× Mercury

I was shaking.

Violence wasn't something I took very well. Whenever someone would raise their voice or start spitting out profanities or get physical, my anxiety would rise way above my head. I just start to panic and my breathing becomes shallow and I shake like a Chihuahua.

It wasn't until Niall started going after Bradley did it all start that night. I was frozen to the spot watching the horror play out in front of me. I remembered Niall hitting Bradley, and then Chloe rushing over to see his nose, and then James going over to me and ushering me across the parking lot to his car, Abby in tow.

Now I was sitting in the backseat of his car, leaning against the leather and trying to control my shaking. James and Abby have tried to talk to me, to see what the hell was going on, but I didn't answer them. I couldn't answer them.

As I sat, I observed. Ever since I interrupted the incident where James found out Abby and Niall had slept together, the two teammates had obviously had their toll on each other. But I hadn't a clue how it was on the other side of the event with the siblings, and from the looks of it, it wasn't any better.

Abby was staring intently out the window and had pressed herself to the car door, like she was hoping it would pop open and she would have an excuse to leave the thick silence that was created between the three of us. I didn't blame her, I was feeling the same way. James' knuckles were white on the steering wheel as he drove through campus, jaw set, and ready to beat anyone up who decided to get on his bad side. Which was probably why the car was deathly silent: no one wanted to test out that idea.

I didn't know much about James, just that he was very protective over his younger sister and could easily give someone a black eye. He was professional on the field, passing the ball to Niall despite how he might feel toward him. It was his last year at college so that might have something to do with it, but I respected him, even if some of his morals were bullshit.

A tickle in the back of my throat made me cough. Abby turned to look at me just as James looked at the rearview mirror.

"Can you..." I spoke finally, my voice sounded strangely soft. "Can you see if Niall is okay?"

Abby took her time as she looked me up and down. I was still in my uniform - maroon jersey, shin guards, cleats, my black shorts, and white knee socks. Normally after a game I would be covered in sweat and grass stains, but unfortunately that wasn't the case this time.

"I already called him," Abby said. It was subtle, but I saw James' eyes flash over to her. "He didn't answer."

"You called him?" James pressed, clearly wanting more information.

I saw Abby roll her eyes. "Don't start with me, James," she snapped. "You already had your fight with me, and I don't need any more of your shit right now."

"You shouldn't have called him."

"I wanted to see if he was okay!" she yelled. "Sue me for caring."

I looked down at my lap and tried my best to be invisible. I felt awful. Not only did I let my team down for being benched, but also for getting Niall hurt. Niall wasn't even the one who started it, in fact, strangely enough; he was the one defending me. Which only made the situation worse. I just hoped he didn't break his nose. I didn't think I would ever forgive myself if it was.

Lynn is worth the world.

"Are you going to tell us what happened then?" James asked once he realized fighting with his sister now wasn't going to do anything but make them both mad.

"Um," I said, looking out the window to think of an explanation to word the situation. The sun was setting now, making the sky orange. "It's a long story, but, uh, basically the guy was giving me a hard time... and then he hit Niall."

"What do you mean by hard time?" James asked.

"Just..." I trailed off, trying to find a way to tell him the truth by not giving anything away. It was bad enough that Niall knew about Bradley, I didn't need two more people to know, especially Abby. We weren't exactly on good terms after the pool thing. "He was pushing me to go out with him and Niall didn't like his choice of words."

Abby laughs suddenly. "My God," she said with a shake of her head. "What did you do to him? Any other day, any other girl, he wouldn't have done anything like that."

I didn't answer her for the reason being that I didn't know what to say. Why did Niall protect me? Was it because of the intimate moment last night when I told him what happened with Bradley and I, so he felt the need to protect me? Or was it what he told me a while ago, about me reminding him of someone from his past - about the girl in that photograph in his guitar case?

No one had time to say anything else about the subject before James pulled into the Lee Hall parking lot.

× × ×

I was woken up by a door closing. I was disoriented and didn't know where I was, but I was too exhausted to move. I knew that it was really late for how heavy my eyelids where and how quite it was out in the hall.

"About goddamn time you got here," I heard James say, and suddenly in a wave, everything came back to me. Bradley, blood, the car ride... "I thought you had forgotten about her."

I had a blanket over my head so I couldn't see anything that was going on beyond the fabric, but it was pretty obvious that Niall had come back from wherever he was.

"Shhh!" Niall said a few feet away from me. "Why is she sleeping on the chair? Did you not offer her my old bed?"

"Uh, no," James retorted, the bitter in his voice was venomous. "She's not my responsibility. Normally when I bring a girl in here, her clothes are off in a second. My courtesy stops at the door."

"You're gross, you know that, right?"

