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Nick let himself into his flat with a sigh. It had been a fine day at the studio, and he had just had a perfectly lovely dinner with Aimee and Ian, but that didn’t stop him from sulking most of the way home. One Direction had a break coming up, and Louis Monsterlinson had already booked an exotic holiday with his girlfriend, and Harry was going to California.
‘I just haven’t seen Cal in ages,’ Harry had pointed out when he called to give Nick the news. Which decidedly wasn’t true, Nick thought with a frown. Harry had just seen Cal when he was in the islands with Swifty over New Year’s. But Cal had invited and Harry had accepted, and Nick knew it wasn’t a big deal, really he did, because One Direction was playing eighty-five million sold out shows at the London O2 in two weeks time and he’d go to half of them, and see Harry before and after and in between, and all the other times he could manage.
But that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to be grumpy about it. It was his god-given right to be grumpy, and Harry, and his friends, and all the Radio One listeners would just have to deal with it.
Louis wanted to spend the whole week with his significant other, after all, even though the two of them were always together, going to fashion shows and parties and other highly-photographed events.
(Nick ignored how often he and Harry attended highly-photographed events together, as well. It wasn’t the same thing at all).
Throwing his keys haphazardly somewhere to his left—and wouldn’t that come back to bite him in the ass tomorrow morning—Nick toed off his shoes and then froze, heart pounding.
There was someone in his flat.
Someone watching his recorded cooking shows, apparently. Nick frowned and crept to the doorway of the lounge.
Harry was curled up on the sofa in one of Nick’s ratty jumpers, a pint of ice cream in hand.
Harry, who was supposed to be in Manchester, where he had just had a show, and where he was about to have another one. Harry who was away on a massive world tour.
Except, apparently not, since Harry was very clearly in Nick’s flat, dripping rocky road on the sofa.
“What are you doing here?”
Harry looked up, a smile blooming over his face as he caught sight of Nick. He looked tired and so, so beautiful.
“Thought I’d pop round.”
“From Manchester?” Nick knew he was gaping, but his brain was having trouble processing the boyfriend in his lounge.
Harry ducked his head, smiling shyly. “Wanted to see you,” he mumbled. “Didn’t think you’d mind.”
And that finally got Nick moving. “Mind?” he scoffed, hurrying over to the sofa, where Harry was curled up like a giant, sleepy, soft cat. “Of course I don’t mind. I just—how are you even here?”
Harry smiled ruefully. “You seemed a bit…annoyed about L.A.?”
“Oh.” Nick frowned. Well, of course, he had been annoyed. About five minutes ago. But now he couldn’t remember feeling anything but deliriously happy that Harry was in the same city as him. But. “You didn’t have to drive all the way down here just because I was being a bit…”
“High maintenance?” Harry supplied, hiding a grin in a spoonful of ice cream.
“Justifiably forlorn,” Nick sniffed.
“Forlorn?”
“Melancholy. Despondent. Lachrymose.”
Harry’s nose wrinkled adorably. “Lachrymose? Did you swallow a thesaurus?”
“I’m a very clever bloke, you know. I know tonnes of things.”
Harry smiled fondly. “Yes, I know. Were you really—lachrymose?”
Nick sighed and snuggled closer. “No. Not really. I just…really wanted to see you. But now here you are.”
“Here I am. And I brought ice cream.”
“You’ve eaten nearly all of it! You get no points for that.”
“Does that mean you don’t want any?”
“I didn’t say that,” Nick pouted. Harry grinned and shoved the spoon at him, smearing chocolate over his lips in a cold, slick slide. Nick grumbled but parted his lips, letting Harry feed him.
“You didn’t have to come all this way to cheer me up,” Nick felt he had to point out. He wasn’t a child, even though he did feel massively better now that he had Harry and sweets.
“I wanted to. Got to see James, too,” Harry smiled, and so Nick accepted it, tossing an arm around the boy and pulling him closer.
They finished off the ice cream as Nigella moaned over fettuccini on the telly, curled close together. Nick missed this, whenever Harry was away being a hugely famous popstar. He missed everything about Harry, but mostly this: the quiet nights on the sofa, the comforting weight of Harry resting against him. Despite what people thought, their relationship wasn’t all hard partying and shagging in restrooms—although they had done their fair share of that. But Harry was domestic by nature, a nester, and Nick, it turned out, was more than happy to oblige, to spend his Saturday nights in the Waitrose, picking up overpriced spices to try something off of Jamie Oliver.
That was what he lost out on when Harry went off touring, or promoting, or recording.
When the ice cream was done Harry set the container aside and turned to Nick, giving his shoulder a little bump. “Hey. So. I have something to show you.”
“Hmm?” Nick wrenched his eyes away from where Nigella was doing something positively indecent with ganache. Harry looked uncharacteristically nervous, like he had in the first days of their friendship, when he stumbled over words and couldn’t seem to believe he was partying with Kate Moss or Mark Ronson.
Or, even more so, when he first made his move on Nick, blinking up at him rapidly and then just leaning in and snogging him over a homemade spinach pie.
“What’s up?” Nick really, really hoped it wasn’t bad news. Harry had already broken it to him that they wouldn’t get to spend the next week together. What could he possibly have to tell Nick—that they had cancelled all of the London shows and were spending the time in Siberia instead? That he’d grown tired of the incessant rain and was leaving Nick for Cal and never coming back from L.A.?
