Got the sunshine on my shoulders - by: hattalove

chapter twenty

• sorry this chapter is a bit long •

"Tell him to stop poking me," Liam whines.
"Tell him to stop accusing me of farting," Niall whines back, poking his fingers into Liam's arm with renewed vigour.

Louis has been laughing for going on half an hour, periodically wiping tears from the corners of his eyes.

"Niall," he says now, and sounds like he's on the verge of hiccupping, "we all heard you fart, mate, I'm sorry."

Niall makes an indignant noise. "Harry," he tries, as a last resort. "Defend my honour here, please."

Harry bites his laughter back and grips the steering wheel tighter, trying to navigate the narrow country road without driving off into a ditch.

"Stop distracting the driver," Louis says. Harry thinks he might reach into the back and smack Niall upside the head. "Liam, you leave him alone."

"But-"

"Eat your fucking snacks! You're not sitting together on the way back."

Silence. Harry desperately tries to calm down, but it's been almost an hour of this, and he's tired of concentrating.

"You can't tell me where to sit," says Niall. Liam, in the middle of digging for their granola bars in his backpack, joins him in heckling Louis. It ends with the three of them throwing various food items at each other, screeching like monkeys -though that's mostly Niall, who normally cannot handle any kind of travel that takes more than 20 minutes.

Louis had offered them all a drink before they hit the road, to "get in a road trip mood", but Liam and Niall said no out of solidarity to Harry, who was the only one capable of using the sat nav in his borrowed car and was thus elected the designated driver. Harry had been touched at the time, but he's fairly sure that they only faked the solidarity long enough to go drink behind his back.

The point is, he's driving down a winding little road in the English countryside, towards a beautiful Victorian building, while three grown men turn his car into a warzone.

Somebody throws a biscuit against the windscreen just as he rolls to a stop and puts the brake in.

"We're here," he says, turning towards the back, where Niall and Liam are tangled together, halfway off the seats. Incredibly, the sight makes him feel fond. "We've got to try and look serious, so the two of you are staying in the car."

They're off of each other in a second, both sitting in their seats and glaring at him. When he looks across at Louis, he's grinning, with red cheeks and hair going every which way.

Harry raises an eyebrow.

"They started it," Louis points out, and puts down the half-squished banana he's still holding. "I'm fine. Right as rain. Ready to go."

Harry sighs. "You've got chocolate on your nose."

Louis tires to look down at it until he's almost gone cross-eyed. Harry doesn't expect the painful pang in his heart at the sight, but it's-it's so silly, so much like the Louis that he grew up loving.

"Where exactly?" Louis asks, trying to reach the tip of his nose with his tongue.

Harry smiles, sighs, and reaches out to wipe it away for him.

The touch charges him with more electricity than the tiny interior of the car can contain, so he gets out immediately after without looking at anyone. With his ears full of serene silence and a pleasant breeze on his hot cheeks, he finally has a minute to take in the colossal building before him.