liam/zayn medley.
For a pairing I like the best, I always write the tiniest things about them.
of superficial things
1041 words. Hella vague sixth form AU.
Liam only goes to the party because Louis won’t take no for an answer, and in true Louis fashion, he disappears five minutes after they get there and isn’t replying to any of Liam’s texts. Liam is sat awkwardly on a couch in a stranger’s living room, wedged between the arm of the couch and a girl who won’t stop singing, and the clock on the wall slowly but surely ticks closer to one am. He checks his phone again. There’s a text from his sister asking when he’ll be home and one from Niall that is mostly intelligible. Liam sighs.
He waits around for another ten minutes, before the heat really starts to get to him. It was the kind of hot day that led to a warm, humid night, and between that and the number of people packed into a house too small to contain them, Liam’s starting to feel a little woozy. The beer he had earlier isn’t really helping, either. Louis always tells him he has the alcohol tolerance of a girl half his size, but Liam thinks that might be an overestimation. When he stands up, it takes him a moment too long to find the solid ground under his feet.
He gently elbows his way through the living room, saying, “Excuse me, sorry, can I get through,” because there are too many bodies and no safe place to keep his hands.
He comes out a side door, which leads to an alley between the houses. There’s a slight breeze, and Liam takes a deep breath. It smells a little sour, like a rubbish bin, but at least it’s not as hot as it was inside. He feels a grimy now; even his eyelids are heavy with sweat. He thinks if it were worth anything, he’d be irritated at Louis, but all he can actually muster up is exhaustion with a side of disappointment. He hopes Louis feels guilty in the morning.
Liam checks his phone one more time before he texts Louis that he’s probably going to head home. He still waits a few more minutes in case Louis needs anything, and the door creaks open when Liam stuffs his phone back into his pocket.
It’s Zayn. He’s mostly Harry’s friend, but he hangs out with the rest of them enough that Liam feels awkward not acknowledging him. He says, “Oh, hey.”
Zayn just nods at him and then slips outside. He’s got a beer in one hand; his other hand is tucked up between his arm and ribs. He moves it to close the door behind him and then puts it back.
“Hey,” Zayn replies, finally. “Didn’t know you were here.”
“I haven’t been for long,” Liam says, with an awkward shrug. “Louis wanted to check it out.”
“Yeah, I saw him a bit earlier.”
Liam thinks this is the most words they’ve exchanged since they met two months ago, and he has already run out of them. Zayn makes him nervous. Liam’s not usually prone to tripping over himself, but there’s something about Zayn that sets him off-kilter, something about his silence and the way he laughs half the time like he doesn’t really want to that makes Liam thinks too much when he’s near. He can’t say anything without going over it in his head a couple times, and he rarely keeps Zayn’s attention for that long.
He doesn’t think he is now, either, but he doesn’t leave and neither does Zayn. Zayn finishes his beer, and then he let the empty bottle swing from his fingers.
He glances at Liam suddenly before he says, “You’re studying music tech, yeah? Harry said.”
“Yeah,” Liam replies, but it almost sounds like he’s asking, so he repeats it, “Yeah, I am.”
“You enjoy it?”
“Most of the time,” Liam says, shrugging again. “Sometimes it’s a stressful, you know, deadlines and stuff, but. It’s good.” He stops, and Zayn looks at him again, and Liam asks, “What about you?” because he can’t think of anything else.
“Few A-levels,” Zayn says. “Just a bit boring, really.”
“Yeah?”
Zayn gives him a brief, close-mouth smile instead of responding. He looks down at his beer and seems to notice for the first time that it’s empty. His expression turns vaguely annoyed, his brows pulling down, before he sets the bottle down carefully on top of the rubbish bin.
He tucks both of his arms around him, afterward, like he’s cold, but his face is a little shiny with sweat. Liam doesn’t think the beanie pulled down over his ears is helping anything, but he doesn’t say that. He doesn’t say anything. He just looks at Zayn, because it’s hard not to, and Zayn turns his face against his shoulder and yawns.
Liam’s phone vibrates, then. He says, “Sorry,” and pulls it out of his pocket. It’s Louis, who, in response to the five or six texts Liam must have sent him in the past hour, simply says: saw harry see u latre xxxxxxx
Liam is mostly relieved that Louis is sober enough to text actual words, and he texts back: ok get home safe tell h i sia-
“I’m gonna head back to my place,” Zayn says. “I’ll see you later?”
“Okay,” Liam says, a bit startled. He accidentally sends the text, but resending it seems like an unnecessary hassle. Zayn shoots him a half-smile, and Liam probably looks like a complete idiot when he smiles back, and he finds himself asking, “Do you want me to come with?” mostly out of habit but also out of a stupid want to be alone with him for a little longer.
Zayn doesn’t say anything for a moment, and Liam rushes to adds, “Safety in numbers, or whatever,” like that makes it sound any better.
It doesn’t, but it makes Zayn smile again, even though he shakes his head. “It’s a bit of a walk.”
“That’s alright,” Liam says.
“Bit of a walk like a few kilometres.”
“That’s alright,” Liam says again.
