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the sun was high above them, shining brightly over the hills and mountains that were moving in and out on niall's line of sight as the train continued to speed down the tracks.
until this point, he hadn't asked many questions.
sure, it had been startling to be woken up at nearly six in the morning, on a saturday for crying out loud, and to be dragged out of bed and into some sort of decent state of dress and appearance, but he hadn't questioned it. a few mumbled curses into zayn's shoulder, maybe, but no questions about the why or where. he had simply gotten dressed and followed zayn's lead.
he did as zayn had asked, not looking and turning up his ipod to full volume at the train station, so that he wouldn't see or hear where they were headed. it all seemed a bit extreme, but sometimes that was just zayn's way. again, he kept his questions to himself.
now, though, it was hours later and they were still travelling. the curiosity was eating away at his insides and he was starting to get fidgety, despite zayn's soothing hand on his thigh or the small kisses continually places on his temple.
"zayn..." he started, and something in his voice must have tipped zayn off because immediately his fingers stopped moving from the patterns they had been tracing across his sweatpants. niall could physically feel him tense up against him and he sighed. "you're really not going to tell me what this is all about?" he asked, pushing forward even though he knew now that zayn didn't want him to.
zayn looked at him, eyebrows knit tightly they way they always did when he was over-thinking things. without thinking, niall reached up and touching his forehead gently. this made zayn smile, if only marginally, and he just shook his head. "i have a lot to explain, but this isn't the time." he responded, ever the mystery.
niall just sighed, sinking back into zayn's side and closing his eyes. "i hope i snore." he grumbled, trying his hardest to sound bitter. zayn just chuckled softly, arms pulling niall closer regardless.
he figured if zayn got to keep secrets, he could get some rest in order to deal with them all later.
...
zayn's sunglasses slid down niall's nose slowly, caring little about the amount of times or force in which niall continued to push the back up. he was standing outside of the car rental place, somewhere just outside of london.
he still wasn't asking, because zayn wasn't telling, and he really didn't want to start a fight when he wasn't even sure where he was on the map.
zayn was inside, getting a car for them niall supposed, leaving niall out front with their bags. people were milling around, chatting and working out their own schedules, making plans and knowing everything they were doing and where they were heading. niall felt out of place, confused and very much lost, and he didn't like it. he wasn't used to not being in complete control of the things he was doing. not because he had any kind of need to be, just simply because he hadn't ever had to worry about it before.
when zayn came back, he held up the keys and let them rattle softly before smiling at niall. "got one. finally. i swear, they live to make this as difficult as possible." he ranted, as if this were any normal trip.
part of niall wondered if he went through this every time he disappeared.
the thought came and went quickly, but it left a gaping hole somewhere in the middle of niall's stomach when he realized it was probably true.
he didn't reply to zayn's idle chatter, picking up their bags and following zayn to their designated vehicle.
he tossed the bags in the backseat and got in on the passenger side without a word. he let zayn take his hand once they were on the road, but he didn't return the pressure. he kept his mouth shut tight and didn't let himself even think of the thousands of questions running through the back of his mind.
zayn had to feel the tension.
they drove on in silence, across highways niall wasn't familiar with and through cities that were so substandard that niall wondered why zayn would ever come here to begin with.
as they were passing the sign that proclaimed they were entering crawley, it hit niall like a hammer to the head.
this wasn't just zayn running again. hell, this wasn't just some big surprise on zayn's part. this was both.
it was zayn, finally showing niall where and why he ran away so much. it was zayn opening up.
niall squeezed his hand gently as they pulled into a subdivision of a neighborhood, with large, rich looking houses and perfect lawns with sprinklers and dogs in their backyards. it was so suburban and niall couldn't imagine zayn here for a second.
zayn was trashy apartments with spilled paint stained carpets and ink stained papers scattered on trashy, secondhand furniture. zayn was all the beauty of living life on the edge of things, living just above poverty and loving every second of it.
zayn was not suburban. zayn was much, much better than that.
and yet, they were pulling into the driveway of one of these picturesque houses and parking. zayn got out first, shuffling through his own keys as niall followed suit. not a word was exchanged as they approached the front door and zayn stuck in a key that niall had seen many times but never once actually considered.
inside, the house was everything niall expected.
perfect white walls and pictures hung in beautiful frames in the hallways. the furniture was pristine in every room they walked through. niall was terrified to step anywhere or touch anything, because god forbid he break something.
there was a television set on somewhere nearby and zayn's fingers linked through niall's with such urgency that niall started to feel nervous himself.
"zayn?" the voice belonged to a woman and niall watched as zayn took a long, deep breath and headed toward the room where the noise was coming from.
"yeah, mum, it's me."
mum.
they were in zayn's family home.
zayn's family.
his parents. sisters. family that niall barely knew of, much less ever thought he'd meet.
