moving to mars [4/5]
title: moving to mars
author: leira17
ships: liam/louis (liam/harry, louis/zayn, niall/food)
rating: pg-15
word count: ~17,000
warnings: swearing, references to sex, other than that it’s pretty tame
summary: The one in which Liam and Louis travelled through time and space together. Sort of.
note: i accidentally 17k lilo fic. beta'd by my lovely laurencake. a kind of ‘doctor who cast’ au wherein they don’t actually do very much work. there’s also a Big Gay Freakout and way too many run-on sentences. any discrepancies in my description of the television industry is because I know very little about it.
apologies for any typos that slipped through.
previous
Slow-burn breakups were, unfortunately, something Liam had experience with. The forced laughter, the awkward silences, the times when they wouldn’t come home for nights in a row. He remembered, quite clearly, the nine-month relationship he’d had with a girl named Nicki that should’ve been over after three.
Going through the same thing with a friend was, well, new.
It was strange, because Louis didn’t move out right away, or all at once. Stuff of his just started to disappear, one by one, and it took Liam two weeks of sleeping alone and going into the bathroom to see a missing toothbrush to realise he was really gone. Harry took the news as invitation to start sleeping over, which was -- it was fine, more than fine, it just wasn’t what Liam was used to.
Harry snored a lot and woke up at the smallest thing and he didn’t move around much and he was Liam’s boyfriend so sleeping beside him should’ve been, like, normal, but he wasn’t Louis and that’s all Liam could focus on.
And it wasn’t like they didn’t talk anymore, because they worked together and close together as well, so they weren’t, like, ignoring each other completely or anything. It was just. Strained. Kind of awkward.
For a while Louis had tried to keep up his usual antics, but he flinched every time Liam touched him off-set and after the third dirty text from Harry he’d accidentally intercepted, he stopped taking Liam’s phone altogether. After that it was just like, well, okay, we should just stop pretending to be normal because we’re not anymore.
Louis didn’t talk as much, so Niall took over. And now it was Harry in Liam’s bed and Niall’s rambling in his ear and he wasn’t sure how to feel about it. He missed Louis, he did, but the issue was he wasn’t entirely sure what he’d done wrong. He knew he shouldn’t have kept things from his best friend, but moving out did seem like a bit of an overreaction.
Of course he never voiced any of this, not to anyone.
Harry was leaving for his tour in less than a week, and Liam had no idea how he was going to cope.
People started to notice.
Mary tried, on several different occasions, to pull Liam aside and talk to him about Louis. Keywords of these talks included things like ‘acceptance’ and ‘jealousy’, and he always managed to find a reason to wriggle away. She wasn’t the only one who noticed, but she was the only one who guessed at the root of his bad mood.
Ever since Harry had announced their relationship to Nick Grimshaw, people had focused on Liam with a magnifying glass. Like he wasn’t in the public eye enough, he now had to deal with people on the streets asking (really rather inappropriate) questions about Harry. It was almost impossible to hide that he was in a foul state of mind, but luck favoured him in the way that nearly everyone -- both online and in his everyday life -- assumed it was all to do with Harry’s leaving.
It sort of was, though. Liam was really going to miss Harry.
He kept finding out these new things about him, like that he made killer french toast or that his Elvis impersonation was so bad it was good, and Liam didn’t want to stop learning just because Harry had to fly all over the world and perform for hordes of screaming girls.
Some things weren’t new; very reminiscent of Bootcamp, actually. Specifically the walking around naked. He thought it might be weird, since, like, he’d seen plenty of naked men in his life -- it was kind of inevitable when you played as many sports as Liam did -- but none of them had been his boyfriend. The only weird thing about it, really, was that it felt like it probably should be weird, Harry climbing in to shower with him or tugging him close for a morning snog while totally nude, but it just wasn’t.
The thing was that Liam was still too chicken to actually touch Harry. Well, parts of Harry.
Harry didn’t mind or anything, because Harry didn’t mind much, but he was going to Sweden in three days and Liam thought that he should just, just man up and do something, because it wasn’t like he didn’t want to. Fuck, did he want to. He just -- he had no idea what he was doing.
