Count On Me | Niam

Chapter Forty-One

Niall/Liam

"Two months."

Niall's voice was quiet, eerily so, as he spoke, making a point of looking away from Liam, looking anywhere but at him as he went on to say, "You leave for tour in two months."

Liam didn't seem to react, didn't say anything at that, the look on his face becoming briefly apologetic before flickering back to the same questioning frown. Niall didn't notice the change in Liam's expression, turning back to look at him expectantly before he shrugged, turning his back to Liam once again. "Why didn't you tell me? Were you even going to tell me?"

Niall didn't say anything after that, didn't continue to ask questions, didn't even look at Liam as he ran a hand through his hair, biting his lip as he glanced out to the hallway where Chloe could be heard, the seven-year-old giggling as she played with Loki, swearing quietly under his breath before he said, "I can't do this right now."

And, at that moment, Niall didn't want to be there, couldn't be there, not for another minute. Maybe because he was over tired, over caffeinated, but causing a scene, shouting and swearing at Liam until he was blue in the face, didn't seem nearly as appealing as it had a couple of hours ago. Now, though, he didn't want to be there, didn't want to have to listen to Liam as he came up with some bullshit reason as to why he'd failed to mention that he was leaving in two months.

Maybe, maybe it was because he hadn't slept in nearly twenty-four hours, and he felt like he was drowning, having spent the day with people who's lives were a world away from him and the shitty ex-council estate in Brixton he called home, drowning and in over his head, not knowing what to do with the information that Liam was leaving, leaving, leaving, and hadn't felt the need to tell him. Maybe it was all of the above that was the reason he didn't want to be there anymore, that he wanted nothing more than to go home, get Chloe sorted with dinner and distracted with a DVD and curl up on his bed and sleep and cry and do whatever it was that would make him feel like a normal human being and would make the latest Liam related revelation seem like a bad dream.

Whatever it was, it made Niall feel like the rug had been pulled out from under him, like all the oxygen had been sucked out of the room, like he just couldn't. Couldn't sit there and watch Liam whilst Liam never said a word to him, couldn't stay in that flat, that fucking massive flat with the million-pound view out over Central London, couldn't keep the past locked up behind them.

He couldn't do any of it at that moment, so he found his and Chloe's coats, grabbed Chloe's hand after letting her say goodbye to Loki, and they left, not looking behind them to see the frantic, apologetic, guilty look on Liam's face, not hearing him call out after them.

********

Liam had only just realised what Niall was doing when he'd grabbed Chloe's hand and was heading out of the front door.

Up until that point, he'd been silently trying to figure out a couple of things. Firstly, how the hell did Niall know that there was two months until Liam was supposed to leave, and secondly, was there really only two months until tour started? He'd thought of the tour as a far off event looming on the distant horizon, not so close that it was only two months until he would be gone.

He was still silently working through all that and he hadn't realised that Niall was about to leave until he'd gone. Which was great.

Fucking fantastic.

And, alright, he'd known from the first time he'd been told the opening dates of the tour that he would have to tell Niall at some point. But then he'd realised something; he didn't want to have to tell Niall about tour, he didn't want to have to think about the six, seven months he'd be spending on the road, away from them.