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2017 graveyard: rush week ziall
Dec. 30th, 2017 11:29 pmper jes's suggestion, i'm closing out 2017 by posting a couple of abandoned WIPs over here on the wild frontier of dreamwidth. these are my only two WIPs that are officially deader than doornails, as opposed to dormant with a faint hope of resurrection. rush week ziall died because i conceived it as a bittersweet little friendship story, and then i went and tried to cram a blowjob in there and it just didn't work. revisiting my tag did remind me of a cute lil ficlet that went with the original idea, though. anyway, here's the corpse, rip:
***
They’ve been drinking since the vodka and gallon jugs of Sunny D came out at breakfast, chasing away the hangovers from Friday night before they even really took hold. Zayn had looked down the row of cereal bins and poured himself a mixture of Froot Loops and Grape Nuts in an attempt to make at least half of one good choice this weekend.
The screwdrivers kept coming throughout a morning of Xbox and shooting pool. That bled into a beer-soaked afternoon spent on and around the front porch, a few of the guys kicking a soccer ball around the disreputable lawn, the constant threat of someone being shoved into the inflatable kiddie pool sprawled half over the sidewalk. Zayn could hear Niall swear every time a ball rolled wide of the hole in the front hallway, where someone had unfurled a ragged putting green. As evening set in, the music got louder and someone started charring burgers on a filthy grill.
It’s exactly what Zayn expected of fraternity rush. Exactly what he wanted. He’s been drinking for twelve hours straight, steady and constant. He’s not wasted, not like everybody was last night, but the edges of everything are soft and there’s a little too much give in his legs and his chest and his tongue.
The bigger challenge than twelve hours of drinking has been twelve hours of socialization. It’s impossible to escape people here, always a group of guys in the common room or the TV room or the kitchen or just sprawled in the hallway outside the doors to their rooms. Zayn can’t even go out for a smoke without enduring small talk around the coffee can of old butts.
A couple hours after sunset, the sleeping porch occurs to him. It’s still too early for anybody to be up there sleeping. And he remembers Liam telling them about how the windows are always open because of some kind of health code thing. He’s pretty sure he’s not supposed to smoke anywhere in the house, but maybe he can lean out a window and hope for the best.
Zayn climbs two flights of stairs, dodging conversations while tipping his keg cup to acknowledge the guys he passes. He shoulder-checks the door frame as he rounds the corner at the bottom of the narrow stairway to the house’s top story, the fuzz of alcohol making every surface seem welcoming.
At the top, it’s quiet and dark in the room full of double and triple bunks. Windows at regular intervals are opened wide to the night. Zayn picks his way through the shadows on the floor to the window in the farthest corner. He lights up and leans outside, elbows on the sill, breathing in the solitude as much as the nicotine.
Zayn’s bag is on the sleeping porch somewhere, but he hadn’t made it up here last night. If Saturday’s been a marathon, an exercise in maintaining a buzz without tipping over the edge, Friday night was a sprint, all of them arriving on campus and trying to be first to go sprawling past the finish line. He’d passed out in the common room with a few other soon-to-be freshmen just before sunrise, because going upstairs to their beds would have meant admitting that the night was over.
In the scuffle to strip the couch of cushions, Zayn had grabbed the last pillow one step ahead of Niall. Niall made a swipe for it with one scrawny arm, and Zayn held it above his head out of reach. Niall punched him in the stomach, without much conviction, and Zayn stretched out on the floor at the end of the couch, tucking the pillow securely under his head.
“Fuck you, you’re my pillow now,” Niall told him, dropping to the floor and rolling onto his back. His head landed heavily on Zayn’s stomach. Zayn tried to extricate his hand from where Niall’s head was pinning it down, but his elbow was already up against the couch, so it wasn’t his fault, really, that his fingers ended up half in Niall’s hair.
Niall was the only other person who’d looked as out of place as Zayn felt when they arrived with the other freshmen for rush weekend. Niall had too many shirts on and bracelets made of memories looped around both wrists, like cheerful armor. Zayn prefers his armor inked on, his collarbone and wrist barely done smarting from the first of it, but he didn’t miss the parallel.
Niall’s presence made more sense after he told Zayn he’s spending the summer mowing lawns and adjusting sprinklers at the municipal course in his town so he can play 18 holes every day. That seemed fratty enough.