He resolved to get over his fear of touching his own boyfriend before he went away for months on end, but that sort of thing was much easier said than done.
One day, Louis didn’t show up to work. It didn’t bother Liam too much, because he had plenty of scenes to shoot with other people and nobody else seemed overly concerned that one of the stars was MIA. He assumed Louis was sick or something and put it from his mind, focussing all his energy on being the Doctor.
Niall informed him, at the end of the day, the real reason Louis wasn’t around.
“You haven’t heard?” he asked, surprised. He was hanging about Liam’s trailer, waiting for him to change so he could bum a ride home. “Tommo’s character is being killed off for the finale.”
Liam froze with his shirt half-off. “What?”
“Yeah. He’s totally gutted.”
Well of course he was. Liam felt rather winded himself from the news, and he wasn’t the one being kicked off after only one series. It didn’t make any sense -- Benny Cooper was an interesting character with loads of potential. He said as much to Niall, who bit his lip and turned very pitying eyes on Liam.
“It’s over, mate,” he said, not unkindly. “Lou’s got three more weeks of work and then...”
And then what? Liam was living this life, he knew exactly what Louis must be going through. Sure, yeah, they weren’t really going off to imaginary planets or saving John Lennon from some extraterrestrial phenomenon, but it felt like they were. It was the best escape from reality Liam had ever had, and he knew Louis felt the same. God, he must be so...
“I should call him,” Liam said. Niall only sighed, because they both knew he wasn’t going to.
He didn’t call Louis.
In fact, he pushed every thought he’d ever had about the guy -- from ‘who’s the student in my trailer’ to ‘why won’t you look me in the eye’ -- to the back of his mind. Maybe if he pretended like it was happening to a stranger, it wouldn’t hurt so much. It shouldn’t hurt so much. It wasn’t like it affected Liam’s career.
So instead he went straight home and found Harry in the kitchen, naked and grinning while he poured tea for them both. He looked like he’d just stepped out of the shower and hadn’t bothered with a towel, which.
“How was your --” was all he got out before Liam kissed him. Hard. Harry made a surprised little noise, but looped his arms around Liam’s neck and let himself be pressed into the counter without complaint.
Stupid Louis. Liam didn’t want to feel bad for him -- he was the one who walked away, after all. But, no, he wasn’t thinking of Louis, he wasn’t, he was thinking of the imprints his fingers were leaving in Harry’s bare hips and the smell of Liam’s shampoo in his curls.
He pulled away, stifling a chuckle at Harry’s glassy-eyed look. Harry just smiled at him, all dimples and lazy adoration, and Liam pushed his fear right back with the thoughts of ‘what is Louis doing now’.
“You -- you’ll have to, er, tell me what to do,” Liam said. He answered Harry’s confused look by dropping to his knees.
He would not comfort Louis. He would not comfort Louis. He repeated this like a mantra in his head, because no matter how pathetic Louis looked, Liam was simply not welcome to be that person anymore. The hand he’d tried to put on Louis’ shoulder between takes was thrown off by Louis violently jerking away and if that’s how he wanted to be, Liam would let him, damn it.
Liam ate lunch alone, his back turned to the table where Louis was sat, letting himself be consoled by everyone that was not currently Liam.
Harry was leaving at two and, since Liam was unsuccessful in getting the morning off, tagged along to the read-through of the finale. None of the people in charge seemed very happy about it, but they also weren’t sure how to kick Harry Styles out, so he stayed.
He was a respectful enough guest, keeping quiet unless directly spoken to and volunteering to get the pizza for lunch. His arm was around Liam’s shoulder whenever it could be, and he would squeeze Liam closer every time something emotional came up. He was being so good, so good, and Louis would not stop glaring at him.
Probably no one else could tell, but in the months of working and living together Liam had learned far too much about Louis, his expressions and his mannerisms, and Harry’s presence was irritating the hell out of him. Liam could tell by the jumping muscle in Louis’ jaw and a sharpness in his voice that wasn’t necessary for the scenes. He could tell, but he didn’t understand.
Too soon, Harry’s watch beeped. They were all chatting casually around a deluxe pizza, somebody making a joke that if Niall were here it’d be gone already.
