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Chapter Text

“What do you want?” Taylor didn’t sound as hostile as even Harry thought she should. She should hate him; she should be mad. He had seen her mad before, crying, throwing things at him, but he had been able to calm her down, been able to put his hands on her shoulders and wait out her anger until he was able to pull her into his chest. Now, she was thousands of miles away and Harry’s fingers clutched uselessly at his bedspread instead.

“I still love you. I want you back.”

“Well, I think it’s a bit late for that, wouldn’t you agree?” Again, her tone was too reasonable. She sounded like she always did when she was tired and stressed but still trying—polite, professional, just the tiniest bit detached, but clearly trying to be pleasant.

“It’s not too late. I got home yesterday.”

“Yes,” Taylor said patiently, “but there were six days between the time I left Gorda and now, when you finally thought you might call.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Did you have to work your way through every girl at the resort before you convinced yourself that I was the one worth having?” she snapped, her voice cracking.

“No! No, I...” Harry hesitated. He didn’t want to tell her what he had been doing, but there was no reason to hold back now. It was just a reflex—to lie if he had been doing something that he knew would make him not good enough for her. She was like a princess. His friends told him she was “wife material;” she liked baking and knitting and even mental things like antiques and needlepoint that only OAPs liked, but Harry wasn’t looking for a wife.

He could hear from the buzzing silence at the other end of the line that she was waiting. “I’ve been drunk for the last six days, okay, Tay?”

“What? How is that even possible? Harry, are you okay?”

Harry rolled his eyes, glad that she couldn’t see him. Honestly, she was one of the most naïve twenty-three year olds he had ever met. “It’s possible. Ed has probably been drunk for, like, three weeks straight before; why don’t you go act like his mom?” he asked defensively, forgetting momentarily that this was supposed to be the phone call where he got her back.

“Harry, I’m not acting like your mom; I’m acting like someone who cares about you—which, okay, I guess includes your mom,” Taylor said, flustered but having to interrupt herself in the interest of accuracy. Harry loved when she got so adorably awkward like this, even now.

She continued, “Ed drinks because he loves drinking, but you only go on a bender when you’re upset. That’s what worries me, is that whenever you get really drunk you’re always trying to deal with something, but I guess I don’t have any right to be concerned about you anymore. By all means, take life advice from a fucking record company CEO trying to relive his glory days with you.”

She was right—too right—as usual. “You know everyone is partying there anyway,” Harry tried. “I was trying not to bring everybody down.”

“Except that you got home three days ago.”

“I thought you were done with me.”

“Do you know how hard it is to be done with you? Everybody’s texting me about it; I can’t go outside without seeing some magazine with your face on it; and then, like, yesterday my mom calls because you know she only catches up on the news once a week and is like, ‘I saw that Harry left vacation without you on the MTV; is everything okay?’ It’s not like I can just block you on Facebook.”

“Fucking hell, Tay….” Harry trailed off, trying to think of what to say. “You didn’t tell your mom? You tell your parents everything.”

“I can’t, Harry, not this. I feel like I failed. Besides, my mom was always all, ‘look at him, Tay; he’s not the nice boy you’ve been looking for because no nice boys have hair that long and he’s dated a lot of different women and by the way what is a television presenter? Is it someone who gives people televisions?’”

“Well, she was right. Not about the TV presenter thing, which is hilarious, by the way, but about me. I’m not a nice boy.” This whole getting-her-back endeavor was really going poorly but Harry didn’t care. Tay was one of the few people he could be completely honest with about real things—well, almost completely.

“But you are, deep down. You just have this—something—that gets in the way.”

“No, stop it,” Harry said, exasperated. “I cheated on you, remember? Why are you being so nice to me?”

“This is definitely a different ‘want you back’ phone call from the kind I usually get,” Taylor said dryly.

“I do. I really do. I’m just not sure if I’m good enough. Fuck it, maybe you should just find a boy who loves cats and bakes muffins and stays in with you watching SVU reruns.”

“Oh, and I’m sure there’s just a line of those boys somewhere waiting for me.”

“I’m sure there are. The episodes of SVU we watched weren’t half bad.”

“Anyway, Harry, I will give you a definite answer. I don’t love you anymore, I don’t think. I do still care about you, no matter how much you think you don’t deserve it, but I can’t do this right now. This isn’t goodbye; this is self-preservation.”

“What, is this it? Are you going to hang up now because I don’t like Law and Order enough?”

“No, I’m not going to hang up. I-I’m enjoying this conversation far too much,” Taylor said in a rush.

Harry sighed and kneaded his brow, suddenly knowing what he had to do and not liking it. Whatever he might want and whatever her flaws might be, she didn’t deserve to take him back again only to be disappointed. That was how every other one of her shit relationships ended. “Well, you’ll have to hang up,” Harry said.

“Why will I?”

“Because I’ve got someone at the door.”

“Who?”

“You don’t know her.”

Taylor hung up instantly, and Harry was sure it was because she didn’t want him to hear her cry. He wanted to make her emotional. He most certainly didn’t want her to think about it rationally and realize that he never would have planned even an Edible Arrangements delivery with a female driver simultaneously with his one big chance to win Taylor back.

He stared at the phone for another minute, slumping back on his bed and holding it above him, the silence of the huge house pregnant around him. He knew what the “something” that always got in the way was. It was genetic. Cheating ran in his blood, as much a part of him as his curly hair or his love for Elvis. There was only one person who he wanted to talk to right now, someone who already knew every deeply buried, shitty part of Harry’s personality and was still there—or at least had to be, contractually. Harry dialed the number, holding his breath, hoping to God that it wouldn’t go to voicemail.

“Alright, Harold?” the voice on the other end said.

“No,” Harry said quietly. “I need you to come over.”

There was a deep sigh from the other end of the line. “Been living alone for two months and you already miss me? Bit pathetic, don’t you think?”

“Not in the mood,” Harry growled, although he knew that he deserved whatever he got. He had been a shit roommate, a shit friend, a shit something else, his mind supplied, refusing to let him finish the thought.

“I know. Wait right there, I’m bringing Love, Actually.”

Harry had to smile as the call disappeared from his screen. Even though his favorite film was on Netflix, of course his former best friend had to bring over the DVD. Louis never did anything halfway.

Chapter Text

2010

Harry sat inside the locked bathroom stall with his head in his hands, trying to regain—and keep—his composure. He had been at this task for so long that he was sure anyone keeping tabs on him would think he had fallen into the toilet. That would have been less embarrassing in Harry’s mind than what had actually happened.

That had been, without doubt, his worst work in the brief career that he now believed to be over. Even White Eskimo’s first gig had been better than the boot camp song he had just performed. Liam Gallagher could have done a better version of “Stop Crying Your Heart Out” whilst drunk at a karaoke bar. But, ironically, he couldn’t afford to cry his heart out. He had never been comfortable with crying in front of other people in the first place, and with the cameras following everyone around he’d likely have ended up crying in front of the entire population of Britain if he hadn’t found this loo in time. The only place he could even feel safe being devastated was in that bathroom.

By now, the few tears that had leaked out had dried and he was focusing on deep breaths, pressing his hands to his cheeks in an attempt to cool them. Maybe if I can just sneak out quickly… he thought, and then sucked in a breath as he heard the door open and close. Fuck. He was trapped now. Harry dearly hoped that, whoever that wanker with the worst timing in the world was, he would be in and out for a quick piss. The last thing he needed was someone discovering him and mugging for the cameras later, talking about that crybaby Harry Styles. That, of course, assumed that he would still be relevant after this clusterfuck of a performance.

He waited until he heard the door bang shut again behind his decidedly unwelcome toilet companion and decided to make a run for it. If he hesitated again he’d end up in the same situation, and he had to get out of that damn toilet eventually before Simon decided he had run away or gone mental. Harry steeled himself, unlocked the stall, and had already begun a dead sprint toward the door when he collided with something—someone, actually—oh, shit.

Whoever it was caught and steadied him as he almost fell over. He felt the color he had worked so hard to eradicate rushing back into his cheeks. Please let him not be another contestant, pleasepleaseplease, Harry silently begged the X-Factor Gods as he regained his balance and looked at the boy he had so unceremoniously assaulted. How in hell was he going to explain this? The other boy was definitely a contestant—he had an awful Beatles-type haircut and Harry knew his name, L-something, but it was escaping him after the day he’d had. Whoever he was, he was stronger than he looked. He was a few inches shorter than Harry and had still managed to catch him.

Harry realized that there was no reasonable explanation for what he had done. The only quality Harry could rely on in moments like these was his charm. With that in mind, he turned and looked directly into the boy’s eyes, which were green—no, blue—it had been a trick of the light. Those eyes widened, and Harry gave a small smile and said, “Oops,” shrugging as if to say, We all sprint through bathrooms sometimes; what can you do, right?

“Hi,” the boy said, offering an easy smile that put Harry instantly at ease. That smile said that he was not the kind of boy that would go on the Xtra Factor to talk all about the time he witnessed Harry reenacting The Amazing Race in a loo. “I’m Louis.”

Harry nodded. “I’m Harry.”

“Short for Harold?”

Harry desperately wanted the conversation to veer away from the topic of what exactly had just happened, so he decided to fudge a little bit. “Yeah, short for Harold. It’s my granddad’s name.” Okay, he had just completely lied. Harry wasn’t short for anything.

“Harold’s always been a particular favorite name of mine. I suppose I see why you’d go by Harry, though. Harold’s not exactly the name of a future pop superstar, yeah?” The other boy grinned again, and for some reason just then Harry wished he could say something really witty that would make that smile appear on purpose. Unfortunately, as flustered as he was, he couldn’t think of anything.

“Er, yeah,” he rejoined lamely, and then realized, “You know, I think we’ve properly met before, actually.”

“Yeah, course we have,” Louis said. “First day of boot camp.”

“You told me I was going to be famous and you wanted a photo. I thought you were mental.”

“But you were also pleased,” Louis said, cuffing him on the shoulder. “Admit it.”

“Yeah,” Harry said, smiling. “I’ve been dead nervous this whole time, and it actually really helped to have someone other than my mum telling me that I was going to be fantastic.” He left out the fact that his most recent performance had probably just got him a one-way ticket back to Holmes Chapel.

“This is it.”

“What?”

“This is a great story. We’ve got the timing all worked out together and everything. From now on, we have to go to parties together and tell this story, in tandem, just like this. And then—” his smile grew more mischievous even as his tone grew dreamier “—I’ll follow it up with this sequel about how, overwhelmed with gratefulness for my support during boot camp, you watched your chance and while I was checking my hair you passionately tackled me in a loo.”

Harry hid his face with his hands and groaned, peeking out between his fingers to beg. “Please, never, ever, ever, tell this story. I’ll do whatever you want me to do with you at parties if you just take this to your grave.”

“Whatever I want?” Louis said, waggling his eyebrows, and then froze as if he couldn’t believe he had just done that. He continued hastily, “I’m not going to tell this story. This, right now, is the most stressful time of everybody’s life. From now on, it never happened. But I do have to embarrass you a little. What if, like, you accidentally peed on me a little or something?”

“Why the fuck would I…” Harry sighed. “Okay, actually, that’s a little funny. Mainly gross, but a little funny, I give you.”

“Yeah, and then you said, ‘oops,’ as you just did, and I said, ‘hi,’ as I just did, and that’s everything that happened. Ready to get back in there?”

“Yeah. I appreciate it, mate.”

“Anytime, Harold.” Louis smirked and held the door open for him.

As they walked out of the loo together and then went their separate ways, Harry realized that through being a complete idiot he might have actually managed to make a friend in this cutthroat environment. A friend who thinks my name is Harold, he reminded himself. God, I hope he never calls me that in public.

***

January 10, 2013

As it happened, that very friend had just texted Harry an obnoxious “I’M HERE HAROLD.”

Harry rolled his eyes as he typed, “Coming,” and threw on a hoodie, but decided that even a text in all capital letters was better than the radio silence he had received for a month after everything that had gone down at the end of October. He hadn’t yet forgotten about feeling that the bottom was falling out of his stomach while staring at his phone, praying for a message from Louis that would say everything was okay, a message that never materialized. That was how he and Taylor had first gotten close, in fact—she gave really good advice, which Harry had been sorely in need of after everything that had happened.

Of course, he had edited some parts.

“Wow, you two must be really close,” he remembered Taylor saying. “I’ve never heard a guy talk about his best friend like that. Like, it seems like you really love him. I think Austin and his friends mainly just talk about girls and play video games.”

“Well, you know, being in a band with someone really brings you close. It’s just the same with Liam and Zayn and Nialler,” Harry had said, lying through his teeth and hoping that Taylor wouldn’t call his bluff. She was a solo act, after all, so maybe she didn’t know how band mates worked. Then again, he had just answered her question as if she were a morning show interviewer. Taylor had looked quickly askance at him before continuing, a shade too perceptive as usual.

He had forgotten that thinking about Taylor might make him upset at a time like this, and by the time he opened the door he went in for a hug without even thinking that he and Louis might not be at that level anymore. Luckily, Louis returned the embrace, holding him tight and rubbing circles into Harry’s back with his fingers. “You sounded really cut up on the phone,” he said into Harry’s hair. “Taylor?”

Harry nodded, although his emotionally overtaxed heart was now beating LouisLouisLouis and he really needed it to just shut up.

“Did you tell her you wanted her back?” Louis said, stepping back. “Did she say no?”

“Not exactly. I mean, we’re not getting back together, but I just…. Is there any chance we don’t have to talk just now?”

“Yeah, of course. Let’s go pop this bad boy in,” Louis said, wielding the Love, Actually DVD ahead of him like he was a Knight of the Round Table.

“You don’t have to pretend you’re excited,” Harry said. “I know you’d rather be watching football.”

“I like Love, Actually,” Louis said haughtily. “For your information, Hugh Grant in that film is my number one dancing inspiration.”

“No shit, he is,” Harry said, snorting. “Did you see yourself on X-Factor? And Zayn thought he was going to be the worst one.”

Louis shoved him good-naturedly and they settled in to watch the movie. Harry couldn’t help but notice that Louis was sitting a conscious six inches away from him, but he didn’t want to say anything about it. He knew why, and the last thing he wanted was to hurt his best friend any more than he already had.

But by the time Emma Thompson realized that Snape was cheating on her (Harry couldn’t help it; the order in which he had seen Alan Rickman’s films had forever ruined his ability to positively identify non-Snape characters), he was struggling to maintain the distance. That scene had always hit a little too close to home for him.

“Oh, honestly,” Louis said, sighing and looking over at him.

“What? I’m not crying. I’m not. Look at how hard I’m not crying,” Harry said defensively.

“Your cheeks are blotchy, just like they always get right before you’re about to cry—sure sign. It’s like pre-cum, but for crying. It’s pre-cry.”

Harry had to laugh despite the “pre-cry,” as Louis called it. His best friend had always had the unique ability to make Harry feel better no matter what was happening. “Look, Lou, could you possibly…I just…could we cuddle?” Harry asked, feeling like a selfish little shit.

“Harry….”

“I don’t bite,” Harry tried.

“You’re a liar,” Louis said resignedly, scooting closer and wrapping his arms around him as Harry relaxed back into Louis’ chest. This felt like home, more than he would care to admit to anyone. All he wanted to do was forget everything that had happened and go back to a time when everybody was happy. For just a minute, as Harry felt fingers wind themselves into his hair and begin to play with his curls, he did forget, and he could tell that Louis had forgotten, too.

Chapter Text

2010

The boys left Simon’s patio, all of them on a high from performing. “How do you like us now?” Niall yelled to the sky, pumping his fist in the air.

“Do you lot think I was good? I thought the first few bars were a little weak,” Liam said anxiously, fussing with his hair.

“Don’t be ridiculous; you were great. We’re going to make it, and eventually they’re going to make us dance and then we’re going home and I’m sorry, everyone, but we definitely made it through judge’s houses with that one,” Zayn said, rubbing Liam’s shoulder. They all knew that Liam had really thought he was going to make it through boot camp individually, and he had been playing mind games with himself ever since.

Harry was quiet. He really cared about the competition, maybe even more than Liam did. Wanting to win made what felt like a physical knot out of his stomach, but he didn’t want the other boys to catch on. It wasn’t cool to be that involved in the competition, and moreover it wasn’t going to bring them any closer as a group.

