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I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be.
Niall stares at the graffiti for a prolonged amount of time. He doesn’t really get it, but it’s beautiful, and Niall kind of needs beautiful.
It’s written on the tattered wooden back of the seat in front of him on the bus, in purple permanent marker next to some dried chewing gum, it must have only just been written there because he takes this bus everyday, and he always sits in this seat, and it wasn’t there this morning when he left for University.
The city buses are sort of terrible anyway, run down and faded, and Niall constantly worries that it’s going to fall apart on his route home. So he isn’t too surprised to see another person defacing the back of the seat, though it isn’t the usual tagging that he’s used to; the phone numbers, the smiley faces and the badly drawn penises (Louis is responsible for most of those). So that’s sort of nice.
He digs through his bag, past the sheet music and textbooks and grabs out his own sharpie pen.
Poetic – hope she loves you back, he writes beneath it, with an arrow pointing to the words.
He leans back in his seat and draws stick figures with his gloved finger in the fogged up window. And he thinks about… well, he doesn’t think about much. Doesn’t seem to ever think about much these days. His mind usually wanders and drifts and he thinks about the passing of the clouds and the changing colours in the sky.
It’s dimming now, though that may just be the dark winter clouds always blanketing him. He can see the black ocean through the fog, the angry waves crashing against the pier, it should be depressing, but it’s not. He kind of wants to surf, Harry would kill him though, its always too cold.
He taps his fingers on his lap absentmindedly in time with the music playing through his headphones, they stop at the bus stop closest to his flat, and he slings his bag over his shoulder and steps off.
It’s cold outside, it’s always cold. And Louis is waiting at the bus stop, of course, grey puffs of smoke leaving his mouth and circling up from the cigarette between his fingers, and Niall almost finds himself craving the warmth that it must bring, before remembering all of the horror stories Harry lectures Louis with about lung cancer and tar build up, and he decides against it.
“Good day?” Louis asks, attentive and warm.
Niall nods, he tells him about new projects with Ed, and a rude customer he encountered at work.
He doesn’t tell him about the rain water splashing into his morning coffee, or when there was a part of the sky that was momentarily purple and yellow and looked a bit like a bruise, or the words written on the bus. No, he doesn’t tell him about those things, because they’re the little things that only he seems to notice, and Louis tries, but he can’t understand.
They walk five minutes down the road towards their flat, the salty tinge in the icy cold air stinging at his rosy cheeks, he digs his hands into the pockets of his coat, disgruntled, cold and bitter for no good reason. Niall decides he really hates winter.
. . .
Just a Dickens quote, but thanks anyway.
Niall grins at the new graffiti scribbled next to his own words from yesterday, and he fumbles with his bag, quickly getting out his pen. He glances around, not that anyone would really care that he’s writing on an already destroyed seat. And it’s basically empty anyway, aside from the few elderly people sitting up the front.
Should have just gone with it, I had you noted down as the poetic bus stranger, now what will I call you?
It’s kind of exciting communicating with someone through graffiti on the back of a bus seat, though he does wonder what that says about him, when reading a few words is the most exciting part of his day.
He doesn’t think too much of it.
After googling the quote, he spends too long in the library looking for a copy of Great Expectations, and finds it a little dusted over and frayed in one of the stacks down the back. Louis and Harry find him two hours later sitting at a table with his head buried in nineteenth century literature.
Louis leans against the edge of the table, squinting down at him. “Are you sure it’s him?” he asks dubiously.
Harry pulls a chair up next to Niall, staring at him intently. “Looks like Niall, but m’ not sure,”
Niall sets the book down and glares. “What? You’ve never seen me read before?”
Harry shrugs. “Well…”
Louis drags a seat over to Harry and sits next to him, practically in his lap because the two have never heard of personal space before. “And you’re reading Dickens. Are you going through some kind of lifestyle change?”
Niall’s brows furrow as he looks at his friends, he loves them to death but sometimes he really wants to punch them, but he knows he’d hate himself too much afterwards. Instead he just sighs and closes the book, slipping it into his bag. “Happy now?”
“Hm?” Louis’ moved onto braiding Harrys hair, and not very well at that, “oh, you can keep reading if you want, don’t mind us,”
Niall makes a disgruntled noise, slings his bag over his back and heads to the class he’s already late for. He’s always late these days, always late and he doesn’t tell Harry and Louis because they’ll worry and he doesn’t want them to worry. But he’s always late, and sometimes he just can’t bring himself to care.
. . .
February is unfair. It’s too cold, and Niall can’t do the things he likes. But it’s always cold, so a lot of the time he forgets what it is he even likes. He knows he likes to surf, but he can’t do that without Harry freaking out about frostbite, and he likes to eat lunch on the pier but he can’t do that without the fear of being swallowed up by the ocean.
Sometimes that doesn’t sound so bad, and no, he doesn’t have a death wish, he doesn’t want to die, but like, being alive and awake all the time, so constant, so fucking aware. He wishes it wasn’t all so draining.
Like. His days are always the same, and there’s so little point in opening his eyes when they’re always too heavy, too groggy. He catches the bus, he’s late, he’s always late, and he almost misses it, and the driver half-glares at him but he meets his face with a smile anyway, he sinks into his seat, catching his breath. It’s warm at least.
He’s almost home when his eye catches onto a new message. He had almost forgotten to check, or at least, assumed this mystery person wouldn’t have thought to continue their little conversation. But he’s happy they did.
How about calling me Zayn? Or quote stealing bus stranger if that suits better.
Niall smiles like the rays of sunlight bursting through the grey overcast. And that’s something new. He rushes to grab his pen before he has to get off.
Zayn is good. I’m Niall. Or bored bus stranger. Hi.
He wonders for a moment if they’re the only ones who even sit in this seat, and part of him hopes they are.
He’s exhausted when he gets home. Harry makes dinner, and Louis helps him tidy up, which leads to more making out against the sink than anything. Niall eats Harry’s risotto, and he’s starring at their shitty radiator. It’s so loud, and it’s still cold, he can feel it straight down to his bones.
And in the morning, it starts again.
. . .
Sometimes Niall writes.
He writes songs, songs that he’ll never sing because there’s not really an audience for them, no one really wants to listen to a song about the worn couch he sometimes sits in during break at the coffee shop, or the homeless woman that’s five minutes down the road from campus that Niall sometimes talks to. There’s no audience for the things Niall likes to write about. So he doesn’t tell anyone.
He doesn’t tell Louis when he’s pouring two cups of tea for him and Harry in the morning that Niall just came up with a melody in his head for what they have, because living with them is like capturing the moment in the beginning of spring when the flowers start to bloom, and he love’s them for that, despite being painfully single.
He doesn’t tell the bus driver that he finds him to be one of the most interesting people in the world, truly, but that’s partly because Niall thinks the bus driver hates him. Because he’s always late. But he smiles at him every time.
The purple marker greets him as he sits.
Hi Niall. Seems like we’re properly chatting now. How’s life? Bus rides treating you well?
I suppose. I think the driver hates me, you?
. . .
Niall writes songs about Zayn and his purple marker. Excitement sparks in small amounts, and he writes and writes and writes.
. . .
Can’t complain. Uni is tough though.
I feel that.
We’re both students? Imagine if we’d met before, though I guess I’d remember a Niall.
That would have been cool though, I’m a music major.
Art guy myself.
Nice. Draw me something!
There’s a small portrait drawn onto the seat the next day with: what I picture you to look like written next to it. Niall thinks it’s endearing. And it does kind of look like him, though without the stubble and fedora that Niall frowns at.
You think I wear a fedora? Zayn, I’m offended.
Thank god, just testing you.
I don’t think anyone else sits in our seat, unless this is a different person every time, in which case hi new person!
Still me, though I guess I could say the same. Hope you’re having a good day though. This is sort of fun in a weird way?
I agree. You kinda make the days something better, so thanks.
I don’t mind :)
. . .
And it goes like that. Two weeks have passed and Niall kind of finds himself looking forward to his evening bus rides, and it feels nice to be looking forward to something. The only issue is that his writing is getting progressively smaller, and the seat seems to have shrunk as well because they’re severely running out of space.
And yeah, he might feel a little sad about that.
Strange as it is, he wants to grip onto this. Because he’s distant a lot, he isn’t sure why, isn’t sure when it happened, but he is. And the worst part is that he doesn’t have a reason to be, he’s got great mates and a roof over his head and he’s still sad and always too far away and always too present all the same.
