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A lot of yelling, that’s what he remembers from waking up the first time. His vision is blurry, blood running from his brown roots and into his eyes, stinging them. He can’t wipe it away, because for some reason his hands can’t quite work, but he tries anyway.
The yelling is coming from someone above him—a man, brown hair from what he can tell (and he can’t tell a whole lot at this moment, what with the dizziness and the blood stinging in his eyes), wearing a blue shirt with a Red Cross symbol is shouting out words; incomprehensible, his words rushing altogether and it makes his head pound even more to try to figure it out.
He’s being pulled—no, more like lifted, onto something. He tries to roll his head to see what’s happening, but there’s something stiff and sturdy holding his neck in place, stopping him from doing so. There’s more shouting now, from a different voice—much more familiar, rougher and deeper than the medic above him. Somewhere in the back of his mind, something rings out at him, a name: Zayn.
He’s too far gone to register who it is, though.
A mask is being pulled over his mouth and he wants to protest but there’s no room in his mouth for his tongue to move.
“He’s—fiancé—you—understand?” Zayn’s voice comes rushing in pieces to his brain, familiar and overwhelming all at the same time. His voice is different that what it normally sounds like, though: it’s anguished and anxious and angry and a lot of other words that start with a, but primarily those three. He wants to reach out for him; hold his hand and comfort him in some way, but once again his hands refuse to work with his brain, frustrating him to no end.
He’s feeling even slower now, eyelids lowering involuntarily as he feels a hand brush his shoulder—bigger than his own and there’s a familiar scent that accompanies it, and now there’s no doubt in his mind that it’s Zayn.
“You have to let me ride with you!” he says, using that authoritative Zayn voice. “He’s my fiancé!”
“I’m sorry, sir,” the medic is saying as he pushes Niall into a little room with gray walls and shuts a door behind him, “the other medical examiner is going to have to check you out, make sure that you’re okay.”
“I’m fine!” he replies exasperatedly, “But he’s not, and he needs me, I’m just fine—”
“Sir, I’m sorry but we’ve got to take certain precautions, and this is one of them. Please stay back.”
“But—” The rest of Zayn’s words are drowned out as the medic shuts the other door (Niall finally realizes that he’s in an ambulance) and he feels himself moving. There’s an uncomfortable pang in the left side of his chest, a result of Zayn’s absence; now he’s alone with this stranger who is cutting what’s left of his shirt off and cleaning up the blood from his pale torso.
The pang intensifies; now it’s not just a dull throb it’s a literal ache, and in five years of being with Zayn he’s never ached for him before, has he?
He’s wondering vaguely why the mask over his face isn’t lessening the pain, but he realizes that perhaps it’s just for oxygen. The ache gets stronger, an actual pain, and for the first time in ten minutes he can clench his fingers and gasp in shock as pain shoots up and down his left arm. There’s more yelling and he blacks out, not before hearing the medic scream the words he’s going into cardiac arrest.
It’s 9:52 p.m., and Niall Horan has gone into cardiac arrest, and has stopped breathing entirely.
———————
The only thing he knows when he wakes up is a consistent beeping in his right ear. It is too high pitched and very annoying and he wants nothing more than for it to go away, but once again he’s experiencing the familiar numbness in his hands and head and really in his general body area.
He can barely open his eyes and all he can see are screens and ceiling tiles and more screens. He turns his head to the right; a tiny, tiny movement, one that would have gone unnoticed had there been anyone else in the room. To his right is a wall—or maybe it’s a window? Maybe it’s a sliding glass door? He can’t make heads or tails of that, so he just tilts his head as much as he can toward the left.
The left side of the room is much more interesting. A chair next to him and a door, half-open where he can see people walking quickly in the hallway beyond this room. There’s a nightstand next to his head, with ridiculous little things like balloons and flowers and Teddy bears. The flowers have been here a few days; they’re wilting, drooping in their vases.
For the life of him, he can’t discern where in the hell he is. His mind is too hazy for any prolonged thought processes and he can barely see. He thinks about the last place he was, trying to retrace his steps: there was the fight with Zayn—then he got into the car—started the engine—Zayn followed—there was another fight, and after that—
“He’s my fiancé—”
“I’m sorry, sir—”
“Please stay back—”
“He’s going into cardiac arrest—”
The beeping next to his ear is more persistent, and now it’s accompanied by a blaring noise; he’s trying to keep track of his thoughts, but the noise is bothersome and getting in the way—
People are rushing into his room, two women and a man, crowding him; in the doorway is a lone figure, fighting with one of the men to get in the room.
“That’s my fiancé!” Niall hears, and he numbly thinks Zayn—except right now, it’s not just Zayn, it’s Zayn and Woman One and Woman Two shouting over Woman One as Man shouts over Zayn and—
The world is blank to him for a moment, colors fading to simple white so that only a few words can tumble into his brain.
“—heart rate is rising—”
“—don’t know why, some kind of stressor—”
“—patient is practically comatose—”
“—no stressor—”
“—sir, please stay calm—”
“—get him out of the ward—”
“—heart rate is through the roof—”
“—should sedate him, his blood pressure’s rising—”
“—get him out of here, please—”
“—Nialler—baby—”
And once again, the world is mysterious, heavy and black.
———————
The third time he wakes up is just as eventful as the first two times.
This time, he can sit up. There’s no pain, no numbness like before, he just…does. His vision is perfect, so he can see everything clearly.
When he sits up, he winces—a natural reaction, as he expects pain, and when there is one, he can’t help but chuckle at his own ridiculousness. He takes a proper look around at his new surroundings:
He’s in a hospital, which is obvious at this point. The room is rather small, with just enough space for his bed, a television set, a nightstand and a bathroom. There are a few framed pictures on the blue-tinted walls; hospital-type things like trees and beaches and landscapes, the types of things that are supposed to be calming but really just remind him of death.
The entire right wall is just a giant sliding glass door, overlooking what might be London, but he can’t be sure. It’s a nice view—if it weren’t for the circumstances, he might stop and stare.
On his nightstand, there are fresh flowers and even more Teddies, overflowing onto the floor and next to the chair. The door is still half-open (and that annoying beeping is still present), but otherwise, everything is fine. Totally and completely normal, as if nothing had ever happened to him.
Speaking of which—what did happen to him?
