it's love or it isn't
Three weeks after Zayn drags Niall home from the gang fight, he's still too sad to love him.
yay new fic!!! i wanted to write something happy but then richard siken happened and then this came out. for arianna because i love her so so so much and she's a complete sweetheart i hope you like this babe!!
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It starts with the knives and the blood in his mouth and a sweaty shirt that sticks to his body when he moves, but it smells like the wrong boy and the night is dirty on his tongue and Zayn wants to say this but he doesn't know how to tell the truth anymore, so he lies and lies and lies and his words don't hurt anybody else, but they're sure as fuck hurting him, except that he's learned long back that this isn't the sort of thing that even matters anymore.
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He tells Niall to kiss him there and there and there; and Niall does. He tells him to suck him off on the bathroom floor, because the room is too clean for something so dirty; and Niall does. He tells Niall to ruin him because he wants to know enough of this pain to stop causing it, because the stitches on his wrists are ripping apart and he's forgotten how to heal; but Niall doesn't know how to break something that's already so damaged, so he kisses him there and there and there again, and he tries to love him instead.
And in the morning, of course, it's about buttoning his shirt back on and pretending that the bruises on Niall's thighs are from somewhere else. In the morning it's about never mentioning how Zayn wishes Niall weren't so fucking beautiful. In the morning it's about standing in the bathroom, looking into the stained mirror, and barely even seeing each other.
Zayn wishes it were different. It isn't.
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Why do you stay?
(You saved my life.)
I didn't save your life. I only delayed your death. Everybody dies. I might even end up killing you someday.
(You always think too much.)
You don't owe me anything.
(You saved my life. I owe you my existence.)
I am your existence. You don't owe me anything.
(I love you.)
I love you too.
(I don't want you to be sad.)
I won't.
(That's a lie.)
I know.
(I love you anyway.)
I'm sorry, alright? I'm sorry.
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Three weeks after Zayn drags Niall home from the gang fight, he's still too sad to love him.
Niall says he owes him, but Zayn's tired of playing this game of settling debts, he thinks there should be something more, because love isn't about possession (except that Zayn is possessive about Niall), love isn't about paying fines (but Zayn's broke and he worries too much about money), love is about giving (Zayn doesn't have anything to give), and it's about happiness (or something like it).
Zayn buries his face in Niall's chest, his soul in Niall's eyes, his kisses in Niall's lips, and hopes that one day he'll know the difference between needing and wanting, so he can feel less like the taker and more like the giver, less like the hater and more like the lover.
Niall fucks him like a hurricane, leaves him breathless-- Zayn should feel guilty for making Niall go any faster than he knows he can, should feel guilty for the strain in his voice, the way he grits his teeth and clutches the sheets and exhausts every last pant of air in his lungs, telling Zayn it doesn't hurt even if they both know that it does.
Niall shifts his hips and tries to move a little deeper inside Zayn, his cock already all the way, but this is what Niall does; he gives, tries and tries and tries to make Zayn a little less broken. Zayn arches his back like a bridge and Niall crawls along the spine with his fingertips, counting one, two, three, four out loud. Zayn listens to his voice and feels something tug at his abdomen with each syllable.
By the time they're at twenty, his heart drops into his stomach and he comes all over the bed, and Niall curls up into a ball, white in the face because he's strained too hard again and when Zayn tries to kiss the constellation of freckles on his shoulder, it only gets worse.
In trying to fix him, Niall is learning how to be broken too, and Zayn wishes he knew how to stop this, but he doesn't. And that's not okay, of course not, but it's all they have, and Zayn's stopped wanting anything else.
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I hurt you.
(No, you don't.)
I bruise you and ruin you. Don't you hate me?
(No.)
Why not?
(I owe you this much.)
You don't love me.
(Of course I do.)
Loving isn't about owing. There are no debts. We keep score of too many unimportant things. We forget what matters.
(And what is that?)
I wouldn't know. I am in your orbit or you are in mine, we don't know who's the sun and who's the planet anymore. You destroy me or I'll destroy you, the choice is yours.
(You're always too sad for your own good.)
I didn't choose this.
(I know. I love you.)
I love you too.
(Do you promise to try to be happy?)
I don't make promises. I don't like breaking things anymore.
(Don't you want to stop being sad?)
If I stopped being sad, you wouldn't stay with me anymore. You only love me because I'm miserable.
(That's not true. I want you to be happy.)
You want me to be happy so that you're not guilty when you leave.
(That's bulllshit. You know I love you.)
You know I love you too.
(Stay with me.)
I would never leave.
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In the end, Zayn doesn't leave. Neither does Niall. They get used to this; this cycle of breaking and fixing but never quite healing. Zayn thinks he might learn to like this, might learn to love Niall. So they keep going, sometimes Zayn thinks they're only here because they promised to be, but in the end nothing matters except that they are here. Zayn doesn't leave, and Niall stays. And they don't try to change things, either, because acceptance is the first step toward recovery.
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