Archive of Our Own

1. the highest fall you’ll ever grace

Liam really much prefers the seating arrangements at the Golden Globes. There’s something so much less downright intimidating about being one of a bunch of people at a round table. Also, the fact that they serve alcohol is very appreciated by others, if not always by Liam. But maybe that’s the magic of the Oscars: strung out movie stars on the last day of term and the final exam all at once.

Not that he’s nervous. Liam is having the time of his life.

He picks at the cuff of his suit jacket, because who said you can’t be nervous and excited all at once? The jacket is perfectly tailored to the cuff, and he hears two sharp voices in his head telling him to leave it alone.

Wonderful.

He tries.

*

‘Leave it,’ a voice says from behind Zayn’s shoulder, gripping his upper arm.

Zayn grudgingly forces his hands still on his thighs, his hands away from tugging his collar around his neck.

‘Shut up, Niall. I do not want a cigarette, I am quitting.’

He probably shouldn’t talk to his director like that, but during the months shooting, working with such a small crew, and most of them closer in age to their fathers than the director and lead actor, Zayn had started to think of Niall as a friend, creepy interloper into his brain and acting processes rather than as his director.

‘Fine, but tell me who’s fecking right later, when the camera plays it back,’ Niall hisses, too low to be picked up by anyone other than Leonardo DiCaprio, who’s sitting next to Zayn, grinning with a lot of teeth, and oh fuck.

Not that he’s nervous.

Not that the internet casually informed him that if anyone beats Leo DiCaprio to the Oscar this year, he might actually kill people in a non-fictional way.

Zayn shifts in his seat and swallows, wishing fervently for a glass of water: he’s too young and too pretty to die. He hopes whoever actually wins has the good sense to just hand the thing over before anyone gets hurt.

I’m just really, really honoured to be nominated goes through his head again.

He’s only said it ninety-six times in the last three days.

Sitting in the section for nominees and looking up at the tiers in the Dolby Theatre, Zayn can only marvel that it’s still somehow true.

He shoots a grin over his shoulder at Niall; at least he’s not the only one new in wonderland.

*

Liam’s tux feels smaller and smaller with every award that passes under the glare. He’s almost jealous of the dresses - at least there’s less layers involved - except he knows that would get him into actual trouble and possibly a corset with Lady Lou, so he shuts the thought down before she can read it on his face or something.

Even thinking about twitter makes him itch to reach for his phone. But he’s been told - repeatedly, insistently, rudely - by everyone on his team and some technically no longer on it that tweeting and texting during the ‘actual sodding Oscars’ is more of a faux pas than refusing a teaspoon at a tea party so. He doesn’t. But God, he wants to. Just one quick text. Settle his nerves.

Cinematography is announced and he claps and stands with everyone else. It’s the film he and had Lou snuck out to see at Cannes (and then again in Toronto). Anatomy of an Artist was good enough Liam had dived out of a post-screening press Q&A as soon as the requisite four questions were up in time to sneak into the showing after its red carpet was done; he felt bad about that, a bit, because showing up on their red carpet would have been polite, but he had his own contracted appearances and all that.

*

The first thing Zayn thinks when Anatomy takes Cinematography is fuck, our film won an Oscar and the second thing he thinks is, fuck, they’re really not going to give him Best Director.

He cheers along with everyone else and hugs anyone he can reach, because it’s still an amazing thing to watch Josh, Niall’s right-hand man, take a bow and a statue like that, but he can see the resignation in the top right of Niall’s smile like a punch.

Too young, too raw, too thick wi’ an Irish accent, Niall had listed off after three pints, the day the nominations had sent them spinning into a bar in Ireland. Not a chance, but it’ll be a jolly old time watching you take it home.

Zayn had told him to shut the fuck up, Niall was a genius, and if they thought Niall was foreign -

Niall had given him too innocent a look, clapped him on the shoulder and said something about Bradford being less of a shithole than he gave it credit for; Zayn had laughed, a bit helplessly, and wondered for the hundredth time that day what he was getting into.

Niall had spared him a glance over his half-done fifth pint and told him he wouldn’t think being a genius mattered that much longer.

*

When Lady Lou wins Costume Design for City of One Thousand Suns Liam jumps out of his seat so quickly he startles Dame Helen Mirren, seated two to his left. She gives him a fond look and stands more slowly to applaud with him. Liam would blush, but Lou won.

He thinks about the hotel room across town and almost, for a bright burning second, Liam wishes he were there: their suite will be going completely mad. Louis will be dancing Tom and Little Lux around the room and pointing the toddler’s tiny hands at the gigantic screen at her mum, all the while trying to compose the perfect congratulatory tweet.

And Lady Lou looks amazing: she’s on stage, thanking everyone, including Liam, name-checking three of her favourite designers who don’t get enough love - wearing one of them so well Liam wants to sweep her up in a spin. Tom wouldn’t mind.

Liam spots Harry, ever the gent, seated at the end of the row, standing to twirl Lady Lou for him with a kiss to her cheek and grins. Good to know he’s not the only one who feels like dancing badly. The camera zooms on them, visible on a screen at Liam’s left, how did Harry Styles ever get on Broadway for five hot minutes, and Liam whistles as a warm ripple goes through the audience. He doesn’t think another costume winner has had this reception for years.

Lady Lou sends Liam a soft smile and shrug as she sits back down.

The thing is: Lou just got her award for a film she said she’d done nothing in - in fact, that she’d said, if she were doing her job right, no-one would know a stylist had been involved. Liam had tried to convince her that was actually the magic, and the academy would see that, but Lady Lou hadn’t quite been convinced.

Liam’s never been happier to be proved right.

*

They read the nominations for Best Actor entirely soon and too quickly if you ask Zayn.

Not that anyone’s really asking him, no, they’re just pointing five cameras at him and he’s flashing back to the instructions saying things like act naturally and pretend the cameras are not here and, bafflingly enough, look straight at the cameras.

Right.

Acting.

That’s what got him into this in the first place.

He wants to glare at Niall, but he’s too busy looking at a camera lens - or through it like it’s not there? He probably looks constipated - as they say his name in the list of nominees.

It’s not like he knew what he was getting into, not really, when he went for a fag break and got hassled by an Irishman he thought was a runner. Not the bloody director of the film he was auditioning to be in.

Zayn spares a glance for the clip of Liam Payne scrambling a dusty wall in a far flung city: free-climbing free-running his way around the world on camera for the docu-fiction masquerading as a film when it was really so much more interesting.

But then that smiling kid from the teen film - the one that’s standing by Harry Styles on the stage - is ripping the envelope.

His breath catches and he feels Niall’s hand clench on his shoulder, his arm snaking through the arm rest.

*

Liam takes a breath. Another. That’s the trick: keep breathing.

He smiles into the camera and tries to look open, honest, but also communicate to his nearest and dearest that he’s fine, really, and it’s only a little scary. (It’s scary like getting a tattoo is painful: just around the edges but also completely.)

His dad is back in the UK watching when he usually only stays up so late for the Superbowl.

Lady Lou is down the row with Harry. Liam’s Lou is in the hotel they’ve made a temporary home, probably standing on a coffee table with his mouth hanging open, the bloody idiot.

And Liam’s nominated for an indie flick that a studio funded, whatever that means.

He’s still not sure what hurt more: the endless running, climbing and jumping, or the endless studio-sponsored Oscar-campaigning, after they’d decided it was his time to get one.

But.

Maybe.

Harry and Harry Potter are bantering, stalling, and Liam knew they would have to, but he wants to strangle Harry the way he did in the kitchen that morning and tell him to get on with it.

Liam lets himself think: maybe it’ll be worth it.

Which is when Harry’s voice rings out across the theatre filled with three thousand people, beamed live to millions and Liam’s loved ones, and it says Zayn Malik.

*

Lou is really glad Tom claimed Lux before the Best Actor banter even started; glad for Lou, glad for Tom, glad for the sturdy coffee table under his stomping heel.

He’s sure someone is chuffed for the Zayn Malik bloke, really, but he honestly completely doesn’t give a shit: all he heard was Harry, their Harry, reading a name that wasn’t Liam’s name, and the camera swirling away from Leonardo DiCaprio’s pale, scruffy face, and not back to Liam.

Of course he’s standing to applaud, of course he’s fine, Louis’s actual brain tries to tell him, but it’s not the same: he needs to see and neither the TV or the webcast goes back to Liam, so Louis turns to twitter for screen caps in his desperation.

Dimly, Louis is aware he clutched at Liam’s arm in a cinema - twice - when the thick tension of Anatomy of an Artist got too much. He knows it was a bloody good film, filled with curls of ink on skin that made him itch for his next tattoo, and tendrils of smoke against sharp cheekbones.

But Liam.

Louis pinches his left hand where his ring sits and realises he’s holding his hand like his wrist is broken.

He hears a quiet sound and sees Tom shushing Lux against his chest, giving Louis a look of wretched sympathy. Their family has followed Liam and Louis on the mad Oscar trail for three months, even when the house renovations made them all move into the top floor of a hotel: every event, every networking red carpet, every Oscar brunch, lunch and dinner.

They’ve sat up deciding between pinstripes and plaid over takeout and borrowed Tom Ford until 3am, with February a promise writ large in gold by glossy For Your Consideration print. Louis can’t help it - if the camera won’t give him back Liam - and god, that’s not a thought he has often - he reaches for Tom and Lux.

Tom passes her easily, a hand on Louis’s shoulder as he lets his daughter go to him. ‘Little Lux,’ Louis says, swaying her to the music the orchestra’s just struck up at the end of Zayn Malik’s speech, ‘how do you feel about ice cream? I feel great about ice cream.’

He eases Lux back to Tom as she gurgles and he picks up his phone.

He specifically remembers telling Liam not to text during the sodding Oscars, but he’s never been so glad to be disobeyed.

m ok babe

*

Harry has a lot of genuine pride and admiration in him for people making it - especially nice, genuine people, who have to be prised out of their seat by Irish young directors beating on their shoulders to pick up their first Oscar.

Especially when they’re stunners close up, with eyelashes Harry’s only seen on posters at twice life size.

And he’s got a lot of empathy for how being rocketed to the A list leaves you shaking hands with shaking hands, but.

After Zayn Malik gives the speech of his life - Harry will be youtubing it later, this is a big fucking deal and the wide-awake faces in the room are staring still - he doesn’t look like he’s going to be able to walk away from the mic on his own. As the orchestra starts up, Harry slips an arm around Zayn’s waist in a friendly sort of way, and feels Zayn slump against him in relief as they exit stage left. Harry winces at the thought of someone watching him do that in a hotel suite he’s going back to later, after the after-after-parties, but. Well. He can just say Louis’s protective streak is rubbing off on him, and at least when he ends up tackled to the floor, it’ll be affectionate as well as punitive.

But dammit, he’d really thought he was going to get to literally hand Liam an Oscar.

It’s hard to have a bitter taste in his mouth about it when he knows the winner really fucking deserves it - maybe even as much as Liam does - but it burns in his throat anyway. Liam’s his, been his longer than anyone with long eyelashes, hips and cheekbones made to catch filmset lights.

The blonde director - he’s really very young, Harry thinks again - is waiting backstage. How he managed that, Harry cannot know, but it’s some leprechaun magic shit, because Harry hasn’t even managed to sneak out a tweet, never mind get out of his actual seat two awards before Best Director. It could be down to the tightness of his pants, the twitter drought, but whatever, he’s not giving Lady Lou that satisfaction.

Zayn stumbles from his grip before he can betray any of his horrible person thoughts - he’s aware, that’s something - and puts both arms around Niall Horan like he’s a liferaft. And maybe, Harry thinks, remembering his first premiere and the blinking lights, he really is.

‘We did it, my lad, we actually did it-’ Harry hears as he backs away.

‘No, now they won’t, I- Niall, mate, you deserve it, it was you-’

Harry doesn’t want to stay to hear this outpouring of pure decency and earnestness: they’ve got another three awards to see out before he can hug his mate properly, and his mate is pure decency with added sunshine and fucking rainbows, sitting winded in front of five cameras and approximately a billion people.

Couldn’t just have two fucking winners, could they, just this once.

Harry’s suddenly very, very glad nobody pays attention to his actual acting.

*

I’m just really, really honoured to be nominated is not going to cut it anymore, Zayn thinks, as he’s herded to the interview platform, but he’s not sure what else to say since he did not consider for one minute he would win this.

Something he realises he’ll have to phrase very carefully when the question comes.

Because the reasons he thought he’d stand no chance start with the other nominees and their acting, ran through how nobody had ever heard of him before, and ended up in very dark, cynical places at 3am, remembering reading about the demographics and politics of the academy.

They might like meta-stories about art and artists and the film-making process, but Zayn doubts they like that much truth told to power.

Not that he’s sure he’ll be able to speak at all. The rest of the ceremony passed him by in a blur. He stood and clapped and felt Niall’s hand on his shoulder and back every now and again, reminding him that he’s not in fact dreaming. Oh god, what did he even say in his speech?

And then he’s at the winners’ circle interviews and he’s not sure he can breathe. Why did he decide to quit smoking again? He could use a cig right now. It’s not like he’s a bloody singer.

Oh yes, Niall and his guilt about the smoking scenes in Anatomy. Sometimes Niall is a stubborn dickhead.

Bulbs flash and he blinks and remembers where the fuck he is and grips the statue in his hand. The Oscar: in his hand.

How did he even get here?

He owes everything to Niall and he makes sure to say so when he’s asked about the win. It’s been a fun, easy anecdote that people love when he brings it up - accidently confusing the director for staff right before his audition but it all worked out in the end, didn’t it?

It’s always easier to talk about Niall and the film than himself. Zayn straightens and realises that last big silence was after a question.

Get it together, Malik.

‘Yes, it did. I still can’t believe. I was just really, really, really’ bugger that’s one more really than ever needed to be uttered, he thinks, turning the statue in his hand, ‘honoured to be nominated, and so winning is. God, winning! I’m not even sure it’s really sunk in to be honest.’

‘Still in shock you would say?’ someone asks, teasingly but soft. As if they can see Zayn’s nervousness wafting around him like cartoon squiggles. Zayn’s an actor: he should be better at hiding this. He also thinks he recognises the voice and face between when the camera flashes let his eyes have a rest. Nick Something? The voice is accented so it’s from his side of the pond and up north - that’s really all he can really pick up on.

He laughs, ‘Deffo--Um, Definitely.’

A different voice calls out: ‘So you weren’t expecting the win at all? Everyone’s been raving about your performance, of course, but you had some strong competition. Who did you think was going to be walking away with that Oscar besides you?’

Zayn nods, slowly, not really liking the tone the question was asked, but. ‘Yeah, I honestly didn’t expect it, I can barely remember my speech, but it’s a wonderful feeling and honestly, any of my fellow nominees deserved a piece of this as well. They were all brilliant in their roles.’

Someone else in between all the flashing lights asks, ‘No favourites?’

‘I loved City, actually,’ Zayn says, because he did and Liam Payne might have reduced him to tears once or twice. Three times, fine. ‘Saw it a couple times, once with Niall, our director. Liam Payne was so great in it. We both had a bit of cry over it.’

‘That’s... really sweet, actually.’

Zayn smiles, ‘He’s a brilliant actor.’

‘Shame you can’t have ties in these categories?’ He thinks it’s Nick Something’s voice again.

‘Oh that would have been wicked,’ Zayn says and maybe he’s a bit quick to answer, but while he was on the stage he thought he was going to fall down, and someone standing next to him would have made it a bit easier. He’s glad that by some magic Harry Styles half-carried him away, because bending his knees to walk was about to be an interesting experiment with a sad hypothesis.

‘Any plans for the future? Any projects in the making?’

Shaking his head, Zayn can’t even contemplate doing more. This already feels like everything like too much, but actually, he can. He wants to do so much more. ‘None at all.’ He bites back repeating we really didn’t expect because if he says it again, he’ll sound like he doesn’t think Anatomy and Niall deserve it.

There’s a soft rumbling of voices at this but Zayn only hears one voice. It’s the one that says: ‘Not for long.’

*

Liam joins every standing ovation until the musical finale/hosting disaster plays its last. The highlight is Best Actress (Dame Judi, that’s two for Team GB of the main acting awards, he thinks with pride, even if it’s not him bringing home the gold), Best Documentary, Best Director and finally, Best Picture.

Then, of course, there’s the interview circle. It’s more talking and less pictures than on the way in, which is exactly the opposite to how he’d like it, but he doesn’t even have to grit his teeth particularly hard because all of his willpower is on the knot in his stomach as security leads him out.

Of course, he has to wait. They want to interview the winners first.

He sends a text to Louis with shaking hands, and another to Lady Lou telling her to enjoy it as the fashion bloggers descend.

It’s just an exchange of emoticons and random letters, because he’s not got any words left, really. Louis sends him a picture of a cup of tea, tells him it’s waiting whenever he wants it, and too many Xs, all capitalised, which Liam can’t help but smile at.

It feels like the old days; Liam would be settling into a new trailer, and Louis would be in a motel somewhere with the crew, or worse, back in the city because he wasn’t all Liam’s yet. Louis wasn’t technically working but he’d text anyway. A silly picture or a smiley. Just to say he was still there, and Liam could sleep.

There’s something in it that eases him enough to face a camera. He’d have done it anyway - if this is the hardest his job is ever going to get, he’s got plenty spine left for this - but he does it with a breath and a smile.

Four interviews in and Liam shrugs, ‘Of course, but I’ve had an amazing year, and watching City take four awards -’

‘Even if none of them were yours?’

Liam turns on his most disarming grin, the one he learned from Harry. ‘I’ve got plenty of awards. And with City, I got the most incredible experience: traveling all over the world, learning how to free run and free climb.’

‘You don’t grudge Zayn Malik the Oscar? After the SAGs and the Baftas, everyone thought-’

Liam juts his chin out and stares directly into the camera, feeling like being a mule that kicks, and suddenly knowing that among the people watching this interview, one of them might be Zayn Malik. He gave Liam and Louis two glorious, transporting afternoons of cinema last year, and that’s all Liam’s ever wanted to give anyone, so he can’t say anything but: ‘Like I said, Ryan, I’ve had an amazing year, and the Oscar was never mine to grudge. Zayn is a top bloke who deserves this completely.’

*

Somewhere in a hotel in LA, Louis Tomlinson - no name change, thank you very much, done that once and quite content with it now - whoops with pride.

His husband might have learned the grin from Harry, but the kick of steel behind that was pure Liam, and Louis gives himself a little credit for drawing it out.

As Nick Grimshaw beckons warmly to Liam onscreen like they’ve run into each other in their local, Louis texts, not a bit shaky, honest: I bloody love you, you magnificent bastard, get back to our obnoxious hotel bed at a decent hour so I can do unspeakable things to your cheeky mouth.

*

Smirking, Niall shakes his head as he waits just outside of the entryway for Zayn to be freed from the press and catches sight of another person who’s trying to quietly exit the press area and get into his car as nondescriptly as possible.

He should just let him go, let the guy go to whatever after party or wherever he’s going, but right now he’s feeling a certain kinship with the bloke. Not that Zayn didn’t absolutely deserve his award, because he did: Zayn is so talented and sometimes Niall can’t believe he was the one lucky enough to be able to show the world that. But even as talented as Kathryn Bigelow is and as fucking great her film was, it still stings.

‘Hey, you were fucking fantastic, mate!’ Niall calls out and gets the pleasure of watching Liam Payne looks around adorably confused before his gaze settles on Niall.

Niall raises a hand in small wave.

Liam Payne’s smile is as charming in real life as it is on a twenty foot screen, maybe more. His husband is a lucky guy, even if Lou and Niall haven’t managed to be on the same set in years. He waves back a little shyly to Niall.

‘You too!’ And Niall has the distinct feeling that out of many many other people’s mouth that would have sounded perfunctory, fake, Holly-fucking-wood, but not with Liam. His eyes are all crinkled by the force of his smile and he sounds so damn earnest Niall knows he means it. ‘One the best films I’ve ever seen. We saw it twice.’

And okay that he wasn't expecting and he feels a blush rise on his cheeks. ‘Oh, um. Thanks, mate!’

Liam nods, waving again, and slips into his car. Niall shakes his head and grins, lifting a hand in a silent goodbye. One way or another it’s been one hell of a night. And it’s just begun. Booze time.

*

Harry spots Liam at Elton John’s post-Oscar party - Liam had muttered something about representation and promising him at the Tony’s last year - and it’s the first time since the ceremony they’ve been in the same room with less than a thousand people between them.

There’s a gaggle of musicians trying to get to the transparent piano where someone is starting a raucous, oversung rendition of Let it Be. Liam watches Harry try to contain hissing like a cat as he skirts them. Then he launches himself into Liam’s arms - which is less easy than it used to be, he’s stretched upwards and there’s a six-part franchise to document every step of the way.

‘Sorry, no I’m not, but I am, Li, is Lou going to kill me? He is, isn’t he, tell me I should have lied, but I’m a terrible liar for an actor -’

Liam drags Harry off of where he’s babbling into his neck and grins. Harry sort of collapses into him as he always done and Liam pats his neck softly. He’d suspected the knot in his stomach of disappearing too easily, but with Harry here, tripping over words because he’s not trained to speak so fast, he really feels it. He should tell Lou first, but Lou is on the other side of town, and they’ll have a bigger talk, later. Shushing Harry gently, he pulls away a little and meet his eyes. ‘Haz, they’re going to try to rip him apart.’

Harry blinks, eyebrows clicking together, hands on Liam’s biceps, mouth falling open and dragging Liam into a tight hug. ‘Not if you’re saying what I think you are,’ Harry mouths into his ear, and they’ve never got whispering right, not once.

*

Niall finds him in the midst of a crowd of people - actors he’s admired and respected who are now congratulating him; this is actually the most ridiculous night of his life - and tugs him out, arm around his waist. It says a lot about Niall who doesn’t do well in crowds that he’s willing to risk a sea of limbs to get to Zayn.

Pulled towards the bar, Zayn lets out a little breath.

Niall smirks, ‘Mad isn’t it?’

‘I bummed a smoke from Tarantino.’ That wasn’t even on the bucket list.

Niall laughs and orders them to beers, ‘Forgetting me already?’

Zayn shakes his head, ‘Never, I wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t-’

The hand Niall rests on his shoulder has him fumbling for words just as Niall’s bright smile and the proud look he has in his eyes. That’s not fucking fair, Zayn thinks, he’s older than Niall.

‘Mate, you got yourself here, I just...’ he waves a hand in the air, ‘helped everyone see it.’ And it hits Zayn again how completely unfair it is that Niall didn’t get Best Director, he’s brilliant and creative, and he made Zayn and the film look about a million times better than it already was. He wonders if this is how other people who’ve won awards but didn’t get to see their friends and colleagues who worked just has hard if not harder, because he knows Niall was in that editing room every day, don’t get the accolades they deserve feel.

It’s a horrible feeling.

Zayn wraps his arms around Niall. ‘You’re the best bloody director and mate I could have found, you know.’

Niall seems to release a surprised gust of air against Zayn’s neck, because Niall is actually the worst at taking a compliment, before hugging back and not the short pat on the back you’re-my-bro hug. He holds on to Zayn like Zayn thinks they both kind of need to right now. They were the underdogs, nobody thought they would have gotten this far, but they did, together.

