“Shit,” Harry muttered, running a hand over his face, his hands trembling uncontrollably. There was a quiver to his voice that betrayed the blind panic racing through his veins, and he swallowed, the sticky noise too loud in the too quiet car.
Liam’s lips were white and his eyes were impossibly wide as he watched Harry’s panic attack, but he could offer no words of comfort. They were all so in shock from what had happened that they barely noticed the frenzy that was happening around them; right after the interview had ended, the four boys were shoved into a car, but they had managed to catch glimpses of distressed looking publicists on speaking into their phones.
A normal, lousy day had turned so horrifically wrong so quickly that Harry barely had time to catch his breath.
And it was his fault; he had paused too long after he had accidentally admitted having a boyfriend and by the time he and the other boys had gathered their wits about them to laugh it off, it was far, far too late.
“Twitter’s in fucking meltdown,” Niall muttered, staring down at his phone. “Five trending topics are about you.”
“Shit,” Harry repeated, trying to breathe in deeply through his nose. There was too much going on, and he needed to clear his head. He couldn’t just break down now; what he needed to do was take control of the situation as much as he possibly could.
Concentrating on his breathing, Harry closed his eyes, managing to successfully silence everything around him until he was left alone with his own thoughts.
He needed to call Louis – that much was obvious. He needed to talk to Management, he needed to talk to the boys and then they could brush this off; it could even be pushed aside as an elaborate prank that the boys had organized…
“Don’t,” Zayn cut into Harry’s thoughts and when the younger boy’s eyes startled open, Zayn’s face was fierce and angry. His dark eyes darted over Harry’s face with an intensity that made Harry want to reel back, to hide away from the judgement he saw there. “Don’t you dare ignore this, or turn it into a fucking joke or –“
Liam jerked, as if shocked, before rushing to say, “But Zayn—“
“No,” Zayn said firmly, his hands clenched into fists on his knees. There was a quiet, powerful aura around Zayn, and Harry couldn’t speak, even if he tried. “Don’t be ashamed of yourself, and don’t make Louis think that you’re ashamed of him because he’s worth more than that. You were planning on coming out one day, weren’t you?” When Harry said nothing, his gaze fixated on the floor, Zayn asked sharply, “Weren’t you?”
Harry nodded, almost reluctantly. Niall had dragged his eyes away from his phone to stare at his two band mates with an odd expression.
Silence fell. Zayn had seemingly said enough, and crossed his arm, turning to glare out the window. Liam’s hands tapped anxiously at his thigh, his eyes flicking everywhere as if he didn’t know where to look.
“Zayn’s right,” Niall finally said slowly, interrupting the tense silence in the car. The Irish accent that was usually so carefree and relaxed had turned serious. “Don’t act like you’re ashamed of Louis, because you’re not, Harry, I know you’re not.”
Harry blinked, forcing himself to calm down once again. His hands still trembled as he clenched them into fist. “I don’t think I’m ready.”
Niall stared at him, his expression unreadable. “You’ll have to be, won’t you?” He paused then, his teeth digging into his lower lip, as he let his gaze flicker from Harry, to Zayn, to Liam. “It won’t just be you, Harry. It’ll be all of us in this too.”
—
The ringing phone interrupted Louis from his rather pleasant sleep, and the boy groaned loudly shoving his face into his pillow. He stayed there, trying to block out the shrill ringing until it stopped, leaving silence in its place.
Louis waited for a few seconds before sighing, shifting as he tried to get back to sleep before –
The phone rang again, seemingly even more high pitched and annoying this time. Cursing loudly, Louis rolled over and fumbled for the phone on his bedside cupboard. Squinting at the screen, he read Harry’s name and a stream of confused thoughts ran through his head. Harry was usually so good at their time zones; he must have known Louis would have been sleeping, right?
“Hello,” he whispered, trying to keep his voice down as he answered the phone. His Mum was sleeping just down the hall, and he didn’t really want to deal with her waking up and yelling at him. There was silence on the other end for a long minute, so long that Louis contemplated just hanging up and going back to sleep before Harry spoke.
His voice was worn and scratched, and he sounded like he had been crying. “Louis?”
“Yeah Harry, I’m here,” Louis said, his voice, lifting curiously. Something was clearly wrong, and nerves tightened in Louis’ stomach as his mind flickered over the possibilities.
Harry breathed in a shuddering breath, and Louis’ straightened in his bed, a frown furrowing on his face. “I messed up, Lou,” the younger boy said, and his voice broke on the last word.
“What wrong, Harry?”
Harry recounted the story of the interview slowly, his voice stuttering over words every so often. Louis could tell how nervous he was, how the thought of negative back lash completely terrified him. There was nothing more that Louis wanted in that moment than to be able to hug his boyfriend. When Harry finally finished, there was a heavy silence.
“I’m not ashamed of you, Lou,” Harry finally whispered, sounding choked and desperate. “I’m just scared.”
Louis was calm, his voice measured and even when he replied. “I know, Harry, it’s okay. It’s perfectly normal to be scared.”
“I don’t…I don’t want people to hate me.”
A part of Louis’ heart broke, and his breath caught in his throat as he attempted to reply. There was something so tragic about happy, confident Harry being reduced to such a mess because he cared so much about what other people thought.
Harry was too good for the music industry. He was too pure, too beautiful to be broken down by cruel words and nasty articles. All Louis wanted to do was take the younger boy and hide him from the worlds eyes, keep him safe.
He knew that wasn’t possible though.
“It’s going to be alright, Harry,” Louis said, knowing that Harry needed someone to tell that to him, to reassure him everything was going to be fine. “It’s going to be alright.”
Louis wondered if he believed his own words.
