Chapter Text
Harry had absolutely everything.
Room service anywhere, anytime? Yes.
A mobile wardrobe that fits on the tour bus? Of course.
A television in the shower? Obviously.
A teriyaki sauce fondue for dipping fish sticks? Sure.
A personal assistant who follows his every move while pandering to his whims? Absolutely.
Harry has it all. He has all the time in the world. In fact, time doesn't exist for him. The night is always young and the day always starts at two in the afternoon.
No alarms. No responsibilities.
Except.
Well…
You can't always have everything.
He had a little bit of everything. Material things. All the material stuff you can imagine.
And, what about time? Well...
Sometimes.
Sometimes time is measured.
Lunches, dinners, soundchecks, his anti-inflammatory ice baths, his shows, his stay in each country, the length of his songs, the length of his fake girlfriends.
Everything has a price, that's for sure.
The clothes he wears, the stage design he put together for his concerts, the people who act in his music videos... Everything has a price. And the royalties for each album and concert ticket sold aren't much, but they work miracles.
Harry believes in miracles. His stardom was one. He never thought that singing in a small, seedy bar in his hometown would lead to him being discovered by Irving Azoff himself, who, his son, is currently his manager. His right-hand man. His companion every minute of every day for the last six months remaining on his contract.
Now, Irving Azoff was bankrupt before he met Harry.
The residencies with Britney Spears and his eventual dismissal had not been able to raise enough money to pay off the million-dollar debt that the lawsuit against him had incurred. So Harry was like a miracle knocking on his door.
A white boy with green eyes and beautiful curls, a perfect smile and dimples to die for. Tall, skinny, charismatic and cis-straight. Harry was only nineteen when Irving discovered him. He was fresh meat to be moulded at will.
That innocence, that purity. His genuine love for music and his irrepressible desire to fulfil a dream came together to plunge him into the hungry clutches of the Azoff family.
And Anne agreed. His father did not.
What happened next? A divorce.
Only his mother, his sister Gemma, and he remained on the scene. Without his father in the picture, the plan succeeded.
A few weeks later, Harry was in London to make his debut.
Was it easy for him to leave everything behind? Well...
Yes.
No.
Sort of.
Going from being a nobody studying law at the only college in town with average grades while being the first generation in his family to attend university to becoming a popstar in just a few weeks had been a little difficult for him.
And the Azoff family knew how to coax. A few sweet words whispered in his ear were more than enough to justify the expensive gifts Harry gave his mother, which came out of the bulging bank account he had at his disposal. One of those many gifts was, to give a modest example, a house.
That's right. The Styles-Twist family would no longer live in a tiny two-bedroom flat. Now it was a two-storey house. It was all thanks to the imminent release of his first album.
His first single, ‘Don't let me go’, was a hit. Nothing like a ballad to launch you to fame. A song about heartbreak and everyone would wonder who Harry was dating.
Oh, yeah... No one, actually.
The media tends to be very curious. They like to make things up.
Of course, Harry's face was on all the headlines with the country singer Maddie Jones, a few months before and after she released her latest album. His manager Jeff warned him that something like this could happen.
Oops. A little white lie.
“All prestigious artists do it, Harry, don't worry,” he said.
And he believed him. Because, how could you not believe your best friend and partner and the person who knows the most about the music industry? It would be unheard of to be sceptical of someone as great as Jeff. The man had bought his mother a house! Under his name! Something he used to do a lot... Managing Harry's money is something he used to do a lot.
But, but, but we're getting sidetracked from what's important.
Yes, that ‘relationship’ would be something that would haunt him to this day, although that's beside the point.
At that time, it was a great help in getting her fans, Ed Sheeran's, Coldplay's and many other artists to start listening to his songs.
Oh, thank you very much to all these beautiful girls and artists for contributing!
Who knows what would have become of Harry without them, right?
That's something Jeff always reminded him of.
