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“Can we do something fun?” Harry sighs, mouth smacking sleepily as he lets his head flop down onto the table and his curls tumble over his ears. “I mean, any time with you is fun, but there’s, like, regular Louis fun, and then great Louis fun.” He blinks innocently up at Louis, lashes fluttering, and Louis rolls his eyes. “This is regular Louis fun.”
“Well, I was having great Harry fun, until you decided to start whinging, you wanker,” Louis smacks his arm, “Now guess again.”
The two of them were huddled over a table scattered with messily drawn Hangman puzzles, half of the little stick figures accented with dicks, smoking bowls of weed (compliment of Louis), and floral bandanas (compliment of Harry). Finished words like “Bunkbeds,” “Chicken,” “December,” and “Toothpaste” filled the little spaces.
“Remember, you’ve used up all your vowels.”
“Yeah, this puzzle has, like, one,” Harry whines, pouting as horribly as he can and sending fleeting glances toward Louis. Louis sticks his nose in the air, pointedly not looking at stupid Harry, because those stupid pink lips and those stupid green eyes and those stupid brown curls are not going to work. Not again. “Fine,” Harry grumbles after waiting a solid thirty seconds for Louis to take the bait, and when he doesn’t, the younger drops his chin into the crooks of his elbows and furrows his brow. “P.”
Louis smiles proudly, scratching the little letter into the third space and quickly looking up at Harry, knowing he has to see the word by now. Harry only frowns, nose scrunched (never adorable, ever) and mind reeling as he stares down at the three little letters and the empty space that follows. Louis’ breath hitches as he finally looks up, eyebrow cocked.
“What’s an ‘Oop?’”
And Louis is in love with a fucking idiot.
“Oh my God,” he mutters, head in his hands before he writes an S into the last blank.
“Oh!” Harry says, face lighting. “It says Oops!”Louis might cry.
“That one didn’t even fucking count,” he grumbles, tearing the paper from the notebook and setting it carefully onto the table. Harry groans as he begins drawing out a blank puzzle. “Here. This one’s easy. Two letters.”
“A,” Harry sighs. Louis scowls and writes the vowel in the corner of the page, drawing a little head from the hanging post below.
“Okay, okay,” Harry says hastily. “E.”
"No, sir," Louis murmurs, drawing a long line down from the bottom of the head. He adds an arm, as an afterthought.
"Hey, that's not fair!" Harry squawks, jaw dropping with indignation, and Louis snickers. "I," Harry adds. Louis finally sends him a little smile, something tight and sly on his mouth as he writes an I into the second space. Harry pauses, staring intently down at the single letter.
“…I…” he mumbles under his breath, lips moving around different words that don’t actually exist. “B…bi… Mmmi… Kah... Ki. Wait. Di… Ti? Fr- wait, no, that’s three letters, innit…”
Suddenly Louis’ heart is aching just a little too much, and he slides a hand quickly round Harry’s, murmuring, “Try an H, H.”
Harry looks up, grinning. “H?”
“Good guess,” Louis smiles, scrawling a little H into the first blank and tearing the page from the rings with another flourish. Hi. He sets it down beside the first puzzle. Harry’s eyes are moving slowly back and forth between the two, suddenly soft, and Louis burns red. “Okay,” he says loudly, scratching another blank puzzle out onto a new sheet of paper.
“Lou,” Harry groans.
“Just one more,” Louis swears, two fingers over his heart, and Harry sighs again, pout fuller than ever.
“Fine,” he says glumly. “But then you’re taking me out for ice cream. You promised,” he reminds him, and Louis rolls his eyes before tapping the edge of his pen on the page. “A.” Harry says.
“You guess that first every time,” Louis shakes his head, but he traces a single A into the third word, nonetheless.
“Cause it’s a good letter,” Harry says smugly, looking about six years old, and Louis can’t bring himself to tell him off. “I,” he adds, plowing on with the vowels, and Louis shyly fills the second space. “O.” Harry says, predictably, and Louis writes an O into the second word.
“I’m getting bored, Lou,” Harry whines, slumping dramatically over the table and sending a few pencils rolling to the floor. By now, he’s gone through most of the vowels (“Y is sometimes a vowel, and therefore it is a vowel, Lou. You know it is.”) and quite a few consonants - of course, picking the least likely to ever show up, like Q and Z. “Why’d you make such a long one? The ice cream shoppe’s gonna close soon.”
