BUTTERFLY EFFECT🦋 (L.S.) [finished]

CHAPTER 27

Louis had ben walking on baby pink cotton candy sugar clouds since last night. He had an amazing boyfriend, and he was very much in love with him. Even if Harry had yet to say he loved him back, he would when he felt ready.

If Louis had learnt something was to not rush things, to let them evolve naturally. Universe, karma, God, life, call it what you may, but it usually has its ways of making every piece fall into its perfect little place.

He had learnt to be patient, and let Harry dance at his own tempos, give him the space, the trust, the safety net he needed.

Louis was walking home an hour earlier from school that day, immersed in his thoughts, when he had a really bad feeling deep in his gut. Harry had been called to go home at lunch break, an emergency at home apparently. Joking it must be his mum complaining about not being able to have a shower because she was unable to deal with the water heater in their house, the boy with the curls headed home, not before dropping a kiss on the lips to his lover boy.

As a lighting crossed the sky and thunder made Louis' insides tremble, he checked his phone again, growing anxious at its emptiness of messages.

He decided to make a little detour and check on them.

***

'Anne, Anne, listen to me, breathe.'

Harry locked eyes with Jay, worried matching frowns on display. He hadn't been able to stop her from crying, she had gone frantically through tissue boxes for two hours straight. Not knowing what to do, he called her mum's best friend asking for her help and all the tissues she had in her house.

'It's hic...just...hic... ridiculous...' Anne let between sobs, the first words she had said in hours.

'What is ridiculous mum? What happened?'

'Hector...'

'What did he do now sweetie? Because I'll fight him! Something happened with the trial? It's soon... What did he do?!'

'Y...yeah, I hic...guess y...you can t...try and hic...fight him, how f...friends are you w...with hic... the devil?'

'Mum, what on eart are you saying? What did that monster I had for a father do now?' Harry grabbed Anne by the shoulders, shaking her.

'Exactly t...that, the monster you had for a father. He died.'

'Anne.'

'Mum.'

'What do you mean...'

'...he's dead!?'

'He was going into his lawyer's office, he tripped, fell down the stairs, hit his head, brain bleed, died.'

'Mum, you're making this up.'

Anne started shaking between Harry and Jay's embrace, before they knew what got into her, her sobs turned into uncontrollable laughter. She was laughing, red face, mouth open. Couldn't even fit enough air into her lungs between cackles.

'The m...motherfucking s..shitty bastard... couldn't even wait to hear the 25 year sentence he was gonna face and have a heart attack or something, no, h...he had to trip down the stairs and have his s...skull open... on the floor, so he could laugh last... no fucking way, I'M LAUGHING, LOOK WHO'S LAUGHING LAST.'

Jay had been bitting her lip, trying not to join Anne, this was serious, this was so serious, her abusive ex-husband, who she would have faced in a trial in a few weeks, died.

'S...so you're telling me, I had Louis training me to beat the shit out of him, and he went... and tripped...and died.'

Anne stared his kid for a moment, very still, afraid he would break into a million tiny little pieces, when his shocked face went powder white, and he doubled over, holding his stomach. Jay was already running for a bucket, foreseeing a barfed carpet, when a highpitched sound left Harry's mouth. When she pulled the boy's curls out of his face, nursing instinct ready and the bucket in hand, she saw the boy's flushed face, breath caught in silent laughter.

'Fuck...fucking b...bastard... hahaha... I can't b...believe it hahahahaha.'

'Hiii, it's Louis! Harry? Did you fix you mum's heater? Was she able to shower?'

So when the boy walked into the living room, the key in one hand, the turtle they kept it under on the other hand, it was Jay's last straw.

And when a very confused Louis found his boyfriend, mum, and mum-in-law, in a histerical laugh attack, he didn't know what to say.

'What's so funny? I wanna die of laughter too!'

They just laughed harder, tears streaming down their faces.

Harry grabbed the bucket barfing even his first meal.

***

Later that day in Louis' bed, after Gemma caught the first plane home, after a movie marathon at the Tomlinsons and lots of tears, and laughs, and serious conversations, and lawyer talks...

'Harry... I'm just so sorry... I don't know what else to say that I haven't already...'

The boy sniffled, comfortably tangled in Louis, his tears drying in Louis' pyjamas, Louis' strong arms safe and loving around him.

'It's over now, he won't hurt anyone ever again... it's over.'

'You're right baby, it's over, you can rest now, and then you can heal, and then you keep on living...'

'...and then we keep on living...' Harry mumbled before falling asleep on Louis' chest.

__________________

Heeeeeey! Look who's back from the hiatus! Haha kidding.
Anyways, I haven't forgotten this nor you. It's still very much my baby and so are all of you.

I don't know how well this chapter worked, but I felt like they deserved closure from their trauma, a healing closure.

Let me know what you thought!

Much love,
Leo x