The only other quiet one was Louis. His lips were a thin, pale line, and it didn’t take a doctor to figure out what the problem was. He had been stung by a sea urchin days before, and the boys were shocked that he had even rallied to perform.

“Alright?” Harry said quietly. He didn’t want to embarrass Louis in front of the other boys—Harry was the same, never wanting to bother anyone else when he was hurt.

“Not really. The doctors told me not to put any weight on it, but I can’t sing properly on one foot,” Louis murmured.

“It’s okay,” Harry said. “We’ll get you fixed up when we get back to the room.”

Upon entering their room, Niall immediately grabbed a packet of crisps. After he finished, wiping the salt out of the corners of his mouth, he picked up his cell phone and stared at it. The emotion in his eyes was so wistful that Harry wondered if his band mate was missing someone from home. Niall seemed to be having an internal debate with himself and finally, tentatively said, “I wonder if Nando’s delivers to Spain.”

“Christ, Horan, you and Nando’s are a better love story than Twilight,” Liam said.

“It’s worth a try,” Zayn said, nudging Niall and perking up.

“No, it’s not,” Liam said, rolling his eyes, but Niall called his local Nando’s anyway, only to be shut down.

Meanwhile, Harry was helping Louis onto his bed. “It’s fine; I’m fine, really,” Louis protested, but Harry waved him off and cleaned off Louis’ foot before rubbing on the antibiotic ointment.

“Thanks,” Louis muttered, looking down. “Really, it’s fine. I’ve got worse injuries playing football. I’m used to it.”

“Footballer and singer? Renaissance man.” Harry whistled. He knew that he didn’t need to baby Louis, but he wanted to take care of him anyway.

Louis shrugged. “It’s not a big deal; everyone plays football.”

“Not me. I play badminton.”

“Badminton?” Louis said incredulously. Harry could tell that he was trying not to say that badminton was the geekiest of all sports.

“Yeah, have you got an issue with badminton?” Harry asked, posturing.

“Actually, I find badminton to be the most sensuous sport, and I was a bit intimidated by you sexually just then,” Louis deadpanned, and Harry cracked up.

“Tommo and Hazza, stop playing Florence Nightingale and weigh in,” Liam said. “We’re trying to decide who’s the most fit out of the contestants.”

“Wagner, by far,” Niall said, making everybody snort. “I just want to run my fingers through his silky locks.”

“That Rebecca,” Zayn said, lying back on his bed and sighing happily. “She’s a classic beauty. Classic voice, too.”

“She is,” Liam said. “I vote with you, Zayn.”

“I don’t know, men,” Louis said. “That was a tough call between Rebecca bloody Ferguson and Wagner.”

“Who would you pick, then?” Niall countered.

Louis shook his head. “I’m taking myself out of the voting. I’ve got a girlfriend. I have to pick Hannah.”

Harry felt annoyed for some reason he couldn’t put his finger on. “Lou, you’re not playing the game,” he said, deciding that was it.

“Sorry, Hannah would never forgive me. Especially if I picked Wagner, which, I have to say, bit similar hair.”

“Harry?”

“Lou, right here,” Harry said, surprising himself.

Louis shot him an unreadable look. The other boys seemed not to be sure if Harry was serious or joking, which was ridiculous because he was obviously joking. Obviously.

“Why on earth would you pick Tommo when you could have this fine Irish lad?” Niall said, puffing out his chest.

Harry shrugged. “I’ve got a foot fetish.”

Everybody looked at Louis’ swollen, pink foot and started laughing uncontrollably.

“Too soon!” Louis protested good-naturedly between chuckles.

Even after Harry had fixed up the other boy’s foot, however, he noticed that Louis was quieter than the rest of the boys through dinner. When they returned to their room, Harry looked around to make sure that they wouldn’t be overheard. Zayn was reading; Niall was eating—how is that even possible; we literally just ate, Harry thought—and Liam was doing push-ups in the corner.

He went and sat on Louis’ bed. “I don’t need any more bandaging, thanks,” Louis said, trying to smile.

“Let’s go for a walk.”

Louis looked at him as if Harry were mad. “It’ll be more like a hop for me, mate.”

“Outside,” Harry said, quietly but firmly.

Once they were outside the door and had made sure that no cameras were lurking about, Harry turned to Louis. “What’s the matter? Don’t give me any shit about how your foot is hurting you; you’re not fooling me anymore.”

“It’s nothing, really. You wouldn’t understand.”

“Try me.”

Louis sighed. “My parents…I think they’re getting divorced. My mum called me while I was in hospital and she sounded really gutted. They’ve fought a lot recently, but I think it’s for real this time.”

“Oh, Lou…” Harry put his arm around him. “What made you think I wouldn’t understand that? You’ve met my stepdad…. My mum got lucky the second time around, but my real dad is a piece of shit. And even if yours isn’t,” he added hastily, seeing the look on Louis’ face, “I know what it’s like to feel like your whole life is falling apart. It’ll get better, I promise. It never gets fixed, but it gets okay, like you can go on living with the way things are.”

“That’s not all,” Louis said, biting his lip. “I talked to my father the other day. I don’t know why; I never talk to him, but I thought he should find out about the band now in case everything blows up. He loves it when I get in touch, I just—I just never do.”

Harry’s brow creased in confusion. “What are you talking about? You talked to your dad twice in the week you stayed at my place.”

“No, that’s not what I’m saying.” Louis searched the sky, as if he were waiting for the proper thing to say to appear in skywriting. “I went to see my father on the last day before we went to judges’ houses, to give him the good news. My biological father, Troy, not my dad, Mark. Haz, this is why I’m not sure if you understand, because my mum is already on husband number two and she found the good one. Mark is great, better than anyone should be to some other man’s kid, and now they’re getting divorced. And I feel like somehow I brought it on myself by talking to my stupid whinging father, who just wants me to be involved in Georgia’s life because she misses me so much even though I’ve met her fucking once.”

Louis bit his lip again, and Harry realized he was trying not to cry. Leaving aside who exactly Georgia was, he pulled Louis into a hug. “No,” Harry said. “You can’t start thinking like that or you’re going to pull yourself into a hole you can’t get out of. You know that’s not true. You can’t cause parents to do anything, but you can choose who you keep in contact with, even after we all get famous.”

Louis started laughing shakily. “We’re not going to get famous, Harry.”

“Famous!” Harry said decisively. “And when we are, you can talk to Mark all you like and never speak to Troy again. What kind of name is Troy? He even sounds like a twat.”

“He is a twat,” Louis said. “I…thank you. You’re right. I just….”

“It’s hard to stop thinking like that,” Harry said quietly. “After my parents split, I never stepped on a sidewalk crack for years—years—because I thought they would get back together if I did everything right.”

“Harry….” Louis said in a low voice.

“Don’t feel sorry for me. It’s in the past.” Harry looked up, trying to smile for Louis. “And one day, you’re going to wake up and realize that this day, right now, counts as the past for you, too.”

“By then we’ll have been friends forever,” Louis said, almost without thinking.

“Absolutely. Ready to get back in there?” Harry said, consciously using the same words Louis had used on him a few weeks earlier.

Louis nodded, and Harry could tell he didn’t trust himself to speak.

“The holidays are the hardest part,” Harry said into Louis’ ear. “Anytime you need me—anytime—my phone is always on.”

“We have to make it through this competition first,” Louis said darkly.

“Famous,” Harry reminded him again.

***

January 10, 2013

“What do you want to do now?” Louis asked as the title screen of the film played on loop.

Harry shifted his weight slightly to look at him. Everything, he wanted to say. Every cell in his body itched to feel Louis closer to him. He couldn’t have imagined this feeling when they first met. He had loved Taylor; he couldn’t fake something like that, but he had never wanted her like this. She couldn’t play rough enough for him, not like Louis could, but it was more than that. His heart never felt fit to burst out of his chest when he looked at her, whereas with Lou he would have made himself weak staring for hours if he could.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Louis said, reading his face.

“I was about to suggest backgammon,” Harry said, trying to keep his tone neutral.

“You were not. You had your ‘fuck me’ face on.”

“Well, since it’s out in the open….”

“Harry, how can you even think this is worth a try? I was honest with you, and you chose Taylor.”

“I didn’t choose Taylor. It’s always you. I always choose you, and anyway, you know as well as I do that I didn’t choose either one of you. I chose the band. You think that doesn’t keep me up at night?”

“I don’t think you’re choosing the band anymore. I think you’re afraid of being happy for once in your life.”

“Say the word, Lou. We quit the band, give the middle finger to management, stop being professional hetero heartthrobs, move out to some island together, and nobody ever sees us again.”

Louis was quiet.

“See? You know it’s not practical. We have to do what we can now,” Harry said.

“What would you do to me right now?” Louis said, his voice getting huskier and making Harry’s heart race.

“Lou, don’t torture me,” Harry said.

“What would you do?” Louis flipped over so that he was on top of Harry, straddling him and looking directly into his eyes.

Harry felt like he was floating off the ground. There was no air in his lungs, but he didn’t care. He had missed this so much—Louis’ face centimeters from his own. He cleared his throat. “First, I’d kiss you,” he said, “I’d kiss your jaw, and that spot underneath your ear that you love, and then I’d move down your neck to your collarbone. I’d get your shirt off. I’d—“

“Would you move that slowly?” Louis interrupted.

Harry shook his head. Louis knew him too well, knew his lack of self-control. “No. It’s been too long. I couldn’t go that slow. I’d deep throat you. I’d swallow every drop of you down, and then I’d flip you over. I’d open you up with one finger, then two, and when you were gaping I’d fuck you so good that you’d never leave me again.”

The color flooded into Louis’ face, and Harry thought, yes. Yes, come here, let me show you what I can do. He was turning himself on just imagining it after so long.

“I see,” Louis said. Harry could tell he was trying to keep his voice level. “Well, Mr. Styles, you make some intriguing propositions, which I will consider carefully. At least you’re feeling better,” he said, looking pointedly at Harry’s growing erection. “It looks like my work here is done.”

He rolled off of Harry and grabbed his jacket off the chair in the corner.

“You bastard,” Harry called. “You can’t do that to me!”

“It’s called payback,” Louis answered, grinning. “I do what I like now. I’ll let myself out. Later, Styles.”

“Fuck you,” Harry called after him.

“Don’t you wish you could?”

“Do you know what I wish?”

Louis turned around.

“What I’d really do, the first thing? I’d lie in bed with you, just lie there, holding you so close that I could feel your breathing and your voice in my ribs just like we used to. And then I’d do all that other stuff,” he added, trying to crack a smile.

Louis’ knuckles whitened on the doorframe. “Haz…” he said softly, his face crumpling.

“Come back to me.”

Louis gave him one final look before walking away.

Chapter Text

2010

Harry had never hated anyone, but for the past few weeks he had slowly been realizing that he might actually hate Hannah Walker. He had never been frustrated before, and he didn’t wear the emotion well. Disappointment and delayed gratification were unfamiliar at best, as cocky as he felt admitting it to himself, simply because he was so charming. Physical affection was a natural reflex for him. Since he had started growing his hair out, all he had to do was give his head a shake and every girl in the room was staring at him. He had tested it the other day on their backup dancers and it had worked, even on the curly-haired one who kept turning Liam down. That might not have been entirely fair to Liam, he realized now, but Harry’s sexual confidence needed a boost. Staying in bunk beds made him feel like he was seven, and if he needed to flirt with an entire room full of girls to compensate, then he would.

Right now, however, Harry didn’t want a room full of girls. He had figured it out: why he found Hannah so annoying, why he always wanted to take care of Louis, why every time the other boy smiled at him, even on camera, Harry felt it all the way down to his toes. Since they had met, every cell of Harry’s body had told him this one, but he hadn’t wanted to hear it. Even more than hitting a wrong note onstage, this was the one thing that could mess everything up with the band, kill all their chances of success, and Harry had always had an instinct toward destruction. So he had ignored the feeling until he couldn’t anymore, until he had to admit that he so badly wanted Louis that he could barely breathe at times like this.

The boy in question was lying on his bed with him, talking about how much he missed Hannah and Hannah this and Hannah that and Hannah blah blah blah. No, Harry had never hated anyone. That had been before he finally wanted something—someone—he couldn’t have. That had been before the dreams started.

“She hasn’t texted me back today,” Louis said anxiously. The smell of him and the heat coming off his skin was making Harry crazy. All the other boys here smelled like cologne or aftershave, but Louis’ scent was all his own. It reminded Harry of the outdoors a little, like Louis had spent so much time outside playing football that the sun and grass had soaked into his skin permanently.

“I’m sure she’s going to text you back soon,” Harry said, thinking, He’s on my bed, cuddling with me. That has to mean something, right? Straight boys don’t do that. But gay boys don’t talk about their girlfriends this much. Harry had known he was bi from the age of thirteen. With other people it was harder to tell, and with Lou he had absolutely no idea.

Over the past few weeks, he had been trying desperately to figure out what exactly, if anything, Louis might want or feel. Every time he thought something might be just over the line of what friends would do, he could never be completely sure of himself. Harry, of all people, couldn’t overanalyze. He liked to touch people, grin at them, make it so they couldn’t help but love him, regardless of whether or not he felt any attraction. He’d end up lying awake at night thinking, He bit my shoulder—that has to be good, right? But then he locked himself in the bathroom to talk to Hannah for an hour. Shit.

He had figured that perhaps if he just ignored it everything would go away, but it was only getting worse the more he tried to hide it. Just yesterday, he had found himself thinking, God, I hope he’s not one of those people who’s sexually attracted to buildings, because Wembley looks great at night. That settled it; he was definitely losing his mind. If they did win The X-Factor, One Direction would be a foursome by then because Louis was slowly killing him.

“She said she missed me yesterday, though,” Louis went on.

“You or your tongue, Tommo?” Harry said, snickering.

“I am quite good at snogging.”

“Not what I meant.”

“Oh.” Louis went quiet. “I’m not really into that. It just seems, like, a bit weird, you know?”

“Bet Hannah would be into it,” Harry said lightly, trying to keep the excitement out of his voice as he added another mental hash mark to his tally.

“Yeah, probably.” Louis flipped onto his stomach to take a sip from the water bottle sitting on the floor and then flipped back over to face Harry, a drop of water clinging to the edge of his lower lip. Harry brushed it off with his thumb without thinking, and then wondered why he tortured himself like this.

“So whenever you two have sex, you’re….”

“What do you want me to say? It’s just sex,” Louis said, shrugging.

“Lou, don’t sound so turned on,” Harry said dryly, but inside he felt like Christmas had come early. He doesn’t know what it could be like, does he? He’s eighteen years old and he doesn’t know what it could be like. Harry unsuccessfully tried to beat down the sly whisper in the back of his mind that added, With me, but to no avail.

“Haz, this stays between us, okay?” Louis said, suddenly looking worried. Something in Harry’s face must have signaled to him that this was not the perfect response of a devoted, heterosexual boyfriend.

“Doesn’t everything?” Harry said.

“What about you? No ladies?”

“Nope. Guess I just don’t have the sexual magnetism of Louis William Tomlinson,” Harry said, mussing Louis’ hair.

“Stop,” Louis protested, laughing. “The stylists are going to kill you. My hair probably looks awful now.”

“I prefer it a little messy. At Simon’s house, when you just let it dry…” Harry was unsure how to end that sentence without making his attraction obvious, so he finished lamely, “It looked much better.”

Louis took his hands away from his hair immediately, leaving it untidy. “Anyway, Harry, what you just said before is total bullshit. I’ve seen all of the girls’ category and some of the backup dancers and Mary Byrne, I’m pretty sure, eye-fucking you from afar. No sexual magnetism, my arse.”

“I’ve had some girlfriends. A boyfriend, once,” Harry said, trying to be casual but swallowing hard. He hadn’t told anyone here about his sexuality yet. Even though some of the contestants were unbelievably camp, that was a niche, and he knew that One Direction was slated to belong in quite a different niche. Simon had explained it all to them—a gang of teen heartthrobs, surrounded by hordes of screaming girls at all times. Parents would tolerate them as family-friendly; teenage girls would want to shag them; every man jack of them would be unambiguous teen sex symbols. If there was one word that did not describe Harry, it was unambiguous. If there was one word that had no bearing on this situation, here, now, both of them curled on Harry’s bed with their knees touching and Lou’s arm draped over his ribs, it was unambiguous.

