Forget Me Not (Zayn/Harry; Mpreg AU)

45 - Abysmal tale

The specialist neonatal nurse's nametag reads Luna and she is the newborn boy's primary healthcare worker from birth. She is a fresh faced young woman with inky black hair and light blue, almost grey, eyes. Right now, she is preparing to bring her charges to their mothers for their afternoon feeding, scrubbing her hands thoroughly in the nursery's designated handwashing sink. She looks up from her task once she feels someone watching her. "Oh, good morning, Mr. Smith," she smiles lightly, wondering why the father of one of the babies is inside the nursery this early in the morning. She has to ponder if he is that excited to be with his newborn son.

A pair of evasive brown eyes flicker around the sterile room, purposefully avoiding the nurse's confused gaze, and settles on the little hospital bassinet with an attached Baby Smith tag hanging on its side. From within, the man stares hard at the calm newborn boy, who is swaddled warmly, sleeping. "Hey," he greets back monotonously, eyes still placed elsewhere and repeatedly glancing around the place to assure that they are truly alone.

"Is the mum ready to breastfeed?" Luna queries politely, trying to keep up with the small talk as she approaches the aforementioned mother's baby. She positions herself above the bassinet, getting ready to lift the newborn up but the father has other plans unknown to her, which are of purely malicious intent.

Quickly, he strides to where the nurse is bent over, pulls a fucking truncheon out of his jacket and, without any preamble, hits the back of the defenseless woman's head with it. The nurse is caught by surprise and could do nothing but cry out in pain against the sudden onslaught of vicious strikes. He bludgeons her hard and several times, until she collapses on the floor, bleeding and unconscious. He then kicks her for good measure, just to be sure that she is out of it and will not be able to follow him, whatsoever. After that, the man drops his weapon of choice beside the nurse's battered body, grabs his newborn child out of the hospital bassinet and walks out of the nursery calmly, no signs of his earlier deed anywhere on his person. The people around the man are none the wiser, only viewing the bloke as a doting new father, who is just buzzing to introduce his child to the wonders of sunlight and vitamin D. So, the man is able to escape the hospital with his smuggled newborn, unscathed and unbothered. Once outside the hospital's premises, the man breaks out in a run towards his getaway car, his son's tiny hospital provided hat floating away to land on the ground.

Desmond Styles, or better known amongst his current family and colleagues by his alias, Desmond Smith, is a worthless human being. Apart from being a violent father and partner to his wife and firstborn, Desmond can also be described as a lazy, unemployed arsehole. When he is not out spending his pregnant girlfriend's hard-earned cash in drugs and gambling, Desmond spends his time at home, drinking hard liquor and smoking until his lungs dry out. His daily routine includes drinking himself silly and when the alcohol hits his system, he then allows his demons out to lay their heavy hands on his daughter, Gemma, and his partner, Anne. He does this despicable act until he passes out and then repeats it again the next day. It is quite the vicious cycle with no merciful end in sight.

One fateful day in winter, Desmond finally finds his match in a bloke known simply in the gambling community as Mr. Yamito. Being so full of himself, Desmond confidently and arrogantly plays against the man, betting everything that he has in a dumb move, and, ultimately, loses. Despite the knowledge that he has nothing more to offer, Desmond pleads for another round. In his mind, he is already plotting a strategy to cheat and an easy escape once he gets ahold of some of Mr. Yamito's winnings. Sadly, karma is only a wrong step away from Desmond and with a snap of its metaphorical fingers, everything backfires in the end and the greedy man loses with finality. This time, as Desmond struggles from the brutal kicks and punches of the man's burly gang members, he learns of Mr. Yamito's true identity as a well-known yakuza leader, who is now residing in England. This piece of vital knowledge paralyzes the deadbeat father with fear and afraid to die so suddenly, Desmond throws in a last ditch attempt at surviving this ordeal; He offers his second child in exchange for his own life.

"Here is my son."

Desmond drops to his knees in front of Mr. Yamito, haphazardly holding the child in his arms out, like a sacrifice to the cult leader. He breathes heavily, having ran from his car to the inside of Yamito's mansion, panting, "He was born just this morning. I took him and came here as soon as possible."

Mr. Yamito, a stocky Japanese man with old, cunning eyes, grins wickedly. In heavily accented and slightly broken english, he manages to singlehandedly crush Desmond's spirit, his words transforming into sharp knives piercing the tormented man's whole body. "I want female child, not boy."

"But," Desmond stammers, his shoulders and facial features dropping low. His eyes, which once held savage mirth, are now clouded with debilitating fear, because all of this, it is fucking real. He has messed up in such a colossal way and there is no known way out of this. Perhaps, death is the only escape for him. After this cold realization, he starts shaking soon enough, almost dropping the delicate child in his arms. "He's all I have as of now."

"Not my problem," the yakuza leader shrugs. Truthfully, he cares not for the money, he has a fuckton of it in his bank, anyway. Instead, he just enjoys the terror in his victim's eyes and the realization that today is the end of their life. It sends him quite the adrenaline, a thrill so good it makes his insides hum. He gestures for his men to come close with a mere wave of his wrinkly hands. "You do not hold your end of bargain, Des. You have to die to pay."

Blanching, Desmond violently trembles as a bloke snatches his son out of his arms. Then, another guy presses a gun against the back of his head, the cold of the metal unforgiving. "Please, Yamito, S-Sir," he weakly protests, throat dry. "I have a daughter at home and you c-can have her, instead. Here, I'll c-come home and get h-her. It'll be r-real q-quick, s-see. Just...don't k-k-kill me, p-p-please."

"Too late."

The last image Desmond sees before he is shot through the head is his little boy being carted away by a stranger, still as peaceful and serene as the sea in a windless day.

While the others clean up the dead body and the mess of warm blood on the marble floors of the living room, a lad slides next to Yamito, a squirming bundle in his arms. He asks in japanese, "What shall I do with the child, Yamito-sama?"

The yakuza leader lights up one of his finest tobacco sticks in celebration of another debt paid to him, sucks in a deep inhale and blows the smoke towards the baby's direction. "Throw him away," he orders without missing a beat, his words spoken in his native tongue. "He is of no use to us."

Come nighttime of the same day, a frazzled maid of a well-known family, the Tilley's, brings a shivering, softly crying baby into the house, effectively disrupting the quiet dinner between the family members. Lillian Tilley orders the child to be given to an orphanage, but the maid who found him, refuses. According to her, she will raise the child as her own and, as a token of gratitude, the two of them will always serve the Tilley's. It is surprising that the matriarch of the Tilley family has agreed, but the maid is grateful, nonetheless. So, soon after that, she unwraps the baby from his dirtied yellow hospital blanket. With only a diaper covering the babe's tiny body, the maid finds an empty locket around one of his legs and his identity scrawled messily on the back of a petrol receipt.

Harry Edward Styles
01 Feb 1994

A/N: So...now you know how tragic Harry's life has started. Basically, he's been promised as his biological father's payment to someone that he has a debt to. But, surprise, the person doesn't accept him as such and he is left in front of someone else's house. Also, to anyone who is confused, Anne doesn't quickly realize that Harry Styles is her son because Desmond introduced himself as Desmond Smith to her. To put it simply, Anne and Desmond's fleeting romance is built on lies. How cruel is that?

We're done with one of Harry's struggles now. Rest assured, the story is mostly going up up up now as we reach the climax. Then, we'll be buckling our seatbelts as we descend!

It's going to be a hell of a ride.

As always, thank you.

PS. How about you drop me prompts for drabbles? Hehe