Catch Me I'm Falling - A Larry Stylinson Fanfic

Chapter 17

March 6th - Day 48

I didn’t talk to Harry sans a few quick text messages until Tuesday, Monday’s appointments leaving me too exhausted to do much but inhale dinner and flop into bed. I could feel the treatment and sickness taking its toll, but damnit if I wasn’t going to keep working. I had an obligation to my patients and myself, and I wasn’t planning on quitting until I physically couldn’t stand up straight.

When I finally made it to Harry’s hospital room, I found it mysteriously empty. He couldn’t have been gone long, his covers all askew, laptop open on his starry sheets, but there was no Harry in sight.

“Haz?” I called out, taking a tentative step inside and peering around the bed, trying not to be worried. He’d probably just stepped out for a bit of air or something to eat. I set my bag on the chair, wishing I could completely quash the panic rising inside my chest. He never left his room, ever. 

“Harry, love, are you here?”

What if something seriously bad had happened? What if he’d had a seizure, what if he’d fallen, was bleeding out somewhere as he waited for someone to find him? I fought the shaking of my hands as I went to text him, sending off a quick where are you? in the hope that he was okay enough to answer.

“Harry please.” I said slowly, letting my phone hang limp in my hands, staring up at the ceiling in the vague hope that maybe if I wished hard enough he’d appear, perfect and unharmed. “Hazza?” I sounded alone even to my own ears.

I sunk onto the floor, aching bones creaking as I hit the tile, overworked brain out of options. I was so tired, and so unbelievably overwhelmed. “I hope you’re okay.”

There was a long moment of silence, during which every single awful possibility ran through my mind at least four times, before I heard a soft voice drift out to meet me. “I’m okay.”

My head snapped up, eyes finding the crack underneath the bathroom door where a shadow was curled up in the darkness. “Harry?”

“Don’t come in.” He intoned, low and ragged, like something had broken inside him. 

I crawled over to the bathroom door, peering underneath to try and catch a glimpse of anything in the shadows. “Why isn’t the light on?”

He sniffed, taking a shuddering breath. “I don’t want to see.”

I leaned up against the wood, wanting nothing more than to go in there and hug him, to fix whatever had gone so awfully wrong. “Can’t you let me in?”

“No.” He replied quickly, then, softer, “Please, no.”

“Okay.” I curled up, pulling my knees to my chin and wrapping my arms around them. It was times like this that I remembered how breakable he was, the way his body moved with hairline cracks in the joints. He was so lovely, so easily ruined, and I couldn’t protect him from everything, especially when he was the one tearing himself apart. “Do you want to tell me what’s wrong?”

“No.” He replied. 

“Harry?” I asked, wishing I could to slide under the door and crawl into his arms until he couldn’t be sad anymore. 

“Yeah?”

“I love you so much.”

He didn’t reply, only choked down another quivering breath and slid his fingers underneath the door, letting me thread mine through his. 

I don’t know how long we sat there, me sending all the good I had left in my body through the wood, him taking low shivering breaths. It was getting late, a darkness creeping in until the only illumination was the light from the hall and the small lamp by his bedside. It lit up the empty hospital room, a kind of sick foreshadowing to a time when he wouldn’t be around to fill the starspeckled sheets.