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Zayn has never been much of a dog person.
He didn’t grow up with dogs, he never really learned how to interact with them or how to tell what sort of mood they’re in, and he thinks they’re sort of smelly. Or at least his aunt’s shih tzu was always very smelly, and that’s about his frame of reference.
Really, Zayn’s always been more of a cat person. He grew up with a rather feral fat cat named Temper who spent most of her time hiding under beds and swiping at ankles that came too close, and honestly Zayn can relate to that. He’d swipe at ankles too, if they got too close to his personal space.
So, Zayn’s not much of a dog person. Has never been much of a dog person. Can’t understand dog people.
Unfortunately, he’s now devoted his life to the Allegheny Dog Rescue, so he’s going to have to learn how to become a dog person very fast.
—
The first time Zayn walks past the Allegheny Dog Rescue, he’s trying to find somewhere to grab lunch from fast, because he’s only got about twenty two minutes left before he has to be back on the clock and his boss will write him up for being late. But he had forgotten his packed lunch at home after snoozing his alarm half a dozen times, and the day had just overall started out bad.
So, with twenty two minutes left, he walks down the street in search of maybe a McDonalds or a corner store with energy drinks at least. What he finds instead is the most ridiculous dog he’s ever seen, sitting primly in the window of what looks like a regular storefront until he reads the name - Allegheny Dog Rescue: Where Friends make Furry Families for Forever.
It’s a terrible tagline. The alliteration is all over the place. But it’s also clearly hand painted with a lot of love, and the dog sitting on a little cushion in the window has short fur with a long snout and a bony, wiry frame, as if it’s never been fed in its life. It tilts its head at him as Zayn gazes back.
Then the moment is broken, as someone walks into view on the other side of the glass, and the dog bounds over to them. The someone has thick brown hair and scruff, and when he looks up at Zayn, he’s got piercing blue eyes.
He smiles as the dog jumps up at him.
Zayn looks away hurriedly and continues down the street in search of food. He feels like he was just looking into someone’s house, voyeuristically leering at a total stranger and his dog. How embarrassing!
Zayn manages to find a kebab shop and makes it back with thirty seconds to spare, but he does pass the Allegheny Dog Rescue on the way back, and that dog is back in the window, sun bathing on its cushion.
Zayn’s never been a dog person. But that’s an odd looking dog, and he likes the look of it.
—
The second time Zayn walks past the Allegheny Dog Rescue, it’s pissing down rain and he’s forgotten his umbrella (read: he doesn’t have an umbrella, but he tells everyone he’s just forgotten it). He’s already late to work and his boss is going to tear into him about it as soon as he does arrive, and as he’s hurrying down the street, soaked from head to toe, he considers faking a medical emergency just for the time off.
He’s just passing the dog rescue when the front door of the establishment opens and someone hurries out, opening their umbrella as they go in order to get a head start against the rain.
The umbrella opens and smacks Zayn in the face, sending him hurtling backward.
“Shit,” he says, more out of surprise than anything.
“Oh fuck,” says the other person. “Shit, fuck, cock and balls.”
There are dogs in the windows on either side of the door, and they start barking furiously at this interaction.
Zayn runs his hands over his face to clear it of rain and focuses on the stranger, realises it’s the man he saw in the window the other day. He’s got an Irish accent and a single earring.
“I’m sorry,” Zayn says. “I should’ve been watching where I was going.”
“No, that one’s on me,” the stranger says. “Didn’t want to get my hair wet. My mum always said being vain would be my downfall.”
Zayn, whose nose is smarting, feels more like it’s his downfall at this very moment. But the man with the blue eyes is cute and remorseful; it’s a good combination.
Then his phone buzzes with a text from his boss.
“I’ve got to—“ Zayn motions ahead and the other guy nods.
“Yeah, of course. Sorry for holding you up!”
Some of the dogs are still barking as he leaves. Zayn sees among the crowd, that wiry dog from the first day, standing silently with its head tilted as its friends bark wildly on either side.
Zayn hurries on. By lunch he’s sporting the ghost of a black eye from the umbrella incident. He likes to think that this would give the customers some sympathy towards him, but it does not. Customers are not prone to sympathising with the enemy.
—
The third time Zayn notices Allegheny Dog Rescue, it is that same day, approximately ten hours later. The sun has set and the rain has left and there is only the light of the streetlamps and the few businesses who have started putting up twinkling Christmas lights.
Allegheny Dog Rescue is apparently one of those places, Zayn notes as he trudges down the pavement. His feet hurt from standing at a till for so many hours, and his face hurts from the umbrella incident that morning. Mostly he’s just bone tired, and ready to be in his warm bed.
