Chapter Text
When Harry's seven, his favorite color is blue. It's the color of the sky, of his favorite truck, of his best friend's eyes. It's the color that his big sister Gemma's dressed in on her last day of secondary school, and it's the color of his folder at school. Louis' favorite color is blue, too, and Harry can't imagine not loving the things that Louis loves.
When his mother, Helen, asks Harry to pick what tie Robin should wear at his funeral, it's an obvious choice for him. He's not sure how Robin would like it, or how it will tie in together with the rest of his outfit, but Harry frowns and whispers, "Blue.” Helen smiles down at him and squeezes his hand. A comforting touch, nothing more than a promise that she will love him forever. She's always so scared he'll forget that, that his mind will only get more twisted as he grows and it'll convince him he's not loved.
"He'd love it," she promises, easing his nerves.
Harry just nods, because he still doesn't understand. He doesn't get it . Robin was there one day, picking him up from school and driving him to the ice cream shop, and the next, he's dead. Dead . It's a new word for Harry, and his teacher tells her students to write down new words they learn, but Harry doesn't write down this one. He doesn't like it, and he's not going to let a word he doesn't like taint his notebook. He's still too young to fully grasp it, but Louis tells him that dead means gone and never coming back. Harry trusts Louis' definition; Louis' nine and says that his dad is dead, too.
Helen buys the tie and Harry demands to hold it; he wants to memorize the soft texture and silk material. She gives it to him and he wrinkles it between his too-tight grip, but she doesn't scold him, doesn't have the heart to. She brought Robin into their lives two and a half years ago, and Harry loved him so much already. She feared that Harry would be confused and start to lash out, yet only a few minutes after introducing Harry to Robin, Harry smiled and shyly showed him his Lego collection. She remembers the way she almost cried at how well Robin's hearty laugh and Harry's soft giggle blended together.
And yet again, another person has failed Harry. First Harry's real father, and now Robin, even if he didn’t mean to.
Harry still takes her divorce with Des to heart, still cries when Helen explains to him that they will have two separate birthday parties for him and no, they aren't getting back together just because Harry asks them too. Sometimes she swears to herself that the divorce is the reason Harry's mind is so complex, that it's the reason some days he feels like he can't breathe from an imaginary weight on his chest, but she knows that's not true. She knows that she's just trying to find another reason to be mad at Des, which would be the easy thing to do. The truth is, Harry's always been a little skittish, a whole lot anxious, and had enough distress from the tiniest things to last him a lifetime. The divorce didn't cause it, it just made it worse.
Helen isn't shocked when Harry grows quiet and clingy while he adapts to not having Robin around. It's painful as she watches him maneuver around the house skillfully and hesitantly, like he's relearning it, like it isn't the same without him here. He has more trouble sleeping at night than usual, goes completely silent some days, even when Louis' over, and looks to her for approval in almost everything he does.
When he has to do his math homework without Robin's help for the first time, he sobs and sobs and tells Helen to bring him back, just for this one problem. His face goes bright red, his bottom lip gets brutalized from his teeth, and she offers to help, but he throws his workbook off the table and tells her no, that Robin's the only one who knows how to do it. It's not true -- it's simple adding and subtracting -- but it probably feels true to Harry.
Helen swears to herself as she holds Harry that night that she'll never get involved with another man, not if it hurts her children.
Three months after Robin's funeral, she wants to take that promise back. She's just so, so lonely and sad all of the time. She's not sure she's ready for another man in her life, but she needs something, something maybe not as permanent. It's just, Gemma is always up in her room with that phone of hers, and her friends still give her that oh, Helen look accompanied by a frown, so all she has is her Harry.
Harry bakes with her, gives her his first real smile since the funeral. He tells her all about his day, about how Louis got in trouble because he talked back after not doing his work. He tells her that he doesn't like when Gemma ignores him, or how other kids at the school are mean to Louis. He shows her his favorite stars in the sky, and colors her pictures she tacks onto the wall. Sometimes Harry's anxiety and nervousness makes Helen sad, but being able to comfort him makes her so, so happy.
Slowly but surely, her only source of happiness becomes Harry.
They become closer than what's healthy for either of them. Harry has nightmares, so when Louis' not over, Helen sleeps in his small, cramped bed with him. He refuses to shower without her in the bathroom with him (“ I'm scared you're going to leave me when I'm in there ,” he confesses one night). They become one unit, never too far apart from one another. Helen even picks him up from school everyday for lunch because if she doesn't, Harry will throw himself in a full blown panic attack that not even Louis can fix, only her.
That's where things start to go bad. Harry becomes Helen's everything and more. She stops sleeping in Harry's bed just when he has nightmares and starts sleeping with him every night. He cuddles in close, always choosing to shove his cheek against her breast. Harry's sad, too, so he welcomes the extra affection. Until it becomes too much.
It's not like she wakes up and decides to touch him one day, it sort of just happens. Harry's in the shower, singing softly, and like she can't help it, she opens the shower curtain. It's always stays shut when Helen is in the bathroom while he showers, so this is new. He squeaks, covering himself with his hand, but when he sees that she's not wearing any clothes either, he's not sure what to do. She doesn't do anything but poke and prod a little, nothing that scares Harry.
She does that the next night, scares him. When she comes into his room, Helen's wearing blue knickers and a silky top.. Harry has never seen his mum like this, but it's his mum , and it's not she's done anything wrong. He looks at her, eyes wide, waiting for an instruction.
She does do something wrong that night, something that scares Harry so badly that he nearly hyperventilates. He cries and cries and cries, because what are you doing, Mummy? and please stop , I don't like that , it feels weird .
She doesn't stop, and eventually, with some manipulation and threats that always scare even herself, she convinces him that what they do isn't so wrong. That they're just playing . And after Harry learns the rules, it becomes fun . When Harry becomes frightened of her after the first night, she starts making it impossible to say no by not picking him up for lunch and not allowing him to eat dinner, sending him to bed hungry and scared. He can't handle the nightmares that always come when she's not there, so eventually, he lets her back into his bedroom.
It's a secret, though; Helen reminds him of that every night. She brings him gifts that she calls toys and tells him that he can only play with them with her. "Just me," she tells him, smiling gently. "Not with Gems, not even Louis. Promise?"
Harry is good at keeping promises.
He's a good boy. That's what his mother tells him. She manipulates his sensitive, overly-caring side to her advantage. Harry's not like Louis; Harry likes to follow rules and becomes shaken when he can't. He's born plagued with anxiety and fears of not being enough, and his mother only adds to the mess that is his head.
When Harry's fourteen, he still loves the color blue. It's still the color of his best friend's eyes, and of the sky, and of his favorite folder. But he discovers a new shade of blue, one that's mixed with red and wailing sirens, and he hates it.
The only words that Harry's brain can manage to string together is Gemma was supposed to be out all night.
It starts off as a normal night. Harry's in the living room watching Law & Order: SVU on the telly whilst texting Louis things like ' do you really think its him???' and ' what just happnd had to look away,, gross'. Louis couldn't come over tonight to watch the new episode with him like he does every week, so they have resorted to texting each other their reactions.
That is, until Gemma is running down the stairs, her high heels clanking on each step. Harry looks to her curiously, his brown curls shaking as he turns his head. She's dressed in tight black jeans and a low cut shirt.
Oh, he thinks, immediately putting together the pieces. "You're going on with Niall again tonight?" Harry assumes, a small smile creeping onto his lips. Harry likes Niall, likes that he makes his big sister happy. He's nice and brings Harry treats from the movie theater he works at, and doesn't get annoyed when Harry won't leave them be like Gemma does.
"Shut up, Haz," Gemma sighs, but she's smiling. It's May and she just graduated high school, and Niall is taking her out to celebrate. Niall graduated three years ago; he's twenty-one, now, working at the theater in between college courses. The Horan family has always been close to the Styles-Twist family, so Niall's not a stranger. They've known each other for as long as Harry can remember; the only thing that's new is the fact that his sister is dating him now.
The doorbell rings, and Harry smiles at the way Gemma's whole face lights up. She fixes her hair a bit before rushing towards the door, and Harry's heart swells.
"Bye, Gems! Tell Niall I said hello!" Harry calls, beaming at his big sister. His phone lights up from a text of Louis, and instantly, Harry's attention goes back to him.
sorry not sorry Amaro is hot as fuck, Louis texts. Harry's face burns; he's not embarrassed that his best friend is gay, it's just. Harry thinks Nick Amaro is hot as fuck, too, but he can't just say it like Louis can. The two of them have done stuff before, once, but they've never talked about it and it got Harry in a lot of trouble and that's really all Harry knows about liking boys.
As Harry types out ' omg Lewis STOp' with a heart to make sure his good intentions pass through the text, Helen sits beside him. Harry jumps and shields his phone to make sure his mother can't see his text messages (he doesn't want to get in trouble again, his whole body aches from the memory of last time) before he realizes that she's not wearing any clothes, so it doesn't seem she'd care too much if she knows Louis is gay, anyhow.
"Mum," Harry whispers, instinctively moving closer. He's completely forgotten about his show the second he notices Helen's fingers are dancing between her thighs. "Let me see."
She tuts, shaking her head. "You're watching your show, aren’t you, love?" Harry nods. "It's only got ten minutes left, I think you can wait."
And no, Harry can't. His mother has him practically trained to pop a boner whenever she's even near . But he wants to be a good boy, because he remembers the time he wasn't and what had happened, so he sits quietly and finishes his show, gnawing on his lip to keep him calm.
When it's over, it turns out the bloke really, actually did do it and Helen is growing impatient. So, like they always do when Gemma is out, they play. They go to his bedroom with the blue walls and do things they shouldn't be doing. He's good, and good boys get rewarded, and everything's just so fucking good , that Harry would bet his life it couldn't change.
It does. Everything does.
Neither of them hear Niall's car door slam, or Gemma shuttinging the front door, or Niall and Gemma saying they love each other. They don't hear much of anything, because Helen's got her head nestled between Harry's thighs, and Harry's seeing stars. So they don't hear the footsteps coming towards Harry's door because Niall has a chocolate bar for Harry. They do, though, hear Gemma's horrified shriek when the door swings open.
