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Zayn is twenty years-old and sometimes he feels more tired than someone three times his age. It's not just working three jobs and still barely scraping together enough for rent and groceries and bills, it's not just watching what's supposed to be the best years of his life pass him by, it's not just seeing other people have all these things, all the things he never will, and being so ungrateful for them, it's not just sleeping alone on a moth-eaten mattress in the tiniest flat in Britain, it's not just sometimes wondering what would happen if he just refused to do it anymore, refused to wake up at dawn and go to job number one, because it's all so pointless. It's - it's the hope. It's the hope that it'll get better. That it won't always be like this. That's the worst part of it.
*
He enjoys the quiet the most. Which is kind of counter-productive, because quiet means no customers means no money. But sometimes he can just block it all out, his own thoughts and the monotony of his life and sometimes he forgets it all, forgets everything, forgets how he came to this place, forgets wanting to scream so hard that his throat rips open, forgets that night, forgets their faces, forgets all the things he used to want, forgets. And he can be at peace for all of five or ten minutes. And then something happens - a car horn blares or a couple noisy teenagers come around the corner or Niall starts playing a new song across the street and it all comes back in a rush.
Zayn sits and waits. Waits for nothing and no one. Waits for someone to come up to him and ask him to draw their picture. Waits to capture someone else's life and happiness while his doesn't exist. Waits. Waits for something that's never going to happen.
*
Sometimes he and Niall go out and the one who made more on the day will pay for the drinks. Niall's cheerful, drunk or not, and he likes it, actually likes it, playing his music for people, taking requests, throwing in original stuff, occasionally selling a CD. (The first day they'd met, he'd offered Zayn one for free, but he couldn't accept, told him he'd draw him in exchange. His portrait is still stuck to the inside of Niall's guitar case. It's probably the most flattering thing that's ever happened to Zayn. Zayn likes his music, it's soothing and warm, makes his run-down flat a little cosier.)
Niall doesn't ask a lot of questions too, which he's grateful for. He knows his parents aren't around anymore, but that's it. There are only a few people he still talks to who he knew before (before). Louis, who was the closest thing to a friend he had in high school, not that he actually turned up for school a lot. He dropped out a couple months before graduation. Zayn did eventually get his diploma after (after). He works even harder than Zayn does now, but he has people to take care of. His mum's still around, but she can use all the help she can get with his four younger sisters. Zayn is kind of jealous sometimes but then he feels awful and selfish because he almost can't take care of himself as it is. He runs into Liam sometimes too; he's still working with his dad at the factory. Zayn remembers him in music class sometimes, how he'd instantly come out of his shell when asked to sing, how you'd be awed and amazed for a few minutes and then he'd go back to being shy, sweet Liam and you'd almost forget the beautiful sound that came out of him. Zayn wonders how they all got here, how it all turned out like this, how any of it is fair.
*
He goes home, does what he always does, cleans up, reads a little (there are more books than anything in the flat - yellowing, dog-eared paperbacks he gets from the used books section at job number two), sketches for a while, falls asleep with the pen still between his fingers, dreams about things he shouldn't.
*
This kid comes by (only he can't be more than a year younger than Zayn but - he's got that innocence, that carefreeness Zayn hasn't had in years; he's still just a boy) and Niall knows him somehow, met him at a gig or something. He goes to uni, of course, and he's wearing a really nice coat and a beanie over his curls and his cheeks are pink and eyes bright and he smiles so freely and gives as much attention to Zayn as the girl he's with and tells him how great his drawings are and gives him extra and almost forgets to leave when they're all done.
It's typical rich uni student behaviour, he guesses. Only not really. Because they're usually smug bastards who only bring their girlfriends because they want to do it and who criticise everything without knowing anything and grudgingly hand over a few dollar bills.
Of course Niall would make friends with the nicest, most polite uni kid in the city. He's not surprised in the slightest.
