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Zayn was excited. It had been too long since he had seen the lads. Of course, he had enjoyed the long vacation. He hadn’t had that much rest since he auditioned for The X Factor. But he was ready to get back together with the boys, particularly a certain blond-haired member of the band…
Niall. Just the name was enough to make him smile. Zayn loved him. He just had this way of lighting up the room he was in. He never failed to make Zayn laugh.
~
When Zayn saw Niall with crutches, his heart almost broke in two. He just wanted to put his arms around him and hold him for the rest of the night, for the rest of his life. He hated seeing Niall in pain. Not that Niall ever let it show. His face was all bright eyes and wide smiles. Zayn, however, didn’t waste any more time in staring and quickly went to where the blond was standing.
When Niall saw him his eyes lit up and he yelled “Zayn! I missed you!” and immediately pulled him in for a hug. Zayn smiled, basking in the glorious perfection that was the physical contact while saying “I missed you too, Nialler!” He chuckled and added “Shouldn’t you be more careful with that leg?”
“Stop worrying, Zayn. I’m fine,” Niall said, pulling away from the hug with a smile on his face. “You ready for tonight?”
“Yeah, should be fun.” They walked over with the rest of the boys to go inside and enjoy the Brits.
~
Zayn was busy staring at Niall when suddenly he stood up shouting excitedly and he realized that they had called their name. Oh, they won the Global Success Award. He stood up whooping and grinning, and followed the boys to accept the award.
When they got to the stairs he kept his hand in Niall’s back to help him. He may have also stared at Niall’s arse but, hey, who can blame him, the guy’s hot.
It’s not until Liam said “Has anyone seen a curly-headed one?” that Zayn realized that Harry was missing. He glanced around to look for him but then Liam added “There’s four of us now” and Niall laughed like the lovely idiot he was, so Zayn refocused his attention on the boy.
Liam was doing all the talking (Lord knows why, considering how drunk he was) and then suddenly Harry was running onstage saying funny things like “I was having a wee,” and “What did we win?” Liam and Harry finished up thanking everyone and they went offstage feeling pretty happy.
~
When they won British Video of the Year, all five of them were there to go onstage. Zayn placed himself beside Niall, because he wanted to be close to him. Liam started talking before admitting how drunk he was and passed the microphone to Niall. Zayn didn’t even know what Niall was saying because he was too entranced by his beaming face, and it probably wasn’t even funny but he laughed out loud anyway, because Niall had that effect on him. Then Niall said something about a beautiful man and a pang of jealousy hit Zayn. He knew Niall was kidding, but he kind of wished that he used those words when talking about him.
For some reason Liam took the microphone back and then he was talking and then Harry was talking and Louis wasn’t paying attention and thanked their director whom Harry had thanked five seconds ago and they were all shouting and moving offstage. When they got to the stairs Louis walked behind Niall to help him should he had fallen and Zayn let him because he didn’t want to be too obvious hovering around Niall all the time.
~
Back at their table Zayn joked away with the rest of the guys but he kept glancing at Niall more often than not. At one point Niall was laughing loudly about Liam’s level of drunkenness and Louis suddenly appeared over Zayn and leaned in to whisper “Easy with the heart eyes, Malik” all the while smirking at Zayn’s blank face.
“What do you mean?” he said casually, but Louis just kept on smirking and looked pointedly at Niall. Then he moved back to his place, leaving Zayn to his thoughts.
Was he that obvious? Oh, God, if Louis had caught on, who else could see right through him? He glanced at Niall. Did he know? Nah, Niall was pretty oblivious, right? He didn’t have to worry about it.
~
Afterwards they did some interviews. In one of them Niall started rapping at Louis’ request and Zayn just couldn’t contain himself from laughing and staring lovingly at Niall. Shit, maybe Louis had a point. He did get ridiculously giggly when it came to Niall. Maybe he should stop. Yes, he definitely should. There was no way that his attraction for the other boy was going to be reciprocated so he had to stop acting like a fool around him before it went too far.
~
Who was he kidding? He was already too far gone. They were in yet another interview where they each received a bottle of champagne and Zayn was once again ignoring everything that was being said and focusing all his attention on Niall. He just loved losing himself in those beautiful blue eyes, imagining his hands flowing through those dyed-blond locks and kissing those soft pink lips… In fact, just hearing Niall’s voice and his laugh was enough to get Zayn hooked.
