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Sun has already started peeking out and illuminating the sky in soft shades of orange and pink when Zayn wakes up at 5AM with a gasp, waking up from a nightmare. His breathing slows down after a few seconds, after he looks at his phone and settles himself into reality. The open curtains present him with a sight of his backyard, all the greenery bathed in the warmth of sunrise. Knowing he won’t be able to fall asleep again, he gets up and pulls on a pair of sweatpants that were lying on the floor. The other side of his bed is cold and empty anyways, so putting on a pair of stray Converse at 5AM before going outside doesn’t feel like running away because it isn’t.
Stitch has been woken up by all the commotion and is now lazily following Zayn downstairs, still so sleepy he doesn’t even bark or realize when they step outside instead of into the kitchen where the food is. He finds a squeaky toy by the sliding door and grabs it, leaving it in his mouth as he follows Zayn further into the garden where the plants are.
Zayn always gets weird looks from people when he tells them that he likes to garden. It’s like what? Pop stars can’t tend to their own gardens? Those people must’ve never tried it because if they did, they would know how fucking amazing it is. Not only seeing something grow out of a single little seed that was put into ground, something that you can actually eat. It’s also the feel of working with ground and just taking that quiet time to think, to stay off the grid for a few hours and be enveloped by nature but in a different way than going on a hike and exploring a forest.
There are a few tools in a box right next to the tomatoes but he doesn’t take any of them. Instead he just sits on the ground and idly breaks off dry leaves.
“Morning, tomatoes. Did you have a good night?”
If some people think that gardening is silly then what is talking to plants? In reality, it’s actually quite cool. It’s just like talking to your dog – they can’t talk back, they won’t expose your secrets and all they can give in return is a little love. The only difference is that a dog licks your face and tomato plant gives you... well, tomatoes.
It’s part of the therapeutic aspect of gardening. It doesn’t include just the wonderful feeling of damp ground between your fingers or seeing your plants stand tall and green, it’s also the peace. Some people sing while gardening, some listen to music and some talk to their plants. No, they’re not crazy and they’re also not witches.
“Well, I didn’t,” Zayn says after the tomatoes obviously don’t respond. Maybe they did. In their own way. With leaves swishing in the wind… or whatever, Zayn’s not high enough for this kind of thinking. Or maybe he’ll start believing it once he’s eighty and no one’s taking him seriously anyways.
“I had like a… nightmare, sort of? It wasn’t like those types where you can’t, I don’t know, reach something so you just keep running and running with actually getting further away from whatever you wanted to reach. But it was so real, so fucking vivid that I almost woke up to a heart attack. It was like my normal life but this… I can’t even really remember what it was exactly but this terrible dread and feeling of loneliness kept following me around.
“And then the dream showed like almost an exact memory of our last fight but it ended differently? We didn’t walk away from each other. Not even just out of anger or frustration, so definitely not for good like I dreamt we did. Even in the dream, I knew that it didn’t end like that, that we didn’t say those words but for some reason I could literally feel… fucking broken. And that’s when I woke up.”
Stitch has made his way back to Zayn from where he was playing with the squeaky bone away from the plants. He’s leaned his head against Zayn’s thigh and he’s looking at him with those irresistible puppy eyes.
“What’s going on, little man?” Zayn asks as he scratches his ears. Stitch just closes his eyes in delight.
He doesn’t talk to the tomatoes again as he just keeps scratching Stitch, watching the dog as he dozes off peacefully. The sun is starting to be warm on his bare back, a sign that it’s probably closer to 6AM than 5AM already. Zayn’s starting to get sleepy, the initial shock of the dream has already worn off and his body is reminding him again that he’s slept for just over two hours. He’d take a nap in the grass right there if he wasn’t risking a pretty nasty sunburn considering it’s July in Los Angeles.
“Figured I’d find you here.”
The voice is better than any wakeup call. Zayn fears he actually did fall asleep and this is just another dream only more pleasant (so far) but he lifts his eyes up from Stitch and he’s sure then that he isn’t dreaming.
“You weren’t supposed to come until the evening. If you’d come at all.”
Harry smiles wistfully and looks down at his shoes. “You’re stupid if you think I wouldn’t come back to you.”
“We barely talked. I felt like we were drifting apart and then you just… wouldn’t come back and that would be it. We’d be done.”
Harry lifts his head up but doesn’t move from where he’s leaning against a pillar on the patio. The soft morning light makes him look even more beautiful if that’s possible. A curl has fallen down his forehead and Zayn’s heart hurts at the thought that they haven’t seen each other in weeks.
“I love you more than anything in the world,” Harry says simply, plainly like he just stated the time or the weather. Like it’s the easiest thing in the world. “We had a fight. We… acted like we talked it out because we didn’t want to fight anymore because I was leaving to finish the tour. Then I left and because we’ve both got thick skulls and are too stubborn for our own good, we barely talked. But don’t you think, not even for a second I wouldn’t come back.”
Zayn doesn’t say anything as he watches Harry walk across the grass to the vegetable garden. He sits down on the grass and Zayn doesn’t miss the small huff of annoyance Harry lets out as his Gucci clad arse meets the dirty ground.
