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Chapter Text

Lakewood University, Michigan / 1972

Despite there being more than 20 minutes until Louis’ play started, the small auditorium of Lakewood University was almost completely packed. Louis struggled to keep up with the conversations stage crew people and school journalists around him wanted to have and the rumpled napkins college girls shoved into his face continually.

Regardless, Louis kept his too-wide grin plastered onto his face, signed the napkins with the blue ink pen he’d hastily slipped into his back pocket before he’d left his dorm. He winked at the girls as they giggled and left, and politely answered the questions that didn’t seem to ever stop coming.

“Did ya know it might end up being on Broadway?” he asked no one in particular as he handed a Walmart receipt back to the cheerful blonde in front of him, his grin growing wider at the proud laughs and cheerful congratulations the people surrounding him gave.

It was when, just a second after Louis turned around to speak with the stage manager about a broken light, the chatter in the room slowly quieted down without him noticing and a warm, bony hand was placed on his shoulder and an unexpected shiver ran down his back.

With wide eyes, Louis turned around slowly and was met with a pair of brilliantly bright green eyes staring straight into his; the skin around them was sickly pale and covered in wrinkles. When Louis took a step back in surprise, he instantly noticed the sorrowful look that took over the man’s face. The hair on his head had gone completely gray, curling around his ears and the nape of his neck.

Before Louis could do anything else, the man stretched a frail, trembling hand toward him and gripped Louis’ hand firmly.  He lifted it and placed a cool, round object in his palm and gently closed his fingers around it.

“Come back to me,” the man whispered in a surprisingly deep voice, his sad eyes flicking over Louis’ face. “Please.” he gave Louis’ hand one final squeeze, then turned around and silently left the room, leaving behind the faint scent of lilies. 

All eyes were instantly on Louis — or rather, on the hidden object in his hand. Everyone subtly crept closer to steal a quick glance, while some started bombarding him with questions about the strange man.

Louis could barely register the questions over his own confusion. He brought his hand closer to his face and opened his fingers carefully, revealing a shiny gold pocket watch unlike anything he had ever seen before. When he pressed the small button on the side, the lid popped open and revealed a pearl-colored watch face with small encrusted diamonds in place of actual numbers.

“Who was he?” Louis faintly heard someone ask. All he could do, though, was stare at the gold watch in his palm. 

After a moment, Louis shook his head and whispered, “I…I don’t know.”

⁺˚*･༓☾　　☽༓･*˚⁺

Grand Hotel, Michigan

The old man walked into his hotel room silently, his weak heart hammering in his throat as he clutched the thin programme tightly to his chest. The tears that had been welling up in his eyes since that morning threatened to spill at any moment.

Ms. Nelson stepped into the well-lit hall as soon as she heard the heavy front door slam shut. Her plucked eyebrows furrowed together when she saw his upset expression. 

“What happened?” she asked. “How did it go?”
The knot in his throat grew considerably and instead of answering, he walked past her and stepped into the large bedroom at the end of the hall, quietly closing the door behind him and locking it with trembling hands.

The large window on the faded yellow wall across from him was wide open. The warm summer breeze, the sweet smell of the adjacent lake, and the soothing sounds of the small waves crashing against the shore filtered through the room. The record player on the wooden bedside table gently scratched at the vinyl, playing a soft melody that reminded him of another, much happier life.

He gingerly sat down on the creaky rocking chair by the open window and finally let the tears trickle down his cheeks. He carefully pulled the sky blue pamphlet away from his chest, taking no notice of the tears that splashed on it as he ran his fingers over the crinkled edges. His eyes drifted upward and he traced the curled white words at the top — Butterflies and Summertimes .

Finally, he let his eyes fall to where Louis W. Tomlinson had been typed in a smaller, similar font, and, not for the first time in years, he wished he had never let go.

Chapter Text

CHAPTER 1.

Chicago, Illinois / 1974

Louis didn’t know how long he’d been sitting on the hard chair he’d bought when he moved out here, staring at the blank piece of paper in the emerald-colored typewriter in front of him that seemed to taunt him every time it ruffled with the gentle puffs of air that entered through the window. He had two weeks until the first draft of his play was due, but every time he tried to type something, an annoying, nagging feeling in the back of his mind stopped his creativity from flowing.

Sighing, Louis pulled out the heavy watch from his pants’ pocket and popped the lid open, both black hands pointing to the clear diamond on the right. 3:15. He ripped the sheet from the typewriter with a frustrated huff and bunched it up, throwing it in the trash can under the desk. His knees cracked loudly as he quickly stood up, pushing the chair away with the back of his knees. He grabbed the brown jacket that was draped over the back and sped down the stairs, the familiar soft pattering of a cat’s footsteps following quickly after him.

After noticing how sunny it was when he looked out the window, Louis stuffed the jacket into the small suitcase by the door. He felt the warmth that usually came from Henry rubbing against his ankles and felt a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

“Don’t break too many things while I’m gone, okay?” he crouched down to scratch at the spot between Henry’s pointy ears, making the cat purr loudly. He leaned forward to press a small kiss in the middle of his forehead. “I’ll be back before you know it. I promise.”

Henry stared at him for a second, then meowed loudly and lifted his paw to swat at Louis before turning toward the kitchen, his black tail swishing high in the air with every step he took.

Louis chuckled quietly and wiped his nose with the back of his hand, his eyes suddenly feeling a little too wet at the thought of leaving his cat alone for the first time since he’d gotten him.

With his right hand on his suitcase handle and his left hand on the doorknob, Louis waited until he heard Henry happily munching on the food he had poured in his bowl earlier that day before opening the door and leaving the apartment. Just as he reached the lift, the doors slid open to reveal the stout, cheerful man who lived in the apartment right below Louis’. He beamed widely when he saw Louis.

“Mr Tomlinson!” Mr Crowley exclaimed happily when Louis stepped in, shuffling to the side to make space for him and his tall suitcase. “Where ya off to now? Visiting a girlfriend, eh?”

Louis snorted under his breath, quickly shaking his head as he tried to manage a smile that probably looked much more like a wince. “Unfortunately not. I just haven’t been able to work properly these past few days, so I figured I’d take a small break and go home for a short time.”

“The curse of the writer’s block, huh?” Mr Crowley chuckled loudly and clapped a heavy hand on Louis’ shoulder, making him stumble forward a bit. “I’m sure you will work past it, though. Your plays have always been wonderful if you ask me.”

The lift dinged loudly, announcing their arrival to the lobby. The doors slid open and Louis was quick to press a hand against one to hold it open for Mr Crowley, who stepped around him and out of the lift with quick apologies tumbling out of his mouth.

“Thank you, sir,” Louis says honestly, smiling his first true smile of the day. “I really do appreciate that.”

“You don’t have to thank me, Mr Tomlinson.” Mr Crowley put his palm up to silence him before starting to take careful steps backwards, the soles of his polished black shoes clicking loudly against the tile floor. “I’m simply telling you the truth.”

Louis sent the man another faint smile and tipped his brown hat instead of saying goodbye. He then turned on his heel and walked toward the long reception desk parallel to the pristine white wall across from the main crystal doors that led into their apartment complex.

⁺˚*･༓☾　　☽༓･*˚⁺

The drive back to Michigan was a very pleasant one. The sky was a clear shade of blue Louis hadn’t seen in a very long time, and the sun shone down warmly on his cherry red convertible. The air turned slightly crisp right as he crossed the state border, the trees getting greener and thicker the closer he got to his destination. The excitement bubbling in Louis’ stomach only grew stronger.

Soon enough, the familiar lake from Louis’ college days came into view and nostalgia washed over him as he drove alongside it. He watched the way the sunlight reflected on the small waves created by the strong breeze and how the white swans floated on it calmly, only ruffling their feathers every now and then. As he slowed down to take everything in with a small smile on his face, the beautiful white hotel he’d be staying in appeared behind tall bushy trees, the rows and rows of balconies and ceiling-tall crystal windows glittering under the light.

Louis took a right onto a wider road and the Grand Hotel immediately took his breath away — just like it always had. Gravel crunched under his wheels as the tall columns on either side of the hotel entrance grew bigger, the vines wrapped around them covered in blooming flowers.

A kind man in a sky-colored suit was at his car door the moment he stopped in front of the wide entrance under the white tent that shielded the valets from the strong summer sun.

“Good afternoon, sir,” the young valet greeted him cheerfully as he opened the door and held his hand out for Louis’ keys. “How long will you be stayin’ with us?”

“Just for the weekend, thank you,” Louis answered with a small smile as he placed the keys onto the valet’s open palm. He pressed the small button just under the steering wheel to pop the trunk before stepping out of the car. While the valet took his place in the driver’s seat, Louis pulled his case out of the open trunk with a quiet grunt and let it fall to the floor with a heavy thud. 

The valet drove off as soon as the trunk was slammed shut, and Louis was left to carry the suitcase up the marble stairs on his own. Cold air unexpectedly hit him as he crossed the entrance, momentarily blinding him; he blinked repeatedly to moisten his dried-up contacts and made his way to the front desk, accidentally bumping into a couple of guests and employees.

He managed to issue right before crashing against the desk and he stopped short right when he felt his left knee bump into something hard. He blinked rapidly to get his eyes to focus on the blurry man standing behind the wooden desk in front of him.

“May I help you, sir?” the man asked with amusement clear in his voice. Louis blinked once more, slowly this time, and felt his face heat up slightly as he gave the smirking employee a sheepish shrug. Louis curiously flickered his eyes over the man's face; he had sweet, hazel eyes and the darkest eyelashes Louis had seen fanning over sharp cheekbones. 

“I’m sorry about all that,” Louis apologized as he fumbled to take the navy-colored wallet out of his back pocket. “I, erm, have a reservation under the name Tomlinson . I called maybe about a week ago.”

“Let me see,” the man hummed quietly as he opened the heavy scarlet book in front of him. He traced a long finger down the list of current guests, then turned the page and tapped the third name from the top down. “Aha, here you are — Louis Tomlinson. You’re only staying here for the weekend?”

“I am.” Louis nodded, handing over the newest version of his driver’s license. While the man confirmed whatever it was he needed to confirm, Louis fixed his eyes on the fresh bouquet of bright flowers in the clear vase next to his left hand. Whoever arranged it clearly did so with as much care as possible; Louis never really understood. “Just needed to get away from the city, s’all.”

“Well, I hope you enjoy your stay.” the man flashed him a wide, toothy grin before turning around to pull off a set of jingling keys from one of the many gold hooks on the large wooden board plastered against the wall. “You’ll be staying in room 342 and my name’s Zayn, in case you ever need anything.”

“Thank you, Zayn,” Louis said with a small smile. He took back his license and keys and carelessly shoved them in his back pocket. Zayn waited a moment before ringing the small silver bell to his right, and, not even two seconds later, a door to Louis’ left opened.

“Niall will help you with your luggage and with any questions you might have,” Zayn said. Louis smiled at the elderly man who appeared by his side, a beaming smile spread across his wrinkled face. Louis turned toward Niall, his mouth open to greet the man, but the moment his eyes met Niall’s bright blue ones, that nagging feeling he thought he’d left at home came back stronger than ever. Louis drew his eyebrows together in confusion.

“Good afternoon, sir,” Niall greeted him cheerfully, wrapping four steady fingers around the handle of Louis’ suitcase after he took his hand away and awkwardly let it hang by his side. “Room 342, eh? That’s one of my favorite rooms, if I’m being honest. Has a great view of the lake and…” 

Zayn sent Louis an amused quirk of his lips as Niall started walking off, still rambling about the view from the balcony. Louis jogged to catch up and slipped into the gilded elevator before the doors slid shut.

He was met with another smile from Niall, one even wider than before, the kind that makes people’s eyes squinty and framed by weirdly charming crinkles.

“So where are you visiting us from, young man?” Niall asked, genuinely curious. The elevator lurched into movement and made Louis lose his footing for a split second. 

“Chicago,” Louis answered in a soft voice, leaning back against the cool wall. “But I, uh. I grew up here actually. Even went to Lakewood University and all that. Graduated four years ago.”

“A wonderful school, Lakewood University,” Niall noted, letting Louis out of the elevator first as soon as it stopped and the doors opened. “Never had the chance to go there meself, but I’ve heard marvelous stories about it.” 

Louis’ foot landed on a ridiculously plush carpet when he stepped out. He was, however, blinded by the ridiculously bright ceiling lights, but he ignored the colorful spots dancing around in his vision and instead followed Niall and his suitcase into the empty hallway on their left.

Complex designs of dark swirls and spirals were sewn into the dark red carpet under their shuffling feet — almost the same color of the wine Louis drank when he couldn’t get his creative juices flowing. The walls of the corridor were white and completely spotless, and the doors were made of a smooth walnut-colored wood, golden numbers placed in the middle of each door.

They turned right when they hit the end of the hallway and after what seemed like ages of silently walking side by side, they reached room number 342 and Niall muttered a quiet ‘ah, here we are’ before moving off to the side and allowing Louis to unlock the door with the set of keys in his pocket.

Louis slowly pushed the door open with his fingertips and tentatively took a step forward, his eyes taking a moment to adjust from the cool artificial light to the warm sunlight streaming in through the clear window. He held the door open for Niall to tug his suitcase through and let it slam shut before walking further into the room, his eyes flickering around it attentively. The light beige carpet covering the floor looked strangely perfect with the pastel yellow walls, which somehow managed to make everything in the room look softer — not that Louis actually knew anything about colors or how to combine them. The king-sized bed to his left was pressed neatly against the wall next to the window, and a mountain of at least eight pillows rested on the cream-colored linens, inviting Louis to jump atop them and spend the rest of his holiday sleeping.

“One of my favorite rooms,” Niall suddenly said, startling Louis into snapping his head towards the kind employee. He had moved to stand next to the window, Louis’ suitcase carefully placed in a corner, and was nervously fiddling with this fingers, the golden light making his face look years younger. “I don’t mean to intrude, sir, and this might sound quite strange, now that I actually think about it, but…” his eyes were set on Louis’ face, a deep frown set between his bushy eyebrows as he studied Louis’ confused expression. “Have we ever met before?”

A loud laugh ripped out of Louis’ chest unexpectedly, surprising both himself and Niall, and he quickly shook his head.

“No, no, no,” he said, unable to stop the soft chuckles from spilling past his lips. “Of course not, that would be ridiculous.”

“Yes, of course,” Niall huffed out with a hesitant laugh as he started making his way towards the door. “I apologize for that; you just look awfully familiar.”

“Must have one of those faces, I suppose.” Louis shrugged his shoulders and pulled out two ten dollar bills from his wallet, handing them to the man as he walked past where Louis was standing. “Thank you for everything, Niall.”

“Of course, sir.” sometime in the last two seconds, his cheerful demeanor had come back and a smile — less bright than before, but a smile nevertheless — reappeared on his pale face. “If you ever need anything, Mr Tomlinson, my house is that tiny cabin by the lake.” He pointed his thumb toward the window behind him, gave Louis a short nod, and left silently, leaving Louis standing alone in the middle of the room.

⁺˚*･༓☾　　☽༓･*˚⁺

Louis leaned against the railing of the room’s narrow balcony, staring at the lake and at the few hotel guests laying on the small sandy shore. After about twenty minutes, he decided that, yeah, Niall had been right to say that this room had one of the best views. Aiming to look around the place and maybe find somewhere to eat, Louis pushed himself off the railing, left the room and took the stairs, forgoing the elevators.

The large lobby was much fuller now. The loud chatter of excited new guests lining up to check in and the clicking of women’s heels against the clean marble floor resonated throughout the white room, giving the hotel an even livelier ambience. A few children ran around, dashing in between people’s legs while their parents stood in line; happy squeals left their mouths as they sped past their clearly exasperated parents.

The amused smirk on Louis’ face was still there when he asked a passing employee, who gave him a strange look, where the restaurant was, having previously realized he had not eaten anything since he left Chicago thanks to the loud growl his stomach had emitted when he was making his way down the stairs. The employee simply muttered an “at the end of the hallway to the right of the front desk” before speeding off to help the parents of a pair of screaming children with their luggage. Louis let out a quiet huff but decided to let it go as he walked in the direction that he was pointed to. 

When he got there, he was very surprised to see the vast space outside of the large room which he assumed was the hotel’s restaurant completely empty. Creeping closer to the closed door as to not disturb anything or anyone, he noticed the only sounds coming from inside were silverware clinking against each other and the occasional scrape of a chair against the wooden floor. He gently knocked his fist against the frosted glass and took a step back, rocking back and forth on his heels as he waited for the response that came not even two seconds later.

“May I help you?” a man with pale blond hair, not much older than Louis, poked his head out from the small crack that had been formed between the now open door and the doorway, the ghostly skin between his pale eyebrows covered in deep wrinkles.

“I’m sorry — I was just wondering if I could have a table for one?” Louis asked with a hopeful smile on his face. “I just got here and —” 

“Sir, we closed half an hour ago,” the man answered bluntly, completely ignoring what Louis had just said.” We don’t open again until nine.”

“Nine?” Louis’ smile vanished from his face and was replaced by his eyebrows disappearing into his hairline. “But that’s still seven hours away!”
“My apologies, sir; hotel policies,” the man answered, looking nowhere as sorry as he should have, and promptly shut the door in Louis’ face.

He was left gaping at the shut door for maybe a minute straight, then he turned on his heel and he headed back to the main lobby, muttering insults under his breath that he hadn’t said in a long time without taking the time to realize it was probably his hunger taking and that he didn’t actually mean it. He stood in the middle of the lobby for what felt like ages, looking and feeling completely lost as he turned in a circle while searching for something to do for the remaining seven hours when he spotted a wide entrance he hadn’t seen before with thin white columns on each side that led to a well-lit room on the wall right across from where he was and he stopped his movements, slightly tilting his head to the side as he read over the gilded words above the entrance that said ‘Grand Hotel’s History’ and curiosity unexpectedly washed over him.