Louis and Harry know this, and they worry, especially when Niall’s too quiet, because he never used to be. And sometimes he smiles too much, and they know. Harry will hold his hand when parties get too crowded and Niall will write a song about the rings that decorate Harry’s fingers. Sometimes it’s midnight and Niall can’t sleep and Louis will stay up telling him stories and making him smile. He’ll think up a song about Louis’ laugh, but he still won’t close his eyes. He feels guilty, because there’s never a reason, it’s just him.
Thing is, Louis and Harry are getting serious with each other, and Niall always feels two steps behind. Schoolwork is piling up, and he catches the bus everyday, and he draws on the cold foggy windows, and he’s always late, and there’s Zayn. Zayn is something different. And yeah, he kind of likes that. He’d like it to stay a little while longer.
He also really wants to meet Zayn, crazy as it is. Talking to someone without really talking to them through multiple bus rides is fun and all, but they’re running out of space, and there’s someone else who sits in his seat when he’s off running late for classes, there’s someone else who reads Nialls words and thinks it’s enough to write a response, there’s someone else who takes the same bus route as him yet they’ve never crossed paths. He finds that sort of wonderful.
“How much do you love me?” Louis asks when they start walking towards their flat.
Niall gives him a sideways glance, suspicious, “depends,”
Louis smiles innocently, his eyes twinkling, “Harrys taking me out tomorrow for a proper date, and I need someone to cover my shift, and I get if you don’t want to, don’t want to pressure you, I just–“
“Yeah, I’ll do it, no worries,” Niall cuts in before Louis gives himself a headache.
Louis presses a warm kiss to his too cold cheeks. “I love you, you’re actually the best,”
Niall smiles at him. “I know,” he shrugs, it’s not like it’s a big deal, the coffee shop is on campus, so he’s not having to go out of his way to make it there.
Louis cheerfully rambles on about his latest designs, and how great they’d look on Harry, and how he wants all three of them to take a trip to Paris when they’ve scraped up more cash. He wants them to gorge themselves on French food and be disgustingly touristy, he wants Niall to love every second of it.
“Because I love when you smile, Ni, you know that right?” Louis lowers his gaze, meeting Nialls’ eyes with affection and fondness, “you deserve it, being happy, you do,”
Niall thinks about the blue in Louis’ eyes, his hopeful eyes, and he kind of wants to cry. “I am happy,”
Louis smiles, but Niall feels weary, and he twists their hands together, gloved hand around gloved hand and he squeezes. “We’ll be alright.”
Niall nods, he knows, he knows.
. . .
Snow crunches and squishes beneath his shoes, and Niall leaves imprints from his flat all the way towards the bus stop. A trail. There you go, stalkers and serial killers.
The ground is layered, completely blanketed in white, and it continues to fall softly from the clouds, melting onto his skin. It’s too cold. His scarf is too thin and he could do with a couple extra pairs of socks.
He’s almost at the bus shelter, thank god, and he can see the blurry silhouette of someone else sitting in there. Niall never catches the bus at this time, and he’s usually alone while he waits. So he’s on time for once, and there’s someone else there.
He nears the bus shelter, his feet crunch on the snow.
And he stops, cold sweeping down his throat in a sharp intake of breath.
Under the bus shelter is a beautiful boy, and he truly, truly is. He’s framed perfectly against the world surrounding him, the white, white snow harsh against his dark hair and leather jacket. It’s like he was made to be in winter, like he belongs to it. His eyes sparkle, even in the dim grey light, they sparkle, and he’s shining and there’s colour peaking through Niall’s black and white world, it’s subtle, it’s faded, but it’s there. Even just for a moment.
He wants to write a million songs about this boy.
He doesn’t tell him that, of course. He just sits on the seat next to him, too far away, and the melody runs through his head, the lyrics can work themselves out later.
“Hey,” he thinks he hears, soft, quiet, but the wind is so loud, and his mind likes to mess with him sometimes.
“Hey,” slightly louder this time, so he turns to the beautiful boy next to him, he suddenly doesn’t feel so cold, “hey, sorry, just– do you have a light?”
Niall almost feels disappointed, he shakes his head, “sorry, mate,”
The boy shrugs, “s’ fine, just cold a lot here, guess they didn’t mention that in the brochure,” he chuckles softly.
“You just move here?” Niall asks.
The boy nods once, Niall catches a glimpse of the ink on his collarbones. Words he can’t quite piece together. He wants to know more. “A few weeks ago, it’s a sick spot with the ocean right there but the weather doesn’t do much for it,”
Niall smiles softly, “s’pose not, it’s sort of pretty though, when the waves go that dark green colour,” he shrugs, probably shouldn’t be gushing about his weird infatuation with things that don’t matter to someone who probably owns, like, ten motorcycles. And makes the decision to take the bus. Okay, so maybe not, and maybe Niall shouldn’t judge, but it’s cold and all he wants to do is know this boy better.
“I see what you mean,” the boy says, and Niall see’s sunshine.
“It looks amazing from the pier, wish you could see it but the waves devour it in this weather,” Niall says quickly.
The boy smiles softly, tilting his head slightly. “You’ll have to show me when it gets calmer then, yeah?”
Niall smiles, nods, and oh wow he wants to write a song about this boy.
A familiar white car pulls up where the bus would normally stop, and Ed pokes his head out the window. “Hey, Ni, want a lift?”
Niall wants to keep talking to this boy, also wants to see if Zayn’s written anything new on the bus, but he’s cold, and he could use some of Ed’s company to ease the tremor in his hands.
“Yeah,” he breathes, gets up and gives the boy a quick glance, “I’ll um… see you,”
The boy smiles, cheekbones, wow. “Hope so,”
And Niall slaves over the espresso machine for six hours, sweat beading on his forehead and wondering about the dog outside with three legs and the girl sitting by the fountain reading a book, and he wonders about the boy that made his heart smile, even for the briefest possible moment.
. . .
“I think Niall has a crush,”
Louis looks at Harry. “Really? How can you tell?”
“Rosy cheeks, and not the cold kind. He’s thinking about someone,”
“Oh my God, you’re so right,”
Niall frowns at them. “You guys realize you always talk about me like I’m not in the room?”
Louis smirks. “So who is it? Do I know him?” he tilts his head and lowers his voice, “is it me?”
The corner of Niall's mouth twitches, “fuck off,” he says, “and what are you guys even talking about? I don’t have a crush.”
He knows lying is useless, because Harry and Louis always know when something’s different, because there isn’t much different in his life, except the purple marker and the boy at the bus stop.
Harry grins. “No, you so do. It’s either that or you’ve joined a cult, which, if that’s the case I’m incredibly insulted because I have already expressed interest in starting my own–“
“Harry, babe, you’re not going to start a cult,” Louis cuts in, there’s no harshness to his voice, and he’s looking at Harry fondly. “So, Niall has a secret crush?”
“Niall has a secret crush,” Harry repeats, “no cults,”
“Definitely no cults,” Louis adds, “or the secret crush is in a cult and that’s why he won’t tell us,”
Harry points at him, “good point, Lou,”
Niall huffs. “Again, I’m still right here.”
“Sorry,” Harry says, “so, you’re really not going to tell us about him?”
Niall shakes his head. “There’s no him.”
And he knows they don’t believe him, but they don’t press him about it, Harry gets distracted by something in Louis’ sketchbook and Niall is relieved, because there isn’t a him, not really, there’s a boy with a purple marker and a boy at the bus stop with hair darker than Louis’ charcoal pencil and eyes warm enough to make Niall hate the cold less.
So it’s nothing.
. . .
Sometimes I wish I could see the sun.
Clouds aren’t so bad though, when you think about it. And the sun is always there, might not seem like it, but it is.
The universe is a weird thing.
Yeah. It really is.
. . .
Niall got a call from his mum. And he told her he’s doing well, that everything is fine and good and well and lovely. He told her about his classes, told her about work, told her he’s writing a lot of songs, and made everything seem better than it is. He is better, he was never not okay, but he is better.
It’s just that he can’t remember the last time he got a good nights sleep. Everything feels a little worse in the dark, because when there’s only pitch black, he’s left alone with his reeling thoughts and no small beautiful thing to wonder about. Harry stuck glow in the dark stars to his ceiling to make the sleepless nights a little less scary, and it helped.
He’s not sure why he can’t sleep, there’s never a reason. And it’s always difficult to explain, even to Harry and Louis who are the only two people in the world who know him well enough. He’s got no cause for it. He’s never really known how it started, sometimes he just can’t sleep, sometimes he sleeps too much, and sometimes he’s sad, he just is. He’s been told it’s because his parents split up when he was eighteen, and his brother doesn’t talk to him, he doesn’t have a reason for that, there’s never a reason. But he just stopped wanting to get out of bed.
