✓ wings -narry au-

1

That's me in the corner. That's me in the spotlight losing my religion. Trying to get rid of you.

the treehouse

He was staring at the walls of his treehouse when it happened.

Niall, six years old, was looking at the walls when the lights he hadn't seen before turned on. That was when he turned toward the entrance and squinted over them to see a little boy. He wore wings on his back that seemed to make him look really bright. He was too confident for a little boy, but he'd have been lying if he said he wasn't the least bit intimidated.

The other boy looked confused, hair (that was longer than his) curled around his soft jaw which held a small smear of mud. Niall was sure he was going to get it- he didn't know what he was going to get-, but he knew he was in for something that would force him to apologize.

He was forced to do that all the time.

"What are you doing here with no lights on?" The boy asked.

"How'd you turn them all on?"

"Ta chéria," he annunciated gently. Niall's eyebrows lifted. The boy put up his hands and blinked. "English only?"

"Gaelic and English."

"Hands," the boy said slowly. He had green eyes that looked like they were glowing. He wondered if it was the effect of all the lights around them. "Turned them on with my hands."

"Who are you?" Niall paused a little, small hand clasped around the wooden sword he was holding for a while now. He didn't have many friends, so he thought maybe this kid would be his favorite person (other than his mother, of course. His mother always came first).

"Harry Ara Styles," he answered. He had a pretty mark upon his chest in the shape of a small star. It was bright and delicately inscribed into his skin like a tattoo. "Niall, right?"

He took a step back. "No," he lied.

"No?" Harry asked quietly, picking up a hand and touching one of his wings. His arm was too small to touch the tip and as he turned, Niall could see the strings that went around his shoulders to keep the fake wings on his back. "Do you have other people living inside of your head? Because one of you are named Niall."

"How would you know?" He spat half heartedly, mainly because he was shocked and scared that a stranger knew his name.

"I used to have a friend," Harry skipped over the question. "He was just like you actually, but his name was Seth and he was really funny. We used to play a lot of games. Do you want to play a game?"

Niall dropped the sword. He tried to think about it, really did, and he was taught to stay away from strangers; was doing so well at holding a skeptical front toward this little boy, but he had toy wings that Niall pictured himself wearing, and he said he knew games. He shrugged, "okay."

That was when Harry charged at him with his hands outstretched. Niall stepped back and picked up the miniature sword, imagining it to be the strongest of metals as he brought it forward toward his enemy: The Demon, he thought up a name. The demon whose eyes bled death and whose teeth were filled with venom. Niall suddenly became a demon hunter in his thoughts; one that had lost no battle, and as Harry turned as gently as a cat, he thought this was going to be his biggest battle yet. The Cat Demon.

Harry laughed and turned on the tips of his toes, his wings brushing one of the walls. The feathers seemed unfazed and as Niall was admiring them, the boy lunged forward and knocked him to the ground.

"Hey!" Niall interjected. "That's cheating."

"No it wasn't."

They laid there for a minute or two with their legs tangled. Niall's head was sitting on the soft feathers of Harry's right wing. "Do you like airplanes?"

"Air planes?"

He could hear the confusion in his new friend's words. "Don't know what they are?"

After Harry shook his head slowly, Niall grinned a little and stumbled to his feet before closing his eyes a bit so the lights weren't very blinding.

He spread out his arms like that of a plane's, and sent a wide smile toward the boy on the floor. With a trick of the eye, he believed he saw Harry's left wing move a little.

He pressed his lips together and blew air out from his teeth; imitating the sound of a plane's engine. He started running around the expanse of the small room, avoiding the large opening that was meant to be a door.

He glanced at Harry and motioned for him to come along, his small legs trying to go as fast as they could go. The green eyed boy got to his feet slowly but there was excitement burning in his eyes as he let out his arms and followed Niall, running around the treehouse and spitting 'vroom' from their mouths.

Niall paused to look at Harry when he stepped too close to the opening on the side of the wooden house.

His small hand reached out to pull him back, and everything slowed around him like he was living a challenge. His fingers tried to reach his shoulder, and they were so, so close, but it wasn't enough.

He would have grabbed nothing if it weren't for the thin straps of his feathered wings.

Niall pulled him back with strength he didn't know he had. "Whoa," he breathed when Harry fell back onto the wooden floor. He stood over him with a frown and hard eyes. "Why'd you do that?"

"I didn't know," Harry answered slowly, his smile disappearing. One of the wings were bent. Niall thought it was some kind of metaphor for how he felt, and the one beside it might have been a metaphor for how proper Harry was. "Are you mad at me?"

He crossed his arms. "No," he lied a little, fighting against the roll of his eyes. He let it through but did it discretely.

"Hey," the little boy on the floor frowned. He stumbled to his feet and his eyebrows furrowed. "Do you want the extensions? They kind of hurt."

Niall wanted to break the other wing to make it even, but Harry looked almost upset and it didn't make him feel very well, so he just breathed out silently. "They're called wings, Harry."

"That's not what Gabriel calls them."

"Who's Gabriel?"

"Friend," Harry hummed. "You guys could meet if he ever comes down. He doesn't like it down here."

Niall was prepared to ask so many questions because he was so confused because Who's Gabriel and what does he mean by down here?, but Harry's eyes watered. "What's wrong?"

"Back hurts," he winced. "Extensions hurt me, Niall. Extensions hurt bad, are they broken? Alexander knows how to fix them, but he's still gonna be mad at me."

"Take them off."

Harry shook his head and Niall realized with much horror that he was bleeding. Just above his shoulder blade and under the broken wing was a nasty cut that made his eyes go wide. "We gotta get out and go to my mom. She's-"

"I need to see Alexander," he mumbled. "He can help me. Can't talk to strangers like you. My dad said so."

"My mom's a doctor."

Harry shook his head and walked to the entrance. "I need to go."

"Harry-"

"I'll come back soon."