Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Niall? Niall, are you even listening to me?”

“Huh? Uh, yeah,” Niall says, blinking up at Zayn. He looks irritated, and Niall’s face immediately flushes red. “Sorry, I didn’t catch that.”

Zayn’s nose crinkles up a bit, and Niall has to focus really hard to not get distracted by that, too. It’s a monumental effort, and he mentally pats himself on the back when Zayn’s words actually process this time around. “I asked if you gave yourself your flu shot yet.”

“Oh,” Niall says. “Nah, haven’t done that.”

Niall shoves at the wall of the spacecraft, drifting over to the window where the potted cacti are attached to the sill. It was a small feat, but Niall managed to convince their supervisors to let him take the succulents along. He thinks they brighten up the craft, and they make Niall feel grounded. Hopefully they make the others feel the same way, but it’s not like he’s going to ask and invite the boys to poke fun at how sentimental he is.

“Why not?” Zayn asks, floating over to him. “You have to. This mission is risky enough; we don’t need our meteorologist getting sick.”

“I, uh, right.” Niall looks away from where Zayn’s jaw is working, looks down at the cacti. He just watered them four days ago, he knows, but he pokes his pinky into the soil as if he’s checking it anyways.

Sighing, Zayn lightly bats Niall’s hand away from the pots. “You can’t get sick, Niall. Why haven’t you taken it yet?”

When Niall looks out the window at the endless space stretched ahead of them, the Earth but a dot in the distance, his answer feels a bit ridiculous. It’s true, though, so Niall shrugs and voices it anyway.

“I’m scared of needles.”

And Niall had been expecting Zayn — ever composed and professional and serious — to roll his eyes, maybe scoff or give him a lecture. Instead, Zayn’s features go soft, the hard line of his eyebrows smoothing out. Slowly, he nods.

“Yeah, that’s— that’s fine, Niall. Should’ve told one of us earlier,” Zayn says. “I can do it for you now. Or at the latest by the end of the day, if you wanted to wait or like, prepare yourself, or anything.”

And that’s better than what he’d been expecting. Panic is swelling in the back of his throat, sure, but Niall agrees regardless. “Better do it now. I’ll work myself into an anxiety attack if I’m left too long to think about it.”

Niall cringes at his own words, but there’s something about Zayn that makes him want to open up and share personal things. Things he hasn’t even explicitly told his friends from home, even. It’s like Niall’s hoping that by sharing pieces of himself, Zayn will become less reserved and more likely to share a piece of himself back. Like peeling back the wrapping on a gift.

There’s something about Zayn.

“All right,” Zayn says, quiet and almost to himself. “Grab your kit and we can get to it, okay?”

Zayn floats back up to the front of the craft, flicking a few switches and noting down meter levels, Niall assumes. Zayn tried to explain some of what he does a few days into the mission, but he ended up getting too into it. The list got too long, and Zayn ended up trailing off and never finding the words he wanted, so Niall gave up on asking. Zayn was always busy anyways, trying to keep their ship from crashing into space debris and whatnot.

Tearing his eyes away from him, Niall nods to no one and starts pulling himself down to their pods, where Liam and Harry are trying to play cards and Louis is scowling down at his laptop, hunks of wire and metal floating next to him. Harry’s eyebrows are furrowed seriously.

“Got any threes?”

“This isn’t fair. Space internet fucking sucks,” Louis says, jabbing aggressively at the keyboard.

“Your fault for waiting until so late in the mission to put the soil-testing machine thingy back together,” Liam says, scanning the cards in his hand. “Go fish, Harry.”

Harry makes an upset noise, grabbing the top card off of the deck floating in front of them. It looks like Liam may be cheating, judging by how the faces of the cards are slightly tipped towards him. Poor Harry.

“Well, it’s his fault for breaking it, Liam,” Louis bites back, reaching out to jab Liam in the ribs with his foot. Liam easily dodges it.

“Yeah, but he broke it three months ago, Lou,” Liam says, shoving at Louis’ shin until he’s out of Liam’s personal space. “You put off fixing it for this long, so it’s your fault. Any nines?”

“I already said sorry. I didn’t mean to.” Harry pouts, hands his nine over to Liam, who smirks and puts the cards aside.

“Niall!” Louis says, letting his laptop drift to the side. “How’s Zayn? Zaynie baby?”

Niall groans in response. “God, stop calling him that.” He feels his cheeks heating up again, so he quickly shoves his face into his pod and starts rummaging around for his first-aid kit.

Behind him, Liam snorts. “Oh, so you can call him that but no one else can?” There’s a slapping noise followed by a cackle from Louis, so Niall can only assume they high-fived.

“That was one time, and I was half asleep. It doesn’t count,” Niall says over his shoulder, finally finding the kit amongst all his clutter. “Don’t tell him that I called him that, either.”

“Of course we won’t,” Harry says, head tilted to the side. “What are you doing with that?”

Already drifting away, Niall replies, “Zayn is giving me my flu shot.”

