Hello everyone! How are we doing?

This chapter is going to be a fair bit shorter than the last one, but it's still pretty crucial.

All song references will be credited at the author's note at the bottom as per usual.

TW// Panic attack. I'll mark it off with ~~~~

***********************************

Harry's initial nervous feeling for his meeting with his manager today before leaving for Amsterdam after the show hasn't gone away. He knows that he and Louis haven't exactly been subtle, him more than Louis because Louis was just answering, reacting.

Trying his damnedest to comfort him from afar.

Their fans were stirred up and Harry knew that his fans were scattered in terms of opinions. There were some that were of the opinion that Louis was just tweeting out because he liked the same music, others were saying that he was "larrie-baiting," whatever that meant.

Then there were the ones that were openly starting fights.

They were either against Harry and said he was just trying to get attention by tweeting, those being people that absolutely loved Louis and tolerated the other boys, but hated him for some reason.He honestly didn't know why, but they were a pretty good minority in Louis' fanbase.

It was his own fans that he was more concerned about.

They were the ones that insisted that he was straight, that he had been linked with multiple women over the years, that he would never be caught dead being romantically linked with a man, let alone a man like Louis.

They even went so far to call him a rat on many occasions.

Harry dislikes many things and tries to avoid hating things, but he can honestly say that behavior like that is a quick way to get there in his opinion. It's as if they forgot that he and Louis were best friends in One Direction, or at least that was the narrative. They even had the audacity to contradict him by saying he hated being in One Direction.

In all honesty they were in some ways worse than his management because they alienated him from people with the preconceived notions that they either create, or were manufactured by his management, whether previous or current. They're almost as much his enemy as his management.

He is blown away by some people's efforts to push a narrative just because they can't accept that they're wrong.

Then there were the Larries.

They were pretty much on point with what was going on. Harry was tweeting portions of songs of a new friend he had made. They did their research on Amy when he was spotted with her, which is more than the trashy tabloids did, and quickly spread the word through the fandom that she was married and had a child and not romantically linked to Harry in any way whatsoever.

It was a load off of Harry's shoulders in all honesty.

However, it brought on another stressor to him because he knew how Louis' management was and he also knew how his management was. While his management gave him some freedom to be himself, he wasn't due for contract renewal for a bit and he was absolutely, positively not allowed to come out.

Yet.

They were too afraid of his fans' reaction.

Louis' management on the other hand were the same homophobic assholes that the worked with in One Direction. They likely knew that Louis' fanbase would be supportive regardless of his sexuality, but didn't care. They gave Louis the freedom to work and create the music he wanted but it came at a cost. The music he made wasn't exactly "popular" so to speak, so they knew exactly what the cost was going to be.

They wouldn't allow him to come out or even hint at it.

They both queercoded in One Direction, the bears were one of their biggest hints to the fans, but once the band went on hiatus, they had to shut it down or else it would be too obvious because the running narrative was that the crew were responsible and they weren't even aware of the bears in the first place.

As if the crew were even aware of half the shit they got up to.

The problem now is that with all of this stirring in the fandom, his and Louis' management are undoubtedly going to do some damage control.

Harry froze in his tracks.

No...His mind started spinning as he started putting the pieces together and a cold feeling of self recrimination filled his heart. It's a stunt, I know that much, but what if it was damage control? Did I do this? Did I put him in this position? Did they trap him? Why Eleanor?

He shook himself, still feeling shaken, but drew himself back together in order to meet with his manager.

Before going in, he decided to do a last minute check of Twitter, just to see if Louis had even seen his last tweet, and his heart felt heavy from the sheer amount of guilt from what he read.

Louis_Tomlinson: "If you knew what you were to me you would never try to hide away"

Harry blinked rapidly to push the tears back, I put him through so much. I don't deserve him.

He stood there for half a moment debating on whether or not he should tweet anything back, Fuck it.

Harry_Styles: "When I run out of road, you bring me home."

Harry_Styles: "I know you were way to bright for me, I'm hopeless, broken, so you wait for me in the sky"

He locked his phone and was called into the room in order to meet with his manager to see what all the fuss was about.

***************************************

Louis was still pondering Harry's tweet from the previous night and wondering how to answer it while he was double checking everything in London and making sure there weren't any loose ends that needed taking care of.

He couldn't help but be sad over Harry's tweet as well as be worried over his mental state.

He looked up the song it was referring to, and he felt a bit better about it, but he still felt apprehensive due to the fact that he chose those particular lines to tweet.

He knew that Harry wasn't in the best place at the moment, but he had to reassure him somehow and so he chose a particular line from a song that he lyrics of, one that was pretty reminiscent of his old One Direction songs.

Louis_Tomlinson: "If you knew what you were to me you would never try to hide away"

He ran a hand over his face due to his stress levels thinking about how Harry didn't believe he was good enough for him.

