Chapter Text
“One Direction is with us tonight,” the host, Maria, begins. “They’ll be joining us right after our first commercial break so make sure to stay tuned.”
While the host continues doing her opening monologue, backstage, One Direction’s new managers were running around rapidly gathering each of the four lads in order to give them last minute instructions. Once all four of them are standing in a small huddle, Matthew, their new manager begins. “Alright, guys. This is the last big thing for a bit, at least about all of this coming out stuff and new marriage proposal,” he adds, shooting a halfhearted glare in Harry’s direction. In all honesty, it wasn’t too big of a deal. It saves them from having to do a buildup for that announcement as well.
“A couple last minute things,” Matthew continues. “We’ve decided to have Harry sit closest to the interviewer, followed by Louis, Niall, then Liam. Louis, you are probably going to be answering a few more questions than the others because of Project No Control. We are hoping that by putting Harry between you and the interviewer, you’ll be a bit touchy feely with him – not that that will be hard to do,” he half mumbles. “Keep it PG though, yes lads? A hand on a knee, an arm around their shoulders…” he suggests. “We didn’t ban any questions from being asked, as per your request, so if one comes up that you aren’t sure about, you’ll just have to do your best to divert. Harry, you seem pretty good at that,” Matthew says, shooting him a sidelong glance. “I don’t think there’s going to be any of those, though. There’s just too much to talk about already, if I’m being honest.
“Lastly,” Matthew continues. “I know with your previous management team, you looked off camera a lot in order to get approval for something you were about to say. Though your first thought may be to do that with us, you need to refrain from doing it as much as you can. You’re going through another big change by switching management, yeah? Fans are going to be wondering if you are controlled by us, as well.”
“But we’re not,” Harry points out. “We have a contract that says so.”
“Yes, I know that, but the fans are going to be skeptical,” Matthew says. “Rightfully so if you ask me,” he mumbles under his breath before continuing. “The point is we need to convince the fans of that and I don’t think just saying it is going to work. So, avoid looking off camera for permission. You don’t need it. You can say whatever you want from now on. Well, except anything bad about us, and probably yourselves, too. Use common sense, yeah?” he advises.
The four of them take a moment to digest what Matthew just said. They knew they were officially free from all of that stuff, but to actually here out loud was something else. They were free. They didn’t need to worry anymore about hiding certain parts of their lives. Harry and Louis can finally admit they are gay. They can finally kiss out in the open. They could talk to each other. Harry gets a little light headed at the thought, but doesn’t have to worry too much as Louis is right next to him, reaching out to hold his hand as soon as it happens. Harry squeezes back gratefully.
“Last thing,” Mathew picks up again. “We know we are not allowed to tell you what to say, but if you would allow us to suggest, we would refrain from mentioning anything about Zayn rejoining the band. You don’t need to deny it, but maybe just skirt around the question. That way, if things end up going badly, you’re not thought to be lying to your fans. And also, it will make the impact bigger in the future.”
“Of course,” Harry says quickly. “We were planning on doing that already, but you don’t need to worry about giving us advise in the future. That’s your job, innit? What we hire you for. We may look like divas now for making that clause be a part of our contract, but it was really just to ensure Louis and I could come out and, well, anything else we wanted to say to our fans should the situation arise. When you’ve been tied down for so long, you just want to make sure you have all of your exits covered, yeah? It’s going to be a learning curve for all of us, but we really aren’t divas. The media at least got that part right,” Harry finishes with a dimpled smile.
“Right,” Matthew says, slightly breathless. “Right,” he repeats again, a little flustered. “A learning curve, indeed.” Then after a short pause, “You’re going to called on in a few, you should go wait in the wings.” He says, gesturing in the vague direction of the stage. Harry gives them man a small smile as he leads Louis away with a hand on the small of his back. Liam clasps Matthew on the back before leading Niall away as well.
Once the interviewer calls them on stage, the four members of One Direction walk out in the order they were told to sit. They all say quick hellos to Maria before they take their spots on the sofa, fitting comfortably since Zayn left the band. After the applaud dies down, Maria begins, “Hello One Direction, how are all of you tonight?”
“Wonderful,” Harry says, dimples poking out. “How are you?”
