Chapter Text
Louis had never really been one to appreciate the desert. He was a city boy through and through, raised in the streets of New York with the world whipping by him a mile a minute and life absolutely everywhere. The desert was too still, too lifeless, too barren for a man like Louis. He wanted nothing to do with a place full of cacti and tumbleweeds and little else.
But even the desert sometimes gives birth to a rose.
That’s what Louis called him, his Texas rose. It fit the curly-haired boy who stumbled into his office one day on accident, with his skin as soft as petals and lips as pink, too. He was a gorgeous bloom dripping with southern charm that Louis wanted to lick right off of him, and either Harry or Louis or both were doomed the moment he walked through that door because Louis Tomlinson does not give up on things that he wants.
“Can I help you?” Louis says in surprise as the boy blinks languidly down at him from the doorway. He’s leaning back in his chair with his feet up on the desk looking every inch the terror that he is, but somehow the intruder doesn’t look intimidated-- which is the first clue that he’s out of place.
The second comes the instant he opens his mouth. “Good afternoon,” he announces in a slow, thick voice with a hint of deep southern drawl. “I’m here to see a gentleman about employment, I believe his name is Mr. Duchamp. Have I come to the right place?”
It feels like it takes him a century to get it out, every word so careful and calm and polite. He’s got charm in every syllable and pore, and Louis is positively mesmerized. “Well my name is Tomlinson not Duchamp and the employment offices are ‘cross the street but yes, baby, you did come to the right place,” Louis whips out, staccato, his quick Manhattan lilt seeming even rougher compared to the stranger’s honey tones. “Don’t tell me a boy so pretty as you is at a loss for a job?”
Green eyes flicker demurely to the floor. “I’m not sure any job I’d have because I’m pretty is a job I’d much want, sir.”
“Well that’s true enough,” Louis replies, trying to slow his rush of words to match a little better. “Men who like pretty boys aren’t to be trusted.” He stands slowly from his chair and circles the desk, perching on the edge closest to the doorway where the stranger still lingers. “What’s your name?”
“Harry Styles,” the answer comes at once. “Pleased to meet you.”
“The pleasure’s all mine, Harry Styles. Where you from?”
“Texas. Small town out in the desert.”
“Well aren’t you an oasis,” murmurs Louis. His eyes travel from stunning face down lanky body, all wrapped up in a simple linen shirt and faded blue jeans, down to the worn cowboy boots on his feet and back up again without a hint of embarrassment when he realizes Harry’s watching him. “What kind of work are you looking for, Harry?”
It’s only now that Harry falters, realizes that it isn’t normal to hang around chatting with strangers who aren’t the person you came to see. “I uh- I apologize, I didn’t mean to intrude. I should really be off to see Mr. Duchamp now-”
“What, so he can set you up with a job breaking your back with manual labor like some chump?” Louis scoffs, taking Harry by the elbow and tugging him inside so he can shut the office door behind them. “You’re better than that, Texas, sit down. Sit, Harry Styles, I don’t like to say things twice.”
Harry sits in the chair before Louis’ desk, though he looks a little dazed. “Well I didn’t expect a glamorous job when I moved here, but I have to make a living, sir,” he says after a moment, tone still measured and polite. “I’m not above labor.”
“Nonsense, labor is absolutely beneath you. You think I’m going to let you get your lungs black in some coal mine somewhere? You insult me, Harry, you insult my hospitality.”
“Pardon me, sir,” Harry says carefully, “but you don’t even know me.”
He’s right, technically, but Louis doesn’t care much about right or wrong except to note that he is always right. “I don’t know you,” he assents, “but I want to. You’ll work for me. A position has just opened up in my office, coincidentally.”
“Oh.” Harry doesn’t seem to know how to respond except to stare at Louis with wide, startled eyes. “What position?”
“The position of whatever fucking moron let you wander back here without asking you your business-- I mean for Christ’s sake what if you’d been a fed-- Liam!” Louis finishes with a shout and takes half a second to inhale before barreling onwards. “Good help is fucking impossible to find these days, I swear every new hire is dumber than the last. You’ve got brains though, I can tell. Listen, you’ll --Liam, I swear to God get your ass in here!-- you’ll be a receptionist of sorts, yeah? You sit in the lobby and you answer the phone and you screen everyone that walks in to make sure they’re supposed to be here. You do that and I pay you generously, understand?”
“I don’t -no, not really?” Harry stammers, brow pulled together in confusion. “What do you mean about the feds?”
