#ic6

In-person Ineffable Con ticket went up on the website at the 11th hour, and I pounced on it like a starving coyote on a lamb chop

Zayn was alone. He was more confused, vulnerable and fragile than he had ever been before. But most of all, he just felt alone. Even though Niall was laying with him right there. He had no idea what to think.

Had Niall really just kissed him? Niall had a boyfriend. Zayn’s best friend. Zayn felt horrible. If Liam ever found out about this, then he would be mad at Zayn for sure. Zayn had already lost almost everybody else. He couldn’t possibly lose his best friend, too.

But the worst part of all of it was, did Zayn actually like it? Had Zayn liked the fact that Niall kissed him? He had no idea. The only thing he knew was that, for that one split second, Zayn had felt loved.

Even though it had only been a day or two since Harry had broken up with him, Zayn had already missed the feeling of being loved. With how sad he was, the only thing that really kept him going was love. He needed it, so badly. When Harry had broken up with him, love had been ripped cruelly away from him. Zayn had figured that he just wouldn’t be loved again any time soon.

But now Niall had kissed him as well. For that split second, he had actually felt loved. But now, now that he was laying there, he realized that Niall didn’t love him. Niall loved Liam. Niall loved his best friend. Niall didn’t love him. The love that Zayn felt for that second had once again been cruelly ripped away from him.

Zayn finally came to a conclusion. Love just wasn’t something that he was going to be able to have. Every time he thought he was loved it got ripped away from him. But, he couldn’t blame them. Why would anybody love Zayn? The only thing he was was a problem to everybody. Nobody could love the suicidal guy.

Right as Zayn was coming to his conclusion, Niall’s eyes snapped open. He had just realized what he’d done. He’d kissed Zayn. He had just cheated on his longtime boyfriend. It was weird to even think about.

Had he really just kissed Zayn? It just felt so... right. It felt so natural. An instinct, even. He guessed it was just his protective instinct of him taking over again. But at the same time, Niall knew he would have to tell Liam what had happened. It wouldn’t be fair to him to not know that Niall had kissed Liam’s best friend, even if he hadn’t realized what he was doing.

“Sorry.” Niall mumbled quietly. He really didn’t know what else to say about what had happened. He had no idea what Zayn was thinking, so he had no idea how he even felt about the kiss. But, it didn’t really matter anyway. It had happened, and Niall was in love with Liam.

Zayn just shook his head. He couldn’t possibly tell Niall what he was thinking. That somehow, within that second, he had developed feelings for him. Zayn couldn’t hurt Liam like that.

At the same time, Zayn couldn’t hurt himself like that either. He knew that if he told Niall that he had developed feelings for him that Zayn would just be crushed once again when Niall told him that he couldn’t be with him. Of course he knew that Niall couldn’t be with him, but it would still hurt to hear it.

Zayn woke up before Niall again. He sighed quietly as he looked down and found Niall’s hands on either one of his wrists, just pressing lightly. It didn’t hurt - in fact, the pressure felt pretty good on the cuts. It was a comforting gesture, one that he was grateful for.

He stretched, and slowly untangled himself from Niall. After a moment he realized he was numb, and that was really a scary feeling. He didn’t know what was worse, being numb, or being in as much pain as he had been the night before.

After making sure that Niall was still fast asleep, Zayn slipped on his slippers and padded softly from the room. He went to the bathroom, finding his razor. This time he wasn’t aiming to kill himself. This time he was aiming to feel.

Zayn sat on the toilet for a few minutes, just staring down at the razor blade. For a while he just held the blade to his skin lightly, not pressing in or cutting, just holding it there. Then finally, he got up the courage to drag the blade lightly across his skin.

A few drops of blood appeared. That wasn’t enough, that wasn’t nearly enough. Zayn did it again, right next to the first cut, and this time he pressed down harder. He hissed in pain and relief as this one hurt more. More blood appeared.

