Harry let's himself into the room quietly. It's eerily silent for 9 a.m., dark too. The room looks like a party started and finished here; the middle no doubt happened elsewhere. There are clothes strewn about, typical, he's gotten ready with Nick a time or two.

If Harry's look is curated, Nick's is chaotic, rather than a clear mental picture of what he wants to wear, Nick tries on everything he is currently obsessed with before pronouncing the one. There is an empty vodka bottle and empty crunched Lilt cans. That is a Nick trademark drink. Well it was, when they were younger and he worried less about calories, now he likes to brag he drinks like a rich white woman, clear liquor and soda, except in Ibiza, apparently. The place is a mess, but it's Ibiza and Nick, so Harry isn't terribly surprised. He does feel terribly charmed though. At ease and happy inside.

All the things that make Nick, Nick are on display. How silly he can be, his northern familiarity, messiness, laugh, grumpiness in the a.m.

They make Harry happy and indulgent.

Nick may not have got in until the sun was rising. He told Harry one time before he made this nearly annual trip to party island, "I go and relive my youth, Harry. I spent my 20's dirt poor and watching my friends get famous, so I'm redoing them on a better budget, one holiday at a time." He'd explained with a cigarette in his hand and sunglasses on indoors. It was unlit. Harry's eyes had fallen on it immediately, he worried about that habit. It was a bad penny that came back up for so many.

"It's not lit Styles," Nick had rolled knowing eyes, "it's just for style. Helps make the point!" He held the white cylinder that lost something for the lack of burn at the end, between his pointer and thumb and sent it forward like lining up a dart shot. It came toward Harry's nose. It was useful for emphasis, he'd give him that.

He and Nick felt like a bullseye. They'd fallen into intense friendship so quickly, it was a lot like falling in love. They were inseparable for a time, like the first Ibiza trip. He'd really wanted to go to that one. He of course hadn't been able to, hadn't been allowed.

Harry was always invited to the Ibiza weekend. At first, he knew it was with real hope. Nick would ask and they both would wonder if he, Harry, could work it into his schedule. The answer in the band was always no. At first because of too many things to do, not enough time, then because Harry didn't want to ruin anybody's time by bringing a horde of photographers to the party, and then after the band, well he supposed that was pure selfishness. Harry had just reclaimed his privacy and the keeping of his own schedule. And he didn't really like party island.

He'd been to Ibiza, once. He thought it was once. It was like Vegas for him. Not his scene.

But it would be with Nick.

Nick could make anything fun, anything Harry's scene. That's why they were best friends.

They both knew that. So Nick kept inviting him. Now halfheartedly, with knowledge that his words were empty as was Harry's "let me see."

Come to think of it, Harry wasn't sure he had been explicitly invited to this one. But he was sure Nick would welcome him.

Nick was always there for Harry.

He even was there with open arms, a bottle, The Notebook, and a blunt after what Nick called "the estrangement" of 2015.

It was really 2014. Harry was depressed, upset, and feeling betrayed. He thought he had backup. Zayn had promised. Then he had not said a peep and let Harry lay his head on the rock before Abraham. More so, Zayn helped raise the rock. Then got all chummy with Louis. The hiatus wasn't just his idea, but he had taken the fall alone.

This was all before the worst, when he just left. All those nights, long talks, secrets and confidences, firsts. Then he didn't even tell Harry. Had he called him, or even texted, Harry would have forgiven Zayn, he thought. Though he was as bit of a grudge holder and Zayn too. So they hadn't talked since the meeting, except when forced by circumstance.

It had closed Harry up like a jasmine in the day. Turned him inward for a selfish time.

But Nick had known, about his hiatus plan. Told him it was a good idea, for the best.

Maybe that's why he didn't talk to Nick for a while. He might have blamed him. For losing Zayn and his good temper for a time.

In any case, Harry was depressed and listening to The Wall and reading Bukowski in his dark dressing room on that tour. He barely even spoke to his mother.

"Why didn't you call me, idiot!" Had been Nick's response when Harry got better enough to confess. "You can't crawl into a bell jar without telling the authorities," he'd pointed to his own chest. Nick the authority, ha. "Much better the bottom of a tequila bottle with me, would have cheered you right up."