Louis is just about to not-answer when the door opens and in walks Liam, a tall, burly man with soft eyes but taut muscles. “Yes, sir?” He catches sight of Harry a second later and narrows his eyes suspiciously. “Who the fuck is he?”
“Watch your fucking mouth,” Louis snaps, “he’s my fucking guest. Who’s working the front desk?”
“Sorry, sir. Markie, sir.”
“Markie’s fired, Harry’s working front desk. You tell Markie if I see his no-good face again I’m putting him in the river, understand?” Liam mutters another yes, sir and closes the door behind him, and Louis refocuses his attention on Harry once more. “You know how to use a gun, Harry?”
“Do I- do I what?” Harry’s voice finally loses that calm cadence, shooting up an octave as his eyes go wide. “Now hold on a minute, what’s going on here? Why do I need a gun to be a receptionist? Why don’t you want feds here? Who is Markie and why in heaven are you putting him in a --a river? I don’t know what kind of job you think you’re hiring me for, Mr. Tomlinson, but I assure you, there’s been a mistake.”
Louis holds up his hand to halt the gush of words, then sighs quietly. He takes a moment to gather his thoughts --a luxury Manhattan rarely affords him-- and scratches his chin in consideration of how best to proceed. “Have you ever lived in the city, Harry?”
“No sir.”
“Didn’t think so,” Louis answers with a little smirk. “Too much innocence in you still. Listen, Harry, the city is full of bad people, hear? People that like to take advantage of others. People that like to hurt you and steal what you earned. This is a big city full of a lot of bad people, and people like me-- we protect the city from them, see? It isn’t easy and it sure as hell ain’t glamorous but that’s my job, Harry, to protect this city from very bad people.”
“I don’t understand, Mr. Tomlinson,” Harry says quietly.
“You don’t have to understand, sweetheart.” Louis reaches over and runs his thumb across Harry’s cheekbone, watching the boy’s breathing pause as he dares not move beneath the touch of this strange, imposing man. “All you need to know is that you work for me now, and that I’m going to keep you safe from all the bad people in this city, you hear?”
There’s still a touch of uncertainty in the furrow of Harry’s brow, but he nods regardless. “Yes, sir.”
………………..
It takes Harry all of two days to figure out that he’s become the latest employee of the finest and most expansive mob in the history of New York City.
It isn’t hard to put the pieces together, when he’s barely been behind the front desk when Liam comes over and teaches him how to load, aim, and shoot a gun, or when he finds himself signing for deliveries of liquor bottles packaged in crates marked ‘flour.’ It isn’t hard at all, not when he’s watched nervous man after countless nervous man walk in and hand over an envelope fat with cash addressed ‘to Mr. Tomlinson, for the month of April.”
It takes him less time than that to figure out that Mr. Tomlinson --Louis Tomlinson, as he comes to find out-- is not the kind of man who sees to many matters himself. Only two people seem to come and go from his office, one being his personal bodyguard Liam and the other his second-in-command, Zayn Malik. Zayn is a quiet man with dark features and an imposing presence, acting as go-between and right hand of the fair young mob boss. If anyone wants to see Louis Tomlinson, it seems, they have to go through Zayn.
Which makes it all the more odd that Harry often finds himself the subject on which that blue-eyed gaze falls. Mr. Tomlinson has a habit of strolling from his office during the slow hours and coming to lean against the counter before Harry and watch him curiously, examining the way he staples papers or licks envelopes with apparent fascination.
In all honesty, it’s a little disconcerting.
“Is there something I can help you with, Mr. Tomlinson?” Harry finally works up the nerve to prompt one day about a week into his employment.
The man hums once absentmindedly, then seems to stir from his trance to look at Harry more carefully. “Where are you staying, Harry?”
He hasn’t answered the question, but then he rarely does. “At a shelter three blocks over,” Harry says easily. “I spent most of my money on the train fare here. I’m hoping after a few paychecks to have enough to rent a place.”
Louis’ standing up straight by the time the word ‘shelter’ is out of Harry’s mouth. “What do you take me for, an animal? Zayn! Harry, you work for me, you don’t stay in any shelter, understand?”
Zayn appears from around the corner, eyebrows raised. “Sir?”
“What’s the name of that Jewish man with the apartment building-- the one who missed February?”
“Goldberg, I believe. I’ve been informed he’s repaid his debt in full after our talk with him.”
“Yeah, well, there’s no accounting for interest. He rents a room to Harry now, understand? No rent. If he charges Harry a penny then so help me God-”
“Consider it handled,” Zayn interrupts, even daring to crack a smile at his boss. “Take a deep breath, Lou, I hear you.”
