Chapter Text
It all starts because Harry hurts his back backstage.
Actually, it all starts because Zayn quits the band, and stands there with his eyes downcast as Harry feels his heart clench in numb shock, and Louis shouts and Niall flings himself at Zayn and Harry can't understand what the fuck Zayn thinks he's saying until it's later and Liam (Liam) starts crying when Zayn's things are gone and then they all sit and cry because it might have been getting rough but they'd never have-
(It starts with a 2 am phone call that leaves them both in tears and then radio silence for almost a year.)
Anyway. Harry's over it. He's grown jaded, a far cry from his bubbly curly haired persona in their early days; he understands that Zayn wanted to get out. (No he doesn't, because Zayn wanted to get away too, and that hurts like hell.)
So yes, it all starts with Harry's back, not Zayn's furrowed brow and painfully lowered lashes, nor Niall's uncanny silence or Louis' raging or Liam's tears. It starts because they get off stage after one of their concerts and Harry trips and stumbles backwards into the edge of a cupboard.
It hurts then, and the boys grin at his cursing, but Harry forgets about it until he has to go to bed and his whole back aches in protest when he lies down. He tosses and turns, but it's hellishly uncomfortable, and then he realizes it's been almost an hour and insomnia's definitely kicked in by now.
So it's really Harry's back's fault that he's up at 3 browsing twitter, and that he does something monumentally stupid. They'd learnt early on that fame meant saying anything opinionated was a tremendous mistake- if you were a twat, everyone would know in mere seconds, and if you slipped up once they'd be almost even more unforgiving. Harry knows this; has gotten a master at controlling his own social media, has very carefully avoided getting pulled into drama like Louis so often does.
Louis, yes. There's another thing- the thing with Zayn. Harry wishes it hadn't happened, that they'd left on a clean note and then pointedly ignored each other's existences like Zayn is so bloody good at doing. He isn't surprised, though; it's Louis. Lou gets angry when he's hurt, and he was hurt. Of all of them, more even than Daddy Direction or Nialler or Haz (not Zayn, because Zayn "never liked One Direction" and Harry tried not to read it but did and almost screamed), he's the one to whom the boys mattered the most- not just individually, but together, always. He'd been the one to glue them together first; the one who'd laughingly gotten along with Harry and Niall and dragged Zayn and Liam out of their shells. Louis took Zayn leaving the most personally, and Lou was furious. Harry had heard the crashing and swearing from his room, and found that he couldn't muster the energy to go and check.
"remember when you had a life and stopped making bitchy comments about mine?"
He'd read the laughing reactions, and had wanted to hit Zayn. Harry understood- he'd had to, would have had no choice to respond, couldn't just steer clear of this first conflict with his ex-bandmates. And yet the tone was so nonchalantly spiteful, so casually witty, that Harry found he hated him a little bit. Zayn wasn't allowed to be so careless, to say things like "he never belonged" and then hit Louis where it hurt, the "your life" and "mine" so blatantly separate when months ago they'd all been cackling with laughter on Niall's bed.
It hurts because Zayn told him that night that he was leaving because he couldn't live like this anymore, because of Perrie, because of the stress, and now Perrie's been dumped and Zayn's started a solo career and it feels too much like he's laughing at them.
So yes, Harry's stayed silent, smiling wryly in interviews and avoiding discussion, very carefully not doing anything stupid like he knows he would if he was drunk and face to face with his ex-best friend. Except when he kicks a Zayn cardboard off stage, because that he really would do if he was drunk and face to face with him.
("I've tried to reach out to a few of them, yeah," Zayn tells Billboard. "I've spoken a bit to Liam, but the others..." The interviewer talks about a "whimsical smile".)
It's just not so easy to be smart and mediatised when it's three in the morning and your eyes are burning and your phone keeps slipping from your fingers but you can't fucking go to sleep.
It's a dumb tweet.
It is, when he looks back.
