Sugar & Kisses || Larry ||

Scared baby - 7

The show goes great in the first half, they are running around singing and having a great time. The fans are really engaged and all the boys remember their lines, so far at least. 

When the time comes for their new song to be sung Liam stands up in the middle, tall and smiling; "We are so amazed by you lot! This is a great show for us to sing our newest song! It will come out in 3 days from now on, I hope you lot love it, cause we love it and I for one am ecstatic for us to sing it today!" He yells and raises his arms, showing his happiness and excitement. 

Louis sneaks a peek at Harry, who is standing and admiring the crowd. He does that often when he isn't singing, just staring out with a little smile on his lips. Louis loves it. 

But Louis is anxious, he knows logically it should be fine, cause the fans don't know the lyrics and won't know if he sings them wrong, well, until they hear it for real. But he is still slightly shaking from the anxiety cursing through his veins. 

What if he messes up? What if the other boys hate him? What if he stutters and they know he is nervous? His mouth is dry, he really needs a drink, especially alcohol. That would calm his nerves and make it more bearable to feel these feelings, they might not even be there if he just had one drink, or two. 

As he hears the music for the song start blaring through his in-ears, he feels a slow warm hand rubbing his shoulder, he instantly knows it's Harry's. Louis turns around and looks Harry dead in the eyes, almost begging silently for just one drink, for Harry to take all his thoughts and anxiety away, but he doesn't. 

Harry just smiles sympathetically. Louis' eyes are begging him, and he feels like it might be for a drink or a smoke, or just for freedom in some way, he doesn't know how to give it to him. 

They are on stage so they can't be as touchy as Harry feels they need to. He wants to hug Louis and let him nuzzle his tired face into his shoulder. But no, they have to pretend to be bros. 

He wants to be able to give Louis the comfort he needs, just sucks that he can't right now. Instead, he takes out Louis in-ear and whispers in his ear; "It'll be alright, darling, just breathe, it will be over soon and you can rest. We practised it, remember?" 

Then Louis nods and forces a smile, but isn't sure who he is trying to convince. He will definitely mess this up. 

Harry makes the little movement of an exaggerated deep breath to show Louis to breathe. Louis gets the hint and starts forcing himself to breathe deeply until it is his time to sing. 

"Louis, in three... two... one..." His in-ears say as he moves the microphone up to his mouth, he hears the start of the verse and smoothly sings it, when it gets to the other end of the verse he seems on edge. His thoughts are running wild, worried about which lyrics are the right ones, but he tries to sing whatever fits best. And by the smile Harry and Zayn give him, he wasn't that far off. 

The little smiles he gets makes his confidence go up, and he starts running around a little more. He is jumping and looking into the crowd, taking in the good feeling there is booming from these fans. It is great. 

The countdown starts in his ears again and because he got the first part right he doesn't worry as much, he just sings. And it was good until the end line where Liam's head snaps towards him with worry and a little annoyance shown on his face. Louis instantly feels regret and sadness down on him, and tears fill his eyes and his throat closes a bit, he feels like he can't breathe.

Harry doesn't notice and keeps singing the next verse, which is his, Louis loves it, but he feels petrified and can barely stand up.  

Liam doesn't understand why Louis just stopped up and froze, he wants to check up on it, but Louis has been different these past few days, and he isn't sure why. He knows he's been trying to quit drugs and alcohol, but didn't know he actually stopped.