Stepping around an abandoned black trunk, he made his way toward the room, his eyes wide and unblinking, and Louis felt like he was in some sort of trance. The noises around him faded slightly as he got closer to it and they were completely drowned out the moment he stepped in and entered a room the color of fresh blood. 

Louis blinked a few times, slowly growing accustomed to the unusual color on the walls and the soft carpet under him, and took two large steps across the empty exposition until he reached the exhibition in the middle of the scarlet room.

The crystal table that was as tall as his hip bone held multiple yellowing newspaper clippings about the opening of the hotel and about the many important events it had held inside the ballroom that was now the restaurant on a long velvet cushion. On the space above the clippings was a rusty gold key the size of Louis’ hand that still glinted under the white lights every time he shifted.

After actually taking the time to read the articles, Louis straightened his slightly aching back with a soft crack and brushed the few strands of hair off his forehead while looking around the room with a blank look on his face. Nothing in particular caught his eye, since most of the other exhibitions were more framed clippings from important newspapers like The New York Times and The Boston Globe and black and white photographs of men with crisp suits and women wearing large hats on their styled heads and tight dresses, but it wasn’t until his eye caught a quick glimpse of a thin ray of sunlight hitting a silver frame in one of the back corners and the curiosity in his head that had been slowly fading grew considerably.

From where Louis was standing, he couldn’t really see what the delicate frame held, but his eyes focused on it better when he finally stood in front of it and the air in his lungs got unexpectedly and immediately punched out of his body.

The oval-shaped frame held the picture of a young man with short dark hair that curled around his ears and delicately fell across his forehead. The headband adorning his head was made out of what looked like laurels and a small coin had been carefully placed between them and it made him look… ethereal. His bright eyes weren’t focused on the person taking the photograph but were instead looking at something — or some one — out of the frame, and his plump lips were parted in what seemed to be a small surprised smirk. The light shirt he was wearing under his gray blazer had a silky loose knot tied around at the base of his throat and the ribbons that fell from it hovered over his stomach since he was leaning forward on his knees.

Louis flicked his wide eyes to the spot underneath the frame, fiercely hoping to find a name or a date or anything that would tell him who this man was, but his heart sank in his chest when his eyes stopped on the bare space on the scarlet wall instead of on a similar golden plaque that all the other exhibitions had.

He understood in that exact moment what people close to him meant when they told him he had absolutely no impulse control when he turned on his heel and ran out of the room and back out into the lobby, his heart hammering against his ribs as he frantically searched for someone that could give him any information, but because he was Louis fuckin’ Tomlinson, every single employee in the Grand Hotel seemed to be busy. His chest heaved as he took ragged breaths and he ignored the burning in his lungs when he spotted Niall happily chatting with the man standing behind the concierge’s desk and sped off running in his direction, ignoring every suitcase he bumped into and every person he accidentally shouldered past to get to the other side.

“Niall!” he stopped short in front of the dumbfounded man and held up his palm before Niall could say anything, and leaned forward against his bent knees to catch his breath and calm the burning in his chest.

“Sir, are you okay?” Niall asked, the worry clear in his voice and if Louis paid close attention, he could identify the faint amusement laced with it.

“I’m fine. But I do have one question for you.” he waved his hand to dismiss Niall’s question and straightened his back. “Who’s the man in the exposition room?”

“I’m sorry? A man, you said?” a worried frown appeared between Niall’s eyebrows and he craned his neck to the side a bit to take a look at the room behind Louis.

“The man in the silver frame at the back of the room,” Louis clarified and watched as recognition dawned upon Niall’s face and an excited smile formed on his lips.

“Oh! You mean Mr Styles!” at Louis’ confused expression, Niall carried on, “his name was Harry Styles — he was quite famous back in his day. I even remember him playing soccer with me a few times when I was a boy and he stayed here at the hotel.”
“He stayed here?” Louis asked in surprise, an unknown restlessness making his way up his fidgeting fingertips.

“Mr Styles performed at the hotel’s auditorium in 1912,” the concierge piped in and Niall nodded along before jumping back into the conversation they had been having before Louis had interrupted, and missed the way Louis turned his longing gaze back toward the exhibition room.

⁺˚*･༓☾　　☽༓･*˚⁺

Louis’ entire Saturday was spent in the exposition room instead of at the pool or at the lake trying to write, his hands tightly clasped behind his back as he stared at the handsome — no, beautiful — stranger in the picture, a turmoil of emotions forming in his stomach. He could not understand why he had had the luck of being born almost 40 years after his angel-like man had lived, or why he hadn’t had the chance to be born into a more… accepting society so he could ignore the guilt that flooded through his veins about the things he felt every time his flickering eyes met the picture’s still ones.

On Sunday morning, he found himself back in the exhibition room as soon as he was out of bed, hoping deep in his soul that he could figure out whom Mr Styles’ eyes were focused on and what had caused the smirk to spread across his lips, and his fingers ached with an unfamiliar need to reach toward the picture and somehow find out of his skin was as soft as the photograph made it seem.

Louis let out a quiet sigh and closed his eyes, mentally raking through every unnatural and impossible option his mind had come up with but pushed every single one from his mind as he slowly felt himself start to give up. He was about to turn away from the picture and walk out to complete his signing out and leave when he heard two pairs of feet quietly pad into the hall and he froze, pretending to study a frame hung on the wall to his left.

“Have you been to the library yet?” a gentle voice asked as the feet moved closer to what probably was the crystal exhibition in the middle of everything. “You know we are leaving tonight and —”

“I know, mom,” a much younger voice replied, causing Louis to crack a small smile at the whiny tone. “I returned every single one of the books at noon yesterday, don’t worry about it.” 

A library? Of course! How could Louis not remember about the place basically saved his ass from failing his sophomore year of college?

He sped out of the hall, ignoring the concerned looks employees and guests alike gave him and ran down the front marble stairs just in time to spot Niall picking up a suitcase and trying to put it in the narrow trunk of a familiar cherry red convertible.

“Niall, wait!” he started the man into momentarily losing his grip on the handle of the case and Louis was quick to help him put it down on the rocky floor carefully, smiling sheepishly at the confused look the employee gave him. “I’m very sorry about that, but — could you please take my luggage back to my room and inform Zayn that I will be extending my stay here indefinitely?”

“Of course, Mr Tomlinson.” Niall nodded his head, a knowing twinkle suddenly appearing in his blue eyes. “May I ask why?”

“I just have some things left to do before I go back home,” Louis informed him as he took his keys from the valet who had brought his car out from the hotel’s garage and got into the driver’s seat, driving away from the hotel and into the quaint town of Lakewood, Michigan.

⁺˚*･༓☾　　☽༓･*˚⁺

The library was just as he remembered, Louis noticed as he walked in through the heavy front door, the wonderful smell of old books and freshly brewed coffee hit his nose. He made his way toward the desk with a small smile on his face, expecting to find the lovely elderly woman who had always helped him with whatever he needed and gave him chocolate chip cookies the days after he had had exams, but instead he was met with a middle-aged woman who glared at him through the round black frames that were perched on the bridge of her nose the moment he stopped in front of him.

“Can I help you?” she asked sharply, flicking the cigarette she was holding between her bony fingers over the crystal ashtray placed on top of what Louis assumed were probably important papers.

“Yes, actually—” Louis started but he was interrupted by the dark cloud of smoke that was blown straight into his face, and he quietly coughed and waved it away with his hand. “I am looking for anything you have on Harry Styles. He was—”

“I know who Harry Styles is.” he was interrupted once again, this time by the woman herself and she hummed, her dark eyes studying him for a second before she turned around and started making her way to the back of the library where the tables got much smaller and much creakier. Louis stared at her retreating figure for a second, confused, before he understood that she wanted him to follow and he quickly set off after her.

She motioned for him to sit at the tiniest table Louis had ever seen when they reached the empty section labeled ‘Music History’ and he did as he was told, the uncomfortable wooden chair creaking loudly under his weight.

“Wait here,” she instructed and quickly rounded the bookshelf behind her, her short heels clicking on the wood floor.

Sighing quietly, Louis rested his cheek on his fist and curiously looked around at his surroundings, his eyes raking through the yellowing pages of the few magazines that had managed to peek out through their respective spots between worn-out books. He was about to push his chair back to grab a burgundy-colored book from the shelf that had particularly caught his eye when the snappy woman came back with a mountain of books and magazines stacked up in her arms and he scraped the chair back to stand up and help her, but she simply let the tall stack fall on the table with a loud thud.

Louis was pretty sure he heard something snap when the books landed on the table.

“This is all we have on Harry Styles,” she informed him, tapping a long scarlet nail against the thinning magazine on the top. “The library closes at six p.m. sharp. I believe that will give you plenty of time to… do whatever it is you’re doing.”

She gave him a quick once-over, a dark blonde eyebrow raised over her thick glasses, and went back to her desk without uttering another word.

Louis scoffed under his breath and tugged the first magazine off the top of the stack as he realized that there was absolutely no way of him leaving before six o’clock.

⁺˚*･༓☾　　☽༓･*˚⁺

Five hours later, Louis’ spine ached terribly from hunching over the multiple sources of information that now formed a new stack on top of the jacket he’d taken off two hours in and he was sure his hair was a mess that stuck out in every possible direction.

He let out an exhausted yawn and arched his back over the back of the chair, very much enjoying the way his spine cracked, before slumping back against it. He stared at the last book on the table with drooping eyes, the colorful cover staring back at him in almost a mocking way.

So far, he had learned that Styles’ full name was Harry Edward Styles —  he was born on February 1st, 1888 in Salt Lake City, Utah to a small family of three, including him. In 1904, he moved to New York City with his mother and older sister to fulfil his dream of being a singer and a song called Don’t Let Me Go was released under his name not even four months later. Styles’ fame continued to grow and he even released multiple records that completely sold out hours after they were put in record stores. From the readings Louis had gone over, what made him so special among the people were his lyrics and the unique voice that floated out from the phonographs people had in their homes, but just when he hit his peak, he was never seen or heard of ever again. 

Louis blinked his heavy eyes rapidly and came back to his senses with a quiet sigh. After taking a short moment to rub off the sleep from his eyes, he straightened his back against the chair and scraped it closer to the table. He scanned the bright and bubbly ‘ Written by Jesy Nelson ’ on the bottom of the cover and opened the book with hope blooming warmly in his chest. When the hardcover fell against the table quietly, the air in Louis’ was punched right out of them.

Taking up the entire opposite side of the cover page was a simple black and white glossy photograph of the same man who had approached him and had given him the gold watch that was currently in his pocket in the university’s auditorium two years ago. His dark hair was slicked back carefully, making his whole face visible — it wasn’t as wrinkled as the face Louis saw in his dreams some nights. Of course, he had small crinkles by his eyes and there were deep wrinkles on his forehead and thin smile lines carved into his cheeks, but his mouth was set into a grim line and he was staring into the camera with so much sadness in his dull eyes that it made Louis’ heart hurt. He was wearing a plain black suit that had tiny wrinkles on it from sitting on the small chair was barely visible in the shot and his large hands were folded together on his lap, the only jewelry on them being a silver rose-shaped ring on his left ring finger.

Louis took in a shaky breath, his mouth suddenly too dry, and slowly trailed his eyes down the picture, looking for a date — looking for anything — that could tell him when or where this picture had been taken. His heart stopped beating when he found the tiny white words on the bottom right corner of the page.

This is the last known picture of Harry Styles. It was taken on August 24th, 1972.

Chapter Text

CHAPTER 2.

When Louis finally left the library, his heart high in his throat and his hands shaking uncontrollably in his pockets, the sun was already being swallowed by the calm waves of the lake and the sky had turned a bright orange, the purple clouds scattered throughout it looking like dark bruises blooming on the atmosphere. He pulled out the watch with numb fingers and popped the lid open, a faint feeling of surprise appearing in his chest when he saw it was already seven thirty. The pissy woman must’ve forgotten the time, he thought and carefully shoved the watch back into his pocket.

A group of cackling teenagers walked past him as he tried to unlock the convertible parked across the street from the library, the loud laughter startling him into dropping the car keys on the sidewalk, the metal making a soft jingling sound as they hit the pavement. Louis waited quietly until the teenagers went into the new flashy diner Louis was parked in front of before bending down to pick up his car keys.

The car roared to life as soon as he got in and he drove onto the empty street, the name Jesy Nelson unexpectedly flashed into his mind and his hammering heart slowed down the tiniest bit as an idea popped into his head and a tiny smile slowly spread across his face.

⁺˚*･༓☾　　☽༓･*˚⁺

The house Louis parked his car in front of was on the other side of Lakewood, where the houses got bigger and the flowers on the bushes grew brighter. He squinted down at the messy handwriting scribbled onto the small piece of paper by the Grand Hotel’s concierge from behind his sunglasses, then flicked his eyes toward the pristine white house on his right and got out of the car after having decided what he was indeed in the right place.

He stretched out one of his legs to skip the single step that led to the porch and hooked his sunglasses over the collar of his white shirt once he stood under the wide balcony that gave the porch a cool shade, the dark wood under his feet barely creaking as he made his way to the navy blue front door. Hesitantly, he brought up his fist, gently knocked on it twice and stepped back a little as he waited for the owner to open, glancing around at the colorful flowers in the delicate ceramic pots that hung from the ceiling.

“Is there anything I can do for you?”

Louis jumped a bit, startled by the polite voice that came from inside the house, and turned back toward the door with a hand placed over his racing heart.

The woman that held the door in a perfectly manicured hand was not much shorter than Louis and, surprisingly, she was about the same age as him. Her dark eyes were looking at him with a mix of curiosity and confusion and a plucked eyebrow was arched over one of them. The color of her long hair that fell to her waist reminded her of Henry’s orange fur and it was only when Louis thought of his cat that he remembered that he had actually driven all the way out here for something important.

“Yes, I’m sorry.” he quietly cleared his throat and sent her a small smile that she hesitantly returned. “I’m looking for Miss Jesy Nelson?”

“That’s me.” She nodded her head once, then pursed her heavily lined lips. “Can I help you with something?”

“My name is Louis Tomlinson and I was wondering if I could talk to you about Harry Styles? I read your book, you see, and—”

The door in Miss Nelson’s hand would’ve been — quite rudely — slammed in his face if it weren’t for his quick reflexes, and she let out a loud huff when he tried to stop her from shutting the door. “I’m sorry, Mr Tomlinson, but I can’t help you.”

“Wait, please!” Louis grunted quietly against her strong pushing and quickly decided to place his foot in the small gap that the open door created, holding in a wince when she hit it with the door. “Please. It’s very important to me that you help me.”

Carefully, he slipped his hand into his pocket, aware of Miss Nelson’s eyes watching his actions like a hawk, and pulled out the watch in it, the diamonds in it glinting under the sun when he popped the lid open.

“What?” Miss Nelson breathed out, surprise clearly written across her face as she finally opened the door, the fingers resting against her right thigh twitching for a split second as if wanting to reach out for the object in Louis’ hand. “How — how did you get that? Harry never let anyone have it, let alone touch it .”

Harry. “I… He gave it to me two years ago.” 

She stared at him for a short moment in which Louis felt himself shrink under her calculating brown eyes before stepping back to make space for Louis to step inside the house. The sweat dripping down the back of his neck cooled off the moment Miss Nelson closed the door behind him and a relieved sigh fell past his lips as he followed her into the cool living room.

It was spacious, and the bright light streaming in through the shut window behind the long white sofa made it look a lot livelier than Louis expected it to be. There were three other white sofas surrounding a narrow crystal table that had a tall marbled vase with vivid pink and yellow daisies inside. The light wooden floor softly squeaked with every step they took as they made their way across the living room, and Louis had to hold onto the wall at one point to stop himself from slipping and falling on his ass.

Miss Nelson stopped abruptly in front of a plain white door adjacent to the large granite kitchen and she slowly twisted the silver knob and pushed the door open, revealing a relatively small room swallowed by darkness. She stepped inside first and flicked the light on while Louis followed after her, his eyes widening in surprise.

The floor was covered in a light, thin carpet — similar to the one he had back in his hotel room — and there was a small round table in the middle of the room covered in a white crochet mantelpiece and two rectangular framed pictures on top of it. Behind it was a short bookshelf that only had record jackets in it instead of books, but so many jackets lined the shelves that it still managed to look full. There was a light brown guitar leaning against the shelf with a dark shoulder strap wrapped around it and it was missing two of the middle strings, but Louis was sure it could still be played if somebody tired. 

“What is all this?” he whispered, more to himself than to Miss Nelson, and stepped closer to the table, squinting his eyes slightly to try and make out the faces in the grainy black and white photographs.

“Harry left this all to me after—”  her voice was thick with emotion and Louis’ blood turned to ice as he turned to face her (please don’t say it please don’t ple—) and was met with a pair of dark eyes brimming with shiny tears, “after he passed away. He had no family left.”

Forcing the tight knot that was starting to form down his throat, Louis slowly sat down on one of the white chairs by the table and ran a trembling hand through his sweaty hair.

“He was such a wonderful person,” she continued quietly as she settled down on the chair across from him and carefully picked up the larger frame. When Louis flicked his eyes up toward her, she was staring down at the photograph in her hands with a kind of sadness he was sure he had seen somewhere before. “He was always so polite and kind, you know? Always made sure to tell me everything he remembered when I was interviewing him for the book, always had a smile on his face, even if it never quite reached his eyes.”

