Introvert

25

"Um." Louis responds. He still looks scared.

Shyanna's smile drops. Worry taints her pretty facial features, genuinely scared that she has upset Louis. He's quick to reassure her.

"No, ish fine, I jusht. Why would you 'elp me?" His voice is slurred with the bloody, puffy lip Jade gave him, and Shyanna frowns. I realise why, then. She doesn't want Louis hurting.

"Because if Niall had, you'd have ended up getting hurt even more. Jade Oliver isn't only a homphobe, he's a misogynist, so he'd never expect a girl to be able to win against him. Plus, it's common decency. Do you want help cleaning up? I get if you don't, but um. I have a lot of stuff in my bag to help with the bleeding. You might have to go to the nurse anyway -I think your nose might be broken-, but the bleeding is the worst problem." 

"Shure, yeah, thanksh." His eyes are glazed with pain, but he seems genuinely thankful for being offered help. 

 "Okay, Louis. Come with me," her voice is soft, kind. I'm hit with an urge to write one thousand sonnets about her eyes. "Niall? You coming?" She calls back, and I hadn't even realized she'd moved away, steps light and graceful as Louis traipsed after her. 

"Oh, uh, yeah. Yeah!" Shaking my head free of the panic that had settled over me at Shyanna calling my name, I follow. 

I think I'd probably follow her anywhere -end of the earth and all.

||Shyanna||

Niall gives me an encouraging smile, and Louis gives a hurt hiss as I drip antiseptic liquid onto the cut on his tummy. I try not to find it strange, that before the beginning of this term I'd shared fewer than six words with Louis Tomlinson, and now I've had two conversations with him in the space of two weeks. 

"You can hold my arm, if you want." I say, looking up. His eyes are brimming with tears, teeth clamped onto his already bloody lip. "Don't bite your lip. You'll regret it later." He instantly complies, and a wild thought runs into my head. I wonder who, out of Harry and Louis, would be the submissive. Blinking rapidly, because it isn't the time to ponder their sexual activities, I feel the lightest touch of his hand on my skin. Niall's holding his other hand, dabbing water over the skin to clean it. We're quite a good team, Niall and I. Always have been, really. I used to do a lot of the work in our social studies lessons, but Niall made it fun. Niall makes everything fun. My heart flutters as I watch him gently press a tiny kiss to Louis' hand. Louis doesn't seem much bothered, but Niall giggles. He's just. He's so cute. 

"Tighter than that. A lot tighter than that," I tell him, because I know this next bit is going to hurt like hell. Niall snorts, loud and unabashed. "Hmm?"

"Oh, um. Sounded sexual, I guess? Kind of. Sorry." He mumbles, voice relatively high. Louis grins, and then lets out a whine of protest from the back of this throat. 

"Louis? You're going to want to cry at this, and it's not nice, but it'll make sure you don't end up swollen, okay?" He quickly tightens his grip on my arm, hard and unrelenting, and I give him a small smile to let him know it's okay.

Without giving a warning, I press down on his bruised jaw and press up on his hand at the same time, the ice pack I'd retrieved from first aid leaking cold into my hand, and he lets out a small, defeated cry. It's kind of pitiful, like a wounded animal, and I'm reminded of the time Zayn Malik saved me from doing anything beyond stupid. I press harder into him, both ways. The hand on my arm is beginning to leave a bruise under my fingertips, but God knows I've felt worse. I'm not letting him feel alone with this.

Tears leak onto my hand, bloody and warm, and I let out a breath I hadn't known I'd been holding. 

"Lou?" Niall asks, gentle. He's right by my side. Before I can stop it, I think just where he should be.