Work Text:
this is the way the world ends
not with a bang but a whimper.
i.
He's eighteen when he signs their lives away (signs them away for a boy who looks at him like he hung the moon and the stars, like he's never met anyone quite like Louis before), signs long before he'll understand just what he's asking of Harry (and himself, and a girl he won't meet for another year), signs because they're going to tour and record, and for a couple of months, they'll play at being a Big Deal, which is what they all really want-
(except a couple of months turns into a couple of years, and no-one's playing at anything, anymore, and maybe there are other things he wants more).
But Harry looks at him with words he's not ready to hear on the tip of his tongue (love you and forever), and Louis - Louis can't, he can't, not yet (maybe not ever), so he pulls back and pulls away, out of Harry's bed and out of Harry's life, out of HarryandLouis until they don't fit together like they used to, until they're separated on interview couches by the other three and so much more (he turns to Liam, flinging himself and burrowing into Liam's life until he finds somewhere else he fits (not like Harry, who fits so easily, so seamlessly, into GrimmyandHarry, but who still looks at Louis like maybe and one day).
And he waits
(for a while).
He waits; waits for something to change (waits for Louis, his face so expectant and hopeful, until it isn't, until it's just acceptance, and somehow that's the one that hurts the most), and when nothing does, he pulls away, from all of them, just a bit, towards Nick and more all-night benders, towards a life outside these four boys, and that's kind of what Louis' wanted for him, all along
(except, now, it isn't).
ii.
The first picture gets uploaded just after lunchtime, in Australia, and in the forty minutes it takes before phones in London start ringing (it's almost three in the morning, back home), it spreads like wildfire (and it's not their first scandal - so far from it - not the first time they've watched something blow up online, but the speed it spreads (it's early evening in America, Liam explains, and everyone nods, like that matters now) surprises even them).
(Another two get uploaded sometime between the fourth and fifth phone calls from management, and when no-one makes any move to answer the phone, Zayn reaches out and turns it off).
"What are we doing to do?" Harry finally asks, closing his laptop, and Liam's face twitches in surprise (and fondness, for all of them, so quickly).
"What," Louis says, amused, because they can all read him, "You thought we'd toss you to the wolves now? Idiots." There's no heat in his words, and he slings an arm over Liam's shoulders, easily.
"Brothers only when we feel like it?" Niall adds, with a grin, bumping his knee against Zayn's, and Zayn tries to smile.
"I'm sorry," Liam says, suddenly, almost desperately, eyes darting over to Zayn, who can't quite meet his gaze, "We're sorry. We weren't thinking-"
Louis presses a finger to Liam's lips, arm still around him, the angle awkward. "Can it," he says, amiably. (Maybe, later, much later, there'll be - moments. When they will blame Liam, and Zayn, fairly or not, as everything starts to fall apart around them. But - for now). "It was a private pool. And the lense on that camera must've been telescopic."
"It could've been any of us," Harry says (says what they're both thinking, glancing over at Louis, quickly, and they're lucky, so lucky, they've never been caught (and in the weeks to come - watching Liam and Zayn, and the lines they've practiced over and over - he'll be relieved it wasn't him, wasn't Harry, and the relief is fleeting but real and something he'll never, ever admit to)).
"Mate, speak for yourself," Niall says, mock-indignantly, "I haven't been snogging anyone in this room."
"That can easily be arranged," Louis says mildly, and Harry tackles Niall to the bed, peppering his cheeks with noisy kisses, until even Zayn's smiling a little (tight-lipped and crooked, but it's a start).
iii.
It starts as a joke --
Niall stops dyeing his hair, and Zayn reaches over for a high-five, and Louis applauds, delighted, and Liam looks a little concerned (but says nothing, because Niall isn't sixteen anymore; because it isn't his job anymore).
Niall drops onto the couch beside him, hooks his chin over Liam's shoulder for a moment. "If they can't tell us apart by now, we're pretty well fucked," he jokes, and Liam smiles a bit, but something feels terribly, terribly off.
*
Zayn's next, shedding his leather jacket for a few concerts in Dallas ("It's too fucking hot," he complains, around his cigarette, and Liam leans against the bus, next to him and waits him out (the key, he's learnt, is not to rush Zayn). "And, I don't know," he shrugs, "I'm a bit over this bad boy shit."
It's not a conversation for now, not with thousands of fans already lining up, not with half an hour until sound check, so -
"You kind of are, though," he replies, lightly, nodding at the cigarette, and Zayn shakes his head, but he's smiling (and later, Liam'll wish he'd pushed it - pushed Zayn - more)).
*
Louis' still texting, thumbs tapping away quickly, when Liam pops his head back into the dressing room and says, for the third time, "We need to warm up, Lou," and Louis rolls his eyes (which isn't unusual, but the lack of a smile afterwards is) and pockets his phone.
