have a nice time. harry/louis
title: have a nice time
fandom: one direction
ship: harry/louis
word count: 6,000+
summary: all that louis had wanted was to get home, and get in bed, and be with harry. but management had other plans. plans that louis wanted nothing to do with.
author's note: lalala louis and eleanor are in france at the moment and this just sort of happened. hope you like <3
They had been home for less than twenty-four hours. They had been home for less than twenty-four hours and Louis was ready to ensconce himself in a mountain of pillows and blankets and sheets and duvets with Harry glued to his hip and not come out for days.
They only had ten days at home, after all, and those were ten days that Louis planned to divide between London, Doncaster, and Cheshire - always with Harry at his side. Their mothers had already plotted out their return, get-togethers and dinners, and they were ready. They were ready to be out of the limelight, they were ready to get to be together (really together) for the first time in far too long.
And so far, they were off to a good start at the whole “being together” bit. They’d barely made it through the front door of their flat before Louis had Harry pressed back against the nearest wall, all of the jetlag they’d been feeling from the flight from the States to Heathrow wearing off the moment his lips seared to the younger boy’s.
Their limbs had tangled together, scrambling hands pulling off the clothes as they half-stumbled, half-ran to whichever bedroom was nearest them - it didn’t matter which bedroom, really, everything in their flat was shared, mutual.
“Welcome home, Lou,” Harry had breathed out as he fell back against the pillows, body arching up like a bow as Louis’ body clambered over his, dropping kisses to any patches of skin that he could find.
Louis only grinned against the hollow of Harry’s throat, biting into the skin just enough to elicit a groan out of the boy beneath him. “Welcome home indeed, Haz.”
+
They had been home less than twenty-four hours, and Louis had gotten a phone call. A phone call that made him wish he would have conveniently lost his phone somewhere between Universal Studios and Fort Lauderdale because this was a call that he did not want to answer.
“How do you feel about Nice?” one of his agents - he didn’t know which one, he didn’t care which one, all of them were the enemy (especially right now) - asked him.
“In France?” he asked, his voice still throaty and scratchy from gasping and groaning and shouting into the column of Harry’s neck just minutes before.
Harry looked over at him sleepily, raising his eyebrows and mouthing “I’m in.” Louis rolled his eyes, was unable to fight off the smile on his face. He thwacked him with a pillow and Harry responded by swiping a kiss to his cheek.
“We’ve already got Eleanor on her way to the airport,” the agent on the other end continued, and Louis’ heart plummeted in his stomach. “We think it’ll be a nice getaway for the two of you.”
Louis sat up a little higher, leaning back against the headboard (of Harry’s bed, they’d realized after they’d fallen back against the sheets and pillows, spent and tangled). “But I just got back,” he spouted off in response. “I just got home.”
Harry’s index finger instantly curled underneath the Leeds bracelet on his wrist, fidgeting out of nervous habit - it made Louis want to throw his phone out the window and act like none of it had happened.
“It’ll be good publicity, Lou,” he replied. “Only for a few days, and then you can get right back to-”
“But I only get a few days off to begin with!”
“There will be a car outside the flat in London in fifteen minutes, Louis.”
There was a click and Louis kept the phone pressed to his ear for a few moments before throwing it down on the duvet and placing his head in his hands. “It’s not fucking fair,” he all but seethed, his voice rattling and broken.
Harry’s hand ran up and down Louis’ bare back, massaging gently at his shoulder. “Publicity date,” he didn’t ask - he didn’t need to.
“In fucking France,” he replied bitterly, swinging his legs off the bed and scrambling around the floor for his boxers. He grabbed Harry’s briefs instead, pulling them on before reaching for his jeans. “They couldn’t just fucking let her go visit my family in Doncaster,” he grumbled as he pulled them on, standing up from the bed. “They had to take us out of the country so that it looks like I’m shagging her up and down the Mediterranean.”
“It’s only for a few days, right?” Harry asked quietly, his voice low and defeated. He was trying to be helpful, Louis knew that. He was trying to make Louis see the bright side but there wasn’t a bright side - that was the whole fucking problem.
He pulled on his tee-shirt that he’d been wearing earlier today before turning back to look at him. “A few days that I’m supposed to be spending with you,” he replied bitterly, shaking his head.
Harry shook his head, standing up from the bed and making his way over toward Louis, wrapping his bare arms around his clothed shoulders. “I’ll be right here when you get back,” he said quietly, and Louis leaned up on his toes to brush a kiss to his lips.
“Shouldn’t be going anywhere in the first place,” he said, taking a step back after a moment. “I should wear your Harry Hearts Louis shirt, yeah?”
Harry couldn’t very well fight off the grin, so instead he just nodded, giving Louis another kiss. “Definitely,” he whispered against his lips.
+
Even if the car had been waiting for him outside of his flat in fifteen minutes, it had taken Louis much, much longer than fifteen minutes to actually make it out the door. Every time he tried, he saw Harry just standing there. In the kitchen. On the couch. Where the fuck ever he was. Naked with a broken expression on his face. And it always reeled Louis in. They were negative and positive ends of magnets, always pulled and fused together no matter what was trying to pull them apart.
“I love you,” he breathed out against Harry’s skin. “I love you,” a kiss to the shell of his ear, “I love you,” a kiss to his cheek, “I love you,” his neck, “I love you,” his jaw, “I love you,” his lips.
“You really need to get going,” Harry said after each kiss, but he always welcomed the next one without an ounce of protest.
He did finally manage to get out the door, but it killed him to do so, and he was already texting Harry in the lift on the way down to the car.
It was unfair, all of it was. It was unfair to him and unfair to Harry and unfair to their families and even unfair to Eleanor (although she was really just getting a free trip to France out of all of this as well as getting her pictures plastered over every gossip website under the sun, so what did she really have to complain about?). One of these days, he knew that he was just going to say fuck it. He was going to snap like a twig and kiss Harry in front of the entire damn world, give a tell-all interview and let everything out in the open. But today wasn’t that day - even if he was really starting to wish that it was.
Eleanor was already waiting when Louis arrived, quietly shuffling his way into the plane and all but throwing himself down dramatically onto the bench lining one of the walls of the private jet that would be flying them to Nice (what an ironic name, considering that Louis’ felt everything but nice at the moment).
“Dragged you out of bed and everything, didn’t they?” the girl across from him mused with a laugh, fingers fiddling with her sweater.
Louis peered back over at her before going facedown into the seat. His only response was a muffled, aggravated yes.
+
“And the royal couple has arrived in France,” Niall bellowed out in his best commentator voice, as if he was narrating the red carpet at an awards show. “As you can see, Miss Calder is wearing a lovely chat bubble sweater - the bubble is blank and empty, as are most of her real-life conversations, therefore making it symbolic - whereas Mr. Tomlinson looks as if he is ready to shove the next paparazzi photographer down an elevator shaft.”
“I am actually not joking when I say that I am going to kill you, just so you know,” Harry muttered, glowering over at the blond, Irish boy from where he is seated on the couch, trying and failing to watch whatever program is playing back at him on the television.
“Easy there, killer.”
Harry pushed himself up from the couch, moving around to where Niall was sitting perched on one of the stools in the kitchen, scrolling through a few paparazzi pictures that had shown up of Eleanor and Louis arriving in Nice.
The picture was no different than any of the other pictures of Eleanor and Louis that the paparazzi had taken over the months. Both looked distracted, bored, uncommitted. Louis, however, looked much more aggravated at this airport than he had at Heathrow this morning, and it made Harry’s heart tug slightly.
“I take it Lou didn’t really like the idea of going to France?”