Louis paused to stare at him, and Harry was suddenly terrified that Lou would snatch his arm away and bolt.

“You’re…” Louis cleared his throat. “You…boyfriend?” He didn’t move, although Harry wasn’t sure if this was a sign of acceptance or if the other boy was simply frozen in shock.

Harry nodded.

“So you’re bi?”

“I guess that’s one word for it. I just…I’m attracted to people. It doesn’t make any sense to fall in love with penises or vaginas. Not for me, at least,” Harry added hastily.

“Would it make any sense if I said I was jealous?” Louis said quietly.

“Of me? Why?”

“You seem so sure. You know who you are, and you have everything figured out, and you’re sixteen years old. I’ve never been in love, Harry, and I’m trying so hard with Hannah. It’s been over a year. I tell her I love her every time I hang up the phone, and I’m just….”

“Not sure,” Harry finished for him. What Louis was saying added up to the perfect moment for Harry to finally make his move, but the look on Louis’ face said otherwise. He was miserable, and Harry didn’t feel right about taking advantage of that. “Lou, I don’t have everything figured out either,” he said with a dry bark of a laugh.

He couldn’t figure out how to say because I think I’m falling in love with you.

“No?”

“I’ve never been even—even close to in love before,” Harry stammered. Before this. Before now. He was shaking. He needed to get out of there before he did something really, really stupid.

“Haz,” Louis said, twisting one of Harry’s curls around his finger and letting it drop. Harry’s overwhelmed brain couldn’t tell anymore if that was a socially acceptable, platonic thing to do. “Shhh. Calm down. What’s the matter?”

“Sudden drop in blood sugar,” Harry lied wildly.

The look of concern on Louis’ face was so immediate and severe that Harry knew it had been a bad idea. “Shit, you have diabetes?”

“No, no, no, no,” Harry backtracked, trying to reassure him.

“Haz, what is going on with you right now? Am I making you nervous?”

“No.”

“You are such a bad liar!” Louis exclaimed, laughing, and then obviously realized what he had just said—what they had both been saying for this entire conversation, if that was true.

“Lou, you don’t have to…you can just leave,” Harry said nervously. Why did Louis have to read him so well? “Let’s forget this ever happened. I mean, nothing happened, but—”

Louis leaned forward. Harry realized distantly that there wasn’t much space between them after all, not as much as he had thought, and then Louis kissed him gently, his lips brushing against Harry’s like a whisper. That was all Harry needed. He rolled on top of Louis, straddling his hips and leaning down to kiss him, his lips pressing harder against Louis’. He wanted Lou’s lips to be swollen and bruised and his; he wanted to claim the other boy as his own before Louis realized he’d made a horrible mistake and Harry wasn’t good enough for him.

If Louis’ kiss was a whisper, Harry’s kiss was a promise shouted to the skies as he bit down lightly on Lou’s lower lip, eliciting a soft moan. They kissed for what seemed like hours or days or weeks, each minute containing an infinity, murmuring each other’s names whenever they broke apart and then coming back for more, and Harry was just moving down to the soft, pale, inviting skin of Louis’ throat when—

“Has anyone seen my gray sweatshirt?“ Zayn burst into the room and looked down at them, Harry frozen in place over the other boy with Louis’ hands buried deep in the curls at the nape of Harry’s neck.

“Oh,” Zayn said softly.

Chapter Text

February 1, 2013

“Do you reckon we’ve got enough?” Liam said, standing back to survey the collection of bottles on the kitchen counter.

“We’ve got all those Jell-O shots in the fridge, too,” Harry said.

“Tommo is going to eat them all, isn’t he?”

“I don’t know; Cara’ll probably have some, too. He is good with his tongue,” Harry said, smirking.

Liam rolled his eyes. “It’s good you two have each other, because no one else makes the pure density of sexual jokes that you do.” His eyes widened as he realized what he’d said, realized that Harry and Louis really didn’t have each other anymore. “Sorry, Hazza.”

“It’s fine.”

“Are you two doing better, at least?”

“I’m not sure, honestly. We watched a film the other day.”

“Oh,” Liam waggled his eyebrows.

“Not like that, pervert.”

“You just felt the need to tell me that one of my best mates is good with his tongue, and I’m the pervert,” Liam said, shaking his head. “Anyway, it’s got to be a good sign that he’s—“

“He’s what?”

“Oh, fuck, I wasn’t supposed to tell you. I’d better have out with it now, I suppose. He’s the one throwing you the party. I don’t know where he got all this…. Katie and Simon are going to murder us if the next headline is, ‘Louis Tomlinson buying enough liquor to fill a swimming pool.’ They’re still doing cleanup over that ‘good friends…if that’ gem. Pretty soon they’re going to put ‘Don’t ask about Taylor Swift’ in Louis’ instructions instead of yours.”

“Poor Lou,” Harry said, shaking his head. The Indonesian interview had been bad enough before that. Katie had done everything short of bring Eleanor into the interview with them, and it still wasn’t enough to stop Louis from snapping at Harry when he so much as checked his phone.

“I mean, there’s blame to share,” Liam offered fairly.

“Not much.”

“So did he say why? Does he want to make up?” Harry knew he sounded desperate, but he couldn’t help it.

“The party? I don’t know. We all know what happens at every one of your and Tommo’s birthday parties, so I would just see how it goes and not worry too much, yeah?”

“The gift that doesn’t need unwrapping, it just comes,” Harry said dreamily. Oh, yes, he remembered what had happened at every birthday since 2010.

Liam laughed in spite of himself, making a face. “You’re nasty, you really are. I never say these sorts of things about Danielle. I’m cutting you off now.”

“You brought it up!” Harry protested. “I think he’d be quite pleased if I told him.”

“You two need each other,” Liam said, shaking his head. “Wasn’t Nialler supposed to be here by now with the cups?”

Harry checked his phone. “Yeah, it’s half nine. He promised to come thirty minutes ago. Oh, speak of the devil.”

The doorbell rang and Harry opened it to see a suspiciously ruddy-faced Niall. “Harry!” he yelled, throwing himself into Harry’s arms for a hug. “Happy birthday!”

“Day-drinking, Ni?” Liam asked, grinning.

“Course, it’s Harry’s birthday,” Niall said, as if Liam were an idiot for asking. Out of all of them, Niall was always particularly excited about birthdays. When they happened to converge with beer, it was like his own personal holiday. He plunked the cups down on the counter and said, “Have we got the tunes picked out? Tunes are important, men.”

“I’ve got Zayn manning the playlist,” Harry said.

“I suppose that’s fine if you want Drake, Drake, and more Drake,” Niall said, rolling his eyes. “Why can’t Grimmy do it? He’s an actual DJ.”

“Grimmy’s a presenter more than anything. Plus, he’s cut off from suggesting any sort of music for me in public venues after he predicted—on air, mind you—that ‘I’m Coming Out’ by Diana Ross was my next single.”

“Right, right. I always forget that not everybody knows,” Niall said.

“Grimmy doesn’t forget; he’s just a black-hearted bastard,” Harry said without much fire. “It’s like he doesn’t give a shit about my career.”

“I mean, he’s out and he’s doing fine for himself. Plus, it’s about sex appeal, right, and you’re bi, so the fans would still feel like they had a chance with you,” Niall said.

Harry stared at him. Considering the ongoing gay marriage debate in Ireland, he would think that Niall would be a bit more pragmatic about it, but that was Niall. He always believed the best of people. “Do you even listen in any of our meetings with Katie?”

“No, not really,” Niall admitted with a grin.

“We’d lose tons of fans, especially from their parents who don’t want a boy band spreading the ‘gay agenda,’ whatever that means. It’d be a huge media scandal at this point; every tabloid would have a field day, and then of course everyone would be questioning Louis.”

“I’m obviously the most fit out of the remaining four of us; why wouldn’t they be questioning me?” Niall said.

“You’re not taking this seriously,” Harry said, starting to get upset.

“I’m taking it seriously; calm down!” Niall said, looking alarmed. “I’m just trying to make a point. I know you have those Larry Stylinson Twitter followers, but who’s to say that’s true? Why couldn’t it be any of the rest of us, or none of us, that you’ve been shagging?”

“Well, it can’t be you,” Harry said. “Every time you get within a fifty-foot radius of a model you start salivating, and I think everyone in the English-speaking world knows you carry a massive torch for Cheryl Cole.”

“Fair point. Don’t worry, I’m not going to pull a Grimmy on you. I’m just not sure you should take everything Katie says as the absolute truth. It’s 2013.”

“I wish it were two hundred years later,” Harry said glumly. “Maybe by then things would actually change. Not that I even have my eye on anyone this birthday, so it won’t be an issue.”

“Course you don’t, you’ve got to mysteriously disappear from the party to go shag Louis, haven’t you? It’s like a birthday tradition,” Niall said. “And don’t go giving me the sad puppy eyes; you know it’s going to happen this year as well.”

What the boys knew but never put together was that Louis was small but much better able to hold his liquor, whereas Harry always got sleepy. Every birthday, Louis ended up in charge. Harry wasn’t sure if there were any gods that accepted intercessory prayer that he would be bottoming for his best friend and erstwhile lover by the end of the night, but he sent out a cosmic please anyway that Niall’s certitude would be justified. Niall had a very comforting way of being absolutely sure that good things were coming to all his friends, even if Harry knew that he was rarely so certain about his own life.

By 10:30 the house had started to fill up. That was good; Harry hated living in this huge place all by himself. He had much preferred couch-surfing, even though he usually ended up at his old flat and definitely not on the couch, because he hated being alone with his thoughts. That was one of the reasons why he got along so well with Nick Grimshaw. Grimmy, too, surrounded himself with people at all times, always had ideas for new clubs they could go to or new friends they could meet because neither one of them liked themselves enough to be alone.

When Louis finally walked in, Harry was already a few shots in and trying to sip a whiskey sour that Niall had made him. Niall paradoxically got better at mixing drinks the further gone he was himself; the only problem was that those drinks usually turned out to be incredibly strong and still tasted heavenly.

As Louis turned, Harry caught his breath audibly. Not seeing him for that month between touring and album release junkets had made Harry realize that Louis was not the boy he had fallen in love with on The X-Factor anymore. Neither was Harry the same—he had about twenty more tattoos, for one—but tonight he couldn’t take his eyes off of Louis, who looked mouthwatering in a simple white t-shirt and black skinny jeans. Back when they had first met, he had been surprised at how compactly muscular Louis was underneath his endless parade of striped t-shirts, but he had filled out over the past couple of years until his musculature was impossible to miss. Harry let his eyes wander across the curves of Louis’ biceps, shoulders, triceps, and the edges of his collarbones that jutted out over the loose collar of his t-shirt for only a couple of seconds. He had to remind himself that they weren’t alone.

Louis wandered over and Harry realized he wasn’t holding a present. It was ridiculous how much that made his pulse speed up, really. The effect Louis had always had on his pulse was ridiculous, come to think of it.

“Happy birthday,” Louis said, giving him a hug and stepping back.

“Thanks for the party,” Harry said, Niall’s drink loosening his tongue and making him forget he wasn’t supposed to know. Maybe that was why Louis didn’t have a present. Harry hoped not.

“Honestly, can none of these boys keep a secret?”

“They’ve kept one,” Harry said, looking into Louis’ pale blue eyes dead on, and Louis looked away first, then came in closer.

“Well, I thought I should do something nice for you,” he said into Harry’s ear, his arm wrapping quickly around Harry’s back. “These past few weeks haven’t been easy for you, and whatever is going on with us, I haven’t been making it any easier.”

“You never need to apologize to me,” Harry said firmly, and then added, just as firmly, “But I also never say no to free liquor.”

“Don’t I know you well, Harold.” It wasn’t a question. He stepped back. “I think I’d better join the party, though; Grimmy looks like he’s dying over there.”

Harry turned toward Nick Grimshaw, who was assiduously pretending not to look at Louis and how his arm had so recently been around Harry. Though Harry had never confirmed that anything had ever happened with Louis, Grimmy and Lou had never been on the best terms anyway. The enmity had only been compounded by Harry’s platonic couch-surfing—pretty boys rarely stayed over at Grimmy’s without returning the favor, especially the not-quite-straight ones, and the explanation could only be Louis.

“Is your girlfriend coming tonight?” Harry blurted, fighting the urge toward air quotations but unable to resist lobbing a bomb into the conversation. That was him, destructive as always.

“Who knows where she is?” said Louis with a short laugh, and headed off to get a drink.

Yes, Harry thought. Yes, this is the mood I want you in.

Between his own creations and Niall’s, Louis was thoroughly drunk by the time the party began to die down. Harry had been watching him from afar as he chatted with friends and greeted his more casual party-hopping acquaintances. As the crowd thinned a bit, Zayn announced, “Alright, everyone, it’s time for everybody’s favorite part of a Harry Styles soiree…the birthday lap dances.” He had been playing some solid club music and only a few of his favorite Drake tracks, but now, as Niall pulled Harry a chair and clapped him on the back, Harry heard the opening bars of “Practice.”

“Alright, who’s up first?” Niall yelled.

Everyone was drunk enough that many of the attendants had already been trying their hands at some earnest stripper dancing, so the crowd formed quickly. Liam was first in his baggy jeans, giving Harry the most aggressively straight lap dance he had ever had with Danielle laughing hysterically in the background.

Cara was next, of course, never one to miss out on the fun. Harry knew she was into it just about as much as Liam was, but she also had a competitive streak that made her suck her finger suggestively at him and then drop to the floor, crawling toward his spread legs in a way that elicited whoops from the crowd. As she grinded against him, tracing her hands down his thighs, Harry leaned forward and whispered, “Great performance.”

“You’re not curvy enough for me, Styles,” she purred. From the audience it would look like she was whispering sweet nothings into his ear, but what she was actually saying was, “What happened to your love handles? I’ve seen the videos from 2010.”

“Shut up. You’re done,” Harry said, trying to keep a straight face.

“As you wish,” Cara said, peeling off him and retreating back into the crowd.

There was only one person Harry wanted a lap dance from, but he didn’t seem forthcoming. Niall went next, taking his shirt off and pulling Harry in with it, almost as much of a show-off as Cara, then Nick, then Danielle, with Liam’s urging. Harry had to admit that it was the most skilled lap dance he had ever received, even if Danielle obviously wasn’t putting her all into it for the sake of everyone involved.

Finally, Louis came forward, barely able to walk a straight line, but definitively heading for Harry with a devilish grin on his face. For once in his life, Harry was grateful for a slight case of whiskey dick, or he would have been hard already from anticipation after so long. Louis spun so that his back was to Harry and dropped it down—where did he learn those moves? Harry wondered, amused—and then lowered himself lightly onto Harry’s lap, moving back and forth with increasing pressure, perfectly in time to the beat of the music.

This wasn’t fair at all. Louis knew that Harry loved his ass, and Harry couldn’t remember the last time that the work of art that was Louis’ ass had been anywhere near his cock in private or in public. He hadn’t realized how much his tolerance for alcohol had increased, and right now he was desperately trying to think of anything that might stop the feeling that his skin was suddenly too tight for his cock. Puppies dying. My mum. But that just brought back how Louis always teased him about how fit his mum was whenever the cameras were around, and that time he had whispered, “Don’t worry, Haz, there’s only one Styles for me,” and oh, fuck he was feeling the rush now.

Then Louis did something that Harry had never even seen a real stripper do. He reached behind him, ostensibly to pull his pants up, which he did, and then his fingers traced around Harry’s dick and pinched the inside of Harry’s thigh, hard. Usually when Harry was this aroused Louis bit him there, but this was apparently his discreet substitute. That hand was once more outstretched in front of him so quickly that no one even noticed. Harry, on the other hand, was finding it hard to concentrate on anything else. He wanted to end the party now, shut off all the music and tell everyone to leave and drag Louis up to his room and do unspeakable things to him.

And then the song was over. Louis walked away, as casually as if he had just asked Harry for the weather, and Harry stood up so quickly to put the chair away that he almost passed out. He wasn’t sure if his skintight jeans were an asset or not. They’d prevent anything from sticking out, but he also currently had a bulge to rival David Bowie’s in Labyrinth.

