Timeless - A Larry Stylinson FanFiction

Chapter 29

A/N: Hey everyone! We apologize for the unexpected hiatus. To make up for our indefinite leave of absence, here's a short chapter to ease the pain of waiting. I hope our time apart hasn't been too much of an inconvenience. Thank you all so much for sticking with our story, and to those of you who have been reading since the beginning, YOU ROCK. To all the new readers; welcome home! We never imagined this fanfiction would become as popular as it is, and it warms our hearts to see feedback and votes from you all each and every day. From the bottom of our hearts, we love you and hope you like this chapter. ♥

~ Megan & Peyton

It was dead. The firefly traveled 4 miles outside and decided that life inside a damp and musty coat pocket just wasn’t good enough. It had curled up in it’s tiny little insect ball, and just simply... died.

“Harry?” Louis’ soft voice asked, the sound followed by a short burst of quiet footsteps. He was right behind Harry now, but he did not understand what the boy was holding in his palm.

“It’s dead,” Harry said, voice low as he tilted his hand to let the bug fall to the floor. “I killed it.”

“What is it?” Louis asked, crouching now to peer at the foreign object on the ground. When he realized what it was, he let out a short eruption of laughter. It wasn’t too loud, but a sudden noise enough so that it echoed throughout the entryway and the parlor room to their left. Louis’ laughter could be heard bouncing off the walls of his cavernous home in roughly the same way it bounced off the shattered walls of Harry’s mind. It never seemed to end.

“It’s just a lightning bug,” Louis said, putting a hand on Harry’s shoulder. “Those things’ll die just as soon as you look at ‘em the wrong way.” At this he laughed again, and Harry forced a smile.

“It’s nothing to wreck yourself over,” Louis finished, patting Harry’s back and proceeding to sweep away the firefly's carcass out the front door. Harry’s heart was pained, but his eyes washed away the sight of the tiny lifeless bug, to no fault but his own. With an offhand shove and one final gust of wind, filling the doorway with the stale scent of newness, the outside world was shut out and Harry’s eyes seemed to really open to the crooked emptiness of Louis’s home. It wasn’t even a home; a home held comfort and warmth on every corner, but instead of the smell of warm vanilla and brown sugar, this place smelled of mothballs and left a certain shiver in the bones of all who stayed there.

It must be draining emotionally, as well. Looking into Louis’ eyes Harry could see far past the clear coating of false ecstasy right into the icy core that had been chilled to freezing by the barrenness of the shelter he called home. Harry knew that this young man was broken beyond repair, but by what, his mind could not fathom. He could only hope to simmer away the frostbitten edges, for now.

“Yeah,” Harry said suddenly, scratching the back of his head after realizing his thoughts had implemented a pained silence in the conversation. “Just didn’t expect the thing to die on me, is all.”

“Bit of a shock, yeah?” Louis asked him, the smile he had been wearing before now shed to the floor along with the waterlogged shoes he slipped from his feet.

“I’m sorry?” Harry asked.

Louis didn’t answer right away, and Harry wasn’t even sure if the lad was going to answer at all.

“The unexpected,” he finally replied. “The things we do not see ever happening...actually happening. It’s shocking.”

Harry was lost.

“I would assume,” Harry said in response. “That it is only customary for the unexpected to be...well, unexpected of course.”

“You don’t say,” Louis continued, shaking his dripping white stockings off his feet. “That even what is expected, what is dreamed about for months on end, what is fantasized to the point where one knows it is certain, is sudden as well. Is it? Or is it not?”