Imprisoned In My Heart: A Larry Stylinson Fanfic

10.

Louis looked moodily down at his desk and discovered that for the past ten minutes he had been neatly engraving ‘I’m bored’ into it with his biro. He absently rubbed at the battered wood, and then reached across to the filing cabinet. Sliding open the bottom drawer, he helped himself to a chocolate Hob Nob and popped it into his mouth without enthusiasm. He kept the drawer well stocked; his biscuits kept disappearing – possibly it was Niall’s doing, but more likely he had just been eating all of them himself without noticing – and he was determined to have the amount of biscuits he had promised –

“Harry!”

Niall’s shout of welcome in the corridor was loud enough for Louis to hear it all the way in his office. Leaping up so suddenly that his coffee went flying and he scattered papers all over the room, launching them into the air like hundreds of giant, flat birds, Louis shoved his chair back, scrambled free of the new mess on the floor and struggled across the room to the door. Yanking the door open so hard that he wouldn’t have been surprised if it had fallen off its hinges, he poked his head out of the door. In the corridor, Liam was stood staring hopefully in the direction of the Irish boy’s cry.

Louis glanced at him. “Is it?”

“I hope so!”

They sprinted down the corridor together, which was probably inappropriate in both of their cases; Liam as a guard and Louis as a psychologist should not have been running to hug the returning prisoner who had only just been released from hospital – but the fact was that they both liked Harry, and they missed him, and they weren’t going to miss the chance to welcome him back just because it wasn’t in their job descriptions to be friends with him.

They burst into the main hall to find Harry cheerfully sprawled out on his usual sofa, grinning up at everyone with his bandaged arms hanging loosely at his sides. He looked far happier than he had for days; the sparkle was back in his eyes, and his cheeky grin showed no sign of faltering. His curls were soft and natural and freshly washed, not like they had been the last time Louis had visited him; he remembered Harry moaning about how disgusting his hair was and how long it had been since he’d washed it. His cheeks were just the right colour; peachy and with just a little colour, and his dimples flashed as he smiled. Beside him was Niall and they were having a proper conversation, which Louis found a little odd; he hadn’t known that Harry and Niall were friends. But then again, he’d never noticed Harry having any friends at all; he was a perpetual loner, and not because people shunned him, but because he’d never seemed interested in making the effort to talk to anybody.

“Hey, Harry!” Liam greeted, “you look better.”

“I feel better. How’s my favourite psychiatrist?” Harry looked up at Louis and smiled warmly.

“Buried in a mountain of paperwork…which you’re about to add to. You’re well overdue for your next session.”

Harry tutted. “Disorganised.”

“This is me we’re talking about. Come on, drag yourself away from your admirers, we have things to discuss.”

Rolling his eyes, Harry pushed himself up off the sofa and lightly punched Niall on the arm. “I’ll catch up to you later, yeah, Nialler?”

“All right, man. See you around.”

Harry smiled at the blond boy and patted him on the knee, and then he followed Louis across the room and they headed for the office.

“Nialler, huh?” Louis murmured as they walked.

Harry shrugged self-consciously. “Yep. He’s not a bad kid, I guess. I think it’s about time I made some friends in here.”