He presses his toes to the floor and stands, happy to see that he has no trouble balancing. He walks gingerly, just in case his bum knee decides to give out from beneath him. He opens the door further and steps out into the hallway—no one seems to notice him, and for that he’s glad. He really doesn’t want to be forced back into the room. He’s on the second floor; he knows that much already (the silver plate on his door reads 264). He looks around a minute, and he’s about to stop an oncoming nurse where the stairs are when he sees the sign.
Impatient doctors and flustered medics rush by him, not looking at him once as he tiptoes downstairs. His eyes land on the nurses’ station and he heads there, speaking to the pretty blonde behind the computer.
“Hi, I’m Niall Horan,” he begins, running a hand through his hair, “I think I was checked in here, maybe a week ago? I just sort of need to find my fiancé, Zayn Malik. I don’t think he was checked in, but do you think that I could see him? Or maybe you could call him down or something? I really just need to know what happened—sorry if I’m rambling, by the way, I’m not really used to the hospital scene. If you could just please look up Zayn Malik, that’s Z-A-Y-N, and I’ll be on my way.”
The nurse at the desk doesn’t even bother to glance at Niall the entire time he’s speaking, which he thinks is a little rude, but he passes it off—she must be exhausted.
He stands there patiently for about thirty more seconds, and she doesn’t acknowledge his presence once.
“Um,” he says, cocking his eyebrow a bit, “excuse me, miss?”
No reply.
He snaps his fingers quickly in front of her face, talking a little louder. “Excuse me? Madam, I need your help, if you’d be so kind—”
She outright gets up and walks away.
He’s never felt so disrespected in his life.
He backs away from the help desk and turns around, watching as people walk hurriedly passed him—almost as if they don’t see him there…
Panicking, he looks around and shouts from the top of his lungs, “Hello! Can anyone hear me? Can anyone see me?!” because if someone, just one person looks up, they can throw him into the psych ward because he is obviously crazy, right?
Except, no one looks up. No one gives out any sign that they even heard him.
No one’s paying him any attention and he’s about to make quite a noise about it when he hears pagers going off in every direction.
“Room 264,” he hears one of the doctors shout, and there’s a sickening drop in his stomach as he realizes that that’s his room.
“Oh shit,” he murmurs as he follows members of the staff back upstairs.
“It’s okay, you guys! I’m not missing, I’m right here,” he shouts as people crowd around the door of his room. He’s ignored, by literally every single person in the room.
When he gets there, there’s no emergency anymore; someone’s already taken care of it, whatever was wrong—
But that can’t be possible, he realizes as he stares at himself on the bed, because he’s here; he’s standing in the doorway staring at—
He’s staring at himself?
Before, he was totally calm, but now he’s a little freaked out because how in the hell can he be in two places at once?
Someone pushes passed him, someone who smells distinctly male and heavy and sweet, and, really, there’s only one person he knows who smells anything like that.
Zayn glares at the nearest nurse, immediately demanding to know what’s going on with Bed Niall as Standing Niall reaches for his fiancé, pulling at his hand and fingers but having, literally, no effect on him.
That’s terrifying.
The nurse is saying something in an extremely soothing voice, something along the lines of cardiac shock and respiratory arrest and perfectly fine, which seems to relax Zayn, but Niall is even tenser than the spring of a pen.
Zayn nods and sinks down into the chair next to Niall’s bed as the extra people file out of the room, leaving the two (well, technically three) alone.
“Niall,” Zayn says suddenly, making Standing Niall jump a bit. He moves slowly toward his fiancé, crouching down and grabbing his arm.
“Zayn,” he whispers. “Zaynie, baby, it’s me. I’m right here, all you have to do is turn a little to the left and look at me.”
Zayn ignores him, eyes only for the Niall on the bed, and the Niall that is right next to him sees tiny tears sting his eyes. Zayn reaches for his comatose fiancé’s hand, stroking the back of his hand with his thumb.
“Don’t do this to me,” Niall says at the same time that Zayn does.
“Please, Zaynie, tell me you can hear me,” he says right into his love’s ear, but either Zayn does not hear him or he refuses to, like everyone else, because he keeps looking straight at the Niall on the bed. “Tell me you can see me, turn around and tell me—”
“Tell me you won’t leave me alone, Niall,” Zayn interrupts, looking at Bed Niall intently and squeezing his hand. “Come on, baby, wake me up from this nightmare and tell me that you’ll stay with me for life.”
Zayn’s voice begins to quake during his last sentence and he buries his head in his hands, breaking Niall’s heart as tears slip down his cheeks. He stands up and backs away from Zayn as he begins muttering, “Give me a sign, Nialler baby, give me just one, to show me that you’re okay, please…”
Niall looks around the room, desperate to give Zayn something, anything that will let him know that he’s there. “Give you a sign, give you a sign…” There’s nothing in the room that can help him reach Zayn, and right when he’s about to leave the room, he hears faint shouting in one of the other hallways.
“Can anyone hear me? Hello? Help me!”
He spares one last glance at the silently crying Zayn. The sight makes his chest hurt, but has no other choice than to walk in the direction of the voice.
He walks quickly, desperate to find who’s on the other end. It’s definitely male, he can tell by its tenor. Niall finds himself back on the stairs, and that’s where he sees him—his cheeks are red from shouting, curly brown hair mussed and green eyes wide.
“Can anyone hear me, please!” he screams again, and Niall runs up to him.
“Hey!” he says, and the other boy whips around. “Can you see me?”
“Yeah, mate, you’re fine, can you see me?” he replies.
“Yes, of course,” Niall replies, running a hand through his hair as he looks around. “Well, maybe I shouldn’t say of course, because obviously they can’t.”
“What’s happening to us?” the curly haired boy says, biting his lip and fully facing Niall. He’s much taller than Niall is, exceeding six feet by more than a few inches. He gives him a look.
“What do you mean by us?” The other boy rolls his eyes.
“Well, something’s happening, and it’s obvious that both of us have been affected by it, whatever it is,” he says. “Otherwise all the other people would be able to see us, right?”
Niall thinks this over for a moment, and, yeah, that makes sense, but he doesn’t want to think about that right now. “Who are you, anyway?” he says, directing the conversation onto a different route.
“Me? I’m Harry; Harry Styles. I’m from Cheshire,” he replies, cocking his head to the side a bit. “What about you, who are you?”
“Niall Horan,” he says, putting his hand out for Harry to shake. “I’m from Mullingar, in Ireland.”
