Timeless - A Larry Stylinson FanFiction

Chapter 14

Making it home in just two hours time, Harry entered his house with a tremendous kind of chaos the crate in the gangly boy’s arms had succomed him to, for he was known for his commonly clumsy ways.

“Oh for heavens sake, Harry, set that down here,” Gemma said with a distinct annoyance in her voice only her kid brother could cause. “You’re going to drop the milk and have to make another trip out, which by that time we’ll already have had our Christmas dinner. You are certainly no big six, now,” she teased, taking the bags from his near-frozen arms.

“Buzz off, Gemma, I’m just as much a man as anyone here,” Harry said proudly, abruptly standing up straighter, sticking out his chest just a bit to create an illusion of much more muscle the boy just didn’t have.

“What’s a man without a lady love?” she swooned, raising her eyebrows at Harry. “Too much of a dud to hook a lady on your arm,” she chuckled a bit.

“I’m surely no dud, Gemma, I...” he paused, a quick flashing memory of his afternoon running through his head in a near moment. Surely there was no lady love he was interested in. “I had a good hop with that niece of Thea’s,” he pointed out, following his sister on a winding path throughout the kitchen as she put away the groceries. He knew that was no good excuse, that was weeks ago he’d had a nice floorflush with Florence. Just then, Thea came bustling into the kitchen, bringing up a point Gemma had not.

“Harry, dear, what took you so long?” she asked with a slight furrowing of her eyebrows, bustling across the kitchen, opening a single bottle of milk and going back to work on her infamous souffle. On his way out of the kitchen at the moment, Harry stopped in his footsteps.

“Hmm?” he asked quickly. “Why I took so long... the snow’s quite terrible out there, Thea. I apologize for my tardiness, but the milk surely didn’t spoil with such a low temperature,” he chuckled, jogging into the den and up the steps two-by-two and nearly leaping into his bedroom, giving the door an effortless shove shut with his snowy boot. His back suddenly collided with the neatly folded sheets of his bed, eyelids drooping closed for a mere instant.

Harry played the odd events of the day back to himself, humming quietly as he pictured what the Tomlinson boy could be doing now. Had he slipped into fresh, dry clothes and was now bustling in the cupboards for a kettle? Where was his family on this Christmas day? Having grown up in the tightly knit town of Huntingdon, he knew after Louis came four doe-eyed little girls, each always so properly dressed with sleek hair bows and dresses with home-sewn frills. Surely they had to be about somewhere. The Tomlinson household seemed nearly untouched, now that Harry thought about it. As if a layer of wax had been drizzled over each piece of grand mahogany furniture, the proud bookcase in the hall, chairs in the dining room, nearly everything. If Harry didn’t know any better, it looked as if nobody lived there at all.

Quickly tossing that unraveling thought aside, he flashed back to the face of Louis, stoic with skin just hardly grey surrounded by the deep oak walls and sky blue quilt Harry had wrapped him with. His hair had collected in mere clumps, like early morning grass, sealed together by forming ice crystals and limply strewn from beneath his worn cap.

The cap. Worn years beyond this, the cap was presumably once a proud dark brown, back in its hayday. Coated in snowflakes, the cap stood out as a murky yellow-brown, as it did that day Harry remembers seeing Louis Tomlinson’s war-stricken face at the station. Goodness, did that feel like a thousand years ago right now, though it was a mere three-weeks passing.

The cap Louis wore seemed to tell a twisted tale of things unseen by many. It sparked Harry’s curiosity, he wanted to know more. His mind craved more of the Tomlinson boy.

Harry got up off his bed, the thawed heels of his boots making a half-hearted click against the uneven wooden floorboards. Cheeks flourished with not only thawed cold but a seemingly bashful ambience.

He leaned forward, letting his heels fall back and create a louder, simultaneous click. Harry parted his lips, letting out a dry breath as he slid into the rocking chair at his desk. He set his fingers comfortably on the keys of his typewriter, clicking away cheerily.

Harry’s bedroom, as had Louis’, was lit up with the fresh illumination of snowfall, and quite a heavy one for a town as theirs. Steady drips of light fell through the cracks between the window panes and heavy curtains, lighting up half Harry’s paper. Each letter was formed in an instant, made of a thick black ink and perfectly aligned with the one coming before it. Pursing his lips in focus, the conversation flowed from his memory as he typed. You’re the kid from the station.

He had become so intricately focused on each equally delicate letter being printed, Harry jumped when the rickety door to his bedroom was jolted open.

“Harold Edward Styles,” Gemma waggled her finger like their mother, tapping her foot to create the soft, impatient patting her mother did when she had become hot under the collar. Harry rose to his feet anxiously, turning to face his elder sister.

“Gemma couldn’t you do the decency of knocking?” He spoke with a distant sentiment, having been sitting solemnly in the past, stuck on his short incident with Louis Tomlinson.

“My goodness, Harry,” Gemma tilted her head slightly, raising up an eyebrow. “What’s got you all bound up? Mum’s got to tell you dinner’s in an hour.”

Harry gave his bothersome sister a short, vague nod, turning back to his writing. “Alright, that’ll do fine.” Unlike Harry had hoped, Gemma pondered in his doorway.

“Your typewriter? You haven’t been at that in ages,” she said with a teasing chuckle.

“I’d greatly appreciate you not to linger, Gemma, please get on,” Harry said, turning to block his sister’s view of the typewriter.

“Oh, poo, Harry,” she pestered, daring to take yet another step toward her kid brother, and another. “You’ve come back around to writing your poetry again now? Why don’t you let me see-”

“Because it’s not for you,” Harry spoke before Gemma could finish her thought, hopefully making it clear his writing was strictly private.

“Well you’re certainly no fun,” Gemma shook her head. “As I said, dinner will be served in an hour and we both know well enough Dad will be angry if anyone is tardy,” she called behind her, making her way, to Harry’s delight, out of the privacy of his bedroom.

Upon tilting his head back, his thick mop of curls fell behind the smooth oak of his rocking chair. With one swift movement, he rocked himself forward, hands planted on the typewriter, long fingers jabbing at each key in fluid motion. The day was etched carefully in his mind. Like the petite flowers ever so delicately painted around the porcelain of his mother’s finest teacups, the day’s events, down to every detail Harry could pull from his memory, was illustrated onto the typewriter paper. With eyes as bright as yours, I don’t think I could ever forget.