"What would become of you without Maddie? Without Camille? Without Victoria's Secret? Without Gucci? Without the brands I work day and night to get to sponsor you? What would you be without James Corden, Jimmy Fallon and the hundreds of talk shows where I work my ass off begging them to book you? What would you be without me, Harry?" he used to say.
Anyway...
Being in the music industry for a few years now allowed him to meet thousands of people and visit hundreds of places... But he was a rather lonely guy.
He didn't have many friends in show business. He did outside of it, though, in his hometown. There, he could count them on the fingers of one hand. Johnny was one, Ben was another, but… Fame was solitary.
Harry didn't like to think about that. He wasn't allowed to either. Jeff said it was a waste of time to even think about ‘hippie human connection’, that it was better for him to think about the luxuries that money could provide him, his reputation and the huge number of girls all of that could bring him. However, the issue was... that Harry wasn't attracted to women… So, he decided to move on with his life knowing all of this. Half-heartedly. As best he could.
Although, he sometimes daydreamed about his ideal husband. What he would be like.
He would have to be kind, treat him well, make him laugh, be someone he could have fun with, a great person he could just sit and admire what he's like. What he's made of. He would have to be brave and willing to risk everything for him.
Sometimes his dream life would appear in his mind too. A quiet life, a little cottage in the countryside, enough money to provide for his grandchildren, and the simple fact of being disconnected from the intense world of drugs, sex, and rock & roll.
And it usually appeared when he was on tour, when he was on the bus and watched the raindrops falling on the asphalt, painting it silver. When he was on a plane and saw the blue sky. When he went on stage, among the crowd... he always hoped to see calmness. Sometimes he could hear an echo in the distance as if... as if it were calling him.
But the truth was that it had been ten years since he last saw freedom.
The last time he saw his mother at home, her cold hand contrasted with Harry's warm one. Both were touching the wet window of the limousine. Harry's skin pressed so hard against the glass that his fingertips turned pale. Fat tears rolled down his cheeks, making his green eyes shine like never before. His red lips were swollen from the hard crying, leaving him with a lump in his throat that was difficult to swallow.
So, if a journalist asked him openly who all those songs were about and if he had permission to say, he would say they were about himself. Perhaps ‘Lights up’, ‘She’, ‘Little freak’.
Yeah, they were all about his personal experiences with life. All about the messy, brusque and long yearning for… coming out.
Yeah... Harry had absolutely everything.
All the time in the world. So much so that he spent forty-five minutes in a pizzeria in an Asian country where he didn't know a single word, signing autographs and taking photos, because Jeff advised him to buy pizza in person, arguing that it would help his public image, allow him to meet fans and secure a future return to that country.
Those forty-five minutes turned into two hours. It was physically impossible to leave that small shop in the city centre, until a pat on his shoulder, one he knew well, snapped him out of his thoughts. Paddy, his personal bodyguard and the only one he really trusted, approached slowly to whisper in his ear.
“We have to go,” he said.
Harry looked at him with a frown, a crooked smile and flashing lights in his eyes, aware that hundreds of photos were being taken of him every second.
“What's going on?” he asked, kissing a little fan on the cheek, making sure she didn't touch his flowery Gucci shirt from the latest spring-summer collection with her pizza-greasy hands.
“Dusty,” Paddy murmured.
Then Harry paled, swallowing hard.
Suddenly, everything around him was spinning. It was very crowded in there.
The yellowish lights in the venue, the flashes, the human warmth, the shouting, the heat from the kitchen, and the fact that he had been accidentally stepped on four times were starting to make him dizzy.
Paddy noticed immediately, holding him by the waist.
For Dusty was the name of his first kitten and it was also a code that only Paddy and he knew. It was synonymous with ‘home+emergency’.
“All right, girls, boys, and everyone thank you all for coming, but Harry can't appear in any more photos with you. I must ask you to leave, please back off, thank you!” Paddy exclaimed.
Harry walked in the opposite direction, being held by the burly man beside him.
They both crossed towards the kitchen, exiting through the back door and greeting all the staff as they passed.
