✓ dark blue -h.s. au- short story

5 "sight of blood."

C E C I L Y

She watches Harry move against the blankets of Liam's bed. His face is contorted into a scowl, his breathing really shallow. She took off his long sleeved shirt minutes before and drew the covers off of his body when she saw him trying to shove away. He's been sweating for the longest time.

She leans over the bedside table and takes the washcloth that was given to her by Liam and tilts toward Harry, pressing it to his forehead and trying not to touch him much.

When she pulls away to set the cloth next to the glass of water, she's surprised to see his eyes wide open. Her hand slips and pushes the glass off the wood, sending it to a plummet toward the wooden floorboards in the bedroom. "Hell," she hisses under her breath and stands straight, kicking the chair back. "Christ, I'm sorry."

"Is Niall okay?"

"Niall?" She pushes her hair back just as Harry sits up from the bed, not wincing one bit. The side of his neck has been bandaged by Zayn though there was only one little cut there. His head is also wrapped in a gauge. She must have been over exaggerating when she felt a gash on the back of his head earlier because according to Zayn, Harry only has a thumbnail sized cut, thin and clean and not at all worthy of all the blood that stained the grass he was writhing in when he started to bleed.

"He didn't look so good before I passed out. Is he here? What about you? You okay?"

"Niall went home before everyone brought you here, said he gets nauseous at the sight of blood. And yeah, I'm great, what about you?"

He hums a little but it doesn't sound like he's sure. It sounds strained. Harry looks strained. She lowers a hand to the slow pulse at his neck, but only feels it for just a second before his hand comes up to grasp her gently.

She pretends the sting at her wrist isn't real. Harry doesn't pretend he doesn't see the marks, and his fingers ghost over them. Then he goes for her other hand.

Her eyes widen.

His fingers graze her hands, pulling up the sleeves of her shirt. She watches as he listens closely to her breathing that keeps getting louder and hoarse. She pulls away quickly and narrows her lightly colored gray eyes to his green ones. Her lips are pulled in a tight line, her posture just as tight before she finally speaks. "Don't do that."

"I'm sorry, I just thought-"

"I know what you were thinking and you don't have that responsibility." She turns and walks out of the door too quickly before Harry can say anything else. He must hear her voice as she increases the distance. "Liam is on the couch sleeping. Wake him up if you need anything." And then she's gone.

Cecily doesn't need anybody to worry for her. That's her job. She doesn't need protecting, she doesn't need a stranger protecting her. She doesn't need an exchange, she'd helped him because she saw that Liam and Zayn were exhausted, not because she wanted something in return.

She walks past Liam and opens the front door to leave, though she doesn't really know where to go from here, so she walks around the unfamiliar expanse of the empty neighborhood bearing Liam's house and his injured guest.

She walks and has thoughts of a bleeding Harry with shimmering pieces of sharp edges lodged in his neck. She has thoughts of a Harry that doesn't exist because in her thoughts, the Harry she sees has something that looks like green glass stabbing the side of his face and neck. She has thoughts of a bloodied Harry being lit up by red, white, and blue lights; like police car lights, or an ambulance siren's lights, and she has thoughts of a really bloodied, really pretty, really brightly lit Harry smiling a little, and then it all goes away.

It leaves in an instant when she sees a very dark building. Her lungs can't capture enough oxygen as she sees a man standing by the balcony window, the outline of his body shaking. She takes a step forward away from the lamplight before recognition finally sets in and she breathes out, "Niall?" just as he releases the banister of the window.

Her eyes widen too much, her feet stuck to the ground. The bushes in front of the building are keeping her from seeing the aftermath of a man jumping from such a high building, so she begins to sprint forward.

"Niall!" Cecily calls out. And oh god, is Niall okay? He didn't look so good. "Niall, Niall are you okay? God-" She pushes the rigid branches out of the way, not caring how much they dig into the exposed skin of her shoulders because she has one thing in mind. She just wants to reach him.

It's no secret he's depressed and no doubt that suicidal thoughts come from depression, but oh god, what is happening?

She walks toward the window he jumped from and then pauses at the sight on the ground.

His body is nowhere it should be, nowhere at all, really. Instead, there's a dark spot where he could have fallen. The spot looks like water had been thrown onto it, and Cecily shakes her head too much. She feels too much pressure there, like air is being pumped into her head. Her skin begins to burn all over again as she looks up at the empty window, and maybe she was hallucinating. Maybe her eyes are playing tricks on her like her hands had played tricks on her when she thought she felt a gash on the back of Harry's head.

Her hands lock over her ears and her eyes feel like the pressure in her head is trying to push them from their sockets, and the pain isn't subtle like most pain she feels. She feels this pain like it's all over her, not like when she digs her fingers in her arm or wrist and feels just a slight pinch. No, this pain feels real, too real, and then she falls on the ground, her body too small to completely take up the size of the large water spot she falls on.

Her body twitches twice, skin feeling like ice before she falls out of it all at once. Like a dream.