‘You too, mate.’ Niall steps back, grinning wide, eyes a little misty, which once he blinks a couple times look clear and bright as normal. ‘So are you ready?’ He reaches towards the bar and grabs them their beers.

The glass is cool and Zayn touches it to his cheek for a second.

‘Ready for what?’

Niall eyes him like he’s mad and maybe he is, maybe this is all just an extremely vivid hallucination. ‘To be the next bloody big thing,’ Niall laughs. He clicks their glasses together with bright Cheers! and tips back his drink.

Zayn blinks. He looks from Niall to his drink and downs it all at once. It’s entirely possible he’s not thought this winning thing all the way through.

*

Nobody questions Liam leaving after just the two parties - he’s heartbroken about his lost Oscar, obviously, and he’s got a husband and toddler to get to. He hopes Lady Lou and Tom will forgive his liberal use of Lux as an excuse, and it’s even true, considering Louis packed Tom off to the parties fashionable people who look down on actors get invited to at the earliest, while Liam was still changing shirts and stepping out at Vanity Fair.

Harry, of course, disappears into the night with a bunch of his hipster friends trying to pry him out of his black suit before he gets into the cab. He kisses Liam’s cheek and says, ‘I wish I could have’ so earnestly that Liam breaks his own vow to talk it out with Louis first and says, ‘don’t feel bad, Haz, I’m glad you didn’t.’

Harry gives him a puzzled look, but he’s pulled into the car by his suspenders by someone whose quiff looks an awful lot like TV presenter Nick Grimshaw, and Liam smirks, waving him off into the night. The only redeeming feature about certain parts of LA on Oscar night is how many famous people are staggering around inside cordoned off zones like it’s an overdressed music festival: people like Liam, who is only properly famous and not an actual national treasure like Nicolas Cage or Brangelina, get slightly more breathing space to catch Jamie Foxx and high five him before getting into his own car.

The 2am ride back to the hotel is just a blur of impressions. Liam lines his back up with the seat and stares stiffly ahead as the car pulls out of the venue - he doesn’t want to look pissed (he isn’t, predictably), heartbroken (he isn’t, less predictably), or let them catch a high def shot of his phone (amazing what they can do with image enhancements, really, and he’s glad the internet responded so well to Louis’s ridiculous face being his background, but still).

Streaking lights blurred through dark windows; pulling into the yellow of the underground garage; thanking Paul as he steps into the private lift to the penthouse and besides the three different cameras watching his every move, he’s alone for the first time since his 2pm shower.

It’s a fast lift and the suite is dark when the doors open. He takes his shoes off while he’s still on carpet - doesn’t want to wake anyone - and walks to the kitchen. The worktop lights are still on, but the overheads aren’t. The windows are the floor-to-ceiling you’re-in-HellA you-might-as-well-see-it kind. The core of the suite is an open-planned kitchen that had Harry drooling and a living room with low, comfy seats, separated from the kitchen by a breakfast bar.

Liam sets his wallet, phone, keys and keycard on the breakfast bar slowly. He peels off the black jacket with a roll of his neck, loosening the tie at his throat and slipping it over his head. He pushes the sleeves of the absurdly expensive white shirt (it’s a white shirt, how expensive can they possibly get?) back to his elbows.

He doesn’t think Louis would go to sleep, but it would depend on whether Lux let him leave after one story or six without crying, and he’s an absolute softie when there’s no one to laugh at him for it (and even then, where kids are concerned, and without shame). It’s entirely possible Liam is going to have to wake him up from the floor next to Lux’s bed with a picture book stuck over his face because he couldn’t be bothered reaching for the light.

Liam wouldn’t actually mind that.

If they’d had a staying up policy, they’d have lasted less than a week: Louis hates early mornings, and Liam turns into a pumpkin at 2:39am. (That’s an average of Harry’s parties, calculated by Louis and Harry, because they hate him.) That’s not to mention the early flights and set calls, but Louis can cope with those when he has to, did it for long enough before they were married: it’s when he has any choice in the matter that he turns into a six year old and has to have Hips Don’t Lie played loudly in his ear through a tinny iphone speaker.

Still.

Liam starts, because Louis isn’t asleep - he’s just quiet. Scary enough thought itself.

He’s wearing a baggy hoodie with the ties done at the neck and soft striped PJ bottoms, his silhouette stark against the city outside the window, especially the curve from his ribs to his hip bones, sharp against his thin PJs.

Somewhere out there, people who kiss Liam on the cheek when he walks into restaurants are drinking and dancing.

Liam puts his arms around Louis and he feels Louis sag back against him, eyes still boring sharp holes into the streaking lights of speeding cars outside, tension in every line of his arms.

Louis turns and wraps himself around Liam with a noise deep in his throat that sounds like a growl and Liam lets his forehead fall onto the crook of Louis’s neck. He will never, ever get tired of how far that fall is, or how he feels so utterly grounded when his neck stretches, and his forehead finds the cool skin at Lou’s collarbone. For all the thudding of his heartbeat and the growling words Lou mutters into Liam’s ear, the hand threading slightly crooked fingers through Liam’s hair is gentle.

For a minute, just a minute, with Lux asleep in the suite’s single room, and Louis wrapped around him, held up by nothing but Liam’s own arms and trusting him to stay that way, Liam lets himself feel all the things he didn’t want to betray on camera. Disappointment that he’d let a bunch of studio talking heads tell him he had a chance.

Anger that they wanted to poke and prod him more when he lost than they would have if he’d won, because him winning wouldn’t have been a surprise, or even really, a triumph, just something else that they gave him.

‘You’ve wanted one of those bloody toy statues since other kids wanted Action Men,’ Louis says in a low, harsh voice, hands tightening on Liam’s back like he can keep him away from the outside forever, and Liam loves how Louis has taken possessive claim of all of his life up to and including Louis, even the stories he’s only heard in Liam’s mum’s kitchen.

‘I have,’ Liam agrees, and feels his voice break, something sharp in his eyes, ‘I really actually have.’

Then he pulls back and feels the strangest thing, the feeling he’d had pushing Harry into a Land Rover on wings of alcohol and unnecessary forgiveness.

Louis scrambles higher and puts his hands on either side of Liam’s face, turning him this way and that like he can catch sight of the words in Liam’s throat, pushing their way up. It reminds Liam of the time he’d gotten into a car too quickly and Louis had had to check for concussion while they sped their way on the M1, the same voice muttering what’s this, then and dragging his eyes to meet his, ignoring a demanding company voice on his phone the whole time. Louis slips his feet to the floor and drags Liam’s forehead down to his.

‘But Lou,’ Liam says, urgent and quiet in the dark emptiness of the suite, ‘now I can do anything I bloody want.’

Louis jerks his head up sharply enough that they catch their noses and mouths together awkwardly, more a headbutt than a kiss, really, but when Liam looks at him Louis has his eyes wide open, pupils blown and mouth in a grin that looks like a freeze frame of a laugh. There are so many reasons he loves Louis, so many, but it’s how he always understands what Liam means with the barest amount of words sometimes is a special one. A hard earned one.

‘Anything,’ Liam says against his mouth, tangling their left hands together like a promise, because it’s not like they don’t have practice in throwing out the rulebook together, and the wedding photos to prove it.

2. you’re not the only one so let them criticise

It can’t be morning, Zayn thinks blearily, there is no way he has had enough sleep for it to be morning.

It’s not his alarm, though, it’s worse: it’s his phone.

And.

Oh.

Yes.

That happened.

He picks up the phone with shaking hands.

The alerts tell him that his Twitter which had a respectable but none too great following before he won an Oscar (and repeat: won an Oscar) has jumped by... well. It’s a multiple of ten thousand? Is that even possible? He’d thought getting nominated was a jump. He also had thought he had filtered his Twitter alerts. And the little bubble over the Mail icon is telling him he’s got an astronomical amount of new emails. The number is in the triple digits. That’s his very private, possibly cryptic personal email, not even the one attached to his agent’s domain for sending on official stuff. The one that’s actually a comic book reference, not even his name, and a quick scan of the ‘from’ field has him blushing at the people who now know his feelings about Cassandra Cain. He doesn’t even think he can read that many emails and he’s read War and Peace; it took him almost a whole year because he kept getting distracted by other things (shorter, better books, scripts, comic books, the new Aquaman run was a wonderful surprise).

Sitting up, he rubs a hand over his faces, trying to scrub the sleep out of his face. Reality is slowly seeping in and it’s overwhelming.

Then his mum phones. Zayn supposes he probably wasn’t that great a conversationalist when they called at 3am LA time, but they love Niall to bits and he stole the phone when Zayn and his mum both started crying, so they probably didn’t mind so much.

While his family shriek (have his sisters always been so loud?) on Skype and his dad tells him how proud he is - and Zayn grins, and grins, and grins, despite the hangover, the hangover is definitely a thing - he texts Niall below the sight of the laptop.

is there a wikipedia article on what to do when you win an Oscar? like Oscar-winning for dummies? send help. i’ve been awake for five minutes

then thatts still the hang over. phone me at ten and dont look at your email. yeah mate we’re gonna need to do lunch

The emails are still coming in. The pings almost make a melody. Zayn turns his phone on silent and clicks on one, chasing it down the screen as more follow like his inbox has suddenly turned into a very frustrating video game.

His breath catches in his throat.

You were wonderful. Congrats, babe!! So proud!

It’s from Perrie. He never thought his own smile could catch him by surprise.

*

‘You're a filthy hipster is what you are!’ Louis shouts promptly and loudly, causing one of the nearby support staff to turn with a look of incredulity, see who it is, and turn away again. Liam can practically hear the them again. He sends the dinner table sorting out the next two weeks of his life his most contrite look, hoping the plate of pancakes he made for them first makes up for it. To think, once upon a time, it was Louis's job to apologise for him.

It almost stings that this is his team regrouping because they expected him to dive headfirst into post-Oscar-winning press, but somehow what little sleep Liam got feels like five hundred miles between the ceremony and now.

‘Hey,’ and that's Harry's sensitive voice nearly lost in the sound of the penthouse’s doors closing, using the tone that implies someone is about to cut too close to his usually-shameless bones for comfort, ‘I had a shower at Grimmy's this morning, I'll have you know. Least, think it was Grimmy’s, probably a mate of his had the place.’

‘Oh, you’re absolutely right, Harold, I can see your damp curly locks under the beanie with my superpowers,’ Louis calls back, upending a bottle of syrup (so much cheaper than in the UK, they go through loads every time they’re in the States) onto the pancake on his plate. Louis’s grin promises bad things. ‘I can also see that those are even Grimmy’s clothes you’re wearing, unless I missed you going to the actual Oscars in a tatty wool jumper.’

Anyone else would run away in the opposite direction from a sugared-up Louis and the bright LA sun (not that Liam sees a huge difference between the two). Harry’s never been the wisest, so he slouches his long limbs across the room to the breakfast bar and curls into Liam’s side as he drags himself up onto a stool. ‘Li, he’s being mean.’

Liam fights a grin and uses the boiling water tap to put Harry out a cup of Yorkshire. Boiling water on tap is a thing that exists in this super-serviced apartment-hotel-complex except it’s not really boiling and Liam would rather just bring a kettle next time, because he’s worried about the environmental consequences of keeping water that hot all the time.

Harry takes the cup and groans. ‘You’re a prince. Any of those pancakes for me?’

‘What I want to know is why you felt the need to shower, Hazza,’ Liam says, back turned to them as he flips the thick, smaller US pancakes with a spatula. ‘You usually just wear your shame with pride on the walk.’

Harry’s grin is physically painful to look at and he shifts in the stool.

Louis fake gasps and whistles low, then reaches across and tugs a curl out of Harry’s beanie. ‘Are you going steady? Did you get very far? Tell me more, tell me more.’

‘Tell me nothing,’ Liam protests, even though he knows he’s the one who actually asked. Mainly so Lou could read the answer on Harry’s face and tell him later.

Harry shifts in the stool again before slouching down over the breakfast bar, head pillowed on his folded arms and smile working its way across his mouth. ‘Sex is pretty much the best thing ever.’

‘Hardly news, Haz. Get it. Hard-ly. Also please tell me he doesn’t have a car that you had sex in last night,’ Louis narrows his eyes at Harry, and Liam throws him a look, but even a few years in, he can’t always decode the way Louis and Harry skip between pithy lyrical references and knowing what the other one means.

Harry just closes his eyes on his folded arms with a sigh.

Louis laughs loud and clear.

Liam pushes a plate with pancakes on it at Harry’s arm and shakes his head ruefully. Speaking of sex - while he waits for the oil he’s splashed into the pan to heat, he drops a kiss to the top of Louis’s head. It’s confusing - still - how Louis can look like he should be tucked up on a couch watching Saturday morning cartoons and spread out on Liam’s bed all at once, and it’s the same combination of fluffy hair, pre-shaving scruff and collarbones visible under a worn tshirt that does both.

‘Does it count as car sex if the car was inside a house at the time?’ Harry asks drowsily, claiming the syrup bottle after an aborted attempt at some kind of tabletop air hockey with Louis.

Liam snatches the next breakable thing to make its way across the breakfast bar like a hockey puck, which happens to be his mug.

‘Yes, you filthy, filthy boy,’ Louis answers immediately, roughly swallowing a bit of pancake in his haste to answer. Liam laughs and nods at Harry, who’s rounded on him to check, as if the important part of this escapade is whether Harry has managed to tick off car-sex-inside-a-house on a list somewhere, and Liam is the umpire.

‘So when is Nick back in the UK?’

Harry curls up again like a turtle trying to fit back into an old shell and Liam thinks, oh no.

‘When am I back in the UK?’ Harry mutters.

Liam and Lou exchange a significant look over his bowed head while Liam pours the next batch of pancakes into the pan and it sizzles.

‘Look what the cat dragged in, Little Lux,’ comes a voice from one of the bedroom doors, ‘Uncle Harry in out of season knitwear in La La Land! Should we go and sing him a morning song? I think we should. I think he’d love it.’

Louis nearly falls off his seat as an impeccably ruffled Lou in designer sleepwear, carrying a gurgling, shrieking Lux - killer vocal range on the kid - plucks Harry’s beanie from head and make it dance in time to the song they’re making up. Harry attempts to steal Lux for cuddles - they all do, incessantly - but Lux is more interested in perching on his shoulder and watching Liam make goo into pancakes, then eating very small bits of the colder pancakes with a lot of syrup.

Harry falls asleep in a chair about an hour later, with Lux happily curled up on his shoulder like a talisman against grown up feelings, and Louis covers them with a blanket and sits opposite with his laptop. Liam thinks he can hear him muttering about carpet samples and paint charts.

Liam settles at Louis’s feet cradling his own belated tea. He hears the distant sounds of the shower running in Lou and Tom’s room.

The team let themselves out slowly, one by one, with Paul the last to leave, stealing a pancake on the way.

It’s like every other LA hotel morning, except he didn’t win an Oscar the night before, and the world didn’t end. His family is little, but it’s not broken, and no matter what the establishment thinks they gave - or didn’t give - him, Liam found this on his own.

*

Zayn wants his mummy, which he’s not sure a fully grown man is supposed to still admit, but well. He’s won a bloody Oscar, hasn’t he? He can have whatever he wants. If only. Or at least that’s what everyone insists on. He’s pretty sure that’s not how it works though because it’s been almost two months since his win and, well.

He wants his mummy.

Or his dad.

Or Perrie.

Or Niall.

But Niall is back home in Ireland, his parents are in Bradford, Perrie won’t get here for another two days and he’s back in bloody LA for the MTV Movie Awards because apparently that’s something he gets invited to now. Now they’re no Oscars, which is a nice pressure to have off his shoulder, to be honest. It’s not even really the awards that are the problem, or how he’s suddenly in the Breakout Actor category, and it’ll be nice to walk a red carpet where people will care more about what Perrie is wearing than him, it’s just. Well, he thought it was going to be easier than this. It’s something he’s aware is vaguely presumptuous to think, but he had thought people would have sort of let him a have a bit of breather.

Oh blissful ignorance.

He misses it.

He also misses sleep.

There have been so many meetings, and interviews, and talk shows these past few months and so many scripts sent his way and he just doesn’t know where to start. His team - which mostly consisted on an odd mixture of a couple people the studio gave him for Anatomy's press tour and well, Danny and Ant - is great but weren’t ready for his win. He wasn’t ready for his win and he hates admitting it shows. It’s not that they’re a bad but they seem just as overwhelmed as he is and trying not to let it show.

And it’s not just the press and the sudden interest Hollywood has in him, it’s everything that comes along with that. The twitter hate messages and mail alone he knows they’re trying to hide from him is overwhelming and god, not to mention the stuff he’s seen thrown at Perrie that had Ant taking his phone away until he calmed down. Two months ago he was relatively known, five months ago barely, and a year ago he had still been working part time at tattoo parlour while going to auditions.

It’s...

Been a change, to say the least.

Looking at the brand new pile of scripts that got messengered to his hotel room Zayn wishes he hadn’t thrown his pack of cigarettes to Ant telling him to limit him to two a day, because he’s trying to quit (still, again, always) but he’s always been a stress smoker and he’s cheated and had three today already.

He goes to the mini bar and grabs a Coke, because as much as he wants the beer he’s not sure he should get drunk and read scripts. He sits at the table and stares at the stack of scripts - did it grow when he looked away? - and bites his lip, not knowing where to start. Closing his eyes, he reaches out and grabs at one.

Here goes nothing.

*

Sometimes it’s a bitter pill to swallow that the media prefers when he shows up to events as ‘Harry’s date’ or with Harry as his ‘date’ but he can hardly ever take Louis because that’s leaning just a little too close to the line of reality for everyone. They’ve gotten used to it over the years and, honestly, it’s not so bad-- Louis isn’t always camera friendly. He tries, Liam knows this, but now that it’s not his job to make nice all the time he, quite frankly, doesn’t. He’s still as protective over Liam and his career as ever but there is a saying about dogs and leashes and Louis still snaps his teeth at anyone who looks at Liam (or Harry) the wrong way.

He also hates half the events that Liam has to go to. Or more specifically he hates the events that Harry drags Liam to and he always laughs at Liam when Harry comes calling and pouting asking Liam to go with him to the Teen Choice Awards (‘please, Li, I’ll give you my surfboard’), or the Nickelodeon Awards (‘please, Li, save me from the slime’), or in this case: the MTV Awards.

This time it had been: ‘Louuuuuuuu, tell Liam he needs to be my date because I was his for the bloody Oscars and BAFTAs. I had to be all posh,’ all fluttering eyelashes and long limbs across their sofa, Harry had looked up, working the pout Louis had taught him.

‘You are posh, darling,’ Louis had said, but he still had looked at Liam over the back of the sofa and Liam’s not even sure why they keep doing this to him. They all knew that Liam was eventually - no need to make it easy for them, after all - going to say yes. He’s been Harry’s ‘date’ for the MTV Awards since his film series got popular and their Harry became a legit teen heartthrob. It’s practically expected at this point, but Liam still remembers the first year when Harry had been sick in the hotel room twice because it had been his first real red carpet (the first film of the ultimately four-part series had been one month away from opening) and had not let go of Liam’s hand the whole car ride.

Liam flexes his fingers at the memory and nudges Harry’s shoulder, ‘You okay, mate?’

Harry turns from where he was looking out the window and smiles at Liam. It’s a small, soft thing that reminds Liam of meeting mumbling, not-yet-lanky, sixteen year old Harry at the audition of the only film they’ve worked on together. There’s a surge of the same protectiveness that accompanies the memory. It had been a fun, but not always easy, three months on location. It had also been Harry’s first time away from home and shooting up six inches during filming had been as much fun all around as you could imagine. There had been a lot of muscle cramps and back aches that Liam was thankful that boxing had taught him how to deal with. He’s pretty sure that’s what has cemented him in Anne’s good graces for the rest of his life.

It was also on that film he had met Lou; he’d worked for Harry’s agency at the time. Harry never likes to let them forget that, that they bonded over massage oils and Harry, likes to make it sound as dirty as he can, when all Liam remembers is 2am ice cream, Deep Heat and 5am calls with whoever could be bothered bringing three coffees, whether film star or handler. The massage oils came much later.

‘Yeah, just, it’s odd, isn’t it,’ Harry breathes, sinking back into his seat, ‘this is the last time I’ll be here because of the these films. The series is over and now everyone’s going to be looking to see if I can be a proper actor.’

Liam shakes his head, reaching over to clasp a hand on Harry’s shoulder. ‘You are a proper actor.’ Harry ducks his head, shaking out his hair the way he does when he’s nervous or gets shy. Liam flicks at his fringe which has Harry batting his hands away.

They smile at each other and Harry leans in for a hug that Liam is all too happy to return.

The car is slowing and even through the tinted windows the flash of the bulbs is near blinding.

‘Come on, Styles, your public awaits.’

The door to the car is opened and the screams are already loud but when Harry gets out but when Liam gets out just behind him they get deafening. By the time Harry and Liam get into the building there have been too many interviews about Harry’s next project and there was one pointed question to Liam about Zayn Malik, who was also in attendance, and seriously Seacrest needed to stop. Harry had deflected it masterfully as usual.

They’re getting shown to their seats when Liam’s phone lights up, the top sticking slightly out of his pocket. He smiles, already knowing who it will be. Another reason Louis loves when Liam goes with Harry to all his Teen Awards: they’re the awards Louis doesn’t mind interrupting with all his messages or tweets.

Twitter is already wondering if we’ve broken up again babe

Harry takes a look at Liam’s face just as they get to seat and grins, ‘That Lou?’

‘Yeah,’ Liam says, already typing out his response.

rght on schdule thn.

Louis sends back:

;)

Tell Harry he’s a homewrecker

‘Haz, you’re a homewrecker.’

‘Of course,’ he snorts.

and if he wins anything make sure to kiss him on the mouth.

Harry snorts where he’s preached his chin on Liam’s shoulder and Liam eyes him. He quickly sends up:

just 4 u babe.

‘And people think I’m the troublemaker, honestly,’ Harry grumbles, with no heat, lips curling. ‘Sometimes I think you two like watching the internet explode.’

That’s not exactly true, Liam thinks. Trolling the internet is more Louis’s way of having his fun, Liam hardly ever likes to instigate or encourage the masses as it were. Still, there are moments where he just wants to stick his tongue out to the world.

He shrugs, ‘Come on, Hazza, you know I only use my powers for good.’

‘Yeah, but Lou doesn’t.’

Liam smirks, because Harry does have a point and he’s remembering the night before because sometimes Lou’s such a bloody tease, and did he really have to order extra fudge.

‘Oh my god,’ Harry gasps and smacks him in the shoulder, ‘I cannot believe you are thinking dirty things about your husband right now. You’re supposed be my boring married mates now!’ Liam shrugs, unapologetic. Harry goes to say something else, something probably meant to embarrass Liam when he stops and goes, ‘Oh, hey, it’s Zayn.’