The dog rescue has newly strung up twinkling lights in both windows, though, which is a very nice look. The windows are deserted of dogs, probably because they all have real beds to sleep in, but Zayn gets a good look at the empty space where they usually hang out. There’s cushions and toys and what must be fake grass. On a busy street like this, he wonders if the dogs have any actual yards to go play in, or if they have to make do with these artificially constructed indoor yards.
Maybe dogs don’t mind fake grass, though. Zayn’s never interacted with a real dog long enough to know.
Just as he’s musing on the subject, the door swings open, and Zayn instinctively jumps back, landing one foot in a massive puddle.
“Oh hey!” says a familiar Irish voice. “You again!”
“Uh,” says Zayn, extracting his foot from the puddle. This is just embarrassing now. “Sorry, yeah. Hi.”
The man closes the door to the rescue behind him and turns a key in the lock. “I wanted to say again, I’m so sorry about earlier. Just whacked you right in the face, didn’t I? Is your nose okay?”
The bridge of Zayn’s nose hurts. “It’s fine,” Zayn says. “Happens all the time.”
“You get hit in the face with umbrellas all the time?” the man inquires.
“Well. No.” Zayn’s feet hurt and he’s exhausted and this boy, in the twinkling Christmas lights, is doing something to his insides. “I mean. Just that I run into things all the time.”
“Oh, I know how that goes,” the man says with a laugh. “I’m more of the tripping kind of person, myself.” He squints at Zayn’s face. “Shit, did I give you a black eye?”
Yes. “No!”
“I totally did, Christ. I’d say you should press charges against me, but I don’t have the money to pay court fees.” The man holds out a hand. “I’m Niall, your accidental attacker.”
Zayn takes it. Niall’s hand is warm and roughly calloused. “Zayn,” he says.
“Zayn,” says Niall. It sounds nice, the way he pronounces it. “You like dogs?”
No. “Yes,” Zayn nods. “Love dogs.”
“Me too!” Niall laughs. “That’s why I work here! Have you been in?”
“I haven’t,” Zayn says. “Only just recently noticed the place.”
“We’re new to the area!” Niall grins. “This place used to be a hair salon. Still sort of smells like it if I’m being honest. But you should come in and visit sometime!”
Absolutely not. “Absolutely, I will!”
Niall eyes him and Zayn wonders if he’s just as transparent as he feels. But then Niall claps him on the shoulder. “I’m looking forward to it,” he says. “I’m here most days, because there’s really just two of us, so come in any time.”
Zayn nods. Then he does some sort of awkward motion with his hand to indicate that he’s got to make it to the bus stop and Niall indicates that he’s going in the opposite way, and they part.
Zayn doesn’t understand dogs, and being inside a dog rescue seems like a bad decision for someone who doesn’t understand dogs.
But. Maybe if Niall’s there… That’s a different story?
—
No. It’s not. It’s not a different story.
Zayn knows he’s made a mistake the second he steps into Allegheny Dog Rescue. There is so much noise. There are so many dogs. They are all very interested in him.
It took almost a week of continuing to walk by the dog rescue before Zayn built up the courage to go in. A week of seeing various dogs in the windows, large and small, sleeping and playing and just sort of staring mournfully out the windows. And in the middle of it all, that tall and thin wiry dog that blinks and tilts its head and watches him.
Almost a week, and in that time Zayn walked past the rescue probably… close to twenty times, including his lunch breaks. Which is an entirely normal amount of times to walk by somewhere, when one’s job is nearby. There is nothing weird about having walked by so many times. Nothing weird and no one can say anything otherwise. And if, in that time, Zayn only saw Niall three times (and each time walked so fast that he was pretty sure Niall never saw him), well that’s Zayn’s business.
So, after almost a week, Zayn tries the door.
He doesn’t know if you’re supposed to knock at a place like this, to sort of warn the dogs you’re coming in, but he doesn’t get any good results when he googles so he decides not to.
When he comes in, he finds himself in a small entryway, with a sign that says to make sure the door is securely closed before opening the inner door. Zayn does so. The sign is handwritten with a glittery pen.
It’s when he opens the next door that all the barking starts.
So there Zayn is, suddenly in a hallway with a barn door on either side of him, both doors leading to the rooms he always sees at the front of the rescue. He is getting sniffled and snuffled and barked at through the barn doors.
He’s about to leave again, because oh heavens he is not a dog person, when out of thin air someone who isn’t even Niall appears in one of the rooms.
