Chapter Text
“I know, Gran, I miss you too,” Zayn says into the phone, scrubbing a hand along the back of his neck. “Mum and the girls and I are gonna come up to visit next week—well, not Doni, she’s staying to help Da in the shop, actually, since she has law exams to revise for and says we’re all noisy when we’re home for hols.” He falls silent for a moment, listening to his grandmother through the headset, cradled between his cheek and his shoulder.
Gran says she will be glad to have them visit. She says something about bribing that nice neighbour boy with gingerbread to shovel her front walk, and Zayn snorts.
He knows her gingerbread leaves a lot to be desired, having had to choke it down with lots of cocoa during every visit to her house. He laughs to himself, imagining a little kid forced by his parents to shovel her front stoop, too polite to refuse when she offers him brick-hard cookies.
“He’s just so darling,” she adds when Zayn tunes back in to the conversation, “very thoughtful, you know, someone’s really raised him right. Reminds me of you and your sisters, just so sweet.”
Zayn rolls his eyes at that, accepting the compliment less than gracefully. “I can give the poor lad a break when we come up, yeah? I’ll shovel and salt the walk, shall I.”
His gran hums at this, again praising him for being thoughtful and kind. “I’ll have to get stocked up on sundries before your visit, maybe pop over to Sainsbury’s for some bourbon creams for Safaa.”
“You honestly don’t have to, we can just swing by the shops on our way up. We don’t want to put you out at all.”
“Don’t be silly, you’re my grandkids. Of course I’m going to spoil you, aren’t I? Plus now you’re legal I can pop by the off-license and get some cider for you—or do you prefer wine? I know your mother likes that, whatsit, that spiced brandy I think?”
Zayn refrains from pointing out that he has been above the legal drinking age for almost three years, simply letting his grandmother insist that she is going to buy him alcohol. Arguing about it is no use.
::
Two days later finds him shoving dirty clothing into the washer while his parents are working in the shop. He can’t seem to locate the jumper he swore he’d been wearing on the bus ride home at the end of term, thinks maybe he had left it in his residence hall, after all. He grumbles to himself, but quickly transitions into yelling at Safaa when he notices she’s wearing it.
“Honestly, you lot are terrible to live with. I don’t know how I managed it for eighteen years,” he mutters.
“Don’t think I didn’t notice you nicked Doniyah’s Ramones tee out of the basket!” she calls loudly, pounding up the stairs. “Glass houses, Zayn, honestly.”
“That shirt was mine originally, anyway,” he insists, locating his second-favourite jumper and figuring it will have to do.
His phone buzzes in his pocket and he pulls it out distractedly, thumbing open the new message. His stomach clenches when he sees the lit-up name, and it tightens further when he notes the forced-casual tone in the body of the message.
Zayn doesn’t remember other break-ups hitting him this hard, like a kick to the gut that leaves him breathless. He doesn’t recall any other that left his lungs feeling like ice.
He thinks he shouldn’t still feel this way, not when she dumped him ages ago, and especially not because—well, she had been right to dump him. He hadn’t been as into her as he should have been, hadn’t been attentive to her needs, hadn’t really known that much about her. But he had liked her all the same, even if he could never bring himself to love her.
Her message merely wishes him a happy holiday and asks after his family, very normal and even kind of friendly.
It makes him feel like shit.
He types in a response and shoves his mobile back into his pocket before yanking the sleeves of his jumper down so they cover his hands.
::
Their car trip is uneventful, as far as trips to the house of one’s grandmother go. Zayn’s mum drives most of the way and he naps appreciatively, the habit still intact from childhood. His mother claims he used to be a fussy baby, that the only way to soothe him to sleep some nights was to drive around their village with the radio on.
Thankfully, some things have changed since childhood.
Zayn wakes slowly and stares out the window as they approach his gran’s, stretching out a crick in his neck. They drive up the narrow lane to her house and Zayn listens to his mother hum Auld Lang Syne.
The walk outside her house is tidy and clear of snow, unlike the roads Zayn’s mother just drove up. He rolls his eyes, thinking of all the gingerbread that had been consumed on the premises; once again he feels pity and amusement for the neighbourhood kids roped into eating his gran’s baking.
He laughs aloud when he sees her on her front step, waving both hands at them as they drive up. “You’re here!” she calls loudly enough that they can hear it through the glass of the car windows.
He feels his chest unclench for the first time in what feels like a month and his mouth curls into an easy grin.
