It Just Is - Liam/Zayn
Title It Just Is
Pairing: Liam/Zayn
Disclaimer Very definitely a work of complete fiction, none of this genuinely took place.
Word Count: 3, 732
Summary: If he were Louis, he’d tuck his bigger body against Zayn’s back. Sling an arm around his full tummy and exhale his laughter into the nape of Zayn’s neck, but Liam can’t. Mostly because if he got a grip on Zayn, he wouldn’t want to loosen it. Not at all. He’d want to cradle him forever, with the strength of his muscles cushioning the delicate curve of Zayn’s spine. He’d want to press against the hollows in Zayn’s wrists and map out the shallows between his bones and blooming muscles. He’d want to swallow him whole and keep him safe in the cave of his belly, like that film that was a book with the boy and his monsters.
A/N: I requested thumb sucking over at the kink meme, only to end up writing it myself. There are very subtle nods towards D/s in this, too, but it's non-sexual. Also at ao3.
Zayn prefers to sleep with his head tucked right beneath his blankets- cocooned deep within them- and whenever they share a hotel room, Liam’s always amazed that he can cope with it. He remembers feeling suffocated by hot, stale air in his childhood dens but Zayn seems to prefer it. Doesn’t leave even a crack for a fresh stream of oxygen. Contented when he’s hidden; a rabbit in a warren. It’s endearing really, the Zayn-shaped lump. It seems small too, as though Liam could curve right around it and he thinks about that a lot, though he can never place exactly why.
One night, after a horrendously hectic schedule, they check-in late to their hotel and discover that their joint room is set up so that the requested single beds are pushed so close they almost make up a double. There’s barely a half inch of space between the two mattresses and both beds are bracketed by bedside tables so heavy they’ve set grooves into the luxurious carpeting beneath, leaving little room for rearranging.
“They didn’t think this through, eh?” Zayn gestures to the beds and exhales a laugh that’s shallow with nervousness. Shyer than you’d expect, considering his band’s attraction to casual acts of intimacy.
“Oh! Ha! No!” Liam ruffles a hand through his own hair, eyes the phone set on the room’s desk, “Shall I call down to reception or...?”
Zayn tilts his head and the tip of it towards his shoulder is heavy with tiredness. A slump, though it isn’t all together inelegant, thanks to his slender neck, the veins of his throat. “I’d say yeah usually, if we’d of checked in early like, but I’m seconds away from crashin’ y’know, mate?” He sighs into a slack-jawed yawn, brown eyes as drowsy as they’d been during their ride across town.
“Yeah right, well it’s no problem!” Liam shrugs- words genuine. Really, it wasn’t as though they hadn’t enjoyed being close before: Zayn had sprawled himself across Liam’s lap on numerous occasions, shoulders settled beneath Liam’s collar bones, dark hair tickling at his chin.
Once they’ve stripped down and switched off to their lamps, they keep to the outer-edges of their beds. At least a leg’s length between their bodies. The could twine their ankles, but they don’t. Liam sets his alarm on his phone, taps through to one of his current favourite apps; Zayn yawns into his balled fist- night Li, ‘m fucking dead ‘ere- and cuddles down under his mound of quilt. Liam’s not quite so tired.
He ought to be, after the day they’ve had: acoustic radio performances, a slot of promo on a tv show, action plan run throughs- but he just keeps going. Thoughts ticking, snippets of songs whirring in the back of his mind. He trades texts back and forth with Niall and Lou for a while- until they seem to drop off as Zayn had. Then it’s just himself for company, a dim view of the ceiling cornicing and a room cloaked in silence [not even the rumbling of traffic considering they’re up on the seventh floor]. The buzz of an unfamiliar hush and something that... Liam perks up some, trying to place another soft sound...
Something like sucking that he can’t puzzle out.
Firstly, he wonders if perhaps it’s the plumbing, or the heating system, though neither quite fit. Pipes would gurgle, instead. Confused, he props himself up on one elbow and squints until he can fathom where exactly it’s coming from. It’s muffled by quilt, he decides, about a leg’s length away, and he gnaws on his lip. Watches the mound that’s his band mate with a curiosity hitched in his chest because he can’t think of much a sucking sound could be. Other than... Liam sits himself up and turns on his bedside lamp once again, the tick of his thoughts far faster than a clock now.
Swallowing his next breath and going ever so slowly so as not to rustle his sheets, Liam rolls across the few inches of mattress and plucks at the corner of Zayn’s blanket. Waits, just to be sure that he hasn’t disturbed Zayn already, and then begins to peel it back; opens up a window between the blanket and Zayn’s pillow in order to peer through at the older boy.
His lamp’s not casting it’s light very far, and he’s blocking it somewhat too, so Zayn is all shadows. Liam can only make out hair at first- tousled and inky, feathered in the way that it falls forward. But then there’s the sooty scrap of Zayn’s lashes, too and his knuckles up over his nose. Liam shifts to his left, let’s a little more light spill over, and makes out Zayn’s fist between his cheek and shoulder; each of his fingers curled tenderly towards his palm. All of them but his thumb, which he has tucked snuggly between his lips. Liam immediately connects it with the suckling sound and feels a plunge of guilt through his belly.
