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Zayn slammed the large glass door open, practically throwing himself onto the desk.
"Louis Tomlinson," he hissed, voice raspy and breathless. "Louis Tomlinson, where is he--"
"I'm sorry, are you a family member?" The receptionist looked up at him calmly.
"You fucking called me to tell me he was in a car crash, I'm his emergency contact! Now tell me where the fuck he is!" Zayn screamed at her, his frustration and anxiety quickly taking over.
The receptionist suppressed her brief moment of surprise and nodded, clacking her fingernails on the keyboard.
"Louis Tomlinson..." she murmured. "ICU, room 517."
Zayn ignored the drop in his chest from the unit mentioned and sprinted to the elevators instead.
"You're such a dickwad."
The voice haunted him, tinted gray with the traces of fainted memory. He clearly remembered Louis' crinkling of the eyelids as he threw his head back laughing. Louis, who saw him as Veronica and immediately went to grope his breasts.
"Come on!" Zayn pounded at the elevator button, his finger practically vibrating against it. The red digital numbers seemed to taunt him as they descended slowly, making their way to the first floor.
Zayn closed his eyes in agony as another memory hit him, washing over him in waves from the sudden intensity and clarity of it all.
It was when they had first started, the boys from the stairs. Back then, they had relished in the fame, broad grins filling their faces whenever they heard the cheers and screams. It was when their eyes were all bright with the hope, that they might be able to trade their normal lives for something extraordinary, so spectacular and beyond their dreams.
"Come here," Louis grasped Zayn's dainty wrist and pulled until both of them stumbled onto the rooftop.
"It's bloody cold up here," Zayn whined, rubbing at his arms for warmth.
"Man up, Zee. Look, look!"
Louis threw his own arms around Zayn's shaking frame and they hobbled awkwardly together over to the edge of the roof.
Zayn turned to whine at Louis again but snapped his mouth shut when he saw what the ledge had been hiding from his sight. The city lights glittered softly before him, trapped in a slow dance and swaying between the darkened sky and the rooftop. Their hair flowed softly from the curtains of air wisping around them. In that moment, it seemed as though all dimensions of space and time had collapsed, encasing them tightly in a moment of comfort and warmth.
Louis' face was upturned, cheeks set alight with the gentle smile of the moon. Zayn couldn't help staring, marveling at the way the silver rays reflected off the boy's high cheekbones. Right then, Louis wasn't snapping at anyone or stealing. That was something people often overlooked, Zayn knew. Louis always seemed to teleport, flitting from place to place. One moment he was setting up a prank for Niall and the next he was hiding from security on a stolen vehicle. Everyone laughed, Zayn mused. Everyone laughed but no one ever saw the empty look Louis got when everything was over and people went back to whatever they were doing before Louis interrupted them.
It was for attention, Zayn realized that within months of meeting Louis. He needed validation, confirmation that he was wanted in their group.
Zayn began to smile, tongue poking out behind his front teeth. But right now, Louis was entirely different. He was satisfied, he wasn't trying to please anyone, he was still and quiet, blooming under the night sky.
"What do you think?" Louis turned to him.
Zayn pursed his lips and barely suppressed his grin in time. "It's pretty."
"Pretty?" Louis laughed, the sound ringing.
"Zayn."
There was a pressure on his hand.
He looked up to see Louis' cerulean eyes looking right at him.
"That's gonna be ours one day," Louis declared, swinging his arms out dramatically. "This city, this country, the entire world!"
Louis turned to Zayn, eyes practically spilling over in ambition and zeal. "We're gonna dominate this world."
Zayn finally let loose and let himself laugh, which broadened Louis' own smile.
He took Louis' hand and twirled him around, catching the boy in a graceful dip. "Tell the world to bow down then," Zayn winked.
"Bow down to royalty!" he cheered.
The elevator dinged as it came to rest on the fifth floor and Zayn quickly snapped himself out of his trance.
"Room 517, please," he panted to the first person he bumped into. The anger had all evaporated now, leaving an exacerbated pool of pure desperation in its wake.
The woman shook her head politely and apologized.
He caught the arm of the man behind her. "Room 517, please, please!"
Louis smirked as Zayn grudgingly bit into the apple.
