the song for this chapter is "Brick by Brick," by Arctic Monkeys :)
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I wanna build you up (brick by brick)I wanna break you down (brick by brick)I'm gonna reconstruct (brick by brick)I wanna feel your love
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Tate
"Are we there ye-"
"No," Abel snapped, cutting off Niall for the hundredth time.
I turned to watch Harry as he drove and saw him fighting off the smile tugging on his lips, but I was not as strong as he was, and I couldn't help the giggles that fell from my mouth as Niall seemed to be doing his very best to drive Abel to the brink of insanity.
As soon as I broke my silence, Harry and Will finally let their laughter loose.
"It's not funny. I'm bored, I'm hungry, and I'm getting claustrophobic back here," Niall huffed, and I peeked at him through the rearview mirror to see him crossing his arms over his chest and sliding down further in his seat.
"Would you rather us strap you to the roof instead? You'd have plenty of fresh air up there," I offered, causing Abel to join in on the laughter.
Niall scrunched his face up at me and reached up to lightly smack my arm.
We were currently en route to St. George's Castle, and although Niall was the most vocal, he wasn't the only one ready to get out of the car. We were all pretty exhausted, and I know that I for one, would love nothing more than to curl up with Harry in bed and watch a movie like a normal couple, but then again, we weren't exactly normal.
"I say that we get a shit ton of takeout food tonight, maybe have some drinks, music, and have a lil party at the house later," Will suggested, slapping the back of my car, trying to gain my support on the idea.
I rolled my eyes but smiled, his idea did sound pretty appealing.
"A party, with the five of us? What is this? A college dorm party?" Harry laughed, and I raised an eyebrow at him.
"Since when did you become the responsible one?" I chuckled, scooting around in my seat, trying to find a more comfortable position. We had been driving for an hour already, and my legs were starting to fall asleep.
Harry shrugged. "I don't know, just seems pretty silly to have a party with five people," he hummed, tapping his ringed fingers on the steering wheel.
"Well, clearly you don't know the five people you're dealing with," I smirked, gesturing to the group of rowdy boys in the backseat.
"See? Tate gets it! Tate, I now dub thee the fun one. Harry, your title has been revoked," Will announced very matter of factly, and I reached my hand back to high five him.
"Oh, I am sorry that I am not enough fun for you. I guess being chased around the globe by international criminals is a bit of a drag, innit?" Harry teased back, smirking at Will through the rearview mirror.
Will sat up and leaned close to my ear. "He thinks he's hot shit now since he got kidnapped," he scoffed, jerking his thumb towards Harry.
The situation to any other person would not be funny, but after everything that we had all been through, it was absolutely fucking hilarious.
We all broke out in laughter at the twisted joke Will had made before he motioned with his hands for us to settle down.
"Okay, but in all seriousness, can we please get hammered tonight? I need to let loose after saving your ass, Styles," Will pouted, and I watched as Harry cocked an eyebrow.
"Oh, are you now? I thought that my girlfriend did most of the saving?" He countered, and I smiled in my seat.
Harry smirked and kept his eyes on the road, but reached a hand over to grip my thigh.
"Fine. Point taken. Well, I will be getting my drink on tonight, but any of you lovely, tolerable people are welcome to join," Will huffed, pouting and staring out the window.
"Yeah, yeah. I'll think it over," Harry laughed, running a hand up through his hair.
It was quiet for all of two minutes before I heard Niall's voice again.
"Are we there-"
"No," Abel groaned.
"Yes," Harry countered, the car beginning to slow down.
"Ha!" Niall shouted, thumping Abel's arm.
There it was, in all of its glory, the castle.
Harry parked and we all got out of the car. There were definitely more tourists here than in Spain, but still, it wasn't too crowded.
As Harry made sure that he had his keys, his new phone, and discreetly placed a gun in his waistband, I took the opportunity to check him out.
He had on black jeans, as per usual, but today, he was wearing a floral silk short-sleeved button-down, and his black boots. He tucked some sunglasses on the top of his head, and right as I was thinking of all of the things I could do to get him out of those beautiful clothes, I heard a voice right next to my ear.
"Tate, would you like a little alone time to mind-fuck Harry? We don't mind," Niall taunted, and I spun around on my heel and shoved him in the chest.
"Oh, shut up, will you?" I chuckled, feeling my cheeks growing hot. I turned around to find Harry staring at me with a cheeky grin on his face.
"I mean, Tate, if you wanna just let these idiots figure it out, we could get back in the car and make some of those daydreams a reality if you want," Harry winked, causing my cheeks to go from warm, to absolutely boiling hot in a matter of seconds.
"Guess you're sleeping on the couch tonight," I shrugged, turning and walking up to Abel, his face bright with laughter.
Clearly, Harry would not be sleeping on the couch tonight, but I couldn't help but giggle at the wounded expression on his face when I turned back to see his reaction.
We all started walking towards the castle, which, with each step that we took closer to it, made me feel infinitely smaller than the last.