Breathing stuttering, he flips the blanket back into place, scrambles clumsily across to flick off his lamp, and dives down to his own pillow. He hides his face, with his eyes squeezed shut, but it’s quite hopeless- all that he can see is Zayn’s hidden thumb, the wrap of his long fingers over the bridge of his nose. As he desperately seeks sleep, how soothed and soft his friend had seemed is white noise inside his skull. Amplified and echoing.
---
Liam’s almost surprised that Zayn’s still Zayn the next day; the same cheeky tongue behind his teeth when he smirks; the same wise glinting eyes during his quiet moments and the same effortless cool in his Letterman, sleeves jacked up to show off his ink. Liam feels different though- hot under the collar and obsessed with the fine bones of Zayn’s hands; the knots of his knuckles; his mouth and how it moves around his words.
He can’t keep himself from watching, though it’s not until Zayn gnaws at his thumbnail that Liam blushes- realising that he’s been on him like a hawk. Zayn doesn’t give himself away, thumb dropping as quickly as it had come up to his mouth, but feeling Liam’s gaze, he does quirk his eyebrow at him. Seems to ask you alright mate? before swooping his arm around Louis who’s appeared with a footie from somewhere and recruited Zayn for his team.
Four interviews follow the football match. Boring really. The usual agreed upon list of questions, answers which they could reel off in their sleep. In a coma, even, Liam thinks, still wearing as genuine a smile as he can manage. Cheerful about celebrity crushes and crazy fan stories because it’s his job to be. Still, he wants to squeeze Harry hard when he cracks an absolutely awful joke which breaks through the monotony of it all; lets them work off some tensed up energy with a burst of chuckles and rolled eyes.
“Food now, please?” Louis groans as they file out of their last studio and into their waiting car. They let Paul push them through the throng of screaming girls, waving when they can, and Niall agrees with Louis as soon as he’s sitting- “Indian, didn’t we agree on Indian? I’m going to eat me bodyweight in onion bhajis, Jesus.”
Quiet, Zayn slumps low in the car and fidgets with a carton of cigarettes. Backs up from the the mania outside of the window and lets his eyes droop closed. Liam sits beside him, drumming his fingertips over his knees- trying to tap something like normalcy out on his jeans. He wants to wind his arm around Zayn and draw him in to his chest, be a comfort to him. Zayn could hide there, long fingers over his nose, his thumb a secret between his lips. Liam would stroke through his hair, find an abandoned hoodie to toss across Zayn like a blanket. He could nap for the ride over to the restaurant, Liam’s strong arms around him and nobody asking questions.
Liam remembers the snuffling sucking sounds that he’d fallen asleep listening out for and craves them against his skin. Wet and sweet. He wants to see Zayn’s lips rubbed red and his eyes like Bambi because of the space he slips into before he soothes himself to sleep. Instead, he settles for a quick hug once they’ve both unlocked their seat belts. A silly little squeeze and a bashful grin. He tells him it’s homesickness that’s got him acting so strange and Zayn kisses his forehead with a murmur of understanding- aye, Li, we’ll be heading home soon, though and this food will make you feel better.
The meal doesn’t do much to improve Liam’s mood at all, not when Zayn orders a glass bottle of Pepsi with his. His lips are distractingly puffy around the bottle’s opening as he sups languidly, all heavy lashes and rolling throat. A tease, Liam thinks, and then corrects himself- because Zayn has no idea, and he doesn’t suck his thumb for Liam, he does it for himself.
---
Once they’ve eaten a satisfying amount of curry and carbs, they head back to the same hotel. The same room, just for one more night. Liam makes the same move towards the phone set, ready to the right the wrong of the bed, but Zayn cuffs him around the back of the neck before he can reach it. Scratches below his ear and dips in to knock his nose to Liam’s hair. Into the scent of conditioner and sweat and spices.
“Eh mate, you said you’re feeling homesick yeah? You looked all distracted durin’ dinner. We’ll leave the beds how they are, don’t want you getting lonely. Movie, too?”
“You sure?” Liam asks. Tone neutral, pulse quivering.
Zayn is quite sure, so they flop onto their beds, crisp cotton crackling beneath them, and flick through to Shaun of the Dead. Both of them have seen it before, countless times, but it doesn’t seem to make it any less funny- even if they can recite Simon Pegg’s jokes before he’s even uttered them. Liam decides that if he had been genuinely been sad, he would of forgotten to mope after twenty minutes of the movie. The movie and the steady ebb and flow of Zayn’s breathing, the vibrations of it beneath his t-shirt. Best friend, brother, the most interesting boy Liam’s ever known; Liam thinks he could pick out Zayn’s breathing, just his, in a crowded room.
