part eighteen
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"thank-you," louis says with a little cough as the woman drapes a thick blanket over his shoulders, which have started to shake again. he doesn't get a response, she just gives him a tight smile and beacons him to follow her, kindly staying at a slow pace that way he can keep up with her on his wobbly legs.
he has to use all of his strength to propel himself forward, and he realizes that his shoes have been removed, he can feel the cold tiles on his severely frost bitten feet. with furrowed eyebrows, he moves the blanket a little to look at his toes and blanches. they are dark purple and shriveled up. he nearly faints right there, but he makes his head rise and he tries to focus on walking, trying not to think what his fingers might look like.
"he's in there, with my brothers. we put him by the open oven to try to warm him up since he was so much worse then you," says the nameless woman and wow that sounds promising. "do you need any help walking?," she asks, noticing how pale and frail louis looks.
he just shakes his head though, and makes hand gestures for her to keep walking, "he said he wanted to see me?," he asks, and the lady nods, weaving them around tables, towards a red door with a square glass window. "how long has he been awake?," he asks, limping a little, tightening the blanket around his shoulders.
"about five minutes... wouldn't hardly let me little brother look him over, started demanding to see you. figure he remembers how you got that nasty cut on your forehead?," she asks, pushing the door open with her back, nudging her head to the side to gesture louis in.
" - you can try to stitch it up after you get me louis!," harry cries out, and he's trying to shove two boys away from him as he comes into louis' line of vision, and a relieved sigh leaves his lips at seeing that harry is well enough to at least put up a struggle. "stop!," he cries as one of them touches his ankle, and louis' eyebrows furrow.
"hey!," he shouts out, hobbling forward, and everyone looks over at him in surprise, harry going from confused to desperate, throwing his arms out for louis, who crosses the room and squats down beside him, collapsing on his weak legs, nuzzling into his neck immediately, comforted by harry wrapping him up in his arms. "you okay?," he whispers, leaning forward to look at harry, blinking in surprise. despite the heat of the oven beside them, his lips and ears are a dark purple shade, his veins are completely visible under his pale skin and his eyes look grey and nearly disoriented as he clutches at louis' shoulders. louis gulps deep in his throat and looks over at the three adults looking over at them, "we need to get him some help. emergency help. i don't care how, he's dying," he says, trying to remain calm, but harry doesn't seem to be fazed by what he's said, too caught up in clinging to louis.
"we can't move him until we get a tourniquet on his ankle," says the tallest of the 3 people, crossing his arms over his chest, giving harry a hard look, which goes unnoticed by the delusional boy, who is looking at louis, his eyes blinking slowly. "he's severed several tendons and i think his ankle bone. it's barely holding on, and i'm pretty sure he has a blood infection. if you could get him to cooperate, i could get a tourniquet and could probably get his condition more stable," says the man, crossing his arms over his chest, giving harry a hard look.
louis' throat tightens up. a blood infection? "how bad is it? yeah, i'll get him to be still...," louis whispers, clutching harry's hand tighter, trying to divert his attention as the man nods and takes a step forward, still not drawing harry's gaze as he sits down beside his ankle, using a hesitant hand to lift up the flap of his skinny jeans.
"how bad is it? i... um... this isn't looking very good... okay. we really haven't much time. he's not in the right mind right now, so you're going to have to make the decision. if we don't take action right now, this infection is going to spread up his body and poison his entire nervous system, he'd shut down before anybody could get to him," the man says quickly, looking up at louis, whose spine has straightened.
"what do you mean by take action - "
"i mean we are going to have to cut the infection off at the root before it spreads. we're going to have to amputate"
"what! what! what?," louis cries, and harry gives a dopey grin, obviously unaware of what's going on around him. "we can't - what?," he adds, clutching harry's hand tighter as the man turns to his siblings.
"naomi, go bleach and boil one of the meat knives - hurry. austin, i need you to grab me all of our rags and towels and anything we could make a tourniquet with," both of the other two nod quickly and spring into action, ignoring louis as he looks at them in wild fear, eyes wide.
"meat knife? what are you going to do? you asked me whether or not you should do something!," he cries, clinging to harry with as much strength as he can in his own weak state.
