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Zayn has been in San Diego for three hours and twelve minutes and here is what he knows: he really, really hates sand. It’s gritty and tiny and pointless and it’s in his hair, which shouldn’t be possible as his hair has been a steady five feet, nine inches away from the ground since his arrival. The list of things that Zayn genuinely can’t stand is actually pretty short, but sand is moving rapidly up the ranks. It’s in the pockets of his favorite leather jacket and tucked stubbornly under his nails and even in his pack of cigarettes when he goes to shake out his fourth in an hour and it’s - it’s obnoxious.
Zayn’s not even sure why he thought coming to Mission Beach was a good idea. It’s not like Lola is going to magically appear on the two mile stretch of sand and sidewalk on either side of him, and she’s certainly not going to rise out of the ocean like a modern Aphrodite, but when he’d looked at a map in the airport it had been the only landmark he recognized. So here he is, accumulating dusty particles by the minute.
In fact, when Zayn really thinks about it, Lola would look absurdly out of place on this sunny beach. She doesn’t belong here, in this land of leathery tans and froyo and the hollow smack of volleyballs. She belongs at home with him, her pale skin glistening in July city heat so thick you have to swim through it, Docs heavy on Brooklyn sidewalks and hair twisted into two crazy buns on the top of her head. What possessed her to leave their 2/3 train and Park Slope Co-op paradise for this dry, unfamiliar, superficial place hasn’t made quite so little sense to Zayn as right now, standing in the middle of it. The dawning realization that he’s here without a plan, without any idea where she is, without money or a job or a place to stay, only makes him loathe it more.
He wanders a little, trying to get a hold on the ever-shifting sand beneath him, contemplating the swath of blue water that dazzles and glints so brightly it seems like it’s hiding something. Deceptive, just like everything else about Southern California. It’s the wrong ocean entirely, not to mention there’s no space, no place to brood properly without feeling like he’s infringing on the nearest surfer’s unabashed whimsy.
He finds a patch of shade, eventually, a giant umbrella spread over a blissfully empty wire picnic table, and sits gingerly, setting his duffle down next to him, wary of the ache that’s already settled into the round edges of his bones. Who knew that chasing someone cross-country would be so tiring? (Zayn did. He’d known the minute Lola left, but what was love if not thoroughly exhausting? Zayn has always felt there’s something appropriate about being wearied by love. It’s a sign that you’re doing it properly, wholly. Or maybe that’s just Lola, but Lola and love aren’t so different in Zayn’s mind anymore).
The heat is shimmering over the sand like some kind of desert mirage, and Zayn almost expects Lola to rise out of it, long skirt whipping around her ankles and his favorite mischievous smile plastered across her face. He gets lost in the image for a moment until with a hollow, startling thwack his vision blacks out as something broad and hard smacks unceremoniously into the back of his head. “Shit!” he hears, through cottonballs it sounds like, and when his eyes refocus, someone’s hovering over him, a smear of blonde hair and ruddy cheeks. “Shit shit shit,” the boy says, reaching forward without hesitation to softly cup the back of Zayn’s head, “I tripped and the back of my board caught you,” he explains, gesturing vaguely with his unoccupied hand to a long surfboard discarded in the sand next to the table. “I’m so sorry, bro. God. How does it feel?”
“Like I just got hit with a surfboard, I guess,” Zayn says drily, and the boy crinkles up his eyes in a hesitant but relieved smile at the sarcasm. Zayn feels the corner of his mouth tugging up in response.
“So like hell, I gather,” the boy says, “been there a few too many times before,” and then finally removes his fingers from where they’ve been lingering against the soft hairs at the nape of Zayn’s neck to offer him a handshake.
“I’m Niall, by the way. It’s Irish, from my mom’s side,” he spills out, as if it’s his full and practiced introduction. “And you’re....out of place?” he tacks on, taking in Zayn’s all black outfit and leather jacket, a clearly anti-beach ensemble. Zayn blinks hard a few more times, a dull ache settling at the back of his head, blurs of white still gathered in the corners of his vision, and gives Niall a once-over of his own. He’s every inch a California surfer boy, from what Zayn can tell: tousled sunshine hair, an obnoxious pooka strand choker with a small turtle pendant hanging between his collarbones, wetsuit unzipped and rolled down to expose an absurdly toned midriff, the empty arms flapping around his legs like the wings of a penguin.
If Zayn doesn’t fit in at this beach, Niall wouldn’t fit in Brooklyn, he thinks - except, if there’s one thing hipsters love, it’s an anomaly. In all honesty, Zayn’s friends would probably eat Niall right up. Zayn tries to picture Niall on Grand Army Plaza, imagines him longboarding through the strollers and the packed farmers’ market, and thinks it’d be something he’d like to see. The fact that he’s known this boy for all of two minutes and is fantasizing about watching him longboard gives Zayn momentary pause, but he chalks it up to a head injury and lets it go. “I’m Zayn,” he says, after what has probably been too long of a moment, remembering his manners, “and yes, also very out of place. Can’t imagine what tipped you off.”
Niall laughs, head thrown back and eyes scrunched up like it’s the funniest thing he’s heard all day. “Well, you don’t look like you were having a particularly great time even before you were hit in the head, and I feel like I should stay with you and make sure you aren’t concussed or anything.” Zayn opens his mouth to protest but Niall cuts him off, raising one tan hand as if to halt the words about to tumble out of Zayn’s mouth. “Where are you staying?” he asks, and Zayn feels his cheeks heat up, realizing for the first time how stupid stupid stupid it was to take off without any real plans, Lola clouding his vision and sanity as usual.
“I’m, uh,” he starts, trying to think of a way to explain that doesn’t make him sound like the most thoughtless human alive. “I haven’t really gotten that far,” he settles on. “I actually just got off the plane.”
Niall arches an eyebrow, smiles a little, doesn’t press, and Zayn sincerely appreciates it. He’s not quite ready to confront the reality of his situation himself, no less spill it to a near stranger. “Well, I definitely can’t leave you in that case,” is all Niall says on the subject, then picks up a discarded backpack from the sand next to his board and rifles around in it, emerging triumphant with a phone clutched in his fist a moment later.
“Ah, Christ,” he says, “I’m gonna be late for dinner, you’re going to have to come with me,” and slinging the bag over one broad shoulder, hoists his board under an arm, taking exaggerated care not to let it anywhere near Zayn. “I’m not leaving you here, not when you have nowhere to go and possibly a concussion,” he says, taking backward steps through the hot sand toward the boardwalk, clearly waiting for Zayn to join him. Zayn raises his eyebrows. He doesn’t remember much from kindergarten, aside from marrying Tricia Blom on the playground at recess, but he is pretty sure there was something in there about not leaving with strangers you’ve just met after they nearly take your head off with a surfboard.
“This is weird, isn’t it,” Niall says, more a statement than a question, pausing his backwards journey. Zayn feels his eyebrows relax down his forehead a little. “You just met me, and now I’m trying to take you home. Well, not home, at least not like that, not that I’m saying I wouldn’t, I mean you’re definitely attractive, Christ I should have stopped while I was ahead - was I ever ahead? Man, this has gone downhill so quickly - ”
Zayn is laughing, and Niall’s face has gone a lovely shade of pink, and the reality is that Zayn has no plans and very little money and nowhere to go, and he probably has to try and trust someone. “Pinky swear you aren’t kidnapping me?”
“Pinky swear. On my Irish ancestors, who I’m sure were lauded for their trustworthiness.” Zayn grins in response, takes a deep breath. Here goes something.
- - -
Zayn almost laughs when he sees Niall’s car, an open-air jeep complete with a beach scene clearly hand-painted around the entirety of it, bold waves emblazoned across the hood with a blond surfer crouched in the middle of them. “My friends did it, for my birthday last year,” Niall says, beaming, and then opens Zayn’s door for him. There’s a sheepskin muffler around the wheel and a hibiscus-shaped air freshener dangling from the rearview mirror. “If there’s one thing I do well, it’s cliches,” Niall grins, sliding into the driver’s seat and patting the dashboard affectionately. “This lady has gotten me through a lot,” he adds, and as the engine comes on the radio does too, a song that Zayn recognizes as one of Justin Bieber’s piping through the impressive sound system. Not that he’d admit it, if pressed.
“You listen to the radio a lot?” he asks.
“Nope,” Niall says easily, “prefer CDs. Mixes, usually, that my friends make me, but this is actually Bieber’s album. Quality music, if I do say so.”
“I’ll have to take your word for it,” Zayn laughs - no, of course he’s never listened to Bieber’s album while drawing alone in his apartment - and Niall looks mildly offended. Zayn tries to imagine what Lola would think of Niall in this moment, thinks affectionately that the force of her eyeroll at the sound of Justin Bieber’s name would probably roll her right out into traffic. Niall’s attitude is infectious, though, and as he swings onto the road (after putting on his blinker and very carefully looking both ways) Zayn finds himself bobbing his head as Niall sings along. With the wind ruffling through his hair, the sun pleasant instead of brutal against his face, Zayn imagines that California might not be quite so terrible as he’d thought. Maybe.
“So where did you come from, then?” Niall asks after a bit, navigating the car through what Zayn assumes must be downtown San Diego (“Gaslamp District,” Niall supplies helpfully, and Zayn files it away for later. Not that he’s planning on staying here all that long, but he should probably start being more self-sufficient and less reliant on disconcertingly friendly surfer boys with nice shoulders). It’s prettier than he’d like to admit, all rusty red-orange bricks and saturated colors and palm trees. The sun is beginning to set and streetlamps are coming on, people out in droves in the balmy evening air. Zayn lets his hand hang down the side of the car as he says “New York. Brooklyn, actually,” feeling very, very far away from his tiny apartment. He can practically sense Niall’s eyebrow raising.
“Do you want me to ask why you’re here?” Niall asks, and Zayn sort of loves him for it.
“Maybe,” he answers after a bit. He doesn’t regret coming after Lola, he doesn’t, but he’s not sure he wants to explain it aloud just yet. The only person he’d told before packing his duffle and heading to JFK was Danny, who’d clasped his shoulder and asked him why.
“You’re not just feeling jilted, are you?” he’d asked, eyes serious and grounding. “Because I love you, but following a girl across the country to force her to take you back is not a cute move.” Zayn thinks about it now. Is that what he’s doing? Being an aggressive boyfriend who can’t accept he’s been dumped? He doesn’t think so. It will be okay if Lola never wants to see him again, he supposes, or if he’d ever really been dumped by her in the first place, but he hadn’t. He just wants to know why she’d up and left, and to make sure she’s okay. He’s pretty confident he deserves that much.
Niall guides the car out of the downtown area, picking up speed a little as they head north. He doesn’t seem to mind that Zayn hasn’t really answered him, instead humming along to Boyfriend (Zayn knows most of the words to this one, to his dismay) and looking so content in his own skin that Zayn’s momentarily envious. Even now, when he’s confident he’s gotten his pretty-grunge, don’t-give-a-shit look down pat, and when his fingers are consistently stained with the charcoal and coffee and hipster self-righteousness of a Brooklyn art boy, on the inside he’s afraid he has no idea who he is, or who he wants to grow up to be. Maybe that’s just the curse of being an artist, he thinks, and immediately regrets it. Nothing like sounding like an asshole to make you feel like an asshole.
“Where are we headed?” he asks, after it becomes clear that they aren’t even really in the city anymore.
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Niall shoots back, smirking. “I could be taking you anywhere, couldn’t I? You’re really remarkably trusting, Zayn.”
“You solemnly pinky swore you weren’t kidnapping me! And you didn’t give me much of a choice, did you? What was it exactly? ‘I’m not leaving you here,’ I believe that’s a direct quote.”
“I’m appalled. Hearsay, total hearsay.” Niall actually giggles a little, then says “La Jolla,” and Zayn is so caught up in Niall’s laughing face that for a moment he doesn’t remember what he’d originally asked.
“It’s just a few miles north,” Niall supplies. “Bit upscale for my food taste, but you’ll get it when you meet my friends I suppose. And at least we won’t be paying!” Zayn’s not quite sure what to make of that, but he figures he’ll find out soon enough.
“You’re sure it won’t be weird that you’re bringing a stranger along?” he asks tentatively, remembering for the first time since he’d met him that Niall’s kind of an anomaly, that most people don’t befriend brooding, out-of-place boys so easily, especially after nearly decapitating them.
“Not a bit,” Niall says serenely, but his eyes are twinkling, and Zayn feels a bit like he’s missing something. He supposes he’ll find out soon enough.
They pull up a few minutes later, Niall gesturing out his side of the car at the one of the fanciest looking restaurants Zayn has ever been to, rivaling even New York’s upper class standards. But instead of parking, Niall circles around behind the building, pulling up next to a sleek black Mustang that has Zayn practically drooling. They hop out of the car and Niall says “you might want to avert your eyes” with barely enough time for Zayn to turn before Niall’s stripping off his still-damp wetsuit, opening the door to the backseat and then standing up a few short moments later, outfitted in khakis and buttoning up a blue dress shirt that is almost the precise color of his eyes, the sleeves rolled up and the top few buttons left artfully undone. Zayn looks down at himself, suddenly appalled, taking in his ratty Death Cab for Cutie tee and scuffed motorcycle boots. He’s suddenly conscious of how much he’s sweat, too, the faint acrid scent of summer heat rolling off of him under a layer of his favorite cologne.
“Hey,” Niall says, catching Zayn’s eye, clearly understanding his hesitation. “Dunno if you’ve ever looked in a mirror or anything, but I’m pretty sure you could wear a plastic garbage bag and still get into the Vatican with that face,” and then he’s turned and is striding towards the back door of the restaurant before he can catch the traces of a blush rising in Zayn’s cheeks.
He holds the door open for Zayn and suddenly they’re in a bright hallway, the noises of a busy kitchen coming from somewhere to the left and the seating area of the restaurant open in front of them. Zayn’s still not sure why they came in through the back, but there’s a whole bunch that he doesn’t understand right now, and maybe that’s just the way things are done in California. He bites down the question and follows Niall as he threads through tables to where a pretty stewardess is perched, watching him approach with a huge smile. It’s clear he’s been here before.
“Hi, Miranda,” Niall says, “usual table?” and the girl nods enthusiastically, looking up at Niall adoringly through her lashes. Zayn appraises Niall for a moment, then, trying to see him through the eyes of this girl. He looks at the muscles of Niall’s shoulders through the blue shirt, his artfully disarranged hair, narrow hips, and yeah, Zayn supposes he’s really pretty attractive. Zayn, for the most part, tends to go for people with softer parts, tits in particular, but he has an eye for pretty things and he can objectively appreciate good looks. Sure, Niall’s hot. He probably would have noticed right away if it hadn’t been for the whole traumatic head injury thing.
And then, suddenly, they’re in a back corner, standing in front of a secluded, low-lit booth, and Niall’s stepping to the side, slinging an arm around Zayn’s shoulders and saying “Friends! I’ve brought you a Zayn, say hello please!”
Zayn looks, for a moment, at the duo seated at the table, feels again like he’s missing something, smiles tentatively and raises a hand in greeting. “Hey,” he says “I’m Zayn, nice to meet you,” looking at both boys and struck with the itchy feeling that he’s seen them somewhere before, should know who they are.
“Hi, Zayn,” the smaller one says. He’s got sharp, lovely, and definitely familiar features, and everything about him has a tint to it like there’s a layer of gold riding underneath his skin. His voice is a little high, a little raspy, but confident, and he says “I’m Louis” with an edge, almost like a challenge.
“And I’m Harry,” the second boy offers, long and sweet, the hint of a Southern accent peeking out around his vowels. He’s tall, much taller than Louis, a lanky build with lazy curls and a slow, smooth smile that makes Zayn’s skin thrum. Both of them could easily be described as two of the more beautiful people he’s ever seen, and from the way they’re sitting, taking up a fraction of the space in the big booth, it’s clear that Harry’s got a leg draped over one of Louis’ knees. Huh.
Zayn glances over at Niall, who’s looking at him expectantly, and Zayn’s getting tired of feeling like he’s not in on a joke, so he just raises his eyebrows and slides into the booth on Harry’s side. Niall takes pity on him, apparently, and says, “you know, none of us know each others’ last names yet!”
“That’s not actually true,” Louis objects, turning to Niall like he’s grown a second head. “Unless you’ve finally fallen off your board one too many times and forgotten your best friends’ names?”
“Yeah, I think I maybe have,” Niall says with a grin, and then tilts his head and tosses it in Zayn’s direction as he pointedly adds, “why don’t you be so kind as to remind me?”
Suddenly, Harry’s long arm is draped across Zayn’s shoulders, warm with a kind of easy familiarity that doesn’t make Zayn shrink back like the unexpected contact usually would, and Harry’s smiling at him indulgently. “What our ever so clever Niall is trying to tell you, Zayn, is that it’s possible you may know who Louis is already. Does Tomlinson ring a bell?”
Zayn might pride himself on pointedly not really giving much of a shit about what’s going on in pop culture at any given time, but he’s pretty sure even his grandmother, who still can’t figure out how to “do emailing,” knows who Louis Tomlinson is. Hollywood darling, nobody-turned-somebody plucked from obscurity who’d proceeded to enchant the world and then win two Oscars in neat succession for his very first two screen performances - one of which he’d starred in opposite Meryl Streep, Zayn’s pretty sure - but beyond that details escape him. So, yeah, ok, he’s currently at dinner with one of the most famous actors in the world, not a big deal at all. And to think that twelve hours ago he’d been sitting in an airport in New York, grumpy and tired because he petulantly refused to drink Starbucks, the only coffee available in his terminal.
“Ah,” Zayn manages at last, realizing some response would be appropriate. Niall grins at him from across the table, and Louis just cocks an eyebrow and parrots “ah, indeed,” right back to him, his faintly amused expression dissolving into a grin so wide that crinkles appear by his eyes. “To be fair,” Louis adds, after Zayn hesitantly smiles back, “Harry’s name might be familiar too, huh Mr. Styles?” His words are meant for Zayn, but he says them to Harry, reaching up with a finger to press right under the hinge of Harry’s jaw.
Zayn knows this one though, unexpectedly. “You’re a model, aren’t you,” he blurts, surprising both himself and the whole table, feeling his eyes going wide. “My girlfriend - I mean, my not girlfriend,” he pauses, tries to collect his words from where they’re trying to spill all over the table. “Lola is really into fashion, and she used to talk about this model Harry Styles all the time. Said he did a lot of really feminine style and it was revolutionary and the next big thing and he was really young for all the work he’d done and - ” Zayn cuts off abruptly. Niall is positively beaming at him across the table and Harry is a little flushed and Louis - well, Louis just looks proud.
“Yep,” Louis says, before cuffing Harry very lightly and murmuring “I told you you’re just as well-known as I am, you idiot.” Harry ducks his head, kisses Louis’ shoulder, then turns to Zayn.
“You know, with a last name like mine it just seemed written in the stars.” He smirks a little, eyes twinkly, and Zayn is entirely endeared.
“That philosophy certainly held true for Mr. Horan here, too,” Louis grins, gesturing at Niall, and Zayn updates the very short list of things he knows about Niall in his head to include his last name. He smiles as Niall says lightly “Hey, don’t be rude, it’s a perfectly respectable profession and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with a healthy sex drive, as you two know well,” and then grins up at their waitress as she appears, carrying four of what look like very expensive beers, apparently without them having ever been ordered. They really must be regulars here.
“How did you three become friends?” Zayn asks, because he can’t quite imagine. “And how did you end up here?” They all open their mouths to answer at once, but before a word is out, someone interrupts.
“Hello, who’s this?” the boy asks, sliding into the booth next to Niall and bringing a hand up to squeeze the back of Niall’s neck in an easy, friendly greeting. He’s looking at Zayn curiously, not malicious at all, his gaze open but clearly inquisitive. Zayn doesn’t blame him, thinking how out of place he must look for a fourth time in as many hours.
