i remember the feeling

HOOOOO BOY well i wrote 5k more of the niall/barry misfits au today, i don't know what's happening or why but i'm not fighting it. here is 3.5k of it for you!! i decided not to split it up because this scene would be a standalone chapter, i think.

i'm finally gonna advance the plot, lol, and things are about to get weird!!! tiny bit of body horror/supernatural elements ahead, just heads up! and i'm back to barry's pov (thanks to meghan for some excellent questions re: the dynamic and some details about stuff barry notices about niall, this is basically all in response to your comment). also it’s hard writing irish people so just, yknow, I’ll get it irish-picked eventually, but bear with the weird mashup of probably misused irish/british slang all filtered through a v american syntax, lol.

i don't know how to number these sections so they make sense, so on the off chance that anyone has just wandered onto this page and is craving niche angst, i'll just.. include a quick overview here of the sections in the order in which they should be read.
1. barry POV section/general premise stuff is here
2. niall POV sections and backstory (part 1, part 2, part 3)
3. barry POV (the section/chapter under the readmore cut below)