we are the crossroads [two]

[brojan]

[one]

The bus is on the way back to London for a series of shows there before they go abroad. It’s always nice to be in London, especially when they’re working, because then Harry gets to sleep in his own bed and still have the stage and the lights and the music and it’s like he has almost everything he could want.

He’s not paying attention, texting on his phone when he pushes into the back lounge of the bus. It’s quiet, so he’s surprised to look up and see Louis and Liam are there. Louis and Liam are never quiet in a room together.

Louis’s sitting on the couch and Liam’s laying down, her head in Louis’s lap. Louis’s stroking her hair and Liam is staring off into space.

Harry stops in the doorway. “You all right?” he asks, speaking to either of them or both of them.

Louis looks at him and then down at Liam. She keeps staring into space like she hasn’t heard him at all.

“What’s going on?” he asks, his brow furrowing.

“We’ve got X Factor tomorrow,” Louis says, keeping her voice light, her hand never stopping against Liam’s head. She’s wearing neon pink nail polish and it’s chipped badly. He watches the color running through the short hair on the side of Liam’s head until the words sink in.

“Oh,” he says then. He should have realized, one of them should have realized - he supposes Liam knew it was coming, but of course she wouldn’t say anything.

Liam’s gaze finally shifts and she meets his eyes. “He texted me,” she says blankly. She blinks.

Harry leans against the doorway then. “Oh?” he says again, and Liam reaches beneath herself, pulling the phone out from where she’d obviously wedged it, as if she didn’t want to deal with it. He walks over to grab it and sure enough, there it is, a text from Danny, the first for almost five weeks.

Miss you all the time. Can we have dinner before the show? Xxxx

There’s no reply.

“Oh,” Harry says, yet again, and hands the phone back. Louis glares at him, but Liam doesn’t seem to notice. He settles on the couch a few feet away from them. “What are you going to do?”

Liam goes back to gazing off somewhere into the distance, but her foot is tapping against the seat and it gives away her anxiety. “Dunno,” she says finally. “Niall says it means he wants to get back together.”

“I said that too,” Louis says, slapping her lightly. Liam smiles then, but it feels odd and out of place.

“Niall speaks boy, though,” Liam points out.

“I speak boy,” Harry interjects.

“Oh, Harry,” says Louis.

Harry ignores her. “Do you want to get back together with him?” he asks. His fist is clenched beside him and he stretches his fingers carefully, then pushes them into his thigh, one by one.

Liam stares awhile longer. “Dunno,” she says finally, detached, and Harry hears that it also means maybe.

“Going to dinner doesn’t mean you have to say yes to getting back together,” Louis points out.

“But you don’t have to say yes to dinner, either,” Harry puts in. Only Louis looks at him, and her gaze is sharp, but she doesn’t respond.

“I know,” Liam says, and it’s not clear to which of them it’s directed. She turns on to her back, stretching. “Okay, I’d literally rather talk about anything else, so let’s do that.”

Louis starts telling her a story, but Harry isn’t listening. Liam’s foot is still bouncing wildly against the seat and he reaches out, wraps a hand around it, stilling it. She looks at him and doesn’t move.

They have a string of interviews before X Factor, so they have a hotel room to chill in during the downtime. Harry’s last interview of the day finishes and he heads over there to see who’s around for dinner before they go to the studio - to see if Liam’s around for dinner before they go to the studio.

She is in the hotel room, but in the bathroom, leaned over the counter and dusting eyeshadow on her lid. “Bugger,” she says, glancing over at him through the mirror, where he’s leaning in the doorway. “I keep smudging it.”

“So you’re going, I take it,” he says, not beating around the bush.

She glances at him again before she closes one eye and lifts the brush. “I’m going,” she says. “Louis and Zayn voted yes, Niall voted no, you didn’t say for sure but I suspect you’re a no - so I had to decide myself.” She pauses to pout at him in the mirror. “Hate when that happens.”

Harry just watches her, not giving anything away. “And you voted yes.”

She puts the brush down, blinks at herself and uses a tissue to wipe under her eye. She looks amazing, but Harry’s used to that. “Yes to dinner,” she clarifies. “Just dinner.” She looks herself in the eye in the mirror when she says that, like she’s trying to convince someone - and Harry can already see what’s going to happen. Because she’s so kind, and lovely, and she loved Danny - maybe still loves him - and if he asks for a second chance she’ll want to give him one.

And maybe that’s the right thing after all.

That doesn’t mean Harry has to like it. “I hope you get a lovely free dinner and tell him to go fuck himself,” he tells her, and her laugh is surprised and delighted.

“I’ll take that into consideration, Styles,” she says, grinning at him by way of the mirror, and he loves her so much in that moment. Whether she takes Danny back or not, she’s smart and amazing and she’ll find a way to be happy, Harry knows.

Harry sighs and pushes off the doorframe. “Well, I hope it goes okay,” he says, because he really does. “Call if you need anything.”

She’s fussing with her hair, but she pauses and finally turns, looking at him straight on, not through the mirror. “Think I’ll be all right,” she says lightly. “But thanks.”

He starts to go, and then he turns back, and Liam looks over her shoulder, her eyebrows raised like she’s waiting for him.

“Liam,” he says. He smiles at her, genuinely, and she smiles back automatically. “You look really, really beautiful,” he tells her, and he doesn’t wait for her to respond before he closes the door as quietly as he can.

They’re backstage at X Factor, waiting to go on - but they’re not ready, because Liam’s late.

Liam’s never late.

“The bloody show’s already started,” Harry grumbles, kicking the leg of Niall’s chair. “How can the cameraman not be here?”

