Letters to Larry

Harry wasn't sure how he'd gotten home. He often didn't, when he'd spent the whole night drinking. It was like some sort of Twilight Zone shit going on, because once Harry reached that point where the alcohol brought him into cold darkness, he saw nothing else, and when he did open his eyes, he was home. It was odd, but he decided that perhaps he shouldn't test it.

At least he didn't wake up laying in a swamp, or a giant pile of animal shit.

This morning, he was in his bedroom, his favorite room in his flat. It protected him from his worst enemy: The Goddamn Sun. When Harry moved into his new, snazzy flat about a year and a half ago, he'd come to the bitter realization that having a home that was seventy-percent windows, the fucking sun was something he would have trouble avoiding in the wee hours. Waking up the first real morning he'd slept in his new bedroom, he swore to God and all that was holy that the damned sun was trying to blind him as he was blasted with sunlight the moment he opened his eyes.

After one more day of waking up this way, he had been brought to the conclusion of going out and shopping for window shades for five hours. Trying to find shades that would were long enough for his five-meter tall walls, would retract and tract with a switch of some sort so Harry wouldn't have to do it himself, and would eliminate any form of sunlight wasn't exactly easy. Then after buying the curtains, he had to wait for them to be installed by people he'd hired since there was no way he could figure that shit out on his own. Plus, he'd probably set his flat on fire, or fall off of the ladder, trying to put the things up on every single fucking window.

He wasn't even sure how much he spent on securing darkness in his home. At least two thousand quid.

But nonetheless, it was so worth it. Every morning he woke up to darkness, not blasting sunlight, and he absolutely loved it, even if it would cause him to be late sometimes. Still pretty worthwhile.

This morning may be one of those mornings, though, when he was late.

He didn't wake up to an alarm going off, which was always a bad sign, even if it meant he'd be saved the headache that would come from his hangover. And when he checked his phone, not only did he see the list of missed calls and texts, he saw that it was well past the time he was supposed to leave for work.

Harry treated the bad news with a groan and forced himself up, and once he was upright, he moaned as the pain of one of the worst headaches he's ever had kicked in, and fuck did it kick in hard.

Being hung over was not a new experience for Harry. He often woke up hungover, as sad as it may sound. But he couldn't recall ever waking up this hungover. He felt like utter shit. Like diarrhea shit. He was sure that coffee probably wouldn't solve this. He would still try, though.

So, he took a cold shower. Spent extra time shampooing his hair, and washing his face, despite the fact that he was extremely late. People would just need to wait. He went on with his regular routine, doing his usual business in the bathroom, then going downstairs to make coffee, making the decision of to just drink black this terrible morning. When he was dressed and fresh, he took off towards the studio, still battling his murderous headache.

It was a rainy day in London, though it wasn't pouring. Just a light drizzle with the sky covered in dark clouds, and Harry liked it best this way. He enjoyed the way the air smelt, and he could inhale it all day long. And days like this always seemed calmer than normal days in London. London would always be a busy city, but somehow, the clouds and the drops of rain brought a mellow edge to the loud city.

He decided he would keep the attitude of the new day strong as he walked into the large studio building, ignoring any chastising and comments he received on his way to the preparation area, where a seat was ready for him, and so was a stylist. With a comb going through his hair, and the feeling of a soft brush painting his cheeks with blush, he let his eyes fall in both exhaustion and relaxation.

Sadly, it couldn't last long.

“Your lips sore, Styles?”

Harry opened one eye and looked over at Niall, the blond Irishman that had been at XIR last night, who was also getting his makeup and hair done by a stylist. He gave Harry a smug look, tugging his eyebrows up as well as the corner of his mouth.

“Pardon?” is all Harry said.

“Well, with Louis sucking the color out of them, I thought you'd be in pain.” Niall shrugged and looked down at his phone. Obviously, bugging Harry wasn't completely satisfying.

The mentioning of just Louis brought Harry's blood to boil. Now that it was brought up, Harry did remember locking lips with someone last night, but a large part of his mind was trying to desperately push the thoughts of that someone being Louis into the very back of his mind so he would never even think of that nightmare again.

Harry turned his head forward and scoffed. “Not sure what you're talking about, mate.”