“Harry’s been staying at a shelter like I’m some kind of animal who doesn’t provide for his people,” their leader continues, calmer in tone but no less affronted. “I don’t care what they say in Brooklyn, I am not an animal.”
It takes a moment amidst all the conversation --Harry often finds himself several sentences behind, still unused to the lightning pace of speech here in the city-- but eventually Harry finds the presence of mind to interject. “Please, Mr. Tomlinson, that isn’t necessary,” he protests earnestly. “I’m fine staying at the shelter until I can pay my own way.”
The man rounds on him at once, frown etched into his features. “Harry, what did I tell you on the first day you met me? What was the only thing I said you needed to know?”
It’s clear as can be in Harry’s memory, whirlwind of a day though it was. “You said that I work for you now, and that you’re going to keep me safe from bad people.”
“You’re doing your job,” Mr. Tomlinson announces with finality. “I’m doing mine.”
And Mr. Tomlinson does appear to take that job very seriously, because of the dozens upon dozens of people who come through the office every day as agents of their organization, none seems to be wanting for anything. They all have shoes on their feet and caps on their heads, full bellies and rosy cheeks. No matter how vast his system of underlings, he has apparently found a way to serve them all and keep them as safe and as comfortable as he’d promised.
But generous though his big city benefactor is, Harry can’t help but think that duty to protect can’t account for the little gifts the mysterious man keeps giving him. A snazzy new suit makes its way to Harry’s desk during week two, followed by cologne on week three. Harry could almost pass it off as an investment in making sure that the receptionist greeting all the visitors looks (and smells) good enough to represent the organization, if it weren’t for the sleek black box of chocolate-covered berries from week four. Those, he’s fairly certain, Mr. Tomlinson only buys him so he can watch the dark juices stain Harry’s lips.
…………………
It’s been a month now since Harry’s been working for Louis. He comes in every day with his slow words and easy smiles, batting his eyelashes lazily and blushing whenever he notices Louis watching. Which Louis does, and often-- more and more he finds himself leaving the quiet solitude of his office to loiter in the lobby, where visitors can see him and, more importantly, he can see those lovely green eyes.
It’s late, far later than Louis usually cares to work, but there’s been a lot of contrary activity going on his city and Louis doesn’t like to leave business unhandled. Almost everyone’s gone home for the night, save Liam dozing in the corner of Louis’ office and Harry manning the front desk. Part of his job involves staying until everyone else leaves and locking up, and as the hours drag into tomorrow, Louis hears less and less noise coming from the lobby.
Carefully, he picks his way over Liam’s feet to grab a decanter from the server near the door. He’s about to pour himself a drink when he pauses, takes two glasses in one hand and the decanter in the other, and slips into the hallway. Harry lifts his head from its resting place in the nest of his arms as Louis approaches. “Good evening, sir.”
“Sorry to keep you so late, Harry,” Louis says quietly, coming over to set the glasses and decanter on the desk. He tugs a chair over next to Harry and drops into it wordlessly.
“It’s the least I can do. You pay my rent and keep food in my mouth,” comes the modest reply.
“And liquor besides,” Louis cheerfully adds, unstoppering the decanter and pouring a healthy serving into both glasses. He nudges one closer to Harry. “Go on, then, drink up. Young, beautiful men like you ought to toast to their own charms once in a while.”
Harry picks up his glass and swirls the contents thoughtfully. “Mr. Tomlinson,” he murmurs, “if I didn’t know better I’d think you were trying to liquor me up.”
“Harry, if you knew me better, you wouldn’t have a doubt.” Louis raises his own glass to his lips and takes a deep swallow, checking to make sure Harry’s smiling as he sets it back on the desk. “Do you not drink, then?”
The smile widens into a grin and Harry’s eyelashes flutter as he huffs a silent little laugh. “I’m from the south, sir, I like my liquor well enough.”
“I thought as much. Tell me, Harry, what else do southern boys with sweet smiles and slow words like?”
It wasn’t meant to be a purr --at least, Louis’ hadn’t set out to purr heavy words at Harry-- but Harry’s breath catches just the same. His fingers stop playing at the rim of his glass, his eyes lock on Louis like he can’t pull them away. It might be a trick of the light, or his pupils might be blown a little wider than usual. “I like a great deal of things, sir,” he says after a moment, perfectly still.
Louis lets the tension settle into his skin, leaning forward in his seat. “Tell me,” he whispers.
