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Louis glances at the time and sees that he’s already way behind. His team told him to be live at 5 PM. It’s already 5:13 and he hasn’t even managed to log in to his account yet. Maybe he should have listened when his social media manager suggested that he gave this a trial run. Louis had just scoffed at that. How hard can it be? Turns out, very hard. In his defence, he usually has Harry here for this.
Louis can feel his frustration build up. Every time he tries to open Instagram, the app just shuts down again. He tries again, but nope. He restarts his phone, but that doesn’t help either. When he eventually removes the app and downloads it again it finally works.
”Stupid, fucking app” he mumbles under his breath.
He hears the front door open and the sound of jangling keys.
”Harry?” He calls out. Silence.
He tries to figure it out on his own. Opens the camera and scrolls through the options. It’s just a bunch of filters popping up like ”Which song are you?” Or showing him what he would look like as a tomato. No time for that.
”Harry?” He tries again. Still no answer, he sighs and gets up to open the door to his room.
”HARRY” he shouts before his brain registers that Harry is now right outside the door.
”Jesus babe, you scared me” Harry says, placing a hand over his chest.
”I need you” Louis says, with no patience for pleasantries, and stalks back into the room towards the desk where he has his phone set up.
”I was supposed to go live like 15 minutes ago but this stupid app is not letting me”
”Move over, grandpa” Harry says, motioning with his hands for Louis to move while he gets a chair of his own.
Louis rolls his eyes and scoots over a bit. Not giving in to Harry’s obvious teasing.
”You are so cute when you’re grumpy” Harry laughs and takes Louis’ face in his hands to plant a soft kiss on the older guy’s lips before he sits down next to him.
”Let’s see” he continues and turns towards the phone screen. But his face quickly drops when he sees what’s on the screen. He jumps up and exits the screen again.
”Uh, I thought you said you couldn’t make it work?” Harry hisses.
”Yes?”
”Well, you must have figured it out cause you’re live right now.”
Louis just freezes up. Fish-mouthing, he looks between Harry and the screen for a few seconds.
”Turn it off” Harry hisses.
”I can’t. I don’t even fucking know how I got it to start, how will I know how to end it?” Louis shouts, voice a slightly higher pitch than usual.
He ends up just pressing the button and turns off the phone.
Both men are silent for a few beats before they break out laughing.
”Well shit”
*
Both Harry and Louis stay away from social media for the next couple of days. But after consulting with both of their respective teams, they decide to not ignore this anymore. It’s the point of no return, they should just rip the bandaid off and face the music. And it’s actually a blessing in disguise. No more secrets, no more hiding.
They can only imagine the response they must be getting after years of speculation. Years and years of them having to deny the obvious connection all because their management thought their relationship would damage the band's chances of success. And they were all so young, so naive. They really believed that all these adults around them had their best interests at heart. And when they figured out that wasn't the case, well then it was all just a bit too late.
All right, so maybe it’s not the way they planned their coming out but it could be a lot worse. It could have been a leaked sex tape. Silver linings and all that.
28/09/22
https://at.tumblr.com/fallingdefenceless/708795575018078208/l7l8ypyg7201