You Make Me Strong

Chapter 4 - After Party

Harry woke the next morning to Zayn stroking a hand through his curls, the sun gently hitting his bare back through the window.

"Hey sleepyhead, how're you feeling?" Zayn says softly, bringing his hand down to stroke Harry's arm instead.

Harry simply groans in response and turns around to curl into Zayn instead, his head resting on Zayn's shoulder, his arm wrapping around Zayn's waist. Zayn laughed softly in response and wrapped his own arms around Harry's shoulder's and over his back, the ultimate cuddle session.

" 's been a while since we've slept together..." Zayn announced into the silence, like Harry wasn't already aware that he wasn't sleeping by himself in his own bed. "Exactly how much of last night do you remember Haz?"

"All of it." came Harry's muffled response as he tried to bury his face further into Zayn's chest.

"Oh sure, so you remember trying to have sex with me?" Zayn teased, laughing harder as Harry's head shot up and looked at him in horror.

"Please tell me I didn't actually try to do that!" Harry pleaded.

"I'm just joking, H. Why do you look so appalled? You'd be lucky to have sex with me." Zayn teased further, pulling the younger boy back to his cuddle spot as his whole face glowed bright red.

"Shut up! I had a crush on you when I was 14 and you've never let it go? I'm starting to think you're the one with crush, Malik." Harry mumbled back, the back of his neck still bright red.

"Oh yeah sure, apart from the fact I don't swing that way bro." Zayn bit back.

"And yet you've never actually had a girlfriend..." Harry trailed off.

"Haz I'm two seconds away from chucking you out of my room if you don't shut up." Zayn warned, a teasing tone to the edge of his voice.

Harry almost completely knew that Zayn wasn't 100% straight, and when he was 14 and felt like his whole life revolved around Gemma bringing Zayn back home to work on that one project they had together, he could almost have sworn that Zayn was at least initially attracted to him. It was a topic neither of them ever brought up properly, only in play flights like this, but if Harry thought about it then it probably had some long emotional back story that meant Zayn wasn't comfortable being open to even himself about his sexuality, was probably brought up in a very homophobic household. He could only pray that Zayn would eventually be comfortable within himself and find someone who matched him.

Harry could only laugh at his stupid crush on Zayn now, and to be fair Zayn was the most beautiful person he'd ever met, but they both knew there was literally nothing between them other than a great friendship.

"Anyways, stop trying to delay the conversation you know we need to have." Zayn said, his tone becoming more serious, but still with a comforting edge.

"Can we just forget about last night?" Harry asked in a small voice, playing with a loose thread on the duvet sheet.

"Haz it's important that we talk about these things, just tell me what you remember happening." Zayn comforts.

And so, Harry went through everything he could remember happening at the party, sitting outside, meeting Louis, running away, getting smashed, dancing with Louis.

"It's a bit blurry then, I think maybe he brought me over to you? I can't remember." Harry finishes.

"So, he wasn't with you when you decided to fuck yourself over with alcohol then?" Zayn accuses, his tone having a harder edge then before, making Harry internally flinch and regret his previous choices regarding alcohol.