“Hi,” he says, “I’m Zayn. I think I’m basically the equivalent of Niall’s stray puppy for the day?” Niall leans his head back and laughs, completely uninhibited, and it’s infectious, Harry burying his face in Louis neck with a snort and Louis grinning at Zayn, pleased. Zayn feels something warm in the pit of his stomach. He’d forgotten how nice it feels to make people laugh.
“Niall can’t help it, I swear our apartment would have been a small zoo if we’d let him take home all the strays he’s found. I’m Liam,” the new arrival says, simultaneously running a hand through his neatly shorn hair and ruffling Niall’s with a fond grin. He arches his back a bit, enjoying the stretch, and Zayn’s struck by how broad he is, how nicely defined, and fuck if everyone at the table isn’t really, really attractive. It’s not even objective anymore, Zayn’s just pretty sure he’s somehow stumbled into the pinnacle of humanity in his ripped black jeans and drooping hair. Niall leans into Liam’s fingers, closes his eyes, then peeks one open at Zayn and says, “Liam’s our fourth. You were just asking how we met, yeah?” Zayn nods, genuinely curious.
“N and I go way back,” Louis begins, “best friends from the playground when I knocked him off the monkeybars and knocked out his two front teeth to go with it.”
“It was a real bonding experience, lemme tell you,” Niall throws in. “You’d think he’d feel bad but instead he just capitalized on how dumb I looked for literally three years until my grown-up teeth came in. True friendship.”
Across the table, Louis is absolutely beaming as he continues the story. “Clearly, we stuck together. We’re from right outside of Denver, and Niall was the one who convinced me to move to LA and audition originally. So when I got my first job and knew I’d actually be able to support myself, he moved out with me, even though he had a year of school left. He taught himself how to surf while I was on set, you should see him sometime. Although I’ll never know how he managed to convince his parents it was a good plan to come out here.”
“You should’ve seen Louis in high school,” Niall says, some kind of residual awe thick in his voice. “He was the lead in Grease his senior year and there was nothing in our school immune to his charm. I mean that, nothing, inanimate objects included. Pretty sure the overhead projectors wanted to date him after hearing Greased Lightning. My parents knew he’d be a star, and they also knew how terrible my grades were. It really wasn’t all that farfetched.”
“We’ll have to make him do a rendition of Danny Zuko for you, Zayn,” Liam says, his hand still tucked against the back of Niall’s neck. “Get him drunk enough and we might be so lucky.”
“It’s a delight,” Harry agrees, practically purring into Louis’ side. Watching them, Zayn’s a little surprised at himself; usually he finds this kind of couple pretty obnoxious and ostentatious. Lola hates PDA, said from the beginning of their relationship that she liked the secrecy and privacy of keeping their relationship between them, and Zayn liked that too with her. But Harry and Louis just seem really sweet. He doesn’t let himself dwell on it - he’s known these guys for maybe an hour and he is really just not that big of a sap. He misses Lola.
“And...Liam? Where do you come in?” Zayn asks, as much to distract himself as anything.
Liam grins, and hums a little bit in excitement, like he can’t wait for Zayn to put the pieces all together. “You’ll never guess what he does,” Niall says, like a challenge, and Zayn takes in Liam’s broad shoulders and chiseled jaw as he puzzles it over. He’s pretty sure Niall’s right. Chef? Painter? Marble statue model?
“I give up,” Zayn says, really not wanting to suggest any of those and throwing up his hands in mock defeat. “Tell me?”
“You barely guessed!” Louis says, indignant. Zayn thinks for a moment he’s actually going to have to try before Louis’ mouth quirks up and his furrowed brow erases itself. “I’m kidding. You really aren’t going to get it.”
Zayn looks over at Liam, half expecting another denial, but Liam’s looking at him with warm eyes and says, “I’m a hairstylist!” like it’s the best surprise in the world. Zayn thinks maybe it is because honestly, what? But Zayn’s really kind of into it. Nothing like defying gender stereotypes to get his blood going. He secretly thinks that Liam is probably one of those hairdressers who somehow manages to make you tell them your entire life story over the course of a haircut. “I do commission jobs for other actors, and sometimes on movie sets, but Louis is my main boy.”
“How did you find these guys then?” Zayn asks, still curious, but he’s interrupted by the waitress asking for their orders. (“Have the salmon and chèvre salad,” Niall suggests, nudging his foot against Zayn’s under the table.)
“I worked with a photographer in New York,” Liam supplies after the waitress leaves, “who made it big with a couple of editorials, all of which happened to feature our then newly-discovered Harry here. Once the two of us were pretty firmly established out there, Vogue sent us to do a shoot at Venice Beach with some ridiculous hotstuff up-and-coming-actor-”
“I’m right here,” Louis says, and this time Zayn can already see the glimmer in his eye that means he doesn’t mind the teasing at all. His eyes are really a bit like a storybook character’s, sparkling and crinkly in the corners and the kind of blue that seems like it can’t possibly be natural. “The moral is,” Louis takes over, turning to Zayn, “the model and the actor happened to like each other a lot, and the actor hired the highly talented Liam Payne to be his personal hair stylist and also best friend. He can’t ever leave me, because I need him to keep me presentable, and also because I pay him. It’s how I’ve made all my friends, except Niall.”
“If only I’d known, I would’ve held out for the salary,” Niall laughs, then adds, “that shoot was the hottest day of my life.”
“Mine too,” Harry says, wiggling his eyebrows and fanning himself suggestively.
“I meant temperature wise, you’re gross, I don’t want to know,” Niall yelps in a rush, putting a hand over his eyes and muttering, “I’m already forced to confront the thought of you two Doing It uncomfortably often, thank you very much.”
“Aw, Niall,” Louis pouts. “You’re awful. It only comes up once - ”
“ - or twice,” Harry says judiciously.
“Yeah, per hour,” Liam snickers before Louis can finish, and Harry and Louis are suddenly wearing matching scandalized expressions. Zayn feels like he’s watching a tennis match.
“Please don’t listen to anything these two tell you,” Louis says to Zayn, like he’s imparting a secret, and Zayn can’t help the smile he can feel tugging at the corner of his mouth.
“I feel like they’d say the same about you,” he replies, arching an eyebrow as Liam and Niall laugh. “Your stray catches on quickly,” Liam says, grinning at Niall, who widens his eyes in return and says, “Can we keep him? Can we? Please?”
“He is pretty cute,” Harry says appreciatively, cocking his head to the side and eyeing Zayn in a warm sort of way. Instead of shying away, like he normally would, Zayn just feels kind of fuzzy inside. It’s bizarre that this goofy, lanky boy is an internationally renowned model, of all things, and Zayn wants to know more, more about all of them, wants to know how they all came to be. “Let’s keep him!” Harry says decisively, apparently finished with his surveillance and startling Zayn back into the conversation.
“Do you think perhaps we should ask him?” Louis says dryly, and without missing a beat Niall turns and says, “Yeah, Zayn, can we keep you?”
“Did I miss why you’re here in the first place?” Liam asks, and suddenly Zayn’s acutely aware of the eyes on him, of how little they know about him in return, and of the missing spot at his side where Lola should be pressed against him, warm and reassuring. He clears his throat.
“It’s not nearly as nice or inspirational as any of your stories,” he starts, unsure what to say, but is interrupted by the waitress and their food arriving, and for a moment everyone is quiet as they unwrap silverware and start eating. (It really is one of the best salads Zayn’s ever had.)
“Zayn,” Niall says softly after they’ve all settled in, “you don’t actually have to tell us, it’s fine.” Liam nods encouragingly next to him.
“So long as you’re not, you know, a fugitive or something,” Louis agrees, so Zayn puts his napkin on the table and half rises. “Should I just go now then?” he asks, and everyone laughs, and the air lightens a bit. Zayn figures what the hell, right? There are far less honorable reasons to go cross-country than to figure out why your girl of four years has left you without an explanation.
“I came to find my girlfriend,” he says, taking a deep breath and looking up to meet Niall’s eyes. “Or, I guess as I said earlier, my not-girlfriend. I’m not really sure.”
“Where did you come from?” Harry asks, his gaze soft and unobtrusive.
“Brooklyn,” Zayn says, still feeling a little weird. He hasn’t really told this story out loud to anyone, not even fully to Danny. “Off the Grand Army Plaza stop on the 2/3?” he includes, remembering that both Liam and Harry had once lived in New York, and they nod in acknowledgement. “We live together there. I mean, did, I guess? Clearly I don’t really know what’s going on. The gist is, I came home yesterday to find a note saying she’d come here. No address, no explanation, no ‘I’m coming back,’ but also no real indication that we were over or that she was ok? I guess leaving speaks for itself a bit but I just kind of hopped on a plane and came here in hopes of an explanation.”
“Wow,” Liam says, and his sentiment is clearly echoed in the faces of the other boys. “Do you know where she’s staying or who she’s with?”
“No,” Zayn says, “and she’s not answering her phone, not for me. I think she’s ok, I called her friend Sasha yesterday who said she was fine and I shouldn’t worry. God, I feel dumber the more I talk about this. It’s clear she didn’t want me to follow her, I - I don’t even know where I’m staying.”
“At Louis’, obviously,” Niall supplies, “he has about eighty extra bedrooms, don’t argue.”
“Three, actually,” Louis corrects gently, “but you’re definitely welcome. And I’d say it sounds like you absolutely deserve an explanation.” Zayn lets Louis’ words sink in for a moment, and then he realizes with a sort of startled relief that he can almost breathe again. It’s the first time he’s had any reassurance that this isn’t the dumbest thing he’s ever done, and it feels really nice.
“Are you sure?” he asks. He thinks for a moment that agreeing to stay at the house of someone he’s barely met might seem more than a little risky, but they haven’t turned out to be serial killers yet, and booking a plane ticket for San Diego was a major risk in the first place. Not to mention he has a pretty reliable confirmation of Louis Tomlinson’s identity in, oh, say, every tabloid he might happen to stumble across. He decides it’s probably worth it, thinks he’d rather take his chances than try and find a shitty hotel room, but he still should offer, as much for his sake as anything. He doesn’t like mooching, hates owing people. “You just met me, I don’t want to impose, I’m sure I could find a hotel or a hostel or - ”
“We’re sure,” Harry says simply, smiling with the full force of both of his dimples. “Technically, we all live there. It’s a little ridiculous. We’d love to have you, as long as you aren’t opposed to frequent displays of affection and won’t sell Louis’ underwear on eBay.”
Zayn widens his eyes, laughs a little because everyone else is, apparently that’s a joke. “I - I won’t, I promise, and thank you?” Zayn says. He’s kind of overwhelmed, honestly, by these boys, and their easiness and how generous they’re being with him, and for the first time since he came home and found Lola’s note, he feels sort of okay about things. Well. “Okay” might be a generous term. “How would you feel about me selling his used tissues though?”
The others laugh for real this time, and Zayn feels flushed all over. “I’m fine with it,” Louis quips, “so long as I get a cut of the profit.”
“And!” Niall says eagerly, clapping his hands together. “We’ll help you find your girl.” Zayn bites his tongue at that, thinking to himself that she probably isn’t his anymore after all.
“Do you have any idea what might’ve drawn her to San Diego?” Liam asks.
“None,” Zayn says, willing his brain not to say ‘who, not what,’ because he has absolutely no proof of that. “You can see exactly how out of place I am here, and let me tell you, she’s even more so.”
“Hard to imagine,” Louis says, but his smile is kind and he adds, “We’ll turn you into Cali boy extraordinaire in no time.”
- - -
Zayn realizes why they parked out back when, after they finish eating and Louis puts the meal on his tab, which is apparently a thing at fancy restaurants when you’re famous, he gestures toward the front where, through the big glass windows, there are a few photographers who’ve gathered on the sidewalk. “It’s not nearly so bad here as in Hollywood,” Louis says, “but they’re here for Harry, anyway. He’s too photogenic for his own good.”
“That’s a dirty lie, movie star,” Harry laughs, leaning forward and down a bit to kiss the tip of Louis’ nose, “but I appreciate it.” Niall makes gagging noises behind them.
They get out to the parking lot with no interference, and Zayn realizes the Mustang they parked next to is Louis and Harry’s. Liam gets into his Prius across the lot, raising a hand as he slides into the seat and saying, “See you at home!” Zayn can’t really imagine what that must be like, all of them living together, but he supposed he’s about to find out. As if Niall can read his mind, he says, “Liam and I used to live together down here after Louis and Harry got together, rented a tiny place. Harry and Louis split their time up in LA though, so the house sat empty for a long time, and they insisted. Said it was ridiculous and they had the space and we both crashed there most nights anyway. It’s a little much sometimes, but,” he shrugs, grinning as he adjusts the rearview mirror and starts the Jeep. “It works.”
The house is only a few minutes away, set up and out and behind gates for some kind of privacy. “They’re both famous by themselves,” Niall says, by way of explanation, “but together they’re a symbol. They’ve become kind of accidental faces of young non-heterosexual Hollywood, in a way, like People once called them Neil Patrick Harris and David Burtka 2.0. I don’t think they necessarily wanted that, but they wear it well, especially given how difficult it is when people don’t approve of the gender of your partner. I don’t blame them for wanting privacy. It’s an exhausting thing, being famous.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Zayn murmurs, trying to take it all in, and Niall turns his eyes from the road to grin.
There’s a circle drive in front of the house, where Niall parks, Liam and Louis and Harry pulling up behind them, and Zayn takes in the property for the first time. It’s big, certainly, and really beautiful, but it’s not as outrageous as Zayn expects it could be. Niall unlocks the front door, says, “normally I’d go in through the garages, but you deserve the full tour experience,” over his shoulder, and then they step into the cool interior of the front of the house, glass and wood and exposed brick. Zayn isn’t really at all surprised by how tasteful it is. It feels a bit like New York, really, and he suspects that Harry probably had a hand in that.
“This is the foyer,” Niall says, walking backwards like a tour guide and gesturing in broad sweeps around him, “down those stairs is the basement, we’ll go down there later, and up the stairs to your right are the bedrooms. Here,” he pauses, dramatically throwing open a door, “is bathroom number one. Of five. We don’t like to have to go too far for a toilet, you know, little luxuries of the rich and famous.” Zayn snickers quietly in disbelief.
Niall leads him through the rest of the house, a beautiful living room and enormous, state-of the-art kitchen, both with one wall made of floor-to-ceiling windows looking out into the big backyard, the sunset light spilling in and bathing everything in a warm glow. They go upstairs, Zayn poking his head into each bedroom as Niall lists them, saying only “who knows what happens in there” at Louis and Harry’s, and finally showing Zayn to his guest room. It’s big, certainly, but comfortable, with a bouncy bed and a fuchsia comforter. Zayn’s absolutely 100% sure his quality of life has never been better than it will be while he’s here. Which makes him think about how long that might be, which makes him think about Lola and where the hell she might be, and as if Niall can see the thoughts, suddenly his hand is around Zayn’s wrist, tugging him downstairs.
Something about the touch grounds Zayn. He’s not sure he understands, but he likes it, Niall’s fingers holding him a little tighter than they probably need to, the pad of his thumb pressed right against Zayn’s pulse.
The basement is clearly meant for entertainment. It’s one enormous room, a huge projection screen against one wall, plush furniture all over, a black marble bar in the corner where Liam is rather expertly mixing drinks. “What would you like?” he asks Zayn. “We have everything!” Zayn looks questioningly at Niall, who he realizes is still holding onto his wrist. Zayn thinks he doesn’t mind.
“Have whatever you like, bro,” Niall says, dropping Zayn’s arm suddenly to take the beer Liam is offering him. He raises it it in a toast to Zayn, flashing the Guinness label and grinning. “Told you I do cliches well.”
Zayn laughs a little, warm all over, and asks Liam for a Jack and Coke.
- - -
They watch a movie, all together, everyone drunk and giggly. There are an incredible number of surfaces to sprawl across: overstuffed armchairs, a giant couch with detachable parts, throw blankets to snuggle in that Zayn is pretty sure were spun from angel hair and cotton candy, which he accidentally muses aloud. It’s not that so much as his total lack of embarrassment about it that tells Zayn he’s drunk. Well, that and Niall cackling, “Bro, you’re drunk,” over the movie. He’s lying with his head in Liam’s lap, looking absolutely blissed out as Liam runs his big hands through Niall’s unruly hair. Zayn remembers a similar scene from dinner and vaguely wonders if Liam and Niall are together, like Harry and Louis are.
On second thought, looking over to where the other two are clinging together like an island in the middle of the ocean of couch, he doubts anyone is together like they are. Louis’ legs are draped across Harry’s lap, his head tucked up under Harry’s chin, and they both look completely relaxed, the kind of sated, sleepy easiness that Zayn can almost taste from a few feet away. If he lets his eyes go blurry, Zayn’s almost sort of convinced their skin has just melted together in the places where it’s pressed together like a seam. Yeah, he’s drunk.
The chair is so comfortable and Zayn is so tired, tired from traveling and from the time difference and from trying to keep his relationship together by his fingertips, from meeting new people and being somewhere so unfamiliar. It feels like a lifetime has passed since he boarded that plane at JFK, like he flew across the country and into an entirely new universe.
By the time the credits are rolling, Zayn’s eyes are determinedly drooping, and he allows himself to be led back upstairs, and then upstairs again, by Liam and Niall. “Night, boys,” Louis calls from behind them as they leave the basement, still pressed deep into the nest of Harry’s chest and looking for all the world like he utterly belongs there.
Niall shows Zayn the bathroom, and the two boys let him brush his teeth first, trying to cancel out the taste of whiskey and sudden loneliness with as much toothpaste as he can manage. He passes Liam in the hall, who gives him a sleepy smile and a nod, and then Zayn is in his room - his room? The guest room? - and in the span of time it takes him to strip down to his underwear he’s practically asleep on his feet. Slipping into the cocoon of blankets, Zayn manages to remember that, aside from holidays and the previous night, this is the first time he’s slept alone in two and a half years. He wishes he’d managed to say goodnight to Niall.
- - -
As much as Zayn would have loved to sleep for a short eternity, his body is wired on New York time, and he’s wide awake at 7:30 the next morning. He feels shockingly well rested and shockingly unhungover, given the circumstances. Zayn allows himself a full twelve seconds, immediately after waking up, of the thought that he’ll roll over and Lola will be there, turned away from him as always, that he’ll press his usual kiss between the delicate wingbones of her back and steal a few rare moments of morning snuggling before she wakes up fully.
Zayn has been in San Diego for eighteen hours and thirty-six minutes, and here is what he knows: he still has no plan, no idea what he’s doing here, no inkling of how he’s going to find his maybe-girlfriend in what could very well be a rapidly growing radius. He knows Lola, mostly, he knows she likes to wander, he knows she might be on her way to Austin by now, or Singapore. He knows that he is so, achingly bone-tired of chasing her, not to own her but to share some of himself with her. He knows that he is so angry, not least of which is anger with himself for still loving her, for still wanting her and her wild eyes and deft fingers and the hollows in the backs of her knees.
He also knows that he has to pee. Like, immediately. Standing up, he stretches, arching his back and watching the way his tattoo stretches across his ribcage in the mirror. He wants a cigarette. The hallway outside his room is lushly carpeted, and he sneaks into the bathroom with almost no sound at all, sighing in relief as he finally pees and his head clears a little. He looks around as he brushes his teeth again, deciding that he might like this room the best so far. Yeah, the house is gorgeous, but this bathroom looks lived-in in a way that the rest of it doesn’t really, light streaming in through the skylights and hair products strewn across the counters. There’s toothpaste residue smeared in the sink and something about it makes Zayn’s chest close up a little. He really has no idea what’s come over him.
It’s clear, rifling through his things, that Zayn really does not own California clothing. He gives up quickly, pulling on whatever tee is sitting closest to the top of his duffle along with yesterday’s jeans, and makes his way down the stairs to see if he can find some food. He rounds the corner to the kitchen and immediately pauses, his breath snagging a bit as he absorbs the intimacy of the scene in front of him. It leaves Zayn with the distinct feeling that he’s intruding.
