Fic: With the Wrath of a God (Danny/Zayn, R)
Title: With the Wrath of a God
Pairing: Danny/Zayn
Word count: 3,050
Rating: R
Summary: Zayn does too much on the road, and Danny's happy to wash their dog and take out their bin bags before the fruit flies can get into them and wipe down their kitchen counter after a proper home-cooked meal. Or, remember when I was like "I have a Danny/Zayn protective height!kink" and then it spurred on 3K words of feelings?! [on AO3]
Disclaimer: Not real. Please don't put this on Twitter or Tumblr or send it to anyone affiliated with the band, etc.
When Danny met Zayn during drama class years ago, he towered right over him. They shook hands by way of introduction and Danny's fingers were so long that they slipped beneath the cuff of Zayn's blouse, curling against the pulse point in his wrist.
Inexplicably, Zayn had turned out to be barely any bigger than Danny's younger brother, Ant, even though Zayn was two years older than him. The lot of them became an inseparable trio of mismatched misfits, Danny visibly the eldest and largest and strongest of them. It was nothing less than inevitable when he felt the weight of responsibility fit itself onto his shoulders.
Danny fell into protecting Zayn just as easy as he fell into drinking his coffee black in the mornings. It happened organically, almost out of a necessity for it.
The thing is, you couldn't always tell just by looking at him that Danny could throw a punch just as effectively as he could cook a bowl of biryani. Even now, at six foot something and twenty-two years of age, he seems to be made up of long, lanky and useless limbs tucked into his fitted t-shirts and loose sweatpants, but history tells him that he can wrestle someone twice his size to the ground and come out of it without a scratch.
He remembers the day Zayn had been grabbed by the hood of his grey, worn sweater in Year Nine and yanked violently backwards onto a football field. The bloke who'd done it was nothing more than a pair of massive biceps and a toned torso and an obscenely ugly face that made Wayne Rooney look like Hugh Grant circa About a Boy.
Zayn had flinched and gone with the yank on his hood like a feather in the wind, and it wasn't long before his back had slammed into the ground and he was kicked in the ribs. Zayn had groaned this terrible gurgling sound, curling into himself and grabbing onto a patch of wet grass that must've reeked of mud in the wake of their miserably rainy match.
Danny had been sucking water from a cool metal bottle to the side, but as soon as he'd registered Zayn's anguished moans, he'd tossed the flask into the grass and run over in his cleats and dirtied kit and within moments, the uglier-than-Rooney bloke had fallen next to Zayn with blood on his face, Danny's shoe print staining the stomach of his white shirt.
Danny had pulled Zayn up by the dip of his pits and dragged him away from the scene limping, the two of them silent except for Zayn's winces, his body leaning heavily into Danny's for balance and support and security. (It was only a few days after that that Zayn was on his knees in the school toilets, swallowing Danny down his throat, thanking him with an obscene succession of muffled moans that had reverberated through his length.)
It's not that Zayn can't stand up for himself now, a 19-year-old world-dominating pop star with his own entourage of bulky, bald-headed men, it's just that he's not really as strong as he'd maybe like to be.
The thing is, Zayn is secretly lovely once you've gotten on his good side, his heart the size of Danny's flattened palm to his chest when they kiss in the hazy aftermath of too many drugs, but Zayn's not sturdy, not in any sort of way. Instead, he's a bit grumpy and extremely aloof and too lazy-tongued to be generous with his words and he's perpetually falling asleep on busses and train rides and in the passenger's seat of Danny's hot car in the summers, his hand resting damply on Danny's thigh.
They share a home and a dog and if it weren't for Danny consistently filling up Billy's bowls with food and water, Billy would be long dead by now or barely living off scraps of curried meat that Zayn passes him affectionately from his own dinner plate. Danny wonders if Zayn doesn't do things like feed the dog or do the laundry because he knows Danny will, knows that Danny is constantly one step ahead of Zayn, constantly more aware and alert and altogether too reliable.
The thing is, Zayn does too much when he's away from Danny, living out of a suitcase on the endless road. He does too much hectic work in the studio, on the stage, in front of the greedy, relentless cameras, and Danny knows Zayn's not used to it, being on all the bloody time.
Danny knows Zayn's used to coming home from school in Bradford and going into his room and shutting the door for hours on end, ignoring his mum's calls for dinner with I already ate. Zayn's used to going at his own pace, eternally guarded and defensive of the way he carries himself, ready to snap in the face of anyone who asks him why he's being too quiet. ("Because there's nothing to say, innit?" Danny remembers Zayn saying once, though he doesn't remember to whom or when, but he supposes it doesn't matter much anyway.)
Now Zayn's older and he's popular and he's known, he's so known everywhere he goes that he can't possibly afford to be silent anymore, to save his words for when they mean the most to him. He has to speak at meaningless times to meaningless faces and he's gotten better at it, maybe even enjoys it sometimes, but Danny thinks it must take a toll at the end of the night when Zayn's throat is raw and his skin is thrumming from all the times he couldn't stop talking long enough to wrap his lips around a cigarette instead.