Niall doesn’t even look up from his magazine, just scoots his chair away from Harry’s reach. “I’m sure she’ll be here, Harry,” Zayn says from across the room. “It’s Liam.”

I know it’s Liam, Harry thinks to himself crossly. That’s the problem.

“He’s irresponsible, that’s what it is,” Harry says to no one. He rubs at his jeans and stretches his neck out, feeling impossibly tight. “With his job, and with Liam too.”

When he looks up, Louis is the only one paying attention to him, giving him a considering look. As soon as she sees him looking back, her face lightens.

“And you’re so responsible,” she says, teasing.

Harry frowns and grips his knees. “I am when it’s important,” he says, and Louis doesn’t argue.

He hears Liam before he sees her, footsteps pounding against the tiled hallway and then she’s skidding into the room, gasping for breath. “I’m here,” she says, bent over and resting her hands on her knees. “Where’s hair and makeup, I’m here.”

Zayn points her in the right direction, and she disappears again, leaving Harry hanging on the edge of his seat. Then, she’s back, standing in the doorway. “Louis,” she hisses. “Come with.”

She didn’t ask for Harry. And so Harry waits.

She’s still in hair and makeup when the PA comes to get them. They’re hooking up Harry’s mic when the girls appear around a corner, huddled together, and they’re both laughing - Liam looks so happy, so, so happy. He hasn’t seen her look like that since before the breakup, and then he has his answer.

He keeps his head down, getting his mic pack situated. “45 seconds,” the PA says, pushing them into place where the stage will open for them. Liam’s next to him now, and he hazards a glance at her only to find her looking back. It’s dark but he can see her grin anyway.

“You all right?” he whispers. If it’s possible, her grin gets even bigger. Harry doesn’t know if he can do this.

“I’m wicked,” she whispers back.

“30 seconds,” the PA calls.

Harry takes a deep breath. “I’m glad you’re happy,” he says.

Liam looks at him for a beat and then laughs throatily. “Harry, I told him to go fuck himself,” she says.

Harry stares at her, because he can’t be understanding right. “You what?” he asks, and he feels his own smile spreading across his face to match hers.

“Well, not in quite those words,” she concedes. “But the same general idea.”

Harry glances forward, trying to believe the words he’s hearing. It doesn’t really change anything, he knows, but he has to take the small victories where he can find them.

“How did it feel?” he asks her, nudging her with his elbow. She nudges him back, giggling.

“15 seconds,” the PA says. “14, 13, 12…”

“It felt…” she says, and goes quiet, like she’s thinking.

“10, 9, 8, 7…”

She turns to him, grinning again. “Remember when I punched that guy?”

They’re still laughing when the lights go up.

They play three shows at the O2 Area and it’s the absolute craziest thing Harry’s ever seen in his life. It’s so big that even all lit up he can’t see all the faces, and he feels oddly guilty about it. The lights are so bright he feels like he’s burning up from the inside, so he does the only thing he knows how to, the only thing he’s ever been good at, which is to sing their songs and have the time of his life with his bandmates and try to make a roomful of strangers really happy, at least for a little while.

And at the end of the third night, it’s a strange sort of panic clawing in his chest, making him want to hold on with both hands, so they can’t make him leave, they can never make him leave… but his bandmates throw their arms around his shoulders, and he says, “Thank you, London, you’ve been absolutely amazing,” and he looks out over them and swears to himself that he will be back. That they’ll all be back, together.

On the last night, Liam’s having what she calls a “Goodbye, England,” after-party, and when it’s just the five of them backstage after the show, she tells them laughingly that it’s also an “I’m single and fabulous party.” Harry spins her around the room, dancing to the Temptations, tells her he’s been single and fabulous all these years and no one ever told him he should have a party, and she grins up at him, bright and shining, and tells him she’s always had better ideas than him.

Harry goes to get a bite to eat with his family first. They’re invited to Liam’s, too, but the band is flying to France the next day and Harry’s mum wants a last bit of quiet time with her only son, or so she tells him tearfully over kebabs.

The party is well in swing by the time Harry and his group get to her house. The last time Harry was here, Liam was in some kind of grief coma, slumped over her kitchen counter, and he grins to see her now, dancing on her own living room table, a plastic cup sloshing over the sides. One of Louis’s sisters is asleep in the coat closet, and Liam’s mum is playing beer pong in the backyard, and overall Harry is really proud of Liam for pulling on a decidedly epic goodbye-slash-I’m-single-and-fabulous party.

Harry finds himself a drink and deposits his family with the other mums, and then he finds Niall, strumming his guitar and looking sober as a monk except for the wayfarers over his eyes even though it’s the middle of the night.

He listens to Niall take requests from the crowd, playing some kind of mega mashup of Bon Jovi, Sublime, and Take That songs, and Harry does his part by holding Niall’s beer to his lips when he gets thirsty. When that gets old he finds Louis in the backyard sitting with some family around the firepit, and Zayn’s there too, presumably because no one yells at him for smoking there.

When he wanders back inside, Liam’s not on the table anymore. He finds her in the kitchen, her hair knotted on the top of her head, and she’s biting her tongue as she struggles to cut up more snacks.

“Hey there, whoa,” Harry says, sliding up behind her and taking the knife out of her hand. She furrows her brow at him, looking perplexed.

“Need more cheese and crackers,” she says.

“Let me help you,” he says, and he slices the cheese and lets her take care of the crackers. She’s humming softly, swaying around the kitchen and smiling to herself, and when she looks up and catches Harry watching, he smiles back.

