Burn to ash

Chapter 4

The next morning, there's an email in his inbox, listing the promo schedule and all the rehearsals for the tour. Looks like management has scheduled about a month of rehearsals. Louis thinks even that extended period of time might not be enough. It's been so long since they've sung together, performed together. Louis is pretty certain t hey're going to be a fucking disaster.

There's also a finalized list of tour dates, and it's not nearly as long as Louis thought it might be. There's a handful in Europe, then about twenty dates in the US. The venues too aren't that big. These will be much more. . . intimate . . .Lou thinks . Definitely more Up All Night versus Where We Are. He's not sure if he's happy or sad about this, but he wonders if the size of the venues is more in line with what management thinks they can actually sell out.

One Direction has been broken up for five years. New boy bands have come and taken their place and moved on as well. They still have their hardcore fans, of course, but even they seemed to become vaguely over it . He can see, from the details and the stage planning, they are going for a very nostalgic feel with the production design , prob ably trying to capture the casual fan who wants to relive their fading youth.

It hurts so much to revisit the past, Louis was hoping they would stay more permanently focused on the future, on turning a new page for the band, even though he has zero intention of ever doing this again. No new album, no more tours, no interviews. Nothing. But he still hates the idea of spending the next four months of his life living in the past.

Rehearsals don't start for three more days, but Louis glances at the schedule and groans when he sees himself penciled in to see Lou Teasdale this morning for a haircut and then for an interview tomorrow. And even worse, there's a two hour meeting before the interview, which means coaching on what they will all say.

Of course there's going to be coaching, he thinks, management doesn't want him to slip up now, after so many years of successfully (or maybe not so successfully) hiding the truth. Or for any of the lads to say just how much they hate Harry now.

He takes a shower and doesn't bother styling his hair, which admittedly is kind of a wreck these days. He tries to get in to see Lou, but more often than not, he doesn't bother because nobody, including himself, gives a shit what he looks like anymore. But he does shave, mostly because he knows his mustache beard combination is ragged as hell.

When he glances up in the bathroom mirror while brushing his teeth he's kind of amazed at how rough he really looks. Clearly, nobody was going to let him go on camera looking like a slob. He'd almost be grateful. . .but he isn't. The idea that they're still teenage heartthrobs dressing to impress is so ludicrous that he hopes management doesn't try it. But deep down, he knows better. It might be five years later, but nothing has really changed.

When he knocks on Lou's door, and she opens it, she gives him an astonished look and a squeak. Louis is almost offended. He didn't think he looked that bad.

"Going for the mountain man look, eh?" she asks fondly, ushering him into the kitchen.

He shrugs. And suddenly, though the word Harry has not even come up yet--how could it possibly, he's been there for less than thirty seconds--it's all he can think about. If Lou has seen Harry. If Lou's cut Harry's hair, which admittedly, from what Louis remembers at the meeting, looked better than his own. Maybe he went to see her first, before Zayn even.

"Louis," she says, turning to him, and suddenly her thin arms are around him and he's having to choke back sudden tears, because the way she sounds is so much the way he feels all the damn time now. "Are you okay?" she asks softly, into his jean jacket.

He can't even say anything. He's not okay, he's really, really not. But saying it out loud makes it all worse.

She pulls back and brackets her hands around his face. "I can't even think what you're feeling right now. God , how was it when you saw him?"