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The great sorrow of human life is knowing that to look and to eat are two different operations. Only on the other side of heaven, where God lives, are they one and the same operation.[...] Maybe the vices, depravities and crimes are nearly always or even always in their essence attempts to eat beauty, to eat what one can only look at. Eve initiated this. If she lost our humanity by eating a fruit, the reverse attitude— looking at a fruit without eating it— must be what saves.
-Simone Weil
Bobby had warned him about this- once when Niall was eleven and Bobby’d sat him and Greg down to give them The Talk, and again a few months ago when Bobby’d found out about the Louis thing. The Louis thing, incidentally,still makes Niall’s cheeks blaze red, makes him smile like a fucking idiot, so there’s a chance he hadn’t actually been listening as closely as he should’ve when his dad had said “no biting” in his sternest voice.
It’s fine, generally, when Louis rides him, which Louis does when he remembers he has a charity match coming up and he hasn’t exercised as much as he should’ve. Niall’s not opposed to being Louis’ exercise equipment. He’s actually into it to a degree that is almost worrying, and Louis, when he eventually figures it out, will never let him live it down, and Niall's looking forward to that, too. He's weird when it comes to Louis, or maybe just in general. But especially when it comes to Louis.
The real problem comes when Louis is feeling lazy, which is really, really often- especially since weed makes him sleepy and boneless and aggressively horny, somehow all at once.
It’s something about Louis being bent over on his knees, about the nape of his neck flushed and exposed, his shoulder blades moving restlessly under the tan skin of his back. Something about all that makes Niall’s teeth ache the way they do when he’s about to change, makes him work his jaw uselessly over nothing while he snaps his hips the best his bum knees will allow.
He can’t close his eyes or he’ll think about biting Louis. He can’t look at Louis or he’ll think about biting Louis. He can’t look anywhere else because Louis is right there, and Niall wants to bite him. And Niall can’t always remember, when Louis is whining or cursing or clawing at the mattress, why biting him is such a bad idea in the first place.
It starts getting weird even when they aren’t having sex, and that’s when Niall really should say something to Louis- but.
But.
They’re in a hotel room, Zayn and Harry sprawled on the bed, Liam settled onto the bit of couch Louis isn’t starfished over, Niall on the floor parallel to the couch while they watch a golf program that Niall really, really, really should be interested in.
But Louis’ arm is dangling off the couch, his hand resting on Niall’s cheek in a way that seems like it must be uncomfortable. His wrist is so close to Niall’s nose and mouth, and Niall can hear Louis’ blood pulsing in his veins, sluggish and relaxed, can smell him so strong that it overpowers everyone else in the room. He imagines he can feel the thump thump thump of Louis’ heart beating, just through the palm of his hand on Niall’s face.
Niall doesn’t mean to do it, really, but his eyes are on the television and he’s been trying so hard to focus on the match, he doesn’t notice he’s mouthing at Louis’ fingers until Louis snorts, wiggles them where they’re resting between Niall’s teeth.
“Teething, pup?” He’s looking down at Niall like he knows something Niall doesn’t, like Niall doesn’t have to tell him about the way he has to chew the air sometimes and pretend it’s Louis’ shoulder, his neck.
“That doesn’t hurt?” Liam’s frowning at Louis’ fingers in Niall’s mouth, Niall’s teeth gnawing away gently. Niall feels suddenly, hideously, horribly embarrassed, and he can’t even pinpoint why. His face starts burning and he tries to subtly turn away from Louis’ hand, but Louis is looking at Liam with his eyebrows raised, challenging.
“Is Niall chewing on your hand, Liam?”
Liam blinks, confused. “No?”
“Then it’s none of your business, is it?” Louis asks, softening his harsh tone with a light kick at Liam’ thigh. Liam just rolls his eyes back to the tv, murmuring you’re such a fucking weirdo.
And he’s talking about Louis, not about Niall, and that settles Niall somehow, relaxes him enough to let him teethe at Louis’ fingers some more, imagine biting down harder, cracking the bone- shuddering in disgust, because no, that’s not what he wants, is it? Something else. His teeth want something else.
