Chapter Text
"What about, ‘painted nails make Harry beautiful’?”
It wasn’t followed by Louis’ sweet snickering, as such remarks tended to be. He only raised his eyebrows and looked around in search of support. As if he seriously had no problem with naming their first album after that very moment.
Though Harry himself hoped that it was all still banter.
His palms remained still on the table. The last thing he wanted was to have glittery blue smeared all over them.
“Do you feel prettier?” The question was as sarcastic and insinuating as most ones the interviewer had delivered until then. Harry found himself matching his tone.
“I feel so much prettier.” Why wouldn’t he, anyway? Louis liked it, and made sure everyone knew. Harry would not trust anyone else about it.
Thing is, Harry never actually took it off. He let the glittery blue not match his outfits and get chipped from growing and biting. Even when a kind lady from the staff offered him nail polish remover, she was faced with “I’m good, thank you”.
He wasn’t attached, no way. He just enjoyed the feeling of not hating it.
It seemed important to Louis at the time he didn't chicken out of something so harmless. It was likely he’d had his nails forcefully painted many times at home, and knew it wasn’t that big of a deal. But Harry always assumed he didn’t have the guts. Silly, for sure. Putting on nail polish wasn’t any grand act of courage. But it did look unattainable to him. Something to rule out and flinch away from.
But now… It wasn’t that bad.
At times it was even satisfying. He would forget, then grin when he caught a glimpse of his own hands. He liked having this little detail about him, that only the most attentive people would notice, and have that be uniquely his.
Of course, Louis was one of those attentive people.
“Thought you’d be rushing to wipe that away.” He grazed Harry’s fingertips with his own, making a double-take on the smooth texture at his fingernails.
“Eh, I don’t mind.”
“Really?”
Harry rose his eyes from their linked hands under the table to analyse Louis’ expression. He looked truly curious, in the most adorable way. His unwavering smile changed into a charming little grin when Harry gave a shrug in place of a normal answer.
“You know, Hazza, that is good. Really, because I mean it,” he leaned impossibly closer to Harry, as if about to reveal a scandalous secret. “It does suit you.”
Haz bit down on his bottom lip, failing to control how much he beamed. He was lucky to find the boy in front of him had a matching set of twinkling eyes.
“Whatcha doing over there, Curly?”
Harry looked up as if caught red-handed. To be fair, the nail polish was actually a turquoise hue.
“Niall dared me to do the whole nails myself this time. Said I wouldn’t have enough coordination or something.” He added another layer of blueish-green to his middle finger, to only then transfer his full attention to Louis. “He got bored after finger number four, though.”
Haz wasn’t sure about why he just kept it going. But again, he didn’t mind. It did strike him as sort of an achievement just to not get turquoise splattered all over himself. Always nice to learn a new random ability, right?
Harry was nearly too concentrated to notice when Louis slithered next to him and let his head rest on his shoulder.
“This is fun.” He declared in a soft murmur. The truthfulness in his tone didn’t go unnoticed.
Because in all reality, that was it. If he quit being so hardhead for one moment, Harry would admit to himself that he enjoyed this. He could never give the faint voice in his head any credit but, if he did, it would expose the atrocious fact that he missed having his nails painted. And that it didn’t bother him at all to have that fixed himself. Funny enough, that voice was starting to sound exactly like Louis right then.
“Yeah” he hummed back, voicing a particle of those thoughts. His head turned the slightest bit to face the piercing blue in front of him.
Harry couldn’t tell for how long they lingered on each other’s gaze, though it was enough for him to startle at the sound of someone else’s voice.
“Harry, love,” Kind Lady from Staff approached them and Harry beat himself up internally for not remembering her name. “Could you go wash your hands, please? Interview’s about to start.”
Haz winced at that. In all his naiveness, he didn’t expect his nails to go onto the ever-growing list of things they couldn't show on camera. By his side, Louis was practically fuming.
But each of the passive requests made it easier to comply. When they began rolling, Harry’s hands were still sticky, but not a single drop of turquoise could be found in them.
When Louis leaned into him to whisper, it came as much needed comfort.
“Let’s paint them again once it’s over,” it was framed by a smirk. “Show Niall how it’s done.”
A particularly loud laugh track coming from the TV jolted Harry awake from his light snooze in Louis’ arms. He took in his surroundings: a sizable mess that encompassed the entire room into the arduous task of packing for a continent they’d never been to. An abrupt yawn caused his boyfriend to hold him tighter. His brain muffled out whatever sitcom Louis had elected to ease them down from the tension of a full day’s work. His unfocused gaze was fixed on the hand that rested on Louis’ chest.
“They never let me keep them,” he mumbled, for the sake of complaining. “My nails.”
Louis simply kept rubbing gentle circles on Haz’s bare waist, nudging him on.
“‘M kinda tired of always having to wipe them clean.” He could spot a few remains of red on his cuticles, now. Some that refused to come off for a public appearance. He buried his head deeper into Louis’ shirt, not baring to face him after reviving a topic he would not mention to anyone else.
Unsurprisingly, the answer came out as tender as his touch.
“Does look like a pain.” Even his huffing sounded soft against Harry’s skin. “Nonsense to make such a fuss about stuff like that.”
Haz nodded slightly, refusing to speak anymore on it. Louis seemed invested, though.
“They make us go out in those ridiculous matching sets but get some nail polish on and suddenly you’re crossing a line!”
Harry knew there was more to it by the time his boyfriend was fully seated and gesticulating. He let him go on, knowing how hard it was to put those emotions into words. Seeing Louis suppress parts of himself that were so precious, supposedly for the sake of their careers, got more agonising every day. But Harry still struggled to make the boy see that he deserved to be sheltered from that as well.
Haz cut his boyfriend’s rant short with a kiss that he hoped would convey it all.
It eventually winded down to a tight-binding cuddle. Harry indulged in the dwindling of their synced heartbeats, until Louis placed a kiss on top of his head.
“D’you think it’d make it better if I painted them for you?” Haz turned up to him with big questioning eyes. “Would save you half the work.”
Harry was not able to hide how astonishing the proposition sounded to him. Louis would rather do his nails every single day than just asking him to give up on a quirk that made him a tiny bit happier.
Louis’ expectant eyes were met with an excited nod and a small “yeah”. That was enough for him to reach out to the bedside table drawer and face the task headfirst.
Mere moments later, they were snuggled against the headboard, Harry’s left hand resting obediently on his boyfriend’s thigh. The second coat of blue was turning out perfect. Haz noted that it would be lovely to not have his right hand turn out all smudged for once. And that he’d never felt prettier or more pampered than at that second.
All of it bubbled up in his chest and he couldn’t help but smile. Louis looked up as if being able to feel it.
“What?” He asked quietly, the corners of his mouth already tilting upwards.
“I, just…” He searched his swirling thoughts for something that could match the unexplainable warmth that engulfed him, but settled for the simple truth. “I love you.”