Chapter Text
He felt the heat first, low sunlight licking across his cheekbone the moment he slipped out of his deep sleep. His skin was hot and he felt himself frown, his body heavy and tired. He remembered the forest and his tears, and Harry’s chest and his tears too last night.
He did not remember how he got to his bed though. Harry must have carried him back, his Da probably gave him his stinky look but he knew Harry could handle it. And his da wasn’t even that scary anyways.
But he woke up wrong. He opened his eyes slowly, adjusting them to the brightness of the sunlight entering through the window.
What the fuck. . .?
Wrong ceiling too.
Not his da’s pebbledash, not the hairline crack above the old bed in Mullingar he could trace in the dark with a finger. This was smooth paint in a cheap white, a smear near the light fitting where a fitter’s thumb had been too human.
The curtains were the colour of dishwater and a radiator muttering to itself in the corner made him feel restless for some reason. He looked around and that’s the moment the scent hit him too.
He was not in his old room at his da’s house.
It smelled like cheap detergent, the lemon one, the one he hated the most because it reminded him of the hundreds of hotels he would be staying at while touring and the memories that were created inside them too.
Maybe letting Harry stay in Ireland was a mistake. He felt his head hurt as he sat down, truly taking in his surroundings.
Confusion started building on his stomach as he froze on the spot.
What. . .? Where the hell am I?
“Jesus,” he said, and his own voice sounded foreign in his own ears but his head was a true mess at that moment to notice it.
The rough sheets around him gave him an idea but it didn’t make sense so he decided to go and find out.
As he went to stand up he noticed a phone on the little table at his side, it was an old iphone and it looked just like the one he had a couple years ago, thick and cracked and so nostalgic. Wondering who the owner was too.
It wasn’t Harry’s and it certainly wasn’t his da’s either.
That made him wonder where the hell was his own phone at, it wasn’t on the bed, that’s for sure. He decided to take it to see the hour at least, he felt like he slept fifteen of them straight.
He wasn’t really prepared for what he saw. That— was his old phone, Cristiano stared out at him from a wallpaper he hadn’t looked at in years, expression fierce, arms folded behind his back, standing straight, that commander aura flowing out of him, and Niall’s thumb unlocked it as if he needed more proof to convince him.
But he remembered leaving it at his mam’s house when he finally was able to afford a new one after he got paid for the first album. He made sure his mam’s and da’s mortgage was paid off first, seeing their smiles was an unforgettable moment in his life, and after it, he gifted himself that bloody brick of a phone, he smiled non stop for weeks.
Why was it there though?, and what the hell happened after his fight with Harry?
And then something punched him in his stomach as he saw the date.
He was probably still dreaming, yeah, that’s the only explanation, because what do you mean it says august twelve, two thousand thirteen?
Maybe it glitched and still had the date of when he turned it off the last time, so he went to the settings and tried to change it but it wouldn’t let him, no matter how many times he tried it; he was starting to feel anxious and he hated it.
It just wasn’t possible, right? He was still dreaming or Harry was doing a really weird prank on him that wasn’t funny in the slightest.
Niall felt confused and helpless for a couple of seconds, and then it must have fell on him, the possibility of all of that being a fucking arse dream. Of the band separating, of Harry’s silence, of Liam’s. . .
Fuck.
His stomach dropped so quickly he felt the sheets under his thighs like a ledge.
“Yer dreamin’,” he told himself. He tried to smile about it, to be the eejit who always turned panic into a laugh. His mouth didn’t bother.
He looked for other proof that the world had slipped its own gears. And before he knew it he was running to the bathroom. He needed the mirror, he needed to see it.
The light in there flickered a mean fluorescent, buzzing like a wasp trapped under glass. And Niall wasn’t sure if someone could die out of pure shock, because he felt like dying now again.
The boy looking back at him was terrified—soft around the jaw, baby face with no stubble nor the shadow of the beard he succeeded to grow a couple of years ago, blonde messy fucking hair and bright blue eyes, eyes that looked frightened and panicked.
This was really happening, wasn't it? God, what am I supposed to do now?