“He shouldn’t be in France,” Harry grumbled, leaning against the counter and tilting his head back, staring up at the ceiling for a few moments. “He just got back, and we were supposed to leave for Cheshire in the morning…and then they go and do this. Our mums had already planned shit, and then they had to go and fucking ruin it.”
Niall clapped a hand over Harry’s shoulder for a moment before returning to scrolling through his Dashboard. Harry watched the screen for little while longer, but the amount of Elounor was making him a little weak in the knees.
His phone went off in his pocket, and Harry took it as his cue, reaching for the phone and seeing a text from Louis staring back at him.
I FACKKINGGG MISS LONDON!!!!
Harry could only smile sadly back at his screen. Louis had tweeted the same thing days before - after talking to Harry about how he missed their flat and missed their bed(s) and missed morning sex and Yorkshire tea and eggs on toast.
Another text came in, pulling Harry out of his thoughts and causing his heart to twist into a knot as he read Louis’ words.
AND BY LONDON I MEAN U ESPECIALLY.
Harry quickly texted him back. it’s only for a few days! .x
He was sick of trying to look on the fucking bright side. There wasn’t a bright side. There was Louis in France and Harry in England and all of it was complete and utter shit.
“That Lou?” Niall asked, turning his head to look at Harry, but he didn’t really need a verbal answer from Harry to know that it was. According to the boys (and a great deal of the Tumblr and Twitter populations), Harry had a different look on his face when it came to Louis than he did when it came to any of the other boys in the group.
“He’s barely been gone for a few hours and I already know that the next few days are going to be hell,” Harry mumbled dryly in response, fingers pinching at the bridge of his nose.
“You two are too codependent for your own good,” Niall muttered, rolling his eyes and looking back at the computer screen. A few moments later, he was turning right back to Harry with a bright look on his face, blue eyes twinkling. “You know what we should do?”
Harry didn’t reply, but he did look over at him and raise his eyebrows in anticipation, and that was all the encouragement Niall really needed to continue. “We should go to France.”
“We can’t go to France,” Harry replied, exasperated because just the thought of getting to go to France - getting to see Louis - was making him feel numb. “That would be far too obvious.”
“We’ll do disguises!”
“We don’t do disguises,” Harry was quick to argue. “I’m pretty sure we literally just discussed that in an interview a few weeks ago, even.”
Niall rolled his eyes, closing the lid on his laptop and hopping off the stool. He placed one hand on either of his friend’s shoulders and rattled him a little bit. “This is different,’” he assured him. “Desperate times call for desperate measures, Haz.”
Harry rolled his eyes. He wanted to be annoyed by Niall’s suggestion, but he could hardly even pretend to be. He was already too amped up about the thought of it, already too willing to go along with it. To put on some ridiculous costume and pack a bag and get the fuck to Nice and get the fuck to Nice now.
“We could get our asses kicked for this, you tosser,” Harry finally managed to force out, and Niall only grinned back at him.
“It’s all part of the adventure.”
+
“Absolutely not.”
Niall’s jaw dropped and he quickly shot up in defense. “You haven’t even let us-”
“Do you understand how risky going to France right now would be?” Liam cut him off, shooting the blond boy a pointed look. His brown eyes shifted over to Harry solemnly after a couple beats. “It could get you in a load of trouble, mate.”
Harry knew that Liam was right, he did. He knew that everything could go straight to hell in a hand basket if he got caught in Nice just hours after Eleanor and Louis had arrived there. The news would be roaring, they’d be unable to deny a relationship - it would all but dropkick both of them out of the closet and into the limelight, and that was far from fair to Louis.
But at the same time, Harry was sick and tired of hiding. He was sick of working around Eleanor’s schedule and only being able to do things when it was allowed. He was eighteen years old, he was in love, and he just wanted to be with Louis. It was all he cared about.
“We’ve got brilliant disguises,” Niall claimed, and Liam only rolled his eyes.
“I think it sounds really fucking entertaining,” Zayn offered up from his spot on the couch. He seemed to only be half listening to the conversation, but his head lifted and his eyes met Harry’s, flashing him a bright grin. “I’d totally come with, but I’m going to see my dad tomorrow.”
“Zayn, you can’t just condone this,” Liam snapped, turning back to look at him.
“Consider it condoned.”
Niall only beamed in response. “Majority rules!” he declared triumphantly.
Liam squeezed his eyes shut for a second before opening them and allowing them to meet Harry’s. “Don’t get yourself caught, Haz,” he told him, already smiling at the boy because he wasn’t really able to ever be upset with him. And at the end of the day, everyone knew what a romantic Liam Payne was - especially when it came to Harry and Louis. Then again, they all were when it came to the two of them.
Harry grinned back at him, his heart racing against his chest. “I’ve got it covered.”
+
“You do realize that Tumblr is going to be convinced that you want me dead if they keep seeing pictures of you with that permanent scowl on your face, right?” Eleanor commented offhandedly as the two of them slid into the taxi that would take them to the hotel. She reached over, placing one finger on each side of Louis’ face, lifting them as if trying to a tug a smile onto the Yorkshire boy’s lips.
“Sorry,” Louis mumbled in response, leaning back against the seat and closing his eyes for a moment. “I just…really don’t want to be here.”
“It’s only for a few days,” she tried to offer helpfully, lifting her slim shoulders in a shrug before looking back down at her phone.
“You sound like Haz.”
“Then maybe you should listen to me,” she teased, rolling her eyes and leaning back against the seat for a moment. “Think of it this way…you get to spend three days in France.”
Louis bit down on the inside of his cheek for a moment before his eyes rolled back over toward Eleanor and he shook his head. “El, I have spent the past month and a half running around the States, and then I’m barely back home for a split second and then I’m yanked out all over again.”
Eleanor was quiet after that. It was more than apparent that nothing she said to Louis right now was really going to help him feel any better. He turned to look at her, blue eyes softening from behind the lenses of his sunglasses. “I’m…I’m sorry,” he said after a couple beats. “I know that taking this out on you is shit.”
It wasn’t her fault - she was just going along with everything because she was Eleanor and that is what Eleanor did. She stuck by him in the United States, bouncing around from city to city (or Starbucks to Starbucks, as she liked to joke), and just because their job on tour was done didn’t mean that any of their jobs were really done. It definitely didn’t mean Eleanor’s job was done.
“It’s okay,” she said softly, leaning in and pressing a kiss to his cheek just as the cab sided up alongside the curb outside of the hotel that they would be staying at. She murmured one last skin against his skin before the car door was opened and the cameras were clicking like mad. “Just remember to act like you like me.”
+
Liam still thought they were being complete and total idiots - that they were far too big of a liability to be pulling anything like this, but Harry was really having a hard time being able to care right now. Right now, he was too pumped about the premise of going to France and getting to see Louis…he couldn’t really care about much else.
Niall, as it turned out, wasn’t really the greatest planner when it came to costumes and disguises, but he figured they still managed to pull it off all right. Niall was wearing a Yankees snapback and some tacky I HEART NY shirt that he’d bought back when they’d been on tour, sunglasses over his eyes.
“You look like Niall Horan if Niall Horan was an American tourist,” Harry observed from where he was seated in the passenger seat of the car taking them to the airport. He, on the other hand, looked ridiculous. A hoodie and large sunglasses, wearing a fake beard that Liam had in his closet and a pair of Toms on his feet.
“Dude, that’s, like, the point,” Niall replied, putting on his best American accent (which, admittedly, was a really fucking good accent) and shooting him a knowing look.
“It doesn’t matter,” Liam mumbled from the backseat. They’d taken Niall’s car to the airport, and he and Zayn would be driving it back so that it wasn’t left in the parking lot. “Everyone’s going to know it’s the two of you because you suck at discretion.”