“Cheese,” she orders him, but she’s grinning.

Things quiet down. Louis falls asleep in a pool chair and Harry covers her with a towel. Zayn’s been gone for hours, of course, and Niall’s got a FIFA tournament going and a pyramid of beer cans in front of him. And Liam, well, Harry hasn’t seen her for awhile, so when he decides it’s time to go and he stops by the loo one last time, he pokes his head in her room to see if she’s still up.

She’s wide awake, in fact, pawing frantically through a drawer with a furrowed look of concentration on her face.

“Liam?” he says to get her attention, and when she looks up she grins. “What are you doing?”

“I’m trying to find clothes for anyone who’s staying the night,” she says. “I know I must have something of Niall’s, but I…” she trails off and makes a face, shrugging. She gets to her feet, swaying a bit and giggling to herself. “Are you staying?”

He leans against the doorway. “No, I still have packing to do,” he says. “Just came to say goodnight.”

“Goodnight,” she says, and smiles, wide and unrestrained, tired and sincere. He can’t help but laugh at her, and she trots over to him, throws her arms around his shoulders, tucking her head against his neck. She smells like shampoo and whiskey and he pushes his face in her hair because he can.

“But don’t leave yet,” she says when she pulls away. “Help me, I need help.” She opens another drawer at the bottom of a different dresser, rifles through the clothes, throwing a t-shirt at Harry with a distracted, “Hold this, please.” Harry doesn’t feel especially helpful, but if she wants him to stand here and watch her, he will.

“Aha!” she says finally, reaching the bottom of the drawer. “Here’s - oh.” And on the oh, her triumphant tone drops, and it makes Harry steps closer, peering over her shoulder.

She’s got sweatpants in one hand, ones Harry recognizes as Niall’s, and in the other a picture frame, apparently pulled from the bottom of the drawer. Harry recognizes the picture too; Louis took it, backstage at X Factor, the night they’d made it to the finale. Liam’s sitting in Danny’s lap, wearing his jacket, grinning into the camera, makeup streaked down her cheeks from happy tears and glitter in her hair.

“Liam,” Harry says, because he doesn’t exactly know what to say. Her head is down, looking at the picture, and he can’t tell what she’s thinking at all.

She sits back, crossing her legs in front of her, and flips the frame over. “Help me get this off,” she says without looking up, so Harry sits in front of her, their knees touching, and helps her bend back the metal prongs holding the back of the frame in place.

“This is a nice frame,” she tells him, pulling the photo out and setting it aside, face down. “It needs a nice picture.”

“Yeah,” he agrees, and when she doesn’t move or say anything else for a moment, he puts a hand on her knee. She still hasn’t looked at him. “It’s okay if you miss him, Li.”

Liam snaps the back onto the frame and sets it aside, leaning back on her hands. Harry can finally see her and face and she looks - fine. Tired, a little sweaty, but not - not like she’s having a drunken breakdown like he’d been worrying.

“Sometimes I do,” she shrugs eventually, pulling a face. She chews on her lip. “And sometimes I don’t. Not even a little bit. Kinda feel bad about it, actually.”

Harry laughs then, squeezing her thigh. “That’s because you’re too good for this world,” he tells her, and his voice comes out embarrassingly fond. She notices, he can tell. Her smile freezes and she meets his eyes, blinking slowly like she’s thinking. The smile fades off her face. Harry pulls his hand back, wiping it on his own thigh and trying to smile convincingly.

“Anyway, if you’re quite finished -“ he starts to say, his tone light, shifting back to get up.

“Wait,” she says. Her tone is enough to stop him. “Wait,” she repeats, and she moves then, leaning towards him and getting to her knees so she’s above him, looking down, her hair falling like a curtain around her face.

Harry doesn’t know where to look. He looks at her lips, because they’re close and they’re fucking sexy, and then he looks at her eyes just to see where she’s looking, and she’s looking at him and getting closer, and she has one hand on his shoulder and the other on his neck, her fingers stroking the hair at the nape so gently, and when she’s close enough he can feel her breathing she pauses.

“Harry?” she says, softly, asking him something, he can feel it and it snaps him out of the haze. He looks up at her and she’s gorgeous, but also she’s been drinking, and she’s exhausted, and she just found a picture of her ex-first-love in her bottom drawer, and it makes him put his hands on her hips and stop her forward movement.

“Liam,” he says, and he pushes her back a little - he never thought this would happen, but if it did, he never thought it would be like this, never thought he would stop it - but it’s the right thing to do, he’s almost sure.

She blinks, her eyes wide, like she’s surprised, and then she’s pulling back so quickly his hands fall away uselessly.

“Oh God,” she says, low, and she scrambles to her feet. She turns away from him so he can’t see her face, and she’s moved so fast he’s still sitting there dumbly, his head turned up and his hands in the air, framing where her hips used to be.

She moves to stand at the window, back to him, and it’s silent. Harry lets his arms drop and watches her; the only movement is her shoulders, moving up and down as she breathes.

“Liam,” he starts to say, careful to keep his voice calm and neutral.

“No,” she says. He can see her cross her arms, holding each elbow with the opposite hand, her knuckles white with the grip. “Could you leave, please?” Her voice is light but forced, and for the life of him Harry can’t figure out what just happened or what she’s thinking.

He gets to his feet and takes an uncertain step toward her. She’s still faced away, but she says immediately, “Don’t, please,” and he stops.

“Liam,” he repeats, incredulous, and the only movement is the flex of her fingers, tighter against her arms.