*
Job number three isn't a real job. Only it feels like the only real one sometimes. Because walking around when the sun comes up and seeing your work in the daylight where thousands of people pass by everyday is pretty surreal. Sometimes it feels like the only real kind of art. Not the kind that's ensconced in museums just for the elite and sophisticated to see, but just - this, the kind that an entire city can experience, if they want to, if they care to. Maybe it'll resonate so deeply with someone walking home at night that they'll just stop and look at it as silent tears flow down their cheeks, maybe a teenage girl will take a picture of it and it'll get 10,000 notes on Tumblr and someone in the middle of the worst day of their life will stop scrolling and just - decide not to.
The first thing Zayn ever spray-painted on a city wall was: your job's not don
The next morning, he doesn't think about not getting up.
*
He doesn't expect to ever run into him again. He's heading home from the supermarket when he spots him in the parking lot.
"Hey! Zayn?" And of course he remembers his name. Zayn's not used to having people recognise him when he's not at his easel; he's been pretty content to just fade into the background of the city.
"Hey. Harry, right?" He smiles a little too wide at Zayn remembering him.
"Yeah. You live around here?" And it's a totally innocuous question, he knows, just looking at his face.
"A couple blocks away, yeah."
"Oh, do you want a ride or something?" And it's not a comment on anything; it's just a simple offer.
"Do you just offer rides to total strangers all the time?" he says, because how is this kid still alive in this town.
"Yes," he says, but it's obviously a joke. "But you're a friend of Niall's, aren't you? So not a stranger."
And the way he looks at him, like he's totally sure about that, is enough to make him say, against his better judgement, "Okay."
*
"So, how are you and - uh -"
"Taylor?"
"Yeah. Sorry."
"S'okay. We broke up anyway." He shrugs, looking absolutely unaffected by it.
"Oh. Sorry," he says again. Stupidly. Why did he even decide to ask? Small talk hasn't been his thing for years and years. Maybe never. And he suddenly feels so old again - so much older than Harry and his vintage band t-shirt and his pretty girlfriend-of-the-week and his smile.
"It's right over here," he says relieved.
Harry stops, expression betraying nothing.
"Thanks for the ride," he says and he means it, means thanks for doing something nice for me when I can't remember the last time someone did.
"No problem," he says smiling that disconcertingly earnest smile again.
Zayn gets out, walks the five flights of stairs up to his flat.
*
That night, he pulls his hood up and draws a figure in a Ramones t-shirt, long legs, curly hair, but across his face he just scrawls Wasted Youth.
*
The thing about it is now - after everything - he'd never want that again. Would never want a normal, comfortable life where nothing means anything. Where all you'd ever worry about is when the next party is or your next fuck is, deadlines on papers and missing exams because you're too hungover. It's not Harry - not really. Harry seems like a decent person. But just - he doesn't get it. None of them ever could. No one will ever understand, so Zayn doesn't ever tell anyone, hides in his flat with his books and his art, spills his soul in bright colours in the dark every night all over the infrastructure of the city, draws other people's faces over and over again. They all start to look the same after a while.
*
Harry shows up and he's like, "I want you to draw me," and "I want to give it to my mum for Christmas," and he laughs, like he's embarrassed or nervous or something else.
Zayn doesn't know how to begin to draw him without giving away how much he's thought about him. How he's probably sketched the lines of his wrists and fingers, how they grasped the steering wheel, how he's traced his jaw and carefully outlined his mouth, shaded the contours of his face, got to the eyes and stopped, considered, how he made them a bit uncertain, like he's never seen them but how he imagined they would be.
He starts slow. He lets it all go, lets it fade away, until there's nothing but Harry and a blank page. Harry fidgets a lot and he's bad at this, it's like he wants to rearrange his limbs every ten seconds and Zayn wants to capture it all, wants to capture all of that frenetic energy, is frustrated when he can't. He settles. Settles for Harry, his smile demure, on its way to becoming that full, real one of his but not quite there yet. It almost gives the illusion of motion.
Harry's oddly quiet when he looks at it.
"Do you like it?" Zayn has to ask after a few minutes.
"It's perfect," he says, glancing up at him. "It's like - it's like I'm seeing something I've never seen before but always knew was in there, you know?"
