summary: in which harry is the pastors son, and louis comes along and well, harry doesn't see any harm in being gay.
word count: 9,029
"Harry? Love are you ready," Anne calls as she adjusts the pearls on her neck, "church starts in ten minutes and it'll take us five to get there."
"I'm ready, mother." he yells from his room, straightening the rings on his fingers, and spraying on a bit of cologne.
He meets her halfway down the stairs of their massive house, sighing softly as he grabs a water bottle before they leave. He and his mother make small talk as they drive to the church, talking about Harry's day in school, how the years been going; though it only kicked off two weeks ago.
Upon pulling up to the large church, with five minutes to spare of course, Anne fixes up her makeup, and applies another coat of cherry red lipstick to her lips in the rear view mirror, and Harry mindlessly plays some game on his phone. He's about to beat his high score when his mother announces to him that they need to go in if they want to sit in the front row. Not that they have any other option, of course, when your father is the head priest of a church, you don't exactly get to sit in the back with all the mothers putting their babies to sleep so they don't cry during the service.
Anne gives him a dollar for the offering, a gesture Harry finds idiotic as his father gives most weeknights, and Sundays to the church. However, in no way would he ever tell either one of his parents this.
His father starts the service and Harry does what he usually does. He gazes off somewhere else and wonders what all the normal seventeen year old's get to do on their Wednesday nights. He's so incredibly jealous of the way they get to go home, maybe take a nap, or hang out with a friend. They get to do their homework and eat dinner without having their dad recite the bible for ten minutes before saying amen, and forcing their sons to say it otherwise they're not permitted to eat their dinner. He wonders what it likes to go to bed whenever they please, rather than having to say a 'goodnight prayer' with their mother every single night at ten o'clock sharp. He yearns to lead the live of an average high school junior; to be able to go to school without dreading the fact that literally everyone he talks to, with the exception of one person, calls him 'church boy'. He wants to be normal.
He's about to fall asleep on his mothers shoulder when he hears his father bring up his final recital, and smiles softly to himself, after two hours, it's finally over. But of course, he has to wait an extra thirty minutes, you don't just go home when your father is the priest, you have to sit there and talk with everyone who comes to talk to him after the service. He has to hear about what a 'great boy' he's grown in to, and how they hope he follows in his fathers footsteps.
And yes, sure, when he was a younger boy, maybe four or five, he admired his father- wanted to be just like him when he grew up. But, by the time Harry was about ten years old, and things started changing for him, he started to grow further and further apart from his father, wanting less and less to do with church and prayer and all that bullshit. At the ever so ripe age of sixteen, Harry had decided he only goes to church to keep his mother happy, and wants nothing to do with it after he moves out.
After thirty dreadful minutes of older women swooning over his father, and telling Harry 'what a handsome young man' he's become, Harry walks out of the church with droopy eyes as he holds on to his mother.
"Someone's tired," she chuckles, arm around his waist, "didn't get much sleep last night?"
"I slept good enough," he yawns, "'scuse me, it's just so much, mother. Get up at five, go to school for eight hours- which might I add, includes an hour of P.E, come home, do homework, either chores or church, eat, clean up, and then shower and bed? I'm so exhausted at the end of the day, I pray that somehow, more hours are added so I can sleep for a just a little longer."
