Larry - Celebrity Discount, (1/?)
When Louis is fifteen some twat calls him "princess". It's not the first time, but this time he's picking Lottie up from school and the offender is possibly twelve years old. Louis' pretty sure when he went to primary school he didn't know shit about homosexuality, let alone slur words. He'd been too busy with classes or eating glue or whatever; he didn't make a habit of walking around the schoolyard calling fifteen-year-olds "fags" or "princesses".
He quickly discovers Lottie is as naive as he'd been. They run out of the school (a race, he tells her as he leaves his dignity behind), and when they stop she's still giggling. "Princess Boo!"
It's his sister, and he knows she has no idea what she's saying, but he still feels this tightness in his throat. It's probably the running. "Don't call me that."
She looks at him with all the innocence of tiny blonde eight-year-old girls. "Why?"
"It's not nice."
"Why?" Thankfully it's not the beginning of an endless cycle of questions he can't answer. Just an incredibly awkward conversation with his little sister. "I want to be princess when I grow up. You can be princess too."
"How can I be a princess?" he asks too sharply. "Even if I somehow marry Princess Gemma I'd only be Duke of Edinburgh or something."
Lottie rolls her eyes with such skill it might be genetic. "You idiot, if you marry Prince Harry you could be Princess of Wales."
Louis swears. Mentally. He really thought he could avoid this discussion. "Uh, that's not really. Uh. Okay, so like, there's - homosexualism - when a boy - "
"I know what it is," she interrupts him, thank god. "I watch telly, you know. I'm still right. If you go into Prince Harry's closet he could fall in love with you and then you'll be princess. But I won't visit Wales. They're not nice to sheep."
Louis would like to comment on all the plot holes in that statement. He settles for, "What on Earth do you watch on telly?"
She shrugs and actually starts skipping away.
***
There are one or two Disney movies where children's wishes affect the universe and Destiny. This may be one of those tales.
***
When Louis is nineteen his life turns upside-down. Simon Cowell puts him in a band with Zayn Malik and Liam Payne, they become instantly, amazingly and inexplicably popular, they make it to the X Factor finale and almost immediately go on tour. In 2011 he sings for thousands of people with his two new brothers, and thinks he might as well be in heaven.
When Prince Harry is seventeen his life turns upside-down. He graduates from school and before he starts attending college to take art or whatever princes study, he goes on a trip to Italy. His Instagram account is full of Vespas and bracelets. The rags are full of pictures of him snogging Italian boys.
It starts with blurry shots in The Sun. It continues with in-depth Guardian analyses about why the Prince "turned gay" (the messy divorce of Queen Anne and Prince Des, being the youngest sibling and, with the Act of Settlement amended, not succeeding the throne, how he's declared he won't join the RAF and began the "moral decline of the British Crown"). It doesn't really end. 2011 is not a good year for the Prince of Wales. Louis, as objectively as a British subject that's been in love with the prince since he was ten, thinks that if a royal gets so much shit, a pop star can take it when his management specifically requests he won't "make any claims" himself.
Only, then Harry turns eighteen and easier prey to reporters, and the first time he's being interviewed on the BBC he comes out of the closet. He just. Does that.
Louis' arranged a grand viewing party at his flat (party of Liam), because fuck it, any self-respecting Englishman should be up-to-date with palace gossip, and that means tuning into the occasional interview on the telly. He thought that the strangest thing would be that he himself had been interviewed on the very same couch as the Prince of Wales. He'd been wrong. The strangest thing is that the interviewer quite elegantly brings up the Italy Shitstorm, and Prince Harry sort of blinks, then smiles devastatingly and says, "Yeah, so basically, I fancy blokes too?" and Louis swears he hears the neighbours dropping mugs. It's not just his hands that have gone numb.
That's where the comparison to Prince Harry ends, really. Because the Prince of Wales is out of the closet and Louis' in a fake relationship with a model.
To his credit, something unprecedented occurs the first time they meet with management after the royal coming out. When they tell off Zayn and Liam again about "Ziam Mayne", Louis tells them off right back, and the moment they say the two magic words (Social Climate), Louis says, "We have a bisexual fucking prince, Jesus Christ, the icecaps are melting", and tweets that he and Eleanor have gone their separate ways.