He was fucking perfect in Louis' eyes.

Louis would be the first to admit that Harry jumps to conclusions at times, but Louis does that too. He's absolutely willing to cut Harry a bit of slack for his behavior because he's been on the other end of it for so long.

Also because it's Eleanor.

He's all too aware that Eleanor created all kinds of problems for them the first time around, not all of them entirely her fault. Some of them were due entirely to his own stubbornness and trying to keep Harry out of it, rather than doing what he should have done and kept him in the loop at all times.

When he finally learned that lesson the hard way, seeing how much the ongoing stunt was affecting Harry and genuinely hurting him, was when Eleanor started seeing him in a different light.

When the stunt first started, it was just them trying to make the best of a bad situation and they decided to try and be friends. Eleanor even got to know Harry and he genuinely liked the girl as a friend.

Then things got complicated.

It was a subtle shift in her demeanor and behavior, and ironically, Harry was the one to catch on first. Being the non-confrontational sweetheart that he is, he never brought it up, but he was much less friendly with Eleanor, less talkative, but much more cuddly and clingy to Louis when she was over and Louis was never one to complain about extra cuddles from him.

Looking back it was pretty fucking obvious when Harry noticed.

He noticed Eleanor's lingering looks, her subtle but unneeded touches, her way of speaking to Louis, the way she would be more than happy to hang around, when beforehand she would just be like "one of the bros," a friend to hang out with.

She was interested in Louis.

She began to ignore Harry more, though she wasn't outright rude to him, she knew that Louis wouldn't stand for it. She was also aware that Harry had a sassy side to him and could easily tear her to pieces if he wanted.

There was a reason Louis fell for him aside from his looks.

By the time Louis noticed what she was doing it was too late. The distance had already been created, unneeded jealousy had arisen, and all Louis could feel was guilt.

He hadn't dealt with it well.

Drugs and alcohol were an escape from his terrible reality. He quickly created distance between himself and Eleanor once he realized what she was trying to do after making clear to her that nothing would ever happen between them, that it was just a stunt, fake and nothing more. He felt betrayed by a close friend, but looking back on it, he understands that she was trying to make the best of the situation for herself.

That doesn't mean that Harry will ever like or trust her again though.

Louis felt his phone vibrate in his hand and took a look and saw that Harry had tweeted. His heart took a leap when he saw the tweet, but dropped again when he saw a follow up tweet immediately following.

Harry_Styles: "When I run out of road, you bring me home."

Harry_Styles: "I know you were way to bright for me, I'm hopeless, broken, so you wait for me in the sky"

Louis took a shaky breath and bit his lip at Harry's second tweet. Deciding not to answer at this time because he needed to process what Harry may be saying and also get his things together for his flight tonight.

He decided he would go to Harry's show tomorrow night. Maybe he would notice him, maybe not. Either way he was going to talk to him.

He'll show him that his heart only beats for him.

*************************************************

"No," Harry said in a calm yet icy tone.

"No?" Jeff, his manager, asked incredulously, "What do you mean, "no"?"

"I mean, N-O, as in: "I refuse", "not gonna happen", "I regret to inform you that I will not acquiesce to your request", "I answer in the negative", "I decline", shall I go on?" Harry answered sardonically

Jeff rubbed his face in exasperation, "Harry I know what "no" means." he sighed at the hard look on Harry's face, "Why won't you agree to a PR relationship with Ms. Rowe here?" He gestured to the tall blonde woman sitting to his left who remained silent.

"Do you honestly need to ask that, Jeff?" Harry growled darkly, "It doesn't matter if you actually set me up with a woman or not, I'll be "shipped" with any woman I interact with for fuck's sake even if I don't know their name!"

Jeff looked taken aback at Harry's palpable show of fury.

"And the main reason for this is because you haven't done your job and allowed this shit about me being a womanizer to continue to circulate!" Harry continued, "So no, I'm afraid that if you're trying to do any damage control with a PR relationship, then you're wasting your time."

Jeff gathered himself at Harry's last statement, "Harry you signed a contract with us. We must maintain a certain image for you that we believe would be in your best intere-"

He was cut off by a loud, but bitter cackle from none other than Harry himself, "My best interest?! Where have I heard that line before I wonder?" Harry put a hand to his chin in a mock thinking pose, his eyes dark in anger, "Oh yes, Modest! Management used the same line on all of us in One Direction before controlling our every move when we were teenagers."

"I think I know what my best interest is, Jeff." Harry said darkly, "It's not to suppress who I actually am. I know exactly what my contract says. It says that you can suggest changes to my image and work with me, but never does it suggest that you can force me to do anything."

He stood up and began to walk toward the door but gave one last parting shot before he left, "Keep in mind before you try to pull this kind of bullshit again, you need me more than I need you. I can easily find another management company that's willing to work on my terms due to how successful I am, as well as the background that I have from being in One Direction. What do you have?" Then he walked out of the room.

