the quarantine diaries | Narry Storan AU

day 44

"Hey, Theo. How are you doing?

Today I did something I haven't done in a while. I went down a metaphorical memory lane. 

Which here means: I heard all of One Direction's albums.

Some people could see this as a selfish act, as a sign that I miss the boyband days and I wish they could come back to me. But don't get me wrong. I loved all those years, but I don't want them back. I'm happy in the place I am today, with the songs I write nowadays, with the fame that I've got as a solo artist.

I just miss the glory days of being close friends with four amazing men. I miss each one of them, and I miss the effect they used to cause on me when I was about to write a song. Some songs we wrote together back then were really, really silly and kinda childish — insert here any deep cut track from Up All Night and Take Me Home —, but because we had written those ones, we didn't mind their content. Our names were on it. That was important.

This is why we chose to build solo careers in music. Because we wanted to have full control over our projects, the kind of thing mister Simon Cowell (insert here a GIF of Taylor Swift talking about Scooter Braun and then making an ugly face with a "UGH!" being said right after) would never, ever, not in a million years, allow us to do. Because we wanted our songs to reflect personal stories, personal struggles, personal feelings. At that point, it didn't matter if we were going to have another hit or not. 

We just wanted to be ourselves.

If you take all of 1D albums and listen to them while you reflect about those thoughts I just talked about with you, Theo, you'll soon understand how much we were trying to put our fingers on every song. Even if we didn't write some of them, such as You and I (personally one of my favorites) or Drag Me Down (personally one of Harry's favorites, but he will never say it out loud), our voices would tell the story rather than the lyrics. That was important, as I said before. Why do you think Made in the A.M. is probably the best album we've ever done as a group?

After the disband of One Direction, the One Direction everyone used to know, Harry and I kept listening to our old tracks. He told me once that he wasn't exactly ashamed of some content we did — Little Black Dress? Steal My Girl? Seriously. Take a look at the verses —; in fact, we laughed a lot after listening to those songs again. Because we realized it wasn't about how much control we had over the albums, it was about where we were at the moment. And in the moment when those type of songs were released, we felt like that. We felt like, "oh, this is how we should sound like forever".

Then we spent like a month or two listening to Four and Made in the A.M. We once tried to have sex while listening to the slow songs from Four, and it was a total mess. Night Changes made me laugh while he was sucking my dick, and we both started crying (don't ask why) after we came in the bed while listening to Spaces. From this moment, we decided to never listen to our songs while doing something important.

No 1D songs while having sex. I mean — we should've decided it before.

I suppose you're in the 20-something age now. This is why I'm talking about all those things with you. I've been very nostalgic today. Sorry for that.

And, yeah, Harry didn't call me today. And I didn't want to bother him, so I'm bothering you. Sorry for that, too.

Love, Niall."