As he was freaking out, he thought of his mam and the cloud on his brain started disappearing little by little.
He lifted his wrist. The red thread was there, small knot neat, colour bright as flame. He touched it and the touch came back warm. Mullingar hadn’t been a dream, then. Couldn’t have been. His mam’s hands had tied this and told him to mind himself. The memory yanked the door in his head open and all the strange little things spilled through at once, fast and clear.
The kettle—clicking on before he reached it, rolling itself to a boil as if the house had decided. The robin—cheeky little show-off—hopping along the back fence and then along the lane and then along the canal wall, close enough to catch crumbs out of his palm if he’d had the cheek to offer them. The hawthorn shivering without a breeze, its leaves talking to each other in the tiniest metallic clinks while the laurel sat bored beside it like nothing at all had happened. The tin’s sharp mouth that caught his thumb and the cut drawing closed in front of his eyes before the sting was even finished, skin knitting up like it had remembered its shape.
Then his mam on the phone, voice all steady and soft at once: Your Nana used to say the Good People take to those who are hurtin’. Not to trick ‘em. To mind ‘em a bit. If anything strange happens, say, I see you, and I mean no harm. And then come tell me I’m mad. And the red thread between her fingers, bright as a stoplight, as she looped and tied and slid the ends flat with a thumb.
He put both hands on the edge of the sink and bent his head and let the breath go in and out twice, he knew he was dangerously close to having a panic attack.
He needed to ring his mam, he needed it so bad his fingers twitched and he went for the phone he left on the bed.
He wanted to hear her voice, tell her, ask her what the fuck was happening to him , how the fuck was possible for him to be in two thousand thirteen again like he was in a stupid time travel film, make her say his name in they way she always did, where he could stand up straighter on it.
She would probably tell him he was just confused, that he just had a really long and painfully real nightmare that took years of his life.
Or most likely she’ll say I told you, didn’t I? The land minds us if we mind it. You’re grand. Say the words. Don’t be rude to them. We’ll figure it out.
He typed the number he knew from memory and was about to press the call button before another sound came through the wall. Laughter.
Bright and careless, free of years of pressure and obligations. His body knew it before his head gave it a name. The next voice laid itself under the first like a foundation: steady and warm and made Niall feel the goosebumps caressing his spine.
Liam.
Niall’s knees went watery. He felt his jaw start to tremble at the same time his hands started to shake. His thumbs, stupid brave, unlocked the old phone again and then typed fast and clumsily.
Liam? He deleted it. He looked at the date again because it wasn’t moving and he couldn’t fucking change it and then he typed again before he could chicken out.
Can you come to mine? Please.
The four knocks came fast and familiar, their old code—tap—tap-tap—tap—that he had not allowed himself to think about for years. He opened just as fast and clung to the frame so he wouldn’t fall out of himself.
Liam filled the doorway like he always had: hoodie pulled up, hair doing a stubborn thing, grin tucked at one corner ready to be pulled out when needed. “You look like shit, mate,” he said, but the fondness in it softened the words so they didn’t bruise. Then he really looked and the grin was gone. “Hey. You okay?”
Niall didn’t say yes or no. He reached and—God—Liam was there, solid and warm and so fucking young, exactly his height, and he folded into him with a sound he’d be embarrassed about later if later ever came, pressing his face on his shoulder.
Liam stumbled half a step and then his hands were on Niall’s back like they’d always known where to land, just holding. His chin came down on Niall’s shoulder too, both hugging the other tight.
“Alright,” Liam said, voice dropped to that soft register he used on crying fans and dogs. “It’s alright. I’ve got you, Ni.”
Niall’s nose was in cotton that smelled like washing powder and Liam’s old cologne. He pressed harder, greedy, terrified that if he let the pressure off the seam would unzip and he’d be in his bed in Mullingar with the kettle rumbling the way it liked to when no one had asked it to. “Don’t go yet,” he heard himself say, and flinched at the rawness of it.
“I won’t,” Liam answered immediately, like there’d never been a question. “’S okay. I swear. You want to sit? We’ll sit.”