"What are we even looking for?" Niall whined, and I turned my head to the side to see him dragging his feet against the rugged path as he walked, resembling a small and very pouty child.
"Fuck if I know," I shrugged, "just look for anything that seems to stand out, anything that looks different than everything else."
As we got closer towards the tourists, I could hear what seemed to be about a million different languages being spoken, and I smiled to myself. I always liked that about history and art, how you didn't always have to speak a certain language to understand its meaning.
I wondered if Harry could understand all of the different languages being spoken right now. Was he just unintentionally eavesdropping on people's conversations from all across the globe?
Probably.
Harry was currently walking behind me. I figured that this was due to one of two reasons.
One. He was still pouting about me saying he had to sleep on the couch.
Or two. He wanted to look at my ass.
As I mulled it over in my head for a bit, I came to the conclusion that it was probably both.
I sighed and slowed my steps, waiting for Harry to get the silent hint to walk next to me.
I didn't turn around, I didn't speak, and I didn't have to, because moments later, I felt Harry's hand slipping down and intertwining with my own. I gave his hand a light squeeze before glancing up at him, seeing a small smile on his face.
"What's that down there?" Niall asked, gesturing to a wall that had about four or five tourists gathered next to it. From where we were, it just looked like a wall, but I would guess that there had to be something of significance down there for people to just be standing and staring at it.
"Dunno, let's check it out," Abel shrugged, and I noticed as he quickened his pace ever so slightly, and I smiled as I knew he was trying to hide how excited he was.
As we finally reached the wall, I squinted against the harsh sunlight to see what the tourists were staring at.
Suddenly, Harry's hand appeared over my head, lowering down to shade my eyes from the sun.
I tilted my head back to see him grinning down at me, his sunglasses perched on his face.
"Thank you," I smiled, and I felt all giddy as he blew a kiss down to me.
Fixing my attention back on the wall, with Harry still blocking the sun from my eyes for me, I finally saw that there were names and messages carved onto the wall.
I heard Will's deep chuckle next to me. "What better place to hide a passcode than upon a heavily engraved wall," he huffed, shaking his head a bit.
"You're telling me I gotta look through all of these?" Niall whisper-yelled, jerking his thumb towards the wall, his eyes nearly popping out of his head.
"Eat a damn Snickers or something Niall. You are being the most annoying little shit I swear," Abel groaned, with light humor in his voice.
It was quiet for a moment before Niall answered. "Well, I would have gladly eaten a Snickers if you little shits had packed me one."
"Can I hit him? Please?" Abel begged.
"Fine by me," Will shrugged, and Abel turned back towards Niall, but Harry grabbed his shoulder.
"Alright, calm down, Rocky. Let's figure this out first, and then you can beat each other up, deal?" He chuckled, ruffling his hand through Abel's hair, and Abel just reached up and irritatedly adjusted his glasses.
"Fine."
Harry shook his head and placed his hands on his hips, tilting his head back to scan the wall through the lenses of his black sunglasses.
"Hey, Will, what was the ending of that poem again? Can someone look it up?" I suddenly asked, a thought popping into my mind.
"Um...one second," Will muttered, already typing away on his phone, squinting his eyes to see past the glare.
He pressed his lips together and swiped a few more times before finally speaking again.
"A horse,
Blowing, staggering, bloody thing,
Forgotten at foot of castle wall.
A horse
Dead at foot of castle wall."
I nodded, biting back a grin as I confirmed my suspicions. "Okay, so, rule out everywhere but the bottom areas of this wall," I instructed, and Will paused for a moment, before returning my smile, coming up and holding his hand up, and I eagerly high fived it.
Niall just looked at us, completely blank-faced.
Abel gave him an, 'are you serious right now?' look and began walking towards him again.
"I know I said I would want until we got the password, but...I'm sorry, I have to he's just such an," he paused, thumping Niall on the back of the head, "Idiot."
"Ow, what'd you do that for?" Niall whined out, rubbing the back of his head.
I ignored the idiotic men arguing and roughing each other up, and began walking towards the corner of the wall. Of course, after years of being here, the castle was a bit worn down, but there was one brick, about three bricks from the last, that for some reason, had caught my eye.
I glanced around to make sure none of the tourists were suspicious, but they were all too busy reading all of the different inscriptions on the wall to notice me crouching down to examine one singular brick.
It'd be nearly impossible to notice unless you were looking for something specific on this wall, and since we were, I quickly noticed the one brick that seemed to be peeking out a bit more than the others.
I crouched down and gave one final look around, before wiggling it a big to see if it would budge. Much to my surprise, it did. In fact, it wiggled right out.
I peeked into the new hole in the wall and grinned to myself when I saw a piece of paper stuck at the back. I reached my hand inside and pulled it out, checking to make sure there was nothing on the brick itself, before returning it to its home in the wall.
I stood back up, still grinning, and went to open up the folded piece of paper when I felt someone's presence behind me.
"Find something that you'd like to share with the rest of the group, sweetness?" Harry whispered into my ear, pressing a light kiss against it and snaking his hands around my waist, pulling my back into him.
