Work Text:
There is something about the pungent aroma of oils and chemicals that attracts Zayn to the studio. He’s grown up with a painter as a father and since he was no higher than the leg of an easel he’s been captivated by the world on a canvas. His father is vivid in his art, streaking lines of colors that are not meant to be seen on scenes that are from every day. A forest scene painted with purples and yellows and Zayn is mesmerized by it all. He’s five years old and his father gives him a paint brush and a scrap of canvas and Zayn paints the dog in green and blue. The painting is put up in his father’s studio and he’s praised.
Zayn understands paint and canvas and color. He doesn’t see the world monochrome; his vision is vivid and palpable. Beauty to him is not what is visible to the rest, but rather the aurora, the colors that lay dormant beneath the shades of grey of reality. He’s fifteen and his art teacher tells him he’s a protégée. That he will captivate the world in a few years. His father has given him his own studio in their home and Zayn decorates it with Van Gogh and O’Keefe and Dali. People that he understands, that would understand him.
He holes himself up in the studio, sleeps there when he’s on a breakthrough. Canvas’s become a grocery list item, paint brushes a staple. Zayn knows this is his life, that paint and canvas and beautiful, vivid color are his meaning. He’s sixteen and he takes his portfolio to his interview. A prestige art school has gotten word of his ‘talent’ and they’ve sent him a letter. His father has clapped him on his back, smiles and tells him this is it. His mother is proud, starts tearing up when she’s driving him to the school. Zayn hasn’t stopped smiling. This is what he’s wanted since he was five.
They tell him he isn’t technical enough. They tell him his art is too lucid and not binding and they tell him in this day and age no one wants impressionism, they want realism. They tell him this school is not for him.
Zayn understands paint and canvas and color. He does not understand people.
He’s eighteen now. He is cold and bitter and he curses the world for giving him this gift that he cannot use. His muse has left him and he sits in his own apartment, in his own studio and stares at a white blank canvas and curses it too. The paintbrush is no longer an extension of his hand, but a weight that holds his arm heavy. The paint dries before he even touches it; he no longer sleeps in his studio with hopes of waking to finish a masterpiece. He sleeps on the mattress glaring into the bleak blackness of the night and thinks that this is what the world is. It is nothing, nothing but black and white and infinite shades of grey, but no color. Never any color.
The world is a systematic pattern of dull and uninteresting. Zayn gets absorbed into it unwillingly, but begrudgingly he accepts. He works his days away in an office, he files and he answers phones in the same falsified tone that everyone else has. The sign on his desk says ‘welcome’, but Zayn wishes it said ‘leave’. He hates people, he doesn’t understand them and so he judges them all. His heart no longer beats bright, but is contradicted and dark and slow and it fills him with a leaded distaste. He doesn’t necessarily hate, but he thinks its close enough.
On the days he decides to escape the compound, he walks the five minutes to the park. It is old and in shambles, but Zayn see’s beauty in it. He struggles, but he see’s colors again. He see’s greens, faint splashes of yellow and brass and reds. The park is not alight, but it’s also not just grey and dull. Zayn likes the escape that it gives his mind. A small breeze to disperse the heavy thoughts in his mind, it’s almost as if he can think once again.
Its fall by the time his eyes finally ‘see’ again. Its fall and it’s the first time he sees him.
He doesn’t see him really, Zayn hears him first. Words sung with inflections of past experiences, of happiness and gratitude. Zayn follows the voice, hears notes strummed and then notes sang. He loves music, he always has. Music is not just black and white, it’s not shades of grey, its beautiful tones, vividly strong and constantly demanding and Zayn likes to think he understands music to. Music is art.
The artist of this ballad is young, not much younger than Zayn himself. He’s strumming and singing and he’s in his own world. His guitar case is open and there is a littering of change against the black velvet. Zayn wonders why it isn’t flowing over, why this boy doesn’t have an audience. His words are soulful and are rampant with emotion that even Zayn gets caught up in it.
