Take Me Home

Chapter Thirty-Nine

It was a few days later when the boys were at school that Niall and Louis had their first falling out.

Niall had come out of his meeting with the counsellor, and she was nice, though he still didn't really like that his parents were making him speak to her.

Louis and Luke had been in art, and as always, Louis was hyper at break time - sitting in a classroom for two hours straight meant that he had a lot of energy to run off.

So, Niall and Luke were standing on the playground together. Luke was a bit upset about failing a test in English earlier on that morning because he was worried that his parents might be mad, and Niall was doing his best to console his friend.

Louis, on the other hand, wasn't being a whole lot of help. He was running circles around them, dribbling a worn looking football between his feet as he went.

"You only got one less mark than me, Luke, and I don't think I did bad," Niall said, and Luke gave a small nod, then pouted.

"But my Mum's a teacher, Ni. She might be mad at me," he mumbled. Niall shook his head, about to offer more reassurance for his friend when Louis kicked the ball particularly hard, and it smacked hard against their taller friend's thigh.

Niall frowned as Luke cried out.

"Lou! That hurt," he yelled out, as Louis let out a small burst of laughter, not thinking he had really done anything wrong since it had been an accident.

"Sorry, Luke. Didn't mean to," he said, and Niall stopped frowning at his brother to look at Luke instead, who had watery eyes and was now hurt as well as upset.

He turned back to his darker haired brother. "Lou, that wasn't very nice," he stated.

Louis frowned at his brother, standing still now. "What? I said sorry," he replied, sounding a little annoyed because he really didn't see what the problem was - Luke was okay, he's been hit harder during PE and not made such a fuss. It wouldn't have hurt him.

"But not nicely. And you laughed," he pointed out, which made Louis pout because Luke nodded in agreement, rubbing his leg slightly where the ball had hit him.

He was beginning to feel a little bit like they were teaming up on him, and instead of getting upset, he got defensive because he had been spending a lot of time with Niall lately and had adopted a few of his brother's reactions.

He crossed his arms over his chest, dropping the ball to the asphalt beneath them. "Because it was funny. Wasn't it, Luke?" he looked at their friend, trying to smile.

But Luke shook his head. "No. It was mean," he muttered.

Louis crossed his arms even tighter resisting the urge to stomp his foot. "It wasn't even hard!" he argued again.

Niall crossed his arms right back, so that Luke was stood on the sidelines watching the two brothers have a face-off in the corner of the playground. "He was already upset! And you don't even care, because you're mean," he said, raising his small voice slightly.

Louis raised his in return, feeling anger towards his brother for the first time since they had been together. "I'm not mean, you're saying I'm a bully and I'm not! You're mean, you're always mean and you always shout and you get your own way with Dads," he shouted, deciding to take it a step further because it was how he felt.

Well, sort of. It did upset him that his brothers got a lot of attention from their parents and he was almost always forgotten about. He understood most of the time that it was because they needed the attention, but sometimes he did get angry about it all.