“I have to go,” Harry said. He stood up in the most reluctant way Liam had ever seen. It would’ve been funny except that Liam was just as reluctant to let him leave. Liam made to stand with him, but Harry’s hand on his shoulder kept him in place. “Nah, you’re needed here, Doctor.”
Liam looked up at him and, as uncomfortable as he was to do this in front of a couple dozen other people, said, “I’ll -- you know, miss you.”
“I’ll miss you too, babe,” Harry said quietly. Then he leaned down to catch Liam’s lips in a far too brief kiss. “Text me when you can?”
“You know it.”
With one last grin, Harry ducked out of the room. Wary of how silent everyone in the room was, Liam turned to face them. They were all looking at him, unabashed. Except Louis.
“Oh, aww,” said one of the guest stars like she couldn’t help herself.
Mary winked at him. “You two are so sweet, Payne.” While the rest of his co-workers cooed over him and Harry, Liam flushed and stared at the tabletop. He smiled in spite of himself.
They got bored of the topic after a few minutes, so Liam chanced a glance up and accidentally locked eyes with Louis.
It was like -- he didn’t even look like Louis, not really. Every nuance, every facial tick that Liam had mentally catalogued away as another piece of Louis Tomlinson... it was completely gone. Like Louis was wearing a mask of indifference that was incredibly well crafted.
Neither of them looked away until they were called back to attention to do their jobs.
Okay, so, Liam had experienced some weird things in his lifetime, but watching his boyfriend on television, doing promotional work in Sweden when a few days before he’d been panting into Liam’s hair definitely took the cake.
He was at Niall’s, eating take-away and chatting about football, when Niall got a text from Zayn to turn on a certain channel. Harry’s face had greeted them when they did so, and it was just so surreal -- Liam wondered if it would be just as weird, if not weirder, to watch himself on telly in a few weeks. He and Louis were scheduled to do some promotional work of their own, which was not something Liam was looking forward to.
The interview was fairly typical (though Niall was enthralled anyway), and then it got weirder than just seeing his boyfriend on screen.
“So as I understand it,” the interviewer was saying in a light Swedish accent, “you’re currently dating the new Doctor Who?”
“I am,” said Harry, smiling wide.
Niall looked at him and Liam belatedly realised that, oh, they were talking about him. That was just -- that was so weird, it was the icing on top of the weirdness cake.
“And how is that going? Had any adventures yet?”
“It’s going good, yeah. We just get on really well and everything, so,” Harry said in his interview voice. Then he dropped it, expression turning fond. “Adventures not so much, but last week we found a kitten, right, and I kid you not, it was stuck in a tree. So, Li, being the hero that he is, rescued it.” Niall shot Liam a disgusted look, but Liam was too hooked on Harry’s words to care. “Yeah, he’s perfect for the role, as you can tell. He’s just -- such a good guy.” Liam felt his heart grow three sizes, like the Grinch or something. He didn’t know Harry thought all that about him.
Jumping on the chance to talk about something so popular with someone so famous, the man asked Harry if he’d been on set, what he thought about the new companion, if he was going to be watching during the tour.
“Oh, I’ll definitely be watching. I mean, I would be no matter what, but the opportunity to make innuendos about his sonic screwdriver is just too good to pass up,” Harry laughed and Niall choked on his chicken. “I’ve been around the set a couple of times, yeah, but I haven’t gotten into the TARDIS just yet.”
“Maybe when you get home,” suggested the Swedish guy.
Harry cocked his head, smiling. “Maybe. Lou’s pretty protective of it, so.”
“Lou? You mean Louis Tomlinson?”
Honestly, it felt like Liam’s heart skipped a beat. Which really wasn’t healthy -- he already had kidney problems, he didn’t need a heart one to go with it, thanks.
“I do.”
“And what do you think of him? Is he good, as a companion? Good enough to last another series?”
He was, Liam thought fiercely. He was good enough to outlast Liam on the show, but he wasn’t going to, because the hired screen-testers had talked too much about the rise in homoeroticism this series and the showrunners’ response was to bring in yet another pretty young girl. It was -- it was fucking ridiculous, frankly, but whatever. Liam wasn’t thinking about Louis if he could help it.