Harry is standing in front of an extraordinarily complicated looking coffee maker, giggling and pressing various buttons as it huffs at him, emitting bursts of steam like a metallic dragon. Louis’ arms are wrapped securely around his middle and Louis is on his tiptoes, stretching to rest his chin on one of Harry’s broad shoulders and murmuring unhelpful things like, “try pressing all of them at once, see if you can break it completely,” against the skin of Harry’s throat. It’s simple, Zayn’s struck by that, how easy and usual it feels. He’s never seen them like this before, obviously, but he has the distinct impression he could have woken up ninety mornings from now and walked into the same picture.
Zayn wants to escape, to let this moment exist like a fragile, shimmery soap bubble, safe from his clumsy hands, but he feels like he’s already seen too much, that backtracking would be worse. Instead, he leans quietly and slowly against the nearest wall and tries to sort through the heavy mixture of envy and awe settled deep in his stomach.
There’s a breath at his shoulder as Niall appears, eyebrow raised and triumphant caught-you grin plastered across his face. Zayn’s relieved that Niall doesn’t call him out on it, on his blatant voyeurism. Instead, he slings an arm around Zayn’s neck, warm and heavy, and says, “I know it’s picturesque, but if we don’t intervene immediately they’ll probably stand there all day. Maybe all week. And there’s no question they’ll break that machine.” He raises his voice at the end, so there’s actually no question Harry and Louis are alerted to their presence, but they make no move to pull apart. Instead, Louis presses so many buttons in such quick succession, turning to flash a devious smile in their direction, that the coffee maker promptly starts a furious succession of beeping and then shuts itself down indignantly while Harry laughs. “Whoops,” Louis sighs demurely, and Harry turns to catch the corner of his mouth in a kiss.
Breakfast is delicious, all fresh fruit and granola and really, really good coffee, once Liam appears and sweet talks the coffee maker back to life, tsking fondly in Harry and Louis’ general direction.
“Your house is really beautiful,” Zayn tell Louis, who smiles softly, reaching out to chuck Harry under the chin. “It was all for this one,” he says fondly. “He tried to tell me he didn’t want anything big or fancy but we couldn’t have fit all of his limbs in anything smaller.”
Harry nods in agreement, mouth full of Reese’s Puffs. “Tried t’get him to buy us a shack on the beach,” he gets out, “but Lou seemed to think this was better.”
“Hey, I did buy you a shack on the beach!” Louis counters.
“Yeah, in Hawaii,” Niall says, rolling his eyes. “And clearly you didn’t play enough MASH as a kid if you think that place is a shack.”
- - -
Zayn has no plans, clearly, so he tags along with Niall for the day. Niall, apparently, is a surfing instructor, which seems appropriate. What is not appropriate, however, is Zayn’s clothing, and as much as he balks at the thought of baring his scrawny legs in front of someone he’s known for less than a day, or in front of anyone, really, it’s with relief that he puts on the brightly patterned board shorts that Niall throws him. He thinks for a moment that he’s going to have to wear them out with his Docs, but Niall takes one look at Zayn and nearly breaks himself in two laughing.
“I’m so glad I offer such entertainment,” Zayn mutters, wishing he could scrub the blush off of his hot cheeks.
“Sorry, dude,” Niall sputters, drawing his fingers against where his eyelashes have clumped together with tears of laughter. “You look like someone swapped out one third of your brooding-hipster body with a Beach Ken Doll.” He wheezes a little.
“Not my fault you have the fashion taste of Stephen from Laguna Beach,” Zayn retorts, but he puts on the flip flops Niall tosses at his head gratefully.
“Don’t think I’m forgetting you just referenced Laguna Beach,” Niall smirks.
Zayn is particularly not thrilled by the apparently unavoidable connection between surfing and the ocean, but he decides that scampering away from the menacingly advancing tendrils of the tide is probably not impressive and tries instead to sit stoically on the beach towel Niall has loaned him, sketchbook out and pages blindingly white in the San Diego sunshine. It’s not that he’s never swam before - he has a semi functioning doggy paddle down, thank you very much - but that’s only in the pool and he just doesn’t like that the ocean has things living in it. He is even more sure of his decision to try and keep his cool, however, an hour later after Niall has finished his private lesson.
Zayn tries not to stare, he really does, but seeing Niall at work is like watching someone slowly and lovingly manage to convince a horse it has wings. He patiently coaxes his pupil, a fierce, pigtailed girl who barely comes up to his thighs, from where she’s planted firmly in the sand like a little crab, until forty minutes later she’s balancing herself on the front of his board, several yards off shore. Even from far away, hidden behind his aviators, Zayn can see the matching joyful expressions on both of their faces, the identical hunch in their shoulders and ease in their stance that Niall had calmly and sweetly prodded her into learning. But really, Zayn hadn’t been staring.
When the duo emerges from the water at the end of the hour, Zayn glances down and realizes he’s managed to draw exactly half of one of the seagulls wheeling madly overhead, which may in fact be slightly damaging to his whole not-staring claim. He hurriedly closes his sketch book as Niall jogs closer, his wetsuit once again unzipped and around his waist, rivulets of salty water chasing each other across his chest and his student firmly koalaed to his back, her small, round face bright with laughter.
“Zayn!” Niall crows from several yards away, swinging the girl down from his back and then hoisting her into the air like she’s Simba incarnate, “Did you see that? Miss Nicola here is a bona-fide surfer! Wait ‘til we tell her dad, he’s going to be so proud, won’t he?” he asks, addressing the last part to Nicola as he sets her down, giggling and nodding and looking at Niall like he invented the entire institution of surfing himself. Zayn honestly isn’t sure that he didn’t.
“Pretty impressive,” Zayn agrees, trying to reign his mouth in from the grin that feels like it’s attempting to annex his entire face, “considering I’m afraid to even put my toes in the ocean.” Huh, that was a confession he wasn’t expecting to make.
Niall gapes at him for a moment, and Zayn has the distinctly unpleasant premonition that he’s going to be forced to do much more than dip his toes in if Niall has anything to say about it.
Nicola’s dad arrives a moment later to pick her up and, oh, it turns out said father happens to be, Zayn is pretty sure, one of the actors from Twilight? Christ. (He only knows this because disparaging the entire Twilight franchise and everyone involved in it is Lola’s third favorite hobby, after comparing organic coffee brands and perfecting the passionately indifferent look she wears so well). Sweet of Niall to warn him. Although, in the scope of the events of the last twenty-four hours, Zayn supposes it’s not such a surprise after all.
Niall is grinning and gesticulating wildly, reenacting his and Nicola’s wild ride and having a hard time getting her to rejoin her father as he fabricates a ridiculous and ridiculously endearing story about Nicola defending his honor by fighting off a pack of vengeful seagulls in the middle of the ocean with her bare hands, and she’s still laughing as she and her now-grinning father turn and head up the beach. Nicola’s father calls out, “See you next week!” over his one impressively muscled shoulder as Niall flumps down next to Zayn on his sun-warm towel.
“So you’re afraid to get your cute little hipster toes wet, huh?” Niall asks, grin laced through his voice like a ribbon, and Zayn groans and buries his face in his hands.
“Any chance we could pretend you didn’t hear that?” he asks hopefully.
Niall’s hand is soft against his knee suddenly, and Zayn peeks out between his fingers to meet Niall’s pitying gaze. “Zayn,” Niall says, shaking his head sadly, “it’s like you hardly know me at all.”
Zayn has to laugh at that, at this goofy sunshine boy and his goofy sunshine hair and the smell of salt and sunscreen and his hand on Zayn’s leg and how absolutely nice everything feels. He supposes if he’s going to put his toes in an ocean for anyone, it might as well be Niall Horan.
- - -
They sink into a sort of routine for a few days. Zayn goes with Niall to his private surfing lessons, gives up trying not to watch - but still definitely tries to pretend that he isn’t - as Niall coaxes adoring children of all shapes and sizes onto surfboards with ease and finesse. Zayn watches his shoulders in the mirror at night as they go pink and then deep brown, and he thinks wryly that he has never been more cliche than when he’s tempted to call them “sun-kissed.” But cliches are sort of fun in San Diego. Calling his girlfriend and getting her voicemail repeatedly is not.
Zayn even manages to sketch a little, something he hasn’t done in months, which is maybe both a bigger deal and a bigger relief than he wants to admit. He still carries his sketchbook everywhere, a years-old habit, but since the frigid January night when he’d tried to draw Lola and found himself completely unable to, he’s been afraid to get down much on the page. He can remember it so vividly, the betrayal of his own hands, how awful and foreign she’d looked on ink and paper at his own fault. He’d been afraid that his passion for drawing had left him, and without it, what on earth was he going to do? He hadn’t even been able to show it to Lola, remembers seeing something in her eyes that then looked like disappointment at the time but in his memory just feels a bit like how she usually surveyed him. Memories apparently turn bitter after you’ve been left with them.
Now, however, sitting under the cheerful if not obnoxiously persistent San Diego sun at the La Jolla shores, Zayn fills pages and pages with sketches of Niall - Niall on his trusty board (“This babe is named Molly, she’s my leading lady,” Niall had said on the second day by way of introduction), Niall off his trusty board, laughing with his head bobbing just above water like a blonde buoy, Niall with Nicola attached to his side like the most steadfast of barnacles. Zayn is pretty sure Niall wants to ask what Zayn is drawing, day after day, but he’s also pretty sure Niall could guess. And he’s more than a little embarrassed by how quickly he can already sketch out the contours of Niall’s face.
He also draws Harry and Louis one afternoon, from memory, draws them like he’d found them that first morning, the way he thinks he’ll always imagine them. It’s a side view - Louis plastered to Harry’s back, chin hooked over his shoulder, hand splayed steady and warm against Harry’s stomach - and even though Zayn is the one who drew it, it breathes intimacy in a way that makes him feel like he’s intruding on his own work, much like he had felt witnessing it in person. He doesn’t really understand what it is about the two of them that hits him so deeply. Zayn does share this one with Niall, who only sucks in a long, even breath and asks Zayn if he’ll show Harry and Louis. He does, a little nervously, but Harry looks at him with eyes glinting with tears and the next morning Louis’ already had it framed.
Zayn calls his mom, finally, on the third day while Niall is instructing a roly-poly boy named Oliver how to swim belly-down on his board like a turtle. He has to make an excuse to hang up after only a few minutes when he realizes she’s fighting off tears. It’s overwhelming how much she loves him, and it’s a testament to that love that she isn’t more freaked out about his sudden departure from New York, that she trusts him. Before he hangs up, she breathes, “Is it worth it, darling?” down the line, and Zayn doesn’t know how to answer. “I love you, sweetheart,” his mom says, “I love you and I just want the best for you. I’ve always wanted to visit California.” Zayn thinks his heart is going to beat itself right into the ocean.
Niall has appointed himself the captain of Operation Find Lola, an extensive spy mission that unfolds itself over Harry’s enchiladas and in lazy seven o’clock heat in their big backyard and in early morning runs to The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf (Zayn is sort of unsurprised to learn that Niall likes a little coffee with his caramel and whipped cream rather than the other way around). He prods Zayn for information about Lola, anything that might help find where she’s gone and why, and the biggest breakthrough comes on the night exactly a week after Zayn had arrived.
“Do you wanna smoke?” Niall asks, coming in from the garage with bags of groceries in both hands, no preamble necessary. Zayn is sat playing Bananagrams with Harry, who can’t stop whuffling little laughs as he connects his letters into a fairly impressive conglomeration of “dick,” “suck,” and a duly impressive “penetrate” all within one round. Zayn thinks to himself he’s rarely been in a more ridiculous situation than this, sitting opposite a giggling world-famous model who is, of all things, directly underneath a large framed photo of his actor boyfriend and himself on the cover of Vogue.
“Yeah,” Zayn says, surprising himself with how much he does actually want to smoke. He and Lola used to get high sometimes, when they first got together, and some of his favorite unsullied memories are of those nights and lazy afternoons, her pale skin stretched out underneath him in the amber light of his first apartment, a canvas for his reverent fingers. A year ago, though, she’d switched to clove cigarettes in the interest of “preserving the sanctity of her body.”
“God, yeah, I absolutely do,” he repeats vehemently, making Niall laugh from the kitchen. He sticks his head around the door, wielding a head of lettuce in one hand and a bottle of whiskey in the other. “Sounds like I should’ve offered sooner,” Niall says, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively, and Zayn just grins and spells out chortle with his remaining tiles.
Harry, it turns out, is a very cute and very pouty loser, but he has a date with Louis and can’t stop humming to himself as he gets ready, flitting in and out of the kitchen where Niall is showing Zayn how to cook his favorite meal, breakfast for dinner. Harry pretends he’s making sure that Niall doesn’t harm any of his precious utensils, but it’s clear after the fourth time he sighs, “But have you seen Louis’ thighs lately,” shirtless and completely in the way, that he really just wants to talk about Louis. He finally dances out of the kitchen only after Niall flicks a dish towel at his boxer-clad tush.
“What a little menace,” Niall says, shaking his head, but he’s grinning his fondest grin (not that Zayn has noticed or kept track of or categorized his various infectious smiles).
“You love them both, don’t you,” Zayn says, more an observation than a question.
“More than I have words for.” Niall transfers the scrambled eggs to plates, hands Zayn a glass of orange juice with one hand and wine with the other. “The best way I can think to explain is that I’ve sort of been the moon to Louis’ planet for a long time now, and Harry is really a part of Louis at this point, so it’s only natural. And Louis is a part of Harry. Not loving Harry would be like denying a part of Louis. They’re both my planets, I suppose.”
“Maybe they’re your moons,” Zayn suggests. “Liam too.” And me too, he thinks.
- - -
Niall brings out his pipe - Brie, named for both a girl and a cheese; apparently Niall likes christening his inanimate objects - after dinner and they smoke outside in the hot tub, under a dazzling expanse of stars. Zayn has missed this, the high, so much more than he realized. There’s a buzzing in his knees and his skin feels stretchy and he can’t stop thinking about the tide.
“I think that’s why I don’t like the ocean,” he says, turning his head where it’s resting against the back of the hot tub so that he can look at Niall.
“What?” Niall’s voice is slow and deep, unhurried.
“The tide,” Zayn says. “You know, it does that in-and-out thing. And we can’t control it. It’s too like life I think, the way we’re pulled in certain directions and it feels like we’ve made decisions but then we look back later and see there was no other option, it was always going to be in or out.”
“Dude,” Niall breathes, and that’s his only response for a solid minute. And then he says, “Dude, yeah. I feel that. But we can ride the tides, right? That’s why I love surfing, you’re working with something huge and out of your control. Choosing to play along, make things happen in the best way, that’s a sort of decision, isn’t it? Not letting yourself get swept up in the idea that everything’s out of our control anyway.”
Zayn thinks about this. He’s skeptical, but he likes Niall’s words, and he likes the jets in the hot tub against his back, and the expanse of stars above him that look just like the ones in the Brooklyn sky.
“Let me call Lola,” Niall says then, and Zayn wonders if this is one of Niall’s ways of trying to beat the tides.
He lets him though, after they go inside. Zayn has stopped calling her, sure she’s screening his calls and unable to leave any kind of satisfactory voice message anyway. And when she picks up Niall’s speakerphone call on the third ring, her voice sleepy and gravelly like an easy Sunday morning, he can feel Niall’s gaze on his face viscerally through his high, like they’re his fingers, not eyes. He feels them, feels the rush of blood to his cheeks and sees the imprint of Lola on the backs of his eyelids, the knowledge settling into the hollows of his bones that she would pick up for an unknown number, but not for him.
“Hello?” She says. “Hello? Who is this? Is everything okay?” Of course it isn’t, Zayn thinks. Niall hangs up.
He hangs up, and then there are tentative fingers on the sides of Zayn’s face, and the sensation of real overlapping with imagined makes him feel like there are tides in him, tides that are sloshing and pulling and controlled by a Lola moon whose gravity exceeds his own.
Moons. Hadn’t they talked about moons earlier?
They’re on the couch already, and it doesn’t take much for Niall to tug Zayn down into his lap, the cotton of Niall’s sweatpants and the pads of his fingers both unbearably soft against Zayn’s neck.
- - -
Niall doesn’t say anything about the phone call the next morning except to grip the back of Zayn’s neck a little extra tightly and to grin with a few extra watts in his smile, and Zayn is so grateful he could sing. Not only could but does: he sings while he showers and in the kitchen as he makes french toast out of Harry’s favorite cinnamon raisin bread and while he gets dressed, sings without realizing it until Niall pushes open the door to Zayn’s guest room as he’s changing.
“Hey,” Niall says, poking his head around the frame and appearing totally unruffled by Zayn standing in his underwear, caught mid-song, completely chagrined and literally red-handed, a pair of shocking crimson board shorts dangling off of his finger from where he’d fished them out of their shopping bag incredulously. The bag was one of several, filled with real-life Beach Ken Doll accessories - flip flops made out of some kind of magical foam, board shorts in colors Zayn previously hadn’t known existed, the polos that Niall wears with his tousled hair and turtle pendant and manages to make look endearing and flattering and which Zayn has no doubt will make him look like a complete dick.
The bags had not-so-mysteriously appeared in Zayn’s room on his third afternoon, and when he’d tried to get someone to return them, all terrible awful wonderful four of them had feigned complete innocence. (Louis had just clapped him on the back and asked with a remarkably straight face if Zayn had lost any teeth recently, as the tooth fairy was renowned for her generosity in these parts. “I haven’t lost a tooth since I was ten,” Zayn protested, and Niall had slung an arm around his neck and offered to fix that particular problem with either a punch or a kick, Zayn’s choice.) Zayn was leaving the clothes in the bags though, even after he grudgingly wore them, because it made him feel less like he was suddenly accepting handouts from famous boys he’d only just met in the throes of his biggest life crisis so far. “Hey,” Niall starts again, waving Zayn out of his startled state, “do you like....sing for a living, bro? Because you’re kind of ridiculously good.”
Zayn laughs, surprised. “If you consider singing Cry Me A River in my fourth grade talent show a ‘living’ then yes, absolutely.”
“I’m serious though. I mean you have the whole starving artist vibe going strong, who says the magic of song isn’t your artistry of choice?” Niall insists, raising a hand and strumming an invisible guitar in midair, one eyebrow quirked at Zayn like Niall’s sure he’s caught him out.
“Aw, starving artist, really?” Zayn whines. “I’ve been trying for more of a Baywatch vibe recently. What on earth could be throwing it off?” He’s managed to pull on shorts now, at least, and he’s actually quite impressed with himself for the quality of his semi-nude banter. He supposes Niall can’t be shocked by much exposed skin, not because of the extensive time he spends on the beach per se but more for the extensive time he spends around Harry Styles, of whom Zayn has accidentally seen more of in the past week than he’s seen of most people he’s known for years.
“Really, it’s nothing,” Niall assures, edging his way into the room and perching on the edge of Zayn’s (could he call it his?) bed. “You’re almost there. Just a few small details? Easily tweaked,” he grins, his head cocked to one side like he’s conducting a careful study of Zayn. Zayn is really glad he’s managed to get his shorts on. “Maybe it’s the artfully scuffed Doc Martens, or the permanent brooding smoulder or the black jeans that look like they were originally intended for an eleven year old girl or your weird skinny cigarettes which, come on, I don’t even smoke and I know those are the douchebag kind, and -”
“Alright,” Zayn interrupts, laughing in spite of himself because god, is he really that transparent? But yeah, alright, he actually did buy one pair of jeans in the Junior Girls section of Macy’s, although in his defence it was desperate times and his mom had sent him a coupon that was too good to pass up.
“Really though. You could be famous with a voice like that,” Niall pipes up again, and Zayn incredulously catalogues the flush he can feel creeping down his neck.
“Gosh,” he sighs, battling the unexpected warmth in his stomach from Niall’s sincerity, “make it a little more obvious that you just want me to be famous so you can say you have a famous friend, why don’t you?”
