fic; a million different people
summary: It’s like being held underwater, like having tape stuck over your mouth, like having a gun to your head and being told that you speak and you’re dead. Dead man walking, ticking time bomb, candle’s burning at both ends; it’s burning out. Harry can't breathe and no one can see and it's killing him. He lets the world know in the only way he knows how - by printing it on his skin.
notes/warnings: g rating basically, i don't even think i swore? maybe once? ha. so this is just a bit of a thing about harry's tattoos. i'm not claiming that this is definite or these are the legit reasons and meanings behind each one. I just like the ideas. I don't own Harry (regardless of how much I want to believe I do...) and I won't ever really know how he feels or so just take this as fiction unless it ever somehow gets proven. a little bit of larry but not a lot. about 3000 words.
*****
I can’t change.
It’s funny because a few simple words inked into skin have the potential to cause a riot. And Harry knows that every time he adds to the list of permanent writings on his left arm the theories of what and who for and why will run rampage through the minds of millions of fans. Most of them will say it’s about Louis, and it frustrates him. Because they don’t see, they don’t understand that he’s trying so hard to tell them what he never really can.
That he’s trapped. So very trapped, caught up in fame and management and a hundred different lives already lived out by the tender age of eighteen.
There are a hundred million things Harry knows he could say that would land him in hot water. Put his career on the line. Put his four best friends’ careers on the line. There are a hundred different ways he could infuriate his management and a thousand ways to upset the fans and it has been made very clear to him that he’s not to say anything that might cause problems.
It’s like being held underwater, like having tape stuck over your mouth, like having a gun to your head and being told that you speak and you’re dead.
Dead man walking, ticking time bomb, candle’s burning at both ends; it’s burning out.
-
And one day he’s watching Zayn getting his latest ink when he realizes he has a way of speaking, a way to tell everybody what he’s really thinking; a way that no one can take away from him without slicing it from his skin.
He just has to do it right.
If he’s just subtle enough maybe the smart ones will catch on. Maybe they’ll understand. Maybe he can finally have someone really understand, really want to help. Maybe someone will finally hear the ticking that’s been going on inside, counting down until the clock stops and the earth shakes and he implodes.
-
Everyone thinks Harry’s ‘the dumb one’. He knows they all make fun of him, talk slowly and say ‘um’ and ‘like’ and ‘basically’ after every other word. He knows most of them do it in an affectionate sort of way. He knows they don’t mean any harm; they see the cute side.
What they don’t see is how he can feel his mind racing so fast it pulses through every vein and artery and nerve ending in his body, so fast that if he stopped to really process everything he’d probably collapse. So fast it hurts, so fast he can’t breathe, so fast that he can’t even keep it together long enough to speak like any other normal human being. So fast that putting a sentence together requires every bit of his focus and energy and he has to slow everything down just to get something out.
Harry’s never told this to anyone except Louis, who tries to speak for him when he can just to save Harry the emotional exhaustion.
They all think he’s the dumb one because he speaks slowly, but they couldn’t be further from the truth. And for the first time he’s glad, because most people would never think him smart enough to come up with something so elaborate. They’ll all assume ‘the obvious’.
Harry turns to Zayn’s tattoo guy.
‘All right, you’ve got yourself another customer.’
-
Simple. He has to start out simple.
He knows the first can’t have any sort of deeper meaning, or they’ll assume all of them do. Any and all tattoos from then on will mean something deeper, and he can’t have that.
He searches through his racing thoughts for most simple, yet still aesthetically pleasing symbol he can think of, something he wouldn’t mind to have on his skin for the rest of his life, eventually landing on a star. A star will do.
Straight forward. Uncomplicated. A simple symbol.
‘Is that all?’ Zayn asks, and Harry knows he’s slightly suspicious. ‘I thought you’d want something more...’
‘More meaningful?’ Harry suggests for him, and Zayn nods.
'Yeah. Something like that.’ He says, and Harry only grins. Zayn shrugs. End of conversation.
-
Harry doesn’t exactly have a plan. The star wasn’t the plan, rather, it set him up for a potential plan - should he ever need it.
He first needs it in June, for a couple of reasons - firstly as a reminder to himself to keep putting up with his own mind for the sake of everybody else. But secondly, and most importantly, to send a message to a few select people. He’s been reading everywhere that the band won’t last much longer. People are saying it, whispering about him leaving, whispering about him wanting a solo career. He knows it. It’s everywhere. They’re whispering about the lasting potential, maybe they should just quit while they’re on top. Go out in style. Quit before it goes downhill.
But they don’t see that the band is his whole life, Louis is his whole life. He knows he’d be rubbish without any of them. He’d never leave, or quit before things got bad, hell, even if things did get bad he’d probably still be there singing with those four boys and hoping and praying that maybe things would turn around.
