1D RPF: almost enough is never enough (1/1)
Title: Almost Enough is Never Enough
Author: matchsticks_p
Pairing: Zayn/OCs, Liam/Zayn, general background OT5ness
Summary: Zayn starts picking up prostitutes who look like Liam. Everybody notices.
Rating: NC-17
Length: 4246 words
Notes: Based on this prompt at the 1D kink meme. Thank you to katienyc for beta reading.
- - -
The first time it happens, they're at an industry party Simon throws for networking purposes.
"Go mingle," he commands them, because they're invited as showpieces, just one bright jewel among Simon's large collection of successful gems. There are no fans, only lots of important people who see One Direction not as musicians but as an extension of Simon's empire.
So they mingle, and it's kind of nice, actually, to be able to get dressed up and drink expensive alcohol with no obligation to make nice with hyperventilating star-struck admirers.
Zayn sucks at mingling. Harry and Louis are great at it, bringing their buddy comedy act around to all the guests and hamming it up like there's no tomorrow. Niall's cleverly avoiding having to schmooze too much by keeping his mouth stuffed near the buffet table. Liam's nowhere to be seen, which leaves Zayn clutching a flute of champagne and wondering if he can just sneak off to a guest bedroom and take a nap until the party's over.
Eventually he ends up chatting with a woman named Leah. She's quite pretty, her light brown hair kept in a short pixie cut and her expensive dress hugging her in all the right places. More importantly, she doesn't seem to know anyone else at the party either, so the two of them can be equally antisocial together.
Zayn realizes after his fourth glass of Cristal that Leah is very probably flirting with him, throwing her head back to laugh at his unfunny jokes and show off the smooth column of her throat, letting her fingers linger on his arm every few seconds for no reason. It's flattering, but Zayn's not really sure if he wants to. Before he can make himself clearer, though, Harry and Louis appear as if by magic to either side of him, teasing and jostling and elbowing him in the ribs.
"And who's this lovely lady who's taken pity on you?" Louis asks, finally noticing that Zayn had been in the middle of talking to someone before the wonder twins of inappropriate social interaction showed up. "Go on then, introduce us."
"Harry, Louis, this is Leah. Leah, my mates Harry and Louis," Zayn says obediently.
"Leah?" Harry says. He looks her up and down, taking in her short wavy hair and her deep brown eyes and her warm yet impish smile, and repeats, "Leah? Really?"
Louis and Harry look at each other, raising their eyebrows and then dissolving into giggles, which they try valiantly to stifle.
"Zayn, you really don't see it?" Harry asks.
"See what?"
"She looks a lot like…" Louis trails off, looking at Zayn meaningfully.
Zayn has no idea what they're on about, so he apologises to Leah and tells her they're the kind of drunks who babble nonsense. "Better than violent drunks, I guess," Zayn says, shaking his head, and then has to rethink that assessment when Louis kicks him in the shin.
Later, as the night winds down, Leah tells him that Simon's letting her stay in a room for the night since she lives far away. Zayn's about to send her off with a goodnight kiss when Niall approaches them and casually grabs his elbow.
"Sorry, can I just borrow him for a second?" he says, smiling ruefully at Leah. He tugs Zayn far enough away for Leah to be unable to hear them and whispers, "Simon says I should tell you that she's one of the escorts hired to service the party. If her 'services' aren't what you're after, you should probably tap out, yeah?"
Well, that explains why she put up with Zayn's terrible company all night. He feels a bit like he led her on, now.
He tells Niall to go on with the lads in their van, and he'll catch a cab a bit later. Niall squeezes his elbow and says something horrendously Niall-like about condoms and little babies with Zayn's face that Zayn immediately tries to banish from his mind forevermore.
And, because they're that kind of friends, Zayn feels compelled to tell the boys the next morning that he slept with Leah.
Louis and Harry start laughing hard enough to sound like they've contracted whooping cough. "The hooker who looked like Liam? You slept with her?" Harry chokes out between breathless gasps.
"Wait, what?" Liam turns to look at Zayn, puzzled but smiling.
"I felt bad, okay?" Zayn says defensively. He wants to move away from the weight of Liam's arm around his shoulders but is unable to think of a way to do it inconspicuously. "She talked to me all night and I felt like I wasted her time, and time is money, and it would've been rude not to." If the burning sensation in his cheeks is any indication, he must be ruddier than a fire engine at this point.
"Oh, Zayn," Louis says, still laughing. "That is the most chivalrous excuse to sleep with a prostitute I've ever heard. You're a true gentleman."
