The Wind Hitting Our Broken Strings
the wind hitting our broken strings | zayn/niall; background harry/louis, liam/louis, and just about every other combination you can think of, really | 4,649 | pg-13 | and niall sneaks under zayn’s skin like the red thread he still can’t forget, like london, until he’s filling up space and beating in time with his heart | based loosely on the red string of fate legend, wherein a red thread connects people to their soulmates | beta'd and read over by marcel, liri, and laura, the brighest shining stars in my life, and any mistakes within are 100% mine | the title, as well as the poem that harry recites to zayn can be found here
we've all got broken strings
but we try our best not to think about those kinds of things
He’s five, and angry; nestled in between his parents on their patterned sofa, his hands balled into fists against his pajama-clad thighs--tiny, insubstantial things, and his father looks down and smiles softly, wrapping an arm around his shoulders--and his fingernails leave half-moons on his palms.
“It’s not fair,” he says, the heel of his foot swinging back and hitting the cushion. “When I find my thread, I’m going to cut it off, and then I won’t be tied to anybody.”
“It doesn’t work that way, Mahiya,” his father tells him, looking over Zayn’s head at his wife, their eyes crinkled at the corners; matched, line for line.
“I’ll make it work,” he mumbles, drawing his knees to his chest and glaring at the cartoon playing across the television screen.
“Of course you will,” his mother says quietly, pressing a kiss to the top of his head, murmuring nonsense words until he falls asleep, the cartoon and stories are all but forgotten.
+
They’re kept hidden after that, whispered to his sisters over the clash and clatter of toy trains and battling superheroes, and it’s calmer then, this tug and pull of a world guided by threads.
+
He thinks sometimes, when he’s older, when even the superheroes have lost their appeal, that the threads have sewn themselves under his skin; that, already, the bright red thread is winding through his veins, glinting through the hollows of his ribcage. He wonders if it’s unavoidable, if he drew his first breath in a world where his story had already been planned out, and he wonders, too, if there’s a way around it, if he’s able to snip all his threads and float away, untethered.
He wonders how that would feel, being free of it all.
+
He’s sixteen, and tipsy; sneaking beer under the cover of some trees, and his mouth twists after every sip, still not used to the taste, but trying. “Can’t wait to get out of this town,” one of his friends says, his bottle held loosely at his side and Zayn eyes him, copying the movement, the fluidity of it.
“Never gonna look back,” another one crows, tipping the last of his beer down his throat. “Just gonna keep going, keep going.”
There’s a pause then, and they glance over at Zayn, his brow still furrowed down at his beer bottle. “London,” he says finally, looking up at the stars and shrugging. “I’m gonna go to London.”
“Cheers, mate,” they mutter, and they raise their bottles to that; to leaving, to never looking back, to London.
+
London, he thinks, and that, too, slips under his skin, coils through his veins, and he wonders, idly, what color London is, what it looks like mixed with the bright red thread. He pulls out maps, old maps, slipped out from in between the pages of the musty books in his father’s study, and his fingers trace paths down the streets. His sisters giggle at him, telling him to watch out for Diagon Alley and rogue trolls, and his parents hold hands and smile as if they know a secret, still matched, line for line. And Zayn closes his eyes and pictures rain-soaked pavements and hidden bookshops; the ancient feeling edging out from the buildings, the streets; and the bright, shimmering lights, like a thousand tiny suns scattered across the city. London, he thinks, and smiles.
He doesn’t notice that all the maps he’s stuck up against his bedroom wall, scattered across his floor, are trimmed with red; a thin, winding trail that sets the city boundaries: glinting, almost, amidst the wrinkles and dust.
+
He’s twenty, and sketching; his fingertips already dotted with ink, covering the faded paint streaks from the night before, when he and Louis had decided to get creative. “We should decorate or something,” Louis had said, stretching his legs across the floor and taking a long pull of his drink.
“Sleep, though,” Harry had mumbled, his forehead pressed to Zayn’s shoulder. “I miss sleep,” he had said mournfully, the sound half sunken into the wool of Zayn’s jumper.
“Alright kitten, you can go to bed, but Z and I are going to be the men around here and paint this wall. Turn this flat into a home and all that.”
“S’not manly,” Harry had said, staggering to his feet and glowering down at them through red-rimmed eyes and mussed curls. “It’s painting.”
“Says the poet,” Louis had answered, standing up and taking Harry by the hand, leading him down the hall until all Zayn could hear was a muffled cry of “did not!” and the sound of laugher being swallowed by a kiss.
Louis had bounded back into the room a few minutes later, eyes brighter and hair sticking up in the back, and it took him less time to dig out the unopened cans of paint and some brushes for them to use. “This is, like, a housewarming gesture,” he told Zayn solemnly, passing him a brush. “We’re bonded now.”
“Paint brothers,” Zayn had answered, stepping back and biting his lip before painting a wide circle on the wall, stark yellow against the muted grey.
“Looks a bit like the sun,” Louis had said, tilting his head to the side and squinting.
“Shit, really? I was going for, like, an Easter bunny kind of thing. D’you think we could start over then?” Zayn had said, jumping back and almost tripping over the purple can of paint when Louis grinned and flicked his paintbrush at him, colors splattering against the wall like green blood drops.
“Twat.”
“Wanker.”
+
Louis is the one to tell the story later, all energy and sparkling eyes and blinding smiles. “So there he was, poor lad, homeless on his first day in the big city, completely overwhelmed, couldn’t even speak, poor thing, the old dear behind the counter had to explain it to us, didn’t she, Haz?”
And Harry would shake his curls out and dimple at whoever Louis was regaling. “That she did, Lou,” he would say, twisting around to grin at Zayn even as Zayn was reaching out to pinch his hips.
“And what could we do, really, but take him into our home? It was only supposed to be temporary, but alas, Zayn here has a way of winning hearts wherever he goes and so we’re stuck with him for good now, I’m afraid.”
“Ta, Lou,” Zayn would say, leaning in close and batting his eyelashes, breaking down into giggles when Louis would splutter see, see what I mean, he’s a heart-stealer, this one.