He’d asked Niall if he golfed for his high school team. “Yeah,” Niall said, and tipped his head back to drain his half-full keg cup. Zayn watched his throat as he swallowed once, twice, three times. Niall wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and turned to head back inside. “Fuck high school, right? I need a refill.”
Zayn wasn’t looking to flee high school so much as he was looking for the people he never quite met in high school, the ones he belonged with. Brothers, right? He’s never had a brother, blood or otherwise.
He’d started to think he might be in the right place when he saw the graffiti wall in the basement TV room, a messy palimpsest of spray paint and permanent marker. He hadn’t wanted to look too eager about it, but after a couple of games of Madden that morning he’d relinquished his controller and walked over to take a look. He’d ended up bending in pretty close. It’s hard to tell the difference between an artistic statement and a poorly drawn dick.
Louis, the junior whose leadership role in the rush proceedings is undefined but unmistakable, punched Zayn in the shoulder as he walked by. “Paint’s under the sink,” he told Zayn, jabbing a thumb in the direction of the wet bar in the corner.
“That OK?” Zayn had asked, surprised.
“Yeah, go for it.”
The cupboard under the sink held a disreputable assortment of half-empty cans. Zayn picked up one with a red cap and rolled his wrist to hear the familiar clatter of the pea inside. He looked back at the wall, considering what to add to it. After a few minutes he put the can back under the sink. It was enough, right then, to know that he could. Felt like something inside him was settling and expanding at the same time, dough rising to fill a warmed bowl.
Footsteps thump up the sleeping porch stairs. When the door opens, Zayn sees bottle-blonde hair in the light from the hallway. “Zayn?” Niall asks, his eyes probably still adjusting.
“Over here.” Zayn extends his cigarette hand further out the window.
The floorboards creak as Niall walks toward him. “Louis said to tell you not to smoke up here.”
“Shit.” Zayn stubs his cigarette out against the exterior brick. He flicks the butt toward the garbage bins three stories down. “How did he know?”
“Seems like he knows everything,” says Niall cheerfully, apparently not as bothered by that prospect as Zayn is.
“Is he mad?”
“Looks like you’ll have to find another house to rush.” Niall grins.
Zayn can’t quite manage to laugh. He’s already thinking about what it would be like to claim a space here, to pile one of these bunks with his own blankets instead of a temporary sleeping bag. He’d Sharpie a twining design up one of the raw wood supports so he could wake up to it every morning.
Zayn turns back to the window, and Niall recognizes that the joke didn’t land. “Nah, said you should come smoke with him again tonight.”
And that’s a relief. Last night, when Louis had beckoned Zayn with a lighter and the swirl of a glass pipe tucked together against his palm, was when Zayn had started to think he could belong here. It wasn’t the weed so much as it was the time they spent in Louis’s room smoking it. Louis didn’t act as if he was trying to impress Zayn, but as if he’d already decided Zayn was someone to be trusted.
“Okay, give me another minute.” Even without the excuse of a cigarette any more, Zayn’s not quite ready to plunge back into the party.
“Move over,” Niall demands, ignoring Zayn’s dismissal. He pushes his way in to claim half the window, loose-limbed and at least as alcohol-fogged as Zayn, and Zayn’s surprised to find that he doesn’t mind after all.
Niall rests his elbows on the sill next to Zayn’s, shoulder pressing in warm. “Hey, you can see the quad from here.”
“Yeah, it’s nice,” Zayn agrees, meaning it every which way. This house is nice, college is nice, standing shoulder to shoulder with Niall and leaning out over the summer night is nice. A heavy moon is coming up behind the library and yellow circles of streetlight dot the sidewalk stretching toward main campus. The thump of the bass from downstairs is still audible, but he can hear the rasping of cicadas outside too.
Niall sighs happily, and Zayn continues to be fascinated by Niall’s transparency. Nervousness radiated off of him when they’d all arrived Friday afternoon. As they settled into the weekend, Niall’s happiness mirrored his own, Niall’s all on the surface and Zayn’s held tight like a secret. Held all the tighter the harder it got to conceal.