“Then if you want,” Zayn tells him, with a shrug. He starts walking toward the street, and Liam quickly falls into step next to him, suddenly glad the night’s warm and he’s got a few kilometres to think of something worth paying attention to.
lose your soul
545 words. Vampire, singular.
The only thing that Liam’s grateful for is that, like everything else in his life, his hunger is on a consistent schedule.
He feels fine for eight days after he feeds. His concentration starts slipping on the ninth; the cold sets in midway through the eleventh. By the the time two weeks pass, he’s got a tremble that rattles his bones and a desperation that grabs him by the ribcage and refuses to let go. It’s usually his breaking point; if he doesn’t go to paul then the rest of them notice, and Liam doesn’t know how to turn down the thrum of someone’s pulse against his tongue, barely knows how to stop when he gets it.
The problem is that their schedule doesn’t always match up with his.
Day sixteen hurts.
Their signing isn’t going to end for another two hours, and Liam does not know a single word that has come out of his mouth in the past twenty minutes. Time has blurred into a thousand faces and the shrill repetition of his name, handshakes and half-hugs, the constant buzz of panic under his skin. This must be what death feels like, he thinks sort of hysterically, except even that had been gentler. Sixteen days and his body has been reduced down to its smallest parts. Two more hours and he swears even his eyelashes ache. He feels guilty for wishing they would just be quiet for a moment, but it’s like the worst kind of sensory deprivation; he can barely find himself inside his own head.
Eventually he stops signing his name, and Niall draws him away from the table with an arm around his waist. “You alright?” he asks, his mouth against Liam’s ear.
Liam leans against him and doesn’t answer. Niall just tightens his fingers as the band slips away from the crowd, and Liam appreciates his silence. He shuts his eyes and trusts Niall to take them where they’re supposed to go.
It ends up being the hotel, and he knows when he’s passed off to Zayn because Zayn holds him like he’s fragile. It makes Liam’s teeth ache. They don’t normally do this. Zayn doesn’t offer and Liam wouldn’t know what to do if he did, anyway. Most days he can’t tell if Zayn’s scared of him or scared for him, but Liam can’t blame him; most days he can’t look at Zayn without wanting to sink his teeth in and find out.
Zayn’s fingers are against his ribcage, and Liam pushes closer until he can feel the rise of Zayn’s chest against his own, the rapid flutter of his heartbeat against his palms.
“Sorry,” Liam murmurs.
“You’re a dumbass,” Zayn says. There’s a wall against Liam’s back, and when he blinks his eyes, the elevator door is sliding shut and Zayn’s hands are on his hips, his neck bared. “Just do it.”
“Zayn-”
“You have ten floors,” Zayn says, and then quieter, “Don’t give me a chance to change my mind.”
Liam wants to let him go, but he can’t move anywhere except closer. “Sorry,” he says again, and Zayn flinches at the first press of teeth against his neck but presses closer before Liam can get another word out, and Liam bites the breath out of him.
and its seasons
1403 words. The prompt was "goodnight kiss"; this is something like that.
Liam can depend on the knock on his door like clockwork.
When Louis wants to go out, Zayn wants to go out, and when Zayn goes out, he gets drunk. Liam rarely goes out with them, but according to Louis, Zayn has two drunk phases: three-drink Zayn, who is a delight, and five-drink Zayn, who remembers his limit only when the nausea sets in. Five-drink Zayn is miserable and irritable and prone to falling asleep while waiting for a cab.
He also seems to hate being alone, so he comes knocking on Liam’s door when he can remember which room number it is. In the beginning, he used to give Liam excuses, like a misplaced keycard or a couple fucking in the room next to his, but those eventually tapered off until he was asleep on top of the sheets before Liam could remind him to take his shoes off. Liam doesn’t really mind. Zayn’s a quiet sleeper, and Liam likes waking up in the morning and knowing immediately that he made it through the night.
Liam’s brushing his teeth when the knock comes tonight, and he mumbles, “Just a minute,” around his toothbrush before they knock again, a bit harder. Liam manages to get to his molars when his phone vibrates.
ru in? Zayn asks.
Liam slowly texts back one-handed - bruhsing teeth - before he gives up the cause and spits. He stills gets another text as he’s drying his face, but Zayn seems to have found his patience; it just says k.
When Liam opens the door, Zayn leaning against the frame, quite close, and Liam takes a half-step back, says, “You’re in early.”
“Louis stopped having fun, so we came back,” Zayn explains, ducking around Liam to get inside. He makes a beeline for the bed, but he just sits on the edge. Liam’s a bit surprised. Usually he gets two words out of Zayn, at most, and they’re monosyllabic if Zayn can be bothered to enunciate at all. The surprise must show on his face, because Zayn’s posture suddenly goes stiff. “I can-”
“What? No,” Liam says. It doesn’t really matter what he was going to say; Liam hates the way he wears his uncertainty. “I’m glad you’re back. You just go to sleep, usually, is all.”
“Right, yeah,” Zayn says, with a shrug, and he wears his discomfort even worse. He suddenly looks very small, sat on the giant hotel bed, and Liam wishes he were better at pretending not to notice.
