Work Text:
“Go, Bulldogs!” Harry cheered, twirling around quickly so her skirt flew out and showed her bloomers. On the field, Louis started the play, hustling backwards a few steps, and then spotted an opening and threw a beautiful pass. Harry waved her pompoms in the air wildly as she shouted Louis’ name, loud as possible but drowning in the cheers surrounding her. Behind her, the cheer squad started following her lead. Harry bounced on her toes and cheered loud, a huge smile on her face for the crowd. Her shoe laces were bright orange and sparkly and her huge bow flopped around every time she moved.
Louis’ pass gave them a first down, and Harry instantly turned around and faced the crowd. Her squad copied her ready stance. Harry started the cheer alone. “The Bulldogs are here to show you how it’s done,” she shouted, doing her moves as she cheered alone.
The rest of the squad joined in, copying her moves right along with her. “You’d better watch out, ‘cause we’re number one!”
They went through the cheer routine again, and Harry held position for a few seconds before doing a standing toe touch, cheering.
Harry led her squad through ‘Red Hot’, ‘We Got Spirit’, and ‘Grunt/Sizzle’, which was her favorite, before the Bulldogs lost offence and Louis was brought in so the defense players could go in. Harry automatically called for a short break and the girls dispersed to go grab water, and Harry headed over towards Louis’ way, seeing hair escaping from her helmet and making her an easy target.
Louis Tomlinson was the star of Burkburnett High School. A junior quarterback on the Varsity football team, Louis was a girl and had a crazy good arm and astonishing accuracy, and speed and agility, as well.
When she’d tried out for the middle school football team their eighth grade year, Harry remembered, the coach had cooed at her and pointed over to Harry, who was head cheerleader and helping with cheer tryouts for the season. When Louis shook her head and said adamantly that she wanted to try out for football, the coach had nearly laughed her off the field, and a lot of the boys had started laughing along with him.
Liam Payne, Harry’s very best friend and one of the linebackers, hadn’t been laughing, and Niall Horan, a receiver, hadn’t been laughing, either, but when they stood up for her, the coach had silenced them with a look and a threat to bench.
Harry’d watched the whole thing from halfway across the field and angrily stepped up in Louis’ defense. Louis was new, but Harry’d seen her throw the football around after lunch on the field and she was good.
“Coach Leech!” She’d said, jogging over to him with her pony tail swinging.
“Hi, Harry,” Coach greeted her warmly. He and Harry’s dad, who was the high school football team’s coach, were golf buddies.
“You should let her try out,” Harry said earnestly. “I’ve seen her play; she’s really good.”
Coach Leech clearly considered Harry’s advice – he knew Harry’d grown up knowing everything about football and loving it passionately, and to go against her advice would be to doubt Coach Styles, and Harry knew Leech wouldn’t want to do that.
He sighed and looked over to Louis, who was looking between Harry and him. “Alright,” he said to her. “You can try out. But I’m not telling my boys to go easy on you, alright? You get hurt, you get up and run the play again.”
“I think I can handle it,” Louis said wryly, and the coach simply rolled his eyes and turned away. “Thank you,” Louis said, turning to Harry and touching her elbow. Harry’s whole arm and stomach had been set afire, and she’d smiled hesitantly, suddenly shy and noticing how pretty Louis was, with her bright blue eyes and freckles dusting her nose. “I don’t know how you convinced him, but thank you.”
“Just make the team,” Harry’d blurted. “Do your best, and if any of the boys give you problems, let me know right away.”
“Oh?” Louis asked, her eyebrows raising in amusement. “Is someone the boss of all the boys? I did notice they all drooled as soon as you walked over here.”
Harry blushed; she wasn’t really sure why all the boys had all of a sudden taken an interest in her – she didn’t feel any different than she had the year before – but she’d use it to her advantage. Everyone knew Harry Styles only dated football players, and a lot of the boys seemed to want in. “Just let me know,” she said. “My dad’s the high school coach, so they all do what I say.”
Louis’ eyes had gone all crinkly with the answering laugh, and it made Harry’s stomach get tingly and warm. Before she could try and figure out why, she was called back over to her teams; one of the seventh graders was struggling with a jump, and Harry didn’t want to make her try out before she could even finish a jump correctly. She’d feel terrible.
