Chapter Text
Louis is in London sitting on his couch contemplating getting up to have a smoke (quitting be damned) when Niall’s caller ID pops up on his phone. He doesn't usually mind Niall ringing him, but 3am was pushing his hours of agreeable conversation.
He still answers immediately.
“Ni? you alright mate?”
“Louis! Have you seen the news?” Niall's panting. Hesitation in his voice.
Louis pauses, and then maybe panics just a bit. It’s not like he’s got anything terribly bad to hide, but if Niall is calling him at 3 in the morning to talk about something on the news, then there’s a good chance something leaked. Bad enough that it couldn’t wait until morning. He just hopes there weren’t any pictures of him and El from last night. He knew the car windows hadn’t been fully tinted.
“No, shit, what happened? Did something get leaked?” he asks.
Niall’s shaky laughter cuts through his panic.
“Of course not,” Niall sighs, “you think i’d be the one calling you if it did?”
Which Louis realizes is very true, and he’s now very confused.
“Then what’s going on mate? I’m surprised you’re up this late.” He lets his shoulders drop a bit, settling back into the couch. He didn’t realize he'd gotten so tense.
He hears rustling, like Niall had dropped his phone and hastily picked it back up, “You really need to go online more mate. Time travel.”
Like that makes any sense to Louis.
“Am I supposed to know what that means?” He laughs quietly.
“Turn on the news, any channel, I promise you’ll see it”
Now Louis is a very patient person he thinks, he has to be with his job, but it’s late, and he hasn’t had a smoke in two weeks, so he’s not feeling all that up to Niall’s jokes. “Niall I really don’t-"
“You and Harry were pictured at a restaurant together.”
And that’s.. well that's impossible.
It’s not that he and Harry don't get on. They do. They were best friends for the first two years of One Direction, so of course they got on. But, well, rumors blowing up about their supposed secret relationship hadn't made things all that easy. He and Harry hadn’t meant for things to become weird, but when the whole world is watching your every move, thinking you’re doing something you’re not, it becomes a bit tiresome.
Not to mention the strain it was putting on his relationship with Eleanor. The day she had cried about all the horrible things people were saying online was the day Louis realized he needed to take a bit of a step back from Harry. He didn’t really care if the fans thought he was gay. He knew who he was. But when his friendship with Harry was jeopardizing his real relationship, well, he can safely say he and Harry hadn’t been out together just the two of them in awhile.
They still talk when the boys are all together, and in interviews they try to make it look like most of their fan base thinking they're fucking doesn’t make things uncomfortable. But they both haven’t wanted to be all that close the past two years.
“Niall, that's really not funny,” he says, taking a deep breath. “Even if we were hanging out again, you know management would never let us get papped.”
“Louis, listen to me right now.” Niall replies, so seriously that Louis sits up.
“Alright, alright. What’s going on?” And maybe Louis is back to panicking.
“Look, pockets Louis.. or I don’t know, portals or something started opening up all over London. Only London. Like out of some fucking action movie, and people started just falling right through them,” Niall says fast, stuttering over his words. “People were saying it had to be a stunt, but over a hundred people came through. Fell right out of the sky. And then the pockets just.. closed again.” Niall pauses, clearly waiting for some reply. But Louis is still so confused.
“I’m confused.”
“Louis fuck . You and Harry fell out of some white ring in the sky onto a table in some restaurant looking about 3 years older then you are now. But it was very clearly the two of you.”
And.. what the fuck? Louis knows Niall has to be lying. It’s impossible, it makes no fucking sense, and it’s so late. But the way he’s saying it, so delicate and sincere, is starting to really freak Louis out. Niall is never delicate, and he wouldn’t bring up Louis and Harry together unless it was important.
“You’re not lying are you?” Louis asks quietly, pulling at the skin of his knees absentmindedly.
“No,” Niall replies. “A bunch of people started recording and some fans recognized you, and then news vans and paps were showing up out of nowhere trying to video it. No one knew what the fuck was going on until you.. or older you. Shit I don’t know. The weird you from the portal went right up to a pap and said, “‘We’re from 2017. Time travel is real and we’ll be gone in a year,”’ and then you and Harry or uh older you and Harry just.. ran away. Like literally ran away, and haven’t been seen since.”
“What the actual fuck?” is all Louis says back. He can’t breathe.
“Yea mate,” Niall says. “The last couple hours these weird guys have been rounding up all the people that fell through. Which apparently has been difficult since no one else that appeared were famous or anything. But 20 minutes ago they put a statement out confirming it on every news channel. Like the government, or whoever, fully confirmed time travel was real. But now they refuse to say anything else.” Niall stops, then takes a deep breath.
Louis has never been so confused or shocked in his life. He’s probably about ready to have a panic attack and all that comes out of his mouth is,
“Am I still hot?”
Nialls startled laughter bursts through the phone. It makes Louis feel a bit better.
“Look, just go on twitter mate. You and Harry are everywhere,” Niall says after a moment, “I’ve gotta call my mom man. Shit , This is crazy,” and he abruptly hangs up.
Which. Rude.
Louis listens anyway, and grapples to pull his phone from his pocket.
Like Niall said, a video of some weird older version of him and Harry is the first thing on his timeline when he logs into twitter. It’s blurry. Like a fan had tried to zoom in farther than the phone could take. But it’s real, and it’s clear enough that he knows it’s him. He can see some of his own tattoos on the arms of an older version of himself, stumbling out of the front doors of some restaurant called Linx. He hears himself yelling out “we’ll be gone in a year,” and he sees himself running. With a shorter haired version of Harry running right behind him.
And it’s just so weird.
Even weirder because it’s him and Harry. Harry, who he hasn’t been close to since 2012. Harry, who has his famous LA friends, and juice cleanses, and is now one of the most highly sought after men in the world. Harry, who hooks up with people like Taylor Swift and Kendall Jenner, who, as much as they play nice, is basically a stranger to Louis.
Harry.. who is apparently close enough with Louis in 2017, that he’s gripping the back of Louis’ shirt and running after him with a huge smile on his face, just like they did in 2012.
And Louis has no idea what to think of it.