“Welcome to Allegheny Dog Rescue,” says the someone. He’s got blue eyes like Niall’s, but his voice is clearly northern, and his hair is swept down where Niall’s is swept up. “Are you here for a dog?”
No. “Yes.”
The man smiles at him. “Excellent! I’m Louis. This is our crowd. They’re a little stir crazy today because my co-worker has been out power washing our outdoor space all morning, so everyone’s been stuck inside together. We’ve got the two rooms to separate the worst of the bullies but you know how it is.”
Zayn does not. “Of course,” he says.
Louis tilts his head at him, in a way that reminds Zayn of the dog. The dog! Where is the dog? Zayn searches through the crowd on the side that the dog he usually sees in the window would be on. There, past a large black and white spotted dog, and a floppy eared dog, and a short little chocolate dog— there at the back is the tall wiry dog who sits in the window and tilts its head.
Zayn has a certain fondness for that dog.
“Well,” says Louis. “You’re welcome into either yard, we just want to make sure not to cross the dogs from one side to the other, because, like I mentioned, we’ve got a system worked out for who’s allowed to be with whom. Are you looking for a specific someone?”
Niall. “Uh.” Niall. Say Niall. “No,” says Zayn. “I mean.” Try again. Niall. “Him?”
Zayn points at the wiry dog.
“Her,” says Louis.
Shit.
“Her,” says Zayn.
“That’s June,” says Louis. “She’s a special little girl. Do you want to come to this side and meet her?”
No. Absolutely not. “Um, yes.” Zayn unlatches the barn door and hesitantly pushes it inward. He’s immediately swarmed with dogs, although Louis comes forward to shoo off the most demanding of them.
“They just like a bit of attention,” Louis says. “All the ones we allow up front are safe and friendly. Safe unless you’re allergic to dogs, that is.”
Zayn laughs weakly. The dog — June — sits patiently near the window. As Zayn approaches her, her tail starts to thump heavily on the cushions she’s perched on.
“June is a favourite around here,” Louis says. “She’s the sweetest girl in the world, but she’s a failed show dog. No brains in this girl.”
“A failed showdog?” Zayn looks down at her. June looks up at him. She thumps her tail.
“Try sitting next to her,” Louis suggests.
Zayn does, folding himself onto the ledge next to Junes cushion. Immediately, June walks her knobbly legs over and settles all of her weight onto him, sitting herself onto Zayn’s lap as if she is not, at worst, a medium sized dog and made up of pointy bones and not enough fat. Her head now looms over his. Zayn, hesitantly, puts one hand up to pet her. He does not know how to pet dogs. He tries petting her like a cat; long strokes down her back. She seems to like that. Her tail violently thumps against his leg.
Louis’ laughing, though. “She wants to be a lap dog so badly,” he says. “She’s so good and patient about not jumping, but she can’t resist a lap.”
Zayn can’t see Louis all that well over the great expanse that is June in his lap.
June licks his ear.
Zayn does not know what to do now.
He keeps petting June.
There is, suddenly, a commotion among the dogs who have mostly settled back down. A flurry of running and barking. And then a voice, somewhere from the back—
“Louis, we’re out of soap and I— Zayn!”
Louis, who is still partially in Zayn’s field of vision, raises his eyebrows. “Do you know each other?” he asks.
“Yeah,” says Niall. “He’s the one I hit with my umbrella.”
A smile spreads across Louis’ face. “Oh is he?” He looks down at Zayn. “Well, then welcome, I’m glad to see no lasting damage.”
“Alright, shoo,” says Niall. “Go on. My arm’s tired, power washing is your job for a while.”
Louis cackles as he leaves, and suddenly he’s replaced in Zayn’s field of vision by Niall.
“Hello,” says Niall. “Do you want help?”
Yes. “I’m good.”
Niall looks like he’s trying not to laugh. “June,” he says. “You’re too big for this.”
June turns and looks imploringly at Niall. Niall pets her head and June attempts to lick his hand.
“If I may say so,” says Niall. “You look like you have no idea what you’re doing here.”
Zayn does not like to think he’s so easy to read. “I’m hanging out with June,” he says, a little petulantly.
Niall nods contemplatively. “Junie-Bee,” he says. “The love of my life, Junio. You are going to squish him.”
And then he wraps his arms around June’s middle and picks her up.
June is not a small dog. Niall picks her up and turns her so that he can cradle her like a baby, but she’s so large her sharp and angled legs go in all directions. She seems happy though. Zayn has no idea how to tell if a dog is happy, but this one does seem it. Content to let her tongue loll out as she is cradled by Niall.