James snorted. "Look who's talking, Horan. Where did you go after Chloe took you to lick your wounds? Her place? Or maybe you didn't even make it to the residences. Maybe you just took her right outside the arena behind a bush."

It was probably wrong of me to pretend to be sleeping, actually it was wrong, but it would be a bad idea to move the blanket from my face and expose myself now. So I stayed were I was and listened to their gross conversations.

"Okay, stop," Niall said in a disgusted voice. "I didn't sleep with her, but it's not like that's any of your business anyways."

"Oh..." James said knowingly. "She declined you, didn't she? Good for her, knowing the difference between men and trash."

"No," Niall stated, ignoring his insult. "Believe it or not, but once she checked out my nose, we went to get some pints since I kind of ditched her at the bar last night and we just... talked."

James busted out laughing and I jumped from the sudden noise. I quickly hid the action by turning over to my other side, making sure to bring the blanket with me.

"Oh, shit," James said, breaking his laughter suddenly. "Did I wake her? See, this is why I don't let girls sleep over if I'm not getting anything in return. It's just... weird and kind of uncomfortable."

The hairs on my arm and the back of my neck rose suddenly and I knew there was a presence looming over my body. I closed my eyes quickly and pretended to be sleeping, making my breathing deeper and opening my mouth slightly, just as the blanket was removed from over my head. I couldn't see anything, but all my senses were working overdrive.

I could smell a mix of beer and cigarette smoke as I felt a calloused hand trail down my cheek. It took everything in me to not flinch away from the sudden touch. I made sure I kept my breathing regular as Niall's hand brushed away a strand of hair from my face.

"No, she's still sleeping," Niall spoke softly, removing his hand from my cheek. He stayed looming over me and I found a strange kind of comfort from his company. "Why did you laugh at me?"

"What?" James asked. "Oh! Because it's you. You never just talk to a girl. Especially when there's booze involved."

Niall put the blanket on me once again. I then felt him move away, the sound of his feet shuffling along the wooden floor. Niall must have found that fulling the fire was just going to make things worse (something I should have learned before raiding through Niall's things), because he kept silent. Or because he knew it was the truth and he didn't want to admit it out loud.

"Can she spend the night here?" he finally asked James. "There isn't any room at mine or Jace's."

James laughed, this time not even bothering if it were to wake me up. "Hell no!" he shouted. "You can take her and get the fuck out, that's what you can do. I don't know what happened tonight in the parking lot, but I'm not Lynn's goddamn body guard. And I definitely can't wank when she's in here."

Okay, gross...

I heard something jingle - a set of keys from the sound of it. In an instant the door opened and a stream of light from the hallway took over the room. Just as soon as it came, the light disappeared along with the sound of the closing door.

A stream of swears came from James that told me that Niall didn't accept his "no", as he had left without a word.

Suddenly the blanket was ripped away from on top of me and I blinked in surprise. James was standing over me with the scariest expression on his face.

"Time for you to get the fuck out," he ordered as he threw my cleats at me. "Niall just left."

Then the next thing I knew I was standing in the hallway, cleats in hands, with the door slamming shut behind me.

"Asshole," I said under my breath.

I looked down the hallway and saw that I was the only one there, Niall already out of sight. I sighed and tugged on my shoes before making my way to the lobby and in no time I was outside the Lee House.

The air was crisp and the moon was high. I wrapped my arms around myself and looked around. I saw Niall about a hundred feet away walking through the grass. His hands were in his pockets and he was looking down, watching where he was going.

A nagging thought popped into my head telling me I should just let it go and leave him alone, but I knew I couldn't do that. So instead I told myself that I had nowhere else to go since I couldn't go back to my hall and risk seeing Bradley again.

So I started following him through the shadows.

× × ×

The chemistry lab reminded me of the science room back at my old high school. Everything looked so clean and formal with the white walls and light gray marble flooring and counter tops. There were three long whiteboards along the far wall and two rows of four counters with sinks on the end of each of them. A long desk sat in the front of the room with a computer and swivel chair.

Niall was there, too, his back to me. His hair was a mess and he was slouching with exhaustion. He was across the room digging through cabinets. I debated, not for the first time that night, that I should just leave him alone.

But that was before he turned around and saw me in the doorway.

"Jesus Christ!" he shouted and leaned against the counter. "Lynn! What the hell are you doing here?"

I could have lied, but honestly what could I have said? That I like to dabble with chemicals at one in the morning? So instead, I told him the truth.

"I followed you..."

To my surprise, Niall smiled. "I see that, but why?"

"James kicked me out."

"Of course he did."

It was easy to see the bruising around his nose in the florescent lighting. I didn't ask him about it, though, afraid of what he might say. He didn't seem bothered by it because he didn't wince when he would smile. He was just getting over a black eye, now he had another injury to take care of. This time it was my fault.