After the credits roll, they choose a second film. Another comedy with a simple enough plot line, nothing much that needs following. Both boys watch passively, giggling under their breath if something calls for it. Yawning, too. Zayn flicks his gaze towards Liam every so often- just checking. Offers him encouraging smiles and the reassuring skate of his fingertips over Liam’s forearm. It’s nothing much, but Liam manages to magnify it so that his cheeks flush and his mouth dries.
If he were Louis, he’d tuck his bigger body against Zayn’s back. Sling an arm around his full tummy and exhale his laughter into the nape of Zayn’s neck, but Liam can’t. Mostly because if he got a grip on Zayn, he wouldn’t want to loosen it. Not at all. He’d want to cradle him forever, with the strength of his muscles cushioning the delicate curve of Zayn’s spine. He’d want to press against the hollows in Zayn’s wrists and map out the shallows between his bones and blooming muscles. He’d want to swallow him whole and keep him safe in the cave of his belly, like that film that was a book with the boy and his monsters.
Half-way through the second film, Zayn’s breathing drops and his body follows. Sinking deeper into the mattress, he falls fast asleep. Overdressed for it in his jeans and tee, his checked shirt- one button still fastened around his neck- and atop the blankets rather than beneath them. Liam whispers a tense oh once he’s realises. Flounders for a second, eyes on the tv-bright shaft of light illuminating his band mate, and then carefully clambers off of his own bed. He creeps through to the bathroom to brush his teeth and hope that Zayn wakes up again and burrows beneath his blanket as always, to save Liam from himself.
Breath scented with Colgate and with his heart like Josh’s drumming, Liam returns to Zayn laying just as he had been. Soft and sprawling. Though his arm is crooked, too. Thumb in his mouth, again. It ought to look strange, wrong, something inside of Liam murmurs adamantly, but it just is. Quietly hurting nobody. Liam shucks off his jeans, switches off the television and steadfastly doesn’t imagine the curl of Zayn’s silky tongue beneath his thumb knuckle, the sleepy greedy pull of it.
At least until he’s laying in his own bed. Belly down and wanting to wail in aguish.
---
They fly home the next morning, and later that night, once they’ve all settled in their respective apartments, Liam’s mobile phone buzzes. With one hand, he’s stirring tomato pesto through fusilli, with the other he’s unzipping a bag of grated cheese [having to catch a corner of the plastic in his mouth to yank at the fastening] so he ignores it for a minute. Has it wait through a succession of vibrations, until he’s tipped the pasta in a bowl. The buzz is the same each time, but Liam can’t help but imagine it sounding increasingly petulant, whining for his attention where it’s tucked into his back pocket.
“Alright, alright,” Liam mumbles, as if to placate it.
He dusts off his hands and gets to flicking through his texts- there are three. Each of them are from Zayn: time differences r weird innit, head feels all funny and wanna sleep but cant relax. Time differences definitely are an odd thing Liam agrees, knowing that he’s days off jiving with his English clock. Which would be why he’s about to tuck into a dish of carbohydrates despite it being pitch black beyond his kitchen window. He hadn’t even thought about bed, just paused a boxing match on the telly and listened to his gut’s rumbling pleas.
It buzzes once more whilst it’s in his hand. Zayn again. Liaaaammm. Liam dumps cheese over his pasta and and stabs his fork through his mouthful before he replies-
I no m8 feels propa erly
What u doin?
Made sum food u?
In bed wanna sleep but cant
Cownt sheep?
Liam’s back on the couch when Zayn’s tried :( reaches him, chewing noisily at a mouthful of pasta. He swallows and pouts for Zayn as he thinks. Coming by helpful suggestions is more difficult than it should be, mostly because Liam feels as though someones poured television static in through his ear. He pinches at the inner corners of his eyes and does his upmost to ignore that the singular idea which he can come up with is, so put your thumb in your mouth? Because that wouldn’t be appropriate, right?
Only Liam gives it half another hour before he messages his bandmate again, works through the entirety of his meal and the rest of the match, and still gets back a my head is bangin this is shit. Liam knows the feeling, a waltzer behind your eyes whenever they close and the sensation of your blood thrumming through you, far too alive. There’s something else there, too- some inkling that has Liam wondering if Zayn’s angling for a more specific answer. The right one. It’s why he sends the text he’s sure he shouldn’t- tense but trembling- suck ur thumb and exale all ur awakeness thru ur nose.
As soon as he’s hit send Liam regrets it. Doubts himself with the force of a speeding double decker bus. Definitely expecting to have to play it off as a joke within the next few seconds; to have to clumsily hide that he’s uncovered Zayn’s secret and just pray that that other boy buys it. He certainly isn’t expecting Zayn’s reply to come prefaced with a smiley- :) k Li; for a second picture message to pop up in his inbox as soon as he’s read that. But there it is- a photo of Zayn, unsurprisingly- but it’s a Zayn Liam’s been at a distance from before. The older boy tucked in against his pillow, all spidery lashes and sweeping fringe again, sucking at his thumb as Liam had told him to and looking more endearing than Liam’s ever seen anyone be.
