Misery Loves Company (H.Styles Fanfic)

Chapter 16

Chapter 16

“Fuck,” Zayn exclaims, rushing to me before kneeling on the cold hard ground. A strange moan of pain leaves my lips and I fall limp in his arms, where his hand holds the back of my head. The ache in my hand is so agonizing that I can’t seem to keep my mind focused on anything else.

Liam appears in the living room with a box of chocolate cookies and a glass of water, which he is drinking from even though I strongly doubt it was meant for him, and he places a cookie in between his bottom and top teeth. “Eh she ok?” he asks Zayn about me, mumbling while he chews his sweet.

“The blood started running again,” Zayn states, holding my hand up as proof. A drop of blood falls to the ground and my stomach churns loudly in disgust. “The bandage is gunna have to be before the bath. She’s bleeding too much.”

Liam scoots down next to me and I straighten a little, trying not to move too much. The pain has a weird burning sensation that travels in all the nerves of my body, so any sharp movement is dreadful. “Have a sip,” he smiles, offering me the glass he was just drinking from. I put my lips around the edge and gulp a few small sips. “That’s it, Elena. Good girl.”

Zayn raises an eyebrow at Liam’s comment but doesn’t say anything. Neither do I, as I might spit something about not being a dog. Zayn places his hands under my arms and helps me up, and while I struggle to stand on my own two feet, I reach for Liam’s arm to help myself. But it’s after I grip his shirt tightly that I realize which hand I reached out with, and I scream out in pain.

Beads of sweat appear on my upper lip and at my hairline, I can feel them. The pain is excruciating and I might be getting a fever from it. I start sobbing in Liam’s arms after he effortlessly picks me up bridal style, and Zayn follows us upstairs with the items he’d been previously carrying around. I’m just happy that my injured hand is the same as the arm Harry twisted a while back. This way, my other arm will still be in its good shape even if I eventually lose one.

Or I’ll just completely lose my mind before that…

The bathtub in my bathroom is already filled with steaming water and bubbles. I can imagine that it is what Liam was doing while Zayn searched Harry’s house for bandages. Liam helps me sit on the toilet and while Zayn sits on the edge of the tub, Liam kneels in front of me with bandages and a first aid kit.

“I’ve seen how they do it in movies. It shouldn’t be very hard,” Liam whispers thoughtfully as he examines the objects he has to work with. I wince as he takes an alcohol drenched wipe, but he shakes his head disapprovingly and puts it back on the floor. Instead, he goes for peroxide, which I know will sting a lot less. “I’m sorry if it hurts, babe. We just really have to clean this before we wrap it up.”

Zayn turns around and shields his eyes with his hand while I close my eyes tightly when Liam starts counting from three. “Two… One…” and when the wipe makes contact with my skin, I growl loudly. Liam simply repeats, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” over a hundred time.

“If giving birth hurts more than this, I swear to God I’m never having kids.”

I bite my bottom lip so hard that I can actually taste the heavy metallic taste of blood from the small self-induced injury. And then there’s a long silence in the room when I realize, Zayn too, that I just spoke for the first time in days. And my voice didn’t even crack.

My mind stays focused on breathing in and breathing out but I know Zayn watches me closely as I try to keep the tears in my eyes, well… in my eyes. The wipes Liam is using are quickly soaked with blood and my hand is trembling from the pain. He holds it still but my fingers shake under his touch. When most of the opened burns are clean, he places clean tissue pads on my hand and wraps them up in a tight, white bandage.