Suddenly Ed, of all people, rushed up to him and said, “Harry, I need to talk to you. Something’s happened,” with a wild look in his eye, leading Harry away from the party toward the kitchen.

When they were alone, Harry tried to get his mind off of Louis’ body moving against his and asked, “Ed, everything alright? What’s up?”

“A party in your pants, that’s what’s happened,” Ed said, snickering.

“What are you talking about?”

“The last time anyone was that turned on by a lap dance was when Mila Kunis gave me a private show in my dreams last Tuesday. And she was topless.”

“Oh…yeah.” Harry had never explicitly discussed his sexuality with Ed, and he was in no mental state to have this conversation. “These things happen, right? ‘M too drunk.”

“My arse. I’ve seen the way you look at each other. It’s your business and I support you and all that, but I thought I’d best get you out of there before everybody else noticed that you like Tommo’s moves a whole lot more than Cara’s.”

“What do I do?”

Ed held up a finger and went around the corner. “Harry just chundered on the floor, everybody,” he yelled. “Party’s over.”

He came back. “There we go, that’s everybody. Before I head out I’ll tell Tommo to check on you…pretend you’re begging for him…which you kind of are.”

“Shut up,” Harry said, but he was grinning.

Louis peeked around the corner. “Where’s your sick, Harry? Did Katie come scoop it up and sell it to a fan already?”

“Lou,” Harry said, unable to keep the huskiness out of his voice. “What the fuck was that?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Louis said as he swaggered into the room in that loose way he only got when he was thoroughly drunk. “The band’s been struggling lately—we only got the third or fourth best-selling album of the year, right?—and I’ve got that lovely flat to keep up. I’ve started selling my body. It’s tragic, really, and Eleanor doesn’t like it at all. Working three jobs to keep me off the corner, she is.”

“Don’t bring her up. She started everything.”

“Have you gone insane? You started everything. Don’t blame it on a perpetual uni student.”

“How was I supposed to believe you, Lou? How was I supposed to believe you when you sprung that on me? Katie told me Eleanor would be temporary until people stopped asking questions. Well, look at this, it’s two years later and you’ve still got Eleanor and I’ve got nobody.”

“It doesn’t count as having something if you don’t want it!” Louis yelled, finally losing his temper and shoving Harry back into the wall. “You use that as an excuse to act shitty every time.”

“Oh, and like you don’t bring her up every time you want to make me jealous!” Harry bellowed, shoving him back hard. “Tell me you never slept with her, not even once just to see, or shut up about Taylor.”

“I did, and it wasn’t the same. That’s the difference. I’m not ‘versatile’ like you are, you smug bastard.” Louis slapped Harry across the face, and Harry thought he was going to lose it completely and actually try to kill Louis, but his body closed the distance between them and kissed him.

Louis immediately responded, threading his hands into Harry’s curls and pulling him down so that he could deepen the kiss. He moved to Harry’s neck almost immediately, biting and sucking at the tender skin. “Every time, Haz,” he breathed against Harry’s throat. “Why do I keep coming back? It’s never going to change.”

“I’ve been told I’m versatile,” Harry said, his voice low from want, knowing that needling Louis a little would make him more aggressive. “I’ll be whatever you want me to be, today and tomorrow and forever.”

Louis nodded, resting his forehead against Harry for a minute, and after that there wasn’t much more talking as they started stripping clothes off each other, tossing them on the kitchen floor, touching and kissing every part of the other they could reach.

“Lou, you know…you know what this reminds me of?” Harry gasped, trying to keep his train of thought as the other boy began palming him through his boxer-briefs.

“The first night in our flat,” Louis said, stopping for a moment to remember. As complicated as it was, Harry loved the fact that they had history at times like these.

“That counter has been through a lot,” Harry said, grinning.

“A little extra Harry Styles protein in every meal.”

“You’re disgusting,” Harry said affectionately, and then stopped talking altogether as Louis ran his fingers around the waistband of his pants, then ever so gently pulled them down, dropping to his knees and leaving his trademark love-bites all the way up Harry’s thigh in a way that made him moan.

“Fuck…Lou…hurry up,” Harry said, struggling to form words.

Louis finally took him into his mouth, flicking his tongue across the head the way Harry loved and then slowly working him deeper into his mouth. Harry felt Louis swallow around him and grabbed the other boy’s tousled hair. “I’m gonna come.”

Louis looked up at him and purred, “No, you’re not.”

“Lou, I can’t just hold it in.”

“Yes, you will. Just a little longer.” Louis got to his feet and took a small bottle of lube from his pocket, and Harry realized that whatever Louis might have said, he’d been planning this the whole time.

“It’s important to observe tradition,” Louis said in response to Harry’s questioning look, smiling as Harry turned around and grasped the counter.

Chapter Text

2011 – Leeds Festival

“Alright, sunshine?” Louis said, laughing as Harry woke with a start, realizing that his head had been resting on Louis’ shoulder as the other boy drove.

“Shut up,” Harry said, blinking and trying to rub the sleep out of his eyes. “What time is it?”

“Just hold on,” Louis said. “I don’t let people just use my shoulder for free, you know.”

“I’m not people, Lou; I’m your sunshine,” Harry said, half taking the piss and half glorying in how sweet the word tasted in his mouth. He loved every pet name that Louis called him, especially the ones that were just for him. He couldn’t bear hearing the same terms of endearment fall out of Lou’s mouth applied to anyone else.

“I’ll let it go this once,” Lou said, acting like he hadn’t heard, “if….”

Harry waited. Louis’ challenges were notorious, and though he carried most of them out himself the ones he presented to other people were usually twice as embarrassing. Then again, Louis always went easy on him because he knew how self-conscious Harry could be.

As Shabba Ranks came on the stereo, Louis turned the music up and announced triumphantly, “I want you to make Ting-A-Ling trend on Twitter.”

“Lou, come on, it’s not going to trend. Who do you think we are, Take That?”

“You come on. You’re charming and have at least twice as much hair as Robbie Williams, make it work.” Louis turned to Harry with his best devilish grin, and Harry felt himself melt like butter under Louis’ gaze. He would do anything, anything for him, and he was lucky that the other boy only asked for small favors. Sighing, he pulled out his phone, sneaking glances at the driver’s side every so often to admire the way the sun caught Louis’ hair, turned it into a shining mess of blond and brown. The stray, sticking-up bits that Louis always hated, always fussed with in the mirror for far too long, were completely illuminated so that he looked like he was surrounded by a halo.

“Take a picture, Harold; it’ll last longer,” Louis said dryly.

“You’re just too good to be true, can’t take my eyes off of you,” Harry sang under his breath, knowing Louis loved his voice, and indeed he didn’t have a comeback.

Harry was always too obvious—he wasn’t surprised that Louis had caught him staring—but he wasn’t the only obvious one, either. That was the problem. That was why they had to come back first thing Monday morning for their meeting with Katie, but Harry didn’t want to think about that, and he was especially not thinking about why the other boys weren’t invited to this particular meeting. He didn’t want to think about anything right now except for the next thirty-six hours, the first time they had been alone together in over a month. They hadn’t properly had time to themselves since the night they christened their new house. And what a night that was, Harry thought, remembering sinking into Louis, the other boy’s hips hitting the bathroom counter in a way that left bruises for days afterwards, but Louis had begged him not to stop. Every room in the flat. Granted, their tent was much smaller than the flat they shared, but ever since Louis had grown comfortable with the idea of actually fucking Harry—or being fucked—or making love—whatever they were doing—Harry hadn’t been able to get enough of him.

“Anyway, looks like we’ve still got another hour until we’re there. Do you think we’ll be able to make White Lies?” Harry asked.

“Is that another one of your bizarre indie bands?”

“This from the boy who likes bands who are all named after bicycle clubs, and my tastes are bizarre. What exactly is a bicycle club?”

Louis sighed. “H, it’s Bombay Bicycle Club, who named themselves after a restaurant, and Two Door Cinema Club. That’s only one bicycle-club-named band, count it and weep.”

“And I’m going to be in the mosh pit with you for all of it, even when they start bicycling around onstage.”

Louis turned indignantly before realizing that Harry was fucking with him. “Shut up. Hey, wait, no, take a listen to this actually. Bombay Bicycle Club just dropped an album yesterday, and I’m praying that they’ll play “Shuffle;” it’s absolutely wicked.”

Harry had to laugh at how alight Louis’ eyes were. The color rose to his cheeks just talking about his favorite bands. “You can’t expect them to play it live after one day; we recorded “Forever Young” months ago and Liam still forgets the words to it sometimes, and it’s been around for twenty years at least.”

“Well, that’s Liam, innit, and they dropped the single ages ago,” Louis said complacently. Once he had decided that Bombay Bicycle Club was going to play their new album, there was no room for doubt.

By the time they got there, it was raining and the crowd in front of the main stage was enormous. The energy was palpable, the sopping attendants defiantly enjoying it more because of the downpour. They moshed until their feet were bruised and their voices were hoarse from yelling and Harry was sure he had definitely hurt his toe again, but he didn’t mind because they hadn’t missed White Lies and he wasn’t the center of attention for the first time in a long time and, most importantly, they were soaking wet, which meant that at some point Louis’ clothes would have to come off.

They had started drinking almost as soon as they arrived, Louis buying extra drinks for Harry and none of the vendors seeming to mind quite as much as Harry himself, who was royally embarrassed that he still had six more months to go before he was legal—embarrassed at the beginning, at least, before the alcohol really hit him.

The day went by in a blur, Harry so drunk that he wasn’t sure he would have made it through the day without Louis to hold him up and every so often make him drink some water. “But it’s OSMOSIS,” Harry protested loudly at one point, tilting his head back towards the still-drizzling sky and dumping the water on his head instead of into his mouth.

“Look who swallowed a biology textbook,” Louis said affectionately, mussing Harry’s damp curls and passing him more water.

Somehow, miraculously, Harry stayed awake for the silent disco after taking a breather from drinking. He thought he was fine by the time they headed out to the orange tent, but his knees were still having a bit of trouble cooperating.

“Are you too drunk for me to take you home?” Louis whispered in his ear sometime around three a.m., after a cluster of fans had just drunkenly seized them and started taking pictures before retreating again.

“I’m never too drunk for that, Lou,” Harry said, grinning and a little bit scared of the overwhelming affection he felt as he looked at Louis that he couldn’t entirely attribute to beer. They pushed their way back through the crowd of headphone-clad, sweaty partiers and towards the tent they had luckily set up before they had started drinking.

“You know what this is like, Lou, is it’s like Brokeback Mountain!” Harry said excitedly, still in that almost-post-drunken stage when his thoughts seemed to slip from his mouth unbidden.

“Christ, Styles, work on your dirty talk,” Louis said, rolling his eyes.

Harry pouted, and Louis relented like he always did, saying, “I wish I knew how to quit you,” in a truly horrible imitation of Heath Ledger’s cowboy accent as he pulled Harry into the tent.

As soon as they were inside, Harry pounced on Louis, kissing him hard. He had waited for so long to be away from the eyes of their band mates, away from the management and the media and the deluge of attention that Harry hadn’t expected quite so soon. He pulled away for a moment, and he could feel the heat spreading all over his body in the darkness of the tent. “I want to fuck you so hard you can’t walk tomorrow,” he breathed, hearing Louis’ sharp intake of breath in response. “How’s my dirty talk now, babe?”

He felt lips and teeth tugging at the soft skin of his neck in response, moving down his collarbone, and then further down and onto his nipple as Louis worked Harry’s shirt off.

“I know what you’re trying to do, Lou,” Harry said, struggling for breath, “but tonight, we’re not sharing. You’re mine. Hands behind your head.” He pushed Louis’ shoulders back, letting his fingers trail down the other boy’s sides to the hem of his shirt, pulling it off, and then running a finger around the hem of his boxer-briefs. Then, ever so gently, Harry slid down Louis’ body, letting his tongue run along the other boy’s sternum and into his belly button, and pulled the hem of the underwear down with his teeth, breathing gently onto Louis’ hard cock as he felt his own throbbing.

“Fuck, H, what have you been watching lately?” Louis groaned, trying to reach down for him, but Harry slapped his hands away.

“Behind your head,” he sang, gripping the base and taking Louis into his mouth, swirling his tongue around the head and humming his way down, moving his head almost in a figure-eight. Louis arched his back automatically, fucking the back of Harry’s throat, but Harry didn’t mind and swallowed him down. His gag reflex was almost extinct by this point, and he knew this meant that Louis had been wanting and missing and waiting for this just as much as he had.

“Harry…fuck, Harry…please….” Louis whined, and Harry knew what he was begging for. As Louis curled his body and lifted his calves onto Harry's shoulders to allow him better access, Harry grabbed the lube out of the side pocket of his bag and coated his fingers, then pushed one in and out, slowly, trying to find Louis’ prostate. He knew by the way Louis’ entire body shuddered and Louis' single, whimpered breath that he had succeeded, and added another finger, stretching him out slowly, and then a third.

“Hurry—up,” Louis breathed, moaning with every gasp of air he took.

Harry pulled his fingers out only to roll the condom down the length of his cock and finally entered, feeling the delicious pressure run up his spine and take over his entire body, until his consciousness had narrowed down to two words—this, this, this, Lou, Lou, Lou—in time to the rhythm of his hips, thrusting just as hard as he had promised, both of them letting out indiscriminate, almost animalistic grunts and short, truncated whines. Most of the time, this wouldn’t be practical because they had to perform or do another one of the endless parade of interviews or meet with another member of their management team, but tomorrow they had nothing to do, and Harry was giving it everything he had.

Louis came first and then Harry, both of them finally collapsing down onto the sleeping bag. They looked at each other in the darkness, giggling softly like they hadn’t since maybe the early stages of the X-Factor, back when there were no stakes and no secrets.

“I’m never walking again,” Louis said after a while, sounding like he didn’t much mind. “You’re going to have to get me a little chair for all our performances.”

“I’ll get you a palace. Lou, I’ll get you the moon and the sun,” Harry said, reaching out and tracing the contours of Louis’ angular cheekbones with his fingertips.

“I love you,” Louis said in response, because he knew what Harry was trying to say. It wasn’t the first time either one of them had said it.

“Be my boyfriend,” Harry said, and Louis’ eyes, lidded from exhaustion and pleasure, shot open. It was the first time either one of them had said that.

“You’re not drunk anymore,” was the first thing Louis could think to say.

“I’m serious, Lou. I’ve never felt this way about anyone, and it’s been growing since that first day we met in the toilet. I love you so, so much that I feel like I’m going to explode. I don’t want to be with anyone else. If you don’t feel the same way, that’s fine, and I’m going to stay no matter what until you get sick of me, but—“

“You complete idiot,” Louis said. “Yes. Yes, yes, yes,” he repeated, kissing Harry with every iteration of the word, pulling him closer until Harry was in his arms and they both drifted slowly to sleep.

***

It was far too early to be meeting with anyone, let alone their Modest! rep. Harry had already made Louis two cups of Yorkshire tea, but he couldn’t do anything about the grey circles under his boyfriend’s eyes and the fact that they were both very hungover.

As they pulled into the parking lot, Harry sighed. “Ready for this?”

“Ready for this,” Lou answered reluctantly, sounding anything but.

“What is this meeting even about?” Harry said.

“I’ve got no idea. She manages our social media, right? Maybe I tweeted about your dick or something.”

“The fans are always asking you what your favorite breakfast is,” Harry smirked.

Katie’s receptionist was very tall and blond, and Harry couldn’t help letting his eyes wander over her curves—it wasn’t his fault her blouse was so tight—only focusing firmly on his lap when Louis cast a sharp glance at him. Harry still felt vaguely nauseated from the night before, and he was now severely regretting the decision to attend another silent disco in the orange tent. But it had been so much fun. It had also been easier to just dance with Louis as if no one was watching because no one had been, except for the few fans that upon recognition drunkenly forgot the “silent” part entirely in their quest to positively identify them. He had felt free, for the first time in a long time, and now he felt like he was back in year ten waiting for the headmaster to see him.

Katie popped her head around the corner of the hallway, unnecessarily perky for nine a.m. “Hi, guys. So great that you could make time to see me. So great. Just awesome. Why don’t you come on back?”

