(Climb on board)

We'll go slow and high-tempo

Light and dark

Hold me hard and mellow...

I'm seeing the pain (seeing the pleasure)

Nobody but you, 'body but me, 'body but us

Bodies together.

"PILLOWTALK" || ZAYN

___

We're inside ;)

Zayn smiles, pocketing his phone and his hands into his jacket before jogging up the steps to the Grey Art Gallery.

He's meeting Anais and her sister, and while he was initially confused about why Ana chose his collection of all places and sights on campus to meet Cat, he's not opposed to the idea.

First of all, Anais was weird, anyway. 

(He laughs at that). 

So, he's hoping there's a reason she's chosen the gallery. 

He's sure there is. 

Secondly, it's been awhile since he's seen 'Nebula.'

And so Zayn pulls cold hands from his pockets at the doors and enters the cool building.

It's nice inside. Not too warm, not too cold. There are only a few people milling about, save for the high schoolers following their tour guide through the building, and there's only the sound of his boots, echoing across the bare floors and over the NYU welcome guide as he explains in hushed tones the importance of the arts and student involvement in extracurriculars. 

With a nod towards the guide, Zayn moves on, walking between the space. Walking between the art. 

It's almost weird, being in here again. 

It's a bit bittersweet. 

He's back in this gallery, that, just a month ago, had opened to his peers and his friends and the congratulations and the accolades that came with finishing a collection worth its own space. That  night he had been dressed up and watched his friends react to his work -- the work that he'd spent so long completing and the work that he'd gone to such great lengths to keep Anais from discovering before it was time. 

And Zayn makes his way to the east wing of the building and stands before the doors that would take him inside and reads the words he had graffitied across wall and the glass double doors. He pauses, because this will be the first real time he's come to his own gallery and seen his own collection like this -- like, alone -- like a bystander. 

Like everyone else. 

This will be the first time he's walked through the art and admired the pieces for himself. 

And he reads the words he'd written and looks at the cartoonish characters he'd drawn in the hues of purples and blues and yellows and looks at how these words have stained the clean grey walls and have clouded the view of the collection inside, staining those clean double-glass doors. 

This will always make him feel, he decides, as he stands just outside of the collection. 

This body of work, this being his, these pieces and this project in its entirety, will always be a mark of pride. This will always be a marker of those late nights on her couch or those nights on the roof...His youth and his manhood and his ascent into adulthood; into a real relationship; into real first love and heartbreak...these memories and these emotions were all wrapped up in the graffiti and the paint and the charcoal and the pencil used and worn down into the dust accumulating on his fingers. 

And, Zayn realizes that obviously, as others view his pieces and outside eyes fall upon his work, the interpretation to be gained from whatever he's done will surely be different than his own truth. 

Ultimately, Zayn knows, very few will realize that he had a very specific motivation for this body of work. 

And, that's alright. 

It's alright because he knows. 

He'll always know. 

And, Zayn's got his tongue in his cheek, reading those words again and again upon the wall. 

a STAR is born

And he takes a breath, rings clacking against the metal door handle as he leans against one of those double doors, pushing it open. 

He steps inside. 

He steps right into 'Nebula.'

__

The collection is set up like a story.

There is a clear beginning. 

There is a clear end. 

The collection moves in a gradual spiral, the first piece located in the center of a conglomerate of rooms that Zayn was lucky enough to pick out when his collection was selected by his teacher to be placed in the Grey. 

Upon entrance into this first room, there is graffiti at Zayn's feet. 

FIRST. 

SHE FELL. 

And from these giant words upon the pristine wood floors his eyes travel to the clean grey column in the very center of this first room. 

Upon this column, is his first piece.

The first piece, is a sketch. 

Charcoal and dark and black and smeared with fingerprints is the sketch of a ladder. There's a single hand wrapped around the rung visible as the perspective of the piece points up. The ladder leads to the top of a building and stops at more charcoal smears and smudges and dark, purposeful scrubs of pigment. 

The graffiti in black spells, now, drawn from the floor and up these walls:

OUT OF THE SKIES AND INTO MY orbit SHE WAS LIGHT but also HEAT AND SHE WAS HUE  

The next three pieces are tacked up on the remaining walls of the room. There's paint splattered everywhere, graffiti in black, now, as the color is used to create giant swirling clouds dotted with tiny splatters of whites and reds and pinks and greens and blues. 

