nothing // larry stylinson au

Chapter Two

Love. It means one thing to love, but it's a completely different feeling to be loved. Both of these ways of love, Harry has neither experienced nor acted upon for a long time. It's been so long, it's slipped from his memory.

Wrapped in an old, tethered, plaid patterned blanket, he sits on the couch in a foreign house with foreign objects inside of it. This house is luxurious in his eyes, but to most, it appears to be an average place. The couch is worn out, but soft and cushioned to the touch. The cushion molds perfectly around his bottom and he can't help but run his fingers along the soft fabric. The feeling is nothing compared to the lumpy mattress he laid upon only hours before. He moved his feet over the surface of the carpet below, the little strings of the silken carpet entwining through his toes. Straight in front of him, the curtains were closed, only cracks of light peaking through.

Outside, the storm had only slightly calmed, but Harry doesn't care. He is safe now. He is comfortable now. Never has he ever felt such pleasurable comfort in his entire life! It overjoyed him, this strange, unfamiliar security! Here he is, nevertheless, in a place he'd like to call his home. He wanted home to be like he once remembered it before everything was taken away from him and he was secluded from the world and everyone in it.

Home, what he can remember of it, was beautiful. He would wake up and find breakfast in the kitchen with the delicious aroma. He was satisfied with the little things life gave him like air to breathe and a family to love.

That was all gone before he knew it. He learned to be content with what he was given - even though he was given scarce amounts of food, clothing, water, and everything else a typical teenage boy would have in life. It was all taken away from him. All of that happiness vanished in the snap of his fingers and it all led back to his grueling past he dares to never speak about. His uncle told him not to and he promised to do so, as he always obeyed his commands.

Nonetheless, he never had anyone to tell. Who would he have told? The mice he'd sometimes find in the filthy basement he called his room? The imaginary friends he invented when he was ten? Or perhaps he'd tell himself, as he talked to himself often and the memory repeated in his mind over and over and over again...

Sometimes he is convinced that he is insane. Looking in from the outside, most would think the same. Who in their right mind wouldn't go crazy? Most of his lonesome days he spent lying in his mattress, staring at the ceiling and wondering – always wondering - what was going on outside of that crummy basement. That was all he knew. He never once thought that life would get any better than that, but he always imagined what would happen if it did.

Constantly imagining a great life and consistently thinking about all of the things he didn't have made him insane, he couldn't do anything; that itself will cause insanity.

When Louis met him, although Harry thought so, he didn't see insanity. He saw a young, handsome boy whose wandering eyes were mysterious and vacant, yet full of hope.

Hope. The innocent, youthful boy barely had an understanding of what hope was. He lost it all when he lost everything. Yet now, it seems as if he is staring hope right in the eyes. Hope must have dark blue, ocean eyes complete of love. There's that word again.

Harry fell asleep on that worn out couch thinking of those ocean eyes, but he surely didn't dream of them. All he saw once he closed his eyes was that grueling memory that only repeated itself in his mind until he goes senseless. Maybe that is another factor in why he thinks he is mad. The gunshot, the blood, the terror in his family's faces... all came back in what was only a few minutes of a dream, but dragged on for him hour after hour.

He'd have these dreams - no, nightmares - often. Too often. Every time like a scratched record, he'd wake up, lashing around and screaming for his life. It took a moment for him to comprehend that he had awoken. His uncle would yell at him to quiet down each time it occurred and never once did he console the boy. He had his reasons and motives.