+
Louis never mentions the twin tattoos he and Harry have tucked behind their ears--infinity signs, the both of them, in bright, bright red--and Zayn never notices, and life goes on, in the way that it does.
+
He’s twenty-one, and still sketching; the ink stains and paint streaks have become more permanent now, etched onto his skin like tattoos, and he turns his hands over some mornings when the light is cold and grey, trying to remember what they looked like before, and failing; can only remember the heart his youngest sister had scribbled onto his thumbnail one morning before school.
“You should get a tattoo like that,” Harry says, tugging Louis’ favorite jumper over his head and nodding towards the burst of color on the underside of his wrist.
“Maybe,” Zayn answers, rolling over on the couch and stretching his arm out in front of him, letting the sun hit his skin and edge the colors in a warm glow.
“I’ll hold your hand and everything,” Harry teases, fitting himself onto the couch next to Zayn.
“Promise?” Zayn asks, shifting closer to Harry and tossing his legs over Harry’s.
“For you, babe? Anything.”
+
Zayn meets Liam at the studio he works at sometimes, the one he goes to when he needs empty spaces and the kind of quiet that fills him up, propels the brush across the paper.
His first thought when he sees him is that he’s never seen anyone look so damn earnest. “Sorry, d’you mind if I use this table?” the boy asks him, clutching a worn leather bag to his chest and grinning like they’re on TV, all crinkled eyes and white, white teeth.
“No, course not,” Zayn tells him, waving his hand. “Go right ahead, mate.”
“M’Liam,” he says, setting down the bag and unpacking folder after folder, each in a different color with numbers scribbled across the tops. “Yeah,” he says, almost apologizing, when he catches Zayn looking, “Not an artist. I’m a photographer, just needed somewhere to organize this last batch and my studio’s undergoing renovations, so! Thought I’d pop in here for a tick.”
“Right, yeah, course,” Zayn says, walking around the table and watching as Liam flips open each of the folders and moves them around the table, brow furrowed. “These are brilliant,” he tells him, leaning over and getting a closer look, elbows slipping towards the edge.
“Yeah?” Liam asks, tugging at his collar and blushing a bit. “It’s just--the way light plays off of the buildings sometimes, like here, for instance-,” he says, sliding a red folder closer and pointing to the corner of a building that looks like a shoe store Zayn had stopped at once in Paris on a family holiday, “-I just can’t imagine doing anything else. D’you know what I mean?”
“Think I do, yeah,” Zayn tells him, smiling a bit.
+
Liam fits into their lives after that, with his bright smiles and his constant laughter, and Zayn drags him round for Sunday night dinners and weekly craft nights, until it’s as regular as the sunrise, having Liam in their lives.
It’s Louis’ idea to spring surprise presents on him; there was just something so endearing about Liam’s genuine shock and joy whenever people went out of their way to make him happy, and Louis was fascinated with it, always popping out to the shops and coming back with a box of Liam’s favorite biscuits hidden up his shirt, or sticking a fresh roll of film down Liam’s back pocket when he wasn’t paying attention.
They’re almost a family, in a way, rising and falling together, reaching across and grasping each other’s hands, and somewhere Zayn thinks of stories long forgotten, of red threads, of fate.
+
Zayn’s in line at the coffeeshop Louis loves so much, turning around every half second to make sure his sketchbook and bag are still sitting on the table, when he gets five text messages from Harry, each of them just one line long, in typical Harry fashion: “I think I saw a rainbow outside! Go check for me, Louis says I’m lying and won’t get up”; “Do you remember that bookstore with all the stairs?”; “The rainbow’s gone :( I’m distraught :(“; “Meet me at that bookstore after work, we need to pick up Liam’s surprise present.”; “Bring chocolate.”
He rolls his eyes before tapping out a quick response (“who gave u an iphone i want a word with them but ill see u later with chocolate dont get ur curls all twisted princess”), stepping forward with the line and placing his order. His sketchbook and bag are still there when he gets back to his table, fingers wrapped around the steaming mug, and he sits down and squints at the corner of the page, licking his finger and rubbing at the mark that hadn’t been there when he got up to order his second coffee--it’s small and minute and red, a barely noticeable checkmark and he half ripped the corner off in his attempt to wipe it away.
“You’re being paranoid, Malik,” Zayn mutters to himself under his breath, sitting back in his chair and sipping at his coffee.
He draws a smiley face over it, in the end; big and yellow, taking up almost half the page, with the checkmark at the center of the right eye, and he shows it to Harry later, swatting at his shoulder when Harry dances the sketchbook away from him and tears the sketch off to stick up on the fridge.
+
He catches sight of a flash of yellow on his way to the bookstore, The Weeknd playing too loud over his headphones, and he tries to commit the glimpse to memory; a blaze of gold, cutting across the greys and blacks and navys, almost like a tangible sun. It’s gone by the time he turns the corner, and he keeps on walking, already making out the figure of Harry leaning against the bookstore wall, and it’s half forgotten once he’s inside, disappearing in a haze of mist.
He doesn’t notice the red apple rolling across his path before he turns the corner, nor does he notice the red flowers planted along the pavement to the bookstore. He thinks only of a fading gold, and then the brightness of Liam’s smile when they toss him the book of Paris photography after dinner.
+
His dreams are tinged with gold after that, bursts of sunlight shot through with red veins, and wakes up in a cold sweat night after night, sheets twisted round his legs and head pounding. And he thinks he sees it for a moment, wrinkled out on his sheets, the yellow and the red edged in blue, but then he blinks and it’s gone.
When he wakes up, he doesn’t remember the dreams.
+
It’s Liam who meets Niall first, stopping by the boys’ flat after work with take-away, tossing the newest Spider-Man comic at Zayn and falling back onto their couch. “I made a new friend today, and-” he starts, passing out the containers and food and trying to tuck a napkin into Louis’ shirtfront.
“Friend!” Harry breaks in, pulling a face and tipping his head back and giggling, and suddenly Zayn remembers why they never watch The Inbetweeners with Harry anymore. “Ooh, friend! Friend!”