He’s been standing there for god knows how long, when his phone starts to buzz and the tones break through the sound. He’s near late from lunch, but he doesn’t want to leave. He wants to stay safe in this bubble that this other man has created for him. His mind has laced images of his father’s studio and the smell of oil and linseed and Zayn doesn’t want to leave that safety. But he does. He turns to walk away, stops, reaching into his pocket to pull out a folded up bill and he turns back around to drop it into the man’s case.
“Thanks mate. “
The words are laced with a sweet Irish curve and his smile is pulled back to show silver and clear wires perfecting his teeth. Zayn gets caught in the pools of icy blue, swarming like paint in a can, flecked with golden and tinged with a green. He hasn’t seen colors like that in ages. “No, thank you.” And Zayn says it with meaning, smiling at the blonde boy with eyes like Van Gogh’s ‘Starry Night’.
Zayn has to run back to work and he can feel the grey swallow him up once more, but when he leaves for home, taking the train from one side to the other, he feels a sudden compulsory need to express. He hasn’t had this feeling in years, since the day he was told he wasn’t good enough. It’s like a mad dash to spring into his apartment, slamming the door and dropping his things to the floor, scrounging around the apartment for a jar and some paint brushes.
The answering machine is blinking and he flicks the button as he drags his easel to the living room, dabbing thick splotches of colors onto his pallet and then stepping back. The first message clicks through and it’s a friend, muttering about Zayn coming down to the pub, needing some life reinstalled in to him. Zayn wants to laugh, but he’s already swirling shades of bright red and golden onto the whiteness of the canvas. He’s too busy for people, right now at least. It’s been two years since he’s painted, two years since he’s done the one thing that’s made living a thing for him. He’s enthralled by this sudden muse, but confused at its origins.
The colors are taking form now, swirling and mixing on the canvas, shaping smooth arches and angles. He goes to dip into some blue when his mother’s voice fills the flat. He blinks as she starts on her normal spiel, dabbing the paint brush, placing color with sporadic implication. Zayn’s mind is on his painting, but he’s half listening to her, catches when her tone goes to worry. He’s biting hard on his lip now, takes a dab of gold, places it, rinses clean, and then sweeps some sap green into his cyan.
“Your father wants to know how your muse is going.”
Zayn pulls back, taking a step back to see what he has so far. It’s only been perhaps twenty minutes, not even, but the canvas is filled. He’s smiling, smiling like he used to when he was young and standing at his father’s side. This is triumph over evil, a victorious win over the dragon stealing away his passion. He is a knight who has been given a sword and he has massacred the battlefield with glee.
There’s another moment and the apartment has gone silent. His mother’s voice long ended with her message. Zayn’s staring at his canvas, really staring and it’s like a sudden wave of realization has crashed down upon him. He’s painted eyes. Eyes like Van Gogh’s “Starry Night”. And the only thing he can think to call it is “My Muse.”
Zayn thinks that’s fitting.
---
It’s a habit now. Work drags on, but he is constant in his timing. Taking his lunch and near flying to the park. The music is always there and the man is there to paint Zayn’s world with words again. They know each other now, they share a smile and sometimes Zayn catches him mouth a greeting. They’ve never spoken again though, not one syllable said out loud. Zayn is sure he’s expected to say something again, but he feels that it’ll break the fragile nature in which he’s found this other man.
There are days where people stop and crowd around him and watch the blonde man sing his heart out. Zayn dislikes them because he wants this to be a secret. A jealous vein in his body runs deep and poisons him. He knows that he has no right to this man, no right to keep him for himself, but Zayn feels like he should be allowed it. He’s the one that has more filled canvas’s then furniture pieces in his home. He’s the one that has gleeful meetings in pubs, covered in paint splotches and smelling of turpentine.
The others walk by and see a man singing for change.
Zayn is the one that gets to see again. Actually see. To watch with an utterly garish vision as the park is set alight with music. There is beauty he feels, that only he and the other man can see, that no one else that walks the park has the mind to realize. Zayn has come to the understanding that people in this day and age know nothing of truth or splendor. That their vision of such matters is so plagued with the dullness of their lives that they can’t see.
But Zayn sees and that’s all that matters.