"You're ridiculous, you know that?" Zayn mumbled through a mouthful of fruit.
Louis shrugged. "Promised Tricia, didn't I? You're too skinny."
He looked up at Louis incredulously. "And you measure that by how prominent my collarbones are?"
Louis grinned as he reached over and kneaded the bone, dragging Zayn's shirt down.
Zayn's eyes were covered by a glassy film by the time he reached the room labeled 517, so much that he had to blink a couple of times before he saw the number.
Immediately, his hand shot for the doorknob but an arm reached from behind him and stopped Zayn.
The nurse shook her head softly and motioned for him to follow her to the waiting area.
"He needs rest, he just went into stable condition."
"But I'm--" Zayn protested.
The nurse shushed him down quickly. "I understand you care deeply about him but letting you in right now will worsen his condition. Please be patient."
He opened his mouth to ask about his condition but reconsidered. He didn't want to know, he couldn't bear eith knowing. Zayn slumped down into a nearby chair, all the fight going out of him. "Alright," he whispered hoarsely.
A sudden wave of drowsiness overcame him as he looked from afar into Louis' room. Through the glass window he could see the faint movements of Louis' chest.
Though that could just be the work of the oxygen machines, a voice whispered in his head.
Louis was covered in bruises, with bandages wrapped tightly around his appendages and torso. One arm was held still by a cast, an IV protruding from the other one. The machines around him kept up a steady beep, making an almost serene environment.
He was so tired, Zayn suddenly couldn't help but close his eyes and tilt his head back. So tired, just like when he told the band he was leaving.
He remembers that feeling well, of being completely and utterly wrecked. He didn't have the scars or bruises but inside he was shredded, all the hope and ambition from the rooftop long since evaporated. The worst part was, when he stood there, in front of all the boys, about to give the horrid news, he wasn't nervous. He wanted to get it over with. He genuinely couldn't wait to admit defeat to this industry that wrecked him and leave the carnage behind.
Louis had glared up at him, his hooded eyelids preventing Zayn from seeing what he was truly feeling. Because Louis was always good at hiding his emotions. Because the sharp daggers and curses that Louis struck him with couldn't be what he really felt.
Zayn walked over and pressed his palm shakily against the glass. He knew that Louis blamed himself for forcing Zayn to leave. Louis always felt responsible for his well-being, be it physical or emotional.
Zayn shouldn't have said the things that he did.
"Remember when you had a life and stopped making bitchy comments about mine?"
He pressed his forehead to the cold surface. But he was so angry, so tired and he thought that if he left this all behind, cut off all previous connections, he could repair his tattered spirit.
Only when it was too late did he realize his mistake. It was never the people that made you hurt, he murmured quietly as a few tears dropped. It was the people around you that made it hurt less, that tried to keep you together.
And you pushed all of them away.
Zayn had realized all of this when he watched the History music video, knowing that the pictures at the end were hand picked by Louis, even if he would never admit it.
His stream of thought was cut off when the beeping inside the room became alarmingly rapid. It permeated his veins, ringing through his pounding mind as he raced to find a doctor. Louis' face turned a ghastly pale and adrenaline flooded through Zayn.
"Help him, quick!" He screamed, completely disregarding any concern for being recognized.
A doctor paced rapidly into the room, followed by a couple of anxious looking nurses.
"We gotta stabilize him, cut off the morphine now!" The doctor's voice was dulled through the heavy glass but even Zayn could hear the concern.
"Get the defibrillators ready, he's going into cardiac arrest."
Zayn's eyes burned with the sensation of tears, bright and wild with his desperation.
He fingered the phone in his hand, turning it over with his fingers.
"The Tommo Beast" was still listed in his emergency contacts, from a time when Louis stole his phone and declared himself king.
His finger hovered hesitantly over the brief text message that read: "Bow down to royalty."
It was simple but Zayn knew it would tell Louis that he hadn't forgotten, that he had genuinely cherished their nights of smoking on the roof.
"I'm sorry," would be the next thing he sent except he didn't.
Swallowing thickly, Zayn held his hand on the backspace key and watched the words disappear.
It crashed into the world when it happened, the way the frantic beeps steadied out, stretching into a high pitched song that soothed Zayn briefly before he realized what it meant.
Flat line.
Louis had flat lined.