“Oh like you two would be any better,” Niall replied, turning to look at the two of them. “You walked around carrying a Harry Potter bag and Zayn wore a t-shirt that said Fuck You.”
Zayn rolled his eyes, leaning forward so that he was between the front seat and the passenger seat, looking between Harry and Niall. “Does Lou even know that you’re coming?”
Harry shook his head. “I hadn’t really gotten the chance to tell him-”
“You’ve been texting him since the second he got off the plane in France,” Zayn cut him off. “I’m pretty sure that means that you’ve had, like, every chance to tell him.”
Harry’s only response was a shrug as they arrived at Gatwick. They were taking a commercial plane, figuring that a private plane would be too obvious and that maybe they could blend into coach is they tried hard enough.
Niall pulled into passenger drop off, turning to flash one last look at Liam and Zayn. He gave them a salute, muttering a brief “I said good day,” before stepping out and moving to grab his bags from the trunk.
“You look positively Amish, mate,” Liam ragged on Harry, a smirk tugging at the corners of his lips.
Harry rolled his eyes, nodding back at him as he pulled the hood over his head of curly hair. He sent him one last look, raising his eyebrows curiously. “Do you think I’m being stupid with all of this?” he asked curiously. “Going to see him and all?”
Liam looked over at Zayn for a moment before looking back at Harry and reaching over to place his hand on his shoulder. “I think you’re just really in love,” he answered honestly. “And…love kind of makes you be stupid all the time.”
“You would know all about that, wouldn’t you?” Zayn teased, leaning in and pinching one of Liam’s cheeks, only to have the brunet swat him away, letting out a laugh and a muttered “sod off.”
“C’mon, bro,” Niall drawled out like a stereotypical surfer straight out of an eighties movie, coming over to Harry’s side of the vehicle and practically dragging him out. “We’ve totally gotta go see the gnarly babes waiting for us in Nice.”
Harry rolled his eyes, shooting one last pointed look at Liam and Zayn. “That,” he commented, nodding back toward Niall, “is going to get really old. Really fast.”
+
“You do realize that this is stereotypical and offensive, right?” Louis asked, his tone slightly bored and slightly amused from where he was sitting in the chaise in the corner of Eleanor’s hotel room. “Just because I’m - oh, god, no. Don’t wear black.”
Eleanor could only beam back at him, slender arms crossing over one another and an amused smirk toying at her lips. “You were saying?” she teased, doing one last spin in her dress before moving back to her closet and sorting through the other few dresses that she’d brought. “What about turquoise?” she asked, grabbing another sundress and holding it out to him, dangling it.
Louis dropped his phone onto the chair and moved over toward her, sifting through her clothes before grabbing a pair of short, high-waisted shorts and a top. “With the-”
“Gold sandals,” she cut him off, answering for him and flashing him a bright smile. She leaned and pressed another quick kiss to his cheek. “Such an attentive boyfriend I have.”
She went to go change, poking her head out of the bathroom after a few moments and settling her eyes on him. “Are you sure you don’t want to go out tonight?” she asked curiously. “People might talk, you know.”
“I am terribly jetlagged, you know,” he said, making his voice sound as overdramatic as possible.
She rolled her eyes, flashing him a knowing smile and turning back to finish getting changed. “Got it, boss,” she deadpanned. After a few moments, she came back out, doing a quick spin in her outfit before grabbing her bag and swiping some lip gloss over her lips. “If I don’t get sex tonight with this outfit, I’m clearly not doing something right.”
Louis didn’t necessarily reply, but he did give her a small smile. There was no chance Eleanor wouldn’t bring someone back to her hotel room. Even if she’d have to be discreet with it so that she didn’t get branded a “cheater” in tomorrow morning’s issue of The Sun.
He followed her out of her room and headed toward his own, lifting his hand in a wave as he stepped into his hotel room and she headed toward the lifts, checking over her shoulder a few times and watching him before the doors opened and she disappeared inside.
Just as he was closing the door behind himself, his phone went off. He reached for it, seeing Liam’s name staring back at him.
“Save me,” he moaned out pathetically as he brought his phone to his ear. “I’m in France.”
“I’m aware,” Liam replied with a cheerfully amused tone. “I have this thing called a computer, you know, and it-”
“Anyway,” Louis cut him off, dropping back onto his bed and staring up at the ceiling. “Eleanor is going to get a nice shag tonight and I am going to…I don’t know, read or something equally fucking entertaining.”
Liam was quiet for a couple of seconds before speaking up. “Won’t her going out without you look bad?”
“Jetlag,” he replied blandly. “I already went out with her earlier before she’d decided to go out. We grabbed a bite, walked around, posed for a couple pictures. And now she can actually go enjoy France and I can scratch the days spent in this hotel room into the headboard.”
“Are you still going to be moaning and complaining about two hours from now?”
“This is me,” Louis replied, telling Liam all that he really needed to know.
Liam only laughed in response, Louis could practically hear him rolling his eyes and shaking his head. “Well, just…make sure you’re still awake in two hours, yeah?”
“I just might bore myself to sleep,” Louis replied with a shrug of his shoulders. “The world may never know.”
“You’ll want to be up in two hours, mate,” he heard another voice - Zayn? - piping up, and Louis sat up a little in confusion.
His stomach twisted into a knot and he bit down on his lip for a moment. “Why will I need to be up in two hours?” he asked. “What’s happening in two hours?”
“Pleasant dreams, Boo Bear,” was Liam and Zayn’s cooed response before the line went dead.
Louis sat back, confused and wide eyed and reaching for his laptop. He went to Twitter, for starters, just to see if Harry had posted anything - which he hadn’t since the night of their last show in Florida - before grabbing his phone and hitting his number on his Recent Calls list.
It didn’t even ring before going straight to voicemail. “Why do I need to be awake in two hours?” he found himself blurting out after the tone went off in his ear before dropping his phone back onto the bed and flipping onto his back. He supposed, regretfully so, that the only thing he could really do at this point was wait.
So that was what he did.
+
It had been a three hour flight. A three hour flight that Harry had spent sandwiched in the middle seat between Niall (who’d insisted on the window seat just so he could make up some elaborate bullshit stories about cloud shapes) and (much to his horror) a thirteen-year-old girl who’d had the Up All Night album playing on a loop in her headphones for the entire duration of the flight.
“I almost wanted to sign a napkin for her and slip it into her bag when she wasn’t looking,” Harry commented as they headed off the flight and through the airport in Nice. He had his hood up over his head, his duffle bag slung over his shoulder as they navigated their way with their heads low.
“I told her when I walked past her in the terminal that the Irish one was sexy as hell,” Niall replied with a cheeky grin, nudging Harry’s elbow with his own. “Didn’t bother looking back at her to see how she took it.”
They hadn’t checked any luggage, so they simply headed out of the airport and toward a parked taxi, sliding into the backseat while Niall told the driver the name of the hotel that Louis and Eleanor were staying at. Louis had texted it to him earlier, back when the preliminary planning stages of this impromptu trip had been being made.
Just in case you decide to take pity on me and SAVE ME, he’d said.
He’d been kidding, Harry was almost entirely certain, but he was here regardless.
The city was dark as they drove through the streets, save for the streetlights and signs illuminated around them. It was well past midnight by now, and Harry had no idea how his eyes were still open after being awake and in the air for so much of the past twenty-four hours.
“Apparently El went out while Lou stayed in,” Niall observed quietly, reading over a text from Liam on his phone before looking back over at Harry and raising his eyebrows. “He’s all yours, it seems.”
