Double the trouble

[Niall Gallagher]

Trinkets and toys and strange little baubles were right up Niall's alley, so he found himself enjoying the odd shops that littered the festival grounds. There were pretty little marbles, jewelry made of shells and crystals, and other odds and ends. Niall was loose with the purse strings. Whatever money he had flew out the window within an instant of getting his hands on it. Mostly it covered his habits but every now and then, it meant coming to places like this and... well, actually. Now that he thought about it, Niall often didn't pay at these things. They were easy enough to rob from. All he had to do was chatter on about something and smile and flash his hazel eyes at the vendor and then whoop! Slip that baby into his pocket. And then it ended up in his apartment, destined to either join his collection or end up sold for more money to support his bad habits.

Niall leaned slightly against Ken as he picked up what appeared to be a glass unicorn. Not quite a sheep but he liked things like this, too. The glass was crafted so gently, too. He almost felt like his big clumsy hands were going to break the thing--and he normally didn't think of his hands as clumsy. Slowly, he set the unicorn down and rested his head against Ken's shoulder. A soft breeze filtered through his hair and tickled his nose. He blinked slowly, letting the contentment of the moment envelope him. Moments like this felt so rare, when he actually felt fully at peace with himself, especially when he wasn't high on something to mask the flood of unwanted feelings that typically welled up when he was left to his own devices.

He didn't like to be alone. And now he wasn't.

Niall didn't even know what he was talking about but he could hear his own voice, saying something about the practicality of keeping crystal objects around, there was a sort of magic in them. And there were magic properties to crystals. That was the honest truth. But he was distracted by the way Ken was looking at the other couple on this double date thing. Their first date and they were spending it talking about magic crystals and watching another couple being soft with one another. Niall was kinda jealous. He started to look up, fully intending to express his complaints about such a turn of events but... he found himself on the receiving end of a kiss. Not... really a real kiss, mind. But a kiss, nonetheless. And in public, at that!

Turning into Ken and winding his arms around his shoulders, Niall turned the soft kiss against the corner of his mouth into a real kiss. The kind of kiss that made his toes curl and his head tingle and the butterflies in his stomach come alive. The kind of kiss he kept expecting and Ken kept dodging. The kind of kiss that meant something and they both knew it, even if Ken was the king of mixed messages.

[Kenneth Branagh]

He would have said something--Niall, that was--about the way that Gregg and Aldon were wrapped up in each other. Ken could practically hear it in Niall's voice. "HINT HINT, Kenny boy!" It really wasn't a competition but at the same time, Ken didn't want to be found lacking. He didn't want Niall to look at another couple and be wistful, wishing that it could be them.

It could be them now.

They were so repressed as teenagers, so afraid to express their love. Their feelings were looked upon as being unnatural, but they were pure. Well... Ken's feelings were pure. Niall's were not-so-pure in practice, but Ken knew that what Niall felt for him was genuine and rooted in affection. It only took one glance at him to know that he still felt the love and the tenderness. The way he spoke about magic crystals and tiny glass beads strung up into pretty bracelets and delicate wooden carvings were meaningless chatter, but it meant that Niall was comfortable enough with him to let his mind (and mouth) wander.

His mouth, however.

His mouth was on Ken's, lips on lips. Comfort was a relative term. Ken was uncomfortable with kissing him in public; there was a part of him that remembered the scorn and the derision of their parents and peers. A part of him cared if people saw them and thought that they were being lewd or disgusting. But a much, much larger part of him cared about Niall and instead of pulling away--surely an action that would have hurt Niall, given that Ken initiated the kiss--he leaned in.

His hands slid tentatively to Niall's sides, brushing them gently as if unsure that they were supposed to go there. He was hesitant, tentative, apprehensive, but at the same time also thrilled and exhilarated. Gregg and Aldon kissed and no one mocked them or threw them dirty looks. This wasn't Dingle, a small town rooted in mysticism and religion. Here in Hazleton, sleepy and small though it was, the Americans were still more open-minded and accepting. If anything, he thought that the teenagers who milled past were giggling because they liked the sight of the other couple kissing. Ken heard them squealing about it being cute and adorable.

He didn't want to be cute or adorable, though. Those could belong to Gregg and Aldon. He wanted to be Ken. And he wanted Niall to be Niall. They deserved more than labels, as if they could be narrowed down to a handful of words. Slowly, Ken's hands moved around and his arms slid around Niall's waist, pulling him gently closer as the kiss held. And when it finally broke out of necessity, Ken lowered his head against Niall's shoulder and let out a breath that he'd been holding since Niall left Dingle.