“Maybe if you’d stop guessing ’Kill the fascist regime,’ you’d figure it out,” Louis huffs. “Where did you even come up with that? Where could you possibly spell ‘fascist’ in here?”
“Well bloody excuse me for respecting the importance of democracy,” Harry sulks, making a horrid face at Louis.
“Whatever,” Louis sighs, trying very hard not to laugh as he nudges the paper toward Harry once more. “C’mon, you’ve only got three blanks left, and your man has two arms. Keep going.”
“Fine,” Harry moans for the nine hundred and seventy-sixth time that evening, and he squishes his cheek desolately against the wood of the table, barely able to see through squinting eyes. “M.”
“There you are,” Louis smiles and writes the letter in, “Now turn it upside down.” Harry has to actually think about this for a moment before he chirps, “W.”
Louis’ heart is beginning to beat faster and faster, and he bites his lip tight as he writes one of the last letters into the first blank. “Go on,” He murmurs, and Harry whines, long and childish before he pouts up at Louis once more, clearly hopefully it will work this time. It does, it really does, but there’s something on Louis’ mind a that’s a little more important than ice cream, if he dares.
“Lou,” Harry drones, rocking back on the legs of his chair, “C'mon, I hate hangman.”
“Haz,” Louis says, biting back his chuckles. “You’ve got one blank left, look at the bloody thing.”
“L’never figure it out,” Harry grumbles, turning to scowl down at the notebook. “It’s just—”
W I L L Y O U M A R R Y M __
Harry freezes.
About time, Louis thinks, but suddenly he can’t quite hear over the pounding in his ears, and it feels like his stomach has vanished when Harry slowly looks up at him, eyes wide.
“Lou?” he finally croaks, just a little whisper, and his hands shake around the edge of the table.
It seems like someone else is moving Louis’ arms for him, tugging little strings as his fingers gently tear the incomplete puzzle from the notebook and set it down beside the first two.
“Look here,” Louis says gently, sliding the paper reading “Oops” into his palm. “This,” he murmurs, and damn it, he will not cry. “Is the first thing you ever said me.”
“Yeah,” Harry whispers, face still solid with those parted lips and round eyes, growing wider and wider with every moment. “I…” he coughs, “I’d gotten soap all over you.”
“You did,” Louis laughs, and no, it is not tearful, thank you very much. “And if it had been anyone else, I probably would have socked them in the gut, but it was you, and you had those curls and that smile and that voice and those green fucking eyes, and all I could say was—”
“Hi,” Harry breaths, voice cracking, and shit, Louis might have promised himself he that he won’t cry, but Harry said no such thing. Louis nods, throat aching and tight as he lifts the paper reading “Bunkbeds.”
“This,” he said, pointing shakily, “Is where you kissed me for the first time. D’you remember?” Harry purses his lips, eyes glazed as he nods. “We were in the band’s room in the Contestants’ House, up on your bed, and out of the blue you took my hand and said, ‘Have you ever kissed a Harry Styles before?’”
Harry laughs, and when Louis sees the tears on the ends of his eyelashes, any promises he may or may not have made moments ago fly out the window, and suddenly his own eyes are swimming.
“You said no,” he murmurs thickly, “And I said, ‘Thank God, I was worried I wouldn’t be your first.’”
“I don’t know why I didn’t run then, after that go,” Louis grins, dragging his knuckles over his cheeks, and Harry smiles, mumbling a soft “Sh’dup,” into his sleeve. Instead, Louis slides the fourth paper across the table, damp fingers soaking the thin sheet with salt and blurring the ink.
“This was our first date, I believe,” He says, and Harry nods, peering wetly over the peak of his hand, pushing tightly at his mouth.
“You cooked for me,” he snivels, “Chicken wrapped in parma ham, stuffed with mozzarella, and—”
“And served with a side of homemade mash,” Louis beams, “You would make me dinner every single night on the show, all I wanted was to do the same for you, one of those days. Tasted awful, truthfully, but…”
“It was wonderful,” Harry shakes his head, eyes sore. “The fucking candles and the roses…”
“Niall kept trying to watch from the sitting room, remember?” Louis smiles, and Harry laughs. “Mind you, must have been quite a sight.”
