Fic: I find you when I fall apart
Title: I find you when I fall apart.
Prompt: writer's choice
Pairing: Zayn/Louis
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2.3k
Warnings: none.
Summary: Zayn is the last dragon. Louis's always on the run.
It’s painful. Of course it is. There are times when Zayn feels like he wants to throw it all away, and give in but it’s precisely because of the pain that he feels it. That he feels like being alive. Precisely because of overcoming that pain, that he gets the feeling of really being alive- or at least a partial sense of it.
The world's grey with darkness, the air swells with a mystifying tingle, and Zayn finds himself getting closer to a dodgy block. Around the corner, lights from the small retail stores and pubs streak against the shady streets, illuminating where he's going. Music blares from a club at the end of the nook, and Zayn pushes through the swarm of bodies collected around the gates.
The music smacks against him feverishly, demandingly, and it's so loud. It's so loud and the place is packed with dancing bodies, swaying to the music, moving around it, and pressed tightly against one another following it's rhythm.
His breath hitches and his voice scratches against his throat; and he feels his insides trembling in elation. There are too many people and he thinks about Niall; the one person he feels guilt-ridden when he thinks about. The only person who matters, really. He shakes his head, trying to shake the thought away with it. He'd only done it to protect Niall.
Niall didn't deserve it. It was unfair to him, the way Zayn needed him more than anything. It was just so unfair, Zayn didn't want to be doing this to him. Knowing Niall would do anything for Zayn, selflessly, thoughtlessly. Niall didn't deserve any of it.
Zayn tries to push the thought away, slipping onto one of the stools at the bar and propping his elbows on the counter. He's itching to get out of here, really, because so many people were never his thing. But right now, so many people is exactly what he needs to stop thinking about what he doesn't want to be thinking about.
He doesn’t want to be thinking about that now, the music and the people are a good diversion right now.
Within the minute, Zayn hears glass crashing and a few men shouting but he doesn't turn around to look right away. He downs the shot promptly, fixes the bartender with an obliged look and nods his head curtly before turning to the source of the noise.
From where he's sitting, Zayn is not really able to make out what's happening but he sees two large bouncers men walking up to the shouting men. It's odd because usually Zayn might not be good at pushing thoughts to the back of his head without letting them eat away at him. But he's really good at ignoring the voices of people all the time; he's good at being an outcast.
He’s been good at that, but apparently not now.
He pushes off the stool and past the swarming bodies that are still spinning around the music. Zayn finds himself at the centre of room, standing next to a lad with wild blue eyes. His hair makes him ridiculous, hot and all, and his lips are pressed in a thin line.
"You want to fight? Get in line, dick." his voice is levelled and cool, but there's a stretched twinge in it and Zayn catches himself staring at the lad. He looks frail and tiny, compared to the men he's picking a fight with and Zayn can't help but wonder if he's actually too drunk to come into conclusion to the fact that he's half their size, or what.
"Louis, it's time to bounce." A boy says, clasping a hand on the lad's shoulder. He looks sad, and worried and really too sweet to be at a place like this, Zayn thinks.
"Why? We're just getting started!" Louis shrugs, looking at the man stood before him. "I don't think this bitch right here knows what he's getting himself into." The man snorts, and Louis doesn't hold back this time, swinging at him with all his might, hitting him square against the jaw.
His movements are clumsy and awkward, limbs failing and swinging tactlessly, but there’s a thing to it that makes it look resplendent.
Zayn lets out a shaky laugh, and it just sort of spills out of his lips when he sees the look on the other man’s face as Louis takes another swing at him. Louis twists around to look at Zayn, a smirk dancing on his lips before the bouncer holds him back.
"You should've listened to your friend there," the bulky bouncer says, hooking his hand around Louis's arm and tugging him towards the door. Then the other bouncer looks at Zayn and at Louis's friend, nodding towards the door. Zayn thinks it's really uncalled for but he follows the boy outside, anyways.