She sniffed quietly and handed the frame to him with a shaky hand, wiping the rim of her eyes with the tip of her finger. Louis hesitantly took the picture, gripping it tightly with his fingers, and quickly blinked the unexpected tears from his eyes.

When he brought the photograph closer to his face, he noticed it had yellowed with age a little, but there were no creases on the material and the image was clear as water — or as clear as a picture from the early nineteen hundreds could be.

The young boy in it had a mop of dark curls on his head, some of which delicately fell across his forehead. (It made Louis want to tuck them behind his ears.) His eyes were squinted — almost closed — with how wide he was grinning, and two deep dimples had been carved into his round cheeks. He was wearing a crisp black suit jacket over a light button up and there was a record held tightly in his large hands.

“That was taken right after Don’t Let Me Go was released,” Miss Nelson said, her lips curved up into a soft smile. “He said that had been the best moment of his life. Or, well. One of the best moments of his life.”

Louis drew his eyebrows together and looked up at her with a question already forming at the back of his throat, but the look on her face immediately told him she was not willing to talk about it. That, or she simply didn’t know.

(He liked to think it was the latter.)

Instead, Louis carefully placed the frame down on the table and felt himself slump back against the chair with a quiet sigh. He crossed his arms over his chest and slowly moved his eyes around the room — just to have something to do when they fell on a book propped against the wall next to the guitar.

“Wait a second.” he stood up from his chair and hesitantly picked up the book, nervously nibbling on his bottom lip. “I know this book.”

The Art of Time Travelling, by Dr James Corden.

A soft chuckle-sound like came from Miss Nelson’s side of the room and he stopped flipping the pages with his index finger to look up at her.

“He wouldn’t stop reading that,” she said, nodding her head towards Louis, and he started to notice the small notes on the margins written in dark blue ink and the shaky lines under some sentences — sometimes whole paragraphs. “I never understood why he was so obsessed with it.”

Louis hummed quietly, too absorbed in reading over the notes and wondering about the he that was constantly mentioned in almost all of them. His fingers absentmindedly traced the wrinkles on the top corner of the pages that came from constant dog-ears every time he flipped to the following page and there were times when he had to tilt both the book and his head to the side to be able to read the messy scribbles on the paper.

He didn’t know how long it had been by the time he closed the book — hell, entire hours could’ve passed and he wouldn’t have had a clue. There was a painful crick on the base of his neck and his bones popped loudly when he looked up, suddenly remembering where he was and why he was there as his eyes adjusted to the artificial white light on the ceiling.

After tiredly glancing around the room for a moment, he spotted Miss Nelson sitting by the only window in the room, her bright ginger hair contrasting against the dark velvety blinds that covered every inch of the glass behind them. Beside her was a simple plastic table that looked like the ones Louis’ mom used when he was little and family was coming over, and there was a small scale model that looked exactly like the Grand Hotel carefully placed in the middle of the table. It had every single detail that the real-life version had down to a t, and Louis gaped at it as he walked up to it, the book carefully tucked under his arm.

“Harry had this made in 1913. He was so set on making it look just like the real one.” She stopped picking her nails, looking up at him through her lashes, and he settled on a stool that had been previously tucked under the table. 

“It does,” Louis agreed, eyes flicking over the vines wrapped around the columns at the entrance of the hotel, the tiny metal balconies carefully lined along the front of the hotel, the triangle-shaped rooftop in the middle of the roof with the hotel’s initials written in golden cursive in the middle. “It looks exactly like the real one.”

Miss Nelson simply nodded her head, smiled a bit and leaned over the model, slowly pulling the triangular rooftop back as she would a lid and a soft melody came out of the inside of the model as she continued to pull it back. 

“I know this song.” Louis furrowed his eyebrows, the name of the song hanging from the tip of his tongue as he moved closer to the model.

“It’s one of his most famous, actually,” Miss Nelson said, taking her hand away from the tilted back rooftop as the melody filled the large space between the two of them and made Louis’ heart thump harder than usual. “It’s called Sweet Creature.”

“It’s always been one of my favorites,” he murmured, running the tip of his finger along the edge of the mini hotel. “I just never knew who the original artist was.”

Chapter Text

CHAPTER 3. 

Lakewood University, Michigan

The university was surprisingly full of people when Louis stepped into the main building in the middle of campus, and it took him a second to realize that it was still May and their summer vacation hadn’t started yet. He studied the few students sitting against the walls on each side of the wide hallway with heavy books resting on their folded legs, and silently thanked God that finals were no longer a thing in his life when a girl with dark frizzy hair snapped the thick biology book in her lap shut and painfully thumped her forehead against the cover, making Louis wince.

“Mr Tomlinson!” a voice called out cheerfully and Louis turned his head towards it, the small smile spreading across his face replacing the wince when he spotted his old professor walking towards him. “I wasn’t expecting to see you so soon after your graduation!”

“It’s only been two years, Dr Corden,” Louis greeted him with a quiet chuckle and shook his large hand, studying the new laughter lines that had appeared by his glinting cornflower-colored eyes. “I was wondering if I could speak to you about something important.”

“Of course, my boy!” the doctor nodded his head rapidly, the smile on his red face only getting bigger as he adjusted the various notebooks and notepads that were tucked under his arm. “But we must be quick — my next lecture starts in 20 minutes.”

He turned on his heel and walked back the same way he had come from without waiting for Louis, sending a cheerful hi to the girl with the frizzy hair who now looked on the verge of tears. Louis took steps longer than usual to keep up with Corden, keeping his head and eyes down until he stopped in front of a light-brown door and unlocked it.

“So,” Corden said after walking into the empty room and setting his things down on the small desk in front of the many, many rows of desks and turned to face Louis. “What did you want to talk to me about?”

Louis took a deep breath and stepped closer to the desk, his sweating hands shoved deep in his back pocket. “Do you think time-travel is possible?”

“Of course,” Dr Corden replied without missing a beat, the sleeves of his black suit jacket crinkling a little at the elbows as he crossed his arms over his chest.

The temperature in the room was high despite the windows being wide open ,and Louis felt a warm bead of sweat drip down from his hairline, but he resisted the urge to wipe it away in favor of keeping eye contact with the doctor, who was now eyeing him curiously.

“I went to Florence in ‘68,” Corden continued, clearly deciding to question Louis, “and the hotel I stayed in was on the other side of the river; it was ... ah, how can I explain it?

“It felt old. The hotel itself was beautiful and modern, but it had this energy that could be felt as soon as you walked in and it was as if I was in a completely different century when I was in my room.”

He paused for a moment and scratched at the graying scruff on his cheeks and Louis nervously shifted his weight from one foot to the other, his eyes wide with interest as he waited for the man in front of him to continue.

“I got the idea that if I was able to somehow hypnotize my mind and convince it that it wasn’t 1968, but rather sixteen sixty-eight, I would be able to travel back in time. So I lay in bed for hours and repeated over and over that I was in Florence, 1668. After some time, I started to hear sounds that… just didn't belong to this century, you know? Words in Italian that no longer exist, carriages on the street outside, horses neighing…”

“Did you ever find out if you actually travelled back?” Louis asked breathlessly, his fingers twitching excitedly with the newly-found information. 

“Unfortunately, no.” Corden shrugged, his eyes flicking to a spot over Louis’ shoulder where he could see chattering students slowly trickling in. “But, if I were to do it again, I would disassociate myself entirely from the present and hide everything that would remind me of it.”

⁺˚*･༓☾　　☽༓･*˚⁺

The coin shop’s roof shielded Louis’ burning skin from the hot midday sun and a sigh of relief fell past his dry lips as the sweat gathering along his forehead dried up slightly as he walked into the shop, the small bell above the clean door jingling loudly when he pushed it open.

“Good afternoon. How can I help you?” the clerk greeted him grimly, putting down the tattered rag he had been using to polish some silver coins on the counter.

Louis watched as he pushed his thick-rimmed glasses up his dry nose and felt a small pang of jealousy go through his stomach while wiping the sweat off his own nose, but he ignored it and made his way to stand across from the man with a smile on his face.

“Yes, actually,” he said, spreading his fingers against the wooden piece of furniture and next to the polished coins, eyes scanning each and every one of them carefully. “I’m looking for money specifically from 1912.”

The clerk let out a quiet hum, his dark eyes flicking around the shop as he most likely tried to remember if he had what Louis had just asked for. After a minute of silence, he nodded his bald head and stepped away from the counter.

“I think I have just what you’re looking for,” he said and waved Louis to the right hand side of the shop, the wood boards under them creaking loudly with every step they took.

⁺˚*･༓☾　　☽༓･*˚⁺

Feeling exhausted, Louis walked into the hotel with a black bag that held a taupe-colored suit inside swung over his shoulder and a pocket full of tinkling coins. He made his way across the empty lobby to get on the elevator, paying no attention to Zayn’s greeting, and finally let his shoulders sag when the creaking doors slid shut.

What am I even doing? Louis thought, his eyes fluttering shut as he rested the back of his head against the cold metal elevator wall. 

For the first time since he got to Michigan, he allowed himself to take a step back and saw what the hell he was actually doing; trying to go back 62 damn years in time for a boy — a boy that he had never even met — over a dumb pocket watch.

The elevator came to a stop and it made a loud ding! noise as the doors opened. He adjusted his grip on the silver hook that stopped the suit from falling on the floor and wrinkling, sent a small smile to the person who was taking his place inside the elevator as he stepped out of it and followed the patterned carpet toward his room, a stinging dread settling on his stomach. 

Louis changed into the suit as soon as the heavy door closed behind him and even though the uncomfortable material was slightly scratchy against his skin, it didn’t look as much like a costume as he thought it would when he found it on the rack. It did, however, look more orange than tan under the room’s fluorescent lights and the hat in his hand didn’t seem to match the suit — until he put it on.

Looking at himself in the mirror, the color of the suit made his skin look like he had just napped under the sun for two hours and his eyes looked lighter than they ever had. His white shirt was tucked into the waistband of his pants — probably terribly since he had tucked his shirts exactly 3 times his entire life, but luckily the jacket was long enough to cover the chaos. 

He ran his trembling fingers through his newly-trimmed hair and placed the round hat on it, wincing at the strange feeling it gave him. 

“Good afternoon, Mr Styles,” he said to his reflection, and tipped his hat a little bit, plastering what he hoped was his most dazzling smile onto his face. “Are you a camera? Because every time I look at you, I smile.”

The moment those words left his mouth, his eyebrows scrunched up together into a deep frown and he scoffed loudly as he shook his head in a mixture of frustration and amusement.

“What are you doing, Tomlinson?” he muttered, taking the hat off and letting it hang by his side.

He turned away from the mirror, unconsciously humming Sweet Creature under his breath, and strangely enjoyed the way his new shoes squeaked with every step he took towards the desk that was placed next to the open window.

The black voice recorder he had bought after getting the suit and coins lay in the middle of the dark desk and the record button squeaked softly when he pressed it with his index finger.

“This is May 24th, 1912,” he said into the small microphone, resting his left ankle on his bouncing knee. “You have just woken up from a nap at five thirty on May 24, nineteen twelve.”

He pressed the stop button, placed the microphone back on the desk and waited until the recording started repeating itself to stand up and put every single painting and picture that was hanging on the wall in the closet across from the window until the yellow walls were bare and smooth. The recording continued playing in the background while he stripped the covers off the bed and pillows and carelessly threw them in the closet along with the frames. The black leather wallet his mom had given him in June of 1972, the day of his college graduation, was full of modern money and he pressed it against his chest one last time before placing it on the highest shelf in the closet, ignoring the way his coins jingled sadly when he slammed the door shut.

The bed creaked under his weight as he laid down on the cool mattress and he placed the hat on the middle of his chest after having settled back against the bare pillows. His own voice filled his ears and he reluctantly closed his eyes with a sigh.

“... on May 24, nineteen twelve,” the recording said as Louis shifted his head and knitted his eyebrows together, realizing that his body refused to shut down and it would never let him go to sleep at seven at night.

He didn’t know how much time had passed when he finally opened his eyes and forced himself to stand up from the bed, running a frustrated hand through his neatly combed hair and anxiously pacing around the room, trying to come up with an idea that would allow him to fall asleep.

Without really thinking, he changed out of the scratchy suit and walked out of the warm room and made his way down the stairs to the exposition room, ignoring the strange looks guests and staff alike gave him when he walked past them.

Harry’s picture was waiting for him in the back of the bright room as it always did, and Louis felt his heart skip a beat as it had done the past five days every time he saw the small smile across his colorless face.

“What do you want me to do, H?” Louis quietly asked the photograph, his eyes flicking around it as if it were to suddenly come to life and tell him exactly what to do. (It sure would make his life much easier.) “What am I missing here?

Of course, the photograph stayed immobile and silent and Louis let out a loud huff. He tiredly rested his head back against the scarlet wall and a long sigh left his lips as he rapidly tapped his foot against the carpeted floor like he used to do when he couldn’t get words written down on paper.

If you ever need anything, my house is that tiny cabin by the lake, Niall’s cheery voice rang across his head just as he was about to tell himself to give up and go home. He bit down on his lip and kept his eyes on the lamp-covered ceiling, wondering if waking Niall up this late would really be worth it.

“Ah, fuck it,” he muttered under his breath, pushed himself off the wall and walked out of the hotel and into the hot night.

The guests dining out on the terrace chatted happily amongst themselves and the soft light coming from the pale candles on every table reflected off their sunburnt faces and shoulders, giving the hotel an even bigger carefree atmosphere that Louis couldn’t quite explain. The stars scattered across the dark night sky twinkled happily as Louis made his way to the cabin he could see from his window every day, careful to not stain or rip his new suit.

He could feel his erratic heartbeat slowly calm down the closer he got to the lake and it had finally gone back to normal — or as normal as it could be — by the time he found himself standing in front of the wooden porch of the tiny house. 

The walls and the door were a bright shade of white and the thick frames around the two windows and the door had been painted turquoise, reminding him of a picture his younger sister had sent him when she’d gone to Greece after graduating high school.

Taking a deep breath, he raised a fist and loudly knocked it against the chipped middle of the door three times, his fingers trembling slightly as he pulled his hand back and shoved it into his pocket.

“Can I help yo— Oh, Mr Tomlinson!” the door creaked open a minute later, revealing a tired-looking Niall. The wind rustled his too-big pyjama pants around his ankles as he stepped out into the porch and rubbed the sleep from his eyes with his bony knuckles. “What can I do for you? Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, yeah. No, everything’s fine.” Louis waved his hand dismissively and pointedly ignored the confused look Niall gave him. “I was just wondering if you knew where the objects in the exposition room come from.”

Niall raised a bushy eyebrow slightly, as if to say ‘ at nine o’clock at night?’, but instead looked past Louis’ shoulder and at the hotel with his lips pursed before nodding. “They’re usually kept in the attic. Why?”

Louis had already started running back by the time Niall finished the sentence and he shook his head. “No reason. Thank you, Niall!”

He ignored his questioning yells and jogged back into the noisy lobby, his stained t-shirt already sticking to his back with sweat when he stepped into the empty elevator and pressed the last button on the top row of numbers a bit harder than he probably should have.

Adrenaline was pumping through his veins as he made his way across the dusty attic at the top of the hotel, the lamp he had found at the entrance helping him to not crash against any of the antique-looking things that were piled up to the ceiling and break them.

He stood in the middle of the dark room for some minutes as he tried to figure what the hell he was looking for when his lamp found a box labeled RECORDS pressed up against a wall. Feeling intrigued, he walked closer to it, trying to not pay attention to the way the floor underneath him creaked with every step he took, and let out a delighted chuckle when he was close enough to see that the top of the box hadn’t been taped shut.

After pulling the cardboard flaps open and coughing his lungs out thanks to the dust that came out from inside, Louis shone the lamp on what turned out to be withering red books that looked similar to the one downstairs in the lobby. He knelt down and, after making sure the lamp was carefully placed on something that made sure he could still see the years embroidered with gold thread on the covers, he started rummaging through the record books until he found the 1912 one at the bottom of the pile.

With some difficulty, he pulled the book out from underneath the heavy pile and gently ran a fingertip over the cursive GH sewn onto the cover right above the year the records belonged to. He leaned it against one of his knees and hesitantly opened it to a random page, finding thousands of fading names and dates written in navy blue ink on the yellowing paper.

The first date on the page Louis had opened it to said 02/02/12, so he carefully flipped the pages and traced his finger down the lists until he got to where May started or he found a familiar name — whichever came first.

Liam Payne ended up being that first name and it was suddenly as if a light had been switched on in his brain as he remembered Jesy Nelson telling him about Harry’s manager and their particular relationship. He slowly moved his finger to the side until it was next to his check-in date and room number — 05/21/12 | #342.

“That’s where I’m staying!” Louis muttered to himself in surprise, the corners of his mouth quirking up slightly.

Harry’s name was 10 names under Payne’s and Louis’ heart pounded in his chest as he flicked his eyes toward the room number and made a mental note with million of exclamation marks around it so it would never leave his mind — #328.

Gingerly, he flipped the dusty page and slowly slid his finger down until his eyes fell on Louis Tomlinson written in his own handwriting. Yes!, he thought excitedly as he glanced at his room number and check in date — #416 at 9:18 in the morning — and let out a relieved sigh.

After closing the book and shoving it back into the box, he picked the lamp up and made his way back out towards the elevator, excited butterflies forming in his stomach at the newly found knowledge.

Once in his room, the recording filled his ears once again as he changed into the wrinkled suit and lay on the bed, ready to fall asleep and wake up in a completely different year.

Sleep never came.