Harry ran a hand through his hair due to the stress of that meeting.

It wasn't long before the show and he needed to tell Mitch the songs he was going to do for his cover section of the show. He knew which ones he was going to do too, provoked by the meeting and this whole thing with Louis.

The guilt is still there, it was just shoved aside so he could focus on the meeting, but now that he's out it's come back full force and he can't help but wonder if Louis is angry with him. He feels a crushing amount of pain at that, but accepts it because he knows that it was his own stubbornness that caused it.

He pulled out his phone and prepared another tweet, reflective of this whole shitstorm with his management and Louis'.

Harry_Styles: "Why are we always stuck and running from the bullets?"

The bullets of course being the various hoops that their managers wanted them to jump through.

He supposes that he's lucky in that regard because his management company is fairly small with small time artists under their management, only he was the only real big name artist that they managed.

Louis was still stuck with Modest! and Harry knew that it wore on him, which caused another wave of guilt and sadness to crash over him. When he finally found Mitch, his eyes were dull and murky as they were the previous day, Mitch wouldn't let him leave his presence, citing that he didn't look so good, and Harry didn't suppose he did.

His guilt did have a way of eating him alive.

When the time of the show came around they all got to the venue and it was essentially a repeat of the previous day, but when Harry looked up at one of the sky boxes he saw that Camille was there.

That kicked something off in him.

Something dark, and unpleasant.

He didn't usually act this way onstage, even when he was angry at Louis. He knew what Jeff was trying to do. He was making one last ditch effort to convince him that a PR relationship would be worth it.

Harry was firm in his stance and he didn't care if Jeff agreed or not.

He was glad he picked the songs he picked for tonight. Even though they were both addressed to himself, to the fandom in general, and to Louis.

He and his bandmates positioned themselves as they heard the opening beats of Lacrymosa as Harry honestly didn't have any opening remarks for this song.

[There should be a GIF or video here. Update the app now to see it.]

Out on your own
Cold and alone again
Can this be what you really wanted, baby?

Blame it on me
Set your guilt free
Nothing can hold you back now

He is out on his own in a way, and it's not what he expected. In some ways it's exactly what he thought it would be. Harsh, grueling, and overall rewarding when he finally gets a record out. However, with every pro, there was a con to go with it. With the extra freedom, he got a subpar management, which was admittedly his choice.

He didn't want some big name management that would only see him as a boybander gone solo (which is exactly what he was) and not treat him as a serious artist. He also didn't want to run the risk of having a big name management that could turn out to be exactly like Modest! because that would be an absolute nightmare.

He would quit music before he went through with that.

Now that you're gone
I feel like myself again
Grieving the things I can't repair and willing

To let you blame it on me
And set your guilt free
I don't want to hold you back now love

This he addressed to his hateful fans and his old management. He is freer without Modest! watching his every move and locking him away at every turn. Telling him "do this," "Don't do that," "Change this," "Don't wear that" and various other things about himself that he didn't agree with.

His fans were largely in agreement with Modest! and their narrative of him, especially the womanizer narrative because of course there had to be a dreamboat in a boyband.

They were people, humans, not a fucking recipe.

All of this created inevitable damage and it caused Harry to tear up as he was singing just contemplating it. Some of that damage is beyond repair...

Like his and Louis' fears, Zayn's anxiety. None of them were free from damage.

He is giving Louis the freedom to blame him for this last shitstorm. His own insecurity and anxiety in combination with his inherent stubbornness made him non-communicative and he knows that that wasn't healthy.

He was just too scared to have his heart broken again, but he knows that this time, it's not Louis' fault but his. He won't let him feel guilty for it.

He won't hold him back anymore.

He refuses.

I can't change who I am
Not this time, I won't lie to keep you near me
And in this short life, there's no time to waste on giving up
My love wasn't enough

He loves his fans, but a part of that love is knowing when it's healthy to let them go. They need to know that he is his own person and they have no say over him. He's not going to lie to keep them around. He determined he wouldn't accept any lies from Louis, so he will hold himself to the same standard.

It's a good thing that he's good at avoiding questions in interviews...mostly.

If he loses fans due to certain things that they don't like about him, then that's their choice and he's fine with it. He'll be sad of course, because he doesn't ever like losing fans, but he's learned that he won't ever please everyone, so he won't try to.

Better to be the best version of himself, than to create some fake version of himself and be unhappy.

And you can blame it on me
Just set your guilt free
I don't want to hold you back now love

He won't try to retain them if they leave because of things about him. They can pin the blame on him and it may sting for a time, he'll be alright because he's going to be himself, unapologetically.

It's something that he's slowly begun to learn from Louis.

