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”electrochristmaspophouse,” he calls it—even louder for everyone to

be able to hear it, which the neighbours probably won‟t find

particularly pleasing. Thankfully, Liam, the patron saint of affability

and crisis management, has friends on the police force, so they‟ve got

noise complaint insurance. Louis suspects that Liam would personally

go door to door to placate each and every one of his neighbours with

Christmas cookies and polite conversation if it came down to it.

He‟s not worried. He‟s tipsy and Harry‟s warm against his side and

everyone he loves except for five beautiful girls back home are right

here in one place, all for him. He‟s not worried about anything at all.

Of course there‟s a cake, since Harry had a hand in the planning of the

party, and of course it‟s ridiculous. It‟s not baked by Harry this time,

but it is red velvet and delicious, with his name written on top.

Everyone sings him happy birthday, but he can‟t think of a single thing

to wish for when he blows out the candles, and he‟d blame the alcohol

if he didn‟t know better. Instead, he just thinks thank you, and

extinguishes them all in one breath. Twenty-seven. He‟s okay with that.

After that things get a little blurry and a lot sloppy, as things are wont

to do when you put a large group of the kind of people who fall into

Louis‟ usual orbit in one space with alcohol and a lot of sentimentality.

The later it gets and the more the booze flows, the more the sense of

holiday giddiness devolves into something else, something louder and

looser and a lot less inhibited. Suffice it to say, the mistletoe has done

its job. Perhaps a little too well. There‟s snogging, and screaming, and

one of the lads from theatre is performing a striptease on his kitchen

table. Louis just holds his drink up in the air and lets the crowd carry

him along, accepting kisses on his cheeks and slaps on his bum.

Harry‟s in and out of his arms all night, letting him enjoy the attention,

and Louis loves him for that like he loves him for everything else.

The karaoke machine from last year is back, and Louis watches on

happily when Harry takes his turn, starting in on “All I Want for

Christmas is You.” His happiness turns to a pleased sort of panic,

though, when Harry abandons the microphone and grabs him, pulling

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him in front of the cheering crowd. They duet their way through the

rest of it, laughing too much to reach half of the notes, but it‟s a hit

anyway. They‟ve probably embarrassed themselves, but people are

applauding, so Louis finds he doesn‟t care much. The way Harry looks

at him afterwards isn‟t half bad either, all hot eyes and fingers curling

into the back of his shirt.

The party rages on, a blur of noise and colour and lights and people

making extremely merry, and Louis hopes that somewhere amidst the

mess Harry is getting some quality photographs of this. Stan is

wandering around the dance floor, shouting, “Ho, ho, ho, Happy

Christmas!” and pouring vodka into people‟s mouths while Niall

splices together Ke$ha‟s latest single with “Little Drummer Boy,” and

Louis can feel the bassline in his brain. One of Liam‟s fireman mates

has taken off his shirt and is allowing anyone who wants to take shots

off of his abs, and from the sounds of it one of the theater girls is trying

to persuade him to try out for Rocky the next time they put on Rocky

Horror. At one point he walks in on Zayn and Liam going at it in the

bathroom, Liam pushed up against the sink with one leg hooked around

Zayn‟s and Zayn‟s hands under his shirt.

“Get a room,” Louis slurs, before thinking things through. “A different

room. But not our room. No. Don‟t get a room.” He closes the door

behind him and wanders back to find Niall in a dance-off with the stage

manager for A Christmas Carol. She‟s very pretty. Louis files this away

for future reference before he‟s swallowed up by a group of girls he

knew back in uni and loses track of what he was doing.

Maybe it‟s midnight or maybe it‟s three in the morning when he

stumbles out of a gap in the crowd, wobbling on his feet and dodging a

spilled drink from that nice girl from something or other. He hasn‟t

seen Harry for a bit, and he blinks around him now, willing himself to

see straight as he scans the edges of the room.

He finds Harry finally, leaning against a wall with a beer in his hand

and his bowtie blinking in time to the music. He‟s got one arm slung

over Stan‟s shoulders and his camera around his neck, and the lights

turn his hair green and blue and red in turn. He looks right at home. He

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is home, and when he meets Louis‟ eyes across the room, he smiles and

raises his beer to him in a silent toast.

Louis lifts his own cup in return, and there‟s a moment, a moment he

couldn‟t explain even if he were sober, when there‟s nobody in the

room but the two of them, and Louis can‟t help himself.

“I love you!” he shouts, trying to be heard above the music, but Harry

just furrows his brow.

“What?” he shouts back, and Louis can barely hear him.

He digs up all his theatre experience, every time he‟s ever been told by

a director to project. He steels his diaphragm, cups his hand around his

mouth, and when he yells, “I love you!” half the party turns to look at

him. He knows Harry hears because of the way he smiles, broad and

reckless. A dozen people are still watching them. It doesn‟t matter a bit.

He hopes everyone heard.

“I love you, too!” Harry yells back.

“I know!” Louis shouts. He does.

That‟s all he needs, really. Christmas and his birthday and the party,

they‟re all wonderful, and he wouldn‟t trade all this for anything, but

this is it. He‟s loved, and he knows it, and he knows he deserves it, and

that‟s everything. That's more than he could have imagined.

The party doesn‟t go on much longer after that, everyone too burnt out

to make it last all night. People leave in ones and twos, and then in

groups, piling into cars and taxis and leaving liquor-sticky kisses on

Louis‟ cheeks before they go. His flat empties out, feeling somehow

smaller with fewer and fewer people inside, until finally it‟s just the

five of them left.

