Niall wakes up to an empty bed and an aching neck from sleeping in an odd position. He stretches before remembering last night and his eyes shoot open. He pulls the duvet off of himself and stumbles on wobbly legs to his living room. When it's empty he begins to panic before he hears a noise coming from the kitchen. Sighing with relief he shuffles to the kitchen to find Harry at the cooker his back to Niall.
"Haz." Niall greets, his voice dry and deep with tiredness. His accent stronger than normal.
Harry flinches before turning around with a smile on his face that doesn't meet his eyes. Dark rings are beneath them, and his green eyes are ringed with red and his hair is unruly but he's functioning.
"G'morning," he mumbles in his morning voice before turning back around. "I'm making pancakes, you like pancakes right?," he whisks some sort of mixture before turning up the heat on a hob he has turned on.
"Harry," Niall tries.
"Of course you like pancakes you like everything. Don't think I've ever seen you turn down any piece of food." He pours the mixture into a pan.
"Haz,"
"You don't have much milk but it should be enough, it's not like I'm gonna eat a lot." He flips the pancake expertly.
"Harry,"
"I'm not that hungry but I bet you are, I made some coffee it's over there." He gestures to the side and tips the pancake on to a plate, sprinkling sugar on top before sliding it across the breakfast bar to Niall.
Niall doesn't say anything. Instead he pours the boiled water into two mugs already containing milk and coffee and pushes one to Harry before sitting down and eating his pancake.
"I haven't had pancakes in a while," he pours more mixture into the pan. "Last time I made them, me and Lou-" he cuts himself off, flipping his pancake. He coughs quietly before clearing his throat. "I burnt them." He finishes sliding his pancake onto a plate and turning off the heat.
"You're quiet, does it taste ok? I'll buy you more milk later and some eggs because I used them all too." He leans against the side cutting up his pancake. Niall shoves the last of his into his mouth, chewing quickly.
"Harry stop." Niall says and this time Harry does. He meets Niall's eyes for the first time this morning and instantly looks away, water stinging his eyes.
"Are we just not gonna talk about it?" Niall asks gently and he wishes he didn't have to have this conversation with Harry because Niall didn't like things like this.
Harry doesn't look up and eats a small mouthful of pancake off of his fork.
"Are you alright?" He asks and Harry nods, chewing slowly. He swallows and looks up.
"I make such an effort to be kind Ni, I go out of my way to make things easier for other people and the last thing I ever want to do is hurt people because if you hurt people then how are you a good person?" Niall doesn't know what to say so he bites his lip.
"M'not hungry." Harry states and turns around, placing his plate into the sink. When he turns back tears are dancing in his eyes.
"I'm hurting him, Niall. I'm hurting him." He says, looking at the floor. Niall gets off of his stool and takes Harry into his arms because it's true, he is. Harry sniffles and hugs back. He pulls back and gives a watery smile.
"I'm ok," He says. "And I'm sorry, so sorry for your flat and for acting like that and for scaring you, I'll pay for everything I broke, I promise. I'm so sorry." He's pulled back into Niall's embrace and it's just what he needs.
"You're not giving me anything and it's fine it's only a mirror really, everything else was fixable. You smashed all my bottles of beer but apart from that it's fine." Niall tries to lighten the situation and Harry gives a weak laugh.
"Sorry." He mumbles again into Niall's neck and Niall squeezes him before letting go.
"Everyone breaks Haz." He says and Harry thinks that that's the deepest sentence to ever come out of Niall's mouth.
"Movie day?" Niall asks raising an eyebrow.
Harry nods and Niall drags his duvet into the living room and they sit curled up on the sofa, Harry's head on Niall's chest. Niall puts on 'Love actually' even though he personally thinks it's the worst film in the world but Harry loves it so they're watching it. He runs his fingers through Harry's long hair whilst the film starts.
"You need a hair cut." He states, lifting up a very long curl before letting it ping back to Harry's head. Harry nods in response.
"Lou's in town, you know. Why don't you ring her?" Niall speaks not realising what he's saying. Lou is the only person who Harry trusts with his hair but Lou has this effect on him. They had known each other for years and just one look at him would cause Harry to spill out everything that had been bothering him. Lou is the only person, other than Niall and Louis who knows all his fears. He can't see Lou because he'll end up talking about Louis and at the moment he doesn't want to think about him let alone talk about him. The truth is this hurts, it's agony and it's his fault, he's been a coward yet again. But this time he's hurt the one person that he loves the most in the world. And that kills him because Louis trusted him, and he broke him, hurt him like Louis had always been afraid that someone would do. He broke the promise he made him because he swore he would never hurt him, Louis let him in and Harry destroyed him.
"You don't have to I just thought that-"
"Ok." Harry speaks thickly with no intention of doing so. He knows Niall's only worried about him and is trying to help and he really needs to stop being an arse to him. Harry tries to concentrate on the film, to keep his mind off of Louis words in that email which come off as strong and indifferent but Harry knows Louis like the back of his hand and knows the pain behind each sentence. Niall's even breathing and steady heartbeat was all it took before he was drifting off to sleep.
He wakes up over an hour later to see credits rolling down the screen and Niall peacefully asleep next to him. He gently lifts Niall's arm off of his head and wiggles out of the duvet, careful not to wake him up. He looks around for his clothes and splashes water on his face. Niall's bathroom mirror is smashed but he's sure he looks terrible and his hair cannot look good. He finds one of Niall's beanies and stuffs it over his mess of hair before finding a pen and paper.
Niall,
I don't know what I did to deserve you but I love you so much. Thank you for putting up with my crapy life stuff and whatever that was last night. I'm so sorry. So so sorry and I'm going to buy you more beer and a mirror. Thanks for always being there, gotta go I need a shower and I've got work tomorrow.
H xX
He hurries home needing to keep himself distracted. The minute he enters his empty flat he regrets it and wants to go back to Niall, it's too quiet, too empty, the loneliness reminds him of what he walked away from.
