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Hide & Seek (Larry Stylinson AU)

Chapter 18

*LOUIS' POV*

Falling asleep - or trying to slip under - was not to be accomplished without mass difficulty. The couch proved to be too dense an object, and the floor was enough to make me nauseous. I couldn't walk because I didn't want to be reminded by the lower region seasonal pain of what happened. The violation left my skin dirty, irremovable filth that would never leave no matter how much soap I put to use. Contamination that drove deeper than just settling on the surface of my skin.

My baby sister was innocently ignorant of all concerning this horror. She dozed like she always did, adding so many more worries to the weight on my shoulders. She'd ask for Daddy one day, why she hadn't already was a mystery but I'd still have to be prepared for what was to come. And there was a lot to look forward to.

*HARRY'S POV*


"I fucking told you not to touch him!" I shove Rupert back five steps by a powerful thrust of my forearms on his torso.

He stumbles but doesn't fall. "Your claim on him doesn't stand. He didn't consent."

"Because he doesn't understand."

In one stride I completely remove what space he has and trip his foot when he steps back. He is knocked over flat on the cold tarred ground. He still obtains the audacity to smirk. I'll fucking end him.

"What do you think I felt like when she took you out of that place? And left me there to rot." He says.

"I don't fucking care." She was my Mother, and naturally she didn't give a fuck about this waste of a life. "Is that why you hurt him? Revenge?"

Rupert pats his jeans and tries to stand. Oh fuck no. I drop into a kneeling position over him, my knees nailing his wrists painfully to the ground and his body rigid beneath my weight.

"You don't get to touch what belongs to me." I hiss hatefully, a livid arm reaching behind me to the waistband of my jeans for my weapon of choice. "You don't get to touch him."

*LOUIS' POV*


"Please, Louis?" Phoebe pulls mercilessly on my left arm, almost toppling me over completely.
I flinch and retract my hand. If I don't give in she will probably nag me all day. "Fine. You can stay with Martha, you little traitor."

Martha was a kind woman who gave us free food, in Middleston such an act was mere common courtesy. I trusted her to look after Phoebe considering she has a niece around my sister's age who is pleasant enough. I won't be gone that long either.

She bats her eyelashes, frail strands of brown hair that's hardly fully formed. "Will you please bring me back candy?"

"You abandon me and I should still bring you candy?" I widen my eyes mockingly.

"Aw. Come on, Lou!" She tries to win the case.

"Alright." I kiss her forehead. "Be careful and stay safe."

I didn't feel comfortable leaving her here without Harry or myself with her. Harry has been missing since last night when I'd woken up to take another Aspirin. He didn't show up this morning when I paid for breakfast from the neighbouring coffee shop.

My unfortunate conclusion was that he'd left without word of his departure. It stung initially more than it should have.

"I'll be back soon." I promise before walking out the swinging doors that upheld the red flickering sign.

First is the furniture store. I drive the SUV that we'd so easily taken from my hometown, without informing the owner. Middleston is in a state of overrun dilapidation. I don't know if anyone is alive, whether anyone has gotten there. It angers me that I cannot tell anyone about what happened to that town. I'd have to make a choice. They'd take my sister away, the family who has wanted her in their care for years.

Eventually I'll have to hand custody over to them but for now, I will take care of her. Being twenty-three isn't the load of sunshine and rainbows it used to be. Not anymore.
Deals! Furniture Store is a warehouse twice the size of Dayton's. The doors each have a welcome mat and I feel bad stepping on them. After everything that my family has been put through, I'm here fucking buying furniture. I just want both pains to stop, the one in my chest and the other down where it shouldn't be.

"Hi." A grinning salesperson greets me. "Can I help you?"

"Yes please."
In the time course of an hour Frank - the beaming salesperson - had successfully convinced me to purchase the bed set of his choice, followed by a fine plush sofa and the delivery detail which will have everything at my flat in twenty minutes. I was set back a measly one and a half
grand.

Grocery shopping has never been a hobby or even a slight prompt of mine. I lazily walk through isles, my mind lost in thought and legs struggling to keep a proper pace without causing too much aching friction to make me wince. I've never hated walking so much in my life.

Why was there no news from Middleston? Had no one gone out to deliver something? Or were they killed too? Did the runaways skip town too? Maybe they're headed here next. Has Harry gone to tell them? Call them? Stop them? Can he do anything at all? Will he do anything? Will they listen?

What if he's just pretending and deep down his heart beats like theirs, pumping the same blood and generating the same ideas? What if his claims of being fine are all untrue? Traps of insecurity.

The bright and cheerful slogans of candy wrappers are flashes of nothing as I stroll by.
Then there's he and I. Why do we do what we do? Why don't I feel disgusted and the urge to make him stop? Why and how could I possibly seek protection in a person who escaped from an asylum? What could he offer? Why would he offer it to begin with? He's as haunted and corrupt as the home he came from.