Right then Zayn and - that’s right he’s dating one of the girls from Little Mix - Perrie Edwards walk past and sit across the aisle two roads down. Liam frowns. Not over the fact Zayn is here, he already knew that, thank you Ryan, but at just how exhausted he looks and how he’s valiantly trying to hide it. Liam knows that look, he’s seen it in a mirror often enough, and he’s suddenly he’s reminded of the month after he came out, officially. He doesn’t think he slept, he knows Lou pretty much didn’t, running on coffee, defensiveness and the closest to impossible to work with that Liam had ever seen him.

‘He looks wrecked, mate, and not in the good way,’ Harry murmurs quietly into Liam’s cheek, missing his ear by a good two inches, and sometimes Liam forgets Harry does posses some tact.

Liam can only nod back because the music starts and Joel McHale begins his opening monologue pretending as if he’s doing The Soup and figuring out he’s on the wrong show a minute in.

*

‘I can’t believe you’re having lunch with him,’ Louis argues, throwing himself on the bed. Liam rolls his eyes and pokes his head out of the wardrobe.

‘I did say you could join.’

Louis lifts up his head from where he’s been glaring at the ceiling to glare at Liam. Unfortunately for Louis Liam has long since found his glares charming, some even downright sexy. This is rather adorable. It’s almost a pout. Grabbing two jumpers, he considers them and tosses the tan towards a chair, and tugs the other on and pretends not to notice how Louis’s eyes drift across his chest. He doesn’t mind playing dirty when it calls for it. Louis should be proud considering Liam learned it all his best tricks from him.

‘Fine,’ says Liam, sitting on the bed, reaching for his shoes, ‘stay, but I’m still meeting Zayn.’

‘Why?’ Louis sits up and drapes himself across Liam’s shoulders. His sharp little chin digs into his collarbone. It’s slightly uncomfortable and Liam knows his husband well enough by now to know he’s doing it on purpose. ‘He won your Oscar.’

Liam huffs out a fond laugh and turns his face. It makes their noses bump and he nudges Louis’s forehead with his own. ‘Didn’t have my name on it, babe.’

‘It should have.’ Louis has a spectacular pout. Liam loves it even when hates it and right now it’s too close to his own lips. He kisses it softly, which only makes Louis pout harder, but the corner of his lips twitch like he’s trying not smile. Liam reaches up to cup Louis’s jaw and kisses him again.

‘But it didn’t and you loved Anatomy.’

‘Before! It makes all the difference I’ll have you know.’

Liam chuckles, ‘Of course,’ and leans down to pull his shoes on. Louis drops his weight all over Liam’s back so he almost tips off the bed, barely catching himself. That’s when Louis bites at his earlobe, sharp and then... Liam has to take a deep breath. Louis is not above his own dirty tricks and he knows just what that spot does to Liam. He should, Liam thinks, he practically found it, mapped it, then planted a little invisible stripey flag with Property of Louis Tomlinson stamped on it.

He then planted a much different and not too invisible flag around Liam’s ring finger, because Louis is a possessive and protective little fuck, one that Liam loves.

That's why Liam knows it’s a strange mix of both things and leftover irrational loyalty for him that’s making Lou act this way.

It’s why Liam doesn’t shove him off - not that he thinks he could ever really push Louis away if their first fight about him officially coming out taught him anything - and just turns to face Louis. He’s got a pinched looked on his face that if Liam didn’t know any better would be he’s annoyed with Liam choice to play nice with Zayn, who the media have more or less deemed Liam’s Professional Rival, but Liam can see the look for what it really is.

He’s worried.

Dragging his fingers through Louis’s messy fringe, Liam kisses the sharp line of Louis’s cheek.

‘He’s not a bad guy you know.’

Louis says nothing, but he’s biting his lip. Considering.

‘And you didn’t see him at the MTV Awards, Lou, ask Harry. He looked exhausted,’ Liam says, ‘I think he just needs a mate.’

Louis’s eyes do that shifty little thing where he gets protective of someone, because Lou hates - absolutely hates - how the industry can try to crush someone. It made Lou the best and worst at his job all at once. Every actor was better with him, every studio hated his methods, how they couldn’t control him and loved the results. When they both saw Anatomy they had both talked about good Zayn had been and, before the Oscar win mucked up Louis’s status as a Zayn Malik fan, they had both talked about how maybe Liam and Zayn should work together. Sometimes Liam really does wonder if people actually believe Louis stopped working after he ‘quit’ at the agency.

‘I’m sure he has mates, you know.’

‘It’s different than that. He hardly knows, really knows, anyone.’

‘You don’t have to be that mate, y’know?’ Louis says, leaning into Liam’s side, arms around Liam’s waist.

Liam shrugs, ‘I know, but I’d like to be. You’ve seen some of the stuff the internet has been saying about him, I know you have.’

Louis tips his chin as if to say well, what of it? I can’t help if the Internet is right there. What he actually says though is: ‘He shouldn’t be reading that stuff.’

Liam bites the inside of his cheek. ‘Yeah, well, I wasn’t too good about that either, was I? D’you really want me to start talking about Harry while we’re on that? And who’s going to tell him not to read it?’

‘You learned.’

‘I have lessons to impart then, don’t I?’ Because it’s not the same, him and Zayn. Not in the least. Liam had been known, had built a good portion of his career before he came out, and Zayn’s career is so new. New and having hate thrown at him Liam can’t even really being to understand, but he remembers having Louis steady at his side and Harry ready to pop in front of Liam and take any extra heat off him by being extra ridiculous. And he’s sure Zayn has people like that somewhere too, but one more wouldn’t hurt.

He had wanted to get to know Zayn before and well, one Oscar loss shouldn’t stop him from making a friend.

Louis inhales deeply and lets out the breath with a heavy fine, let’s go to lunch. He busses Liam’s cheek and grabs the tan jumper from the chair and pulls it on. ‘Come on then, slow poke.’

It’s hard but Liam tries not to leap up in triumph. Still, because Louis is really bloody adorable when he’s trying to keep to his annoyance Liam cups Lou’s face and pulls it towards his, covering his mouth. Louis moans softly as he kisses back and pinches Liam’s nipples, because even when he loses Louis does not admit defeat.

When they break apart, Liam grins. ‘I really do think you’re going to like him, Lou.’

Louis huffs, but his lips are twitching and he grabs Liam’s hand and they head out the door.

*

‘Sorry, mate, wrong table,’ Zayn says, turning to look for the server, who’s already disappeared, possibly melted right back into wallpaper at The Ivy. (Fucking Ivy. Fucking L.A..) So that leaves Zayn apologising to Harry Styles - Harry Styles - and if he’s supposed to be less ready to run because they met onstage when Zayn was being handed an Oscar, well, that’s a bit ambitious, really.

Zayn tries not to think about the net worth of Harry Styles’s individual eyelashes when he blinks up at him from a close study of the menu.

‘Nah, you’re right here,’ Harry (fricking) Styles says, grinning like he grins in Zayn’s kid sister’s posters that she tore from magazines, and patting the seat next to him. ‘You’re here to meet Liam, right?’

‘Liam Payne, yeah,’ Zayn answers, still standing next to the table, still thinking fuck and not a lot else.

Harry Styles pats the seat again, eyebrows coming together slightly and pouting a little. Zayn’s been told he takes a good picture, but the sheer pretty radiating from Harry Styles should be patented. It’s kind of cartoonish, how huge his eyes are in his face - there are anime characters that have smaller eyes - and the bone structure visible through the grin promises he’s not going to wilt as he gets older.

Zayn looks around. The sun is still pouring in through the windows, past the white picket fence (someone somewhere must be ironic, though Zayn’s beginning to think they have to import that here). The L.A. sun gives another reason for sunglasses, at least, and he’s definitely glad they’re not at the outside tables.

‘I’m surprised we’re not. You know,’ Zayn says, waving to the window, still standing.

‘Christ, sit down, man,’ Harry Styles replies, rolling his eyes. ‘Some idiot with a long lens is gonna catch this moment and we’ll be in Heat’s or US Weekly’s Couples on the Rocks or some shit. Nah, Liam booked this, clearly. Lou’d have us out in the beer garden right in their faces.’

Zayn mutters something about not minding if they fuck with Heat a bit - after the story they ran about him and Perrie last week, they deserve it - and he gets a face full of a Harry Styles grin.

‘I know you’re supposed to be meeting Liam,’ he says, eyes wide and earnest, ‘but I was around, and I thought we should catch up. Besides, I’m not the one you have to worry about, because Liam’s probably bringing -’

‘Hazza, you stalker, what the fuck are you doing here?’

The voice doesn’t sound that surprised, if Zayn were critiquing tone.

Harry Styles stands up with a quick grin to Zayn that he’s never seen on screen or in countless photoshoots and launches himself at a shorter, dark-haired bloke with sharp features that Zayn recognises as Liam Payne’s husband. Though he’d thought they’d met in the business - wasn’t he his PA or something? - so Zayn had been expecting someone more in the quiet, briskly efficient vein that his own agency keeps sending him for a week. The kind of people who wear dark suits in hot weather and say they’re perfectly comfortable, when only Phil Coulson gets away with that.

Maybe Zayn heard wrong. He never paid much attention to gossip rags before he was in them.

‘This was easier when you were five foot nothing. Hug Liam instead,’ a voice says somewhere under Harry Styles’s shoulders. Liam Payne shrugs and shakes hands with the maitre’d with an apologetic grin, rattling off an order for a round of beers and water and Cokes with a quick look to Zayn for confirmation. Zayn nods, glad he stayed standing and out of the line of fire. Then Harry Styles’s bent back is shoved unceremoniously at Liam Payne’s broad chest, and Liam Payne lifts and turns him with one crooked arm.

Zayn studiously does not gulp.

It’s just that that’s some superhero upper body strength shit right there because Harry Styles, well, he’s not a short lad.

Zayn feels the heat of someone watching him and finds a set of bright eyes trained on his with a knowing grin that’s just a little bit predatory, sharp teeth and all.

‘Fit bloke, your husband,’ Zayn says, taking a hand out of his pocket. ‘’m seeing how he did all that free climbing now.’

The grin widens a bit further and he tugs at the hem of the tan jumper that’s already a bit low and loose on him, and probably Liam Payne’s, now Zayn looks at them in the same place. ‘He is, isn’t he? God knows I understand wanting to climb him like the rough bits of Dead Horse Point. Louis Tomlinson, by the way.’

Zayn spits out a laugh because okay. What?

‘Did you just compare me to Utah or yourself to Tom Cruise? I’m not okay with either,’ Liam says, voice raised, leading Harry Styles - Zayn must stop full-naming people off the telly - back to the table. He’s still got an arm wound around Liam Payne’s waist, which is narrower than Zayn first thought it was, and Zayn is sort of understanding the general media bafflement about who the marrieds are in their little group.

‘Yeah, Lou,’ Harry Styles says, folding a napkin into a triangle and tucking it into Liam Payne’s collar. ‘Smallville, Kansas, or bust.’

Louis Tomlinson - Lou - throws a piece of bread at Harry Styles, who ends up with crumbs in his hair, and suddenly Zayn finds he can take the surname off a bit easier. Proper stars don’t have half a bread roll by their ear.

‘Sorry about the monsters,’ Liam Payne says, close by Zayn’s ear. ‘I did mean to have a quiet lunch before you ran into them but they weren’t having any of it.’

‘’S all right,’ Zayn says, thumbing the edge of the menu. ‘The cameras outside, bet they’re liking all of it, right?’

‘Suppose,’ Liam Payne says, eyes crinkling as he grins, not the perfectly poised photoshoot smile but a bigger, less picture-friendly grin, ‘probably think I’m seducing you, or Harry’s having a breakdown, or we’re setting you two up. Fuck ‘em, though.’ Zayn doesn’t want to think how many years it’s taken of whatever the press have thrown at them to get to that stage, because he might find out he’s got a few to go. ‘That’s not why I asked you to get lunch with me. With us, I suppose.’

‘No?’ Zayn answers, while half his attention is pulled to the other side of the table, where there’s some pretty vicious DC canon arguments going on. He could get in on that. But he should probably try and suss out what Liam Payne’s game is first. Probably. Though Harry Styles might be pretty, but he’s also utterly wrong. It's obvious he hasn't read any of the pre-new 52 canon.

’Harold, you take that back this instant or I’m child-locking all the decent TV channels while we’re in London!’

‘Not the only reason,’ Liam Payne - Liam? - amends, with an apologetic head tilt and rueful, shy kind of smile, calmly ignoring the storm in a ziplock bag on the other side of the table. ‘Sometimes Heat and co deserve it. Sorry if you feel like I’m using you here. I really do want to be mates. Brits in L.A. and all that...’

‘Nah, man, we’re -’ Zayn cuts himself off in the middle of his own sentence, because he can’t, he just can’t listen anymore. ‘Dude, you just don’t understand what the loss of Barbara Gordon as Oracle means, okay? Seriously, what have you been giving him?’ He directs the last to Liam and Louis. Liam holds his hands up. After a quick flash of something in his eyes that’s both pleased and judging, Louis bounces up on his chair so that one ankle is under him. Zayn notices that it brings Louis and Liam’s shoulders to just about the same height with a concealed grin.

‘He said he didn’t want help. Or lists. Or anything. He wanted to explore the canon on his own.’

Zayn tries to contain the horrified look he’s pretty sure he’s wearing but, well. Lou waves his hands in Harry’s general direction and says, ‘I know! I know! That is exactly how I felt, but with more swearing, obviously. And look where it’s gotten him.’

‘I’m right here, you know! God.’ Harry slumps in his seat - his posture is terrible when he isn’t posing, Zayn notes with a wince - and if he weren’t trying so hard to project angsting adolescent, Zayn would say he was enjoying it.

There’s a cough behind them and Liam looks over his shoulder. ‘Oh! We haven’t, um, yes. Maybe a minute? Unless?’

‘Zayn, these fools get the same thing every time, and I don’t know until I’m asked - better under pressure - so if you’re ready to order we can do that right now,’ Louis says smoothly with a nod at the menu next to Zayn’s left hand, and he’s ordered guacamole and tortillas and another coffee obediently before he thinks of asking for another minute to look at the menu.

‘So if you worked with Niall Horan, you must know Josh Devine, right?’ Louis says absently, and Zayn knows it’s directed at him. He looks over to where Louis’s hand and Liam’s are idly fighting over access to the bowl of chips on the table, but without any actual heat in the movements. ‘Bet you swapped issues with him - best collection I’d ever seen.’

‘You know Josh?’ Zayn manages before another swallow of coffee and stuffing another half of tortilla in his mouth. He didn’t realise he was so hungry until they started bringing the food, but yeah, more meal breaks. He’s putting it on a list. He swallows and nods and tries not to think about how he doesn’t know who he would give the list to.

Louis shrugs and Zayn nods and continues. ‘Yeah, he’s got a house out next to Niall’s on the coast, we went out there to do post-production and chill out. That basement of his, man, I wanted to take half of them home but he practically made me wear gloves.’

From there it carries on, with Harry and Liam interjecting a question about someone else they maybe all know or a question about comics that - if they both weren’t looking at them so earnestly - would have Zayn bashing his head off the table. The long-suffering look he gets from Louis every time feels like solidarity.

Zayn wants to ask some kind of question. Not because he’s feeling grilled or anything - he isn’t, it’s nice, fuck, they’re nice - but because it might be polite? He feels like he’s being hosted, and like he should ask about the ugly curtains or the lamp in the living room to be nice, too. Except the ugly curtains are that Oscar he won and Liam didn’t, and the lamp is what Liam Payne’s career is doing now, or what Harry Styles is going to do when his last film in the teen game comes out.

That feels a bit rude, though, when he puts it like that.

So he answers all their terribly considerate questions instead, and laughs - for real, like - when it inevitably falls back into pure, unadulterated geekery, and of course Liam Payne’s favourite character on BSG was Helo. Of course it was. Harry mentions slowly that they have the card game back at the house where they have to work out who’s the Cylon - Zayn didn’t know Harry Styles had an L.A. house but it makes a sort of sense - but they don’t always have enough players. It sounds like an invitation. Maybe.

‘Did you know there’s photoshopped versions of you as a blonde as Six but like, as a bloke?’ Louis says to Harry around a mouthful of chips and mushroom omelette. ‘Think it’s the hair, Curly. Or that time you wore the red mankini on holiday.’

Harry goes bright red in the cheeks but also manages to grin filthily. ‘Send me the links?’

‘Fuck, no,’ Louis says. Harry pouts, and Louis rolls his eyes, ‘I’ll send you screencaps. We don’t let Harry onto tumblr unsupervised,’ Louis says to Zayn by way of explanation. ‘He only spoke in hashtags for a week after the last time. But anyway, we’re having a thing in a couple of weeks, and you should come.’

‘We are?’ Liam and Harry say in unison. Liam looks up from his conversation with Harry, who also looks up and blinks. Liam is looking between Zayn and Louis with a slowly blooming smile.

‘We are,’ Louis says, determinedly. ‘Harry, what’s that hipster indie whatever band you were on about?’

‘Oh, well, I heard about them because Rob and Penn both sent me links, but I didn’t open the links, but then I was reading NME and they were in the new and exciting section, but I almost didn’t follow them up because NME, until Nick-’

Louis and Liam give each other looks that Zayn thinks they probably think are subtle and shit, but also, he might have lost the thread of what Harry was on about five minutes ago, except there’s a Nick, a gig in a disused subway station in New York that they found following clues and it’s all very Nick and Norah, except told in a slow northern voice that makes Zayn ache a bit for overcast days and leaves on the line. Zayn likes the sound of that New York, where the hipsters are too cool to comment on incredibly famous boy-stars flailing in their midst. Last time he was there he and Perrie were practically mobbed outside the hotel Little Mix was staying at. Some not very nice things were said by the internet after.

‘Yeah, just keep nodding, Zee,’ Louis hisses on Zayn’s other side. ‘Li and I just want to see how many times he’ll mention Nick before he notices he’s doing it.’

‘-and then at the San Fran gig, Nick had a real Ramones tshirt off eBay, did I tell you they left a clue saying their next gig would be in L.A., so I might stick around -’ if Harry has a house, Zayn doesn’t know why that sounds so much like a question. ‘-because the website, but you have to go through a forum to get to it, the proper website, anyway the design on the fake easy-to-google one is web one point zero, oh,’ he doesn’t look up from his phone, ‘Sheeran says hi, and yeah, the gig should be next Friday somewhere.’

There’s a beat. Their drinks arrived somewhere in the middle of the story. Zayn didn’t even notice, but he takes a deep swallow of the beer for fortification. Louis does the same.

‘Thanks, Haz, as ever, you know everything -’ Liam says, slinging an arm around his shoulders.

‘And convey it so efficiently,’ Louis follows up with a grin, messing up Harry’s hair. It ends up looking more styled than before. Zayn’s really not sure how that’s possible, but then again he’s currently not sure how this has suddenly become his life. ‘So Zayn, next Friday, yes or yes? Good, I’ll send you an e-vite.’

Zayn might need more than a beat.

*

‘Lou, what are you doing?’ he hears as he’s clicking through his laptop. Wow, and this scheduling is... He’s going to need to make some phone calls. He was just going to neaten some things up, honest, but damn, no wonder the lad had circles under his eyes that looked like he’d been punched. They haven’t even properly filtered his twitter. Louis is kind of disgusted: outright sickened by the hate he finds out there, though less surprised than Liam, who has tweeted at Zayn in support, he notes, and appalled that Zayn is still being allowed to see any of it.

‘Nothing.’

Liam’s chin hooks over his head and he wraps one arm across Louis’s collarbones, fingers curling over a shoulder.

‘Right, I can see that,’ and Louis can hear the smile in Liam’s voice. He bites at Liam’s forearm and leans back against his chest.

‘Shut up.’

*

‘Shitshitshitshitshitfuck, pick up, Ant, why aren’t they picking up, aren’t they supposed to be there when I need them?’

‘I don’t know, Oscarman, maybe because it’s Eight, son of Morning, and we goodly people have philosophical differences with that hour?’

‘You pretentious fuck, say something helpful or I’m spoiling the Red Wedding you’ve heard so much ab-’

The door shuts after Ant in the small flat. Zayn would totally move out - Ant and Danny could use the space back, and it’s not like Zayn’s ‘crashing for a week after the Oscars’ thing is working out - but he’d have to go and see places and phone people and when is he supposed to do that again? And he really doesn’t want to live in a hotel all the time.

‘Sandy!’ Zayn practically shouts into the phone. Definitely shouts - Danny thumps the wall in indignation from next door. ‘You’re there!’

‘Nghn, what, Zayn, I’m only on my third coffee over here,’ Sandy’s slow voice comes through the line. Zayn turns and starts pacing north-south rather than east-west in the tiny room, making passes around his suitcases and suit carriers, which are in a heap. Danny and Ant are really saints for not kicking him out already. He should buy them something nice. The Phase One Marvel Universe has been on their Amazon wish list for a while now, hasn’t it? ‘Are you okay?’

‘Am I supposed to be anywhere Friday night? I might have said yes to a thing without checking my phone diary last week and I want to go.’

When he puts it like that, Zayn supposes it sounds less urgent.

‘I think there’s a benefit for- hold on. This is weird.’

Sandy is a contact of Niall’s, and he has point five of his six-day week tasked to managing Zayn’s diary by the studio, because Anatomy is getting a second release in hundreds of theatres now. When that run is over, he’ll go back to working for Niall’s production company full time, and Zayn will do something to run his own life, he will. It’s barely enough time for Sandy to look through his emails, but Sandy’s a nice bloke, and Zayn doesn’t know where to even start with looking for someone, or saying the sentence ‘I need a whole person all of the time, maybe a team of them’ out loud. It just sounds so unbelievably wanky.

‘Zayn, you haven’t been messing with Outlook, right? Sending invites and editing engagements?’

‘Um, no. I don’t think I know how to do that, exactly.’

‘Right, yeah, that’s probably true. Give me a minute here.’

The last time Zayn felt like this, pets and vets were involved. He doesn’t want his career to have a broken leg.

‘Oh, that’s - Zayn, is the email [email protected] familiar to you? I think we’ve been hacked by teenage fanboys or fangirls. Don’t trust your itinerary: I don’t know where they’re leading you. But I do know you’re being dressed by someone called Lady Lou. When the heck did the aristocracy get involved?’

Dick Grayson. Zayn laughs and sits bolt upright. ‘We haven’t been hacked.’

‘I don’t know why I didn’t see this before, honestly, I’m so sorry. I’m calling IT now. God, this could be the voicemails all over again.’

Zayn is actually holding his side and trying to ignore Danny hammering the wall to get him to stop laughing. Batman and Robin, Harry joked at lunch the other day then made a crack about how technically Alfred took care of Bruce Wayne. Liam had laughed. ‘Sandy, mate, I think I know what’s going on here. Give me til lunch to call you back before you get the tech forensics in, yeah?’

Sandy sounds dubious but agrees. ‘Oh, and I didn’t think it was, but apparently your Friday night is free. I don’t know how that happened either.’

‘That’s all right,’ Zayn says, flopping back across the bed and scrolling through his emails, ‘I think I have an idea.’

*

Zayn really did get into acting so he didn’t have to spend all of his time on the phone, but he’s got two more phone calls to make. He’s pacing less though. His first thing isn’t until half eleven, by some miracle he’s just about ready to put a name and face to.

‘Eh-lo, what’s up, you famous fuck?’