Maybe it’s that sense of Zayn’s emotions playing out on Niall’s face that prompts Zayn to lean a little closer, nosing into Niall’s space in a way that Zayn could pass off as drunk and unsteady if Niall flinched or laughed or worse. But Niall doesn’t, he stays right there against Zayn, eyes serious when he turns the slightest bit toward Zayn’s face. Zayn takes a breath of summer night and cheap beer. He leans harder into Niall’s shoulder and brings their lips together.
***
They’ve been drinking since the vodka and gallon jugs of Sunny D came out at breakfast, chasing away the hangovers from Friday night before they even really took hold. Zayn had looked down the row of cereal bins and poured himself a mixture of Froot Loops and Grape Nuts in an attempt to make at least half of one good choice this weekend.
The screwdrivers kept coming throughout a morning of Xbox and shooting pool. That bled into a beer-soaked afternoon spent on and around the front porch, a few of the guys kicking a soccer ball around the disreputable lawn, the constant threat of someone being shoved into the inflatable kiddie pool sprawled half over the sidewalk. Zayn could hear Niall swear every time a ball rolled wide of the hole in the front hallway, where someone had unfurled a ragged putting green. As evening set in, the music got louder and someone started charring burgers on a filthy grill.
It’s exactly what Zayn expected of fraternity rush. Exactly what he wanted. He’s been drinking for twelve hours straight, steady and constant. He’s not wasted, not like everybody was last night, but the edges of everything are soft and there’s a little too much give in his legs and his chest and his tongue.
The bigger challenge than twelve hours of drinking has been twelve hours of socialization. It’s impossible to escape people here, always a group of guys in the common room or the TV room or the kitchen or just sprawled in the hallway outside the doors to their rooms. Zayn can’t even go out for a smoke without enduring small talk around the coffee can of old butts.
A couple hours after sunset, the sleeping porch occurs to him. It’s still too early for anybody to be up there sleeping. And he remembers Liam telling them about how the windows are always open because of some kind of health code thing. He’s pretty sure he’s not supposed to smoke anywhere in the house, but maybe he can lean out a window and hope for the best.
Zayn climbs two flights of stairs, dodging conversations while tipping his keg cup to acknowledge the guys he passes. He shoulder-checks the door frame as he rounds the corner at the bottom of the narrow stairway to the house’s top story, the fuzz of alcohol making every surface seem welcoming.
At the top, it’s quiet and dark in the room full of double and triple bunks. Windows at regular intervals are opened wide to the night. Zayn picks his way through the shadows on the floor to the window in the farthest corner. He lights up and leans outside, elbows on the sill, breathing in the solitude as much as the nicotine.
Zayn’s bag is on the sleeping porch somewhere, but he hadn’t made it up here last night. If Saturday’s been a marathon, an exercise in maintaining a buzz without tipping over the edge, Friday night was a sprint, all of them arriving on campus and trying to be first to go sprawling past the finish line. He’d passed out in the common room with a few other soon-to-be freshmen just before sunrise, because going upstairs to their beds would have meant admitting that the night was over.
In the scuffle to strip the couch of cushions, Zayn had grabbed the last pillow one step ahead of Niall. Niall made a swipe for it with one scrawny arm, and Zayn held it above his head out of reach. Niall punched him in the stomach, without much conviction, and Zayn stretched out on the floor at the end of the couch, tucking the pillow securely under his head.
“Fuck you, you’re my pillow now,” Niall told him, dropping to the floor and rolling onto his back. His head landed heavily on Zayn’s stomach. Zayn tried to extricate his hand from where Niall’s head was pinning it down, but his elbow was already up against the couch, so it wasn’t his fault, really, that his fingers ended up half in Niall’s hair.
Niall was the only other person who’d looked as out of place as Zayn felt when they arrived with the other freshmen for rush weekend. Niall had too many shirts on and bracelets made of memories looped around both wrists, like cheerful armor. Zayn prefers his armor inked on, his collarbone and wrist barely done smarting from the first of it, but he didn’t miss the parallel.
Niall’s presence made more sense after he told Zayn he’s spending the summer mowing lawns and adjusting sprinklers at the municipal course in his town so he can play 18 holes every day. That seemed fratty enough.
He’d asked Niall if he golfed for his high school team. “Yeah,” Niall said, and tipped his head back to drain his half-full keg cup. Zayn watched his throat as he swallowed once, twice, three times. Niall wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and turned to head back inside. “Fuck high school, right? I need a refill.”
