Larry Stylinson - Turning From Praise (AU)

13.

For an entire five days, Louis’ mother stayed firm in her insistence that Louis wasn’t allowed to leave the house – as short a time as that was, it still dragged for Louis; dragged like nails screeching down a blackboard at a painfully slow pace. Still, on the sixth day, she finally relented a little and gave her permission for Louis to leave the house the following day and go out with Liam, on the condition – which she failed to inform him of – that Liam wasn’t to let Louis out of his sight, and that he wasn’t allowed to let Louis go near anyone who Liam didn’t know, or was a mutual friend.

What she didn’t know, however, was that Liam relayed all of her instructions back to Louis and they spent the night before he was allowed out discussing plans to evade her demands in great detail. Liam didn’t appreciate being given orders and being told – not asked, told – to lie to his best friend and deceive him, snitching on him to his mother behind his back, and Louis didn’t appreciate being kept inside and told who he could and couldn’t spend time with like he was a five year old trying to play with the bigger boys and his parents thought they were a bad influence. United in their dislike of Jay’s orders and attitude, they fully intended to rebel against it, even Liam, who was usually so sensible and obedient.

Lying flat on his back, gazing at the ceiling, Louis held his phone closely to his ear as Liam said, “I don’t know, I don’t like lying, but at least when you ask me to lie, you ask me nicely. Your mother practically threatened me, spitting her orders down the phone…not to mention that it’s really out of order, stopping you from going out just because she doesn’t like some of your mates.”

“Tell me about it,” grumbled Louis. “Thank you though, Li. I mean it. You trust me – it means a lot more than you know…”

“I do trust you, but are you really sure about asking Harry to come and meet us? I mean, I get that he’s your mate, but if she let you off your punishment and you go out and immediately do the thing she was punishing you for, it’s tempting fate, isn’t it? Shouldn’t you leave it a couple more days before you go out again? She’ll go nuts if she finds out the first thing you did with your freedom was disobey her, not to mention the fact that she’d murder you both if she caught you within a ten foot radius of each other.”

“I don’t care,” Louis said promptly. “I need to see him.”

“I don’t understand, Lou. I’ll help you, but will you just explain something to me? Why does he mean so much to you? Whenever I’ve spoken to you these past few days, practically all you’ve talked about is how you can get to see him, or things he’s said, or whatever – it’s not that I mind, I just wish I could understand! He’s your friend, I know, but this seems different. He matters more to you than anyone else I know, and I can’t get my head around it. Why do you like him so much? What is it about him? Why is he special?”

“It’s difficult to explain,” Louis said carefully. “You remember what I was saying, about how I’ve been feeling different lately? He’s been helping me with that, helping me understand who I am and what I want to do, who I want to be. He’s so different from other people. For years he’s been shunned and hated and called names behind his back by cowards who daren’t say it to his face where he can defend himself, but he isn’t spiteful or bitter – at least, not unless he has cause to be. He’s got the most reasonable outlook on life of anyone I’ve ever known. He doesn’t try to force his opinions onto anyone, just states them and lets you make your own opinion of them, and he can explain them so easily that a baby could understand them – he taught me more about myself than I’ll ever know; when I finally stopped being ignorant and opened my ears to what he had to say, he sorted my head out more in twenty minutes than I could have in my whole life if I was on my own. He can make me laugh so easily I sometimes make myself jump by laughing unexpectedly. I’d trust him with anything. I suppose…the only way I can describe him is as my best friend.”