Harry had just shrugged and explained about his mum, and Gemma, and then Robin. It had been then, when Harry had seen how precious and short life was, when they got bad news again, final news, that he had broken his Nick silence.

Nick was the first person he wanted when he had finished comforting his mother and needed his own comfort.

He had almost been ready then, maybe not all the way ready, to openly be with Nick. The way it felt, to open up to him, and the cuddles on the couch, and that one sloppy drunk kiss, felt different that time, permanent but exciting. It was just not, well not the perfect time for Harry. He was scared, not quite ready. Not yet. He was still a flower before it's bloom. He needed time, no matter how much he loved Nick. Not before the solo break. He was so nervous about his own music, such a break from the bands and the radio's fare. He'd been born in the wrong era. That would be shock enough. He needed more time. He couldn't have a relationship, with anybody, let alone a man. It would obscure the music. And that meant so much.

Harry knew his fans loved the LGBT talk, but would they love the walk? If he openly with a man, would their seeming support wane when it was obvious he was into men as well, and also not attainable.

Management, though they didn't have the crazy Svengali power some fans thought, did have power. They had been adamant about somebody staying single. But especially Harry. The fucking heartthrob.

His heart throbbed. That was years ago now. He had much better management. The control, now self inflicted was stifling. Harry was sick of it. He wanted a life, and he knew his chance at forever, the little house, okay probably big house, with a garden plot and lazy Sundays with roast dinners, those were for Nick. And he was ready now he'd taken steps, and been accepted. Small declarations in song and style and dress, probably the most direct he'd ever be about his sexuality, and they were not so scary. In fact, he felt like he'd bloomed. Now he just needed his gardener.

He wanted to be honest, with everybody. He'd confessed all this to Jeffrey. "Do what makes you happy, your life, your call."

And Jeff would be there, but his eye twitched. And Harry read into it. Too soon. Though Jeff would have worn the flag with him, he knew. Cuz he loved Harry, and Harry loved him, he didn't want Jeff's job to be harder, so he would wait.

He did wait.

Maybe he should have told Nick the deal. Then, not so long ago, two years. "Look Nick, I think, I think I'm ready now. I'm older, so that objection of yours is off the table, and I've dated around, and I don't like it. I like to be close. I want, I want to be close to you. I love you, but I'm scared. I'm so scared I'll lose my career. But you're worth it." Then kissed him sober, on the damn high street on the way home from some brunch if that's where it went down.

Maybe they could have waited, to be really out, but he could have been honest, should have been honest then.

It would have been better than this.

The marigolds he'd brought to Nick, because it was one of their million inside jokes. Dropped to the floor, sprawled out of their bouquet wrapping.

"That flower reminds me of you." He'd explained one day.

"Dreck, why?!" Nick had been so offended. "The flower is ugly and far too bright, loud! Harry, can a flower be loud? It's screaming at me!" Nick was practically yelling.

Harry had just looked at him. And Nick had blushed. Harry'd sent him a gif the next day from Coco, the marigold bridge. He wished Nick had read into it.

Nick had sent a Beyoncé with hot sauce gif, "I'll show you marigold!"

And they laughed when it came up, still. Harry brought him marigolds when he'd come off tour. And Nick wouldn't see them, get it.

Nick hadn't got it.

Like Harry hadn't got it. He was realizing now he had waited too long, and misread the scene.

It was part of his profession. The bouquet.

But it was too little too late.

Because Harry had missed the clues. The clothes, and bottles, and quiet so late in the day.

Nick wasn't hungover.

Nick wasn't alone.

Nick wasn't alone.

Harry was so glad that he hadn't brought the marigolds in a vase. The shatter of the glass would have been loud. The flowers made just a muffled floof. He may be able to sneak out of this place with a modicum of his sanity, save a little face.

Luckily, in some respects, the only thing shattered on the floor of Nick's Ibiza bungalow was Harry's heart.

And no one, especially Nick, need ever know. Not really. Though he knew he'd tell his muse and the pages of a notebook, but never reveal who his heart broke over.