They did, sideways on the bed, feet not bothering with the floor, a pair of lads hiding in plain sight. Niall kept a fist twisted in the hem of Liam’s hoodie at his back because his body had deserted him too many times lately and he was done letting it. Liam pretended not to notice how hard it tugged, it was the first time he saw Niall this freaked out and scared, he was always being the one with the genuine laughs and giggles, lifting the mood of all the people close to him. It surprised Liam a little bit, but it also made his heart hurt.
He reached into his pocket like a man doing a trick and produced something wrapped in a napkin and showed it to him. “Got you a roll,” he said. “Don’t ask. The chef likes me better than she likes Harry, and that’s all I’ll say on the matter. Although Tommo thinks all of the rolls are bloody his. ”
Niall choked out a half laugh, half snort and bit blind. Butter hit his tongue. The savory sausage tasted soft and salty even though it was cold. He choked on a laugh again, or maybe a tear, and didn’t let go with the other hand.
“Bad dream?” Liam asked, not poking, just laying the question on the bed between them like a blanket. “You were out late. I thought you were with Lou, then he was with me, and then Zed said you’d texted about your stomach, and then Paul said you’d told him you were fine, and then Harry—” He stopped, recalibrated. “Anyway. You look like you got hit by a bus, is what I’m saying, but like the bus didn’t say sorry.”
Niall felt his jaw trembling again and the familiar sting behind his eyes and tried to control himself. He then remembered what was supposed to be yesterday to this new Niall, this new reality he had been given.
They had an interview in the afternoon but Harry said he was going out with Taylor and Niall felt sick to the stomach and couldn’t find the strength to hide it.
“Grand,” Niall said automatically after a couple of seconds, then immediately shook his head at himself. “No. Not grand.” He forced a swallow. “Was a bit of an arse. It was… it was a crazy one, Li. It felt too real.”
“Right.” Liam’s voice turned practical. “What was it?”
“I don’t—” He did. He couldn’t say it. Liam’s picture in a frame, lilies choking the air, the coffin the wrong weight for the room. He flinched away like from a hot plate. “Can we—not talk about it? Not yet.”
“Course.” Liam nudged his shoulder with a patience that had saved them all more times than he’d get credit for. “We can talk about our lovely schedule instead. We have some fitting at eleven, then warm-ups and some recordings at the studio. Got some hard ones to finish; one is a single but some of the verses don’t sound right to me, I don’t know. Oh, and Harry tried to charm the receptionist and she told him ‘nice try’ and gave the fruit bowl to me. I kinda want to write a song about it.”
The stupidest sort of relief flooded Niall’s chest, like someone had opened a window in there. He listened to Liam waffle about absolutely nothing with an attentiveness that would have made his old teachers weep. He watched his mouth move, the little nick in his lip from some long-ago dry spell where he’d chewed it raw, the way his eyebrows did that concerned kiss when he was trying to talk and worry at the same time.
He didn’t know when he lay down. He only knew Liam came with him like it had been the plan, the two of them on top of the covers, shoulders touching. Liam adjusted the angle like a man who’d done this a hundred nights, and Niall tucked his face against his chest and thought, madly, I don’t wanna sleep, fuck. I don’t want him to disappear again.
His eyes stayed hot and useless. Liam’s hand made its slow passes over the back of Niall’s head and neck, a rhythm older than both of them. “There you go,” Liam said, “It’s okay now, Ni. It was just a bad dream.”
They lay for a long time. He listened to Liam breathe and it was the only song he needed.
Under the steady he heard everything else: a maid’s trolley clattering and then being apologised to, the lift cable singing that thin note, Harry laughing at something Louis said, running down the hall and trying to be quiet and failing because he hadn’t learned the trick yet. Niall’s grip loosened by degrees he felt ashamed of. “You’ll stay?” he mumbled, the words turned small by the cotton.
“Yeah, mate,” Liam said. “I’m not goin’ anywhere.”
He must have dozed. Woke again to the soft slap-slap of socks in a corridor and Louis’s voice arriving three steps before he did. He felt the panic rippling his chest but then Liam’s warmth was still flushed against him.