Zayn had just started cutting, and already he was addicted. He was addicted to seeing the blood flow from his arm, he was addicted to the pain and relief that it was giving him. Zayn was just plain addicted.

He just kept cutting, and cutting, until finally there was a little row of cuts all along his arm. When Zayn had first decided he was going to cut, he had only thought that he was going to do one little cut. By the time he realized just how many he had done, he was already starting to feel a little dizzy from the blood loss once more.

Vaguely, he wondered how much blood you could lose before you lost too much and you would die. With a resigned sigh, Zayn decided that he should probably stop. There was a minute where he just watched the blood flow from his arm.

The thing that scared him most about cutting wasn’t how addicted he had gotten, and how he had gotten so addicted just so quickly. No, the thing that scared him the most was that right then, when he was cutting and watching the blood flow, that was the happiest he had felt in what felt like a long time.

Zayn wasn’t happy, persay, but he was more relieved. As he watched it, it was like a big weight was being lifted off of his shoulders, one that he had been carrying for what felt like an extremely long time. For the first time in what felt like forever, he actually smiled, and breathed a small sigh of relief. It was great. The feeling was overpowering, and he was in love with it.

He got some toilet paper and pressed it to his arm, just long enough to stop the bleeding. It took awhile for the bleeding to fully stop, but after it did, he just went to her room and pulled on a long sleeved shirt to cover the cuts. There was no point in bandaging them. As he moved, the sleeve of his shirt would rub up against the cuts and cause a small stinging sensation.

Zayn was feeling again, and it was making his heart race. He was feeling, and it wasn’t this extreme sadness. It was just physical pain, instead of emotional pain. It was one of the best feelings he had had in a long time.

He pulled a pair of sweatpants on, along with his long sleeved shirt. After that he wrapped a duvet around himself. It wasn’t the white one that he was used to, because that was in his room, and Niall was in there. Instead, he took the brown one from the guest room. He was surprised to feel that it was even a lot softer than the one that he had in his room, and decided that whenever he wanted to curl up with a duvet that this would be the one he would curl up with.

Zayn just went to the living room and sat there on the couch, enjoying the silence. He didn’t turn the tv on. The only sounds were of the birds outside, and every so often a car that would be going by on the road.

Niall got up a couple hours later. He trudged out to the living room, rubbing his eyes sleepily. “Oh, hey.” He said, voice raspy and even lower than normal because he’d just woken up. Niall was surprised to find Zayn just sitting in the living room, but he was glad that he found him like that, instead of finding that he had tried to commit suicide again or something.

Zayn gave him a slight smile. He was surprised, he had expected to feel heartbreak the next time he saw Niall awake. But he really didn’t feel anything. He was just numb. Zayn moved his arm absent mindedly, biting his lip at the once more prominent stinging sensation. It proved to him that he was still alive, and he liked that. “Morning.” He said quietly back.

Niall stretched, then came and sat next to Zayn. He wanted to ask Zayn how he was, but he knew that would be a stupid question. He obviously wasn’t good. Even though he hadn’t tried to commit suicide again, he’d already tried it once. Asking how he was would just make Zayn lie to him, tell him that he was fine. Niall didn’t want that to happen. Niall wanted Zayn to open up to him, even though he knew that it would probably be awhile before that would actually happen. “Want something to eat?” Niall finally asked, turning to face him.

Zayn shrugged, then shook his head. “Nah, I’m okay.” He said quietly. “Although, some tea would be nice.” His voice was light, hopeful that Niall wouldn’t mind making it for him. Zayn would make it by himself without any hesitation, but he hoped that Niall would make it since he had offered to make breakfast.

Niall’s heart almost broke once more at the innocence and hopefulness his voice entailed. It was obvious that he had been let down many times, and that he was even possibly afraid of asking Niall to do something for him. “Of course.” He said, his voice gentle and friendly, as he gave Zayn a soft smile. “I’ll go make it right now.”