What would he say about the moment, that though the sun was out, it was shady and the flowers faded, too much time away from the glass, their sun, source.

He wondered if Nick had been in his cups. It was likely, but there was something about their embrace, the way Nick, a big spoon if Harry ever cuddled with one, was wrapped around him, that spoke of familiarity.

Nick's hair was wild, longer, than Harry remembered. It shocked him. How different he looked. He felt like he had just seen him, though he knew he had extended his time in Japan more than once.

Each day had been an adventure, a walk in a new landscape, he just didn't realize it was the wrong way, away from what, who, he wanted.

Nick's hair was in his face, but his shoulders were fitted closely to the dark haired man before him. His hair, whoever he was, was close cropped and black. Normally, Harry would wonder what it would feel like on his palm with the man on his knees. Those thoughts were clues he ignored in the past. Especially the ones about the familiar man in the bed. But Nick knew. The flash of Nick finding out while the unfamiliar man sucked him off twisted his gut, like a stomach cramp foreshadowing sickness.

They were naked, it was an easy image to conjure, the man was sprawled out, his arm extended ahead of him, like he was reaching away, and Nick's arms made an X over his chest, holding him close.

His upper body may have been running away, but his pelvis had no such compunction, it was fitted into the bowl of Nick's hips. It blocked Harry's view of Nick's penis, mercifullly.

He'd seen it, of course, over the course of best friend shenanigans, going back years.

They'd been quick views, when Nick was changing, or flashes, literal flashes. Once, even in a group of them, late late in the night after way too much alcohol. They'd egged him into showing his very famous 'self', pride of Britain had been thrown out to laughter, by a round robin of dropping trou.

It had been fun and games, until Harry felt it turned to a game of Russian roulette. He was afraid he would be hard, after seeing them all, but especially Nick with his uncut beauty.

"Put it away Styles, my mouth is watering." Nick had joked when it was his turn, Harry had controlled himself until then. But he'd chubbed up real fast in response, he knew the feeling.

It had been an unsettling evening/morning.

He'd wanked that morning, to Nick. The first time that happened. Not to any man, but one with a face he knew intimately.

He horded the little glimpses over time. They were on regular rotation in his spank bank, with Camille's tits, Kendall's legs, and Xander's mouth.

Nick's cock.

He couldn't see it now, but he could see the other man's, his face in the pillow, he had scruff and a mustache.

And a flaccid penis.

Very unalarming, and Harry was unaffected, perhaps because it was after. And not attached to someone he loved, wanted. Just the opposite, attached to someone who had gotten what he wanted. Harry was jealous.

He had clearly stumbled on the after.

Was this a hook up? A one off? Some boy from the island or the clubs that Nick had taken a passing fancy to?

Harry's eyes scanned across the stuff scattered about the room. There was Nick's familiar Louis Vuitton weekender. A gift from Harry for a birthday years ago. And a few other pieces Harry knew to be Nick's. Not that Harry had ever been on holiday with him, he had to say no, but because he had spent so much time basking in his presence at his flat. Sometimes on the heels of a trip, it took Nick ages to unpack. Or Harry was a distraction. Harry kinda knew that Nick sometimes came home early for him. Dropped everything, for him.

Things had changed.

These were not Nick's things. Not all of them, and the habits, the folded clothes neatly on top of a suitcase, the water bottles by the bed and in the recycling bin. Nick left them everywhere.

Not a hook up. This guy was established in this room, this life.

Harry was almost out the bedroom when his long legs and distracted mind betrayed him. His foot caught on a pair of pants, no doubt discarded by Nick's flaccid partner, and Harry caught himself on the door.

He suppressed his "umphf". But there was no way to suppress the door hitting the stopper, like a hammer on the back of a bullet.

The cringe Harry felt started in his toes and was almost to the roots of his hair when Nick's voice rang a bitter note.

"Harry? What are you doing here?" He'd pulled on boxers, or had not actually been naked, Harry noticed.

Nick sounded more awake, less hungover to death than he expected. The implications of that hurt. Not a wild night out, but in. What did he say, how honest should he be? "Um, well, I had like, some time, and I've always wanted to see you get battered in Ibiza, so, well, I'm here." He did a ta-da motion and put on his red carpet smile.

