╠ Shared! ╣

Niam - Monarch xx

Niall was cute, Irish, innocent, and taken. Liam was strong, good hearted, and Niall was his.

Niall had stayed the night again, and Liam wasn’t going to complain about that. He liked waking up next to someone, he felt less lonely this way. Letting his hand gently ghost over Nialls pale shoulder, watching it move up and down with each breath he took.

The morning sun was coming in through the skylight window, shining over the bed. Making Nialls blond streaks in his hair turn to a honey gold, the freckles on his arms standing out now. He loved this boy, they’d come so far and it took a handful of fights and a breakup, or two, that they didn’t really mean, for them to get to this balanced relationship. Liam loved Niall, and Niall loved him back, with no sign of ever slowing down or dropping out of it.   

-

They met months ago, Niall had taken the cubicle next to Liam’s. He was a transfer from Ireland and Liam was not impressed. He was loud, and too optimistic to be an accountant who just sat in front of a monitor and crunched numbers all day. Liam made no plans to talk or even make eye contact with the new guy. Not that he was being rude on purpose, because he wasn’t the type of person that would do that. He just prefered his quiet and Niall was definitely the opposite of that, which he wasn’t too pleased about.

“Do you want to get lunch?” Niall’s accent was thick, and he spoke so quickly Liam thought he was going to need subtitles or a translator. He didn’t want to reply or even turn around in his chair to face this person. But the guilt of hurting someones feelings on their first day, got the best of him. Spinning around in his chair, he stopped until he was facing him. The new guy had his arms crossed over the cubicle wall, smiling like a kid on Christmas.

“No thank you.”

“No thank you Niall.”

“Excuse me?” Liam was a little taken aback. He couldn’t quite figure out if he was being mocked, but he did know that he didn’t like being corrected.

“Sorry, I just thought you should know my name is all. Niall, Niall Horan. And you’re Liam Payne, accountant extraordinaire and asset to the company. So, I take it you don’t want to go to lunch? That no sounded pretty clear, but I’m just double checking.”

“How do you know my name?”

“It’s on your cell wall, your name. Did you forget? I’ve got one too now see? Now we can be inmate buddies.” Niall waved a thin brown plastic tag with his name on it, in generic white letters, and moved around to slide it in it’s holder facing the hall.  

Liam turned back to his work while Niall did that. Taking the opportunity and putting it to good use to end the conversation that wasn’t a conversation. He wouldn’t say it outloud but Niall was kinda fit. He obviously dyed his hair because in no way could it be that naturally blond. Little bits of brown showing through at the roots gave it away. He was young, had one of those baby faces, and the blue eyes didn’t make him look much older either.

Liam couldn’t help but think, why would someone so bright and young want to be in a place that was so gray and lifeless. He called his cubicle a cell so there must be some part of him that wishes he were doing something else. Either way Liam didn’t want to know, and so he took the two butterflies that had shown up in his stomach when he looked at Niall, and shoved them in a drawer to never come out again.  

But ignoring Niall was hopeless, because Niall asked him every day without fail if he wanted to go to lunch. And he would give the same answer, sometimes with his back turned, every day. By what felt like a month of saying, “no thank you Niall,” and nothing else, Liam was starting to go a little nuts.