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English
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Published:
2013-07-28
Completed:
2013-07-28
Words:
62,360
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20/20
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Anything for a Vote

Summary:

Harry was used to his father controlling his life. Everyone in the family was used to it after all the years his father had been in politics. But perhaps he should have drawn the line at an arranged marriage. So why had the sight of Louis Tomlinson made all his defiance disappear?

Louis Tomlinson loved his job. Most people didn’t understand why, but he just loved being involved behind the scenes of a political campaign. He was quite shocked however when the senator suggested Louis marry his son to give his campaign that extra edge it needed. He was even more shocked that he had agreed.

Notes:

Thank you for reading and please let us know what you think here or on tumblr (pocketfuloflouis.tumblr.com). Some of you may prefer to read on tumblr because some chapters have links to relevant visual aids FYI.
Also, whenever Harry talks or texts it's in Bold
Whenever Louis talks or texts it's Italic

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Chapter 1: Prologue

Chapter Text

~Robin’s POV~

I am Senator Robin Twist from Vermont. I am going to be running for president. Years ago, I decided that I wanted to run for the 2016 election. It seemed simple enough. I have a phenomenal staff, a perfect wife named Anne, a stepdaughter in college, Gemma, and a stepson named Harry; I just couldn’t help but feel that something was missing.

I had many people working for my campaign and getting prepared for the grand announcement eight months from now in February. The problem was, I couldn’t figure out what was missing. None of my advisors were any help, so I started watching for others who could come up with a solution to my problem.

I spent a month watching before I finally had an idea of who could give me the answer I wanted: Louis Tomlinson. He has been working on my campaign throughout his three years of college and had excelled to the point where he was hired right out of college. He was young, exuberant, and hadn’t been bogged down by years of working in the field. If anyone had the answer, it would be him.

~Louis’ POV~

I was sitting at my desk reworking a presentation in order to give it visual appeal and hopefully keep people awake. Next thing I know, the Senator’s personal, I mean personal, assistant approached me. This was unheard of for first year workers.

“Are you Louis Tomlinson?” He asked and I nodded.

“The Senator would like to see you in his office now.” He left no room to question him, so I saved and closed out what I was working on.

I followed him to the Senator’s office, and while I may have appeared calm on the outside, internally I was a panicked mess. I have no idea why he would want to talk to me. My work had been good and even if it wasn’t, he didn’t fire people personally. I didn’t have any feuds with anyone else and I had even managed to get a few compliments from the higher ups.

I was surprised when I walked into his office and he looked excited. He has this excited energy to him that would have been contagious had I not been so nervous. The assistant was dismissed as soon as I walked through the door. Then all his attention was on me.

“Hello, Louis. Please have a seat.” I sat down immediately. My calm façade must have cracked because he immediately tried to reassure me.

“Louis, you’re not in any trouble.” That was a relief, but I still didn’t understand why he would want to talk to me.

“I have been watching your work as of late and have come to the consensus that you could potentially have the solution to my problem. You see my campaign is missing that edge that puts me above the rest and I can’t quite figure out what is missing. Do you have any ideas, perchance?”

I was stunned into temporary silence. Of all the ideas rolling through my head that had not been one of them. Of course my filter disappeared when I opened my mouth.

“Are you serious, Sir?” At least I had remembered to tack the sir on at the end.

“Quite serious.” He responded.

“You see you, unlike your various counterparts, have new ideas. You haven’t been constricted by norms. So yes, I want your ideas.”

“Then may I be frank, Sir?” I just wanted to make sure I couldn’t get in trouble before my mind went into problem solving mode and dissolved my mental filter into nothing.

“Of course, Louis. Oh, and no matter what is said, it won’t cost you your job.” I nodded my head in acknowledgement, but I was already lost in my thought process.

I knew what the Senator’s campaign was missing, but I just wasn’t quite sure how he would take the news. He seemed like he genuinely wanted an answer, but politicians were good at keeping a calm façade. I struggled for about five minutes until I decided to tell him; worst-case scenario he shoots it down, so what have I got to lose?

“Sir?”

“Yes?”

“I know what’s missing in your campaign. But first you have to promise to listen to my whole idea before you comment.”

“Okay, I promise.”

“So here it is. You know how social issues and gay rights are becoming a really popular topic?”

“Yeah.”

“And everyone’s talking about gay rights and supporting it in theory, but not really personally involved?”

“Keep going”

“Well, sir, I think you need to be directly involved. And by that I think you need your son to come out as gay.”

“What?!” He exclaimed. I knew I was in deep shit. I’d probably be assigned to paperwork duty for the rest of the campaign. I just had to wait for the shoe to drop and accept whatever came out of his mouth next.

“Wait, that’s brilliant!”

“What?” This time it was my turn to be surprised. He just ignored me and started muttering under his breath.

“Who would it be? He would have to be involved in a committed relationship, engaged or married. He would have to be involved with someone committed to the politics in order to keep him in check. He would have to already be involved in order to save us the work of having to integrate him into the system. But who could it be…” He looked at me.

“Perfect.” He practically purred.

“What’s perfect, Sir?” I was genuinely confused.

“You are.”

“Come again? I’m not exactly following your train of thought, Sir.”

“You’d be perfect. You could say you two met up at the office and started talking. It just took off from there; you didn’t mean for it to happen, but it just did. You could keep him in check and away from the alcohol and parties. You already love politics, so that’s a plus. You would be compensated of course, nice house, with him obviously, access to money for all your expenses and a bonus for every year you stay on. It will be perfect!”

“Excuse me Sir, but what do you mean?” I was still lost.

“You’re going to marry Harry of course.”

And that was how this whole charade began.