I get myself worked up, and calming down is a lot harder. I realise that the Lays chips in my hand has been clenched in my fist so tightly that its contents are now crisps of dust. I drop it back on the shelf and take another one more carefully.

I drop a few non-perishables into the trolley, frozen whole chicken and popcorn. I choose root beer rather than actual beer, seeing as the alcohol will do good to nobody.
I close the industrial-sized refrigerator door and almost have my heart lunge into my throat from the unnerving shock of Harry standing behind it.

"Jesus!" I exclaim with a gasp.

"Sorry." He removes the weight he had leaning against the bread shelf. "Martha told me you were here."

"There's only one grocery store in town?" I force a laugh as I walk through the frozen goods section.

"The other one was shut down, she said. Cockroaches."

At that I really chuckle. "Where were you?"

He is browsing through the frosted vegetables. Just one brand, though he seems to think digging deeper into the pile will reveal something new.

"Harry?" I press.

He looks at me with a blank expression. He's wearing his signature black T-shirt that clings interestingly to his chest - God knows how he stumbled across such coincidental clothing - and ripped jeans. The knees were dusty and his skin reddened by hard contact. It puzzled me.

"Where were you?" I feel like a nag.

"Went for a walk." He says and I almost don't hear him.

"A walk? At a time like this?"

"What do you mean?" He frowns, the hairs of his eyebrows uniting with the other as his misinterpretation is shown. He puts a bag of broccoli into the trolley with more care than I used.

"I mean, you fuss about people seeing you and now you're going for walks." I explain. "And I
don't like broccoli."

It seems the only part he heard was the latter, and he quietly takes the packet out of the trolley.

I sigh. "Just leave it."

He follows behind me like a damn puppy without a leash or direction. The pasta isle offers so many choices it frustrates me so I just pick the ones that look the biggest.

We pass an elderly couple and Harry bumps our trolley out of the way so that theirs can go pass. I'd scream at him if I wouldn't have done the same thing out of courtesy. I pay for what I've chosen thus far along with the selections that followed.

"You coming back to the flat?" I ask Harry while he helpfully loads the bags into the trunk.

He nods then looks away, frowning. "Do you not like me staying there?"

"It was a shock when you just fucking showed up but no, I don't mind."

He visibly grimaces, like my words - or choice of words - disgusted him. Screw his opinion on my cussing.

"Will you be disappearing often?" I ask.

"Sorry?"

"Like you did last night. I need to know."

"I-I don't think so." He rubs the back of his neck.

"Elaborate, Harold. I'm not going to worry over you but-"

"I can't tell you."

"Tell me what?"

"Where I went." He avoids my gaze. He's one odd fellow.

"I wasn't going to ask you that, Harry." I close the door. "But why not?"

"Because it's for your safety."

"My safety? I can take care of myself." My involuntary flinch when I sit down begs to differ. He
stands outside, head bowed. "I'll run you over, Styles. Get in the car."

"Why do you swear so much?" He asks me when he climbs into the front passenger seat.

"Because I fucking can. Have you never cursed?"

He looks out the window with no sound or gesture as a response. A lot of our future
conversations will end like this. Oh boy.

There's a friendly white delivery truck parked on the curb of our street. I think the delivery detail that cost me two hundred bucks was worth it.

"I'll get Phoebe and bring her up." Harry says either to me or to himself as he jumps out of his seat.

The two moving men drop and construct the bed in the bedroom, opting to not accept a tip if I give them the old bed. I answer with a definite yes. The couch is covered in plastic and generates awful noises with the slightest exertion of mass. I ask them to rip it off before leaving.
Harry walks in with Phoebe fast asleep, her head resting on his shoulder and petite frame blocked by his arms.

"Who were those people?" His voice is low not to wake Phoebe up when I take her from him.

"Delivery men. I bought new furniture." I tell him.

"Why?"

"Because I wasn't going to sleep in an ancient bed." I sigh.

He looks away as if to say, oh.

I put Phoebe in the bedroom under the fresh comforter after removing her shoes and dumping them in the corner. Her position looks awkward to me but she hasn't slept for very many hours so I won't bother her tranquil state.

Harry's unpacking the grocery bags without me asking him to. He frowns at the frozen chicken like it's rather an alien in his large hands.

"Could we make pasta?" He asks like an overgrown child sitting on the counter top. No person baffles me more than Harry Styles.

I can try but I really didn't have the motivation to stand in front of the stove preparing food with my body feeling this worn out. I was already yawning and it was only lunch time.

"I got this today." Harry changes topics pulling out something from his back pocket. It's a miracle that the object is retrievable from a space that compressed.

He holds out a black object that's as thick as a brick. I lean against the counter next to him on my elbows because the dull ache is manageable like this.

"A phone?" I turn the object over and put it on.

"Yeah for when you need me and I'm not around." He answers simply, his hand gripping the
edge of the surface he's sitting on.

