The Other Harry #Wattys2015

Chapter 32

-Chapter 32-

When Niall hits the floor Harry rushes forwards immediately, sliding down beside him. He turns him over, from his hands and knees, so he's sitting with his back against Harry's chest, between his legs. It looks bad. It looks so so bad. I think of Trick all over again, all that time ago with his neck opened up as he lay bleeding in my arms. I watched him turn pale as Niall does now, head lolling from side to side. There'd been this same blood smell then too, a warm wetness carried through the air.

I'm crying, hand over my mouth to quiet the choking sobs. Harry picks up the gun Niall shot Salter with in one hand and turns it on the group of scientists still recoiled in horror at the sight of bullets firing and the death lingering in front of us.

“Save him," Harry demands.

All I can do is gulp, start to bite down on my hand uselessly. Maybe if it hurts enough, if I bargain enough with the sky, make all kinds of promises to be better and wiser and kinder, make all kinds of desperate threats with it too, then the fire will stop burning and the Harrys will stop marching and the bullet will travel backwards, out from its place lodged inside of Niall and back into the barrel of Salter’s gun.

"You’re all supposed to be smart,” Harry growls at the scientists bitterly. “You're all supposed to be doctors aren’t you?”

His voice is angry and desperate, a low rumble like the stirring of magma under the earth’s core before the volcano goes off. But deep down he sees what we all do. No amount of bargaining with the sky and promises and threats and guns will fix this. There is no hope of gods in our machine.

“Not...not medical doctors, Harry,” the woman one tries delicately. “Niall is-"

Harry recoils with a sharp hiss “Don’t. Don't say my name like that. Don't say his name like that either- like you fucking know us. You don't know us!"

Niall shivers, hands stuttering around the edges of his bloody shirt. From far away I hear more glass shattering in the heat of the fire.

" You can grow a person in a tube of goo and put signals into people’s brains but you can’t treat a  bullet wound?" Harry asks the scientist. There again comes his bitter laugh and I hate the way that it sounds. The way that it cuts.

“Harry….” Niall begins in a low, strained voice, chest heaving. Dropping his arm and the gun, Harry turns his attention back towards Niall, his green eyes all rimed red like Christmas decorations.

"No," he whispers. "'cuz...'cuz you're fine. Really...just a flesh wound at the very most.”

"We've had a time of it, haven't we mate?"

“Save the emotional montage; we’re not doing XFactor now …” Harry says with a choking sort of sob. Niall laughs weakly before going serious,

"You're gonna end this for good aren’t you, Harry?”

"I have to try."

Shutting his eyes, Niall nods, almost gravely. His mouth hangs open, gulping at air like a dying goldfish. Circling the top of the fish tank, round and round, over and over before it finally stops and floats lifeless on the surface. He shuts his eyes tight, tries to swallow, push some moisture into his parched throat. It’s too dry in the air because of the fire, but the tears still keep coming and so does his blood. We’re all of us adrift at sea and dying of thirst.

“It doesn’t hurt as bad as you think it's going to,” he mumbles. “It doesn’t.”

Harry shifts gently, sliding out from underneath his friend little by little. As he does so, he bows his head into Niall’s hair. "I really do fucking love you alright, Niall Horan."