forever young

“I’ll put the kettle on,” he says as they pull away. “The dogs are in the back if you want to meet them.”

He looks down at that, tucks his feet in, can’t help but feel shy offering. When the silence has gone too long, though, he peeks up to check Harry’s reaction.

Harry looks like he’s a perfect mix of shocked and thrilled. “Dogs? Like, plural? You got a dog?” he demands, already walking toward the back of the house where the yard is.

“Actually,” says Liam, starting to giggle, “I got four.”

He’d mention that Sophia took both of the dogs with her when she left, the two of them agreeing that they shouldn’t be separated, but he doesn’t want to ruin the moment, and he figures the puppies will be distracting enough to derail that conversation before it starts. He’d rather not dwell on all of the empty space he’d had the first few weeks of break, or how big the house feels without someone else’s presence helping him fill it up.

There’s a pause, and then Harry honest-to-god spins on the heel of his fancy designer boot. “You’re fucking with me,” he says, even as the delighted grin spreads over his face. When Liam smiles back, Harry turns back around and runs to the sliding glass doors that lead outside.

Liam hears a delighted shout and follows the sound to Harry, kneeling in the grass surrounded by the puppies. “What’re their names?” asks Harry, cooing at them.

Liam’s heart hurts from how perfect this is. He clears his throat, focuses. “Uh, that’s Roger, and the one with the spot on his nose is Buck, and then the girls on your lap are Nat and Peggy.”

It takes a minute to click, and then Harry turns on Liam with the most ridiculously fond, incredulous expression. “You adopted a litter of Captain America dogs? Really? Not sure why I’m surprised, though. If anyone was gonna do this… it’d be you, mate.”

Liam concedes the point easily, stepping outside and crouching down beside Harry. Peggy bounds over to him immediately, and she’s so precious Liam feels himself melting. “Hi, sweetheart,” he mumbles in the voice he really only uses with the puppies, scritching gently under her chin and behind her ears. Her eyes slip half-closed, pleased, and then she rolls over and turns her belly to him. When Liam looks over, he sees that Harry is still trying to pet the other three pups all at once.

“They’re so sweet,” murmurs Harry. His eyes are so, so green in the light, like blown glass, like they’re lit from behind.

“Yeah,” says Liam, but it feels like a breath that catches in his throat. “Um,” he continues, coughing, “are you hungry?”

Harry blinks, looks up. “Sure,” he answers. “Unless you’re cooking.”

There’s a sweet, mischievous glint in his eye, playful like he’s always been. “Hey now,” protests Liam mildly, but he feels himself smiling, helpless. “No, my mum left some food when she dropped by yesterday.”

“Thank you, Karen,” says Harry appreciatively, hamming it up in that way he has. “And here I thought you were going to starve now that you’re living alone-“ He seems to realize what he’s said as soon as he’s said it, eyes widening a fraction and face losing some of it color. “Shit,” he says immediately, “sorry, forget I said that, that was rude and I wasn’t thinking.”

He goes polite when he’s flustered, thinks Liam, and almost hates himself for feeling so fond about it. “It’s fine,” he answers, waving his hand around. It stings, but Sophia was gone even before Liam got back to this empty house. It stings, but not nearly as much as it used to. “Anyway, food?”

“Yeah, please,” agrees Harry. The gratitude in his tone is for more than just the food, Liam knows.

“I think it’s about dinner time for these buggers, too.” The dogs all perk up at hearing the word dinner, the braver of the bunch yipping excitedly. “I know,” says Liam, “you’re hungry, I know. C’mon.”

They all go inside, puppies included, and Harry almost lands flat on his face when Roger tries to sneak in between his legs. “Cheeky,” he chides, pointing at the dog, but he’s grinning.

“He just wanted to see a legendary Harry Styles fall,” says Liam, giggling. “They’re epic, you’ve got to admit. Your arms go like a windmill.”

Harry looks hilariously offended. “Excuse me, Liam,” he crows, and it’s so reminiscent of tour and interviews and all of the mess that came before the break that Liam has to stop for a minute, take a quick breath, reorient himself with his surroundings.

He shrugs instead of saying something embarrassing, and chalks it up to a win.

The puppies eat while Liam heats up the leftover chicken potpie, and Harry hums as he sets the table. It feels dangerously domestic, like this could be something they do fairly often, but Liam knows better than to get his hopes up. Harry doesn’t stay in one place for long, and it’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it does make him hard to keep track of. Liam likes consistency. He likes his house, and he likes his dogs, and he likes to feel dependable. To know where to find people. To be there when people need him.

For all Liam knows, Harry could be on the first flight back to the States in the morning. So it’s best not to entertain any fantasies while Harry is here, and try to just enjoy his company while it lasts.

The two of them eat quietly, Harry offering some random conversation every once in a while and Liam responding, though it might lack some of his trademark enthusiasm. He’s just tired, is the thing, feels suddenly exhausted even though he hasn’t been doing all that much. He’d only just gotten the puppies a week and a half ago, and they’re lots of work, but his songwriting notebook is collecting dust under the bed and Harry’s was the first call he took in five days.

It’s only when Harry gets up from the table and grabs for his keys that Liam starts to get nervous, though.

“Wait,” he says, not shy but trying not to be over-eager. He knows he sounds confused but that’s better than sounding upset, at least. “Do you have somewhere to be?”

Harry’s hand freezes over the keys. “No,” he says, slowly.