‘Nialler, mate, got a minute?’

‘’Course I do, only just gone midnight over here,’ Niall replies. There’s a tapping sound at the other end of the line and Zayn’s laptop Skype app starts ringing. Niall’s face fills the screen as he sits back, grinning in one of his ridiculous vests and his hair sticking up all ways. ‘What do you need?’

Zayn winces as he realises he didn’t even check the difference before hitting call. He’s been calling Niall - quite literally - at all hours lately. Niall had said to, if he needed anything, but that’s not usually the kind of promise Zayn calls people on.

‘Earth to Zayn, yo, dude, here, now,’ Niall clicks his fingers at the screen and Zayn snaps back to attention. ‘Seriously, how much sleep are you even getting? Should I be phoning people?’

Zayn doesn’t even try to bite back a grin. ‘That’s why I’m ringing you. I think I’ve accidentally acquired an assistant.’

Niall sits up, crossing his legs under him in his room back home. Zayn can picture it beyond the camera edges: he’s been and met Niall’s ridiculous, amazing family, he knows the rock posters and comics that Niall’s not changed since he was twelve, that suit him just as much now, despite having three houses of his own he could be at instead. ‘Mate, whatever Donna Moss taught us, that’s not always the best of plans. Who is it?’

‘You know Liam Payne, right?’

‘Who doesn’t? Good lad, though, glad you two are sorted,’ Niall says, grabbing his mobile.

‘Right, well, his husband kind of hacked Sandy’s set up, but in a good way, because I’m not double booked anymore and I slept for eight hours last night and my @replies have stopped shouting at me and loads of my old photos have been locked, and-’

‘Whoa, whoa,’ Niall raises his hands. ‘We’re talking about that prickly little shit, Lou Tomlinson, right?’

Zayn pauses. He doesn’t want to be wrong about people. He doesn’t. Especially not people who sneak into his Outlook and answer his emailed prayers with DC references.

‘Zayn,’ Niall leans forward, looking into the camera with a striking kind of seriousness, ‘hire him. Do whatever the fuck you have to do to hire the wanker.’

‘You know him?’ There is something familiar about the mix of insult and admiration.

‘Knew him a bit, back in the day, when Harry Styles was a short-arse with dimples in a merman costume,’ Niall shrugs, his I know most people shrug. ‘He hasn’t been working lately, since Liam Payne came out and they got married and got hell for it, but from what I hear, it’s not from a lack of seriously good offers. Whether his husband knows about those, I dunno. If he’s decided you’re the right client, though, take the fucking offer.’

‘He’s a bit of a dick,’ Zayn says slowly, without any real objection. Did he mention he slept for eight whole hours?

Niall sees through it. ‘And probably still has to be dragged out of a comic shop, and hates mornings as much as you do. Probably why he fixed that first and why you like the sodding idiot already.’ Niall runs a hand through his hair. ‘I’ve gotta get back to this funding proposal to six different film councils - don’t ask, you know how I feel about forms - but mate, I’m serious, if you don’t call him in, I will. He’s a bastard to work with if you don’t belong to him, but sometimes you need one of them in your corner, and for at least the next two years, you do.’

That’s pretty much all Zayn needed to hear.

*

The tones of the 1950’s Superman theme sounds and Liam scrubs his face on the towel he’s slung over the treadmill, deciding it’s a good enough signal to pause his work out for the day.

‘Hey, mate,’ Liam answers easily.

‘Hey, um... can I ask you something?’ Zayn sounds... careful. Which Liam is learning means Zayn is nervous about something. It’s been almost two weeks of casual lunches and phone calls in getting to know Zayn. And while they didn’t get papped at the Ivy that first time they’ve got caught at Farmer’s Market (Harry is ridiculous about having fresh produce in the house) and at the Santa Monica Pier last weekend (Louis’s idea when he learned Zayn hadn’t been yet) and each time caused worldwide trending incidents on twitter. A few mags have also caught on to them (New Bromances On The Rise! Has Lirry Expanded Into Zirry?) and despite it having been only a matter of time, and Liam knowing this was just the beginning because he genuinely did like Zayn, it also grated just a bit. Zayn still seems wary, like he was waiting for someone to tell him it was all a publicity stunt or something.

So Liam is careful himself when he answers Zayn.

‘’Course, what’s up?’

‘So right, like, I’ve been talking to some of my PR people and like my schedule has been fixed?’

Liam is glad they’re on the phone because he can’t control his smile. ‘Right then...’

‘But they weren’t the ones to fix it.’

‘Oh.’

‘Like, Liam, this the second week I haven’t been double booked somewhere.’ Zayn is sounding a bit frantic now like he’s trying to still be polite while wanting to ask Liam what the fuck was going on.

‘That’s good though, right?’

He can hear Zayn huff out a deep breath of the phone. ‘Yeah, yeah, that’s great but like Liam... I mean, are you doing this?’

There are several ways Liam could answer this. He goes with the truth.

‘Nope, not me,’ he grabs a bottle of Gatorade from his duffle and takes a slow drink. Well, it’s a sort of truth. He’s not even if does know who is.

Zayn is very clever though; something else Liam has been learning. He’s actually graduated with a Literature degree and he still frowns at Liam’s texts. Even corrects some of his more atrocious spelling mistakes. Lou used to the same. He gave up after a month.

‘So Louis is doing this then?’

‘Well...’

‘Liam! IS LOUIS WORKING FOR ME?’

Liam cringes because Louis hasn’t actually said anything about helping Zayn and his team out, but... it’s not like he’s been very subtle. He makes calls in the kitchen and hums clicking through emails in bed, brows furrowing behind his glasses. It’s very sexy. Liam’s found himself needed to distract Louis from his email more than once in the last week.

Thing is Louis lives to create chaos while at the same time controlling it. Another thing that Liam, for some reason beyond his own understanding, still finds very sexy after all these years. It’s been a very... nice week. But maybe it’s time - past time, quite possibly - they let Zayn know he’s been handed an assist, unofficial as it may be.

He clears his throat and sits on the bench in the gym’s locker room. ‘Technically speaking, Louis doesn’t really work anymore.’

‘Liam!” Zayn definitely sounds frantic and well, maybe a little amused. Liam might be projecting.

‘It’s just that since he stopped being my PA it’s been... um, a delicate situation.’ And that quite possibly is the biggest understatement of his life. Because if Liam coming out had been an issue the fact he came out because he was dating his PA edged so many lines and broke even more. Everyone was fine with Louis pretty much running Liam’s life until they found out they had started shagging, and then after one or two pointed comments Louis had told a few journalists to fuck off and he had to quit working for Liam... on paper anyway. It was his career’s worst kept secret that Louis still helped run half his life. Their lives, really, their lives together. It was still so nice to think of it as that.

Zayn, of course, probably only knew the bare bones and Hollywood gossip version of that. Namely, that Louis married his rich Hollywood client-then boyfriend and was a happily kept man, when really, Liam was the one that felt kept, and unbelievably lucky, most of the time.

‘Look, he’s just... he wanted to help and no offense, mate, but you seemed to need a bit of help. And Lou, he’s really good at what he does.’ Liam’s not sure if he’s explaining or apologising or trying to reassure Zayn that he could be being silently managed by worse people, to be honest.

Over the line, Zayn sighs. ‘Yeah, he really is.’

Liam once more can’t help his smile. ‘Isn’t he?’

‘Don’t sound so bloody smug, Payne.’

‘Sorry.’

‘You really aren’t,’ Zayn laughs.

Liam shrugs even though he knows he’s on the phone and Zayn can’t see him. ‘I’m really not.’

‘God, you’re... ugh. Tell your husband he’s a fucking menance and thank you and like...’ Zayn’s voice goes a little quiet and shy then, ‘Um, you don’t think he wouldn’t mind you know, still helping? Maybe officially?’

Oh and that’s... Fuck. That’s actually perfect. Liam knows that Louis missed working. He stopped “officially” because of many reasons, some having to do with the press, others having to do that there was a fine line of when they came out as a couple and Liam still paying Louis, which even though they knew it wasn’t like that, it was just easier that Louis “quit” as his PA and signed onto half of a joint bank account. Because being Liam Payne’s boyfriend and a PA was another thing that had been hard for many people and many agencies to handle.

They’d even argued about it before the Oscars. Not a big argument, just. Liam had wanted Louis there so badly, this once, and Harry had his own invite, and Lou had pitched a fit. Because we’re both men? Liam had shouted, readying a speech. Fuck off, Li, because I used to be staff. None of those fucks want reminded of that at the sodding Oscars.

And as much as he still was Liam’s number one person to go to for everything, and as much as he kept Liam’s life in order, Liam knows Lou missed controlling other people’s chaos. Combined with the renovations finishing in London and L.A., Louis was edging towards bored lately and Liam knew from experience that was a not a good thing.

‘You serious?’ He has to ask, because he’s as protective of Lou as Lou is of him.

‘Fuck yes, Li,’ - and Liam can’t help but smile at Zayn already picking up on the nickname Harry and Louis throw out like sweeties - ‘it’s been weeks since I’ve been able to sleep past nine. You don’t know how important that is to me.’

Liam laughs. ‘That’s nice.’

‘Seriously, Liam, I’m... like if Louis doesn’t mind I mean, I’ll like for him to you know keep working his magic and be my... what the hell would he be?’

Grinning, Liam packs up his duffel bag and slings it over his shoulder. By the end, he’d lost words for Louis too. ‘Personal Assistant, mostly. He’ll do more, but it doesn’t really have a name. He likes to play at PR and managing too because he’s a ridiculous multitasker and likes to have control of everything.’

‘Brilliant,’ Zayn sounds like a huge weight has been lifted of his chest, his voice bright and soft, ‘you don’t know how brilliant that sounds to me right now. Like I don’t know how he did it but he sorted my schedule with one email and two phone calls. How? I mean, how!’

‘That’s Louis.’ And right now Liam just wants to go home and snog the living daylights out of his husband because he knows how great Louis is. But it’s just-- It’s just lovely to hear when other people see it too. Loves when he sees the effect Louis has the people around him, pulling them in and taking care of them even without them noticing right away. It’s of the first things about Louis he fell for back when he was working for Harry’s agency and he just understood how to deal with a green sixteen year old kid on his first film and make him feel comfortable and safe practically ten thousand miles away from home.

He heads out of the gym still chatting to Zayn and says, ‘I’m heading home now and I’ll tell him to call you and you two can sort it all out? Come over for lunch?’

‘Yeah, thanks, mate, you’re the best. The both of you.’ Zayn says and Liam hears for the first time the sound Zayn’s voice when it’s completely at ease and open.

*

Louis pushes the door of the comic bookshop open and wanders in, Zayn on his heels and curious. The place smells like ink and paper and all the things Zayn loves that aren’t cinema and Perrie. His mouth waters and he wants to start pawing through the racks of issues. Sure, he’s got a lot of them, but sometimes he just wants to say hello to his favourites in passing. Waving to his favourite issues is like running into a mate on the street and getting a bonus, unexpected hug in his day.

‘Thought we’d better get away for an hour,’ Louis says, walking ahead with a wave, ‘Stan, my room free?’ The guy behind the desk nods and says something about knowing where Yorkshire is - maybe it’s a password? maybe it’s a figure of speech? - and sticks his nose back in the bound volume he’s reading. Louis beckons Zayn forward. ‘Dunno if you’ve noticed, but there’s something about Liam and Harry that’s distracting as fuck, and I don’t just mean Harry’s allergy to getting to the point.’

‘Can we -’ Louis is tugging his sleeve insistently now - ‘What - no- why are you pulling me past the comic books?’

‘My office is back here.’

‘You have an office.’

Zayn tries to keep the disbelief out of his voice, but, well, last night they’d read script treatments while surrounded by pizza boxes and Louis stretched the neck of a Toy Story tshirt that must have been half a pjs set once upon a time, then they’d played Fifa.

(And somehow, possibly because Louis had deputised Liam in halfway through, the giant slush pile of scripts Ant and Danny had been threatening to make into wallpaper had ended up in separate piles for the courier to take back to the actual studio office the next day.)

Louis pauses at a door that has ZAP! spray-painted across the window to look over his shoulder and grin at Zayn wickedly. ‘I had a corner office for a bit, actually, with a very springy desk chair. Liam was ever so fond of working lunches.’

Zayn shakes his head sharply and Louis’s laugh disappears into the room ahead.

It’s a small room, reminds Zayn of the scenes in Fringe with the typewriter, except there’s a makeshift tea station with an actual kettle and box of Yorkshire tea (not a figure of speech, then) in the corner, and he could fucking weep just looking at them. Also, it’s papered all around, floor and ceiling included, with posters and front covers from comics. He hopes they’re scans or or pages from horribly broken copies, but.

‘Don’t think I ever needed to know that, mate,’ Zayn says, taking a seat at the little table with the steampunk desk lights.

‘The more you know!’ Louis says cheerfully, and plonks a cup of tea - a proper actual cup of tea - in front of him a minute later. ‘So, we’re going to work this shit out now,’ Louis says, still bright, but it’s got an edge, and he tilts the desk light up to Zayn’s eyes like a police interrogation on TV. ‘In case you’re wondering, this is the part Liam and Harry would hate watching, because they repressed the memory instantly, and probably, so will you.’

Zayn pulls the cup - it’s got a Superman logo, of course - towards him and cups his hands around it everywhere but the handle. The warmth is comforting, even if he feels there should be atmospheric smoke and bags of money and possibly contraband, but maybe that’s because he’s been reading and discarding shitty noir Raymond Chander wannabe crime efforts into the ‘paper recycling’ pile for two days. ‘I’m listening,’ Zayn says slowly, reminded of that time he was pulled in by the studio with Niall to be told, officially, he probably wasn’t going to get the Oscar because ‘you know’, but congrats on the nom.

It’s the first time he’s thought about that meeting since the ceremony.

It’s a good feeling.

‘So in a minute,’ Louis says, ‘I’m going to ask you a whole barrel of really rude, nosy questions. You can ask me a bunch, if you like. But the thing is, mate,’ Zayn looks up, ‘I’m working for you. I’m never going to be the person trying to get you to do something that isn’t actually in your own interests. You copy?’

Zayn frowns. ‘Not sure. That sounds like the short version. Give me the long one?’

Louis takes a drink of his tea and props his feet up on a busted piano stool that’s lying next to the table, probably for that reason. Zayn’s never seen him use a chair properly for more than five seconds. Louis waves an expressive hand and Zayn thinks he’s going to brush off the question - it’s what most of the management he’s ever met have done. (Zayn gets it. He’s their job, and you don’t tell your job about your cat, but sometimes Zayn would quite like to watch their shitty cat videos and not think about his stomach and the red carpet.)

‘I worked for agencies for a long time. I don’t have to tell you I’m very good at this,’ Louis says, mouth twisting, eyes on Zayn’s. He tilts his head. ‘Somewhere around the last .... oh, four months of working with Harry, I stopped wanting to do that anymore. Then Liam’s career went boom overnight, he needed someone actually on his staff, so about three years after he stole me from Harry -’ Louis grins at that, props his hand on his cheek, they’re bloody ridiculous, but Zayn is surprised at the fondness in the thought, ‘-I quit and started working for Liam directly.’

‘What does that mean, in terms of what you do every day? What does it change?’ Zayn hasn’t had anybody working with him before, not like that, so he’s not sure he’ll know the difference.

‘Means I don’t have to get anything out of you that you don’t want to give, mate,’ Louis says bluntly, tossing an Oreo into his mouth and reaching behind for the unopened pack of cookies instead. ‘Like, you hit your head on the way out of a venue, my priority is whether you’ve done your nut in, not phoning a studio to tell them you might have a cosmetic issue when we get there. I get to look out for your meal breaks instead of some talking head telling me to fit another interview into your next two minutes. Same token, though: you say you’re going til 11pm, but at nine, you want to go home? Tough, I’ll bug you into staying awake.’ Louis grins, teeth sharp. ‘I’m quite annoying. Wait til your first six am flight.’

‘I can believe that,’ Zayn says slowly, then sinks into the chair with a sigh. ‘I know I’m going to regret this, but yeah. Let’s. Do we, um, talk terms or something?’

Louis chucks him the Oreo pack when he reaches for it. ‘We just did. Here,’ Louis pushes a piece of paper at him.

‘What’s this?’

‘Three management companies better than your own,’ Louis points at the names, ‘but not that much better than each other. So pick the one that would have the best jersey in the Grand National if they were horses, and I’ll set up a meeting with them first.’

Zayn swallows and goes for the one he would put in bright superhero colours. Louis nods, no reaction, and Zayn wonders if there’s really no difference or if that was a test. ‘Wait, how do I pay you? Money?’

‘Well not in sexual favours,’ Louis replies, grinning, ‘Who’s your accountant? I’ll call and set something up.’

It should scare Zayn that he just scribbles his newly-acquired (newly-bloody-minted, for what he charges by the hour) accountant’s details on a page without asking how much Louis is going to take him for. He’s that desperate, now that he remembers what almost-rested feels like.

‘Hmm.’

Zayn turns a laugh into a cough when he sees fire accountant, get better accountant go on Louis’s list.

‘And the only rule I want you to stick by just now?’

Zayn nods. He’s doing a lot of that. Louis is kind of a shock to the system.

Louis raises an eyebrow. ‘You don’t schedule anything in your diary in a space that’s less than two hours. Two hours in L.A. is a ten minute photoshoot with make up in the traffic jam and time to get there and back if you’re lucky, not a blank slot. Is that clear?’ Zayn nods, and almost sags in relief. So that’s where his team had been going wrong. Local knowledge. ‘You ready for question time, ‘cause this office has beers if you need ‘em?’

Zayn shakes his head and cracks his neck out with a roll of his head. ‘Bring it. How much worse than Ryan fucking Seacrest can you be?’

So much fucking worse.

Zayn wants to hide his flaming cheeks about five minutes in, and that was Louis soft-balling him, because it only gets worse. He’s fucked, he’s completely fucked. Except Louis wants to know the particulars of how he likes that, too, just in case there’s something waiting for the press to trip over. Perrie’s going to kill him, if he ever admits to admitting some of what he’s just told Louis. He’s not even judgemental about it, just clinical.

‘We should double-date with Perrie,’ Louis says in a break from the Spanish Inquisition, passing him a beer.

‘Not if this is your idea of dinner conversation,’ Zayn mutters, putting his own feet up on some beat up furniture.

Louis laughs and it sounds loud, thumbing the radio in the corner on. ‘Nah, mate, trust me. This is just me checking if there’s anything I should be protecting that’s yours. I’m pretty much unshockable at this point. If you want horrifying, try imagining me having this chat with Liam the very first time. We’ve grown as people since then.’

‘You were fucking with him.’

‘I was confused by him.’

‘Ha.’

‘Harry was a laugh, though, boy doesn’t understand shame, so I kept pushing, and he kept just grinning and answering right back,’ Louis shakes his head and downs the last third of his first beer.

‘Have you had other - clients?’ Zayn is suddenly curious - he’s never heard him talk about anyone else.

‘When I started, I did. Then six months here, a year there - patch jobs filling in when somebody needed their entire set up fixed and handed on,’ Louis grins wolfishly, ‘and a few that didn’t work out. We didn’t get on, if you can believe that. You know, as people.’

‘Mystery of the universe, that one,’ Zayn mutters, and the glass bottom of his beer hits the table again. ‘Right. What next?’

‘Food allergies? Food fetishes? Got any?’

Zayn is so fucked.

*

Liam misses their house. It’s a thought that creeps up on him more than a few times a week. The penthouse they’ve rented while the renovations are finished is fine, but he misses the little things like the view from his and Lou’s bedroom, the closeness of the ocean, their sofa, and right now their home office. He misses Lady Lou and Lux visiting and camping out in the walk in wardrobes. Zayn’s left over scripts litter the coffee table and he actually enjoyed the reading process for someone else. He thinks they’ve found Zayn a few really good projects and maybe one or two great ones.

The discarded pile on their coffee table is getting sent back to whoever, except... there’s one Liam wants to keep. It wasn't a bad script, that’s not why it was discarded, it had just been so wrong for Zayn, and the thing is Liam doubts that it would have ever been sent to him, but he hasn’t been able to stop thinking about it.

Still, it was meant for Zayn, even if he didn’t want it.

Liam’s about pick it up and leaf through it again when Harry plops down on him. Literally on him. Harry’s bony arse digs into his thighs and he wraps his arms around Liam like he’s a two year old and not a grown man of twenty-three.

Harry rubs his forehead into Liam’s cheek and that’s no surprise, Harry’s a cuddly lad. They all have pretty much eviscerated the notion of personal space in their lives so Harry climbing over him isn’t a shock, but it’s the way he’s sighing and how he’s acting like Liam is the only thing holding him together.

‘Haz, love, what’s wrong?’ Liam runs his fingers through Harry’s curls and shifts them a bit so they’re more comfortable on the sofa.

‘I won’t be back in the UK for months.’

And okay? Liam already knew that. He and Lou know Harry’s schedule sometimes better than Liam’s own because they try to be in London or L.A. whenever Harry is as Harry can get so lonely on his own. Louis once spent two months in Vancouver, boxes unpacked in his own new place in L.A., because Harry called him in near tears going on about how he was clearly getting fired because he was being so horrible on screen. No matter that the film he was making was only the first of four and made him an international superstar.

So yes, Liam’s well acquainted with Harry’s bouts of homesickness, but they normally don’t creep up on them if Liam or Louis are actually with him.

But Harry sounds absolutely devastated.

Which...

‘Is something wrong at home?’ Liam doubts it. If something serious had happened Anne would have called Liam or Louis before Harry, to get them in position, and outside family Liam’s not sure what’s making Harry sound so sad.

Harry shakes his head and buries his face into Liam’s chest. ‘Iwstakingtonic.’

Liam frowns and tugs Harry’s face up, ‘English please?’

‘I was talking to Nick,’ he mumbles, and ah. Well, Liam can’t say he didn’t see that coming, but still. He and Louis have been wondering just how serious Harry is about Nick. He thinks he might just be getting their answer.

‘He all right then?’ You all right?

Harry grumbles something into Liam’s shirt. Liam pokes his side. ‘Words, Hazza.’

‘He’s there and I’m here and I’m going to be here for months and he’s going to be there forever,’ Harry mumbles and slides down against Liam. Liam bites the inside of his cheek. It wouldn’t be nice to laugh at Harry, not when he’s clearly missing Nick so much, but this is just too adorable.

‘Not forever, he travels doesn’t he?’ He begins running his fingers through Harry’s hair because it always works to calm him.

‘Yeah, but he lives there, Li.’

‘So do we.’

Harry’s eyebrows do something angsty and complicated and really, he’s like an angry kitten. It’s bloody adorable. ‘Yeah, but we also live here...’ he frowns at the window, ‘I hate L.A.’

Liam can’t help the laugh that escapes him. ‘You don’t, you liar. You just miss your boy...’ Liam trails off there because he’s not sure if Harry and Nick have had that talk, but Harry’s brought Nick home - and their proper home nearer the beach and also the house in London and probably New York - more than once, though so far, only while Liam and Louis have been travelling. Harry is always in between London and L.A, sometimes New York City, and Nick is very much mostly always in London.

