Capable

🅒🅗🅐🅟🅣🅔🅡 17

ZAYN

"Are you his brother, friend....?" the flaxen haired nurse asked, nodding to Louis and holding her clipboard, looking probably a bit more severely at him than necessary.

"I'm his roommate," I clarified, taking the handles of the wheelchair they had him seated in, where he was tapping his fingers anxiously on the armrest, looking more than a little peeved with the rude nurse,"Is there anything else you'll need?"

She shook her head, looking down her nose at Louis, who, for the better part of his ten-hour stay in the hospital had been....more than a little trouble to the poor orderlies and nurses.

"You can go," she announced, in a voice that made it perfectly clear that this was the absolute highlight of her day,"And, god bless you."

She said the last part with a sympathetic glance at me, before briskly turning on her heel and heading down the hall.

"You need anything before we go, Lou?" I inquired, staring at the back of his head, sensing the eye roll that for sure was happening on his face.

He shook his head impatiently and whined,"I just wanna go home."

I laughed,"Well, let's go say 'hey' to Harry and, then, we'll be outta here."

He didn't say anything back.

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"Hey, everybody!" I greeted the rest of our gang, pulling back the curtain to the room where Harry was staying, recovering after the procedure they'd done on him yesterday to repair his prolapse and investigate the issue in his GI tract,"We came to see our favorite guy!"

"Zzzzzzzzeeeeeeee!" Harry cheered, lifting his arms out for a hug, which I quickly went in for, his hugs were powerful.

I grinned, sticking my pointer finger in one of his cavernous dimples and watching him shy away, giggling.

"You having fun?" I asked, glancing down at the tray they had in front of him, containing several crayons and a few coloring books, all cat in the hat themed, of course.

His precious Dr. Seuss stuffies, of which I'd brought over at least fifteen,  were surrounding him on all sides, a row one each side of his long legs to, I assume, create a barrier between the guardrails and his skin. It was a pretty decent set up, one of his half dozen weighted blankets, here, tucked under him to give him some cushion and another over his legs.

See, back when we'd been helping Niall plan his shindig, half of his  family had called my place to find out about what to bring for Haz as presents. I had done some sleuthing about things that worked for autistic kids and gotten some answers from Niall, the expert.

I'd made a list and set it on the counter for Louis to refer to when Niall's family called, because I was in the shower at the time. The end result had been that there had been approximately twenty five suggestions on the list and Louis was feeling lazy, so, he only read the first one to about half the callers before I stepped out and put a stop to that.

However, I was too late because, by that point, Harry already had about nine of those heavy stuffed blankets coming his way.

Now, Harry always had, at least, two available at all times. Which, given Niall's laundry routine was a very good thing.

He nodded, baring down hard on his crayon and sticking his tongue between his teeth in concentration as he scribbled on the page. He didn't seem to have a lot of coordination, or a lot of hold on his grip, but he was trying hard, so that was what counted.