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Ziall - Amazing

The thing is, Niall is actually pretty good at pool. He knows how and when to put some backspin on the cue ball, how to put a little curve on it, how to angle a shot off the side of the table to avoid a foul.

But Zayn’s family owns the pool hall down the street from campus, and Zayn practically grew up with a pool cue in his hand. So if Niall is pretty good, then Zayn is in a whole other class.

That’s how they met. Niall was shooting a few sets by himself, just for practice, and found himself with what to his eyes looked like an impossible shot. Zayn had wandered over from where he was manning the bar with his sister and eyed up the table from the opposite side.

“Tough shot,” he’d said after a few seconds, “What’s your play?”

Niall had shrugged, not really wanting to embarrass himself by saying he didn’t know, because Zayn was all confident knowledge and lean grace and Niall knew he himself was neither.

Zayn hadn’t snorted at him or smirked or done anything like that which Niall was somehow expecting. Instead he’d just walked around the table and tapped at Niall’s hip like it was something he did all the time.

“Mind if I show you?” he’d asked, just inside Niall’s personal space. Next thing Niall had known, there were fingers curling lightly over his own on the pool cue, the close warmth of a body all along his back.

He doesn’t remember whether he made the shot or not.

But he does remember the careful way Zayn slotted their fingers together, the tentative “yeah?” Zayn had whispered in his ear, the shaky “yeah,” he’d offered in response.

He remembers the way Zayn had kissed him oh so gently later that night, not even touching him anywhere else except mouth to mouth, under the flickering fluorescent light over the back door to the hall.

He’s gotten better at pool since then, largely with Zayn’s help. He doesn’t need Zayn to come and show him much any more—most of his misses are due to his own misjudgment of angles or how much spin is needed, not because he doesn’t know what shot to take.

But sometimes, if he’s shooting some sets by himself and the hall isn’t too busy, he likes to call Zayn over, ask him what his best play is, likes to have Zayn sidle up behind him and slide their hands together, likes to lean his head against Zayn’s while Zayn tries to show him what to do. Sometimes, if it’s just some of the regulars in the hall, Niall gets a kiss nuzzled into the crook of his neck or an affectionate chuck under the chin.

It’s a Monday night, so the hall is almost entirely empty, just a couple groups of threes and fours shooting sets over by the window. Niall is eyeing up a difficult shot on the 7 ball at one of the tables near the bar, and when he senses a presence behind him, he smiles without straightening up or turning around.

“I don’t recall asking for help,” he says. Zayn chuckles a little, shuffles closer and juts out a hip to knock against Niall’s in greeting.

“You do this thing—“ he explains, gesturing towards his own face, “With your lips, when you’re fighting with a particularly difficult shot.”

“Mm, you spend a lot of time watching my lips then?” Niall teases, shifting left a few degrees and squinting down the pool cue. Still not quite it.

A hand sneaks up under the hem of his shirt, warm palm pressing momentarily against the bare skin of his lower back before slipping away. Niall straightens up a little, cast a glance sideways, and Zayn is watching him with a mixture of uncertainty and straight up, unadulterated want. Something contracts, heated and heavy, low in Niall’s stomach, and it’s not like they haven’t had sex before, but it’s always been in the privacy of his flat or Zayn’s bedroom. The pool hall has opaque windows, so it’s not…public, in the strictest sense. But it’s not exactly sequestered away either.