Archive of Our Own

“Do we have to go there?”

“No, Harry, I have to go in there.” Nick sighed like he was horribly put upon, which really Harry thought was a bit much. It’s not like he had said it often. In the past minute. “You wanted to tag along because you wanted to get coffee.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t know you were going there.” Harry gave the building that housed the Treasures and Tea Café and Bookstore a suspicious look, despite the very pretty Georgian facade.  

“Really? So you think I would go get coffee at a café that was both farther away from the library and where my boyfriend didn’t work?”

Put like that, it did sound silly. But Harry was essentially an optimist, so he had hoped. “Yes,” he muttered, crossing his arms over his chest.

Nick rolled his eyes again, and tugged open the door.

The inside of the café was not, despite Harry’s irritation, uncomfortable. In fact, Harry would probably go so far as to say it was cozy, full of the winter sun but warm enough inside, a nice mix of cushy couches and chairs and tables at the right height for computers or food. The counter was a rich, dark wood that echoed the walls, and the baked goods sitting on top of it looked delicious after a morning spent inside a computer lab playing with Adobe. Even the wide archway opening into the bookstore looked nice, with the books in neat rows beyond it, if you didn’t know what was behind it. 

All that was good. Even the boy sitting behind the counter going through his phone was fine, though he was scowling as he looked up with bright blue eyes. “Grimshaw,” he said, flatly.

“Tomlinson,” Nick replied, in the same tone, but he couldn’t keep the smile from his face. “Nice to see you deign to answer your phone sometimes.”

“Only for the people I like,” Louis agreed, and set down his phone to pull Nick down for a kiss. Harry did his best to look away. Although, really, if they wanted people to look away they probably shouldn’t be kissing in a public café, in front of plate glass windows. “That’s not you, by the way,” he added, when they split apart. Nick laughed, and let his hand fall onto Louis’s forearm, right below his elbow, where Nick’s name was written.

“Good to know. Gonna get me some coffee?”

“No.” Louis stuck his tongue out, and stood up. “I’m going to get Harry coffee, because I like him. Then maybe I’ll get you some. If you ask nicely.”

“See?” Harry inserted, fluttering his eyelashes at Nick. “I’m his favorite.”

“Shush, Harry. What if I don’t ask nicely?” Nick drawled, and this time it was Louis’s turn to laugh.

“Keep your foreplay to yourself,” came a rough voice from the bookstore. “Some of us have work to do.”

And there was the reason Harry didn’t want to come in here. The reason Harry avoided the café if at all possible, even if Louis and Niall were cool and the ambiance was good. The reason Harry had to bite his lip and restrain himself from just leaving. Because Zayn Malik lounged against the edge of the archway, his arms crossed over his chest, his face arranged into a condescending sneer.

“And who would that us be?” Louis retorted. “’Cause I know it isn’t you.”

“Hey, I could be doing a lot of work,” Zayn shot back, and strode over to them, sliding onto the nearest table so he could swing his combat boots in the air. “Nick.” He nodded. Then, almost reluctantly, he turned to Harry. “Styles.”

“Zayn,” Harry tried not to spit it, but it was hard, when Zayn was giving him that cool, contemptuous look from under finely crafted eyebrows. God. It would be so much easier to dislike him if he wasn’t so fucking gorgeous, if he didn’t make Harry’s fingers itch for his camera every time he saw him. It wasn’t even—he should have looked stupid, fakely punk with his combat boots and black tank top over dark jeans and the black leather cuff he always wore on his left wrist, but instead he just looked like he stepped off the cover of a magazine. He even did that in candids, Harry knew, from the pictures of Nick and Louis and Liam and Niall that Zayn managed to sneak into, turned any picture from a goofy selfie into a photoshoot. But it didn’t matter if sometimes Harry had to look away from him so he didn’t say something stupid, because his personality so didn’t measure up at all.

“Hey, Zayn,” Nick cut in, easily, “You finish your Kant reading?”

“More or less,” Zayn drawled back, and Louis snorted as he turned back with two steaming lattes in his hands. One, he handed to Harry, the other he took a long, obvious sip of before handing it to Nick. Nick just rolled his eyes.

“It’s cute how he thinks you actually do reading for his class,” Louis pointed out.

Zayn’s chuckle was rich and dark and obnoxious. “Thought there had to be some perks to you going out with him.”

“I can’t just pass you because you’re Louis’s best mate,” Nick informed him. Louis stole back the cup.

“Then what use are you?” he demanded, and batted Nick’s hand away when he went to take the cup back. “No, this is mine now, I’ve decided.”

“I can pass you because that was a great essay on predetermination you just turned in,” Nick said, without missing a beat. “Though, next time, maybe add a bit more vitriol? I wasn’t entirely sure how you felt about it.”

Zayn shrugged. “Didn’t do the reading on it either.”

“Please don’t tell me that.” Nick took the cup back from Louis, then ran his hand over Louis’s upper lip, wiping away the foam. “Keep your sidekick in line, Tomlinson.”

“No one can,” Louis said with a fond look, as Zayn wrinkled his nose in distaste.

“’m not his sidekick.”

“You are! Remember that—Niall!”

And there was another reason to dislike Zayn, because when he smiled it was horribly, horribly beautiful, and he never ever smiled at Harry. Not that Harry wanted him to smile at him, because he was an awful person who sneered at Harry and made fun of him when he deigned to talk to him at all, which was as little as he could. But he wanted someone to smile at him, preferably someone as hot as Zayn, to smile at him like Zayn smiled at the guy who breezed into the store, like summer had come through the winter.

“Hey!” Niall gave the whole room an equal-opportunity grin, and threw his bag over the counter before heading around it himself. “Are we having a party?”

“Now that you’re here,” Harry grinned back. It was impossible to dislike Niall, not that he much tried. Everyone has some unpleasant friends, he figured.

“Then I hope someone brought the booze.” Zayn dug in his pocket and pulled out a flask. “Well done, Malik!”

“Just for you, babe.” And there was another thing. Babe was a stupid pet name.

“You’re not supposed to have alcohol in here,” Harry pointed out, and then bit his lip. He hated it. How Zayn always made him feel like this, like he had to be such a stick in the mud. He wasn’t! He was a lot of fun, anyone could say that. He would totally have some Irish coffee this morning.  He just…there was something about it, when Zayn raised a single derisive eyebrow, something that made him want to fight. That made him want to make Zayn just fucking look at him with something other than contempt.

“That’s the fun of it,” Zayn drawled, as he tucked the flask back into his pocket.

“Or the part that could lose you your job,” Harry pointed out.

“Like anyone cares.” Zayn’s eyes glinted. Harry hated it when he looked like that, like a dare, because Harry had never been able to leave a dare untaken.

“But what if—”

“Anyway, happy birthday, Harry!” Niall broke in to the brewing disagreement, as he pulled on an apron.

Harry turned away from Zayn to smile again. He wouldn’t let Zayn ruin his mood. “Not yet!”

“Few more days, same difference.” Louis waved his hand.

“Not this time.” Harry couldn’t help it then, how his gaze flicked to the curling NICK written across Louis’s arm.  “Makes a bit of a difference.”

“He’s a baby, remember?” Nick asked, ruffling Harry’s hair. Harry scowled. He wasn’t. He was just younger. It didn’t matter. Nick was older, no one made fun of him for that.

“Everyone’s a baby compared to you, cradle robber.” Okay, fine, Louis made fun of him for that. But Louis made fun of Nick for everything, so it didn’t count.  “You’re throwing a party, though, right?”

“Yeah, of course! You all can come?” Although, he wished that they hadn’t brought it up here, where Zayn could hear. Could come. He didn’t want Zayn to come, to ruin it with his cheekbones and his meanness.

“Wouldn’t miss it.”

“The free booze,” Zayn inserted. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. For a second, Harry actually thought he was going to light it in the café and everything, because he was that much of an asshole, but instead he just tucked it behind his ear like he was some sort of 50s greaser. “That’s what he wouldn’t miss.”

“Oh! I am offended.” Louis clapped a hand to his heart. “Nick, my honor’s been offended, I think you need to defend it.”

“I think you can defend yourself fine, love,” Nick retorted, and leaned back against the counter.

Louis made a face at him that ended in a grin, then went back to Zayn. “I would not miss it for reasons other than the free booze. Although I am not denying free booze is a factor. But who wouldn’t want to celebrate this great day in a young man’s life?”

Zayn snorted. “Last day of freedom, more like. I’ll ring in the death knell.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Harry demanded.

Zayn leaned back on his arms, giving Harry a lazy look through his lashes. “Means you’re lucky you don’t have a tattoo yet. Don’t even look at it, if you want my advice.”

“Zayn’s a cynic,” Niall pointed out, a little redundantly in Harry’s opinion.

“What’s there to be cynical about? It’s soul mates.” Not even Nick was a cynic about that, and he was  a cynic about everything.

“It’s a trap.”

“It’s love.”

“It isn’t.”

“It is!” Harry protested. It’s…all his life, this was the one thing he’d always known. He’ll find someone. Or at least he’ll be able to find someone. There will be someone out there, just for him.

“Oh really?” Louis was leaning over the counter, his chin propped up on his hands, and there was a grin on his face, mischief in his eyes. “Tell us, Harry, what do you think of soul mates?” He did that, sometimes; dwelled on Harry’s name like he liked how it tasted. Harry’d thought, before he knew what was on his arm—before he introduced Louis and Nick—that maybe—but then Louis’d worn short sleeves, and he’d seen the name. He still did that thing, though. Harry’d just about put it up to one of the incomprehensible Louis things, like his inexplicable love of pinching people’s nipples, or his inexplicable friendship with Zayn.

“What’s there to think? It’s soulmates. It’s who you’re supposed to be with.”

“Unfortunately, sometimes,” Nick inserted, grinning sappily at Louis. Louis sneered back, just as sappily.

“Says who?” Harry’d never heard Zayn raise his voice before, but he did now, enough that even the kid studying in the corner glanced up for a second, and Niall paused in the middle of making a sandwich. “Who fucking gets to decide? What if you’re—what if there’s someone else, when you turn twenty-one?”

“Then you find the real person.” Harry shrugged. He’d never really seen the point of dating before you got your tattoo. He’d slept around, sure, but everyone knew you were just fooling around until you figured out who your person was. It made it easier, because everyone knew that. He’d traced plenty of tattoos with his fingers, his tongue, wishing they were his name. “Everyone knows that.”

“They shouldn’t.” Zayn straightened and his head tilted up proudly. The sunlight caught in his eyes and turned them to gold; he looked like something out of a storybook, wild and rebellious and beautiful. It made Harry wish he had his camera, but he could never capture that moment, he knew. That was another thing he hated about Zayn, that there was always something just out of reach he couldn’t catch with a lens, something that pushed him from hot into something more. “All I know is, I’m not letting my life be defined by a bit of ink.”

“It’s not just ink!” Harry protested, but Nick’s hand was on his arm.

“I try to leave my philosophical arguments in the office,” he complained, and just like that the tension broke, as Louis started to tease Nick about having philosophical arguments at all, and Niall pointed out that maybe they should actually be doing work.

Zayn, though... It was just because he was so fucking beautiful that Harry kept looking at him, as that wild energy seemed to tuck inwards, his shoulders curving again so he just looked like a boy, one hand running over the cuff.

When he caught Harry looking, though, he narrowed his eyes challengingly, his fists clenching, then turned away. Right. Harry didn’t know why he was even looking at him. Instead, he turned to Niall to chat about the possibility of him bringing a beer pong table to the party, and didn’t even notice when Zayn slid away a few minutes later, back to his post at the bookstore.

---

Harry stared at the sheet of paper in front of him.

The paper stared back.

Well, no, obviously it didn’t really. But it felt like it did, the neatly typed assignment the professor had just handed out as a midterm thing. It didn’t seem fair, really. Getting a big assignment the morning of his birthday.

“Don’t you think I can not look at this until tomorrow?” he said, mainly to the air, but also to the girl sitting at the table next to him, peering at her own computer.

Clara sighed, and pushed her braids out of her face. “It’s not going to be any better then.”

“Yeah, but it won’t be my birthday.” Harry sighed as well, and actually looked at the paper to read anything other than the due date. “She couldn’t have waited a week?”

“She wanted to give us time,” Clara pointed out, and Harry wrinkled his nose at her. He didn’t want time, he wanted not to think about this now. “And it will take time, look, you’ll need to choose a model, and figure out a couple different places to shoot, and different times…you can’t rush it.”

“What if I wanted to?” Harry whined, mainly for show. She knew it, too, after last semester when she had shared a darkroom with him, and she had listened to him ramble, because he liked to ramble when he worked. She hadn’t even minded listening to his music, even if he had offered to let her us hers, because it was Drake and stuff, cool enough.

“Then your model would hate you. What’s your theme?” she swung around, grabbed the paper out of his hands. Her dark eyes scanned the title. “Oh, that’s cool! Mine’s lame, just Honor.”

“No, that’s cool! You could do things with knights, or maybe people doing nice things around campus or not, or—”

“Don’t take all my ideas!” she laughed. When she shook back her hair again, he could catch a glimpse of black ink on the side of her neck, barely visible against her skin. “They need to be mine.”

“Or we could trade?”

“Think that’s not allowed. What do you want to do with yours? Mythology is awesome. You could use your roommate, what’s his name, he’s built like a statue, do something Nordic, right? Or maybe Greek—we have pillars around.”

“But that’s obvious.” Harry narrowed his eyes at the paper. He didn’t want to do obvious. He got into photography so he could look at what wasn’t obvious, so he could make people see things differently, to see new things.

“Well then, unique boy. What do you want to do?” She nudged him with her hip, and he stuck his tongue out and batted her away.

“You can’t rush brilliance.”

“No, but you can rush assignments, and we need to prove we’ve got models by next week, so you’d best come up with something fast.” She turned back to her computer, and groaned. “Okay, I can’t look at this anymore, I’m going to go to lunch, mess around with it more at home. See you tonight?”

“Definitely! I think Liam ordered half a bar, there’ll be plenty to drink, and I made a cake.”

“You made a cake for your own birthday?” she asked, throwing her backpack over her shoulder as she stood. She leaned over again, to turn off her computer, and Harry could see the ink again, more clearly. Cody, it said. He wondered if she’d found them yet. Maybe his would come in on his neck, so whoever it was could see it right away. He wouldn’t mind that, mind displaying it proudly. He liked the idea of his soulmate knowing him. Of being theirs so everyone could see.

“Yeah,” He replied, a beat too late, and grinned at her to make up for his mind wandering. “Don’t trust anyone else in the kitchen.”

“Well, I’m bringing brownies, so don’t stock up on too much sugar.”

“Brownies? Or brownies?”

She laughed, and ruffled his hair. “What do you think, Styles?”

“You’re the best!” he called after her, and she waved her hand in acknowledgment as she left, her hips swaying with her walk.

Once she was gone, he turned back to the paper. Mythology. Something on the theme of mythology, focusing on one person in a number of different locations. He liked locations, usually, liked using what was there to make something new, even if he preferred candids to posed shots. But he did need to come up with an idea, because he was planning to be drunk most of this weekend.

Mythology. He could do what Clara had suggested, something Greek or Roman or Norse, but everyone would do that. He could do something more tribal, but that would take more research than he had time for. Same with anything Asian.

But mythology really wasn’t about gods, was it? It was about nature. Explaining nature, Nick had told him once, when trying to explain why the Disney Hercules was an awful movie and should never be watched (Harry didn’t care. It was a beautiful love story, and the music was great, and Megara was amazing, and he loved how Hades had covered up her tattoo so she couldn’t see it). Making it comprehensible, because too often it wasn’t.

And this was the same thing, right? Making mythology comprehensible, in someone. In a picture. Except it couldn’t be, not really, because gods and nature weren’t really knowable.

Harry’s head hit the desk. He knew what he wanted to do. He just really didn’t want to admit it.

Slowly, reluctantly, he lifted his head from the desk, and pulled out his phone. “Hey, Nick?” he said into it, once it had connected. “You know how it’s almost my birthday? Is that enough for you to seduce Louis into doing me a favor?”

---

Harry was drunk. It was a lovely feeling, because it was his birthday and everyone he loved was in his flat and they were all drunk too and all there because of him because they loved him, and wherever he went people told him happy birthday and hugged him. So he moved a lot, told everyone he loved them too, and didn’t even care that there were beer cans everywhere and probably spills everywhere and they might have gotten into his room.

“Liam!” he yelled, when he saw his roommate, and launched himself at him. Liam didn’t quite manage to catch him in time, but Harry stumbled and stopped himself from hitting the wall, then wrapped Liam in a hug. He smelled like sweat and beer and Liam, and Harry gave him a friendly lick on the neck before he let him go. “I’m almost twenty-one!”

“I know!” Liam shouted back, over the music Nick had commandeered and then Louis had bullied him into playing things people knew sometimes, “There’s a party for it! We sang!”

“It’s for me!” Harry agreed, and stole Liam’s beer to take a sip, then made a face over it. Cheap beer was gross. He should go make himself a better drink. Or make someone make him a drink, because it was his birthday, and he should have other people help him today. “I’m gonna…” he trailed off, and Liam clapped him on the shoulder to turn to the girl next to him and start talking. Harry hoped her name was Sophia, like it said on Liam’s back. He could even see it now, through his tank top.

Harry weaved his way through the crowd, pushed between groups of people who called his name and ruffled his hair and kissed him a few times. He paused by the beer pong table, where Niall was chest-bumping a big guy Harry sort of recognized because they were winning. He clapped delightedly, and as a reward got the next solo cup of beer, which still tasted nasty but was a reward so he drank it. He wanted something yummy, though. With fruit. He liked fruit.

He stumbled his way into the kitchen. Clara was sitting on the counter with a few other people, munching on a brownie. She gestured with it, inviting him over, but he’d already had cake and he wanted other people to have sweets, so he shook his head and sloshed some vodka into a cup, then threw in some cranberry juice. It was yummy.

He was just turning to go back into the living room when he saw the window at the end of the hall was open, and someone was sitting on the ledge. That probably wasn’t safe, because Harry’d tried to do it once and would have fallen out if Liam hadn’t caught him, and they were on the sixth floor so it would have hurt. He should probably warn them, he decided, because he didn’t want people getting hurt on his birthday.

But then the person sitting at the window turned their head, and Harry saw their profile gilded in the gold streetlight outside. Oh. “I don’t care if you fall,” he informed the person. There was a wall next to him. That was nice. It was nice and wally. So solid under his hand when the floor was spinning.

“Don’t think I’m the one who might fall,” Zayn retorted. He took a drag on his cigarette, and blew it out the window, up into the sky. It was so unfairly lovely, the picture he made all in black with his leather jacket, melting into the dark except for the red light of the cigarette and the streetlights.

“Why are you smoking? It’s my apartment, you shouldn’t be smoking in here.” He shouldn’t smoke ever, because it might kill him, and Harry didn’t actually want him to die even if he didn’t like him. And because it made his cheekbones really obvious and it wasn’t fair.

“It’s out the window.” Like a period, Zayn took another drag, and watched the smoke cloud in the crisp air outside. He didn’t even look down.

“I don’t like you,” Harry informed him. As a retort, it wasn’t the best, but it was true.

“Good.”

“That’s not nice!”

“I’m not trying to be nice.” Zayn tilted his head back. “I’m trying to save us.”

“What?” He was talking weirdly, slow almost, like Harry.

“It’s nothing. Hopefully.” Zayn shook his head, gestured with the burning end of the cigarette.

“You don’t make sense.” Harry jabbed a finger in his direction. Zayn watched it with raised eyebrows. “I don’t like it. I don’t like you.”

“You said that.”

“I think you’re mean and cynical and stupidly pretty and mean.”

“That why you want me to model for you?”

Louis must have asked him, already. No, he did, Harry knew that, because Louis had said something when he came in about, about how thrilled he was or something, which hadn’t made sense anyway but Harry hadn’t cared because he’d been more than a little drunk already and it was his birthday.

“You’re what I want,” Harry explained, and Zayn’s eyes widened. There was red in them, Harry noticed in the reflected streetlight. He’d probably had brownies. Of course he did, he probably did all sorts of drugs, that was what he was hiding with that stupid cuff like he was all punk even though Nick said he did really well in his classes. “For a model,” Harry specified, because he didn’t want him getting ideas. “Not for anything else.”

“Good,” Zayn said again. Harry took another drink.

“Why are you even here?” he asked.

“In the world? Good question.”

“No, at my party!” Harry stomped his foot, and nearly fell over. “I didn’t even invite you, you aren’t on Facebook.”

Zayn pause for a second, his forehead contracting so he had lines there. They didn’t look right. Harry should probably smooth them out. “Louis blackmailed me.” It didn’t sound like a statement all the way.

“You can be blackmailed?”

“Apparently. Woah.” Now even the wall was betraying Harry, as he tipped forward a bit before regaining his balance. “Too much to drink, there?”

“No. I’m just drunk. Because it’s my birthday.”

“I’d heard.”

“I’m turning twenty-one.”

“I heard that too.”

“I’m gonna get a soulmate tonight.”

“Wish I could give you mine.” Zayn snorted, but it didn’t sound like he was laughing. He wasn’t smiling, like he did at Niall sometimes, in that way that made him look untamable in a different way. Not wild, like Harry wanted him in his pictures, but all lit up. Then he brought his head down to his knee, and started giggling, hard enough that he wobbled a little and had to grab onto the wall, hard enough his knuckles went white.

“What? Am I funny?”

“N-no,” Zayn got out, between giggles. “No, just, fuck, that was good shit Clara brought.”

Right. Clara. The rest of the party. Somehow Harry had forgotten about them, like everything had faded away but Zayn silhouetted in that window. Even the music felt like it had gotten quieter. But he had a party. Where people he liked were. People who didn’t laugh at him and make fun of him and tell him they didn’t like him and everything.

“I’m going,” Harry announced. He didn’t know why he was standing in a dark hallway anyway. But if Zayn wanted to be here alone, away from all the people and noise and crowds and talking, then he could. Harry didn’t care.

“Good,” Zayn said, and blew more smoke out the window.

Harry glared one last time, then turned around and used the wall to help him walk away.

---

Harry woke up in his bed.

That was about all he could process. He was in his bed, and he was warm, and that was enough, even if his head felt like it was filled with cobwebs and all his limbs felt heavy. It was dark behind his eyelids, though, which was weird, so he had to open his eyes to make sure.

It was his room. It was his room, his fluffy duvet and soft pillowcases, but the curtains were closed. Harry hadn’t closed his curtains since he moved in.

That mystery was discarded, though, because of the near simultaneous discovery once he sat up of the headache pounding incessantly behind the cobwebs, and the glass of water and aspirin on the bedside table.

Liam was the best roommate ever, Harry decided, and popped the pills before he stood up. He was in his jeans from last night, still, but he wasn’t wearing his boots or his shirt. He thought he remembered taking his shirt off at some point, remembered Louis and Nick’s hooting catcalls, but he wouldn’t have taken his boots off. Best roommate ever, he echoed to himself, and stumbled out of his room. Caffeine. He needed caffeine to think.

The bathroom door was open, so he brushed his teeth first, which helped a little, and he splashed some water on his face, which helped more. But he was still bleary when he found his way out of the hall and into the kitchen, where Liam was leaning against the counter sipping at a smoothie. He was in gym clothes, and dripping with sweat. Sometimes Harry hated him.

“Hey!” Liam said, cheerfully. “Good morning.”

“Morning.” Harry tried for a smile, and more or less got it, he thought. It was a nice morning. The sun was shining and everything. “Thanks for putting me to bed last night.”

“Hm?” Liam took a long drink, then wiped his lips with the back of his hand.

“For, the aspirin.” Harry rubbed at his temple, then grabbed the kettle to put water on for tea. The sound of the water running was loud, but it didn’t hurt that badly. He must have drunk water last night. “And not letting me pass out on the floor.”

“What? Sorry, I was gone last night, it wasn’t me. I woke up on the couch.” He cast his arm around the kitchen, to encompass the mess Harry just now noticed. “I was going to start cleaning up soon.”

“You didn’t?” Last night was a bit of a blur. He’d talked to Zayn, he thought—no, he remembered that—then it was just laughing and dancing and some kisses and excitement. Even when he tried to focus on after, on bed, all he got was strong hands lifting him up, a rough voice in his ear, and feeling…safe. Familiar. It had to be Liam. Liam was the one who would think to put out painkillers and take off his boots. Maybe Nick, but Nick had been drunk last night too, and he and Louis had disappeared at one point, Harry thought. “Are you sure?”

“Pretty sure, yeah.” Liam’s whole face contracted as he thought. “Think it was that friend of Louis’s, the one who works at the bookstore. Zayn?”

Harry snorted. That would be the day. Zayn barely ever even looked at him. And they hated each other. “You were drunk,” he said, and took the water off when it began to boil to pour into a mug.

Liam waited patiently as he cradled the mug in his hands, breathing in the scent of it, and then took a long sip, but eventually he cleared his throat pointedly.

“What?” Harry took another sip. He’d always been a morning person, but even morning people needed their tea.

Liam raised his eyebrows. “It’s morning.”

“Noticed. Are you still drunk?”

“It’s morning,” Liam repeated, patiently, like he was talking to someone stupid. Harry always felt like pulling out his latest grades when Liam talked to him like that. “And you’re twenty-one. So?”

So? So.

Harry’s eyes widened, and he almost dropped the mug. “Oh!” he set the mug down, held out his arms to look. “Do you see anything?” he turned around when he didn’t see anything on his front, craned his neck to join Liam in inspecting his back.

“Not there.”

“My face?”

“I would have noticed that, I think.”

Harry wasn’t listening, too busy unbuttoning his jeans and stripping them off. Liam, having lived with him for too long to be surprised at the sudden nudity, took another sip of his smoothie as Harry kicked off his pants. There was nothing on his legs that he could see. Just to check, he looked at the bottom of his feet, his armpits.

“Maybe you don’t have one?”

“I have one!” Harry insisted, and pulled down his boxers.

At that, Liam did look away. “Harry.”

“It’s—no.” There it was. High on his thigh, right where it met his hip, so it would be hidden by anything he wore except maybe a speedo, and Harry didn’t wear those, there were lines of ink he’d never put there. An elegant script, cursive, but with sharp points like it was trying to hide its fluidity. But it was easily legibly, even upside down.

“No,” Harry repeated, staring at it. “No, that’s not right.”

“What?” Liam unaverted his eyes, though they very clearly avoided Harry’s crotch to look at the ink. “But that’s great!” he smiled, his big crinkly eyed smile he got when he really was pleased for Harry. “You already know him and everything!”

“No,” Harry repeated. “No, it must be—no.”

“Unless you got a tattoo after going to bed last night, that’s it,” Liam pointed out, his smile fading when he saw Harry wasn’t pleased. “This is great! You’ve found your soulmate.”

“No,” Harry said, once more for good measure. “No, it isn’t him. It’s another one.”

He kept on repeating that to himself, when he grabbed the tea and fled back to his room, leaving his clothes in a pile on the floor. He’d pick them up later. He’d help clean up later too, help with all that. But he couldn’t right now.

It couldn’t be him, Harry reasoned, throwing himself onto the bed. Maybe he’d go to sleep and wake up again and find, like, Niall’s name on his chest. Niall’d be a good soul mate. Harry didn’t know if he had a tattoo yet, it could be him. But it couldn’t be—it didn’t make sense. He was twenty-one, he had a tattoo. And he still hated Harry. So it couldn’t be him.

Slowly, Harry looked down again. It was still there. Harry traced each letter with his finger, like he’d seen Nick do a thousand times, like he’d seen his mum do with that soft smile she got sometimes, when she thought he wasn’t looking. It didn’t feel any different. It just felt like skin, like all his other tattoos. At least it didn’t mess any of them up, he thought idly, then almost laughed. That was the least of his problems.

He pressed on the skin until it turned white. But it didn’t help. ZAYN was still there, scrawled across his thigh like a brand.

---

By the time the day was over—after skyping with his mum, lunch with his photography friends, then some time in the library, a phone call with Gemma, then a night out with Liam—Harry’d figured it out. It had to be another Zayn. It was the only explanation that made sense, because if it was his Zayn—or, not his Zayn, Louis’s Zayn maybe, someone else’s Zayn who was not Harry’s—then Zayn would have said something, because he would have known there was at least a possibility. And it couldn’t be…the Zayn he currently knew, because that Zayn was mean and mocking and cold and never looked at Harry, and a soul mate… A soul mate was everything, Harry knew. A soul mate finished your sentences and held your hand all the time and understood you better than you knew yourself and never disagreed because you shared a soul. So it had to be another Zayn, who was—well, not better looking, because if it was someone better looking than Zayn Harry couldn’t even imagine it—but nicer. Someone who would coddle him and love him and not be an awful cynical person who hated him.

Harry went to sleep confident in that knowledge.

He even held that knowledge with him the next day, when Nick insisted he meet at the café to hang out, because he made a good point about how they got free food there and how Nick was a starving grad student and Harry was a starving student and they needed to get free food where they could, even though Harry wasn’t starving at all. But it was still hard to say no both to free food and to Nick’s desire to see Louis, because Harry knew that between both of them working and classwork and their separate schedules and how for some reason they still didn’t live together Nick never felt like they saw enough of each other. That was what being a soul mate was. Never seeing enough of each other, even if you saw each other every minute of the day.

Harry got there first, because Nick was always late, and ordered with Niall before sitting down at the table closest to the counter, so Nick could chat with Louis without Louis leaving the counter, while also being farthest from the bookstore. It all became a bit moot, because when Niall brought over his drink he stayed, and Louis came over too, hopping onto the table and jostling Harry’s books a bit.

“Have a good night Friday?” he asked, grinning knowingly. Harry didn’t get the knowing.

“I think so?” Harry brushed a stray lock of hair that hadn’t been caught behind his scarf out of his eyes.

“You were totally smashed, mate,” Niall agreed, chuckling. “End of the night, you were just telling everyone you loved them and you hoped they were your soulmate.”

“Right.” Louis’s eyes sharpened, and he raised his voice enough that he got a few glares. “Soulmate. Anyone we know?”

“Can’t be anyone here,” Niall pointed out. “He’d have jumped them already.”

“Probably true,” Harry nodded. If it was someone here—if it were really someone here, not someone with the same name as someone here, someone he liked and wanted and didn’t make him feel…feel, he would have jumped him.

“Maybe…” Louis prodded. 

A pack of sugar came out of nowhere to hit Louis on the head, and Louis spun with an affronted glare. Zayn glared back. He was wearing a navy t-shirt today, that only made his hair look darker and the ink on his arm stand out, like the cuff did. Harry gave what he could see of him a quick once-over, but there were no names there. No Harrys.

“Fuck off, Louis,” Zayn spat, as he strode in. It might have just been because he said it loudly—or not even loudly, just authoritatively—that eyes turned to him as he walked past the counter, but Harry thought otherwise. There was a storm in him, Harry’d always thought, and people couldn’t help but look.

Harry, though, did not. Harry looked down at his notebook and refused to look away because that would be stupid.

“Why?” Louis teased. He grabbed at Zayn and drew him in next to him, so his thigh brushed against Harry’s knee.

It was a good question, though. Harry wasn’t wondering it or anything, but it sounded an awful lot like Zayn defending Harry, which made no sense, because he didn’t like him.

“Because I don’t want to hear some romantic soulmates shit right now,” Zayn answered coolly, and this time Harry did look up to glare at him. That made more sense.

“It’s not romantic,” Harry retorted. His fingers closed around his pen as Zayn looked down at him over his finely boned nose. His eyelashes were really ridiculous. “It’s what happens.”

One of Zayn’s eyebrows rose. “If you let it.”

“Why wouldn’t you? It’s love.” Harry’s hand, unconsciously, went to his hip, rested over the letters there. Love for that other Zayn, who would look at him like he was the sun and the moon and the stars, who would live with him in the bliss of the soulmated. “It’s—”

“It’s not love,” Zayn snapped. Louis’s hand tightened on his wrist, over the cuff, like he was holding him back. “It doesn’t have anything to do with love.”

“Of course it does! That’s what being a soul mate is!”

“Oh?” Zayn’s other eyebrow went up to join the first. “And you’ve been in love? You know that?”

Harry hadn’t been, obviously, because he hadn’t found his soul mate yet. So, “Have you?” Harry shot back.

He expected a scathing response, but Zayn’s shoulders went rigid and something changed in his eyes, the storm somehow calming and roiling all at once. His hand moved over the cuff, and gripped it with white knuckles. “Screw you,” he spat. Louis let go of his wrist to grab his shoulders, but Zayn pushed to his feet anyway. “No, I need to get back to work. I just came over to ask when you needed me for the modelling thing.”

