that day, rain definitely threatening, and it had been since they’d woken that morning. He was confused as to how the stone could be so warm with no obvious source of heat.

“Obsidian is said to have magical properties,” Andie told him, tongue-in-cheek, trying not to laugh at her private inside joke. “Maybe you’re a little magical yourself, Harry.”

Andie watched as Harry’s cheeks tinged pink over her comment. She knew of Harry’s crush on her. In all honesty, she had a crush on him too. And she would have acted on it long ago, but she couldn’t risk Harry’s safety with her magical abilities. By simply being a witch, she was constantly at threat of being found and attacked. Everyone thought the witch trials had ended in the eighteenth century, but they were wrong. There were still the select few that targeted witches because of bizarre religious views, sort of like they prosecuted gays and certain races. And while those witch hunters were few and far between, she couldn’t risk getting closer to anyone than necessary. Even if it was just to prevent him from finding out her secret, it was all for the best.

However, it didn’t mean she would turn down the opportunity to shamelessly and harmlessly flirt with him and get him a little flustered.

Niall quickly called the two to order to get to work. The sun would be setting in about half an hour, and they had to get the whole shoot done in that time. He’d be able to take a set of them while the sun was actively setting, to really capture the essence of autumn, the sun blazing through the gaps in the leaves that were turning colours with the onset of the season. They were going to turn out beautiful.

Andie was trying to help Harry pose in a more causal position against the obsidian rock when an overwhelming sense of dread flooded through her body, nearly drawing her to her knees. She braced herself against the rock and Harry reached out for her, asking if she was alright. Honestly, Andie wasn’t sure, because she’d never felt something so strong and draining before. It stole her breath from her lungs, leaving her gasping. When Harry grasped at her elbows, it was like the contact burned, searing her skin. She looked around them with bleary eyes, sensing there must be something around them that was causing her such a severe reaction, given that she’d never had such an interaction with Harry before.

Just over Harry’s shoulder, she spotted a smoky, dark figure, menacing in just the way it made Andromeda feel, like something was tugging at her heart. It was shrouded in a dark, wispy cloak and the feet and hands that peeked around the edges were skeletal with bits of flesh clinging to it, like a decaying corpse. Andie had never seen one personally before, but she’d recognise the entity anywhere. It was a wraith. There was no telling how long it had been wandering the earth, but it was most likely the result of an immortality spell gone wrong.

Witches were already at a high predisposition to live longer lives than humans—typically around 150 to 175 years—but some sought out to live forever. There were more steadfast methods to achieve this, like drinking from The Fountain of Youth or consuming a tea steeped from the leaves of to Everlasting Tree, but both were rare to come by for the typical witch. There were spells that claimed to cast eternity on the witch who performed it, but if even the slightest mistake was made or the witch did not harness the correct amount of power, a wraith was borne from the offered life force of that witch. These dark entities were doomed to an eternity roaming the earth, seeking out life forces to steal to sate their own need for vitality. Before they administered their final, soul-sucking touch, they’d latch onto their target and slowly but surely submerge them into a crippling depression, priming them for offering over their very soul and all their energy when the wraith was ready.

And this one had just attached itself to Harry’s flourishing life force.

~*~*~*~*~

“Hey, S, I need your help,” Andromeda hushed out into her mobile, Niall and Harry walking a few paces ahead of her, back to Harry’s car. Andie was doing her best to cast the protective spell she’d long ago placed over herself over Harry to keep the wraith at bay. It wasn’t the strongest ward she could conjure up, but it was what she could manage around two mortals without an active incantation or new spell altogether.

“What’s going on?” Sarah asked, sounding like she’d been pulled from sleep, which was entirely possible. When Sarah wasn’t busy being one of the senior witches in their coven, she played in a band that typically took gigs in bars and pubs. She’d probably been out until three in the morning before going straight to her job at the local chemist at five. She typically got off at one in the afternoon and went straight to bed. Given the hour, she was probably only asleep for three or four hours before Andie called. She’d be more apologetic, but this was sort of an emergency.

“Harry’s got a wraith attached to him,” she whispered frantically into the mouthpiece, watching to make sure Harry and Niall weren’t paying attention to her. They were still walking beside each other, laughing about who knew what.

“You’re fuckin’ kidding,” she gasped, suddenly sounding much more awake.

“Obviously not. I’m keepin’ it back with a pretty typical warding spell, but it’s not gonna last. I don’t know enough about this stuff to do anything about it.”

“Keep Harry close for awhile. Do what you can with the warding spells. I’m gonna visit a friend who might be able to help,” Sarah said, already sounding like she was getting dressed. “Maybe ask your mum if she can add some strength tho these wards.”

“No way,” Andie vehemently disagreed. “She figures out I got my friends close enough to magic to attract a wraith and she’ll kill me.”

“Oh, c’mon,” Sarah scoffed. “Anyone can attract a wraith, magical or not. They’re life suckers. They don’t care where the source is coming from. Coulda happened at any time.”

“I took them to the clearing,” Andie told her.

Sarah was silent for a few beats, obviously realising it was no coincidence that Harry had been latched onto by the demon. “Okay, don’t tell her that part.”

Andie choked out a laugh, covering it with a cough so she wouldn’t draw too much attention to herself as Harry held the passenger door open for her once they reached his car. She thanked him and slid into the front seat.

“Alright, I’ll do what I can. Let me know when you figure something out,” she told Sarah. The older woman agreed and they hung up.

Andromeda watched with apprehension as the wraith lingered outside the car, unable to interfere directly with the human world. It just followed alongside the car as it traveled back to the university. The ward that Andromeda cast around the car was keeping it further than it would normally follow, creating a physical barrier that it couldn’t cross. While from what she knew about wraiths, it would linger around Harry for weeks, if not months, before executing its final blow, she was erring on the side of caution. She’d spend every second of everyday with Harry until they figured out how to get rid of this thing if that’s what it would take. She wouldn’t let harm come to her best friend because of her stupid decision to bring them to a magical space. She thought the protections put around the clearing was enough to keep out all the nastiness of the magical world, but apparently the energy emanating from it was enough to attract the desperate ones, too. Her mistake.

Andie was too focused on keeping up the stretch of her spell to notice the silent interaction Harry and Niall were having via the rearview mirror. Niall had initially tickled the back of Harry’s neck between the bars in the headrest to get his attention, and then started making expressions with his eyebrows and mouthing words to his friend in the reflection. Niall was trying to silently convince Harry to ask Andie to hang out further, since it was a Thursday and neither of them had class the following day. It wasn’t unheard of for Harry and Andie to hang out together, separate from the rest of their friends, but Niall needed Harry to make it very apparent that his intentions weren’t just about friendship. They only had this year left to get their shit together, and Niall wanted to see it happen, if not for Harry’s sake, then for his.

Harry eventually rolled his eyes and nodded, relenting to his friend’s insistence. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to hang out alone with Andie, he just didn’t want to make it awkward when she realised he liked her as more than a friend. But he supposed he had to swallow his pride and get on with it at some point, and there was no time like the present. And there was nothing like two years of silent pining to make a guy want to finally make a move.

As they got closer to campus, Harry cleared his throat intentionally to get Andie’s attention, since she seemed pretty spaced out, her eyes focused on some invisible point just beyond the passenger window. She very slowly turned her head away from whatever she was staring at, and only tore her eyes away at the very last second, before looking at Harry. She had an expectant look on her face.

“Was wonderin’ if you and Niall wanted to hang out at mine. Have some beers, watch a movie?” he suggested, already knowing Niall was planning to decline. They obviously hadn’t decided on a concrete plan, but Niall would jump at any opportunity to get those two alone.

“Sorry, mate, can’t,” he declined, genuinely sounding solemn. He honestly probably was, since he wouldn’t get to witness two year’s of handiwork on his and Louis’ part finally coming to fruition. But it was for the greater good. “Need to get to work on editin’. Lots to do before I turn these in.”

Harry nodded. “Right. What about you, A?”

Andromeda had to work to prevent her face from lighting up at his suggestion. The whole ride over, she’d been trying to work up a way to get Harry to keep spending time with her so she could keep her eyes on him while Sarah was of getting whatever information they needed from her mysterious source. However, she hadn’t been anticipating him handing her a reason on a silker platter.

Instead, she gave him a small smile, like she usually would when she was agreeing to hand out with him. “Sounds good. Take me home first, though? I need to get some stuff.”

Her and Harry usually ended up staying at the other’s flat overnight when they did movies, so her request wasn’t odd. While she would get some things to change into, she also needed a few things to complete a protection spell over Harry, so that he’d be safe, even when he wasn’t in her presence. She’d still spend as much time with him as possible until they could figure out how to drive off the wraith, but she couldn’t be with him all day, everyday. They still had classes and jobs to get to and lives to live that made that impossible. She’d cast this more general spell first in order to give him a layer of protection, and then she’d get to work on finding a spell that more specifically warded off dark entities. Maybe her mum would have information on such matters. She was a member of the enclave, so the protection of magical beings and mortals alike was sort of her specialty.

They dropped Niall off first, so that he could get to his editing. Then Harry drove Andie to her flat. She insisted he come up with her, since she didn’t want him left waiting in the car. She had a bunch of things to gather and a cat to feed, after all. Not to mention, the projection of her warding spell only cast so far, and three levels up and two hundred yards away from the car park were a bit out of her range. She was powerful, but no simple spell had that sort of distance, unless it was cast on the other individual.

Harry fed Beelzebub, Andie’s three year old black cat, while she was off in her room, getting a bag together. Bub, as Harry affectionately shortened his name, seemed to have a permanent scowl on his face that sort of begged off anyone new that hadn’t been around him before, but Harry knew better. While Bub’s eyes looked like they were set in a constant furrow, he was a really sweet cat that loved chin scratches and head butted anyone that was at the appropriate height. Which was exactly why he hopped up on the arm of the couch, next to where Harry was sitting, after he’d finished his meal. He dipped his head to bump the top of it against Harry’s chin and promptly began purring. Harry gave Bub a good rub down, starting at his chin, working his way over the top of his head, and down his back, lingering at that place toward his tail that made him arch his back.

By the time Harry had completed the circuit a few times, Andie had rejoined him. She tapped the toe of her boot against his to draw his attention from the cat that was currently impersonating a motorbike on his lap. Andie had never known Beelzebub to purr so loud until Harry had made his first visit to her flat two years previous. He’d promptly sat himself in Harry’s lap and flipped over to expose his belly. He starting purring as soon as Harry scratched his fingers down the vulnerable pudge, and the rest was history.

Bub had been bestowed some magical properties upon his adoption into Andie’s life, as was normal for pets of witches, so he was more sophisticated and intelligent than a typical house cat—which were pretty smart anyway—but that didn’t mean he was above endless scratches and rubs.

“Ready?” Andie asked.

Harry looked from the cat in his lap to his friend stood in front of him. “Why don’t we just bring Bub with us? He’ll be fine at mine for a night.”

“Then who would be here to scare away any potential freaks that try to get into my flat?” Andie argued, sending a wink Bub’s way. He gave a short, succinct mew, as he knew his main duty when Andromeda was gone was to guard all the magical and nonmagical things that resided in her flat. Bub may only be a seven pound cat, but he wasn’t just claws and teeth. Those magical properties had been bestowed upon him for a reason.

“Fine. I just feel bad leavin’ him here by himself,” Harry said. He scooped Beelzebub up from his lap and set him down on the cushion beside him. He rubbed his head against Harry’s thigh as he stood. Andie swore that if the cat wasn’t magically tied to her, he’d have found a permanent home with Harry by now. He loved her, sure, but he had some weird obsession with her friend.

“He’s a tough guy, he’ll be fine,” Andie assured, not for the first time. Every time they went from Andie’s flat to Harry’s, there was always a brief conversation where Harry tried to get Andie to take Bub to his for the night. She wasn’t really sure why Harry didn’t just get his own cat, considering it seemed he wanted one so bad. She had thought about maybe looking into cats for adoption for him on more than one occasion over the years they’d known each other.

The ride back to Harry’s flat was quick. They only lived a few blocks away from each other, which was nice when they were in the need of company at odd hours of the day. She was able to walk to his flat in less than five minutes at any given time of day, and it was a fairly lit path, so it felt okay to walk at night. While she was protected pretty well from all things supernatural, she wasn’t immune to human predators.

Harry was in the process of getting something together for them to eat when Sarah called Andie back. She walked back into Harry’s room, where she knew she could get a bit of privacy, before pressing the green button.

“What’d you find out?” she asked, getting straight to the point. Time was of the essence with this thing, and they didn’t have any to waste.

“I just got into contact with my lady. She doesn’t know anything off the top of her head, but she’s looking.”

“Looking? Sarah, I need answers. I can feel this thing lurking. I got stuff to place his own warding spell on him, but it’s not gonna hold it back long.”

“Well, it’s a good thing he’s got one of the world’s most powerful witches with him,” Sarah told her firmly. “I trust you can keep ahold of this thing. Talk to your mum. And I’ll get to you as soon as my source gets back to me. She’s good, Andie, but there’s barely any literature on wraiths. We’re doing what we can.”

Andie groaned and leaned her head against the door frame of Harry’s room. “I know. I’m sorry. It’s just…he’s my best mate.”

“And you’re in love with him, I get it,” Sarah assured.

“Wait, what?” Andie asked, head shooting up from her slouched position. “What are you talking about?”

“Oh, c’mon, Andromeda, don’t play dumb.”

Andie sighed, lightly banging her head against the doorjamb. “Doesn’t matter. Nothing can happen. But I need him safe.”

Sarah was silent for a few moments on the other end of the line. Finally she said, “He will be. Give me a couple days.”

~*~*~*~*~

When Harry fell asleep that night, Andie went about very quietly setting up all the things she needed to perform her warding spell. Considering Harry was one of the heaviest sleepers she’d ever met—he’d slept through not one, but three fire alarms in their dorm building their first year of uni—, she didn’t bother with a silencing charm for the a spell that wasn’t going to take her longer than ten minutes to perform.

She carefully placed her four stones at the compass points of Harry’s living room, creating a magical energy barrier around the flat and its resident. She then unfolded a small tapestry with the symbol of the three goddesses, the ultimate symbol of protection in her family line. Anyone bestowed with a protective ward by a person of her lineage on this symbol was set against anything that could try to intrude upon their lives. The wraith was a different sort of entity, of course, but it would keep it at bay as long as Andromeda kept up the protection. It wasn’t a fail-safe, but it would have to do until they got a better answer.

Andie set the Harry’s token in the center of the middle moon on the tapestry. She’d been a bit of a creep and found Harry’s hair brush in the bathroom and collected his hair off of it. She supposed she could have found his pair of reading glasses and used those, but there was always a chance that a token that didn’t contain the subject’s DNA could render the spell void, and that was a chance she wasn’t willing to take. So she made sure his little clump of gathered hair was within the center moon before stepping back from her tapestry.

She waved her hand in a sweeping motion over the room, lighting all the ritual candles she’d placed in the room, lighting it in an eery haze. She closed her eyes against the sudden onslaught of energy she felt surge through her body, taking a deep breath to properly channel it. Her body knew when some more powerful magic was about to be used and it rushed through her veins, lighting them on fire in a way that was supremely pleasant. If she had to compare it to anything a mortal would experience, it would be like that feeling right before an orgasm, where every inch of your body was on edge, waiting for that one last thing that finally pushed you over. She could see why lesser witches could get addicted to the act of using magic like this.

Andie rubbed her fingers into her palms, that sensation sparking, and then held them both over the tapestry she’d placed on the floor. With one last deep breath, she began muttering the warding incantation under her breath. It was a slew of Latin words she knew by heart. It was one of the first spells a young witch learned, since it was relatively simple, but powerful when done correctly. She’d memorised the words by the time she was eight, and she was glad to not have to cart around a spell book everywhere she went.

She was only into her second line of incantation when there was a crashing sound from the hallway. She gasped and opened her eyes, her eyes automatically locking on Harry’s wide, shocked ones. Andie could’ve sworn in that moment that they both were not breathing. Harry was frozen in shock but Andie was frozen with the fear of being caught. She was still composed enough to take in the fact that Harry was in nothing but a pair of boxers and an entirely too large jumper that nearly hung off his shoulder and covered down the tips of his fingers. Such a contrast to the tight jeans and leather jacket he’d been wearing earlier in the day. Her heart would have leaped at the sight of him if she wasn’t completely hung up on the fact that her biggest secret had just been revealed to her best friend.

“What the fuck?” Harry finally uttered.

“Shit,” she spat. With a dismissive wave of her hand, the candles all blew out and the lights overhead turned on, bathing the room in a more normal light.

“What the fuck?” he asked again, louder this time, more emotion laced in his voice.

“Harry, I can explain,” she told him, reaching her hand out in a calming motion.

He stumbled back into a small cabinet he had in the middle of his hall. “Jesus. Your eyes were…”

“Purple, I know,” she appeased, trying her best to use a soothing voice. She knew he was more than a little surprised and possibly equal amounts of freaked out, and she didn’t want to exasperate it. She never wanted for him to find out she was a witch, especially like this, right in the middle of a spell. Granted, it was a spell for his protection, and one of the simpler setups that could be going on in his flat, but it was still a shock to mortals witnessing it for the first time.

“What…”

“Harry, why don’t you sit down? Lemme finish this, and then we’ll talk.” At this point, his protection was more important than whatever potential shock he was in. While her heart was sort of breaking from the concerned look on his face, she needed to do this.

Harry stumbled into the first chair in his living room, sort of sliding himself into it over the arm, never taking his eyes off of her. “What is…this, exactly?”

With a snap, the artificial overhead lights went out again, and a wave of the hand brought the candles back up to full flame. “A protective ward. A simple spell, but you can’t interrupt me, Harry.”

Harry nodded his head in a sort of mindless, perpetual motion, muttering some sort of affirmations to himself under his breath. Andie was sure he was trying to convince himself this was all normal, but she didn’t really have time to fret over him in that moment. She had more important business to complete.

Andie raised her hands out, palm down, over the center of her tapestry again, and she began reciting the incantation quickly under her breath. Harry watched as the flames in the candles grew brighter and larger as her chanting went on, admittedly getting concerned when they started flickering violently, like there was a strong gust of wind in the room. Adversely, it felt like all the air had been sucked out of the atmosphere, a ringing taking up residence in his ears. Andie’s eyes were darting back and forth quickly under her lids, lashes fluttering. Sparks of electricity seemed to be erupting from the ends of her fingers, creating a crackling, static sensation in the room. Harry felt like his skin was tingling. He was in too much of a daze to really be concerned about anything, though. His best friend was currently doing what was arguably magic in his living room.

Andie’s volume of muttering rose until she was speaking at regular volume, and the light of the flames seemed to brighten to almost that of natural daylight. Harry sunk himself deeper into the cushion of the chair he’d claimed as the spell seemed to be coming to a head. The energy surged in the room, making the hairs on Harry’s body stand on end. A cold chill flashed down his spine as her chanting stopped and Andie’s eyes flashed open to meet his just before the candles all blew out at once. There was no mistaking it. Her eyes had been glowing a bright purple in that second before everything went dark.

~*~*~*~*~

Harry had remained silent and unmoving the entire time Andie had been cleaning up from her spell. She could have just magically whisked everything into her bag, but she figured one magical happening was enough for the night.

She had gotten him a glass of water and placed it into his amazingly steady hands. Then she’d helped him from his seat and walked with him to his bedroom. He seemed to still be in shock, so she’d laid him down in his bed, back where he’d rumpled the sheets from earlier, and turned to leave. She could understand his despondency, so she was going to give him the night to sleep it off, and if in the morning he wanted her to piss off, she’d leave. But for now, she would stick by him, just in case.

“Wait,” Harry called, his hand grabbing her wrist as she’d turned to walk out of his room.

Andromeda looked down to his hand that was burning into her skin, up his arm and to his face, his head already resting on the pillow. He’d lost that vacant look in his eyes and he was now looking at her like he always had: with a little bit of adoration and a lot of honest interest. The bright green of his eyes scanned over her face, most likely looking for something that would make her look like the monster she was sure he thought she was after everything he’d witnessed. She never wanted Harry to think she was anything else but just herself, but she wouldn’t blame him if he told her to leave and never come back. It wasn’t easy to deal with and accept that your best friend from the last couple years was a witch. Not even Harry could feasibly be that understanding.

“Yeah?”

“I don’t hate you,” he said bluntly.

Andie’s eyebrows furrowed. “How did you…”

“I can see it on your face,” he shrugged. “And I know you. I don’t hate you. I’m shocked as fuck, but I’m okay. We’re okay.”

Andromeda let her eyes roam over his face for several moments, taking in his smooth features. He looked okay, as far as external emotions went, and he was verbally telling her that he was okay. She supposed she had no choice but to believe him. He still had to know why he had walked in on her doing magic in his living room, though. “I’m just trying to protect you,” she whispered.

“From what?” Harry asked. His thumb was now gently gliding over Andie’s wrist where his hand was still clasped.

“It’s a long story.”

“I’ve got time.”

Andie could tell from the look of determination in his eyes that she wasn’t going to get out of this one. When Harry had his heart set on something, it was very hard to get him off the scent.

With a sigh, she gently shook off Harry’s grip and bent down to take off her socks and then her jeans. She should have been more apprehensive about slipping into Harry’s bed without her trousers on, but, honestly, it was a semi-regular occurrence when they had sleepovers. She wasn’t willing to sacrifice her comfort for some weird perception of modesty.

She slid under the covers Harry was holding up, nestling in on the pillow his own head was occupying. He dropped the blankets back over her, and she pulled it up to just under her chin. She felt Harry’s warm feet slide past her own, and she didn’t hesitate to tuck her toes between his calfs. For all the energy constantly flowing through her body, her toes were always frozen. And Harry was always hot. It was a no-brainer.

“Where should I start?”

It took Andie nearly an hour to get through her explanation to Harry, the whole time silently thanking him for remaining quiet and holding off to ask all the questions she could see swimming in his eyes. When she finally sighed after she finished, he surprised her by not asking all those questions she was sure he had been holding back the whole time. Instead, he just slung an arm around her waist, pulled her closer as he let his eyes fall shut, and whispered a quiet thanks. Andie was shocked by his behavior, but not enough to let it prevent her from swiftly falling asleep, comfortably resting in his arms.

~*~*~*~*~

“So the whole witch trials thing in America?”

“I mean, it’s possible someone was actually a witch, but as far as any witch history can tell, they were just victims of a crazy strict Christian society that saw anything that was “other” as bad and dubbed it as witchcraft. There’s a chance someone was practicing hoodoo or something similar, but we don’t think there were any legitimate witches there.”

“And hoodoo is different from witchcraft?”

Andie took a sip from her latte before answering. “They’re both magic, technically, but they garner their power from different sources. Hoodoo is mostly based in the spiritual, sort of like a religion. There’s a lot of tie to the afterlife and the power passed beings can offer. Whereas witchcraft is based on the existing energy in the earth and its creations. Every living being on earth has the ability to harness this energy, witches were just bred inadvertently to have better control. When I cast spells, I can feel it in my every cell.”

Harry nodded, looking thoughtful as he peered down into the hot chocolate he’d ordered. “I sort of noticed that last night. I could physically feel it run through my body when you’d completed the spell.”

Andie hummed. “It’s not uncommon for the recipient of a spell, especially protective ones, to experience an energy transfer upon completion of the ritual. In a nutshell, I’ve connected my magical energy to you in order to keep you protected from any sort of magical harm. As best as I can anyway. Some magical and supernatural entities have a bit more power than I can put into a basic warding spell.”

“And I’m reckoning wraiths are one of those entities.”

Harry and Andie locked eyes, and she was reluctant to nod her confirmation.

The duo had stayed up until nearly three in the morning, Andromeda best explaining what she could about her being a witch and why it was that she was taking extra steps to put a protective ward around Harry. He’d accepted it easily enough, but she was pretty sure it was just because he was starting to drift off into sleep.

When they’d woken that morning, she was expecting to be in bed alone, Harry off somewhere freaking out over everything that had happened in the wee hours of the morning. Instead, she’d opened her eyes and immediately been confronted with Harry’s own green ones, seeming nearly translucent in the morning light steaming through his window. Their legs were tangled together, so tightly that Andie wasn’t really sure who's limbs were who’s. Their noses were nearly touching, both their heads resting on one pillow despite Harry having a pretty spacious queen bed. And while they’d woken up plenty of times snuggled together after a sleep over, they’d never woken up that close.

If Harry was startled by it, it didn’t show. He’d simply smiled at her before placing a soft kiss on her nose. He’d suggested heading to the cafe around the block for breakfast, and here they were, only twenty minutes later.

Andie wasn’t really sure what to make of it, but she was going to act like it was any other day if that was the way Harry wanted to play it.

“Unfortunately.”

“What about them is so special?” Harry wondered, swirling his mug, most likely to mix up some of the chocolate that had settled at the bottom.

“Wraiths are created when dark magic goes wrong. Usually a resurrection ritual. If it’s performed incorrectly or the witch isn’t channeling enough energy from the right sources, something goes haywire, and the result is a manifestation of all that, since it can’t be channeled to whatever resurrection the witch was trying to perform.”

“There’s a difference in magic types?” Harry asked, his brows puckering in confusion. Andie would think it was adorable if they weren’t in the middle of a very serious conversation.

Who was she kidding? She thought it was adorable regardless of the topic.

“Of course. I like to think of magic like the internet.” Andie grabbed a napkin from the dispenser at the end of the table and looked for a pen in her purse. Coming up empty, she glanced at Harry and pressed a finger to her lips, telling him to keep quiet about what she was about to do. She rubbed her fingers together before pressing the tip of her pointer finger to the napkin. It started writing like a pen onto the paper, and Harry emitted a startled gasp before quieting down.

Andie drew out a triangle and then a line through the top of the shape, imitating an iceberg in water.

“The tip is the surface magic. It’s about ten percent of the entire magical ability of the universe.” She drew an arrow to the small section at the top and labeled it. “Hypothetically speaking, anyone can access this part of magic if they really wanted to and dedicated their time to learning how. But all witches can harness this magic pretty effortlessly. Some spells are a little harder than others, but it should be no real strain on a witch.”

She drew a dotted line about halfway through the rest of the triangle that was under the waterline she’d drawn. She made another label for the center portion. “This is what we’ll call advanced magic. This can only be accessed with dedication and an ability to harness energy from other sources, like the earth and crystals and natural phenomena. New moon, blood moon, eclipses, all that. It’s a bit more of a stretch for most witches, but it can be achieved with a bit of hard work. Witches with an inherently stronger bloodline can pretty easily access this portion.”

Andie finally circled the lowest portion. “And this is dark magic. It’s all the stuff that betrays the laws of nature. Necromancy, possession, time travel, teleportation. When a witch fucks it up somehow, bad things can happen. Usually to the witch trying to perform the ritual, but sometimes to nature itself. Thus, wraiths are created.”

“And now I’ve got the result of botched dark magic following me around?” Andie nodded. “Love that for myself.”

Andie couldn’t help the snort of laughter that escaped. Harry wasn’t one to commonly use popular slang or phrases, so when he did, it was startlingly hilarious.

“While I’m glad you can joke about it, it’s not something to take lightly. I’m workin’ on getting some information about how to get rid of it. Either just disconnecting it from you or putting it back in whatever hell hole it came from.”

“Considerin’ that thing was made from dark magic, sounds like gettin’ rid of it is gonna be hard,” Harry sighed, pushing his mug away from him.

Andie paused. How was she going to tell her best friend that she was part of the most pure witch bloodline in the world? That her mother was pretty much the strongest witch that had ever lived? That she herself was bound for that same tier once she hit her twenty-fifth birthday? It wasn’t exactly something you just drop on an unsuspecting mortal. Though, she supposed you didn’t just tell them you were a witch, either. Given the extenuating circumstances, maybe it wasn’t the most shocking thing he’d heard that day. And hopefully all the revelations wouldn’t get her in trouble with her mum or the council. She had an obligation to protect the mortal world from any magical threat, and Harry was her best friend.

“Can we go back to mine?” Andie suggested. She grabbed the napkin she’d drawn on and crumpled it up in her fist before shoving it in her pocket. No need for any curious waitress to come along and see that.

“Sure. Wanna go get my car?” Harry asked.

Andie shook her head. “No, follow me.”

“Andie, your flat is a ten minute drive. That’s nearly an hour walk.”

“Who said anything about walking?”

“Please tell me you’ve got a broom.”

Andie laughed and shook her head, leading him out the doors and into a deserted alley.

~*~*~*~*~

“I thought you said teleportation was dark magic.”

“There’s ways around most of the magical no-no’s,” Andie shrugged, dropping her bag by her front door. “Conjuring a portal is not technically teleportation. It requires an already established ending point. So, this mirror, for example.” She pointed at the mirror right by the front door of her flat that they’d just stepped through. “I’ve bewitched it to act as a portal. I can arrive to it from any given location, and I can use it to access other portals. But I can’t just decide in the middle of my day to pop into Paris for an afternoon trip. Unless I knew a specific portal location.”

Harry gazed at the mirror for a few moments, probably trying to see if there was anything physically out of the ordinary from any other vertical mirror he’d ever seen. He eventually gave a short nod and said, “Neat.”

Andie started the kettle on the stove as she regaled to Harry the importance of her family line.

“My family can be traced back to, like…the inception of witches,” she told him. “And there’s only three families that can say that. So, those three families have always made up the council, as well as elected witches from prominent covens.”

“You have a council?” Harry asked, tucking himself beside her as she prepared their teas. Her kitchen wasn’t very big, so it wasn’t difficult to be in each other’s space, but this was intentional. He’d pressed himself into the sliver of space between where she stood and the counter, not seeming to have any care that her elbow was brushing against him with every move that she made.

“Witches need governing bodies, Harry,” she said pointedly. “Why do you think dark magic is considered taboo? That wasn’t just something every witch decided on independently. In the early nineteenth century, it was voted on by the council that the usage of dark magic is punishable by death, if that witch hadn’t killed themselves in the process.”

“This sounds a lot like that season of American Horror Story,” he commented.

Andie smirked. Harry and her had watched all the seasons together on Netflix the previous summer.

“Sort of,” she shrugged. “We have rules and laws and our own judicial system, essentially. But the whole competition for Supreme thing and those weird tests aren’t true.”

“So no, like, Queen Witch, then?”

Andie bobbled her head around, a mix between and nod and a shake. “Not necessarily. Some witches are more powerful than others, based on bloodline. But that doesn’t give them superiority over other witches.”

“And I’m guessin’ you’re in one of those bloodlines.”

She glanced over at him while pouring the water in their mugs, trying to gauge his reaction. His face was almost annoyingly still, betraying no real emotion beside his genuine interest. There was no telling what he was really thinking. Considering all that he’d been made privy to, Andie reckoned this stuff was easy.

“Yeah. My mum is the oldest living female of the succession, so she’s considered the most powerful. And as her daughter, I’m second in line.”

“Do men ever possess that title?”

She shook her head. “No. Not unless there are no other females. So like, if I had a brother, and both my mum and I died, he’d acquire that power.”

“What if you never have kids? What happens then?”

“My mum has two younger sisters. The line would fall to her and her children.”

“So, it’s kinda a royal family situation?”

“Pretty much. Except female-oriented.”

“Why is that? Do you know?”

Andie handed off his tea, prepared just the way he liked it, with a dash of milk and one spoonful of sugar. Andie preferred hers plain.

“It’s got to do with females being able to bear children, and their inherent connection with the earth because of it.”

Harry was quiet for a few moments, seeming to finally take a moment to think things over. Andie ushered him into her living room, where Beelzebub was napping contently on the arm of her couch. Darn thing hadn’t even stirred when Andie and Harry had stepped into the room, simply opening one eye to see who it was. When he’d deemed them nonthreatening, he’d closed it and went back to sleep.

After nearly five whole minutes of silence, Harry spoke up.

“Is this all to say that if anyone can get this fuckin’ thing off my back, it’s you?”

Andie paused before giving him a reluctant nod. “Yep.”

He was quiet again, staring pensively into his tea, which he’d only taken a couple tentative sips out of. Suddenly, but with a sureness Andie was almost surprised to see out of him, Harry reached his hand out and grabbed onto the one she had resting in her lap. He slotted their fingers together and gave it a brief, tight squeeze before looking up at her.

“I’m glad it’s you.”

~*~*~*~*~

Until Andie got some answers or leads, she insisted that Harry stay with her in her flat when he wasn’t in class or at work. She was hoping that the ward she’d put up around him, as well as the protections she’d put up around her flat were enough to keep the wraith far enough away to let Harry carry on like normal. It seemed to be working, as she’d never seen the thing more than one hundred yards away at any given time. And when Harry couldn’t be in the protection of her home or in her presence, she sent Bub with him to keep an eye on him and alert her if anything was wrong. Luckily, it’d been a week and nothing tragic or harrowing had happened as of yet. She knew she couldn’t become comfortable in the mundane, but she was going to enjoy it while it lasted.

