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Somewhere beyond the sea
Somewhere waiting for me
My lover stands on golden sands
And watches the ships that go sailing
~ Beyond the Sea, Bobby Darin
For the first time in a long time Zayn doesn’t wake with a start. Usually, he jerks up in bed to find his agent, Michael, standing over him, yelling at him that he’s running late. But this morning he wakes up slowly, in that dazed, drifting way he does after a heavy night, when he lifts his head off the pillow to discover six people he vaguely recognises dotted around his hotel suite. There haven’t been many mornings like this recently, when he’s been able to wake up in his own time. Mostly it’s Michael yelling at him. Almost every morning, in fact. Not just the morning after the film he’s shooting wraps or when he’s been out with the lads – the heavy nights – but on Mondays as well, when it’s just him and whatever bottle slipped from his grip moments after he fell sleep. Mondays and Wednesdays and…yeah.
There haven’t been many mornings like this recently.
It’s kind of nice, not to be shaken awake. He still feels like shit on toast, of course, but as fucked up as it sounds, he’s used to it now, to the sore head – sore head, sore stomach, sore throat – a dull, blunt scissors ache that seems to take longer and longer to pass each day. So when he opens his eyes – or tries to – he isn’t surprised when his eyelashes stick together or that he has to peel his tongue from the roof of his mouth to lick his lips.
He’s used to it. Or at least used to it enough to know that something is wrong when he tries to sit up. It hurts. Not the usual dull, blunt scissors ache, but pain. Loud, sharp, pain. Sharp as the tip of a knife. His left leg hurts as well. He feels it throbbing and reaches his hand down to grip it. But it makes it worse, forcing him to lie down again and stars to flicker behind his eyelids as he imagines the bone in his leg flashing under his skin like a stop sign.
He must fall asleep because when his eyelids flutter open again, he’s sure the room is a bit lighter. He’s laying on his side now, hand still clutching his thigh. He almost doesn’t want to let go of it, as though he’s holding back the pain somehow, but he has to because he can tell that he’s going to need to use both arms to get up. But when he finally summons the strength to lift his cheek from the pillow, he has to stop to take a breath and sees someone sitting by his bed. The shock of it makes him sit up, sending a fresh shot of pain tearing through him. With that he’s suddenly awake enough to realise that this isn’t his bed.
This isn’t his room.
‘Where am I?’ He hopes he sounds menacing, fingers fisting in the sheet under his hand as he glares at the guy, but his voice is weak – brittle – as though he’s been shouting at a football match. If the guy notices, he doesn’t say anything, just watches as Zayn moves his other hand from his thigh to his forehead as his head begins to throb painfully.
He looks about his age, the guy – in his mid-thirties, maybe touching forty, like Zayn – but it’s too dark to tell for sure. But he can’t be much younger than him, even if Zayn hasn’t felt young for a very long time. He may look young, his skin bright and eyes even brighter (or they used to be), but he has old bones. Always has. That’s what his Mum says.
Old bones and a heavy heart.
Sitting up so suddenly has made him so dizzy that the guy is nothing more than a shape in the dim light of the room. A shadow. Still, Zayn can feel how close he is, can feel the heat of him, like when he steps out of the shower and the steam sticks to him.
‘Where am I?’ he asks again with a frown that makes his head hurt even more.
The guy closes the book he’s reading and smiles. ‘Somewhere safe.’
‘What?’ Zayn blinks a few times, trying to get his eyes to refocus, but they won’t, and before he can stop himself he’s falling back onto his side on the bed like he used to when his sister, Saafa, was little and he’d pretend that she could knock him over with her finger.
‘Who are you?’ he asks when his cheek touches the pillow again.
The guy leans over and tugs the blanket back over his shoulder. ‘Harry.’
‘Why are you here?’
‘I’m going to sit with you for a while, if that’s okay?’
‘Why?’
But before he can respond, Zayn’s pulled back under.
~*~
He has the dream again, the one where he’s drowning. But it’s different this time. This time he isn’t in the water, he’s on a boat, one of those white ones that do trips at the seaside. And he’s on it, at the back. The stern. The word comes to him from nowhere as a wave punches the hull hard enough to make the whole boat tilt, sending a red plastic bucket sliding past his feet. He’s the only one on it, he thinks, but the wind is so fierce that he can’t stand up to check, only sit on the deck, his fingernails digging into the wet wood as though it will keep him steady. Another wave reminds him that it won’t, crashing into the side of the boat, making Zayn’s head knock against a life preserver, of all things.
