the difference between knowing and knowing: part three

[luxover]

Paul buys them beer that night, because they tell him that they really need it, and that they think it will help Liam get back to top form. Liam doubts that Paul actually believes it, as Liam’s pretty sure he knows Liam’s only got one kidney and doesn’t drink, but he still goes out and buys them some Carling Black Label from the wine and beer shop across the way.

When Paul finds them all in Niall’s room, he takes the two six-packs out of a plastic bag, and places them on the desk. He says, “You lot owe me about six million quid for this,” and everyone ignores him.

“Good haul, Paul,” Louis says, clapping him on the shoulder as he walks past to grab a beer. He turns back to the lads and asks, “What’ll you have, gents?”

“Hey Mabel, Black Label!” Harry quotes, and he raises his hand, catches the bottle that Louis tosses his way.

“Early call tomorrow,” Paul reminds them, and he picks up to leave. “We got the signing, don’t forget.”

“We’ll be ready,” Zayn says, and then Paul leaves.

Louis hands out more beers, making sure that everyone has one, and when Liam turns it down, Louis says, “Typical Liam Payne.”

“I can’t drink,” Liam reminds him. “I only have one kidney!”

“We’re onto you; we know you can, you just don’t,” Louis says.

“He Googled it,” Harry tells him. “Researched it. He figures himself a doctor now.”

They all laugh and shoot the shit for a while after that, talking and joking around, and they give Niall a hard time over his twitter conversations with Justin Beiber and Demi Lovato, and rag on Harry for always being indiscreet when he gets himself off on the bus. But as it gets later, and as things turn more and more serious, they start to talk about the future, about what sound they want on their next album and what new places they want to go to on tour.

“Well,” Liam says, and then because no one else is willing to say it, he asks, “Well, what if I never remember everything?”

“What d’you mean,” Harry asks, and then Niall chimes in, “You’ve already started to get them all back.”

“No, I know,” Liam says. “But just in case, it’s still best-”

“-Best to be prepared,” Harry and Louis say simultaneously, and then Louis continues, “We know; you say that all the time.”

“That’s definitely good,” Zayn says, like he already believes it and is trying to make Liam believe it, too. “That you still speak the same and everything.”

“I just think,” Liam says, and then he pauses for a minute to sort out what he means to say. “I just think you guys need to plan for what you’re gonna do if I don’t get them back, and suddenly you’re down a voice.”

The silence that follows is so loud that Liam can almost feel it echoing in his chest.

“Are you-” Harry starts, and then he stops, shakes his head. “Sorry, are you quitting?”

“No,” Zayn answers for Liam. “Absolutely not.”

“I’m not-I’m just saying,” Liam tries to explain, “I don’t know what use I am if I can hardly remember a thing about us.”

“You’ll learn,” Zayn says, and Niall adds, “You’re stuck with us, mate.”

“Sad but true,” Louis agrees.

And then because there’s nothing else he can do, not in that moment, Liam nods and says, “Okay. Alright.”

The conversation changes after that, noticeably and purposefully, as everyone moves on to talking about videogames and celebrity breasts, and even though everyone denies it, Liam can’t help but feel like dead weight, and he worries about what’ll happen if that feeling never goes away.

“Hey,” Zayn says quietly, kicking his foot against Liam’s to get his attention. “Don’t even think like that.” And it’s almost like he knows what Liam’s thinking, although there’s no way that he does, and even though it’s just a nothing of a sentence-Don’t even think like that-Liam still feels comforted by it, strangely, like something in his subconscious knows what Zayn is really trying to say.

Liam just wishes that his consciousness knew it, too, and when he leaves to head back to his own hotel room to go to sleep, he’s still wondering what it meant, Zayn’s face and the way he looked when Liam mentioned maybe having to leave the band.

He wakes up to someone shaking his shoulder.

"Liam," Zayn whispers. "Liam, hey, get up."

Liam opens his eyes and it's dark in the room, just enough light sneaking in from under the door to the hallway so that he can make out the lines of Zayn's face; his eyes are wide and his hair is down, covering his forehead and making him look so much younger, so much more vulnerable, and Liam commits it to memory before he even realizes it.

"What time is it?" Liam asks. He's not sure if that's what he had really meant to say or not, but he's half asleep, and that's what comes out.

"Almost four," Zayn tells him. "Just throw on a sweatshirt or something, yeah? Come on."

Liam thinks it says something, that he doesn't even question it and just does as he's told, stumbles around the room until he finds a sweatshirt and some jeans. He grabs his wallet and his room key, too, and then Zayn's waving him over, and the two of them walk out of the room and into the hall.