Feeling an impending sense of doom, Harry exchanged a glance with Louis before following her down the hall. In Harry’s experience, the number of times that anyone managing them said that something was “great” was directly proportional to how non-great it ended up being, from Paul’s polite “great” in response to their half-serious attempts at synchronized dancing like a ‘90s boy band on up the chain of command.

When they were both seated in her office, Katie offered them bottles of water, which both boys eagerly accepted, and then leaned forward, steepling her fingers and resting her elbows on her desk. “I’d like to talk to you two a little more today about the image that we’d really like to see for you boys. I’ve discussed it a lot with Paul Higgins, and especially where we’re dropping ‘What Makes You Beautiful’ in just a couple of weeks, we really think this is the perfect timing.”

“The perfect timing for what?” Louis said.

“For the introduction of your new girlfriend,” Katie said.

Louis and Harry were both giving her identical Have you gone mad? stares. “My what?” Louis said finally.

“Your new girlfriend.”

“I don’t have one. I just broke up with Hannah a week ago.”

“I’m sorry, Louis, but I have to speak plainly here as someone who cares about you, your career and the career of your band mates. You’re not exactly…convincing without a girlfriend.”

“What do you mean by convincing?” Louis said indignantly, as Harry buried his head in his hands and wished that he were anywhere else.

Katie sighed. “Louis, we can do this the easy way or we can do this the difficult way. I prefer the easy way, myself, but it’s up to you. You know exactly what I mean by convincing.” Her gaze lingered for just a moment too long on Harry. “After the new year, we’re really going to start focusing on the American market, which is less, shall we say, permissive. We’re going for universal parental appeal, if you understand what I’m saying, and honestly I don’t think that you play the single bachelor well.”

“While we’re at it, who’s my new girlfriend?” Harry said humorlessly.

“On the contrary, Harry, you play the single bachelor quite well. I saw the way that you were looking at my secretary outside. Date whomever you’d like.”

“Except it’s not, is it?” Harry said quietly. His hands were shaking at the humiliated look on Louis’ face. “It’s not whomever I’d like.”

He made a move to stand—he didn’t know what he wanted to do, run or leave or something, but Louis pulled him back, one hand curved around his waist and the other interlacing their fingers. Harry sat back down reluctantly before realizing from the surprised look on Katie’s face that she was right—that what Louis had just unconsciously done proved her point. Heterosexual friends didn’t reflexively hold each other’s hands or touch each other’s waists. They weren’t good enough at pretending.

“Fine,” Harry said, shifting his seat and hating himself for hurting Louis like this. However much Harry couldn’t see why Louis would choose him, he knew that he had chosen him and that Louis hated feeling like a sideshow act, especially when it came to his relationship with Harry. He didn’t want to know what pretending to date other people would do to them both, but he had to do it. He was protecting Louis and protecting the band. If Louis had no one to reasonably be interested in except his own girlfriend, then that would be the end of it. Speculation could only be speculation.

Louis snuck the barest hint of a glance at him, and Harry saw the hurt and betrayal and disbelief that he had agreed to any of this horrible plan. Then Louis made himself smile, a grin that could have been carved into his face. “Fine. Who’s my new girlfriend, then? I know you’ve had an eye on me for a while, Katie.”

Katie laughed as if it were the most hilarious thing anyone had ever said. Harry suddenly hated everything, hated being a celebrity and the band and the fans and, most of all, the image. For all the talk of the boys’ “image,” everyone had neglected to discuss the most crucial element of an image, which was that it was just that—a projection of a façade rather than a reality—and Harry felt that so suddenly that he thought he might throw up. He wanted Louis. He wanted to go home and explore every contour of the other boy’s body with his mouth and hands and tell him that he loved him between kisses.

“We’ve actually DM’d a promising girl through your Twitter, Harry,” Katie said, as casually as if she were discussing the weather.

Harry and Louis both gaped at her.

“You…what?”

“We said you had a mutual friend from the bakery where you used to work, mentioned that Louis has been really gutted after his breakup, and asked if she’d like to meet up with him. She’s an aspiring model. We want her to meet Louis under low-pressure circumstances, get a coffee or something, and see if you two work well together and if she seems trustworthy before we make any more binding overtures. If the meeting works out, we’ll sign a contract with her.”

“I thought you were going to tell me when you tweeted something. I thought you were going to use it for publicity, or connecting with fans, or something,” Harry said. There were so many things wrong with what Katie had just said that he couldn’t process it properly.

“I just told you,” Katie said, maddeningly calm. “And this is for publicity, Harry. I know you and Louis are going to go home and complain about me, but I’m not the devil. Not even close. All I’m trying to do is ensure that your star keeps rising, that it doesn’t end here, and one day you and your band mates will thank me. It doesn’t matter to me what you do on your private time; it matters that we’ve seen careers bigger than yours go further south because of rumors like this that turned out to be true.”

Harry and Louis were silent. Harry wasn’t sure if he’d ever thank her for this, or even forgive her, but like a worm the phrase she had used—“you and your bandmates”—insidiously curled itself into his mind. Would Liam, Zayn, and Niall understand if Harry and Louis refused any part of this crazy plan, if they were outed or outed themselves and couldn’t break into America?

“Well, I think that’s it,” Katie said with forced brightness. “I’ll see you boys soon, and Harry, we’ll be setting up the coffee date, so you don’t need to message Eleanor at all.”

No doubt she was terrified of what Harry would say to Eleanor—Harry tucked that name away for future reference—if he did have to message her. Harry stood up and looked down at Louis. Louis, the bright spark of the band, the bright spark of Harry’s life, always hyperactive and vibrant and running and kicking a ball around and really living, hadn’t moved from the couch. From the glazed look in his eyes and the way his hands lay limply on his thighs, he didn’t seem like he ever wanted to move again. “Come on, Lou,” Harry said quietly, bending down and taking his hands. “We’re going to get through this. I need you to get through this with me.”

Louis looked at him blankly.

“It doesn’t matter what our fans think. It only matters what I know—that I love you—and I’m not going to let some hire-out girlfriend take you away from me.” Partially because he needed to get the catatonic expression off his boyfriend’s face and partially as a big fuck-you to Katie, he leaned in and kissed Louis softly on the lips. “Come on,” he murmured so softly, their foreheads touching. “You’ve been my rock when I needed you to be, and I can be yours.”

Finally, Louis nodded and stood up. Harry caught a glimpse of the look on Katie’s face as he led Louis out of the building. She looked a little uncomfortable, but not like Harry had expected, not uncomfortable with them together or with the kiss. She looked almost wistful.

Chapter Text

December 2012

Eleanor had never thought she’d see this day, but here was Harry Styles winding his way through the crowd, eliciting drunken “Oh my gawd it’s Harry from One Direction”s from the girls in his path, heading straight for her. She couldn’t say she was happy about this development; out of all the band members, Harry was the only one who bizarrely yet consistently looked like he wanted to strangle her every time they crossed paths. Judging by his level of drunkenness, he was either in the mood to make amends or actually do the deed.

Taylor Swift was on his arm, looking very slightly less drunk and a great deal more confused than Harry. Eleanor wondered if this would be the right time to tell Taylor she loved her work, especially “Haunted,” but concluded, Probably not. At least he couldn’t murder her in front of Taylor, right?

“Where’s Lou?” Harry yelled into her ear, which was not as rude as it might have been given how loud the club was.

“He said he wanted to do one more karaoke song so I’d assume he’s queuing,” Eleanor yelled back.

“Smeleanor, I want you to take care of him tonight,” Harry said, putting a lot of effort into enunciating.

“What did you just call me?”

“Lou is sad. My boo bear. Don’t want…anything stupid…make sure…he gets home now,” Harry said, clearly fading fast.

Eleanor was still wondering if she had ever actually heard Harry say her name correctly in the entire time she had known him—he usually didn’t talk to her at all—but she nodded. “I’ll go find him.”

“You,” Harry said, smiling a looser version of the grin that had captivated millions of girls worldwide and pointing his finger exaggeratedly at her, “are not such a bitch after all. Cheers.”

“Harry!” Taylor said, shocked. To Eleanor she said, “I’m sorry, I don’t know who you are, but we’re pretty drunk. Please don’t take it personal.” Though Taylor was obviously making an effort not to slur her words as well, she was having a lot more success than Harry. Of course Taylor Swift would be drunk off her ass and only make a single grammatical error, Eleanor thought.

She didn’t much care whether Harry had been rude. In fact, she was pretty sure that she and Harry had just had the only honest conversation they were ever going to have, and it had been puzzling to say the least. Why would Louis be sad? she wondered. He just played Madison Square Garden. He’s been having a ball singing Elton John at karaoke all night while everybody yells, “Do Little Things, Louis!”

Then she really thought about it. She had heard all the boys call Louis Boo-Bear before when they wanted to give him shit, but never like Harry just had, not tenderly or sincerely. It was like a film was playing in her head suddenly, a series of clips where Harry’s face changed every time he looked at her, yes, but why? Harry was a celebrity; he had to be professionally great at hiding his emotions when he was tired or sad or angry. If he looked at every person who annoyed him like they were next on his hit list, the paps would eat him alive. Nobody likes a surly pop star. She had always been able to easily tell that he hated her, she realized, precisely because in the milliseconds before he saw her he was glowing, his face relaxed and his mouth curled in a sudden, open, lazy smile, his green eyes fond and steady. In the milliseconds before he saw her, in the milliseconds when he looked at Louis walking in with her. Oh, shit. She wasn’t just Louis’ beard; she was doing double duty.

Weaving her small frame in and out of throngs of screaming girls who had no idea who she was, she frantically looked for Louis. This didn’t change anything, not really; it just made everything make a lot more sense. And it made her need to find Louis now. Now that she knew why Harry was so venomous toward her, she knew that whatever was happening had to be serious or Harry would never have approached her and tried to speak civilly, even if he had called her “Smeleanor” like he was five—honestly. She broke into a run and finally saw Louis’ tousled thatch of hair barely visible in the queue. He was well and truly wasted. When he brought a hand up to mess with his hair even further, his arm seemed as though it were moving through water, incredibly languid for someone who was normally such a livewire. She noticed he was talking to the man nearest him in the queue. “It’s almost Christmas,” he was saying, “and the absolute…the best thing about…about Christmas, y’know, is home,” he slurred, the man nodding politely.

“Lou, it’s time to go,” Eleanor said, reaching them and trying to pull Louis out of the line, which wasn’t working.

“Leave me alone,” Louis said, slowly but clearly. “‘S Christmas tomorrow!”

The man looked at him wide-eyed, and Eleanor prayed that the man was in the wrong age demographic to recognize a member of One Direction when he saw one and, consequently, that he wouldn’t realize exactly how much Louis was embarrassing himself. “Come on,” she said, bracing all her weight and yanking him out of line. “Harry told me to take you home.”

“Fuck Harry,” Louis muttered, but the name made him relent, follow her and make her stumble as he leaned his entire weight on her.

The last thing that Eleanor wanted to do was get involved in their lover’s quarrel. “Yes, well, be that as it may,” she said, trying to think what a hired girlfriend was supposed to do in this situation. And then she forgot about that and just thought of what a regular person might do, what she might have done when she was much younger, before she got so good at putting on a front and smiling prettily for the cameras. “He really cares about you, you know that? He really does.”

Louis didn’t say anything, but became slightly more cooperative in their joint mission of dragging him out of the club. Supporting Louis with one arm wrapped around his waist, she pried her phone out of the pocket of her skintight jeans with her index finger and thumb, ready to call Preston if anything went wrong, and bee-lined toward the entrance until she saw security she recognized. They called a car immediately and helped them outside. Eleanor had never been gladder for the burly help of Preston’s team in fending off the battalion of fans that had materialized seemingly out of nowhere, eager to catch a glimpse or a steal a touch even of half-catatonic Louis Tomlinson.

Her body shuddered at the relief of being in the freezing New York air after the heat and crowdedness of the club. She inhaled the particular, exhilarating, sewer-tinged smell of the New York street for only a moment before bundling Louis into the car that would take them back to their hotel.

Louis looked lost, partially out of it due to a long night of drinking and partially looking blankly around at the car as if he had never seen an automobile’s upholstery or a seatbelt buckle before.

“Alright, Lou?” Eleanor said, laughing. “You told that man it was Christmas. It’s twenty days away.”

“I didn’t say it was Christmas,” Louis said sullenly, and for a moment Eleanor saw a flash in his eyes of the same expression that Harry always wore when he saw her. Why? she wondered. Why the fuck did I get myself involved in this business, trapped with a fake boyfriend who may still despise me after everything we’ve been through?

“What I meant to say,” he continued, “is that I wish it was Christmas. I wish it was Christmas so that there would be twenty days of this that I didn’t have to live through, and I could be home with my family and not have to look at her.”

From how he had just spoken to her, Eleanor thought he had completely lost track of reality and was talking to her about herself in the third person, and then Louis made the face. He opened his mouth, widened his eyes comically, and put his hand up to his mouth, swiveling his head slowly from side to side in a pitch-perfect imitation of Taylor’s I can’t believe I won this awards face. He dropped the expression and wrinkled his nose, looking as disgusted as Eleanor had ever seen him, which was an accomplishment considering that his expression usually held a hint of shittiness when he looked at her, and then mimed gagging with his finger stuck in his mouth.

“Oh, Lou,” Eleanor said, trying to think of what else she could say. She had no idea of how to handle this, especially since she was part of the problem. “She’s temporary. You know that, right?” she said, losing the reality of the situation for a moment and genuinely hoping it was true. “Harry looks at you like you’re the eighth wonder of the world, like you’re the best thing anyone has ever created, and he looks at Taylor like she’s a beautiful, talented girl. There’s no comparison.”

“But he’s with her now,” Louis said. His drunkenness had faded enough to allow him to form sentient words, but he still didn’t have his usual filter. “He’s fucking her now.”

“I’d offer you the same opportunity, but we both know you don’t love it and you’re too drunk right now, anyway.” Eleanor remembered the early days, the days when she had been awestruck by Louis Tomlinson the rising star, the days before she knew him. This was better. At least she wasn’t afraid to talk to him like she had just done. They were like an old married couple, except not really because they were still young and Louis wouldn’t have married her were she the last person on earth.

Louis stared out the window at the city rushing past their window in a blur of bright lights and sustained car horns.

“Hey,” Eleanor said. “I know I’m not who you want to be here tonight, but I still want to make sure that you’re okay. I want to make sure that you know he’s coming back to you.”

“Why?” Louis said wildly, tugging at the ends of his hair so hard Eleanor was actually afraid he might pull it out. She was pretty sure that part of her job was to keep Louis in top boy-band shape, and he wouldn’t exactly fit that description if he had chunks of hair missing. She gently took hold of his fingers and pried them away from what had been a perfectly styled quiff at the beginning of the night.

“Okay, we’re not going to touch our hair for the rest of the night,” Eleanor said calmly and slowly, as if Louis were a wild animal. “I care because I know you, and I want you to be happy, and right now you’re not. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be saying any of this, even behind soundproof glass, because you know that this is exactly what I get paid not to talk about.”

“You know, I’m actually glad you’re here tonight,” Louis said, letting his head loll back on the seat.

“Thanks,” Eleanor said. First “not such a bitch after all,” now this. Tonight’s compliments were really shaping up.

***

Harry awoke to soft kisses planted down his back. He rolled over and bit back the name that almost escaped his lips. Drunk dreams were always the most vivid for him, and last night had been no exception. “Tay?” he said instead, his voice low from sleep and dehydration.

“Good afternoon, sleepyhead,” Taylor said, looking radiant and implausibly un-hungover in a hotel bathrobe.

Harry propped himself up on one elbow, scratching his bare chest with one hand and checking his phone with the other. “Jesus, barely. It’s 12:03.”

“But I was lonely,” she said, pouting and leaning in for a kiss.

“Morning breath,” Harry warned her.

“I don’t mind.”

He put one hand on her back, and he could feel her really lean into the kiss, her hand coming to cup the back of his head and play with the sweat-matted tendrils of his hair. Don’t think about the dreams, he told himself firmly. Don’t think about your hair being pulled. Taylor doesn’t do that. There’s only one person who does that, and it’s not Taylor, so fucking stop it, Harry.

