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It's his third year on the Voice and Louis still can't believe how lucky he is. The others are just as happy with their careers after One Direction; Liam and Harry both went on to become solo singers, Zayn had settled down with Perrie and was now raising a family, and Naill had went on to host a reality tv show similar to Ellen's. It's truly crazy how fast things change, and although Louis sometimes misses being with One Direction, he likes the settled down life style of being a judge on The Voice.
He's always wanted to be a judge ever since his time on the X-Factor. After finding 5 Seconds of Summer, he always knew he loved discovering new talent. When Adam Levine retired from the show, Louis had instantly agreed to be on it when they approached him. His presence on the show was a hit, and the first year he was on it, his singer took first place. It was brilliant, and even made more so when the fans went crazy when he had chosen Harry Styles as his guest mentor.
Coming out with his relationship with Harry when their contract with Modest ended was equally the most terrifying and brave thing he had ever done in his life. They had both known the consequences, but they had went ahead with it anyway. They had both had it with the lies and the constant sneaking around, and after four years of being in the best relationship of his life, Louis knew he wasn't scared of the names that people would call them, the prejudice and the loss of sales it may cause the band, because all he wanted to do was let the world know that Harry was his, and not Nadine's or bloody Taylor's or Caroline's, Harry was Louis' and Louis' was his.
They did it almost casually, after months and months of leading up to it with the rumors of Louis' split from Eleanor and Harry's bisexuality. Harry had been staring at him with those fond eyes of his and Louis had paused and thought, fuck the plan, and had leaned over and had kissed the expression right off his boyfriend's face.
They got in trouble for breaking the plan, but when twitter flooded with only positive things to say, and Tumblr fucking exploded into rainbows and happiness, their new management had simply let them go with a small reprimand.
The last two years of One Direction was one of the best times in Louis' life. He could finally come clean about the multiple tattoos that the two of them shared and the best part was that Louis could finally dedicate the songs he wrote to Harry. He had went back and penned all their dedications by declaring it on Twitter, which took a long time and a lot of tweets, because Louis had written a lot of songs for Harry. Twitter broke the day he announced that Strong was a declaration of love to Harry, and there were multiple tweets of "I FUCKING KNEW IT" and Harry and him had laughed long and hard.
The first thing Harry had done was to retweet the AIMH tweet, and had promptly made a tweet of his own, mirroring the words right back to Louis and made a second tweet of "Been waiting forever to do that."
There was a time of fear and crippling regret, but it had only lasted a day after their official statement ("Yes, Harry and I are in a relationship. We bloody kissed.") came out. People were supportive, and anyone who wasn't, was quickly beaten into submission by the more vocal of their fans. Loads of messages had made their way onto Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram; they were long messages of how it felt to be finally confirmed into their shipping of Larry Stylinson and how much it meant to them that they were finally out and proud and happy.
It was crazy, but after they had broken up as a band and had went on to their own respective things, the craze around their relationship finally died down. (Though, of course, when it was announced that Harry was going on to become a solo singer and Louis a judge on the Voice, the fans had went batshit berserk and there were multiple teary tweets about their supposed break up. Harry and Louis had to fix the impromptu breakdown of most of the Internet by going out to a fancy restaurant immediately after the official statement was made.)
Three years later, and Louis and Harry are still going strong. Harry tours, and still loves it as much as ever, and while distance is hard since they've been with each other every single second of the day for the past six years, it's also extremely doable because they've been together for so long. Harry's his guest mentor every single year so far, despite the extreme demands of his job, and Louis always makes it to one of Harry's concerts (and sings Strong, Happily, and Something Great with Harry) before the tour ends.
It's Harry's week off from the tour, and although Harry couldn't make it to the first day of the auditions, he'll be seeing Harry later tonight for dinner. Louis can't help the jaunty step to his walk as he heads to the recording studio. He waves happily to his fans, pausing to sign a few phones that are thrust at him, and is slipping into the place a second later.
Blake, Christina, and Pharrell are there already, and he greets them with a smile.
"Ready for your first loss?" Christina asks, lightly tapping his hip with hers in a playful move.
"Nope, because it isn't happening," Louis responds, laughing at her crestfallen expression.
"So not fair," she pouts prettily, "all the good singers want you."
"It's not me they want, love," says Louis, "it's Styles."
She sighs, "Why couldn't I find a number 1 chart topper to be mine?"
Blake laughs, "Should've known. After a long break, and the first words out of Louis' mouth are about Styles. The two of you are more gone for each other than Miranda and me."
Louis blushes, and Christina is already defending him before he can open his mouth. "Please, Blake, there's no way you and Miranda could compare to Larry Stylinson!"
"Christina!" Louis squeaks out, an embarrassed flush on his cheeks. She sounded utterly like a fangirl, and it felt so wrong to hear her like that.
"I'm a girl, too," she protests, "and no one can deny that you two have the greatest love story of all time."
"I mean, we fight!" he ends up blurting out. "We do," he tries to affirm himself when Christina simply raises an eyebrow at him. "It's not all bloody rainbows and happiness," he weakly protests.