“Zayn.” Louis said his name flatly, like Harry’s mom sometimes said his name, and grabbed at him again. “Come on, chill. It’s been a year.”

“When do you want me?” Zayn repeated to Harry, ignoring Louis. His eyes burned as they looked at Harry, like they could see right through him, like they could see the letters on his hip.

Then Niall hooted out a laugh, and those burning eyes turned away. “Shut up,” Zayn retorted, but Niall, like always, managed to cool something in him. Niall just grinned at him, and Zayn reached out to poke at him, both his nipples then his belly button, so Niall curved inwards with another laugh. “I’m fine, Lou,” he told Louis. “I just need to go.”

“No you don’t.”

“Yes I do.”

“You’re being stupid.”

“Not everyone’s as lucky as you.” Zayn almost sneered it, and Harry would have shied away from that, the contempt, like he always did, but Louis just met it with a roll of his eyes. “Styles, tell Louis when and where you need me to be. He’ll let me know.”

“Or you could just give me your phone number,” Harry suggested. “Instead of playing telephone, all the time.”

“No. Tell Louis.” He took a step back, then another, then another, until he had disappeared behind the archway.

Louis huffed out a breath when he was gone, and hopped off the table as well. “Sorry about him,” he told Harry, “He’s an asshole.”

“I knew that already.” Harry glanced at his phone. “You could give me his number, so we—”

“Nah.” Louis shook his head. “He’s being an asshole, but he doesn’t want you to have his number.” He shrugged. “It’s for a stupid reason, but it’s his reason.”

“Oh, there’s a reason? I didn’t realize he had reasons.” Harry’d always kind of figured he functioned off of a lot of anger and energy and incomprehensible Zayn-ness. Not like the other-Zayn, who Harry would understand all the time. “I thought he just hated me.”

“He doesn’t hate you.” Niall said it like he knew.

“Who doesn’t hate Harry?” Nick asked. He dropped into the chair next to Harry, then tugged at Louis’s waist insistently until he slid into his lap with an exasperated breath.

“Zayn,” Louis informed him. For all his reluctance to be dragged there, he seemed comfortable with Nick’s arm around his waist and his fingers twined with his.

“No, I’m pretty sure he does, love.” Nick nodded towards the archway where, if Harry craned his neck, he could just see Zayn at a counter, talking to a customer, a pretty blonde girl, with hooded eyes and one of his too-devastating smirks.

“I hope he does,” Harry decided, and looked away. “Because I hate him, and I wouldn’t want to hate anyone who didn’t hate me back, that would be mean.”

“Okay, sure. You definitely know my best friend better than me.” Louis punched at Nick’s shoulder. “Let me up, I have work to do.”

“But you haven’t kissed me yet.” Nick grinned winsomely.

“And I’m not going to, because some of us are conscious of workplace etiquette.”

“Are we not talking about last—”

“No, we are not,” Louis cut Nick off, but he was starting to smile again, his eyes softening, as he pried Nick’s arm away and got up. “I need to keep this job, remember?”

Nick’s gaze went serious too. “Louis, if—”

“Talk to your friend, Grimshaw,” Louis cut him off, sharply. “He likes you more than me.”

“It’s true,” Harry agreed, and Louis laughed before he went back behind the counter, with Niall following behind. When Harry turned back to Nick, he had his hand on his chest, where Louis’s name was hidden by his shirt, and he was looking at Louis with one of those looks he got sometimes, only around Louis and sometimes his dog, where all his charming wit fell away and it was just like…like he had come home.

God. Harry rubbed over his hip again. Was that too much to ask for? He hadn’t expected to know his soul mate already, or for it to be one of his closest friends or anything, but—it was just irritating, a bit. That he had to share Zayn’s name.

“Nick?” he asked. Nick broke off from staring at Louis to look at him.

“Yeah?”

“Can you keep a secret?” Nick was his best friend. He should know. He’d probably ask, soon enough.

“Ooh, is it juicy?” Nick leaned forward, intrigued.

“No! Well, just for me? So sort of. Eventually? I’m not sure.”

“Is it your soul mate? Sorry I didn’t ask the moment I walked in. I expected it to be tattooed on your forehead, to be honest.”

So had Harry, a bit. Somewhere obvious. Not in the one place even he usually hid. “Yeah. But you really can’t tell anyone. Not even Louis. Really not Louis.” That was the last person Harry wanted to know, before Zayn, because he’d probably tell Zayn then they’d laugh at him, and Zayn would give him that look he had like he thought Harry didn’t know anything.

“Oh.” Nick drew back, and his eyebrows came together. “Harry, I can’t.”

“What do you mean, can’t?” He had to tell Nick. He told Nick almost everything, except what he told Liam.

“I mean, I don’t like keeping secrets from Louis. It’s…hard.”

“But this is for me!” Harry could hear his voice rising, and lowered it before Louis or Niall noticed—or, worse, if Zayn did. “It doesn’t even really matter to him!”

“No, it’s not…” Nick shook his head. “Look, you’ll get it when you find your soul mate, okay? It’s hard. They know, sort of. They can tell. Like I can tell when Louis’s upset, or hurt. And it’s Louis, he’ll ask, and I can’t—I’m not going to lie.”

Harry could feel his lower lip jutting out. “Then who am I supposed to tell?”

Nick shrugged, looking awfully unconcerned for an awful unfeeling friend. “If Louis can’t know, I can’t. Sorry.”

“You’re as bad as Zayn is,” he informed Nick, then sighed and started quizzing Nick about the radio show he was thinking of starting.

---

Harry put off thinking about Zayn, his tattoo, or his photography project for about a week. But eventually, even he couldn’t avoid the topic altogether, mainly because Clara bounced into the photo lab on Thursday to show him her first shoot of an Asian boy holding a longsword in what looked like armor.

“It’s like, a culture fusion thing,” she said, bouncing excitedly on her heels. “I’m going to get a white girl in a samurai costume, stuff like that. Cool, right!”

“Awesome!” Harry flipped through the images on the computer, the different poses. It really was.

“I know!” she grinned, and nudged him out of the way so she could slide into the chair. “Have you done anything yet?”

So of course he had to. And so he texted Louis, who texted Zayn, and so through completely unnecessary complications Harry had a shoot set up for Saturday.

Which he was ready for. Harry wished he had someone to tell, as he waited by the car he had managed to beg off of Aimee. He was on time. He had even gotten two cups of coffee as a peace offering, because Zayn was even worse in mornings than he was usually. But if Zayn didn’t get here soon—as in, within fifteen minutes of when they were supposed to meet—then the coffee would go cold. And good riddance. At this rate, they would miss their window.

Finally, at seventeen minutes past eight, Harry caught sight of a black spot that had to be Zayn trekking across the parking lot. It had to be Zayn, Harry figured, because no one else would be stupid enough to just wear a leather jacket and a beanie in February. How wasn’t he freezing?

“You’re late,” He announced, when Zayn was close enough to hear him. Zayn barely glanced at him. Harry wasn’t even sure his eyes were open. “Here.” He shoved the coffee in Zayn’s direction. Zayn took it, still without looking at him, and wrapped his fingers around the paper cup. He wasn’t even wearing gloves. What was wrong with him?

It didn’t matter. As long as he had all his digits and his pretty face, Harry didn’t care if he had frostbite. Well, maybe if he had frostbite. But that was it. So Harry turned around to get into the car, as Zayn did the same on his side. Or at least the door opened and closed before Harry turned the car on. He didn’t look over until the car started beeping at him.

Just to be sure, he checked, but he had his seat belt on. “Zayn,” he snapped. “Put on your seat belt.” When the only retort was a muffled sound, Harry finally did turn to look. Zayn was tipped back in the seat, his hands still clutching the coffee. “Put on your damn seat belt.”

Zayn still didn’t say anything, just gave Harry a flat look as he slid the seatbelt across himself without ever letting go of the coffee. When the beeping finally stopped, Harry reversed out of the parking lot, then onto the nearly-empty street.

They drove in silence for the first minute, so Harry messed with the radio until he found a station he liked to drown out the sounds of Zayn sipping on his coffee, and breathing. Finally, after ten minutes of that, Zayn put the finished cup into the cupholder. “Where are we going?”

His voice was rough enough Harry wondered if those were the first words he’d said all day. If he always sounded so hoarse in the mornings, or what he might have been doing last—“The botanical gardens,” Harry cut off his own thoughts. As long as there weren’t bruises, he didn’t care. “My friend Liz, her mum works there, she’s getting us in early so we’ll have the place to ourselves. And so I can catch the morning light.”

“Morning light,” Zayn snorted.

“Yeah.” Harry could feel his fingers tightening on the steering wheel. “Thought you might have heard of it, with your own drawings and shit.”

“Heard of it. Never seen it, though.”

It was funny. Almost funny enough for Harry to laugh, if he hadn’t stopped himself, because Zayn wasn’t funny and he wasn’t someone Harry joked with. “Well, you’ll see it now,” he said instead.

Zayn nodded, and they lapsed into silence again.

But now that the silence had been broken, it felt too thick just sitting there. Harry could talk to anyone, surely he could manage not to sit in an awkward silence with Zayn for another ten minutes.

“So,” he began. “Is Zayn, like, a common name?” He didn’t touch his hip, but he wanted to.

“Yeah.” They pulled up to a stoplight, so Harry glanced over. Zayn had his eyes closed, his head tilted back like he was looking for the sun. “I mean, not terribly, but it’s not weird, really. Either spelled with a y or an i, ‘s the same name, just transliterated differently. Why?”

 “No reason.” Harry shifted in his seat as Zayn opened his eyes focused on him. Yes. This was good. There were many Zayns, he would probably meet another one

Zayn gave him another long look, then shut his eyes and to all appearances went back to sleep, except when he snorted at a song Harry started singing along to. Harry glared at him at that, but as his eyes were still closed it didn’t do much good.

They pulled up to the botanical gardens right as the sun started to break over the horizon, and Harry hurried Zayn in so they could catch it. It took some grins, dimples, and a bit of quick small talk with Liz’s mum, but within ten minutes Harry was ushering Zayn into the greenhouses, his camera bag bouncing on his hip.

He took a long, deep breath as he walked in, like always. Even this bit, which wasn’t particularly tropical or anything, just a bit of forest and such, seemed lush and growing and alive, like summer even in the midst of winter. Harry’d always loved it here, the plants and the life and the bits of everywhere he could find. All the places he’d go sometime, all the places that were bigger than his little town.

It was also beautiful, more to the point. And warm, even in the freezing weather outside, warm enough that Harry shrugged off his coat as Zayn took a slow circle around, looking at everything with a purposefully blank look on his face.

Harry ignored him as he pulled his camera out of the bag, checked the lens, snapped a few shots to check the lighting. It was only when he was done with that most important thing that he turned to Zayn.

Zayn was leaning against a tree, one booted foot propped up against it, his fingers drumming at his thigh like he wanted a cigarette. He looked very James Dean. Which was hot, of course, but not what Harry wanted.

“Hey.” Zayn looked up when Harry called, gave him a flat look.

But he pushed off the tree towards Harry. There was something feline in his walk, somehow, and without thinking Harry clicked a few shots of that, of Zayn’s smooth strut of a walk.

“That it?”

“What? no.” Harry looked at his camera like it might explain the urge to do that, but it didn’t help. He knew why it was, of course; despite everything Zayn was beautiful, and Harry liked taking pictures of beautiful things. “No, that was just to… test angles!” he finished triumphantly. That was a thing he did. He didn’t think Zayn had a bad angle, but he might have.

“Okay then. Direct me.” Despite his words, Zayn’s arms crossed over his chest, and his chin jutted up stubbornly.

But he was here to model. He had told Harry he would. Which meant Harry got to order him around. Which was not an opportunity that popped off often, so Harry was ready to take advantage of it.

“Okay, um, jacket off, definitely. And, just to be sure, obviously don’t do anything you’re uncomfortable with, just let me know. I’m going for a, like, organic look. Or, not organic, natural?”

“Primal,” Zayn suggested, and took his own jacket off to throw it on top of Harry’s. He had a t-shirt on underneath, a simple black shirt that hugged his shoulders.

“Yeah!” Harry gave Zayn a quick grin before he remembered they didn’t do that. “I—you have tattoos…” he trailed off, but gestured to his own torso. He’d seen them, of course, the sleeve and sometimes the chestpiece when it was revealed by a low-cut shirt.  

“Yeah. That a problem?”

“No, ‘s good! You mind taking your shirt off, too?” Apparently he didn’t, because he just stripped it off easily, threw it away.

Harry took one look at Zayn, then down at his camera. Then back up, because he was professional and had to look.

It was just—a lot. Smooth skin and dark nipples and lightly defined abs, and ink curling everywhere, up his arm and down his chest and on his hips. No words that Harry could see, but there was script, he thought, something Arabic on his collarbone.

“Is that…?” he asked, reaching out to touch. Maybe Zayn’s first language had been Arabic, so his tattoo would be too. 

“No.” Zayn jerked back before Harry could touch him. Fine then. Harry snatched his hand back, and surveyed him.

“Shoes and socks off too,” he decided. Zayn gave him another of those looks, then knelt to his feet to unlace his boots, his spine proudly straight, his neck rigid, like a cat only leaving because it wanted to not because you were kicking it off. Harry couldn’t help snapping a picture of that too, of the man kneeling without submitting.

Zayn didn’t comment, just stood back up once he was barefoot, in just dark jeans, surveying Harry with hooded eyes.

“And, sorry, just…how do you—” This was the bit most guys balked at. “I mean, do you mind make up? Some glitter? I want to make you look, well, like a fairy?”

“It’s fine.” Harry could feel Zayn’s eyes on him as he dug in his bag for the makeup kit he had thrown in. It was when his back was turned that he went on. “Am I your Puck, Harry?” Zayn asked. “If you wanted Puck, you should have asked Louis.”

“No!” Harry yelped. Zayn wasn’t his anything. At all. Then he took a deep breath, counted to ten. “No,” he repeated, calmer. Of course he would reference Shakespare. Harry shook his head as he returned to Zayn. “No, I want more Oberon, I think.”

He really couldn’t read Zayn’s face now, even when he was so close. “The cuckolded husband. Brilliant.”

“Yeah, he believed in love enough to get married, so it’s not quite right,” Harry agreed. He’d never understood Titania and Oberon, soul mates who still played games with each other and almost separated over a stupid slave boy. 

“I believe in love.” Zayn didn’t blink as Harry brandished the eyeliner, just looked up like he’d had this done to him before. “I don’t believe in soul mates.”

“How can you not believe?” Harry huffed out a breath, and almost smudged the eyeliner going over Zayn’s lid. He could count every eyelash from here, could feel Zayn’s even breathing. “It’s written on you, somewhere.”

“Oh, I believe they exist.” Zayn wrinkled his nose, and Harry scowled until he evened out again enough for Harry to trail the eyeliner off to the sides. Bringing cats-eye contacts would probably have been too much, he decided, but he stuck the eyeliner pencil in his pocket and pulled out glitter. Again, Zayn didn’t flinch. “I just don’t put stock in them.”

“Why not? You’ve seen how happy Louis and Nick are.” Not much glitter, Harry thought, and slid an absent hand under Zayn’s chin to steady him while he looked. More like blush.

“And they’re the lucky ones,” Zayn agreed. Harry could feel the words vibrate through his throat, could feel the faintest hint of stubble under his fingers “Now are you quite done?”

Harry was. He had probably been for a few seconds, but he was—distracted. Zayn was saying distracting things with distracting lips.

He dropped his hand, and stepped back to study his work. Zayn gazed back at him. Yes. Yes, Harry had done his job well, but he almost wished he had done worse. Zayn’s eyes looked darker and huge, deer-like, in his face, and the glitter turned his skin to gold, caught in his eyes and made him look like the light was drawn to him, like he had caught the dawn.

“Good?” Zayn drawled.

Harry’s eyes dropped to his camera. “Yeah, it’s good.” Professional. He had taken pictures of attractive people before. And it wasn’t Zayn’s name on his hip. Zayn hadn’t even wanted him to touch him, at first. He swallowed, composed himself. “Okay, I think, go by the tree…”

Zayn went where he directed him, without any commentary at all, or even meeting Harry’s eyes. Which he didn’t have to, for the shoot, Harry reminded himself. In fact, it was better if he didn’t. Fairies didn’t go catching mortal’s eyes.

“Okay, yeah, there.” Harry surveyed him, nodded, and stepped back. Zayn wasn’t particularly good at staying still, which Harry had expected a bit; he had seen him in the café, his fingers drumming over his thighs, fiddling with his cigarette, playing with the ends of Niall’s shirt or Louis’s fingers if Nick wasn’t there to occupy them.  It should have worked here, the motion, but…

Harry wrinkled his nose at the camera. Something was wrong. Zayn didn’t look like Oberon, he looked like a boy in glitter. It didn’t make sense. Harry knew Zayn could look like this, had seen him.

He took a look at the real thing. Zayn stood half-hidden by the leaves, but he had his lower lip caught between his teeth, and his shoulders were rigid and his fists clenched against his thighs. He was uncomfortable, Harry realized. He didn’t like this.

“Are you feeling okay?” Harry asked. He didn’t—he didn’t like Zayn, but he wasn’t trying to be mean. That was what Zayn did. “Not too cold or anything?”

Zayn shook his head. It dislodged some leaves, so they fell into his hair.

Okay, it wasn’t that. “Is it okay, your shirt being off? If you feel too exposed or something, I can take mine off too,” Harry offered. “Put us on equal footing.” Maybe he wanted that too. Wanted to see if Zayn’s eyes went dark at his chest, which he could say with very little vanity was very nice, because other people had told him that too.

But Zayn just shook his head again. “Don’t mind it.”

“Well, you mind something,” Harry insisted. Something was wrong. He could see it in the pictures, in the way Zayn was standing, his shoulders folded inward a bit, his chin drooping. He didn’t need to be his soul mate to know that.

“I’m fine.” Zayn’s head tilted up again, and there was a hint of fire in his gaze. There it was. Now if only he could hold that in front of the camera…

He didn’t like the camera. That was it! Harry smirked down at it. It wasn’t good, really, because Harry needed to use the camera, but he liked it anyway. Liked that he had something that made Zayn feel as off-balance as he did sometimes. Liked that he could fight back, a bit.

Which he would do sometime when he wasn’t on the clock and for a grade. Right now, he needed to relax Zayn. He very firmly pushed away all the ways he could do that with his tongue. He could talk. He could talk to anyone. He could talk to Zayn.

“You know, people used to think getting your picture taken stole your soul,” he started.

Zayn snorted mirthlessly, and his left hand twitched. “You haven’t gotten any of my soul, Styles.”

“I know that.”  Harry shifted his stance, so his weight was on his other hip. Maybe he was getting old, if that one was aching. “But it’s cool, right? All the superstitions.”

“The mythologies, you might say?”

“Exactly!” Harry grinned before he could help it, and took a step to the left. Zayn turned to follow him. “I’m actually glad I got this project, I like thinking about it. About what people believe, and why.”

“People have plenty of superstitions about the soul,” Zayn agreed, and—there it was, for a second, the fire burning in his eyes, the energy around him. Harry clicked two shots off before he withdrew again. “But the soul’s not what this is about, is it?”

“No.” Right, getting into a real fight with Zayn probably wouldn’t help. And he might want something other than anger. Something calmer, more…earthy. More eternal. He cast around for another topic. “So what does that tattoo say?”

“Which one?”

Harry fiddled a little with the lens. He didn’t think Zayn had ever looked at him for so long. “The writing on your collarbone. It’s Arabic, right?”

“Yeah.” Zayn’s gaze went hard. “That a problem?”

“No, ‘course not. Why would it be?”

“It is to a lot of people.” Zayn said it flatly, a fact.

“Well, that’s stupid. What does it say?”

“Why?”

Harry sighed. “Because doing this is silence is awkward as hell, and I’m making conversation. Even you can get that. Tilt you head up.”

Apparently he couldn’t, because he didn’t answer. Fine then. Harry could work in silence too. Especially because Zayn wasn’t looking at him anymore, something about him turned inward. Harry zoomed in on his face for a few shots, on the leaves falling into his face, the way his beautiful face stilled, far away

“It’s my grandfather’s name,” Zayn said, at last, so suddenly Harry almost dropped his camera.

“What?”

“The tattoo.” Zayn bit at his lip again, like he regretted even saying that much. “That’s what it says.”

“Oh. Why?”

“Because he died.” Zayn looks up to meet the camera when he says it, proud and unrepentant and sure. “Because I loved him, and he died, and that’s what the tattoos should commemorate. Love.”

That was it, Harry knew. That was the shot. That was Oberon in his kingdom. That was the Zayn he couldn’t capture, the soul that escaped his camera. “Oh,” he said, too late, too little. “I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault.”

“No, but—” Harry cast around for something to say. “What was he like?”

Something in Zayn…softened. No longer Oberon looking at his kingdom, but Oberon in his bower, with Titania and Puck. “He was great. Really loved my art, my biggest fan. Tried to get me to go out for X-Factor, few years ago.”

“You sing?”

“Not really. I mean, yeah, but just for fun.”  Zayn shrugged. “Wish I—” he cut himself off, sharply, and glared at tree where his hand was resting. “You got your pictures?”

“What?” Harry jolted at the abrupt change in subject. At the abrupt change in Zayn, like a wall had fallen between them. But right. That was Zayn. Zayn didn’t tell him about his dead grandfather. Zayn made fun of him and only talked to him when he had to. “Yeah. I’ve got plenty.”

“Good.” Zayn shook out his hair, the leaves falling in a swirl around him. “Let’s go, then. If we’re done here.”

Harry watched as he pulled himself together, as he shrugged on his jacket like he was putting on armor. Yeah. They were done here.

---

“So,” Liam asked, when Harry collapsed onto the couch next to him and tucked his head into his shoulder. He smelled reassuringly like Liam, sweat and the cologne he liked. “How was your time with Zayn?”

“Shut up.” Harry rubbed at his hip. “It’s not him. He said Zayn’s a not uncommon name, there are a lot of them.”

“That you happen to know?”

“Liam.” Harry pouted up at him. He didn’t need this. “Please? It’s not him. I don’t like him.”

“Okay.” Liam wrapped an arm around Harry. He was so good at hugs, Liam was. Why couldn’t Liam have been his soul mate? Liam understood him, usually. Or at least didn’t question him, even if sometimes he laughed at him when he started rambling. Liam was great. They could go to the gym together and listen to music together and be happy. Maybe it wouldn’t be—be, electric, or anything, but it would be comfortable and easy. Probably. It wouldn’t be an adventure, but it could be good.

But Liam’s name wasn’t on him anywhere. So Harry just took what comfort he could from him, and dreamed about the person who would love him more than anything.

---

Monday, Harry uploaded the pictures onto the photolab computer to play with. He could have done it on his laptop at home, and he would, but he liked the big screens at the lab. They let him see the detail better.

And there was plenty of detail, most of it good, Harry knew, as he flicked through the photos. Like he had expected, the first bunch (except for the one of Zayn kneeling, which was—well—Harry might have to print that out for his own, to think what he could do to Zayn kneeling like that, how he could make that proud back bend) were awkward. Then, though—then they got good.

“Those are great,” Clara observed, scooting over behind him on her chair. Sometimes he wondered if she just lived in the lab. But given that he spent most of his free hours here too, he shouldn’t really question anything. “Very…fey. Not in the gay sense.” Her lips quirked upwards. “bit in the gay sense, though. Is he wearing glitter?”

“Fairy dust,” Harry explained absently, settling on the shot he knew he’d probably settle on. Zayn was mostly in shadow from the tree, like he was fading into it, except for the glint of his eyes and glitter on his cheekbones.

“Sure.” When he turned to wrinkle his nose at her, she just lifted her hands up with a laugh. “Just saying, he’s hot, and you clearly know it. Who is he?”

“My…” who was he? No one, really. No one at all. “He’s my mate’s boyfriend’s mate.” She was still looking at the photo consideringly. He should warn her away. Because Zayn was mean and awful, and she didn’t want him, she shouldn’t want him, she shouldn’t look at him like that. People shouldn’t look at Zayn like that, like they wanted him. “But he’s kind of an asshole.”

“Not my type.” But she was still looking at him. Just because, Harry threw the contrast way off, so he was all skewed.  He looked…minorly less attractive. “No, I just think I recognize him, ‘m trying to figure out how. Put it back?”

Harry did. “He was at my party?” he suggested. “Or he works at Treasures? Maybe you’ve seen him there?”

“The bookstore? Nah.” She tapped her finger against her chin, then her eyes lit up. “Oh, he’s Jane’s boyfriend!”

“Jane?”

“This girl, she lived on my floor two years ago. He was her boyfriend. They were that couple that was making out everywhere, sickeningly cute. Couldn’t keep their hands off each other. I didn’t recognize him without that smile on his face.”

“Smile?” Harry choked out. He couldn’t—Zayn was wild and cynical and sarcastic. He didn’t…he wasn’t an adoring boyfriend. He wasn’t.

“Yeah, like, he had this ridiculous doting smile whenever he looked at her. It was disgusting.”

“Disgusting?”

“You know, so cute. The kind of love everyone wants to be in.”

Have you ever been in love, Harry had asked. Apparently he had. Apparently he had been in sickeningly cute love, the kind of love everyone wanted to be in.

“Oh.” Harry rested a hand on his thigh, looked at the picture, at Zayn staring at the camera with hooded eyes that gave nothing away. “What happened?”

“Dunno. I figured they’d be together forever. They aren’t?”

“I…don’t think so.” It’s been a year, Louis had said. Was that what it had been a year since?

“Huh. Never know, do you.” Clara gave the screen a final shrug. “You just going to use these, or do more?”

“More.” Harry answered, a little vaguely. Had Zayn’s stupidly adoring smile been like how he looked at Niall sometimes, like he was all the sunshine in the world? Or like how he looked at Louis, like he was so happy he was with him? Or was it something else, something Harry hadn’t seen?

Not that it mattered. At all. Because Harry’d certainly never gotten it, and wouldn’t. Because Zayn couldn’t be his soul mate, not if he had loved this girl like Clara said he had. Maybe she’d had to leave for some reason, and Zayn was just in a bad mood because she wasn’t here with him. Probably. That made sense. He already had a soul mate, so he couldn’t be Harry’s. That was probably good to know.

Harry shifted uncomfortably in his seat, and massaged away the sudden pain in his thigh. He must have been sitting for too long.

---

“Not you too!” Harry moaned, when Liam paused in front of Treasures and Tea. He’d been… well, not avoiding it, for the past few days. But he hadn’t had a reason to go in. As long as Nick didn’t make him, he didn’t like it there. He’d already spent hours two days ago staring at pictures of Zayn, and then more yesterday brainstorming ideas for another shoot, he didn’t need to see him in person too.

“I want a cookie!” Liam insisted. “And didn’t you say you needed to pick up some books?”

“Yeah, but—” But not now, when he can see Zayn through the plate glass windows, his head bent to whisper with Louis, the fern at his neck clearly visible.

“I want to say hi to Louis,” Liam went on, “I haven’t seen him for a while. Unless you’re worried you won’t be able to resist your soul mate impulses and jump Zayn—”

“He is not my soul mate,” Harry stated, firmly. Now that he’d been basically dared, he really didn’t have a choice. “Fine. A cookie. And you’re buying my tea.”

“’m glad you’re not my soul mate,” Liam teased, opening the door. “You’re so needy.”

“I’m not needy!” He wasn’t. He liked attention, but he wasn’t needy. He didn’t think buying a cookie was needy. “I just want to be treated like a princess.”

“Such a diva,” Liam ruffled Harry’s hair, and Harry grinned back at him as they approached the counter.

Neither Zayn nor Louis looked at them. Harry’d never seen them argue before, but he was pretty sure that was what he was seeing now, from how Zayn’s fingers were clenched on Louis’s shoulders like he wanted to shake them, from how he was almost shaking.

“Just tell him!” Zayn was saying, fervently. “You’ve got to—”

“I can’t. He doesn’t need to know.”

“You can’t just give everything—”

“What do you know?” Louis shoved Zayn away, roughly enough that Zayn stumbled back. His eyes were narrowed, still angry, and he looked like he was about to say something more, when he caught sight of Liam and Harry, waiting patiently (or patiently, on Liam’s part. Harry’s foot was drumming against the ground. He didn’t particularly like being around confrontation).

“Fine,” Zayn spat. “Be an idiot, whatever.” He spun on his heel and strode toward the bookstore, his shoulder set and tight.

Harry was busy watching him go when Louis cleared his throat. “Sorry about that,” He said, and brushed a hand through his hair. “Hey, Liam, how’re you?”

“Not bad. You okay?”

“Yeah, fine. Zayn’s just being a prat!” He raised his voice on the last word, but there wasn’t any response from the bookstore. “Anyway,” Louis went on, with a fairly believable smile, “What do you want?”

Liam glanced at Harry, his eyebrows raised, but Harry shrugged, so Liam just gave Louis his best concerned look. “Two cookies, please. Chocolate chip and—what do you want, Haz?”

“Oatmeal raisin,” Harry answered absently. There was—what had that been? He’d never seen Zayn angry at Louis before.

“Want it warmed up?”

“Definitely.” Liam leaned forward. “So how are things, Louis? Haven’t talked to you for an age.”

“’s cause you had to fuck off and start doing work and shit,” Louis retorted. “Gotten too good for us slackers.”

“You aren’t a slacker,” Liam informed Louis, rolling his eyes, “You just have a…”

“Alternative work ethic,” Louis filled in, with another good attempt at a grin. “So true. And you, Harry? Heard the shoot went well. I think. There was a lot of swearing involved.”

“Yeah…” Harry pushed his hair back. “I’m gonna go grab some books, okay?”

“Sure.” Liam grinned knowingly. So did Louis. Louis did like grinning knowingly.

Harry ignored them both. He just wanted to spend as little time here as he could, so he was being efficient. And he wanted to get his books here, because he liked used books, liked how loved they’d been, so he had to check here before going to a big store. It all made sense, really.

Well, it made sense in the café half. But once Harry had ducked into the tall, winding shelves it made less sense. He always forgot how disordered it was here. Which he liked sometimes, because it meant he found cool new things (cool old things, rather) when he was looking for something else, but not when he needed something, and Zayn was sitting at the counter, a pencil clenched in his fingers as he stabbed it at a sketchbook. 

But he needed the book. So after five minutes of fruitless searching through the S section, and even locating the Shakespeare and not finding it, he approached the counter.

Zayn wasn’t quite pacing, but he wasn’t still either, and the pencil was twirling between his fingers like it was about to snap.

“Hey.”

The pencil twirled one more time.

“Hey, Zayn,” Harry repeated, and the pencil fell to the table with a clatter.

“What?” Zayn snapped. Harry almost flinched back at that, at the lash of anger, but he was used to Zayn not liking him. He didn’t need Zayn to like him. He just needed his book.

“Can you give me some help?” Harry kept his voice even, like it didn’t matter that Zayn was shaking just a little as he picked the pencil back up.

“Depends what it is.” He was trying to be calm, Harry thought. But he wasn’t calm, anyone could see that. He might have schooled his expression to blankness, but Harry could see the tension in him well enough.

“I’m looking for a book.”

“Figured.”

“Stop it!” Harry retorted, then took a deep breath. Him getting angry wouldn’t help anything. Zayn wasn’t even angry at him. “I’m doing research on my project, I guess, because I’ve done the theme, you know, so I wanted to reread the play. And I know all of Shakespeare’s online but it’s not the same. Not for Shakespeare, really, I want to read him on paper. It feels disrespectful otherwise. There are some authors like that, aren’t there? I wouldn’t read Milton online either. It’d be like reading the Bible online. It’s…” He stopped, grasping for the word.

“Sacrilegious,” Zayn filled in.   

“Yeah, exactly. So I need a copy of the Tempest, but…” he trailed off. He was rambling. He didn’t want to ramble in front of Zayn, who would make fun of him forever, or just raise a condescending eyebrow and make Harry feel made fun of.

“But you can’t find it?” Zayn finished. He didn’t sound like he was laughing. When Harry looked, he even looked a little less purposefully blank. The pencil was set on the counter, at least, and not looking like he was about to stab it through someone’s eye.

“No. Did you mess the shelves up on purpose? They don’t make any sense.”

“Would’ve, but I didn’t have to. I think the owner likes it weird. Idiosyncratic, or whatever.” Zayn surged to his feet in a sudden motion that did have Harry starting back. “I’ll see if I can find it.”

“Thanks.”

Zayn still was walking with the quick, stiff-legged pace he did when he got particularly mad as he headed in the opposite direction as the other Shakespeares Harry had found. He stopped at what seemed to Harry a random spot, then crouched, his fingers running over the spines one at a time, like it was calming him down. His head was bent, the fern rising out from behind his collar, with his hair curling above it.

