Zayn remembers the words like a novel he read in high school, something he didn’t want to listen to but pretended to anyhow, which makes him sound a lot more heartless than he actually is. It’s just that, he’s always been some kind of enchanted with the idea of Niall lying down on a tattoo chair, shirtless or pantsless, Zayn isn’t picky.
He’s even more enchanted with the idea of tattooing Niall himself, pressing that buzzing gun right into the plush of Niall’s skin, watching Niall pull his bottom lip into his teeth over the faint pinch of pain before his skin goes ruddy red around the pin. But, in the end, Zayn just really likes the idea of Niall with a tattoo pressed into his skin. Niall doesn’t though, so that’s a bit of a problem.
The amount of times Zayn has heard Niall say, “No, I don’t want to get a tattoo,” or some variation of the same, would be enough to last a life time but, much more recently, the only thing he’s heard from Niall is that he ‘isn’t in the mood’ which is great because they’ve got less than two weeks left of break off tour and then it’s back to being under constant watch from the eye in the sky.
And Zayn gets it, he really does, because they don’t always have to have sex and, honestly, Zayn isn’t always looking for that anyway. Sometimes he just wants a cuddle during a movie but even that is apparently too far and a shower together? Niall locks the door now. Which is great. So Zayn is a little short fused, a little curt with everyone. What with being starved of contact with Niall, that isn’t too absurd, is it?
Long story short, Zayn is virtually speechless when he wakes up one morning to Niall curled up tight at his side, a hand scrambling softly against Zayn’s chest as he presses soft kisses into the skin of his arm. It’s such a culture shock that it takes Zayn a moment to properly react, what with just having gotten up, but he laces his fingers gently in Niall’s hair and just relishes in the feel of it, twists his head into his pillow to hide a grin before he moves.
Niall meets him halfway in a soft, chaste kiss, and Zayn grins into it, cupping Niall’s cheeks to hold him close and he just basks in the feeling of holding Niall again. It’s great. “Good morning,” Niall mumbles when they finally break apart, settling back in the bed when Zayn shuffles on top of him.
"Yes, it is." Zayn chuckles softly, palming his hand down Niall’s chest in a casual sweep before he tucks his thumbs into Niall’s boxers and it’s a sort of test when he starts pulling them down but Niall just raises his hips to help get them off and Zayn positively glows. "Is it my birthday?"
Niall rolls his eyes as Zayn pulls off his pants but he just swoons ad juts his hips up when Zayn wraps a hand around his cock. “Should be the other way around then, shouldn’t it?” Niall grazes his hand down Zayn’s arm gently, frames the cords of his arm before he pulls away.
"Nah, missed touching you," Zayn pumps his hand once almost as a punishment and Niall writhes with it, reaches up with a soft pant to cup Zayn’s throat. "Let me just," Zayn trails off before he arches up to kiss Niall again, another short kiss, first against his lips, then on the line of his jaw. Zayn makes a line straight down Niall’s body until he can lick at he sparse dusting of hair under Niall’s belly button.
"This okay?" Zayn asks, holding Niall’s prick out of the way as he delves his tongue along the shell of Niall’s balls and he glances up a moment later to see Niall nodding his head even though his eyes are squeezed shut tight.
"Yeah," Niall gasps, reaching a hand down to stroke through Zayn’s hair softly before he rests his hand lightly on his breast bone and Zayn can see, thanks to it, the way Niall’s chest is jumping and falling so fast. "Yeah, you’re close."
Zayn thinks he knows what Niall is talking about, the fact that he’s close to the X marks the spot between Niall’s legs, the leaking dick clutched in Zayn’s hand but, as Zayn kisses even lower, dips his head and nips tight at Niall’s taint, he realizes just exactly how wrong he is.
When Zayn spots it, he thinks it’s a scratch or a mole, a freckle or just something that isn’t what it is but no. It’s just this soft, small, barely there curved line, a beautifully embellished letter pressed into Niall’s skin. A ‘Z’ pressed into Niall’s skin and Zayn sits back on his haunches.
Niall grins, softly at first, and he tries to hide it in the palm of his hand but he just cocks his head to the side and speaks in a knowing voice. “You found it.” He sings quietly, shuffling a little restlessly on the bed, probably at the way that Zayn is just staring at him but Zayn really can’t help it.
"Did you," Zayn starts but stops shortly at the way his voice just sounds so freaking croaky and nods toward Niall’s thigh because he is at a very literal loss for words.
Niall hikes up his thigh and spreads his legs, grabbing one of Zayn’s own hands so he can press the palm of it against his skin. “Didn’t take so long to heal ‘cause it’s so small but, christ, it was so hard to hide from you.”
Zayn wasn’t to josh a little, wants to poke fun at Niall or something but he doesn’t do any of that because all he wants to do is sink his teeth in little indents around Niall’s skin, trace the line of it over with his tongue before dragging his bottom lip faintly over the raised skin.
And he does, all of it, over and over again, paying special tribute to the small tattoo but to the rest of Niall’s skin as well. Zayn jerks him off slow and steady so Niall cries out a sob with his orgasm, writhes on the bed before he collapses back into the sweat soaked skin. It’s decided, at that moment, in the silence of Zayn’s mind, that Niall is most definitely getting more tattoos. Zayn likes it a bit too much.