Harry rolled his eyes, and the two of them stayed silent for the rest of the drive over. He knew that in reality, this had probably been a really stupid decision to make - what was he thinking, going to France to visit him? As if that wasn’t the least bit inconspicuous? All it would take was one picture leaked of Harry for every wall they’d had built up for the past two years to crumble like dominoes. He’d have to be careful. Extremely careful. Holed-up-in-Lou’s-hotel-room-without-so-much-as-looking-out-a-window careful. But in the end, it’d all be worth it, right? He’d get to see Louis, he’d get to be with Louis…and that was all that really mattered at the end of the day. Being with Louis.
“I never really said thank you, you know,” Harry commented after he didn’t even know how long, just as the cab was pulling up outside the hotel. He passed a few bills in the driver’s direction before getting out of the cab and waiting for Niall to follow suit.
“Thank you?” Niall questioned with a curious smile, hiking his bag up on his shoulder just a notch. “For what?”
“For coming up with all of this,” he shrugged. “France and all…for coming with me.”
Niall only grinned in response, reaching out to Harry’s “beard” and giving it a playful tug as the cab pulled away from them. “Anything for the name of love, dude,” he replied, still keeping his American accent intact.
He looked down at his phone once more, hitting a few buttons on his screen and bringing it to his ear. “One last thing before we go in,” he said, shooting Harry a knowing, smug smile.
+
Louis had not fallen asleep. He had, however, drifted off and dozed a few times here and there - but he’d been awake for a hellish amount of time at this point, and sleep was really only to be expected, right? But he always pulled himself awake no matter what, the question of whether or not two hours had passed yet nagging through his mind.
The sound of his phone going off sent his eyes blinking open once more. He peered over at his clock on the nightstand, seeing that it was 12:23 in the morning.
He looked down at his phone, blindingly bright in the darkness of his hotel room, and seeing Niall’s name staring back at him. What was Niall calling him for?
“Miss me already?” Louis teased, sitting up a little as he answered, wedging the phone between his ear and his shoulder. “If you start playing Come Home by OneRepublic, I’m going to have to hang up on you, I’m afraid.”’
“Did’ju know that Nice is the fifth biggest city in France?” was Niall’s response, his voice thick and…American?
Louis eyebrows furrowed slightly, head tilting to the side. “Yeah?”
“’It’s kinda pretty at night,” Niall rambled on. “And there aren’t any crazy fans outside your hotel from what I can see, so that’s pretty bad ass.”
“Pretty bad ass?” Louis replied with an amused laugh. “Is there any particular reason that you’re talking like…” he drifted off as a thought dawned on him. “Outside my hotel?”
“I didn’t really feel like going to Ireland,” Niall replied, allowing his familiar voice to return to the foreground. “So I figured, if you get to have some nice romantic French vacation, why the hell don’t I?”
Louis’ fingers raked through his hair. “So, you’re…in Nice…outside my hotel?”
“Totally,” he was back to the American accent.
He bit down on his lip as a thought raced through his mind. A thought that existed of a cheeky smile and a head of dark curls, big hands and a long frame and a voice like slow honey. “What about Harry?” he asked.
“He’s…in Cheshire, I think?” Niall replied, and Louis’ heart sank a little. “He took off after you left.”
Maybe he was kidding. Maybe Harry was with him. But would Harry really be that willing to risk everything they’d been working toward? It was Harry, of course he was - but that still didn’t tell Louis if he was here or not.
“Well, I tried to call his phone earlier, but it went straight to-”
“It died on him. Lazy twat forgot to plug it in for a charge.”
Louis ran his tongue along his bottom lip, leaning back against the headboard for a moment before turning his head to look at the soft streetlights flowing in through his window. “Oh.”
“Anyway,” Niall segued, “what room are you in? I’ll go find you and we’ll go grab a pint somewhere.”
“1036,” Louis replied after a couple beats.
He could hear the grin in Niall’s voice when he replied with, “Right on, bro.”
+
“1036,” Niall informed him as he dropped his phone back into the pocket of his jeans. “Just walk in there, act like you’re already staying there - or like you don’t speak French so that they can’t really tell you what to do - and head on up.”
Harry was bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet, looking back at Niall in anticipation. “What are you going to do, then?”
“This is me we’re talking about here, mate,” Niall replied knowingly, dropping an arm around his taller friend’s shoulder. “I’m going to go find me a couple girls, act like I’m Niall Horan’s awesome American doppelganger, have a Nice time somewhere,” he added a cheery wink after his pun, “and probably wake up hung over on a beach somewhere.”
Harry rolled his eyes. “Even I wouldn’t have made that pun sound good,” he mumbled teasingly, taking a few steps back toward the hotel. “I’ll see you later on, then?”
Niall’s response was a wink and a grin before he was turning and making his way down the sidewalk, carrying on past the hotel.
With his heart lodged in his throat, Harry stared up at the hotel for a few more moments before making his way up the front walk and through the doors. He kept his head low, just as he’d been doing since he’d arrived at the airport back in London, making his way toward the lift and hitting the button for the tenth floor, trying his best to ignore the way that his stomach was doing its own Olympic-worthy performance of cartwheels and backflips.
The doors opened and he moved out, checking the numbers on the hall to see which direction he was to head off in. He counted the number as he went. 1022, 1024, 1026…
Once he reached 1036, he gave himself one final second to collect his thoughts, before lifting his hand and rapping on the door.
+
Niall was not Harry - but at least he was someone. At least he was a familiar face who would kind of be like having home with him, right?
He heard the knock at the door and reached a hand over to flip on the lamp by the bed, illuminating the room in a soft amber glow before standing up and making his way over toward the door.
“It’s about time, Nialler,” Louis declared exasperatingly as he swung the door open and found himself staring back at… “Haz?”
Harry pushed the hood of his jumper off, staring back at him with bright green eyes and an obnoxious beard. “Were you expecting Niall?” he asked teasingly. “Do you want me to go get him, because-“
Louis didn’t dare let Harry finish, shooting across the doorway and practically yanking Harry inside the hotel room. He closed the door after them, arms wrapping tightly around the taller boy’s shoulder as he pulled him in for a crushing kiss. His heart was pounding in his chest and he felt stupid for ever thinking that Niall would have been the one to come to France over Harry. Of course it was Harry - why wouldn’t it be Harry? And he was pretty sure he couldn’t be happier that it was Harry if he tried to be.
He didn’t know how long it was before they broke away, the scruff of Harry’s beard scratching along Louis’ chin as he pulled back slightly.
He reached his fingers forward, tugging down the beard to reveal the face that he loved far too much for his own good, leaning in and kissing him all over again. “I don’t much like you with a beard, Harold,” he pointed out, pressing kisses along Harry’s cheek and chin.
“I don’t really like you with one either,” was Harry’s laugh of a response, and all it did was cause Louis to hold onto Harry even tighter than he already was because this was Harry and Harry was here and nothing else really mattered in that moment
They stayed like that for a few moments - could have been hours for all Louis cared - before they broke away and Harry leaned down just enough to rest his forehead against Louis’. “I don’t really know how this is going to work,” he admitted a little sheepishly. “Me being in France and all…”
“We’ll figure it out,” Louis replied with a shrug, taking a step back and just looking at Harry for a few moments. Basking in the sight of him as if he hadn’t just seen him a few mere hours before this.
“You’re here,” he finally breathed out after moments of silence.
Harry only nodded, wrapping his arms back around Louis once more and smiling with his lips pressed into the head of caramel hair. “I’m home,” he clarified. Because he was.
Home was wherever he was with Louis.