Harry answered carefully, so as not to give anything away. “I love Louis, he’s great. Wonderful, yeah. I’ve watched him do his thing and he’s got some serious talent. I think that, even when he’s done with Doctor Who, he won’t have any trouble finding a job.”
“You think he really believes that?” Niall asked as the interview was steered back to the topic of Harry’s album.
“Yeah,” Liam said, watching Harry flick his hair back and laugh. “Yeah, I think he does.”
“Do you --” Niall was unusually hesitant, fiddling with his fork, and Liam had to put an arm around him before he continued. “Do you think so too? I mean, do you think Lou will be all right?”
If there was one thing about Louis that Liam was 100% certain about, it was his talent. “I really, really do, Nialler.”
“Me too,” said Niall, and that was the end of that.
“We don’t want you to be surprised again,” said Sharon, one of the Big Cheeses, as she handed over a portfolio. The photograph was cute, and her credentials were better than Liam was expecting, but this ‘Eleanor’ just wouldn’t be as good a companion as Louis, hands down. (It kind of worried him that he was thinking that way, because he and Louis still weren’t speaking outside of scripted lines and if he was lucky he would have another companion after Eleanor, but the fact of the matter was that the TARDIS would feel empty without Louis’ vibrant presence.)
Why hadn’t anyone warned Liam that long distance kind of sucked?
Even aside from Harry being a popstar and moving countries faster than Niall changed his socks and girls throwing themselves at his feet and everything, it was just strange to wake up without bacon cooking, and Liam often threw an arm out in his sleep to pull Harry close when nothing was there.
The short version was that he missed his boyfriend, and texting/tweeting/skyping/calling just didn’t feel the same. He couldn’t pinch Harry’s cheeks or feel the warmth of him, and that was -- that was all Liam had of him, really. His face was world-famous, along with his voice, and a lot of his super-fans knew more about him than Liam did, but Liam could touch him. He could wrap his arms around Harry, listen to his heartbeat, play with his hair, but now he couldn’t because Harry was in sodding Australia.
Niall was helping as much as he could, and Liam thought that by the end of it all he might owe Niall his firstborn, since now he was trying to be there for Liam and fill the Harry-void along with the Louis-void.
“I’m not snogging you, though,” Niall said.
“That’s too bad,” Liam said. “I was really hoping for some Horan kisses.”
“Well, you’ll have to wait just that much longer.” Niall shrugged, returning to his chicken. They were eating at Liam’s after a long day of filming on location, too tired and lazy to do anything but swing by a fast-food place.
Harry would’ve -- he would’ve had dinner waiting, or he’d be in the middle of cooking, Liam guessed. He loved watching Harry cook, because he got super intense about it all, whisking like he was whisking for England and not realising how silly he looked with flour smudges on his cheeks. God, he missed Harry -- it was like a physical ache.
“I miss Haz,” said Liam, and Niall nodded in understanding. “And I wish Louis would talk to me.”
“Ah, well,” Niall said. He was suddenly very interested in his chicken, though Liam couldn’t tell if it was because he was hiding something or because he was being Niall. “Give it time.”
That should’ve been the last of it, but Liam was frustrated. His boyfriend was in Sydney and he was getting a new co-star for next year and Louis was always there at the back of his mind, making quips about his day and peering over his glasses like he was trying to figure Liam out.
“I just,” he said, pausing until Niall looked up. “I know I shouldn’t have kept the thing with Harry from him. He told me everything and I -- I know I shouldn’t have, but is it really worth shutting me out? I’ve apologised already, but it’s like he just... I don’t know. I just know I miss him, and it pisses me off.” He took a drink of his soda just to stop himself from babbling on.
“Is that what you think this is about?” Niall asked.
“What else would it be about?”
Niall regarded him for a long moment, then sighed and picked up a drumstick. “Give it time.”
It was Louis’ last day. There’d been a kind of party, with cake and streamers, and Lisa begged Louis not to cry because he had to still do a couple close-ups after lunch. He cried anyway, and it went against all of Liam’s instincts not to gather him up in his arms and shield him from view.
“I’m going to miss this,” Louis said shakily. “All of this. All of you.”