Only his mum could see the lies in that expression.

His mum and Nick.

"Yeah." Nick ran a hand through his bed ruffled hair and flapped his hands. "You're here, finally." The last word leaked out quietly.

But Harry heard it.

"What's that mean?" Harry knew exactly what that meant. How many times had he been invited to this weekend and not come. It wasn't that he didn't mean to take a break in his schedule, didn't intend to. Especially for Nick. Something just always came up.

Something important. But not as important as Nick. His fear mostly.

"Yeah, well, seeing as I come every year and we've been friends for eight years, and the first time I didn't invite you, you turn up, I'd think what it means is fairly obvious." Nick smiled, but it was toothless. Heartless. Well, it ate up Harry's thrumming muscle.

"Nick, you know, better than anyone what my life is like. And I wanted to be here. I did. Every time." He pleaded with Nick with his eyes. Nick had to know, right? What he really wanted and maybe had never been able to say. The point of Nick was he was supposed to know. What Harry couldn't say, not out loud and clearly. Until right now. Now he was saying it, in words, and gestures, and gifts. He looked at the marigolds, a strangely bright symbol of death, strewn across the floor. "And I'm here now!" The man in the bed moved, was probably faking sleep. Harry hoped he had the courtesy to remain there, like a piece of luggage, like Harry had left at home, the suitcase that had seen many planes. He only had a backpack this time, he wanted to be naked, with Nick, intentionally for the first time. He'd tried to put that out in the universe and then set it up for success.

Nick seemed to have had the same idea, with the mystery man.

"Now, course, when I'm finally not alone waiting around."

"What's that's supposed to mean?"

"Oh Harry! How am I supposed to hear all the things you aren't saying, when you are deaf yourself?" What had Nick been trying to tell him.

"I'm here for you. I want you. I thought you wanted me." Harry was red faced, whispering, but Nick could hear him.

"Oh, Harry, you shine, but you are dull at times." He breathed out. "'Course I did." Past tense.

"But not anymore?" Thick voice, and eyes to the bed, he wished he could control them, himself, his watering, wandering eyes.

"Harry this isn't fair! You didn't want me when I wanted you!" Nick protested.

"I did, I do Nick, I just couldn't tell you. I'm telling you now." He looked down and then up, the eye contact was a cattle prod, Nick felt sorry for him, he's pathetic. "Now you don't want me?" Was that a question?

"What bloody idiot wouldn't want you? 'Course I wanted you, but so did the whole world. And you were a baby, Harry. I needed you to grow up!"

"Well, I did." he swiped at his eyes viciously.

"Yeah, too slow...." Nick was shaking his head and casting his eyes back to the bed. They weren't loud, a whispered heartbreak, but unignorable.

"And now, what, you really don't want me?" Harry's hands and shoulders flashed helplessly.

"No, idiot, I'll always want you, I just want him more. And he wants me back-"

"I want you, I came here to get you!"

"Yeah, this week, or month, or tour break, until your new creative director is around too much, or your leading man is amazing. Harry, I don't want you when you're some..." he searched for a word and his eyes landed on the already wilting flowers Harry held. "...Bouquet in a dressing room. I want you when you're planted. I'm not sure you'll ever be that. Have roots."

"I'm planted Nick! I want to have a garden with you!"

"Oh Harry,love..."He looked back at the occupied bed. "I'm," he wanted to say happy. Harry could see him struggle. "I'm rooted babe."

"Oh," Harry pressed his fingernails into the palm of his hand to keep the tears at bay. "Well, well, oh, that's alright then. All I've wanted was for you to be happy. I just..." they were good at understanding each other, the subtext. He thought so anyway. So he didn't say, I just thought it would be with me.

"Harry..." Nick followed him, and he looked up from his place at the door, all his emotional blood smeared over the door jam. He hoped heartbreak passed over Nick. "I want...I want the same for you."

"Yeah, Yeah, um, maybe someday I won't be a cut flower."

And then the traveler in him took over and he didn't go back to London. He may have hated his cut flower life, rootless existence, but it was the one he knew how to live.

