My Gift Is My Curse

The next day Niall decided he was going to spend with none other than Demi Lovato. He was planning on taking her out to eat somewhere in the tiny city in Germany they were all currently in, and then he wanted to go shopping.

It basically seemed like a date.

It basically was a date.

Alice had no idea this was happening, no, in fact Niall and Louis had come to an agreement that they were going to make up a lie. Niall begged Louis not to say anything about what was happening to Alice, and had said, “can’t we just compromise, Lou? I know he’s your best mate, and that’s his cousin, but please do this for me! We’re best mates as well. She can’t know about this. She’ll be absolutely pissed with me. In order for us to be together I have to lie, yeah? I have to pretend I fancy Demi when I’m around the others; they have to feed into it. They know she hates Demi, so we can get them in on it. We can just say that we’re going to a meeting at a radio station, yeah? Recording an interview. I don’t know, we can come up with some sort of bullshit. Please do this for me, Louis. Help me out mate.”

So, the younger girl was told that there was an interview being done at some high-end radio station somewhere an hour away from them. She was also told there was going to be a translator there since apparently their accents were unbearable, she thought this was absolutely ridiculous but kept that factor to herself, which was going to increase the amount of time they were taking up at the station.

By the time Alice had woken up, which was half-past noon, Niall was long gone. She didn’t entirely care all that much, although she had wished that he’d texted her or at least said goodbye to her. But, of course he hadn’t, they hadn’t talked since Alice walked out of the restaurant the night before.

Alice found herself taking a long, cold shower to wake herself up more and attempt to gather her thoughts, and then dressed in a casual black V-neck with denim shorts to match, followed by a pair of neon striped socks and white converse.

She straightened her long, brown locks and drew on some eyeliner across her eyes, followed by some mascara, and then headed out to the front of the bus where Louis sat with his laptop.

“How come you’re not walking around the venue with the boys?” Alice spoke up, causing Louis to jump and drop his laptop on the hard ground beneath him. The girl’s eyes widened as he scrambled forward to check for any damage. “Oh god, Louis, I’m so sorry! I didn’t – oh god! Fuck!”

She ran forward only to hear his loud sigh fill the quiet area, and quickly spotted the laptop with black marks across the screen. The mouse pad had a crack down the middle, and the screen was all torn up.

“Oh my god. Louis, I swear, I didn’t mean to! I’ll buy you a new one! You’ve had that for years, too! Time for an upgrade!” Alice frantically ran around the front of the bus searching for her phone and a hoodie, and she then handed Louis’ shoes to him.

All the while Louis was watching with an amused look. “You’re especially fucked, you know.” He said.

Alice tilted her head. “What?” she asked, confused.

Louis shook his head and his body rumbled with laughter. “Wasn’t my laptop, you twat. Was Zayn’s.”

She felt her body grow cold. That wasn’t good. Zayn’s laptop was his everything - his pride and joy, his love, his baby. Anytime anyone broke something of Zayn’s, they wouldn’t ever live it down. He immediately seeked revenge, breaking an item of the other person’s possession.

Plus, it wasn’t very good to even touch anything of Zayn’s anyways. He was lucky enough if anyone was even able to touch him.

Whenever Alice was tired and wanted to cuddle, she’d try with Zayn but only be shoved to the ground because he mostly hated being touched. Although it didn’t seem like he did, considering he and the boys were constantly lying across each other and mostly always touching in some sort of way.

Alice just always thought it was something against her.

“You fucking dick!” She yelled, jumping on top of the older boy. “You didn’t even have to drop the laptop! You were being dramatic! I know you saw me come into the room! You’re like a fucking animal, you hear everything!”

“Oi, piss off Ali!” He threw her off of him and began tickling her sides. “’S not like he’s gonna murder you or anything.” He grinned.

“What! Not…gonna…murder…me?” She yelled between her laugher, and then grabbed his hands, squeezing them roughly so he wouldn’t be able to tickle her once more. “Louis you know fully well that he will! He’ll come in here, find a fucking knife and then – AH!”

The pair screamed at the top of their lungs at the sight of Harry standing in front of them. They didn’t even hear him walk into the bus, but instead decided to cling to each other for dear life as the curly haired boy gave them a weird look.

“You scared the bloody shit out of me!” Louis screamed, causing Alice to laugh at him.

Harry crossed his arms. “Uh, how did you not hear me come in, Lou? You always hear shit. I don’t get it.”

Alice spoke up, “That’s what I said! But no! When I came into the room he just had to drop Zayn’s fucking laptop on the ground and break it! He didn’t even have the decency to calm me down and say that we could buy a new one before Zayn found out. Instead he was being an asshole. As always.” Alice smiled at Louis who’d gasped at her.

Harry rolled his eyes at his cousin. “If you’re done bitching, Alice, I say we hurry the fuck up and get this new laptop then, yeah? You will indeed be in quite a lot of shit if Zayn finds out about this. Now come on, I doubt that we’ll be able to get to the Apple store as quick as possible considering the fact that Paul and Preston are who-the-fuck-knows-where, so we have to go ourselves. Lou, get your little disguise together. Alice… Well no one will notice your face because it’s so ugly, but you can wear sunglasses if you want.”

She glared at Harry and then stood back up. Her phone buzzed and she pulled it out to see a text from Zayn. “Uh, guys… Zayn texted me and said that he and Liam are gonna come back to the bus soon…”

Almost instantly the two boys ran to get what they needed and literally dragged Alice out of the tour bus. Harry called for transportation and not even five minutes later a jet-black SUV pulled up and the trio jumped inside.