“Okay,” he says then, because he doesn’t know what else to do. “Okay.” He reaches out, but he thinks better of it before he touches her and lets his arm drop. He walks backwards to the door, keeping his eyes on her the whole time, but she never gives anything away.

“Goodnight, Liam,” he says at the doorway. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” There’s no response, and he shuts the door behind him so that she knows he’s gone.

He makes it three steps down the hallway before he has to stop, his head spinning. He leans against the wall and closes his eyes, counts to three and then does it again before he slides down the wall, sinking into a crouch, his head in his hands.

Her door never opens. He knows, because he stays until his hands stop shaking.

Harry’s late to the airport. Once he’d gotten home from Liam’s he’d crawled straight into bed, packing the furthest thing from his mind, and then in the harsh morning light, he’d realized his bag for the rest of Europe consisted of two pairs of pants and a Barry Manilow t-shirt.

So he’s late. His car lingers outside, and he’s wary about who else might be in there, but when he finally pulls open the door it’s just for him. He’s alone.

He pulls out his phone on the drive over, and he has texts from everyone else in the band except Liam. Louis’s is from early this morning “could have put me inside, I’m covered in dew” and an angry emoji; Niall’s is from later on, telling Harry to remember to bring back his Boston snapback - Harry didn’t - and one from a few minutes ago from Zayn, “i beat you to the airport ahahaha x”

Harry opens a new text and scrolls to Liam’s name, but he doesn’t know what to say, so he just locks his phone and closes his eyes, leaning his head against the window and trying not to think about anything at all.

When Harry gets to the gate, Niall holds his hand out. “Snapback,” he says, when Harry stares at him blankly.

Harry drops his backpack on the ground. “Funny story, that,” he starts to say, and Niall groans.

“Don’t tell me a story,” he says. “Stealing my favorite snapback is enough.”

Harry laughs at him and sinks into the seat next to Zayn. Louis and Liam are curled up on the floor, using sweaters as pillows. Liam’s wearing a hoodie that Harry thinks is Zayn’s, and her arms are crossed over her chest. Her eyes are closed, but he can’t tell if she’s really sleeping.

Harry lays his head on Zayn’s shoulder. “Zayn,” he says pathetically, when Zayn doesn’t say anything. He’s got a comic in his lap, but he finally reaches up and pets Harry’s hair.

“How was the rest of the party?” Zayn asks casually, and Harry’s eyes immediately flick to Liam, but she doesn’t move.

Harry pushes his face the rest of the way into Zayn’s neck and mutters something incomprehensible. Zayn doesn’t ask.

Maybe Liam really is so tired that she sleeps until boarding, and then immediately falls back asleep before they even take off and doesn’t wake up until the land in Paris - but Harry’s never seen her do that before, and that’s including when they haven’t slept at all the night before. She sits next to Niall, anyway, behind Harry so he can’t even look at her, and as if she’s in on the whole thing Louis sits with Harry and uses him as a human pillow the entire flight, telling him he owes her on account of leaving her outside all night.

“You looked comfortable,” he protests, grimacing as her elbow digs in to what is surely a major organ.

“No, you’re just a lazy wanker,” she tells him, and moves his arm so it’s more comfortable for her. Harry pouts, but he lets her do what she wants; at least someone still likes him.

Finally, finally, when they get into their van at the airport, Harry maneuvers it so he’s sat next to Liam, in the middle seat in the back. Zayn is on his other side, and immediately curls back up to go to sleep. Liam doesn’t react to him at all, just leans her elbow on the window and stares out, her face creased with pillow lines.

Harry elbows her and leans in. “Hey,” he whispers.

She doesn’t move, but eventually he hears a quiet, “Hey,” in response.

He watches her in profile, Paris moving by quickly beyond her. “You’ve been sleepy this morning,” he notes, keeping his voice quiet.

She shrugs, so small he almost wouldn’t know if he wasn’t pressed up against her side.

He leans in, so his lips are almost against her ear, but not quite. “Rough night?” he asks.

For a moment she’s completely still, and he thinks maybe it was a mistake to joke, maybe she’ll think he’s making fun of her in a cruel way. He hopes she knows him better than that.

She huffs out a breath that’s almost a laugh and elbows him in the ribs. She still doesn’t look at him, but from the side he can see the corners of her mouth going up, even though she’s clearly fighting against it.

“Shut up,” she mutters, turning toward him but keeping her eyes down. “I’m embarrassed.”

Harry can’t stop grinning, the tension and fear in his chest finally loosening. He wants to hold her hand, wants to kiss her cheek, because she’s so goddamn cute, but the others would wonder and he knows this isn’t a story for them.

“Don’t be,” he says instead. He leans forward so his forehead is against her shoulder, and then pushes his hair into her face until she splutters and moves away, laughing quietly.

“Okay,” she says, and finally relaxes against him.

He throws an arm around her shoulders, and when she leans in he pushes his nose into her hair.

“I still think we should talk,” he whispers to her. She tenses up again and he tightens his grip on her shoulder.

“Fine,” she says, and she’s silent the rest of the ride.

It turns out he doesn’t get a chance to talk to her in Paris. They have lunch, and then they have an interview, and then soundcheck and then when he goes to find her before the show she’s out cold, curled into a couch in a back room and he doesn’t have the heart to wake her.

He doesn’t get her alone for almost two days, and it makes him want to crawl out of his skin, because she’s being - not herself. He catches her staring, looking dazed, and she doesn’t even pull his hair or tug on his clothes during his solos, and when she stands next to him in line at the end of the show to take a bow, her grip on his waist is barely there, and she pulls away as soon as she can.