Zayn wasn’t looking to flee high school so much as he was looking for the people he never quite met in high school, the ones he belonged with. Brothers, right? He’s never had a brother, blood or otherwise.
He’d started to think he might be in the right place when he saw the graffiti wall in the basement TV room, a messy palimpsest of spray paint and permanent marker. He hadn’t wanted to look too eager about it, but after a couple of games of Madden that morning he’d relinquished his controller and walked over to take a look. He’d ended up bending in pretty close. It’s hard to tell the difference between an artistic statement and a poorly drawn dick.
Louis, the junior whose leadership role in the rush proceedings is undefined but unmistakable, punched Zayn in the shoulder as he walked by. “Paint’s under the sink,” he told Zayn, jabbing a thumb in the direction of the wet bar in the corner.
“That OK?” Zayn had asked, surprised.
“Yeah, go for it.”
The cupboard under the sink held a disreputable assortment of half-empty cans. Zayn picked up one with a red cap and rolled his wrist to hear the familiar clatter of the pea inside. He looked back at the wall, considering what to add to it. After a few minutes he put the can back under the sink. It was enough, right then, to know that he could. Felt like something inside him was settling and expanding at the same time, dough rising to fill a warmed bowl.
Footsteps thump up the sleeping porch stairs. When the door opens, Zayn sees bottle-blonde hair in the light from the hallway. “Zayn?” Niall asks, his eyes probably still adjusting.
“Over here.” Zayn extends his cigarette hand further out the window.
The floorboards creak as Niall walks toward him. “Louis said to tell you not to smoke up here.”
“Shit.” Zayn stubs his cigarette out against the exterior brick. He flicks the butt toward the garbage bins three stories down. “How did he know?”
“Seems like he knows everything,” says Niall cheerfully, apparently not as bothered by that prospect as Zayn is.
“Is he mad?”
“Looks like you’ll have to find another house to rush.” Niall grins.
Zayn can’t quite manage to laugh. He’s already thinking about what it would be like to claim a space here, to pile one of these bunks with his own blankets instead of a temporary sleeping bag. He’d Sharpie a twining design up one of the raw wood supports so he could wake up to it every morning.
Zayn turns back to the window, and Niall recognizes that the joke didn’t land. “Nah, said you should come smoke with him again tonight.”
And that’s a relief. Last night, when Louis had beckoned Zayn with a lighter and the swirl of a glass pipe tucked together against his palm, was when Zayn had started to think he could belong here. It wasn’t the weed so much as it was the time they spent in Louis’s room smoking it. Louis didn’t act as if he was trying to impress Zayn, but as if he’d already decided Zayn was someone to be trusted.
“Okay, give me another minute.” Even without the excuse of a cigarette any more, Zayn’s not quite ready to plunge back into the party.
“Move over,” Niall demands, ignoring Zayn’s dismissal. He pushes his way in to claim half the window, loose-limbed and at least as alcohol-fogged as Zayn, and Zayn’s surprised to find that he doesn’t mind after all.
Niall rests his elbows on the sill next to Zayn’s, shoulder pressing in warm. “Hey, you can see the quad from here.”
“Yeah, it’s nice,” Zayn agrees, meaning it every which way. This house is nice, college is nice, standing shoulder to shoulder with Niall and leaning out over the summer night is nice. A heavy moon is coming up behind the library and yellow circles of streetlight dot the sidewalk stretching toward main campus. The thump of the bass from downstairs is still audible, but he can hear the rasping of cicadas outside too.
Niall sighs happily, and Zayn continues to be fascinated by Niall’s transparency. Nervousness radiated off of him when they’d all arrived Friday afternoon. As they settled into the weekend, Niall’s happiness mirrored his own, Niall’s all on the surface and Zayn’s held tight like a secret. Held all the tighter the harder it got to conceal.
Maybe it’s that sense of Zayn’s emotions playing out on Niall’s face that prompts Zayn to lean a little closer, nosing into Niall’s space in a way that Zayn could pass off as drunk and unsteady if Niall flinched or laughed or worse. But Niall doesn’t, he stays right there against Zayn, eyes serious when he turns the slightest bit toward Zayn’s face. Zayn takes a breath of summer night and cheap beer. He leans harder into Niall’s shoulder and brings their lips together.