Harry clenched his fists. “What were you and Louis arguing about?”

“Nothing.” Zayn grabbed a book off the shelf, then straightened. “Here.”

Harry looked at it, a tiny paperback, dog-eared thing that looked seconds from falling apart. “That copy?”

“Yeah. It’s the best.” He said it so surely, Harry had to ask, teasing a bit,

“Really?”

“Yeah, look.” He stepped closer, opened the book so Harry could see. Their shoulders were maybe inches apart, and Harry could have—if he wanted, which he didn’t—rested his chin on Zayn’s shoulder to look, maybe wrap an arm around his waist. Instead, Harry focused on the yellowed pages, with three different color inks in the margins. “You get all the commentary, it’s better.”

 “That’s great!” Harry had to admit, and grinned at Zayn. “You’re right, this is the best kind. I love used books, you know?”

“Hey, I work here.” Zayn stayed looking at the book in his hand, so Harry was looking at his profile. “So, am I going to be Caliban next?”

Harry shook his head. His curls brushed against Zayn’s cheek. “No, I was thinking about doing things with the four elements, you know?”

“So Ariel for air?”

“Exactly.” Harry glanced at him, at the fine bones of his profile, at the way his brow furrowed. “Why did you think of Caliban instead of Ariel? Most people think of Ariel more, when they think of The Tempest.”

“I’m not Ariel,” Zayn’s lips tightened, and he drew his fingers over the text. “I wouldn’t serve willingly.”

“Didn’t Caliban end up serving someone else, though?”

“At least he chose it.” Suddenly, Zayn turned his head so he could look at Harry, and Harry almost lost his breath at the closeness, and at the wry curve of Zayn’s lips. He’s fairly sure he’s never seen him smile before, not at Harry, even if it’s ironic. “Don’t argue with the Pakistani boy about Caliban, Styles. It won’t end well.”

“What?” Harry remembered, slowly, to breathe, then to listen, then what Zayn had said. “Oh, yeah. I guess the colonialism stuff—”

“Yeah, that stuff. The whole being killed by Brits left and right then coming here and still being called a terrorist.” Zayn was still almost smiling, though, and his lips were pink against carefully edged stubble. “So take your airy sprite and go.”

“Right.” Harry managed to look away from his lips, but that only made him look at his eyes, and that wasn’t much better. He was looking at Harry too, and his eyes were bright with something that wasn’t anger. Amusement, maybe? Something Harry hadn’t seen before, definitely. It made him look even better, if that were possible.

It was because of that haze, Harry thought, that he said what he said next. Because it almost looked like Zayn had glanced at his lips for a second, and Harry had a soul mate who wasn’t him. “What happened to Jane?”

It was like a spell had been lifted, or cast. Zayn jerked away, the smile dying back into his usual cool anger as his other hand wrapped around his cuff. “Who the fuck told you about her?”

“No one! Someone mentioned it.” She had to have left, Harry decided. There’s no other way he would act like this. “Was she your soul mate?” His hip was hurting again. He should really get that looked at. “Is she taking a year abroad, or something? Because—”

“No,” Zayn said it flatly. “No. Now was this all you need?”

Harry’d never been good at getting told no. Clearly he couldn’t just leave now. “No, do you have any Bukowski? Nick was telling me I need to read that.”

“Oh, he would.” Zayn drawled.

“Hey! Nick gives good book recommendations.”

“Sure, if you want to read dead white men moaning about their problems.” Zayn rolled his eyes, but he strode a few shelves down, then reached up to grab a book off the top shelf. He had to stand on tip-toe a bit to reach the shelf, and his shirt rode up in back, which Harry didn’t stare at or anything. He’d already spent a while staring at Zayn’s back in a few pictures. He knew what it looked like.

“Nick said it was good.”

“Nick is an old white man moaning about his problems.”

“Do you not like Nick? Is that what you and Louis were arguing about?”

Zayn picked a book off the shelf, tipped it out into his hand. “Nick’s fine. He gives me good grades. He makes Louis happy. That’s all I care about.” He settled back onto the soles of his boots, but grabbed another book of the shelf before he turned around and shoved the books at Harry.

Harry glanced at the cover. “Orhan Pamuk?”

“At least he’s not white,” Zayn shrugged. “If you really do want to see how other people think, and weren’t just bullshitting. Do you want it?” 

“Yeah.” Harry might bullshit a lot, but he hadn’t been. Really. He didn’t remember exactly what he had said, but he was pretty sure he had meant it. “Yeah, I do.” He’d read it. He’d show Zayn he wasn’t—that he wasn’t stupid, or silly, or a little boy. That he could understand him, even if he was sure he never could.

---

Harry, he decided, was never going to forgive Nick. Or Liam. Or Louis. Or whoever had decided they should all go out tonight, Louis and Niall and Nick and Liam and Harry and Zayn. It was clearly a horribly awful no good idea and they should never have listened to whoever proposed it, because it was a stupid idea.

“This was a stupid idea,” he informed the table, because it was important to point that out.

Liam nodded. He was still there. That was good. After everyone else had abandoned Harry, Nick and Louis disappearing to dance, Niall going off to get a drink at the bar and had somehow gotten lost or something, and Zayn going after him some time later. Except he wasn’t coming back. He was just leaning against the bar, with both arms behind him, looking unfairly good all in black, with that stupid cuff at his wrist.

“Stupid,” Harry repeated, and took another long drink of his vodka soda. “Why are we here?”

“To have fun?” Liam suggested. He didn’t seem drunk enough, so Harry held out his drink to him. Liam took an obliging sip. “You could try having fun.”

“I’m trying!” Harry objected. “I am! Look at me, I’m drunk. That means I’m trying to have fun.”

“That means you’ve been trying not to stare at Zayn since we got here.”

“That,” Harry waved his glass emphatically, “Is professional, because I need to figure out how to do more pictures of him. It’s hard, Li. He always looks good, so how am I supposed to make him look better?”

“Make who look better?” Zayn was there, somehow, even though he had just been at the bar. He grabbed a chair from a nearby table and spun it around so he could sit on it backwards, his chin hooked over the back. It was stupid. He could have just sat on it normally.

“You.” Harry stabbed a finger at him. “I’ve got three more elements to figure out. And ‘m stuck on fire.”

“If you douse your hand in oil you can set it on fire for a few seconds before you get burned.”

“No!” Harry didn’t care how excited Zayn looked at the prospect, it wasn’t okay. He didn’t want Zayn to get burned. “No. I don’t want you set on fire.”

“You sure?” Zayn drawled, and Harry was too far gone to remember he shouldn’t poke him like he would a friend.

“Not usually. I’m a good person. I just need you to be fiery, but not set on fire.” Harry sighed, and took another drink.

“You could find a fireplace and do something with that,” Liam suggested. Harry considered it for a second, then shook his head.

“Not a fireplace. Fireplaces are tame. And I can’t actually set something on fire.”

“You sure?” Zayn said again, and Harry poked him again. He was fun to poke. He didn’t go away or get annoyed like Liam did, he just gave Harry a look that was almost a smile if Harry didn’t know Zayn didn’t smile at him. He was drunk, that was probably why.

“Yes.” Harry ran his hands through his hair. “I’m stuck.”

“You’ll think of something,” Liam assured him, and patted him on the head. It felt nice, reassuring, because it was Liam, and Liam was the best.

“You’re the best,” he told Liam, then turned to Zayn. “I read your book.”

“Yeah?” Did Zayn ever say things more than one syllable? Harry wasn’t sure. But he didn’t have to be so surprised that Harry had read it. “Like it?”

“It was good! Weird, but, like...” Harry waved his hands around to try to find his point. “Thinky. Thoughtful.”

“Made you think?” Zayn filled in. Harry was almost sure he wasn’t frowning at him this time, which was weird and wrong and Harry didn’t know what to do with it.

“Yeah….” Harry looked at his glass. It was empty. He needed… “I need another drink.” He needed to get away from where Zayn wasn’t frowning at him and wasn’t making fun of him because it didn’t make sense no matter how drunk Zayn was.

So he got up, and wandered over to the bar, because there was alcohol there and not someone with the same name as his soul mate who was too pretty and didn’t like him. There was an open stool, so he was about to slide onto it when a girl with big brown eyes and dirty blonde hair came up next to him, and because he was a nice person he let her have it.

“Thanks.” She grinned at him, and he grinned back, loose and easy, and stood on his tiptoes to get the bartender’s attention. Once he had finally flagged her down, it seemed silly to make the girl wait too, so after a bit of negotiation he had ordered for both of them, she had handed him the money she would have owed, and he had learned that her name was Becky and she was in second year and her cat’s name was Kanye, which was pretty cool, and Harry wanted a cat.

He was just expounding on how much he wanted a cat, and how he’d probably name it something that Liam would call hipster and pretentious but maybe something like Ariel, when suddenly there was a hand on his shoulder and he was shoved roughly back.

“You flirting with my girl?”

Harry looked up. The guy was big, really big, and he had kinda beady eyes, and his hands were even bigger than Harry’s.

“What?” he managed to get out, before the guy shoved him again. He hit the bar, hard, his back digging into the edge. “I—”

“No, Jim, it wasn’t—” Becky started, wide-eyed, but the guy ignored them, and raised his hand to push Harry again, or maybe to punch him, and Harry didn’t even know what was happening, what to say, he hated this, didn’t know what to do with it why was he mad he had just been talking he just liked meeting new people he didn’t know—

Then he was getting pushed again, but not into the bar but behind someone, and suddenly Zayn was there in front of him, like he had just materialized out of the air.

“Get the fuck away from him,” Zayn hissed. He wasn’t big, Harry knew that, but he still looked kinda terrifying, not like Liam who could go all hulky, but like he would stab you and not care, like he didn’t care what happened. It crackled in him like lightning, and Harry couldn’t even blink, couldn’t look away—

But the guy took a step back. “He was hitting on my girl.”

“Get away from him,” Zayn repeated, like a cat with his hackles raised, like it was a magic spell.

“Jim!” That was Becky again, sliding around Zayn and grabbing at his arm. “Jim, it wasn’t, come on, why the fuck would you think that?”

“I—” Zayn took a step forward, and the guy swayed back. “Okay, fine. Come on, Becks. We’re going.”

“We sure are,” she agreed, and shot an apologetic look over her shoulder as she pushed past Jim. Harry still couldn’t—what had—had he almost been in a fight? He had just been talking, he didn’t even care about her, she had just been a nice girl and—

“Styles.”

And he had been talking and he could have gotten hurt he could have—

“Styles, are you okay?”

He could have gotten really hurt that guy had been big and Harry might be in good shape but he didn’t know how to fight or anything what if—

“Harry, come on, Harry, are you okay?” There were hands on his cheeks, suddenly, like anchors, like brands, and they were guiding his head down so he was looking right at Zayn, right into those wild hazel eyes that weren’t so wild right now.

Harry blinked. He had a freckle in one eye. Of course he did. And his eyelashes were too long and dark and in the light he didn’t look angry he just looked worried. “I…”

“Come on, we’re getting some air.” The hands were gone, but one was on the small of his back, and he was being guided out the door.

The cool air hit Harry like a sobering wave, and he stumbled away from Zayn to lean his head against the wall, to take a few deep yoga breaths to even himself out. He was okay. Nothing had happened. A hand ran down his back, up and down, and it was solid and present and grounding and warm. He was okay. That was what Zayn was saying in his ear, whispered words Harry didn’t really understand but just listened to, took in.

He didn’t know how long he stood there, but when he finally turned around Zayn was a few feet away, lighting a cigarette like he hadn’t just been comforting Harry through a breakdown.

“Better?” he asked, and slid the cigarette into his mouth.

Harry stared at it, for lack of anything else to stare at, then collapsed back against the wall, so he had something solid to hold him up. “Yeah. I mean. What. If you hadn’t—” He could feel his breathing start to quicken, start to drop back to panic, and—

“Hey, no. Talk to me. Tell me about your ideas for the project.” Zayn’s voice cut through the panic, sharp and sudden. “How you going to make me pretty?”

“Um.” Harry scrubbed his hands over his face. “I don’t know. Like I was saying. Fire’s hard. There’re so many variables with it, so I need to have it planned out if I want to use fire. And it’s hard to work it in with a person, unless I used some sort of red filter or something, and that’s just uninspired. I’m uninspired.”

“It’s ‘cause you’re thinking about it the wrong way.” Harry gave Zayn a questioning look. He was an artist too, Harry guessed; he might have ideas. He just—hadn’t thought of Zayn volunteering them. But Zayn had saved him. Zayn had murmured words Harry weren’t even sure were in English to him to calm him down.

“What?”

“I mean, it’s, like, fire’s not about the fire, only. Not in this case, right? Unless you somehow have a desert handy.” Zayn took another drag of the cigarette, blowing smoke up so it curved in the air around the stars. “Like, for people who had myths about fire. People don’t want fire for fire’s sake, not like, say, water. People want fire because it’s not the dark. It’s why we have nightlights. Because…” His fingers tightened around his cigarette, as he glanced around. “because you don’t know what might be in the dark. It’s frightening.”

“If you don’t know better, yeah, I guess.” It was a new avenue, definitely, somewhere for Harry to go, and it was fitting Zayn was the one who got fire because he was so much fire, burning bright and dangerous to the touch, except not just to Harry apparently, but to people who wanted to hurt Harry. “Thanks.”

“Just pointing it out.”

“No. Well, yes, for that too, because that’s a cool way to think about it. But for in there.” Harry inched a little closer. Their pinkies were almost brushing. “For saving me and all.”

Zayn shrugged. “Wasn’t anything.”

“Sure it was.” Harry grinned at him, his best thank-you smile, “My hero, aren’t you?”

That smile had been known to melt hearts and get Harry whatever he wanted. But this time, Zayn’s eyes widened, and he took a stumbling step back. “No,” he snapped, stubbing out his cigarette on the wall. “No, I’m not, I’m just not an awful person, that’s all. Just because I didn’t want you to get hurt—no. No.” He took another step back, like he was frightened of Harry. “I won’t. No. It was just—nothing.”

And with that he spun on his heel and strode quickly away, melting into the darkness like he’d never been here to begin with, except for the confusion he left behind.

---

“What’s wrong with you?”

Zayn blinked. It was a very pretty blink, Harry could admit, all eyelashes and slightly pursed lips, but it was still uninformative.

So he did the only logical thing, and leaned on the bookstore counter so he could get closer. So Zayn could hear him better.  “What’s wrong with you?” he repeated, slowly.

“Many things, I’m sure,” Zayn retorted. Or, not retorted. Drawled. He was back to drawling, clearly. Which was, Harry supposed, at least something, which was better than the last week where he didn’t respond to anything, not even through Louis.

Not that Harry wanted to get in touch with him, really. Or not for anything more than practical purposes. But…something would have been nice. A checkup call, maybe. Maybe a checkup feeling up, if it had been necessary. Just…something. Something so he knew maybe Zayn had thought about it too, like Harry had, dreamed about it. About Zayn materializing out of the crowd like the fairy Harry had made him, glowing gold like Harry had thrown glitter on him. Except in his dreams, Zayn hadn’t run away. In his dreams, that burning-bright gaze had turned on Harry and wrapped itself around him, pressed him against the wall and pressed fiery kisses into his skin.

Not that Harry wanted that. Well, other than because Zayn was beautiful. But he wasn’t—he couldn’t be. He had Jane, who he was sweet with, who he looked at like he adored her. Harry knew, if he got Zayn naked (don’t think about it don’t) somewhere there would be her name on him. Not on his torso, Harry knew. Maybe somewhere on his thigh, where the dark jeans he wore that clutched at his wiry thighs would hide it. Maybe on his ass, the tight plane of it that was barely there but was still somehow horribly distracting. Maybe—

“Are you okay?” Zayn asked. Harry shook his head. Right. Probably should not zone out fantasizing about someone else’s soul mate naked while trying to get something from him. And being mad at him. Harry couldn’t forget that.

“Yes, I’m fine. Which you would know, if you had talked to me.”

Zayn tilted back in his chair, so only the back two legs were on the ground. It meant he looked at Harry over the straight, sharp bone of his nose. But it was a cold look, impassive. Not the golden thing it had been at the club. “Lou would’ve told me if you weren’t.”

“Good to know you care about people that much.” Harry let out a long breath. That wasn’t actually what he came here to talk about. “Anyway. If you had bothered to respond to me, you would know I need to do another shoot today.”

Zayn raised his eyebrows. “Today?”

“Yes, today, because we need to go back to the gardens and I could only get time today. You get off in five minutes, right?” Harry glanced at his watch. “Or, like, three I guess?”

Zayn didn’t bother looking at his own watch. “And your point is?”

“That we’re going after it.”

“I could have class.”

“You don’t.”

“I could be busy.”

“You aren’t.”

“How do you know?” Zayn’s brows furrowed slightly, and Harry held in a grin. Hah.

“Louis told me. Come on.”

“Louis doesn’t know my whole schedule.”

“You aren’t busy,” Harry repeated, certainly. “If you were, you would have told me and laughed in my face. Now—” The doorbell jangled, and a student walked in, an Asian kid in a shirt that Harry thought referenced some a video game and a streak of scarlet in his hair, who nodded to Zayn.

“Hey, Zayn,” he said, tossing his bag next to Zayn’s. “’sup?”

“’s cool.” Zayn tipped the chair back down with a thump. “You?”

“Good.” The guy cast Harry a sidelong glance. “Who’s he?”

Zayn paused. Harry waited with bated breath. Who was he, Zayn? The guy you defend like you’d have killed someone who looked at him sideways, then ignore? “Friend,” Zayn said, after a beat too long. Harry snorted. Friend. He was pretty sure he knew they weren’t that.

The guy gave Harry another slow look. “Sure. You out?”

“Yes,” Harry broke in to the scintillating conversation. “Come on Zayn, we’ve got places to be.” He gave the guy a bright grin. “I’m Harry, by the way.”

“Victor.” As usual, Harry’s smile went a long way towards melting the judgment, as Zayn sighed heavily and got to his feet, scooping up his backpack as he went. “Later.”

“Later!” Harry grinned again, for good measure, then grabbed at Zayn’s wrist the instant he was out from behind the counter to pull him away. His fingers closed around it for a second, brushing leather and skin, before Zayn yanked it away with a hiss.

“Don’t touch me!” he snapped, grabbing the wrist to his chest and cradling it like Harry had burned it or something. Now he didn’t look cool anymore. If anything, he looked young, his eyes wide and his nails digging into his skin.  

“Fine,” Harry snapped back. He didn’t need that. He didn’t even want to. He wanted to forget how Zayn had rubbed his back, the way his palm had felt against Harry’s spine. How he had taken the fear away until it was a story, an adventure. “Just come on. We haven’t got all day.”

“I—”

“Zayn,” Harry cut him off, and Zayn froze, like his name was a magic spell. “Zayn,” Harry repeated, for good measure. “Come on, please?” he tried a pout this time, his best puppy dog eyes that Liam said were deadly and even made Nick give in sometimes. “I want to do an evening thing, for water, and we can only stay ‘til seven.”

Zayn was biting his lip, teeth digging into the pink there. Harry flicked his gaze back up to his eyes. That was safer. Even if there was a hint of that panic in there from that night in the club, the instant before he ran, that just made Harry want to wrap himself around him and kiss him until he was better, until he was less scared.

“Yeah,” he said at last, on what sounded like a sigh of defeat. “Yeah, fine.” He strode past Harry, their shoulders bumping as he went, and Harry spared Victor a grin of triumph as he followed him out.

That triumph lasted about thirty more minutes, until they were actually standing in front of the pond.

“You want me to get in.” Zayn gave the water a look that would have burned it, if it hadn’t been, well, water, and pushed tight fists into his thighs. “In there.”

“It’s water. You need to be in the water.” Zayn didn’t look away from the pool. He already had his shirt off, and he had taken the makeup from Harry in the car, folding himself up so he could brace his elbow on his knee and trace on the eyeliner and mascara with suspiciously capable hands, then dusting on glitter with a slightly less liberal hand than Harry might have liked. But he also liked how Zayn looked when he sparkled, so maybe he was biased.

“It’s the middle of February.”

“It’s heated.”

“I’ll get, like, human germs in it, or something.”

“It’s fine, I asked.” Well, had hinted it might happen, and no one had told him no, which Harry figured was close enough. “And since when do you care?”

“I care very much about the environment,” Zayn shot back. “Couldn’t I stand next to the water?”

“No!” Harry resisted the urge to stomp his foot. “You won’t even really have to go deep, just enough to get behind the waterfall.”

“Wouldn’t it be better—”

“No!” Harry bit his lip rather than yell, or cry, or something, out of sheer frustration. Zayn jerked back at the volume, then straightened his shoulders, eyes narrowing. “I have this planned out, and it’ll be great, and you’ll look great, if you would just actually do what I asked for once and not try to make everything go wrong!” Everything, from the name on his hip to how fucking beautiful he was to the look he had given Harry, that made Harry actually—well, not hate him. Not then. “It’s not that hard!”

“I’m not sabotaging anything!”

“Then just get in the pool.”

“I—” Zayn bit at his lip, and the fight seemed to melt out of him. He gave the water a sidelong look. “Do you know how deep it is?”

“I don’t know, not that deep probably. Why does it even matter?”

Now, finally, Zayn turned to look at him, and he was still chewing at his lip even if the anger was still simmering in his tense shoulders and the corners of his eyes. “Never mind. It’s fine.”

But that was so obviously a lie Harry couldn’t let it sit. “No, it’s not. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I’ll do it, where do you want me to go?”

“Zayn, I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to do, so what’s wrong?” Zayn shook his head, ran his hand over the cuff he still refused to take off. “I won’t stop asking until you tell me.”

“It’s nothing. I just.” Zayn’s back set, his stance spreading so it looked like he was braced against something. “I can’t swim.”

Harry’s mouth opened, then closed again. “What?”

“I can’t swim,” Zayn muttered again. He stared straight at Harry, hard enough that Harry knew he was fighting ducking his head with everything he had. “So, it really does matter. Actually.”

“Oh.” Well, that actually made sense, as a reason. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

Zayn raised his eyebrows at Harry, like ‘duh’, and again, that was sort of a fair point.

“Okay.” Harry drummed his fingers over his camera. He really wanted this shot—had been inspired and everything, almost literally, had woken up with it dancing behind his eyes, of Zayn veiled by water, still just out of reach, out of phase, like you could—almost—reach out and touch. “You can get behind it just by skirting the edges of the pool, see?” he gestured to the stony edges. “That definitely isn’t deeper than your thighs.”

“Yeah, I know.” Harry watched Zayn’s adam’s apple bob. It hit something in him, something painful and needy, like Zayn’s fear hurt him, too. Maybe he was a good person. Maybe it wasn’t right, the tentativeness in Zayn. He didn’t want Zayn nervous and stiff. “I said, I’ll be fine. It’s nothing.”

“I’ll save you if you fall in, don’t worry.” Harry gave him his best cheer-up grin. “Don’t worry, I’ll jump in and drag you out, it’ll be really heroic. I’ll probably get a medal.”

“Yeah?” Zayn’s lips were curving into something that was almost a smile, so Harry kept on.

“Yeah, definitely, a medal. Maybe even a street named after me. Or, I dunno, a path, if it’s in here? Maybe a tree. I think I’d like a tree. A weeping willow, probably, like Pocahontas!  Or maybe an oak? I don’t know, I’d have to look up the symbolism…”

He trailed off, because Zayn was—Zayn was grinning at him, and he’d never seen quite this smile before, even when he looked at Niall, not quite the same level of laughter in his eyes, his lips curved slightly differently, his tongued pressed more against his teeth. It took all the breath out of Harry, even when he looked down to fiddle at his camera so Zayn wouldn’t notice.

“Sorry,” he muttered.

“Nah.” There was even something different about Zayn’s voice, something looser, lighter. “It’s—it’s fine.”

Then Harry had to look up, he figured, because he needed to watch to make sure he didn’t need to save Zayn. He really, really, had to watch the muscles of his back shift as he picked his way along the edge of the pond like a wet cat. He paused at the edge of the waterfall, made a face, then ducked behind it. There was just enough room that Harry was pretty sure he didn’t even get his hair wet as he settled down behind the veil of water.

It was just what Harry had imagined it being, even when Harry had to climb into the pool too, so he could press himself back against the back of the waterfall and see if he could get some images of Zayn with the water behind him. He looked…calm, this time, which worked. Harry didn’t have to talk, to relax him; Zayn just tilted his head back with his eyes closed tightly, breathing in deep, steady breaths that sounded almost purposeful. It made it dreamier, the closed eyes, the way the glitter caught in his eyelashes, so Harry didn’t tell him to open them. There was something lovely about this, about the stillness of the dark little cave, with night falling outside.

Finally, though, Harry had to break the silence. “Okay, I’m good.” He grabbed one more picture as Zayn’s eyes fluttered opened, because it was pretty, and then grinned unrepentantly at Zayn’s raised eyebrows. “Now I’m good,” he clarified.

Zayn rolled his eyes, but he unfolded himself and followed Harry out of the cave, back into the water. Once they were out on dry land again, Zayn made another face at his wet feet. “You better—” Harry didn’t quite manage to hit him in the head with the towel, but he figured the torso was close enough. “Thanks.” He finished it abruptly, like it was more shock than anything.

Harry smirked at him, because he was a capable human being, and grabbed his own towel out of the bag he had packed to dry his feet off. He slid back into his boots, rolled down the pants he had cuffed so they’d stay wet. When he stood up, Zayn had finished doing the same, and was pulling his shirt back on. It was really a pity.

“So, Le Morte d’Arthur?” Zayn asked, once he had emerged from the shirt. He rolled his shoulders and tugged on the hem, so it fell lower around his neck, and the edges of the wings peaked through. Maybe he’d covered up Jane’s name, Harry thought. He didn’t understand why anyone would do that, not when it was so important, but maybe the name was lost in the other tattoos, so it wouldn’t haunt him. Maybe she’d died, and that was why he was so bitter.

“Styles?” Zayn’s voice was almost soft, but Harry still started.

“Sorry, what?” he shook his head to clear it. It didn’t matter.

“Nimue, right? Or Lady of the Lake, they’re different people, usually.”

“What?”

“For the pictures?” The corners of Zayn’s lips hinted upwards. “I was thinking, given you didn’t want me to be a mermaid, that was what you were going for.”

“You giving me a sword?” Harry retorted, waggling his eyebrows without thinking. Then what he said caught up to him, and he was halfway to blushing when Zayn chuckled.

“That’s reserved for Arthurs, babe.”

“Don’t see that name written anywhere.”

“Maybe it’s on the sword.”

Harry couldn’t help barking out a laugh, and Zayn smiled back, his tongue pressed against his teeth. “Maybe I should find out.”

“Only for the worthy.” Harry sidled closer to where Zayn was standing, his fingers hooked into his belt loops.

“Bet I could prove myself.”

Zayn didn’t move back, didn’t flinch from where Harry was approaching, just looked, hard and long. The smile was gone from his eyes, and there was something more complicated there, amused and resigned and hot, something that lasted until Harry was a foot from him, until he could reach out and touch, then—“Bet you could,” Zayn agreed, and stepped back.

Harry could almost feel the mood break, like a tree limb snapping. Which was fine, he repeated to himself. He didn’t care. He was waiting for the other Zayn. Not this one who probably already had a soul mate, who teased Harry and argued with him and ran hot and cold so fast Harry couldn’t keep track.

Still, he turned around to pick up his bag, and rub at his hip. He’d find the other Zayn. He would. And they would fall into each other’s arms and ride off into the sunset and—and—and something. Something good. Something better.

“Should we go?” Harry suggested, and he started forward before Zayn could say anything. He needed to not be in this quiet clearing, with the images of Zayn calm against the water behind him, like he really was ready to tempt Merlin to his doom, to hand Harry the sword that would make him invulnerable. Or was that the scabbard? It didn’t matter. Though scabbard would make less sense, given—

Harry was so busy trying to figure that out, and to very intently distract himself from Zayn’s smile and laugh and flirtation, that he didn’t really notice the tree limb in front of him until it caught him in the shins. He stumbled, wind-milled, and had a brief instant to resign himself to falling onto his ass yet again, before suddenly he wasn’t falling. There were hands on his hips, steadying him, setting him upright, and Harry almost stumbled again as gentle fingers brushed over his thigh like a brand.

Zayn’s hands lingered for no more than a second before they were gone. “Okay there?” he asked. He was laughing again. Harry didn’t like this laugh as much. It wasn’t his fault he was a klutz. It was Zayn’s really, because he was being distracting with his eyelashes and his cheekbones and his tattoos and his energy.

“Fine.”  Harry stepped forward again, very deliberately over the branch. He hoped Zayn tripped on it too, but of course he was fine.

“Thought you were supposed to be the one saving me,” Zayn went on, and Harry knew that tone, that mocking. This was why Zayn wasn’t his soul mate. His soul mate wouldn’t make fun of him.

“I would!” He turned to look over his shoulder at Zayn, who just grinned back, a little lazy thing that wasn’t at all sexy. “I would!” he insisted, as Zayn slipped ahead of him the next time the path widened. “I am an excellent rescuer, I will have you know, no one’s ever complained before!”

“Have they been alive to complain?” Zayn retorted. Harry resisted the urge to kick him. 

“Yes. Thus why they didn’t complain.”

“Maimed?”

“No!”

“Crippled in any way?”

“No,” Harry shot back. “The cheeky ones I sometimes gagged, though.” He gave Zayn’s back a pointed glare. Really. He wasn’t being funny at all.

“Kinky.”

“You have no idea,” Harry shot back, then bit his tongue again. He was angry. He wasn’t flirting. Zayn was making fun of him, and he didn’t like it.

Zayn spun around so he was walking backwards once they left the gardens, out on the concrete, and that was just unfair. Bragging, really, especially because he wasn’t even using his hands to balance, was rubbing at the cuff instead. Good. Harry hoped it chafed. “Doubt it.”

Really hoped it chafed. Hoped it was hiding handcuff bruises, because Harry didn’t want to think about that at all, about what sort of kinks Zayn might have. Whether he’d pull Harry’s hair, or like to leave marks, or—

“Really?” Harry asked, though. He couldn’t just let Zayn think he had won, that his mouth had gone dry with the images crowding in his head. “Because there was this thing with peanut butter and bananas…”

Zayn’s nose wrinkled. It wasn’t cute, Harry tried to convince himself. Zayn wasn’t cute. Hot was okay. Cute was dangerous. “Bananas?”

“Yep!” Harry grinned at the way Zayn’s face twisted. “Told you—you had no idea.”

“You’re right,” Zayn agreed, and yanked the passenger side door open harder than necessary, probably. “I didn’t.”

Harry figured he probably shouldn’t tell him that it had mainly included eating peanut butter and bananas in bed after sex, then getting distracted and rolling over the peels for round two. He’d let Zayn imagine whatever he wanted. He could pretend it would give Zayn sleepless nights, too.

---

“So, when are we going to get to see you?” Harry juggled the phone to his other ear to shake out his left hand. After a good forty-five minutes of holding to phone, it was starting to cramp.

“Mom…”

“Just a question!” she laughed, but it was her mom laugh. The one she did when he had stolen cookies off the tray, before he had realized it was easier and better tasting to just make his own. The one she did when he had stayed out after curfew during high school, when she had just put her hands on her hips and stared him down when he tried to sneak back in and inevitably tripped over something. The one that wasn’t really a laugh at all. “We miss you!”

“And I miss you. But I’m busy!” He was, too. It didn’t help the guilt gnawing at this stomach, but he was busy, and he did miss his mum and stepdad. Even Gemma, though she wasn’t there. He just…didn’t miss home, really. “I really don’t think I’ll be able to go home for break, I’ve got so much stuff, and Nick’s got this music festival weekend in the city that he said I could go to, and…”

“That all sounds wonderful.” Harry made a face at the tree he walked past. Unfortunately, a girl got in the way, and made an affronted face back, because it looked like he was frowning at her; he gave her a sheepish smile and hurried on. “But it feels like we never see you anymore.”

That wasn’t fair. “You saw me for Christmas! That was only two months ago.”

“And we won’t see you again for ages, unless you come home over break, if you do get that job. Which you will,” she added, an antidote against the complaint that made Harry’s stomach turn over a little more. No one believed in him like his mum, and he knew that. He loved her for it. He just…didn’t want to go home. Didn’t want to go back to the little village where nothing happened and everything felt so closed in, so normal. So pedestrian. He couldn’t… he’d always known he wasn’t meant for there, for that town.