The moment they check into the hotel in Madrid he’s at her door, and he doesn’t even know what he’s going to say, but it has to stop. Whatever it takes, it has to stop.

When she sees him, her face goes carefully blank. “Hey,” she says, and steps aside easily, but her body is thrumming with tension, he can feel it.

He walks in like he’s confident, because he’s gotten good at faking that in the last three years. Good at faking a lot of things. If he knew when he was younger that he’d turn out this way he might have done things differently, but you never do know, and here he is.

He sits on the bed and looks at Liam. She stays standing, between Harry and the door, and her return smile is tight and anxious.

“I’m sorry,” she bursts out with finally, her hands twisting. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

Harry can feel his heart slowing in his chest, tempered by disappointment. “What?” he asks.

“I know you must be worried,” she says. She tilts her head at him like she’s concerned about him, and that’s so Liam it’s painful. “That I’ll - that this will be weird. But it won’t, I promise you that. I was just - I was in a weird place.”

“You were in your bedroom,” Harry says dumbly.

She smiles at him again but it looks frustrated. “I’m sorry, Harry, Haz, I am.”

He look at her, studies her, and swallows. Her smile falters, tipping even further into frustration.

“Are you not going to let this go?” she asks finally.

“You tried to kiss me,” Harry says, and Liam flinches like he’s swung at her.

“And I said I’m sorry,” she says, her voice going high and pitchy. “Can’t we forget about it?”

Harry takes a deep breath and shakes his hair out, pushing it up and out of his eyes to steady himself. Liam waits quietly, which isn’t like her. “I don’t know if I can,” he tells her.

She huffs out a loud breath and her face goes absolutely stormy. “What are you trying to do, Harry?” she asks, her voice low and dangerous. “I am mortified,” she hisses. “Why are you trying to make me feel worse?”

Harry wasn’t expecting that. He blinks up at her, and she’s so tense, her fists curled into balls, shoulders drawn down like she’s trying to protect herself. He’s seen her like this before, but never towards him.

“Why would you be mortified?” he asks. “It’s me, Liam -“

“Why am I mortified?” she interrupts loudly, disbelieving. “You rejected me!”

Harry’s first instinct is to laugh. He’s able to bite it back, luckily, but it’s a close thing, and he nearly chokes instead, in utter disbelief at the way things have turned out.

“I rejected you?” he asks when he finds his voice. “Liam, you were drunk, you were exhausted, you were holding a picture of Dan in your hand for god’s sake -“

“I wasn’t that drunk,” she mutters, smoothing her hands down the front of her trousers like she’s trying to calm down. “This has nothing to do with Dan.”

“But, Liam,” he starts.

“But what?” she asks. She’s yelling now, her hands in the air, and Liam hardly ever yells, hardly ever gets really, really angry at him. “I don’t understand why you’re doing this,” and Jesus Christ, her face is crumpling, her breathing going ragged, and if Harry has seldom made her yell at him, he’s never made her cry.

It retrospect he thinks it’s the panic that makes him react the way he does. “What do you expect, Liam?” he asks, getting to his feet but not going to her. “For three years I haven’t been allowed to want you and then six weeks after Dan leaves, and this? I’ve got fucking whiplash, Liam, that’s what it is.” He means to be gentler than he is, but it doesn’t make a difference and it won’t. She doesn’t get it and she never has.

She wipes her eyes and throws her shoulders back, like she always does. He wishes he could tell if she’s pretending, but he can’t. “What?” she asks, and it comes out in a harsh whisper.

He crosses his arms over his chest in an attempt to keep himself from flying apart. Maybe he says it because she’s crying, or maybe just because it’s time, but he says it nonetheless, not thoughtlessly but deliberate. “I’m sorry if you think I rejected you,” he says slowly. “I don’t think I could if I wanted to, I don’t think I’d know how to do that, because I’ve wanted this - since I met you. Because I’m in love with you. And I’ve been in love with you. For a long time.”

She isn’t crying anymore; Harry can’t even tell if she’s breathing. She is staring, and then she sniffles a little, rubs her nose. “You’re having me on,” she says finally, but something in her voice gives away that she doesn’t really believe it’s a joke. He shakes his head anyway.

There are a lot of things he could say. He could say, I don’t know how to be allowed to feel this way, and maybe, go easy on me. He wants to say, I would do anything, anything, yes, anything. But he’s young and he’s scared and he has everything to lose, so he doesn’t say any of that at all.

He has to walk right by her to leave the room. She doesn’t try to stop him.

In his own room Harry lays on the bed and stares at the ceiling in the dark. He rests his hands on his ribcage, over his heart, and he looks at the ceiling and thinks about the other people who have laid in this exact place and looked at this exact ceiling. Newlyweds, maybe. Kids. Divorcees, mistresses, students, dying people, people in their saddest moments and people in their happiest.

When someone knocks on the door his heart almost beats out of his chest, half out of surprise and half out of anticipation, but when he pulls the door open it’s Louis and Niall standing there. Louis’s holding a bag of crisps and they’re both trying to get their fists in at the same time.

“Knock it off, Niall, they’re mine,” Louis says, and elbows Niall in the stomach before she pushes into Harry’s room.

“I loaned you money for them,” Niall says, following, barely pausing to nod hello at Harry. “They’re at least one third mine.”

“You get the crumby one third at the bottom,” Louis tells him, curling into an armchair in the corner. Harry goes back to lying flat on the bed, staring at the ceiling.

Niall follows Louis and sits on her, and they continue to bicker over the crisps. Harry isn’t listening, and he doesn’t know how long it takes him to notice they’ve gone silent. When he does, he lifts his head just long enough to look at them.

