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Niall: its weird to take a cat on the bus right ?
Louis: what the fuck
Niall didn’t know that cats could purr so loudly. The boy sitting next to him is absently scratching the black cat’s ears while he reads and it’s attracting the attention of the people around them. The cat’s eyes mostly stay shut, but when they open Niall sees they’re almost an unearthly green.
Niall: theres this guy on the bus next to me reading n he has a cat on his lap
Niall: i dont think it likes me
Louis: the guy?
Niall: the CAT louis
Niall: th guy is hot tho so i hope he doesnt hate me
The stranger glances up at him for a moment, and Niall angles himself further into the corner between the seat and the window. As if he could read what Niall’s texting; he’s already turned his phone’s brightness so far down that Niall has to squint at it himself. That’s probably why the boy is looking at him, now that Niall thinks about it.
Niall: hes got a huge book wit him tho hes too smart for me
Louis: dont put urself down neil
Niall: fuck off .
The stranger’s eyebrows furrow, and the cat yowls once. He stopped petting it, apparently, and he goes back to doing so as he continues reading. Niall glances over and is surprised when he sees multiple diagrams, all very detailed and extensively labeled. The pictures are mostly of herbs, Niall thinks, and some things that look like tiny bones—
It slams shut suddenly, and the stranger is glancing wide eyed at him as Niall looks up. He starts hastily packing up his things, hands shaking. Niall wants to offer to help, but that would be a bit creepy of him, right?
The bus driver brakes suddenly just as he stands up, and he lurches before ultimately falling and dropping everything he was already struggling to hold. The cat meows pitifully, headbutting the boy’s calves, the boy muttering out shit before quickly trying to collect his things.
Now, Niall feels that it’s appropriate to help him out a bit. He reaches down to grab an electric blue, cracked-looking ball that rolled into the wall of the bus.
“No, don’t—”
Before the stranger’s voice registers in Niall’s head, his fingers touch the surface of it. Despite the look of the ball, it’s burning hot, and Niall feels like he’s been shocked, like he’s stuck something metal into a plug. He quickly pulls his hand back, but it’s too late. It feels like his bones have all been rattled, as though he’s been taken apart then put back together again.
Niall looks up at the stranger, who looks significantly more panicked than he did before—which is saying something, Niall thinks. He quickly snatches up the ball, apparently not getting burned or shocked by the looks of it, then the cat meows again and runs off the bus.
“God,” the boy says. He gives one more glance to Niall before sprinting after the cat. Still, he gives the bus driver a quick wave thanks on his way out.
The bus is completely silent, and then the doors close and the general hum of many people talking at once resumes. Niall would wonder if it had happened at all if his foot didn’t knock into a book on the floor in front of him.
****
Louis: niall
Louis: NIALL
Louis: did u open it?
He probably shouldn’t have opened the book, in retrospect.
Niall stares morosely at the hole in his rug, singed around the edges. The book sits open and unharmed in the middle of it. It must have been booby-trapped or something, since after he flipped the first page there was a flash of light and then he was running to stick his hand under cold water. His hands are patched up quite badly, crudely wrapped with gauze that’s held together with chip clips for lack of finding something better. His ears are still ringing from the popping noise.
It takes Niall a few moments of standing in the entranceway of his living room, staring calculatingly at the book on the floor before he figures it isn’t going to catch fire again and he dares to venture closer again.
Still, he doesn’t think he’s going to touch it again.
Niall: ya i’ll text u later bro
Niall leans over the book, getting only close enough to read it. The sides of the pages are decorated in intricate patterns, and there are some notes scribbled in the margins. The original text looks old: the words are in an old typeface, the ink itself is fading and smudged, and the pages are yellowed to the point of browning. Niall’s a bit too shaken to get closer, but the writing is in a language he doesn’t understand, anyways.
