fool's gold [zarry]

treize

"Why did you seduce me?" Zain asks, sipping the drink Harry has prepared in his own kitchen, wearing nothing but a pair of briefs and moving around the space like he owned it. Like he was comfortable.

Harry tilts his head back, his hair brushing Zain's shoulder. He laughs.

"Babe," he says, shaking his head slightly. "If anyone seduced anyone it was the other way round."

"I'm pretty sure it was you who turned up here and asked for sex, darling," Zain argues back, watching Harry grin brightly, all sunshine and gold.

"Hm," Harry makes, grinning. "After you looked at me like you wanted to eat me alive."

"Still doesn't explain why you came back," Zain says, the thought nagging at him. Zain was fun for a while but never for longer. Niall was the only one who stuck with him, always. It's what made him special.

Harry sighs and turns around, straddling Zain properly and wrapping his arms around him, pressing his lips to Zain's jaw languidly.

"You're sweet you know," he says softly. "Under all that prickliness."

"I'm not sweet," Zain snorts. "Niall reminds me every day."

"Niall adores you," Harry laughs again, soft. "Why are you worrying, babe?"

"I don't think this is a good idea," Zain says, stomach like lead. "You're getting too attached."

Harry stills, leaning back slightly to look at Zain.

"I'm getting too attached," he repeats, slowly, gleaming golden in the sun, hair messy from Zain's hair, his mouth still red. There is a hickey on his chest, right next to where his necklace rests, that Zain must have left yesterday.

He's been here five days and Zain hasn't even thought about fleeing, hasn't once felt the annoyance that came with another person in his space, that came with the feeling of toenails curling at simple things like someone breathing next to him.

He'd slept through every night since Harry had arrived back at his house, grinning and careless, wearing a shirt from the collection named after him like it meant nothing, stealing Zain's breath from him.

There were sketches after sketches on Zain's tablet now, drafts and concepts and colour schemes of something truly golden, something like sunshine that would be his next line.

"I thought you liked me here," Harry says, sounding smaller. Diminished. Dimmed.

"Wouldn't want to overindulge," Zain says, like his mouth is not his own. Except it always is, isn't it. It's why he keeps Niall around. To sort him out. "There can be too much of a good thing, darling."

"Okay," Harry says, detaching himself and growing cold with it. Hard. Like some figure from a Greek myth, petrified, turned stone because Zain's dared look at him, no longer soft warm sunshine.

"Okay," Harry repeats when Zain doesn't say anything. "I'll leave you be, then. Wouldn't want to outstay my welcome." He looks at Zain for a moment, like he is waiting for something, but maybe Zain's the one who's become stone. 

Then he turns, nodding to himself, and leaves.

"Oh, darling," Zain calls after him, feeling hollow. "Don't forget the shirt I made you yesterday."

"Of course not," Harry says, easy, eyes empty.

Zain doesn't listen to him move around, taking a sip of the drink Harry's made him, chokingly sweet, until the door falls closed behind Harry, loud in the emptiness of the house. Empty and silent, just as Zain likes it.

He nods to himself, ignoring the pit in his stomach, and goes to get dressed. He has a line to draft.

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