Keep the Car Running (Zarry AU)

Chapter 36

They drive back to Harry’s flat in silence. He tells Zayn that he doesn’t need to come in, but of course he does and Harry’s so exhausted that he doesn’t have the energy to walk up the stairs, let alone fight him. But as they finally near his front door, Harry stops, remembering the state his flat was in when they left and rubs his forehead with his hand.

‘It’s alright,’ Zayn soothes, rubbing Harry’s back with his hand, then taking a set of keys out of the pocket of his jeans. Harry’s too tired to register what he’s doing until Zayn opens the door and hands him the keys. Harry looks down at them in his palm for a moment – too bright and too silver – then lifts his chin to blink at him.

‘You changed the locks?’

Zayn nods and when he walks into the flat, Harry frowns as he follows him in to find that it’s spotless, everything back to where it should be. Harry turns on the spot, his eyes wide as he wonders if he imagined what he saw earlier. But then he smells bleach and when he sees the gleaming floorboards and the clean patches on the wallpaper where the spray paint had been, he realises that someone’s cleaned it.

‘You did this?’

‘My housekeeper sorted it,’ Zayn says, tucking his hands into the pockets of his hoodie.

‘She did all of this by herself?’

‘She had help.’

‘Where are my suits?’ Harry asks, frowning at his bare clothes rail.

‘The dry cleaner,’ Zayn tells him, then gestures at the bookshelf that isn’t as cluttered as it usually is. ‘Amazon can’t deliver until the 27th. If you’re not around, I can arrange for someone to be here to sign for it.’

‘You did this?’

‘Go take a shower. You’ll feel better.’ Zayn nods at the bathroom door.

Harry nods back even though he’s sure nothing will help; he feels so hollow it’s as if someone has taken a spoon and scooped out his insides. But he’s too stunned to do anything else, padding off to the bathroom then standing under the spray of the shower until he’s gathered enough energy to climb out of the tub again.

When he walks back into the living room, Zayn is sitting on the sofa, flicking through a copy of Granta. Harry’s heart stops, hoping it isn’t the issue with his short story in it. He doesn’t know why it bothers him, given everything they’ve done, but the thought of Zayn reading it makes him feel so vulnerable, he blushes.

‘Feel any better?’ Zayn asks, standing up when he looks up to find Harry in front of him, rubbing his hair with a towel.

‘No,’ he smiles, then nods at the door. ‘But you’d better go. It’s past one.’

Zayn sits down again. ‘I’ll kip here.’

‘I’m kidding.’ Harry stops drying his hair and tilts his head at him. ‘I’ll be alright.’

‘I’m sure you will, but just humour me, okay?’

‘I don’t have a blanket,’ Harry tells him when he starts adjusting the cushions.

‘Can’t be worse than my car.’

‘Fine,’ Harry says, giving his hair one last rub then hanging the towel on the radiator under the window by the bed. He looks out at the street as he does, at the black black sky and white white snow, and it surprises him how much it soothes him, the muscles in his shoulders relaxing as he turns to face the bed. He flings a pillow at Zayn, who catches it with a yawn, then throws the duvet back, the smell of fabric conditioner making his eyelashes flutter as he climbs into the bed and turns off the lamp.

He lies in the dark for a while, listening to Zayn trying to get comfortable on the small, lumpy sofa and it’s strange, Zayn there, in his flat, on his sofa. Good strange. Distracting strange. But there’s never been this much distance between them before.

‘Are you really going to sleep there?’ he asks, sitting up turning on the lamp.

Zayn holds his hand up and blinks at him. ‘But you-’

‘Get in here,’ Harry snaps, ripping the duvet back.

Zayn does as he’s told, albeit groggily, standing up tugging off his hoodie. Harry hears a crackle of static as he does and when Zayn emerges from under the black cotton, his hair is sticking up in a hundred different directions. It looks so weird – so unlike him – that Harry wants to touch it, this new, short hair that he’d struggle to find a handful of.

Zayn hops from foot to foot as he struggles to take off his jeans and Harry can’t help but giggle when he almost falls over. ‘Sexy!’

‘Shut up,’ Zayn sneers, crawling onto the bed and biting his nose.

That’s strange as well. Harry usually sleeps in the middle of the bed so it feels like there isn’t enough space. But then he feels the heat of Zayn next to him and there’s suddenly too much space, Harry sliding closer so their hips touch. Zayn looks at him when they do and for the first time since they met, they don’t do anything. They don’t grab or lick or bite, they just look at each other and Harry aches – actually aches – because he’s been desperate to kiss him from the moment he saw him and he’s sure that if he doesn’t he’ll disintegrate, just disappear in a puff of smoke. But then Zayn dips his head and when their lips touch, Harry doesn’t disappear at all. He’s suddenly, absolutely, completely there and aware of every inch of his body. His heart and his blood and his skin, his hard, white bones under it all, stronger than they’ve ever felt. And as they kiss softly, forgetting to turn off the lamp and close the curtains on the world turning on without them, Harry can’t remember the last time he felt like that, felt whole.

He doesn’t think he ever has.