Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

the day Harry met Louis the world began to die  

Chapter Text

Louis leaned back in his rocking chair and sighed. Another day wasted as he rocked back and forth watching the tree limbs blow in the wind and the clouds move across the sky.

He was used to being alone for quite some time now, of course you would be too. Having no one around to say 'Good morning' and no one to listen to your worries and complaints really takes a toll on a person; but somehow Louis had managed to keep it together for this long and he wasn't about to falter now.

He glanced up at the ceiling and reminisced about days long gone. And for that matter, people as well. His room had become a bother years ago, but he was unable to do anything about it and he wasn't about to call for help. He never did that. Although, he could get someone out of the phone book to do it for him, but he never trusted anyone in these times; not with what happened in the past. What he did in the past.

A slight knock at his door yanked him out of past memories and back into the present. He tried to stand up, but remembered that he lost that ability a long time ago. Along with his happiness.

"The door's open for friendly visitors only." He yelled.

A slight hesitation at the opening of the door brings a slight smile to Louis' face.

That's what I thought. Louis snidely remarked to himself.

But much to his dismay, the door opened and in walked a person he thought he would never see again.

"Brenna." Louis said breathlessly.

"I know you don't want to see me, but Charlie, my son if you remember, is doing a report and he wants you to be the subject." She lowered her voice on the last part.

Louis cleared his throat. "Of course! Anything for my boy Charlie. Bring 'im on in here."

As soon as he said this, three boys run in the room.

Immediately Louis glared at Brenna. "I thought you said it was just Charlie."

"Well, I have to work late tonight at the factory, so I thought that you could take care of them while I'm gone." She looked at Louis with pleading eyes.

Louis looked at each of the boys standing behind their mother. Still making eye-contact with the boys, he distantly replied, "I thought you said you were going to quit that job at the factory. They have enough machines as it is."

"I was going to," she replied as she looked down at her feet. "But they told me that I was needed so I stayed."

"I've told you that they're just using you, but your head is just too big to accept it. So for the time being I'll take care of them." Louis gave her a slight smile at the end and she rushed up to hug him tightly.

"Please, please, please let go. I'm not a social person." He gasped for air dramatically.

She released him with a chuckle and skipped out of the room. Before she shut the door she turned around and pointed to each of the boys as she named them. "Charlie, Ash, and Garrett. Thanks dad."

~

Louis sits awkwardly in his chair as he rocks slowly back and forth, avoiding the three boys before him as much as he can.

"Um, Grandpa?" One of them asks and Louis jerks his head in the boy's direction.

"How do you know I'm your grandfather, child?"

The boy jumps a little, clearly startled, and holds his hands in front of him, clasped together, as he looks sheepishly down at the ground.

Louis realizes that he might have sounded too harsh and tries again.

"It's alright. You're Ash right?" He leans his head down and tries to make eye contact with the boy.

Slowly the boy shakes his head and his dark locks of hair shake back and forth. "I'm Garrett."

"Sorry, Garrett." Louis presses his lips into a thin line.

Garrett smiles pitifully in return. Taking this as a good sign, Louis sits back in his chair once again. He decides to drop the subject of being anyone’s grandfather and looks at the other boys. He raises his voice slightly to get their attention.

"And your brother Charlie here is doing a report? Right Charlie?"

Charlie looks up with a smile on his face. His cheeks are bright red as if he has run a mile and Louis wonders if they're always like that. His nose is quite peculiar and his smile is all too familiar.

"Yes sir." Charlie nods his head as he speaks and Louis chuckles lightly to himself.

"Well then Charlie, what is this report supposed about?" Charlie sits up straight and begins to spout out the entire instructions, from memory Louis believes.

"This report should consist of at least five paragraphs that answer the questions:

• Who is this person?

• How are they related to you/ how do you know them?

• What has this person done to help society?

• Add any background information concerning this person's life (ex. birth date, married, etc.)

When the report is finished this person should come in with the student to present the report to the class."

When he's done he turns his head sideways like a cat, questioning Louis silently. Louis is shocked at how well Charlie could remember something like that. A long time ago he knew a person with a similar gifted memory, but he hadn’t seen them in so long that he struggled to piece together what they looked like.

Louis rocks back and forth for a moment and then brings his bottom lip into his mouth and chews on it in thought.

"I'll do it," Charlie cheers at this. "But I can't go with you to present it."

Charlie slumps down.

"Why not?" The boy asks.

"Uh, I have somewhere to go that day."

"You don't even know what day the presentation is."

"Well, I know that I can't go." Louis sighs gruffly and crosses his arms like a child.

"Just because I'm a kid doesn't mean that you don't have to tell me. I'm a big boy, I'm 7." Charlie mimics Louis and crosses his arms with a "Humph!" as well.

