Smoke and Mirrors (extremely canon story)

2

"Hey, Lou," Harry says after a long quiet, and Louis startles. He can get lost in his head when Harry's quiet for a while. Sometimes he thinks the only thing that's actually real is Harry's voice. That's why they talk on the phone every single day no matter what. If he doesn't hear Harry he might lose his mind!

"Yeah?" he says, relieved.

"I was scrolling through my secret Tumblr like I do every night, checking on our real fans who understand all the clues we're sending, making sure they're staying strong even through that Father's Day shit-"

"Wait, bulletproofhalo or worshippedlove?"

"All of them! They're all such incredible critical thinkers. I hope they out us soon." Harry sighs. "Anyway, I saw such an adorable post about you using sign language with that little deaf girl at the charity match!"

Louis preens. He doesn't love to think about Soccer Aid, because he barely got to play even though he was the most famous person there and they totally used his name for promo, but that was pretty cute of him. Louis even leaned down and whispered Larry is real in the deaf girl's ear, and she had no clue!

"God, you're so good with kids. I can't wait til you get to be a dad for real, Louis. You'll only be a real dad when it's with me."

"I know." Louis sniffles. "I hate that I had to take that stupid, awkward, extra photo yesterday with Eric-"

"Elliott?"

"Whatever." Louis flips his fringe back. "It just grosses me out that he was, like, made by a boy fucking a girl. Like, that's just so gross, I didn't even want to touch his fat little hand. I can't even look at him without thinking about it."

"Well," Harry says, slowly. "Lou-bear. Like... when we have a baby it's going to need to be made that way too. It's biology, y'know, the penis needs to go into the vag-"

"Ugh, shut up!" Louis rubs his temples. "Sorry, daddy, I didn't mean to snap at you. I just hate hearing the v-word."

"I know. Me too." Harry sighs. "If only everyone had dicks. If only I could get pregnant."

"But I'd have to top! And I'm so small! How would that even work?" Louis shudders. "Can we talk about something else?"

"Of course we can, little one."

They both fall silent.

"Oh, hey," he says suddenly. "That deaf kid reminds me. Remember the time on tour when we were talking in sign language during the show-"

"Which time?" Harry asks, chuckling. "We always talked in sign language, since we're both fluent."

"That time when we were dirty talking?" Louis giggles and takes a sensual bite of a carrot. Management doesn't let him eat carrots in public, just fast food and venti lattes. Somedays he's so hungry for nutrients after a long day of stunting that he eats the whole bag!

"Mm, I still need you to narrow it down, baby boy," Harry murmurs.

Louis gags himself on a carrot in excitement and wipes spit off his mouth. "That time we were signing about you eating my arse later, and we didn't realize that little deaf kid was standing in the front row and could see everything?"

He cackles. "Her face!"

Harry laughs. "Oh my god, I do remember that. I felt so bad."

"I mean, she has to learn sometime." Louis shrugs. "She was probably a het girl anyway."

"I think she was like seven years old."

Louis shrugs and pops the last bit of carrot in his mouth. "Still. Bitch."