Louis says, deadpan, “How romantic,” and Niall pulls himself more quickly away from them instead of responding.

***

They’re scheduled to arrive on the 24th, about five months after they initially blasted off. The way the journey is set up, they’ll spend two weeks there before they’ll have to leave again, in order to get back to Earth in the shortest amount of time. If they leave after that, the planets won’t be aligned in the most fuel- and time-efficient positions.

It’s complicated; Niall doesn’t like to think of it too much if he doesn’t have to.

“You think you’re gonna tell him?”

Niall looks up from his not-broken weather machine at Louis. He’s trying to fix the definitely-broken machine he was working on the other day, trying to force a large hunk of metal into a slot just too small for it.

“Uh, don’t think that piece goes there, man. And I don’t think so, considering I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Niall says, leaning over and tugging the metal out from Louis’ hands. “Don’t you have the manual?”

Louis huffs in frustration. “Don’t need a fucking manual. And what I’m saying is that I think you should tell Zayn you have a huge crush on him. It’s pathetic, watching you go all lovey-dovey.”

Niall rolls his eyes but otherwise doesn’t comment, instead flicking on the weather machine in front of him and checking that all the parts are attached properly. He’s pretty sure the device Louis is trying to revive is for testing the soil for mineral levels, but he doesn’t want to ask for clarification. Steam may actually come out of Louis’ ears.

“I mean, Zayn is totally oblivious and way too absorbed in whatever the fuck he does at the control centre to notice, so he will never know about it otherwise.”

“I don’t like like him, Lou,” Niall says. “I’m just jealous of how his hair still looks so good even though we haven’t been able to shower in four and a half months. And his jawline. And… stuff.” Louis is just batting around loose parts in front of him, now, staring at Niall intently.

“Wow,” Louis says, sending a few scattered bolts floating towards Niall. “You’re definitely right. That sounds really platonic. The most platonic compliments I’ve ever heard.”

He doesn’t have a crush on Zayn. Like, Niall really doesn’t. It would be stupid. They’re in space. They’re the crew of the first human mission to Mars, for fuck’s sake. Niall doesn’t have time for crushes.

Or, he shouldn’t, at least. Logically.

“I’m too busy for any sort of crush, and it’s obvious that Zayn is, too. You should be focusing on whatever you’re stuck on instead of trying to play matchmaker.” Niall sighs, turning off his own machine. “We land in, like, two weeks.”

Louis shrugs, but goes back to his tinkering, seemingly less frustrated now. Carefully, Niall moves his machine back to the side of the craft and fixes it to the wall. Nothing floats away, and when he’s sure it’s secure he turns back to where Louis is looking at him thoughtfully.

“I heard somewhere that someone would give a million dollars for the first porn filmed in space.”

“Okay, I’m not doing that.” Niall has to hold back a laugh, though. It’s stupid for Louis to say, and he won’t give him the satisfaction of laughing. “I’m not sitting back here with you anymore.”

“If you won’t do it, I will. I bet someone could be convinced. It’s a business deal, if you will.”

Niall groans, scrubbing harshly at his eyes with the heels of his hands. “There will be no sex on this spacecraft.”

“I’m just saying, Niall. Think of the financial security.”

“Think I’m fine, thanks.”

****

“It’s like he gets more and more annoying and strict as time goes on,” Louis says, poking aggressively around inside the soil machine with his finger. “Like, don’t know what you see in him, Ni.”

Niall sighs, closes out of the game he’s playing on his phone and shuts it off. “You have been trying to fix this for weeks, Louis, and we land on Mars in two days. It’s reasonable that Zayn’s getting impatient, you know.”

Bolts are flung just over Niall’s head and clatter against the walls behind him. “I can’t believe you’re siding with him over me when I’ve been sharing an apartment with you since college. Just because he’s well proportioned. Disgusting.”

Harry floats through between Niall and Louis, then, holding a plastic lightsaber and making exaggerated hand movements. He does a sweeping kick — presumably just to be dramatic — and almost nails Louis in the nose. “Talking about Zayn?”

Louis grabs Harry’s foot and shoves, sending him spiralling into a wall. “Who else would we be talking about, hm? You?”

“Why not?”

Liam comes flying by, arm extended with his own lightsaber in hand to bat at Harry’s flailing limbs. “Because no one on this ship has a crush on you, Harry. Also, I win. You have a hole in your stomach, now.”

“Shouldn’t you be working, boys? Preparing for our landing in a few days?”

Zayn’s voice echoes down the spacecraft, and Niall feels his face flush, which is ridiculous because he’s not even the one being yelled at. Grumbling, Harry shoves the plastic lightsaber back into the handle and lets it float down towards the sleep pods. “Aw, but we’re all prepared! It’s just Lou who is behind still.”

Louis mumbles, Way to throw me under the bus, asshole, before Zayn tugs himself down the craft, annoyance clear on his face.

