eight years later; nouis

five.

Niall rang the doorbell to Louis' house and tapped his foot.
"I've told you plenty you don't have to ring. Just come in. You've been here two weeks." Louis said and let Niall in.
"Why don't you take the key I keep trying to give you?" and Niall just shook his head.
"You wanna go get burgers, mate?"
"Yeah, sure." Louis said, but he was wondering why Niall was avoiding his eyes and being flippant in the kindest way possible. Niall slid the key onto his ring and walked back out the door, leaving it open for Louis to follow.
"What's the trouble, lad?" Louis asked as Niall drove with a stern look on his face. The past two weeks had been nothing but butterflies and sunshine for these two, and Louis was dismayed at Niall's serious behaviour.
"2013 it was. I remember looking at you, just at the start of the Take Me Home Tour. You had just gotten a haircut and you were wearing tall socks over your sweatpants and a tank top and we were kicking around a football outside of a venue behind the busses and we climbed that hill and laid there laughing and I remember thinking, "I just fell in love with my best mate."
wow. Louis mouthed, and Niall kept his mouth in the fierce line. "Take Me Home was like the best time in my whole life, I reckon. We were so young and had so much fun on that stage. Definitely the most fun tour we ever did. I almost kissed you on the night we watched the final cut of This Is Us for the first time. I didn't." he glanced over at Louis and looked down at his lips with a small laugh. His eyes went back to the road. 

"Then a year after that you grew your hair out longer than it had ever been and I remember wishing you would cut it because you looked so scraggly and Z was pissing me off with encouraging you to smoke so much. At that point I reckon I was proper obsessed. I remember when you found out about Eleanor and Max and you acted like you didn't care and called her a bitch, but I knew it hurt you. The night you crawled up into my bunk after the lads had fallen asleep after she dumped you..I thought maybe..but you were asleep before I could even say anything to you." 

Louis opened his mouth to respond but Niall got to it first,
"And then Zayn started to act shady and you were acting shady with him and I thought you were unhappy and it kind of broke my heart. Then Niall looked at Louis' furrowed eyebrows and slightly ajar mouth and quickly looked back at the road. "Then he left and I was proper upset yeah, but I remember thinking, 'finally, now it can be back to the Niall and Louis show.'"
"I remember you coming to me after Zayn left and telling me this was the beginning of the end and you put your head on my shoulder and you cried and I cried only you didn't know I was crying. I wanted to be tough for you. Pathetic, innit?"
"I remember sitting down with you lads and deciding we were going to take a break and I agreed with you lot even though I didn't want to because I thought 'it couldn't possibly get any better than this.' and 'please don't actually do this.' and I looked at you with pleading eyes when we had that final meeting but you didn't ever look up at me, so I signed the contract break too."
"I remember thinking, 'this is it, we are never going to be the same after this.' And I was right."
Niall snuck a peek at Louis, once again, and noticed the tears in his eyes as he had the same look of disbelief he'd been carrying the whole car ride. Niall put the car in park and got out without saying another word.
Louis followed behind him and when they had sat down and ordered, he said, "Tell me more, Niall."
He rubbed his beard and looked up, "Well I remember you telling me you were gonna be a dad. Inwardly, I was furious, upset, jealous, sad, scared--outwardly, I suppose I was just furious. I know I wasn't kind to you that day, so, sorry."
Louis shook his head and closed his eyes.
"I remember you coming to me when your mum had been diagnosed with Leukaemia. And I remember feeling dead inside, too. An utter state of shock and depression had rocked through me. I remember holding you that night and wishing I could take that pain away." Louis kissed him with everything he held in his heart, which at the moment was a whole lot. It was a bit indecent for a public space, but he didn't really mind right now. Inhibitions gone, all he could think about was kissing Niall. He was internally kicking himself for wasting so much time on other women when the boy he needed was right here all along.