His gran won’t care that his ex-girlfriend knew he didn’t love her, or that he might have actually failed his Comparative Literature exam, or that he has no idea what he wants to do when he graduates in a year and a half. His gran will just smile and hug him hello before sitting him down in the kitchen and cooking him a meal big enough for four. His gran will just pat his hair, call him handsome, and assure him that everything will be okay.
He and Waliyha carry everyone’s bags inside, collapsing into a group hug as soon as everyone’s inside the door.
::
Safaa and Waliyha sleep in the guest room and their mother bunks with gran. Zayn, relegated to the sofa in the front room, sleeps poorly but for once he doesn’t quite mind it. He stares at the ceiling as morning sunlight slowly brightens the room, filtering in through the shutters.
Though his eyes are a bit sore from lack of sleep, he feels strangely content, comfortable beneath the quilt his gran had given him to use. He’s unused to quiet with his sisters anywhere in his general vicinity, and the silence of the empty front room envelops him in lazy comfort.
He stands up slowly, peering out the window to note the fresh coat of snow dusting the ground. He tips his head to the side, considering whether he feels magnanimous or lazy. He knows instantaneously that he’s going to go out and shovel, of course he does, but he thinks he might need to rustle up a travel mug and cocoa first. He putters quietly around the kitchen, slightly unfamiliar with the layout of his gran’s cupboards.
Snapping a lid on the mug, he steps awkwardly into his boots and winds a scarf around his neck. Yanking a beanie down over his ears, he eventually manages to locate a shovel in the messy closet by the side door. He spies a picture of himself by the closet door, his cheeks chubby with childhood and too many of his mother’s samosas. He snorts, placing his thumb over the moon-shaped image of his face, smudging the glass.
Zayn is so glad to no longer be a child. Even if he is still a bit shy, more awkward than he would like, and a little unsteady on his feet sometimes—well, at least he’s no longer a teenager. For that, he thanks every higher power there is.
He pats his pocket, making sure he has his fags and lighter, then drags the shovel and his cocoa out onto his gran’s carpark.
He decides that adulthood is about making the difficult choices, and he has heretofore decided to smoke while shoveling snow out of his gran’s front drive.
Setting his cocoa onto the step by the side door, he lights a fag and sets the shovel against the snowy lip of the drive and begins to push. Cigarette dangling from his chapped lips, he manages one circuit of the drive before getting distracted.
He is terribly and breathlessly distracted by a boy—man? man-boy?—standing at the edge of the drive, peering at Zayn curiously. And shit, anyone would be right to be distracted.
He’s dressed casually, normal for nine in the morning, Zayn supposes. He’s got on baggy trackies and a large hoodie, but his lips are pillow-full and his eyes bright. Brows furrowed, he considers Zayn as Zayn considers him.
Zayn stops shoveling, ashing his cigarette and affecting a casual stance. “Hi.”
The other figure, whatever his name is, starts slightly. “Hey. Um. You’re shoveling.”
“I am.”
“Are you—do you live here? Do you live here now?”
“Visiting, like. My gran, innit.”
“Oh, you’re—” he begins, smiling widely, eye crinkling with genuine amusement. “You’re visiting your gran.”
“Yeh,” Zayn says, like it’s maybe a question.
“That’s nice.”
“Are you making fun of me?”
“No!” he insists swiftly. “No, not ‘t all, promise.”
“No?”
“Not at all. I’d just—like, only seen photos of you as a kid, like?”
“What?”
“When—I mean, your nan’s really sweet, always sits me down and makes me tea, right. After I shovel or weed the garden or whatever. And she’s got a bunch of photos of you lot, but I guess most are older? When you weren’t so—” He gestures vaguely, waving up and down at Zayn’s body.
“So what?” Zayn raises a brow, amused despite himself.
“Adult? Yeah, adult. Grown-up proper like.”
“Not a chubby primary-school student.”
“Um.” He bites his lip. “You said it. Not me.”
“Right,” Zayn drawls. “When my gran said a darling neighbour boy was shoveling her walk in exchange for gingerbread, I kind of assumed you were maybe twelve. So I reckon we’re even.”
“Twelve?” he asks in return, having the good grace to sound a bit offended.
“She called you a young boy!”
“She’s your gran.”
“You’re the one shoveling her carpark,” Zayn points out, sucking deep on his cigarette.
“No, you’re the one shoveling the carpark.”
