reasons (n.s.)

xiv

NIALL AND HARRY sit comfortably on the sofa, stuffing their faces with cheese popcorn, covering their fingers in cheese powder in the process, watching the latest X-Men movie. Too concentrated on the movie, they suddenly brush their hands together for the briefest moment, and Harry stiffens as his cheeks flush, and as he looks at Niall who looks normal and comfortable whatsoever, he relaxes and leans back on the couch.

Feeling bored all of a sudden, he rubs his hands together trying to get rid of the powder on his fingers and lifts his jean-clad legs atop Niall's lap, which disturbs Niall's viewing pleasures, but only for a minute. Harry fixes his pillows so that he could take a nap, but this disturbs Niall again, and he squeaks out with a small voice, "Hey, are you gonna sleep?", to which Harry nods, and Niall nods back.

Niall pauses the movie and turns the TV off and stands up to stretch. "Where are you going?" Harry whines, to which he blushes once again at the fact that he had just whined like a child. Niall, though, just laughs it off and takes Harry's hand and drags him upstairs. They both fall on Niall's bed, and Niall shuffles around and fixes the sheets so that the covers are around them both, and he just wraps his arm around Harry's back and pulls him close. Even if Niall's a bit small, that doesn't mean he isn't strong, and so Harry doesn't crush him by his weight, which is fortunate for the both of them. Feeling secured and cozy, Harry wraps his arms around Niall's waist and pulls him even closer, if it was possible, and they eventually fall asleep in each other's arms.

*

Niall wakes up half past an hour later with a bit of a stiff neck, and looks down at the young boy in his arms, and gives him a little kiss on the top of his head, to which he wishes he could do whenever he wanted. But no.

He wishes he could stay like that forever, but his darned bladder had to ruin the moment, and so he shuffles a bit to get out of Harry's tight grasp, to which Harry stirs and flutters his eyes open. He smiles up at the older lad and kisses his cheek, and at that moment, Niall thinks that now was the perfect time. Right now. 'Just do it Niall', he thinks to himself, and leans forward with his lips outed, but eyes still open a bit, and chickens out and just kisses his cheek. Even though this should be a disappointment to him, it does work, as this resolves in a kissing fight-alternately kissing each other on the cheek-to which Harry does the unthinkable and plants his lips right on Niall's chapped ones.

Shocked, Niall doesn't move for a moment, then suddenly realizes that this is what he's been wanting for so long. And so he responds quickly after, and they both continue kissing, no tongues, no harsh hands, just gentle kisses.

They both pull away gasping, and they just smile at each other in awe and adoration, finally realizing that this was also what the other wanted too.

"What was that?" Niall beams, cheeks splotchy pink. "What was what?" Harry asks innocently, turning his swollen pink lips into a smug smirk. Niall rolls his eyes playfully and plants his lips back onto Harry's for a chaste kiss, and finally excuses himself to the bathroom.

Harry rolls on his back, still gasping, and contemplates on what that kiss meant. 'Was it just a friendly kiss? Does he do that to the other boys sometimes? Does he want this too? Did he really mean it?', all going in his head.

Niall suddenly jumps on him, to which he jerks a bit, as he did not see that coming, too caught up in his thoughts to know. He looks up to see Niall smiling at him, but not just a smile, but his sincere Niall smile, to what Harry likes to call it. Wherein the sides of his eyes go all crinkly, and to where his dimple pokes out, where his smile could fall off his face any minute now. Harry breathes out a contented sigh and wraps his arms around Niall to bring him down on him and hug him tightly.

"Niall?" Harry says. "Harry?" Niall responds. "Do you like me?" Harry croaks out.

Caught off-guard, Niall stiffens for a moment and he pushes himself off Harry's chest to look at him with a surprised expression, to which Harry frowns and looks like he was about to cry.

Knowing that he wouldn't respond to what he was going to say anyway, he leans down to place his lips onto Harry's for another kiss, and pulls away right after.

"Does that answer your question?" he asks with a comforting smile, and Harry smiles back at him fondly, and pulls him back down for even more kisses. And you know the rest.

*

Two days after, where they finally go on tour and as they're all on the tour buses, Niall calls Greg.

"Wait wait wait... I thought you were together though?" Niall's brother asks in confusion down the phone, and Niall just rolls his eyes at how clueless his brother is. "Greg, that was just for publicity. You know, the fans? Bromances? Stuff?" he says.

"Oh my God, really?! You guys looked so real, though! You're really good at acting." Greg laughs, to which Niall just smiles at. "Yeah. Anyway, so after we watched the movie, we went upstairs to take a nap, and then we woke up again, we started kissing each other on the cheek, and then he leaned in and kissed me. He kissed me Greg!" Niall exclaims in joy, with his hands ruffling his hair- something he does when he's either happy, or nervous.

"That's great, Ni. So that means he likes you back?" Greg asks in fake confusion, to which Niall just groans and Greg chuckles at. "I'm kidding, I'm kidding. Anyway, I have to go. This damn job's got me so busy, it's so fucking annoying. Good luck with Harry. Bye, love you bro!" Greg says down the phone, and Niall responds with a goodbye.

Sighing, he rolls over in his bunk to rest on his elbows and goes on Tumblr to check the new 'narry' stuff happening, and smiles to himself.

"Somebody's happy?" Harry says as as he looks at Niall through the drawn curtains, to which Niall jumps and drops his phone in between the wall and his bunk bed, so that it falls on the bunk below. Cursing to himself, he covers his face with his hands as Harry ducks to get Niall's phone from underneath, and mutters a 'well'.

"What's this, Ni?" Harry asks in fake innocence, his smirk obvious in the tone of his voice. "Shut up, you arse." Niall replies in annoyance and grabs his phone from Harry's hand, and Harry just smiles at how adorable Niall is.

"Can I look at it with you?" Harry asks, suddenly feeling nervous, and Niall turns his head to look at him in confusion. "You have your own phone?" he asks, clueless. "No," Harry rolls his eyes, "I was asking you if I could come into the bunk with you." Niall looks down, blushing both at the fact that he totally missed that, and that Harry was going to be squashed up next to him in his bunk.

This is gonna be a long night.

*

I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! They confessed, yay! Finally, am I right? Quick note; I am now on the Ao3 as niallftharry, so if you want to read some of my work in the future, then go there. :)

-sugar