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"There." Zayn sighed happily as he looked at the beautifully stained table they just finished. "That looks amazing already. Is it only going to be the two coats we put on?"

"Yes. We're completely finished with the staining process. Now we just have to give it a couple days to dry. After that, we'll varnish it and give it that nice shine."

"Sounds cool."

Sam took Zayn's brush from his hand and then dropped it over into a bucket with his own staining brush. "So did you have a lot of fun?"

"I don't know about a lot of fun. But it's been interesting seeing this come together."

He smiled curiously at him. "Did you know when I was your age I never actually appreciated doing this kind of stuff?"

"Really?"

"Oh yeah. I sure didn't. My father used to try to get me to do it all the time. He said that wood work would help teach me discipline and patience because he knew I didn't have it at the time. I was too busy doing my own thing. Coming home late, not listening. Now I understand what he meant and he was right. I had no discipline. I had no patience."

"Hence the table?"

He chuckled and picked up the bucket. "Actaully no. That was just for what I told you about working with my hands. I still purposely went out of my way not to do anything he suggested and just bought a two thousand dollar electric train instead. I didn't realize I'd end up creating a whole world around that train and dedicating an entire room in my house to it."

Zayn didn't know why he was so surprised. He wasn't into electric trains at all. His thing was football. But he guessed the idea that there was a mini world in a single room intrigued him. "You really built a world around an electric train?"

"Yep."

"Really?"

"Yes. Do you want to see it?"

Zayn didn't know how to say no. "Yeah."

"Then I will show you. But only after dinner. Don't think I didn't notice you eating all those bags of junk food earlier. I did and you're going to get some real food in you."

"Real food? Wait, so I've been eating fake food this entire time?"

"Yeah, sure. Be smart all you want but you're still getting vegetables tonight whether you like it or not."

Why Zayn smiled after he said that- totally a mystery. Because being scolded like that should have made him uncomfortable and angry considering Sam was of no relation to him and he couldn't actually force him to eat his vegetables. But maybe the only thing making him okay with it was that he technically wasn't disciplining Zayn. He was disciplining Saif.

Sam held true to his word. After dinner he led Zayn down a hall to a door with a lock on it, then used a key to get in. There were lots of places around this house Zayn hadn't been yet and this was one of them. And had he ever come to this door on his own, there was no way he wouldn't have sworn Sam kept all his weapons and secrets in there.

As soon as the door opened. His eyes were directed to a table in the middle of the room. On top of it was a whole little world just like he said.

There were mountains with little plastic trees and fake people all around. There were buildings, working lights and toy cars that looked like the real thing. There were roads and a bridge and going around the whole thing was the main attraction they came in here for in the first place. The train and train station.

"Wow. How long did all this take you?" He asked as he walked around the table and examined every little part.

"A good three years at least just to collect everything. But the paper mache landscape and painting took most of that time. I could've bought the city already made. But then I wouldn't have been able to customize it like this. Plus none of the ones I saw online were anywhere near big as mine."