[Niall Gallagher]

For once, Ken wasn't the King of Mixed Messages. Although Niall feared it, Ken didn't pull away or break off the kiss before it was properly over. In fact... his hands were at his sides. He was pulling Niall closer. Niall smiled as he tilted his head downward, the kiss still warm on his lips. The butterflies were still throwing a party in his stomach and in his chest but that was fine--Niall loved that feeling, so akin to the same one that he felt when he did those reckless, foolhardy things as a child. Like jumping into freezing cold water and rolling down Irish hills and pulling Ken behind the church to sneak in a long-overdue first kiss.

Ken was so afraid to show his true feelings. Even when they were young. Niall should have been, too. But where Ken was belittled and beaten down to keep everything bottled inside, Niall rebelled. Nobody was going to keep him quiet or tell him to relax when he was antsy. And if they did, it didn't matter. There was something about Niall's energy that didn't allow it to bottle itself down. It had to be known. Keeping it tamped down just made it explode later.

"We should..." he started to say, voice a low murmur but they were joined by the second half of the double date. Niall didn't move away but he did look up to meet their gazes. Gregg was hard to read but he seemed a lot less... er, tense? Than he had been before. Niall smiled, then lightly touched one of the colorful stone bead bracelets.

"Obsidian blocks curses," he said. "Kinda goes with my aesthetic, too, don't you think?"

[Kenneth Branagh]

Whatever it was that they should do, Ken was fated never to find out. Before Niall could continue, the other two rejoined their small party and Ken was both pleased and slightly disappointed to see them. He was pleased that Gregg no longer had that strange look about him and that Aldon appeared sunny, as though he had suddenly discovered rainbows, puppies and lollipops all at the same time. He was equally disappointed that he couldn't have had another moment or two alone with Niall... but then again, they were hardly alone earlier with such a crowd about them.

"Ooh, that looks good on you!" Aldon was quick to agree, nodding as if he agreed so wholeheartedly with Niall's comment that he could hardly contain himself. Ken had the distinct impression of an overly eager puppy, which he wondered about as he glanced at Gregg. Was this Gregg's type? They seemed like such a mismatched couple.

Then again... Looking at himself and Niall, he supposed that they were an unlikely pair too. Niall was dark where Ken was fair, eager and expressive where Ken was withdrawn and reserved. The only thing that they had in common was each other—belonging to each other, that was. Ken briefly smiled at Gregg to show that there were no hard feelings about the earlier 'conversation' and gently tugged Niall away from the table once he had paid for the small trinket.

"If we don't leave now, he'll have bracelets up to his elbows," Ken said with a little teasing smile at Niall. "It looks like the fireworks are about to start. Let's go and find a good viewpoint." It was growing a little darker too; the sky was a dim and dusky velvet hue, as the sun began its descent.

[Niall Gallagher]

All right, so obsidian wasn't colorful like some of the other stones but it was true--it carried strong protection and they both knew that they could use that. Ken, too, he thought. Ken especially, actually. Niall stared thoughtfully at the jewelry but the bracelet was bought and he was being ushered onward before he could even start considering what might be a good fit for Ken. He turned around and twisted his head about but Ken was still guiding him away with some comment about him buying up all the jewelry if they weren't careful.

"But..." he thought he saw something, a glint of a pretty gemstone he'd never seen before. It caught his eye and he wanted it. So... when nobody was looking... he might have... sorta... swiped it and slid it into the pocket of his coat. Looking around, he saw that nobody had noticed his action and he smiled to himself. Well then. He would just... give his present to Ken later.

"They always have the best out here," Niall said wistfully as he spoke of the fireworks. And they did, from everywhere Niall had been. He loved to sit under the sky and watch it explode above him in an array of pretty colors. If he closed his eyes as they came raining down on them, he could imagine how it might feel to be kissed by the rainbow.

Sidling closer to Ken, he said, practically into Ken's ear, "Look, they're getting along a lot better now. I was starting to think they were going to ruin our date!"

[Kenneth Branagh]

"The strawberry festival fireworks are green and pink," Aldon said with a touch of longing in his own voice, mirroring the wistfulness that Ken detected in Niall's tone. Ken half-turned to look at him and saw a fleeting, strange look pass across his expression. What was that all about? He thought that Gregg and Aldon had already made up their differences...

