some boys
fandom: one direction
pairing: ot5-ish (side liam/zayn, louis/harry)
rating: pg-13 (i think)
word count: 1,385
disclaimer: one direction does not belong to me.
summary: "they're making a killing at the top of the billings, it's their role, and that's all that they know." song!fic based on "some boys" by death cab for cutie, written for this prompt at 1dkinkmeme.
some boys are filling, some boys are filling the hole
one day, when they've run out of words to sing or run out of shows to play or run out of smiles to share, maybe they'll look back at the things they did and call themselves stupid.
maybe they'll chalk it up to starry-eyed naïvety, or say they were simply running blind through too many flashbulbs and screaming fans, that they were young and reckless and didn't have a clue what they were doing.
maybe they'll look back on those days, sour with regret, but for now.
for now, they breathe in today.
they're making a killing at the top of the billings,
it's their role, and that's all that they know.
they make it to number one. they sell out venues. the flashbulbs grow brighter.
they smile gratefully, recite their thank-yous and we're just glad to have this opportunitys and it's all for the fans, we owe it all to thems that management has prepared for them. they march diligently through airports and costume departments and the hallways of television studios, they march wherever management tells them to march.
they wave and they grin and they sing "what makes you beautiful" and they practise their choreography and they do what management tells them to do because that's their job and they pretend they're happy to obey.
but some boys don't listen, some boys don't listen at all
they don't ask permission, they lack inhibitions,
no walls, and they get what they want
zayn's the first to slip, tendrils of cigarette smoke trailing out the hotel room window, and the flashbulbs blaze on from the sidewalk. he stretches languidly, giving them a better view of the tattoos he's collected on his torso and arms.
niall goes out to a pub the following night and gets too drunk and talks to too many strangers and he doesn't remember getting back to his hotel room. he smirks a little at the phone number of a girl named abbie, scrawled across his forearm in smudged purple eyeliner.
louis forgets to call eleanor for a few days. he spends too much time curled into the sheets of harry's bed and he doesn't say anything when a magazine interviewer notices he's wearing harry's jumper. he pretends he feels sorry when he finally does call, and stares distractedly into the bathroom mirror at the purple marks on his collarbone while she talks.
harry takes everything louis gives up for over a week, and then leaves him hanging for a few hours while he goes on a date with a girl named sarah-louise. he smiles to himself when the internet blogs rant about it later and then sends several text messages to random girls in his contacts list.
liam tries to hold it together, really, he texts danielle like he's supposed to and says what he's supposed to and he stays in his hotel room at night to do a twitcam with the fans. he lets the reporters call him "daddy direction" and make him out to be the responsible one, but at night when no one's there to see it he slips wordlessly into zayn's arms and gives reality a break.
once they all slip, it's a bit like they've been pushed off the edge of a cliff, with nowhere to go but tumbling down, down until they inevitably crash at the bottom. but they let themselves fall with thrashing limbs and the hope that they can cushion each other whenever they land.
but some boys don't know how to love.
some boys are singing, some boys are singing the blues
niall tells paul that they're worn out. he tells paul he wishes they could take time off, he says it with a hopeful glint to his eyes. paul looks at the others who nod in agreement, except for zayn, who's fallen asleep on louis' shoulder as they sit in the van on the way to another interview.
maybe it's the irish accent, but when they step off the plane in sydney, they're given the whole day to catch up on sleep. the next day they go out on someone's boat while the flashbulbs buzz by up above in a helicopter and niall is dubbed the official complaining liason of the band.
joylessly flinging with the girls that they're bringing to their rooms
and then leave them, they're through
harry initiates a parade of leggy females with tousled hair for the next week, reveling in the way the flashbulbs flicker and people talk about him across twitter and tumblr. he goes out on dinner dates and his phone is buzzing every few minutes and he even lets lily halpern talk about him for a while even though they met only once in new york.
he can't even bring himself to feel bad when emma is forced to delete her twitter account, even though he knows he's mostly to blame.
some boys are sleeping, some boys are sleeping alone
'cause there's no one that's keeping them warm through the evening
they know that they're on their own
when it grows dark in the nondescript hotel rooms of a random city far from home, zayn pretends to sleep while he listens to liam across the room, whispering indistinct endearments to danielle on the other end of the phone. he waits patiently for the end of the call and he pretends it doesn't twist his stomach when liam crawls in next to him under the covers, pretends his heart doesn't ache when liam pushes inside him and presses warm kisses to zayn's neck and mumbles a stream of ohgodzayniloveyouyou'reincredibleohfuckyou'reperfect into his ear.