After that everything is blurry. It’s raining, which doesn’t help. Rain is modest. Lashing down, his father would say. It certainly feels like it’s giving him a lashing, each drop pricking his face like a needle. And the spray from the waves trying to reach over the sides of the boat is almost suffocating, like being spat on. He needs to find somewhere to shelter from it, something to sit under where he’s less exposed, but before he can lift his head to look for somewhere, one of the waves makes it over the side and strikes his cheek like a slap.
Salt water fills his nose and for a moment, he thinks he’s choking. But after a few desperate coughs, he recovers enough to shuffle away, but the movement is enough to send a hot surge of nausea rising up his chest. The next thing he knows, he’s being sick into the red bucket. He doesn’t remember when he last ate – if he’s eaten at all today – but if he has, it wasn’t much because all that comes up is a burning splash of bile that makes him hurl again. The bucket smells of fish – of fish heads and fish eyes and fish guts – and it makes him wretch again, the empty bucket amplifying it so it sounds more like a roar.
The sea responds, sending another huge wave arching over the edge of the boat. It only reaches as far as his feet, but it’s enough to make Zayn wake up with a gasp.
~*~
The guy – Harry – is still there, pottering around what looks like a small kitchen. He doesn’t seem to have noticed that he’s awake and Zayn can’t help but look at the front door, suddenly so scared that he doesn’t know how he’s fighting the urge not to puke in his lap.
It’s light now. Light is generous, given the rain striking the windows like handfuls of marbles, but at least that explains why he was dreaming about rain. There’s enough light to show him where he is. It looks like a cottage with white painted stone walls and two small square windows either side of the front door that expose a sky the colour of his mood. It’s basically one room, the bed he’s in in one corner, the kitchen in the other, a battered table and two mismatched chairs opposite it and a small sofa in the corner across from his bed. The floorboards are stripped, softened by a couple of rugs that are so threadbare, if Zayn held them up, he could probably see through them. Other than that, that’s pretty much it. No photos on the walls, no plants, no television, no bowl of fruit in the middle of the table, like at home. There aren’t even any curtains on the windows.
‘Where am I?’ he murmurs, his stomach churning over and over as he takes it all in. The light, he realises, is not coming from the windows, but from the candles melting into puddles on saucers around the room, letting off a yellowish light, making the cottage look like an old photograph. He can hear the wind howling outside – actually howling, like something from a zombie film – and feel it rushing under the gaps around the front door, making the candles shiver. There’s even one of those old-fashioned paraffin lamps on the floor next to his bed, beside the dog-eared paperback Harry must have been reading while he was asleep.
I’m dreaming, he tells himself, but before he can lie back down, he hears Harry.
‘Hungry?’ he asks without looking up from the spitting pan he’s poking with a fork.
That’s it. That’s what’s making him feel sick.
‘Muslim,’ he mutters, unable to say much more as he heaves himself up and tries to swing his legs off the edge of the bed. As soon as he does, he cries out in pain, sure that his left leg has snapped clean in two. By the time Harry gets to him, he’s panting, his scalp sweating as the pain pulses through his body. He can’t help but go limp against him as Harry helps him up, the grey jumper he’s wearing scratching his cheek. It’s almost comforting, the smell of wool and washing powder, so when Harry leans across to stand the pillows up against the headboard then carefully lifts Zayn’s legs by the ankles and turns him so that he’s sitting up on the bed, he’s so grateful that his head lolls forward onto his shoulder.
‘Just breathe,’ Harry tells him, covering him with a blanket then walking over to the sofa to grab the one hanging on the back of it. It’s an ugly, crocheted thing his grandmother would love, but it makes him think of his house in LA, of the white floors and white walls and the cashmere blanket his housekeeper folds neatly on the end of the bed every morning, and he starts shaking. ‘You okay?’ Harry asks when he covers him with it, and no, he’s not okay. He’s scared and confused and in agony and Harry is acting like nothing’s wrong.
