I'll Be With You The Whole Way Down - Nick/Louis
Title: I'll Be With You The Whole Way Down
Pairing: Nick/Louis
Rating: PG-13
Words: 3156
Summary: You can tell him any different, but Nick knows that it's his fault that Louis' in the hospital.
Can also be read on Tumblr or AO3.
It's late when Nick drags himself to his car and drives to the airport. He has to weave through masses of screaming girls to even get to the door of the arrivals building, but he's not averse to battling through the crowd, elbows out and all. (What are all these girls doing here, anyway? It's nearly midnight.)
It's not that Nick is particularly fond of spontaneous visits to airports, but he hasn't seen Louis in months due to the North American leg of One Direction's tour, and he's quite in love with the little devil. He's missed him, and he wants to surprise him and pick him up from the airport. (It's not sappy. It's not.)
After pushing his way through, he finally makes it to where the band's plane is unloading. When he catches sight of Louis, looking exhausted from the long flight, his face splits into a wide grin. The crowd around him is going ballistic now that the boys are out, but he barely notices - all he sees is Louis.
Harry is the first to spot him amongst the girls, and the younger boy greets him with a goofy grin and an enthusiastic wave. Nick thinks the girls directly adjacent to him might have fainted. Louis follows the line of his friend's sight, looking over to where Harry's waving, and looks shocked when he sees Nick.
The look of surprise quickly passes, though, and is soon replaced with a tired smile. They can't have some dramatic movie reuniting due to the fact that they haven't come out yet and the proverbial cat would be very out of the bag if they did, but they can at least speak, and get to the hugging and kissing in a more private location.
Nick climbs over the barricade holding the girls back, ignoring the disapproving looks he gets from the airport security guards. They must not think him a threat, though, given that he's a grown man and not a fan girl. He makes his way over to the boys, pulling Harry in for a hug. It's less suspicious. Makes it look like Nick's just there to catch up with a friend that's been away. He winks at Louis over Harry's shoulder, receiving a tired, fond smile from the smaller boy in return.
"Lou's a bit tired," Harry whispers into his ear. "You know how he is. Can't sleep on airplanes."
Nick pulls away from Harry, nodding in understanding. Louis comes over to the two, brushing against Nick as he makes his way around to be able to face the two of them. To anyone else, it might look like an accident. To Nick, it sends jolts of something electrifying down his spine. The feeling’s not entirely unfamiliar whenever he's around Louis,
"Hey," Louis says as way of greeting, his voice hoarse and thick with exhaustion.
"Hi, love." Nick says gently, taking in the way Louis looks so small; soft around the edges and quiet, unlike his usual sharp wit and boisterous attitude. He looks absolutely adorable in his navy beanie and loose sweats.
"You driving me home, then?" Louis asks, pulling his suitcase up against himself.
Home. Nick will never get over that. Louis' home is the same as Nick's. Nick is Louis' home. They live together. Nick laughs quietly to himself.
"Yes, doll, that's the general idea." Nick says lightly.
"Mm. Good." Louis replies, leaning precariously towards Nick. It looks like he might topple over soon. Nick doesn't even notice the screams around him -- everything is Louis.
"Uh, guys. You should probably ask..." Harry interrupts, his sentence trailing off as he gestures towards their security.
Not the hired airport guards, but the men who are constantly surrounding the band and making sure they don't get into too much trouble. Louis sighs, and Nick feels awful.
"Don't worry, babe, I'll ask," He offers, and Louis' shoulders sag as he sinks into the arms Harry has offered up to him as support.
Nick approaches Paul first, knowing him the best.
"Hey, mate. I mean, uh - sir? I just wanted to let you know that I'll be driving Louis home, so. Er. You don't have to." Nick says awkwardly, wanting to get this done quickly so he can take Louis home and cuddle up with him in bed and sleep for a day or two.
Paul frowns. "Sorry, I can't let you. It's not safe."
"What?" Nick splutters. "Don't be ridiculous! I just want to drive him home, not take him cliff jumping! I'm his- you know!"