Danny imagines that Zayn has to recover from it all, has to purse his mouth shut around a thick joint in his hotel room and let the drugs seep into him, pulling the tension from his bones. Danny images Zayn revelling in the way the grey clouds of smoke curl around him boldly but without a sound, admiring the way they dissipate into nothing.
Zayn does too much on the road, and Danny's happy to wash their dog and take out their bin bags before the fruit flies can get into them and wipe down their kitchen counter after a proper home-cooked meal. Danny is happy to take the lead and let Zayn hover in the background and today, today isn't any sort of exception.
It's early when Zayn wakes up and drags himself into the living room with a grunt. He curls up on the couch in front of the telly, eyelids heavy as he drifts in and out of sleep for another few hours, Danny sat wordlessly by his feet.
Danny wonders as he steals a glance at Zayn how much of the morning news he's actually catching through the fluttering of his thick, tired lashes, but he doesn't move to change the channel in case Zayn's somehow actively listening to the reports of fatal gunshots in Southampton.
He's used to this, anyway, sitting unobtrusively by Zayn's feet at the end of the couch drinking his coffee. He doesn't make an effort to start conversation, not until Zayn is yawning into the back of his hand and shifting onto his back, smiling up at Danny like he's ready to start his day. Danny passes over his mug of coffee and Zayn mutters his thanks before guzzling what's left of it.
"We've got to do the shopping, man," Zayn says, voice thick with sleep. "I can't drink my coffee black anymore, it bloody tastes like lead."
"And how do you know what lead tastes like, then?"
Zayn sits up further, his back propped against the arm of the couch, bending his legs at the knees and tucking his toes beneath Danny's thigh. "I've had it before, when we were in Australia. It's a delicacy, molten lead, first thing in the morning with a bit of toast."
"Is that right?"
Zayn makes a displeased face. "Yeah, proper painful when you have to shit it out after."
Danny laughs at that and Zayn breaks into a lazy smirk, looking more alive now, poking his toes to jab painfully at Danny's thigh, persisting even when Danny grabs his ankle to stop him.
"Thought we might go out later, have a few drinks," Danny says, and his grip on Zayn's ankle loosens but doesn't disappear, fingers resting. "But I've got to go to Ikea first and find a new mattress. This one's absolute crap, been fucking up my back since we bought it."
"Yeah, all right," Zayn says, and then he's grinning slightly, eyes lit up. "Though it might be brilliant to have a few drinks before we head to Ikea, na?"
"Well, now that you've said it I feel we've committed ourselves," Danny says simply and goes to get them two bottles of beer.
By the time they make it to Ikea, they're both a bit fucked but only enough that they have to take a taxi and things are far funnier than they should be; the man on the radio says that's the hardest nut to crack and it leaves them both in hysterics. If Danny has to blink a few times before he can read the bright red fair off the meter, their driver says nothing of it.
They wander the aisles and pick up an alarming amount of random shit they don't need -- Zayn grabs a stuffed lizard because its green face reminds him of Louis and he names it the Tommonater -- before they reach the bedroom section. They sit on a few mattresses to try them out and, inevitably, they end up wrestling each other on one of the beds through fits of laughter.
They're breathless in the aftermath, sitting on the edge of a particularly soft mattress, muscles aching. Danny had won the fight, but he doesn't taunt Zayn about it. Zayn says, "Man, I wish we could light up here," and Danny smirks at that, bounces his arse on the bed a few times to test how it feels and then decides it will have to do.
"Better than the piece of shit rock that I've got to sleep on right now," he reasons, and they make their way to the register with their trolly full of crap. Danny takes care of it, pays for the Tommonater and the mattress and a blue tray in the shape of a massive star and a strange, flimsy thing they can apparently make ice lollies in and a bunch of frames for the art Zayn's been meaning to put up around the house.
They take a taxi back to their place and dump everything by the door -- they'd paid extra for the mattress to be delivered later -- and then they're back on the couch, Zayn switching between channels on the telly while Danny rolls them a joint. Zayn never rolls when Danny's around, always says that Danny does it better, and Danny doesn't know if it's because Zayn's a lazy prick or if it's because Danny really does know how to pack it just right. He selfishly chooses to believe it's the latter, remembering the time Zayn made Danny roll him a handful of joints to take with him on tour.
They smoke until Zayn's biting into his bottom lip, eyes crinkling with a smile so strong that Danny's sure it makes Zayn's cheeks ache with an effort not to laugh. Danny does laugh, laughs at Zayn and squeezes the back of his neck, resisting the urge to kiss his lips hard enough to bruise them.
A few beers later and they're out again, each of them in a new pair of shoes and reeking of aftershave, this time taking a taxi all the way to the other end of the city and winding up at some club they'd never been to. (Danny looks up reviews of places online and he reads them out to Zayn as Zayn fixes his hair in the mirror, narrowing down their choices until they can pick just one.)
