Let You Go (Larry Stylinson)

Birthday Surprises

Harry wakes up on his birthday and the bed is cold. Before he can stop them, memories come flooding back.

Oh shit, he thinks to himself, disentangling himself from the covers. Oh shit oh shit oh shit.

Stuffing his legs into a pair of sweatpants he hops downstairs, nervously combing his fingers through his hair.

"Lou?" he calls, hoping he sounds calm and composed even though he doesn't feel it because he's not supposed to stress Louis out.

"Harry?" A familiar female voice rings through the apartment and Harry's sister pokes her head out of the kitchen.

"Gem?" Harry frowns, wondering what on Earth she's doing here. 

"Heya!" she replies, grinning and tugging him into a hug. "It's been a minute, hasn't it! What's going on with you?"

Harry looks around wearily, eyeing the curtains suspiciously. 

"Gem, where is he?" 

She tips her head back and laughs. 

"Chill out, Haz, it's your birthday! He's... somewhere else right now. Asked me to come over to look after you until he's sorted everything."

"He's the one who needs looking after, not me," Harry grumbles, slouching into the kitchen after her.

She laughs again, and he can't help but smile a little. He has missed her, after all. 

"So, like, and you and Louis..." Gemma makes a show of looking around before dropping her voice to a stage whisper. "Dating again?"

"Ugh, you're so embarrassing," Harry groans, fighting the little smile that appears whenever anyone mentions Louis. He rolls his eyes. "Yes, ok. We're dating again." He ruins his illusion of carelessness by punching the air and grinning triumphantly.

It's Gemma's turn to roll her eyes, but she's smiling too. 

"Well, at least you didn't write all those depressing love songs for no reason," she sighs.

"Oi, my love songs aren't depressing!"

"Falling?"

"Oh. Fair enough actually."

"Thought so."

The two naturally descend into silence as Gemma starts making breakfast. Not much goes on after that, and Harry is left wondering what's going on.

Just when he's starting to get grouchy, Gemma looks at the time on her phone and announces that it's time to leave. She wraps a blindfold over his eyes (very suspicious, in Harry's opinion) and leads him into the car.

***

"Ok, Hazzypoo, we're here," Gemma says half an hour later.

"Don't call me that," Harry responds, before stepping out of the car. 

She leads him into some sort of room, where he can hear whispers and giggles as someone sits him down on some sort of bench. There's someone sitting next to him and they smell exactly like...

"Louis?" Harry mumbles. 

"Shhhh," the person says, Harry hears some more people shuffling around. 

"Ready?"

"Yup, we're ready," Harry hears. He doesn't entirely recognise the voice. Gemma's voice appears in his ear.

"On three, take your blindfold off and say hello. Got it?"

Before Harry has the chance to react, the voice is back.

"Ok everyone, we're live in one... two... and... three."

Harry takes his blindfold off quickly and registers that he's sitting on the bottom step on some sort of staircase. 

"Hello...?" he says, as instructed.

He turns to look at Louis next to him, only to find him taking off a similar blindfold as well. 

"We..." Louis announces.

"Are..." Harry hears Niall's voice behind him and he turns so quickly that he almost cricks his neck. Higher up on the steps he sees two more blindfolded people who are undoubtedly Liam and Zayn, distinctly recognisable even with their eyes covered.

"One..." Liam continues.

"Direction. Yay!" Zayn finishes and Harry realises that they are live on camera. 

He tries not to gawk at Louis and instead smiles as if he also knows what's going on, seeing as everyone else seems to. 

"And guess what, guys?" Louis says, grinning so wide it's as if his face is going to split in two. "We're back! We're reuniting!"

He pauses and looks over at Harry, who can't do anything other than stare. Liam takes over speaking.

"We're changing up quite a few things, guys, but the most important thing for right now is we're all back together in one place. Obviously, we all have our own music and stuff now as well, and we won't be dropping that completely, but we'll just have a look and see how things go."

"We're looking at going on tour again, all five of us," Zayn chips in, "except instead of just One Direction sings we'll also have the opportunity to perform some of our solo work as well. We really just want to play to our strengths and enjoy ourselves."

"Group hug?" Niall asks, and it's exactly what Harry needs. The five of them tumble together into a cluster of arms and legs, Niall is definitely crying and Zayn seems to be laughing, Liam is trying to hug everyone at once and Louis is jumping up and down with light dancing in his eyes. Harry beams at him and Louis responds by throwing his arms around Harry's neck. 

"Thank you, thank you, thank you," Harry laughs, half sobbing with happiness and emotion. 

"I don't want anymore secrets," Louis says, his eyes serious but glowing.

"Me neither," Harry responds, oblivious to the celebrations still going on in the background.

"No one can stop us anymore," Louis whispers, looking at Harry's lips.

"No," Harry agrees, suddenly understanding exactly what Louis' getting at. He leans in and pulls Louis into a kiss, and it only lasts a fraction of a second but the cameras are still rolling and the whole world is sure to know in a matter of minutes that the rumours were, in fact, true all along. 

But Louis is right, no one can stop them anymore, and the look on his face makes everything worth it.

And now Zayn is pulling Harry in for a dance and someone's cranked up the music and the lights are dimmed and perfect and emotions are high. Turns out all the muffled voices harry could hear before are all their families and friends and they all excitedly join in with the reunion hugs and dancing. And Niall is twerking next to the sofa and everyone is laughing and someone's gotten a bottle of champagne out and it's spraying everywhere and it's perfect. 

"Are we still live?" Liam asks, laughing into Louis' shoulder, and Louis shrieks. 

"Put the booze away lads, there are probably kids watching!" 

Gemma walks over to the camera and looks to Louis for confirmation.

"Cut the cameras!" Louis calls, jokingly. He wraps his arms around the boys, his boys, pulling them all into a huge hug before tipping his head back to announce:

"Let the credits fucking roll!"