He visited Kiko and set the internet on fire, then went to Jeff, overstayed even Glenne's welcome, then his mum's. Anywhere but his own place. It was haunted.

"Harry, whatever you think you are running from at home..."

"This is my home!" It was sharper than he ever was with his mum. Rubbed against his heartache.

"Yes my dove, always, but you've one of your own, several, and I've seen enough of life to see when somebody is running away. Do you remember when you were 9, and you'd gotten into it with Gemma?"

"You are going to have to be more specific mum, that sounds like something that happened every week!"

"Not one of the times she didn't include you or you pestered her, I'm talking about when you read her diary, and told me her secret?" Anne laid her hand upon his.

Harry did remember, that had been awful. He'd done bad. When he'd been younger, he'd called her a drug dealer, worst thing he could think of, but stealing her diary meant he knew the wrong she'd really done.

Sexually active.

He'd heard it in health class. But he didn't understand nuance, and of course, mum had already known, because what he hadn't caught was that it was not 100% consensual. Gem had of course gone to mama. When he understood the subtext...

He'd been so ashamed. Because he'd been unkind, and unintentionally cruel.

"You packed your bag and ran down the road, not sure what fool let a child your age on the train to Manchester alone." Anne shook her head over the memory.

"But you caught me at the station. Soon as I got there." He'd been relieved she was there, if she was, he was forgiven, or loved enough he could be.

"I did, my love. And you were forgiven, after some grumblings." She sighed like she was about to feed him a spoonful of castor oil. "Go home, take your lumps. You'll be forgiven."

Harry didn't tell his mum that he didn't need forgiveness, though he did feel ashamed for taking Nick for granted and for being a liar, even to himself, but mostly, he didn't go home because there he would be the thing he feared the most.

Alone.

And he was. Longer than he could stand. Buried under quilts and rom coms and memories. It wasn't really the length of time, but the strength of memory. They usually hung out at Nick's, even though his place was bigger. There were still plenty of days lazing in his living room, summers around the pool.

"Honestly, who has a pool, in LONDON, for fuck's sake!" Nick had pushed off the side of his raft with a splash.

"I do, lucky I like you enough to invite you to my idiotic pool." Harry had pulled off his shirt, and it was another moment he was sure Nick liked him, the way Harry admitted to himself he liked his friend. The way laying on his couch drowning in nostalgia, Harry knew he more than liked Nick. Thought he liked him best. More than wanted him, though nobody made Harry as at ease as Nick. Or as hard.

He loved him.

That's why he'd gone to Ibiza, to tell him. But he hadn't. It probably wouldn't have mattered. But it was bothering Harry. It was why he couldn't get off the couch. And why he'd avoided stopping long enough to think about it for nigh on two months. Summer was over. Ibiza was probably a sleepy island again, though what did he know about Ibiza.

The what ifs. Had he told Nick his truth, would he be alone now crying to movies, or would their feet be tangled in the middle of the couch while they pointed out actual places they'd been to in Notting Hill?

Had he told him when he felt it, the first time, years ago, or when he asked for the break, when he had some real time off before Dunkirk? Would any of those times have seen him and Nick on a float for two or cuddled on this couch now?

Nostalgia was hell and good, but what ifs were just hell. He could feel pressure at the back of his eyeballs, and there was no plausible deniability. No convenient tearjerking moment to explain his emotion on the screen.

Not that it mattered, he was alone. Cut off from life, hiding until he could face going out again, try to find a place to replant himself. Could you replant flowers that hadn't even been put in a vase of water?

He needed some water. He felt like shit. He couldn't imagine what he looked like.

His bell went, and he ignored it. Though, whoever it was had his gate code. How had they gotten in?

Then his phone went at the same time as his bell. He ignored it.

The first several times.

By the fifth time he was pushing soft blankets and dirty towels out of his way to get to his fucking phone.

"What?" He barked.

"Jesus Styles, What the hell are you doing? Stop being a drama queen and open the gate!"

"Nick?"

"What are you doing here?" Was the first thing out of Harry's mouth. Everything in him wanted to hope, but he had no idea what this visit was about.