Once they were out the emergency door, Harry leaned against one of the walls, taking a breath of fresh air. He inhaled once, twice, three, four times. He always had to do it in even numbers just because it made him feel safe.
“It's a message from… Anne,” Paddy said, trying to read the notification on his personal phone.
“Oh, okay,” Harry exhaled, taking the phone with both hands.
Hello, love.
I hope to see you home soon.
I should warn you that, as I mentioned before, the woman who works in our house is getting married in a few days,
so it would be nice and polite of you to attend the wedding.
We all miss you here.
Bring a gift. Xx
-Mum.
Harry licked his lips, holding back the urge to cry but failing, as small tears formed in the corners of his eyes.
The humidity was unbearable. It was crazy hot, and his nerves only made it worse.
“Let’s go home, Padds,” he uttered, a crooked smile on his face.
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Have you ever met a celebrity? They say most of them lie.
Or pretend to be nice. Some are naturally nice, others... Maybe they are in an altered state so they can keep going with the next shows on their tours.
Louis had only met one celebrity in his entire life.
The night before Lady Gaga's concert in Manchester in 2013, he had been camping outside the hotel where she was staying. He had driven fifty minutes there in his grandpa’s car and worked from dawn to dusk all summer doing double shifts to pay for the ticket to see her. She was the only celebrity he would ever go to such lengths for -and Oasis, if they ever got back together, although he believed that would never happen in the big 2023-.
However, Lady Gaga had been very kind to the fan club waiting for her on a stifling summer night. The stars stood out against the shabby lampposts, and she had left the hotel looking splendid as always, with a few touch-ups of makeup but otherwise almost natural. It was the Artpop era, of course she looked beautiful. Louis asked her for an autograph on his Born This Way vinyl and a photo with his digital camera.
It was the first and only time he had ever met a celebrity and the only woman he had ever loved.
Now, he had been driving for two and a half hours under the strong June sun, the air conditioning in his old Volkswagen Beetle basically consisting of all the windows wide open. And if he wanted to add some extra coolness, it was a good idea to turn up Lottie's pink mini portable fan to the maximum, which he had borrowed because he couldn't even go to the corner in that old banger.
Anyway, back to celebrities… Some are sensitive, simple and sincere, with their feet firmly on the ground. Others... perhaps they are too absorbed in their own public image and what people will say to have a simple conversation.
Louis wondered which one Harry would be.
He was an international pop superstar. An eminence, someone extremely important in the art world and... and he had to go pick him up.
There were just a few minutes left before he reached Heathrow Airport and he just wanted to rest. He felt like his poor car was asking for a break.
He stopped at the last traffic light before parking in front of the building and felt the engine roar with effort, as if it were struggling to breathe.
“Come on, come on, come on, come on,” he murmured to himself, putting the car in first gear. He found a small spot in the taxi rank, and, before becoming the victim of multiple insults, he spotted a svelte figure about to get into a taxi accompanied by lots of suitcases and a big man standing next to him. He was dumbstruck.
“Oh,” he gasped, as he recognised Harry in a pink see-through outfit, quite cool for the aberrant heat.
His first instinct was to honk the horn several times, sticking his head out the window, but it didn't work.
He got out of the vehicle, noticing a crowd of people gathering around the car, preventing him from getting in.
Harry looked so fresh that for a moment Louis forgot he was a very famous person.
“Sorry, I’m coming through, excuse me, everyone, please,” he uttered, pushing his way amidst the numerous people.
He touched Harry's bare arm with his fingertips and the big six-foot man looked at him with a frown.
“Padds, don't worry,” Harry murmured to his side. “Hello, darling, how are you? What's your name?” he asked, looking Louis in the eyes for a moment.
He was wearing incredibly large sunglasses, his long curls were glistening with sweat, his cheeks looked flushed from the heat, and he had a huge plastic smile with dimples adorning his face that for sure left Louis paralysed for a few seconds.
He looked exactly like he did in the pictures, perhaps a little thinner and smaller, but he was, without a doubt, imposing and very good-looking.