+
lalalala sappy sappy i know <3
fandom: one direction
ship: harry/louis
word count: 6,000+
summary: all that louis had wanted was to get home, and get in bed, and be with harry. but management had other plans. plans that louis wanted nothing to do with.
author's note: lalala louis and eleanor are in france at the moment and this just sort of happened. hope you like <3
They had been home for less than twenty-four hours. They had been home for less than twenty-four hours and Louis was ready to ensconce himself in a mountain of pillows and blankets and sheets and duvets with Harry glued to his hip and not come out for days.
They only had ten days at home, after all, and those were ten days that Louis planned to divide between London, Doncaster, and Cheshire - always with Harry at his side. Their mothers had already plotted out their return, get-togethers and dinners, and they were ready. They were ready to be out of the limelight, they were ready to get to be together (really together) for the first time in far too long.
And so far, they were off to a good start at the whole “being together” bit. They’d barely made it through the front door of their flat before Louis had Harry pressed back against the nearest wall, all of the jetlag they’d been feeling from the flight from the States to Heathrow wearing off the moment his lips seared to the younger boy’s.
Their limbs had tangled together, scrambling hands pulling off the clothes as they half-stumbled, half-ran to whichever bedroom was nearest them - it didn’t matter which bedroom, really, everything in their flat was shared, mutual.
“Welcome home, Lou,” Harry had breathed out as he fell back against the pillows, body arching up like a bow as Louis’ body clambered over his, dropping kisses to any patches of skin that he could find.
Louis only grinned against the hollow of Harry’s throat, biting into the skin just enough to elicit a groan out of the boy beneath him. “Welcome home indeed, Haz.”
+
They had been home less than twenty-four hours, and Louis had gotten a phone call. A phone call that made him wish he would have conveniently lost his phone somewhere between Universal Studios and Fort Lauderdale because this was a call that he did not want to answer.
“How do you feel about Nice?” one of his agents - he didn’t know which one, he didn’t care which one, all of them were the enemy (especially right now) - asked him.
“In France?” he asked, his voice still throaty and scratchy from gasping and groaning and shouting into the column of Harry’s neck just minutes before.
Harry looked over at him sleepily, raising his eyebrows and mouthing “I’m in.” Louis rolled his eyes, was unable to fight off the smile on his face. He thwacked him with a pillow and Harry responded by swiping a kiss to his cheek.
“We’ve already got Eleanor on her way to the airport,” the agent on the other end continued, and Louis’ heart plummeted in his stomach. “We think it’ll be a nice getaway for the two of you.”
Louis sat up a little higher, leaning back against the headboard (of Harry’s bed, they’d realized after they’d fallen back against the sheets and pillows, spent and tangled). “But I just got back,” he spouted off in response. “I just got home.”
Harry’s index finger instantly curled underneath the Leeds bracelet on his wrist, fidgeting out of nervous habit - it made Louis want to throw his phone out the window and act like none of it had happened.
“It’ll be good publicity, Lou,” he replied. “Only for a few days, and then you can get right back to-”
“But I only get a few days off to begin with!”
“There will be a car outside the flat in London in fifteen minutes, Louis.”
There was a click and Louis kept the phone pressed to his ear for a few moments before throwing it down on the duvet and placing his head in his hands. “It’s not fucking fair,” he all but seethed, his voice rattling and broken.
Harry’s hand ran up and down Louis’ bare back, massaging gently at his shoulder. “Publicity date,” he didn’t ask - he didn’t need to.
“In fucking France,” he replied bitterly, swinging his legs off the bed and scrambling around the floor for his boxers. He grabbed Harry’s briefs instead, pulling them on before reaching for his jeans. “They couldn’t just fucking let her go visit my family in Doncaster,” he grumbled as he pulled them on, standing up from the bed. “They had to take us out of the country so that it looks like I’m shagging her up and down the Mediterranean.”
“It’s only for a few days, right?” Harry asked quietly, his voice low and defeated. He was trying to be helpful, Louis knew that. He was trying to make Louis see the bright side but there wasn’t a bright side - that was the whole fucking problem.
He pulled on his tee-shirt that he’d been wearing earlier today before turning back to look at him. “A few days that I’m supposed to be spending with you,” he replied bitterly, shaking his head.
Harry shook his head, standing up from the bed and making his way over toward Louis, wrapping his bare arms around his clothed shoulders. “I’ll be right here when you get back,” he said quietly, and Louis leaned up on his toes to brush a kiss to his lips.
“Shouldn’t be going anywhere in the first place,” he said, taking a step back after a moment. “I should wear your Harry Hearts Louis shirt, yeah?”
Harry couldn’t very well fight off the grin, so instead he just nodded, giving Louis another kiss. “Definitely,” he whispered against his lips.
+
Even if the car had been waiting for him outside of his flat in fifteen minutes, it had taken Louis much, much longer than fifteen minutes to actually make it out the door. Every time he tried, he saw Harry just standing there. In the kitchen. On the couch. Where the fuck ever he was. Naked with a broken expression on his face. And it always reeled Louis in. They were negative and positive ends of magnets, always pulled and fused together no matter what was trying to pull them apart.
“I love you,” he breathed out against Harry’s skin. “I love you,” a kiss to the shell of his ear, “I love you,” a kiss to his cheek, “I love you,” his neck, “I love you,” his jaw, “I love you,” his lips.
“You really need to get going,” Harry said after each kiss, but he always welcomed the next one without an ounce of protest.
He did finally manage to get out the door, but it killed him to do so, and he was already texting Harry in the lift on the way down to the car.
It was unfair, all of it was. It was unfair to him and unfair to Harry and unfair to their families and even unfair to Eleanor (although she was really just getting a free trip to France out of all of this as well as getting her pictures plastered over every gossip website under the sun, so what did she really have to complain about?). One of these days, he knew that he was just going to say fuck it. He was going to snap like a twig and kiss Harry in front of the entire damn world, give a tell-all interview and let everything out in the open. But today wasn’t that day - even if he was really starting to wish that it was.
Eleanor was already waiting when Louis arrived, quietly shuffling his way into the plane and all but throwing himself down dramatically onto the bench lining one of the walls of the private jet that would be flying them to Nice (what an ironic name, considering that Louis’ felt everything but nice at the moment).
“Dragged you out of bed and everything, didn’t they?” the girl across from him mused with a laugh, fingers fiddling with her sweater.
Louis peered back over at her before going facedown into the seat. His only response was a muffled, aggravated yes.
+
“And the royal couple has arrived in France,” Niall bellowed out in his best commentator voice, as if he was narrating the red carpet at an awards show. “As you can see, Miss Calder is wearing a lovely chat bubble sweater - the bubble is blank and empty, as are most of her real-life conversations, therefore making it symbolic - whereas Mr. Tomlinson looks as if he is ready to shove the next paparazzi photographer down an elevator shaft.”
“I am actually not joking when I say that I am going to kill you, just so you know,” Harry muttered, glowering over at the blond, Irish boy from where he is seated on the couch, trying and failing to watch whatever program is playing back at him on the television.
“Easy there, killer.”
Harry pushed himself up from the couch, moving around to where Niall was sitting perched on one of the stools in the kitchen, scrolling through a few paparazzi pictures that had shown up of Eleanor and Louis arriving in Nice.
The picture was no different than any of the other pictures of Eleanor and Louis that the paparazzi had taken over the months. Both looked distracted, bored, uncommitted. Louis, however, looked much more aggravated at this airport than he had at Heathrow this morning, and it made Harry’s heart tug slightly.
“I take it Lou didn’t really like the idea of going to France?”