And he’s never thought he was depressed, he’s been told that he was, that he’s not anymore, that he’s better. And he is better. Harry and Louis have watched it play out, since they all met that first day in high school and Niall wanted to take on the world, they said they’d do it with him. He’s not sure if they have or not, he’s not sure what that even means, but he remembers his hands were warm when he climbed up into Harrys tree house that one summer. He remembers the smell of the grass beneath him a few years later, when everything felt too fast, and he was always going too fast. He just wants to slow down. That’s all.
And sometimes he wants to sleep, but sometimes he doesn’t want to close his eyes at all. He should probably make up his mind.
. . .
He’s going to meet him again, he’s decided. The boy at the bus stop. The boy who captured Niall’s missing sunlight in his eyes, the boy with stories across his chest, Niall is going to meet him again.
He’s timed it perfectly, if the boy is there at the same time, then Niall will be there, and they’ll talk, and there’ll be another different thing in his life, and that might make it easier to sleep.
Louis and Harry are meeting him at Uni because they both had morning classes and it’s going to be busy because it’s open day for high school students which means that all of the clubs and different departments on campus are out trying to get people to sign up, so there will be a lot, a lot of people.
He’s late again, because he always is. And he’s running up to the bus through the snow just as the boy who doesn’t own ten motorcycles is stepping on, he’s wearing a dark blue flannel today, he’s scruffier than the other day, and Niall thinks he’s wonderful.
He steps on, much to the annoyance of the driver, and he’s walking behind the boy towards his seat. He wants to talk to this boy, and he also wants to see if there’s a new message left for him. And everything is moving too fast, and this time he thinks he can keep up with it.
But he doesn’t get a chance, because the beautiful boy sits down in his seat, and Niall freezes momentarily because he isn’t sure what to do with himself. He hasn’t gone past this part of the bus, because he has his seat. But there’s a boy in his seat, a boy with dark feathery hair and red lips. So instead, he sits a seat behind him in the opposite row. He tries to look out the window, but this change of pace is making him antsy, and his eyes keep flickering to the boy. He can’t help it.
He’s gazing outside most of the ride, doesn’t seem to have noticed Niall’s presence, but just as they’re almost about to stop he sees the boy glance down at the seat in front of him, where Niall’s writing half covers, and then the boy digs into his bag, and he writes something. And Niall struggles to breathe.
But the boy–Zayn, he’s off the bus before Niall is even standing up, and so he quickly checks what he wrote in the purple marker.
Can we meet?
Niall can’t feel the ground beneath him.
He rushes off the bus, only vaguely acknowledges Harry and Louis waiting for him, and scans his surroundings. But there are so, so many people. So many. He can’t see Zayn anywhere, just a sea of bodies and Niall doesn’t care about any of them, he feels a hand wrap around his wrist.
“Hey, Ni, you alright?” Louis asks, both boys are looking at him with concerned expressions but he’s not really looking back. Sort of just wants to find Zayn.
He nods. “Where’s the art department?”
He’s met with more confusion, but Harry nods ahead, and Niall follows him. Louis is holding Niall’s hand through the crowds of enthusiasm and innocence, there are booths and flyers everywhere and everything is too loud. They stop outside of a building that Niall has only seen in passing, it’s still busy, and there’s a stall right outside the door.
“Hi there, are you here to sign up for the set design crew?” a girl asks, she’s smiling from ear to ear, she has curly brunette hair and overalls, she reminds Niall of summer.
Louis and Harry are looking at him, “I– um– yes?” he stutters.
“Great!” she cheerfully exclaims and hands a clipboard to him with a sign up sheet and he fills it out, then he looks at his friends expectantly and they just shrug and sign up too, then hand it back to her. “Awesome, we need all the help we can get, we’re working on Peter Pan right now and it’s a ton of work, but heaps of fun I can assure you,” she beams, “go through there and find Liam, he’ll sort you guys out,”
Niall smiles, utters a quick “thanks,” and hurries inside.
People. So many people and none of them are Zayn.
“Niall, are you… is everything–“
“I’m okay.” He looks at his friends. “Just… Ed was telling me I should do some extra curricular things so I don’t have so much alone time and I– I heard about this, I thought it might be cool?” he smiles, reassuring them.
“Okay,” Harry says, “okay, so we’re in then,”
“Really? Set design?” Louis says, incredulous.
Harry grins and nudges Louis. “Come on, Lou, you sketch, and like, design things. It’s kind of the same,” he says just as a panic-stricken boy runs past them struggling with a fake parrot and a paper palm tree.
They’re silent for a moment, before bursting into laughter.
“Okay, not quite. But lets just do this, yeah? Could be fun?” Harry says, grinning in the way he does that Louis always says yes.
And he does. And a boy with a happy smile and soft brown hair greets them.
“Hey, I’m Liam, new recruits?”
They nod.
“Sweet. Follow me,” Liam heads towards a mass of white… blobs? Niall isn’t sure. “Sorry, this job might suck but these are all supposed to be rocks, so your job is to paint them, make them look like they’ve been sitting on an island for thousands of years, y’know, as much as you can, paint and everything you need is on that shelf,” he looks at Louis, “you should have signed up sooner, would’ve made a great Peter Pan,”
Louis raises his eyebrows, and Harry smiles proudly. “Oh, that’s a… that’s a shame,”
Liam grins back, “Yeah, it is. So anyway, give us a shout if you need help, Nick can help as well, he’ll be the guy who is always pretending he’s working but he never really is, thanks again lads,” he gestures a wave and hastily heads off to talk to someone else.
Louis stares at Niall and Harry, the slightest tinge of disapproval on his features before he just exhales a heavy breath, “alright, lets paint us some rocks,”
Harry beams, and slaps a kiss on Louis’ lips, “love you, my little Peter pan,”
Louis shoves him, but like, definitely doesn’t put any effort into it. “Don’t you dare start calling me that,”
Harry bites his lip, grinning. “Nah, I have to now,”
Louis rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling, and they get ready to paint. Niall can’t help but keep looking around, because he was so sure this is where Zayn would be, but he also doesn’t want to settle with the fact that he may have signed them up for set design for no reason.
They paint rocks for the remainder of the day, and Niall is fascinated by the paint that gets to places he didn’t know paint could reach, and Louis spends too long making his rocks look perfect, and Harry smiles brightly whenever Liam praises him. The girl with the curly hair who looks like summer gets them some tea, and Niall plays Nick’s ukulele, and he wonders about Zayn, but he doesn’t talk about him. He thinks he’d like to write a song about these people.
It’s getting late when Louis and Harry finally decide to leave because they have a movie to get to, they invited Niall, but he said he’d hang back and finish up, there’s a buzz in the air and Niall feels it in his skin, it’s warm, and it’s too cold outside.
He’s placing the last paint tube on the shelf when a hand taps his shoulder.
He whips around, and his heart beats a million times faster.
“Zayn?” he says, before his head can catch up.
A flicker of confusion crosses Zayn’s face, but it relaxes just as quickly, and he smiles, nods. “Hi, you,” he says, his voice slow and warm, “don’t remember giving you my name,”
Niall flushes, “shit– right. I um– I’m Niall? Like, Niall, from the bus Niall?”
Zayn’s eyes widen, along with his smile. “No fucking way,” he pulls Niall into an easy hug, which takes him by surprise, but he isn’t complaining. Niall wraps his arms around Zayn’s frame, he smells nice, and also a lot like paint and chemicals.
“Yeah, hi,” Niall mumbles into his neck.
Zayn lets him go, and steps back a bit. Niall craves his warmth.
“Hi,” Zayn says again, sounding sort of breathless, his eyes scanning over Niall. “Hi, um… shit. Hi,”
Niall chuckles, “hi,” and he looks at him properly this time, there’s paint on his hands and some of it in his tousled hair. Still wonderful. And there are words and art inked all over his skin, he can see now where his shirt hangs just below his collarbones, and where his sleeves a pushed up.
“This is… shit, this is so cool, that you’d be here, and I’m here and we’re– we’re like properly talking– but we already met, which is also weird, but sort of makes sense I guess because we catch the same bus and you–“ Zayn pauses, breathes, “sorry, m’ rambling. Just excited. I can’t believe you do set design as well,”
Niall grins at him. “I don’t really, I actually saw you on the bus but I didn’t know who you were and I lost you and I–“ he has to pause a moment, with Zayn grinning at him, he has to breathe, “I suppose I found you.”