But Louis’ fingers in his mouth will do for now, and they taste good, and Louis seems to like it, or think it’s funny when he pulls his fingers away and Niall chases them absent-mindedly, actually following the golf match now that his mouth is occupied.
When the match is over and everyone goes their separate ways, Louis pins Niall to the floor and rolls them a few times just to leave Niall breathless.
“What was that about, then?” he asks, amused, waving his gnawed-red fingers in front of Niall’s face. They’re still wet with spit, wrinkled a bit from how long they’d been in Niall’s mouth.
It must’ve hurt a bit, Niall thinks stupidly. They must be raw.
Instead of answering, Niall works his jaw on nothing, watches Louis watch his mouth move while he pops the joints and winces.
“Felt weird lately,” Niall says eventually, shrugging as well as he can while Louis’ got him pressed to the floor.
Louis hums. “All of you, or just your teeth?”
“Teeth,” Niall answers immediately. Then, after a moment, “Mostly.”
“Are they gonna, like, fall out? Because I didn’t sign up for a toothless werewolf boyfriend.” Louis’ own teeth are on display, grin huge, perfectly human canines obvious. Looking at them just makes Niall’s teeth throb more, has him gnashing them at nothing. Louis pulls back a bit, surprised. “Are you actually hurt? Do we need to call your dad?”
Just still stupidly in love with you, Niall thinks dully. Just want to tear a hole in your skin because I love you so much. Want to eat you raw.
That’d probably freak even Louis out, just a bit, so Niall tries to tone his answer down. “We just- when we love someone- a lot-”
“Oh go on,” Louis laughs, rolling his eyes, but he’s flushed underneath his teasing, pleased and bashful, and Niall’s heart hurts as much as his teeth.
“It’s just a thing that happens. When we want to like- or when our bodies want to-”
Louis, for once, doesn’t seem to know how Niall’s sentence is going to end, so he just watches, curious and concerned while Niall struggles to find the word.
“Mate,” he finishes eventually.
“We have mated,” Louis reminds him, wiggling his eyebrows like a cartoon pervert.
“In the Biblical sense,” Niall agrees.
“Well what other sense is there?”
Niall laughs this time, rolling his shoulders against the carpet and shifting his knees where his legs are starting to go numb under Louis’ weight. “The werewolf sense, I guess.”
“And that involves you chewing on my hand?” Louis’ brow is creased, suspicious, and he’s watching Niall through narrowed eyes, trying to pick out what Niall can’t seem to just say.
Niall looks carefully up at the ceiling, running his tongue over his swollen gums and hoping Louis misses the movement. “Something like that.”
It's quiet for a moment, Louis resting his weight on Niall's hips, Niall watching the ceiling like it will teach him how not to eat his best friend.
“Well, as long as you don’t kill me,” Louis says airily, like it’s a joke, though they both know it isn’t on some level.
Niall simultaneously wishes that actually counted as permission and is relieved that it doesn’t.
The full moon edges closer and it feels like a magnet physically trying to tear the teeth out of Niall’s jaw. He wakes in the bus bunk with his pillow shoved in his mouth, breathing heavily through his nose while he sweats and spits and chews on the cotton like a case of dry-mouth will help his situation somehow. He can smell Louis- or Louis' bunk, the concentrated sweat and sleep of him, though he can hear Louis himself messing about in the lounge up front.
There’s a hole in his pillowcase where he’s gnawed it, and the whole thing is soaked with drool, and he’s disgusted with himself. Inhaling the scent of Louis everywhere just brings his dream back in harsh relief, how it’d been more animal than human- rough shapes and colors, more scent and feel than anything- his dick still hard between his legs and the ghost of Louis’ blood on his tongue.
His gums pulse and ache, and it only gets worse when the curtain to his bunk opens up and Louis crawls in, balancing a styrofoam cup of tea in one hand while he clumsily but carefully settles himself in the little bit of empty space beside Niall’s body.