Was Nick here to check on him, because he missed him as a friend, or?

But it had been months.

"Well, you nitwit. You fucked up my life and I've come to give you what for about it." But he was smiling. That big beautiful open wide smile that Nick gave to the world and Harry mirrored back only to Nick.

"If you're here to yell at me or tell me...tell me..." Harry was crying now, might have been before he answered the door. "All the reasons you don't want me again, please don't. I miss you Nick, but so much that I'm over it yet. I can, I think, with time, go back.... back to friends, but right now, I just, I'm so bloody mad at myself for being too late-"

"Harry, you gonna let me in the house, or do I need to kiss you out here and hope no pap with a telephoto is nearby?" Nick rolled his eyes.

"What?" Harry boggled and nearly lost his footing when Nick pushed him back over his own threshold.

He heard the door notch into its lock. His eyes had fallen closed when Nick's hand touched his chest, long moments before their mouths connected.

"Why're your eyes closed?" Nick chuckled.

"I'm..." Harry blinked open, "I'm waiting."

"Nope, not gonna work Harreh, I'm not kissing you." Nick had two handfuls of his shirt, one finger nail through the hole in his ratty tee, and his hips had hitched on the hall table. His trapezius pressed to the wall, he could feel the slats of the boards. If they weren't gonna kiss what was this moment about? "You are gonna kiss me."

Oh, oh! It was his move. This time, Harry kept his eyes open and leaned in, felt Nick's fists clench in his shirt, before he heard the bag Nick had had over his shoulder drop to the floor. And then he couldn't think about sound, only feel, the trace of a tongue on his lips, and the seal of suction over his mouth, the wiggle of Nick's tongue. The vibration of his hum into Nick's mouth.

At some point, taste came into play. The salt of Nick's neck, the bitterness of the spot his cologne had landed, wiry hair at his navel and lower, and musk. Distilled Nick.

Body and blood, while Nick was transfigured above him.

Sound. The sound of Harry name on Nick's lips. His sweetness when Harry hesitated.

Harry laughed and the exhalation spread over Nick's pelvis warmly. "What're you doing?" Nick's still managed the sardonic brow. It was so quiet in the room, his confusion was loud between them.

"I'm nervous!" Harry heard himself say.

"You've done this before haven't you?" Harry figured he had let that cat outta the bag, in lyrics. But that wasn't material here.

"Yeah, but not with you." And then he opened his mouth and the sound got fuzzy again and he went back to taste. Skin like a wafer, dry and slowly wet with the moisture of his own tongue. Salt then, and if you could taste your own moan, and that of your partner too. The tip brushing down his throat was delicious, a thicker spit coating and earthier flavor. He chased that, the compressed wetness and intense pleasure, pressure, until the essence of Nick was all he ever wanted to taste. He was intoxicating.

The floor was cold on his back, and Harry was glad it wasn't tile like the entryway of the California house he was selling. Wood had an intrinsic warmth.

Like Nick's laugh.

"Damn, you must have a lot more experience at that than I expected." There was an edge to it, but good natured. Just a little tinge of the green monster.

"No, not really, no more than you already know." Harry lolled his head sideways to look at Nick. "I think I was just inspired by my partner." He leaned over and licked a bead of sweat near Nick's temple. "You taste good."

"Let's go figure out how you taste, Styles." And Nick was up and pulling.

"Nick," he pulled him back. "Shouldn't we talk, what about Meesh? Like what does this mean?" Much as he wanted to go experiment with some new things with his best friend; his new lover. He figured they had a few details to iron out.

"I'd have thought that was rather obvious. You ruined me and Meesh. I'd been distracted since Ibiza. Then distant recently. Final nail was, well, said the wrong name, your name, the other night. And honestly, it was always you, wasn't it?" Nick shrugged. If he resented it, Harry decided he was trying not to.

"Just like for me it was always you." He squeezed the hand bound to his and let Nick pull him up and to his lips.

"Well let's go consummate this lovefest, yeah?" Nick's eye brow was wiry against Harry's forehead. He catalogued all of his limbs, and muscles, and the impression of Nick pressed against him. Hoped he didn't need to, for later, because later there would just be more, more them.

