Chapter Thirty One

Sure enough, his impromptu performance had been filmed by several people who had been in the pub that night. He'd performed four other songs with the band before he'd needed a breather. Quinn had managed to snag Niall however as a replacement and he'd joined them onstage for a further three songs much to the delight of the crowd. But it had been his performance of Kiwi with them which sent social media reeling.

The videos blew up online the minute they were posted and Jeff had been thrilled. The other managers too and they'd each sent the boys notes of how well they'd done to be seen all together out in some 'mysterious location'. The four separate videos which surfaced of his and Niall's performances had all not mentioned where they were and they very endlessly grateful for that.

They'd had one of the girls who had recorded come up to them the next day when they'd all been fighting off mild headaches and said what a huge fan she was. They'd stayed chatting with her for while, she'd been friendly if not a little shy but said she wouldn't admit where they had been until they left so their location wouldn't be leaked.

The next day had been spent indoors again, the weather truly awful and the rain pouring constantly all day. They'd only gone out for lunch, which is where they'd consequently met the girl, Harriet.

Two mornings following their pub appearances he was making his way downstairs when he spotted Louis' door open down the hall. Liam and Zayn had shot into town to grab some more groceries, and Niall was sitting outside with his guitar from what Harry had heard from his window on the second floor.

Hesitating only briefly he turned down the corridor for Louis' room. Knocking softly on the side of the door he beeped his head inside and the soft voices which he'd begun to hear as he'd walked down stopped.

"Is that him?" A woman's voice said in the silence after a moment and it took him a second to realise he knew the voice.

"Harry?" Louis asked as his head appeared from around the angle of the door from where he was laying across his bed.

"Sorry, I'll leave you alone just wanted to ask if you wanted breakfast."

"Oh it's fine, it's just the girls."

"Hi Harry!" He hears Lottie's voice again.

"Hey Lots!" He calls out stepping into the room and Louis twists his laptop screen around so that he sees Lottie and the twins seated around a table displayed before him.

"PortMeirion looks incredible, Louis' been sending us photos! We're all so jealous."

"We'll have to bring you all here some time." He brushes off how easily he just said we.

"Come sit." Louis says sitting upright and patting the bed next to him.

He walks over to him and sits perched on the edge of the bed.

"The video of you in the pub by the way is awesome, we're expecting a full live reenactment next time you're here."

"Only if you join me on stage." He replies instantly and sees Daisy and Phoebe's faces light up in amusement, and he's glad to see their wariness of him from when he'd seen them again at Louis' house seems to have alleviated slightly. Perhaps Louis told them.

"Deal!" Lottie readily agrees. "Alright we really have to leave now but call me later Lou! And Harry don't be a stranger."

"Bye girls." He and Louis say at the same time and the screen goes blank.

"Sorry," He says after a moment of silence between them, "I didn't mean to intrude on your time with them."

"Don't be silly, I'm the one who invited you in here aren't I?"

There's a long stretch of silence, yet his thoughts race around his head and he's sure Louis must sense how tense he is.

"We're doing a fucking poor job of making this not awkward." Louis finally breaks the silence.

"I feel like we've come here just to top toe round one another, seems pretty stupid considering we've now said multiple times we'd try."

"Yeah." Louis muses, eyes trained ahead of him. "S'just fuckin' hard being around you though."

"It's just..." He breathes out and runs a hand through his hair, "I feel like I'm drowning inside, I want so badly to be around you but I don't know how to act when I don't know how you feel about this and I feel like it's not going to change unless we're honest about that. Hard as it is admitting things."

"You've got to be thick if you haven't picked up on my feelings, I'd hope you've at least got enough brain cells under those curls to have realised this." Louis says and he can only stare at Louis. He's been obvious? His feelings are what! He almost says it aloud, desperate for an answer but stays silent when Louis continues.

"You seriously haven't picked up on all the embarrassing things I've let slip over the past few months?"

Harry shakes his head, words failing him. Louis barks out a laugh and it seems to ease a bit of the tension rolling between them.

"Fuck Haz. The photoshoot, the Brits, the party, the show, my album, let alone the fuckin' photos on my wall!"

"What are you talking about?"

"I never stopped loving you." All the oxygen in his lungs simply evaporates. "You're the love of my life, and I've spent years trying to live a life without you in it but then you charged back and being around you now is just intoxicating and unless I'm reading all these signs wrong you aren't dealing with this well either."