“I’m fine as well, thank you for asking,” Maria says. She looks down at her first notecard before stating, “I know you’ve had a busy couple of months.” After a quick round of laughs, Maria continues. “Shall we just jump right in? Let’s start at the beginning. Back to what started all of this mayhem that is One Direction nowadays, and that is, Zayn quitting. Were you at all surprised that he left the band when he did?”
“I think,” Liam starts off. “We were a little surprised at first. Not so much in the fact that he actually quit, but in the way he did it. I think if you really knew him, saw him day in and day out, you could see just how much he began to hate it. He definitely wanted to get out of the spotlight. It’s always been something fun for us to do. You’re on tour with your best mates and you get to travel all over the world.
“A big problem is that people, the fans, really only get to see us at our best. They see us jumping around on stage with a smile on our face, or goofing off during interviews – even on social media we try to keep everything positive and happy. Behind the scenes though, things really begin taking a toll on you, especially Zayn. It’s a bit different for each person. I think we can all agree Harry, here, lives for the spotlight,” Liam says, poking fun at Harry a bit with a smile in his general direction. “He takes things in stride, brushes things off a bit easier than the rest of us do. Not that the rest of us don’t. We’ve all gotten a lot better over the years. I think some things just sit differently with everyone. Unfortunately Zayn had rumours going on about him that just rubbed him the wrong way and he decided to get out while he could.
“So, yeah, we weren’t all that surprised by his decision. To us, it was more that he did it over the phone. We’ve always said we’d end it with a bang if we decided to quit. You know, give the one last concert, give the tell-all at the end. It put us in a weird position, having to let all of our fans know through a Facebook post what was going on. On that note, a massive apology to all of our fans for that one. We know it was a terrible way to break the news, we were all just a bit shocked at the time, but we still had to move fast. But like I said, we are all best mates, for him to just pull out in that way was difficult,” Liam concludes. “We’ve all had time to cope with it though. These past couple months have been good for us.”
“I noticed you said are best mates, does that mean you are still friends with Zayn? I’m pretty sure many of us saw the short twitter feud between Louis and Zayn a couple weeks ago,” Maria prompts.
“Ah,” Louis sighs, expecting the question. “That one was my bad. As Liam was saying, we were a bit angry at how Zayn handled the situation. I’m not the best at holding back my temper, so I think I just took it out on him. Unfortunately, that happened in a very public space and our fans had to see it, but that’s just the way it works out sometimes. I don’t know about the rest of the lads, but it hurt me to see Zayn quit, claiming he wants to be a ‘Normal twenty-two year old,’ and then the next day announcing a solo career. My ego was a bit wounded. It’s all good now, we’ve talked about it since then. Besides, it’s not all that shocking, really. Zayn doing a solo career is definitely what’s best for him right now.”
“That’s great to hear,” Maria states, though she sounds rather sad at the lack of a good story.
“The next thing the fans have been asking me to talk to you about today is Project No Control. I’m sure by now you’ve seen all that has happened with your song, yes?” Maria asks.
Louis smiles brightly, reaching up to drape his arm around Harry’s shoulders. Harry reaches down to pat Louis’ knee in response, settling it there afterwards. “Yeah, I think we’ve all seen it by now. It’s incredible, really. The fans decided that they were fed up with how awful our past management was in promoting the album and decided to take matters into their own hands. I can’t really disagree with them in that aspect.
“When we originally came out with the album – Four – we were all really proud of it. It’s sixteen tracks, most of them written by us, in which we were excited to share with the world. I don’t know who’s to blame, or if there is anything even to blame when it’s all said and done, but we only had two tracks released. That’s a shame really because some of the ones on the album should be released, at least in my humble opinion. We’ve said over the years how we want to continue growing as a band, and to some extent we hope our audience grows as well. I think it’s very hard to continue growing as a band when you only are releasing two of our songs, and maybe not even some of the best ones on the album.
“It becomes very evident to us that there are some standout songs on the album during our concerts. I feel like we can barely get through a song without someone requesting ‘Stockholm Syndrome.’ Likewise, nowadays, ‘No Control’ has picked up momentum. Should these have been released as singles? Probably.
“There were a lot of reasons why more songs weren’t released. There was a lot of things happening all at once these past couple of months. We also have been coming out with a new album every year so far. Combine that with world tours and it’s hard to find the time to do the necessary promotion for each single. That’s not to say it couldn’t have been done, but it’s a bit more complicated than people expect.
