"Come on Louis, just do it!" Liam yelled, punching the air with his fists in excitement.
"Go! Go!Go!" I chanted just as loudly. It was hard not to be pumped with the amount of people we were about to perform in front of. I couldn't be blamed for being hyper, in the end it would only maker the show more entertaining anyway.
Fingertips on the ceiling to keep his balance Louis paused and shifted his feet a tad further apart.
"Do it!" Harry jumped up and down behind his phone camera.
Louis bounced a few times on the arm of the couch he was stood on top of and then we all let out a loud cheer of anticipation and shock as he vaulted himself backwards and completed a full backflip before landing awkwardly on both feet on the ground, tumbling to one side with a triumphant yell.
"Ay!" We all cheered, clapping his back.
Harry climbed up to try but he was too tall and even with our minds stoned by excitement we all that it could only end badly, Liam told him to jump down before he hurt himself and ushered me up onto the couch instead.
"It's easy Niall, just jump!" Louis advising, practically squealing in glee. Standing backwards on the arm of a couch I began to sober up and wondered if someone had slipped something into our drinks. We could go a little crazy before a concert but I don't think we'd ever resorted to backflips off of furniture before.
I didn't want to be the one to kill the mood so I shoved my hesitance to the back of my head and let out a war cry as I flung myself backwards, knees and head tucked to my chest.
At first, it felt like it had gone amazing well. I felt like I'd flown and actually been kind of graceful about it too, but landing was a whole other story. I hit the rough carpet and one foot rolled out from underneath me with a harsh crunch sound. It was one of the noises I'm pretty sure only I heard but all the same. It was loud.
I fell right over just like Louis had and the lads erupted into shouts and cheers again, I didn't even get a chance to assess the result of the crunch sound before Harry had gripped onto my hand and yanked me onto my feet, "the champion!" He yelled enthusiastically, successfully covering up the pained shout that left my lips.
Red hot pain flared up my leg from my ankle and I instantly got intense pins and needles in my foot, so bad that I couldn't even feel my toes at all.
I grinned as widely as I could and hurriedly wiped the unshed tears from my eyes as I sat down on the couch and pretended as if everything was one hundred percent all good. Given a couple of minutes it probably would be anyway, but I didn't want to destroy the atmosphere and if I told the lads they'd run for a medic and then we'd all get in trouble for being childish right before a concert. Usually there was someone around who kept the buzz to a safe point but today we'd been left on our own and this is what had happened. I was too embarrassed to say a word.
"Do it again Ni!" Liam clapped.
I stuttered and fell over my words for a moment, almost choking on the lump at the back of my throat. "Nah, we're going on in a second!"
"There's plenty of time!" Liam pressured, tugging on my forearm. There definitely was not plenty of time, because someone came into to tell us we were due on stage in two minutes and had to get moving.
Whooping and parading like a bunch of kids the others bounced out into the hall. I held my breath and slowly rose to my feet, or foot as I was very hesitant in putting any weight on my other one. Toe to heel I carefully placed it on the floor and let out a rush of air. So far, so good.
"Come on Niall! Slow Coach!" Louis' voice echoed from outside.
"Yeah, I'm just- getting there," I called back before swearing softly to myself and deciding that I was just going to have to be okay with this. I just had to get on with the show.
I chewed down on my bottom lip, hard, and took off after them.
"You alright man?" Harry questioned, shoving my shoulder playfully as he bounced excitedly on his toes. He nodded his head at my face, "you look tense."
I wasn't alright, all it took was a short twenty metre walk from the dressing room to know it. My ankle was on fire, I could hardly walk at all. Trying not to cry out, or just cry in general, was making me sweat like a pig and I even felt kind of sick it hurt so bad.
"I'm great, just nerves," I replied, voice strained.
"Don't worry, we're just gonna have fun out there like always. You'll be amazing," Louis assured.
I huffed and forced a smile, "yeah, hopefully."
Out on stage I think everything was about the same as it always is, the lights and the heat and the people, but something about the pain and discomfort I was in made it almost unbearable. I could hardly keep myself from turning around and running back, or crawling back, to the dressing room.
I sat down on the edge of a stage prop that we weren't meant to be sitting on until far later in the show and managed to stay there for the introduction and the first three songs. With both legs propped up on the bench my ankle was still throbbing murderously but it was worse standing, walking, and I could handle it.
That was, until Louis grabbed me by the shoulder and pulled me up for a dance across the stage. It happened so fast I had no time to prepare myself, my grip on Louis' shoulder was so tight he screamed out, "ow, Niall!"
He laughed it off but he kept rubbing the bruise, "what was that for?"
I swallowed and glanced out at the crowd. My chin dropped as my vision whirled twice and all of a sudden the people didn't look much like people at all. Instead I saw a single shifting blur of black and grey.
"Niall," Louis muttered. I dizzily spun back to meet his eyes and I noticed he'd moved his mic away from his mouth, "what's wrong?"
My mouth opened and closed a few times but the burning pain wouldn't let me speak and the longer I stared at Louis' face the more of it succumbed to the black spots dancing across my vision.
Louis' eyes moved from my face to the leg I wasn't even bothering to pretend I wasn't favouring.
"It hurts," I whimpered, squeezing his shoulder.
