The Beauty of Defiance

Chapter 16: Beds

Chapter Text

Zayn remembered the rare occasions he had been hit with a frenzied clarity.

It always resolved in him curling up, not in defeat, but in a sort of dull apathy that drove his mum mad. Once it had been his best mate Selim who had thrown a few awkward punches over something of so little importance that he couldn’t even recall the trigger that had him rubbing his bleeding nose, shrinking away. Then there had been a clichéd drunken tussle between the assistant director and a model over some guy who worked in advertising. Zayn had slept with him only the night prior and gotten the anger-outbursts full force.

Cat-scratches and long, Bordeaux-colored nails.

Selim had been his friend, and Zayn had been the type of teenager to fret over the opinion of his mates quietly. The drunken tussle led to the first stages of his reputation as a man-eating cock-slut. Back in those days, he had cared enough to be genuinely hurt, though not for very long.

To put it metaphorically, Liam had hit him square in the jaw and right in the stomach with his sudden presence and disappearance. The way he had pushed open the door with wide eyes, breathing heavily, soaked from the cold and rain, pale as death. It would’ve been another wonderful picture to paint, if only Zayn could get it out of his dreams.

He curled up and didn’t fall asleep for a good forty-eight hours before calling Harry to get him the fuck out of that horrid place. Perrie sat down next to him and chain-smoked the silence that spread out in the room for half the night, but her presence didn’t help. There was something thoroughly understanding about it, but also sneering and desperate. He imagined the soft pressure on his shoulder at dawn as a symbol of connection that ran between them, but an hour later Brody Rogan’s silver Jaguar pulled up at the drive way, spilling pebbles.

Harry appeared near noon, smudged in tomato sauce from his brand-new job at the Italian everyone hated, patting Zayn on the back and hoisting him up to get fetch the bus, because obviously they both didn’t own a car.

That’s how he ended up not leaving Harry’s single bed for four days straight, soaking in dread and silent fretfulness, listening to the loud conversation Mr. and Mrs. Pavelyuchenko shared a few rooms over. He ate most of the horrible left-over risotto Harry brought home and tried to keep his mind blank.

On the third day he called his manager at Starbucks and quit.

It was raining outside, crude November rain that left everything miserable and sodden, and he had just realized within his blank mind that he was the epitome of a quitter. Had his ancestors once moved to the US, he surely wouldn’t be living any dream, never mind the American one. Hard work, son, he heard a generic television voice say in his mind and he snorted into the pillow.

He had random flower sex with Harry, smelling the cheap garlic on his white waiter’s collar. It was almost like a miniature vacation from the mess he called his life.

“Are you sure he broke it off?”

They were getting high celebrating the festive occasion of Zayn finally deciding to get out of bed, half-sprawling over each other with cushions all over the place and naked limbs tangling. Zayn passed on the spliff and thought to himself that if they were still twenty-one and four months, the scene might’ve been ruggedly beautiful. Now it just felt lax and dire.

“Not sure.” He replied, breathing out the smoke, feeling the gentle burn in his lungs.

“Then why the fucking drama?” Harry stopped him from speaking with a lazy flick of his free hand, voice heavy and even more drawling than usual. “C’mere, man.”