Larry Stylinson Oneshots

Slowly and then all at once

Author : colazitron

Summary: Harry's entertained the idea of being a doctor once. He quickly gave up on the notion once he realised how much he'd have to deal with the inner workings of the human body. It's not that he doesn't find it fascinating - he does - and he thinks he probably could cut up a person and poke around inside of them, it's just that he doesn't think he'd like where his head would go. He can't poke around inside a person, but he can poke around inside a body. It's a matter of making people into bodies in his head and he doesn't want to do that. So, no medical degree for Harry Styles, thank you.

Considering he never wanted to, he's seen the insides of people far too much in the past weeks.

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He laughs to himself sometimes when he remembers that John Green quote. "I fell in love with you like I fell asleep; slowly and then all at once" or however it goes. Turns out that's not only true of falling asleep or in love - it's true of a zombie outbreak as well. Obviously the disease must've come from somewhere and it must've been around for a bit before it got to other people. Diseases don't just pop up from one day to the next. They show up and spread a bit and then they hit critical mass infection or something. And that's when it happens all at once.

One day they're coming back from the US leg of their tour and the next all the planes are grounded, airports are quarantine zones and no one's allowed to leave London without going through extensive checks at one of the five quarantine exits. They say they're doing the same in Cardiff and Manchester and Edinburgh and Harry would laugh about how navigating fan girls taught him how to navigate a mass outbreak of panic, if he weren't dead terrified himself.

Apparently there's a disease that blocks some recipients of some hormone in your brain and apparently that hormone is all that's keeping you human. They tested it on some rats or something. The good news is that this is old news to the scientific community and the best of them are currently working on perfecting the antidote because apparently the world actually has a zombie apocalypse contingency plan. The bad news is that they don't have the antidote yet, don't know how long it'll be till then (could be years, really) and that these zombies aren't classic zombies. They're not dead people stumbling clumsy amok that you can hit with a golf club and feel okay about. They're sick, confused people who are literally incapable of acting like people at the moment. So the only thing you can do is stay away from them and run.

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They always knew Louis was their unofficial leader but this situation is almost comical in how much it brings out the ... well, Harry doesn't want to say "warrior", but it seems the only appropriate term so... the warrior in him. He makes them all dress in t-shirts and skinny jeans because tight clothing gives you agility what did you think why superheroes wear spandex? Or gymnasts? and put on leather jackets and gloves. They're all in their comfiest, most solid trainers and transferred their most important phone numbers onto old Nokia phones they got the first day the quarantine was announced because those things survive a lot of being tossed around and their batteries run longer. They keep one of their smart phones and a few chargers around to be able to always get online or listen to radio for info and then they follow instruction.

The people of London are all asked to congregate to quarantine centres to be tested. It's all more like safety precautions at that point. They call their mums and tell them not to worry, that they're safe and following orders and being good boys and they'll all see each other soon, surely. The process is slow though. Blood tests have to be taken and the results take hours to days, the labs completely understaffed and overloaded. It's a bit like a giant sleepover, the way the military rolls out sleeping bags by the thousands in the O2 arena. They sit around and sing with a few other people and the mood is generally optimistic. Their government is trying to protect them and it's not like this is really going to be all that dangerous (then why did they quarantine and entire city?) or take all that long (except they've been here almost two weeks) and they're sure it's going to be sorted soon (but the radio says they're doing the same to more cities now).