Thank you so much for even being here on this page, for opening this story. I promise you guys, you're really in for something special. If you haven't realized by now, I've been getting more comfortable in their skin lately, more introspective... and, well, ever since about a month ago when I asked my boyfriend if I could call him my boyfriend, I've really been fascinated with doing a one-shot focusing on the start of their relationship, without all the showy plotlines... just as it likely happened naturally. But fluff just wasn't enough, so I had to add how things have been going lately with Eleanor and Grimmy and management-this general chaos that surrounds them. And that was how this book-child was brought into this world. I'm honestly in love with this, and I hope you all enjoy it half as much as I do. I wouldn't be anything without my readers.

It isn't uncommon to find the small boy broken away from the crowd—even flirting becomes tedious, Lou knows, especially when you've been away from your friends and family for so long. So he's surprised at himself that he didn't think of the place on his own, yet makes a mental note to thank Liam later on, anyway.

He carefully inches forward, still unsure of what exactly the boundaries are in their… relationship, of sorts. He has been taking mental notes ever since that first day in the restrooms. Flirting: encouraged. Cuddling: neither exactly encouraged nor discouraged, but Louis has grown quite fond of Harry's kitten-like reactions and has mentally listed that under the 'good' column as well. Hugs aren't inappropriate during moments of celebration, and it isn't completely terrible to press a tired kiss to matted brown curls in a moment of sleepless surrender.

But emotions… of course they have the pep talks—he vividly remembers that one in the hall, with that boy whom he had found in the toilets, singing and hitting the notes just the slightest bit wrong and cursing himself with his own beautiful voice. They review their performances as One Direction, stand along the stage in anxiousness as One Direction, celebrate as One Direction… but what exactly do they do as Louis and Harry?

They flirt, of course; curl up on the couch or in Harry's bed or anywhere else they happen to find themselves late at night and joke or talk about nothing in particular… But would this be okay? Would he be over stepping some unspoken boundary by interrupting Harry's alone time? Louis knows that he is already lucky that Harry hasn't turned him away yet—he's the only one of the boys who hasn't yet pleaded for him to shut up.

Maybe he should just turn around, go back inside, and pretend that none of this had ever happened. He'll just write off the "Where'd you disappear to?" text messages as having seen some old movie on TV that he thought Harry might like to see.

Yet before he can turn to leave, his phone rings in his pocket, chirping at the sound of a new text message from Liam, "Just bring him inside- it's almost curfew." But Lou doesn't get it, nor does he even make any effort to silence the foreign, electronic sound polluting the beautiful night. He simply stands there, dumbfounded as the cherub in front of him is ripped back into the world with a flicker of curious green eyes.

"Hi," Harry's voice is thick, weighed down by more than just physical exhaustion. But his eyes have stolen the sparkle from the stars, and his lips slide to reveal a smile so tempting that it must be the sin for which he was kicked out of Heaven.

"Hi." Louis echoes stupidly, but judging by Harry's expression, he either doesn't seem to mind or notice.

There's a still moment, and the look in those jade eyes is so aware that Louis believes Harry just might be the one to break the it. But he just wears that stupid, adorable, awestruck expression and remains silent.

"I was just looking for…" Louis breaks off, gently clearing his throat before starting again, "Grease was on and I didn't know if you wanted to see the loser who tried to recreate my Danny Zuko."

His voice is playful, but it's not; and both are entirely aware of the fact that he's lying, yet neither is inconvenienced enough to care.

"He had to have filmed that at least twenty years before you were even conceived, Lou." Harry states, sparkling eyes betraying his bored expression, "You're his tacky impersonator."

Louis gasps, feigning a look of both shock and terror, yet for once feeling at home in this scene.

"I resent that!" he exclaims, before dramatically tilting his head toward the sky, "Besides, it was fifteen years at most." His head begins to tilt back down again, bearing a childlike grin, "You're younger than I, buttercup."

Harry shakes his head, at either the absurdity of the statement or the lackluster nickname, Louis isn't exactly sure. Yet he continues to watch, endlessly fascinated by every movement of the small boy.

He's only more intrigued when his head stills and his arms spread out wide, holding his cover open like batwings. Louis watches curiously as Harry tilts his head forward, nodding toward him purposely. Louis feels his eyebrows knit together as he follows the younger boy's gaze down toward his torso, where his hands absentmindedly rub his naked arms. He really needs to clean up his side of the room enough so that he can at least find one of his nine pullovers.

But he's ripped from his thoughts as the impatient little boy rises from his place in the grass to make his way across the yard to his shivering counterpart. Louis walks forward, just as blindly, and meets Harry as the boy is readjusting himself on the edge of the porch, blanket folded haphazardly across his lap. He waits for the Louis to take a seat beside him.

