Burn [Larry Stylinson AU]

Chapter Eight

"Don't talk about your children that way!" his mother yelled, tears streaming rapidly down her sunken cheeks. 

"They're not my children! They're nothing but little parasites that leech off the money I work for and the shelter I provide. They're scum just like you!" he snarled, pointing a long, thin finger at Louis and Charlotte that hid in the corner. 

"They are too your children!"

"Maybe one of them is, but I know damn well that boy is not!" He spat at her, turning his head to sneer at Louis. "The little bastard is no son of mine."

Suddenly Louis felt a large hand in his hair, and he immediately released Charlotte from his grasp, yelping as his father pulled him up. 

"He is so your son! How could you say that?!" His mother cried, reaching over to pull a crying Charlotte behind her. 

Forcibly, Louis was met by his father's dark eyes, greasy brown hair, yellowing teeth, and skin smeared with dirty sweat as he spat at him, "His eyes. He's got eyes the color of the sky yet mine are the color of dirt I slave over!"

"You bloody well know that my father had blue eyes!" his mother yelled, inching closer while leaving Charlotte in the corner of the room, crying uncontrollably.

"Know where you stand woman! I will not stand here any longer and listen to your pitiful lies! Nor will I be forced to feed the mouth of a bastard child that isn't mine!"

He yanked Louis by the hair, steering him to the doorway. "Let go of my child!" his mother yelled from behind their retreating figures, following after them.

Louis was towed to the riverbank that sat at the bottom of the hill that their small, leaking shack perched upon. He tried to break free, desperate to get back to his little sister's side to protect her, but he was yielded by his father's strong grasp on the nape of his neck.

His heart pounded rapidly in his ears, and Louis tried to drown it out by looking out at the horizon, where the mountain's snowcapped peaks reflected dawn's magnetta rays, casting purple shadows along the craters and sparse trees speckled across its snowy surface. 

He thought about Harry, how he had promised that whatever happened, that he'd be there to protect him. He thought about how the angel had once promised to take him to that snowcappped mountain that Louis had spent years looking up at. Louis looked up at the churning sky, smelling the rain that was yet to come and wandering if Harry could see him now. 

Harry could see him. Harry could see the father's solid grasp on Louis' thin neck, the woman who was yelling but not moving forward to stop the man. Harry could hear her galloping heart, and the little girl's, that hid behind the woman's skirt, as well. 

Louis' was the only one that mattered to him. He looked back down at the boy, who was looking up at sky, looking back at him, with the clearest blue eyes Harry has ever known. From his perch in the heavens, he could see the grass roll in waves as the sea breeze blew across England's coastal plains. He could see the anger and burning rage in Louis' father's eyes. Alternatively, he could see the devil. The devil with his hands on the angelic boy below. 

Harry watched in horror as the enraged man suddenly ducked Louis' head in the river. The woman screamed out, "What are you doing?! Let him go!" The man lifted Louis' head from the river, only to turn and slap the woman with so much force that she fell to the ground in a sobbing heap. The man turned and ducked Louis, who was sputtering and shaking, under the water once again. 

"No!" Harry cried, lunging forward to the ground below him but seized by two strong hands. 

"Harry, stop!" Ed said to him, gripping Harry's arms from behind his back. Harry fought against him, becoming desperate to reach the boy beneath him. "Harry, you don't know what you're doing! You can't do anything about it!"