“Why’d you come earlier?” Zayn asks and the question feels so insignificant at the moment. With thousands of things that he could ask Harry, this one is at the bottom of the priority list but perhaps they need it now, need to start off easy, simple. Wait for the bigger things to naturally make their way into the conversation.
Harry smiles softly, perhaps with a bit of sadness lining the corners of his mouth. “I missed you. Why else? I figured spending the night in a plane is better than sleeping in a hotel bed alone. I just wanted to go home.”
Home. Such a simple word that holds maybe too much meaning. It gives Zayn a bit of hope, hearing Harry say that home is their house, this place in the ever-warm sprawling city of Los Angeles and not his mum’s place or even his London house. But over the years, they really did make this house their home because it’s just them. Their clothes mixing in the walk-in closet, their record collections basically becoming one, their pictures and sales certification plaques hung all over the walls. The memories are the actual foundation of a home and this house has witnessed countless of them. From birthday parties verging on wild to simple things as them burning dinner because they were too busy kissing or lying on the grass one August evening time and time ago, watching the sun set over Los Angeles. It is home.
Having Harry so close after weeks and not touching him is nearly unbearable so Zayn gives in to the desire and gently puts his hand on top of Harry’s. An invisible weight falls from his chest when Harry grabs his hand, clutching it so hard it would hurt if the relief of touching Harry again didn’t overpower it.
“I never want us to fight like that again,” Harry says suddenly, his head bent down and the grip he has on Zayn’s hand still not faltering.
“Me neither,” Zayn repeats the sentiment when Harry doesn’t keep on talking. He lets Harry’s hand go then and pulls Harry into a hug, wrapping his arms around Harry’s middle tightly. Harry hides his face into Zayn’s neck, skin to skin and the wearied breath he takes breaks Zayn’s heart a little. That single exhale might as well been a solid weight dropped on the ground next to them. As if Harry feared he’d never get this again, that they wouldn’t touch lovingly the next time they were around each other, that they wouldn’t touch at all.
After Harry had clutched his hand like it was his last remaining lifeline, Zayn knew he had to embrace Harry and hold him close until they would both be sore and tired from holding onto each other. After knowing Harry for more than a decade, it’s almost like an instinct for him, noticing and sensing when Harry needs touch, needs that reassuring hand on his knee, an arm around his waist. Harry’s always been physical and chose to sometimes show his affections only through touch and not words. They’re a lot similar in that way. ‘ I love you’ isn’t always a necessity with them, not when they can tell it with a kiss what will leave their lips bruised or an embrace that feels like coming home. It had been almost fatal to them once, before they learned that love isn’t stored just in words but actions too. They’re each other’s harbours, anchoring one another with a loving touch or a steady hand.
“I was so lonely at nights,” Harry whispers after a long pause, his cheek still pressed into Zayn’s skin and Zayn can feel the vibrations coming off of Harry’s voice all the way in his chest. “Without having you on Skype on my laptop, talking to me as if I wasn’t half a world away, I spent so much time just… thinking about us. About everything. I cried a lot too.”
Zayn’s heart stings at that. There are not many things in the world he hates more than causing Harry heartache, even though this time they were both equally as responsible for their falling out. He still starts running his fingers up and down Harry’s spine, the movement calming for both of them. Harry digs his fingers deeper into Zayn’s naked skin like an answer, not in the way that would leave marks like when they fuck but gently, as if Harry feared they would drift apart if he held on any less tighter.
“I was just… trying to imagine how my life would look like without you,” Harry confesses quietly. “I feared we were done for good so I tried to, sort of, come to terms with having to live my life without you. I’ve had… plans for us. You know like marriage and kids, all that stuff. I know this could sound scary but hear me out, please?”
“I’m listening, babe,” Zayn says and kisses the side of Harry’s head.
“Okay,” Harry breathes out and pulls away from the hug, grabbing both of Zayn’s hands in his and keeping that intense eye contact that sometimes makes people squeamish. Having all of Harry’s attention on you can be overwhelming sometimes, especially when you don’t know that he’s not trying to scare you, he’s just a very good and a tab bit too intense of a listener.
“This is… important to me and as much as I’d love to spend a few hours holding you and touching your bare skin, I don’t want to say all this when I’m not looking at you,” Harry lets out quickly.
“Should I be worried?” Zayn asks with a small smile, the grim mood around them lifting slightly when the corners of Harry’s lips lift too.
“If you want to break up with me then, maybe?” Harry chuckles self-deprecatingly.
“That’s the last thing I wanna do,” Zayn says and kisses the back of Harry’s left hand - an assurance that he’s here, he’s not leaving, he’s not kicking Harry out. They’re together no matter what happens.