It’s midnight and Zayn is contently drunk. Watching his feet to keep from tripping off the sidewalk and in to the street to his left. He’s all smiles and color and he’s snickering at something his mind has fixated on. A little blue fleck on the toe of his black shoes. He thinks it’s hilarious because he’d went out relatively clean and now he’d found the paint, like a freckle on porcelain skin. His mind was foggy, body lucid and he doesn’t notice he’s tripping over some one until it’s too late. Face taking most of the blunt force of his fall; he can’t muster more than a groan, rolling onto his back.
He sees stars on his eyelids, flashing bright colors, flickering in the blackness. He smiles, chokes out a laugh and swipes his tongue over the part of his lip that seems to be bleeding. Zayn’s so far into his own world, so far gone it’s not until there are hands on his shoulders and he’s being slightly rocked into consciousness that he opens his eyes. He leaves the sparkling of stars behind his eyelids to stare up at ‘Starry night’ and a wired smile.
Intoxicated he thinks this is a perfect coincidence. Lifting his hands up to rest on the worried face of his beautiful blonde muse, Zayn is all vodka induced smiles and the other male can’t hold back the grin that shatters his worried expression.
“You’re off ya rocker, eh?” Zayn likes how the Irish accent pours over each syllable and coats the words in a light and playful air. He’s squishing the other male’s cheeks and makes his lips purse. Zayn is giggling like he’s a schoolboy chasing around his mates, this is the funniest thing to him, the whole circumstance at hand.
“Right let’s get you up. “ There are hands curling around him and Zayn gladly accepts the warmth they bring, arms draped casually over muscular shoulders. He’d like to admit to making himself focus and calm, but he’s a mess and to be honest; Zayn’s wanted to do this for so long. He’s too busy snuggling himself into the pale skin at the man’s neck, to really care whose around and he doesn’t let up his affectionate actions because there is no objection to them. Hands are resting on his hips, steadying him and there’s warm breath on his neck that prickles at his skin.
“You okay?” The words take a moment to wade through the swamp that has become Zayn’s mind. He breaks into a muffled giggle before nodding against the warm skin. He’s not quite sure if he’s still bleeding, but he’s not quite sure if he even cares at this point. He’s completely fine. Until he’s not. It’s a sudden blast of realization and Zayn has to pull himself from the other man, stumbling back with legs too heavy to be coordinated and he falls straight back down to the ground where he’d been collected only just previous.
Fright mixes with worry and hurt in blue eyes as Zayn lifts a shameful gaze upwards and he wants to slap himself for acting so radically. It’s like a swift kick and all he can muster is a forced look of apology, but it’s in his moment his gaze catches what has started this whole mess. There is a sullied blue blanket against the wall, tossed on top of a black guitar case and Zayn isn’t sure if it’s the alcohol or the guilt, but his mouth moves and it’s lacking a filter once more. “You’re homeless?”
The blue eyes suddenly shine with an unreadable emotion, flicking backwards, studying the scene. It’s a small quick nod and Zayn barely notices it, but he does and it stings. He’s not sure why it stings, but it is an aching pang of something. There is a sharp unseen jab between his ribs and a want to wash the look of utter inadequacy from the blondes face, he’s growing a sudden caregiver mindset and once more his conscience questions if this is the alcohol or his sanity slipping.
“It’s cold out.” The statement puts a still in the air. There is a connection of gazes and blue eyes narrow, suspect to the reasoning for the words. Zayn isn’t quite sure what he’s trying to get at, he has no idea where anything is coming from, and all he knows is that there is an unbending urge to fix. He’s not sure what he needs to fix, all he knows is that it’s something.
He’s wordless as he stands, suddenly sober with all this thinking he’s been doing in the recent seconds. There are hands reaching to steady him and Zayn thinks it’s an endearing gesture all things considered, but he’s quick to push them away. There is determination coating his being. He seems to have taken on the determined state of mind recently. It’s not a far off step from his normal traits, he’s stubborn for certain things, but this sudden overwhelming emotion isn’t one he’s had before. Or at least not since he was sixteen.
