Downfall [Punk Niall Horan]

31

Have you ever gotten that feeling?

The feeling that someone is watching you, even if you can't see that someone. Even if you were asleep like I was now, but could feel the presence of someone hovering above you?

After the party last night, we had all passed out somewhere in the master bedroom. We were all scattered about the room, sleeping soundly. I just happened to fall asleep on the floor, cuddling the guitar I had been playing all night for our group. As I was getting pulled to the surface, I could feel the dull throbbing already started to pound in my back. Along we the familiar feeling of someone watching me.

Slowly, I brought myself to sit upright, wincing as pain shot through every fiber of my being. It was a bad decision to fall asleep on the hard, cold floor. Pounding rang through my skull, and I placed a hand tentatively on my forehead. I needed an aspirin asap.

My eyes scanned the sleeping bodies around me lying scattered in the floor. Well, everyone except the culprit of my watchful feeling. Eyes widening, I scuttled back into the floorboard of the bed, horrified.

Ashton sat there, crisscrossed, with a huge smile on his face holding what seemed to be a dog/bunny stuffed animal. After a minute of trying to calm my erratic breathing from being scared half to death, I gulped hard. "Ash," I sputtered, "What- what the hell are you doing up?"

Light chuckles started to fall from his parted lips as he clenched the hybrid animal closer to him, and fell on his back in a fit of giggles. He rocked back up to face me, wiping the happy tears that had formed in his eyes. "I was just waiting to scare the first person who woke up," he laughed, and fell back again.

A smile broke out on my face as I joined him, being careful not to awake anyone. "Mission accomplished," I whispered mischievously, sending him a victorious wink. We laughed and he looked back down at the toy.  "This thing is pretty freaky, isn't it?" Ash mused aloud, stroking it a bit.

I laughed unevenly and nodded my head, "It scared the crap out of me. What is it, anyways?" He cast his eyes back down to it again and furrowed his eyebrows, just now realizing how weird the stuffed toy was. "I have no fucking idea," he laughed and threw it across the room into the corner. It hit the pile of broken pieces from something Niall and I had broken last night.

"So, what was up with boss man last night," he asked, tilting his head towards Niall. Niall lay sprawled out on the bed, alone. A scowl was still present on his face, and I didn't believe he was asleep at all. In fact, I don't remember him falling asleep last night at all, just turning away from everyone and not uttering a word.

"Dunno. I probably did something wrong. Again," I proclaimed, rolling my eyes at the ridiculous answer. Yes, he was mad at me because I did do something wrong. But we worked that out. So I actually had no idea why he was mad now, and it was quite pointless that he passed up a night full of fun.

Ashton completely knocked me out of my own thoughts when he asked me a simple question, his voice eerily calm. "Do you love him?" Ashton asked suddenly. I faltered for a second, and blinked my eyes slowly. Did I just hear him correctly? Ashton was very good at picking up on people's feelings, but this blew my mind.

Only myself had figured it out last night that I did, in fact, love Niall. There was still the fact that I would never admit it to anyone, or to Niall for that matter. I had to save myself as much as I could.

"What?" I asked stupidly, pretending I didn't know what he was asking me. Ashton rolled his eyes and stared back at me, "You heard me." My veins started to warm and I nervously looked back up to the man sleeping on the bed. I didn't know if he was awake or not, but something in me felt like he was.