He very purposefully didn’t look Liam’s way.
next
author: leira17
ships: liam/louis (liam/harry, louis/zayn, niall/food)
rating: pg-15
word count: ~17,000
warnings: swearing, references to sex, other than that it’s pretty tame
summary: The one in which Liam and Louis travelled through time and space together. Sort of.
note: i accidentally 17k lilo fic. beta'd by my lovely laurencake. a kind of ‘doctor who cast’ au wherein they don’t actually do very much work. there’s also a Big Gay Freakout and way too many run-on sentences. any discrepancies in my description of the television industry is because I know very little about it.
apologies for any typos that slipped through.
previous
Slow-burn breakups were, unfortunately, something Liam had experience with. The forced laughter, the awkward silences, the times when they wouldn’t come home for nights in a row. He remembered, quite clearly, the nine-month relationship he’d had with a girl named Nicki that should’ve been over after three.
Going through the same thing with a friend was, well, new.
It was strange, because Louis didn’t move out right away, or all at once. Stuff of his just started to disappear, one by one, and it took Liam two weeks of sleeping alone and going into the bathroom to see a missing toothbrush to realise he was really gone. Harry took the news as invitation to start sleeping over, which was -- it was fine, more than fine, it just wasn’t what Liam was used to.
Harry snored a lot and woke up at the smallest thing and he didn’t move around much and he was Liam’s boyfriend so sleeping beside him should’ve been, like, normal, but he wasn’t Louis and that’s all Liam could focus on.
And it wasn’t like they didn’t talk anymore, because they worked together and close together as well, so they weren’t, like, ignoring each other completely or anything. It was just. Strained. Kind of awkward.
For a while Louis had tried to keep up his usual antics, but he flinched every time Liam touched him off-set and after the third dirty text from Harry he’d accidentally intercepted, he stopped taking Liam’s phone altogether. After that it was just like, well, okay, we should just stop pretending to be normal because we’re not anymore.
Louis didn’t talk as much, so Niall took over. And now it was Harry in Liam’s bed and Niall’s rambling in his ear and he wasn’t sure how to feel about it. He missed Louis, he did, but the issue was he wasn’t entirely sure what he’d done wrong. He knew he shouldn’t have kept things from his best friend, but moving out did seem like a bit of an overreaction.
Of course he never voiced any of this, not to anyone.
Harry was leaving for his tour in less than a week, and Liam had no idea how he was going to cope.
People started to notice.
Mary tried, on several different occasions, to pull Liam aside and talk to him about Louis. Keywords of these talks included things like ‘acceptance’ and ‘jealousy’, and he always managed to find a reason to wriggle away. She wasn’t the only one who noticed, but she was the only one who guessed at the root of his bad mood.
Ever since Harry had announced their relationship to Nick Grimshaw, people had focused on Liam with a magnifying glass. Like he wasn’t in the public eye enough, he now had to deal with people on the streets asking (really rather inappropriate) questions about Harry. It was almost impossible to hide that he was in a foul state of mind, but luck favoured him in the way that nearly everyone -- both online and in his everyday life -- assumed it was all to do with Harry’s leaving.
It sort of was, though. Liam was really going to miss Harry.
He kept finding out these new things about him, like that he made killer french toast or that his Elvis impersonation was so bad it was good, and Liam didn’t want to stop learning just because Harry had to fly all over the world and perform for hordes of screaming girls.
Some things weren’t new; very reminiscent of Bootcamp, actually. Specifically the walking around naked. He thought it might be weird, since, like, he’d seen plenty of naked men in his life -- it was kind of inevitable when you played as many sports as Liam did -- but none of them had been his boyfriend. The only weird thing about it, really, was that it felt like it probably should be weird, Harry climbing in to shower with him or tugging him close for a morning snog while totally nude, but it just wasn’t.
The thing was that Liam was still too chicken to actually touch Harry. Well, parts of Harry.
Harry didn’t mind or anything, because Harry didn’t mind much, but he was going to Sweden in three days and Liam thought that he should just, just man up and do something, because it wasn’t like he didn’t want to. Fuck, did he want to. He just -- he had no idea what he was doing.
He resolved to get over his fear of touching his own boyfriend before he went away for months on end, but that sort of thing was much easier said than done.
