“They call themselves ‘The Children Who God Forgot’,” Lottie said, rolling her eyes. She gave her ice cream a token lick with her pointed pink tongue and tucked her hair behind her ear as she shook her head at their stupidity.
Louis raised an eyebrow. It had taken a lot of bribery in the form of ice cream to persuade his little sister to tell him more about Harry (he didn’t care; he was just trying to get up to scratch on local gossip, that was all). So far, she’d told him all of the boy’s favourite haunts, the many reasons why all of their strictly Christian neighbours completed hated him (gay, wore eyeliner, listened to ‘horrible music’ – although apparently always at an acceptable volume that never disturbed anyone, so their disapproval was unwarranted – liked to wear black, didn’t come to church, disliked haircuts, had a divorced mother and yet had insisted on keeping his father’s name so that people would know about it, and had a tightly-knit group of non-Christian friends) given him a detailed description of said friends, and was currently explaining the name of Harry’s little gang of eyeliner-wearing misfits.
“It’s supposed to be ironic,” she explained, shaking her head. “When Harry came out as gay, Father Marshall went around to pay him a visit and try to talk some sense into him. He was very reasonable about it; he explained that it’s just a childhood phase, and God will help him through it. He told him that homosexuality isn’t God’s wish and that he understands Harry’s going through a lot of turmoil at the moment, and he knows it’s hard, but he hopes that Harry will start coming back to church and let God help him instead of shutting him out. Apparently, he said something along the lines of ‘I know it must feel like God has forgotten you, but I think you’ll find that he’s waiting on the sidelines for you to make the right decision’. Well, Harry obviously didn’t take him very seriously, because the next day his little gang suddenly started announcing that they were ‘The Children Who God Forgot’, and thinking it was hilarious.”
Louis couldn’t decide whether he was appalled or amused; on one hand, it was clearly a mark of intelligence that the boy had twisted their argument against him and found a way of mocking it, but it was incredibly disrespectful as well.
“He’s, uh…he has an awful lot of…tattoos and stuff,” he said inadequately.
Lottie giggled. “Oh, I know! For someone so pale, he takes his top off an awful lot! There’s far more underneath that shirt of his, believe me.” She giggled again and covered her mouth to hide her laughter; her mother would have been horrified at the kind of conversation they were having.
“Who are his friends, then? Do I know them? I don’t think I actually know him, when I think about it; I haven’t seen him at school.” He’d have remembered that boy, most definitely. Besides, the dress code at Louis’ school didn’t really allow for angel bites and tattooed elbows and such.
“Nah, he goes to the public school on the other side of town. He doesn’t even go to church, Lou; you really think they’d let him go to your school? His best mate is that Irish kid, Niall something, and that guy Zayn, and they’re just as tattooed and covered in eyeliner as he is. That Zayn guy has taken tattoos to a whole new level, though; it’s ridiculous, actually. He’s got them everywhere.”
For a while, they sat in companionable silence, Lottie nibbling on the cone of her ice cream while Louis wondered whether she was going to demand another one once she’d finished it, and whether he could really afford to keep satisfying his younger sister’s ice cream desires, and whether it was fair to buy one for her and not for any of the other girls, even if it was for the sake of bribery.
“Does he cause a lot of trouble around town?” he asked, attempting to sound casual.
It evidently didn’t work; she glanced up at him suspiciously. “You’re as bad as Fizzy! What’s gotten you so interested in him all of a sudden? What’s with all the questions?”
Mentally filing away the fact that Fizzy had been asking a lot of questions about Harry as well, Louis focused on not giving anything away; he didn’t like to lie, which meant that he had mastered the art of not giving the whole truth away when he spoke.
“I need to catch up on all the gossip. You know I don’t like to be out of the loop.” One hundred per cent true. To distract her, he quickly leaned forwards and poked her in the face with his ice cream, leaving an enormous vanilla blob on the end of her nose.
Lottie shrieked in outrage, batting him away, and then with a laugh she leapt off the wall and started backing away, wiping her sticky nose with the back of her hand and pulling a disgusted face. “Oh, you’re so going to pay for that.”
“You wanna bet?” Louis tossed his ice cream into the nearest bin and held his arms out challengingly. “Bring it, squirt. I could take ten of you and not even break a sweat.”