Her lips moved down to his neck.

“Did you miss me?” Harry said, smiling as she trailed kisses along his jawline and tugged his earlobe gently with her teeth.

“For eight hours? I missed you so much,” she breathed, her hands slipping away from his hair to untie her robe. As Harry had guessed, she wasn’t wearing anything underneath.

Well, Harry thought as she began to trail kisses down his stomach, this is one way to wake up. He had woken up with a semi that was now rapidly coming to full attention as she slipped a hand beneath his underwear, still kissing him with the nails of her other hand softly dragging back and forth across his back.

Harry could feel himself leaking, but once again he had to remind himself Taylor, Taylor, Taylor. He really did like her. She really was beautiful, and so nice, and so good in bed. It was just this dream, this dream that had messed everything up for him. And the look on Louis’ face last night when he saw Harry kissing Taylor—yes, that had messed him up pretty badly too, in a much different way.

He flipped her over onto the bed, tracing letters onto her stomach with his tongue. Don’t think about the time you did that to Lou and he reached up and started tickling you and you collapsed on top of him almost crying from laughing too hard. Don’t you even fucking dare. Harry pushed the thought out of his mind and continued, making his way down to between her spread thighs. He wanted to be submissive. He wanted Louis to do the work and then, just as Louis was riding him, Harry would start his own rhythm and just drive him absolutely nuts. But, of course, he wasn’t thinking about that, either.

Then Harry had a truly awful, selfish, perfect idea. “Do you want to try something?” he whispered, tracing his nose up her pelvic bone. His green eyes met her blue ones, glazed from lust.

She took a moment to catch her breath. “If you say anal again,” she said, trying to sound stern, “the answer is still no.”

“Yeah, I know,” Harry said, managing not to sound petulant. “No, just like, a different position.”

Her eyes were sparkling again. “Maybe from a different direction?”

“Will you…Christ, Tay,” Harry said, but he was trying not to laugh. She was so demure, so classy, and then she’d come out with a raunchy, frankly terrible, hilarious pun like that and surprise him every time. He composed himself and ordered, “Get on your hands and knees.”

She complied and he ripped open the condom, pinched the tip, and rolled it down over his cock, feeling slightly bad about what he was about to do. He entered her, guiding himself in and trying a couple of experimental thrusts until she let out a high-pitched grunt. As he settled into a rhythm, he closed his eyes and let his mind drift back in time, back to any time before now, really. The pressure was nowhere near what it was when he was with Louis, but the motions were familiar and he could imagine. He could remember the time when, in this exact position, Louis twisted around so hard that they both fell sideways onto the bed and Harry demanded, “What the fuck was that for?” and Louis had answered, “I just wanted to kiss you so badly.”

He remembered that other time in the tour bus when they were trying to be quiet, so when he came he bit Louis’ shoulder and accidentally drew blood. He had been so prepared to apologize and then Louis let out a high pitched whine and came, too, eliciting a disgruntled, “Oi!” from Zayn in the bed below theirs. So he likes that, Harry had thought smugly. And finally now, right here, Harry could really picture it, almost pretend that it was Louis below him bucking backwards to meet him, and only then was he able to finish.

He usually didn’t have this problem. It wasn’t that he didn’t like girls, it was that he rarely stopped feeling guilty long enough to enjoy anything. The look on Louis’ face that one night when everything changed was all he had been able to see when he closed his eyes for weeks now, up until last night at least. It’s like he expected me to read his mind, Harry thought defensively as he finished Taylor off manually. He might have been using her to pretend she was Louis, but no one could accuse him of being inconsiderate.

How could I have known you were going to say that, of all things? How, Louis? Why did you think that would have been obvious to me all along? He lay back, part genuinely post-coitally knackered and part overwhelmed. He found himself getting excited not only for shows but also interviews, press junkets for the upcoming tour, even meetings with PR now. Those were the only times he heard Louis’ voice anymore. Their text history was one-sided at the moment, all Harry’s unsuccessful attempts to reach him recorded for posterity. It read like half of a terrible Nicholas Sparks dialogue, if he were honest with himself.

He wanted to go back to sleep, but Taylor was saying she was hungry. Harry wondered briefly what it would be like to just stop eating. Would it be any different, needing food, from how his body needed Louis right now? From how he was wasting away inside without him?

He picked up his phone one more time, hating himself, needing this one lifeline back to Lou, convincing himself that this time it would work, and typed, Please. Let’s just talk. Please. I miss you.

He held his breath like a little kid about to make a wish on a birthday cake, and—he couldn’t believe his eyes—a text bubble popped up immediately showing Louis was typing.

Please let this be the time, Harry thought, not sure if he was wishing or praying or bargaining.

The bubble disappeared. Harry stared at his phone for a few more minutes, waiting for it to reappear, or better yet, for a response to arrive. There was nothing. This wouldn’t be the day. Louis was still gone in all the ways that mattered.

“Harry, you coming to shower?” Taylor said, already wrapped in a thick towel embossed with the hotel’s insignia.

Harry threw his phone down on the bed and made himself smile. “Yeah.”

Chapter Text

January 2012

Harry fumbled with the hotel room key as he tried unsuccessfully to swipe into his room. “You good?” Paul said from behind him.

“Yeah, yeah, ‘m gonna get it,” Harry mumbled. Finally getting the door open, he stumbled in and slammed it behind him, flopping down on his bed. Everything was spinning around him. He pulled out his phone and typed out, lpu I ened to talk you cime, then sent it and waited. Within a few minutes, he heard a knock at his door.

"You beckoned?" Louis said, holding up his phone. A box was in his other hand. “I brought you cold pizza to sober up. Niall and I had leftovers.”

"Yeah. Lou, I gotta talk," Harry said, his tongue feeling clumsy and unwieldy in his mouth. He grabbed the slice of pizza and ate it as though he had been on a desert island, washing it down with a bottle of water.

"Where did you go at the club? You disappeared on us, sunshine."

"I made a mistake," Harry said, slowly and clearly.

Louis' brow furrowed. He put the box down and lay down on the bed, pulling Harry into his arms and burying one hand in his curls. "What'd you do, babe? Can't be that bad, right?"

"No, Lou, bad, bad, bad,” Harry said. The way Louis’ fingers were tracing themselves through his curls was not helping him think any more clearly. “I kissed a fan.”

“You did what?” Louis said. He didn’t sound as angry as Harry wanted him to be. He sounded more surprised than anything.

“She came up to me and just started kissing me,” Harry said, burying his face in his hands.

“So a fan kissed you, is what you’re saying.”

“But I stayed there for, like…” Harry said, counting.

“Harold, darling, chivalrous prince of One Direction, how long did you kiss this fan for?”

“Two Mississippis,” Harry announced after a moment of thinking, not sober enough to remember other ways to measure time.

“You kissed a fan for two seconds?” Louis repeated incredulously. “What d’you want me to do about it, go fight her for your honor?”

“No,” Harry moaned. “I’m the worst boyfriend ever.”

“For allowing someone to kiss you for two seconds when you were completely hammered?”

“This is the second fan, Lou! What if it’s a pattern? What if I’m secretly wanting it? I want you to break up with me.”

Louis was silent for a minute. “Harold, if you want to break up, tell me in the morning when you’re sober, and we can have a conversation. I’m not breaking up with you, and no one’s making any decisions right now. It doesn’t count if these fans are throwing themselves at you and you only manage to ward off 998 out of a thousand. Are you just being hard on yourself?”

“No. I shouldn’t have kissed her at all.”

“So the answer is yes.” Harry could feel Louis smiling against his cheek, which was the last thing he wanted right now.

“Lou, I feel like I’m changing. My mum didn’t raise me to go around kissing strangers—or, okay, okay, allowing myself to be kissed, don’t make that noise at me—when I already have you. You’re all I need.” Harry could feel his face scrunching up, but he wouldn’t cry. He needed to make Louis understand that he had kind of, well, not liked it, but not not liked it, either, for those two seconds, and he was terrified of being a bad boyfriend and a bad person. He didn’t want to say anything about liking it though, because those words would be irrevocable.

“And you’re all I need, too. Just calm down. Maybe take it easy on the drinking for a while if you’d like, but only if you want to. I’m not worried about us.” Louis’ hands trailed down to Harry’s hairline, tracing patterns where his curls met the back of his neck, and Harry shivered with pleasure.

“It’s our first tour, and I feel like I’ve forgotten who I am,” he said slowly. He stopped, collecting his thoughts, as Louis waited. That was one of the things Harry loved about Louis. The rest of the boys would cut him off if he was rambling on, or fill the silence if he was taking too long to find the right words, but Louis always waited and really listened until he knew that Harry was absolutely done speaking. He finally wet his lips with his tongue and continued, “I just, I’ve already become so different from the person I was at home. How am I supposed to do this as a career? I feel like I’m just…adrift.”

“Harry, did you ever read Moby-Dick?”

“No,” Harry said, frowning. “I was supposed to for literature last year, but I didn’t. I read the SparkNotes.”

“Well, Moby-Dick is all about this group of guys who try to go whale-watching, but they have no idea how to find Moby-Dick, and they get lost. They feel adrift, like you, and all of them have this existential crisis. But all they need is a compass. Their old compass breaks and they have to make a new compass, but they make that compass and they find the whale and everyone lives happily ever after.”

Harry rolled his eyes, grinning. “Lou, I don’t think you’ve ever read this book,” he said, his hand finding Louis’ and intertwining their fingers. “From what I remember in the summary, they’re hunting Moby-Dick to kill him, and everybody dies at the end except for Ishmael.”

“Haz, shut up, you’re ruining it. I was trying to make it a nicer story for you because you seemed upset.”

Harry grinned like an idiot, glad Louis couldn’t see him in the dark. He loved how Louis always tried to take care of him, even to the point of butchering a classic work of literature.

“As I was saying,” Louis said loudly, “they were having this crazy crisis being out away from their families for so long, and the compass didn’t make everything better, but it helped them find the right course. What I am proposing, Harold, is that I could be your compass.”

“So you can drive me to my death?” Harry said, and knew his grin was audible.

“It’s not a perfect metaphor,” Louis said, the hand that wasn’t entwined with Harry’s finding the hem of his shirt and pulling it upward, trailing across the flat expanse of Harry’s bare stomach. “Maybe I shouldn’t have chosen Moby-Dick, alright? Happy now, you literary bastard?” Louis was the only person on earth who could have sounded so fond while calling someone a “literary bastard.”

“All I’m saying,” Louis continued, “is that you never have to feel like you’re adrift around me. We knew each other before all of this happened, and I know if I ever become a twat you’ll tell me, and I’d do the same for you. Seems more likely that I’d have to talk you out of signing up for a monastery, but there you go. I always, always want you to tell me whenever you feel like this. If you ever feel like you’re forgetting who you are, let me be the one to remind you.”

“What if I’m being stupid? What if I’m hurting you?”

Louis rolled over so that they were facing each other, and Harry whimpered softly at the loss of Louis’ skin on his, but Louis moved in closer and kissed him softly. “Doesn’t matter,” he whispered. “You see, Harold, I love you when you’re being stupid. I love you even when you think you’re hurting me. I’d love you even if you did hurt me. Nothing could make me love you any less, and I want to be there to love you twice as hard when you don’t love yourself.”

Harry was pretty sure it was the alcohol, but he could feel a couple of tears rolling down his face, and Louis wiped at his cheeks with his thumbs. He loved Louis so much all the time, but especially when he stopped pretending to be an arse, when it was just the two of them. When they were alone together and all of Louis’ coolness fell away, he was such a romantic that it made Harry feel like he didn’t even understand love, not compared to how Louis understood it. “Okay,” he said quietly. “Okay, Lou, the love of my life, be my compass.”

***

December 2012

She answered on the third ring. “Hey, Haz, what’s up?”

“Um, nothing. Hi, Gemma,” Harry said.

“Oh, fuck. I thought you might be calling me to ask if Mum talked to me about the show. She loved it, by the way, so you had nothing to be nervous about; I told you that you’d kill MSG, but the last time I heard this tone in your voice you were asking me if I’d ever done anal before. You know there are some things that siblings don’t have to talk about, right?”

“No, okay, it’s just….” Harry looked from left to right and back again. He was locked in his Range Rover, sunglasses on, hat pulled low despite the tinted windows, and he felt a little ridiculous since the car was soundproof anyway, but he had told Taylor he was just going out to get a snack and felt guilty. “Have you ever…like…thought about someone else during sex?”

Gemma blew out a long breath into the phone. “Isn’t there anything you can just Google?”

“No,” Harry said, his voice cracking.

“Okay, yes. The guy from Arctic Monkeys, a couple times.”

“What? Ew, Gemma, I didn’t need to know that.”

“You called me asking about anal, like, two weeks after you met Louis and you didn’t need to know that?”

“I was just doing background research! It wasn’t immediate!”

“Okay, I would actually rather discuss illicit sexual fantasies than find out any more about the first time you and Louis shagged. If you don’t want to know what I’ve thought about, what are you trying to ask me?”

“Just, I don’t know. I feel dirty. I feel disrespectful.”

“So you were shagging Taylor and thinking about Louis? Does that even work? It’s kind of a…different feeling, right?”

“I have an active imagination. It worked enough. That’s not the point. The point is, I feel like a terrible person. This whole thing with Lou is fucking me up. He’s the one who I talk to whenever I have a bad idea, and now I don’t have him anymore, and it’s making me have even more bad ideas.”

“Harry, you’re not the only person ever to fantasize about someone else. I wouldn’t, you know, make a habit out of it, but you’ve just had a huge fight with your boyfriend and you guys are effectively broken up. I’d give you a bit of leeway after that.”

“We’re not broken up!” Harry said loudly, hitting the steering wheel with his open palm. “We’re just…never speaking again outside of public events.”

Gemma was silent, and Harry took a few breaths to calm down before asking, “Do you think I should tell Taylor?”

“That you had to pretend she was someone who’s supposed to be your heterosexual best mate in order to get yourself off last night? No, absolutely not. If it’s going to bother you this much, don’t do it again, but for fuck’s sake don’t bring it up.”

“What do I do, then? Gem, I can’t go on like this. It’s like Louis took something I need. I don’t know how to explain it; it’s like he took my left arm or something, and now I can’t live without it and it’s like, just give me back my arm, but he won’t; he won’t even speak to me.” Harry knew he sounded like he was losing it. Maybe he was. “I’m sorry; I know I sound mental,” he added.

“No, I get it. I remember…” Gemma trailed off, evidently not wanting to say what she remembered. “Anyway, you need Louis? Go talk to him. Go back to your flat and explain to him how you feel. If you aren’t broken up, don’t give up on him.”

“It’s—it’s not my flat anymore,” Harry said, suddenly nervous. “Should I tell him…?”

“No! Fucking hell, Haz, do you not understand the concept of taking something to your grave? I meant tell him how you feel lost without him, etcetera, etcetera. Make a big romantic gesture.”

“A romantic gesture?” Harry repeated stupidly.

“Yes, Harry, I know you can do it. You got his first words to you fucking tattooed on your body.”

“No, Louis is the romantic. Remember that time he made me the chicken? God, I miss him so much.”

“Yes, I remember, because you mention it constantly whenever you’re home and Mum makes chicken. I think she thinks she’s not a very good cook now, but I told her you’re just in love and Louis isn’t domestic at all, so it probably wasn’t anything impressive.”

“No, but it really was, it wasn’t just chicken—“ Harry said, forgetting the matter at hand entirely.

“If you bring up homemade mash, I am going to strangle you in your bed someday when you least expect it,” Gemma interrupted, huffing into the phone.

“Okay, fine,” Harry said, remembering that night, back when they were still on the X-Factor. They had left the dishes so long because Harry had dragged Louis upstairs to his bunk bed immediately after they had finished eating. The other contestants had complained for days about the sink overflowing with dirty cookware, even after they had cleaned up. All Harry and Louis had been able to do was grin at each other, and it seemed so long ago now—almost two years, he realized. It had been two years, and he could still remember those red sweatpants and how the waistband felt under his fingers as he slid them off, how Louis had started tugging on his hair almost painfully, how they had come so close to saying I love you that night, how the look had already been in Louis’ eyes.

“Is there anything else?”

“No.”