“Are you? Because this is Mars, Harry, and this has to all be done right.” Zayn sighs, tiredly presses his fingers to his temples. “God, please just have everything ready, okay?”

The exhaustion in his face renders the boys silent, but a horrible feeling settles somewhere uncomfortable in Niall’s stomach, so he nods seriously. “We will, Zayn. Promise. We’re all in this together, yeah? We won’t let you down.”

Niall can practically feel the look Louis is sending him boring into the side of his head, but he holds Zayn’s weary gaze, tries to convey just how sure he is in what he says. Zayn doesn’t quite get their dynamic, Niall knows, since the four of them had trained together since the beginning and Zayn only transferred down from Portland two months before take-off. And he’s had much more pressure put on him than the rest of them.

Finally, after ages of Niall staring into Zayn’s eyes and trying to ignore his heart beating in his throat, Zayn exhales and averts his gaze to somewhere over Niall’s shoulder.

“Yeah, I know. Thanks.” Zayn gives them all a small nod in acknowledgement before heading back up to the controls.

Liam hums as Zayn eventually floats out of hearing distance. “Think he heard us?”

Harry grins. “If he did, he didn’t comet on it. Ha. Comet like comment—”

“That’s not your best,” Louis says, flinging more spare bolts in his direction. “Not your worst, but not your best.”

****

“God, remind me why we have to do this, again?” Niall groans as Liam pokes at his shoulder again, grinning when Niall opens one eye.

Louis laughs loudly where he’s floating behind Liam, banging loudly on the walls of Niall’s pod. “Because Zayn says there should always be at least two of us awake at all times, Nialler.”

“And Zayn is right, and you all agreed with him, so get up because Zayn is trying to sleep,” Zayn says from the pod across from Niall’s, eyes closed as he blindly fumbles with the ties on his sleeping bag. It’s adorable, really, Niall will admit, but he still glares at Louis for waking Zayn up when he doesn’t need to be awake for another few hours.

“Technically I’m never up. Zero gravity,” Niall calls, but he’s already wrangling himself out of his own sleeping bag. Niall is endeared by most versions of him, but like hell will Niall ever be the reason that Zayn wakes up grumpy and tired if he can avoid it.

“Technically you’re never not up, either,” Zayn says back. Niall thinks he can see a small smile on his face above where it’s tucked into the fabric, and Niall beams in return.

“Touché, Malik.”

Niall’s partner for the shift is Harry, who is Niall’s favourite to partner with after Zayn. They sit in relative silence, Niall reading or playing games while periodically checking their route and various levels while Harry hums a song and works on his growing list of horrible space puns.

When Niall gets to the front of the spacecraft, Harry is tapping his pen against the pad of paper in front of him.

“You… planet. Plan it. Planet.” Harry’s mumbling under his breath and he’s decided against putting his hair in a ponytail, so it floats in a halo around his head. Niall would think he hadn’t slept in days if he didn’t know better.

“Man,” Niall laughs, gently shoving at his shoulder. “How many do you have there, now?”

Harry’s tongue sticks out as he writes on the pad, and he sounds distracted when he replies, “Forty.”

“We’ve been up here for five months, Harry, and you only have forty?”

His eyebrows furrow, writing slowing to a stop. “I mean… I think they’re really good, though. Quality over quantity and all that.” He pauses for a moment, then scribbles something else down quickly before letting the pen float.

“Right, right,” Niall says, grabbing for the pen. “You tired yet? You look ready for sleep if I’m honest. You can wake Zayn up and go in early, you know. I don’t mind.”

Around a yawn, Harry nods. “Thanks, Niall.” And then he’s drifting down towards their sleep stations, eyes already shut and arms fully extended in front of him.

Niall looks down at the pad of paper Harry left as he leaves, and snorts at it before going back to recording meter levels, because, Jesus, these aren’t very good. Some aren’t even actual jokes or puns, not that Niall is surprised.

38. Astro-NOT

39. APOLLO-gies

40. Space party? PLANET — someone made this up already (use anyway)

41. Uranus (like ‘your anus’)

There’s a bit of clattering, which Niall assumes is Harry knocking into various things on the way into his pod, and Zayn floats up just as Niall finishes updating the records. His eyes are still closed and he’s brought a blanket out with him, rubbing sleepily at his eyes. And, God, Niall has to look away so he doesn’t do something ridiculous, like aww or try to give Zayn a hug.

“How’s it?” Zayn asks, voice low and raspy with sleep. He’s slow to buckle himself into his seat in front of the control panel, and he immediately curls his legs up to his chest after he does.

“Looks good, honestly. Should be landing within the next few hours actually,” Niall says, handing the charts over to Zayn for him to look at. Zayn blinks hard a few times and then squints down at the papers, humming quietly. As Niall watches him, Zayn seems to visibly relax, his shoulders returning back to normal human tensity. “As long as all the landing stuff is functional then we should be good.”

Zayn giggles then, still reading through Niall’s messy additions. “Landing stuff.”