One day, Louis didn’t show up to work. It didn’t bother Liam too much, because he had plenty of scenes to shoot with other people and nobody else seemed overly concerned that one of the stars was MIA. He assumed Louis was sick or something and put it from his mind, focussing all his energy on being the Doctor.
Niall informed him, at the end of the day, the real reason Louis wasn’t around.
“You haven’t heard?” he asked, surprised. He was hanging about Liam’s trailer, waiting for him to change so he could bum a ride home. “Tommo’s character is being killed off for the finale.”
Liam froze with his shirt half-off. “What?”
“Yeah. He’s totally gutted.”
Well of course he was. Liam felt rather winded himself from the news, and he wasn’t the one being kicked off after only one series. It didn’t make any sense -- Benny Cooper was an interesting character with loads of potential. He said as much to Niall, who bit his lip and turned very pitying eyes on Liam.
“It’s over, mate,” he said, not unkindly. “Lou’s got three more weeks of work and then...”
And then what? Liam was living this life, he knew exactly what Louis must be going through. Sure, yeah, they weren’t really going off to imaginary planets or saving John Lennon from some extraterrestrial phenomenon, but it felt like they were. It was the best escape from reality Liam had ever had, and he knew Louis felt the same. God, he must be so...
“I should call him,” Liam said. Niall only sighed, because they both knew he wasn’t going to.
He didn’t call Louis.
In fact, he pushed every thought he’d ever had about the guy -- from ‘who’s the student in my trailer’ to ‘why won’t you look me in the eye’ -- to the back of his mind. Maybe if he pretended like it was happening to a stranger, it wouldn’t hurt so much. It shouldn’t hurt so much. It wasn’t like it affected Liam’s career.
So instead he went straight home and found Harry in the kitchen, naked and grinning while he poured tea for them both. He looked like he’d just stepped out of the shower and hadn’t bothered with a towel, which.
“How was your --” was all he got out before Liam kissed him. Hard. Harry made a surprised little noise, but looped his arms around Liam’s neck and let himself be pressed into the counter without complaint.
Stupid Louis. Liam didn’t want to feel bad for him -- he was the one who walked away, after all. But, no, he wasn’t thinking of Louis, he wasn’t, he was thinking of the imprints his fingers were leaving in Harry’s bare hips and the smell of Liam’s shampoo in his curls.
He pulled away, stifling a chuckle at Harry’s glassy-eyed look. Harry just smiled at him, all dimples and lazy adoration, and Liam pushed his fear right back with the thoughts of ‘what is Louis doing now’.
“You -- you’ll have to, er, tell me what to do,” Liam said. He answered Harry’s confused look by dropping to his knees.
He would not comfort Louis. He would not comfort Louis. He repeated this like a mantra in his head, because no matter how pathetic Louis looked, Liam was simply not welcome to be that person anymore. The hand he’d tried to put on Louis’ shoulder between takes was thrown off by Louis violently jerking away and if that’s how he wanted to be, Liam would let him, damn it.
Liam ate lunch alone, his back turned to the table where Louis was sat, letting himself be consoled by everyone that was not currently Liam.
Harry was leaving at two and, since Liam was unsuccessful in getting the morning off, tagged along to the read-through of the finale. None of the people in charge seemed very happy about it, but they also weren’t sure how to kick Harry Styles out, so he stayed.
He was a respectful enough guest, keeping quiet unless directly spoken to and volunteering to get the pizza for lunch. His arm was around Liam’s shoulder whenever it could be, and he would squeeze Liam closer every time something emotional came up. He was being so good, so good, and Louis would not stop glaring at him.
Probably no one else could tell, but in the months of working and living together Liam had learned far too much about Louis, his expressions and his mannerisms, and Harry’s presence was irritating the hell out of him. Liam could tell by the jumping muscle in Louis’ jaw and a sharpness in his voice that wasn’t necessary for the scenes. He could tell, but he didn’t understand.
Too soon, Harry’s watch beeped. They were all chatting casually around a deluxe pizza, somebody making a joke that if Niall were here it’d be gone already.