He put a hand on Zayn’s shoulder and squeezed comfortingly before getting up and going into the kitchen. After searching through the cabinets, he finally found everything he would need to make the tea and started to make it.

As he waited for the tea to be done, he was thinking about little things, really everything in general. It was different, amazing, even, how quiet Zayn could be. Even without the tv on, Niall couldn’t hear him at all. It was like he wasn’t moving, he wasn’t breathing, he wasn’t doing anything. Of course, he had to be breathing, and every so often he would probably fidget, but Niall found it interesting just how quiet he was able to be while doing that.

It was silent the entire time Niall was making the tea until the kettle boiled, and started its whistle. He took the kettle off and poured the water into a cup, then finished up. He poured a cup for himself as well, then brought both of the cups into the living room. “Here you are,” Niall said with a smile, handing Zayn one of the cups.

Zayn looked up at him and nodded, giving him a small grateful smile. “Thanks.” He said softly. He quickly adjusted the duvet around himself, then sat back on the couch and took the cup in his hands. It immediately warmed his hands up. A chill went through Zayn’s body as he took a small sip and the warm liquid went down his throat smoothly.

Niall had to bite his lip to stop from gasping when Zayn looked up at him. It was like any light that he had in his eyes had completely gone out. He made a silent promise to himself. Instead of just protecting Zayn from himself, he was going to do everything in his power to put that light back in his eyes as well. Niall didn’t care how long it took, but he was going to figure out a way to put it back in his eyes. “So, do you want to go out today?” Niall finally asked hopefully.

He shrugged. He figured it would be an alright thing to do. Being in the house just reminded him of Harry, because he was the one that lived there as well. Even if he didn’t exactly want to do anything, Zayn figured that anything would be better than just sitting in the house. “Sure,” he finally said. “What were you thinking?”

Niall shrugged. “Whatever you want to do.” When Zayn didn’t say anything, he realized that he would have to give him some suggestions on what they could do. “We could go running, or we could see a movie, or we could just go out for lunch, or something.”

After debating back and forth for a few minutes, they finally decided on seeing a movie. They didn’t even know what movies were playing, so they just decided they would go to a movie theater and find a movie that looked good.

Zayn jumped in the shower while Niall got dressed. He winced as the hot water stung the cuts even more than the sleeve had. It felt good, he had to admit that. Zayn knew that as soon as the pain started to fade that he would more than likely cut again. He was already itching to grab his razor blade and cut. But that would take a while, and unfortunately, Zayn didn’t have that sort of time right then. Niall would know something was up if he spent forever in the shower.

When they were finally ready, Niall drove them to the nearest movie theater. As they got out, Zayn suddenly realized what a bad idea this had been. Him and Niall hanging out while Harry was gone because of a family emergency? The media would have a field day. But it was too late now.

The media had already seen them. Had seen the way that Niall got out first, then went around to open the door for Zayn. He wouldn’t be surprised if they had somehow already found out that him and Harry had broken up. Now they would probably think that him and Niall were dating or something.

Zayn sighed quietly. “This was a bad idea.” He mumbled as they started to head into the movie theater. He tried to keep her head ducked down, but somehow the media continued to get to him.

Microphones were shoved in his face, cameras were flashing. Most of the time he was okay with media, they really didn’t bug him all that much. But right then, when he was already so stressed, he really didn’t want to deal with them.

Zayn knew he wasn’t helping himself any by clinging to Niall, but he couldn’t help it. “Niall, make them stop.” He whimpered. Niall was trying his best to get the media to go away, but there were so many media people there, and only two of them.

Niall pulled him close, even though he knew that wouldn’t be helping either of them as well. It was the protective instinct taking over again. “Just don’t answer any of their questions.” He said quickly. “Just ignore them.”

He whimpered again as yet another microphone was shoved in her face. “Niall, I want to go home!” Zayn was panicking. Even if it wasn’t completely obvious by the way he was presenting herself, he was panicking inside.