They’re watching him, the bag of crisps forgotten in Louis’s hand. “What’s wrong with you, mate?” Niall asks, shifting in Louis’s lap, moving to put an arm around her shoulder.

Harry lets his head fall back. He looks at the ceiling and figures if Liam knows, it doesn’t matter who else does. “I’m in love with Liam,” he says dully.

It’s quiet for a beat longer, and then Niall says, “What?” at the same moment Louis says, “No shit.”

Harry’s not even surprised. He sighs and closes his eyes, and a moment later he feels the bed give way as someone joins him on it.

When he opens his eyes again Louis’s kneeling above him, her face drawn thoughtfully. “Did you tell her?” she asks finally. She rubs his stomach soothingly and it feels nice. “Is that why she’s been acting so strange?”

“No,” Harry says. He wants to put his head in her lap and curl up in a ball and sleep forever, but he stays still. “Well, yes, I told her, but just today. She was acting strange before because she tried to kiss me at her fabulously single party, or whatever.”

Louis’s hand stills, and when he looks up, her eyes are narrowed at him. “Tried?” she repeats. Niall comes up to stand next to them at the bed, and he reaches over and surreptitiously removes the crisps from Louis’s side. She sighs but doesn’t look away from Harry.

“She was drunk,” he says, and screws his eyes up. He doesn’t really want to go over this again. “And she had just found a picture of Danny in her drawer, and she - it wasn’t right, Lou.”

Louis doesn’t say anything, but she starts rubbing his stomach again, scratching her nails over him lightly, so he thinks he said something right. Niall crunches away above him, dropping crumbs on him, and then he asks, “Well, what did she say when you told her?”

Harry laughs out harshly. “Nothing,” he says. “Not a god damn thing. Well, she said she thought I was having her on, but after that - nothing.”

“She’s surprised, Harry,” Louis says in her gentlest voice, and it makes him want to cry. He doesn’t want her to think he’s broken, even if he is.

“Why?” he asks pathetically. “You knew.”

She scratches her fingernails through her hair. “I’m the smartest of us, pet,” she says sympathetically. When Niall laughs, he sprays them with crumbs.

Louis glares at him. “Who’s smarter?” she challenges.

Niall shrugs and pours the remainder of the chips in his mouth. “Dunno, reckon we should ask Zayn,” he says.

Louis crosses her arms and frowns. “Zayn thinks he’s so smart because he reads books,” she huffs. “But I’ve got all the street smarts.”

Niall laughs loudly. “Ohhh, street smart, are you,” he taunts, and before he can finish she’s jumped off the bed and onto him, and they spin across the room, play fighting.

Harry doesn’t particularly want to laugh, but he does, anyway, and that’s the way it’s always been with them. He wonders how long it can stay this way, now that he and Liam are in pieces, but then Louis gives Niall a wet willy and he’s able to push it aside for a moment. For now he has them and he’s laughing and the hurt subsides, just a little, and it’s enough. For now.

Louis and Niall leave, eventually, kissing him and telling him to come watch a movie later. He’ll probably beg out, and maybe Louis knows it because she’s only been gone a minute before there’s pounding on his door again.

“Lou, what,” he says, pulling it open, and Liam is there, in a sports bra and running shorts, hands on her hips.

“Oh,” Harry says.

She studies him for a moment, her face blank, and then she says, “I don’t love you.”

Harry’s never been in a physical fight, but he imagines this is what being punched in the gut feels like, like all the wind’s gone out of him. He goes a bit light-headed for a moment, and then he blinks and realizes he’s still alive and takes a breath.

Liam doesn’t love him and he is alive and breathing, and he’s already learned to live with it, so it doesn’t make sense, how much it hurts.

She’s still standing in the hall watching him. “Can I come in?” she asks, and doesn’t wait for an answer. He closes the door behind her and stands, facing it, willing his hands to stop shaking. They don’t, and he turns around anyway.

“I don’t love you,” she says, and he wants to laugh.

“Could you say it again,” he asks, feeling slightly hysterical. He’s amazed at how serious his voice comes out. “In case I didn’t get it the first two times.”

Liam frowns. She has little pieces of hair stuck to her forehead with sweat, and her cheeks are red. Of course she went running, Liam always goes running when she’s upset and frustrated. “I mean, I love you,” she says. “I’m just not in love with you. Because I’ve never thought about it. About you. Like that.”

Some distracted, detached part of Harry thinks it’s funny, that he could spend the last three years of his life sick with love for this girl, and her reaction is, “Oh, never thought about it.” But then, maybe funny isn’t the right word.

Liam’s going on, he realizes. As if there’s more to say after that. She wipes at her forehead with the palm of her hand and exhales loudly, and she still has one hand on her hip like she’s angry at something, but Harry doesn’t know what. “I mean, I thought about it. In my room. Not about loving you, but. I thought I wanted to kiss you. But that was the first time.”

“Okay,” Harry says, because she pauses, and looks at him.

Liam opens her mouth like she’s going say something, and then she closes it. She drops both her arms to her side, she pulls herself up straight and tall. She lifts her chin. She looks brave, and defiant, and a little scared, and Harry loves her.

“I don't love you,” she says, again. Harry’s almost getting used to it. “But I think - I’m starting to think - I think maybe I could.”

Harry blinks. Liam blinks back.

“Could what?” Harry asks finally.

She exhales loudly, irritated. “Love you, you absolute dolt,” she says, and she takes a step toward him and then pauses. “If you want that. If you really were having me on, or if you changed your mind in the last hour, well then - well then, this is probably the worst timing in the history of - clocks.”