“So when’re Niall and Voldy coming back?” Alice asked, picking at her chipped polished nails.

Harry snickered. “Oh, it’s Voldy now?” He grinned at his cousin. “Dunno, probably in a few hours.”

Alice had recently begun to call Demi she-who-must-not-be-named on some days and Lord Voldemort on others. The boys laughed each time and thought it was hilarious, all but a little blondie.

Arriving at the large mall, the three of them began making their way towards the store, Louis clutching Zayn’s MacBook in a backpack.

They aimlessly wandered before Alice roughly grabbed the two boys, referring to them as ‘absolute dumbasses that have no idea how to do anything’, and brought them to a large wall with a map of the building on it.

“We have to go up a level to get there,” Alice sighed, and continued to drag the two older boys by their arms.

“Alice!” Louis whined. “I’m not a child! Let goooo of meeee!”

The younger girl turned and glared at Louis. “You’re right, you’re not a child, which is why you’re older than me and whining right?”

He huffed and mumbled “stupid twat” under his breath, causing Harry to pinch his cheek roughly. “Hey! Harry! Uncalled for!” And then he pinched Harry’s cheek back.

Walking all the way towards the Apple store the two boys were pinching each other nonstop. Alice ignored them and still had a firm grip on their arms. They walked inside of the store and were about to be asked how they were doing by an employee, before Alice released their arms to turn around and face both of the boys with wide eyes.

“Guys, I completely forgot… You need a fucking appointment here in order to get helped…” She spoke, and Louis sighed in annoyance, while Harry just smirked.

“Oh, little baby cousin of mine. You truly are naïve.” He took the backpack from Louis’ back and made his way to the genius bar, where the pair saw him lean against the counter and saw the blushing female worker falling for his charm.

Alice shook her head. “Every fucking time!” She laughed. She turned to Louis again. “Oh, hey wanna go get Starbucks? I’m craving coffee and this is probably going to take forever considering Harry’s probably gonna try and get a blowjob from this bitch or something.” Louis nodded enthusiastically and they then left Harry in the Apple store alone.

--

Clutching a strawberries and cream Frappuccino, Alice sat next to Louis in a booth inside of Starbucks. Louis had a black hoodie on with the hood over his head, and still had his sunglasses on.

“You look like a fucking asshole, just so you know.” Alice smiled, and sipped her drink.

Louis scoffed at her. “Oh please, don’t even get me started on how you look.” He replied, and then once more in a high-pitched voice sang “basic.”

She laughed at him and took a piece off of the chocolate chip cookie they were sharing and put it in her mouth, not even bothering to swallow it before she began speaking again. “D’you think Niall still wants to be with me?” She asked. “Because before this tour began, which y’know wasn’t that long ago, he was so sweet to me. He wanted to stay with me every night; he constantly invited me over for dinner and movies… It was nice. But now things have changed, Lou. And I don’t like where it’s going.”

Louis also ate a piece of the cookie. “I definitely think he does, Alice. I wouldn’t doubt that for a second. I just think he’s a little confused though, you know? Like he wants to be with you, but he has all of the other blokes trying to root him on for Demi, but he also needs to keep this relationship a secret. He’s spending a lot of time with her now, and we always knew he had a little kink for her, so I think shit is just getting too weird for him. He definitely fancies you a lot more though, so don’t worry yourself babe.”

She shrugged. “I don’t know, I just… He acts really odd with me. He doesn’t want to kiss me all that much anymore, and it’s not like we could just kiss all of the time anyways because of all of you guys, but he just doesn’t want to be around me almost? That’s what I feel like, anyways. I also feel like he’s hiding something from me. Some sort of secret, and it’s scaring me. I trust him so much, but there’s still that tidbit of fear inside of me. I think… I think I might be in love with Niall, Louis.”

“Excuse me?”

Alice and Louis quickly turned their heads to the left to see Harry standing with anger sprawled across his face. His pink lips were especially bright when he was angry; from the excessive amount of times he bit them in frustration and soothingly licked them over.

“What the fuck do you mean you think you might be ‘in love with Niall’? Are you fucking kidding me, Alice?” He ran his long fingers through his curly hair.

Alice didn’t know what to do. She was panicking. Her eyes were wide and her hands were shaking. Louis sat there feeling awkward and uncomfortable, knowing that there was things to agree and disagree with from both sides of the argument.

“I-I… Harry, it’s… It’s n-not what you think…” She answered, trying to find her voice in all of her panic.

The curly haired boy shook his head. “It’s not what I think? Really? Cause I’m pretty fucking sure what I think is that you want to – and do - shag my bloody band mate and one of my best mates who is absolutely off limits to you. Well, at least I thought he was.” He snarled. “How long have you been shagging? Hmm?”

Louis spoke up, and placed a hand over Alice’s trembling ones. “Harry, now’s not the time for this, and this most certainly isn’t the place. Let’s wait til we get back to the car, yeah?”

Somehow, Harry agreed with Louis and stormed off towards the parking lot. Alice trailed far behind and pulled out her phone, making sure to text Niall.

Until she ran into somebody. The brunette looked up, “Oh, I’m sorry! I wasn’t loo – Niall? Demi?”

Louis and Harry turned around after Harry nearly screamed “oh and where the fuck did the fucking girl go now?” and spotted her standing with Niall and Demi.

The older boy looked at his best friend who was standing next to him absolutely fuming, and was preparing for the shit to hit the fan when he charged at Niall.