For the rest of that proceeding week, the two boys exchange goodnights texts. Something new unlocked between them.
Zayn will usually initiate them by letting Liam know that he’s climbing into bed, or perhaps that he’s just brushed his teeth and found some sweats. Liam, in turn, will tell him to get comfortable. To tuck himself in nice and tight, switch off his bedside lamp and lastly, slip his thumb into his mouth. Once he’s all set for sleep, Zayn sends over more pictures- with his fist grazing his nose and his wide weary eyes- and Liam wishes him the sweetest of dreams. It feels like he’s putting Zayn to bed, the routine of it, and he can’t help but think back to their shared hotel room. To longing to be a protective crescent moon around Zayn’s sleeping body.
---
Zayn eventually ending up at Liam’s front door at eleven pm is inevitable.
Slack shouldered in an old t-shirt and low slung sweats; rubbing the back of his hand against his eyebrows and toying with the hanging cord of his pants. Stood like that, he’s not quite the boy from the band, with his sleepiness spilling over him, but he is Liam’s Zayn. Needing something from him that Liam wants to give in a way he’d never have the eloquence to explain [and who would he tell, anyway?]. He says this is okay, right? I’m not crossing a line?, toes towards the little metal bar that lays below Liam’s door, and Liam finds his arms spreading in response- c’mere, yeah? I’ve been expectin’ you, I think.
Liam is the big spoon of course, when they curl up in his unmade bed. The both of them the middle of a ripple in a pool of bed sheets. Liam wraps his arms around Zayn’s chest and feels a panic beneath- a flurry of heart beats, faster than they should be. Zayn’s breathing is the same. He touches his lips to the back of Zayn’s neck- but it’s not a kiss- and hums quietly.
“This is alright you know, really,” Liam whispers, “It’s nice that you’re not just a text.”
Zayn nods. Swallows. “And if I wanted to...?”
“I’d want you to to. Too. I...” Liam’s blunt thumb nail grazes across the bone of Zayn’s wrist and his toes flex anxiously. “If you want to, I mean. I just want you to do what you want to do.” He huffs at himself, not even sure he’s speaking English, but Zayn’s head bobs again. Which is a positive, yeah? “Are you tired now?”
He’d looked it, weighed down by it in the corridor, but Liam asks anyway. Maybe Zayn wants a hot drink instead, or to chuck on a dvd; maybe he’d just wanted a chat and had been planning on padding back to his own place. Liam hopes not, because his company is lovely. Golden warm and slow moving and rewarding- Zayn’s build being that much slighter than his, Zayn seeking him out for some reason.
“Knackered, y’know,” Zayn replies and then wriggles from Liam’s grasp. Liam’s belly swoops and is empty suddenly, but Zayn’s only moving so that he can flip himself over and lie with his nose at Liam’s throat. Knees bundling up towards his thighs; breaths hot little flutters where Liam’s collar pulls down. Zayn smells of herbal tea. Liam knows that he probably smells of sweat and hopes Zayn doesn’t hold it against him.
“Okay, okay, me too pretty much,” He murmurs, trying to keep his hand steady as it splays over the curve between Zayn’s soft cotton shoulder and neck. Fingers long enough to reach into his hair. “So let’s sleep?” Liam waits then- his toes cramping and refusing to uncurl.
He waits until Zayn’s eyes fall closed and his back stiffens; until he slides his arm up between them and parts his lips around his thumb. Slow as anything, like sucking his thumb so openly feels like a risk he has to creep towards. But then he’s where he wants to be, with his fist tilted lazily towards his cheek and it’s beautiful. Unsure and then unhurried and then settled. Rhythmic. Liam begins to pet against the nape of Zayn’s neck and Zayn doesn’t flinch so he continues- even twisting into a rather impossible position to flick off his lamp rather than choosing to pause his fingertips.
The being swallowed up by the darkness is safe. Zayn sucks harder when he feels less like he’s being watched and Liam can let himself grin like he’s won something. Won a boy who’s loosening up like’s he’s fallen under a spell. He digs his right arm into the mattress, underneath Zayn’s ribs, and both of his hands meet between Zayn’s shoulder blades. Liam rubs soothing circles while his head bows towards the soft wet sounds of Zayn’s working tongue. As wonderful as he had imagined them, though Liam doesn’t want to admit that he’d imagined them at all.
When Liam’s quite sure that Zayn’s fallen asleep- when everything but his pulsing lips and tongue have stilled- he ghosts his hand from Zayn’s back to his cheek’s heated skin. Strokes at the angle of his cheekbone and then dips the pad of his own thumb right down. He rolls it against Zayn’s bottom lip, so that he can feel the pucker of the plump flesh, and then the film of saliva over his digit before he pulls his whole thumb back into his mouth. It’s enough, intimate but not sexual. Liam doesn’t quite know what it is- it’s just being curved right around Zayn and having everything calm like the silence of white after a snow storm.
He shuts his own eyes, twines their ankles and hugs Zayn near fiercely when he whines a little around his thumb.