Louis understood why and how he had such an audience of women, men, and really everyone, because... what he saw before his eyes was, at the very least, incredible. He didn't seem real. But he was.
He was real and he was right in front of him. Very close to him.
“H-Hello, Mr Styles. I-I'm Louis,” he said, ignoring everyone around him.
It seemed as if time had frozen and it was just the two of them at that very moment.
Harry chuckled, with a high-pitched laugh that made his skin crawl.
“Louis, what a beautiful name. Do you have a sharpie?” he asked. Louis shook his head. “Oh, okay,” he murmured to himself, taking a small golden-coloured sharpie that Paddy handed him in a flash. “Where do you want the autograph? I don’t have much time. Give me your phone case, love, so I can sign it.”
He licked his lips, feeling the scorching heat burning his guts.
“No. I-I’m Louis, Johannah’s son, you know… The, uh- gardener,” he murmured, before he could even say ‘the help’ in front of everyone.
Harry stopped in his tracks, staring at him. His glasses fell down the bridge of his nose. Paddy automatically listened to what was happening, clearing the people away.
“Louis,” he whispered to himself, swallowing hard.
“Your- Your mother told me you wouldn't have a direct flight, that I should come and pick you up, so... here I am,” he said with a shy smile, pointing to his small car.
Harry turned to look at the beige Volkswagen Beetle with its chipped paint and a few stickers peeling off, then turned his gaze back to Louis.
Oh, it felt so good to be back home.
“Sure,” he said. “Oh, thank you all for coming! I’ll see you later. Thank you so much,” he added, addressing the crowd of excited young people eager to take a simple photo with him. “Paddy, put my luggage in the boot of this man's car," he requested, without looking away from the humble Volkswagen Beetle.
Louis nodded as well, searching for his car keys in the pockets of his denim shorts.
The three walked silently towards the vehicle.
He sighed, sniffing the sweet scent emanating from Harry's clothes. It was a subtle perfume, but it smelled very good. Luxurious.
“You know, the, uh- boot of the car isn't working, the door's stuck. We'll have to put the luggage in the back seats,” he said, opening the passenger door. ”But only two suitcases will fit in here. The rest...” he murmured, walking side by side with him.
“Don't worry about that, Paddy will take it to the limo,” Harry interrupted him with a charming smile. “Do you mind if he follows us throughout the trip? It's for security reasons only,” he requested, as the bodyguard carried countless suitcases to the huge car behind his.
Louis looked at him, hesitant for a brief second. And, then he licked his lips, watching as Harry's touched the mouth of a pastel-coloured metal bottle. The condensation on the outside of it told him that it was incredibly cold.
Harry noticed, glancing at him out of the corner of his eye.
After taking a big sip, he pulled his face away from the metal, leaving a little bit of gloss on it.
“Want some?” he asked, handing him the drink.
Louis nodded and then looked around, noticing Paddy just a few metres away from them, making him feel a little intimidated.
He took the bottle to his lips. He sniffed the cherry flavour of Harry’s lip gloss and took a sip in the same spot Harry had drank, closing his eyes and sensing the ice-cold water passing through his throat.
He let out an inevitable gasp at the clash of temperatures between his body and the water, and then a few small droplets fell down his chin, spreading to his neck and landing on the white tank top he wore every time he had to repair the car.
It wasn't as if he had had to change the oil before hitting the road this morning.
“Thank you,” he said, wiping the remaining cool water from his stubble. “We can go now, if you like,” he added, grabbing his car keys.
Harry smiled politely at him, after a quiet moment of contemplating the water, sweat and oil stains on his top.
“Great,” he murmured, climbing into the passenger seat.
Louis also got in and, before starting the engine, he saw Harry's hand sticking out of the car window, waving and giving Paddy a thumbs up. Then he looked in the rear-view mirror and saw the limousine's lights come on quickly, as if it were no effort at all for that expensive car.
He swallowed hard, put the key in and started the car. He had to press the accelerator several times, as the small, old vehicle was a bit sluggish.