(Nick's not scared to call Louis his boyfriend - they're long past that awkward part of each relationship where labels get confusing - but he can't risk some fangirl, or worse, paparazzi, overhearing.)
Paul looks over his shoulder to see Louis, and sighs, looking conflicted.
"Fine, yeah, go for it." Paul says, relenting. "Do whatever you can to make it the least suspicious-looking."
"I will, thank you." Nick says sincerely, nodding at him, and then goes over to collect his boyfriend and get the hell out of there.
+
He doesn't see the car coming. It's a green a light and there are no cars around - it’s past midnight now. That is, until one comes from the right, speeding towards the intersection. It's going way too fast. Nick has no time to react before it's slamming into the passenger side, right where Louis is sitting.
+
Nick's not knocked out from the impact. Instead, he watches in horror as Louis is trapped in his seat from the dent made in the car, his whole body barraged with injuries. Louis, however, does lose consciousness. A small part of Nick is glad. He doesn't think he could handle it if Louis was screaming in agony. It’s almost worse, though - Louis looks limp and lifeless.
Nick might as well be trapped - he’s frozen from fear and shock and anger and it's a good thing that someone from a nearby address calls in the accident, or Louis and he would've both bled out right there, Nick too petrified to put any coherent thoughts together and pull out his phone.
He doesn't register his own injuries - he feels sick from the sight of the blood pouring out of a wound on Louis' forehead and the way the smaller boy is curled in on himself, legs crushed from the dent in the car and unconscious from the trauma to his head.
+
Drunk driver, the paramedics tell Nick when they arrive on the scene.
Calm down, they tell him when he screams for Louis.
+
He’s loaded into the ambulance. He doesn’t feel anything - only numbness.
He cranes his neck to see past the paramedics who are tending to his wounds, searching for any sign of his boyfriend. He catches sight of a group of firefighters trying to extract him from the vehicle, before the ambulance’s back doors are being closed. His head falls back.
Wait, what about Louis? He thinks as the ambulance starts moving, feeling his chest bubble with newfound panic. We have to wait for Louis! His mind screams at him.
He opens his mouth to speak, flails his arms in a desperate attempt to grasp at some sort of leverage to pull himself up, but he can’t. His mouth is dry. The paramedics hold him down, telling him to calm down, relax, calm down, don’t panic. He can’t.
He wants to punch them for being so stupid. Of course he’s panicking. Louis - his Louis - is hurt. It’s his fault.
He can only think in fragments. The ambulance is moving quickly, now, and everything’s spinning, and he feels like he’s going to be sick, and all he thinks is Louis, Louis, Louis as his consciousness slips away.
+
Nick wakes to Harry’s face hovering over him, expression laced with a mix of concern and anger.
Mostly anger, though. Seconds after his eyes flutter open, Harry’s yelling.
“Nick, you absolute fucking twat!” He shouts, and Nick cringes, because ouch, his head fucking hurts, and Harry is not helping. The yelling would be intimidating if Harry didn’t resemble a kitten so much.
Nick tries to sit up, but black specks dance across his vision the instant he moves and he feels inexplicably dizzy. “Wha-?”
He fumbles around, his hands grappling for something to grab onto to pull himself into a sitting position, but before he can, the very bed he’s sitting on is raising, and it folds at an angle so that Nick is propped up and he can look around. He’s, in fact, in a hospital bed, and his stomach churns sickeningly as he remembers last night’s events.
“Oh God,” He chokes out. “Oh God.”
“Yeah, you git! Louis’ in the fucking hospital because of you!” Harry growls, his voice coming out ragged, his chest heaving with the stress, and from the look of the younger boy’s face, Nick suspects he must’ve been crying quite a bit. (Nick would argue that he’s in the hospital, too, if he didn’t feel so guilty and didn’t want to know so much if Louis was okay.)
“How is he?” Nick whimpers. His eyes widen then as he thinks of a nauseating thought. “He’s not - I mean - he can’t be-?”