“Anyway,” Liam continues, raising his voice and talking over Harry. “He’s new in London and he seemed quite nice and I invited him over for dinner tomorrow night.”
“Here?” Louis asks. “You invited him to dinner here? Li, what if he’s secretly a serial killer and murders us all before we even get to eat dessert?”
“He’s not a murderer, though, Lou. He’s a singer,” Liam explains. “Plays a guitar and everything!”
“Gonna be pretty angry if I can’t eat cake tomorrow because I’ve lost my head,” Louis mumbles, slumping against Liam’s shoulder and pushing his feet under Harry’s legs.
“Maybe he’ll murder you first,” Zayn tells him, sprawled on the floor and flipping through his comic, twisting a chip in his fingers. “I’d be okay with that, s’long as I got time to eat my cake.”
“But he isn’t a murderer! He’s nice!” Liam cries.
“Course he is,” Zayn reassures him. “He’ll be a hero, saving us from Lou and leaving us with extra cake.”
“Tosser,” Liam laughs, pulling the pillow out from behind him to launch at Zayn’s head.
+
Niall’s all colors, and Zayn thinks vaguely of distilled light, wonders if he would have to shield his eyes if he looked at Niall too long.
“Told you he wasn’t a serial killer,” Liam whispers to Louis, chuckling when Louis kicks him under the table.
“Always time for murder,” Louis whispers back, reaching over to pinch Liam’s garlic bread.
“Louis thinks you’re going to kill us before dessert,” Harry tells Niall when he catches him raising an eyebrow at Liam. “And Zayn says he doesn’t mind as long as you let him eat his cake first.”
“Would never kill anyone before dessert,” Niall answers. “Too cruel.”
“What about after though?” Louis wants to know.
“I think there’s a Doctor Who marathon tonight,” Niall shrugs. “Maybe later, if you really want.”
Louis nods, setting down the stolen piece of garlic bread and sticks his elbows on the table. “I’ll have to look at my schedule, pencil something in. We’ll figure it out.”
“Good, I’m crap at planning these things out,” Niall says, grinning and it’s brighter than Liam’s, even, and Zayn glances down at his plate for a second, feeling his heartbeat pick up.
+
“‘I find myself thinking about how the hottest stars are always white and blue,’” Harry says later, after Niall and Liam had gone home and Louis had locked himself in the study with his paints.
“Sorry, what?” Zayn asks, putting down his sketchbook and staring at Harry.
“‘Sometimes when I listen carefully, I think I hear you singing. Maybe it’s just the sound of the wind hitting our broken strings,’” Harry continues, his eyes closed and his fingers tapping against his notebook.
“Testing out a new poem? Doesn’t sound like your usual style, mate.”
“Gonna go check on Lou,” Harry says instead of answering, swinging his legs off the chair and mussing Zayn’s hair on the way out of the room.
“Wanker,” Zayn mutters, picking up his sketchbook and turning to a blank page, drawing out faint lines at first, going over them until they’re darker, more scattered; a group of people on a stage with hollow chests, broken strings swinging in the empty spaces left behind, and the stars shining bright above them.
+
Niall becomes a fixture in their lives after that--coming round in the mornings and pouting at Harry until he pulls some trousers on and cooks breakfast; stealing Louis away from the study and his stale music hits for games of pick up football in the park; jumping on Liam and tickling him until he’s bright red and gasping for breath--but it’s Zayn he spends the most time with, slipping into place like he’d always been there.
And Niall sneaks under Zayn’s skin like the red thread he still can’t forget, like London, until he’s filling up space and beating in time with his heart. And he’s learning, quietly, filing the information away for later, that Niall’s made up of extremes: the way he’ll curl up on the couch when they’re watching a film, a blanket thrown over his hips and clutched just beneath his chin; or the way he’ll bound into the studio when Zayn’s finishing up, eyes bright and the beanie he nicked from Harry half falling off his hair, chatting about a jumper he thought he’d seen at the shops last week and how Louis wanted to go out to the pubs later.
And Zayn learns, too, that they fit together, when Niall’s head is on his chest and their hands are a breadth apart. He’s softer then, Niall, more muted, his voice a hum against Zayn’s chest when he talks about home, his favorite foods, the films his dad used to make him watch on family movie nights.
“You miss it, don’t you?” Zayn asks quietly.
“Been ages since I was there,” Niall sighs, rolling onto his side, his back against Zayn’s chest, and tugging Zayn’s arm over his shoulder, closer to his heart.
“There’s a holiday coming up, y’know,” Zayn says lightly, catching Niall’s heartbeat with his fingertips, slow and steady and a bit like an anchor.
“Yeah?”
“We could go, if you like.”
“Might be nice,” Niall says, his heartbeat spiking, “showing you around Ireland.”
“Think I’d like it, yeah,” Zayn mutters, grinning a bit when Niall pushes himself up on an elbow, turns to face Zayn, and they’re close enough that Zayn could just reach out and take, but then Niall’s smiling back and dropping his head onto Zayn’s chest, tugging him closer and pressing a smile against his tshirt.
He wakes up a few hours later, folded in on himself, shivering into the emptiness of the couch, and blearily, he registers that Niall is gone, that it’s dark out, that there’s a note tucked into his sketchbook. Had to run home but see you later, yeah, the note reads in Niall’s spindly writing, the ink shining a glittering red in the faded light. And there’s a bit at the very bottom of the page that’s crossed out, and Zayn holds it up to the desk light, squints at it until he can make it out. Holding you to the Ireland thing so you better not back out haha! it reads, and Zayn rubs at the back of his neck, swallowing a grin, and carefully folds the note and tucks it into his wallet.
+
“Think I might want a tattoo,” Niall mentions one night during family dinner, sliding his plate out of Harry’s reach.
“What of?” Liam asks, kneeling on his chair and ladling soup into Louis’ bowl for him.
“Dunno yet,” Niall answers, taking a long pull of his drink and looking at Zayn for a moment before continuing, “But I’ve been thinking about it for a while, y’know?”
