Fic: Influenza (Liam/Niall)

[likepelicanfly]

Title: Influenza
Fandom: One Direction rps
Pairing: Liam/Niall
Warnings: Nothin', bro
Rating: PG
Summary: Niall is really, really sick and Liam is a really, really great caretaker.



When Niall woke up on a Tuesday morning to sunlight shattering happily through the window in his bedroom, his first thought was something along the lines of "it's looking nice out today."

His second thought, whatever it may have been, was squashed down by a pain in his temple like a full grand piano falling onto his head, and his stomach suddenly lurched so that he had to throw himself across the room into his bathroom to choke out its contents into the toilet bowl. After his stomach was emptied, he leaned back onto his heels, closing the lid and flushing the toilet. Niall tried to think around his massive headache to wonder what was wrong-he didn't drink last night, did he? The last time he'd been this sick was after Louis' twentieth, and Niall knew full well that he spent the entirety of last night watching Toy Story with Liam for the five hundredth time, Liam not bothering to go back to his flat afterward and crashing in the guest room. Unless he got entirely smashed to try and forget his massive and idiotic crush on his best friend, he probably wasn't feeling like the walking dead because of alcohol.

Niall dropped to his bum, feet getting tired underneath his weight, and put his head down against the cool porcelain of the toilet bowl cover, exhausted. It didn't do much to convince the pain raging around in his skull to calm, though it did feel amazing against his sweating skin-skin that was starting to be populated by goosebumps as Niall watched. He pulled his forearm up to look at it in the low light wading in from his bedroom window and saw the hairs there raising as if in fear.

"What the hell?" he croaked, voice shaky and thick. And that wasn't a good idea, because even the sound of his own voice lodged a spike of pain into his brain, making his stomach turn poisonously. Niall wondered at what kind of torture he was getting put through by his own body, and when he felt a tickle at the back of his throat, he thought he was starting to get an idea.

"Cabinet," Niall muttered to the empty room, setting a goal, and he tried to hoist himself back to his feet, using the toilet as an anchor. His entire body protested, throwing him back down on his ass. "Come on." All of his muscles groaned in objection, determined to keep him on the floor, but somehow Niall found himself on his feet, staring at his reflection in the mirror with a swimming head.

The boy in the mirror looked so different from him that for a second, Niall was sure it was someone else. Dark blue circles hanging underneath his eyes and a fiery red lighting his cheeks, chest and shoulders, Niall knew for certain now that this wasn't just a hangover. He wrapped one shaky arm around himself and reached for the medicine cabinet.

He stopped his hand halfway there, unable to ignore the itch at the back of his throat anymore. He hacked into his fist quite a few times, lungs protesting, before it went away. Niall sighed, glad that was over, before lights started to sparkle in front of his eyes. He tried fruitlessly to gulp in mouthfuls of air, but it didn't do anything, and Niall only had time and sense enough to drop down to his knees before he passed out.

Niall woke up, face smashed into the cold tiles of his bathroom floor, God only knows how much later. He smelled something coppery, and licking his lips, realized that yes, that smell was his blood. He must have hit his jaw hard, because he could feel a jagged gash in his lower lip that was clearly from it being smashed in between his teeth. The flesh was raw and blood sour in his mouth. That's why when he started to cry loud, self-pitying tears that irritated his migraine further, he didn't feel bad about it.

That was how Liam found him-shaking and crying and bleeding against the bathroom floor-about ten and a half seconds later. "Ni?" he called, coming into Niall's bedroom, and then the still-dark bathroom. He almost stepped on Niall before looking down to see him face down on the floor, in a small puddle of his own blood. "Oh, shit! Niall?"

"Leehum." It hurt to talk, but Niall was pretty sure that his best friend thought he was dead. "Li, it hurts."

Niall heard a relieved sigh from above him. He wasn't dead, that was a good thing, and even though he felt like he might actually be dying, Liam was here now. Liam. Daddy Direction. If anyone could take care of him, it was Liam.

