Used to think I was better alone
So how about this. Niall is a dancer who needs to be loved. Louis is a dancer who needs a friend. Imagine a club like Babylon: Glitter, boys in wings/horns whatever the theme requires.Music won't feed you after all.
Zayn and Harry are taking Liam out for his stag night. To a gay club. Because Liam, as you can see, is never going to fuck a guy again, getting married to Danielle and all that. Except that he isn't anymore and hasn't told them. Because telling his best friends that his fiancée has left will make it real, and it can't possible be real.
Zayn sees Niall dance and he's smitten. Because Niall's face lights up when he smiles at the boy dancing next to him, and Zayn can't help but want him to at him. Niall doesn't hook up with random boys, because while Niall likes sex as much as the next guy, he doesn't like to feel cheap. And he's woken up to dollar bills pinned to his pants one time too often.
Louis has a girlfriend. Eleanor sometimes comes to watch, even, and laughs at Louis's silly moves, laughs at all the boys staring at him adoringly. She laughs and she enjoys it, but she doesn't quite get why he does it. Harry, on the other hand, Harry gets it. Harry gets Louis and every single one of his stupid jokes and ups him in minutes. They talk by the bar for five and it fits. Louis and Harry and their rapport, like marbles pushing each other into motion. Harry also steals everyone's attention from Louis, so by the end of the night, Louis needs to get all of his secrets. He's pretty sure they're hidden in Harry's ridiculously big hair. By the end, it doesn't matter, though, because Louis has got Harry's attention, undivided, and Eleanor's, too. She is just as smitten with Harry, talking animatedly, gesturing and smiling and always, always checking with Louis like he's the authority on all things Harry. Like they've been friends forever. It just.. clicks.
Liam watches Zayn and he watches Harry and he watches Ele and Louis and he sees it all unfold. It makes him wonder if Danielle was right. He's never connected like that with anyone, a touch by the arm, a smile over the heads of dancing people while the music booms. So when Niall comes over during his break and hands him a drink because he can, because he notices Liam watching them all, Liam doesn't feel like he's been caught. He tells him, this stranger-angel-sunshine, about how he loved a girl so much he forgot how to breathe, how to stand for himself, and now she's gone. And he tells him how he's leaning on his friends now, instead, and he wonders if that's even okay. And Niall doesn't smile, just takes a sip and nods and says "But that's what friends are for, aren't they? To lean on when you've got to?"
And if Liam tells him that Zayn doesn't fuck around, it's not to get him laid. It's because Niall's eyes linger on him and Liam knows that look, knows it well. He's seen it in the mirror years ago and not for a while now. And if that is what makes Niall stand up and grab Zayn's arm, if that is what makes him curl his lips into a smile and then a kiss, then Liam won't mention it later. Not the next morning, when they all meet in his tiny kitchenette because Harry's promised them pancakes ("The good kind with the blueberries!") and not years later, when twos and threes have grown into fives and sixes and sevens, and friends and family and close-knit co-dependence.
It takes one evening, music, alcohol and laughter and a competition of the silliest dance moves, an exchange of the sexiest grind of hips against hips, for these boys to click together like Lego piecess. It takes one early morning walk home, hang-overs and hang-over cures, fresh air and trying, seeing, experiencing first kisses for them to become friends. It takes them less than that to realise that maybe what they were missing wasn't love or marriage or sex, because they have that and it's good, or they're not doing it and that's good also, it is these people, in this combination. Puzzle pieces? No, more like soft, soft down in the harsh ridges of reality.
And that's that, then.
Zayn and Harry are taking Liam out for his stag night. To a gay club. Because Liam, as you can see, is never going to fuck a guy again, getting married to Danielle and all that. Except that he isn't anymore and hasn't told them. Because telling his best friends that his fiancée has left will make it real, and it can't possible be real.
Zayn sees Niall dance and he's smitten. Because Niall's face lights up when he smiles at the boy dancing next to him, and Zayn can't help but want him to at him. Niall doesn't hook up with random boys, because while Niall likes sex as much as the next guy, he doesn't like to feel cheap. And he's woken up to dollar bills pinned to his pants one time too often.
Louis has a girlfriend. Eleanor sometimes comes to watch, even, and laughs at Louis's silly moves, laughs at all the boys staring at him adoringly. She laughs and she enjoys it, but she doesn't quite get why he does it. Harry, on the other hand, Harry gets it. Harry gets Louis and every single one of his stupid jokes and ups him in minutes. They talk by the bar for five and it fits. Louis and Harry and their rapport, like marbles pushing each other into motion. Harry also steals everyone's attention from Louis, so by the end of the night, Louis needs to get all of his secrets. He's pretty sure they're hidden in Harry's ridiculously big hair. By the end, it doesn't matter, though, because Louis has got Harry's attention, undivided, and Eleanor's, too. She is just as smitten with Harry, talking animatedly, gesturing and smiling and always, always checking with Louis like he's the authority on all things Harry. Like they've been friends forever. It just.. clicks.
Liam watches Zayn and he watches Harry and he watches Ele and Louis and he sees it all unfold. It makes him wonder if Danielle was right. He's never connected like that with anyone, a touch by the arm, a smile over the heads of dancing people while the music booms. So when Niall comes over during his break and hands him a drink because he can, because he notices Liam watching them all, Liam doesn't feel like he's been caught. He tells him, this stranger-angel-sunshine, about how he loved a girl so much he forgot how to breathe, how to stand for himself, and now she's gone. And he tells him how he's leaning on his friends now, instead, and he wonders if that's even okay. And Niall doesn't smile, just takes a sip and nods and says "But that's what friends are for, aren't they? To lean on when you've got to?"
And if Liam tells him that Zayn doesn't fuck around, it's not to get him laid. It's because Niall's eyes linger on him and Liam knows that look, knows it well. He's seen it in the mirror years ago and not for a while now. And if that is what makes Niall stand up and grab Zayn's arm, if that is what makes him curl his lips into a smile and then a kiss, then Liam won't mention it later. Not the next morning, when they all meet in his tiny kitchenette because Harry's promised them pancakes ("The good kind with the blueberries!") and not years later, when twos and threes have grown into fives and sixes and sevens, and friends and family and close-knit co-dependence.
It takes one evening, music, alcohol and laughter and a competition of the silliest dance moves, an exchange of the sexiest grind of hips against hips, for these boys to click together like Lego piecess. It takes one early morning walk home, hang-overs and hang-over cures, fresh air and trying, seeing, experiencing first kisses for them to become friends. It takes them less than that to realise that maybe what they were missing wasn't love or marriage or sex, because they have that and it's good, or they're not doing it and that's good also, it is these people, in this combination. Puzzle pieces? No, more like soft, soft down in the harsh ridges of reality.
And that's that, then.