They don't take the elevator; they take the stairs instead, and Liam can't help but notice that Zayn sometimes takes the stairs by two, and then waits for Liam to catch up when he reaches the landing.

"Where are we even going?" Liam asks.

"The Brooklyn Bridge," Zayn says, looking back over his shoulder. His voice echoes in the stairwell. "I want to see the sunrise."

"Alright," Liam says, because that makes sense; he just doesn't understand why he needs to come along. "But why am I here?"

"Because you wanted to see it, too," Zayn says, as simple as that. "You'd be ticked off if you suddenly remembered, and I'd taken Harry instead."

Liam doesn't know what to say to that, because it's weird, having other people know him better than he knows himself, but it turns out that not knowing what to say doesn't really matter, because when they reach the bottom of the stairs, Zayn cuts across the lobby and to the back door, and Liam has no choice but to follow.

The nighttime air is cool on Liam's face, and they hail a cab. It's a longer ride than he had expected, to the bridge, and he stares out the window the entire way, in part because he doesn't know where else to look, and in part because New York City does lights like nowhere else in the world.

Ten minutes into it, he looks at Zayn out of the corner of his eye, and sees Zayn looking out the window, too. Even though Zayn doesn't seem bothered by the silence, and even though Zayn's not saying anything himself, Liam feels like maybe he's supposed to say something, only he doesn't know what. Zayn turns his head to look at Liam, and there's this look on his face, one that Liam knows but doesn't know, and his heart beats so hard that he has to look away.

When they get there, Zayn takes his wallet out of his back pocket and pays the driver. The bridge is huge and there aren't nearly as many cars out as Liam had expected. It's almost quiet, considering the city that they're in, and it feels like just him and Zayn, just the two of them alone on the bridge.

"This is crazy," Zayn says, looking out at the water and the way the light from the streetlamps reflects off the surface.

"Yeah," Liam says, because it is. There's nowhere else in the world that Liam would rather be, not in that moment.

Zayn leans forward over the railing and looks down, reaches his arms out over the edge as far as they’ll go as he says, "It's so high up." And Liam doesn't tell him to step back or anything, but he holds tight with one hand to the back of Zayn's sweatshirt, not because he thinks that would save Zayn if anything happened, but because it somehow makes everything easier, makes him feel a little less nervous.

The sky lightens up a bit, loses its dark color as the sun gets closer to the horizon, and Zayn says, "This is good, yeah?"

"Yeah," Liam says, and that's all he ever says anymore, it seems, just yeah, and so he adds, "Maybe you should have brought Harry."

Zayn understands because he always understands, and he doesn't even hesitate, just says, "No, I shouldn't have," like bringing Harry is a thought that doesn't even bear consideration, and Liam doesn't know what to do with that.

"Hm," he says, because it's better than nothing.

"I mean, yeah, you can't remember things," Zayn says, "but you're still you."

Liam thinks that's one of the nicest things he's heard in a long time.

When the sun finally rises, they stand there by the railing and Zayn turns back to smile at Liam. The sun touches his hair and his shoulders and the skin of his face, and for a second he looks so stunningly beautiful that Liam can't breathe, and then the sun continues to rise and Zayn is silhouetted against the sun and the water and the sky, and Liam smiles back, the two of them watching the sunrise as the city wakes up around them. Liam's never really felt like this before, and even though he doesn't know what this is, he doesn't mind it for once, just stands there with Zayn, close enough that their shoulders touch as they prop their elbows up on the railing, and he lets the moment last for as long as he can.

The feeling stays with Liam for the entire cab ride back. He’s content, for the first time since he woke up a pop star, although there is a part of him-a very small part-that’s irrationally jealous of himself, of the him-with-memories, for getting to do all of these amazing things all the time, for getting to be with the lads all the time.

“You tired?” Zayn asks him as they pull up to the hotel. There are a lot more people around now, and a few girls that are very obviously fans are waiting by the doors. Liam and Zayn just sneak around back and avoid it all.

“Not really,” Liam says, and Zayn laughs.

“Good,” he says. “Because we have to be ready to go in about an hour, anyways.”

They take the elevator up to their floor and walk down the hall, and when Zayn stops to shove the keycard in his door, Liam stops too, and then follows Zayn inside. Zayn tosses his keycard and his wallet on the desk, and then places his hoodie on the back of the chair.

“I hate getting ready for these things,” Zayn tells him, sitting down on the small couch in the corner, and Liam sits down next to him, close enough that their shoulders touch. “You’d think it’d be easy, but it’s not.”

“Don’t we have stylists and stuff?” Liam asks.

“Yeah, but that just makes it harder, sometimes,” Zayn says. “I mean, they only get us clothes we like, and they make us look good, but sometimes it would be nice to not care, you know? To just go out in jeans and a sweatshirt, without even brushing my hair.”