Maybe that was the reason that Niall was so hopelessly in love with him. Though it was more likely that his caring aspect was just one of many that made him so lovely. Like his love for kids' films and how secretly funny he was and his math talents and how eager he was to be learning how to play guitar from Niall and how beautiful his voice was and how sparkly his eyes were and he could really go on forever, but he was starting to cry harder, thinking about how wonderful Liam was and how he was literally the Most Pitiful Thing Ever, sick and lying in a pool of his own blood.

Liam knelt down next to Niall, avoiding the floor near his face that was stained red. "Oh, Ni, what happened?"

"Fainted. Smashed me face." He coughed to clear his throat, accidentally spraying red from his lip onto the knee of Liam's pajama pants. "I think I have the flu." And yeah, he almost forgot about that.

Warm fingers latched around his left shoulder. "Come on, let's have a look," Liam prodded, and with a gentle pull, helped Niall turn onto his back. Liam's face had taken up that concerned look he had, where the skin between his eyebrows liked to scrunch up, and his eyes were soft and sad, which of course started Niall crying all over again, this time silently, tears leaking out of the corners of his eyes and tracking towards his ears. "Oh, Niall. It's alright, mate. Here, let me just get the light--"

"No," Niall meant to shout, but could only manage to whisper it hoarsely through a sore throat. He grabbed at Liam's hand when he tried to stand. "No. My head." He shivered convulsively enough for said body part to knock back against the tile. "Ow."

Liam nodded down at him in understanding, but stood up anyway. And Niall was ready to call after him, to beg him not to leave, please, but he stopped at the sink and opened the medicine cabinet, snatching some pills from a nondescript bottle and filling up the glass next to Niall's toothbrush with cool water. He took a washcloth from underneath Niall's sink and ran it under the cold tap water too.

Niall closed his eyes, taking a deep breath to combat his chattering teeth, and before he knew it, Liam was pressing the washcloth against his lips, wiping away the dried blood on his face. Liam slid his thumb against Niall’s forehead and paused for just a second. "You're way too hot."

Niall heard a high-pitched laugh come out of his mouth that he didn’t recognize as his. The washcloth dragged across Niall's warm cheek. "Thank you very much. You're not too bad yourself."

"Ha," Liam laughed dryly, the washcloth leaving Niall's face. Niall opened his eyes in surprise at the absence to look up at Liam's upside-down face, in front of which he brandished a glass of water and a closed hand. "Sit up for a sec."

Niall tried vainly to do it on his own, but only when Liam had a supporting hand between his shoulder blades could the Irishman actually sit up. He had a rush of dizziness, and his muscles clenched, sure he would pass out again, until Liam wrapped an arm around Niall's middle and pulled him back so that he was resting against Liam's solid chest. Niall stored this away-this moment of skin to skin-saving it to memory, so he could linger when his brain wasn't being fried from the inside. He popped the Tylenol into his mouth and downed the glass of water quick after, trying not to gag at the renewed taste of vomit and blood in his mouth. The back of his head dipped down to sit on Liam's shoulder as he tried to get the last drops of water out of the bottom of the glass.

When he was done, Niall's arm fell to his side, completely knackered from just lifting a glass. But now that he thought about it, all of him was completely knackered-sore all over for no reason but illness. He didn't even have it in him to shiver anymore. Instead, he left his head to rest on Liam's shoulder, the heavy, dull pounding in his temples somehow lulling him to sleep.

It wasn’t the most peaceful rest ever, Niall could say. He vaguely remembered waking up once or twice coughing, the spaces between and behind his eyes and at the back of his skull burning. He jolted himself into consciousness with an actual yell once, no doubt brought on by a fevered nightmare. He could recall something about the boys falling down into blackness, Niall screaming and unable to catch any of them before they dropped into oblivion.

Liam, who was already sitting in the chair at Niall’s desk with Twitter up on his laptop, was by his side in no time flat. “Hey, Ni, it’s okay. It’s alright, it was just a dream.” Niall wheezed, the sickness making it even harder to breathe. “You’re alright.”

