Chapter Text
The walk to Harry’s apartment didn’t take too long and after a few teasing conversations, the two finally made it to the apartment. Harry drags Niall into the bathroom and plops him down onto the toilet, then goes to search through the cabinets for washcloths. Niall’s half hearted protests of being babied are quickly shushed by Harry as he wets the washcloth beneath the faucet.
“Alright, so according to WebMD, you have a mild nosebleed and to treat it, I must apply continuous pressure to your nose for 10 minutes.” Harry recited dutifully from the website pulled up on his phone, before glancing at the washcloth in his hand, “BUT going off most movies I’ve seen, I could also just wipe at your nose with this washcloth and you should be good.”
“Wow,” Niall says, rolling his eyes, “Sounds like I’m being treated by a professional here.”
“Yep. You must refer to me now as Doctor Styles.”
“Ok… Doctor Styles.” Niall looks up at Harry, smirking.
Harry gulps inaudibly. That should not be as hot as it was. Clearing his throat, Harry wrung out the washcloth over the sink to squeeze out some of the excess water before turning to face Niall.
Harry bent down so that he could be eye level with Niall who was still sitting cross legged on the toilet, playing with a fray in his jeans. Reaching out, Harry gently placed the damp washcloth underneath his nose, softly wiping away the spots of dried blood. Harry heard a slight hitch in Niall’s breath as he dabbed at a bit of blood that had trickled to his upper lip. Harry spent the next few minutes diligently swiping away any of the new droplets that had made their way out of his nose. His eyes briefly flickered up and locked with deep blue. Harry’s hands stilled on Niall’s nose as the two kept gazing at each other. A spark, like nothing Harry had ever felt before seemed to be crackling between them as those blue eyes seemed to be getting closer and closer. The moment was broken when Niall winced as a pain stabbed through his middle.
Harry backtracked immediately, blushing. His mind was spinning fast, trying not to imagine where things would have gone if they hadn’t been interrupted. He cleared his throat pointedly and stood up to put the washcloth in the sink, silently telling himself that he’ll put it in the washing machine later.
“Alright, I guess Doctor Styles also must assess the potential damage in your ribs.” Harry said in a faux serious voice, bringing up WebMD yet again to research how to treat and assess Niall’s ribs. Niall cracked a small smile at Harry’s Doctor impression, fidgeting on the toilet seat to comfortably sit without straining his ribs.
Harry skimmed through WebMD again, mostly just paying attention to the most important looking information and following the directions on the process of assessing if the ribs were broken. With a short warning, Harry leaned in and ran his hands along Niall’s chest, gently pressing on the ridges of his ribs. Besides the bruises splotched in several spots along his ribs, Niall’s torso was a pale color that looked soft in the lights of the bathroom. Niall’s skin was as soft as it looked and Harry wished that he had gotten to feel it under different circumstances. He quickly shoved those thoughts out of his head to focus on the task of feeling for broken ribs. As Harry gently pushed on the bruised skin, Niall would whimper a little at the pain, but otherwise kept a pretty straight face.
“Well, it doesn’t look or feel like you have any broken ribs, so I guess it’s just really bad bruising.” Harry straightened up, reluctantly pulling his hand away from the wonderfully smooth skin of Niall’s torso. He quickly looked down at his phone to check the remedy for bruised ribs and to hopefully hide his blushing cheeks. “I don’t have any ice packs for your ribs, but I do have a couple bags of frozen sweet corn, so I think that’ll do the trick.”
“Specifically sweet corn?” Niall asked with an amused smirk.
“Yes, specifically sweet corn. They’re very delicious.” Harry stated haughtily before walking down the hall towards his kitchen, reaching into the freezer and grabbing two bags of the frozen sweet corn. He turned around to walk back to the bathroom where Niall was supposedly waiting for him, when he slammed into Niall, who had apparently followed him to the kitchen.
Harry stumbled backwards and caught himself using the front of the sink. His arm quickly crumpled in pain and caused Harry to grab it with a gasp, cradling it to his chest. He had forgotten about blocking the punch of the big man and hurting his arm in the process. Looking at it now, it was slightly swollen and a weird purpley-blue-ish color. Harry had forgotten about Niall in the kitchen because of the pain, so he was surprised when pale fingers gently grabbed his arm and slowly pulled it away from his chest. Niall’s piercing blue eyes scanned over the injury quickly before turning around and grabbing one of the bags of frozen corn that had fallen on the floor and with a reassuring smile, pressed it to Harry’s swollen arm. Harry was shocked at the sudden temperature change and let out a little gasp that caused Niall to smile a little wider, before the cold began to numb the pain in his arm. Harry looked up at Niall in shock.
“Thanks, y-you didn’t have to-”
“Yes I did.” Niall cut in with gentle eyes and a crooked smirk. “I can’t have my trusty doctor in pain. He needs to be in tip-top shape in order to treat me properly.”
Harry let out a short burst of surprised laughter before he bent down and grabbed the extra bag of frozen corn and lifting Niall’s shirt to press them to his bruised ribs. Niall squeaked at the sudden cold and jumped back as Harry laughed.
“Get that frozen bag of sweet corn abomination away from me!”
“Doctor Styles has been revived by the power of sweet corn! Now it is time to perform frozen sweet corn surgery on the dying patient!” Harry laughed, chasing Niall into the lounge with the bag of frozen corn brandished in hand. Niall giggled and circled the couch to try and get away from the ‘threat’ of the frozen corn. They ran after each other, each laughing at the other’s poor attempt at witty banter. Finally, Harry caught up to Niall and breathlessly pushed him onto the couch. They were both still laughing ridiculously as Harry raised the bag of frozen sweet corn above his head like a sword while sitting atop Niall’s legs on the couch.
“Doctor Styles is victorious in his conquest to heal the ailing patient and this day will go down in history as the day of sweet corn healing!” Harry shouted victoriously.
“Noooo!” Niall squealed as Harry placed the cold bag onto his ribs. Niall squirmed, playfully trying to get rid of the bag, but quickly gave up in favor of actually treating his ribs.
As their giggles started to subside and the numbing of the frozen corn started to chase away the pain in Niall’s ribs, they both realised the position they were in on the couch. Niall was pinned to the couch with Harry straddling his legs, careful to avoid straining Niall’s ribs. Both men blushed as Harry scrambled to get off of Niall before toppling himself off the couch and landing on his back, staring up at the ceiling. Niall poked his head over the side of the couch, little strands of hair falling past his forehead as he checked on Harry on the floor. When he realised Harry was alright, Niall burst into laughter at the humiliated Harry shoving his face into his hands.
The rest of the night proceeded in much the same way, giggling and exchanging friendly banter as if the two had known each other much longer than a night. They had immediately clicked, it was pretty incredible in Harry’s opinion. And when Niall had asked if he could crash at Harry’s house for the night instead of trying to walk all the way home, Harry could feel a hint of something small in the middle of his chest. Something he had never felt before. It was only there for a split second, but Harry could tell what it was.
A flicker.