"His heart stopped," the doctor instructed. "Ready the current."
The nurse quickly fumbled as she reached for the two paddles. The doctor grabbed the insulated handles and settled the devices onto Louis' bare chest.
"Charging...five hundred...clear!"
Louis back lurched up immediately, head being thrown back in a gruesome sight.
Zayn could see two red marks from the device on Louis' bare chest.
"Louis, Louis, Louis," Zayn could only clench his eyes closed and repeat the name desperately, like a mantra that he hoped would keep the two of them bound together.
"Quickly, again! Charging...one thousand...clear!"
The horrible sound of a limp body falling heavily back onto the mattress manifested. Practically hyperventilating, Zayn pressed his hands to his ears, clenching his eyes shut. This wasn't happening. Louis' heart did not just stop. This was--
"Don't act like you understand!" Zayn screeched, ripping his hand out of Liam's grip. Immediately, Liam recoiled, puppy eyes hurt and vulnerable.
"Zayn, calm down," Harry hissed, his command a warning. "Don't take out your anger on us. So you missed another appearance, so what, the fans will understand--"
"That's just it, they don't," Zayn snarled, a wild look taking over his eyes. "For Prince Harry, Irish princess Niall, they'll do anything, oh god you're fucking gems!"
He strode over to Louis, who had been surprisingly quiet this whole time, and looked him in the eye. His hazel pupils bore straight into sky cerulean ones.
"But me," his voice dropped. "I'm the terrorist, the fucking drug addict, the one that gets stopped at security in the airport!"
Niall had been crying for a while now, tears falling easily down his face. "I'm sorry, Zayn, I didn't think--ignore them please." He ended in a plea, reaching out desperately for Zayn to make his stay, to maintain the tether the five of them had.
"We can get you through it, I-I promise," Liam pulled Zayn's body to his and ran his fingers through the raven locks. "We'll protect you, you're gonna be okay, please, please don't leave."
Zayn remembers looking briefly at Louis, whose face was cast down, his fringe hanging so that Zayn couldn't read his expression. A pang rang through his heart when he noted that Louis still had not said anything.
"Together...the five of us have to stay together," Harry's face softened and his eyes became glassy. "We'll protect you."
Zayn's facade crumbled at this and he swatted Harry's hand away harshly. "Don't you get it?" He screamed into the shocked face of curls.
"It's you," Zayn snarled and grabbed the collar of Harry's shirt, even though he was slightly shorter. "You make it worse, all of you do! Because you're always quite the gentleman, because Niall's laugh is the only one ever worth noting because your solos can melt an entire stadium!"
Flinging Harry away, Zayn turned to face the shocked boys.
"Do-do you really feel that way?" Niall stammered, hurt quickly flooding into his wide eyes. He snapped his mouth shut immediately after, scared now of his voice, of how it might thrust Zayn into the shadow.
"Why didn't you tell us?" Liam said softly, gaze trained on his feet. "You know we would never intentionally do that--"
Harry got up from the floor silently and collapsed next to the other boys. He didn't know how to react to this, he didn't know how long his very presence had meant pain to Zayn.
It wouldn't stop, Zayn knew. His mask had broken down, shattering at their feet and the subsequent words flowed out of him, all knives and nails, digging themselves deep into the hearts of the five of them.
"I was never happy, don't you get it?" Zayn ended, chest heaving from all the emotions he had just let out.
There was no going back. None of the boys were saying anything now, much less asking him to stay. He had effectively guilted all of them into believing it was selfish to ask him not to leave. But when had their respective happiness become exclusive things?
Realization soaked slowly into Zayn before he found how thoroughly he had destroyed the boys. They were happy while he wasn't but now he had given in to the jealous voices in his head, screaming blades at the boys until they were as broken as he was.
Apologies bubbled up in him immediately but before he could open his mouth a fresh voice broke in.
"We'll tell management about your decision to leave."
Louis finally stood up and looked up at him, his face completely unreadable.
"We can work around your contract and you can probably leave around next week. You don't even have to wait until the end of the OTRA tour."
Zayn felt a burning sensation behind his eyes though he knew he had no right. He had chosen this and they were supporting him. Even Louis. Wasn't this what he wanted? He would finally get rid of the anxious feelings that plagued him whenever fans and interviewers avoided eye contact with him.