“And you’re the one staring at me, mate.”
“Sorry.” He backs up a step, chagrined. He shoves his hand into the front pocket of his hoodie. “I’ll leave you be.” He shrugs, pivoting on one foot.
“You really eat all that gingerbread, then?” Zayn asks, lip curling up on one side.
“Um.” The guy, as Zayn has taken to thinking of him, stops his slow retreat. “Some of it. I—take some of it with me, like. Back to my mum or whatever.”
“You do?”
He turns swiftly, cheeks flushed. Zayn hopes it’s not just from the cold. “There’s only so much gingerbread one lad can bear, I mean really!”
Zayn laughs, throwing his head back. “There we go.” He flicks more ash off his cigarette. “Zayn. I’m Zayn.”
“Liam.”
“Nice t’meet you. Are you jogging or sommat?”
“I—I was. I, um, swimming scholarship means I need to keep up on the cardio a lot even during hols. It’s, um. Yeah. In theory.”
“Bet you hate that I’m smoking right now.”
“Nah,” Liam— Liam —states, brows unfurrowing. “Don’t hate much, truth be told.”
“What do you like, then?”
And Liam shoots him a startling, wolfish grin that sends Zayn rocking back on his heels. “Oh, you know.”
“Do I?” he teases—fuck, really, teases?—and grins hard. He leans against the shovel, precariously slotted against a patch of ice at the end of his gran’s drive. “Not sure, mate.” He inhales gently on his cigarette, giving his pout a chance to shine.
Liam’s— Liam’s —eyes flicker to Zayn’s pouting lips before his gaze stutters to the side. and maybe you will be the end of me. “You were a cute kid, once, you know,” Liam says in lieu of continuing the thread of their conversation.
“Yeah. That’s what I hear,” he says, smile still playing on his lips. “Mostly from my gran.”
Liam startles out a laugh, looking confused at the noise from his own betraying mouth. He licks his lips and shuffles his feet.
“What, you need to get back to your jog, mate? Don’t let me keep you.”
Liam shrugs, looking reluctant—unless this is Zayn’s imagination telling him lies. “Kinda got to the end of the line, actually.” He shrugs. “I live next door.”
“Liam who lives next door,” Zayn begins, dropping his spent cigarette beneath his heel. “What are you doing this evening?”
“Oh, you know,” Liam says, smile light on his lips. “Whatever you’re doing.”
::
Zayn clutches a scrap of paper in his hand, glaring stupidly at the number scrawled on it. He had texted Liam a message mere moments ago, no reason to assume he would receive it right away or respond to it immediately.
Zayn is nervous. And, sure, he’s used to feeling nervous, but he still hates it. He hates it.
He gulps down a breath of air and takes a pull of the cider his gran had shoved into his hand—almost as if she had planned this. Almost as if.
::
He runs a hand through his hair, ignoring the thrum of his nervous stomach. He is fine, of course, even as Liam knocks on the front door.
Zayn is nervous, just the way he is nervous about everything. Liam knocking makes him even more concerned. He licks his lips and he clenches both fists. He curses himself.
Answering the door seems like suicide.
He has no idea what to do with his evening other than pulling the sleeves of his jumper down over his hands. He has no idea exactly what exists nearby that doesn’t strictly cater to retirees and geriatrics.
He takes a deep breath and hopes his silence comes off as mysterious rather than anxious, but he has very little faith in his own ability to play it cool. He answers the door and smiles at the warm look on Liam’s face.
“You look nice,” he blurts, thankful his cheeks don’t show the flush he feels deep down to his bones.
“Thanks, that’s—thanks.” Liam runs a hand over the back of his neck, and his cheeks do flush.
“You’re welcome. Um. I probably should have planned this better,” he says next, cracking one knuckle inside the sleeve of his jumper. “I kind of don’t know what’s actually around here.”
Liam chuckles lightly. “Well it all depends on what you want to do. The world is at your feet.”
“I—I don’t know.”
(Maybe that’s one of the issues, a part of his says in the back of his mind. He doesn’t know himself half the time. He never got the chance to know his own mind, maybe, or else he was too busy trying to please others. Maybe he spent too much time trying to sort out other people in order to be what they needed him to be.
And that thought leaves him breathless for a moment, that he has never been what anyone else needed nor has he ever been good enough for himself.
The thought shatters and fragments, and his tongue momentarily sticks to the roof of his mouth.)