Not for the first time Liam knows how lucky he is that even before they got together Lou was always with him. He wonders what it will be like now that Lou is working with Zayn and that will mean that he’s splitting his time and going back to work, but...

They’ll manage.

They always do.

Zayn is mostly based in London, too, and Liam has the distinct suspicion that Louis didn’t always have to be attached to Liam’s side like he used to be. That had been... well, him and Louis being daft and trying so hard not to push that line. A line which they latter pretty much erased from existence.

Still, they should probably have that conversation.

Right now, however, he’s got a lap full of a pouting Harry, and Louis is out sorting out Zayn’s life and getting him pissed. Squinting at the window, Liam’s almost sure the day has grown dimmer. Definitely getting him pissed. If they’re having the conversations Liam tries to never, ever think about ever again, he hopes Zayn is holding up all right. Liam should probably try to mention - tactfully - that Louis won’t tell him anything they talk about just because they’re married.

‘I think I want him to be my boyfriend,’ Harry says, slowly, bringing Liam back to the conversation. Liam sighs. That’s a lot, for Harry. That’s going to be a lot for Harry’s career, but that’s familiar territory for them, and ‘committed relationship’ is a whole new adventure.

‘Have you told him that?’

Harry shrugs, burying his face in Liam’s thigh. ‘He’s... I know he likes me.’

‘He does,’ Liam says. And waits.

Harry blinks up at him, eyes all bright looking at Liam as if by him saying the words, it makes it somehow more true. ‘Y’think?’

‘Yeah, Lou’s been practically asking him his intentions,’ he says, which makes Harry giggle and yeah, that’s better. Liam pokes at the dimple. ‘He does like you but there’s a difference between shagging when you’re in the same city and being together, properly.’

Harry wails, there’s no other word for it, ‘I know! And I hate it! And he’s all... “see you next time” like that’s it! And yeah we talk but he’s going out with his friends and what if he meets someone! What if he like likes them! Because I’m in here. I hate L.A..’

‘Then tell him you like like him and you want to be together even when you’re not in the same city.’

‘Long distance sucks,’ Harry grumbles again.

‘Yeah, it does, but sometimes it’s worth it.’ Liam remembers the days when Lou would be London, working, and he’d be on location somewhere and even then, when they weren’t even together, it was the worst. They'd been so daft.

The deep breath Harry takes sucks almost all the air out of the room and covers his face with a cushion. Liam tries not to find it endearing, angry kitten, and pulls it off. Clearly they need a little distraction.

He gets up off the sofa, pulling Harry with him and directs them into the kitchen. ‘Come on, Haz, I’m hungry and craving some pie. We can try for that fancy one you’ve been wanting to make. And we can plan out your Skype seduction of Nick and you can tell me that I’m not a twat for liking a script that wasn’t sent to me.’

Harry brightens a little and wraps his arms around Liam’s neck. ‘Leeeee-yum, I love you, you’re my favourite.’

Liam laughs, ‘Well, you might not want to lead with that when you talk to Nick.’

Harry’s laughter is bright and loud and happy, just like Harry always ought be, and he goes about raiding the kitchen area, muttering about the space, for the baking supplies they made sure to buy for him with all their usual stuff back under a pile of renovations.

Liam’s leaning on the kitchen island when Harry’s head pops out of the fridge, brows furrowed, and he’s been wondering when Harry would catch on.

‘You liked a script?’

Liam tries not to flush, but, well, ‘It was sent to Zayn; it’s in the slush pile, and Zayn didn’t like it but, like...’

Harry’s arms are full and Liam reaches for the milk before it slips out of its precarious perch. He might be avoiding Harry’s eyes which are fixed on him.

‘Li, you really are the best, you know,’ he says, soft and Liam really tries not duck his head.

He smiles back up at Harry. ‘So are you.’

‘Is the script good?’ Harry starts organising the supplies on the countertop.

‘Yes.’ Liam starts mixing the butter and sugar together as Harry hands them to him.

‘Did Zayn want it?’

‘No.’

‘Do you like it?’

Liam cocks an eyebrow at Harry, ‘Yes.’

‘Then go for it, Li. If you think this project is worth it, go for it. You’ve never backed down before.’ And the look Harry is giving him reminds Liam of another time where Liam told Harry about coming out and Harry had hugged him and then stood by him (and Lou) for the whole shitstorm.

‘You don’t think Zayn will mind?’

Harry laughs. ‘I very much doubt it. Zayn’s a good lad, he’ll probably be happy he helped you with something considering you know...’ he waves his hand and Liam snickers.

‘Not sure how much he’ll be thanking me after his first proper argument with Lou.’

His and Harry’s eyes meet and they both shudder. Lou can be scary. Sometimes not even in the sexy way Liam likes.

‘Yeah.’

‘Yeah.’

They stand for a couple seconds in silence, lost in their own thoughts, and then Harry throws a handful of the special caster sugar he makes Liam and Louis buy at Liam’s chest.

‘Hey!’

Harry is all dimples and curls. ‘Are we making pie or what? I’m tired of thinking.’

Liam grabs a little bit flour and tosses it back. ‘Yeah, we are.’

*

They don’t have a waking up together habit. They’ve both spent too many years snatching sleep on planes and in cars, slipping out of the bedroom before the sun’s up. But Liam just happens to slip out of the bed and into the kitchen the morning Louis has his first management meetings in two years - a whole day of them, to boot - as a representative rather than as a ‘complication.’

He knows Lou got up early to have an extra long shower. Sometimes, he’s so good at compensating for his own extremes that Liam aches to see it. He wants to spend enough hours in bed, but not asleep, to work the tightness from Lou’s back, and hates that sometimes five more minutes under a hot shower will have to do the work for him.

Still.

The coffee pot starts bubbling as the bathroom door in their room closes and Liam finds eggs and bread. He fries the bread up French. Usually he can’t be bothered and slings the eggs in to fry, or makes Harry do it, but it’s less potential mess this way, and if he remembers rightly-

There’s a muttered curse from the bedroom and two dress shoes, grey suede with thin laces, hit the side of the breakfast bar in quick succession, followed by a satchel that Liam knows has seen half the world. Last time it started falling to bits, halfway through filming City, Louis had learned enough of three different local dialects to talk to the only person with strong enough tools to fix the leather strap.

Liam bites his lip, puts the radio on and plates up the toast onto the breakfast bar. ‘Babe, food.’

‘Coffee?’

‘First cup done.’

Liam ducks his head. It’s just all so familiar - in a different way to them being married. From before even that. From before even them. Lou doesn’t drink black coffee in the morning because he likes it. It was one of the first things Liam learned about him, when they were learning each other. Maybe he missed Lou working a bit, too.

‘My hero,’ Lou shouts back.

There’s a muttered litany of swear words and Liam looks up to see Lou stumbling, one hand on the door frame, wincing at the bend in his back and trying to pull on his socks.

‘Come on, old man,’ Liam says as the clock display on the oven ticks over to half seven.

He gets a glare, remarkably visible since Lou’s hair is swept up and away from his eyes, and a middle finger. Then Louis stands up, triumphant against the trial of putting on his own socks.

And well, fuck.

Liam probably shouldn’t be operating heavy machinery. Like a coffee machine.

He supposes Lou probably looked this good the first time around, and he’s giving past Liam serious willpower points for keeping his hands to himself for so long, because. Well. Fuck.

And Louis knows he’s just short circuited Liam’s brain, if his smirk is anything to go by, but in Liam’s defence, if Louis won’t come to awards shows and get him used to seeing him dressed up, it’s going to get a reaction.

The suit trousers are sharply tailored to Louis’s hips, snug at the waist, white shirt tucked in, collar with royal blue edges at the neck and cuffs, buttoned up to the neck and material gathering at his shoulders. Then his hair. Dragged up like it’s had Liam’s hands in it. Red socks peeking out from under the hems, with strips of the morning sunlight across his slightly curled toes. Liam’s throat is dry all of a sudden, and when he turns back from the sink with a glass of water in his hand, Louis is on his side of the breakfast bar and looking up at him.

‘Fix my cufflinks for me?’

Liam does, keeping his eyes fixed on the material covering up the soft skin of Lou’s wrists. It’s the lesser of two evils. Though he’s got two bright, bright blue eyes fixed delightedly on Liam’s face, so they’re two evils all on their own. Liam takes a breath and looks up at Lou, who raises an eyebrow, and the same sunlight blinks on the metal surface, reminding Liam of the ring on his left hand.

He can touch now. Doesn’t just have to stand there, losing his words through his heels.

So he does, letting his fingertips linger at Lou’s hips, settling over the bones there, reaching to pull him closer by the loose hanging braces and turns him so that Liam’s back is against the surface with the food and crumbs on it. Lou moves easily, stepping one foot between Liam’s legs so Liam’s hand slips to against his lower back and their mouths meet, trading lazy, slow kisses thick with morning. Lou still tastes a little like toothpaste. The smooth pressed white of the shirt glides under his palm, and Liam can see the outlines of Lou’s darker tattoos through the material. He sees the edge of the one across his collarbone and groans against Lou’s mouth.

‘You used to wear vests under these,’ Liam mutters, pressing light kisses against Louis’s fresh-shaved jaw. He’s not so mean as to give him a lovebite before he goes out the door, though it’s not like Louis doesn’t have form to deserve it. Instead, he feels Louis squirming against him and slips his hands back down to find the loose braces and draw them up over Lou’s shoulders, hands settling under the braces on his shoulder blades.

‘Hmm, recent employers have been more open to the tattoos than the agency was,’ Louis replies, making a disgruntled noise in his throat as Liam pulls away to kiss his knuckles and then wrap Lou’s hand around a coffee cup.

‘Oh look at the time,’ Liam says slowly, taking a bite of his own French toast and sliding back to sit on one of the stools, feet still against the ground. Louis hops up to the one next to him and crosses his ankles with the length of his shin against Liam’s leg.

‘Twenty minutes until the car gets here,’ Louis says automatically, pulling his phone out of his trousers pocket and putting it face up on the breakfast bar.

‘Plenty of time for coffee, toast and some tea, then,’ Liam answers, pushing the plates towards him.

Louis looks up from the toast with a crooked grin. ‘What if I’d rather see what else you can do en francais?’

Liam huffs a quiet laugh and tangles their free hands together. ‘Come home wearing that outfit and you won’t have to wonder.’

*

Harry’s feeling quite pleased with his day all around. He made amaretto cupcakes - he misses their proper kitchen, but he’s still a genius with a piping bag, so it’s all good - and he and Liam worked through the latest giant packages of script treatments with their names on them. Then he Skyped with Tom and Lux, which was mainly making silly faces and trying to stop Tom accidentally ending the call while Lux gave him disdainful looks.

That lasted until lunch or so.

(Then he didn’t check the internet. It was a moment where he could have, and he didn’t. He’s having an analogue day from right now. For reasons.)

Then he picked up the latest doorstop classic he’s been eyeing and curled up on the sofa with 1104 pages of David Foster Wallace and his earbuds in (playlist, not radio), and God knows how many hours ago that was.

The sun is still so hot it’s shaky in the sky outside the window, which means very little to the time, and Liam is dozing in the other chair after a gym workout and shower, hair damp against his forehead and one trackie leg rucked up to the knee over the leg of the sofa.

Harry hears the discussion before the lift doors open and he’s reconsidering the word ‘discussion’ as soon as they do. He frowns and lets the buds fall into his lap, trying to look really hard at the page. The first argument Zayn and Louis have is going to be epic, but he had thought they’d a month or two before that.

‘So glad you’ve reconsidered your position, we’ll be in touch tomorrow by email with confirmation of the workflow and percentages. Always a pleasure, Rickie,’ though it sounds anything but, and the sound of a phone sat down on the breakfast bar. Harry idly hopes Lou’s remembered to get the proper phone insurance again now that he’s back in the PA game: he remembers the number of fancy phones he broke against walls and other surfaces, or threw in pools ‘by accident’, in the last bit before Lou moved on to Liam’s contract rather than via the agency.

‘Twelve point five?’ Zayn’s voice is carefully neutral.

There’s a snort. ‘For an accountant, he’s an insufferable optimist about numbers when they’re going into his personal account. Seven plus the standard retainer, and that’s bloody generous. He knew that would be the number at lunchtime, you know, when I said it, he just wanted another whiskey on our money. It’ll be five point five plus the fee by next February and he’ll be fucking delighted about it.’

‘Because I’ll be making a lot of money?’

‘Now you’re getting it. Right,’ two shoes go flying past Harry’s view from the kitchen to the bedroom, followed by the travelling satchel that he’s pretty sure is made of radioactive leather or something, because it never seems to degrade at a rate visible to the human eye. ‘Honey, I’m home!’

Louis rounds to the living area and eyes Harry, who hasn’t turned a page of his book in some time. ‘Honey, have you seen my husband?’

Harry points at the cupcakes and then Liam, then fixes on Zayn, who’s braced against the back of the couch like he needs it to stand up straight.

Lou’s grin softens and he kisses Zayn on the cheek, to his complete surprise. ‘Later, mate? Stick around, though. Haz’ll cook you something worth eating.’

Zayn’s eyebrows come together and he looks around the apartment, most of which they can see. ‘Where are you -?’

Louis is already shrugging off his neat braces and kissing Liam’s nose. ‘Babe, come on.’

Harry nudges the cupcakes plate closer to Zayn, who folds himself over the back of Harry’s couch to get one and looks like he doesn’t know if he wants to hug or eat it. He doesn’t stand back up straight - he leans on his elbows on the back of the couch and tilts his head at a god-awful angle to read the back of Harry’s book.

On the other couch, Lou is pulling a quickly-waking Liam to his feet with a yawn that Liam repeats. It’s a shitty performance, though, because Harry sees the way Liam takes in Lou’s slightly ruffled suit and braces with his hand tightening around Lou’s arm, and that lip bite that Liam does when he’s tempted: Harry’s seen him bite his lip at a script he isn’t sure he’s allowed, the last slice of pie on the table, a new video game, and Louis. He doesn’t miss the way Lou’s eyes go dark when Liam pushes his damp hair back off his forehead and his t-shirt rides up, either, because Lou’s got fuck all of a poker face, and he stopped trying to fake one the day he left his transatlantic posh corner offices to take up residence at Liam’s kitchen table.

Their bedroom door closes on a, ‘Knackered, lads, first day back and all. Stealing a pillow for a nap.’ Harry believes exactly none of it, and maybe they’ve had zero personal space for too long by some people’s standards, but it’s funny as fuck, so.

Once the door is securely shut and Zayn and Harry are left alone in the living room, Harry turns back to face Zayn. Who says:

‘He’s a scary fuck, he is.’

Harry ducks his head. They don’t forget that, exactly, but Louis is Louis, and Zayn doesn’t have to say anything else, because Harry’s been in those rooms, too, with Louis cutting people off before they ask for an inch, never mind a mile. Harry gets that some people don’t love Louis the way they do, because all they get to see is Lou protecting someone else’s interests, and he’s a lot to deal with. But Liam and Harry get everything else of him, too, and they’ve just folded those things into the rest.

Harry pats the sofa and Zayn falls over the back of it with his back braced against Harry’s knees and a cupcake in his hand a minute later.

‘He did right by you, though.’

Zayn rolls out his neck and Harry cards his hair with one hand. Clearly Zayn’s adjusted to their lack of boundaries, which is probably a good thing. ‘So many meetings, man. Boardrooms. I don’t even know. It was all - stuff. Accountants, post boxes, insurance - so many kinds of insurance - advertising... Do you know I have a special lock box just for my awards and my Oscar now? I mean, of course you do, but that’s a thing. Like Gringotts.’ Zayn trails off into a yawn.

Harry understands that feeling. The ‘that’s a thing that happens’ feeling. He waits.

‘Yeah, Lou really did. Did most of the talking, too. Those bastards hated him sometimes, I could tell, but he just - yeah. Don’t know how he’s got the energy to- anyway.’

Harry grins. Of course Lou did. It’s nice that Zayn noticed them wanting to rip each other’s clothes off, too, though. Sometimes Harry doesn’t know when they’re being just that obvious or if it’s because he’s been around them so much.

Zayn sighs and stretches, then gives Harry a shifty look before hitting something on his phone. Harry hears a ping from his room that means he has a new email. ‘What did you send me?’

Zayn has the decency to look ashamed, but also very firm. He throws a look to the closed door in the suite and then looks back to Harry. ‘I sent you lists. Buy them, read them - in that order - don’t tell Louis, don’t argue, and don’t mix them until you’re done.’

Harry grins and sits up properly. ‘Thanks?’

‘I said I’d phone Niall after management apocalypse today,’ Zayn says, standing up with a shake of his head and waving off Harry’s thanks, ‘but Louis said something about food?’

Harry eyes Zayn’s skinny jeans and rolls himself off the couch to duck his head around his bedroom door for a second. Zayn catches the trackies and hoodie that Harry throws him against his chest. Harry can’t remember if they started out as his or Liam’s this time. Not that it matters. ‘I cook properly. You don’t want that jacket and those jeans near the pans when stuff heats up.’ And they look bloody uncomfortable to sleep in, but that might just be Harry assuming Zayn’s about to fall over.

When Zayn falls asleep curled up on the sofa two hours later, which is an hour before they’ll see Liam and Louis again, and when Harry nabs a pic of Zayn for instagram, it’s with Harry’s hood up and his feet curled up inside the fleecy trackie bottoms that are too long on him. Harry toggles between his recipe apps and his neglected comix app while he stirs the risotto for four, looking up the list Zayn sent over and starting with... Zayn bolded The Long Halloween, so he’s going to start there.

replacing me already, filmstar?

Harry grins and switches to view his instant messages. Nick must just be just finishing lunch. (He knows this because he always knows UK time. It’s not just Nick time.)

never! he did gimme comic lists tho.

The reply is instant, like the app promises: i’ll fight him to the death.

Well, Harry doesn’t think it needs to come to that, but maybe they could mud wrestle for a chocolate medal or something. There’s a warm feeling in his stomach, the kind he was craving when he pulled out the risotto rice.

*

‘Hey marrieds!’

Zayn looks around in time to see the slightly smug look that Louis throws Liam’s way before jumping on Harry, crook of his elbow around Harry’s neck and trapping his curls. It takes Louis’s feet clean off the ground, and Harry batters into Zayn’s side, where he steadies himself against Zayn, and Liam claims Louis back on the other.

‘We have names, Harold.’

Harry reaches a hand up in the dark corridor to idly tap a fairy light in the shape of a leaf. They’re chasing an urban secret garden underground, as you do. Actually, as they never do, and it’s taken a lot of fast talking and Zayn-doesn’t-want-to-know-what to get Louis, and then their security, on board.

‘You love it,’ Harry replies, grinning over his shoulder as they head towards the thumping noise ahead.

Zayn feels giddy, like he could climb on Liam’s back instead of walking, so he does just that. It’s just. It’s Friday. Friday! He’s looking forward to the weekend! Out loud, apparently.

Louis grabs him by the cuff of the neck and shakes him like an errant puppy while he waggles a finger in his face. ‘If you get that stuck in my head, or bring a plague of hipsters down on us, so help me I will -’

Liam laughs and slides between them, claiming Lou’s flailing hands and walking backwards, pulling him with as Harry leads the way. ‘Sing away, Zayn! I think you have a perfectly lovely voice!’

‘Bloody marrieds,’ Harry shouts again, grinning and bouncing as they reach the end of the tunnel. There’s a few looks in their direction as the room opens up to an old theatre stripped of its seats and more faded than grandeur, with a DJ pounding out beats from one of the boxes. For all the evening’s supposed hipster cred, Zayn can hear that it’s Britney (bitch), and feels Harry tugging them into the heaving dance floor. Zayn grabs a flyer from the wall on the way past - he’s so bringing Perrie next time she visits, she’d love it, all the girls would - and finds himself on a hipster dancefloor with Harry Styles, Liam Payne and Louis Tomlinson.

What actually is his life.

Fuck if he knows.

But it’s really hard to do his usual shuffle sway do-not-want-to-be-there move (singular. he has one move) when Harry Styles is flailing long limbs like a helicopter against the grain of the song. Zayn feels his mouth fall open slightly. It’s just. Harry’s one long line of a boy that goes on and on with curls on top; he looks like he should possess some kind of grace. Except.

Of course, Louis is a bundle of every kind of energy, and he’s shamelessly grabbing the back of Liam’s neck three steps in, and Liam looks like he has actual moves, which is less surprising. Zayn shrugs and tries to loosen up his limbs, can hear the song crying to scream, shout and let it all out, and that’s actually, yeah - that’s actually where he’s at. Friday. Weekend.

They stumble off of the dance floor, there’s a few people asking for high fives and fist bumps, which they give (not for his dancing, clearly), then on to the clear space by the no service area of the bar. Harry snatches the flyer from Zayn’s hand, then grabs his hand to examine the entry stamp, then swears sharply.

‘’Getting Warm’ is the nine fifteen set,’ Harry shouts to Louis, while Liam grins and pulls Zayn into a turn, then leaves his arm there and makes as if he’ll mess up Zayn’s hair with the other, but pulls back at the last minute. ‘’Turn It Up’ at nine thirty.’

Louis pulls out his phone and shows it to them instead of shouting. It says 9:29.

The club takes a collective breath as the lights flicker and ultraviolet light floods the room in irregular pulses as the beat drops on the next track. It’s a heavy bass remix of a Jay-Z track Zayn loves and he thinks he could maybe dance again, maybe, if Harry pulls them back out there. Except, is that-?

He pulls the flyer back from Harry and holds it up to the light. There’s a pattern under the black ink that only shows up in the ultraviolet light. There’s a flutter of other flyers going into the air, others figuring it out.

‘It doesn’t make sense,’ Harry shouts into Zayn’s ear, squinting at the design.

Louis grins suddenly and makes a grabby hand for the flyer. Zayn passes it to him and he shouts, triumphantly, ‘Turn it up!’

Upside down, it’s a sketch of a logo they’d have to be much, much more drunk not to recognise, and a map.

*

Paul raises his eyebrows as the four of them jump out of the SUV, and Liam knows that this time, they’re definitely going to get papped in high def and tweeted about inside of five minutes, because this is definitely the most ridiculous thing they’ve done lately.

But Liam doesn’t actually have it in him to care.

Lou and Zayn are spilling out ahead, landing on their feet and holding the flyer between them, pointing at bits of the street where it lines up, and Harry is giggling quietly into his phone. They’re all right, all of them, and they’re running around the town on a Friday night. It feels almost proper, in a backwards way, bunch of lads out and about.

Harry presses himself against Liam’s back and lets out a sigh.

‘I know, Haz, I know,’ Liam says and pats his hair, looking ahead. He remembers too.

‘Do you think we have time?’

They look at each other and break into a run, ignoring Paul and Lou’s shouts to wait up. Liam pulls out ahead of Harry by a few feet with a laugh before he grinds to a halt and feels Harry brake by slamming into his side.

‘I still love that we got ones near each other,’ Liam says, pointing. Harry grins and drops to his knees to kiss the pavement next to Liam’s name. Liam sees a few people getting their cameras out, but there’s a bubble in his chest that won’t let him sink. Lou would probably tell him that’s the beer talking - all two of them - but Liam prefers to think that he’s just happy.