“Might want one too,” Zayn pipes up. “On the my wrist.”
“Like the paint thing?” Harry says, eyes brightening. “Still want me to hold your hand?”
“Cool it, curly,” Louis says, flicking soup off his spoon at Harry’s cheek. “Only I’m allowed to hold Z’s hand. Zayn,” he continues, turning in his chair to face him, “would you like me to hold your hand? I’m quite good at it, got references and everything.”
“He’s not,” Harry tells him, wiping at his cheek with his sleeve. “Too twitchy.”
“Shut it, you, or else,” Louis says, eyes glittering. “The only exception I’ll make is for Niall. You’ve got a week to decide Malik, so think carefully.”
“Niall,” Zayn tells him, leaning back in his chair and winking across the table at Harry.
“Traitor!” Louis exclaims, slamming a hand on the table.
“Well, I think you made the right choice,” Niall says mildly, dunking a chunk of bread in his soup and looking round at them all.
+
It’s near two in the morning when his phone rings, and Zayn reaches blindly for it, cursing Louis for changing his ringtone to something that sounds like a building being knocked down, making a mental reminder to change it when he wakes up.
“Z?” a small voice says when he finally finds his phone and flips it open.
“Niall? Christ, what are you doing awake? Are you alright?”
“Can’t sleep,” he says, “tell me a story?”
Zayn pauses, searching his memory before saying, haltingly, hesitantly, “d’you know about the red strings of fate?”
“No,” Niall says quietly. “Tell me?”
“Everyone,” Zayn starts, a bit uncertainly, trying to recall the stories, “is made up of threads, sewn together at the seams, and they’re all different colors. Green and purple and blue, and they all mean something different.”
“Like wires,” Niall says into the phone.
“Yeah, like wires. And the red thread, it means--it means, well, soulmates. And that’s the one that sort of pokes through and travels the world, and it’s looking for something, y’know? Its other half or whatever. And it can stretch or tangle or wander, but it can’t ever break, and it’s sort of like a marker of fate. Saying that, that the two people connected by the same thread are fated to be together, and that once they find each other, the thread ties itself off and it’s, y’know, destiny. Or whatever.”
“S’nice story,” Niall mumbles and Zayn closes his eyes, imagines that Niall’s sitting next to him.
“Yeah,” Zayn says, thinking of the way Niall’s eyes light up when he’s excited and how his hands move through the air and the way his heartbeat slows to a murmur when they fit together on the couch and how he’s all colors and light. “Yeah.”
“Z? Did you fall asleep on me?” Niall asks after a minute.
“Still here, sunshine. Want me to let you go to sleep?”
“No, just--just stay on the line?”
“Course,” Zayn says, and then they’re silent but for their breathing.
Zayn wakes in the morning with the phone still pressed to his ear, marks from the buttons pressed into his cheek, and he stretches, flips the phone between his fingers, and wonders again about red strings and fate.
+
He asks Niall later, wandering around a Tesco’s looking for some chocolate for Harry, about the night before, why he couldn’t sleep.
“Homesick, I guess.” Niall answers, ducking his head and stuffing his hands in his pockets. “Hits pretty hard sometimes, y’know?”
“Only a few weeks till that holiday, though.”
“Still want to come?” Niall asks, looking up at Zayn, his eyes bluer than he’s ever seen.
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Zayn tells him, spotting Harry’s chocolate. “Hey, Ni?” he asks on their way out of the store. “Why me? Why did you call me last night?”
“Dunno,” Niall shrugs. “Kind of like an anchor?” he says, voice going quiet at the end.
“Know the feeling,” Zayn says, reaching out and touching Niall’s elbow and smiling softly.
+
He’s twenty-two, and in love; and he wonders if it should be rose-colored and throwing their heads back when they laugh, but it’s tinged with cigarette ash and the shitty beer Harry likes instead, full of quiet nights spent painting while Niall plays guitar in the corner, singing softly.
(A confession: he likes it better that way, despite Louis shaking his head and laughing, telling him that he’s not in some hipster movie even as he’s tracing patterns on Harry’s thigh, leaning over to press a kiss on his shoulder.)
+
They get their tattoos on Niall’s twenty first birthday, Harry texting Zayn a heart and a picture of his hand before they’d even left, promising to have a cake and all of Niall’s favorite foods waiting for them when they get back.
It hadn’t taken them long to decide what to get, when it came down to it, although Zayn lingered over yin-yang designs and a colored paint splatter, and Niall hovered over one of the phases of the moon for a moment. “Alright, yeah?” Zayn asks. “Want me to call Haz down to hold your hand?”
“Shove off,” Niall answers, shoving at Zayn’s shoulder and giggling.
+
“Give us a look, then!” Louis calls out when they get home, barely sitting up from where he’s leaned against Harry when they come in.
Niall glances sideways at Zayn and they nod, flipping over their wrists at the same time, showcasing the tiny anchors there, black with matching red, red ropes winding around them.
+
The tattoos aren’t even yet healed when Zayn backs Niall into the corner of his kitchen, leaving bruises, dark and red and his, across Niall’s collarbone, knocking his forehead against Niall’s and kissing him before pulling away, breathless and heart beating too fast.
“Some more red for me?” Niall asks shakily, hand trailing down to Zayn’s hip and pulling him closer.
“Thought it might look better scattered, yeah,” Zayn grins.
“Always was a good color for me,” Niall says, and then they’re quiet for quite a while.
+
He’s twenty-two, and moving in with Niall; thinking that he doesn’t have as many boxes as he thought he would and where was he going to hang up his Clockwork Orange poster and if Harry and Louis had already turned his bedroom into a library for Harry, when Niall clambers in behind him and interrupts him.
“Look at this!” he says, throwing his hands in the air. “Like a mansion or something, isn’t it? We’re gonna need to go round Liam’s and nick some of his stuff to fill this place up.”
“He might notice though, yeah? Maybe it’d be better to grab some of Harry and Louis’ stuff.”
