Wings on Tailored Suits // Zarry

xii.

The first party Harry attends without Sebastian ever since they started dating is Lara's Halloween party. No matter how many times Harry asked him, basically begged for him to go, Sebastian refused because apparently, he hates costume parties more than anything. So Harry pulls on a blonde wig, black bellbottoms with a black lacy sheer shirt and a triangular throw with fringe and goes as Stevie Nicks because she's a fucking legend.

Harry loves Halloween so it's not the worst thing that Sebastian isn't going with him. He's used to Sebastian's presence when they're out, it's like a safe space in the middle of the fucking chaos of Harry's social life. Sebastian's always near, with a hand on Harry's hip or his mouth on Harry's neck. It's comforting and reassuring. But this is Lara's party. She's one of Harry's best friends and he knows her family's penthouse as good as the back of his hand. And if he feels as terrible as he did at Isabelle Vanderbilt's party, if he feels the crushing weight of pressure and expectations, he can always hide in Lara's room and get drunk while playing with her cat.

As always, Lara goes all out for the party. The apartment looks like a movie set with red neon lighting, smoke crawling around the floor and skeletons with many other props hanging from the ceiling and hiding in corners. The servers she got for the party are dressed as horror films' killers and all the food and drinks are made to look disgusting. All in all, once Harry starts dancing with Lara and Peyton, and stuffing his face with cake pops that look like eyeballs, he's happy even without Sebastian around.

He spends the night laughing with his friends and classmates, does a line without freaking out and feels like he's sixteen again, when partying used to be still this thrilling experience and everyone believed that each party is the most important thing in their very short lives. Harry sometimes forgets he's still in high school when he's around Sebastian but now he feels it as if he's been slapped with it. All the careless drug use around him, DJ playing dozens of shitty rap songs by people whose names are a big fucking mystery to Harry, the deftness and easiness of how the party flows. It's a great night.

As the party's winding down, more and more people passing out in various rooms and pieces of furniture, even the floor, Harry sneaks out to the terrace to finally have a smoke. He sits down on a deck chair, shaking out a cigarette and lighting it up. He doesn't really think, just lets himself enjoy the relative quiet of the outside and the feeling of smoke filling up his lungs.

"Hey."

"Jesus fucking Christ!" Harry shrieks. He turns to his side and sees Zayn lying in a hammock.

"Sorry, didn't mean to scare you," Zayn says with a small smile that Harry can still see in the darkness. It's never actually dark in New York City. No matter how far up they are, there's still light coming from somewhere.

Harry sighs and stands up, walking to the deckchair that's closest to the hammock. He sits down, pulling his legs up and resting his left elbow on his knees.

"Haven't really seen you at the party. You're hiding?" Harry asks.

"No, just wasn't dancing. I saw you though. You're kinda hard to miss with those pants and that... thing around your shoulders," Zayn laugh and Harry notices that he's smoking a joint.

"Can I?" Harry nods at the join between Zayn's fingers. Zayn just hands it to him without saying anything while blowing up the smoke. Harry stubs his cigarette and leaves it on the ground.

"What's your costume?" Harry asks.

Zayn looks down at his body and smirks. "I'm Neo. From Matrix."

"Oh, that's cool," Harry nods.

The conversation stills between them as they pass the joint back and forth, quietly slowing the smoke out into the polluted Manhattan air.

They're started talking again after Harry decided that it was about time he forgot about the time he and Zayn used to kind of date. It was a bit stiff at first, they were tense around each other in chemistry class but it was much better than what preceded it. They worked their way up from talking about school and their weekends to sitting in the courtyard together. Lara also added Zayn into their group chat with Peyton and Chris. Their friendship is almost back to what it was before Harry decided it was a good idea to kiss Zayn at a party and then continue to have sex with him for a year and a half. It's easy, simple once they got over the initial barrier that was their past. They had to remind themselves that they were really good friends before they knew what their dicks looked like.