"If it's too much trouble for you to come, we can mail all your belongings back to you. Call Paul if you find that you're missing anything," Louis ended and turned his back to Zayn.
So it finally happened. Zayn never thought about it but he always saw his departure from the band as an end to this stressful publicized life. Only now did he realize it was more than that. He would lose the people as well, the four boys that did nothing but try their best to protect him.
A tear finally slipped out of the pool in Zayn's eyes. Louis was finally tried then. Tired of taking care of him, of consoling him and brushing away his insecurities, of assuring him that his high notes were fine.
None of the boys were looking at him now. They clung to each other, tears pouring down silently but afraid to use their voices.
I'm tired too, Zayn told himself. Of being in their shadow, of being spoken over, of being kept tethered to this crushing industry.
I'm free now, he said to himself. I'm free now.
And repeating those three words like a mantra that was supposed to convince him, Zayn brushed the lone tear away and walked out the door.
Louis watched him leave.
The scene faded away before him, leaving behind a shimmering wall of crystals. Zayn watched as each particle disappeared, reminding him of the wall that stood between him and the memory. It might as well be a scene from a movie, the border impermeable for him.
A tear, for when he cursed at Louis one last time.
A tear, for when he powered off his phone when the other boys called him.
A tear, for when he walked out without turning around and didn't see the blue eyes counting his steps.
His vision became dotted and glassy and he had to blink before he could return to the hospital room.
The electrical machine had been set aside now and a blanket of silence covered the room.
Zayn saw the doctor reach out and pull up the white blanket so that it covered Louis' face.
Zayn saw the nurse look at the clock and record the time.
He sprinted into the room, practically tripping onto one of the exiting nurses. "What the fuck are you doing?" his voice was low and dangerous. Eyes glinting, he rushed over to the bed and ripped the white bedsheet off.
Louis' eyelids were still a rosy pink, cheeks still hollowed and soft.
"He's not dead, bastards--"
"Sir, please," a nurse reached out to him, empathy deep in her eyes.
"We did all that we could, his heart stopped ten minutes ago," the doctor said. "The impact to his chest was too great--"
Zayn wasn't thinking clearly and before he knew it his knuckles had crashed into the doctor's face, effectively cutting him off.
The doctor held his face up, hand over his nose to try to stop the bleeding.
"Sir!" A nurse cried out. "That is unacceptable, if you don't leave, I'll have to call security."
But Zayn wasn't listening. "He's not dead!" He roared and practically leapt across the bed to the heart machines. "What button do you press, what do you do to make these work again?" He screamed and began shaking the machine.
The doctor had left to tend to his face and the nurses were hanging back, afraid to restrain him.
Zayn had gone to one of their concerts. He was fairly well disguised, with a brown long haired wig lumped over his head and darkly contoured cheeks. He'd even gone for the eyeliner and breasts.
Basically, he was Veronica.
He didn't know when he made the decision, it seemed instinctual almost. He knew with certainty that he didn't want to be recognized, couldn't afford to be. But maybe there were a few exceptions to that rule.
"Are you ready, Las Vegas?" Niall roared into the microphone as he skipped onto the stage to thousands of cheering fans.
Zayn was among them, screaming his throat out simply because the energy there was infectious. He had never seen this aspect of a One Direction concert before, the pure adoration and excitement from the fans creating an electrical atmosphere. The lights were wild as the rest of the boys gambled on stage, all broad smiles and pumping fists.
But I can't be there with them, he reminded himself. His thoughts were almost lost in the crowd of screaming girls. He remembered clearly the heated glare of the lights and the anxious attacks that plagued him whenever he was the only one on a certain side of the stage.
But as among the guitar solos and pounding melody, among the boys' voices all blending together, Zayn forgot about his stress for a while.
This concert was all smiles and tears, phones waving with the lights on as a tribute of the fans' support. Zayn smiled because he knew that from the stage, the audience would appear as tiny pricks of light in the darkness, a collossal constellation of stars.
"Alright, the next song....we give you...Right Now!" Liam shouted, gesturing grandly.
The first notes sounded and Zayn immediately tensed, knowing the significance of this song for him and the band, knowing how painfully accurate it was for their own lives.
