Sins & Sanctity

Chapter 4 - Flawed Slaves

In which Niall tries to solve his problems by getting involved in other peoples’ secrets ( and no, that doesn’t help at all ), Harry’s having a not-so-accidental accident and Niall realises that he’s not the angel the girl of his dreams sees him as- because he’s a flawed slave to his urges.

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Don’t you realize that those who do wrong will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Don’t fool yourselves. Those who indulge in sexual sin, or who worship idols, or commit adultery, or are male prostitutes, or practice homosexuality, or are thieves, or greedy people, or drunkards, or are abusive, or cheat people-none of these will inherit the Kingdom of God.

1 Corinthians 6: 9-11

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I was thankful for classes. Not in the way I used to, though. A year before, I’d been thankful for being able to go to this school and that was it. Thankful for the possibility to recieve such high levelled education. And I had done my best, I had always given all I got. But I sort of took it all easy. It was understood that I’d work hard. Classes had been my main priority.

Now, it was different.

The main reason I was relieved to have to get up early, study, study, study, eat, study more, wash myself then fall asleep within five minutes was that it was the only effective distraction from what had become my priority besides classes. An unwanted priority. I priority I wanted to get rid of. But how?

I didn’t know how to force myself to stop forcing myself. It was like an illness, like a tick in my neck, sucking my blood.

Whenever I’d allow my thoughts to drift, they ended up in the showers, with Liam. The clear image of his tense body was stuck in my head, or in the big, round, brown eyes of Goldie, so that I’d ask myself if I’d ever see her and look into these eyes again. And oh, how I wished I would. But I knew it was wrong. And that I’d be better off avoiding her.

Maths and English, history and geography class required a lot of time and effort. During the second week at school, I studied harder than ever before at Saint Nathaniel’s. In free periods, I revised in the library and I never procrastinated if it came to homework anyway.

By Thursday, I had two major problems:

Firstly, I had to somehow get hold of clean sheets.

Sister Therese would go for the usual inspection round on Saturday and I knew how neat and clean she expected our rooms to be. I knew that even if I’d keep the pillow on the stain and turn the blanket around, she would very, very likely, discover the mess I made. I felt so sorry about the chocolate and angry at myself, too. I had just wanted to keep it, keep my gift, I had been to stupid to consider it would eventually melt under my head.

And secondly, Harry. He was mad at me. Noticed that something was wrong, sensed that I was bugged but wouldn’t tell him why.

By Thursday, he said: “The exams are past us since last spring, why don’t you just sit back and relax a little bit?”

"I’m sorry.", I responded. "I just want to graduate with the best possible degrees."

"Niall, I admire your willpower, but if it’s going to be like that the whole year through, I won’t survive. I need you around.", he sighed and put his hand on my shoulder. "You seem so absent minded the whole time. What is it?"

"Nothing.", I lied. I couldn’t tell him about Liam. Or Goldie. I couldn’t even decide which was worse.

Technically, there was no reason to be ashamed of my encounter with Goldie. But what it had evoked in me was what made me feel not even slightly better than Liam. My sheets, still stained, the proof of my body’s mistake, felt like a prison around my body each night, an iron maiden made of cotton, a spider’s web around my limbs. And maybe it was foolish to blame the girl, but…Never before had I ever seen someone like her, never before had the image of a girl’s face haunted my dreams and nightmares, and she was so clear, as if she stood right there in front of me, as if I could reach out and touch her… And I wanted to touch her so badly.