An ear-piercing silence takes over the room when Gemma stops yelling, aside from the shuffling of the covers as Helen moves away from her son. Gemma and Niall both look like they've seen a ghost, and Niall's clinging to Gemma's arm like she can do anything to stop anything of it. Niall's always had this glow of innocence around him, just like Harry, and for some reason, seeing him horrified scares Harry the most.
The whole scene catches flame like a wildfire; once the leaves are on fire, there's no stopping it, no reversing time.
Harry feels like his entire body is on fire, can feel himself shaking everywhere , and he's not surprised because he's terrified, fuck . He's not even sure what he's done wrong, but he knows that it was supposed to be a secret better than he knows anything else. He's staring at Gemma with wide eyes, his fingers digging into his blue duvet and silently begging her to pretend like nothing has happened. If she would just turn around, everyone could pretend like nothing's happened. He doesn't know what's going to happen next, doesn't know if he should be running or crying or screaming. He sits and waits, chest heaving.
Helen is sitting on the edge of Harry's bed, still naked, staring out his window. She looks like she's already accepted the future's fate, but Harry can't, and he won't, because he's scared everything is going to change. Everything's been exactly the same for seven years, it can't change now. He's finally begun to show real progress in his mental health and everything seems a bit less shit, it can't change now.
"Go away," Harry begs, voice wavering on every syllable. He shoves the duvet over his naked body, feeling exposed.
Niall and Gemma look sick. Proper sick, like they might actually throw up. It only adds to the panicked hammer of his heart.
"Gemma," Helen says suddenly, looking away from the window to her daughter. She stands up and Harry shuffles to the edge of the bed, trying to make sure his mother doesn't get too far away from him. It's like a string is attached to both of them, and it doesn't give much way. If it were to snap, if it were to break -- Harry would break right along with it. "Don't do anything you're going to regret." Her voice is calm and soothing, and it helps ease the fire on Harry's skin slightly. She always knows how to help him.
"Get away from me," Gemma stammers out, shaking her finger angrily. Helen doesn't listen, just tries to smile, and Gemma steps back. She bumps into Niall, who barely flinches. "Stay away ."
Harry starts to cry, and Niall's staring at him like he's a ran over puppy on a freeway. Harry cries and cries, and watches as his mother and his sister have a silent conversation with their eyes. When Gemma's chin rises like she's decided something and Helen's shoulders deflate like she's given up, Harry's cries turn to heart-stopping sobs.
"I'm calling the police," Gemma says harshly. She glares at Niall, though he's the only one who hasn't done anything wrong in this scenario. "Don't let her lay another hand on him."
Niall nods immediately and lets go of Gemma's arm reluctantly. Harry watches with wide eyes as Gemma pulls out her phone and walks out of his room.
"No-o!" Harry howls, scrambling off the bed after his sister. She can't, she can't, she can't . Their mother, who's back seated on Harry's bed, studies him sadly, like she's not willing to forget a second inch of him. Niall glares at her, finally breaking into action as if he'd rather die than watch her look at him for another moment longer.
Niall stops Harry from running after Gemma, because Niall knows what has to be done and Harry's still naked, and Niall will be ill if Helen keeps looking at him while he's undressed. "Harry, bud," Niall whispers, licking his lips nervously. He bends his knees so he's eye-level with Harry, and shit -- he still hasn't even had his fucking growth spurt yet. "Let's get some clothes on, yeah?"
Harry shakes his head wildly but Niall doesn't listen. He keeps a steady arm on Harry's arm so he won't take off as he bends over to grab Harry's discarded boxers on the floor. He goes to help Harry step into them, but he throws them like they're on fire once he notices they're stained. While grumbling profanities and cursing Helen's existence quietly, Niall takes off his hoodie and pulls it over Harry's shoulders. It's gray and faded, reading BULLDOGS on it, and it's baggy on Niall since it was his father’s, so it consumes Harry.
Niall shudders at how small it makes Harry look. At how small Harry looks in general right now.
Whilst Niall's shakes his hands out and takes a deep breath, Harry uses it to his advantage and runs out of his room to find Gemma. He can't let her do this, has to try to get things to go back to normal. Maybe if he promises to be better somehow, maybe if he tries harder on his course work or chores, she'll stop.
Niall curses, but doesn't follow. He has to watch Helen.
Harry speeds to a halt once he sees Gemma sitting on the couch where Helen had only a few hours before. Her face is paler than normal, and she's biting at her nails like she does when she's studying for exams. She speaks in a hushed, choked voice. "He's just turned fourteen. . . yes, I know. I know. . . okay."
His lip begins to wobble and he starts to scream, scaring the daylights out of Gemma. He runs at her and jumps on her lap, trying desperately to grab the phone from her hands. She stands on the couch and holds it just out of Harry's reach, like she does with the remote control when they're arguing, and Harry's still screaming, and now Gemma's crying again, and everything won't stop changing.
"Stop, stop!" he yells out at the top of his lungs and, "No! I didn't do anything wrong!" until his throat burns and his words are hoarse. He shoves at her shoulders, but she doesn't waver and steps off the couch. He follows, tripping only slightly, and shoves her again, and again, and again, and once he's realized he can't muster up the force to push Gemma more than an inch, he resorts to punching.
He comes at her nose with a closed fist and she gasps, ducking out of the way. Harry's always been so kind and so soft, so seeing him this way makes Gemma want to drown herself in her own tears. He's her little brother . She grabs his arm once he tries to hurt her once more. Harry only continues to sob and shout.
Things come to another silent halt when sirens are heard in the distance. Gemma and Harry stare at each other with wide eyes, and guilt eats at her stomach. What has she done?
Before she can tell herself that she's done the right thing, Harry is running back to his room. Niall's sitting on his swivel desk chair, chewing relentlessly at his thumb, while Helen, still undressed, sits on his bed, crying whilst holding Harry's duvet in her fingertips.
Harry launches himself at his mother, barreling into her at full speed with a hug. She cries into his arm and he shoves his curls against her breast and just clings, knowing this will be the last time he'll probably ever see his mother again.
The woman who raised him, the woman who protected him and healed him for years will be taken away for something Harry doesn't even fully understand. He already deals with attachment issues and severe anxiety, nobody knows where this will take him.
"I love you, baby," she tells him, crying. "You were a good boy for me, okay? The best. Mummy loves you, don't ever forget that."
"I won't," Harry sobs, clinging and clinging and clinging. After a long minute, Harry can't help but whisper what he fears most. "They're gonna take you away."
"I know baby, but it's going to be okay."
Harry doesn't understand how any of this is going to ever be okay, but before he can ask, he's being ripped off of her by Niall. He's not gentle, knowing full well that Harry's going to put up a good fight, and they both come crashing down against Harry's gray carpet.
"Shh," Niall is telling him, but Harry can't hear him; he's screaming again, on top of his flailing and thrashing about. Niall winces each time Harry elbows him or kicks him, but nonetheless keeps him away from Helen who's watching them with sad eyes. This is when Niall decides he needs to be the one to protect Harry, when he swears he won't let anything else bad happen to him ever again.
The room spins and he can't breathe anymore when two policemen enter his room with the blue walls and tell Helen that it's time to go. He goes suddenly quiet, his body trying and failing to get a breath in before his mother is taken away from him for no reason at all.
They tell her to get dressed and she does. They guide her out of the room, and she gives him a small wave goodbye, and no. He doesn't just get a wave goodbye. Harry sputters out coughs that drag some air into his lungs, frees himself from Niall's arms after a second or two, and he chases after his mother. Niall's fingers grasp at his sweatshirt, but it's too late. Harry's already out the door.
He runs passed Gemma, passed the police men and woman, passed the gawking neighbors, and crashes into his mother's back once again. She's wearing handcuffs now, and they're nothing like the ones they play with, and Harry clutches onto her shirt.
She tells him she loves him, and then he's being yanked away yet again.
He falls into the arms of a female police officer, and this time he doesn't fight. His body sags into her chest as he tries to breathe. She wraps her arms protectively around him, and she's telling him to look away from his mother being driven away and to look at the blue sky.
He decides he hates the color blue, and he's right: everything changes.
。。。
A loud, continuous knocking at the door is what he wakes to. His first instinct is to jolt in panic, to try and figure out if he's in danger, but that's nothing new. He's dealt with that initial panic his entire life. It barely registers in his brain as a problem -- the only problem in this situation is that he's barely gotten any sleep in pretty much the last year of his life, and his sister is waking him up.
It's Gemma, he knows it is. Niall is always soft and careful around him; not hesitant or scared, but tentative about doing or saying the wrong thing. Harry appreciates it, even if he doesn't say so.
"Harry! Harry. I told you to stop locking this door, and I meant it , goddammit." She hits the door again, and Harry pulls himself out of bed to unlock the door. There's no reason to drag this out any longer than it has to take, and Gemma isn't one to give up. When he opens it, Gemma has an angry look on her face and a hand on her hip.
"I'm not in the mood to argue," Harry whispers, looking anywhere but her eyes. He wonders if he'd hit her hard enough last night to leave a bruise, and then he decides there's no way he couldn't have.
"It's your birthday," she says with a smile that doesn't reach her eyes. She's always giving him those now, only has real ones to share with Niall -- which, to be fair, Harry does the same. "Why would I argue with you on your birthday, baby brother?"
Immediately, he feels caught out. Defensive and stupid, because he didn't know . He's fifteen now, he guesses. He doesn't know the day half the time anymore; since he dropped out of public schools and switched to online school, he doesn't even know the difference between a Friday and a Monday anymore. Breakfast has permanently been renamed brunch, he goes to bed at midnight on early nights, and he eats dinner when most kids are going to sleep. A lot has changed.
He had turned fourteen two months before Helen was arrested.
Gemma walks into the room and peers around. He's sure she doesn't mean to, but she always look for signs of trouble everywhere Harry goes. It's not to be helpful or protective, either. It's to find any reason to be mad at him that's justified. Her eyes land on the unmade bed, and it causes her to frown. "You're not sleeping in here again, are you?" She sounds so disappointed.