“I suppose you did.” Zayn’s smile softens, and he looks at him. And wow. “I was in the back room all day, better ventilation for spray paint, sorry you lost me,”
Niall shakes his head. “S’ fine. I actually had a good time, nice bunch here,”
Zayn grins, nodding and playing with the colourful bracelet on his wrist, Niall wonders about that. Wonders if he does it a lot, like how Niall sometimes plays with his necklace when he’s nervous. “Yeah, they really are,”
“I was actually just finishing up,” he finds himself saying, “Are you bussing back? I could wait for you,”
Zayn grins, “I’m all set to go if you are,”
So Niall tugs his coat back on, and they step out into the snow. The campus is empty now, the sky is black and the streetlights make everything look weird and hazy, Niall hates the cold.
“So how many sharpies have you been through? I had to buy another purple one last week so you’d know it was still me,” Zayn says with a small chuckle.
Niall grins, “did you really? That’s sweet, mines still holding in there, but I um, I guess we wont need them anymore,” he says, a little apprehensive when he sees Zayn’s questioning expression, “by that I mean, I kind of think I’d like your number?”
Zayn beams. “Texting as a form of communication like normal people? Come on, Niall, I thought we were above that,” the sarcasm rolls off his tongue and Niall smirks. “But yeah, you can definitely have my number,”
They exchange numbers at the bus stop, and it arrives not long after, Niall sits in his seat. Zayn sits next to him. He looks at all of the words written onto the back of the seat, and it suddenly feels like they were written so long ago. He glances at Zayn as well, and the boy is looking back at him, and yeah, he’s really beautiful, really somehow more beautiful up close.
They don’t speak, don’t really need to, and he looks back out the window at the passing world and the snow starting to batter down, and it’s kind of really nice to feel Zayn next to him, the kind of nice he wishes would stay a little while longer. But the bus slows, and the world keeps turning.
They hurry out and under the shelter because everywhere is white and it’s pouring down like rain.
“It looks like this is goodbye, since I’m going to get buried alive on my way home,” Zayn says, and there’s a glimmer in his eyes.
Niall chuckles. “How far away are you?”
“Bout twenty minutes.”
“I’m five minutes that way, if you want to, like, not die or whatever,” Niall offers. “It’d be warmer, and I promise I’m not going to tie you down and do weird stuff to you– not weird stuff like that weird stuff, I meant like murderous sort of stuff? And any other weird stuff of course– oh my god,” he slams his hand to his forehead, shaking it pathetically.
Zayn just laughs. “So, a warm house and minimal weird stuff? I’m in,” he grins, “oh and, tying me down is sort of second or third date material, don’t you think?”
Niall almost gapes at him, but his mouth twists into a smirk instead and he nudges the silly boy with his elbow. “Shall we?”
Zayn nods, smiling wide. “We shall.”
It’s a cold run back to the flat, but they laugh a lot, because they can’t really see where they’re going, and the snow is up to their ankles and Niall has to hold onto Zayn’s hand so he doesn’t lose him. And he’s laughing a lot, a lot.
Opening the door into his flat feels like a blessing, it’s a lot warmer even though it’s dark. He switches on the lights, makes them both a hot cup of coffee and they sit on the couch, curled up by the warmth of the humming radiator.
“Shit, better text Pez, she’ll be wondering where I’ve disappeared to,” Zayn says, gets his phone out of his pocket and starts tapping in letters. Niall feels a strange twist in his gut, it’s nothing, it’s nothing. “So do you have flatmates?”
Niall nods. “Harry and Louis, they’re very in love. Its disgusting,” and Zayn chuckles, “nah, I love ‘em, they’re at a movie at the moment. I may have conned them into signing up for set design as well so they’re a bit exhausted,”
Zayn is looking at him in a warm kind of way, “all because you wanted to find me? Shit, I’m sorry,”
Niall laughs, “no,” he smiles, “no, they actually loved it,”
Zayn exhales a laugh, “that’s good, I’m glad.”
Niall feels every part of him he didn’t know is already at ease, and yeah, he’s glad too.
. . .
It’s like swimming, talking with Zayn. It’s like swimming but you have gills so you never need to come up for air, just feel the water flowing as you stroke through, easy, weightless, shifting in rhythm with the current and everything is calm except for the waves. But that’s the best part.
It’s like that, in the next couple of hours that pass. Two cups of coffee and one of Harrys scones later and Niall is beginning to know himself again, tiny parts of himself, bit by bit, because he tells Zayn small memories of his childhood, and stories about the good days, days with Harry and Louis. He doesn’t mention that there are some not so good days, but talking about the other ones seem to lighten the load upstairs, he feels weightless, like riding a wave.
Zayn, he finds, is like a storybook. He has family all over the world and he travels from time to time, and he has a job at Joe’s Crafts which Niall knows as the arts and crafts store near campus that always looks like its closed. He also volunteers at the community center helping with the community outreach program, getting kids off the street and helping them to use creative outlets instead. He said he used to be like those kids. Niall thinks he is really, really wonderful.
“–fourth wall breaks are the point of it, Haz– oh, hello.” Louis is standing in the doorway, Harry following closely behind with both of his hands wrapped around the shorter boy, and Niall hadn’t even realized how much time had passed.
Harry and Louis are on the verge of smirking, eyes flicking between him and Zayn amusedly, and Niall swears to God if they say anything awful.
It’s Zayn who speaks instead. “Hi, I’m Zayn,”
Louis arches an eyebrow, smirking, definitely smirking. “Zayn, Zayn? As in the Zayn?”
Niall groans, turning to Zayn, “I’ve never mentioned you before, I promise. That’s just Louis, he enjoys ruining my life,”
Zayn still chuckles, seeming actually endeared by it. “So if you’re Louis, then you must be Harry?” he points to the taller boy who is shaking off his snowy coat.
“That would be me,” Harry says, a friendly smile on his face. “I’m sure you’ve heard nothing but wonderful things,”
Zayn smiles. “I’ve definitely heard nothing but wonderful things. Not so much in regards to you guys though,”
Niall snorts, and Harry laughs as well, Louis too, though he certainly tries not to.
“How’s it looking out there?” Zayn asks.
“Not so bad, just cold in the air,” Louis says, pulling a blanket over him and Harry. “You live nearby?”
Zayn nods. “Just down the road, which… I should probably be um,” and there’s maybe even a hint of disappointment in his eyes. But Niall doesn’t read too much into that.
Niall nods. “I can walk you home,”
Zayn’s eyes follow him as he shifts to get up. “You don’t have to, it’s freezing, I’ll be alright,”
Niall shakes his head, already slipping on his shoes. “I don’t mind,” and it’s true, somehow, he doesn’t mind the cold so much tonight.
. . .
Crunch. Stepping onto the snow.
It’s not raining down anymore, just barely trickling flecks of ice, bright white against the dark sky, and the ocean is somewhere not so far away and Niall still wants to show Zayn the pier.
They’re walking in the snow, the world is sleeping and Zayn is really quite beautiful, somehow even more so in the moonlight, under the moon and in the snow, and Niall wants to kiss him. But yeah, that’s probably a really bad idea. So he doesn’t.
“I’m kind of going to paint you, I hope that’s okay,” Zayn says after a few minutes of silent crunching into the snow.
Niall feels his skin tingle, warm, even though its below freezing. “Yeah. Yeah okay, that’s– that’s fine,” he says, uneven, “But, um, why exactly?”
“Because your words are really wonderful. What you would write to me, and I sort of saw a bit of you in them, and now meeting you it’s like so much vivid colour, I kind of have to. If that makes any fucking sense at all,” Zayn chuckles softly.
Niall smiles. “Yeah, it does, I actually wrote a song about you,”
Zayn looks at him abruptly, wide eyed. “You did?”
“Well, kind of. It’s still in my head, but it’s a weird thing I do. Like, small things that inspire me, like your messages, I come up with a melody in my head and I don’t usually share them because people think it’s weird. I am a bit weird but,” he shrugs, “like I’ll stare at a strangely shaped leaf for ages, and I’ll want to write about it, but I don’t really end up doing it. Just stays in my head, in the vault,” he taps at his head, smiling softly.
Zayn is gazing at him admirably, fondly, and Niall feels hot all over, he’s thankful for the cold now because he’d be sweating otherwise. “Well, I just so happen to like weird. And I would really love to hear your songs, any of them,”
Niall looks at him, nodding. “If I can get them onto paper, you’ll be the first to know,”
And that seems to make Zayn really happy, Niall can tell by the way his eyes light up.
Zayn’s flat is so Zayn, from what he knows about Zayn. Which is that he’s very creative, very interesting, and very beautiful. And all of those things are equally expressed in his quaint little flat.
There’s a light on inside, Niall watches curiously as Zayn opens the door, and a girl with purple hair walks up to them. She’s gorgeous, her hair is bright and Niall loves it, thinks she seems nice, and that she’s good for Zayn if that’s what this is. Whatever this is.
