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Harry is dying. He is alone. He is in the dark. And he is dying. Every time he coughs he's sure that this is the time his lungs will be thrown from his throat along with the raggedy push of air. His watery eyes are for sure draining every ounce of fluid from his body. He will be a shrivelled vegetable in a short time. And worst of all he is freezing to death. He is in his bunk, huddled under a impressive mound of blankets, and he is freezing to death.
This is the worst way to go, he assures himself. Isolated, like an injured dog, to much pride to allow himself the worried care of his friends or boyfriend. Besides their help would do no good, all he can do now is wallow in his own self-pity, and wait for the sweet release of death to take him away.
A pitiful whimper escapes his lips, reverberating throughout his chest, he swears he can hear his lungs rattling around from the offence.
Then a blinding light shatters the dark sanctuary that is Harry's cave of a bunk on the bus. A face appears, the perfect features, small and delicate, a seemingly small glow of light circling the man's crown. A gasp quietly pushes his way past Harry's lisp. An Angel.
"Mate, you're pathetic, you know this, right?"
Harry is a little confused because he imagined an angel to be a bit more...kind or sympathetic to the fact that Harry is dying. Then as his vision clears he realises the Angel looks more like an elf than anything. Perplexing.
"I'm dying." He informs the elf fiercely.
"It's a chest cold Haz." Their is a familiar cheeky tone that resonates with Harry and he starts to think maybe this isn't an elf at all. An elf in the human form, perhaps, but he's sure Louis would disagree. "Had you not been out clubbing in the midst of winter this could've all been avoided m'sure."
Harry huffs, a small pout pulling on his features. "You were with me!" He croaks, exasperated, "Literally locked to my lips the entire time."
Harry remembers the night fondly, the last night that he wasn't a walking dead man. Him and Louis had decided to go clubbing. Louis because he thrived off a room of people and Harry because he thrived off Louis.
However, it wasn't long before they had abandoned the dance floor, hidden behind the building, and snogged the night away. Their breaths hot and heavy in their mouth but floating away like puffs of smoke when they parted their lips. Hands travelling furiously, alighting nerves with every touch, burning a fiery passion under skin in their travels.
It was a fond memory, lip locked lovers sharing an intimate embrace in the back alley of a posh London night club. Probably the best memory a dying man could ask for Harry thought hopelessly.
"Yes, young Harold, this is true. However m'not the one who chose to get ill." Louis responds evenly as he disappears for a moment and then (elf-like in quickness Harry thinks) reappears with a box of paracetamol. He gives Harry two tablets, also shoving a glass of water into his hands, and fusses like an overprotective mother until he's shoved both the tablets down.
Louis nods happily, "Scoot yourself over now." He doesn't wait for Harry to move but just pushes himself onto the bunk. Using all his muscles to might up the colossal amount of blankets he nestles tightly around Harry. Their limbs tangle themselves together and Harry's body relaxes into the hold.
"Don't get yourself ill." Harry mumbles but doesn't make any effort to distance himself from Louis. "It would be a devastation if we both died."
Louis scoffs but runs a comforting hair through the curly lads hair. "I didn't realise you were such a drama when you're ill." He chuckles tightening his hold around the younger boy. "Half expected you to have a proper obituary written and sent to The Daily Mail."
Harry laughs softly, pretends that he didn't maybe already have one or two front page headline quotes in mind, and turns so he can bury his face into Lou's shoulder. He's already feeling better, maybe the paracetamol has begun to run his course, but his suspicions lead more to the arms wrapped around him.
"You're cute like this." Louis says fondly, "Never thought you insisting on your immediate death would be so adorable."
Harry grumbles a bit because he is dying or was because every second he's spent in Lou's embrace perks his health a bit more. And also because their is a slight patronizing tone to his boyfriend's voice, a joking one albeit, but Harry doesn't exactly glow in pleasure when Lou calls him adorable. He can work with fit, or cheeky, or even a little sultry sex vixen...yes, that last one preferably.
However, he doesn't have the energy or the health to change Louis's choice of adjective at the moment so he just snuggles in deeper. Their breathing falls into a synchronized rising and falling, chests each moving in time with the other, lovers of both mind and body. Harry's recent hope that the sweet surrender of death came quickly fades as fast as it appears.
The only release he needs is the comfort of falling into the arms of the one you love.