He doesn't dare to do more. And sometimes he reads the horror stories online, and remembers being fifteen and picking Lottie up from school. Sometimes he thinks about how much power they possess - two thirds of the world's biggest boy band being on the queer side of the Kinsey scale - how much they could help people, teenagers. He doesn't dare to do more.
Louis meets Harry for the first time on New Year's Eve, 2013.
Nick has invited the entire band to the "sickest party this side of the pond", and Louis really couldn't resist. They drink a lot, quickly and not at all thoughtfully, so Louis thinks he's earned the right to pin all his problems on alcohol. Not that he's much of a drinker, or that he has that many problems, but there's always some blaming to do when he dances with men. And it usually isn't Zayn's skills as a DJ. The floor is packed enough that an innocent bystander couldn't possibly spot who Louis' dancing with and who to tag on Twitter.
When a group of teenage girls starts circling him, Louis rolls his eyes. It's an acceptable response - Liam is the one who smiles and hands out autographs and pictures and small pieces of his soul. Louis' worked quite hard to brand himself as ‘The Bitchy One’, ‘The Hard To Get One’ or whatever. He just doesn't have the patience. Maybe he had, once, before he started getting stalked in lifts or cornered in public toilets.
Of course he feels like an absolute shit when he realises the girls aren't trying to approach him, but rather someone directly behind him.
It's nothing compared to how he feels when he turns around. He gasps way too loudly, as always when he's drunk and - well, basically always. "You look like Prince Harry!" he yells. Louis is an obnoxious drunk.
Prince Harry makes his way toward him, probably to make sure he's heard right, and then he just pulls out this movie-star, absolutely Earth-shattering Colgate smile out of nowhere. "And you look like Louis Tomlinson."
Louis' caught off-guard; from boys he usually gets "that guy from One Direction", maybe "Louis" just because it's a memorable enough name (right in the middle between Liam and Zayn). Well, there were also the boys that wanted in his pants. Wanted some of this. This Thang. He's extremely drunk and thinks he sees what's happening here. "S'your sister a fan or summat?"
The Prince's smile broadens even further, and he's wearing this incredibly stylish shirt and he's incredibly curly and Louis might incredibly add him to the Thangs category. "She is, surprisingly enough."
Louis considers taking offence. "What, she's not a teenager?"
The Prince looks gobsmacked. "How much have you had, Louis?"
He's not very well going to lie to a person who looks like the Prince of Wales. "This side of completely pissed, Person who Looks Like the Prince of Wales."
Suddenly something happens - Zayn's apparently ditching the mixer and picking up a mic. An insane wave of clapping, shouting and actual waving floods the floor, and suddenly Louis finds himself flush against the prince's chest. The prince who is ridiculously tall. Like, he looks shorter on telly. Also, his hands are enormous. Louis knows this because the prince has his hand on Louis' hip to ostensibly keep him from getting trampled, and his stupid hand nearly covers the entire expanse of his lower back. The prince leans down to say in Louis' ear, "Do you mind taking a picture? My sister's gonna need proof when I tell her I met you at a party she ditched."
Louis shrugs. If there's someone he wouldn't mind falling prey to in lifts or public toilets, it's tall, fit boys. He lays a hand on the prince's hip and stretches up to say, "You'll post it on Twitter?"
"Definitely."
Louis rolls his eyes, mostly for show. "Then I'll need your number. In return for the humiliation."
He's usually more careful. The fact he doesn't care about closets as much as he used to doesn't mean he's not in one, and the fact the band's more popular than ever doesn't mean they're infallible. Usually: when he's more sober and less in need of a shag.
Instead of answering, the Prince of Wales pulls out his iPhone and presses up against him. Louis has a bad feeling when the flash nearly blinds him. He blames the pre-gaming he's done with Zayn. "Happy?" he shouts over the crowd.
Prince Harry shamelessly smirks at him while shoving his phone back in his pocket and pulling out a pen and a piece of paper. Which is just so ridiculous in this setting that Louis has to let out a laugh. It dies a nasty death when the prince's huge hand covers Louis' arse - to put the paper in his back pocket. "Cheeky," Louis comments.
