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Lucas hasn’t ever questioned his sexuality. Plenty of people have, he’s well aware, but not Lucas. He likes girls and he likes boys, but he mostly just likes pretty people who can make him laugh. Harry Styles is both pretty and amusing, and Lucas is glad that he doesn’t really know anything about him other than this. He’d known him on sight, of course, they’d bumped elbows at the bar and Harry had said, “oh, you’re,” and cocked his head and his smile had dimpled all up his cheeks and Lucas had said, “and you’re,” and they’d laughed because the club is warm and the alcohol is burning up their veins and they’re young and a little smashed and it’s LA.
It’s a little past one and Harry has a ribbon from a bottle of rum in his hair, and Lucas has told him a dozen times that he loves his accent. Harry is hanging off Lucas’ shoulder, which- Lucas isn’t sure how either of them are still upright, because Harry is a lot of person, tall and broad and floppy like a marionette with its strings cut. But he can feel Harry’s ribs, can wrap an arm around his waist easy, and his knuckles brush Harry’s hips as he withdraws his arm to reach for another shot and he’s awfully little for someone so large. Lucas thinks it might be the hair, tells Harry so. Harry grins, leans in and says, whisper-confidential, “it’s full of secrets.” His breath is hot against Lucas’ cheek and he smells sweet and mildly spicy, like alcohol and leather jacket and faded cologne and the nice kind of clean sweat. This close, Lucas can see that he doesn’t have freckles, just a few spots at the edge of his forehead. He shivers a little, feels his own sweat dewy at the small of his back, sticking his shirt to his skin as he moves, and it’s been warm in the club, but it’s suddenly heated.
They don’t hook up. They go to a Waffle House and curl into a corner booth while Harry’s security looms at the counter. They share waffles and swat at each other with syrup-sticky fingers for the last bit of sausage. Harry drinks orange juice and Lucas has two cups of coffee and laughs while Harry grimaces at him.
When he gets up to go to the bathroom he half expects Harry to follow; he doesn’t, and Lucas splashes his face with cold water and doesn’t wait before walking back to the booth. Harry is paying the check, and he gives Lucas an apologetic look, bites his lip and motions to where his security is already in the car outside. “They’re a bit paranoid,” he says, “And I may not have told them I was going out tonight.” He doesn’t say whether they are his bandmates or his handlers or his- Lucas doesn’t think he’s got a girlfriend, boyfriend either- but Lucas nods, says, “It was good, maybe I’ll see you ‘round.”
He’s ready to let it go at that, but Harry reaches out, quicker than any move he’s made or thing he’s said tonight, pulls his phone out of his front jeans’ pocket. Lucas has to grin at his furrowed brow when the lock screen appears, and Harry rolls his eyes a little when he hands it to him. He unlocks it and passes it back, watches Harry’s long fingers slowly tap out his number, save it as And You’re Harry. “Text me,” he says. “I leave tomorrow- uh, well. Today. But I’ll be back-” and he waves his hand, a nebulous motion that could mean next week or next month or in a couple years. Whenever.
Lucas nods. Harry’s swallows look pale and washed out, peeking from his shirt in the fluorescent lights, and they’re just standing there, in front of the door, and it’s chilly outside, the glass panels all foggy and smeared with the handprints of a hundred people who have left before. “Take care,” Lucas says, and holds out his hand, feeling awkward for the first time. Harry smiles, secretive and bemused, and takes it, shakes it firmly before stuffing his hands back into his jacket pockets. Lucas pushes the door open for him.
;
They don’t text. Or, they do, but it’s not often. Harry will send him an occasional picture, have you ever been to NYC when it snows, and Lucas will say, I like London better but yes. He likes surprising Harry- Harry, who, texting back immediately, demands, when’ve you been in London with snow!?? are you there now? And Lucas says, as if, because he’s home, and Georgia is about as far from snowy London and Harry as is possible.
Harry doesn’t respond for a month, and when he does, it’s In LA are you here?
Lucas isn’t, won’t be for two weeks when he’s got a casting call, and by then Harry will be in Sweden or somewhere.
;
They meet again in London. Lucas is in town for the premiere and he’s got a radio interview at BBC at half past seven on a Tuesday morning. The DJ shakes his hand between songs a little more enthusiastically than Lucas believes their circumstances deserve, and then he has to sit in the live lounge and wait for the weather and news to finish. Hoult was supposed to be here, but looked three-quarters dead when they showed up for lobby call that morning, and he’s got to walk the red carpet that weekend, so someone sends him back to bed. Lucas wishes he could get away with something like that, but it does mean he gets Nic’s coffee as well as his own when he’s bundled into the rental car on the way to the studio.
And then he’s being ushered into the studio and the DJ, another Nick, Lucas thinks, is saying, oh I just got a text from my friend, he’s all upset I didn’ tell him you were coming in, he’s so mad at me right now, and then he’s introducing Lucas on air and repeating all this and Lucas is saying something, he thinks it’s nice to be here, and Nick is laughing at him. “So yeah, Harry Styles is super upset, he’s all in a flutter ‘cause he’s downstairs and he was going to come up but he hasn’t done his hair, didn’t know anyone was here!”