“I know. You could come visit me! It’d be great, you could meet everyone. You’d like them! Nick’s amazing and hysterical, and his boyfriend’s funny too, and they’re really funny together. And Liam’s the best, you know that, I know he’d love to see you too. And you could…” he needed to distract her, he figured, so she wouldn’t ask again. He could usually do that with her. “And I could show you my coffee place!” he announced triumphantly, ducking into the café as he said it and tucking himself into an out-of-the-way corner. He loved it when inspiration came to him. “Nick’s boyfriend works there, and Niall, I’ve told you about Niall, and—”

“You’ve told me all this before, Harry,” his mother interrupted him, but Harry kept talking. He was good at that.

“And it’s attached to this great old bookstore, that’s where Zayn works—”

“Zayn?” This time, the interest was loud in his mother’s voice, and Harry could feel himself blush. He turned his face into the wall, so no one could see it. Even if they wouldn’t hear why he was blushing. “Isn’t he the one you don’t like?”

“Yeah.” He was. Well, maybe he was growing on Harry, a bit, when he wasn’t being an asshole, but Harry definitely didn’t like him. Except to look at him. Because it wasn’t his name on Harry’s hip, even though it was, because he had another soul mate so it couldn’t be Harry, and there was no point in thinking about him. “I mean, he’s okay. But he’s nice to look at! That’s a plus.”

“Uh-huh.” And there was her disbelieving snort. “And you’re trying to distract me, love.”

“Am not!”

“Are too.”

“Am not!”

“Harry.”

“I can’t go home right now, mum,” Harry caved. He rubbed absently at his hip. He didn’t know the person at the counter, a blonde girl with an over-sized floral shirt on Harry sort of wanted to steal, but he watched her make a latte anyway. It was easier than staring at the wall. “We could meet.”

“Okay, Harry.” She sighed, and it was heavy with displeasure. Harry’s stomach flipped again. “I’ll talk to you later. We should Skype soon, see if we can Facetime with Gemma.”

“Definitely!” Harry inserted all the cheer he could into the word. “Love you.”

“Love you too,” his mother agreed, and hung up.

Harry slipped the phone into his pocket, then ran his hands through his hair, twisting at it so it pulled just a little. He hated disappointing his mum, hated it worse than almost anything, but he just—he couldn’t. Couldn’t go back. Not when he could go on an adventure. To the city, could fingers crossed get a job trailing through the cities of Europe with a real photographer, like he wanted to do more than anything, travelling and taking pictures and finding things no one had seen before, how no one had seen them before. Making things beautiful that people had never thought were beautiful before. Not back to a place where he, and everyone, had already done everything and seen everything before.

But telling himself that, even telling his mom that, didn’t help the gnawing feeling in his gut, didn’t stop replaying the heavy sigh his mother gave. He just—he needed—he needed someone who understood, who got it, who didn’t think he was crazy for the need he had, the itch that set his feet wandering.

He watched the girl take another order, swirl some whipped cream on top of a cup before handing it over with a bright smile. When she looked up, she must have caught him watching because she gave him a smile too, a quick thing with a flirtatious glance under her eyes. Harry just looked away. He didn’t deserve that smile.

Then he looked back and gave her a sort of smile back, because she didn’t deserve to be ignored. It wasn’t her fault he was an awful, selfish person.

He ran his hands through his hair again, pulling strands out from behind the scarf, and closed his eyes. He needed to talk to people when he was like this. But Nick was at Louis’s for the afternoon. Liam might have been home, and Liam was a great comforter, gave great hugs, but he wasn’t what Harry needed, not the sort of fix-its Liam gave, the way he was so comfortable in his life. It was smothering, when Harry was in this mood. He—

“Styles?” Harry opened his eyes, and Zayn’s face filled his vision for a second, all eyes and cheekbones and eyelashes. Then Zayn drew back, and the rest of him rushed in.

Harry tried for a smile. He would have gone for a smirk, but he didn’t think he could manage it. “Hey.”

Zayn’s eyes were narrowed as he looked at him. Harry shifted his weight between his feet. He really didn’t need this now, didn’t need the weight of Zayn’s gaze on him like he could see through him, like he knew all the horrible awful parts of Harry.

Finally, Zayn sighed. “Come on.”

“What?”

“Come on,” Zayn replied sharply, and turned on his heels. Harry followed, because he wasn’t sure what else to do, wasn’t sure he knew how not to. He probably deserved Zayn’s making fun of him or whatever he was going to do.

Zayn moved smoothly through the archway into the bookstore, then through the shelves until they were at the little armchair set in the back of the store. Harry’d seen people reading there once or twice, though usually people went to the café for that; he’d seen Zayn reading there once, years ago, curled up in it like he was suddenly small, with glasses on his nose and a little smile on his face. It was one of those moments he had regretted not having a camera for, that single moment of Zayn at peace like Harry’d never seen before.

This time, Zayn pushed Harry gently into the chair. “Wait here,” he said, then detoured around the coffee table in front of the chair and disappeared around the shelves. 

Again, Harry didn’t know how to do anything but wait. He turned his head to the side, looked over the worn spines with gilt lettering, without really seeing them for the few minutes until Zayn came back. Without saying anything, he held out a mug. When Harry took it—was it poisoned? Was it a joke?—he sat down on the table across from Harry, so their knees brushed.

He was still just looking at Harry, with that steady gaze that felt so heavy, so Harry grabbed the mug and took a sip, so at least he would have somewhere else to look.

Then he tasted what it was, and took a longer sip before meeting Zayn’s gaze. “This is a chai latte.”

“Noticed that.”

“Why did you get me a latte?”

Zayn shrugged. This time it was him who glanced away, his gaze flickering to the shelves to Harry’s left. “You drink them when you’re upset.”

“I’m—” Harry took a breath, then another sip, let the spicy warmth spread through him, ease over the pit in his stomach. “How did you know I was upset?”

Another shrug. “You looked it.”

“I did?”

“Yeah.” Zayn lifted his feet so he could prop them against the edge of the chair, right next to Harry’s thigh, and braced his elbows on his knees. He still didn’t say anything, though, didn’t ask or demand or anything, just let Harry sip at his latte. It felt almost like in the cave, with Zayn calm but so very there, except this time he was looking at Harry, and his stomach was twisting again but it wasn’t all guilt.

Except enough of it was, and Zayn was being nice, so Harry ended up saying, more into his mug than anything, “I’m not going home for break.” Zayn still didn’t say anything. “Like, my mum wants me to, and I want to see her, but I can’t—I don’t want to go home. You know?” Maybe Zayn would get it, wild untamable Zayn who couldn’t be contained either.

But Zayn shook his head. “I go home whenever I can,” he said. Harry slumped back in his chair. He should have known Zayn wouldn’t be able to understand. “But, like, that’s me. That’s what I need. You should do whatever you need.”

“I know! And my mum knows too, I think, but she’s still always so disappointed. Like, last summer I stayed here, waited tables so I didn’t have to go back. And I broke basically even cause I was crashing at Nick’s—though you’d know that, wouldn’t you, because Louis would have told you. He didn’t go home either, right? He was working here. But was he living at Nick’s?”

“No, he stayed at ours.”

“Oh. Were you here?”

Zayn shook his head. “Went home.”

“What’d you do?” Harry didn’t get it. How could anyone go back? Zayn was from a city, but still.

“Read. Painted. Watched my sisters.”

“Sisters?”

“Yeah.” Zayn’s lips curved, and it felt almost like the latte did, like it was warming him from the inside out. “Three of them. Though only two younger.”

“I’ve only got the one, and she wouldn’t like me watching her.” Harry shuddered even to think about what Gemma might do to him if she thought he was watching out for her.

“Yeah, my older sister wouldn’t either. Doesn’t mean I don’t, but wouldn’t let her know.” Zayn’s smile flashed again, wicked and wry. “The younger ones, though, they still let me look out for them. Not too cool for me yet.”

“Is anyone ever too cool for you?”

Zayn shrugged, but the corners of his eyes wrinkled a little. If it was anything like Liam, Harry figured that meant he was pleased. “They’ll think they are, soon enough.”

“No hero to his valet,” Harry agreed, and Zayn smiled at that too, not even that wicked grin, just something softer, his eyes darting down to avoid Harry. He didn’t say anything, though, and Harry couldn’t think of anything, so he drank more of the latte. He could almost feel the warmth coming off of Zayn, could watch him drumming his fingers over the cuff, soft thuds against the leather.

Again, the silence was irresistible. “It’s not that I don’t want to,” Harry said. Zayn’s finger stopped drumming. “I mean, I want to see her. I love her. And my step-dad, and my sister. I love all of them. I just don’t want to get caught there, you know? It’s so small.”

“Yeah.” Zayn moved from the cuff to rub at his ear. He did that a lot, Harry’d noticed. “Then you’ve got to go. And, like, if your mum loves you, and gets you, which she does probably, because she’s, like, your mum, then she understands that. She’ll want what’s best for you.”  

“I guess.” Harry’d known that. He did. But hearing someone else say it—hearing Zayn say it, who didn’t lie, who wouldn’t lie to Harry to spare his feelings—it made it feel better. “Would your mom be mad?”

“Confused, more like.” Zayn grinned, that same fond look he had when talking about his sisters. “Probably come up here and make sure I wasn’t replaced by an alien.”

“An alien?”

“Or a robot. Or possessed. Or something.” Zayn bumped his thigh companionable against Harry’s knee.

“Do you want to go home after you graduate?” Harry hadn’t thought of that before, but it was true. Zayn was graduating this year, same as Louis. He wouldn’t be here anymore.

“I…don’t know.” Zayn’s lips twisted. “Maybe. I think it might be a bit small for me, too.” He rubbed his ear again. “I love my family. And my friends are great. But I can’t just stay inside all day, and people there aren’t the most broad-minded.”

“What, like, homophobic?” Harry knew that story, though it’d always been okay for him. Charm, he’d always thought, and plenty of it, and never really being threatening.

Zayn tossed his head back, and the calm that had settled over him drew back, like a wild horse about to bolt. “Homophobic, racist, islamaphobic, name it.” His fingers wrapped around the cuff again. “Basically against everything I am.”

“That’s not all you are.” It was out before Harry could think, but it was true. The sort of true that couldn’t not be said. Zayn was brilliant and talented and crackled like lightning, and that was what mattered, really.

“They certainly didn’t think so.” Zayn’s face twisted. “So yeah, if a place is too small for you—if anything’s too small for you—you don’t have to fit in, you know?”

Somehow, Harry wasn’t surprised Zayn got it. Zayn, who never seemed to fit in anywhere, because he didn’t believe in walls, in rules. Who wanted to set himself on fire to see if he’d burn. “So why do you go home, then?”

Zayn’s eyes were calm and sure, as he held onto his left wrist like it was a charm. “Because I don’t fit in.” 

“You don’t have to,” Harry said, quietly.

Zayn’s head jerked, and the eyes that met Harry’s were wide and shocked. “Thanks?”

“You’re welcome,” Harry replied, firmly, and finished off his coffee.

---

“Movie tonight?” Harry poked his head out of his room to call down the hall. He needed a night in, really. To cuddle with Liam and maybe even watch one of his movies and probably drink a little too much wine and go to sleep and not dream about golden eyes and a gentle touch. He really needed to stop working on his project before he went to bed.

Liam sounded like he was in the kitchen when he called back. “Yeah, sure. Got nothing to do.”

“So I’m your last choice?” Harry briefly considered putting on more clothes than his boxers, but it was just Liam, so he wandered out without them, down the hall.

“That’s all,” Liam agreed, without really looking up from protein shake he was making in the blender.

Harry pouted at him, poked his bicep. “You love me.”

“Not at all.”

“You do.” Harry poked him again. Liam was getting eye-crinkles, so he kept on. “You would stay in with me even if you had plans.”

“Nope.”

“Would too.”

“Would not.”

“Would too,” Harry stuck out his tongue.

“Would not,” Liam insisted. He probably wouldn’t—Liam was polite like that—but Harry could pretend he would. That someone would.

He rubbed idly at his hip through his boxers, and started to say something when there was a knock on the door.

“Thought you said you didn’t have plans!” Harry pouted at Liam’s back, as Liam turned away to answer it.

“I didn’t!” Liam called back. The knock came again, a sharp insistent rap. Harry poured the protein shake out of the blender into a cup for him, because he was a good roommate, and stuck the blender cup into the sink. “What—Hey!”

It was a cross between ‘hi’ and ‘what the hell’, so Harry wasn’t entirely surprised when Louis replied, “Hi!”

Liam stepped aside, and Louis breezed in, Zayn and Niall at his heels. “What are you doing here?” Liam asked, his brow furrowing. He glanced at his phone, like it told him the answer. “Did we have plans?”

“I needed to get out,” Louis announced.  

“He’s fighting with Nick,” Niall volunteered.

“Really?” Harry hadn’t heard any of that.

“I’m always fighting with Nick,” Louis retorted. “I just wanted to come to my dear friend Liam’s apartment, is that a crime?”

“Depends if he wants us or not,” Zayn added, his voice dry. And rough, with just enough laughter in it that Harry’s fingers tightened over the edge of the sink, before he turned to the fridge to see what they had to feed people.

“Liam wants us,” Louis replied. “Right?”

“Sure.” Harry made a face at the empty fridge, and closed it. There went his quiet night in with Liam. “Me ‘n Harry were just going to watch a movie.”

“Brilliant, sounds great.”

“I guess we’re joining you,” Zayn drawled. Then, “Styles coming, then?” Harry’s fingers slipped over the knobs of the cupboard, but he managed not to fall, so he figured that was a win. But Zayn was asking about him. Probably to gird himself against Harry being there—or not. He’d been weirdly nice, recently. Sometimes. Often, really, since he’d seen Harry break down. 

“Yes, Liam. Is Harry around?” Louis did the thing again, where he lingered over Harry’s name. Then, “Ow! Zayn!”

There wasn’t any response, but Harry figured he knew Zayn’s expression, the smug remorselessness of it, after doing whatever he did to Louis.

“So,” Niall said, as if it was normal. Which it was, from what Harry had seen. “What’re we watching?”

Harry threw the popcorn he found into the microwave, then wandered into the living room. If he wasn’t there Liam would force him to watch The Avengers again, he knew it. They were all facing away from him, Louis on the couch, with Niall and Zayn near the movie cupboard with Liam. Zayn hadn’t taken his jacket off yet, so the collar of it caught in the curls at the base of his neck before it spread out to hug his shoulders.

Sure enough, “How about Avengers?” Liam suggested.

“No.” Harry said it as firmly as he could, and all four of them spun to look at him.

“But Harry…” Liam tried his best puppy dog face, which was admittedly very very good, but Harry’d seen it a thousand times.

“No, Li. I’ve seen it sooo often.”

“Batman?”

“Liam…”

“We could just watch Harry walk around in those,” Louis suggested, with a wink at Harry. Harry winked back. He’d forgotten he wasn’t wearing much, but it wasn’t—he’d never cared about that.

“You’re lucky he’s wearing clothes at all,” Liam informed Louis. Then, to Harry, “So, what do you want to watch, then? And if you say a rom com, I’m going to say no.”

“But they’re lovely!” Harry protested.

“But they’re fake.” Zayn snapped it out, but when Harry turned to glare at him—they’d been being nice!—Zayn was staring at the cabinet, so his profile was to Harry. In the kitchen, the popcorn started to pop.

“Not entirely.”

“Yes entirely,” Zayn retorted.

“Not more than superheroes!”

“Yeah, but superheroes don’t pretend to be.” Zayn’s hand wrapped around the cuff again. “I don’t—”

“How about Disney?” Niall interrupted. He yanked a DVD out of the case and brandished it triumphantly. “Aladdin? You love Aladdin, Zayn, don’t lie.”

Like always, Zayn softened just by looking at Niall. Harry scowled at the back of the couch. “I wouldn’t. Aladdin’s fine.”

“Everyone else?” When there were no objections, Niall nodded. “Brilliant. What do you have to eat?”

Zayn’s shoulders relaxed, and he laughed, ruffling Niall’s hair. “One track mind, babe?”

“Always,” Niall retorted. “And dinner was, like, a whole hour ago.”

“I don’t know how you survived,” Zayn agreed solemnly, and Harry walked back into the kitchen to get the popcorn before he could really focus on those dancing eyes, on the laughter curling in the corners of his lips.

He poured the popcorn into a bowl with the faint sounds of the other boys bickering and settling in, then grabbed some berries that he had gotten as well, just because. He washed them, put them into a bowl too. He could go put clothes on now, he figured, but this was his house. And Niall didn’t seem to mind, nor Louis, and if Zayn did, well fuck him. Harry had a right to look however he wanted in his own home. If Zayn was walking around in a leather jacket, he could walk around in boxers.

When he went back in, everyone had already found their spots: Niall on one armchair, Liam on the other, Louis on one end of the couch. Zayn, of course, because he couldn’t just do the proper thing, was perched on the back of the couch, behind Louis’s head. He’d taken off his jacket, and he wore a tank top underneath that left his shoulders bare, so Harry could see the tiger on one shoulder, the fern on his neck. It wasn’t the most skin of Zayn’s that Harry had seen, not by a long shot, but still…Yeah, Harry was definitely not getting clothes.

“You’re such a good housewife,” Louis teased, as Harry set the bowls on the table, then sat on the opposite end of the couch as him. Which put Zayn between them, sort of, one of his hands almost brushing against Harry’s hair.

“He even cleans,” Liam added. Harry scowled at him.

“So do you.”

“Yeah, but I don’t need to feed people.”

“I don’t feel the need to feed people.” Harry looked at the popcorn, then at everyone else. “But why aren’t you all eating?”

“No idea,” Niall replied cheerfully, and snagged the popcorn off the table.

“But seriously, you’ll make a great soul mate to someone, right?” Louis pressed.

“Louis!” Liam hissed, as Harry glared, and Zayn hit him upside the head.

For some reason, Zayn was the one he grinned at, all mischief. “I’m just telling the truth!”

“I will be,” Harry agreed easily. For that mysterious Zayn who wasn’t the one he couldn’t see behind him, but whose gaze he could almost feel. “Once I find them.”

“So no luck so far?” Niall asked, around a mouthful of popcorn.

Harry shook his head, and let his hand rest on his hip, right over the letters. “No. Everyone I know by the name’s taken.” He ignored Liam’s raised eyebrows, because Liam didn’t know about Jane, obviously. Didn’t know that there was already someone Zayn had adored so obviously everyone knew it, so much that it was in his whole face. Not anger, not the glare he turned to Harry so often, just fondness.

“Pity,” Zayn said above him, and Harry clamped down on the urge to jump at that rough voice so near his ear.

“Yeah,” Harry agreed. He knew Zayn was being sarcastic, but it was. But he’d find him, he would, and it would be—well, it would be great. It would be magical. He’d know, obviously. Immediately. They both would.

Liam started the movie then, and together they all watched the introduction, Jasmine’s tantrum about her fathering forcing her to look for her soulmate when she wanted time first. Harry didn’t understand that urge—or he hadn’t. Now, he thought he might, as he saw Zayn poking at Louis’s shoulder idly as they watched, dodging Louis’s hand.

Just as Aladdin handed over the bread to the children, Louis finally lost it. “Okay, Zayn, give it up,” he snapped, and finally got a grip on Zayn’s wrist, around the cuff. He pulled, and Jasmine’s meeting of Aladdin was overshadowed by Louis yanking Zayn down into the space between him and Harry, so he landed with a thump and a clatter of limbs over Louis.  His shoulder clashed painfully against Harry’s bicep, and he swore lowly as Zayn brought his limbs together for a second.

“Low blow, Lou.” He was grinning, Harry thought, the small wicked grin that made him almost into Puck.

“I am trying to watch the movie,” Louis retorted. He waved a hand to the screen, where Aladdin held out a hand with almost the same wicked grin and Jasmine took it, let him pull her up into an adventure.

“Really?” Zayn’s grin changed, and without another word he launched himself at Louis, until they were slapping at each other in a tangle of limbs and tattoos and giggling, and Harry pulled himself to the other side of the couch to stay out of it. Niall ignored it and focused on the movie, and Liam did the same after a moment, but it was hard to watch when Louis finally shoved Zayn off of him.

“Okay, god, fuck off! What is with you tonight?”

“Nothing,” Zayn smirked, and let Louis push him farther across the couch, until his thigh was basically brushing Harry’s. If he shifted just the tiniest bit, his jeans could be brushing against the tattoo that wasn’t his.

“Are you even watching the movie?” he asked. Zayn twisted to look at him, and Harry had to swallow again at those lashes so close.

“Sure. ‘The cave of wonders!’” he said just as Jafar cackled it, then smirked again when Harry didn’t reply. “Don’t test my Aladdin knowledge.”

“Zayn has a thing for Aladdin,” Niall explained. Zayn reached over Harry to grab the pillow, and chucked it at Niall.

“Nah. Jasmine’s my girl, though.”

Was Jane Jasmine? Probably. A girl with a spark in her heart and enough mischief to keep up with Aladdin’s wildling spirit, with Aladdin’s name on her ankle like he could help her fly.

Zayn settled a bit as Aladdin navigated the cave, laughing at the carpet with everyone else. As he relaxed, he settled back, almost into Harry. Almost like they were cuddling. Except clearly it was just that the couch was a little too small for three, and so Zayn had to press against him. Or Harry had to press against Zayn.

Whichever it was, it meant he could feel Zayn next to him, could feel whenever he shifted like he’d been sitting for too long.

“Hey.” Niall poked at Harry’s knee. “Popcorn?”

“Sure.” Harry took the bowl and grabbed a handful before passing it to his left. “Zayn?”

Zayn shook his head. “Not hungry.”

Louis snorted. “Says the boy who had ramen for dinner.”

“Wasn’t hungry then, either.” Zayn shot back, and pushed the popcorn at him. Louis took it, and the subject dropped during the genie’s song. Harry hummed a long almost unconsciously. But then…

“Are you singing?” he muttered. Zayn’s brow furrowed for a second, then smoothed out.

“Yeah. You were humming.”

“Yeah, but…” But Harry’d never quite expected Zayn to sing to Disney movies, not when he was glaring at Harry from behind the bookstore counter. Or worse, when he wasn’t looking at Harry at all.

But he was looking now, and Harry clenched his fists to keep from rubbing at the ache in his hip. Especially when Zayn shifted his arms to grab his wrist, that tug at the cuff that he did sometimes. “But what?” Zayn asked, with that belligerent tilt of his head.

“Let’s make you a star!” the genie declared on screen.

“You need to eat,” Harry said instead of saying anything he looked at the popcorn in his hand. “Why didn’t you eat?”

“Thought you didn’t feel the need to feed everyone.”

“I don’t. But you’re too skinny.”

“Not what you said last week.”

“What?” Harry yelped, then bit his lip when Niall gave them a quizzical look. He hadn’t—had he said anything? Obviously he thought Zayn was attractive, but he didn’t—he wasn’t—

“When you were taking pictures of me shirtless?” Zayn filled in, and raised his eyebrow.

Oh. Right. Harry ducked his head. “Well, yeah, because fairies don’t need to eat. People do.”

“I eat. Just not when I’m not hungry.”

“Well, you should be hungry now.” Harry grinned, and picked up the last of the popcorn, dancing it in front of Zayn’s gaze. “Come on, aren’t you hungry?”

“No.” Zayn’s lips were pressed together now like he was holding back laughter, even though he was still running his finger over the edge of his cuff.

“You sure?” Because he could, because on-screen Aladdin was parading through the streets and pretending to be something he wasn’t, because Zayn’s eyes were dark in the dim living room, Harry knocked the popcorn against his lips. “I think you are.”

“Not.” But Zayn’s eyes were glinting with the dare, and Harry had never found the dare he wouldn’t take, not really.

So he poked at Zayn’s ribs, just high enough to tickle, and when Zayn’s mouth dropped open in a wince and giggle and swear all combined, Harry tucked the popcorn inside his mouth.

For a second, his fingers slipped inside Zayn’s mouth, and he could feel slightly chapped lips against his fingertips and the hint of a tongue on the end of his finger, Zayn’s eyes were wide over it, like they had been in the bookstore that one time, like they had been at the bar—then he jerked back like he’d been burned, and Harry’s hand fell away.

“Do I have to separate you two?” Louis asked, leaning around Zayn.

“No.” Harry watched Zayn chew and swallow, slowly. “I’m fine.”

“Thought you were watching the movie,” Zayn added, and Louis stuck his tongue out and hit Zayn on the knee before going back to the screen. Zayn followed his example, apparently, his elbow knocking into Harry’s side as he wrapped his hand around the cuff, and so did Harry, very determinedly ignoring Liam’s questioning look. He was messing around with someone who was almost—sort of—kind of—a mate. He kissed Liam all the time, it didn’t mean they were soul mates.

Harry’s hand fell back to his hip as he settled in to watch Jasmine call Aladdin’s bluff. He could trace the letters by now, even through his boxers. He’d find him. He would. Someone who wouldn’t pull away, not ever. Someone who wouldn’t have to.

---

“Why are you fighting with Louis?” Harry asked, as he and Nick walked down the street towards the café.

Nick’s head jerked towards Harry. “What? What did he say?”

“Nothing!” Harry held out his hands palm out, then tucked them back into his pockets. February was going out like a lion, and March was still not figuring out that it was spring. He might not be in his parka anymore, but he still had his fake-fur-lined jacket on. “Just, Niall mentioned you were fighting.”

“And did he say anything?”

“Since when did you need me to tell you what Louis said?” Nick and Louis…they were soul mates. They could finish each other’s sentences, even if it usually meant they bantered in half-sentences and facial expressions. It had always been what Harry wanted.

“Since he’s not telling me something.” Nick sighed, heavily, and brushed his hair out of his face. “I don’t know what, but he’s not telling me something, and that’s never good.”

“Can’t you ask him?”

Nick’s eyebrow rose. “Have you tried asking Louis something?”

“I’ve tried asking Zayn something.” Harry paused, when Nick’s eyebrow didn’t lower. “Not that—I mean, that’s not a parallel, obviously, but he’s bad about answering questions, too, and they’re friends, so it sort of is the same?”

“Right.” Nick’s eyebrow still didn’t go down.

“Anyway…” Harry said, sternly. He wasn’t…Zayn wasn’t a parallel. He had Jane. “I thought you said you couldn’t keep secrets from your soul mate.”

“I don’t. Clearly, Louis does.” Nick reached up to his chest where his tattoo was hidden by his shirt and jacket.

Harry did his best to grin. “It’s probably a birthday present. He’s probably planning something really kinky,” he added, cheeky, and it got a laugh out of Nick.

“Sure, Haz,” he replied, and yanked on a curl before pulling open the door to the café.

Zayn was leaning over the counter, talking intently to Louis while Niall served the person his coffee. Zayn’s jeans were tight today, clutching over his hips, and Harry took a second to appreciate that before he jerked his gaze away, where Nick was looking at Louis like he was starving. It hurt a bit in Harry, that look. God, but he wanted it. Wanted someone to look at him like that.

Then Louis looked over Zayn’s head to see Nick, and there it was again. Harry couldn’t even look at it, so he looked away, and his gaze fell on Zayn again. He had twisted to follow Louis’s gaze, and his eyes locked with Harry’s, something burning and restless in them. It wasn’t Nick’s look, wasn’t that utter need, but it was still…too much.

Harry glanced down at the floor, then up again with a grin. “Hey!” he said, and grabbed Nick to pull him forward. Nick came, without looking away from Louis.

“Grimshaw,” Louis said, his chin lifting. He had a bit of the same look Zayn did, that vibrating tension.

“Louis.” Nick’s voice was even, now, even as he reached out to touch Louis’s face. Louis turned his head to lean into it.

Zayn let out a long, exasperated breath. “Okay, Styles, let’s go.” He stood up, cracked his neck. “Lou—tell him.”

“Zayn!” Louis spat, as Nick jumped on the opportunity to ask,

“Tell me what?”

and Zayn pulled Harry away, into the bookstore. There, he threw on his jacket, then was out the door with Harry before voices started rising from the other room.

“What is he telling him?” Harry asked. Zayn had paused when he was out the door, so Harry stood next to him to wait as he lit a cigarette.

“Stuff.” Zayn put the cigarette to his lip, took a long drag. “So, where are we going?”

 “What?” Harry was watching Zayn’s cheeks hollow out under the cigarettes, watching the smoke rise into the air around his face. “Oh, sorry. There’s…come on.”

Zayn fell into step with him as they walked down the streets. His legs were shorter, but he matched Harry’s stride easily, the smoke curving off behind him. He was still tense, his fingers tight around the cigarette.

“Do you know what they were arguing about?” Harry asked again, after they had crossed the street into a quad. “Because Nick wouldn’t really say.”

Zayn shrugged. “Louis was being an idiot.”

“So nothing unusual?”

It got a laugh out of Zayn. “Guess not, no. But hopefully it’ll be better now.” He shook his head. “How was your weekend?”

This time, Harry shrugged. “Mainly did work, you know. Boring.”

“Too true.” Zayn wrinkled his nose in distaste.

“Yeah, you’re probably finishing up senior things!” Harry forgot, sometimes, that Zayn would be graduating soon. That next year he wouldn’t be there in the bookstore to be beautiful and angry, wouldn’t be—well, anywhere. Anywhere near Harry. “Did you have to do a thesis?”

“Am doing,” Zayn corrected, with a groan. “Due the start of April.”

“What’s it about?”

Another shrug. “Nothing much.”

“Think I can’t understand?” Harry narrowed his gaze. He thought they’d gotten past this. Thought they had gotten to a point where they were almost friends, where Zayn didn’t think Harry was a stupid kid to be made fun of and laughed at.

“Because no one cares but me,” Zayn replied, and blew out the last of the cigarette. He dropped the end into a trash can as they passed it, then slid his fingers into his jacket pockets. The wind was ruffling through his hair, turning it from its sharp quiff into something messy and natural. Which was good for what Harry wanted, he thought as he watched a lock drop over Zayn’s forehead.

“Try me.” Harry brushed back his own hair from where the wind had disarranged it, and grinned his most disarming grin.

Zayn gave him a long look, then he looked back in front of them. “It’s about the perception of Kurtz in Heart of Darkness,” he said, each word coming out like a quick bite. “And how he’s not just driven mad, he was mad all along. It’s—” he cut himself off, “See? Bored already.”

“No!” Harry protested. “No, I’ve read Conrad, I like him! And I’ve watched Apocalypse Now. And Hearts of Darkness.”

“Yeah?” Zayn’s smile was quick, but definitely there, bringing out the slight flush on his cheekbones from the cold. “What did you think?”

“That Martin Sheen’s really hot when he was young.” Zayn laughed again, and Harry couldn’t help his grin.

“Not false,” Zayn agreed, then paused when Harry turned up the walk to the building. “You ever going to tell me where we’re going?”

“In here.”

“Yeah, I noticed. Are you going to set me on fire?” He sounded a bit more excited about that than Harry was comfortable with, really.

“No, I just want—there are rooms here we can use.” He held the door open for Zayn, then hurried in front of him to lead the way down the stairs, into one of the rooms Harry knew were there. Strictly speaking, they were music practice rooms, but they would work well enough.

Zayn, though, gave the empty basement room a skeptical look, then another one when Harry closed the door behind them. It banged shut with a thud, like the whole world was cut off and it was just him and Zayn and the upright piano in the corner, bathed in fluorescent light that turned even Zayn sickly. “Not exactly organic,” he drawled, his fingers drumming over his thigh.

“No, well, I was thinking about what you were saying, the other day. About how fire’s about light and dark, really, not just, like fire. And I don’t want to light you on fire, or do something stupid with scarves, and I can’t get to a desert anytime soon, so…” Harry reached into his bag, pulled out the candle he had brought, a big, solid red candle that he had bought from the store down the street from his apartment, where he liked to buy his candles for his flat.

“’cause that’s not phallic.”

“Hey!” Harry looked at it. “Okay, yeah. Fine. But I could have put you in stag antlers for the first shoot, and I didn’t, so…”

“Your restraint’s really admirable, Styles.” Zayn agreed, as he shrugged off his coat and dropped it on the floor. “Not making me a sex symbol.”

“You’re a sex symbol just by existing,” Harry retorted. Zayn froze in the middle of taking his shirt off, so his face was covered with the cotton and his stomach was bare, save for the dusting of hair down from his navel. Fuck. Harry had—“I mean, you’re really hot, it’s why I’m using you, you knew that.”

“Yeah.” Zayn tugged his shirt off the rest of the way, then dropped it over his jacket and held out his hand for the makeup Harry put into it. Harry knelt down to his bag while Zayn applied it. The ritual of it was soothing, putting the lens on, fiddling with the settings. He really hoped this one turned out. Hoped he hadn’t just made things awkward again. It didn’t mean anything, that Zayn was sex on two legs. He knew that, he had to, with the way he strutted around campus sometimes, with his leather jacket and smolder. Harry knew, knew what he looked like, knew what he could do with a come-hither flash of his dimples and a knowing look in his eyes; why should Zayn be any different?