Instead, he felt a burning frustration start to grow in his chest as his recorded voice continued to be the only sound in the room and an urge to step on the recorder and pull his hair out suddenly came over him.

His eyes were starting to fill with tears when a familiar voice unexpectedly resonated inside his mind.

If I were to do it again, I would disassociate myself entirely from the present and hide everything that would remind me of it.

The recording was telling him that he had just woken up from a nap when he ran up to the desk and shut it off before throwing it inside the closet along with everything else that belonged to the present. The room was suddenly submerged in silence, except for the faint sound of waves crashing against the shore that slipped in through the slightly cracked window, and Louis was left standing in total silence and darkness.

He took a deep breath to collect his erratic thoughts, straightened his coat and settled down on the bare bed, realizing he was now hanging by a loose thread and that if this didn’t work…

Sleep came easily this time.

The lake outside slowly lulled him as he muttered the recording to himself like a prayer, the words slurring as time went on and he grew drowsier.

When he finally fell asleep, he dreamt of green eyes and ticking golden clock.

Chapter Text

CHAPTER 4.

Grand Hotel, Michigan / 1912

The uncomfortable and oh so familiar feeling of a crick in his neck was what woke Louis up and he let out a quiet groan, silently cursing the hard pillows on his bed. He opened his eyes eyes — or tried, since his left cheek was smushed up against the mattress — and blinked them rapidly so they could focus on his blurry surroundings.

The spread burgundy curtains across from him let in the bright sun that hit his eyes directly and the loud sounds of hooves clicking against hard pavement and wooden wheels following after them streamed in through the open window, making a small smile spread across his face as he slowly sat up and rubbed the sleep from his tired eyes with his knuckles.

The first thing he noticed when his eyes finally focused was the beige and pink walls and the small scarlet rose pattern that had been sewn on them and all he could think was that he had probably gone out the night before, gotten abso-fucking-lutely pissed and had left with a stranger, but his body didn’t feel sore at all, he still had his clothes on and instead of being in bed, he was sitting on an ugly red sofa with small yellow squares all over it.

Louis looked around the strange room in confusion, at the polished wooden floor and at the healthy-looking plant on the round table in the middle of the room. When he spotted the narrow hall next to the window, only then did it dawn on him where he was, and he felt his mouth fall open so quickly and so widely that his jaw cracked.

“Oh my God. I did it,” he whispered in amazement as he patted himself down to make sure none of his limbs were missing, trying to process everything that was happening in his brain. Once he made sure everything was still attached to his body, he pushed himself off the ugly couch and walked toward a large, round mirror hanging above a tall dresser.

His reflection showed an exhausted Louis and yet the purple circles around his eyes were being overshadowed by the exuberant grin spread across his face. He slipped his hands into each of his pockets, jingled the coins that were in the right one and wrapped his fingers around the cold pocket watch before pulling it out and popping the lid open. 5:30.

“Perfect,” he chuckled, and pushed his hair back with his fingers after having slid the pocket watch back in the pocket. Louis took one last look at his reflection to double check everything was in place and started to turn his body around to exit the hotel room when he heard singing in the bedroom, his eyes widening when he realized it was a female voice.

“What the fuck?” he mouthed, frantically looking for a place as the voice continued to get closer and closer.

He managed to close the curtains he was hiding behind just as the singing woman walked into the sitting room. She was wearing nothing except a pair of white stockings that almost reached her hips and a matching undergarment with translucent lace delicately sewn into the hems around her shoulders, a brush in her hand that turned her cheeks pinker every time she swept it over them. Louis took a step further back into the small closet, his eyes wide as plates, and was engulfed in a mix of the bitter scent of tobacco and sweet vanilla as his back hit a bundle of soft coats.

The singing became faint again after a few minutes and Louis felt his shoulders drop in relief and he silently thanked God for giving him such good luck that day. Holding his hat tightly against his chest, he quietly slipped through the curtains and began to tiptoe toward the door but the sound of jingling coins outside made him stop like a deer in headlights and his blood pump fiercely through his veins.

Whispering every curse word he knew in English and then some, he hurried to hide behind the large cream-colored sofa below the window, his shoes squeaking against the polished wood as he ran to it. The door opened a second later, followed by sure and heavy steps and Louis had to bite down on his knuckles to stop himself from making a sound when they stopped right on the other side of the sofa.

“Lucy, are you ready?” the person asked in a deep voice as a second pair of feet stomped into the sitting room. 

“No,” the woman from earlier answered coldly and Louis slightly rolled his eyes, fully aware of the argument that was sure to come.

“Why is it that whenever I try to do something nice, you do this?” the man asked but was interrupted by a shriek that sounded closer to the bedroom than to him. He let out a loud sigh before following after the angry yells, his footsteps stopping after the loud slam of a door.

Louis took two deep breaths and attempted to crawl out of his hiding place but he was forced to clumsily scramble back when the bedroom door was opened forcefully, the arguing couple coming back louder than before.

“Are you going to act like this every time I simply acknowledge the presence of another female other than yourself?” the desperation was clear in the man’s voice and it was only when the woman let out a shrill ‘yes!’ that Louis allowed himself to gently hit his forehead against the sofa and mutter a quiet ‘jesus christ’.

“Maybe I’ll just go lie down for the rest of the day,” she sniffed and Louis nodded his head against the scratchy material.

“I think that’s a good idea,” the man said, his voice already sounding worn out from all the yelling.

“It’s a great idea,” Louis muttered under his breath and waited until he heard the bedroom door close once more to poke his head out from behind the sofa to make sure he was the only one left in the room.

He slowly pushed himself up, his racing heart in his throat, and walked out of the room as fast as he could. He stood in the unfamiliar sapphire hallway for less than a second, a small smile on his face as he finally enjoyed his accomplishment, when the door behind him slammed shut and made him jump three feet off the floor.

“Shit fuck shit fuck,” he whispered as he hurriedly walked down the hallway and away from the room, his fingers turning white with tension from how hard he was gripping his hat.

The door opened just moments later and Louis whipped around so fast his head spun for a second just as a serious-looking man stepped out into the hallway. His head was turned the other way when Louis casually walked in front of him, quietly whistling under his breath.

“Excuse me, young man,” he said, turning to look at Louis with eyes as dark as the night sky. “Did you see someone trying to break into my room?”

“Actually, yes,” Louis responded shakily and quietly cleared his throat. “Just saw a young chap dressed in black run that way.”

The man raised a bushy eyebrow, looked over Louis’ shoulder to where his thumb was pointing and gave a short nod. “I’ll report it. Thank you.”

“I would’ve reported it myself, y’know, but—” Louis rattled off, too nervous at that point to stop, and was rudely interrupted by the man going back into his room and loudly shutting the door.

He took a deep breath and spun around on his heel, his eyes scanning the numbers on every door as he looked for room 328, feeling strangely happy that he had ended up on the correct floor.

“Good afternoon, Mr Styles. My name is Louis Tomlinson; you don’t know me, but…” was what he muttered to himself all the way to the specific hotel room while trying to come up with something to say after but. 

He found himself standing in front of number 328 sooner than he expected and when his eyes traced the golden numbers, he was sure his heart was going to burst out of his chest and become an annoying and permanent red splatter on the spotless door.

“Good afternoon, Mr Styles,” he started once again and slowly raised his fist, holding it an inch away from the wood. “My name is Louis Tomlinson; you don’t know me, but I just travelled 68 years back into the past. May I speak to you?”

The two knocks he gave were gentle, unsure, and a tiny voice in his head appeared as he gave a small step backwards, telling him to run away, to lock himself in a room and go back to where he belonged.

“Hello. How may I help you?” a voice interrupted his thoughts and Louis snapped is eyes to it, surprised to see a young man with crinkly brown eyes and a soft smile on his freshly shaved face.

“Sorry, hello,” Louis returned the brit’s smile and ignored the way he was hiding his body behind a barely opened door. “Is Mr Harry Styles here?” 

The man’s smile immediately turned cold, the edges sharpening a bit, and his eyes narrowed. “No, I’m afraid he’s not.”

“Well, could you please tell me where he is?” Louis asked hopefully. He was met with a door slamming in his face, and he sighed. “Strike 1.”

After childishly sticking his tongue out at the door, he headed down to the lobby, admiring the delicate paintings of flowers hung on the wall that definitely weren't there in 1974. When he got to the bottom of the stairs, the unfamiliar shade of emerald that covered every single wall in front of him made him stop short and accidentally bump into a man holding two dark trunks under his armpits.

“Excuse me,” Louis absentmindedly said as he stepped out of the man’s way and further into the lobby, his eyes flickering around the room to take everything in.

Different to the airy and calm atmosphere the lobby back in his time had, this lobby was darker, the main source of light being the fading sunshine streaming in through the open windows, and it radiated money . All around him, men dressed in dull suits that were clearly made out of expensive fabrics smoked their pipes and chatted amongst themselves while the women’s long skirts swished around their ankles as they glanced around the room for someone to talk to but also trying to calm their shrieking children who ran around the room chasing each other.

Before he could make his way to the front door, Louis was suddenly distracted by two young boys dressed in identical brown trousers that reached their knees and pristine white shirts who were throwing a red rubber ball between themselves. The older boy threw the ball excitedly and when Louis accidentally caught it instead of the small boy next to him and smiled, he was met with a pair of wide, curious sky blue eyes.

Louis raised his arm to throw the ball back to the boy, who was looking at him expectantly, but he was stopped by a voice with an Irish accent saying, “Not in here, Niall.”

He turned towards the voice, the boy he was going to throw the ball to running away to the other side of the lobby, and found a man behind the marble counter with a black beard looking at the little boy in the same way Louis’ mom would look at him when he played soccer inside the house.

“Is that your name?” Louis asked the boy, the corners of his mouth twitching as he bit back a grin. The boy nodded his head shyly, keeping his big eyes on the ball, and Louis took a moment to collect his excited thoughts before handing him the ball. “That’s a great name, Niall. Here you go.”

“Not in here,” the man repeated, watching them closely. Niall pouted a bit and waddled to the sharp corner that the counter and the green wall created, using his ball as a seat.

Louis sent him one last smile before leaving the lobby, a wave of humid heat hitting him as soon as he stepped out of the hotel and into the vast back garden. His forehead already had beads of sweat forming along his hairline when he found himself in front of the small auditorium.

His eyes fell on the red sign by the entrance, his breath catching in his throat as he read over the delicate white cursive. HARRY STYLES LIVE ON TOUR. 2 NIGHTS ONLY. A small pink butterfly perched itself on one of the corners, calmly flapping its wings to what seemed to be a soft melody coming from inside the auditorium.

With one foot already out, Louis took one last glance at the butterfly before pushing past the closed crystal doors and heading inside. 

The crimson curtains that covered the walls from the floor to the ceiling were the first things he noticed when he walked in, his hat held tightly in his hands. The golden strings that hung at the sides fluttered as people dressed in simple gray clothes shook the curtains to get the dust out of them. Others were scattered throughout the seats on either side of the room with fluffy dusters in their hands, their quiet murmurs barely audible over the soft grainy music that filled the room. Up on the wooden stage, men debated among themselves where the beautiful black piano between them had to be, careful not to hit the single stool in the middle as they pushed the piano across the stage.

Louis looked around as he made his way to the stage, amazed at the fact that the place looked exactly like the one in 1974. He stopped next to two burly men sitting in the front row who were arguing at the top of their lungs, and nervously cleared his throat to get their attention.

“What do you want?” the one on the right barked at him, his lip curling under his thick mustache.

“Well, I was just wondering if —” Louis swallowed anxiously, his voice shaking under the man’s cold gaze. “—  if you knew where Mr Styles is.”

“If you have a message, I’ll pass it on to him,” the man told him firmly, going right back to arguing with the second man without waiting for Louis’ response.

Louis sighed and walked up to the two women standing on the edge of the stage who were trying to figure out the melody written on the papers they were holding.

“Excuse me,” he called, instantly feeling terrible for interrupting them. “Do you know where I can find Mr Styles?”

The women looked up from the sheets of paper and raised their eyebrows at him, like he was a piece of bubblegum stuck to the bottom of their shoe. He stared back at them, hopeful, but they simply shook their heads at each other and went back to their music.

Louis resisted the urge to roll his eyes and instead looked around the room until he found a door by the side of the stage, half hidden by a curtain, and made his way toward it, making sure no one was looking before slipping inside.

The dark hallway he found himself in was narrow and the gray walls were covered in colorful posters of everything that had gone through that auditorium. He used the single lamp on the ceiling as a guide to walk forward until he found himself in a larger hallway with a door on each wall and a third one at the end.

He hesitantly knocked on the door to his right where he could hear a woman vocalizing. The singing stopped immediately and the door was pulled open, revealing a woman much shorter than him, the wavy tips of her platinum hair colored a hot pink.

“Oh, hello there,” she said, her blue eyes twinkling as she rested her hip against the door. “How can I help you?” 

“Good afternoon.” Louis sent her an uncomfortable smile and pointedly ignored the way she was leaning toward him. “Do you by any chance know where Mr Styles is?”

She jutted her glossy bottom lip out, her eyes giving him a second once-over, and sighed deeply, almost as if she were giving him up. “You’ll probably find him taking a walk by the lake.”

“Thank you, ma’am.” He smiled at her with his lips closed together and subtly moved his foot back, ready to run as soon as the conversation ended. “Have a nice rest of your afternoon.”

The woman wriggled her fingers at him, small dimples appearing on her pale cheeks when she smiled, and shut the door. Louis let his shoulders sag and he wasted no time in rushing to the door at the end of the hall and stepping out of the auditorium.

The sky had started to turn a dark magenta shade, small hints of blue peeking out from behind the darkening clouds. The air smelled sweet from the small waves in the lake constantly crashing against the sharp rocks below the hotel. Above him, seagulls squawked loudly and flew around in circles, their bodies so high off the ground they looked like small white specks in the sky.

What caught his eye, however, was the lone figure dressed in a coral-colored suit moving between the tall trees that had been planted in a narrow strip of grass in the middle of the two sidewalks next to the lake. His short curls fluttered in the breeze, thin streaks of gold adorning them every time he stepped out of the trees’ shade. His spine was straight, his steps careful around the thick roots as he continued moving forward.

Louis approached him carefully, the pull on his stomach getting stronger the closer he got. His hands shook with excitement and his mouth felt dry as he tried to remember what he had been rehearsing for hours now. He stepped on a small branch, the sound ringing in his ears, and the two of them froze at the same time; Louis in surprise, the man in fear. He thought time had prepared him for what was coming when the man started to turn around, but.

Nothing could have ever prepared him to see the same green eyes he had seen in 1972.

Harry Styles stared down at him with wide eyes, his pink lips slightly parted as the loose grip he had on the branch next to him tightened considerably, turning his knuckles white. His cheeks were covered in a light blond scruff, invisible to everyone unless they were standing as close to him as Louis was. The front of his jacket had delicate pink flowers and green vines sewn into it that started just below his shoulders and ended at the hem. It was unbuttoned and the simple white button down that had been carefully tucked in his pants didn’t have the first three buttons closed, giving Louis the smallest glimpse of black ink below his collarbone.

“Is it you?” Harry asked him, his voice barely above a whisper. Louis was so dumbfounded at how deep and slow it was ( it was what honey would sound like if it could talk , he decided right there and then), that the only thing he could do was blink at the man. “Well, is it?”

“Yes,” Louis replied without hesitating and his heart surprisingly ached at the way Harry’s eyebrows furrowed, wanting nothing more than to smooth out the winkle on his forehead with his thumb. “I’m very sorry for startling you, it wasn’t my intention.”

“You didn’t.” Harry was quick to answer, his eyes flicking over Louis’ face curiously.

Louis opened his mouth to continue apologizing, to explain that he simply wanted to meet him, when someone suddenly appeared by Harry’s side.

“Harry, are you ready for dinner?” the man’s deep brown eyes were slightly narrowed at Louis, his gaze cold and calculating. It took Louis a few minutes of staring back at him, of registering the dark slicked back hair and the perfectly trimmed beard to realize that he had seen this man before — a picture of him in a glossy untouched book at the library.

“May I talk to you for a second?” Louis asked Harry, who was nervously glancing between him and Liam Payne, but his manager already had his hand on the small back of Harry’s back and was steering him away before he could give Louis a response.

He could hear them talking quietly to each other and he, being the curious shit he was, followed after them, leaving a few feet between him and the two men. He watched as Harry’s shoulders hunched, making himself look smaller than Payne despite them being almost the same height. Louis stopped walking when Harry continued his walk up the hill to the hotel, taking one last glance at Louis over his shoulder, while Payne stayed behind.

“Are you a guest here, sir?” Payne asked him when Louis reached him, his eyes still trained on Harry’s retreating figure. When Louis didn’t reply, Payne turned to face him with a small sneer on his tanned face. “If you do not leave Mr Styles alone, I will have you sacked.” 

He spun on his heel and started making his way toward the lit up building, leaving Louis no choice.

Chapter Text

CHAPTER 5.

The lively music coming from inside the dining hall got louder the closer Louis got, and a small smile appeared on his face despite his gloomy mood. There was a long line of men dressed in black tuxedos and women in long colorful dresses and large hats on their heads waiting to go into the dining room.

The couple at the front of the line were happily chatting with the stout staff member standing behind the tall wooden stand and Louis decided to try to slip into the hall and be as subtle as he could possibly be.

“Excuse me, sir,” the man stopped his conversation with the couple and turned to him., a questioning eyebrow raised. “Do you have a reservation?”

“I’m having dinner with Mr Harry Styles,” Louis answered quickly and smiled in relief when the man nodded and went back to his conversation, obviously not having noticed the annoyed glares the other couples were sending him.