The first few months, Harry barely left Helen's room. It's a blessing that Gemma hadn't ripped the lock off then. Niall and Gemma slowly coaxed him out, like he was a scared animal. And in some ways, he was. He slowly began to start eating in the kitchen again, and now most nights, he sleeps on the couch. He hasn't stepped foot inside his old room since everything happened, because the idea of walking in there when a hundred different things would be begging to be remembered makes his throat tighten up, so Niall grabs anything he needs for him.
Harry winces and curls his arms around his middle. This is the longest they've talked to each since without arguing before it happened. Most of the time, Harry can't even look at her without thinking you're the reason she's gone and when he's not ignoring her, they're arguing profusely and he's trying to hurt her.
Harry doesn't know why, but when he's mad, he's resorted to violence. It's a complete one-eighty from the gentle, kind child who wouldn't dream of harming a fly. When he's upset, he throws things and kicks and hits and he can't understand why. He's fourt-- fifteen , not five. But something devours him and turns him into a stranger, and the next day he's always stuck wondering what's wrong with him.
His therapist tells him that he's trying to get back some control over his life. Like most things she says, he thinks it's bullshit. He's just fucking insane, he's decided. Because even before everything fell apart, he was screwed in the head. Nancy asked him why his mother hadn't taken him to a therapist before her, before now, and Harry couldn't figure out the answer. Clearly, his brain had been doing itself in -- Nancy calls it's severe generalized anxiety, mild obsessive compulsive disorder, depression, and major complex PTSD -- even when he was a little boy, so why had his mother never thought to change any of it?
Turns out, she did. Gemma told him that night when he asks that she took him to a therapist or two when he was five and refusing to go to school, and they all told her it was simply a bit of an attachment issue, that he was a Momma's boy. And they said it should go away, and if it doesn't, come back in four to six months, and Gemma says that they came back when he was seven and had his first panic attack. The doctors said he was just shy, and Helen had got so sick and tired of hearing strangers over simplify her child's issues that she gave up.
Two therapy appointments in two years; that's all the hassle he was worth, apparently.
"I like it in here," he whispers finally, looking around carefully. Most of his mother's things are gone now, since Gemma got mad one night and broke or threw everything away that she could before Niall calmed her down, but Gemma hadn't touched her drawers so Harry isn’t too upset. "It reminds me of her."
Gemma's jaw clenches. "That's why you should hate it in here."
And this is where their conversations end and their arguments start: Harry's still in denial that his mother had ever done anything wrong in the first place. He knows now that it's not the preferred method of parenting, of teaching right from wrong, but it helped. Gemma says he's an idiot because of it when she's mad, but turns around and tells him gently that's he's just confused when she's not.
That's one thing he'll agree with her on: he's bloody confused. Because he knows if he heard of another kid being in his situation, he'd feel sorry for them. Since it's him, it's different, though. He knows his mother. He knows she was trying her hardest, and it's not like she was abusive. (When he says this to Nancy, she looks pained when she tells him that sexual abuse is still abuse.) And aside from one time, it was fun , what they did, and Harry doesn't exactly miss it, but. Everything was just easier then, and now everything's so much harder, but everyone is telling him that he's safe now. He doesn't exactly feel safe. He feels lonely and sad and like shit, pretty much all of the time.
He narrows his eyes. "Is there a reason you knocked?"
She huffs, putting both of her hands on her hips. He fucking hates it, the way she tries to do her best impression of Mum. Gemma's not Helen, no matter how many times she gives him that look. "Yes, actually. I know it’s your birthday, but Child Protective Services are coming today for a not-so-surprising surprise visit. They want to make sure you're doing okay." She gives him a stern look. "So make them think you're doing okay."
A part of Harry doesn't want to argue, because she's right. For once, she's looking out for what is best for him. Even if Harry's still a bit out of his mind, it'll only get worse if he gets tossed in the foster system. But the other part of him screams in red, hot anger, she's trying to make you forget . Forget their dad, their mum, his best friend. And he can't forget them, especially since memories are all he has left of them anymore.
She's telling him to forget that he's not being raised by two kids who don't know what they're doing and who can't agree on the best parenting technique. She's asking him to forget that Helen's in prison because of him, that Robin's dead, and that his father ate a bullet when he heard the news, because of him. She probably doesn't want Harry to forget Louis, because Louis was always good for him, but she doesn't exactly encourage him to stop ignoring his best friend out of fear, either.
And he won't -- he won't do any of it. He needs to remember them all, every detail, or he'll become nothing.
After Helen was arrested and the neighbors got bored and dispersed, Harry was still trembling in the arms of Elise, the police officer who refrained him from getting to his mother. He didn't want to let go, for some reason, and she wasn't going to be the first to release him. She wasn't going to neglect him any further, so they sat there on the sidewalk for hours.
Her partner left when he realized she wasn't going to leave him. The neighbors were all inside, even if they were still gawking from their windows. Gemma went down to the police station to file a report, and Niall had gone inside to make dinner after about an hour.
It was just the two of them and Harry's labored breaths that never seemed to even out until Gemma got home and pleaded for him to come inside. She said that they've all had a long enough night and asked him not to make it any harder, so he listened and let Elise finally go home.
Point is, she had made it her duty to look out for him. She's the one who gives them heads-up about their home visits, and she's pretty much the only reason why Harry got to be adopted by Gemma and Niall.
In the beginning, the chances of Harry getting lost in the foster system were large. It was only Gemma trying to adopt him initially, because Elise said having Niall as a boyfriend rather than a husband might complicate things if they tried adopting him together. Gemma was only eighteen at the start, and already struggling enough with keeping up with the house payments with her shitty part time job at the dinner down the street. The judge deemed her unfit, but then Niall stepped in and offered to adopt Harry with her.
Niall was twenty-one at the time, and had gotten a full time job at Ford. He lived in a spacious flat with a friend, and Harry and Gemma could have moved in for cheaper rent, which never ended up happening because Harry cried and cried for days at the thought of leaving home. And to make their case better, Niall had known and adored Harry since Harry had been five. He knew everything there was to know about Harry, and if he didn't, he promised he'd do his best to learn everything else. The judge agreed to it after a good word from Elise, and now, the only thing to worry about is fucking up home visits from CPS.
Elise says this should be their last one for a while.
Harry knows this is probably the only option that leads to him having a chance of a better life. The only better option would have been living with Des, Gemma and Harry's biological father. But the Styles men must be terribly fucked in the head, all of them, because approximately eighteen minutes after Gemma called him and told him what was happening, what Helen did to Harry, he shot himself in the head. Just like that, everyone who Harry had left to call his parents were gone, and all it took was forty-eight hours.
Everyone eventually vanished from his life -- his teachers, his friends from school, Louis .
Louis tried so hard, so hard, to keep connection with Harry. Texts, calls, emails, home-visits -- he tried everything. But the thought of having to tell Louis what happened was so scary that Harry just shut him out. The press hadn't picked up Harry's story, so Gemma sparked the rumor that Helen stole some money at work and got caught. The town ate it up and left them be, but Louis wasn't so willing.
we're best friends Hazza , one of Louis' texts wrote. i go to college after this school year- if we don't sort this out now we're never going to see each other again. i can't lose you. i know u are going through a really hard time but i can help you through it. pls let me. you're like my only real friend pls dont push me away. love u.
That's what most of them said, at least the gist of it, but sometimes Louis got so mad .
For once is your entire goddamn life, get your head out of your arse and stop ignoring me. You're making my mum go absolutely crazy not knowing if you're okay. Gemma's texts aren't enough for her or me. I don't know what the fuck gives you the right to completely shut me out, but don't you fucking dare hurt my mum like this.
It's one of the last text Harry had ever received from Louis, the last one being a short love you. Always . Louis fought hard not to lose Harry, but after six months of constant visits, calls, and texts, Louis gave up. Harry hasn't talked to his best friend since they were texting about Law & Orde r, which seems so silly now. So childish.
He can't tell Louis what happened, though. Louis loved Helen like a mother, he couldn't do that to Louis, couldn't show him another way parents can fuck up. Louis' onto his second step-dad now, and has always told Harry how he had such great parents, and that he shouldn't take them for granted. Looking back, it makes Harry's stomach churn.
"Harry," Gemma scolds, sounding tired. "Not today, okay? Niall is going to be home early and he'll have lunch made before CPS come. Elise said they'd be around at one, and it's ten o'clock now. Will you please help me clean?"
Harry shrugs, but stops mid-movement when he catches sight of the bruise blooming on her cheekbone. He's going to accidentally break something one day, fuck. Why can't he control himself? How can one person be so fucked up?
She must notice, because she's waving her hand. "Don't worry about it, I'll cover it."
"You shouldn't have to," Harry whispers, shaking his head. "I'm so sorry." Hitting Gemma is the only thing Harry'll ever apologize for nowadays.
She smiles, and this time, it's genuine. "You're getting help, Haz. That's what counts, yeah? Your therapist says this new medication you're on should help with your outbursts."
Harry rolls his eyes a little. "Nancy says a lot of fucking shit."
She laughs,and it sounds easy. For some reason, it makes Harry's stomach twist. "I know, trust me. But your new prescription of antidepressants seem to be working; you don't sleep all day now, and you don't seem as distant. That counts for something, right?"
No. No it doesn't. Not when there is a bruise on his sister's cheek and he's the owner of it. He scrubs a hand over his face and sighs loudly. "I have school work to do. Can I help you clean after I finish?"
She doesn't look pleased, but she nods anyways. She knows not to push Harry too far these days. Nancy says that Harry asks for things indirectly, and that it's important to keep watch for it. Maybe later? means I need space right now.
" I'm going to start cleaning in here, if that's fine?"
Harry's chest tightens. He can feel his heart stutter and his entire body go warm, and only then does Harry realize he hasn't taken his medication this morning. The antidepressants are shit, but the pills that help with his anxiety are a fucking blessing. He wishes he had them sooner; maybe then eighty percent of his childhood wouldn't have been consumed by fear.