"between how fast she can switch guys and how fast she can offend minorities @gigihadid is faster than my wifi"
There's pictures attached, of course: a shitpost, vague shade, a picture, the classic formula for a post to get screenshotted and put on tumblr.
So it's a dumb tweet, but Harry is exhausted and there's a nasty burn in his chest that hasn't left since Zayn did, and it makes him snort with startled laughter. He's half conscious that he hits retweet, and then his body surrenders and allows sleep to pull him down.
(If he were properly awake, he would have thought "it's been a year, almost" and left it there and maybe broken a bit on the inside, but he certainly wouldn't pick a fight.)
When he wakes up, Liam is watching him, and Harry mumbles a "go away" even as his befuddled brain takes in the worried look on his face. It's a familiar expression, the "the boys have done something dumb and now they're in trouble and i should've stopped them" that Liam does so well; only Harry can't for the life of him think what makes Liam turn that look on him, because he's not done anything wrong recently, not even getting caught by any paps as he walks around naked or anything.
"Haz, come on." Liam says, shaking his arm lightly. "It's late."
"Fuck off, mate." Harry yawns, and hopes the sight of his head burrowed in pillows and his curls spilling onto his shoulders will soften Liam's heart and make him go. Instead, he hears Liam hesitate almost exactly at the same moment as he rolls onto his phone.
His phone? His phone, yeah, because he was scrolling Tw-
"Shit!" Harry hisses, sitting straight abruptly and grabbing his phone. Liam's presence makes sense now.
He knows he has about a million notifications before he's even swiped down, but he still cringes when he sees the reaction- hordes and hordes of retweets and raving, and about a thousand newspapers asking for interviews. And then of course there's management, and Simon and the others, who've sent texts and emails.
Harry, you dumb shit, is what he imagines most of them are saying. Privately he sort of understands their point of view.
"It's all right, Hazza," Liam sighs, reassuringly now, and Harry feels like hitting his head against the wall. Instead he extends his arms like a child, the way he used to way back when. Liam comes easily, wrapping his arms around him, and he's solid and warm and Harry wishes he could melt into Liam and stay there forever.
"I was sleep-deprived," he says, and hates that he has to. "That was so stupid, Li."
"It's nowhere near Lou, Harry, it's fine."
"Zayn's gonna answer," Harry says, moving back so they're eye to eye. "He's going to fucking answer regardless of what I do."
He can't explain why this is so terrible, but Liam gets it. He and Zayn were the closest, maybe, and he's definitely the saddest, sort of. He and Zayn understood each other, though, a quiet camaraderie and deep bond between the both of them that had made Harry childishly jealous at times, when Liam had still been so shy and Zayn so withdrawn. So Liam ruffles his hair sadly and Harry leans into it, eyes dropping shut- it's nothing, it's everything, Harry screwed up a bit.
A bit is an understatement. They spend the day running from the flashing cameras and screaming journalists, and when they get to the office the entire company seems to be glaring at Harry, who stoops and tries to will himself to be shorter.
"Harry, really, don't you know better?"
"Damnit, Harry..."
"The mess the PR has to clean up now-!"
It's Louis that cuts off the reproaches every time, with a heated glare and an arm slung around his waist. Harry figures that's not surprising. Still, he finds he doesn't care much about the trouble he's caused- instead, his stomach remains knotted with tension all day as he reflexively checks Twitter every two seconds.
It's by the afternoon that it happens. Harry's lying on the couch, Niall by his feet, scrolling down some old tweets on Louis' account, when Gigi Hadid's name starts crowding the platform.
He thinks Niall can feel him stiffen, because he senses eyes on him as he jerkily taps the screen.
"RT @GiGiHadid did you see.../jealousy rly is one of the most saddening things, sigh"
Right. Right, yeah, that's. That's not too bad; clever on her part, the "shade but I'm just playing" little vibe, and goddamnit but does it sting. It's cool, though, Harry was expecting worse, but this he can play off if he comes face to face with her.
(Kendall might be pissed. That's a shame, because he sort of quite likes her. She's smarter than she lets on.)