The dining hall was just as crowded as the lobby had been earlier and as Louis carefully pushed his way past the many tables of chatting groups, he looked around in wonder at the sparkly headbands many young women were wearing and at the way people carelessly threw their heads back with laughter, only adding to the cheerful atmosphere.

He was suddenly stopped by someone placing a gentle hand on his forearm and when he looked down, he was met with the pink-haired woman from the auditorium, a wide grin on her face.

“Hello, dear. How are you?” she chirped, her flirty attitude gone without a trace. Louis allowed himself to relax because she did help him, after all, and smiled down at her and nodded at the freckled man sitting across from her. “Oh! What are you wearing? I haven’t seen anyone wear that type of suit in almost ten years.”

“T-ten years?” Louis chuckled nervously, panic already starting to settle in his stomach when he noticed the dimpled grin on her face and her companion’s.

“It’s quite alright, dear; it suits you.” she patted his hand, a plucked eyebrow arching curiously as she raised her hands to the fix the diamond brooch on her head. “Are you still looking for Mr Styles?”

“Yes, actually.” Louis nodded, the tips of his ears burning when she smiled at him knowingly. She pointed a finger toward the large group dancing in the middle of the hall and he murmured a quiet thank you before heading to the dance floor, his eyes searching for a coral suit.

Louis spotted him instantly. Harry had his hand on an older fellow’s shoulder and the smile on his face was small — it looked forced. Taking a deep breath, Louis carefully crept closer, being thankful for his short stature for the first time in his life when he saw his head only reached the man’s shoulder. He moved from side to side at the same time as Harry’s partner for a few beats before tapping the man’s right shoulder, wasting no time in sliding past his left side when he turned and placing his hand on Harry’s — surprisingly small — waist.

He ignored the man’s scoff in favor of cheekily grinning up at Harry and taking his hand, the various rings on his fingers cold against Louis’.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Harry muttered while gingerly placing his other hand on Louis’ shoulder, his cheeks turning the faintest shade of pink.

“I’m dancing with you.” Louis shrugged and spun them around when a nearby trumpet gave a flourish.

“But we don’t know anything about each other!” Harry said, his eyes wide.

“I know everything about you,” Louis told him without thinking and bit his tongue in regret a second later.

Harry scoffed and gave a sarcastic nod. “I’m sure you do.”

“What do you mean?”

Instead of answering, Harry had the hand he had on Louis’ shoulder and tried to pull the other one away, his mouth set into an uncomfortable grimace.

“No, please.” Louis laced his fingers with Harry’s and tried to ignore the way both of their hands were shaking. “You have no idea how far I’ve come to meet you.”

Harry stared at him similarly as to how he had done by the lake, almost as if he was trying to figure him out, and curiously flicked his eyes around Louis’ face. As he did, Louis noticed the small specks of gold scattered throughout the green and for a moment, he wondered if the boy in front of him was made out of gold dust.

After a moment of silence, Harry put his hand back on his shoulder.

“There’s no need to be afraid of me. I would never hurt you,” Louis murmured quietly. Harry simply blinked down at him and spread his fingers out along Louis’ shoulderbone.

“This man is an intruder. I want him out of the premises at once,” a cold voice behind him said and they jumped apart, the bubble that had been keeping them oblivious to the outside world broken by a fuming Liam Payne.

The staff members on either side of him moved to stand next to Louis, their grips on his elbows gentle but firm as they led him out of the hall and unknowingly attracted the attention of the surrounding guests. Louis moved his glare from Payne’s smug face to Harry’s bewildered expression, his gaze softening as if to apologize for all the havoc he’d managed to create in such a short period of time.

They were just about to lead him out of the hall through the side doors when a raspy voice spoke up, causing Louis’ hunched shoulders to straighten in shock.

“Could you wait for just a second, please?” the attentive crowd turned to Harry, and even the staff let go of Louis to listen to what he had to say. He shrugged his shoulders and gave the men a sheepish smile before facing Payne. “I’ll go with him. To make sure he doesn’t come back.”

Payne let the corners of his mouth quirk upwards into a forced smile, taking the attention away from his blazing eyes and gritted teeth. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

“Don’t worry, Liam. I will be right back.” Harry patted Payne’s shoulder as he walked past him and nodded at the men. “I’ll take it from here, gentlemen. Thank you.”

Before they could reply, he wrapped his long fingers around Louis’ wrist and tugged him through the crystal doors and into a white carpeted waiting room.

“I’m very sorry, I really did not mean too—” Louis started but was interrupted by Harry raising his hand to stop him.

“What’s your name, sir?” he asked, his face a sickly pale under the yellow fluorescent lights.

“Louis Tomlinson,” he answered truthfully. 

“Place of residence?”

“Chicago.”

“Occupation?” 

“I’m a playwright.”

“A playwright.” Harry’s voice dripped with sarcasm and he scoffed out the last word. Realization dawned on Louis and he hurried to shake his head as the need to explain his presence washed over him. “Do you really know everything about me?”

“I do,” Louis said, nervously chewing on the side of his cheek.

“But that’s absurd!” Harry exclaimed and ran a hand through his sweaty hair. Louis only had a second to wonder how his rings didn’t get tangled with his curls before he continued speaking. “We have never met. You’re a complete stranger to me.”

“Why did you say ‘is it you’, then?” Louis asked. He slightly enjoyed the way Harry stuttered and tumbled over his words to give him an answer.

“I don’t have to answer that,” he finally said. Louis cracked a small smile and nodded.

“I know you don’t. I wish you would, though.”

Harry remained silent. Louis tilted his head to the side to look past his shoulder and the doors that they never closed and saw Payne smoking a cigar by himself, his jaw clenched around it.

“What’s the matter with him?” Louis asked, looking back at Harry. When he didn’t answer, Louis continued, “I mean, is he always this angry?”

“He’s looking out for me. Just like he’s always done.” Harry shrugged and shoved his hands into his pockets.

“Be honest — do I look scary to you?” the question was intended to be a joke, to get a smile out of Harry, but he just let out a defeated sigh and tried to forcefully shove past Louis. His hand was around the crook of Harry’s elbow before he could help it. Even through two layers of clothing, Louis could feel how fast his heart was beating. “Please. When can we see each other again?” 

The way the glare that Louis received made him feel like was horrible, like something dark was coiling up in the pit of his stomach. 

“I don’t know,” Harry muttered darkly before shrugging Louis hand off and storming away, not even stopping when Louis quietly called after him.

⁺˚*･༓☾　　☽༓･*˚⁺

The sound of seagulls squawking woke Louis up, and he had to blink up at the white ceiling a few times to remember where he was. The morning sky was covered in thick clouds that made it look gray, and the air smelled of freshly watered grass and sweet summer flowers.

He used his knuckles to rub the sleep from his heavy eyes and forced himself to sit up, wincing at the dull ache throbbing at the bottom of his spine. The memories of how badly he had fucked up the previous night started coming back as his body gradually woke up, and he put his head in his hands, glaring down at the mint green carpet under his feet.

He wriggled the watch out of his pocket and found comfort in the familiar ticking sound the thinnest arrow made as it went around the clock face and counted the seconds. 6:05 . Grumbling quietly, he pushed himself off the uncomfortable white couch and bent backwards to crack his spine, the relief that it gave him making him want to sit back down and enjoy what looked like a beautiful sunrise, judging from the golden sun rays that peeked out from behind the horizon. Instead, he grabbed his belongings, swung his jacket over his shoulder and entered the hotel, whistling a song under his breath that was yet to be written.

⁺˚*･༓☾　　☽༓･*˚⁺

The sapphire hallways on the third floor were completely empty and the only sound that resonated against the padded walls was Louis’ cheery whistling and his quiet steps.

When he stopped in front of number 328, he took a moment to shake off the nerves that were starting to build up and knocked on the door before fear got the best of him.

“Who is it?” the response was almost immediate, the voice sounding suspiciously close to the door.

“Um. It’s Louis,” he said. He ran a hand through his tangled hair and hoped he looked at least decent.

The door was slowly opened and Harry timidly stepped into the small space the door frame and the door created. His curls looked like a bird’s nest, like he hadn’t run a comb through it in weeks, and he was only wearing a white undershirt and a pair of blue pyjama pants with black stripes. Louis couldn’t help but gape at all the black ink adorning Harry’s arms that had been hidden by the coral jacket the night before, his gaze lingering on the intricate anchor tattooed onto his wrist bone.

“Did you sleep alright?” Louis snapped himself out of his silly trance and looked up at Harry, a bright smile on his face despite the early hour.

“Wonderfully,” Harry croaked out, his voice much deeper than the night before, and gave him a sarcastic tight-lipped smile.

“I didn’t sleep well, either,” he rambled and held back a chuckle when Harry rolled his eyes. “I slept outside, you see.”

“Don’t you have a room?” Harry asked, his eyebrows scrunched up in distaste.

“I will have room 416 at 9:18,” Louis said. At Harry’s confused expression, he decided to change the topic. “Would you like to have breakfast with me?”

“It’s six in the morning.” Harry crossed his arms, not looking impressed. Not one bit.

“Later, then.”

“I don’t eat breakfast on the days I perform, Mr Tomlinson.”

“Oh, no. I’m not Mr Tomlinson.” That’s my father, he wanted to say.

“Isn’t that your name?” Harry tilted his head to the side. A stray curl fell across his forehead and Louis’ fingers twitched slightly.

“Well, yes. But I —” he started, his voice getting louder as he tried to explain.

“Sh!” Harry waved his hand frantically before glancing back over his shoulder with wide eyes. “You’ll wake Nick up.”

“Nick?” no one had told Louis there was a Nick in the picture. 

“My tailor.” Oh. Nothing to worry about, then. “He went to sleep quite late last night.”

“Well, I would like it if you called me by my first name,” Louis said, quietly this time.

“Why would I do that?” Harry asked, looking genuinely confused.

Louis shrugged. “I don’t know. It would be nice.” A beat. “Can I see you today?”

“I have rehearsal all day. I can’t.”

“Can you go on a walk with me? Or is that too much for you?” Louis crossed his arms over his chest, Harry’s cheeks turning red.

“I can’t,” he repeated in a soft voice and fixed his eyes on his bare feet.

Louis let out a long sigh and dramatically fell against the door, causing Harry to jump back in surprise as it fully opened. He put his hat on his chest and playfully narrowed his eyes at the spluttering man in front of him.

“Young man,” he said in an overly deep voice. “If you don’t walk with me, I will get mad.”

Harry’s eyes slowly widened in his direction and he huffed out a loud laugh that he tried to cover up as a cough when he remembered the sleeping tailor in the room. Louis’ shoulders shook as he held back his own laugh, which ended up with — quite unattractive — snorts spilling past his lips and Harry waved his hand again, his lips twitching from holding back a grin and tried to shut him up. 

Before he could stop himself, Louis took Harry’s warm hand in his and flicked his eyes from the long pale fingers to the forest green eyes, his heart giving a little jump when he saw Harry was already looking at him. He quietly cleared his throat and lowered the tone of his voice one more time.

“Thank you, Louis. (That’s me, by the way). I would love to walk with you and get to know you so I don’t have to be afraid anymore.” he stopped for a second and gave Harry’s hand a gentle squeeze, going back to his normal voice. “Say yes, please.”

His heart skipped a beat at the sight of the dimples that carved into Harry’s cheeks as he smiled down at Louis with amusement and at the way his nose was all scrunched up and made him look years younger,

“Yes,” he finally said. His smile bloomed into an excited grin and he started to close the door and pushing Louis out of the room before Louis could say anything.

Louis stood outside gaping at the spot where Harry’s face had just been, too surprised to process anything. He raised his fist to knock on the door once more when it was pulled open, revealing a breathless Harry.

“One o’clock,” he said and shut the door. Opened it again. “Outside of the hotel.”

He slammed the door louder than he probably should’ve and didn’t open it again. Louis stayed frozen to his place, his thoughts racing. What had just happened slowly dawned on him and he pumped the air happily.

“He’s crazy about me,” he muttered as a grin spread across his face and put his hat on and headed downstairs.

Chapter Text

CHAPTER 6.

The gray clouds from that morning had dissipated while Louis was inside and the sky was now a cloudless blue, the shining sun warming up the guests that were enjoying the fine day. He let out a relaxed sigh as he straightened the newspaper in his hands and took a long sip from his mint tea. Even though he had a parasole shielding him from the strong rays, there were small beads of sweat trickling down his back, but he was so happy he couldn’t have cared more. 

He heard the only other chair at his table squeak as someone sat down on it and rolled his eyes, thankful for the fact that the newspaper was big enough to cover his entire face, because there was only one person who was confident enough to sit without asking.

“Care to join? Louis asked, his tone too sweet to be considered friendly. He folded his newspaper back up and placed the teacup on top of it.

Liam Payne’s dark eyes were narrowed as he looked at Louis, his fingers tapping impatiently against the arm of the chair. He was dressed in a pristine white suit that looked identical to the ones the men around them were wearing and there was a green handkerchief neatly folded inside his breast pocket, the shade too exact and particular for it to have been a simple handkerchief.

“Where are you from?” Payne asked bluntly, resting his ankle on his knee.

“Chicago.” Louis took another sip from his tea, keeping his eyes on the man over the rim.

“I understand you’re a playwright,” Payne sniffed and — oh . So that was what this was all about.

“I am, yes,” Louis replied, leaning back against his seat.

“Have you ever written an opera?”

“I have, actually. And I’ve seen ‘em all produced,” Louis said smugly and enjoyed the little twitch Payne’s eyebrow gave.

“Interesting,” he hummed. “I wonder if i have ever seen one.”

“Oh, no. I highly doubt that.” Louis shook his head.

“I also doubt I will see one with Mr Styles,” Payne said coldly.

And there it was.

“Is that really the reason you’re here?” Louis arched an eyebrow, suddenly remembering what  he had been told about Payne’s relationship with Harry.

“Do you want money?” a muscle in his jaw quivered and Louis huffed out a chuckle.

“I don’t think you’re here to ask me that, either.”

Payne’s chair scraped back against the grass and he stood up with a scowl on his face. Louis copied his actions and tried to keep his expression as calm as possible.

“I could report you to the authorities,” Payne seethed. “I could have you arrested .”

“Yeah? On what charge?” Louis shot back, his fingers twitching by his sides. 

Payne scoffed loudly and turned on his heel without replying. Louis’ eyes did not leave his retreating figure until he disappeared into the hotel.

⁺˚*･༓☾　　☽༓･*˚⁺

After angrily finishing his tea in one gulp and calling Payne every name he could think of under his breath, Louis went back to the lobby with ten minutes to spare. He walked past Niall, who was bouncing his red ball against the carpeted floor despite the various ceramic vases around him, and sent him a smile before stopping in front of the main counter.

“Good morning,” Louis said happily, instantly recognising the man across from him as Niall’s father.

“Excuse me for just a second,” he said with an apologetic smile and leaned to the side to frown at the child behind Louis. “Niall, not in here.”

Louis heard a quiet whine come from behind him and soon enough, Niall shuffled close with the ball held tightly in his hands and his bottom lip wobbling. He stood on his tiptoes to reluctantly roll the ball across the smooth surface and sniffed when his father took it and stored it under the counter.

“Sorry about that,” Niall’s father said, shaking his head. “How can I help you, sir?”

Louis smiled at him. “It’s really no problem. Uh, I would like to book a room, please.”

“You don’t have a room?” the man tilted his head in confusion.

“I arrived yesterday night, you see. And I was feeling so poorly that I passed out on one of the sofas outside,” Louis explained and shrugged sheepishly.

“Oh. Alright.” the man nodded and turned toward the wooden board where gold keys hung, some with pieces of paper wrapped around the tags that indicated what room each key belonged to.

Louis bounced on his toes as excitement bubbled in his stomach and watched the man pull a key off a hook on the fourth row and face him again.

“Here’s your key, sir. Now if you could just…” Louis’ blocked off his voice as soon as he read the golden 450 on the tag, his enthusiasm quickly deflating into incertitude.

“E-excuse me,” Louis said and held his key out, a deep frown on his face. “I think you gave me the — the wrong room.”

“The wrong room?” the man looked at Louis incredulously and hesitantly took the key back. A stout man on their side approached him and plucked the key out of his hands;

“Mr Horan, this room has already been reserved; I forgot to leave a note,” he said and smiled at Mr Horan and Louis before returning the key to its place, a note wrapped around the tag this time, and grabbed another one. Louis exhaled slowly and eagerly took the key from him. “I’m very sorry about that, sir.”

“It’s quite alright.” Louis shook his head and carefully pocketed the key after making sure it belonged to 416.

“My apologies, sir. This usually doesn’t happen,” Mr Horan said before sliding the red records book on the counter to him and handing him an elegant black fountain pen. “Now, if you could sign your name, the room and the date right there…”

Grabbing the pen, Louis messily scribbled the name onto the line. He was about to write his room number and the time but Mr Horan took the pen from him before he could even press it against the paper.

“I’ll do the rest, Mr Tomlinson,” he said, not unkindly, and turned his neck to look at the clock on the wall behind him.

“It’s 9:18!” Louis exclaimed, unable to help himself. Mr Horan raised his eyebrows slightly and nodded.

“Thank you, sir.” he slid the book back to its place. “Where have you put your luggage?”

“Oh. Erm — it’s all been taken care of.” Louis didn’t mean for it to come out as a question and quickly decided that the best thing for him to do at that moment was to leave before Mr Horan started asking too many questions. He muttered a quiet thank you and left.