Harry takes a deep breath, tries to calm himself down enough to have a level-headed conversation with her for once. "Please don't throw anything else away," he pleads, lip wobbling. He catches it with his teeth for a moment. "I know you hate it but I need to know that she's not gone, that's she's still here."
Any other time, any other day, she would've laughed in his face. Maybe it's because it's his birthday, or the fact that she can see how hard he's trying not to lose his shit on her right now, but she just sighs quietly and promises, "I won't, Harry. I promise."
Harry nods, sips on the oxygen his lungs are burning for and slips back into bed. He grabs his laptop off of the side dresser and opens it, logging into his school account to get started on his work. He feels Gemma staring at him, causing him to look up and see what's the matter.
She gives him a small smile. "You're doing a lot better lately, Haz."
Harry nods stiffly and doesn't tell her that he had a panic attack over absolutely nothing last night, and it was so bad that his hands went numb and he thought he was going to faint. Maybe he shouldn't give too much credit to those anxiety meds, after all. He doesn't tell her that his misses their mum so much he can barely breathe, even ten months later, and he most certainly doesn't tell her that Nancy thinks he's getting better, too, because he doesn't want to be too much of a let down when he doesn't.
Harry begins to do his math assignments, and he can't believe it used to be his favorite subject. He fell behind with the assumption he could just catch back up easily, but he couldn't, and he still hasn't been able to. Niall's shit at math and Harry refuses to ask for help from Gemma, so he just suffers in silence and gets frustrated when he gets bad test scores.
He's trying to learn how to complete a fucking square when Gemma opens a drawer next to the bed, gasps, and falls backwards. Harry, concerned, sits up and pushes the laptop off of his lap, cranes his neck to see what's in the drawer. He's a bit curious, because he doesn't go through Helen's drawers when he's in here -- she wouldn't like it and he still tries to be good for her, so he has no clue what's so shocking about the bottom drawer of the nightstand until he looks for himself.
He's stomach lurches when he finds out. Instantly, he scrambles off of the bed and plants himself ungracefully in front of the dresser after slamming the bottom drawer shut. Gemma's breathing heavily and looking at him with wide eyes, and it reminds him so much of how she looked that day, he feels like he could puke.
"Don't look in there," Harry pleads breathlessly, for no real reason. Gemma has already seen, and she'll tell Niall and they both will never forget. It's going to be one of those things that will humiliate him and make him ashamed every time he thinks back on it, and fuck. This was supposed to be one of his good days.
Gemma shakes her head and sits up on her knees, inching towards Harry. "Move, Harry. They're not fucking staying in there." Her voice is ice, like she actually thinks he's going to put up a fight about getting rid of it all.
His whole body is trembling, but he forces it to nod anyway. "I know. I know." He can't breathe. Memories are running up and down his arms, and even though he doesn't think Helen did anything wrong, he doesn't like to remember. He's pretty sure he'll never get to the point of wanting to forget her, but that doesn't mean he wants to remember what they did together. It's mortifying. "Just don't look at them. Please."
"I need to throw them away, Harry."
Harry coughs out a sob and he shakes his head wildly, clenching his eyes shut. He presses the palms of his hands into his eyes, hard. The handle of the drawer is digging into his back, and in the normal occasion in where he's having an anxiety attack, or about to, he'd try to use that to ground himself. Right now, he doesn't think anything could.
He had no idea they were in there; now that he thinks about it, he never knew where his mother kept their toys. He just knew that she had them and she'd come into his room late at night with one in hand, sometimes, and most of the time, they made him feel good. The fact that Gemma has another one of Helen and Harry's puzzle pieces makes Harry want to crawl underneath her bed and never come back out.
He never wants her to know everything about what they did; he'd rather die.
"I'll throw them out," he promises, tears steadily leaking down his cheeks, his hands not being enough to keep them away. "Just-- don't look at them again. Fuck, Gemma, just get out." He opens his eyes and sees Gemma staring at him just like their gawking neighbors did, just like they still do in the rare occasions he leaves the house. It's all too much at once --- it was supposed to be a good day, fuck -- and he genuinely doesn't think he can be blamed when he shouts at her to get the hell away from him, to get the fuck out.
Gemma purses her lips and shakes her head. She inches forward and Harry flinches, but he lets her hug him because even though he hates her and think she ruined his life, he needs someone, anyone , to hold him together right now. He fists her shirt in his hand and sobs into her neck, her fingers clutching onto his ever-growing curls as she shushes him gently.
"I don't get it," she whispers into his hair, voicing her confusion instead of focusing on soothing him. "You don't think she's done anything wrong, but you're so ashamed of what happened."
Harry cries harder at that -- he doesn't get it either, really. It's not the point right now, though. He needs someone to comfort him, someone who can parent him right for once, and all he has right now is Gemma.
Gemma's not good at this, even when she tries. She's not supposed to be a parent so soon, especially not of her broken teenage brother. She still treats him with the soft brutality of an older sister, and even though Niall has tried to make her understand that she can't do that anymore, she doesn't listen.
She still bosses him around in the way that older sisters do, pushes his buttons even when he tells her to stop. She refuses to see her brother as anything other than the soft, loving child he was in her eyes not too long ago. She isn't familiar with the rough, jagged edges of Harry's new skin, and she doesn't try to be. Gemma wants her brother back, and won't accept that the person Harry was is now gone probably for the better.
By the time Niall gets home, the house is still unclean and Harry's still crying into Gemma's neck. His sobs have softened to sniffles by now, though, and when Niall finds them curled up together on the floor, he has no idea what happened. He often finds himself coming home in the midst of one of Harry's meltdowns, and he scrambles to take care of it and figure out what (or who) started it at the same time.
It's exhausting. Niall's exhausted. And Harry can see it, too, and he's bloody terrified he's going to get sick of him one day.
"Hey, guys," Niall whispers, careful not to break the rare peace between Gemma and Harry. He comes over and crouches down next to them, desperately trying to guess what could have happened. Gemma's not crying, so Harry couldn't have hurt her. Nothing's broken, expect maybe for Harry. There's no telling signs of what happens, and by the looks on both their faces he's not going to find out right now, either.
Harry untangles himself from Gemma's limbs and shuffles over to Niall instead. Niall winces, knows that Gemma hates how Harry likes Niall best, but he's not going to push him away. He lets the lanky, growing fifteen year old boy onto his lap and holds him gently.
He's always so unsure with Harry. He's forced to not only make sure Harry stays sane, but also to navigate through things Gemma knows already. He has to learn on his own how Harry likes his eggs in the morning, why he asks a million times when Niall will be back home (his attachment issues to Helen have now relocated to Niall), of sore subjects not to touch. He's got the obvious ones down, but he doesn't know not to talk about school or their cat who passed years ago that for some reason left a terrible bruise on Harry's heart. It'd be so much easier if Gemma could step up more, but Niall's practically on his own most of the day. He wonders how she thought she could handle Harry on her own.
To try and lighten the mood, Niall whispers him a mumbled happy birthday. Harry only nods.
After realizing she's not needed anymore, Gemma rises to her feet and resumes her cleaning. She avoids the bottom drawer like the plague, even when Niall coaxes Harry out of the bedroom for a shower, and trusts that Harry will take care of it before the social worker comes.
As part of the new normal, the idea of being around a person other than Niall or Gemma or Nancy makes Harry's nerves feel all wound together and tightened, even after he takes his medication. He's showered and dressed, but for some reason, even in a sweatshirt and sweats, Harry feels exposed and vulnerable.
As he picks at his cuticles, he idly wonders if that's because of Helen. But then he remembers that even before she started touching him, some days he'd feel the same way in an outfit for no reason and he'd change before he had to leave for school.
He thinks about changing now, but then the doorbells ringing and the atmosphere shifts. Niall and Gemma tense before exchanging a wary eye look, and Harry's stomach plummets.
A seemingly nice man named Oliver is the one who comes. Gemma chats with him politely and Niall offers him tea as Harry stays on the couch. He puts on a stiff smile and forces himself not to pick at his fingernails, but it's hard not to.
He does his best to answer Oliver's questions convincingly, because no, Niall and Gemma don't smoke at all, but that doesn't mean Harry's nerves won't might make it look like he's lying. He tries not to be too tense or awkward and fails miserably, but Oliver seems to understand Harry's situation and sympathizes with him.
By the time Oliver leaves, it's one-forty five and Harry's absolutely drained. Having a stranger poke around his business, his house , goes against every single one of Harry's instincts. Oliver asked personal questions, questions Harry's never been asked before by anyone other than his therapist. How do you find yourself adjusting? Are you given access to water and food at all times? Do they hurt you? are easy, but Do you still miss your mother? Have you been sexually active ever since? Have you seen a doctor in the last thirty days to re-examine the rectal tearing written on your record? are hard. He doesn't want to talk about it, and yet it seems like it's constantly the topic of discussion.
His nerves are shot and he feels frail, so Niall lets him curl up on the couch until late-lunch is ready. Niall never had the chance to make it before the social worker came.
Harry tries to relax on the couch, and he's almost completely calmed down until he hears bits and pieces of the conversation they're having in the kitchen. It's about him, of course it is, and it's about the fucking sex toys Gemma found, and God, did she really have to tell him before Harry's going to have to look him in the eye for a half hour straight?
Niall looks wounded when he tells Harry's lunch is done, and Harry doesn't know if it would be better or worse to bring it up. Niall looks like he wants to say something, so Harry looks at him pointedly until he finally spits it out.
"Just, like," Niall starts. He looks uncomfortable and upset, and a twinge of guilt flickers across Harry's heartstrings. "I'm sorry, Harry. Really. If any one of us had opened our fucking eyes for one goddamn second, we would've saw what was happening." He shakes his head, a small, humorless laugh tumbling from his lips. "Seven years is a really long time to keep a secret, especially for a kid."
