Candles On Air (Christmas Lights)
Up above candles on air flicker
Oh, they flicker and they flow
And I'm up here holding on to all those chandeliers of hope
And like some drunken Elvis singing
I go singing out of tune
Singing how I've always loved you, darling, and I always will
**
There is something to be said about the way some people can alter your entire view of life.
They just appear, almost out of thin air, and then they're there. They turn up, might only smile, say a few words, or sit across from you on the bus, and make you contemplate the inner nature of your soul. It doesn't matter what they do, it all ends the same way.
Some people just happen to be there in the right moment, and then they're attached, like the smoke to your fire. They jump onto your boat, take the seat next to yours on the train, or possibly, maybe, climb into your tree house when you're ten years old.
It's been over twelve years since that day. Louis still remembers the look on the boy's face; a little breathless from climbing, dimples popping in either cheek, eyes green as the moss on the rocks in the little woods behind the playground.
Louis has loved him since day one. It just happened.
Harry came into his life, and changed everything. Louis might not have known then, or had much of a direction to go in, but now he knows that that's what Harry did. Louis is twenty-two, and he might not be the most prestigious man of his age, but he knows without doubt that Harry changed everything, and nothing would be the same without him.
"What do you want for Christmas, Lou?" Harry wonders. He is sitting on the floor by their plastic Christmas tree, fiddling with the lights that they won't actually turn on until Christmas approaches, and there is a red Santa's hat on top of his head of brown curls.
You, he wants to say. You. Always you.
Just like he wanted to say last year, and the year before that. And the year before that.
But just like last year, he shrugs. "I'm not sure, Harold. Maybe a pair of reindeer socks?"
Harry looks up at him from the floor, eyes filled with fondness and warmth as he smiles at him.
Louis answers the same thing every year. It's almost an unofficial tradition, a ritual. It's always the same. Every year they pack up the Christmas tree before Halloween is even over, because Harry is the living image of a kid when it comes to holidays, and Louis finds it hard to deny him much of anything. They start planning the gifts the very first day of November, and Harry asks him the same question and Louis answers the exact same thing. Then Harry smiles at him in that way that Louis can feel it in his toes.
Harry's smile is filled with unconditional love — just not the right kind. Louis has told himself for years that it's okay. Harry loving him the way he can is enough. Each year it gets a little harder to repeat the same mantra.
It gets better. It will pass. His friendship is enough.
Harry has taken the liberty of putting on classic Christmas tunes on the speaker in the kitchen, and as their shared flat isn't the largest Louis can hear Mariah Carey's crooning from where he's perched on the small sofa in the living room. Harry is on the floor, humming along.
And yes. All Louis wants for Christmas is Harry.
**
Their kitchen is very small. They have a tiny table attached to the wall with four high chairs around, separating the kitchen from the living room. They spend a lot of time in there. Harry cooks them dinner, Louis sits at the table and eats cereal every morning while Harry does yoga before work, and when Christmas times are nearing he and Harry invite some of the lads over to bake cookies. It's tradition.
