The Future Is Now - Larry Stylinson

Chapter 16

When Anne finally arrived, Harry had to take a couple steps back in shock. He'd mostly accepted that he was in some kind of future, that it was ten years later and all. But he had not been prepared for seeing his mother look so old. He recovered in moments, reaching out to pull her inside out of the cold and give her a big hug, but his mind was still whirling as he buried his face in her hair.

"How are you feeling?" Anne asked when she pulled back, and she started fixing with his hair the same way she always did and it was just a relief because he knew this, he recognized this, he wasn't in the dark about this.

"Alright, I think," Harry said slowly, staying still for her until she finally deemed his hair presentable and stepped back. "Its stopped being scary and just started being weird, really."

"And has Lou been taking care of you?" Anne asked, despite the fact that Louis was standing right next to them and could hear everything they were saying.

"Louis has been really great, Mum," Harry said with a smile, glancing over at Louis who had this weird fond look on his face. Harry still couldn't get over people he didn't know looking at him with expressions that usually only family and close friends held for him.

"Good, good," Anne said, going to Louis and pulling him into a hug. "Its good to see you, dear. How are you holding up?"

"Okay," Louis answered, his voice soft and careful. "He's been easy to take care of. I took him to the doctors and they... Well basically they said Harry won't ever remember anything."

Anne looked like she was going to argue but Louis had this tired, defeated look on his face and she quickly closed her mouth. "Alright, how about you take Harry for a tour of the house while I start on dinner?"

"You don't have to-" Louis started to protest, but Anne waved him off, already making her way to the kitchen.

There was an awkward pause and Harry shoved his hands in his pockets, struggling a little with how tight his jeans were. He'd attempted to change into something looser but he'd only had about five minutes before Louis had told him they needed to leave and he'd only found equally as tight jeans in what he'd assumed was their bedroom.

"Come on, then," Louis sighed, gesturing for Harry to follow him as he started walking. It was a pretty generic tour, there were the rooms Harry had already been in like the kitchen, living room and office. There was also a kind of music room with instruments and a huge stereo system and every single album One Direction had put out, along with two bathrooms. Upstairs were the bedrooms. There was the master bedroom that Harry had woken up in, and the nursery right next to it with Annie's crib. Luke's room was just down the hall and all the other rooms were spares and bathrooms. It was quite spacious and there was enough room for at least four guests at a time.

After Louis had finished showing him around, they ended up in the music room again and Harry started thumbing though their albums, looking at all the different song names and thinking he should devote some time to listening to every single song on every single album. There were posters all over the walls, too, of them as a group. In a cupboard he found stacks of magazines with them on the cover, and it was kind of scary just how popular they had been.

"Hey Lou?" he asked, the nickname rolling off his tongue before he'd even realized he'd said it. He'd heard his mother say it and it kind of fit. "Which song is your favourite? Out of all the ones we've done?"

Louis was sitting in front of the piano, playing random tunes, but he stopped and glanced over at Harry when he'd spoken. "Happily," he said after a moment, tone soft. "You helped write that one. We were still in the closet when it was released."

Harry flipped through their albums again, finding the one that had Happily on it. He stopped at Midnight Memories and put the CD in the stereo system, skipping to track eight and just letting it play. It was an upbeat song with heartfelt lyrics and he already knew by the first chorus that he must have written it about Louis, even if he didn't quite understand everything. He must have been absolutely smitten to write the other man a song.

When it finished he went to take the CD out, but Louis stood up from the piano and stopped him, shaking his head. He pressed the back button and switched to track seven. "I helped write this song," he said quietly. "Well, I helped write the majority of songs on this album, but. This song was for you."

Harry checked the back of the album and saw it was called Strong. The song was still kind of upbeat but the lyrics definitely struck a chord, less about love rather than giving in to love. Harry thought he would have been able to tell Louis was behind the lyrics even if he hadn't been told. It was obvious that Louis had struggled with his sexuality and it showed in the song, but even though the lyrics showed Louis had obviously been scared, it also told how he'd overcome it to love someone deeply.

Harry had a hard time getting his head around that 'someone' being him.

"That was a really good song," he said quietly, pressing the eject button once it had finished and putting the CD back in its case. "I liked it."

Louis smiled at him and Harry knew, without even hearing all of their songs yet, that Strong would be his favourite of all of them.

_-_-