in another room exactly the same as zayn's somewhere on the same floor, louis wraps around harry and kisses him deeply, lazily, stroking a thumb over the jut of harry's hip. he pulls back to mumble against harry's mouth that harry smells better than anything and that they should get married, and even though harry laughs it off and kisses him harder, his heart swells and he wonders if "harry tomlinson" has a ring to it or not.
niall sleeps dreamlessly and in the morning he thinks vaguely that he shouldn't feel so lonely with his four best friends around him all the time, but he can't seem to feel warm despite the two jumpers he's put on.
some boys don't know how to love
on their last night of touring in new zealand, niall puts his complaining ability to the test on harry, blushing a little and mumbling his innocent jealousy as they make their way back to the hotel. harry smiles knowingly at him and sends him away to his room when they pour out of the van.
some boys are filling, some boys are filling the hole
some boys are sleeping, some boys are sleeping alone
the five of them tangle up on niall's bed, whispering love yous and assorted pet names and they smile into each other's necks and fumble with their clothes and let their hands wander lazily about.
niall's fingers are in harry's curls and liam's pressing kisses to louis' jawline and zayn is stroking fingertips over niall's chest while harry licks a stripe over liam's shoulder and niall almost laughs because he doesn't know where they begin or where they end at all.
they wrap around each other and continue breathing out sweet nothings into the quiet room around them and none of it is really right but none of it is really wrong either.
some boys don't know how to love
they pushed each other off the cliff, really. they'll keep falling recklessly, they'll do stupid things and say stupid things and they'll wait patiently until they crash at the bottom.
eventually the flashbulbs will fade and the mistakes they make will fade and maybe they'll call themselves naïve and maybe they'll say they were clueless, but then again, maybe they'll be able to look at each other one day and say that every idiotic decision was worth it because they were too hopelessly in love with each other to care.
they won't get what they want,
but they can take what they need from each other and they can give everything they have to each other and they can wait for the crash.
pairing: ot5-ish (side liam/zayn, louis/harry)
rating: pg-13 (i think)
word count: 1,385
disclaimer: one direction does not belong to me.
summary: "they're making a killing at the top of the billings, it's their role, and that's all that they know." song!fic based on "some boys" by death cab for cutie, written for this prompt at 1dkinkmeme.
some boys are filling, some boys are filling the hole
one day, when they've run out of words to sing or run out of shows to play or run out of smiles to share, maybe they'll look back at the things they did and call themselves stupid.
maybe they'll chalk it up to starry-eyed naïvety, or say they were simply running blind through too many flashbulbs and screaming fans, that they were young and reckless and didn't have a clue what they were doing.
maybe they'll look back on those days, sour with regret, but for now.
for now, they breathe in today.
they're making a killing at the top of the billings,
it's their role, and that's all that they know.
they make it to number one. they sell out venues. the flashbulbs grow brighter.
they smile gratefully, recite their thank-yous and we're just glad to have this opportunitys and it's all for the fans, we owe it all to thems that management has prepared for them. they march diligently through airports and costume departments and the hallways of television studios, they march wherever management tells them to march.
they wave and they grin and they sing "what makes you beautiful" and they practise their choreography and they do what management tells them to do because that's their job and they pretend they're happy to obey.
but some boys don't listen, some boys don't listen at all
they don't ask permission, they lack inhibitions,
no walls, and they get what they want
zayn's the first to slip, tendrils of cigarette smoke trailing out the hotel room window, and the flashbulbs blaze on from the sidewalk. he stretches languidly, giving them a better view of the tattoos he's collected on his torso and arms.
niall goes out to a pub the following night and gets too drunk and talks to too many strangers and he doesn't remember getting back to his hotel room. he smirks a little at the phone number of a girl named abbie, scrawled across his forearm in smudged purple eyeliner.
louis forgets to call eleanor for a few days. he spends too much time curled into the sheets of harry's bed and he doesn't say anything when a magazine interviewer notices he's wearing harry's jumper. he pretends he feels sorry when he finally does call, and stares distractedly into the bathroom mirror at the purple marks on his collarbone while she talks.
