Larry Stylinson Oneshots

Celebrating the back catalogue.

Author:  orphan_account

Summary: The Boat that Rocked/Pirate Radio!AU. Off the coast of England, Louis and Harry are rival radio hosts on the greatest illegal rock'n'roll radio station around. Liam reports the news and weather, Zayn has the midnight shift, and Niall is the station manager.

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Louis finds out the news over the radio, which is a shit way to find out because he works for the goddamn radio. There should be, he thinks, someone whose job it is to keep him up to date so he doesn’t have to hear over the goddamn radio on the station that he works for that Harry Styles is coming back to Radio Rock after eight months in America.

He especially shouldn’t have to hear it for the first time in the middle of his shift, during the regular break for news updates. When the news ends, Louis puts on an even longer live version of what is already a rather long song for the next track, giving him just over nine minutes to find out what the hell is going on.

He goes to Liam first, because Liam does the news (and weather) and therefore ought to have the details, and ought to be responsible for keeping Louis up to date on any news, especially news involving Harry Styles and his return from America.

“I thought he was across the pond for good,” Liam says, thumbing through a thick sheaf of papers that have just come over from the mainland. “Him and—“ he cuts off the end of the sentence like Louis won’t know what he was about to say.

Louis ignores the slip; Liam didn’t mean anything by it, and Louis doesn’t have a response anyway. Harry was supposed to stay abroad, off to America where the rock music they played was celebrated, not ostracised. Where Nick had moved after some kerfuffle on the BBC.

Louis hadn’t minded, really, at least outwardly, at least as far as the music went. Harry leaving had left him with the undisputed number one spot when it came to the ratings on their station—not that ratings meant much when the station was illegal by its very nature, and when nobody but Louis wanted the evening spot that was left open when Harry went.

Still, it was better than thinking that he’d been left with nothing at all.

“Louis?” Liam says, pulling him back to the present.

“You didn’t know anything about it before this?” Liam shakes his head and Louis tries to decide if he should believe him. On one hand, it’s not like Liam to hide things, especially from Louis. But on the other, being the only one of them interested in much more than rock and roll and causing trouble (not necessarily in that order) means that there isn’t much that happens in relation to the ship that escapes his notice, and if something as big as legendary Radio Rock deejay Harry Styles’ imminent return is not only important onboard but is surely newsworthy enough to go out over the airwaves, he would figure Liam had details on it.

Liam’s expression is innocent enough, though, so Louis trusts his word and heads off to see who else knows that Harry is coming back. It’s just after seven p.m. which means Zayn won’t be up for several hours yet, and it’s been four minutes since Louis put “Suite Judy Blue Eyes” on the record player, which means he has five minutes left before he has to be back in the booth, not enough time to wake champion sleeper Zayn Malik. Instead, he goes upstairs to find Niall.

+

As soon as Louis walks into the office that Niall had been given when he took over the role of station-manager-slash-captain following Simon’s decision to give up the rusty, rolling Radio Rock ship for a yacht in the Mediterranean, Niall pours him a drink. He hands it over in a way that is decidedly a peace gesture, which means he knows why Louis is there. But Louis could use a drink, and he has—he pauses, listens to the sound of the radio on Niall’s desk—approximately three and a half minutes to get the information his wants, and, once more, he could really use a drink, so he accepts the glass.