Bells for Harry [Larry Stylinson]

Chapter 1 Can't Stop What's Coming

You can't wound someone and just walk away. - Tori Amos

The thing with his panic of water, his violent feelings towards Harry and wishing his father was dead was, they all had the same type of beginning in common. A slow one, sneaking up on him, causing Louis a type of pain that tore him apart and did nothing but make him feel weak and embarrassed, profoundly ashamed of himself.

"Why can't you take the initiative for once?" his mother was yelling.

"You have so many things that you think are essential that are completely useless, Margaret!" his father yelled back.

They had stopped worrying about what the neighbors would think months ago. The world was fuzzy and wet around him. He'd stayed up late the night before, reading graphic novels and listening to music even though it was a school day, because it had been so nice and quiet when everyone was sleeping.

"You must be happy that school was canceled, loser!" one of his sisters said, brushing past him after bumping into him to hit him on purpose on the way their parent's car. "Stayed up all night jacking off to photos of Pamela Anderson or whatever again?"

Louis simply leaned against the door frame expressionlessly. It was a gray day, rain fell onto the porch and onto his sister's hair, and he'd only made a halfhearted gesture to help when his mother had yelled at him for doing nothing, before giving up. They all would be gone in a few minutes, with his parents taking advantage of the fact that school had been canceled on account of heavy rains that day, to drag his sisters down to the country to fix his recently deceased paternal grandparent's house to be sold.

After his father had had an affair the year prior, the tense silences at home had turned into a daily war zone. His parents were still able to manipulate his younger sisters into acting as a buffer between them in exchange for money or privileges, but Louis had long since physically and especially emotionally checked out. It was his sophomore year of high school, and he had other things on his mind.

"Louis I don't want you to turn out like one of those people who move into their parent's basement when they finish high school, you hear me?" his father yelled at him from the inside of the house. "Stupid internet. We should've canceled it already! Making all of our kids dumb."

He went out the door past him too, managing to whack the back of his head despite the heavy box of tools he was carrying. Louis's blood boiled, his vision getting even more blurry with the emotion. When had he started to not be able to stand the sight of him? They used to be so close, but somehow lately his father looked like some sort of twisted horror movie clown to him. Sometimes, when he watched his parents yell around in the early afternoon, his mother crying and eventually giving into his father's emotional blackmail, he wondered what his family would be like if he died.

"Oh, there's the Tomlinson boy," Ruth, his elderly neighbor, was leaning out her kitchen window watching her husband secure the items they'd had lying around their lawn, in case the wind picked up. "I saw you last week when your mom brought me the milk that was delivered to your house by mistake, how is it possible that you're taller already? My oh my."

"Hello Mrs. Shafer," Louis said, blinking and waking up from his coma.

Somehow, his parents had told him not to burn the house down and to do something with the potted plants in front that he didn't remember, and they'd driven away with him barely noticing. It was way too early in the morning. He realized that his hands and feet felt cold.

"Say, boy," Mr. Shafer started. "It doesn't seem safe for your parents to drive up the national in this weather, it's supposed to get worse real soon."

Louis looked at the sky, and the few raindrops that fell pathetically from time to time onto the porch and the lawn.

"Weather report's been wrong a lot, lately," he said, shrugging.

"Well, let's hope so," Ruth said, looking up to the sky as a loud rumble that made her windows vibrate ran through it.

Louis waved to the couple, and retreated back into his house. He spared a passing thought for the flowers outside before going back to his room and burying himself under the covers. The only thing preventing him from sinking back into lethargy and sleep was his phone. It buzzed and buzzed, bothering him, and when he finally decided to check it, he was unsurprised to see it was Harry calling. The thought of that kid, only a few years younger than him, energetic and happy like a blasting ray of sunshine, made him smile, but that joy still wasn't enough to get him out of bed. He texted him saying that whatever he was up to he wasn't coming, and got back that Harry was on his way to take pictures of the incoming storm. That had Louis worried for a few seconds, until his friend Shana texted him too telling him to come. Then he buried himself back under the blankets, turning the phone off and closing his eyes. I

f Harry was with Shana, then he was safe and Louis didn't need to worry.

But when he woke up, the house was under water, and people were yelling at him and shaking him, like a scene straight from hell. His entire body was wet, dripping with mud, and he'd remember those moments for years to come.

His entire family had vanished like a dream of the past, like they'd never been real. He never got to see their corpses, being told that they'd been too mangled when the pieces of them appeared in the river that had washed away the wreck of the car crash, to be displayed in a formal burial, and so the only thing he got was ashes that he threw into the nearby river that ran down into the valley where his grandparents had lived, because he didn't know what else to do.

And just like that, he was alone in the world.