Chapter Text
The first time Niall kisses a boy, he’s ten and they’re playing World War II soldiers in the abandoned barn near his mum’s house. As the youngest members of the gang, he and his best friend Conor are allowed to play only if they’ll be the Nazis, which means they have to speak in funny German accents and, eventually, die horrifically when the Allied forces storm the barn.
Niall hates shooting games but today he’s in unusually good spirits, because his mother has promised that he can take singing lessons at the church next summer if he pays for it out of his allowance. So even though he’s got about five minutes before he gets fake-machine-gunned down, he’s flushed and happy and he wants to live, if only for a little while longer.
The kiss itself isn’t premeditated. He and Conor are holed up behind a broken-down cart the last occupants have left there, squeezed in together so that the snipers won’t spot the bright red flash of Niall’s jumper. They’re giggling and shushing each other and Niall feels this weird bubble of nerves and near-hysterical joy welling up unexpectedly in his chest, and then without thinking about it he’s doing it, he’s kissing Conor, only Conor turns his head away at the last minute and Niall just catches the side of his mouth.
To his credit, Conor doesn't freak out. At the time Niall’s so grateful he could cry. Later though he wonders if maybe that would have been better, if Conor had made a scene and stormed off and never spoken to Niall again, because at least then he'd know that something had happened. But Conor just draws back a little and puts his hand up to his mouth, wiping off the place where Niall’s lips touched his skin, and Niall wants to curl in on himself in shame and humiliation.
“You can’t be like that,” is all Conor says. There’s no anger in his voice, just steel, a tone that brooks no argument. His eyes are cold, though not unkind; he’s just telling Niall how it is, after all. Niall knows in that moment that they're never, ever going to talk about it again.
He doesn’t know what to say, so he doesn’t say anything. Instead he flings himself away from Conor, pushing him a little too hard, maybe, as he stumbles to his feet and out into the open. He’s forgotten the game entirely, but when the other boys gun him down, shouting “Bang-bang-bang-bang” and whooping wildly, he flops onto the filthy floor and performs the requisite final agonies, clutching his stomach and convulsing dramatically for a few minutes before closing his eyes. Death comes as some relief.
*
Things aren’t weird between them, not exactly, but when Conor’s family moves into the new housing estate across town, they just sort of – drift apart.
That summer Niall starts getting nervous sometimes for no reason. The panic comes out of nowhere, wave after wave of it sweeping over him till his palms are sweating and his heart is pounding, even though he’s just sitting at his desk or lying on the sofa watching telly with his mum. Once when he cuts through the garden on his way home from singing lessons and sees Conor’s mother sitting at his kitchen table talking to his mum, he gets so lightheaded and panicky he has to sit down on the garden bench and wait for the dizziness to pass. It turns out she was only returning a borrowed dish.
As he gets older the specific fear that Conor will tell someone about that afternoon in the barn subsides a bit, replaced by a more general sense of uneasiness. He’s jumpy and restless all the tine, prone to startling when people talk too loudly or come up behind him without warning. “Stop fidgeting,” his mother’s always whispering to him, slapping at his hands when he can’t stop picking at the skin around his cuticles during Sunday mass.
There are other feelings mixed up in the restlessness. Like the surge of heat he feels sometimes when he’s playing football with the lads and somebody slams into him, knocking him down, their limbs getting all tangled together, or the way his stomach twists uncomfortably when he watches his mate Ben eat a chocolate bar and then lick his fingers clean.
The low, constant thrum of guilt and shame becomes as familiar to him as a second heartbeat, beating out a steady pulse in his temples. In the showers after football practice he’s careful not to look too long at anyone, turning his face up towards the water instead and scrubbing furiously at his hair like he’s absorbed in trying to get all the soap out of it. There are precious few opportunities to wank in his house (it’s too small and his mum is always about), but when he does, usually late at night after everyone’s gone to sleep, he tries not to think about anything at all, just concentrates on the quick, furtive movements of his hand and the cool silkiness of the sheets against his skin.
When he’s fifteen his mates on the football team dare him to ask out Molly Riordan from St. Agnes’ down the road. He doesn’t want to seem like a bad sport—or something worse than that—so he does it, calling her up on a Thursday to ask if she’d like to go to the cinema. She’s a lovely girl with a rather terrifying-looking father, who glowers at Niall from his recliner without speaking when he comes to pick her up. They see a romantic comedy with Jennifer Aniston and a nice-looking bloke with great hair in it, and halfway through Molly grasps his hand in the dark, pulling it onto her thigh so his palm is resting just above her knee.
Like an idiot, he freezes up completely. He has no idea what to do, what’s expected of him, so instead of responding he just blushes fiercely and stares straight ahead at the screen for the rest of the film, as if he’s so absorbed in the plot he hasn’t even noticed they’re touching.
Afterwards they walk home together in the dark, neither of them saying much. When they get to her house she says a bit awkwardly, “Well, that’s me, then,” and unlatches the garden gate. She’s vanished inside before he has time to panic about whether or not he’s meant to kiss her goodnight. The next morning he shrugs off his mates’ suggestive remarks and exaggerated winks, and never calls her again.
He knows she’s a lovely girl. But he knows this too, with a cold queasy certainty: that he’d rather kiss the side of a boy’s mouth just once than put his hand up Molly Riordan’s skirt a dozen times over.
*
When he makes it through he can’t believe it. Can't believe any of it: Simon Cowell saying his name, the crushing defeat or the unexpected reprieve. He can't process the live shows, or the girls who've started to gather outside the studio, screaming their names -- Harry's mostly, Liam's too -- as they stick their hands through the bars, grasping for them, desperate for contact. At first Harry's just the latest addition to the list of things Niall never expected to happen to him, part of the background din of noise and excitement. it's not till later, at the house, that he starts to come into focus.
He's always touching. Always hugging someone or kissing them on the cheek, curling up under someone's arm on the sofa, crawling into someone's bunk after lights out when he feels lonely. And he's naked, or nearly so, more than Niall's ever seen anyone be naked before, even when there's cameras nearby and people looking. It makes Zayn snort when he's in a good mood, in a way that makes Harry look smugly pleased, and shove Harry irritably off when he's not, in a way that makes Harry sulk. It makes Liam wring his hands, fretting. For god's sake, Harry, put on some pants, you're going to get us booted off. It makes Louis watch Harry with a glint in his eyes Niall recognizes, not because he knows Louis but because he knows trouble. It's a look that says I dare you.
Niall never knows how to respond when Harry touches him, or leans in close. He never knows where to look, either, at Harry's mouth, at his hands, at Louis's smirk. He can't make out the rules. Sometimes it feels like the rest of them are fluent in a language he's only ever half learned, a language of glances and dirty jokes and casual touches. Niall tries to keep up. He eavesdrops on the native speakers, fumbling his way through it as best he can.
He watches Harry and Louis orbit each other. He dreams, once, about Louis kissing the side of Harry’s mouth. In the dream Louis doesn't stop there. He kisses Harry's throat, too, mouth lingering on the hollow of Harry's collarbone. In the dream Harry puts his hand on the back of Louis's head and holds him there, arching into it, body lax and hot beneath him. In the cramped shower cubicles later Niall tries not to think about anything at all: just the tight clench of his fist and the spray against his back, the water hot at first, then colder.