Harry stands in a tunnel, a dark tunnel. There is a light at either end. They seem the same, but they feel different. The right one feels cold, like the unpleasant cold of waiting to get picked up after school. The left feels warm, like a warm embrace. But the right feels familiar, known, safe, boring. The left is the exact opposite.
"There is no correct answer." A disembodied voice echoes through the darkness. "There is only what will make you happy."
"I need to go back. I need to go right. I have to o what is right, what is expected of me. I was never one for adventure."
"Were you never or did you never get the chance?" There is the disembodied voice again.
"Did I ever have a choice? Did I? Did I ever have the option? I never could. If I were gay, were me, in school, I would have been bullied or beaten. If I would live as me at home, my parents would cast me out, or send me to conversion therapy. Ther is no choice to be had. I could never be me."
"And as soon as you had the option to, you took it."
"Yes. He is more than that to me. I just want to spend as much time with him as I can. Should I go left?"
"But there is no way to know what the future might hold."
"You are right, maybe everything with Louis ends within the month anyway. I could just be stranded in a country I don't know, without friends or family. That would be very reckless. So, I should go right. But going with my parents will lead me into the army. And into never going to be myself ever again. So, I should take the risk and go left."
"I just want you to be able to live with your decision."
"Louis had said that. Why did he say that? What did he mean with that? I will never be able to be who I am if I go back, if I go right. Could I live with the knowledge that everything is a lie? That I, Harry Styles, am gay, and that no one could ever know? Could I ever live up to what is expected of me, job, house, family, knowing that all of it is a lie? That I am lying to everyone in my life? Could I tell my future wife that I love here, knowing that I don't and that I could never. Not because of any fault of her own, but because of me? I don't think I could. I don't think I could live like that. Some say: Better to die for the truth, than live a lie. But I don't have to die, to live my truth. I just have to stay here. Just right here. In Britain. In London. With Louis. I can live here or die in the States. And even if I don't actually die, for the last few days, I have felt what it is to live. The excitement, the happiness, all these different feelings. I could not live without this again. I can't. I can't. I can't."
The warm light expands until it envelopes Harry fully. As he opens his eyes, he looks out through a hospital window into a sunny, green garden.
Harry, overwhelmed from the experience, does, at first, not notice the nurse next to his bed.
"Mr. Styles? Mr. Styles? Hallo?"
Finally, Harry acknowledges her with a look, before he looks back out through the window.
"You fell and hit your head. We had to stitch it. You were lucky that you got found so quickly."
"Yea, that was lucky. What now? Can I go?"
"No. We still need to run some tests. And you should be taking it slow anyway. You have been out for a day, almost..."
"Thank you so much. I am so lucky to be here."
"Well, I guess. I am going to inform your parents that you are awake. They should know that you woke up."
"NO! Please don't. Like, not now. Can I please call my boyfriend. I need to talk to him."
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A Week and a bit in London - Larry AU
FanfictionFor Harry Styles, life has never been much exiting. That changes suddenly when his parents take him on a trip into the unknown and very different world of the British Republic. The republic his parents fleed from 40 years ago. His heated first meet...