Not that it mattered. If Zayn knew he was gorgeous or not, if Zayn knew Harry thought he was gorgeous or not. If Harry kept on noticing Zayn’s lips forming words, wondering if they’d feel as good on his lips as they had under his fingers. He liked kissing hot people. It didn’t mean anything.

“You gonna play with your camera all day?” Zayn asked, and Harry managed not to jump at his voice.

“Sounds like an innuendo,” he pointed out, standing back up.

“What you do with your camera in your free time’s none of my business.” Zayn shot back. He was standing in the middle of the room, his feet spread slightly like he was braced, but his fingers were hooked into the belt loops of his jeans, pulling the down just the slightest bit so Harry could see the white cotton underneath them.

Harry couldn’t think of any way to respond to that that wasn’t flirting, so he held out the candle instead. “Here. You got a lighter, right?”

“Always.” Zayn pulled an orange bic out of his pocket, flicked it open once, twice with sure fingers. His eyes lit on Harry like a dare. “Sure? Against fire codes.”

“Go ahead.” Zayn grinned, and lit the candle, then put his lighter in his pocket.

“Now what?”

“Now, I’m gonna turn out the lights,” Harry said.

“Wait, what? Harry—”

Then the lights were off, and Zayn stopped talking abruptly.

The darkness was sudden, when the candle was the only thing lighting up the room. It made the room feel smaller, somehow, like nothing existed outside of that single circle of light. Harry ran his hand over the buttons of the camera, the solid weight of it he knew like the back of his hand. Them, and the camera.

“Harry?” Zayn said at last, very evenly.

“Yeah.” Harry swallowed. “Okay, like, hold the candle up to your face—no, lower, don’t set yourself on fire—no, Zayn, don’t—” there it was. The candle just below Zayn’s chin, so the flame licked upwards over his lips, lit his face red and gold out of the blackness. “There. Stop.”

He clicked the shutter once, twice, then looked at the display. Something was off. “Can you take the cuff off? It’s interrupting—”

“No.” Zayn’s voice was tight.

“Come on, just for a second—”

“No.” Zayn repeated, and in the darkness it sounded like a church bell somehow, a low thing almost solid in its tone.

“But it’s just a bracelet, and it’s drawing too much attention to your hands, and—”

“The cuff stays on,” Zayn snapped. His lips were pressing together, and his jaw was going hard and his brow was furrowing, and it wasn’t at all the look Harry wanted. Even if it was a stupid objection.

“Okay!” Harry looked at Zayn again through the lens. “Okay, then, can you hold the candle lower?”

Zayn obeyed. It was better, except now Zayn was glaring, and he wasn’t supposed to. This was probably another distraction time, Harry figured. He might have to talk to Zayn.

“So Nick said your paper was the least horrible of all the ones he had to grade this week,” Harry said. It was sort of a breach of trust, he guessed, but hey, Nick wouldn’t mind. He’d figure out when he got it back. “And he said that without Louis even in the room, so he wasn’t trying to get points.”

“Good to know.”

“Although, I mean, he might have said that so I’d tell you and you’d tell Louis. So really, maybe he’s playing a long game.”

“I don’t know why you think getting me a good grade’s going to help him at all with Louis.”

“Because Louis loves you.” Harry blinked, even if Zayn couldn’t see it. “Like, wouldn’t you like someone better if they, like, gave Niall a Derby jersey?”

“Of course. But that’s Niall. Everyone loves Niall. I don’t trust people who don’t love Niall.” And now Zayn was smiling a bit, but nothing like Harry wanted. He was being soft, and usually—well, Harry hadn’t seen it enough to know what he felt about it, but it wasn’t for here, for this shoot.

“Are there people who don’t?”

“A few.”

Something about the way Zayn said it made Harry lean forward. “What’d you do to them?”

Zayn’s lips curved upwards, and his eyes narrowed like cat who’d gotten the canary, and his face was all slightly scary satisfaction, the smirk and the knowing eyes and the fire in front of it all, and Harry caught the moment right before he spoke. “Nothing they won’t recover from.”

Harry shot twice more, for that look and the fire. And because there was something about the dark, the two of them caught in the candle’s light. He should probably get some more. It was only professional.

“Aren’t you going to ask me what you are this time?” he asked. Zayn wouldn’t notice he was done if they were talking.

“Nah, I know.”

“Really?”

Zayn’s grin twisted, until it wasn’t that smirk anymore but something laughing and mischievous and Harry braced himself against nothing at all.

“Sure. ‘m Smaug.”

“Smaug?”

“You know, the dragon.” Zayn’s eyes glowed gold in the candlelight. “I am fire,” he quoted, his voice going grand and dramatic before taking a deep breath, “I am…death!” And he blew out the candle.

It was dark, suddenly. Totally dark, dark enough that if Harry moved he might trip over something and so he didn’t move. Dark enough that he couldn’t see Zayn, that he could almost be alone.

“Zayn?” he whispered. Then he remembered there was no reason to whisper. “Zayn? The fuck?”

Someone was moving, he could hear it. Zayn was probably going to do something assholish and surprise him, so Harry took a caution step backwards, then another, until he was at the wall. He could have started looking for the light switch, but…he sort of wanted to see what Zayn was going to do. “Zayn, if you break my camera, I’ll…”

Someone was moving again, and it sounded like it was right in front of him. If Zayn wanted to be an asshole, so could he—he stuck out his foot. There was an oof, a low curse, then suddenly a warm body toppled into him, pushing him back against the wall and pinning him there.

“Shit!” Zayn muttered. Harry could feel his breath on his face. From this close he could see him too, or maybe his eyes were just adjusting; lips and eyelashes and cheekbones so fucking close, his hands on either side of Harry’s head where he had caught himself, their thighs pressed against each other.

“Your own fault,” Harry retorted, when he caught a breath. “You shouldn’t have blown out the candle.”

“Not my best plan.” Zayn admitted unrepentantly, his eyelashes fluttering, his breath coming fast and hard. Harry tried to look away from them, but all he could see then was his lips, and how his tongue flicked out over them. He could kiss him, Harry thought, almost desperately. He could lean down and kiss him and it would be so easy and so good. Not only could he, but he wanted to. Wanted to with an ache that felt like the one on his hip, wanted to because Zayn was beautiful and funny and wry and smart and sharp and wild and nice at the heart of it and Harry loved him.

Harry felt that last thought thud into his heart, into his soul, push into his brain and rattle around until nothing else was there. He loved him. Not like he loved Liam, not like he loved his mum or Gemma, but loved him, was in love with him, wanted to kiss him and feed him and make him smile and anchor him when he was close to breaking.

“Harry?” Zayn’s voice was soft, almost echoing in the room filled only with their harsh breathing. “You okay?”

No. No, Harry wasn’t okay. Harry wasn’t…was this what Jasmine felt, stepping onto that carpet with the man whose name wasn’t written on her skin?

“Yeah.” Harry grinned as best he could, then reached behind him to flick on the lights. He got a brief flash of Zayn’s face up close, of the furrowed brow and concerned eyes, before Zayn had pulled back as well, until there was a safe distance between them. Except there wasn’t any such thing as a safe distance, not for Harry. Not anymore. “Someone was just an asshole…”

“Who could that have been?” Zayn grinned, easy. “Think you might have brought the elves with you, mate.”

“You’re the elf.” Harry swallowed. He needed to get out of here. Needed to not be here, to be somewhere safe where he could feel—where he could figure this out. Figure out how this could happen, because Zayn wasn’t—they weren’t—

“Nah, I’m a dragon.” Zayn’s eyes narrowed again. “Really, what’s wrong? You’re not, like, afraid of the dark or anything, are you?” His arm twitched, like he might have been thinking about reaching out to Harry. God, Harry wanted him to reach out, to sit with him like he had before in the bookstore and let him talk it out at him. Or maybe he didn’t, maybe he wanted Zayn never to touch him again, not to taunt him like that.

“No, of course not. I’m not ten.”

“Right. Ten.” Zayn shook his head slightly. “Something else, then?”

“No, I’m fine,” Harry said again. He thought he got his voice pretty even. “Got everything I need. Do you mind…”

“No.” Zayn leaned down to pull his shirt back on, and Harry put his camera away, not watching as Zayn covered up, put on all his layers. He didn’t wait for Harry to be finished before he was opening the door, but he paused in the doorway. “You sure you’re okay?”

“Yes!” Harry snapped. Zayn’s eyebrows both shot up, but then his face shut down, his gaze going remote, and fuck, no, that wasn’t what Harry wanted either, he wanted Zayn to care, wanted him to want Harry to be okay, but—

“Fine. I’ll see you later, Styles.”

The door slammed shut behind him, and then Harry was left with just the frantic beating of his heart.

---

“Okay, Harry, I’m bored. Amuse me.” Clara pushed her chair into his, so he jolted sideways and his mouse jerked over the screen.

“Hey!”

“Hey yourself. If I look at another picture of a fucking flower, I’m going the shoot someone.” She edged closer again, so instead of hitting Harry their chairs just brushed, and their elbows knocked together. “Hey, that’s good.” She narrowed her eyes at the image on Harry’s screen. “Fuck, but he’s hot, isn’t he?”

“Yeah.” Harry dragged the mouse idly over the line of Zayn’s cheekbones, turned gold by candle light and glitter and some judicious fiddling. “I mean,” he went on, shaking his head. He wasn’t—he’d basically decided he had to be wrong. He couldn’t be in love with Zayn, because Zayn wasn’t his soul mate. He had just managed to trick himself into it because he was practicing for the real Zayn. It didn’t mean anything that Zayn was hot, and funny, and that Harry had been arguing himself out of going into the café for the past three days. It didn’t—it couldn’t. “I mean, he’s a great model for this.”

“Uh-huh.” Clara snorted, and twitched her hair so the dreads fell away from her neck. “Slept with him yet?”

“What!” Harry nearly choked on nothing at all, and in recovering from that nearly managed to tip himself out of the chair. Clara watched, impassive, as he got his balance back. “No. Of course not. I mean…”

“You mean what? He’s hot, you’re hot. Why haven’t you tried something?”

“Because he isn’t…” Harry gestured at her neck. It wasn’t all of it, of course, because he had—well, there’d been moments—but Zayn didn’t. Zayn wouldn’t. Zayn already knew his soul mate, knew what it felt like for her to touch him, however it felt better than when Zayn touched him, when his fingers felt like brands against Harry’s skin, like heat and home and energy all at once.

“Whatever?” Clara patted the tattoo on her neck, then let her hand drop down to Harry’s arm. “I slept with loads of people before I found Cody, and so did she. We’re cool with it. Meant the sex was even better when we found each other, no fumbling.” She grinned, licked her lips. “’Course, even then, nowhere to go but up.”

“You two don’t have much to go up,” Harry retorted, and Clara chuckled.

“Fair enough. But the point stands. Why haven’t you slept with the hot guy you spend hours ogling shirtless?”

Harry looked back at the screen, at Zayn’s lips curved into that wicked smile, the one that hinted of all the things he knew, all the things he could do to Harry if Harry found a way to ask. If Zayn had wanted.

“If you—I mean, you slept with people before Cody, but did you, like, have you fallen in love before?”

“Sure, who hasn’t?”

“What?” Harry spun his chair to look at her. “Everyone!”

“Really? There wasn’t a guy when you were thirteen you were madly in love with? First girlfriend when you were fifteen?” She shrugged. “I was madly in love with my English TA freshman year.” She gave a variation of that smile, nostalgic and pleased. “That was brilliant.”

“But…you weren’t going to end up with them forever.” Harry traced the letters on his hip, frowning down at it. He wouldn’t be with Zayn forever. Or, not this Zayn. He’d be with a Zayn, and that Zayn would be—well, they’d be soul mates. They wouldn’t argue or be mean and Harry would understand him immediately. But he wouldn’t be this Zayn, who went home every break but never let it hold him down, who was afraid of water but went in anyway, whose smile made Harry want to smile back and who Harry wanted to feed and take care of and hold and let him take care of him back.

“So what?” Clara took another look at the screen. “It’s still great when you have it.”

“But that’s not love.”

“If you say so.” She yawned and stretched, her back cracking. “All I know is, he looks like he’d be good in the sack, and you should try it out.” She turned in her chair, and scooted back over to her workstation. “I’d much rather be looking at him than these damn fucking flowers.”

“Why are you even looking at flowers?”

“It’s for a graphic design class, I don’t even know.” Her eyes narrowed at her screen. Harry was very glad he was not the image on it. “Remind me why I’m not a nice English major or something?”

“Because then you’d have to read?”

“Good point.” She nodded definitively. “Okay, back into the floral wonderland I go. If I talk to you again before three, ignore me.”

“What if it’s an emergency? What if you’re yelling for help?” he grinned as she made a face at him, then turned back to his own computer.

He immediately regretted it. Zayn was just there, staring back at him like he could see all the way into Harry, but he couldn’t. Or, Harry couldn’t see all the way into Zayn, could barely see into Zayn at all. That wasn’t…Nick had told Harry what it had felt like when he had met Louis that he just knew immediately, that the “bratty mean talkative little monster” was the person for him. He hadn’t even needed the tattoo to know it (though Harry had seen their attempts at wooing each other and he was pretty sure if the tattoos hadn’t been there they’d have killed each other as some sort of foreplay).  That was what love was. It wasn’t this…heaviness, in his chest and his hip and his stomach, that only lightened when Zayn looked at him, and not even then really, because Zayn wasn’t his and that fact twisted in his gut. Those certainly weren’t butterflies.

He just really needed to find his Zayn, Harry decided, and closed out of the image of Zayn to turn to the reading for his Ansel Adams class. That would—that would fix everything.

---

Harry had managed to stay away from the café for a full week before caffeine addiction won out over confusion and he ducked in after class. Niall was the only one behind the counter—sometimes Harry wondered if anyone else worked here—but Zayn perched on the arm of the armchair, basically in the lap of Louis, who sat in the chair. He had a hand on Louis’s back, and he was rubbing it slowly up and down his spine. Harry swallowed against the phantom memory of when he had done that to him—and only then noticed that Liam was in the chair across from Louis, elbows braced on his knees as he leaned forward to talk in what Harry recognized was his earnest posture.

“What’s up with him?” Harry asked Niall, once he had ordered a chai latte. He needed that, today. Needed it because he still didn’t get it, how just looking at Zayn made everything better and worse all at once.

“Boy problems,” Niall explained, over the steaming milk. “It’s a crisis.” He didn’t sound terribly worried, but it was Niall, and Harry had never seen him worried.

“About Nick?”

“No, about your mom.” Niall snorted. “”course Nick, what other boy would it be?”

“Could be your dad,” Harry retorted, sticking out his tongue. Niall stuck his out back, so Harry puffed out his cheeks into a monkey face. Niall responded by crossing his eyes, and Harry was about to up things to tugging on his ears when a voice drawled from behind him,

“Glad to know you both are taking this so seriously.”

Harry jumped. He had to prepare himself for Zayn’s voice, for the way it set heat running through his body and mainly settling in his cock, especially when it was so close to his ear.

Niall, though, just laughed, and because it was Niall Harry didn’t have to look to know Zayn was grinning back. Harry bit down on the totally inappropriate jealousy that made him want to grab Zayn’s beanie and cover his eyes with it, so he couldn’t see Niall. So Niall couldn’t make him look like that, because, well, because. Because Harry wanted to make him smile, and it wasn’t fair that Niall could do it just by existing, when Harry only made him scowl.

“I would be taking it seriously if someone would tell me what I should be taking seriously,” Harry said, because he had to say something. Zayn slid around him to grab a cookie from over the counter. Niall rolled his eyes, but didn’t say anything.

“’Cause that made sense.”

“You understood me.”

“Only ‘cause I understand nonsense.” Zayn smirked, and Harry wasn’t sure whether to be offended or pleased or what because Zayn was smiling at him but he’d made fun of him and was this what it was like to be friends with Zayn? Then he sobered. “And, like, I can’t tell you, not if—you’re friends with Nick, really.”

It made sense, because in the end Harry was Nick’s like Zayn was Louis’s, but, “But if they’re soul mates then they’re basically married and they share all their possessions, right?” Harry suggested. He took the latte Niall handed him. “Including friends. So I’m also Louis’s.”

It didn’t make Zayn laugh, as Harry had meant it to. Instead, Zayn’s face did the closing off thing. “They’re not married.” He broke a piece of the cookie off, and took a bite.

“As good as.”

“Not close.” The chocolate had smeared on Zayn’s fingers; he gave it a skeptical look then licked it off, his tongue pink against his skin. Fuck. Harry’s mouth went dry. But,

“Yes close! It’s not like—”

“Historically, most soul mates don’t get married. Especially same sex ones.” Zayn recited it flatly. “It wasn’t proper. And even if it was acceptable to marry homosexually, money and practicalities came into it. The whole expectation that you will marry your soul mate’s a twentieth century ideal. Socrates—well, Plato, but in the Symposium—even said it was better if you didn’t because marriage didn’t have anything to do with—”

“Zayn.” Niall cut him off, almost sharply. But when Harry turned his wide gaze on Niall, he was still smiling. “We’ve heard the rant before.” 

“It’s not a rant, it’s the truth,” Zayn muttered. But…Well, Harry knew all that, or not the Plato thing but everything else, but still…Had Zayn proposed to Jane but they were putting it off? Had she been forced to marry someone rich and powerful and Zayn was waiting to find a way to get her back? He would, too, Harry knew; he wouldn’t just settle for someone telling him they couldn’t for stupid reasons. Harry could almost see him scaling the wall to carry off Jane—a beautiful girl, in his head, with wild red hair and a wicked smile like Zayn’s—so they could ride into the sunset. And Harry couldn’t be in love with Zayn because Zayn wouldn’t do that for him because they weren’t soul mates.

“Maybe so,” Niall replied easily, breaking Harry out of the sudden fantasy that had sprung up of Zayn serenading him outside his window, “But Lou’s waiting for his cookie.”

“It is true,” Zayn told him, but he just did as Niall suggested and strode back to Louis, sliding back onto the arm of the chair before handing over the cookie for Louis to eat.

“He’s a little obsessed with that,” Niall told Harry cheerfully. “But seriously, you should go cheer up Louis, because I’ve got to stay here, and he’s a right prat when he and Nick are fighting.”

“But…” But Harry didn’t want to be anywhere near Zayn. But Harry only wanted to be near Zayn. “Okay.”

He followed the path Zayn had taken over to Louis, and settled into the seat next to Liam’s. It meant he was on the side closer to Zayn, so Zayn’s toe almost brushed against Harry’s calf every time he kicked it idly against the arm of the chair.

“Hey.” Harry grinned his best grin when Louis looked up at him, half-glaring. “I come bearing orders to cheer you up. Have you heard the one about—”

“No,” Liam interrupted him, “No, don’t let him tell it, it’ll actually make you hurt more.”

“Hey.” Harry stuck out his lower lip at Liam in his best pout. “It’s funny!”

“It’s not.”

“I want to hear it.” Harry almost flinched at Zayn’s voice again, but he looked at him instead. Zayn was grinning at Liam, not even pretending to be repentant when Liam glared. “Come on, Styles. Amuse us.”

“Okay!” Harry couldn’t help the size of his grin. Zayn wanted to hear his jokes. He didn’t even care if it was just because Liam didn’t want to hear them. Zayn wanted him to tell it, and he—well, maybe he could make Zayn laugh too.

---

Harry still wasn’t entirely sure how he had ended up at the bar. He thought it had something to do with Liam being determined to distract Louis, and Niall’s assumption that the best distraction meant alcohol, and how Zayn hadn’t said no to Harry coming. But however it happened, he was happy to be there, nicely tipsy as they all stumbled out of the third bar they’d been to, one of Louis’s arms around Harry’s shoulders and the other over Liam’s, as Zayn and Niall whispered something ahead of them and Harry’s camera bag, which he hadn’t had a chance to put back in his room, at his hip.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Louis announced.

“Me too,” Harry agreed.

“Me three,” Liam added, and Harry stuck his tongue out. So did Louis, and Harry grinned at him. He was pretty cool. He shouldn’t be fighting with Nick, they should have their happily ever after, they found each other. Not like Harry. He glanced ahead of them. Zayn was a bit devastating tonight, all in black with his leather jacket on over a black tank top and a beanie pulled over his ears, because the weather was just deciding to be spring but it wasn’t actually warm yet or anything.

“Nobody asked you, Payne,” Louis retorted, and Liam made a sound of mock-offense and slipped away from under Louis’s arm to go pounce on Niall, grabbing him away from Zayn and spinning him in a circle as he laughed merrily.

“But really, you’re cool,” Louis went on. He was probably the drunkest of them, because Liam had insisted on buying drinks for him all night and Zayn had just chuckled when he had said that and said that someone should probably have an ambulance on speed dial, then. “You’re the best Harry. Probably the right Harry, if he wasn’t such an ass.”

“What—” Louis spun, so he was walking backwards and could grab both of Harry’s shoulders with his. His eyes caught in the streetlamps, even if there wasn’t any moon with the heavy clouds overhead, bright and piercing.

“No, he’s being an ass, you’ve got to just tell him. It’s how he works.” He shook Harry, once. “You’re the best Harry, you should tell him that. Sometimes boys are stupid, and they don’t appreciate what you’re doing for them, because they think they know best, but they’re wrong. Just because they’re older doesn’t mean they’re right, or get to love you more.”

“Who?”

“I—”

“How drunk are you, Lou?” Zayn cut in, appearing out of nowhere to wrap his arms around Louis’s waist. Louis shrieked, louder and higher than he probably meant to, then slapped at Zayn’s head when he started giggling into his shoulder. Harry watched, helpless against that, against everything. Against Zayn’s face lit up in a smile, younger and more approachable than he’d seen; against Zayn tucked against Louis like they’d forgotten what personal space meant, like they were the real soul mates.

“So drunk, no thanks to you.” Louis smacked at Zayn again, brushing the beanie askew so a few locks of hair fell down onto his forehead. “Why are we stopping?”

“Because this is my dorm,” Niall retorted. “And it’s where I have whiskey.”

“Whiskey!” Louis tried to squirm out of Zayn’s arms, but in the end just dragged him with him so they both leapt on Niall together. “You’re my favorite Niall.”

“No, he’s my favorite Niall,” Zayn argued, wrapping an arm around Niall’s waist.

“Enough of me to go around.” Niall laughed as he keyed open the door and they all tumbled in, somehow managing to walk like some six-legged animal while Zayn and Louis swatted at each other. They had gotten about halfway down the hall, Liam and Harry a few steps behind, when Zayn paused.

“Hey, where’s that go?”

“Hm?” Niall glanced at the door marked DO NOT ENTER in big red letters. “Dunno.”

“Never noticed it before,” Louis mused. Harry glanced at Liam, but Liam was just darting his gaze around nervously. Then he looked at Zayn, but Zayn was grinning at Louis, that wild glint in his eyes, his fingers drumming against his hip.

“It’s like it’s asking for it,” Louis went on, like he was agreeing, and without another word Zayn reached over to try it. The knob jiggled, but didn’t move.

“Oh, it’s locked!” Liam laughed nervously. “Great, let’s go get the whiskey.”

“Oh, my poor sweet child.” Louis patted Liam on the arm, as Zayn grinned and dropped to his knees next to the lock, pulling something out of his pocket. “Do you really underestimate us still?”

“It’s locked!” Liam insisted, pulling away from Louis, as Zayn started working on the lock with what appeared to be a bobby pin. Harry didn’t think too hard about why he had it. “It’s probably alarmed! Right, Haz?”

It probably was, it was true, but there was so much that could be behind the door, and Zayn glanced over his shoulder, looking up at Harry with that fire in his eyes, and Harry’d never cared too much for the rules. “Let’s see.”

Zayn’s smile flashed, quick and pleased, then he bit as his tongue as he twisted his wrist a few more times. “Okay.” He stood back up, slid the bobby pin into his pocket—did he just have it to pick locks?—“Ready to run?”

Harry braced. The blood was pumping in his veins, pushing the alcohol out, and Zayn was grinning and there was no place he’d rather be.

Slowly, cautiously, Zayn turned the handle.

Nothing happened. Niall let out a wheezing, laughing breath, as Zayn pushed the door open the rest of the way to reveal a flight of stairs.

“Going up?” Louis quipped, and Niall’s chuckles chased them up the stairs, giggling and whispering as Louis led them up and up, Zayn close on his heels.

After what felt like miles of stairs, when Louis was starting to whine that he was not in shape enough for this, they hit another door. This one was unlocked, so Louis pushed it open and let everyone out.

“The roof!” he announced, looking around at the empty concrete expanse. “Awesome.”

“Sick!” Niall echoed, and Harry nodded his agreement. Zayn didn’t say anything, pushing a brick in between the door frame.

“They lock, sometimes,” he explained, when he saw Harry looking.

“You explore a lot of rooftops?”

Zayn smirked. “Don’t much like locked doors.”

No, Harry thought as Zayn went to join the other boys, he probably didn’t. Maybe if Harry locked the door to his room Zayn would have to open it. Maybe if he locked up his heart Zayn would have to—but that was stupid. Stupid, and it didn’t matter, because Zayn wasn’t his.

“Hey, Hazza, come look at this view!” Liam called. Harry gave the door one last look, just to steady himself, and went to where the other boys were standing. It was a great view, a huge panorama of the city, twinkling with lights against clouds a dark, dark grey with the night, and Harry couldn’t help taking out his camera to grab a few shots as Louis and Niall started tossing rocks off the edge, with Liam taking score. There was something wonderful about being up here, with the brisk air whipping around them, heavy with threatening rain, and Zayn standing next to him; like they were all alone on a moutaintop, far away from the university and everything it meant. Like up here anything was possible, they could do anything, that the whole world was in front of them and it was theirs for the taking.

Harry laughed, just because he could. “This is great!”

“Yeah.” It wasn’t laughter; Zayn’s voice was tight with something, and Harry turned to look at him. He was eying the edge of the roof, biting his lip, and his fists were digging into his thighs. “Beautiful.”

“Look! Zayn! Ten points if you can get it in the flowerpot!” Louis called, beckoning him closer to the edge. Zayn went, but Harry watched the way his neck muscles stood out, how his legs were spread like he was braced against something. “Come on, Harry, want a try?”

“Nah, I’ll probably hit someone.” But he went closer too, slid into the space next to Zayn, and before he could second guess himself slipped a hand around Zayn’s wrist. Something to ground him, he hoped, if it was—well, if he had guessed right. Something to tell him Harry wouldn’t let him fall.

In the quiet—or maybe it wasn’t even quiet, maybe it was just Harry was cataloguing every sound, every move Zayn made—he heard Zayn’s breath catch. He ran his hand over the leather of the cuff, over where it hit skin, in what he hoped was comfort, hoped was a way to repay that time outside the other bar. Or even not to repay. He would offer Zayn comfort even if he never got anything in return. He thought he might offer Zayn anything, even if he got nothing in return.

But this time, he got a thin smile. “I’m not…big on heights,” Zayn admitted, softly. Too softly for the others to hear.

Harry tried for a teasing smile in return. “No water, no heights…there anything you’re not afraid of?” Zayn snorted, but he was still tense, so Harry ran his fingers over his palm again. “Do you need to go in?”

“No.” Zayn swallowed, and looked out over the view. “No, I won’t.”

Of course he wouldn’t. Not Zayn. Not his proud Oberon.

Harry didn’t know how long they stood there, linked together as they stared out at the nighttime city, at all those possibilities, all those places to go. Would Zayn like to go too? Harry didn’t think so, but he would understand why Harry wanted to. Wouldn’t mind that Harry did. Maybe he would…

“Is that rain?” Liam held up a hand. “I think I felt rain.”

“No you—yeah, that’s rain,” Louis scowled up at the clouds. “Whiskey time?”

“It’s always whiskey time,” Niall agreed. “And you’ve got two shots for losing.”

“I don’t!” Louis objected, getting to his feet so he could walk over to the door. Zayn didn’t move, and Harry—well, Zayn wasn’t running away from Harry. He wasn’t going to move as long as he could have this. “It’s my pity party, I don’t have to take extra shots.”

“Don’t you want more shots?” Liam asked dryly. Louis opened his mouth to object, then closed it again.

“That is a fair point,” he admitted. “Just for that, you get to take one of them.”

“Thanks?”

“You’re welcome.” He looked back from the doorway. “Zayn, coming?”

Zayn didn’t look away from the horizon point, or whatever he was staring so intently at. “Nah, I’m good. Had enough for tonight.”

“Your loss. Harry?”

Harry wouldn’t have said no to more whiskey, honestly; wouldn’t have said no to getting inside and drinking to forget. But he also would never say no to staying with Zayn in their little bubble forever, to feeling like Zayn needed him to keep him grounded here. “’m good too,” he said, trying to keep his voice even and not like he was dying a little, as he felt Zayn’s wrist muscles shift beneath his fingers. “Have fun.”

Liam gave him a knowing look, but Harry just wrinkled his nose at him. He didn’t know anything. He thought Zayn was his soul mate. He thought Harry had a right to this.

Louis gave Harry a knowing look too, which made less sense, because he didn’t actually know anything. “Okay then Zayn. Harry.” He did that thing with Harry’s name again, and someday Harry would have to ask why he seemed to like saying it so much. And possibly request their first child be named it. He thought he got that anyway, having introduced them, but Nick kept on insisting it didn’t count if they would have met anyway. “Have fun! Come on, men. We have things to drink. You have pity to give me.”

The door bounced on the brick as it tried to close behind them, and the sounds of them clattering downstairs drifted up for a minute until another door slammed.

Then it was just Harry, Zayn, and the sky.

Harry ran the fingers of his loose hand over the edges of his camera. He should probably put it away, get it out of the rain—it was waterproof to a degree, but if it started really raining that wouldn’t be good—but when he loosened his grip on Zayn he…shuddered, or something, and Harry couldn’t let go. Didn’t want to let Zayn get that look again, like every muscle was seizing up. Didn’t want Zayn to ever get that look.

“You could have gone with them,” Zayn said at last. The rain was starting to fall harder, turning from a mist into something that was more of a drizzle, and Harry thought he could hear thunder in the distance. But Zayn still didn’t move. “Don’t have to stay out here in the rain with me.”

“You could have gone in too,” Harry retorted. “If you didn’t what, have to prove you could?”

“More or less.” Zayn gave the edge another wary look, just visible in the reflected light.

“You went up here at all, doesn’t that matter?”

Zayn shook his head, slowly. “I’ve—I mean, it wasn’t…” he trailed off. Harry let his thumb rest right over the center of his wrist over the cuff, right where the pulse would be, and pressed lightly. Zayn made some sort of sound Harry couldn’t read, but wasn’t entirely unpleasant. “Like, I’ve always been afraid, of a lot of things. Stupid things. Like heights. I mean, I know I’m not going to fall. And even if I did, we’re not that high.” His gaze was distant. “But I’ve got to—I can’t just, like, let it win.”

Harry swallowed. In the dark, with his back rigid and his head lifted in what seemed like pride but was probably actually an attempt not to look down, he did look mythological, something Harry couldn’t quite name. Lucifer, looking away from the edge of Heaven right before he fell, if Harry was feeling Miltony, if it wasn’t ridiculous because Zayn might have been proud and fiery but he was also silly and nice and not the devil at all.

“So you’ve got to stand up here in the rain probably catching a cold so you don’t feel scared?” Harry asked. He really hoped he didn’t get a cold, but the rain was starting to come down harder, almost a steady stream now, and that was definitely thunder. “That’s…isn’t that just letting it win some other way?”

“But it’s my way.” Zayn shrugged, and tilted his head back so the rain fell on his face.

“Is your way in a—fuck!” Harry swore, as a bolt of lightning split the sky. “In a thunder storm?”

Zayn laughed, but it was swallowed by the thunder. “C’mon, Styles, haven’t you ever been in the rain?”

“Not when I’m the tallest thing around!” Harry shot back. “Lightning’ll strike me first.”

“By like an inch.” Harry tugged on his wrist. “Okay, fine.” It was him who pulled away this time, who took a careful step to the right so he was too far for Harry to touch. It almost hurt, that distance—but Harry was distracted by trying to shelter his camera so it didn’t short out, trotting back a few paces towards the door.

“Hey, Zayn,” he called, turning back, “Hurry—”

He stopped. He couldn’t not. Zayn was standing at the edge of the building alone, all in black that almost blended into the night sky except for how the light reflected off the leather and the jeans and the rain slick on his skin, and his hair where it came out from under the beanie. Harry couldn’t help lifting his camera despite the rain, just because it was too much not too—then lightning struck, and his finger hit the shutter at the same moment, as the sky turned white.

