Together On The Field - l.s

one

Disclaimer: I have not written this fic. The rightful owner of the story is flowsque on ao3 and the original name was "Way In The World", but it had very few reads on ao3, and the larry fiction side of wattpad is really dead now that we are so far into the break. Therefore i am making it into smaller chapters and reposting it here. Anyway. Hope you enjoy. I read this and honestly i fell in love from the first second. It might be one of my favourite fics, also based on the fact that i am an ex-football player and everything is pretty accurate in this story on the footie side.

Also, i need to say that this fanfiction was written in 2015 and therefore contains all the present and past 1D boys. So if you get any feels because of Zayn, you have been warned. 

- Stine

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Harry

"Bend your leg,"

Harry uses his hands to carefully put pressure on his knee, which creaks suspiciously in return. There is always this moment while he's in the middle of his physiotherapy session when his knee stops cooperating, and the ligament starts to fight him like it's begging for mercy.

It hurts a lot, but he never asks Matthew, the therapist, to take a break. Not even when the pain is as unbearable as it is right now. He has never been one to surrender to things, even when they're just too much. He throws back his head instead, biting hard his lower lip to try and hide from the physiotherapist the grimace that flashed on his face.

Unfortunately he knows Harry too well, and his struggle never goes unnoticed.

"Does it hurt?" asks Matthew, raising his eyebrows in a frown and loosening the grip on Harry's leg a little. Harry swallows and squints his eyes, trying his best to stifle the tears welling up behind his eyelids. He knows that he doesn't need to freak out every fucking time. That each doctor who examined him said the exact same thing. His knee is going to recover. It'll be fine. It only needs time. He knows that.

He knows that he needs to meticulously follow the rehab guidelines and to do what Matthew tells him. That he can't rush into things, even if he's so impatient that he honestly can't wait to be back on the football pitch. But being reckless would only worsen the situation, and that's not what we want, right Harry?

He is seriously trying his best. But it's common knowledge that pain is not really rational, after all. He can't exactly control what happens in his head now, can he?

At least he can hide it, though. He can smile at his mum when he goes back home to Holmes Chapel for the holidays, he can smile at the therapists and at the doctor, he can even smile with gritted teeth at his teammates, who come and visit him after practice. They always stop by to comfort him, to ask how's rehabilitation going, and then they go back to the locker room to take a well deserved shower after an exhausting training session.

He's a master at that. He's so good at pretending everything is fine, more than fine, when in reality he cringes every time his mind is crossed by the thought that it's already been three months since he injured his knee, yet he's still forced to walk with a fucking crutch and do all the exercises to recover.

Of course it hurts.

It hurts a lot to feel your ligament pulling off the bone, hearing that dry 'pop' and knowing that something's gone wrong. It hurts to have your knee torn in two, to watch a team of doctors reconstruct it in front of your eyes. It also hurts having to get used again to something that came natural to him only a few months ago, like walking or running. Or kicking the football.