Zayn is well aware of the gaze that is following him well aware of deep blue burning into his back. His fingers wrap around the guitar case and lift it and then grab for the blanket, tossing it over his shoulder. He doesn’t stop to think, not even one second of review, he just does. Zayn is all motion and movement and silent, over-bearing need to nurture and take care of. He finally looks at the other man, stares at the unblinking look of confusion that has stricken his face. Zayn can’t say one word because he doesn’t have one to give. He can’t explain this, his body is on autopilot, his brain is doing its own thing and he’s just along for the ride. “It’s too cold to stay out here…you can stay with me.”
“I don’t even know you, though.” It’s supposed to sound like an argument, but it comes out whimpered and it makes the hairs on the back of Zayn’s neck stand on end. They do know each other, they do, Zayn knows deep down that every afternoon that they make eye contact at the park has not just been in vain. There is a reason, some kind of celestial fate that’s pulled the strings and tied a dainty red thread from himself to the other.
But they don’t actually know each other. They’ve never given themselves the chance.
“My names Zayn.” And there is softness in his gaze, watching as pools of ocean water travel over everything but him. There is a faint pinkness on cheeks and even in the dim light of the street, Zayn can make out freckles darkening at the change of shade.
“M’Niall.”
---
When his head is swarming the next morning, clouded with the painful remnants of alcohol and having face planted the concrete more than once, Zayn can’t help but think he smells something cooking. Which can’t be the case because he’s just woken up and he lives alone and through heavy lidded eyes he can see his window is closed. So why does he smell pancakes?
He doesn’t catch on to it until he’s standing in his boxers in his own kitchen, watching pale hips shimmy to whatever god awful pop song is playing on the radio. It’s like a trigger being pulled and a shot goes through his head and realization sweeps over him like a cool mask. One moment his heart is racing because he thinks some ones broken in and stealing his lack of food (It’s seven am mind you and Zayn’s brain doesn’t work until ten) and next he feels oddly domesticated and at peace. Like whatever this is, is completely all right and not strange.
“Oh, fuck-“ and there’s a crash at his feet and Zayn blinks himself back from the fantasy of playing house to look down at his now batter covered feet. His head tilts and there is a stream of sorrys filling the air with a nice little Irish twist and Zayn still hasn’t said a word. He’s just staring and watching, mouth closed in a straight line. “You scared the shit outta me, mate.”
“Sorry.” And Zayn means it, finally clueing in to the sticky goop that’s now sitting on his feet, wiggling his toes with a frown before stepping back. Blonde hair comes in to view, quickly to wipe up the mess, mutter curses under his breath. Zayn feels like he should say something reassuring like it’s alright or perhaps even help the cleanup, but his brains distracted him now and he’s staring the arch of the others back. Counting each vertebra that’s giving a visible lift. His eyes rest on the navy joggers hanging loosely off the smaller males hips. “Those mine?”
There’s a pause, small insignificant, but Zayn finds himself slipping back into his zoned out state. He’s got his eyes on Niall as he sits back on his heels, plucking at the fabric. There is a nod of his head before he makes a small sound, something between a sigh and a whine. “You tripped me up last night, staggering an all as you were, and I fell into a puddle so you gave me these to wear…if you want em back you can have em.” Zayn quickly waved that off, shrugging his shoulders. He didn’t quite remember everything, but he wasn’t sure if that was from the drinking or the mild concussion he might have. Either way he’d take Nialls word over it.
“S’fine, keep em.” There was another lul in the conversation, both males staring at anything other than the other person. It was awkward moment, one Zayn wasn’t used to being all times previous it had just been happy grins and smiling faces at a distance. This was their first real, (sober) interaction and it was like someone had stuck a wedge in the conversation and was not about to let it up. And this was not what Zayn had wanted. “The pancakes are burning.”
“Oh fuck-“ And Niall is whipping around taking a spatula to the pan and Zayn isn’t sure if he should laugh at the string of dirty words pouring out of the blonds mouth or if just staying silent and admiring the fact that he had the opportunity to hear them was good enough. That he had the opportunity to be around him. It’s a drastic change from the park and the public and he likes the sudden intimacy this gives them. Zayn knows the awkward conversations, he works in the business of awkward conversation, but he thinks that he might just like to change that. That he’d like to learn to be interesting. So long as he gets to wake up to blueberry pancakes and blonde boy in his clothes.
