#sleepyfic

It is a well-known fact within the band that waking up Zayn is not for the faint of heart. He’s normally actually the least violent of all of them, the most likely to just forgive because it takes too much energy to be mad or to get annoyed. But all of that is true only starting an hour after he wakes up. For that hour, all bets are off.

  So the task of actually waking him up—it’s not an easy one, and it’s risky, because then he’s usually grumpy at whoever did it for the next few hours until he realizes he really did need to be awake. Usually, they send Liam, because Zayn is constitutionally incapable of being annoyed at Liam, for some reason Harry’s never been sure of or can copy. Sometimes that results in Liam literally just picking Zayn up and carrying him into the front of the bus to drop him on the couch, where Zayn just grabs whatever blanket or boy is closest and curls into it or them until someone forces him to move. On mornings like that, when Harry happens to be the one who’s closest—which, okay, maybe he does on purpose, but only because the couch is the most comfortable place to sit there, and Zayn is a really good cuddler—Zayn will cuddle up next to him and bury his head in Harry’s chest and make little snuffling sounds whenever Harry moves, and it’s the one time he doesn’t smell like smoke or cologne or anything (which, not that Harry’s saying that’s bad, because that’s such a Zayn smell too) and he doesn’t get annoyed when Harry pets his hair, which he usually does, and sometimes he’ll turn his head to look up at him and he’ll look all soft and young and if Harry will sometimes press a kiss into his hair no  one has to know.

  Or sometimes they make Louis wake him up, which is either the best or the worst idea ever. If Louis is in the wrong mood, if he’s already hyper and worked up, then Zayn will actually be in a mood all day, because Louis will wake him up by jumping on the bed or something and then Zayn will start the day by wrestling him to the ground and almost smothering him with a pillow before one of the other boys manage to convince him that’s a bad idea. Then he’ll leave Louis on the floor and disappear into the bathroom and by the time he comes out he’ll be sharp and crisp and put together. Harry likes that Zayn too, of course, because he loves all Zayns, but he’s not in the mood to cuddle like that, or not as much in the mood because Zayn’s always in the mood to cuddle if you manage it right.

  But if Louis’s in the right mood, if he’s tired too or just not as loud as usual, he’s one of the best at waking up Zayn. He shakes him awake and hands him a cigarette and cuddles with him in his bunk until he’s ready to face the world, when they both come out giggling and loud. It’s the easiest, definitely, when that happens, because both Louis and Zayn are manageable, which isn’t always true, but it’s another one of those time when the two of them go into their own little word, and sometimes it feels…weird, is all. Every pair of them have their own things, of course, but sometimes Zayn and Louis’s feels more like they’re excluding everyone else, like they don’t need Harry, and it’s…not a great feeling. But it also means Zayn smiles a lot, even in the mornings, so that’s good.

  Niall goes less often, partly because he’s a late riser too, but also because even if Zayn refuses to let himself get mad at Niall, he doesn’t always really get the slow-to-wake-up thing and starts being energetic too early, wrapping Zayn in a hug the instant he sits up and bouncing a little on the bed and asking him what he wants to do for breakfast. Zayn’ll smile and ruffle Niall’s hair, because, Niall, but he’ll act kinda tired all morning, take a few extra seconds to process things. On those sort of mornings, Harry sometimes finds Zayn standing near a wall just blinking at the other boys, and then he shoves tea into his hands and drapes himself over Zayn’s back and if it’s the most comfortable he’s ever been, breathing in and out with Zayn as he sips tea and absorbing his warmth, he doesn’t tell anyone that either, because if he tells the boys they’ll try to steal his Zayn cuddling time and he doesn’t want that.

  They don’t send Harry. He thinks it starts from the x-factor days when they were all still figuring each other out and Harry didn’t know how to deal with Zayn’s combination of quiet and snarky and earnest, and so they rubbed each other the wrong way a little too often and no one wanted to risk actually making Zayn mad in the mornings because when Zayn got mad he got mean, and Harry was—still is, sometimes—the most sensitive of all of them. It probably also didn’t help that Harry would sometimes look at Zayn and trip over something because he couldn’t figure out how he was allowed to exist.

  So even now, maybe out of habit, when the rest of them are huddled in the front of the bus and Liam looks at his watch and says, “Someone needs to wake up Zayn,” they all look to Liam, who looks at Louis. And it—it irritates Harry, somehow. He could wake up Zayn. They get along now, have figured out how each other works. They’ve got their own jokes and everything. They cuddle. A lot. More than anyone but maybe Louis and Zayn and that doesn’t count because half the time they’re cuddling they’re high anyway.

  “I need—” Liam starts, but Harry interrupts him by standing up.

  “I’ll do it,” he announces, shaking out his hair.

  Louis shares a look with Liam that Harry can’t read. Which is weird, because after this long they can usually read each other all the time. “You sure that’s a good idea?”

  “Yes,” Harry says again, and ducks into the back before anyone tells him otherwise.

  But once he gets there, doubt strikes. How should he wake him up? He knows Liam tends to pat him gently on the cheek. Niall just beams at him until he feels the sunshine enough to wake up. Louis shakes his shoulder and says his name and wafts smoke at him. Harry…. What can he do?