‘You’re gonna feel like this for a while, Zayn.’ He looks at him carefully. ‘The first few days are going to be rough, but you’re gonna get through it, okay?’ Through what? Zayn wants to ask, but he can’t catch his breath. By the time he does, Harry is walking back towards the kitchen. He grabs a slab of bread from the chopping board and puts it on a pan on the stove that doesn’t look unlike the one his mother uses to make roti. ‘Just take it easy, okay? Rest.’
But he can’t.
This is more than just a hangover.
‘What’s going on?’ Zayn’s heart’s beating so hard he can feel it in his fingers. His ears. ‘Why am I here?’
‘To get some rest.’
‘Why here? Why can’t I rest at home?’
‘How’s the pain?’
Zayn presses his palm to his forehead. ‘Bad.’
‘It’ll get better.’
‘You got anything?’ When Harry shakes his head, Zayn feels his nerves tighten. ‘What nothing? Not even paracetamol?’ Harry shakes his head again and Zayn feels lightheaded.
‘Just get some rest,’ he tells him, turning the bread with his fingers. ‘You’ll be okay.’
‘I’m not okay,’ Zayn says through his teeth. ‘I don’t even know how I got here.’
‘How much do you remember?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Nothing at all?’ Harry asks then hisses as he plucks the toast off the pan with his fingers and flings it onto a plate. ‘Butter, okay?’ he mumbles, sucking on his fingers.
‘Harry, how did I get here?’
‘You don’t remember anything at all?’ he asks, taking the lid off the butter dish.
‘The last thing I remember is being on set.’ Zayn smiles suddenly at the memory. ‘We had to do eight takes because the wind kept blowing Emma Watson’s skirt up.’
Harry sniggers. ‘That’d probably be the last thing I remembered, too.’
~*~
Zayn eats four slices of toast with the enthusiasm of a man who hasn’t eaten for a week. He probably hasn’t. Harry makes more, and when Zayn smells coffee, he perks up.
‘Is that coffee?’
‘Do you take milk?’ Harry calls out from the kitchen.
‘Yes. Lots. And two sugars.’
‘Sugar’s bad for you.’
Zayn ignores him, holding his hands out in anticipation when he hears the ting of a teaspoon hitting the side of a mug and sees Harry emerge from the kitchen with two mugs.
‘Thank you. Thank you. Thank you,’ Zayn says, taking one from him.
Lots of milk means that he can drink it pretty much straight away. He shouldn’t, but he likes the burn of it at the back of his throat. Kind of like a shot of Jack. But not.
Definitely not.
‘Is this decaf?’ he asks with a wince. When Harry nods, Zayn throws his head back and sighs as it finally dawns on him where he is. ‘Am I in fucking rehab?’
~*~
‘I knew it,’ Zayn spits, his jaw clenching. ‘My agent’s been threatening to do this for months.’
‘Do you need to go to rehab?’ Harry asks, sitting on the chair next to the bed.
Zayn’s gaze narrows as he looks around the room. This is that place Michael tried to send him to in August, the island in Wales that’s a hundred miles north of No One Gives a Fuck Shit. Total emersion therapy, according to the surprisingly glossy brochure Michael had showed him. No electricity. No phones. No showers. No shops. No cars. No talking to the other ‘residents’. Just coming clean the good old-fashioned way with puking and sweating and a sponsor who babysits you 24/7 to make sure you don’t snort the baking powder or something.
‘This is bollocks,’ Zayn hisses, suddenly not arsed about his coffee. And it is. First of all, he doesn’t need rehab. He likes a drink and a puff, so what? He’s hardly mainlining heroin into his eyeball. And second of all, if he did need rehab, he wouldn’t come to this shithole. He’d go to that place in Antigua that does yoga and mediation classes, the one on the beach.
‘Why do you think it’s bollocks?’
Zayn glares at him. He’s definitely a sponsor. He has the sanctimonious air of a sponsor with his untidy hair and tattoos and big wool jumper. If I can get through this, Zayn, anyone can. He can fuck right off. He’s not taking advice from someone with dirty fingernails and a crucifix tattooed on his hand. He’s probably going to try and convert him, too. Play the guitar and make him sing along to What A Friend We Have in Jesus.