She’d received a call from Sarah a few days prior, letting her know that she’d contacted someone who might have some insight, and she was just waiting for them to be available to come to the UK. The witch was apparently a pretty prominent facet in a large American coven, so she had her hands full, but she was trying to arrange things to help Andromeda. She was glad to hear that something had panned out, but it seemed like now it was a waiting game.

However, for as anxious as Sia was about getting answers and keeping Harry safe until that time, she was actually really enjoying being with Harry so often. While they hung out regularly before, now it was amplified. They were living together, for all intents and purposes. When she got home from class, Harry was there, revising at the kitchen table. When she got hungry, Harry helped her prepare food or called into a local restaurant to order take out. When she woke up in the morning, it was to the sound of Harry singing in the shower—beautifully, she might add. It was really unfair how amazing Harry was at pretty much everything he did.

Spending all this time together was really playing with Andie’s emotions, though.

Since she didn’t have an extra bedroom, Andie and Harry shared a bed each night, so they fell asleep next to each other, and if neither of them had an early class, they woke up together. Harry was usually awake first, so Andie would wake to his leg brushing against hers and the back of his fingers brushing her hair away from her face. And the way he would look at her when he woke her like that…she couldn’t describe it. She wasn’t sure she wanted to describe it. She was thinking too far into it would leave her with a perpetual migraine.

It wasn’t that she didn’t want Harry to have the feelings she knew he was harboring. She harbored them herself, admittedly. All his little touches and the way his eyes would linger on her when she came or went from any room would make the butterflies in her stomach take manic flight. She loved every second of his attention, but she kept trying to convince herself that nothing could come of it. While it wasn’t uncommon that witches had relationships with mortals, she didn’t want to put Harry at more risk than she already had with the whole wraith situation. With the type of power that Andie possessed, dark forces liked to follow her around. It was only natural that they would sense the weakness of a mortal and latch onto him. She didn’t want that. She had to protect him. Partially because she had a moral obligation but mostly because she loved him.

Her love for Harry had never been more apparent and strong than the last week they’d been in close contact nearly 24/7. And there was no denying that she’d been in love with him for nearly as long as she’d known him. She couldn’t even lie to herself anymore, let alone her friends, both mortal and witch. Sarah never let her forget it, and while they were keeping from Niall that they were currently staying together, he seemed to be picking up on it whenever all three of them were together. Andie could see the knowing look in his eye any time Andie would laugh at one of Harry’s stupid jokes and place a hand on his arm, or when she would reach over and wipe something from his face with no hesitation. She steadfastly avoided Niall’s gaze when she knew he was giving her a pointed look. She didn’t want to give anything away in her guilty look.

“What are you thinkin’ so hard about?”

Andromeda gasped and gave a little yelp, nearly jumping a mile in the air. She whirled around from her spot at the stove where she was browning some ground beaf in order to make some spaghetti for dinner. She slapped at Sarah’s arms a few times in retaliation, groaning out her frustration with her friend just popping in unannounced and scaring the shit out of her.

“Jesus Christ, S! Make some fuckin’ noise, will ya? Gave me a fuckin’ heart attack.”

“Sorry, figured you’d heard me,” she shrugged, peering over Andie’s shoulder to see what she had going on the stove. “Wasn’t tryin’ to be quiet.”

“I wasn’t paying attention, and I sent Bub out with Harry.”

“That’s what I’m here about,” she said. “Why are you makin’ this by hand?” she added as an afterthought.

“Just because I can use magic, doesn’t mean I should,” Andie huffed, rolling her eyes. “Besides, I like cooking. Anyway, what have you got?”

“Got word from my source,” Sarah said, watching as Andie filled up a pot of water to put on to boil. “Said she’ll be here by Wednesday. Wants to make sure your portal will zap her in from America.”

“There’s no restriction on distance, as long as I accept the transportation request. Have her send it over, and I’ll get it done.”

“I’ll let her know.”

“Does she have concrete answers?”

Sarah was silent for more than a few beats, so Andie looked to her after she’d lit the burner under the water. She was chewing on the inside of her cheek, her ultimate tell for her anxiety.

“What is it?” Andie asked, dread filling her stomach.

“She has answers, but there’s no guarantee that it’ll work,” Sarah said hesitantly. Andie was working extra hard on not letting her sinking emotions get the better of her. She didn’t have time to freak out. “There’s no official records of successful wraith banishments.”

“Just because they’re not recorded doesn’t mean they didn’t happen.”

“Exactly,” Sarah agreed with a succinct nod. “My source claims to have witnessed one, and she has a text from the early seventeenth century that outlines a ritual that is supposed to do the job. I haven’t seen what it entails, but it’s worth a shot.”

Andie blew up her cheeks and let out the breath between pursed lips. She turned off the burner for the meat before looking back to Sarah. She nodded.

“Okay. Just let me know what time on Wednesday. I have class at eleven. I’ll skip if I have to. I’m sure Harry would, too.”

Sarah agreed just as the front door of Andie’s flat opened, Harry sort of stumbling in the door with his book bag and a few bags of groceries, Bub sneaking in behind him just before he closed the door. He hung his keys on the hooks near the portal/mirror and toed off his shoes.

“Hey, I know you’re makin’ spaghetti tonight, so I picked up some French bread and a couple bottles of wine. And I also got stuff to make chicken parmesan tomorrow. Oh, and some more coffee creamer. I used the last of it this morning.”

Harry didn’t realise there was someone else in the kitchen until he walked through the doorway, stopping short when he saw Sarah standing beside Andie. They’d never met before, as Andie had always tried her hardest to keep her witch friends and coven away from her mortal friends. It was easier to keep track of conversations that way, and it prevented any slip-ups beyond Andie’s control. While she trusted her coven with her life, she couldn’t control what came out of their mouths, and she couldn’t risk that around her mortal friends.

“Hey,” Harry greeted, eyes glancing between Andie and Sarah, obviously a bit confused.

“Harry, this is my friend, Sarah. Sarah, Harry,” Andie quickly introduced.

Harry and Sarah exchanged pleasantries, and Andie could see that Harry quickly realised that Sarah was also a witch, not just some random friend she’d never introduced or brought around.

“You staying for dinner?” Andie asked Sarah as Harry unloaded the groceries he’d brought home.

“Nah, just wanted to pop in and update you on what was goin’ on,” Sarah declined. “If I don’t see you before, I’ll see you on Wednesday.”

Andie bid her friend farewell and watched as she disappeared through the portal.

“Is she in the same coven as you?” Harry asked? He flitted around the kitchen to get the bread-cutting knife and a cutting board as he waited for her to answer.

“Yeah, she’s a couple years older than us, but we’ve always gotten along really well. And she’s travelled a lot, so she’s got a lot of connections. She’s our go-to when we need contacts.”

“She the one that’s trying to get ahold of someone to help with the wraith thing?”

Andie added the spaghetti to the boiling water as she nodded. “That’s what she was here about. The other witch will be here Wednesday. Hopefully, we’ll have some concrete answers soon.” She didn’t want to tell him about the lack of substantial evidence that any of it would work. No need to stress him out when he’d been handling all of it so well up to that point.

“Well, I can afford to miss a couple classes if I need to,” he assured.

“I figured. I’ll let you know when I get a better idea of when she’ll be here.”

The changed the conversation after that, talking about their days as they finished up dinner. Harry helped her plate the food and take it to the table before pouring two glasses of wine. Harry asked if they could play some music, so Andie asked him what album he wanted. They agreed on the Rumours album, and with a wave of her hand, the record player set itself up and started playing the album softly through the speakers around her telly.

Harry asked her about the abilities she had that weren’t related to specific spells and incantations. She explained that it came with the “powerful bloodline” thing, as not all witches had the sort of telekinetic abilities she did. It could be learned, sure, but it would never be like the natural ability Andie and her family had.

By the time they finished dinner, they’d finished the bottle of wine Harry had opened before they sat down. While Andie was not even close to drunk, she was pleasantly buzzy, and her cheeks hurt from smiling so much at Harry’s stupid jokes and wild stories about people he came into contact with at his job at the record store near campus.

Andie was still chuckling at Harry’s last joke when she took their plates to the sink to rinse them off and load the dishwasher. Harry was quiet, and Andie figured he was going to turn off the record player or something, so she startled when she felt hands on her waist, not gripping, just gently resting.

“I’ll do the dishes since you cooked,” Harry offered, his voice quiet, nearly drowned out by the music that still played in the living room.

“No, it’s fine,” Andie denied. “It’s like three dishes, and I’m nearly done.”

“Then just let me finish.”

Andie chuckled again, turning off the faucet. “Harry, really.” She turned to look at him, and the sound that was in her mouth died when she saw the look on his face.

Harry didn’t say anything, either. His eyes flit over her face, probably taking in the slight widening of her eyes at her surprise and the way her lips were gently parted from the words fading from her lips when she’d turned around. His left hand left her waist and reached up to push her hair back from her face, carefully tucking it behind her ear. He let his fingers linger, tracing over her jaw.

The buzz that had been lingering in her veins quickly dissipated in favor of the static Harry’s fingers were zapping into her skin. Andie gasped lightly as his index caressed her bottom lip.

“So fuckin’ beautiful,” he whispered.

Harry stepped closer to her, pushing the small of her back into the edge of the sink and placing his thigh between both of hers.

Andie thought if Harry ever gathered the courage to kiss her or start anything with her, she would deny him. In the nicest way possible, of course, because Harry was a sweet baby angel who was too pure for this world, but it would still have to happen. She didn’t want to get him tangled up with anything that could be dangerous for him.

But that was the exact opposite of what she was doing now that the situation had actually presented itself. When Harry leaned down and barely brushed his lips against hers, she was the one who leaned forward and pressed harder, effectively pulling them both into a kiss that had both of their hearts racing. Andie was the one to wind her arms around his neck and reach up onto her toes so Harry wouldn’t have to lean down so far. She was the one that sifted her fingers through the cute little curls at the back of his neck and pull him tighter into her. She was the first one to dart her tongue out, swiping lithely at his bottom lip, and gave a little satisfied moan when he opened to her, his tongue meeting with her own.

Though she wasn’t sure who it was that led them down the hallway to her bedroom, their mouths still pressed firmly together. She did know, however, that Harry was the one that closed her bedroom door, shadowing them in darkness. Andie didn’t hesitate to swipe her hand and light the candles that were scattered around her room.

With a light shove, Andie plopped on her bum to the bed. She scooted back further into the center, watching as Harry stood at the edge, watching her closely. Andie was sure she’d never seen Harry so serious and still, save for the light heaving of his chest.

“You sure?” Harry asked, his voice nearly a whole octave deeper than it usually was, a slight growl to it.

Andie nodded.

Harry proceeded to provide Andie with the most scintillating strip tease she’d ever had the pleasure of witnessing. While that probably wasn’t his intention, watching as he shucked his cosy jumper to reveal a plain white t-shirt underneath, then watching him peel that off to reveal every inch of his toned stomach and broad chest, along with all the dark ink that was scattered over his smooth skin was the sexiest thing she’d ever seen.

He paused after removing his shoes and socks, his hands poised at the fly of his jeans. He looked up at Andie from under his lashes, looking her over from head to toe.

“You gonna join me? Or am I gonna be naked on my own?”

Andie swallowed hard, a little surprised and a lot aroused by the commanding tone in Harry’s voice. She quickly reached to take pull her shirt over her head and then wiggle off the skirt she was wearing, leaving her in her knickers and the thigh-high socks. When Andie reached around to undo her bra, Harry finally un buttoned his jeans and pulled them down with his boxers, finally letting Andie see all of him. When she saw his cock, standing stiff and proud from between his hips, she gasped.

“Shit,” she muttered under her breath, but not quiet enough to prevent Harry from hearing. He was big—a lot bigger than any other man she’d ever been with, and while it was a bit daunting, it only served to excite her more.

Harry smirked at her before kneeling on the bed, making his way between Andie’s legs. He ran his hands from her ankles, over the soft material of her stalkings, up to her exposed skin of her upper thighs and hips, before hooking his fingers into the lacy material of her panties. He looked up at her as he leaned down and pressed an open-mouthed kiss to her inner thigh.

He made quick work of pulling her panties off and tossed them off the side of the bed. Andie went to peel her socks off, but Harry caught her hands.

“Leave ‘em on.”

Andie nodded and pulled her hands away, leaning back into the pillows that were propped up on her headboard. Harry followed her, resting his hips against hers and using his elbows beside her head to hover over her. He leaned down and captured her lips in a kiss, swiping his tongue once along her lips before trailing his own across her jaw and down her neck, placing a teasing bite at the junction between her shoulder and her neck. Goosebumps rose along her arms.

She ran her hands down Harry’s back, gently gliding over the muscles as they tensed and relaxed with his movements. He skimmed his lips along her collarbone and down the center of her chest, taking a detour to her left breast, and then her right, laving his tongue and teeth over her erect nipples, pulling little mewls and moans from her mouth. He drug licking kisses down her stomach, stopping briefly to place a kiss just below her navel, but continuing his pace down to her mound.

He pressed a light peck to the hood of her clit before sliding his tongue out to lap at her folds. He moaned as her tangy flavour burst across his tastebuds. She was already wet, despite them not doing much but kissing and lightly touching. He couldn’t wait to get more of her in his mouth.

With that little taste, he couldn’t stop himself from completely covering her with his mouth. Andie shivered as he darted his tongue into her entrance, gathering her arousal before drawing the tip up and flicking lightly at her bud. Andie shot her hands into his hair, pressing his head closer to her center. Harry took the hint and took a broader lick at her clit before pursing his lips around it, giving it a cursory suck. Andie moaned loud, dropping her head back into the pillows. Her fingers tugged at Harry’s curls now, hips thrusting up to meet his pulsing sucks. He wound his arms around her thighs, keeping her close to him as he buried his face into her sweet center. He couldn’t withhold his own moans as more of her arousal flooded into his mouth, her hole fluttering and clenching around nothing. He swapped his mouth for three of his fingers, rubbing swiftly at her clit as he pushed his tongue into her entrance.

Andie took a shuddering breath. She was completely overwhelmed with his attention, on the verge of falling over the edge. His grip on her thighs were preventing her from rubbing more vigorously against his mouth and fingers. She needed more though.

“Harry, please,” she gasped. “Need more.”

He reluctantly pulled his mouth away from her, licking his lips. “What do you need, love?”

Andie didn’t realise when the words, “Choke me,” came out of her mouth. She didn’t have time to process it and be embarrassed, though. Harry’s eyebrows shot up in surprise, before he leaned back down to wrap his lips back around her clit. The fingers that were previously rubbing at it moved to enter her, two sliding in easily with how wet she was for him.

She let her head drop back, reveling in the new sensation of Harry’s fingers rubbing at the soft spongy spot inside her. She hummed when his free hand trailed from it’s place around her thigh, up her stomach and chest, and eventually around her throat. His fingers deftly found each of her veins running up her neck, applying light pressure. That mixed with the weight of his palm resting against the center of her throat was exactly what she needed to finally succumb to her pleasure.

Harry moaned against her center as her walls clenched against his fingers and her wetness coated his chin and palm. He kept rubbing and sucking her through it, Andie eventually having to shove him away by the crown of his head.

He crawled up her body, pressing sporadic kisses as she came down from her high. Her legs bent up to cradle Harry’s hips against her own, bucking up into the feeling of his erection resting against the curve of her pelvis. Harry groaned into the curve of her neck before pressing a kiss to her jugular. He drew his knees up on either side of her hips and wrapped his arms around her back, pressing their chests together and lifting her so she was straddling him.

“Want you like this,” he sighed into her mouth.

“Okay,” Andie agreed. She had no hesitation in reaching between them to take ahold of his cock and place it at her entrance. Slowly, she sank down on him until they were flush against each other. They moaned into each others mouths.

“So fuckin’ tight,” Harry panted.

“So fuckin’ big,” Andie returned smiling into his neck.

Harry snickered as he thrust his hips up into her, causing her to gasp.

Andie got the hint and started rocking her hips against his, groaning each time he hit the deepest part of her. They were in a position that had her clit perfectly rubbing against his pubic bone. She wasn’t sure how long she’d be able to keep up the position, but she was going to really enjoy it while it lasted.

Harry helped her along by gripping her hips and propelling her motion, keeping his head buried in her neck, licking at kissing at her skin between his moans. When he realised she couldn’t keep it up any longer, he laid her back down on the bed, lifting her legs by the back of her knees, pressing her thighs into her chest. His cock was so hard that he had no trouble sliding back into her with no aid.

“Fuckin’ soaked for me,” he grunted. “Like the way I fuck your cunt, darlin’?”

His hips were pounding into her so hard Andie had to reach up to brace her hands against her headboard to avoid bashing her head into it. Of all the ways she’d imagined Harry would be in bed, this was not it. He was always so gentle and kind, so seeing his muscles all bunched with effort and his skin shiny with sweat and the words coming out of his mouth and the strength behind each of his thrusts…it was a lot.

Andie sobbed out a moan when he brought one of his hands down to rub his thumb along her clit in a quick flicking motion. Her orgasm barreled through her, her mouth opening in a silent scream as she lost her breath. Harry didn’t slow through her climax, simply just forced his hips harder to overcome the strong clenching of her walls around him. He was barely keeping it together, since she was so tight, but he was determined to draw at least one more from her before he finished himself.

“So fuckin’ beautiful when you come for me, pet.”

Harry withdrew himself as he tried to catch his breath. He tapped on her hip to get her attention, motioning for her to roll over onto her stomach. She nodded before gracelessly flopping over, only being careful enough not to accidentally knee him in the junk. That would be a tragedy in the middle of all this.

He grabbed her by the hips to lift her onto her knees, keeping her chest pressed to the bed. He asked her for his hands and gathered her wrists in one of his fists at the small of her back. He used the leverage to draw her back onto his cock, his balls slapping against her skin. Her moans were load even when muffled into her pillows as Harry drove into her at a punishing pace. Andie’s hands flailed in his grasp, trying to find purchase on something to grip onto in her haze of pleasure. Harry saw this and released her wrists to clasp one of her hands with his, her other one reaching down beside her to grip at her sheets.

“Harry,” she gasped when he changed positions, angling his hips so he was hitting that sensitive spot inside of her. She got that telltale sensation that she had only experienced by herself before, that full feeling and that tingling pleasure that said she was going to explode. “I’m gonna…”

He reached under her with his free hand and rubbed against her clit, too close to his own orgasm to keep her on the edge.

Andie couldn’t hold it back any longer. With a few sure passes of his fingers and his unrelenting pace, Andie was cumming harder than she was pretty sure she ever had, especially with anyone else. Liquid pulsed from her body in rhythm with Harry’s thrusts. She was moaning out unintelligible words.

It took Harry a few seconds to realise that she was ejaculating all over his thighs and her sheets. If the strong fluttering of her pussy was enough to send him over, then seeing the evidence of her orgasm all over his skin was really overkill. His stomach clenched hard, forcing him to double over on top of her, pressing his chest to her back. He laid sucking kisses to her shoulders as he came down, both of them panting and sweaty.

After several moments, Harry pulled his hips from hers, breaking them apart with a groan. He flopped onto his back beside her, pulling her off her knees and into his chest. Her pale skin was covered in a light sheen of sweat and her pupils were still blown out when she looked at him. She licked her lips before smiling coyly at him.

“Wanted to do that for a long time,” she told him.

Harry smiled and pushed her hair back from her face like he had in the kitchen earlier, which had led to their time in bed. He pressed a quick but passionate kiss on her lips before saying, “Me, too.”

#Harry Styles #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles one shot #harry styles oneshot #harry styles fanfic #harry styles angst #harry styles au #harry styles fluff #harry styles fic #harry styles imagine #harry styles smut #harry styles writing #halloween fic #witch!au #witch!ofc

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adoredontour · 5 years ago

Photo

every fic that left a lasting impression with me this year. sorted in order of when i read them!!

buckle up lads, it’s a long one

nicotine by krisstylinson 32k

"We're two different types of people, Liam. He likes sex and drugs, I like theater and tea. Trust me, we'd never date." Except they would, they do, and neither of them plans on letting go anytime soon.

"Just because you can get me hard doesn't mean I like you," Louis whispered. The fact was, he didn't like Harry right now, not at all. Not even a bit.

"Yeah, yeah," Harry murmured, his breath fanning over Louis' cock as he spoke. "You done telling me how much you hate me so I can suck you off?"

like candy in my veins by littlelouishiccups 31k @littlelouishiccups

Basically the A/B/O, enemies to lovers, fake relationship, Christmas AU that nobody asked for

worth dying for by whoknows

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Louis says, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms over his chest. In the center of the table, a set of three glossy photos stares up at him, mocking him.

“A security detail is non-negotiable, Louis, you know this,” his mum reminds him, tapping the middle photo with two fingers.

Louis doesn’t look back down at the pictures, gesturing towards them wildly, over-dramatically. “This is not a security detail!” he protests. “This is a lanky college student. In what world do you hire someone like this kid to protect me?”

damn your love, damn your lies by ifthat

“Of course you’d use your free time to go to the gym.”

“Your idea of the best way to spend your free time is annoying your neighbors,” he laughs, dimples carved into his cheeks like marble.

No, Louis likes to annoy Harry. Everyone else on this floor is just an unfortunate casualty.

“No one has complained except for you,” Louis informs him smartly. Which is actually a good thing. If someone other than Harry had complained to him long ago, he would have unfortunately had to stop.

you came into my life by disgruntledkittenface @disgruntledkittenface

When the Queer Eye cast and crew sweep into Louis’ small town and fire station to make over his best friend and coworker Liam, Louis’ carefully constructed walls start to fall down and he has to face his fears – and the only guy he’s ever been able to see a future with.

a thousand miles from comfort by littlelouishiccups

In which Louis is a closeted gay actor and a recovering addict with a troubled past. Harry is the personal trainer who helps him get his life back in shape.

smaller than me by checkthemargins

Harry's just finished his first year of uni on his way to becoming Dr. Harry Styles, Neurosurgeon. He's young, he has endless potential, three amazing best mates, a new love and the world at his fingertips. The fact that his new boyfriend may or may not be a sex-worker, of course, throws a wrench into the works. But it's not true. Really.

Probably.

It most definitely might not be entirely true. And that's all Harry needs to know.

escapade (i was late to the game shut up) by dolce_piccante

In the grand scheme of things, finding a date for a wedding should be no problem for Louis Tomlinson. He's rich. He's handsome. He's reasonably well behaved. But when the wedding is for his lifelong best friend (and former boyfriend), and is happening in under a month, finding a date for the ceremony and accompanying festivities becomes more of an adventure than he ever could have planned for.

soft hands, fast feet, can’t lose by dolce_piccante

American Uni AU. Harry Styles is a frat boy football star from the wealthy Styles Family athletic dynasty. A celebrity among football fans, he knows how to play, he knows how to party, and he knows how to fuck (all of which is well known among his legion of admirers).

Louis Tomlinson is a student and an athlete, but his similarities to Harry end there. Intelligent, focused, independent, and completely uninterested in Harry’s charms, Louis is an anomaly in a world ruled by football.

A bet about the pair, who might be more similar than they originally thought, brings them together. Shakespeare, ballet, Disney, football, library chats, running, accidental spooning, Daredevil and Domino’s Pizza all blend into one big friendship Frappucino, but who will win in the end?

oh glory by alivingfire @alivingfire

Harry Styles is Team Great Britain's newest swimmer, and has spent his whole life training for this moment, a chance at the gold medal in the Rio 2016 Olympics. All his training, hard work, and dedication to no distractions is tested when he's assigned to the same Rio apartment as Louis Tomlinson, British gymnast and Harry's childhood crush.

it’s all brand new because of you by supernope

AKA, Louis starts a new job as a summer camp counselor at the local aquarium and Harry is a biologist who really likes teaching people about the ocean.

this wicked game by cherrystreet @cherrystreet

An AU in which The Bachelor is gay, Louis is a contestant, Harry is the bachelor, everyone drinks a lot of champagne, the entire world gets to watch them fall in love, and no one plays by the rules.

do not go gentle by afirethatcannotdie @afirethatcannotdie

When Harry Styles starts his first day as a surgical intern, he expects a lot of things: to treat patients, to observe a surgery, to feel a bit overwhelmed. What he definitely doesn't expect, however, is that the handsome guy he kicked out of his bed this morning is also an intern.

A Grey’s Anatomy AU where tensions are high, Harry and Louis are hooking up in secret, and no one has time for love. Or do they?

to brim with fright by hereforlou @hereforlou

The only reason he’s here is because it’s tradition. And also, Harry said it’d be fun to make Liam wet himself in fear and Louis agreed. It’ll be hilarious. He’s not an insecure new transfer anymore, thank you very much. It took him no more than a week to insert himself into a group, to get invited to his first party, and to start crushing on someone—he’s not what anyone would call socially impaired. He doesn’t need validation.

have you coming back again by whoknows

It’s five o’clock in the morning. Louis has a lecture at half eight. He could be using this time to study or to do his readings or to go to the gym, but - well. He doesn’t have any exams coming up, he’s not going to his seminar today anyway and he hates the gym.

Instead he’s using this time to fuck with Harry Styles’ poor little brain.

Louis jogs across the street and jabs the key into the car door. It opens easily, not that he was expecting anything else. He copied the key for a reason, after all.

He’s got Harry’s schedule memorized, more because the guy keeps following him around than anything, so he doesn’t bother looking around before climbing behind the wheel and setting his bag on the passenger seat. It’s a Monday, which means that Harry doesn’t even get out of bed before noon unless he’s planning on harassing Louis.

i put a spell on you by bethaboo @bethaboolou

A BBC/Secret Santa mashup featuring Captain Niall, our intrepid weatherman/amateur matchmaker, rather clueless sports reporter Liam, charming political analyst Zayn, and cheeky entertainment reporter Louis. Harry is the new fashion correspondent who prefers to dress like a flamingo. And pining. There’s a lot of pining.

naked & proud by kiwikero

In which Harry runs an organic store, not a nudist colony, and Louis doesn't know whether to be relieved or disappointed.

take me under the blue by objectlesson

Louis hasn’t even seen his legs yet. He doesn’t know how they work or how long they’ll be. Maybe they won’t suit the rest of Harry at all, and he’ll have to grow into them or something. It doesn’t matter; Louis has loved Harry for a year with scales, so he can’t imagine wonky legs putting a damper on his attraction.

He supposes he’ll just have to find out. In the meantime, he wonders how the fuck he got here, in his squelching wellies about to save the love of his life from the sea and take him to bed and bang him for the very first time.

It’s sort of a long story.

paint the sky with stars by kiwikero

the historically accurate Titanic AU with a happy ending.

truth be told i never was yours by justfortommo

(or the one where Louis and Harry have a complicated past, Louis is getting married to someone that’s not Harry, and the universe has decided to have a laugh and make Harry the wedding planner.)

into the badlands

Louis is Q. Harry is a double-oh agent who thinks that making knock-knock jokes around foreign embassy delegates mid-mission is a good idea.

swim in the smoke by whoknows

“What about this, Captain?” Liam asks, nudging the boy kneeling between their feet with the toe of his boot. The boy hisses and swipes at him, slurring out something unintelligible around the makeshift gag Niall had to stuff in his mouth. He misses by a mile and tries again, just as ineffectively.

Harry looks down at him, at the way the sun streams over his face and shoulders, at the way the gag stretches his mouth, lips pink and chapped. He’s lithe and pretty, smudged all over with dirt. They had found him tied up below deck, mostly unconscious, next to a barrel full of gold. He’s clearly a prisoner, but there’s something familiar about him, something that niggles at Harry’s brain. Something he can’t quite put his finger on.

“Put him in my cabin,” Harry decides, turning back to deal with the rest of the loot. The boys screams out jumbled curse words at Harry’s back, muffled by the gag, and Harry can’t understand any of it.

resist everything except temptation by domesticharry @domestic-harry

The one where Louis is the commodore's son who is forced to become a part of Harry's crew when he is captured.

pray till i go blind by el_em_en_oh_pee

Louis is (kind of) a preacher. Harry is (probably) a demon. Of course, nothing's as simple as that.

This is not a love story.

(your heartbeat) rang true inside my bones by flimsy @flimsi

Harry goes as Louis' date for a weekend wedding. He ends up taking the role a bit too seriously.

i love your demons (like devils can) by ariadne_odair

Harry didn’t plan to join the football team. She didn’t plan to sleep with the captain of the football team. She definitely didn’t plan to sleep with the closeted captain of the football team, who promptly acted as if nothing happened and left Harry a pathetic, pining mess.

alien roadtrip! by helloamhere @helloamhere

roadtrip with desert feelings, too much snack food, and empty motels. Harry is definitely absolutely not an alien. That would be ridiculous.

treat mothman with kindness by flowercrownfemme @lesbianiconharrystyles

In which Louis, Liam, Niall and Zayn are amateur cryptozoologists and Harry is the creature they find in the woods of a small north-western town. ft. lots of glitter and shrieking and a whole shed full of lesbian cats.

just me, you, and this box of matches by tomlinsunshine

Louis is fairly sure that his new neighbour is going to destroy him. And also their apartment building, and the dumpsters outside, and all the forests within a thirty mile radius. But. Mostly him.

close to nowhere by angelichl @angelichl

Louis and Harry are psychics who kind of hate each other. They go to Tennessee to investigate a haunting.

magical soup by gloria_andrews

Slytherin prefect Louis Tomlinson's seventh year at Hogwarts takes an immediate turn for the worse when he's made to be potions partners with Harry Styles, Hufflepuff's resident heartthrob and class clown. Louis has always considered Styles to be a terrible show-off who coasts by on his charm and good looks, but the more they work together, the more he questions that idea. As term goes on, will Louis be able to admit to himself that he might actually like Harry Styles after all... and maybe, just maybe, as more than a friend?

sainted taints and velvet vices by toomanytears

A self-fulfilling Hogwarts AU in which Louis is new to seventh year and Harry is the resident devil-may-care Slytherin set to make his entire experience a living misery. Due to less than favourable circumstances they're forced to forge an unwilling, tentative relationship for their own survival. Repressed emotions, decidedly unromantic ballroom dancing, Triwizard Tournament tasks, creative jinxes and twilight flying above the Forbidden Forest ensue.

run like the devil by benzos

Supernatural AU. Louis hunts demons; Harry's the strangest demon he's ever met, and he keeps fucking meeting him.

be with me so happily by briamaria

[aka Louis is the director of the Styles Elephant Sanctuary and really doesn't want to babysit his funder's spoiled lay-about son for two months]

come together by bottomlinsons @bottomlinsons

Harry and Louis slept together three weeks ago, and haven't talked.

Their coming group project is gonna change that.

what this world is about by isntrio @bloubird

An eighties American high school AU; there are first times, football games, and feelings.

Alternatively titled: the beginning.

once upon a dream by thedeathchamber

Louis is psychic and gets caught in the middle of a murder investigation led by FBI Special Agent Harry Styles.

aka. the Medium/Criminal Minds-inspired AU no one ever asked for.

led by your beating heart by missandrogyny @missandrogyny

(Or: AU where Harry's in One Direction, Louis isn't, and they reconnect over a game of 'Call or Delete'.)

forever and always by jacaranda_bloom @jacaranda-bloom (again, thank you!!!!!!!)

OR the one where Harry’s neighbour is a crotchety old witch who hates vampires, Niall is the unsuspecting human who ends up inhabiting Harry’s body, and Louis is the caseworker who is assigned to swap them back. How it ends up a love story is anyone’s guess.

sail your sea, meet your storm by kiwikero

The strangers to enemies to friends to pining to lovers fic where Louis is cynical, Harry is charming, and they have seven days to get their shit together.

tangled up in you by missandrogyny

Harry blinks once. And blinks again. And says, his voice dangerous: “Niall, did you get me a mail-order bride?”

Because what the actual fuck. It kind of looks like Niall’s just purchased a person. For Harry.

Niall blinks back at him for a few moments, before throwing his head back and howling with laughter. Harry throws a pillow at him. Hard. “No, what the fuck, Harry.”

“A prostitute then?” Harry also doesn't want a prostitute.

“Of course not!”

“A stripper?”

“No!”

Damn, he’s running out of ideas. He settles for launching another pillow at Niall’s head. Niall bats it away easily, still laughing. “Stop!”

“What did you get me, then?!” Niall must hear the tinge of hysteria in his voice, because he’s pulling himself together, trying to stop himself from laughing.

There’s still a big grin on his face, though, when he says, “I got you a professional cuddler.”

A professional…what. “What?”

i’d burn this city down to show you the light by you_explode

Harry's a sheltered rich kid and Louis's a punk with a heart of gold. They meet when Louis breaks into Harry's house, Harry obtains an instant and all-encompassing crush, and they spend the summer falling into a whirlwind romance.

sail your sea, meet your storm by kiwikero

Louis is thirty, single, and a bit of a workaholic. He's happy with his life, but then his mother decides to buy him tickets for a Singles Cruise. Appalled that his family thinks he can't handle his own love life, he steps aboard the ship determined to have a terrible time.

That is, of course, until a persistent brunet keeps offering him drinks.

The strangers to enemies to friends to pining to lovers fic where Louis is cynical, Harry is charming, and they have seven days to get their shit together.

bring out feelings in me i never show

“I really think you should stop reading,” Liam says, having moved to hover behind Louis’ back at some point. “I can already see the cogs turning in your head, Louis, and I don’t like this.”

