✓ lights /styles au/

27 Dysfunction

i tried to sleep alone last night.

Hospitals have always made Harry feel out of place. When he was thirteen and Anne was in a car accident, he spent the whole night sleeping in the hallway and staring at different patients. They all had different color wristbands for different reasons.

He didn't remember much about hospitals, but remembered pink symbolizing limb alert. Patients on limb alert weren't allowed to leave their room without a nurse to accompany them. He remembered the tinnitus in every corridor, that incessant beeping that reminded him that dying people liked the quiet.

Joey had her head on his lap in the waiting room for quite some time. While she caught up on some sleep (and a few nightmares that resulted in her nails digging into his thighs) Harry allowed his eyes to water. He'd slowly wipe at them and shake his hands out without waking up the girl that was sat on him.

Phone calls early morning were never good ones. The last time he got an early morning phone call was when Niall was put into a holding cell for a night because of public fighting. Harry had to bail him out that morning, and he ended up treating his friend to breakfast without mentioning the bleeding scars on his knuckles that he felt when he helped hold him up. Today was different though.

This phone call wasn't about Niall in a holding cell. This phone call was from a doctor about Niall who was found unconscious and Harry asked so many questions about his friend. What happened? Is he all right? When will he wake up? Concussion?

"Harry Styles?"

Harry nodded blankly, keeping himself still because he knew Jo didn't get much sleep. She was a light sleeper and he was anxious, but he wasn't inconsiderate. "What?"

The small voice of the nurse in front of him sounded throughout the room. Somehow, he could still hear the tinnitus. Dying people liked the silence, he remembered suddenly. Dying people hate hospitals but it's quiet enough to bear. "You're here to see the doctor treating your brother?"

"Yes," he lied. He and Niall might as well have been brothers.

"Follow me, please?"

He hesitated for a moment, biting down on his bottom lip because Jo was finally asleep and he really didn't want to wake her. Just as he was trying to decide what to do, she sat up slowly, removing her weight from on top of him.

"Go," she said quietly, voice thick with sleep.

"Will you be okay out here on your own? Do you want to come?"

There was a slight pause and Harry closed his eyes, beginning to feel tired himself. He'd been overly tired lately but now wasn't the time to think about it. "No, no. I'll be fine. Take however long you need. I'll go wait in the car."

He leaned over to press a chaste kiss to her forehead. "I'll meet you there in a while." While he stood to his feet, his hand brushed hers and he added, "you should turn up the heat when you're there."

Harry held out his hand and paused when he felt the nurse standing in front of him. "I left my white cane and dog and I'm a bit tired so..."

"Of course." Her arm hooked around his gently and she guided the both of them slowly throughout the hospital. The incessant ringing in his ears made him close his eyes. His fingers skimmed the walls and when he noticed the opening in it that signaled a separate room where a patient was most likely living, he remembered that dying people liked the silence.