“Horan! You alive? Paul says we’re late which means we’re on time which means we’re late, etcetera, science. Ah! and, is Payno there with you? He stole my bloody roll!”
Liam’s chest did a small laugh under Niall’s cheek. “We’re indecent at the moment, sir.” he called, cheerful.
Louis barged anyway, because doors were invitations, not barriers, in Louis-world. He took in the scene—Niall half-curled, Liam cradling him—and turned the grin down to a gentle one without being asked. “Oh, look at you two. A Renaissance painting of a Sad Boy and his Supportive Boy.”
“Shut up,” Liam said fondly.
“Make me,” Louis sang, then nodded at Niall. “You good, Mullingar?”
Niall felt how tight his face had gone and forced it to loosen. “Yeah,” he said, and didn’t bother faking the grin. “Just knackered.”
“Same,” Louis said insincerely. “Come on, I promised Zed I’d drag you out by your ankles if necessary.”
Zayn hovered in the doorway like a shy thought, hands in the pocket of a hoodie that wasn’t black but wanted to be. He looked Niall full in the face, worrying for him as he always had, making Niall’s chest soft. “You good?” he asked, simple as rain.
“I will be,” Niall said. He meant it like a promise to himself. “Gimme a minute.”
Zayn nodded, the tiny lift at one corner of his mouth. Louis reached over them both and grabbed the Do Not Disturb sign off the handle. “A gift.” he said, and hung it back in its exact place like returning a relic to an altar.
They left. Liam didn’t. Not until Niall sat up and rubbed his eyes and told his body to carry him another day. “You sure?” Liam asked again, manager and mate both. “Because I can tell Paul you’ve got the plague.”
“I’ll only have to get it later,” Niall said, catching a smile from somewhere lighter. “C’mon. We’ll be late and you’ll start to itch.”
Liam made a face at being seen. “Shut up.”
In the corridor the carpet’s pattern pretended to be interesting. Niall’s hand bumped the wall once, like a kid’s, then found his pocket and gripped the old phone inside. He brushed the thread at his wrist with a knuckle and felt ridiculous and steadied.
It was real, this was really happening. God, he needed to calm down. He was nineteen again, his boys were around him, the grief on his heart started to fade a little bit every time he saw Liam smile and snort at Louis’s jokes. But the memory was still there and it burned him just like before.
He was giving a second chance, he couldn’t fucked it up. He needed to act like his old self and he needed to remember some important incidents that he swore to never let happen again.
Harry appeared on one of the tight corners of the corridor, with that easy smile that made Niall’s inside feel like jelly, he felt the heat crippling his cheeks and he cursed himself in his mind, hating feeling like a teenager again. Well, he was now nineteen for a whole month more, wasn’t he?
The lift shuddered them down in a mirrored box where he couldn’t get away from his own younger face or the angle Harry was standing at, that made his grin into a weapon and a defence at once.
Harry didn’t call him Nialler this time. He said, quiet enough that the metal walls would keep it for themselves, “You alright?” and the words landed in Niall’s chest like the first warm breath after being out in the wind.
“Grand,” Niall said, aiming for banter and landing somewhere near calm. “You nick my fruit again and I’ll have you arrested,” he said.
“On what charge?” Harry said, mouth doing that crooked thing that had started fights in pubs and sold out arenas and made the Irish lad mad and shy.
“Being English,” Niall said.
Louis coughed a laugh into his shoulder.
The lobby was bright and busy. The receptionist smirked at their bickering, finding these famous boys funny and so human. Outside, fans hummed behind glass like a different weather system, and his robin friend perched on the metal rail and looked at Niall with the unjustified confidence of small things. He had to look away before anyone noticed his small grin.
Paul had a clipboard and an expression that could be translated into at least four languages as let’s try not to be daft today, lads. He touched the back of Niall’s arm at exactly the right time to move him away from a stray suitcase. It was like being parented by a brick wall you loved.
