for your eyes only

F O U R T E E N

So, thanks to Harry, he and Zayn are tangled together on a bench near the art gallery, trying to evolve some body heat against the cold. But the weather is the last thing on their minds right now. Zayn is carding his fingers through Harry's curly locks, trying to gather his nerves, and the simple act is soothing them both a great deal.

Harry is the first one to break the silence settles on them. "You don't have to tell me." he says, but it's so soft that Zayn almost doesn't hear it.

"What?"

"You don't have to tell me." Harry repeats a little louder, but still in a whisper "I was being a little bitch there. I can't force you to tell me everything. It's okay."

"No, I was thinking of telling you everything, actually." Zayn says, and he means it because days before coming to London, he had stayed up at night, contemplating whether telling Harry about the abuse was a good idea. He had decided, that it was. Then, he started practising ways he should tell him about the abuse. And finally, when the seed of doubt planted itself cosily in his brain, he had fallen asleep, the seed growing a little more each night.

So, hearing Harry practically saying that he wants the truth and he won't leave after knowing it, it killed the plant growing in his head.

"I was a mistake." Zayn chuckles drily, and Harry throws him a dirty look.

"Say anything bad about yourself again, and I will make a mistake and end up killing you." Harry says. Zayn knows he is joking, but something in his green eyes tells him to be wary.

Zayn smiles against the chocolate curls, smelling his shampoo. And he tells him everything. "Davis and my mother were coworkers. One day, they had a one night stand, which conceived me... I don't know much but... When mom found out she was pregnant with me, she came over at Davis' house to tell him. There she met Laura. Laura... was Davis' pregnant wife."

Harry gasps, then looks at him, mortified and slightly apologetically, but Zayn just smiles at him and slightly shakes his head, indicating it's okay.

"Long story short, Laura left him. Davis went...mad. He started coming home drunk and hitting my mother. Then, one day my mother committed suicide."

Zayn's brave facade slips slightly. He wipes the tear as quickly as it comes, but he can't really hide anything from Harry. So, he gives up hiding and embraces Harry's warmth as he shuffles closer to Zayn in a form of comfort.

"It was hard," Zayn says, his voice dropping down to a mere whisper. "I saw her wounds before, you know? But she said it was nothing. And I believed her. I didn't really let it enter my mind until I saw her, hanging from that rope...dead."

So, when Harry tucks his head under Zayn's chest, and starts to rub his back in comfort, he breaks. He tells him everything, his words tumbling over one after the other. He tells him when Davis first hit him, when he was late from coming to school. He tells him how once Davis locked him and Claire in a closet because they were making noise while he was sleeping. He tells him how he saw Davis decay as a human, in his body.

And as Zayn's tears soak Harry's shoulder through his jacket, he believes it's okay, because Harry says so. And everything's fine with Harry.