It’s the tone of voice he gets when he wants to say more but he won’t without a push, so Liam raises his eyebrows and waits.

Harry pulls his hand back and touches the back of his neck. “I just,” he says, “thought you might, like. Want me to go.”

Liam’s heart sinks. “What? Why?” he asks, though the turn in his stomach seems pretty self-explanatory. He almost wishes that he weren’t usually so chatty; when he’s not feeling his best, the silence always gives him away.

There’s a pause, and Liam immediately wants to apologize, starts to before Harry cuts in and says, “Liam, come on. I know you. Something’s bugging you, and I didn’t want to, like, bother you. Or whatever. I just thought you’d want me to go.”

When something is bothering Liam, he hates to be alone, and Harry knows that. The lie sinks to the bottom of his stomach like a rock. “You don’t have to,” he answers, quieter than he’d meant to, “but if you want to go, don’t let me stop you.”

This feels stupid, melodramatic, but if Harry leaves then at least Liam will have an excuse for curling up in bed with the dogs and not moving until he absolutely has to. Unlike the last few days, when he did it for no valid reason at all.

“Liam,” says Harry, a tiny bit exasperated, and Liam gets up from the table, throws on a smile.

“It’s fine,” he says, “sorry, I’m fine. I’ll see you later, yeah?”

“Hey-“ protests Harry, but Liam has had enough humiliation for one day.

“I’ll walk you out,” he interrupts quickly, scooping up all of the plates and carrying them into the kitchen to drop in the sink. When he walks back out, Harry is just standing there, watching him. “Might want to put a coat on,” suggests Liam.

Harry doesn’t say anything to that, nor does he move to get his coat. “I’m staying,” he says, and Liam isn’t sure he can really handle this much emotional whiplash in one evening, but he also isn’t up to fighting.

He nods. “Okay,” he says, exhausted.

Harry’s eyes are full of concern and something else swirling underneath that Liam can’t place. He looks like he’s about to say something when Peggy jumps on his leg, probably shedding all over Harry’s black jeans. “Well hello,” Harry tells her, smiling, and his dimples are too much to look at it, so Liam turns and finds the other dogs.

Buck is playing with Nat in the living room, but Roger is missing. Liam calls out a bit, wandering through the house, and finds the dog curled up on the middle of Liam’s bed, chewing on Liam’s pajama pants.

“No,” he chides, tugging the pants away.

He tosses them into the laundry and goes to find another pair, but he doesn’t have any clean. He’d meant to do laundry yesterday but then he’d got caught up cleaning after Peggy, who’d eaten something she wasn’t supposed to and subsequently spit it up, and he contemplates just sleeping naked before the day (week, month, year) catches up to him and his eyes are watering without his permission.

He scrubs at his face, wiping away the building tears. It’s embarrassing, and he really does need to just take a breath.

He’s ready to dart into the bathroom and splash some water on his face before heading back out to talk to Harry, but he turns around and-

“Hey,” Harry says, much less hesitant than before, “hey, what’s wrong?”

And Liam was fine, is the thing. He was fine, and he is fine, and he can handle it, but when Harry hugs him he finds that he can’t stop crying no matter how he tries. He must be ruining Harry’s shirt at this pace, the sheer material not holding up well to water. “Sorry,” he says, thick with tears. “I’m sorry, sorry.”

Harry shushes him, holding him a little closer, and it’s almost humiliating, how safe it feels to be held like this.

It takes Liam a good few minutes to finally calm down enough to pull away, and Harry’s expression is tight with worry. “You can talk to me,” he says, after a long pause. “I know you’re upset and all, but you can talk to me instead of running off, you know.”

That’s rich, thinks Liam, that Harry is talking about dealing with things instead of running off, but it’s a mean thought, unfair. Harry is here now, and Liam has been hiding from the world for weeks. He’s got no ground to stand on.

“The house is too big,” is what he finally comes up with, and wants to kick himself for how weird and shaky it comes out, and how little sense it even makes.

Harry, for his part, takes it in stride. “Okay,” he says, a little bit prodding.

Liam takes a deep breath and tries again. “Ever since Sophia left,” he says, this time more coherently. “Everything is just so quiet, and, like, empty. I hate it. And we’re not touring or anything, and it’s just. Nothing. I don’t know.”

“So you got the dogs,” continues Harry slowly, filling in a few of the blanks. “Have you been taking care of them by yourself?”

Liam nods, shrugs, feels himself flush a little. He knows it’s stupid, okay. He knows he probably can’t handle all of them, but he’s been lonely, and he didn’t want to separate them from each other.

They needed each other, he thought.

“Okay,” says Harry, again, still slow. He takes in Liam’s tearstained face, the tension in his shoulders, and his gaze feels like it burns when it runs over Liam’s body. “Here’s what’s going to happen. I’m gonna move in for a bit, and you’re going to actually talk to people when you’re upset instead of adopting more dogs, and you’re not going to run yourself into the ground trying to keep up with everything. Yeah?”

Liam feels frozen to the spot. “You’re staying?” he asks, and wants to bite his tongue immediately after. “I mean, don’t you have stuff to do?”

Again, it comes out awkwardly, but Harry just smiles this time, half-shrugs. “Nothing this important,” he answers.

If Liam wasn’t looking for it, he’d have missed the trace of a blush, high on Harry’s cheekbones.

But he was looking for it, wasn’t he. Embarrassing to the last.