Stories I Never Finished

Kill Them For Kindness

Green eyes filled with uneasy concern glistened as they flickered over the presentation laid out before them, sprawled out across a long oak-wood table--stretching toward a window whose glass gazed out upon nothing but darkness and grey skies--sat an organised mess of papers and photographs.

Seated at the end of the table; Harry Styles crossed one leg over the other, navy blue pants crinkling as he did so, and with a body as tense as the thickening air around him he anxiously bit his lip and shook his head. The slight motion was enough to bring the man standing just in the vignette shadows of the room's walls moving forward; entering Harry's field of vision opposite the table of another man.

Swathed in layers of black, unlike the man standing patiently across from him in black pants and a white shirt, the shorter man held a callous yet stern expression on his face; stoic, but somehow soft in the presence of the Queen.

"You haven't said anything since Horan finished talking." Louis Tomlinson was the man dressed in black, dark blue eyes studying over the unsure expression on his partner's face; watching for any vast changes.

"I..." Harry's eyebrows creased, worry now firm on his face. Long nails painted in perfect coats of pale pink drummed softly against the flora-engraved gold arm rests of his velvet padded seat. "I'm just not sure, Lou... This sounds so-"

"Necessary." Finishing Harry's sentence, Louis took a step forward; swift hand grasping hold of a classified document and showing it to Harry once more—as though Niall reading through it and explaining every inch of it in careful detail wasn't enough. "This is necessary."

"It's cruel." Harry politely argued with another shake of his head, this time a more prominent motion, and Louis's expression darkened ever so slightly.

With a press of his tongue to his cheek, Louis glided the pink muscle over his top set of teeth as his eyes briefly met with Niall Horan's across the table's width from him. The adviser's gaze immediately flickered away, eyes sharp and head bowed slightly.

"It's what needs to be done." Louis smacked the paper back down again, and Harry's head instinctively shook once more.

"No, please Lou. Can't you think of something else?" Harry pleaded softly, eyes filled with misery as they focused on the King's approach. "Anything?"

Gentle hands though calloused, bruised and scathed, took hold of Harry's closest hand, lifting it from its resting place on the only chair in a dark-oak-walled narrow room with two pieces of furniture.

"Look outside for me." Louis instructed, gesturing his free hand toward the window settled directly ahead of Harry.

"Louis-"

"Just do it." Louis tenderly insisted. "Tell me what you see."

Harry sighed, despondent, and glanced ahead; gazing beyond the clean glass pane and out into the harrowing world far beyond castle walls. There was nothing truly spectacular to see, merely rotting grey buildings of concrete stone with cut out squares as windows—sat either side of narrow empty streets, tarmac roads so harsh they hurt to walk bare foot. It was more like industrial England than utopia.

His eyes watered and he looked away, unable to take the sense of disappointment and hatred he forced upon himself. With his free hand raised to touch over his mouth, desperate not to cry, the queen's reaction almost caused Niall to step forward in response; harsh blue eyes of the king preventing the adviser from doing so.

"I know you want them to be happy." Louis softly combed his fingers through the queen's shoulder-length hair; glossy brown curls slipping between his fingertips with ease just as it had done a thousand times before. "But you can't be good surrounded by evil."