Chapter Text
His gran gives him small, knowing glances for the rest of their short—short, much too short—trip and Zayn tries not to blush.
The thing is, they don’t really do anything, him and Liam. They don’t have sex, they don’t make promises, they don’t leave the village. Instead they drink each other in. They sate themselves on each other.
And then Zayn leaves with a fierce hug from Liam and a pout he thinks might be especially for him. Something inside of Zayn splinters a little bit when they promise to stay in touch.
On the car ride back to his parents’ house, he realizes he has one of Liam’s gloves in the bottom of his rucksack and he feels a little foolish. All the same, he thinks, yes, this was real, look, I have proof.
::
He drinks himself silly the first night back at uni, his kind-eyed goofy flatmate handing him a bottle of beer as soon as he walks in the door. He drinks himself stupid, unable to hold back words like beautiful boy, best smile, lifesaver.
He pens a series of terribly-spelled drunk messages to Liam, only to delete every one right away. Belatedly, he sends a photo of passed-out Harry, telling Liam Im a saint for not drawing a knobb on his face.
He cannot recall if he mentioned Harry to Liam during their marathon-long conversations, cannot recall much besides pillow lips strong jaw built like a lumberjack probably saves puppies from drowning.
The return text message from Liam is a series of ridiculous emojis, including one Zayn things might be a prawn. There is also a crown, a smiling face, and a heart.
Zayn cuddles up on the couch with the passed-out Harry, too tired to drag himself to his own bed, his face flushed.
::
He wakes with an aching neck and a groan. His mouth feels full of cotton wool and regret.
“Why did we drink so much last night?” he asks Harry, shutting his eyes tight against the morning light pouring in through their flat’s windows.
“Dunno. I think we were celebrating being alive or something.”
“Never let me do that again.”
“Hey, it could be worse. You could have drunk-dialed P—drunk-dialed your ex again.”
Zayn groans again, limply throwing a pillow in Harry’s general direction “I totally should have drawn a knob on your face when you passed out.”
“My face is too pretty for knobs, Zayn. We’ve had this discussion.”
“Right, knobs are reserved for your mouth, I remember.”
“Yours too, it seems.”
“I hate daylight. Make it stop.”
“Hair of the dog or water?”
Zayn nearly retches. “Water. And death.”
“This too shall pass,” Harry says in grave tones.
“Whatever you say.”
He falls into a mid-morning snooze with phrases like beautiful boy and character growth and I wanted to keep him rolling around in the back of his head.
::
In his multimedia class, Zayn feels a bit thrown by the fact that he is right-away expected to produce a masterpiece.
The margins of his notebook are full of doodles of soft eyes and broad shoulders, and Zayn wonders if he’s turned Liam into a caricature to idolize from afar.
Then he receives a voicemail from Liam, telling him about an ice storm in Reykjavik, wondering if they need nice neighbour boys to shovel their walkways too. He rings off by admitting that he called rather than texted because he has no idea how to spell Reykjavik.
Zayn’s chest hurts.
::
He pens a story—a short comic—about a pretty, pretty boy who thought he might like to be a firefighter, a strong boy with a nice smile who broke his body but made it into something better. He befriends someone all alone in the snow, someone who needed a little bit more sunshine and admittedly fewer cigarettes.
He pens in his gran’s knowing glances but leaves out the scenes of them kissing.
He dreams up grand romantic gestures he could have performed when he realizes he has no idea where Liam used to go to school, before he got hurt.
For some reason, he is too timid to ask.
::
He sees his ex-girlfriend at a coffee shop three weeks into term, and for the first time in ages he has no desire to run away. He approaches her, asks after her holiday. She invites him to sit down and they talk for almost an hour.
When she leaves to go to class, Zayn realizes he might eventually be okay. In fact, he might be closer to okay than he has been in a long time.
::
It’s not that they make a habit of weekly phone calls or daily texts—except, in a way, they do.
Zayn laughs to himself as soon as he realizes Liam is a tiny bit jealous of his friendship with Harry—only because they get to spend so much time together, he says quickly, not because he’s proper jealous. Liam says their lives sound like fun.
Zayn assures him that, while Harry is a lovely friend, and while he enjoys his courses, there is more to it than fun. He wonders if it sounds condescending, and he bites his tongue hard.
So he asks after Liam’s plans to return to uni—delicately—and listens to him talk about what was his four-year plan and is now a five-and-one-half-year plan. He talks about music theory and sound engineering, using technical words and explaining patiently. He talks of an ace program he’s applied to and waiting to her back from, waiting to be told he can attend come the end of January.
Zayn bites down on the inside of his right cheek.