Niall’s eyes latched onto Liam, finding a lifeline in his light brown glance, and he wrapped his fingers around Liam’s wrist for extra support. His breathing gradually slowed, and he lay back down, but his hand stayed around Liam’s wrist. “Don’t leave.”

Liam clearly didn’t plan on it, already moving onto the side of the bed Niall wasn’t occupying. He burrowed underneath the sheets to lay behind the Irish lad, arm automatically looping around Niall’s middle.

Niall tried to object, weakly. “I don’t want to get you sick.”

“Got my vaccine week before last.” Liam rubbed his thumb up and down in the same place at the end of Niall’s sternum soothingly, the heat from his body convincing the hairs on the back of Niall's neck to relax back down to their usual post against his skin, his breathing coming back down to normal. Niall felt his eyelids pulling down like heavy stage curtains. “Just don’t turn around-your breath is horrid.” But the humor was lost, Niall already out cold.

Niall woke up again to the far-off sound of a whistle being blown and two hushed groans, head still aching acutely, but when he opened his eyes it was blessedly dark. He wasn’t shivering anymore, and it took a second for him to riddle out why. He felt a hand out in front of him to realize that he was wrapped up completely in the quilt his mum made him, the heavy cotton blocking out any light from outside. He pulled out his arms from underneath him (they were falling asleep) to adjust his position, wriggling slightly but not enough so that the blanket would displace.

“Niall?” He knew that voice, from somewhere, but his fevered brain wasn’t cooperating. “You awake, mate?” And as much as he wished he could stay in his own little Niall burrito (he giggled to himself at that-Nando’s should put that on the menu), his curiosity niggled at the back of his head until he had to peek over the top of his quilt to stare at the other body occupying the bed.

Louis grinned, one of those sunrise-y smiles that he had, eyes calm and sky blue like Niall’s usually were, and spoke softly for once. “How’re you feeling?” He could hear Harry and Zayn’s voices rumbling lowly in the other room, and what sounded like a footie match.

“Been better,” Niall admitted, nausea whipping around in his abdomen with every heartbeat punching in his head.

Though it was muffled through the blanket, Louis seemed to get the message. He threaded a hand through Niall’s yellow hair and worked the tips of his fingers slowly against Niall’s scalp. It felt amazing, distracting him completely from his headache if not actually getting rid of it. Niall relaxed into the touch, getting ready to fall back to sleep, when he noticed something was off.

Louis’ hand didn’t still against Niall’s head when he looked up at the older boy in askance. “Where’s Liam?”

“Tesco. Daddy Direction’s brought it upon himself to get you chicken noodle soup.” Louis pushed away the slight worry line in between his friend’s eyebrows with his thumb. “He’ll be back soon, I swear. He couldn’t even leave until Zayn and Harry and I came over, just so we could keep an eye on you.” Louis smiled down at him, affection marring his worried look quite a bit. “Not that we mind.”

Niall’s eyes started to prickle, throat swelling with something that wasn’t a cough. And good God, if he wasn’t a blubbering mess already, being ill was certainly tuning him into one. “I love you guys. So much.”

It might have been a trick of the light, but it looked like Louis was getting a little misty-eyed too. He nodded, grin still at home on his cheeks, and combed Niall’s hair back from his sweaty forehead. “We know. We love you too, you little leprechaun. Couldn’t have asked for a better good luck charm.”

And Niall would normally have gotten stuck on Louis’ teasing, but something in the fever has twisted his brain to think differently. No, now he was focused on the we love you too part. We. We as in the other four members of One Direction, one of whom was Liam. We love you too. Did that mean Liam loved him? Of course he did, but in the way Niall wanted? What did Niall even want in the first place? “Liam.”

“What?” Louis asked, hand stilling on Niall’s head.

The words started coming out before he can stop them. “Liam. I hope he’s a part of that ‘we’ you were talking about. I hope he loves me too, ‘cause I love 'im.” And then they’re gone, out into the air, and Niall was too fucked up at the moment to even care. “I love him.”

