Thank you for the tag @disgruntledkittenface ! I am currently trying to write so of course I want to do anything except write, and this was perfect. And a lot of fun!
rules: give us the links to your fics with the most hits, second most kudos, third most comments, fourth most bookmarks, fifth most words, and fic with the fewest words.
fic with the most hits: Not a huge surprise to me that it's Nothing But You On My Mind 😅almost since I posted that fic, it ran away with all the stats. I recently remembered that I posted that fic in March 2020, which is wild.
fic with the second most kudos: thinking about the t-shirt you sleep in was the first longer fic I wrote, and at the time I thought the longest fic I would ever write (lol)
fic with the third most comments: Party Lines surprised me in lots of ways while writing and after posting! Still the fic I've written with the most smut where no one actually touches anyone else
fic with the fourth most bookmarks: It's Always Better When We're Together -- epilogue to NBYOMM (thanks to a friend who sent me an image of a stained-glass car who saw it and had a perfect prompt for me)
fic with the fifth most words: 'cause I want you (for the worse and for the better) -- one of my newest fics!
fic with the fewest words: The fic I wrote literally while on a bus traveling in a different country because of a silly thing someone said: tried it with butter and everything changed
For those that'd like to/haven't done this already, I'll tag: @lululawrence @homosociallyyours @kingsofeverything @pocketsunshineharry @becomeawendybird @uhoh-but-yeah-alright @londonfoginacup
“Sorry,” Harry’s voice comes through, sounding a little further away this time. His voice gets clearer the longer he talks. “I’m sorry, I dropped the phone.”
“Oh, that’s okay.”
It’s quiet for a moment. Louis listens to Harry’s breathing and tries not to panic that he’s already done something wrong. Other than, you know, pretending to be an operator when he’s actually just the guy who connects the call. He has absolutely no training and no idea what to do. Sure, he’s done a bit of dirty talk with some past partners, but nothing so official. He’s not prepared on how to handle the silence.
“Sorry,” Harry says again. “I’m sorry, I really wanted to jump right in, but I think I’m too nervous.” He sighs. “Maybe this was a bad idea.”
“Hey,” Louis says, a little softer now from the distress in his voice. “It really is okay. I’m… I’m actually nervous too,” Louis says truthfully, looking at his computer screen and sighing.
Harry snorts. “Yeah sure.”
“What?”
“You do what, dozens of these calls a day? What’ve you got to be nervous about?”
“Truth be told,” Louis says, “I’m pretty new at this.” Started about two minutes ago, actually, he adds in his own head.
“Oh,” Harry says.
Ah, fuck. Maybe he shouldn’t have said that. Maybe Mr. Sexy Voice wanted someone worldly and experienced to walk him through this. Louis rolls his eyes at his own stupidity.
“That makes me feel better, actually,” Harry says then.
Oh. Okay. Okay, Louis can work with this. He loves comforting people. He can muscle his way through this.
“Good,” Louis says. “So… what did you do today?”
Harry giggles, and it makes Louis smile.
“We can start as slow as you want,” Louis says. “We can just talk, if you want. It doesn’t have to be, you know, that.”
Harry sighs. “But I do want that.”
“Okay,” Louis says, drawing out the ‘o’ a little in what he hopes comes across as understanding-but-curious.
“It’s just… so like…” He huffs. “I suppose… I don’t know you so I can just, like, say it right? Because I don’t know you and you can’t hold this against me and it doesn’t really matter.”
“Of course.”
“Right so, I’m just sort of starting the process of kind of… coming out. Maybe.”
Louis blinks at his monitor and feels his heart go a bit soft at that. “Congratulations,” he says.
“Thanks,” he says in an unsure voice.
“No really,” Louis reassures. “Even if you had the easiest time in the history of the world, there’s always that bit of stress, isn’t there? The build up, the fear… probably judgement from at least a couple of your dad’s friends who no longer know how to talk to you if it’s not about girls.”
That gets a big laugh from Harry. “Sounds like you know from personal experience.”
Louis raises his eyebrows and tilts his head to the side, shrugging even though no one’s there to see him. “Had a barbecue after finishing secondary school, just about a month after I’d told everyone, and three of my stepdad’s friends tried to ask me if I was going to uni for fashion. Not slagging off fashion or anything, but it was like they completely forgot I’d gotten a football scholarship. Would’ve rather them try to pretend to know anything about that instead.”
Harry giggles and the sound is tinny, like he’s pulled the phone away from his mouth.
“My nana asked me if it meant I didn’t believe in God anymore and my grandad bought me lipstick for my birthday last month.”
Louis laughs. “Did you wear it to mess with them?”