“I could tell by your accent that you’re Irish,” Harry says, smiling a little, and Niall can see a dimple form in his left cheek. “But do you really have no idea what’s going on, Niall?”
Niall sighs; he’s been trying to figure out what happened since he woke up in the hospital. “All I remember is that I got into a fight with my fiancé over something trivial. I got in the car, I was about to leave, and he followed me into the car—”
“Your fiancé’s a he?” Harry says keenly, leaning against a wall. Niall looks at him.
“Yeah, is that a problem?” Niall asks. Harry raises his hands up in surrender, grinning again.
“No problems here mate; I’m married to a man myself.”
“Are you? What’s his name?”
“Louis,” Harry says, and the smile on his face is prouder than anything Niall’s ever seen. “He’s perfect. He’s got these eyes, you know? I swear they see right through you. He’s just so perfect for me; he’s just. He’s just the Louis to my Harry, you know?”
And yes, Niall knows, because that’s exactly how he feels about Zayn—there’s no other way for him to describe their relationship except that he’s the Zayn to his Niall. So he nods at Harry and smiles a bit, and in the back of his mind he hopes that that’s the way he looks when he describes Zayn to other people.
“Have you seen him yet?” Niall asks. “Louis, I mean.”
Harry’s face falls a bit. “Yeah, he was hanging out by my room. He didn’t go in. He just looked at me in the doorway, crying and smiling at the same time—it was creepy.” He looks up at Niall, eyes glazed over. “I never wanted to make Louis cry.”
He just nods back at him and turns away a little, because he never wanted to make Zayn cry, either.
———————
“So what do you remember about coming here?” Niall asks Harry quietly, but he pays him no attention, staring instead at the brown-haired boy who is sitting on the chair beside the figure lying perfectly still on the bed.
It’s Louis, as Harry had told him earlier. They’d decided to head to Harry’s room (just down the hall from Niall’s at 200), upon his request, to try and retrace their steps and find some common ground to see if maybe something they both did put them here for a reason. When they’d arrived, Louis had already been in there, crying softly into his palms the way Niall had seen Zayn do earlier.
They’ve been watching him for about half an hour, sitting on the end of Harry’s bed, and in all this time Harry hasn’t moved once, not even to wipe away the tears that are tainting his hospital-given shirt.
“We met on the tube, you know that?” Harry says suddenly, not taking his eyes off Louis. Niall turns to look at him. “I was running late to class at Manchester U, because someone had caused some trouble in a separate part of the train. It was me and a lot of other people there; we were all squashed up together, no personal space at all, and I turn around and there’s this—this boy. And he’s looking at me the way I know I’m looking at him, and even though it was the first time we met, I knew that he would be the one.”
He sniffs and continues, flicking his hair out of his eyes impatiently. “On our first date, he took me to France. It was insane. To this day I wouldn’t be able to tell you how he did it. One minute we’re talking and laughing in the car and the next minute I’m on a flight, already halfway to Paris. He brought me to the Eiffel Tower and kissed my cheek and said, ‘I’m gonna make you fall in love with me, Harry Styles.’”
Harry laughs a little and shakes his head, green eyes still locked onto the sight of Louis before him. “If you told me that I was going to fall in love with that idiot after a month, move in with him after two and marry him after four, I would have told you that you were crazy but—I don’t know. Now, when I look back on it, it doesn’t seem so crazy that we fell for each other so quickly. He’s the Louis to my Harry, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. “
Niall nods, looking at Harry, but he doesn’t say anything else; he just stares at Louis some more, longing and hope filling his eyes. He understands what Harry’s going through, but he doesn’t know how much time they have left to figure out just what’s going on.
“Harry…” he says quietly, “We have to go, ok? We have to find out why no one can see or hear us, and I have no idea how long we have to do that, so we need to g—”
“I can’t leave him, Niall,” Harry says lowly, interrupting the blonde as if he hadn’t spoken. “I can’t leave this room. I need to comfort him.”
“Harry, he won’t be able to hear—”
“I know that—” Harry takes a deep breath before continuing. “I know he won’t. But at the same time, he will. I know he will, he’ll be able to feel me. It’s just the way we’ve always been; it was two years ago and I don’t expect that to change now.”
Niall looks away from Harry, away from Louis and out the window of the small room. “I know what’s going on,” he says after a moment. It’s an idea that he’s been entertaining for a few hours; he didn’t want to say it before, because it sounded absolutely ridiculous, but at this point, nothing is so ridiculous anymore.
“What?” Harry says sharply, turning to face him for the first time in an hour. “What do you mean you know what’s going on?”
“It’s not really a complete idea; it’s incredibly half-assed, and I don’t have any way to prove it—” Niall rambles, but Harry cuts him off with a shake of his head.
“Tell me.”
He takes a deep breath and looks down, then back up into Harry’s eyes. “Have you ever heard of an out-of-body experience?”
“Well, y-yeah, what about them?” Harry says, unsure of where this is headed.
“I watched a special on the SyFy channel last year, about this sort of stuff. There are spontaneous out-of-body experiences, and some of them can be caused by…near-death experiences, things like intense physical trauma or near-drowning or a major operation. People report seeing the world through their astral eye; their physical bodies remain in the position that they left it.”
“What—uh, Niall,” Harry says through a clenched jaw. “What are you telling me?”
“I think we’re on the verge of dying, if I’m honest. Close to dying, but not quite; that’s why this is happening.” Harry looks at him as though he’s never seen him before.
“That’s—that’s insane,” Harry says, blinking rapidly, “I can’t be dying! It’s not—I’m only twenty-two! I’m healthy, I run around campus every morning, and besides, there is so much stuff I have yet to do—”
“It doesn’t matter, Harry,” Niall interrupts. “I don’t think a reaper is going to care about all your achievements when he’s supposed to be taking you to heaven or hell.”
“Words for your epitaph,” Harry scoffs. “What do you mean by reaper?”
“It’s just death personified.”
“Like the Grim Reaper?” The curly-haired boy says, eyes shining excitedly. Niall rolls his eyes.
“The Grim Reaper,” he says, scoffing in turn. “You mean that bony asshole with the scythe and the black hood? No, not the Grim Reaper; other reapers exist, and only one looks like that. To tell you the truth, reapers can look like—well, anything, really. Can make you see what you refuse to see. On the other hand, they can make you see what they want you to see.”
