the roommate ➸ [horan au]

nineteen

N I N E T E E N

- A b b y J o n e s -

The next morning, I woke up to a loud thump and a groan that followed right after.

I sat up on the couch, stretching my aching muscles as I yawned. I looked down onto the floor next to me to find Niall sprawled out on the floor in what looked like a painful position.

I blinked.

"Oh my God. Niall are you okay!?!?" I exclaimed rather loudly, causing him to groan once again and cover his ears.

"No," He almost moaned. "You just kicked me off the couch, I have a killer-OW! I have a killer hangover and I can't move."

"What the fuck, Niall? Get up!" I reached down for him and grabbed his arm in order to try pulling him up, but that however just resulted with me collapsing right on top of him. Poor Niall. "Okay, ow, my ankle." I pouted at him as he tried readjusting beneath me.

"Okay, ow, my everything." He mocked me as he pushed me off of him.

I rolled onto my side and watched him as he somehow managed to get up and sit on the couch. He didn't say anything.

"Niall?" I spoke up after a few minutes of silence.

"Yes?"

"Can you help me get back up?"

Without another word, he stood up and pulled me up onto the couch, trying to avoid hurting my ankle. We sat next to each other in silence.

"Do you remember anything from last night?" He was the one to break the silence this time. He leaned back against the couch and ran his hand through his hair. God, he was so attractive.

"Yeah," I spoke truthfully. "I remember everything."

"Me too."

"It was nice, you know," I confessed. "I liked talking to you about the weirdest things. We should just stay up like that every night and have conversations like that, it was nice."

"Only less drinking."

"Less drinking." I repeated. "Promise?"

"Promise." He smiled at me as he patted my knee.

--

A week later, my cast was off. But, that didn't mean that Niall stopped spending time with me. No, it was quite the opposite. He seemed to be done with whatever he was ditching me for and now he was paying attention to me 24/7 - presumably because he didn't trust me to be alone on my own without me managing to break something-or myself.

I felt guilty, to be honest.

I knew that he had other friends than me, and he was still willing to sacrifice going out drinking with his friends in order to watch a movie with me. I was keeping him away from his friends and I felt bad.

I would go out with him, but I had just got my cast off and I was still adjusting to walking sober. There's no way of knowing what I'd be like walking around drunk.

This night in particular was no different than any other night - Niall found us a movie on Netflix (this time he picked a thriller; we decided that we've both cried enough for a lifetime) and we were sprawled out on the couch, eating homemade popcorn and trying to enjoy the movie.