1960s drag fic WIP (narry)
hiiii i wrote a little bit from the beginning of the 1960s drag fic that @harrybasquiat and I are working on! this might all change (we’re going to try to cowrite, maybe!!), but I wanted to just start experimenting with their dynamic a bit. here’s a very rough draft of an early scene. niall’s come to the club and seen harry perform once before, but arrived in the middle of his set and missed the introductions. they meet very briefly after harry’s set, and then niall returns the next night to try and talk to harry.
*
“Hello,” the boy said, leaning against the bar. He was holding a pale green cocktail, pinching the stem of his glass delicately between his thumb and forefinger, and the way he smiled at Niall made it feel like they were old friends. “Looking for someone, love?”
Niall’s face must’ve been pink already. He turned his hat in his hands, thumb rubbing against the silk band inside to comfort himself.
“I don’t mean to be rude,” he said. “I only—there was a girl, last night. I didn’t catch her name. She sang on the stage, just there.” He glanced at the empty stage, where the band was beginning to set up for the evening. “The man at the door - he said I’d find her in here, at the bar. Do you know her?”
The boy laughed. He had a nice laugh, low and rich. “Nicholas,” he said, looking over the bar. “Did you hear that?”
“Louis’s very kindly sent an admirer,” he said. “How thoughtful of him, don’t you think?”
The bartender closed the till and came over. It was the same one who had served Niall a pint last night, the tall man with dark hair and smiling eyes. “Oh, it’s you again,” he said to Niall. “Have to come back later if you want to see the show. The girls don’t go on till ten.”
“Oh, I - I’m not here for the show,” Niall said, as politely as he could. “Or - I’ll come back to see it, I mean. It was wonderful, really. But I thought - if she were here, the girl from last night, I might - I might talk to her.”
“Isn’t he sweet, Nick,” the boy said, looking as if he might laugh again. “I told you he was sweet.”
Nick only sighed. “Harry,” he said. “You’d better set him straight.”
Niall looked at him, then at Harry. Then he understood, and his face went even hotter. This Harry must be her boyfriend - or no, her brother maybe. Same dark hair, same pale green eyes. It had been a joke, sending him back here. Probably they were laughing at him, all three of them, Harry and Nick and that man, Louis, at the door.
He fumbled with his hat, nearly dropping it. “I’m sorry,” he said, ducking his head. “Sorry, I - I meant no disrespect. I won’t trouble you again.”
Stupid of him, coming back. He wished he had just left it, if only so that later, sitting on his narrow bed alone, he’d have something nice to think on: the dark, glossy sheen of the girl’s curls and the rosy flush burning high in her pale cheeks. The perfect pink bow of her mouth, her lips brushing soft against his cheek as she leaned in close to thank him. Stupid to think a girl like that might’ve seen something worth wanting in a boy like him.
“You’re going?” Harry sounded surprised.
“It’s all right,” Niall said, not looking at either of them. “I’ll clear out now, and you - you can tell her I’ve gone, then. I won’t bother her again.” He turned, trying to keep himself from flushing an even darker red.
Harry caught his sleeve. He’d set his drink down on the bar.
“You’re not bothering,” he said. “I wouldn’t have asked you back last night, if I’d thought you’d be a bother.”
Niall looked at him, confused. “But you - ”
“I’m her,” Harry said. “It’s an act, you see? My act. Harry Styles, female impersonator. Every night I do a few songs, play the piano a bit, talk like a famous film star, and in exchange I get free drinks and I keep the tips, too.”
“And you get to stay in the flat, rent-free,” Nick reminded him, from where he was clearly eavesdropping under the pretense of cleaning the taps.
Harry made a face at Niall. “It’s hardly a flat. More of a cupboard, really.”
“If you’d like to be sleeping rough again - ”
“It’s enormous,” Harry said promptly, in a loud voice. “Really I’ve got no idea what to do with all that space. Did you know, if you stand in the middle of the room and stick your arms straight out, there’s still inches between your fingers and the wall? It’s palatial, really.”
Niall was still processing. “You sang those songs,” he said slowly, trying to work it out. “And you had on - you wore a dress, and lipstick. You had lipstick, didn’t you?”
“Won’t leave the house without it,” Nick snorts.
“Hush,” Harry said tartly to him. To Niall, more gently, he said, “I’m a performer, love, it’s my job. My calling, you might say.”
Now that Niall looked at him, really looked at him, he supposed he could see it. Harry had the same slight build, the same narrow hips. And he was lovely, too: not handsome but lovely, even delicate, with his high cheekbones and wide green eyes set in a thin, pale face. Oddly, like this — without makeup on his face, without that long, clinging silver dress that Niall had thought of all day — Harry looked even softer, more feminine than he had on stage.
“You’re not a girl?” he said dumbly.
“Such a complicated question,” Harry said. “And a bit boring, don’t you think, though people always seem to be asking it. I’m Harry Styles, that’s what I tell them.” He picked up his glass again, surveying Niall over the rim. “If it’s a girl you’ve been looking for, you’d be best off looking elsewhere.”
He was smiling still, though there was a slight brittleness to it. By now Nick given up the pretense of not eavesdropping entirely. He was staring at Niall from behind the bar, with a grim look that managed to imply the existence of a loaded shotgun somewhere in the back, with which Niall could easily be chased off the premises.
It made Niall laugh out loud. It startled all three of them, he thought, but he couldn’t help it. He felt delighted suddenly, almost giddy, the happiest he’d been in all the long, dreary months he’d lived in the city.
“It’s you, actually,” he said to Harry, smiling at him. “It’s you I was looking for.”
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