“Shit.” Harry stared at the view screen. It was—holy shit, he had not expected to get that lucky with a shot, ever. That was a once in a lifetime luck, that was the sort of luck he could only dream about, and it filled him up until he couldn’t hold it just in him. “Shit, Zayn!”

“What?”

“Shit, just—” The rain suddenly dropped, coming down in a sheet that had Harry swearing and running for the door, cradling his camera into his chest. He yanked the door open and tripped through, then held it open as Zayn darted through it after him.

“Fucking hell it’s wet,” Zayn muttered, but he was laughing almost wildly, and Harry thought of the picture on his camera and of Zayn’s wrist under his hand and laughed too, so they were both still laughing as they ran down the stairs.

By some sort of unspoken mutual agreement, they didn’t stop at Niall’s room. They couldn’t dry off there, Harry figured, and then there would be other people and drinks and that wasn’t what Harry wanted, not now. Instead they both kept running, back outside into the still pouring rain, until they finally made it to Harry’s, both pressing into the tiny underhang while Harry wrestled the keys out of his jeans. And maybe Harry fumbled a bit, so that he could have more of Zayn pressing close to him to get out of the rain, his hands brushing against his hip every time they moved.

They made it into the entranceway still laughing, because how could they not, soaked to the bone and frozen from it, with the beanie hanging awkwardly from Zayn’s hair and Harry’s own hair pulled straight and both their clothes sticking to their skin.

“That is a lot colder than I thought,” Zayn admitted, as he peeled off his jacket, then his boots.

“Then you thought rain in March would be?”

Zayn shrugged, and pulled off the beanie to toss it onto the jacket. His hair was longer than Harry had expected ,pushed flat so it covered the back of his neck and almost fell into his eyes, but looking at it was better than looking at where his shirt clung to his body, outlining muscles and bones. Harry had seen him shirtless, of course, but there was something different about this, away from the camera lens and the abstraction of theme and setting. Here, it was just Zayn, too beautiful too untouchable Zayn, who wasn’t Harry’s at all but who he wanted so, so badly, wanted to warm him up with his body and find the tattoo written somewhere on him and take away all the fears he ever felt the need to conquer, or help him stand up to them so he wouldn’t have to be alone.

“I’ll get you a towel,” Harry said, to break the silence that was falling. He didn’t want it to get awkward. He wanted it to be like it was on the roof, both of them together. “And, I guess a change of clothes? Until you dry off?”

“What?” Zayn sounded almost distracted, but then he snapped to attention, focusing back on Harry’s face from… his chest? God, Harry hoped so. “Yeah. Thanks.”

“Cool. Um, I’ll go grab stuff—just don’t sit down and make things wet, I’ll bring something out.”

Harry wasn’t running away. He just needed a moment to set things straight, he decided, as he hurried to his room. He stripped quickly out of his wet clothes and threw them in the hamper, then pulled on sweatpants and a t-shirt that was maybe a little tighter than he would usually wear to lounge around in but no one needed to know that. A glance in the mirror told him his hair was hopeless and wouldn’t get better, so he pulled it back into a ponytail before picking the most generic sweatpants and a t-shirt out of his wardrobe and going back out.

Zayn was standing in the living room, looking at the bookshelves. He looked good there, Harry couldn’t help but think, in Harry’s space, running a hand absently over his cuff as he scanned the shelves.

“Hey.” He turned to Harry with a smile, like he was happy to see him. Harry gulped. “Here’s some clothes, you can change in my room.”

Zayn smiled again, still sharp with water still dripping off his hair, and took the clothes from Harry.

“Thanks,” he said, and headed back down the hall.

Harry did not watch him go. He didn’t think about Zayn, in his room, really in his space, either; whether he filled it up or whether he was curious what Harry filled it with or what he thought of the books and pictures and things Harry had in there. Whether maybe he got distracted halfway through stripping off his clothes, and what he might look like wandering the room naked. Instead, he made tea.

He was just finishing pouring the water into the mugs when he heard the door to his room swing open.

“Styles?”

“One second, you can go to the living room,” Harry called back. He poured milk and a sugar into his, then splashed some milk into Zayn’s, and went back into the living room.

Zayn was still pacing the edges of the room, now looking at the DVDs stacked in a pile by the TV, but again he turned when Harry walked in, straightened. He looked softer than Harry had seen him before, out of his dark clothes and leather jackets and hair gel. Not the Oberon Harry had made him, not the dragon wild and unknowable, just a boy in sweatpants that were a trifle too long, tied tight around the waist, and a too-big t-shirt with a Ramones symbol on it, his hair a mess. Harry couldn’t help but smile at it. Was this what Jane had seen? Was this who she had gotten, as the person who shared his soul?

“Tea?” he asked. Zayn grinned.

“’course.” He took the mug Harry offered, slid his hands around it. “Thunderstorms are more fun in the summer.”

“Do you stay out in a lot of them?”

Zayn chuckles, took a sip of tea. “Enough. Never remember an umbrella, or anything.” He gave the tea a narrow-eyed look, but didn’t say anything.

“Is it okay?”

“Hm?”

“The tea.”

“Oh, yeah. ‘s fine.”

“Then why’d you give it a look?”

“A look?”

“Yeah.” Harry narrowed his eyes in an exaggerated mockery of Zayn’s suspicious look. “Didn’t poison it or anything. Or not on purpose. I guess it’s possible I put something in it by accident, or the teabag was poisoned or something, or maybe the milk went dangerously off between pouring mine and pouring yours, but I don’t think it’s likely. So why the look?”

Zayn shrugged. “It’s just, I didn’t remember telling you how I took my tea.”

Oh. Harry thought back, and he must have, right? At some point. They had known each other for a long time, even if Harry’d spent most of that time disliking him for being an arrogant asshole. Or maybe Harry had just noticed sometime in that time. Even when he had hated him, had been halfway to tears or yelling because Zayn was being mean or condescending or just ignoring him, he’d never really been able to look away.

“It’s nothing.” Zayn shook his head, before Harry had the chance to speak. “Anyway, you had something you wanted to show me?”

Now it was Harry’s turn for a questioning look. “What?”

“On the roof, you were going to show me something before we had to run.”

“I was? Oh, right!” How had Harry forgotten? He set his mug on the coffee table, grabbed up his camera bag from next to the door, did a quick check to make sure the rain hadn’t hurt it, then plopped down in the middle of the couch. When Zayn still didn’t move, he rolled his eyes and patted the seat next to him. “Look at this picture I got!”

“In the rain?”

“Yes, in the rain, come on!” Harry patted the seat harder, and Zayn laughed as he sat down. He wasn’t right next to Harry—there was enough room between their legs for Harry to hold the camera there—but Zayn had to lean in close to look, and their shoulders brushed. It warmed Harry up even better than the tea. The picture, when Harry pulled it up, looked as good as he remembered, as he’d hoped, Zayn sopping wet in the rain with lightning behind him, but seemingly untouched by everything.

When Zayn didn’t say anything for a long second, Harry bounced up and down to jostle him. “Well?”

“It’s brilliant.” Zayn spoke quietly, almost slowly. “Really.”

“Right?” Harry bounced again, because he could, because it meant he could bounce closer to Zayn. Not even the aching in his hips, because it seemed he was getting prematurely old, could dim his enthusiasm now, because he could win awards with that sort of picture and he had Zayn in his apartment next to him wearing his clothes and he was warming up and everything was good. “I think that’ll be air.”

“More water than anything else.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “But storms are in the air. And since you’re not going up high again to get something else…”

“I could.” Harry glanced over. Zayn was closer than he’d realized, and there was something serious in his eyes, something intense and almost in pain, that made Harry’s heart thump painfully. “If you needed.”

“No.” Harry didn’t want to see Zayn like that ever again, if he could help it. “No, this is air.” He grinned at it again. “Think Nick would be cheered up if I told him this is what came of him and Louis fighting?”

“Think Lou might hit you,” Zayn laughed. That serious look was gone, and he leaned back into the couch. Harry was happy the pained look had disappeared, but leaning back meant he was leaning away from Harry, and Harry didn’t like that. He knew he was stealing this, knew this sort of closeness, the comfortable mood and cozy intimacy, wasn’t his at all, that he would get this with someone else, but…he could steal this. As practice.

He leaned back too, angling so it was sort of like he was tucked under the arm Zayn had slung over the back of the couch. “Can you at least tell me something about what they’re fighting about? Louis was saying weird shit to me tonight.”

“Louis says a lot of shit.” Zayn’s eyes darkened for a second, then took a sip of tea like it was calming him down. “They’re just arguing. It happens, in couples.”

“But they’re soul mates!” Harry wouldn’t argue with that Zayn. He knew that. He’d always known that. He wouldn’t—they’d agree. There wouldn’t be any of those moments where Zayn’s eyes burned dark and deep and magnetic and wrong and Harry would argue back and he’d feel the blood rising in him and start thinking about how best they could resolve this with their tongues.

“But they’re a couple.” Zayn shrugged. “You know.”

“Not really.” He could feel the look Zayn gave him. “Told you, I’ve never been in love.” Not before. Not with someone he could have.

“Not even in a relationship?”

“Why would I?” Why would he, when he knew better was out there?

“Because you’re…” Zayn trailed off, but Harry grinned, turned towards him.

“Because I’m what? Tell me, Zayn, why should I be in a relationship?”

“Because you’re a cheeky brat,” Zayn retorted, but he was smiling and he looked almost fond. Which maybe he was, because they were friends, right? He liked Harry now. He didn’t mind spending time with him.

“And you’re an asshole,” Harry retorted, and because he was feeling daring he pushed at Zayn’s shoulder. Zayn just laughed, and shoved gently at Harry’s head with the hand above it. Harry stuck his tongue out back, and when Zayn didn’t respond wiggled a little closer.

Silence settled in again, as they both sipped at their tea. Harry was warm all over by now, even if his hair was still a bit wet, from the tea and Zayn’s nearness and the lovely warmth of him. He almost felt like he could drift off, like a sun-warmed cat, just fall into Zayn and drift off to sleep.

“Why were you surprised you got a good picture?” Zayn asked. He was quiet too, lazy, like he was just as warm and relaxed as Harry was.

“Because that was really lucky, the lightning strike.”

“But you get good pictures all the time.”

“I’m okay.” Harry took another sip of his tea. At another time, he might have been nervous, ashamed to admit it. “I can do good things, sometimes.”

“A lot of the time. I’ve seen your stuff. It’s good.” Zayn sounded so sure, so immovably absolutely positive, that it lit something more in Harry, made him squirm and his belly heat. “And not only when your model is good.”

“That does help, though,” Harry teased, and Zayn tugged on his ponytail in response. “Hey!”

Zayn grinned back, unrepentant. “If you have a ponytail, you can expect it to get pulled. I’ve got sisters.”

“I never pulled my sister’s hair.”

“That’s ‘cause she was older, right? That’s dangerous. The trick is to have younger sisters.”

Zayn remembered that. It made Harry smile, thinking about that day in the bookstore, when he’d thought he still hated Zayn and Zayn had still made him feel better, because he was good like that.

It was that memory that made him say, quietly, “I applied to this internship, for the summer. Traveling around Europe for this photoarticle about nature in urban spaces.”

“Yeah?” Zayn’s hand brushed against his head again, almost like he was petting it. Enough that Harry could pretend. 

“Yeah.” Harry took the last drink of tea. He didn’t want to move to put the mug on the table, so he just set it next to him on the couch. “It sounds really awesome, it’s everything I want and it’d be great for my resume and probably as a reference and I really, really want it.” Zayn hummed. “I just…” Harry trailed off, biting at his lip as he thought of the words. “I don’t know. I should probably figure out what I’ll do when I don’t, though, right?”

“If you want.” Again that cut off motion that wasn’t a stroke. “But you’ll get it.”

“How do you know?”

“Because you’re good,” Zayn said it like a challenge, like he was daring the world to disagree with him. “And because you’re you.” Harry let those words settle around him, closed his eyes and let them fill him up and write themselves on his heart like the tattoo of someone else on his hip. He might not get Zayn, but he could have that, the fierce belief of this boy he loved. He didn’t know how he could ever love anyone more.

The words were out before he could think of them. “What happened with Jane?”

The mood caught, hardened, as Zayn tensed. Harry nudged gently at Zayn’s foot with his, an encouragement and a hope that he would tell him something, about what Zayn could be like.

“What do you mean?” Zayn said at last. He didn’t sound angry, at least. Just…cold.

“Why isn’t she here?” Maybe it was presumptuous, maybe it was too much, but Harry wanted to know. Wanted to know why Zayn never talked about her. Wanted to know every bit of Zayn there was, even the parts that hurt. “How’d you meet and all?”

Zayn paused again, like he was turning the thought over in his head, and Harry made himself look at him, give him his best puppy dog eyes. “Please, Zayn? Tell me?”

Zayn sighed. “We met Freshman year, we went out—”

“No,” Harry cut him off. He wiggled around so he could face Zayn more, so Zayn’s cuff was sort of pressing against his head, then nodded again. “Tell me the story, Zayn. How’d you meet?”

“She bought a book from me.” The words came out clipped, brief. Harry held back a frown. Zayn was telling him the story, and it was what he wanted, but…but he thought of their moments in the shelves, and he didn’t like it. Didn’t like that the bookstore was apparently a Zayn-and-Jane place, not a Zayn-and-Harry place, because soul mates got precedence but Harry had hoped he got something. Got that one little thing. “It was my first week working there, I was a mess and totally messed up, and she was chill with it. I bought her a coffee as thanks.”

It was a cute story, cute enough that Harry was having a hard time not cooing even though it was hurting him, but Zayn didn’t smile. He just stared down at his knees, his shoulders set.

“We started going out. We were in love.” He trailed off again. Harry tried to wait patiently, because he knew this was getting to the bad part, the part Zayn didn’t talk about, the part that made Zayn hide his tattoo and get all mad. But finally,

“Then?” he prompted. “Did she die?”

“What?” Zayn stared at Harry. “What, no. No. Why would you even think that?”

“Because she’s not here?” Harry suggested, a little miffed. He had thought it was a perfectly good suggestion.

“No. She’s not dead. Or, I think. I haven’t seen her since.” Zayn shook his head, but he stopped looking at Harry, turned his gaze to the wall to stare at it with dark, distant eyes. Maybe he was Prospero after all, not Ariel or Caliban, deep with mysteries only he knew. “No, then I turned twenty-one.”

“So?” Wouldn’t that make everything better?

Zayn’s gaze snapped to Harry’s, wide and fierce. “So it wasn’t her name.” 

Harry’s whole world paused. Not her name, echoed in his head. Not her. “What?” he demanded. “It wasn’t?”

“It wasn’t,” Zayn confirmed. His hand twitched behind Harry’s head. “And it’s not like I cared, you know? I loved her. But she—she left.” His face twisted, almost ugly, though Harry didn’t know how Zayn could be ugly. Though Harry could barely hear anything past not her not her not her.

“Not her?” Harry managed to force out. Not her. Maybe it was him. Maybe it was Zayn’s name, maybe it was him who got all this, maybe…

“Not her.” Zayn tossed back his head, but his eyes were still on Harry’s, hazel and gold and far away and so many things Harry didn’t know, so many places he couldn’t capture. “Not that it matters, except to her, but no, it wasn’t.”

Suddenly, all the places they were touching felt like they were burning, bright spots in Harry’s mind. He could—Zayn wasn’t—well, he was, but Harry—

He couldn’t stop himself, or if he could, he didn’t want to. Didn’t want to stop himself from shifting forward, so instead of just their thighs touching it was all of them, because Harry was in Zayn’s lap and then his lips were on Zayn’s.

 It felt like falling, that kiss, like drowning and burning all at once, as Harry pushed into Zayn, tried to pour all the confusion and love and please he had in him into that kiss, into the way his lips felt against Harry’s, chapped and hot and shit, kissing back, moving against Harry’s too with his hands digging into Harry’s hips where they had gone to steady him, and one of his hands brushed against where his name was, his, and Harry moaned—

And then somehow he was back on the couch, shoved off roughly, and Zayn was standing up, eyes wide and wild and afraid, lips swollen with Harry’s kiss. “No.” His fingers were running over his arm, grasping at it, scratching almost frantically. “No, fuck, no.”

“Zayn?” Harry got up too. What had gone wrong? They had been kissing. They had been—well, they might be—but everything was going right! “What—”

“No.” Zayn repeated it like it was a mantra, a spell. “No, I won’t, I can’t.” He raked his fingers through his hair. Harry couldn’t help but reach out to him, because he was in pain, because Harry was in pain and he wanted Zayn, wanted Zayn to kiss him again and let him drown in him.

But Zayn shied away, like Harry’s touch would hurt. “No. I won’t.” He spun, and before Harry could stop him he was at the door, grabbing his shoes.

“Zayn, come on, just—it’s still raining.”

“I’ve got to go. I can’t be here. I can’t—” he wasn’t even looking at Harry, his face bent to his chest. “I can’t, Harry. I’m sorry.”

Then he was out the door, and gone, and Harry could only stare at the leather jacket he’d left in the hall. He pressed his fingers to his lips, tried to remember the feeling of Zayn against them. He couldn’t—not her was still in his mind, and—this was right. He had to be right. It had to be Zayn.

---

He was still there when Liam came home, an hour later. Or, he had migrated to the couch, but he was still just staring at where Zayn’s jacket lay, wet and shining and there.

“Hey,” Liam grinned when he came in, stumbling unsteadily. He had the flushed cheeks and loud voice he got when he was drunk, but he when he caught sight of Zayn’s jacket he was with it enough to laugh loudly. “Have a good night?”

Harry managed to smile. “Not really.”

 “Oh.” Liam’s eyebrows narrowed at the coat, like checking it was still there. “Is that Zayn’s jacket?”

“Yeah.”

“Is he here?”

Harry ran a hand through his hair. “No. He’s not.”

“Oh.” Liam gave the coat another processing look, then toppled onto the couch next to Harry. He was so nice and big and solid and reliable; Harry fell easily into him, even if he reeked of whiskey. He was everything Zayn wasn’t, really. He’d be Ferdinand, probably, Ferdinand or Lysander or Adam or Gawain, someone knowable and here, and why wasn’t that nearly half as good? “I kinda thought, the way you two were acting…”

“Me too.” Harry closed his eyes against the memory of it. “Wait, us two?”

“Yeah?” Liam was clearly making a very large effort to keep the conversation coherent. “Like, on the roof?”

“I know, but…both?” He knew he had made a fool of himself. He’d figured it out, in the hour since Zayn left. Just because Jane wasn’t his soul mate, it didn’t mean Harry was. He probably had someone else’s name written somewhere on him—though Harry didn’t know where, he’d seen most of him bare, and there were no names there, unless it was hidden like Harry’s. Harry’d just…been carried away by the mood, by the confidences, by Zayn looking soft and warm and almost catchable. But he wasn’t. Or at least, not by Harry. “Like, not just me?”

“’course not.” Liam cocked his head. “He was looking at you sometimes; it was like he’d…he’d…” Liam trailed off, thinking, then, “Like he’d burn the world for you, if you wanted,” he finished triumphantly.

Oh, god. Oh, Harry wished. “Really?” he was probably just imagining it. Or Zayn just looked at the whole world like he was a moment away from burning it.

“Yeah. Is Zayn really not here? Why’s his jacket here?”

Harry shook his head. “He left it.” He’d tell Liam, he would. But not right now. Not with the hurt still a fresh wound. Instead, “Is there something wrong with me?”

“No!” Liam pulled Harry roughly into him. “No. Why? Did Zayn say something? I don’t care if he’s your soul mate, that’s not—”

“He’s not. And no, he didn’t.” It wasn’t Zayn’s fault Harry had been an idiot. That Harry was being an idiot, swept away by the coincidence of a name until he fell in love with someone who wasn’t even his soul mate, who didn’t want him, not really. That’s why he knew they weren’t soul mates, no matter how right it had felt. If Zayn was his soul mate—if it had been Harry on him—then Zayn couldn’t have run. Then Zayn would have felt the right too. “Just, it’s supposed to be easy, right?”

“It will be.” Liam said it like saying it could make it so, and hugged Harry tighter. “C’mon, Haz, it will be.”

Harry wasn’t so sure. But it felt so nice to be cuddled up to Liam, even if he wasn’t who Harry wanted, even if his practical, reliable presence wasn’t exactly what Harry need, that he let himself be hugged until he was almost feeling better.

---

It was better, though, the next morning. It was easier to face it in the morning, when the sun was shining brightly and there were a few birds who had realized it was spring and Harry was dry and warm. Harry could go for a run, make tea and breakfast for him and Liam, as a thank you and a ‘I hope you’re not that hung over’ present before Liam headed out to the engineering library. He could write half a paper, and even managed to fold the dried jeans and tank top Zayn had left in his room without doing anything. He could do this. This would be a funny story to tell the Zayn who was his, who wasn’t going to run away; the time he had fallen in love with the person who shared his name who rejected him so then he could find his happily ever after. It would be great. They’d tell it cuddled together on the couch, and he would have an arm wrapped around Harry’s shoulder and smile at him like he was the best, and he wouldn’t have tattoos or that barely-tamed look in his eyes or anything.

Harry didn’t even think about putting on the jacket, seeing if it smelled like Zayn, if wearing it would feel like he was allowed to wear Zayn’s clothes. Not at all. Not even once. Not even every other sentence of the paper, until finally he had to shove his computer away in frustration and pick up his book.

But that didn’t help either, because he had been making his way through the Bukowski he had bought from Zayn and all he could think about was that moment in the shelves when—almost—and how he had laughed with Harry and how it had felt easy, then.

So when the doorbell rang mid-afternoon, Harry was all too pleased to throw his book aside too and get up to get it. Maybe it was Nick to finally tell him where he’d been for the last week. Nick would cuddle him and tell him he was great and that Zayn wasn’t worth it and probably make him laugh so he forgot.

Except it wasn’t Nick.

Harry just stared at the open doorway, where Zayn stood. He looked…well, he looked great, because he was Zayn, but there was something less put together than usual. His hair looked like he might actually have rolled out of bed, not like he’d spent hours making it look that way. His jeans were looser than usual; the t-shirt was an old superhero thing that looked well-loved. It was more like last night, when he had taken off his armor, and that hurt, too.

“Hey.” Zayn began. He didn’t smile.

“Hey.” Harry swallowed. “You here to pick up your clothes and shit?”

“Yeah, and, here.” He shoved a pile of clothes at Harry. Right. The sweats he had lent him. Harry gazed blankly at them, then stepped back to let Zayn in while he went to his room to grab the jeans and tank.

Back in the entranceway, Zayn had already picked up his jacket. Maybe he’d forget the beanie, Harry hoped, a little wildly. Maybe he’d leave that. Maybe Harry’d get something.

“Here you go!” Harry gave his best bright smile. “They’re mostly dry.”

“Right.” Zayn rubbed at his wrist. He looked almost…nervous? But Zayn didn’t do nervous. Zayn didn’t give enough fucks to do nervous.

Then his gaze flicked up to Harry’s, and it wasn’t nervous anymore. “I’m also here because you should get an explanation.”

Personally, Harry agreed, but he also didn’t think he could deal with Zayn in here any more, not until he figured his head out, so he shrugged. “Nah, it’s fine. You aren’t—I mean, I got confused, ‘cause of the mood, and I got you mixed up with—”

“Mixed up?” The demand came whiplash fast.

“Yeah. Well, or I got mixed up. I mean, you know, ‘cause of your name.”

“Name?”

“Zayn. It’s easy to get confused, ‘cause it’s my soul mate’s name too.” Because it’s your name, please say it’s you, please please please.

“Fuck.” Zayn scrubbed his hands over his face now. He looked tired; Harry wondered if he’d slept. But no, he shouldn’t care—well, he should, but it wasn’t his responsibility. Except, fuck, he wanted it. Wanted to yell at Zayn to sleep and put him to bed and exhaust him in bed until he had no choice but to sleep. “I’d hoped…”

“Hoped?” Something like hope fluttered in Harry’s chest.

“Hoped you were just fooling around.”

The hope died, but Harry managed to smile again. “Nope. Or, well, yeah, I was, I mean, I know you aren’t—you can’t be that Zayn. I mean, I’ve never seen your soul mate tattoo, I don’t know where it is—” He didn’t even care what he said anymore, just so that it distracted Zayn from the fact that he had thrown himself at Zayn, when Zayn wasn’t his to have. “Where is it? I’ve seen most of you, and I’ve never seen it, at all. Unless did you cover it up? Can you even do that?”

Zayn’s lips twitched. Harry was glad he was fucking amusing him. “You haven’t guessed?” He held up his wrist, where the cuff lay, a heavy leather stripe over his pulse.

Oh. Harry remembered Zayn rubbing at it like it ached, like his hip ached. Remembered how Zayn hadn’t let it come off, not ever. Remembered grabbing it on the roof, and how Zayn had breathed easier with the pressure there.

“Oh.” He eyed it, and Zayn’s gaze behind it, serious and just hazel, beautiful but normal, not far away at all. “What does it say?”

“Harry—”

“No,” Harry cut him off, “No, you owe me that much. I—”

“Harry.”

“I know it’s not Jane,” Harry went on. Knowing it would help. Knowing who he wasn’t, who he couldn’t be. “But you—”

“Harry.” Something about Zayn’s voice, the way it sounded ripped out of him, the way it rumbled over his chest. “It says Harry.”

Harry’s whole world froze. Froze, and centered on that single sentence, that echoed in his mind like not her had last night, but a thousand times louder. “Harry?” His voice came out in a bit of a squeak. “Like, my name?”

“Like, your name.” Zayn sighed. “So you see why I couldn’t, right? Why I can’t.”

“No.” No. It was—they matched. Harry’s name—if Harry squinted, if Harry tried, maybe he could see his name there beneath the leather. His name, like Zayn’s was on Harry. This was—everything. His name. His his his his. “No, I don’t—we match, Zayn! We’re—”

“That’s the problem!” Zayn took a step back, like he was afraid Harry might attack, which, he might. He felt like he was teetering on the edge now, like he was a second away from launching himself at Zayn. Except Zayn wasn’t—Zayn wasn’t happy about this. “That’s just fucking it, I can’t. I won’t let this happen.”

“Won’t let what?”

“This!” Zayn spat it out, gesturing at the space between them. “You. Us. I won’t let the fucking universe choose!”

“Why not?” Harry demanded. He knew this, at least. Knew how to fight with Zayn, even though my name and I won’t were rattling around in his brain until he thought he might burst, even though Harry felt the warmth of knowing filling him up. They would figure this out, then Zayn would kiss him for real, then Harry could find all the parts of Zayn he’d wanted to for years, find where all that lightning came from. “It’s—we’re meant for each other Zayn!”

“Who says? A fucking tattoo? I could get a thousand names tattooed on me.”

“No.” It was almost instinctive, the rush of anger at that. “No. Just mine.” Harry reached out, to try to grab Zayn’s wrist, to feel where the letters were—but Zayn yanked away.

“No, I can’t, I told you. Find someone else.”

“There isn’t anyone else!” Why was Zayn being like this? Harry could almost cry, could shake him if he could just get his hands on him. “It’s you! You know it.”

“Why? The names don’t—”

“I love you.” The words sounded loud in the hall, louder than the angry yells. Zayn’s eyes went wide, and Harry felt his own doing the same. He hadn’t entirely meant to say that, but he meant it, god, he did, and Zayn needed to know because Zayn wouldn’t—because Zayn. Because Zayn, and his hip was almost searing in its pain, and why would Zayn just let it work like it was supposed to?

Finally, into the silence, Zayn sighed. He sounded tired again. “No, Harry, you don’t.”

“Yes, I—”

“You love the tattoo. You love that I’m apparently meant for you according to some cosmic fuckery. But,” and now he wasn’t calm, and his eyes blazed, and here was the dragon, here was that part of him Harry had never been able to catch. “You don’t love me.”

Harry’s fists clenched. How—how fucking dare he? How fucking dare he say what Harry felt. How fucking dare he deny what they had. How dare he say that this knot in his stomach that’s been killing him doesn’t exist. “Get out.” He said, trying to contain himself. “Get the fuck away.”

“Fine,” Zayn snapped back, and pulled on his coat before he slammed the door behind him for the second time.

And for the second time, Harry didn’t move, just stared at where Zayn had disappeared. How dare he. How dare he. How—how did he say no? How—they were soul mates. They were. Harry knew it, like he had always known it, maybe, since he had taken that first picture of Zayn, golden in the trees. Since he had seen those letters on his hip. Since he had first seen Zayn, dark and beautiful and bright, an adventure waiting to happen. They were meant to be. They would be. They had to be.

Harry collapsed back on the couch, covering his face with his hands. They would be. They would.

---

“Hey.” The finger felt like it came out of nowhere to poke at Harry’s arm. “Hey, Harry.” Harry swatted at the arm. He was busy. He had a project to work on and a soul mate to make stop being stupid. “Harry,” Clara repeated, and Harry groaned and spun in his chair.

“What?” It wasn’t her fault, so he tried not to snap at her. It wasn’t her fault his soul mate was being stubborn and avoiding him.

Her eyebrows furrowed as she looked at him. “Are you okay?”

“Fine.”

She gave him her best skeptical look, which was more aggressive than skeptical, but was scary all the same. “Really? Because you’ve been staring at your desktop for half an hour without moving.”

“Half an hour? Fuck, no—” he glanced at his watch, then glared. “Mean.”

“Yeah. But still, five minutes at least. What’s up, kiddo?”

“I’m not a kid.” He wasn’t. Zayn didn’t get to just fucking decide that.

“Okay then. What’s up? Is it the project? Crunch time’s the worst, I’ve got so much shit to do still, I think I need another shot at least…” she trailed off, and poked him again. “And you’re not even asking me anything, so something’s definitely off.”

“I just…” Harry rubbed at his temples. He didn’t want to do anything but look at Zayn, but he didn’t want to look at Zayn at all, because he couldn’t stop seeing him, that venomous look he had given him as he slammed the door, the not her and the it says Harry and the I won’t a constant refrain.

“Boy trouble?”

“Why would you say that?” Had he given it away? His back straightened with surprise.

She chuckled. “Nah, that’s just always the worst. Fuck the hot model yet?”

“No.” Harry’s lips tingled. “No. Not yet.” But it would happen. Once Zayn stopped being stupid about it.

“Then why won’t you open the file?”

“I will!”

“You haven’t for five minutes.”

“I was tired! I will.”

“Really?”

“Yes!” Harry clicked decisively on the icon, and watched the pictures pop open on his screen.

It almost hurt, the images, the four of them, Zayn staring at him or into the distance, his smiles fierce and kind and faraway, the gold glittering around him in all of them. None of them were him, though. Not all of him, not even added together. Where was Zayn on Harry’s couch, soft and laughing? Where was Zayn on the rooftop, rigid with fear he wouldn’t give into? How had he even thought he could get all of him?

But he would. He got all of him, because it was written on their skin. It would happen.

“Oh, wow. Look at that lightning!” It was the last thing Harry had been able to do with the project, before Zayn had come back; adding the picture into the file. “Shit, how on earth did that happen?”

“Fate.” Harry shrugged. “Luck.”

“Well it’s amazing.” She gave the screen another lingering look. “You heard back about that internship?”

“Not yet.” Harry looked at the screen too. Zayn had said he would get it. Zayn had believed, or said he did, even though he was resisting. Why was he resisting? Harry still didn’t understand, not really. He’d been in love before. He’d let that happen, why not Harry?

“Hey, Clara?” It came to him suddenly, the need to know. He should know everything about Zayn, really. It was his right, as Zayn’s soul mate. His duty, probably, to figure out how they would fit together and be happy, because they would be. “Did you—like, what was Jane like?”

“Jane?”

“Yeah, his ex.” He nodded to Zayn on the screen. “You knew her, right?”

“Not really.” Clara’s head tilted so her dreads fell away, and there were the letters on her neck. Like Harry’s were. Like Zayn’s were. “I mean, I was on her hall, but she was sort of quiet, I didn’t really talk to her. Mainly noticed her because they were such a hot couple.”

“Oh.” Harry looked at the pictures again. He was hot. Zayn had wanted to kiss him, he knew that, he had felt that. He had seen Zayn’s eyes linger, he wasn’t imagining that.

“Why?” Clara leaned back in her chair, gave him another one of those aggressive looks. “Are we poaching, Styles?”

“No!” No, no and no. Zayn was his. They were meant to be. It wasn’t poaching, just because Zayn was still hung up on his ex. “I just wanted to know.”

“Well, sorry I couldn’t be more help. Aren’t you friends with him? Couldn’t you ask yourself?”

“No, he won’t tell me.” Harry made a face at the screen. How was he supposed to learn things about Zayn, learn him inside and out like he wanted to, if Zayn wouldn’t talk to him?