Outside, he sees Louis leaning against the wall, lighting up a smoke. The cig hangs between his lips lazily, the smoke wafting through. His friend talks to him for a second, and Louis nods, looks ahead, waves his hand dismissively, and nods again.
Zayn finds himself walking up to Louis. It’s never a thing he does very often; walk up to people he just met. And he hasn’t even met Louis yet, per say. He leans against the brick wall, a few inches away from Louis and pulls out a fag between his lips. Louis nods at him, and smiles around the filter tip. “Hey,”
“Hey,” Zayn tips his head down, kicking his rattled boots around the dirt and shoving his hands in his jean pocket. Louis hums, and it’s not that kind when you’re humming a song that’s stuck in your head. It’s just a short hum, a sweet sounding one at that.
“I am Louis,” he says- and it’s those times when Zayn decided to smile and nod instead, because he can’t say I know, without sounding like a creep. He’s just good at being invisible, and observing. That’s all.
“Zayn.”
“Zen?” Louis asks, incredulously, and Zayn finds himself smiling too big.
“No, Zayn.”
Louis shrugs then, looking Zayn over. “That’s a cool name.”
Zayn shrugs, and he only notices then, but there, on Louis’s cheek is a red splotch, darkening at the edge of his eyes into a purple bruising. Zayn thinks about how it makes Louis look robust and unbreakable even with how small he actually is.
“That looks sick!” Louis says suddenly, looking down at the inside of Zayn’s arms. He holds Zayn’s wrist between calloused fingers, and peers at the nick of ink on his skin. It’s a stout dragon etched on his skin, following from the inside of his wrist and up to his forearm. It’s so him, that Zayn sometimes forgets it’s marked on his skin- but it's always been there as a constant reminder that he’s the last of his kind.
“Yeah?” Zayn’s breath hitches when Louis runs his fingers over the ink, following the pattern of his skin with fingers cold as a night. Louis nods, hums consensually and smiles. “Thanks,”
Louis nods again, and then pushes himself off the wall. “Fancy a walk?”
Zayn nods, following.
They walk the curb side by side; shoulders knocking into each other, and Zayn can’t help but think about Niall. It sucks when he remembers Niall’s face, because it hurts how much he misses him. How much he misses his best friend. Niall’s cries and pleas for him to stay always visit his nightmares, along with that fiery anger whenever he thinks about that.
Niall’s been his friend ever since he could remember, he knows Zayn. He should know Zayn left to protect him. Somehow, it’s unfair- but Zayn can deal with it being unfair more than seeing Niall hurt because of him. So yes, Niall should understand.
“You seem like you’ve got a lot on your mind.” Louis speaks and he sounds like he’s about to break. Zayn can’t help but think that Louis sounds like him. They both look alone and broken. They’re both just running away from something. Louis looks like he’s running away from a lot of things, actually. But Zayn’s not going to push him to talk about anything. He knows how it’s like.
“Just, this friend.” He says, leaning against the hood of a car Louis’s perched on top of. “I feel bad about.”
Louis hums again and Zayn starts to think what a nice sound he thinks it is before Louis speaks again. “Yeah,” he taps his fingers against the hood of the car, “yeah, me too.”
“I just wish it could be different, you know?” Zayn says, sighing.
“I know.” Louis tosses his cig on the ground and crushes it under his trainers, stepping away from the car and starting around the corner. “So I am assuming you have nowhere to stay for the night,”
Zayn puts out his tube and frowns. “What makes you think I don’t?”
“Well for one, there is that massive duffel bag.” From where Zayn’s standing, he sees the hint of a smirk on Louis’s lips. He lets out a laugh, and follows Louis.
“Yeah? What makes you confident about what I have in there?”
“Well, I am not.” Louis stops, and spares Zayn a glance. “But babe, I tend to make up my mind about people within thirty seconds of meeting them, and I am always right.” He continues walking. “And you don’t strike me as an Arial.”
“What?”
“Oh, well- I mean you don’t strike me as bad, you know.” Louis’s voice cracks then, and Zayn starts to feel his nerves building up. “It’s just a thing me and Haz used to say.”