Surprisingly, Niall's thoughts ran across similar lines. Ken turned back to his voice in his ear, so close that he swore he felt Niall's lips moving against the shell of it. Was that on purpose? To get a rise out of him? A pleasant shiver did cascade down his spine. The topic was innocent enough but... hm... Ken had to wonder. (And with Niall, it was good practice to wonder.) While Ken didn't shift away, he did ease his head ever so gently away from the whispering lips. His ears were sensitive.

"I think they'll be all right," he said in a low mutter, leaning in so that his voice couldn't be overheard by the other couple. Aldon had moved on from the strawberry festival now; Ken heard him brightly talking about something called a social committee. "Gregg thought that Aldon and I were having an affair. But I think Aldon convinced him that that is completely not true." Not to mention ridiculous. Ken hadn't taken his eyes off of Niall since he got to Hazleton, practically; there was clearly no room for anyone else to steal a fraction of his attention.

[Niall Gallagher]

The best. That wasn't the whole truth, though. It wasn't the fireworks themselves that Niall spoke of. When he was little, he remembered marveling over fireworks the first time he saw them. It was during a summer festival not unlike this one, back home in Dingle. And he remembered stretching his hands upward, smile big and wide while Paddy laughed at him. What're you doing? Paddy had asked. And Niall had replied, Trying to catch them! As if they were lightning bugs. Paddy even laughed and said something along the same lines. Niall was like five or six at the time.

Niall noticed that Ken was moving subtly away from him and he didn't notice Aldon or Gregg anymore at all. He was too busy spending all of his attention on Ken. Although he had moved away, Ken was back, leaning inward to mutter something about Gregg being worried about Aldon and Ken having an affair. Niall laughed aloud despite himself. He tried to hide the big grin on his face with his fist but when Gregg looked over at him, he had a feeling he knew he was laughing at him. Niall quickly wormed his way behind and around Ken so that he was on his other side, putting Ken neatly and conveniently between himself and Gregg. Hey, he might go for Niall but he wouldn't go for Ken! They were old friends! Or comrades. Something like that.

"I'd be more worried it was you and that Gregg guy," Niall said, even though Gregg was nothing like him. Aldon, he thought, was kind of a kindred spirit but he couldn't imagine Ken with anybody other than himself. And if he had to, well, why not a guy he worked with. Did they ever work personally together, though? Ah, Niall didn't even care. Ken was with him. Niall grinned and wrapped both arms around Ken's waist, cheek to cheek with him. His voice was hushed like a secret when next he spoke.

"But I'm not. I think you're all mine."

[Kenneth Branagh]

With a rustle and a ruffle, Niall was off and away, circling around, behind, off to the other side of Ken where he was safe from Gregg's deadpan stare. That was a look that Ken had gotten used to even in the brief time that he and Gregg had worked together. He thought he knew Gregg but he'd been so wrong. Nothing explained Aldon or the way that Gregg had taken to him so obviously, and become so smitten wth him.

Nothing explained Niall, either.

Ken smiled placatingly at Gregg, a flash of humor showing through, before Niall reintroduced himself into the center of Ken's attention. His arms, his warmth, his smile and the scent that he used all seemed designed to pull at Ken's senses. He took over. There was never any competition, both when they were young and most especially now, after such a lengthy time apart.

"You only think, Wooly?" Ken murmured, a hand landing on Niall's forearm, one of the ones curled around him. "Don't you know?"

[Niall Gallagher]

Trick question! Niall thought he knew. Ken said it. Niall said it. But then Ken kept edging backwards, shying away from intimate contact or anything resembling it. But not always. Sometimes he leaned in, too. Sometimes he kissed back. Sometimes he initiated the kiss! Yet, he still insisted on playing this weird game with Niall and Niall couldn't tell. Was it meant to be a game? Or did Ken just really harbor so much distrust in him?

Niall leaned in a little closer, if that was at all possible. Lazily, he left a little kiss on Ken's cheek and he smiled as a warm, masculine hand curled around his arm. He closed his eyes, enjoying it, the fell of an adult Ken's hand on his bare skin. He kissed Ken again, a little twin of the kiss that came before it.

"Then why do you keep running away?" he whispered. "You keep saying it's not the time. What are you waiting for...?"

[Kenneth Branagh]

"I'm not running."

He was waiting--for the right moment, the right occasion to present itself. Meanwhile, other opportunities were flitting past and he was too scared to seize upon them. Moments like these were wasted; kisses that could have led somewhere were terminated under the guise of having some chore to tend to. A lingering look, a fond glance, a warm touch, he skirted around them and away from them--away from Niall, fearing the downfall of their carefully constructed, lovingly crafted relationship.

