Harry chewed his lip as he looked at his smallest brother, practically swallowed by the clothes he wore as he sat in the bath tub with his knees pulled into his chest, eyes ringed with red looking up at them.
It reminded him of the first day they had met, a situation uncannily similar to this one.
He knelt down beside the tub next to Louis, smiling softly as Niall sniffed and glanced at him.
"Hey," he murmured, and Niall used his sleeve to wipe over his eyes quickly.
"A-are Dad and Papa still out there?" he asked, voice so quiet that Harry had to strain to hear it.
Louis gave a nod. "Yeah."
"Why don't you wanna talk to them, Nialler?" Harry asked carefully, hoping he wasn't pushing his luck with the question.
He was a helper, he always had been. He just wanted to make sure that everyone was okay, and his brothers were always at the top of that list of 'everyone'.
Niall stayed quiet and shrugged, and Harry glanced at Louis, who chewed his lip and looked uncertain on what to say.
He hesitated. "You know, they love you so much, Nialler. We all do. They want what's best for you," he murmured.
That got some sort of reaction at least, even if it wasn't the one he wanted because tears leaked from the blond's eyes and he shook his head. "They want me to get big again," he said and Harry couldn't help but feel confused and he could tell Lou felt the same as they both frowned.
Niall had always been the smallest of all of them. Only now, he wasn't a healthy kind of small.
"Ni, you've never been big," Louis said, and Harry nodded in agreement.
"Yeah, Shorty. You're tiny but not in a good way...they're right. You'll get really sick. You could - you could die if you don't eat properly," he said softly, trying to ignore Louis' panicked inhale at that. It was the truth - Harry knew one girl in his year at school had spent almost six months in the hospital because she didn't eat.
Niall shook his head. "I won't, i-it keeps me safe," he said, and even he sounded unsure as he tried to dry his cheeks. "It'll stop people like Richard coming after me," he whispered, and Harry sighed, feeling so awful for what his little brother had been through.
"Ni...the size you are had nothing to do with Richard. He-he was messed up, okay? There are plenty of people out there the same size as you, bigger than you. He didn't go after them, did he?" Harry whispered back, tearing up a little himself when Niall broke into tears and covered his face, narrow shoulders shaking. "Oh, Nialler."
"Why won't you talk to Dad and Papa about it?" Louis murmured, leaning on the side of the bathtub.
Niall shook his head and cried a little harder. Harry couldn't help it, he reached out and put his hand on his bony back, rubbing gently when his brother didn't flinch or move away.
"I-I get scared. People who are t-tall and m-men they just - they make me think of h-him," he choked out, and Harry winced.
He remembered a chunk of conversation from when they were all younger, from the first time they'd sat in the bathroom like this to comfort Niall.
"Hey. Ni," he murmured, and Niall looked up with a heartbreaking expression. Harry managed a small smile at him. "Remember when you were little. You thought Dad and Papa were going to hurt you, punish you? Back when we called them Liam and Zayn," he asked softly.
Niall paused, then gave a small nod, wiping his nose of his sleeve as he sniffed.
Harry kept on smiling at him softly, trying his best to be reassuring. "Yeah? You remember what I said to you?"
Louis perked up from beside him at that, smiling a little too. "I remember," he said, and Niall nodded again.
"Y-you said they never hurt you guys. A-and that - that they wouldn't hurt me," he whispered, voice scratchy.
Harry grinned, heart pounding in relief at the small breakthrough. "Exactly. That hasn't changed, Shorty. I dunno what ideas that man put in your head, but Dad and Papa would never do anything that would put you in danger. So what does that mean?" he prompted.
Niall hesitated, sniffing again. "That t-they're not t-trying to make me big. They - they just want me to be o-okay?" he stammered with uncertainty.
Harry carried on rubbing his back comforting, trying to ignore the way that he could feel his little brother's spine protruding. "Right," he said, with a small smile. "So when they tell you you need to eat, it's to make sure you're healthy. And that you get to stay here with us, instead of going into hospital. Yeah?"
Niall didn't nod, and Louis spoke up again, leaning his elbows on the side of the tub.