“Hey, Pez, its just me,” Zayn says, stepping inside. “This is Niall,”
“Oh! Bus Niall,” and Niall notices the way Zayn blushes, “so glad you two have finally met, I’m Perrie, hey,” she smiles at him, she’s so bright.
Niall smiles back, because he has no room left to be bitter. “Hey, nice to meet you,”
“Do you want to come in? I’ve just put the kettle on,” she says.
“Thanks, but I’ve had a fair share of coffee tonight, and– classes and whatnot tomorrow,” he says, edging backwards.
“Oh okay, well have a good night,” she says, still smiling as she flicks him a wave and heads back to whatever she was doing.
Niall watches Zayn, stepping forward from the doorway, closer to him.
“So, I’ll um–– we should text, yeah? Or– or whatever,” Zayn says, a little nervously, and a strange warmth settles in Nialls stomach.
“Absolutely, can’t exactly get through the day without a message from my bus pal, so,” Niall smiles, and Zayn chuckles at that.
“Alright. Hey,” Zayn pulls him into a warm hug, because apparently this boy is a hugger. Niall isn’t about to complain though.
Zayn squeezes his shoulder when he says goodbye, and he sits on his doorstep and waits until Niall is out of sight. And Niall kind of wonders about too many things on his way home, so many that he forgets about how cold it is, because Zayn makes Niall’s heart beat way too fast for his chest, and he doesn’t want it to ever stop.
. . .
“Cold hands?” Niall asks Zayn who is sitting next to him on the bus, rubbing his hands together.
Zayn was waiting for him when he got to the bus stop this morning, in a trench coat that goes down to his knees and a cigarette in his hand, his eyes dreamlike and they lit up when he saw him. Niall thought that was really nice. They hugged again, and Zayn smelt like flowers and smoke.
Zayn nods, “cold, cold, cold,”
“Do you want to wear my gloves?” Niall doesn’t like having cold hands, but he’d prefer it to Zayn being cold. “I don’t mind.”
“Or I could just hold your hand?” Zayn asks almost immediately, and Niall's chest constricts.
“Yeah, or you could do that,” he says, a little shakily, he holds out his hand and Zayn interlocks their fingers, Niall feels the cold seep through his gloves, but slowly they warm, because holding Zayn’s hand is making him warm all over. He holds it against his thigh, and he feels everything rush through him in a flood, he starts to breathe slower, because yeah, Zayn makes him really happy. And maybe if he takes it slowly, it’ll all work out.
He shares an earphone with Zayn, and Zayn compliments his music taste, which is really a direct route to Nialls heart. That, and being lovely to his friends, but he’s fairly certain Louis and Harry are both already head over heels for him by the way they spent a good half an hour talking about his cheekbones when Niall got back from walking Zayn home last night. So, there’s that.
They watch the rain drizzle over the windows, hitting the sleet on the concrete and Niall is holding Zayn’s hand, and none of it feels like reality, but he’ll hold on anyway, because there’s nothing quite like it, and no one quite like Zayn.
Zayn doesn’t let go of his hand when they step off the bus, or when they walk through campus, or when they get to the art department where the set crew is already at work. Including Louis and Harry, they’re painting more island pieces, bright and colourful and Harry already has a smear of paint on the side of his jaw, which Niall doesn’t have a clue how it got there.
“Hey, Ni!” Harry says when Niall gets to them at one of the break tables, sitting down, Zayn had to let him go to talk to Liam about something, “how’s– how’s everything?”
“Just ask him what you really want to know, Haz,” Louis says from his position almost in Harry’s lap.
Harry smiles, “I was just being polite and greeting him first, you dick,” and he wraps his hands around Louis’ waist and seems to tug him further onto his lap. Niall notices a flower painted on Louis’ forearm, Harry probably did that. “Okay, so, Zayn? Yeah?”
Niall peers at him. “Zayn, yes.”
“So…?” Louis looks at him curiously.
“So, Zayn.” He sort of repeats. “Great conversation.”
Harry chuckles from where his face is nuzzled in Louis’ neck. “You like him, right?”
Niall sends them a look, and he wishes it were easier to stop grinning so much. “We only properly met, like, yesterday,”
Louis shakes his head. “No, the whole bus thing is too fairytale cute, imagine if Harry and I sat in that seat instead, or like, anyone I suppose. That’s some fate shit right there, and Zayn’s fit as fuck,”
“Hey,” Harry moans from where he’s buried against Louis, pouting.
Louis turns on his side in Harrys lap, running his hand through his curls, and then looks back at Niall. “Despite the fact that I have the hottest boyfriend on the planet, I’ll admit that Zayn is definitely up there,”
Harry makes another grumbly noise but it’s cut short when Louis’ mouth meets his neck. “So anyway, we think you should ask him out,”
Niall raises his eyebrows, smiling nervously when Zayn meets his eyes across the room. “I’m going to pretend you never said that,” he says, before quickly getting up and wandering over to Zayn who has the sleeves of his flannel shirt pushed up.
“Hey,” Zayn greets, then appears to be looking past him, “your friends are really in love, you weren’t kidding,”
Niall turns back to see that Louis has moved onto straddling Harrys lap, neck kissing has turned into a fiery make out session. They are cute, yes, but Nialls cheeks still burn. “Shit–– is that okay?” he sometimes forgets that people aren’t as used to them as he is.
Zayn chuckles. “Please, whenever Jordan’s here, Liam can’t keep his hands off him.” He sets his hand on Liam’s shoulder and the boy glares at him with pink cheeks.
Liam swats his hand away. “Jordan thinks it’s romantic, thank you very much,” he says, his lip quirked slightly. “But yeah, don’t worry about PDA’s here,” Niall doesn’t know why he’s telling him that.
“Okay.”
“So, you all set, Zayn? Maybe Niall could lend you a hand,” Liam says.
“With what, exactly?” Niall asks.
There’s a soft curve to Zayn’s smile, and a shiver rolls up Nialls spine, he hopes it isn’t visible.
“How are you with heights?”
. . .
Okay, so turns out Niall isn’t as good with heights as he thought he was, but that’s okay, because Zayn has a hand on the small of Niall’s back and that’s really, really comforting.
Liam wants to test the lighting and attach some of the hanging stars Zayn had made to the steel gratings on the high ceilings above the stage, it’s darker up above everyone, dark and quiet, and Niall and Zayn are crouching down on the catwalk bridge while Zayn sorts out some of the lighting because apparently he can also do all of this technician stuff too. A man of many, many talents, it would seem.
“Can you hold this for me?” Zayn asks, handing Niall some kind of wire while he attaches something with a cable tie to a grid and Niall watches on in awe. They repeat this process in five different places along the lighting catwalk and then Zayn leans over the railing, resting on his elbows. “We’re good, Li!” he shouts down to Liam.
Niall gazes down, the theatre dimming into quiet darkness and then a low faded pink and deep blue light slowly streams over the stage, Niall feels like he’s in the sky during a sunset. And he peers over at Zayn who’s illuminated in the soft light, and so beautiful that it feels harder to breathe.
He feels uncertainty spark and spread from his chest to his toes and everywhere else, because he hates the dark, and he hates the cold, and Zayn makes both of those things seem not so bad, and Niall doesn’t know what to do with that information.
He just knows that he feels butterflies when Zayn looks at him, and he’s looking back at him now, soaked in pink and blue and wow, Niall really wants to kiss him.
“Alright?” Zayn asks, as Liam plays with shifting the lighting colours and Zayn fades into the shadows, and then into yellow.
Niall nods, breathless. “Yeah,” he manages, and Zayn smiles in the way that makes everything feel warm, and Niall feels a little less afraid, “yeah, I’m good.”
Zayn looks at him contemplatively. “So. Have you written my song yet?”
Niall chuckles softly. “Give me a little longer than one day, yeah?”
Zayn grins bashfully and then tentatively wraps his hand over Nialls shoulder, his thumb brushing against the back of his neck softly. Gentle, even. “This lighting suits you,” he finally says after a few seconds, and Niall shivers.
He doesn’t know what that means, but his whole world lights up.
Zayn tilts his head. “M’ really glad we met– or, I’m glad I wrote on the bus I suppose? I don’t fucking know, I’m just happy to know you,” he says with a sheepish smile, “feel sort of lucky that I get to know you,”
His hand has moved to flatten on Nialls back, rubbing in slow circles and Niall watches as the world falls away, as it does so often, but it feels better when Zayn is standing there with him, that perfect crooked smile on his face, watching him like there’s only him, and Niall has never felt so fucking valuable.
“The feeling is mutual,” is all he can think to say, and it comes out quieter than he had intended, and Zayn’s face softens, but his eyes burn with intent.