“Yeah? Let’s hear you say that again after I kick you in the balls!” Giggling, Lottie lunged at him, and he quickly leapt out of the way. As with most siblings, they had quarrelled almost daily since birth, meaning that they were experienced in play-fighting with each other. Louis was seventeen now, and Lottie in her teens, but that didn’t mean they were going to stop messing around.
Setting off at a sprint to avoid her, Louis shook away all of his troubling thoughts that were demanding to know why he was so fascinated with Harry, and burst out laughing, enjoying the advantage that his longer legs gave him. He’d satisfied his curiosity – for now.
~*~
It had been far too long since he’d been shopping, so he made a well-needed trip to the shopping centre to buy the necessities for when school (well, college – gulp!) started again in September; some new school shoes, a new bag, all the standard stuff. It was completely by accident that he ended up in HMV, perusing the indie section of the store and checking the CDs for bands that his parents didn’t disapprove of. They had very specific orders about what music they allowed him to listen to, and he didn’t really mind; he wasn’t into the heavier kind of stuff anyway. He preferred quieter songs with an actual meaning behind them rather than shrieking guitar riffs.
While he was examining the cover-art of a compilation CD of one of his favourite bands, wondering whether he could afford it, he heard an extremely loud laugh behind him. Completely by instinct, he turned towards the source of the noise, and found himself face to face with a blond boy wearing a leather jacket with so many enormous spikes on it that he was in serious danger of poking someone’s eye out, looking kind of like a black and silver porcupine.
He almost jumped out of his skin, yelping in shock and staggering several feet backwards. Before he could fall flat on his back into a stack of CDs, the boy reached out and snagged him by the sleeve, stopping him from falling, and Louis saw that he was wearing a ring shaped like a snarling lion, and had black nail varnish. Nervously, he licked his lips, nodded in thanks and quickly disentangled himself from the boy’s strangely helpful hands.
“Sorry,” the boy said sheepishly, the corner of his mouth quirking upwards into an apologetic smile. “Didn’t see you there.” He had a strong Irish lilt to his voice that was obvious even from those two short sentences.
“No problem,” Louis replied faintly, struggling to cope with the fact that by some coincidence, he’d come face to face with Harry Styles’ best friend, that Lottie was completely right; he wore eyeliner too, and the edge of a tattoo was poking out just above the collar of his jacket, decorating one of his defined collarbones. It looked suspiciously like a pentagram, one of the symbols Louis had always been taught was a sign of evil, and he swallowed very hard.
“Oi, Niall! Stop terrorizing the other shoppers,” came a rich, teasing voice, and Louis found himself blinking in utter shock at how perfectly, gorgeously smooth each syllable sounded as they slid through Harry Styles’ pierced lips.
Turning around, the Irish lad laughed again, the same racous yet oddly nice sound that he had made before. “Whoops. I didn’t do it on purpose!” he insisted, I didn’t even see him!”
“Yeah, that’s what they all say.” Stepping forwards, Harry fondly slung one of his bare arms around his friend’s shoulders; his bracelets clinked together and tinkled where they came into contact with the spikes on Niall’s jacket, which Harry didn’t seem to feel digging into his arm. He smiled pleasantly at Louis, who could see now that he was at close range that Harry had eyes the colour of the fir tree outside Louis’ bedroom window, and they were only more defined by the eyeliner that he had expertly swiped around them. His hair fell in ruffled curls over his pale forehead, and there was a kind of wry twist to his mouth that hinted at a great sense of humour. Today, he wore a plain black woollen jumper with the sleeves rolled up just past the elbows, and black Chinos with ripped knees, and the same sneakers as the day before, although they appeared to have been cleaned, and he’d swapped the customary white laces for rainbow-striped ones. Like Louis had noticed the day before, he had a delicate cobweb tattooed on each elbow; now that he was close enough to read the writing on the boy’s left forearm, he examined it closely, hoping that it wasn’t too obvious that he was staring.
“Love me or hate me, both are in my favour…If you love me, I’ll always be in your heart…If you hate me, I’ll always be in your mind.”
Hmm.
“Sorry about this idiot,” Harry said warmly, and his voice was the kind of voice that should narrate children’s audio-books; it was deep and calming, melting over him like warm water; one of the most pleasant voices Louis had ever heard. His mouth almost fell open in a completely moronic way, but hejust managed to keep it shut.