“I have to go,” Harry said. He stood up in the most reluctant way Liam had ever seen. It would’ve been funny except that Liam was just as reluctant to let him leave. Liam made to stand with him, but Harry’s hand on his shoulder kept him in place. “Nah, you’re needed here, Doctor.”
Liam looked up at him and, as uncomfortable as he was to do this in front of a couple dozen other people, said, “I’ll -- you know, miss you.”
“I’ll miss you too, babe,” Harry said quietly. Then he leaned down to catch Liam’s lips in a far too brief kiss. “Text me when you can?”
“You know it.”
With one last grin, Harry ducked out of the room. Wary of how silent everyone in the room was, Liam turned to face them. They were all looking at him, unabashed. Except Louis.
“Oh, aww,” said one of the guest stars like she couldn’t help herself.
Mary winked at him. “You two are so sweet, Payne.” While the rest of his co-workers cooed over him and Harry, Liam flushed and stared at the tabletop. He smiled in spite of himself.
They got bored of the topic after a few minutes, so Liam chanced a glance up and accidentally locked eyes with Louis.
It was like -- he didn’t even look like Louis, not really. Every nuance, every facial tick that Liam had mentally catalogued away as another piece of Louis Tomlinson... it was completely gone. Like Louis was wearing a mask of indifference that was incredibly well crafted.
Neither of them looked away until they were called back to attention to do their jobs.
Okay, so, Liam had experienced some weird things in his lifetime, but watching his boyfriend on television, doing promotional work in Sweden when a few days before he’d been panting into Liam’s hair definitely took the cake.
He was at Niall’s, eating take-away and chatting about football, when Niall got a text from Zayn to turn on a certain channel. Harry’s face had greeted them when they did so, and it was just so surreal -- Liam wondered if it would be just as weird, if not weirder, to watch himself on telly in a few weeks. He and Louis were scheduled to do some promotional work of their own, which was not something Liam was looking forward to.
The interview was fairly typical (though Niall was enthralled anyway), and then it got weirder than just seeing his boyfriend on screen.
“So as I understand it,” the interviewer was saying in a light Swedish accent, “you’re currently dating the new Doctor Who?”
“I am,” said Harry, smiling wide.
Niall looked at him and Liam belatedly realised that, oh, they were talking about him. That was just -- that was so weird, it was the icing on top of the weirdness cake.
“And how is that going? Had any adventures yet?”
“It’s going good, yeah. We just get on really well and everything, so,” Harry said in his interview voice. Then he dropped it, expression turning fond. “Adventures not so much, but last week we found a kitten, right, and I kid you not, it was stuck in a tree. So, Li, being the hero that he is, rescued it.” Niall shot Liam a disgusted look, but Liam was too hooked on Harry’s words to care. “Yeah, he’s perfect for the role, as you can tell. He’s just -- such a good guy.” Liam felt his heart grow three sizes, like the Grinch or something. He didn’t know Harry thought all that about him.
Jumping on the chance to talk about something so popular with someone so famous, the man asked Harry if he’d been on set, what he thought about the new companion, if he was going to be watching during the tour.
“Oh, I’ll definitely be watching. I mean, I would be no matter what, but the opportunity to make innuendos about his sonic screwdriver is just too good to pass up,” Harry laughed and Niall choked on his chicken. “I’ve been around the set a couple of times, yeah, but I haven’t gotten into the TARDIS just yet.”
“Maybe when you get home,” suggested the Swedish guy.
Harry cocked his head, smiling. “Maybe. Lou’s pretty protective of it, so.”
“Lou? You mean Louis Tomlinson?”
Honestly, it felt like Liam’s heart skipped a beat. Which really wasn’t healthy -- he already had kidney problems, he didn’t need a heart one to go with it, thanks.
“I do.”
“And what do you think of him? Is he good, as a companion? Good enough to last another series?”
He was, Liam thought fiercely. He was good enough to outlast Liam on the show, but he wasn’t going to, because the hired screen-testers had talked too much about the rise in homoeroticism this series and the showrunners’ response was to bring in yet another pretty young girl. It was -- it was fucking ridiculous, frankly, but whatever. Liam wasn’t thinking about Louis if he could help it.
