seasons of love | Narry Storan AU

chapter 1.

2032.

How do you tell your kids a story they never asked to hear? This is the thought that haunts Niall Horan for a long time. At least, until he thinks to himself that he needs a justification for doing so. They are already 16 years old. They're no longer children, they're not as interested in things as they were when they were children. They care more about their cell phones and their high school reputation than anything else in life.

But Niall, in his duty as a father, feels that he needs to stay connected with his children, in one way or another, before the connecting wire breaks, and he no longer knows them. And that is why he decides to enter his children's room at nine at night, for the first time of the year.

Which is a little shocking, assuming he lives in the same house as them.

"Good night", he enters and only then he knocks twice on the door.

"I did nothing!" Chloe is the first to speak, already sitting on the bed in a rush.

"What?"

"What?" She repeats.

"Oh, forget it", the older blond rolls his eyes, "how are the two of you?"

"Just existing. I don't have my own room yet, so... yeah, I'm just existing. We keep on living", Taylor shrugs, not even bothering to sit on his bed like her sister did, "any problem, dad?"

Yes, it is. Taylor is a male name in that story. But only in this story.

"Not that I know. Do you have anything to tell me?"

"No." The two kids answer at the same time.

That's how Niall finds out they've definitely done something.

"Do you... have... something to... tell me...?" He asks again, this time, with pauses between words.

Chloe and Taylor remain silent, pressing their lips together so as not to open their mouths. But...

"Chloe hit a boy", the young boy gives in just by looking at his father's pointed look.

"What?"

"Taylor, you big mouth!" Chloe throws a pillow at her brother.

"Did you see the way he was looking at us, Chloe? Daddy was going to kill us!"

"You don't have to talk about me in the third person, Taylor Horan." Niall points out. "I'm fine here."

"Sorry, dad."

"Chloe, sweetheart, you have to explain this story to me right now."

"He asked me out!"

Niall looks at her with a confused expression. "Just for that?", he thinks.

"The guy who asked Chloe out", the other son seems to understand his father's gaze, and tries to give an explanation right away, "he was voted in secret ballot as 'the guy most likely to become a heartbreaker in the future' by the entire classroom. Do you get it?"

"Christ, do you vote even for that? In my time..."

"Oh, no", Chloe points her index finger at her father. "You better not come with the "in my time" thing, no, no."

"And why didn't you do anything, Taylor?" Niall asks his son.

"I... wasn't there when it happened. I only found out when the principal called me to her office."

"If I didn't have to share a room with my twin brother when I was sixteen, it certainly wouldn't be happening," Chloe grumbles.

"On the other hand, I would have a little chat with you only, Chloe, and it wouldn't involve your brother's name along with it." Says Niall. "Something that, according to my calculations..."

"It's something I love to see. My brother in the middle of the crossfire." She completes, showing a sarcastic smile afterwards. "So what? What punishment are you going to give us?"

"Um, I was thinking about doing some kind of chatting with my own children..."

They hate when Niall wants to chat with them about, literally, anything.

"Wait a minute, dad, are you going to put me in this too? No, no, no. I didn't do anything!" Taylor starts to get desperate, rubbing his hands together to try to calm down.

"Do you still like stories, son?"

"Yes."

"I'll tell you one."

"Oh, so I'd rather face this punishment than think about the next one."

"Will there be a next one?"

"Yeah... but I hope not." Niall smirks at his son's words.

"Alright. I wanted to come here every night and tell you my college stories. I don't know if they would be interested, but now that I have to punish the two of you for hiding something like that..."

"Shit. Shit, a thousand times shit", Chloe swears out loud, but without realizing it. When she realizes, her father and brother are looking at her as if she's just said blasphemies. "Sorry, sorry. I'll put three dollars in the pot later."

"Very well, young lady", Niall raises his eyebrows at her, "as I'm not totally bad, I let you choose where I start from."

"Like this? Without direction?" Taylor asks.

"Right. So, two options: I can start with the first day I went to live in college, or... the times when Harry Styles used to hate me. You know him well. Yeah, he hated me at some point of life."

"The hate", Chloe perks up to answer.

"The first day", Taylor replies.

"Both things happened at the same time. I was just joking, it's the same choice." Niall starts laughing, but no one accompanies him on it. "Okay. Let's go."