Harry doesn't like what Niall's implying, because it wasn't like that. It is probably impressive for a seven year old to keep a secret so well, but Harry wasn't a typical kid; he thrived off of listening to orders, a people-pleaser in every definition of the word. And if Niall thinks for goddamn second that he could've stopped any of it (a small voice in the back of his skull tells him there was nothing to stop, that nothing was wrong and everyone's being dramatic) then he's wrong, because Harry didn't know. He didn't know anything was wrong. He still doesn't know that for certain.
"That's not what I'm saying," Niall quickly corrects, eyes sharp like he really means it. "I'm saying, like -- you were a kid, yeah? If any of us thought to poke and prod a bit at certain subjects, there's no way you wouldn't have spilled. I mean, did you even know about consent and shit like that?"
Harry shakes his head. Not when it started, at least. No one had told him that if he said no, then the person should listen. He didn't know consent wasn't a suggestion. He should've known something was wrong about that, and he didn't.
It further adds to the guilt on Niall's shoulders. "I should've noticed something was off, or at least Gemma should've or something. My parents were around here enough, we -- " He furrows his eyebrows, face pulled into clear confusion. "How the hell did Louis not know, how -- "
"Don't blame him," Harry snaps, sitting up. "It's not his fucking fault. He couldn't have known."
Niall nods wildly. "Of course, that's not what I'm saying. He was a kid too, yeah? It's just." He leans against the door frame, and shrugs a little. "Feels like everyone who should've been looking out for you failed. Literally everyone."
It makes Harry uncomfortable, the unforeseen apology. Niall and Gemma both spewed their plea that night she was arrested, said they couldn't have known, but besides that, there's not been a direct apology for it. He thinks it's a load of shit, of course; he's the one who kept the secret, he's the one who didn't and still doesn't completely understand why it's wrong. The only time he thought shit, maybe I need help was the night his mum hurt him, but even then, when he crawled into Gemma's bed bawling, he didn't tell her. He could've told her; it could've all stopped that night.
He didn't, though. And maybe it's because he didn't actually want it to end. He's still not sure.
"Right, sorry," Niall says, letting out another flat laugh. "I'm venting, I don't mean to pour this all on you it's just -- " he nods, and repeats, "Lunch is done. Come eat, please."
But Harry wasn't feeling up for eating before Niall had laid that on him, and now the idea of forking down a plate of food sounds like too much effort. Despite his lack of wanting, he pulls himself off the couch and heads to the kitchen, and it's worth it because Niall lets out a relieved sigh behind him.
During lunch, his mind wanders to school. Unlike most kids, school wasn't too bad for him. High school, anyway, although he was only there for a year. By that time, he had gotten his shit together a little, had figured out how to calm anxiety attacks and talk to people. Somewhere along the line, he became a bit more outgoing in his select group of friends, and he'd made a place for himself there. His teachers all adored him. He wasn't someone people grumbled about when they got partnered up with. He was respected, for the most part.
Of course, there were some things said about him that he wishes weren't, some small black dots on his reputation. He had a panic attack in biology once, which was incredibly embarrassing because everyone stared at him as he quickly left the classroom, his friend Zayn in tow. And his friends weren't exactly high up on the food chain; Liam was quiet and painfully awkward, Nick was too loud, Zayn gave off I'm-better-than-you-and-I-know-it vibes, and Louis, well. Louis is one of those kids who was fucking trampled on during high school.
It never made sense to Harry. He loves Louis with everything he has, and he still thinks Louis' pretty much the best person to ever exist. He's funny and smart when he wants to be and talented and strong, so strong, and Harry thinks that's about everything that makes a person good, but if that's true, then why was Louis treated so poorly?
"Harry," Gemma says harshly, like it's not the first time she's called his name. He glances at her, bored. She sets down her plate of seconds and sits back down at the dining room table across from him. "Eat, seriously. I'm not letting you get an eating disorder, too." She ignores the look Niall gives her.
Harry blinks. "I'm not sure that's how it works."
Niall opens his mouth to try and avoid the argument that's already forming, but Gemma beats him to it. "Stop talking back and just eat your food. Niall made it for us, so eat them."
"It's grilled cheese sandwiches," he scoffs, rolling his eyes. "Don't act like it's some -- "
"Be fucking grateful," demands Gemma, and Niall drops his fork down and puts his head in his hands.
Sometimes, he feels like Gemma doesn't even try with Harry. She says and does things that are so obviously going to upset Harry. It's like she does them on purpose. Which -- maybe that's not fair to say. Maybe she just doesn't know what to do. But Niall's been living with them for only a handful of months and he already knows how to navigate through Harry's emotions fairly well, so there's no reason for it.
Predictably, Harry slams his hand down on the table. That anger's there, the one that all but consumes him, Harry can feel it. It's burning at the base of his brain and it only needs a little bit more of a kick to get going. "Are you kidding me? Be grateful? For what, exactly?"
"For having a roof over your head and food on your plate. For having two people who revolve their lives around you. For -- "
And that's all it needs, really. Harry stands, his chair slides back loudly, bumping against the wall. "Fuck that, you don't give a shit about me. Neither of you do. So don't try to guilt trip me."
Niall looks up, eyebrows furrowed. "That's not true, Haz."
"Yes it is!" Harry insists, face turning red. It's not, he knows it's not, but he almost wishes Niall didn't care about him. Niall didn't know what he was getting himself into when he agreed to adopt Harry, it's not fucking fair. "The only reason why you're here is because you fucking felt bad for your girlfriend's little brother. That's it." That's not true, either. Niall adores him, loves him like his own. He's just so angry .
Gemma stands now, too. "Don't yell at him, Harry. He's not the one who's done something wrong."
And again, there it is. Gemma constantly manipulates conversations so they resort back to what a monster Helen supposedly is. Niall's half convinced Gemma wants Harry to completely shatter, because each time the two siblings have this argument, Harry loses it a little more.
"Mum didn't do anything wrong!" Harry hollers. He takes a few steps closer to Gemma causing Niall to stand, having gone through this too many times to know what happens when doesn't act as a barrier between them. "She loved me. Just because you don't understand it, just because she did it differently -- it doesn't make it not true."
"She used you, Harry. She didn't love you, she was just -- "
Tears start to swell in Harry's eyes. That's not right, it can't be; Mum loved me, Mum loved me, Mum loved me . "Shut up!" She just doesn't understand, she just doesn't understand.
Gemma doesn't even seem to hear him. Maybe the rage Harry feels is in Gemma, too. Maybe neither of them can stop themselves from tearing the other down. "She was just lonely because Robin died and Dad didn't want to talk to her anymore. She took advantage of you and used you, Harry. She didn't fucking love you."
"Stop it!' Harry pleads, rushing forward with fists clenched. He runs right into Niall, who holds down his arms and let him struggle against him weakly. He's stronger than Harry still, even if he's catching up to him in height.
"I hope they find out what she did to you, Harry," Gemma says coldly. "Not even prisoners like child molesters. They'll do the same thing to her that she did to you."
Oh. Harry's never thought of that, he -- he's put his own mother in harm's way. He did that. His mother promised him he was good, but putting her in harm's way isn't good .
Niall grunts, trying to keep Harry from attacking Gemma but it's hard. Harry's only fifteen, but he's been growing a fucking lot lately, and it's getting harder and harder for Niall to hold him back. "Gemma, goddammit, stop it ."
Gemma doesn't stop. "She probably doesn't even think about you. She probably hates you."
Harry's on the edge of having an anxiety attack now, his vision going slightly blurry, his head light, but he doesn't stop throwing himself forward. Niall is trying to tell Harry to calm down, but Harry isn't listening. Gemma won't stop and neither will Harry; it just depends on who crumbles to their knees in defeat first.
Still, Niall tries because he's a good guy trapped in a terrible situation. He loves Gemma with all of his heart, but he hates how she gets this way. She turns nasty, evil. "Gemma, seriously, you need to stop it. He's already had a bad enough day, don't make it worse."
Harry let out a sob so loud, it makes Niall's ear ring. Niall's always stunned at how one person can hurt so much, so badly. He's never witnessed someone cry so much, or have multiple panic attacks in one day, or sob so loud his throat goes hoarse. All of that's enough to make Niall's head spin, but Gemma barely blinks. Maybe she's used to it.
"She was my mother, too, Harry. And look what you made me do. This is all your fault."
And Harry's the one to fall first in this argument. He finally gives up on trying to hurt Gemma and slumps against Niall's chest. He can't think straight thanks to lack of oxygen, but his head is spinning and throwing around Gemma's words violently. Niall desperately hopes Harry's blood is rushing too loudly in his veins to hear what Gemma had just said, because it's so, so far from the truth but Harry will believe every word of it. (Harry heard it, and it might as well be tattooed into his skin for the rest of his life.)
This is all your fault. He knew that already, he did. It's nobody's fault but his, but to hear someone -- his own sister -- say something so harsh out loud is more painful than anything could ever be.
The room becomes quiet aside from Harry's gasps for breath and Niall's quiet shushing. Gemma sits back down and resumes eating like nothing happened, like she hadn't just destroyed Harry. She gives into the anger and once it's finally all out, she wants to pretend she was never mad.
Just hours ago, the social worker was telling her how good of a job she was doing. If only he could see them now.
Harry hears them arguing that night. The walls aren't that thin, but Niall's voice is loud when he's mad. It's rare, and Harry's pretty sure he'd explode if he was ever on the receiving end of it. Niall sounds so tired, and he fights so hard to defend and protect Harry that it makes Harry actually feel loved for a few seconds.
"He's just a kid, Gemma!" Niall shouts. "He's fucking fifteen years old, and he's already had to deal with too much."
"So have I, Niall. Have you not thought of that?"
"You aren't the one who Helen hurt, Gemma. God fucking damn, how selfish are you? It's his fucking birthday . He's carrying too much guilt for one person, and you've gone and made that a hundred times worse."
Harry cuddles Helen's pillow closer and closes his eyes. Niall's the only one in the whole world who even has a taste of understanding.
"His therapist says he's doing fine," Gemma fires back, like what a stranger who sees him twice a week for one hour knows anything. "He's already on medication and in therapy, what more do you want me to do, Niall?"