I snuggled into his chest, the breeze carrying the scent of his cologne to my nose, and I closed my eyes and softly smiled, letting my head fall back against him. I kept the piece of paper held tightly in my hand, shrugging against Harry,
"I dunno, maybe I want to keep it to myself," I teased, biting the tip of my tongue to suppress my smile from growing any larger.
"Oh really now?" Harry hummed against my ear, pulling my hair away from my neck to press a warm kiss right below my ear.
"You wanna tell me what I gotta do to get it out of you?" he teased, pressing even more soft kisses down my neck, tightening his arms around my waist, I fluttered my eyes closed for the briefest of moments, before they snapped back, open wide, and I remembered that we were in public.
"Harry, we're in public," I whispered, still grinning like a lovesick fool.
"Then let's give em' a show," He countered, lightly nipping at my ear, before finally pulling away, spinning me around to face him, pulling down his sunglasses a bit to wink at me.
I rolled my eyes, and Harry chuckled. "Oh come on, you know you love me," he pouted.
"Yes, I do love you," I smiled, and he leaned forward and kissed the tip of my nose, giving it a little boop afterward.
"I love you too," he grinned, and I wished that we weren't in public so that I could just lay on top of him and cover him with kisses.
"I found this," I spoke, waving around the still unopened piece of paper between my fingertips.
Harry raised an eyebrow, plucking the piece of paper from my fingers, glancing up at me for approval, and after I nodded, he unfolded it.
A gradual smirk spread across those perfect pink lips of his, and soon, his teeth were on display, and his eyes snapped up to meet mine.
"I can't believe you found this," he laughed, "I never would have thought to check that brick," he admitted.
I peeked over at the slip of paper in his fingers, making out the words written down upon it, faded a bit from being behind that brick for who knows how long.
Scribbled down in a sloppy print, were the words, "yellow brick road".
"Clever," I chuckled, glancing back at the yellow-toned bricks that made up the castle.
"Did you guys find something?" Will suddenly asked, startling me a bit as he seemed to appear out of nowhere. And apparently, Niall and Abel had followed, and soon, Harry and I were surrounded by their eager faces.
Abel glanced down at the paper. "Sweet! I'll run it through the system in the car, and we can just take pictures of the rest of the wall just in case," he announced.
Everyone pulled out their phones and began snapping away, blending right in with the rest of the tourists trying to get the perfect shot of the numerous messages engraved into the wall.
Niall suddenly jumped out in front of us, holding his phone up, with the camera facing us, sticking his tongue out, and instead of protesting too much, the rest of the boys and I just rolled our eyes a bit, but still gave in to Niall's silent but obvious demand for a group picture.
"Do you want me to take a picture for you all?" A voice suddenly asked, and I looked to see a grandmother with her grandchild, a little girl no older than eight.
Niall placed his hands on his hips, grinning at her.
"No, thank you th-"
"That would be amazing!" Niall interjected, cutting Will off, a bright and eager smile on his face.
We all shuffled into formation, and the elderly woman took a couple of snaps of the group, before handing the phone back to an extremely excited Niall.
He took a look at them and nodded his head in approval.
"Yep. That's it, that's the one. This is going on the Christmas card," he announced.
He turned back to the elderly woman. "Thank you so much!" He beamed.
"Of course, enjoy the rest of your day," she replied, and her shy little grandaughter simply threw up a small wave, before they turned and continued on their way around the castle.
"Alrighty then! I say we go back to the car, figure out if we have the right shit, and then, we go and get a fuck ton of alcohol and food and go back to the safehouse," Will announced, and Harry and I just rolled our eyes.
Something about traveling turned the group of highly trained criminals into a group of college boys just wanting to mess around and party, and it was quite entertaining to watch.
"Alright, alright. Let's just get out of here, get Niall his food, and get Will his alcohol, so that they'll finally shut up," Harry groaned, slipping his hand back in mine and tugging me along with him towards the car, desperate to get going so that he could get a break of Niall and Will's antics.
We all piled into the car, Abel grumbling at Niall to stop staring at him, Will subconsciously drumming his hands on the back of my chair, and Harry and I staring at each other and laughing. It was like we had picked up our four-year-old children from daycare, not the group of grown ass men in the backseat.
"Stop touching my computer Niall, or I swear I will-"
"I'm not touching it!" Niall cried out in protest.
I giggled and slumped my head against the seat, reaching for Harry's hand that was placed firmly on my thigh, running my thumb across his knuckles a bit.
I glanced over at him to find him already looking at me, the look on our faces confirming that we were both thinking the same thing amongst the chaos in the backseat...
It was going to be a long night.
AN: THANK YOU ALL FOR 50K READS! YOU ARE ALL SO AMAZING AND SO SPECIAL TO ME! I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH WOW! I HOPE YOU ENJOYED THIS CHAPTER! PLEASE DON'T FORGET TO VOTE AND COMMENT AND LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK! ALSO, BRACE YOURSELF FOR SOME ~STEAMY~ STUFF IN THE NEXT TWO CHAPS HEHE xx g