“It's having a bad day, you know?” he joked, laughing on the outside and wanting to curse like hell on the inside.
Once the Volkswagen started, they headed out onto the road.
Louis was strictly forbidden from even turning on the car radio because it used too much battery power, so now they were listening to a Black Sabbath compilation on his phone speakers while smoke from a hand-rolled cigarette drifted out the driver's window.
The silence was a little overwhelming, added to the heavy rhythm of Ozzy Osbourne's voice and the poor quality of the speakers.
“So... two years on tour. I imagine that must be a long time, huh?” he said, trying to kill time.
He glanced at Harry, whose hair was now loose, long, and curlier than it had been in pictures. It moved slightly in the breeze, while his left arm stretched out the window, waving in the wind.
Then Harry's chest rose as he exhaled.
“Yes. It's a little strange, to be honest, but I've gotten used to that feeling,” he murmured, looking in the rear-view mirror at the limousine and Paddy gesturing for him to get into the car. “But let's not talk about me right now. How's everything at home?” he asked, now looking at Louis in profile.
He nodded, turning down the volume on his phone speaker without taking his eyes off the road.
“Everything's fine. Yeah. Well, my sister Lottie is finishing high school and it's quite a miracle she's graduating now. My other sister, Fizzy, is halfway through it, and, well, my mother and his fiancée have to take care of the little ones tho,” he said, spotting the limousine in the rear-view mirror. “I have three more sisters and one brother, by the way.”
“Oh,” Harry murmured, adjusting the sun visor to look at the small mirror inside it, fixing his curls. “I imagine it must be very noisy at my mum’s house right now.”
Louis laughed, smiling proudly.
“Yeah, yeah, you're right, sometimes it's a bit unbearable, but the good thing is that the little ones will be able to help my mother and me on Anne’s farm, you know?”
Harry stopped combing his hair for a bit, looking at Louis again. His hands were shaking almost involuntarily.
“The farm? Is it still there?” he asked.
“Of course,” Louis replied, shrugging his shoulders. “I'm in charge now, but, well, you know-” he said, emphasising his tone. "Now the kids are learning to work the land, feed the chickens, and Daisy is learning to milk the two little cows and..."
“Kids, huh…” Harry murmured to himself. “They aren’t really my thing, you know?” he said out of the blue. Louis blinked twice, glancing at him slightly. “I mean...”
“Oh, I- I thought... Well, I heard... in an interview that you... You know, on the radio... Well, you said you'd want to have a family, and...”
“Yeah, I wanted to,” Harry uttered.
Louis nodded to himself, and then a sudden movement caused them to pull over to the side of the road, as the Volkswagen began to slow down in the middle of the highway after an hour of driving.
Harry grabbed the handle, visibly frightened, and then Louis turned off the car with a hint of embarrassment on his face.
Paddy stopped behind them in the huge limousine right away.
“Everything alright, Mr. Styles?” the corpulent man appeared at the driver's side window, glancing at the both of them.
Shit, he was eerily intimidating.
“Yeah- It is a problem with the coolant, I think. I topped it up this morning, but I think the heat is evaporating it.” Louis reported, getting out of the car. Harry followed him, standing next to Paddy. “I'll call a tow truck to tow it,” he said.
Perfect, they had two hours to go before reaching the town and another half hour to get to the Styles-Twist residence, and the stupid car decided to break down right there.
“If you'll excuse me,” Louis murmured, walking a few metres away from Harry and Paddy.
Harry watched him out of the corner of his eye, biting his lower lip.
“Priority?” Paddy asked him.
Harry turned to look at him, cheeks flushed.
“What?” he inquired.
“Is he a priority?” Paddy insisted, pointing at Louis with his chin.
Harry let out a soft chuckle.
“Yes, Padds, he's family. We need to get there urgently, please,” he murmured.
Paddy nodded once and put the convo on hold to walk alongside Louis, who was just finishing with his call. Then he cleared his throat, pulling an industrial cigarette out of his box and offering one to him. A gesture he appreciated.