“Besides that lovely rant,” Louis giggles. “As I’ve said before, it really is incredible to see Project No Control take place. To see all of our fans come together like that was just amazing. It was hard to put my phone down at times. I finally understand all that our fans go through,” Louis jokes. “I was up all night scrolling through twitter and tumblr. It’s exhausting stuff, that is. Poor Harry, here, had to pry my phone from my hands some nights.
“It’s been a month and I still don’t have the words to express how grateful I am, how happy. People are always saying how crazy are fans can get, and I think people automatically associate that word with the worse things possible. I don’t necessarily see it that way, they may be crazy, but look at what they are doing. They stuck up for me in a time where I really could appreciate it, and they just let it grow into this uniting project for them all – for us all. It was incredible to watch happen, it’s still incredible. I don’t know any other fans who have accomplished something quite so big. We love you,” Louis concludes, turning to face into the camera.
“That’s lovely,” Maria follows up. “Does it surprise you at times how much your fans do for you?”
“Yes,” Liam is quick to say. “All the time. We’ve been saying it since day one. It’s not what we do for them, it’s what they do for us, truly. They are the reason we are here today. They are the reason ‘No Control’ is pretty much a new single for us. They are the reason I wake up every day, and the reason I go to bed thinking about how lucky I am. We would be nowhere without them. We cannot thank you enough,” Liam finishes.
“Wonderful, wonderful,” Maria says, shuffling through the notecards in her hands. “Alright, moving on. Harry and Louis,” Maria says pointedly, staring up at the two. “Or should I just call you Larry Stylinson from now on?” she giggles. “You’ve surprised the world by coming out last night. Here is a short clip in case you somehow missed it,” Maria says, gesturing to the screen behind them where the professional clip One Direction’s team shot is playing. Once the clip finishes, Maria says, “Now, I’m sure you have been online looking at the response. You two have taken the top nine spots in the world wide trends on twitter.”
“Have we really?” Harry asks, incredulous. “We actually haven’t been on social media yet. We’ve, uh, we’ve been a little busy,” Harry says, blushing. Louis cackles, throwing his head back in laughter before pressing a quick kiss to Harry’s cheek.
“It’s okay, love,” Louis says quietly before turning back towards the interviewer. “Sorry, continue.”
“No worries,” Maria says, smiling at the two, knowing the audience is eating this up. “Well, since you haven’t been online, I guess I’ll be the one to tell you it has been pretty much all positive responses. Knowing that, did you have a good feeling that the overwhelming response from your fans would be positive, or did you still have some doubts?”
“Um,” Louis says, peering at Harry for a second. “I think so,” Louis says a bit unsurely. “We were told by our new management that they thought the response would be good. Plus, people have been speculating about us for pretty much our whole career. With each day that passes, we seemed to gain a few more fans. You can go on some of those fan fiction sites and there are literally tens of thousands of stories about us. Therefore, I think we thought it would be okay. We knew we’d at least have some fans coming out of this.
“There’s always some doubt though. Not everyone is as lucky in having such great fans. Some people aren’t in a position in which they can come out right now. Though gay rights movements have been popping up everywhere, they’re nowhere close to where they need to be. Gratefully, we are in a position in which we are able to come out. Hopefully we can inspire others in doing so as well,” Louis finishes.
“If it’s safe,” Harry adds seriously. “That’s most important.”
“How long have you two been together?” Maria asks next.
“Our three year anniversary is in two weeks,” Harry says without missing a beat.
“Oh, Harreh,” Louis says, snuggling a bit further into Harry’s side.
“Congratulations,” Maria says. “Did they tell you guys right away?” Maria asks, turning towards Niall and Liam again, not wanting them to feel excluded from the interview.
“Yeah,” Niall says. “When you see each other as much as we do, you can’t really keep secrets. If they didn’t tell us right away, it was only a matter of time before we caught them snogging on the tour bus. Besides, it wasn’t very hard to guess. They practically snuggled every change they got. We actually all had bets going as to when they would get together. All of us though they would get together sooner than they did, but we’re just happy that they are happy. Even if that does mean having to hear them being their stupid, lovey dovey selves all of the time,” Niall says, mock glaring in Harry and Louis’ direction.
