Larry Stylinson - Turning From Praise (AU)

16.

Louis was starting to frighten Harry, in all honesty. After about ten minutes of him standing there crying, an upstairs window had opened, and a large plastic bin-sack had been launched out, as well as a suitcase, which had burst open upon hitting the ground. The window had then slammed shut. When they went to investigate, they discovered that all of Louis’ clothes, his laptop, school books, ipod and most of his music collection had been packed up and thrown out of the window at them. The message was clear: they didn’t want to give him any reason to come back.

Harry had expected Louis to cry even harder at that, but all of a sudden he’d gone deathly silent. Picking his belongings up off the ground without even checking whether they’d been broken or not (mercifully, by the looks of it most of them seemed to be intact, but Harry still wasn’t sure whether they’d all still work when he tried to switch them on), turned his back on the house and started walking. He was pale and he trembled all over, but he seemed completely in control of whatever rampant emotions were running around in his head. In silent agreement, they began heading towards Harry’s house, and Harry kept his arm protectively around Louis all the way there, glaring at anyone who dared to look at them for any longer than a quick glance. The last thing Louis needed was to be ogled by judgemental strangers just then.

All the time they walked, Louis never said a word. He stared straight ahead, glassy-eyed and silent, lips pressed tightly together until they turned milky white, and Harry didn’t quite know what to make of it. Something told him that it wasn’t healthy to let Louis keep everything bottled up like this, but he was making such a valiant effort that it seemed unfair to disrupt him. Clearly this facade of collectedness was the only thing he had to focus on, the only thing keeping him walking in a straight line and not curling up on the ground and bursting into tears. Harry didn’t have the heart to take it from him.

They both tensed as they walked up the driveway to Harry’s house; neither of them particularly wanted to face his mother right then, it would provoke far too many questions and requirements for interaction when they needed to be alone. Harry tried the door, and they both sighed in relief when it was locked and he had to get his keys out to let them in. The two of them stepped over the threshold, Harry locked them in, and then he looked back at Louis, who had his back to him and was staring dully at the floor. He seemed to have gone into shock. Nervously, Harry placed a hand on his shoulder, and after a few seconds of an eerie lack of reaction, Louis slowly lifted his head and then turned round to look into his eyes. There was something empty and vacant about his expression that made Harry’s stomach churn.

“Well,” Louis said. “That’s the end of that, then.” Then he burst into tears.

Sickeningly, Harry felt a strange sense of relief as the pain returned to Louis’ eyes and he started sobbing, perhaps because he was equipped to deal with a crying Louis, but a shallow husk of Louis with emotions so deeply buried underneath the surface that he looked like an empty wax doll, devoid of emotion and with Louis’ face painted onto its surface? That unnerved him.

Harry hurried forwards and grabbed him, and they hugged. Louis buried his face in the taller boy’s neck and started howling, and after that came a deluge of tears like a tsunami pouring down Harry’s neck and into his shirt, making him shiver; they weren’t hot, scalding tears like they had been before, these were cold, as if all of the energy and the fight had drained out of him and his insides were as frozen and icy as his mother’s heart.

Throughout all of it, Harry rubbed his back and tried to console him, while Louis cried all over him again and didn’t seem to be able to stop; he did attempt it a couple of times, but every time he started taking deep breaths, he’d choke or hiccup and start all over again, with even more fervour than before. For about twenty minutes, Harry allowed him to let it all out, until Louis was practically hysterical and seemed to be struggling to breathe quickly enough between sobs, but then he realized that rather than letting him get his emotions out, he was actually just working himself up into a bigger and bigger state, which was counter-productive to calming him down.