Papa's Soldiers

Twenty Six

It's February 10th, meaning there's four days before Valentine's day. Niall knows that because his entire school is buzzing about who will send candy grams to who and whose Valentine is whose. And it's not that Niall has ever hated the day but he hasn't looked forward to it ever since his classes stopped handing out candy all together like they did at primary.

And he has a couple of friends that rides the bus with him that he knows from all the times he's been around the neighborhood but other than that, he doesn't have actual friends to actually send candy grams to.

Well, actually, he might have one.

Since walking Melissa home, Niall has been seeing her more around school and he thinks he likes her? He's not sure. He's never had a proper crush on anyone except for Emma Watson. But even then, he's never had these butterflies that he feels for Melissa.

He comes home from school today and sighs, plopping down on the couch. He sits there for a second and then becomes frustrated.

"Where's Papa?" he mutters to himself, getting up and walking up the stairs. He goes to the master bedroom and knocks on the door. When he hears his father tell him to come in, he pushes the door open and smiles at his father. "Did I wake you?"

"No, no. Come in and cuddle with me. My feet are cold," Zayn mumbles. The blonde climbs into bed and lets his father rest his feet on his ankles. He shivers for a second then scoots closer so he can smell his father's scent. "So, did you need something?" Zayn asks, looking down at the young boy.

Niall takes a deep breath before saying, "How do you talk to a girl?"

Zayn's face drains with color. He didn't expect his baby to want to talk to girls so young. Oh, no, no, no. This won't do. Niall is his baby and just yesterday he needed Zayn to still tie his shoes and clean his boogers. Nope. His baby is not asking him this right now.

Zayn must've looked like some sort of fish out of water with the way his mouth opened and closed repeatedly. He really doesn't want to have this talk but as he looked at his son, he realized that it was bound to happen sooner or later. So, he takes a deep breath and composes himself.

"You want to talk to a girl?" Zayn asks in a tight voice. "Who?"

"Uh, Melissa. She's Eleanor's sister." And yeah, Zayn recalls the young girl bounding around his house and teaching Louis how to dress. She used to "babysit" (Louis will refuse to recognize it as babysitting as he was 13 when she used to come over, but to Zayn, it was babysitting) his sons when they were in middle school. "I-I think she's pretty."

"Why don't you tell her that?" Zayn raises an eyebrow.

Niall sputters, not believing his father could ask such an outrageous question. "Because I don't want her to be like 'Oh, who is that nerd?' and then go off and make fun of me to her friends! Papa, she's a model! And I'm just...I'm just me," Niall says sadly.

Zayn scrunches his eyebrows together, "Hey, no. No talking like that. You're a very handsome young boy." Niall just shrugs and looks down at Zayn's shirt. The father presses his lips into a pout before saying, "Niall, I know this may not mean a lot coming from your father because you might think I have to say this, but really, from the bottom of my heart, I can truly say that you are a beautiful boy with a big heart to match. You're so kind and understanding and if Melissa turns you down for that then she's mental. You hear me?"

Niall blushes his usual red and he's the color of Zayn's lip stick stained tattoo. "Thanks, Papa."

He looks at his son and he's actually terrified. What if one day his son comes home with a broken heart? It's not like Zayn knows how to fix one of those. Ten years later and he's still trying to sort out the pieces. He doesn't want his son to ever feel the pain that comes with heartache but he knows that he should let his son grow up and explore. Besides, Niall is in middle school so he probably still has a couple of years before his youngest son discovers what "love" really is and if he's lucky, it'll be whenever times aren't so messy like they are at the moment and hopefully Zayn will be ready to deal with his son's heartbreak. But he can't think so negatively. He knows his sons will all one day grow up and find someone to love and get married and he hopes that their marriages end up better than his did. He has to have faith. He just has to.