No. No. No.
‘I’m leaving.’
‘You can’t walk,’ Harry reminds him, sipping his coffee as Zayn pulls the blankets off.
‘I’ll crawl off this fucking island, if I have to.’
‘Okay.’
Harry sits back in the chair and Zayn rolls his eyes. ‘Don’t do that.’
‘Do what?’
‘I’m not falling for it.’
‘Falling for what?’
‘Reverse psychology. It won’t work on me.’
‘I’m not doing anything.’
‘Yeah, all right,’ Zayn scoffs.
‘Seriously.’ Harry shrugs. ‘What am I gonna do? Tie you to the bed?’
‘So I can leave?’
‘Anytime you want.’
‘I can leave now?’
‘I’ll escort you to the dock myself,’ he says with a grand wave of his arm but Zayn eyes him suspiciously, the skin between his eyebrows pinching.
‘What’s the catch?’
‘No catch.’
‘There has to be a catch. There’s always a catch with Michael.’
‘There isn’t.’ Harry shrugs again and sips his coffee.
‘Seriously?’
‘Seriously. You can leave whenever you’re ready.’
Zayn settles back and pulls the blankets back over him. ‘I’ll go when it stops raining.’
It isn’t until he leaves that Zayn realises Harry’s reverse psychology worked after all.
~*~
Harry comes back to check on him every hour. He stokes the fire and makes decaf coffee and tries to persuade him to try hot water and lemon instead. Zayn naps inbetween, has the same dream about being on the boat and each time he wakes up, the jumper he’s wearing – Harry’s he assumes, it’s fleece – is damp with sweat.
I’ll go when it stops raining, he keeps saying to himself, over and over. I’ll go when it stops raining. I’ll go when it stops raining. I’ll go when it stops raining. But it hasn’t stopped raining and Zayn’s leg is now hurting so much that he has to accept the fact that he’s not going to make it out of bed, let alone to the dock, which Harry knows full well. That’s why he brings him something to read. He wouldn’t bring two books if Zayn was leaving soon.
‘In case you’re bored,’ he says, tossing them into his lap on his way to the kitchen.
‘I only read scripts,’ Zayn says with a sullen sigh.
‘Stare at the wall, then,’ Harry tells him, head in a cupboard. He takes out a tin of soup and Zayn’s heart – and stomach – sinks. No egg and chips tonight, then.
He looks down at his lap and grins. ‘Mystic River!’ He picks up the book and holds it up. ‘I fucking loved this film. I didn’t know it was a book. Oh The Shining!’
Harry tries to hide his smile behind his hair, but Zayn sees.
He sees.
~*~
They eat together, Zayn devouring chunks of bread like they’re buttered with money.
‘You made this bread, didn’t you?’ he asks, mouth full.
Harry nods.
‘Do you make jam, too?’
Harry chuckles and dips a piece of bread into his soup.
‘You do, don’t you?’
Harry doesn’t deny it.
~*~
By the time they’re finished and Harry’s washed up, it’s dark, the cottage almost sunshine yellow from the candles, which Harry has replenished, adding more so Zayn doesn’t even miss having the light on. The wind is still raging outside, making the knocker on the front door rattle like someone wants to come in. The rain is splashing so hard against the windows Zayn doesn’t know how they haven’t broken yet. But they haven’t and it’s strangely soothing, being in a cottage on a night like this, with its thick walls and spitting fire.
Harry ambles out of the kitchen. ‘Need anything before I go?’ he asks, drying his hands with a tea towel. ‘I can make some hot water and lemon and leave it in a flask.’
‘Let it go, Harry,’ Zayn says without looking up from his book.
‘I’ll see you in a bit, then,’ he says, taking the torch from the dining table and walking towards the front door. When he goes to take his coat off the hook, Zayn frowns.
‘So that’s it?’
Harry turns to face him again. ‘What’s it?’
‘You’re just gonna leave?’
‘What? Do you need something?’
Zayn’s frown deepens. ‘Are you going easy on me because it’s my first night?’
Harry looks genuinely confused. ‘What do you mean?’
‘You know what I mean.’ He closes the book and sighs. ‘Drugs are bad, Zayn,’ he says parroting Harry’s syrupy slow Cheshire accent. ‘Think about your future.’