Louis reacted exactly opposite of how Niall expected he would. Instead of looking shocked or scandalized, he leaned over and kissed Niall on the forehead as if he were a small child and not a almost-full-grown man. “I know you do.”

Liam did return soon as Louis had said, toting a steaming bowl of soup and a spoon, something about that particular setting feeling off to Niall, though his illness-addled brain wouldn't reveal why. Niall started to sit up as he came in, lifting his head off of Louis' stomach from where he was watching the Arsenal-Manchester City match (volume low) on the telly in his room, but a cool hand coming to rest warningly on the back of his neck reminded him that probably wasn't a great idea. He settled instead for smiling up at his best friend.

Liam grinned back at him, though his eyes looked tight, and left the bowl and spoon on the corner of Niall's desk. “You feeling better? How's your head?”

His gaze flicked up to Louis almost accusingly, but Niall only upped the wattage in his smile. He thought about how Lou had helped him limp pathetically to the bathroom to brush his teeth (taking care to avoid the healing cut on his lip) and take more Tylenol earlier and how he had refused to turn the volume on the telly past two. “Much better. Lou's pretty good company when he's not screamin' at the top of his lungs.”

Liam got a wicked look in his eye at that. “Try telling Harry that,” he teased. The double entendre turned the skin of Louis' abdomen hot enough under his t-shirt that it warmed Niall's cheek before he felt Louis' guilty laugh. Niall giggled hard enough for the place between his lungs to hurt, and he coughed, air scraping roughly in his throat.

It didn't bother him too horribly much-it shouldn't, seeing as he had been coughing for the past ten hours-but it seemed to hit Liam like a slap in the face, naughty smile dropping right off of his lips and to the floor. Guilt seeped into his expression, as if he felt bad for having one second of fun while Niall was ill. The look made Niall's stomach twist for a worse reason than his headache.

Louis somehow figured that was his cue to leave, muttering something about talking to Buncle Simon and how Zayn owed him a fiver as he helped Niall sit up against the headboard. He wiped his hands as if pleased with his work before going toward the door with purposeful strides, pausing with one hand on the doorknob and sending them a salute and a “Good luck!” before vanishing over the threshold.

Niall watched Louis leave before turning his eyes on Liam, who still stood at the foot of the bed like a schoolboy waiting to be scolded for kicking sand in someone’s eyes. Niall huffed out a slight laugh and patted the now-open spot to his right. “Quit feeling sorry for yourself and bring me that soup.”

Liam cracked a small smile and obeyed. He practically flew the soup across the room, slipping the bowl into Niall’s eager hands (he didn’t know he was so hungry until that very second) and calmly handing him a silvery spoon.

Niall stared at the utensil in puzzlement as Liam kicked off his shoes and unzipped his hoodie, sliding across the bed and tucking his legs underneath the sheets all within a matter of seconds. A spoon. “Li?”

“Hmm?” He didn’t look at the spoon very much, eyes concentrated stiffly on Niall’s face.

Niall pulled the hollow of the spoon into his fist, covering it completely so that it could very well be any other utensil. He didn’t want to frighten the Wolverhampton lad even further by waggling the thing around in his face. “You’re afraid of spoons.”

Liam hung an arm around Niall’s shoulders, gravity pulling the Irish lad closer than strictly necessary (not that he was about to start complaining), hand at the end resting against Niall’s shoulder. Liam curled his fingers, letting the tips drag along Niall’s still-hot skin so lightly that it gave Niall goosepimples that were completely unrelated to the fever. “I’m more afraid of my best friend dying.”

Niall snorted, flipping the spoon in his hand to actually scoop up a spoonful and slip it into his mouth. His mouth exploded with warmth, tongue pleased with the present turn of yumminess after a day in which it had only tasted vomit, Tylenol, and toothpaste. “’M not dying,” he swore to Liam. And Liam knew that already, Niall was aware, but the worry lines making creases in his forehead were actually starting to tear a hole into his heart. And he was still feeling a little disconnect from when he thought something and what people like to call a filter, so he let this cracker loose: “I would never leave you.”