The van made that warm plastic smell. Zayn put his forehead to the cool of the window for a second and exhaled like he’d been holding it all morning, Niall sat next to him as he always did, letting himself separate from Liam, as to convince himself his friend would not disappear. Louis narrated a story about a woman with a Yorkshire terrier and a vendetta in the lift until Liam wheezed and asked him to stop because it was “honestly cruel at this time of day.” Harry drew a smiley face in the fog, then drew a moustache on it, taking a pic excitedly.
Niall used the trip to take deep breaths, murmuring encouraging words to calm himself, he also made sure to hold Zayn’s hand, interlocking their fingers as they always had during trips; it made Zayn feel grounded and not lonely, and it help Niall focus, not letting his mind wander to other things.
The studio lived where all studios live—between dust and dreams. The first breath he took in the corridor tasted like stale coffee and a bit of glue from a carpet that didn’t want to commit to staying. The tape strips on the main room’s floor caught his eye the way they always had: names in marker, his letters a little too straight because he’d tried to prove something small and stupid to himself the day he wrote them. NIALL sat where he remembered it. He stood on it for a second just to see if time would hiss.
He saw a couple of faces he hadn't seen in a bit and a couple of ones he was more than familiar with, like Julian, his good friend. They wrote basically all his three solo albums together, drifting from L.A to London between some studios and their houses. And they were about to write the best three albums of the band too.
He felt kinda weird about it too, he knew all of the songs by heart, songs that didn’t even exist yet. He knew he would have to act like the inexperienced and innocent boy he’s supposed to be. But it was harder than he expected.
As they started the warm-ups his throat gave him a clean and strong note that surprised him and the others too. He then held it without showing much off because he’d learned that trick the hard way. He wasn’t supposed to shine, Harry was.
Management made sure he knew it very well.
As he continued with the exercises, he couldn’t help to feel some satisfaction at the way his voice transformed now that he had more than a decade of experience; his young throat felt relaxed, no tension at all thanks to his future technique. Their vocal coach gave him lots of praises too, and Niall felt silly as his confidence grew.
It was no secret to anyone that he didn’t have the strongest voice of the band nor he had a god given talent with harmonies or perfect pitch. He just loved to sing and wanted some recognition for it, but it only showed him how weak and normal his voice was in comparison to the rest. And he worked his arse off to get to their level.
He remembered the days his mic was turned off or tuned down, too busy with his guitar to care, they said. He also remembered the times he was expected to learn every instrument’s part, in case they needed it, as if he wasn’t part of the boys, as if he wasn’t a singer.
But in the end that ended up helping him and his solo career. He learned how to master his guitar, the acoustic and the electric, he also learned to play the piano, writing his best ballads with it, the bass too and even the strings and the harmonica.
In the future, he considered himself as a complete artist, a musician, not just a singer anymore. So it all worked off in the end. That didn’t stop it from hurting though. He always felt like a nobody in the band. Always felt he deserved the way he was treated; it took him years of self acceptance to notice the years of mental abuse he endured. Because he was the funny one, the carefree one, the blonde one, the Irish one, and never just Niall.
He forced himself out of that train of thoughts, this wasn’t about him, this was about them, about Liam, about Zayn, about Louis and about Harry. Nothing more.
The warm-ups turned into some kind of contest before they even finished it.
Harry tried a run and nailed it, of course, because he loved to show he could, Louis went in perfect with the harmonies, while Liam matched the piano’s tone so precisely Niall wanted to kiss his forehead for being the absolute gobshite he loved. Then Zayn’s high note came down so easily, like an apple falling into a basket. Niall smiled at the scenery, keeping his voice low and bassy, as he always did.
“Let’s get into Story, ” the coach said, palms together like he was praying for them politely.
Niall’s stomach gave a small pull. He knew this song alive and full—knew what it would do to the world, knew the way fans’ voices would hold it up and sing it back like a mirror that told the truth for once. Here it was just bone and breath, the bridge wobbling like a step they hadn’t trusted yet. Incomplete and ready to start existing.
The first try was ugly and honest and right. He took his guitar part and kept it obedient. He sang the low bit that makes the floor of the main harmony and watched them struggling with it, amusing him. He kept his mouth shut where he knew future he would have wanted to nudge, because today’s them needed to find it themselves or it’d never belong.