Pairing: Liam/Zayn
Disclaimer Very definitely a work of complete fiction, none of this genuinely took place.
Word Count: 3, 732
Summary: If he were Louis, he’d tuck his bigger body against Zayn’s back. Sling an arm around his full tummy and exhale his laughter into the nape of Zayn’s neck, but Liam can’t. Mostly because if he got a grip on Zayn, he wouldn’t want to loosen it. Not at all. He’d want to cradle him forever, with the strength of his muscles cushioning the delicate curve of Zayn’s spine. He’d want to press against the hollows in Zayn’s wrists and map out the shallows between his bones and blooming muscles. He’d want to swallow him whole and keep him safe in the cave of his belly, like that film that was a book with the boy and his monsters.
A/N: I requested thumb sucking over at the kink meme, only to end up writing it myself. There are very subtle nods towards D/s in this, too, but it's non-sexual. Also at ao3.
Zayn prefers to sleep with his head tucked right beneath his blankets- cocooned deep within them- and whenever they share a hotel room, Liam’s always amazed that he can cope with it. He remembers feeling suffocated by hot, stale air in his childhood dens but Zayn seems to prefer it. Doesn’t leave even a crack for a fresh stream of oxygen. Contented when he’s hidden; a rabbit in a warren. It’s endearing really, the Zayn-shaped lump. It seems small too, as though Liam could curve right around it and he thinks about that a lot, though he can never place exactly why.
One night, after a horrendously hectic schedule, they check-in late to their hotel and discover that their joint room is set up so that the requested single beds are pushed so close they almost make up a double. There’s barely a half inch of space between the two mattresses and both beds are bracketed by bedside tables so heavy they’ve set grooves into the luxurious carpeting beneath, leaving little room for rearranging.
“They didn’t think this through, eh?” Zayn gestures to the beds and exhales a laugh that’s shallow with nervousness. Shyer than you’d expect, considering his band’s attraction to casual acts of intimacy.
“Oh! Ha! No!” Liam ruffles a hand through his own hair, eyes the phone set on the room’s desk, “Shall I call down to reception or...?”
Zayn tilts his head and the tip of it towards his shoulder is heavy with tiredness. A slump, though it isn’t all together inelegant, thanks to his slender neck, the veins of his throat. “I’d say yeah usually, if we’d of checked in early like, but I’m seconds away from crashin’ y’know, mate?” He sighs into a slack-jawed yawn, brown eyes as drowsy as they’d been during their ride across town.
“Yeah right, well it’s no problem!” Liam shrugs- words genuine. Really, it wasn’t as though they hadn’t enjoyed being close before: Zayn had sprawled himself across Liam’s lap on numerous occasions, shoulders settled beneath Liam’s collar bones, dark hair tickling at his chin.
Once they’ve stripped down and switched off to their lamps, they keep to the outer-edges of their beds. At least a leg’s length between their bodies. The could twine their ankles, but they don’t. Liam sets his alarm on his phone, taps through to one of his current favourite apps; Zayn yawns into his balled fist- night Li, ‘m fucking dead ‘ere- and cuddles down under his mound of quilt. Liam’s not quite so tired.
He ought to be, after the day they’ve had: acoustic radio performances, a slot of promo on a tv show, action plan run throughs- but he just keeps going. Thoughts ticking, snippets of songs whirring in the back of his mind. He trades texts back and forth with Niall and Lou for a while- until they seem to drop off as Zayn had. Then it’s just himself for company, a dim view of the ceiling cornicing and a room cloaked in silence [not even the rumbling of traffic considering they’re up on the seventh floor]. The buzz of an unfamiliar hush and something that... Liam perks up some, trying to place another soft sound...
Something like sucking that he can’t puzzle out.
Firstly, he wonders if perhaps it’s the plumbing, or the heating system, though neither quite fit. Pipes would gurgle, instead. Confused, he props himself up on one elbow and squints until he can fathom where exactly it’s coming from. It’s muffled by quilt, he decides, about a leg’s length away, and he gnaws on his lip. Watches the mound that’s his band mate with a curiosity hitched in his chest because he can’t think of much a sucking sound could be. Other than... Liam sits himself up and turns on his bedside lamp once again, the tick of his thoughts far faster than a clock now.
Swallowing his next breath and going ever so slowly so as not to rustle his sheets, Liam rolls across the few inches of mattress and plucks at the corner of Zayn’s blanket. Waits, just to be sure that he hasn’t disturbed Zayn already, and then begins to peel it back; opens up a window between the blanket and Zayn’s pillow in order to peer through at the older boy.
His lamp’s not casting it’s light very far, and he’s blocking it somewhat too, so Zayn is all shadows. Liam can only make out hair at first- tousled and inky, feathered in the way that it falls forward. But then there’s the sooty scrap of Zayn’s lashes, too and his knuckles up over his nose. Liam shifts to his left, let’s a little more light spill over, and makes out Zayn’s fist between his cheek and shoulder; each of his fingers curled tenderly towards his palm. All of them but his thumb, which he has tucked snuggly between his lips. Liam immediately connects it with the suckling sound and feels a plunge of guilt through his belly.