And then someone is saying, “Shut up,” all low and sulky, and Lucas turns and there’s Harry, looking rumpled and cold and upsettingly normal, leaning in the door.
The interview goes alright. Harry disappears and reappears occasionally, comes in to ask if Nick will play some record or another, which Nick refuses. He keeps playing with his hair, and Lucas wants to tell him to stop fidgeting, it’s making him nervous- but it’s not, really, it’s just that the habit is so familiar it’s comforting, and he thinks that should probably bother him.
After, Harry says, “so, I was going for a drink,” and Lucas says, “were you?” and Harry laughs.
They go for a drink, and Harry looks so despairing when Lucas orders a coffee that he changes his order.
;
Harry tells him that the last time he came to this cafe was with Taylor. “For real?” Lucas asks, and he nods, blinking slowly. “Yeah, there was a bit more- a bit more cameras, like. This is quieter.”
Lucas supposes it is. “I haven’t seen her in ages. Do you... hang out a lot?” He thinks he heard that Taylor’d bought a house here, but he doesn’t give much credit to the magazines; never did, but with the squalor of the new movie, of Nic and Jennifer, he’s officially despaired of them.
Harry gives him a slow, strange look, and shakes out his hair. “Nah, I don’t really see her a lot.”
Something flashes in Lucas’ peripheral vision and he’s suddenly aware of the way he’s leaning forward over the table, settles back in his seat and takes a careful sip of his tea. Harry doesn’t grace the commotion with a look, taps something out on his phone in his lap.
They don’t talk. Lucas has three cups of tea and watches Harry text and tries not to notice when Harry watches him back.
;
He doesn’t know it’s something people are talking about until Jennifer catches him by the elbow in the buffet line at breakfast and says, “I didn’t know you were into boybands!”
Lucas laughs and she giggles and the guy in front of them, Lucas thinks he’s Jen’s security, chuckles, and they’re hustled off to press and photos and Lucas doesn’t really think much else about it.
;
Harry texts him fifteen minutes before he’s supposed to walk the red carpet. where are you. Lucas frowns and shakes his head, texts back, red carpet, london, england, uk, long x lat unknown.
“Found him!” someone chirps, bright and altogether too close to his ear not five minutes later, and Lucas turns around to look down at Louis Tomlinson. He’s wearing red pants and he looks damn good, all slick hair like Lucas wishes he could really pull off and Lucas isn’t 100% sure he’s not wearing eyeliner. Louis winks at him exaggeratedly, wiggles his eyebrows and says, slowly, like Lucas might not understand him otherwise, “Someone was looking for you.”
“Your brows’ll stick that way,” Harry says, from Lucas’ other side, and Louis only does a more convincing caterpillar with them, smiles winningly. “Your face’ll stick that way, Hazza, and then what’ll we do? No young pretty face to front the band, though I suppose we might recruit young Till here.” He gives Lucas a generous once over, licks his lips speculatively. “A bit blonde for our look these days, but ‘e’d do in a pinch.”
“I’m not really cut out for boybands, I don’t think,” Lucas ventures, and it’s the right answer, because Louis beams. “No? You’ll just have to be our... whatsit? Our mascot, in young Harry’s unfortunate disfigurement. Stand still and look pretty and all that.”
“I’m not disfigured,” Harry murmurs, and rolls his eyes at Louis. It’s the gentlest disagreement Lucas has ever seen, and Harry gives him an abashed glance like he knows.
“Hmm,” Louis says. “What’d’you think, young Till?”
“Um,” Lucas tries, “I don’t think you need me, really, he looks the same as usual?”
Louis grins, and Lucas gets the impression he’s made a horrendous mistake. “The same as usual? Don’t you think he cleaned up nicely for your premiere? I think he’s positively glowing tonight, actually-”
“Lou,” Harry says, and Louis rolls his eyes.
Lucas shrugs helplessly. “You both look very nice. Everybody looks good on the red carpet, don’t they?”
Louis scoffs. “And there’s where we disagree, young Till-” (“Would you stop that,” Harry interjects, and Louis shakes his head emphatically) “Some people look like absolute shit on the red carpet, it’s a sad but very true fact of life.”
“Well, neither of you do,” Lucas says, quickly, and Harry is giving Louis a look.
He doesn’t get to stick around to see what it means, though, is whisked away instead, Nic grabbing his elbow and their handlers pushing them forward to flashbulbs and “did you ever think this movie would be made” and Lucas is acutely aware of how different this night is from the first premiere.
;
He didn’t have Harry Styles waiting for him after the first premiere.
Harry looks tired and a little wrinkled, hands in his pockets and shoulders up around his ears. “I’m leaving in the morning,” he says. Lucas nods. He is too.
“I guess I’ll see you,” Harry says.
“Yeah, it was great,” Lucas says. His face hurts from smiling so much, and it’s a relief to let it fall.
They stand there on the sidewalk, and Lucas says, “Text me sometime.”
Harry looks up from his shoes and his eyes are large in his pale face, and Lucas thinks green even though he can’t tell in the dim light. It’s too dramatic of a moment, and Lucas has to make a face, try to divert it. Harry smiles, sways a little. “Or,” he says. “Like.”
Lucas grins.
They go back to Harry’s house.