But even Ken realized that he couldn't make Niall wait forever. Let me have you, Niall had murmured to him in impassioned tones, a plea. Ken felt a molten spike of heat surging through his very core every time he recalled Niall's voice in that moment, the purpose in his eyes. He had been so tempted then. So tempted to open himself up to Niall, to be vulnerable and laid bare. But as with every other moment, it passed and Ken was left to struggle with the lingering regret.

"I'm..." He turned to look at Niall, lips twitching to form the words. "I..." If he waited too long, would Niall still want him? Would he grow tired of waiting? Niall was notoriously short on patience but Ken always thought that he was the exception. Yet, he was frightened all the same that Niall would leave again, that one morning he would open his eyes to find the bed empty and Niall gone, tired of Ken's skittishness and shyness. Niall wanted it. Ken wanted it. Maybe it didn't have to be as complicated as Ken made it out to be in his head.

His feelings were a jumbled mess. His thoughts were disturbed.

Slowly, he curled his hand around Niall's arm. "Tonight."

[Niall Gallagher]

Niall made a face. Yeah, okay, so Ken wasn't physically running but he had to know that wasn't what Niall meant when he said it. Ken was emotionally running. He was keeping some distance between them and every time something threatened that distance, Ken ran again. What frustrated Niall was that often, Ken himself was the one closing the space between them. And then when Niall thought it was okay to keep moving in that direction--toward him--Ken shied away. Again and again! It was enough to make a man crazy! It was enough to make a man turn back to drugs! Was that what he wanted? Niall back on drugs?!

Watching Ken now, he wondered what was going through his mind. There seemed to be some kind of internal conflict that he struggled with. Niall couldn't really imagine what was going on in there. Niall didn't mean to be, but he was usually wrapped up in his own internal battles that he maybe forgot that others were suffering, battling it out, too. Similar demons. Maybe totally different ones. Demons, all the same.

He wanted to apologize but at the same time, didn't feel like he had anything to apologize for. All he did was ask what Ken was waiting for. It seemed like a fair question, not one that should be taken back. Or was he pushing Ken? Niall bit his lower lip, trying to think while at the same time searching Ken's gaze for some kind of unspoken answer. To his surprise, Ken didn't answer his question but he did say the word tonight. Niall blinked. What? What did that even mean? Niall's mouth formed a question but then he shut it, looking down at the hand on his arm. Tonight. The word alone sounded like a promise. The kind of promise that hiked his temperature up and made him feel a little... frisky. So he couldn't help that he broke out in a smile. His smile grew as he leaned in closer and nuzzled Ken.

"Tonight what?" he asked in a low voice, even though he already thought he knew.

[Kenneth Branagh]

"You know," Ken said in the driest tone that he could muster up, given that he was spoken to in a certain Tone, and that he was being smiled at by Niall and being smiled at was his Kryptonite. There wasn't anything that Ken wouldn't do for his smile--except declare in the presence of their friends that he planned to be intimate with his lover that night (or any other night).

This was something entirely between them, and it was going to stay that way.

It didn't mean, though, that he didn't smile back slightly, or that he didn't lean into Niall. Ken even nuzzled him in return, enjoying their closeness and the fact that after so long, they could finally relax. There were no monsters here and even if there were, they were none of Ken's business. Tonight he was Ken the man, not Ken the hunter. And Niall was Niall, as usual, but somehow even brighter, more alive in Ken's eyes without the influence of drugs. This was the Niall that he remembered.

"Hey, there are some benches over there!" Aldon was pointing to a row of benches that were only partly occupied. Most were up on the hill behind the benches, hoping for a better glimpse of the fireworks, but Ken personally disliked being jostled and crowded. He sat himself down on one of them and pulled Niall with him, cozying up to him under the guise of shifting over for their friends.

Aldon sat on his other side and Ken was relieved to see him cuddling up to Gregg; it looked like Aldon only had eyes for Gregg. Well, good. That would reassure Gregg once and for all that Aldon had no designs on him--or vice versa.

[Niall Gallagher]

Oho, he knew. Or thought he knew. It made him want to skip along home just to be alone with Ken. Even without sex, he admittedly wanted the time alone with him. Now that they were on the same page for once, why couldn't they be alone?! Or was Ken just that cruel, to bring it up while they were on this date with somebody else? Niall wouldn't care if they brought it up in front of them and doubted they would even be noticed or heard at this point. But Ken, Ken, Ken. Tsk, tsk.