“Well shit, you caught me. Can you blame a boy? I live a very uneventful and famous friend-less life.” Niall flops backwards across the bed, crossing his arms over his tie-dye clad chest. “How am I ever going to meet Bieber at this rate?”
- - -
Zayn is going a little stir crazy, at least inside his head. He hadn’t really thought about the fact that trying to track someone down in a city that they've crossed the country to avoid you in is difficult, and he really has nothing else to do to avoid this reality. He feels pretty useless as an entity, to be honest, but at least he’s doing it with people he’s grown remarkably fond of in such a short time.
“How do you feel about hanging out with Harry today?” Niall asks on the morning of Zayn’s twelfth day in San Diego. Harry looks up brightly from his plate.
(Not that he’s been keeping track of how long it’s been since Lola left, but he’s maybe been keeping track. Twelve days apart is less than one percent of the number of days they’d been together - clearly he has too much time on his hands if he's doing math - but it’s still hard to believe it’s been almost two weeks. Zayn has a secret theory that the sun in California just sort of melts the days into one another like some kind of gooey, hazy, amorphous lump of time. It’s been marked more by landmarks than anything else: going shin deep into the ocean at Niall’s coaxing, getting high and watching a meteor shower from the hot tub, letting Louis and Harry talk him into letting Liam give him a temporary fauxhawk).
“To be honest I feel like I’m the cousin from Kansas who you’re passing among yourselves to entertain,” Zayn says, “and you know it wouldn’t kill me to spend a day alone if you all have things to do.” He doesn’t say I hate feeling like I’m a burden, but he thinks Niall might have heard it anyway, because he leans across the table to tap Zayn on the nose.
“We wouldn’t do it if we didn’t want to. And besides, I think Harry’s jealous of how much I’ve been hogging you. I’m sure he’d love to hear all about Kansas.” Harry nods enthusiastically, his mouth full of mushroom omelette.
Harry is, in fact, unbelievably excited about having the day to spend with Zayn. They go first to breakfast at Cafe 222, Harry’s favorite place in the Gaslamp District, where he appears not to notice the very unsubtle stares pointed at their table which make the back of Zayn’s neck prickle.
“You’ll get used to it,” Harry assures, “especially if you hang around Louis for much longer,” but Zayn isn’t so sure. It's amazing how often he forgets that both Louis and Harry are famous; in the house they're just massive goofs, smacking whoever's butt is closest and harmonizing to a multitude of Disney soundtracks and being very unapologetically shmoopy, and then in public they're pretty much the same but suddenly everyone's watching. Zayn eats his breakfast sandwich and smiles politely at the girls who shyly ask Harry for a photo and feels weird once again when Harry insists on paying for his meal.
“Don’t pout at me!” Zayn must be making a face as Harry signs the receipt, because Harry catches it and his eyes do that thing where they go all wide and comforting, and Zayn is pretty sure he’s layering on the hints of a drawl in his voice more heavily than usual. “Look, when I come visit you in Kansas you can pay for my breakfast, okay?”
“I’m not from Kansas, Harry.”
“Shh, what would Aunt Barbara think if she heard you denouncing your home state like this? Have a little respect for our family, Zayn.” And that is apparently the end of that.
Harry drives them to Balboa Park next, a huge, plush, vibrant place bursting with plants and children and a lovely koi pond. Zayn wishes he had his sketchpad as he watches the orange juice burst of their scales flash in the sunlight, and when Harry leaves him there to go get them iced coffees, Zayn has a sudden urge and pulls out his phone to call Danny, who picks up on the second ring.
“Zayn?”
“Were you expecting someone else by that name?”
“Nah, I just wasn’t sure if you were still alive. Glad to know you are though.” Zayn huffs out a laugh, not sure what to say, and just breathes for a moment, knowing that Danny understands, wishing for the hundredth time that he wasn’t shit at communicating with people he cares about.
They stay quiet for a little, and Zayn’s chest begins to ache somewhere deep and real within him, punching out a heartbeat. He misses Danny, misses curling up against his wiry frame, misses the arch of his nose and the way his faith in Zayn translates right into Zayn’s faith in himself. He’s thinking, not for the first time in the last twelve days, about the last time they were all together: Lola’s toes tucked up under his thigh on their sunken couch, Danny drunkenly doing impressions on the coffee table, Ant yelling suggestions from the kitchen, the air hazy with smoke and comfortable friendship.
“Have you heard from her?” Danny asks at last.
“No.”
“You haven’t been kidnapped by these boys?”
“In some sense, actually, I think I have been.”
“How long are you staying?”
“I’m not sure. Is Manny mad?” Manny’s their boss at the bookstore - assuming Zayn still has a job - a little secondhand place in Williamsburg where Zayn and Danny and Ant all work together, where the spines of the Agatha Christies and the poetry anthologies and the smell of old pages are as much a home as Zayn’s actual apartment.
“He’s being very Manny about it, but I’m sure if you grovel a bit he’ll be happy to let you back. You know he’s secretly a huge softy, and it’s not like we have tons of business. I made some very impressive and believable excuses for you.”
“Thanks, bro.” Zayn can see Harry on his way back, sunlight glinting off of his absurdly highly styled hair, two coffees clutched in his hands as he nearly upends a stroller and manages to charm the mother in one breath. “I should go.”
“Alright,” Danny says, and then, “Hey, Zayn. Love you.”
“Yeah,” Zayn says, and then hangs up before the tears in his eyes become real. He smiles tightly at Harry in thanks for the coffee, and Harry doesn’t ask any questions, just walks with him quietly until Zayn has swallowed the silvery lump in his throat.
They get home earlyish, the sun beating down hard and Zayn emotionally wrung out from his talk with Danny and from the heat. He thinks maybe he’ll take a nap, assuring Harry that he’s fine and will be okay on his own, and Harry leaves again, ostensibly to ‘run errands’ although Zayn is pretty sure he’s going to go visit Louis at the magazine shoot he’s been in all morning before he does.
He really does intend to nap, too, but when he gets inside Liam is sitting at the dining room table. “Hey, Z,” he says, the nickname easy and affectionate and for some reason catching Zayn entirely off guard. “You want to join me? I’ve got strawberries.” He does, in fact, have an enormous bowl of strawberries that look inviting and plump and so Zayn sits, peering across the table at whatever Liam’s working on as he pops one in his mouth.
“Louis got me a book of crossword puzzles in hopes that it’d help me learn to spell,” Liam explains with a shrug of his shoulders. “I dunno how well it’s working.” Zayn hides a smile behind a strawberry practically the size of a baseball as he sees where Liam has answered 12 Across, “Boss of Mount Olympus”, as “Zues.”
Liam puts the pencil down and leans back, the hem of his shirt riding up as he stretches his arms above his head and then gives Zayn a surprisingly intuitive once over. “Rough day?” he asks, and then Zayn is suddenly and inexplicably talking, telling Liam about Danny and the bookstore and Lola and their sweet little apartment and how much he dreads going back and how he knows he’ll be empty handed and Lola and Lola and Lola. He stops to take a breath and he’s taken aback both by how good it feels to talk about it, and by the telltale glistening in Liam’s eyes.
“I’m sorry,” Zayn says, gruffly, embarrassed, and he doesn’t know where to look. He doesn’t know what it is about Liam and his big comforting self and his unthreatening smile and his warmth but Zayn trusts him, trusts all of them, and it’s overwhelming and big in a very different way than being left by his girlfriend of four years has been. It’s a falling into place, a welcomeness, and it’s so unlike him and unlike his usual closed-off instincts but he thinks he wants to keep it, and he doesn’t know how to reconcile it with his Before self. Most of all, he’s scared they don’t want it as much in return.
“Zayn,” Liam says, and his voice is heavy with something unrecognizable. “I actually...I think I understand more than you know. And I’d like to give you a hug, please.”
And then he does, and so there they are, standing in the middle of Louis Tomlinson’s dining room, boys hugging each other in the glow of the sun beginning to set, wreathed in something newborn and easy and golden.
“Honeys, I’m home, and I brought Chinese!” Louis calls from the garage entryway. Zayn’s instinct is to spring away from the hug, but Liam holds on tightly and so he does, too, savoring the safety a moment longer. “Well, this is tender,” Louis remarks upon finding them, “but I’ve got some even more tender orange chicken in these bags if you manage to find a break in this love fest.”
The eat out on the porch, settling on Zayn’s favorite sun chairs, which he figures probably cost more combined than his rent back home. “You know what?” Louis says suddenly, his mouth full of fried rice. “The others made fun of me when I bought five chairs instead of four. I told ‘em who knew when we’d need an extra, and would you look at us now.”
“That’s true, actually,” Liam remarks, “and I see now how wrong we were. Although technically there are only three of us here right now...” He grins over at Zayn who is suddenly feeling warm all over, and not just from the slow burn of the sun beginning its descent towards the horizon.
“That’s a technicality, Liam, god. No one ever listens to me when I’m right,” Louis laments, but he’s smiling at Zayn too, honest and crinkly eyed and haloed in the sunset.
“That’s not true,” Liam says mildly, but Louis pretends not to hear.
“Has Niall been taking care of you?” he asks instead.
“Yeah, yeah, totally,” Zayn assures, and it’s true. Niall has accommodated Zayn into his daily routine like Zayn’s been there for years. He’s grateful for it, even if he knows it’s not a longterm solution. “Niall’s been great, you’ve all been great.” He doesn’t know if it’s rude to say the next part out loud, after their hospitality, but he’s feeling so strange and his talk with Liam has given him a boost. “I’m just...not really sure why I’ve stayed or what I’m doing here anymore.”
“Finding Lola?” Liam supplies, a little furrow appearing on his forehead like he’s concerned maybe Zayn has forgotten.
“Finding Nemo?” Louis suggests, supremely unhelpful, but Zayn laughs anyway. He’s discovered he’ll pretty much always laugh at Louis, no matter how stupid his jokes are.
“Yeah, both of those,” Zayn agrees easily. “I dunno, It just doesn’t feel like I’m actually doing much to find her, you know? Like, I left everything behind, I have no job or schedule here and that means no real reason to still be here? I also have no actual way to track her down, and coming after her in the first place is starting to feel like trying to find a needle in a haystack.”
“You just have to burn the hay,” Liam says quietly, so quietly that Zayn almost misses it, and then he and Louis are both looking at Liam incredulously.
“That’s fucking brilliant, Li,” Louis says, and Zayn recognizes the helpless grin on Liam’s face at the praise, has felt it himself when he’s done something to please Louis.
“Turns out I’m good for something besides turning the mess on your head into a passable hairstyle, huh?” Liam jibes gently, and Louis scoffs, pretending offence, but turns back to Zayn with soft eyes.
“I dunno, man. I don’t feel like you should leave yet, you know? It’s not bothering any of us, and it’s definitely not bothering Niall, so don’t even think that. In fact, I think I speak for all of us when I say I love having you here.” He leans back in his chair, closes his eyes as if the argument has been settled, and then sits back up suddenly a moment later.
“Hey! If you wanted, I just remembered they need a temporary summer person to work the cashier at The French Gourmet, Harry’s favorite bakery!" Louis says, his eyes lighting up at the thought. “I saw when I went in to get him eclairs yesterday. You could apply if you wanted, maybe not feel so much like you’re not doing anything, at least for your own sake. And who knows, maybe Lola will come looking for some croissants.” He raises his eyebrows suggestively.
Liam pipes up too, setting his now empty plate aside, a smudge of teriyaki at the corner of his mouth. “If you really want to leave, you should wait until the week after next, if you can hold out a while,” he suggests. “Harry and Louis have the Teen Choice Awards next week and I have to go with to make sure Louis looks presentable enough not to scare off any children. I’d do Harry, too, but he insists he likes doing it himself.”
“Rude,” Louis counters, but there’s no bite to it. “Yeah, actually, Niall hates being dragged along and away from here but he hates being alone in the house, too. I think he’d be really happy if you were here to keep him company.”
Zayn thinks about it for a moment. As much as he doesn’t have plans while he’s here, he has even fewer plans for while he’s gone, and the thought of going back to his empty apartment full of Lola’s clothes and her smell and her knick knacks and her empty spaces makes his body feel like it’s actively revolting. Maybe it’s easier to hide out here for a little while, safe with Niall, smoking and sitting in the sun and just being. Maybe he’ll try calling Lola again. Maybe he’ll work up the courage to go home. What he says out loud, though, is, “Maybe I’ll apply at the bakery, yeah,” and Liam and Louis’ answering smiles are enough.
- - -
Liam offers to let Zayn use his car early the next morning to drive to The French Gourmet, as he’s staying home to pack and insists he doesn’t need it. Harry intercepts Zayn on his way out the door, though, claiming that he’s craving tiramisu and that there’s no reason for them to take separate trips. Zayn humors him because he’s a little nervous, anyway, and he likes listening to the sweet, slow lilt of Harry’s voice as Harry tells ridiculous stories about his life while he drives.
Harry starts his car once Zayn is buckled in, but then Niall erupts from the front door, flip flops in hand, his tank top rumpled and hair still damp from a shower. “My first lesson for today just called and cancelled,” he says by way of explanation, sliding into the back seat and reaching around to squeeze Zayn’s shoulder. “Plus I wanted to come along for good luck. And a pastry or four.” Zayn laughs, but he’s really pleased.
It’s a quick drive, made faster by Zayn’s sudden anxiety, but Niall and Harry’s steady chatter keeps him distracted until they pull up and usher him inside. There’s a pretty girl behind the counter who greets Harry by name, which Zayn could have expected, and then she turns her sweet smile on him when Harry introduces Zayn and tells her he’s looking for a job.
“It’s so nice to meet you,” she says, tucking her platinum hair behind one ear and offering him a slender hand to shake. “As Harry said, I’m Perrie. Hang on just a second while I grab my boss.”
It all happens remarkably quickly after that. The manager is a plump, forty-something woman named Maggie with a kind smile, who sizes Zayn up in a warm glance, pulls him into a hug by way of greeting, and reminds him suddenly and overwhelmingly of his mom.
“Two questions: first, can you use a cash register?” she asks, eyes glinting. Zayn nods. He has plenty of experience there. “Second, carrot cake or raspberry torte?”
It’s not the question Zayn was expecting, and it takes him a second. “Raspberry torte?” he guesses. Maggie turns to give Perrie a pointed look and within moments he has a plate in hand, raspberry confection gleaming up at him enticingly. He takes a bite, smiles through his mouthful. It’s really, incredibly good. Niall makes a pathetic noise next to him and Zayn turns to offer a piece, but Maggie stops his hand with a roll of her eyes. “You can have your own, Niall, and you too Harry,” she says, and turns back to Zayn. “These two are all the reference I need for you, if you’d like the job.”
“Really?” Zayn can’t quite believe the way things just...fall into his lap around these boys. It makes him a little uneasy, until he remembers that he fell into their laps in the first place, and then his brain is going a little fuzzy and sentimental and he realizes he’s missed Maggie’s response. “Sorry, what?”
“I said, you can start right now if you’d like, Perrie is working alone until two and could use a hand. In fact, does that work? If we stick you in, say, ten to two on weekdays for the time being?”
Zayn blinks. Maybe he’s missed something, but he really doesn’t think employment is supposed to come this easily. And then Niall squeezes his side and Zayn startles out a, “Yes, yeah, that would be great,” and Maggie looks pleased. “I don’t know how long I’ll be in town,” Zayn manages, realizing that he should say something about the fact that he doesn’t even live here before he lets them hire him.
“That’s alright,” Maggie shrugs. “One of our employees, Jacob, is up at UCLA doing a six week program, so we’ve been doing alright around the edges, but having someone to fill in, even a little, will be a big help. How about you try it for today and if when you’re done, you think you’d like to come back, we’ll work out the paperwork?”
Harry and Niall are beaming at him, and Perrie too from behind the counter where she’s just helped two customers in the span of their conversation, and Maggie is watching him kindly but expectantly. “Okay, yeah, thank you,” Zayn manages, and Niall’s hand gently squeezes his hip again where it’s still resting.
“Yay!” Perrie says, “I don’t have to work alone anymore! Let me get you an apron.” Zayn wonders if San Diego is a real place at all.
- - -
He walks into what appears to be a surprise Zayn-got-hired ice cream party when he gets back, Harry having returned at 2:15 to pick him up and to buy a small army’s worth of baked goods, including an entire cheesecake. He insists that Zayn ring him out, even though Perrie has left and Zayn doesn’t know the boy working behind the counter. Harry does, of course, and he explains politely that it is absolutely vital that Zayn ring him up. Zayn’s glad he’s not going to have shifts with this kid after Harry has thoroughly embarrassed him, cooing as Zayn presses the buttons and hands Harry his receipt.
The table is all set inside with six different cartons of ice cream, and Liam and Louis and Niall jump on him when he walks in, unsuspecting. “Congrats on being a working member of society!” Louis crows, pinching Zayn’s cheeks excitedly as Niall tries to bat his hands away to get Zayn in a hug of his own. He succeeds, after a moment of tussling, and once his arms are around Zayn he shoots Louis a reproachful glare.
“Like you can talk about being a contributing member of the working public,” he accuses, but he can’t keep his face serious, turning back to Zayn and smiling, smiling smiling smiling. Zayn thinks his face probably looks very similar. Liam claps his hands on Zayn’s shoulders and says, “The ice cream’s going to melt,” and then everyone remembers their priorities. Zayn wants to ask why on earth they’re all home in the middle of the day, but he knows it’s for him, knows they took time off from whatever to be here because he got a silly part time job, and he’s so pleased and embarrassed that he can’t bring himself to ask it out loud.
- - -
It’s nice, actually, to have more of a routine, although Zayn refuses to think about the fact that he’s slowly putting down roots. He can’t do that, he won’t, and he starts calling home more frequently to remind himself of everything there. He calls Danny, talks to him and Ant on speakerphone, tries to keep the pride out of his voice as he tells them about Niall surfing and Liam’s funny concentration face as he’s styling Louis’ hair and they way Harry starts calling them “y’all” after his third shot.
“You really like them, huh,” Danny says after Ant has left the two of them alone to talk, and Zayn can’t help the guilt that coils in his chest.
“Miss you, Z,” Danny follows up when Zayn takes too long to answer. “Wish I could meet ‘em. I’m glad they’re taking care of you.”
He calls his sisters, too, talks to each of them, asks them to tell their mom that he Really Is Okay. They each agree, even though he can practically hear their eyes rolling over the phone. She’s never not going to worry about him, and he’d worry too if he was in her position.
But the bakery is nice, and Perrie’s nicer, and even once Harry and Louis and Liam leave, he and Niall manage to fill the time around their jobs with new adventures.
Niall takes Zayn to the coves one day, after his shift, and they spend the afternoon poking around, playing I Spy while looking down into the little microcosms of sea life. Zayn almost loses his footing once and it’s only Niall’s preternaturally fast reflexes, an arm shooting out to snag him around the waist, that keeps him from ending up ass first in the pool.
“Thanks,” Zayn laughs, his cheeks warming with embarrassment and, surprisingly, the feel of Niall’s arm, holding him steady, fingers warm against a slip of exposed skin on Zayn’s hip.
“Didn’t do it for your sake,” Niall says easily, grinning. “Couldn’t let you crush any anemones.” He pulls his hand back after a moment, and Zayn shrugs off the half-formed thought that it feels like a reluctant gesture.
Niall wants to swim later, which is just about the last thing on Zayn’s to-do list, so Zayn perches on a barnacle encrusted rock to sketch the tidepools as Niall strips down to his boxers and heads for the water. Zayn doesn’t pretend so much not to look anymore. He has an eye for attractive things, he reasons, and just because Niall’s his friend doesn’t mean Zayn’s going to feel weird about appreciating his torso. He thinks back to his first afternoon here, in the restaurant, really looking at Niall for the first time and realizing how attractive he is. That hasn’t gone away, not even after weeks living with a model and his movie star boyfriend and Liam, whose body looks like it belongs in a museum. Niall’s attractive in a way he isn’t even aware of, like he doesn’t have to think about it, like easy summer mornings and whipped cream.