"Right," says Christina. "All couples fight. Doesn't make it any less beautiful," she sighs happily and then links her arm with Louis'. "Now come on, we've got a long day ahead of us, and if you steal one of my singers again with your damn British accent, there will be hell to pay."
The girl barely sounds like she's over fifteen, but she's good , and Blake and him immediately hit their buttons. They glare mockingly at each other, and when the song's over, Blake and him start to quibble over which one is the better choice. She starts crying, and Louis can't help the way he first starts his appeal: "Don't cry, love. I've been through a competition just like this, and it's only upward from here on out."
And then Blake is throwing his hands up, "Gone! Another one lost to the appeal of the British accent," and although the girl is blushing prettily and shaking her head in protest, she ends up choosing Louis in the end. Blake's glare is deadly as the chairs turn themselves back around, and Louis just shrugs in a "What can you do?" gesture as a response.
He's still laughing under his breath at Blake's face when he hears the next contestant walk out, and he tells himself to calm down before the song starts.
It wasn't long before the notes of the next song start to come out of the speakers, and he can't help the fond smile that makes his face when he recognizes it immediately. When Bruno Mars' Marry You first came out, Harry had been proper obsessed with it, singing to it in the tour bus and grabbing his hands and forcing him to dance along with it.
He's already halfway planning his comments about the choice of song, and already making sure he has a way to mention how it's Harry's favorite song, when the singing starts.
He sits there, flabbergasted for a second, before slamming his hand down immediately. The chair can't turn fast enough, and he's got half a mind to just get out of the bloody thing when he's finally able to rest his eyes on the singer.
Harry fucking Styles.
Harry's got a mad grin on his face, and he does a little happy dance at Louis' face.
Louis knows that there's a multitude of cameras all around them, probably catching every angle of his expression and it'll be all over the news tomorrow, but his bloody boyfriend is there, singing the most embarrassing song of the decade and he can't tear his eyes away from the eighth wonder that is his boyfriend.
He's dimly aware of the other three judges turning their chairs, and he knows that they were probably in on this - no wonder Blake had made that comment a few singers earlier - but he can't bring himself to mind because he's way too fucking happy to make any sarcastic quips.
He's shaking, and he knows he's being stupid, but the second the surprise stops freezing his limbs in place, he's bounding up two steps at a time until he's standing in front of Harry. Harry's just on the line "Who cares baby, I think I wanna marry you," and Louis knows deep down in his bones that Harry is bloody proposing to him.
He's sure he's bright red, and he flushes even more when Harry continues to sing. Harry's laughing, even while singing the song, and Louis can't help hitting him when Harry waggles his eyebrows and draws out the word "blow."
The song's over before he knows it, and Harry's on one knee, his green eyes twinkling. Harry's words are slow and deliberate in a way they had only been back when he was sixteen, and Louis is suddenly hit with a wave of nostalgia that they had been at this for eight years now, and still going strong. "It's been eight years, Lou, and I'm still as gone for you as I was back then. When we were on a competition just like this, and we were just starting to figure things out, I knew that you were the one for me. You're the compass to my ship, the rope to my anchor, the dagger to my rose, and we made it even through the forced closeting because it didn't matter if anyone knew as long as we had each other.
"There's so many words I can say here, Lou, so many songs that we've written for each other that mean the whole world to me. We were fireproof ever since you were 18, and even though the night changes, you'll always make me strong and be my something great."
"You're an idiot," he can't help mouthing, and Harry gives a little shrug as if he's proud of his stringing of their most meaningful songs into one sentence and doesn't care that Louis thinks he's lame for doing so.
"So, Mr. Judge Tomlinson, I know this isn't X-factor, but do I get a yes?"
"You absolute fool," responds Louis immediately, even though he knows every single person in the world is going to see the tears at the edges of his eyes in HD later on today (because he's not vain, but he's pretty sure Harry's very public and very sweet proposal is going to hit all the news stations) and know he's already said yes with every inch of his body.
Harry blinks, and there's a short momentary pause before he laughs out, "Kiss me, you fool," and Louis is digging his hands into Harry's clothes and dragging him upward.
"Jesus, Harry, that was not a reference to that!" But he's laughing too, and he belatedly realizes that they've got so many inside jokes and little references to their love because of their time in One Direction that he would be hard pressed to find something that doesn't remind Harry of something else. Larry shippers had documented every single moment of their love life, and even Louis has every big moment in their public love life memorized.
"It wasn't?" asks Harry, his eyes wide in an expression of mock surprise, and Louis just rolls his eyes and draws his lover into a sweet kiss.
"Yes, yes, yes, yes," he breathes into Harry's mouth the second he moves away, and the crowd behind them starts to cheer loudly. Over the loud din, he can hear Christina's fangirlish screams and Blakes' "Oh that's fucking sweet." His heart soars at the sound; eight years ago, he never would have believed that the public masses would rally to their cause like this, to enjoy the fact that Harry and him were going to be together forever.
He never believed that they could stand in the open together and be loved just as fiercely as they were when they weren't out and proud, but he never ever doubted that they would make it this far.
Because Harry and him are forever, and when Harry slides the ring onto his left hand and the other three of One Direction are suddenly there next to him, he knows that they made it, and that they were going to make it for a very long time.