Victims Of Circumstance (One Direction AU)

Niall (We Must Be Killers)

"But if a man walk in the night, he stumbleth, because there is no light in him." - John 11:10

Appleton, Warrington, England

Niall Horan

[Chained to his worn cot in Prison Thorn Cross of Her Majesty's Prison Service, a Category A institution for young offenders, is the one and only Niall Horan. He sits in pressed sweatpants and a dark, green t-shirt, and he looks tired. His hair has grown out and sticks atop his head in a wild mess, brown roots taking over so only the tips remain blonde. He's no longer the scared, shy, angry little boy he was in school, but tough and stern and unreadable. Then again, I suppose when you're in prison, you have to learn to adjust and take it all "like a man".]

So you're another one here for me. You know, no one paid any attention to me before I did something about it. Now people that never even heard of Holmes Chapel know my name and want to focus everything on me. People like you.

I'm not here to fight with you, Niall. I just want to talk.

Yeah, I figured. Whatever, ask what you want. This place is Category A, for "those who would pose a severe threat to the public or national security" were any of us to escape. We don't get time to do anything else but sit behind bars and ask ourselves all the questions you wish you knew.

Your parents, tell me about them.

Besides the fact that they hit me? Well, Dad did. Mum just stood and pretended she couldn't see it, but there's not much of a difference to me.

That's nothing new though. Everyone in here has something like that going on. Mummy issues, rape, drugs, something that pushed too far. You'll learn nothing about me here that you can't already guess yourself.

I want to hear it from you though, Niall. I want to hear what you think about yourself.

I think that I don't want to go through this again. I gave you an answer: they hit me. There's nothing more to it than that.

Really? Because it made you act out didn't it? You got hit and then you hit other people in other ways to even yourself out. A lot of this comes down to your parents, doesn't it? The way they stepped on you, treated you as something worthless, something dispensable... And you just took it for so long, didn't you, because -

Enough of this bullshit! [he stands and is instantly restrained by the handcuffs] I don't have to listen to this, I know how they felt about me and how I feel about them!

And newsflash mate, becoming Mr. Profiler doesn't do anything for you! There's nothing more to it but the fact that I'm screwed, always have been and always will be!

... Greg said that about you, all the time. Didn't he, Niall?

[his fists clench] How do you know that?

Tell me about your brother, Niall. Tell me about the things he did to you.

You don't want to know about those things. You don't want to hear my sob story about how Daddy hit me and Brother touched me.

[I simply wait]

It did more damage than anything, you know... my own brother doing those things... I was nine the first time it happened. I remember he came in my room after Mum and Dad went to bed. And we used to sleep together all the time, come in when nightmares got too much or we were just feeling lonely...