A couple of looks crossed Liam’s face in the time that it took Niall to say shit about twenty thousand times in his head. At first, those familiar brown eyes had a tinge of surprise in them; he must have thought that Niall thought he was being serious about the dying thing. But then his eyebrows furrowed just slightly in confusion. He could almost read Liam’s mind then. What does that mean? A myriad of other things passed that were too quick for Niall to follow after that. And he knew right then that he was in deep shit. Either Liam would find out about his highly painful, highly embarrassing crush, or he wouldn’t, in which case Niall would stay in this state of suspended animation for even longer.

Liam’s expressions stopped changing as Niall worried; he tried to shove as much soup into his mouth as he could so as to not say anything else that could potentially cost them their friendship. He burned the tip of his tongue in his zeal, and his arm was starting to get tired from holding the soup bowl up near his face so that his spoon had a short distance to travel to get to and from his mouth.

“You wouldn’t, would you?” Liam asked. Niall almost dropped the bowl onto his lap. His focus had been so single-minded that he had nearly forgotten what he’d just done. “You would never leave me.” It was entirely genuine, the surprise in his voice when he realized that no, Niall could never ever (not in a million years) conceptualize leaving Liam behind. More than surprise, it sounded like wonder-like Liam was amazed at the thought. Niall was too afraid to look up at Liam’s face to confirm whether that was what it actually was.

“Ni.” The shortening of his name, coupled with the squeeze of Liam’s fingers around his shoulder, pushed Niall into forcefully dragging his gaze to meet with Liam’s.

What he saw made his heart beat so hard he was sure it would burst in his chest, leaving only bloody trails and shadows of Liam’s face behind. Liam was looking down at him like he had just said exactly what he’d always wanted to hear-which just couldn’t be true, could it? Could it?-eyes so full of affection and hope that his heart squeezed painfully, definitely stopping entirely for a moment before it punched hard at the inside of his ribcage again. And again. And again. He had to consciously remember to breathe with his heart smashing around like that.

One of Liam’s hands came to rest on the side of Niall’s face, fingers still a little nippy from being outside, and seemed to take up residence there, knuckles running along his cheekbone and then his jawline. Niall felt the joints in his hand aching, and realized only then that he was holding the spoon so tightly in his fist that his fingers were starting to go numb. He didn't let go of the silver, needing something solid to hold on to seeing as right now he felt as if he was falling into a big dark ocean or a black hole or something.

Yet he couldn't stop himself from smiling. Liam was looking at him as if Niall was a glass of water and Liam hadn't had anything to drink in days (though most people didn't feel so much fondness toward water). And he looked absolutely beautiful doing it, brown eyes big and hopeful in his face and the corners of his mouth creeping up indulgently. “I don't think I could leave you either, Kyle,” he said, voice quiet and delighted, as if he was telling a secret.

Niall giggled at the misnomer, leaning closer into Liam's space without even thinking about it. “That's good, I guess. Although I'm sure you'll get tired of me laughing at everything.” He knew that was true of the rest of the lads, at least; that his constant laughter was something they loved about him until it started to grate on their nerves. Niall licked his dried-out lips as they started to form a frown. What if Liam really did get tired of him? What would he do then?

Liam tapped the tip of Niall's nose with his pointer finger and jolted him back to reality. “Never. I love your laugh.” Then, as an afterthought, he pressed a kiss there too, unable to keep the full-fledged grin off his face.

Niall felt his skin heat, knowing it didn't have anything to do with his being sick, and as Liam pulled back into focus, Niall found himself staring. At his lips, specifically, which were looking just as appealing and lovely and kissable as always. But now Niall was thinking about kissing. Kissing Liam hard right on those beautiful lips, finally.

And the fever must be giving him hallucinations now, because in the second after Niall imagined kissing Liam, said British lad was leaning back into Niall's space, eyes sparkling. And oh God, Niall was praying harder than he ever had in his whole life that this was real.