He sighs, his hands throbbing in time with his pulse, and then backs out of his living room again. Niall has just started rummaging around in his kitchen drawers, searching for a safety pin or something else to better hold the bandages on his hands together, when there’s a knock on his door.
The boy from the bus is standing there when Niall opens the door, the cat sitting on his shoulders. It’s a small feat, considering the cat looks quite well fed and all of its fluffy fur is in the boy’s face. He might be wrong, but Niall thinks its glaring at him.
“How did you get into the building?” Niall asks.
The stranger rolls his eyes a bit, chuckles quietly. “Could have popped right into your flat if I wanted.”
They stare at each other for a long moment. Niall can’t figure if he’s bluffing or not, but then again, this stranger who he’s seen one time on a late afternoon bus somehow knows where he lives, so he figures this guy isn’t kidding.
“Well, I appreciate that, then,” Niall settles on saying.
The stranger nods at him then looks down at his own feet. It seems that he’s gotten a bit shy now, scratching awkwardly at the back of his neck.
“Uh, could I come in, if that’s all right?”
Niall starts. “Do you… Do you need me to let you in? I don’t even know your name.”
The boy giggles quietly into his sleeve before looking back up at him. “Not a vampire, so no, I could just walk in if I wanted. My mum taught me better, though, so I won’t. And my name’s Zayn.”
Niall looks at him for a moment longer—at his shy, sheepish smile and the way he’s gently petting his cat’s paw with one delicate finger—and then nods, opening the door more so Zayn and his cat can come inside.
“So, um, I guess you opened it, yeah?”
Niall laughs, shutting the door behind them. “Yeah, I did. Need a new rug now, and I’ll make sure to send you my medical bills.”
Zayn turns around, wide eyed, gaze zeroing in on his hands. “Oh, shit I’m sorry about that. I just meant for it to be a few tiny sparks, I swear.”
“I’m mostly fine. Rug wasn’t that nice anyways.” Why is Niall apologizing to him? He’s the fucking wizard or whatever that booby-trapped his book and didn’t think to lock it, or put a warning on it or something.
Nodding, Zayn turns back around and starts heading further into Niall’s apartment. “I’m glad you weren’t hurt, then.”
It takes Niall a moment to recollect himself, and then he follows after Zayn, who seems to already know where he’s going. Although the apartment is pretty small, so Niall is probably just making things up now. When he rounds the corner, Zayn already has his book back in his hands, and the cat is sniffing at the singed carpet.
“What is this, exactly?” Zayn looks at him with a narrowed, suspicious expression, and Niall huffs. “Come on, man. It burned my hands and my rug, you somehow know where I live, and also I think your cat is going to piss on my floor. Please just tell me what’s going on.”
“She’s not going to piss on your floor,” is what Zayn says. He’s running his fingers delicately along the book’s spine; Niall has to force himself to look away.
“Okay. I don’t know how you know that, but okay. What about the rest of it?”
Zayn shrugs, awkwardly avoids meeting Niall’s eyes. “I mean. ‘S obvious, isn’t it?”
And that’s kind of true, Niall supposes. Unless Zayn somehow intricately trapped the book to spark upon opening, using the friction of springs or something, Niall doesn’t really see a logical explanation. Zayn did know where he lived, though, and Niall’s pretty positive that black cats are a magical thing, sometimes.
“You’re— what, a wizard?”
Zayn snorts. “A witch, actually.”
“Right, right.”
“The book has a signal built in so, like, if anyone opens it who isn’t me, I’ll know. I see where it is in the crystal ball. The thing that zapped you.”
“Makes sense, yeah.”
Zayn just nods along with Niall, who probably already looks like a bobblehead doll. They fall into silence. All Niall can hear is his own blood rushing in his ears and the still obnoxiously loud purring of Zayn’s cat. Niall’s pretty sure he read that this is how people lose it: when the louder, everyday noises cease and your ears are forced to tune to the quieter noises.
So, Niall points to Zayn’s cat.
“What’s her name?”