-
Sweet Disposition. It’s always been a favourite of Harry’s, and a particular line stands out. Or rather, stood out, until he did a quick Google search and discovered he’d been singing the wrong words for about a year.
But the words he thought were true are all the words he needs.
He leaves the tattoo place with a small phrase just underneath the star.
Won’t stop till we surrender...
He asks the tattoo artist to post a photo of it somewhere, anywhere, as long as it ends up on the internet. The guy seems a little confused but Harry assures him he just wants the world to see what a good job he’s done. It’s all to help his reputation. The guy buys it. The photo is on instagram and within the hour the whole world’s seeing these words forever on his skin.
-
Of course, the immediate reaction from an ever growing group of fans is that the tattoo must be about Louis. And it is, but not in the way that they all seem to think.
It’s about Louis, but it’s also about Zayn and Niall and Liam, and the band and their jobs and their whole damn lives. It’s about never giving up. Or giving in. It’s for all the whispering voices trying to get inside their heads and end it all.
After a few hours of scrolling through pages of tweets and tumblr posts that people don’t seem to think he has access to, he’s seen at least ten people pick up on this fact and just knowing that they know; that they understand, soothes the racing in his mind. And that’s enough for now.
-
He has to admit - he gets the timing of the next one very, very wrong.
Harry knows he can’t always be sending messages or people might start imploding trying to figure out what everything means, and decides he should alternate between important messages and more light hearted nonsense.
The fans already think he’s a bit silly, a bit childish and all over the place, and he probably is, so he asks Louis to write ‘Hi’ on a piece of paper and by the end of that day the redness is already going down around the two new letters on his inner arm. Louis thinks it’s hilarious that Harry’s got ‘Hi’ in his handwriting on his arm, saying he’ll regret it, but Harry simply reminds him that they’ve got more than enough money to afford to laser it off later.
And it would have been silly, and funny, and all of those other things Harry had hoped, if he hadn’t fucked it up by doing it at exactly the wrong moment. If he’d bothered to check the rumour mill on the ‘Larry Stylinson’ shenanigans prior to that day maybe things would have gone differently.
He’s smart, but not smart enough, apparently, because within the hour talk of him and Louis has exploded.
It’s in his handwriting! They’re all screeching and suddenly the silly little innocent ‘Hi’ isn’t so silly and innocent anymore. Harry wonders for a moment if he’s blown it; if this has ruined everything. If it’s now obvious that he uses his skin as a personal message board. Has he blown the subtlety of it all? The rumours gain more and more momentum, slowly starting to spiral out of control. It’s in his handwriting! It must be true! They’re in love!
-
Louis sighs hopelessly when Harry explains the situation to him and Harry can feel that nagging aching sensation in his chest that never seems to go away since meeting Louis growing stronger now at his reaction.
Harry never bothered to hide his feelings for Louis; in fact he’d even gone to the trouble in the beginning to make it painfully obvious. But Louis, Harry’s little Boo that’s supposed to be older and wiser and smarter but never really shows it can’t ever seem to make up his mind.
They’d tried to talk about it once before; where they stood with each other, but it only ended with Harry in tears and Louis ready to throw himself off of the nearest skyscraper for upsetting the poor boy.
It was best, for them, not to talk about it. Just be.
They decide upon a plan. Harry is not to say anything because he’s a god awful liar and would most likely screw the whole damn thing up. Louis is better at lying, though he still isn’t sure if he’s really lying or just confused. They come up with a statement that Louis will memorize and regurgitate whenever he’s asked about the two of them.
Harry lets his mind race and run away as Louis speaks so he never has to hear him say ‘we’re just really good friends.’
-
A solid week or more of drama later and it’s not calming down like they all thought it would.
It’s gone from rumours of him and Louis to Rebecca Ferguson suing their management team and Louis almost getting into a fight with her that Harry is certain was a setup. Fans are going mad, and not just passionate like before, but actually mad. They don’t believe anything. Everything is something they’ve been forced to say and to an extent they’re right, but not quite in the right way. They’re convinced that Modest are evil and covering up the ‘relationship’ and it’s all gone so far Harry wants to sit in a corner and cry. It’s around about now that he receives his first (or at least, sees his first) death threat telling him to ‘LEAVE LOUIS AND ELEANOR’S RELATIONSHIP ALONE OR ELSE YOU DONT EVEN DESERVE TO BE IN THE BAND’ and it shocks him because these girls are supposed to be his fans.
Management call Louis in to meetings a lot more than usual, and sometimes Harry’s called in too, and they just rave and rant and sometimes rage and by the end of it all Louis is different. Harry sees the change and it’s frightening.
Part of the answer they’d agreed to feed anyone that asked about the two of them included a phrase about them feeling uncomfortable in public. It was a silly lie to try and guilt people; make them feel bad for supposedly tearing them apart.
The terrifying part is that all Harry can do is sit back and watch as Louis slowly withdraws into himself and suddenly the silly lie isn’t a lie anymore, it’s just silly. And they’re barely speaking.