Louis is too tired to fight both himself and those pleading green orbs in front of him. So he thoughtlessly takes his seat, saving all the worry of boundaries and self-restraint and separation of business and pleasure for when Liam tries to take him out for an awful early-morning jog tomorrow.

Within a moment, the blanket has been draped across both of their fronts, legs and arms brushing beneath the fabric.

"God, Lou, you're so cold!" A kind whisper meets his ear, as the scrawny limbs encircle his bicep and a mess of curly hair finds its way onto Louis's chest. It's almost lovingly, motherly, and it reminds him of why he had first come to find the boy.

"What's wrong?" Louis asks abruptly, carefully. The light head rolls against his shoulder, chin propped up on the older boy's collarbone, looking him up and down from beneath drawn eyebrows.

"What do you mean?" Harry's words are smooth, honest, but his eyes flicker around as if he's a liar moments away from being caught.

Louis takes a breath, remembering fully well his fruitless attempt at a lie.

"Everyone's been saying that you've been moping around the house all day—all month, really, or at least the past three weeks, but they say today's the worst they've seen you."

There's a moment when he can feel the boy tense against his side and the gulp traveling down his throat and he can feel it in the warming air between them that he's searching for a lie.

And in that moment, Louis breaks his last defense—

"You can tell me anything, Curly."

But it's the wrong thing to say.

The little boy with the spider limbs detaches himself, the late autumn breeze swirling in the two-inch gap between them and freezing Louis to the core. Harry mindlessly shakes his hair, readjusting his matted curls as he stares into the distance, nearly silently clearing his throat as if he's going to speak… Louis waits for it, but he doesn't.

"Listen—I know how you feel, I miss my— " Louis begins, prepared to admit feeling lonely without his own family as well, but is immediately cut-off by a strong voice to his right.

"Last week," Harry barrels forward, somehow both oblivious and completely aware of the older boy watching him carefully, "We got through. We were safe." He pauses, eyes flickering up to capture Louis', as if the point of the conversation had already become painfully obvious. "When we got back home, we were celebrating—everyone still in the house was just having a good time, and we snuck a few sips from Niall's secret stash, and disappeared into the back yard with a stereo and some blankets— " He breathes in, letting out the next words in one swift breath, "And you kissed me, Lou."

And the conversation has taken a turn Louis quite well wishes he could have avoided for a bit longer. He clears his throat, looking away, fighting the vivid memories of his own lips pressed against the other boys soft, pillow like ones. They were rolling around, wresting beneath Louis' comforter in the damp grass, and the boys were a world a way on the other side of the fabric, and Harry's body was soft and comfortable and so fragile beneath his own. So he kissed him.

Louis takes a gulp, unsure of what to say…exactly how to joke his way out of this.

"You tasted like a pint."

Louis means for it to come out more humorous, or at least chastising, yet the words seem to tumble out of his mouth as if he's fondly reminiscing on his childhood crush.

Harry looks amused, only for a moment, before he turns in his place, bony knee brushing against Louis' thigh as he readjusts himself. He's still close, close enough that the blanket's still draped across his tiny shoulders and Louis can feel his deep breaths against his neck.

"What am I to you, Louis?"

Nervous jade eyes peer up at him through swoops of matted curls. He's acting on something that he knows is forbidden—they were told on the first day of boot camp that in-house relationships were great for show, but would not be tolerated. They were here to work, not find love like some stupid reality show. But that's not even addressing the real problem—that he is Louis and this is Harry and they have become each other's everything over the past few months, and that this is Harry and he is Louis and things are just to perfect to lose it all.

Suddenly, if at all possible, Louis feels even more cold, fighting off a shiver as he pulls the soft blanket further up to his neck. Harry notices, hesitantly inching forward, seemingly unsure as to whether a moment of forgiveness is necessary before he touches his friend again. But Louis makes no effort to shrug out of his touch, lifting his arm up as the smaller boy folds into his side.

"What do you mean?" he whispers.

The words that tumble from his mouth might as well be a lie.

Louis knows fully well what Harry means. It's the same question that's kept him up every night for the past month or so… Countless awkward episodes of him stumbling for the right words to answer the same question from his housemates. As well as being a hot topic, leading to many disputes with both the boys and Stan.

Louis ignores the way that he feels the Cheshire boy tense slightly as well as the way Harry's Adam's apple presses into his collarbone in that eternal moment of silence.

