Chapter Text
mood: everything has changed- taylor swift ft ed sheeran
Tuesday, August 7th, 5:43 pm
"Louis, can you come downstairs?" Laura, Louis' mum, yelled from the kitchen. Louis can be heard opening his door and coming down the stairs. He made a turn to his right and entered the kitchen. When his mom saw him she asked, "Can you take the garbage out for me? I'm almost done with dinner."
"Seriously?" Louis fussed and snatched the bag that was laying on the floor, waiting to be taken out. He slipped his feet through his slides and went outside to put the trash out. Outside, there was a moving truck across the street from his house. There were two men, one older than the other, unloading what seemed to be an endless amount of boxes from the truck.
He flopped his way to the other side of his house to put the trash bag in the bin. Since it was Tuesday, the trash was going to be picked up tomorrow morning so he took it upon himself to bring it out to the curb. As he was dragging the bin across his driveway, he hit a bump in the sidewalk, causing the bin to fall on its side. "Seriously? Every single time," Louis sighed to himself picking up the bags that fell out and putting them back into the bin. It didn't help that Louis forgot to put the trash out last week, so the contents spewed out with difficulty to push them all back in.
Since there were so many bags, he had trouble shoving them back into the bin. He also didn't bring the bin back upright making it harder for him. "Hey, need some help?" a voice he's never heard asked from behind him. He ignored the voice and kept trying to shove the bags back in. As he went to grab a bag, he felt a hand on his shoulder and Louis immediately tensed, retracting his hand to his chest. His whole body turned into stone. He could hear his heart beat in his ears and feel his pulse in his toes. Tears started to prickle in his eyes and the hand was removed from his shoulder when it was sensed that Louis was uncomfortable. The person walked around Louis to face him. "Are you okay? Did I do something wrong?" Tears slowly streamed down Louis' face.
Louis moved his eyes and they met with the person who was only trying to help, looking at him for a couple seconds. Worried emerald eyes caused Louis' body to soften the slightest bit. He recognized him from earlier as one of the two men moving boxes across the street. He wore a black tank top, jean shorts, some converse, and his hair was half in a bun and half down. Louis brought his hand up to his face to wipe away his tears and went to finish putting the bags in the bin, ignoring anything his new neighbor has previously said. "Here, let me help," the boy offered grabbing the bag from Louis' hand being careful not to touch him.
Louis watched the boy pick up the rest of the bags and bring the bin to the curb. The boy came back to Louis dusting his hands off before introducing himself. "Hi, I'm Harry. Harry Styles. I uh- I'm moving in across the street. I saw you struggling so I thought I'd give you a hand. And um- I'm sorry if I scared you or anything."
Louis stood across the boy, who he learned goes by the name Harry, watching him ramble on. He couldn't help but feel a little guilty that Harry thought he did something wrong. And there was something about those eyes that warmed him inside and put him at ease. "Um, n-no you're fine. You didn't do anything, it's just me. I'm Louis by the way. Louis Tomlinson," Louis would never even think to engage with a stranger but, again, there was something in those green eyes that soothed him. He stuck his hand out for Harry to shake and Harry was hesitant at first but figured since Louis offered it would be okay. He shook his hand and smiled.
"Pleasure to meet you Louis Tomlinson." Harry scanned Louis' face and took all of his features in: his rounded button nose and his thin lips, the way the setting sun accentuated the freckles spreading across the tops of his nose and cheeks, how his eyes squinted from the sun and the way his eyebrows raised because of it, and are his eyelashes really that long?
"The pleasure's mine," Louis smiled. Yes, okay, maybe Louis found him attractive and maybe he was getting giddy inside and maybe his stomach fluttered when they shook hands, but the chances of Harry being gay was slim to none, so he quickly tried to forget just how beautiful the boy looked. But that didn't stop him from admiring Harry's beautiful curly hair and his shining green eyes and the sparkle his mouth seemed to do when he smiled like in cheesy cartoons and the dimple that would pop out when he smiled or as he talked.
"Big family? I only assumed because you've got loads of bin bags." Harry tried to converse with his neighbor.
Louis' face turned red in embarrassment. "Uh, um, no. I just, uh, I uh, forgot to put it out last week."