“Nah,” Harry says. “Gave it to my sister. It was a coral… so not my shade.”
“Love a man who knows his color wheel.”
Harry lets out a hiccup-y laugh. “Of course. I got it in my gay lifestyle welcome kit.”
“Oh, are they still giving those out? How many different flavoured condoms did you get?”
“None, unfortunately, for those of us who are too scared to even think of approaching a man they fancy.”
Louis smiles down at his keyboard. “There’s no need to rush, you know,” he says. “You don’t have to dive straight into chatting up blokes.”
“I know, I’m diving gay in.”
Louis pauses as the pun hits him, and then he groans. Harry’s giggling as he says, “That was awful.”
“Puns aren’t supposed to be good.”
“Yeah, but there’s not good and then there’s I-may-never-laugh-again terrible.”
“Oh no!” Harry says. “You’ve got such a lovely laugh. I’d be torn to bits if I was the reason you never laughed again.”
Louis feels himself blush a little. Which is just absolutely ridiculous. This isn’t flirting, Louis reminds himself. Harry is paying to talk to you, you’re providing a service. Man up for fuck’s sake.
“You sound angelic,” Louis says, wincing as he tries to gauge whether or not that sounds too cringe or not.
“Hmm,” Harry hums thoughtfully. “Can I be honest? Like maybe too honest?”
Louis pauses and then nods, before realizing again, Harry can’t see him. “Yes.”
“I don’t like your sexy voice.”
A laugh is startled out of Louis. “What?”
“I’m sorry!” Harry says, an edge of laughter to that as well. “I’m sure I’m the nutter here, like the only one who doesn’t, but I can’t help it. All I can picture is someone holding a rose in between their teeth and wiggling their eyebrows and it’s just not working for me.”
Louis is in absolute bits at that image, doubled over in his chair.
“Honest! It’s like you’re wearing a fedora and about to tell me my eyes look like a plush forest.”
Louis’ wheezing.
“That nothing means anything in the world if I’m not the girl by your side!”
“Okay, okay, enough!” he says. “Enough, enough. I get it. Gone, it’s gone. Oh fuck my stomach hurts. Christ, I haven’t laughed that hard in ages.”
Harry lets out a pleased noise on the other end of the line.
“So no voices,” Louis says. “What’re you into then?”
“Dunno,” Harry says, and then he sighs. “I feel like I haven’t had the chance to figure it out yet.”
“Well, here’s the perfect place to start, love. You’ve already shit all over me voice—”
“Just the fake sexy voice!” Harry interrupts.
“—so I think we can be open and honest with each other. What do you think you’d like? What’ve you liked before?”
Louis watches the screen in front of him go black from being idle for so long. His heart picks up as he rushes to keep it on, and panic-checks his logs. Okay, okay, Sam and Patrick are free now, but no one’s waiting in the queue thank god.
“Suppose I like to be taken care of,” Harry says quietly. “And taking care of someone else. The last— like the relationship I was in before… it was all about making her feel good, for me.”
Louis nods and makes a noise to show he’s listening.
“I like being held.”
“Mhm.”
“And I like… ugh, I’m really not sure.”
“That’s okay,” Louis’ quick to say. “It’s all okay, Harry. There’s no wrong answers for what you like.”
“I feel like ‘I don’t know’ isn’t a great one.”
“It’s an honest one,” he says sincerely. “You wanted me to pretend I was your boyfriend at the start, right?”
“Yeah,” Harry breathes out. “Everything else just feels to much, y’know? Like I just want to be good at things straight away, or at least pretend I’m good at them.” He chuckles a little hollowly. “Suppose I mucked that up quite quickly here.”
“C’mon,” Louis says. “I’m so happy you let me know.” And he is. He feels much more relaxed now, like he’s talking to a friend, or maybe a long-term boyfriend, if he had one of those recently. “We’ve gotten to know each other a bit, which is nice. But we don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. We have been on for nearly twenty minutes now, and I’m sure your credit card will feel that in the morning. We can call it a night, if you want?”
Oi, Louis, shut the fuck up about ending calls early, he thinks. That’s gotta be like, rule number one of phone-sex-operating.
A pause. In a quiet voice, he hears Harry say, “No.”
Louis can’t help but smile. “Should we try again? From the top?” Harry giggles and immediately, Louis adds, “Don’t you dare make a topping joke.”
Which makes Harry laugh really hard for a full minute before it drifts out into soft, lovely giggles.
thank you @daggerandrose for the tag (almost a week ago, but that’s life right now, you know)! I’m in editing mode, so this is the last line I re-wrote:
“Okay,” Louis says carefully, “but remember… say sunflower if there’s anything you don’t like.”