Zayn could almost imagine his eyes looking like the heart eye emoji like Louis suggested. There was no way Zayn could move on from Niall, because, yes, he was in love with Niall Horan and would always be, even if Niall did not feel the same.
~
Before they left that night, Niall came up to Zayn and said “Hey, Z, could you help me in the loo for a second? I’d do it myself but…” he raised one of his crutches to indicate what he was talking about.
“No problem at all, mate.” Zayn said with a smile, and followed Niall to the loo, wondering why Niall needed help. To open the door? He guessed so. Well, whatever Niall wanted, Zayn would oblige.
“You’ve been staring an awful lot tonight, Zaynie.” Niall said nonchalantly.
“What? No, I haven’t!” Zayn laughed nervously. Damn, he thought Niall hadn’t noticed! Now he was really screwed.
“Whatever you say, Z” Niall said, chuckling with a crooked smile dancing on his face and showing his beautifully white and now straight teeth.
They had reached the loo and Niall said “Just open the door and turn on the light for me, will you?”
Zayn went in and held the door open for Niall. The light was already on so he was about to get out when Niall grabbed his arm and pushed him back in. He then let the door close and turned the lock.
“Ni, what are you --?” Zayn started but Niall interrupted him.
“You have been staring, Zayn” Niall looked at him straight in the eyes and Zayn almost whimpered under his gaze. Bloody hell, this boy was hot. How was he supposed to explain himself out of this one?
“I- I just, um…” Zayn stuttered but Niall interrupted him once again.
“I like it” Niall said with a devilish grin and before Zayn could react, Niall pushed him against the wall with his crutches and closed the space between them. “I like it a lot” and then he was kissing him and Zayn stood frozen for a second because was this really happening? Niall, the boy of his dreams, was kissing him? Deciding to leave all the thinking for later, Zayn kissed back with as much love and passion as he could muster. Soon their hands were roaming over each other’s bodies, Zayn careful not to let Niall fall, and they were moaning and panting and it all felt so right.
Niall pulled away for the kiss and took off Zayn’s scarf before latching his teeth in Zayn throat, eliciting the most sinful noises from him. Zayn’s eyes rolled into his head and he thought wildly that if only Louis could see him now, he wouldn’t be saying anything about heart eyes.
After leaving the biggest hickey he could on Zayn’s neck, Niall pulled away and looked into Zayn’s eyes.
“What… What was that?” Zayn said a little breathlessly.
Niall rolled his eyes and laughed. “Isn’t it obvious? I like you.”
“You do?” Zayn felt like he would explode with all the emotions stirring inside of him. Oh, wait, here they come, yep, he was definitely back to heart eyes mode.
“Actually, scratch that. I don’t just like you. I love you, Zayn Malik.” Niall said and his voice was so gentle and sincere that Zayn almost melted where he stood.
“Oh my, God, Niall, I love you too and I have for such a long time and I can’t believe you feel the same way, this is –” Niall cut his rambling his short with another kiss. Unlike the first one which was filled with desperation and passion, this one was more gentle and filled with the promise of more to come and Zayn couldn’t help but smile against Niall’s lips when the prospect of more entered his mind.
~
When they rejoined the rest of the boys, Zayn readjusting his scarf to hide the love bite Niall left him, they looked at them.
“Where have you been?” Harry asked them.
“And what the hell happened to you scarf, Zayn? It’s all backwards and unruly,” Louis added.
“They’ve obviously been sucking face with each other,” Liam said with a drunken smile. “Shall we go then?” He strolled away ignoring everyone’s staring eyes and gaping mouths.
Louis turned to look at Zayn and Niall. He quickly went up to Zayn and lowered his scarf to see the incriminating mark on his skin. “It’s true! HA, I was right, wasn’t I?” he said, smirking at Zayn. He then rounded on Harry and said “You owe me some money, Styles.”
“Dang it.” Harry muttered while he took out his wallet and forked over the money. “I’m really happy for you guys, though,” he told Zayn and Niall with a smile.
Zayn looked over at Niall to see what he was thinking about this whole ordeal and saw that he was smiling. Oh, well, if Niall was okay with it, so was he. Niall gave him a peck on the cheeks and said “At least we don’t have to keep secrets, eh?”
Zayn smiled and walked out with Niall and the rest of the lads. He was thinking that it was very likely that he would spend the rest of his life with a goofy smile on his face. And the heart eyes, of course. Always the heart eyes.