"Yeah, Ni. Not eating doesn't make you safe. If you eat, you stay with us and that's what makes you safe, right? And you love food!" he said, grinning reassuringly.
Niall managed a small smile back, the first one Harry had seen in weeks. He was proud of Louis then, because he was acting so mature for a twelve year old - but in the right way this time. He put his other hand on the brunet's shoulder and gave it a squeeze.
"Yeah, like mac'n'cheese, and hawiian pizza, and Frosties," Harry listed off.
Niall gave a small nod and added, "and KFC," which made his brothers both laugh slightly.
"Exactly! Food's good, right?" he said.
But Niall just chewed his lip and looked down again. "But I...I don't know why I'm scared of it," he whispered.
Harry sighed, moving his hand from his back to rest on his small shoulder lightly. "It's like a coping mechanism, right?" he worked out, because that much was easy to tell. Niall gave a tiny nod. "Because if you focus on not eating, you don't have to think about what happened...only that isn't good. You need to think about it, Nialler. You need to talk about it, to Dad and Papa," he instructed gently.
Niall let out a hiccup of a sob, trying to wipe away the tears that were still slowly falling from his eyes. "But what if - what if they don't want me anymore? What if they're embarrassed of me a-and they throw me out and -"
"Dad and Papa would never do that!" Louis stated strongly, shaking his head.
Harry nodded in agreement. "No, Ni. They really wouldn't," he murmured. "Just talk to them. Please?"
The little blond hesitated then, before giving the smallest of nods, whispering an almost silent, "okay."
It was silent for a moment before Louis smiled and said, "hey, remember last time we did this? It was when Harry had his first boyfriend," he said, poking his older brother in the ribs.
Harry rolled his eyes playful, poking him back and dismissing the thought of Daniel as quickly as it came because he was irrelevant. "Yeah, yeah, whatever," he muttered, and Louis laughed.
Even Niall smiled slightly through the tears.
Finally, Harry allowed his hand to drop away from his back and stood up, holding out a hand to his little brother. Niall looked at it with uncertainty.
"Ready to try lunch again?" he said, softly.
The blond chewed his lip, then murmured a small, "do you think Dad would just make me soup?"
Harry grinned. "I think as long as you're eating, Dad's gonna be happy to make you anything."
There was a small knock of the door then, and Harry had a feeling that their parents had listened in on the whole thing but didn't want to say anything in case it upset Niall.
"You boys okay in there?" Papa called out gently.
Harry looked at Niall for confirmation, who gave a small nod. Harry smiled and unlocked the door, opening it to reveal two very relieved looked parents.
Harry watched as their Papa's eyes landed on Niall curled up in the tub, and his expression went all sympathetic and sad, then their Dad's did the same.
Niall flushed slightly under their gaze, and stood up shakily, climbing out slowly. Harry stayed beside him.
"Um, Niall asked if he could have some soup?" Louis said, glancing at Nial who looked frightened but a little stronger with his brothers by his side.
Harry figured he was right with what he said earlier, because it felt like weeks since he'd seen his parents smile like they did right then.
#
Niall went to bed early that night, feeling rough after a day of eating what felt like so much compared to what he had gotten used to.
He kept on trying to remind himself what his brothers had said, not eating wasn't making him safe. What made him safe was being with his family, and he couldn't do that if he ended up in hospital, right?
And he supposed what Harry had said was true as well. The more he focused on controlling his eating, the less time he had to think about and deal with what Richard had done. It was a coping mechanism, he realised. And letting it go was going to be so hard because if he even thought about the counselor for a second, he felt like he was going to die.
He chewed his lip as he sat up in his bed with his back against the headboard, staring into space. He wasn't even tired, he just didn't really want to sit downstairs with everyone else. He didn't really want to do anything, and that was scary because it meant he had a lot of room for unwanted memories to rise in his mind.
He was actually thankful when his parents came into the room soon after. He knew that they had heard the conversation he'd had with his brothers earlier - they had been right outside the door. He was just hoping they wouldn't bring it up; somewhere along the line, talking to his parents had become difficult.
Papa sat on the edge of his mattress, leaving a safe distance between them, and Dad stood up beside him with a hand on the other man's shoulder. Niall remembered a time when he would have sat in between his fathers all cuddled into them, and now the thought sent anxiety straight into his gut.