The door opened right then, of course. Niall snapped his head all the way around, which was (startlingly) more dizzying than having Liam so close to him. He took in the sight of an exhausted-looking Harry Styles in mild shock, which is much the same kind of emotion that showed in the younger boy's face. “I, um.” Harry motioned vaguely toward the living room with one hand. “Me and the boys are gonna leave now, if that's okay. I haven't slept all night, and it looks like you've got everything...under control,” he said, adding a naughty smirk at the end. His tired eyes gleamed evilly. “Hope you get it-better, I mean. Better.”

Zayn appeared in the doorway, chin hooking over Harry's shoulder. He smiled sweetly at Niall and Liam, blissfully unaware of the conversation he'd just walked into. “Ay, you're looking better!” he chirped, and squeezed around Harry to get to Niall's side. He wrapped an arm around the Irish boy's neck and pressed a peck to the top of his head. “I'd say that it was a result of our magnificent care, but I doubt it-Harry and I spent most of the time watching footie and you spent most of the time sleeping. In any case, you're in better hands now.”

“He definitely is,” Harry chirped, and Niall snorted, trying to avoid full-out laughing. It caught in his throat, though, and started him coughing into his fist. That forced Zayn into backing off and Harry into looking guilty.

“And on that note,” Louis chimed in, sneaking in behind Harry, his arms going around the Cheshire boy's waist and pulling him bodily out of Niall's room. Harry didn't even try to complain, clearly enjoying having the older man tote him around like he was a Victorian heroine-which was made even more obvious by Harry calling something along the lines of 'oh, Louis, rip my bodice' from the living room. The door shut behind them, leaving an echo of a laugh and not the usual slam Larry Stylinson was known for.

Zayn chuckled at his friends' antics, simply shrugging and grinning as he ruffled Niall's hair. “Get better, Nialler.” He looked over Niall's shoulder to Liam, giving the other boy a significant but unreadable glance. “Liam, can I talk to you for a second?”

Niall whipped his head back to Liam to measure his reaction. He was staring up at Zayn with complete understanding of whatever Zayn was trying to say. “Sure. I'll walk you out.”

Liam slid out of bed, leaving a kiss on the same place Zayn just had at the crown of Niall's head before following Zayn out of the room. The Irishman sunk down beneath his covers, suddenly feeling very sorry for himself again. He bit at his thumbnail while his ears strained in vain to hear what exactly Liam and Zayn were saying in hushed tones by Niall's front door.

He didn't hear anything insofar as that, but his mobile did buzz angrily on his bedside table, upset at having been ignored for so long. Niall put aside the soup bowl and spoon and picked up the iPhone, the light of the screen irritating his headache a little further than he had wished. It still vibrated in his hand, so Niall ignored the twinge at the backs of his eyes to figure out what was prompting the notifications.

It turned out the current explosion of his phone was a sudden onslaught of Tweets to him, urging him to feel better. Niall scrolled over in the app to look at the trends, and was flattened by the fact that #NiallGetWellSoon was trending worldwide. He wondered exactly how they knew, until looking at Liam's page, which hadn't been updated in almost eight hours. At the top of the page:

Real_Liam_Payne: Nialls not feeling well today #NiallGetWellSoon

Before he knew exactly what he was doing, Niall had his feet on the floor next to the bed, mobile abandoned on the sheets, steeling to stand up. He did it slowly, making sure that he wouldn't knock himself out again, pushing past the aching in his muscles.

“Niall?” Liam had come back into the room and stood inside the doorway, looking at Niall like he was off his head and not just standing in the middle of his bedroom. “Are you alright?”

He started walking toward Liam, impressed at how well his body was actually responding in comparison to the last twenty-four hours. There was some scientific fact that Niall had heard before floating toward the front of his mind-that in situations of dire emergency, people can lift cars off of other people because of all of their adrenaline. Niall thought that this was obviously a situation of dire emergency.