"Nancy also said that he most kids with cases like Harry's have serious thoughts of suicide. The fuck would you do with yourself if he fucking killed himself? And therapy and medication isn't enough, clearly . He needs a positive home environment with supportive people. He needs you not to tell him that this is his fucking fault."
"It is!" Gemma sounds so frantic. "Niall, how could he not realize that it was wrong ? He should have told someone, anyone."
"Are you fucking mental? He was seven years old when it started! And it's not like he expected his own mother to be doing something so wrong to him."
"He still should have told someone. What seven year old knows how to keep a secret so well?"
"One that's being manipulated and abused. And besides, who would he have told? You? Look at you, Gemma. God only knows how you would've reacted."
Harry hears heavy footsteps down the hall. They make his heart beat faster, for some reason. Like someone is coming to get him. They make him cringe, make him clench his eyes shut tight.
"Where are you going, Niall?"
Her voice sounds thin now, like she realizes she's gone too far.
"To sleep in the living room. I can't look at you right now."
There's more footsteps. He hears them stop outside his door and he freezes -- he doesn't want to talk -- but then they continue walking and Harry can't hear them anymore before they stop. Harry waits a few minutes to wait and see if Gemma's going to go after Niall, but once those minutes pass and she doesn't, he tip toes out of bed. He grabs a pillow and a blanket and quietly opens his door.
He hates sleeping alone, even in Helen's room. Helen almost always slept in Harry's bedroom; they told Gemma he had night terrors, and she hadn't questioned it. Normally, he can push away the fear and allow sleep to take him as he slept on the couch, but he's been on edge all day and he can't imagine being alone with his own thoughts tonight.
Niall is sitting up on the couch, his phone lighting up his face. He still looks upset, but as soon as sees Harry, he face melts into a small smile. He's never been so good with kids, always doing the wrong thing, but he's known Harry for forever. He knows how good of a kid Harry is, how full of life he can be, and he doesn't blame Harry for a single thing. No, he'd never imagined he'd be Harry's legal guardian, but shit changes and Niall's the one who offered in the first place.
"Hey, bud," Niall whispers. Harry doesn't say anything; he just moves to the other couch and gets comfortable. He curls into a ball under the heavy blanket and stares out into the darkness. "Wanna watch a movie?"
And no, Harry doesn't. But he nods anyways and curls further into the blanket. Niall just tries so hard. . . Harry doesn't want to fail another person.
Their about halfway through Captain America: The First Avenger when Niall abruptly pauses the movie. Harry panics for a minute thinking it's Gemma, because he thought Niall was asleep, but when he looks up, Niall's looking at him in the dark.
"I just realized I didn't you anything for your birthday."
Harry shrugs, uncaring. Although he's flattered that Niall thinks it's important enough thing to be sad about forgetting, it's really not a big deal. He's not sure what he would want, anyways.
"Gemma didn't get you anything either, though. That's not right."
"It's fine, Ni. Really."
It's quiet for a moment, and Harry glances back at the frozen television. He fully expects Niall to drop it and turn back on the film, but that's not what happens. Instead, Niall abruptly gets up and flicks on the light. Harry whines quietly, covering his eyes with the blanket, and then Niall's telling him he has to get up.
"We're making brownies," he declares, "and then we're going to finish watching this movie."
"It's almost midnight," Harry points out. He's met with no response, and when he peels the covers back, Niall's gone into the kitchen and already started to bang pots and pans around.
"What are you scared of, Harry?"
It's 9:00 am, and therapy's just about the only thing that gets Harry out of bed early in the morning anymore. On the rare occasions he goes out to the shops with Niall or Gemma, it's normally in the late afternoon. His therapist, Nancy, is staring at him with a calm expression as she waits for him to answer, never pushing him. She has soft brown hair, the curls framing her dark complexion nicely. She practically radiates warmth and it eases Harry's nerves.
"A lot of things, I'm sure," Harry says. He likes to be able to focus on something else as he talks, so she gives him dumb little things to do to make him more comfortable. Right now, he's color-coding her paper clips. He has four separate piles. "Nothing specific comes to mind."
"I don't believe that." Harry looks up at her, cocking his head in confusion. "I believe you're scared of a lot of things. Things that you write off as stupid or as a part of your anxiety. Name a few, I'm just curious."
Harry thinks about for a little while. Blue, red, green, blue, blue . She's right -- his mind immediately narrows in on a few subjects, and then it brushes them off. Red, red, blue.
"I'm scared Niall's going to leave eventually, I guess, but you know that."
She's blamed that one on Helen before. According to her, his strong, unbreakable bond he had with her transferred to Niall out of a place of fear and a need to feel loved. And he had paused when she said that, because he didn't like that comparison at all. His mother was gone. He didn't want Niall to be gone, too.
"I'm scared that I'm going to blame Gemma forever. That I'm never going to talk to Louis again." Red, green, blue, green. "That I'm never going to get better. That I'm only going to get worse."
"Worse? How do you mean?"
Blue, blue, a piece of lint, red. "I feel that I've never really gotten better. Like, I guess my anxiety isn't terrible anymore and I can get out of bed now, but. I've kind of been, like, coasting by, you know? Not getting terribly better, not getting terribly worse. The ship's going to go one way, eventually."
"What way do you think it's going to go?"
He shrugs. "I don't know yet. So long as I don't go out of the house and Niall and Gemma stay the same, I'm always going to be just coasting by."
"Do you want more for yourself?"
"Of course," he says quickly, defensive. He didn't ask for any of this. No matter how hard it is for him to wrap his brain around what she did, he knows for certain he never brought it on. "I want to have friends and feel able to do something for myself, and not for her."
"Your mother?"
He nods. Blue, green, red . "You know," he says, quietly and collected, "I still can't, like, get off. Feels wrong."
It's something he's been wanting to bring up for a while, the anxiety around masturbating that he can't shake. He's tried everything -- doing it in the dark, in every position, in different areas of the house. Nothing seems to work, and each time he gets antsy and shaky and feels incredibly dirty.
She's surprised by that. "You're almost sixteen, Harry. You've been sexually active since you were seven years old. How have you been coping with that?"
Harry shrugs again. "I don’t know. It’s -- sometimes I get, like, desperate. And I do it then. But, um.” He shakes his head. This is weird, isn’t it? His therapist shouldn’t have to listen to him talking about jerking off. “Sorry,” he breathes out.
She waves him off. "Don't be; it's natural. I'm glad you've brought this up. You can continue if you'd like."
He runs out of paper clips to sort, and instantly, he feels antsy. He looks up at Nancy for more things to do, and she tells him to start over with the paper clips. He pouts a little, but scoops them all back up and dumps them back into their original container. Blue, red, green, blue .
"I always do it in the shower," he continues. "I feel less exposed in there. And, like, it doesn't even feel good, really. It makes me less tense afterwards, but, like I said, it feels wrong. almost. And most of the time I can't do it without picturing she's the one doing it to me."
He cringes as the words leave his mouth, knowing full well that if Gemma heard him say that, she'd hit him upside the head. But he can’t help it. Sex and his mother has rarely been separate in his head. She made him feel good, and all he does anymore is feel like crap, so really, is it all that surprising that he thinks of her? It’s not like he fantasizes about her. It’s not like that. It’s just -- hard to explain.
"That's not healthy, Harry. Have you tried watching adult videos?"
He's caught off guard by that and laughs gently. "Porn? No, no. She wouldn't like it, I don't think." He says it without thinking, and when he realizes what he's said, he closes his eyes in shame. All routes lead back to the same place, it seems like. "I can't help it," he murmurs, pitiful. "My brain constantly goes back to her, what would she like, what would she allow. It's like I can't stop."
He gets a pointed look of pity from her. For once, he doesn't exactly hate it. "It's okay, Harry. That's what we are here to work on. Why do you think you are so," she searches for the words, " motivated to please her?"
Instantly, he feels his chest tighten. He forces himself to open his eyes, forces himself to start sorting again. "I always want to please people," he says, keeping it safe at first. "It's like I don't care if I have to bend backwards, I'll do it. And I'm. . . I'm scared. Of her. Of what she will do if I don't do something right."
"Why?"
"She hurt me, once," he confesses. His hands are shaking. This is something he doesn't even let himself think about too often, something that he hasn't said out loud before. When the doctors asked, he stayed completely silent. He lets the anxiety consume him, and stutters out, "I'm not going to go into details, I don't want to remember, don't make me, I -- "
"Tell me what you're comfortable with," she says gently, setting down her pen. "I won't write it down, I won't tell anybody."
That's. . . safe. That seems good. He idly wonders if that's actually true, that she won't tell anyone, but a burst of confidence forces himself to confide in her.
"She hurt me after she found out I was, like, intimate with someone else. It happened once, a few years back. With Louis. That's, um, what the doctors found. When they examined me after she got arrested."
That was maybe the worst part of it. They poked and prodded at every inch of him until he was shaking like a leaf. He felt so exposed, didn't really understand why they needed him to do what they were asking of him. Gemma and Niall tried their absolute best to keep him out of the legal aspect, but he did have to answer some questions on the stand once, and that wasn't almost worse than the doctors getting handsy with him. As the months go past, though, all of that becomes more of a blur.
"The tearing of your rectum?” Nancy asks. “That was from your mother?"
He flinches, heart stuttering. "Yeah, that." What a stupid question. Who else would it have been from? Nancy opens her mouth to say something else, but he shakes his head. "New subject. I can't do this anymore."
She smiles, picking up her pen again. "Okay. New subject."
That afternoon, he uses the one thing he took away from today's appointment: he needs to watch some porn. He doesn't know what kind of porn he'd be into, but he goes to a porn website anyway and clicks on whatever sounds not terrible. After searching through a few dozen videos with tattooed, gloved, and pierced guys, he finds a video that catches his eye. 2 blokes fucking in a hot tub, hot!!!
He clicks on it eagerly, and then blushes because he's watching gay fucking porn for the first time. He does his best to shake the nerves, slides off his pants, and tries not to think too hard. Masturbation is completely normal, everyone does it. He remembers Louis telling him how once, he jacked off three times in a row just because he felt like it, and that once he even did it at school.