And it hurts.
-
They film new videos, and Louis won’t be anywhere near him. Harry tries his hardest to position himself near the boy for photos and appearances but Louis just won’t be with him like he used to be. He shrugs away and avoids talking directly to him and just won’t engage.
Everything’s falling down.
-
Management asks Harry to make sure that he’s seen with a lot of different girls over the coming weeks, as it’ll be important to try and keep up the act. It’ll be important to slow down the rumour steam train. Make yourself available. Make them think they have a chance.
All Harry can wonder is if he’ll ever just get to be himself. He’s been the womanizer, he’s been the flirt, he’s been the one night stand, the kid with the cougar girlfriend, the man whore and the home wrecker and just about every other degrading sort of personality in existence, but it’s not him, it hasn’t ever been, and it’s like in that song, something about a million different people from one day to the next.
I can’t change.
That night he lies in bed and drinks vodka straight in small sips even though it burns like hell and he listens to Bittersweet Symphony on repeat for at least three hours.
And it’s funny because the song is sweet; the music doesn’t sound sad and the title is completely accurate for the nature of the song in itself. And it’s Harry in a nutshell because he’s always smiling and stopping for photographs and laughing and trying his hardest to be nice and funny like Louis but at the end of the day he knows he’s the result of a large team of people that live for the overall objective of making money and they dress him and tell him who to talk to and what to say and he knows he’s trapped, caught up in the whirlwind, and he already feels too far gone.
He imagines that if he could slow his mind enough to get decent words out, the words of that song might just be something he’d want to say. Everything he’s ever wanted to say but never can.
-
The next day, he pulls himself from his bed, pushes the hangover to the back of his mind, and heads down to the closest tattoo place he can find. He leaves with ‘I can’t change’ written across his wrist in plain, readable text, and prays that someone might see the truth.
But of course it’s never that easy.
At first, most people assume it’s a statement serving as a reminder to keep himself grounded. And it could easily be, but it isn’t. And people start to pick up on it, slowly beginning to question the wording, the blunt nature of ‘can’t change’. People tweet him, saying he could if he wanted to, and he thinks if only they knew. They question and question until someone suggests that it has to be a proclamation of his love for Louis, yet again, simply because it’s in the same place he used to wear his Leeds bracelet. That he can’t change his feelings. And it could easily be that too, because he doesn’t intend on trying to change his feelings for Louis, but that’s not the point.
They’re missing the point.
He’s watching it all unfold and they’re all missing the point, they all think it’s about bloody Louis again and it’s not, it couldn’t be further from it and he can’t just sit back and let his mind run in circles and he just has to do something before he goes insane.
-
One tweet, one small tweet to an account that isn’t his but one he’s had access to for a long time. One that people began to think he never bothered with anymore. One tweet to tip them off and it’s a test, he’s testing all of them, every single fan that thinks they know him; well this is the test. Can they take the hint? Do they see? One tweet and if no one gets it he’s giving up now.
‘Bitter Sweet Symphony.’
-
The response is slow. People are too preoccupied to notice one small tweet from an account that isn’t his.
But one by one, a small number of people start to talk. They begin to question the three little words that make no sense; that appear entirely out of context.
It takes about an hour before Harry finally notices someone’s bothered to Google the phrase and find the lyrics. They announce that they have a theory, and amongst a small few, it takes off. More people start realizing, saying it makes sense because of course Harry would use a song lyric, of course he would, it’s not like he hasn’t done it before.
He sees one girl say that if the words are from those lyrics then her heart is breaking for him, and that she knows there’s more to him than people think. And it makes him smile for the first time in what feels like a century because someone on this bloody planet finally understands. Someone gets the point.
He contemplates trying to reach out to her just to see if she’d sit down and talk with him for a while, but settles with knowing that there’s at least one person who really understands.
-
Minds are incredible things, and the world is an incredible place, and the music industry is incredibly brutal. And it’s more than any eighteen year old should have to handle, especially one with a hyperactive thought process, and most days Harry feels like he just wants to throw it all away and crawl into a corner and hide. Because it’s easy to be isolated and you can fall as far as you dare and feel alive as you tumble blindly through the darkness.
Sometimes it only takes one to reach out and catch you, and for Harry it would usually be Louis, except that apparently that’s done with. Or at least temporarily on hold. For Harry, all it takes is one person to tie him down and slow his mind and delay the time bomb for a little while longer; one person to reach out and understand and know that everything is not ok.
One person has seen. People are seeing. They’re un-sticking the tape from his lips and lifting him out of the water and tackling the guy that’s holding the gun and giving him a hug and telling him everything will be ok and letting him breathe again and maybe Harry thinks, maybe one day when there’s enough of them they’ll do the speaking for him but for now it’s enough to know that he’s understood by just one.