we'll live to tell the tale (l.s.)

epilogue

tw// mentions of past trauma

hi, this is kind of bittersweet. i'm glad to be done, but thank you so much for all the love you all have shown this fic. i'm going to spend the next couple of weeks editing everything, then hopefully start another one. i have a pretty good idea.

i currently have four songs recorded. anyone following my music should be hearing from me soon. i do apologize for how long this chapter has taken as a result of juggling so many things at once. i question the quality of my writing and my music on top of academics and just in general what my endgame is. but i've got time; we all do. 

again, thank you so much for following all this time. i cannot put into words how much you all mean to me. riyaaa, diaryofashydreamer, ilovelouhaz, ellie, sun, maddy, alana, marce, tiana. you guys are the best. those on ao3, if you would ever want to reach out to me, i would be happy to speak with anyone.

twitter: @louflymehome
discord: chae#5529
soundcloud, bandcamp, (eventually) spotify: newworldofmine

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they no longer live in the london condo; instead now residing in a large house they own all to themselves. harry insisted, when they were looking for a new flat, that they could still keep the condo for sentimental purposes, but louis only smiled lightly and said that it would be a waste, not only of their money, but to have such a beautiful place be uninhabited most days. better to allow it to continue along its own course of life, to allow someone newer, fresher, to break it in once more.

surely enough, just a week after they had vacated it, a single woman in her early twenties moved into the condo. years later, it is no longer just a single woman, but a her and her two children—identical little daughters with thin blonde hair pulled into two identical little pigtails on either sides of the heads. louis still walks there every once in a while, on tougher evenings and even tougher nights, and the place always seems so alive. he wonders, at times, how a single mother can manage to raise such energetic children all on her own, without killing a single spirit; one of her children's or of her own. but their spirits all seem very much intact, though he reckons he can't know for sure. after all, they've never talked to or visited the family; too busy or too shy or too nostalgic, they couldn't tell. perhaps it was a combination of all of them.

some nights, rare ones, when the mother cannot be found in what was once their study, and the entire area is pitch black, with no lights shining through the windows, louis can see shadows of their younger selves frolicking about in the kitchen, slow dancing and laughing and holding each other, repeating and hoping that this really would last forever.

and other nights, the more ruthless ones, he asks harry to come with him, to sit atop the hill together, watching the skyline against the moonshine. it calms him, reminds him of the times that he truly believed that things would never get better.

in a sense, he thought, maybe they haven't, because he still considers himself somewhat of the same person as before. because, sure, there are times that he considers himself happy, truly happy, but never recovered. he tells himself that he doesn't know exactly what recovery constitutes, and he would never give himself an adjective that he doesn't understand. recovered.

nightmares have, however, grown fewer and further between. they were of lesser intensity than before, too. on occasions, he still sees handshandshands, but when he wakes, it is harry that lies before him, and not the faceless men that he'd always been used to expecting. he's almost never in the squirmy state he found himself constantly in two decades before, recoiling at harry's touch. instead, he draws himself closer on these nights, letting arms slink around him and curling his head into the crook of harry's neck.