A sudden clatter from a nearby room makes both of them jump and Charlie looks up at Louis frantically.

"What are you looking at, go find out where that's coming from and who's doing it!"

"Why can't you?!" Charlie looks back and forth from Louis to the direction of the noise.

"I lost that ability years ago, child. Go! Scatter! Shoo!"

Charlie leaps up from the worn, carpeted floor and rushes to the noise.

"Ash! Garrett!" Louis hears Charlie yell in frustration.

Charlie comes back into the room dragging Ash and Garrett behind him by their ears. Both of the boys are covered in a white powdery substance and Garrett seems to be holding in a sneeze.

With each step they take white dust billows up around them and footprints are left on the floor.

"Go ahead and," Louis waves his hand around, trying to figure out what to do with the boys. "Uh, why not. Sit down and we’ll try to think of something safe to do."

As soon as they sit down Garrett lets out his sneeze and the substance goes flying everywhere. Louis swats at the air as he tries to clear it away from his face and once it came to rest as a thin layer on the ground around him, Louis asks Garrett, "That is flour right?"

~

Once the boys settled down and had stopped sneezing, Louis decided that in order to keep them out of trouble he needed to find some way to pass the time. The answer was to tell a story and all three boys were very excited to hear a story, even if it was a strange one as Louis made sure to tell them. They sat attentively in front of him with big eyes like puppies begging for a treat.

"Many years ago a really sad and poor man made a very bad choice that led to drastic, or really bad, problems among the community of Smitershagen Zwings."

"That's where we live!" Garrett shouted in his squeaky little voice as he clapped his hands.

"Yes, yes, Garrett. But remember you have to be quiet to hear the story." Louis held his finger up to his lips.

Garrett quickly clasped both hands over his mouth and sat still and quiet again.

"He owned nothing except his car and some food. He didn't have a house, a bed, or even a table. His car acted as all of those and more, but he wasn't happy with his life and he wanted to show all of the rich people that it wasn't that hard to live a successful life.

So he set out on a journey in his rusty blue car; over hills and bridges. Away from the life he once knew. His car ran on anything and everything; it had become accustomed to the scraps from beneath the table just like him. He soon found lying in between frozen mountaintops and sweltering deserts an oasis full of rolling hills, grassy knolls, and the most beautiful trees. They weren’t at all like the trees you see outside. Instead, they had thin trunks with green and white stripes and wispy, colorful tufts of the softest fluff around the top, almost like cotton. The aroma was amazing! The smell of butterfly milk wafted from the trees (it mimics the smell of vanilla and honey)

The man wandered throughout this land looking for any other sign of human life, but found none so he decided to settle on top of the tallest hill. Perched above everything else, he could see the trees swaying in the wind, thin creeks weaving their way through the land, and small creatures rummaging for food and mingling with one another. He grew to love these creatures and a special bond formed that was based on lies and deceiving tricks and was destined to be broken.

As time meandered along, the man started to grow greedy over the land; he wanted to gain something from it. He may have been eating the bountiful fruit that grew there and he may have been drinking the fresh water from the creeks, but that didn’t cross his mind at all. Soon he had chopped down one of the trees. As it hit the ground, the small creatures that were playing and stuffing their faces with food stopped what they were doing. An eerie silence blanketed the land, but the man didn’t notice. Instead, he hauled the tree off and began to slice it apart.

That night the creatures of the land held a meeting about this man and what they would do to stop him. They sat around a small campfire and talked until the sun grew high in the sky. After a quick nap, the eldest creature summoned the Protectors of the land. You could think of them as Mother Nature, but each one is stationed at a different place across the world. All the Protectors came, and all of them listened to what the creatures had to say—the man was taking from the Earth, but not giving anything back in return.

As the day dwindled on, the Protectors came up with a plan: they would show the man how what he was doing would hurt the Earth eventually. All were convinced this would work except for one. No one really knew his name, and so he will be called John Doe in this story. John believed that the man couldn’t be convinced to stop his ways, and he decided to talk to the man privately to understand why he was doing this.”

Louis began to cough and Charlie jumped up from his spot on the ground.

“Do you need a drink?” He asked.

“No,” Louis replied. “I’m fine. How about we take a break and do something else?”

“Sure! Mom brought a bag full of stuff we could do. There’s board games, and our tablet, and coloring books, crayons and markers…” Charlie rambled on as he went into another room to fetch the bag.

“You mean, I didn’t have to tell a story?” Louis groaned.

Ash and Garrett shrugged their shoulders.

Charlie came back moments later. “Mom sent a message on the tablet. She says there are people at the factory and they are trying to stop what they’re doing. She’s worried that something bad will come of it.”

Charlie hands the tablet to Louis who leans his head back to try and read it.

“You’re right. And I think I know who they are.”