Liam apparently didn't realize what was happening until it did, trapped by Niall's arms against his bedroom door, a pair of lips crashing against his and pulling back too soon. Liam's lips followed as Niall broke away from him. He stared down at Niall in half-shock, half-desire as the smaller man grinned up at him. “I'm guessing you are, then.”

“You trended me,” Niall said, mouth absolutely refusing to stop smirking. It was almost starting to hurt, smiling so much, but it wasn't really as if he could help himself. He dared anyone to back the person they loved up to a door and kiss them and then to not to smile about it.

“I did.” Liam was flushing hard from their proximity, bodies brushing together. “Though if I'd have known that's what it would get me, I would have done it sooner.”

Niall laughed, lightheaded with excitement, and watched in slight wonder as Liam pulled him closer to lay a delicate closed-mouth kiss against his lips. His eyelids fluttered, refusing to close entirely, part of him sure that this was a dream. But no, the sensation of Liam's hands on the sides of his head were too familiar, the texture of slight facial hair too specific for him to be imagining it. Niall let his eyes slide shut.

But then Liam started to laugh himself, one hand dropping from Niall's cheek and lips breaking away. Niall opened his eyes to look at the boy, whose own glance had dropped to the floor, an embarrassed blush filling his cheeks. “You know what Zayn told me?”

Niall literally had no idea where this was going. “What?”

Liam chuckled. “He told me not to take advantage of you 'cause you're sick.”

Niall giggled, one of his hands tracking up to hold onto Liam's darker fingers. Liam pushed his fingers in between Niall's, threading them together in a messy huddle of skin. “You wanted to take advantage of me?”

Liam gazed at him with burning brown eyes from under his eyelashes, which was so sexy it almost made Niall faint right there. “Always.” He tilted his head to the side, considering Niall, who stood in front of him a fevered, ecstatic mess, and his eyes turned soft. “But not when you're ill.”

Niall pulled the hand he was holding on to around his waist and laughed louder. “Looks like you're the one being taken advantage of, then.” It made him wheeze a little bit to laugh that hard, but by now he was so overwhelmed with the fact that Liam had kissed him, slow and sweet (though with not as much tongue as he had imagined) in the doorway of his bedroom that he forgot to be worried about his sickness.

But Liam hadn't. He grinned ruefully down at the boy and kissed him on the forehead. “Come on, let's sit back down. Too much excitement for one day, eh?” Liam spun Niall around and walked the pair of them back toward his bed, arms hooked around the Irish boy's middle and chin resting on his shoulder.

“I wouldn't say that,” Niall protested, even though the fact that he was shivering again probably made that seem like a lie. Liam huffed a concerned little exhale as he sat Niall down on the bed, scooting in behind him so that Niall rested comfortably between his legs. He pulled Niall’s quilt across the bed and wrapped it around the pair of them.

Niall let out a quiet sigh as he leaned back against Liam. “I’m really hopin’ this isn’t just a fever dream.” Because if it was, that would be the cruelest trick he’d ever had to live through. Niall didn’t know exactly what would happen if he woke up and none of this had been real-nothing dramatic, he was sure. He’d probably just stay like he was before, going fucking insane, heart hurting and unable to get over something his imagination had concocted.

He felt Liam chuckle behind him, breath feathering across the back of his neck. He pressed a kiss to the curve of Niall’s shoulder, lips slick and warm against Niall’s cold-sweaty skin. Niall felt his heart thrumming so happily in his chest that he was sure that had to be another symptom, but it didn't matter much when Liam was there with him, folding arms around Niall and laying another kiss to the back of his blonde head. “Me too,” Liam agreed, raising his knees toward the ceiling and tightening his arms around Niall as if at any second he might disappear into thin air.