“Or buy our own,” Niall says, and then laughs, sitting down and leaning against the box marked comic books: DON’T LET LIAM TOUCH.
“Love you, sunshine,” Zayn says, stretching his legs out and letting his boots knock against Niall’s trainers.
“You too, Z.”
+
He’s twenty-two, and happy.
[ alternative ending ]
we've all got broken strings
but we try our best not to think about those kinds of things
He’s five, and angry; nestled in between his parents on their patterned sofa, his hands balled into fists against his pajama-clad thighs--tiny, insubstantial things, and his father looks down and smiles softly, wrapping an arm around his shoulders--and his fingernails leave half-moons on his palms.
“It’s not fair,” he says, the heel of his foot swinging back and hitting the cushion. “When I find my thread, I’m going to cut it off, and then I won’t be tied to anybody.”
“It doesn’t work that way, Mahiya,” his father tells him, looking over Zayn’s head at his wife, their eyes crinkled at the corners; matched, line for line.
“I’ll make it work,” he mumbles, drawing his knees to his chest and glaring at the cartoon playing across the television screen.
“Of course you will,” his mother says quietly, pressing a kiss to the top of his head, murmuring nonsense words until he falls asleep, the cartoon and stories are all but forgotten.
+
They’re kept hidden after that, whispered to his sisters over the clash and clatter of toy trains and battling superheroes, and it’s calmer then, this tug and pull of a world guided by threads.
+
He thinks sometimes, when he’s older, when even the superheroes have lost their appeal, that the threads have sewn themselves under his skin; that, already, the bright red thread is winding through his veins, glinting through the hollows of his ribcage. He wonders if it’s unavoidable, if he drew his first breath in a world where his story had already been planned out, and he wonders, too, if there’s a way around it, if he’s able to snip all his threads and float away, untethered.
He wonders how that would feel, being free of it all.
+
He’s sixteen, and tipsy; sneaking beer under the cover of some trees, and his mouth twists after every sip, still not used to the taste, but trying. “Can’t wait to get out of this town,” one of his friends says, his bottle held loosely at his side and Zayn eyes him, copying the movement, the fluidity of it.
“Never gonna look back,” another one crows, tipping the last of his beer down his throat. “Just gonna keep going, keep going.”
There’s a pause then, and they glance over at Zayn, his brow still furrowed down at his beer bottle. “London,” he says finally, looking up at the stars and shrugging. “I’m gonna go to London.”
“Cheers, mate,” they mutter, and they raise their bottles to that; to leaving, to never looking back, to London.
+
London, he thinks, and that, too, slips under his skin, coils through his veins, and he wonders, idly, what color London is, what it looks like mixed with the bright red thread. He pulls out maps, old maps, slipped out from in between the pages of the musty books in his father’s study, and his fingers trace paths down the streets. His sisters giggle at him, telling him to watch out for Diagon Alley and rogue trolls, and his parents hold hands and smile as if they know a secret, still matched, line for line. And Zayn closes his eyes and pictures rain-soaked pavements and hidden bookshops; the ancient feeling edging out from the buildings, the streets; and the bright, shimmering lights, like a thousand tiny suns scattered across the city. London, he thinks, and smiles.
He doesn’t notice that all the maps he’s stuck up against his bedroom wall, scattered across his floor, are trimmed with red; a thin, winding trail that sets the city boundaries: glinting, almost, amidst the wrinkles and dust.
+
He’s twenty, and sketching; his fingertips already dotted with ink, covering the faded paint streaks from the night before, when he and Louis had decided to get creative. “We should decorate or something,” Louis had said, stretching his legs across the floor and taking a long pull of his drink.
“Sleep, though,” Harry had mumbled, his forehead pressed to Zayn’s shoulder. “I miss sleep,” he had said mournfully, the sound half sunken into the wool of Zayn’s jumper.
“Alright kitten, you can go to bed, but Z and I are going to be the men around here and paint this wall. Turn this flat into a home and all that.”
“S’not manly,” Harry had said, staggering to his feet and glowering down at them through red-rimmed eyes and mussed curls. “It’s painting.”
“Says the poet,” Louis had answered, standing up and taking Harry by the hand, leading him down the hall until all Zayn could hear was a muffled cry of “did not!” and the sound of laugher being swallowed by a kiss.
Louis had bounded back into the room a few minutes later, eyes brighter and hair sticking up in the back, and it took him less time to dig out the unopened cans of paint and some brushes for them to use. “This is, like, a housewarming gesture,” he told Zayn solemnly, passing him a brush. “We’re bonded now.”
“Paint brothers,” Zayn had answered, stepping back and biting his lip before painting a wide circle on the wall, stark yellow against the muted grey.
“Looks a bit like the sun,” Louis had said, tilting his head to the side and squinting.
“Shit, really? I was going for, like, an Easter bunny kind of thing. D’you think we could start over then?” Zayn had said, jumping back and almost tripping over the purple can of paint when Louis grinned and flicked his paintbrush at him, colors splattering against the wall like green blood drops.
“Twat.”
“Wanker.”
+
Louis is the one to tell the story later, all energy and sparkling eyes and blinding smiles. “So there he was, poor lad, homeless on his first day in the big city, completely overwhelmed, couldn’t even speak, poor thing, the old dear behind the counter had to explain it to us, didn’t she, Haz?”
And Harry would shake his curls out and dimple at whoever Louis was regaling. “That she did, Lou,” he would say, twisting around to grin at Zayn even as Zayn was reaching out to pinch his hips.
“And what could we do, really, but take him into our home? It was only supposed to be temporary, but alas, Zayn here has a way of winning hearts wherever he goes and so we’re stuck with him for good now, I’m afraid.”
“Ta, Lou,” Zayn would say, leaning in close and batting his eyelashes, breaking down into giggles when Louis would splutter see, see what I mean, he’s a heart-stealer, this one.
+
Louis never mentions the twin tattoos he and Harry have tucked behind their ears--infinity signs, the both of them, in bright, bright red--and Zayn never notices, and life goes on, in the way that it does.