And his eyes - they're sort of sad in the picture. Maybe it was unconscious, maybe Zayn's always been seeing it too, just never realised.
"Hey, my band's playing next week at that new bar downtown. Niall's probably told you about it?"
"Yeah," Zayn says automatically, not really registering what he's saying anymore.
"You should come." It kind of sounds like, I want you to come.
*
Harry's transformed into someone else once again on the stage.
His energy's channeled right into every word he sings and every movement he makes and it's electric. He is. He's wildfire and thunderstorms and darkness and light. Zayn's never seen so many sides to one person in such a short space of time. Never met a person with so much inside of him. And they're good things, the hidden ones. Not like the things Zayn hides are. Those are consuming and ugly and they kind of keep him alive in some strange way.
Harry lives off of screams and cheers and love and joy and hope. And Zayn doesn't know how to stop himself from destroying all of it.
*
Harry finds him smoking outside in the alley and says, "Hey, did you like it?" just as cautious as Zayn had.
"You're great. You're gonna be - you're gonna be great." It feels like something he hasn't allowed himself to express in the longest while. It feels like hope.
"You too," Harry says. "You're really good, you know."
And he wants to say, You don't know - You don't know anything.
"I mean," he continues. "I know artists. Real, proper artists with degrees and everything and they're not - You're better than all of them."
They words die on his tongue. He still doesn't know though. Doesn't know anything. Doesn't know how much Zayn wants things he'll never have. How everything he's ever wanted, everything he's ever known, just slipped right through his hands. Harry doesn't know. No one knows.
Harry knows some things though. Knows what to say to him when no one else does. Knows how to deliver a lyric that feels like it's punching a hole right through his chest cavity. Knows how to laugh at himself and laugh at the world and how to make Zayn smile.
"I don't know what you want from me," he says because Harry may not get it but he doesn't get Harry either.
"I don't - I don't want anything, Zayn," the most subdued he's ever been. "I just - I just want your art. If you'll let me borrow it for a while."
Zayn can't even find the words to respond.
*
That night he draws an extended hand clutching a huge, bleeding heart. Another extended hand taking it.
you can have it.
*
Harry spends a whole Saturday sitting on the sidewalk with him, making stupid jokes about random people passing by and singing along with Niall. Zayn thought he'd drive customers away but he seems to do the opposite. He makes funny faces at little kids to get them to smile and tells the douchey boyfriends how lucky they are, making all the girls blush. Zayn has this sudden feeling, like he wants to keep him.
When he's done for the day and he's packing up, Harry just looks at him expectantly. "So you're going home now?"
"Yeah, I guess."
"Do you wanna hang out or something?" Like they didn't just hang out for six hours straight.
"Yeah, okay."
*
It's weird. No one's really ever been to his building much less seen inside his flat, but he's not self-conscious or anything. Not with Harry. Because Harry doesn't get it, but sometimes he thinks he might if he told him. Because Harry doesn't say anything and helps him carry all his stuff up the dozens of stairs and just - Zayn still wants to know why he's here, why he cares, what's wrong with him and his life because no one just wants to hang out with Zayn if they aren't pretty fucked-up too.
Maybe he was telling the truth though, Zayn thinks, watching him study all the drawings he has stuck to the wall. And some of them are initial sketches of graffiti he's done and he's afraid that maybe he's seen one of them before and just - Maybe this was a bad idea.
But Harry sits on the floor and drinks the last can of soda he has and asks him about his art and looks like he doesn't want to go anywhere.
"My parents are fighting a lot these days," he says eventually, and it's casual, like just another throwaway comment. And oh. Oh.
He wants to say, I get it. But he doesn't, not really. They never fought that much. Or maybe they did but he's erased all of that stuff. Erased everything but the good. Because maybe they didn't have much and sometimes they had to go without all the cool shit the other kids got for Christmas but they were happy, for a while, and they were together.
He's going to see the girls tomorrow, like he does every other Sunday. Christmas is in a couple weeks, he remembers, and he has to find the cash to buy them toys. He can't ever disappoint them.
Harry leaves eventually, and Zayn doesn't say anything at all about his parents.