“We just did that,” Liam points out.

“Yeah, we just did that,” Zayn agrees, and he smiles a little, like a secret, and Liam leans in and kisses him on the mouth. Zayn kisses back, presses his body into Liam’s, and it feels so familiar-so normal-that for a long minute, Liam doesn’t think anything of it. It’s only when Zayn presses him back into the couch that Liam realizes what he’s doing, and he twists himself away from Zayn, stands up so quickly that Zayn face plants into the cushions.

“Liam?” he asks. “What’re you-”

“Sorry,” Liam says, because he is. He just kissed Zayn when he hardly knows anything about him, if they’re good friends or if they’ve done this before or if either of them is dating someone else. He doesn’t even know why he did it, either, just that he did without even thinking about it, and that’s so unlike Liam that it’s making his head spin. “Sorry,” he says again, and he’s really thrown off kilter by this realization that he can’t even explain his own actions anymore.

“It’s alright,” Zayn rushes out, and he’s got his hands up in front of him, palms out, like maybe that’ll help calm Liam down.

“No, it’s really not,” Liam says, and he pushes his hair back off his forehead, paces three steps left and then three steps right, because he doesn’t know where to go. He finally decides to head for the door, and walks out into the hall, still looking back at Zayn and talking as he goes. “Sorry-I didn’t mean to-”

Liam doesn’t finish that sentence because he doesn’t know how. Instead, he apologizes again, and heads down the hall to his room. Zayn jogs after him, grabs Liam’s elbow to stop him, and Liam feels inexplicably like he should have seen that coming.

“Hey,” Zayn says. “Hey, listen. It’s okay, alright, you know, ‘cause-”

“No,” Liam cuts him off, and then he takes a second to calm down and try to figure out what he wants to say. He feels as if everything has been building up to this one moment, although he doesn’t know why, or what that means. “It’s not okay, because I don’t know you. You’re kissing me, but I’m not me right now. None of this is alright.”

“Liam,” Zayn says, and it seems like that’s all he has to say, just his name, just Liam.

“I’m just-I’m gonna go,” Liam says, and then because it’s only polite, he adds, “Thank you for earlier today.”

Zayn flinches like that’s the worst thing Liam could have possibly said, and it only makes Liam feel worse. He heads to his room and doesn’t look back to see what Zayn is doing, if he’s gone back to his room, too, or if he’s still standing there, in the hallway.

Liam knows he doesn’t fuck up often, but when he does, it’s on a pretty massive scale.

It’s childish-and he knows it’s childish-but he still goes out of his way to avoid Zayn for the rest of the morning. Zayn tries to talk to him once or twice, walks over to him and says, “Hey, you got a second?” but Liam makes sure that he never does, and he goes jogging off to grab his mobile, or to ask Paul a question about where they’re going. Liam’s not really proud of it, but Zayn looks at him like no one’s ever looked at him before, and it scares the hell out of Liam, knocks him off balance because he doesn’t know what any of it means and because a large part of him still wishes he was kissing Zayn.

Before they head out for the signing, they all sit him down and give him the rundown of it all. They’re eating breakfast in Harry and Louis’s room, and this time Paul’s there, too, not eating, just letting Liam know what to expect.

“Like, there’s a long table that we sit at, and everyone just kind of walks by it and asks for your autograph, or your picture,” Harry says, and he pushes what’s left of his pancakes around his plate with a fork.

“Yeah, it’s easy,” Niall says. “They want a picture or a hug, but besides that, you know-it’s hey, how’s it going, simple things like that.” Liam watches as he reaches his fork out to grab some of Harry’s pancakes as he says, “If you’re not gonna eat that, Haz-”

“Just watch what you’re signing, yeah?” Louis says. “One girl tried to get you to sign a marriage license, no joke.”

And Liam looks at him, and Louis always jokes, but this time, he’s not, not really. Liam appreciates it, even though he’s in a foul mood, how the boys take it seriously because it’s serious to Liam. He’s massively nervous, doesn’t at all know what to expect other than that it’ll be big, if the videos are anything to go by.

They all look to Zayn to see what he’s got to add, but he just takes a sip of orange juice and shrugs.

“You’ll be fine,” he says, and he looks at Liam for so long that Liam has to look away first. It’s not fair, for Zayn to be the way that he is, kind and perfect and completely off-limits because Liam is terrified and can’t remember anything and already likes him too much. “You remember more than you think, even if you don’t realize it. This will be a cakewalk for you.”

And Liam hates that, how Zayn is still being so wonderful to him, except for how he actually doesn’t hate it at all.