"okay, kid, decide. let him keep that mess of meat on his leg and let him poison himself, or let me take care of this and potentially save his life? i have some medical training, mate, and this is this is your best hope," says the man, ignoring his brother, austin, as he drops a heap of towels by them, hustling off to find more supplies probably. "take a look at what we're working with," he adds, and louis looks in instinct, his breath gets caught in his throat immediately.
if he thought his feet look bad, harry's look nearly inhuman. they are basically black and purple, sickly yellow beginning to crawl up his leg. it's very gory all together, green puss oozing out, and louis has to look away before he vomits. "o-okay," he chokes, burying his face in harry's neck, violent hiccups tearing through his body.
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vulgar images rip through the darkness of the backs of louis' eyelids as he sits and waits for a doctor to come to him with pain medicines and news on harry.
they were airlifted to the hospital not 2 hours ago, the girl from 17black, naomi, had finally been able to get ahold of the emergency workers, and unlike when harry called the first time, they actually showed up.
and boy did they show up. even harry, in his thoughtless mind, looked around when the loud sound of helicopter wings chopping through the air above them got too loud to ignore. there wasn't anywhere to land the chopper, so they had to send paramedics down from the sky and load harry and louis up on beds, one by one, and lift them up into the freezing cold sky, and into the helicopter, taking off when they insured that they got everyone that needed help.
and, in the warm hospital room, hooked up to several iv bags, all louis has to focus on is the memory of the sickening sound of the knife meeting harry's leg. he shudders violently, and tears collect in his eyes, he begins rocking back and forth a little, pulling his hands through his hair. "sir? are you alright? ready for your medicine?," appears louis' nurse, the same one who has checked on him every 15 minutes for so for the past couple of hours.
"how's harry?," he asks, the question familiar for the nurse, who has heard it at least 10 times so far.
"sir. you... you lost two toes yourself. i think you might want to think about yourself for just a second. are you in pain? i need to replace your heating pads, too," she says, moving things on her cart, and louis blushes, wincing as he removes the room temperature heated pads from his armpits, handing them to her, hesitantly reaching into his pants to get that one, too, handing it to her gloved hand without making eye contact. "do you want me to help you place these?," she asks, showing him the fresh ones.
"i think i remember the tutorial from earlier," he huffs, taking them from her with shaking hands, and he has half a mind to tell her to turn around as he places one of them on his groin - which is apparently protocol for moderate hypothermia, then the other two to his arm pits.
"okay...," the nurse chuckles, nodding her head, "now, how about you take these pills and then i can get you on the humidifier, again?," she asks, and he sighs and holds out his hands for the pills and cup of apple juice, nearly gagging on how big they are. he scowls at the nurse with watering eyes as she hands him his face mask again, helping him get the mask over his head before flipping the switch so steamy air comes through, warming up his internal organs. "i'll bring news on your friend next time i see you, i'm sure," she smiles at him reassuringly, pushing the cart in front of her, and louis blinks as she shuts the light off and closes the door after her.
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"hey, love," harry barely gets out before louis is sobbing, his eyes clinched shut as he watches harry's face contort in confusion and concern. "what's wrong? c'mere, sweets, you won't hurt me," he says, and louis looks up at his nurse to help him out of his wheelchair, his therapy making his legs too weak to support his weight. "there you go," he chuckles as louis gets settled beside him, trying to wrap his arms around him without pulling any of his numerous wire and pipes going in through his nose and arms.
"hey...," louis whispers, sniffling lightly, trying not to cry too hard and jostle harry. "how do you feel? they wouldn't tell me," louis scowls at the nurse as she closes the door after herself, leaving the two of them alone.
harry shrugs, and louis' head moves with it. "i'm on about ten different medicines, i have infinite numbers of needles inside of me right now, one that leads to my heart, and, um, i lost a foot? apparently? but i'm actually okay. i can't feel anything. how about you? how is your forehead? i'm sorry for all of this...," he says with a whisper, sighing quietly. "who would've imagined it could end up like this?," he asks with a wet chuckle, and louis gnaws on his bottom lip.
"we should... try again? not until you're better... but still... maybe check the weather first?," louis rolls his eyes, and the only sound in the room is the beeping of harry's machines.
until harry speaks up: "knock, knock," he grins, dopily.
"harry...," louis groans, which only makes harry laugh, his grin spreading farther up his face.
"knock, knock," he says more instantly.
"who's there?," louis rolls his eyes, a grin coming onto his own face.
"go on a date with me," harry smirks, laughing, and louis chuckles quietly, nodding his head, deciding that heavily medicated and loopy harry is much better than what he previously was.
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a/n:
this is me transitioning to happy days