“He shouldn’t be in France,” Harry grumbled, leaning against the counter and tilting his head back, staring up at the ceiling for a few moments. “He just got back, and we were supposed to leave for Cheshire in the morning…and then they go and do this. Our mums had already planned shit, and then they had to go and fucking ruin it.”
Niall clapped a hand over Harry’s shoulder for a moment before returning to scrolling through his Dashboard. Harry watched the screen for little while longer, but the amount of Elounor was making him a little weak in the knees.
His phone went off in his pocket, and Harry took it as his cue, reaching for the phone and seeing a text from Louis staring back at him.
I FACKKINGGG MISS LONDON!!!!
Harry could only smile sadly back at his screen. Louis had tweeted the same thing days before - after talking to Harry about how he missed their flat and missed their bed(s) and missed morning sex and Yorkshire tea and eggs on toast.
Another text came in, pulling Harry out of his thoughts and causing his heart to twist into a knot as he read Louis’ words.
AND BY LONDON I MEAN U ESPECIALLY.
Harry quickly texted him back. it’s only for a few days! .x
He was sick of trying to look on the fucking bright side. There wasn’t a bright side. There was Louis in France and Harry in England and all of it was complete and utter shit.
“That Lou?” Niall asked, turning his head to look at Harry, but he didn’t really need a verbal answer from Harry to know that it was. According to the boys (and a great deal of the Tumblr and Twitter populations), Harry had a different look on his face when it came to Louis than he did when it came to any of the other boys in the group.
“He’s barely been gone for a few hours and I already know that the next few days are going to be hell,” Harry mumbled dryly in response, fingers pinching at the bridge of his nose.
“You two are too codependent for your own good,” Niall muttered, rolling his eyes and looking back at the computer screen. A few moments later, he was turning right back to Harry with a bright look on his face, blue eyes twinkling. “You know what we should do?”
Harry didn’t reply, but he did look over at him and raise his eyebrows in anticipation, and that was all the encouragement Niall really needed to continue. “We should go to France.”
“We can’t go to France,” Harry replied, exasperated because just the thought of getting to go to France - getting to see Louis - was making him feel numb. “That would be far too obvious.”
“We’ll do disguises!”
“We don’t do disguises,” Harry was quick to argue. “I’m pretty sure we literally just discussed that in an interview a few weeks ago, even.”
Niall rolled his eyes, closing the lid on his laptop and hopping off the stool. He placed one hand on either of his friend’s shoulders and rattled him a little bit. “This is different,’” he assured him. “Desperate times call for desperate measures, Haz.”
Harry rolled his eyes. He wanted to be annoyed by Niall’s suggestion, but he could hardly even pretend to be. He was already too amped up about the thought of it, already too willing to go along with it. To put on some ridiculous costume and pack a bag and get the fuck to Nice and get the fuck to Nice now.
“We could get our asses kicked for this, you tosser,” Harry finally managed to force out, and Niall only grinned back at him.
“It’s all part of the adventure.”
+
“Absolutely not.”
Niall’s jaw dropped and he quickly shot up in defense. “You haven’t even let us-”
“Do you understand how risky going to France right now would be?” Liam cut him off, shooting the blond boy a pointed look. His brown eyes shifted over to Harry solemnly after a couple beats. “It could get you in a load of trouble, mate.”
Harry knew that Liam was right, he did. He knew that everything could go straight to hell in a hand basket if he got caught in Nice just hours after Eleanor and Louis had arrived there. The news would be roaring, they’d be unable to deny a relationship - it would all but dropkick both of them out of the closet and into the limelight, and that was far from fair to Louis.
But at the same time, Harry was sick and tired of hiding. He was sick of working around Eleanor’s schedule and only being able to do things when it was allowed. He was eighteen years old, he was in love, and he just wanted to be with Louis. It was all he cared about.
“We’ve got brilliant disguises,” Niall claimed, and Liam only rolled his eyes.
“I think it sounds really fucking entertaining,” Zayn offered up from his spot on the couch. He seemed to only be half listening to the conversation, but his head lifted and his eyes met Harry’s, flashing him a bright grin. “I’d totally come with, but I’m going to see my dad tomorrow.”
“Zayn, you can’t just condone this,” Liam snapped, turning back to look at him.
“Consider it condoned.”
Niall only beamed in response. “Majority rules!” he declared triumphantly.
Liam squeezed his eyes shut for a second before opening them and allowing them to meet Harry’s. “Don’t get yourself caught, Haz,” he told him, already smiling at the boy because he wasn’t really able to ever be upset with him. And at the end of the day, everyone knew what a romantic Liam Payne was - especially when it came to Harry and Louis. Then again, they all were when it came to the two of them.
Harry grinned back at him, his heart racing against his chest. “I’ve got it covered.”
+
“You do realize that Tumblr is going to be convinced that you want me dead if they keep seeing pictures of you with that permanent scowl on your face, right?” Eleanor commented offhandedly as the two of them slid into the taxi that would take them to the hotel. She reached over, placing one finger on each side of Louis’ face, lifting them as if trying to a tug a smile onto the Yorkshire boy’s lips.
“Sorry,” Louis mumbled in response, leaning back against the seat and closing his eyes for a moment. “I just…really don’t want to be here.”
“It’s only for a few days,” she tried to offer helpfully, lifting her slim shoulders in a shrug before looking back down at her phone.
“You sound like Haz.”
“Then maybe you should listen to me,” she teased, rolling her eyes and leaning back against the seat for a moment. “Think of it this way…you get to spend three days in France.”
Louis bit down on the inside of his cheek for a moment before his eyes rolled back over toward Eleanor and he shook his head. “El, I have spent the past month and a half running around the States, and then I’m barely back home for a split second and then I’m yanked out all over again.”
Eleanor was quiet after that. It was more than apparent that nothing she said to Louis right now was really going to help him feel any better. He turned to look at her, blue eyes softening from behind the lenses of his sunglasses. “I’m…I’m sorry,” he said after a couple beats. “I know that taking this out on you is shit.”
It wasn’t her fault - she was just going along with everything because she was Eleanor and that is what Eleanor did. She stuck by him in the United States, bouncing around from city to city (or Starbucks to Starbucks, as she liked to joke), and just because their job on tour was done didn’t mean that any of their jobs were really done. It definitely didn’t mean Eleanor’s job was done.
“It’s okay,” she said softly, leaning in and pressing a kiss to his cheek just as the cab sided up alongside the curb outside of the hotel that they would be staying at. She murmured one last skin against his skin before the car door was opened and the cameras were clicking like mad. “Just remember to act like you like me.”
+
Liam still thought they were being complete and total idiots - that they were far too big of a liability to be pulling anything like this, but Harry was really having a hard time being able to care right now. Right now, he was too pumped about the premise of going to France and getting to see Louis…he couldn’t really care about much else.
Niall, as it turned out, wasn’t really the greatest planner when it came to costumes and disguises, but he figured they still managed to pull it off all right. Niall was wearing a Yankees snapback and some tacky I HEART NY shirt that he’d bought back when they’d been on tour, sunglasses over his eyes.
“You look like Niall Horan if Niall Horan was an American tourist,” Harry observed from where he was seated in the passenger seat of the car taking them to the airport. He, on the other hand, looked ridiculous. A hoodie and large sunglasses, wearing a fake beard that Liam had in his closet and a pair of Toms on his feet.
“Dude, that’s, like, the point,” Niall replied, putting on his best American accent (which, admittedly, was a really fucking good accent) and shooting him a knowing look.
“It doesn’t matter,” Liam mumbled from the backseat. They’d taken Niall’s car to the airport, and he and Zayn would be driving it back so that it wasn’t left in the parking lot. “Everyone’s going to know it’s the two of you because you suck at discretion.”