There’s a moment, right before, where they both know they’re going to kiss. Harry lets out the tiniest of sighs while Louis holds his breath, waiting, letting Harry be the one to lean in and press their lips together.
He’s got a soft mouth, a warm mouth, one that makes Louis lean in for more like instinct. His tongue darts out to taste the curve of Harry’s lip --sweet, so sweet-- and feels a hand slip into his hair to pull him closer. Something flutters in Louis’ gut. The kiss deepens and Louis finds his fingers trailing reverently down Harry’s throat, across his collarbones, down his chest and to his waist to pull him close, until Harry is fumbling gracelessly to lean into him and nearly tumbles to the floor except that Louis is there to catch him by the waist.
“Careful,” Louis murmurs. “Careful, babydoll, you’ll break.”
The sound of Louis’ voice seems to snap Harry out of a daze, and suddenly he’s looking at Louis rather seriously. “I suppose this explains all the presents.”
“Can’t blame a man for spoiling the object of his affection,” answers Louis easily. “Money well spent.”
“Tell me you didn’t just hire me because you were attracted to me,” Harry insists. “Tell me that wasn’t the only reason.”
Louis spares the time to laugh at the pout on Harry’s face before leaning in to kiss him once more and murmur his reply against petal-soft lips. “It wasn’t the only reason.”
…………………
Harry refuses to stop working the lobby no matter how hard Louis insists, and the fact that Louis lets him stand up to him like that is probably a testament to just how incredibly whipped he is for those six feet of lanky southern charm.
In Louis’ opinion, the beloved partner of New York City’s crime boss shouldn’t have to work. He should be at home, or at a party, or doing something ridiculous and extravagant that Louis can pay for to make Harry smile. It’s really only fair, considering that he hasn’t been this happy in far too long to remember. Harry, however, disagrees. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with the way Louis buys him fur coats or bouquets of roses --if Louis wants to spoil him that’s really his prerogative-- but Harry came here with nothing to his name intending to make a life for himself and that does not include sitting on his ass all day and letting a man take care of him.
The argument never quite dies down, though, not even when Louis is visiting Harry in his tiny apartment late one night. “I already feed you and clothe you and make sure you live rent-free,” Louis reasons as he nibbles at Harry’s jaw. “Why won’t you let me take your job away, too?”
“Because you -ah, fuck,” Harry groans with great difficulty, mostly because he’s on his back in bed with Louis deep inside of him and that makes it very hard to do anything but claw at Louis’ back and focus on breathing. “Because you already do all of that. Let me have just this one thing. A man ought -oh, Christ!- to work for what he has in this world.”
“I don’t think it counts if the man you’re trying to be independent from is the same one who signs your paychecks,” Louis points out as he snaps his hips forward a little faster. “I’m just saying, babydoll, why won’t you let me take care of you?”
Harry heaves a sigh and pushes at the hand holding onto his hips rather insistently. “If you want to take care of me then fucking take care of me.”
Louis grins and does as he’s told, and it’s barely a dozen strokes of Harry’s cock before he’s jamming his eyes shut and coming, spilling all over Louis’ hand and his own overheated skin. Louis follows soon after, digging his nails into Harry’s hips and filling him up as he crushes their mouths together in a desperate kiss.
For a minute they just kiss and breathe and let their hearts settle back to a somewhat normal pace, before finally Louis pulls out and stumbles from the bed to retrieve his trousers from the floor. “Lou, where are you going?” Harry protests, too tired to do more than give an offended pout from the pillows. “Did you seriously just come here to fuck me and then leave?”
“I’ve got work to do, baby, I can’t stay,” Louis replies, and he does at least sound genuinely sorry about that. “You know, if you were to move in with me, we wouldn’t have this problem.”
Harry waits until Louis has pulled his shirt back on and puckers his lips for a kiss, which Louis gladly leans over the bed to give him. “Mmm. You just want me a kept man, waiting around all day for you in your bed. Not gonna happen, Louis.”
“You caught me,” groans Louis in mock defeat, then kisses Harry once more. “No, but I see what you mean, about wanting to have something for yourself. I respect that, baby. Of course I’m not going to push you to give up your job or your apartment or whatever else you want to keep as your own.”
“Really?”
“Really. Besides, if you’re at home in my bed all day, that means I don’t get to see you every time I walk out into the lobby.” Harry giggles just a little, and Louis brushes the hair back from his forehead and plants a kiss there with a knowing little smile. “Get some sleep, my rose. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
…………………
Louis’ least favorite part of being a mob boss, for sure, is all of the politics. There’s so much playing nice with other powerful men, so much pretending like they’re anywhere close to being as powerful as Louis himself, and that’s just exhausting. Throw in a game of poker that he clearly is only winning because everyone else is letting him win, and it all added up to a very cranky Louis.
