Don't Wave No Goodbye

Darcy had been feeling rather lousy all week, all congested and sniffly, and now that it's the weekend and she can hide away to die in peace, it’s exactly what she plans on doing. She cancels all her previous engagements and tells Nick to stay away to keep him from getting sick too (although she has a sneaking suspicion that it was him that got her sick in the first place), changing into her ugliest and comfiest sweat pants before setting herself up on the couch to promptly fall asleep.

She’s somewhere in the middle of a fever induced dream when she hears someone speaking to her in a language that doesn’t seem to make sense and there’s cool hands settling on her burning forehead that make her sigh in relief. She can’t open her eyes, she can’t find the strength to respond, but she gurgles in what she hopes to be a grateful tone when someone manages to get her to swallow a few sips of water and places a wet cloth on her forehead. Darcy’s whole body aches and she’s still stuck somewhere in a place where the colours are all inverted and animals have gained the ability to speak when someone tries to move her around, easily managing to stop her from fighting them off and she’s just so tired. At some point, she’s started to cry and there are those soft hands again, smoothing down her hair and that voice, whispering comforting things and she figures that it’s safe enough to do as the talking lion says and take a nap.

Hours later, Darcy wakes, properly this time, to find that the world’s gone back to its normal colouring and there isn’t a single zoo animal around to start chatting to her. She feels hot and sticky, in fact she just feels disgusting, and when she manages to break free of the blanket burrito she’s trapped in, it’s only then that she spots Harry watching her with a gentle smile.

Immediately covering her face, she groans, her throat feeling tight and scratchy. “Don’t look at me,” she croaks and Harry shakes his head, moving off the other couch to pass her a glass of water. She takes it meekly and downs the whole thing in one go, sighing at the relief it brings.

“Hiya. How ya feeling?” Harry asks quietly, moving to sit beside her where she’s swaddled up in blankets.

“Honestly? Like death warmed up,” she moans, rubbing at her heated face miserably.

“I’m not surprised; you were burning up like crazy when I showed up. I rang the hospital and if your temperature had risen by two more degrees, I would’ve had to take you in. Scary, huh? Luckily your fever broke not long after I called, so you just have to call me Nurse Harry, I’m afraid.” He grins at her, freaking grins like he’s pleased to be there and she looks at him like he’s insane.

“Err, thank you?” Darcy says finally because there’s not much more too say, really. “I… ugh Christ, I’m so sorry you had to see me like this.”

Harry waves it off. “Don’t worry about it! I’m just glad I found you when I did. Oh, and Grimmy called earlier, I told him, he panicked and freaked but I told him I have it all under control. I should probably ring him and let him know you’re awake and doing better.”

Darcy nods slowly. “Right, I mean, I can do it if you need to take off?”

“No, no, it’s fine, I’ve got nothing on,” Harry says brightly and Darcy’s feeling much too fuzzy to deal with this right now.

“Really Harry, you’ve done more than enough. You don’t need to stay and play nurse to me, honestly,” Darcy tries again, feeling guilty about the whole thing and Harry just shakes his head determinedly.

“I want to, trust me,” he says earnestly, those bright boyish eyes looking at her warmly. “Can I get you anything? Another glass of water, maybe?”

Darcy looks at him before finally allowing a small smile to appear on her face. “Yes please, that’d be lovely. Maybe some painkillers if you can find any? My head’s killing me.”

Harry beams, getting to his feet quickly and grabbing her glass from the table. “Coming right up!”

Under Harry’s watchful eye, Darcy drinks two glasses of water and takes her pills, still feeling dehydrated and like the grossest person alive. Upon saying as much, Harry laughs and suggests she goes to take a shower which sounds completely perfect except for the fact that Darcy feels so weak that the idea of making her way upstairs just feels like too much. Harry seems to pick up on this without a single word and gets to his feet, holding his hands out to here.

“I’ll help you,” he tells her sweetly.

Darcy shakes her head, looking a bit scandalised. “No, no, come on Harry, that’s asking too much.”

Harry chuckles lightly. “I’ll help you up the stairs, silly. I think you’ll be fine once you’re in the shower, you just have to stand there.”

With Harry’s arm tight around her waist, Darcy braves the stairs and by the time she reaches the top, she’s out of breath and practically wheezing as the mucous ick loosens in her chest making it even harder to inhale and exhale. Harry props her up against the bathroom wall and flitters around, grabbing towels and clean clothes and making sure the water temperature is warm enough.

“Will you be alright from here?” Harry asks in concern, looking like he doesn’t quite believe her when Darcy nods slowly.

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll be alright. Like you said, I just have to stand there, right?” Darcy gives him a weak smile but Harry still looks worried.