Niall gave a dry, laugh. “Sure you don't,” he drawled in his accent. “Was it just like kissing a girl? I would assume so, since Lou isn't far from being one.”

“If you're so curious, why don't you just find out for yourself?” Harry suggested, raising an eyebrow and looking over in Niall's direction. The lad just clenched his jaw, from the looks of it, and kept his eyes on his mobile. Harry had his eyes adverted as well, irritated, and went to what he needed to do desperately—forgetting anything that happened last night.

It was always the same when it came to Harry's drunken escapades. He'd do something idiotic one night while completely sloshed and would wake up the next morning with the memories of the events he wished he had forgotten, and no recollection of the ones he had really enjoyed. Kind of made getting drunk pointless, yet it was one of his favorite pastimes.

It's not like lip-locking with Louis Goddamned Tomlinson was the end of the world. Sure, it was pretty bad, and Harry would do anything to go back and scream at himself to not kiss that ridiculous fool.

He still wasn't sure why he did it, but he had decided it was best that way.

Filming for the day began and Harry went along with the scenes as usual, hardly even knowing his lines, as per usual, but still performing well, in his own opinion. He was annoyed to see that he had couple of scenes with none-other than Louis, but that wasn't a huge shock, since he usually had at least one scene with him every episode having him being his “best friend.” But he was delighted to see that he had a quite scandalous scene with Lydia Silverton, which ended in him lacking a shirt and licking his now swollen lips.

“Stop. Oh, dear God, stop.”

Taking his gaze off of Louis as they rehearsed their scene, Harry looked at Darwin, the director, and let his hand drop.

“Okay, what the hell is going on right now? I feel like there is a sickness going around, and you two are suffering terribly from it,” Darwin went on as he walked towards them. “I expect more from you, Tomlinson.”

“Hey,” Harry complained, dropping the phone in his hand and crossing his arms. “I hope you only said that because I'm doing a better job than him right now.”

Darwin gave Harry an unamused look, then shook his head. “Sure, Harry. Believe what you want.”

“I'm sorry,” Louis said, always the polite one. “I was distracted. I promise to focus.”

Darwin just nodded and returned to his chair while Harry scoffed. “Distracted, huh? Could just admit you're not as great as you think you are. Everyone pretty much knows it already. We're just waiting on you.”

Louis didn't make any attempt to hide his glare, narrowing his eyes at Harry and giving him a good scowl. “What's wrong, Harry? Wake up on the wrong side of your ego?”

“The right side, actually,” Harry quipped. “I am at my finest.”

“I'm sure you are.”

“And my hair looks great today, especially for having been hungover this morning.”

“Harry—”

“I smell nice, too.”

“That's gre—”

“What the fuck, guys? Are you going to act or are you going to sit on your goddamn arses and bicker like a couple of fucking toddlers?”

Ah, Darwin, Harry mused as he picked the phone off of the ground. Darwin tended to have a very colorful vocabulary when he became impatient. Harry enjoyed it sometimes, when it wasn't directed at him, but other times, it made him flinch and feel like he was about the size of a mouse.

Harry and Louis quickly resumed the scene and Harry could tell that Louis was putting more effort in than he had before, his facial expressions the definite highlight of his performance, while Harry just continued as he had, not understanding what had been wrong with his performance in the first place. After they were all done with their scenes for the day, Harry found himself stuck in Jack Nelson's office, fiddling with his fingers as he tried to figure out why the hell he was in there.

Jack Nelson had called him in not too long after he'd retreated to his trailer, not providing the reason why they needed to speak, just that Harry needed to to get his ass up to the office. So there he was, watching Jack pace back in forth while he waited for the lecture or whatever he was there for to begin.

After just a minute, he lost his patience. “Well?” he said, expecting something to start already.

“We're waiting,” is all Jack said, and went back to his agitating pacing.

Whatever they were waiting for was apparently Louis, because just a moment later, the feathered-hair mess of a man walked into the spacy office and took a seat next to Harry. His brown hair was tousled and the muscle top and blue athletic shorts he wore appeared damp with sweat, as did his skin, glistening with the sunlight that poured into the room.