The prince laughs. "You're gonna flip your shit tomorrow."
"Let me guess, because you're gonna fuck me so - "
Suddenly Louis' being dragged away, in the complete opposite direction he is destined to go, and in five seconds he manages to lose Prince Harry in the sea of people. "Li, didn't you see I was talking to someone?"
"Oh, sorry," Liam says, though continues to drag Louis toward the stage.
Louis tries to struggle. Unsuccessfully, as always. "I didn't come here for a show, mate."
"Zayn asked for some help," Liam justifies.
Louis looks around. No sign of his prince. His sigh is filled with suffering and woe. "Fine, I guess."
***
Harry claps along as Louis Tomlinson and Liam Payne climb to the stage. He looks around, at first to track Niall down, and then to marvel at the fact everyone's eyes are on the stage and not him.
He's so glad he hadn't stayed in with Gemma at Clarence House, both because she and Will would have ignored him completely, and because he's at one of Nick's parties. Surrounded by celebrities, Harry can blend in, as much as a prince can. When he was a kid, and again when he was seventeen, he wondered what is was like out there, to be normal, without bodyguards or paps everywhere, without the papers declaring a national crisis every time he slipped and fell (and there were a lot of them; Harry might be Sophia of Hanover's clumsiest descendant).
Now he's been on enough humanitarian missions to know he's fucking lucky. Today he's not the Crown Prince. Besides, he's happy as long as the people he loves are happy. And Gemma's about to marry the love of her life, so Harry's over the moon.
Thinking of that reminds him to send Gemma the picture he took with Louis. For a moment he wants to add that Louis' an outrageous flirt and, as Harry's suspected, as gay as they come, but he doesn't really want to make her jealous. And he's a good guy and all that.
Also "you're gonna fuck me" has been replaying in his mind ever since Louis pressed his lips to Harry's ear and he hasn't really gotten over it. He doesn't even get a chance to; Louis hops on stage athletically, despite being smashed out of his mind, and his horribly blue eyes reflect the spotlight. He's short and tan and his features are sharp and Harry thinks he's more beautiful than anybody in the club right now.
Instead of singing one of their songs, One Direction starts to sing Teenage Dirtbag. The crowd is so loud that Harry sings along at the top of his lungs, and there's something so relieving about being part of an audience. Louis seems to feel the same sort of relief, only in the spotlight, with the band. He smiles freely and laughs with Liam and Zayn. They look like they've been together for ages, rather than two years.
It's worth saying Harry isn't actually a crazy fan. He is the Prince of Wales and second in line to the throne. Also, he prefers his music much more indie. He still feels emotionally invested in this stupid boy band because it helped him get through 2011.
When the Perth Agreement was introduced to the prime ministers, Gemma and he didn't speak for a month. That had never happened before, but then again, Harry'd never been bumped down the line of succession before, so.
He'd always known, even when his granddad was still the King of England, that he would be king one day. And when he was little he thought it was fantastic, thought he could wear a crown and enact laws that would let him stay up past bedtime and command Gemma to eat his veggies. And then he grew up and his etiquette lessons and responsibilities slapped him in the face. He'd learned that in order to be a good king he had to be a good prince, and a good son, and a good brother, and before he realised it, his entire life became dictated by others' wishes. Or rather, his wish to please others. Harry didn't dare disappointing his mum, let alone an entire commonwealth.
Then it was announced the UK's proposed legislation would be published in 2012. Harry knew the entire kingdom was in turmoil, not to mention his mum or sister, but for the first time in his life he felt like it was his turn to wallow. Because it didn't feel like a weight being lifted off his shoulders (and directly onto his sister's head). It felt like losing a part of himself, like he had no idea what he was supposed to do anymore, like his character had been changed in the middle of the book and no one bothered to warn him. It wasn't like he thought he'd drop off the radar; he was still the Queen's son. But he was no longer the crown prince, and he thought that ignoring Gemma would allow him to ignore his identity crisis.
Considering it was the most dramatic emergency to happen to the crown since his parents' divorce, Harry met the entire fleet of publicists at the palace's disposal, got to hear instructions regarding his "rebranding". The only good thing to come of it was meeting Niall, one of the publicity minions who may or may not be an Irish lord himself.