And from there, the three portraits on these walls grow larger with the words,

SHE WAS BRIGHT AND SHE WAS RED AND SHE WAS ULTRAVIOLET...

And the three portraits on these walls do not only grow larger, but also more colorful. 

This first charcoal sketch is of the top of a building, the tips of boots visible as the toes of each shoe peeks over the edge of the high rise.  Tiny yellow dots of color bring the tiny streetlights to life below. 

The second one is still upon this roof, the dark silhouette in the corner is sitting, head tilted upwards at flecks of white pepper the dark sky, a soft yellow moon hidden behind dark clouds. 

This third piece is the largest in this room, and there's a close up of a thermos beside two pretty, blue and white snowflake-patterned cups of coppery hot chocolate.

And into the next room the words continue. 

AND TO HER I GRAVITATED.

TOWARDS HER I WAS pulled...

And the portraits grow even larger upon the walls. 

...AND FOR HER

HARD 

            AND 

                       FAST

I FELL. 

And the sketches are portraits, now. 

They're no longer just charcoal; no longer black and dark strokes peppered with small painted pops of color. 

These pictures are no longer cartoonish like the swirling graffiti of stars and constellations and clouds of nebula surrounding them and staining the walls. Spiraling upon columns and in the corners and upon the ceilings are more phrases.

And they're expertly done, these portraits amidst the nebulas and the definitions, crafted in colored pencils and oil pastels. 

They're bright and they're big and they're "perfect," sighed Soo on the night of the gallery opening. It was really all anyone could say. 

"They look just like her."

And Zayn stops. 

He looks up -- from the pictures in his own gallery, he looks up. 

He looks up from the colors swirling and colors splattered and pencils stroked and Zayn frowns. 

He didn't realize that he was followed inside. 

He didn't realize that he'd been trailed through Nebula. 

"Honestly," Lucky Blue says, holding up his hands in surrender, "I just came to look," he shakes his head. "I'm not here to fight."

Zayn's expression does not change. 

"Not so sure I believe that, mate."

Lucky smirks, eyes leaving Zayn to gloss again over the portraits. 

Eye no longer black, lip no longer busted and bruised, Lucky Blue Smith looks just as clean and just as annoying as he had when he'd first been introduced. 

Zayn wants him to leave. 

Zayn wants him gone from this quiet, personal, (yet public), space.

"What are you doing here."

A smile twitches at the corner of Lucky's upturned lip. 

He does not answer the question. "I'm surprised you didn't draw her with Shakespeare or Beowulf," he grins. "'Cause Ana just loves that so much."

Zayn steps through the gallery. "S'that supposed to be some joke?"

Lucky pauses, blue eyes flickering back to Zayn.

His smirk grows into a small(ish) smile. 

"Actually," he nods, "It is. Yeah."

Silence. 

And Zayn watches as Lucky pauses before each of the portraits, that smile growing as he stares at each object within the frame. 

The portraits grow larger, but the writing and graffiti beneath it grows smaller, spiralling around the portraits which spiral around the walls in the room. 

"the interstellar gas is dispersed... 

These portraits, why, they're of a girl with skin that's rich like the whiskey Zach pours at Mac's. 

...the matter adds up over the distances between the stars... 

They're of a girl staring up at the skies with a stack of paper in her hands and they're of that girl lying in the snow, flakes in her hair. 

...And eventually, and with enough gravitational attraction between clouds, this matter can coalesce and collapse to create stars and planetary systems...

They're of a girl with a coffee cup to her lips seated across a tiny cafe table and they're of a girl asleep in a darkened room with hair fanning across grey pillows. 

...and there was enough gravitational attraction between us...

...to create clouds and stars and storms and systems.

But, the final, largest piece isn't even of this brown girl. The final piece doesn't even depict those almond eyes or those curly ringlets or that wide smile. The final piece has nothing to do with astronomy, really, or the girl who sat next to him at that night class.

The final piece is painfully simple.

Painfully personal.

The final piece is of a scone.

It's creamy and soft and bright compared to the deep purples and blues and greys or the black and the yellow and the red across the walls and upon the floors. 

...and there was an imprint in my pillows from her head and there were words between us and there was gravity keeping me in her arms.

