Something About You

Thirty. July, 2019.

'This is a fucking nightmare,' says Isla, looking up at Niall from where she's seated on the grass, a paper schedule unfolded in her lap. 'Hozier and Lewis are on at the same time on different stages. How am I meant to choose who to see?'

'Shit, are they?' Niall drops down to a squat to peer over Isla's Glastonbury set times schedule. 'Well, I guess we see Andrew? We'll be seeing Lewis every night on Jingle Ball.'

'You will,' Isla sighs, eyes dropping back to the schedule. 'I'll only get to go to two shows.'

'Tell ya what,' Niall leans forward to place two fingers under Isla's chin, tilting her head up to look at him again. 'I'll have Capaldi do a private show for us.'

'That sounds dirty,' Isla scrunches up her nose, giggling when Niall presses his lips to it.

'He fucking wishes,' he tells her, standing back up and offering Isla a hand. It's still early in the morning on Saturday but Niall's already starting to feel their long weekend slipping away, Sunday rushing toward them, Isla heading back to work on Monday. Lately, he's found himself spending a lot of time wishing it didn't have to be this way. 'Come on, love,' he says, shielding his eyes from the morning sun. 'Let's go find the others. I think Deo wanted to catch some of The Proclaimers.'

--

Surrounded by Isla and his friends, Niall does manage to shake off some of the looming dread, to spend more time having fun than he spends thinking about tomorrow. He watches Isla and Tara dance to Maggie Rogers, their hair whipping around their faces, their sundresses twirling in the wind. He drinks pints with his cousins, faces red from the alcohol and the summer afternoon, noses developing freckles and burns by the minute. He kisses Isla during Hozier's set, an early evening breeze bringing goosebumps up on his arms, Isla's fingers dancing over the freckles on the back of his neck. He gets drunk, sobers up, and gets drunk again. He pees somewhere he probably shouldn't, ignoring Isla's protests, and loses his sunglasses in the middle of a crowd after getting kicked in the face by a crowd surfer.

He tries not to think about going back to normal life.

--

The Killers are the final act of the night, a two hour set on the main stage, underneath the setting sun. Niall is cross faded now, the world a little blurry, his senses a little heightened, and it's all he can do not to turn Isla around in the middle of the field and snog her stupid, push her back onto the soft, damp grass, and make love to her while the band plays. He's overwhelmed with it: with how beautiful she looks in the pink sunset, how sweet she sounds singing along, how electric her body feels pressed against his, how familiar she smells, like summer and sweat and her strawberries and coconut shampoo.

Slowly, the sun sets around them, and the stage lights up, and everything feels like magic. Niall has permanent goosebumps, a rising feeling in his chest that he can only compare to unescapable longing: except the person he longs for the most is here, her back pressed to his chest, his arms around her waist.

It's like sometimes he can't get close enough, even naked, even bare skin to bare skin, even inside of her, he still doesn't have enough. He wants to lose himself to her completely, to belong to her wholly, to stop feeling like he constantly has to leave, to let her go, to spend months on tour while she's saving lives in a courtroom.

'Fucking incredible, isn't it?' Isla turns her head so she can see Niall, interrupting his racing thoughts. She's smiling, pupils wide in the dark night, and Niall realizes suddenly that he's hardly watched any of the set. He'd been watching her.

'They are,' he says anyway, leaning down to press a kiss to Isla's lips, to turn her around in his arms so they're facing each other. When he pulls away he leans his forehead against hers, says, 'I'm so glad you're here.'

'Me too,' she tells him, pressing one more kiss to his lips. 'Thank you for bringing me.'

He doesn't know how to say it, how to tell Isla that he doesn't want to go anywhere without her. What fun would Glastonbury be if he wasn't sharing it with her? What fun would anything be?

Overwhelmed, Niall kisses her again, long and deep, slow and steady, trying, for the life of him, to say what he's trying to say through his kiss. Isla, arms around Niall's neck, presses her body closer to his, and Niall thinks she understands.