With Open Arms

Runaway Kid

To Zayn, the kid isn't a mystery. He's worked with trouble kids on multiple occasions in the past, usually after a rough fight has landed them on their ass; and Niall is just that - troubled.

He finds himself watching his interactions over the next few days when he isn't at work.

Niall stays quiet at the table during meals and doesn't speak unless spoken to. He'll never ask for more but he hasn't once refused when Zayn has taken his plate and piled more food onto it.

He spends as much time as he can either outside with those earphones in and Tucker by his side or upstairs lying on his bed as possible. Sometimes Zayn catches him colouring in some childish superhero book and it reminds him of just how young the boy actually is; whenever this happens, Niall is quick to shove the book away and glare at him.

He snaps a lot. Uses words that make Louis wince a little but he just brushes them right off - it's like he's said, he's dealt with troubled kids before. And Niall? He isn't the worst, doesn't even come close to being in the top ten. Because he isn't a bad kid. He's just a scared one, it's not difficult to figure it out.

It's in the way his eyes constantly flicker from one man to the other after he's just yelled or slammed a door or something, as if he's watching their every move and waiting for something bad to happen. The way he flinches every time he has to cross one of them in the hallway. The way his hands are always clenched into fists in the front pocket of the hoodies they sorted from Harry's wardrobe for him, as if he might need to defend himself at any given point.

And Zayn doesn't miss the way that the thirteen year old's eyes instantly dart to every way out of a room the moment he steps into it. It's a defence mechanism, a reassurance that he's seen in a lot of kids who have been victims of abuse - adults too. Checking for every escape in case he needs to run.

He's a good kid. And Zayn feels for him, he really does.
He always struggles with attachment to these emergency placements, but Niall is different. It hasn't even been a full week and there's something in him that never wants to let the kid go.

Because he's making progress, in the smallest of ways.
That much can be seen in the way he is with Liam - he never snaps at the slightly younger boy. When Liam practically dives on him on the couch and fires questions at him, he never yells or shoves him away - he either remains quiet or answers until he has enough at which point he simply offers the kid one of his earbuds and they sit side by side, not much difference in size between them. And when Liam thrusts a video game controller in his hands and demands that he play, Niall tries to worm his way out of it until Liam pulls the waterworks; and then he instantly joins in as if it would be the worst thing in the world for the kid to cry (and Liam can have that effect on people).

Niall doesn't seem as quick to bite at Harry either. Sure, he still flinches away when the kid gets too close and rolls his eyes when he asks him a question that he doesn't want to answer; but he never goes out of his way to make any comments against the fifteen year old. In fact, Zayn walks past their room one evening and hears them both laughing at something - and it sends such a warmth into his chest because he's never even seen the kid smile, much less laugh, and he doesn't really know when Harry's room became their room.

And even though the boy hasn't said anything at all about life before coming to stay with them in terms of previous foster families and so on, he doesn't have to. The way that his eyes had shone with tears when he'd looked up at Zayn and asked when Sally was coming to get him had said more than enough.

So when Sally knocks on the door one afternoon, Zayn can't help but try to think of reasons why the kid should stay a little longer - because this isn't like previous emergency placements. Niall doesn't have family waiting for him. He'll end up in a children's home or another foster placement and clearly that hasn't gone well to date, has it?