"No, but seriously," Harry says, coming over to join Zayn and Liam on the couch. "That's really sweet. It's really you. I can't wait 'til our fans are old enough for us to be telling this story in interviews. 'Hey, remember that time when Zayn slept with a hooker because it was the polite thing to do?'"
"Shut up."
"Are we just going to gloss over the part where this hooker looked like me?" Liam wonders.
"Yes," Zayn says, dropping his face into his hands. He can still feel Liam's arm on him, the warmth of Liam's hand through his shirt as he rubs his back comfortingly even though he has no idea just why Zayn needs comforting.
- - -
Contrary to rumours on the Internet and what his extended family all think just because he got his ears pierced, Zayn has never done it with a guy.
He's pretty sure he wants to, but he never has. There wasn't a lot of time between hitting that stage of sexual development and then getting world famous, not a very large window of opportunity for him to experiment discreetly. Now he feels a bit like he lost his chance, maybe. What if he never gets to find out?
The only way he can think of to solve this problem is to hire a professional. They honour some kind of client confidentiality, right? And they'll know what they're doing, how to make up for Zayn's total lack of experience. It's the logical choice, and the fact that you can also pick exactly what kind of facial features and body type they have and find a guy who sort of looks like your bandmate, well, that's just a coincidental bonus.
He waits until they're in Amsterdam, because he vaguely remembers hearing that prostitution is legal there. He would research it more, except the boys are always grabbing each other's laptops to use and the last thing he wants is for Google to autocomplete "male hustler" the next time Liam looks up McDonald's or Mariah Carey or mariachi bands.
Harry and Louis go out to gay bars every now and then, when there's a fun one in the town they're visiting. Harry likes it because he gets to go on about subverting heteronormative expressions or something boring like that, and Louis likes it because he likes attention. Zayn can tell that's where they're going on their second night in Amsterdam when Louis breaks out his skin-tight neon jeans.
"Do you mind if I come with you?" Zayn asks them. He's trying his hardest to sound casual. Liam and Niall have decided to stay in for an early night's rest and it's perfectly natural that if he wants to go out, he would tag along with Louis and Harry. Perfectly natural. Casual.
"Of course we don't mind," Harry says, looking at him funny, and Zayn realises that he is shit at being faux casual because it's an odd thing to ask someone you go out with all the time.
He checks his hair five more times in the bathroom and he checks that he has condoms in his wallet and he checks that it isn't too obvious to Louis and Harry that he has condoms in his wallet and maybe, just maybe, he's overthinking this.
He's never been to a club like this before, but he's watched enough Queer as Folk (furtively, late at night in the darkness of his room, ears pricked for the sound of his parents' footsteps) to know that the long line of guys outside the toilet wearing sleeveless crop tops aren't actually all waiting to use the toilet.
Zayn chats with a few of them in the only way he knows how: awkwardly. They're rent boys but they somehow still look way too cool to be talking to him, all buff and European and proud. There's one guy who isn't blond, whose hair looks kind of like Liam's back when he spent hours every day straightening it. He could reasonably pass for a relative of Liam's if they stay in the dark, and it's dark everywhere so that shouldn't be hard. He has a deep voice too, low and rich and if Zayn ignores the Dutch accent it's almost like Liam's. He communicates to Zayn through a series of simple English phrases and complicated hand signals that it'll cost 50 euro for a blowie and 80 for a fuck. It sounds fair to Zayn, but he wants to clarify that he wants to be the one getting fucked. He wants to try something that he can't get from a girl, and the thought that this man has probably fucked hundreds of guys before shouldn't be comforting, but it is a little.
Just as they're coming to a solid agreement of the terms and conditions, Zayn feels someone press up against him from behind and hook their chin over his shoulder.
"Hello, Louis," Zayn says without having to turn around, recognizing the feel of that sharp chin. He tips his head to press back against Louis' temple briefly.
"Hello, Zayn. Hello, large, fit man."
The hustler who may or may not bear a passing resemblance to Liam quirks an eyebrow at Louis.
"You doing alright?" Louis asks Zayn. His hands are on Zayn's shoulder and he's peering into Zayn's face intently, eyes concerned and not as drunk as Zayn was expecting.
Zayn looks to the side, and to the floor, and to the space just left of Louis' ear. "Yeah. Everything is fine. I was just gonna go out back for a smoke with my new friend here."
Louis frowns a bit. He checks out the hustler again, sweeping his eyes up and down him. "Listen, Zayn, Harry and I got a booth right over there. And we agreed we'll be leaving in two hours. Promise me you'll come meet us at our table as soon as you're done…smoking."