In the place that feels the tears.

The place to lose your fears."

"These..." Lucky nods, voice low, "These really are quite good."

FOR HER 

I'M 

   F
       ALLING. 

Zayn's arms fold across his chest. 

"Didn't think they would be, eh."

Lucky turns. "Didn't want 'em to be," he shrugs, "honestly."

"That's really too damn bad."

"Hey," Lucky shrugs, "you asked."

"This must fuckin' suck, then," Zayn smirks, "Doesn't it?"

Again, Lucky decidedly does not answer that. Instead, he turns, facing Zayn as he shakes his head, platinum eyebrows creasing. 

"Really can't take a compliment, can you?"

Zayn scowls. "What fucking compliment?"

"I said I thought this was good. Drop the shit, alright?"

"Drop what shit?" Zayn grits. "Have you attempting to steal my girl suddenly gone from your fucking head?"

"Look, it's no hard feelings, but--"

"Right," Zayn throws his head back. He can't believe this kid. "No hard feelings..."

"It's nothing personal," Lucky says, "but--"

"But? No," Zayn shakes his head, "No, there is no but, you prick. She is, and she was my girlfriend."

"Yeah. Got that, but--"

"Stop fucking saying 'but!'" Zayn exclaims. "There is no 'but.'There's nothing you can say to justify what the fuck you were doing, and how you were trying to split us up."

"And it would've worked, too, if it weren't for you meddling kids."

Zayn inhales sharply. "You think this's a bloody joke?"

"I mean," Lucky chuckles, "yeah. But, calm the fuck down," he snaps, no longer laughing. "You've got no reason to be upset."

"And how the hell're you gonna say that?"

"Because I love her!" Lucky exclaims, and the words startle Zayn, to hear Lucky actually admit his feelings for his girlfriend. 

He's livid, all of a sudden. "What?"

"You heard me," Lucky spits, and he throws his arm up to one of Zayn's portraits. "I know you heard me," he chuckles humorlessly. "You should know how fucking hard it is to get over Anais," he snaps, "'cause you're fucking back together, aren't you?"

"Yeah, and she's mine--"

"I knoooow," Lucky growls. "I know that," he points to the Ana on the wall, "is your girlfriend. I fucking know, Zayn.That's the girl you get to go home to," he scoffs. "Do you even realize how lucky you are? Are you that fucking ungrateful? And lemme tell you, she never did fucking stop going on about how great you are, either, or how much she fucking loved you, and it's..." 

Lucky turns away, jaw clenched. "She could have anyone, Anais..." He sniffs. "And over me; over her best friend," he shakes his head, "she chose you." 

Lucky stares at Zayn with hard blue eyes. "You don't have a reason to be upset," he says. "You've got no right to be pissed."

"And you've got no right to ruin my relationship."

"I didn't fucking--" 

"Hmm?" Zayn's eyes narrow dangerously. "The fuck were you gonna say, mate?"

"Look," Lucky retorts, "Jesus Christ, I'm so-rry for what I did, but--"

"But?"

"But, what would you've done, huh?" Lucky snaps. "Be fucking honest. What would you've done if the roles were switched. What would you've done if she chose me over you?"

___

When Zayn finally exits the gallery -- when he finishes 'Nebula' and leaves Lucky, -- he runs right into Anais. 

She catches sight of him immediately. 

"Zayn!"

And the girl beside her turns abruptly at the mention of his name. 

He laughs. "Hello, to you, too," he grins, as Ana's arms get thrown around his neck. 

He holds her against him. 

"I was wondering where you were," she says, pulling from him only to introduce the girl at her side; her sister. "Zayn, meet Cat. Cat," Anais is beaming, "I'd like for you to meet my boyfriend, Zayn."

Zayn smiles, sticking out his hand politely. "It's a pleasure to meet  you--Whoa."

And Anais laughs as Cat pulls her boyfriend into a full hug, arms around him. 

"You should know," begins Catherine, her accent much more thick than Anais', he notices, "that in our family, we hug."

"Umm," he's blushing, slightly. "Yeah, uh..." He clears his throat. "That's...That's good to know."

___

BUT HAVE YOU HEARD PILLOWTALK YET THO?????!??

hehe. that is all. 

comment and vooooteeeeee 

xx.