“That’s okay,” he found himself saying, “I didn’t pay enough attention to what was going on behind me, I guess.”
Green eyes flickering to the CD in Louis’ hands, Harry asked cheerfully, “Hey, I like that band too. Do you have their new album? It’s great, isn’t it?” He disentangled his long arm from around Niall’s shoulders and beamed at Louis.
“Uh, no, my mum didn’t want me listening to it after they changed the genre a little…” He blushed at how idiotic it sounded. “Um, I should probably, uh –”
Harry held his hand out, and Louis quickly gave it to him, anxious that he might get his head kicked in if he didn’t – even though up close, despite the eyeliner, the boy didn’t look like he was capable of harming a fly. He was too goofy, too gangly, too pale and skinny and good-natured and looked like he was still growing into his body. The best way to describe him was long – he was long all over.
“Hey, Harry!”
All three of them looked up in surprise as a beautiful brown-eyed boy ambled over to join them. The first thing that Louis noticed about him was his very tall, thick black hair, with a bright blond stripe going up the middle so that he sort of reminded Louis of a badger – the second was that rather than wearing black and silver like the other two, he was wearing a luminous orange shirt, a black waistcoat and black jeans, and a chunky metal belt dripping with chains. A few more seconds of observation taught him that Lottie had been perfectly accurate in her description of him; he did have tattoos everywhere. The insignia of the band Nirvana was inked onto his neck, and he had a musical note entwined with roses on his left wrist. There were plenty more designs on his flawless skin, but before Louis could examine them properly, he realized he was gaping and looked away, feeling incredibly stupid.
“Hi, Zayn,” Harry said calmly, and without looking away from Louis, he held his hand up for a high-five. Zayn elbowed him in the ribs, and Harry smirked and reached around to smack him on the bum, making the other boy laugh and ruffle his curly hair in retaliation. Proper greetings established with one friend, Zayn stepped around him and proceeded to teasingly smack Niall across the back of the head, then get him in a headlock and thoroughly destroy his hair, too.
“Hey,” whined Niall, struggling valiantly against him – Louis was surprised that so far none of the boys had been impaled on the little spiky studs on Niall’s jacket; they looked horribly sharp, but either they were all so used to it that they didn’t notice any more, or they weren’t as lethal as they looked. Louis was inclined to believe the former.
“All right?” Zayn said, then he looked at Louis. “Hey, I’m Zayn.”
Louis instinctively managed a smile and stuttered out his own name in return, but he couldn’t help but feel stunningly awkward in his blue jeans and red and white striped shirt; he felt ridiculously normal looking compared to the three boys in front of him, who all wore at least one item of black clothing and lots of jewellery; for Harry it was his hundreds of stringy bracelets; Zayn had several thick chains around his neck to match the ones around his waist, and Niall had his incredibly unusual ring adorning one finger.
“Harry, and Niall,” added Zayn, indicating his friends.
Almost as if he hadn’t noticed his friend introducing him, Harry interrupted as if they’d been halfway through a conversation, “I might buy this, actually. You don’t want it, do you? Because if you were going to get it, I can always look and see if they have another.” His expression was friendly but otherwise unreadable as he made eye contact with Louis and tapped the CD case.
“Nah, I don’t – I was just looking,” Louis said weakly. Jingling his pocket regretfully, he realized that he didn’t have enough money anyway. “You can have it.”
“Really? Hey, thanks!” Harry grinned, and the smile lit up his whole face as he showed off the kind of smile that belonged on an advert for dentistry – it even reached his forest green eyes, and Louis found himself catching his breath in surprise at the brilliance of the boy’s smile.
Just as Harry was absentmindedly beginning to examine the CD, his beautiful eyes roving over the cover art, there was a loud crash from outside, and the sound of someone crying out in dismay. Harry’s head snapped up in alarm, he shoved the CD back into Louis’ hands, and then he whirled around and rushed out of the shop, his curls bouncing, sneakers squeaking on the polished floor.
Zayn and Niall exchanged glances, rolled their eyes as if Harry rushing off at the first sound of a disturbance was something that happened every day and they were both used to and bored by it now – and then they turned around and hared off after him, although Niall did manage to blurt out a “bye!” to Louis before he vanished through the double doors, leaving Louis standing alone with the CD he couldn’t afford clutched in his hands.