“Sorry I'm late,” Louis said, his breathing calm, but still loud enough to be heard. “I was running during my break, and I didn't get your mess—”

“It's fine, Louis,” Jack said, dismissing the explanation as he took his seat behind his desk, the chair sinking down at his weight.

“Can we get on with this meeting? I have a hot date tonight,” Harry spoke up again, already losing his own patience.

“With your wine collection?” Louis raised his eyebrows at Harry, who just glared back at the man.

“Bourbon, actually.”

“Hmm,” Louis scoffed and looked at Jack, who looked anything but amused.

“Harry, if I were you, I would give up alcohol. Now,” their boss said in a tone that told Harry he wasn't joking, not even the slightest.

“If this is an intervention, I might as well leave now,” Harry said anyway. “There are real alcoholics out there that need help. Focusing on me would be a waste of time and a very expensive collection of whiskey.”

“Harry, please shut up for two seconds. You're already giving me a headache.”

Harry just responded with an eye roll, sitting up to show Jack that he was ready to listen to whatever this was about. He loathed meetings like this. He knew that whenever him, Jack, and Louis were in the same room together, they only talked about one thing: Up-holding the image of Harry and Louis's friendship. It was absurd, that they actually needed meetings for this. Both Harry and Louis understood that they needed to act like friends. It wasn't that hard of a concept. Really, it only required that they were seen being nice to each other in public places. They didn't need friendship bracelets or matching tattoos. It was simple, and yet their agents and bosses insisted that they attended a meeting at least once a month to make sure they were doing their job correctly.

“Do you two wanna tell me what happened last night at XIR, or should I look for myself?” Jack asked, and the question definitely perked Harry's interest.

Louis, having no ability to hide the red that flushed his cheeks, said, “W-what do you mean?”

Jack rolled his eyes and leaned back in his chair. “I'm in no mood to dance around this. What the hell happened last night?”

Harry shrugged and looked down at his fingers. “Louis got extremely drunk and kissed me,” he said, deciding just let it out. The faster he talked, the sooner he could leave. “That's it.”

He could see Louis's reaction from the corner of his eye, his blue eyes going wide and his mouth gaping open. “That is not really what happened,” he spoke quickly. “We were both extremely drunk. I don't remember it exactly, but I know that this isn't all on me. Harry took part.”

Harry just shrugged again while Jack shook his head and sighed. “You know what? I don't give a bloody fuck who kissed whom. What I do care about is the fact that this kiss between you two is all over the bloody media!”

Before Harry could respond, Jack held up his wide-screened mobile and showed both of them the picture that appeared on the screen. Harry hardly remembered the details of his drunken kiss with Louis, just that it happened, but now looking at a picture of the two of them locking lips sloppily, the details surfaced one by one.

The kiss (if you could call it that) had been quick, messy, and—thankfully—closed-mouthed. Harry didn't even remember really having his lips on top of Louis's. More of on the side of his mouth. He'd probably been much too drunk to direct his mouth in the right direction, but that was a blessing, he guessed.

Either way, thinking about the kiss made him feel like he was going hurl.

“And then someone got a video,” Jack went on and swiped his finger across the screen to a similar picture, accept with a play icon in the center. He tapped the screen and the video played.

“Oh, that is disgusting,” Harry was surprised to hear Louis say as themselves from last night pressed their lips together at the chanting of the crowd around them. Harry definitely caught a “Larry” or two, along with many other excited remarks.

“Quite.” Jack set his phone down and flicked his eyes between the two of them. “Look, I don't care about anything that may be going on between you two, but this is unacceptable,” he said as Harry rolled his eyes again. “If it weren't for that fact that people actually enjoy this, we'd have to completely die down your guys' friendship.”

“Oh, great.” Harry huffed and leaned back in the leather chair. “So, that means I've gotta keep acting like I actually like this bloke? Fan-fucking-tastic.”

“Wait, people aren't angry over this?” Louis said, ignorimg what Harry said. “They actually... like this?”

“Yes,” Jack said. “As a matter of fact, they do. Especially the LGBT crowd. We have received numerous phone calls and e-mails from LGBT leaders and spokesmen. There are multiple counselors for support groups that even called, wanting to know if you two could speak at the meetings. I won't even mention the thousands upon thousands of tweets and other social media posts that have been non-stop since the moment that picture was put out there.”

