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Harry met Louis in the toilets at boot-camp on The X-Factor. Harry was flattered and Louis was spewing compliments and they were a little lost in each other. And they’ve only just met, so the situation (you know, talking to a random boy you’ve never met and probably will never meet again) was crazy in itself.
“How about I get an autograph. You know, or when you get famous and I can sell it on ebay.”
Harry laughed. That was ridiculous. “I’m never going to be famous.”
“Never is an awfully long time.” Louis tapped the pen on his notebook and Harry couldn’t resist. He signed the stupid sheet of paper and smiled. “Thatta boy.”
~:~
They were in a band together. The X-Factor had pushed them and three other boys into the same band. They worked hard every day and crashed every night and goofed off and made fools of themselves. Harry sometimes wondered if Louis was actually the oldest. Really, really the oldest out of them all. He certainly wasn’t the most mature.
Harry took them all back to his bungalow, where they stayed for a month, camping, pathetically attempting to harmonize, eating, playing, and sleeping.
They were both up late. Zayn had gone inside to sleep and Niall and Liam had followed suit. Louis had a habit of not-going-to-sleep-until-he-absolutely-had-to, something that reminded him of a little kid. Harry was a bit of an insomniac, especially with the competition starting to kick off.
Harry rested his head on Louis’ stomach, and the sat in the backyard on the grass that was cool in the night air. There wasn’t a lot to be said until there was.
“I like it here a lot. You can see the stars. There aren’t a lot of lights or a lot of factories. It’s just the sky.” Harry started whispering, “I’ve always loved that about this place. More than anything.”
Louis took a deep breath, “Stars are beautiful, but they may not take an active part in anything, they must just look on for ever. It is a punishment put on them for something they did so long ago that no star now knows what it was. So the older ones have become glassy-eyed and seldom speak, but the little ones still wonder.” After a moment, he added, “It’s from Peter Pan.”
“You’ve memorized all that?” Louis just sort of pulled at Harry’s hair and he smiled. “You’re a lot like Peter Pan, you know.”
“I know.”
~:~
They were half-way through with competition. It was the fifth week and Harry was having trouble sleeping again. This week was going to be tough. The competition was getting rougher and rougher, and their chances of winning were getting slimmer and slimmer as everyone around them were getting better and better.
He stood up from his bed and walked to the kitchen to grab a water.
He sat on the couch and rested his head on a pillow, which wasn’t much more relaxing than his own bed. Harry heard footsteps coming towards him and a body sit down next to him and rub his back. “You okay, Hazza?”
He sniffled, “this is just everything I’ve ever hoped for. This is my dream. I just don’t know how I’ll be able to… do it.”
“Dreams do come true, Harry.” Louis whispered, the smile evident in his voice. “Pardon the Peter Pan quote, but you can have anything in life if you’re willing to sacrifice everything for it.”
Harry never minded the Peter Pan quotes.
~:~
More and more, Harry was picking up on how much Louis was like Peter Pan. How much Louis really was Peter Pan. How he never wanted to grow up, and how he liked to hop around everywhere with a type of child-like elegance.
The first time Harry stayed over at the Tomlinson’s, Pheobe and Daisy wanted to play Peter Pan, of all things. Harry decided they probably played this game a lot.
Dressed up in indian-esque dresses, they took Louis into Lottie’s bedroom and put him in their older sister’s tights, a big green shirt and a Boston Celtic’s hat with a feather-pen tucked into the side.
Louis was smiling when he came out. “Don’t laugh,” even though everyone was laughing. He twirled around and shot himself at his sisters, chasing them around the tables and through the bedrooms and under the beds and over the counter-tops.
Jay rolled her eyes at this. “It’s always Peter Pan, isn’t it?”
Harry looked up at her. “Do you get that feeling, too, then? That maybe in another life or something, Louis was Peter Pan?”
Ms. Tomlinson ruffled his hair. She leaned down to whisper in his ear. “I think that maybe Louis is Peter Pan in this life.”
~:~
One Direction had been going on for a year and a half. They were in California at Disney Land and Louis perched himself atop a bench, knees bent and balanced like he was a parrot on the shoulder of a pirate. Niall was nearly laughing his head off. Liam rolled his eyes like he was used to it (they all were used to it). Zayn sat on the bench and reclined, flicking an eyebrow at Louis.
The little little boys and girls beamed at him.
They beamed at him.
“Mommy, is that Peter Pan?”
“Honey we just saw Peter Pan.”
But he indulged the kids, because he was one. He is one. He always will be a little kid. Maybe one with graying hair or a decaying voice or a crooked spine, but he would always be a little kid. He found a leaf and stuck it behind his ear and jumped up onto his pointed toes and he was Peter Pan.
Harry couldn’t laugh because he was in such awe.
It’s hard not to be completely under a trance when Louis is in the room. There’s always been something about him that makes people hang on his every word. Something equivalent to a spell, and it wasn’t just Harry. It was the kids, it was their parents, it was his mum and his sisters and the rest of the band and half of a nation.
Everyone had fallen; en-captured into the mind and the body and the air that was Louis Tomlinson.
~:~
They ended up watching Peter Pan one afternoon, popcorn resting on their tangled thighs as per usual. Louis was reciting every word spoken and poking Harry in his hair and he tipped the bowl over, running and jumping onto one of their dining chairs, reciting one of Peter’s monologues.
Harry couldn’t help but stand up and join him in the dining room, dancing around to the music of their television, such a part of one another.
Harry was sure he’d fallen in love.
Sometimes he couldn’t stop staring.