“Junie-Bee, our wonderful failed show dog.”
“What does that mean?” Zayn asks. “How can you fail at being a show dog?”
Niall looks at him very seriously. “This beautiful girl,” he says. “Is dumb as a box of rocks.”
“Because she thinks she’s a lap dog?”
Niall laughs and puts June down. He fishes a tennis ball out of a pile of toys in the corner. “Do you want to see why June is a failed show dog?” He asks.
Yes. “Yes,” Zayn says.
“Come on,” Niall says. He says it so conspiratorially that Zayn has no choice but to follow as Niall wades through all the dogs in the room, bringing June with him, and Zayn behind him.
They go through a door at the back that leads out to a small back garden, where Louis is decidedly not working the power washer. All the grass is very wet, but Zayn can tell where the back of the building and the fencing has been washed.
“Here to show off June’s special skills?” Louis asks.
“Go mind the front,” Niall tells him, snark in his voice.
“I’m the owner,” Louis grumbles as he goes for the door. “Never let me have any fun though, do you?”
When he’s gone, Niall holds up the tennis ball. He makes sure both Zayn and June are watching.
Then he throws the tennis ball.
It sails through the yard and hits the back fence. June goes flying after it.
She does not seem to sense that the ball did not go through the fence.
She get to the end of the yard and only at the last second seems to realise that she should not be hitting the fence, choosing instead to try to turn— a bit too late, hitting the fence with the side of her body.
“Oh my god,” says Zayn. “Is she okay?”
“She’s fine,” Niall says. “Even her ego wasn’t bruised, that one was pretty good.”
He throws another tennis ball. It lands in the mud right in front of her.
She dives for it and comes up with a mouthful of mud, which she carries up proudly to Niall and Zayn, dropping the mud at their feet.
The tennis ball is not in the mud.
It’s just mud.
“I love her,” says Niall.
Zayn does not know a lot about dogs, but he thinks he might too.
“Never been able to teach her a single command, but she’s polite enough at least there’s never been too much of a need.” Niall ruffles her ears. “She’s walked straight into the window enough times that I’m starting to think she doesn’t have object permanence. If you see smudges all over any of the glass, they’re her.”
“Is she blind?”
“Nah, got her tested for everything. She’s just beautifully low on brains.”
Zayn nods. He loves the way Niall talks about her. Maybe he loves the way Niall talks.
“That being said,” Niall says, reaching down and plucking some grass off of June’s lolling tongue. “She’s about the least adoptable dog here. She’d be a bull in a china shop in someone’s house.”
Zayn thinks about his flat. There’s not that much breakable shit in his flat, surely?
“Plus, I’d miss her too much,” Niall says.
Well. That could be dealt with.
“And,” Niall looks at him. “She’s already been adopted.”
“She has?” Zayn looks down at June. June is drooling mud.
“Oh yeah, I’ve owned her for months. Bring her to work with me every day.”
Oh. “That makes sense,” Zayn says.
“But I get the feeling you’re a fan,” Niall says, smiling at Zayn in that mysterious knowing way. “And you were even willing to come visit, I was starting to think you wouldn’t.”
Me too. “It just took a while.”
“So what do you say,” Niall says. “Want to take her out sometime? To a dog park, maybe?”
Zayn thinks he might die at a dog park. There are so many dogs there.
“I mean. I’d come too, of course. Because it’s very obvious you’ve never been around dogs in your life and are a little petrified of them.”
Zayn blinks. “Is it?” He asks.
Niall grins. “So obvious,” he says. “But it’s sweet.”
Sweet is good. Zayn can work with sweet.
“You and June make quite a pair. You don’t know how dogs work and neither does she.”
June tilts her head. Her big brown eyes gaze up at Zayn.
“I’d love to go to a dog park with you,” says Zayn. “I mean. With June.”
“With me and June,” says Niall. “It’s a date.”
A date. “A date.”
Niall’s hand brushes his as he goes to pull open the door back inside. “So glad you were willing to visit Allegheny Dog Rescue,” he says. “Even if you clearly don’t know what to do with dogs.”
“Did you adopt a boyfriend?” Louis yells from inside.
Niall shuts the door again. “Maybe I show you the back way out,” he says.
No. “No, I’m fine,” says Zayn. “I have to go through the proper paperwork for adoption, and I don’t even have your number yet.”
(It’s the most suave he’s ever been or will ever be again, but Niall seems delighted).
(Zayn trips on the doormat on the way back in).
(June licks his skinned knee).