It makes no sense then that his entire body remains taut with expectant anxiety, not until Zayn finally deigns to intervene. Then Harry reads his tweet and really does feel like flinging his phone out of a window.
"@Harry_Styles i hope you realize that this tweet was a joke and you don't actually need to be bitter"
Underneath is a screenshot of a tweet, that Harry already recognizes before he reads it, just because it makes sense Zayn would use that now.
"@Ellesse_Styles yeah me and harry are actually dating"
Niall is definitely watching him now, and Harry purposefully turns his head away so he won't try to talk to him. There's something dark and angry inside of him, now, and he thinks for a moment he might hate Zayn. It's playing the fans, of course, it goes with what Gigi said while still pulling the nostalgia card, but it feels like violating something untouchable. "I never really belonged," Zayn had said, and wasn't that just a dagger to the back- now he was doing the unthinkable and playing with the past. The past- the one thing he wasn't allowed to lie about, to distort, to make into something ugly.
Harry's hand is shaking, but he waits, forcing his body to relax, staying focused on the need to hurt right back as he waits for Niall to lower his guard. It takes what feels like an eternity, but eventually Niall's attention goes back to his own phone, and Harry lets his fingers dance across the keyboard recklessly.
"@zaynmalik I was going to answer but then I remembered I'm supposed to be "ignoring your efforts to reconnect" so"
He's barely sent it off that Niall goes "HARRY!" in an irate tone, and swivels around to grab his phone.
"Are you fucking serious, mate?" Niall groans, and he actually does look angry. "This is the second time in a day!"
Harry feels faintly sick, but also incredibly defensive, so he shrugs and looks away. That's a Zayn thing, isn't it?
"Haz, I'm serious," Niall snaps, and it's so out of character Harry's eyes edge back his way. "You think this is going to make things better? He quit, okay, he's done. Leave him alone."
It feels a bit like a punch to the gut, and then Harry notices how shiny Niall's eyes are even as he scowls, so he crawls upright and drapes himself over his bandmate, as Niall takes shaky breaths and unclenches his fists.
"Just leave it be, Harry, can't you leave it?"
"M' sorry," Harry whispers, even though he's only sorry Niall is upset. "M' sorry."
He knows he's gone too far already when he spends the entire night wondering if Zayn will answer.
Harry gets into a lot of trouble with management, unsurprisingly. Especially because he doesn't stop.
He understands, of course, that stopping is the best thing to do. The mature thing, the safe thing, the smart thing even. He gets that letting the boiling thing in his chest spill al over the Internet isn't healthy or sensible. He knows that it's causing a mess, that it's huge.
That doesn't mean anything when Zayn replies, always sounding so condescendingly amused (and it's so practiced and fake and he has no way of proving it but he knows), and tears the divide between them a little further with every tweet.
It's an actual twitter war, and it's gathering hordes of attention like they haven't gotten since Zayn fucked off, which is ironic. The press is going wild, and Harry's not even had an interview yet. It's driving everyone insane, because he listens to them and nods and shrugs and then promptly forgets all their increasingly high-pitched advice when Zayn's reply flashes up on his screen.
(("oH MY GOD GUYS YOURE RIPPING ME APART STOP #zarrygate"
"lmfao get wrecked #zarrygate"
"the SHADE in #zarrygate is enough to turn australia into london omgg"
"why must the boys hurt me like this???? #zarrygate"
"@Harry_Styles leave zayn alone you jealous talentless hobo"
"Can @zaynmalik go back to Pakistan and stop whining k thx bye"))
He realizes halfway through the week that he might actually hate Zayn. The vitriol that surges through him every time he replies isn't something he's used to; Harry's always jokingly been one the chillest members of the band when it comes to conflict, but this isn't a normal fight. This is someone he considered his brother who keeps shredding their past to pieces for the whole world to see, and Harry's there to make sure he hurts him right the fuck back.
They get Niall to steal his phone from him on Friday. He waits until the boys are asleep to take Liam's phone instead (as if he doesn't know all their codes).