“Oh like you two would be any better,” Niall replied, turning to look at the two of them. “You walked around carrying a Harry Potter bag and Zayn wore a t-shirt that said Fuck You.”
Zayn rolled his eyes, leaning forward so that he was between the front seat and the passenger seat, looking between Harry and Niall. “Does Lou even know that you’re coming?”
Harry shook his head. “I hadn’t really gotten the chance to tell him-”
“You’ve been texting him since the second he got off the plane in France,” Zayn cut him off. “I’m pretty sure that means that you’ve had, like, every chance to tell him.”
Harry’s only response was a shrug as they arrived at Gatwick. They were taking a commercial plane, figuring that a private plane would be too obvious and that maybe they could blend into coach is they tried hard enough.
Niall pulled into passenger drop off, turning to flash one last look at Liam and Zayn. He gave them a salute, muttering a brief “I said good day,” before stepping out and moving to grab his bags from the trunk.
“You look positively Amish, mate,” Liam ragged on Harry, a smirk tugging at the corners of his lips.
Harry rolled his eyes, nodding back at him as he pulled the hood over his head of curly hair. He sent him one last look, raising his eyebrows curiously. “Do you think I’m being stupid with all of this?” he asked curiously. “Going to see him and all?”
Liam looked over at Zayn for a moment before looking back at Harry and reaching over to place his hand on his shoulder. “I think you’re just really in love,” he answered honestly. “And…love kind of makes you be stupid all the time.”
“You would know all about that, wouldn’t you?” Zayn teased, leaning in and pinching one of Liam’s cheeks, only to have the brunet swat him away, letting out a laugh and a muttered “sod off.”
“C’mon, bro,” Niall drawled out like a stereotypical surfer straight out of an eighties movie, coming over to Harry’s side of the vehicle and practically dragging him out. “We’ve totally gotta go see the gnarly babes waiting for us in Nice.”
Harry rolled his eyes, shooting one last pointed look at Liam and Zayn. “That,” he commented, nodding back toward Niall, “is going to get really old. Really fast.”
+
“You do realize that this is stereotypical and offensive, right?” Louis asked, his tone slightly bored and slightly amused from where he was sitting in the chaise in the corner of Eleanor’s hotel room. “Just because I’m - oh, god, no. Don’t wear black.”
Eleanor could only beam back at him, slender arms crossing over one another and an amused smirk toying at her lips. “You were saying?” she teased, doing one last spin in her dress before moving back to her closet and sorting through the other few dresses that she’d brought. “What about turquoise?” she asked, grabbing another sundress and holding it out to him, dangling it.
Louis dropped his phone onto the chair and moved over toward her, sifting through her clothes before grabbing a pair of short, high-waisted shorts and a top. “With the-”
“Gold sandals,” she cut him off, answering for him and flashing him a bright smile. She leaned and pressed another quick kiss to his cheek. “Such an attentive boyfriend I have.”
She went to go change, poking her head out of the bathroom after a few moments and settling her eyes on him. “Are you sure you don’t want to go out tonight?” she asked curiously. “People might talk, you know.”
“I am terribly jetlagged, you know,” he said, making his voice sound as overdramatic as possible.
She rolled her eyes, flashing him a knowing smile and turning back to finish getting changed. “Got it, boss,” she deadpanned. After a few moments, she came back out, doing a quick spin in her outfit before grabbing her bag and swiping some lip gloss over her lips. “If I don’t get sex tonight with this outfit, I’m clearly not doing something right.”
Louis didn’t necessarily reply, but he did give her a small smile. There was no chance Eleanor wouldn’t bring someone back to her hotel room. Even if she’d have to be discreet with it so that she didn’t get branded a “cheater” in tomorrow morning’s issue of The Sun.
He followed her out of her room and headed toward his own, lifting his hand in a wave as he stepped into his hotel room and she headed toward the lifts, checking over her shoulder a few times and watching him before the doors opened and she disappeared inside.
Just as he was closing the door behind himself, his phone went off. He reached for it, seeing Liam’s name staring back at him.
“Save me,” he moaned out pathetically as he brought his phone to his ear. “I’m in France.”
“I’m aware,” Liam replied with a cheerfully amused tone. “I have this thing called a computer, you know, and it-”
“Anyway,” Louis cut him off, dropping back onto his bed and staring up at the ceiling. “Eleanor is going to get a nice shag tonight and I am going to…I don’t know, read or something equally fucking entertaining.”
Liam was quiet for a couple of seconds before speaking up. “Won’t her going out without you look bad?”
“Jetlag,” he replied blandly. “I already went out with her earlier before she’d decided to go out. We grabbed a bite, walked around, posed for a couple pictures. And now she can actually go enjoy France and I can scratch the days spent in this hotel room into the headboard.”
“Are you still going to be moaning and complaining about two hours from now?”
“This is me,” Louis replied, telling Liam all that he really needed to know.
Liam only laughed in response, Louis could practically hear him rolling his eyes and shaking his head. “Well, just…make sure you’re still awake in two hours, yeah?”
“I just might bore myself to sleep,” Louis replied with a shrug of his shoulders. “The world may never know.”
“You’ll want to be up in two hours, mate,” he heard another voice - Zayn? - piping up, and Louis sat up a little in confusion.
His stomach twisted into a knot and he bit down on his lip for a moment. “Why will I need to be up in two hours?” he asked. “What’s happening in two hours?”
“Pleasant dreams, Boo Bear,” was Liam and Zayn’s cooed response before the line went dead.
Louis sat back, confused and wide eyed and reaching for his laptop. He went to Twitter, for starters, just to see if Harry had posted anything - which he hadn’t since the night of their last show in Florida - before grabbing his phone and hitting his number on his Recent Calls list.
It didn’t even ring before going straight to voicemail. “Why do I need to be awake in two hours?” he found himself blurting out after the tone went off in his ear before dropping his phone back onto the bed and flipping onto his back. He supposed, regretfully so, that the only thing he could really do at this point was wait.
So that was what he did.
+
It had been a three hour flight. A three hour flight that Harry had spent sandwiched in the middle seat between Niall (who’d insisted on the window seat just so he could make up some elaborate bullshit stories about cloud shapes) and (much to his horror) a thirteen-year-old girl who’d had the Up All Night album playing on a loop in her headphones for the entire duration of the flight.
“I almost wanted to sign a napkin for her and slip it into her bag when she wasn’t looking,” Harry commented as they headed off the flight and through the airport in Nice. He had his hood up over his head, his duffle bag slung over his shoulder as they navigated their way with their heads low.
“I told her when I walked past her in the terminal that the Irish one was sexy as hell,” Niall replied with a cheeky grin, nudging Harry’s elbow with his own. “Didn’t bother looking back at her to see how she took it.”
They hadn’t checked any luggage, so they simply headed out of the airport and toward a parked taxi, sliding into the backseat while Niall told the driver the name of the hotel that Louis and Eleanor were staying at. Louis had texted it to him earlier, back when the preliminary planning stages of this impromptu trip had been being made.
Just in case you decide to take pity on me and SAVE ME, he’d said.
He’d been kidding, Harry was almost entirely certain, but he was here regardless.
The city was dark as they drove through the streets, save for the streetlights and signs illuminated around them. It was well past midnight by now, and Harry had no idea how his eyes were still open after being awake and in the air for so much of the past twenty-four hours.
“Apparently El went out while Lou stayed in,” Niall observed quietly, reading over a text from Liam on his phone before looking back over at Harry and raising his eyebrows. “He’s all yours, it seems.”