Well, fuck. When did Zayn start thinking about Niall in fucking iambic pentameter?
They watch the Teen Choice Awards together, high, and it’s one of the most surreal things Zayn has ever experienced. Harry and Louis are there, dressed to the nines and clearly the darlings of the red carpet, projected on the very same TV that he’s sat in front of with them watching movies for weeks now. They pause for interviews during the preshow and Zayn can tell from the way they’re standing, just like they usually do, that Harry has one hand tucked into Louis’ back pocket, keeping them tethered together.
Niall is an astronomical level of high, his movements slow and stilted on the couch next to Zayn as he tries to arrange himself comfortably. “Like big raviolies,” he mumbles at one point, and when Zayn asks him what he’s talking about, he holds up a pillow. “Like a big ole ravioli,” Niall repeats, and then sags sideways into Zayn until Bieber appears on screen and Niall is suddenly alert and at attention.
He reaches for his phone. “Need to text Lou,” he says, “need him to track me down a Bieber and bring it back with him.”
“That sounds like you’re on the hunt,” Zayn laughs, reaching out his fingers to brush absently against the hair at the back of Niall’s neck. “Like it’s Bieber season and you’re ready to get yourself one.”
Niall turns to look at him sternly. “Every season is Beaver season.” He pauses, seems to realize something isn’t quite right, furrows one eyebrow. “Bieber season. Fuck,” he’s laughing as he corrects his own slip of the tongue, a full body event that ends with him turned in towards Zayn, knees sideways against Zayn’s belly and Niall’s breath huffing right into Zayn’s neck, warm and smelling of stale weed and frosting from the cupcakes Zayn had brought home from work.
They spend a few moments like that, sleepy and quiet, and then Zayn half-whispers “beaver season” and they dissolve into teary laughter again.
- - -
Niall decides they should have a big welcome home dinner for the other three and Zayn thinks it sounds lovely. He’s missed them, he realizes with a start. As nice as it’s been to hang out with Niall, he’s missed Harry’s goofy grins and the sweet twang of his speech when he’s drunk and Louis’ crinkly-eyed smile and the way Liam makes him feel anchored just by his very presence.
“We’re obviously going to make Harry cook,” Niall reasons. They’re sitting out on the back porch, planning dinner a few hours later. “They’ll be back in time and he would just complain if we tried to make him anything anyway.”
“We could get dessert instead?” Zayn suggests.
“A boy after my own heart,” Niall sighs, and then his eyes light up. “Let’s just have a night of all of our favorite desserts? You know like, like it’s a high school sleepover. We even have Liam to braid our hair.” He laughs sunnily at his own joke.
“Should we go to the grocery store, then?” Zayn asks, feeling himself growing excited about Niall’s idea just from seeing his eagerness. It sounds silly and stupid and fun and he could really go for some Milk Duds right about now.
“Yes. Yes! Let’s go on a field trip,” Niall says. “And whatever you do, don’t let me forget birthday cake Oreos.”
“Those exist?” Zayn asks, and Niall looks positively scandalized.
“What kind of a depraved place is Brooklyn?” Niall demands. He’s still muttering to himself in disbelief as they climb in the Jeep a few minutes later, but then Michael Bublé is on and Niall is sufficiently distracted.
They split up in the store, Niall heading to find his precious Oreos and Zayn heading to find dried fruit, which is apparently a Harry Styles essential for any situation. Zayn remains unsurprised. He wanders up the cleaning supplies aisle and then turns onto frozen foods, thinking that if something looks particularly good, no one will object to him getting a carton of ice cream.
And suddenly, she’s in front of him. Lola’s there, or here rather, in a supermarket of all places, after weeks of uncertainty. Her hair is dyed red and she’s in a tiny shirt and a bright yellow skirt and - is her belly button pierced? Zayn had recognized her by curve of her shoulder, the sense of her, but he has the particular and unpleasant feeling that if he looked at her straight on, he’d hardly know it was her. She’s so out of context here, standing and contemplating the various ice cream possibilities, her face newly freckled and expression softer than he’s ever known.
And then Zayn’s heart plummets, taking out various other organs on its descent. A guy has appeared - where has Zayn seen him before? - basket slung over one arm, and Lola is tilting her face up to him, planting a kiss on his mouth, pulling back to smile at him in a way Zayn has never seen her do before. It hits him viscerally, kicks him in the stomach, how absolutely low he feels, how fucking inadequate he must have been to have never made her smile like that. How could he have even imagined that if he found her she’d want him back -
Two things happen in very fast succession.
“Zayn!” Niall calls, coming up the aisle wielding a box of birthday cake oreos. “I found them, I hope you’re ready for your life to be revolutionized -”
At the sound of his name, Lola’s head snaps around, eyes going impossibly wide as she sees Zayn. Her boy looks up too, and fuck, where does Zayn know him from, but before he can say a word he sees something settle hard and ugly in Lola’s face. “What are you doing here?” she hisses. “Have you - have you been stalking me? I cannot believe this. Why are you smiling - ”
Zayn almost giggles, hysterical laughter welling up behind his ribs as his definitely-not-girlfriend stands there berating him as though he’s the one who had to run across the entire country to escape her. He’s pretty sure he’s just going to float up, away through the ceiling, but there’s a hand on his shoulder, warm and grounding and solid.
“Zayn,” Niall says, slow and steady, and Zayn can feel how wild his eyes must be as he turns to meet Niall’s gaze. “Zayn,” he repeats, and then, before the world can spin completely off its axis, Niall’s on his toes, just a bit, hand gripping the back of Zayn’s neck like a lifeline. He leans forward, not hesitant at all, and presses his mouth to the corner of Zayn’s lips. He does it again, and again, and then once fully, sealing something sweet and sure and heady between them.
Zayn isn’t nearly as surprised as he should be, maybe. He feels his entire body unravel, feels tension leave like sudsy water down a drain, leans into the pressure of Niall like it’s the only possible thing he could be doing. He hears an indignant noise behind him and then Niall’s hand is in his, pulling him down the aisle and straight out the sliding glass doors at the front of the store, out into the evening heat of a world that Zayn knew nothing of only a few weeks ago.
They make it several blocks before Niall stops with a muttered “fuck,” hand still tangled with Zayn’s. “What?” Zayn asks, his brain working overtime to try and sort through the last and most confusing minutes of his life to figure out what Niall’s talking about.
“I definitely just shoplifted these oreos,” Niall says, holding up the package sheepishly.
“I guess we’re fugitives,” Zayn concedes, a laugh tearing its way from his throat. And then Niall is looking at him, really looking, reading all of the sadness and relief and uncertainty in the sound.
“I’m sorry,” he says softly, and Zayn blanches, feels himself recoil. He’s suddenly sure that Niall revoking that kiss would be endlessly worse than whatever mess just happened with Lola. “Hey. Hey,” Niall says, interrupting his panicked trail of thought. “I’m sorry the girl you followed across the country is a dumb, oblivious fool who doesn’t know a really fucking wonderful thing when she has it. I’m not sorry I kissed you.”
Niall reaches up, presses a thumb against the pulse under Zayn’s jaw. “Not even a little.”
- - -
Niall is quiet on the ride back to the house. He keeps glancing at Zayn’s face, sweetly and worriedly, a little like he can’t quite believe any of what just happened. Zayn thinks he should probably be feeling something in regard to Lola - anger, sadness, overwhelming fury - but he feels strangely calm, centered. If anything, there’s relief, and he’s sure that if he thinks about it at all it would be a sensation equated to the still-present feel of Niall’s lips ghosting against his. It’s funny to have something handed to him that he didn’t quite realize he was waiting for.
Niall stops the Jeep in the drive, shutting off the music and adjusting the rearview mirror a little nervously. Zayn can feel a sort of wild laugh beginning behind his sternum.
“Louis and Harry are going to be a little crazy,” Niall says at last. “They always are when they’ve been away for a few days, and I know we were going to celebrate with a big dinner but if you want some alone time -”
“No,” Zayn says, surprising himself but Niall more, judging by his sharp intake of breath. “Thank you,” Zayn continues, but now Niall is looking at him intently, and Zayn suddenly feels desperate to explain something that he has no idea how to articulate, like if they get out of the car without talking, a moment will be lost. “No, I don’t want to be alone. Not right now, and not because of Lola. I’ve spent too long thinking about her as it is, and if there’s anything good to come from the four years we were together it’s that I chased her here and found all of you instead.”
He pauses for breath, overwhelmed and not sure where these words are coming from, but his hands aren’t shaking and Niall is looking at him with an expression that burns somewhere deep in his gut. “I just want to go inside and have a fun dinner and get extraordinarily drunk and maybe I’ll think about Lola tomorrow. Alternately, maybe I’ll think about her never, who knows.” And he’s smiling, he is, and he thinks this has got to be the strangest day of his life.
“Okay,” Niall agrees, and then he leans over the console and tangles his fingers with Zayn’s. “Whatever you want, Z. But I can’t pretend I’m not happy to hear that you aren’t torn up about her. She doesn’t deserve any of your thought, if you want my honest opinion. Which happens to be the only kind I give.”
He grins, easy and familiar, and then brings their entwined fingers up and brushes his lips against the knuckles of Zayn’s hand, quick as a little fish. Before Zayn can react, he’s opening the door and sliding out into the soft evening heat, and Zayn waits for a moment before following, absently tracing his own mouth across the path Niall’s had taken.
- - -
Harry and Louis are indeed more than a little crazy, clearly happy to be home and away from the stress and invasion of Hollywood. Harry is wearing a tiny apron, spinning his way around the kitchen as he sautés something that smells delicious, and Louis is shouting along to JoJo at the top of his voice and jumping on the enormous couch in the living room (which had apparently been bought expressly for this purpose).
“NIALL!” Harry yelps excitedly at the same time as Louis exclaims “Zayyyn!” and catapults himself off of the couch and around Zayn’s neck. Liam comes bolting down the stairs two at time, yanking Niall into a hug against Zayn’s back and Harry completes it, stretching his enormous wingspan around them and sighing happily.
“Look at this little family,” Harry murmurs.
“You big softie,” Louis says, but his voice is so steeped in fondness that Zayn can almost taste it, and he feels warm in a way that has nothing to do with the crush of bodies around him. He cranes his head a little and Niall meets him halfway, anticipating it, grinning as their eyes meet and reaching a hand up to grip comfortingly at the back of Zayn’s neck. Yeah, his gaze says, you belong here. We want you here. I want you here.
And then the chicken is burning and Harry yelps like he’s the one being singed and they fall apart as easily as they fell together.
- - -
Louis has a remarkably impressive wine collection, and between the five of them they consume probably enough to fill a plastic kiddie pool before dinner is done. Zayn feels almost weightless with it, sated and happy and like a hand has unclenched itself from around his lungs for the first time in weeks.
“So what did you guys get up to while we were away living the glam life?” Louis slurs sleepily from where he’s climbed onto Harry’s lap as soon as the food was finished. “Any shenanigans we should know about?”
Zayn hums a bit, feeling the words gathering in the back of his throat before he lets them slip out like smoke tendrils curling into the air. “We found Lola today,” he says, so low that the only indication he’s been heard at all is Niall tensing beside him and Liam’s head snapping up from across the table.
“I’m sorry,” Louis laughs, shaking his head like a wet dog, “but I think I just imagined you saying you found Lola?”
“We did,” Niall confirms, and Zayn thinks his voice sounds remarkably steady.
“She was buying ice cream,” Zayn adds, because it strikes him as important. Lola had never once eaten ice cream while they were together. Maybe that was the source of the issue, honestly. Who doesn’t eat ice cream?
“And she was with another guy,” Niall finishes. Zayn might be wrong, but he thinks he can hear the bitterness laced through Niall’s words, a bitterness that hadn’t been there this afternoon. In a flash, Liam is up and out of his chair, swaying a little on his feet, eyebrows raised in disbelief. Next to him, Harry’s face has gone ruddy like it only does when he’s angry, and Louis’ jaw is hanging open. Zayn is aware that they’re probably waiting for some kind of significant reaction from him.
“It’s okay - ” he starts, but it’s Liam who cuts him off, Liam with his carefully styled hair and broad shoulders tensed and gentle eyes suddenly fiery.
“That is not okay,” he says, and Louis nods furiously. “She left you and she didn’t bother to tell you why and you cared enough to come after her and - and - that’s just complete shit.”
“I’m not mad, not anymore,” Zayn says, and he feels more weary than anything. He turns to Niall for support, but Niall is gazing back at him with a look that Zayn is too drunk or too scared of to decipher. “I’m relieved,” he insists, barging forward, “I just don’t want to think about her ever again.” He hopes his words aren’t too slurry.
“Who was she with?” Louis asks, and oh, right. Zayn hasn’t even thought about it again, about how sure he’d been that he knew the guy at the time. He closes his eyes as though that might help him remember better, tries to picture the man whom Lola had so eagerly lifted her face to. Zayn has definitely seen him before somewhere.
“Oh, god,” he says, and opens his eyes to find four expectant gazes looking back at him. “He lived in our building in Brooklyn, he -” Zayn laughs, and sees the concern etched into his friends’ faces as he does so. “Ah, fuck, he lived on the first floor, he was living there temporarily while writing a story for some magazine, and I met him once in the hall and I think he mentioned that he was originally from California...” he trails off, incredulous as to how he had never put the pieces together before.
“Do you think they were...?” Harry starts to ask, but Louis shushes him furiously.
“Yeah,” Zayn says anyway. He keeps waiting for it, for the visceral feeling of loss and betrayal and anger to hit like it should, but it doesn’t come. He’s still just tired, and drunk, and he wants to press himself up against the warm seam of Niall’s body a few inches from his own and go to sleep. “Yeah, she told me he was interviewing her for his story. God, I’m such an idiot, I’m pretty sure the only thing he was interviewing was her -”
Niall cuts him off with an indignant noise. “You aren’t an idiot, Zayn,” he says softly, and then pushes away from the table, grabbing his plate and glass so quickly that he spills the last of his wine across the table, hissing fuck under his breath. “I need to go to bed,” he adds, and then he’s gone, his absence like a gasp of cold air next to Zayn’s tired body.
Zayn looks after him, bewildered, and when he turns back to the table, the others are watching him cautiously. Louis disentangles himself from the cage of Harry’s arms and makes his way surprisingly steadily around the table to Zayn’s chair. Zayn supposes it has been a bit of a sobering conversation. Louis curls his hands around Zayn’s biceps and tugs him up until Zayn’s standing, Louis looking up into Zayn’s eyes and searching for something in them.
“Did I do something to upset Niall?” Zayn says, a quiet breath, and then he’s pulled against Louis, his head tucked against the golden skin of Louis’ neck and a gentle hand kneading against the back of his scalp.
“No, Z,” Louis sighs, his hand still working, and Zayn sags against him with an exhaled whoosh of air. “No, no, no,” Louis soothes. “Niall is hard to ruffle, and it only happens when people he loves get hurt. I’ve only ever seen him angry on his own behalf once, but plenty of times for me, or Harry or Liam. Just give him some space, yeah?”
Zayn nods against Louis’ neck, his breath hot and wine-sticky. And then Liam is there too, running cautious knuckles against his spine. “Maybe it’s time for bed?”
“I’ve got the dishes,” Harry says, uncharacteristically sombre, and Zayn hates it, hates himself for coming here and inflicting his own big, stupid problems on these effervescent boys. He pulls out of Louis’ grasp, draws the back of his hand against his tired eyes.
“Yeah,” he agrees, “bed sounds good.” He heads for the stairs, stops, turns back to the table. “I’m really okay,” he promises. “It was a big day, but I’m fine. Thank you for putting up with me.”
“Hey,” Harry says, his arm back around Louis and one thumb tucked into the front of Louis’ sweats. Zayn thinks not for the first time how at home they look next to each other. “Hey, Zayn. Zayner. Z Dog. Zany Painy. Zero to Hero. Zaynophile.” Zayn is laughing now, and Louis and Liam are giggling too, Harry’s pleased-with-himself grin wide and sincere. “Zayn,” he says, once again, “you’re not a burden. We love you, yeah?”
“Yeah,” Zayn agrees, his heart so full he can feel its weight settle heavy against his ribs. “Yeah,” he says again, and he means it.
- - -
Zayn brushes the taste of wine out of his mouth, splashes hot water against his face, and eyes himself in the mirror over the sink. He feels different than he had when he’d arrived in this house the first day, and he looks it too. He’s tanner and he’s let his stubble grow out a bit and he thinks that there’s maybe something different about his eyes, or what’s in them. He isn’t sure.
One thing he is pretty sure of, though: he doesn’t want to give Niall space. He wants to talk to him now, and if he’s honest with himself he wants to wiggle his way into said space immediately and never leave it.
He doesn’t even hesitate outside of Niall’s closed door, the wine in his bloodstream and his determination spurring him to knock, his knuckles soft against the burnished wood. “Niall,” he says, quietly. “Niall please, I really want to apologize, I don’t know what I did but - ” he pauses, unsure, and then the door swings open and Niall is there, stripped down to his boxers, his hair a rumpled mess and his eyes wild.
“You think this is something you did?” Niall asks, and then he sucks in a deep breath and laughs a little. “I guess you might have gotten that impression from me storming away from the dinner table. God, I...” he trails off, scrubs a hand along his jaw. Zayn’s eyes follow the movement hungrily as relief settles fuzzy and warm into his bones, more intoxicating than anything Zayn had consumed at dinner. Niall meets his eyes again, reaches out to put a hand around Zayn’s knobbly wrist, and tugs him into the room, shutting the door behind him. “Sit,” Niall says, gesturing towards the bed, and so Zayn does, hopping up clumsily onto the edge of the bed a few feet off the ground.
“Look, I don’t usually hate people,” Niall begins. “In fact, I rarely dislike people. But I am sorry to say that at this moment I loathe your ex girlfriend. Despise her. Abhor her.”
This is maybe not exactly what Zayn was expecting, and he knows Niall is trying to be serious, but he can’t help smiling a little anyway with giddy relief. “You must be studying for the SATs,” he murmurs, and he sees the flash in Niall’s eyes as Niall shushes him and tries to swallow his reluctant grin.
“As I was saying,” Niall continues, “as I was saying, I am not a fan of hers. I don’t think you understand how absolutely great you are - you’re funny, and smart, and you draw the ocean unbelievably well for someone who’s afraid of it, and fuck if you aren’t the most beautiful person I’ve ever met.”
Zayn can feel the heat in his cheeks, the flush that has spread all the way down and across his chest, but Niall is on a roll and he can’t bring himself to interrupt. And god, is it nice to hear this kind of affirmation after the last few weeks, fuck it, after the last few years.
“Watching your face when you found her this afternoon,” Niall barrels forward, “I could see how much you thought you’d failed her. How you thought it was your fault for not being good enough to keep her. Well, I’ve got news for you: she doesn’t deserve you. Maybe she did at some point, but she was willing to throw away one of the most brilliant people I’ve ever met, and that is fucking crazy. And it makes me crazy that you would ever think that. I’m sorry if that’s inappropriate of me to say, but there it is.” He pauses, sucks in a breath, looks at Zayn where he’s perched on the end of the bed.
“What are you thinking?” he asks a moment later, his voice softer, less sure.
“Do you know what I remember from the grocery store today?” Zayn says, and he has no doubt in the truth of what he’s about to disclose. “I remember you hunting down birthday cake Oreos because you wanted to share your favorite treat with me. I remember you taking one look at the situation and knowing me and what I needed before I did. Mostly,” Zayn pauses, swipes his tongue over his bottom lip, sees Niall’s eyes follow it. “Mostly, I remember you kissing me.”
There’s a stillness in the room, a charged energy that if bottled could probably power all of San Diego. “About that,” Niall says, rooted in place, voice calm and comforting and intoxicating all at once. “Do you think I could maybe do it again?”