A small sniffle caught his attention as he was making his way to the stairs and he stopped, turning toward the source. He spotted Niall immediately as he was the only person sitting in the waiting area in front of where Louis had just been, and felt his heart squeeze a little at the silvery tears running down his cheeks. Subtly, he looked back to where Mr Horan was and waited until his back was turned, scrambling to lean over the cool marble and grab the rubber ball.

“Here you go.” he knelt in front of a whimpering Niall and held the ball out for him to take. Niall eagerly took the ball from Louis’ hands, his glassy eyes wide, and let out a quiet giggle when Louis ruffled his dark hair. “I’ll see you around, Niall.”

⁺˚*･༓☾　　☽༓･*˚⁺

Louis pushed his wet hair back and anxiously tapped his foot against the step he was standing on. Around him, open carriages pulled by brown horses stopped in front of the staircase leading up to the main entrance of the hotel to drop off or pick guests up, and staff members hurried to help guests with their luggage. He glanced around the place, hoping to see Harry as it was already one twenty, but saw no sign of him.

Ten more minutes passed and Louis felt what was left of his hope start to fade. He pushed himself off the white column he was leaning against with a resigned sigh and started to make his way down the stairs.

“Mr Tomlinson, wait!” a familiar raspy voice called after him and he turned toward it, a wide grin spreading across his face.

“Harry!” Louis exclaimed and watched him run down the stairs. “I was beginning to doubt you were even coming.”

“I’m very sorry I’m late. Rehearsal went on for much longer than I thought it would,” Harry apologized, his lips twisting up into a timid smile, and ran a hand through his tangled hair. He was dressed in a light gray suit and a turquoise button down that let Louis see hints of black ink on his torso when Harry moved into the sun.

“It’s alright. You look lovely today, by the way.” Louis offered his arm, sending Harry a small wink as soon as he noticed the small pink coloring his cheeks.

“Thank you,” he said quietly and placed his warm hand on the crook of Louis’ elbow.

Louis led them down the remaining steps and to the tall silver horse standing in front of a simple wooden carriage. He abruptly stopped when he felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, and he and Harry quickly turned around to face the stairs at the same time.

“Son of a bitch,” Louis muttered, squinting his eyes under the sun at Payne’s figure standing at the top of the stairs. “I cannot believe him, but. I gotta give him credit for being so quick. Would you like me to speak with him?”

“No, it wouldn’t do any good,” Harry sighed, biting down on his lip. He stayed quiet for a second and a devilish smile appeared on his face just as Louis was about to ask what he meant. “But I think I know what would.”

Before Louis could say anything, Harry wrapped his fingers around Louis’ wrist and pulled him onto the carriage, their loud laughs leaving their mouths as they stumbled to settle down on the hot seats. Harry took the leather reigns in his hands and gently whipped them to get the horse to move. Still laughing, Louis shifted in his seat to face a shocked Payne and tipped his hat, a smug smirk on his face.

Harry took him to the most beautiful park had ever seen.

Many families sat on patterned blankets on the fresh grass with woven baskets between them and happily ate the sandwiches that had been stacked up inside them. A group of boys kicked a ball between them, loud yells leaving their mouths every time the ball got too close to falling off the edge and down into the sea. A group of older children held long strings and struggled to keep their colorful kites in the air, their parents keeping a watchful eye on them.

Harry’s hand never moved from Louis’ arm while they strolled around the park, and the butterflies in Louis’ stomach decided to make that their home the moment the dimples on Harry’s cheeks appeared. He told Louis about his family; he talked about how much he missed his mom’s cooking every time he was on the road and how he ate as much as he could when he got the rare chance to visit her. He talked about how much it had pained him to miss his sister, Gemma’s, wedding because he was on the other side of the country, only to find out he hadn’t even been invited because she’d known he wouldn’t have been able to make it anyway.

They stopped only once. Below a tall tree with more white flowers than green leaves was a man sitting on a black chair and a large wooden box resting on his knees. He smiled at them when they approached him and said something that was probably a greeting, but Louis was too distracted by the blinding smile that bloomed on Harry’s face when he saw the rows of silver rings inside the box. He considered making fun of Harry for already having so many rings on his fingers and still wanting more but the thought died on his tongue the moment he picked up a familiar-looking ring and placed it on his palm to admire it. The rose’s silver petals shone under the sun as he brought it closer to his face and Louis was dropping the coins in the man’s hand before he could help himself.

The grin Harry gave him when he slipped it on his left middle finger was worth everything.

Louis took him to the red lighthouse he used to hang out at during the hot days, and mercilessly teased him every time he tripped over the small rocks scattered throughout the sand, if only to see his cheeks turn the color of the bricks next to them. They settled down on the driest rocks they could find and said nothing for what felt like ages, their eyes fixed on the glittering water in front of them.

“It’s hard to be away from my family all the time, even after all these years,” Harry finally said, his lips set into a grim line. “And there are things that happened that… have made me want to protect myself.”

Louis instantly flicked his attention to him, but Harry kept his eyes on the waves crashing against the rocks.

“Please understand that the fact that I'm here with you is…” he trailed off before facing Louis, his eyebrows drawn together. “We only met last night.”  

“Why did you ask ‘is it you?’ when we met?” Louis asked and watched Harry fiddle with his new ring.

“I was expecting—” he stopped himself and quickly flicked his eyes back to the sea.

“Me?”

“Someone.”

“Who? Tell me,” Louis insisted, shifting closer to him.

“You’ll probably laugh.”

“Is it funny?”

Harry hesitated. “In a way, yes.” he laced his fingers together and sighed quietly. “Liam told me you were coming. He… he sometimes knows about things before they happen. He said that one day I would meet a person who would change my life.” 

“Did he tell you to be afraid of them?” Louis asked him, his voice soft.

“Yes.” Harry nodded his head slowly.

“Do you still believe that?” 

“I… I don’t think I do.” he gently bumped his knee against Louis’.

Louis felt like he was floating on air.  

⁺˚*･༓☾　　☽༓･*˚⁺

The canoe that they decided to spontaneously rent tipped dangerously every time they laughed — something that happened too often for them to be safe — and there were times where Harry was gripping the wooden edges his knuckles had turned the color of snow. They were so far out that the lighthouse was a simple red dot in the distance, anchoring them home, and the water around them was a bright blue that reflected the clear sky above them and rocked them from side to side when Louis pushed the oars to propel them forward.

They quieted down after some time, the only sound that filled in their silence gaps being the small waves crashing against the side of the canoe. Louis’ eyes were fixed on Harry’s profile, tracing the gentle bridge of his nose down to the pink bottom lip being held between his front teeth to the muscle on his jawline that jumped every two seconds. He put his lips together and started to whistle the most cheerful version of Sweet Creature he could come up with, holding back a smile when Harry turned to look at him curiously.

“That’s beautiful,” Harry noted, his fingers already tapping on his knee along to the melody. “I have never heard that before; what is it?”

Louis stopped whistling and felt his eyebrows twitch in disbelief. “Oh. Erm — it’s just something that I came up with.” 

“Well, it’s a beautiful tune.” 

⁺˚*･༓☾　　☽༓･*˚⁺

“Sorry for keeping her for so long!”

The staff member responsible for the hotel’s horses had come to pick her up the moment they had set foot in the hotel’s grounds and he merely shook his head while climbing onto the carriage. He whipped the reigns instead of replying, the horse rapidly taking him back to the white building.

“They are going to hang us for horse- napping,” Harry giggled and rested his hip against the white railing of the gazebo he was standing on. Louis couldn’t help but snort loudly at the joke and skipped the single wooden step that led into the gazebo, following Harry to the thin bench that had a tall bush with small white flowers all over it behind it.

The cone-shaped roof had been covered in vines and similar delicate flowers to the ones behind them had grown on them, their pink petals fluttering in the gentle breeze every time it blew.

“What have I done to deserve that terrible joke?” Louis asked in a playful tone, sitting down on the bench. He was suddenly too aware that he’d underestimated the size of it when his thigh pressed against Harry’s and he held his breath, expecting Harry to move away as soon as he processed the situation.

Instead, Harry kept his eyes fixed on Louis, his eyelashes fanning over his cheekbones every time he blinked. Louis breathed in slowly and carefully started to lean closer, his eyes momentarily flicking down to Harry’s parted lips.

“I’ve had the most peculiar day, Mr Tomlinson,” Harry whispered just as their noses were about to bump against each other. Louis let his head hang slightly and pulled back.

“I’m sure you will survive, Mr Styles,” Louis teased and ignored the strong pounding of his heart.

“What time is it?” Harry’s lips twitched and the dimple on his right cheek appeared as he tried to hold back his smile. Louis scooted back, making sure that at least their knees were still touching, and pulled his beloved watch out. “Oh, that’s such a lovely pocket watch. Where did you get it?”

“I—” Louis raised his eyebrows and looked up from the diamonds on the clock face, holding it out for Harry to see. You gave it to me. “Someone whom I was very close with gave it to me some years ago.” 

Harry nodded and carefully closed the lid. He waited for Louis to slip it back into his pocket before reminding him that he needed to rest for the concert.

“Can’t you stay for just a little longer?” Louis was aware that he was on the verge of begging but for some reason he just couldn’t understand, he couldn’t let Harry go when he was finally getting to know him. He sighed quietly when he saw the small grimace on Harry’s face and reluctantly stood up, offering Harry his arm. “Let’s get you back to your room, then.” 

Chapter Text

CHAPTER 7.

Their walk back to the hotel was too quiet compared to how lively the day had been, and Harry had dropped his hand from Louis’ elbow as soon as they stepped into the lobby. Louis hummed under his breath while they made their way up to the third floor, unable to find the right words to say to fill the empty spaces.

“So. When are you leaving?” he finally asked when they got to the blue hallway, his mouth feeling too dry.

“Tonight after the concert,” Harry answered softly, his shoulders hunching when the words left his mouth.

“Oh.” It was all Louis could say because, suddenly, everything he had worked so hard for was starting to fall apart around him. He cleared his throat, hoping to get rid of the knot building up. “Where… where are you going?”

“Denver.”

“Oh.”

They stopped in front of Harry’s room much too soon and the silence between them hung heavily, like the red curtains in the auditorium.

“Well!” Harry said loudly and grabbed Louis’ hand, shaking it firmly. “I had a wonderful day, Mr Tomlinson. Thank you for everything, really.”

He tried to pull his hand away but Louis gently tightened his grip on it and held onto it. He flicked his eyes over Harry’s face, looking for any sign of displeasure or anything that would tell him that he was uncomfortable with Louis’ actions, and he gave Harry’s hand the smallest squeeze when he saw none.

“D’you think we could talk some more?” Louis’ voice was quiet and he nervously bit down on his bottom lip.

Harry exhaled deeply and tugged is hands out of Louis’ now loose grip to take his key out of the small pocket on the inside of his jacket, dropping it on Louis’ open palm. Louis took it eagerly and jammed it into the lock, pushing the door open once he had unlocked it. Harry grabbed his key and stepped into the room first, shrugging his jacket off and draping it over his forearm.

“What did you want to talk about?” he waited for Louis to walk in and close the door behind him and leaned against the cream colored doorway that led into the sitting room.

Louis approached him hesitantly, his trembling hands balled up against his thighs, and stopped once the tips of their shoes were touching. He could see Harry’s chest rising and falling slowly and he could feel the warm puffs of air hitting his chin every time Harry exhaled. Being this close, he could see the tiny faint freckles sprinkled on the bridge of Harry’s nose and the light shade of red blooming on his skin from having been under the hot sun that was gradually getting darker the closer Louis got to him. 

“Can I kiss you?” he whispered, raising his hand to place it on Harry’s warm cheek.

The nod Harry gave was so small that Louis almost missed it. He let his eyes fall shut, his eyelashes fluttering expectantly, and leaned forward to touch the tip of his nose against Louis’. And, since Louis was just a simple man, all he could do was press his mouth against Harry’s and hope his knees didn’t give out.

He had always heard one felt sparks in their veins when they kissed the person they loved the most for the first time, but as he moved his lips against Harry’s soft ones and felt tingles every inch of his body, the only word he could use to describe what he was feeling was warmth.

The desperate knocking on the door made Louis jump back and away from the kiss, his eyes wide in shock. Harry’s blown eyes were just as wide as Louis’ but they were fixed on the door and his chest was heaving, the smooth skin on his neck flushed a lovely dark red.

“Styles?” Payne called, his usually calm voice now loud and frantic. “Harry, are you there?”

“I’m here. You can come in,” Harry said breathlessly and pushed himself off the doorframe to carelessly throw his jacket on one of the sofas in the sitting room. He leaned back against the arm of the sofa and looked straight past Louis and at the door, almost as if he was suddenly trying to forget that Louis was even there.

The door was opened almost immediately and the mirror on the wall rattled slightly when the door hit the rose wallpaper. Payne stood in the turquoise hallway, his face red with anger and his hair dishevelled and if Louis didn’t know any better, he would’ve guessed Payne ran up the stairs.

“I think it’s best if you leave,” Payne told Louis through gritted teeth and took a step into the room.

“Have you been waiting for us to get back?” Harry asked Payne, his voice colder than Louis thought it could ever be.

“This is not an appropriate time for—” Payne started, but Harry quickly interrupted him. 

“Have you?”

“Yes.” A beat. “Does it really surprise you?”

“Our relationship, Mr Payne,” Harry’s nostrils flared slightly as he crossed his arms over his chest, “is strictly business. I am only involved with you as a singer. I am not a doormat; do not wipe your feet on me.”

Pride swelled in Louis’ chest as he watched Payne’s mouth fall open in shock and he resisted the urge to grin at Harry, instead opting to walk away from the scene and quietly head to the door. 

“Louis,” Harry suddenly said, his tone warm again. Louis faced him slowly, his eyebrows furrowed at the fuzzy feeling that Harry calling him by his first name gave him. “I’ll leave a ticket for you at the auditorium for tonight.”

Not paying attention to the offended scoff Payne gave, Louis sent Harry a small smile and left the room.

⁺˚*･༓☾　　☽༓･*˚⁺

The auditorium’s lights had already been dimmed when Louis walked in, his ticket held tightly between his hands as he tried to find his seat. He ignored the looks people gave him when they saw what he was wearing and muttered quiet apologies while trying not to step on the long frilly skirts and wooden canes that made the aisle between the seats even narrower. When he finally managed to get to his seat, the strong mix of different perfumes was starting to give him a headache and the ushers were already asking people to quiet down.

Gentle strumming coming from behind the closed velvet curtain hushed the audience almost immediately and the curtain slid open a second later, revealing the pink-haired girl sitting at the piano with a blinding grin on her face and the other two girls standing on the opposite side of the stage, the sequins on their white dresses glimmering under the bright lights. Harry was sitting on a stool in the middle of the stage, a brown guitar resting on his bent knees and a sheepish smile spread across his pink face.

He was wearing a gray suit, similar to the one he’d worn earlier that day, but his shirt was a soft lilac color this time and there was a loose knot tied around the base of his neck that had two long ribbons that reached the waistline of his pants. His hair looked fluffier now, like he’d taken a shower right before the show and let his hair air dry, and there was a delicate gold headband carefully placed among his soft curls.

Louis had no time to register how good Harry looked because his ringed fingers were starting to quietly strum his guitar and his voice was loud and clear when he spoke up.

“Hello, everyone. My name is Harry Styles,” he introduced himself once the clapping died down and his eyes momentarily flicked to where Louis was sitting, like he was making sure that Louis had actually come, and then went back to looking around the crowded auditorium. “Thank you very much for coming; I hope you enjoy the show. This is Something Great.”

The piano girl gave him a short nod when he turned to look at her and she began to play a soft melody just as he adjusted his guitar and joined in a second later.

As soon as Harry started to sing, Louis felt his heart fly up to his throat. Harry’s voice was just as deep as when he talked, but it was so much smoother when he sang and the lyrics were filled with emotion and all Louis wanted to do was climb onto the stage and give him the tightest hug ever.

Harry sang four more songs, the last one so cheerful that he stood up from his stool to prance around the stage to the music and even got the audience to clap along. Louis’ palms were getting starting to sting a bit, but the way Harry danced with his guitar and grinned so much that it looked like his face was about to split in two made it all worth it.

By the time he sat back on the stool, his face had turned red and there were shiny beads of sweat trailing down his temple but there was absolutely no sign of him being too tired to continue. As he paused to catch his breath, one of the backup singers exited the stage and came back a second later with a small brown notebook in her hands. Harry took it with a grateful smile and carefully balanced it on his knee, rapidly flipping through the pages as the three girls silently left him on his own.

“So this song,” he started, a nervous tremble unexpectedly appearing in his voice as he finally reached the page he was looking for, “is a fairly new one. In fact, I wrote it three hours ago.”

Amused laughter rippled throughout the audience and Harry chuckled with them as he fixed the headband on his head. His sparkling eyes met Louis’ and his grin softened into something smaller, a small smile that made Louis feel warm all over and feel like it was just for him.

“And, um. I actually wrote it for somebody who’s sitting in the audience right now. And — yeah, I hope you like it.” he waited for the clapping and curious murmurs to stop and broke his eye contact with Louis to duck his head and focus on what he’d written in his notebook. “This is called Sweet Creature.”

The first few notes were soft, almost unsure, and Louis felt like the air had been punched out of his lungs. Here he was, 62 years away from where he was supposed to be and sitting in an auditorium where the man he was pretty sure he loved was singing a song that was always playing in his head even though he didn’t know the words to it and — It was being sung to him. It wasn’t directed at the audience. It wasn’t being sung to a random person in the first few rows. It was being sung to Louis.