There was so much more to Nick. The time and attention he'd paid to Nick's dick in the foyer was paid back in spades.

They fumbled their way up the stairs, and nearly finished on the landing, with all the rubbing against each other's thighs they were doing. "Nick, stop that, or I'm gonna finish in my pants!" Harry blew breaths in to Nick's mouth over it.

"Sounds like a personal problem." Nick laughed.

"Not for my boyfriend!" Harry reminded him with a smacking kiss as he pulled him to his feet and kept his eyes forward and his hands to himself.

Nick was blushing, but still managed to take the piss. "Well, I still say you need to work on your stamina!" Nick said against Harry's mouth after the oomph when Harry pushed him back to the bed. "Luckily, you have me to help you with that!"

Harry's heart pounded moments later when Nick made good on his promise. The pressure in the back of his balls was getting uncomfortable, the long strokes of Nick's mouth over him were the craziest he'd ever felt in his life. And he'd had his fair share of blow jobs, maybe a lion's share, rockstar and all. The suction and depth were fucking mindblowing and had definitely transitioned to too much. Harry was just about to warn Nick that his climax was imminent. He didn't want Nick to stop, but he was a polite boy, it seemed a good idea to warn him about the load he was about to get, when Nick stopped.

And yanked on Harry's sac gently too.

"Ahhh!" Harry heard more than said. "Why'd you stop. I was just about to come!" God he desperately needed to come.

"I know. But we are working on your stamina." Nick leaned over him, laying him back on the bed from the perch he'd adopted to watch Nick's mouth work.

"Uh!" Came out from the squeeze he felt around his base.

"Lesson two!" Nick laughed into his neck and stroked him to almost again.

"Fuck, Nick, I need to come." He was writhing on the bed.

Nick was rifling through his bedside, but shot him a look over his shoulder. The mock sympathy was full of sardonic eyebrows. Harry could feel the glance at his dick, it flexed in response, and he mewled. "I can see that. You will."

Harry moaned at the promise, but when Nick flipped him onto his stomach and fitted first one then two slippery digits into his arse and then pulled his hips back enough to stroke him off as well, he was basically yelling. "Fuck, Nick, god! Yes! Please! I'm so close! No, oh fuck, no! Please!" He ended on when the fingers stopped moving and the stroke turned to another squeeze at the base.

"Just about there, love." Nick was laughing and Harry loved the sound and also wanted to donkey kick him. "One more time and you'll be begging for it."

"I am begging for it! Please Nick!" Harry got out.

"Oh, I know, but I don't mean a cum," Nick moved closer and his dick replaced his fingers in Harry's ass crack for just a minute. "I mean this!" He said in Harry's ear.

For a minute, his fear surfaced, but then Nick slick hand was over his dick again. And the other was four fingers deep, twirling in him. "I'm begging, for your cock, please Nick!" Because he didn't give a fuck about fear, he was made of want.

"Oh, that's close, but not quite right, babe." Nick kissed his shoulder blade and edged him one last time, and when Harry was ready to cry or fucking kill him, Nick stroked him long, and hit a spot inside him that had him soiling his sheets uncontrollably.

It felt so good, the spread of his body welcoming Nick was just more sensation. "Oh fuck, oh fuck me Nick!" He moaned when he felt Nick's hips rest just a second on his ass before pulling back.

"That's exactly it Styles!" The kiss was filthy and sweet and for a first time, well, Harry couldn't have asked for better.

"Babe, you look like a dog with two tails!" Nick said later when he came back in from the shower. Harry hadn't been able to rouse himself from his afterglow to join him.

"I've no idea what that means!" Harry laughed. He'd never understood that saying. Nick loved his idioms.

Nick snapped a photo of him. "Means you look like this!" He handed the phone over and Harry understood. He looked so happy, he was sweaty and his hair was curling like mad, but his dimples were deep pools and his eyes were squinted he smiled so hard. Only his nether regions and one leg were covered. His joy was even more naked.

The picture was painfully, obviously post coital. He hoped he felt the way he looked forever.

He felt rooted.