Stand By Me

Chapter Nine

He's freaking out; every breath feels strangled, like somebody has their hands around his throat, applying pressure, cutting off his oxygen supply. He knows how that feels, and it's exactly how he feels right now.

Louis stays with him when they go to the police station, and he's secretly glad when the man follows him into the room where the officers are waiting — it isn't like those claustrophobic rooms with a single table and a bright light in the middle from the movies, but rather a small area with soundproof walls and comfortable padded chairs either side of a low table with a recording device in the middle, a window in the opposing wall revealing the natural October evening sunlight.

He's already shaken up from having to remove his shirt so that photographs could be taken of his bruised ribs and chest, his back and his hips, for evidence in court, apparently, so that Niall won't have to face him. His stepfather. Paul. He's been avoiding thinking about the entire situation that he's in, somehow, switching everything off.

His breaths are still hitching with the remnants of his sobs, eyes twitchy and tired, nose sore and sniffly. He's beyond exhausted, the events of the day (the entire past few years in which Paul has been hurting him) taking everything out of him. Somewhere in the back of his mind, the argument with his mother echoes, replays at a low volume that he forcibly ignores.

In the forefront of his mind instead; thumbs rubbing gently over his knuckles, arms holding onto him, his best friend calling him his brother and a family that he's always longed for welcoming him with open arms. He should be happy, more than happy — a family like Harry's is all he's ever wanted...except not like this. Never like this. This is wrong, so wrong, everything is wrong —

No.
He doesn't want to think about any of it. He's too damned tired.

"Niall?"

He blinks back into reality. Reality — two female officers sitting opposite him, one in uniform and the other in a dark trouser suit and pink blouse, watching him with eyes that bleed professionalism and pity; beside him, Louis, his hand on the top of his back over the shirt that he is now wearing ince again, delicate rubbing up and down his spine. His hand moves subtly to the left side more than the right, and Niall knows, somewhere inside, that it's because he'd been in the room when the pictures had been taken. He'd avoided looking at him the entire time, kept his head bowed down because he knew that Louis would be horrified. He didn't want to see that.

He doesn't want to see it now, either, so he doesn't look across at him. Instead, he glances at the officers and then down at the recording device.

The woman in uniform, Josephine 'Jo for short' as she had introduced herself earlier, speaks in a gentle voice. "We can give you five minutes before we start if you need some time," she tells him, and Niall can feel her gaze bearing into the top of his head as he looks down. "But it's always easier to just get it over with," she adds.

He nods in agreement with the latter statement. Get it over with. Get it all over with so he can sleep, because he's tired and he's done with today, done with it all. He just wants to block it all out and stop thinking all these thoughts.

So they ask questions and he answers, numbly, pretending not to notice the way Louis sucks in sharp breaths every time a particularly dark revelation is let out into the open. They ask him about what his stepfather does for a living, how a normal day at home usually goes, how it all began.

It's like he blacks out through most of it, and when he's back here again, back to the same reality as earlier on, his eyes are misty and his nose still sniffly, but the questions are all done and the recording is ended.