“Okay, I’m gonna get to my monologue now, don’t interrupt me,” Harry warns but there isn’t any heat behind his words. “So, like I said, I was trying to imagine how my life would look like without you. It was terribly depressing but considering I thought I’d come home to see my things packed up and left by the front door, I had to try and prepare for the worst. I was just thinking about the life I wanted us to have and then I wondered how it would be if it all wasn’t with you. You know I want to get married, have babies one day when we grow tired of the show business and want to settle down. And I tortured myself with the idea of us, doing all of that. Then I tried to imagine doing it with someone else. Maybe marrying a model like one of those girls I used to date back in the day. Also falling in love again, after my heart would’ve hopefully healed. It wouldn’t be a bad life. I’m sure I’d be happy. But the thing is… I wouldn’t be as happy as I am with you by my side. I don’t want to be happy with anyone else, not after I know that we do work and we can be in a normal relationship together after that shitshow we had years and years ago in the band.
“I want to spend the rest of my life with you, Zayn. I don’t know if this is an accidental proposal but I see it more as a… me telling you about the conscious decision I made. We’ve been through… so much fucking shit. So much heartache and sadness. I was missing you for almost four years, when we weren’t together. And these last few years with you have been the happiest in my life. We’re nearing our thirties and I just… I know I want to spend them with you. And my forties, fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties and if we live that long, my nineties as well. I never want to spend another day when I don’t see you, or hear your voice at least. I never want to love anyone else in the way that I love you.”
“Baby,” Zayn says with a lovesick grin that appeared on his face somewhere in the middle of Harry’s speech. “If you ever had any doubts about me feeling the same way as you do about the future, our future, then please throw them out right now. Just chuck ‘em in the trash. I love you so fucking much. I’ve been in love with you for so long I can’t remember what not loving you feels like. I wouldn’t want to grow old with anyone else. I wouldn’t want to have a couple of little kids running around, ruining our sleeping schedule with anyone else. I want all of that only with you.”
“Children are a goddamn gift, Zayn and I expect you to happily let your sleeping schedule be ,as you called it, ruined by our children, when we have them.”
“Is that the thing that stood out to you the most out of all that I’ve just said?”
Harry giggles and places a wet kiss on Zayn’s cheek. “I love you too. And I have too loved you for so long that I don’t know what not being in love with you feels like. Sometimes I think I fell in love with you at first sight. Would that be too cheesy to say?”
Zayn kisses Harry on the lips and hums. “With how many rom-coms you watch, I’d say it’s just the right amount of cheesy.”
“Oh,” Harry pulls away suddenly. “Speaking of cheesy, I expected to be wooed and proposed to.”
“Wasn’t this kind of it?”
“No way. I’ve wanted a proposal since I was a boy watching bad rom-coms with my mum and Gem. They told me that maybe I’ll find a girl who will want to propose to me, but that I shouldn’t get my hopes up. And then I found out I liked boys too so that turned out quite well for my romantic desires.”
Zayn laughs and kisses Harry again. “What if I want to be wooed and proposed to as well, baby?”
“Tough luck, love. I’m getting my romantic proposal or we’re through.”
“You’re lucky I love you so much.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I am.”
As they sit on the ground near their vegetable garden in their backyard behind their house exchanging soft unhurried kisses, it feels like the figurative tectonic plates of their love shift into all the right places. There might be some volcanos, little bumps along the way that might explode one day but Earth’s like that too. Perfect but still imperfect. Even with its mistakes, it’s completely and utterly right.
“Were you talking to your tomatoes before I got here?” Harry asks out of nowhere after they stop kissing and just hold each other, their skin getting hotter and hotter as the LA sun grows stronger with every minute it’s above the horizon.
“Maybe.”
“You’re such a dork. I love it. What were you telling them?”
“Oh, you know,” Zayn sighs. “Had a nightmare and didn’t want to annoy Stitch again with my pouring my heart out.”
“Are you alright?” Harry’s hand is swiftly on Zayn’s cheek, his piercing green eyes searching his face with a worried look.
“Yeah, I’m okay,” Zayn turns his head and kisses Harry’s palm. “It was some unrealistic shit. Funnily enough, you were in it.”
“Was it a bad sex dream?”
Zayn rolls his eyes before pulling Harry in by his neck and kissing him. “I’ll show you a bad sex dream, baby.”
And this is it. Kissing on the grass under the soon-to-be scorching LA sun, they both know they can do this as many times as they like because there’s no grim future will of broken hearts and tears, there’s no breakup, Harry’s clothes aren’t in boxes by the front door. Their fight from a few weeks before seem like ancient history, like the fights from when they were barely twenty and full of feelings they couldn’t put into words are a fresher memory. They’re on the same page about their future, about their love and they’ve said it both with words and touch.
It might be a bit early but the images of matching rings on their left hands, of kids running around the same garden they’re sitting in right now are still invading their minds. But it’s okay because everyone gets there sometime, everyone craves the love and security. They want it with each other and no meaningless or well-founded fight can ruin it for them.
After weeks of barely speaking to each other, this is the security they both need. The love, the promise of their future, the reassurance of their feelings. They’ve come to this conclusion because being apart was nearly unbearable. And this realization doesn’t startle them, the talking about things like kids and settling down doesn’t scare them. It’s been just the two of them for long enough, it’s going to be just them for some more years but at the end, it won’t be just two people drifting apart. It’ll be the life together they didn’t dare dreaming of back when their love wasn’t voiced but pressed into naked skin with kissed and desperate fingers.