Arlo - Larry Stylinson

Chapter 14 - Breathe, Gypsy-Boy

"Harry-" Liam said, pinching Harry's arm. Harry winced back and he found himself back in the hospital room. Everyone was looking at him. "Sorry." He said, letting go of the sheet and relaxing his body. He let out a heavy breath. A white screen had been pulled up over Louis' lower parts for privacy and Harry could no longer see what the nurses were doing. He looked down. "Roxy, what's wrong with him?" he asked, not lifting his eyes from the floor in case he'd see Louis lying dead before him.

Roxanne kept her hand on Harry's shoulder and presumably asked his question to the nurses in her own foreign language. The nurse spoke quickly but her voice was trained to be calm. It annoyed Harry to the core, the fact that she could be so calm when Louis was losing so much blood. She stopped speaking and went back to her job at passing tools to a nurse who was now holding an unnaturally large-and frankly, terrifying-needle. Harry looked away from it, forcing himself to look at Roxanne's face when she spoke. ..She was really a beautiful lady.

"Louis is suffering from internal bleeding due to an old scar at the wall of his rectum tearing and reopening. Unfortunately, the tear is on the inner wall and leads directly to his seminal vesicle but fortunately for him-and you, I presume-it is not damaged. The bleeding comes from around the small intestines and is leaking through the tear."

Harry looked at her, horrified. He glanced at Louis, then back to Roxanne, "What are they going to do?"

Roxanne looked at Louis, visibly disturbed. "Right now, they're sealing the wound to stop him bleeding out. They said he's lucky that his wound is a reopened scar and not new." She saw a slight ounce of reassurance in Harry's eyes. "It'll close up easily." She tried to finish there but Harry was quick-witted.

"He's internally bleeding, surely sewing him up will be dangerous." He said, grabbing the sheets again, "What are they going to do to stop the bleeding?"

"Once the tear is sealed, the main problem will be the blood around his intestines that'll build up and eventually kill-" She stopped there, cutting her sentence off short. Roxanne showed a face of worry then, and everyone saw it. She raised a hand and pointed to one of the trays on the table. Everyone looked. "The only way to stop internal bleeding is to suck the residues of blood out of the patient.."

And on the tray was a jar, and in the jar were leeches.

Harry stood up and shook his head, his face turning as white as Louis'. "No." He said, "No, you can't! That's awful!" He backed away and knocked the chair. He looked horrified with the tears standing in his eyes and tremble in his body.

"Harry, it's the only way-"

Harry put his arm over his face and continued to shake his head, "You can't-" He had to sit down again to prevent himself from fainting, "You can't do that to him, that's horrible, please."

Roxanne put a hand on his shoulder but withdrew it when she felt how much Harry was shaking. "It'll only be until the bleeding reduces, the nurses will remove them afterwards.."

She wasn't even sure that Harry could hear her anymore. She'd never seen anyone in such a state of panic. Harry was shaking, crying uncontrollably, sounding like he was struggling to breathe as he sat there, squeezing Louis' hand like he were the one who was dying. "Harry?" Roxanne asked a lot more urgently. Harry didn't even hear her, he just kept shaking, looking like he'd fall off the chair, sounding like he were choking.

"Back away, he's having a panic attack, back off!" Erin shouted, pushing between Roxanne and Liam to get to Harry. He grabbed Harry's hand and pulled the man's head up. "Harry." He said, forcing Harry's terrified eyes to look into his ghostly ones. "Breathe." He said. He inhaled, telling Harry to follow, holding his face, showing him that someone was there. Harry's teeth were clenched, his eyes showing the sheer panic that he felt run throughout his body, and he could barely breathe at all. "Good boy, breathe in and out." Erin stroked Harry's cheek, feeling Harry slowly calm under his touch. "Keep breathing, you're alright. Breathe, Gypsy-boy." He did not look away from Harry's dilated irises, boring his way through the dark clouds in Harry's vision. "Pretend that you're a seagull flying over the rooftops of the houses back in London. See how much air there is around you? Breathe it in."