Hastily replacing it back on the shelf where he’d found it, Louis followed them (the exit is that way! What other way could I go? was Louis’ justification) and when he burst out of the shop, he discovered an old woman scrabbling helplessly on the floor to try and pick up the shopping that had fallen to the ground when her plastic shopping bags had split and burst everywhere – but what shocked him most was the sight of Harry kneeling beside her, helping to gather up her shopping, picking up armfuls of it as he looked around for something to put it all in. Her own slender arms were filled with packages, and she too seemed at a loss as to what she was going to do with it now that the bags were all ripped.
“Are you all right?” he asked her in a low voice. “Here, it’s all right, I’ll carry those –”
“Oh, thank you so much, dear, I really don’t know what I’m going to do with all of these things; I was hoping that the bags would hold until I got home –”
Harry offered eagerly, “If you want, I could go back to the shop and get some more bags for you? I don’t mind, really –”
It was such a ridiculous sight; the boy with the floppy hair and black clothes and various bits of metal sticking through his face, eagerly trying to help a struggling old woman. Louis found himself rather in awe of her, if he was perfectly honest, seeing as he himself had quavered at the sight of Harry and his friends, whereas she was taking it all in her stride and gratefully accepting his help. He felt himself softening at the sight of Harry kindly accepting another armful of shopping from her, and then throwing a pleading glance towards his friends, who stood watching with expressions of resignation that was bordering on amusement. Zayn seemed a little exasperated, whereas Niall was apparently struggling to keep a smile off his face.
“It’s bloody ridiculous. He really can’t help himself, can he? The first sight of someone who needs a hand with something, and there he is. Sometimes I wonder if he thinks he’s the next Clark Kent.” Zayn shook his head wearily.
Niall snorted with laughter. “I can’t imagine our Haz in red and blue lycra, if I’m honest. He’s got the body for it, but I don’t think red is his colour.” He started striding towards Harry and the old woman, saying, “might as well; there’s no harm in doing a couple of good deeds. Come on, man. Help the guy out. It’s not his fault that he’s too nice for his own good.”
Grumbling under his breath, Zayn followed the Irish lad with his hands stuffed into his pockets, but failed completely at looking surly; he too seemed to be unable to help smiling at Harry. Louis shared the sentiment; he had softened completely, and was almost feeling like he wanted to hug Harry. He didn’t think he’d ever seen anyone do such a genuinely lovely thing for a complete stranger before in his whole life.
Immediately, Louis turned his back on them, already recognizing the danger signs of his own ridiculous tendency to develop fondness for outcasts, strays and misfits in general. He was completely determined that he wasn’t going to develop any kind of affection for this total stranger – this gay, weird, kind of scary-looking stranger who his parents and everyone else he knew seemed to dislike so heartily. In fact, he needed to remember the rather crucial fact that Fizzy had almost been reduced to tears by the mere mention of his name; there was a reason behind that which he still needed to find out.
The boy had bits of metal sticking through his face! His friends wore metal all over their bodies and clothes! His shoelaces were rainbow coloured and he wore so many bracelets that you couldn’t see the first five inches of his pale wrists! He wore eyeliner. He was the kind of guy Louis had always been taught to avoid like the plague. If he had been a leper, then it would have been Louis’ duty to attempt to care for him – but a punk with tattoos on his arms and headphones trailing out from the neck of his t-shirt and dangling down his chest? No, he’d been told to stay away from people like that, and he didn’t question that for a second. Nor did he have any intention of ever starting to question it. He didn’t argue with his parents – ever.
By the time Zayn, Harry and Niall had thought to look up and ask the stranger with the silver crucifix around his neck whether he would help them to pick up the shopping of the old lady, who was apparently not at all daunted by their abundance of facial piercings and was timidly asking whether it would be too much trouble for them to help her take it all to her car, Louis had already vanished around the corner, lost in thought and lost from sight. Bearing in mind that he was a devout Christian and helping people was supposed to be second nature to him, it perhaps wasn’t the greatest testament to his character, but he had lots of things on his mind.
His apparent fascination with the inexplicable kind-heartedness of Harry Styles being one of them.