“Again,” the glass asked.
They did. The same join came loose. The coach stopped them with the soft hand of a man who knows boys hold together better when you don’t yank.
Liam slid down onto the sofa like his bones had opinions. He had the notebook out in that sneaky way of his, half-hidden under his thigh. He looked over at Niall, eyes asking before his mouth did. “Got a line. Might be rubbish, I don’t know.”
“Go on,” Niall said, and braced without showing it.
Liam sang it low, so it wouldn’t make a fool of itself. “She told me in the mornin’—” and Niall’s heart flinched at the way the vowels hit the old bruise on his heart, “—she don’t feel the same about us in her bones…” And then the line about the words that would be written on his stone settled in the air, making him shiver, hating the softness of it.
Niall had to put the guitar closer to his chest as if it could protect him from the sudden pain. He then nodded like it was just a good idea and not a blade he’d walked into gratefully. “Yeah, sounds good, Li. It tides the first verse perfectly, mate.” he made himself say, then he started on his guitar again, he slid the melody, turned a corner in it so the fall after it wasn’t so far, just like he remembered.
Liam’s face clicked into that beautiful certainty he got when the maths made sense, and the two of them murmured it between them until it sat.
He stuck to Liam after that without meaning to. Sat where he sat, fetched what he fetched, watched his face the way you watch a road for black ice. Louis caught him once—raised his eyebrow for a joke—and then didn’t do it. He placed a hand flat on the sofa between them and made a different joke at his own expense, and Niall could’ve kissed him right there if he wasn’t that obsessed with the curly giant.
When they sang it with the others, the room changed its temperature. Harry left a breath where he usually bulldozed and Niall wanted to hug him for it and hit him for all the times he hadn’t. Louis’s voice went brave and straight and sweet and for once he didn’t look away from the feeling when it arrived. Zayn tied the roof on and even added his own ad-libs at the final chorus. The coach said “Yes, perfect, just one part left, lads!” like words you don’t waste, and Niall’s shoulders came down a centimetre.
Zayn and him were in charge of the bridge and as he saw Z struggling a little bit with the main melody, he started humming it to him. Then his damn perfect and talented friend catches it, tying both the rhythm and the soul to the lyrics.
“And I’ve been waiting for this time to come around,” soft voice making the song alive as it should be, “But, baby, running after you is like chasing the clouds,” he finished it, then, “Yeah, it’s definitely better this way, Nialler. Thanks, mate.” Niall shook his head and smiled at him softly as an answer.
And of course he knew what was next but he took his time to come up with it so it wouldn’t be obvious. After an hour he had all the chords ready, the e-flat major making his ears sooth and sang his part right after, thanking Liam and Julian for the lyrics.
“The story of my life, I take her home, I drive all night to keep her warm and time is frozen,” his voice went deeper and Julian said it sounded brilliant and Niall liked the little change he added without meaning to do it.
At some nothing o’clock Zayn’s shoulders crept up to his ears and he got quiet in that way, which means the edges of the room are touching his skin too much.
Niall didn’t make a scene about it. He tipped his head to the exit and said, “Smoke?” Zayn’s relief was the subtlest thing—an exhale turned into a nod. Outside the alley was a thin slice of sky and bin smell and freedom. Zayn cupped the flame, took the first drag, let it happen, and Niall leaned against the cold metal door because cold made the inside work better. They didn’t talk. They didn’t have to. After a minute Zayn said, “Thanks.” Niall said, “Any time.” The door thumped once like it was agreeing.
Inside, management appeared in the glass like bad weather and tried to talk them into something that would have eaten their voices. Paul stood in the door like a bouncer made of dad, and the suggestion evaporated under the light of his polite smile. Niall wanted to frame him.
He didn’t know what time it was when they stopped, just that the whiteboard had less ticks than before and the room had that tired good mood that meant you can go now and not feel like the world will end while you sleep. He made himself slow down the urge to run to Liam and count his breaths. Not every second had to be a crisis. He let himself fall in step with him instead, elbow to elbow, the way they’d walked through airports when the crowds wanted too much.
