A Taste [H.S Fanfiction]

Tequila Kiss

"Styles." Harry kept his eyes closed, his breathing as shallow as he could.  His body in a fixed state of catatonia. The guard called again, this time closer. He was in the cell now. "STYLES." He shouted. Harry felt him rattle the bunk, shaking it roughly. He refused to move, body rolling lazily with every shake of the bed.

Another voice sounded. "Shoot him. Maybe he'll move then." Booming laughter sounded in the cell, but not from the first guard. He remained still. His muscles didn't tense, his eye lids stayed relaxed, closed. He did wonder thought, if they shot him, would it snap him out of it?

Harry felt steel bracelets snap around his wrists, a now all too familiar feel. Then calloused fingers checking his pulse, and something cold and smooth brushing past his lips.

The guards were quiet now, all speaking in soft, rushed tones.

"I think he's dead."

"He can't be. It's Styles. He's got like nine lives."

"He's not a cat mate. I've checked the pulse. There's no breath. We need to call a nurse." If Harry could, he would smirk right now. The blokes actually believed he was dead. If he really pulled this off, it'd be the greatest stunt of his life.

     "We should go out tonight." Ava looked up from her laptop. Deena was standing in the doorway to her bedroom. A coy smile on her face. Ava couldn't help but chuckle and shake her head.

"You say that every weekend." Deena shrugged, waltzing into the bedroom and flopping down beside her best friend. Ava pushed her laptop away, looking over at her friend.  "Come on. You can't stay in this house forever."

It was true. Ava hadn't gone out in ages. Not since the breakup. She didn't talk about him, she didn't talk about what happened, only labeled it 'the breakup'. She hadn't been right since.

"Where would we go?" Ava asked. Deena grinned, surprised her friend even said yes.

Everything was a blur. Harry felt himself lifted from his bunk, placed on a gurney and strapped down. He continued with his careful breathing, quietly inhaling and being sure not to move his chest too much. Lights fluttered across his eyes, the noise of guards, nurses and finally a doctor surrounding him.

"How long has he been coded?"

"About twenty minutes."

"Hm." Harry heard the doctor say. "I don't think there's anything we can do."

"Do you know what could have caused it?" Harry felt hands on him, moving his shirt up, pulling his pants down, checking his body over. He remained still.

"Nothing external. No cuts or wounds. No bruises. Could have been a heart attack."

"At twenty six? Doctor-"

"It can happen. Honestly, we won't know for sure unless there's an autopsy."

He searched in vain for a pulse, removed Harry's prison uniform, prodded his belly, rolled him over and slid the fragile glass stem of his thermometer into his ass. Harry loosened  his hold on the world and let his soul go drifting beneath the black waves of oblivion.

"What killed him then?" was the last thing He heard, and The doctor's soft voice answering, "I've really no idea."

A clatter of metal, then wheels thrumming on a paved road. There were no paved roads on the prison grounds. He couldn't risk opening his eyes, and even if he'd wanted to, the lids felt as though they had been weighted shut. He heard the clink of tubes and bottles, the static of a scanner radio, the snarl of traffic and the rising wail of a siren. He was in an ambulance. He had made it out of the prison; now all He had to do was come back to life. But not yet.