All the Leaves are Brown (Zarry AU)

Chapter 1

May

The kid gets there just after nine. He’s trying hard not to look like one, his chin up as he walks into the living room, but Zayn isn’t fooled because only a kid would crash a house party at nine o’clock. Usually, he’d sling him out because he doesn’t need the drama. He just wants to play some records and chill without having to deal with a drunk teenager breaking shit then puking on the patio. But under all his swagger, Zayn can see how nervous he is and catches himself smiling as he remembers how he used to crash his cousin’s parties with his mate, Ant, when they were his age. There’s an art to it, they learned, you can’t get there too early because someone will notice and kick you out, but you can’t get there too late, either, because all the booze’ll be gone.

It’s all about timing and the kid’s missed the mark by about an hour because Zayn hasn’t even finished setting up his decks yet and his sister, Doniya, is still in his room with her mates straightening her hair. When the kid realises that the living room is empty, Zayn watches the skin between his eyebrows pinch and is sure he’ll leg it, but to his credit, he recovers quickly and nudges his mate, a thin guy with fragile features and a gap between his teeth who looks even younger. He’s noticeably relieved when the kid nods towards the door, but he knows they’ll be back because Zayn’s seen this kid before, Instagraming the window at Piccadilly Records and the cardboard dividers that separate the vinyl. (DOWNBEAT WEIRD SHIT – BALEARIC is his current fave.) He even showed up at the 42’s one night and clambered up to the decks to tell Zayn to play an Arctic Monkeys track. Not ask, tell, his eyes bright and his curls wilting in the muggy club.

But if that’s what he’s come for, he’s going to be disappointed because what will get the crowd at 42’s going is not what his mates want to hear at all. So, in case he hasn’t realised it yet, Zayn puts on a Naughty by Nature track and turns it up so loud that he can feel the buzz of it in his bones. But to his surprise, the kid and his mate wander back into the living room, heads nodding. They’re holding cans of Red Stripe that must still be warm because Zayn only dumped them in the dustbin of ice by the back door ten minutes ago. His mate winces when he takes a gulp, but for the kid, the beer is just a prop, like the Joy Division t-shirt and the too new Converse and the jeans slung just so on his hips. He has as much interest in the beer as he does in Joy Division, but he obviously thinks it makes him look older so Zayn knows that he’ll hold the can all night if he has to.

When he remembers the first time Ant knocked back a shot of tequila and puked, Zayn chuckles to himself, surprised by how much he notices in those few moments. He would have anyway, he thinks, because the kid doesn’t look like the people he usually hangs around with who favour DMs to Converse and Naughty by Nature to Joy Division. But his mates are no less deliberate, not because they’re trying to look older but because they’re trying so hard to look different, their shirts buttoned to the collar and their forearms laced with tattoos. Anything not to look like the lads they go to uni with who swagger around Manchester in parkas and Lacoste hi tops in the same way this kid probably thinks he’s different from the people he goes to school with. So Zayn leaves him be because he knows what it’s like to be the only one at school who’s dreams extend further than two weeks in Kavos in July and United winning the FA Cup.

But if he pukes on the patio, he’s cleaning it up himself.