There's not many camera flashes when they make their way inside, presumably because no one had known they'd be coming, but Danny knows that news travels fast and that lenses will be waiting for them when they're making their way out later. He lets that thought keep him in check, nursing a single beer for a torturously long period of time; he's buzzed enough as it is and he doesn't want the hungry shutters catching them in too much of a messy state when they leave.
They stay near the bar and they talk about music, about Drake and The Weeknd and J. Cole and Big Krit, talk about the side project they've been meaning to produce. They talk about Danny's father being ill and they talk about Zayn's cousin getting married in Pakistan in the summer and they talk about the lads, Harry and Louis and Niall and Liam and Ant. They talk about everything but they don't mention Danny's hand curling against Zayn's hip, holding him near.
When their throats go dry and the music turns from old school R&B to shitty dubstep remixes, they lose their interest, slipping outside. They pull their jumpers tightly around their bodies and squint when the first burst of light hits them. As expected, they're greeted with a swarm of flashes and Danny grips Zayn's arms from behind on instinct, holding him safe amidst the eager yells of his name -- Zayn, Zayn, Zayn!
And then Danny's grip loosens and Zayn's gone from him, smiling only from one side of his mouth. He takes a black marker from a crying girl and signs a mess of arms, notebooks, CDs, posters and the odd bra. He leans into the sides of strangers and poses for a few smiling photos and then Danny's long fingers circle his bony wrist, and it startles Danny, the way his fingers overlap around Zayn's delicate flesh, overwhelming it.
"All right?" he asks Zayn and Zayn nods, letting Danny lead him away from the screams -- Zayn, Zayn, Zayn! -- and into a taxi, shuffling in behind him.
"Crazy how they always know where to come," Zayn says, glancing back through the window as they drive away from the madness. Danny thinks it must be a bit mental, everyone calling Zayn's name like they owned a bit of him, and maybe they did, maybe they do, but the thought is disturbing enough that Danny lets it go unfinished.
"The power of the mobile phone," he says instead, and Zayn nods meaningfully, says, "Yeah," as if Danny was right about something much more complicated than common sense.
When they get home, they shower separately and Danny finishes first, just like always. By the time Zayn is done in the bathroom, Danny's hair is already drying while he devours a sandwich in front of the telly, watching the latest episode of Game of Thrones. Zayn pads downstairs in his sweatpants and a worn white t-shirt and settles beside him.
"Thanks," Zayn says, and Danny almost doesn't know what he's thanking him for, then he sees Zayn lean forward over the table and pick up half of a sandwich, reminding Danny that yeah, he did make Zayn a sandwich, too. "Did we feed Billy before we left?"
"I fed Billy before we left," Danny says, sinking his teeth into another bite, and Zayn knocks his knee against Danny's appreciatively.
"What would we do without you?" Zayn says, and though there's a teasing lilt to it, there's also an underlying gratefulness that Danny's learned to pick out throughout the years.
"Die by way of starvation, most likely," Danny says, and Zayn throws a slice of lettuce at his head, grinning when it hits Danny's cheek before falling into his lap.
"Don't be a tit," Danny warns, but there's no conviction behind it, and it's the last thing either of them says for the rest of the night, eyes focusing on the telly.
It doesn't take long before Zayn grabs Danny's hooded sweater off the back of the couch, pulling it on himself even though he swims in it, limbs too small and too tight to fill it up. Danny knows what it means -- it means that Zayn will be asleep within a half hour, forty-five minutes at most, snoring into the couch cushions, body heavy as steel. Danny watches it happen, thinks of the radio interview Zayn has to do the next afternoon and the meeting he has with the rest of the lads the next evening and he lets him fall asleep, lets him become quiet and boneless.
He lifts up and grabs their dishes off the table, Zayn's sandwich predictably half-eaten. He goes into the kitchen and dumps what's left of it in the bin before he rinses the plates, setting them into the dish washer.
Billy is curled up in the corner of the kitchen on his pillow, asleep. Danny leans down to grab one of his bowls, dumping the murky water from it into the sink and filling it with a fresh batch. He sets it down next to Billy, turning out the kitchen lights.
He goes into the guest room, grabbing a spare blanket before heading back into the living room, draping it over Zayn's body and switching off the telly.
He goes upstairs, aware that the squeak of the stairwell will do nothing to disturb Zayn or Billy out of their slumber, and he slips into the darkness of his own room.
Tomorrow, he'll clean the crumbs off the couch and fold the blanket Zayn had slept in and put it back in the spare room. He'll take Billy out for a walk and he'll call the contractors about the renovations they'd been putting off for a good three months and he'll cook a big meal, let Ant come over and devour most of it. He'll set aside a container for when Zayn's back from his meeting and he'll heat it up for him while they catch up, but. Tonight he rests, heavy-limbed and worn to the bone in a way that leaves hm sated, the smell of Zayn's shampoo lingering on him as though he'd had the chance to kiss him goodnight.