“Leave me alone, Zayn,” Niall says. He chances a shove at Zayn’s shoulder, and he feels almost giddy when Zayn looks up at him with a smile that crinkles up his nose. “I’m a meteorologist, not some spaceship technician. Or even an astronaut, really, for that matter.”

“Hey,” Zayn laughs, voice sounding lighter than Niall’s ever heard it. “We still need you here, though. You’re the only one that knows how to actually operate the, how would you call it, weather machine stuff.” Niall sticks his tongue out at him at that and Zayn does the same back. “Plus you’re sort of like a mediator. It’s like you balance us all out; Keep us all from ripping each others’ throats out.”

It’s probably the nicest thing Zayn’s said about him, and Niall tells him as much, tacking on, “Don’t think I’m that vital, though, Captain.”

Zayn starts shaking his head before Niall’s even finished talking. “No, no, you are. Like, I didn’t really feel like I clicked in with you all at first. Felt like you were all so much, and I was just coming in and screwing it all up. But you’re so chill and open, and I didn’t even have to know you for more than a few hours for you to start including me in things, you know?”

Niall doesn’t know if he knows; Niall can’t breathe.

“Like, the boys are great, truly, but it’s almost like you know exactly how we all work, you know? You help us all stay in our heads,” Zayn finishes quietly. He’s still sleepy, bleary eyes struggling to stay open for more than a few seconds at a time, and he shuts them when he finishes talking.

Niall thinks Zayn might be blushing, a bit. Niall’s heart is hammering up hard against his ribs, though, and his thoughts are spinning madly, so he could be wrong. He looks down at Harry’s list, flips back a few pages and clears his throat.

“Ah, so you’re saying I keep you all from… Spacing out?”

Zayn groans and smacks his hand lightly against his own face, palm covering up a bit of a smile. It doesn’t help the butterflies in Niall’s stomach settle any more.

“God, shut up.”

****

Niall is particularly absorbed in his game of tetris when Zayn nudges at his shoulder a few hours later.

“Niall! Niall!”

Glancing up, Niall sees that Zayn is leaning forward against the straps of his seat, eyes wide and expression awestruck. Niall shuts off his phone and looks out the front window without a second thought.

And right there in front of them is Mars.

Sure, Niall’s seen it from Earth through the lens of his telescope on clear nights, in pictures taken by satellites and by the Mars Rover. And of course they’ve all been able to see it for a while now out of the windows, but it’s close enough to be all that Niall can see, now. It’s remarkable, so huge that it takes Niall by surprise, somehow.

Something in Niall’s heart swells, big and overwhelming, and he looks back at Zayn, whose eyes look like those of a Disney prince with how bright they’re sparkling.

“I…” Zayn starts, then trails off, shaking his head incredulously and scrubbing at his cheeks with his hands. “We made it. I can’t believe it, but here we are. Here it is. Fucking Mars, man. Shit.” He lets out this breathless laugh, like he can’t help it, and Niall can’t look away.

“Yeah, we did. Thanks to you, really.”

Zayn shakes his head again. “Nah, thanks to all of us. Team effort. I just steered.”

“Don’t do that. You got us here, Zayn. You led this ship, and we made it,” Niall says seriously, looking at Zayn’s chin instead of into his eyes. (They look a little teary.) Niall continues, “This is all of ours, sure, but Zayn, you were the best person to captain this mission. NASA thought so — we all did — and we were all clearly right.”

Zayn doesn’t say anything back, just stares at Niall with his mouth half-open, flicks his eyes outside and then back again.

“Good, accept that compliment.” Niall tears his eyes away from the line of Zayn’s jaw to look down at the navigation screen. “Should be set to land in about an hour, I think this says.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Zayn says, clearing his throat and looking over at the screen, too. “54 minutes. Preparing to land will only take about 20, and then that’s it.”

All Niall can do is nod along with him, and then Zayn goes back to staring out the window. It’s a long stretch of silence — Niall unwilling to break it and Zayn too busy preparing to land the spacecraft, seemingly on autopilot — before Niall speaks again.

“Zayn?”

“Yeah?”

Niall doesn’t try to contain his smile when he asks, “Do you want to be the first human on Mars?”

****

The landing goes smoothly, much to everyone’s relief, and then Zayn is practically vibrating in his spacesuit. Or rather, halfway in his spacesuit.

“Zayn, please, just let someone else finish zipping you up if you can’t do it.”

“Sorry, Liam,” Zayn says, pulling his hands away from the suit. “I’m just… It’s like something’s going to buzz right out of my fingertips.”

Louis chuckles, walking over so he can poke at Zayn’s cheek. “Zap!”

It’s saying something when Zayn just bats Louis away, giggling and smiling brightly before he pokes Louis back. “Zap yourself.”

“Zap what? What’s zap?” Harry asks, popping his head out of his pod. His hair is wild and floating any and every direction, even with gravity holding it down. There’s a hair elastic on his wrist that Harry doesn’t seem keen on using.