Niall curled up against Ken, though his eyes were on the other couple. They were definitely into each other, which was kinda funny since there was that brief rear-up of drama. That guy didn't even seem like the drama stirring kind of guy but love did weird things to people. Niall's gaze slipped back toward Ken, all smiles now.

He didn't care who saw that his arm was now up around Ken's shoulder, the other sliding over his waist. The crack of fireworks startled him out of his reverie--just staring at Ken in awe, as if he were the god of the sun and he was some lowly worshiper. Niall snapped to attention, watching as the first spray of color painted the sky.

"Ahhh, it's so cool~" he sang. "Makes me feel like I'm 14 again."

[Kenneth Branagh]

Niall knew. Ken knew. Hell, Aldon and Gregg probably knew by now. Ken wasn't declaring it to the world but he wasn't making an effort to hide anymore, either. Perhaps seeing Gregg with Aldon bolstered his spirits, seeing their relationship being accepted. Hell, if Gregg could do it, why couldn't he? He'd been all over the world searching for Niall and once he found him... Ken ran. Even a child could have pointed out that that made no sense—and Ken was all about making sense, wasn't he?

He was sure that he didn't deserve to be looked at the way Niall looked at him, though. Ken had admirable qualities that his peers and his elders praised him for but he knew that he had just as many deficits. Niall doted on him, adored him he was sure, but he could just as easily have hated Ken for what he did in the past. Those magical eyes could be filled just as easily with loathing and contempt.

Ken wondered what Niall saw just then. Did he see the perfection? Or the flaws that made up the real Ken? He watched the light of the fireworks suddenly reflecting in Niall's eyes, saw the green change to blue, brown, a flash of yellow then back again. There was something magical about him that was exclusively his—a quality ascribed to Niall and only Niall. Even while the fireworks shot into the air in a spectacular display of color and light, and while Niall and Aldon both exclaimed and gushed about them, Ken watched Niall. He'd seen fireworks before. He would probably see many more fireworks in the future.

But if his time was to be well-spent, he wanted to use it admiring the only permanent light in his life—the fireworks faded after a while but he had to make sure Niall was here to stay. His memories were filled with young Niall and here was his chance to memorize the adult Niall. The tilt of his nose, the soft curve of his lips in awe of the colored lights that popped in the sky, the shape of his face and his profile, Ken etched them all out, carved them into his memories to keep.

Gently Ken's arms slid around his waist, a bit belated—he was always two steps behind the times, it seemed. Better late than never though, right? He tipped his head forward until their cheeks just touched and finally lent his gaze to the skies. "Let's... go to a rock concert next time," he smiled, recalling the simple desires of their fourteen year-old selves. "And let's get tattoos."

[Niall Gallagher]

Fireworks were their own kind of magic, Niall decided. It wasn't the kind of magic that witches packed into a drug, the kind that made the whole world sing and every brush of skin against skin feel like the most ecstatic sensation he'd ever felt. It wasn't even the kind of magic that happened when a person locked eyes with somebody they were very, very fond of and it set off a whole set of fluttery butterflies and stupid smiles. It was, really, a mundane kind of magic. The kind of magic even those without knowledge of real magic could appreciate. Somehow, humans came up with that on their own. In the absence of real magic in their lives, they created it. There was something inherently magical about that.

So he watched in near childish delight as the colors were sent up into the heavens to mingle in different color schemes and shapes, battering the night sky with a slew of brand new stars, each doomed to be extinguished before they could be fully appreciated individually. It was pretty, in an existential kind of way, too. Niall thought that this was what he was; a firework, a spark in the night sky that flashed brightly and then dimmed out as quickly as it had come alive. His life was that way; a flash in the pan.

But he thought it was beautiful, nonetheless. Life might have been one slow burn or one shove too many for all of his life but that just meant when things were this way--when they were calm and lovely--it only burned more ferociously in his memories. It was just like his childhood. He remembered the bad: being bullied, shunned, and ignored. But when the drugs kicked in, he also remembered lazy nights at the lake and stolen kisses behind the church and softly spoken words of dreams.

Everything was just plain chaos until Ken was there. Somehow, he held him steady when he was stumbling. He tilted the world back into one that made sense. It was near impossible to put to words how he felt, so he showed instead of told. His smile grew unconsciously as a cheek pressed against his cheek, cool from the night air but warming to his touch.

"You mean it?" Niall asked, turning to look at Ken now. "Because now we have to! No take-backsies!"