Later he talks about his comic in vague terms, never explicitly telling him the topic or the inspiration or the inevitable fondness it inspires in his heart every time he thinks about it.
He has never felt this, the quiet sense of joy and contentedness that soaks into his core every time he even thinks of Liam’s name.
And it terrifies him, a bit, just as much as it delights him.
::
So when Liam texts him a picture of himself, his friend Niall, and his dog Loki one Saturday evening—one evening when Harry is dragging Zayn to a club full of neon lights and cheap drinks—he is maybe a bit lonely. And perhaps a bit achey, and maybe a bit jealous.
And of course he is unutterably full of fondness.
Everything about this is inexplicable, nothing about this says yes this is a typical pattern that Zayn would fall into. But it somehow digs him out of the strange dirty rut he was in, even with five shots in his bloodstream and a stupid pop song blaring through the speakers.
He and Harry dance like they were born for it, like their hips were perhaps made to touch or at least to rotate to the beat of the song coursing through the speakers. They keep little space between them during multiple songs.
Zayn watches contentedly as Harry cat-walks to someone dancing by the side of the floor.
Returning to their table, Zany peers mournfully at his near-empty glass. He thumbs into his mobile, sending a neon-lit snaphat to Liam and a relpy to the text message from his sister.
He wonders if he might be drunk as he takes a deep drag from the vodka-tonic in front of him.
Harry swoops over soon and whispers in his ear, “You’ve got a lovely face there, mate.” He quirks a brow, only momentarily backing away when the sandy-haired patron touches his hip. “Oh, Louis, this is my flatmate. Zayn.” He plops onto Zayn’s bench, snuggling against his side.
Zayn and Louis shake hands, surveying one another drunkenly—warily. Kindly, on Zayn’s part. But warily.
“Hi, Zayn. Pleasure.”
“Pleasure’s mine. You want a drink?”
“Whatever you’re having, babe.”
And maybe Harry tucks his body into Zayn’s for a moment, saying he likes him, likes him a lot this Louis person, that this night is perfect perfect to the extreme, mate.
And Zayn agrees in a way, but he wishes Harry weren’t quite so—wishes Liam were tucked into his side instead.
So Zayn excuses himself to buy three more drinks and he thinks little of it.
He bites his bottom lip at the thought of Liam’s name.
But he buys drinks like a professional, schools his face like he has done this for years. He acts like maybe everything is fine.
Bringing drinks back, he whispers into Louis’ ear, “No fear. You, babe, it’s you he wants, it’s you. All you.” Because Harry has maybe been chatting about his love life or (and the people he likes, and topping the list is Louis). He sits the drinks down and perches carefully beside Harry, arching a brow in Louis’ direction.
Zayn wants love. He thinks maybe he is made of love.
He stares at the spectacle Harry is making of himself—all star-eyes and curling lips—and he aches for it. He aches for the same feeling, the ability to look across the room and see the person he wants to hold and cherish for, maybe, forever.
And he watches as the frost in Louis’ bright-sparkly blue eyes melts, watches the way Louis traces the lines of Harry movements with careful adoration.
And Zayn wants it.
::
think I lost my flatmate to the siren call of the men’s toilet, with its promises of blowjobs from a bloke named Lou. Console me? he texts Liam, nursing a countless cocktail alone in the booth.
Liam messages back that Niall is trying his damnedest to rap, promising to send him a video to cheer him up.
And Zayn wants to wake up with the taste of Liam in his mouth. Maybe with the feel of Liam’s body heat beneath his hand. Zayn’s not picky.
He watches the video with an amused look blatant on his face, refusing to look at Louis and Harry when they return from the toilets with flushing cheeks. “You two disgust me. But also, good on you.”
He refuses to watch Louis and Harry nuzzle one another because the mere idea tempts his gag reflex.
::
They clamber back to the flat Zayn and Harry share, Louis’ cheeks still flushed with embarrassment and arousal. They head to separate rooms and Zayn takes himself in hand as soon as he’s alone in his room.
He tries not to think of Liam as he does, but he’s too far-gone to really consider it.
::
Soon they take to calling one another every other day. They catch one another up on bullshit, utter bullshit, and Zayn loves it. Zayn looks into the music engineering at his own uni but never tells anyone about it. Every time he hangs up the phone, new words run through his head.
rugged
kind-hearted
calloused hands
broad shoulders
sloppy laugh
I kind of love you
::
He edits furiously, turning his real life into fodder for his education. Every new section earns a spot inside Zayn’s sense of himself, inside his notion that he might be a semi-talented artist, after all.