They’re having a moment, Niall realizes. This is an actual moment that they’re having, and he feels it creep into his soul in warm bursts, literally into the core of his being and–
“Zayn! All done!”
Nialls eyes snap down to below them where Liam is standing, his thumb sticking up. He looks back at Zayn and his eyes have darted down to Liam as well, he looks bothered about something, and his cheeks are a slight tinge of pink. So, the moment is over, but that’s okay. He’s completely okay.
During the rest of the day Niall does think about what Harry said (despite his best efforts), and yeah, he thinks maybe he will.
. . .
“Shit,” Niall mutters, wincing his hand away from the hot glue gun that heated up faster than he thought it would. “Okay, so hot glue and I do not meld,”
Zayn looks very amused, and reaches over, resting his hand on top of Nialls, his thumb rubbing smoothly over the slightly reddened skin that he just burnt which sends a new kind of shiver down Niall’s spine. “You’re not so good at this are you?”
Niall glowers, but the effect is ruined by the grin on his face. “Excuse me, I never claimed to have any crafting experience prior to this very day, gimme a break, yeah?”
Zayn just chuckles and goes back to the paint he’s mixing. They’ve been in the theatre for a couple of hours since Niall had finished his morning class, Zayn had still bussed with him even though he didn’t have to be in for a few more hours, and Niall doesn’t know what that means, but the sun sort of peaked through the overcast, and everything was glowing for a moment.
They got tasked with creating the crocodile, and Niall doesn’t know why anyone would trust him with that, but he’s got Zayn there, at least.
He finds himself laughing, “honestly though, I’m rubbish at this, I’m surprised Liam hasn’t forced me to leave yet,”
“Well with a face like that, you could set the stage on fire and I’m sure he’d still want you here,” Zayn says without missing a beat, smirking slightly as he focuses on his palette.
Is this flirting? Is that what this is? Not like it’s a foreign concept to Niall, but it’s been a few months at least since his last relationship– if he can even call it that. It lasted about a week because the guy moved to the States, Niall didn’t mind much, because he wasn’t really happy at the time, and he was just looking for someone to fool around with. He did that a bit way back when, and he doesn’t want to do that with Zayn, because yeah, Zayn makes him feel all sorts of things that he didn’t think were possible, and he doesn’t want to mess that up.
He just chuckles softly. “Shut up, I refuse to use my looks to take advantage of Liam,”
“You should though, might get a lot out of him, might even get to touch his hair,” Zayn teases.
“Has he got a thing about his hair?”
Zayn nods, grinning. “Like, only lets Jordan touch it really, and me once but I may have gotten him high beforehand,” Niall snorts, “so yeah, he’s super particular about it, but with your good looks, who knows?”
Niall grins, warm all over. “Don’t forget my excellent crocodile crafting skills,”
Zayn laughs. “Oh no, we can’t forget that,”
Niall ends up handing Zayn the glue gun, and Greg, one of the actors, comes into their little part of the universe looking for someone to run lines with him so Zayn volunteers Niall, and somehow Niall doesn’t mind, enjoys it even.
Zayn waits for him to finish work, and he buses home with him, and Niall admits he really loves jumping in puddles on the footpath and that results in Zayn getting his shoes soaking wet but he insists that he doesn’t care, that it was worth it. Niall feels weightless.
And yeah, he’s got it really bad for Zayn. But that was inevitable, really.
. . .
Niall notices how little he seems to close his curtains at night when he spots a spider that has made a home in them. He leaves it there, because he still doesn’t intend to close them, because the moon is bright enough sometimes, even when it’s shrouded by clouds, that his room isn’t so dark when he can’t sleep. He’s fine, there’s just a lot of adrenaline coursing through his veins and he’s thinking a lot, the sky fades from a peachy blue to navy and purple and Louis lies down next to him, letting out a relaxed sigh as he does so.
“Harry snores after sex, sometimes I can sleep through it but Jesus,”
Niall snickers. “I know, it happens almost every night. You guys aren’t as quiet as you think you are,”
Louis just beams. “Today was fun,”
Niall squints at him. “Are you referring to sex with Harry or the actual day,”
Louis elbows him. “The actual day– well, both I suppose. But yeah, the day. The show is coming along well,”
Niall smiles at him. “You’re actually enjoying this aren’t you?”
“I am.” Louis says easily, tugging some of Nialls duvet over himself. “Can you sleep?”
Niall shakes his head.
“So, lets see, what should we talk about? Oh, I know, how about a certain boy with cheekbones to die for?”
Niall smirks and rolls his eyes. “Nice transition,”
Louis turns on his side to face Niall properly, and Niall suddenly feels like they’re having a gossip session at a sleepover. Like he’s thirteen and they’re going to talk about boys, because okay, he does really just want to talk about Zayn, and how he gives him butterflies and makes his heart beat too fast for his chest. He’s not sure if it’s the right time for that though, because he’s trying really hard to slow down. And that means with Zayn as well.
“You like him.” Louis says, like he’s stating the absolute truth, and yeah. He kind of is.
“Mm. He’s like fireworks,” Niall says, without really thinking, “that probably sounded really fucking weird,” he quickly adds, laughing.
“No, it doesn’t.” Louis consoles, completely serious. “Keep going,”
Niall blinks in the soft dark of the room. “Like. He’s sort of got this laid back thing about him and his hair and his clothes are so dark, but then knowing him is like… an explosion of colour and energy. That’s the only way I can explain it, and yeah, I really quite like being around him.”
Louis is quiet and in the silence Niall realizes he’s blushing.
“Ni, that’s like… that’s really, really good. Zayn’s good for you, you two are really cute together,” Louis says, his tone genuine.
Niall's smile becomes a little smaller, starring fixedly at the stars on his ceiling. “Yeah, maybe.” He shifts back on his bed, “I think I want to sleep now,”
“Want me to stay?”
He does, but he doesn’t need to say that. Louis settles down on the bed, and the world falls down around them.
. . .
“I,” Niall starts, “am so. Fucking. Cold.”
He’s nearing Zayn at the bus shelter, and it is below, below freezing, and yeah, its always cold, but this feels fucking arctic. He has the hood of his jacket pulled over his head to protect himself from the battering snow. He probably looks ridiculous, but he doesn’t care. Zayn is in his long trench coat again, his hands buried in his pockets and he’s shivering but his face lights up with warmth when he sees Niall. And Niall cant resist mimicking his expression.
“Hand, please,” Zayn reaches out one of his hands and Niall intertwines their fingers, “you look adorable, by the way.”
Niall feels his cheeks heat up, despite the weather. “Harry said I look like an Eskimo,”
Zayn just smiles wider. “You do, and it’s cute,” fucking butterflies, “are they coming in today?”
Niall nods. “Later on, Louis refused to get out of bed in this weather and Harry sort of does whatever Louis does so,” he shrugs.
Zayn bites the corner of his bottom lip, grinning softly, his hand tightening around Nialls, “they’re a really sweet couple, I can’t remember the last time I had a relationship like that, all of the guys I’ve dated in the past few years have been complete disasters,”
Niall flushes, and his chest tightens. Guys. Okay, that’s… that’s good to know.
He breathes, “I don’t think I’ve ever had a relationship like that,”
“Yeah?”
Niall smirks. “Surprised?”
Zayn shrugs, his cheeks turning a tint of pink. “You just strike me as the relationship kind of guy,”
Niall quirks an eyebrow, and he can see all of the different shades of colour in Zayn’s eyes, the glow of the white and grey world around them just seems to make them shine brighter. He can’t seem to even process anything else. “I just… I guess I keep making mistakes. It surprises a lot of people, apparently, but it happens. A lot.”
Zayn’s forehead creases slightly, his eyes flicker with concern. “What do you mean by that?”
It’s a sudden weight that Niall feels, sudden, but crushing, and the air feels thick. But he smiles, because he knows how to smile when he feels like this. When he feels like he’s drowning.
“Nothing, it probably doesn’t make sense anyway,” he says hastily, and Zayn looks like he’s about to respond when the bus pulls up. Zayn doesn’t press it after that, and Niall realizes that creating cartoons on the fog on the windows makes for a good distraction.
. . .
Colours and days and people blur together in a whirlwind, and just like that the weeks pass by. In a rather similar manner as well, but sometimes things aren’t so hazy, sometimes his days feel warmer. He catches the bus, and Zayn is always waiting for him, and they’ll hold hands because Zayn still hasn’t purchased himself a pair of gloves (not that Niall is complaining in the least), and they’ll head to the theatre so Niall can pretend he’s helping but he’s still sort of useless with all of it so instead he sits perched on a bench and watches Zayn.
