Fic; 'show me how you (make it) glow'; X Factor 2010 RPS; Niall/Zayn [1/1]
Title: show me how you (make it) glow
Fandom: X Factor 2010 RPS
Pairing: Niall Horan/Zayn Malik
Rating: PG-ish
Summary: AU. Niall marks the milestones in his and Zayn’s relationship.
Word Count: ~1,200
Disclaimer: Didn’t happen in the real world.
Notes: This is pretty fucking weird, with absolutely no explanation for the weirdness, and sort of experimental (at least by my standards) so, um, there’s that.
The thing about Zayn is he’s all layers.
Niall notices this by degrees. The first time he meets Zayn, it’s Polite Exterior, hard and shiny and reflective. Niall is easygoing (“so laid-back he’s practically lying down” according to Liam), but it’s a little intimidating, even for him.
“Hi, sorry to keep you waiting,” the very attractive guy behind the counter says, not sounding sorry at all.
His nametag reads ‘Zayn’. His eyelashes look as long as Niall’s thumbnail. “What can I get you?”
Niall forgets his order and picks something at random from the menu behind Zayn’s head. He hands
over too much change and leaves too quickly for Zayn to give him the extra. He spills his coffee on his
hand outside the cafe. It leaves a red welt for days.
.
Liam tells Niall about a boy in his Sociology lecture who was doodling ballpoint stars in his ring binder, and says he’ll introduce them, because Liam draws these complicated comparisons between people who have never met. Niall recognizes Zayn but Zayn doesn’t acknowledge that awkward morning over the counter in the cafe. He’s got a cool look on his face and says,
“Oh, hey. I’m Zayn.”
Niall decides that’s Appraising. Zayn doesn’t know what to make of Niall yet. But Niall’s not exactly a stranger so bland politeness doesn’t fit, and Niall gets it, without really stopping to ask himself why he cares.
.
It’s not an intentional thing, but Niall manages to scrape past Appraising at some point after second year. (But maybe it is intentional. It’s a lot more effort than Niall likes to admit, and he spends a lot of time just making sure he’s placed near Zayn. He thinks maybe Zayn just needs to get used to him. Maybe familiarity is the key to all this.)
“Are you stalking me?”
Niall blusters for a moment, one hand still suspended in the air above his head, searching for a book on
Chaucer. They’re in the library on a rainy Thursday afternoon.
“Uh, no.”
Zayn narrows his eyes. “Then why do you sit two tables away every single time I’m here and sneak
glances overtop your textbook?”
Niall has no answer to that. But he moves his book bag to Zayn’s table the next day, and neither of them
comments on it.
.
It gets more pleasant then, something between Mild Liking and Acceptance. Zayn lets Niall get away with free coffee sometimes. He saves him seats at places. He remembers Niall’s birthday.
“You like chocolate, right?” Zayn asks when Niall orders his coffee in the morning.
“Yeah, ‘course.”
Zayn doesn’t say anything else about it, just slides a paper bag towards him along with his cup. Niall
opens it at the table by the window that’s come to be ‘his’, and it’s a miniature birthday cake with yellow
piped frosting and tiny dark chocolate chips.
Niall drinks his coffee and eats the cake, and spends twenty minutes that he should be in a lecture trying
to catch Zayn’s eye across the room. Zayn keeps his head down and doesn’t glance over, but Niall thinks
he sees him smiling.
.
Digging past Mild Liking takes time, and Niall’s afraid he’ll run out of it before he can get to the really interesting things - the fleeting bits of the beautiful person he thinks he sees sometimes - but then they all rent a place together and start job hunting. It’s much the same as before, except Harry and Louis are there too. Zayn is tense for a while. Then not so much.
“I found this place that sells pre-packaged food in bulk.”
Niall looks up from the sports section of the newspaper. “What?”
Zayn shrugs, leaning against the doorjamb, resplendent in sweatpants and a t-shirt. “Yeah. They sell
fortune cookies by the pound. You want some?”
Niall resists the urge to physically reach out and grasp at that tiny piece of whatever is under all those
layers that just appeared. “Well. Duh.”
They eat their way through a four-pound bag of individually-wrapped fortune cookies. They begin to cover the wall by the fridge with the paper slips. Once, Zayn gets a blank one, and he gives it to Niall. Niall puts it in his wallet when Zayn’s not looking.
He wonders if that means that he has layers, too.
.
They go for walks sometimes, and speak in abstract shapes and colours, just letting themselves exist for a while. Niall stops hearing and seeing. He tastes and he feels his way through those walks, following scents and the prickling sensation at the back of his neck. He tells Zayn about his office job and the weird dreams he has, and Zayn talks about his sisters’ emails and how the baristas never get his coffee order right. Niall’s not sure what to call this - it’s way past Acceptance and into the realms of something like friendship - but it’s nice.
.
After a while Zayn starts falling asleep in Niall’s room.
Niall’s bedside table becomes Zayn’s. Zayn’s clock, his retainer box, his ridiculous tub of special moisturizer, and his Power Rangers coaster (where did he even get that) for his omnipresent half-full glass of water (even though he never drinks it).
Even Louis doesn’t tease them, just grins at them every morning over breakfast and whispers things that make Harry choke on his cereal.
Liam just smiles. Niall wonders what exactly it was about ballpoint stars that told Liam how every bit of Zayn fit to every bit of Niall, how they would connect like they’re jigsaw pieces.
.
It’s at that point that Niall realizes he’s not digging anymore.
Sometimes Zayn’s not layers. Sometimes he’s folds upon folds and each turn shows something different.
“I always wanted to move to Italy,” Zayn murmurs, his lips on Niall’s ribcage. “Like, when I was eight or
so. I don’t know why.”
“We should go then.” Niall means it.
“Okay.”
They don’t go to Italy. But it doesn’t matter.
Niall brings Nicolo over instead. Zayn just laughs and laughs and kisses Niall somewhere between temple and cheek, without precision. Nicolo rolls his eyes, tells them he’s brought proper Italian food and some wine that turns out to be from Sainsbury’s, and they watch Italian movies with no subtitles. Nicolo leaves when he gets bored of translating for them. They have sex on the couch to the sound of the menu music loop. When Zayn kisses him, Niall tastes Béchamel sauce and tiny stars, and it’s beautiful.
.
Zayn and his layers aren’t intimidating anymore. When Niall presses his fingertips against Zayn’s arm he half-expects him to flake away, to unravel and come apart. Zayn watches him with half-lidded eyes. He doesn’t unravel, and Niall smiles to himself.
They’re lying in the gulley between sleep and wakefulness. Niall doesn’t know if Zayn can hear him,
or even if he’s speaking at all, but he can taste words on his tongue. He thinks he’s telling Zayn that he
loves him.
He thinks Zayn says it back.
.
Sometimes Niall thinks that he’s already found that part of Zayn he was looking for. Sometimes it feels like they’re standing in the centre together, watching the layers pile up and thin down from the inside. Zayn still confuses him but he’s no longer alien.
“You’re so lovely,” Zayn says. They’re in Niall’s bed. Niall doesn’t feel lovely. He feels sweaty and sleep-
stuck, and he rolls over to raise an eyebrow at Zayn.
“Flattery will get you everywhere,” he says, and they kiss each other good morning.
“Lovelier than all the lovely things,” Zayn insists, and his eyes are huge against Niall’s, all sincerity. "You
are.”
And Niall can’t help but believe him.
Fin