Flicker (H.S)

06.

06.

“Zayn Malik, suspected accomplice to Harry Styles, has been taken into custody after arrested for a D.U.I yesterday. Malik has since admitted to murdering five innocent civilians within the month, but has not confessed to working with Styles. Family and friends claim to have had no knowledge of his killer tendencies. “Zayn was always such a nice kid. A tad quiet, but nice.” his primary school teacher, Linda Freida told us. “Always played well with other students, that boy. He was so kind to everyone. You have the wrong man.””

-Oakwood Local Newspaper, published August 12, 2016.

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“Harry, go grab Luke’s bags.” Mel mumbled, weakly stirring the milk around her tea cup, not looking at her brother who was weak himself. But she tries to ignore that. 

She was sad. Because Lucas was home but he’s not really Lucas, not really. He’s changed. Instead of dressing in light coloured polos and khakis and being valedictorian, he’s molded into a boy who doesn’t comb his hair and dresses himself in black clothing with more holes in his face than in his heart. His main activities include fucking around with any girl who agrees and drinking. And Mel was sad.

Because she has truly lost him.  

“Yeah, okay.” Harry answers, hopping off of his position on the kitchen counter to move out to the garage drive where Luke was currently smoking. He came in only ten minutes ago, but in that short amount of time all he has done was nod a greeting to his siblings and scowl at his father. And now, as Harry was exiting his home and facing Luke’s back, he notices the slouch in his previously broad shoulders.

And Harry is sad.

Because he has truly lost him.

“Luke?” He questions, searching for his brother’s attention. Luke spins on his torn Nike’s heel and raises his dark eyebrows. “Go in the house and talk to Mel. I’ll take in your bags.”

The eldest sibling grins with the killing stick hanging from his bitten raw lips. His cheeks are hollowed and his dark eyes are empty. The band shirt that adorns his torso falls off one shoulder, so Harry looks away as Luke answers. “Talk to her? She hates me, mate.” He fits his cigarette in between his middle and index fingers as he pulls it from his mouth, exhaling a puff of smoke into Harry’s face. “Along with you, and dad, and everyone else in this hellhole.”

The boy with a never-coming-back-girlfriend and pretty gorgeous sister and arsehole-of-a-brother laughs through his nose. “You got that right.”

Luke’s jaw clenches.

Harry smiles.

“You’re such a charmer, Haz. I’ll bet that pretty girlfriend loves that, doesn’t she? What’s her name again? Jenny? Jaime? Jessie?” He snaps his fingers as a sly grin takes over his pale features. “That’s it. Jessie. Little Jessie. She’s fucking hot, how’d you land her?”

All he sees is red. And an impossibly punchable face standing. right. in. front. of. him.

“Oh wait. You didn’t. She killed herself to get away from you, right?”

It’s only been fifteen minutes since Luke’s arrived, and he’s already being repeatedly punched by his younger brother. Harry climbed on top of the boy who had more holes in his face than in his heart  and used his fists to attempt and punch out every last bit of life from his mind, from his soul, from his hole-riddled heart. And to think- Mel thought that this visit would be different. That maybe, just maybe, the distance between Luke and the rest of his family would sort out any issues he has had with the people who raised him. But it didn’t.

Luke was missing a tooth when Mr. Styles pulled his youngest child off of the boy he struggles to call a family member.

“Calm down, Harry.” He struggled to restrain the boy with the never coming back girlfriend as Luke just sat up and wiped the dark blood running from his gums with the bottom of his t-shirt that kept sliding off of his shoulder. Harry resisted. “Calm down! What happened?”

“He talked about Jess, dad!” Harry cries, trying to hold back the tears that had been building. “He fucking made fun of her!” The clouds above seemed to turn darker as he screamed at the shell of a person lying on the pavement in front of him. The wounds she left hadn’t yet scarred over and every mention of her name tears at his skin. He’s defenseless and he hates it.

The man who looks like Harry but looks more like instability looks to his daughter with frantic eyes, pleading. “Take Luke, clean him up.” His voice was strained with effort as he restrained the fuming boy with curly hair and alcohol-scented breath.

Mel hesitated, glaring at the brother that was now missing a tooth. He tore up her family, he ruined her chances at a future. Why shouldn’t she let Harry kill him? Why should she help him whilst he’s vulnerable?

“Melanie Styles, now.”

“I’m an adult, dad. You can’t tell me what to do.” She shot back, piercing green eyes still locked on her older brother. He looked empty. He looked like he attempted to become whole again but the alcohol betrayed him. He looked like depression.

“You live under my roof.”

Her father pushed Harry back with force as Mel tugged Luke up to his feet, roughly pulling him into the house as heavy raindrops began to fall from the sky. His father breathed deeply through his nose as he shook his head at his son, ignoring the pellets of water falling onto the crown of his head.

“I cannot believe you, Harry.” He breathed. “Fifteen minutes. You couldn’t go fifteen minutes without punching him.”

“He made fun of Jess!”

“Jess is gone!” His voice boomed across the neighbourhood, making a woman walking her small dog on the pavement turn her head. “She’s been gone for a year!”

Harry bit the inside of his lip as he held back his tears. Does no one understand? If anyone, his father should know what he’s going through. Their mother is gone, and he didn’t leave his room for three months. Harry went to school a week after Jess died. Sure, he wasn’t the same, but he went. Is it so bad to still be hung up on a girlfriend that hung herself for reasons unknown to him? Is it so bad to still be hung up on a girl he wanted to marry?

“Mum is gone too, and you still think about her, I know you do.” his voice dimmed to a soft whisper. “You talked to his whilst you were cooking dinner last night, Mel told me.”

“I didn’t talk to anybody.”

“She said that you were whispering to yourself and as she got closer, she heard you reciting your wedding vows.” Harry spits, pushing the wet strands of his hair out of his eyes. “You’re calling me pathetic when she’s been gone for four years and you still fucking recite your wedding vows.”

His dad's face was red, his hands were shaking. He was angry. He was angry with his sons, with his daughter, with the fact that his wife has been gone for four years and he still recites his fucking wedding vows. Rain fell from the sky and the icy pellets pricked his skin but he didn’t feel anything other than hurt.

“Go inside.” His father commanded, his voice deathly quiet. “Ignore your brother and get out of my sight.”

So he did.

And began to recite his and Jess’s conversations in his head because maybe he's a fithy hipocrite and his dad was onto something. Maybe if you talk to them, they’ll come back.

By the time he hit his bed, tears were streaming down his face.

it's short.

oops.

love from

eleanor xx

[this is dedicated to @writetospeak because i just finished the mongul series and am still crying].