He’s always watching Zayn, which is like, way less creepy sounding in his head, but he is, on the bus, in the theatre, in the darkness of the lighting catwalk and in the snow. It’s not like it’s really easy to look at much else when Zayn is so close, with the words on his chest and his arms and his hair falling over his eyes when he paints, and it takes everything not kiss him until he’s sucked the air out of his lungs. And sometimes Zayn is looking at him too, sometimes Niall will catch him doing it and neither will look away until Niall does because he feels too many butterflies.
Harry and Louis are definitely having a blast, which Niall loves because he kind of really likes it there too. He likes the people, they’re unique and colourful and they remind Niall of back home, when home was better. He thinks Harry and Louis might have neglected some of their actual studies though, but they don’t seem to mind.
He sometimes forgets about his own classes too, but Ed’s been bringing him notes, and he keeps up with it, and more of his songs are becoming easier to write because he’s writing about this boy who deserves the world, and sometimes they’re sad, but that’s really only because Niall knows he can’t be the one to give it to him. He wants to though, he wants to try. Not just for his friends, or his mum. Or Zayn. He wants to do this for himself, he thinks if he can last a week with everything being okay, then that’ll mean something. It hasn’t happened yet, but when it does he’ll be really happy.
It’s just. Sometimes he still can’t sleep, and he thinks its because he drinks so much coffee with Zayn. He’s okay, really, he is, he’s just up a lot searching his brain for some kind of actual purpose to get out of bed or to do anything really. And he feels shitty, because he doesn’t feel like getting out of bed today. And there’s a hollow part of his chest when he thinks about not seeing Zayn, but he’s just tired, and he’ll be fine tomorrow.
Niall: hey, don’t wait for me today, I’ll see you tomorrow :)
Zayn: u okay???
Niall: yup . just not feeling 100%.
Zayn: I can bring u nice food or whatever u want?
Niall: don’t worry about it, thanks though.
Zayn: r u actual refusing to let me dote on u all day? It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity.
Niall: you love yourself too much. Go make some art, if you can last the day without me, that is.
Zayn: so does that mean I get twice the amount of ur attention tomorrow?
Niall: we’ll see.
He feels terrible, because really, he just doesn’t want to see anyone today, sometimes he just doesn’t. He wants to slow down, and yeah, he feels guilty for thinking that. He also feels guilty because there’s only a week left till the show, and he might be sort of useless, sort of just another body in the way, but he would like to be there to see everything come together.
He feels a weight on the end of his bed where the mattress sinks, and looks up from his phone to see Harry gazing at him softly.
“Not coming in?” he asks, there’s a sort of tenderness to his voice, Nialls heard that tone all too often.
He shakes his head. “Just don’t feel like I can today,” he says, almost brokenly, and Harry rubs his leg over the duvet.
“Okay, call us if you need anything, yeah?”
Niall nods, and he finds that he stares at the same spot on his faded wallpaper for a couple of hours before he actually moves. But what’s one bad day? he’ll be fine tomorrow.
. . .
Niall: think you’ll survive another day without me? Sorry . all of those mornings in the snow finally got to me.
Zayn: sure u don’t want me to stop by? I make good soup. Well, that might not be strictly true but I make soup nonetheless.
Niall: as tempting as that is, I’m sure you’re swamped with the show and I’ll just be sleeping all day.
Zayn: I don’t mind being there while u sleep.
Zayn: Okay. Sounded way less creepy in my head.
Niall: haha a complete creep, I knew it.
Niall: and thanks for the offer, but I don’t want to get you sick as well. Tell everyone hi from me!
Zayn: okay… miss u .x
Niall: me too .x
. . .
Niall decides to get out of bed on the third day after a mix of sleeping for too long and not sleeping enough. Harry and Louis don’t mention it, they don’t need to, and there’s breakfast made for him and weary eyes across the table that he meets with a warm smile. He’s feeling better today, he is.
There’s a fresh coating of snow on the ground, and Zayn is at the front door.
“Oh! Hi–“
Zayn pulls him into a hug before he can finish, pulling him so close Niall is sure he’ll hear bones breaking soon, but he hugs back just as tightly. And yeah, he’s missed him a lot.
“Feeling better?” Zayn asks when he finally lets him go.
Niall nods. “Much better,” and he really doesn’t think he could have meant anything more.
Zayn waves at Harry and Louis who are watching them amusedly from the dining table, and then links their fingers as they crunch through the snow.
“You didn’t have to come all the way over here,” Niall says into the wind.
“I wanted to make sure you’re okay, in case you were still sick,”
Right, sick, yeah.
Niall swallows. “I’m feeling a lot better, I think it passed.”
Zayn lights up. “Good. It’s good to see you, you look wonderful for someone who’s been, and I quote Louis, a poorly dying mess,” and Niall chuckles, he really loves his friends.
“So what’s on the agenda today?” he asks, brighter.
“Lots and lots of dress rehearsals, it’s starting to look really great,” Zayn says happily.
“Cool. Can’t wait to see it.” The smile on his face quirks wider, and the wind feels like ice but at least it’s not raining.
. . .
“Jesus Greg, you’re not even in the right position!” Liam yells from in front of the stage at a very flustered and exhausted Greg James.
Zayn warned him to steer clear of Liam up until the show, and Niall is just discovering why. Even Nick, who is supposed to have the same role as Liam, is shunted off to the side making a blog post on his laptop about something probably pretentious. Zayn said Liam’s just passionate, and those aren’t the exact words Niall would use but whatever.
He actually went to work today, first thing while Zayn headed to the theatre, and he’s pretty lucky he works with Ed who also gave him more notes from class. He swears he’ll get back into a proper schedule soon.
But right now he’s finding himself more focused on the show, which is only in one day, and he’s got the glamorous job of carrying equipment to wherever it needs to be and helping Zayn with the lighting and showing Jesy how some of the music equipment works, because turns out he can be useful when he needs to be.
Whenever he’s not helping Zayn, he seems to catch his eye across the room without meaning to and he’s met with a soft smile, before Liam hurries him along with: ‘look, you idiots, the only people who have time for dramatic heartfelt stares are the actors, now help Jade with that palm tree for fucks sake.’
Harry and Louis are helping in the costume department because there’s a flu going around and it’s hit a lot of the crew, which Liam definitely didn’t have time for, but Louis is in his element, so things are moving at their normal speed.
Another thing, Zayn’s found a guitar in one of the back storage rooms. And he asked Niall to play him something, and Niall thinks he might actually do it. He sort of feels like he needs to, is the thing, because there are colours and a magical universe being brought to life around him, and when he looks at Zayn, Zayn is looking back at him like he’s just learnt how to breathe, and that’s really something.
. . .
It’s much later in the day when Niall plays Zayn a song, they’re in the theatre sitting on one of the couches and everyone else has already gone home because cars are getting blanketed by snow and it’s too cold, but somehow Niall is finding a way to bear it. And he plays Zayn a song. It’s about nothing really, he wrote it on the bus one day a while ago, so it’s nothing.
But Zayn still looks like he’s about to cry, and when Niall puts the guitar down, Zayn just hugs him.
It’s a warm embrace that he pulls him into, and easy as well, his arms fall around him like it’s the most natural thing in the world, and Niall sinks into him like he was made for it. His heart is heavy in his chest, and the world feels too heavy, but that’s just how it is sometimes. Sometimes it’s too heavy, and Zayn is slowly putting it at ease.
When he finally lets him go, he’s still looking at him, his eyes clouded with a strange mix of concern and fond. Nialls chest is going way to fast.
“I think we should start over,” Zayn says.
Niall’s eyebrows furrow. “You what?”
“Like, I know that part of what is amazing about us is that we met on the weirdest of terms,” Zayn says, his hands curling around Nialls forearms, “but… you have a lot going on, I think, and I want to be there for you? If you want me to. But we don’t even know each other’s last names,”
Niall’s chest settles slightly, a fond smile stretching across his face. “Okay, yeah. You first,”
Zayn reaches out a hand, which Niall shakes happily. “I’m Zayn Malik, I like art and spring is my favourite season, I have two sisters, I’m a massive fan of superhero movies, when I was fourteen I got into the wrong group of friends, and when I was eighteen I got out.” Niall finds his hand smoothing over Zayns, his thumb absentmindedly rubbing in circles. But Zayn is smiling. “And… and I think I really, really like a certain boy. But if I say too much I’m afraid his head will get too big for his body,” he smirks and Niall gapes and nudges him. But he’s warm all over, and what the fuck he does not know what to do with that. “Your turn,”
“Okay…” Niall starts, “okay, hi, I’m Niall Horan. I’m a musician, I surf and I make really good coffee. I hate winter and I love art because this guy who’s kind of really annoying but also kind of the best person I know, yeah, he loves art too and he’s really great at it but he’s also sort of a work of art himself, which is definitely going to go straight to his head,” he gently shoves Zayn who is grinning like an idiot. “And,”
He exhales a drawn out breath, Zayn’s smile slowly fades and his gaze fixes on Niall, but Niall isn’t really looking back. “And sometimes I’m sad,” he says, and it sounds simple out loud, and maybe it is, because that’s all it is, really. “I’m– I’m fine most of the time, just sometimes I have bad days, or moments, I guess. Moments when I just feel sad, or I feel nothing. Its difficult to put into words, I’m sorry–”
Zayn lifts a hand, “no, don’t apologize,” he says, and then he’s interlinking their fingers together, his eyes burning into him, “you deserve the world, I hope you know that. You’re the best person I know too.”