‘NO WAY,’ Zayn shouts, standing four feet to the left, clutching at Louis for support, who nods and holds him up while Zayn paws at his chest before turning to glare at Liam and Harry with murderous eyes. ‘It’s bad enough you have Hollywood Boulevard stars already, but you’re on either side of Christopher Bloody Nolan! That’s not even fair!’

‘Only time I’ve wanted to be an actor, believe me, I know, and I was here when they got them,’ Louis consoles him, rubbing a hand up and down Zayn’s back. ‘Liam asked him to sign my copy of Year One at a thing once. I’ll show you back at ours.’

Liam finds Louis’s eyes with his own. He remembers carrying it in his bag all morning, giving Lou ridiculous reasons not to go in his bag, and Lou carrying it around in his broken, ancient satchel for about three months after.

‘Marrieds,’ Zayn says with a hiccup. ‘You’re being married.’

‘Why is everyone giving us gyp for that tonight?’ Lou lifts Liam’s arm and slides against his side with a glare to Harry. ‘Is it because I have the hottest husband and you’re all jealous?’

‘Wave, Lou, six o’clock,’ Liam mutters into Lou’s ear, and waves at the polite crowd on the other side of the street. Lou waves obediently for once, possibly because he’s got a hand in Liam’s back pocket. Liam leans closer. ‘And you’re wrong - I’ve got the hottest husband here.’

The corner of Lou’s mouth twitches.

Harry looks at the flyer again, then checks his watch. ‘Where there’s a Will-?’

‘Will Smith?’ Liam asks, and they all run down the street to where Will Smith’s handprints and signature are enshrined in concrete.

There’s going to be some really weird pictures online in the morning.

Liam grins, because he still doesn’t care.

*

They gather around the square like it’s a ritual and peer down at it.

‘In County Westmeath, Ireland, born and raised, editing suite where I spend most of my days!’

Zayn jerks upright so hard he nearly bangs his head off Harry’s and turns.

‘Chilling out, maxin’, relaxin’ all cool - gerroff, Zayn, I’ve got flow here - shooting some skating scenes down by the scho-!’

But Zayn doesn’t let go, can’t even if he tried, just pulls him in tighter until he can’t rap, because Niall. Niall is there. Niall is on the same street as him, and Zayn is so fucking glad to see him. Niall relents and hugs him right back as tight as he can, pulling back to look him over.

‘Twitter told me somebody let a bunch of famous actors out and they were doing random shite like underground clubs and wandering Museum Row with glow sticks - sad I missed that, by the by - and here I find you kissing your own fucking handprints - not you, mate, you don’t have one yet, but you so fucking will and soon - and yeah, s’up?’

Zayn feels a tap on his shoulder and turns to see Lou jerking his head a little. He detaches from Niall grudgingly - Niall! - and steps back. Lou and Niall size each other up for about a second before a bro shake turns into a back-pounding hug. ‘Too bloody long, mate, too long.’

Niall grins over Lou’s shoulder and nods, chin on Lou’s bony shoulder. ‘You’ve been a right busy lad, though, so I forgive you. I’d say introduce the husband, but we did that ourselves.’

Harry sticks his hand out. ‘Entrance like that, you should get to introduce yourself to somebody. Harry Styles.’

‘Niall Horan.’ They look at each other and giggle, because they already knew each other’s names from being famous and shit, and oh shit, Zayn thinks slowly, because he hadn’t put all of them in one room in his head, but he’s starting to think it’s going to be mayhem.

‘You’ve all been on the same film set before,’ Lou puts in over his shoulder, flagging down their car as the crowd across the street start to look curiously towards crossing the road. ‘But you were a bit busy with the backache business, drinking all the milk in the hemisphere and all that.’

‘I did it for the money,’ Niall says quickly as Paul draws up, ‘JJ needed a second unit assistant director on short notice. I was putting together my own team for my first film in evenings, so I wasn’t around the set more than I had to be.’

‘You were on Sea Prince? No, we’ve got to talk about this,’ Harry says, pulling Niall into his lap in the car, then Niall drops into the seat next to Harry and he’s effectively cornered in the SUV. Zayn would pout about his best mate getting nicked before he’s even got a second hug out of him, but it’s almost funnier to watch the threads come together.

‘Between Lou and Niall, I think we’re zero degrees from most of Hollywood,’ Liam says quietly, next to him, and Zayn leans his head on Liam’s shoulder, feels the heat of his skin through his paper-thin t-shirt.

Zayn sits up. ‘Shit, we didn’t figure out the clue! It’s only an hour to the gig!’

The car slows but doesn’t pull over. Liam’s Paul totally loves their plan, clearly.

Niall’s laugh fills the car. ‘That’s what you idiots were trying to do? Jesus fucking Christ, how attached to the game are you? Like, spoilers-wise?’

Harry’s hand tightens around the flyer. ‘Why, do you know the band or something?’

Niall grins.

*

‘’Do you know who would have finished the clues hunt?’

‘I dunno, Lou, who would have known all the answers?’

‘Must be a clever fucker, this guy, I haven’t even met him.’

Harry covers his head with a pillow. The apartment living area looks like a giant pillow fort: they all dragged duvets and pillows in from the bedrooms the night before or when they woke up in the morning.

‘Reminds me of a film,’ Zayn puts in from the breakfast bar, hugging his coffee for dear life and pulling the blanket around his shoulders a bit tighter.

‘Does it remind you of a film with names in the title?’

‘Deffo.’

‘Is it Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist?’

‘Please stop.’

‘No, we really can’t,’ Lou says, and Liam zips his hoodie up to cover the grin he can’t get rid of.

‘Lee-yum, Lou’s being mean.’

‘We’re all being mean, Haz,’ Liam says softly, kissing the top of Harry’s head and pulling him in. ‘And since Zayn and I carried you halfway across L.A. last night, we’re gonna enjoy it.’

Zayn gives a thumbs up from the breakfast bar without making eye contact. Harry groans into Liam’s chest and Niall laughs.

‘But I want to know why it reminded you of that film, Zayn,’ Lou says, because he’s an absolute arse sometimes. Harry’s feet kick pointlessly.

‘Well,’ Zayn says, sipping his coffee delicately. ‘There’s a Nick in it, for starters. I think that was a pretty major part of Harry’s argument.’

‘Don’t forget the bit about Nick having an infinite playlist,’ Niall drawls, iPad balanced on his chest and talking around the ties of his hoodie, which he’s chewing idly. ‘Because he used to work in radio or something. I didn’t catch all of that bit any of the five times he said it.’

Harry groans and sinks into the duvet, which is half on the floor. He looks like a giant, pale-faced caterpillar.

‘Hey, you fucks got any food?’

‘Dunno,’ Zayn says, ‘suppose I should look. Since I’m closest to the fridge. Think we had eggs on Wednesday. There’s coffee, though.’

Niall looks between them and Liam can hear him putting the pieces together - he just wonders if Zayn has, yet. If not, Liam’s not going to enlighten him until after Louis has movers on his calendar and the renovations are done, because he’s got a feeling Harry’s going to have a friend in his wing of the L.A. house.

‘FUCK IF I’M COOKING FOR ANY OF YOU. You’re all rotters and ruiners.’

Harry’s shout is kind of muffled by the duvet he’s chewing. Liam doesn’t laugh, he doesn’t, and his hand finds Lou’s and squeezes, but they can’t look at each other or they’ll piss themselves laughing and end up on the floor with a hungover Harry.

Liam drags himself off the sofa and starts assembling breakfast ingredients, moving Zayn to the breakfast bar stool two along to get some space by the hobs. Zayn doesn’t look up from his book. Or help, or even really notice he’s being bodily moved. Lazy, hungover shits, the lot of them.

‘Sorry, repeat that? I was just distracted by my superhero husband in the apron over there.’

Liam bites the inside of his cheek. Lou.

Zayn still doesn’t look up. ‘Oh good, you saw that too.’

‘So much of him, Zayn, I see so much.’

Harry has better aim when he can’t see, apparently, because the cushion he throws from under the duvet actually hits Lou for once, who pounces on Harry with an ‘oomph,’ and then Niall gets in on it just because he can.

‘How are you not hungover? When the fuck were you even last out, you bastard?’ Harry shouts, hair in total disarray, emerging from his cocoon to try to fend off Louis. ‘Just because you’re all married and boring.’

‘Harold, we are not boring, you take that back right now!’

‘Make me!’

Liam sees Zayn looking up at him and ducks his head. ‘Not for work, not at the cinema and not at home? Probably, honestly, the night we got married.’

‘You two got married on set? Dedication,’ Niall puts in, coming over to inspect the ingredients. ‘Full English. Get in!’ Zayn is looking at Liam like he’s hung the moon, and then at the Heinz tomato sauce like he could drink it from the bottle.

‘Great,’ Liam says, ‘because it’s all we’ve got in the fridge. City didn’t really have a set. It was just a team of us, travelling around, climbing stuff. Getting married was kind of a whim. But a really good one.’ He looks over at Lou, who’s wrestling Harry on the floor. ‘We didn’t even have rings with us or anything.’

Zayn closes the book and steals a bit of cheese. ‘Something blue, all that?’

‘Louis was my something borrowed, I was his something new. We had old blue t-shirts.’ Liam feels his cheeks turn pink. He hadn’t really meant to say that out loud. He never has before. Is this what hangovers do?

There’s a cough. Harry is staring up at Lou, who is staring at Liam, Harry pinned beneath him on the floor. ‘I thought we weren’t doing those! And I was not!’

‘Could have been worse, Lou, you coulda been his something old,’ Harry says, poking Lou in the cheek, but Lou still keeps staring at Liam even while Zayn gives Harry a distance high five that Lou’s grip stops him returning.

‘I did it in my head!’ Liam says, fidgeting at the breakfast bar and feeling his face flush. ‘And you said we had everything we needed!’

‘I was being romantic! You love that shit!’ Lou says, indignantly claiming a corner of Harry’s duvet. Harry pats his head and pushes it over his knees.

‘I do!’

‘That’s what you said then! I do! Twice!’

‘I didn’t want to jinx it!’

‘Jinx what? I was marrying you.’

Harry gives up and laughs, peals of laughter that go on and on and Niall shakes his head. There’s a minute of quiet before Niall takes over at the frying pan and Liam walks over to find Louis under the duvet, pulling the duvet over their heads while he kisses him senseless.

‘Save the sex for your own duvet!’ Harry shouts, jumping up and moving to the breakfast bar, hitting Liam in the back as he does so. Lou grins against Liam’s mouth and they both roll their eyes.

Later, after a largely silent but comfortable breakfast, and another round of caffeine and painkillers, Niall casts a look at Harry’s closed door where he’s in a shower in his en suite and flops down next to Liam on the sofa. ‘Harry said we were crashing at his?’

Liam hears the question he’s really asking and looks: Zayn is still asleep, head on Lou’s thigh, and Lou’s scrolling through emails on his phone. Spoilers and all that.

‘This is Hazza’s,’ Lou answers, looking over to them. ‘Think wandering housecat. He’d live on our sofas if we didn’t have an ample supply of guest rooms.’

‘Thought he had his own places in New York and London? He’s papped there often enough.’

‘Technically the loft is ours but he’s in New York way more often than we are,’ Liam says, shrugging. ‘He’s got his own place in London. Half of his stuff is at ours anyway.’

Niall casts a questioning glance at Zayn and back to Liam. ‘Sounds .... steadying.’

Harry’s voice bleeds through from the shower, singing something from a musical that Liam doesn’t know, and it’s rough-edged from singing along at the gig and drinking along at the bar.

‘That’s the idea,’ Liam says quietly, as Louis looks up at him with a soft smile and a hand on Zayn’s shoulder.

3. you’re untouchable when you realise

They hear Harry stroll into the main part of the house around eight in the evening with a loud I’m home! and he sounds like he’s smiling.

Louis looks over at Liam and waggles his eyebrows. This is going to be fun.

Liam rolls his eyes, but he’s biting his lips so Louis knows he’s trying not to coo at Harry. Harry, who’s been floating on cloud ten since they got back to London.

(Liam and Louis flew direct. Harry didn’t bother excusing a completely random layover in Frankfurt that just happened to coincide with the four hours Nick was there. Or that he got a two trains in a deliberately roundabout route with a pointless overnight stop from there to Amsterdam for the same reason.)

Harry comes into the living room and his hair is damp from the light rain that’s hitting the windows. London rain is Louis’s number one reason for convincing Liam it was a perfect day to stay home and do nothing... well, not nothing, but he’s not a machine, is he? And superhero physique aside (Louis honestly loves Liam’s work out regime) neither is Liam. Harry’s smiling wide when he settles on the sofa, stretching his legs over both Louis and Liam’s laps.

And this is why they got the big couches - six across the house in all - so they could all squeeze onto one. Louis would rolls his eyes but it’s not like Harry’s legs weigh much.

‘Hi.’ Harry sounds all breathless and ridiculous and Louis wants to snicker, but.

‘Liam, love, who is this person who’s broken into our house? We must know him and he seems to have a key.’ He pushes Harry’s legs off his. Harry pouts. Liam turns slowly to Harry and widens his eyes like’s really really surprised at Harry being there and yeah, there’s a reason why only one of them is an actor, because Louis breaks and giggles. Harry pouts even harder.

‘He does looks familiar...’

Louis leans into Liam’s side and eyes Harry, ‘He does, doesn’t he?’

‘Heyyyy,’ Harry kicks at them.

‘Oh! It’s Harry, Liam! He’s come back to us!’ Louis reaches forward and squeezes at Harry’s cheeks. Harry scowls and shoves at him. Liam laughs and reaches over them to ruffle Harry’s curls.

‘Harry! Where have you been, we thought we’d lost you!’ Liam gives Harry a hug that’s both obnoxious and affectionate. ‘Louis wanted to put posters up. He had old pictures looked out and everything.’

‘Really funny, you wankers.’ There’s a beat, like Harry is really trying not to brag about what’s he’s been up to, but really, if Harry suddenly gained some sense of shame Louis would worry. And want to punch people. Well, want to hold Liam’s jacket while he punches people. His husband boxes. ‘And for your information, I’ve been at Nick’s. Not that’s it’s any of your business, you nosy biddies.’

That’s such a lie that Louis can’t even pretend to take it seriously.

‘Oh, we know.’

Louis waves to the coffee table where their brand new collection of papers and gossip magazines has been been growing. Harry leans over and blinks slowly at the pictures on the covers.

‘It’s how we knew you weren’t dead.’

Harry looks torn between horror and amusement as he turns back at them. ‘You bought them all?’ He picks up a copy of Heat that has Harry and Nick walking out of some restaurant, hands in their hair in sync and leaning into each other.

‘You know how I like working out which photos have been touched up. Funny how none of the ones of you and Nick have been played with much. Maybe you’re just that sickening,’ Louis grins. ‘Sent copies to your mum. Lady Lou’s been buying her own.’

‘Lou-ayy,’ Harry growls, even though a growl with Harry is more like a loud purr from a kitten but then he jumps on Louis. Harry’s a big, if lanky, lad. Louis tries to hide behind Liam, but his darling husband slips away with a smirk, the traitor, and heads towards the kitchen off the living room. It’s not the one they’d use for serious cooking - or watching Harry cook - but if Louis made sure a kettle was within staggering distance of every sofa in the house, Liam hasn’t noticed or complained.

‘Tea, anyone?’

‘I’m sure this is grounds for divorce! No court in the land would challenge me!’ Louis yells as he’s trying deal with Harry’s knobby knees digging into his ribs. ‘Ugh, g’off, you yeti!’ Most of that, however, is lost under the pillow Harry’s currently trying to suffocate him with and he can hear Liam’s laughter.

‘Be gentle with him, Haz, he’s not as young as he used to be and he’s got work tomorrow!’

‘Divorce, seriously!’

‘Oi, Liam!’

Louis flops back against the cushions and pokes Harry in the side. Repeatedly.

‘Did you do the thing?’

And really, that could be anything, Louis thinks, annoyed.

‘This morning!’

‘You don’t want to know yet,’ Harry says, which Louis appreciates is better than an outright lie. He switches to poking Harry’s dimples instead.

‘You’ll tell me if I should be worried?’ Louis asks quietly, listening to the kettle bubble in the kitchen and the sound of cupboard doors opening. It makes his teeth ache a little that he doesn’t - apparently - know everything Liam’s up to, but he also happens to trust his husband to tell him when he’s ready because Louis has grown as a person with marriage, so he’s not going to ask.

Even if he really, really wants to.

‘Obviously,’ Harry replies, and rolls his eyes as he uses Louis as a springboard to push off the sofa to standing.

That’s all right, then.

He thinks.

*

Zayn’s not sure how he ended up here. It’s become a bit of a mantra in his life lately, to be honest, but really, how? Sometime it still catches him off guard that this is his life.

He’s standing past the barriers that separate the fans from the stage. The giant, sparkling stage that is his girlfriend’s band’s concert in the sold out O2 arena. Not to mention that Liam (fucking Payne) and Harry (fucking Styles) are standing with him, with their partners, well, husband in Liam’s case.

Louis is bouncing happily to the music and singing along with a voice that’s better than sweet, if untrained. Zayn found that surprising, quite frankly, because Louis didn’t seem to be incredibly musically inclined - unlike Liam who knows how to play guitar and piano. Sometimes Zayn doesn’t understand how Liam is real. Louis, thankfully, has assured him he had the same problem early on. Louis not only jumped at the chance to come with, but also told Zayn they were making an evening of it. As you do.

Sometimes Zayn is not sure how Louis is real. He’s worked some of that old black magic (his Blu-Ray Farscape boxset is the best thing he’s bought recently, um, not including the new car for his mum and dad). He makes Zayn’s life make sense. Louis managed to find a whole week off in his schedule before Zayn’s off for his next film so he can spend it with Perrie and his family.

Also, he really loves Louis and his love for bouncy pop music because he’s got them all here tonight, even if Nick tried to cling to the pavement outside the O2 before Harry managed to drag him.

Nick’s not a wanker, well, not much of one, but Zayn’s still not ready to forgive him.

He’s only half joking.

Perrie and the girls are amazing. Nick should feel lucky to be included.

On stage the girls are smashing it and Zayn’s doing his one dance move - swaying along to the beat - waving his glowstick, cheering loudly, and singing along when he remembers the words. Which is only fairly often because he might have had the album on repeat in L.A. when he was missing Perrie, but the acoustic versions were on YouTube, so he’s more familiar with those.

At one point he hears Louis and Liam join him and he cocks an eyebrow at them.

Louis keeps singing, eyes on the stage, and Liam winks.

‘He’s actually a fan,’ he leans close to Zayn, not really whispering because it’s so loud. Zayn grins. ‘Yeah, I’ve noticed,’ and continues on singing.

Harry joins in and in their small little section, under the sound of the girls belting out their runs, Zayn can’t help think they sound good. A little something is missing when:

‘It's all about his kiss! Contaminates my lips! Our energy connects! It's simple genetics!’ And there’s a pair of arms wrapping around his and Liam’s necks.

How the fuck is Niall here? Again?

It doesn’t seem to matter for a second because he joins in for the rest of the song with them, while Nick looks at them like they’ve all gone mad, and whatever, Nick is clearly jealous of how awesome they sound. If he can hear them, which Zayn doubts, because his girlfriend and her girls have some powerful vocals that are making the air around them vibrate.

They’re also kicking ass and taking names when it comes to their male back up dancers, black leggings, and moving in sync. Zayn would be lying if he said it was not the hottest thing he has ever seen.

‘I’d ask why you’re here -’ Liam says at Zayn’s right to Niall.

‘I know the lighting guys,’ Niall says with a grin, shrugging. ‘Backstage is more my comfort zone. Personal space, monitors, chairs, you know. Well. You don’t.’

Liam says, ‘No, London’ and Niall smiles mysteriously, tapping his nose, but his eyes flicker to the barriers behind them and the heaving, screaming crowds.

Zayn remembers suddenly: there’s a reason the intensity of the rare crowd scenes in Anatomy - and his character’s hatred of crowds - were so often commented on in reviews. Zayn spent most of the shoot alone in rooms with a camera and art materials. When they emerged to film the last third, it was a riot of sound and faces. He almost got that particular fear himself before he realised that part of the film came from Niall to begin with, which is why the dailies were so downright unnerving.

‘You okay?’ he leans back and kisses Niall on the cheek, and damn the cameras. All twenty thousand of them. (He is so proud.)

‘Yeah, man,’ Niall answers, nodding and with a hand tight in the material of Zayn’s t-shirt at his lower back. ‘Can I stick with your row of jokers?’

‘To the left,’ Zayn says, pulling him in and turning back to Perrie and the girls as the vid clip of them as superheroes runs on every big screen in the O2 and fuck, he’s so proud. Also Perrie in a superhero costume. His mouth is going dry.

‘Clowns to the right,’ he and Niall chorus together, but Nick is being pulled into a dance by Harry, and Louis has actually climbed on Liam’s back and has his elbows propped up on his shoulders, so they don’t hear.

*

The thing Liam had forgotten about with both of them working - even when they were both officially working on Liam’s career - is that sometimes, they’ll need to talk, and there will never, ever be a good time.

The days keep slipping past. Liam’s got something close to a routine between the gym, keeping in touch with his team, meeting up with Tom or Lou for brunch and to play with Lux, and the occasional press thing, but he’s a bit scared of how often he feels like he’s turning around to find Lou dragging himself out of the bed with a muttered curse on the god of Mondays.

He’s carried the script he lifted from Zayn’s slush pile across an ocean but he hasn’t spoken to Louis about it yet. Either they haven’t been alone or there’s been more important things.

Like Lou getting some sleep.

And Liam is honest enough with himself to know he’s avoiding it.

What if -

He stops the thought sharply. It’s not going to do him any good to torture himself with what Louis might say. He did that often enough before they got together, and it was pointless then, too. It’s even more so now that he’s lucky enough to be sure of Louis, even if he doesn’t know how Louis will react to this.

He’d woken up to stare at the ceiling in the bedroom, fully awake and feeling like his thoughts about his next film were just a giant, dark monolith he couldn’t get into.

They shouldn’t have watched 2001, he knows. And Lou was the one clutching his arm at I’m sorry, Dave, but Liam’s dreams were haunted by a voice repeating I’m afraid I can’t do that.

Lou has a spooky sixth sense for when Liam is awake and fretting, so he’d gotten out of bed and wandered down to the basement kitchen for a glass of water and the cool feel of the tiles against his feet. It’s too dark to see the terraced garden that the basement patio doors open onto, though there’s two lines of fluorescent lanterns marking the edges of the path up the garden.

(Liam put them in when Harry came in the back doors after a night out covered in mud. Harry’s even less co-ordinated drunk. At least they decided against a pond.)

This part of the house is Liam’s favourite. The whole house is ridiculous, but somehow comfy, for just the three of them and for them, partners and whole families when they’re in town for a visit. Liam bought it before he and Lou got together, but with an awful lot of Lou’s opinions on the matter for someone who wasn’t intending to live there, and he’d realised with a guilty thrill that he had rather a lot of money. It had just been numbers in the bank and paid-for plane tickets until he realised he was buying a house with a garden in near-central London with no mortgage to think about. He didn’t know houses in London came with gardens. None of his flats ever had, not even the decent ones, when he’d made a few films.