Niall spoke like royalty, but the first time Harry saw him he was lighting a spliff in Buckingham Palace and leaving oily handprints all over the queen's most posh settee. When he saw Harry he cursed with a brogue, glancing miserably between the joint in one hand and the crisps in the other as if trying to decide what he should hide. Harry burst out laughing, not bothering to cover his mouth like his tutors had told him to do a trillion times, and said, "Hey, don't worry about it." After a moment he said, "I'm Harry."
Niall laughed, stuck the joint behind his ear and reached out a hand to Harry. "Niall Horan, one of the prince's slaves."
"I hear he gives you lot a hard time," Harry commented, sitting down next to Niall.
"And I heard that behind closed doors he smokes up like us commoners," Niall said, passing Harry the joint. He'd watched Skins, heard about the declining morals of teenagers, about peer pressure and bad influences. Harry really couldn't blame the teenagers if the bad influence was as charming and harmless-looking as Niall.
After the first hit he coughed for five minutes, and Niall laughed at him shamelessly until Paul burst into the room red-faced. For a moment it looked like he was debating performing the Heimlich on Harry, or strangling him barehanded. Then he spotted the joint and paled.
Niall quickly hid the bud in his pocket, much too late, and Harry smiled at Paul with all the grace he could muster. "You won't tell my mum, right?"
Paul considered that for a few moments, then said, "The last thing Her Majesty needs to hear is that both her children smoke on their free time, Sire."
"Ah, sorry 'bout that," Niall said.
Harry stared at him. "You gave Gemma drugs? Those are bad for you."
Paul politely looked away and didn't comment. Niall raised an eyebrow. "She needed it, mate."
Harry got it. "I need to talk to her. Is she still in Spain?"
Before Paul could answer, Niall said, "I can fly you out."
"What?"
"To Spain."
"You can fly a jet?"
Niall shrugged. "I also have a lot of shoes."
Paul cleared his throat. "Your Highness, Princess Gemma returned to London last week."
So Harry said goodbye to Niall, got into the car, and stumbled into Clarence House. Gemma looked up at him with huge eyes the moment he found her.
"I'm sorry," he said immediately.
"I'm sorry," she replied.
"It's not your fault."
"It's not yours, either."
He just hugged her, and somehow they ended up watching the first few episodes of the new X Factor. Usually he only watched these shows for the auditions, but Gemma kept him hostage all the way to the live shows. When One Direction performed he couldn't stop giggling, mainly because Gemma was clapping like an idiot.
"I understand you have a favourite?"
Gemma elbowed him. "I just find them talented."
"And fit."
She buried her face in Harry's shoulder, making him laugh harder. "Shut up," she mumbled.
"Well, they are. Fit," he said, eyes drawn to the oldest one, Louis Tomlinson, with the fringe and the blue eyes and the cheekbones. He almost missed Gemma peeking at him curiously.
He'd never really needed to come out to her; she sort of just... got him. If not, there's One Direction to blame. She put her head back on his shoulder and said, "I quite liked Spain."
He started playing with her hair. When they were little he loved to braid it, before their maid would catch them, sigh, and begin to restyle the princess' hair. "I'm glad, Gem."
"Maybe you should get out of England too. Meet new people." His hand froze, and when he looked down Gemma was already looking back.
There was subtext in her words, her eyes, but Harry's very straight-forward and it took him a moment to understand. "Uh, where would you suggest?"
"Italy has very fit lads, if memory serves."
His heart leaped to his throat, and he snapped his eyes back to the television. He couldn't believe he'd avoided Gemma for a month. "After the series finale, yeah?"
She curled into his side and he almost sighed in relief. "Sure. But can you vote for my boys?"
"Only if you let me keep Wales." He blurted it out, and for a moment wondered if it was too soon, for her, for him, for this moment with this stupid boy band on telly.
Fortunately Gemma was the best sister in the world, so she just laughed. "Sorted." (By miraculous bureaucracy, he actually got to keep Wales.)
When he retold all that to Niall over a spliff, Niall chuckled and said, "If you're really into music now, I've got someone you should meet."