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Niall cuts the music, shaking the sweat out of his hair, and he flops

down on the carpet next to a mysterious brown stain that Louis does

not look forward to trying to shampoo out. He fits right in with the rest

of the flat, which is covered in bottles and cups and plates and debris,

all the wreckage of a great night. The lights still twinkle merrily,

illuminating their faces in a way that seems less intense and more

intimate now that it‟s just them left. Louis hasn‟t the faintest clue what

time it is, but he doesn‟t much care to find out.

“Another one for the books, I‟d say,” Harry says, wrapping his arms

around Louis from behind. Louis sags back into him, letting Harry

support his weight, and tries not to let them slip on the floor where the

slush from dozens of pairs of boots has melted as they drift back into

the living room.

“I think some of those people must have been some kind of transient

party nomads who just wander into people‟s homes to eat their food,”

Louis says. “There‟s no way we know that many people.”

“You were right to let them in,” Liam says through a yawn, poking

around Niall‟s equipment. “S‟what Jesus would do. Christmas. Room

at the inn.” Zayn snorts from where he‟s sprawled out nearby, back

propped up against the wall.

“S‟pose you‟re right,” Louis agrees sleepily. He leans into Harry‟s

shoulder, looking down fondly at where their knees touch. “Nah, I‟m

glad everyone came. It was a good night.”

Niall rolls onto his stomach and puts his chin on his arms, smiling a

tired little smile at him. “Happy birthday, Lou.”

“Happy birthday,” Zayn echoes, and Liam and Harry do the same.

“Happy Christmas,” he says back, and Liam gives him a crinkled smile

from where he‟s sat down behind Niall‟s keyboard. He plinks a little at

the keys before finding a melody, and starts humming something idly.

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“Sing it properly,” Louis says, because it‟s his birthday and he‟s

allowed to ask for things. Liam rolls his eyes exaggeratedly, but puts

his fingers back to the keys more seriously and starts to sing.

“Have yourself a merry little Christmas, let your heart be light,” he

sings out softly, and then Zayn joins him, their voices curling around

each other. “From now on our troubles will be out of sight.”

Niall joins in from the floor, his clear, bell-like tone arching over the

others‟. “Have yourself a merry little Christmas, make the Yuletide

gay,” and Niall snickers at that last bit before Louis kicks out and

catches him in the shin. “From now on our troubles will be miles

away.” Harry is swaying them back and forth slowly, and Louis lets

himself sink into his arms and the song.

He feels Harry‟s chest expand a little against him, and when he joins in

for the next bit, Louis can feel that low rasp of his buzzing through his

own chest. “Here we are as in olden days, happy golden days of yore.”

Zayn pokes Louis in the leg with the toe of his boot, and when Louis

glances over, Zayn‟s got his lighter out and is goofily waving it along

as they sing, “Faithful friends who are dear to us gather near to us once

more.”

Louis takes a deep breath and joins in on the last verse. “Someday

soon, we all will be together, if the Fates allow.” He‟d been enjoying

just listening to them, but actually? It sounds better with him in the mix

too. “Until then we‟ll have to muddle through somehow,” and he tips

his head back to lean against Harry‟s shoulder. “So have yourself a

merry little Christmas now.”

The last notes linger in the air, and Louis looks down at his friends. His

best friends.

“I love you all,” he says, and they smile back at him. “Now get out of

my flat.”

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Liam responds by playing a deliberately off-key rendition of the first

four notes of Beethoven‟s Fifth.

Louis expects it to be harder to get rid of them considering how tired

they all are, but Liam insists that they need to get home to take Bo out,

so Zayn has no choice but to let himself be hauled up off of the floor.

Out of the three of them, Liam is the only one who‟s in a state to drive,

so he and Zayn agree to drop Niall off at his flat on their way home,

and Louis tells Niall he can just come back for his equipment after

Christmas. They all hug Harry and Louis goodnight in turn, muttering

one last round of “happy birthday” and “happy Christmas,” and then

Louis shuts the door behind them and locks the deadbolt.

Harry walks over to the outlet and starts pulling out plugs until all the

blinking lights have gone off, and the two of them are alone in the dark.

“D‟you want the normal light on?” he asks, picking his way back

through the wreckage to Louis.

“God, no,” Louis says. “I don‟t want to know what it is we‟re going to

have to clean up.”

“Should we—” Harry starts, but Louis just tugs him toward the

bedroom.

“Absolutely not. Bed,” he says, and maybe he‟ll regret it tomorrow, but

right now the only thing he wants is to fall asleep with his boy.

When they wake up, Louis will make them both peppermint tea, and

they‟ll sit down in front of their lopsided tree in the middle of the mess

and spend Christmas morning just the two of them, opening the

presents they got for each other before they have to drive to Doncaster

for dinner. He imagines at some point he‟ll pop into the kitchen and

come back to find Harry sitting cross-legged in a heap of wrapping

paper, probably with a bow stuck to his head and Duchess in his lap,

and he‟ll go back into their bedroom and steal Harry‟s camera to take a

picture. They‟ll put it up on the wall in the living room, the one that

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shares his bedroom door, the one that‟s just for pictures of the two of

them.

But before that, they're going to sleep. They clamber over the sofa

that‟s still pushed into their bedroom doorway and dodge end tables in

the dark to finally get inside. Silently, they leave their clothes on the

floor and slide into bed, curling into each another. Harry kisses Louis

lightly and then rests his head on his chest. “Your mum‟s tomorrow,”

he says, voice already thick with sleep and the promise of a hangover.

“And your parents‟ the day after that,” Louis reminds him. They‟ll be