“Mr Tomlinson, I'm afraid it's a priority request from Mr Styles that you both get home as soon as possible. The driver will take you to your destination and I'll make sure the tow truck takes your car.” he uttered.
Louis took a drag on the Parliament cigarette, coughing a little since it was stronger than the hand-rolled ones he was used to.
“Are you sure? I-It's just that..." he stammered, his sentence half-finished as he spotted Paddy walking away from him and talking to the man with the white moustache.
“I guess it'll be you and me. And Frederik. That's the driver's name,” Harry murmured beside him.
Louis felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.
“Sure,” he mumbled to himself.
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Harry walked towards the limousine while Louis hurried after him. He got in first and moved over to make room for him.
Louis felt the air conditioning on his body right away, almost forgetting that the sun was beating down outside. It was a very spacious and shiny car.
The texture of the new leather under his thighs and the scent of pine filled his nose. It felt quite rich.
He closed his eyes for a brief moment, taking it all in, and that was when Harry's bare knee touched his as he leaned over to take something out of a hidden luggage compartment.
“Sorry, but, I'm feeling really hot right now,” Harry apologised, pulling a bottle of champagne covered in ice from a small cooler. “Would you like some?” he asked, searching for two crystal glasses in another compartment.
Louis was speechless, admiring the details. He had no idea limousines could do that.
“Wow, uh- thank you very much, but I'll pass. I'm- Well, lately I prefer to refrain from drinking during the day. It's not good for the kids to see me doing it, so I prefer to open a beer before going to bed. But thank you, it's a very thoughtful gesture...”
“You're welcome,” Harry interrupted him, easily removing the cork while they waited for Frederik to start the car. “Better to serve it now before we're on the road and everything gets messy,” he chuckled to himself.
Louis offered a faint smile before he watched through the window how the limousine started to move. It did not seem strange at all to him that someone of international calibre like Harry would drink alcohol at noon. It seemed quite expected, to tell the truth, but he did not want to fall into cruel stereotypes that were irrelevant right now. He had to be grateful that he was in a car that surely cost millions of pounds.
“So, your siblings… You seem to care about them a lot,” Harry murmured, finishing the bubbly drink in his glass and pouring some more.
Louis watched his movements closely. One of his delicate hands held the glass as the long, slender fingers of his other hand held the neck of the bottle tightly. His nails were painted with a semi-permanent fluorescent orange polish, which contrasted with his tan, probably from sunbathing.
“Yes, well, mum's job is usually a bit demanding so my stepfather takes care of them while we stay at the residence. But, you know, luckily, I mean, it's not that it's torturous, s-she loves working for your m-mother, it's just that...” he stammered, as Harry's knee moved away from his.
Harry stared at him, raising an eyebrow.
“Don't worry, no one here has the authority to fire you except my mother, who you've been living with all this time. Although, obviously I pay half the salary, so maybe I do have some say in the matter,” he laughed, taking another sip of champagne. “Anyway, your siblings? You were saying...?” he asked.
Louis inhaled, watching as Harry's clumsy feet tried to stand up to put the empty bottle in the fridge compartment, but failed in the attempt, given that the ceiling of the limousine was not that high.
By pure reflex, he held him by the hips, placing him back on the leather seat.
“Oops,” Harry giggled louder this time, his sunglasses sliding down his nose to his mouth, which was adorned with dimples on either side. “Sorry,” he laughed. His high-pitched, noisy laughter made Louis, who was still holding the soft, almost imperceptible sheer fabric, shudder with concern.
“I-It's nothing. Are you okay?” he asked, his fingertips releasing his skin in a slow manner.
“Yeah, don't worry. With these awkward long legs, it's not the first time I've fallen onto the seat, or onto the pavement when getting out,” he recalled, pursing his lips as he removed his glasses. “Better, isn't it?” he asked, his intense green eyes meeting his for the first time for just a few seconds.
Louis nodded to himself, turning his gaze back to the window.
Just what he needed, two more hours with a super celebrity playing tipsy in the middle of the day.