Harry sighs. “No, God, no. He’s, well - he’s got a broken leg, for starters. His right one. And he’s got a few cracked ribs - those looked pretty bad. And, well -”
Harry pauses, looking down at his shoes, his fingers toying with the thin material used as a sheet to cover Nick.
“And?” Nick prompts.
“He’s - well - shit, Nick.” Harry takes a shuddery breath. “He’s in a coma.”
Nick’s throat closes up and he can feel the tears coming on. He takes a few deep breaths through his nose, trying to compose himself, staring blankly at the bleak wall across from his hospital bed.
“I’m sorry,” Harry says quietly.
Nick drops his head into his hands, groaning, the tears falling freely from his eyes now. He has to speak to keep from falling apart - he has to get angry, at himself, at Louis, anything.
“Oh, Louis.” Nick whispers to himself, and then looks up, glaring at Harry.
“This is all my fucking fault!” He roars, his hands balling into fists. “I’m the one who thought it would be a good idea to drive Louis home at midnight! Midnight! Paul told me not to, he told me that it wasn’t safe, he fucking told me, and I didn’t listen! Louis’ in a goddamn coma because of me! All I’ve got is what- a minor concussion? A few scrapes and bruises? And he’s in a coma!”
He can’t hold it back now. His whole body shudders as he dissolves into violent, wracking sobs, his cheeks stained with tears and his head spinning. He doesn’t think he’s ever cried this hard before. He’s not very much of a crier - usually if he’s sad about anything, he channels it into anger, or represses the feelings or jokes about it. This is Louis though.
Harry looks guilty.
“Nick, it’s- it’s not your fault, okay? I didn’t mean what I said. It wasn’t true. I’m just a little stressed out, okay? So are the rest of the boys - they’re watching over Louis now - and, I just. It’s not your fault. It was the arsehole who decided to drink and drive. You couldn’t have known what would happen, and you were being completely safe, and you can’t blame yourself. Understood?” Harry says firmly, gripping onto one of Nick’s shoulder and staring right into his eyes so that he could see that he was being sincere.
“Yeah,” Nick says faintly, because he’s still having trouble letting the whole thing sink in.
“Good.” Harry says, looking pleased.
Nick would argue more that, yeah, it was kind of his fault, but he just wants to go visit Louis.
“Can - can I go see him?” Nick asks hopefully.
Harry looks skeptical. “You’re…you’re supposed to rest. That’s what the nurse said.”
Nick rolls his eyes. “For God’s sake, I feel fine. I want to see my boyfriend.”
Harry smiles at him, soft and sympathetic. “Yeah, ok.”
+
Louis looks better than Nick expected he would. He expected something gruesome - his body distorted and his face bandaged up, like in the movies. He looks nothing like that. A sheet is covering him from his goes to his armpits, so his broken, plastered leg and his bandaged ribs are hidden underneath it. His head doesn’t have some comical bandage on it, and all of the cuts on his face have either closed by themselves or been stitched up. His face is a bit bruised, and there’s an ugly tube going up his nose, but the besides that, he looks peaceful, and stunningly beautiful.
It’s eerie in the room, though. The other One Direction boys, including Harry, opted for letting Nick have some time alone with Louis, that which he’s grateful for. It makes the room dead quiet though, save the beep that sounds from the machines attached to Louis at regular intervals.
Nick makes his way over to the hospital bed, sinking down into the chair that’s already been set there.
“Oh, darling,” Nick whispers, bringing his hand up to run his fingers through Louis’ hair. “I’m so sorry.”
+
Two weeks pass by and Louis still hasn’t woken up.
Nick hasn’t left the hospital in that time. He washes up in the disgusting showers the place has, and Harry brings him clothes and food to Louis’ room every day. He called into work, and they were plenty understanding, offering their condolences and their wishes of good luck. He hasn’t had a proper sleep, either, which is unsurprising since he declined the offer of using one of the hospital’s spare beds and instead spends all his time in the chair next to Louis’.
He spends his time talking to Louis, or watching trashy shows on the crappy TV hung up across the room, or reading his Twitter feed to Louis. The nurses said that it’s possible that Louis could be hearing what he’s saying. He hopes not. That would be embarrassing - he’s said some pretty sappy things to Louis. The nurse also said that if Louis could hear him he wouldn’t remember after waking up, that which he’s grateful for, because he’d tease him for ages.
