Never • Say • Never § a Niam Horayne collab fanfic [AU]

Chapter Twenty-Five - Naptime for Nialler

(written by MrsNiallHoran :3)

-- Niall's POV --

Zayn scowled at me. "You didn't pick up your phone last night. I called your cell twice! And when I called your house your mum said she hadn't seen you since yesterday morning."

I shrugged simply. He knew about my difficult family life. It was easy for me to say I didn't go home last night and not have him question me because I often times didn't go home. Lots of times, I stayed with him. "Didn't go home. Phone was dead."

"Oh." he replied with a short nod. He then glanced over towards where Liam and Louis stood and snorted. "I don't know why Lou hangs out with that loser."

I rolled my eyes in fake disgust. "Yeah, Payne definitely isn't the best company." I lied, my voice a growl full of false hatred. Liam was great company, actually. I felt like he was the only person that really understood me. But Zayn couldn't know that. "I gotta go talk to him. Bring him to our side." I said, before waving him off and walking over to Louis and Liam. "Meet me in the courtyard. Five minutes. Both of you." I muttered under my breath. They both nodded, Liam glaring at me in fake hatred to keep up the charade, and I left.

I sat on the grass in the empty courtyard. Classes had just started so nobody was outside. A few moments later, Liam and Louis joined me. We stood in the coverage of a cluster of bushes, where no one could see us.

Louis squealed girlishly as soon as we were all alone. "I can't believe you guys ran away together! It's like Romeo and Juliet - forbidden love."

My eyes widened slightly. "Who said anything about love?" I hissed quickly. Me and Liam? In... Love? No way! Things fell silent and Liam cleared his throat awkwardly.

"Okay, so it's more like forbidden friendship." Louis corrected, shrugging casually. "But I totally knew you'd make up eventually. You guys were so close before that I knew it couldn't be completely over."

Liam just smiled that sweet, warm smile of his. It was so infectious that it made me smile, too. "Yeah. I had always secretly hoped to be friends again. Some part of me wanted to, but I hadn't seen it until now."

"Soooo," Lou began with a wide grin, "How'd it happen?"

"Well, we got paired together for a project and started getting along and just sort of realized that it's stupid for us to be fighting for so long. Neither of us wanted to go back home, so I suggested we go get a hotel room and stay there." I explained, purposely leaving out a lot of the details. Lou didn't know about my family problems or my self-harm, and he didn't need to know. He also didn't need to know about Liam's father or about me pulling a gun on him. It was best to just tell him the bare minimum.

"Well that's great! Are you going to tell Zayn and Harry any time?"

Liam and I looked at each other. He shrugged and spoke. "Eventually, ye--"

"No." I interrupted harshly. When Liam glanced at me now, he looked almost hurt. "We aren't telling them. They wouldn't understand. You only do, Louis, because you're friends with both of us. Zayn hates Harry and Liam, and Harry hates me and Zayn. It wouldn't work."

"But we have to tell them eventually, right? I don't want to hide it." Liam persisted. I shook my head firmly.

"We're not telling them. End of story."

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Classes throughout the day were boring, and now that I was pretending to hate Liam and not actually hating him, I realized just how tiring it was to constantly argue and fight with him. By the time we got to Social class and went into another room, just the two of us, to work on our project, I was emotionally drained from pretending all day, not to mention physically tired.

I plopped down beside Liam on the floor in the small, secluded room. I let out a big, tired sigh and leaned against him, dropping my head onto his shoulder. He chuckled and playfully patted my head.

"Tired?" he asked. I just nodded, nuzzling my head into the crook of his neck. "I need your help with this, though."

I groaned, pressing my forehead to the side of his neck and closing my eyes. "But I'm tiiiiirrreeeddd." I whined.

He chuckled again. "Fine. Take a little nap and I'll wake you up when it's time to go." he said. One of his arms draped around my shoulders, pulling me closer. I gladly snuggled up closer to his warmth and comfort, wrapping my arms around his stomach. He shivered slightly and I guessed it was because of my breath on his neck.

I drifted out of consciousness and fell into a fairly deep sleep.