"Will do."
"We're leaving in two hours, and you're coming back with us, yeah?"
"Yes Louis, I'm coming back with you."
"Text me if you leave the premises for any reason."
"I'm not going to leave 'the premises,' Mum. I'm just stepping out for a quick smoke. I'll come straight back, I promise."
Louis gives the hustler one last hard look. He squeezes Zayn's shoulders with both his hands before he turns around and heads back for the dance floor.
"Was that your boyfriend?" the guy asks as they exit out the back door.
"More like my older brother," Zayn shrugs.
Not that the hustler cares either way. He's just making small talk as they make their way to an alley that can't be seen from the street, a sectioned off area clearly meant for business. There's another pair of bodies out there already, someone standing and someone on his knees. Zayn's not sure he has the nerve for this after all, but then the guy is mouthing at his neck and palming his dick through his jeans and then it all becomes a bit of a blur.
The crumbly brick scratches his palms where he's braced himself, hands against the wall and bent forward. He's got slippery fingers up inside him and it feels weirder than when he does it to himself in the shower. The guy's telling him that it's not too late to change his mind, that they can swap positions if he doesn't like how it stretches and burns, and Zayn wishes he would shut up because his accent keeps breaking the illusion that it's someone else, someone with a similar build and similar moan but softer hands.
It hurts when he finally pushes in, but Zayn's ready and he just accepts it, lets it wash over him and take him until it starts feeling like something close to pleasure. He rests his forehead on the backs of his hands and watches the way he rocks up onto his tiptoes with every thrust inside. A hand wraps around his half-hard cock and helps him most of the way there. He can't see behind him and that makes it easier to imagine.
Fifteen minutes later and it's all over. The guy finishes first and throws his condom away before he sinks down and swallows Zayn's cock all the way to the hilt in one move. Zayn gasps because that really does feel fantastic, and then he's coming down a strange man's throat in a dark alley behind some bar in the Netherlands.
He goes back inside 80 euro poorer, the smell of sex all over him. He quickly washes his hands in the lavatory and averts his eyes as he walks back past of the line of guys lounging outside.
Harry's sitting alone at their booth when Zayn finds him, sipping a glass of cranberry juice and taking a breather. He waves toward the general direction of the dance floor when Zayn asks where Louis is, and wraps his limbs all around Zayn when he sits down with a slight wince.
"Are you alright?" Harry asks, burying his nose between Zayn's ear and neck. Sometimes Zayn wishes they weren't all so damn sincere all the time. The muscles in the backs of his thighs ache and he thinks maybe his heart is aching too. His brain keeps randomly reminding him that he's no longer a virgin in any sense of the word.
"I'm dandy," he says quietly. He steals the cranberry juice from Harry.
Harry strokes his fingers through Zayn's hair and doesn't even complain when Zayn drinks it all.
- - -
The boy who's been hanging around the back entrance of their hotel looks so much like Liam that it's almost too creepy for Zayn to sneak him up to his room.
He has a single room, as does Liam, although there's a door adjoining their two suites. They're technically making enough money now for all of them to be allowed single rooms of their own, but Harry and Louis are weird and like to share and Niall is even weirder and likes to sleep over in their shared room. Zayn doesn't really question it.
He's noticed this boy, who's in his late teens or early twenties, who keeps waiting to catch a glimpse of them in the hotel lobby, and who looks creepily like Liam. The resemblance isn't just physical-he even copies Liam's mannerisms and clothing style. It's hard to tell if he's doing it deliberately. He seems too old to be such a big fan of their band, but there aren't a lot of other reasons for him to skulk around stairwells emulating one of them. Zayn is genuinely confused and thinks he might just be having a very strange fan encounter as he pushes the guy backward onto his bed and pulls his jeans off.
"I want to suck your cock," Zayn tells him, because he's never tried it before.
He doesn't clue in until he's swallowing the last of the guy's come that he is in fact not a groupie but a hooker, because at that point the guy hauls him up by the shoulders and tells him he has great lips and that "I like you so much that I'm going to give you a freebie."
Oh, Zayn thinks, as the guy works his hands into Zayn's boxers and starts jerking him off with an expert grip.
It's good, the way the guy who looks disturbingly like Liam runs his thumb over the ridge of his cock and uses his other hand to cup his balls. It's really good, and Zayn comes in no seconds flat. And then he says "Sorry, I didn't know it was ever not going to be a freebie? I assumed you were-um. Sorry. Anyway, I feel bad about it, so can I pay you anyway?"