Harry tilts his head at him. ‘You really think this is rehab, don’t you?’
It’s Zayn’s turn to look confused. ‘What is it, then?’
‘Somewhere for you to chill while you get better.’
‘That’s it?’
Harry shrugs. ‘That’s it.’
‘So you’re not going to convert me?’
‘Convert you to what?’
‘Christianity.’
Harry throws his head back and laughs. ‘What?’
‘The crucifix. The tattoo.’
Harry looks down at his hand and laughs again. ‘God no!’
‘I’m not singing The Lord Is My Shepherd. I’m telling you now.’
‘Go to sleep, you numpty.’
‘Fine,’ Zayn mutters, going back to his book.
When Harry opens the front door he stops and nods out at the storm swelling outside. ‘You’re brave reading The Shining by yourself on a night like this,’ he says with a smile.
Zayn rolls his eyes. ‘It’s just a book.’
As soon as Harry leaves, he reads Mystic River instead.
~*~
It’s like that for the next few days. Harry coming back and forth while Zayn fights the urge to cut his leg off with a butter knife. Harry’s right, the pain does ease a little, but it’s still distracting, his head so sore sometimes he can’t see to read his book. The rain hasn’t eased either, but it’s kind of nice, hearing it splash against the windows while the sea swishes back and forth. It makes him feel safe for the first time in a long time. Like no one is watching him, watching what he’s ordering in a restaurant or who he’s talking to at Chateau Marmont.
He can just be.
Still, he finds himself missing Harry, glancing at the door more and more often, his heart shivering each time he sweeps in, dripping with rain and clutching more fire wood and bread. It isn’t long until they’re talking so much, Harry doesn’t leave, staying to bicker with Zayn about how Godfather I was better than Godfather II as he stokes the fire until it crackles. He’s clearly besotted with Zayn. Not in the way people usually are, he doesn’t ask him what it was like working with Hugh Jackman or being nominated for a BAFTA. No, Harry wants to know about all the places he’s been. The three months he spent in a Bedouin tent in Morocco or the year he was in New Zealand. He asks about it all. The colour of the sky and the smell of the rain forest, even about the mosquitoes in Louisiana.
Harry listens so intently, eyes wide and lips parted and Zayn knows this dance. He can’t dance for shit but he knows this one. He dances it very well, in fact. He has to be so careful now, especially since he got the James Bond gig. He can’t hook up with guys in club bathrooms anymore. He should be dating someone like Jennifer Lawrence, Michael says, not risking getting his dick sucked by some random who’ll go to the tabloids before the taste of him has left his mouth. No one wants a gay James Bond, Michael says. James Bond is the antithesis of gay. Zayn isn’t sure what that means, but he’s pretty sure it’s more of Hollywood’s assbackward bullshitery that has him so far in the closet he’s built a games room.
No wonder he fucking drinks too much sometimes.
So yeah, he gets what Harry’s doing – what he’s doing as well – the coy looks under his eyelashes and slow smiles and the way he shoves Zayn and blushes when he teases him about something he can’t think of a quick enough retort for.
Zayn gets it.
~*~
That night he dreams about the storm, about standing at the dock watching the sea whipping itself into a frenzy. The wind is so strong that it almost knocks him clean on his feet, but he remains upright somehow, the ugly blanket from the back of the sofa wrapped around him. Not that it’s helping, he’s soaked through, his hair sticking to his cheeks as he looks out at the beam from the lighthouse sweeping back and forth.
Suddenly Harry is next to him and everything seems a little calmer.
‘Come on.’
‘Where we going?’ Zayn asks, having to shout over the uproar.
‘Back to the cottage.’
Zayn leans into him with a clumsy smile when Harry slings his arm around his shoulders. ‘Want me to beat you at Scrabble again?’
‘Let’s get out of here, okay? You’re going to catch pneumonia.’
‘Pneumonia. That would be a good triple word score,’ Zayn laughs, but when Harry turns him and his bare feet slip on the slick wood of the dock, his heart throws himself against his ribs. It isn’t a dream, he realises, as Harry leads him down the dock towards the shore.
He’s actually out here.
He’s out here.
Zayn starts shaking and turns to look at Harry. ‘What’s happening to me?’