"What? Come here, let's sit down. . ." Louis began to usher me back to my ledge but we didn't make it. I felt my eyes well up and I thought I was about to start crying but that wasn't what happened. Instead, I dropped like a heavy sack of potatoes and I was put to the world before I even hit the ground.
***
Louis' POV:
I couldn't move. Couldn't even blink. I stood as stiff as a board, eyes wide, over Niall's unconscious body for a solid ten seconds before a yell from Liam snapped me out of it. Him and Harry hurdled over as I crashed to my knees and took Niall's face in my hands, his eyes were darting around underneath his eyelids so I knew he'd be waking soon. Still, that wasn't very reassuring because he'd just fainted for what I could tell no good reason.
"What the hell?" Liam squatted down beside me.
"I don't know what happened!" I exclaimed, voice shaky. "He looked a bit off so I asked him about it, and- and then he just passed out!"
Niall groaned and his eyes flickered open for a split second.
"Hey Bud, just relax. . ." Harry eased gently.
The fans fulling the arena were all screaming in synchronisation, shoving around and trying to get a closer look. I shifted to be in front of Niall, sheltering him from them all. A couple of medics appeared and after quickly asking Niall about his back and neck and receiving a groggy shake of the head they carted Niall off backstage with the three of us trailing after as closely as possible.
"What's going on?" Liam pressed, panic seeping into his voice.
"Let him come around properly, then we'll be able to ask hims some questions," a lady told him, speaking slowly in velvet tones as if she could match Liam's spiking heartbeat with her voice.
"You're okay Ni, you just took a fall," I explained. He'd begun squirming and trying to sit up. A taller medic had a hand in the centre of his chest so he wasn't exactly getting anywhere.
"Relax," I said. His eyes met mine and he let out a pained groan, flopping back down.
"I feel sick," he slurred.
"Try telling these people Ni," Liam prompted. The lady medic coked her head and nodded encouragingly, "it'd be really helpful Darl."
"No. . ." Niall murmured, straining again against the hand on his chest, "sick."
He grunted and whacked the guys hand away before moaning and throwing up onto the floor between his feet. He shuddered and yelped, making the rest of us jump to figure out what the hell was the matter with him.
"Check his foot Jody," the man said.
I frowned. His foot? What about it?
Niall shrunk away and peered at her with wide eyes as she drew closer, hands up to show she meant no harm, "we're here to help Love. Just sit tight a second. I'll be careful."
Before Niall could argue or try to get away she quickly untied his laces and slid his shoe off. He let out another help and grabbed onto my hand, squeezing hard like he had with my shoulder earlier. I watched on with curiosity as the lady gently rolled the hem of his jeans up and eased his sock away from his foot.
Liam swore loudly and Harry inhaled a breath so deep he almost wheezed. I just stood there, eyes wide on shock.
"Ah, love, how long has this been like this?" The lady sucked in a breath and lifted Niall's foot up to rest it on something higher.
Niall coughed and wiped the sweat from his forehead. His face had grown red with embarrassment.
"When Ni?" Harry pushed.
"I, uh- I did a backflip," Niall muttered reluctantly.
"Fuck," I ducked my head, "he did a fucking back flip off the back of the couch, by my example."
If the medics were phased, they didn't show it. The lady nodded in understanding, "that'd do it."
"It's looks very broken to me," the man raised a brow, "you're going to need to head up to the hospital to confirm, but. . ."
Harry sighed and glanced at the stage entrance. The audience was unsettled, they were shouting their head off and wondering what the hell was going on. And now, we were going to have to leave them. Management was not going to be happy. I mean, it wasn't like it was something that could be helped, but they liked to be unreasonable and Niall was probably going to a receive a telling off once they figured our what had happened.
"I'm going to help you into the ambulance Mate, Okay?"
I wasn't until we got to the hospital that our phone started blowing up with calls and texts from everybody wondering where we'd all disappeared to. Somehow we'd managed to sneak out without running into anyone but we'd left them to try control an arena full of confused people and they weren't too pleased with it. Liam explained it all in one length text and we got nothing back but a time tomorrow when an extensive meeting was to be held to talk about what had gone wrong that night. It was like being told off by my parents.
Niall had his X-Ray done and then ended up having to have a three hour surgery to realign the bones because he screwed himself up so bad. I felt guilty over the whole thing, I'd made the same dumb choices he had and while I'd come away with it fine he was in surgery have his leg all cut into. It didn't seem fair.
I apologised when he finally woke back up but when he asked me what for I didn't really know. I just felt like I had to say sorry for something, and I felt better once it was done. Niall was all casted up and stubbornly refusing to be carted around in a wheelchair so we left with a set of bulky crutches instead. It was a struggled back to our room as the elevator chose that night to break down but we got there in the end and all pretty much passed out the moment we stepped inside. Our concert may have been cut short but it had still been an eventful night, to say the least. I was exhausted.
"How about no more back flips lads," Liam yawned widely.
Niall nodded meekly, "no more backflips."
Sheesh, I'm on a roll. Hopefully it's okay. I rushed the ending after writing an a thousand word essay for English so it's probably a bit rough around the edges. Plus it's late and I wanna sleep.
The next request is for: storiesoftheseven
And it's another Harry's kid one! You lovelies seem to really like those ones! I have so many requests!