Niall doesn’t think to warn him about the pillow until Louis’ already touched it, and his disgusted groan makes Niall want to laugh and hide all at once.
“Did you come on this?” Louis hisses in the dark, shoving at Niall’s chest to make sure he’s awake.
“Not yet.” Niall’s voice accidentally drops low and rough, and he feels the shiver run through Louis beside him, feels Louis twist his body until they’re pressed together and Louis can push a thigh against the bulge in Niall’s trackies.
“Don’t wanna spill this,” Louis says apologetically, waving his tea dangerously close to Niall’s face, and Niall snorts.
He doesn’t say anything about how he’s too scared to have sex at the moment anyway, how he keeps dreaming about tearing Louis apart with his teeth. That’s not good boyfriend behavior, and Niall’s a good boy(friend). Instead, he inches closer to where Louis is propped up against the wall of the bunk, rests his head on Louis’ chest and listens to his heartbeat. Tries not to think about ripping it out.
He really needs to call his dad.
“Have you ever been scared of me?” Niall asks after a while, when Louis’ mostly finished his tea and he’s half-asleep, judging by the even hitch of his breaths.
Louis’ heart-rate doesn’t pick up, but he shifts a little, moving so that he can get a hand in Niall’s hair and pet him. “You’re Niall,” he says, careful, like he knows it’s not an answer. When Niall doesn’t respond, Louis takes a deep breath before asking, “Is this about your teeth still?”
Niall ignores the question, because if Louis doesn’t have to answer, then neither does he. “I’m scared of me, sometimes.”
Louis’ fingers tighten in his hair the slightest bit before they resume their stroking. “I know you are, pup,” he murmurs, pressing his lips to the top of Niall’s head.
Bobby answers on the third ring.
“What do you do about the biting thing?” Niall asks, before Bobby even has a chance to say hello.
The line is silent, like he’s managed to shock his own father. His own werewolf father.
Bobby finally lets out a slow breath like he’s steeling himself for this conversation. Niall knows that feeling. He’s standing in his hotel room shirtless because he’s already sweated through two tanks trying to psych himself up for this call. “Has it really gotten that bad?” Bobby asks. “Already?”
Niall’s not sure how to answer the “already” part- Da, there is no “already”, I’ve never loved anyone else. You’ve met him, Da. You know how he is. It's Louis. The first question is easy enough. “Yeah, it’s that bad. Worse, if I’m honest,” Niall adds, grimacing at his reflection in the wall mirror. It’s probably just a trick of the light or his mind, but his teeth even look bigger.
“But you haven’t-”
“No,” Niall says immediately, recoiling from the very idea of it. “I’d never.”
Bobby seems to be weighing his words carefully, and he finally says, “Well. You might.”
“Da!”
“It’s the truth, Niall. You’re around him all the time, and if it’s already so bad-”
“I think about tearing him apart. I dream about it. Just getting him in my teeth and shredding him. It makes me sick, Da, but I can’t-” Niall’s voice is shaking so badly he’s surprised Bobby can even understand him, but then-
“That’ll stop, you know, if you-”
Neither of them really want to say the word “mate”; they’re close, but they aren’t that close.
“I can’t ask him to do that. You’ve said before- it’s so dangerous; you nearly killed-”
“But I didn’t,” Bobby cuts in. “That’s the gamble. It’s dangerous either way, because you’re going to do it on purpose or you’re going to let it sit until you wake up with your teeth at his throat.”
There’s the third option, of course. Leaving the band. Leaving Louis. But that’s hardly an option at all, has Niall breaking out in another sweat the moment the thought crosses his mind.
“But whatever you do, you have to talk to him,” Bobby says, an air of finality in his voice. “Nothing is just up to you.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Niall murmurs, tonguing one of his canine teeth absently.
When he’s hung up with Bobby, he notices the smell of Louis- hyper-aware as he is, the full moon just a few days off.
“Come in,” Niall calls, and Louis’ pushing the door open before Niall’s even finished. He’s scowling, which is sort of rich seeing as Niall’s the one who’s just been eavesdropped on.