He stops thinking when the first dick appears on his screen. He has the volume turned off, but he still looks around the house anxiously. Both Niall and Gemma are at work, he should be safe, even if he's doing this in the living room, so he turns it up a little.
When the two blokes start fucking, Harry's dick twitches finally. He gets a hand around himself, jumping at how clammy his hands are. He ignores it and starts stroking himself a few times. It's not long before he's hard, and he starts letting out little puffs of breath. He's doing this, he's actually doing this. Not in the fucking shower after a week of blue balls. He fucks into his hand in time with the video, and when he comes, he's not even expecting it.
It comes out of nowhere, knocking the breath out of his lungs. He groans, tugging himself through it, not at all worried if he's staining the couch or not. When he comes down from the fucking amazing high, he sits there, smiling lazily, hazy.
It doesn't last forever, but in the end, he doesn't mind that he has to go take a shower and scrub himself clean and hide away underneath his blanket after. He got off by himself and for himself, to fucking porn , that's definitely a step in the right direction. Next to the pocket of guilt in his chest lays a pocket of hope, and for once, it's enough for Harry.
One month later, Gemma and Niall sit him down at the dinner table. Niall looks stressed and worried while Gemma looks exhausted when they tell him they have something they want to talk to him about.
"Go for it," Harry murmurs nervously, not letting himself jump to conclusions. He doesn't want to get himself worked up over something when he doesn't even know what it is yet.
"It's just," Niall starts, trying to smile, "you've been doing a lot better these past couple weeks. We both have noticed some sort of change in you, and we think it'd be best if we take the next step together as a family."
Family. Harry's not sure he'd use that word to describe the three of them, but then again, he never really thought that he had a family. He had people coming and going throughout his life, that's it. "Okay," he replies skeptically, digging his teeth into his bottom lip. He's not sure what improvement Niall's referring to that warrants this next step. It's not like he's had a breakthrough, or anything; he's still fucked in the head; it's just becoming easier for him to deceiver what’s him and what's Helen.
"We know that when we brought up the idea a while ago, you weren't a big fan." Niall shrugs, a real smile finally breaking through and lighting up his face. "We're hoping you're more open to the idea now. We've talked it over with Nancy and she said she thinks it'd be a nice push for you."
Harry waits for Niall to get to the point. Eventually, he does.
"We want to move," Niall says. Harry must make a face, because Niall's quick to add, "Nowhere too far -- London, maybe? It'd give us all a change of scenery, and both Gems and I could easily find a new job."
There's something sinking down Harry's throat to the bottom of his stomach that's spreading hot, fiery warmth down his body. It's panic, he realizes quickly. Moving is a completely new idea to him, and he wishes they slowly brought it to his attention instead of springing it on him like this. It's too much at once; half of him is screaming that he doesn't want to leave everything behind, and the other half is reminding him that he has nothing to leave.
"Why do you want to move?" he asks, confused. "If I'm doing better here, why risk changing it, why -- "
"Harry," Niall says calmly. He reaches across the table to grab Harry's clammy hand. "We think it'd be best for you to get you out of here. It must be hard surrounded by memories and everything, and you're sleeping on a bloody couch, we," he takes a deep breath, "we want to save some money by moving into an apartment, and -- "
"Moving into the city will be more money," Harry points out, frantic. He doesn't want to leave home, he doesn't -- this is his safe place, he doesn't want to be forced out of it. Even if he has nothing here, he has security.
Gemma closes her eyes, sighing. "Let Niall finish, please."
"No, it's okay," Niall tells her, squeezing Harry's hand. He turns back to Harry. "If you don't want to, we won't. We think it'd be best for all three of us, but you get the final say. If you want to stay, we're staying."
That's. . . different. That changes things. If he's not being forced into anything, if he has a choice in this, he might be able to get behind it. He's not used to having a choice in things. "What about Nancy?"
Niall looks a little less hopeful. "Well," he starts slowly. "You like her, and so do we. You seem to trust her, and we're not ready to break that for you. We'd be willing to drive you up here to see her once every two weeks, at first. And if we find you need more, we'll figure that out then."
It's clear that Niall will have an answer for anything Harry could worry about, so he decides not to ask anymore questions on that. He trusts Niall, and trusts that if they do move, all of Harry's needs will be met.
"Can I think about it?"
"Of course," he agrees, "Take as long as you need, Haz. But maybe think about it as moving on, instead of moving out."
Harry rolls his eyes a little, ebbing his anxiety. That came straight from Nancy's mouth and everyone knows it. Niall gives a short laugh and squeezes his hand again.
"If money's, like, a problem," Harry starts, remembering while Niall said.
Immediately, Niall shakes his head. "It's not, don't worry about that."
"I'm just saying, like. If it is, I could maybe stop taking some of my meds or something -- "
"H -- "
"They're expensive as all hell," Harry snaps, harsher than he intends to. Being cut off doesn't sit well with him right now, his nerves far too frayed.
Niall sighs. "We aren't taking you off your meds, and that's final. So drop it, okay? My parents help out when we need it, and they'd agree that taking you off your medication isn't worth it."
After nodding, Harry turns his attention to Gemma. He studies her suspiciously, notes how her shoulders are tense and she's barely holding Niall's hand back. She looks so, so defeated, but Harry just has to ask anyways. "Could I like. . . could I maybe take a few of her things?"
"No," Gemma snaps, opening her eyes. There's a fire within them. "Her shit stays here."
He sinks further into his chair, taking his hand away from Niall and putting it into his lap. He pulls his knees to his chest on the chair, frowning gently. He knew she wouldn't say yes.
It's like Gemma forgot every good thing their mother's ever done for her. Their mum raised Gemma, gave her food and clothes and shelter and a safe place to grow up in. Most kids don't get that; Harry didn't even get all that, and he's starting to realize that now. But Helen loved both of them, tried her best to please and care for them in every way possible. She worked day in and day out to do so, too. No matter how hard Gemma tries, being angry won't erase her from their lives, and it's definitely not shielding Harry from anything. What Helen did is done, and Harry's never going to get the stains off his body from it. It's too late.
Niall frowns, possibly thinking the same thing as Harry. He nods at Harry like he's going to fix this and turns to Gemma. Before he says anything, Niall moves a piece of dark hair off her face gently and tucks it behind her ear. Some days, they're gentle and loving towards one another, and others, they're cold and distant.
"He can't take just a few things? Not everything, obviously. Just, maybe a few things."
"Like what?" she snaps, ducking her head away from his hand. "All that's left is her clothes and a few dumb things in her drawers, there's nothing worth taking."
"Because you threw them all away," Harry bites, angry. Gemma doesn't get it, but she's allowed to make all of the rules. It's not fair . "There's some stuff of hers in the basement that she put down there when Robin moved in. And Dad had a few things of hers that are in the boxes down there."
"When'd you go through them?"
Harry shrugs once. Gemma specifically told him not to go through them, but Harry had felt he deserved to. "When you brought them home," he answers. "I was curious."
"You shouldn't have. I didn't tell you that you could. I was going to look through them myself first, I -- "
He scoffs, standing up. He's done with this conversation; they want something from him, they want to completely change his life by moving, and she's not willing to compromise with him even a little bit. It's bullshit. "Those boxes have been down there for months. You never had any intention of going through them. You wanted to pretend that they weren't there like you do with everything else. He was my dad too, Gemma. You're not the only one who misses him."
Niall intervenes before Gemma can respond. "Harry, you can take a few things of Helen's if you decide that we're going to move, and anything of your dad's that you want. Of course you can." Gemma looks furious, so Niall quickly shoos him out of the kitchen. "Why don't you go up to her room now and find some stuff you'd want to take with you, yeah? Go on, I'll call you down when dinner's done."
It catches him off guard a little -- he doesn't really want to look through her things now -- but he nods and scurries out of the kitchen and up the stairs before Gemma can tell him not to.
Hesitation comes crashing down on him as he stares down Helen's door. He hasn't gone in here since he got off in the living room, feels too guilty to. A quiet, insistent part of him is telling him to just go, that it's okay. But the louder part of him is telling him that his mum would be pissed, would want to punish him and make him hurt.
Trying to avoid thinking too hard, he turns the doorknob quickly and shoves the door open before he can go back on his movements. The room's exactly how he left it; Gemma stopped going in there when Harry stopped sleeping there. The air feels heavy and it feels like he's being watched, so he shuts the door.
It feels wrong on so many levels to be here after what he did, so it feels even worse to open her drawers and go through her things. Harry reminds himself that she had no respect for his privacy, and starts to sort through her things.
There's five drawers that are simply filled with clothes. It doesn't jerk any sadness out of Harry, thankfully, except for when he finds the dress she wore to Robin's funeral folded neatly in the corner. Two drawers are underneath the boring ones, and he's scared he's not going to find anything to remember her by that's worth keeping. He slides open the second to last drawer, and the breath is all but knocked out of him.
It's all of Robin's old things, stacked and organized neatly. He never questioned where they went, but here they are, waiting for him to pick through. His lip wobbles as he grabs the thick glasses that his stepfather never seemed to take off, drags his fingers across the lens and creates smudges with his fingers. He sets them back into the drawer, not because they don't belong in the keep pile, but because everything in this drawer goes in the keep pile. He guesses Gemma doesn't know his stuff is in here, either. When she had raided Helen's room, she didn't touch most of the drawers, probably assuming they were just filled with boring clothes.
He prods through a few more of Robin's things before closing it; he'll look through it more closely with Gemma, if she wants. Now that he actually has something he wants to hold on to, he braces himself for what's in the last drawer.
There's no way he'd be able to prepare for what's in it. Pictures, art crafts, handwritten cards, awards, presents -- Harry's everywhere in this drawer. Gemma, too, but Gemma was never as close with their mum, so she didn't make her cards for her birthday or smile for pictures all too much. The pictures , God, there's so many; Helen with Robin and Des; Gemma and Harry on the first day back to school; Louis and Harry making funny faces at the camera; Louis and Harry fishing on a trip with Des. It's basically a physical documentation of Harry and Gemma as babies, all the way to fourteen and eighteen.