Zayn perks up, and Niall’s surprised to see him suddenly smiling. Zayn’s smile is wide, crinkling his eyes and everything. “Her name’s Scully.”
“X-Files, right. How’d you come up with that?”
Zayn laughs. “Like, we’re kind of a team, in a way, and I wanted to be Mulder, so—” Scully huffs loudly and headbutts into Zayn’s hand from where she’s standing on Niall’s coffee table. “Think she hates the name, actually. Good thing she doesn’t have a choice in it.”
And if Niall ever thought Zayn was possibly a threat to him—which he didn’t, really—he definitely didn’t think so now.
“So you believe in aliens, then?”
Scully grumbles. “Yeah, she doesn’t, though. She’s my very reluctant partner,” Zayn says. “She’s, like, still stuck in season one.”
It’s adorable, how Scully makes quiet grumbling noises and meows that Zayn responds to almost as if she was a human standing next to him. He can probably understand her, Niall thinks. Some witch-y thing.
“What magic do you do? Should I really be letting you in my apartment?” Zayn’s eyebrow raises, and Niall surprises himself with how quick he is to backtrack. “I mean, you seem like a good guy and all, but I didn’t actually ask you anything about yourself, and we only actually met five minutes ago.”
“Wrong,” Zayn says. “I still don’t know your name. Pretty sure that means you’re the one that can’t be trusted.”
Oh. “Sorry, I just— uh, I assumed you knew?” Niall tries to fight back the blush blooming on his cheeks to no avail. “It’s— I’m Niall.”
Zayn snorts. “I’m a witch, not omniscient.”
“Right, right.” Stupid, stupid.
“To answer your question, though,” Zayn continues, “No, you don’t have to worry about me. I only know how to teleport and a few plant spells that I’m learning so that I can help my mum with her garden. And also that booby-trap spell, which apparently I haven’t learned very well since it went wrong.”
It’s quick, but Niall sees Zayn’s gaze dart to Niall’s windowsill, where his sad-looking, half-dead plants are all lined up.
“I could, um, fix those for you if you want.”
Niall nods. “Yeah! I mean, uh, yeah, that’d be cool. If you wanted to do it, that is.”
“Wouldn’t have offered if I didn’t,” Zayn says, flashing Niall a tiny smile before walking over to the window. “So I want to, yes.”
They stand together, Zayn peering at the pots closely while Niall hovers awkwardly behind him. He’s side-eyeing Scully, who still looks pissed at him.
“Are cats a part of the witch deal, too?”
It startles a laugh out of Zayn. “No, not really. I’ve always liked pets and they’ve always seemed to like me, but it, like, escalated when I started practicing magic. I can kind of sense their moods.” Zayn’s voice is slow and deep, and his fingers are hovering around Niall’s pathetic plants. They’re already looking less limp and more green.
“Could you tell her that I’m sorry, or something? Think she hates me.”
Scully grumbles. “She doesn’t hate you, she’s just a bit protective,” Zayn says. “I’ve learned a few little tricks so that I can communicate my emotions back to her, so she knows if I feel unsure or threatened. She can sometimes go a bit overboard.”
Still, Niall shifts a bit closer to Zayn.
“Well, tell her I’m not a threat, then.”
Zayn spares him a quick look before going back to Niall’s daffodils. “Can’t do that. She’ll know if I’m lying.”
“What?”
The daffodils return to their natural yellow, and when Zayn turns back to Niall, he has a deep red rose in his palm. And Niall isn’t growing any roses.
“Like, she just doesn’t want me to get distracted to the point where I end up getting hurt.”
Slowly, Niall takes the rose that Zayn’s holding out to him. “So she thinks I’m a distraction?”
Scully jumps up onto Zayn’s shoulders with a quiet meowing noise, and Zayn laughs. “She thinks you might be.”
“And you?”
Zayn grins at him, and Niall can see sparkles in his eyes when he does. “I’m hoping so, yeah.”