“Okay, well, lucky for you I know this town like you wouldn’t believe. Come on.” He grabs Zayn’s sleeve and leads him outside, pressing the button on the remote-lock for his car and making the lights blink. “Car should be unlocked.”
Liam heads to the drivers-side and Zayn is glad that this—whatever it happens to be—isn’t awkward, or at least not as awkward as he feared. “Have you lived here your whole life?” he asks as he settles into the passenger side, buckling up dutifully.
“Nah, just for about, what, eight years or so. Moved for my dad’s job awhile back.”
“Kind of a small town to move to,” Zayn comments, pinching his lips in after he speaks.
“S’pose.” Liam starts the car. “Not bad, though.”
“No, I didn’t—didn’t mean that. Sorry, I’m bad at this.”
Liam smiles slowly, putting the car in reverse. “Bad? At talking to me?”
Zayn laughs. “Clearly I am, though. Bad at talking in general.”
Liam is quiet for a short while. “No need for second-guessing, mate. I basically invited myself over, so you could be doing worse. Not quite normal meself.” He shrugs. “Normal’s not required.”
“That’s…encouraging.”
Zayn sees Liam grin, bright and wide. “I’ve had a lot of time to reflect on the important things in life. Like which sort of cheese is best. I reckon it’s Manchego. Can’t spell it for the life of me, though.”
He momentarily wonders if Liam was created in a lab specifically to destroy him.
Liam continues. “I broke my leg over the spring, had to take a break from uni for a while. Came home, got laid up, yeah? Then threw a blood clot and that was a whole big thing. But I just finished up with PT so I can go back to classes soon, I think. But yeah spent a lot of time watching shit films and feeling sorry for myself this year.” Liam snorts at his own expense.
“Shit, mate. That’s—really rough, I’m sorry.”
“Me dad keeps claiming it was good for my character, like. Hardship or whatever? I dunno. I’m babbling, sorry.”
“Nah, mate, s’cool. You’re not.”
“What about you?”
“What about me?”
“What’s your story?”
“Stupid kid from Bradford, s’pose. Studying literature. Trying to write the great British novel.”
“Shoveling your nan’s walk?”
“And talking to fit blokes who make the unwise decision to pop by asking if I’m new in town. You know.”
Liam laughs loudly, dropping one hand from the wheel to cover his mouth. “Shame you’re not sticking around then, eh? Coulda locked this down.”
For a moment, Zayn’s ribcage feels like a real cage, keeping in his pounding heart. “I’m not entirely sure you’re real, you know. Fairly certain I made you up.”
“Well then this next bit’s sure to charm you.”
::
“Are those—is this a park filled with extremely zealous holiday decorations?”
“I’m saying, there are upsides to living in a small town. Not all of them involve getting discounts at the off-license because the owner is friendly with your mum.”
Zayn shakes his head, gaping against his better judgment at the light display set out before him. Tinny music, piped through speakers set inside the sizable bandstand in the middle of the park, plays as the lights flicker in time to the beat.
He smiles.
Liam grabs his forearm gently, leading him toward a lit-up moving statuette of Santa.
“You are smooth as fuck, you know that?” Zayn murmurs, trailing along all-too-willingly.
“Believe me, it’s a recent development.”
He purses his lips. “There is no part of me that believes you.”
Liam shakes his head, moving his (large, impossibly large) hand from Zayn’s forearm in order to join their hands together. “Whatever you say.”
They walk through the lit-up park slowly, taking in the lights and music while amiably bantering. Zayn buys them each a cup of mulled wine, which he is surprised but grateful to find being sold from a hot-drinks cart near a very large Christmas tree.
“It’s like a film, you know?” he says as he hands Liam the warm paper cup. “Shiny.”
Liam nods quickly, shooting him a bright smile. “I was just thinking that! Had a lotta time to watch films when I was laid up, not that I wouldn’t do it anyway. But it’s true, you’re right, mate.”
And Zayn thinks that maybe Liam is from a film, that he might be a fictional character. Rather than mentioning it, he takes a sip of his wine. Something makes him brave or foolish and he says, “Was it nice, though? Watching lots of films seems like a good way to spend time, like. If you have to be laid up.”
“Yeah, I could be a movie critic at this point, really. Especially critical of the rom-coms.”