"oh good, get in here. we were waiting for you-"
his mother stopped mid-sentence when they entered the room, eyes landing first on niall, then switching to zayn with accusation glaring out of them. "who's your friend?" she asked, venom in her tone and a dare in the words.
niall squeezed zayn's hand gently, looking back and forth between the two of them. there was no hiding the touch they shared, no pretending, and zayn had made sure of that.
he made sure there would be no lying.
"this is niall, mum. the boy i told you about." zayn told her, a dare of his own in his eyes.
"do you really think now is the time?" she retorted shortly, like zayn was a child, too incompetent to be treated like an adult.
"i think now is the perfect time. in fact, months ago would have been the perfect time." he snapped back, sounding angry suddenly. niall rarely ever saw this side of zayn before, but there it was. eyes blazing, hand shaking softly in niall's own, but a strong, serious expression on his face that showed he would not back down.
whatever it was that niall was missing here, the pieces were filling in slowly.
"zayn," he started, and two pairs of matching eyes landed on him. "let's go talk. now." he demanded, finding a little anger of his own. he didn't wait, just pulling zayn back the way they had come and out the front door.
as soon as they were outside, he let go of zayn's hand and put space between them on the long front porch. running his hands through his hair, he let out a shaky breath and turned on zayn, feeling suddenly murderous.
"y'know, when normal couples decide to meet the parents, there might be some sort of preparation." he said, a humorless laugh slipping out. "in fact, lots of preparation, usually. hell, even short fucking notice would have been better than this!"
zayn didn't say anything, hands shoved in his pockets, eyes trained on the ground.
"no! instead, i get pulled from my bed at six in the morning, stuck on a train for three hours and then driving for another hour and a half, without so much as a hint to what i'm headed toward! and i trusted you, expected you'd give me some sort of idea that would help me along when i would need it, but then i get shoved into the fucking lion's den!" he was shaking now, hands balled into fists, wanting to hit zayn for the first time in the nearly three years he had known him.
"are you going to say anything?" he yelled finally, losing all of his patience.
silence stretched on and niall was ready to leave.
"my dad's dying." zayn said finally, still not looking at niall.
niall just watched, waiting, forced himself to breath and unball his fists and calm down.
"it's been about a year now. a heart defect, actually. nothing they can fix, he's too old for that, and besides he didn't want to try." zayn continued, turning away from niall now and pulling his cigarette pack from his back pocket.
"why not?" niall asked finally, because he deserved some answers for once.
zayn smiled, but there was no joy behind it. it was sad, distressed, an almost depressed sort of smile. like he was forcing everything, but not really trying at all.
"he can't handle the shame, is what i've been assured of."
"the shame of-" niall cut himself off, hit with a pang of hurt and longing to reach out to zayn now as he started to understand.
"she blames me. says the stress of dealing with how wrong i am was too much for him." zayn continued, like niall hadn't started to speak at all. "my being gay is killing my dad."
he looked at niall now, cigarette smoldering and forgotten at his side. his eyes were searching, taking in all of niall, like he was looking for an answer.
"i kept leaving to try and stop feeling anything. that's why i would disappear. the first time was when he was first admitted to the hospital, only a week after i came out to them. i was going to have you meet them then, but then he got sick and i found out how my mum really felt."
niall stepped foward then, but didn't touch zayn. he didn't know how to comfort for this.
"by the third time, when i realized i wasn't going to stop feeling something for you, i figured eventually you'd just leave me, tired of my bullshit or whatever." he continued now, getting it all out for the first time. "but you were always there, concerned and caring and too much for me all the time."
reaching out, niall pulled zayn into him by his wrist, bringing their bodies close together and wrapping his arms around zayn to hold him there. it wasn't tight, still space between them, but it was all he could bring himself to do.
"eventually i stopped leaving all together, figuring if i couldn't shake you, i could leave them behind. they hated everything about me anyway, so it wouldn't really matter." zayn choked out finally, and as soon as he started crying, niall broke. he pulled him tight against his body, fingers knotting in the fabric at the back of his t-shirt and head buried in the crook of his neck.
"i can't give either of you up, ni. i can't lose you, and i can't lose them." zayn was immobile against him, chin resting on zayn's shoulder, and the unresponsive nature of his stance was almost too much for niall to handle.
"i'm not going anywhere." niall promised, lips brushing across zayn's skin. "i'm right here. i'm not going anywhere."