And god, Zayn is laughing, he’s laughing and tugging Niall forward between his legs with both hands. Niall ducks his head a little until they’re forehead to forehead, nose to nose, and Zayn slides his hands against Niall’s bare torso, reveling in the touch, thumbing against the jut of his hipbones and nudging his nose up into Niall’s cheek. They stay like that for Zayn doesn’t know how long, breathing each other in. Niall’s eyes have fluttered closed and his hands drift up to clutch at either side of Zayn’s face, the pads of his fingers like anchors against Zayn’s heated skin.
And then Niall’s eyes are open again and he’s pushing forward, and Zayn feels like he’s coming apart, like the fault lines in the ocean off of the California coast are hidden under the swell of his skin, like he’s fucking luminous. Niall’s lips are chapped, and soft, and steady, and insistent, and he actually tastes like laughter -
They kiss for a long, long time, migrating up onto Niall’s bed and finding themselves pressed against his pile of pillows, facing each other, both shirtless and flush against each other. Niall’s mouth is warm and his tongue is as clever as it is sweet, but the kiss stays unhurried, comforting, giggly. Zayn loves the way Niall groans when he tugs his lower lip between his teeth, Niall sucking on Zayn’s tongue a moment later, his hand pressed firmly into the place where Zayn’s lower back arches towards him like a magnet.
They’re both hard, their cocks lined up hot and heavy through the layers of fabric, but there’s no real pressure to relieve the heat. Zayn likes the way it makes everything feel heightened, how Niall’s tongue running against his gums seems like it’s setting off sparks in the heady wake of his untouched arousal, the promise that there is more of this to come. Good grief, does Zayn want it.
Eventually, Niall pulls back, the bright flush from his cheeks spread all the way down into his chest, his cock outlined hot and thick against his boxers. “Hi,” he says, ducking his tousled head, shier than Zayn has ever seen him.
“Hi,” Zayn breathes. Niall is quiet for a moment and Zayn can’t help bringing his hand up, pressing his thumb against the bow of Niall’s plush mouth. Niall parts his lips, just a bit, flicks his wet tongue against the salty pad of Zayn’s finger, sucks it into his mouth for a moment before he speaks.
“Do you think maybe we could pause?” Niall asks finally, voice quiet and unsure. “I mean, pause for the night. I just - ” he looks hesitant, but hopeful. “I know we’re both still a little drunk, and Jesus if I’m not drunk on you, but if we’re going to do this...” he trails off.
“Niall,” Zayn says, drawing his finger down the dip in the center of Niall’s abdomen. He doesn’t ever want to stop touching him. “I want this, more than I can tell you. It’s not an ‘if’ to me, not anymore. Probably not since the moment your board smacked me over the head. And I’m really, truly happy to wait.”
“Zayn,” Niall breathes, and there are champagne bubbles of incredulous delight in the sound. “God, Zayn. Thank you, I’ve wanted this for weeks and it’s not that I don’t trust you or myself or the two of us together, but everything happened so fast today and fuck if I don’t want to take my time with you.”
“I get it,” Zayn says, and he does, and if there’s one thing he’s sure of it’s that he wants this, and he’ll do anything to keep Niall comfortable. “Do you think - would it maybe be okay if I maybe slept here tonight, though?”
“As if I would let you leave,” Niall says without hesitation, and then much more quietly, his eyes bright, “I don’t ever want to let you leave.” He slides one of his legs between Zayn’s, lays his tangled, familiar head on Zayn’s chest, and Zayn thinks as Niall’s breathing slips into an easy rhythm that if what he was feeling was tangible, he’d get it tattooed right over the fluttery beat of his heart.
- - -
Zayn wakes up suddenly and knows before he opens his eyes that he’s in Niall’s bed alone. The curtains have been opened and the dresser drawers are open and a bit askew, and looking around it’s like Zayn can see a glow on everything that Niall’s touched. Man, has he always been this much of a sap?
He gets up remarkably fast, possibly faster than he ever has, thankful for the carpeted hallways as he pads silently back into his room. There’s a fluttery humming low in his belly that Zayn thinks he’s felt before, sometime, but he can’t quite remember when, so he lets the buzzing go as he pulls on sweats and brushes his fuzzy teeth.
Niall’s in the kitchen when he makes his way down, his back turned to Zayn, shirtless and sunfreckled and with the kind of artful bedhead that Harry would be jealous of. Zayn pauses for a moment, just looking, and he’s reminded suddenly of that first morning, when he’d stumbled upon Harry and Louis in this very kitchen. He realizes with a sudden certainty and a roaring of the bees in his stomach that he wants it, he wants that to be him and Niall, and oh, this silly fizzy messy exciting feeling is a crush. It’s like fourth grade all over again, except both his dick and his heart are significantly more invested.
He coughs, once, and when Niall turns he’s already smiling. “Hey, you.” Zayn wants to kiss him, wants to kiss the morning out of his voice and see if Niall can taste the crush on his tongue, but he doesn’t know if he’s allowed. “I told the others to fuck off because I’m making you a romantic breakfast,” Niall says, gesturing to the crime scene of the kitchen counter that is apparently being turned into something edible. Harry would have a conniption if he could see it. “It was going to be crepes but crepes are hard so I have to woo you with pancakes instead.” He frowns a little.
“You don’t have to woo me, Niall,” Zayn laughs. It’s not what he meant to say, but it’s true.
“Look, we’re doing this right. I’m not saying I don’t wanna take your sweats off and blow you on the table in the middle of the gorgeous feast I’m making for you, but you did just get out of a serious and rather devastating relationship and besides, we’ve got big plans.”
“The only devastating thing is how handsome you are,” Zayn says, surprising himself with his ability to form a coherent sentence with the image of Niall blowing him in the midst of a pancake strewn table burned into the backs of his eyelids. “Wait, we have plans?”
“You bet we do, babe. Today, you’re learning to surf.”
- - -
Zayn forgets all about kissing Niall after that, and Niall seems to realize his mistake when Zayn is suddenly unable to really focus on anything, including his masterpiece pancakes. “I should’ve waited to tell you ‘til we were at the beach, huh?” Niall muses aloud. “Do you need me to feed you or do you think you can handle it yourself?” Zayn blushes at that, snapping out of his incredulous fretting enough to enjoy the pancakes and to let Niall tangle their feet together under the table.
It hits him again in the car, though, the thought that he’s going to surf, like actually out on the ocean over open water on a board, and it feels like his major organs are all threatening mutiny at once in anticipation. “This is normal, right?” he asks Niall, only kidding a little. “Don’t most adults have something that they’re so afraid of that it literally cripples them to think about it?”
Niall laughs, but reaches across the console to place a warm hand on Zayn’s jiggling knee. “Sure,” he offers agreeably.
“Fuck off,” Zayn mutters, and he’s not sure if he means it because he knows Niall’s laughing at him or because of the way Niall’s hand calms him down like a sedative. Probably a healthy dosage of both.
When they pull up at Niall’s usual spot, Zayn feigns incapacitation and refuses to get out of the car. Niall huffs out a sigh that doesn’t really sound annoyed at all, and comes around to the other side of the car to open Zayn’s door.
“I won’t do it,” Zayn declares, feeling for all the world like a three year old throwing a tantrum.
“What if I told you there were rewards involved?”
“I’m interested. Keep talking.” Zayn can’t help the smile unfurling across his face, aware that it’s severely impeding his petulance.
“I’ll talk when you’re out of the car,” Niall bargains, and when Zayn hesitates again, he leans halfway into the car to meet him. “Hey,” he says, and Zayn meets his eyes and swallows hard. “You trust me, right?”
Zayn’s whole body softens. The thing is, he does trust Niall. He does, and surfing feels big and scary and impossible, but so did the thought of losing Lola, and of coming to San Diego, and giving himself over to this goofy family of boys he’d accidentally stumbled into. This feels bigger and scarier in some ways, frightening on a much more elemental level, but Zayn thinks that he hasn’t admitted to himself that it’s a little bit exciting, too, that the knife edge of fear is being dulled by new and important and Niall.
His throat closes up a little, and all he can manage to say very quietly in return is, “I don’t even have a surfboard,” but the look in Niall’s eyes tells him that he’s heard what Zayn can’t say anyway.
“That’s true, you don’t, but Molly has accused me of hogging you recently so I’m absolutely certain she wouldn’t mind spending some quality time with you today.”
Zayn is pretty sure that everything is a little worse right now: the sun is too bright, the sand is so hot he has to keep jumping from foot to foot, and the waves are lapping menacingly at him like they want to swallow him right up. But then Niall is next to him, and as godawfully cheesy as it is, that sort of negates all the bad things. Niall sets the board on the sand a few feet from the line between ocean and shore and then turns to face Zayn, the sun beating down on him and reflecting off of the water behind him, shrouding him in light like some kind of mythical deity.
“Are you ready?”
“Not on your life.”
Niall laughs, but it’s kind. “Perfect. C’mon, Z, you can’t surf while you’re standing still on dry land.”
“Precisely.” Zayn grins a little, knows he’s being difficult, but he can feel his resolve wavering. He remembers the first time he watched Niall give a surfing lesson, to red-haired Nicola with the famous dad, remembers Niall’s face when they’d gotten out onto the water. He wants Niall to look at him like that.
“Have you ever seen a sea turtle?” This is not the question Zayn was expecting.
“No, never. Never even heard of such a creature. Please, educate me.” Niall rolls his eyes with a huff of a laugh, and Zayn is grateful that his sarcastic defence mechanism apparently isn’t making him into as much of a dick as he feels like it is.
“Don’t let Liam hear that. He loves turtles. Before he figured out how good he is with hair gel, he wanted to move to Costa Rica and work with turtles there. Had a running list of names for the babies and everything.” Zayn is completely unsurprised. He’d like to see that list. “Anyway, the idea is that you’re sort of a turtle on the board when you’re paddling out. We’re going out together, so you don’t have to worry about it for today, but I want you to understand how it all works. Does that make sense? It’s like the board is your turtley underbelly and your arms and legs are its legs.”
“Do I get a tail, too?” Zayn asks, wiggling his bum a little until a more pressing concern occurs to him. “Hang on, don’t sharks eat sea turtles?”
Niall winks.
“I’m going to die today, aren’t I,” Zayn sighs, but he steps forward anyway, stands next to Molly and looks down at her, steeling himself.
“You have, like, been swimming before, haven’t you?” Niall asks, looking apprehensive for the first time. Zayn feels sort of smug with it.
“A little. I used water wings up until Danny and Ant refused to be seen at the pool with me.”
“I bet that was a sight. I should’ve brought some today, they’d go nicely with the tattoos.” Niall reaches out a hand as he says it, almost unthinkingly, running one long finger against the script under Zayn’s collarbone. He seems to realize what he’s doing halfway through, hesitates for the tiniest moment before meeting Zayn’s eyes and finishing the motion with a blush and a determined look.
“What were those rewards you were talking about earlier?” Zayn breathes, and Niall’s cheeky smile is back, blooming across his face.
“I wouldn’t want to give you false hope,” he murmurs. “There are no guarantees of any rewards until you’re actually out there on a board with me.”
“What on earth are we waiting for, then,” Zayn says, emboldened by the touch and the glint in Niall’s gaze and the want want want growing heavy and solid and unavoidable in his stomach.
They wade out until the water hits their chests and then push out a little further, Niall laughing helplessly as Zayn waffles between trying to keep his legs up to avoid touching and tiredness from doing so, all of which result in him squeamishly bouncing on his tiptoes against the sandy bottom. He doesn’t like not being able to see where his feet are.
Once they’re far enough out, Niall hauls himself up onto Molly into a seated position, legs dangling down on either side, every inch the Cali surfer that Zayn so very much is not. Zayn wishes he could draw Niall like this, files it away for later as Niall’s cool hands are suddenly on him, helping wrangle him onto the front of the board in a similar manner. It isn’t much, but it feels like a triumph.
They move out slowly, against the tide, Zayn glancing over his shoulder half to observe and imitate the way Niall uses his arms to paddle lazily, half for the zing of electricity down his spine when their eyes meet. Which they do, every time. They’re close together on the board by necessity and Niall’s grin is slow, lazy, comfortable, reminds Zayn of when they smoke together. It’s unmistakably clear that Niall is in his element out here, surrounded by a vast ocean that matches his eyes uncannily well, and the fact that he’s sharing it with Zayn is so, so cool. He wants to live up to this chance.
“Hey,” Niall says conversationally.
“Yeah?” Zayn doesn’t bother turning around to answer, focused more on the rhythm of his arms and worried, too, that if he looks behind himself now, he’ll realize just how far out they are from the shore. The waves are starting to build, and it feels like they’re cresting right inside his belly, too.
“Have you ever - I mean before now have you...even just sort of, like." He stops, laughs a little uncertainly, and his unusual hesitation gives Zayn pause. It isn’t often that Niall is at a loss for words, but Zayn figures if he’s patient Niall will get them out. And when he does, it’s not at all what Zayn was expecting. “I guess I’m just wondering if you’ve ever been with a guy before?”
Ah. Zayn’s heartbeat picks up a notch. “Um, yes. Sort of.” It's the truth, too: he and Danny had learned how to both give and receive blowjobs with each other, the sticky summer that Zayn was sixteen, and he’d had a brief fling with a guy in college which was characterized almost exclusively by a lot of vaguely unfulfilling sex and Marlboro Lights. He’d learned three important things while dating Matt: not to trust boys whose closets are mostly J.Crew, not to trust tequila shooters after the third one, and that he’s surprisingly into sucking dick.
“How much, exactly, is 'sort of,' would you say? I'm sorry if this is weird," Niall sounds like a kind of shy that Zayn is honestly not sure he’s ever heard before.
“Do you want it in scientific notation?” Zayn laughs, a little uncertain. He really doesn’t know what sort of an answer Niall is looking for. “What’s this curiosity about?” he asks, straightforward as possible, and he can practically hear Niall blushing behind him.
“I just - I - well. It’s just that I haven’t,” he finally says, and it’s not what Zayn thought was coming next at all. “Been with a guy,” Niall finishes, a sweet and self conscious sort of clarification.
They’ve stopped moving, are just sitting being rocked by the swells, staring out over an ocean whose vastness suddenly seems too small for the things unfolding inside of Zayn. As carefully as he can, he pulls his legs up and spins on his bum, tucking them up under him until he’s kneeling and facing Niall. He looks at him for a moment, takes in his rosy cheeks and unsure eyes. He must look for a moment too long, because Niall breaks the silence and jokes a little weakly, “Are you trying to make sure that if we’re attacked, my legs are the only ones that will get eaten?”
“Never even a kiss?” is what Zayn settles on, smiling a little at the joke but more concerned with the fact that there’s apparently an entire gender of people that haven’t been throwing themselves at Niall.
“Well, you’ve met my roommates,” Niall counters, his smile returning. “I suppose if you want to look at it with them in mind, and Louis especially, I’ve been kissing boys on a fairly regular basis since I was eighteen. But I meant I’ve never been with a guy in a way that, you know, meant something.” He meets Zayn’s gaze, unembarrassed.
“Would being with me mean something?” Zayn feels sort of silly for asking, but he kind of really wants to know.
“Are you kidding?” Niall almost whispers, looking at Zayn like he’s said something both incredibly stupid and incredibly lovely.
“If we weren’t in the middle of the ocean, and if I wasn’t terrified of upending us completely, I’d kiss you right now, a lot, in the meaningful way,” Zayn says, his heart pounding in his throat as he looks at Niall, beautiful and tousled and wide-eyed. “As it is, we happen to be in the middle of the ocean and I happen to be terrified of upending us, and I was also assured I’d be learning to surf today.”
He works his way back around on his knees, takes two deep breaths, feels Niall shift behind him. When he speaks again, Niall’s voice has dropped, and if the sun weren’t currently hot as balls Zayn is certain he’d have goosebumps.
“I’m going to stand, now, and I want you to as well,” Niall explains, back in instructor mode. “I would take you further out, but it’ll be fun here on these smaller waves and quite frankly I don’t want to wait any longer than is already necessary to get you back on that shore. Also, I’m not sure this board is actually meant to hold two people.”
“Well it looks like the tables have turned a bit, huh?” Zayn can’t help but quip, even as he’s gulping at the thought of the board giving out beneath him, and he hears Niall snort as he brings himself up into a standing position. And then Zayn has to focus again, focus on coordinating his limbs and the slippery feel of the board under his feet and the balance of Niall right behind him.
But then they’re up, the small swells rising and falling below them like little rolling hills. It shouldn’t be anything, Zayn knows objectively that they aren’t even actually surfing, they’re just bobbing on the water, but it feels like a triumph. Zayn wants to close his eyes and keep them wide open at the same time, memorize this moment, this infiniteness, the laugh that feels like it’s multiplying exponentially within him.
“Niall,” he says, his breath hitching in excitement. “Niall, we’re fucking doing it! I’m surfing!”
“You are, Z,” Niall confirms, his voice heady and warm. “You absolutely are.”
“My reward better be one of those stupid turtle necklaces,” Zayn says, when his capacity for joking has unearthed itself from under the overwhelming awe. “I’d say I’ve earned it.”
“I was thinking ice cream, but sure,” Niall says, completely unoffended. Zayn, on the other hand, is.
“Ice cream?” he huffs, looking back over his shoulder at Niall with his brow furrowed. “Did you or did you not lead me to believe that there would be sexual favors occurring in exchange for me coming surfing with you?”
“I never said they’d be sexual,” Niall counters, and Zayn glares. “I thought you liked ice cream!”
“Well, aren’t you cute.”
“Yeah, I am. C’mon, Z,” Niall urges then, and one of his hands is suddenly soft on Zayn’s side. “Can we please go back? This is lovely, and I’m really proud of you, but your point about us being inhibited by being in the middle of the ocean was a valid one and I’m sort of over it.”
They paddle back in easy, comfortable silence, hyper aware of each other, shoulders burning under the touch of the sun, fingers turning pruney on the board. A rivulet of water trickles down Zayn’s face and he catches it on his tongue, liking the burn of the salt and the way it hangs in his mouth.
As soon as they’re in water shallow enough to walk in, Niall’s weight is gone from the back of the board and then he’s tugging Zayn down as well, laughing but not fighting it a bit.
“Here,” Niall says, “so you don’t have to touch the ground at all,” and hoists Zayn’s legs up around his waist, effectively taking Zayn’s breath away in one fell swoop.
“Hi,” Zayn says, overwhelmed by the feel of Niall’s hips between his thighs, Niall’s broad, cool hands on his back, the way Niall is looking at him like Zayn is something infinitely important.
“Hi, Z,” Niall breathes back, his grin achingly wide, and then his lips are on Zayn, kissing his cheekbones and the ridge of his nose and the droplets of water along his hairline, and when he finally, finally meets Zayn’s mouth, they both taste like a mixture of salt and awe.
It’s sweet, and slow, and strong and hot and smouldering and too much and not enough all at once, reminiscent of their kisses from the night before but now more, better, heightened. Someone wolf whistles from the shore a few yards away and Niall breaks away to laugh, and then he’s back, licking at the seam of Zayn’s lips and slipping his tongue between them like a present. Zayn sucks on it, lightly, feels more than hears Niall groan into it, answers with a noise of his own as Niall sweeps his tongue over Zayn’s gums, pulls away with his bottom lip trapped sweet and sharp between Zayn’s teeth.
Zayn pauses, panting, rests his nearly-dry head against Niall’s warm shoulder. He’s so overwhelmed, so happy, he’s kissing a boy whose standing and holding him in an ocean and he feels better about it than he’s felt about anything in actual years. He leans back up, pecks Niall’s lips once, twice, again and again and again until Niall startles underneath him with an “oh, shit,” and turns Zayn’s gaze with a pointed finger to where Molly is mournfully drifting away, forgotten in the heat of their moment.
“Can you make it back to shore okay?” Niall asks as Zayn reluctantly untangles his legs to let Niall swim after her.
“Yeah, assuming I’m still in control of my limbs,” he says agreeably, a little shell shocked by sensation, and then wades to shore, dripping wet and still trembling, like he had been before they started, but no longer from fear. Niall jogs to meet him, Molly in hand, from a ways down where he’d caught up to her. His trusty board is clutched under his arm, his wetsuit rolled down to his narrow waist, the very picture of the first time Zayn had laid eyes on him.