*
Louis talks a lot and complains a lot, about his fucking boss and his fucking useless stepdad and his fucking house which is basically falling apart and it's cathartic somehow for him. It's good for Zayn too, because he's not alone. Not as alone as he thinks.
"I saw one of your pieces the other day," he says, out of nowhere, and Louis knows, had sort of figured it out on his own.
"How'd you know it was mine?" he says innocently.
"Please. I know your work. So who is he?" he asks, eagerly.
"Who?"
"The boy with the curly hair."
"He's - no one. Just some friend of Niall's." Because Zayn hasn't hooked up with anyone, really, in the last three years and Louis usually doesn't ask about it, because he knows. He knows. But it's - it's been three years and maybe he's thinking it can't last forever. Zayn doesn't know, doesn't know if there's some kind of specific timeframe when it comes to these things, doesn't know when you're supposed to try to be normal again, doesn't know if he ever can. He just does what he has to do right now, all he can do, and tries to not think about it. Although it never works.
"So you're not into him?"
"It's not - He's - he's a rich kid from the other side of town."
"Which makes it even more exciting. Star-crossed lovers…"
"This is real life, not West Side Story, Louis." And Louis used to want to act once upon a time. He was really great in all the school plays. He hardly mentions it now though.
"If only real life was as good as West Side Story though." He sighs, like he's imagining some other life, and this - this is dangerous, all the new hope that's suddenly springing up in Zayn's life.
*
Louis gets weird around Liam and maybe it's because he used to tease him a bit back at school but Liam's over it, as Zayn's told him a million times. Louis still acts abrupt and awkward every time he sees him though.
"Hey," he says, smiling at both of them.
"Hey," Louis responds, quiet, and averts his eyes quickly.
"You guys want beers?"
"Yeah, thanks," Zayn says before Louis can say something tactless. Liam disappears, looking kind of confused.
"God, Lou, he's just a normal person, you know. You can treat him like one."
"Did you know I've had a crush on him since I heard him singing Justin Timberlake in the locker room when he thought no one else was around?" And oh. That's - unexpected. But also kind of not.
"What? Why didn't you say anything?"
"Because - it was stupid and embarrassing and God, he got really hot in the last two years, didn't he? Have you seen his arms? Fuck, he's coming back -"
They settle in with their drinks and wait for Niall to appear on stage. Zayn tries to inconspicuously look around to see if Harry's there. He's not, but halfway through Niall's last song, he shows up looking kind of wrecked, hair a mess and clothes looking like he just grabbed them off the floor and tossed them on haphazardly. He just stands in the back, looking distracted, fiddling with his phone.
Niall finishes and everyone cheers and he uses the moment to yell, "I'll be back in a sec," to Louis and Liam, and leaves them there alone, Louis looking kind of terrified.
He mouths, "Outside?" to Harry and he nods, follows him.
*
"Hey, you okay?" and he kind of wants to smooth out the collar of his jacket and tuck his curls behind his ears but Zayn hasn't known how to comfort anyone in years. Maybe dealing with his sisters after took all of it out of him. Maybe it's a finite resource, maybe he doesn't have any left.
"Yeah - I just had a stupid fucking fight with my dad. I think he's cheating on my mum." He laughs and it's this terrible, bitter sound.
"That's - I'm sorry, Harry," and Harry's rubbing his hands together uselessly, obviously having forgotten gloves, and Zayn takes them in his own and blows on them and Harry laughs again, and it's small, but it's a real one this time.
"I'm sorry. I mean, you shouldn't have to deal with my shit," and fuck, it's almost too much, that he thinks that, when Zayn wants to spill his fucking guts to him about everything. "I just - sometimes I think there's no one else."
And he's known him for six weeks and Zayn's starting to think the same thing.
*
Zayn draws a row of faces that are all the same on the side of a building. There's only one that's different.
Under it, he writes: there's no one else.
*
He gets a text: i want to show you something. There's an address too.
It's a gallery and he's friends with the artist apparently.
"I thought you'd like it," he says, shrugging, and he does, he does.