“What the fuck was that about?” Louis snaps, kicking the door shut with his heel and standing with his hands on his hips, spine straight.
Something in Niall will always want to roll over for that, but he steels himself. “You can’t just listen to people’s phone calls, Louis.”
“Okay, that’s fair, but also answer my fucking question.”
“Are you at least going to apologize for eavesdropping?” Niall asks, buying time, trying to figure out how much of the phone call Louis heard, how much Niall has to tell him.
“Are you at least going to apologize for not mentioning how you’ve apparently been dying to kill me?” Louis snarls back. If he were a wolf, his ears would be pressed flat to his skull, Niall thinks.
“It’s not-” Niall starts, then stops. He breathes, closes his eyes, lets himself feel the air conditioning on his bare chest, the relief of having Louis nearby, even now, even fighting like pinned dogs. When he opens his eyes, he refocuses on Louis, lets himself look, see the worry underneath the angry lines of Louis tight muscles. Niall walks the few steps to the bed and sits, patting the comforter next to him and looking at Louis imploringly. He can feel how soft his own eyes have gone, and even angry, Louis responds, crossing to the bed and dropping down with a little huff of breath.
“I’m sorry I haven’t told you.”
Louis’ shoulders tighten and he scowls at the floor, kicking his bare feet at the carpet. “Did you think I’d be scared? That I’d run off?”
“I know this will be hard to believe,” Niall says carefully, fighting to keep a straight face, “but not everything is about you.”
Louis whirls on him, knees up on the bed so he can look down at Niall, practically growling. “Don’t fucking-”
Niall falls back on the sheets, belly up, sprawling his arms out and looking up at Louis until Louis stills, breathing heavily, hands curled into fists.
“That was a bad joke,” Niall admits, and Louis snorts.
“I’m the funny one, remember?” Louis says, and Niall can feel him working at calming himself down.
“You are. You’re the hot one, too. And the sweet one. The one with the best-”
“Niall.”
Niall grins, and Louis grins, though his face is red. He’s so easy, sometimes. They’re both embarrassing.
“We’ve got this instinct, right? About mates. It’s sort of- I mean it’s fucking stupid, is what it is. But it’s like, if we can’t have you, no one can.”
“Very caveman of you,” Louis says dryly, sounding as unimpressed as Niall remembers feeling when he’d first gotten this speech.
“I hate it,” Niall agrees. “It’s making me fucking crazy. And you’re just so-”
“Niall.”
“So anyway, when we want to mate with someone- like, long-term, settle-down, mate- it kicks in. And there’s nothing we can do, really. Except try to ignore it until it gets too bad, or leave.”
Louis scoffs, crawling over Niall on his hands and knees so he can look down at him. “Well, you aren’t fucking leaving,” he says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.
Which it is. But it’s nice to hear, anyway.
“You don’t even know the other option,” Niall protests, but he’s looking at the swell of Louis’ biceps where his arms are framing Niall’s head, and that’s distracting.
“The other option is that you stay,” Louis says simply, shrugging.
Niall blinks at him, a little blind-sided by how easily Louis sorted through the weeks and months of turmoil raging in Niall’s head. Louis watches curiously as Niall lifts himself up on his elbows and presses a quick kiss to Louis’ inner arm. “You’re brave, Louis Tomlinson,” he says seriously, and Louis ducks his head, snorting the compliment away.
“I mean as long as you’re not chopping my cock off, I’m not too fussed about it, honestly.”
“Ah, well, then-” Niall starts sadly, and Louis collapses on him, laughing breathlessly when Niall rolls them so he’s leaning over Louis, grinning.
“I’ve got to bite you,” Niall says, spitting it out quick because it scares him. “And you’ve got to trust me.”
“You’re Niall,” Louis laughs. “Of course I trust you.”
Niall doesn’t 100 percent trust himself. He’s working on it, but any time they get close to actual sex, Niall sort of freaks the fuck out.