---
And Zayn does get that, for the next day at least. He’s woken up to singing this time, a soft methodic voice with an accent that shows through when it’s needed. Zayn prefers this wake up, prefers the sound of strings being strummed through the thin walls. He debates on sliding out of his room and perching at the end of the hall to watch, but he’s worried it’ll disturb Niall and he’ll stop and Zayn doesn’t want him to stop. Never wants him to stop. Wants to let him stay where he is, singing and playing his guitar for the rest of their lives. Zayn has never liked the idea of commitment to one soul person, but he thinks that maybe, just maybe he’d like to commit to Niall.
It’s a forward thought, but it’s one that drives Zayn to get up. He has his pack of cigarettes in his hand, holding the pretences for coming out of his room as something less nosy. Something less awkward for a pair of near strangers. Niall of course plays for his living, plays for people he doesn’t know by their first name, and clothing size, but this song is one he’s never played out in the park. This is personal and Zayn is a trespasser to the beauty and truth it holds, or at least that’s how Zayn sees it.
He’s at the end of the hallway and he crosses the kitchen, stopping only to see a mug sitting on the table. It’s got two sugar cubes and it’s already tanned with cream and Zayn pauses because this is how he likes his coffee and as far as he can remember Niall stated he didn’t drink the stuff. So he presumes, popping the sugar into the cup and taking a sip. It was hot still, near fresh and Zayn questions just how Niall knew, but it is a silent question, one he keeps to himself as he heads towards the living room and balcony. The balcony, where Niall was perched on the railing, bathed in golden morning sun and looking every bit as angelic and colorful as Zayn could imagine. Niall was glowing a million brilliant shades of color and the artist inside Zayn begged to paint and capture each one. The cadmium orange that blanketed the sun edge of the guitar and the pale yellow mixed in the off whites and light beiges of blond hair. It was like a painting in motion and it imprinted itself in Zayn’s mind.
“Oh, you’re awake!” And he doesn’t notice till the strumming has ended that Niall is no longer singing, that his voice sounds the same methodic, inviting tone all the time. He’s blinking for a moment, face half hidden behind a mug, and he dips his head into a nod, knocking his nose on the lip of the cup.
“I figured you’d be up soon…I see you got the coffee. Cream and two sugar right?” Niall is speaking and Zayn is watching and it seems that’s how it’s always gone since they first met, but Zayn thinks that should change.
“Yes….Thank you, it’s perfect.” His voice is almost foreign to him now, his correct voice at least, not the two octaves higher voice he uses in the office to please customers on the phone. His voice is deep and rough and reminds him that he’s not from London, he’s from Bradford and that he should be proud of that. He thinks his Bradford voice sounds better mixed with the Irish lull and that thought brings a smile to his face, one that sits at the corners of his lips and perks them. “I’m sorry if I disturbed you.”
“Naw, just playing around….were you coming out for a puff?”
“Yeah, but I can just go down stairs and-“ Zayn’s cut off by a shake of shaggy hair and a hand that is motioning him out on to the balcony. Niall slides closer to the far concrete wall, turning so one leg dangled from either side of the railing and his fingers instantly go back to cords. Zayn takes a seat in the green plastic chair that he normally lounges in; his feet are propped up on the railing. He keeps his eyes on his cigarette and then the flickering of the lighter, before they follow the first strings of smoke he pushes through his nostrils. He doesn’t want to look over, knows he’ll trap himself in a stare, but Niall starts to sing again and it’s too much to refuse. Zayn’s eyes are locked on and they are dead set on staying on the other man.
“You’re amazing.” The sentence slips out before it can be filtered through Zayn’s logical portion of his mind. It’s one of those quintessential moments where one person feels like slamming their head against a wall. A concrete wall and so Zayn does, pressing his head back forcefully and relishing in the knock it gives him. But then there is a chuckle and Zayn glances back to Niall who’s looking right back at him; blue eyes near shimmering with early morning light.