"Mm, shit happens I guess." Louis cringed at the curse word escaping Harry's lips. "So no big family?" He tried to keep the conversation going despite sensing Louis not wanting to engage, and hoped he wasn't pushing too far.
Louis shook his head. "Just me and my parents."
"My parents and I," Harry argued.
"My parents and me," Louis corrected.
A smirk appeared on Harry's face. "Oo smarty pants. I like it." Louis' face flushed red and he didn't respond to the somewhat compliment? He stayed quiet and trained his eyes to the ground. Was it obvious that he didn't get into conversations often? Probably, but he hoped Harry wouldn't notice.
"Harry," a deep voice called from across the street. Louis snapped his head up and saw Harry looking behind his shoulder to look at his dad who continued to move boxes, but trained his eyes on his son.
"Well, it was fun while it lasted," Harry chuckled. "If you don't mind, I need to get back to helping my dad unpack before he comes over here and embarrasses me," Harry laughed again, walking backwards across the street.
"Have fun." Louis waved when he should've said 'be careful' since he was walking backwards across the street without even glancing around for cars. But he didn't, and walked back to his door, watching Harry start to help his dad with taking boxes out the truck and into the house.
Louis walked into the kitchen and saw his mum setting up the table for dinner. "What took so long, bub?" his mum asked.
"I had a trash bin accident and I met the new neighbors, the son at least. He's really nice, helped me pick up the mess," Louis said grabbing plates from the cabinet and placing them on the table.
"That's lovely, maybe you'll have friends this school year." Laura placed the dishes she made on the center of the table.
"Mum, he seems too cool for me." Louis placed a fork and knife on either side of each of the three plates.
"Hey honey," his dad walked into the kitchen and placed a kiss on his wife's forehead. She smiled in return. "Hey sport, how was today?" Louis cringed at his dad calling him sport, he hated it.
"Fine," was all Louis said. He sat in his seat and waited for his parents to join him before he started to plate his food. Louis was never really a food person so by filling up the plate, he fills barely half of it. Usually parents would worry about their kid barely eating but Louis was a small kid, and he's been like this since he was eleven years old. Never really had much of an appetite since then. The table was pretty empty since it was only Louis, his mum, and his dad, Charles. They ate and talked— well Louis' parents tried to engage in conversation with him, but he kept his answers short letting them know he didn't want to talk.
Once they finished dinner, Laura washed the dishes and Louis silently put the leftovers in the fridge and walked up to his room. Gently closing the door, he turned his light on and walked over to the desk that had a few tanks on them. One of them containing a hedgehog (Shadow), another with a chinchilla (Onyx), and the last a rabbit (Midnight). It's a pretty weird combination, but Louis loved them all dearly.
He opened the door to the rabbit's cage and took her out for her daily cuddles/free time. Louis grabbed her and sat on the floor holding her in his arms, petting her gently. It was dead silent until he heard his dad's muffled speaking downstairs. "He still won't talk to me. It's been seven goddamn years. How long is it going to take when he's able to keep eye contact with me?"
"You have to understand that this is hard for him. He's trying the best he can. He can't just pretend like nothing happened. He's scared, Charles, he's scared out of his mind but you're only focusing on yourself. That's your son." he heard his mom argue back.
"Yeah, he's my son. He's my son. He should be able to talk to me and trust me. Or even just look at me. It's hard for me too, Laura. To see him be fine with you, talk with you, but give me the cold shoulder."
"He's not giving you the cold shoulder, love. He's just traumatized and he's learning how to trust again. Please be patient with him. He loves you, you know that." That was the last of the conversation Louis was able to hear or cared to eavesdrop on. He only had Midnight out for ten minutes before putting her back into her cage, not really in the mood to be awake right now, or alive for that matter. He usually allows her to be out for an hour or two but overhearing that conversation, he wasn't in the mood anymore.
He crawled into his bed and got under the covers, rolling his body into a ball and turned his lamp off. It was almost eight and his room was still pretty lit from the setting sun outside. Since it was summer it got dark at around nine in the evening. He stared into the nothingness of his ceiling with hot tears streaming down his face. He couldn't believe that his dad was blaming Louis for all of this. Or that he didn't understand or care how traumatized he was. That it's effected him so much that it's been seven years and Louis still can't trust men. "It's all your fault, Charles," Louis said to himself before drifting off to sleep.