He’s having an honest-to-God panic attack, and Louis is sitting beside him, rubbing his back and cooing softly, murmuring all the nice things that help Niall feel a bit more solid.
“You know that I trust you, yeah?” Louis says once Niall’s finally back to breathing relatively normally.
“I know you do, Lou, it’s not you-” Niall starts, voice thin, but Louis cuts him off.
“No, I don’t think you do know, really. What I mean is that I trust you. And if that means not mating or fucking or anything until you trust yourself, I can do that. Or if it means not mating or fucking ever- I’ll be real, that kind of sucks- but I can do that, too.” Louis taps his fingers to Niall’s chest, right over his heart. “I’m here, whether you bite me or not.”
“Lou-”
“I mean we signed like a billion fucking dollar contract, so it’s not like I can just-”
“Louis,” Niall laughs, pushing him off the bed so he lands in a squawky angry heap on the floor. Niall peaks over the edge at the pissed off pile of Louis. “You’re so full of shit sometimes.”
“I was telling the truth!” Louis snaps, leaping back onto the bed and wrestling Niall onto his back.
“I didn’t say you weren’t telling the truth, I just said you’re full of shit. Which you are.”
“Why don’t you just suck my fucking balls, Niall? What about that?”
Niall grins, throwing Louis off him easily and tossing a pillow at his head. “You do me first.”
It’s easier when the full moon has passed. Zayn stays with Niall in the hotel room, since Niall trusts his wolf self even less than his human one. And then, miraculously, when the sun rises, the ache in his teeth is nearly bearable, even when Louis slinks into the room right at dawn, smelling like weed and sweat and sleep, soft as anything in joggers and a worn sweater.
Zayn takes one look at the way they’re sizing each other up, just shy of circling like wild dogs, before he promptly excuses himself from the room.
“How’re your teeth?” Louis asks innocently, leaning against the wall casually, hips jutting just enough that the outline of his dick is obvious through his gray joggers.
Niall rolls his shoulders experimentally, the raw soreness of his muscles post-change almost pleasant, especially with the way Louis’ eyeing him like a starved beast. “Oh, you know,” Niall says softly, grinning to himself, “better.”
Louis nods. “That’s good,” he says, pushing himself slowly away from the wall and stretching his arms over his head, letting his sweatshirt ride up the soft plane of his stomach. “That’s really good.”
“Yeah,” Niall says, feeling stupid, eyes caught on the sliver of bare skin as if he’s never seen it before.
“Yeah?” Louis asks, a laugh in the question, teasing. He’s closer than Niall remembers, and then he’s right there, closer than he’s been in days, hair soft over his forehead and sleep lines beside his eyes.
Niall kisses him, something he’s avoided for weeks, scared he'd pull the tongue straight out of Louis’ mouth. Niall doesn’t- but he whines when Louis’ tongue presses against his sensitive gums, curiously feeling out the swollen edges around Niall’s teeth. Less kissing and more exploring, piecing apart the bits of Niall he can’t quite understand.
When Louis pulls away, Niall leaves his mouth hanging open, feels like he has to so there’s room for all the teeth in his mouth- he’s never been so aware of them, the sharp edges and the cruel flat planes of them, the crushing, tearing potential.
“How do you feel?” Louis asks, sitting on the bed and looking up at Niall in that calculating, interested way that always makes Niall’s stomach squirm.
“Good,” Niall says, though his teeth still hurt and his heart’s beating fast. It’s not a lie.
“Good enough to come over here?” Louis says it carefully, tilting his head to the space beside him like a delicate suggestion. Instead of answering, Niall bounds over, flinging himself on the bed and making Louis laugh. “You’re going to ruin your robot knees.”
“I am,” Niall agrees, “but not by jumping on the bed.” He tries that eyebrow waggle Louis is so good at, and he must get it right because Louis howls, screeching laughter even while he rolls onto his back and shoves his joggers off.
Niall’s one step ahead of him, never put his clothes back on from changing the night before, and he doesn’t even wait for Louis to get his sweater off before kissing him again, encouraging Louis to feel at his gums because it feels good in a way, like poking a bruise.
