The Gifts -Narry & Ziam- (AU) *Completed*

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

The room Niall was lead into was maybe ten by ten, extremely small, with a table in the middle. It was metal, and had a metal chair pushed under it, and Niall was pushed forward. He stumbled, tripping, and slammed his eye against the corner of the table, and falling onto his stomach with a loud oof.

“Get up! Get up!” The man shouted, and Niall got onto his knees, breathing heavily and feeling his wound with gentle fingers, and when he looked at them again they were slicked with blood. He opened his mouth to snap a wise crack, but someone was fisting the material at the back of his shirt, yanking him up to his feet. He watched hands pull back the chair, and he was forced into it. He sat down so hard the chair made a thumping noise on the tiled ground. Someone grabbed his neck, forcing him to look down at the table.

It was covered in puzzle pieces. “Pentominoes,” Niall whispered, picking up one of the pieces and feeling it between his fingers, “The twelve set Latin based puzzle game where every piece represents a letter of the alphabet,” He scanned them again, cracking a smile as wide as his face, his eyes looking inhuman in the light, “The point is to use as many pieces as you can to make rectangles or squares.” Niall recognized these, he did these in his gifted class last month. 37 days ago it took him two and three quarters of a minute to solve it, to click all twelve pieces in a long rectangle.

But, today, he stared at the pieces for only seconds. Thirteen, to be exact, before he recalled the formula and clipped all of the individual pieces into the finished rectangle. In then someone’s hand was yanking him out of the chair, and screaming right in his ear, “You’re a freak!” In then he was yanking Niall out into the dim hallway, and several men were there, all yelling at him, calling him names, screaming obscenities, kicking him in the stomach. Niall could do nothing but curl in on himself and listen to the words that might be the last he ever hears.

~….~

“So you can just like, leap off bridges and snap out your wings?” Louis asked, his eyes sparkling and his hands pressing into his knee caps. Zayn nodded, a little annoyed with all the attention his wing set was producing. It’s like they’d never seen a kid with wings be-, oh wait, they haven’t. “That’ so cool, I can pop basketball’s with my hands and you have wings,” He points hysterically at Liam, “And you like, read minds and stuff? Gosh, my power is so lame!” Louis brushed some of his matted brown hair out of his eyes and scanned the room.

They finally landed on Harry, who was sitting, legs crossed, with his forehead pressed against the section of the wall that made up the door. Louis leaned in, his knees almost touching Liam’s, and lowered his excited voice to a coarse whisper, “And him, what does he do?”

Zayn opened his mouth to answer, to tell him about Harry’s abilities, but the padded area where Harry sat creaked and groaned and Niall came stumbling in. He was still barefoot, but there was blood dotting the collar of his onesie, and staining the right cuff of his sleeve. His nose was purple and tilted slightly to the right, and both of his eyes were rimmed black and blue, and he had a trail of blood coming from the right corner of his mouth.

Harry scrambled to his feet, grabbing the cloth that covers Niall’s back and forcing him in, just in time for the door to click shut. Niall tried to force a smile, but his front two teeth were covered in blood and his bottom lip was split, along with his left eyebrow. Niall closed his eyes for a second, leaning heavily on  Harry, letting his feet drag like bricks on the floor.

“Oh god, oh god Niall, what did they do?” His voice shrank away as he sank to his knees, letting Niall drape across him, his head in his lip. “What did they do to you?” Niall was quivering in Harry’s arms, shaking so bad he had to close his eyes, curling in and pressing his face into the younger boys stomach.

“Oh no, Niall, are you alright?” And that seemed like a dumb question to ask because of course he’s not alright, he’s bruised and bloody and traumatized. Niall just whimpers in response, and finds Harry’s hands and squeezes them pathetically in his own, his tears wetting Harry’s jumper. “It’s going to be okay, we’re going to be alright,” Harry whispered softly, brushing Niall’s hair out of his eyes.

“Ace, look me in the eyes,” And Harry found his heart pounding in his chest, the blood running like ice water through his veins, “I want to show you something.” And Harry didn’t understand, and so Niall put a hand on both of his cheeks and hooked his thumbs around the younger boys ears. Niall forced Harry’s green eyes to meet his blue ones.

~..~

“Trash, is what you are! Filth! Vermin,” A man growled, teetering on his feet drunkenly, coming dangerously close to toppling completely over, “It shoulda been you, not your mother! You’re worth nothing to me!” The man looked down upon a small child, he had brown hair and eyes that were much too big for his small, long face. The child looked to be about five, and he was short for his age, wearing a button up and some straight legged pants. He looked sickly, with too pale skin and hollowed out cheeks.

“Poppa, your drunk,” The young boy said, putting one of his small hands on his father’s bulging arm, “Go lie down now, you here? I’ll bring up a glass of water and something for your head.” The man swings carelessly, catching the young boy on his right temple, throwing off his balance and sending him sprawling on the floor.

He rolled to the right, bringing up his hands in a defensive position, fingers splayed, exposing palm, venerable palms, “Please, poppa, don’t hit me again. Please, they’re going to put you in jail poppa, and then what will you do? You must hit me where the bruises won’t show,” And so the child puffed out his chest and let his father’s fist come in contact three times, before the man stumbled backwards and collapsed on the stairs. The boy climbed over his father and up the remaining stairs.

--

“Look at him, he’s a freak!” The boy in the football uniform said, pushing the blue eyed boy with newly bleached hair into a set of lockers, “He’s a faggot!”

~…~

The images flashed in Harry’s’ mind faster and faster, an endless picture show of Niall’s life, and when it was all over, ending with him beaten in the hallway outside of the room, Harry closed his arms around Niall’s small body and cried into his neck.