Imprisoned In My Heart: A Larry Stylinson Fanfic

23.

In hindsight, however much the two of them might have needed to hear Harry say those words, it might have been better to keep them to himself. It had never occurred to Louis that a place like Whitehall would be home to hundreds of men who were just as vile, vicious and opinionated as Adam had been – but ten times as dangerous.

 As Louis looked down at the mop of curls on the pillow and listened to the slow, steady beep of the heart monitor, he couldn’t help but hold Harry’s fragile wrist so that he could feel for himself that Harry’s heart was still beating, fluttering like a bird against his fingertips. That, and the rise and fall of his chest, gave Louis hope, and he watched in silence as Harry breathed in and out, still stunned by his face. If he’d been horrified before, there wasn’t a word for what he was feeling right then.

Harry’s face was no longer pulverized fruit – it was rotting pulverized fruit, but torn and bleeding, and with stitches running through it. Louis felt sick at the thought. The doctors had sewn what was left of Harry’s bloody face back together, covering the threads with stark white bandages, and now there was only the terrible colours: purple, red, yellow, black and blue, with the only hint of peachy skin being the odd patch of undamaged flesh on Harry’s stomach, and his arms, which miraculously had escaped most of the beating.

As he stood by Harry’s side, Louis stroked down the skin of Harry’s right arm with his free hand, murmuring nonsense to console them both. Whether Harry could hear him or not was a mystery, but his lips kept moving anyway, mumbling words that weren’t words, or half-formed sentences that he forgot to finish or started in the middle of another one. He kept reliving the awful moment over and over in his mind: that terrible phone call, the feeling of the whole world stopping while the voice at the end of the phone gabbled mindlessly on at breakneck speed until he couldn’t keep up and ended up breaking down in tears, biting his tongue so hard that he tasted coppery blood in his mouth every time he swallowed.

“Hello?”

“Hello, is that Mr. Louis Tomlinson?”

“Speaking.”

“This is Whitehall Prison, Cell Block F, Alan Cartwright here.”

“Um…okay?”

“I’m sorry to disturb you at this late hour, Mr. Tomlinson, but we have to speak to you urgently.”

“I’m listening.”

“It’s about Harry Styles…”

“Harry?” Louis asked sharply. “What’s wrong with him?”

The bland, reassuring ‘nothing’ he expected to hear didn’t come; in fact, the complete opposite. “He’s been hospitalized. Again. He’s named you as his next of kin.”

Words flying around his brain, Louis snatched at the first coherent thought that came to him and blurted it out instantly. “What about his mum?”

“It’s your name he gave us. He’s eighteen; it’s his decision to make. You’re his next of kin.”

“I don’t understand, what happened? Was it self-inflicted?”

“We have reason to believe he was attacked.”

“What? Attacked? Why? By who?” Louis was growing closer to hysteria every second.

“It would really be easier if we continued this conversation at the hospital, Mr. Tomlinson. Besides, you really must get down here. The boy’s in a bad way. He needs you.”