Chapter Text
Louis isn’t sure how much time has passed; could be two minutes, could be two hours, it’s a welcome break from all the chaos of his life lately. The barrage of emails and online meetings, and a kind of exhaustion he never even knew existed before this all started. Before the overzealous handwashing, and the masks, and the crippling fear for his son’s wellbeing and life. Not that it’s a new feeling for Louis who had to watch his son undergo a liver transplant just two years ago. Once Max was in the clear with that, Louis assumed their darkest days were behind them, but he never could’ve imagined this. No one could have.
He finally gets to close his laptop at the end of another seemingly endless week of working from home. Or in his case, a home. His mother’s home which she opened to him and Max the moment they realized the first lockdown order was coming. Louis is so grateful because he couldn’t imagine doing this completely alone.
They’ve got a finely tuned system in place that took a couple of months to master, but they made it work. During the week, his mum works from home upstairs in a makeshift office space in her room. She does any shopping for everyone that can’t be done online to prevent putting Louis, and of course Max, at higher risk than necessary. Louis never was much of a cook, so his mum handles the food while Louis takes care of the other tasks around the house like the constant sanitizing, cleaning, and baskets upon baskets of laundry. He spends his weekdays working out of the living room in a makeshift office similar to his mother's. It’s not the most productive place he could sit for eight hours. Being at home is actually pretty distracting for him, but he makes do. Actually, he’s doing pretty well in comparison to his seven-year-old who mentally checks out of online school every day as soon as it starts.
Sitting quietly with his head in his hands to close out his workweek doesn’t give him the same since of relief as a celebratory pint with his friends used to, but it’s nice. Louis is also not surprised when it abruptly ends with his son calling him from the next room.
“Be right there!” Louis calls back to his son, already knowing and dreading the reason he is being summoned.
Louis walks into the kitchen and over to the table in the middle of the room; the third makeshift office they had to create nearly a year ago when everything first shut down. Max’s school things are strewn all over it as per usual along with the evidence of all the snacks he’s had today. But, that’s not what pulls Louis’ focus in this moment. It’s the defeated look on his son’s face.
“Hey, you. Miss me already?” Louis smiles to try and brighten his mood. His attempt isn’t very successful. Max still looks as glum as before when he nods at his laptop to announce that his teacher would like a word with him.
Louis assumed she would. She usually does these days because she’s just as concerned about Max as Louis is.
“Er- Give me just a minute, love?” Louis asks as he takes Max’s place at the table. He forces himself not to sigh when his son flees the kitchen and runs up the stairs to freedom. Louis wishes he could share in Max’s relief. Currently, Louis feels like he’s back in primary school all over again and about to be scolded.
He paints on a kind grin as he meets the eyes of Ms. Kirshner through the laptop’s camera, somehow feeling more nervous when she routinely grins back.
Louis already knows how this is going to go before Ms. Kirshner begins. She says that she can tell Max isn’t at his best. She’s having trouble reaching him. He seems more withdrawn than usual. He has lost interest even in things he once loved like reading and writing. And, the most painful thing for Louis to hear, is that his son seems so unhappy.
Again, it’s nothing new even though it makes Louis’ throat sting to know his son can’t seem to catch a break. School has never been easy for Max after spending a large chuck of his first year in and out of the hospital because of his weakened liver, his transplant, and the multiple complications that followed it. Max never really got the chance to make friends like the other kids, so he moved schools so he could start over without being ‘the sick kid’.
It feels like it was all for nothing. Because even though Max is now a generally normal, healthy child with the exception of a few surgical scars, the pandemic has basically made him ‘the sick kid’ all over again.
No one knows how much more risk there is for organ recipients, but suggestions have been to err on the side of extreme caution. That’s been the hardest part about all of this, because even when school sucked, Max had other fun interests that he loved like trips to the park and the zoo. They haven’t gone anywhere like that in ages for fear of what might happen. Sadly, Max hasn’t been much further than their small front garden in nearly a year.
Louis closes his son’s borrowed laptop once the impromptu parent-teacher conference ends. It didn’t last long, but it was enough to fill Louis with renewed exhaustion and guilt because he doesn’t know what to do. Max’s already small world has become microscopic in the last year, and Louis can’t fix it. He’s struggling and bored and lonely, and there’s nothing that Louis or anyone else in the world can do to make that go away. Even the couple of therapists they tried landed them in the same spot because for Max, talking him through his feelings and how to cope with them is all just words. He’s fed up with this pandemic and everything that comes with it, and honestly, at times Louis feels like he’s reaching his breaking point as well.
