Keep This Love (In a Photograph)

Chapter 23

Zayn vaguely remembers calling Harry but he can't remember Harry arriving or when he ended up lying on the sofa with his head in Harry's lap. And he definitely doesn't remember when he starting singing Mario.

"You should let me love you, let me be the one to give you everything you want and need ..." he half-sings, half-mumbles.

"You're a terrible drunk, Zayn," Harry's telling him and Zayn completely agrees. He's had countless shots of whiskey that he didn't even bother to water down, perversely enjoying the burn as he swallowed each shot. He's paying for it now though because the room won't stop spinning and he feels even more miserable than he had when Liam left.

"S'gone," Zayn mumbles.

"Yeah, so you've said. Repeatedly."

"S'gone and hates me." The words sound rough and unfamiliar to him and his stomach roils again.

"No he doesn't," Harry says with a sigh. He cards his fingers through Zayn's hair soothingly and Zayn nuzzles into Harry's thigh gratefully. "Whatever happened, I'm sure he just needs to calm down, okay?"

"I said we were havin' fun," Zayn mumbles pathetically. "He didn't say anything."

"Wait, you mean you didn't have that talk you promised me you were going to have?" Harry asks, his hands pausing in their ministrations.

"No," Zayn says, his voice muffled where he's buried his face into Harry's leg. "This was the talk. Didn't go well."

"No kidding," Harry says sardonically. "He asked you what you were doing and you said having fun? No wonder he left, Zayn. Jesus."

"You're s'posed to be on my side Harry," Zayn whines mournfully.

They both look up when Zayn's phone flashes and vibrates on the coffee table in front of them. Zayn lifts his head, groaning as the room spins again and then he's grabbing for the phone, half falling to the floor as his fingers close around it and he drags himself back up onto the sofa.

"S'Liam," Zayn says in surprise. He'd hoped, but he hadn't thought it would actually be Liam. Not this soon. "That can't be good, right?"

Harry merely shrugs and stands up, stretching before he heads for the kitchen. "You need water. Lots of water."

hey, sorry i left before, that was shit of me. can we hook up in a few days? when you're free?

Zayn re-reads the text again and again, completely confused. "He wants to hook up in a few days," he calls out to Harry.

"That's good, right?" Harry says, coming out of the kitchen and pressing a glass of water into Zayn's hand.

He drinks it without even really noticing. "We had an argument," Zayn says dazedly. He knows he's drunk but this doesn't make any sense even to his alcohol-addled mind. "But he's apologising and wants to meet in a few days."

"See? You're making a fuss about nothing," Harry says reasonably, settling himself down on the sofa again. "You can apologise, talk things out and things can get back to normal, yeah?"

Zayn's not sure that it's as easy as Harry makes it sound, but god, he hopes so. It's going to be a crappy few days in the meantime.

*

When Liam texts two days later, Zayn's in a better place. A more hopeful, less inebriated place. Zayn suggests meeting at the coffee shop as a neutral location but Liam says he'd rather just come to Zayn's. So he's tidied the entire house, he's fed and watered Tiger and banished him to the kitchen, and he's put new sheets on the bed. Just in case.