brainchild | z.m. & n.h. au

vii.

“Niall,” a nurse asks in a gentle voice, pale hand creeping over his shoulder, “Niall, your group therapy session is starting in a few moments. You don’t want to miss it.”

The little blonde boy tears his lingering eyes away from the window to face the nurse—a small, red-haired girl with saucer-like eyes that he doesn’t recognize. He pities her, just a bit—having to work in this god-awful establishment with these god-awful patients and god-fucking-awful white paint. It’s a shame.

She gives him a tentative smile and easily follows her to where the session is taking place. There’s nothing special about it, nothing to take note of—just a pile of chairs pulled into an empty portion of the room. Every seat is taken save for one—Niall’s. The grey floor beneath his shoes reminds him of stormy skies and impending rain and he worries this is where he might drown—worries that the tiles might swallow him up until he is nothing but teeth molded into the foundation. He folds his hands together and hesitantly finds his seat.

The patients maintain a constant murmur amongst themselves—a buzzing like flies in the summertime or bees in the windowsills. Niall keeps quiet, pressing his lips together and biting his cheek, hoping to grind himself down into a pile of dust on the floor.

“Let’s get on with it, then,” a low, familiar voice murmurs abruptly. Niall looks up to see Zayn looking at him—dark eyes pouring into his, a dangerous smirk resting on the edges of his lips. He is day-old stubble and tattoos peeking out of the edges of his shirt and the Irish boy has to clamp his teeth into the sanctuary of his bottom lip to keep from bursting like a water balloon. It’d be rather gory, he figures, to paint the room the colour of his insides—to bleed for a boy his fingertips haven’t touched.

Zayn smiles at him and it’s so dark that Niall tastes blood.

The nurse clears her throat. “Alright, we’ll begin as usual; let’s talk about our weeks. Mary,” she looks at a girl with dark dark hair and blue blue eyes, “How would you like to start?”

The girl shrugs and mentions that she’d rather not start anything, let alone this, but proceeds with her story anyway. Niall wills his mind to listen intently—to focus on the words rather than the syllables even though one side of him is screaming that her sentence is composed of odd numbers, which. No. Shut up, Niall. Why the fuck does it matter, anyway?

Eventually, after what feels like an hour full of nervous twitches, it’s Zayn’s turn to share. Throughout the session, he had been more or less quiet—muttering odd nothings under his breath after a few of the nurse’s comments. But now, with the spotlight on him and the smirk sitting highly beneath his cheekbones, he is a mess of words around a thick accent.

“Don’t much feel like sharing today—I think the others have summed up the week pretty well. We all do the same fucking thing every fucking day, after all.”

The nurse scribbled something down in her notepad, a familiar stern expression gracing her features.

The raven-haired boy laughs lightly, “I know what you’re thinking Miss, but ’m not upset, ‘m frustrated. You know, I’ve been here for nearly four months now and every one of these sessions is the same fucking thing. How is any of this supposed to help? You really think talking about what bloody board game Andrew played on Thursday is going to stop him from talking to his shadow? These methods are beyond me”—

Beside him, a man—Andrew, presumably whimpers and buries his face in the crook of his elbow.

“Are you alright, Andrew? Try taking some deep breaths. We’ll call your nurse, if that’s okay with you.”

Zayn laughs again and Niall can feel his heart rate pick up at the sound. “Why do you even bother asking him that? Does it matter whether or not it’s okay with him? You’re all real pieces of work, you know that? You’re all just fucking babysitters for the fucking crazies aren’t you? There’s no healing or any of that other bullshit here, it’s just you and us and pills to pu’ us to sleep. Why don’t you just strap me to the fucking electric chair and watch it burn my brains out”—he smiles, he fucking smiles—“bet you’d like that, wouldn’t you? Something to get you off”—

Niall can barely hear Zayn over the murmuring and—in some cases—downright yelling of the other patients. It seems the raven-haired boy has created quite the uproar and, with the small smile on his face as he finally shuts up, he knows it. Niall’s eyes widen but never stray from the boy across from him—it’s the only thing keeping him sane as the voices around him rise and rise and rise. A man beside him is screaming at the nurse—some nonsense about machines and gears and dictatorships.

Niall remains silent and starting, silent and staring, silent and staring until Zayn finally stares back. His smile softens when he finds the Irish boy—knowing, reassuring. He cocks an eyebrow and Niall bites so hard into his bottom lip that it begins to bleed. Stupid boy.

“That is enough!” The nurse bellows, suddenly on her feet. Three other nurses are closing in on them—backup, Niall figures—and a select few of the patients are smart enough to know when to shut up. The rest, however, take a little more coercing—Andrew in particular, who is dragged back to his room in the bruising clutches of an unfamiliar doctor.

“Now,” the nurse begins sternly once the room and the patients are back in order, “Shall we continue?”

Zayn opens his mouth to speak but Niall looks up at him and, for some odd reason, he stops. It doesn’t make sense—that the Irish boy would have any influence over him—but he can’t deny the tingling at the ends up his nerves and fingertips.

“Niall, you’ve yet to speak. Tell us about your week?”

The boy in question fidgets and curses the blush creeping up his neck. In the politest way possible, he shakes his head.

“Niall,” the nurse presses, “You can’t expect to get better if you’re not willing to participate in these practises.”

“He doesn’t want to share,” Zayn says simply, sternly.

The nurse presses her lips together and sighs, “Alright Niall, you have a pass for today.”

…

[a/n: sorry it’s been a while, but to compensate the chapter is a little longer. Thank you to everyone who reads this, and everyone who has been reading it. There are a lot more reads on this than I ever thought it would get, haha, and I really appreciate it!]