Paul says, “There are going to be a lot of people there, a lot of girls going crazy. Don’t eat anything they give you, call for me or for security if something makes you uncomfortable. If you need to get out of there for any reason-” he looks at Liam as he says this, “-pull me aside and let me know, and I’ll do what I can. Alright?”

“Like riding a bike,” Louis says. “We’ve got this, Paul.” He pauses for a second and then, tossing his arm around Harry’s shoulder, says, “Except for Hazza, here; he only knows how to rollerblade.”

And Liam’s not so sure about how he’ll do, either, but he doesn’t say anything because it’s not like he can get out of it now. He’s just got to grin and bear it, and that’s how it is.

Their first stop before the signing is at a building that houses some local websites and zines, and they didn’t even announce they’d be going there, which is nice, because it makes getting in and out easy. Everyone there is really friendly, too, really polite, and they more or less flock to Harry and Louis, which is alright with Liam because it makes his day easier.

Paul splits them up, has each of them do a different mini-interview except for Liam, and so Liam just hangs out in the hall and talks with Paul about what they’re doing for the rest of the month. Paul gets a call on his mobile, though, and after making sure that Liam’s fine on his own, he steps away to answer it, and leaves Liam to play solitaire on his phone. It’s okay, actually, and he thinks that he wouldn’t mind being a big pop star if it could be more like this all the time.

A door opens down the hall, and Liam looks up, sees Niall heading out with a woman about thirty years old or so. They’re laughing, and Liam thinks that Niall must’ve had a good one.

“I’m serious,” Niall says. “That’s not even a joke.”

“Sure, sure,” she says, her hands up like Niall could say whatever he wanted. “I believe you.”

“I’m not even kidding you right now,” Niall says, and then he turns to Liam, hollers down the hall, “Hey, Liam! What’s my nickname in the band? Not the Fresh Prince of Mullingar, I mean the other one.”

And Liam just-he just freezes for a second, because he literally has no clue, and Niall knows that. And so he tries not to panic, and thinks of what nickname he’d give Niall, if he was giving out nicknames, only he keeps coming up blank because he never gave out nicknames as a kid, and never really had one himself, either.

But then he thinks back to when he was in year six, and how there was this one kid that everyone called Nick the Prick, and Liam thinks that maybe rhyming is a good thing for nicknames, and he rushes to think of what rhymes with Niall.

And suddenly it’s like he remembers it, so clearly, this one interview where Niall went around, laughing his head off as he introduced them all as Wayne, Barry, Hughey, Ian, and-“Kyle,” Niall had said. “Although sometimes they call me Kitchen Tile. Nail File.”

It’s a huge relief, for Liam to be able to then say, “Oh, you mean Kitchen Tile?”

Niall just laughs up a storm, and says to the woman, “Kitchen Tile. Told you. But Liam’s unlucky ‘cause his name doesn’t really rhyme with anything.”

“What can you do?” Liam asks, and Niall repeats him, “What can you do?”

The interviewer laughs and shrugs, says, “Hey, listen-thanks for the interview,” and Niall waves her off like it was no problem. He heads over to Liam, helps Liam up off the floor with one hand.

“I can’t believe you did that,” Liam says, shaking his head as they start to walk away.

“What d’you mean? I thought it went fine,” Niall says. “Besides, it’s not like you didn’t remember my nickname.”

“Yeah, but what if I didn’t?” Liam asks, because it seems to him like Niall just doesn’t get it. Liam’s barely a part of this band, and yet sometimes he feels like he’s the only one sensible enough to hold it together.

“I’d have laughed anyways at whatever you said,” Niall says, and then he stops, hits Liam lightly on the arm so he stops, too. “Listen, I’m gonna tell you something,” Niall says. “The people out there-the interviewers and the fans and everyone-they already know the facts. They already know everything there is to know about One Direction, so they’re not going to ask you anything with a right or wrong.”

“Then what’s the point of doing any of this?” Liam asks.

“Because they want to get to see Liam Payne be Liam Payne,” Niall says. “They just want to see us being ourselves, because that’s the only thing they can get that’ll be at all new. So you can’t fuck up, or whatever it is that you’re afraid of; they’ll just see it as us goofing around.”

And that-it actually makes sense, is the thing, although it doesn’t do too much to lessen Liam’s nerves over the signing. He appreciates it, though, that Niall’s trying.

“Alright,” Liam says.

“You good?” Niall asks.

“Yeah,” Liam says, and then Niall nods, and they continue on their way down the hall

After the interviews, Paul comes around with lunch and coffee for them all.

“Thank Allen next time you see him,” he tells them. “He’s the one who went out and got all of this food for you.”