“Nope. It’s mine and Zayn’s thing now. No Harrys allowed,” Louis says.

“Rude.”

“Niall,” Zayn says, eyes still crinkled and bright. Niall hasn’t ever seen him this happy, and Zayn’s been like this for the past hour consistently. “Zip me up?”

Ignoring Louis’ pointed look — which Niall can feel burning into the side of his head, for fuck’s sake (will he ever stop doing that?) — Niall nods. “Sure. Of course, Captain.”

It turns out to be a bit of a challenge. Zayn’s so warm, and his skin is a thin cotton layer away from Niall’s fingers. He’s also looking at Niall with his ridiculously warm Bambi eyes, all soft and excited and bright. Niall has to take deep breaths in an attempt to get his hands to stop shaking.

“All right,” Niall says finally “You’re all set.” He goes to pat at Zayn’s shoulder, but ends up with a thumb on his jaw. Niall feels it when Zayn swallows.

“You’ll come out with me, right?”

Niall starts. His eyes have gone as wide as saucers, he can tell, and his heart beats hard against his ribcage. Anxiety forces a shaky laugh out of his lungs.

“I’m not even an astronaut, Zayn. The other boys are better trained than I am.”

Zayn seems unbothered, though, shrugging as if they’re talking about nothing particularly important. As if they aren’t talking about being the first people to walk on Mars. “Maybe they’ve been trained for longer, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t an astronaut.”

At Niall’s shaky exhale, Zayn’s eyebrows raise in earnest. “No, really, Niall. You’ve trained, passed all the exams, and NASA gave you clearance. You’re just as much of an astronaut as we are.”

Niall’s thoughts are circling wildly in his head, a tangled mess of oh my God and fucking Mars and Zayn, Zayn, Zayn. “I mean, you’re right, I guess. It’s just a lot, you know.”

Immediately Zayn starts nodding, scrubbing a hand over his jaw and backing away from Niall slightly — which, no. “Yeah, yeah, of course. Like if you don’t want to come that’s totally fine. It’s overwhelming and a big deal, and I feel that, too. Just, like… I want you to be the one to go with me, if you would be okay with that.”

And then of course, Niall can’t say no to that.

Louis helps Niall suit up — pinching him way too many times to be unintentional — and then he and Zayn are staring at the exit door with the boys’ voices in their ears.

“All right, Zayn, Niall. You both ready?” Liam’s voice is slightly static, but not enough to be concerning.

The door shuts loudly behind them, and Niall nods ahead at nothing. He’s not ready in the slightest. Zayn grins at him.

“I’m ready, and Niall nodded, so I guess he’s ready, too.”

A flare of warmth spreads through Niall’s chest at Zayn’s light teasing, and Niall sticks his tongue out at him. Zayn’s nose crinkles in response.

“Okay, opening the doors now.”

Sounds of air being released echo in the tiny chamber, then the suction-like noise of the insulated doors moving apart, and then the Red Planet extends before them.

It’s the Earth equivalent of summer now, and the sun shines brighter than Niall could have ever imagined. The soil isn’t red — which Niall knew, of course, but he’d still expected it to be, for whatever reason. The land before them is a sandy beige that tilts towards orange on the colour spectrum, and the ground dips and rises smoothly in dunes. There’s no glass between Zayn and Niall and the view; no glare, no division, no camera lens.

The pictures don’t do it justice.

It’s so surreal still that Niall almost expects Zayn to float away once he steps off the spacecraft. They’ve experienced gravity — weaker gravity than they’re used to, but still gravity — since before the craft even landed. Zayn’s foot lands firmly on the sand, though, and Niall hears his laugh crackle through the speakers in his helmet.

“Niall, we’re on fucking Mars.”

Niall snorts in response, waits until both of Zayn’s feet are on the ground and Zayn’s turned around to face him before replying. “I can’t believe that’s the first sentence said by a human standing on a planet that isn’t Earth. You could have had something iconic, like ‘One small step for man,’ but you blew it, Zayn.”

Zayn’s eyes crinkle in response, and his giggles echo through Niall’s helmet again. Niall could listen to Zayn laugh for the rest of his life, he thinks. Maybe.

“Shut up, Niall.”

“Second sentence,” Niall says back, and then he’s stepping forward, too, standing solidly on the sandy ground. On the ground of Mars. Fuck. Did the first people on the moon feel as stupidly overwhelmed as Niall does? He still isn’t convinced they won’t just float up and away, or that he won’t wake up back home in Seattle.

“Wouldn’t take them back, to be honest,” Zayn says, looking back out across the sand dunes. “They’d look good in a history book, I think.”

“You mean my name? Twice? Of course it would look good.”

Someone in Niall’s ear clears their throat, and Niall thinks Zayn might be blushing with how frazzled he’s suddenly become. “If you two wouldn’t mind toning down the flirting for now? You’re still being recorded, and I don’t think you want this in the history books.” It’s Louis, of course, talking into the speaker, and Niall thinks he hears Harry mumbling in the background.