“Thanks… you’re not bad ya self.” A pause and Zayn wants to think he catches a rosy tinge to Nialls cheeks and a small bite to his bottom lip. He wants to know what those movements mean, but instead he just takes them in and stores them for further review. “I uh, I kinda snooped through some of your paintin’s…”
Zayn is mid inhale and he nearly sputters in a cough. He blows out a large cloud and he averts his gaze, stares straight forward, and hides the sudden fear and anticipation that surge under his skin. He feels like he’s back in front of the administration for the art school. He feels like he’s on trial and he prepares for the letdown. He knows it’s coming, he always does.
“You’re brilliant mate, but….” Zayn glances through the corner of his eye and he feels the heat rise to his cheeks, burning his skin and he reflects the look Niall his giving him to the trees across the street. “Why are all the paintings stuffed into that room? Some had dust on ‘em and I don’t think they should be all hidden. People need to see that sorta stuff, right. See what their missin’.”
“What do you mean?” Zayn is hesitant to think Niall isn’t just being nice and supportive in a thankful way. He’d opened his home to the young man, so he was worried this was all under the pretences of being good, but Niall’s eyes are looking back at him with a sort of scepticism, like he can read Zayn’s thoughts and he knows that Zayn doesn’t actually think he’s worth the praise.
“Listen, this’ll sound completely mental, but like. You see the world right? Like actually see it right, not just plain jane how it is all the time. Because I mean you paint it how I see it. The colors. “Niall hesitates, takes a breath, and moves to set his guitar against the wall on the balcony, however not moving from his perch on the railing. “The worlds a pretty shit place, everyone knows it, so they kind just see it like that. But I don’t. Ma said I had my head up in the clouds.” He makes an arm gesture to the sky, smirking softly, eyes glancing back towards Zayn finally. “I told her that if I didn’t have my dreams and vision, I wouldn’t be in the world. I wouldn’t be able to last. There’s too much black and white and dark, not enough bright. “
“But you bring bright, you bring color and I don’t know how you do it Zayn, but fuck mate, you gotta let other people in on it. “
And there are no words, absolutely none. The cigarette is burning down to the filter and Zayn doesn’t notice until his finger is met with red hot ember and he drops it was a slight hiss, clenching at his hand. It’s the first time that he’s had his worked described like that, described like he thinks. Niall is watching him with a look similar to a puppy unsure of their actions. Zayn’s up in a second though, in one flawless and graceful moment and then he’s crashing. He’s crashing down into a fiery pit of unsure urges and feelings and he’s crashing down, lips against lips, right into Niall. Right where he wants to land.
And Zayn will blame it on his social ineptness and his ability to fuck up things if this blows up in his face. But not right now, not with Niall kissing him back, not with Niall moving a hand up to cup the back of Zayn’s head, to pull him closer. They share the moment, mouths slotted together in a perfect harmony and there are bright colorful fireworks behind Zayn’s eyes and he’s getting lost in it all. His hands have slid back along Niall’s jaw, pressing into the skin behind his ear and he’s holding on for dear life. But then it’s gone.
Niall was sliding his tongue along Zayn’s lips, begging for entrance and Zayn panicked, he pulled back and he shot his hands back, eyes wide kiss swollen mouth agape. Niall adorned a look of confusion, opening his mouth to say something, but Zayn was already gone, already making his way back to his room, slamming the door closed and sliding his back down it until he was a crumpled mess. His heart beat racing and he was unsure on the cause. Was it Niall or was it his own worrying? Both made logical sense, but Zayn knew the answer, knew it all too well and he was slamming his head back against the door until the pain was only a ringing sting and numbness in his skull. God he was rubbish.
---
He doesn’t leave his room from that point. He shuts the blinds and he turns on his own music and locks the door. He drowns out the world and instead takes a brush to a canvas. He paints a world of dull, uninteresting colors and shapes and then paints the sun, a blistering collection of bright colors. Splatters the clouds with colors of morning and he’d panting and tired by the time he finishes it. Stands there for a while and stares at the painting, unsure of what to think. He’s let himself just go with this one and Zayn’s first thought is to call it ‘Niall’. The thought stings at his mind, sticks pins into the backs of his eyes and he’s blinking back tears.