He periodically sends doodles to Liam, mostly innocuous things like pictures of dogs and superheroes.
In return Liam sends little snippets of himself rapping or singing parts of top-40 hits. Zayn barely refrains from collapsing in a filthy heap made up mostly clothing and fondness.
::
In a tea-fueled haze somewhere during the end of the first month of term, Zayn decides to supplement his scholarship by getting a job in the library during late-night hours. Half bored and half enraptured by the calm silence, he spends most of his shifts drawing and working on coursework.
He tries not to obsessively check his mobile for stray missives from Liam. He sets his ringer to silent each shift he works, promising himself he will use the quiet time to read great works of literature.
He makes it through five Richard Siken poems before he is in tears and needs to furiously wipe at his eyes.
He yanks his mobile from the pocket of his jeans and thumbs open a message before dropping it again. Instead he grabs a blank piece of paper and inks out a message of his own:
you are a goddamn treasure.
He considers it with bitten lips and photographs the stylized words. Sending it before he can think better of it, he sighs.
::
Half the nights of a given week, Zayn falls into bed with an exhausted appreciation. Other nights, he stares ceaselessly at the ceiling of his room, streetlamp streaming in through his blinds—the noise of Harry’s snoring seeping in from down the corridor.
::
Sometimes—maybe more often than he would like to admit—Zayn wakes up wishing he could curl his body into someone else’s, press his palms against the planes of someone’s stomach, his lips to someone’s shoulder-blade.
And lately, he is much more particular about just who he would like to wake up to.
::
“Hey mate you’ve reached Liam! Leave a message and I promise I’ll return it. Make it a good one.”
“Hey, it’s just m—it’s just Zayn. I’m bored walking home from work and thought I’d see what you’re doing. Besides pining for me, obviously.” Zayn huffs out quietly, mentally berating himself. “Because my life is just so glamorous. I helped whole four people check out books tonight. Though I suppose I shouldn’t complain, this is the calm before the storm of exam time. Gave me time to work on my comic at least. Anyway, give me a ring when you get a chance. Cheers.”
Zayn hangs up and shoves the mobile in his pocket, looking forward to the warmth of his flat. Hurrying, he hums to himself while, yes, perpetually questioning his life choices.
After shoving into his flat and dropping his belongings, he begins shucking off his clothes to take a much-needed hot shower. He hears Harry bustling about somewhere at the other end of the flat, presumably the kitchen, and he rolls his eyes.
His mobile rings and buzzes loudly, and Zayn fumbles with it awkwardly. He honestly didn’t expect a reply—at least not such an immediate one—from Liam.
“Hey, mate, how’s it?” he asks in what he hopes is a normal tone.
“Zayn! Hi, Zayn.”
“Hi yourself.”
“I— hic —got your message! I didn’t hear my phone go off before. I was distracted.”
“Distracted?”
“Yeah, beer pong. I’m terrible at it, I am.”
Zayn laughs. “How you feeling, then, mate?”
“Floaty and fizzy. Kinda like it.”
“You drinking water too, though?”
“Oh. Should do, shouldn’t I?”
“Probably so.”
“You take good care, you know. Of people.”
“So you do, Liam.”
“Nah.” He huffs out a breath. “Can’t help people the way I really want to, like. Not enough to make ‘em wanna stick around.”
“Liam.”
“Yes, Zayn? Oh, have you ever tried beer pong, though? Because it’s harder than it looks, isn’t it? I don’t get the mechanics of it. Niall keeps trying to teach me, but mostly he just laughs and pokes me in the ribs. It’s not helpful.”
“You found some water now, mate?”
“What? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I have water. Unless it’s—” Liam’s voice chokes off with a sputter. “No, I think that might be Sambuca, actually. That—ugh.” He coughs loudly, the wet sound echoing down the phone line and into Zayn’s ear.
“Hey. Hey babe, you okay?” He listens as Liam catches his breath, listens as the rhythm evens out.
“Yeah. I’m fine. Miss you though.” He says this softly, a touch of hurt in his voice.
“Oh, Liam. You have no idea.”
“Think I do, though. A bit.”
::
They don’t talk for three days after that, partly because Zayn’s mum rings him and says Gran is sick—very. So Zayn sets everything in motion to take a bit of time off school and work in order to visit her, knowing his mum isn’t the time to exaggerate something like this.
A dark, angry feeling settles into his gut as he catches the train to away from uni, away from his coursework and friends and his messy flat. As he goes towards his gran and, selfishly, Liam.
As least, so he thinks.
The train ride makes him itchy, not just for a cigarette but also for some reassurance that everything—anything, really—that anything will eventually be okay. He spends the ride scratching uselessly onto his sketch pad, not managing to create anything worthwhile but a hole in one page.