  His usual mode of dealing with Zayn is a combination of intensive cuddling and a lot of sexual innuendo he doesn't think Zayn means and so he totally doesn't either, as he insistently tells his dick sometimes after a concert when Zayn is literally thrusting his hips into Harry's face. Or, worse, when he puts a hand on Harry's cheek and tilts his head so he can whisper in Harry's ear, his breath warm against Harry's skin. But he doesn't think that waking Zayn up by grinding on him would be a good idea. However much it might sound like one.

  Especially when he climbs the ladder up to Zayn's bunk, and Zayn's just...lying there. It's not like he's never seen Zayn asleep before, everyone's seen Zayn asleep before, he's the best of all of them of getting what sleep he can when he can wherever he can, in vans and taxis and green rooms and sometimes even the stylist's chairs, but there's something about Zayn in bed, something that used to make him always whine about staying with Zayn because waking up breathless wasn't a great way to start the morning. Zayn awake is hotter than anyone has a right to be. Zayn asleep is an oil painting, with his eyelashes fanning over gently flushed cheeks, his hair soft and dark against his skin, one hand wrapped around the blanket tucked beneath his chin. It's the weirdest combination of gorgeous and comfortable Harry's ever seen.

  So he does the only logical thing, and slides into bed with Zayn, tucking himself around him like a big spoon, throwing an arm over his hip and resting his nose just over the feather at Zayn's neck. It's the only way he's learned to deal with Zayn--get close enough that he can only see parts of him, and not the whole, because when he sees the whole he forgets how to talk or walk sometimes.

  But that doesn't exactly help, really. Because now he can smell Zayn, that sleepy-him scent that's only the faintest bit smoke and more just him, and he could just press a kiss to the feather and Zayn's asleep and would probably never know.  Unless he has magic kiss-sensing powers, but given that Harry's pretty sure like 99% of people want to kiss Zayn whenever they look at him, that'd be a really inconvenient power to have. And he's definitely spent too much time with Liam and Louis and Zayn if he's thinking about superheroes. And he's still smelling Zayn, and wrapped up in him, and there's something about his sleepy-softeness that makes Harry want to go back to sleep, but then the boys would send Liam in and he'd see them and Harry would never be allowed to wake Zayn up again and also Liam would probably make his sad face at Harry and he doesn't like that.

  So instead he inhales another breath of Zayn, then moves his hand from Zayn's hip to his shoulder, but he can't bring himself to actually shake Zayn awake because he always looks so happy when he's asleep, so he sorta pats him a few times, then decides if he's going to that he might as well just nuzzle at his neck anyway, because Harry would love to wake up to Zayn cuddling him, so the reverse has to be true, right?

  That gets him a little exhale Harry can feel more than hear, which is usually a precursor to Zayn waking up, so he figures he should probably continue. And maybe throw in a lick, too, because Zayn's skin usually tastes good. He thinks about biting, but decides against it, because that might make Zayn wake up faster than he wants to, and then no one will be happy. So he moves his mouth up from Zayn's neck so he's better positioned to murmur into Zayn's ear.

  "Zayner. Zayn. Rise and shine, sunshine."

  "Not sunshine." There's a downside to being tucked against Zayn like this, and Harry realizes it when Zayn speaks, his voice sleep-rough, which is very like when it's rough for other reasons, or so he'd imagine, and he is going to have to give his dick a very stern talking to. It's been three years. He had hoped he would have started to get some sort of resistance to Zayn's hotness by now.

  "But you can be, if you wake up! The sun is out, we have an interview, there's Yorkshire tea..."

  Zayn's eyelashes flutter, and his lips press together. "Tea?"

  "I'll even make it for you," Harry promises. He doesn't trust anyone else in the kitchen anyway.

  He can feel Zayn start to move, and for a second he thinks Zayn is going to move away, which would be sad because he's really comfortable, but instead Zayn just rolls over so their feet would be tangled if Harry was under the covers and their faces are barely centimeters apart.

  "Tea?" Zayn asks again, plaintive, but he's smiling a little, soft and warm and like he's happy to see Harry, like he's happy Harry's face is the first thing he's seeing in the morning, like the sun's rising in his eyes, and he looks so soft and cozy and nice and still devastatingly attractive that Harry, as usual, loses the ability to be a person, and does what he thinks is the only other option when faced with a sweet, sleepy Zayn smile from so close. He kisses him.

  It's as lazy and soft as Zayn, just Harry's lips pressed against Zayn's, sucking a little on his lower lip, and Zayn tilts his head up and lets him, his eyes fluttering closed against Harry's skin, this time. Zayn''s got a little bit of morning breath, but nothing too bad, and Harry can feel him smiling, which is even better than seeing it.

  "Mm," Zayn says, when Harry lets him go, that smile still curled on his lips, his eyes shut but crinkling at the corner, "Better than tea."

  "Better than tea?"

  "Better than tea," Zayn confirms, and opens his eyes. A bit of the sleepy's going out of them, the edges sharpening, the blurry lines at the corner of him coming back together. But he doesn't make Harry get out of bed as he sits up and stretches, then climbs over Harry to get to the ladder and heads towards the bathroom.