“He’s a man among men,” Harry says, and Liam honestly couldn’t agree more. He’s starving and exhausted, and so he reaches for whatever Subway sandwich is shoved his way, and whichever coffee Paul tells him is his.

Liam wants to say something, to make a joke about wanting the caffeine through an IV drip, and he gets as far as turning to tell Zayn before he realizes that he and Zayn aren’t exactly speaking, and that Zayn isn’t next to him where Liam had thought, anyways. It’s weird, how quickly Liam got used to Zayn always being there, and how different everything feels now that he’s not.

He shuts his mouth and doesn’t tell the joke, even though Niall and Harry are right there, next to him on either side.

“Alright,” Paul says. “In the van, let’s go.”

“But I’m still eating!” Niall says, holding up his sandwich as evidence.

“You can eat on the ride,” Paul says, and then he gets them going, walks them over to the van before hopping in the front passenger seat himself. “Do I got all five?”

“Present and accounted for,” Louis says, and as the van pulls out from the parking lot and starts to head towards their signing, Liam just takes a deep breath and tries not to be sick. He can feel Zayn watching him as he rubs his eyes with the heels of his palms, but Zayn doesn’t say anything to him, and actually, Liam kind of prefers it that way, considering; it allows him to focus on the signing, on not being sick, instead of on Zayn and how Liam wants him and wishes everything were different.

When they first walk out for the signing, the noise is deafening. Liam almost trips, the noise hits him so hard, but Louis helps him out with a hand to the shoulder, and Liam regains his footing. It feels like an out-of-body experience, like he’s not even there, because before he knows it, he’s sitting down in a chair at the end of the table, Louis to his right, and he really has no clue how he got there, doesn’t remember the walk at all.

There are tons of people-tons of people-and they’re all screaming and crying, and there are girls telling him that he is the most beautiful thing that they have ever seen, and that they want to marry him. It is beyond overwhelming and Liam wants to ask, Have you actually seen me? because the thought is just ridiculous, that he’d be that to them. He doesn’t say that, instead just thanks them and smiles and signs their cds and they file past.

“This is insane,” he says to Louis, and behind them, someone who organized the event is placing water bottles on the table in front of the five of them.

“Yep,” Louis says, and he smiles at Liam like it’s a little funny, like maybe seeing Liam freak out is reminding him of his first big event. “But you’re handling it like a pro; like a champion. Eye of the Tiger, Liam, and don’t you forget it.”

“Thanks,” Liam deadpans, because he’s not really sure what that means. He wonders, though, if the others handled things like this at first, if he did when he went through it the first time, or if they were all just ready for it, for the fans and the fame and everything. Liam thinks maybe not; that’s a different situation, and gradual one. Here, he’s just thrown into the thick of it and told not to look back, memories or no memories.

When Liam finally remembers-really and truly remembers, everything and not just the little things that he didn’t even realize he was supposed to have forgotten-they’re still at the signing, in the middle of it all, and Liam feels like he’s been hit by a truck, or maybe more like his chest is so light that he might just float away.

“No,” Louis is saying next to him. “I will forever love carrots, I’ll have you know,” and Harry speaks up from one chair over, “It’s true, actually. I caught them in the act, once.” Louis laughs at that, and then Harry starts laughing, too, and Liam rolls his eyes.

“Hi,” he says to the young girl in front of him. She looks to be about fourteen, and she’s crying.

“Oh wow,” she says. “I’ve never wanted to kiss you so badly in my entire life.”

And that-

“I’ve never wanted to kiss you so badly in my entire life,” Zayn says. They’re backstage after their first concert stateside, and Zayn’s got him pushed up against a wall in their empty dressing room, his smile pressed against the skin of Liam’s cheek.

“You can kiss me whenever you want,” Liam tells him, and he grabs at the belt loops of Zayn’s jeans, pulls Zayn’s hips closer to his own.

“No, I can’t,” Zayn says.

“Most of the time, then,” Liam says.

“I can settle for that,” Zayn agrees, and he scrapes his teeth lightly over Liam’s jaw.

-and Liam can’t believe it, that he forgot about that, and it’s like the more he remembers Zayn-all of the sounds and faces that he makes, the way he takes ages getting out of bed and the way he runs his fingers through Liam’s hair-it’s like the more he remembers all of that, the more he remembers everything else, too, The X Factor and recording the album and feeding the pigeons in Italy.

“Oh my god, hi,” the girl in front of him says, and it’s a different girl this time than the one who had wanted to kiss him, and Liam has no clue how long he’s been in his own head for, remembering. Liam smiles at her.

“Hey, babe,” he says, because that’s pretty standard for them, and Louis turns to look at him so fast his neck must hurt.