"Louis..."

"And I know this all fuckin' forward and you've barely forgiven me but I can't be around you and not want you. You're a part of me and I get you've gone off to live your own life which is what I wanted for you but I can't have you in my life now and not have you. It's driving me insane!"

"Louis!" He says again and grabs for his shoulder, turning him to face him. Their eyes meet and beneath the panic evident in Louis' eyes at his rambling there's truth in every one of his words. "I requested the colour of your bloody eyes as numerous features on my music videos, my clothing, I wrote songs about you, I created a whole fucking storyline about you and broadcasted it out to the whole world, sang all those lyric changes, agreed to a fake relationship just to try and get the longing I have for you out of my head because I was that desperate, I went around the world trying to escape the feeling of you only to come running back to you the second I had the chance. You haven't been reading anything wrong, I never stopped loving you, and I never will."

Louis just stares at him, not moving away from the vice like grip Harry has on him.

"I'm scared. I caused you so much pain because I thought back then I was the one holding you back, and now I'm terrified of doing something to drive you away from me again. I can't lose you this time round, I don't want to stay away from you, but I'm so scared of getting close to you."

"I don't want to stay away from you, I've been afraid of getting close to you because I'm not sure I could relearn the person you are now without throwing every part of myself bare to you. Which it seems I'm doing now anyway. I want this, I want you." Harry says and hears the truth behind his words. Knows he means them with every part of himself. He could never want anyone as much as he wants Louis.

"It's never changed, I want to be there again to hold you when you're tired or angry. I want to be there again to hold you when you cry, to sing beside you again and know that you're mine, I want to sit with you again on lazy days when we can just be ourselves, I want to know you again as well as I knew you then, be the person once more you come to when you feel lost, I want to be able to stand in front of the world and scream that I'm in love with Louis William Tomlinson. Have been since I was sixteen, and never stopped."

He says the words with every part of his heart open. Reaching out to trace away the tear that falls down Louis' check as he stares breathless back at him.

"I thought I'd lost you forever."

Harry breaks apart, pulls Louis into him and wraps around him, burying himself in Louis.

"You never lost me, not completely."

"I love you." Louis says so quietly the words are hard to make out but he hears it none the less. He'd said it before, on stage back in London but this time he feels the difference between the two confessions.

The one on stage had been a reflection of the past they'd shared together, all that they had experienced and the love that had grown between them of each other. Not a grand romantic declaration. This one however, this one was true, and current. An admittance of every part of their still piecing together relationship which represented them for the people they were now. Changed, more mature yet still hopelessly gone for one another.