He nods, chuckle light in his voice. “I get that. Those are, like—you know how those films are almost always about the new bit, the meeting and the falling in love bit?” he asks, breathless, his palm warm from clutching the paper cup of wine. “I used to think that was the crux of it, that that was all there was. I fell into that habit of thinking, like, just about the before and not about the—during bit, the part where you keep going because it matters to you. That they matter to you.”
Liam is silent for a long moment, and Zayn worries he’s made a wrong step. But then Liam nods slowly. “You’re just out a breakup then,” he says decisively.
Silence. Zayn knows silence better than he knows his own face in the mirror.
“Less recent than you might think,” he allows, frowning slightly.
Liam hums slightly, and takes a sip of his wine before responding. “Does it hurt less than it used to?”
“Um. Yeah.”
Liam nods. “Chances are you’re gonna be okay, then. Getting hurt can be worth something.”
“Character building?” Zayn asks quietly, gripping his cup tightly.
“Sure. If you do something with it.”
“Something?”
“That’s what they say, right?”
Zayn rolls his eyes. “What doesn’t kill you makes you stranger?”
Liam laughs. “If it’s gotten to the point you’re quoting the Joker, mate, it might be time for a change of scenery.”
Zayn is unsure whether Liam means physical or mental or some combination thereof. Rather than responding, he takes a lingering sip of his warmed wine.
::
Liam pulls into a slush-filled parking spot outside a diner he swears is his absolute favourite spot for a burger. They tumble inside, brushing snow off their shoulders and hair, and sit down.
“You’re not chatty, are you?” Liam asks.
“Not—not really. I kind of just, you know. Smoke. Write. Chill out. My sister calls it brooding, though.”
“How many siblings do you have?”
“Three sisters.”
“Hm. I’ve got two, older than me.”
“I imagine you fight with yours less than I fight with mine, then. Youngers sisters, mate—you just have no idea,” Zayn says with a light laugh. “I mean. I’m kind of an arsehole to them. Kind of an arsehole in general. Be an arsehole to you if we’re not careful.”
“You sure?”
“Dunno. Talking out my arse as usual, maybe.”
Liam bites his lip, considering. They sit in silence for a long while. “Are you gay?”
“No.”
“Me neither.” Liam shakes his head. “But my friend from school, right, I met him when I first moved here. And he—he was the first person to really reach out to me at all, who was fun and into the same stupid crap as me. And like, that felt really important. And it was really important. But he would make these remarks or these stupid jokes or like just keep being—ignorant about stuff, or like worried about someone secretly being gay and it rubbing off on him. And like, as a fourteen-year-old in the middle of this tiny place, like, how do you handle that? When you’re keeping a secret from your best friend and he keeps giving you new reasons to keep it a secret?”
Zayn blinks rapidly, tongue heavy and slow.
“That’s ignorance, right, and it looks a lot like arsehole-ishness. But it came out of him being scared about his father, like. When his uncle came out, my friend’s father was—horrible. And so he was just doing what he’d been shown to do.”
“Okay,” Zayn agrees in low tones.
“And it was scary, yeah? To be around him sometimes, knowing he might actually hate that part of me. Only he didn’t know he was doing it to someone he could hurt. He didn’t realize he was being a dick to his very best friend.”
Zayn nods, resolutely silent.
“And, like, it wasn’t my job to educate him or whatever, but it got too hard to stay silent, you know? And it was messy and it sucked, but he’s not like that anymore. And the things he’d said before made me sad and scared and I second-guessed myself a lot, but I forgive him. He’s not an arsehole, he just didn’t—have that understanding that he was hurting people. He wasn’t doing it on purpose, and then he stopped.”
“I don’t—that is,” Zayn begins, at a loss.
Liam interrupts him. “We’re all doing the best we can. And I kind of doubt you’re mean on purpose or like go out of your way to be a jerk. Maybe it’s just that sometimes you don’t know what you’re doing. And that sucks but it’s not—not always malicious.”
Zayn is silent for thirty seconds put-together, simply staring at Liam. “You’re a goddamn treasure.”
Liam grins, crinkle-eyed and bright.
::
And if they kiss later in the car, if they kiss on the doorstep of Zayn’s gran’s house—well, it’s okay, it’s all okay. If Liam’s hand snakes up to grab Zayn’s cheek, rubbing at the line of his jaw, pressing in and kneading at the bone beneath his skin—if Zayn moans into Liam’s mouth as they kiss, no one cares to judge them, and no one needs to know. If Zayn enjoys it more than he can explain in words, all he needs to do is smile.