Gemma paused and then said, “Look, Harry, you’re going to get through this, but I think you need to open up to Louis. From what you’ve told me, I think it was partially that he was feeling neglected, and maybe he doesn’t know how much you really need him.”

“Gemma?”

“Yeah?”

“You’re a good sister.”

“I know. I’ve got to go. Tell me how this shakes out, okay? And don’t fucking mention it to anyone else.”

Harry hung up the phone and sighed. He had been thinking a lot about the good times with Louis, especially the times when Louis had promised him forever, since forever was looking like it wasn’t going to happen now. While he had been explaining how he couldn’t keep a hold on his bad ideas anymore, he had remembered that night with the compass conversation. It hadn’t been the last time Louis had mentioned it, and it had turned into a running joke with the boys since he always ended up following Louis around, but a compass was exactly what Harry needed now. He felt like the further he was getting from Louis, the more he was fucking everything up.

How did we get here? he wondered. He had stopped kissing fans after that night, but that impulse—needing the feeling of not liking it, but not not liking it either—had only gotten worse. It had been their first break after tour over the summer, and Harry had thought that he and Louis were finally going to have some time alone. That night in Wellington, Louis had promised a long, lazy summer together, but it hadn’t happened. It seemed like every day Louis had some new trip or coffee shop or event or the fucking Olympics with Eleanor. No matter how many times Louis told him it was for the good of the band, that we have all night, so what do we need today for, anyway and tried to pass it off as a joke, Harry hadn’t found it funny. He had been numb, and for days running Louis had come home from another photo op to find Harry lying on the couch, his curls matted on one side, looking half-dead and watching home shopping television.

After that had happened more times than Harry cared to admit, Louis had suggested that Harry find something else to do. Harry had texted Nick because he had been fun the last few times they went out, and everything had changed. Nick was fun, but he was more than fun, as Harry found out when they got closer. He complemented all the parts of Harry that he was no longer allowed to express, the parts that didn’t fit with his squeaky clean boy band image. Nick had a great sense of humor. Nick was mischievous. Nick was always coming up with new ideas, which meant that Harry never felt left behind anymore.

The only problem was that Nick’s appeal went a little further than that. He satisfied Harry’s “not not liking it” urge more than anyone else ever had. He flirted with Harry mercilessly, made more sexual jokes in the time they spent together than Harry had previously thought possible, and that was Harry’s built-in excuse. He told himself that he couldn’t control what Nick said, that it was just part of the Nick Grimshaw package, and it wasn’t like he was enjoying it. Never mind that Nick’s jokes were only ever half-jokes, delivered with a quirked eyebrow that said but seriously, I’d be down.

Harry had never been down. He really did love Louis; it had just been difficult knowing he was with someone else all the time, acting fond for the cameras. It had been more than difficult, actually. The Olympics had been the worst, pictures of Louis kissing Eleanor splashed across every magazine and gossip website, and Harry had called Nick and started drinking at four that day. The only time I took Nick up on any of his jokes, Harry thought grimly. They had made it out to the clubs, almost too drunk to stand by that point. The night had culminated in Harry sloppily making out with Nick on the dance floor, barely knowing how he had gotten there and accidentally calling Nick Louis, at which point Nick suggested that they get a cab home.

Harry had come home and told Louis about it and started crying, and Louis had put on a smile that Harry hadn’t really identified as brittle until it was later and he was sober, and told Harry that he loved him no matter what and maybe just don’t spend so much time with Nick, okay? You two are, like, joined at the hip. Harry had wanted to tell him not to spend so much time with Eleanor, then, but knew it was for the good of the band, just like Louis always said, so he had just sat there with his lower lip stuck out until Louis had rubbed his shoulder and asked him to come to bed.

He had never realized that sometimes the most important fights were the little ones, the ones that didn’t even happen, the ones that were just a flicker in Louis’ uncertain eyes or himself setting his face and shutting up. Louis had boiled over in October, yes, but they had both been simmering ever since they had gotten off tour. Harry knew that Louis felt threatened by Nick, had known all along.

Nick represented everything that Louis was now prohibited from being. He was openly gay; he could flirt outrageously with Harry in public; and he got to go out clubbing and grabbing lunch and coffee with Harry while Louis was stuck getting followed around by the paps their PR had hired, Eleanor in tow. Harry had realized this at the time, thought, Well, Lou should have said no to a day with Eleanor, just once, if he minded that badly. He had said as much one time in September, when one of their fights graduated from bitter glances and bit-back responses into something real, and he cringed now just thinking about it. Lou, when you see me miserable and alone on the sofa, don’t tell me to find some new friends if you don’t want me to have new friends, yeah?

Harry rested his face on the steering wheel and banged his head softly against it, wondering how he could have ever been so stupid. Yes, Louis hadn’t been blameless, but neither had he. He had snogged Nick, for fuck’s sake—sloppy, no technique, breath soaked with tequila, wishing it were Louis so much he confused himself, yes, but snogged. Whatever carefully orchestrated, dry kisses that Louis shared with Eleanor couldn’t compare. Harry had only been jealous of something that Louis couldn’t help or control, which was his ability—more of his job, really—to act like a couple with Eleanor in public.

Louis, on the other hand, had snapped because Harry was goading him, trying to get his attention and competing with something that had never fucking been real to begin with. Louis couldn’t have understood how something that was so transparently fake had gotten so far under Harry’s skin—not at the time, at least, Harry thought, unable to feel any satisfaction from the realization.

He rubbed his fingers over the “Hi” tattoo on his arm. Louis had drawn it on with Sharpie, tongue stuck out in concentration, and then gone with Harry to the parlor to get it inked permanently. Harry smiled, remembering Lou’s frustrated whine when Harry told him that he couldn’t touch it yet. That was the first time he had considered the idea that Louis, who had always hated tattoos, might have a tattoo fetish. And suddenly Harry knew what he could do, the one thing that would maybe show Louis that he still wanted the future they had always talked about.

Chapter Text

October 2012

It was March the first time Will came to Harry with the proposal. That was before they broke America, before Magee or Griffiths themselves saw fit to meet with the boys. Harry had to hand it to Will—he could say many things about him, but “bad at his job” was not one of them. He had probably had the “Haylor” portmanteau all figured out by the time the Kids’ Choice Awards were over. If Harry had met Taylor on his own, he probably would have only met her again at the next awards show, not because there was anything wrong with her, but precisely because she seemed to be both perfect and a perfectionist. Harry was already too hard on himself, that’s what everyone said, and he didn’t need more Type A friends. Louis was the only one who could loosen him up, a particular talent that became increasingly necessary as the pace of the Up All Night Tour became grueling and the tour itself extended into North America.

Yes, the rest of his bandmates would tell him not to worry in a reflexive, pat-on-the-back sort of way, but Louis was the only one who actually made him not worry, truly got him out of his own head, made him spontaneous, made him laugh until it hurt. Sometimes Louis had an unfair advantage at the task, like in Dallas—“We have time, Haz, and we both know you’ve been getting yourself ready for me,” he had purred as he nibbled at Harry’s ear. Other times, it was really just pure, PG-rated fun that only Louis seemed to be able to produce. There were the nights everywhere, at almost every stop on the tour, when he would drag Harry off for an Adventure. Half the time they had ended up at McDonald’s under the bleak fluorescent light, Harry giggling and trying to pull Louis back from the door, protesting. “Come on, Lou, have you seen any of the documentaries I told you about? If you’d just learn more about the fast food industry, you wouldn’t—“

And Louis would shut him up with a kiss and pull him inside. Invariably, they’d end up in a booth trying their best to remain incognito with hoods and hats, pelting each other with pickles and fries, Harry laughing so hard that his entire face scrunched up. Of course, it always ended far too soon when one of the late-night, take-no-shit cashiers asked them to leave and he would suddenly remember himself, apologizing profusely and scooping limp pickles off the floor as Louis yelled, “Come on, let’s go! No time for pickles now; we’re fugitives! Our parents will never see us again!” They’d run giggling like idiots into the night, shrieking at imaginary sirens, as if they would really get arrested for a food fight. All they could do was laugh, really, because the thought that their parents might never see them again hit a little too close to home after the unending litany of promo and shows, so they ran and ran and laughed and ran until their sides hurt.

Those were the good days, Harry thought now, and it scared him not to know if better days lay ahead. It was October, and the boys were releasing Take Me Home in a matter of weeks. Up All Night had moved millions more copies than anyone had really expected, and as a result the boys had shot to the top of Modest!’s priority list. Haylor had been a clickbait news item since the spring, but it wasn’t until a couple of months ago that Simon had brought it up again, as though out of nowhere, while prepping them for an MTV interview. “If they ask about Taylor Swift, tease Harry about it a little, okay?” After all the media training they had gone through, Simon still tried to make it seem like a suggestion among bros, punctuating it with a jocular grin.

Harry had just stared at him, praying, no, please, not again. In the end, it was Louis who had done it, belatedly repeating her name while nudging Harry listlessly. That was the first time Harry had seen the tight smile that Louis wore so often now, a smile that didn’t quite manage to reach his eyes. Needless to say, Simon was not happy, although Niall took most of the post-interview heat for finding the possibility that Louis would ever be interested in meeting ladies a bit too hilarious while cameras were rolling.

It had started slowly like that. Next it was Magee asking him to meet with Taylor, that Paula Erickson was very interested in seeing that, and all they had to do was get a cup of coffee, nothing more. “One Harry to another,” Magee had said jovially, clapping Harry on the back in a way that made Harry, who thoroughly advocated peace and careful forethought, kind of want to punch him. So Harry had done it. He had gotten to know Taylor better, and to her credit she seemed perfectly nice. Like anyone who had grown up with PR telling her what to say at every moment, she seemed lost and awkward at certain points, but she was surprisingly pleasant company. Harry had agreed to name her as his celebrity crush in that Seventeen interview, because he really didn’t have a bad word to say about her, and celebrity crushes were innocuous, anyway. Louis hadn’t been happy about that one.

“Be reasonable, Lou,” Harry remembered telling him. “You know as well as I do that I wish I could go rogue and tell everyone who’ll listen that I have a celebrity boyfriend, not a celebrity crush, and his name is Louis Tomlinson, but I can’t. It’s harmless, babe, and it’ll make management happy and get them off our backs for once.”

But he had been wrong. The more he gave, the more they wanted, until finally, late in October, Harry found himself arriving home from a meeting with Magee that had gone in a direction he should have expected.

“Where’re you coming from?” Louis asked casually, looking over from the couch and pausing an intense game of FIFA.

“Just a meeting with management,” Harry said, trying to figure out how to break this one.

“Oh, yeah? What’d Magee want now?” Louis said, trying for casual again and failing this time. He turned the TV and PlayStation off and faced Harry.

Harry dropped his keys on the counter, walked into the living room, and sank into a chair. “Nothing we didn’t know.”

“There is something I didn’t know, actually,” Louis said brightly. “I didn’t actually know that this meeting was taking place.”

“Neither did the rest of the boys,” Harry tried.

“Yes, but you aren’t supposed to be in a long-term, committed, communicative relationship with the other lads. Except for Zayn, weirdly—I get loads of tweets asking if you and Zayn are together.”

“Yeah, I’ve been meaning to tell you….” Harry said, trying to break the tension. There was a strange, electric undercurrent in the room like a thunderstorm was coming.

“Not really all that fucking funny, Haz, because I’m sure you meant to tell me about the meeting with Magee.”

“Lou, stop bitching about it!” Harry said exasperatedly, knowing that was the wrong word choice and that Louis was the only one with any right to be annoyed. “We met about Taylor, okay? I wasn’t exactly sure what it would be about, and I knew you would hate it, and I didn’t want to worry you unnecessarily.”

“Which is not an excuse to not tell someone something,” Louis said, “and we’ve discussed that before, that you still need to tell me things, even if you think I’ll be upset, even if you’re right.”

Harry sighed. “I know. I’m still getting used to that. So, we met about Taylor, and it’s a good time for Haylor, strategically. It’ll keep us in papers during the holidays so people will buy the album and the tour tickets, and it’ll only last until Valentine’s Day. I’ll break it off, of course, so Taylor can follow up Red with an album full of opaque songs about green-eyed heartbreakers and sell loads of records. I never have to see her again after February 14th, 2013.”

“How long do you have to decide?”

“What do you mean?”

“When does Magee want your answer by?”

Harry stayed silent.

“Harry,” Louis said, his voice thin to the point of breaking, “it worries me very much that you are using verbs like ‘will’ and ‘can’ instead of ‘would’ and ‘could.’ Please tell me you didn’t already—“

Harry nodded. He could feel his face beginning to go blotchy. “I just…what’s the point, Lou? Magee’s going to keep clapping me on the back and dragging me into his office until I fake-date Taylor, even if it takes, like, ten years. Her PR—this woman Paula—is really into it, thinks I can be a bad boy for her or something.”

Louis snorted. “The baddest thing I’ve ever seen you do is kidnap a balloon animal.”

“Do you think I love this image, Louis?” Harry said loudly, and both of them froze for a moment at that word, the one word they never used when they were alone together. “I’m billed as a fucking womanizer with mummy issues! I’m supposed to be dating a different woman every week, and it’s gotten to the point where everyone thought I was dating Gemma! Parents hide their daughters when they see me coming, and the thing is, I don’t know who I am anymore, sometimes. When Magee told me I could break Taylor’s heart for the tabloids, and that was the plan, I just fucking nodded, like, ‘Yes, that’s me, I can do that!’ I can’t do that! I’ve never broken anyone’s heart! I’ve been monogamous for two years now, and all I do is try to be nice. I just don’t understand how everyone believes that I’m this horrible person. I don’t understand how I believe it, sometimes. Like, I don’t come off like that, do I?”

“Oh, great, I’m so glad I got an invitation to the Harry Styles pity party,” Louis shot back. “Forgive me for not taking this seriously, but of course you don’t come off like that, because you still get to be cute, respectful little you. I’m absolutely devastated that you have to fake-date people and field rumors, but at least you get to keep your personality. You get to giggle and show off your fucking dimples and make little double-entendre jokes in interviews, and no one ever says anything to you about it! I am changing everything about who I am to hold on to this band—to hold on to you. Do you even remember, Haz? Two years ago, even last year, even my fucking laugh was different. Too gay, apparently, am I right? Have you ever been trained out of being yourself? And I’m the one responsible for every fucking interaction with you. Zayn, Niall, and Liam almost tackle me every time we so much as make eye contact for more than two seconds, and it’s down to me to correct you when you do something too boyfriend-y. Do you know how it feels to have to push your boyfriend’s arm away when he’s reaching for you, and keep a smile plastered on your face? Because I do.”

“Lou, that’s not fair; I have to—“

“No. No, you fucking don’t. After Paris, who got called in to talk to Magee and Griffiths? Not you. Just me, alone, while they had a right go at me, told me I didn’t have to be in this band if I was going to pull stunts like that and break contract, reminded me that Up All Night certainly didn’t need me voice to move albums—”

“They did not,” Harry yelled, forgetting their argument for a minute as he actually saw red. “They did not—fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Fuck the pair of them. How could they even suggest—? Why didn’t you ever tell me about this?”

“Because you can’t help the way things are,” Louis said simply.

“Well, I pulled the same ‘stunts’ you did,” Harry said sullenly. “They could just as easily kick me out—”

“No,” Louis said, his blue eyes fathomless as they met Harry’s. “No, they couldn’t. You’re so fucking worried about whether you’re letting everyone down all the time that you can’t see the reality of this band. One Direction could become Harry Styles with four fucking backup singers on your whim, or just Harry Styles, breakaway sensation, and Griffiths and Magee would make the change instantly while licking your boots clean.”

“Bullshit!” Harry yelled. “Do you remember our first show, Lou? I couldn’t even make it to the toilet and was sick all over myself in the dressing room right before call. And who helped me change into another outfit? Who kissed me even though I smelled awful and told me I was going to be amazing and got me a wet washcloth and mouthwash and water and somehow knew everything I needed to make myself presentable in thirty seconds? This band would be nothing without you all. I am nothing without you. If anything, I’m the weak link in this fucking band, because everyone else was always quite able to keep their lunch down, in case you’ve not noticed.”

