Just Another Prank (A One Direction/Larry Stylinson Fan Fic)

Chapter Twenty Two pt. 2

Y'all, i am really sorry about making Piper the punching bag of the story. And if you didnt figure that out or actually liked what i did with that, then just forget what i just said :)

That building, that shitty building with terrible air conditioning that only works in the winter, and the shoebox sized rooms, and the extremely expensive rent, and the really dangerous alleys that surround it, and that is filled with drunks and complete dopes, is on fire. Eighteen years I have lived in that hell-hole, and you’d think that I’d be happy to see it go—but I wasn’t. Even though it sucked, it was still my home. And it was burning to the ground.

            I had been able to hold myself together over the past couple of days. Through finding out that my best friend had died, getting injured, learning that Jess had died by the hand of my mother’s killer, and not being able to sing my heart out in my own home town, I had managed not to turn into a pile of tears, making explanations that no one could understand. So you would think that something as small as a burning building wouldn’t cause me so much trouble. But everyone has that one thing that sets them over the edge, and seeing this made me realize that I couldn’t handle all of it.

            So I broke.

            A single tear rolled down my cheek as I watched the flames reach up and touch the dark sky. That seemed to be an invitation for more to come along. Soon, my cheeks were soaked and I could taste the saltiness in my mouth. I lowered my head, absolutely refusing for any of them to see me like this.

            My body wracked with sobs and I put my face in my hands. Oh lord, could I be any more of a wuss? 

            “Shh, Piper it’s okay.” Niall’s voice came to me as a whisper.

            No! I wanted to say to him. It’s absolutely not okay! Don’t you get it? And then it dawned on me, the one thing that I never wanted to know: I have absolutely nothing now.

Niall

            I looked on, feeling helpless, as Piper slowly began to break down. Never have I felt so powerless. Here she was, right next to me, ignoring any of my efforts to calm her down or get through to her. Nothing worked.

            “Shh, Piper it’s okay.” I rubbed circles onto her back and whispered into her ear. When even that failed, I just nodded to Louis. He understood and started driving back to the bus.

            Louis stopped the car and looked back at me expectantly. I knew what he wanted: he wanted to know how the hell I was going to cheer her up after this. And quite frankly, I had no freaking idea.

            Piper slowly lifted her head, her cheeks stained with tears and the skin around her eyes swollen. Yet, her face held no traces of sadness or despair, or any emotion, really. It was as stoic as it was earlier today when we had come back to apologize to her.

            “Hey,” I cooed, and was even brave enough to rub her arm, “are you alright?” Dumbass move, Niall. Of course she’s not! She just saw her house burning down, just to top off her crappy two day visit back home!

            Surprisingly, though, she nodded. “I think so. I’ll feel better the farther away we get from here.” There was so much pain in her voice and eyes that I had to use all of the will power I could muster to keep from “Oh, honey!”-ing her.

            “Okay, let’s get going then.” Liam ushered us all out of the car and onto the bus. Once on, Piper stopped and sat down on the couch instead of going to her bunk like the rest of us.

            “Aren’t you going to bed?” I asked once the others were all in their appropriate places.

            She shook her head at me. “I don’t want to be kept up again by images that I’d rather not see.” And just like that, she seemed to have moved on and was picking a random magazine that had been littered onto the bus floor.

            “What do you mean, again?” I pressed on. I had moved from my spot outside my bunk and joined her in the couch, trying to look past the brave face she was putting on.

            “Well, since you and Zayn decided to beat each other, I haven’t slept all that well.” She gave up on the magazine and was talking directly to me this time.

            “Why not?”

            “Well,” she sighed, “one night I’ll have a nightmare about my mom, and then the next night I’ll have a weird dream about one of you guys. It’s really strange, but I’ll end up sleeping around four or five hours every night. Last night was the worst, though.”

            “What happened?” I took one of her hands and looked her straight in her chocolate brown eyes.

            “I had a dream that you wanted nothing to do with me anymore, so you dumped me and got the rest of the guys to hate me, leaving me with no one and nothing in my life anymore.” She looked down. I could barely see the glint of a tear rolling down her cheek, but it was there.

            “Piper.” I lifted her chin so that she was looking me in the eyes. I nearly broke down at the scared look that dominated her tear-filled eyes, but I ignored that feeling and continued on. “I would never, in a million years, think about leaving you. And I don’t think anything could make the lads hate you. You are a sweet, funny, intelligent, and beautiful girl who still continues to surprise us. Now, please don’t you ever for a second get to thinking that you are anything less than that, because you aren’t. And do you realize that when we found you in the hall after you had gotten terribly injured, we were all in tears because we thought that we were going to lose you?” She shook her head. “Even before that had happened, the thought of anything happening to you nearly brought me to tears. And I know that this is going to sound extremely corny, but you light up my world like nobody else.” She giggled softly at the song reference. “I have never met anyone with such passion and strength, someone who knows what it’s like to work for what you need, and that is just one of the many things that I admire about you. And it’s something we all admire about you. Piper, we love you. I love you. Please don’t let anything convince you otherwise.”

            I wiped away a stray tear with my thumb and looked deep into her eyes, watching every trace of fear recede from her beautiful brown eyes. And just to prove my point, I leaned in and pressed my lips to hers.