Ziam one shots

Just Let Me Know (2)

Chapter 2: Part II: In the World Again

Chapter Text
He tells himself not to do it, but he's slowly realizing that doesn't matter. His impulse control is shit, and he's emotionally empty, like a dried up well that no one thought to fill in after they were done with it. He knows he shouldn't do it, but he's dying for some answers, and he knows that she'll have them.

            So Zayn calls Perrie.

            The ringing of his phone is so loud in his ears, like he's overly sensitive to it. He feels like a bomb just exploded in his hospital room, like there should be wreckage surrounding his pristine bed. He feels like the victim of an explosion, raw and bleeding from too many places to count, and he knows that he shouldn't call Perrie.

            The phone rings, long and shrill and loud in his ear.

            He shouldn't call Perrie, but the boys haven't come back. Liam left, leaving a crater behind in Zayn's mind, and the boys didn't swoop in to cover it. Like a missing tooth, the empty spot just aches, and he knows that Perrie won't fill it, obviously couldn't fill it before, but he's calling her anyway.

            Another long ring echoes through the phone's speakers.

            He doesn't understand why the boys didn't come back in. Just like Harry's bipolar behavior towards Zayn, it doesn't make sense. He's the one who's hurting, who's devastated, but he knows (the way they always just know when it concerns one of the others) that the boys are with Liam right now. Their absence yells vulgarity at him, condemnation that he doesn't understand, and Perrie's voice won't fix that. But he doesn't hang up.

            The same loud tone rings again.

            He just needs an explanation. He tried to get one from Liam, but then he couldn't go through with it. There's so much he needs to just understand, and so little that he can do to fix it. He can't fix his memory. He clearly can't fix the situation with Liam, but he can fix this. He can get answers from Perrie; he can understand this break up at least.

            The ring doesn't come again, instead her voice cracks through the speakers.

            "Zayn."

            His hesitation is two-fold. First, the voice sends a shock of something familiar and unpleasant through him, like he's guilty for calling her, his stomach churning with it. Second, because the voice itself is familiar, careening through the caverns in his mind, just briefly illuminating the scooped out sides of memories that once were and could be again.

            "Perrie," he answers, the name flowing off his tongue in a practiced movement and he wonders how many times he has said her name. They dated for years; it has to be over a million right?

            (Of course, then he wonders how many times he has said Liam's name. Moaned it. Gasped it. Whined it as Liam buried himself deep in Zayn, always hitting his prostate at just the right angle to force Zayn into a quivering mess that he could never hate because he craved it. And Liam's name always fell from his mouth like a prayer those times when Liam took him while looking into his eyes, Zayn's cock trapped between them and oversensitive from the excruciatingly slow pace that Liam loved in their own beds at home, when they had time, wrapped up in sheets that spoke of a purity Zayn always attributed to their relationship. And he knows that however many times he's said Perrie's name, he never said her name like he said Liam's.)

            He rips himself away from the cloying scent of Liam's sweaty skin that lingers in his nose like he fucked him two minutes not two years ago, and forces himself to speak. "Where are you?"