medicine {h.s.}

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

december.

"What the fuck?"

"What the hell are you doing in here? Get the fuck out!"

From down the hallway I can hear a loud exchange of voices that causes me to sit up straight in my bed. One look at my clock tells me that I'd fallen asleep whilst waiting for Adrian. He'd spent his entire day in a long surgery, only to end up losing the patient. He was looking for an outlet and I fit his qualifications. Fortunately I have no qualms about being used in such a way—so long as he shows no opposition for the same behavior when I am the one exhibiting it.

Immediately, I am able to put two and two together.

My bare feet slap against the hardwood floor as I run towards my childhood bedroom. Before I even round the corner of the hallway, I already have some strong suspicions about the scene that will be waiting for me. "Oh my God," I gasp upon seeing Adrian in the doorway. He looks overly confused as he stares at Harry. Harry's brow is pulled low as he sits up in the bed, shirtless, looking equally as confused as Adrian. It's been a week since Harry moved in. His belongings now decorate the room, and it looks more his than mine; in the same way that my room now looks more like mine than my mother's. Bored and buzzed, two nights after he moved in, Harry had helped me move my mother's things upstairs in the attic. Even moving them to the attic was a task neither of us was prepped to deal with. Wordlessly, we both opted to deal with the content of the endless amount of boxes at a later date.

Understandably, Harry is shocked to see Adrian in his room.

Understandably, Adrian is shocked to see Styles in my room. Or, what he thinks is my room.

"What the fuck is happening?" Harry's voice is thick with sleep, and though his question is open-ended, his eyes are trained on me as he waits for some sort of explanation. A quick glance to Adrian—who has moved several aggressive steps back from the bed that, I assume, he had tried to climb into—tells me that he has something of the same question. Understandably so.

"Um," I exhale awkwardly, looking between the two of them who are so eagerly waiting an explanation. "Well, Harry moved in." I attempt to maintain a cheerful tone. One that does its best to brush over the awkwardness of the situation. It backfires, I think. Instead, I think my faux-singsong tone does more to highlight the cringe-factor of the situation. Worst of all: I know this is entirely my own fault. I hadn't thought to warn him before he came over. The past week had flown by before I even had the chance to think of warning Adrian of the situation at hand. Even Ruth and Monty—some of Harry's toughest critics—have grown to accept his presence around the house. He's has even begun to side with them in arguments about the bathroom situation—he's assured me that he can take a look at the en suite bathroom. Apparently, his talents aren't exclusively limited to medicinal proclivities. "He took my room."

"I can tell," Adrian sarcastically remarks. In all honesty, I'm not sure why I hadn't told him. I didn't think he'd be all that pissed about Harry moving in. Tonight, in particular, I figured he would be more pissed about trying to slip into bed with Harry. But, I'm shocked to find a smile budding on his face. I'm lucky that he thinks it is funny—rather than something to get jealous over. Had he been jealous, I would have been in the doghouse for quite some time, I suspect. But, that doesn't exactly make sense to me. Neither of us had spoken to the other about making things exclusive. I certainly hadn't. "I'm gonna—" he gestures blankly in the direction of my room. It's obvious that he just wants out of this conversation; the one where I am left trying to explain to Harry what he has just unintentionally witnessed.

My eyes are fastened on Adrian as he exits the room and Harry stares blankly at me. There's an exhaustion to him that causes a wave of guilt in my stomach. Obviously I hadn't intended on waking him up; but selfishly I am glad that it was him and not one of our other roommates. Somehow, I know that Harry will be able to keep a lid on this in a way that Monty and Ruth could not. So, perhaps it worked out for the best that this happened that a night that Ruth is on call and Monty is at Oliver's house.