“Shut up,” Louis waves him off and continues reading.

I can do these things, at your request: openly hit on other female guests while you act like you don’t notice; start instigative discussions about politics and/or religion; propose to you in front of everyone; pretend to be really drunk as the evening goes on (sorry I don’t drink, but I used to); start an actual, physical fight with a family member, either inside or on the front lawn for all the neighbors to see.

remember you well by fondleeds @fondleeds

“Um,” Harry starts. He looks out of place. Louis can’t really believe he’s seeing Harry like this, so unsettled, so unlike himself. He holds out his hands. “Should we–. Should I, um. Did you wanna, like, cuff me to the bed or something?”

Louis raises his eyebrows. “I don’t know. Do I need to?”

i love you most by stylinsoncity

friends with benefits has always been enough for louis. until, of course, it isn't.

ready to fall by whoknows

“Ninety and rising,” Nick says triumphantly, as though making Harry’s heartbeat pick up by thrusting an obscenely attractive person in front of his face is any kind of success. “Louis Tomlinson has just walked into our control room and suddenly our dear Harry Styles has lost all ability to speak. Could this be some kind of strange coincidence?”

“I hate you,” Harry hisses, forcing his eyes back into Nick’s direction, uncaring that the mic must have picked it up. “I thought we agreed that you were going to play fair.”

“I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Nick denies, except he’s holding up a picture of Louis’ face now, sharp cheekbones prominent, soft lashes nearly sweeping against his cheeks as he looks down, and his fucking mouth –

“A hundred and two!” Nick crows, all but clapping his hands together in glee. “The highest it’s ever been!”

“To be fair, I did bend over the desk on purpose,” Louis’ voice comes crackling in the headphones. Harry practically breaks his neck whipping his head around at the sound of it, gaping at him through the glass panel. “You can’t really blame him for getting a little excited about that, can you?”

#rec

47 notes · View notes

missytearex · 5 years ago

Photo

It’s @lululawrence‘s birthday! Which means it’s the perfect time to read some of her fics! Sus is ridiculously talented and churns out fic like nobody’s business, so the list of fics she’s written in the last year is ridiculously long. Thanks for blessing us with your talent, Sus!

Under 10k fics are under the cut. Enjoy!

You Don't Care About Me (One More Night)

tomlinshaw | 60k

the one where Louis pines for Harry and Nick helps ease his way into figuring himself out through a friends with benefits sort of arrangement. Things quickly turn complicated.

You Try To Be Everything (I Need)

larry | 36k

Wars, and rumours of wars, were nothing new for the world in the twenty-fourth century. The fighting had evolved over the years, and rarely did it involve traditional weapons. A group most widely known as the Southern Powers gained strength amongst portions of the western European continent and spread quickly.

There was a fight the Southern Powers didn’t expect coming from the north of England, though. Resistance came in the form of an organised underground; a group comprised of people with the Touch that did the best they could to enforce a line that would not be crossed. Slowly, that line was moved from the Channel to boundaries further and further north. It seemed only a matter of time before the Southern Powers took over everywhere.

Until that time, people did the best they could to live their lives in some semblance of normality. For Louis Tomlinson, that sense of normality was about to change when his best friend, Harry Styles, goes missing.

Louis embarks on the journey of a lifetime where he uses his newly developed abilities to search for his friend, even when it takes him to places he never thought he would see while surmounting trials he never could have imagined.

(Something's Been) Hiding In My Heart

larry | 25k

a Sweet Home Alabama AU where Louis comes home to finally get his divorce from Harry finalized so he can move on with his life. Alderford holds its own set of challenges when he returns, but by facing his past maybe he can find the healing he so desperately needs.

It's the Climb

larry | 25k

The Hannah Montana AU where Louis is a world famous punk rock singer with a stage name of William and Jay drags him back to Tennessee for the summer. In her attempt for Louis to get back to his roots, he just so happens to reconnect with Harry, and things never go quite as Louis expects them to.

Nowhere to Land

larry | 23k

the sequel to Back to How it Was where other Harry has returned to himself with only foggy memories of the past few weeks. He finds himself with a new workout routine, recordings of interviews he doesn't fully remember choosing to do in the first place, and a budding relationship with a man he remembers from the X Factor but doesn't really know now. Doing the best he can, Harry tries to put the pieces together of what happened and where he's going to go from here.

Like a Lighthouse On The Coast (I Need You)

larry | 19k

the one where Louis has all the pressure of his sophomore album and none of the inspiration, but maybe all he needs is someone like Harry Styles to turn all that around.

I Just Wanna Give You Love

larry | 18k

the one where the world is in black and white until you meet your soulmate, but Harry is world famous and Louis is...well...not.

(That's Just) The Way I Am

larry | 17k

There was no way Harry would want to bring anyone out for an introductory trip like this. The fighting between himself and his father was sure to be be worse than usual and father still hadn’t accepted Harry’s pansexual identity. Harry wasn’t dating anyone at the moment, but at this point he almost wished he were dating a man just so he could incense his father.

The door jingled, pulling Harry’s attention away from the window and to the man who had just walked into the cafe.

Now that was exactly who Harry should try bringing home. The man was dressed in ratty black skinny jeans and what was obviously a self cut tank top that used to be a Stone Roses t-shirt. His black chucks had holes in the canvas, indicating exactly how old they were, and his maroon beanie wasn’t in much better shape.

The more Harry studied the man’s smoky eyeliner rimmed eyes and the lipstick he had swiped on to match his hat, the more Harry started hatching an idea. What if Harry really did bring this man home?

Can I Have Your Attention, Please?

tomlinshaw | 16k

the one where Nick develops a crush on the man whose bag he accidentally grabs at the airport. It is obviously just a coincidence that the man shares a first name with the pop star whose Instagram Nick lusts after as well.

This is a Rainbow War

larry | 15k

the one where Harry's a famous singer, Louis is part of his road crew, and after Harry gives Louis a special assignment regarding rainbow flags, things maybe turn out a little differently than either of them planned.

You Turned Up (Like a Friend of Mine)

larry | 10k

the one where Harry disappears on graduation day only to show up on Louis' door looking exactly the same ten years later. Through a series of strange events, maybe they can finally figure out that they're destined to be together, no matter what.

Hey Look, Ma

larry | 8.8k

the one where Louis is a hybrid who agrees to go on a blind date with his neighbour's colleague's son the same night he literally runs into his dream man. Surely this isn't going to end well... or is it?

Great Minds (They Think Just the Same)

tomlinshaw | 8.2k

the one where in an attempt to get the Breakfast Show back to the number one morning show in the country, the BBC brings on Louis as a co-host with Nick. They only thing is they don't really get along... until they do.

Our Love is Timeless

shiall | 6.2k

the one where Shawn falls for Niall, who just happens to be a time traveler. The course of true love never did run smooth.

You're Here, Where You Should Be

larry | 5.5k

three years after having last seen her best friend, Louis shows up at the Christmas party Harry's family throws every year. Old feelings might not be as buried as Harry had thought.

Charisma

larry | 5.3k

the one where Harry feeds on awesomeness (possibly literally). Louis is awesome and also angry. They’re probably going to fall in love

Stealing Flowers

larry | 4.2k

the one where Louis pines after the Sexy Stranger on the Subway and almost asks him out. That's when the strange posters start showing up around Brooklyn.

Oh Honey, Honey

larry | 3.6k

the one where Louis pines after Harry, Harry is passionate about helping save the bees, and a late night shopping trip gone wrong doesn't end quite as horribly as Louis imagines.

Just Like Honey

larry | 3.4k

Louis opened the door and he looked so soft and beautiful. He was in a ratty pair of grey joggers and that was it. Harry had never seen him look so good.

When Harry finally raised his eyes from Louis’ chest, he realised Louis had likely said something.

“Uh,” Harry said, clearing his throat. “Sorry, what did you say?”

Smirking a little, Louis crossed his arms and popped his hip. “I said, ‘Hello, Harry. What brings you here so late on a Saturday?’”

Then his brain kicked in.

“Right, fuck. Hi, Louis. I just wanted to give you this.”

Louis’ brows creased as Harry held the honey out to him. Taking the jar from Harry, he said, “Honey?”

Nodding, Harry said, “Yep. Hope you have a great night!”

Fisting his hands at his sides in frustration, Harry left the building as quickly as he could.

A Taste of Honey

grouis | 3.3k

the one where Louis has been pining after Greg ever since he started his job. Greg randomly showing up at his flat with a jar of honey might be just the push Louis needs to finally talk to the man.

Yellow, Is It Me You're Looking For?

grouis | 3.2k

the one where Louis has pined after Greg for what seems like ages, but when Greg renames the company's paint colors, something might finally be ready to give.

Honey, Honey, How You Thrill Me

garry | 2.8k

the one where Harry pines after fellow Radio 1 DJ Greg James but doesn't know how to start a conversation with him...until he gets the needed inspiration.

Like Honey to the Bee

tomlinshaw | 2.7k

the one where Nick has been trying to find a way to get past the banter stage with Louis for ages, and honey might be just what he needs to finally do so.

If You Want To Be Loved

grouis | 0.4k

Greg can't sleep. For once, he doesn't really mind.

BONUS drabble collections:

Drabbles for Harry's Birthday Drive 2019

multi | 24k

Each chapter is a different drabble dedicated to a person who donated to Harry's birthday drive! The prompt requested as well as the pairing are in the author’s note for each chapter as well. There are multiple pairings due to various pairings being requested by the donors, so please pay attention to that information in each chapter! Pairings include Harry/Louis, Zayn/Liam,, Grimmy/Louis, Greg/Louis, Zayn/Louis, and Niall/Shawn.

It Was Only a Kiss

multi | 15k

I participated in a kiss prompt drabble challenge on Tumblr, and ended up writing thirty-three drabbles! Because of the amount all for one challenge, I decided to post them on AO3 to save them. Each prompt exists on its own without relation to others, so pick and choose as you like.

#happy birthday!#author spotlight #author rec #fic rec #my recs #my lists

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takemedancingmaine · 6 years ago

Text

Familiarity

“I can't feel my toes.”

Cleo, despite living in the Midwest her entire life, did not handle cold well. She could do snow--walk in it, drive in it--no problem, but she wasn't good with just cold.

“You don't need toes,” Ana shrugged from the other side of Cleo. I giggled.

“I'm pretty sure you do,” Cleo argued. “I think it's a balance thing.”

“Maybe you should've worn better shoes,” I said before sinking my face back down into my scarf.

“What's wrong with my shoes?” She asked, defensive of her Converse.

“They're a thin canvas,” Ana said. “They're going to let the cold just seep right in.”

“But they're my favourite pair.”

“That doesn't mean they're good for the cold,” I laughed.

“Shove off, they're perfect,” Cleo argued.

“Perfect for frostbite,” Ana snickered.

The three of us were heading out to do some shopping. Ana still needed a few things and Cleo was buying gifts for her extensive family. I was tagging along because I never say no to a shopping trip, or buying thing unnecessarily for myself.

We were going to Louis’ later for some festive activities, but Ana had stressed that she really needed to hit a few of the stores today before she and Harry left to travel to each of their families and split the holiday season between the two.

It really wasn't that cold. I mean, it was cold and the sky was grey, but the wind wasn't bad and there wasn't snow covering the ground yet. It wasn't that cold.

Cleo and I agreed to just let Ana take the lead and we would just follow her around making crude jokes and laughing at all the frazzled looking parents and screaming children.

Before Cleo and I knew it, we were in our fifth store. I was holding some of Ana’s bags as she carried a basket around and filled it with gifts for various people.

“Okay, so what about them?” I pointed toward a couple over by the candles. We had been trying our hand at guessing people's relationships, whether they were brother and sister, friends, friends with benefits, or whatever else there was.

We think we spotted a man hiding from his wife and shopping for a mistress in one of the stores we’d been to. We also couldn't stop laughing at the mom with a stroller who had what we hoped was chocolate on her cheek and hair that desperately needed to be washed as she speed walked through the toy aisle assuring her child that Santa had definitely gotten his list in a voice that was too high pitched to be calm.

“They are definitely a recent couple,” Ana said with only a momentary glance over.

“Yeah?” I asked.

“For sure.” Cleo nodded.

“How can you tell?” I asked.

“It's almost like they're afraid to touch each other while simultaneously unable to keep their hands off each other,” Ana said. “He's nervous and so is she, but they're both excited.”

“I was going to say pretty much the same thing because he clearly hasn't had sex with her.” Cleo shrugged.

“You can tell that from a glance?” I asked.

“Most of the time, yeah.” Ana nodded.

“Wow, are you two creepy omniscients or something?” I asked.

“Shut up and really look at them and it'll be obvious,” Cleo said. So I did. I looked at them and studied them for a moment and it appeared my friends were right. The couple seemed to want to always be touching but was almost fearful of it, the touches are brief and light and fleeting.

“Okay, yeah, I see it,” I admitted.

“Speaking of sex…” Ana trailed off suggestively. She looked up long enough to waggle her eyebrows at me.

“Yeah, I've been meaning to ask you if you've done anything.”

“We haven't,” I said with a shrug and looked down at the bags in my hands.

“You've been dating for three months!” Cleo yelled.

“Hey, to each their own.” Ana gave me a nod in support. “Harry took forever to make a move on me in that department because he was so nervous.”

“Harry? Nervous about busting a move?” Cleo was appalled. To be fair. So was I.

“Nervous I would think that he got around too much before me and that I wouldn't take him seriously because if it,” Ana explained. Which made sense. Harry was never shy about his undeniably sexual nature.

It made me think a lot about what my teachers were like outside of school when I was younger. If my friends were any indication, it was highly likely that my teachers were leading interesting lives outside of school.

“But back to you and Niall.” Ana bumped her hip into mine. “Do you want to?”

I flashed back to Mehar going off on me two weeks ago about this very same thing.

“Obviously.” I blushed. Niall was so attractive and more and more--especially since we said we love each other--I've been thinking about it.

“Ohhhhhh,” Cleo sang. “I can't believe you've held out this long. I know he's not my type,” she wiggled her eyebrows, “but he's so classically handsome. Even I know that.”

“Well he told me he loved me two weeks ago,” I said.

“He said what?!” Cleo yelled again.

“And what did you say?” Ana’s voice was, surprisingly, just as loud as Cleo’s.

“I said it back,” I admit.

“You love him?” Cleo’s eyes widened as she looked over at me.

The store we were in, just wandering around, looking around for Christmas presents for Cleo and Ana to buy, was thankfully quite empty at the moment. My friends were not quiet and my cheeks were so red.

“Ruby!” Ana whisper-shouted, her eyes equally as wide as Cleo’s. “This is huge!”

“It's like I don't know you,” Cleo said with a smile.

“Oh for fork sake.” I rolled my eyes.

“He seems so sweet,” Ana said, picking up a travel tea mug and inspecting it. “I really like him.”

“I know how he is with us,” Cleo said, “but how is he with you?”

“He's… he’s really amazing,” I said. “I mean, he cooks for me. He made curry for me. He asks me how my day was and is genuinely interested and I am genuinely interested in his. He likes to go out and explore with me, is willing to just go out and walk and kind of find the city again in a new way. He makes me laugh. I really enjoy spending time with him.”

Cleo was just staring at me, an unreadable face.

“I’m happy for you, Ruby,” Ana said, her eyes searching my face, too.

“Thanks.” I blushed even more.

Ana smiled and strode over to a section of the store that had kitschy things for smaller gifs and Cleo came around and slung her arm over my shoulder, her head close to mine.

“The look on your face,” Cleo said softly, “makes me happy.”

“What look?” I asked.

“The look on your face when you talk about him,” she explained. “I know we tease you two a lot, but you’re my sister, Ruby. As long as he makes you happy and keeps making that look appear on your face, then I'm all in.”

“Stop,” I groaned. “That's so cheesy.”

She started walking toward where Ana had wandered over to and with her arm around me I had no choice but to go along with her.

“It's true!” She defended herself. “I mean, just because I’m not exactly the poster child for stable relationships doesn't mean I don't want you to have one.” She picked up a sheet face mask and looked it over as she kept talking. “Besides, if you two split now the awkward levels in the group will be unbearable and I'm not ready to be the one trying to hold it all together.”

Ana snorted and covered her face with her hand.

“Sorry,” she apologised.

“You are so good at this pep talk or whatever this is,” I said sarcastically. “So how about we talk about your dating life. I mean, you did just bring it up.” I smiled sweetly at her and she groaned.

“Let's not.” She shook her head.

“No wait, didn't you have a date just this Thursday?” Ana asked knowing well that she did.

“I need to stop telling you guys things,” she complained.

“Well,” Ana looked on expectantly, “what happened?”

“Fine,” Cleo mumbled.

“Oh yay!” I chimed before she could start. She glared at me as she pulled her arm from around my shoulders and we separated.

“So we meet up at this bar and she seemed really cool. I mean, we’d interacted a bit through messages, but nothing too serious. Anyway, we were actually having a good time, she's funny and cute and I liked listening to her talk about all the rallies her group has hosted or supported.”

“So, what's wrong? Why did you groan? Why didn't you want to talk about it? What happened?” Ana fired off questions rapidly.

Cleo pretended to be distracted by an eraser shaped like an ice cream cone and shrugged.

“Nothing really, I just don't think we'll work out.” She worked out eventually, all nonchalant.

“Why not?” I asked.

“We just won't,” she said.

“Cleo.”

“Ana.”

“Cleo.” I smirked.

“Ugh, fine. Okay. Whatever. She said she didn't want to meet up when I asked about maybe going out again.”

Ana sucked in air through her teeth. I puckered my face.

“It's fine.” Cleo waved away our concern. “I'm amazing and if she doesn't want to go on a date with me again then that's her loss, not mine.”

“Still, that's a bummer,” Ana said. I hadn't noticed but her basket was getting more and more full up on things from this section. It was a bit like the section of Target where everything is below five dollars and you don't realise you spent so much in the section, and Ana was taking so much that I knew what feeling she'd get when confronted with the bill later.

“Did she say why?” I asked.

“She said she just wasn't feeling it. Whatever ‘it’ is.”

“You'll find someone, Cleo,” Ana said optimistically. “I mean if Ruby can then you can.”

“I really wasn't that bad. I just had high standards.” I defended myself.

“High standards? Ruby, you were picky. The pickiest,” Cleo said. “Like, even for guys you slept with. You didn't have to be as emotionally connected with them, but you still had a mental checklist that you went through before agreeing to go home with them.”

“So?”

“So don't even get me started on just having high standards. Try impossible standards,” Cleo argued.

“Okay.” I brushed her words off. “I looked at myself, my qualities, and I assigned value to them and if I didn't find someone I think deserved that value, then I wasn't going to let them get it.”

“And Niall?” Cleo asked. “Does he deserve it?”

“Oh my gosh, you two are impossible.” I rolled my eyes.

“So yes?” Ana smirked.

“Shut up.”

“Definitely a yes,” Cleo agreed with Ana.

“You two are the worst. Why are we friends?”

“Because you're in your late twenties and you're too afraid to start over with new friends.” Cleo smiled sweetly.

“Ugh,” I groaned, “you're right. Can you imagine me starting over?”

“If you thought finding a boyfriend was hard…” Ana laughed as she trailed off.

“Oh my god, she would have like, surveys to fill out and checklists to go through and there would be friendship dates where she would be the one telling people she had a good time, but that she doesn't want to see them again.”

“You two are literally the worst,” I groaned.

“No, we’re not.” Cleo slung her arm back around my shoulder. “You just hate that we know you so well.”

“I really do.”

“Now c’mon, we should probably leave this store for another before Ana spends three months pay on face masks, decorative soaps, and colouring books for adults. Like, what does this store even specialize in?”

“I resent that,” Ana said before looking down at her basket. “But you're right, we should probably get out of here.”

Cleo and I burst into laughter and led the way to the front of the store so that Ana could have an intervention with her credit card.

“Not a forking word, Tomlinson,” Cleo practically growled.

“I wasn't going to say anything,” Louis said in that voice that told us all he clearly was dying to say something.

“Seriously, nothing from you,” Harry added.

Louis held up his hands, which were covered in flour, in surrender.

We were all over at his apartment, baking cookies and choosing drinks from the ever-pleasant array of mulled wine, hot chocolate, and some spiked, hot apple cider. Harry was in charge of making the mulled wine. Louis was doing all the baking, and we were each decorating our own selection of cookies while Louis tried his hardest not to critique or offer his assistance.

He was failing at that second bit.

He was rolling out the dough he had just hand mixed and gave me a look from where he stood at the island opposite me. I was happily seated on a stool watching Harry, Cleo, and Niall struggle to decorate while Ana sat at the table making a paper chain and Liam, beside her, cut out paper snowflakes. I was waiting for more cookies to come out before I decorated. I had access to cookies a la Louis every day--not that I ate them every day. Still, I figured I could wait while the others indulged.

Louis’ apartment was glowing with many, many strands of both multi-coloured and white twinkle lights. He had put the fireplace show loop on his television screen for what he called ‘ambience’ and he had strands of sparkly garland cross-crossing back and forth between the cabinets over our heads.

“I seriously underestimated how long cutting out snowflakes would take,” Liam moaned. His shoulders had slumped forward, caved in, over half an hour ago, but he was not willing to stop. It seemed he was trying to prove something to himself.

Ana nodded in agreement.

“Hard same,” she said as she measured even sections of paper to cut for her chain. The two of them were making enough decorations for each of us to bring some home and hang up.

Liam was looking up design tutorials on the internet to try and cut out while Ana was using all different colour papers to make the chains. She even brought her extra scrapbooking papers to include patterns and designs as some of the chain links. She was trying to cater each chain to each person.

“Want to trade and get constant criticism from Mr Professional Baker over here?” Cleo called over to us. Niall snorted at Louis’ frustrated sigh.

“On second thought I love cutting paper,” Ana called back.

“Want to take over for me, Ruby?” Louis asked.

I gave him a look.

“My phone’s ringing.” He nodded toward the phone lit up and perched on the counter next to the oven.

“How did you hear that over the music?” I asked as I hopped off my stool and came around while he wiped his hands on his apron. Harry was playing pop remixes of traditional Christmas songs at a very high volume.

“Honestly don't know.” Louis shrugged and walked out of the room as he answered his phone.

“Do you know what you're doing?” Niall asked as I washed my hands.

“It's just shortbread,” I said confidently, drying my hands and picking up the rolling pin. “It's not like he asked me to make a phyllo pastry from scratch.”

“Oh right,” Niall said sarcastically. “Because that's normal. That you know the difference. That you are capable of doing either one.”

Cleo and Harry laughed, Liam snorted and Ana just groaned as she taped another piece of paper together. She had a bandaid on each thumb already. The paper cuts were inevitable. I saw her bring her index finger up to her lips before I looked over at my boyfriend.

Niall winked at me as I started working the dough. I rolled my eyes at him and he smiled brightly. Once I was happy with the dough I picked out cutters and started making tree, snowflake, and candy cane shapes.

I was relatively quiet, only piping up when I felt my input was needed, really just enjoying the conversations going on around me. Ana now had bandaids on three fingers and Liam had joined her club and had one on his left thumb as well, now.

I quite enjoyed observing Niall and everyone else interact. My friends were absolutely lovely and, in truth, the funniest people I'd ever met. We were constantly laughing, everything was funny to us, and it wasn't just the alcohol we were drinking either.

It was weird. I never celebrated Christmas when I was growing up, but being here with my friends baking cookies and listening to Christmas songs was something I couldn't imagine not doing. Plus, my friends were very good at keeping things neutral. None of the cookie shapes were explicitly Christmas themed, rather they were winter shapes, and aside from the music--some of which I actually rather enjoyed--there really weren't any mentions of the holiday.

It was just the group of us together baking, crafting, and boozing. It was my literal definition of happiness.

Once all of the shapes I’d cut out were on a tray and baking in the oven, I started rolling the rest of the dough out again to make as many shapes from the excess as I could. As I sprinkled flour on the rolling pin, Niall spoke up again about my baking.

“How much do you actually know how to do?” He asked me.

“Most of my knowledge is from Louis and I binging Bake Off episodes and him explaining everything to me while we watch. I only really know--and can put into practice--a few techniques,” I explained.

“You look like you really know what you're doing,” Niall said.

“It's all about the confidence,” Louis said as he stepped back into the kitchen. “Our girl Ruby here knows more than she lets on, but she mostly just has the confidence to make it seem like she's got it even when she doesn't.”

“What's the most impressive bake she's done?” Harry asked now, his cheeks flushed pink from all the mulled wine he'd been putting away. His curls falling around his face glow under the lights like a halo.

“Nothing too special,” I said with a shrug

“Viennese Whirls,” Louis said at the same time as me.

“What rolls?” Ana asked over her shoulder.

“Viennese,” I said.

“Whirls,” Louis corrected. “You have to make the cookies, a buttercream, and a jam and then sandwich them all together,” he explained to their confused faces.

“Will you make them for us one day?” Harry asked.

“No.” I shook my head as I finished rolling out the remaining dough and let Louis take back over. I started in on doing the dishes that we’d managed to amass throughout the night.

Cleo sidled up beside me to wash her hands, but I knew she was just using it as an excuse to come over to whisper to me.

“He has not taken his eyes off of you all night,” she said.

“Shut up.” I peaked over my shoulder at him. He was laughing at something Liam had said that I'd missed with Cleo talking. I blushed as his shoulders flexed when he leaned back over his plate to get back to icing his batch of cookies.

“Hey, I'm sorry about that dating app girl, by the way-”

“No.” Cleo cut me off and shook her head. “No, please don't apologize. It just didn't work out. That happens sometimes.” She shrugged.

“I know, I just hate it for you.” I made a face.

“Don't.” Cleo shook her head again.

“But-”

“No,” she said as she dried her hands on her apron.

“What about-”

“I'm not having it.”

“Fine,” I huffed.

“Finish the washing up so you can help me decorate,” Cleo said now as she made her way back over to her tray of cookies.

“You're falling behind, Cleo,” Louis teased.

“Fork. Off. Tomlinson.” Cleo glared for a moment before laughing. He just smiled that cheeky smile back at her.

“Now I've got surprises for you all,” Louis said as we slipped on coats and shoes in his doorway. We each had bags filled with our cookies and decorations. Harry had even bottled the leftover wine to take home with him.

“Oh god,” Ana sighed. “Louis stop. You do too much for us!”

Louis winked and stepped into the kitchen and we all looked around at each other in mild curiosity and exasperation. Louis was always doing things like this. I knew he went over the top when it came to working, but once we became friends I was quick to realize he was over the top with his friends as well.

When Louis came back into the tight and packed hallway he had three bakery boxes in his hands and handed one to Liam, one to Harry, and one to Ana before he disappeared again and came back with three more boxes.

We all knew what the bakery boxes meant. Ana peaked into hers and squealed. When Harry and Liam each opened theirs they tried to hide their excitement, but they didn't do very good jobs at it. Harry was beaming and Liam smirked down at his feet as he closed his box back up.

This wasn't the first time Louis had made our favourite treats for us. He did it for Friendsgiving last year on top of everything he did in the bakery that week. When I found out he’d done it by sacrificing sleep and sanity, I chastised him heavily.

Once Louis handed Cleo her box she didn't wait. She opened it immediately and leapt over to hug Louis. Which was difficult given that both of them had boxes in their hands.

“Jesus,” Louis laughed as he did his best to hug her back. Over her shoulder, he spoke to Ana. “And it really wasn't that much, Ana. Don't worry.”

Ana kissed his cheek in appreciation once Cleo had released Louis from her awkward hug. Knowing Ana, it was probably a bunch of mini custard tarts that he'd baked for her. Liam and Harry each gave Louis a pat on the back.

“Love you, Louis,” Cleo called as she shuffled the rest of the group out and shut the door behind herself before he could even respond. It was just me and Niall left with Louis, now.

“Ruby.” Louis handed me my box. I peeked inside and gasped. It was my favourite bake of his. It was something he only did on special occasions: an apricot couronne. It was, without a doubt, my favourite treat and he rarely ever made it because it was a lot of effort for not a lot of monetary reward in terms of bakery revenue.

“You've been my rock all year, doing such amazing work and I really appreciate it. I know,” he smiled, “that I'm not always the easiest person to work with. I also know that this doesn't make up for it all, but I love you, Ruby and I wanted to do something nice.”

I rolled my eyes to keep from getting emotional but I smiled at him and hugged him just the same.

“I love you too, you ridiculously extra human,” I said. “I appreciate this so much.”

“Anything for you, love,” he said before pulling back and handing Niall his box.

“I purposefully kept yours for last, Horan,” Louis said.

Niall was making a face, trying to hold himself back, and I knew he already knew what was inside, but he looked anyway. He shut the box and handed it to me quickly before he gave Louis a watery smile and hugged his friend tightly to him.

“I know the holidays are hard, and I was going to wait until Christmas day when you came over, but I figured I could always make another batch,” Louis was saying as he pulled out of the hug, his own eyes watery. “Thanks for coming back, though, Neil. I've missed you.”

“Thanks, Tommo,” Niall said and he took a deep breath, pulling himself together. I handed him his box back.

“I'll see you Monday for the half day, Ruby,” Louis said to me. We always worked Christmas Eve. “You're coming with me out to the suburbs, right?” I nodded. “Let me know when you get home!” He called out to each of us as we stepped out into the cold.

“What have you got?” Niall asked me as he took my free hand in his and we headed off toward the Chicago red line stop.

“It's called apricot couronne,” I said and laughed when he gave me a confused face. “It's kind of like a sweet bun but it's been made into one big ring.”

“Ah.” He nodded, pretending he understood anything I was saying. I could tell he was still confused, but I smiled at him.

“What about you? What did you get?”

“Chelsea buns,” he said quietly.

It took me a second, but I flashed back to a night four months ago when Niall and I had been walking to the train station together and he had told me that Louis always made Chelsea buns for him when he was homesick. That they reminded him of his dad.

I didn't say anything. Instead, I just squeezed his hand tightly in mine and leaned into him a bit. He squeezed my hand back as we descended the stairs before we each pulled away to get out our Ventra cards.

The silence was comfortable as we re-joined our hands and headed down to the platform. I just kept thinking about what Louis had done by baking the specific treat for Niall.

He knew it would remind him of home, remind him of his dad in a good way. He knew around the holidays it must be hard for Niall. Greg's got his own family now to celebrate and create new traditions with, but Niall was alone. The fact that Louis had baked the Chelsea buns and invited Niall over for Christmas dinner on Tuesday was making my heart swell with love and respect for my friend. I knew how much it meant to Niall.

It was pretty late, nearing midnight, but the platform was still quite busy. I guess with it being the last Saturday before Christmas, and us being close enough to the Mag Mile, it meant that everyone who was out shopping until the stores closed was now trying to get home from one of two stations. I imagined the Grand station was even worse off than we were here.

“You should come to mine tonight,” Niall said suddenly from beside me. My head had been leaning on his arm, but as the train pulled in I lifted it and looked him in the eyes. I knew what he meant. He didn’t have to say it. There was no pressure. There was no guilting me into it. It was just a suggestion.

“Okay.”

His lip quirked up a bit on the left side and he registered my words. The small smirk made my tummy flutter.

“Okay,” he said back.

It was a cold and bitter walk back to his, even if it was only two blocks from the train station. I could feel my nose and cheeks burning, could feel the wind slice through me. Once the two of us reached his apartment building we both sighed in relief as we defrosted in the elevator. I leaned against his side as we rode up, using his body heat to help warm me back to a normal temperature.

“D’you want anything? Tea or coffee or something?” Niall asked as he helped me out of my jacket once we had stepped inside his cosy little home.

I slipped my shoes off as he took both of our bakery boxes into the kitchen. He plugged in one of his strands of twinkle lights while he was there.

“No, I'm good.” I shook my head and turned to face him as he came back over to me. He looked positively gorgeous in the low glow of the lights, his hair a soft gold colour, his eyes shining, his features half enlightened as he came up to me.

“D’you want anything else?” He asked me, his voice soft.

Slowly, I shook my head and in the glow, I reached up and ran a hand through his soft hair. My other hand reached for his shirt and I pulled him closer to me. He smiled and brought both hands up to cup my face before he agonizingly slowly leaned down and kissed me.

He moved his lips languidly against mine as we stood together in his front entryway. He trailed one of his hands down to wrap around my waist and pull me closer until our bodies aligned.

I wasn’t nervous. I wasn’t sure if I should have been. It had been years since I slept with someone and it meant something. I wasn’t my sister, but for the most part, I did enjoy one night stands. They were simple.

This was different though. I knew it was. From the moment Niall told me he wanted to try this, us, I knew we were going to be different together. I trusted him and he trusted me. He’d proven that when he told me about his dad three weeks ago. I felt guilty for not telling him about my incident, the one that was still, still giving me nightmares, but I was holding steadfast on my decision not to tell anyone. It had worked for me so far, right? Why mess with what was a good thing?