“She got jealous,” Niall explains apologetically, and then leans down to snatch a kiss from Zayn like he’s still not sure he’s allowed.
“That board is the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” Zayn says, and he’s not sure he’s exaggerating at all. “Thank goodness she was there to smack some sense right into me, even if it took a possible concussion and several weeks to realize it.”
“Thank goodness indeed,” Niall says, and then, apparently, he’s no longer feeling unsure about the kissing thing anymore. Zayn has zero complaints.
- - -
They barely make it back to the Jeep, Zayn so giddy he’s practically skipping through the hot sand, Niall belting sun in the sky, birds flying high, you know how I feel next to him, the backs of their hands occasionally connecting with a spark.
They pause in the parking lot so Niall can slide Molly through the open side of the car into the back, patting her lovingly and almost apologetically when he thinks Zayn isn’t watching. Zayn has sand in his hair and under his fingernails and between his toes, and he remembers with a start the day he touched down in San Diego, standing on Mission Beach thinking about how much he hated sand. It’s funny how things can change so quickly. He supposes he sort of likes it now, the way it slides under his feet, keeps him guessing, gets into everything he owns like it’s determined to stay with him. It’s a little bit like how Niall has wriggled his way into all the important parts of Zayn’s life, and Zayn has absolutely no desire to get him out.
They stop by Taka Sushi to get dinner for the others. Zayn has learned that if there’s anything in the world Louis loves more than Harry, it’s spicy tuna rolls, so they pick him up an inordinately large amount, plus fried rice for Harry, who hates seafood, and teriyaki chicken for Liam. Zayn is overwhelmed by the menu, but it’s nothing compared to Niall, who, even though he’s been to this very restaurant more times than he can count, can’t choose between meals for the life of him and ends up ordering enough sushi to feed a small nation. “You can have some of mine, I can’t eat this all,” he tells Zayn, completely unabashed.
Louis is so excited about his spicy tuna that he hugs Zayn so hard Zayn thinks he’s going to break in half, and then holds Niall’s face between his tan hands, pressing kiss after kiss to the tip of his nose. “NIALL, you beautiful creature,” he crows, “I’m leaving Harry for you, I swear it this time, you’ve done it again, I love you so much - "
“Heeeeeey,” Harry interrupts, his pouting face haloed by curls which are literally glowing in the sunset coming in through the floor to ceiling windows of the living room. Zayn wonders if he’ll ever get used to being in this disgustingly pretty house with these disgustingly pretty people.
“I didn’t mean it, Harry,” Louis placates, dropping his hands from Niall’s face like he’s been burned. “You know you’re the only male model for me, my sweet sugarplum sunshine spectacular -” and then his words are muffled against Harry’s collarbones and from the look on Harry’s face, Zayn doesn’t want to hear them anyway.
Niall is looking at Zayn, though, his eyes bright and clear, his nose the faintest shade of pink from Louis’ ministrations. Liam is sitting on the couch with a beer in hand, surveying the scene with an amused grin, like it’s nothing he hasn’t seen before.
“That was close,” Niall says quietly. “I thought you were going to have to have to hold Harry back for a moment there.”
“Nah, I would’ve let him go,” Zayn says in what he sincerely hopes is an offhand manner. “Turns out I was a bit jealous too.” Behind him, Liam pauses mid drink to choke very quietly and politely.
"Well, I can't say that's a surprise," he mutters when he's recovered, and Niall's gaze on Zayn's face is nothing short of triumphant.
- - -
They eat together, sprawled out on the carpet in the basement, watching Best In Show for the fourth time together at Liam's request. Zayn wonders if the universe is actively conspiring to make everything remind him of his first day here: they’re watching a movie all together again, drinking, Harry and Louis curled into each other like there’s an invisible gravitational pull between them that only the two of them can feel. It’s only been a few weeks, but what a big few weeks they’ve been, and he feels strangely nostalgic. He feels, also, like he’s outgrown a part of himself, and he thinks it’s maybe a good thing.
There is a difference, though: tonight, when he stands to go upstairs, Niall is up next to him in an instant, and the three boys sprawled across the carpet are suddenly wearing matching unsubtle and gleeful expressions.
“Goodnight, everyone,” Zayn says with an insuppressible grin as he turns to leave, Niall by his side.
“Good night indeed,” Louis whispers loudly from behind him, and Zayn can hear Harry’s lilting laugh and Liam’s answering groan. He wills himself not to blush, tries to keep from sneaking too many obvious glances in Niall’s direction under his eyelashes as they climb to the third level and pause awkwardly outside of Niall's bedroom.
“I’m going to get pjs,” Zayn half whispers, suddenly unable to use his voice, “and brush my teeth.”
“Good idea,” Niall agrees. He sounds a little bit nervous, too, and against all odds it makes Zayn’s heartbeat speed up even more.
Zayn can’t pull off his clothes fast enough. He’s still a little salty from the ocean, but at least he knows Niall won’t mind, and there’s no way he’s pausing to take a shower right now. He does brush his teeth though, singing most of the way through “Swim Good” in his head until his gums are threatening to go on strike. At least he doesn’t taste like fish anymore, although it would probably have gone rather well with the saltwater on his skin.
He pads down the hall and knocks softly on Niall’s door, much more tentatively than he had under far less certain circumstances the night before. It swings open remarkably fast, and Niall is standing on the other side, shirtless again, bathed in buttery light from the lamp on his bedside table, his shy smile catching somewhere right under Zayn’s ribs.
“Hey, Z,” he says, reaching out and pulling Zayn into the room by one wrist, just as he had before.
“Hey, Niall,” Zayn parrots back. He feels like he’s learning how to tightrope walk, or something equally tenuous where he could lose his footing at any point. He thinks it’s a good feeling, but he’s not quite sure.
“Can we talk, just for a minute?” Niall says and suddenly Zayn can feel his entire ribcage constrict. If this is Niall about to let him down easy, he’s not sure he can handle it. He really did think they were on the same page about this all, but - there are a lot of buts. He manages to nod mutely, hoping he doesn’t look as frantic as he’s starting to feel. Has something changed?
“It’s just,” Niall begins, hopping up onto the edge of his bed and gesturing for Zayn to join him. He takes a breath, lets it out thinly between his teeth, but his eyes are still smiling as always. “I’ve just been thinking a lot.”
Zayn can’t really respond, so he just watches Niall intently and wills him to keep going.
“I think there was a part of me that wanted to end up at this point with you right from the start,” he says at last. “You know, one of those things where your body apparently decides something but fails to tell the rest of you? And you were so, just, sad and down on yourself about Lola and I figured it had to be a pretty spectacular girl to be worthy of you and worthy of you being so down.” He laughs a little sadly, and he’s not meeting Zayn’s eyes anymore and Zayn is possibly going to die if Niall doesn’t get on with it.
“I dunno, I think I knew that I wasn’t being fair to you or her after a little bit. I didn’t really care who she was anymore, I was convinced she wasn’t worth it, and then I felt sort of guilty because maybe I just wanted you for myself.” He stops, fidgets with the hem of his boxers for a moment. “I guess what I’m saying is that I really, really want you, Zayn,” and he’s looking up again, and Zayn is pretty certain his bones are going to shatter inside of him all at once if Niall doesn’t spit out the but lingering on his tongue.
“But - ” there it is, “but - I...I can’t be your rebound. I can’t. I know I sort of said this last night, but I like you too much and you’re too fucking beautiful and smart and funny and soft and I’d rather stay your friend than be your second choice.” His eyes are clear and calm and kind, but the rosiness in his cheeks belies his nervousness. Zayn wants to laugh and cry all at once, but he doesn’t feel even a smidgen of doubt or hesitation. Niall has been so brave with him, from the beginning, and Zayn owes him this.
Scrambling up onto his knees, Zayn pulls Niall’s hands up into his lap, forcing Niall to join him up on the bed, crosslegged. His eyes are downcast again, and it’s so strange to see him this unsure.
“Niall,” Zayn says after a moment, thumbing absently across Niall’s knuckles. “Please look at me?”
He does, and Zayn takes a deep breath, trying to figure out what on earth he can say to Niall to express everything churning around inside his head.
“I know I’m a little tipsy, and this is a little obnoxious, but I’ve been thinking about my relationship with Lola recently and I figured out that it was sort of like a pretty flower in a vase. I mean, it was so lovely and exciting and fresh when it first happened, but what I didn’t realize was that the moment it came together, it was already dying. We were sitting there in a vase in dirty water hating each other because the flower was dead as soon as it was pulled up.”
Niall is looking at him like Zayn’s both the stupidest and loveliest person he has ever seen, but Zayn can’t stop now. Especially not now, when if he does, all Niall will remember is this stupid metaphor.
“What I mean is that I think part of me has known it was over for a long time. Years, maybe. I got complacent and numb and jaded and clearly so did she. I think she did us both a favor, taking off for the other side of the country. From the moment I stepped off the plane here, I was starting to become a different person. And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that you were the first and biggest part of that.”
Niall is smiling now, shyly. He’s tugged one hand out of Zayn’s to scrub sheepishly at the back of his neck, ducking his head, and Zayn feels so fond he’s brimming with it.
“D’you mean I’m not a second choice?” Niall asks, softly, but there’s a giddiness riding on the edge of his voice that Zayn wants to lick.
“Niall,” Zayn says, tucking a finger under his chin and tilting it up towards him. “You’re the only choice.”
Niall huffs out a relieved, disbelieving laugh and every molecule of Zayn’s body is screaming at him to do something, so he does, dropping Niall’s hand to lift his own reverentially to the planes of Niall’s chest. He runs his fingers as lightly as he can under the ridge of Niall’s collarbone, thinking I’ll have to do that with my mouth later as he goes. He’s barely, barely touching Niall as he continues down his chest, stopping to circle one nipple almost out of curiosity more than anything, cataloging the hitch in Niall’s breath and the way his eyelashes flutter.
“Jesus, Zayn,” he sighs, shivering as Zayn’s fingers wander inquisitively over the pretty trail of hair leading out of his boxers. “Jesus.”
Zayn continues for a while, humming happily, learning Niall’s body like a melody, his ribs like a harp. Niall has started breathing heavily and it’s clear he’s itching to do something, but he stays remarkably still. “Zayn,” he croaks at last. “Zayn, please. I have to touch you.”
Zayn isn’t going to argue. He pulls his own shirt off, crawls backwards towards the pillows as Niall follows him, his eyes as searing as any touch against Zayn’s newly bare chest.
Niall arranges himself against the headboard and then holds his arms out to Zayn, looking sweet and soft and vulnerable and eager and turned on all at once. Zayn goes to him easily, swings a leg over until he’s perched on Niall’s lap, their already semi-interested cocks lining up neatly against one another, skin of their chests flush together like they’re trying to learn osmosis.
And then they’re kissing, finally, and it doesn’t matter that they kissed last night, or this afternoon; it feels like it’s been years in the making, years and decades and centuries, whole evolutionary cycles, planetary formations -
There are galaxies swirling inside of Zayn, the lightening storms when their tongues slide together wetly, the shooting star nips to earlobes, the slow, burning sunrises of Niall’s hips grinding up into Zayn’s. Niall’s hand is on Zayn’s cock through his boxers, hot and curious, so suddenly that Zayn’s head tips back of its own will, and Niall seizes the chance to suck sweet, insistent kisses along his jaw to the soft skin beneath his ear. His hand is moving still, not with experience but with eagerness, and Zayn isn’t sure he’s felt anything better in his whole life.
“Want you,” Niall murmurs against his neck, his tongue flicking out against Zayn’s skin and followed quickly by the warm heat of his mouth, sucking and sucking until Zayn feels the hot sting of a hickey blooming under Niall’s attention. “Want you so bad, wanted you from the moment I saw you, want every part of you - ”
Zayn forces his head upright at that, feeling his eyes go a little wild, attaching his own mouth to Niall’s with an almost frantic need, their teeth clashing together for a moment before sliding into place against one another like codebreakers, like a key in a lock, like all of the cells in Zayn’s body have been waiting for this moment to come alive within him. He kisses Niall like he’s starving, hands threaded through the hair at his temples, licking and biting and pecking until they’re both panting, and Zayn reaches down a hand between them, slips the tips of his fingers under the band of Niall’s boxers to feel his stomach tense, his breathing ragged in anticipation.
“On second thought, let’s just take these off,” Zayn muses aloud, wriggling backwards to shuck off his own shorts before remembering the light and leaning over to snag it. Niall catches his arm midway.
“No, please?” he asks softly. “I want to see you.”
Zayn feels like someone has taken his body directly out of an ice bath and plunged it into a sauna, his temperature rises so fast. Pulse fluttering, trying not to look as flustered as he feels, he almost whispers, “Okay,” and pulls his shorts off anyway, avoiding Niall’s face until he’s wrangled Niall’s off as well.
It’s a good thing, too: had he looked up any sooner, he would’ve been severely distracted from his task. Niall is looking at him, at his chest and his shoulders and his knobbly knees and the spread of his thighs and his cock, already achingly hard and with a glistening smear of precome at the tip. He’s looking and looking and his face is awed and his eyes are bright, glinting.
If Zayn had the capacity for any rational thought, he’d be comforted by the fact that his face probably looks about the same as he glances over Niall, trying to drink him in. He’s all long, smooth muscles and skin improbably golden from hours in the sun and, God, his cock. It’s been a long time since Zayn has been close to a dick other than his own in this context, and he doesn’t know if it’s because he’s missed it or if it’s because it’s Niall’s that his mouth starts to water.
He leans forward, again, into a slow, agonizing kiss, and then pulls away to lick his palm before he wraps his fingers around Niall. It’s a nice cock, it really is, thick and flushed and so, so pretty in Zayn’s hand, almost as pretty as the gasp that wrenches out of Niall at the contact. “Jesus - shit - fuck - ” he tries, and Zayn can’t help but laugh a little.
“Should’ve known you’d be filthy mouthed in bed,” Zayn comments, leaning forward to flick his tongue against one of Niall’s nipples and grinning as Niall involuntarily bucks up into his hand.
He licks a little lower, teasing, down the unbelievable cleft in between Niall’s abs, across his belly, sinking his teeth into Niall’s hip and wishing he could swallow the bitten off whimpers of curse words that Niall’s emitting like morse code. And then he has to readjust, slide his knees backwards until he’s lying down between the spread of Niall’s legs, and Niall’s cock is just right there.
Zayn tries to be patient, tries to take his time with it, but it’s difficult.
“Have you ever been blown by a guy before?” Zayn asks suddenly, and when Niall meets his eyes and shakes his head almost helplessly, Zayn is surprised by the nearly predatory sound that comes from his own throat. “Good. I like that. I want to be your first a lot of things,” he says, and then plants a wet, warm kiss right against the base of Niall’s dick.
He smells like heat and boy and salt and Zayn loves it, digs his fingers into one of Niall’s trembling thighs as he cups his balls carefully with the other, rolling them gently and licking a wet stripe up the underside of Niall’s cock. Niall lets out a garbled stream of, “Shit, shit shit Zayn, fuck I - fuck, oh God, oh God - ” and Zayn is tired of being patient. He’s turned on as hell and he hasn’t done more than jerk himself off in the shower in a rather sad and unsatisfying way for weeks on end, and he has Niall spread out writhing and desperate and actually giving himself to Zayn, and Zayn isn’t going to waste any more time.
He licks his way around the head quickly, swipes his tongue across the salty sweet smear of precome across the slit, and then sinks down, bobbing his head a little and working his jaw open slowly to the symphony of Niall’s breathy moans above him. He’s overwhelmed by sensations: the stretch of his jaw, the smell, god, how good he tastes, how familiar and new at once it all is. Zayn works his way down as far as he can until he can feel his throat fluttering, crying out at the intrusion and from lack of practice, and he pulls off a bit, swirling his tongue around the top and then sinking down again, sucking in hard all at once and trying to grin around his mouthful as Niall’s hips stutter.
“Zayn,” Niall says once, and then again, more insistently. “Zayn?”
Zayn pulls off, reluctantly, and Niall’s hand flies to the base of his cock to keep himself under control. “You’re too fucking good at that, Malik,” he murmurs, his eyes hooded. “I don’t want to come without you, please.”
Zayn likes this plan. He’s not particularly embarrassed to admit that he honestly probably could have gotten off on sucking Niall and a bit of his own hand alone, because hearing Niall’s moans and knowing that he’s responsible now, for teaching him and blowing his mind (and other things) and taking him apart and putting him back together is so unfathomably hot. He wants to do whatever Niall wants, though, and if that means being together, now, he’s on board.
He climbs back up until he’s straddling Niall again, and then holds out his hand. “Lick it,” he suggests, and he likes the scratch beginning at the bottom of his voice. He hopes it’ll be there tomorrow as a nice little reminder that he’s been sucking Niall’s dick.
And lick it Niall does, thoroughly, like a fucking tease, his tongue laving across Zayn’s palm and flicking wet and heavy between his fingers before he closes his mouth around the top of Zayn’s pointer finger and drags it off with a hot scrape of his teeth. Zayn thinks he’s going to die, seriously, but then Niall pulls back and Zayn reaches down, pushes his body forward until they’re lined up, wraps his hand around both of them as best as he can.
It’s a little clumsy, a little cramped between their bodies, but the slide of spit and precome feels unbelievably good and Niall has leaned forward to bite at the place where Zayn’s shoulder meets his neck and Zayn can already feel the beginnings of his orgasm spiraling out from his belly. He turns, presses his lips to Niall’s cheek next to his ear.
“Wanna be yours, Ni,” he mumbles, his hand speeding up on both of their cocks, their hips rocking against each other frantically. “Already am but, want you to make me yours even more - ”
“Mine,” Niall bites out, almost savagely, like he’s trying the word out for himself.
“Niall,” Zayn says, feels the foggy-sharp ridges of pleasure starting to edge in on him, “Niall, would you, I’m yours, I want - fuck me, please, I want to give that to you - ”
“Zayn -” Niall chokes, a laugh lining the sound of the name, and then his cock stutters up into Zayn’s fingers and his head bangs backwards into the headboard as he comes with an amazed laugh, streaking across his own shaking stomach and Zayn’s hand. It’s hot, so fucking hot, and as Zayn leans back to let Niall come down, the extra slick of Niall’s come and the hot slide of his fingers and the fucked out, beautiful boy beneath him are all too much at once. Zayn is melting from the inside out, he’s the birth of a star, molten and huge and powerful and he’s definitely never come like this before.
His vision clears a little and Niall is looking at him reverentially, one hand against his side, thumb stroking soothingly at his hip. He reaches out to the bedside table with the other, hands Zayn a wad of kleenex along with a smile that Zayn feels like is mending him even in places he wasn’t torn.
“Christ,” Niall says as he swipes at the mess of come on his stomach. “Do you have any idea how fucking hot you are?”
“You’re one to talk, Mr. ‘don’t mind me while I suck off each of your fingers’. I thought I was going to pass out just from your tongue.” He tosses the tissues in the general direction of Niall’s trash can and rolls onto his side, waits as Niall sinks down the headboard and into the pillows to tuck one of his legs between Niall’s and his face against the welcoming curve of Niall’s neck.
“You asked for it,” Niall points out judiciously, his hand broad and comforting against Zayn’s back.
“I sure did, and you can bet I’m going to again.” Zayn traces lazy patterns across the open expanse of Niall’s still sweaty and still beautiful chest.
They’re quiet for a moment, comfortable, and then Niall asks, “Did you mean it?”
“Did I mean what?”
“Wanting me...wanting me to fuck you.”
“If that would be okay with you,” Zayn says, his voice very small.
“God, it would be more than okay, it would be magnificent, glorious, superb, grand, mind-blowing - ”
Zayn cuts him off with a laugh. “Still studying for those SATs?”
