The Freak-Family (Zianourry)

Chapter 10

Here's the new chapter! I'm sorry it took so much longer than I anticipated, but I hope you still enjoy it! New boy this chapter! Tell me in which line you found out what his disorder/disease/condition was, I'm curious ;)

“Honey, when you’re done washing your hands, will you sort out the mail for me? I’ve got to go to Mr. Hankins for a small meeting.” Anne said as she closed the tabs on her computer and stood to leave her office. Her intern, who also was her son, nodded absentmindedly, eyebrows scrunched up in concentration as he focused solely on his hands that were under the stream of water flowing out of the tap. Luckily, his mother’s chatter hadn’t disturbed Harry’s silent counting and he finished washing his hands  just as his mother left the room. He scurried to his small desk and started sorting the mail in piles, softly humming to himself as he proceeded to do the mindless task.

Knocks sounded on the closed wooden door and Harry stopped what he was doing, looking at the door as he called out for whoever it was to come in. Louis stepped inside the office curiously, definitely not recognizing the low voice as Anne’s. As he stepped into the office he was met with a young boy behind the second desk in Anne’s office, curly hair and big green eyes. He smiled kindly and noticed Anne was not present in the room, so he suspected he’d had to talk to the boy. “Hi, I’m Louis. Drama teacher slash errand boy for any teacher that feels like Drama teacher isn’t a real job.” He introduced himself as he smiled at the boy that looked slightly unnerved. His eyes were shifting as he fidgeted in his chair.

“C-Could you-uh... close the door?” He asked and Louis was quite taken aback. The boy sounded so serious, if they hadn’t been complete strangers Louis would’ve thought a very heavy conversation was about to start. He complied though, closing the door neatly and turning back to see a bit of relief on the boy’s features.

“Well, anyway, I came to drop these files off for Anne. They’re from Pete. I take it you are her intern?” He guessed, inching a bit closer to the boy’s desk. The boy nodded fervently, his curls bouncing around and contrasting with his still and tight posture. “I’m Harry.” He spoke. “You can lay the files down on her desk, I’ll inform her.” His voice was low and raw as he spoke slowly and Louis took a moment to appreciate its sound as he laid the papers down on Anne’s desk.

“So, I take it you’re new here? I haven’t seen you around.” He chatted, perching against Harry’s desk and smiling at him. The uneasiness slowly came back to his demeanour, as he became completely ignorant to Louis’ talking, and Louis tentatively stood back up, observing curiously as Harry let out a little breath. “Uh, yeah. I’m new.” He murmured, eyes still fixated on the spot Louis had just sat. The tension steadily built in the small room and Louis looked around to see if he could find anything that would give him a chance to get a small conversation with the boy that had most certainly sparked his interest. His eyes scanned the younger boy’s desk and he dully noticed how clean it was. His eyes fleeted to the nondescript paintings, but then shot back to the desk. Everything was neatly placed and sorted out on the desk, not a speck of dust to be found, and then Louis noticed the pack of hygienic wipes on the corner and something clicked. He then suddenly became aware of the crate that was placed in the corner of the office and was full of all kinds of cleaning products and wondered how he missed it before. He looked back at Harry and saw how he was more distressed than before, hands fidgeting and breathing increasing and his eyes burned holes in the table.

“You can clean it if you’d like, I’m sorry, I didn’t know.” Louis offered, smiling encouragingly when Harry looked up questioningly. Harry’s hands shot out to the wipes on his desk and he pulled one out carefully, starting cleaning the spot of wood that had made contact with this other person. It wasn’t that Harry didn’t trust Louis, because he seemed nice enough, but Harry didn’t know where Louis had been and what his trousers already had made contact with and he’d panicked. His eyes fixated on the desk, his hand moving in trained and memorized patterns, he tried to shut his mind up that was warning him already, even though he hadn’t made any mistakes yet.