So when Niall asked me over tonight I didn’t feel anxious or nervous or worried about anything. Instead, I felt calm. It felt like all of my muscles had relaxed when he asked as if it was an ah-ha moment. Like my body was saying, ‘Yes, this is what you’re supposed to do. This is what is supposed to happen.’ I was excited, sure, and I felt that energy in every nerve ending within my body, but it felt good. It felt natural.

I loved Niall. I loved the way he made me feel emotionally. He was always there when I needed him and he never backed down when I told him about bad days. Once, on a day when a vendor had been particularly mean and hostile toward me, he even showed up at my door with my favourite tea from the cafe down the street and an offer for a shoulder massage. That turned into a really good day for me.

I also loved listening to him talk about his job and what he did every day. It wasn’t a chore to listen to him. When he talked he wove stories together, painted pictures of what had happened and made every little bit of his life as personable as possible. I just wanted to know more and more and hear more and more.

I had never before been so invested in a boyfriend’s life before now, but with Niall, I genuinely wanted to listen to him talk for hours and found myself interested in what he was saying. And it wasn’t just because of his accent. I mean, it helped, but the tone of his voice, the soft timber of it, melted something inside me and calmed me to my core. It felt like his voice was wrapping me up in a soft blanket and swaddling me into contentment.

Everything about this moment between us just felt right. It felt like the universe had aligned so that all roads led me to right here, right now with Niall. If I had been the kind of girl to keep a dream journal when I was younger, I probably would’ve dreamt up a moment like this.

The difference was that being here, in this moment, I knew that not even my imagination could have conjured up something so perfect. Between the man currently kissing me and my friends, between being here in Chicago and my job, there was no way I could have planned this, even if I had tried.

I felt my certainty of this situation, my situation, in the air around me like electricity. It was a current that was flowing through the air and I let it surround me, enveloping me whole and awakening my consciousness, raising it to levels it had never been before. I was so fully aware of what was happening. Every breath either of us took, every moan, each sound of hands grasping against clothes, the warmth of his skin, the glow of the lights against my closed… each of my senses was working overtime to take every little minute detail of this encounter in and commit it to memory.

Niall smirked into the kiss and backed me up until my body hit the wall, pinned there as his hand around my waist came to rest on my hip, his fingers slipping under the hem of my shirt and just like always, when I gasped at his touch on my skin he took advantage and pulled my bottom lip between his teeth, sending a shudder down my spine.

I brought my hands up to his collar and began unbuttoning his shirt as our kiss deepened. Suddenly I was hot all over and my fumbling, shaky fingers were not moving as quickly as I wanted them to. I was halfway down the shirt when Niall pulled back. He licked his lips as he looked down at me.

Even in the low light, I could tell that his bright blue eyes had darkened, that his pupils had blown out and the sight of it stirred something in me. We were both breathing heavy. I could feel my flush all the way down my neck and knew that Niall would be coloured red as well. His lips, those lips that could make me forget reality, were swollen and I bit my own lip just looking at him. He was gorgeous.

“C’mere,” he breathed and before I could open my mouth to ask what he meant, he leaned down a bit and with his hands under my thighs, he lifted me up. Instinctively I wrapped my legs around his waist to stabilize myself before he reattached his lips to mine and carried me to his bedroom.

He placed me down gently, and then sort of fell on top of me with a laugh. I smiled before I leaned up and kissed him, hard. I brought my hands back between us, about to get back to work on finishing the job of removing his shirt but he had other priorities. In one swift movement, he brought the hand that wasn’t holding himself up above me to my waist and broke our kiss to lift my shirt over my head and throw it to the floor.

He was leaning back on his knees above me and he smirked as he finished undoing the last three buttons and tossed his own shirt aside. I could see his eyes roaming over my body and I felt no sense of unease or discomfort, made no attempt to hide the scar on my left hip from where I'd fallen off my bike when I was little. I didn't feel the need to hide it.

I let my eyes trail over him, from his broad shoulders down to his slim waist and bit my lip again as my hands followed in my eyes’ path. He shivered under my touch and ran a hand through his hair, putting it into a state of even more disarray. I smiled at that.

“Are you sure?” He asked, his voice soft.

“With you, I am.” I nodded.

I watched as his features shifted, his eyes widened and his jaw twitched before he brought himself back down to me and kissed me with passion, like it was the first and last time he ever would. There was so much in just that kiss that it was almost overwhelming, but it was too good to let myself break away.

Instead what I did was lose myself in that moment with Niall.

#it honestly feels like it's been FOREVER since i've updated #i've been dying to share this one with you too #let me know what you think #1dff #fic: oth #fic: only ticket home #OTH14

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feminarrie · 6 years ago

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under the same moon - four

a/n: this is a longer piece at six words shy of 3.6k! this my fav chapter i have written so far, so i hope you do too! and as always, please let me know what ya think!

want to be added to the taglist? send me a message!

warning: this chapter does contain a brief mention of underage alcohol use. i do not condone this behavior, but feel it is necessary to capture hanna’s college experience.

Hanna has a throbbing headache when she wakes up the next morning. Not in her own bed, but that of Imogen and she’s not alone. The sound of shallow breathing tells her that much, but even so, there’s a warm body tucked into her side.

She’s not worried that she brought home a random person from the bar. Not that she hadn’t had a few one night stands that had alarm bells ringing in her head while she tried to concentrate enough to sneak out quietly. But, Hanna recognizes the way in which their knees are cradled close to their chest and tucked just beneath Hanna’s right ribs. The pattern of breathing is familiar too, with shallow puffs of air passing through their nose every two or three breaths.

Sonam is in a deep sleep next to Hanna. Who had only woken up because her stomach had begun to twist into knots with just how hungry she was.

She is careful in unraveling Sonam’s arms from around her own upper arm, despite the fact that she knows Sonam is a heavy sleeper and could (and has) slept through an earthquake or two. She really envied Sonam’s ability, actually. Because once she was out, that was it. Nobody could wake her up without doing the utmost.

(Hanna and Imogen had once jumped on her bed, jostling and shaking Sonam, for five minutes straight and they only received a groan before Sonam had rolled back over).

Hanna manages to set both feet on the ground without so much as a quiet sigh from Sonam’s parted lips. Without an area rug beneath her bed, Imogen’s wood floors are cold beneath Hanna’s feet. It sends a shiver up her spine and she shakes her upper body to rid herself of the icy sensation.

She is careful in her steps, quietly padding across the room until she’s reached the door. It’s already slightly ajar and a familiar voice carries through the two inch gap between the door and its frame. It only squeaks slightly as she attempts to squeeze past the frame and step out into the hallway.

Tyler is standing by stove when Hanna enters the living room. She can only see a partial view of his side profile. But, his mess of warm blonde curls and sharp jawline are hard to miss. The corner of his lips seem to twitch upward when he catches her in his peripheral, ocean blue eyes flickering between her and the pan on the stove.

“Morning, sunshine.” He greets, wedging a spatula between the small nonstick pan and a golden brown pancake.

“Morning.” Hanna tries to return his smile, but her nose scrunches up and she grips her temple as her head continues to pound. “Where’s Imogen?” She asks as she shuffles into the kitchen.

As she passes behind Tyler, Hanna can see that his natural cool toned brown locks have started to sprout from the roots. She thinks that he must have let his natural color grow in over the winter break. She prefers it, if she’s honest.

“Coffee run,” Tyler states, transferring the pancake to a plate that is stacked fairly high with others. “Plus, we needed syrup.”

Hanna reaches up to grab a glass from the cabinet right of the stove. She doesn’t bother to grab the jug of purified water from the refrigerator and simply fills her glass with water from the tap. She leaves it running as she guzzles down the first class in a matter of seconds before refilling it again. She slows down her gulps this time. Panting slightly as her lips hover around the rim of the blue tinted glass.

“I’ve missed all of this.” Hanna hums, leaning on the counter. “I’m glad we’re all back together.”

Tyler hums his own affirmation while setting to work on another pancake.

Hanna is rather happy to have all of her friends back in one space. Ecstatic, really. Perhaps content, too. There aren’t enough words in the English language to describe the sense of homeliness and excitement that she feels despite a raging hangover.

“How are you feeling this morning?” Tyler prompts, earning a dry laugh that fades into a groan from Hanna.

“That bad, huh?” Tyler chuckles, flipping another pancake onto the plate and turning off the stovetop.

“I never want to drink again, honestly.” Hanna sighs before taking another sip of her water. “How bad was I?”

Tyler moves past Hanna to grab the frozen hash brown patties from the freezer. It’s as if he knows where everything is in the apartment. Which, to be fair, he does. Not only are Imogen and Hanna creatures of habit, but Tyler spends more nights at their apartment than with his own roommates three blocks away.

She’d met Tyler during her freshman year and he’d been the only person without a partner for her drama and film project. In which they had to identify the general themes of one book that corresponded with an assigned film. It was an easy project, as it should’ve been, for a core curriculum class. But, it also meant spending hours together in order to discuss the book and rewatch the movie.

Hanna had invited him to her dorm. She remembers because she had to sign him in because her last class had only just ended at nine in the evening. Tyler had gone to the campus store to grab an assortment of snacks and Hanna offered him a Corona that she’d gotten past her RAs a week prior.

It had been far more enjoyable than she thought it would be. They had chosen Like Water for Chocolate because it had been easy. They’d read the original book and watched the movie of the same title. But, Hanna had forgotten just how much eroticism and passion that was woven into the storyline.

Looking back, she can’t fault herself for it. They had read the book at the very beginning of the semester and they’d only just started the final project a week and half before it was due. Plus, with it being her first semester of university, she could hardly recall what she had for dinner the night before let alone the plot of an assigned novel.

So, it had been somewhat awkward as they both took the occasional notes while watching the movie. Glancing at each other when they thought the other wasn’t looking. Hands brushing one another as they reached inside the bag of Ruffles sat between them.

That night had not only marked the start of their friendship, but a year long crush on Tyler. In which, she spent much of her time attempting to flirt with him. Not that she ever admitted to it when she was fully immersed in her feelings for Tyler, but she tried just about everything to get closer him. Until the day that it something simply switched in her head. Her feelings had seemed to have turned platonic without her being aware of it. Up until she had seen Tyler with his then girlfriend, Franci, and there was no sinking feeling in her gut or a hole in her chest.

Since then, she’d seen Tyler with a variety of people. Even helped set him up with one of the guys from her theory course. That had been at the end of their junior year and as far as Hanna knew, they were still happily together.

“You kept talking about some guy named Niall.” Tyler shrugs, peeling back the plastic of the container and pulling out eight hash brown patties. “I tried to ask Imogen who he was, but she was just as gone as you were.”

Hanna realizes now, that she had been so caught up in the whirlwind of having her friends back that she had neglected to fill them in on that aspect of her London trip. Even though, it was arguably one of the more memorable parts of her time there. At least in the sense that she doesn’t have to look at pictures to be reminded of the way she felt in that particular moment. It all still lives within her and overcomes her whenever she hears Niall’s voice.

“So, do you want the long or short version?” Hanna cuts right to the chase.

She sets the glass beside the stainless steel sink before pivoting to reach for the stash of ibuprofen that sat in a corner beside the fridge. A tiny space that was reserved for instances such as this.

Tyler raises a single shoulder in a shrug as he reaches into the lower cupboard next to the stove. There’s a clamor of metal that has Hanna’s nose wrinkling in discomfort, but it’s short lived and Tyler produced a round baking sheet. She waits again, as he tears a rather large piece of tinfoil from its box and secures it over the pan.

“Whatever you’re comfortable with.” Tyler says, stealing a momentary glance while placing all of the patties on the sheet.

Hanna realizes that he must have already preheated the oven because he’s placing them on the upper rack and closing the door once again.

It warms her to know that he makes himself at home while he’s in her and Imogen’s space. It means that all the hard work that the two had done to create a homey space had paid off. The nights arranging and then rearranging furniture so it allowed just enough light in were worth it. The long hours of knitting—which wasn’t exactly a chore for a proper old lady like Hanna—throw blankets had paid off.

(She doesn’t ever think about the fact that Tyler and Sonam really only feel so at home is because of how kind the set of roommates are. They go out of their way to buy food for Sonam, who is allergic to peanuts and a touch lactose intolerant. They bought candles that smelled like lavender and sandalwood that instantly calmed everyone that walked into the room).

Just as Hanna is about to begin retelling the short version of the story, she sees Sonam shuffling out into the living room. She’s knuckling at her eyes and a sleepy smile on her lips. Hanna envies just how sweet and soft she looks despite the fact that all four of them had enough to drink for a group of ten.

“G’morning,” she greets after a yawn.

Tyler and Hanna return her greeting as she goes to sit at the small white table that is flush against the wall. Sonam pulls her legs up so that the tops of her thighs are pressed to her chest. The position makes her small while simultaneously reminding just how small the space is.

“You’re just in time.” Tyler speaks, setting a timer on the stove before mimicking Hanna’s position against the counter. “Skeeter’s gonna tell us about Niall.”

Hanna misses the slight furrow in Tyler’s brow and vague disinterest that mixes with something else in his eyes when he speaks. She has her back turned to him and she’s too busy formulating the story in her head that she wouldn’t have recognized the look anyway. Her thoughts are five thousand miles away, where she is tucked into Niall’s side while he talks about his songwriting and interest in music.

Hanna may have missed the look in Tyler’s eyes, but he doesn’t miss the blissful look on her face when she takes the seat opposite Sonam. Her features are as soft and peaceful as he’s ever seen them. Even more so than when he has woken up beside her after the four of them pulled all-nighters just to study for their respective exams.

“Oh!” Sonam cheers quietly, resting her cheek atop her knees as she turns her head to face Hanna. “You wouldn’t stop talking about how much you missed him, ya know.”

Hanna’s cheeks flush crimson at the idea that she had been so sloppy drunk that she couldn’t keep her mouth shut about him. They heat up even more when she realizes that her text messages are likely to read much the same.

She fights the urge to run to grab her phone. Mostly because she isn’t quite sure where it is and couldn’t really be bothered in tearing up the apartment to find it. So, she only settles into her seat more. Turning so that her back is pressed to the wall and she can rest her right forearm across the table.

“So, you know the rumors we always heard about how lenient Higgins and Westley were on the London trips?” Hanna begins her story from the beginning.

Her words are similar to the ones she’d spoken to Imogen, although not verbatim. This time, though, after Imogen had returned with four cups of coffee, Hanna also adds their most recent interactions.

She pays particular attention to the other night, when the pair had sat on video chat for hours with only a few mutterings between them. Niall had called simply because Liam had a date that was going extremely well and he didn’t anticipate his roommate’s arrival until the next morning. Hanna had been journaling and very much caught up in her own stream of consciousness. Niall would ask her what she was thinking about here and there, when he noticed a broad smile light up his screen. Of course, Hanna never told him. Too embarrassed to say that she was writing about him like a preteen girl gushing about her first crush in the safety of her diary.

As if Niall’s own well-loved lyric book hadn’t been riddled with half finished songs about the way she makes him feel.

Hanna even talks about the fact that he’s made it a habit to call her when he gets home from his shift at the record store. When his voice is thicker with his blossoming fatigue and hers is slightly more chipper with the early morning. He recounts his day at work while she recites her plans for the rest of the day. Which, as of late, have only been spending time with Imogen at home or going to the quaint cafe just off campus.

“Did you tell them that you haven’t told him you like him yet?” Imogen questions as she leans against the wall, ankles crossed and coffee cup held tightly in her small hands.

Hanna pokes her tongue out at Imogen, but shakes her head. It earns a forced laugh from Tyler, but Sonam is reaching across the table to playfully swat at her arm. Hanna turns her head to give the petite brunette the same look she’d given Imogen before and it earns her another playful tap.

“I haven’t told him. I don’t know if I ever will.” Hanna responds truthfully.

She’s afraid of what it’ll mean if she does. Especially because she isn’t entirely sure of what Niall feels for her. Sure, she knows that he finds her at least attractive and fun to be around. But, she knows from experience, that those two factors don’t always mean someone has any romantic interest in her.

And Hanna has never liked someone the way that she does Niall.

He makes all of the cliche romance novel tropes come to life. As if he is some male love interest that makes the narrator’s world fall away when they’re together. Creating a safe little bubble where the worries of the world are muted and she is only capable of focusing on the good.

It scares her a little, if she was honest. It scares her to feel that way for someone that is an entirely different time zone, living an entirely different life, and yet somehow manages to be woven into her everyday experiences.

Not crucial to her existence, but absolutely makes it all a little less mundane.

. . . . . . . . . . .

The conversation had moved away from the inner workings of Niall and Hanna’s potential romantic relationship to everyone else’s winter vacations. Imogen shared pictures she had taken on her cruise. Sonam talked about the family wedding she had attended and the fair amount of drama that took place there. Tyler went into beautiful detail about his work at the Aquarium of the Pacific, where he had been able to score an internship.

They had all eaten their breakfast and fallen into their natural routine. Imogen and Tyler ducked outside to smoke a blunt in the comfort of Imogen’s Volkswagen beetle. They’d returned twenty minutes later with half lidded eyes to watch Planet Earth. Sonam was sat on the floor, back pressed to the sofa, switching her attention between the television and her phone.

Hanna initially planned to sit down to knit and watch the nature docuseries with her friends, but realized a few stitches in, that she should look for her phone.

She rummages through her dirty laundry basket, checks beneath Imogen’s bed and beneath its covers, and in the bathroom before she finds it. The black iPhone, wrapped with a clear case with pressed daisies, had been in her purse the whole time. It still hangs from the hook on the back of Hanna’s door after she retrieves her phone.

Most of her notifications are from the posts she had been tagged in last night, but there are two from Niall that telling her that he hopes she got home safe and a reminder to call him whenever she sees his message.

She opens the thread of text messages between them and finds a series of half-formed thoughts that she shouldn’t have even typed out. A heat begins in her chest before radiating to her neck and ears, tinting them a shade of pink. Even if her memories from last night weren’t already to come back in bits and pieces, her text messages painted a pretty explicit picture of what she had been like last night.

Niall’s responses don’t give her any clue as to how he feels about the situation. For all she knows, his request to call him, regardless of their time difference, could mean that he wants to remind her that they are an ocean apart and this was purely a friendship. Which would absolutely tear her heart in two, but she would understand. Their friendship was still young even with their interactions said differently.

But still, Hanna doesn’t want to stick her head in the ground to avoid the situation. She would rather have Niall say what he needs to and move on from it. Because the more time she took to dwell on it, the longer it would take her to get over it and she knows that getting over Niall would already take long enough.

So, she doesn’t bother with texting him to see if he’s busy or sleeping, but calls him after she has shut her bedroom door. The ringing bounces off the walls of her space for just a moment before she switches the audio to her headphones by plugging them in.

“Hello, love.” Niall says, and although it is dark, Hanna knows that he is smiling.

“Hi.” Her response is clipped, nervous.

“How are you feeling?” Niall asks, leaning over to switch his bedside lamp on and it takes a moment for his eyes to readjust.

“Uh, good. Much better than this morning, that’s for sure.” She answers before pulling her bottom lip to sit between her teeth again.

“S’good to hear, love. Didn’t know how much you had to drink, so I wanted to check in and make sure you were alright.” Niall admits, eyes flickering from the screen to beyond it.

Hanna assumes he has the television on low because there’s washes of blue and yellow over Niall’s face every few seconds. He doesn’t seem to be paying too much attention to it, though. His attention is still very much on Hanna.

He just isn’t sure how exactly to approach the topic of what she had revealed the night before. Even after talking it out with Liam, who insisted that Hanna would be over the moon, he still cannot keep the nerves at bay.

Luckily, Hanna has a hard time holding her tongue sometimes.

“Is that the only thing you wanted to talk about?” Hanna is still nibbling on her lower lip, teeth snagging a jagged piece of skin.

“Always keep me on my toes,” Niall laughs quietly. “But, no. I guess not.”

There’s a long pause as the two wait for the other to start speaking, but unsurprisingly, it is Hanna that speaks up first.

“I know I said I liked you last night. I was incredibly drunk.” Another pause for a deep breath. “It’s still true. I like you a lot. Quite possibly more than I’ve liked anyone. But, I don’t want you to feel obligated to say that you feel the same.” Pause. “I just feel like I would’ve been more regretful if I didn’t at least tell you how I felt.”

Niall allows for an extended period of silence to ensure that Hanna is entirely done speaking. But, the way his eyes are damn near closed with just how wide he is smiling should have been an indication that he felt the same way. Not that Hanna noticed because she had squeezed her eyes shut shortly after finishing, hoping it would help in evening out her excited breathing.

“I like you, too, Hanna.” Niall says and it feels like a weight has been lifted off his chest. “Ever since that night. I just haven’t been sure if you’d like some Irish boy living halfway across the world. Especially when he’s trying to make it into the music industry.”

Hanna knows he’s trying to lighten the mood and ease her nerves. But, there’s a whole new collection of excited nerves that have settled in. Ones that have her asking about where they should go from here when there is a pregnant pause.

“Up to you, love.” Niall leads. “Because I’m all in if you are.”

And even though it is scary, Hanna is absolutely and irrevocably all in.

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dailyniall · 7 years ago

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10-year journey: Niall Horan on going from singing in his bedroom to performing for millions

Niall Horan has spent a sizable chunk of the past 10 years as one-fifth of the world’s biggest boyband. Maybe you’ve heard of them. Now he’s finding his own way as a solo artist.

My life is the polar opposite of what it was before. I live half and half between London and LA. Last year I think I spent less than six days in Ireland, which is nuts. I spent the first 16 years of my life there and now I can barely do a week.

In the band, we’d play to thousands of screaming fans in some of the biggest venues in the world. Now everything’s more intimate; I just played Shepherd’s Bush [Empire]; brilliant venue, I could see every face in the room. It was magic. There was still screaming, mind.

In London, people don’t really pay attention to me – in a good way. I’m not saying everyone should know who I am, but I go on the Tube, or walk down the street, absolutely no problem. I went to Chelsea vs Tottenham at Wembley, and got the Tube there with the Chelsea fans. Nothing. Londoners are in their own little world, aren’t they?

I spend half my time in LA, but fuck being vegan. I’m far from that, although I’ll have a green juice every now and then. I’m not an ‘LA type’, that’s not me.

The thing I miss most about home is Irish ignorance. My mum said to me yesterday, “The world we work in is not necessarily normal, and that’s why people are obsessed by celebrities.” Back home, a lot of people don’t get the references of people I’ve met, or places I’ve been. I miss the days when I didn’t know much more than what was in my hometown, and the innocence of that.

No one blows smoke up my arse back home. All my schoolmates, friends from Ireland, I fall right back into that group, and I don’t feel like Famous Niall Horan. Sixteen of us went to New York for St Paddy’s day last year, dressed in green Irish suits and face paint. We looked like a load of dickheads, running around the place. It was such a good laugh. Nobody recognised me, nobody gave a shit.

I try to do as much of that as I can. It keeps my head screwed on.

Compared to One Direction, I feel like I am in a lot more control now.Obviously when there are less opinions flying around that is a good and bad thing. In the band, we wrote songs separately and then brought them to the group, and you’d get the harsh truth about that song from everyone. It was a little strange at the start, being by myself. Now I’m spending a lot more time in my own head, asking myself, “Is this song working or should I just chuck it?”

In 1D, I was a lot quieter than the other boys. I’d maybe only answer a couple of questions here and there and let the others take the lead. Now, it’s all on me.

Being in such a huge band feels like conquering Mount Everest. And I don’t know if I’ll scale something that height again. But I’ve made peace with that.

Never ask an artist who a certain song is about. I get it all the time, and what they’re really wanting to know is who you’re shagging at any given time. That’s where it gets annoying. I want people to interpret my music, not assign real people to the lyrics.

I was standing onstage on The Graham Norton Show and I remember thinking, “Where the fuck is everyone?” Performing alone, at first, took some getting used to.

Playing the One Love Manchester concert was one of the most surreal days of my life. It was emotionally up and down. Backstage I was with Ariana Grande, and she was telling me stories of visiting the hospital, meeting families of the victims, and she was clearly really emotional about what was going to happen [during the concert]. It hit me that this was history being made, right before our eyes. Our generation’s Live 8.

Everywhere I looked, people were dancing and having a good laugh.Then I played ‘This Town’, and the mood changed. I caught a girl’s eyes in the crowd and she was just bawling her eyes out. During Justin Bieber’s acoustic set, policemen were dancing with kids. I’d never seen anything like it.

You can’t let a terror attack alter your way of thinking. The concert was the same day as Michael Carrick’s testimonial at Old Trafford. Seventy-five thousand people at Old Trafford, 200 yards down the road from this huge 50,000-strong crowd. This is the week after a terror attack. I walked through the crowd thinking, “These people aren’t scared. Something monstrous has happened, but they refuse to be scared by it.” That was really powerful to experience.

I’d always get a kiss and a hug from Michelle Obama. We’d always play Washington on tour, and the Obamas would visit. They would come in these huge convoys with thick, bulletproof windows. I can’t imagine living like that, but they were lovely.

Golf has a relaxing effect on me. I’ve always been quite a hyper person, but when I’m on a course I feel calm. You completely disconnect when you play – even a practice session can be long. Nobody could come near you, so me and Harry [Styles] would often play on tour when we wanted to get away from it all.

You need to play a lot, though. Naturally I’ve been quite busy over the years.

(source)

#niall horan #article

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1dreality · 7 years ago

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It must have been well over a year ago now, when Liam Payne realised he had absolutely nothing interesting to say. The singer, known to most as ‘Liam from One Direction’ until the group’s indefinite hiatus in January 2016, had returned to the studio, settled into the idea of being a solo artist for the rest of his days, and promptly drawn a blank. He was, he says, just too darned happy to think of anything.

Everything in his life had fallen into place. He’d found love, moving in with Cheryl (formerly Cole), a fellow junior royal of the Top 40. Their first child, a son named Bear, was well on the way. He had signed a huge record deal with Capitol. He felt fitter and healthier than he had in years. And, yes, there’s no denying it: he was pretty pleased that he no longer had to be in the biggest boyband in the world.

‘I had a bit of a problem formulating what was going on in my brain into the music at first,’ he says, ‘because I was so content with everything in my personal life. It’s easy to spill your guts out on a ballad. But I was thinking, “Oh God, I’m really happy – what am I going to write about?!”’

More than 12 months on, the answer to that question still isn’t entirely clear. Payne’s debut album, as yet untitled, won’t be released until early 2018. There have been two singles, though, with a third, the unsubtly titled Bedroom Floor, arriving next month.

Of those we’ve heard, the first, Strip That Down, a R&B-inflected club hit released in May and co-written with Ed Sheeran, marked a departure from One Direction’s stadium pop-rock. It was also chock-full of hoary by-the-way-I’m-an-adult-now signposts: there are references to nightclubs, drinking rum and coke, driving Ferraris and having girls ‘grind’ on him. And mixed in with all that were lyrics that caused a minor stir among his acolytes: ‘You know I used to be in 1D, now I’m out, free / people want me for one thing, that’s not me’. Payne, it seems, is keen to reintroduce himself.

‘When I left the band, I felt a bit stranded,’ he says, when we meet in an enormous boardroom at his management’s offices. ‘It took time, but I know as an artist I am starting fresh now.’ He slaps the table with melodrama. ‘This is Moment One. It’s the start line.’

Liam Payne is 24 years old. He is athletically built, as anyone who has seen his shirtless Instagram posts will know, and kind of everyday handsome, in a Love Island, former-youth-footballer way. Both his arms and hands are almost entirely upholstered in tattoos, highlights of which include some thick black arrows on one forearm that look like road markings; the number ‘4’, in reference to One Direction’s 2014 album of the same name, on his ring finger; and, on his left arm, a scale depiction of Cheryl’s eye, that appears to follow you around the room as he gesticulates. ‘It’s so my missus can always keep an eye on me,’ he likes to say about that one.

He is impossibly nice. Before we meet, he plods through the office, saying hello to everybody in the building individually, and in most cases remembering something about them: that they beat him at Fifa last time he dropped by, so they must have a rematch before he leaves (‘I’ll whoop ya with West Brom!’), or they’ve surely had a haircut, haven’t they? (‘It looks really great anyway, man!’). It is the manner of somebody both impeccably raised and intensely keen for people to like him, and it appears genuine and successful.

To an extent, Payne says, the five members of One Direction – or four, after Zayn Malik left the band in 2015 – ended up playing characters over the six years they were together. Whereas the Beatles (arguably the only other group with a comparable scale and speed of world domination), grew increasingly cantankerous towards the end of the 1960s, One Direction stuck resolutely to the caricatures that fans and management assigned them right to the end.

Malik was brooding and mercurial, Harry Styles was a cool, flamboyant ladies’ man, Niall Horan was charming and laid-back, and Louis Tomlinson, who has since admitted to feeling a little redundant, was fun and energetic. And Payne? Well, Payne was The Responsible One.

‘I’ve always been a bit of an older soul,’ he says, mulling over his place. ‘It’s funny: there’s a thing on the net where the fans put what they think are our mental ages. All the boys were around their real ones, but then they put me at about 37.’

Payne admits to feeling a little daunted in 2010, when Simon Cowell thrust the band together on X Factor after they’d auditioned as solo artists. Keeping up with the other personalities in the gang was exhausting, so his coping mechanism was to attempt to rein them in as best he could, and work with management in doing so. Like the popular schoolboy teachers identify as mature enough to be a trusted emissary for his recalcitrant friends, Payne carved himself a valuable niche.

‘I was put with a group of rowdy teenagers, and when I was a teenager, I had mates, but I was always with my dad. I’d go out to the pub and chat with him. So when I was stuck with these boys I was thinking, “F— me, I don’t know how to do it.”

‘When something was going wrong, I’d get a phone call. If there was an apology needed, it was me. I was the spokesperson for the band, as it were, with the press and the label.’

Along with Tomlinson, Payne shares comfortably the most writing credits of the band on One Direction songs. Over their five albums, dozens of songwriting collaborators contributed to the group’s success, but it seems nobody worked harder than the two least-heralded members. Neither was the showiest or best singer; but they kept things ticking over.

One Direction’s hordes of fans around the world noticed the assumed roles, and nicknamed Payne ‘Daddy Directioner’. He lived up to it with them, too. In 2013, on tour in Australia, Payne tweeted a message to warn girls waiting outside the band’s hotel of snakes living in the surrounding fields. ‘It’s just not worth it someone’s gunna get hurt [sic],’ he pleaded.

Two years later, he gave an interview lamenting the fact he and the other boys were being sent sexually explicit pictures of themselves drawn by underage admirers. While the rest of the band seemed to find that funny, Payne called it ‘the sad and sorry side of what we’ve done.’ Yeah, all right, Dad.

Becoming a real-life father has at least given the nickname some purchase. Rumours swirled at the end of 2015 that he had started dating Cheryl – formerly Fernandez-Versini and Cole, née Tweedy – after her second marriage ended in divorce. By the next summer, she was pregnant with the second One Direction baby (Tomlinson, the eldest of the bunch, had one first).

The couple live in a mansion near Woking, Surrey, and aren’t married, but he considers them ‘basically at that stage’. Bear, with whom Payne is besotted, was born in March, and named for the growling noises he was making during his first sleeps. So far, no photographs have been released, but he instantly shows me one on his phone. And here, I can exclusively reveal that the heir Bear is – as you’d expect of a baby with that name, born of two professionally good-looking parents – very cute.

‘We’ve only shown him in glimpses,’ Payne says, explaining their decision to shield him. ‘We don’t want him to have the pressure that me and Cheryl have, as household names. We want him to enjoy himself first and then figure it out.’

Born and raised in Wolverhampton, Payne has an unexpectedly thick Midlands accent that gets thicker the longer he talks – which is a lot. His preferred conversational feature is the anecdote, resulting in a version of the phrase, ‘I remember, there was this one time…’ prefixing the majority of his utterances, which are in turn regularly punctuated with singular handclaps of self-incredulity. It can be mildly alarming, like interviewing a young, heavily-tattooed Ronnie Corbett, but I suppose it speaks to the amount of life experience he has already accrued.

Growing up, Payne’s father, Geoff, worked as a fitter, while his mother, Karen, was a nursery nurse. Money was tight and the house small, but he remembers it as a happy one.

‘My place was on the floor with the dog, there was no space on the sofa. It was great, though we didn’t have much. Dad was in debt, but they did the best they could. It makes you dream a bit, you know?’

As a child, he had two routes to possible stardom, both of which Geoff pushed hard for. One was singing, the other was long-distance running. For a time in his teens, Payne was one of the fastest 1500m runners in the country, getting up to train before school and seconds from qualifying for the London 2012 squad. It was before that, as a 14-year-old in 2008, that he first applied for X Factor.

Auditioning with Fly Me To The Moon, since it was one of the few songs he could manage while his voice was breaking, that year he got as far as the ‘judge’s houses’, before Simon Cowell told him to come back in two years and try again. He became a mini-celebrity back home in that between-period, and carried on performing around town. The adulation was short-lived, though.

Once, performing a Justin Timberlake cover at an under-18s gig in Oceana Wolverhampton, somebody lobbed a coin at his face and managed to draw blood. He laughs about it now. These days – admittedly a largely cashless society – it’s only bras and knickers they fling.