The van back was quieter. Zayn was dozing off, same as Liam. Louis seemed to have texted Eleanor something that made his mouth soften in the middle. And Harry reached over with two fingers and stole a crisp off Niall’s lap, the ones he stole from Paul, then he put it in his own mouth like he’d been dared. The crisp was stale and perfect.
The lobby was the same, because hotels are a spell you carry around with you. The woman at the desk had the exact face of a person who’d seen everything twice and wanted none of it, tired. Paul negotiated three lad-sized pizzas out of the air.
They built a nest in a room with a telly that lied about its size, watched a film Louis insisted was “proper cinema” and cried at for reasons he’d never admit. Liam laughed until he fell asleep again and Zayn drew a hawk on a hotel notepad in biro because he liked to make pretty things with terrible tools.
“Hey,” he said, getting closer to Zayn, trying to look at the drawing, and Z seemed a little reluctant to show it to him or to anyone, but he did it at the end, “That’s class, mate. Are you gonna sell it?” he teased making Zayn snort.
“Don’t think anyone would want that, Ni.” he hated when Zayn wasn’t confident of himself and his talented side, he hated every damn comment that left him feeling like that.
“Oh, Z. You’ll be surprised, believe me.”
Then Harry’s foot found Niall’s under the table and stayed there until Niall moved because he had to breathe without help for a bit.
Later, the shower steamed his head into cooperation. He stood at the fogged mirror and watched the younger face appear and vanish and appear, and when he touched the red thread it warmed like a living thing. He whispered, because he was alone and because he was embarrassed of himself even here, “I see yeh. I mean no harm.” It didn’t feel stupid. It felt like manners.
The knock came soft, the pattern hitting him in the ribs before it hit his ears.
“Nialler,” Harry said, voice a small thing the door made smaller.
Niall opened. Harry stood there in his cardigan like he’d nicked it off a gentle old man, hair damp, toes bare, face open in a way only he’d be daft enough to walk around with. “Can I—?”
“Yeah,” Niall said, and stepped back.
“It’s really late, I didn’t even notice, ” Harry said.
“I know.” Niall stood in the middle of the room with him, two boys and a whole unspeakable decade in every inch they didn’t close and decided to stop going around the bush. “We can’t do… that. Not while yer—” He refused the name. Taylor didn’t deserve to be a stick to beat anyone with. “Not like this.”
Harry was caught off guard but then nodded like someone being scolded and blessed at the same time. “Can I just stay then? Just to sleep. Promise.”
Niall looked at the bed and sighed for his own heart, which had always been the softest idiot in the room. “Aye. But no touchin’.” He ruined his own law by smiling.
Harry’s grin came like the sun through a cloud.
“Maybe just one, though, right? You know I can’t sleep without your goodnight kiss, Ni.” he said, making Niall slap his shoulder teasingly because he was no saint either, and then he was quiet, for once, and they lay on their backs with a hand’s width of air between their shoulders.
When Harry’s hand turned palm-up between them and stayed there like an invitation, Niall stared at it until his chest stopped trying to climb out his throat. He set his fingers in it, interlocking them. The breath he didn’t know he’d been holding went out. His hands drowned between Harry’s big ass ones, that weirdly calmed him and his running heartbeat.
After almost an hour, Harry slept like a stone dropped in deep water. Niall didn’t, not yet.
He pressed his thumb to the thread and let himself make a list because lists were the only prayers he trusted: keep Liam far away from parties and from drugs; make excuses for Zayn that didn’t feel like running away; laugh at Louis’s worst jokes first so he doesn’t have to use them like armour; teach Harry the difference between wanting and taking, and teach himself the difference between loving and drowning. Bricks in the day, not speeches. Small things. The land likes small things. His mam would say. He promised himself to call her the next day, assuming he will still be there.
He closed his eyes on the shape of Liam’s voice when he said the stone line, the stupid, holy weight of Harry’s hand in his, the hawthorn, that appeared out of nowhere in the parking of the hotel, that would not be moved just because the weather felt like being clever. Morning would come. He’d meet it. He slept and didn’t lose anything when he did.