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When Harry wakes up in the middle of the night to take a piss while they’re on the road one day, he doesn’t expect to hear the low murmurings of the telly from the backroom of their bus.
He shuffles over there sleepily and finds Niall watching some late-night infomercial. There are circles under his blue eyes and he looks utterly exhausted.
“Niall, what are you doing up?” he asks through a yawn, voice still a bit low and rough from sleep. He takes a seat next to Niall on the couch, cuddling into his side.
Niall throws an arm over Harry’s shoulders and he snuggles in deeper. “Couldn’t sleep.”
“Why not? What happened?” Harry’s voice is soft and slow and Niall might be awake but he’s pretty sure he can fall back asleep any second now.
“Um, I had a bad dream. Woke me up and I couldn’t get back to sleep,” Niall replies, looking down at Harry a bit sheepishly.
Harry frowns and places a small, comforting kiss to Niall’s collarbone where the stretched out collar of his shirt is dipping down a bit. “I’m sorry. What was your dream about?”
“Just something stupid,” Niall says, shrugging and picking up the remote. He changes the commercial to some twenty-four hour sports channel.
Before Niall can say anything, Harry grabs the remote out of his hand turns off the TV. He lies down on the couch, grabbing Niall and pulling him down with him. Niall protests a bit but ends up with his head on Harry’s chest, listening to him breathing and the sound of his beating.
“Well, I’m here for you now. Don’t need to worry about any of your stupid nightmares,” Harry says, sleepily running his fingers through Niall’s soft hair.
Harry’s asleep almost immediately, and Niall drifts off not long after, comforted by the familiar warmth of Harry’s body.
--
The nightmares don’t go away and instead they just seem to get worse as the tour continues. Niall’s up most nights because he’s afraid to go to sleep and when he does manage to drift off, it doesn’t take long before he’s waking up in a fit.
The circles under his eyes get even darker and there are days where he’s even having trouble staying on his feet. He’s nodding off between interviews and on days they have shows, he hypes himself on adrenaline and then feels like crashing as soon as they step off the stage.
Niall wakes up one night, sheets tangled around his ankles and his face covered in a layer of cold sweat. His breathing is deep and heavy and he almost wants to cry because he feels so pathetic keeping himself up every night because of stupid nightmares of all things.
“Are you okay, Ni?” Louis asks from the bed next to his. His voice is scratchy and Niall can just make out the dark outline of his hair sticking up and all over the place.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Just, bad dreams again,” Niall replies, voice cracking. “Go back to sleep, Lou.”
It’s hard to see in the darkness of the room, but Niall’s pretty sure that Louis’s frowning. He watches as Louis gets out of his bed and crawls into Niall’s, pulling the sheets up around them. Louis pulls Niall close and Niall wraps himself around him.
“How long have you been having these dreams?” Louis asks softly, pushing back Niall’s hair from where it’s sticking to his forehead.
“I don’t know, a few weeks now. Maybe a month. They won’t go away, Lou.”
Louis kisses Niall’s forehead softly and tenderly and then moves down to kiss him on the mouth. Niall kisses back because they do this sometimes – not just him and Louis, but all of them – and it’s nice and comforting.
“Well, I hope they go away soon,” Louis says after a final peck. “But I’ll be here for you until they’re not.”
“Thanks, Louis,” Niall sighs, burying his face into Louis’s chest. Louis’s breathing evens out and eventually Niall’s does too. The nightmares don’t bother him for the rest of the night.
--
At first, Niall’s nightmares seem to be dying down a bit. He manages to get some sleep through the nights as long as there’s someone there to hold him through the night. This isn’t a problem when the other boys are always with him, sharing hotel rooms or squeezing into his bunk with him on the bus.
But then that doesn’t seem to be enough. The nightmares still come even when Zayn’s holding tight onto his waist or Liam’s wrapped around him like a second skin or Harry’s cuddled deep into him at night.
It’s Louis’s idea that maybe the solution is that they should all try sleeping together one day. Niall looks at him skeptically because if only one of them being there doesn’t help, then how could all of them being there make a difference? But he’s tired and worn out and he’s sort of willing to try anything at this point.
One night they request that they get one hotel room with a king bed and Paul looks at them all oddly but knows better than to ask why and just complies with their order. They take turns showering in the en-suite bathroom and then pile into the overly large bed together. It’s still sort of a tight fit because they’re five teenage boys, but this isn’t the first time that they’ve all slept together like this and no one is complaining about the lack of space.
Niall’s in the middle, sandwiched between Zayn and Harry. Liam’s spooned up against Zayn, their fingers intertwined and both resting on top of Niall’s stomach. Harry’s using Niall’s shoulder as a pillow and he has his long hands splayed out over Niall’s. Louis’s lying half on top of Harry but his hand is latched tightly onto one of Niall’s. They’re all whispering and sometimes sharing soft kisses to lips and necks and in the soft spots behind each other’s ears.
It’s overly-warm and someone’s elbow is digging into Niall’s side and Harry’s legs feel extremely heavy on his own, yet it’s the most comfortable Niall’s felt in a long time. He smiles as Harry places a kiss to his lips and then to his neck and collarbone. They all drift off to sleep one by one, limbs tangled up together. Niall’s the last one to fall asleep, but he does so knowing that these four other boys are here from him.
He doesn’t have a single nightmare.