The guy's putting his clothes back on and fixing his hair in the mirror right next to the door. He turns to see if Zayn is serious, then laughs when he realises Zayn is one hundred percent ready to pull out his wallet.
"Don't worry about it, kid. It was fun. Take care of yourself." He ruffles Zayn's hair and Zayn wonders what it is about himself that makes prostitutes feel like they should act as condescending as possible toward him.
They check the hall to make sure no one will see him sneaking out, and before he goes Zayn has the absurd urge to ask how much it would cost for a kiss. He knows better than to actually ask, though, and he closes the door quietly behind him and turns the deadbolt.
He flips the sheets around so he doesn't have to sleep on the wet spot, and then decides he needs a smoke before he can go to bed.
He's out on the balcony and on his second puff when he hears the glass door slide open behind him. He turns to see Liam step out to join him, snug in a hoodie and pyjama pants but feet bare, toes curling up against the cold concrete.
"Hiya," Zayn says, automatically turning his head to direct the smoke away from Liam. "How'd you get in?"
"The door between our rooms. It wasn't locked."
Zayn's eyes widened. He did his best to hide his dumbfounded alarm, but holy shit, he did not realise that Liam could've just walked in through that door the whole time. He shuffles and clears his throat and smokes his cigarette right down to the filter.
Liam does that thing he does sometimes, where he's looking off into the distance but really he's looking at Zayn in his peripheral vision. The city lays out below them, bright against the night. The stars are mostly indiscernible, but the twinkling skyline is almost as good as the real thing.
"You never hang out with me late at night anymore," Liam says quietly, his eyes on the faraway lights and his focus on Zayn.
"I do too."
"Not as much. Not lately."
Only because I'm a little bit in love with you and cuddling on your bed kills me inside, Zayn carefully does not say out loud. He rubs the butt of his cigarette on the railing until there's nothing in his fingers but streaks of grey ash.
"Come watch a movie with me," Liam says.
"Okay," Zayn says.
He follows Liam inside, through the door that he still can't believe was unlocked, and they find a mindless action comedy film to stream on Netflix.
The bed is plenty big enough for them to sit a reasonable distance apart, but of course Zayn's head ends up pillowed on Liam's shoulder, the smell of Liam's soap in his nose and the steady, solid rhythm of his pulse thumping in his ear.
"See, this is nice, right?" Liam says, and Zayn can feel his voice rumble through him. "You don't have to go out all the time."
It is nice. It's so nice that it makes the sex he just had feel that much cheaper and more meaningless, and then he feels cruel for thinking that because prostitutes are people too and he shouldn't think of that guy as meaningless even if he doesn't know his name. It's too late and Zayn's too tired to ponder the politics of sex trafficking and exploitation; it's more Harry's cup of tea to be thinking about that stuff anyway, Zayn's just not cut out for it.
Liam laughs at something that happens in the movie and Zayn tries to pay more attention, but in the end he just ends up falling asleep all over Liam. And Liam lets him.
- - -
Niall walks in and sees Zayn handing fifty quid over to a half-naked man one day, and between the rumpled bedding and Zayn's clothes all over the floor and the lovebites bruising all across his chest, it doesn't take him long to put it together and then he is, understandably, freaking the fuck out.
"Niall, wait-!"
But it's too late, because he's already run down the hall to tell Louis, and then Louis is in Zayn's room taking in all the evidence and coming to the same conclusion Niall did.
"So, can I go, or…?" The man who, yes, has curly brunet hair and broad shoulders and brown eyes, gingerly edges toward the door.
"You're not going to sell a story to the papers or anything?" Niall asks, and the man scoffs at that. He probably makes much better money by keeping secrets.
Louis waves him out the door impatiently, and then he and Niall are looking at Zayn.
Zayn pulls his shirt on and wonders if his hotel room is too high for him to escape out the window.
"Zayn, you know you can tell us anything, right?" Niall says. He looks so earnest and sad, like he thinks he knows why Zayn is doing this. He's wrong, because that's not it. It makes Zayn want to hug him anyway.
Louis has more of a clue, and he says, "Clearly I shouldn't have let this slide the first time, because this has obviously become a problem."
"What's become a problem?" a third voice chimes in, and then Harry is in Zayn's room too, looking at Louis for an explanation.
"Zayn has been partaking of the services of hired gentlemen, and it's time for an intervention," Louis says.
Harry looks less than surprised. "And do all of these gentlemen look a lot like Liam?"
"They do," Louis confirms.
Before Zayn can protest this charge, Liam comes into the room as well and asks, "Who looks a lot like me? What's going on?"