Breathing stuttering, he flips the blanket back into place, scrambles clumsily across to flick off his lamp, and dives down to his own pillow. He hides his face, with his eyes squeezed shut, but it’s quite hopeless- all that he can see is Zayn’s hidden thumb, the wrap of his long fingers over the bridge of his nose. As he desperately seeks sleep, how soothed and soft his friend had seemed is white noise inside his skull. Amplified and echoing.
---
Liam’s almost surprised that Zayn’s still Zayn the next day; the same cheeky tongue behind his teeth when he smirks; the same wise glinting eyes during his quiet moments and the same effortless cool in his Letterman, sleeves jacked up to show off his ink. Liam feels different though- hot under the collar and obsessed with the fine bones of Zayn’s hands; the knots of his knuckles; his mouth and how it moves around his words.
He can’t keep himself from watching, though it’s not until Zayn gnaws at his thumbnail that Liam blushes- realising that he’s been on him like a hawk. Zayn doesn’t give himself away, thumb dropping as quickly as it had come up to his mouth, but feeling Liam’s gaze, he does quirk his eyebrow at him. Seems to ask you alright mate? before swooping his arm around Louis who’s appeared with a footie from somewhere and recruited Zayn for his team.
Four interviews follow the football match. Boring really. The usual agreed upon list of questions, answers which they could reel off in their sleep. In a coma, even, Liam thinks, still wearing as genuine a smile as he can manage. Cheerful about celebrity crushes and crazy fan stories because it’s his job to be. Still, he wants to squeeze Harry hard when he cracks an absolutely awful joke which breaks through the monotony of it all; lets them work off some tensed up energy with a burst of chuckles and rolled eyes.
“Food now, please?” Louis groans as they file out of their last studio and into their waiting car. They let Paul push them through the throng of screaming girls, waving when they can, and Niall agrees with Louis as soon as he’s sitting- “Indian, didn’t we agree on Indian? I’m going to eat me bodyweight in onion bhajis, Jesus.”
Quiet, Zayn slumps low in the car and fidgets with a carton of cigarettes. Backs up from the the mania outside of the window and lets his eyes droop closed. Liam sits beside him, drumming his fingertips over his knees- trying to tap something like normalcy out on his jeans. He wants to wind his arm around Zayn and draw him in to his chest, be a comfort to him. Zayn could hide there, long fingers over his nose, his thumb a secret between his lips. Liam would stroke through his hair, find an abandoned hoodie to toss across Zayn like a blanket. He could nap for the ride over to the restaurant, Liam’s strong arms around him and nobody asking questions.
Liam remembers the snuffling sucking sounds that he’d fallen asleep listening out for and craves them against his skin. Wet and sweet. He wants to see Zayn’s lips rubbed red and his eyes like Bambi because of the space he slips into before he soothes himself to sleep. Instead, he settles for a quick hug once they’ve both unlocked their seat belts. A silly little squeeze and a bashful grin. He tells him it’s homesickness that’s got him acting so strange and Zayn kisses his forehead with a murmur of understanding- aye, Li, we’ll be heading home soon, though and this food will make you feel better.
The meal doesn’t do much to improve Liam’s mood at all, not when Zayn orders a glass bottle of Pepsi with his. His lips are distractingly puffy around the bottle’s opening as he sups languidly, all heavy lashes and rolling throat. A tease, Liam thinks, and then corrects himself- because Zayn has no idea, and he doesn’t suck his thumb for Liam, he does it for himself.
---
Once they’ve eaten a satisfying amount of curry and carbs, they head back to the same hotel. The same room, just for one more night. Liam makes the same move towards the phone set, ready to the right the wrong of the bed, but Zayn cuffs him around the back of the neck before he can reach it. Scratches below his ear and dips in to knock his nose to Liam’s hair. Into the scent of conditioner and sweat and spices.
“Eh mate, you said you’re feeling homesick yeah? You looked all distracted durin’ dinner. We’ll leave the beds how they are, don’t want you getting lonely. Movie, too?”
“You sure?” Liam asks. Tone neutral, pulse quivering.
Zayn is quite sure, so they flop onto their beds, crisp cotton crackling beneath them, and flick through to Shaun of the Dead. Both of them have seen it before, countless times, but it doesn’t seem to make it any less funny- even if they can recite Simon Pegg’s jokes before he’s even uttered them. Liam decides that if he had been genuinely been sad, he would of forgotten to mope after twenty minutes of the movie. The movie and the steady ebb and flow of Zayn’s breathing, the vibrations of it beneath his t-shirt. Best friend, brother, the most interesting boy Liam’s ever known; Liam thinks he could pick out Zayn’s breathing, just his, in a crowded room.