And this time, Niall doesn’t look away.
. . .
The snow is falling, and the theatre is packed. It’s the day of the show, and everyone is buzzing with excitement and nerves, even Niall, which he thinks is ridiculous because he’s barely even done much work and honestly has just been there for moral support for Zayn and to occasionally help people run lines, but they welcomed him in anyway, and he sort of feels like part of the family.
He’s sitting in on a couch, squished in between Zayn and Harry, Louis on the other side of Harry, and its almost show time. People are hurrying around so they thought it was better to shift off to the side and not get in the way, and now Liam is giving an encouraging speech to the cast and crew and the room feels so alive, electric, and colourful.
Seconds pass, then everything is quiet. And the play begins.
. . .
A wave of applause as the first actors step on stage, and Niall watches from the sidelines as they slip out of reality and into Neverland.
During intermissions, Louis and Harry help with costumes, and Niall hydrates anyone that needs it and everything is a bit of a blur of characters and music and nerves. The room is full of adrenaline, and Liam is practically mouthing the words along with the actors, his eyes dreamy as he watches them from the side.
During Act Three, after Niall had finished helping Greg struggle with a costume, Zayn taps him on his shoulder.
“Hey,” Zayn says, and he takes hold of his hand and walks them over to a dark corner coming off the stage, the subtle glow of the pink light bleeding into the shadows, dim, but still there.
“Everything okay?” Niall asks, a little apprehensive at Zayn’s unreadable expression, at how they’re both just looking at each other. Their gazes sliding slowly, close, and his heart is beating loud in his chest.
“Liam’s having a bit of a get together at his place after the show, you guys are coming,” and it’s more like a statement than a question, so Niall just nods.
Zayn smiles softly, a little hesitant, half of his face cloaked in soft pink light.
I’ll follow you, Niall thinks, just tell me where. I’m sick of being afraid.
“C’mon,” Zayn nods towards the stage. “Lets catch the end.”
. . .
Liam’s house is flooded with ridiculously loud pop music, happy and colourful like the people that are there, all of the set crew and actors. Harry and Louis are all over each other on a couch somewhere and Niall’s got his hand wound tightly around Zayn’s, but its not because he’s worried he won’t be able to breathe like he sometimes is, he just really likes holding onto Zayn.
He’s only had a couple of drinks, but it’s enough for the buzz to wash through his system, and he can’t stop smiling. He doesn’t think it’s possible and that’s different, but sort of the best feeling at the same time.
He’s met Liam’s boyfriend, Jordan, who is intimidatingly tall and handsome, and yeah, he definitely understands what Zayn was saying about them all those weeks ago. Christ.
Zayn doesn’t let go of him, not once, and Niall is so thankful for that. Zayn looks at him like he’s everything and Niall is still trying to piece that together in his head, still really wants to kiss him and it’s like every corner of this house is filled with people that he cares about, but the world falls away when Zayn is there. A big dopey grin on his face, leaning in close to Nialls ear.
“Come for a walk with me?”
And he does, of course.
The weather has settled, still cold, like it always is, but the sky is mostly clear and stark black and the snow is turning to sludge on the pavement, it’s a nice change from the stuffy house anyway. And Zayn is beside him, his warmth from being inside Liam’s place with all of those people still radiating off of his body.
“Where are you taking me?” Niall asks with a grin. It’s not like he even cares.
The corner of Zayn’s mouth twitches and he nods ahead. “That pier you talked about, when we first met. Kind of been wanting to go there with you for ages,”
Niall feels his skin tingle with warmth, Zayn remembers a lot. Huh.
“I wonder,” Zayn continues, “were my first words to you the Dickens quote? Or asking you for a light even though I sort of guessed you didn’t smoke,”
Niall looks at him with obvious amusement. “Then why did you ask?”
Zayn smirks. “Why do you think? I wanted to talk to you, I have my own lighter, never leave the house without it. Just– I dunno. Needed a conversation starter I suppose,”
Niall laughs, unbearably fond. “You’re such an idiot,” and maybe he holds on a little tighter. “I think both are great for stories,” he isn’t looking at Zayn, but he knows he’s smiling too.
The air is sharp with the smell of the ocean, cold against his skin but whatever it is, he feels like he can breathe properly for once. Feels that way more often, feels like he can sleep properly because there are moments like this to look forward to, or stars in the sky to wonder about, or the salt air to wash through his hair while his coat billows behind him. And there are people like Zayn, which, through some strange twist of luck or fate or whatever it is, Niall found him.
And yeah, it might be wishful thinking hoping he can hold onto Zayn forever, but right now he can feel Zayn holding on as well, and it’s getting easier to push everything else to the side until it all dissolves into nothing. It’s getting easier.
They’re getting close to the ocean, Niall can see the lifeguard tower in the distance and the harsh waves crashing against the pier stretching out above the water. The moon is reflecting down, unmarred by any clouds, and the stars are scattered. Silver lights.
Niall is looking at Zayn when the snow starts to fall, he notices because it falls onto Zayn’s nose and he blinks abruptly.
“Ah, what the fuck,” he mutters, and Niall laughs. “Hey, shut up,” he bumps his arm with Nialls but definitely doesn’t even put any effort into it.
The snowfall is gentle at first, just soft flecks of white ice falling onto them, and then the air changes.
In the time it takes Niall to blink, it starts to pour down heavily, and before he even knows what is happening, Zayn is holding his hand tighter and they’re running down the street like maniacs, laughing and clinging to each other, leaving imprints in the snow, shoes drenched and unwavering grins. Niall doesn’t care that its cold, because its always cold, because whatever. He doesn’t care that his hair is soaked and his mouth tastes like saltwater. He doesn’t care that the only thing he can really feel is his hand locked with Zayn’s, because he can’t think of much else that matters right now.
They finally get to the beach, and they run up to the lifeguard tower, laughing breathlessly and too fucking cold but too happy to care. They get under the sheltered awning when they finally stop running.
Zayn laughs, throaty and breathless and perfect. “I’ve never run that much in my life, let alone in the snow––“
The waves are crashing below them, snow falling down around them, and yet the world falls away when Niall kisses Zayn, smiling with cold lips, he tastes like salt and the faintest hint of alcohol. Niall doesn’t see anything else, and he’s warm again.
Zayn opens his mouth, letting him in and kissing back with just as much fervor, pressed back against the old wooden wall of the tower and the moonlight framing them. Zayn’s hands are remarkably warm when they slide along Niall's hips, pulling him closer until their bodies are flush, and Niall cups his jaw between cold fingers and kisses him as if he’s always known how. Water from Niall's wet hair is trickling down his neck as they kiss, deeply, languid, and he feels like he’s melting in Zayn’s grasp, every inch of him overcome with heat and want, and Zayn presses a trail of kisses down the curve of his neck, then meets his mouth again, pressing soft kisses against him, smiling.
“I,” Zayn says, pulling back to take a breath, and Niall looks at him properly, and yeah, he looks really good against the dark ocean and the snow, “I think you should know something,”
Niall gives him a questioning look, smiling so, so wide, before kissing the corner of his mouth again. “And what’s that?”
“I’ve kind of been wanting to do that since I met you,” Zayn says, his cheeks pink and Niall’s heart is bursting. “But this is… this is right. Feels right. Here. Under the stars, in the snow, by the ocean and all that shit. It’s kind of perfect,”
Niall is grinning widely, managing a “likewise,” before Zayn is kissing him again. It’s overwhelming, and Niall's thoughts are reeling through fireworks and snowstorms and purple.
Niall wouldn’t have expected their first kiss to go any different, their relationship has been different from the start and Niall likes different, he likes that their love story is written out in cheap marker pen on the seat of a tattered old bus, it’s ridiculous, he thinks, as he clutches Zayn closer with the cold salt air blowing against them. It’s ridiculous and sort of beautiful.
The snow is still falling, so it’ll be a while before they can head back.
But honestly, he doesn’t mind.