
Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/1019211.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Choose_Not_To_Use_Archive_Warnings, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      One_Direction_(Band)
  Relationship:
      Niall_Horan/Zayn_Malik
  Additional Tags:
      Alternate_Universe_-_Homeless, homeless, Homelessness, Hurt_Niall, Sad
      Niall, Innocent_Niall, Bottom_Niall, Sub_Niall, Oral_Sex, Sexual_Content,
      Anal_Sex, Explicit_Sexual_Content, Sex, Rough_Sex, Underage_Sex, Shower
      Sex, Love, Falling_In_Love, Love_Confessions, True_Love, First_Love, Love
      at_First_Sight, Art, Sad, Artist_Zayn, Unfinished, love_making, Slow
      Build
  Stats:
      Published: 2013-10-26 Chapters: 1/? Words: 973
****** Barefoot ******
by Zialltops
Summary
     Niall Horan doesn't remember how he got this way. Sleeping behind
     garbage cans and eating out of them when he woke. Maybe it was after
     his mum died, or the orphanage burnt down, but this is his life.
     Zayn Malik has never really had it rough? Hes always been the one to
     excel in everything, (Apart from sports, that is) especially his art.
     He likes to draw what he sees...and he sees Niall, like...a lot.
Notes
     I hope you guys like it! Please comment? I want to know what you guys
     think! :) -PandaBear<3
            Niall was born on a cold September night in an old, run down motel
room. He was delivered by the man his motherinsisted was his father and he
spent the first fourteen hours of his life in the same dipper, nestled inside a
box while his mother over dosed on Heroin.
 
            That was when Niall got his birth certificate and his mother was
cleared to go back home with the baby after shed recovered. Niall was seven
pounds, four ounces. He had blue eyes, brown hair and fair skin. His mother
continued her bad habits for twelve years, prostituting herself, and Niall to
pay for her drug addiction. She didn’t mean to do this to Niall, but she needed
it…She needed the high and Niall was sure it was his fault. He shouldn’t have
been bad; he shouldn’t have made her do this. He took everything he was thrown
with, he didn’t complain when he mother sold his body to men, who violated him
in ways Niall didn’t want to even think of.
 
             She finally died after she took a bad mix of Cocaine and Heroin on
his twelfth birthday. Niall’s father had died in a drive by shooting, not that
Niall ever really cared for his father. Of all the men that touched him, his
least favorite was the drunken nights his dad would come home and his mother
would be passed out on drugs. But, this time when he came home, his mother
wasn’t passed out.
 
            Niall was the one who found her there, lying on the bathroom floor
with a needle in her arm and he lay with her for eight days. It wasn’t until
someone came to collect rent that they were found, and Niall was still draped
under her detraining limbs, his body stiff and unmoving.
 
            He was sent to an orphanage then, and he enjoyed it. He was allowed
to watch TV, play games with the other kids and he even got to go to school.
The woman who ran the orphanage wasn’t very nice, and she beat all the
children, including Niall, but other than that...Niall thought he had life
made.
 
            He made friends with all the children. They would play hide and
seek in the rooms around the big house, Niall was usually the seeker. Niall
wasn’t allowed to be the hider, he knew why. Niall wasn’t intelligent, he
wasn’t one to put two and two together and he wasn’t good with riddles, but he
understood that no one else wanted to be the seeker…but Niall was fine with
being the outcast…as long as he was counted in on the fun.
 
            At night, Niall would sneak out of his room and hide in odd places
the boys had sat earlier and pretended that it was him they were trying to
find…and after a few minutes, he would change hiding places until one of the
house keepers heard the noises Niall made and came and found him. He didn’t
like that part very much.
 
            It was the summer before his fourteenth birthday that he orphanage
caught fire. Some of the other kids caught Niall favorite stuffed animal on
fire and Niall found himself running from the burning building, his bare feet
carrying him along alley ways and puddles of ice cold water.
 
            Along his path, people gave Niall clothes and places to sleep, but
it never lasted and Niall was running again. He ran all around the country,
bare feet his only transportation. He found himself in a port city, abroad a
ship that took him to England and he ran again. He was fifteen now, and had no
place to call a home.
 
            Niall finally settled in Clayton, a small town on the outskirts of
Bradford, where he stayed in abandoned houses and hotels when he could find
enough money to get one. He didn’t have any talents; unlike previously thought
and he mostly found bills along the streets.
 
            When he turned sixteen, Niall moved himself to a park, where he
spent most days set on a bench and watching the water, the cold air making his
pale skin crack.
 
            It was there that he became the obscured obsession and main
character in Zayn Malik’s drawings.
 
            Zayn Malik was a simple boy, from a simple family who lived in one
house for all his life. It was cozy, with a fire place and tall ceilings and a
big yard, where Zayn spent most of his days sitting in the hammock, sketching
comics...if he wasn’t to busy reading them.
 
            When Zayn turned fifteen, he took up drawing people more detailed,
but no one ever staid long enough for him to sketch. When he was sixteen, his
parents bought him an easel and told him, if he wanted to pain, he had to make
do with what he was given.
 
            He moved his painting to the park near his home where he painted
pictures of birds and passing children, trying to perfect his talent. He
painted everything that passed him until it wasn’t enough and he switched back
to his sketching.
 
            He sketched the pond and the ducks and boy with blond hair who
stared at them and that’s when Zayn swore to never stop drawing that boy. The
way his sun faded hair stuck up in all places and his ragged clothes shown pale
skin at the edges. Zayn liked to draw his feet, most of all.
 
            The way they were caked in mud from the boys travels and Zayn found
himself infatuated with the thought Of the homeless boys life, where he had
been and where he planned to go and with every stroke of his pencil, Zayn drew
the blond boys feet, splashing through puddles of the country side, and the
stories those worn feet might holed.
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