Merry Christmas @zarrycats I’m your secret santa for the 1D Fic Secret Santa! Here’s my gift for you, i hope you like it :) 🎄🎁
“Liam, you’re sitting on my hand!”
“Sorry Louis, here, let me just―ow!”
“Hey! That’s my hand,” Harry yelped, pulling it up to his chest as Liam flinched away. He sucked at his second knuckle, just above the band of his new ring.
“Did your ring just tear a hole in my jeans?” Liam groaned, patting his own thigh to inspect any potential damage.
“If it did then I’ve improved your style.”
“Would you lot knock it off!” Niall snapped from the front seat. “I can barely hear the directions.”
“Niall, it’s embarrassing that you even need directions,” Louis grinned.
“I’m normally the one hosting you animals, I don’t know where half of youse live.”
“Oh that’s nice.”
“In 200 metres, turn left.”
Niall caught Harry’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “Are you sure Zayn hasn’t been there yet?”
Harry nodded. “Between extra shifts at work and his sister’s engagement, he’s just had no time.”
“Are you sure though?” Louis pressed, his head appearing from behind Liam’s breadth in the middle seat. “Zayn? Not going to a brand new arcade the second it opens? Seems unlikely.”
“He wouldn’t go without me!”
“And how do you know what he does with every second he has free?”
“Because he spends them all with me,” Harry winked, self-satisfaction flooding his chest when Louis disappeared back behind Liam with a, “yuck.”
Harry reached his arm around Liam to nudge Louis in the shoulder. In retaliation Louis slammed into Liam, forcing Harry up against the car door with a pained thud.
“What the hell!” Liam shouted, trying to push back against Louis, who had his arm stretched straight out against his own car door to lock them in place. “Niall, why exactly did we have to leave the front seat free for Zayn when he’s not even here yet?”
“Makes the pick-up quicker,” Niall said, rounding another corner.
“Surely that inconvenience wouldn’t be as big as this inconvenience,” Liam said, and with Harry’s added weight successfully forced Louis back against his own door. Harry smoothed down his silk shirt in the free space, leaving Liam to wrangle Louis by locking his arms inside an embrace. Zayn had picked this shirt out for him on Harry’s last birthday, he thought it was only fair he wear it for Zayn’s.
“Yeah, Niall, you’re a terrible leader,” Louis said, wriggling within Liam’s grasp. “I should’ve been the driver.”
“Every time you drive my car it ends up at the mechanic for a week.”
“I should’ve been the driver,” Harry interjected, smoothing down his sleeves. “I’m the one who should be greeting Zayn first since this was all my idea!”
“Every time you drive I get a parking ticket!”
“At the roundabout, take the third exit.”
“If i was sitting up front you wouldn’t need your phone to give you directions,” Harry grumbled.
“This is Zayn’s street,” Liam said in a remarkably even voice, considering the fight Louis was putting up.
Harry’s eyes traced the pavement he’d walked so many times. The pothole he’d tripped on when he was trying so desperately to make a good impression before their first date, the lamp post Zayn had kissed him up against after their second date. On the steps leading up to Zayn’s place was a slim figure with a light trail of smoke wafting overhead.
“There he is!” Harry stuck his hand over Niall’s shoulder, pointing him toward Zayn.
Niall pulled up and Harry heard the doors unlock automatically. Zayn stepped forward out of the shadows, circling around the bonnet instead of going for the passenger door.
“Hey! What’re you doing?” Niall barked through the windshield. “Get in, this is a tow away zone!”
Zayn ignored Niall thumping on the window and instead stopped in front of Harry’s, tapping for him to roll it down. A wave of cool air washed over Harry’s face when he obliged.
“Hey,” Harry smiled, Niall’s complaints fading into utter significance.
“Hey babe,” Zayn grinned back, leaning down to peck his lips through the open window.
Harry took a moment to come back to himself, still smiling faintly. “Happy birthday.”
“Thanks.”
“Would you get in the car!” Niall’s face appeared between the seat and the car, a dangerously parental rise to his eyebrows. Zayn ambled calmly back around the car as Harry hurriedly rolled his window back up, and slipped into the passenger seat. Niall took off before he’d even got his seat belt on.
“Boys,”he greeted, turning around to the three of them in the backseat. Liam and Louis were still tangled in some kind of limb warfare, but briefly paused to wish him a happy birthday as if it were merely a side attribute to their trip, and the battle raging between them was the true purpose of the night. Zayn winked at Harry and then turned back around to face Niall.
“So why am I stuck looking at you and Harry’s trapped back there?”
“Don’t even start,” Niall snapped, and then just as tersely, “Happy birthday.”
The arcade was not terribly far from Zayn’s place - half a dozen blocks at most - but Harry still felt it an unreasonable torture to keep him trapped beside his two warring mates as Zayn sat perfectly in view but out of reach up front. It was far too long before they finally turned into a moderately sized parking lot, and Harry was out and running around to the passenger door before Niall even had the car in park.
“Hi,” he smiled, opening Zayn’s door for him. Harry had always been taller than Zayn, even when they first met, but somehow it never quite felt like it. Zayn seemed grand and towering in his eyes, especially now when he stepped out of the car and slung him in for a more satisfying kiss than their last.
“You lads coming?” Niall called out, and Harry turned to see him halfway to the entrance with the others racing for the door.
“They’re lagging because they know they’re gonna lose!” Louis shouted over his shoulder, trying to push Liam off course and failing miserably.
“Come on,” Zayn said, holding out his hand. “Let’s go show them who’s boss.”
