The Gifts -Narry & Ziam- (AU) *Completed*

Chapter 6: Day Two Late Evening

The room smells of salty tears, blood, and Niall’s dank urine, which is staining the front of his onesie. Because that’s what fear does, twists it’s fingers in your wounds.

If it had been anyone else it would’ve been understandable. But it was Niall, quirky, smirk-y, siren of a boy Niall with his stabbing comebacks and his too everything blue eyes. He flipped off danger, and looked his captors right in the eye. Niall Horan was not the withering boy on the ground, littered with his own blood and stinking of his own pee, his body blossoming with blue and swelling purples. That was not him, it just wasn’t.

But the eyes were the same. All knowing, and even as the final man wielded back and raised his fist, striking Niall in the nose, throwing his head back and making him slam it against the ground. A sickening crunch rings out, the red blood gushing from his nose, a pool of violet surrounding his chaste body as he wails out.

“Help me,” Niall whispered, turning on his side, his eyes wide and swallowing Harry whole, “Oh god Harry help me,” He pleaded, holding out his hand as another blow was rained on him, horrible taunts and curses being hurled at him like rocks at a stoning. The world was ending, because for the first time Niall was helpless, begging, oh god he was begging, begging, begging, for help. They’d always told him to ask for assistance when it was needed, and now he was here, pleading, begging, bawling, and no one was there to help him, and no one could pick him up out of his own filth and grime and whisk him off. Instead he watched tear after tear hook at Harry’s chin, words like faggot and retard hitting him harder than the fists that connected with his fragile, pale flesh and left with sickening smacks, harder than the words of his dad and the hands of his dad and the teases of the bullies.

Nothing was worse than lying there, with everything you’ve ever wanted crying inches away from you, his fingers wedged through the bars of the cage, whispering to you. Nothing worse than the pain of verbal abuse that you couldn’t even deny.

In then Niall felt the worse thing yet, fingers at the collar of his shirt, yanking and tearing and ripping with grabbing, nippy fingers, pulling his clothes off of him. Cold fingers wrapped around his ankle, just as Harry began to sing something under his breath, light and soft and squeaky.

With a  yank from the ginger man Niall was pulled, the skin on his back being scratched and burned from being dragged bare butt across the hard concrete. Harry got a little louder, his words drifting through the air.

Niall turned, his body withering as it was pulled toward the door, locking eyes with Harry. A shock of pain filled Harry, a zing of heat raced through the patch above his heart, in then his stomach was filled with coiling snakes, and he was on stage and the woman were singing and they were chanting his name and it was all for him.

In then the image was ripped away and he was once again a boy in a dog cage, crying, the smell of urine filling his nose and a few drips of his lovers blood freckling his cheeks. Once again nothing but a helpless boy, and he saw just before the door closed, Niall slapping away the greedy, tweedy fingers of men pulling at his underwear and he knew all was lost.

“No please! Stop! I’ve never done this before, please!” The words filtered through the door, awful, hitting the silent boys’ in their hearts.

“Please! I was saving myself for the right one-“ But his plea was cut off by a loud cry of pain, and several loud moans in succession. Harry heard the clink as someone’s pants hit the ground, and he cupped his hands over his ears and finally got louder with his chant.

“ISN’T SHE LOVELY? ISN’T SHE WONDERFUL?” He screamed, trying to be there for Niall when he couldn’t, trying to distract himself from Niall’s desperate shouts of pain and pleas for help, trying to get away.

But there was no escape from the blood and scent of urine and the look in Niall’s eyes when he finally had to face the truth, ‘He couldn’t handle everything,’. No escaping the sound of the innocent losing their purity against their will. No escaping the loud, wobbling voice of Harry Styles as he bellowed out the notes. No escaping the hell in which they’d been trapped.