After the credits roll, they choose a second film. Another comedy with a simple enough plot line, nothing much that needs following. Both boys watch passively, giggling under their breath if something calls for it. Yawning, too. Zayn flicks his gaze towards Liam every so often- just checking. Offers him encouraging smiles and the reassuring skate of his fingertips over Liam’s forearm. It’s nothing much, but Liam manages to magnify it so that his cheeks flush and his mouth dries.
If he were Louis, he’d tuck his bigger body against Zayn’s back. Sling an arm around his full tummy and exhale his laughter into the nape of Zayn’s neck, but Liam can’t. Mostly because if he got a grip on Zayn, he wouldn’t want to loosen it. Not at all. He’d want to cradle him forever, with the strength of his muscles cushioning the delicate curve of Zayn’s spine. He’d want to press against the hollows in Zayn’s wrists and map out the shallows between his bones and blooming muscles. He’d want to swallow him whole and keep him safe in the cave of his belly, like that film that was a book with the boy and his monsters.
Half-way through the second film, Zayn’s breathing drops and his body follows. Sinking deeper into the mattress, he falls fast asleep. Overdressed for it in his jeans and tee, his checked shirt- one button still fastened around his neck- and atop the blankets rather than beneath them. Liam whispers a tense oh once he’s realises. Flounders for a second, eyes on the tv-bright shaft of light illuminating his band mate, and then carefully clambers off of his own bed. He creeps through to the bathroom to brush his teeth and hope that Zayn wakes up again and burrows beneath his blanket as always, to save Liam from himself.
Breath scented with Colgate and with his heart like Josh’s drumming, Liam returns to Zayn laying just as he had been. Soft and sprawling. Though his arm is crooked, too. Thumb in his mouth, again. It ought to look strange, wrong, something inside of Liam murmurs adamantly, but it just is. Quietly hurting nobody. Liam shucks off his jeans, switches off the television and steadfastly doesn’t imagine the curl of Zayn’s silky tongue beneath his thumb knuckle, the sleepy greedy pull of it.
At least until he’s laying in his own bed. Belly down and wanting to wail in aguish.
---
They fly home the next morning, and later that night, once they’ve all settled in their respective apartments, Liam’s mobile phone buzzes. With one hand, he’s stirring tomato pesto through fusilli, with the other he’s unzipping a bag of grated cheese [having to catch a corner of the plastic in his mouth to yank at the fastening] so he ignores it for a minute. Has it wait through a succession of vibrations, until he’s tipped the pasta in a bowl. The buzz is the same each time, but Liam can’t help but imagine it sounding increasingly petulant, whining for his attention where it’s tucked into his back pocket.
“Alright, alright,” Liam mumbles, as if to placate it.
He dusts off his hands and gets to flicking through his texts- there are three. Each of them are from Zayn: time differences r weird innit, head feels all funny and wanna sleep but cant relax. Time differences definitely are an odd thing Liam agrees, knowing that he’s days off jiving with his English clock. Which would be why he’s about to tuck into a dish of carbohydrates despite it being pitch black beyond his kitchen window. He hadn’t even thought about bed, just paused a boxing match on the telly and listened to his gut’s rumbling pleas.
It buzzes once more whilst it’s in his hand. Zayn again. Liaaaammm. Liam dumps cheese over his pasta and and stabs his fork through his mouthful before he replies-
I no m8 feels propa erly
What u doin?
Made sum food u?
In bed wanna sleep but cant
Cownt sheep?
Liam’s back on the couch when Zayn’s tried :( reaches him, chewing noisily at a mouthful of pasta. He swallows and pouts for Zayn as he thinks. Coming by helpful suggestions is more difficult than it should be, mostly because Liam feels as though someones poured television static in through his ear. He pinches at the inner corners of his eyes and does his upmost to ignore that the singular idea which he can come up with is, so put your thumb in your mouth? Because that wouldn’t be appropriate, right?
Only Liam gives it half another hour before he messages his bandmate again, works through the entirety of his meal and the rest of the match, and still gets back a my head is bangin this is shit. Liam knows the feeling, a waltzer behind your eyes whenever they close and the sensation of your blood thrumming through you, far too alive. There’s something else there, too- some inkling that has Liam wondering if Zayn’s angling for a more specific answer. The right one. It’s why he sends the text he’s sure he shouldn’t- tense but trembling- suck ur thumb and exale all ur awakeness thru ur nose.
As soon as he’s hit send Liam regrets it. Doubts himself with the force of a speeding double decker bus. Definitely expecting to have to play it off as a joke within the next few seconds; to have to clumsily hide that he’s uncovered Zayn’s secret and just pray that that other boy buys it. He certainly isn’t expecting Zayn’s reply to come prefaced with a smiley- :) k Li; for a second picture message to pop up in his inbox as soon as he’s read that. But there it is- a photo of Zayn, unsurprisingly- but it’s a Zayn Liam’s been at a distance from before. The older boy tucked in against his pillow, all spidery lashes and sweeping fringe again, sucking at his thumb as Liam had told him to and looking more endearing than Liam’s ever seen anyone be.