‘I had become less and less famous. One time, I was in McDonald’s with a girlfriend and someone shouted ‘X Factor reject!’ at me. The whole restaurant turned. It was like coming out of fame. So I knew what it was like at 15, and it helped me.’

Following Cowell’s advice, he returned to X Factor in 2010 and found himself shoved into One Direction with the four other boys, eventually finishing the competition in third place, but with easily the brightest future. Within weeks, he had moved out of his Wolverhampton bedroom and into a penthouse apartment in Canary Wharf.

And six years later, One Direction had sold more than 20 million records, become the first band in history to have their first four albums go to number one in the US, touring the world numerous times, and earned a preposterous amount of money in the process. Payne is now estimated to be worth £40 million. He hasn’t been back to Wolverhampton in a long time, but he paid off his father’s debts years ago, and bought his parents a new house in addition to funding the renovation of their family home. He refers to his time spent in One Direction as ‘like uni’.

When they were in the thick of things, all the boys used to obey Cowell’s omertà – relentless enthusiasm at all times, please – and never discussed any negative aspects of their experience. Now safely out the other side, Payne is frank on matters of burnout and claustrophobia.

‘Cabin fever. It sent me a bit AWOL at one point, if I’m honest. I can remember when there were 10,000 people outside our hotel. We couldn’t go anywhere. It was just gig to hotel, gig to hotel. And you couldn’t sleep, because they’d still be outside,’ he says, before telling several stories of how he and Tomlinson would sneak out of hotels just to feel freedom, only to find themselves bored once they got out.

‘People were speaking to me about mental health in music the other day, and that’s a big issue. Sometimes you just need some sun, or a walk.’

Every stop on tour became the same. Earlier this year, Payne was asked which was his favourite city of those he visited with One Direction. ‘One in Italy with a big white cathedral,’ he responded.(The band performed in Milan at least five times.)

‘One of the problems was that we never stopped to celebrate what we’d done. I remember us winning loads of American Music Awards and then having to get on a plane straight away. It got to the point where success was so fluid. I don’t even know what happened to our songs, we just sang them, then sang some more. It was like a proper, hard job. Non-stop. I can concentrate a lot more now.’

The paparazzi and fan attention sounds just as draining. It must feel weird having a Twitter following larger than the population of Australia, as he does, but especially odd to have fans so obsessed that they’ve set up multiple fake profiles pretending to be your mother, for some reason.

Moreover, footage of One Direction out and about makes A Hard Day’s Night look tame: thousands of screaming fans all over them, police escorts everywhere they went, an unending run of selfie requests... It came to a head in New York in 2012, when Payne was walking to a restaurant with his parents and a paparazzo accidentally pushed his mother over. He was incensed.

‘I was like, “Oh, f— this. F— this s—t.” There was a swarm of them and I just wanted a burger with my parents,’ he says, unsmiling for a moment. ‘I cried my eyes out. I thought, “I can’t do this”, and really hated my life.’

He soldiered on, but it wasn’t a healthy lifestyle; none of them seems to miss it now the ‘break’ is on.

‘It’s great that people can see what we’re really like away from each other,’ Payne says. ‘It got to a point in the band where we were just playing characters, and I was tired of my character. Apart from the daddy thing, I was really loud and bubbly. There were a lot of personalities in the band to keep up with, so I had to be all, ‘Ey!’, the rowdy lad, and I don’t have to now.’

There were times when the band would celebrate hard, and in that, Payne had catching up to do: as a child, he was diagnosed with a scarred kidney, meaning he didn’t taste alcohol until he was given the all-clear at 19. Tell a teenage millionaire they can now safely drink, and they’ll go for it. He admits ‘the floodgates opened’ that year.

‘I wasn’t happy. I went through a real drinking stage, and sometimes you take things too far. Everyone’s been that guy at the party where you’re the only one having fun, and there were points when that was me. I got to 13 stone, just eating crap. I got fat jibes, and it affects your head. I have nothing to hide about it…

‘As I say, it was like a musical university. We were pretty reckless, but I got it out of my system. I had my fun.’

The hiatus seems to have come at just the right time. But before he could take a breath, Payne lurched on in life, becoming involved with Cheryl almost at once.

Nobody asks how they met; their introduction is on YouTube for all to see. Ten years his senior, she was an X Factor judge in 2008 when the 14-year-old Payne shuffled in, all mop-hair and waistcoat, to perform his Sinatra number. He winked at her, she called him ‘cute’, they bumped into one another over the years, ended up working on a remix of one of her songs in 2014, and the rest is recent pop history.

Not everybody was happy when the relationship was initially confirmed. That Cheryl was in a quasi-pastoral role when they met raised eyebrows in the usual eyebrow-raising camps, as did the couple’s decade-wide age gap. Liam doesn’t care. In fact, he can still barely get over the fact she’s his girlfriend.

‘It’s a ridiculous place to be in,’ he says. ‘She’s even more amazing than I thought. I was watching her do Fight For This Love [her debut solo single, from 2009] when I was a kid, and now we’re together with a kid. I feel like I’m X Factor’s biggest winner.’

It helps having Cheryl around to ask about business matters. Like Payne, she was scouted on a TV pop contest (2002’s Popstars: The Rivals), had massive success in a group (Girls Aloud), and then went solo with a more urban sound. She is also the unlikely possessor of the record for number-one singles by a British woman.

‘We think about the same things. She understands what my life is like. She knows what it’s like to sit on the Graham Norton couch [or] we can talk about her L’Oréal work. It’s not that we’re “a brand” as a family, but we can help each other.’

In Who We Are, one of One Direction’s seven books, published in 2014, Payne writes in his chapter that he’s ‘worried about the idea of failing outside of this band’ and declared he’d become a low-key songwriter, because ‘there would be less attention on my life’.

The opposite of that is what’s happening, I inform him.

‘Yeah, that was a point when I was scared of our success, and we didn’t want to take a step back from it,’ he says. ‘I just wanted to be a songwriter and not be famous, but happy. Then Simon and Cheryl told me this is where I am supposed to be, and I’d miss the stage. The pressure of what was coming next was scary, but they talked me down.’

The solo product he’s come up with is the sort of music he’d always wanted to make: radio-friendly R&B in the style of his heroes, Justin Timberlake, Usher and Pharrell Williams, and more informed by the rap music he listens to than the pop he’s famous for. Who knows if he can shake the ‘embarrassing dad’ brand to pull it off, but the signs point to success. Strip That Down has been streamed more than 300 million times on Spotify alone.

‘I wanted this to be for people my age. The themes are a bit older, but you have to grow up with your fans. I can’t make bubblegum pop any more,’ he says.

One Direction fans needn’t despair. They might have dispersed and almost all signed elsewhere, but Payne is excited about the idea of a comeback gig in years to come. As, I’m sure, are the band’s accountants.

But that won’t be for a little while, if Payne has it his way, because – as he keeps on telling me – he is just far too happy with his lot at the moment to take a step backwards. When it reaches our time to wrap up, he’s still at it.

‘I feel great about what’s going on in my life,’ he says, giving it one last handclap and springing to his feet. ‘I’m extremely lucky. I feel like I’m in a comatose dream. I’m like, “when did I last bump my head?” because I can’t believe this…’

Liam Payne’s next single, Bedroom Floor, is out on 20 October

#liam payne #liam's solo project #liam's promo #liam for the telegraph #liam & cheryl #dad liam #baby payno #1d hiatus or split?#liam about 1d #liam about simon #liam's album #Wow Liam could have been an Olympian... That's pretty impressive #That was a great interview where he finally let go and was honest. The guy must have had so much pressure while in the band #reading this once again reaffirms that what Zayn said first and was hated for has been corroborated by other members now that they are solo #I hope that fans realize now that people see what you write about them or hear about it.. Poor guy he must have felt like shit when people #were making fun of his weight.. Or every single time fans tweeted at him in outrage for something problematic. Like these boys are human #Also him kind of letting you know listen what you saw onstage while there was a bit of us in there it was mostly characters that we had to #keep on playing....Also him talking about the lack of recognition even though him and Louis had the most songwriting credits #Him confirming that the 4 his for their album FOUR which I guess holds a special place in his heart #And he reiterates that he is in a period of his life where he is blissfully happy. He has a child with a partner that understands & support #him and it looks like he has found what he wants to do career wise and is getting his footing as a soloist #Interestingly enough in this interview he is letting you know that the reunion if it overcomes it's not going to be anytime soon

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nhupdates · 7 years ago

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10-year journey: Niall Horan on going from singing in his bedroom to performing for millions

Niall Horan has spent a sizable chunk of the past 10 years as one-fifth of the world’s biggest boyband. Maybe you’ve heard of them. Now he’s finding his own way as a solo artist. My life is the polar opposite of what it was before. I live half and half between London and LA. Last year I think I spent less than six days in Ireland, which is nuts. I spent the first 16 years of my life there and now I can barely do a week. In the band, we’d play to thousands of screaming fans in some of the biggest venues in the world. Now everything’s more intimate; I just played Shepherd’s Bush [Empire]; brilliant venue, I could see every face in the room. It was magic. There was still screaming, mind. In London, people don’t really pay attention to me – in a good way. I’m not saying everyone should know who I am, but I go on the Tube, or walk down the street, absolutely no problem. I went to Chelsea vs Tottenham at Wembley, and got the Tube there with the Chelsea fans. Nothing. Londoners are in their own little world, aren’t they? I spend half my time in LA, but fuck being vegan. I’m far from that, although I’ll have a green juice every now and then. I’m not an ‘LA type’, that’s not me. The thing I miss most about home is Irish ignorance. My mum said to me yesterday, “The world we work in is not necessarily normal, and that’s why people are obsessed by celebrities.” Back home, a lot of people don’t get the references of people I’ve met, or places I’ve been. I miss the days when I didn’t know much more than what was in my hometown, and the innocence of that. No one blows smoke up my arse back home. All my schoolmates, friends from Ireland, I fall right back into that group, and I don’t feel like Famous Niall Horan. Sixteen of us went to New York for St Paddy’s day last year, dressed in green Irish suits and face paint. We looked like a load of dickheads, running around the place. It was such a good laugh. Nobody recognised me, nobody gave a shit. I try to do as much of that as I can. It keeps my head screwed on. Compared to One Direction, I feel like I am in a lot more control now. Obviously when there are less opinions flying around that is a good and bad thing. In the band, we wrote songs separately and then brought them to the group, and you’d get the harsh truth about that song from everyone. It was a little strange at the start, being by myself. Now I’m spending a lot more time in my own head, asking myself, “Is this song working or should I just chuck it?” In 1D, I was a lot quieter than the other boys. I’d maybe only answer a couple of questions here and there and let the others take the lead. Now, it’s all on me. Being in such a huge band feels like conquering Mount Everest. And I don’t know if I’ll scale something that height again. But I’ve made peace with that. Never ask an artist who a certain song is about. I get it all the time, and what they’re really wanting to know is who you’re shagging at any given time. That’s where it gets annoying. I want people to interpret my music, not assign real people to the lyrics. I was standing onstage on The Graham Norton Show and I remember thinking, “Where the fuck is everyone?” Performing alone, at first, took some getting used to. Playing the One Love Manchester concert was one of the most surreal days of my life. It was emotionally up and down. Backstage I was with Ariana Grande, and she was telling me stories of visiting the hospital, meeting families of the victims, and she was clearly really emotional about what was going to happen [during the concert]. It hit me that this was history being made, right before our eyes. Our generation’s Live 8. Everywhere I looked, people were dancing and having a good laugh. Then I played ‘This Town’, and the mood changed. I caught a girl’s eyes in the crowd and she was just bawling her eyes out. During Justin Bieber’s acoustic set, policemen were dancing with kids. I’d never seen anything like it. You can’t let a terror attack alter your way of thinking. The concert was the same day as Michael Carrick’s testimonial at Old Trafford. Seventy-five thousand people at Old Trafford, 200 yards down the road from this huge 50,000-strong crowd. This is the week after a terror attack. I walked through the crowd thinking, “These people aren’t scared. Something monstrous has happened, but they refuse to be scared by it.” That was really powerful to experience. I’d always get a kiss and a hug from Michelle Obama. We’d always play Washington on tour, and the Obamas would visit. They would come in these huge convoys with thick, bulletproof windows. I can’t imagine living like that, but they were lovely. Golf has a relaxing effect on me. I’ve always been quite a hyper person, but when I’m on a course I feel calm. You completely disconnect when you play – even a practice session can be long. Nobody could come near you, so me and Harry [Styles] would often play on tour when we wanted to get away from it all. You need to play a lot, though. Naturally I’ve been quite busy over the years. Niall’s single ‘Too Much To Ask’ is out now. His album Flicker is out on 20 October

#niall horan #article*#27.09.2017

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1dffsummerexchange · 7 years ago

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Cut to the Feeling

Written For: @showingthroughtome

Written By: @fromherlips

Pairing: Niall/OFC

Word Count: 16,000

Warnings: language, mentions of sexual content and alcohol

Summary:

Lennox Sloane was always taught that you shouldn’t make assumptions about anyone unless you wanted to make an ass of yourself. Unfortunately, that lesson never stuck with her as much as the lectures on safe sex (no glove, no love), texting while driving (it can wait), and the proper way to consume alcohol (liquor before beer, you’re in the clear).

A story about night classes, snarky remarks, and learning lessons the hard way.

As far as Lennox Sloane was concerned, there was a special place in hell for classes that started at eight in the morning, as well as night classes. Everyone who has ever attended a college class could vouch for her. No material should be taught at the ungodly hour of 8:00 a.m., especially on a Wednesday morning after Power Hour on Tuesday night or Friday morning after Trivia Night on Thursday. There was also something particularly tortuous about having to stay on campus long enough to watch the sun set.

Lennox avoided both the dreaded night and 8:00 a.m. classes for two years, breezing through her freshman and sophomore year with decent (not perfect, but close enough) schedules. She would never admit to it, but she nearly shed a tear while scheduling her classes for fall and spring semester of her junior year. The class selection was atrocious, only a section or two for each required class offered in the worst time slots. She heavily debated not taking the classes, but couldn’t risk not graduating on time because she refused to succumb to the two worst times a class could be held during.

So, after only two weeks of classes, she declared herself done. Finished. Finito. She was sprawled out on her friend Kaia’s bed, complaining loudly about how her semester was going to be an absolute nightmare.

“I’m going to spend so much money on campus trying to keep my stomach from not growling in the middle of a lecture,” Lennox groaned, sliding her body closer to the edge of the bed. Her shoulders teetered on the edge, her mousey brown hair dangling towards the floor. She could feel the blood begin to rush to her head, immediately pulling herself back up before it started to hurt.

“Your apartment isn’t that far from campus, Len,” Kaia pointed out, looking over her shoulder. Lennox was supposed to be working on an assignment like Kaia, but she needed to take time to properly vent about her crappy schedule. She truly felt that she could fully express her hatred for it after experiencing it for nearly ten days. “You could easily walk back between your big gap between your early afternoon and night class.”

Lennox scoffed, rolling her eyes at the suggestion. It wasn’t that Kaia was wrong. She was right, actually, a common occurrence within their friendship. “That’s beside the point,” Lennox said. “It’s the principle behind it. I can’t sleep in and now if I want to do something on a Monday or Wednesday night, I have to wait until after eight!”

“At least it’s not on a Friday,” Kaia said. “Your schedule could be worse, Len. Think about that.”

“Kaia, I love you dearly and appreciate your optimism, but Mama Lennox wants to complain,” she said, earning a laugh from her best friend.

They had a nice balance in their friendship. They met during spring semester of their freshmen year after Lennox pointed out that they had three classes in a row together. They spent the rest of the spring sharing notes during the week and sharing bottles of vodka they bought with their fake IDs on the weekends (okay, and sometimes during the week).

Where Lennox lacked in a positive attitude, Kaia made up for with her optimistic comments. She always let Lennox vent to her while also giving her subtle reminders that what she was complaining about wasn’t actually a big deal. Lennox wasn’t quite sure what she was offering to Kaia in terms of their friendship, but she liked to think that she was fiercely loyal to her best friend. She nearly ended up on the Wall of Shame at an apartment for punching a girl who Kaia’s ex-boyfriend hooked up with while they were still dating. It was a drunken mess and Lennox didn’t go back until a few weeks later when she was sure that something else more dramatic happened at a party there that could trump her moment.

“There’s got to be some sort of saving grace in all of this,” Kaia said, shutting the cover on her notebook. She turned her chair around completely, facing Lennox straight on.

Lennox racked her brain, trying to play along with Kaia’s usual game. If Lennox wanted to complain, she had to expect that Kaia would try to make her find the silver lining in every situation. The trouble with that was that sometimes there just wasn’t a silver lining. Not everything had a bright side. Sometimes things just plain old sucked.

“Well, that Niall Horan kid is in one of my classes,” she admitted. “I didn’t realize that he was in the same major as me.”

“Niall Horan as in the Niall Horan that you’ve been low-key stalking on campus since you nearly made out with him at every single party during the end of freshmen year?” Kaia asked, quirking a brow. “Sounds like a fucking silver lining to me.”

Lennox shook her head, rolling over so she was laying on her stomach. “Not quite,” she said, sighing. “I’m about 90% sure that he’s been dating that Hattie girl since last year. They’re everywhere together. I swear to god, they’re like fucking conjoined twins or something.”

Kaia snorted, rolling her eyes at Lennox’s dramatics. “They could just be friends,” Kaia pointed out. “Have you tried to do any digging?”

“Social media gave me nothing but more pictures of them together,” Lennox said. “I tried asking around last year, but everyone pretty much shrugged, said they didn’t know him, or said that they probably were dating but they didn’t know for sure. It was absolutely useless.”

“Well, regardless of his relationship status, he’s still the silver lining of your awful classes,” Kaia finally said. “No ifs, ands, or buts.”

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

There was an unspoken rule amongst college students that no one should dare to break. College was meant to provide the classroom freedoms that didn’t exist in primary or secondary education. There were no dress codes (Lennox never wanted to hear the word ‘skort’ again), required gym classes, and certainly no seating charts. The latter, however, didn’t matter. College students were creatures of habits. Only a true heathen would try to change their unofficial assigned seat after the first two classes of the semester.

On Monday evening after an excruciatingly long day–one that started off with Lennox having to run to campus because she overslept and resulted in an afternoon nap at her apartment while she was supposed to be getting classwork done–the last place that she wanted to be was her night class. Despite coming home before her class, Lennox couldn’t be bothered with changing out of her borderline pajama like ensemble. It was the trifecta of a college girl's’ essentials: skintight leggings to make her butt look good, an oversized t-shirt that she nicked off of an old boyfriend, and a baseball cap to hide the fact that she hadn’t washed her hair since Friday evening before she went out to a frat party.

Lennox waltzed into class five minutes before the professor arrived, sulking towards the last row in the back corner of the room. If anyone took unofficial assigned seats too seriously, it was Lennox. She lived by the rule that you should choose wisely on the first day of class because that is where you’ll be for the remaining fifteen weeks of the semester. The seat in front of her used to be occupied by a girl that she knew from a biology lab that they had together freshmen year. This day, however, there was somebody new.

Niall Horan decided to fuck up the equilibrium of the classroom and change his seat in the third week of classes. What would normally be punishable by at least two weeks’ worth of glares was met with a small smirk as Lennox looked toward the ceiling to thank the higher power for making this happen. Sure, he might have been dating Hattie Redmond, but what better way to find out than by slowly befriend him throughout the semester?

The first day was a slow start to her end goal of friendship. It was a lecture-centric class with no group work or time to converse with anyone. Before Lennox could even get in a word, Niall had his bag packed and was out of the room. She tried to catch up but gave up when she saw him meet up with Hattie, walking out of the building side by side.

Their class on Wednesday night seemed a little more promising. She purposely arrived early so she could see him walk in, forcing them to at least make eye contact. She leaned back in her seat, switching between catching up on what she missed in one of her group messages and the reading from her class that morning. When Niall walked in, Lennox’s eyes averted upwards, waiting for the moment they locked with his. Sure that she had his attention, she curled the corners of her lips into a faint smile before looking coyly back down at her textbook. The polite route seemed like the way to go, rather than aggressively trying to befriend him (though that could be a later option if her first choice seemed to fail).

The professor lectured nearly the whole class again, but there was something different this time. In the pauses between slides and explanation of the vague points, Lennox heard a faint, muffled voice. She furrowed her brows, slyly looking left and right to see if anyone in the back row was whispering about something. Everyone was looking towards the front of their room, their lips pressed tightly together. Lennox shook her head, convincing herself it must’ve been from another classroom or a figment of her imagination.

Until she heard it again. And again. It wasn’t until there were ten minutes left in class that she realized that the mumbled voice was coming from Niall in front of her. She stopped paying attention to the professor, focusing in on what Niall was muttering between his statements.

“That’s not right, but okay,” Niall mumbled. Lennox stifled her laughter, but it sounded more like a sneeze. Slowly, Niall craned his neck, looking over his shoulder for a split second to flash Lennox a cheeky smile. As far as she was concerned, that was ten steps forward in their one-sided budding friendship. Niall didn’t stick around after class and still met up with Hattie afterwards, but Lennox left class feeling that she and Niall had a little secret, an inside joke that could spark something.

Lennox wasn’t typically this patient. If Niall were somebody she saw regularly at parties, she’d merely take a shot, stumble into him and compliment him on something stupid. She once told a guy that he had nice eyebrows and ended up staying the night at his apartment. Niall, however, either stopped going out or had better taste than the dodgy frat parties that Lennox and her friends liked to attend while they waited for people to turn 21 or get fake IDs. It foiled her usual plans, leading her to use alternative, less drunken methods (unless the opportunity arose).

Something about the fourth week of class made Lennox feel a bit luckier. Sure, she had her fist exam of the semester on a Friday morning at eight, but her night class for the week required group work both days. Lennox played her cool as the professor suggested everyone just work with the people around them. She didn’t bother looking at anyone next to her, staring at the back of Niall’s head while she waited to see if he would turn around. He wasn’t looking around at anyone either, merely staring forward at something.

Fucker, Lennox thought, internally groaning. She rolled her eyes, lifting her hand slowly before she tapped on his shoulder. He turned around, his legs swinging out into the aisle. He quirked a brow, waiting for Lennox to say something.

“Need a partner?” she asked.

“I do, thanks,” he said. “Lennox, yeah?”

“Mhm,” she hummed. “Niall?”

“Yup,” he replied, popping the ‘p’ sound loudly. “Hold on,” he said, sliding out of his seat. He grabbed the desk, turning it around so he was facing Lennox fully. He sat back down, fixing the papers that fell out of order during the move. “Okay, that’s better.”

“I don’t even know where to start with this,” Lennox said, picking up the rubric by the corner before waving it in the air.

“Me either,” Niall said. “I usually wait until I hear everyone else talk about what they’re going to do or for someone to ask the professor for help and eavesdrop on their conversation. Could be considered cheating, but I like to think of it as primary research.”

Lennox snorted. “Very resourceful,” she said, shaking her head at Niall. “I normally strategically place myself around people who look smart so that if the dreaded group work ever comes up, I won’t have to contribute much.”

“It seems that our group of two is going to get us a fantastic grade in this class,” Niall said.

“We’ll be fine,” Lennox assured him. “I might be an occasionally lazy student, but I’m getting my degree dammit and I need this class to graduate next year.”

“I feel you,” Niall agreed. Niall opened his mouth to say something else but soon became distracted by the group to his right. His body perked up, leaning towards them to catch a glimpse of their conversation. The second they were done with their first point, Niall leaned forward towards Lennox. “I have an idea.”

The hardest part of assignments was getting started. The two of them finished nearly half of the group work by the time class was dismissed, everybody filtering out at their own pace. Niall and Lennox packed up together, straightening out their desks before walking out of the room together.

“Don’t skip out on me on Wednesday, okay Lennox?” Niall said, standing back so she could walk out of the room in front of him. “We have to present out absolutely brilliant group work so we can wow the rest of the class.”

Lennox laughed, waiting for Niall to catch up to her before she walked away from the room. “Oh, I’ll be here,” she told him. “Hopefully in something other than leggings and a t-shirt, but I can’t make any promises.”

“Oh, I assumed that was the group’s dress code. That’s what I was going to show up in on Wed–hey Hattie!”

Lennox tried her hardest not to scowl, but she could feel her brows furrow as Niall’s attention averted from their conversation. Hattie stood in her usual spot near a group of high-top tables full of campus newspapers and magazines. She waved at Niall, slipping her iPhone back into the front pocket of her denim shorts. Lennox followed Niall towards Hattie, unsure if she should just say goodbye before she was subjected to the ‘Are they or are they not dating?’ debate up close.

“Hattie, this is Lennox,” Niall said, introducing the two girls. Lennox and Hattie shared the same pathetic wave, both smiling without their teeth in the polite way that girls always seemed to do when they meet someone for the first time.

“Cute shorts,” Lennox said, looking down at Hattie’s distressed cut-offs. She paired them with a blue and white vertical striped off-the-shoulder blouse that Lennox had been eyeing at a boutique the previous month. “I should get going. My friend and I have a hot date with a bottle of wine and tonight’s episode of The Voice.”

“Ooh, I love Adam and Blake,” Hattie chimed in. “Have fun!”

“Isn’t Adam just positively dreamy?” Lennox asked, batting her eyelashes. “Nice meeting you Hattie! I’ll see you Wednesday Niall.”

“See ya Lennox,” Niall replied, slinking his arm around Hattie’s shoulder. Lennox turned quickly on her heels, eyes narrowed forward. She walked the ten minutes to her apartment scuffing the bottom of her sneakers against the sidewalk, kicking pebbles along the way.

Kaia was waiting on Lennox’s couch with a bottle of rosé already opened. The episode was paused, the opening title frozen on the screen. She dropped her backpack next to one of the chairs at the small kitchen table, her shoulders still slumped without the bag weighing her down.

“Get over here bitch, we’re already fifteen minutes behind!” Kaia chirped. “I’ll pour the wine.”

“Fill it up!” Lennox cheered, kicking off her sneakers quickly before hopping over the arm of the couch to sit next to Kaia. “I wonder if tonight will be the night where Adam and Blake finally kiss…” she said, her voice trailing off into a giggle.

“I hope so,” Kaia sighed. “There’s so much tension between them.”

“So, I have a Niall Horan update,” Lennox said, holding out her hand for Kaia to pass the glass to. “He changed his seat in class and is now sitting in front of me.”

“And?” Kaia asked, settling back down onto her side of the sofa.

“We got partnered up for group work, which was all fine and dandy,” Lennox explained, pausing to take a sip of her wine. “And then mid-conversation on our walk out of class, he saw Hattie and introduced me to her.”

Kaia winced. “Ouch.”

“He put his arm around her shoulder and I have no fucking clue if they’re dating or not,” Lennox groaned. “This is ridiculous but I can’t just ask him.”

“Saturday Night Lennox could,” Kaia pointed out.

“Ah yes, but Saturday Night Lennox cannot meet Niall Horan because she will do stupid things that would make class very uncomfortable,” she replied. “So, now I’m stuck over analyzing his friendship-slash-relationship until I can figure it out myself. Maybe I should follow them sometime.”

“Maybe you should hush, drink your wine, and let me unpause this so we can watch some auditions,” Kaia suggested, nudging Lennox gently in the side with her elbow.

“Ugh, fine,” Lennox said. “But we’re talking during commercials!”

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Niall Horan was, by far, the worst person to sit behind during class. He didn’t throw things over his shoulder or draw attention to the back of the room while Lennox tried to spend the boring parts of the lecture scrolling through her Instagram feed. He was, however, an absolute menace.

On the outside, Niall appeared to be a fairly normal guy. His demeanor was unimposing, too chill to be an issue. Lennox had never been in a class with him before, so she couldn’t be sure whether this was a regular occurrence or a special treat because of the class or professor. Throughout class, Niall would mumble snarky comments to himself about what the professor was saying, only loud enough that Lennox could hear. Or at least, she was the only person who didn’t pretend not to hear them. At least five times a class she had to stifle her laughter, trying to pass it off as a coughing fit to avoid a stern glare from the professor.

It was impossible to pay attention with Niall muttering things under his breath, let alone keep a straight face. She, without a fail, would smack Niall between the shoulders if he seemed to be going overboard during class, not that it ever stopped him from making the comments. In fact, it might have served as motivation for him.

They were six weeks into the class and had a midterm coming up in a couple of weeks. Lennox couldn’t focus on what the professor was saying about the structure of the exam, too preoccupied by listening to whatever nonsense Niall would whisper under his breath.

“I’m going to kill you!” she squealed, shoving his shoulder hard enough to separate them as they walked out of class side by side. “You’re going to be the reason why I fail this class and never graduate college. I’m going to be a student forever!”

“Lennox Sloane, you’re being very dramatic right now,” Niall told her, rolling his eyes. “I’m trying to make the class more enjoyable for you and now you’re putting the blame on me for a hypothetical failing grade? That is just plain rude.”

“You’re just plain rude for trying to distract me during class!” she argued, her palm pressed against his shoulder, seconds away from shoving his body away from hers again. “I need to do well on the midterm! How am I supposed to know what’s going on in class with you making some salty-ass comments about god knows what?”

“You live for my comments, don’t deny it,” he said. “Don’t act like you’re the only one who needs to do well! I lose out on class material too trying to think of those things to say.”

“Well shit, that’s not my fault!” she said, snorting. “All I’m saying is that if I have anything less than a B on my midterm, there will be consequences that I will make you face. Mark my words.”

Niall shuddered, pretending to be terrified by her empty threat. “I’m shaking in my boots,” he deadpanned.

By this point they would have split ways, each on their way to their respective destinations. Instead, they stood by the high-top round tables that Hattie usually occupied, neither seeming like they were in any rush to get moving.

“Where’s Hattie today?” Lennox asked, looking around the open area of the building’s atrium.

“Oh, she had some sort of group thing tonight, I don’t know,” Niall replied. “I’m supposed to go meet up with her later.”

“Oh okay,” Lennox replied, nodding. He doesn’t know where she is. That didn’t really mean anything, though. He could’ve just been a terrible boyfriend who didn’t care to know where his girlfriend was. “Well, you know the drill…The Voice is on tonight. Kaia might get mad if I make her miss any of the blind auditions. They’re our favorite part. We like when they make us cry.”

“Cry?” Niall asked, raising his brows. “You cry watching a music competition show?”

“Don’t act all high and mighty,” Lennox said. “First thing, music competition shows are always mega-emotional because these people are all insanely talented and haven’t had it easy. But also, The Voice has these dramatic back stories on some of these contestants and air them before their auditions and there are some real tear-jerkers in there. You don’t know what you’re missing out on.”

“Maybe I don’t,” he replied. “Well, I’ll let you get back to your place so you don’t piss your friend off.”

“Both Kaia and I appreciate it,” she said, bowing to him. “Tell Hattie I said hello!”

“Will do,” Niall said. “Hey Lennox, wait,” he added, stopping her as she began to turn on her heels. She pivoted around toward him again,

“What’s up?”

He opened his mouth to say something, leaning in. Before he could get a word out, he shook his head, seeming to stop himself. “Nevermind. I’ll see you on Wednesday,” he said.

“Alright Niall, see ya later,” she said, holding up a peace sign to him before heading towards the doors. She wanted to overanalyze Niall’s last minute decision to not say anything at all with Kaia when she got back to the apartment, but she was certain that her best friend was getting sick of her constantly bringing up Niall.

To be honest, Lennox wasn’t sure where her sudden fixation on Niall came from. Sure, she’d tried more than once to make something happen with him their freshmen year (which he either forgot about or chose not to bring up), but she spent the entirety of their sophomore typically unaware of his existence, unless she spotted him with Hattie around campus. Even then, it was pure curiosity than anything else causing the pique in interest. But now Lennox had no explanation as to why she was beginning to pine after a guy who was potentially in a relationship with the gorgeous girl that he seemed to be inseparable from.

While she and Kaia split a bottle of wine and shed a tear or two watching blind auditions, Lennox’s thoughts drifted periodically to what Niall might have wanted to say. Did he have a question? Was he just bluffing, prepared to make another salty comment just to mess with her? What could he possibly have wanted to say that made him change his mind?

Niall Horan was both to blame for any sleep loss or failing grades on important midterms. That was Lennox’s declaration and she was sticking to it. She was thankful that she didn’t have an early morning class on Tuesdays, making her tossing and turning all night less painful when it came to waking up to her alarm the next morning. Luckily, the restless sleep was a one night only occurrence, partially because Lennox insisted that she, Kaia, and their friends Frieda and Carmen take advantage of Power Hour at a local bar that was lenient with IDs and generous with their pours.

Lennox ended up passed out in her only her tiny denim shorts face down into her mattress, completely bare from the waist up. She wasn’t sure what time they ended up getting home because she ran into a guy she talked to during the previous spring who bought her a few drinks, no doubt in hopes that she would leave with him. Instead, her friends rounded her up and helped her into the back of an Uber before she could do anything she regretted.