Harry took that all of that in. He should be happy; the world didn't hate him for showing one sign of affection towards the same sex. But he was anything but happy. The world thought he was gay. Okay, it's not like it was the end of fucking human existence, but this wasn't exactly good. He'd heard plenty of rumors about himself throughout his acting career, but the world couldn't even write this off as a rumor, because there was evidence. Loud and clear evidence that could only mean that Harry Styles was gay, and was also gay for Louis Tomlinson.

“Have you got any aspirin?”

Jack shot a look to Harry, his eyebrows arched like two arrows. “No,” he said without looking. Harry sighed and pressed a hand to his forehead to soothe the pain that was beginning make his head ache more than usual.

“That's a good thing, right?” Louis continued, ignoring Harry again. “That there's not a lot negative comments?”

“I'm not sure,” Jack said. “But I looked at our numbers earlier, and they've doubled. So that is definitely good.”

“Huh.” Louis leaned back in his seat. “You know something? We've never addressed same-sex issues on the show. All the characters are straight. I mean, most shows in our category at least have one homosexual character.”

“That's what I noticed, too.” Jack nodded. “But just having viewers know that two cast members are homosexual is really bringing up our numbers.”

“Imagine if we were gay off and on the show,” Louis mused.

“Hey, don't give him any ideas.” Harry scowled over at Louis, hoping that he would take it as a warning.

“It might be,” Jack agreed. “But for now, I think we should just focus on off camera. If appearing to be in a relationship does good for our show, then maybe that's something we should pursue.”

Harry sat up too quickly, but he tried to ignore the throbbing in his temple as he stared wide-eyed at the fat bastard across from him. “No fucking way. No. You can forget it right now. There is no way in hell I would pretend to be gay, especially for him.”

“Oh, come on, Harry.” Jack rolled his eyes. “You're an actor. If this was in the script, you know bloody well that you would be expected to give it your best, and you'd be fired if you refused to.”

Harry knew that was true, but this wasn't a script, and he wasn't playing a character.

“God may smite me for this, but I kind of agree with Harry,” Louis piped in again. “I can appear to be his best friend, but to appear like I'm dating him? That's a little far-fetched. I mean, we have to try are hardest to tolerate each other in public. We'd never be able to pull off dating.”

“It won't last long,” Jack said, like he was trying to convince them. “A few months, at the very most. Besides, the public loves a good breakup.”

“I'm not doing it,” Harry said firmly. Even if this whole idea ended in a public breakup, Harry knew that this would just do too much harm. A public breakup meant that someone would be the bad guy. Rumors would flutter, and it would be nothing but shit-talking about both of them. He didn't want that. And with the relationship in general, he knew there was no way it would work out. It simply couldn't. Maybe if Louis was an attractive woman who didn't get on his nerves. But this was Louis. Louis Fucking Tomlinson, who Harry couldn't even consider a real friend.

Jack shook his head and turned in his chair to face the computer screen on the side of the desk. “We don't know if that's what we want to try. We'll have another meeting with Connie and Richard, the lot. We'll discuss this and see how our numbers are doing, then we'll decide what we should do.”

“No, this is absolutely ludicrous,” Harry said, dumbfounded that they were actually discussing this, like their love lives were something that they couldn't control themselves. “You can't really consider this, Jack.”

“Yeah, this is kind of crazy. You can't really expect us to agree to do this,” Louis said.

“It's just a little acting. It's not a big deal, guys.”

“All right.” Harry stood up, just about done with this whole meeting. “I'm leaving. Jack, I suggest you seek professional help. Louis, I suggest you seek a ditch you can fall into. Goodbye.”

Giving them his best charming look, he turned and walked out, ignoring anything that they would say to him. He was tired, hungover, and pretty pissed off at this point. He didn't care how good it was for ratings and all that bullshit, there was no way in hell he would agree to be in a public, romantic relationship with Louis, and he was sticking by that.

He was also going to stick to having a hot date with his bourbon collection tonight.

Notes

Hope you enjoy it! :)