Harry looks between Louis and the Harry on the bed. Louis has long since fallen asleep on the chair, head resting on Bed Harry’s thigh and holding his hand. Harry moves to get up, but Niall stops him with a hand on his wrist. “What are you doing?”
“He’s going to get cold,” Harry whispers, eyes soft. Niall lets go of his wrist.
“It’s at least sixty degrees in here,” he replies. Harry looks over his shoulder and gives him a small, sad sort of smile.
“You don’t know Louis,” Harry says as he pulls an extra blanket from the nightstand in the room and unfolding it over Louis’ back. “In the middle of the night, he feels like a human icicle.”
“Good if you have a fever then, isn’t it?” Niall says, smiling a bit. Harry laughs, loudly, at that.
“Yeah, but when it’s wintertime I’d welcome a fever when it comes to lying next to him.”
“Zayn never turns up the heat, ever. It’s always me, and he normally complains that it’s too hot in the house. Sometimes I hate him for it; mostly when I’m freezing my ass off.”
They both laugh then, and Niall wonders what it would be like to have met Harry under separate circumstances; at a movie, maybe, or the mall, Harry with Louis and Niall with Zayn. They’d start up a conversation, maybe beginning with something along the lines of tell us how you met. Harry and Louis might laugh a little, look at each other, and launch into the simple love story that Harry told Niall before. Maybe they’d go out for drinks sometime, become the best of friends—
He wonders how different things could have been, if the situation were different.
———————
Harry still wants to stay with Louis in the room, and of course he understands why, so he lets the boy be and makes his way back to Room 264. Zayn, unsurprisingly, is still there, but what shocks him is that Liam is there, too. Liam has always been Zayn’s best friend, and although Niall’s only met him a few times (Liam lives far away), they’ve always been friendly.
Niall watches in the doorway as Zayn and Liam talk quietly.
“What happened, Zayn?” Liam says; his voice is low.
Zayn takes a deep breath and Niall steps further into the room, heart thumping a bit erratically as he listens. Finally, finally, he’s getting some answers about this. Maybe it’ll prove his theory correct.
“It was last week,” Zayn begins, running his fingers through his black hair, “On Tuesday. We were home, in the kitchen. Nothing was happening, not really, we were discussing wedding stuff. And then, out of nowhere, I just…I don’t know, Liam. I just…started a fight, for no reason. It was ridiculous; I don’t even remember what it was about. In a matter of minutes we were both screaming at each other, red faced and he wouldn’t look at me. That’s the most I remember about the fight, he wouldn’t look at me, but I could tell that he was crying.” He stops suddenly and Niall feels soft little tears form in his eyes now, because it’s coming back to him, crashing over him like a tidal wave.
“Zayn…” Liam whispers, and without thinking, Niall reaches a hand out to touch his boyfriend’s shoulder, even though he knows it would have no affect. Zayn shakes his head, though, and fidgets a bit, making Niall draw his hand back.
“He told me that he needed some air, some time, but I followed him. I reached him right when he was stepping into the car, grabbed him by the wrist. He wouldn’t stop, so I got in with him, told him—told him that he couldn’t leave me. He said he wasn’t leaving me, that he’d never do that…he just needed some space. I didn’t want to get out of the car, so he just started driving. We were still fighting and he was driving and trying to talk to me, trying to get me to calm down—neither of us were paying any attention, and out of nowhere this truck smashes into his side—” his voice breaks, tears stinging his eyes and sliding down his face.
“Zayn,” Liam says louder this time, reaching his hand out. Zayn looks up, eyes red and glassy as the tears don’t stop; Niall’s crying, too, and Liam’s lower lip is shaking like he’s going to burst into erratic sobs at any moment.
“It’s my fault,” he whispers, and then he says it louder, over and over, as if it’s the only thing he believes. “It’s my fault, my fault, my fault…”
“Don’t do this, Zayn,” Liam says, brushing tears from his own eyes. “There’s no way you could have known that that truck would hit you, and you can’t beat yourself up over something that isn’t your fault—”
Zayn slams his fist on the nightstand table, breathing heavily through his nose. “You don’t understand, Liam, it is my fault: if I could have stopped him from leaving—if I hadn’t gotten in the car—if I hadn’t picked that stupid fucking fight in the first place, he wouldn’t be here!”
Liam stands up straighter now, walking around the hospital bed to Zayn’s side. “I won’t let you take the blame for this because it’s not your fault, Zayn!”
“And what if it is, Liam, huh? What if I am the reason for him being here? What if he d-dies, and I’m the cause of his d-d—”
“Guys,” Niall says, and he knows they can’t hear him because he’s not technically here, but he needs them to stop fighting.
“None of this is your fault and I’m not going to let you kill yourself over this—”
“Maybe I’d kill myself, if it let him live—”
“Hey!” Niall shouts, but even if they wanted to listen, they wouldn’t be able to.
“You can’t go around saying things like that, Zayn!”
“But what if that’s how it works, Liam—God is punishing me for picking a fight with him for now reason, so the only way to save him is to sacrifice myself—”
“Don’t talk bullshit, Zayn…you’ll go crazy thinking that—”
“There’s got to be some way, though—something I can do that the doctor’s haven’t thought of and maybe this is it—” Zayn stops suddenly and makes his way to the door, but before he can reach for the handle, Liam is in front of him, blocking his way.
“Move, Liam,” he says, voice calm and low.
“No,” Liam breathes, “Not until you promise that you won’t do anything rash, or stupid.”
“Fine, I promise, now move.”
“Why don’t I believe you?”
“Get out of the way, Liam, or I swear to god—”
“HEY!” Niall screams again; his voice is at a volume he would typically never use, especially not with Zayn, but he needs them to listen. Of course, he has absolutely no affect on the situation; he keeps forgetting that he’s not really here.
“What?” Liam says doggedly, smirking a bit, “What? You gonna punch me? Kick me, hit me, what? Go ahead, Zee, I can take whatever you give me, but you’re not about to kill yourself over this, it’s not what he would have wanted you to do—”
“DON’T TALK ABOUT HIM AS IF HE’S DEAD, LIAM, HE’S NOT DEAD!” Zayn roars, slamming his fist against the wall by Liam’s head and denting it.
“I NEVER SAID HE WAS DEAD BUT THINGS AREN’T EXACTLY LOOKING UP, ZAYN—”
Zayn raises his right hand and curls it into a fist as if he’s about to punch his friend, and that’s the last straw for Niall.