“I didn’t finish high school, after all,” Niall agrees willinging, shrugging a bit and leaning down to kiss the top of Zayn’s head. Zayn is glad that his face is hidden and that Niall can’t see the way he has to close his eyes against the dizzying force of his smile. “Gotta get that 2400 to impress the ladies.”
“Consider them impressed,” Zayn says, his eyes still shut and the edges of a welcome sleep beginning to slink under his eyelids.
He’s nearly gone, curled sticky and lovely and protected against Niall, when the thought occurs to him: he belongs right here.
- - -
When Zayn wakes up this time, Niall is still there. They’re tucked together, having apparently moved very little during the night, and Zayn wants to stay nestled against Niall for an eternity. He’s sticky though, and he has work at ten, and unfortunately he’s pretty sure the world is still continuing without them beyond the confines of Niall’s bed.
“Morning,” Niall says, and Zayn tilts his head to blink a sleepy smile up at him.
“Hi. Have you been awake long?”
“Oh, yeah. Never went to sleep, actually. I’ve been watching you for hours.” Niall arches an eyebrow with a grin and trails a thumb down Zayn’s cheek.
“Charming. I love when you talk creepy to me,” Zayn laughs, dipping down to bite at one of Niall’s nipples. He hums to himself a little as Niall sucks in a breath, hips jerking minutely. He likes Niall’s cute little nipples a lot. “What time is it?”
Niall gropes blindly for his phone on the bedside table, holding it up so they both can see. It’s 8:08 am. “That’s a nice number,” Zayn comments.
“You’re a nice number.”
“You’re pretty awful at compliments.”
“You’re pretty awful.”
Zayn’s grinning now. “I’ll take that one, yeah.”
He’s propped up on his elbow now, looking down at Niall who is smiling serenely up at him, one hand still tucked up underneath Zayn and rubbing slow patterns into the small of his back.
“You don’t have to be at work until ten, right?” Niall asks, even though they both know that he knows the answer.
“Mhm.”
“So you have like an hour and a half until you need to leave?”
“Yep.”
“Any ideas what you might like to do in that time?”
“Go back to sleep? I don’t know the last time I was up this early - ”
Niall surges then, rolling them over so Zayn flumps against the bed and Niall is straddling his hips triumphantly. “I’m sorry to say,” Niall says, looking the patent opposite of sorry, “that that was the wrong answer.”
Zayn hums, low and deep. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“I’m talking about - ” Niall begins, and then cuts himself off abruptly. “Fuck, I’m sorry, I seriously have to pee. Can we put the sexy talk aside for like three minutes?”
Zayn actually can’t help the laugh that bubbles out of him. “Thank God, I thought my bladder was going to explode. Yes, please.” Before Niall can clamor off of him, Zayn drags him down for a kiss, fuck morning breath, fuck his bladder, fuck everyone, honestly. He gets to kiss Niall now and that means he’s going to do it, thank you very much.
Zayn practically runs to his room after they disentangle, changes his boxers - he’s not really sure why, but it feels like something to do - and then waits patiently for Niall to be done in the bathroom. Niall throws the door open, startles at the sight of Zayn waiting for him, one hand up to cover his heart in a cliche and very cute picture of surprise. He laughs when he realizes it’s just Zayn, reaching out and sliding fingers down Zayn’s bare chest. “Nothing sexier than taking turns in the bathroom, huh?”
“I believe you once told me I could get into the Vatican in a plastic garbage bag,” Zayn says, digging the memory out from his first afternoon in San Diego. “Maybe your perceptions of sexy are just a little screwy in general.”
“Nah. I’d definitely do you in a plastic bag,” Niall says, blushing at the reminder and shuffling around Zayn and into the hall. “I’ll just - I’ll be in my room.”
Zayn looks in the mirror as he’s washing his hands, swipes away a crusty in the corner of his eye, takes a moment to brush his teeth. Niall’s toothbrush is wet in its holder, and it makes something in Zayn clench, the thought that both of them are dressing up for each other in a sense, or as much as you can dress up when you’re mostly naked and it’s an ungodly early time in the morning.
Niall is indeed waiting for him, sprawled on his side on the bed with a goofy expression on that looks like it might be aiming for seductive. The whole picture looks like it’s come straight from the pages of a male model calendar, and the corners of Zayn’s mouth are twitching as he climbs up onto the bed and knocks Niall backwards, licking wetly up one of his cheeks and surprising the expression right off of Niall’s face.
“Mmm, minty,” Niall laughs, reaching up to swipe at the trail Zayn’s tongue had left.
“I bet you’re minty too,” Zayn says. It’s not really a bet, he knows it’s true.
“Wanna come find out?”
They kiss until neither of them taste like anything but heat and each other, slow and torturous and delicious. Niall pulls back a bit, mouth open, and Zayn realizes he’s nearly holding his breath, feeling his stomach jolt as Niall leans in just enough to brush upwards, lightly dragging his parted lips over Zayn’s own. It sends sparks down Zayn’s spine like a telephone wire, and he nudges forward hungrily until Niall does it again, up and down, achingly slowly. There are whole worlds that exist in the small circumference where their mouths meet, the collision of lips and heat and sensation. Zayn flicks his tongue out, just a little, wets the pretty bow of Niall’s upper lip, inhales his responding gasp.
Zayn thinks he could do this forever, shivers as Niall’s thumb rubs tiny circles in the smooth skin below his earlobe, his other hand sneaking down to stroke slow and easy along the line of Zayn’s boxers. Zayn breaks away to draw in a shaky breath, his head tilted back ever so slightly, and Niall takes the moment to nose along his jaw, across his cheek, a path like a brand that Zayn wants to wear for the whole world to see. He tangles both of his hands in the soft hair on the back of Niall’s head, pulls him back until their mouths are slotted together, nips his lower lip once and then plants kiss after kiss after kiss until they’re both squirming with it, practically glistening in their skin with desire and laughing quietly like the whole thing is just one joyous event.
Niall gets impatient, then, already hard and rutting up into Zayn ever so slightly. His hand is in Zayn’s hair suddenly, pulling his head backwards, and Niall licks a broad, warm stripe from the hollow of Zayn’s throat to the tip of his chin. It goes straight to Zayn’s cock, and he settles into it eagerly, shifting his weight downwards so he and Niall can slide together more easily, his dick fattened up and already making a translucent spot on his boxers.
“Please,” Zayn says. He has no idea what he’s asking for, not really, but maybe he’s just asking for Niall, for anything, for more and less and different and new and please.
“Yeah, okay,” Niall breathes, and he rolls Zayn off of him, gently, sits up and gropes towards the bedside table.
He reemerges a moment later with a tiny satchel of lube and a condom, and Zayn huffs out a surprised laugh.
“You have lube?”
Niall’s face turns the prettiest shade of pink that Zayn has ever seen. “I bought it a few days ago. Just in case - ” he pauses, doesn’t finish, but Zayn knows what he meant. Niall really has wanted him, and it’s an exhilarating and terrifying knowledge. “Plus,” Niall continues, voice small, “I wanted to know what it felt like.”
Zayn can actually feel the blood rushing through him, his cock jerking at the implication. “Did you - have you - ?” he asks, breathless, and Niall hesitates only for a second before nodding.
Zayn moves more quickly than he would have thought possible to close the small gap between them on the bed. He has to touch Niall, to feel him, to imbue him with some of Zayn’s own desperation and desire and the vastness of his adoration.
“I was curious,” Niall says, opening his arms and helping settle Zayn into his lap, tilting his head away and hissing as Zayn sucks a mark above his collarbone. “Even if you weren’t an option, it was pretty clear I was into dicks and was going to need to learn at some point.”
Zayn pulls back, overwhelmed, scrubs the heels of his palms into his eye sockets. Niall had wanted him, had wanted to know what being with Zayn would feel like. He’d been so sure that Zayn was unattainable that he’d tried to face what these changes meant by teaching himself a whole new way of being with someone so that when the right person came along, he’d be prepared. The thought that Zayn might have missed this, that Niall might have gone to all this trouble and that Zayn might never have realized, makes him ache.
“Hey, hey, are you okay?” Niall asks, and Zayn pulls his hands away from his face, blinking to clear his eyes and trying his best to smile reassuringly.
“I really, really like you,” is all he can think to say, but it seems to do the trick, and Niall’s slow, unfurling smile is like nothing Zayn has ever seen before. It makes something sing inside his blood.
“I really, really like you back,” Niall says, and then his smile splits into something even bigger as he says, “Man, this feels like second grade on the playground. Do you like like me, Zayn Malik?”
Zayn is grinning in return, feels helpless with how much he wants to be right here, wrapped around Niall. He wants it, but he wants more, wants Niall to know now and without a doubt how much Zayn absolutely needs him.
“You know what I’d really like like?” he asks, and his voice is low and filled with the crunch of gravel. Niall’s face is the kind of curious like he hopes he already knows the answer. “You to fuck me now.”
Niall’s groan is almost a sigh, and the sun is coming in through his window like a blessing and Zayn has never felt so settled and unsettled in his skin at once. He’s brimming with it, with saltwater and Niall and hummingbirds hovering right beneath his skin.
“Off,” Niall says, palming at Zayn’s boxers, and then they’re pulling apart one last time to strip. “Hey,” Niall says, and he sounds shy, and Zayn wants to know everything. “Could I watch? I mean, could you get yourself ready for me?”
Zayn is literally going to die.
“Okay,” he croaks, and it would be funny if it wasn’t possibly the hottest thing he’s ever been asked. He’s never done this in front of someone, never in early morning sunshine, never with a boy he cares so, so much about practically drooling as he watches. He settles back against the pillows like he usually does, hitches his knees up, refusing to be embarrassed about how spread open and bare he feels. This is what Niall wants. Niall wants him. Zayn wants Niall to have him.
He holds out his right hand, three fingers out, and Niall gets the picture, tears open the lube and slicks it over Zayn’s fingers. It reminds Zayn of the night before, of Niall licking over his whole hand like it was a popsicle, and the memory of Niall’s tongue courses through him like a tide.
He has to close his eyes when he starts, both because of the sensation, the feel of his wet fingers rubbing lightly over where he’s already clenching and needy, and because he can’t look at Niall, can’t see the reverence in his face where he’s settled to watch in front of Zayn.
It doesn’t take long for Zayn’s legs to start burning, the ache blooming low and tight in his muscles where they’re hitched up, one finger already working its way inside of him. It’s been a while since he’s done this to himself, been even longer since anyone has done it to him, and he’s reveling in it, in the slick, in the knowledge that it’s going to be Niall inside of him soon.
He shivers and jerks a little, two fingers firmly inside himself and eyes still closed when he feels Niall’s mouth pressing soft, open mouthed kisses against the exposed underside of Zayn’s thigh. He can hardly remember to move his fingers as Niall explores lower, murmuring something that Zayn can’t even hear into the sheen of sweat that has already spread across his skin like a fog. And then Niall is - holy fuck - nosing along his balls, and Zayn’s eyes fly open to see his head tilted, tongue flicking out to fit underneath Zayn’s arm and against the heated skin right below them.
He’s suddenly frantic, he feels, trying to relax enough to work a third finger inside himself, wanting more, wanting more sensation and more drag and to find the place inside of him that is going to make everything infinitely better. But then the heat of Niall’s mouth disappears and its sudden absence drags a whimper out of him, and then Niall is leaning over him from the side, sliding his tongue into Zayn’s mouth and curling it under his upper teeth like a beckoning.
“How do you want to do this?” he asks, his voice nearly as rough as Zayn’s had been, the last time he’d been able to speak.
“Can I be on top of you?” Zayn asks, and Niall takes a moment to just laugh.
“Do you think there’s any chance I’d turn you down?” he asks, and then settles back against the pillows, propped up just a bit, and rolls the condom down onto himself. Zayn eases his fingers out of his body, biting his lip savagely to hold in the unbidden noise threatening to escape, and shakily throws a leg over Niall’s narrow hips. He remembers yesterday in the ocean, his legs wrapped around Niall for the first time, the rightness and security he had felt even there in the middle of the biggest body of water he had ever willingly subjected himself to.
He doesn’t really mean for it to happen, but as he settles, Niall’s cock, flushed and heavy against his belly, slips easily between where Zayn’s thighs are pulling him open. He’s still slick with lube from his fingers, and as he sets his weight down, Niall is suddenly flush up against him, hot and fitted and so, so much all at once. Zayn spreads his fingers out on Niall’s chest, watches the way they sink into his skin a little, turning the area around them white against the tan as he slowly slides forward, lube and now precome slicking the way as he slips along the satisfying heft of Niall’s dick.
“Shit,” Niall says, almost laughs, as Zayn slides forward and the blunt head of Niall’s cock catches along Zayn’s rim for the first time. “Shit, shit, shit.”
“Yeah,” is all Zayn can manage. Niall covered it pretty succinctly there.
He slides back, using his hands as leverage, Niall’s own rising to rub over Zayn’s arms, squeeze his biceps, trace over his collarbones and down to where his nipples are hard and begging for attention. He flicks them both, lightly, then pinches them, and Zayn can’t help the way his hips stutter on their path back and forth over Niall’s cock, arching his back and pressing down more firmly as Niall jerks up into him in response. He moves to retaliate, flicking his thumbs over Niall’s nipples and then pressing, hard, swallowing Niall’s answering groan.
It’s too much, really, and Zayn is so overwhelmed that if he doesn’t get Niall inside of him he’s going to come soon and ruin the whole thing.
“Ready?” he manages, trying to steady himself.
“Not on your life,” Niall counters, giggling at his own joke, and Zayn’s heart actually surges in his chest, laughter tearing out of him as Niall parrots back his words from the beach yesterday before they surfed.
“Glad to hear it,” Zayn says, and then slides forward until he’s perched over Niall’s belly and can reach behind himself, get his fingers around where Niall is already so wet and unbelievably hard.
It’s a stretch, for sure, the head of Niall’s dick pushing against Zayn, and Niall’s tentative, clearly afraid of hurting him. “I won’t break,” Zayn half whispers. “You can be a little rough.”
Niall’s eyes grow wide and he groans, cants his hips up until he’s more than a few inches in, and it hurts and it’s so much but there’s a slice of pleasure bleeding through the burn, and there’s the awed look on Niall’s face and the incoherent string of words slipping out of his mouth, like bees from a nest, like he can’t control them. One of his hands slides down Zayn’s arm as Zayn wriggles his hips, settles himself down a little further, and Niall catches Zayn’s fingers up between his own. His grip is tight, almost too tight, but it’s an anchor for both of them, a distraction from the dull ache that Zayn is trying to sink into, wash himself with.
Niall’s eyebrows have drawn together and his mouth is open in a whimper, Zayn biting down on his own lip so hard he’s afraid the skin might break. And then they’ve done it, he feels Niall’s bony hips against the juncture of his thighs and his arse, and Niall is kissing each of his knuckles like a thank you.
“Zayn,” Niall says against the flushed skin on the back of his hand where they’re entangled. “Zayn, Zayn Zayn Zayn Zayn.”
“I know,” Zayn answers, because he does, thinks a litany of “Niall” could well be the only thing he needs to say for the rest of eternity.
“I’m inside of you,” Niall says, wonderingly.
“And I want you to be.” It’s a quiet kind of statement, and Zayn has said it before, has said it recently, but it’s different right now, and it makes Niall’s cock twitch inside of him.
“Can we - can we stay like this for a minute?” Niall’s voice is very quiet again, but it’s no longer unsure, or shy. It’s like he’s so settled and confident that he doesn’t need to raise his voice, knows Zayn can hear him in more ways than one.
Zayn doesn’t bother to answer with words, just leans forward so that he can lay across Niall’s broad, sticky chest, Niall’s dick still heady and thick inside of him. He tucks his head into the juncture of Niall’s shoulder, can’t help planting whisper kisses wherever his mouth can reach.
After a moment, Niall brings their hands up, still connected, and lets them rest so the back of Zayn’s is against his skin. It takes a moment to realize that Niall has put it right over his heart, that its beat is thumping through his chest and right up through the back of Zayn’s hand, until it’s like the two of them holding that heartbeat, cupping it gently between where their palms are fused together. Zayn closes his eyes, breathes the tang of Niall in, glad that for the moment Niall can’t see the glass of tears that he can feel gathering in the corners of his eyes.
It takes a little while, the two of them quiet, just breathing together, Niall writing words on Zayn’s back with his fingers. It just feels like patterns at first, but it’s so slow and deliberate that he starts paying attention, works out as Niall spells his own name, and then a heart, and then ‘Zayn’, like he’s marking a tree on the playground with the declarations of their crushes. Zayn huffs, happily, lifts his head enough to kiss Niall smartly on the mouth, breathe into him, trace his tongue along the sweep of Niall’s open lips. Niall is laughing again, into their kiss, laughing as giddily as Zayn feels.
Eventually, the leftover trace of pain dissipates and Zayn just feels full, full and a little restless. He rolls his hips in a small circle, experimentally, and Niall responds immediately with a moan and and jerk upwards, his hand stilling on its path across Zayn’s back. Zayn, with effort, leverages himself back up until he’s sitting properly again, until he can work his whole body back to meet Niall’s thrusts.
“I’m not going to last long,” Niall pants, “you feel so good, so fucking good.”
Zayn only rolls his hips harder, the obscene sounds of his arse against Niall’s hips growing louder in the sunny room as he fists over his own cock for the first time, swipes his thumb through the pearl of precome at the tip. Niall is growing louder, bites of Zayn’s name and incoherent swear words and unholy moans slipping between his pink lips, increasingly unabashed. Everyone is going to hear him, Zayn’s sure, and he doesn’t really mind, but he wants to keep this to himself for right now, contain it. Niall lets out a cry, then, and Zayn takes advantage of the moment to slip two of his fingers between Niall’s lips, pressing down against the wet swath of his tongue and groaning as Niall sucks them without hesitation.
He works his hand over himself, flicking his thumb against the head of his dick and twisting as best he can with the now erratic rhythm of Niall’s thrusts. When he comes it’s with a sob, a choked down noise that’s heat and adoration and Niall’s name all at once, spilling into his own hand and down across where Niall’s abs are clenching sporadically. He’s so, so sensitive then, trying to ride back into Niall’s cock, trying to keep going as it overwhelms him. He’s about to pull off, offer to finish Niall with his mouth when Niall comes too, biting down on Zayn’s fingers in his mouth and arching his back off of the bed like a bow.
When Niall slips out of him a shaky minute later, Zayn winces at the sensation, at the emptiness, but if there’s one thing he’s sure of, it’s that he isn’t losing anything.
- - -
Later, when he goes into work and Perrie takes one look at him and grins wolfishly, he thinks it again, that he hasn’t lost anything he didn’t want to lose. He has Niall tucked away in the pocket of his apron, in sweet texts full of nothing but variations of “xooxoxxoxxoxxxox” every fifteen or so minutes, in the question Niall had asked right before Zayn had left that morning: could he come to New York with him for a few weeks? Help him clean out his apartment, meet whoever Zayn wanted him to meet, be a part of Zayn deciding where his life would go from here?
When Zayn calls Danny and tells him with as many words as he can find what Niall means to him, or what he hopes Niall could mean, Danny is silent for a moment. He’s silent, and then he tells Zayn he understands, that he can hear it in the tone of his voice, says Zayn has never talked about anyone or anything like this before. Says he can feel it, three thousand miles of wide-open country away, says that he loves Zayn and that that’s all Zayn has ever needed from him.
And when Niall picks him up from work, and there are three grinning boys piled in the back, ready for their next adventure, Zayn can only think about how much he’s gained. There’s joyful chatter in the backseat, and Louis cuffs him on the back of the head and says, “You must be a good lay, Malik, Niall hasn’t stopped smiling for hours,” in a voice so warm Zayn thinks it might melt him. Niall shrugs, reaches for Zayn’s hand across the console, slots their fingers together unapologetically, like the teeth of a zipper, like a communion. The San Diego sun is hot and high above them, blinding and illuminating all at once, and Zayn thinks: maybe, just maybe, he could get used to this California life.