Louis who says exactly what's on his mind, heedless of how it may come across. Louis, who treats his fans as if they're his best friends. Louis, who dresses up in casual clothes at interviews and gives zero fucks about what people may say about the way he dresses.

Louis who loved him at 16, not the image manufactured for him later on.

As the song ended Harry began to move, taking his microphone and sat at the piano and mounted the microphone and began to play the beginning notes of the following song, Breathe No More.

[There should be a GIF or video here. Update the app now to see it.]

I've been looking in the mirror for so long
That I've come to believe that my soul's on the other side
All the little pieces falling, shatter shards of me
Too sharp to put back together
Too small to matter
But big enough to cut me into so many little pieces
If I try to touch [there]#

And I bleed
I bleed
And I breathe
I breathe no more

Harry's been controlled for so long that it feels like he's taken his real, true self and hidden it away. It only comes out to play when he's around those people that truly know him, but when a person that doesn't know him turns up, the mask goes back on, the walls come back up and the show goes on.

He hates it.

He hates that it's become reflex now.

He's tried so many times to break himself of that reflex, only to fail, to his frustration. He sees the other boys struggling to break it too.

Maybe he should take Zayn's route and become extremely private and do only phone interviews and practically no in-person interviews. That only works for so long though.

He would go stir crazy, him or Louis.

Take a breath and I try to draw from my spirit's well
Yet again you refuse to drink like a stubborn child
Lie to me, convince me that I've been sick forever
And all of this will make sense when I get better
But I know the difference
Between myself and my reflection
I just can't help but to wonder
Which of us do you love?

Modest! tried so long to convince both him and Louis that what they had was a phase, that they'd grow out of it, that they didn't know what love was. Modest! of course couldn't be credited for their observation skills outside of the business arena. If they saw the way they acted around each other, they'd clearly see that they were in it from the start.

It took a bit for them to figure everything out because they were both so new to this world that they'd found themselves in, but they didn't care because they had each other.

They held each other's hearts no matter how hard Modest! tried to tear them apart.

It was their own mistakes that tore them apart in the end.

So I bleed
I bleed
And I breathe
I breathe no
Bleed, I bleed
And I breathe
I breathe, I breathe
I breathe no more

Harry wrapped up the show as quickly as he could because he could feel the forces of his inner fears as well as his guilt over the whole situation rising up and overwhelming him. He went through several calming exercises and coping mechanisms that he learned over the years in One Direction when he began to have these problems which, thankfully, were few and far between.

It only happened when a day was particularly bad, much like today was.

Why aren't they working?! He thought frantically as his breathing continued to speed up to an uncontrollable pace. He struggled to move as he continued to try and find one of his band mates, hopefully he would run into Mitch or Sarah.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
TW// Panic Attack- continue reading at your own risk.

His breaths were coming quicker and his mind was becoming foggier, blind with panic and anxiety as he was and tears were rolling down his cheeks, though he was unaware of this. His chest felt as though it was splitting in half and his limbs both felt as though they were made of lead and were locking up at the same time.

His head was spinning as he distantly heard his name and a pair of footsteps as his body finally shut down and he fell into unconsciousness.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

******************************************

Louis landed in Amsterdam and it was quite early in the morning. He opened his phone as he waited for his cab to come and pick him up and take him to his hotel that he booked for the next couple of days.

He was hoping he wouldn't have to use it for that long but who knows.

He noticed that Harry tweeted after he boarded the plane to Amsterdam and his heart clenched when he saw it.

He of course knew Harry's full album backwards and forwards now, and he even knows the meanings behind the songs now. For him to tweet a line from Sign of the Times now can only mean that his Management has tried something.

He decided to tweet something that he hoped was reassuring to him. A song that he was almost finished with, but still needed some fine tuning on the verses, but the chorus was done.

Louis_Tomlinson: "Oh, whatever tears you apart, don't let it break your heart"

He continued to scroll as he waited and paused when he saw a headline. His heart dropped when he saw that it described Harry passing out after a performance.

As he continued to read, he saw that it was due to a panic attack and Louis knew that he would have to talk to him sooner rather than later.

He just needed to find him.

*************************************

And done.

Thought/questions on the chapter?

Harry's panic attack wrote itself into the chapter, that was not planned, I swear.

Song references for this chapter are as follows:

Sung songs,
"Lacrymosa" by Evanescence
"Breathe No More" by Evanescence
#-small lyric change here. It's in the brackets. Originally 'her,' changed to 'there' for the rhyme.

Tweets (in the order in which they appeared),
"Perfect Now" by Louis Tomlinson
"Sweet Creature" by Harry Styles
"Golden" by Harry Styles
"Sign of the Times" by Harry Styles
"Don't Let it Break Your Heart" by Louis Tomlinson

Can y'all tell I absolutely love Evanescence's music yet? It's depressing but it sounds so good.

Thank you for all the votes, shares, and comments! I appreciate you!

All my love,

U_P77