Stand By Me

Chapter One

Niall wakes up to a brutal strong grip hauling him from his bed by his ankles in a way that is far too familiar. He's wide awake before he even hits the floor, pain flaring in his left hip when it makes impact with the wood, arms instinctively curling around his head to protect it, heart racing so fast in his chest that he can feel its echo throughout his entire body.

"- have to wake you up one more fucking time!" Paul is yelling already and he swallows down the lump in his throat; a mixture of tired panic and nausea at the sudden awakening; scrambling to sit up on the floor with his blanket still twisted around his torso uncomfortably, eyes squinting as they adjust to the daylight seeping in through the half-drawn curtains.

Paul sneers at him, crossing the room and yanking his school blazer off of its hanger with enough force that the plastic of the clothes peg snaps before he throws the material at him hard enough that the sleeve whips the underside of his chin painfully. He barely flinches, watching the tall man as he turns to glare at him, dark eyes narrowed and filled with hatred, dark hair shaven into a buzz cut that only enhances his broad, furrowed features; thick, dark brows, wide-set lips, flared nostrils, a scar nicked across his left cheek bone from long before he married Niall's mother and become Niall's step-father two years ago.

"You're a useless piece of shit, you know that? Can't even get up for fucking school on time? Useless!" He roars, and Niall winces, nodding and trying to placate the man, who only picks up the broken piece of clothes hanger left hanging on the back of his closet door and hurls that at him too, Niall barely ducking in time for the sharp plastic to narrowly avoid hitting his face. "Say it! Tell me what you are!" Paul demands.

Niall swallows the lump in his throat and takes a shuddering breath, opening his mouth twice before his voice finally decides to make an appearance, trembling and quiet. "Useless. I'm - I'm useless," he whispers, and Paul huffs, glare remaining in place as he turns to leave the room, muttering under his breath.

"Stupid fucking kids thinking they can sleep in, worthless little..." his voice trails off as he steps out into the hall, then slams the door so hard that it feels as though the entire room shakes.

Niall blinks a few times, staring at the closed door for a moment before he takes a shallow breath, pushes the blazer off of himself and clambers up onto shaking legs that feel not an ounce stronger than jelly. He focuses on remaining calm and blinking away the tears burning at the back of his eyes as he untangles the thin blanket from around himself and lays it over his bed, straightening out his pillow and scooping up the fragments of sharp plastic from his bedroom floor with fumbling fingers, brushing them from his palm into the bin, taking a moment to try and clear the returning tiredness from his head.

He hadn't fallen asleep until maybe three AM, and a glance at the screen of his phone tells him that it's barely six now — he isn't even close to being late, and the whole reason he hadn't gone to sleep at a reasonable time to begin with is because Paul and his mother had been arguing again about some woman that his stepfather works with. He can't fall asleep when they're yelling at each other, not until he knows that Paul isn't going to hurt his Mum. He hasn't done it before, the man takes all of his physical frustrations out on the twelve year old, but he doesn't trust him enough to never hurt the woman.

With the first steady breath of the morning, he sets his phone back down on the bedside table, screen downwards, then sets about undressing from his pyjamas and into his school uniform. It's only the second week of him being in year eight, and Paul has already woken him like this four times in twice as many days — hell, the man had even done it a bunch of times throughout the summer holidays, calling him lazy and worthless if he slept so much as five minutes past eight; meanwhile, he knows his friends (or just friend, really) hadn't been waking up until gone midday because it was summer and that was like, the whole point.