~*~
When they get back to the cottage, Harry boils water on the stove then washes Zayn’s face and feet. Despite the days of flirting, there’s no thrill to it, to the way Harry dries his hair with a towel then peels off Zayn’s clothes. And the first time Harry’s fingers graze his skin, it doesn’t make the hair on his arms bristle, it makes him feel safe, like everything’s going to be okay. So when he helps him into bed, Zayn feels tears needling the backs of his eyes.
‘What’s happening to me?’ he asks again, lifting his wet eyelashes to look at him.
‘Let’s do this in the morning, okay? You’re exhausted.’
Zayn grabs the sleeve of his jumper. ‘Please.’
‘Just try to get some rest, okay?’
‘Harry.’ Zayn holds on tighter when he tries to pull away. ‘I just wandered out into a storm. How the fuck am I supposed to go to sleep now? What if I do it again? What if I go into the water this time? I can’t swim.’ He’s panting now. ‘You know I can’t swim.’
‘Hey.’ Harry sits down on the chair that’s permanently by his bed now and reaches for Zayn’s shoulder. ‘Just breathe. Breathe.’
But he can’t. ‘I can’t swim, Harry.’
‘Sssh.’ Harry squeezes his shoulder. ‘It’s okay.’
‘It’s not okay! What about this is okay? I’m going fucking mad!’
Harry waits for him to take a breath and look at him again. ‘You’re not.’
Zayn swats a tear from his cheek with the heel of his palm. ‘Feels like it.’
‘I know, but it will pass.’
‘Please.’ Zayn all but whimpers. ‘Please, Harry. Just tell me what’s going on.’
Harry hesitates, but eventually lets go of his shoulder and sits back in the chair with a sigh. ‘How much do you remember?’
‘I told you. Nothing.’
‘Not even the boat?’
Zayn blinks at him then gasps. ‘The boat with the red bucket?’
Harry nods. ‘That’s how you got here.’
‘That happened?’
Harry nods again.
‘I thought it was a dream.’
‘When Colin docked we thought you were dead.’ Harry laughs nervously, sweeping his hair back with his hand. ‘I was so worried.’
Zayn raises his chin to meet his gaze and as soon as their eyes meet, it all comes back to him. The boat. The storm. Everything was black, the sky, the sea. It even smelt black. Diesel Zayn knows now, from the boat engine. Then, through it all, a flash of green.
‘You helped me off the boat.’
Harry nods.
‘I don’t understand.’
‘You had an accident,’ Harry says carefully, like the words are made of glass.
‘An accident?’
‘A car crash.’
‘What?’ It comes out as a whisper.
‘Crashed your Bentley into the central reservation on the M60.’
‘Was anyone hurt?’
‘Just you. Fucked your leg.’
‘How come I don’t remember?’
Harry points at his head. ‘Banged your head pretty bad as well.’
‘How come I’m not in hospital?’
‘You were, but now you’re here.’
‘Convalescencing?’
Harry tilts his head from side to side. ‘I suppose.’
Zayn can’t speak, too many questions suddenly warring for attention as he tries to take it all in, his leg and head throbbing in unison as one question silences all the others.
He doesn’t want to say it, but he has to.
He tries to make eye contact with him again, but can’t. ‘Was I drunk?’
Harry nods.
Zayn’s whole body sags, shame burning through him. It must be obvious because Harry reaches over to squeeze his shoulder again. He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t say that it wasn’t his fault or that it’ll be okay, just holds him as if to say, I’m not going anywhere.
‘Is that why Michael sent me here? To avoid the press?’ He doesn’t wait for a response, just squeezes his eyes shut and exhales through his nose. ‘The fuck have I done?’
Harry squeezes his shoulder again.
~*~
Harry stays. Zayn doesn’t ask him to, he just does. He checks that all the windows and doors are locked, then checks them again, before lighting more candles and rolling a towel up to block the gap under the front door, which stops the wind whistling in.
Zayn watches him carefully, watches how he toes off his boots when he’s done, then takes off his jumper. There’s a crackle of static as he does, his hair rising then falling before settling around his face. Harry turns to look at him then, the candlelight hitting his cheek as he does so the light looks like it’s coming from inside him. When he smiles loosely, Zayn smiles back and lifts the blanket. He hesitates, but when Zayn says, ‘Harry, please. How are you going to fold your lanky arse into a two-seater sofa?’ he chuckles softly.