“Babe?” Louis mouths, and Liam wants to say something back to him, maybe, but he doesn’t. All he can think about is the past few days, and how the guys were all there for him, and Zayn-Zayn-how he was there for Liam, too, and how he told Liam that he belonged and worried that maybe Liam liked Louis more, and how he took Liam to the Brooklyn Bridge even though it never could’ve been the same as it would’ve been had Liam actually been himself. And Liam remembers waking up in the middle of the night, and hearing Zayn talk to Louis, the way his voice caught when he said, I just hate that I can’t do anything.

Zayn helped him more than anyone and anything else, and Liam can’t believe he can’t see that.

Liam stands halfway up out of his seat, just so he can see over the other guys and to where Zayn is, all the way at the other end of the table.

“Zayn!” Liam hollers over the noise of the crowd, although the second he does, he wonders what that’ll accomplish. It’s not like he can say what he wants, not here, not in front of all these people. He can’t say that he remembers or that he’s sorry he forgot; he can’t thank Zayn for being the way he is, or say that Zayn is still the most important person in the world to him.

Liam realizes that he’s still standing, still looking at Zayn, and he scrambles for something to say.

“What?” Zayn yells back finally, smiling vaguely like he’s thinking, I don’t know why I put up with this idiot. But the answer to that is so obviously written all over his face that Liam can’t believe he missed it, can’t believe that everyone else missed it, too.

“Nothing,” Liam shouts, because really, he’s got nothing to say. “It’s just-settling for most of the time is harder than I thought.”

And that’s-Liam doubts it’ll mean anything to Zayn, because it’s not a particularly big moment for them, not particularly memorable, especially considering all the times they’ve kissed backstage after a concert, or the first time either of them said I love you, or I want to tell my parents. But Zayn-Zayn gets it, and Liam gets to stand there, in the middle of their signing, and watch Zayn’s entire face light up, the combined tension of the signing and of not having Liam disappearing as if it were never even there to begin with.

“Welcome back,” Zayn says, his voice light as if it’s a joke. “You’ve been missed.” And everything stops at that, just for a split second, the other three looking between Liam and Zayn like they’ve just been clued in on everything. They all just freeze, smiling like idiots at each other until Paul steps up and says, “Oi! Enough’s enough, lads, back to work!”

And so Liam just-just waves awkwardly, at Zayn and at the crowd, and then he sits back down, looks at the fan in front of him and smiles.

“Hey, how’s it going?” he says. She screams, and Liam spends the next hour wishing he could touch Zayn’s skin.

After the signing, they don’t even have time to talk before they’re all shoved into the van, Liam in the back row with Harry and Louis, Zayn and Niall up in the middle. There are tons of fans everywhere, all banging on the car windows and chasing after them, and while the lads would normally comment on that, this time, they all just look at Liam.

No one seems to want to say anything for a long time.

“Okay, then,” Liam says, because someone has to say something.

“So you, you know,” Louis says finally. “Remember everything?”

“Yeah,” Liam says, because he thought they all understood that at the signing. He’d have-he doesn’t know-started a game of telephone or something to let them all know, if he knew they hadn’t. “All of it just sort of-came back.”

“He’s back,” Niall says solemnly.

“He,” Louis says, “is back.”

And at that, everyone in the van starts hollering and celebrating, singing, “He’s back! He’s back! He’s back!” in mock-opera. Liam looks to Zayn in that moment, because he feels good about remembering and expects Zayn to feel the same, only instead of saying anything or smiling or even just looking back at Liam, all Zayn does is slump down in his seat and let out a deep breath. Liam leans over the seat in front of him so that he can see Zayn better, and Zayn is smiling like he’s trying to hold it back. When he notices Liam, he scrubs a hand over his face, probably out of embarrassment.

“Hey,” Liam says quietly.

“Hey,” Zayn says back. “Been weird without you.”

“Yeah,” Liam says. “Been a bit weird for me, too.”

The other lads seem to catch on to the fact that Liam and Zayn aren’t paying them any attention, and in order to fix that, Louis and Niall start making kissy noises at them.

“Wait a minute,” Harry says. “Why is Niall up front?”

Louis looks around the van like he’s trying to understand what Harry’s saying, and when he does, he says, “Niall-Nialler! Switch with Liam. Switch seats, come on, and let the lovebirds sit together.”

And it’s not the biggest of deals, because it’s not like they can really do anything, sitting in the van with people following them and taking pictures, but Niall still throws himself over the back of the middle seat and into Harry and Louis’s laps, and then there are four people in the back and Liam has to struggle to climb over in the opposite direction, just to even things out.

When he’s finally seated next to Zayn, the first thing Liam does is punch him lightly on the arm and say, “You should’ve told me.”

“Yeah, right,” Zayn says. “Like that would have gone over well.”