“STOP IT!” he shouts, and without realizing what he’s doing, he grabs one of the many glass vases from the nightstand and throws it onto the linoleum floor, shattering it into hundreds of thousands of pieces.
Now that has an effect.
Liam and Zayn both step away from the door, focusing all their attention on the mess before them. Neither of them says anything; perhaps the shock of the moment is keeping them paralyzed. Zayn crouches down and picks up a piece of broken glass, staring at it between his fingers.
“What just—” Liam begins, but Zayn answers before he can finish his question.
“He’s in here.”
“Well of course he’s in here, this is his room,” Liam says, but he knows that that’s not what Zayn means.
Niall looks at Zayn, who shakes his head. “He did this, Liam.”
Liam looks up, and then around the room. “Zayn…he can’t have done that—he’s incapacitated, he couldn’t have done this. Maybe it fell, maybe it—”
“Yeah, it fell fifty feet away from the nightstand, right,” Zayn says, tiredly. “Just…trust me on this, Li, ok?” He straightens up, looking Liam in the eye before leaving the now-still room altogether.
———————
As soon as Zayn leaves, Niall follows. By the time he reaches the hallway, however, Zayn is already gone, so he redirects to room 200 to find Harry.
Louis is gone and Harry is pacing the room, biting his lip with his head down and his eyes up.
“Hey,” Niall says, knocking lightly on the door to make his presence known. Harry stops pacing to face him.
“Did you find anything out?” he says, not wasting any time. He nods and quickly recounts to Harry what happened back in his room.
“It basically confirms everything I said before,” he says slowly. “I’m having an out-of-body experience and I’m on the tipping point of death. It’s not the ideal situation, but it is happening.”
Harry nods, tugging on his curls. “Then I guess it’s happening to me, too.”
“Did you find out what happened to you?” Niall says, and Harry shrugs his shoulders indifferently.
“Fell off the roof of a four story building, from what I’ve heard. Not suicide, just an accident. I’m really clumsy, by the way.”
“Noted.” A moment of silence falls over them before Harry starts speaking again.
“So I’m guess I’m going to die,” he says, eyes half-lidded.
Niall gives him a look. “And—you’re just ok with that?” he says incredulously. “That was quick. I’m not even used to the idea.”
Harry lifts a shoulder and turns back to himself on the bed. “I guess we’ve all got to go, don’t we? If not now, then later, and if not later, then when?”
“But you’re not even twenty-two yet, how can you be ok with just…dying?” Niall says suspiciously.
“Oh, believe me; I’m not ready to die, no way in hell. But maybe if I accept it now, it’ll be easier when the time comes,” he says, looking at Niall as though needing reassurance.
Niall looks at him for a moment more before nodding slowly. “I guess that makes sense.” There’s a suspicious undertone in Harry’s words, but Niall ignores it; it’s probably just his imagination.
“I’m not ready,” Niall says, shaking his head. “I’m twenty-four, I’ve got my whole life ahead of me—I’m not down with dying, not today.”
Harry looks at him a bit oddly, eyes flashing a tiny bit—but maybe it’s just the lighting—before smiling. “I understand how you feel. But don’t you think it’s easier to just accept your fate?”
Niall glances at him. “You sound like my mam. ‘The quicker you accept it, the quicker it’ll be over,’” he says, imitating his mother.
“Your mam’s a smart lady, then,” Harry says, chuckling a bit.
He shakes his head in response. “Yeah, but not about this. I’m getting back in my body, and then I’m getting out of this hospital.”
“Yeah?” Harry says, quirking an eyebrow. “How are you going to manage to do that?”
“I don’t know,” Niall admits. “But I’ll figure something out.”
They’re silent for a few moments more before Harry speaks again. “Aren’t you worried about Zayn, though?”
Niall’s heart drops down to his toes. “What do you mean by that?”
“You told me that he was saying something about God and killing himself for your life and—I dunno, mate, do you think he’d act on that?”
Niall takes a few deep, silent breaths before lying through his teeth: “No, I don’t think he’d do anything like that.”
Harry nods, apparently sated by this answer, and Niall wishes he could only convince himself so easily.
He returns to his room after a quick goodbye to Harry, who wants to stay in his own room again. Liam is long gone and so is Zayn, leaving him all alone in his room, with the exception of his physical body.
Niall’s always believed in the supernatural. Maybe because it’s a lot easier to blame things on things most people can’t even dream about, or maybe because he likes to think that Zayn is something supernatural, too, although his beliefs have always been prominent even before meeting Zayn. Ever since he was about ten or eleven, he’s believed in ghosts and spirits, and studied up on them.
It’s sort of become a favorite pastime of his, and he even got Zayn a bit into them. Niall taught Zayn how to ward off evil, stay on guard in the case of supernatural events.
As far as he knows, there’s nothing that can help him get back into his body when having an out-of-body experience; no exorcism, rock salt or pentagon can help him at the moment, which leaved him with manual labor.
He’s about to try something easy—jumping on his bed in the feeble hopes that he’ll just “fall” back into his body—when the handle on his door is pushed down. He wonders who could be here: his nurse isn’t scheduled for another hour at least, and it’s way passed visiting hours.
“Niall?” says a familiar voice, and Niall doesn’t have to turn around even a little bit to know that it’s Zayn. He’s carrying a box, tall and flat, tucked under his left armpit with words on it that Niall can’t see from this position.
“I don’t know if you’re in here now,” Zayn says, speaking to the whole room in general, “but I know that you were here earlier, because you broke the vase to get my attention, even if Liam doesn’t believe it. I brought something to help us communicate a little better.”
He sits on the floor then, shutting the door tightly and removing the contents of the box. It’s then that Niall sees what’s inside.
“Come on, Zayn, a ouija board, really?” Niall groans. “After all I’ve taught you about the supernatural, you still choose the most primitive, idiotic and abused way of talking to spirits?”
(Of course, Zayn can’t hear him, but it’s nice to vent anyway.)
“The doctor’s are telling me that you’re suffering from blood loss,” Zayn says, board in front of him. “Contusions to your liver and kidney. They’re worried more about your head trauma. They say that, realistically, you shouldn’t wake up, but—” he cuts off, looking up at Niall’s body on the bed “—but I know you’re a fighter, babe.”
