Deep (Zarry AU)

Looking for clues

...but I gotta tell ya....

"Ah love you too, man. Ah love all of you guys. You know that." Harry could hear the smile in Zayn's voice, it wavered on the edge of a laugh, as if it was ridiculous that Harry had to tell him he loved him. Cos they were all brothers, weren't they?

Harry looked up briefly, then down again. He was right: Zayn was smiling. Harry folded his arms, chewed his lip.

"I don't mean it like that. I mean I'm - I'm... "

Say it, Harry told himself.

"I'm in love with you."

There was a pause. For the first time Harry noticed the sound of a clock ticking. It was coming from the kitchen.

"What?"

"I'm in love with you."

Zayn laughed. "Yeah, Haz. Sure."

"Why don't you believe me?"

"You know.... you said that once before to me, Harreh. Remember? You didn't mean it then and you definitely don't mean it now."

Harry frowned. Zayn was right about one thing: he had said it - once before. That night - drunk, in a hotel - that night, two years ago.

That night he could never get out of his mind.

*

"He's released a song, you know." Chloe was face-timing me.

"Already? But didn't he say he wanted to be a normal twenty-two year old for a while?"

"Yeah, cos we all go round releasing songs with world-famous producers don't we? I just did one on my way to work today doncha know?". She giggled. I thought how much Chloe had changed since she left school. Time was she would never have criticised anything one of the boys did. Mind you, Zayn wasn't really one of them any more, was he? I shuddered, took a big breath in. Not one of them any more. How could that be?? It just didn't compute. He used to be everything to me. Everything. But I'd had to grow up; had to forget. Thing is - if I was totally honest - right now I was hurting for Harry more than I was hurting for me. Because I knew what Zayn meant to him. You might not believe me, but I can tell you: I knew.

*

Zayn was walking in a circle now, pacing. The smile had gone. He ran his hand through his hair, stopped, closed his eyes.

"I can't have this conversation, Harreh. You shouldn't be here. What if someone saw you - coming here, in the middle of the night? You know how rumours start. I gotta think about Perrie now, man. Gotta do right by her. "

Harry wiped at his tears with the back of his hand. So this was it. This was what rejection felt like. He felt suddenly sorry for all the people he'd done it to before. It was like all of a sudden he could understand why the girls took it so hard. And he'd convinced himself that he always did it so nicely; let them down gently; and that made him a Nice Guy. It's just not the same for me any more , he would say; or if it wasn't for the tour; or his favourite: I gotta prioritise the band right now. But in this moment, with Zayn standing at right angles to him, staring at the half-light from the window, Harry saw that the niceness; the sensible, rational explanation - the smoothing things over - : well, that just made it worse. Cos it was still being dumped. Only it was being dumped by committee.