His mum picks him up at the station, telling him that his sisters were taking turns checking in on and caring for Gran. Zayn nods, voice stuck in his throat like a piece of hastily swallowed sweet.
They hug. “Thanks for coming, pet. She’ll be glad to see you.”
Zayn nods distractedly, heart feeling held together by bits of string.
::
Zayn cannot recall a time he’s ever seen anyone look so poorly. Gran appears tiny and wan in her bed, bruised-looking dark circles under her closed eyes.
“How is she?” he asks Safaa quietly.
“Putting on a brave face, I shouldn’t doubt. She’s tired but not—not complaining,” she responds, cracking a bit under Zayn’s intent looks.
“Did we—have you talked to the doctor?”
“Yeah, apparently pneumonia’s not good for anyone but especially not for the elderly.”
“Don’t let her hear you call her that, she’d pitch a fit.”
“Not sure she’s got the energy right now,” Safaa responds, ducking her chin in. “Shit.”
::
Later that night, Zayn ducks outside to smoke, attempting to loosen the tight muscles in his shoulders and jaw. In his mind, he recycles the conversations he’s had during the day, trying to tamp down the worry and fear that sit heavily in his chest.
Discarding his cigarette, he starts to wander next door before he even realizes his intention. His nerves at possibly meeting some of Liam’s family are outweighed by the heady, angry fear about his gran. He knocks on the front door, biting the inside of his lip.
A woman answers the door; she looks a bit older than his own mum, and fairer to boot. She gives him a polite look, eyes wide beneath the porch light.
“Um. Is—is Liam here?”
“Oh, no, love, he’s not. You’re—oh but then you must be Zayn, mustn’t you?”
“M-must I be?”
“Aren’t you, then?”
“Oh, yeah, that’s me. So Liam’s not here, then?”
“No, dear. We just moved him to uni this past weekend,” she admits gently.
“Ah.” Zayn bites his lip. “I didn’t realize that was—this weekend, then.”
“So sorry you missed him. Think there must have been a miscommunication, maybe?”
“Yeah, must’ve got my dates switched. I was just in town and thought I’d see if he was in. Sorry to bother you.”
“Not a bother at all, dear. Come ‘round any time. Any time at all.”
Only, Zayn knows he never mixed up his dates at all, because Liam never told him he was moving out.
::
He spends the next two days at his gran’s side, attending to her every need. He spends the time ignoring his mobile, shoving it to the bottom of his rucksack when the battery dies. When his gran is sleeping, he either sketches or does some reading for his literature classes.
He makes tea for his mum and sisters, cleans up anything in sight, does load after load of laundry, washes dishes under the incredulous Doniya’s incredulous stare.
“What the hell is wrong with you, bro? You’re weird, like. Gran’s made an upswing. This is good.”
“Yep.”
“What aren’t you telling me?”
“There’s just a lot going on. Not just Gran. But like, I’m worried about coursework, aren’t I?”
“You’re always worried about coursework. It’s annoying actually.”
“Gee thanks.”
“Who is it? Is it Perrie again?”
“Stop.” “No it’s not.”
“I’ll get it out of you eventually. I rather think you’d prefer I don’t get you sloppy drunk on Gran’s sherry until you actually feel like the whole world’s not out to get you.”
“It’s nothing I can’t handle, yeah? Just your normal set of worries. From your run-of-the-mill sort of person.”
“Blasphemy,” she says, smacking his forearm with a roll of her eyes. “Hope you’ll figure that out sooner or later.”
::
He sleeps in fits and starts, rustling against the sofa cushions with every turn.
::
Zayn returns to school having only missed one week of courses and work, his gran mostly nursed back to health and his mum deciding to stick around for another few weeks.
He pays only passing attention to his mobile, clenching his jaw every time he fishes it from his pocket.
I wonder where in the world you are right now mate he sends one evening before he can convince himself to stop.
closer than you think I reckon
didn’t take you for one to play games
just don’t like losing innit
didn’t take you for being a dick also Zayn writes out, annoyed.
sorry sorry. I’m—fuck fuck. You just
Just?
make me nervous yeah
Zayn shakes his head, staring dumbly at his mobile. don’t mock it, now
not mocking babe. Never that
Zayn refuses to respond.
::
“Where were you? Fuck, even, where are you now? You’re in the wind or sommat, just wandering the streets like with one shirt and a guitar, and that’s silly, like, you should have a roadie. You should have a groupie but it’s like, instead you’re alone, mate. Call me back.”