“And before you say anything,” he adds with that famous Zayn smile, “it’s not a ouija board; it’s a Mystical Talking Surface.”
Niall groans.
“Okay,” Zayn says quietly. “Okay, let’s start small.” He places his fingers on the pointer. “Niall, are you in here?”
“Oh god,” Niall says, sitting on the floor in front of Zayn. “This is so humiliating,” he murmurs as he slowly slides the pointer toward the YES in the left corner of the board. Zayn gasps.
“Thank god,” Zayn says softly, steadying his breathing, “Thank god, you’re still alive, there’s a chance, there’s a hope…”
Niall watches as he collects himself, swallowing a lump in his throat before sliding the pointer slowly over the letters on the board.
“R…E…A…P…” Zayn whispers, spelling out the word Niall’s trying to communicate. “Reap—reaping? Reaper! There’s a reaper! Is it here? Have you seen it? Are you ok?”
“One question at a time, love,” Niall says huffily. He slides the pointer to the YES again, and Zayn’s face falls.
“If it’s here naturally you can’t kill it, then.”
“Kind of hard to kill death, Zaynie,” Niall replies softly. “I’m screwed.”
Zayn looks up, making Niall jump; for a moment, he could swear that Zayn could actually hear him. “I’m not going to let you die, babe. I’ll save you, whatever it takes.”
Niall quickly slides the pointer toward NO, and Zayn looks down at it half-heartedly before looking back up in his general direction.
“Don’t worry about it, babe. I swear it’ll be fine, you’ll live,” he says, smiling reassuringly, but there’s something in his eyes that’s cold, distant.
“Yeah,” Niall whispers, “but that’s what I’m worried about.”
———————
It is 2:15 in the morning, and Niall is wandering the halls of the hospital, feeling like a ghost. Nothing’s happening; Zayn is gone and Harry is back in his room. He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t having a little bit of fun with this out-of-body experience. He hasn’t been doing anything too harmful: misplacing nurses’ clipboards, hanging up sheets anywhere he can, typing over medical records on the computers—little things like that. To be honest, it’s kind of hilarious.
He’s on his way to TP the bathroom in the 3rd floor (he’s feeling like a big kid) when he passes by a map of the hospital. There a twenty floors and over well over 500 rooms, but the only one which catches his eye is room 200.
When he reads the name next to 200, he drops the rolls of toilet paper in his hands and heads right to the stairs.
There’s nothing in room 200 when he reaches it, except for Harry, dressed in business-like clothes and standing in the center of the room.
“Hello, Niall,” he says pleasantly.
“Hi, Harry,” Niall says bitterly. “Or should I say Reaper?”
Harry only gives him a small smile.
“You know, you remember the most interesting things,” Niall continues, closing the door behind him. “Did you know that reapers can alter human perception? Make themselves appear however they want to you—like say, a boy with curly hair and green eyes. I have to say, you’re the cutest reaper I’ve ever seen.”
“I was wondering when you’d figure it out,” Harry says, folding his hands in front of him and twiddling his thumbs.
“Did you know that room 200 is a storage room?” Niall spits at Harry. “Yeah, found that out just a few minutes ago myself. Amazing how big this place is.” Harry doesn’t respond, letting Niall plunge on.
“See, I should have figured. No twenty-one year old would accept their own death, not that easily, no way! But Louis, the body—why do all that work?”
“It makes it a lot more believable,” Harry shrugs. “Most of the time, people having out-of-body experiences subconsciously need proof that I am, indeed, only trying to help. Believe me, the first time I tried this whole thing did not end well. The Big Guy—” he points upward “—he was not pleased.”
“So Harry and Louis—they don’t exist?” Harry shrugs.
“Yeah, they exist. They just live in America. That whole story I told you, that was the truth, though. From time to time I take their bodies for awhile, just long enough to convince the dying to die, and then bring them back home. It doesn’t hurt them, and they don’t even remember it.”
“That’s sick,” Niall says, but Harry only shrugs back at him.
“It’s my job.”
“Why couldn’t you just come right to me?” Niall asks, frowning as he runs his fingers through his hair.
“People normally freak out when they see my true form. It’s a lot easier to save myself the headache of trying to get them to accept death. And besides, I just want to talk to you.”
“Okay,” Niall says, rolling his eyes, “Fine, you’ve got me here—what the hell do you want to talk to me about, reaper?”
Harry’s eyes soften and he steps closer to Niall, breathing in. “I want you to know that death is nothing to fear. It’s your time, Niall Horan. Don’t make this harder than absolutely necessary.”
———————
Unbeknownst to Niall and Harry, Zayn is still in the building at this very moment, downstairs in the boiler room where he knows he won’t be interrupted. He drew a chalk symbol on the floor, with several candles and a black bowl in it. He chants in Latin from a book on the floor beside him.
Pulling a knife from his back pocket, he drags it across his palm, drawing blood and dripping it into the bowl. He lights a match and it bursts into flames before quickly going out. He looks around and a hand grabs at his shoulder.
“What the hell are you doing in here, mate?” someone growls lowly in his ear, squeezing his shoulder and trying to drag him out.
Zayn doesn’t turn around. “I’m trying to strike a deal with you, but your making it very hard.” He’s very proud that his voice hasn’t quaked once, because he’s terrified out of his skin.
The man’s eyes flash and glow, and he steps in front of Zayn, smiling a bit cockily. “You?” the demon spits, “you look like you’ve never so much as lured a mouse to a trap, let alone summoned a demon. What do you want?”
“For you to save Niall,” Zayn says determinedly.
“Niall Horan,” the demon says thoughtfully, as if considering it. “Twenty-four, five foot seven, approximately one hundred and twenty pounds. Born and raised in Mullingar, Ireland, but came here at the age of just nineteen to begin a career as a musician and go to school. Instead, he meets you, Zayn Malik, aged twenty-one at the time, an aspiring artist from Bradford who came here at around the same time as Niall did to study art at the same school, and as fate would have it—” the demon cocks his head to the side, narrowing his eyes “—they fell in love.”
“Can you bring him back, yes or no?” Zayn asks imperiously.
“No. Not me,” the demon admits. “But I know someone who can, it’s no problem. But will you give me for his life?”
“Mine,” he replies, and his voice really does shake a little this time. The demon quirks an eyebrow.
“An exchange,” the demon whispers. “A sacrifice. I never would have thought that you had it in you, Zayn.” He nods his head, slowly. “Okay. I’ll do it. His life, for yours.”
