Work Text:
Come down here, got sumthin 2 show u
Zayn reads the text while lying on his tiny bed in his shitty dorm room, feet propped on the edge of his desk while he labors through reading Goethe for class. Louis’s sitting at the desk opposite his, and Zayn’s pretty sure he’s supposed to be writing a paper, but he can clearly see You-Tube open on his computer. Probably watching the music videos of that singer Harry Styles; Louis likes to pretend like he doesn’t know all the words to the guy’s songs, but Zayn’s seen his ipod. He knows.
He texts back with, what do you want I’m reading, and he can imagine the way Niall will roll his eyes, like he does when Zayn uses school-work for any excuse not to go out.
Just cmere u lazy dickhead. Niall is a pleasant human being, Zayn thinks, as he pulls on his pants and shoves his feet into a pair of shoes that are probably Louis’s, judging by the way his heels are hanging out the back. Louis leaves them everywhere, it’s not Zayn’s fault that it’s more than convenient for him.
Niall’s leaning against the red brick of Zayn’s dorm building when Zayn pushes open the glass door. His hair is sticking up, like he just ran his hands through it, and his tank is falling off one shoulder. Zayn itches to fix it, but he sticks his hands in his pockets instead. The muggy heat of the summer hits him like a blast, creeps inside his shirt and settles into his skin like a blanket, overwhelming and suffocating. Zayn likes it. He likes when the air is so hot he feels like he can’t breathe, and he likes dead winter when his nose burns with the frost in the air. Zayn is a man of extremes.
“Hey.” Niall’s voice is muted, quiet. More emotion comes out of his blue eyes, blue like lonely dawns and oceanic horizons. Zayn doesn’t think about all the poems written about the color blue, scribbled in the margin of his lecture notes, nor about the way Niall’s skin glows under the streetlamps, pale like the creamiest shade of Zayn’s favorite paper.
Zayn smiles at him, reaching for the pack of cigarettes from his back pocket. He offers one to Niall, who shakes his head. “Tryin’ to quit.”
Zayn snorts. Niall says that every day. “What d’ya want to show me?”
Niall smiles, secret and mischievous. “Nothin’, really, just bored. Liam’s practicing his sax, s’bloody unbearable.”
Nodding, Zayn lights his cigarette, watches the way Niall’s eyes track the movement of Zayn’s fingers as they touch his lips and he blows out a hazy stream of smoke that disappears into the night. They meander down the path, shoulders bumping, and every so often Niall kicks a rock and giggles happily as it skids along. He’s like a child, entertained by the simplest things.
“You ever gonna try and quit?” Niall reaches around Zayn’s waist and fingers the open carton of cigarettes sticking out of his back pocket. Zayn tries not to shiver at the feel of Niall’s fingers at the base of his spine, pinky brushing against the soft hairs there. It’s not fair what Niall does to him.
Zayn shakes his head. “Probably not.” They leave the path and walk out over the grass, wet with the rain from earlier. Zayn can feel his ankles getting wet. “I like the addiction.”
Without any warning, Niall stops and kicks off his shoes, lying down in the grass. Little pieces of cut grass stick to his pale shoulders, standing out against the freckles that splatter the skin. His eyes are closed, blonde eyelashes fanning against his cheeks. When he crosses his hands over his stomach, Zayn tears his eyes away from his face, and allows himself to fall next to Niall.
They lay there, side by side, shoulders brushing softly, and Niall lifts his bare foot and lets it drop over Zayn’s, so that Zayn can feel the hair on Niall’s ankle scratching against his own leg. It grounds him, makes him feel less like he’s floating above their bodies watching the dark and light hair mix on the wet grass. Makes him drag his attention away from the way their hands are lying barely centimeters away from each other, Niall’s pale fingers twitching slightly like he wants to be strumming away at his guitar. Zayn’s hands are still.
“Should I fuck around and talk about the stars, or should I just tell you the reason we’re lying in the wet grass?” Niall’s voice floats above them and Zayn wishes he could see Niall’s mouth making the words. His lips are always red, as if he’s been sucking on a cherry lollipop and it’s distracting, so distracting when Zayn is supposed to be listening to what the blonde boy is saying.
“You should fuck around and talk about the stars.” Zayn closes his eyes and concentrates on the damp feeling of the grass seeping through his shirt. There’ll be grass stains when he sits up. He can’t bring himself to care.
Niall hums, quiet laughter thrumming underneath. “Mars is bright tonight.”
“Did you just quote a centaur from Harry Potter?”
He feels rather than sees Niall nod next to him. Niall’s hair tickles his ear, sending a tingle down Zayn’s spine and into his feet and he wants to stand up out of his body and look down at the two boys lying in the grass.
