Drawn Out Dreams. [A Zarry Fanfiction.]

Chapter Fifty

The slowly throbbing pain in Zayn Malik’s back was uncomfortable, yet tolerable for the boy. He had dealt with injuries before that were as hurtful as this, but he had to admit this particular strain was painful to him. It felt like a strain, and even though Zayn had tried his hardest to see if there was a bruise on his lower back; looking like a dog chasing it’s tail in his bedroom, he had no idea of the two, brash and blue marks that were on the base of his spine. The purple monstrosity covered most of his lower back, camouflaging the two dimples that sat above his boxer waistband, and would cause alarm if anyone else had seen it.

Zayn Malik’s eyes covered a room and discovered most things others wouldn’t. He would catch the tiny marks on the floor made by various shoes or furniture. He quite liked to look at laminate flooring to find odd, invisible scratches that were indented into it. The boy could capture things in his mind that others simply couldn’t find the effort to view, but even he couldn’t see all of the different bruises and marks that would litter his body each time he went to his Father’s house.

And of course, the poor boy’s mind wouldn’t let him understand why this wasn’t such a normal situation. It couldn’t process how harmful the situation was. In a parallel universe somewhere, where the boy wouldn’t have had to live with his condition, he may have had the strength to fight back. He could even search deep down to find the true braveness he held within to tell someone. He could have been removed from the situation, or even move himself from it, to a safe place with safe people. He could see the situation for what it truly was.

But this wasn’t a parallel universe. Zayn Malik was trapped within his own, olive coloured skin, a scrawny body and a pair of big brown eyes that would capture detail even if it shot past him at thrice his speed. It wasn’t that the boy had no strength to fight back or courage to speak about it. He just didn’t have the true realisation that the other people around him did. His condition truly was a beautiful curse.

Zayn was also unsure how Harry almost knew where his hurt spots were. Unknowingly to Zayn, the curly haired boy would be able to look at him and gather every bruise and back story without a word of it in the time that it took Zayn to spot the spot of ink that was permanently etched into one of Harry’s school shirts. The two boys didn’t know how well they could truly read the other. One boy was but a beautiful chapter to the other.

Zayn’s mind didn’t try to question why Harry had wanted to cuddle in such a position, but he found it comfortable and warm, something the quiet boy craved from the other. He sat within Harry’s legs, cuddled into him with his knees near to his chest, close enough to balance his drawing book on. Harry’s long legs seemed to cuddle around the shape of Zayn’s body, the two boys squished together in the corner of the art closet.

The position allowed Zayn to concentrate on his drawing of a mountain range that he had seen in one of the travel and tourism magazines from the common room. His brown eyes had been mesmerised by the mountains, his heart beating a little in a flutter as he imagined that he could stand where the photographer must have been stood, looking around what the location must have looked like. Each mountain seemed so large and strong, yet were caring enough to provide shelter for nature on their rough surface. Trees and wild flowers seemed to cuddle into the sides of the mountains, as the mountain stood strongly protecting them. The boy felt Harry’s hands stroke onto his hip, bringing the boy a little closer, pulling his own wild flower to his heart.

Zayn had rather liked the comfortable silence that the two boys had found themselves in. Perched in the corner of their closet, the window was propped open enough to let the warm air flow into the already humid room, and Zayn noticed that everytime he leaned his head back into the nape of Harry’s neck to take a moment and let his eyes look over the progress of his picture, that small drops of sweat would seem to slip from Harry’s skin and onto Zayn’s forehead. Not that the raven-haired boy would ever care or mind.