Count On Me | Niam

Chapter Eighty-Six

Niall

There was one thing no one ever wanted you about when it came to pregnancy. Everyone liked to bitch on and on about stretch marks, sleep loss and back ache, but no one, no one, ever really straight up told you that you'd spend months feeling like shit.

It was like everyone just glossed over the period of time they'd spent puking every fucking day and feeling more run down than at any other point in their lives and lied through their teeth about it when they were asked, as though they were all part of some big conspiracy.

When he'd been pregnant with Chloe, it, like so many other things, had come as a surprise to him and he'd spent months feeling worse than he would ever have thought possible, clinging to Missy like she was a crutch, and he'd almost been relieved when he got to his third trimester and he began to feel somewhat human again, despite being the size of a fucking house. Even now, despite technically knowing what it had been like, he was still surprised when the waves of nausea hit, catching him at the worst moments and forcing him into an over familiarity with the bathroom floor and toilet bowl.

Liam, apparently, hadn't known about this, either. Until now, he'd been living under the false illusion that everything was fine and there would be no unpleasant effects and that lovely, rose tinted vision had been shattered when he'd stumbled out of bed to find Niall throwing up the remains of last night's dinner. To his credit, he had tried to be somewhat comforting, though when he'd tried that he either hadn't known or realised that this would be a common occurrence for weeks.

His naivety had surprised Niall just a little, as it wasn't the very first instance of morning sickness induced horror, but then again he too would like to forget about the morning when he hadn't quite made it to the bathroom and had been forced to turn to the kitchen sink instead. But still, naivety aside, Liam had at least tried to be somewhat comforting, and for that Niall was grateful.

That was actually how they'd ended up sat together on the bathroom floor at half past six on a Friday morning, not really that long before Liam's parents would arrive in London. And that was a prospect that made Niall feel more nauseous, simply because them being in London meant there was no avoiding telling them, no matter what his words to Liam on the matter had been.

But still. His parents had to know, even if it. Was. A. Fucking. Lot. To take in. They couldn't not tell them; it wasn't fair not to tell them, not now that they were supposedly part of each other's lives.

It was with the ever helpful reminder that they had less than four hours before Liam's parents descended on them that Niall hauled himself up from the floor, willing himself not to puke again, and turning down a mug of coffee in favour of cleaning his teeth. There was a minor exchange between him and Liam -- and that's all it was, most definitely not an argument because there was no way in hell that they were actually arguing over whether Niall ate breakfast or not -- which ended with Niall getting his own way, leaving Liam to get Chloe fed and dressed as he avoided anything that might make him puke.

He was left listening in every so often to the sounds of Liam and Chloe laughing to the radio and burning toast, along with a half-hearted explanation on Liam's part as to why Niall wasn't joining them. The sounds of that discussion left Niall briefly reconsidering his stance on their 'waiting to tell Chloe' deal but picturing how that might go left him hesitating.

Hiding forever wasn't an option, though, and he eventually appeared, helping Chloe with her hair and listing to her chatter on about the things she wanted to do while Liam's parents were up.

"Can we go that cafe, the one you and Papa took me to? The one where they do those awesome pancakes? And Papa said we might go shopping or something, if so, can we go to Build A Bear? And, and Disney Store. Jessica said they had new Star Wars toys in and I wanna go see."