Tagging @disgruntledkittenface @lululawrence @uhoh-but-yeah-alright @indiaalphawhiskey @allwaswell16 @scrunchyharry @greenfeelings @homosociallyyours @kingsofeverything @twopoppies @soldouthaz @wabadabadaba @scrunchyharry @vintageumbroshirt to share the last line you wrote (if you’d like!).
A chat box from Zayn pops up while he’s in the middle of taking down someone’s credit card information. He ignores it until he’s passed the caller into Brittney’s queue.
Zayn: So there’s a dude named Harry on hold asking for “Louis”? Is that a new guy?
Louis freezes. Fuck. Before he can fully process, three dots pop up to show Zayn is typing again.
Zayn: Or did someone use your name as another one of their fake names?
Double fuck.
Louis starts and stops typing several times, trying to think of what to say. Like, I have no idea who that could be, maybe transfer him to Sam? And oh, yeah, I think I remember transferring him the other night he must’ve been confused. Before he can settle on anything that makes sense and doesn’t throw himself under the bus, Zayn replies again.
Zayn: I’m transferring him over.
A new call pops into his queue and clicks on before he even has time to process. Doubly double fuck.
“Hello?” he hears Harry’s voice say.
“Hi,” Louis says shakily. “Um… hi.”
A pause. “Louis?”
“Um, yes. Hi. Hello.”
It’s quiet for an excruciatingly long five seconds. “Hi, um,” Harry says then. “Sorry, it’s Harry. I called a couple of weeks ago and we talked.” Harry pauses again, like he’s waiting for him to say something, but Louis’ mind is completely blank. “I told you I was starting to come out to people? You, um… you grinded on me? Well, not actually, because this is through the phone, but you talked about grinding on me? It felt like you grinded on me.” Another pause. “I’m… sorry, I’m really trying to get you to remember me but maybe you just have too many callers. And that’s okay!” There’s a slight panic in his voice now. “I didn’t expect you to remember me. Or… that’s a lie, I did expect you to remember me, because I’ve been thinking about that call practically nonstop since it happened and can’t get out of my own head to think it probably wasn’t the same for you. Fuck, okay. Sorry. I guess I can--”
“Harry,” Louis interrupts. Harry stops babbling and Louis takes a deep breath, dropping his voice lower to almost a whisper. “I remember you, baby.”
There’s a sharp intake of breath. “Oh,” he says. “Why did you let me go on and on for so long!”
"Thank you for your patience," Louis says. "We're experiencing higher-than-normal activity at the moment."
"That's alright. Thank you for letting me know," the voice on the other end says. Mmm, Louis thinks. He thought he'd switched Mr. Sexy Voice over to Will, but he was obviously further down the list than he realized.
Louis bites his lip. "I know you said your preference was male," he says. "But if you're more flexible, Cali is available."
A brief pause. "Um... if it's too much trouble, I can call back another time."
"Oh, no wait," Louis says. Fuck, he thinks. He already lost one called tonight, he doesn't want to lose another; the more calls he loses, the worse it looks for him, that he’s not able to encourage callers to stay on, isn’t making his lads and ladies sound enticing enough.
Fuck fuck fuck. "Sorry..." Fuck. "I've got someone coming off a call now." No he doesn't. Who’s the closest to being done? "Um... his name is... Louis." F u c k.
"Oh, great," Mr. Sexy Voice says. “And um... sorry to ask but, could you tell him my name? I don’t want the awkward introduction. I just... want to pretend he’s my boyfriend. Or something.” He chuckles a bit self-deprecatingly. “Sorry, is that too much information?”
“No,” Louis says, endeared and also kicking himself. “Um, no I’ll let... Louis know. What’s your name?”
“Harry,” Mr. Sexy Voice says. “Thank you.”
"Great okay..." Louis says, and then he clears his throat. "Just... one moment. Yeah, just a moment.”
Louis puts the call on hold and then tips his head back, staring up at the ceiling with wide eyes. He has two choices. He can leave Harry on hold a little while longer and hope someone comes off their call soon enough that he doesn’t hang up. Or...
Louis sits up, clears his throat again and pitches his voice a little lower as he clicks the phone back to Harry. “Hi Harry, I’m so happy you called me, babe.” Louis hears a blissful sigh on the other end of the line. Fuck.
*
Or Louis works for a phone-sex operating company, collecting credit card information and transferring calls to different operators. On a particularly busy night, everyone is booked up, and one caller has been patiently waiting for more than a few minutes. In a split second decision --one he's probably going to regret-- Louis picks up the call himself.
Send me a made-up fic title and I’ll write a summary for it!