+
He’s twenty-one, and still sketching; the ink stains and paint streaks have become more permanent now, etched onto his skin like tattoos, and he turns his hands over some mornings when the light is cold and grey, trying to remember what they looked like before, and failing; can only remember the heart his youngest sister had scribbled onto his thumbnail one morning before school.
“You should get a tattoo like that,” Harry says, tugging Louis’ favorite jumper over his head and nodding towards the burst of color on the underside of his wrist.
“Maybe,” Zayn answers, rolling over on the couch and stretching his arm out in front of him, letting the sun hit his skin and edge the colors in a warm glow.
“I’ll hold your hand and everything,” Harry teases, fitting himself onto the couch next to Zayn.
“Promise?” Zayn asks, shifting closer to Harry and tossing his legs over Harry’s.
“For you, babe? Anything.”
+
Zayn meets Liam at the studio he works at sometimes, the one he goes to when he needs empty spaces and the kind of quiet that fills him up, propels the brush across the paper.
His first thought when he sees him is that he’s never seen anyone look so damn earnest. “Sorry, d’you mind if I use this table?” the boy asks him, clutching a worn leather bag to his chest and grinning like they’re on TV, all crinkled eyes and white, white teeth.
“No, course not,” Zayn tells him, waving his hand. “Go right ahead, mate.”
“M’Liam,” he says, setting down the bag and unpacking folder after folder, each in a different color with numbers scribbled across the tops. “Yeah,” he says, almost apologizing, when he catches Zayn looking, “Not an artist. I’m a photographer, just needed somewhere to organize this last batch and my studio’s undergoing renovations, so! Thought I’d pop in here for a tick.”
“Right, yeah, course,” Zayn says, walking around the table and watching as Liam flips open each of the folders and moves them around the table, brow furrowed. “These are brilliant,” he tells him, leaning over and getting a closer look, elbows slipping towards the edge.
“Yeah?” Liam asks, tugging at his collar and blushing a bit. “It’s just--the way light plays off of the buildings sometimes, like here, for instance-,” he says, sliding a red folder closer and pointing to the corner of a building that looks like a shoe store Zayn had stopped at once in Paris on a family holiday, “-I just can’t imagine doing anything else. D’you know what I mean?”
“Think I do, yeah,” Zayn tells him, smiling a bit.
+
Liam fits into their lives after that, with his bright smiles and his constant laughter, and Zayn drags him round for Sunday night dinners and weekly craft nights, until it’s as regular as the sunrise, having Liam in their lives.
It’s Louis’ idea to spring surprise presents on him; there was just something so endearing about Liam’s genuine shock and joy whenever people went out of their way to make him happy, and Louis was fascinated with it, always popping out to the shops and coming back with a box of Liam’s favorite biscuits hidden up his shirt, or sticking a fresh roll of film down Liam’s back pocket when he wasn’t paying attention.
They’re almost a family, in a way, rising and falling together, reaching across and grasping each other’s hands, and somewhere Zayn thinks of stories long forgotten, of red threads, of fate.
+
Zayn’s in line at the coffeeshop Louis loves so much, turning around every half second to make sure his sketchbook and bag are still sitting on the table, when he gets five text messages from Harry, each of them just one line long, in typical Harry fashion: “I think I saw a rainbow outside! Go check for me, Louis says I’m lying and won’t get up”; “Do you remember that bookstore with all the stairs?”; “The rainbow’s gone :( I’m distraught :(“; “Meet me at that bookstore after work, we need to pick up Liam’s surprise present.”; “Bring chocolate.”
He rolls his eyes before tapping out a quick response (“who gave u an iphone i want a word with them but ill see u later with chocolate dont get ur curls all twisted princess”), stepping forward with the line and placing his order. His sketchbook and bag are still there when he gets back to his table, fingers wrapped around the steaming mug, and he sits down and squints at the corner of the page, licking his finger and rubbing at the mark that hadn’t been there when he got up to order his second coffee--it’s small and minute and red, a barely noticeable checkmark and he half ripped the corner off in his attempt to wipe it away.
“You’re being paranoid, Malik,” Zayn mutters to himself under his breath, sitting back in his chair and sipping at his coffee.
He draws a smiley face over it, in the end; big and yellow, taking up almost half the page, with the checkmark at the center of the right eye, and he shows it to Harry later, swatting at his shoulder when Harry dances the sketchbook away from him and tears the sketch off to stick up on the fridge.
+
He catches sight of a flash of yellow on his way to the bookstore, The Weeknd playing too loud over his headphones, and he tries to commit the glimpse to memory; a blaze of gold, cutting across the greys and blacks and navys, almost like a tangible sun. It’s gone by the time he turns the corner, and he keeps on walking, already making out the figure of Harry leaning against the bookstore wall, and it’s half forgotten once he’s inside, disappearing in a haze of mist.
He doesn’t notice the red apple rolling across his path before he turns the corner, nor does he notice the red flowers planted along the pavement to the bookstore. He thinks only of a fading gold, and then the brightness of Liam’s smile when they toss him the book of Paris photography after dinner.
+
His dreams are tinged with gold after that, bursts of sunlight shot through with red veins, and wakes up in a cold sweat night after night, sheets twisted round his legs and head pounding. And he thinks he sees it for a moment, wrinkled out on his sheets, the yellow and the red edged in blue, but then he blinks and it’s gone.
When he wakes up, he doesn’t remember the dreams.
+
It’s Liam who meets Niall first, stopping by the boys’ flat after work with take-away, tossing the newest Spider-Man comic at Zayn and falling back onto their couch. “I made a new friend today, and-” he starts, passing out the containers and food and trying to tuck a napkin into Louis’ shirtfront.
“Friend!” Harry breaks in, pulling a face and tipping his head back and giggling, and suddenly Zayn remembers why they never watch The Inbetweeners with Harry anymore. “Ooh, friend! Friend!”
“Anyway,” Liam continues, raising his voice and talking over Harry. “He’s new in London and he seemed quite nice and I invited him over for dinner tomorrow night.”