Before he knew it, it was the chorus and he only had a nanosecond to wonder who would be assigned his lines when he heard it:
"Right now, I wish you were here with me," Louis sang softly into the microphone. The hesitance was barely there, but like always, Zayn caught it.
"Cause right now, everything is new to me." The words flowed out of Louis, the various melodies and notes seemingly dancing in the stadium.
"You know I can't fight the feeling, cause every night I'm feeling," Louis' gaze swept over the crowd and his eyes glistened a little. There was no way Louis could've seen him given the distance and his disguise but--
"Right now, I wish you were here with me," Louis sang one last time.
And they may have been whole yards apart, separated by thousands of sweaty bodies but Zayn couldn't help but feel as if every word was directed to him, pounding into his very soul with their passion and genuinity.
"Security is on their way," a nurse finally spoke up from behind him. "Dr. Erlson won't press any charges, he's a very understanding man."
Zayn just stood there, dazed from the recent events.
She came up and gently pried his hands off of the heart machine. "You can't do anything for him now."
"But you could've," a voice broke in harshly and Zayn whipped around to find Harry
He was furious, green eyes blazing as he strode up to Zayn and rammed him up against the wall despite the frantic protests from the nurses. Zayn clenched his eyes shut, waiting for the punch.
But the hand was released from his shirt and he slumped down against the wall, completely exhausted and pliant.
"You had so much time to make up for what you did," Harry hissed at him, digging his nails into his palm to restrain himself. "You had so many chances to say sorry and yet you never fucking did."
Zayn took each word, not daring to break off his stare with Harry. He knew he deserved it and he would take whatever Harry gave him.
And it was true. So many unsent messages, ended calls.
A sudden possibility rammed itself into Zayn's head and he clutched his chest from the intensity of the thought. There was no way....He kneaded his fingers into his chest, needing some sort of pressure to ground him, to keep himself together.
"Where was he found?" Zayn's voice was quiet and steady with an forced tautness, panic masked with control.
"You know the answer," Harry retorted, averting his gaze.
"Where did it happen?" He repeated; his control was slipping fast and his hands began shaking.
There was a beat of silence.
"Mercer Street," Harry said finally. "The intersection with West 4th street. On the way to your flat."
And Zayn's world crumbled. A dull pounding sounded before slowly increasing in volume, until all he could hear was his own heartbeat. It was harshly loud, drowning everything else out and making Zayn press his fingers to his temples to calm the onslaught.
On the way to your flat.
His back hit the wall and he slid down pathetically, eyes glazed over and unfocused.
Louis was going to see him. Louis was going to do what Zayn never had the courage to do.
His heart seemed so heavy at that moment that it ached. Like an anchor, it seemed to sink farther and farther down until Zayn had completely lost hold of it.
Harry's face was in front of him, concern replacing the anger in his eyes. Faintly, he could hear the nurses' orders in the background.
"Breathe, Zayn, calm down," Harry instructed, demonstrating deep breaths.
Zayn tried, he really did. Gasping and wheezing, he found that each failed attempt at breathing only panicked him more.
His surroundings began to blur and everything became silent except for the now steady thumping of his heart. He blinked, trying to focus his gaze to no avail.
And at that moment, among Harry's worried questions and the commands of the nurses, Louis woke up. Zayn could see the blue eyes clearly, staring straight into him with an indecipherable emotion. That seemed to happen a lot recently. Steadily, they were losing the special intuition that they had for each other.
Louis blinked once and time seemed to slow to a complete stop, the world compressing itself until this moment was all that was important.
"Hey," the voice croaked out and it wasn't Zayn's nor Harry's.
All eyes turned to the hospital bed, to the hollow faced corpse who just spoke.
"Louis," Harry was the first to breathe, breaking the silence.
The nurses rushed out of the room to find the doctor in their bewilderment. Harry had immediately rushed over to Louis, frantically brushing at his cheeks to make sure he didn't fall asleep again. But Louis' was ignoring him, his head still turned sideways, those eyes still entrapping Zayn in their intense stare.
In all the frenzy, Zayn saw the edges of his vision slowly begin to blur. It spread until all he had before his eyes was a blinding white.
Hey, he tried to whisper back.
No one noticed as he crumpled onto the cold, tiled floor.