Harry’s voice filled the auditorium in a way it hadn’t with the other songs — it was sincere and gentle and his fingers trembled slightly every time he played another note, but it was like everyone in the place was holding their breath to listen to the honey that dripped from his lips. The light hanging over him made it look like there was a bright white halo surrounding him and he looked almost angelic with his gold headband and silky clothes.

Louis couldn’t take his eyes off of him. 

The song was over much too soon and Louis only remembered to take a breath when the lights of the auditorium turned back on right after the curtain closed once again, blocking Harry from the audience’s eye. Louis was the first one to stand up, his hands quickly going numb from how hard he was clapping and his chest swelled with pride when everyone followed suit and filled the place with thunderous applause.

He was quick to take advantage of the pause that gave the audience the time to go to the bathroom if they needed to and hurried backstage through the door that led to the dressing rooms.

It was much less crowded than he expected it to be — the two girls in white dresses and some of the people belonging to the backstage crew chatted among themselves about Harry’s new addition to the set and the reporters that had been allowed back there ran back and forth with notepads in their hands while trying to get someone to talk to them. He heard Harry’s voice before seeing him and he followed the impatient huffs across the stage until he found a large group of people standing around an overexcited photographer.

“C’mon, smile for the camera!” he was saying, his voice muffled by the thick cloth that covered most of his head and allowed him to take the picture.

Harry was sitting on a short velvet seat in front of a gray background hanging from the ceiling. His mouth was set into more of a grimace rather than a smile and his fingers were anxiously fiddling with one of the lilac ribbons as he stared at the camera with dull eyes. When Louis stepped in next to the photographer to get a better look, Harry’s eyes flicked up to him almost immediately and a surprised smirk bloomed on his lips as he leaned forward towards Louis, like he had forgotten that he needed to get the picture taken.

The flash went off while the photographer praised Harry’s smile and for a split second, a familiar oval-shaped frame appeared behind Harry’s head, reminding Louis of entire days spent in the exposition room staring at this exact same picture and trying to figure out whom Harry had been looking at when it was taken — only to find it was him.

⁺˚*･༓☾　　☽༓･*˚⁺

When Louis got back to his seat after being practically kicked out of backstage, it was like the air in the auditorium was buzzing with excitement as people gushed to each other about the first part of Harry’s show and how they eagerly awaited the second part.

Behind the closed curtain, Louis could hear the piano being carefully tuned for when Harry came back onstage. Louis let himself relax back against his seat and enjoy the warm fuzzy feeling that had been bubbling in his stomach ever since the photograph was taken.

An usher walked up to him just as the lights were being dimmed and silently handed him a folded piece of paper with his name neatly written on the front. Before Louis could thank him or ask him who it was from, he turned on his heel and went back to wherever he was supposed to be without saying another word. Louis frowned down at the paper in his hands and flipped it over twice before opening it, his eyes quickly scanning the few words written on it.

Mr Tomlinson, the black cursive said. Meet me in the gazebo outside of the auditorium. It is a matter of life and death. L. Payne.

Louis held back a frustrated sigh as he shoved the note deep into his pocket and stood up, the cheerful piano notes that were starting to be played onstage following after him while he exited the auditorium and stepped out into the hot summer night.

Small string lights had been tied up all around the gazebo, turning it into a bright bundle of light under the starry sky. Louis could see Payne’s figure standing under the pointed roof with his back to the auditorium and the closer he got, the better he could see how tense Payne’s shoulders were.

“Do you know,” Payne said as soon as Louis stepped onto the gazebo, “how many years I have spent with Mr Styles?”

“Since April of 1904,” Louis answered warily, moving closer to the bench where he and Harry had sat on that afternoon.

Payne slowly turned toward him, his eyebrows drawn together. His beard was much thicker than it had been when Louis first met him and the purple circles around his eyes made his face look a sickly white under the fluorescent lights.

“1904…” Payne muttered to himself and tilted his head, almost like he was just realizing how long it had actually been. “Yes… I found him singing in the streets of New York City when he was just 16 and I knew what he had to become.”

“Mr Payne?”

A scowl appeared almost immediately on Payne’s face and a thin purple vein on his forehead twitched. “Do you really believe that I have spent so many years taking care of Mr Styles only to marry him?”

“What, then?” Louis questioned, uneasily eyeing the trembling vein.

“A star!” Payne exclaimed and jabbed his index finger against Louis’ chest. “Only someone like you would think that my passion for this man is nothing but physical. Don’t you understand that he could become one of the best, if not the best, singers of his time? Possibly of American history?”

“Mr Payne,” Louis carefully pushed Payne’s hand away and took a small step back. “I understand you have nothing but the best intentions for Harry and for his career, but so do I. He will become everything you want him to be and so much more—”

“With you at his side.”

“Yes. With me at his side.”

“Never,” Payne spat.

“Jesus. You really think you own him, don’t you?” Louis scoffed in disbelief and turned around to go back to the concert.  

“I know who you are, sir.” Payne’s threatening tone made him stop on the gazebo’s single step, but he did not face him. Besides, it was ridiculous — Payne had died fifteen years before Louis was born. “Ever since you got here, I have known; you’re here to destroy Mr Styles and his career.” 

“You’re out of your mind.” Louis shook his head and stepped down onto the gravel trail that led to the auditorium. 

Not even a second later, he felt something solid hit the back of his head and everything went black.

⁺˚*･༓☾　　☽༓･*˚⁺

Harry opened his eyes to every single person in the auditorium standing up as they clapped, some of the men even putting two fingers in their mouths to whistle loudly. The guitar was heavy against his chest and it dug into his thigh when he took Perrie and Sarah’s hands so they could all bow together. Butterflies fluttered around in his stomach and his ears were starting to ring from how loud the audience was cheering — it was one of the loudest so far, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. He briefly glanced around the place and felt his heart squeeze at the empty space in the middle of the third row where Louis should have been, whistling and clapping with everybody else.

The smile he’d forced onto his face disappeared as soon as the red curtains slid in front of them for the second and final time, muffling the deafening audience. He dropped the girls’ sweaty hands to give his guitar to the skittish assistant who joined the crew when they were in Boston.

“No more. We’re done,” he stated before walking off the stage and ignored the confused words the girls shared between each other. Perrie called his name twice, her sweet voice laced with concern, but he drowned her out as he made his way to the quiet corner where he had last seen Louis.

“Mr Styles!” Nick appeared some minutes later, breathlessly apologising every time he bumped into someone. When he stopped in front of Harry to catch his breath, he frowned and shook his head before Harry could say anything. “He wasn’t there, sir.”

“Did you check his room?” Harry asked and hid his trembling hands in his pockets as he hurried to his dressing room with Nick following right behind him.

“I did,” he replied while opening the door to let Harry in first. “He wasn’t there, either.”

“What did they say at the front desk?” there was something heavy pressing down on Harry’s chest, not letting him breathe, and it pressed down just a bit harder when the tailor shook his head and nervously fiddled with a loose hem on the hem of his shirt. “Did he leave a message?”

“It would appear not, sir.” 

Harry turned his back to Nick to blink away the tears that were welling up in his eyes and forcefully pulled his jacket off, letting it fall on one of the red velvet sofas the hotel crew had been so kind to put in the room.

“What could have happened to him?” he wondered out loud, his voice catching slightly as millions of possibilities swarmed in his head. He tugged the headband off, not even wincing when the sharp golden laurel leaves tug  on some strands of hair, and anxiously paced from side to side.

Nick watched him silently from his place next to the mirror on the wall and opened his mouth after a second of silence as if he was about to say something, but a single knock on the other side of the door distracted them and they turned to look at it at the same time.

“Do you think it’s him?” Harry asked and the pressure on his chest lightened up a little as a wave of hope washed over him. Nick lifted a shoulder to his ear before twisting the knob and opening the door. “Oh. It’s you.”

Liam stood where Louis should have been. His face was covered in a thin layer of sweat, probably from being outside in the heat instead of staying for the second part of the concert like he was supposed to do as Harry’s manager.

“What do you want?” Harry dismissed Nick with a small wave of his hand without moving his glaring eyes away from Liam, who had a look in his eyes that Harry couldn’t decipher.

“That was quite a different performance you gave out there, Styles.” Liam ignored his question and shut the door behind him before stepping into the room. He let himself fall on the sofa where Harry’s jacket was and casually crossed one of his legs over the other.

“Where is Louis? What have you done to him?” Harry demanded, a scowl forming on his face. He stood on the wall right across from where Liam was sitting and he glowered down at his manager.

“I have done absolutely nothing.” Liam shrugged his shoulders and leaned back against the seat, his expression suspiciously calm. “Mr Tomlinson is gone.”

“What — what do you mean?” Harry dreaded the answer and as he lowered himself onto the chair in front of the mirror to stop his knees from giving out, he silently prayed that what Liam as saying wasn’t true.

“He’s gone, Harry. From the hotel and from your life.”

Harry had always thought he knew what it would feel like to have his heart broken — he would probably cry until there was nothing left, maybe even hit some things. He would have never guessed that he would feel completely numb, like white ice was sprouting from his heart and spreading throughout his entire body, freezing everything in its way until he couldn’t feel anything.

“I must admit, however,” Liam continued, oblivious to the ice in Harry’s veins, “Mr Tomlinson was much more than all the other men we have met. More sincere too, but. Still.”

“Then he’s not the man you spoke of,” Harry said. He was surprised at how steady his voice sounded and he dug his short nails into his palms in hopes it wouldn’t crack and give his emotions away. “You were wrong about him.”

“It seems that way, yes.” 

“I love him,” he paused to swallow the growing knot in his throat and take a moment to realize that as those three words left his mouth, he was telling nothing but the truth. In less than twenty four hours, Harry had fallen for a man who made him laugh harder than he ever had in his life and whose blue eyes crinkled at the sides whenever he looked at him and Harry would follow him halfway across the world without giving it a second thought if it meant being with him. “Do you understand? I love him. And I know he’s going to make me very, very happy.” 

Liam’s shoulders had tensed up during Harry’s revelation and his fingers were gripping the armrest so tightly they were turning white, but he remained just as calm as before. “What difference does it make, Harry, if he’s gone?”

“I’ll find him,” Harry shot back, his eyes narrowed. “It’s best if you don’t try to stop me.”

Liam hummed quietly as he pushed himself up onto his feet and headed to the door without even bothering to reply. He only turned back to look at Harry, his brown eyes filled with smugness, once his hand was wrapped around the knob. “May I remind you that we leave in an hour?”

He slipped out of the dressing room without another word, leaving Harry alone with only his broken heart as company.

⁺˚*･༓☾　　☽༓･*˚⁺

The room was too quiet for Harry’s liking; all the windows had been shut as soon as the last of his cases had been carried down to the carriage waiting for him and the calming sound of the lake crashing against the rocks was now blocked by the thick glass panes. It was too late for any guests to be walking around the halls and Harry was sure he would drive himself crazy if he didn’t stop tapping his fingers against the wooden cabinet he was leaning against, but it was the only thing keeping him from breaking down.

Thoughts raced through his mind, too fast for him to focus on just one and use it to take his attention away from the numbness in his chest. Even after hours of trying to find the answer, he couldn’t understand why Louis would spend every minute trying to get Harry to open up to him and then just… leave.

Maybe Liam was right; maybe he should have pushed Louis away and protected himself. 

“Sir, are you ready to go?” the porter standing out in the hallway asked him in a soft voice. He had a small, sympathetic smile on his face but he showed no sign of ever moving into the room. 

Harry took one last look at the room, his eyes briefly stopping on the doorframe where he had been kissed just hours before but he looked away the moment he felt tears welling up behind his eyelids. He quietly cleared his throat his voice would not crack when he answered, and nodded.

“Yes, thank you.” He squared his shoulders and hurried out of the room before his feelings got the best of him and made him turn back.

He heard the porter turn out the lights and the tiny bit of hope he was holding onto faded away along with them.

Chapter Text

CHAPTER 8.

Grand Hotel’s Stables / 1912

There was a painful throbbing in the back of Louis’ head, a small bump that moved to the slow beat of his heart. The strong smell of hay and barn animals filled his nose and he wanted to swat at a fly that wouldn’t stop standing on his nose, but when he tried to move his hands, he found that he couldn’t feel them at all. Panic grew in his chest and he opened his heavy eyes to look at his surroundings, but instead was met with a black horse looming over him curiously, his large nostrils flaring every time it exhaled.

Louis immediately tried to scramble away from the animal, his eyes wide with fear, but all he managed to do was startle it and get hay in his mouth. As he spit it out and warily watched the horse retreat back into its stable, he looked around the place in confusion and silently wondered how the hell he had gotten there. He thought about the previous night and the concert — he had been in the auditorium for the first part and then Payne had wanted him to go outside to talk about Harry and — Harry.

Harry was supposed to leave for Denver right after the concert ended. Louis was supposed to proclaim his love for him and convince him to stay. Neither of them were supposed to go their own way. 

Louis’ shoulders started to shake — but whether it was from anger or grief, he couldn’t tell — and loud curses left his mouth as he used his bound feet to push himself toward the glass lamp hanging on the wall one of the walls. He wobbly pushed himself onto his knees and ignored the tingling in his hands as he pushed the lamp off its hook, the sharp glass shards scattering around his knees. He used the broken piece of glass that had stayed on the lamp to cut the rope around his hands, ignoring the tiny scrapes that appeared on his skin.

Once free, the inside of his hands exploded into tiny crawling ants as the blood started to rush back and he untied the rope around his ankles with trembling fingers. He stood up as fast as he could, the hay falling from his clothes, and ran out of the barn with panic pooling in the pit of his stomach.

⁺˚*･༓☾　　☽༓･*˚⁺

“Harry!” Louis’ voice bounced against the turquoise walls and he desperately knocked on the door as soon as he reached it. “Harry, are you in there?”

He needed to know that Harry hadn’t left — that he was still in his room, sleeping, and that soon he would open the door looking soft and warm and tell Louis off for knocking so loudly that early in the morning — but the more he knocked, the more hope he lost.

“Sir, are you okay? “ a familiar voice spoke behind him and he whipped around to face Mr Horan, who was holding Niall’s small hand in his.

“Have the people from the concert left yet?” Louis felt like his throat was closing up and he struggled to breathe, the air getting caught in his lungs every time he tried to breathe in.

Obviously, Mr Horan didn’t know how important his answer was and he just shrugged his shoulders. “They were gone as they were done packing.”

Louis turned on his heel and his brain switched to automatic as he walked down to the lobby, his feet shuffling on their own against the carpeted floor. 

The guests downstairs were too happy, the smiles on their faces too wide and Louis forcefully made his way outside before the happiness in their expressions became too overwhelming. The weather outside did nothing to help his grief; the sky was a cloudless blue that reminded him of the ocean from the day before, the sun was much too bright and the cheerful chirping that came from the trees only worsened the painful throbbing in his head. It was as if he had chosen the worst day to get his heart broken.

He staggered towards the white benches placed next to the long staircase that led down to the back garden and his knees buckled under his weight as he let himself fall on the hot wood. Hot tears streamed down his cheeks and the middle of his chest hurt too much for him to even sob, so simply he leaned his head against the column next to the bench and closed his eyes.

He didn't know how much time had passed — it could have been years, for all he knew — when he heard his name being yelled at the top of someone’s lungs. With no energy left in his body, he shrugged it off as his brain imagining things due to the heat. A beat passed before he realized he had heard that voice before, in singing and in soft words being whispered into his ear, and he almost tripped over his feet as he scrambled to stand up and look at the garden below him.

Harry stood at the bottom of the stairs, his emerald green suit blending in with the tall trees that stood under the shade, and he started running up towards the hotel as soon as he spotted Louis. The white ribbon tied around his neck into a delicate pussycat bow bounced against his chest with every step he skipped and the air pushed his short curls back from his beaming face as he reached the middle of the staircase.

Without giving it a second thought, Louis hurried down the stairs and ignored his untied shoelaces as he stumbled and jumped over the last two steps of the first set of stairs. He reached the platform in the middle at the same time as Harry, and the feeling of the curly-haired boy throwing himself into Louis’ open arms was like taking a deep breath after having been underwater for a long time.

The velvet of Harry’s jacket was soft under Louis’ fingertips and he gripped it tightly as he wrapped his arms around Harry’s middle and spun him around before he could help himself. The surprised laugh that left Harry’s mouth when his feet left the ground filled Louis’ heart with so much joy that it melted all the anger inside of it. 

“Are you alright?” he asked Harry once he was back on the ground and pressed a long kiss to his chapped lips. “I thought I’d lost you.”

“Never,” Harry said against his lips, a watery grin carving two dimples into his cheeks. “Not if I have anything to do with it.”

They reluctantly pulled away from their embrace but kept an arm wrapped around each other as they made their way back up to the hotel. Harry’s hand was warm against the back of Louis’ neck and he rubbed small circles against his skin with his thumb, filling Louis’ heart with joy with every gentle touch. 

Once inside, Mr Horan sent Louis a knowing smile when they walked past the front desk before turning his attention back to the red-faced guest standing in front of him. Chuckling quietly, Louis shook his head and affectionately squeezed Harry’s waist before taking his hand and pulling him towards the elevator, their excited giggles echoing against the metal walls.

⁺˚*･༓☾　　☽༓･*˚⁺

Faint, cheerful music streamed in through the open window and Louis hummed along to it under his breath as he watched Harry happily pop a grape into his mouth. The room was bathed in golden sunlight, hitting Harry’s eyes so perfectly every once in a while that they looked like green and gold gemstones. Their suits were crumpled on the floor somewhere in the room and their bare chests were glistening with sweat from the humid air that carried the happy tune into their room. 