He shakily pushes the paper toward Harry and scoops up a fifth puzzle. December.
“What’s December?” Harry asks, sending another few shining trails down his stupidly long and pretty nose as he blinks, and Louis flushes.
“The first time you told me that you loved me.”
“Oh,” Harry breaths, lip trembling, and Louis swallows around the lump in his throat.
“It was Christmas, yeah?” he whispers, and Harry nods, lips bitten raw.
“We were supposed to be on holiday with our families,” he says wryly, turning pink as peers shyly up at Louis, “But you couldn’t go three days without seeing me again.”
“Of course I couldn’t,” Louis says softly, threading their fingers anxiously together, “I’ve never stood a chance with you, love.” He runs his thumb over the little white crescent in Harry’s palm, the scar he’d gotten when he’d tripped over his own feet in the garage and grabbed the sole of an ice-skate—an ice-skate—to catch his fall. “I’d tried shamelessly to woo you, you know,” Louis adds, watery grin on his lips, “I’d found this little green plant and hung it from a ceiling lamp with red ribbon.”
“I know,” Harry giggles, mopping at his eyes. “Tried to convince me it was mistletoe.”
“Thought it’d work, too,” Louis insists, “But you took it down, sat me in the sitting room, and took half an hour to explain the differences between mistletoe and holly.” He smiles. “You know, you’re the only person I know who can talk about hemiparasitic shrubs without boring me to tears.”
“I think,” Harry sniffles, face wet, “I think that might just be a you thing.”
“I hope so,” Louis prays, “Because I don’t ever want to share you with anyone else.”
He slides another puzzle into his free hand, fingers carefully cupping the edges. He looks up at Harry. “Do you remember last month, when we went camping with Niall and Greg, and you were bitten by all those mosquitoes?”
“Yes,” Harry sighs, laughing as he lifts his arms to peer at the little red bumps that haven’t quite faded. “I tried everything to get rid of the itch.”
“I know you did,” Louis smiles, smiles so bright and so fond he feels his face might split. “I came home one night to see you standing in the middle of the toilet covered head-to-toe in—”
“Toothpaste,” Harry giggles, raising a hand to rub his knuckles into his eyes.
“Yes,” Louis laughs. “Not only was it all over you, but it was all over the bloody bathroom too! The counter, the floor, the tub, the walls... It was a mess.” Harry smiles. “And as you stared up at me with the silliest look on your face and toothpaste matted in your hair, all I could think,” Louis’ fingers squeezed Harry’s tight, “Was that this is what I want for the rest of my life.”
Harry weeps silently into his fingers as Louis lifts the last puzzle into his hand, sets it gently in front of Harry. The “Me” is still missing an E.
“This isn’t just a question from me, Haz,” Louis whispers, and suddenly he’s finding it so, so difficult to speak through his tight throat, through the thick tears brimming behind his eyes, “It’s a promise to you.” Harry’s lip quivers. “I promise,” Louis says, “That you’ll never live a day by yourself in your life, because I’ll always be next to you. You’ll never be lonely, because I’ll always be there. You’ll never be cold, because I’ll always keep you warm, and if you’re ever sad, I’ll do whatever it takes to make you happy, because that’s all I want, Harry. That’s all I ever wanted since I set foot in that bathroom and saw everything I’ve been waiting for.”
And he slides his hand into his breast pocket, where the little silver band has been waiting, burning against his chest like light. Stifling a quiet sob, Harry lets his right hand drop from his chin and slides it slowly across the table.
“Is…” Louis chokes, clearing his throat and blinking through the moisture hiding in his lashes, “Is that a yes, love?” Harry doesn’t seem to be able to anything but nod, quick and certain, and Louis smiles, face crumbling as he takes Harry’s hand in his. He’s shaking so badly that it takes a couple of tries to finally slide the little thing over his finger, but when he does, nothing seems to matter but that it’s Louis’ ring on Harry’s hand, and suddenly he feels quite light, like his insides have disappeared and are floating away.
Well, he thinks as Harry reaches for Louis and lifts him into his lap, kissing him softly, he knows where his heart has gone.
He feels it beat fast and light in Harry’s chest, feels it thrum like wings in Harry’s pulse, feels it beat in every warm touch, every warm whisper of “Love you, love you so much, Lou,” as Louis slides the pen into his hand and writes a little E into the last blank.
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