“You don’t get it, Harry!” Louis shouted, his face crumpling. “This is what you’ve never understood. Do you think I could ever forget that day? Do you think I ever forget any moment I spend with you? None of what I’m saying is about you and me. It’s about our management and our PR, how they pull our strings like puppets and, quite honestly, it seems like you can’t even see the man behind the curtain when he’s standing in front of your face talking about Haylor.”

“Lou, it’s not going to hurt anything. It’s fake. It’s all fake. We’ve survived Eleanor; we can make it through this.”

“Last time I checked, Taylor had a track record of making fake relationships into real ones. Look at her and John Mayer—that started off as PR for ‘Half of My Heart’ to move albums and got really real, really fast.”

“That would never—”

“Yeah, well, you say that until ‘Dear Harry’ is the official tune of summer 2013,” Louis said darkly.

“And when did you check this? Where have you got all this dirt on Taylor from?”

“I stupidly believed you would consult me before you said yes to anything, so I did do some research, yeah, unlike you. Seriously, Harry, are you just blindly following Magee off the cliff?”

“You didn’t do loads of research, if I recall, on the girl you’ve spent the past year with.”

“Yes, because I didn’t get a choice! Have you forgotten the time Katie called us in—both of us, because you’re important to keep happy? Plus, Eleanor doesn’t even have a huge PR team like Taylor does, or have you forgotten that I’m the one who has to date the fan surrogate? She was just a fan once, too,” Louis said breathily, cruelly mimicking countless magazine headlines.

“But, I mean, she didn’t turn out to be that bad, right?” Harry wasn’t really thinking, just trying to placate Louis, because it was rare that Louis really got upset like this.

Louis looked at Harry like he had just insulted Jay. “Not that bad? Have you ever opened Twitter to see that the most important relationship you’ve got is apparently bullshit? It’s like—it’s like nothing I do for this band will ever be enough, and I’m scared, because I barely have anything left to give, and that’s a feeling you’re never going to have.”

“Do you think I never feel like that? I’m the one who has to date a different celebrity every week to keep all of us in the papers! I’m the one who has to field questions about my sex life and fend off middle-aged interviewers who think they could be Harry’s next conquest! I don’t have conquests! I didn’t even conquest you!”

“First of all, I’m not sure that’s a verb. Second, are you fucking joking? You barely have to go out with these people. It’s always me at every event where someone might even have an iPhone out to prove that Eleanor and I are real and in love. I’m stuck with her indefinitely—at least three years—and it’s only been one year, or nine months, or a year and a quarter, or whatever timeline our PR decides is the most organic. I have to spend loads of time with her and watch you suffer every time I do it, while Nick fucking Grimshaw, professional Radio 1 wanker, is all too happy to comfort you.”

“Don’t bring Nick into this!” Harry said, feeling that the fight was spiraling out of control. He had heard about big fights like this, cataclysms that were like a greatest hits version of every fight the couple had ever had, and he knew how they ended. He thought that maybe if he could just head it off now, then….

“What exactly would you like me to do, Harry?” Louis said, and he actually sneered. “You don’t want to hear that I feel like the Art Garfunkel of a five-person band. You don’t want to hear that I’ve got valid concerns about everything I have to do for my fucking image. You want me to be fine with you not telling me about your secret Modest meetings that could change both our lives. Now, you don’t want a word about your precious Grimmy? Please tell me exactly what to say, Harry, and what to do. Tell me how to hold me arms, and how to stand, and how to gesture, and how to keep me cheeky grin while I’m doing it all, because you know I’m well used to it.”

Harry started to cry. He felt too warm and too confined in his own skin, suffocating like in some awful nightmare. “Lou, I would never…. I’m not Griffiths or Magee or Simon. I’m just Haz. I’m just yours. I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry I didn’t tell you about the meeting. I’ll call Magee and tell him I made a mistake, and he has to be okay with that or I’m quitting the band.”

Louis shook his head. “Don’t be an idiot. You can’t keep that promise. There are five people in this band, none of whom will have a job if you leave, and besides, you love singing. Like, when you’re not being sick all over yourself,” he said, giving Harry a low-wattage version of his usual affectionate gaze. “Plus,” he added, the fond look disappearing, “you signed something, didn’t you?”

Harry nodded, slowly, sadly.

“Then you have to do it. You can’t break a contract. They won’t kick you out, not you, but they can make your life a nightmare. Take it from me.”

Harry paused, and then nodded again, deflating. “You’re right. I really fucked up, didn’t I? I’m sorry. I really am, Lou. It’s not going to happen anymore, I swear.” And Harry almost thought it was okay, almost considered the crisis averted. Almost.

“I just don’t think I can do it,” Louis said abruptly.

“Wait, what?” Harry said, feeling his blood turn heavy and cold in his veins. “What’s ‘it?’”

“I can’t see you with Taylor, acting all couple-y, even if it is just an act. I can’t do it.”

“You—of course you can!” Harry said, his voice cracking. “I’ve been watching you with Eleanor for a year, and I’ve been…erm, fine.” That last word came out less fluidly and less convincingly than he had wanted it to do.

“You call getting shitfaced every day for three months and snogging Nick fine?”

“Okay, no. I don’t. You don’t have to be fine, but I need you. You can kiss anyone you’d like, just please don’t say you can’t do it. Please.”

“Excuse me?” Louis’ voice was rising, and Harry backtracked.

“No, I didn’t mean that. I don’t want that. It’s not like I wouldn’t care. I’m just saying—I would understand.”

“Well, bad news. There isn’t anyone I’d fancy snogging.”

“Not now, obviously—”

“No, Haz, never,” and Louis, who never cried, who was always the one rubbing Harry’s back, had tears in his eyes. “You keep saying you need me, but you’re the blood in my fucking arteries. You’re the one. I call you my sunshine because you really are the center of my world. I didn’t know what attraction really felt like until I met you, and then I didn’t know what love felt like until I fell in love with you. I go to events surrounded by the most fit people in the world, and I just feel absolutely nothing, and then I look at you, and I feel it all, every time, even if I’m tired or if you forgot to call for takeaway. Sometimes—sometimes I think that you’re always going to be my one and only, even if we weren’t together, and I love you, but it’s terrifying.”

“Fine, then don’t snog anyone else,” Harry said, too stunned to formulate an appropriate response and going for the worst possible one instead.

Louis examined Harry’s face for a moment while chewing his lip, and then he smiled painfully, and his eyes were dangerously glassy. “How did I know you’d say that?” he asked. “I’m sorry. I can’t do Haylor. I can’t do this knowing that I might not be the only one for you. I think I need some time so that maybe it won’t be so intense for me, and you can figure yourself out.”

“Louis,” Harry mumbled through a shaking lower lip, not sure if he was begging or trying to stop him from talking.

“Haz,” Louis said, and his voice was infinitely gentle, far from his usual loud drawl. “You’re just the same age now as I was when I met you. Don’t mistake what I’m saying. Sixteen and eighteen makes a great love story, sunshine—” his eyes crinkled, and that was when Harry really went to pieces “—but it also means that it’s understandable if you’re not absolutely sure yet, just like it’s understandable if I might be a little too sure.”

“No, Lou, I am sure,” Harry said, trying to hold the tears back and sniffle quietly. “I know what I want, and it’s you.”

“You say that, and maybe you even believe it, but there’s all this stuff, Harry, all this stuff that says you don’t know what you want. There’s the Nick stuff, there’s the ‘you making decisions for both of us’ stuff, there’s the letting Magee take the reins on everything stuff. Practically every day it’s something different, and maybe it’s time for me to just step back and let you figure it out on your own, not because I don’t love you but exactly because I do. I want to make sure that your answer is really, really me, and if it is, I’ll see you on the fifteenth of February.”

Harry was crying too hard to respond.

Louis had paused for a moment, but pressed on when it became clear that Harry was incapable of speech. “So I think maybe you should move into that house that you bought and lived in for all of thirty minutes before texting me to come over and spoon you. I think maybe you should date other people, whether Taylor pulls her presto-change-o on you, or whether it’s someone else.”

“Are you breaking up with me?” Harry managed, trying not to sound too pathetic, but there was kind of no stoic way to say those words, and he felt a fresh round of tears welling in his eyes and constricting his throat. “I don’t even g-get a say? You tell me how I feel and then tell me to leave? I love you, Louis. That’s how I feel. I love you s-s-so much.”

“I know, and I love you, too. It’s just, am I wrong, Haz?” Louis’ lips were pressed so tightly together they were almost white.

Harry thought, but it was difficult through his haze of tears. Finally, he focused; he more than thought; he fucking saw everything swirling in front of his eyes like he was one of those geniuses in the climactic scene of a detective show. “No,” he said at last. “No, I see what you mean, but I’ll do better; I swear I will do.”

“I’m not trying to get the upper hand on you,” Louis said, his voice tired and small, tears finally beginning to leak from his eyes as well. “This is me not wanting you to end up five, ten, even fifteen years down the line, wondering why you wasted so much time on someone who just dropped into your lap one day on a music competition show. I don’t want you to wonder if you were just too afraid of letting me down or being alone to try anything or anyone else.”

“I’m not afraid of being alone!” Harry said, crying harder because Louis was crying, the words barely intelligible.

“You lasted twenty-nine minutes in a house of your own,” Louis said, moving his arms behind him to grip onto the back of the sofa, and Harry suddenly realized what a monumental effort Louis was making to stay across the room from him. He couldn’t think of any other time that Louis had failed to run to him and comfort him when he was crying, even with cameras around.

Finally, Harry managed to swallow his tears, because Louis was right. He felt tricked somehow, like he had been winning a game of chess, or they had been winning it together, until suddenly Louis had checkmated him. The worst part was that he still couldn’t figure out where Louis was wrong, exactly. He could see Louis’ point, understand how these hints of uncertainty had been building up and Haylor would only exacerbate it all. It would drive Louis mental and bring out a side of him that neither he nor Harry would want to see nor be able to forget.

“Okay,” Harry said, feeling like the house had just collapsed around him. “Okay, I’ll, um, I’ll just get my stuff together. Okay.” He thought perhaps if he spoke and moved slowly enough, if he stalled long enough, that he would wake up from this horrible dream with Louis sleeping beside him, holding him tight instead of letting him go.

***

Five days later, Harry found himself waking up completely naked with the worst headache of his life. His mouth was dry and tasted god-awful. He tried to roll over and get out of bed, and realized his bare back had been sweat-stuck to the bedspread. The motion was far too much for his stomach, and he lay back for a moment. I wish Lou were here to make me a peanut butter sandwich, he thought. It was the only food he could manage to get down when his hangover was this bad. The complete darkness made his headache slightly better, and then he opened his eyes again, because he wasn’t in his room. Well, he was in his room, his proper room, his old room, the one that he had, until recently, shared with—fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Why am I here?

His phone buzzed from the bedside table, and Harry grabbed it automatically, even though the motion felt like the rocking of a storm-tossed ship to his stomach and made another wave of nausea rise in his throat.

Haz, get up and get to promo NOW

It was the least friendly text he had ever received from Louis, but Harry launched himself out of bed anyway. The first of November. He had completely forgotten. After dry-heaving in the bathroom sink a couple of times and taking the quickest shower of his life, he pulled on a maroon t-shirt and jeans and ran to his car. At a stoplight, he finally thought to check for missed texts, and what he saw almost made him let his car roll into the person in front of him.

if you wake up while I’m gone I’m sorry for leaving but I just need to clear my head. Last night was a right mess

Haz don’t think we can be friends like you said. can’t be friends with you rn. can’t be near to you after last night obviously

Pls answer if you’re up I’m worried about you

Harry’s breath caught in his throat. He tried not to panic, tried to focus on driving, but that would have been a whole lot easier if he had clear memories of last night. Zayn and Louis had been planning to go out together—had he met them somewhere? He could piece together from how he had woken up this morning and the stomach-dropping texts he had missed that he had gone home with Louis last night, but how?

By focusing so hard that his head throbbed, he managed vague flashes of the night before. There were shots. Lots and lots of shots—tequila, which always made Harry wild, and was also the only liquor that made his stomach feel quite this terrible the next day, but there was so much skin, too. It was coming back in sensations, now—sweat-drenched skin under his tongue, the zipper of Louis’ trousers rubbing against his arse while Louis’ hands dug into his thighs and he breathed the smoke and must of a dark club.

A hazy, dark blankness in his memory until Harry was fumbling, the metal of a key—must’ve been the key to the flat—digging into his fingers as he scraped it against the keyhole. Louis pushing his mouth away, fingers across Harry’s lips, laughing wide and open like he hadn’t for years, saying “I gotta get this face paint off, sunshine, hold on.”

He remembered Louis giving up on scrubbing his face, giving into Harry’s want. Darkness, so much darkness, and Louis’ lips and teeth and hands, pinning Harry to the bed, rutting against him, kissing and biting with such urgency—and Harry almost missed his turn into the parking lot but screeched to a stop as a chorus of angry car horns echoed behind him.

Oh, no. Oh, fuck, no. He was pretty sure that both of them had been too drunk to actually finish, but he was also pretty sure that they had tried everything they could just to be sure. He had no idea when he had asked Louis if they could be friends, as the text messages seemed to suggest, but none of his memories from last night seemed very platonic.

He dashed in to find the rest of the boys and their team assembled as everyone’s mouths dropped collectively open.

“Fashionably late, are we?” Simon Jones said, trying to regroup and overly hearty about it.

“Haz, what happened to you and—last night?” Zayn asked.

“Nothing,” Harry said, feeling anxiety settle deep inside his abdomen. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

Everyone shifted uncomfortably. Louis wouldn’t look at him.

“What is this, paint?” Lou Teasdale asked indignantly, grabbing a lock of his curls, and Harry suddenly realized why everyone was acting so strange.

“’M not sure,” Harry mumbled, staring at the ground.

“Well, is it water-based? Do we have time to try washing it out before the shoot?” Lou asked to a subtle shake of Simon’s head.

“I dunno,” Harry said, still addressing the floor. He didn’t dare shoot so much as a questioning glance at Louis. From the tension in the room, he knew that Zayn wasn’t the only one who could figure out why that paint was there.

“And the bags under your eyes are awful. Just once, you could make my job easy. What did you get up to last night?”

Harry didn’t even try to answer, diligently avoiding Louis’ eyes, although he could feel Louis staring at him now.

“Well, come, sit down; let me see what I can do. We don’t have time to do much about the hair, do we? Just let me spray it into place and stand with your head cocked to the side, pretend it’s the light hitting you.”

Within two minutes, Harry was as camera-ready as he could be, smiling for all he was worth, time slipping away from him as he used every second to try to figure out what to say to Louis. He knew he had one chance while they walked out, and then, from the sound of his texts, Louis was gone.

In the end, of course, he panicked and cornered him just outside the building, cupped his hand over his mouth so no one would see, and whispered, “What did I say about us being friends last night? What did I do wrong? I got your texts, I just can’t—”

Louis shrugged with a shifty expression on his face. “Look, Haz, I just think it’s not the best idea. We obviously can’t just be friends. I think we should keep things professional for the next few months.”

“Define professional.”

“Just at, you know, PR stuff.”

“You don’t want to talk to me anymore outside of interviews?” Harry said, his voice rising several octaves.

“It’s not that I don’t—no. We evidently can’t handle being together and not being together.”

“Lou, we can be mates. I know we can.”

“We can’t, because, if you’d really like to know, we talked about being friends literally two minutes before you sent me a text from the loo saying, ‘Need you now, getting ready for you, big boy’ with about eighteen winky faces after. That nickname has to go, by the way; I quite forgot to tell you that Liam asked me about it like, ‘but you’re the shortest one of us, Tommo.’ I told him he was brilliant and should consider detective work.”

“I could start calling you ‘thick boy’ if you’d prefer I do. Might be less confusing.”

“See, this is exactly it!” Louis said, throwing his hands up in frustration. “We can’t—it’s ridiculous, me trying to be friends with you.”

“It’s ridiculous trying to be friends with you!” Harry blurted. “You’re unbearably attractive, and, more than that, you’re just such a beautiful, beautiful person, like, inside, and when you look at me, I just—” He broke off, realizing that once again he had proved Louis’ point.

“So, professional?” Louis said softly, looking absolutely gutted.

Harry took Louis’ hand, squeezed it, let it drop. “Professional,” he repeated in a small voice.