Hiding in the Shadows

Questions

Niall read for about an hour before his mind started to wander elsewhere. He just didn't understand what was up with Louis. At first Niall thought that Louis just wanted to tag along because he was checking to see if Niall had meet the 'required standards' whatever those may be. As time progressed Niall just became irritated with Louis' presence. Being forced to take a bath was ludicrous and having Louis bath him was embarrassing and it only got worse when Louis dressed him as well. The spanking this morning had been the topper though; Niall had never been so humiliated. And just as an added bonus Louis had told Josh he wasn't going to be at band practice, now Niall had to deal with whatever punishment management cooked up, most likely something to do with Bradford.

Everything Louis had been doing this past day and a half made absolutely no sense to Niall. The only thing Niall was certain of was that he wanted to stay as far away from Louis as possible. With that thought in mind Niall peeked a look over the back of the couch to see what Louis was doing, when he saw that the man was thoroughly engaged in staring at a cellphone screen Niall smirked.

While Niall's childhood might not have been the most ideal it definitely proved to be very educational and Niall learned many things, 99% of which aren't exactly legal but that's beside the point. Another benefit was that while shoes were helpful they were not required. There were times when being invisible was useful.

Louis had spent the last hour looking over all the texts in Niall's phone. There were plenty from Josh, Sandy, Dan and Jon about band practices, meetings and music lessons. Louis hadn't known that Niall was, or apparently had been, taking music lessons, or that Niall participated in band meetings. Why was Niall participating in the band meetings? The practices were one thing, Niall played in the band but why the meetings? That was the first question on the list entitled 'Questions to ask Niall'.

Niall also had quite a few texts from different members of management about the basic one-direction duties as well as about band duties. It seemed as though management was rather obsessive about Niall attending everything he was supposed to be at. There were also texts from management that Louis had a hard time believing. Some of the texts were old and focused on Niall's braces and warned about receiving bad reviews from the dentist. Other texts were newer and focused on Niall's weight, body and image, at first Louis thought those would be about how Niall needed to gain weight and that he looked like a stick. Management was telling Niall that he was fat! Who would do that? No wonder Niall insisted on working out every morning. Another interesting thing that Louis saw was that management seemed fully aware of the fact that Niall was typically booked solid with very little time to rest, there appeared to be multiple days where Niall only had two to three hours of down time between band duties, one-direction duties, and workouts. Louis couldn't help but wonder why Niall had never said anything and why management seemed intent on running Niall into the ground? That was two more questions on the list.

There were also multiple texts from the security team. It seemed as though there was a fifty – fifty split between setting up combat training, because Niall apparently knew how to fight wonderful! (note sarcasm): to complaining that Niall had slipped security – again. That brought up a whole new issue for Louis. Niall knew how to slip security! How the hell had the boy learned to evade an entire security team multiple times? There were twenty people assigned just to Niall alone! How does one skinny little boy manage to get away from twenty people who were hired to do nothing but watch him!? That would be the fourth question on the list. Oh how the list was getting long.

The last person that Louis noted texted Niall often was... Bradford? Why the hell would Bradford be texting Niall? Why was Bradford allowed to text Niall?

Louis remembered Bradford well and he wasn't a fan of the man, none of the boys were. When they'd first been put together and it wasn't sure if they would succeed or not management had hired Bradford as a 'motivator' to 'encourage' the boys to do their best. The catch was that the boys were only sent to Bradford separately and only if they'd done something that management had considered a 'major error'. Louis had only been sent to the man once, that's all it had taken to decide that he'd never go to that man again.