Harry answered carefully, so as not to give anything away. “I love Louis, he’s great. Wonderful, yeah. I’ve watched him do his thing and he’s got some serious talent. I think that, even when he’s done with Doctor Who, he won’t have any trouble finding a job.”
“You think he really believes that?” Niall asked as the interview was steered back to the topic of Harry’s album.
“Yeah,” Liam said, watching Harry flick his hair back and laugh. “Yeah, I think he does.”
“Do you --” Niall was unusually hesitant, fiddling with his fork, and Liam had to put an arm around him before he continued. “Do you think so too? I mean, do you think Lou will be all right?”
If there was one thing about Louis that Liam was 100% certain about, it was his talent. “I really, really do, Nialler.”
“Me too,” said Niall, and that was the end of that.
“We don’t want you to be surprised again,” said Sharon, one of the Big Cheeses, as she handed over a portfolio. The photograph was cute, and her credentials were better than Liam was expecting, but this ‘Eleanor’ just wouldn’t be as good a companion as Louis, hands down. (It kind of worried him that he was thinking that way, because he and Louis still weren’t speaking outside of scripted lines and if he was lucky he would have another companion after Eleanor, but the fact of the matter was that the TARDIS would feel empty without Louis’ vibrant presence.)
Why hadn’t anyone warned Liam that long distance kind of sucked?
Even aside from Harry being a popstar and moving countries faster than Niall changed his socks and girls throwing themselves at his feet and everything, it was just strange to wake up without bacon cooking, and Liam often threw an arm out in his sleep to pull Harry close when nothing was there.
The short version was that he missed his boyfriend, and texting/tweeting/skyping/calling just didn’t feel the same. He couldn’t pinch Harry’s cheeks or feel the warmth of him, and that was -- that was all Liam had of him, really. His face was world-famous, along with his voice, and a lot of his super-fans knew more about him than Liam did, but Liam could touch him. He could wrap his arms around Harry, listen to his heartbeat, play with his hair, but now he couldn’t because Harry was in sodding Australia.
Niall was helping as much as he could, and Liam thought that by the end of it all he might owe Niall his firstborn, since now he was trying to be there for Liam and fill the Harry-void along with the Louis-void.
“I’m not snogging you, though,” Niall said.
“That’s too bad,” Liam said. “I was really hoping for some Horan kisses.”
“Well, you’ll have to wait just that much longer.” Niall shrugged, returning to his chicken. They were eating at Liam’s after a long day of filming on location, too tired and lazy to do anything but swing by a fast-food place.
Harry would’ve -- he would’ve had dinner waiting, or he’d be in the middle of cooking, Liam guessed. He loved watching Harry cook, because he got super intense about it all, whisking like he was whisking for England and not realising how silly he looked with flour smudges on his cheeks. God, he missed Harry -- it was like a physical ache.
“I miss Haz,” said Liam, and Niall nodded in understanding. “And I wish Louis would talk to me.”
“Ah, well,” Niall said. He was suddenly very interested in his chicken, though Liam couldn’t tell if it was because he was hiding something or because he was being Niall. “Give it time.”
That should’ve been the last of it, but Liam was frustrated. His boyfriend was in Sydney and he was getting a new co-star for next year and Louis was always there at the back of his mind, making quips about his day and peering over his glasses like he was trying to figure Liam out.
“I just,” he said, pausing until Niall looked up. “I know I shouldn’t have kept the thing with Harry from him. He told me everything and I -- I know I shouldn’t have, but is it really worth shutting me out? I’ve apologised already, but it’s like he just... I don’t know. I just know I miss him, and it pisses me off.” He took a drink of his soda just to stop himself from babbling on.
“Is that what you think this is about?” Niall asked.
“What else would it be about?”
Niall regarded him for a long moment, then sighed and picked up a drumstick. “Give it time.”
It was Louis’ last day. There’d been a kind of party, with cake and streamers, and Lisa begged Louis not to cry because he had to still do a couple close-ups after lunch. He cried anyway, and it went against all of Liam’s instincts not to gather him up in his arms and shield him from view.
“I’m going to miss this,” Louis said shakily. “All of this. All of you.”
He very purposefully didn’t look Liam’s way.
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