The lights in the basement kitchen flicker on around Liam and he looks up.

Lou is standing on the edge of the kitchen with a pair of Liam’s bright red trackies pooling around his heels where they’re far too long, riding low on his hips where they’re tied. He’s rubbing sleep out of his eyes and giving Liam a look that says he’s trying to figure Liam out. It’s an old look: old for them, and it makes Lou look that bit older, too.

Liam lets his hands fall from his temples to the counter, palms up. It’s cool against his forearms. Lou peels himself up from the doorframe to stand by the stool, fitting himself between Liam’s knees and turning Liam’s head (nothing new there) to look him in the eye. There’s a serious tilt to Lou’s head that Liam doesn’t see very often, and his voice is quiet in the kitchen.

‘What’s this, then?’

Liam would duck his head at that but the hand cupping his jaw and holding his head up is firm. It’s an old question, one Lou trained him to answer, especially when Liam didn’t want to.

‘I like a script.’

They’ve been together too long already, some people say to them, and Liam knows why sometimes. Lou nods and pulls the other stool under him, jumping up and hooking his ankles around Liam’s.

‘Okay,’ Lou says, quiet, fingers drumming on the counter. ‘You know what I’ll ask.’

And Liam does.

‘It’s good,’ he starts, taking a deep breath. It’s a thing they have with any project, event or film that Liam gets tied up in knots over. One question at a time. This is the first project Louis hasn’t been officially paid to ask about; it’s such a relief that their routine hasn’t changed and Liam didn’t even know that was something he was worried about until he wasn’t anymore.

‘It’s really good. It’s not -’ Liam pauses, and Louis waits, slipping a hand into Liam’s flat palm on the counter to tickle it gently. Liam threads their fingers together. ‘It’s not going to win things like City did. It’s not going to make as much as some of the others.’

He feels a pinch just above his knee through his own trackies and gives Lou a raised eyebrow. ‘Why is it good? Just the project, Li. Forget there’s ever been another film. Compare and despair, remember?’

Liam knows he’s burying the lead. He does. But his stomach has actual bats - butterflies only come out during the day and it’s two in the morning - fluttering around in it. He squeezes Lou’s hand. ‘In a minute?’

Lou nods and rubs Liam’s hand between both of his then kicks his ankle lightly. Liam can feel himself making a face before he thinks about it. That was so not a minute.

‘There’s two leads,’ Liam says slowly, forcing himself to keep his eyes on Lou’s. ‘They’re both gay.’

Lou nods, and Liam can see the very slightest tightening around his mouth. ‘What else? About the character?’

‘He plays in the Premier League. He comes out about halfway through the film - because of his boyfriend, but not, not in like, an angsty way. It’s all sweet, actually.’

Lou stands up, kisses his cheek with a squeeze to his shoulder and walks to the patio doors. Liam can see the drained outline of his face as he looks out at the little lights.

Liam knows what Lou must be thinking, because he’s thought the same things over and over since he saw the script the first time. How they’re finally settled again. How Liam can’t very well play a part like that and not talk about his own marriage, the way he happily said things like ‘we’re very happy’ and (happily) moved interviews on during City’s promo tours.

How playing a gay character will fix that word to them both, and Lou’s never been comfortable with any of the labels, or inclined to explain that to anyone, because he shouldn’t have to explain that to anyone he doesn’t choose and he knows it.

How Lou is working with Zayn, now, but Liam can’t very well promote a film like that without his husband attending a few of the events.

How desperately Liam wants the film to exist, whether he’s in it or not - wants characters like the one he could play to exist. How it might be more straightforward for a lot of people if a straight actor played the part, but how Liam is right there, and wants it, and would be good at it.

Then there will be a whole bunch of things Liam doesn’t even know enough to worry about, yet, but Louis will, because he always does.

Liam doesn’t want to rush Louis. When he takes space to think like that, it’s usually because he needs it, but. He flattens his hands on his thighs and forces them to be still. He’s been wound up about this for weeks. He hates putting Louis in a position where their personal lives get sucked in by what’s expected of him. And worst of all, Lou knows how it all works behind the scenes, and he knows what everyone will want to ask of Liam.

He follows Louis to the window and finds the sweet bits between his shoulder blades and neck, then starts to work soft circles into Lou’s tense muscles with his thumbs. His head tips back with a soft groan.

‘That’s not helping,’ Louis says, biting the inside of this cheek. ‘I mean, don’t you dare stop, but just know that I was trying to think before you did that.’

Liam laughs quietly and feels some of the tension drain out of his own arms while Lou keeps looking out at the garden, and Liam can practically hear the cogs turning.

‘It’s a lot, Li.’

‘Too much?’

Louis turns and puts his hands on Liam’s chest, looking up at him.

‘Okay but this is really important.’

Liam waits and nods.

‘No, really, deal breaker. Actual deal breaker.’

Liam nods again as Louis shuffles from foot to foot.

‘He doesn’t play for Man City, right? Liam, I’m serious-’

Liam blinks, once, twice, and muffles his laugh against Lou’s mouth. Cupping Lou’s jaw he can feel the edges of Lou’s mouth tipping up with his thumbs and lips. His mouth is curling, too.

‘Made up team based a bit on Man United,’ Liam answers, pulling back. ‘Think they thought they’d done enough provoking with the gay lads. Didn’t want to piss off fans with the choice of footie team while they were at it.’

‘Thank God,’ Louis says, letting out an explosive breath and leaning forward. ‘I mean, obviously I’d have said to take the part anyway, but I would have had really complex emotions about kissing you in a City strip, I won’t lie. Could have led to vaguely angry sex.’

Liam wasn’t aware his husband cared quite so much, in fact, suspects he enjoys the rivalry more than feels it, but he’ll go with it if it keeps them standing in bare feet on cold tiles and swaying back and forth in the early hours to the radio he’d forgotten he’d put on. Liam’s wanted someone he could slow dance with in his own kitchen before he knew what he wanted at all, and sometimes, he can’t believe Louis wants that with him, too.

‘Oh, one more thing,’ Liam says. ‘Maybe two.’

Louis doesn’t move off his shoulder. ‘Uh huh?’

‘It was sent to Zayn, not me, but he didn’t want it,’ Liam admits, though it feels less scary now than when he stumbled down the stairs, ‘so I should probably ask his people if I can meet him for lunch or something.’ He feels a hand pinch his side for that and grins against Lou’s hair.

‘Zayn won’t give a flying fuck,’ Lou answers sleepily, and it reminds Liam that Lou has an actual job with ten hour days again half the time. ‘You said football player, right? Right there I know he’d never have done it. He’s not against sports films in theory, but fuck if he’s actually playing team sports for months just to get ready for a film, and fuck if I’m letting him make a shit football film on my watch. Wait,’ Lou pulls back and looks up, worried. ‘You just said it was good, you’ve read... When did you see the script? Do they know you’re interested?’

‘A while ago,’ Liam answers, ‘It was, um, the thing Harry was annoying me about the other day, staying in touch with them. They’re holding the part til I get back to them.’

‘Well, that’s silly,’ Louis answers, leaning back against him. ‘You’ll say yes soon though. What was the other thing?’

‘If Zayn doesn’t mind,’ Liam smiles again as Louis yawns against him, fist curling in the thin material of Liam’s vest. ‘Spoiler?’

Louis nods. He always does.

‘It has a happy ending.’

‘Of course it does,’ Louis noses against Liam’s neck and Liam keeps them standing there for a little while longer before he guides them back to bed, feeling lighter than he has in days.

*

It’s a weekend morning before anyone has to be anywhere (although pretty soon, everyone has to be somewhere) when Liam stumbles into the upstairs kitchen with Louis a few feet behind him and stops sharply at the threshold, rubbing his eyes with his knuckles.

There’s a forgotten pint of milk open on the work surface, and two cups that are no longer steaming with tea. Liam would bet they’re stewed well past drinking, and not just by Louis’s picky tea standards.

Oh, and Harry has climbed into someone’s lap at the dinner table. Liam thought he had table manners, but he’s clearly wrong. He’s so telling Anne and Gemma about this.

Thank God, there do seem to be clothes involved. And pink hair. Which means:

‘Grimmy, what the fuck, some people have to make tea in this kitchen-! Nobody except Harry wants to see hair that ridiculous at this time of the morning! How did you even get a job on breakfast television. Get back to bed and out of my sight, the both of you.’

Lou pushes past Liam, muttering darkly and refilling the kettle and banging the top lid of it shut, then slamming it onto the stand to boil. Liam is hanging onto the edge of the surface, laughing so hard it’s lost sound, so he’s really just clutching his side and folded over while Harry slowly peels himself away from Nick with a final, unnecessary filthy kiss, long fingers spreading through his pink hair and smirking over his shoulder to Louis, who walks out of the kitchen muttering pointedly about something he left in the other kitchen and what would ickle Harold do in his mother’s kitchen.

Liam pulls himself upright just as Nick stands up with as much dignity as someone wearing oversize My Little Pony PJ bottoms and multiple love bites from Harry Styles possibly can. He blinks at Liam and Louis like he’s hoping if he does it enough they might disappear, but also with curiosity and an attempt not to smile between them all. ‘Haz, um, there are, um, people here. In the house. That’s new?’

Harry is a little bit of a dick sometimes, Liam thinks, but fondly. He could have just told Nick they were officially boyfriends. If Harry really wanted to have sex in the kitchen, they’d have walked in on more nakedness. Harry grins at Liam, ever so pleased with himself and tugging at Nick’s hand. ‘I don’t ever think I’m alone here, you know.’

And well, how’s Liam supposed to be mad at that?

There’s a groan from the hall that says Louis didn’t flounce very far. They hear a mutter about Harry’s ‘tricks.’

‘There’s some Grimmy doesn’t know yet, Lou!’

They disappear from Liam’s view after Nick awkwardly fist bumps Liam in the most mortified way possible - Liam finds this utterly, utterly hilarious - and Louis slaps Harry on the behind on the way out. He then comes back into the kitchen and slaps Liam too, before cuddling up to his back and asking for tea.

*

‘I have to ask you something.’

Zayn pulls out an earbud and scowls but doesn’t slow down on the treadmill. He’s really nearly finished the programme and he promised himself he might consider a cigarette later today if he does.

This is, after all, Liam’s fault, as it’s his private gym in the bowels of their stupid house. He’s the one who offered to help Zayn stay in ‘shape’ while he quits smoking, whatever the bloody hell that means, and his mum is always telling Zayn he could stand to gain a few.

(And okay, to be fair, when Zayn is awake he actually likes the room: it’s like the batcave below the Wayne mansion, so long as he doesn’t have to use the bloody machines.)

Louis is hovering behind Liam like the ghost of Christmas past. Except Liam looks so bloody earnest, and he’s not even in gym kit. Zayn taps the control down to ‘walk’ then stops and flops over the sidebar. The treadmill probably doesn’t care that he’s doing it under protest.

‘You know I’m working out before seven so I’m not awake and we can all forget it ever happened,’ Zayn says to Liam. He could be in bed, with Perrie, who is prepping for her world tour and Zayn wants to spend as much time with her as possible before their schedules catch up to them. Even if they’re both sleeping.

Louis’s mouth twitches and he very slowly lifts his teacup to take a drink from it. Fucking troll. Zayn knows he’s not enjoying being awake right now any more than he is, thank you very much.

‘I ... still have to ask you something.’ Liam is shifting from foot to foot and Zayn frowns.

‘Everyone okay?’

‘Yes,’ Louis puts in from behind, then pokes Liam in the arm. ‘Get on with it, love. Let the man get back to his workout. You’ve trained him well.’

Zayn makes a face. It’s a wonder he and Louis even put up with each other, really.

‘I read a script you didn’t want,’ Liam blurts out, rubbing the back of his neck and not meeting Zayn’s eyes. ‘But it’s really good and they want to give me the part, but only if you really really don’t want it.’

Zayn wants to smack his head off the metal frame of the machine. ‘Take it.’

‘Are you sure you don’t want to see it again?’ Liam asks, eyes wide and hands twisting. ‘It’s really good.’

‘I didn’t want it. I’ll see it again at your premiere,’ Zayn shrugs, and the movement sends his earphones clattering off. ‘I still don’t want it - right?’ He looks to Louis, who nods.

‘Remember I told you that footballers sometimes run a half marathon in a game?’ Lou says with a bright grin.

‘Fuck, Liam, if it’s a sports film -’ Zayn says, and Liam’s eyes widen with disappointment and then resolution. Zayn turns back to the control on the treadmill. ‘Mate, take it. I do not want it, especially if it’s more of this ‘in shape’ shit.’

Liam leans forward in a rush to hug Zayn, who bats him off but then hugs him back while Liam unsubtly checks out his workout stats on the control. Really. They’re bloody ridiculous.

Liam’s already pulling out his phone and slinging an arm around Louis as they head back up the stairs.

*

Niall gets around to checking his voicemail about, according to the automated voice of his voicemail, eight hours after the missed call. Oops. He cringes and feels rather bad, but Zayn will forgive him when he finds out what Niall’s been working on.

The idea has been swimming in his brain for months now, since L.A. and he couldn’t help but notice certain things. Certain chemistry. He’s been working on it every chance he gets, wanting to get it perfect. Anatomy got him on Hollywood’s radar as a proper director but he’s still the young Irish lad that a lot of people think got lucky with a script and the bright shining talent that is Zayn.

He’s not worked on every film set from low budget indie flicks to tv shows to certain out of this world blockbusters since he was seventeen to let all he’s learned go to waste.

Clicking his phone, he frowns at Zayn’s call and sends back a quick message.

TALK TO HIM, YOU NUMPTY!

He’s about to make a call to Liam when Sandy pops his head into Niall’s office, dark circles under his eyes, because yeah, they’ve been working late a lot lately. But he’s honestly got the best people helping iron all this out, and they’ve been working just as hard as him. He’s not sure any of them have seen their flats properly for a week now.

‘Yeah, mate?’

‘Ordering food and then round three?’

Niall laughs and rubs his face. ‘Round three.’

He forgets to call Liam.

*

Liam’s head snaps up from where he’s sending an email about wanting to get in on the production level of A.E.T. (After Extra Time) the second the front door slams shut. The fact that he can hear it - and the door after that - all the way from the home office tells him how loud it is, which makes Liam frown. He can hear the stomping of Lou’s feet up the landing, because Lou has never been quiet when frustrated and angry, and wonders what’s wrong. Which something definitely is. Lou hates the sound of slamming doors. Something about living with teenage girls has put him off of them forever.

Liam puts the laptop down, and turns as Louis stomps into the home office.

‘Babe? What’s wrong?’

‘Argh! I HATE ACTORS-’

Oh- Liam thinks slowly, moving the laptop back.

It’s not the first time he’s heard the opening of this speech from Louis, but it’s been years and Lou only has one client now.

-fuck.

*

So Louis and Zayn aren’t speaking, which worries Liam because he remembers those fights with Lou - sometimes still has those fights with Lou; they’re happily married, not cookie cut-outs - and Louis is vicious to fight with. He hates backing down. He hates admitting he’s wrong, and he’s got the sharpest tongue when he wants to use it.

And he’s currently snapping at everyone who makes the mistake of answering his calls (and even at Liam a couple of times), but he’s not talking to Zayn, who is the other half of this fight.

That’s what’s worrying Liam the most.

Liam doesn’t know what like Zayn is like in a fight, hopes never to find out, because Liam hates arguing with his friends, anyone really. When he and Louis fight it almost always ends up with Liam poking at Louis to talk to him and tell him how to fix it, and Louis tends to cave then, especially when Liam is in the right. But there’s always a few tense hours, or maybe day or two, depending on the fight. Liam likes to sort out his disagreements with Lou quickly. He hates when Louis is cross at him. Hates being cross with Louis.

But that’s him and Louis.

Louis and Zayn.

This is a new element.

It worries Liam because it’s been five days and they haven’t spoken. Five days is an age in their schedules. Zayn’s sent a couple messages to Liam, and Louis has sent him plenty of emails with where he needs to be and when, but their thin messages are so frosty Liam’s surprised they aren’t highlighted pale blue. Liam’s tried to broach the subject but Zayn changes the subject every time. It makes Liam’s stomach knot up.

Perrie’s told him that Zayn is being sulky and moody, so unlike their normally smiling, kiss-giving Zayn. And yes, he and Perrie are now talking almost every day, which is also new but not unpleasant because Perrie is awesome, and Zayn and Louis are holding onto their anger like it’s a first edition comic book.

Except that sort of gives Liam an idea. Two ideas.

He pulls out his phone and calculates the time difference between London and New York where Harry is off doing promo work for the last press tour of his film series.

There’s only one other person better than Liam at dealing with a tetchy Louis.

But first.

Liam is working through his emails and sending things back and forth in the office while Louis paces behind him. It’s been the routine for the last five days, and frankly, Liam’s had enough of it. They have a whole house he could pace in, for a start.

Liam stands up from the swivel chair that makes him feel like a proper grown up with a real job - he really loves the home office - and stops Louis mid-pace. It’s not that big a room, and the carpet is new.

Lou lets out a wordless sound of rage and shakes his head. ‘Aren’t you going to ask me what he did? You haven’t asked yet. It’s driving me a bit mad.’

Liam puts his hands on Lou’s upper arms and raises an eyebrow. ‘No. I don’t care.’

‘What I did?’

‘Louis,’ Liam says slowly. ‘I really, really don’t care.’

‘But he-’

Liam cuts him off with a kiss and pulls Louis towards him sharply, falling back into the desk chair with Lou falling back onto his lap.

‘I’m angry, Liam,’ Louis says against his mouth, but he’s already curling his fists in the sides of Liam’s polo shirt collar and tugging him up towards him.

‘Not at me,’ Liam says, and it would sound soothing if it weren’t for the hitch in his voice when Lou finds his neck.

‘No, I hate you,’ Louis says under his jaw. ‘I was this close to a proper tantrum, like the old days. God, he’s so -’

Liam finds Louis’s hipbones with his hands and covers them. ‘What’s the point of a home office if we can’t work through lunch, Lou?’

Louis groans against him and Liam can hear the grin, even if his head is tilted back to expose his throat. ‘You make an excellent point. I’d be grateful for your input on a situation I’m having with a pretentious little shit of a client.’

Liam will call Harry - but later.

*

‘-and then he seduced me, and when I woke up, there was a car and a plane ticket and a car and here I am, Harold, here I bloody well am. Ridiculous.’

Harry nods from the couch. His neck hurt less when he went through his phase of going to tennis matches than it does watching Louis pace up and down the loft. Louis, who’s had too many shitty airport coffees, and whatever magical calming effect Liam was hoping multiple orgasms would have on his husband, it wore off somewhere above the Atlantic when he realised he’d been sent off to cool down on another continent.

‘It’s like he thinks I won’t even notice, go and see Harry, Louis, he’s been away for ages now. Ha! HA! Fine, whatever, Li, I’ll just stumble onto a red eye at Heathrow on wings of awesome sex -’

Harry nods. He knows Louis doesn’t actually want him to respond to any of this. Lady Lou’s already had his suit sent over for the premiere, and not losing it is his entire job for the next two days, so he actually has little better to do than to listen to Louis rant and hope he doesn’t get them arrested in New York again.

Louis stops and runs a hand through his hair, looking at Harry. ‘You know, if I weren’t so proud and he weren’t so bloody good in bed, I’d be furious.’

Harry clears his throat. ‘So just so I’m caught up, we’re mad at Zayn right now.’ He tries to make his tone both supportive and very clear that he personally is not actually mad at Zayn. Louis has been talking for an hour and Harry still doesn’t know why they were fighting in the first place.

‘I’m professionally pissed off at him, yes,’ Louis says with a roll of his eyes and a an elegant wave. ‘He’s a shit. He still knows where he has to be. We don’t need to avoid anyone at parties, though. Yet.’ Louis narrows his eyes at someone like a silent threat, someone who isn’t in the room, and continues to pace.

Harry lets out a breath. He’s been Louis’s client, Louis’s weirdly intrusive best friend, and whatever the odd family they all are to each other now - all five of them, Harry thinks stubbornly, including Zayn and Niall so that Louis will have to as well, no matter how mad he thinks he is.

It’s nice to know this isn’t one of those times Louis makes a snap decision based on hurt and deciding someone is a wanker. Those are pretty much irrevocable, and Liam and Harry have tried and failed to change his mind before. This is just garden variety Louis in a spat, which happens to be Harry’s specialist subject on Mastermind.

‘So are you going to send back comics or what? Because I’ve been reading up and you should take me shopping,’ Harry says, throwing a paper plane at Louis, who catches it daintily. He’s got the reflexes of a fucking mongoose.

‘Then clothes shopping and those milkshakes you wouldn’t shut up about last time you came back from New York?’ Louis has stopped pacing and tilted his head at Harry. The background of the exposed brick wall with the Tracy Emin lights and canvas prints that Harry picked out when they bought the place makes him look like a magazine shoot, all sharp features, caged expression and turned up denim collar.

‘I want my nails done,’ Harry says, snapping a pic with his phone and sending it to Liam. ‘And I’m calling Lady Lou.’

claws retracted. we’re going shopping. don’t wait up.

‘Later,’ Louis says. ‘I can do that while we’re catching me up on The Voice. And pizza. I’m in New York, I want pizza from the place Tony Stark would like.’

‘You just think she’s going to kick your arse for falling out with a client again,’ Harry replies, texting her anyway. She’s staying at the loft, anyway, so it’s not like Louis can avoid her - or her habit of laughing at his bullshit - forever.

‘Not think, Harry, know,’ Louis says, rolling his eyes.

Two days later, Harry’s nails are artfully chipped black with two rogue pink ones when he waves to the crowd at the final NYC premiere for Roads: Part Four: Highway to Hell. He was completely unsurprised but a bit relieved when Louis pulled a suit out of his cupboard in the bedroom Louis and Liam rarely use in the loft and told Harry’s (awesome) PA that Louis would be fine helping Harry through the red carpet maze this time.

Shona had tried not to grin as she held the car door open for Louis with a flourish. He’d recruited her to replace him, after all, and taught her half of what she’d started off knowing.

It settles something in Harry’s stomach as he steps out of the limo. He’s not as nervous about these things as he used to be, but he’s feeling more choked up than he thought he would as he pulls his co-stars in for hugs for the cameras, and he’s leaning more heavily on Louis’s hand at his elbow than he has since his first big premiere, which was for Roads before Roads became the biggest franchise that wasn’t Harry Potter.

It’s just easier, with Louis there. Louis flew out to the set in Vancouver when he could have been in L.A. in the warm weather. Louis followed him back to L.A., then London, and returned his calls when his co-stars were out of the country, and then Harry was calling him and Liam before he even tried anyone else’s number.

Somewhere between hugging Emily, his childhood love interest in part two (deceased, Harry’s still mad about that) and Anthony, his best friend in parts three and four, he thinks that maybe Liam didn’t pack Louis off to New York entirely because of the fight.

Harry’s trying really hard not to cry about that on top of everything else when he feels Louis put a hand on his lower back and turn him left to the row of TV interviewers.