They lay there silently. Zayn can hear the soft rise and fall of Niall’s breathing, and rustle of the grass as he shifts slightly when his shirt starts to stick to his back. The moon shines directly on Niall’s bare shins, making the blonde hair look silver, hazy like a halo. As if there was anything more accurate than Niall having a halo.
An owl hoots somewhere and there are crickets singing in the grass. The air is charged. With what, Zayn doesn’t know.
“What’s the real reason we’re lying in the wet grass?” Zayn finally asks. He can feel the smoke settling on their skin, ash falling on his tshirt.
“Wanted t’tell ya something.” Niall speaks slowly, glossy, like the words are melting out of him. He has that way of talking, words slurred together like they’re drowning in the sunshine that emanates from Niall.
“What?”
“Wanted t’tell you that you fucking blow my mind.”
Zayn holds his breath and lets Niall’s words dance around them. He’s afraid to speak or breathe or move, lest Niall reaches out and snatches the words back into his golden mouth.
“Yeah?” Zayn says it quiet and turns his head till he’s facing Niall. Niall was already looking at him, though, and oh. Zayn shivers, toes curling. Niall has exactly three freckles smudging together on the bridge of his nose, and Zayn wants to touch them or kiss them or name them or something.
Niall nods. He lifts his hands off his chest, gesturing in the form of what Zayn thinks is supposed to be a mushroom cloud, and makes an exploding noise with his mouth, quietly explosive in its own right.
“Oh.”
“Thought you should know.”
Zayn doesn’t know what to say to that. He shifts his hand a little bit till their pinky fingers are touching, but he doesn’t link them. Seems like too much importance for such a simple gesture, so he leaves them just sitting next to each other, sharing body heat.
Suddenly Niall is rolling over and the moon disappears behind his halo of blonde hair as he hovers over Zayn. His face is dark, in shadow, but Zayn can see his eyes still, glowing out from his face, determined and so utterly confident that Zayn just fucking trembles under his gaze.
“’M gonna kiss you now, ‘kay?”
Zayn can’t stop looking at Niall’s lips as they form words. He nods.
Niall’s mouth is right above his, the heat of his breath brushing against Zayn’s upper lip, when Niall whispers, “don’t freak out”, and then there’s warm heat on Zayn’s mouth, soft and absolutely fucking overwhelming.
He can feel Niall everywhere, feel his thumbs brushing Zayn’s shoulders as he holds himself up over him, elbows locked and biceps trembling; he can feel the brush of his eyelashes against the hollows of Zayn’s eyes as their mouths move together slowly and wetly, slick sounds that Zayn feels like he could listen to for the rest of his life.
Niall laughs into his mouth a little bit, and it’s so Niall that Zayn almost can’t breathe, can’t make his brain function when he’s got this boy on top of him, enveloping and so incredibly consuming.
Zayn lifts his hands from where they were lying uselessly on the grass, and smoothes them down Niall’s spine, bent, arched like the curve of a half-moon. In the middle of the kiss, Zayn can feel the dampness of Niall’s shirt from the wet grass and it resonates with him as so normal and ordinary in the midst of this extraordinary moment.
With a small sound, Niall licks into his mouth, wet heat and the scratch of his upper lip against Zayn’s, the feel of his fingers spidering along the outside of Zayn’s arms, causing goose bumps to rise. Niall bites gently at his mouth and then Zayn can feel the wide smear of smile against his lips and they separate with a quiet sound, until all Zayn can see is Niall’s big face smiling down at him like the moon, pale and iridescent.
As the sounds of the world start coming back into Zayn’s senses, Niall rolls back onto his side and soft like a whisper, threads their fingers together. When Zayn tilts his head to the side, he can see Niall smiling broadly up at the dark sky, pie-plate grin and the freckles on his chin, the taut arch of the tendons in his neck.
“Wanna go see if the caf is still open?” Niall turns his head in the grass, blonde hair twisting at the back of his neck. His eyes are twinkling, little stars in the moony expanse of his face.
Zayn nods.
When they stand up, brushing grass off their backs, Niall turns to him quickly and presses a brief but bruising kiss against Zayn’s surprised lips, thumb brushing softly against the back of Zayn’s hand, in direct contrast to the intensity of the kiss. It’s over before Zayn can even react and he’s left with tingling lips and his fingers are shaky when he reaches for another cigarette.
Niall hums and tilts his head, watches as Zayn lights his second cigarette of the night. “You taste like cigarette smoke.”
Zayn never thought Niall would ever know that and it makes something dark and catastrophically happy explode somewhere in his chest cavity. He grins shakily through the cigarette and Niall shrugs.
“C’mon, I’m cravin’ some potatoes.” Niall laughs lightly and they head off down the path, Niall over-exaggerating the swing of their linked arms between them. Zayn smiles down at his feet, smoke in his lungs and fingers warm, and the world keeps spinning