Trouble. (niall horan au)

chapter 30 - enemy infiltration

He grinned and raised his hands defensively. "Hey, it wasn't me. Maggie changed you, because when I tried she nearly broke my fingers thinking I was going to 'ravish your unconscious body'," He sighed, "I tried getting you up to leave this the motel this morning, but you were unresponsive and almost in a medical coma. So I didn't bring you home because you were hungover, and I didn't bring you to my house because my dad was home and you were still hungover and pretty dead looking." He paused and rubbed his chin in thought, "Thinking back now, it probably wasn't the best idea to carry your body here in that extra burplap sack I had in my car."

I groaned, pressing the heels of my hands hard against my eyes. "Ugh," I lamented, "Ugh, ugh, ugh. This is so embaressing." I sat up suddenly, tackling the surprised Niall so that we saumersalted off the bed and onto the floor. Pinning him down in a half nelson, I pressed his face against the open pages of a girl magazine.

"Oh, no," he said, eyes scanning the text, "This is an article about lady things." I stared at him. "You know," he continued nervously, "The rise of the red sea. When Aunt Flow comes to visit. When Mother Nature slashes your undercarriage with a blade."

"Do you mean periods," I asked, and he screamed. "Would you like to help me to chart out my menstral cycle," I said, holding him down tighter and ignoring his continued frantic shouting, "Now tell me, Horan, did I imagine it or did I actually tell you last night why I was afraid of touching?"

There was a moments pause. Outside, a lawn mower started up and grumbled quietly down the street. The world was waking up, unaware of the chaos two kids had been expierencing during their dreams. "Yes," Niall sighed, locking eyes with me until I was forced to look away. "You did."

"And?"

"And what, sweetheart? What exactly are you trying to get out of this?"

I shook my head in frustration, tangled hair flapping around my face. "I just, I don't know, you're supposed to treat me differently, be disturbed or not like me or, or-" My entire world was spinning in the opposite direction of its axis. I had spent years living in fear, tiptoeing along the outskirts of people's lives, afraid if I got too close they would be able to make out the shadows in my past and the dirt that came caked along with it. "You're supposed to be disgusted by me."

"Oh, my darling Abbey Farrell," Niall mused, detangling himself from my slackened grasp, "I could never be disgusted by you- wait, actually." He paused, "Except for that one time you came to my house petting a dead squirrell."

"I thought it was alive!" I argued, "I had never touched one before, it seemed so docile. I wanted you to try."

Niall laughed and got to his feet, stretching. The sunrise outside outlined his profile with soft shades of oranges and pinks. His lilac hair mixed in artfully. I wanted to see him painted on an easel or carved into marble or maybe just in a picture that I could keep in my wallet. "If anything," he said, "Now I just understand you better."

"Why am I the messed up one," I sighed, watching as he began to tie on his sneakers. I noticed our initials were scrawled on the canvas in pen, barely visible. "What's wrong with you."

Niall paused with the laces outstretched in his hands, as though confused as how to continue. I gently took over the task for him. "A lot of shit," Niall said, blinking back into focus and watching me crouch at his feet, "But it's enough for me to handle without worrying you about it."

I opened my mouth in protest. How was it fair that he got my past and my present poured into his open hands, but could so easily dodge the way I reached out to him? I didn't have much time to argue it, though, because just then Maggie walked in to see me open mouthed and kneeling in front of Niall. We both realized it didn't look good.