“What?” Niall asks, and then Harry’s phone goes off, and he looks at it before typing something out rapidly.

“You forgot to mention that Zayn and I were dating,” Liam says, and the others all get very defensive about it.

“Well, I mean, you see-” Niall starts, his point dissolving into useless hand gestures.

“When a man and a man are in love-” Louis tries to explain.

“Not my business,” Harry says, still focused on his phone.

“Really, who are we to interfere?” Louis finishes.

“Plus, that was kinda Zayn’s area, anyways,” Niall says, and that makes Zayn sit up a bit in his seat, just enough so that he can reach over and give Niall a dead leg.

“At least now you can kiss me and not have to run away,” Zayn says, sitting back down, and he’s got this small smile on his face like he’s trying not to make fun of Liam, but isn’t really doing very well at it. Liam just slumps against Zayn’s shoulder and tilts his head back against the seat, groaning.

“Wait, wait, wait,” Niall says, like he can’t believe that Liam did something so unlike him. “You kissed him? Without even first holding a band meeting about it?”

“I know,” Liam groans. “I know. But it’s different, right?”

“No,” Niall says, and he laughs.

“And you didn’t know you two were dating? Like, at all?” Louis asks.

“Not a clue,” Zayn says, and he puts his arm along the back of the seat behind Liam’s shoulders, because it’s all over with now and he can.

“Wow,” Louis says. “That is some romantic stuff.”

“They should sell the story to Beeb Two,” Harry says, not bothering to look up from his phone. “Get a made-for-tv movie out of the deal.”

“I already did,” Liam says, as straight-faced as he can. “It’s expected to air in November.”

Harry’s head snaps up so fast that Liam can’t help it, can’t hold back his laughter, and neither can anyone else in the van.

When they get back to the hotel, the lads all go to order room service to Niall’s room, but Zayn and Liam say that they’ll catch up later, and keep walking down the hall. Louis makes a couple of grunting noises as they walk by, says, “Liam, Liiiiiiam,” and, “Oh, Zayn, you’re so hot,” but that’s all normal, anyways, and so none of them pay him any mind except for Harry, who finds it funny every time.

When they get inside Liam’s room, Liam pushes Zayn up against the door and then just stands there, their chests pressed together through their shirts. It feels good, to be close to Zayn again; it’s only been a few days, but Liam remembers each one like a year, and so he stands there, his nose mushed into the side of Zayn’s neck, and he breathes. Zayn smells like the same cologne he always uses, and it’s strange, how the tiniest details are the ones that seem the farthest away.

Liam scraps his teeth over the side of Zayn’s neck and then kisses his skin, runs over the light mark with his tongue. Zayn doesn’t move, and Liam wonders what’s wrong.

“Are you-” Zayn starts to ask, and Liam’s glad he doesn’t finish that thought.

“Are you?” Liam says, and that seems to snap Zayn back into himself, makes him flip them around so that Liam is the one pressed to the door, and Zayn is the one holding him there. He uses one foot to knock Liam’s feet apart, and then slots his thigh in between both of Liam’s, pins Liam’s hands back against the wall as he kisses him, hard at first, and with too much teeth, and Liam can barely hold back his groan. They kiss like that, like it’s been ages, for longer than Liam can say-five minutes or fifty, he doesn’t know-and when Zayn pulls away, Liam follows after him for one more kiss, and one more, and one more. Zayn stops him by placing one hand on Liam’s neck, feeling for Liam’s pulse with his fingertips, and Liam can’t help it, just tilts his head back as far as he can, because Zayn can do whatever he wants, and Liam wouldn’t mind.

“Didn’t actually know if I’d get you back,” Zayn says, moving his hand to brush Liam’s hair out of his eyes in an unexpected moment of stillness.

“Well, I’m here,” Liam says, and pulls his hands away from the wall, slides one up and under Zayn’s shirt, so he can place his palm flat on Zayn’s stomach.

“Yeah,” Zayn says, and then he smiles. “Fuck.”

He leans back in and kisses Liam again, this time slowly, and when he does, he reaches for Liam’s jeans, uses them to pull Liam close as he grinds their hips together. Liam’s halfway hard already, just from that-just from Zayn-and he scrambles to take Zayn’s shirt off, to run his hands over Zayn’s chest and to suck hickies onto Zayn’s collarbones.

“Hey, hey,” Zayn says, trying to tug Liam’s shirt off, too. “Come on.”

Liam pulls back for a second, but Zayn gives up and doesn’t help him take his shirt off; in the end, he just pushes it up until it’s bunched up under Liam’s armpits and he can kiss his way across Liam’s chest. There’s product in Zayn’s hair, but Liam tugs on it anyway when Zayn flicks his tongue across one of his nipples; he can’t help but arch closer to Zayn, and he can feel Zayn’s smile against his skin when he does.