“Here?” Louis asks. “You invited him to dinner here? Li, what if he’s secretly a serial killer and murders us all before we even get to eat dessert?”
“He’s not a murderer, though, Lou. He’s a singer,” Liam explains. “Plays a guitar and everything!”
“Gonna be pretty angry if I can’t eat cake tomorrow because I’ve lost my head,” Louis mumbles, slumping against Liam’s shoulder and pushing his feet under Harry’s legs.
“Maybe he’ll murder you first,” Zayn tells him, sprawled on the floor and flipping through his comic, twisting a chip in his fingers. “I’d be okay with that, s’long as I got time to eat my cake.”
“But he isn’t a murderer! He’s nice!” Liam cries.
“Course he is,” Zayn reassures him. “He’ll be a hero, saving us from Lou and leaving us with extra cake.”
“Tosser,” Liam laughs, pulling the pillow out from behind him to launch at Zayn’s head.
+
Niall’s all colors, and Zayn thinks vaguely of distilled light, wonders if he would have to shield his eyes if he looked at Niall too long.
“Told you he wasn’t a serial killer,” Liam whispers to Louis, chuckling when Louis kicks him under the table.
“Always time for murder,” Louis whispers back, reaching over to pinch Liam’s garlic bread.
“Louis thinks you’re going to kill us before dessert,” Harry tells Niall when he catches him raising an eyebrow at Liam. “And Zayn says he doesn’t mind as long as you let him eat his cake first.”
“Would never kill anyone before dessert,” Niall answers. “Too cruel.”
“What about after though?” Louis wants to know.
“I think there’s a Doctor Who marathon tonight,” Niall shrugs. “Maybe later, if you really want.”
Louis nods, setting down the stolen piece of garlic bread and sticks his elbows on the table. “I’ll have to look at my schedule, pencil something in. We’ll figure it out.”
“Good, I’m crap at planning these things out,” Niall says, grinning and it’s brighter than Liam’s, even, and Zayn glances down at his plate for a second, feeling his heartbeat pick up.
+
“‘I find myself thinking about how the hottest stars are always white and blue,’” Harry says later, after Niall and Liam had gone home and Louis had locked himself in the study with his paints.
“Sorry, what?” Zayn asks, putting down his sketchbook and staring at Harry.
“‘Sometimes when I listen carefully, I think I hear you singing. Maybe it’s just the sound of the wind hitting our broken strings,’” Harry continues, his eyes closed and his fingers tapping against his notebook.
“Testing out a new poem? Doesn’t sound like your usual style, mate.”
“Gonna go check on Lou,” Harry says instead of answering, swinging his legs off the chair and mussing Zayn’s hair on the way out of the room.
“Wanker,” Zayn mutters, picking up his sketchbook and turning to a blank page, drawing out faint lines at first, going over them until they’re darker, more scattered; a group of people on a stage with hollow chests, broken strings swinging in the empty spaces left behind, and the stars shining bright above them.
+
Niall becomes a fixture in their lives after that--coming round in the mornings and pouting at Harry until he pulls some trousers on and cooks breakfast; stealing Louis away from the study and his stale music hits for games of pick up football in the park; jumping on Liam and tickling him until he’s bright red and gasping for breath--but it’s Zayn he spends the most time with, slipping into place like he’d always been there.
And Niall sneaks under Zayn’s skin like the red thread he still can’t forget, like London, until he’s filling up space and beating in time with his heart. And he’s learning, quietly, filing the information away for later, that Niall’s made up of extremes: the way he’ll curl up on the couch when they’re watching a film, a blanket thrown over his hips and clutched just beneath his chin; or the way he’ll bound into the studio when Zayn’s finishing up, eyes bright and the beanie he nicked from Harry half falling off his hair, chatting about a jumper he thought he’d seen at the shops last week and how Louis wanted to go out to the pubs later.
And Zayn learns, too, that they fit together, when Niall’s head is on his chest and their hands are a breadth apart. He’s softer then, Niall, more muted, his voice a hum against Zayn’s chest when he talks about home, his favorite foods, the films his dad used to make him watch on family movie nights.
“You miss it, don’t you?” Zayn asks quietly.
“Been ages since I was there,” Niall sighs, rolling onto his side, his back against Zayn’s chest, and tugging Zayn’s arm over his shoulder, closer to his heart.
“There’s a holiday coming up, y’know,” Zayn says lightly, catching Niall’s heartbeat with his fingertips, slow and steady and a bit like an anchor.
“Yeah?”
“We could go, if you like.”
“Might be nice,” Niall says, his heartbeat spiking, “showing you around Ireland.”
“Think I’d like it, yeah,” Zayn mutters, grinning a bit when Niall pushes himself up on an elbow, turns to face Zayn, and they’re close enough that Zayn could just reach out and take, but then Niall’s smiling back and dropping his head onto Zayn’s chest, tugging him closer and pressing a smile against his tshirt.
He wakes up a few hours later, folded in on himself, shivering into the emptiness of the couch, and blearily, he registers that Niall is gone, that it’s dark out, that there’s a note tucked into his sketchbook. Had to run home but see you later, yeah, the note reads in Niall’s spindly writing, the ink shining a glittering red in the faded light. And there’s a bit at the very bottom of the page that’s crossed out, and Zayn holds it up to the desk light, squints at it until he can make it out. Holding you to the Ireland thing so you better not back out haha! it reads, and Zayn rubs at the back of his neck, swallowing a grin, and carefully folds the note and tucks it into his wallet.
+
“Think I might want a tattoo,” Niall mentions one night during family dinner, sliding his plate out of Harry’s reach.
“What of?” Liam asks, kneeling on his chair and ladling soup into Louis’ bowl for him.
“Dunno yet,” Niall answers, taking a long pull of his drink and looking at Zayn for a moment before continuing, “But I’ve been thinking about it for a while, y’know?”
“Might want one too,” Zayn pipes up. “On the my wrist.”
“Like the paint thing?” Harry says, eyes brightening. “Still want me to hold your hand?”