~:~
Harry fell for Louis like a sack of bricks and there was nothing he could do. The very idea of Louis was so enthralling. The way he presented himself and the way he sung and the way he danced and the way he spoke and the way he moved was fascinating.
He wasn’t so sure if Louis felt the same.
One Direction were on the very last night of their final tour. No one was tired, and they were all drunk, sitting on the roof-top of their last venue. Harry and Louis sat next to each other, and Zayn was in between Niall and Liam, and the five of them talked until morning. Niall held Harry’s hand and Liam held Louis’, and they sang their songs until they all got too tired to move.
Louis whispered into Harry’s ear, so quietly that Harry could barely hear it in the silent night. “You know that place between sleep and awake, the place where you can still remember dreaming? That’s where I’ll always love you. That’s where I’ll be waiting.”
And Louis kissed him.
~:~
It had been almost a year when Harry proposed. They didn’t need to be dating for long. They had forever to date.
Louis didn’t have to make a difficult decision. He just nodded and kissed him.
“No Peter Pan quote, Louis? I’m shocked.”
~:~
Louis wanted a kid, because he was getting old (hardly; he was only 33, but Harry could see where he was coming from) and he wanted a little girl or a little boy and Harry didn’t exactly have the heart to tell him how impossible that was, so after about six months of serious contemplating and deciding (Louis got very tired of this), nine months of pregnancy, and a week visiting Gemma in the hospital, Louis and Harry got to take their new daughter Abby (Abigail Wendy Tomlinson-Styles because Louis, I know how much you love Peter Pan but we’re not naming our daughter Wendy. It can be her middle name.) home.
Harry wasn’t surprised when Louis would spend a lot of time by her crib, talking to her, telling her stories, and always leaving window open.
Harry wasn’t surprised when he found him cradling her, feeding her a bottle and telling her about the lost boys and Captain Hook.
Harry wasn’t surprised when he gave her a tiara for her first birthday. “Like Tinkerbell,” he said.
~:~
One thing Harry loved about Louis was that he was consistent and inconsistent at the same exact time. He didn’t always make sense, and he didn’t always do the right thing, and he didn’t always think things through, but it was part of what made him Louis.
There were some things that Louis had with Abby that Harry didn’t have. Of course, Harry had things too, but he always found so much more comfort in Louis’ traditions.
Every morning, he would tell Abby, “tie your shoes tight,” and she would respond, “so my shadow doesn’t run away.”
Every afternoon when he got home he would ask for a kiss and hold out his hands like he was waiting for a present, and she would kiss her hand and give him a high-five.
Every night he’d say, “if anything’s wrong, you know where to find me,” and she would say, “second star to the right, and straight off ‘till morning,” and he’d flick off the light.
Harry admired it.
Harry learned that there was everything to love and to admire about Louis.
~:~
Louis was getting old and he knew it and he hated it. Louis’ always been afraid of growing up. Sometimes Harry wished that Louis really was Peter Pan. That would make him really happy. It really would.
But sometimes Louis had to be the mature one. The big-boy, the oldest, and the grown-up. He hated having to be the grown-up.
Louis knew life wasn’t fair, too.
He got a phone call from the hospital at almost nine in the morning. It was Jay. She’s been in an accident. He was to come over to the hospital immediately, and he did.
Harry and Louis and Abby held hands on the way in. Abby didn’t know what was going on, but neither did her fathers. “Johannah Tomlinson?”
“Room 1235,” the receptionist was disgustingly monotoned.
They walked in carefully and quietly. Harry felt like he was holding onto two children. He would pay so much money for Louis to never feel this way again. To never hold his hand like this again and to never have to grow up.
Louis dropped Harry’s hand at the first sight of his mother. He dropped to her side and whispered to her, rubbing his thumb on the back of her hand. Harry and Abby left some nights, and they stayed others. Abby had school and Louis and Harry would come during the week. Some days his sisters were there and sometimes they weren’t.
Almost two weeks after the call they returned and Lottie and Fizz and Pheobe and Daisy were all there, and they were all crying. They knew that Jay wasn’t going to last much longer. She opened her mouth and everyone moved in. Harry picked up Abby and rested his hand on Louis’ shoulder.
“I love you all. Louis, and Felicity, and Charlotte, and Pheobe and Daisy. You too, Harry and Abby.” Her voice was soft.
Louis was silent, and he was clutching his mother’s hand with one of his, and one of Harry’s with the other. His eyes were closed. His head rested on top of Jay’s, silent tears rolling down his face.
Everyone was there when she left.
“Goodbye mum,” Daisy mumbled from the foot of the bed.
“No.” Louis’ head shot up. “Never say goodbye. Goodbye means going away. Going away means forgetting.”
~:~
Louis was okay after a while. Not the same, exactly, but he was okay. He still laughed and he still cried and he still had good times and he still had bad times. He still cared for his daughter and his husband and his best friends and his family. He was still Peter Pan.
He was 57 when Abby got pregnant with a little boy.
She took them out for tea and told them about how her and her husband Jeremy talked about it “like adults” (which Louis nearly cringed at— his baby couldn’t be growing up right beneath him) and that they knew they were both ready.
“Do you know what you’ll name him?”
Abby looked up at her fathers.
“Peter.”
~:~
Louis was 62 when he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He went to the doctor with Harry and Abby and Peter and Jeremy and he didn’t cry. He knew all about this kind of disease. His grandfather had the same kind. He knew what this meant and he knew what was going to happen.
Harry was near-hysterical. It wasn’t fair. Abby wasn’t much better. He kissed them both and held their hands and whispered something he’s wanted to say for as long as he could remember.
“To die would be an awfully big adventure.”
~:~