‘Watch my leg,’ he says when Harry ambles over, a pillow tucked under his arm. So of course the first thing Harry does is knee him in the leg as he clambers into the narrow single bed. ‘Fucks sake!’ Zayn hisses when he does, but somehow they fit, their bodies bending and giving in just the right places that Zayn begins to wonder how he ever slept there alone.
‘You okay?’ Harry mumbles behind him, his breath stirring the hair on the back of Zayn’s neck as his cold hands seek out the warmth of Zayn’s waist under the blanket.
Cold hands, warm heart, Zayn thinks, arching back into him like a cat.
~*~
The next time Zayn wakes up, the candles have burnt out, but the fire is still going, casting an orange shadow across the floorboards. ‘You okay,’ Harry murmurs, nudging the back of his neck with his nose when Zayn shifts.
‘Yeah.’
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Is it your leg?’
‘My leg’s fine, actually.’
‘Your head?’
‘It’s not my head.’
‘So why are you so sad?’
It hurts like fuckery, but Zayn manages to turn over to face him, Harry lifting his arm to rest it across the pillow so he can. As soon as he does, he reaches out to turn a finger in Zayn’s hair. When he shivers, Harry smiles. ‘That’s all I’ve thought about for four days.’
He leans in and Zayn’s heart stops, his hand going out just in time to stop him.
‘What?’ Harry breathes. ‘I thought?’
‘Why did you say that?’ Zayn says, leaving his hand on Harry’s shoulder and stroking his collarbone through his t-shirt with his thumb.
‘Say what?’
‘That I’m sad.’
Not that he’s tired or cranky or in pain, but sad.
‘You are sad, aren’t you?’
Zayn’s never thought about it before.
‘How did you know?’ he asks, but Harry just smiles and plays with his hair.
‘I’m sad,’ Zayn says it out loud to see what it hears like. What it tastes like.
A word so small shouldn’t feel so big but it feels so right he almost laughs.
‘Why are you sad?’ Harry asks, tucking a strand of Zayn’s hair behind his ear.
‘I don’t know.’
‘You do.’
Zayn thinks about it. ‘Because I don’t know who I am any more.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because it’s my job.’ Zayn lifts his shoulder then lets it fall again. ‘It’s my job to be someone else. I spend my life pretending to be other people and when I get home, I don’t know what to say. How fucked up is that?’ He does laugh then. ‘It’s like I can’t live my life without a script. I need someone to tell me what to say and where to stand and if they don’t, I just feel like I’m out there, you know?’ He thumbs over his shoulder at the door. ‘Standing on that dock with no fucking clue where I’m going or where I want to go, how I even got there.’
‘None of us do. Do you think I have a clue what I’m doing?’
‘You seem to.’
He chuckles gently. ‘Trust me, I haven’t got a fucking clue, either. I followed some bloke here thinking that we’d be together forever and now I’m what? Sawyer from Lost?’
Zayn wrinkles his nose. ‘Sawyer, really?’
Harry wrinkles his back. ‘James Bond, really?’
‘Not anymore, I’m sure,’ Zayn says with a tender sigh.
‘Look.’ Harry smiles. ‘This will pass in a few days. You just need to get through this shitstorm – and the one out there,’ he nods towards the window, ‘and you can go home.’
‘I don’t even know where that is anymore.’
Harry thinks about it for a moment, then says, ‘It’s where you’re understood.’
Zayn doesn’t think, just closes the distance between them, pressing his mouth to Harry’s. He doesn’t hesitate, either, and presses his cheek to Zayn’s palm when he cups it with his hand. Harry kisses him back and it’s slow – quiet – his tongue seeking out the corners of Zayn’s mouth before stopping and pulling back to look at him. His eyelashes dip as he presses his thumb to Zayn’s bottom lip and just like that, the storm is inside.
~*~
‘Why aren’t you asleep?’ Harry asks with a yawn when Zayn shifts again.
‘Did you definitely lock the door?’
‘Yes.’
‘What if I go out there again?’
‘You won’t.’