“Harry, baby, just come with me!” he’s pleading with Harry as he ties his tie and then crookens it just so for the sake of aesthetics. “All you’ll have to do is sit there and look darling and --I don’t know, eat some snacks if you want.”
“Don’t you have employees you can pay to sit around and eat?” Harry yawns from his place on Louis’ couch, attempting to burrow down further into the cushions.
“Well technically you are my employee still, and besides, I’m not in love with them so their presence isn’t going to stop me from killing anybody.”
Harry just beams. It’s been months and months now since they’ve started saying the ‘l’ word but it still makes Harry’s heartbeat flutter to hear, which is probably why it doesn’t take much further convincing for Harry to find himself in a nice suit with Louis putting a flower crown atop his curls (“Like I said, looking darling!”) and tugging him along to the monthly poker game meeting.
Louis sweeps into the room like a twister, stirring up dust and whipping the collection of fat, aging men to their feet as they all hurry to dip their heads in respect and kiss Louis’ cheek. He never lets go of Harry’s hand, pulling him along in the wake of the storm until finally he takes his seat at the head of the table and pulls his boy down right into his lap.
“Lou, you want us to bring in another chair?” one man, a notoriously violent gangster named Max, asks with a nod in Harry’s direction. “I can send Tommy to find another chair for your-- uh, companion.”
“Harry doesn’t need another chair. Isn’t that right, my rose?” Louis winds an arm around Harry’s waist and smiles as the boy leans back into him. “He’ll sit here, don’t worry about it.”
“Hey, no offense meant,” Max backtracks at once. “It’s bad form to let your piece of ass wander too far, am I right?”
The other men around the table chuckle at that, the laughter only growing when Louis joins in a beat later. After a few seconds the laughter begins to peter out, all except Louis, who continues laughing long after the rest of the room is silent. The tension builds and stomachs sink, until the eeriness of his chuckle is enough to make even Harry a little wary. Finally he stops, rubs his hand across his chin, and says, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. See, I was just thinking about how funny you’d look with a broken nose and your thumbs removed, Max.”
Max pales instantly. “Lou, I--”
“You think you can just come in here and run your mouth about my boy?” Louis interrupts coldly, all trace of mocking humor gone from his features. “You call him a piece of ass one more time, I fucking dare you!”
Nick Tromboli pipes in from farther down the table. “I don’t think there was any offense meant, sir.”
“I don’t care what he meant, I care that he’s come into my home and disrespected me!”
“Louis,” warns Zayn from the corner of the room. Simmer down, warns his tone.
Silence falls over the room, thick and heavy and full of fear. Harry gently traces his fingers over Louis’ hand at his waist, drawing in Louis’ attention until he drifts back from the haze of red and thinks to take a grounding breath of air. It smells like Harry, like fresh linen and expensive beer, and Louis clears his throat. “We gonna sit around all day or is someone going to deal?”
Someone deals, and as time passes that tension starts to leak from the room. Drinks are poured, Louis smiles from time to time, and even the shop talk floating around in between hands isn’t doing much to dampen the mood.
“We need to be doing something about these feds,” Nick is saying as he restacks his chips. “It hasn’t been a good year for us. The FBI’s been breathing down our necks on all of our major operations.”
“Something’s not right,” chimes in Pete, New York’s finest jewel thief. “I’m telling ‘ya, something just ain’t right. We got a rat.”
“If we had a rat they’d have taken us down already,” Louis scoffs. “Don’t you think we’d know if we had a rat among us?”
“I know that things have been going sour recently, and we’ve had a lot of new faces coming into play,” Pete counters. “Can’t account for loyalty from all of them. What about you, green-eyes, you been telling stories about your boyfriend to the cops?”
“Excuse me?” Harry and Louis respond in unison.
Nick has his hands up at once, trying to calm all parties against the spark of anger starting to spread through the room. “Hey now, let’s not get carried away,” he laughs nervously. “Lou, I’m sure he didn’t mean to say that your boy is-”
Pete rises to his feet and cuts him off with a wave of his hand. “I’m saying that we don’t really know too much about this character that’s suddenly got the boss in the palm of his hand.” He reaches into the inside pocket of his suit jacket and comes out with a pistol, which he levels at a spot right between Harry’s eyes. “I think it’s about time we got some answers out of you, boy.”