All the Leaves are Brown (Zarry AU)

Chapter 27

There’s one room left, on the top floor in the eaves of the house. It’s unreasonably hot up there – even with the window open – and the ceiling’s so low that they have to dip their heads, but they’re the only ones up there which is all Zayn wants.

All he ever wants.

He’s thought about this moment many times (usually when he’s wanking in the shower) but it isn’t what he expected. Given that they’ve been teasing each other all day, he thought they’d be ripping each other’s clothes off as soon as they closed the door, but Harry is surprisingly quiet, his cheeks flushed as he plays with his hair then puts his hands on his hips then puts them back in his hair again. Zayn’s nervous, too, for the first time ever it’s just them and a bed and he hasn’t got the excuse of not wanting to wake Ant or not having enough room in the tiny bathroom stall they’re wedged into. Or at least he hopes that Harry is nervous and isn’t about to admit defeat in a game of gay chicken Zayn didn’t realise they were playing. But he’s reassured when he presses a kiss to his throat and says, ‘We have all night,’ and Harry giggles, eyelashes fluttering.

They make tea using the tiny kettle and drink it sitting on the bed sharing the pack of shortbread as they flick through the photos they’ve taken. ‘I’m making this my lock screen,’ Harry smiles, showing Zayn the photo of him doing his best duck face in the KISS ME QUICK hat he wouldn’t let Harry buy but relented to trying on. It isn’t until he changes it that Zayn realises that Harry’s already using a photo of him as his lock screen, the one he took of Zayn the last time they were in Platt Fields, a copy of Just Kids between his fingers. He doesn’t know how he hadn’t noticed.

‘Hey,’ he says softly, leaning over to nudge Harry with his nose.

‘Hey,’ he says with a smile that Zayn feels when he presses his mouth to his.

It’s a slow, delicate kiss, the sound of it – the soft smack of their lips and the murmur Harry makes when he parts his and their tongues touch – making Zayn shiver. But when he drops his phone on the bed to take Harry’s face in his hands, he stops him.

‘What?’ Zayn breathes. ‘Am I going too fast?’

‘No.’ Harry gulps and shakes his head. ‘I just need to say something now because in about thirty second I’m not going to be able to speak at all.’

Zayn’s spine feels as tight as a guitar string as he sits back and holds his breath because he knows this is it.

This is the I-don’t-think-I-can-do-this conversation.

‘Okay.’ Harry sits back, too, and when he sees how hot his cheeks are, Zayn’s heart throbs because he knows it’s nothing to do with the kiss. ‘Okay. So I was going to give you an ultimatum tonight but as I said, I’m trying to be all cool and whatever,’ he waves his hands around, ‘and not seventeen about this-’

‘An ultimatum?’ Zayn frowns and Harry holds his hand up.

‘Just listen, okay?’

Zayn nods carefully.

‘I get why you wanted to wait, but I wish we hadn’t.’

Zayn hears the tremor in his voice and something in him tenses. ‘Why?’

Harry shakes his head as if he doesn’t want to say it, but he does. ‘Because I’m not cool and whatever.’ He sighs sadly. ‘I’m seventeen and I’m an idiot and I fell in love with you. I know I shouldn’t have, I know we were supposed to just be this summer thing, but I fell in love and I’m sorry but now I can’t do this if you’re going to leave.’

When he stops for breath, Zayn tries to speak, but Harry doesn’t let him. ‘So if this is it, if you don’t want to do this, if you don’t want me to be your boyfriend, which I know,’ he closes his eyes and sighs, ‘makes me sound fourteen not seventeen, but that’s what I want, I’m sorry. I want you, all of you. You bitching about me nicking your chips and using up all the hot water in the morning and groaning every time I Instagram something and you singing Miley Cyrus and not realising it and giving me the seat by the window and letting me have your favourite pillow. All of it.’

‘Harry-’

‘Please. This is so hard. Just let me say this,’ he puts his hand in his hair. ‘So if you don’t want to do this then I can’t do this,’ he nods at the bed, ‘because I’d rather you were just that guy. That guy I had an amazing summer with and still think about in ten years when I’m married with kids and smile every time I hear an Arctic Monkeys song.’

‘Okay,’ Harry fists his hand in his hair, his cheeks a little pinker, ‘that totally sounds like an ultimatum, but it really isn’t, I promise. I just want to know, you know?’

Zayn nods.

‘So any time you feel like saying something, please do.’

Zayn nods again.

‘Any time, Zayn.’

He nods again and Harry looks ready to burst into tears so he smiles, because he can’t tease him any more. ‘You are an idiot.’ When Harry’s face falls, Zayn leans over to press a kiss to his mouth. ‘But you’re my idiot.’

He doesn’t even know how he can say it his heart is beating so hard, as though it’s trying to get out of his chest to kiss Harry, too.

When he smiles, it nearly does. ‘I am?’ Zayn kisses him again and Harry gets all flustered, his cheeks even redder. ‘Aw. I’m your idiot.’

‘You really are.’

‘So we’re doing this?’

‘We’re doing this.’

Harry grins. ‘Okay,’ he bounces on the bed, ‘you can fuck me now. But,’ he points at Zayn and arches an eyebrow. ‘You have to say it first?’

‘Say what?’

‘You know what?’

Zayn reaches for his wrist. ‘I’ll write it in your hand.’