Locked Down (Larry Stylinson)

Chapter One - Lockdown

Long gone was any sense of pride in his appearance, he was far beyond caring about what he was wearing since he'd been working at home for two weeks now. He missed being around people and making them smile and so he wasn't ashamed that he was curled up on the outdoor furniture in an oversized hoody, sweatpants and odd socks. He was however looking at the pint glass in his hand filled with Pinot Noir rather disgusted at himself for slipping quite this far into madness already.

"You look like you've given up on life," A voice sounded from the patio door and Harry turned his face away from the wine to look at his best friend and house mate Niall who had obviously just returned from work.

He was in his usual shirt and tie, although the tie was already hanging around his neck ready to come off, he was leant against the door frame looking amused at Harry his kind blue eyes taking in his disgruntled friend.

"I fell backwards off my chair in the zoom call meeting and put my elbow in my tea and everyone was laughing at me and the meeting had to be cut short." He admitted, probably helped out with a few gulps of wine. "Now I'm sat here looking disgusting and I forgot we have proper glasses for wine because we're sophisticated adults and to top it all off I'm lonely and will never find love." Harry told Niall earnestly only for his friend to laugh at him which was pretty normal it seemed most people laughed at him at the moment, he was settling into the life of a mad man.

"Well you'll be glad to know they've closed my school down since they think we'll be going into a lockdown in the next few days, so you'll be stuck with me for a while." He tapped Harry on the knee reassuringly and then grinned. Harry didn't want to admit he felt excited and happy Niall was out of work because that seemed pretty selfish of him but he was slowly going insane, he wasn't good on his own which is why he'd got a house with his best friend rather than getting one alone. "We're not sophisticated, never have been and I doubt we ever will be, but we'll find people eventually who will love us for who we are."

"You're really going to be staying home?" Harry asked hopefully, he really was tired of walking around the empty house alone with nothing to do, the day before yesterday he'd won a game of scrabble against himself and before that he'd spent a good two hours sorting all the skittles and m&ms into their separate colours.

"Yeah for a while, although I'll still have to work a little from here." Niall nodded and moved to get up off the seat again, "Hang on, I might get a pint of wine myself."

Harry watched him go feeling slightly happier at the thought of not being alone, although he was a little worried about spending so much time with Niall, if the lockdown was actually going to happen then they'd be stuck inside until it eased and that was thought to be months. They could well be sick of each other by the time it ended.

When Niall returned with a pint of wine for himself, Harry felt a little less disgusted in himself and a little more like a trend setter. It took him back to their time they sat of the floor of either of their uni dorm rooms when they'd drink cider from the bottles just because it was cheap, never mind the fact it tasted like piss. Or their first night in the house where they toasted to the house with vodka and orange juice they had to drink from mugs.

"How was your last day then? This could be it before the new year in September." Harry asked as Niall got comfortable on the other side of the outdoor lounge.

"Well we've been trying to limit interaction between students so it made it pretty hard to give them instruments because it meant I had to keep wiping them over all the time with disinfectant, so in the end I cleared out my room and simply played music for them and made them tell me what emotions it made them feel. Was super fun to be honest." Niall laughed and Harry smiled just imagining Niall's class having parties all day.