call it what you want • narry storan AU

twenty-seven: niall

"You're being annoying by this point", Leigh-Anne blurts out when she finds me pacing back and forth the living room. "He's not gonna break up with you, for heaven's sake! He just said he needs a night out. Breathe, Niall. Breathe."

"I'M BREATHING!" I scream back, my eyes almost falling off my face because of the amount of tears in my cheeks.

I don't even know if these two things are connected at all. I'm just in the state of mind that comes to you when someone drops you at some friend's place saying "i'll be back in a minute, just need some fresh air" and leaves you there with no further explanation.

Okay. It's not a state of mind that comes to everyone. Universe decided to play with my feelings today; first, by cancelling the games I wanted to play with my family, and using Greg to do this, and now, the Harry thing. Is it okay if I just wanna die right now?

"Take a motherfucking seat." She says, pointing at the couch next to us. After a few seconds, I do what she wants me to do, and her hands start to play with my fingers. "He loves you. You love him. You two already have an "okay" thing just like Hazel and Augustus. And now you're freaking out because you think he's gonna break up with you for, literally, no apparent reason. Listen to what you're telling yourself, Horan. Just listen."

Soon my breath returns to its normal state, and my mind is finally distracted by some random rom-com Leigh-Anne selected to play on the TV. When I'm almost falling asleep, the doorbell rings. My friend leaves me in the couch and opens the door to reveal a smiling Harry with a bouquet of flowers in his hands.

"What's going on?" I ask, once I see him smirking to Leigh.

"Nothing", she rolls her eyes, giving me space to see Harry in a full sight. 

"Ni", his lips form a thin line when he says my name, and I walk in his direction with a little bit of fear of what's gonna happen now.

Even if he has a bouquet of flowers in his hands. It doesn't matter.

I'm lying. It matters.

"I had to leave you here so I could make a surprise in our apartment." I could go and correct him by saying that, technically, it's not our apartment, he just happens to live there, but something inside me makes me believe it's not the right thing. So I let him keep talking to me. "Flowers won't make it up for the panic I caused in you, but I thought it could be a good first step."

We say our goodbyes to Leigh-Anne and he takes me to his car. The radio starts playing "You and I" by Lady Gaga in the exact moment he turns the key in the car ignition, and I smirk in an involuntary way. He cannot look at me while he's driving, of course, but I can easily say he's staring at the rear view mirror just to see my eyes. 

Something that is undeniably Harold.

"I remember the first time we went to McDonald's together after Zayn left the band", he starts talking, and just the Zayn mention makes me shiver. Hard times, dude. Hard times. "All of us knew you didn't want to talk about it, but I remember being the only one to actually make you think of something else. I'm pretty sure I made you laugh with the sandwich in my mouth."

Just the memory of it makes me laugh again.

"I was so desperate to make you smile at least for once in that night that I totally forgot Louis was by my side. But it was the first time I realized I could actually be happy with someone who makes me happy. So, yeah. Thank you for that."

"Why are you saying those things?"

He parks the car close to the building where we live now. No cameras. No security guards. A miracle.

"Because I want to make you feel better after the trip with your family ended that way. I know it's none of my concern, or my fault anyway, but I wanted to do something", he opens the door of the car for me, taking my right hand into his left one and practically running with me to the elevator. "Let's go, I'm afraid the couch is in flames right now!"

"What?"

Once the metal doors open, I take the keys away from Harry's hands and open the house by myself.

Of course, I'm amazed by what I see now. He made a kind of makeshift tent in the middle of the living room, using only two broomsticks, a sheet and a lantern hanging right in the center of the "tent" to illuminate the inside. Candles are scattered around the sheet hanging by the broom handles, and while I still admire what he made to make up for the failed camping, "Pair of Wings" by Justin Timberlake starts playing in the background.

"Haz."

"Cookie jar." He looks at me, waiting for an appropriate reaction of mine. "So?"

"I fucking love you so much I can't even express it with words. Let's get inside this tent."