Harry bit his lip—an eternally fetching sight—and in lieu of an answer, pulled his borrowed jumper off. While sudden nudity was never particularly surprising with Harry, this seemed a bit of a non sequitur. “Um?”
“I got a new tattoo,” Harry said.
Nick’s eyes immediately fell to Harry’s bared flesh, but honestly, he couldn’t really keep track of the tattoos as it was, and they all tended to blur together in a mass of scribbles.
“Here,” Harry prompted, pointing to his shoulder.
On his right side, which was bare except for the “things I can”, there was a small cursive “g”.
Like most of Harry’s tattoos, it looked more like a doodle than professional art, and Nick knew it was most likely the work of one of the boys, or Tom Atkin, or a roadie or something, rather than ink purchased in a shop. “It’s…nice?” he offered.
Harry frowned. “Nice?”
Nick shrugged. “Yeah? I mean, if I were Gemma I’d start worrying you’d killed her cat as a child or something, but it’s nice you love your sister so much.” Harry already had the silly iced gem and Gemma’s name in Hebrew on his other arm, but Nick knew family was important to the boy, so he didn’t want to rib too much.
“I already have two tattoos for Gemma,” Harry said slowly.
“Yeah, I know.” Nick settled back into the cushions. “That’s what I’m saying. She’s going to start to think you’re guilty over some terrible secret.”
“No,” Harry rolled his eyes. “I mean, I have two tattoos for Gemma and that’s enough. This isn’t for her.”
Nick looked back at him, raising an eyebrow. “Then what’s it for? Tell me it’s not another sports team logo.” The Green Bay Packers “G” on Harry’s arm might be the most embarrassing thing the boy had ever done, as far as Nick was concerned, and that was saying something.
Harry snorted. “No, it’s not a team logo and it’s not for my sister. Is there anyone else I know whose name starts with G?”
Nick furrowed his brow, thinking.
“Oh my god, Grimmy!” Harry let out an exasperated huff. “Your name starts with G, you absolute numpty.”
“My?” For the second time that night, Nick found himself completely speechless. His name did start with a ‘g’, that much was true. And yet…it hadn’t even crossed his mind that this tattoo might be for him, even with Harry’s eyes alight with nerves. “You got a tattoo for me?”
Harry nodded slowly and Nick reached out, tracing a finger over the thin black line. He liked all of Harry’s tattoos—even the terminally stupid ones—because they were part of Harry, not just physically part of his skin, but a part of his essential self, the way he chose to express himself to the world. But this was…something different than that. “Just because I was mad about L.A.?”
Harry sighed, reaching up to grab Nick’s hand and press his fingers against the warm skin of Harry’s shoulder. “No, you idiot. I got a tattoo for you because I love you, and because I have to be away a lot this year, and I want to feel like you’re always with me.”
Oh.
“Oh. That’s,” Nick gulped. A lot of feelings to spring on a person, but Nick’s heart was soaring anyway. He’d known he was in love with Harry for absolutely ages—perhaps even before they got together. But he’d never said it, because Harry was so young, and famous, and gone half the time. But mostly because Harry hadn’t said it first. “I love you too.”
Harry grinned. “Really?”
“Yes. But does that mean I have to get, like, your face tattooed on my bum? Because I’m pretty sure Finchy won’t let me live that down.”
Harry laughed, releasing Nick’s hand to smack him on the shoulder. “No,” he giggled. “No tattoos necessary.”
Nick gathered Harry back into his arms, holding him close. “The same goes for you, you know. I’m with you all the time, even without the ink.”
“I know.” Harry tipped his head back to rest on Nick’s shoulder, peering up at him upside down. “But I like knowing its there. And, you know, permanent.”
Nick felt something clutch in his chest, but he was surprised to find it was happiness, not terror. “Yeah. Permanent.”
“Besides,” Harry continued. “I wanted to remind myself. That, no matter what, you’re, you know.” He stopped, tracing his fingers over the words on his forearm. Things I can.
“Oh.” And what could Nick do but pull Harry close, turning him in his arms to kiss him, licking wet and deep into his mouth.
“You know,” he said, breathing the words into Harry’s mouth. “You can’t get a tattoo every time I get mad at you.”
“I don’t know.” Harry gave him a wicked smirk. “It seems to be working pretty well.”
“Menace,” Nick complained, or started to, but Harry was scrabbling into his lap, lapping into his mouth, his hands fisted in Nick’s pink hair. And so what if Harry wanted to see friends next week?, Nick thought distantly, as Harry pushed a hand up under his jumper, scratching lightly over Nick’s belly. So what if the world tour meant the time they had together was few and far between? Because they time they did spend together was excellent, and he wasn’t thinking that just because Harry was slipping off the sofa onto his knees, pulling the fly of Nick’s jeans open.
Although that certainly did help.
Afterwards, once Harry had sucked Nick’s remaining coherence out through his dick and then come all over Nick’s hand, they crawled into bed to laze together. “I’m glad you came to see me,” Nick murmured, stroking the hair out of Harry’s eyes.
Harry smiled, rubbing his face sleepily against Nick’s chest, snuffling into the chest hair he seemed to so delight in. “Yeah, well worth the drive.” He opened his eyes, blinking up at Nick. “Worth all of it.”
“Yeah,” Nick agreed, thumb pressing into the ‘G’ that was just for him. It really was.