Once he talks himself into getting up from the table, he too heads upstairs in search of his son. The first person he sees through her cracked bedroom door is his mother still working away offering support encouragement for other nurses and health workers also at their wits end. They’re lucky to have her to confide in and air out their grievances in a healthy way. Louis and Max are lucky to have someone who loves them so much that she was willing to open her home to them and choose to stay there to keep them both safe.
Louis’ childhood room is now Max’s room, but when he reaches it, his son is nowhere to be found. The house isn’t very big, particularly on the second floor, so the only other place Max could be is the guest room that Louis now sleeps in. However, when Louis pokes his head into the room, there’s still no sign of him.
“Max? You in here?” Louis calls into the guestroom just to be sure he’s not hiding in there somewhere. He gets nothing in response, but a sudden crash from downstairs that sends Louis’ heart racing.
Both Louis and his mother fly downstairs at the commotion, their concerned eyes scanning every visible area of the first floor and coming up empty.
“Max? Where are you?” his mother calls.
They finally get an answer from Max that confuses Louis even more because the muffled voice is coming from behind them. Louis and his mother turn around and see the door of the storage closet beneath the stairs cracked open. It takes Louis by surprise because most of the time, he often forgets that closet even exists. He used to rummage through it as a kid when he was bored. Clearly, Max got bored enough to want to check it out too because when Louis widens the door, his son isn’t crumpled beneath a bunch of old boxes like he had feared. He doesn’t seem to be in any danger at all. In fact, he looks better than ever, smiling up at Louis and his mum with an acoustic guitar in his lap and a giant smile on his face.
“Dad, look what I found! It’s cool, right?! It was on top of those boxes!”
That explains the loud crash. Louis eyes the height of the boxes stacked on top of each other at the back of the storage room. It’s a miracle Max didn’t pull them down on top of him too. Now, Louis understands why his mother used to scold him for playing in here alone. Even so, he can’t bring himself to scold Max, not when he’s looking genuinely excited about something for the first time in months.
Max strums it and it sounds awful because the strings are out of tune and older than Louis and probably even his mum. This guitar belonged to her dad so there’s no telling how long it has been since it was given some proper love and attention. Louis vaguely remembers seeing it lying around in here when he was young, but it never occurred to Louis to learn to play it. Max seems pretty attached to it already, which is why Louis doesn’t think twice before encouraging this newfound interest and enthusiasm in his son.
“Well, we’ll have to get you some lessons, won’t we, mate?” Louis proposes, his whole heart melting when Max’s blue eyes grow even brighter at the idea.
The next morning while his mother is out on a grocery run and Max is cuddled up at his dad’s side watching cartoons, Louis sits down with his laptop to try and follow through on his promise. It’s a bit harder than he anticipated because lots of music studios are temporarily closed like many other businesses right now, and the ones that are offering lessons online are way outside of Louis’ budget. After a while, he finds a few music teachers he can actually afford, but they don’t work very much with beginners or children. Louis is just about to call it quits for the time being when he comes across one music teacher’s website that seems to fit the bill. He gives lessons for a few instruments, but his main love is teaching guitar. He works exclusively with beginners and also kids, and weekly lessons won’t cost Louis a fortune. Technically, Louis could afford to give Max lessons twice per week, but it’s probably better to start small and not overwhelm him.
All that’s left to do now is to contact the teacher and hope he has time to take on Max, so Louis quickly shoots an inquiry email to Harry Styles and hopes for the best.
Louis closes his laptop and settles in to watch yet another episode of Adventure Time. However, not even five minutes pass before Louis’ phone dings with a fresh email. It’s from Harry Styles explaining that he’d love to take on a new student and can start working with Max as early as next week.
He is considering starting his lessons on Monday it when something happening on tv fills the room with Max’s bright laughter. It’s such a welcome sound and it warms Louis’ heart just like his smile did the day before. He can’t really explain it, but it makes him happy to see his son happy. And right now, learning to play an old guitar is his best chance at keeping a smile on his face and glint in his eye, so Monday it is.