It's not anything Zayn would paint, it's all pastels and details and subtlety and Zayn's always been about bold statements. He sees why Harry likes it though. Harry likes intricacy, likes seeing the layers in the things, likes deciphering them. Sometimes he looks at Zayn, weirdly concentrated, and Zayn wonders if he's trying to figure him out. A moment later and he's back to normal. Maybe he's good at being patient though, at waiting for things to reveal themselves to him.
He wonders how long Harry will wait for him.
*
He doesn't have to wait long, it turns out.
It's a Saturday night and it's snowing and he's just making tea, not even thinking about going out anywhere, and there's a knock on his door.
Harry's trying not to shiver too hard in his doorway.
"Hey, I'm sorry - I should've called or something - I just -"
"Hey, come in," he says, in a dull state of shock.
He makes a cup for Harry, places it carefully in his hands. Harry just stares at it for a while, doesn't say anything.
"Are you okay?" he asks eventually.
"It's over," he says, almost like he's in a daze. "They're getting a divorce."
And Zayn's not surprised, not really, and Harry probably isn't either, but he just - he just wants to do something, make a difference somehow, spare him a little pain. But he can't do it. Can't do it because his own pain has made him a shell void of comfort and hope to give to anyone else.
"I just -" he continues. "I kind of always knew it'd happen, but you're never ready for it, are you? No matter how old you get, no matter how much you think that it doesn't matter, that it'll be okay."
"I was eighteen when they died," Zayn says softly, and it just comes out. And Harry's just staring at him, unmoving, unblinking.
He sees him inhale and start to recover from finally hearing it. "Niall told me - Well, he told me they died, but not -"
"It was a car crash. It was stupid - someone ran a red light and that was it." They were gone. Multiple lives destroyed, his own included. Just one tiny stupid fucking decision.
"Zayn, I -" And maybe he's not equipped to handle this, maybe he can't ever understand, doesn't have the tools or experience. Zayn's glad he doesn't though. Glad he can be innocent a little while longer.
"I'm sorry about your parents. But maybe it's for the best. Maybe they'll be happier." Happy and free and alive. AliveAliveAlive.
"Yeah," Harry says, finally calming down a little. "Maybe they will be."
*
He wakes up to Harry's head next to his on the lumpy pillow.
He tries not to wake him as he gets up and gets dressed but he's almost at door when Harry sits up and says, "Where are you going?" He looks kind of concerned, so Zayn just stops, turns around, meets his eyes.
"I'm going to see my sisters," he breathes out. His eyes drop then, to his hands that are knotting themselves together.
Suddenly, Harry's right in front of him though and he's separating them, lacing his own fingers through Zayn's, urging him to look at him again. "I didn't - I didn't know you had sisters. You didn't tell me, I mean." And Harry's told him everything under the sun about Gemma, and how brilliant she is and how infuriated it makes him and how he's going to beat her boyfriend up when she brings him home, he swears.
This is - this is common ground. Something he can understand. Because Harry loves his mum and his sister so much and he'd do anything for them.
"They've been in foster care since - since the accident. And I can't - I can't do anything to help them." It comes out of him in a sob, and he's never put it into words, how he's been working extra shifts at the bookstore to buy dolls for them and how it's all he can do, all he can hope to do is make them smile for one day, because every other day of the year, it's out of his hands. He can't do anything about it, can't do anything about it without a degree and a real job and he's not going to get any of those things without money, money he doesn't have, money he has to spend right now to eat and live and survive and he can't think too much about the future because it's too much like an impossible dream, too much like hope.
"God, Zayn, you were just a kid. You're still just a kid."
"It's just - It wasn't supposed to be like this. I was supposed to go to uni and study art and they were supposed to have their parents. They were supposed to be alive."
Harry wraps his arms around him, holds his shaking body as close as he can, says, "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," over and over again and Zayn lets himself cry for the first time in years.
*
Harry drive him there and sits in the car the whole time (although he tells him he can come in, it's fine), and doesn't ask him any questions after, just squeezes Zayn's hand with his own for a second before returning it to the steering wheel.