"I literally have one line, Li," he replies, a little mockingly, pushing off the couch, and brushing past him, "I think I'll manage."
(Liam lets him go, and maybe that's his third big mistake).
So Louis doesn't warm up with them, and Harry sings the first and last verses of their new single and, for the first time in four years, they don't take home a Brit.
(Louis and Zayn, heads bowed in quiet conversation all night, hit up the afterparties together, and Liam's too relieved that Louis' smiling again, sharp teeth and sharper jokes, to worry).
*
(Even after everything, it still comes as a surprise when Louis says, abruptly, breaking a long silence on the bus, "This isn't working, Liam."
Liam glances up, surprised (Harry looks surprised, too, he'll remember, later, after, but the others don't). "Are we breaking up?" he jokes, because he doesn't get it, and he's about to add, "Because I didn't know we were dating," but something on Louis' face stops him (so serious, so sorry), and before Zayn or Niall can say anything, Liam knows, with all certainty, that they are (maybe not today, and maybe not tomorrow, but this is the beginning of the end, and in a few weeks, they'll sit down with lawyers and talk about buying out their contracts, and it'll go as well as Liam expects, because it isn't what he wants, and it isn't what Harry wants.
But tonight it'll be just like they started; just the five of them and the music)).
iv.
It's nothing that anyone does or says; there's no single moment they can trace it back to. The third album does well enough, but the Greatest Hits collection tanks, bloody tanks; they're growing up, and their fans are growing up, and they reduce their schedule a bit, recording the fifth album, because they're all in their mid-twenties, and they're thinking about doing other things in their lives (not all of it work-related, because marriage and kids isn't the right look for a member of a boyband) and they don't have the energy they did as teenagers (can only survive on Red Bull and five hours of sleep for so long).
They long for silly things; "I'd like to not worry about shaving," Harry says, dreamily (and it's no-one's fault that some of their songs just sound downright creepy coming from a bunch of bearded men).
"I'd like to stop dressing like a twelve year old," Louis counters, flopping onto the couch next to Harry, dramatically.
And then Zayn makes everything not-silly and all too real. "I'd like to sing more, you know. R'n'B." He shrugs, a little self-conscious, but if they're doing this-
"I'd like to get into producing," Liam admits (and maybe it was a backup when he was seventeen, but it's a real dream, now, now that he's done far more than he thought he ever would, ever could).
"I'd like to play," Niall motions like he's playing an invisible guitar, "But - proper."
"I'd like to be taken seriously," Louis says (and maybe that's what it comes down to. They're not ashamed - won't ever be ashamed of this, of them, of One Direction, but maybe there just comes a point -
and maybe that point is now).
v.
so this is the way the world ends --
except it doesn't.
Their fans grow up, but they grow up with them (they're not kids anymore, but neither are their fans; girls who started high school with their pictures on their binders have finished uni, and the band's still selling out world tours). And no, they'll never have anything like street cred, and they'll never win a Grammy, they'll never be indie and they'll never be cool, and music purists will shit all over them no matter how many songs they write on their next album
(but none of that's bothered them for years).
Long after their obligation to Comic Relief is over, they return to Ghana, still fundraise for cash-strapped childrens' hospitals in England, lend their faces to a kids' reading program -
(Louis runs a hand through his hair as he faces the camera, sweating through another African summer; "If we can use our - our name to bring attention to things like this, then-" he shrugs, gaze drifting to the hospital beds around him. "I mean, it is literally the least we can do.")
- and maybe they won't change the world through love songs and bad covers, but this, this is a start.
They do take some time apart, because they've been together for so long, but they don't stray far from the studios; Liam does some producing and Niall plays guitar for some up-and-coming British group, and Zayn does a couple of collaborations that don't smash any records, but they do well enough. Harry spends a season mentoring kids in a singing competition and Louis, breaking the mold, because he's Louis, Louis invests in a football club --
but they come back, they all come back, for Christmas specials and reunion tours, for charity singles and Charles' coronation.
They come back, and Louis ruffles Harry's hair and calls him Harold, and Liam picks Niall up from the airport, because he's still shit at directions; they come back and marathon some Batman movies, squashed onto one couch like they're kids again, Harry's head on Louis' shoulder, and Liam and Zayn pick up a decade-long argument about the single best Batman movie ever and everyone's laughing.
They come back because they can't not.
("We're going to tour forever, aren't we?" Zayn asks, when they're sent the draft schedule, but there's no resignation in his voice.
"Like Bon Jovi," Niall says, happily.
"Or The Stones," Louis amends, with a mock-withering glare.
Harry meets Liam's gaze and grins. Answers all of them at once. "We so are.")
They come back because they're proud - of what they've done and who they've become; they come back because they always said they'd do this for as long as the fans would still have them (they will), for as long as it still made the five of them happy
(and, despite all odds,
it still does).