Reason To Be (A Zouis Family AU)

Part Three, Chapter Nine

He hates drugs, never has felt the pull to them. When he was a kid, there'd been a tonne of peer pressure but he'd never given in. And Ni, he's a strong kid. A good kid. So good.
So why would he be so quick to give in?

He can't understand it, but he's willing to.
He's sure there's so much more to this as well. That there's a lot underlying everything that has gone on; things that Niall hasn't told them, things that they haven't paid attention to.

He means, the poor kid has struggled with his attention span and his inability to sit still his entire life, and he'd been so willing just to accept it as Niall just being Niall. Turns out it's a disorder, one that requires medication and sometimes counselling.

There's a lot plaguing his mind, but it's hard to hold onto one thought for long at all when one of his kids is unconscious in a hospital bed in front of him.

"I'm not mad," he whispers instead. Because he isn't. He can't be.

He runs his thumb over each pointed knuckle in turn, tracing over the soft indents between. When Niall and Harry had first joined their family, it had been so hard to get the three year old to sleep. Some nights he would walk around with the boy on his hip for over an hour and the kid would still be wide awake. Other nights he would set the toddler down in his bed and sit on beside him, holding his hand just like this. He'd trace gentle patterns over his palm until he'd eventually drift off.

And he's still so small. It hurts because he's still so goddamn small, and Louis is meant to protect him from things like this. Yet he'd had no clue what had been going on for all of this time.

Harry had called an hour ago, in a panic because Niall's his little brother and he should have known, he should have done something and -

Louis had reassured him as if he hasn't spent the past twelve hours thinking the exact same things.

He lets out a small breath. It must be around three in the morning now. His eyes are so heavy.

But he won't sleep.
He's always been the same.
No rest until he knows the kids are okay.

Niall's hand twitches underneath his and he almost falls out of the chair in his hurry to stand up and sit on the edge of the bed instead. The lights are already on, and Niall's features are illuminated as his nose wrinkles up slightly.

He's always been the same when he wakes up. The little creases in his nose. The furrowed brows and the soft exhale before his eyes flutter open.

Louis feels selfish for the sudden rush of anxiety at the thought of his son waking up when Zayn isn't there. He's afraid that he'll say or do the wrong thing, make it all worse somehow.

But when two gashes of ocean blue lazily drift around the room before landing on him, the anxiety disappears and his own eyes grow misty instead. He keeps ahold of Niall's hand in both of his, rubbing them gently as if warming them up the way he used to after the boys had been out in the snow.

"You with me, baby?" He says softly.

Niall stares at him for a moment, blinking slowly before his eyes flip around the room again and then land back on him. Louis tried to keep his smile from falling, he really does, but he hates the way that Niall doesn't jump to speak to him or do much of anything the way he usually does.

How can he have missed it? The way that his son has slowly been drifting further and further from himself. What kind of Dad is -

"M'sorry Daddy," Niall whispers eventually, and his bottom lip quivers the way it always has when he's upset. And shit, if the fact that he used the childish title instead of the usual 'Dad' doesn't hurt him that little bit more. "I'm so sorry."