"Am I…" He draws the word out, so long that Louis doesn't know if he even has any intentions of ever completing the sentence. But Louis is already there, heartbeat racing and breath stopping and thoughts swirling in anticipation of the next moment. It's too early and too late, and completely uncalled for but painfully important. "Your boyfriend?"

It's the softest he's ever heard anyone speak, the autumn breeze stirring around them somehow louder in his ears than the angelic whisper from his right. It's so subtle that he might not have even believed that he'd actually spoken had it not been for the warm breath that tickled the dip of his collarbones.

And for the second time in Louis' life, he's speechless.

But his face says everything, if the curly haired boy would lift his head up just high enough to see it. Because his eyes are wide and watering because 'Oh, for God's sakes, please don't let this be happening yet' and 'Oh, for God's sakes, this is really happening!' And his jaw is slack—his lips thoughtlessly forming shapes as he wait for his mind for form something coherent. The moment drags on, for several eternities, mouth still slack and quivering, mind just beginning to recover.

So he doesn't waste any more time waiting on words.

Carefully, he slips his shoulder out from the boy leaning against him and turns his body slowly, giving the other lad just enough time to refocus his widened green orbs. In the moment green meets blue, his lips are upon that heartbreaking, angelic frown, moving expertly and delicately to answer his question and countless more.

The insides of their eyelids turn a passionate shade of red as in the distance the porch light flickers on, a silent signal that it's nearing 11:30 and curfew's fast approaching, and as their gentle embrace comes to an end, the sparkle in those green eyes tells Louis their answer.

Louis hears him coming before the door even swings open. The house has been nearly silent lately. Sure, the boys are typically too busy to even spend more than a few hours at their respective homes each week, but it's a new thing for Louis to be home alone.

Harry comes slipping through the door, stumbling over his own two-size-too-big feet as he always does when he's past the point of physical exhaustion. There's a 'bang' as he trips, falling forward and catching himself just in time, before there's a subsequent clatter of shoes in the corner of the room. But Louis can't bring himself to care enough to make sure that he's alright.

He simply turns up the volume two dashes louder and continues scrolling through the webpage on his computer screen, unsure if the house has become any less lonely now that he isn't home alone. But he decided months ago that it would be best just to pay it no mind, because when nothing in your life is normal, your relationships aren't normal either. Everything in his life is so fragile, especially this thing that he and Harry had… this thing that they used to call love. But that word is long gone, reserved for fans and interviews, like lots of other comfortable things.

There's the slamming of cupboards and the click of china on the countertop. Louis pays it half-mind as he continues listening to the rerun of Friends. Chandler tells a joke, which Louis must have heard a million times since the beginning of late-night Friends marathons with Harry, and it's eerie how something can be so familiar and heartbreakingly foreign at the same time. The tap runs, turns off, then runs again. It's a thing now, washing the dishes rather than leaving them in the sink. Well, it's been a thing for Harry for a while now… but recently Louis started doing it too. He wonders for a moment if Harry notices. But as there's final slam of a cabinet, he returns his focus to his absentminded scrolling.

Light footsteps are heard once again, becoming louder as his less-than-comfortable presence fills the room. Louis bites his lip as he purposely scrolls past an article bearing a photo of Harry on one of his nights out with Nick Grimshaw.

Louis knows he shouldn't say anything. They've had a consistent thing going for a while now. He knows that he should just keep his gaze focused on the terrible television program and listen for the sounds of Harry's pre-bed shower to cease before even thinking of going up and joining him on the other side of the bed. If he does this right, Louis will get to be in the same room as him at least until morning. That seems to be as close as they get anymore, so he hesitates to risk it.

But it's late and there's this terrible commercial on the television for the new season of X Factor with a group of lads that seem a little too familiar for his liking, and he's scrolling past tweets asking what was going on with Harry Styles that he's always out late, and the sheer shock of the change that has snuck up on them stuns him into voicing one of his too many thoughts.

"How's Nick?"

It's a casual question, but it's the first time they had spoken since leaving the meeting with their P.R.s this morning and his voice is more accusatory than casual so it comes out like a slap against the younger man's face.

There's a moment, and Louis wonders if he has just lost the comfort of sleeping in the same room as Harry without even getting to hear his voice. But Harry does speak, although as he does his voice is tired—on more than one level.

"I wasn't with him tonight."

His words are short, and tired, as if he has no energy to waste on pointless conversation, and now it's Louis turn to feel like he's been slapped. For a moment, he wonders if it would have been better to live in silence than to ever hear Harry speak to him in that way. Nevertheless, he barrels forward.

Sadly enough, this is already the deepest conversation they've had in a week.

"That's surprising."