“The history of clocks?” Harry asks. He’s pretty sure he’s lost the plot. He’s thinking, if “I don’t love you” was a punch in the stomach, then “I could love you,” is like - winning a gold medal, but more than that - like stepping on the moon. Like chugging a bottle of champagne. Like coming up from the bottom of the ocean too fast.

“You’re giving me the bends,” he says, and he can feel a dopey smile start to stretch his face.

Liam smiles too, but hers is more hesitant. “What?” she asks, and shakes her head at him. Her cheeks are still red, but Harry doesn’t know if it’s exertion or embarrassment. At this point, he doesn’t much care. He steps toward her.

She wraps her arms around her stomach and looks pained. “I really wish I was wearing a shirt for this,” she tells him.

“I’m glad you’re not,” he replies, which is something that he would have said before, too, but it feels different now, charged. He gets closer, he wants to swallow her whole, but instead he just puts his hands on the tops of her arms, making sure she’s real, and he’s really allowed to do this.

She grins up at him, but she’s cringing a little. “I really do need to shower,” she says, almost apologetically.

He nods. She can do that, she can have anything she wants as far as he is concerned. “Okay,” he says. “Just one thing first.”

He kisses her then, sudden, but not really. He swallows away the surprised sound she makes and tries not to grin too wide when he feels her arms come up around his shoulders, pushing up on her tiptoes. She tastes like toothpaste and Gatorade, and when her tongue touches his he groans and tugs on her ponytail and she laughs into mouth and his stomach swoops precariously, happily.

He pulls away only when he can’t breathe anymore, but hardly, and kisses her softly at the corner of her mouth and then the tip of her nose. “You could,” he breathes, shakily, and he’d be embarrassed but it’s Liam, and when she smiles he can feel it against his own lips.

“I could,” she says, and this time she kisses him.

--

He wakes up to the bed bouncing lightly, light striping the bed still warm with their sleep. It’s summer and they’ve got two whole weeks off, two weeks to record and to sleep in their own beds and wake up late, and yet here Harry is, waking up to a bouncing bed.

“Good morning, good morning,” Liam laughs softly. She’s sitting cross legged beside him, a cup of tea in her hands, smelling like soap and wearing his t-shirt.

He rolls to face her, away from the window, and groans as he stretches his hands above his head. “Good morning,” he returns, voice rough with sleep. Her hand finds his hair, pushes it out of his face, and he closes his eyes and nuzzles into it.

“Why are you up so early?” he mumbles, curling into her thigh. Her grip on his hair tightens for a moment and then she scratches his head.

“It’s not so early,” she says. He can feel her stretch away, hears the clink of her mug against the nightstand, and then she returns to him. “I already went running, took a shower…”

“Good,” he says, and reaches out blindly, searching to get a hold of her waist. “Sounds like it’s time for a nap.”

She laughs, but lets him pull her over him, settling on top of him, nose to nose. He nuzzles at her face, not kissing her because he knows how she is about germs, knows that she likes him to brush his teeth first - but this is okay now, just touching her. Her legs splay over his hips and he’s half hard already, always is in the morning, and he rolls his hips up, slow and casual, listens to her half-interested “hmm,” in his ear and touches her waist with his fingertips.

Eventually it isn’t enough anymore, and he flips her off him and on to her back, kissing her temple and jaw and pushing her into place with a stern, “Don’t move.” Her eyebrow raises, a half-challenge, but when he gets back from the bathroom she hasn’t moved, his t-shirt pushed up to reveal the edge of her panties, simple black cotton that he’s going to get off of her as soon as possible.

She lets him crawl beneath her legs easily, fitting together like a puzzle piece, and her arms come up around him, feeling warm and safe. He gets to kiss her, finally, and she always tastes like him now that they share a tube of toothpaste, which isn’t something he knew he wanted, but he does.

Harry could kiss her lazily for a long time, trace her lips with his tongue and stroke his fingers up her sides, but Liam’s been awake longer and she’s eager, hooking her ankles behind his back and lifting her hips against him, making him groan suddenly against her lips, smiling against him.

“Okay,” he mumbles against her lips, shifting his hips so he’s pressed up against her, rolling slowly.

“Mhf,” she groans, against his cheek, her eyes closed. She lets her legs fall from around him and he knows what she wants, immediately gets her panties in his hand and rolls them down, moving to kiss her shoulder and her collarbone, suck a nipple through his own t-shirt and finally gets the panties on the floor where he’d wanted them.

Her legs fall open again and he moves back up, sucking on her neck and licking lazily. She’s got one thigh between his, and he ruts against her a little, distracting while his hand moves down, slides up her shirt and over her ribs before he drags it back down, smoothes it over her hip bone and traces the crease of her thigh.

She whines a little, shifts her hips so his hand will slip, but he’s careful.

“Don’t be mean,” she says, lifting her head to glare at him.

He laughs and kisses her shoulder, her cheek. “I’m never mean, darling,” he says, and he presses his thumb over her clit, dipping lower and then back up quickly. Her mouth opens silently and her head falls back, hips rolling to follow his movement, and he smiles into her chest.

She’s wet already and it’s easy to get two fingers inside her, leaving his thumb free to rub her steadily, letting her find the rhythm she wants with her hips. He drags his teeth and his tongue over her collarbones, just visible over the neck of the shirt she’s still wearing.

“What do you want, baby?” he whispers into her skin, trailing his tongue from shoulder to shoulder, as her hips starting working more jerkily, more intense, and he can see her biting her lip.