‘Hey filmstar,’ Nick says, hair back to brown and eyes soft around the edges. His hand stays on the mic too long when he passes it to Harry. ‘You ready for this?’

Harry isn’t sure if Nick means the interview, the screening, whatever he’s going to do with his life next or whatever he and Nick are going to do next, but he takes a breath.

‘Yeah,’ he says, feels his mouth grin without asking his permission, tightens his hand around Nick’s on the mic before taking it. ‘I think I am.’

*

they just ran out of petrol again. The bunker is MILES AWAY and the horde is totally going to find them.

I wish haz would tell us spoilers. i can’t believe who they’ve killed off so far.

Oh god I wish you were here this is TENSE what if harry DIES ON SCREEN i can’t watch that

r u txtin from the premiere????? rude ;)

I’m in the back making sure it runs properly so its totally cool. The projectionist (they’re doing this old school) knows niall. SOMEONE ELSE just DIED, these kids I can’t look i’m not watching

haz will cry if u miss his first death sceeeeeeeeeeene not tht i no he has one

he has a death scene?!?!????! noooooo

I DON’T KNO! I’M GUESSIN. yr the one watching it!

oh. oh. YOU CAN’T JOKE ABOUT THINGS LIKE THAT. so... do you want to know if Harry dies?

SPOILERS!!!

Fine! Oh something is happening! Bbl love you! xx

NO SPOILERS! LOVE YOU TOO!! xxx

xxxx!

*

Liam bites his lip and tries not to laugh at the texts taking up half of his screen as Louis liveblogs the film direct to his phone.

Zayn wanted to stay up and watch Midnight in Paris at midnight, but he’s practically asleep on Perrie’s shoulder, pink tips of her hair tickling his nose and knees over her lap. It should be completely ridiculous but Perrie’s curled up around him, too, looking at his eyelashes on his cheeks more than the film, and Liam genuinely can’t fault her, because Zayn is too pretty to be real, sometimes. (He and Louis noticed when they saw Anatomy. Both times they saw it.)

They’ve had a film day under duvets in Zayn’s flat and Zayn and Perrie have been within three feet of each other the entire time. Liam’s beginning to see just how much Zayn’s been missing her - how much he’s going to miss her - when Little Mix go on their 100+ date world tour.

He wishes he could explain it to Louis. But he’s trying really hard not to think of why Louis would be on edge enough to pick a fight about nothing, or rise to one, because all of the reasons come back to Liam stubbornly attaching himself to a film that’s going to put them in the centre of a storm again, and Louis worrying about him on top of worrying about Zayn.

The fact that the fight happened the day after Little Mix’s tour bus arrived in London for final refits and the studio announced Liam’s part in A.E.T doesn’t strike Liam as coincidence.

He hopes Harry can talk some sense into Louis. He’s not having much luck with Zayn so far.

*

Zayn wakes up thirsty and rubs his eyes, which feel all crusty, gross, and his mouth feels all fuzzy, grosser, and is in desperate need of some water. He gets up and head to the kitchen when then realises he’s in his bed, which is in his bedroom, and he’s pretty sure he doesn’t remember walking to it. Last thing he remembers is the score of Batman Begins and Perrie, he loves her, but he knows she’s not strong enough to carry him to the room on her own. Which means-

Right, so he’s definitely not blushing or embarrassed at the thought that Liam had to carry him to bed. Nope. Liam could have gone home way before Zayn somehow found himself in bed. Perrie could have hefted his dead weight up and guided him.

And that’s a lie, because that is Liam asleep on his sofa using the blanket his grandmother knitted for his last birthday as a cover. His face is smashed against one of the cushions - a fuzzy lavender one that Perrie bought as joke but it’s really soft and nice to cuddle to - and he looks so precious. For a second he forgets about his water and looks around for his phone. It's still on the coffee table under Perrie’s copy of Emma.

The picture sends as he’s pouring himself a drink and it’s only after it’s gone and water is coating his throat that he remembers he’s still cross at Louis.

He doesn’t know what time it is in New York, but the reply is near instantaneous.

ZAYNNNNNNNN I am making this my new background RIGHT NOW.

Zayn smiles.

You’re welcome.

hero, you are, malik.

Yeah, I am.

Zayn bites his lip and considers a cigarette. It’s too much effort and he’s hidden them someplace he doesn’t remember right now, but he’d really like the nicotine support. He hates when he loses his temper, especially with his mates, which Louis is, and it’s surprising that doesn’t feel so odd to think anymore.

Look, Lou, about the other day.

Go back to sleep. Even batman and superman argue

I didn’t fight with Liam though. ;)

Hilarious. Really. Go back to sleep, you’re clearly exhausted and talking nonsense

I think we’re more cass and steph, btw.

of course you do. Now sleep! and post /another/ Liam pic on instagram! that one’s mine!

Laughing alone in your kitchen at ridiculous o’clock is probably weird, but that’s exactly what Zayn’s doing.

*

In the end, nobody has to do anything. Liam looks at the texts from Louis and at Zayn’s instagram feed with a sigh before texting the rest of the phone tree to stand down. Zayn is clearly spending too much time with Harry, if that’s what he’s putting on instagram.

Louis ships Zayn a care package of comics from New York and emails him with a lot of strong opinions on Stephanie Brown as Spoiler and Robin and not a single mention of anything work-related.

Zayn replies with something about Cassandra Cain and Stephanie laughing about parental figures, which Liam thinks he gets, but whatever, they’re talking. Zayn also texts Louis the address of the a hard-to-find tattoo artist in New York, whose sister trained with Zayn at RADA.

Lou sends them both pictures of the compass he gets inked on his inner arm, right below the one that says ‘oops!’. Two hours later Harry posts a picture on twitter if his chest and arm. Two sparrows hover under his collarbones and here’s an heart on his arm just below the line of sleeve. Liam favourites the tweets, of course.

*

Three weeks later, as Little Mix perform in another timezone for the first time in their tour - Liam knows this now, because the dates are on the back of Louis’s t-shirt from the O2 concert and he wears it all the time - he hears Louis’s phone ring and turns in bed. He’s giving Lou a few more seconds before he tickles him awake to answer it or checks who it is. Possibly both. It’s public knowledge they’re married, but it’s still not everyone’s call that Liam would pick up on Louis’s phone at half three in the morning.

‘’S Zee’s ringtone,’ Lou says, turning and reaching for it, and sure enough, there’s a picture of Zayn kissing a Predator on the cheek on the screen. Louis thumbs the screen without opening his eyes and turns to lie on his back. ‘Are you all-’

‘Are you real?’

Liam turns to lean up on his elbow, head near Louis’s, as Louis’s eyebrows come together and he flashes Liam a worried look. ‘Yes, Zayn, I’m real and right here. So is Liam. Are you all right, mate? Do I need to get out of bed now?’

‘I’m fine, I’m fine, I just - I had this dream, that the last six months, they were a dream, and I was going to wake up and it was going to be the morning before the Oscars, and Perrie’s away, so I -’

Liam feels Louis let out a breath and feels his muscles relax, and remembers that for all he, Harry and Zayn are ridiculous, awkward to manage and weirdly co-dependent, Lou’s never had to drop them off at rehab, which isn’t something he could always say before he got assigned to Harry by the agency.

‘Right, I’m going back to sleep, and we’re going to say this never happened,’ Zayn finishes.

‘What never happened?’

‘Exactly. Thanks, mate.’

‘Sleep, Zayn. Come over here for breakfast, okay?’

‘Yeah.’

Louis laughs into Liam’s neck and hooks a foot behind his knee. ‘Zayn’s really okay?’ Liam asks.

‘He’s fine. We’re good.’ Louis relaxes his back and settles against Liam. ‘It’s nice to be appreciated.’

Liam grins and puts his palm against the back of Louis’s neck. ‘You know, I know how he feels. I wonder if you’re real sometimes, too.’

Louis snorts and mutters something about actors, but his hand tightens around Liam as they fall back asleep.

*

Four days after Harry’s press tour ends they’re all gathered in the main kitchen for dinner. It’s Harry’s dream kitchen, which it should be since he helped pick and plan every inch of it, even though it’s not in his own flat, but really at this point Harry only keeps his flat for storage and for the occasional filthy weekend with Nick. It was meant to be a proper welcome home dinner for Harry, and well it still is, except now instead of the posh restaurant Liam and Louis had been thinking of it’s become more a home-cooked affair. Between Harry’s jetlag and general aversion to getting fully clothed since he’s been back it was probably a good idea.

Anyway Nick is making some ridiculous dinner with like four courses and cheese trays, and Harry has insisted on helping even though Nick’s shooed him away more than once. He’s not sure exactly what they’re doing but it smells amazing. When he says as much Louis glares at him because Louis is being territorial about a kitchen he barely uses and actually hissed when Nick touched the kettle.

Liam pokes Louis’s side and hooks his fingers in Louis’s belt loops, hooking his chin over Lou’s shoulder.

‘Well, it does.’

Lou’s lips do that thing where he’s trying not to smile so he bites at Liam’s jaw.

‘No need to encourage them.’

Where he’s texting on the stool next to Louis, Zayn snorts. Lou’s glare turns on him. Liam would try to deflect it, but he’s not sure what he’s deflecting.

‘What’s that, Malik?’

Zayn looks up from under his lashes and Liam doesn’t really have an artistic mindset but, well, he understands why he camera loves Zayn.

‘Just a bit ironic, making fun of them, when you and Liam are the most bloody domestic couple in the world.’

Louis’s glare intensifies. ‘Don’t you mean paradoxical?’

Zayn rolls his eyes.

Liam pouts, feeling a bit betrayed, and now glad he didn’t deflect, because, hey, mean. He tightens his arms around Lou’s waist.

From over by the cooker Harry cackles, and Nick, having some sense of self preservation, starts coughing into his shoulder.

‘Me and Liam are adorable!’ Louis says, curling his hands over Liam’s forearms.

‘Did I say otherwise?’

‘You implied it!’

‘You only see it that way because of your implication that Harry and Nick are not.’

Lou’s mouth opens then clicks shut and he grins at Zayn, wagging a finger. ‘Cheeky, aren’t you? Clever boy.’

Zayn smirks and reaches over to grab at one of the little quiches Nick and Harry have made. He gets a slap on the hand for his trouble and Liam snickers into Louis’s neck when Zayn turns wide eyes on Harry. ‘Heyyy, I was on your side.’

‘No pinching!’

Liam moves from where he’s been leaning against Lou and rummages through a cupboard. ‘Learn your lesson now, Quiffy, Harry is like an evil overlord in the kitchen. Which is why-’ Liam tosses a small bag of crisps at Zayn: his favourite, Sea Salt and Balsamic Vinegar Kettle Chips. He barely catches them without dropping his phone. ‘-snacks.’

‘Liam! He’ll ruin his appetite,’ Harry pouts but he’s also already reaching over for some himself. Lou catches his eyes and they both smile. Then Louis pretends to gag when Harry feeds Nick some crisps.

‘Now, that will ruin appetites.’

Liam pinches Lou’s hips, even though he’s biting his cheek. Be nice.

Louis rolls his eyes and reaches down to grab Liam’s hand and twist the ring on his ring finger. Fine. He then goes back to teasing Nick and Harry, and Zayn, because look who’s talking, I wonder who you’re so intently texting every three seconds, Zayn and Louis will always be a sassy little shit, but he’s an affectionate one and he’s Liam’s.

It’s comfortable, actually, how their evening has turned out. And sure Liam had to cancel and reschedule at the restaurant with a dinner for two for him and Lou next week, but that’s more than fine. Lou loves romantic dinners just the two of them. The end of their downtime is fast approaching and with Zayn having finally picked a script and him going off to do his own film they both know that Louis’s schedule is about to get as hectic as Zayn’s.

Liam’s film begins filming in three weeks, and even that is only the first two weeks of training when he and the other actors playing his teammates have to learn to act like they’re a team. Then the real filming starts and he’ll be between London and Manchester for two more months, and Lou will be between New York again, where Zayn’s film is set, and London, where they’re filming the studio scenes.

He and Lou have already talked about it and it’s not like they haven’t had to work their relationship about their crazy schedules before, but it will be the first time in a long time. Liam leans harder against Lou’s back and kisses the shell of his ear when something catches his eye by the large garden windows that lead to the two rows of lights which illuminate the path to the back of the house.

Tilting his head, he blinks, because he thought...

‘Babe,’ he says, turning his body and taking Lou’s body with him, ‘is that Niall?’

‘I thought he was-’ Lou frowns, squinting at the window.

‘In Ireland,’ Liam, Zayn, and Harry finish as, yes, apparently Niall, who is not in Ireland, knocks on the window and grins, puffing his cheeks out against it like fool. He waves and then points towards the doors, disappearing from sight, just a few seconds before the doorbell rings.

Liam laughs and goes to let Niall in.

*

‘You know it’s less fucking impressive when you ALL message me that there’s food happening, right?’ Niall says, shaking his head and running a hand through his hair. It’s probably sticking up all ways, but he doesn’t give a shit, because he didn’t know it was raining until he was already bloody soaked, which is his least favourite rain to walk through in London, and London has more kinds of rain than Dulux has colour charts.

It’s just so uncinematic. What’s the point of rain if it doesn’t even give a visual?

And at least the fuckers have the decency to look between them, mouths slightly open and pointing, while Nick Grimshaw - right, that’s a thing that’s properly happening then, good to know - removes a wooden spoon from Harry’s hand and keeps cooking the dinner. Good man.

‘Hey, it’s my job to get people to places,’ Louis puts in from the breakfast bar, opening a beer and passing it to Niall. ‘This lot have no excuse for ruining your magic.’

‘Found your back gate, though,’ Niall says with a grin and takes a swallow of the beer, ‘That’s pretty fucking magical.’

Liam laughs and pulls Louis back over as Niall hugs Zayn, squeezing his upper arms.

‘Go ahead, mate, I’ve been working on ‘em,’ Zayn says, shooting a grin to Liam over Niall’s shoulder.

‘Good, good,’ Niall says, and Louis gives him a look out of the corner of his eye. Too clever, that one. If Niall thought for a second he could, he’d have nicked him for his production company years ago. He might try again, though. Depending on what they say to what he’s brought to the table. Depending on when he thinks Zayn can just about tie his own shoelaces without him, metaphorically speaking.

‘We made lots,’ Harry says, kissing his cheek.

‘I was going to make lots,’ Grimmy grouses into Harry’s shoulder, who shushes him. ’For you.’

‘What I like to hear,’ Niall replies, pulling a chair up to the breakfast bar. They look happy. That’s also good.

Niall’s seen the articles since the London premiere for the last film. The articles and the videos that have gone more viral online than puppies in cups. Harry, pulled over to be interviewed by Nick, as usual. Harry, kissing Nick on camera mid-question. The screen going white with flashbulbs. Them laughing and pulling back, Louis slipping into the frame to hiss in Harry’s ear and pull him away, hands on his hips, then turning to do the same to Liam and sending him back towards the line. Liam had offered Nick a hand and lifted him bodily out of the press pit before he was eaten alive by his own kind, palm flat on the wiry bloke’s back like he could fall down without it.

Watching it, Niall had itched for a crane shot, because they were so much like the end of a film, except Harry had come out swinging the next day, refusing to say he was anything other than ‘Nick Grimshaw’s lucky boyfriend’ on every channel. Niall knows the kind of courage it takes to say I haven’t figured the rest out yet and I don’t know if I ever actually will, maybe not like that, but like something, and if he’d had any doubts Harry could handle what he wanted him to do next, that did for them.

It reminds him why he’s in London.

‘So I’m making a thing,’ Niall says loudly, before he can think about it any more, and his team had had to render him an analogue traveller for fear he’d try to change the script again.

Louis and Liam are frozen mid-play-fight, with Zayn standing by Louis’s shoulder awarding points. Harry turns inside the curve of Nick’s arm, where Nick had reached around him for a handful of onions on one of the chopping boards, which are colour-coded and bright like a rainbow against the dark work surface.

‘That’s cool. What’s it gonna be about?’ Zayn says after a minute. ‘So, that was three to Liam -’

‘Two to him! Are you kidding?’ Louis protests, taking both of Liam’s hands in his. ‘Also, you should probably listen to him over there.’

‘Who’s it for, Niall? One of yours or a hire?’ Liam asks politely, twisting his hands so Louis’s are in his instead.

‘You’re all bloody-’ Niall slips from his stool and stands, palms flat on the surface. ‘I think you’d be good for it. I should probably talk to your people first - sorry, not sorry - but you’d be amazing for it. Fuck,’ Niall says, hand in his hair, not enough sleep in his bones, ‘I’ve been writing it for you.’

‘Who do you mean?’ Harry asks, and Louis laughs.

‘He means all of you, you glorious fools,’ Louis says before Niall can answer. ‘All three of you.’

Three sets of eyes turn to Niall, wide and hopeful like a basket full of baby animals, and Niall has got to get off the internet earlier than three in the morning. He’s seen baskets of baby animals recently enough to know.

‘Is he-’

‘He’s right.’

‘YES!’

‘Fuck, seriously, yes!’

‘Whatever you need, yes, mate, count me in-’

Niall looks at Louis as Harry jumps on Liam and drags Zayn along. Liam catches Harry around his waist and Zayn jumps up to sling arms around them both. Louis grins and nods, then says: ‘My husband, client, and ward will get back to you in morning. I expect it’s going to be good news.’

‘Ward is some Sword in the Stone shit,’ Harry shouts from his position, halfway up Liam’s body like a koala. ‘I’m a grown up with a boyfriend, now!’

Nick waves.

‘You said words like they made sense but I assure you they didn’t,’ Louis calls back, tugging out his phone from a pocket that Niall doesn’t want to know about. He didn’t think those trousers had that sort of room. ‘I’m emailing everyone, Niall.’

Niall is staring. They make a picture, that’s for sure.

They’re making a picture, apparently.

‘Don’t any of you want to see the script?’

There's a cough from Liam, who has the grace to blush from where Harry is still trying to perch on his shoulders, and Zayn shuffles next to him, mumbling something like um, yeah, right. Nick is blinking at them like he’s not sure he’s not imagining this.

‘Oh, that thing,’ Louis says, rolling his eyes at them.

‘I’ll print it out tomorrow,’ Niall answers, remembering his beer at the same time Harry and Nick remember shit, don’t let it boil, Grimmy and Liam mentions that they have a case of champagne somewhere in the basement.

‘We’re in the basement,’ Zayn says, standing.

‘The other basement,’ Harry, Louis and Liam chorus.

‘... What is my life,’ Zayn says, grabbing Niall for a hug and dragging him off to track down the bubbly.

*

‘Think they’d have let me do it without the ropes?’

‘Maybe, but I wouldn’t,’ Louis shouts up. ‘Who else is going to jump down the side of this thing with me if you’re free climbing? And those are rocks down there, too, not just nice soft water.’

‘Maybe I’m a rubbish husband and you want rid of me,’ Liam replies, looking at the choppy seas beneath them - far beneath them. It’s amazing. ‘It’s my fault we had the lads over instead of an anniversary.’

Louis’s harness looks a bit like his braces, and under it, he’s in a faded blue short-sleeved t-shirt with a rip at the left hem near the hip that Liam remembers from a year and a week before. He bites his lip. Good thing they sent the packs ahead by road. He’s not planning to spend time unpacking when they get to the beach house. Undressing Louis, that could take time.

‘Your table read isn’t until next Thursday, anyway! We’ve got ages!’ Louis pauses, knee bent where he’s got one foot on a promising small ledge. Liam notes it for when he gets there. ‘Besides, who’s going to check in on them if we don’t? Bloody idiots.’

Liam doesn’t want to grin, but he does. He could answer that: loads of people would, actually. But it’s not the same. He pulls himself up slightly on the rope and drops hand over hand - thank God for the climbing gloves - until he’s bumping his hip against Louis’s and planting a foot on the same little ledge that Louis’s on.

The heat of the day has put pink in Louis’s cheeks, and his hair is a mess. His nose is probably going to freckle, but Liam doesn’t say anything because Louis would pout. Liam pulls him in by the belt on his harness and moves his mouth to Lou’s ear.

‘How much do you want to keep climbing down?’

Lou pulls back and grins. ‘I’d rather climb you. If you’re wondering.’

They kiss hard and finish the cliff in a few long abseiling jumps, Louis crashing lightly into Liam at the bottom - not entirely accidentally - and knocking them into a sand bank as they unclip and drop out of their harnesses, legs still tangled together.

The beach house they’ve rented for the week is a twenty minute walk from where they are. It takes them an hour and Liam has sand in places he’d rather not talk about.

It’s all Louis’s fault, of course, who grins the whole walk back.

EPILOGUE: (dig them up) let’s finish what we started

Louis clutches Liam’s hand from the seat next to him and when the camera puts Liam’s face up on the screen, he’s smiling at Lou, Harry visible in the row behind and grinning like he knows something the audience doesn’t. Niall is on Liam’s other side and he’s got a hand clutched tightly on Liam’s shoulder.

Niall is practically being handed the keys to Hollywood: actors in his films keep being nominated for things like Oscars, and the Screen Actors Guild, at the very least, has decided he’s both a proper director and an amazing good luck charm. The Oscars have been holding out, even if Niall says he’d rather that his actors win than he does.

Louis is going to worry about Zayn in a minute, because he can’t see him and his seat is empty, and he wouldn’t miss this. He wouldn’t. But it is his first awards show back from spending the year off with Perrie and the baby, so Louis wouldn’t blame him if he needed a minute.

Samuel L. Jackson is on stage, again, and it reminds Louis of the last time that all of them were at the Oscars, except this time he’s sitting with Liam, and it’s not the first time Louis has come to an awards show as Liam’s date. The winner of that prize had been the Golden Globes, who also won for having alcohol. Seriously, how do people deal with these things without booze and he’s not even an actor. Sorry, Academy, actually, nope, not sorry at all.

Still, there’s something about being here, with Liam, at his side and not being a sound bite that Liam gives multiple interviews about on the carpet. It matters. A lot. Especially to Liam, who fought with Louis for well over an hour and lost last time. This time Louis didn’t even argue about it, because he’s found out how much it matters to him to be there, too.

Samuel L. Jackson announces the presenter for the next award and Zayn walks out, as perfectly tailored as the rest of them thanks to Lady Lou’s vigilance about hems and cuffs.

Zayn smiles at the camera and then, mercifully quickly, he’s calling out names for what he’s presenting.

Best Actor.

Liam’s hand twitches in Louis’s, and he grips it tighter. The metal of both of their rings bites into Lou’s skin. He feels Harry lean forward and cover Liam’s shoulders with his hands as the second unit camera come to focus on Liam before the screen cuts to Hugh Jackman.

The music plays out and then everyone’s eyes are on Zayn as he opens the envelope.

‘The winner is...’

Zayn is a great actor, Louis has witnessed as much over the years, but it’s ridiculous how that all fades away the second he reads the name in the envelope.

Zayn actually jumps as he says:

‘LIAM PAYNE!”

Lou can hear Harry screaming in his ear, and then he feels Liam’s lips on his own as Niall is shoving him up and away towards the stage. If they weren’t already married, Louis would propose all over again.

As it is, he’s going to lead the standing ovation.

(Oh yeah, Niall wins, too.)

~FIN~

(end credits roll)