‘But what if you’re asleep?’
Harry slips his hand over Zayn’s hip and finds his hand under the blanket.
‘Don’t let go, okay?’ Zayn says when he does.
He doesn’t.
~*~
Zayn’s woken by the sun spilling in through the windows, warming his cheek.
‘Harry, look,’ he says elbowing him.
‘See.’ Harry kisses the back of his neck. ‘I know this island better than anyone.’
~*~
‘I’ll be back as soon as I’ve sorted this mess out, I promise. Wait,’ he stops adjusting the crochet blanket Harry brought to keep him warm while they wait for the boat to pick him up. ‘How are we going to keep in touch? Do you even get post here?’
Harry shrugs. ‘Pigeon carrier?
‘Seriously, Harry,’ Zayn says, but is distracted as he looks over his shoulder at the island. It’s the first time he’s seen it in daylight, seen the rough green hills and stone cottages dotted around, like daises on an overgrown lawn. It’s beautiful. The cliffs the colour of his primary school’s slate roof and the sky an unbroken stretch of blue that makes him wonder why he’s leaving at all. But then he hears the boat approaching.
‘Don’t worry,’ Harry tells him when he snatches one last kiss.
‘About what?’
‘About keeping in touch.’
Zayn tilts his head at him as he hands him back the blanket. ‘You don’t think I’m going to keep in touch, do you?’ He smiles. ‘That I’ll go back to LA and forget all about you.’
Harry smiles back. ‘I know you won’t.’
‘So you believe me when I say that I’m coming back.’
‘’Course.’ Harry shrugs. ‘But not as soon as you think.’
~*~
Harry was right. It’s almost thirty years before Zayn makes it back to the island. But when he does, there Harry is, waiting for him at the end of the dock, looking exactly the same as he did the morning he waved Zayn off. Zayn doesn’t look the same. His hair is greyer, his waist wider, but Harry looks at him like he doesn’t notice, like he doesn’t see the wrinkles fanning from the corner of his eyes and the thick veins in his hands. He just sees him.
He’s the only one who ever has.
~*~
They still fit in the narrow single bed. Harry still likes playing with Zayn’s hair and Zayn still likes cupping his face with his hands when they kiss. It feels like nothing’s changed, their bodies bending and giving in the same places they did thirty years ago.
As they’re dozing off, the candles burning down around them, Harry kisses his jaw.
‘What did you do?’
Zayn kisses the corner of his mouth. ‘Everything.’
‘Yeah?’
‘I met Jack Nicholson.’
‘No way! What was he like?’
‘Everything you want him to be.’
‘Did you see the Northern Lights?’ Zayn nods. ‘What was it like?’
‘Amazing.’ Zayn shakes his head and sighs. ‘Reminded me of the night you helped me off the boat. All that black then from nowhere, colour.’
‘Did you do the Inca Trail?’
‘Yes,’ Zayn hisses. ‘I nearly fucking died again. Thanks for that.’
‘Yeah but it was amazing, though, right?’
‘Yeah.’ Zayn nods. ‘Kind of like here.’
‘Like what?’
‘Like the end of the world.’
~*~
Zayn tells him everything, everything he’s seen and done and eaten since he left the island while Harry listens, utterly rapt, a finger turning in Zayn’s hair.
‘You fucking did it,’ Harry says with a proud smile when he’s done. ‘You did it all.’
‘I’m just sorry that you couldn’t.’
Zayn’s heart sags a little but lifts again when Harry’s smile widens. ‘I kind of have.’
‘So are you going to tell me?’ Zayn nudges him.
‘Tell you what?’
‘How you died.’
Harry laughs then rolls his eyes. ‘You’re not going to believe it.’
‘What?’
‘I drowned.’
‘Fuck off!’
‘Nope. Drowned trying to save my boyfriend while we were swimming in Newquay.’
‘You’re kidding? He survived and you died?’
‘No he was in a coma for a while, like you.’ Harry stops to look at his finger turning in Zayn’s hair. ‘He was here for a few days, but one morning I woke up and he was gone.’
‘Also like me.’
His cheeks burn but Harry just smiles. ‘At least you said goodbye.’
Zayn smiles back and reaches for his hand.
And he never has to say it again.