“I’ll be right outside, okay? Don’t hesitate to call out, yeah?” Darcy nods at this and shoos him away as best as she can.

The shower is bliss and torture all at once, she feels a little more human as the warm water runs over her body and the steam helps her sinuses to unblock so she can breathe easier, but even raising her arms to wash her body exhausts her and it feels as though this shower is never going to end. Finally she manages to turn the water off and just stands there for a moment, the cool air seeping in as she tries to find the energy to dry herself off.

Harry knocks on the bathroom door lightly. “You alright in there?”

Darcy’s about to respond and tell him she’s fine when she stumbles a bit, catching herself on the towel rail and swearing under her breath. The door opens immediately and for a moment, Darcy considers trying to cover herself until she realises how stupid that would be, she’s been naked with this boy multiple times over the last few weeks, he’s seen everything there is to see.

“Oh love,” Harry breathes out, grabbing her towel and quickly wrapping her up in, finding another one to carefully dry her hair. He’s so gentle with her, his voice so sweet and soft that it almost makes her want to cry. She hasn’t been looked after like this since before she was a teenager, before her father passed and her mother had lost that nurturing instinct.

Harry makes sure that every part of her body is dry before he helps her to dress in a loose pair of pyjama bottoms and an old threadbare shirt that she’s almost certain belonged to him at some point before he’d left it here once and she'd claimed it. Once she’s feeling a little more alive, he helps her down the stairs and settles her back on the couch, immediately swamping her in blankets. He even turns up the heating, but besides all this, Darcy can’t help but shiver a little which causes worry lines to appear on Harry’s forehead.

“Are you feeling hungry at all?” he asks, looking concerned when Darcy shakes her head and even though the last thing she wants to do is bother with eating, she feels like she has to at least try for Harry’s sake.

“Erm, but maybe a cup of tea and a few biscuits would be alright?’ she tries and is instantly rewarded with Harry’s dimpled smile.

“Won’t be long,” he tells her, dashing off to the kitchen to get the kettle on.

Darcy’s about to let her eyes close and drift in and out for a bit when she feels something sticking into her thigh and she grabs at it to find her phone. There’s a bunch of concerned texts from her friends, mostly Nick, and Darcy reads through them all, only stopping at the last one which had also been from Nick.

‘hope ur bf is lookin after u. call me when ur up 2 it x’

Closing her eyes, Darcy groans softly because this is exactly what she’d wanted to avoid. ‘not my bf. i’m dying, you hav to be nice. idk what this all means help??? x’

It’s hard enough just to type all that out and keep her eyes focused on the screen so once it’s sent, Darcy just tosses her phone aside, planning to deal with all that later when she’s not feeling like she’s about to keel over. Harry enters the room with her cup of tea and a small plate of biscuits he’d found in her cupboard. He places the biscuits on her lap before handing over her tea, making sure she’s got it and isn’t about to spill it down herself before he goes back to grab his own cup.

Despite the warmth of the tea and the amount of blankets practically suffocating her, Darcy still can’t stop her body from trembling and upon noticing this, Harry moves closer to her, slipping under the blankets and positioning the two of them so she can lean against his chest with their bodies pressed tight together.

“Better?” he asks gently, and Darcy wants to say no, wants to tell him that this is all too much and they’re fuck buddies and this definitely goes beyond fuck buddy duty but she already feels so warm and mellow against him that she can’t help but nod.

“I’m sorry,” she moans again, feeling overly emotional and just awful really. “You shouldn’t have had to do any of this and now you’re never gonna want to have sex with me because I’m the grossest person in the world right now, ugh.”

Harry lets out a soft rumble of a laugh that vibrates through both their bodies. “You’re ridiculous. I’m looking after you because I want to and it doesn’t change anything, okay? Everything’s fine. Trust me, I’ve had to deal with all of the boys being sick and disgusting, and they were infinitely more awful than you are, so don’t worry, alright?”

“You mean that?” Darcy asks quietly and Harry nods solemnly.

“Yeah, I mean that. Now finish your tea, eat a biscuit or two, and then you can get some more rest,” Harry advises, nudging the plate of biscuits closer to her. “Then later on, if you’re feeling up to it, I’ve brought over all three of the Back to The Future DVDs!”

Darcy narrows her eyes at Harry playfully. “This was your plan all along, to get me when I’m too sick to fight back.”

Harry grins unapologetically at this. “Yep, you got me. Now you’re going to have to watch them!”

“You’re a bad person, Harry Styles,” Darcy says through a yawn, but she snuggles in closer to Harry, enjoying the warmth he provides and the feeling of his chest rising and falling. Harry just hums absently and holds her closer.