“But I want to make sure that he’s okay with my own eyes,” Zayn says. The demon pouts a little, giving him a look.
“Oh, Zayn? I’m offended. You don’t trust me?” Zayn shakes his head slowly.
“At least Niall taught you that much,” the demon says softly. “Don’t trust a demon, not fully. Basic hunting rules.”
“So you’ll do it?” Zayn says, confirming. The demon gives him a look, cold and faint and untraceable.
“Do I look like I’d lie to you?”
———————
Niall is pacing the room, similar to the way Harry had been doing just a few, short hours ago. He stairs out the window. “Look, I know you’ve heard this thousands of times before, but you’ve got to make an exception.”
“Stage three,” Harry says quietly. “Bargaining.”
“Really, though,” Niall says, facing Harry who is looking at him. “I can’t die. Look at this—” he lifts up his left hand, pointing at the engagement ring on his finger. “I’m supposed to be getting married in less than six months, okay? Zayn, my boyfriend—he needs me; God knows what will happen if he doesn’t have me with him.”
“He’ll be upset,” Harry says simply. “He’ll grieve. No doubt. But he will move on.”
Niall turns away from Harry; he doesn’t want to acknowledge that what he’s said is probably true.
“The fight is over, Niall.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“Everything will be just fine.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you. You can’t make me.”
Harry nods slowly. “You’re right; I can’t make you come with me. Everything is a choice. But you’re not getting back into your body—not a chance, that’s just the facts. So yes, you can stay. Disembodied, scared and over the centuries it will drive you mad. You may even turn to violence, Niall.”
“What?” Niall says, turning around to face the reaper again.
“How do you think angry spirits are born? They can’t let go, nor can they move on, and that infuriates them. And you’re well on your way to becoming one.”
Niall doesn’t respond, but his breathing is shallower and he knows that Harry is right. “It’s time to put the pain behind you, Niall,” the reaper says, touching his hand.
“And go where?” he whispers in response.
Harry chuckles a bit. “Wouldn’t be fun if I gave away the big punchline, now would it? It’s the moment of truth, mate. Can’t change your mind later. What’s it going to be?”
Niall is quiet for a moment, and in that split-second he comes to a decision. Before he can say anything, however, black ichor begins to flow from a vent in the wall.
“What’s going on?” he says, but Harry ignores him, looking fearfully at the dark liquid.
“You can’t do this!” Harry cries out to something Niall can’t see. “It isn’t fair, he has to go!”
“What’s happening?”
“Get away!” Harry screams, giving no indication that he heard Niall.
“Harry?”
Except it’s not Harry anymore, something Niall quickly realizes as something resembling thick black smoke enters Harry’s mouth as he screams. It’s over in less than five seconds, and Harry turns back to Niall, with his eyes glowing like—
His eyes glowing like a demon.
“Today’s your lucky day, kid,” Harry smirks. His voice is far too low to be his, and Niall stares in astonishment at the now possessed reaper-demon in front of him.
“What’s going on?” Niall says, panicking. “Who are you?”
The demon smirks a bit. “I’m the one who’s making the trade, Niall.”
“The trade?” Niall repeats, slowly backing away from the thing. “What trade, what are you talking about?”
“Guess your Zaynie baby didn’t tell you, huh?” the demon scoffs.
“Tell me what?” Niall asks, backing further away until his back hits the wall.
“He summoned me here. Wants to make a deal—he’s giving up his life for yours.”
“W-what? No, Zayn would never do that; he would never…would never summon a demon…” Niall says, but in the back of his mind is a little voice, back from when Zayn was talking to Liam about him.
God is punishing me for picking a fight with him for now reason, so the only way to save him is to sacrifice myself.
“Don’t be so sure,” the demon says, closing the space between them in less than a second.
“Wha—” he starts, but before he can say anything him else, Harry is placing his hand on the top of Niall’s head and forcing him to his knees, listening to his screeches of pain.
Just up the hall, Liam is sitting in Niall’s room, waiting for Zayn to take him home. He’s on the verge of falling asleep when Niall gasps, waking suddenly and choking on one of the tubes stuffed down his throat.
“Niall?” he gasps disbelievingly. He throws open the door and calls out: “Help! I need help, please!”
———————
A doctor stands next to Niall’s bed, confusedly shuffling through the papers. “I simply don’t understand it,” she says. “Your vitals are perfect, your internal contusions have healed, and the head trauma is nonexistent. You have some angel watching over you, Mr. Horan.”
“Thank you, Doctor,” Niall says quietly as she smiles and walks out of the room. He turns now to Zayn, who has his head buried in his neck and is holding him tightly. He hasn’t moved from that position since he got here, looking like an absolute mess with a scar on his palm that Niall doesn’t remember being there before. “You said a reaper was after me?”
Zayn nods into Niall’s neck, opting not to move at all. “Yeah,” he says, his voice muffled.
“How did I ditch it?” he wonders aloud, and he feels Zayn tense under his hands.
“What’s wrong?” he asks Zayn, and the black-haired boy pulls away from Niall, looking a bit terrorized.
“You really don’t remember anything?”
Niall shakes his head. “No, is there something I should be remembering?” Zayn doesn’t answer, instead turning around to face the doorway.
“You told me that you would tell him,” he says. Niall looks in the doorway, but no one’s there.
“Zayn? Baby?” he asks, worried. “Are you ok, love? There’s no one there.”
Zayn turns back around and the previously scared look on his face is gone, replaced with a tense one.
“There’s something you should know, Nialler baby.”
“Zaynie?” Niall whispers. But suddenly he remembers something; just one thing from last night—the demon possessing Harry.
“Zayn,” he says, his chest falling and rising erratically. “Zayn! You didn’t!” He makes to get out of bed, but Zayn pushes him back down. “No, Zayn, no!” he screams, tears stinging his eyes, trying to both get away from Zayn and get closer to him at the same time. “Why would you do this?! Why would you kill yourself for me?!”
“I’m sorry, baby,” Zayn says, and he lets Niall get out of bed, hugging his waist as Niall wraps his arms around his neck, sobbing into his shoulder. He watches tears fall onto Niall shirt and he closes his eyes. “I had to do it. I wouldn’t be able to live without you.”
“Were you thinking of me at all, Zayn?” Niall screams, stamping his foot like a petulant child. “Did you ever consider that I wouldn’t be able to live without you, either?!”