For the rest of that proceeding week, the two boys exchange goodnights texts. Something new unlocked between them.
Zayn will usually initiate them by letting Liam know that he’s climbing into bed, or perhaps that he’s just brushed his teeth and found some sweats. Liam, in turn, will tell him to get comfortable. To tuck himself in nice and tight, switch off his bedside lamp and lastly, slip his thumb into his mouth. Once he’s all set for sleep, Zayn sends over more pictures- with his fist grazing his nose and his wide weary eyes- and Liam wishes him the sweetest of dreams. It feels like he’s putting Zayn to bed, the routine of it, and he can’t help but think back to their shared hotel room. To longing to be a protective crescent moon around Zayn’s sleeping body.
---
Zayn eventually ending up at Liam’s front door at eleven pm is inevitable.
Slack shouldered in an old t-shirt and low slung sweats; rubbing the back of his hand against his eyebrows and toying with the hanging cord of his pants. Stood like that, he’s not quite the boy from the band, with his sleepiness spilling over him, but he is Liam’s Zayn. Needing something from him that Liam wants to give in a way he’d never have the eloquence to explain [and who would he tell, anyway?]. He says this is okay, right? I’m not crossing a line?, toes towards the little metal bar that lays below Liam’s door, and Liam finds his arms spreading in response- c’mere, yeah? I’ve been expectin’ you, I think.
Liam is the big spoon of course, when they curl up in his unmade bed. The both of them the middle of a ripple in a pool of bed sheets. Liam wraps his arms around Zayn’s chest and feels a panic beneath- a flurry of heart beats, faster than they should be. Zayn’s breathing is the same. He touches his lips to the back of Zayn’s neck- but it’s not a kiss- and hums quietly.
“This is alright you know, really,” Liam whispers, “It’s nice that you’re not just a text.”
Zayn nods. Swallows. “And if I wanted to...?”
“I’d want you to to. Too. I...” Liam’s blunt thumb nail grazes across the bone of Zayn’s wrist and his toes flex anxiously. “If you want to, I mean. I just want you to do what you want to do.” He huffs at himself, not even sure he’s speaking English, but Zayn’s head bobs again. Which is a positive, yeah? “Are you tired now?”
He’d looked it, weighed down by it in the corridor, but Liam asks anyway. Maybe Zayn wants a hot drink instead, or to chuck on a dvd; maybe he’d just wanted a chat and had been planning on padding back to his own place. Liam hopes not, because his company is lovely. Golden warm and slow moving and rewarding- Zayn’s build being that much slighter than his, Zayn seeking him out for some reason.
“Knackered, y’know,” Zayn replies and then wriggles from Liam’s grasp. Liam’s belly swoops and is empty suddenly, but Zayn’s only moving so that he can flip himself over and lie with his nose at Liam’s throat. Knees bundling up towards his thighs; breaths hot little flutters where Liam’s collar pulls down. Zayn smells of herbal tea. Liam knows that he probably smells of sweat and hopes Zayn doesn’t hold it against him.
“Okay, okay, me too pretty much,” He murmurs, trying to keep his hand steady as it splays over the curve between Zayn’s soft cotton shoulder and neck. Fingers long enough to reach into his hair. “So let’s sleep?” Liam waits then- his toes cramping and refusing to uncurl.
He waits until Zayn’s eyes fall closed and his back stiffens; until he slides his arm up between them and parts his lips around his thumb. Slow as anything, like sucking his thumb so openly feels like a risk he has to creep towards. But then he’s where he wants to be, with his fist tilted lazily towards his cheek and it’s beautiful. Unsure and then unhurried and then settled. Rhythmic. Liam begins to pet against the nape of Zayn’s neck and Zayn doesn’t flinch so he continues- even twisting into a rather impossible position to flick off his lamp rather than choosing to pause his fingertips.
The being swallowed up by the darkness is safe. Zayn sucks harder when he feels less like he’s being watched and Liam can let himself grin like he’s won something. Won a boy who’s loosening up like’s he’s fallen under a spell. He digs his right arm into the mattress, underneath Zayn’s ribs, and both of his hands meet between Zayn’s shoulder blades. Liam rubs soothing circles while his head bows towards the soft wet sounds of Zayn’s working tongue. As wonderful as he had imagined them, though Liam doesn’t want to admit that he’d imagined them at all.
When Liam’s quite sure that Zayn’s fallen asleep- when everything but his pulsing lips and tongue have stilled- he ghosts his hand from Zayn’s back to his cheek’s heated skin. Strokes at the angle of his cheekbone and then dips the pad of his own thumb right down. He rolls it against Zayn’s bottom lip, so that he can feel the pucker of the plump flesh, and then the film of saliva over his digit before he pulls his whole thumb back into his mouth. It’s enough, intimate but not sexual. Liam doesn’t quite know what it is- it’s just being curved right around Zayn and having everything calm like the silence of white after a snow storm.
He shuts his own eyes, twines their ankles and hugs Zayn near fiercely when he whines a little around his thumb.