Papa opened his mouth to speak, but Niall beat him to it with a quiet, "I know you heard everything."
He wasn't sure if he had spoken loud enough for his parents to hear at first because they didn't react right away. Then his Dad gave a small nod.
"You know me and Papa would never hurt you," he whispered, voice so honest that Niall knew he could trust it. And he knew deep down that his parents would never do anything to harm him, it was just that they were tall and big and strong and now he was afraid of all of those things.
He gave a small nod, looking down as his fingers picked at the knee of his pajama bottoms.
"Bug," Papa murmured, and Niall flinched slightly as the man hooked two fingers beneath his chin to lift his head. He calmed down when he looked into his honey coloured eyes, the eyes of a person who had been there for him from the start and whom he knew would always be there for him. "We love you, you know that? And all we want to do is help. Whatever's going through your head, you can't keep it in there forever. You need to talk to us, kiddo."
He chewed his lip nervously, because he had done so much talking today and he didn't feel like saying anything anymore. So he just blinked at them a few times and hoped they wouldn't be mad at him.
Papa moved his hand from his chin and he looked down again.
"We're proud of you today, for eating," Dad said in the softest of voices, and Niall saw him kneel down beside the bed out of the corner of his eye. "What you said to your brothers, about why you haven't been eating...we're gonna keep on working on it, okay? You don't need to see anyone else just yet," he reassured, and Niall was relieved at that because he knew that seeing someone else straight after Richard would never work out well.
"But kiddo, you need to carry on like you did today, alright? If you don't, we'll have to take you to a professional," Papa told him, and he gulped, nodding. He didn't want to let that happen.
He heard a sigh then, and the mattress dipped a little as his Dad leant forward. Niall didn't want to look up at them, he didn't want to speak to them. He was just a disappointment, he could tell.
"Baby, you told your brothers you'd speak to us," Dad murmured, reaching out a hand to rest on his knee that Niall pulled away from quickly, heart thrumming in his chest with memories of the last time someone had put their hand there, only to move it higher and higher and -
"Niall."
His eyes snapped up to his Papa, pupils wide with fear. He realised he was breathing quicker than usual and sucked in a deep breath.
"It's okay," he whispered, but Niall just shook his head. It wasn't okay. It wasn't going to be okay ever again.
Because sure, he could eat. He could eat and talk and pretend like it was all going great. But it wouldn't take away what had happened. Nothing would.
"Oh, sweetheart," Liam murmured, hands clasped on the bed to stop himself from reaching out again. "You don't need to talk right now. Whenever you're ready, hm? Anything, any time, you just let it all come spilling out...just please don't shut us out. We're not embarrassed or ashamed of you like you said earlier, we never would be. We're just so worried, because we love you so much," he said, and Niall looked up to him and felt a tear run down his face, dripping from the end of his nose.
He lifted a hand to wipe it away. He loved them too, he wanted to say it. He wanted to say it a million times over but his head couldn't seem to pass it onto his mouth that he wanted to speak and so he stayed quiet and nodded mutely.
His parents smiled at him, the tight, forced kind that never reached their eyes.
"Things are going to get better, Bug. Even if it doesn't feel like it right now," Papa murmured.
He swallowed and tried to allow himself to believe those words. It really didn't feel like he would ever move on from what that monster had done to him, what he had taken from him.
"Do you want one of us stays up here with you until you drift off?" Dad asked, hesitantly. "Lou and Haz are watching a movie so they won't be up for a while."
Niall gave a small nod, because they were his fathers. They may have been big and strong, but they weren't scary. They weren't going to hurt him, they were going to protect him. And if they wanted to stick around and keep an eye on him to make sure he was okay, he was going to let himself seek comfort in it rather than fear.
"Alright. Do you mind if I stay?" Dad added, and he gave another nod, watching as his Papa smiled at him and left the room quietly, then his Dad sat at the end of his bed and pulled a book from underneath the mattress. "Get some sleep, sweetheart. I'm right here if you need me."
Niall wished he could have formed the words to say that all he needed right then was for him to be there like he was.
EDITED 18.12.21