“Then, people who knew them? You must know someone…”

Right! That was brilliant. Zayn wouldn’t tell him anything, but Harry knew who would.

Harry nearly knocked Clara’s water bottle over onto her computer in his haste to shut his down. “Shit, Harry! Where you off to?”

Harry stabbed a determined finger in her direction as he threw his bag over his shoulder. “Happily ever after.”

---

 Louis opened the door on Harry’s third knock, but he didn’t move away from the door. Instead, his eyes narrowed until they were almost slits. “Are you here from Nick? Because you can tell that bloody patronizing un—”

“No.” Harry bounced impatiently on his feet. “No, I haven’t even seen Nick for like two weeks since you two started fighting, and no one will tell me why and I’m not happy about that either, but no.”

The glare lessened. Harry was glad. Louis could be scary. But he still didn’t move. “Zayn’s not here.”

“Yeah, I know.” Zayn was on shift at the bookstore. Harry hadn’t even been aware he knew Zayn’s schedule, but he did, and he had known Louis was alone. “I need to talk to you, can I come in?”

“I guess.” Louis stepped aside, even if he still didn’t look like his suspicions had been allayed, so Harry trotted in after him.

Harry’d only been in Louis and Zayn’s apartment a handful of time, tagging after Nick or Liam because he didn’t have anything better to do, because he decided hanging out with Louis and Niall was worth dealing with Zayn. Because he’d wanted to see Zayn, maybe even then, because even when he was angry there was something about Zayn that made Harry feel like he was having an adventure. Something about him that felt like he was both an anchor for Harry’s restlessness and a bolt of lightning to his heart.

But he gave it another look now, now that he knew. Now that this was Zayn’s space, this was the sort of space he would live in someday. It was messy—the door opened right into the kitchen, and there were dishes still in the sink and books and comics on the counter. That was okay, Harry didn’t mind cleaning up. There were books everywhere, really, but Harry had expected that. The books, and some pencils and sketchbooks too, if Harry guessed right from what he could see of the living room. No pictures on the walls, which Harry didn’t like, but Zayn probably just hadn’t found any he liked. It was okay, they could find new ones for them both. He could live here, Harry thought. He could find the spaces to put his things in, and they could live here.

“Did you want something?” Louis demanded. Harry nearly jumped, but then he remembered what he was doing, and dropped his bag at his feet before taking a few more steps in.

Louis had hopped onto a barstool pulled up to the counter, his bare heels kicking idly at the legs. He still had that wary look on.

“Yeah. Can you tell me about Jane?”

The wary look at least tripled, his eyebrows shooting up for a second before his eyes went narrow again. How much had Zayn told him about Harry, Harry wondered? He didn’t look like he knew, but…“That’s for Zayn to do.”

“I asked him. He told me what happened. I want to know about her.” Louis face pinched up, and his lips pressed together. “Please?”

“Not my place to tell you that.”

“Pretty please?” Harry tried. “You’re—”

“And what business of yours is it to know, anyway?” Louis jumped back off the stool. He was shorter than Harry, but he still filled up enough space that Harry almost fell back, from the sharpness of Louis’s tone, the quick aggressiveness of it. But no. He needed this. He needed to know, needed to know how Zayn would love him, needed to know everything about Zayn. “That’s none of your—the fuck, Harry! Flashing me won’t help.”

Harry ignored him, just finished unzipping his pants so he could yank down them and his boxers, until the stark black writing on his hip showed through. “It is my business,” he said, as simply as he could, so Louis would understand. “It is, it’s the most my business but he won’t tell me, and I need to know Louis, so please?”

Louis had gone from angry to surprised to smug in seconds. “I’d wondered,” he hummed, staring at Harry in a way that might make someone less accustomed to casual nudity uncomfortable. His lips twitched now, like he was a moment from laughing.

Of course he knew. Of course every time he had said Harry’s name, it was a tease for Zayn, a taunt.

“Please?” Harry repeated. He didn’t care what Louis had thought. “Please? He’s mine, Louis. He’s—wouldn’t you want to know?”

That made something twist in Louis’s face, but he let out a short, harsh laugh before leaning back against the counter. “What do you want to know?”

“Just, what was she like? Zayn said what happened, but he didn’t say anything about her, not really. I need to know what I’m…what sort of thing he likes.”

“Yeah, he wouldn’t.” Louis nodded. “She was sweet. Nice. Good for a laugh. I liked her.” Harry clenched his fists. He was—he could be sweet, he guessed, but that wasn’t what people thought when they saw him. “But I don’t know,” Louis went on, still in that thoughtful tone. “I never thought she was the best for him, even before. He loved her, of course, and she loved him, but I’m not sure she could ever keep up with him, really. Not with how he gets. Not like you can.”

“What do you mean?” Right. Obviously. Obviously Harry was better for him, he just needed to know how, or maybe he needed Louis to know how so he could tell Zayn and Zayn could figure it out.

Louis let out another low, thoughtful hum. “Like, you got him off that roof, the other night.”

“He would have come down.”

“Yeah, but not until he was sick.” Louis waved a dismissive hand. “You got him to come down. She wouldn’t have gone up.”

“It was fun.”

“Exactly.” Louis grinned at him quickly, that grin that was like dare, the one he gave Nick sometimes when he wanted Nick to play a guessing game. “But she’s not your problem. Or, not in the way you’re thinking. He’s not still in love with her.”

“I know.” He did. He’d seen Zayn’s face when he had talked about her, the tension that was almost like being on that roof, or being next to the pool. “But I have to know about her, ‘cause she’s part of him, and I am too. And he won’t tell me. I haven’t even talked to him. I think he’s avoiding me.”

“Yeah, I know. He would.” Louis nodded like he wasn’t surprised. Like it made sense, Zayn resisting. “You just can’t let him.”

“I’m trying!”

Louis’s smile flashed again, almost like Zayn’s before he went on that roof, right before he blew out the candle. “Try harder.”

---

“Fancy seeing you here!” Harry grinned at Nick as he settled down into the seat across from him at the café. It really had been weeks since he had seen him, probably almost since—well, since that day Harry had realized what he felt about Zayn. He thinks. That day’s a bit overshadowed by the memory of Zayn pressing against him in the dark. But Nick hasn’t been texting or anything since then, and looking at him now, hunched over the table with papers spread out over it, Harry’s not sure he’s been sleeping. He looks awful. Harry is going to have some sharp words with Louis the next time he sees him—he doesn’t care if they’re fighting more than usual, it’s his job to take care of Nick.

Nick smiled back, though, real enough, at Harry. “Yeah, well. What are you doing here?”

“Seeing if Zayn’s here. You?”

“Waiting for Louis.”

“Well, both of you are out of luck.” Niall set Harry’s chai latte in front of him with a clatter of ceramic against wood. “Because neither of them are here.”

“What?” It was definitely Zayn’s shift, Harry knew it was. He’d come down here especially for that, so he could see Zayn and Zayn could see him and stop being stupid. “No, he’s—”

“Traded his shift.” Niall shrugged. “So did Lou, sorry.”

Nick just groaned, and rubbed at his temples. “Figured. Thanks, Niall.”

“No problem.” Niall looked at both of them, then shook his head. “Idiots, all of you,” he muttered, as he walked away.

Harry watched him go. Well. That was depressing, and irritating. How was Zayn supposed to realize his mistake if he wouldn’t see Harry? How was anything supposed to happen if he wouldn’t just talk?

“You leaving, then?” Nick asked. Harry took a look at him. He really did look bad.

“No. How are you?” he demanded. “Why have you disappeared?”

“Been busy.” Nick rolled his neck so it cracked. “Midterms, you know.”

“Bullshit. Midterms are when you procrastinate the most.”

“Yeah, well.” Nick rubbed his fingers over his chest. “I thought I’d let you have free rein here, not make you feel guilty for lusting after Zayn.”

“What?”

“Did you think you were subtle?” Nick snorted. “Haz, ever since you got your tattoo you’ve been staring at him like he’s a ice cream sundae you want to eat up.”

Now there was an image. Harry took a moment to savor it, but then focused on the issue at hand. That could be filed for later. He wondered how Zayn felt about whipped cream. “Well, I’m your friend first.”

“Are you, though?” Nick’s gaze was far too knowing. “No shame if you’re not.”

Harry bit his lip, glanced over at the bookstore like Zayn would appear there and smile at him and give him all the answers. “Before Louis,” he concluded at last. “Not—I mean, I’d have to choose him, wouldn’t I? It’s what I’d need to do.”

“If you say so.” Nick rubbed at his chest again.

“I do. So what’s been wrong? No one’s told me anything.” Harry leveled his best pout at Nick. He hated being left out of the loop like this, especially if it left Nick looking so miserable.

“No one? Zayn didn’t say?”

“No.” No, he hadn’t. He’d chosen Louis first. Harry pushed that thought away. It didn’t—he probably just didn’t know it was Harry, then. That Harry was the right Harry. “How did he know?”

“He knew first.” Nick gave his temples another rub. “Louis got a job offer, for after graduation. This teaching fellowship thing that’ll get him his masters and great experience.”

“That’s great!”

“It’s in Australia.”

Oh. That explained a lot. Harry reached out to pat Nick’s hand. “So you don’t want him to go? Is that what you’re fighting about?”

“Of course I want him to go!” Nick snapped. Harry drew back at the bite in his tone. He wanted him to go? Why would Nick want Louis to go? Harry hadn’t seen Zayn for a few days and it was nagging at him, how would it feel like for him to be an ocean away? And he barely even knew Zayn, really, hadn’t settled into him like Nick and Louis had, into their easy rhythm and laughter and the way they smiled at each other.

“It’s a great opportunity for him, of course he has to take it! Stubborn brat just won’t. Wasn’t even going to tell me.” Nick laughed, a little bleakly. “So now he won’t take it and I won’t let him not take it, and being Lou he’s been giving ultimatums, and I’ve been thinking I might let him.”

“Ultimatums?” Harry choked. “Like—”

“Like he’ll break up with me if he goes,” Nick confirmed. “Most of it’s bravado, of course, but…it might be better.”

“You could do long distance!” Harry suggested. He—why were they even considering that? They were soul mates. It said so. They couldn’t just break up, it wasn’t what happened.

“No, really?” Nick shook his head. “But he’s young—don’t even give me any lip, Styles. I was twenty-nine when I met Louis. Louis was barely twenty-one. He deserves a chance—”

“But he has you!” Harry grabbed at the nearest thing, which happened to be his mug. “He doesn’t need time!” Why had he asked any of this, he didn’t want to hear this didn’t want to know this?

“Know how many soul mated couples end up together?”

“Sixty-three percent,” Harry filled in automatically. Zayn threw that number around a lot. “But, people die, and—”

“And sometimes it just doesn’t work.” Nick rested his forehead on his palms. “He never had a chance to try, you know? Maybe—”

“No.” Harry interrupted. He didn’t want to hear this, either. It would work out, it would. They were soul mates which meant it worked out, no matter what Zayn—Nick said. “No. That’s not how it works, you’re meant for each other—”

“That doesn’t mean it’ll work, Harry.” Nick said it patiently, like all the anger or snark in him had been drained out. “Sometimes things break. You’ve read Tess. It didn’t matter that Angel was her soul mate, he still let her hang.”

“Yeah, but that’s literature.”

“That’s life. And if I have to let Louis go so he can do what he wants…” Nick put his hand on his heart almost idly, covering the mark there so casually it was like he didn’t know what he was doing, like he didn’t know he was holding Louis close to him. “Then that’s love, isn’t it?” 

No. No, it wasn’t, Harry insisted. No, it couldn’t be, because that—but Nick must know, he had been with Louis forever, Harry had seen how much they loved each other, knew it—but no. No, because he and Zayn were soul mates, and they had to work. He had to end up with Zayn, who would laugh with him and listen to his problems and take him on adventures and he would calm him down and make him laugh and everything would be good.

It had to work, Harry repeated to himself, as he let himself back into his apartment. He’d left Nick at the café after an hour, when it was clear Zayn wasn’t going to come in. Harry’d almost thought he’d seen him once, outside, but he must have just been imagining him. But it was sad to look at Nick, how downtrodden he’d seemed as he graded his papers and Harry tried to read and failed. So Harry had left him with an encouraging squeeze of the arm and a promise to tell Louis how pathetic he looked if he saw him, and now he was home, and it wasn’t any easier here.

He could see it, was the problem. Could look around the apartment and see it, the places where they could hang Zayn’s paintings, where his books could sit, where photos of him and Zayn could sit with his pictures of him and his mum and Gemma, like pictures of Nick and Louis (usually mid banter, with broad smiles on their faces), hung in Nick’s apartment, were the backdrop to Louis’s phone.

“Hey, are—are you all right?” Liam paused midway down the hall, arrowing his concerned look at Harry. He was clearly on his way to a shower after the gym, but he still paused. “Harry?”

Harry bit his lip. He should be. He should be all right because everything would be all right, because they were soul mates and that was that. “No,” he replied, slowly. “No, I mean, maybe? I…” Liam might know. Liam didn’t know many things, not like Zayn who knew everything, but maybe… “It’ll work out, right? Zayn and I? We’re soul mates, we have to be.”

Liam sighed, and crossed the room to drop into the space next to Harry. “I guess.” He put his arms around Harry, let Harry lean into the hug. It wasn’t as comforting as Zayn, as Zayn’s hand on his back or the weight of his gaze, but it was solid and there and Harry knew that was all right at least. “Why wouldn’t it?”

Harry pressed his lips together. He didn’t know what Louis had told Liam, or how the same it was as what Nick had told him. “Because he doesn’t want a soul mate,” Harry said at last. “He doesn’t want me. I think he’s been avoiding me.”

Liam let out a low hum that Harry felt vibrate through his chest. “So you convince him otherwise, right?”

“But—it’ll work!”

Liam hummed again. “If you say so.”

“It will,” Harry repeated. It had to. It would. He wouldn’t let it not. He wouldn’t let Zayn being stubborn and contrary and jaded stop them from being happy, because they would be happy together, they would be more happy than all Zayn’s cynicism could make him. He didn’t care what Nick said, what anyone said. They would be happy, and Harry would make it happen. “I’ll make it.”

“Then he won’t stand a chance,” Liam grinned. It made Harry feel a bit better, as he pulled away from Liam. He was a little gross and smelly. “Are you coming out with us tonight?”

“Who’s us?” Harry pulled out his phone to see the text from Liam, but it was usually easier to ask Liam in person rather than deciphering his texts.

“Louis’s still having problems, so I’m going out with him and Niall and…”

“And Zayn.”

“Yeah.”

Harry nodded, firmly. He could—he could do what he had to do. He’d make Zayn realize. “Thanks, Li. I’ll be there.”

Liam shook his head at Harry, his eyes crinkling. “Not a chance,” he muttered, and Harry stuck out his tongue, pleased. It was true, after all

---

Or—Harry had thought it would be true. He was good at getting people to do things he wanted. He was good at getting Zayn to do things he wanted, had even gotten him to model for him when he didn’t want to. Had gotten him in the water and off the roof and Louis had said not even Jane could do things like that.

But he couldn’t seem to get Zayn to look at him. Or no, he had given him one look—one brief look that looked like it was on fire when Liam and Harry had joined the other three at the bar. After that, it was like it was two months ago again. Except worse, really, because then Zayn had paid him attention at least, even if it was mean; because then Harry hadn’t know how much he craved that attention. Now Harry was about five minutes away from dancing on a table to see if it would get Zayn to just look at him.

“I’m getting another drink,” he announced suddenly, into the gap between Niall’s story about some model that had Louis in stitches, and even had Zayn smiling, his amused Niall smile. “Anyone want anything else?”

Liam shook his head, Louis gestured with his half-full pint glass, “’m good,” Niall said.

Harry turned to Zayn. “Zayn? Want anything?”

Zayn’s gaze flicked to Harry—and held. Harry almost breathed a sigh of relief, but it wasn’t the look he had given Harry before, curled up together on the couch, or in that dark room. It was closed off, almost empty. Definitely worse than ignoring. “Nah, I’m good. Thanks.”

Definitely worse, Harry agreed with himself, as he made a face at the table and headed to the bar. He ordered a vodka soda, then amused himself by chatting with the cute red-head who had a really cool tattoo on his hand and was also waiting for a drink. His name, Harry learned, was Jared, he had three other tattoos, and he thought Harry’s anchor was cool. Harry liked him, not least because he was actually looking at Harry.

“Is your boyfriend going to kill me?” Jared asked idly, as he took his drink from the bartender.

“Boyfriend?”

Jared jerked his head back to where they were sitting. “Good looking dark haired guy? Leather jacket? Looks like he’s about to kill me?”

What? No. Harry spun—and caught Zayn’s look, steady and not flinching away and with that same hint of wild that made Harry want to squirm and taste it and see what it could do. Slowly, after enough time that he had to have known Harry saw him, Zayn looked away again.

“No,” Harry replied, turning back. “I mean, that’s not my boyfriend.”

“You sure? ‘Cause I think he wants to be.”

“It’s…complicated.” Harry’s hand rested unconsciously on his hip.

“Ah. I don’t much do complicated.” Harry glanced at the name written on the back of his hand—a CAREY in big block letters—then realized how rude it was and glanced quickly back up at Jared’s face. Jared just shrugged. “Like I said, I don’t do complicated.”

“Isn’t that the least complicated thing you could do?”

Jared barked out a laugh. It was higher pitched than Harry had expected, almost fluting, for all there was a hint of bitterness in his eyes. “Hah. There’s a laugh. It was…too complicated.”

“How?” Harry cut himself off. “No, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t ask, that’s probably not something you want to talk about with a random guy—”

“It’s fine.” Jared shrugged again, then downed half his whiskey. “I’m over it. I’m over him. If I couldn’t fucking be enough for him, then—fuck him.”

Harry wrinkled his nose in thought, then took his drink from the bartender and had some. “But aren’t you, like, by definition enough?”

“Not when he’s drunk, apparently.” Jared shook his head again, finished the whiskey. “And now I am drunk, and I am fine. Want to play some darts?”

“I…” Jared was nice, and cool, but he didn’t burn, not like Zayn. He didn’t make Harry burn, make Harry feel understood, down to his bones. “Like, that guy, he’s…”

“Not like that.” Jared laughed again, and it sounded realer this time. “I just want to beat someone in darts. All my friends are brilliant.”

“Well, I can help you with that!” Harry grinned. He hoped Zayn was watching. Was glaring again, like he cared. Even if he wanted to pretend otherwise. “I’m horrible at darts.”

Harry was, in fact, horrible at darts, to the extent that he was ruled unfit to play after one round in which he nearly took out someone’s eye. But Jared was cool, and so were his friends, and Zayn, the one time Harry glanced over, wasn’t even looking at him, so he decided to forget about him and have fun.

---

He managed it for that night. It wasn’t easy, but he managed to forget that there was a Zayn-shaped hole in him, and that his hip was aching almost constantly, and that Zayn still wouldn’t talk to him, really. He got drunk and had fun and let Liam half-carry him home.

“He put me to bed, right?” he ask Liam, when Liam poured him into bed. “Last time. It was him. He wanted me safe.”

“Yeah.” Liam ruffled his hair, tucked the blankets up under his chin.

“He should be doing it now. I love you, but not like I love him. He’s…” Harry brought a hand to his heart, under the blankets. “Why won’t he look at me?”

“I don’t know.” Liam patted his thigh, then went over to turn off the lights. “You going to be okay?”

“I will if he figures his shit out,” Harry muttered. Liam apparently took that as a yes, and turned off the lights when he left. Harry grumbled and rolled over, and tried not to dream of Zayn.

---

So maybe night one hadn’t worked. But when Harry got insider information—asking Niall—that he, Louis, and Zayn would be going out again, Harry figured trying again was the only answer. If he could just pin Zayn down, make him talk…they might fight, but it would be okay, because Harry would make it be okay. They were soul mates, and Harry knew Zayn felt something, knew it from the way he had glared last night, so it would work.

It was with that in mind that he showed up at the bar Niall had mentioned the next night. He glanced around, but when he didn’t see Zayn, he slid onto a stool at the bar to wait. And maybe drink a bit, because…because what if it went wrong? What if Zayn didn’t want him, what if Zayn freaked out again and ran away?   

He was just reaching tipsy, and was considering discussing his woes with the guy next to him, when there was a grip on his arm and he nearly fell off his stool in surprise.

“Oh good you’re here,” Louis said, short and clipped. “Come here.” He tugged at Harry’s arm, and Harry slid off the stool before he stopped.

“No!” Harry was drunk enough that he was remembering Nick’s drawn face, and how Louis was avoiding Nick too. Well, that would stop tonight as well. “No, I’m mad at you.”

“Why?” Louis snapped. He was so touchy these days.

“Because Nick is sad and it’s your fault. I saw him and he looked all exhausted. You should fix that.”

“Tell him that,” Louis shot back. He let go of Harry like his arm burned. “He’s the one who doesn’t want me enough to want me to stay.”

“No, that’s not it.” That hadn’t been what Nick said at all, and Louis needed to know that, so they would be happy again, happy and bantery and they could go on double dates with him and Zayn when-if-please that happened. “Nick just thinks you need time to find yourself or something because he’s old.”

“He’s not old!”

“I know! But he thinks you didn’t get a chance. Or something. It was very tragic. You shouldn’t let it be tragic.”

Louis snorted. “Yeah. Well, he’s the one hung up on that. If he wants me, he should ask me to stay.”

“He does! You need to talk to him and be happy.”

“He—” Louis stopped, very clearly pushed that aside. “I have something you probably want to see.”

“Is it a baby?”

“The hell, Styles? What would a baby be doing here?” Louis shook his head. “No, here.” He pulled Harry a few steps over, pointed. “There.”

Harry followed his hand, then scowled. Zayn was talking to a girl. Why did he want to see this? He didn’t want to see this, didn’t want to see Zayn talk to anyone else, especially not a pretty enough girl with long brown hair pulled into a braid and a slim body. Not when he had come here to make Zayn see him. “I really don’t want to see that, actually,” Harry informed Louis.

Louis grinned, smug and sharp. “That,” he told Harry, “Is Jane.”

“Jane?” Harry blinked. “Jane Jane? Zayn’s Jane? Not-Zayn’s anymore Jane?” He paused, wrinkled his nose. “Why’d their name have to rhyme?”

“So I could make fun of him,” Louis answered, easily. But it wasn’t—Harry’d have liked his name to rhyme with Zayn’s. “But yeah. That’s her.”

Zayn was leaning forward to listen to her, his shoulders curving slightly, his head ducked; her face was tilted upwards and her hair flowed down her back and Harry didn’t like it, didn’t like it at all. “Why’s she here?”

“Dunno.” Louis shrugged. “Said she wanted to talk to Zayn.”

“Did Zayn want to talk to her?” No, please no. No, he didn’t love her anymore, he was Harry’s, he had to be, please—

“He let her.” Louis smirked. “When he wasn’t watching you.”

Harry barely heard him. He couldn’t tell what they were talking about, but Zayn wasn’t happy, he could tell. He was holding himself tightly, all sharp edges, his fists clenched at his sides, like when he had argued with Louis, like when he had fought with Harry sometimes, almost like he had been on the roof, and Harry didn’t like that even more than he didn’t like Jane being there.

“I—” Jane’s hand rose, cupped Zayn’s cheek. Zayn turned his face into it almost instinctively, but Harry could read the pain and nerves coming in the muscles of his back, and that wasn’t okay, it wasn’t. “I’ll be…”

He didn’t finish the sentence, but it was okay because Louis just laughed as Harry pushed his way through the crowd, circling around a bit so he could come up behind Zayn, so he couldn’t see him and run away.

“No, Zayn, of course I care,” she was saying, in a voice lower pitched than Harry had expected, something almost sultry about it despite her girl-next-door prettiness. “I always cared, that wasn’t the problem.”

“No, I think it was,” Zayn spat back, and his fists were clenching at his sides, “I—”

“Hey, babe,” Harry interrupted. Before Zayn had a chance to turn around, to do anything, he pressed against him, sliding his hands around Zayn’s waist and hooking his chin over Zayn’s shoulder. He could feel Zayn vibrating from here, feel his lightning-energy about to explode, so he ran his hand down Zayn’s thigh. “What’s up?”

“What are you doing?” Zayn muttered, but Jane just looked at him with big brown eyes. She looked sweet. Harry didn’t want her to look sweet. He wanted her to be evil and mean and everything Harry wasn’t so Zayn forgot about her completely and would just be with him.

“Zayn, be nice,” she chided him. Harry huffed out a breath against Zayn’s cheek. She didn’t get to do that anymore. He wanted to tease Zayn into being polite and to talk to him in that fond, almost proprietary way. “Who’s this?”

He could feel Zayn’s sigh. “This—”

“I’m Harry,” Harry cut Zayn off, giving Jane his biggest, least sincere smile, that got a bit more sincere when her eyes widened at his name. They darted from Harry’s face, down to where his hands were still pressed against Zayn, then back up to Zayn.

“Oh,” she breathed. “Harry?”

“Yeah.” She was still looking at Zayn, like she knew something more than Harry did, so Harry slid his hands down from Zayn’s waist to tuck into his front pockets, pulling him back against him. “And you’re Jane.”

“Yeah.” The she smiled, and it was sweet, sweet enough that Harry was starting to feel bad about being mean. But Zayn was still tense against him, and Harry could see him chewing on his lip, so he didn’t feel that bad. And she was Jane, who had broken Zayn’s heart and broken him and made this so difficult, who he still thought of instead of Harry, so he really didn’t feel that bad. “See, Zayn? I told you—”

“You told me shit,” Zayn snapped. Jane drew back, her face constricting into a hurt look, but the only sign Zayn gave of it was a twitch of his eyebrows. “You don’t get to tell me shit. And he’s not.” He tugged away from Harry, quick and hard enough that Harry let him go in surprise. “Because it doesn’t fucking matter what name I have on me, and if neither of you know that then fuck you.” He gave them both a final glare, then pivoted and stalked off, his boots clumping, people scattering of the way as he stormed to the door, then out.

Harry watched him, trying not to let his jaw drop. He had been helping. He had been trying to cool Zayn down because that was what he did when all of the wild in Zayn got too much. What did—why did—

“It’s okay.” Jane patted Harry on the arm. “He gets like that. He’ll be okay in a little while.”

“I know!” She was only trying to be nice, Harry knew that, but he wanted to hate her even if she was making it hard, and she didn’t get to know Zayn better than he did, he was Zayn’s soul mate not her. “And it’s your fault! You broke him and now I don’t get him.”

She drew back, her eyes narrowing. “You think he wasn’t always like this?” she retorted. There was more bite to her voice now, which was good, because Harry wouldn’t have been able to stay mad at her if she was nice. “He’s the fucked up one. I just did what was right.”

“Well it wasn’t right for him.”

“You wouldn’t have had a chance if I hadn’t.”

“But he’d have been happy!” It came out before Harry could think, before he could figure out if it was true.

“Well, I wouldn’t have been.” She tossed back her hair, and there was something almost Zayn-like in that gesture, something similarly proud and stubborn.

“Then—” Harry didn’t have a comeback to that, because he wasn’t good at arguing with anyone but Zayn, and he didn’t want to be arguing with Jane, he didn’t want Jane to matter, he just wanted to go find Zayn. “I’m going to find Zayn.”

“He’ll probably be chain-smoking outside,” she shot back, at his back as he pushed into the crowd again. “Have fun with that.”

“I will!”

Harry really didn’t want her to be right, but he had a feeling she was. Sure enough, Zayn was there, leaning against the concrete wall, a cigarette lighting up his face. It wasn’t fair that he looked so good. It was distracting, and it meant Harry almost tripped over the threshold, remembering Zayn on his couch with a smile on his lips and laughter in his eyes.

Zayn looked up at the sound of Harry stumbling. For a second, his eyes widened, darting over Harry like he was making sure he was okay, then they narrowed again as he let out a long breath of smoke. If Harry didn’t know better—if Harry couldn’t see his fingers drumming against his thigh—he might think he was relaxed. That he didn’t care. 

Suddenly, Harry found that he was angry. He didn’t get to do that. He didn’t get to pretend like that, to be mean like that, not when Harry knew—or he thought—well, not when Harry did care, so much it hurt, so much that he didn’t even know how to deal with it because love wasn’t supposed to hurt like this, he hadn’t wanted it to hurt like he couldn’t breathe, like his heart actually ached as badly as his hip did.

“What was that?” he demanded, striding forward. Apparently anger did a lot to sober him up, because he didn’t feel tipsy anymore.

“I could say the same to you.”

“I was trying to help!”

Zayn’s fingers clenched into a fist at that, but he just drawled, “Clearly that worked.” 

“It would have if you didn’t get all angry! What was that?”

Zayn surged up off the wall, until he was almost in Harry’s space, his glare crackling with energy. “I don’t need to be fucking claimed, Harry. We aren’t anything, and you had no fucking right to say any of that.”

“Then you don’t have a right to glare when I talk to anyone who isn’t you,” Harry shot back. “And we are something, we’re soul mates, we—”

“That doesn’t mean anything!” Zayn cut him off, his voice sharp enough that it almost felt like it could cut the air. “You don’t have to love me because we’re soul mates, and I—” He stopped midsentence, his face twisting like it hurt.

“You what?” Harry pressed, stepping closer. It wasn’t what he wanted, it couldn’t be. Not even when Zayn swallowed, leaning back now like he was scared. If it was that, then Zayn wouldn’t be running away. “You what, Zayn?”

“Nothing.”

“You what,” Harry repeated, as evenly as he could when his heart was thumping wildly in his chest. “You don’t love me? Is that it?”

“I can’t.” Zayn stubbed the cigarette out against the wall, the pushed his hands back against it too. It turned him into shadows in the streetlights and darkness, like some sort of dream, or nightmare.

“Do you love me?” Harry said again, because Zayn wasn’t denying it, wasn’t saying no, and if he could just—if Zayn would say it he would understand, he would be enough—

“Stop it.”

“Do you love me?” Harry stepped forward, so their toes were brushing and he could look down at Zayn, into those dark-rimmed eyes. “Do you—”

Then all at once Zayn’s lips were on his, his hands gripping at Harry’s hair as he yanked him in. It was everything all at once, desperate and fast and like all that energy was getting pushed into Harry, like he was turning into energy as his mouth fell open and Zayn licked into his, his tongue sliding in. Harry couldn’t help melting into it, into the force of it as Zayn spun them so suddenly Harry was against the wall, pinned there with Zayn’s body so all he could do was kiss back, push into it as much as Zayn did because it felt like he was flying so high and that he was back on that rooftop and looking out and everything was in front of them.

Then for the second time, Zayn had let him go, stepping back, away from him. “See why I can’t?” he said, nonsensically, and before Harry could say anything, could grab him and pull him back in and kiss him because he made sense when they were kissing, Zayn was stalking away again, back into the darkness.

Harry watched him go, watched him disappear back into the bar, his hands pressed to his lips again. He could barely think after that kiss, could barely remember what they were fighting about. All he knew was Zayn was leaving, after kissing him like he needed him, and now he would avoid Harry again for weeks and leave Harry confused and wanting and hurting. 

But no. Not this time. He didn’t get to do this again, not after that kiss, not after what that kiss had meant.

Harry straightened off the wall, ran a hand through his hair so it didn’t look so crazy, and strode after Zayn. 

He didn’t find Zayn in the club, but he did find Louis—and Nick, who must have gotten Harry’s text and arrived when he was outside. Louis snapped out something about Zayn having gone home before he turned back towards Nick, both of them leaning in with their hands intertwined between them. Harry backed away, then set off back to Zayn’s. He couldn’t be much ahead of him, maybe he could catch him. But either Zayn was moving at superhuman speeds or time was moving oddly for Harry, because he didn’t see a sign of Zayn as he walked back to the apartment—walked quickly back, even, because he needed this—he needed this to be over.

He hit the buzzer for the apartment as hard as he knew how, and was ready to yell into the intercom when it just buzzed. Harry scowled at it—some yelling might have felt nice—then climbed the stairs and knocked sharply on the door.

Zayn yanked it open after the first knock. He had shed his jacket and his boots, and his hair was a little wild like he had been playing around with it, and none of that softness made Harry any less angry.

“No,” he said, before Zayn had a chance to say anything, “No, I don’t see, why don’t you tell me?”

He took a step forward, and Zayn moved back like he was flinching away from touching Harry, which meant he could stomp inside. Zayn shut the door, then turned so his back was to it, and he was facing Harry. “What?”

“You asked if I saw why you can’t. I don’t.” Harry crossed his arms over his chest. “So fucking tell me already, Zayn! I deserve that much.”

Zayn’s mouth opened, then he closed it, his jaw clenching. When he spoke again, each word shot from his lips like a dart, like a physical thing. “I will not let the universe decide who I love.”