After a round of laughter through the audience, Maria asks, “During the proposal, Zayn came out on stage with you all, does that mean there may be plans of Zayn rejoining the band now that you have left Modest! Management?” Maria asks next.
“Not at this time, no,” Liam says to the dissatisfaction from the audience. “It’s like we were saying before, Zayn made a choice that was best for him. He is definitely going to be releasing a solo album, something I’m sure we are all looking forward to,” Liam winks to the camera. “The rest is up to him. If he wants to come back, of course we’ll let him, but he needs to do what’s best for him and One Direction may not necessarily be it. Whatever makes him happy is what will happen,” Liam reiterates.
“So, when is the big wedding?” Maria asks once Liam has finished talking.
“Jesus,” Louis says, laughing a bit. “We’ve just got engaged yesterday!” Louis laughs some more, a bit hysterical. “We don’t know yet. Probably not for a good while. Definitely not before the tour is over. Then we will probably want to spend a good couple of months planning for it. Not to mention the new album coming out,” Louis says, suddenly getting anxious. “Oh my goodness, Hazza. We are never going to get married!”
“Yes we will, Lou,” Harry reassures him. “Worst case we’ll just have our mothers plan it all for us, so all we have to do is walk down the aisle when we get back,” Harry jokes. “I can’t wait too long. I’m getting a little impatient now that it’s officially going to happen. I really want to be Mr. Tomlinson,” Harry says, looking Louis in the eyes. Louis relaxes, reaching forward to press a kiss to Harry’s lips.
“That you’ll be, Harry. That you’ll be,” Louis promises, pressing one last kiss to his nose to the chorus of aws in the background.
“Alright, we’ll take a quick commercial break and then we’ll be back with news of their new album,” Maria says facing the camera. After the commercial break is done, Maria gives her welcome back speech before jumping right back into the questions. “So, new album. How is it coming along? Is it different now that Zayn’s gone?”
“It’s going well, so far,” Harry answers truthfully. “Zayn leaving, although sad, has given us a lot of emotions in which we can transfer into our songs. Not that our whole album is going to be sad ballads,” Harry protests, holding his hand out in a sort of stopping motion, as if he can stop people’s thoughts himself. “There’s going to be some love songs, too,” Harry says, winking fondly down at Louis. “I think we’ve always said that One Direction wouldn’t be the same if one of us weren’t in the band,” Harry says, moving back to the question at hand. “And to some extent that is very true. We’re not the same. It’s definitely going to be hard losing Zayn. It’s been hard.
“So yes, the writing process is a little bit different now that Zayn is gone. I think after the previous four albums, we kind of found a rhythm that worked for us most of the time. There were are lot of parts in past songs that we would pen with Zayn in mind. He has a lovely voice for doing those ending riffs. Not that the rest of us can’t, but Zayn just does it a little bit better, y’know?
“So, we’ve had to find a different thing that works for us. It’s been a bit difficult. I know Louis and Liam like going out with Julian to write songs a lot. It seems to be working if Simon Cowell is anything to go by. He liked the last couple songs we’ve given him,” Harry says. “I think the fans should expect a different sounding album, but hopefully it’s still just as good as our others.”
“Just really quickly before we need to say goodnight, you mentioned Simon Cowell. Though you dropped Modest!, you are still with Syco Records? Did you ever think of dropping Syco as well, or did you always plan on staying with Syco?” Maria asks.
“We could never leave Simon,” Louis says with a smile on his face. “Not only do we owe the man for everything he has done for us, but he also never did anything bad to us. We dropped Modest! because we didn’t like some of the rules set for us. Simon has been with us since day one of our band, and I would assume he will be with us on the last day of our band. Not that that’s going to be any time soon,” Louis assures the fan, smiling at the audience.
“Alright, thank you for stopping in tonight to talk to us,” Maria says. “Goodnight everyone, have a lovely evening,” she finishes, facing the camera. Once the cameras are off, everyone begins moving. Audience members begin leaving the venue, crew members begin shutting off equipment, and the boys are quick to thank Maria before making their way backstage to find Matthew. Once they find him, they all begin making their way to the vans that will take them all home for the next few days before they are off to America to begin their next leg of the tour.
This time though, Harry and Louis will be doing it without having to hide who they are. The future may be a little bit shaky for them, Zayn rejoining the band and their new album coming out, but at least they will always have each other. Harry captures Louis’ lips in his own at the thought.