Fifteen Minutes (Zarry AU)

Chapter 1

FOUR YEARS LATER

 

People should fall in love with their eyes closed.

~ Andy Warhol

 

Not bad for a Wednesday, Harry thinks as he roots through the loose change at the bottom of his guitar case. He’s made about eleven quid, eleven quid and a strawberry Starburst, which is his favourite, so life is good. And he got through five songs, which also isn’t bad, especially for Kings Cross. Most of the time he’s lucky to get through a song and a half before the transport police show up to move him along, but not today. Today was one of those perfect days, the thick clouds suddenly giving way to a burst of mid-morning sunshine so bright it made the whole of London look brand new.

It made Harry feel brand new as well. He’s never normally up and dressed before midday, but when he felt the sun bleeding through the gap in his curtains to settle in a warm line across his chest, he stirred like a drowsy cat. ‘Who died?’ his housemate, Chloe, called out from the kitchen when she heard Harry coming down the stairs and Harry laughed, telling her that he’d see her later as he headed for the front door.

When he pulled it closed behind him, he stood on the doorstep for a moment, looking up at the unbroken blue sky and he can’t remember the last time it was that colour. It’s been miserable for so long – winter refusing to make way for spring like a gatecrasher that won’t leave a party – that he closed his eyes and drank it in, drank in every drop of sun until it had seeped through his clammy skin and warmed his blood.

He wishes every day could be like today because everything’s softer when it’s sunny. Happier. People are in a good mood; they walk a little slower, drive a little slower, their windows down and their sleeves rolled up to expose elbows that haven’t seen the sun for months. Harry had to shrug off his red plaid shirt before he got to Kings Cross so he must have looked like something from an ad for washing powder as he stood there with his guitar, his t-shirt brilliant white in the bright, bright sun.

It’s been so long since he needed them that he couldn’t find his sunglasses, so he stood with his back to it, but he could still feel it burning through his t-shirt, so by the end of his first song, his scalp was tingling with sweat. He probably should have moved, but as he stood there, looking across the road at the mural over Barclay’s bank, he could have been in Barcelona. Thinking about it now he wants to laugh, because Kings Cross, with its endless heave of traffic and grubby, chewing gum studded pavements, is hardly Barcelona. But it’s amazing where you can be if you want to be and as Harry closed his eyes and felt the sun on his cheek, he was in Barcelona.

That’s when it's worth it, days like today, when people just let him sing. No one threw rubbish in his guitar case or shouted, ‘You’re shit!’ as they drove past. Even the transport police officers who came to move him on waited for him to finish his song before the taller one clapped and said, ‘Take a bow, Johnny Cash.’

Harry asked if they had any requests before he did because he’s a cheeky fucking fucker, apparently, or so he’s been told. Harry prefers to think of himself as playful. They didn’t, of course, and while he’s cheeky, he isn’t stupid so he put down his guitar.

Eleven quid for five songs is hardly a healthy return, especially as he didn’t earn a penny for Kill the Night. That usually makes his guitar case feel a little heavier as he walks back to the bus stop because before he moved to London he daydreamed about busking, of singing his songs to a small but amazed crowd. It was only a matter of time, he thought. One day a record producer would stop and ask, ‘Did you write that?’ and that would be it. But it’s been two years and there’s been no record producer. The most he’s earned for one of his songs is fifty pence and that’s not how this was supposed to go.