...
they stayed with zayn's family that night, and though his sisters were sweet, niall felt unwanted the entire night. he laid with his back pressed to zayn's chest, zayn's hand on his heart, and he had to focus all his energy on that to even relax enough to think about sleeping.
all he could see is the contempt in zayn's mother's eyes. how much she blamed not only zayn, but suddenly niall by extension. another name to put on the list of people that had ruined her life.
and all he couls think about was how un-fucking-fair that was, for both of them.
zayn was quiet the next morning and that's okay because niall wouldn't have known what to say even if zayn did want to talk. instead they just showered and got ready to leave in silence, exchanging gentle touches as they moved around each other.
downstairs, niall could hear the sounds of morning activity and he wondered... if he hadn't been there, would zayn be joining his family instead?
he knew what zayn had said. he knew zayn loved him, he really did. he believed it and he wouldn't do something crazy, like leave him or something idiotic like that. he was far too selfish for that kind of thing regardless. but he couldn't shake the feeling that he was in the way. a part of him still ached to fix this for zayn, wanted zayn's family to be accepting of him again. niall just wanted to stop feeling like the reason for zayn and his family falling apart.
as they made their way out, having to pass through the kitchen, one of zayn's sisters jumped up and hugged zayn tightly, holding onto him for so long that niall was pretty sure zayn was going to break any second. he could see it in the tight lines around zayn's eyes as he held her back, whispering in her ear words that no one else was meant to hear.
when she finally went back to the table, zayn grabbed for niall's hand. he didn't even have to look back to know niall would be there, and that just furthered niall's certainty that he couldn't leave him, even if he thought it would fix whatever this was.
he wasn't going anywhere. he'd already made that promise.
"bye mum. i'll see you in a few weeks." he said, and the words were pointless. they sounded rehearsed, like he said them so often they had lost any meaning they used to have.
his mother finally looked up from her plate, glancing first at zayn and then at niall. "next time you'll have to take niall to meet your father." she said, and it felt like a slap in the face to them both. zayn actually tensed all over and niall had to mentally shake himself so he wouldn't snap.
there was only so far that zayn could be pushed, but niall's fuse was even shorter and zayn's hurt was his weak spot.
"we'll be sure to do that." he said when zayn didn't speak up, tugging on zayn's hand as he pulled him toward the door and outside. he didn't once look behind them and he didn't look at zayn to gauge his reaction. he just led him toward the rental car, wanting more than anything to get out of there.
zayn stayed silent once they were inside the car and niall started counting.
one.
he should have kept his mouth shut.
two.
he probably made things worse.
three.
hell, his existence had already done that.
four.
maybe he lied.
five.
maybe zayn would be better off if he wasn't there.
six.
suddenly zayn was in his space, leaning over divide between their seats and bringing their lips together in a kiss that was almost too rough, too intense.
and then zayn was falling back into his own seat and...
and he was laughing. actually laughing, tears starting to fall from the force of it.
niall couldn't do much more than sit and watch, feeling confused and a little more than concerned until zayn's hysteria started to subside.
"her face... when you said we would..." he gasped out, wiping at his eyes and shaking his head. "i have never seen her look so shocked. no one's ever spoken to her like that."
he reached over and took niall's hand, smiling at him now. "god, i love you." he told him, awe in his voice as he leaned over and kissed niall again, softer this time. "thank you."
"for what?" niall asked, still feeling pretty stunned. the entire mood had turned around and he was fairly certain he had whiplash.
"makinf this bearable. making all of it feel okay."
niall just squeezed his hand gently, nodding, because he got that. zayn made things pretty bearable for him, too.
...
when they arrived back in manchester, a little worse for wear but still smiling, they found harry and louis already waiting for them in zayn's bedroom. there was a fury in louis' features, but harry just looked concerned, and they both consumed the two of them in tight group hug.
"what the hell is wrong with you?" louis asked zayn, but then he turned on niall. "and you! you of all people!"
niall rolled his eyes. "chill out, louis." he demanded, going over and flopping down on the bed, sighing a little. "leave him alone. i get it now, okay?"
zayn was smiling at him from where he was still standing, harry wrapped around him like he was afraid zayn was going to disappear.
louis just threw his hands up in the air, an exasperated noise escaping his throat. "well do we ever get to 'get it'?" he asked sharply.
zayn removed himself from harry's hold and went over to niall, practically smothering him and burying himself in niall's side. niall just shook his head at louis, who opened his mouth to argue, only to be interrupted by harry.
"c'mon lou," he urged quietly, prodding him toward the door. "we can come back and you can bug them later." he promised. louis didn't look placated in the least, but nodded along and let harry push him out of the room.
when they door shut behind them, zayn looked up at niall and sighed. "i'll tell them. eventually." he said, but niall just shrugged indifferently.
"you'll tell them when you're ready. or you won't." he replied simply, and zayn nodded. "but thank you. for telling me." he added softly, because he knew it had taken a lot for zayn to do what he did.
"just don't go anywhere." zayn requested, not looking at niall now.
niall pressed a soft kiss to zayn's forehead, sighing a little and shaking his head, like zayn was the craziest, best thing in the world.
and he was.
"wouldn't dream of it."