“God, Louis, would you let me do the official speaking, please?” Liam says, voice becoming louder as he presumably wrestles his way back in front of the mic. Idiots, all of them are.

Zayn shrugs, says, “Wouldn’t be too upset about it, actually,” before he starts walking forward again, Niall stumbling after him. Niall feels lighter, in the sense that the gravity makes him weigh less, but also in how Zayn’s voice makes Niall’s racing thoughts slow down to something more easily manageable. Niall’s beet red, he’s sure of it.

“So were you guys planning on getting any samples or anything, or was this just a fun expedition?”

Zayn hmms softly, leans down and brushes his fingers through the sand. “Not looking for anything in particular right now, but we can grab some sand for now and Niall’s weather machine is in the chamber if we wanted to go back in and grab it.”

“Okay,” Liam says. “Whatever you want to do, Captain.”

Niall doesn’t miss the way that Zayn’s face lights up at the words whatever you want, even through the dimmed glass of his helmet. Now that they’re actually here, that they’ve landed and the hardest part of this whole mission is behind them, Zayn has noticeably unwound, calmed down and become less anxiety-inducing to be around. It makes Niall feel sort of proud of Zayn, in a way, even though this is partially his own mission, too, and Niall has absolutely not known Zayn long enough to be feeling this strongly.

It’s— It’s something Niall will deal with later.

Zayn puts a few pinches of sand into a tube he brought out, seals it tightly before turning back to Niall again. He’s softer around the edges now, like the lines of him have become less solid and have relaxed just as Zayn has.

“Shall we go back?”

Niall shrugs, says, “You’re in charge, Zayn. I’m good with whatever you want to do,” before they start to walk back to the spacecraft. They’ve been standing there for a good ten minutes, at least, just taking everything in. They have time to do the experiments and grab samples tomorrow, Niall reasons. They just need to actually execute the tests, and then the scientists back on Earth can analyze it at any time.

When they round the spaceship and are standing in front of where the doors are, they’re closed.

“Okay, guys, open up,” Zayn says, tapping a knuckle lightly against the metal exterior.

“Hmm,” Louis sighs into the mic, way too loudly in their ears. Zayn winces out of the corner of Niall’s eye. “Maybe. Niall, don’t you think you should open up?”

And— Niall can’t believe Louis is doing this now. “Louis, it isn’t the time,” Niall says back, steadily avoiding meeting Zayn’s curious look. “Open the door.”

“Where’s Liam?” Zayn asks, knocking more firmly now. “I put him in charge, not you.”

“That’s rude,” Louis says back, still sounding annoyingly casual and unbothered. Niall’s anxiety levels are rising slowly but surely, and Zayn beside him looks like he wants to rip someone’s throat out. Louis’, specifically. “Don’t know what you see in him, honestly.”

There’s a moment of horrible silence, in which Niall is genuinely concerned that Zayn can hear his heartbeat echoing through his speakers. Zayn cocks his head to the side, continuing to bang his fist against the ship not a moment later.

“What are you talking about, Louis?” Zayn asks, fuming. “Open the doors, now.”

Louis sighs deeply, spitting a bit into the mic by the sounds of it. “Dunno how to open these doors, really. I don’t exactly understand how the doors are so appealing, or why if you like the doors so much, you don’t just tell the doors—”

Niall is two seconds away from starting to yell at Louis, because they aren’t teenagers anymore and he’s being ridiculous. Louis can’t just force Niall to bare his heart and soul — especially when they have a limited amount of oxygen and are on another goddamn planet. Before he can start telling Louis off, though, then there’s a scuffling in his ears, and then Liam’s babbling into the mic.

“Jesus, Louis, the doors are fine. Why didn’t you let them in? You know how the controls work that much—”

The doors open before Liam is done his sentence, but Niall’s tuning him out, watching with too-intense focus as they shut behind him and Zayn. The fans start going a second later, then the beeping that signifies that the oxygen levels are being stabilized again.

“I’m going to kill him,” Zayn is saying to himself. “I’m going to be the first man and the first murderer on Mars.”

“Going to have to beat me to it,” Niall says, just barely managing to get his voice to an audible level.

Zayn lets out a shaky laugh, looks down at the test tubes still in his hand. “Don’t know what he was talking about, do you?”

“I— uh, nope, not a clue,” Niall says. He’s talking way too quickly to be casual. Open the doors, open the doors.

The doors open with a hiss and Niall quickly grabs the tube from Zayn, speed walking towards the control centre. His heart is pumping loudly in his ears, keeping time with the light sounds of Zayn’s footsteps fading behind him.

“Niall?”

Niall ignores Zayn’s voice, shoves the test tube into Louis’ hands. “For your dirt machine.”