The photos that hurt most are the ones with just Helen and Harry. They both look so happy in all of them, and it breaks Harry's heart time each time his brain mental organizes them as Before and After. In the After pictures, the ones in which both people in the picture know what they do at night together, he tries to see if he looks any different, and he doesn't; he smile looks the same, it reaches his eyes in all the photos. Nothing but their appearances change between the Before and After pictures, which does his head in. Slowly but surely, he's grasping that what she did was wrong. But if it was so wrong, why does he look normal in these photos? If what she did was so bad as everyone says it is, shouldn't the boy in the photos look traumatized and devastated?
His fingers fly through of her things, and he decides that his drawer is a keep drawer, too; he knows that he probably will just put it all under a box and put it under his bed, but he doesn't care. He wants them all.
He doesn't realize he's crying until he whips his head towards the door when he hears four heavy feet coming closer. A few tears drop onto his shoulder and he sniffles instinctively, wiping at his cheeks with the back of his palm. He knows Gemma's coming to yell at him, so he carefully puts everything back into the drawer and shuts it, waiting.
She starts yelling before the door even fully opens. "You're not taking anything, you hear me? Not a damn thing, so throw it away now or I'll do it."
Harry looks at her from his spot on the floor, then at Niall who's flushed and silently fuming. It's obvious he told her not to come up here, and that she did anyways. Harry looks down at the floor, taking in a shaking breath. Maybe if he can explain it to her, she can understand better.
"She has a drawer full of Robin's things, Gemma. And of pictures and dumb things we did as kids. I don't want to get rid of all that."
She looks like she can bust from the anger any second. "I don't care what you want, we're getting rid of it all."
"No, we're not." He scoots back until his back is pressed against the dresser, guarding the drawers. He's still a kid, for fuck's sake, he shouldn't have to fight for things like this. "Just because you cope with anger doesn't mean that I have to. I want to know that I can look back and see that my childhood wasn't a complete shit show."
She scoffs meanly. "News flash, Harry. It was."
"There's stuff with Louis in there, too, and Dad. I'm not going to let you throw it all away."
"You don't even talk to Louis anymore," she snaps, before stomping over to where Harry's sitting. She crouches down next to him, a fiery look in her eyes. "Move."
He clenches his jaw. "No."
" Move ."
" No ."
She takes matters into her own hands, then; she reaches behind Harry's back to get a grab at the handles, ready to set fire to everything in there without taking one look at any of it. Harry gives her a look of betrayal, and he can feel his body get ready to fight back but he doesn't want to fight anymore, he's so sick of fighting with her.
"Niall, don't let her," he begs, giving Niall his best pathetic, pleading face he can muster. "Please, there's stuff in there that has nothing to do with Mum." He presses his back harder into the wood when Gemma shoves at him a little, both persistent. Harry's fueled with a childish stubbornness and Gemma with matured hatred.
Niall looks so, so done with everything. He signed up to take care of one kid, not two. "Gem, seriously? Let him, God. He's not ready to move on yet, we can't just force him to."
"This isn't about moving on ," Harry seethes, swatting at Gemma's hands. "This is me not wanting to throw away and ignore my entire childhood."
Gemma keeps trying to open the drawers. Harry continues to not let her. Niall stares.
Finally, Harry cracks, because he's still the only child in the room. He stops resisting Gemma's shoves and lets himself be pushed out of the way. She doesn't even consider it before she's ripping open the drawer, and as if someone outside of this room is on his side, some of the pictures that Harry placed on top come flying out, falling on the ground around Gemma.
It catches her off guard, but she quickly regains her rage and grabs the one closest to her socked foot. It's a picture of Harry, Gemma and Helen all happily smiling at the camera, holding up paper-made snowflakes. Harry can't be more than three or four in the picture, it's a Before one, and he's sitting on Gemma's lap.
It makes him want to smile. Gemma rips it in half.
He stares at her, horrified. How could she? How, God , how can one person be filled with so much rage? He thinks maybe it would be just that one, that seeing Helen's face for the first time in a while hurt her, but she's picking up another one and Harry lunges for it before she can tear it up.
"That one's of me and Lou, stop, stop, why are you doing this?" He snatches it out of her grip, takes a second to soften out the crinkles she made with her fingers, and grabs all the other pictures, including the torn one, off of the ground and holds them close to his chest, protecting them.
Gemma stops looking for things to destroy, and now her eyes are on Harry. It scares him.
"Don't ruin anything else," he pleads, reaching to shut the drawer next to her. As he moves back, half of the picture she tore falls and they both move to grab it. Harry gets to it first, scooping it up and putting it back in the pile gently. "I'm still little in that picture, Gemma. She hadn't done anything yet. Why'd you ruin it?" He sounds so small and pathetic, and it's exactly what he feels like.
"You were still little when she did do something, Harry," Gemma retaliates. "Stop protecting her."
Harry doesn't like that. He's not protecting her, he's just -- she's his mother still, and he still loves her, and he'd still die for her. "Why are you so angry all the time?" He doesn't wait for her to answer. "I just want to remember the times I was happy, is that really so bad?"
"You couldn't have been happy then, she was -- "
" I was happy ," he corrects, eyebrows drawing together in confusion. "I had Louis and Mum, and you didn't hate me. I didn't hate myself. I was happy. Maybe I shouldn't of been, or it was wrong to be, but I was."
Gemma purses her lips. "You're happy now that she's gone, Harry." It's not true. They all know it's not true, and Harry can't quite figure out why she'd say that except to try and convince herself that she's not completely fucking his whole life up just as much as Helen did.
He clutches the photos tighter. "I go to therapy twice a week for two hours. I'm on antidepressants, that don't even really work. I don't leave the house. I don't have any friends. I can't remember the last time I was genuinely happy. You two think that just because I get out of bed now, that means I'm happy? It doesn't." He stands up, leaving his sister on the ground. "I'm gonna go lie down now. Promise me you aren't going to destroy anything else."
She looks at him, eyes glossy with tears. Harry hasn't seen her cry in along time. "Okay. I won’t. Promise."
Still, he hides the photos he took underneath the couch cushions.
If he thought looking through his mother's old things was hard, he's certainly not prepared to dig around his old things. He hasn't been in his room since the day when he was arrested. He was fourteen then; he gets closer to sixteen every day. He doesn't think Helen would have a problem with going through his own things, so there's less of a build-up when he opens his door.
It makes him wince, just at the sight of it. Some things have changed since he's seen it last; his clothes from that day or no longer splayed across the floor and the bed is made with a different duvet, this one purple. Some stuff is left laying around, probably from Niall trying to find whatever Harry asked him to retrieve for him throughout the last year. Besides that, though, it's the exact same.
As he sits on the edge of his old bed (should he be calling it old?), an eerie feeling builds in his chest. It's like he's looking in his own casket, or going through someone's room who's dead. He doesn't like it, he quickly decides, but he knows that he has to go through it if he wants to move.
He told Niall and Gemma that he wanted to move three nights after Gemma tore the picture, but he had one condition: he wants a dog. They agreed.
So, now it's less of an emotional thing going through old things and more of a necessity. The only room that has laid untouched from Gemma's rapid packing is his room, and he only told them two days ago he would be okay with it. Clearly, she's in a rush to get them out of here.
"Holy shit," he mumbles to himself, looking around. He doesn't know where to start; there's so many things he hasn't touched in a year and a half and they’re all begging for his attention at once. He decides that he'll go through his Louis Box first, even though he knows he's going to keep everything in there anyway.
Harry has a Louis Box and Louis has a Harry box. If Louis still has his box, that is. Jay told them they should keep things that represent things they did together; concert tickets, movie stamps, receipts, birthday cards. Harry has it all, fourteen years of friendship tucked away into one box.
As he picks through the box, he laughs and cries, smiles and frowns. He laughs at the letter Louis wrote him when they were in an argument ( "We're not gonna be friends if you're gonna be a turd" ) and the few detention slips he got because of Louis. He cries a little when his fingers graze the almost-complete set of Law & Order: SVU DVDs. Louis placed them on his doorstep the last time he stopped by the house, his last attempt at keeping their friendship. He wrote a simple don't forget about me on a sticky note and taped it to the first season, and just like that, their friendship was over officially. He smiles at the all the presents Louis gave him over the years, and frowns when he finishes looking through everything. A box is all he has to prove that he used to be friends with the nicest, funniest boy on planet earth.
A knock on the door brings him back to reality. His sad, Louis-less reality. Niall's standing in the doorway, obviously concerned. "You lost or something?"
Harry laughs a little, placing the lid back on the box and setting it to the right of his bed. It's the first thing in the keep pile. "I have to figure out what I want to keep and get rid of before Gemma comes in here and decides for me." He reaches over, pulls the first drawer out of the night stand and places it on his bed. "Wanna help?" Please stay . He still subconsciously does that thing Nancy warned Gemma and Niall of so long ago.
Niall's tired and he's just go home from work, but he nods nonetheless. "Yeah, 'course. Let me get changed and I'll grab you some boxes from the basement to put all your crap in."
Harry nods back at him and focuses back on what he was doing. Quickly, he finds himself wondering why fourteen-year-old Harry kept an unopened packet of bouncy balls in his night stand. it goes in the donate pile.
It's pretty uneventful, really; Niall orders a pizza and they tear into his room together. He finds things that gross him out, like melted candy and crumbs behind dressers and gum stuck to his bed frame. That definitely belonged to Louis; Harry was a polite child, he didn’t do that type of thing. He also finds about a dozen of his old diaries, and he frowns, putting them in the keep pile. Why did he stop journaling? It helped him compartmentalize things.
For the most part, nothing bad happens, except for Harry screaming when he finds a spider.
"This could be a new start for you, bud," Niall tells him once his room has turned to boxes. "You could really start over."
Harry frowns, shaking his head against Niall's thigh. He's got his head in Niall's lap, and he's starting to doze off on the floor. It feels strange falling asleep in this bed. "I don't wanna start over. I just want things to get better."
(They won't for a really long time.)