Niall opened some cupboards and started taking things out - a glass cup, a plastic bottle with some kind of thick liquid inside, and a box of rubber gloves.

"Did you know that the element mercury is named after the Roman god Mercury?" Niall asked unexpectedly, looking over at me from across the room. He brought all the contents from the cupboard over to one of the counters. "Which is Hermes in Greek, yeah? The messenger God?"

"Wow," I praised with a sly smile. "You know more than you let on, Ireland."

Niall laughed mockingly as he picked up one of the plastic bottles. The large white lettering read Karo. "I only know that because I know chemistry. I also know that the term 'mad as a hatter' came from the hat makers who went mental breathing in the chemicals of mercury used in making the hats."

"That's actually kind of interesting," I said as I weaved through the marbled counters and over to him. I leaned my arms on the table as I watched him pour some of the corn syrup into the glass. "So what exactly are you doing here?"

"I come here when I can't sleep," Niall explained simply. "My chemistry professor gave me the key to the building to use whenever I want."

Once the syrup was close to the top, Niall capped it and sat it on the table. He picked up another plastic bottle with a large warning sign on it.

"What are you doing?" I asked because it was one thirty in the morning and I was standing in the chemistry lab.

Niall looked up at me quickly before going back to his experiment. "You're Mercury, so I figured I would show you what your last name can do." He pushed the box of rubber gloves to me. "But you need to wear these for safety. Nothing bad will happen if it comes in contact with skin, but I don't want to risk it."

I grabbed two rubber gloves and put them on as Niall uncapped the red labeled bottle and held it over the glass cup filled with corn syrup.

Leaning down and resting my chin on my arms, I looked at the glass and waited until Niall dripped some of the contents of the plastic bottle, which I guessed was mercury, and watched as the two substances reacted together.

It was like watching shooting stars soar through a transparent sky. And then the shooting stars quickly turned into a meteor shower as Niall continued to drop the liquid medal into the syrup. It was actually very satisfying to watch as the air sockets seep into the other substance. When Niall pulled away the bottle everything stopped in place, like time was frozen in this small galaxy inside the glass.

"Should I add some food coloring?" he asked as he started uncapping a small blue teardrop shaped container.

Before I could answer, he started dropping in big globs of blue and I watched as the three matters responded together to make this small universe.

Time seemed to stand still as I watched. Everything around me was meaningless and the only thing that mattered was this container in front of me, and the boy on the other side.

I looked up and caught Niall staring at me.

"What?" I asked with a stupid grin.

He just shook his head, returning the smirk. "Your turn," he said, handing me the red food coloring.

I eyed it for a moment, but ended up grabbing it with one of my gloved hands. I uncapped the coloring and held it over the corn syrup, gently squeezing until a drop of red spilled out. It reminded me of the blood rushing out from Niall's nose when Bradley punched him.

The memory made me flinch and drop the food coloring, the little container bouncing on the table. Niall stopped it and quickly put the cap on before any of it could spill out.

"Are you okay?" he asked, his blue eyes worried.

I watched as the single drop of red slowly made its way through the corn syrup, stopping near the bottom.

"Yeah," I assured him, even if I wasn't completely convinced. "Yeah, I'm fine."

I wasn't squeamish when it came to blood, but it did when it came to Bradley. He never physically hurt me, but knowing he was willing to hurt someone else for me was so much worse. If Bradley knew half of the things Niall and I had done since I arrive to London, I wouldn't have doubted if Niall would have found himself in a hospital bed. I normally wouldn't encourage hitting back, but I was glad Niall did. Bradley needed a good punch to the jaw.

Niall removed the gloves from his hands and threw them in the trash next to the sink. That was when I noticed the slight bruising around his knuckles. The way he made a fist and then stretched his fingers out made me realize that his knuckles probably hurt more than his nose.

Making sure the caps were on tight on all the bottles, Niall then grabbed the glass up of blue mercury and started cleaning it in the sink.

I watched him as he put everything back in their rightful place and I couldn't help but see how comfortable Niall seemed to be there.

Chemistry was his right of place. He felt at home in this room because he understood everything. He knew where the beakers were and the Bunsen burners. What chemicals to use together so they wouldn't blow up the place. This was his familiar and it made me sad to think the only place I felt like that in London was on the field.

I wasn't sure how long we stayed in the chemistry lab and that was probably because neither Niall nor I brought up Bradley or what happened five hours ago outside of the arena. No one said anything about the dark shade of purple forming along Niall's nose. And no one brought up the fact that Bradley could still be out there somewhere looking for me.

× × ×

What grade/year of college is everyone in?

-Jess