Zayn moves to undo Liam’s belt buckle, to open the button of his jeans, and once he makes that move, Liam reaches forward to undo Zayn’s, to shove Zayn’s pants down his thighs as quickly as he can. He slides their cocks together and then wraps his fingers around the both of them, leans forward to kiss Zayn again, and none of this is new-none of it is new-but Liam wouldn’t give it up for anything. He thinks back to that morning, to when he kissed Zayn on the couch and how he didn’t even think about it because it felt so natural. It makes a lot more sense, now that he can remember everything.

Zayn braces himself with one hand against the wall, and then wraps the fingers of his free hand around Liam’s hand, his fingers fitting in the spaces between Liam’s fingers, both of their hands wrapped around their cocks. Zayn’s hand feels different, better, and Liam’s hips start stuttering embarrassingly fast; Zayn smiles at that like he’s proud of himself, and he nips at Liam’s lips.

“Shut up,” Liam says, but his voice catches in the middle, and it loses the effect. Zayn just laughs and tightens his fingers, and then before Liam can even say anything, he’s coming and struggling to keep his eyes open, just so he can see Zayn through it all.

Zayn comes a minute later, rocking forward on his toes and leaning his bodyweight into Liam’s, pressing Liam into the wall. Neither of them moves for a minute afterward, and they stand there like that, breathing heavily and pressed together from shoulder to hip, before Zayn finally straightens up, leans back in for one more kiss. Their hands are covered in their come, and Zayn reaches forward, uses it to write his name across Liam’s stomach, ZAYN across his pale skin.

“That’s nice,” Liam says, and he laughs a little.

“Yeah,” Zayn says, and then he moves in to kiss Liam again, the skin of their stomachs pressing together and spreading the ZAYN out until it becomes unrecognizable. It makes Liam want to run through a shower, but he doesn’t say anything, just stands there with Zayn a little while longer, just the two of them, just because he can.

The boys don’t make any jokes when he and Zayn finally stumble into Niall’s room, and that’s almost worse than if they did make jokes, and they probably know it. Instead, they’ve got burgers and chips waiting under covered plates, and Liam takes one for himself and passes the other to Zayn, before moving to sit in the empty armrest. Zayn sits next to him on the floor, his back resting on the chair just to the side of Liam’s legs, and Liam likes that, that Zayn is close.

“Let’s make sure you’ve actually got it all back,” Louis says, like his own idea is brilliant.

“Alright,” Niall agrees, not even waiting to hear Liam’s thoughts on the subject. “Do you remember that time you ripped your pants on stage and had to stay up there, with everything hanging out, until the next break?”

“Everything wasn’t hanging out!” Liam says in an attempt to preserve his dignity. “It was just sort of-it was contained! But I do remember my ripped pants, yeah.”

“I didn’t really mind it so much,” Zayn says, and Liam flicks his ear, accidentally getting ketchup on him.

“Sorry,” Liam says, laughing a little as he wipes it away.

“Yeah, thanks for that,” Zayn says, and Liam just rolls his eyes even though he can’t see it.

“But what about this,” Louis says. “Do you remember winning at the Brit Awards?”

“And the McDonald’s afterwards,” Liam says around a bite of hamburger.

“Okay,” Harry says, and he straightens up like this is the big test. “But do you remember inviting me into a three-way with you and DJ Malik?”

There’s a silence after that than Liam can almost feel in his bones, and then everything erupts, everyone laughing and Zayn wrapping a hand around Liam’s ankle as Liam says, “Absolutely not! That never happened!”

And Harry just shrugs, says, “Worth a shot, I suppose.”

Louis looks at him with a face that is nothing but bad news, and he asks, “Are you feeling unloved, Hazza?” He dives on top of Harry, knocks him to the ground as he pretends to kiss him and show him that he is indeed loved.

It’s a lot less entertaining than it should be, and Zayn turns around, cranes his neck so he can look at Liam as he asks, “Good to be back?”

Liam runs his fingers over the short hair on the side of Zayn’s head, and he thinks about what it was like, not knowing anyone, and how hard it is now to reconcile the two worlds, the knowing and not knowing. It’s always hard to be away from home, but it was so much more difficult, being away and doing what he does, only without having the lads as his brothers; it makes him realize just how lucky he is, and how good he’s got it.

He looks at Zayn and Zayn looks back at him like he’s the only thing that matters, at least in that moment, and Liam wonders if it’s even possible for him to want anything more than what he’s got.

“Good to be back,” Liam agrees, and he lets Niall grab a handful of chips off his plate.