*
And maybe this is it - this is getting back to normal. Starting to be okay again. Letting someone in. Trusting someone new. Letting someone see all the shattered pieces of him under his skin. Maybe it doesn't make the ache go away but it dulls it a little, makes it slightly more bearable. It doesn't make his life any less difficult but it makes him want to get through the rough parts. Because there's something to look forward to on the other side.
*
His last message to this city is: they're not alive. but YOU are.
*
Louis calls and apparently he's been spending time with Liam and he's been thinking about auditioning for X Factor and Louis's convinced him to actually do it, so that's happening and they should come with him, he wants them to come with him.
And Liam deserves this. He always has. Because he's talented and gracious and lovely and the country is going to love him. He knows it.
Zayn allows himself the tiniest flicker of hope in his heart after years of darkness and coldness and silence.
*
He makes it through. He actually makes it through. And Louis fucking kisses him with cameras on them and Liam's eyes are wide with shock at first and then he seems to realise what's happening and he kisses back. Niall laughs like a maniac and Harry just reaches for Zayn's hand and smiles at him.
*
Harry turns up after class one day and he's struggling to contain his excitement, Zayn can tell.
"Just say it. I don't want you to explode all over my flat. It's already a mess as it is."
He rummages in his bag for a second, retrieves whatever he was looking for and hands it to Zayn. It's a pamphlet from the university.
"There's a scholarship for art students. You just have to send in a portfolio and then go in to an interview and - you can get it, Zayn. I know you can." He looks like he believes it, like he believes it desperately.
Zayn's just quiet for a moment, thinking, thinking practically, thinking about the logistics. And it's reality; it's not an impossible dream, not anymore. It's right in front of him. The possibility.
There's one thing though. The most important thing.
"But I can't - I can't just go to school and leave them behind. Not now."
"Zayn, you can't, you can't help them if you don't help yourself first. You can still draw people. I know you like doing it, I know you like seeing their faces when they look at their portrait for the first time, I know -"
Zayn doesn't let him finish, just reaches up and pulls him down gently so that their lips meet. Finally.
Harry's arms flail for a second but then he's winding them around Zayn's neck, kissing him properly.
"Are you going to do it though?" he asks when they pull away, eyes huge and wild.
"Yeah," he says, breathlessly, before kissing him again.
*
Zayn spends a week and a half selecting the pieces to put in his portfolio. Harry gives him his space. He's been with his band, writing new songs, and they've been thinking about recording an EP soon and it's great and exciting and Zayn's actually going to pay for it when it's out and it'll be worth every cent.
Finally, he mails it and Harry's sitting on his floor again, this time with a bottle of cheap wine, and there's nothing to celebrate yet, he insists but Harry just says, "This is only the beginning, you'll see," the way he does, like he's absolutely sure, like his belief will make it happen.
Right now, it feels like he could.
*
The day he hears back from the university asking him to come in for the interview, Harry takes him to another exhibit. And there are dozens of framed photographs on the walls and he's not sure what he's seeing at first, not until Harry grabs his hand and yanks him in the direction of a huge one covering almost an entire wall. And it's - it's his. His art. Someone's taken pictures of anonymous street art all over the city and it's all in here now. So he can see that it was appreciated and it means something and it matters.
there's no one else, written in large red letters jumping out at him from the frame.
And Harry knew, he's always known. He tightens his grip on his hand, almost like reassurance. When Zayn looks at him, he gives him a tiny nod. There are tears collecting in his eyes now and he's not afraid to let them flow. Because they're good ones. They're all the good things in him rising to the surface after being buried for so long.
Harry buys the Wasted Youth photograph because he's ridiculous like that and he's talking about using it as the EP cover and it's all crazy and confusing and too much and Zayn just wants to get him back to his flat and hold him so close and tell him thank you over and over again.
*
He takes Harry to see his sisters at Christmas and at the door, he just stops, face blank.
"Hey, you okay?" Zayn asks him.
"Yeah, I just - I'm happy. Really happy. For the first time in a long time."
Zayn smiles, says, "Me too."