"You know what?" His deep voice rises, yet gains no more life in exchange for his patience. "We're not doing this tonight, Lou."

Lou… Lou. Harry Styles had no right to call him Lou. That was reserved for his friends and his sisters and breathtaking little boys from Cheshire, not boyfriends who never got text messages and tiptoe around the house in the mornings not out of kindness, but rather out of purposely avoiding any more conversation than is absolutely necessary.

"Louis." He corrects, because if he's going to voice his thoughts, then he might as well let go of them all.

"Louis," The curly haired man the with tired eyes acquiesces, but continues forward, "Are we really having this conversation tonight?"

Louis huffs, flipping the laptop shut in one flick of the wrist, only catching a glimpse of the photo of a slightly inebriated Harry hanging on the arm of that damn thirty-year-old, bird faced, male cougar.

"When else are we going to have it, Harry? During one of our abundant hours together?" His blood is beginning to pump too fast for him to be sitting down. He meets the red-rimmed eyes of the man in front of him, and even with the sharp color contrast, the once-jade eyes are nowhere near deep as Louis remembers. "Or maybe you'd like to talk it over with the P.R.s at our next meaning? I mean, that's the logical way to do things, right- since they run our relationship?"

"You know what?" Harry starts, he rakes is fingers through his already-disheveled hair, "We finally agree about something."

"And what exactly is that supposed to mean?" Louis counters, looking his boyfriend up and down, taking in the slight inward turn of his feet which Louis had always found so adorable, as well as the slightly-off angle of his jacket and Louis isn't sure if it is something that his hipster friends were doing now or if he was off getting so trashed that he didn't even realize how he was re-dressing himself, but he decides that either scenario is unpleasant to dwell on.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Harry echoes with an entirely humorless chuckle, "How about this: Eleanor, Olympic dates, the girlfriends of One Direction…" He trails off for a moment, biting his lip slightly. Louis isn't entirely sure whether he wants to kiss or slap that sad expression off of his cherub face, but he loses focus on that dilemma entirely at the sight of the angry pools forming in his eyes. "Or how about this: 'biggest load of bullshit.'" There's a moment's silence, filled only by the shaky breathing of two shattering hearts.

When he speaks again, his voice is somehow even more tired than before.

"What do you think that's supposed to mean, Louis?"

Louis bites his lip, and sniffles a few times, because damn it, Louis Tomlinson does not cry… not over stupid, trivial things like this. He cries over untimely deaths, or holidays away from his family, or- even Louis have the humility to admit- when his dreams don't exactly come true. But he doesn't cry over stupid fights with his soul mate, because that's what he and Harry swore they were, that time when he had given Harry that promise ring in Paris—soul mates.

"It means nothing." Louis whispers, his heart breaking even more with every word yet his voice somehow getting more powerful, "I swore to you, it meant nothing- it means nothing- it will never mean anything to me." He takes a breath, because it takes so much more energy than he would have thought, "You're the only one who means something."

At that the tears come rolling down his face, but Louis' pride is too high to let it show. He scrubs his face with his fingers like he's just so tired of this, and it's not exactly a lie because to be honest, they both are.

"Or who meant something." Harry whispers a minute or so later, his voice terrifyingly vulnerable as he takes a step closer to Louis, where he's sitting atop the back of the sofa, only to take two steps back. But Louis doesn't notice.

"My God, Harry." He whispers, unable to so easily mask the wavering of his voice, "I don't even know what we are anymore…" There's a hiccup, then a deep breath before he continues, voice heavy in the thick, tense air. He's scared, because it's too early but it's too late, and he doesn't want to do it but it's important. "What are we?"

This time Harry takes two steps forward and stays there, and Louis' eyes are open to see it. He sees everything, the angelic face and the ghosts of half-smiles, and the flat green eyes with the phantoms of all the sky's stars. He sees his past, and what he used to call his future.

"What do you mean?"

The voice is soft, and the graveyards of the skies in Harry's eyes are leaking along with the storm that's crossing his face.

"Are you my boyfriend?"

The words barely make it out, and he's not sure that Harry heard the question over his own sniffles, but as the scene before him changes, Louis knows he has.

It's only a moment before he's swooped up off the couch, held in those familiar arms for the first time in three weeks, and embraced for the first time in four. And before he can protest, Harry's achingly familiar, full lips are on his own. They chastely make gentle, needy, apologetic motions across his own. Soothing hands trace paths from his forearms to his shoulders. When the embrace is broken, it has been both a millisecond and an eternity.

Louis looks once more into those flat green eyes, and sees his miserable reflection in their waters. In that moment, the answer has found them both.