harry takes everything louis gives up for over a week, and then leaves him hanging for a few hours while he goes on a date with a girl named sarah-louise. he smiles to himself when the internet blogs rant about it later and then sends several text messages to random girls in his contacts list.
liam tries to hold it together, really, he texts danielle like he's supposed to and says what he's supposed to and he stays in his hotel room at night to do a twitcam with the fans. he lets the reporters call him "daddy direction" and make him out to be the responsible one, but at night when no one's there to see it he slips wordlessly into zayn's arms and gives reality a break.
once they all slip, it's a bit like they've been pushed off the edge of a cliff, with nowhere to go but tumbling down, down until they inevitably crash at the bottom. but they let themselves fall with thrashing limbs and the hope that they can cushion each other whenever they land.
but some boys don't know how to love.
some boys are singing, some boys are singing the blues
niall tells paul that they're worn out. he tells paul he wishes they could take time off, he says it with a hopeful glint to his eyes. paul looks at the others who nod in agreement, except for zayn, who's fallen asleep on louis' shoulder as they sit in the van on the way to another interview.
maybe it's the irish accent, but when they step off the plane in sydney, they're given the whole day to catch up on sleep. the next day they go out on someone's boat while the flashbulbs buzz by up above in a helicopter and niall is dubbed the official complaining liason of the band.
joylessly flinging with the girls that they're bringing to their rooms
and then leave them, they're through
harry initiates a parade of leggy females with tousled hair for the next week, reveling in the way the flashbulbs flicker and people talk about him across twitter and tumblr. he goes out on dinner dates and his phone is buzzing every few minutes and he even lets lily halpern talk about him for a while even though they met only once in new york.
he can't even bring himself to feel bad when emma is forced to delete her twitter account, even though he knows he's mostly to blame.
some boys are sleeping, some boys are sleeping alone
'cause there's no one that's keeping them warm through the evening
they know that they're on their own
when it grows dark in the nondescript hotel rooms of a random city far from home, zayn pretends to sleep while he listens to liam across the room, whispering indistinct endearments to danielle on the other end of the phone. he waits patiently for the end of the call and he pretends it doesn't twist his stomach when liam crawls in next to him under the covers, pretends his heart doesn't ache when liam pushes inside him and presses warm kisses to zayn's neck and mumbles a stream of ohgodzayniloveyouyou'reincredibleohfuckyou'reperfect into his ear.
in another room exactly the same as zayn's somewhere on the same floor, louis wraps around harry and kisses him deeply, lazily, stroking a thumb over the jut of harry's hip. he pulls back to mumble against harry's mouth that harry smells better than anything and that they should get married, and even though harry laughs it off and kisses him harder, his heart swells and he wonders if "harry tomlinson" has a ring to it or not.
niall sleeps dreamlessly and in the morning he thinks vaguely that he shouldn't feel so lonely with his four best friends around him all the time, but he can't seem to feel warm despite the two jumpers he's put on.
some boys don't know how to love
on their last night of touring in new zealand, niall puts his complaining ability to the test on harry, blushing a little and mumbling his innocent jealousy as they make their way back to the hotel. harry smiles knowingly at him and sends him away to his room when they pour out of the van.
some boys are filling, some boys are filling the hole
some boys are sleeping, some boys are sleeping alone
the five of them tangle up on niall's bed, whispering love yous and assorted pet names and they smile into each other's necks and fumble with their clothes and let their hands wander lazily about.
niall's fingers are in harry's curls and liam's pressing kisses to louis' jawline and zayn is stroking fingertips over niall's chest while harry licks a stripe over liam's shoulder and niall almost laughs because he doesn't know where they begin or where they end at all.
they wrap around each other and continue breathing out sweet nothings into the quiet room around them and none of it is really right but none of it is really wrong either.
some boys don't know how to love
they pushed each other off the cliff, really. they'll keep falling recklessly, they'll do stupid things and say stupid things and they'll wait patiently until they crash at the bottom.
eventually the flashbulbs will fade and the mistakes they make will fade and maybe they'll call themselves naïve and maybe they'll say they were clueless, but then again, maybe they'll be able to look at each other one day and say that every idiotic decision was worth it because they were too hopelessly in love with each other to care.
they won't get what they want,
but they can take what they need from each other and they can give everything they have to each other and they can wait for the crash.