The sun in a world of dull, grey, boring. That is Niall. And Zayn has ruined it. Run off scared. So he takes black onto the bristles and streaks it across the painting. Makes long thick strokes of black until the painting no longer looks as it once had. He doesn’t want to be reminded, doesn’t want to feel this sudden hurt, this striking hate for his own stupid actions. He was the one that had went to the park, the one that fallen head over heels in love and he was now the one that had royally fucked it all up.
There is a slam as Zayn shoves the easel and canvas to the floor, paints flying across the hard wood, staining it with color. He can’t seem to care, just crawls into the sheets and hides himself. Zayn wants to believe he doesn’t fall asleep crying, but his pillow is still damp in the morning.
---
There is no smell of cooking, no loud music playing, there’s just nothing. The knot in the pit of his stomach tells him why, but Zayn is stubborn and doesn’t want to believe the inevitable. There are strings of excuses lining up on his tongue and he’s tempted to spit them out just to reassure himself, but he’s stepped into the living room by then. All that’s left on his couch is a pillow and a folded blanket.
Zayn wants to think it doesn’t hurt, wants to think he knew it was coming and expected it. He wants to think it, but he can’t. Abandonment hits him like a sea wave and his mouth pulls into a straight frustrated line. It’s lonely in the apartment, but he’s always lived alone. It’s a feeling he hates now, hates how empty and big and yet seemingly cluttered the flat is. He’s got paintings everywhere and it’s like a kick to the stomach because he hates each and every one of the paintings. They remind him of blue eyes and blond hair and that is just painful now. He put faith in some one that was a natural drifter. What else had he expected?
Something worth while.
It’s a pleading voice in the back of his head and Zayn wants to scream because it is constant and nagging and his stomach is tying in knots at each syllable. He’s working himself up, he realizes this, but fuck. Why can’t he just have something good happen to him for once? Niall was supposed to be that good thing. He was supposed to stay and tell Zayn all the reasons people do things, to teach him how to socialize, teach him society.
But he was gone, and Zayn was left to himself and his paintings again. Alone.
But it’s the paintings fault. If he hadn’t invested his life into being good at something so unimportant than maybe he wouldn’t have scared Niall off. Maybe he’d know what to do with the most common of human feelings and emotions. He’d be well adapted and he would not be alone. It’s a foolish maneuver to blame the paintings, but it’s the easiest thing right then. It’s easier then kicking his foot through a canvas, easier than going to the kitchen for scissors and taking them to each and every filled piece of stretched color that he can.
He loathes his gift and wills it to leave him. With every slamming motion of scissors stabbing through weaved fabric, to the sip of steel cutting through, he tells himself of all the times when he could have been normal and not spent hours locked away. He reminds himself of elementary school and maybe having more than the one friend. Having more than his family to confide in. He’s at the last painting, the one of eyes that looks like Van Gogh’s Starry Night. Zayn’s heart is beating miles a minute and the scissors are clutched desperately in his hand.
But he can’t do it.
The voices of the art school review team circle in his mind, drowning out the real world. Their comments on his art not being appreciated in this day and age and how it’s just not right for the time. He baths himself in the vicious judgement of men and women that don’t realize they’ve destroyed him destroyed others even. They think they are the guardians of art, of image. He could have had a chance to show them what they were missing had he been given it. He’s prompted of the words on the balcony, the ones that spurred his extinguishing action and how they provoked him. Niall was good with words and Zayn was good with his hands, but the both used them in the same selfless way.
There is a clattering as scissors are dropped from a white knuckled grip. Zayn is panting and his face is wet with tears, but he doesn’t remember when he started crying again or if he’d ever stopped. But he’s staring down at the painting clutched in his hand, there’s splatters of wet from fallen tears, and he wipes them away like a defiant smudge. There’s a desperate gasp for air, one that leaves his lungs feeling like they’ve been constricted. There isn’t a piece of his body that doesn’t pang with desperate need for acceptance, for similarity and for appreciation. And he had all that.
Perhaps he still did.