“You look like a tomato,” Louis says, rolling the tube around in his palm. “I provided you with a perfectly good opportunity, and you didn’t even take it-”

Zayn catches up to Niall then, coming up beside him. He smacks Louis hard across the back of his head even though his expression appears calm, now. “You aren’t funny, Louis. Don’t try that again, seriously. Go scan that sample or do something useful.”

Louis rolls his eyes, huffs loudly and turns to Niall again. “No fun,” he says, before walking down towards the back of the ship, where Niall is pretty sure he last left his finally-fixed machine.

Avoiding Zayn’s gaze, Niall gestures vaguely towards his cacti and goes to water them, face still burning. Stupid, stupid, stupid. He can feel Zayn’s eyes on him as he goes, as he sticks his pinky into the soil and holds his breath. Niall can feel Zayn until he, too, turns and walks back towards the sleeping pods.

****

“Hey.”

Niall starts, fingers fumbling across the buttons on his weather machine before looking up at Zayn. “Uh, hey. Didn’t know you were out here. What’s up?”

Zayn lifts the tinted cover of his helmet, and now Niall can properly see that his eyebrows are all furrowed, almost hurt looking. “We always use the buddy system, and you’re out here on your own. Liam’s keeping watch and I didn’t want to wake the others.”

Turning back to the machine, Niall fiddles with the buttons that adjust the solar panel. He’s not really doing anything with the samples anymore — he’d stored the results in the database for further research ages ago — but he can’t quite meet Zayn’s eyes. “Right, sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Zayn says easily. He plops down beside Niall on the dirt, rests his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands. It’s cute to look at, and Niall sure does look out of the corner of his eye, through the tinted glass so Zayn still can’t see he’s doing so. It’s quite pathetic, if he thinks about it, so he tries not to.

“You’ve been avoiding me.”

Niall freezes for a moment, fingers midway through flicking on switches. “Um.”

“You have been,” Zayn continues. He sounds very matter-of-fact, almost casual, as if he’s reading out a grocery list or talking about the weather. The way he’s nervously wringing his hands betrays him. “You spend a lot of time around your cacti, checking their soil when we all know they don’t need to be watered more than once a month. We haven’t gone outside together since we landed, and you never volunteer to stay up with me like you used to. You haven’t properly talked to me in days.”

Niall wants to say that it’s all nothing, or shrug it off and blame it all on just how things ended up going, but they’re both lies; Niall doesn’t want to lie to Zayn. “I’ve talked to you,” is all he can think of, but even that isn’t really truthful. Zayn knows it, too.

“Sure, we’ve talked, but we haven’t talked. Like, you only talk to me if it’s about facts or stats or to tell me how far along you are with your research.” Zayn’s voice sounds smaller now, confused in a way that hurts his heart to hear. Niall wishes he could reassure him, or something, but it’s all true. “Is there something wrong? Like the thing that Louis’ been bugging you about, that’s about me, right? If it’s something I did, I’m sorry. I really am.”

And that’s what gets Niall. Because Zayn told him that he didn’t feel quite right in their group, that Niall was helping him to feel like he fits in, and here Niall is shutting him out.

“Don’t apologize. It’s my own fault, not yours.”

Zayn taps absently at his own helmet with his knuckles. “Something I can help with?”

Niall snorts, smiling in a way that he knows comes off as self-deprecating. “Not really, Zayn.”

“Okay,” Zayn says. So accepting it makes Niall’s heart pang. “I’ll sit here with you, though, if you don’t mind.”

Niall doesn’t mind, and he says that much, so Zayn stays. The rovers that were on Mars years before them have already gathered all this data, and Niall is more or less there to make sure the latest in climate-testing technology gathers the same possibly-human-life-sustaining data, so he’s not particularly rushing. He hums to himself as he slowly turns off all the different aspects of the machine. The whirring stops, and then it’s just Niall and Zayn sitting in the Mars dust.

There’s a sigh, and Niall looks up to see Zayn frowning to himself. He’s dragging his fingers through the sand in front of him, eyebrows furrowed and movements sluggish in a sad-looking way. Niall flips up the tinted glass on his helmet so he can see the sand properly in the bright sunlight, and his breath catches in the back of his throat.

Zayn’s doodling hearts.

“Thinking of someone?” Niall asks, voice strained.

Zayn sighs again. “I mean, I miss my family and stuff, but, yeah. Had a lot of time to think over the last few days. So, like, yeah. Thinking of someone, I guess.”

Niall’s breath comes out shaky, and he nods. “Someone back home?” He tries to sound casual, tries to convey to Zayn that he doesn’t have to answer if he doesn’t want to.

Zayn chuckles slightly, looks up at Niall with his nose scrunched in that way that makes Niall’s stomach twist up. He looks back down at his sand hearts, brushing them away with his palm before he says, “Not exactly, no.”

And that’s… That’s something, isn’t it?