"Where did you get it from?"

"I paid for it."

I frown and he chuckles. He's the most mercurial man I know.

"I have money, Lou. When I went to the house I got some stuff."

It was odd that he didn't think about bringing clothes. "Oh."

*NARRATOR'S POV*


"Are you.........still hurting?" Harry asks Louis nervously.

When Louis doesn't answer him after a silence that lasted zero point six seconds, Harry uses an army grip to turn Louis' chin.

"A little." Louis finally says.

Harry couldn't help but notice the boy's hesitancy, almost as if he felt threatened in some way. Harry hated to think that Louis insisted on not trusting him.

"Anything I can do?" He offers, genuinely concerned about the troubles of the older lad.

Louis shakes his head and releases his chin from Harry's fingers. His hand slips to the counter before regaining control of his limbs. He secures Louis' face close to his, his hands cupping Louis' cheeks and beckoning him closer.

Louis' fingers wrap around Harry's wrists in an effort to get him off but it's futile attempts in the making.

Harry's mouth finds Louis' and let's Louis' taste pass his dry lips. Louis' is unresponsive for a few moments before Harry wraps his arms around the slightly older boy's shoulders and brings him closer between his thighs. He let's the kiss deepen, his head tilting left a little when Louis does kiss back and their noses are smashed against each other's.

Harry found comfort in being near Louis. It made life easier for him in an unconventional manner. He felt warm, not the fuzzy warm normal people feel or rave about, the kind of warm that keeps his insides functioning and stable. He'd had a hard life, almost cruel and heartless obstacle were thrown at him. He felt so alone in every aspect of forever, there was no beginning and he found no end no matter how much he wanted one.

Their eyes were closed, oxygen sucked into their lungs at the tiny intervals when their lips were separated. Harry sucked on Louis' bottom lip until it was plump and swollen. He knew he was the only one who could mark Louis. Louis is his.

Louis has always needed the comforting words from someone genuine, no matter the fact that it came from a person with soul more disturbed than anyone else. He'd been protecting his own family his entire life, his baby sister and his father. He couldn't save his mother when she died in that car wreck.

He was a guy. A man. He was supposed to offer solace, and defend others from conflict. He was supposed to be macho and shield others weaker or unlike him. But he really wanted to just shed the facade. He wanted to feel warm and taken care off, like when he was a child and felt that the world couldn't touch him.

He wanted that feeling again. That peace. That serenity. That love. It was impossible to find and so he gave up, but he met this wrecked fellow Harry and all Hell broke lose within him. He knew Harry couldn't offer much, he was too far lost to be retrieved, but what little they could share and reciprocate, Louis would thrive off of.

Complications pretty much ruined their bubble. They never really had a bubble, but they had seclusion and isolation. Both of them never minded being alone.
But there was a lot to be done before any intense matters could be dealt with. Hell was all around them in the form of demons and tragedies. They'd both lost and will still lose as much can be taken from them.

Harry would not starve himself of true happiness every again. He would rid their lives of this obstacle and he'd take full advantage of the small cave he'd dug himself. He would ensure an eternity of freedom soon.

Shuffling from another room broke them apart. Harry kept a hand gripping Louis' jacket while Louis turned to see what had happened. Harry tried to lean in to kiss Louis again but the boy had turned away.

"What was that?" Louis' eyes search the room. It sounded like a box had fallen.

"I don't know." Harry's lips latch onto the soft skin of Louis' neck. He isn't distracting Louis, he's
just had that vein below Louis' jaw be the subject of his dreams for ages.

"Wait, Harry." Louis tugs Harry away by his hair and Harry frowns like a stubborn child.

"Phoebe!" Louis calls to his sister in the other room before moving out from between Harry's legs and approaching the room door.

He can hear a voice. Hers. Soft and giggly like she's at camp and they're sharing secrets.

"Shh." She hushes someone and Louis grows agitated.

Looking at Harry, he gives him a doubtful and nervous glance before Harry hops down too. He knocks on the door. "Phoebe? Are you awake?"

He enters the room and Phoebe is lying in bed sitting up innocently. She looks at Louis then Harry and giggles.

"Was someone in here?" Louis asks impatiently.

"My friend." She replies dropping her hand from her mouth.

"Where are they?"

"He just left."

"Who's your friend, Phoebe?"

"The man from the closet. He's really nice now."

Notes

Phew! Went through this chapter and tried to make it as readable as possible for you guys :) Let me know (pretty please with caramel on top) how much you love/hate this story! And if you have ANY questions, please feel free to drop them below :)

- Sam xx (@SSTomlinson on Twitter)

Comments

@Suman98
Can you please MAKE another one I LOVE THIS STORY

Amazing. ...

That_Moment That_Moment
9/18/14

Amazing. ...

That_Moment That_Moment
9/18/14

Only on the prologue, but I love it so far.

@Suman98

Awe :) your welcome!
and...... oh my gosh yay!