The entire night should have been considered a regret. She woke up the next morning reeking of stale alcohol with her makeup still caked onto her face. When she checked the clock, she realized that she only had thirty minutes to shower, eat breakfast, and get ready for her eight a.m. class. She scrambled around the apartment, fighting the urge to vomit every time she made a sudden movement. Why did she convince herself that getting plastered on a Tuesday night was a good idea? Under no circumstances was it ever a good idea to need assistance getting into the back of a car on a run of the mill Tuesday evening. And yet, that was how Lennox spent her evening and there was nothing that was going to change that.

She ended up skipping her class at eight, texting one of the girls she knew in the class that she wasn’t feeling well so she could ask to borrow her notes. Lennox hoped that she hadn’t seen any of her drunk Snaps before she got a chance to delete them that morning. Lennox was only slightly ashamed to admit that she had two iced coffees and a massive breakfast sandwiches delivered to her apartment through Postmates, too hungover to attempt to make her own breakfast.

If the midterm in her night class wasn’t coming up, Lennox would have skipped her full day of classes entirely to lounge in her bed and watch Law and Order: Special Victims Unit all day until her roommates got home from work and classes. Instead, she attempted to make herself somewhat presentable, trying to shower away her sins from the night before. Why she ever thought to mix liquors and beer was beyond her, but she was certainly feeling it in the pit of her stomach and the pounding in her head.

Lennox piled damp hair into a bun on the top of her head, her face free of makeup aside the concealer underneath her eyes. Her outfit was something that she would sleep in any other night, a pair of leggings and an old ratty sweatshirt from her older brother’s college. The fall weather was starting to make nights chillier, the entire campus easing out their fall wardrobe (aside from guys, they worked the tragic combination of cargo shorts and flip-flops all year round).

She strolled into class only a few minutes before it started, dragging her feet behind her as she made her way to the back of the room. When she and Niall made eye contact as she walked down the aisle, he cocked his head to the side, raising a brow in confusion. Lennox groaned as she sat down, immediately slumping down into her seat.

“You doing okay back there?” Niall asked, turning around in his seat. “You look like hell, no offense.”

“Plenty taken,” she scoffed. “I feel horrendous. Power Hour and beyond got the best of me.”

Niall winced. “Ouch,” he hissed. “Suppose I shouldn’t ask you for a drink tonight then, huh?”

Drink? With Niall? Lennox cursed her bare face, hoping that her cheeks didn’t go completely red without any foundation on them. “Don’t even mention the word ‘drink’ around me,” she said. “I’m never drinking again.”

“So I won’t see you at the Kappa Sigma party on Friday? Or Sigma Nu on Saturday? Or–”

“I get it, I get it, I go to a lot of parties,” Lennox groaned. “Hey wait, how do you know that?”

Niall shrugged. “That’s where we met freshman year,” he said. “Plus, I have friends who talk. You’re quite the hit.”

“Not sure if that’s a good thing or not,” Lennox admitted.

“Oh shit, not like that,” Niall immediately said, his cheeks flushing a faint shade of pink. “Are you aware that there are fights about which team gets to have you for Flip Cup? I’ve heard people have even paid to make sure that they have you for a guaranteed victory.”

Lennox snorted. “It’s true, I am a not-so-secret weapon,” she said.

“I’d believe it,” he said.

“When did you stop going to parties?” Lennox asked. “I stopped seeing you them at the beginning of fall semester sophomore year.”

Niall shrugged. “Not sure, really,” he admitted. “Hattie doesn’t really go to parties so…I don’t know. I normally just pregame with some friends and chill at my apartment.”

Lennox nodded. “Cool,” she replied. “Well, you know, if you ever need to find me on a weekend, you know where.”

“Maybe I’ll have to tag along sometime, for old time’s sake,” he said, winking at Lennox.

She pressed her lips together, unsure of what to say after that. She was saved by the bell, or rather, their professor walking into the room. Inwardly, she let out a sigh of relief, watching as Niall spun back around towards the front of the classroom. The professor spent a majority of the class lecturing on new material, his overpowering voice making Lennox’s head pound even harder. By the end of the class, he was reminding everybody about the midterm in two weeks. Everyone collectively groaned, earning a hearty laugh from their professor.

Lennox rubbed her temples as the classroom began to empty out. Niall remained seated, packing his backpack up slowly. She saw him take a peek at her as he bent down to put away his notebook, his eyes watching her curiously.

“You sure you’re feeling okay?” he finally asked, turning around completely.

“Feeling like a million bucks,” she told him. “Can I Uber back to my apartment?”

Niall laughed, shaking his head at Lennox. “Come here,” he said, standing up. He stood in the aisle next to Lennox, facing her with his arms outstretched. “Have you eaten anything today?”

“Just my big breakfast,” she replied. “I was too lazy to make lunch or dinner.”

He rolled his eyes, flexing his fingers to get her attention. “C’mon, we’re getting something to eat. I’m starving,” he said, offering a hand to help her up.

“Alright,” she sighed, taking his hands. “Can I request chicken fingers and french fries?”

“Onion rings too?”

“A man after my own heart,” Lennox joked.

Most things on campus closed around six when most of the commuters left, leaving very few options for Niall and Lennox to dine without venturing off campus. They ended up at a place called Rusty’s, one of the few places on campus that took dining dollars and meal swipes aside from the dining halls. They sat at a small table near the bar, watching the red light blink on the buzzer as they waited for their food.

Lennox sipped quietly on her pop, waiting for Niall to finish up a text he was sending. She made sure her roommates knew that she was coming home late, omitting the part about grabbing a bite to eat with Niall. They knew all about him and she was certain if they found out where she was, she’d get far too many eggplant emojis sent her way and one thousand prying questions the moment she walked through the door. Besides, this was just friends getting food. Hattie was probably busy that night or waiting for Niall back at his place. For all Lennox knew, he was just killing time before he went to meet up with her somewhere.

She tried to shake it out of her mind, focusing on anything else. Luckily, Niall set his phone down at the moment their buzzer went off.

“I got ‘em,” he told her, sliding out of his chair before walking back towards the front counter. Lennox didn’t even argue, stretching her legs out underneath the table while Niall was gone. She scrolled through her message notifications, letting Kaia know that she was, indeed, feeling slightly better than she was this morning, but not much. She ignored her reply asking her what she was up to, choosing to wait until she was back in her apartment so she wasn’t lying when she said she was just chilling at home.

Niall balanced the tray full of their food, maneuvering through the tables until he was able to set it down in front of Lennox. “Okay, so I wasn’t sure if you wanted ketchup so I got a lot,” he told her, pointing to the smattering of ketchup packets filling the empty space on the tray.

“I like it, but please tell me you’re not one of those heathens that puts the ketchup directly on the french fries instead of dipping them in,” Lennox said, immediately picking up a fry and taking a bite from it.

“I’m offended you’d even ask, of course not,” he replied. “You’ve got me all wrong, Lennox.”

“Just call me Len, but never Lenny,” she told him. “Much easier to yell.”

“Is that so?” he asked, wriggling his brows.

“Oh god, not like that,” she groaned. “Like…I don’t know, it was easier when I played sports in high school! I’m just not going to say anything. I’m eating my dinner in silence.”

Niall laughed, ripping open a few packets of the ketchup. He squirted them onto the edge of his plate, immediately picking one of the onion rings up to dip it in. “This dinner would be very boring if it was just the two of us eating. I might have to start talking to the food.”

“Be my guest, weirdo,” Lennox snorted, ripping off a piece of a chicken finger. “So that midterm is going to destroy my soul.”

“I’m not ready for that class to complete fuck me yet, but I think it might happen after that exam,” Niall agreed. “We should study next week considering it’s clear that neither of us are ready to tackle it on our own and as far as I know, we don’t have any other friends in the class to mooch answers and notes off of.”

“Ugh, biggest mistake this semester was buddying up with you and not one of the smart people in the first couple of rows,” Lennox said, smirking before folding a fry into her mouth.

“That was hurtful,” Niall said, clutching a hand to his chest. “I’m going to revoke my studying invitation.”

“Aw, don’t do that Niall,” Lennox whined. “Study after class on Monday?”

“Sounds like a plan to me,” he said.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Lennox and Niall were fully equipped when they scoped out their nook on the only floor of the library that wasn’t a quiet zone. Lennox provided the caffeine and water while Niall took care of sustenance. They took up an entire table for six with just their belongings, laying out their textbooks, notebooks, and articles from the professor amongst their feast.

Their professor lectured the entire class about one of the last lessons listed on their study guide from the week before. Lennox tried to pay attention the whole time, but she could feel her mind drifting elsewhere periodically. There were holes in her notes that she hoped Niall’s notes could fill. His muttering during class had significantly decreased, but Lennox had a feeling that it would come back around after the stress of the midterm relinquished its grasp on them.

“What coffee did you get?” Niall asked, picking up the cup to the right of Lennox’s notebook. Before she could tell him, he picked it up and took a sip, scrunching his nose. “Is this shit black?”

“Sometimes I like black coffee!” she argued, grabbing her cup back from him. “Not my fault you needed sixteen shots of caramel in yours.”

“It wasn’t sixteen,” he muttered. “My coffee tastes happier than yours, by far.”

Lennox rolled her eyes, taking a sip of her perfectly normal drink. “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she said. “I like black coffee and you drink gross, warm beer. To each their own, my friend.”

“Don’t you even try to compare beer to coffee,” he replied. “Come on, black coffee is on a whole other level of gross.”

“Agree to disagree,” she said. “Are we going to debate beer and black coffee right now or are we going to study so we can pass this course?”

“I don’t know, this debate is pretty important,” he joked. “Fine, fine, want to start going through the study guide and filling it out? I’ll set up a Google Doc for us to share. What’s your e-mail?”

“Just my first and last name at G-Mail,” she told him.

“Lennox…Sloane,” he said slowly, his fingers tapping against the keyboard. “Okay, sent!”

Lennox opened up her e-mail invitation, clicking on the link to bring her to their shared document. While she flipped to the front of her notebook, she heard Niall’s keyboard again, his giggles taking up the space between the clicks of the keys. Lennox ignored him, finding the section of the notes that corresponded with the first point on the study guide. She looked back towards her screen to make sure she was in the right place, but her eyes drifted to a message written in red Comic Sans at the top of the page.

Fuck u Sloane

She shook her head, immediately highlighting Niall’s message to her and erasing it. In its place, she used Georgia in an aqua color, typing something else for Niall.

Suck a dick :P

Niall snorted, clearing out her message before adding a new one of his own.

Right back atcha

Is that an invitation?

Naughty…

Lennox was glad she was wearing foundation that day, her cheeks surely flushed beneath the layers of makeup.

What do you call sexting through Google Docs?

Niall snorted, nearly kicking Lennox’s shin under the table. She smirked to herself, waiting to see if Niall would reply and continue their game.

Not sure if sexting has gotten that advanced yet.

True, guys still think that unsolicited dick pics are the best that they can do.

Heyyyyyyyyyyy (That’s supposed to be a secret)

Pretty shit secret if you ask me

Rude. Invitation has been revoked.

Thank GOD.

“Double rude,” Niall said, erasing their entire conversation so their study guide wasn’t tainted with their…conversation. Lennox didn’t even know what that was. Playful banter? Flirting? She tried to shake it out of mind, doubling down on actually getting a semblance of studying done that night. The longer they sat at the table trying to compare notes to fill out the guide, the clearer it became that their legitimate studying was going to have to be done when they were separated. Sure, they got a majority of the study guide filled out, but it took nearly three hours to finish a page and a half because of all of their pissing around.

Lennox and Niall were in hysterics as they walked out of the library, both clutching their stomachs. Niall had tried to throw their garbage out and missed entirely, his coffee spilling out onto the tile floor next to the trash can. In his attempt the retrieve the spilled cup, he slipped on the coffee and fell straight onto his ass. Where Lennox would have been beyond embarrassed, Niall laughed so loud that somebody peeked their head out to glare at him.

“Sorry man!” Niall told him before pushing himself off the floor. “Oh yeah, you’re enjoying this, now aren’t you?” he asked. That was around the time they both burst into laughter and moved their fit to outside of the library’s doors.

“Okay okay okay, in all seriousness, are you okay?” Lennox asked.

“Not sure. Might need you to check my ass for bruising,” he said.

“Nice try,” Lennox said, shoving his shoulder to push him away from her. “You can examine your own ass in a mirror at your apartment.”

“Worth a try,” he joked. “So, same place Wednesday after class?”

“We’re never going to get any actual studying done, you know that, right?” she asked.

“Oh, I know,” he replied. “So…”

“I’ll pencil you in,” she told him. “You know, you should feel very special. I missed watching The Voice tonight for this.”

“You really made a huge sacrifice to be here tonight, thank you Lennox,” Niall deadpanned.

“Asshole,” she snorted. “Alright, well, it’s getting fucking cold out here, so I think I’m going to sprint to my apartment now to get warm again.”

Niall laughed, shoving his hands into the pocket of his shearling lined denim jacket. “Alright Len, see you on Wednesday.”

“You too,” she said, taking a few steps backwards before turning completely on her heels. She had only taken a dozen steps before she heard Niall’s voice calling her name. When she turned around, he was still standing with his hands in his pocket, his upper body turned towards her. “Forget something?”

“Yeah, uh, could you just text me when you get home?” he asked. “Just to make sure…ya know.”

“Okay Niall,” she said, waving and she spun back around. “Have a good night!” she called out with her back turned to him. She smiled at the ground beneath her feet, the bounce her step not lost on her.

Niall was a shitty study partner, but Lennox wasn’t much better either. Their study sessions on Wednesday after class and Sunday afternoon weren’t much more productive than Monday night in the library. At least their study guide was completed with more details than they could wrap their heads around. Because of the excess of information, both of them seemed to lose interest less than an hour into trying to learn the material. The conversation would start to drift further away from the course, veering off into stories about party fouls, their friends (mutual or not), and their other classes that week.

On Sunday, Niall greeted Lennox with the largest cup of coffee she’d ever seen in her life and a small pill bottle full of ibuprofen. She was, as he suspected, not in the best shape. Her head was still pounding and there was still the feeling of needing to vomit lingering in the pit of her stomach. But hangover be damned, she was making it to study with Niall. It was all Kaia could tease her about the night before, pulling Lennox away from every guy she was trying to talk to. Granted, Kaia would’ve pulled her away from the guys in general (friends don’t let friends make mistakes like that), but she would always giggle something about not wanting be with anyone but Niall.

Lennox had caved and told Kaia about their partnering up to prepare for the midterm. She might as well have told her they were having wild sex right on the table at the library by the way Kaia reacted to the news. It was all she could talk about. Even when Lennox rolled out of bed and ran into Kaia in the kitchen (she’d passed out on their couch rather than going back to her own apartment across town), she wiggled her eyebrows and asked if Lennox was up so early so she could be with her “beloved Niall.” It was the reason she didn’t cancel, but that was beside the point.

It seemed only appropriate since they’d suffered through the trouble of studying together that they’d celebrate finishing the exam as well. Niall had finished before Lennox, giving her a small wave as he’d walked out of the room. Lennox was on her final essay question, her hand starting to cramp up the closer she got to the bottom of the page. She nearly let out a sigh of relief as she finished off her conclusion, setting her pen down with a loud click against the desk. The professor gave her a nod of acknowledgement as she handed over her exam sheet, hiking up her backpack so it stopped falling off of her shoulder. There were a few students still taking their exams as she walked out of the room, happy to be finished not only with the exam, but half of the course.

“Lennox!”

She jumped, her heart beginning to race. She spotted Niall sitting at a chair across from the classroom, hopping out of his seat when he saw her.

“Why are you still here?” she asked, tilting her head.

“Thought we should get celebratory drinks,” he said. “Unless you’re still feeling the drinks you had this weekend.”

“I could probably handle a drink or two,” she told him. “You sure?”

“Fuck yeah, need a drink after that exam,” he said. “You okay to go from here or do you need to go back to your apartment?”

She shook her head. “I’m fine,” she told him. “Fina’s?”

“Is there any dodgy off campus bar better than Fina’s?” he asked. “Worst beer in the city.”

“Cheapest beer in the city,” she corrected him. “First round’s on me!”

Lennox recognized some of the faces at the bar when they walked up to grab their side-by-side seats at the end of the wrap-around counter. Some of them were tenured professors, others the younger adjuncts that she’d had for a random elective here and there. Then there was the two token 21-year-olds settling into the corner of the bar, celebrating the halfway mark of the semester and completion of a midterm from hell.

As promised, she ordered the first round of drinks, flashing her ID to the bartender before he started to fill the cups with the cheapest beer on draft. They both clinked together the rims of their glasses, already laughing before they took the first sip.

“So bad,” Niall complained, going back into for a second sip.

“The worst,” Lennox agreed. “Speaking of the worst…the exam was a piece of shit and I hate that class.”

Niall snorted, setting his beer down on a bar napkin. “That study guide was useless,” he said. “All of that half-assed studying for nothing!”

“Students of the year right here,” she said. “I’m just glad it’s over and now we’re almost done with the semester. Kind of.”

“Still another seven or eight weeks to go,” Niall reminded her.

“Well which is it?” she asked, raising her brows. Niall hesitated to answer, taking a sip of his beer instead. “Oh my god, Niall do you not know when this semester ends?”

“Sometime early December,” he replied with a shrug. “Don’t give me that look! I have other things to remember.”

“Mhm, okay, like what?” she asked, pursing her lips.

“You know, stuff,” he mumbled. “I dunno!”

Lennox snorted. “You’re lucky you’re cute,” she said.

“Aw, thanks Len,” Niall cooed. “You’re much too kind.”

“You’re starting to become a massive pain in my ass,” she said, wagging her finger at him. “You’re a major distraction in class, what with all of your smartass comments.”

“The one’s you constantly laugh at? Yeah, I can hear your snickers, even if you try to be quiet,” he said. Lennox rolled her eyes, ignoring Niall’s observation. Before either of them could say anything else, Niall’s phone vibrated on the bar. He flipped it over to look at the front screen, the screen showing a call from Hattie. Instead of answering, he merely ignored the call and flipped his phone back over.

Lennox felt her stomach tie into knots. Why was Niall ignoring his girlfriend? There was an overwhelming amount of guilt that washed over her when the realization hit. Even if these drinks were strictly platonic, Niall still probably had a girlfriend and as far as Lennox knew, he had blown her off last week on Monday and Wednesday after class and now tonight.

“Ah, you know what, I’m really sorry Niall but I think that I might still be nursing that hangover,” Lennox said, bringing her hand down to graze her stomach. “I think I should probably call it a night.”

“Wha–okay,” he stuttered. “Can I walk you home?”

“I’m fine. You can finish up my beer,” she said, motioning to her half-full glass. “I’ll see you in class on Wednesday.”

“Yeah, okay, see you Wednesday,” Niall muttered, chugging the rest of his beer.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Lennox didn’t know why she did it. After class on Wednesday, instead of waiting for Niall, she bolted. She mentally cursed him for calling her name, practically jogging to catch up with her before she could push through the doors leading to the exit.

“Len, where ya going?” he asked, the sound of his footsteps ceasing. She let out a sigh, turning on her heels so she was facing him. “Sorry, didn’t mean to chase after you. I just…I don’t know.”

“I’m sorry Niall, I made plans with Kaia to work on a paper at her apartment and she gets mad if I’m late,” Lennox lied. In truth, Kaia was already at Lennox’s apartment because she tended to hang out there most of the day after classes. She might as well move in rather than keeping her cheaper apartment across town where she lived with two people she wasn’t even close with.

“Oh okay, sorry to keep you,” he apologized. “I guess I’ll see you Monday then?”

“Yeah, Monday,” she said hurriedly, waving briefly before she bolted out of the door. She felt awful blowing Niall off, but she wasn’t sure how to act around him. She didn’t want him ignoring Hattie when she was around. Lennox hadn’t even seen Hattie waiting around for Niall in weeks, not since before they started studying for midterms. They used to be attached at the hip. It was rare to spot either of them on campus without one another. And now he was ignoring her calls while he was out for drinks with Lennox and lord knows what else.

Lennox tried not to overthink it, not at least until she had Kaia sitting in front of her ready to listen to her barrage of venting. She was in serious need of girl talk, one over a big glass of wine with somebody who wasn’t going to judge or steer her in the wrong direction.

Kaia could sense Lennox’s frustration the second she walked into the living room, groaning the entire time it took for her to open a fresh bottle of wine.

“I’ll get the glasses,” she announced, standing on the tips of her toes to get the nice glasses from the top of the cupboards. Lennox poured them a generous amount each, motioning for Kaia to follow her back to her room. Kaia grabbed the glasses while Lennox carried the rest of the wine. The second the door to Lennox’s room shut behind them, Kaia handed her a glass and plopped down onto the edge of her bed. Lennox sat in her light blue desk chair, immediately taking a long sip of her drink.

“Spill,” Kaia instructed.

“Niall Horan,” Lennox grumbled.

“You’re going to need to be more specific dear,” Kaia said. “What has he done?”

“Well, we’ve been hanging out and what not as you know,” she started. “And the other day we were out for drinks and I saw that Hattie was calling him and he flat out ignored her call instead of like…texting her and telling her he was busy. I don’t know, it rubbed me the wrong way. And then I realized I hadn’t seen her in a while and that made me paranoid that he was blowing off time with his girlfriend for me?”

Kaia nodded, pursing her lips while she took in what Lennox had explained. “Are they definitely dating?” she asked.

“Well I mean, I never asked,” she replied. “But it’s heavily implied.”

“Could they have broken up?”

“Ew, so I’m a rebound? Pass.”

“I’m just saying,” Kaia replied, rolling her eyes. “Lennox, you’re looking too far into this. You and Niall and friends and while you might have thought it was rude that he ignored his maybe girlfriend’s call, he might have thought it would be rude to you to answer it or text her in the middle of having drinks with you.”

“Oh,” she breathed out. “I suppose that’s true.”

“Yeah you big ole worrier!” Kaia said, grinning at Lennox. “Now, since we’ve only covered about half of your worries, what else is going on?”

“What do you mean only half?” she asked.

“Oh come on, I still see that look in your eyes. There’s more to say,” Kaia replied. “Tell me more, Leonard.”

Lennox rolled her eyes at her freshmen year nickname, flipping off her best friend. “That was all that was bothering me,” she said. Kaia raised her brows, peering over the rim of her wine glass as she took a sip. Her glare told Lennox that Kaia knew she was full of shit. It was going to be a long night if Lennox didn’t start talking, but she wasn’t even sure of anything. Her feelings were a tangled mess, a dangerous web that would no doubt end in somebody being hurt, most likely herself.

“Fine, if you’re not going to talk, I’m going to do it for you,” Kaia grumbled. “I think you like Niall Horan. More than you did freshmen year when all you wanted to do was shove your tongue down his throat and take him back to your room.”

“But he probably most likely has a girlfriend,” Lennox whined. “I hate that I don’t even fucking know. Like, it’s driving me absolutely nuts.”

“Just call him and ask,” Kaia said.

“I can’t just ask him that!” Lennox hissed. “I’m not calling Niall at all. I think I just need a break from him.”

Kaia rolled her eyes. “Leonard, you’re being ridiculous right now,” she said. “If I didn’t love you, I’d smack you upside the head.”

“You smack me upside the head all of the time,” Lennox reminded her. “Look, even if you say that it’s not complicated, for me it is. I…I dunno K, I really don’t.”

“Awww babe,” Kaia cooed. She leaned forward, reaching towards my desk to set down her glass of wine. “I’m sorry everything’s a mess right now. Wanna get frozen yogurt? My treat? It’ll make you feel better! It’s the best way to forget about your problems, especially boy problems.”

Lennox nodded, taking one final sip of her wine. They both put on jackets from Lennox’s closet, bundling up to brace the fall nighttime breeze. The conversation shifted away from Niall to their plans for the weekend. Kaia mentioned a few different parties that the frats were having, but none of them sounded all that interesting to Lennox. There was always the option of pre-gaming at her apartment and heading for the clubs, just with a smaller group than usual.

The list of weekend plans continued as they walked around the corner to the main street. Lennox’s rent certainly reflected the close proximity to one of the main drags in the city, but the convenience of being able to walk around the corner from her building to have access to food and entertainment was well worth it.

Lennox and Kaia knew the girls who were on working the counter at Berry Berry, which meant too many free samples and a generous employee discount. Lennox and Kaia took up their usual spot on the hot pink tufted sofa that faced the floor to ceiling window looking out onto the street. They shared their concoctions with each other–Lennox went the mega sweet route while Kaia went from something lighter and fruity–while they enjoyed the unique mix of 90s pop and mid-2000s punk rock.

“Hey! Look, isn’t that Hattie?” Kaia asked, interrupting their moment of peace.

Lennox squinted, her eyes averting to the girl standing on the opposite side of the window. “Shit, yeah,” she confirmed, hoping Niall wasn’t nearby. Instead, she was greeted by somebody else much taller and blonder than Niall. She nearly dropped her cup when she saw the guy bend down for a kiss, which Hattie obliged to.

“Holy shit,” Lennox said.

“Well this just got interesting,” Kaia commented, spooning a large glob of frozen yogurt into her mouth.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

How do you tell somebody that their girlfriend is cheating on them?

How do you nicely let your guy friend know that you saw their maybe girlfriend kissing another guy outside of Berry Berry?

GPA calculator

How to nicely break it to someone that you saw their girlfriend kissing someone else?

Lennox’s search history was an absolute mess. It had been three weeks and she didn’t know how to process what she had seen. Either she had seen Hattie cheating on Niall or she had just witnessed a completely normal and not morally wrong kiss. How was Lennox supposed to bring it up now? Oh hey Niall, are you and Hattie dating? Why? Oh because I saw her kissing somebody that wasn’t you. Oh yeah, you are dating? Sweet, good luck with that.

She felt awful distancing herself from Niall, but she wasn’t sure what else to do. She could feel the confession sitting on the tip of her tongue every time they partnered up for group work in class. Lennox slipped out of the room and disappeared before Niall could track her down to talk after class. She was being a grade A coward and wasn’t afraid to admit it. Ashamed, sure, but this was not the type of confrontation that she wanted to deal with.

Her extensive googling didn’t help her in the slightest. She was given mixed answers, some telling her to mind her own business, others telling her that it would be the right thing to do, especially if he was her friend. It made her head spin, all of the options that she was supposed to follow. The best way to keep herself from becoming too overwhelmed was to subtract Niall from the equation completely, even if that meant losing the most entertaining part of her Mondays and Wednesdays.

After years of hating to be ignored by people, Lennox should have expected that Niall would fight back. She wasn’t sure when it was going to happen, but she had an inkling that he wasn’t going to let her play games and give him the silent treatment out of the blue (from his view, at least).

Lennox packed up her backpack at lightning speed at the end of Wednesday’s class, fully prepared to bolt out of the room to avoid Niall since the Hattie sighting. Before she could even take two steps, Niall stuck his arm out into the aisle, stopping her in her tracks.

“Avoiding me?” he asked.

“I would never do such a thing,” she replied. “Worried that I’ve forgotten about you?”

He laughed, slowly lowering his arm so it fell back at his side. “Something like that,” he said. “Would you wait up for me today?”

She nodded, fingers curling around the straps of her backpack while she waited for him to pack up his own belongings. They were the last two students left in the room, the building seemingly empty after their class let out. Hattie wasn’t waiting for Niall. Lennox wondered if maybe he had found out for himself before she remembered that Hattie hadn’t been around after class since the beginning of the semester.

“So what’s up Lennox?” Niall asked, leaning against the wall right outside of the classroom. They didn’t wander far, standing too close to be face-to-face in Lennox’s opinion.

“Not too much,” she replied. “You know how it can get towards the end of the semester. Lots of projects and what not.”

“Yeah, I understand,” he replied. “Just wanted to make sure. You’ve been…well…kind of weird since we got drinks after midterms?”

“Oh,” she breathed out, pretending to be surprised by his observation. “I hadn’t realized. I’m sorry, things have just been, you know…”

“Yeah, I know,” he said. “Well, for what it’s worth, I missed ya and your disgusting black coffee.”

Lennox’s eyes averted from Niall’s gaze to the floor, the heat rising to her cheeks. “You’re an ass,” she finally said, chuckling softly. “You just miss having somebody to pester, don’t you?”

“Duh?” he said, almost as if it were a question. “And, if you’ll have me, I’d love to pester you this weekend. We’re having a pre-game at my place before we head out to a party on Saturday. It won’t be a frat party, so do you think you’d consider going to just a regular old apartment party?”

“I go to non-frat parties, dweeb,” she scoffed. “I suppose I could come to your pre-game. Is it cool if my friends come?”

“The more the merrier,” he replied. “So…you’ll be there then?”

“I’ll see you on Saturday.”

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

16 times.

That’s how many times Lennox announced on Saturday that she wasn’t going to Niall’s pre-game. Kaia originally had planned for it to be a drinking game amongst the groups of girls that were getting ready at Lennox’s apartment, but they would have for sure gotten some kind of alcohol poisoning only an hour into the night. Still, she kept count, marking tallies in lipstick on the mirror until their friend Mickie told Lennox to “shut the fuck up.”

Her room was torn apart, clothing piled up in tiny dunes across every surface. She couldn’t see her bedding beneath the sea of jeans, crop tops, body suits, and dresses that she decided were not worthy. For a solid half an hour, she had sat in the middle of her mess in just her bra and thong, internally panicking about the night. Or at least, she tried to keep it internalized. Instead, panic struck across her face, rendering her absolutely useless.

She was overthinking everything. What did it matter if Niall invited her over to his apartment? They were friends. That’s what friends did. Hattie would be there and Niall would be all over her as he should be because they were probably most likely dating. Well, at least until Niall found out that Hattie was kissing somebody else. Unless that was their arrangement?

That was the moment Lennox decided that she needed to be absolutely sloshed. There was no chance at over-thinking everything if she could barely see straight. She enlisted the help of her friends to get her dressed and finish her makeup, declaring that she was going to take at least three shots before they left for Niall’s and that there was nothing that any of them could do to stop her. And they tried. They attempted to replace her vodka shots with water, but she ended up locking herself in her room with the bottle and a shot glass, counting out each as she took them.

Kaia was the only one who could drag Lennox out of her room, coaxing her into the bathroom so she could do last minute touch-ups. She’d ended up wearing her typical party uniform, a pair of skintight black jeans ripped at the knees and a long-sleeved black bodysuit with a plunging-v. Kaia expertly smoked out her makeup, adding a nude gloss over her lips to perfect Lennox’s pout. She examined herself in the mirror, fluffing her loosely curled hair before smirking.

“You good now?” Kaia asked.

“Totes,” she said. “Who’s calling the Uber?”

“I got it,” Kaia said, pulling her phone out of her pocket. “Round up the troops!”

It took five minutes to wrangle up all of the girls, everyone gathering near the door. They ordered an XL car that was only a minute or two away from the building. They shuffled into the elevator, everyone taking their final selfies before their Snap stories became absolute drunken messes full of embarrassing videos and potentially incriminating photos, ones that would certainly be screenshotted for future blackmail (more like Instagram collages or birthday posts on social media).

Lennox ignored the text from Niall asking if she was on her way. Kaia caught her smiling at her phone’s screen, peering over her shoulder to see what the fuss was about. She nudged Lennox’s arm, trying to get her attention. When Lennox looked over, Kaia was wiggling her eyebrows and making kissy faces. Lennox merely rolled her eyes, settling back into her seat while she waited for the drive to end.

One of the girls knew the code to the building, punching in the numbers as fast as possible so they didn’t have to stand out in the cold for much longer. His apartment was on the third floor towards the back of the building. There was no question where the pre-game was, the music echoing down the hall. The group was met with loud cheers and a heavy bass when they walked into the apartment. There were probably ten or so guys spread throughout the overlapping kitchen and living room. Lennox’s eyes scanned their faces until she spotted Niall popping the cap open of a beer bottle.

Kaia poked Lennox in the small of her back, making her jump. Lennox glared at her friend, swatting her hand away. “What?” she hissed.

“Go get your man!” she said. “You look hot and if Niall doesn’t see that, I’m sure one of the four guys that are currently whispering about you now would gladly take his place.” The second Lennox’s eyes snapped to where Kaia was pointed, the guys all looked away, taking sips of their drinks.

“Whatever,” she grumbled. “Who took the drinks from my place?”

“Red,” Kaia said, referring to their friend Diana aptly nicknamed for her fiery locks. “Lennox, be smart!”

“Yeah yeah,” she said, craning her neck to spot Diana and her trusty backpack that always served as the transport for their drinks. Lennox grabbed a Twisted Tea, pulling the tab open with ease. She planned on meeting up with Kaia again, sponging onto her best friend to put off seeing Niall. Her plan was, no surprise, foiled by Niall himself.

“Len, you made it!” he announced, holding his arms wide open for a hug. Lennox wondered if he tried to get himself purposely drunk early in the night too or if he was just this friendly always. “Was going to ask if you needed a drink but it appears you’ve got that covered.”

“Always travel with my own stash,” she said, gently shaking the full tall can back and forth.

“Well, if you want something other than that, I’ve got some liquor in my room that I suppose I could share with you,” he said.

“Secret shots before the party?” she asked, quirking a brow.

He nodded. “Sounds like a bad idea to me,” he said. “Find me before we go and we’ll do them, yeah?”

