Rule Forty-Seven

Niall is gone, with Liam. Liam knows. Liam knows to keep all of them in there with him while this is going on. Because, what, in God’s sake, is going on?

Harry is glaring. She’d tricked him, she’d tricked him. And he can give it up to her because she is good. But to come under his roof? To threaten the lives of his family? No. This was not going to happen.

She sits opposite them, where Noah is leaning forwards with her right arm braced on her knee and her left hanging uselessly (whoever thought it was a good idea to shoot her in the shoulder needs a slap upside the head). Harry, for the life of him, looks relaxed.

As if feeling his stare, the woman (for Heavens sake, was her name even Melanie?!) looks up. She laughs. At him. She laughs at him.

“You found my earpiece,” she murmurs. Her eyes are alive, could be classed clinically insane, but Harry doesn’t really care at this point in time. He just finds himself nodding and unable to speak instead.

“Are you working for him?” Noah says. Harry can hear the frailty in her voice - she’s hurting, bad, but she’s keeping herself under control.

But then Melanie is laughing again, this time almost hysterically. “Am I working for the man who kept me as a sex slave for four years, murdered my fiancé, and kept my best friends hostage? You tell me sweetheart.”

Noah stiffens, tilts her head. “You’re with the Government.”

“You-”

“Shut the hell up,” Noah hisses. “When you come into our home and threaten the lives of the people I love, you fucking listen to everything I have to say, do you understand me?”

Melanie falters in her persona.

“Did I stutter?” Noah yells, now. “Do you understand me?!”

“Yes.”

“Good.” Noah takes a deep breath and pushes herself back. “You’re with the Government. You’re not the Government, you’re just sanctioned by it. They would never sell a deep cover like yours and leave it to fester in a flourishing industry for four years.”

Harry finds himself smirking, then puts in his two cents. “You work in a small team, like us. You’re not the type to have others do things for you, right?”

Melanie, who seems flustered, tries to keep her calm. “You’re right. So you turning up and pulling me out of my cover really fucks this up, doesn’t it?”

Now it’s Harry who’s laughing. “On the contrary, Melanie. This was fucked up from the beginning.”

The mood in the room shifts.

Noah looks up at Melanie, a small frown forming along her face. “What was your mission? Your plan with Prince?”

Melanie shrugs. “Revenge. The good kind, though. Take him down, his establishment crumbles.”

“Take the queen and the city falls,” Noah murmurs to herself. She’s still frowning, but this time it’s different. Harry watches her closely, looking for any sign, anything. Her eyes are firmly on her hands and he can tell that she’s thinking hard.

So Harry turns to Melanie, tilts his head. “What were you planning to do when you came in here?”

“I don’t know, really,” she laughs, “I wanted to know what you had on Prince, wanted to know what your plan of defence was.”

“Defence?”



Melanie looks him dead in the eye now, her face serious and her lips pursed. “If Jack Prince wants you dead, good luck staying alive.”

“Work with us.”

The room retreats into a stunned silence as Melanie looks open mouthed at Noah. “Sorry?”

“We have what you need.” Noah stands, caresses her shoulder. “He wants the boys back, he wants you back. We lead him to us, we take him down.”
____________

Liam’s leg hurts. He needs panadol or nurofen or ibuprofen or something to get rid of the pain.

His eyes are glued to the TV, to a dancing show, as Zayn sits next to him. Niall is curled up in Louis’ lap and he’s talking quietly to Melanie. Harry and Noah are looking at one of Harry’s books, laughing and discussing.

He smiles. This is what it must’ve been like to have a family - a proper family.

Liam remembers his sisters, his parents, his family, on a daily basis; sometimes before he sleeps, sometimes when he wakes up, sometimes... like this. When everybody he loves is around him. When they’re all smiling.

It’s not a secret anymore about his feelings for Zayn. He loves the beautiful greek God, loves the quiet side of him when he’s sleepy, loves the Bradford accent in his voice that gets thicker when he’s excited, loves the way he can control spray paint like a finely tuned knife, loves the way his tongue presses against the back of his teeth when he smiles, loves the way he moans his name when he sleeps.

Liam wishes his family could have met Zayn. They would have loved the boy, loved the quality of life he brought with him everywhere he went.

“Liam?”

His head snaps up in Zayn’s direction smile falling over his face. “Yeah?”

“You okay?”

“I love you.”

For the longest minute Zayn stays silent. He’s observing the way Liam looks now, how his large brown eyes are full and sincere and how his chin juts out with his bottom lip. Liam usually takes time in the morning to style his hair, to slick it back off his face with gel, but now it hangs over his face like a curtain, all soft and fluffy. Zayn could get used to this.

“I love you too.”
________________

Niall and Louis are wrapped up in each other.

Can’t stop looking, can’t stop giggling, can’t stop loving. Because Niall loves him. He can admit that, now.

They’re sitting in the corner of the Liam’s room, Niall buried deep into Louis’ chest, when he asks.

“Louis? What are we?”


It’s silent for the longest moment, where Louis is not breathing and Niall isn’t either, where both boys are stiffer than a lamp post. Niall slowly moves away from Louis’ body, pushes himself away from the person he loves more than anything, stares at him in silence.

“I’d call you my boyfriend,” Louis whispers, tilts his head, “but I haven’t even kissed you yet.”

Niall sucks in a breath, running a hand through his hair. “Then kiss me.”

No one moves for the quickest second. But then Niall launches forward, takes Louis’ face in his hands, kisses his lips, and there. He’s done it. Niall tries to pull away then, but Louis’ hands have looped around his neck and suddenly he’s the one being pressed into the wall.

“Not like that,” Louis whispers against his mouth. “Like this.”

This kiss is different. Different to anything Niall has ever experienced.

Louis has his soft hands placed either side of Niall’s cheeks, thumbs running in soft circles over the pale skin. His legs are bracketed by Louis knees, keeping them in place as his waist slowly inches down until he’s sitting softly on Niall’s thighs.

His lips are probing, soft, loving, gentle, warm - pressing onto Niall’s like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Licking into his mouth and swallowing the younger boy’s moans like they’re the most delicious things.

And then Niall’s hands are clutching Louis’ waist, cupping his rounded bum, pulling him forward, sitting up straighter into the embrace and wrapping his arms tightly around Louis.

Louis stops. Breathes heavily into Niall’s mouth. Catches his breath (or himself) and then opens his eyes to stare at Niall.

“Now you’re my boyfriend.”