better than that [larry stylinson] ✔️

" it tore you open "

Harry rushed downstairs to his father's basement and looked behind him to make sure that the older man hadn't come before he went over to the desk in the corner of the room. He didn't even notice that Louis had walked through the wall and stood next to him as he flipped through outdated pieces of papers and moved around several books.

"What are you looking for?" Louis asked blandly as he tilted his head to the side and pursed his lips. "You know if your father catches you downstairs when he wakes up, then I cannot do much to help you. That is, unless you want me to make me noticeable."

"I know, just--just let me look for something." Harry said hurriedly, then pushed the desk slightly forward so that he could run his hand across the wall. "My dad used to keep this journal. When he went to therapy back then, he kept everything in it. I just have to find it. Maybe it'll give us some clue as to why you're dead."

It was when Harry felt a bump in the wall that his face brightened up more, and he slowly removed the brick from it. He looked behind his shoulder once more to silence his paranoia before he pulled a journal out from the hollowed hole and held it out in the palms of his hands. There was a bunch of dust on the top of the book, so he blew it away and scrunched up his nose.

"Why would we be looking in your father's journal?"

Harry wanted to tell Louis about his suspicions about how his father may have been the one to kill him, but he figured that he'd keep quiet about it until he had stone cold evidence. It made Harry wonder though - if his father wasn't the killer, then why did he cry when Louis walked through him? It just made sense.

"Maybe there's a newspaper article in here about your death," Harry lied, and continued to skim through the pages of the book in search of sentences that seemed to be sketchy. He stopped at a page that was marked June 15th of two years ago and read the entry with interest, surprised by some of it. "This is interesting."

I love him like a son. His attitude is as charismatic as he is radiant, and I am absolutely smitten with the young boy. He handles things with ease and has to be one of the best people that I have ever met. I believe that he will return soon to see me again, but he looked fearful when he left my home. Was it something I said?

"What's that?" Louis inquired just as Harry turned the page. "Why aren't you saying anything to me?"

"It was nothing," Harry said dismissively, but, oh, he knew it was something. There was a chance that his father had been referring to Louis in that entry, but he couldn't be a hundred percent sure. His father let Louis go home straight after, as said in the entry, so how did the boy end up dead? None of this made any sense. "Louis, are you sure you can't refresh your memory some more about that day?"

"M-Maybe if I looked at the picture again." Louis answered, and he was about to beg Harry to tell him what he's reading, but a noise made him freeze in his spot. "I hear him coming down here. You're going to have to hide, Harry."

Sure enough, there was the sound of drunk grumbling along with a door opening from afar, so Harry quickly looked around for a place to hide. Before he did that, he made sure to stuff the journal back inside of it's hole and to put the brick back in its place. He would have to try to look more into it tomorrow, that is, if he made it out of here without being noticed.

There was a table that was covered with a long white sheet a foot away, therefore, Harry got on his knees and crawled underneath it just as his father stood on the last step. Harry hoped that the man wouldn't notice the papers out of place on the top of his desk on his way down here, and he prayed that he wouldn't be heard.

If his father knew that he had been snooping in the basement, then he would be dead. He would literally never be able to see the day of light again - even his mother knew better not to come down here; this was the older man's hideout, his den of depression. No one but him was welcome down here.

Harry held his breath and watched his father's brown boots swish past the table and towards the desk. Just as he backed up a bit more underneath the table, he came in contact with a tipped over box; his hand lay on top of a photo, and so Harry slowly picked it up and squinted his eyes at it until he allowed himself to believe it was Louis.

The boy was wearing the same outfit in the 'Last Seen' photo, but this time, he was sitting on top of a red box with his legs crossed. Harry was about to stick the photo in his back pocket when his eyes averted to the red radio that sat behind Louis, who was smiling at the camera and winking at the same time - like someone who had it all would do.

This didn't look like a face that had been kidnapped; this looked like a face of a person who was happy with where he was. Had his father taken him consensually, then murdered him? Was his father even the murderer? Was it an abduction? He was the one with a picture of Louis in his basement . . . Louis who had the same outfit on the day he was abducted, then soon killed.

None of this added up.

"He's about to go back up the stairs. Should I take the journal for you?" Louis asked abruptly, unaware that he had interrupted Harry's thoughts and scared him. "All he came down here to do was stare at the wall, touch a book, then burp."

Harry shook his head and remained silent until he saw his father make his way back up the stairs of the basement, then shoved the picture that he picked up into Louis' hands. "I want you to look at this photo carefully, Louis. I want you to tell me every single thing you remember. Do not leave a single detail out; do you understand me?"

"What is this--?"

"Look at it."

And so Louis does.

NOTE: ANYBODY CHANGE THEIR THEORIES YET ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED OR DID YOU NOT? HELLO NEXT CHAPTER IS ABOUT THE PICTURE AH !! SORRY FOR THE WAIT PUMPKINS, I LOVE YOU SOOO MUCH!!