The Distance Between Us (Harry Styles AU)

Harry

Usually I hate making the trip back home from Manchester to London, but tonight it wasn’t so bad. While I had some light music on as background noise, I tried to constantly come up with reasons why I had these tattoos and what their meanings are supposed to be. I’ve come up with a couple of conclusions, but they are all pretty bizarre. I mean, I keep thinking of some movies and TV shows that had kind of similar occurrences, but they were all fictional. I honestly can’t come up with anything that makes sense but maybe it’s not supposed to; make sense that it.

I finally pulled up to my old flat getting out as soon as I could since I was sitting for so long as well as wanting to just get straight to the point with my dad. I walked in and heard the TV playing in the living room, so I made my way there not even bothering to kick off my shoes or hang up my coat. Once dad saw me, he sat up a bit before turning down the TV lightly and motioned for me to sit down. I took a seat on the opposite end of the couch with my back against the arm rest and my leg bent in front of me so that my boot still wasn’t on the couch.

“How have you been son?” he asked leaning back a bit against his arm rest as well, looking completely casual. It’s weird to me that he seems completely calm right now while my mind is going a million miles a minute. It’s like he’s not even worried that his son came rushing home after, probably sounding like a lunatic over the phone, being short with him about the reasoning. Was he expecting me to be home sick or something? Because that is most certainly not the case.

“I’ve been a bit shook up. Got a new tattoo,” I told him holding out my wrist for him to see. He doesn’t say anything to me, but instead takes my wrist and rubs his thumb over the name while his lips quirk up a bit in the corners. “Why are you smiling? And why do I have a matching tattoo with you with a random name across my wrist the way Mom’s name is written across yours?”

He finally drops my wrist and looks up to meet my eyes before pushing his hair back. “I’m so happy that it’s finally time to tell you everything.”

“I don’t know what that means. Are you going to talk to me in code all night or tell me what the hell is going on?” I’m starting to get impatient while he is taking his sweet ass time to open up about whatever information he is holding from me.

“Listen son, now that you’re older, I expect you to have an open mind and be able to pay attention to what I’m about to tell you. It might seem weird but just let me explain and then you can ask questions, alright?” he asked raising his eyebrows to me. I just nod at him as confirmation and he nods back before completely muting the TV and facing me full on.

“So I guess the main thing that you should know, is that we aren’t really from here. Yes, your birth certificate and everything says that, but Harry, we’re from a completely different world.” I look at him questionably and nod for him to continue. He nods in return before saying, “We come from a planet called Flaxys.”

“Wait,” I interrupt, “so we are aliens?”

Dad kind of just moves his head back and forth debating how to answer before he continues whatever explanation it is he’s trying to give me. “Yes, I guess you could say we are. You see, back on our planet, things are very similar to here on Earth, though it is a bit more eco-friendly if you will. It’s as if everything here that we kill, like nature, remains living.”

“Ok. Continue because I’m still really confused. Where do the tattoos come into this?” I ask.

“Well, when we’re born, we get markings- what you call tattoos. The first one, you are born with straight away. You get your name, as you’ve noticed, on the bottom of your right foot. Then, you get a little symbol, which you also have, that represents your name and the type of person you will become.”