Barefoot │Ziall Horlik AU

Chapter 3 - Leave My Heart Open

((Sorry for the mispelling and what not :( ))

             For the following week, Zayn came to the park and sat under his tree and waited, but Niall never showed. He feared he'd scared him off, that the picture was too much and Niall just...picked up and left. He wondered where he was, and who might be drawing him.

             Only Zayn was allowed to draw him. Which, by habit, was something he continued. He sketched him, drew him, and once...he even sculpted him with clay. It wasn’t something he could stop, it was like an addiction. He drew Niall in his bed, drew the muscles in his back and the roundness of his ass and he even allowed himself to pleasure himself to the pictures.

             He drew him exposed, and dressed. He drew him with a Christmas hat on...only a Christmas hat on. And then he drew him in front of the fireplace of his home, his sisters sitting around him and a present between his legs, opening it, his cheeks red and covered in a large Christmas sweater.

             Zayn drew him in the bath a few times, a leg swung over one side of the tub and bubbles covering him. And he gave up going to the park after a few days, only sat in his warm room, pillows and blankets wrapped around him.

             He mopped.

             On the second week, his mother made him help put up Christmas lights. He stapled them along the rooftop, the air cold and Niall the only thing on his eyes. The later was slippery and he feel, leg stuck between one of the later steps and it broke.

             He tumbled to the ground and hit his head, resulting in a concussion and a cast. Zayn hated the cast and by then, week two was over. Christmas was fifteen days away and Zayn still didn’t move. He sat on the couch in his blankets (Because his sisters wanted to keep an eye on him) and watched Movies on the TV.

             The news called for a blizzard with winds of fifty mils an hour and temperatures below freezing...like, way below. And the only thing Zayn seemed to care about was Niall. It was...all he cared about, really. All he ever thought of and all that his mind seemed to get lost in.

             The day of the blizzard, everyone packed things away from the yard, making sure the decorations were held down and closed up, but Zayn didn’t bother to help. He wobbled on his crutches and sipped warm tea. When night came, everyone tucked into bed and slept, but Zayn had no care for sleep. He left his crutches and wobbled out of the house, the cold snow making his skin icy and pale. He walked the few blocks to the park and hobbled down the stone path to the bench where he sat.

             He waited and waited, the cold snow hitting him like a brick wall before getting up. He wondered the park and looked behind trees, but Niall was no were. He began to wonder if he'd left again, or if he was at a shelter (Which he hoped) but a body of shivering limbs and tangled blankets caught his eye through the snow and he wondered over, wincing at the pain in his foot.

             "Niall?" He had to yell over the wind as he held himself up on the stone wall Niall was perched behind. "Zayn?" The cold, shaky voice called back. His eyes were droopy and his skin was nearly purple. He probably had hypothermia, maybe some frost bite. "Jesus, Niall...It’s freezing out here! What are you doing!" Zayn cursed him, sitting next to Niall and huddling next to him.

             "I don’t got no were else to go?" Niall’s voice was weak, that was something Zayn was sure of and his lips were a totally different kind of purple...but Zayn wanted to kiss them anyways. "Why didn’t you come?" Niall asked. "Why weren’t you here anymore? I went to the bench and you weren’t there for so long...What happened to your leg?" He noticed the blue cast around Zayn’s right leg.

             "I feel off a ladder. Why weren’t you there? I came for nearly a week and you were gone..." Zayn asked back and Niall only shrugged with a shiver.

             Zayn sighed and stood, reaching his hand out. "C'mon...We need to get you somewhere warm. Your purple, you can’t just sit out here!" He pulled Niall too his feet with his entire mite, the boy still wrapped in the blankets.

             He pulled him from the park, the long walk hard on both of them. Zayn with a broken leg, Niall week and frozen. "Were are we going?" Niall shivered quietly, hands holding onto Zayn’s forearm. "My house? Where else?" Zayn tugged him in closer as they rounded his block. "What will your family say?"

             Zayn shrugged. When they reached the house, the wind was almost knocking them on their feet and Zayn’s own skin was turning pink. He shivered and tracked through the thick snow. He pushed the front door open and the kitchen light was on, his whole family pacing the house.

             "Zayn! Where were you, you had us worried sic-Who's this?" His father asked, looking over Niall. "Zayn what possessed you to make you run out in the middle of a blizzard! With a broken leg, might I add!" He mother scolded.

             "Would everyone stop hounding me? I was worried about Niall! He was out there in the storm all night, I'm surprised he hasn’t died from freezing!" Zayn walked Niall to the couch and sat him down and Zayn’s mother pulled him to the side.

             "What is this Zayn, your dragging home the homeless now? What’s gotten into you!" She whispered as Zayn’s youngest Sister looked over Niall, who's eyes closed with tiredness. "I wasn’t about to leave him out there to die mom, he’s my friend! Now help me get him better, or stop pestering me!" He yelled at her, walking to the kitchen for a warm rag and some tea.

             His mother sighed and watched and in minutes, she was following with a warm bowl of water and another rag. "Take his shirt off and lay him down," She instructed and Zayn’s father instructed the other kids to go to bed and he too followed to tuck them in, Zayn’s oldest sister already cuddled into her blankets in her bed.

             Zayn pushed the blankets back and pulled his shirt off. Niall was pale, almost ghost white and thin, not like Zayn drew him. He sighed and ran the warm rag over his torso and Niall let out a happy mewl. They cleaned him off and warmed him. Zayn took the blankets to the wash, gave Niall clean clothes and carried him to his room. He laid him on the bed and sighed.

             Niall looked so broken, so vulnerable and tired. He stared back with dull, absent eyes and scratched his nose before cuddling into the clean sheets. "I haven’t slept in a real bed for a long time. At the orphanage, we slept on these cots; they were just foam on a wood frame." He smiled and rolled on his side. "Don’t think about that right now...just get some sleep." Zayn instructed of him.

             Niall whined and pated the bed beside him. "Stay with me..." He pleaded. "I don’t want you to go again."

             Zayn didn’t leave. He lay with Niall all night and watched him sleep and when he woke again, the sun just coming up and his room lowly lit. He sketched Niall till he woke and smiled, climbing back into the bed.