As is, he says, “Well,” in an awkwardly loud voice. “I was going to settle in for a Friends marathon, but you are welcome to join me.”
Zayn hates Friends for reasons Liam can’t comprehend, but he shrugs again, says, “Alright.” He even gives Liam a small smile when Liam says, “Great,” which Liam usually has to embarrass himself a lot more for at this time of day.
Liam can feel himself beam back without permission, and Zayn’s smile gets wider and a little more reluctant. Liam makes himself look away, then, gestures for Zayn to get comfortable and then he busies himself with the tv so he can do just that.
It’s hard to shut Zayn out of his periphery, though. Even with his eyes on the TV, Liam can see him take off his shoes, his socks. His jacket goes next, then his hoodie; he keeps his beanie on. Under it all, he’s just wearing a borrowed pair of Louis’ jeans and a vest that probably isn’t his, either. Liam exhales and suddenly feels sort of stupid over it. He seen all of them in every state of undress, but the sight of Zayn’s skin still feels like a surprise. He’s not weird about his body, but he’s also not open like Harry or carefree like Niall or intentional like Louis; sometimes even his bare feet feel like an intimacy Liam doesn’t know how to handle.
Liam shifts himself back against the headboard, and Zayn lazily follows him until they’re propped up next to each other. They’re not quite shoulder-to-shoulder but Zayn’s got his legs folded up, knee against Liam’s thigh. Liam presses against it to let Zayn know it’s okay, and Zayn’s weight shifts a little tighter against him. He smells like he always does, whatever cologne he’s using that week and cigarettes, but Liam can also smell the beer on his breath when he exhales.
Liam wants to ask him how he’s feeling, but it’s one of those things that Zayn gets crabby about, so instead he makes a quick excuse about wanting a glass of water. When he comes back, he leaves it within Zayn’s reach, though Zayn has seemingly given up any effort to sit up. He’s curled up on top of the sheets, his hands tucked between his knees. The only thing that tells Liam he’s awake is the fact that he’s making a face at the TV.
“I can change the channel, if you want,” Liam tells him, because he has seen this episode about a million times already.
Zayn tips his head back to look at Liam. “I don’t really care.”
“That’s not your ‘I don’t really care’ face,” Liam says, climbing back into bed. He slips his legs under the duvet and does his best not to knee Zayn. “It looked pretty annoyed to me.”
“Did it?”
“Mhm,” Liam says.
“I didn’t mean for it to,” Zayn tells him, vaguely apologetic. When Liam looks down at him, he’s still making the face. Liam pulls his beanie down over his eyes instead of responding.
Liam holds up for the first episode, but he feels pretty sleepy by the second, so he shuffles further down under the sheets. Zayn makes a disgruntled sound when he moves, and Liam whispers, “Sorry,” curves his arm around Zayn’s shoulder from under the duvet. Zayn mumbles something unkind against his chest.
Liam watches another half of an episode before he blinks and wakes up in near-darkness. The TV’s off; it takes Liam a moment to recognize the blurry, moving shape as Zayn shifting next to him.
“Hey,” Liam murmurs, briefly tightening his grip around Zayn’s shoulders. “Where you goin’?”
“Back to mine,” Zayn whispers back. “It’s too hot in here.”
“You can open the window or something,” Liam says, but it’s a half-ass attempt to get Zayn to stay. He’s never had to try before, and the way Zayn’s looking at him makes him feel clumsier than the haze of sleep already manages. He stretches, lets go of Zayn and tries not to let the absence unsettle him. “Feeling alright, yeah?”
“I’m alright,” Zayn says, propping himself up on his elbow and looking down at Liam.
“You sure?”
“I’m sure, Liam.” He sounds just exasperated enough that Liam feels defensive and fond enough that he can’t act on it, so Liam just lets his mouth slant into a sheepish smile. Zayn stares back at him in response.
“Just checking,” Liam tells him. He palms the bunch of muscle behind Zayn’s neck and squeezes. “Sleep well.”
Zayn hums a little in agreement, and Liam’s eyes droop closed for a long moment. When he opens them again, Zayn’s a lot closer than he thought. Liam goes a little cross-eyed trying to focus on his face.
“Goodnight,” Zayn says, and he drops down and kisses the corner of Liam’s mouth so briefly Liam’s not sure it happened until he turns into it. He pushes his fingertips against Zayn’s hairline, and Zayn tips their foreheads together for a moment.
“Alright?” he asks.
“Sure,” Liam says, a bit stupidly.
He can feel the huff of Zayn’s laugh, and then Zayn kisses him more firmly beneath his eye, on his cheek, against the curve of his jaw. There’s a moment of hesitation before Liam feels the sharp press of his teeth, and he suddenly stops holding his breath, turns his face away.
“Right, enough of that, I think,” he says.
Zayn just laughs again, and then he rolls away, letting his legs fall over the edge of the bed. Liam watches him put his clothes back on. He thinks he should say something, but time sluggishly passes him by until Zayn’s putting his shoes back on and nodding over his shoulder, and all Liam has is how drunk are you? because he is suddenly not certain anymore.