larry smut

half fragment

https://archiveofourown.org/works/10595589?view_adult=true

~✰~

"I loved um... the picture of you with the red jacket. The pap one. You're looking off a bit to the side."

"You like the jacket?"

"No, I li— I mean, yeah, I like the jacket. But I'm... It's my favorite picture of you, right now."

"Oh?"

"You look really handsome."

"To be honest I haven't taken a look at them outside of, like... taking a glance to see what the fans were saying for a bit like, fucking yesterday."

"Lurking."

"Lurking, yeah."

"Mmm, well..."

"What?"

"Let me just send you the picture. I want you to see it."

"You gonna text me?"

"Yes, I'm gonna text you."

"On this phone or...?"

"Yeah this one. Give me a second."

Louis pulls away the phone from his ear and gives a glance down to the screen. "Agh." Too bright, he realizes with a squint at that glaring LED. Never got to adjusting it before he turned off the lights and lied down on the bed. The conversation's dragged on for hours with such generous zeal there's been no time for him to have had a thought outside of it, that pleasant spectrum. His attention is rarely this loyal to a single cause. But this one happens to exist as a sovereign, and held as the highest priority.

Phonecall with Susan on iPhone #3. The only name in the contact list.

"Susan's calling. Whoever that is. Who's Susan?"

"Me uh... friend. It's a friend. I've been expecting her."

Louis declined to party for the evening, of course.

"There we go..." he murmurs in a private remark as he brings down the screen's brightness to a comfortable 0%. And just in time for the jingle of a new text vibrating his phone. He sees the attached picture sitting there in his messages— and frowns, quite gently, before returning his phone to his ear. "Harry—"

"Wait—"

"—that was your foot." Half of it, anyway. Wrapped in a Nike sock.

Harry giggles. "—Yeah, it was an accident! Yeah. This is— Wait... um..." His speaking rushes clumsy with its gait, working secondary to some principal goal.

"Quite a fuss, eh?" Louis likes that it seems to be such an important matter— Harry's latest and most favorite picture of his boyfriend being brought to his attention. He sends a fond smirk up to the ceiling, soaking in the sound of Harry's tiny commotion. "All this trouble over a picture of me."

"Does your hotel have good reception?"

It ought to for the luxury label and appropriate price. "Yeah. I've not had any trouble—"

"Okay, I sent it."

"Right." Creaky in his bones, Louis sits himself upright on the bed and looks down at his phone, this time being so clever as to put the call on speaker. "Oh, there I am." The photo in question is there for him to assess. Louis blinks for a moment.

"...This picture?"

"Yeah."

"Uh... I don't remember this picture." Yesterday evening's paparazzi stroll through Ultra Fest— the motive is clear and the setting vaguely familiar. But this morning's hangover has left his memory bruised and achey, and much too sore to reach back in time for a decent recollection of specific events beyond the stage itself. Harry doesn't say anything, leaving Louis to assemble what he must expect to be a clever comment. Dry, as usual— but perhaps not clever. "I look like shit," he says lightly. "Actually."