Haz. Zayn doesn’t know who Haz is. Or why was Louis speaking of him like he’s not there anymore. For all Zayn knows, Haz could be that friend Louis feels guilt-ridden for. Much like Zayn feels about Ni. So Zayn drops it, and follows Louis down the street, the sound of the hastened wheels scudding as their only company.
Suddenly, a shadowed figure runs past them and Zayn instantly reaches for Louis to get him out of the way, and squints his eyes to get a good view of what had just passed them. “What are you doing?” He hears Louis say, squirming in his hold.
“Just,” Zayn hisses “don’t move.”
Louis then pushes Zayn away, “You’re not going to tell me what to do. Trust me, I can handle it.” He says, pulling out a gun. Zayn's doesn't know if he should be worried about the gun in Louis's hand or that thing out there. “I’ve done this before. I know what I am doing. It’s you who you need to worry about, babe.”
Zayn shakes his head, he can sense it, and it’s too dangerous. But as much as he needs to have that freak out to the fact that Louis carries a gun around like it’s nothing (and the possibility that he could be a hunter) right about now, there’s this pending feeling about what this blood-curdling silhouette that just moved past them could be.
“I still don’t think you should go out there, you’ve seen how fast it moved.” Or maybe Louis didn’t see and that would be perfectly fine because Zayn’s responses where faster than those of any human.
Louis pushes past Zayn, and onto the dark alley and Zayn finds himself cringing at how loud his footsteps sound in the quietness. The ink on his arm start to itch, heating up, reddening and Zayn bites down the whimper that quivers out of his lips.
This couldn’t be right. The only time this happens is when there’s a storm, whooshing down rain and thunder. Thunder and water are his weakness. He's the last fire dragon and he's been this way on his own, training, running, training. But now the sky’s clear, scattered constellation visible, readable. His heart bangs against his chest, and he takes a step ahead of Louis, toward the corner at the end of the alley.
Then he sees it again, the silhouette. This time it moves faster charging at him, and the ink burns and burns brighter. He tries to knock it out, but it’s too fast and then he hears the gunshot and Louis shouting.
It charges again at him, this time knocking him against a wall and Louis rushes to his side, hauls him up and starts running.
It’s painful. Of course it is. There are times when Zayn feels like he wants to throw it all away, and give in but it’s precisely because of the pain that he feels it. That he feels like being alive. Precisely because of overcoming that pain, that he gets the feeling of really being alive- or at least a partial sense of it.
He hears Louis chanting under his breath, we’re still on the run; we won’t stop till we win. And right then, Zayn feels the strength sinking into his bones, bringing the hand he has on Louis’s wait to tug Louis closer, speeding them up.
When Louis asks later, what was that? Zayn pretends he doesn’t know.
-
Liam turns out to be the boy Zayn saw at the club with Louis earlier. He looks at them worriedly, and a frown creases onto his expression.
“This is Liam.” Louis says briefly, before running up the stairs, giving Zayn a glance before continuing. “You can come up if you want.”
Zayn nods. “I’ll be there in a second.”
He turns to look at Liam, smiling sweetly from where he’s standing and Zayn offers him a small smile of his in return.
He looks around the room; it’s covered in maps and strings and markers run over the maps like it’s been plotted and studied. He can make it easier for both of them.
When he goes for the door, Liam talks. “Louis’s up there.”
Zayn whips his head in surprise, “yeah,” he nods once, twice, he nods. “Yeah, I- I kind of have to go now. Just, will you do me a favour?”
“Sure.”
Zayn fishes through his pocket, pulls out a small, engraved coin. The engraving is of a dragon, scratched and carved in bronze and roughened up over time. Zayn gives it a last look, before slipping into Liam’s hand.
“Just, tell him I am sorry.” Zayn says, walking out of the door, running out of the block. He’s running again, his muscles cramping, prompting.
Zayn thinks about what would it be like if they met again. If he met Louis again, would it be the same? Or would Louis hate him for what he is? Would he try to kill him or would he understand?
The sky bleeds slowly toward sunrise, and Zayn runs.