chance connection |1| [zarry] (✔️)

eightysix

There is a crash somewhere in the house, startling them slightly, and the Freddie's loud laughter and Gemma cursing.

"I think if this were a dream the monster wouldn't be here," Zain says, cupping Harry's chin to tilt his head up enough to kiss him again.

"Maybe," Harry says, grinning, pushing Zain away slightly. "I'm gonna take a quick shower and you can see what your kid destroyed."

"Might have been your sister," Zain grins, tugging on the sunglasses pushed in the front of Harry's sweater. "But yea, go take a shower, you stink."

"I don't, liar," Harry answers, pulling his indignant face.

Zain kisses his cheek and pushes him towards the stairs. "Gems!" he calls, still not quite used to a house this size. "Where you at?" Harry throws him an exasperated look over his shoulder.

"Living room!"

"What did you do?" Zain asks, pushing the door open. Gemma and Freddie are seated in the middle of a chaos of Legos. Zain is fairly sure it's more than they had brought with them.

"We're playing!" Freddie says defensively.

"It sounded like something broke," Zain answers, settling on the floor with them and poking at the new legos. "Where did these come from?"

"I brought them," Gemma says with a shrug. "We can leave them here when we go home, so we don't have to lug all that mess around."

"Well, if you'd said we could have left the mess at home this time," Zain says over Freddie's swooshing noises as he crashes one of his dinosaurs into the pile of lego in front of him.

"Did you finish lunch? Where's Harry got to?" Gemma asks, rushing her own dinosaur into the pile and thrashing it around.

"Shower," Zain says, pushing himself up. "I'm gonna set the table. Don't make too much of a mess, we've got to clean that up later."

"Yeees," Freddie says and Gemma echoes him unhelpfully.

"Yeees," Zain says as well, leaving them to it. It's weird that even if he leaves the doors open, he still doesn't hear Freddie as clearly as he usually does when they are in the same house. Harry's house isn't that big, but to Zain there still seems to be a lot of unnecessary space, especially for one person. It makes him wonder if this is why Harry seems so lonely sometimes, because he has all that empty space to fill.

"Hey," Harry says, pressing himself right up against Zain's back and nosing at his neck. "How long are you staying?"

"Dunno," Zain shrugs, turning around and wrapping his arms around Harry's back, hugging him properly and burying his nose in his hair. "You smell nice now."

"I smelled nice before," Harry says, biting Zain's jaw gently. "What does it depend on?"

"You mostly. Gems and I have plans for the whole week, but if you kick us out, we'll have to figure out an alternative."

"Not gonna kick you out. But I'm going to be busy all week."

"Yea, it's why Gems and I made plans. We're going to the zoo tomorrow and we're got a trip to the natural history museum to look at the dinosaurs. And Gems want to go on the London Eye."

"So I'm just your hotel, huh," Harry says. "I see how it is."

"I love you, babe, it's the only reason I'm even coming to this tourist trap," Zain says, cupping Harry's face between his hands and kissing him. "Now go get your sister and the monster."