---
It’s raining, it’s cold and Zayn knows his search will be fruitless, that Niall has had a whole day to escape any area he may find the tanned male in. But that doesn’t stop him, that doesn’t stop him from skipping the bus and just running down the streets of London. He passes people with umbrella’s and scrutinizing looks, but they don’t understand, they are not meant to. Zayn cares little for the looks of others now, cares little for anything but that soul individual he was running to. The other half of his whole. The sun to his moon. The colors in his world.
And it’s the old hidden park, stuck between giant buildings and businesses that he runs too. The beginning. Zayn believes this is the place where Niall would go, this, their first meeting, where it all started. He’s soaked down to the bone and he’s shaking, but Zayn can’t tell if that is the cold or his need to seek Niall out. To find him and correct all this mess before it’s too late. He can’t lose this, can’t lose Niall.
Zayn doesn’t hear music and he doesn’t see anything, but he still jogs to the big open area where Niall would set up to achieve the best acoustics. He thinks that maybe it’s in between songs, that Niall will be there bright eyes and smiling wide and ready to play his heart out to anyone that would listen. His guitar case splayed open and change will litter the bottom. Zayn remembers the discussion over their first night of dinner (left over blueberry pancakes) about Niall saving the money he gets and using it to buy the hungrier people something. Zayn had questioned Niall why he’d give up his money and Niall had shrugged it off like it was nothing. ‘They need it more.’ And then he’d fallen silent, stuffing a half of a pancake into his mouth.
But Niall isn’t there once Zayn reaches the spot. There’s a puddle in his place and Zayn fights the urge to drown himself in it. Fights it with every fiber of his being, because what other point is there? He could just lay down now, give up and let the collected water settle into his lungs. He’d get lost in the colors in his mind and maybe get lost in the images of Niall still pressed deep within his memory. It’s something between a defeated whimper and hushed groan of defeat, but whatever it is it shakes Zayn. He’s weaker then he has ever felt before and he’s losing that will to fight. The idea of giving up just as sweet as it has always been.
“Zayn?”
The voice rattles his brain, eyes flickering wide before he turns to look over his shoulder. There’s a young man, with a black guitar case, blond hair and eyes like one of the most famous paintings in the world and all the air Zayn’s been holding in is let out in one strangled gasp.
“What the hell are you doin-“But Niall can’t finish his sentence, there is a press of a soaking wet body against his and then a mouth, warm and demanding, covering his mouth in desperation. Zayn needs this and Niall knows it, but he’s confused. Completely thrown for a loop after the ending to their last bought of affection. Niall is weary, but he presses back, hands lifting to cup Zayn’s face, to hold him in place. There is a taste of salt on his lips and he knows it’s not the rain, he can see that isn’t the case and he wants to kiss it away, wants to kiss all the worry from the other. Niall makes due with Zayn’s lips though, pressing harder when two shaking hands fist into his wet shirt. He could care who saw, could care that it is raining and they should be indoors and safe from the cold. But being together will do. Both Niall and Zayn would agree.
“I didn’t mean to run off. I just…” Zayn’s pulled away, hands still gripping tightly to Niall, huddling into the others warmth. “I got so scared and you, you’re the only one that understands….understands me.” And his words are stuttered and his body is shaking, but then there are arms wrapped around him and he hears the clunk of a guitar case hit the ground. He’s being silenced with a kiss and allows it with no fight, melting into it and accepting the reassurance that it gives. He has so much more to say, so much more to explain, but that can wait. The grip Niall has on him tells him that and he’s willing to believe everything Niall offers him.
“I can’t lose you.” It’s mumbled between breaths of air and then silenced as soon as it’s said. And Niall kisses him with promises, ones he doesn’t have to say, ones that are passed on as lips slot together and hands fist at clothes.
Zayn feels like this would be the cliché moment, the one where the rain stops and the sun appears suddenly through an opening in the clouds and everything is illuminated, a rainbow curving through the sky and his constant worry and fear and hatred for reality disappears as quick as the rain. And all of those things do happen, but Zayn is far too captivated by the male held tightly to his body to notice.
They both have more than enough time to inspect the sudden blossoming of the million different shades of color that now coat their world. One they can view together, one they will both understand and appreciate. Together.