Louis is going to wake up. He is, and it’s not even because he wants to be there when Louis wakes up - he does, of course, but it’s more that he has this thought that if he leaves Louis’ side he might not be okay anymore, that anything could happen, that he could slip away and Nick wouldn’t even be there to notice, or to call for help. (It’s irrational, of course it is, Nick knows that. Louis’ stable and even if he weren’t, the machines will alert the nurses if anything happens.)
The One Direction boys come in as frequently as they can, but they have schedules to keep up with, ones that mostly consist of assuring the fines that Louis’ fine and just a little bit under the weather. (A blatant lie, but they can’t have the fangirls panicking.) Louis’ mom comes in once, too, but she can’t stay long - she has to get back to the girls, who couldn’t make it because of the distance and the suddenness.
At the two week point, though, Nick is woken at an ungodly hour to the sound of hacking coming from Louis’ bed. He’s awake. Nick nearly falls off his chair in surprise, but quickly regains his balance and starts jabbing at the button the nurses pointed out to him to press if ever there was an emergency. Louis’ choking on the tube that’s in his throat, the one that feeds him and kept him nourished while he was in a coma.
The nurses come in and sort it out, and Nick’s got the stupidest fucking grin on his face. He sends the One Direction boys a mass text message, chock full of spelling errors because his hands are shaking so badly.
The nurses usher Nick out, assuring him that yes, Louis will be fine, so long as Nick gets out and lets them do the checks they have to. That gets him out of there pretty quickly, despite how much he wants to see Louis. Harry, Liam, Niall and Zayn arrive in record time, out of breath and dressed in mismatching clothes, but they look overjoyed.
A nurse comes out and nods at them, giving them the go ahead to go in and see Louis. Nick pushes his way to the front so that he can see Louis first. They boy’s sitting upright in the bed, rested against the pillow and wincing in clear pain. He looks weak, and he still has a broken leg and cracked ribs, but he’s awake. Nick smiles fondly. He’s exhausted and ready to pass out from all of the stress of the last couple of weeks, but in that moment, he’s so happy that he practically sprints over to Louis’ bed.
His mood falls when Louis looks up, though, his face etched in confusion.
“Sorry, who are you?” He asks, his brow furrowing.
Nick feels like he might throw up. “You - what-?” No, no, no, this can’t be happening. This only happens in movies. This isn’t real.
Harry sidles up next to him. “Nick, I’m so sorry, the nurses said this might happ-”
Harry’s interrupted by a delighted cackle.
“Nick, you twat, I’m just fucking with you.” Louis says, his face stretched in a wide grin.
Nick squawks in indignation. “Are you fucking kidding me? You prick! You absolute prick! You leave me for two weeks, and you’re joking around?!” He practically shrieks his words, his voice high and annoyed.
Louis looks unimpressed by how loud Nick’s being, and closes his eyes. “Ugh, shush. I’m exhausted. Let me sleep.” Even after just waking from a coma, Louis’ got a hell of an attitude.
“You’ve literally been asleep for TWO WEEKS.”
Louis opens his eyes, rolls them, and then pulls Nick down to capture his lips with his own. Their mouths move against each other, Nick moaning into the kiss, which would be embarrassing, except he’s finally getting to touch Louis like this after weeks and it feels amazing. Nick feels Louis’ lips curve up and he pulls away, smiling down at his beautiful, beautiful boy, feeling his heart swell with happiness.
“I love you,” Nick says quietly, then; “I’m so sorry. This is my fault.”
“Don’t be. It wasn’t.” Louis replies, looking up at him with adoration. “And I love you too.”
The boys all make retching noises at the two of them, but they look unbelievably fond.
“I missed you so much,” Nick says sincerely.
That earns a smirk from Louis. “Did you? The great Grimmy, missing me? I’m flattered.”
Nick would whack Louis over the head if he hadn’t just woken up from a two-week-long coma.