Harry rolled his eyes, and the two of them stayed silent for the rest of the drive over. He knew that in reality, this had probably been a really stupid decision to make - what was he thinking, going to France to visit him? As if that wasn’t the least bit inconspicuous? All it would take was one picture leaked of Harry for every wall they’d had built up for the past two years to crumble like dominoes. He’d have to be careful. Extremely careful. Holed-up-in-Lou’s-hotel-room-without-so-much-as-looking-out-a-window careful. But in the end, it’d all be worth it, right? He’d get to see Louis, he’d get to be with Louis…and that was all that really mattered at the end of the day. Being with Louis.
“I never really said thank you, you know,” Harry commented after he didn’t even know how long, just as the cab was pulling up outside the hotel. He passed a few bills in the driver’s direction before getting out of the cab and waiting for Niall to follow suit.
“Thank you?” Niall questioned with a curious smile, hiking his bag up on his shoulder just a notch. “For what?”
“For coming up with all of this,” he shrugged. “France and all…for coming with me.”
Niall only grinned in response, reaching out to Harry’s “beard” and giving it a playful tug as the cab pulled away from them. “Anything for the name of love, dude,” he replied, still keeping his American accent intact.
He looked down at his phone once more, hitting a few buttons on his screen and bringing it to his ear. “One last thing before we go in,” he said, shooting Harry a knowing, smug smile.
+
Louis had not fallen asleep. He had, however, drifted off and dozed a few times here and there - but he’d been awake for a hellish amount of time at this point, and sleep was really only to be expected, right? But he always pulled himself awake no matter what, the question of whether or not two hours had passed yet nagging through his mind.
The sound of his phone going off sent his eyes blinking open once more. He peered over at his clock on the nightstand, seeing that it was 12:23 in the morning.
He looked down at his phone, blindingly bright in the darkness of his hotel room, and seeing Niall’s name staring back at him. What was Niall calling him for?
“Miss me already?” Louis teased, sitting up a little as he answered, wedging the phone between his ear and his shoulder. “If you start playing Come Home by OneRepublic, I’m going to have to hang up on you, I’m afraid.”’
“Did’ju know that Nice is the fifth biggest city in France?” was Niall’s response, his voice thick and…American?
Louis eyebrows furrowed slightly, head tilting to the side. “Yeah?”
“’It’s kinda pretty at night,” Niall rambled on. “And there aren’t any crazy fans outside your hotel from what I can see, so that’s pretty bad ass.”
“Pretty bad ass?” Louis replied with an amused laugh. “Is there any particular reason that you’re talking like…” he drifted off as a thought dawned on him. “Outside my hotel?”
“I didn’t really feel like going to Ireland,” Niall replied, allowing his familiar voice to return to the foreground. “So I figured, if you get to have some nice romantic French vacation, why the hell don’t I?”
Louis’ fingers raked through his hair. “So, you’re…in Nice…outside my hotel?”
“Totally,” he was back to the American accent.
He bit down on his lip as a thought raced through his mind. A thought that existed of a cheeky smile and a head of dark curls, big hands and a long frame and a voice like slow honey. “What about Harry?” he asked.
“He’s…in Cheshire, I think?” Niall replied, and Louis’ heart sank a little. “He took off after you left.”
Maybe he was kidding. Maybe Harry was with him. But would Harry really be that willing to risk everything they’d been working toward? It was Harry, of course he was - but that still didn’t tell Louis if he was here or not.
“Well, I tried to call his phone earlier, but it went straight to-”
“It died on him. Lazy twat forgot to plug it in for a charge.”
Louis ran his tongue along his bottom lip, leaning back against the headboard for a moment before turning his head to look at the soft streetlights flowing in through his window. “Oh.”
“Anyway,” Niall segued, “what room are you in? I’ll go find you and we’ll go grab a pint somewhere.”
“1036,” Louis replied after a couple beats.
He could hear the grin in Niall’s voice when he replied with, “Right on, bro.”
+
“1036,” Niall informed him as he dropped his phone back into the pocket of his jeans. “Just walk in there, act like you’re already staying there - or like you don’t speak French so that they can’t really tell you what to do - and head on up.”
Harry was bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet, looking back at Niall in anticipation. “What are you going to do, then?”
“This is me we’re talking about here, mate,” Niall replied knowingly, dropping an arm around his taller friend’s shoulder. “I’m going to go find me a couple girls, act like I’m Niall Horan’s awesome American doppelganger, have a Nice time somewhere,” he added a cheery wink after his pun, “and probably wake up hung over on a beach somewhere.”
Harry rolled his eyes. “Even I wouldn’t have made that pun sound good,” he mumbled teasingly, taking a few steps back toward the hotel. “I’ll see you later on, then?”
Niall’s response was a wink and a grin before he was turning and making his way down the sidewalk, carrying on past the hotel.
With his heart lodged in his throat, Harry stared up at the hotel for a few more moments before making his way up the front walk and through the doors. He kept his head low, just as he’d been doing since he’d arrived at the airport back in London, making his way toward the lift and hitting the button for the tenth floor, trying his best to ignore the way that his stomach was doing its own Olympic-worthy performance of cartwheels and backflips.
The doors opened and he moved out, checking the numbers on the hall to see which direction he was to head off in. He counted the number as he went. 1022, 1024, 1026…
Once he reached 1036, he gave himself one final second to collect his thoughts, before lifting his hand and rapping on the door.
+
Niall was not Harry - but at least he was someone. At least he was a familiar face who would kind of be like having home with him, right?
He heard the knock at the door and reached a hand over to flip on the lamp by the bed, illuminating the room in a soft amber glow before standing up and making his way over toward the door.
“It’s about time, Nialler,” Louis declared exasperatingly as he swung the door open and found himself staring back at… “Haz?”
Harry pushed the hood of his jumper off, staring back at him with bright green eyes and an obnoxious beard. “Were you expecting Niall?” he asked teasingly. “Do you want me to go get him, because-“
Louis didn’t dare let Harry finish, shooting across the doorway and practically yanking Harry inside the hotel room. He closed the door after them, arms wrapping tightly around the taller boy’s shoulder as he pulled him in for a crushing kiss. His heart was pounding in his chest and he felt stupid for ever thinking that Niall would have been the one to come to France over Harry. Of course it was Harry - why wouldn’t it be Harry? And he was pretty sure he couldn’t be happier that it was Harry if he tried to be.
He didn’t know how long it was before they broke away, the scruff of Harry’s beard scratching along Louis’ chin as he pulled back slightly.
He reached his fingers forward, tugging down the beard to reveal the face that he loved far too much for his own good, leaning in and kissing him all over again. “I don’t much like you with a beard, Harold,” he pointed out, pressing kisses along Harry’s cheek and chin.
“I don’t really like you with one either,” was Harry’s laugh of a response, and all it did was cause Louis to hold onto Harry even tighter than he already was because this was Harry and Harry was here and nothing else really mattered in that moment
They stayed like that for a few moments - could have been hours for all Louis cared - before they broke away and Harry leaned down just enough to rest his forehead against Louis’. “I don’t really know how this is going to work,” he admitted a little sheepishly. “Me being in France and all…”
“We’ll figure it out,” Louis replied with a shrug, taking a step back and just looking at Harry for a few moments. Basking in the sight of him as if he hadn’t just seen him a few mere hours before this.
“You’re here,” he finally breathed out after moments of silence.
Harry only nodded, wrapping his arms back around Louis once more and smiling with his lips pressed into the head of caramel hair. “I’m home,” he clarified. Because he was.
Home was wherever he was with Louis.
+
lalalala sappy sappy i know <3