#outwardbound93

Rain riddles the sea like bullets and the dark storm clouds hang just above ceiling height, but Niall doesn’t have the panicky crushed feeling he sometimes gets. The little house feels cozy with his baby asleep in the next room and Harry’s lip jutting out in a pout.

Or, Niall becomes a dad.

Niall's been surrounded by the same people for the last five years, and they’re here now, saying goodbye the One Direction way. These are people that Niall knows and loves, and he’ll see them again, he knows. But he also knows that it won’t be the same. That this is the last time they’ll be a family, at least for a while. Louis’s got a baby coming any day now. Liam has a wedding to plan. They’re all going off in different directions.

Or, Niall navigates the days and then months post-One Direction.

it only takes them ten years to get it right.

The cab pulls away in a puff of exhaust and snow crunched under the tires, and Niall watches it go, Liam’s keys clenched in his palm. He never used to be alone so much as he does now that he feels like he’s caving in all the time. Niall takes a moment to let his face drop out of a smile, and then he turns to Liam’s car.

Harry’s stood at the counter inside his shop, unashamedly watching Niall. The door is propped open, so Niall can clearly hear him say, “You look cold.”

It sounds like a line out of a play. Niall responds in kind. “Reckon you’ve got tea.”

Harry looks up at Niall, the sharp, almost antique lines of his face thrust into regal beauty by the stadium lights. Harry’s ribs press against the size of his heart.

Or, a royalty!au where Niall's a prince and Harry's the reporter that writes about him.

The thing is, it’s entirely possible to want to lick every square inch of your best friend and touch his arse as much as you want to touch his face, to want to sleep beside him and wake up with him and make him laugh till he cries, and not want to have sex with him. Harry knows this intimately.

“At home, we sleep on the,” he points at the ceiling. “The top, so we don’t float away.”

Niall laughs. “The ceiling, you mean?” He traces the line of Harry’s dimple. “I figured you slept inside a castle, like in the pictures of what Atlantis looked like.”

“I doubt that’s accurate,” Harry says. He palms Niall’s thigh, running his hand down to his knee, where he pauses to feel out the unfamiliar bones with his fingertips. “Otters sleep holding hands so they won’t drift apart, did you know that?”

“What, are you an otter?” Niall asks.

“No, but it might not be too bad,” Harry says. He lays his head to rest on Niall’s chest, over his heart. His fingers tangle with Niall’s in the sheets, his skin tanned and smooth, Niall’s pale and scarred.

"Eh,” Niall says. “It’s not too bad, I guess.”