They had a way to go before they could truly be together, but Harry now knew they wanted the same thing. That the months ahead would be worth the struggles they would face because when this all ended, they'd have each other. And Harry never planned on letting go.

~~~~

The sun is finally shinning once more. The tide well out now as the five of them wander down through the sand which is more mud than it is sand. They're barefoot and in shorts. Tripping their way through the sludgy brown mess beneath them.

"I bet you five pounds I can find sinking sand before you can." Liam challenges Niall and the next moment they're both racing off towards the small island of clustered rocks, barely ten meters in width to find the subject of their bet.

Zayn shakes his head at the two of them but trudges on through the mud after them. And Louis stays right by his side, taking in the sun light view before them. The tension which has followed them around since their car ride to PortMeirion is finally gone, he feels as though he can finally breathe properly around Louis now since yesterday's honesty.

He'd hardly seen Louis for the rest of the day yesterday. Niall barging in only ten minutes after they'd finished talking to find them both wrapped in each other lying back on Louis bed. Harry had been lazily tracing patterns through Louis' hair, eyes trained on the ceiling as he'd run over every point of their discussion. Louis had been half lying on top of his chest, and he knew he also been wide awake. Taking the time in the silence to think over their shared words and confessions to one another too.

Niall hadn't commented on their position, his eyes had widened slightly but he'd dragged Louis away from him and they'd disappeared off for a good couple of hours. By the time they'd returned, soaked from the rain the five of them all bundled together in the lounge and had watched four movies together. Only taking a break to order food, and had spent the rest of the evening gorging themselves on the pile of food they'd ordered.

Today however, Louis had fallen right into step beside him and they'd all made their way down here he'd spoken passionately about his siblings, updating him on everything he'd missed in the past few years. He'd only finished when they were a couple hundred meters from the steps which had led them down into the muddy surface of the estuary.

"Oi! Get over here!" Niall yells out to them and he, Louis and Zayn make their way over to where Liam and Niall are stood.

"Who's going in?" Liam asks with a glint in his eye and Niall practically jumps into the softer surface. He immediately starts sinking through the surface, ankles soon disappearing from sight.

"You idiot." Zayn murmurs.

Louis steps forward and soon enough his ankles disappear from view too as he sinks lower.

He glances up at Harry, a smile breaking out before he laughs and falls forward slightly, hands burying into the muddy surface to balance himself.

"Reckon we should leave them here?" He says to Liam.

"Definitely, let's go." Liam replies and the three of them turn away to mock returning to the village when a hand reaches out and grabs his wrist. His movements halt and he turns to find one of Louis' mud coated hands holding tightly onto his wrist.

"No leaving each other, remember?" Louis says in what he supposes is meant to be a lighthearted joke but his heart still clenches at the words.

"Never."

He spends the next few minutes helping Louis pull himself free from the quick sand, finally succeeding and Louis falls forward into his arms. Despite the mud which now coats his hands as they cling to his clean shirt, Harry holds Louis against him, relishing in the contact.

"Not this again." Niall blurts out from behind them and they both turn to face him.

"Don't be jealous, not everyone is so lucky." Louis replies and does the most childish, Louis thing possible and sticks his tongue out at Niall.

"Alright fine, you're cute together we get it!"

He laughs and bury's his head into Louis' shoulder. They hadn't exactly covered what they were going to tell the others, hell he still didn't even know if they were actually together, or just 'better than friends' or what. He guessed that was another conversation they needed to have. Being in love was more confusing than he remembered. He should have known however that the others would easily pick up the shift between them both. Had all witnessed enough of their love sick nature towards one another in years gone by to not see them slowly begin falling into that again now.

They spent another two hours down on the estuary, finally conceding to returning back to the house when the tide rapidly started coming in again and there weren't much more safe places to walk. The sun was beginning to set now and they were all rather hungry.

Refusing to give in and order takeaways, he made quesadillas for them all and they ate together in the lounge whilst watching Top Gun for what must have been their hundredth time all together.

Later, after a long shower to rid all the mud which he'd somehow managed to spread across numerous parts of his body that afternoon, he lay still beneath the crisp sheets. His back turned towards his door, hands pressed against the pillow under his head his thoughts returned to Louis.

They admitted so much yesterday but had hardly clarified what they actually were to each other. Where they officially back together? They hadn't even kissed yet. He'd been longing too since the Brit awards. His thoughts often drifting to the thought of Louis' lips pressed against his own. Had been on his mind every time he'd come apart recently in his own privacy. It had been a show of restraint that he'd restrained the past few days from relieving himself but the thought of doing so whilst the other lads where in the same house, whilst Louis stayed just a floor below him had scared him enough away from that idea.

It was nearing midnight when his door quietly pushed open. He didn't turn over even as he felt the covers push back and a weight settle behind him.

"I couldn't sleep." Louis whispers into the darkness. He reaches his hand out behind him, finding Louis' hand and pulling him till he's pressed to his back and snakes his arm around Harry. Breathe hot against his neck and he shifts slightly till their bodies slot together as seamlessly as they'd always done.

They're older now, their bodies having changed and grown but still managed to fit together just as perfectly. Having Louis curl around him was like one of the final puzzle pieces aligning. He'd never realised how much he'd missed these small things they'd once shared till he now had it back. The feeling of Louis slowly, wordlessly drifting to sleep whilst pressed against him was everything he'd lost four years ago. And everything he would never go without again.

~~~~

Their last few days in PortMeirion passed in similar fashion. The sun stayed out and they spent their time exploring the neighbouring area, even spent their final night at the same pub, and taking long walks down the estuary. It was fun, and so very easy the way they all slotted back together again. Here they were just five young men enjoying being around such close friends.

Louis spent all remaining nights in his bed, wrapped around him. Nothing progressed and they didn't speak about it but he went to sleep each night more at ease than he'd felt in years.

His final view of the small, vibrant village as they drove out that Thursday afternoon, was the sun shining down and it followed them all the way back to English soil.

The start of a new journey.