Noises.
Muffled ones, to be exact.
Sounds that were stuck between making themselves known and keeping away, rendering themselves useless, helpless, a ‘never mind’ at that moment…
It was all Niall heard.
He could tell they weren’t just any commotion, not a hooting owl or chirping crickets. Neither were they a car simply passing by with a whoosh of misty air or flutters coming down the street from moon-loving birds.
It was a voice.
A heavy, labored breath hung over him, stopping short for a few mumbles.
“Ni- Niall? Oh my god, what the- wh- what happened to you? Niall? Niall?”
He felt several pats on his cheeks, each one prickling with pain as soon as it started to fade away.
“Niall, geez can’t you stay awake? Niall! Stay awake!”
He jolted, his eyelids cracking open to a starry above. He blinked a few times until his blurry vision cleared, seeing himself laid limply in the lap of something, shivering.
Someone. Some women. Her. Scarlett.
She continued talking, syllables slurring together. He couldn’t split them apart and he couldn’t be bothered to read her lips in only the single stream of moonlight. He didn’t know the reason why she was knelt down by him but there she was, just inches away from him, enough so he could smell the whiff of coffee beans that tagged along with her sugary perfume, speaking unknown words on and on to him in the dark and dead of night, just as if he were some fish on the other side of the tank’s glass.
He tried to speak.
“What are you doing here, Scarlett?”
He wasn’t sure if she heard.
“It’s cold; you should go home.”
He became confused.
“Why are you still here with me?”
He didn’t realize that his words were actually coming out in jumbles from soft whimpers to accented groans of pain.
Staring as he made an effort to speak, she let a hand roam gently through his tangled hair, blood and gravel littered throughout it. She noticed the black and blue splattered across his skin, evidence of some unknown struggle that she wasn’t sure he remembered at that moment. She watched him as he was in his own little world, somewhere marked between alerted and blacked out and concerned, his glittering blue-grey eyes darting to the brick walls, to the rough ground, to the stars, to his torn clothes. Then they met her own orbs, already looking deeply and carefully at him.
She saw the despair swiped across his face.
“Sc-aar-lett” he croaked out, followed by a fit of coughs. He trembled and shook in her hold.
“C’mon.” she whispered lightly and hoisted him to his feet. He let out a groan. “Let’s get you out of here.”
YOU ARE READING
Restart My Heart
FanfictionIt has been five years since the end of One Direction, and despite all the efforts made to still keep together, there's only one that truly bought them back to facing each other. Niall's stuck in a bit of a situation that reaches out to all of them...
