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Niall couldn’t believe how stupid he was. He just assumed that the safest place to hide was in plain sight. That if he acted like he had nothing to hide, people would actually believe him. But no. He was wrong. Dead fucking wrong. And he was beyond furious about it.
See, he had gone through this, where was the best place to hide it. And he figured that if he had it hidden away in secret, and it was obvious that he was hiding it, if someone was looking for something, or stumbled across it unknowingly, they would automatically know he was trying to hide something and so they would open it and know all of his dirty secrets. He figured that if he could hide it well enough in plain sight, no one would think twice about it, there was nothing suspicious about it from the outside after all.
But what he hadn’t accounted for was prying eyes, who had no respect for his privacy. No he hadn’t counted on stupid fucking Liam going through his things without a fucking thought in the world, as though it was totally fine to completely invade Niall’s privacy. Like honestly, Niall hadn’t even wanted Liam to help him pack in the first place. But Liam insisted, saying how it would be so much faster with two of them. So Niall had reluctantly allowed him to help.
But Niall, being the idiotic piece of shit that he was, had allowed his mind to wander for a few seconds, not realizing that Liam was nearing his secret. And he’d just sat by and watched, not noticing what was happening until Liam tentatively said, “What’s this?”
And it had hit Niall like a freight train, just what Liam was holding. The old wallet. Where he kept…
Niall had practically shouted at Liam to “just leave it!” but it was too late and the damage had been done because Liam had seen and he wasn’t stupid, he could put the pieces together, he knew.
Seriously though, how the fuck did Liam think it was okay to firstly impose his presence and assistance on Niall when Niall clearly didn’t want it, and secondly, while supposedly helping him pack up his stuff, to just open and snoop through whatever he came across. Niall had given him permission to help pack his things, not go through and open and pry into all of his possessions. Niall was livid. He had shouted at Liam about how he was a filthy snoop. And refused to talk to, let alone even be in the same room as him the entire day.
Of course, Niall had taken to hiding away the wallet in as secret a place as he could find, the second Liam had left him alone, but that didn’t change the fact that Liam had found it. Sure, he couldn’t confiscate it, or stop Niall from doing it. Even still…
Now, as Niall was lying awake at night, terror swept over him. Because Liam knew. He fucking knew. And Niall was fucking terrified.
He was equal parts furious at Liam for being nosy and snooping and at himself for being naïve enough to think that he could keep his secret safe, and ignorant enough to think that Liam or the other boys would respect his privacy, and he was fucking furious at himself for even making the kit in the first place.
But the fact of the matter was that Niall had been wrong. And now he had to live with the consequences. He didn’t know what tomorrow would bring, and he was scared shitless over the endless possibilities. What if Liam told the other boys? He probably already had…What if Liam told Paul and Simon and they sent him away? What if they had him locked up? What if they made him “get help”? What if they made him stop…
The possibilities were endless, and sat heavily on Niall’s chest, weighing him down. He felt like he couldn’t breathe, the anxiety was so strong. And he knew that it was risky, but he needed release. So, stealthy and silent, he crept out of bed and located his new hiding spot. Pulling out the battered old wallet, he scurried back to the safety of his bunk, where he could continue feigning sleep.
Niall opened the wallet, gazing down at his trusty kit that had saved him so many times. Nothing too deep tonight, he thought. That ruled out the razor blades and x-acto knives. He settled upon a particularly large and sharp safety pin. That would do. And it would be easy enough to hide.
Sighing in relief, Niall lowered the waistband of his boxers enough to reveal the multitude of little white lines that were barely noticeable. He wanted to go deeper, obviously, and make more jagged gashes that turned into scaly magenta raised scars, like the two he had a little further down, or at least even make something other than a tiny little red line that would fade into white, and become almost invisible, but he knew that that was too risky. So instead he contented himself with making about fifty stinging red lines on his hips, they’d heal in about a week and blend into the other nearly invisible white lines.
It felt so fucking good. And Niall felt so much better. Yeah, he was still anxious as fuck about Liam and the other boys, and just tomorrow in general, but those cuts—really they were hardly more than scratches, if he’s being honest—made everything so much more bearable. He couldn’t lose this.
After extricating several plasters—he normally went without, but he couldn’t afford to leave blood stains or risk mucking up a tissue with his blood on it—from his wallet, Niall allowed himself a small smile. In spite of Liam’s snooping, he still couldn’t take this away from him. No one could.
Wiping the blood off of the safety pin, Niall tucked it back into the slots of his old wallet, in between the sewing pins and the piece of glass. He folded up his kit and returned it to his hiding place. Once again, his Safety Kit—that’s what he liked to think of it as, at least; he knew that to everyone else it would just be seen as a self harm kit, but for him it was his lifeline, it kept him sane, and it kept him safe because it stopped him from doing other, worse, things to himself—had served him well.