They’ve gotten the prep down to an art, and Louis’ said time and again that if the One Direction money ever falls through, he’ll have a good fallback in the kinky niche object insertion porn market. Niall figures that’s probably true as he watches Louis work several lube-slick fingers into himself, but he’s also pretty sure that even Louis Tomlinson won’t blow through the One Direction money anytime soon.
Though stranger things have happened, he supposes. Niall can budget for both of them. He’s good at it.
When Louis pulls his fingers out and nudges Niall expectantly, blinking up at him with his trademark Absolutely No Patience, Niall hesitates.
“Um- can you-” Niall makes a swirly turn gesture with one finger. “Hands and knees?”
Louis grumbles but complies, heaving himself up like it’s some great monumental effort. “You know, someday I’m going to make the obvious joke about this position,” he threatens.
Niall folds himself over Louis’ back, pausing a moment just to feel the warm solid expanse of Louis underneath him, even through the sweater he’s still wearing, how familiar it is and how much he’s missed it. “I’m honestly surprised you haven’t already.”
“That’s- oh.” Louis huffs out a breathy laugh when Niall starts to push in, then takes a deep breath and lets it out, releasing the tension in his muscles. “That’s not up to my comedic standards, Niall.”
Niall bites his lip so he won’t laugh. “Is comedic a word?”
Louis gasps when Niall bottoms out. “Shut the fuck up, Horan.”
Niall means to answer, but he’s pulled himself off Louis’ back and he can’t get his brain in order to respond. They haven’t done this in what feels like forever, and Niall’s floored by the stretch of Louis’ back, the dip of his waist, the valley of his spine where his back is bowed and the sweater’s pushed up.
The back of his neck, flushed red and already sweating at the nape, hair darkened and curling with it.
It’s a strangely specific pain- his teeth aching, pulsing in time with the blood in his dick. And it feels like they’ll never stop hurting, not while Louis is right there, unbitten. Niall feels his fingers cutting into Louis’ hips, hears Louis’ shallow breaths, and he tries to mouth at the air to keep the ache at bay.
It doesn’t work, and his jaw pops with the frustration of it. And there’s still the tie between the blood in his dick and the blood in his gums, the shared throbbing each time Louis makes a noise or tightens his muscles, each time Niall looks at the unbroken expanse of his nape.
Niall feels lost in it, wanting to bite but terrified of it, can’t even focus on Louis moving against him, fucking himself because Niall’s caught in his head and doesn’t know how to ask for help.
The thing, though, is that he’s never really had to ask, not when it comes to Louis.
Louis’ been talking and it finally breaks through the solid wall of panic in Niall’s head, sends him shivering and weak, draped over Louis’ back again.“You gonna bite me, pup?”
“Yeah,” Niall answers, but it comes out garbled around all the spit in his mouth, how his tongue and teeth are all swollen and wet.
“Go on,” Louis presses, gentle, gentle, gentle, dropping his head lower so the knobs at the top of his spine stand out in sharp relief. The sweater slips down his shoulder, revealing more skin, more to bite and tear and teethe at. “Give us a bite, pup, then give me a knot.” He sighs at the last word, like he can already feel it, how much he wants it, and Niall’s stomach pulls tight.
“Yeah,” Niall says again, not even sure what he’s answering specifically, just knows he agrees with everything Louis said. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He presses his open mouth to the nape of Louis’ neck, can smell him so strong there that it makes Niall dizzy, and he doesn’t realize he’s fucking Louis again until Louis murmurs a soft that’s really good, pup, his voice wavering with the pace of Niall’s hips.
It is really good, Niall thinks, mouthing at Louis’ neck, his spine and the soft, vulnerable place it connects to his shoulder, where he smells the best, feels the best, tastes the best.