He introduced him to Nick Grimshaw, who introduced him to Ed Sheeran, and Harry sort of wanted to make all three of them his princesses because. They didn't want to be. And they knew they were much cooler than him despite him being a prince and all. (And sometimes Harry couldn't understand how the public didn't see him for the goofy, spotty eighteen-year-old he was, and sometimes he realised most people saw the monarchy as an outdated money-waster and him an inbred dick, and sometimes he wanted to give it all away and didn't know how.)
When One Direction was eliminated Gemma and he threw a pity party, during which Gemma threatened to issue a royal warrant for Simon Cowell's head, and Harry said he wasn't sure that was legal.
"You're just jealous of my love of Payne," she said.
"I hope you end up alone so I'd still have a chance to succeed the throne," he spat back, mock-offended. (Obviously six months later she got engaged to a gorgeous student she met at St Andrews.)
A day later he convinced his mum that his mental stability depended on a trip abroad, then convinced Niall to take him out to Italy, and then there was the whole coming out of the closet thing. But what's important is that when One Direction released an album, he bought it for Gemma. It was a mistake. She made him listen to the entire thing with her, and the singles were stuck in his head for weeks.
Anyway. Harry heard One Direction's first album, and voted for them on the X Factor, but he is not a crazy fan and he did not look up their shows on YouTube.
The New Year's party is the first time he's seen them on stage, and after hearing their clean songs on the album, it's sort of surprising how much they dick around in front of an audience. Laughing mid-song, missing the lyrics, talking shit.
Harry isn't a crazy fan, but for the duration of the impromptu show, he feels like one.
***
Louis wakes up the next day with a headache and a sinking feeling in his gut. He fumbles for his phone to check the time, only to find eight missed calls from Lottie. Halfway to a heart attack he sees she also sent him a text ("I have to hear about it on twitter???"), so he guesses nobody's at hospital.
When he clicks the link she's emailed him, he sort of wishes for that heart attack.
Prince Henry Edward Anthony Richard Styles posted a picture of himself and Louis. It might just be the least flattering picture of Louis online, but Louis' got an arm around his shoulder and Harry's a head taller than him and he barks out, "Zayn!" before dashing to the toilet.
"It was a nightmare, right? It didn't actually happen?" Louis whines when he jumps on Zayn's bed.
Zayn grunts like a wounded baby animal and tries to knock Louis off the bed. He rasps out, "Let me sleep twatbag."
"Zayn, I talked to Prince Harry last night. The Prince Harry. Chatted him up and everything. Accidentally." Louis is hysterical. It might be the effect of Lottie's hysteria. It might be because he hadn't recognised Prince Harry and it's the Tower for him.
"What I don't understand," Zayn says after a short struggle, during which Louis shares what he remembers from last night and somehow gets under the covers. "Is how you didn't know who he was. You've been following his Instagram since you were a little girl."
Louis strains for a spontaneous heart attack. "He didn't have an Instagram when I was a little girl, he opened it on 2010. Before it was cool, might I add."
"I hope you didn't tell your hipster prince that."
Louis sighs. "I don't remember what I told him, Zayn, that's the absolute worst part."
"I'm sure you were your usual kind and charming self."
Louis glares at him. They both know he hasn't been kind or charming in a while. Zayn smirks at him and Louis rolls out of bed to brush his teeth again.
He rings Lottie up around noon, and she answers after half a second. "If I'd known this is what would get you to pick - "
"Boo, seriously, tell me absolutely everything."
"About the sex?"
"Ew, no." Louis laughs at the distaste in her voice. Then it's his turn to be disgusted. "Actually, what does his-"
"Oh my god, we didn't have sex. We chatted a bit, I reckon, and then he took a picture of us."
"And what'd he say? What'd he look like? Was he really nice, or like, too posh and prince-y?"
Louis drinks half his tea and decides that lying would only get him into more trouble. "So I was a bit drunk."
Lottie swears. "Brilliant. You met our hero. And you don't remember what he said. Because you were plastered."
Louis feels like an idiot again. He definitely doesn't mention the fact he didn't recognise the prince and is facing execution. There's no point in making her cry before it's due. "I wasn't plastered, Jesus."