“Stop staring at me,” Harry mumbled around a grape, breaking the comfortable silence floating around between them. The humidity had made his hair much curlier than Louis ever thought it could be and soft strands fell over his forehead as he shyly ducked his head, his fingers catching in the small tangles as he pushed the curls away from his face. His pale neck was covered in small red marks that matched the ones littered on the inside of his thighs and the smaller ones on his collarbones, right above his swallows, and Louis smirked to himself at the sight.

“Mm. No can do, sweetheart,” Louis replied teasingly and leaned forward to steal a grape off the small bunch resting on the carpet, laughing at the childish whine that Harry let out. He took the opportunity to press a quick kiss to Harry’s swollen lips before moving back to his place, the beating of his heart too fast for it to have been normal.

Harry sent him an unimpressed glare, a laugh threatening to break past his pursed lips, and threw a small grape at his head. Louis dodged it swiftly, his shoulders shaking as he laughed loudly and picked up his champagne flute to take a sip.

“Do you think you’ll ever marry me?” Harry suddenly asked, popping another grape into his mouth as Louis choked on the bubbles sliding down his throat.

“Well, uh—” he coughed out, wiping the liquid on his chin. Harry didn’t look at all surprised or even embarrassed by his question and instead he raised an expectant eyebrow. “Sure, H. I’ll marry you.”

The tip of Harry’s nose scrunched up and he let out a pleased chuckle, the skin under his black butterfly tattoo flexing slightly as he leaned forward to grab his own champagne flute. “I was going crazy wondering if you had a wife and kids hidden away somewhere.” Silence. “I… I want to be everything to you.”

“Oh, Harry,” Louis sighed quietly, his playful smirk softening into a small smile at the same time as a light pink flush crawled up Harry’s neck. “You are.”
Harry hummed happily and nodded before changing the topic so fast that it almost gave Louis whiplash. “What kind of plays do you write?” Louis opened his mouth to answer, but Harry continued his excited ramble without noticing. “I wonder if you could write something for me; I've always wanted to try acting; it sounds like such fun.”

“Well, I’ve been told I write good plays,” Louis joked the moment Harry stopped to take a breath. His eyes widened comically and the tip of his nose scrunched up slightly for the second time that afternoon, his lips pursing to hold back a coy smile.

“I didn’t let you finish, did I?”

“It would appear not, love.”

Harry huffed childishly and threw a second grape that Louis managed to catch with his mouth and he grinned widely at the small pout that appeared on Harry’s lips.

“You look like an angry kitten,” Louis teased while scooting closer to him, the carpet under him burning the back of his thighs every time he moved. He stopped when his knees touched Harry’s and he ran his fingers through Harry’s hair, humming happily when he leaned up into his hands.

“What time is it?” Harry suddenly asked, his eyes glowing a vibrant shade of green as he leaned to the side to look for a clock and a bright ray of sun hit them.

In that moment, the only words running through Louis’ mind were “I don’t know, I love you” and he watched Harry find his jacket and fish out the golden pocket watch, the diamonds on the clock face reflecting delicate rainbows onto the ceiling when the lid was popped open.

“It’s already five,” Harry pointed out in surprise and closed the lid, holding the watch tightly in his hands.

“Oh. I don’t feel tired at all.”

Harry suddenly got quiet, his eyes cast down as he fumbled with the small button on the side of the watch. Louis looked at him curiously and noticed the way he nibbled on his bottom lip and the way his eyebrows would twitch every few seconds, like he was having a silent conversation with himself.

It was something that Louis was sure he’d never get tired of.

“The first thing I want to do with you—”

“We’ve already done,” Louis answered quickly, his mouth curving into a cheeky grin as Harry raised an unimpressed eyebrow.

“The second thing,” he drawled and playfully swatted at Louis’ arm to stop the chuckles that came out of his mouth, “is to buy you a new suit.”

“What does everyone have against my suit!” Louis threw his hands up in exasperation and shook his head. “Nobody seems to like it.”

“Can you blame them, though?” Harry giggled before leaning forward to press a kiss to the corner of Louis’ mouth as if to soften the blow. 

“Well, I think it’s terrific. Even if it’s ten years old.”

“It’s at least fifteen, Lou.”

Standing up, Louis grabbed his rumpled shirt and vest from the floor and quickly slipped them on without even bothering to properly button either one.

“Look how wonderful this vest is, H,” he said, and did one slow turn to show it off, grinning despite himself when Harry wolf-whistled loudly and dramatically fanned himself with his hand. “It fits perfectly and — look! It even has a secret pocket where you can put your coins in!”

He pulled the right side of the vest away from his chest so Harry could see the thin slit where his spare coins were stored and sent the laughing boy a teasing wink. With some difficulty, he wiggled two fingers into the small pocket and dragged out the first coin he touched and placed it in his outstretched palm.

It was heavier than all the other coins he had used during his time there and the metal was cool against his warm skin. He frowned down at it, trying to find what made this specific coin different than all the others when his eyes fell on the small numbers on the bottom. He stared at them, unable to move as a sinking feeling appeared in the pit of his stomach.

The silver 1974 stared back at him mockingly, as real and solid as the person sitting on the carpet with rosy cheeks and eyes sprinkled with golden stardust. Louis looked up at him with wide eyes and saw worry making its way across Harry’s features, saw the scrunched up skin between his furrowed eyebrows, and tried to tell him what he had been meaning to say since the moment he laid eyes on him, but no sound came out when he opened his mouth.

“Lou, are you okay?” Harry asked, his voice always so gentle. He crawled up onto his knees, the pocket watch held tightly against his chest with one hand. “What’s happening? Louis!”

The edges of Louis’ vision were becoming fuzzy, and it felt like a rope was pulling him back back back until Harry looked like he was a thousand miles away. His yells echoed around Louis’ head for a moment before the hotel room became a colorless blur and Louis was tugged back into the abyss.

Chapter Text

CHAPTER 9.

Grand Hotel, Michigan / 1974

The first thing Louis felt was the cold sweat covering his entire body and the soaked-through shirt sticking to his back. The second thing was the rough carpet under his fingertips that didn’t feel at all right. He groggily opened his eyes and blinked away the colorful spots dancing in his vision as he picked up his spinning head from the floor. 

The window had been left ajar, letting in the sounds of engines roaring and cars honking loudly as they drove on the rocky road. A radio nearby was announcing what seemed to be the traffic conditions, informing the listeners that the highway had been blocked due to a ‘severe car crash’. It took Louis a second of recovering his breath before he realized where he was and panic rose in his chest like a flame.

“No no no. God, no, please.” He stood up with trembling legs, his body aching with exhaustion, and he stumbled out of the room and into the hallway, using the white wall to support himself as he followed the numbers on the doors towards his room. The door, surprisingly, was unlocked, and he dragged himself inside and onto the bed, the bare mattress cold against his sweaty body.

“It’s the 24th of May, 1912,” he repeated to himself, his voice coming out in choked, breathless sobs. “It’s 1912. It’s May, 1912.”

A round object lay in the middle of his clenched fist, the edges digging plainfully into his skin. He squeezed his eyes shut and let the coin drop to the floor with a dull thud that resonated in his ears like a fireworks by the sea on a starry night.

⁺˚*･༓☾　　☽༓･*˚⁺

The material of his jeans was scratchy against his moving legs and the cold wind whipped at Louis’ face like sandpaper on his skin. The sky was a dull gray, covered with thunderous black clouds that had made the hotel guests stay inside, dry and easily entertained with card games.

Louis silently made his way to the auditorium, thankful for the rumbling in the sky that distracted him from the dark thoughts looming inside his head. His trembling hands were hidden in the pockets of his jacket and he clenched them every other second, not used to all to all the empty space there was without his pocket watch.

Once at the auditorium, he walked past the locked front doors and instead kept walking until the familiar boardwalk and the lake’s rough waves were right in front of him. He moved his eyes away from the gray water and focused them on a tall tree planted next to the boardwalk.

Green leaves fluttered down onto the grass with every strong blow the wind gave. Lightning struck in the distance and the bright flash gave Louis a short glimpse of a sunny day, and two men standing next to each other and facing the horizon, their fingers intertwined together tightly.

⁺˚*･༓☾　　☽༓･*˚⁺

Wooden picnic tables that were once not there had been put in the park next to the sea, their short legs drilled deeply into the ground. Louis sat on the closest one to the cliff and took a deep, shaky breath of the salty wind as he wiped small droplets of rain that mixed with the small tears trailing down his cold cheeks.

Trash was everywhere on the ground — crumpled plastic bags of chips, green bottles of soda that had been stepped on — despite there being green metal trash cans all throughout the place. He watched a seagull peck at a bag of chips and two others fighting over a half-eaten hotdog on the ground.

A boat by the dock blew its horn loudly and Louis looked up at the stormy sky and not for the first time, he wished he never let go.

⁺˚*･༓☾　　☽༓･*˚⁺

The sharp air blew into Louis’ room, the occasional grain of salt it carried scratching his unshaven face. The waves crashed violently against the shore and left white foam on the sand that slowly trailed back into the lake, like it couldn’t stand being away from its home for too long. 

Louis kept his tired eyes on the red lighthouse, a brilliant speck amidst a sea of gray. It reminded him of colorful flowers growing in spring and golden eyes shining and dimples carving into soft cheeks at the sight of silver rings.

In his chest, he could feel his heart gradually slowing down until it was reduced to nothing but a faint thumping in his chest. His vision started to blur everything together, the lighthouse’s colors blending in with the rainy sky and before he could breathe again, everything went black.

⁺˚*･༓☾　　☽༓･*˚⁺

“Mr Tomlinson, are you there?”

Niall knocked on the door anxiously for the third time and jiggled the doorknob, worry quickly spreading across his chest. The hotel manager, Mitch, frowned at the door and jiggled the doorknob himself, like Niall maybe hadn’t jiggled it hard enough.

“Are you sure he’s in there?”

“The maids told me he hasn’t left the room in days,” Niall replied. Sighing, he took out the copy of the room’s key out of his pocket and shoved it into the doorknob, the door swinging open easily a second later.

He stepped in first and Mitch followed close behind, their footsteps hesitant as they looked around and took in the bare walls where paintings should have been hanging. At first, they saw no sign of Mr Tomlinson and Niall was about to leave the room, but a gust of wind ruffled his hair and he looked toward the window in confusion.

“Mr Tomlinson!” he cried and hurried towards the unmoving figure sitting on the desk chair.

“Oh my God,” Mitch whispered as he rounded the chair, his hand coming up to cover his mouth in shock. 

Mr Tomlinson’s thin lips were a dull blue that looked like the color had been painted on. His face had turned a sickly white and his cheeks were covered in a dark beard and it looked like it hadn’t been shaved for days. His clothes had wet patches that clung to his skin, probably from the previous night’s storm, and his skin was as cold as ice to the touch. 

“Come on, let’s get him on the bed,” Niall urged and gently wrapped his hands around Mr Tomlinson’s ankles. “You take his arms. Be careful.”

Once Mitch hooked his arms under Mr Tomlinson’s armpits, they carefully lifted him and laid him on the bed, tightly tucking the covers around his trembling body.

“Jesus, this is terrible.” Mitch shook his head in disbelief and picked up the telephone on the nightstand. “Marianne? It’s Mitch; can you send Dr Higgings up to room 342? Thank you.”
“He looks like he hasn’t had a bite of food in ages…” Niall sighed, guilt pressing down on his chest for not having checked up on Mr Tomlinson earlier. He looked away from the slow falling of his chest and nervously wringed his fingers.

Dr Higgings knocked on the door after minutes of complete silence and Niall quickly ushered him into the room. The doctor moved closer to the bed and studied Mr Tomlinson with a grim expression on his face. He took Mr Tomlinson’s limp arm and pressed his thumb to the middle of his wrist while looking at his watch, his mouth moving silently as he counted the seconds.

“He barely has a pulse. We need to call an ambulance,” Dr Higgings instructed, then frowned slightly. “He’s going to need some oxygen in the meantime.”

“The hotel has oxygen tanks downstairs,” Mitch said. “I’ll go get one.”

When the door closed behind him, Niall inched closer to Dr Higgings and watched him as he pressed his stethoscope to Mr Tomlinson’s chest.

“Is he going to make it?”

Dr Higgings hooked the stethoscope around his neck and turned to look at Niall, shrugging one shoulder. “I don’t really know, Mr Horan. It all depends on how long the ambulance takes to get here.”

Please, let them get here quickly, Niall thought, anxiously running a hand through his hair. “I wonder what happened.” 

“We won’t really know until he’s in the hospital. Now, we must get him more blankets or he’ll die of hypothermia.”

Chapter Text

EPILOGUE.

“Marianne, hi. It’s from 342 again. Could you send us a bunch of blankets, please? Thank you.”

The familiar voice is what Louis hears as his body starts to wake up, but the fatigue that has made his limbs heavy and his head foggy makes it hard to distinguish the owner. He can feel comfortable warmth surrounding him and a soft pillow where his head is resting and yet shivers rack through his body and his sweaty skin feels like it has been submerged in icy water.

It takes two attempts, but he manages to flutter his eyes open to take in his surroundings. He immediately recognises the color of the walls and the chair by the window and he sighs — simply because this is a reminder that the only thing he wants in his life he can’t have and that makes it a life not worth living in.

He looks around the room until he sees two men standing by the bed with their backs to Louis and quietly talking to each other. The first one he recognises is Niall by the way his voice seems to get louder whenever the man in the white lab coat says that he doesn’t agree with him, and Louis smiles. He remembers the little boy crying over his rubber ball in the hotel lobby all those years ago, and the way his glistening blue eyes lit up at the sight of it in Louis’ hands, and the peculiar conversation they had when Louis first arrived at the hotel.

“I don’t mean to intrude, sir, and this might sound quite strange, now that I actually think about it, but…” his eyes were set on Louis’ face, a deep frown set between his bushy eyebrows as he studied Louis’ confused expression. “Have we ever met before?”

A loud laugh ripped out of Louis’ chest unexpectedly, surprising both himself and Niall, and he quickly shook his head.

“No, no, no,” he said, unable to stop the soft chuckles from spilling past his lips. “Of course not, that would be ridiculous.”

“Yes, of course,” Niall huffed out with a hesitant laugh as he started making his way towards the door. “I apologize for that; you just look awfully familiar.”

“Must have one of those faces, I suppose.” 

Now, all Louis wants to do is apologize for the way at Niall’s words, hug him and thank him for all the help he offered, even when Louis’ requests were a little strange. 

Instead, he decides to focus on how shallow his breaths are and how faint his heartbeat is, but when he realizes there is no strength in him to call for help, understanding washes over him like water streaming down.

This is where his story ends.

This is where he ends up after countless hours of hunching over typewriters and walking across the stage at the Radio City Music Hall for his first award and traveling the country with the cast of his most famous play. This is what happens when your life gets turned upside down by a pair of green eyes, a gold pocket watch and the words come back to me, please whispered longingly in a theatre.

Louis’ eyes suddenly start to feel heavy, and the pumping in his veins is barely there, and there’s a sense of calm in his heart, a whisper that tells him that everything is going to be okay. He closes his eyes slowly and as his heart comes to a complete stop, a small smile spreads over his face.

For a moment, there’s nothing but silence and darkness.

Then he hears yelling — frantic cries of “Mr Tomlinson? Mr Tomlinson, wake up!” He sees Niall run to the bed — to him — with panic written all over his face as the doctor follows after him to put his fingers under Louis’ jaw. Louis watches from the desk chair as Niall looks up at the doctor with shiny tears in his eyes, but the doctor simply shakes his head once and pulls one of the white covers tucked around the lifeless body to pull it over his head.

Realistically, Louis should be feeling uncomfortable about seeing his dead body, even if it’s from a distance, but he feels nothing but relief. The turmoil of sadness and anger that had been hovering over his head for the past week is gone and he finally let himself breathe.

A white light abruptly appears from behind him and he winces at the harshness of it before hesitantly turning around towards the window with his hand shielding his eyes. The light shines brighter for a moment, leaving spots dancing in his vision as it dims, and when it’s nothing but a small white circle hovering over the railing, Louis’ heart falls to his stomach.

Harry stands in the balcony, a wide grin on his face that causes two lovely dimples to appear on his cheeks despite the tears in his eyes. He’s wearing a deep red suit with soft pink flowers adorning every inch of the fabric and the light floating behind him forms a small halo around his head.

“Harry,” Louis breathes out in surprise. If his heart were beating, he’s sure it would be about to burst out of his chest. He takes three long steps forward until he’s standing so close that he can see the golden speck in Harry’s eyes and he puts his hand on Harry’s cheek, just to make sure he’s there.

He is.

“Hi, Lou,” Harry whispers, his voice as deep and lovely as ever, and leans into Louis’ touch. He raises his hand to place it over Louis’, the silver rose ring on his ring finger glinting under the light and Louis thinks he might start crying. “I’ve missed you.”

“I’ve missed you too, darling.” his voice cracks slightly and Harry chuckles quietly. “I love you.”

“I know, Lou. I know.”

Harry tangles their fingers together and lowers their hands as he takes a step back towards the light. Louis starts to follow him, but his feet get glued to the ground as he hesitantly turns to look around at the life he’s leaving behind.

In the bedroom, a group of three paramedics are lifting his limp body into a neon orange stretcher, the white sheet still covering him. Niall and long-haired man stand by the door, their faces pale and stricken as the paramedics wheel the stretcher out into the hallway. For a split second, he longs to follow the stretcher, to get on the ambulance and see the outside world one last time, but then Harry’s rubbing his thumb over Louis’ knuckles and asking,

“Lou, are you coming?”

He moves his gaze to the boy in the balcony and it takes one look at the stardust in his eyes before he says, “Yeah, I’m coming.”

THE END.