Title: And Boys Will Be Girls [2/4]
Pairing: Harry/Louis
Disclaimer: Entirely fictional. Title taken from Lola by The Kinks.
Word Count: 1, 015 [5, 000 + total]
Summary: Burlesque club!AU. He’s boldly beautiful. He’s half naked and Harry’s heart is betraying him, just as his eyes are, near enough cracking his ribs with it’s beating. Harry’s never seen a boy exude such elegance before, so smooth and fae with each ballet toe point perfectly controlled. He’s never seen a boy with sparkling stars pressed over his nipples and feathered fans laid below him like clouds, and although Harry has looked a little too closely at guys who’ve stood beside him in bar queues or grazed up against him in mosh pits before, he’s never found one to be so alluring it’s clawed at his lungs.
Warnings: Slurs and other language, alcohol, explicit sex [in later parts].
A/N: Inspired by
this prompt at
1dkinkmeme.
The next week, Harry’s table is nowhere near as rowdy because he’s sat alone. Just him and a comforting Tuborg tucked between his huge hands. A lot less intoxicated, he sees what he and his friends failed to last week: the few drag queens perched on the couches towards the back of the bar; the copious very male couples and the poster up near the entrance that reads Every Friday! Boylesque! Starring Erotique’s own Louis. He can’t help the knot of guilt that winds around his intestines as he waits, hoping that they didn’t upset anybody last week; hoping [especially] that they didn’t upset Louis, who looked just as painfully pretty on the poster as Harry remembered. Delicate like a girl but undeniably all boy.
“Waiting for Louis, dolly?” A voice booms from above Harry and he peers upwards to see a towering lavender beehive wig and Twiggy-inspired make up, a masculine jawline. The eyes watching him in return are the kindest Harry’s seen in a while and there’s a tempting cardboard tray of shots that resemble glow sticks being proffered to him.
“Maybe,” He murmurs.
“Aw pet, but he is precious. Go on, take one for free,” Says Beehive, extending a green tube to Harry, “And sit up a little straighter. Louis’ll be on a minute or two! Just you wait ‘til you see his outfit tonight! I died, child.”
Harry grins bashfully and promptly does as he’s told. Up from his slouch, he scrubs his knuckles through his hair and tries to shake his maudlin mood by downing the shot. It tastes like chemicals and apples and it’s a reassuring bolt of lightening down to the pit of his belly.
“There we go, poppet. You look like a new man.”
“Thanks- could I have another?” Harry fishes in his pocket for a couple of quid, but his coins are waved away and he’s presented with a red tube second time around.
As the plastic cherry syrup slides down his throat, making his nose wrinkle up, the club is thrown into darkness and Harry knows what’s coming. Oh god, the voice in is head supplies excitedly, and he doesn’t have to mask his expression this time.
“Here he is! I’ll leave you be!” Beehive whispers, giving Harry a squeeze on his bony shoulder and then tottering off on her heels.
Again, there are just two spotlights trained on the stage and the room stills with crisp anticipation. Tonight has it’s differences though, because where there had been elaborate fans there are now the backs of two boys- dressed in khaki shirts and broader than Louis is, Harry’s sure. They start to click as the song pipes up, double to the left, double to the right, hips tipping in time, too. It’s so cheesy Harry almost winces, goes to bury his head in his hands but stops when he realises that both boys are laughing over the song [Aguilera’s Candyman, rather than something indie this week]; that their shoulders are clearly shaking. That’s amusing, that turns up the corners of Harry’s lips. One nudges the other with his elbow, chuckles helplessly against his shoulder, and then they fall apart. Their clicks becoming clapping as they present Louis to his waiting crowd.
Louis, who is as upbeat and flirty as his track choice when he comes marching out onstage, his hand held against his quiff in salute of his rapt audience. He’s got this spangled sailor’s hat perched on his hair at a sassy angle, his lips are toffee apple red and Harry’s so thankful that doesn’t have to hide his appreciation tonight. He beams all big instead and gets to his feet to get a better look at the star; crows with his neighbors when Louis begins a shimmy. The movement is fluid through from his shoulders to his turned in toes and Louis pauses in that pose, with his small hands crossed demurely over his crotch. He flutters his lashes.
“Thank you m’loves, you’ve done me proud,” He smiles and blows each khaki-clad boy a kiss before they back off stage. “How about a round of applause for Zayn and Li, guys? Excellent! Now, let me tell you people a story,” Louis swaps poses with a flick of his rather curvaceous behind and daintily rests one hand at his waist. He’s wearing hot pants and a white tee that scoops low beneath his collar bones. Striped suspenders which he snaps before he begins, “I met him out for dinner on a Friday night, he really got me working up an appetite. He had tattoos up and down his arm and there ain’t nothing more dangerous than a boy with charm. You know the kind, I mean, right?”
After what Harry understands to be his introduction [and shit, but didn’t it punch at his heart like a fist] Louis doesn’t say another word. It’s his dancing tells the rest of his tale: each shy drop of his chin towards his chest, each flourish of his hand before he gives his plush backside a spank, the pouting of his glossy lips. To begin with, he skitters back from his crowd like a spooked kitten, though in no time at all he’s grinding and riding the air. He even unclips and tosses his suspenders; spinning in a sudden pirouette as they collide with the stage.
Harry doesn’t want to acknowledge the twitch in his boxers when he witnesses that; doesn’t want to when Louis sinks to his knees and readjusts his hat, either. And then when the song fades into silence and Louis ends with a spectacular tugging off of his shirt to reveal Loose Lips Sink Ships scrawled over his chest, finger ‘shushing’ in front of his lips? Harry has to rush to purchase another drink.
“Whiskey on the rocks, please,” He rasps, and Lavender Beehive serves him with a wise smirk.
“You young ones, takes nothing at all does it?” She grins and reaches to ruffle her acrylic nails through Harry’s curls, “Now you wait ‘ere, you hear me? It’ll be worth it. “
Part 3