There wasn’t any need for Lennox to find Niall before they left for the party. They hardly separated the entire night. He fought to have her on his Flip Cup team (he agreed to do his roommate’s laundry for a week), stayed to her left when they decided to switch over to the dice game, and plopped down onto the sofa next to her when she decided to take a water break. The more they drank, the harder it became to pry them away from each other.

“Lennox is a funny name,” Niall said, giggling into her ear as they took a break from the action of the pregame. Somebody had started up a game of beer pong, one that they had no interest in partaking in or watching.

“Niall is an even funnier name,” she replied. “Buncha silly names around here.”

“Len…nox…” he said slowly, drawing out the syllables for dramatic effect. “It’s a nice name though.”

“Thanks,” she said. “What time is it?”

“Almost ten. We should probably get going to the party…” he pointed out. “Still wanna take a shot with me?”

“I promised, didn’t I?” she replied. “Tell everyone we’re going soon. It’s going to take my friends at least ten minutes to fix their makeup before they head downstairs to the party.”

Niall stood where he had been sitting on the couch, cupping his hands around his mouth to create a makeshift megaphone. “It’s party time!” he yelled. “We’re leaving in ten! It’s on the first floor here!”

Lennox giggled at Niall’s announcement, finding humor in everything she could. He nearly tumbled off of the couch when he tried to get down, losing his footing on the edge. Instead of being embarrassed, he merely laughed, his voice cutting through the music.

Niall held out his hand to Lennox, wiggling his fingers until she gave in and slid her hand into his. He squeezed gently, leading her through everyone until they disappeared deeper into the apartment. They stumbled down the hall before Niall tugged them into a room off to the right. He flicked the switch to turn on the overhead light before shutting the door behind them.

“Your room is so clean,” she commented, looking around at its spotless nature, much different than her disaster she called a room. “Do you have accent pillows?”

“They look nice, don’t they?” he asked, looking over his shoulder at her. He knelt down in front of his dresser, pulling open the bottom drawer that was full of beer and bottles of liquor. Lennox had a stash of her own, hiding her favorite bottles of wine and splurge-worthy vodkas at the top of her closet so she didn’t have to share them unless she wanted to. “What are we taking shots of?”

“Whatever,” she said, sitting down on the edge of his bed. She immediately pressed her palms against the mattress, subconsciously working out how comfortable it was. Firm, but not too firm–focus Lennox! “Make it double.”

“You trying to blackout tonight?” he asked, stifling a laugh. “Alright Lennox Sloane, double the shots you wild thing.”

“Long week,” she lied. It had been a fairly easy week, but there was no way she was telling Niall now about what had been bothering her for the past three weeks. “Why’s your room so clean?”

“You’re very fascinated by my tidiness,” he said.

“Not sure if you’re aware, but most men are slobs,” she replied. “I once hooked up with a guy who had to fish out plates and empty chip bags out from under his comforter before…you know…”

Niall’s face scrunched up, his lip curling up at the corner. “That’s…fucking disgusting,” he said, chuckling. “I like a clean room.”

“You sure you don’t just clean it every weekend just in case you have visitors?” she asked, wagging her brows at him.

“It’s like this all week, Len,” he said.

“Ooh, you’re prepared all days of the week?” she asked, moving her palms further behind her so she could lean back. “My room’s a mess right now.”

“Why is that?” he asked, folding his arms across his chest as he leaned back against his dresser. A bottle of Fireball sat on the top behind him, along with two empty shot glasses.

She shrugged, looking away from Niall. Or rather, looking away from his broad shoulders and toned muscles flexing beneath the fabric of his t-shirt. “Couldn’t find the right outfit,” she explained.

“I think the outfit you settled on is great, really,” he told her. Lennox looked at him out of the corner of her eye, watching the way his swallowed hard as he eyes struggled to stay focused on her face. “Um, so, shot?” he asked, clearing his throat.

She smirked, pushing herself off of his bed. “Sounds great,” she replied. The alcohol started to make her feel a bit braver. She took a few more steps closer to Niall, leaving little space between their bodies after he had poured the shots. Her eyes averted from his only momentarily while she grabbed the shot glasses from him to ensure she didn’t accidentally spill.

“Cheers,” they said simultaneously, clinking their shot glasses together before tilting their heads back to down the shots. Lennox hissed, her eyes immediately closing as the alcohol ran its course. She could feel the cinnamon burning in her nose, her throat temporarily on fire as she tried to keep the shot down.

“Still want a second?” Niall asked, reaching his arm back to feel around for the bottle. Lennox merely nodded, unable to tears her eyes from the single drop of alcohol glossing over the corner of Niall’s lips. The moment he ran his tongue along his bottom lip was when Lennox forced herself to look away, staring at the ceiling instead. The Fireball smelled even stronger as Niall poured a generous amount into both of their glasses.

Lennox took a deep breath, staring at the amber liquid as it swished back and forth in the glass. They repeated the same process, toasting to the night before taking the second shot in their series. This time Niall was the one to hiss, his lips curling in disgust. Lennox merely laughed, though she wasn’t feeling that much better. A second shot wasn’t the best idea, something she’d surely regret when she couldn’t get out of bed the next morning.

“Heyyy,” Niall whined, grabbing their glasses and setting them behind him. “Don’t laugh at me.”

“S’cute,” she told him, watching the way his face reacted.

“Yeah?” he asked, brows quirked. His stubble looked even darker in the low lighting of his room, dusted perfectly across his jaw. His stare was intense, boring through Lennox as the room started to close in on them.

“Yeah.” Lennox inched forward, her hips leading while the space between their bodies closed. She pushed her chest out, watching Niall’s eyes busy themselves to find someplace else in the room to look.

“Interesting,” he hummed, his hands fidgeting at his sides. His body tensed up, his back rigid as she continued to move closer.

“Do you think anyone has actually left yet?” she asked, tilting her head up to look at him.

“Don’t really care,” he replied, leaning down until their foreheads nearly touched. Lennox froze, her lips parted as Niall started to further bridge the gap between them. She could smell the cinnamon on his breath, fanning across her neck. Niall brought his hand to the side of her face, his thumb brushing against her cheek. There was a split second where their lips brushed, enough time for Lennox to snap back to reality.

She turned her head abruptly, stumbling backwards. “I can’t,” she mumbled, her cheeks burning red. “I…I gotta go. I’m sorry Niall.”

Lennox didn’t care what it looked like as she stormed out of Niall’s room, hurrying past everyone that still lingered in the living room instead of heading down the party. Kaia caught onto Lennox’s arm before she could reach the door, stopping her in her tracks.

“I need to leave,” she told her best friend. Instead of arguing with her, Kaia nodded and called an Uber for the two of them to share back to Lennox’s apartment. Kaia didn’t force Lennox to tell her anything about what had happened, though she did ask if it had something to do with Niall. Lennox merely nodded, resting her head on Kaia’s shoulder for the rest of the drive.

As suspected, Lennox spent a majority of the night staring at the toilet water with tears streaming down her face. Kaia helped keep her hair out of her face, rubbing circles into her back while periodically asking if Lennox was alright. She dry-heaved for a short period of time before she finally felt well enough to at least finish taking off her makeup and brush her teeth. Kaia tossed the piles of clothes off of Lennox’s bed, pulling back the covers for her friend. She let Lennox know that she was going to sleep on the couch, leaving her with a full tumbler cup of water and a bottle of ibuprofen on her bedside table.

Lennox felt wretched when she woke up the next morning. Her head felt like it weighed ten tons, her stomach twisting into nauseating knots. She nearly vomited the moment she rolled over onto her stomach, pathetically reaching her arm out to grab the edge of the small trash can underneath her desk. She puked on top of the crumpled up sheets of paper and makeup wipes, hoping this was the last time that she would need to puke for the rest of the semester.

She felt absolutely drained, completely empty from head to toe. There was hungover and then there was whatever heinous feeling that Lennox was suffering from. She still felt like she was asleep, her eyes barely opened as she rolled onto her back. She felt around for her phone, tucked underneath the pillow next to her. She could barely make out any of the notifications on the screen, everything a complete blur to her. She ignored them for the time being, setting her phone back down before passing out again.

Lennox repeated the process of waking up to puke two more times before staying awake at noon. She felt less than stellar still, but she was certain that there was going to be no more puking for the day. The headache hardly subsided, but that was something she would deal with for the day if it meant no more heaving the contents of her stomach into the trash can that she would surely have to throw out.

She tackled the notifications on her phone next, turning the brightness all the way down so the blue light of the screen didn’t hurt her eyes in the dark. She scrolled through the Instagram notifications, pausing over a string of messages Niall had sent her the previous night.

Len im sry if i didsomethign

R u ok????

Cnwetalk?

Lennobx plwedse

There were a few new messages from that morning, ones that were more comprehensible than the ones clearly sent while he was drunk the night before.

Hey Lennox, look, I’m sorry about yesterday. I just wanted to make sure that you were okay this morning, after everything.

Lennox replayed the night before in her head. She was so preoccupied with trying to make herself too drunk to dwell on the Hattie incident that she didn’t even think about the fact that she was flirting too heavily with Niall. For gods sake, she nearly made out with the boy (amongst other things) in his room.

Hey Niall. Look, I’m sorry too. And I feel like shit, but I’m alive so…

Thank god you’re okay. I was worried. You ran off and you, well WE, were really drunk and I just wanted to make sure you made it home.

I wasn’t even thinking, I’m sorry.

You don’t need to apologize. What happened to you last night though?

In your room?

Yeah

Lennox’s fingers froze, hovering over the keyboard at the bottom of her screen. She would have preferred to have this conversation in person, but there was no way in hell that she was going to be able to leave her bed until the next day. She couldn’t keep putting it off and letting it get between the two of them. She let out a deep breath, typing out everything she hadn’t been able to say out loud.

I would’ve rather told you in person, but whatever. There was one night that I told you that I was going to Kaia’s apartment to work on a paper, but in reality I just went back to my place where Kaia was and we ended up going out for frozen yogurt. While we were there, I saw Hattie kissing somebody else outside and got freaked and didn’t know how to tell you. So I just…ignored you. I’m sorry. I just didn’t want to meddle, but I also didn’t want you to be blindsided by it.

Wait what?

I’m sorry Niall. I should’ve told you.

Told me what? I’m really confused, Lennox.

That I saw Hattie kissing somebody else?

Why would that matter?

What do you mean why would that matter? I saw Hattie cheating on you!

Lennox…holy shit, have you thought that Hattie and I were a couple?

………….

Lennox, please.

You’re always with her!

We’ve been best friends since we were kids. She doesn’t know a lot of people here besides me and her boyfriend Peter. Which is probably who you saw her with.

I’m going to go die in a hole now. So…I didn’t see Hattie cheating on you two weeks ago then?

No, you saw Hattie making out with her boyfriend of a year. Is this really why you’ve been so weird lately?

Partially. I also got mad at you when you ignored her call when we were out for drinks that one night because I thought you were blowing off your girlfriend.

I would very much like it if we weren’t having this conversation via text message right now.

I feel like death. You can’t see me like this. Or smell me like this.

Lol. Noted. But just to clear the air…I am not dating Hattie, nor anyone. I’m very single.

Just to clear the air…I’m going to go into hiding for the next twenty years.

Will you be in class tomorrow?

I think it’s best if I’m conveniently absent this week.

Lennox come on.

She told herself not to reply anymore. She was only digging herself deeper into her hole of embarrassment. She couldn’t believe that she assumed for over a year that Niall was dating his best friend who had a boyfriend of her own. She was mortified, sure, but more so pissed off at herself for not asking him about Hattie in the first place.

She read over the last message he sent to her, pointer finger tapping the edge of her iPhone. She sighed, her thumbs gliding against the keyboard.

Hattie = friend?

Hattie = friend. That’s it.

Lennox grinned, locking her phone before setting it down next to her.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Lennox, as promised, didn’t show up to class at all that week. Without even asking, Niall sent her pictures of the notes, not even pushing her to talk further than a “thank you” with a smiley face emoji. She was happy that he was respecting her space, but she wasn’t sure what came next. It had been established that Niall was single (very single, in his exact words), yet Lennox struggled with how they were supposed to act around each other now.

She would be lying if she said that her ego wasn’t hurt slightly. She felt like an absolute idiot, not only for misinterpreting a friendship, but for skirting around the issue for nearly the entire semester. It was the week of Thanksgiving, leaving only three weeks after the holiday before final exams and projects. It was stupid to be upset that she felt like she had wasted an entire semester under a complete wrong assumption, only due to her own fear of asking the truth. What would have happened if she had asked only a few weeks into class, curiously inquiring like any friend or acquaintance would? Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Kaia sent Lennox good luck texts before her class on Monday night, partially to ensure that Lennox actually showed up. She assured Lennox that there was nothing to be embarrassed about. In reality, nothing between Niall and Lennox had changed, yet it felt like everything was different when she was walking to class. Really, things had only changed from her side. The person she had once thought was in a committed relationship turned out to be single, and well, she was certain that Niall knew that she wasn’t seeing anybody either.

She had her roommates help pick her outfit out for the first time all semester. Lennox wasn’t one to care about what she wore to class. It didn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things, but she wanted to put forth a smidgen of effort for her debut after crawling out of her dark hole of embarrassment. In truth, she really only swapped out her oversized sweatshirt or t-shirt (depended on the weather) for a cute cardigan and flowy tank top combination, courtesy of her roommate Elaine. She had on a new pair of fleece lined leggings, the insides still soft and smooth against her legs. Cognac leather riding boots replaced her usual pair of worn out Adidas sneakers, completing the cute, but still casual look.

Lennox was running a few minutes earlier so she had planned to wait outside of the classroom until class started, slipping in at the last second to avoid awkward small talk with Niall. She froze as she walked through the doors closest to the classroom, her eyes landing on Niall leaning against the wall. She took a deep breath, exhaling loudly before continuing forward. Niall’s eyes looked up from his phone as the heels of Lennox’s boots clicked against the tiled floor. He immediately smiled, lifting his arm to wave.

“Hi Niall,” she said, drumming her fingers against her thigh nervously. “I…really don’t know what to say,” she admitted.

“Me either,” he replied. “I…I dunno, I thought if I caught you before class started, we could talk. But now that we’re here…” his voice trailed off.

“Talk after class then?” she asked.

“Yeah, that’s a good idea,” he agreed. “Shit, now I’m not gonna be able to focus all class.”

“Welcome to my world,” she joked. “You’ll finally understand how I’ve felt sitting behind you all year.”

“Hardy har har,” he said, letting Lennox walk into the classroom first. Niall was right though. It was impossible to focus on anything the professor was saying, more than usual. Her mind raced with what they could talk about it when class was over. There was a lot to discuss and catch up on. But at the same time, they also had a clean slate, one without any preconceived ideas about each other.

The singular thing that Lennox heard come out of her professor’s mouth was that Wednesday’s class was canceled, not that Lennox was going to go anyways. She had plans to leave after her eight a.m. class on Wednesday to make the two-and-a-half-hour drive back home for the holiday and long weekend. Still, it was nice to know that she wouldn’t be missing anything, especially given her absence for both classes the previous week.

Lennox and Niall waited for the classroom to empty out before packing up their bags, taking their time to leave. Even when they made it outside of the class, they lingered near the tables they usually stood around, practically fiddling their thumbs while silence ensued. Finally, Lennox did what she hadn’t done the entire semester.

“Do you want to hang out at my apartment?” she asked, bypassing any of the awkward small talk they would have no doubt exchanged.

“Right now?” he asked.

“Yes, right now,” she confirmed.

The corners of Niall’s lips curled up into a smile. “Sounds great,” he said. “Lead the way.”

Niall and Lennox walked side by side down the sidewalk, their breath visible in late November air. The silence, for once, didn’t feel uncomfortable between them. They needed to talk in person still, sure, but for the first time all semester, everything felt right. There was no guilt, no endless curiosity, not even the lingering feeling of humiliation (okay, maybe just a little).

“Oh, I didn’t know you lived in this building,” Niall commented Lennox walked up to one of the main doors to her apartment. “I have a few friends who live on the second floor here.”

“Really, who?” she asked, fumbling around the side pocket for her keys.

“Liam Payne and Harry Styles,” he replied.

“Oh, yeah I know them!” she said, leaving out the part about one of her friends hooking up with both of them in the same weekend last year. Niall had probably heard about that story. It was a wild weekend right after exams and nothing good ever happened when there were no classes to worry about for a month.

They rode the elevator up to her floor with a few other people, putting a pause on their conversation until they had a moment of privacy. Niall smiled at her from across the elevator, immediately scrunching his nose up to make a funny face when she noticed. Lennox rolled her eyes, unable to fight the smile that spread across her face.

“I’m going to suggest that you stay in my room while I go break the news to Kaia that we will not be watching tonight’s episode of The Voice together,” Lennox explained. “If she or my other roommates see you, they’re going to pounce.”

Niall laughed, nodding as she began to strategize outside of the door to her unit. “Okay, sounds good,” he said. “I can hide out for a bit.”

“It won’t take long, I promise,” she assured him. The door was already unlocked and her room was to the left of the door off of a short hallway, allowing them to sneak in unseen.

“Did you clean for me?” he joked, noting the rare pristine nature of Lennox’s room. She wouldn’t admit it to him out loud, but she did clean proactively just in case this had happened. Her smirk gave him the answer that she could never utter herself. “Alright, go sort out your TV show stuff and I’ll be here snooping through your drawers.”

“Perv,” she scoffed. “I’ll save you some time: bras and panties are in the top drawer,” she said, winking before turning on her heels. She could hear the TV loudly in the living room, followed by Kaia’s cheers for whoever was performing.

“Lennox! You’re missing a good ass episode!” Kaia yelled, looking over the back of the couch to spot her friend.

“Hey, so, I’m going to need a raincheck for tonight’s episode,” Lennox said, trying to keep her voice as low as possible.

“What the fuck, why?” Kaia asked, furrowing her brows.

“Because Niall is currently in my room,” she replied.

“Say no more!” she said, shooing Lennox away with a flick of her wrist. “Go do what you’ve been waiting the whole semester to do. Wait, no, basically your whole college care–”

“Thanks Kaia!” Lennox said loudly, cutting off her statement before she could finish it. Kaia whistled as Lennox walked back down the hall towards her bedroom, shaking her head at her friend’s antics.

Niall was sitting on the edge of Lennox’s bed when she walked back into her room, scrolling through his phone. He glanced up from his screen, immediately setting his phone down when he saw that it was Lennox. “All good?” he asked.

“Totally cool with it,” she assured him. “Soooo….” she hummed, rocking back and forth on the tips of her toes.

“Did you really think I’ve been dating Hattie this entire time?” Niall asked abruptly, his brows pinched together.

“Uh, yeah,” Lennox admitted. “Since last year, actually. I just always saw you two together and when I asked around last year a lot people said yes and a few said they didn’t know but probably so I just assumed.”

“Why didn’t you just ask me?”

Lennox shrugged. “Wasn’t really sure how to bring it up,” she said. “I mean, it didn’t really just come up in conversation and if I brought it up, I’d either seem like I was extremely nosy or was interested for my own selfish reasons.”

“I see, I see,” Niall said. He puffed his cheeks out before letting out a long sigh. “I’m torn between thinking this is really hilarious and also being really mad at myself for not making it more clear earlier in the semester.”

“Making what more clear?” she asked.

“I dunno, lots of things,” he replied. “I forget that people here don’t know that Hattie and I have known each other forever and that she has a boyfriend that goes to school about thirty minutes away, so he’s not really around campus. I also should’ve probably made it a bit clearer that I’ve been trying to flirt with you all semester.”

Lennox pressed her lips together, struggling to stop the smirk from pulling up the corners of her lips. “Ah, yes, that would’ve been convenient information,” she coughed out. “So now here we are…you…me. The air has been cleared…” she rambled, sliding her sock clad feet across the hardwood floor to move closer to her bed.

“It has indeed,” he agreed, watching Lennox inch forward at her own painstaking pace. Niall rested back on his elbows, using his legs to push off of the floor and move his body further back onto the mattress. One leg at a time, Lennox planted her knees onto either side of Niall, straddling his waist. Niall’s hands snaked underneath the soft knit of her cardigan, pushing it off of her shoulders until it pooled at her sides. She removed it all together, tossing it across the room so it was out of the way.

“So this is nice,” she murmured, her gaze locking with Niall’s. His hands rested on her waist, his thumbs slipping underneath the hem of her tank top. “You sure Hattie isn’t going to burst through the door right now and yell at me for making out with her boyfriend?” Lennox joked, dragging the tip of her finger across the stubble on his jaw.

Niall groaned, rolling his eyes. “Please don’t talk about other girls while you’re on top of me,” he begged. She nodded, tucking her hair behind her ears to stop the loose strands from falling onto her face. Niall parted his lips in anticipation, his eyes starting to close before their noses brushed. At the last second, she redirected her proper kiss a little to the left, kissing only the corner of his mouth. “Lennox Sloane, I never pegged you as such a tease,” he sighed.

“Just a fun new thing I’m trying out,” she said. “I think I’m a fan. What about you?”

“Not a fan,” he grumbled, pushing his lips out into a dramatic pout.

“I’ll take that into consideration then,” she murmured, gently pressing her fingers against his cheek. She tilted her head to avoid bumping noses with Niall, parting her lips enough to trap Niall’s top life between hers. She felt his body relax beneath her as he kissed back, tilting his head to the opposite side before taking the reins. His hands settled onto her hips, holding her body steady while they continued to find their rhythm.

Lennox wasn’t sure at what point Niall had flipped her body underneath his, or how long they had ended up making out on her bed. Niall’s hands made calculated movements, slowly migrating from the safe area on her hips up to the skin beneath her ribs where her high waisted leggings ending. She shuddered at his touch, momentarily breaking their kiss before Niall drew her back in. She smiled into their kiss, another momentary pause that made Niall groan.

“You’re very impatient,” she hummed, running her thumb along his bottom lip as she pulled away.

“I’d like to think that I’m very patient,” she argued. “I’ve wanted to do this all semester, remember?”

“Ah yes, very true,” she replied. “I suppose we should continue to make up for lost time now, shouldn’t we?”

#Niall Horan #1dff #1dff summer fic exchange 2017

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ohholyfanfics · 7 years ago

Text

Cup of Coffee 0.4|N.Horan

Summary: Jade wonders if Niall is rethink being with, and the girls join a rooftop cinema club.

Last Part:0.3

.Smiling at the sight of him waiting for her, he placed a soft kiss on his lips before sitting down across for him. Niall and Jade had made it a thing, were at least three times a week they would meet up for coffee before being thrown into a over demanding day at the office. Today Jade looked too good in Niall’s opinion and he’d let her know that the moment she had sat down making her cheeks flush. He chuckled softly before they both were engrossed in a conversation about their night and morning. Jade's was much more interesting as she had told him about an app, Libby had recently been testing for the social media aspect of Glamour.

“We still on for dinner?” She asked as he held the door open for her. Luckily for her, her office building was only two buildings away while Niall had a ways walk, not that he minded. She watched as his face fell.

“Rain check?” He asked as she smiled and nodded her head. She wasn’t expecting him to drop everything for her, and she was okay with it. Jade knew Niall was running an empire and he needed to be there to make sure everything when smooth sailing. “I’m sorry..” He sighed pulling her to him as she waved it off.

“It’s fine Ni, you have an empire to run.” She responded as she wrapped her arms around her neck pulling his face closer to her. His cologne filled her sense making slightly dizzy. “Besides, i get you all to myself tomorrow night..” She hummed before pressing her lips on his.

Relaxing into her embrace, he pulled her closer wanting to savor the feeling of her lips on hers. Pulling away he rested his forehead on hers with a soft smile. “I promise I’ll make it up to you..” He state as she rolled her eyes pulling away.

“Don’t worry about Ni, now go run that business..” She winked as she stepped away from him and towards her office. Looking back she smiled as he was still standing there, navy suite, gray tie and all. It made her beam with happiness knowing she was the one he’d be thinking about all day.

Walking into the building she was greeted by Libby and Danielle hanging out in the coffee shop in the lobby. Walking over to them, Libby sent her a wink commenting about how Jade was glowing and how there absolutely no way the hot CEO wasn’t giving her some type of action.

“Of course she's getting something Libs..” Danielle teased Jade as her cheeks flushed red as she thought back to her and Niall’s steamy night two days ago. Sure, they had yet to actually be fully intimate but had gone down was more then enough to have her mind raving about what was to come. She wasn’t about to admit that to the girls though.

“Anyways enough about Miss.CEO here.” Libby stated as the elevator door opened and they arrived on their floor. Greeting Monica, they walked farther into the office and towards the social media department. “I have signed us all up for a club..”

“A club?” Jade asked as Libby nodded her head spinning her chair.

“A rooftop cinema..” She stated as Cathy came out of the conference room. Jade gave her a smile before rushing off towards the room where the editors and writers were gathering for the daily follow up.

“Fill me in at lunch?” She asked as the girls gave he a thumbs up as she walked inside the room taken a seat besides Alex who flashed her a smile.

The meeting was quick assignments where giving and switched around. Jade was glad she was giving the weekly update online. It was a simple but yet popular segment online, Cathy had emailed her the subjects to talk about and the ones to stray from. Jade had been planning to write it sometime between Wednesday and Thursday night. Libby had informed her on the club she had signed them up for as they walked into the kitchen.

“It’ll be fun.” Jade agreed with a smile as she looked up. Her gaze catching the man before her, who sent her a wink making her cheeks flush in embarrassment. It wasn’t that Dave wasn’t an attractive male, cause my God was he a site for sore eyes. It was the fact that she was seeing someone unofficially but still she was seeing someone she very much liked.

So far the day has been brutal for Jade. She had managed to spill coffee all over herself forcing her to barrow something from the fashion department, and to top things off Niall called canceling on the rest of the weeks plans. Jade knew she couldn’t let this bother her, they weren’t even official yet and he did have a business to run. She knew things like this would happen but for it to happen so soon when she was really looking forward to seeing him hurt more than anything else. Sighing as she mixed herself up a drink, she picked up last months segment as she skimmed through.

“Alright there?”

Jumping slightly she turned around coming face to face with Dave again. Smiling, she nodded her head setting her glass down.

“Rough day…” She chuckled as he nodded his head. Dave wasn’t a stranger to the editors and writers. They have seen him multiple times when the big monthly issue meetings are held, but this was Jane’s first time actually having a conversation with him.

“Understandable.” He stated as he made himself a cup of coffee. “Congrats by the new on the new position, you deserve it Jade.” He smiled as her cheeks flushed.

“Thanks Dave, that means a lot to me..” She sighed leaning her bodying on the island between them as he chuckled. He’d read many of her articles before and to say he was blown away was a understatement. The amount of talent and potential the young woman had was out of this world.

“Just recognizing amazing work.”

Looking up at the blue skies above, she let out a sigh as Niall continued to explain his reasoning for cancelling their plans for the second time that week. She understood he carried the world on his shoulders and didn’t always expect him to see her every waken moment of the day, but cancelling like this was starting to do a number in head, and had rethinking her choices for perhaps the fifth time since they started seeing each other. Danielle insists its the lack of communication, while Libby believes its the lack of a title the two have.

“Niall-”

“I’m sorry darlin’..” He breathed out as she smiled softly knowing he was most likely tugging on the roots of his hair as he tried to come up with a solution. “It’s not okay babe, I should be able to make time for you..” He sighed as he looked down at his schedule trying to see what he can move around to make time for her, he needed to make time if he wanted this work.

“Hey it’s fine babe..” She breathed as she walked into the coffee shop. “You’re busy and I understand that. Plus this week I’m kinda swamped don’t feel bad.” She stated as she took her order sitting down at a table near the window.

“Do you need anything?’ He asked as she smiled and looked up meeting Dave’s soft smile. She nodded his head as he made a jester at the chair across from her.

“No, I’m fine I promise..”

“You sure..”

“Positive..”

“I’ll see you soon?” He breathed out as the guilt started to eat him alive as he started to think of all that he could possibly do to see her at least once before the weekend.

“Of course.”

Hanging her phone up she looked at Dave who gave her a soft smile. As much as she hated to admit it, Dave was a excellent contender in helping her forget the fact that Niall wasn’t able to see her. Dave had somehow found himself int he group of friends, and felt nothing short of welcome by the group, he even joined them for after work drinks yesterday.

“How’s the article coming along?” He asked as she groaned throwing her head back in frustration. He chuckled as she gave him a glare letting him know just how stressful it was. “Hey, be thankful it wasn’t the monthly quiz.” He pointed out as she nodded her head.

“Thank God..” She winked as they both let out a laugh as Libby and Alex danced into the cafe and sat besides the two. It wasn’t long before the four were walking out of the cafe towards the offices but not before setting plans in stone for a low key dinner at a restaurant following their day.

Sighing, Jade looked back at the empty word document before her, as she heard the from door slam shut knowing Libby is most likely home from work. Looking up she was greeted by her four best friends. A soft smile made it’s way onto her face as she saw the bags of take out.

“Take out and shitty alcohol?” Libby asked with a smile as jade laughed and nodded her head making room for everyone.It wasn’t long before they were all a mess of tangled limbs, as a shitty movie was playing on the screen as together the five of them managed ti collect enough ideas, rather how stupid or observed they sounded, Jade was able to complete her article and sent it in.

“So what are we doing Friday again?” David asked as he watched Alex and Jade play a heated gave of connect four on their group chat.

“Roof top cinema club..” Jade stated as Libby nodded her head with excitement flowing through her body as she went on to explain what would be going down.

“And we are going because?” Alex stated taken a break from his game as Jade took her turn.

“Jade here needs a little break, between work and Niall she needs as much of her free time taken up as possible!” Danielle stated as she refilled her cup.

“Niall?” David asked confused not knowing just who they were talking about.

“Yeah, Horan you know him?” Alex asked as he took a turn and groaning as Jade let out a loud cheer.

“As in CEO Niall Horan?”

“Hmmm…”

“How do you know him?” He asked Jade as her cheeks turned an unhealthy shade of scarlet, causing the group as well as Dave to let out a chorus of laughs.

“They’re dating!”

“YOU’RE DATING NIALL HORAN?!”

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spideywars · 7 years ago

Note

a uni AU, where niall is so smart (wears glasses, not a nerd but smart without studying only from lectures) and harry thinks N hates him (he doesn't) but when he finds out he doesn't, he tries to get N to date him by pickup lines, dreamy eyes, coffee, but niall is trying to see if harry's worth it and it is amusing to see harry try all these things (he does have a crush on H) and after the winter break he says yes to a date.

Fluff, fluff, and more fluff for everyone! Thank you for this cute prompt!–

The coffee was bitter and there wasn’t enough cream or sugar added to it as he took a sip. The University’s coffee shop is shit compared to the one downtown near the bookstore, but he could probably just go to Louis’ dorm and ask for some cream and sugar. That lad drank coffee and tea like water.

But the view is too nice to just get up and walk away, Harry has found the perfect spot in the courtyard at one of the tables not dampened and wet from the storm this morning. And right in front of him, a couple meters away, is Niall Horan, reading like he usually is.

He’s something out of the sketch books Harry sees Zayn draw into, the beautiful people doodled inside it looking so elegant and perfect with no scribbles or smudges around them. Niall is a dream, a pretty little thing that has a face sculpted by angels and eyes that look like they sucked the soul right out of every human being that has ever looked into them.

But it’s funny, because here Harry is drooling over a boy who doesn’t even like him, notice him, or care about him. Even worse, he’s almost 99.9% sure Niall hates him. Why does he think that? Well, Niall makes soar faces when Harry steals Zayn’s pencils to throw them into the back of Liam’s head during their lectures when he gets bored, and always makes sure to never make eye contact with him no matter how hard Harry tries.

It’s obvious, something Harry can’t just ignore. Niall doesn’t want to be in any part of his life, would rather strive to get assignments done, get ahead in class, and study for finals than be in a relationship. Sure Harry likes to do that too, he doesn’t want to be a bum on the street for the rest of his life cause he’s too lazy to do work, but he still wants the good times, cuddles on the couch, and a hot breath sleeping next to him at night.

He doesn’t realize he’s been staring so intensely at Niall until he catches the other brunet staring right at him, blinking in surprise that he’s being watched, glasses sliding down the bridge of his nose and fingers curling into the textbook he’s holding.

Harry is frozen now, like Niall has thrown a bucket of ice water all over him, and he is battling the separate thoughts in his mind. Should he run for it, or just stay where he is and stare Niall down right back?

He doesn’t do that, stare Niall down, instead he’s jumping to his feet and rushing his way out of the courtyard to get to Louis’ dorm.

“For the last bloody time Harold, Niall doesn’t hate you!” Louis groans out loud, rolling his head back as he rolled his eyes to stare up at the ceiling. He’s sat at his desk in his office chair, was in the middle of reading a book for English class when Harry came rushing in with his coffee in his hands. Harry couldn’t help but ask if Niall didn’t like him again, even though he’s gotten the same answer from Louis every time.

