You Can't Sing Without Air- Harry Styles Fanfic

16. I'll Make You A Deal

Harry sits on his bed playing guitar, lost to the world around him. This time I don't try to hide. I walk in and sit down next to him. He looks up from his instrument. 

"Hey." 

"Hey." He says.

"What are you playing?" I ask, even though I already know the answer. 

"From the Dining Table."  

I scoot a few centimeters closer to him. 

"I remember that one." 

He moves as if to put his guitar down, but I stop him. 

"No, don't stop. It's beautiful." 

Cautiously he begins to play again.  

Woke up alone in this hotel room
Played with myself, where were you?
Fell back to sleep, I got drunk by noon
I've never felt less cool

Before I have time to think about it, I find my voice joining his in harmony. He looks up at me in surprise.

We haven't spoke since you went away
Comfortable silence is so overrated
Why won't you ever be the first one to break?
Even the phone misses your call, by the way

My voice is husky and deep, years of lung damage making it almost impossible to sing any other way. It surprises people sometimes; I think they expect a lighter, breathier tone. But it actually takes much more air and lung support to sing in a breathy voice. That's something Niall taught me after he joined the band.  I've sung from my chest ever since, savoring as much air as I can.

Still, I'm barely able to finish the song. Harry plays the final notes, laying his guitar down beside him. 

"Your voice is incredible." He says in wonder.

I blush from head to toe. 

"Thanks." 

"I didn't know you could sing like that." Harry says, placing his hand on my thigh. I blush even harder if that's even possible.  

I cough a few thick, wet coughs. Gross. 

"Barely." I laugh.  "You can't sing without air," I say, shrugging. 

"You can." 

Shit. Those eyes. Those eyes, deep and full of admiration and longing. Here they are, directed at no one but me. 

I lean forward, tipping my chin towards him. This time I kiss him, our lips meeting softly. It's just a beautiful as the first time. 

He pulls away first. 

"I'm sorry for being kind of a spaz this morning." He says, mindlessly playing with the fingers of my left hand. 

"You don't have to apologize. I have near-death experiences all the time. That was your first one." I lean my shoulder into his. 

He leans back, weaving his fingers into mine and rubbing the back of my hand with his thumb. 

"Can I ask you something?" He says, his voice trembling slightly. 

"Sure, yeah."  

"I've been doing some research...." He stops. "I don't know how to ask this." 

"Just ask me. I promise I've heard worse." It's true, the things people will ask a sick person... Astounding really.

"How sick are you? Like I know you've gotten worse but... I guess what I am asking-- " 

"Am I going to die?" I finish for him. 

He begins to correct me but I don't let him. 

"It's okay. It's a logical question. I would want to know too, you know, if the tables were turned." I pause, thinking how I want to word things. 

"I'm pretty sick. I'm sure you've realized that by now. When I was born my life expectancy was thirteen. When I turned thirteen it became sixteen, when I turned sixteen they said I likely wouldn't make it to my twenties. You could say I'm a bit of a rebel." I laugh at my own joke. 

Harry gives me a half-smile. 

"Two years ago I felt like I could live forever. Then my health went downhill, fast. It started out with the flu, then pneumonia, then sepsis. I spent six months in the hospital fighting for my life. My lung capacity went from 84% to 42% in the first two months. It's even lower now. Thankfully, I had an amazing team of doctors helping me through, but with CF, once lung function declines, it's pretty much gone for good." 

"Wow. I had no idea." 

"To be fair, no one did. Well, except for Sean and my family. Oh and Lewis Capaldi oddly enough. He helped my brother through a lot at that time." I laugh. 

 Lewis was like a bright light in a very dark tunnel. He always knew exactly what to do to encourage Niall and bring him back to his normal joyful self.  The two of them are like brothers now. 

"So, what about lung transplants? Isn't that a possibility?" Harry asks. 

"It's complicated." I answer. "At this point, I'm eligible for a transplant, yes. But in order to be listed on the waiting list, you have to have a strong home support system. Recovery is apparently brutal as hell." 

"I can imagine." Harry says, nodding his head. 

"I can't count on Niall to wait around for me in case I get the call, or to spend the months afterward helping me recover. I could move back home but isn't really an option in my mind. My life is here. If I moved back to Mullingar I'd probably never come back. I can't do that. Not to mention, the shelf-life of a lung transplant is only five to seven years. Ten if you're lucky. Then you have to do it all over again." 

"So, no transplant then what... you just wait it out? For how long?"  

How long will I live?

"I don't know. Statistically, I have until I'm thirty-five. Realistically...." I look down at our hands intertwined together on the bed. "I don't know if I'll make it to twenty-five."

"Shit." Harry says.  

The blood drains from my face. This is the moment where he says "forget about it" and moves on to some Victoria's Secret model with perfect lungs and a life-expectancy three times mine. The moment he realizes the mistake he made in kissing me. The moment he turns away and chooses someone else.

"Well let's hope you rebel against that too." He says, looking up at me. 

My heart rises in my chest. 

"What?" 

"You beat the odds before. You could do it again. Who knows, maybe in the next three years they'll find a cure for Cystic Fibrosis. It's not impossible." he says, pulling me closer to him. 

"You don't know that Harry. I'm one or two infections away from the funeral home. I wouldn't blame you if you didn't want anything to do with this." I lift our intertwined hands. 

"I don't know what 'this' is yet, but I do know that I have wanted it for longer than you know," Harry says, laying his other hand on my thigh. "And now, I have you, right here.... right in front of me- I'm not giving up that easily." 

What does he mean by "longer than you know"? Is it possible that all this time, all those times I caught his eyes on me, he wanted this? 

"I....." I don't know what to say. 

"Let's make a deal." Harry says, pulling his hand from mine. "You stay alive for as long as you can, and in turn, I get to be your boyfriend." He holds his hand out as if for a handshake. 

"What?" I can't contain the blush rising to my cheeks. 

"Adie, will you be my girlfriend ?" He raises his brows. 

"Yes." I say. "Yes!"  

"Then it's a deal." He says. 

We shake hands but don't let go after. 

"It's a deal."