plaid shirt days & nights (when you made me your own) // niall horan au

this battle of fools (part ii niall pov drabble)

She's still looking at him like she's endeared out of her mind when they've tidied up their table, and something deep within him wishes that he'd woken up every morning for the past five years to the sight of her watching him like that. If that had happened, he thinks, then maybe he wouldn't be feeling like he's two minutes away from going into cardiac arrest right now.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" he can't help himself asking, and he sounds small, even to his own ears. Yet, somehow, he can't find it in himself to be ashamed of it.

Zoe curls the corner of her lower lip between her teeth, blinking slowly as the faintest of color flushes to the surface of her skin. "You're still so cute," she says, and her voice is slow and breathy, and Niall wants to stop her from saying more, knows that if he lets her continue, that it'll only hurt. But he, again, can't find it in himself to say something. "But something's not right."

Before he can even process what's happening, Zoe's fingers are in his hair and he can't help the way his eyes fall shut at the feeling. He can feel his skin heating up, can feel his jaw hanging open as his breath stutters out through his parted lips, and it's like time has just sped by because Zoe's breathing out "There," and his eyelids feel heavy as he tries to open them again only for his eyes to focus in on the fact that Zoe's looking at him with an adoring and fond glint that makes his chest ache. "Now you look like my Niall," she says, leaning so much over the table she's practically sitting on it. As if she's read his mind, she climbs up so she's fully sitting on the surface of the table, legs crossed in front of her and nimble fingers still twirling in his fringe.

Niall doesn't know why he does it. He doesn't even realize when he does it, but he only recognizes that he's reaching out for her when he can see his hands reaching for her sleek hair, fingers tingling when they close around the nape of her neck. He tugs the rubber band out of her ponytail and tousles her hair just as she did his, pulling her front strands over her shoulders until it looks disheveled and windblown like it used to. He thinks he says something but can't really remember, the only thing registering in his mind is the warmth of Zoe's skin against his fingers as he skims them across her cheeks.

He doesn't know why he's here or why he's allowing her to step back into his life or why she's looking at him like he's holding her lifeline in his hands, but he does know one thing, that he really really really wants to kiss her.

He also knows one more thing: he can't.

Before he knows it, Zoe's hands are tracing over the features of his face and then cupping around his neck and he feels whole and broken all at once. "I've missed you so much," she says, and her face is so close and calm and beautiful, and Niall feels like he's falling apart. "I tried to call so many times but you never answered and you changed your number and—I just—I wanted to talk to you so bad."

And that—that's—that's not fair. That's not fair. He has to clench his eyes shut because this is not fair. She doesn't get to do this, not after five years of nothing. She doesn't get to try and put him back together after she tore him apart. He feels like he could cry and it's not fair.

"You broke my heart," is what he responds with, and he tries to sound indignant and maybe a bit angry, but instead he comes off as vulnerable when his voice cracks at the end of his statement. He can feel it, the vicious sting of tears in the corners of his eyes, and he wants to feel ashamed of it but can't. Something in him feels like Zoe deserves to see how much she's hurt him. "Of course I wasn't going to answer the phone."

But Zoe's relentless, and she's all up in his space now, soft hands cradling his flushed face as she leans down so close to him that their noses are touching. Niall's heart rate is calm yet he's having trouble with the simple task of inhaling and exhaling. She's so close and she smells like everything he wants but everything he can't have, and he has to close his eyes to focus on breathing. "Don't get all worked up over me," she whispers, or at least that's what Niall thinks she says. He's too distracted now, because she's pressing slow, deliberate kisses over his closed eyelids and over his brow bones and across his cheekbones and down his jawline, and he has to grab onto her wrists and hold onto dear life otherwise he might crack into a million pieces. And then she says, "I'm not worth it, I promise," and Niall almost wants to laugh.