“Cool it, curly,” Louis says, flicking soup off his spoon at Harry’s cheek. “Only I’m allowed to hold Z’s hand. Zayn,” he continues, turning in his chair to face him, “would you like me to hold your hand? I’m quite good at it, got references and everything.”
“He’s not,” Harry tells him, wiping at his cheek with his sleeve. “Too twitchy.”
“Shut it, you, or else,” Louis says, eyes glittering. “The only exception I’ll make is for Niall. You’ve got a week to decide Malik, so think carefully.”
“Niall,” Zayn tells him, leaning back in his chair and winking across the table at Harry.
“Traitor!” Louis exclaims, slamming a hand on the table.
“Well, I think you made the right choice,” Niall says mildly, dunking a chunk of bread in his soup and looking round at them all.
+
It’s near two in the morning when his phone rings, and Zayn reaches blindly for it, cursing Louis for changing his ringtone to something that sounds like a building being knocked down, making a mental reminder to change it when he wakes up.
“Z?” a small voice says when he finally finds his phone and flips it open.
“Niall? Christ, what are you doing awake? Are you alright?”
“Can’t sleep,” he says, “tell me a story?”
Zayn pauses, searching his memory before saying, haltingly, hesitantly, “d’you know about the red strings of fate?”
“No,” Niall says quietly. “Tell me?”
“Everyone,” Zayn starts, a bit uncertainly, trying to recall the stories, “is made up of threads, sewn together at the seams, and they’re all different colors. Green and purple and blue, and they all mean something different.”
“Like wires,” Niall says into the phone.
“Yeah, like wires. And the red thread, it means--it means, well, soulmates. And that’s the one that sort of pokes through and travels the world, and it’s looking for something, y’know? Its other half or whatever. And it can stretch or tangle or wander, but it can’t ever break, and it’s sort of like a marker of fate. Saying that, that the two people connected by the same thread are fated to be together, and that once they find each other, the thread ties itself off and it’s, y’know, destiny. Or whatever.”
“S’nice story,” Niall mumbles and Zayn closes his eyes, imagines that Niall’s sitting next to him.
“Yeah,” Zayn says, thinking of the way Niall’s eyes light up when he’s excited and how his hands move through the air and the way his heartbeat slows to a murmur when they fit together on the couch and how he’s all colors and light. “Yeah.”
“Z? Did you fall asleep on me?” Niall asks after a minute.
“Still here, sunshine. Want me to let you go to sleep?”
“No, just--just stay on the line?”
“Course,” Zayn says, and then they’re silent but for their breathing.
Zayn wakes in the morning with the phone still pressed to his ear, marks from the buttons pressed into his cheek, and he stretches, flips the phone between his fingers, and wonders again about red strings and fate.
+
He asks Niall later, wandering around a Tesco’s looking for some chocolate for Harry, about the night before, why he couldn’t sleep.
“Homesick, I guess.” Niall answers, ducking his head and stuffing his hands in his pockets. “Hits pretty hard sometimes, y’know?”
“Only a few weeks till that holiday, though.”
“Still want to come?” Niall asks, looking up at Zayn, his eyes bluer than he’s ever seen.
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Zayn tells him, spotting Harry’s chocolate. “Hey, Ni?” he asks on their way out of the store. “Why me? Why did you call me last night?”
“Dunno,” Niall shrugs. “Kind of like an anchor?” he says, voice going quiet at the end.
“Know the feeling,” Zayn says, reaching out and touching Niall’s elbow and smiling softly.
+
He’s twenty-two, and in love; and he wonders if it should be rose-colored and throwing their heads back when they laugh, but it’s tinged with cigarette ash and the shitty beer Harry likes instead, full of quiet nights spent painting while Niall plays guitar in the corner, singing softly.
(A confession: he likes it better that way, despite Louis shaking his head and laughing, telling him that he’s not in some hipster movie even as he’s tracing patterns on Harry’s thigh, leaning over to press a kiss on his shoulder.)
+
They get their tattoos on Niall’s twenty first birthday, Harry texting Zayn a heart and a picture of his hand before they’d even left, promising to have a cake and all of Niall’s favorite foods waiting for them when they get back.
It hadn’t taken them long to decide what to get, when it came down to it, although Zayn lingered over yin-yang designs and a colored paint splatter, and Niall hovered over one of the phases of the moon for a moment. “Alright, yeah?” Zayn asks. “Want me to call Haz down to hold your hand?”
“Shove off,” Niall answers, shoving at Zayn’s shoulder and giggling.
+
“Give us a look, then!” Louis calls out when they get home, barely sitting up from where he’s leaned against Harry when they come in.
Niall glances sideways at Zayn and they nod, flipping over their wrists at the same time, showcasing the tiny anchors there, black with matching red, red ropes winding around them.
+
The tattoos aren’t even yet healed when Zayn backs Niall into the corner of his kitchen, leaving bruises, dark and red and his, across Niall’s collarbone, knocking his forehead against Niall’s and kissing him before pulling away, breathless and heart beating too fast.
“Some more red for me?” Niall asks shakily, hand trailing down to Zayn’s hip and pulling him closer.
“Thought it might look better scattered, yeah,” Zayn grins.
“Always was a good color for me,” Niall says, and then they’re quiet for quite a while.
+
He’s twenty-two, and moving in with Niall; thinking that he doesn’t have as many boxes as he thought he would and where was he going to hang up his Clockwork Orange poster and if Harry and Louis had already turned his bedroom into a library for Harry, when Niall clambers in behind him and interrupts him.
“Look at this!” he says, throwing his hands in the air. “Like a mansion or something, isn’t it? We’re gonna need to go round Liam’s and nick some of his stuff to fill this place up.”
“He might notice though, yeah? Maybe it’d be better to grab some of Harry and Louis’ stuff.”
“Or buy our own,” Niall says, and then laughs, sitting down and leaning against the box marked comic books: DON’T LET LIAM TOUCH.
“Love you, sunshine,” Zayn says, stretching his legs out and letting his boots knock against Niall’s trainers.
“You too, Z.”
+
He’s twenty-two, and happy.
[ alternative ending ]