“Hey, I gotta go,” she said, “but I’ll see you around. Good luck with your tryouts this week.”
“Thanks,” Louis’d said, a surprised smile on her face.
Harry turned and jogged back to the cheer tryouts, but she swore she felt someone’s eyes on her the entire jog back there.
And here they were, three years later, and Louis was the star of the entire district, really, as the only girl to be on the starting lineup in history of Burkburnett ISD football. Harry couldn’t be prouder. She stayed for every practice, even when she was done with cheer, and did her homework in the stands with Louis’ letterman jacket on – she’d gotten it nice and big and bulky – and kept a casual eye on Louis’ playing, making sure her dad wasn’t missing anything Louis could do better on, or had the potential to do something that she hadn’t done yet.
It had taken Louis a while to start trusting Harry’s advice on how to play football. Louis was naturally gifted and was dedicated as hell, but she hadn’t grown up her entire life with a high school football coach who played in college, and the fact of the matter was that Harry saw things from her bird’s eye view that Louis couldn’t, in the midst of the game. But she finally got there, and now she trusted Harry flawlessly, enough that Harry could stand up and call out “Left!” or “Right!” or something and Louis would immediately follow, if she heard.
It had come with the relationship, Harry was positive, as they’d started dating the summer before freshman year, when Harry realized that maybe she wasn’t totally straight. She’d whispered her confession to Louis on a sleepover night, and told Louis that she sometimes thought about her at night, and it made her throb down there and get all wet. Louis, bless her heart, wasn’t as sheltered as Harry’d been all her life, and the night that had started out as a coming out confession had also been the night Harry lost her virginity and got a girlfriend. She regarded it as one of her most successful nights, truthfully.
Right now, though, Harry needed to help her girlfriend stay safe. She came up behind Louis and hit her shoulder pads extra hard, making Louis glance around at her curiously. When it registered who she was looking at, Louis smiled.
“Hi, sunshine,” she greeted with a smile that Harry immediately returned.
“Hi,” she answered. “Take your helmet off; let me fix your hair.”
“We’re in the middle of a game!” Louis hissed, looking around. Harry couldn’t really blame her; anything Louis did remotely feminine – even pull her hair back – would make her look weak.
Harry sighed and reached back into her own hair, extracting a bobby pin. “At least let me pin it back up so nobody pulls it again,” she said firmly, and Louis finally agreed to that course of action once she added, “I’ll be quick, promise.” Louis had her hair pulled several times since she’d been in high school. Coach Styles tried to intervene each time, but Louis kept the mentality from Coach Leech all the way back in middle school: you get hurt, you get up and run the play again. Still, though, it was even easier to just be safe and tuck it all up.
Louis removed her helmet and Harry stood on her tip toes, grabbing the escaped hair and pinning it down to the side so it would stay up, hiding in the helemet, but wouldn’t bother Louis or feel uncomfortable with the helmet’s padding or pressure on her head. Next game, Harry resolved, she’d just wrap it up in a long, flat, looped bun so it wouldn’t be so annoying or have room to escape.
“Love you,” Harry told Louis, and helped arrange the hair underneath the helmet when Louis put it back on.
“I love you, too, babe,” Louis said genuinely. “Can you guys do that grunt and sizzle one again? I love that one.”
Harry rolled her eyes – Louis liked ‘Watch Out’ best; not ‘Grunt/Sizzle’ – but as she walked away, Harry let out a surprised squawk when Louis flipped her skirt up and spanked her butt. She whipped around, smoothing her skirt back down, and glared at Louis with no heat, because Louis was already laughing.
Harry felt her glare smooth into a sexy smirk. “Win tonight, and you might score more than a few silly touchdowns,” she said, low enough that only Louis would hear, and walked away with Louis groaning and watching her go.
---
(The night ended with Harry on her back in the bed of Louis’ truck, parked behind the end zone, her bloomers and cheer top left in the cab and her orange-laced Keds resting against Louis’ sweatpants, with Louis’ face hidden by Harry’s cheer skirt.)