Zayn nods, savoring feeling Niall’s warm breath on his skin for the last time. “I’m sorry, Nialler, I am. You’ll move on, though,” he says, and Niall sobs harder than ever.
“How much time do we have?” Niall says suddenly, pulling away from Zayn. He shakes his head.
“I don’t know. Maybe a few hours, at the most. Not long.”
“A few hours is good enough,” Niall says, and he kisses him, passionate, hot, and Zayn knows exactly what he want; the thought of this being their last time makes his heart ache, but he kisses back eagerly.
“Not the most romantic setting, babe,” he says against Niall’s mouth as he unbuttons his jeans and kicks off his shoes.
“On a twin-sized, hospital-standard bed under fluorescent lighting with a demon watching us,” Niall says, chuckling humorlessly. Zayn glances toward the door, only to find that the demon has stepped outside and is looking pointedly away.
“He won’t bother us,” Zayn says, busying his mouth again.
Zayn’s living on borrowed time and he knows that; they both do. But their one, last time makes them both feel so ironically alive.
A blissful few hours later, Zayn collapses on top of Niall, who still has his fingers tangled in his hair, both panting heavily. “Surprised no one heard us,” he says, and Niall swears above him, looking absolutely debauched; his entire body is flushed beautifully, from the roots of his scalp to his toes, and Zayn knows he’s going to miss this sight.
“Me too,” Niall says and they both chuckle heartlessly at that. Zayn looks up, only to find that Niall’s glancing back down at him.
“I love you,” they both say at the exact same time, and Zayn doesn’t have to think before he pulls Niall’s head down and kisses him, much more chaste than the last time. “I’m sorry,” he says against Niall’s mouth. “For everything; for the fight, for summoning the demon, for everything, baby, I’m sorry.”
Niall just shakes his head. “Don’t,” he says. “Just…don’t.”
So Zayn doesn’t, opting instead to kiss Niall again.
A rap on the door interrupts him about five minutes later, and though Niall can’t hear it, he knows what’s going on when Zayn pulls back prematurely.
“It’s time, isn’t it,” Niall says; it’s not a question, it’s a statement, a definitive response, because he already knows the answer.
Zayn nods slowly, eyes stinging again. “Yeah, I think so.” His throat catches and Niall wraps his arms around his waist, hugging him close.
“Zayn?” says someone from outside the door. Zayn looks up. He pulls his pants on and opens the door a bit.
“Is that you, Liam?”
“Yeah, mate, just wanted to see how Niall’s doing—” Liam says, pushing passed Zayn and walking in without warning (Niall barely gets enough time to properly cover himself). Liam’s eyes widen fractionally before he rounds on Zayn.
“Come on, mate, I know you’re happy he’s alive but couldn’t you have waited a few days?” Liam scolds. “When he got home, for example? I swear, you two could give rabbits a run for their money…”
Zayn smiles a bit, unashamed, although there’s a look in his eyes that only Niall can read; he knows that they won’t have a few days.
“Yeah, mate, sorry about all this,” Zayn lies smoothly. “Why don’t you get us some coffee and we can clean up and talk, okay?” That seems to satisfy Liam enough, and he nods. He turns to leave, but then stops, as though just remembering something.
“By the way, Zee, some guy was looking for you.”
“A guy?” he replies. “Who?” Liam shrugs.
“A custodian, I think. I dunno, mate, weird looking guy, kept telling me to tell you that your time was up. Had these eyes—they were bright yellow.”
“Yellow,” Zayn repeats.
“Yeah, yellow. But, then again that was probably the lighting. Anyway, I’ll go get that coffee. Looking good, Niall,” he adds as he leaves.
“Cheers,” Niall says gloomily as he watches Zayn pull the rest of his clothes on.
“I can’t stay any longer, he’s probably mad enough as it is,” he says, pulling his shirt back over his head.
Niall pulls his own hospital-given pants on and watches Zayn slip his Vans back on his feet. “I’m going to miss you.”
Zayn nods his head, swallowing a lump in his throat. “I’m sorry, I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
They kiss, and Zayn just hopes that everything he can’t put into words is in this last kiss. Niall breathes in the scent of Zayn for the last time, and once they’re done they hug for the final time, and stay that way until there’s another knock at the door, too sharp and sudden to be anyone but an angry demon.
Niall pulls away and looks into Zayn’s eyes. Neither of them can say anything; neither of them can trust themselves not to break down into tears.
Zayn takes a deep breath and opens the door, and while Niall sees no one, Zayn greets the demon like an old friend. The Bradford boy can’t trust himself to look back when he hears Niall’s choked sob, so he steps out of the room and shuts the door behind him.
The demon leads him into the next room over, and the walls are so thin that Niall can hear almost everything without trying.
“You ready, kid?” the demon says in its deep, gravelly voice.
“No,” Zayn retorts, and his voice catches in a way that tells Niall that he’s crying just as hard as he is. “But make it quick.”
“I can do that. No problem.”
There’s silence for so long that Niall thinks the demon has left, and he’s about to leave his room and see for himself when there’s a deafening, earsplitting bang and the sound of a body hitting the ground. Niall falls to the floor and screams even louder than Zayn does.
He quiets himself quickly though, listening and waiting for something, anything. Footsteps are quickly approaching and then they stop suddenly, right outside of the room Zayn’s in. There’s a shout and the sound of several cups falling to the floor.
“Zayn!” Liam shouts, and Niall can hear the pain in his voice; it only makes him sob harder. “ZAYN!”
“CAN SOMEBODY HELP ME?!” Liam screams, and Niall can only imagine him bent over Zayn’s body, slick, dark blood on his palms as he tries to resuscitate him, but he knows it’ll be no use to even try. “ANYONE, PLEASE!”
Niall lies on the floor in a fetal position, crying hard as pain tears him apart from the inside out. The solace he finds in the cold hard floor isn’t comforting in the slightest. He cries as he listens to them try to revive his fiancé, and then cries even harder when he hears the words he prayed they wouldn’t say.
“It’s no use. Stop the pressure and call it.”
“Time of death: 11:26 a.m.”
“What a shame.”
It’s 11:37 in the morning when Liam tries to come into the room, but Niall’s locked the door, turned the light off and is screaming into the mattress where Zayn last made love to him.
Closed eyes, heart not beating. But, a living love.
—Avis Corea