The Thing was hidden in the Zayn's room, watching him as he climbed under the covers.

He shivered unknowingly at its presence. Before long however he fell asleep, and The Thing silently descended upon him to feed.

Louis awoke suddenly in the darkness of his room. He glanced at his clock which read 1:13 a.m.

He wondered what could have woken him up until he heard the sound of someone groaning in the room next to his. He crept out of bed, going to check on Zayn.

His door was open a crack and he peeked through. Zayn was thrashing around in his bed, seemingly having a nightmare. For a moment he thought he saw something in the room, hovering above him.

He pushed his way into the room, fear for his band mate surging in his gut. Something was in there with him!

Although the moment he entered, whatever he saw was gone. Confused he glanced around the dark room. Must have been a trick of the light...

Zayn was still rolling in her bed. There was a thin layer of sweat over his face and he was shaking.

Louis hurried over to calm him, whispering his name softly.

H suddenly snapped his eyes open and jack-knifed into a sitting position. Unaware of his surroundings he lashed out at the first thing he saw which was unfortunately Louis.

The punch had him falling to the floor backwards, gripping his nose and bumping his head.

He groaned and rolled forward onto his knees, never letting go of his nose, and blinking away stars.

Zayn was gulping in air desperately and squinting through the dark down at Louis.

"Louis? What are you doing in here!?" He yell whispered.

"Urgh. You were habing a nibmare" he said through a bleeding nose. He was still reeling from the look Zayn had given him when he first awoke. He hadn't seen him look like that since the virus.

"Are you alright?" He asked, concerned he looked to be calming down now.

"I guess" Louis replied, standing back up.

"Let me clean it up" He said, crawling out of bed and wiping his face with shaky hands.

He took his free hand and led him to Louis bathroom adjoining him room. Zayn sat him down on the closed toilet and fished through her cabinets for some first aid supplies.

Louis looked down at his hands as he crouched down and started mopping up the blood from his face.

"I am so sorry Lou" he said softly as Louis winced from the dabbing.

"S'okay" he murmured, feeling stupid for not being able to block the punch in the first place. "What were you dreabing about?" he asked curiously.

Zayn didn't answer straight away and just looked at him strangely for a minute. "I don't remember" he said slowly.

Louis somehow doubted him but shrugged a little, letting it slide.

"This may be broken Louis..." He said apologetically.

"Ob course" He said as he finished his dabbing and got some medicine for the pain.

"It doesn't look crooked though which is good. Just rest this ice pack on it and let me know if you are having trouble breathing through it when the blood clears up"

"Right" Louis got to his feet and began to leave but Zayn stopped him.

"Thanks Lou, For trying to help" Zayn said and watched as he left back for his own room.

Zayn stood there a moment longer, a crease in between his eyes as he remembered his shockingly vivid nightmare. He had been standing over Louis smacking him in the face and screaming obscenities at him as he clearly struggled with the pain. But instead of feeling compassion he only felt hate and would hit him again and again.

He had no idea why he would dream such a horrible thing, but what scared him most was that when he woke up and saw Louis hovering over him, all he wanted to do was beat him to death. Unfortunately a punch had gotten away from him before he could calm himself down enough to think normally again.

He got back into bed feeling miserable and worried. It took hours to get back to sleep that night.

The Thing was perched in the darkest corner of the room, eating all of the negative in the room greedily. It had never tasted such a lovely mixture of pain and suffering before. Somehow each member of this band seemed to have some kind of delicious memories of hate hidden away inside them just waiting to be unlocked and gobbled up. The Thing was more than willing to help and perhaps, if it played its cards right, it could live here, feeding of these beings forever.

*

Louis stared at his reflection in the mirror the next morning. A bruised nose and two black eyes were very obvious additions to his face.

Zayn was strong. His face hurt. He shook his head and went down stairs for some more medicine to prepare for his day at the garage.

As he entered the kitchen Harry glanced up from his cereal then promptly dropped his spoon.

"What happened?" he got up and tilted Louis' face up so he could inspect the damage.

Louis inadvertently flinched again at Harry's quick movements.

Harry froze, and slowly took his hand away, looking a mixture of apologetic and annoyed.