"@Harry_Styles don't you have a creative pop song to be working on"
"@zaynmalik Don't you have powerpoint transitions to go use in your new music video"
It's petty, what they're doing. It's petty and stupid because it does nothing to fix the hurt in Harry's chest that wants to suffocate him every time he sees another article of Zayn dismissing them with a wave of the hand.
It's petty but it's something; it's his only way of screaming at Zayn.
He's about to go sleep and wait for the morning to bring him more reproachful glares and more tweets to answer to when Liam's phone buzzes.
"@Harry_Styles good to know you watched it mate"
Fuck, shit, Zayn is on Twitter right now and so is Harry. Harry could have stricken up a conversation, in another life, and he would've been able to see him react in time.
The thought makes him so irrationally angry that he manages to put the phone down and go to bed.
He doesn't reply to Zayn the next day, or the day after that. Management is relieved, the boys look sort of worried.
At their next interview, when the question comes up, Harry laughs and doesn't answer.
He would have liked to say that Pillowtalk is a terrible song, or that he didn't watch the video. It's just that he's curious, and Zayn's always been the best singer of the band, in Harry's opinion. It sounds different- sounds like Zayn would, if he was humming to himself, and it's upsetting to think that maybe this actually is better, that he actually is more himself.
Still, he watches the video and feels nauseated at Zayn's mumbled crooning and clear high notes, at the effects and the way he moves so fluidly with Gigi, at his purposefully soulful glances at the camera. It's mature, alternative, sort of RnB, everything so very Zayn and so very not One Direction.
He knows the others have watched it too. Niall sings in the shower, and Harry hears when he starts humming it only to cut off abruptly after the first line. Liam absently mumbles a lyric when an interviewer asks them about it. Louis gets angry at the mention of the words "paradise", "warzone" and "neighbours".
All this would be fine and dandy if Harry himself could stop fucking singing it.
He's always had a habit of singing to himself; has only gotten more and more used to it since joining the band. It's subconscious, he doesn't know he does it, and no one complains. Most of the time someone'll join in.
The first time he's aware of doing it, it's because Louis turns around with an irritated glare and hisses "Can you stop bloody doing that?" as they ride the train.
"What? Doing what?" Harry asks, startled awake, shaking his curls out of his face.
"You're singing." Louis states, still glaring.
"Yeah, Lou, we're in a band, if you hadn't noticed." Harry drawls, but Louis doesn't roll his eyes and grin like he's supposed to.
"You're singing Pillowtalk," Louis snaps, and it's almost funny that he says the last word as a whisper.
Harry freezes, and Louis huffs and turns around. Shit. Was he?
Unfortunately, after that, it feels like all he can sing is Pillowtalk, because he catches himself humming it all the time. It's obnoxious, and it annoys him more than the others, but it's like the song is stuck on repeat in his head.
This doesn't make him feel any more happy during the tweeting week.
Still, he supposes it's no surprise when in an interview for the Daily Mail the journalist asks them with a smile what they think of Zayn's solo music.
Louis shrugs. "'S not our kind of music, really."
The problem arises when said journalist publishes their comments along a candid video of Harry singing to himself as he changes (which he's pretty sure is illegal, but it's too late now). The sound is muffled, and Harry's face is rendered a blur of pale skin in the bad lighting, but the chorus he hums is unmistakable.
"So we'll piss of the neighbours?" is the title of the article, which makes the rounds of the Internet and gets tweeted at Harry for hours. "Months after One Direction called it quits with Zayn Malik, and little time after Zayn and Harry's now infamous Twitter row, the younger star spotted singing Zayn's single, after his band agrees that it's not their style. Is all forgiven? What is going on?"
"Goddamnit, Hazza," Niall sighs, pulling Harry in for a hug when they get back. "No chill, huh."
Harry buries his face in Niall's hair and wills himself to sleep.
(("@zaynmalik have you seen the video of harry?????????"
"@zaRrysgurl what video"))