Niall quickly thinks back to the spaceship. Louis and Harry were both sleeping, he knew, and he also knew Liam was too polite towards Zayn in particular to ever eavesdrop for more than a few accidental seconds. Only then does he take a deep breath and lean forward, a little into Zayn’s space, and trace his own finger through the sand.

“Think I may know what you mean.”

Zayn looks down at the drawing, a little messy and lopsided, Niall’s sure, and stays quiet for a few seconds. Just long enough for Niall to debate whether he can run back into the spacecraft in time if his nerves get the best of his stomach, and then Zayn’s looking up again, eyes wide and sparkling. Jesus.

“You do?” Zayn’s fingers re-trace Niall’s crudely drawn upside-down heart, and Niall grins so hard his cheeks start to hurt.

“Yeah, Zayn.”

Zayn laughs and it’s like wind chimes in Niall’s ears, melodic and beautiful. Niall can’t help his own laugh in return. The light glints just right against the side of Zayn’s helmet, throwing half of his face into partial-shadow, and Niall doesn’t think he’s ever seen a more beautiful sight than this.

“Want to go back inside?” Zayn asks. He’s already rising to his feet, brushing the dust off of his hands before he extends one to Niall.

Niall takes it. “Yeah, I’d like to.”

****

Liam lets them back in, and Zayn and Niall end up smiling at each other widely as they wait for the oxygen to stabilize.

“Will you kiss me when we can take our helmets off?” Zayn asks quietly, tongue pressed lightly against his front teeth.

“God, you don’t even know how long I’ve wanted to kiss you, Zayn,” Niall says. It’s freeing to finally say it all out loud, since he’s been denying it verbally to the boys since day one.

“Since when?” Zayn licks his lips, and Niall wants to bite them, a bit. A lot.

“Around a month before we took off,” Niall says. “It was just, like, something I could sort of ignore at the time, since we were busy getting ready and weren’t around each other every hour of every day. Didn’t want to make things awkward if you didn’t feel the same.”

Zayn goes soft at that. “Why wouldn’t I, Niall?”

Niall shrugs. “Didn’t know if you were into guys, didn’t know if you weren’t. You were busy trying to prepare to captain the first human expedition to Mars. You know, the little things.”

The stabilizer beeps and then they’re all movement. Niall quickly unhinges his helmet and slides his own unhelpful hands across Zayn’s. The gloves of their suits make the process a bit more difficult, and Niall manages to tug his suit down to around his waist by the time Zayn finally gets his helmet off.

“Never had problems with that before,” Zayn laughs, and then Niall leans in and kisses him.

Zayn’s lips are soft, and they’re both smiling into each other so widely that their teeth clash. Niall laughs, managing to calm down enough to connect their lips properly. It’s warm and Zayn’s beard is burning his chin slightly, and it’s perfect.

“I can’t—” Zayn huffs, pulls his mouth away from Niall for a second and scrabbling at his own spacesuit. Eventually they get it down enough for Zayn to free his arms and hands, and then he’s mussing up Niall’s hair with his fingers. “God, I like you so much.”

“I’d hope so,” Niall says, letting Zayn use his grip on Niall’s head to tilt his head back, move his lips down to his neck. “Because I like you, too. I like like you, even.”

“Shut up,” Zayn laughs, stifles it into Niall’s collarbone. “These freckles, here. They’re— they’re nice. Like, to look at. I like these freckles.”

Niall scoffs at that, because Zayn’s still kissing at his skin, and mumbling, and overall not making much sense. “And you say I need to shut up.”

Zayn shrugs, pulls Niall’s lips back against his own with a quiet, “Why don’t we both, then?”

The main doors are still shut, leaving Niall and Zayn in the chamber between the main ship and the outside. Voices are crackling in their speakers, Niall vaguely registers, and he’s pretty sure he hears Louis’ obnoxious laughter in there as well. Maybe Louis will become even more annoying from now on, but Niall has a feeling he won’t mind it so much anymore.

They make it back inside eventually, with red lips and bright cheeks, and Harry proudly makes his Uranus joke, receiving a high five from Louis and a mock-disapproving glare from Liam, but Niall can tell they’re all pleased.

Zayn swings their clasped hands between them, and grins at Niall as they make their way back to the controls to record the data from Niall’s machine.

“So, would you like to go on a fancy dinner date with me?” Niall asks. Zayn’s still writing down the results, still holding his hand.

“Hmm,” Zayn scratches lightly at his jaw, already smiling, eyes crescent moons. “When?”

“About five months and two weeks from now,” Niall says, prompting Zayn to snort. “Ish.”

“Ish,” Zayn repeats quietly, tapping his pen lightly against the pad of paper. “As long as you let me take you out in a few days, then yes.”

Unbuckling his seatbelt, Niall moves closer to Zayn, grabs the pen out of his hand and sets it down. “And what did you suggest we do, Captain?”

“Play Crazy Eights and see if we can both fit into the same sleep pod.”

Grinning, Niall doesn’t hold himself back from lurching forward and pecking Zayn on the corner of his mouth.

“It’s a date.”