“How do you know? Mate he can’t even look at me, gets annoyed with me during lectures…it’s obvious!” He slumped himself onto Zayn’s bed, he was Louis’ roommate but was probably outside having a smoke or working on an art project in the Uni’s art room, so he didn’t have to worry about getting kicked off.

“Have you even talked to him though?” Louis sighed, giving Harry a tired look once they met eyes. There was a pause, Harry not wanting to answer that knowing Louis was right.

“No.” He mumbled, and Louis wagged a finger at him like his mother would do while scolding him.

“See, so if you’ve never talked to him, you would have no idea if he actually hates you, yeah?” Louis shrugged, turning back to his book and starting to read again. Harry didn’t even care about his bitter coffee anymore, it forgotten on the nightstand beside him. His mind was swelling up with Niall’s pretty face.

“It’s hard to believe he likes me back when he avoids me like I’m some disease.” Harry didn’t mean to sound so defeated, but its hard liking someone and not knowing if they like you back. He’s been a mess for a while, it’s always been leeching at the back of his mind.

Louis sighed again, this time louder as he placed his book back down, not even being able to flip a page yet. He turned in his chair, locking gazes with Harry again.

“Look, me and Niall are in the same music group, just signed up for it about a week ago for music class. I’ve chatted with him a lot, and I’ve even mentioned you and he is more than intrigued to hear what you’ve been up to.” Louis was whispering as if Niall would be right outside the door, and Harry was leaned right in, almost falling off the bed.

“You-you’re serious?” He asked, almost choking on his own spit. He almost felt betrayed that Louis hadn’t told him this sooner. Louis knew about his big-very big-crush on Niall, it was a mystery why he waited so long to tell him this.

“I’m being serious lad, so just go up and talk to him, get to know him and what he likes. Maybe then you can get him to go on a date with you.” Louis’ words brought a shock of determination and energy through Harry, and he stood up, giving Louis a megawatt smile before he was fast to move towards the door and scramble outside.

He thought he’d be easily getting to Niall, sitting himself down beside him and start giving him flirty answers and questions, make him blush. But Harry didn’t even see Niall until the next day, the other brunet sat in the library this time reading a book in one hand and holding a pencil hovered over a journal in the other.

Harry has slept with men and women, has gotten what he wants all the time. But he feels stuck in mud, everything just so hard to get to. He hates it, the feeling of being more powerless than he ever was before, like Niall has taken all his strengths and crushed them. He has to start from the beginning again, acting like a pathetic stuttering and nervous wreck.

“Uhm, hi.” He said, walking straight up to the table. Harry wouldn’t dare sit yet, seeing how Niall slowly looked up from his book to stare at Harry through his lashes.

“Hi?” Niall’s greeting was more of a question, him setting down his book once he put the bookmark in. He didn’t look annoyed though, that was one thing Harry could notice, so he felt like it was okay to keep going.

“M-my names H-”

“I know who you are, Harry right?” Niall interrupted before Harry could finish his sentence, and he was forced to a grinding stop. He kind of just blinked down at Niall now, surprised.

“Yeah,” he paused, not really sure where he was going to go with all this. “Mind if I sit?” He finally said, and Niall didn’t hesitate to nod, shifting his chair a little further away so Harry could squeeze in and sit himself down.

But once they were seated Harry had to think of something else to say, something that will get Niall to like him, or at least enjoy his presence enough so when he comes back he won’t be running away thinking he was strange.

“We have a mutual friend, you know Louis?” He asked, now having a plan mapped out in his brain.

“Yeah, of course I know him. He’s a great lad.” Niall was smiling now, just a small and simple one, but it still made Harry’s heart flutter. ‘I made him do that, I made him smile like that.’ He couldn’t help say to himself.

“I’ve known him since my first year here, he’s just chatted a couple times to me about you, said how much of a fun guy you were to talk to. Wanted to find out for myself.” He showed off his charming smile now, dimples on full display and green eyes twinkling.

And there it was, a soft blush on Niall’s cheeks, the smallest dust of them overlapping his pale skin and freckles. It had Harry’s heart rate sky-rocketing, throat tying up into knots.

‘I made him blush like that, look at him, he’s blushing.’ His little voice squealed to him in his head, and he almost chuckled out loud, feeling ecstatic.

“Have you found anything out yet? Anything interesting?” Niall played along, his own sparkle coming across in his blue eyes, almost a mirrored expression to Harry’s. He knew how to play games, and it made Harry even more excited for the challenges ahead.

“I’ve found something yeah, very interesting in fact.” He moved his arm out to place on the table in front of them, elbow rested upon it and hand curling into a fist so he could rest his chin on top of it. He looked towards Niall with a cheeky grin.

“And what is that?” Niall asked, the glint still in his eyes, a blush still evident on his cheeks.

There was a pause that hung in the pin-drop silence of the library as students studied and read. Harry made sure to keep it like that, suspense wavering in the air of it all.

“Have a nice day Niall, I hope we can talk again.” He wanted to have Niall crawling on his hands and knees, all confused and now extremely curious and wanting to know what was so interesting. Harry got up from his chair, giving Niall that same dimpled smile before walking off.

Niall looked surprised, mouth held slightly opened as he blinked at where Harry had just been seated.

The encounters didn’t end there, Harry knew Niall was intrigued with Harry’s ‘playing hard to get’ attitude and is always giving Harry an amused smile back whenever they’d talk, playing along with the game.

Harry had gone to the point of actually sitting beside Niall during their lunch hours, him sitting beside the smaller brunet as he studies or does assignments, both with coffees settled in front of them and oatmeal cookies for later. Harry manages to never really get to doing his own work, he usually just ends up staring at Niall in awe at how a human being could look that good. Because the light from the sun beaming down on them in the courtyard hits Niall’s cheeks perfectly, making them shine and the freckles look more prominent. Or the breeze blows so precisely that it makes Niall’s little brown fringe flip into his eyes, making him move his fingers up to push it out of his face.

He’s whipped, completely in love and so far down nothing can drag him back out. But it wasn’t like Harry hasn’t hinted at going on dates and trying to take things further. He’ll ask questions like ‘wanna go out for a drink after class ends?’ or 'there is a great fish and chips place down the street, wouldn’t mind some company.’ But Niall would always decline, and not in a disgusted way, like he didn’t want to do it cause it was Harry asking him, it was more because he enjoyed playing the game. Niall liked seeing Harry look defeated, but even more determined the next day to ask again.

So, here Harry was the most determined he’s ever been. It’s after winter break, everyone had gone home to their families, their hometowns, relaxing and getting presents for them to pile back into their dorms and brag about to their mates. Harry’s break was spent mapping out a new plan, scrapping the one he had laid out in his brain before and creating a whole new one. He asked his mom even, had called Louis, Liam, and Zayn on separate days to get different opinions, reciting what he was going to do over the phone and had gotten words of encouragement.

Now or never, this was now or never and Harry knew that this plan was the last piece of thread attached to his determination before he’d be at the point of begging on his knees for Niall to go on a date with him. He didn’t really fancy having his dignity crushed, so he prayed to any god that was listening that this would work.

Niall was leaned against the wall outside the University, three large textbooks cradled in his arms as he kicked at the gravel underneath him. He tended to wait for Harry now, it was their routine, and he even remembered after the two week break. It gave Harry even more confidence now.

“Niall, hey!” Harry called, walking down the steps and moving towards Niall who was now straightening up at the sound of his name. He looked around in confusion at first until their eyes met and then a smile crawled across his pale face.

“Hello Harold, how was your break?” Niall asked, letting Harry take the lead to start walking towards their usual spot.

“Boring, but I got money from my parents so I can actually say I’m not halfway from being a broke Uni student.” He joked, making Niall laugh softly as they sat themselves down at the bench.

“How was your break? Had to travel didn’t ya, to Ireland?” Harry made sure to keep with the normal conversations they had, he knew he shouldn’t just shove his way in with 'wanna go on a date?’ When they’ve only just met after a long time being apart. He played it cool, kept a neutral expression, unbothered.

“Yeah, was great though. Nice seeing my family again, they love knowing my grades as soon as I walk through the door.” Niall didn’t sound so happy with what he was saying, Harry caught the drip of sarcasm coming from Niall’s mouth and looked towards him to meet his eyes.

“Sad that they do that, there’s a lot more things better about you then just your grades.” Harry turned away from him to squint down the pathway of the courtyard, watching one lad skateboarding down it with his backpack slung over his back.

“Yeah, like what?” Niall asked, and it was something that caught Harry off-guard, making him blink in surprise at nothing until he turned to look at Niall again. Niall looked cheeky now, giving Harry those gorgeous blue eyes that rippled with curiosity.

“You’re funny and make great jokes, you’re amazing at singing and you’re very educated in history. You also are very handsome, I personally think that’s the best talent.” Harry was almost scared to look at Niall, but his whole body felt like it was going to melt right off the bench when he heard Niall giggle and move his hand up to push his glasses back up the bridge of his nose, an action that he usually did when he was flattered.

“Harry…” Niall trailed off, still sounding shaken by Harry’s kind words. But he regained himself, shuffling against the bench seat and making sure Harry had his full attention. “Why don’t you uh, ask me again?”

Harry didn’t get it at first, just stared at Niall with a pout across his face and brows furrowed. But then it all clicked into place, his whole body stiffening and the palms of his hands growing sweaty. Niall was asking him to ask again, and now he knew exactly what he meant.

“Uh-uhm…uh…Niall, would you like to go out for dinner sometime?” He cursed at himself, what a lame way to ask Niall out with all his stupid stuttering and 'uhms.’

But Niall didn’t look at all disinterested, he was slowly showing the winning smile, and was now nodding silently and letting a short pause flow over them before he answered. “Of course I will, you’ve won me over.”

#narry #narry fanfiction #narry fluff #niall horan #harry styles #fics

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thewarlocksbitch · 7 years ago

Text

I will be your: hands, eyes, heart

prev - chapter 3 - next

word count - 4.9k

thank you to chloe for beta editing

read it on ao3

Adam woke sometime after twelve on Sunday. He couldn't remember sleeping in so late since during the summertime back at home, and even then it had been interrupted by raised voices and slamming doors.

He sat up, causing a textbook and some papers to slide to the floor. Wearily, he bent down to pick them up, his movements and thoughts hazy and uncoordinated with sleep. He looked over the assignments in his hands. Had he finished them last night? Yes…

“Adam!” Noah said, suddenly an inch from Adam’s face, leaning over the bed. “Good morning, roomie! Friend! Parrish!”

“Hey,” Adam said, voice slow. He leaned back, trying to focus on his roommate. “Noah.”

Noah grinned and backed away until his legs hit his bed and he plopped down onto it. He laid sideways and rubbed his flyaway, colorless hair into his pillow, his eyes closed like a little kid’s.

Adam shivered as the sheets slid from him and he pulled his blanket around himself. "I asked the residential director about the drafts in here the other day, but she said we're probably just sensitive to it or something, since all the dorms share the same heating system." "Sorry," said Noah meekly, his hands fitful over his arms.

"It's not your fault," Adam said dismissively, but he felt all at once uneasy. He hated it when people apologized to him for things they weren't at fault for. It made him feel like he was higher than them, and threatening. Which was to say, it made him feel like his father.

“My pillows at home were softer,” Noah said suddenly. “My blankets, too. And I had a dog I slept with. She was so warm. Like a heater!” Noah pressed his entire face into his pillow so that his voice became muffled. “You were up so late last night. I actually tried counting sheep. Not ‘cause I was trying to fall asleep but because my eyes were closed and I don't have eye-clocks, so, you know.”

“I was just trying to finish an essay and-” Adam had to check the papers in his hands again to remember what they were on “-some history.”

“Cool! Smart student!” Noah exclaimed. “Do you want to go to the park? Or something! I have no plans at all. I wanted to skate, but…” Noah trailed off as he often did. He was quiet for a moment, then began to hum something that sounded like ‘Puff the Magic Dragon’.

Adam pressed his elbows into his thighs and his palms into his eyes, taking a moment to just think. He’d spent half of yesterday working and the other half studying. The endless hours had paid off. He could afford to let himself relax a little today.

He dropped his hands to look at Noah, who was now tugging on tennis shoes. This Noah was a wholly different person to the Noah that had slouched in last night, disappeared into the bathroom for thirty minutes, and then climbed into bed without a word.

For a while now Adam had wondered if Noah was bipolar. Now he began to consider whether Noah was medicated or not, and if he needed to be. There had to be something to regulate him besides marijuana and street racing and meditation circles.

Noah finished with his shoes and looked up at Adam. “Have you eaten yet? No, you haven't, you just woke up. Wanna go grab something?”

Eating with Noah was one of Adam’s least favorite things, because it was always either Adam eating by himself while Noah rattled on about everything in the world or while he sat there silently and stared into space. Adam didn't mind the company, but the fact that Noah never ate around him bothered him a little. He was always trying to take care of Adam but Adam never seemed able to take care of him.

They ended up walking to the Green - a protein bar in Adam’s hand and a thick blanket in Noah’s - where students lazed and threw frisbees for dogs and participated in group yoga.

Noah spread the blanket under a tree while Adam munched on his protein bar. He grabbed Adam’s bag from him to weigh down one corner, then took off his own shoes to weigh down two more. He sat on the last corner with a satisfied oof and threw his hands up in the air. “There!” he said. “Oh, we should get a dog.”

Adam followed Noah’s gaze to where two girls lay in the grass together, matching sunglasses covering their faces and a fat, panting mutt spread across their stomachs.

It was an impractical idea, but still Adam smiled as he sat down next to Noah. “What kind?” he asked. He toed his shoes off and stuffed the wrapper from the protein bar into his pocket.

Noah thought for a moment, then he pointed to a dog across the lawn that was rolling in the grass and seemed to be in a state of ecstasy. “One like that. I’d name her Godzilla.”

The dog did not seem to Adam anything special or fear-inspiring, but he nodded and laid back on the blanket. He closed his eyes and tipped his head back to let the shadows of leaves run over his face, to let the wind breathe across his shirt. He became so distracted by the calming feeling of the air around him that he didn't realize Noah had stopped talking. He looked over to see that he had laid down beside him and was staring up at the tree looming over them.

“It's nice, isn't it?” Noah said. “Taking time to chill out.”

Adam nodded. He'd worked enough yesterday that he didn't have to worry about making money today, but he did want a safety net of some extra credits. Noah never seemed to worry about school, but Adam could never stop. “I’m working in a few hours,” he told Noah. “At my TA job.”

“You can go to sleep. I’ll wake you up.” Noah promised him.

Adam closed his eyes again.

Ronan raced and drank all of Saturday – this was momentarily interrupted by Declan’s Volvo pulling into his and Gansey’s driveway unannounced – and spent Sunday with his brothers: the morning at St. Agnes church with Declan and Matthew and the afternoon and night with Gansey exploring and playing Mario Kart.

He drove himself to campus on Monday morning by sheer force of will. He didn’t want to go to class, but staring out the window while some poor professor droned on for an hour or two was better than dealing with Declan’s surprise visits. I’m in class, Ronan took the time to text him, so don’t fucking come over.

Ronan shut his phone off as soon as the text sent and shoved it deep in his bag. Declan hadn't always been the controlling, tense and tie-choked man he was today, but since Niall Lynch’s death he'd taken it upon himself to carry the entire family, even though a certain passenger had been unwilling. Ronan hated him for it. Their mother dying two years ago only made him hate Declan more.

Campus was sprawling and alive, all green hills and old brick buildings, the scholar’s version of Niall Lynch’s Barns. It reminded Ronan not fondly of Aglionby, except now the real world felt much closer than it had then and Gansey wasn't at his side as often. Here he wasn't Ronan Lynch, dreamer, and he wasn't Ronan Lynch, best friend of whoop whoop Gansey boy! He was Ronan Lynch, student. One angry, hateful student among thousands.

Ronan crossed a section of too-green grass. At Aglionby, his bag had banged against his hip, full of books he despised. His tie had choked him until Gansey looked away long enough for him to loosen it.

Here, he wore jeans and a tank and carried the bare minimum in his arms or pockets. And Gansey didn't have classes on Monday’s, so he was completely and horribly alone.

Ronan pushed his way through the double doors of a weather-worn brick building and immediately turned right to take a staircase up. He skipped the last two steps to the first landing and threw his weight against the heavy metal door. It closed behind him with a satisfying bang.

The hall was beginning to empty as students ended conversations and got to their respective classrooms, but there were enough still in the hall that Ronan bumped into them a good deal.

He followed Gansey’s map with more attention than he need have. He shoved it into his pocket for safekeeping when he reached the right room. As he passed the professor's desk he saw a vase of familiar flowers, with the store card still nestled in the middle of them.

Ronan looked from the desk to the rows of students and found the dirt-colored kid in the front row, just like in Latin. Sitting there in his faded t-shirt and scuffed sneakers and with his pen at the ready over a sheet of clean, pristine-looking paper. Again.

Ronan dropped his bag under the desk next to him and threw himself into it. The dirt-colored kid didn't look over at this disturbance.

Ronan leaned far back in his chair. He tilted his head back and towards him, unsure why he wanted so badly to bother him but just knowing he did. His face was interesting, but Ronan had already seen a lot of interesting things. His features were delicate, and Ronan was not skilled with delicate things.

Students still poured into the room in a steady, unending stream. Ronan caught glimpses of perfectly knotted ties, watches as expensive as his own but ten years newer, smiles schooled amiably. Why, he asked his father, did you make me come here? Here, of all places?

Ronan looked back to the dirt-colored kid. He was different than all of the other students, and although he hid it well it betrayed him in the smallest of details: the fray on the shoulder of his jacket that could only come from years of use, the cheap plastic watch on his thin-boned wrist, the lack of rigid, princely posture in his spine.

Ronan thought back to the way his mouth had tightened at the shop, when Ronan had finished calculating his total. The careful way he clipped his accent when offering an answer. The concerned furrow of his pale, thin brows. This was a person that stood separate from others with just a few mannerisms, someone who had a history with some weight to it.

Someone, Ronan thought, that Gansey would like.

"So, you're dating the professor?” Ronan asked him.

It took him a moment to realize Ronan was speaking to him , and when he turned to face Ronan he looked slightly affronted.

“No,” he said. “I’m not.”

Ronan didn't say anything in reply because a scholarly looking girl had come up and she slapped papers on the guy’s desk.

“Adam,” she said, pointing at the papers with much more enthusiasm than Ronan had expected to see in a lecture hall. “Look at this! I haven't gotten a grade this good all semester. You're a genius.”

He - Adam - smiled up at her. “I’m glad I could help.” That accent was definitely from Henrietta.

Ronan waited until the girl was gone to ask, “What's a genius doing kissing up to a teacher?” Usually he wouldn't care. Usually he'd say nothing and be done with this. Usually.

“It's none of your business.”

This was where Gansey would apologize, and rephrase the question in a kinder way. But Ronan was not Gansey.

He turned away without a word and took his notebook out, but he didn't write down a single word the entire lecture.

That Thursday night Ronan received a text from Kavinsky: racing with some highschool kids. wanna come? Not on my seats though

Ronan felt an unclean kind of pleasure run through him. So soon after losing to him Kavinsky wanted another go. He’d been the same in high school, and he was the same now, except he'd moved mansions and graduated to harder drugs instead of a harder curriculum.

Ronan locked Chainsaw in her cage and toed his shoes on. Kavinsky would never learn.

He was quiet when he closed his bedroom door behind him, but it was in vain; Gansey was sitting cross-legged and awake in the middle of the living room floor, his flannel pajama pants bunched up around his bare ankles and his hands preoccupied with rebuilding his miniature Henrietta.

Gansey looked up. He was working on a flimsy and unimportant looking office building and looked more tired than usual. The bags under his eyes seemed like they were getting very comfortable.

Ronan paused just outside his door. Gansey frowned. It was killing him as much as it was killing Ronan to be away from home.

Gansey said, “Don’t race tonight.”

It was more than enough to make Ronan stop.

Gansey knew what it meant when Ronan disappeared at night and came back smelling of adrenaline and burnt rubber, but he usually pretended he didn't. He'd figured out sometime in their junior year of high school that it was something Ronan needed.

Him so blatantly asking Ronan to abstain was enough to make Ronan tuck his phone back into his pocket. He carefully picked his way through the miniature town until he reached Gansey at the heart of it.

He kicked at Gansey’s foot. “You wanna do something then? You've been rebuilding your beloved girlfriend for hours.”

Gansey blinked up at him, his brown eyes quizzical behind wireframes. “I haven't, really.”

“Let’s go to a bar,” Ronan said.

“We’re both underage. And I don’t think you should use your dreamt fake ID’s, even if they are perfect.”

“Let’s go to the park, then,” Ronan countered.

“Really.” Gansey was smiling; Ronan was not the type to stargaze amongst old people and teenage couples as an orchestrated pastime, and Gansey knew that better than anyone else. Ronan scrubbed a hand over the back of his shaved head. “Then do you want to go with me to the tattoo place? On Cervantes? It’s open late.”

Gansey frowned as he fixed a cardboard door and then fixed it again. “Are you getting more work done on your back?” he asked.

Ronan kicked Gansey a second time, too awake to stay still. “Fuck no,” he said. “I was just thinking about getting a flower on my thumb. Or something.”

Ganseys voice was dry. “You’ve really found your calling catering to old ladies, haven't you.”

Ronan shrugged. “Whatever. It pays the bills. You coming?”

Gansey was quiet for a moment. Then he took off his wireframes and set them down in the parking lot of Monmouth Manufacturing. “Just let me get dressed.”

After spending a few hours at his teacher's assistant job Adam ended up going to the parlor anyways.

The night shift was nothing to complain about, and since he'd finished his homework and studying earlier he had no reason to go back to the dorm except to shower and sleep.

He ended up doing a few small ink jobs and cleaning up behind the counter. His boss was nowhere to be found, as were most of the other artists. Adam was just rearranging the basket of pens for the hundredth time when two familiar looking teenagers walked in.

The first was familiar because he looked just like every other rich student in Adam’s classrooms: a clean haircut, pressed khakis, a brand-name shirt gripping his shoulders and chest in all of the right places. A bright smile that knew it had your vote. He stepped in first and looked around the parlor, one hand beckoning the second boy in after him like he was conducting traffic.

The second was familiar because he was the angry voice from Latin. The surly flower shop clerk. The self-assured sneer from Physics.

Adam watched the shaved-headed boy look around the parlor, and then slowly at Adam himself. He set all of the pens down and crossed his arms over the counter, and he waited.

He kept his gaze on the shaved-headed boy but the presidential one reached him first. He set his hands flat on the counter and instead of looking at Adam he leaned back, back, back, looking up at all of the sketched designs of tattoos and photos of satisfied customers. When he finally brought his eyes back to Adam they were bright with excitement.

The second teenager elbowed his way in before the President could make a speech. “Coincidence,” he said, more to the President than to Adam. “The professor’s boyfriend works here.”

He was wearing a plain black tank tonight, and Adam could easily see parts of his tattoo peeking out above his collar and under his arms. On his nape was a flower, or perhaps it was a thorn. Curling around his shoulder was a deadly looking frenzy of claws and teeth and horns.

“You two know each other?” The President asked. Adam hadn't been watching him, so he didn't know when his face had switched from joyful to polite. The two emotions presented almost the same, so the switch wasn't obvious. But Adam had grown up being careful about what parts of himself he gave to the public, so he knew what a face looked like when it was hiding something.

“ We’re in some classes together,” the other boy said, at the same time that Adam said, “He sold me flowers.”

“Oh!” The President smiled sideways at his friend before looking back at Adam. “So you're the one who put him in such a sour mood after Latin.”

“Yes,” Adam said, unable to help but smile. It was like a trigger reaction. Like he'd breathed it in. “That would be me.”

“Ronan’s used to being uncontested in Latin, but he's been slacking off lately and has consequently fallen behind, so you'll have to forgive him for any aggressiveness or ill intent.” The President extended a hand over the counter. With it came the sharp scent of mint. “I’m Gansey.”

So the both of them had names now. Adam shook Gansey’s hand, once, firmly. “Adam.”

He dropped Gansey’s hand and retreated to the other side of the counter. He tapped the keyboard to get the computer to wake up and then looked at the two boys.

“I’m guessing it's Ronan getting inked tonight,” Adam said, not really a question.

“He really is a genius,” Ronan said nastily.

Before Adam could become annoyed, Gansey interjected, “Yes, it’s Ronan. Not me. I’m just here to watch and to make sure he doesn't get anything distasteful.”

Distasteful, Adam thought, looking at all of Ronan’s barbed wires and Gansey’s smooth demeanor. He wondered how Gansey so easily avoided being cut.

Adam began to set up their walk-in session on the computer. He offered Ronan the waiver of consent and Ronan signed the appropriate lines without reading any of it. “What do you want?” he asked Ronan. “There's enough artists free that you can get started now.”

Ronan shrugged. He held up his hand. Adam glimpsed raised silver scars disappear beneath leather bracelets as they slid down his wrist. “I was thinking of getting a flower, a small one on my thumb or something.”

“Oh,” Adam said, surprised. It wasn't that it was an unusual request, but because of his back tattoo and abrasive attitude he'd expected Ronan to want a sleeve or skulls at the least.

He tore off the corner of a receipt from the stack next to the keyboard and drew a quick flower. Usually it irritated him when customers came in unsure of what they wanted, but he wasn't as tired as he thought he'd be by now and he didn't have anything else to do anyways.

Adam held the sketch out to Ronan. “Something like that?” he asked.

Ronan shrugged again. “Yeah, that's good.”

Adam eyed his scribble again. “If you want a tattoo that simple, I can do it. If you're okay with that.”

“Oh, are you an artist here?” Gansey asked.

Adam finished setting the appointment up and tucked the receipt into his pocket. “I get paid for working the counter but I’m also an apprentice,” he said. “I do smaller jobs when they come up.”

Gansey nodded cordially, then turned a questioning gaze on Ronan. Ronan nodded back like he didn’t care all that much about a permanent addition to his skin. “You’re good enough for me.” he said.

Adam got up and led Ronan and Gansey to an empty chair in the back. He wanted to bristle at Ronan’s uncaring and dismissive attitude, but the way Gansey balanced out his hostility made him seem like the kind of person Adam wouldn’t mind knowing. Though, Adam supposed, it might make more sense to just befriend Gansey, since he seemed to be the more morally balanced of the two. There was something intimidating about Gansey’s easy smile, though; he seemed polished and faraway whereas Ronan was just another student, albeit a rude one.

Ronan got settled and Gansey asked Adam polite questions about work and school while Adam got his tools organized. Soon enough he had Adam confessing that he had a partial scholarship and worked two jobs to pay his end of it. Gansey seemed to like this, and telling him more didn't make Adam feel like he was losing something.

He told Gansey about the study groups, the extra hours, every grabbed opportunity. He told him about Noah. He told him why he'd bought the flowers. He told him about many things that made him Adam Parrish but nothing about how those things had come to be.

Adam left out the details on what had been his home, the reasons why he needed to work so hard to keep what he had. He left out too much for it to be considered a full truth but Gansey didn't push him for more.

When Gansey ran out of questions, Adam returned them. He learned that Gansey nor Ronan knew what they wanted to major as. He learned that Gansey owned a 73’ Camaro he called ‘Pig’ and loved fiercely. He learned that both Gansey and Ronan had gone to Aglionby, though he didn't share that he'd attended as well but for only freshman year. Gansey was overjoyed when he learned that Adam was from Henrietta, and politely interrupted Adam to ask him:

“What do you know about Welsh Kings?”

It was not the kind of question Adam would have expected from a boy like Gansey. His one year at Aglionby had taught him more in history than his three years at Mountain View High, but he remembered nothing about Welsh Kings from his classes.

He thought back to the rare few times he’d had enough free time to visit the local library, to the random books he'd perused for no purpose other than pleasure. There had been one book, The Kings and Queens of Wales, that Adam had read over the span of a few afternoons.

There was one king that had struck something in Adam, an enigmatic ruler whose life was surrounded by deceit and betrayal and obscurity. Maybe Adam remembered his story because the king had been unknowable and a runaway like Adam himself, because he seemed more human than most other historical figures. Maybe Adam only remembered him because he'd happened to get enough sleep the night before reading that particular chapter.

He grabbed onto this king. The earnest look on Gansey’s face had Adam not wanting to disappoint.

“Vortigern?” Adam said carefully. “All information about him is up to debate, but he was supposedly a Welsh warlord in the fifth century.”

Gansey, Adam thought, could not have looked more delighted, but Ronan snorted and said, “Try ten centuries later.”

Adam searched his mind for information on any fifteenth century Welsh Kings but came up blank. He shook his head, more at Ronan than Gansey, not that Ronan was paying him any attention.

“So there was this one noble,” Gansey began, “a medieval Welsh noble named Owen Glendower. He was the leader of the Welsh Revolt that fought the English for Welsh freedom. For years he was successful-”

Now Adam remembered. “Until he was captured and killed by the English.”

Gansey's smile could have blown Henrietta’s fuses . “That's one story, but I believe in another. I believe that he was never captured. I believe he only disappeared.”

“Disappeared to where?” Adam asked. He knew he was getting too distracted from his job but he couldn't help it - rather, he didn't want to; he so rarely let himself engage in meaningless conversation like this that he'd forgotten what it was like. He slowly organized his tools as he listened to Gansey, unable to feel disinterest when Gansey told him about Glendower’s unreal victories, the rumors of his impossible powers, and how he had disappeared into the northern mountains and escaped history with his men as if it all had happened just yesterday.

Adam would have thought Glendower disappearing was the end of Gansey’s interest, but Gansey continued.

“Have you heard of the legends of sleeping kings?”

Adam was beginning to feel somewhat left out of the educational loop, but Ronan said, “No one fucking has, Gansey.”

Gansey had the good grace to look embarrassed, but he went on, “There are legends that heroes like Arthur and Glendower aren't really dead, and are only sleeping in tombs underground, waiting to be woken up.”

Adam raised an eyebrow. He saw Ronan smirk in his peripheral vision.

“I believe Glendower’s body was brought to the New World,” Gansey went on. “Specifically here, in Virginia. I've spent the past six years researching him. I want to find him.”

“Gansey,” Ronan interrupted, “you're keeping him from making a living.”

Again Gansey looked embarrassed. Adam was quiet as he finished up getting his things together. When he was ready he showed Ronan the receipt again and asked where he wanted the tattoo.

“On my thumb,” Ronan said unhelpfully.

“Put your hand up here,” Adam said, tapping the arm of the chair. He repositioned Ronan’s hand until he had the perfect angle. He spread Ronan’s fingers, then tapped along Ronan’s thumb; the small space just beneath the knuckle, the lower inside corner where it connected to his palm.

“There,” Ronan said when Adam touched the end of his thumb, where the biggest part of the bone jutted out beneath the skin.

Adam accepted that without comment and pulled his gloves on. He disinfected the target area, then carefully sketched the flower there with a light stencil. He could feel Gansey’s keen attention when he glanced up at Ronan and asked, “Is this exactly how you want it?”

Ronan smirked as if Adam had told a joke. “There exactly.”

Adam nodded and got his needles and ink ready. The flower was simple line art, all thin, clean black lines and no color. It wouldn't take more than ten minutes to finish, and that was if he decided to be lazy.

Adam started to trace the design, the only sound between him and the other two boys the whirring of the needles and the occasional approving sound from Gansey. He checked and rechecked it as he traced the second petal, admiring how the simplicity of it was so delicate and drastically different to the ragged bracelets on Ronan’s wrist and the ink on his back and the fire in his eyes.

Gansey went quiet as the pen whirred louder, and Ronan looked away. Adam bent over his hand and held it steady with his own. He enjoyed the clean process of driving ink into skin, loved how this skill of keeping his hand steady let him live just a little easier. He was almost done. He just needed to pause here, spread Ronan’s fingers more, and finish tracing the curve of this last petal.

When Adam was finished, he let go of Ronan’s hand and set his tools aside. Ronan sat up to examine his hand, expressionless except for an arched brow. Gansey said nothing, but he seemed much more interested than Ronan from his vantage point over Ronan’s shoulder.

Ronan began to get up, his eyes still on his new tattoo.

“Wait a second,” Adam said. “I have to cover that.”

Ronan obediently sat back and Gansey watched attentively as Adam wrapped his hand. Once he had it taped in place he stood and preceded the other boys to the counter.

Adam tapped the keyboard to wake the monitor up and set it up to close Ronan’s appointment. Ronan handed Adam his credit card without even asking the price.

Adam rung him up and handed him back his card. One day, he told himself. One day.

“It was nice meeting you, Adam,” Gansey said, in the tone Adam would use on teachers or employers. This was Gansey finishing their interaction, like a businessman shaking your hand at the end of a meeting. From that polite tone, Adam knew he was nothing more to Gansey than his profession and the services he could offer.

“Likewise,” Adam replied.

Ronan had already taken the bandage off. He crumpled it in his hand and tossed it onto the counter. “See you in class,” he said.

As the door closed behind them, Adam heard Gansey say, “You’re actually going?"

#pynch #pynch fanfiction #trc fanfiction #the raven cycle #trc #pynch college au #vv #ive been really busy so im super late posting this #so i hope you guys like it!!! they finally TALK to each other!!!

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