"It's a bit of a long story" Louis said quickly, trying to cover up the uncomfortable moment.

Harry purposefully folded his arms so he wasn't tempted to touch Louis again but still looked at his face.

Louis shifted and shrugged one shoulder.

"Zayn was having a nightmare last night and when he woke up he accidentally hit me" he summarised quickly.

Harry grimaced in sympathy. "Ouch. Here I'll get you something for the pain. It looks really sore"

"Thanks" Louis said, helping himself to some cereal.

Harry plonked down next to him and handed over some pills to take the edge off. They both ate in silence until Liam walked in.

He looked extremely tired.

"Everything alright Li?" Harry asked concern in his gaze.

Liam looked over at the two of them and nodded briefly.

"Didn't sleep well" He said, then noticed Louis' face. His eyes widened comically and he whispered "Who did that to you?"

"I did" Zayn said as he entered the kitchen himself.

Liam looked as though someone had slapped him in the face.

Zayn laughed a little at his expression and quickly explained what happened. He left the details of his nightmare out Louis noted.

Liam sat opposite of Louis and stared at him longer than necessary.

Louis sighed and looked up eventually, unable to ignore the stare any longer.

"Are you alright?" Liam asked him, as though he had gone through some traumatic experience.

Louis frowned slightly. "Yeah Liam, I'm fine"

Harry looked from Zayn to Liam, Louis always called Liam Li.

Harry cleared his throat changing the subject

"Weird that you both slept so badly. How come you didn't sleep well Li?"

Liam looked at Zayn and shifted away from him slightly. "I had nightmares too"

"Do you want to talk about it?" Harry asked as Louis downed the pills and got up to leave.

Louis nodded goodbye to everyone as he left to get to work on the bike.

Everyone knew that's what he was up to today. He could feel Liam's eyes on him as he left.

He vaguely heard Liam start to answer Harry, but didn't really hear anything as he made his way over to the garage, shaking his head at his weird behaviour.

*

After several hours of banging the dings out of the bike and replacing some parts, Louis' head was beginning to pound. He just had some minor touches to finish to the bike, but overall it was working again. He sighed happily, cleaning his hands on a relatively oil free rag. He was glad to have his bike back.

He decided to call it a day and turned to make his way back to the Hub.

By the time he entered his head was killing him.

Niall bounded over to him cackling "Is it true?! Did Zayn actually break your face?"

Louis groaned inwardly. He wasn't really in the mood to joke around with Niall.

"Yeah, he did Ni " Louis replied, heading to the kitchen for more pain pills.

Niall held his belly and laughed long and hard, bent over double. He then had to jog to catch up to Louis, apparently not finished yet.

"Look at your eyes! Like a cute little panda!" he said, reaching out to pinch Louis cheek.

Louis swatted the hand away, this time remembering not to flinch.

"Niall!" a shout was heard across the room.

Liam was storming over and he looked pretty angry.

Louis panicked. Why was Liam angry? Had he contracted the disease again?

Louis backed away frantically, putting the kitchen table between him and the other two.

But instead of being attacked like he thought was about to happen, Liam instead cuffed Niall upside the head.

"Leave Louis alone" he said angrily.

"Hey! Ow! Chill! I was just having a bit of fun!" Niall whined, rubbing the back of his head.

Liam turned to face Louis with an apologetic look on his face.

"Are you alright, Lou?" he asked softly.

Louis was panting slightly from the rush of adrenalin, his head pounding in time with his heart.

Louis was confused at this strange interaction. Why was Liam being so protective?

Louis nodded. "Fine. He didn't mean any harm." He tried to defuse the situation. what's new? Why would Liam suddenly storm to his defence?

But Liam would have none of that. His look of apology turned to one of concern.

"Why are you hiding behind the table?" He asked, beginning to walk around it.

Louis forced a laugh out. "I'm not hiding" he said, silently kicking himself for being so weak. He reached out to hold the back of the chair as his legs started to feel a little wobbly. He noticed his hand trembling slightly.

"What's the big deal? He's fine." Niall said exasperatedly.

And with that, Louis collapsed.