That started Niall wondering what exactly Liam would do if that happened. What if he did just vanish? He knew that if that happened to Liam, they'd have to send him to a psych ward, but how would Liam feel if that was switched-if one day all the boys woke up to find that Niall was gone? He could see Harry and Zayn being completely heartbroken over it, losing the baby of the group (because even though Niall was older than Harry, he was definitely the baby. Harry had the soul of a fifty-year-old man). Louis would be a total wreck, too-Niall knew that he adored the fact Niall looked up to him so much. But Liam? Niall pushed out a sigh, suddenly drained; he was at a loss for him. How does someone react when they lose their best friend?

And like he could hear exactly what Niall was thinking (as was per usual for Liam), the lad mumbled something almost inaudibly into Niall's skin. “I was worried about you.”

“I know.” Niall remembered Louis saying something to him. “You made the lads come over just so you could go to Tesco.”

Liam laughed again, cottoning on to how utterly ridiculous that sounded-that he would need someone to take his place while he went down the street to get something for someone who was sleeping. He tightened the grip of his arms around Niall's shoulders and tipped his forehead against the surely heinous blonde hair at the back of his head, defending the choice. “I was worried.”

The moment was so sweet that Niall could feel his teeth aching from it. So he didn't try to say anything at all, content to just feel Liam's heart beating against his back. The aching in his head was still there, yes, but it seemed as if his body was acknowledging the fact that there was something more important than that at hand and was letting him off the hook (at least, for now).

He leaned further back into Liam, pushing the brunet to rest against the headboard of Niall's bed. And maybe he should have been scared of what exactly he felt teetering at the tip of his tongue, but he just couldn't find it in himself to stop. Niall let his tired eyelids droop closed and the back of his head fall back against Liam, exhaustion nipping at every part of him except for the thinking part, which had gradually become more and more sure over the last few minutes that the track it was following was the best one.

It really didn't take much debating. It was definitely obvious, to him at least, and Niall's face was like an open book so often that it wouldn't have made any sense to lie. And he didn't need to lie-not to Liam, not to his best friend. And oh, when it rolled around in his head, it felt like the breakthrough of the century. So he said “I pretty much love you” meaning every single syllable of it.

He didn't have the energy left to stay awake for Liam's reaction. The weight of the confession being lifted off of his chest was like abandoning a battleship anchor on the sea floor and finally being able to swim up to the surface, and now that he could finally breathe, he was out cold in no time flat.

Niall woke up again quite a time later, staring at the clock and smacking his dried-out lips together until the green numbers came more into view. In the complete darkness of the room, a couple of lighter shades came into view, one of which was blocking out what must have been an eight on the clock to look like an 'n'.

The Irish boy blinked uncomprehendingly at the numerals until his eyes found purchase on wild strands of hair-not his-blocking the green lines from view. He glanced down the dark shafts to find Liam sleeping underneath them, letting out wispy puffs of breath that brushed across Niall's face like soft fingertips.

For a second, he became seized by panic, remembering what he had said before he'd fallen asleep. But that passed fairly quickly, the squeezing of his heart becoming less about fear and more about how absolutely gorgeous his best friend was, sleeping on the other side of his bed with eyelashes feathered out against his skin and eyes moving underneath his lids in some dream Niall couldn't see. His lips were opened just slightly, relaxed and soft and practically begging for Niall to kiss them again. So after a brush of his thumb against Liam's cheekbone, he did.

It was just a simple press of lips on lips, but knowing that he could do it at all gave Niall a distinctly warm feeling in his chest. He pressed his lips back against Liam's a few more times, swallowing down the slight fear in his throat when Liam started to wake up beside him.

Niall opened his eyes to look into warm brown ones staring right back over at him. Niall watched with fascination as the eyes blinked hard a few times before crinkling up at the edges into what must have been delight. The sound of Liam's laugh came out muffled, as he became too preoccupied with the feel of Niall's lips against his. His eyes disappeared back behind translucent eyelids, and then Niall was gone too, completely caught up in the buzzing in his veins and the feeling that this was the start of something massive.

He didn't even notice the tissue box, looking sad and abandoned and lying flat on its side on the hardwood floor after being forcibly ejected from the bed while Niall slept, but that was okay. He didn't really need it anymore.

xx