::
Zayn looks up as Harry knocks on the door to his room. “Someone at the door for you,” he says slowly, drawing out each syllable as usual.
“I’m revising,”
“Think you’re gonna want to answer this one, actually. I’m grabbing coffee with Lou so I’ll be—out for a bit, yeah?”
A cold, clenching feeling rises through Zayn’s chest. “It’s that bad?” he asks, clambering to stand.
“I don’t know what it is, actually. G’luck.”
Zayn follows Harry to the front door of their flat and loses his breath when he sees Liam standing in their entryway. He forgets how to speak—at least coherently. Instead he blinks repeatedly.
“Leaving you two to it, then.” Harry claps Liam on the shoulder and leaves the flat.
Liam looks good, of course, he always does. Wearing slouching jeans, a thin t-shirt, and a bright red hoodie, he glances nervously to Zayn.
“What—why are you here?”
“I go here. I—transferred here.”
“Excuse me? You moved two weeks ago to my fucking uni and never thought to mention it to me, even in passing? Didn’t occur to you? Didn’t even mention you were moving at all, even. Weird, no?”
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t—see the thing is, when I applied here, I didn’t know that you, um, go here? And it was my top choice, right, I was praying to get in, and then I did and my mum mentioned it to your gran and she said that you go here and all of a sudden—it felt weird, like it would look like I was following you, like I was weird and codependent and I don’t—I didn’t want to put that pressure on you, for starters, but also didn’t want to make it look like I was stalking you or something? But then you were angry with me or it seemed like you were, so I had to find you and—set it straight. Because I really miss you.”
“You didn’t even tell me though. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“That this was my top choice? What if I didn’t get in, though, and then I’d got my hopes up and maybe yours and maybe I would look even more pathetic. If I didn’t get in.”
“You’re not pathetic. I don’t think you’re pathetic.” Zayn huffs a quiet sigh. “If anything I feel pathetic, pining for you when you were planning vast, grand things and I wasn’t even really—included in your thoughts or plans.”
“I—”
“Not that I should be or have any right to be, really, because it’s not like you’re my boyfriend. It’s—it’s just silly, all the things I felt too nervous to say to you, and then it felt justified that I’d been nervous because maybe I was reading too much into it all along.”
“You weren’t.”
“My gran got sick.”
“I didn’t know, I just found out today. And—not like it’s an excuse or anything. But I really missed you. And I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you. If you wanted me to be there.”
“I did.”
“I was worried I was reading too much into it, you know? Like, I was camped out in my parents’ house frantically applying to school while you were doing what you wanted to do and accomplishing things and it’s amazing. And I felt stagnant and, like, presumptuous.”
“No.”
“But then my mum said you’d come round asking after me, and I was so happy. But I didn’t want to—I wanted to establish some things here, right, to show I’m not trying to be codependent or crazy or whatever.”
“You could have told me.”
“I’m—kind of shit at communicating.”
Zayn snorts. “You put a good face on it, then. Because I had no idea you felt all this. No idea what you were thinking at all really.”
“Texting’s shit too.”
“It is. Yeah.”
“I really missed you,” Liam admits quietly, broad shoulders slumping.
“I really missed you too. Sucks not talking.”
“I thought maybe you wanted me to. To not talk.”
“There’s a good way to find out next time. Like, maybe asking me.”
“You kinda still make me nervous, though,” Liam says sheepishly.
“Might have to get over that if you’re gonna be my boyfriend.” Zayn shrugs, finally shuffling forward to yank Liam into a tight hug.
“Really?” he whispers, breath soft against Zayn’s neck.
“Well, now that distance won’t really be an issue,” he replies, backing up slightly. “If you want.”
“I do. I do want. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner, I just—I don’t want to hold you back, Zayn. You’re too good.”
“And you’re a goddamn treasure.”
And when Zayn yanks Liam into his room to show him just how much he’s not being held back by Liam, that in fact Liam was and is the inspiration for his biggest project yet, Liam’s eyes go bright and shiny. He grins hard, nose and eyes crinkling with his enthusiasm. “You’re so good, Zayn.”
“Oh, go on.” He flushes. “So—how’s the residence hall? Or are you in a flat?”
“Flat. Just a shoddy one-room thing, a studio or whatever they call it. An efficiency? I dunno. But I’ve got it cleaned up and looking fine. If you want to see it. Sometime.”
“Course I do. Gotta decorate my boyfriend’s flat with all my sketches, after all.”
“Boyfriend,” Liam sighs out, gracing Zayn with another smile. “You’re my boyfriend.”
Zayn laughs, loud and bright. “And you’re mine.”
And that’s that.