Niall’s teeth have reached a crescendo of pain, and there’s something about the give of the meat of Louis’ skin that makes it clear that’s the only thing in the whole universe that’ll even come close to dulling the ache. Niall means to warn him, hey, going to bite you now, going to get your blood in my mouth, hope it’s still okay, is this fine, is this still fine-
But then his teeth punch through the flesh and meat of Louis’ shoulder- and it feels like that, like a punch, not an easy give like he’d expected, like a knife through butter. It’s rough and there’s blood in his mouth, and Louis makes a choked, hurt noise before going still.
Niall’s not sure what to do with the blood in his mouth, but it touches his teeth and they go pleasantly numb, and it washes over his gums and they stop pulsing, and the relief of that is enough to shock his knot loose.
Louis shudders when it flares up in him, hissing while he struggles to move his hips a bit from side to side, searching for some friction or some respite from friction, Niall can’t tell.
Niall wants to ask if he’s okay, but he doesn’t want to pull his teeth out of Louis’ shoulder, doesn’t want to see the damage he’s done. He rubs one hand over Louis’ chest, coming to rest over the warm, erratic beat of his heart.
“If you’re wondering,” Louis says after a moment, when they’ve both been kneeling there in relative silence and stillness so long that it’s gone past awkward and into absurd, “that really fucking hurt.”
Niall ends up sputtering a laugh, spitting blood from Louis’ shoulder onto the pillows, and Louis roars in disgust, and they collapse on the bed, and that sort of hurts both of them, and then Niall’s laughing still, which hurts Louis, so Louis squeezes tight around the sensitive knot in his ass, which hurts Niall, and Louis’ demanding, “How’s that? Does that feel good? As good as having a chunk of your shoulder torn out? How’s that, Niall?”, but he’s laughing, too, and Niall is so in love with him.
“In all fairness, I didn’t know what I was doing,” Niall says, when they’ve calmed down a bit. His knot’s still full, and they’re on their sides, Louis’ back cradled against Niall’s chest in a way he doesn’t like if they aren’t tied like this.
“No fucking shit,” Louis laughs. He’s been absently pulling at his dick for the last few minutes, and Niall knows he hasn’t come yet, but he also likes watching Louis throw subtle hints about it.
Like, “So are you going to jerk me off or are you just an ass decoration now?”
Niall snorts, reaching around to knock Louis’ hand out of the way. “You’re such a dick, Tommo.”
Louis makes a pleased noise when Niall falls into the rhythm he likes, and he lets himself relax with his head resting back against Niall’s chest. “I’m sorry, which one of us just permanently scarred the other?”
“You scarred my heart,” Niall offers cheerfully, grinning when Louis lets out a soft sound and tries to work his hips up into Niall’s hand.
Louis comes easily, shivering against Niall’s chest for a few seconds before he stretches his whole body like a cat, pulling a pillow under his head and patting Niall’s hip.
“This,” Louis says, jerking his head toward his bleeding shoulder, “had better be cleaned and bandaged by the time I wake up.”
“Can do,” Niall yawns.
Louis wakes up right as Niall’s putting the finishing touches on his shoulder, and he’s sleep-soft, eyes fond while he watches Niall carefully pat the plaster into place.
“Doctor Werewolf,” Louis mumbles, voice scratchy and raw.
“Hit new television program.”
The air’s not charged or weird, but Niall still wonders where they’re at, can’t pull his eyes away from the huge padded bandage on Louis shoulder. “We’ll probably need to get an actual nurse or something to look at that.”
“Nah,” Louis says, sitting against the headboard and pressing his foot to Niall’s leg. “Once I get my supercool werewolf powers, it’ll heal itself super fast, right?”
“You know that’s not how it works-”
“Niall! I was promised superhuman strength and a huge knotted dick!” Louis is happy, Niall realizes, shouting and delighted and happy. The tension in Niall’s chest leaks away to nothing.
“I’ll give you a huge knotted dick,” Niall mutters, grabbing the first aid kit off the bed to take back to the bus.
“That’s why we’re werewolf married,” Louis says sagely before Niall gets out the door. “Because I love your huge knotted dick.”
Niall shuts the door behind him with a “Fuck you” and a thud, but he's grinning all the way to the bus.