“That’s not what this is! I love you—”

“And you wouldn’t have if the universe or whatever didn’t put my name on you!” Zayn cut him off. His hand was wrapped around the cuff, scratching at the edges like it itched. “Just like the universe fucking decided I had to be different and up against everything people attack, that I would be gay, and Muslim, and Pakistani, and scared of everything—”

“What does that have to do with us?”

“Everything!” Zayn’s head tipped back, thunking hard against the wood, before he straightened again. Harry swayed forward, because that word sounded like it was ripped from Zayn, like it hurt coming out and he never wanted Zayn to hurt. “I will not be what the universe made me. I refuse. I am so fucking sick of being scared of everything.”

“So you’re scared, we’re all scared.”

Zayn shook his head. “Not like I was. The height thing’s just the beginning. Acrophobia, achluophobia, hydrophobia, bits of claustrophobia sometimes…” He closed his eyes, swallowed, then opened them again. “I was a mess, Harry. I could barely function sometimes. And I won’t give in to that. I can’t.”

“Achluophobia?” Harry asked, quieter. His heart ached a little for the scared little boy Zayn must have been, even if he was still angry at him now.

“Fear of the dark.”

“But you blew out the candle,” Harry remembered that moment, like he remembered how fast Zayn had been breathing when he fell against him. How he had looked at the water. “You went in the water.”

“And I went on that roof. Because I won’t give in. I won’t let it win.” His eyes met Harry’s again, and they were bright and almost cold in their fervency. “I didn’t choose any of this. I didn’t choose you.”

That hurt. That hurt enough Harry could be cruel, because even if he wanted to give the little boy Zayn had been a hug, this Zayn was hurting him with every word he said, had kissed him and ran away, had drawn Harry in and now he was pushing him away, had looked at him like he was everything and listened to his problems and then pretended that didn’t happen. “No, you didn’t,” Harry agreed. “You chose Jane. How’d that work out for you?”

“Fuck you.”

“No, fuck you.” Harry uncrossed his arms, straightened up. He didn’t usually remember that he was taller than Zayn, that he was bigger than him, but he did now, glaring down at him because it wasn’t fair. Zayn was his soul mate and he loved him despite all of this and it wasn’t fair. “I’m not a fucking roof you can stand next to to prove you aren’t scared, Zayn. If you want Jane, go back to her, because apparently her love was better than mine.” Just saying it, just thinking it, felt like a knife in Harry’s heart, but that might be better. If Zayn would be happy with Jane, if Harry could stop being so confused, then it would work. He could do that, he thought. If it made Zayn happy. “Just stop being all you and glaring at me when I talk to anyone else and being nice—just go away.”

“I don’t want Jane!” It came out almost on a yell, rough enough it sounded like it scraped his throat on the way out. “I just want someone to love me enough.”

“And what’s enough? Why aren’t I?” Harry took a step forward again. “Why aren’t I enough, Zayn?”

“Because you didn’t choose this. You didn’t choose me either.” Zayn’s gaze bore into him, stopping Harry where he was. “You didn’t even like me until you got that mark.”

“Only because you were an ass!”

“Well, your name was Harry.”

“So you treated everyone who might have been your soul mate like an ass?”

“Only the ones I might have fallen for.” Both of them jolted at the words, but Zayn didn’t take them back. It wasn’t anything, it was less than the kiss, but it felt like something. “But that doesn’t matter, Harry. None of that matters because I can’t.”

“Yes you can!” Harry gave into temptation to stomp his foot. It could be so damn easy. “You can, Zayn, you just have to stop being scared!”

“I’m not—”

“Yes you are.” Harry didn’t know it until he said it, but it was true. It was in his tightened shoulders and the spark in his eyes and the way his hands were clenched into fists. “What are you so scared of?”

“I’m not scared.” Zayn’s chin tilted up proudly, and Harry was almost fooled. His Oberon, his dragon, never brought low by fear. But Zayn wasn’t a fairy king, and he wasn’t a dragon, and he wasn’t some sort of thunder god, with his bare feet and messy hair and scratched wrist. He wasn’t Harry’s knight coming in to sweep him off to happily ever after. He wasn’t easy at all.

But he was an adventure, and he was home, and Harry loved him anyway.

“Yes you are,” he insisted. “Why are you scared?”

Zayn shook his head, like he was clearing it. “Soul mates don’t mean shit, Harry. Look and Lou and Nick, they’re—”

“Okay then. I love you. Why are you scared?”

Zayn just looked at him, those glinting eyes dark and unreadable. “Would you love me if we weren’t soul mates?”

“I loved you when I thought Jane was your soul mate.” Zayn’s eyes widened slightly. “But that doesn’t matter because I do love you.”

“But you didn’t choose me!”

“I’m trying to!” Harry reached out grabbed Zayn’s wrist, over the cuff. Zayn did flinch now, like Harry had punched him, as Harry wrapped his fingers over the leather where Harry imagined his name might go. “I didn’t want to! I wanted this to be easy and simple and then there was you. And you aren’t easy or simple and I still love you, and maybe that’s more what love is, I dunno, that’s what Nick said, but you can’t expect me to somehow know I love you without the tattoo, that’s not fair, I can’t do that.”

“I know.” Zayn’s voice was quiet, almost soft. “I know, and I’m sorry, it isn’t fair to you. But I can’t settle—not you, you wouldn’t be settling. But I can’t—I need to choose this. If I don’t—if I give in to one thing—then I’m giving in to everything.”

“Then choose me.” Harry’s grip tightened on Zayn’s wrist. He wasn’t letting go. He wouldn’t. Like those myths about the thing where if you held on long enough, through all their shapechanges, they’d grant you a wish and Harry could wish he would stay forever. “Choose me despite the soul mate mark, not because of it. Choose me when we’re fighting and you want to leave, like Louis and Nick. Choose me when you graduate and have to go away and I’m still here.” Zayn was shaking, almost, but it wasn’t like before, when it was anger. Now it felt almost like that rooftop, before Harry reached out to ground him. Before Harry reached out to stop him from getting too close to the edge to prove he could. “Choose me now.”

“Harry…” Zayn’s eyes didn’t burn when he looked up at him. They were just big, and hazel, and almost pleading.

“Do you love me?” Harry asked again. Softer, this time. Like he could have on that couch before he kissed him the first time, before they spun out of control.

Zayn’s tongue flicked out, over his lips. Harry couldn’t help but follow that motion, the way his lips glistened against his scruff. “Yeah,” he said, and it sounded like defeat, which wasn’t maybe ideal but the sound of that one word filled Harry up until he felt like he was brimming with joy, like there was just happiness in him and nothing else, like he had thought falling in love would be.

“And if we didn’t know we were soul mates —if tattoos didn’t exist and met somewhere else, like, if we were randomly put together in a competition or something, singing, or something random. Or art, we might be doing a collaboration, or poetry, or—” Harry bit his tongue, but Zayn’s lips were hinting into a smile. “If we weren’t, anyway—would you still love me?”

Zayn bit his lip. “Apparently, I can’t not. No matter how I try.”

Harry swallowed. “If you had a choice, over whose name you got—would you choose me?” He kept talking before Zayn could answer. “Because I would choose you. I wouldn’t have, maybe before, but now I would, and just, please, Zayn. Choose me.” He let go of Zayn’s wrist, stepped back. It was maybe the hardest thing he’d ever done. “You can leave—or tell me to leave, I guess—and I won’t come back. I promise. You can forget about me and be happy with someone else. Or,” his voice caught, but he forced himself to keep going. “You could tell me to stay.”

For a long, long second, Zayn didn’t move, just looked at Harry with that unknowable gaze, the look he got where he looked so far away, so different from Harry. Or maybe he was just lost in his thoughts, and not different at all, just very very pretty and good at smoldering looks. But for that moment—he might leave. He could leave and Harry would have to find a way to be happy, and he would, but it would never be quite as good even if it would be better than Zayn never being happy, and—

And then he was stumbling back against the counter because Zayn was kissing him, his hands cupping his face and their lips pressed together and Zayn’s skin against his.

It wasn’t the mad, desperate thing of earlier; it was almost gentle, how Zayn pressed them together, how he held Harry’s face like he was precious, even as he kissed him, deep and thorough, until Harry felt himself melting again, his hands on Zayn’s waist as he pulled him in, pulled him closer.

“Fuck, Harry,” Zayn muttered. This time, though, he wasn’t pushing Harry away, wasn’t running away. This time he just kissed the corner of his mouth, then his jaw, then down his neck, like he was trying to cover him with kisses. “Fuck, how, you—”

Harry got his hands off Zayn’s waist to pull his face up for another kiss, this time for Harry to explore, to taste him, the smoke and alcohol and Zayn taste. “Yeah?” he asked, when he had taken his fill for the moment, leaning back so he could look at Zayn.

And god, but Zayn looked good like this too, his lips swollen by Harry’s kisses, even as they curved into a smile. “Yeah,” he said, and pressed even closer, his thigh coming in between Harry’s knees so it was like they were pushing into one person. “Yeah.”

“You sure?” He probably shouldn’t ask, but he had to, had to know, because if he got this then it got taken away…“You want me to stay?”

Zayn swallowed, then stepped back, then brought his left wrist up, where the cuff was a black line against his skin. Slowly, deliberately, he undid the buckles. Harry couldn’t look away, couldn’t believe there was anything in the world other than that leather, than it disappearing from Zayn’s wrist as Zayn let it drop to the floor.

Zayn’s skin was paler, there, almost white after over a year of not seeing the sun. It only made the letters on the inside of Zayn’s wrist stand out more, curving, almost bubbly letters, but dark and strong and bold. HARRY, right there. There, on Zayn.

Harry couldn’t help reaching out, couldn’t help grabbing Zayn’s arm so he could look. So he could touch, could see those letters. They were there. They really were. Not Jane, not anyone else—Harry. Harry’s. Harry’s Harry’s Harry’s, all his.

Zayn’s eyes were very dark when Harry looked back up at him. “Yeah,” Zayn said, simply. “Yeah, Harry.”

 “Say that again,” Harry ordered. God, he could feel it, the way Zayn’s voice turned his name into something else, something bigger, something more. How Zayn’s pulse beat under his fingers, under Harry’s name.

“Yeah?” Zayn smirked, and Harry loved that too, the mischief, the way the mood turned, so he pinched at his sides in retaliation, before flattening his palms over the skin of Zayn’s stomach, the warm, hard muscles there.

“Zayn,” Harry whined, and kissed him again, because he could. Because he was his.

Zayn’s gaze was bright when they broke apart again. “Harry,” he breathed, pushed into Harry’s neck, into the skin of his collarbone, into all the places he was kissing, all the places he was setting fire to, “Harry, fuck, Harry…”

“Good idea,” Harry agreed, and Zayn grinned, quick and hard.

“Yeah?”

“How much would Louis kill us if we did it here?”

Zayn swept his eyes around the kitchen, and his lips started to curl into one of those smiles Harry knew too well, and Harry didn’t want him thinking about pranks now, he wanted him thinking about him.

“No,” he said sternly, squeezing at Zayn’s waist. “Bedroom.”

“So boring, Harry,” Zayn teased, but he stepped back so Harry could move again, leaving a vacuum of cold in his wake.

“Show you boring,” Harry retorted, and took advantage of the space by pulling himself to Zayn with a hand in his tank top, kissing him once, hard, before he broke away and grinned at Zayn’s expression. “Aren’t you coming?”

“Will be.” Harry yelped when Zayn swatted at his ass, then darted down the hall. He felt like he could fly, probably, might have been flying when he opened the door to what he thought was Zayn’s room. He had a second to look around, to take in books and papers and clothes, before Zayn was behind him, pushing him in so he could slam the door closed behind them, then he kept pushing, almost herding Harry until they toppled together onto the bed.

Zayn caught himself over Harry, grinned down at him before he kissed him again, his tongue sliding into Harry’s mouth and his hands sliding down his sides until Harry had to get his hands on him in retaliation, to feel the lines of his back, down to his ass.

“Shirt, off,” Zayn muttered, nosing impatiently at Harry’s collar.

“Only if yours goes too.”

Zayn smirked at that, sat back up and stripped his shirt off and tossed it away in one smooth motion. “Been taking my shirt off for you for months, babe.”

“Not like this.” It was different, somehow, this, taking in all the things Harry’d seen and known and tried not to, all the ink and skin tanned against it, all the places that were Harry’s, that Harry wanted to bite and bruise and mark so everyone knew he had caught him.

“Now you,” Zayn urged, and didn’t wait for Harry to respond before he was working at Harry’s buttons, swearing when he fumbled over a few. Harry held in the laugh at Zayn’s frustration, then sat up too, so Zayn shifted back, so he could slip out of his shirt before Zayn pushed him back down.

For a long second, Zayn just looked, his eyes skating over Harry down to the line of his jeans. Harry shivered under that gaze, the predatory glint. Fuck, but he wanted that. Wanted the predatory, wanted the way Zayn looked like he wanted to devour him, like he could consume him utterly and never be tired of him.

Harry was pretty ready to be consumed, really, and he was planning to have plenty of time for beautiful long drawn out sex, but right now he wanted Zayn now. So he moved under that heavy gaze, slowly undid the button of his jeans. He could hear Zayn’s breath catch as he opened his jeans, as his boxers came into view, his cock already pressing against them.

Harry grinned at Zayn’s gaze focused in. “Gonna help me with these?” he asked, grinning his best cheeky smile. Zayn snorted.

“Doing pretty well on your own.” But he slid down Harry’s legs, down the bed until he was on his knees on the floor, and now it was Harry’s turn for his breath to catch as Zayn eased his jeans down his legs, slowly, like a taunt, his fingers spreading heat as they ran down Harry’s calves until his jeans were in a pool at his feet.

Zayn settled back on his heels to look at him, that dark intense gaze again, just taking him in. Harry wasn’t sure whether to preen or to explode from that look, but whatever it was he wanted something, and also he wanted more of Zayn.

“Now you,” he echoed, and Zayn’s grin was quick and didn’t take away from the intensity of his gaze at all. He stood, and stripped off jeans and boxers in one quick motion until he was bare before Harry. He was so fucking beautiful, was all Harry could think, looking. All of him, wiry thighs and slim hips and broad shoulders and the ink all over him. He needed to do a nude series of Zayn, needed to look at him naked for ages. He also, Harry decided, as his gaze focused down, on Zayn’s cock, thick and veined and half-hard already, wanted that in him, stat.

“Not gonna take a picture this time,” he got out, and Zayn laughed, almost wild, before sinking to his knees again, his hands on Harry’s thighs. They looked good there, Harry decided, their skin contrasting, and that pale line on his wrist where the cuff wasn’t—“Fuck,” he hissed down, as Zayn’s mouth ghosted over his cock through his boxers.

“Yeah?” Zayn lifted his head, briefly. Harry made a face. Was he going to say no?

“Yeah,” Harry agreed, and Zayn smiled, almost softly, before he was easing down Harry’s boxers as well. Harry hissed again as the cool air hit his cock, as he felt Zayn looking at him.

Then Zayn’s fingers ran gently over his hip, over the letters there, almost incredulous, like he hadn’t really believed Harry. It felt like a direct connection to his dick, a direct connection to his heart, the way Zayn touched him. Touched the letters that marked him as Zayn’s, that marked them together, that made them together.

“’s not what I expected,” Zayn said, quietly, stroking them again. Harry was getting hard just from that, from proud, wild Zayn at his feet, touching those letters.

“What’d you expect?”

“Dunno.” He ran his fingers over it again, then grinned as Harry cursed lightly. “Damn. Didn’t expect it to work like that, for sure.”

“Well, it is,” Harry gritted out. “So you should probably—”

Zayn cut him off by wrapping his lips around him without warning, and Harry did curse this time, his hips pushing into Zayn’s hands as Zayn took him deeper. His tongue swirled over Harry and fuck—fucking hell—

“Zayn, please, come on—”

“Like it when you beg,” Zayn mused, pulling off of him. Harry made a face at him, but Zayn just grinned, and licked up Harry’s shaft again. “What, do you not like this?”

“Want you to fuck me,” Harry retorted, and watched Zayn still at that.

When he looked up, something had changed in his face. The laughter was gone, to be replaced by something almost controlled. “Already? You sure?”

“Do you not want to?” He was pretty sure Zayn did, had pretty physical proof of that, but what if—he didn’t know—

“Obviously, but—for you, it’s not, like, romantic, I can set a scene later, can make it pretty—”

It was Harry’s turn to laugh now, and he pulled Zayn back up to kiss him messily. “You can give me romance some other time,” he told him, sliding his hand between them to palm at Zayn’s cock so Zayn lost a breath between them. “Now I want your cock in me.”

“Bossy.” But Zayn spread himself over Harry, reaching for the bedside table and digging in the drawer. Harry ran his hands over all the bare skin ranged over him, because it was there, scraping his nails lightly over Zayn’s back and feeling Zayn shiver beneath it. “Gonna tell me to pose next?”

“Someday,” Harry promised, because oh but that would be a shoot, but then Zayn was back, dropping a condom next to him as he nudged Harry’s legs apart so he could fit between them. Harry watched the pale strip of skin on his wrist as he spread lube on his fingers—then got distracted as Zayn kissed him again, biting at his lip until he opened his mouth and Zayn’s tongue could slip inside as he pushed a finger into him.

Harry moaned into Zayn’s mouth, then moaned again as Zayn’s other hand circled at his nipple. He flailed for a second, then his hands were back on Zayn’s shoulders, in Zayn’s hair, keeping him down as he slid his finger slowly in and out of Harry.

It was lovely, the kiss, how Zayn did it thoroughly and slowly, how slowly Zayn opened him up, how his fingers ghosted over Harry’s torso like he was afraid to touch. But it was delicate, and tentative, and Harry wanted that but not like this. Zayn wasn’t tentativeness, wasn’t delicate touches, Zayn was fire, Zayn was lightning, Zayn was his wild untamable boy.

So after Zayn pulled his third finger out of Harry, after he broke the kiss to rip open the condom packet and roll it on, after he had drawn Harry’s legs up to wrap around his waist and had pushed in so, excruciatingly slowly, Harry caught his shoulder. Zayn froze immediately.

“I’m not going to break.”

“What?” Zayn’s eyes were a wide when he looked at him, desperation in them.

“I’m not—you don’t have to hold back. I can take it.”

“You—” Zayn bit his lip. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

“I know.” Harry managed not to roll his eyes mainly because he felt so fucking good, because Zayn was deep in him and he thought he might die of the feel of it. “You won’t. I’m not fragile.”

“You sure? J—” Zayn cut himself off, but Harry knew what he was going to say, knew who he was thinking about, and that wasn’t okay. She didn’t have any right to be here, to be in their bed, to be between them.

“Don’t care about her,” Harry circled his hips slowly. He was good. “I’m not going to break, Zayn. I want all of you.” To punctuate, he tightened his legs, drew Zayn closer, in more. He wanted to burst, wanted them as close together as they could be, wanted to see if they could just blend into one, if Zayn could burn himself into Harry completely.

Something lit in Zayn’s eyes, that glint of gold Harry had never known if he imagined, that bit of him Harry had never managed to find through a camera, still couldn’t quite get, might never be able to totally capture, but it was okay because right now he had it, right now he had Zayn, here in the circle of his arms. 

Then Zayn drew out and fucked back in, hard and fast, and there it was, there was what Harry had wanted, the wild, the abandon, the feeling of Zayn losing himself in Harry, of them losing themselves in each other, Harry drowning in Zayn, Zayn burying himself in Harry’s skin like he’d never leave.

It was almost too much, Zayn mumbling things about “so good” and “yes” and just “Harry Harry Harry” and Harry’d never needed to hear his name more, so he grabbed at Zayn’s shoulder with one hand and wrapped his fingers around his dick with the other. 

“Fuck, Harry,” Zayn knocked his hand away to do it himself, and Harry keened with the feel of Zayn’s fingers on him, with the sight of his name right there, “Fucking hell, come on, babe, you’re so close, want to make you come, come on Harry—”

“Yeah, want you, want to, Zayn—” Harry was close, so close he could feel his toes curling around Zayn, could feel it rising in him like a flood, like all of Zayn’s energy was flooding into his muscles and pulling them tight, and “Zayn, fuck, Zayn please Zayn just—” Then Zayn changed the angle of his thrusts, just a bit, and his gaze was burning down into Harry and Harry came on a strangled “Zayn.”

 Zayn kept his hand moving, coaxing Harry through it, his thrusts slowing as Harry rode out the aftershocks. When Harry could think again, Zayn was still above him, his muscles quivering, his lip clenched between his teeth like it was the only thing holding him here.

Harry smiled at him, because he couldn’t not, and pulled him back into a kiss that had Zayn’s thrusts starting again, and he must have been close because he fucked into Harry once, twice more before he was coming too, on a drawn out moan, his hand clenching onto Harry’s hip as Harry held his shoulders and kissed him through it.

---

Harry woke up first the next morning, still curled into Zayn like Zayn had pulled him after round…whatever one they had ended on. He took a second to savor, to breath in the scent of sweat and smoke and Zayn that was here, to nestle into Zayn’s arms wrapped around him.

But he also really had to piss, so he untangled himself slowly from Zayn, and grabbed the first pair of boxers he found—his, conveniently, and headed to the bathroom. On his way back, he glanced around, to see if Louis was there, because he should probably thank him—but nothing looked like it had changed since last night. Maybe Louis had gone to Nick’s; Harry hoped so. The cuff even still lay where Zayn had dropped it, on the kitchen floor. Harry bent down, picked it up. It really wasn’t very big. Didn’t matter very much, really, now that Harry knew what was under it.

He put it on the bedside table when he slipped back into Zayn’s room. He had meant to climb back into bed with Zayn, to continue what he knew would probably be a long tradition of lying in bed with Zayn before Zayn woke up, but then he looked around.

He had been too distracted last night to really notice Zayn’s room, to see what Zayn’s most private space looked like. It was a bit of a mess, books and clothes everywhere, but Harry could deal with that. There were sketches on the wall above his desk, though, and Harry had never really seen his sketches, though he knew he was an art minor, so he crossed the room to look, stepping over a pile of what looked like five pairs of identical black jeans.

There were five of them on the wall, more scattered on the desk. Louis was on the wall, one of Louis and Niall laughing together, a few of girls that better have been his sisters, one of an older, good-looking couple that Harry figured must be his parents. Harry smiled at them, at Zayn’s family there. He’d meet them. He would, he’d meet them and make them love him because if Zayn loved them so much he knew he’d love them too. He could introduce him Zayn his mum and Gemma, and they’d adore him. Gemma would think he was the most brilliant thing ever, so cool and clever, and his mum would love anyone Harry loved, but she’d like him for him, too.

Harry grinned down at the desk, picturing that, trying to figure out when that could happen—he could probably stomach a visit home, if Zayn was with him—when his gaze settled on some other sketches scattered over the desk, and his heart thumped painfully.

They were him. A dozen of them, of him studying at the café and staring at his camera and laughing at something and on his phone and talking with someone and just him him him.

“What do you think?” came a voice from behind him, and Harry turned to see Zayn sitting up in the bed. He was still blinking sleep from his eyes, and his cheeks were flushed and his hair a mess, and he didn’t look like a myth at all. He just looked like a sleepy, beautiful boy, who Harry loved.

“They’re lovely.”  Harry gave them another look—then focused on one at the bottom. He remembered that day, because he was wearing the floral shirt that he had only worn once because it had disappeared after—Harry suspected Liam might have burned it. But… “That was last year,” he said, staring. Zayn had hated him then. Zayn hadn’t even looked at him.

“Yeah.” Zayn sighed.

“You…”

“Yeah.” Something in his voice made Harry drop the picture and go back to the bed, folding himself cross-legged on it so he could look at Zayn. “I told you, you scared me more than anything.”

“Well, you don’t have to be scared anymore.” Zayn bit his lip, and Harry leaned over to pick up Zayn’s wrist, just to feel his pulse there, to know what was underneath. “You don’t, Zayn.”

“It’s not…” Zayn shook his head, almost violently. “I just…it still feels like giving in. Not you,” he said, quickly, before Harry could start to process. “But, like, in general.” His gaze flicked up to Harry. “I still think soul mates are bullshit and don’t mean anything and don’t have anything to do with how I feel about you.”

“And I still think you’re my soul mate, and I love you.” Harry pressed a kiss to the letters on Zayn’s wrist. “We’ll figure it out.”

“But I’m not…easy. I know that, and you have to, before you…” Zayn didn’t look away from Harry’s face, even though Harry could feel his heart beat fluttering. “I get out of control sometimes. And like, the phobias and shit, they didn’t go away, and there’s a lot of baggage with that. Those I can’t compromise on. I can’t give in to those.”

“Then we won’t.” Harry shrugged. “And…” he trailed off, glanced to the side. Zayn followed his gaze to the cuff lying there. “I don’t mind if you wear that outside, with everyone. If you need it. I know it’s a symbol. Just, not here. Not with us.”

“Yeah?” Zayn’s lips quirked up.

“Yeah. I kind of like it. Makes it just for us, you know?” Harry pressed another kiss to the letters there. “And it’s hot. Makes you look all biker chic.” Zayn did grin at that, though it quickly disappeared back into sobriety. At that, so did Harry. “And I’m…like, I still want to travel, and I know you don’t. And I’m not easy either, I’m emotional and needy sometimes and—”

“We’ll figure it out,” Zayn echoed. He pulled his hand away, then shifted so he could grip Harry’s hand instead, interlacing their fingers. “Right?”

“Right.” Harry looked at their interlaced fingers. He wanted a picture of that. Of them, figuring things out. Of them, together. “I love you.”

“Love you too.” Harry grinned at hearing it, and Zayn laughed, and rolled over so he had Harry pushed back to the bed underneath him. Then he just sat back and stared at Harry again, his eyelids low over his eyes, his chin set. “And I’ll try not to be afraid of that.”

“Good. Now I think you should wake me up properly.”

Harry should have known better. Zayn swung off of Harry, and Harry was only briefly distracted from being irritated by the sight of naked Zayn. “Zayn!”

“What?” Zayn’s eyes glinted as he pulled on a pair of sweatpants. “I’m making coffee.”

“Oh, come on,” Harry rolled his eyes, and got up too to follow Zayn out. “Don’t be an ass, Zayn—”

Then suddenly he was being swung around, pressed against the hallway wall, and Harry could really get used to Zayn’s penchant for pressing him against walls and kissing him stupid.

“There?” Zayn asked, pulling away. “Happy?”

“Very,” Harry set his hands on Zayn’s waist, pulled him closer. “Very happy.”

---

“I still don’t see why we have to go here, Liam” Harry said into the phone, walking down the street towards Treasures and Tea. He didn’t want to be there. He wasn’t in a good mood, and he needed to work on the philosophy paper for the course Zayn and Nick had convinced him to take even though it was boring and Harry got all the philosophy he needed from Zayn, and it had been two months since he had last seen Zayn in person and he wanted him. He didn’t know how Louis and Nick did it, with time differences between here and Australia and Louis being so busy with his fellowship and everything. He wanted to cuddle close to Zayn, to actually hear Zayn’s voice. And phone sex really wasn’t the same. “We could just meet at home.”

“Nah, let’s do the café. But I’ll be a few minutes late,” Liam replied. Harry made a face at the air. He really didn’t want to be in the café all by himself, not when every inch of it made him think of Zayn. It was only forty-seven days until winter break, and he was seeing Zayn then, he reminded himself, pulling open the door. He could manage that long. He’d just go home and call Zayn. That always made him feel better.

The café looked the same, except it was a brunette with glasses behind the counter instead of Louis or Niall, and Harry knew that Zayn wasn’t lounging in the bookstore for Harry to go join and do his work while Zayn read, and so really it wasn’t the same at all.

It wasn’t usually this bad. Not always, at least. The summer had been amazing even with Zayn at home and him in Europe helping the photographers, because he was doing cool things and he could tell Zayn about it on Skype about how brilliant it all was and Zayn would laugh and tease and it had been great. But now he didn’t have the awesome to offset. Now it was just classes and work and it felt like home had, those last few months of high school, like everything was closing in and Harry had to get out, and Zayn wasn’t there to make him feel like he could escape.

But because Harry was a bit of a masochist, maybe, or maybe just because he wanted something that reminded him of Zayn at least, he wandered through the café and into the bookstore. He didn’t look towards the desk, where he had spent so much time last spring, instead he headed towards the back—then a hand was grabbing him and yanking him into the shelves.

Harry yelped, and for a second pulled away, but then he was getting pulled close and Harry knew that body and those lips and he didn’t know how or why but he just grabbed Zayn’s shoulders and pulled him in, kissing him as desperately as Zayn was.

Finally, once Harry had almost gotten enough to maybe tide him over for five minutes, Zayn was letting go of him, just enough so he could look at him.

“You’re here!”

“Brilliant deduction.”

“Shut up.” Harry poked at Zayn’s shoulder, then he had to kiss him again, for being there and teasing him in person. “Why are you here?”

“Wanted to see you.”

“Don’t you have class?” Zayn shrugged. Harry should probably yell at him, probably tell him that he wanted to do this PhD and so he should go to class, but he was here and Harry didn’t want him ever not being here again.

Because he was here. Harry just grinned at him, to look at him. He was in a pea coat today, mainly because his leather jacket was hanging in Harry’s apartment from when he had stole it after the week they had grabbed together at the end of the summer, but he was still so Zayn that Harry had to grab his shoulder again, just to make sure he was real. “Your hair is longer.”

“So’s yours.” Zayn tugged on one of the curls. “’s nice.”

“Yeah?” Harry could feel himself dimple, because he’d hoped Zayn would like it but Nick teased him about it every day. He should have known Zayn would like anything he did. “Like yours too.” He gave it a measuring look. “Bet I could really get a grip in it now.”

Zayn laughed, and pushed him lightly against the bookshelf to kiss him again. Harry melted into it, into Zayn’s touch, into how Zayn’s hand rested on his hip right over letters that hadn’t been touched in so long, except by Harry pretending it was Zayn.

But those fingers were also drumming against his skin, and Harry pulled away to look at him. “You okay?”

“Yeah.” Harry raised his eyebrows, and Zayn shook his head. “Better I’m here.”

“Zayn…”

“’s nothing.” Zayn said it too fast, like he always did when he didn’t want to admit it, so Harry just kept looking at him and he shrugged. “Just, getting used to things. You not being there.”

“Yeah, I know.” Zayn, Harry’d learned, wasn’t actually much good with change. Part of the social anxiety that went along with all of Zayn’s other anxieties. He grabbed Zayn’s wrist, to keep him anchored, covered the cuff with his fingers. “But soon.”

“Soon,” Zayn agreed. His other hand came up to cup Harry’s cheek, like he did when he was getting affectionate, and Harry caught a flash of ink he didn’t recognize on his wrist.

“Hey, new tattoo?” Harry let go of Zayn’s left hand to grab his right, because Harry loved discovering Zayn’s new ink, loved figuring out how best to bite it to make Zayn go crazy. He flipped Zayn’s hand over—and nearly dropped it.

There, on the inside of Zayn’s wrist, exactly opposite the letters the cuff hid—Harry traced it with his fingertip, over the curly cursive lettering there over the other tattoos. “Zayn,” He breathed. “Zayn!”

Zayn was grinning at him. He had stopped shaking. “Yeah?”

“You—that’s me. That’s my name!”

“You’re really brilliant today, aren’t you?”

“Shut up!” Harry bounced on his feet, then pulled Zayn’s hand closer, so he could look. There it was, in public, HARRY, right over his pulse. “You got a tattoo for me. Again.”

“Not again.” Zayn’s chin went up, and his eyes narrowed, and Harry had a flash of the picture he had hanging in his room, the final project for last year’s photography class—Zayn in between those trees, proud and golden, his Oberon. “This one’s mine. My choice.”

Harry couldn’t help the happy noise he made, because this—this was better than anything he could have imagined, better than the perfect sympathy or whatever he had once expected from his soul mate. This, Zayn choosing to write his name on his skin, so even when it was hard and they were far away and it felt like they’d never touch each other again, when they were arguing and couldn’t make up with sex and cuddles—he’d be there. Zayn’s choice, not the universe’s, not anything.

“I love you,” he said, because he didn’t have anything else that could hold everything in. “More than anything.”

“Me too.” Zayn grinned, and he was just Harry’s again, crowding him close so he could kiss him, even though anyone could see. Harry didn’t care, because when Zayn kissed him again, when he pulled him close and Harry could hold onto both his wrists, both his marks, the one the universe chose and the one Zayn chose for himself, and he brought the one to his own hip, and for a second—maybe just for that one moment, maybe not forever, but for that second—everything was as simple as Harry, and Zayn, and forever.