"At least did you get his autograph?"
Louis widens his eyes. He nearly spills his tea when he leaps from his chair like Spiderman. Thank fuck his clothes spend more time on the floor than the laundry machine. Louis is totally going to use this moment the next time Liam reprimands him for his mess of a flat. He finds his trousers from yesterday and gets a crumpled piece of paper out of the pocket, blinking when he sees it's not a phone number, but a short note. Hope the hangover isn't too bad. PS my sister really is a fan. Harry xx
"Lou?" Lottie asks. Right, still on the phone.
"There's an autograph!"
"Good. Mail it over, would you?"
Louis is about to agree, because what is he going to do with the Prince of Wales' autograph, but what comes out of his mouth is, "No, it's mine. But," he quickly adds, "I can tell you something top secret."
Lottie considers her options. Apparently curiosity wins out. "Well?"
"Princess Gemma is a fan of the band."
"Awesome. Can I post it?"
Louis thinks of the unflattering picture posted without his permission and the related piece posted on the Metro website this morning. "Definitely."
They chat for a few minutes, until Lottie says, "Lou, can I ask you something?"
"Yes. You're adopted."
"I'm serious, dickhead."
"Well?"
"When you're Prince of Wales will you still come 'round?"
Louis remembers her asking this when he first moved to London with Zayn and Liam to be a pop star. He doesn't see it changing anytime soon. "Don't worry. I'm not overly fond of sheep."
***
"Are you here to tell me off?" Harry asks when Niall comes into the room with a copy of The Sun.
"No, I was just at the loo," Niall explains, sitting next to Harry and folding up the paper.
Harry shrugs, and goes back to googling cat videos. He has a system when it comes to hangovers: strong tea and the Internet.
"Harry, I'm joking," Niall says, snorting at Harry's frown. "I'm with the PR monsters, remember? Why the fuck didn't you tell me you were gonna post a picture of you and Louis Tomlinson?"
"Well, it just sort of happened?" Harry folds his legs to his chest and bites his lip. "I didn't mean to get you into trouble."
Niall hits him upside the head. "Never mind that, have you seen the papers?"
Harry generally avoids papers. When he learned French, his tutor made him read Aujourd'hui en France every morning, until he started having political arguments with his mum. When he turned to English papers all he could see was gossip and bullshit about his mum, his sister and him. The tutor disappeared anyway after the Italy Shitstorm, so it's not really a good example. Anyway, "No."
He peeks at The Sun's cover page. British Nobility meets Royalty: Louis and Prince Harry shocking pic!
Okay, he hadn't seen that one coming. "What, um, what does it say?"
"You know, same shit they always say when you're within a kilometre of anyone attractive. It's like they forgot he's got a girlfriend."
"He doesn't though," Harry says, much too quickly. "I mean, I think I heard once he doesn't. Anymore."
Not that Niall cares. "Can you imagine what would happen if you do get on that?"
Harry smiles uncontrollably, and quickly covers his mouth. He never imagined, but if someone were to bring it up, he wouldn't really mind getting on Louis Tomlinson. "What?"
"Fucking hilarious. Forget Brangelina mate, you'd be the It Couple of the fucking century!"
Harry cracks up. Not that Niall's wrong, but it doesn't mean Harry imagines. Girlfriend or not, according to Wikipedia Louis' still in the closet, and Harry would never out someone. All the shit he's gone through at seventeen was worth it because - well, because he drew an insane amount of celebrities out, donated thousands to organisations like Stonewall and The Trevor Project, and he sort of became a role model. More selfishly, it was worth it because it had been his choice. Because when his old publicity team gave him shit for the Italy pictures he refused all their spins and said he couldn't lie to his people. Like, literally. He was a shit liar. His mum cried for ages, and at least half of it was because she was proud of him. Harry's proud of himself to this day. But he knows it's not for everyone.
All of this is irrelevant, of course, until he even gets near getting on Louis Tomlinson. "I don't think I'll woo him," he decides.
"Whatever," Niall says, stealing Harry's computer to show him a video of a tiger on catnip. Niall still amazes him.
"Like, I won't do it actively. I think." He's pretty sure he'll resist.
"I really don't give a shit, mate."
Part II