“Tongue,” she gasps out. “I want your mouth.”

He doesn’t tease, because it’s early and he’s a nice guy, really. He leaves one last kiss on her sternum and slides down, replaces his thumb with his tongue, fucking her with two fingers and licking her clit with flat, broad strokes, the way she likes. Her hands tangle in his hair, pulling, and that’s how he knows he’s doing it right.

“Fuck,” she says, her hips straining up, pushing into his face almost painfully, “Fuck,” and she tightens around him, stilling completely for a long moment. He keeps his tongue going in the same steady, firm pressure, his fingers thrusting into her a little harder, and then she’s shaking all around him, her thighs against his ears and her stomach shuddering and her hands gripping his hair tight enough to make him grimace.

When it’s over she goes slack, pushing his head away, oversensitive, and he almost sighs with relief except that he’s still painfully hard himself, neglected. He crawls up her body to kiss her, pushes against her leg so she remembers.

“I’m tired now,” she mumbles against his lips, her eyes closed and her cheeks flushed, but she can’t keep herself from smiling so he knows she’s kidding. She swings a leg around his waist and rolls them, so she’s on top, grinding down on him hard until he has to pull away, gasping.

“Don’t be mean,” he echoes her, and she laughs, throwing her head back, her hands on his bare chest. He takes the moment to shimmy out of his pants, throwing them to the floor, his cock springing up hard against his stomach.

Liam gets a firm grip on it immediately, kissing him with purpose, and he flings an arm out toward the nightstand, feeling for a condom, but all he manages to do is knock Liam’s tea on the floor. She stops kissing him and sits up, so he can feel her hot and wet against him, and looks at the floor disapprovingly.

“Naughty,” she says, faux-frowning down at him.

“Yes,” he gasps, rolling his hips up. “Yes, yes.”

She laughs then, rolling her eyes fondly. She leans over to the nightstand herself, digging through the drawer, and in the meantime he gets his hands back up her shirt, sliding up her warms sides and over her tits. He doesn’t know why she’s still wearing it, but there’s no time to worry about that now, not while she’s tearing open a condom packet with her teeth.

“Love when you do that,” he murmurs, and she strokes him a few times before she slides the condom over him.

“Are you saying you want more teeth?” she asks, raising her eyebrow at him, but he doesn’t get a chance to respond before she’s sinking onto him, making that same little gasping noise that she does every time.

He holds on to her hips and he doesn’t know which one of them he’s steadying. She starts to roll her hips, back and forth, and it feels so different this way, alarmingly good. He gets her by the back of the neck and pulls her down for a kiss. The angle makes her pull up a little, and she holds still so he can rock up into her, setting his own pace.

She nips at his lips, traces his earlobe with her tongue, murmurs dirty nothings into his ear, tugs at his hair, and it isn’t long before his hips are snapping roughly, and she’s grinding back down into him.

“Come on, baby,” she mutters, cheeks red with exertion, her t-shirt slipping off one shoulder. “Come on,” and then she’s tightening all around him, and his fingers are digging into her skin as his hips lift off the bed, straining against her as he comes.

She’s motionless until he’s come down; couldn’t move if she tried, his fingers dug into her thighs. But she strokes his neck and his shoulders, pushing his damp hair out of his face and murmuring at him until he stops shaking and goes boneless. Then she slides off him, slow and careful, knowing he’s sensitive, and she flops on the bed next to him, leaving him to take care of the condom.

He does, eventually, when he can feel his fingers again. He drops it in the garbage in the bathroom, and brushes his teeth again, for Liam, and when he gets back she’s still lying there, just blinking at the ceiling. He leans over her and kisses her and kisses her.

She smiles when he pulls back. “Good morning!” she chirps.

He laughs and kisses her nose before pulling on a pair of pants. “You said that already.”

“It’s still morning,” she says, hauling herself up to a sitting position. “And it’s still good.”

“Yes,” he says, and he bends to pick up the fallen teacup. “Shall I make you another cuppa?”

She nods happily and follows him into the kitchen. After her tea is done, he makes pancakes, and Liam does her part by getting them fruit, setting out berries and cutting apples and bananas and peeling oranges. He kisses her wrists and she tastes like citrus and they sit at his kitchen table with the morning sun pouring in the window and he tries to eat his pancakes while she tries to throw pieces of fruit into his mouth.

She’s still laughing at a blueberry caught in his hair while he pouts at her. “Please pass the syrup,” he asks, holding his hand out.

She does. “Thank you,” he says.

“I love you,” she says in return.

He stops with his hand still in mid-air, clutching the syrup bottle like a lifeline. She meets his gaze steadily, the morning light catching her eyes and making them blaze.

“You what?” he asks, setting the syrup, aside, forgotten.

She rolls her eyes but she’s smiling. “I love you,” she repeats, and then again, “I love you, I do.”

He looks down at his plate, his heart beating happily enough that he thinks it might leap out of his throat. He cuts into his stack of pancakes, shoves a bite in his mouth before he looks at her again.

“Well it’s about damn time,” he says with his mouth full. Her jaw drops open in mock surprise, and then she’s screeching with laughter, bent over the table and then pelting him with bits of fruit, slices of banana and an orange slice that hits him right between the eyes.

“But the question is,” she says when they quiet down, when he’s chewed his pancakes and swallowed them, when he’s fished the banana out of his shirt. “The question is, do you love me?”

He doesn’t know how she even has to ask; he reaches for her hand across the table, kisses her knuckles and the tips of her fingers. “I could,” he says, and her smile is quick and bright. “I do. I have. I will.”