Prisoner

Seven

"Louis, you can't get attached to this kid," Mr. Tomlinson says, driving Louis and himself to the prison.

"You know how I am, dad, there's no not getting attached for me. I tried telling myself the same thing. No matter who I got assigned to, I would've gotten attached."

"He won't be here in six months."

Louis' quiet for a moment. He sometimes forgets about that. That Harry genuinely doesn't have a future. That even if he can try and make the last six months the best for him, Louis can't really change Harry's life. The -very near- end is inevitable for him.

"I know. It doesn't matter, though. It's still my job. I'm not going to just not do it because he doesn't have much longer."

Louis' dad nods as he makes the turn into the employee parking lot. "Alright. It's good that you care. I guess that's all that matters."

Louis unbuckles and follows his dad as they go through their normal routine like every other day.

"Be back in like two hours to get you," Louis' dad says.

Louis just nods and slides his phone out of his pocket, scrolling through Instagram mindlessly for a while. After about an hour he gets extremely bored. An idea pops into his head but he's not so sure if it's a good one or not.

He figures he might as well take the risk, the worst that could happen is he gets told no. So Louis gets up and heads out of the break room and down to the check in area.

"Hi Linda," Louis says sweetly.

"Hi honey, what can I do for you?" The middle aged women asks.

"I was just wondering if I could go see Harry."

"Your appointment's not for another hour, hun," She says.

Louis smiles. "I know, I just, he's been really upset lately, and I wanted to go make sure he's okay. It's been on my mind and it's giving me a bit of anxiety," Louis says. Harry's not actually upset, at least not more than usual but Linda seems like the type to be persuaded by something like that.

Linda purses her lips. "I suppose since your daddy works here I can trust you. Go ahead." She nods her head to the door and Louis gives a grateful smile.

"Thanks Linda! You're the best."

Louis happily walks down the hall, not really paying attention to any of the other prisoners. The walk feels like forever but Louis finally makes it to Harry's cell.

He looks in and sees that besides Harry, almost the entire cell is empty. There's no mattress on the bed, no toiletries or clothes anywhere. None of Harry's personal items like the book he had on the metal cabinet.

"Louis?" Harry says, standing up from his spot on the floor.

"Why is your cell so empty?" Louis asks.

Harry looks around. "Oh uh, I'm being moved to one of the b-hall cells. They have like actual doors and stuff. Not just bars everyone can see through," he answers, walking over to Louis and gripping two of the bars in front of him.

"Oh. That's good then, right?" Louis asks, noticing how close Harry is.

Harry nods. "Yeah. More privacy I guess. Still will have a roommate though, that's the once nice thing about being down here. I'm the only one in my cell."

"Oh."

"Why are you here? It's only one."

Louis shrugs. "I don't know. I got bored. I convinced Linda to let me come down here."