"The men Zayn has been paying to sleep with him," Harry helpfully supplies. "They all look like you."
And then Zayn can't take it anymore. "I'm sorry, is this a game of sardines? Have we ever had a private conversation where we don't all pile into the room by the end of it?" he bursts out. He just wants them all to get out and leave him alone with his shame. The room isn't big enough for all of them to squeeze in and still hold his shame.
"Stop talking about sardines to distract from the fact that you're sleeping with hookers who look like me!" Liam says.
Zayn freezes. He thinks it's very possible that he might start crying.
Niall, bless him, takes one look at Zayn's face and steps forward. "Alright, sardines, let's give them some room," he says, and pushes Harry and Louis out ahead of him. The door closes behind him.
And then it's just Zayn, Liam, and Zayn's massive sense of shame taking up all the room.
"Zayn," Liam starts, and Zayn hates how gentle his voice sounds. "Maybe we could try, I don't know, going out on a date or something sometime?"
"I don't know, Liam, maybe it's a bad idea to start a relationship based on you trying to stop me from picking up more hookers?!" He really hopes the hysterical hitch in his voice sounds less obvious to Liam than it does to himself.
"Oh, I don't know, Zayn, maybe that's not the only reason I asked? Maybe I find it flattering, in a really weird way, and maybe it's never occurred to me to think of you that way before but now it has? Maybe I accidentally saw you with that guy two weeks ago, just for a quick second, and you looked really hot being held by someone who looked just like me? And maybe I think you would look really hot being held by me?"
"Are we going to keep talking in questions?"
"I don't know, are we?" Liam is definitely teasing him at this point.
Zayn smiles despite himself, a thin watery smile but a smile nonetheless.
Liam takes his hand. "Maybe I don't know what I'm doing either, but maybe this is good enough for a start?"
Zayn looks down at their fingers, and thinks about city lights laid out before them and how they still can't compare to stars. "Maybe," he agrees.
- end
- - -
Endnotes: I usually write a little note to myself re: how I want each person to act in the story, to make consistent characterization easier. My note for Louis in this fic just said "OKAY THIS IS TROUBLE BUT YOU DO YOU, ZAYN." Also, now my own Google history thinks I want to know how much a prostitute costs in Amsterdam.
eta: now mirrored on AO3 for those who prefer reading there.
Author: matchsticks_p
Pairing: Zayn/OCs, Liam/Zayn, general background OT5ness
Summary: Zayn starts picking up prostitutes who look like Liam. Everybody notices.
Rating: NC-17
Length: 4246 words
Notes: Based on this prompt at the 1D kink meme. Thank you to katienyc for beta reading.
- - -
The first time it happens, they're at an industry party Simon throws for networking purposes.
"Go mingle," he commands them, because they're invited as showpieces, just one bright jewel among Simon's large collection of successful gems. There are no fans, only lots of important people who see One Direction not as musicians but as an extension of Simon's empire.
So they mingle, and it's kind of nice, actually, to be able to get dressed up and drink expensive alcohol with no obligation to make nice with hyperventilating star-struck admirers.
Zayn sucks at mingling. Harry and Louis are great at it, bringing their buddy comedy act around to all the guests and hamming it up like there's no tomorrow. Niall's cleverly avoiding having to schmooze too much by keeping his mouth stuffed near the buffet table. Liam's nowhere to be seen, which leaves Zayn clutching a flute of champagne and wondering if he can just sneak off to a guest bedroom and take a nap until the party's over.
Eventually he ends up chatting with a woman named Leah. She's quite pretty, her light brown hair kept in a short pixie cut and her expensive dress hugging her in all the right places. More importantly, she doesn't seem to know anyone else at the party either, so the two of them can be equally antisocial together.
Zayn realizes after his fourth glass of Cristal that Leah is very probably flirting with him, throwing her head back to laugh at his unfunny jokes and show off the smooth column of her throat, letting her fingers linger on his arm every few seconds for no reason. It's flattering, but Zayn's not really sure if he wants to. Before he can make himself clearer, though, Harry and Louis appear as if by magic to either side of him, teasing and jostling and elbowing him in the ribs.
"And who's this lovely lady who's taken pity on you?" Louis asks, finally noticing that Zayn had been in the middle of talking to someone before the wonder twins of inappropriate social interaction showed up. "Go on then, introduce us."
"Harry, Louis, this is Leah. Leah, my mates Harry and Louis," Zayn says obediently.
"Leah?" Harry says. He looks her up and down, taking in her short wavy hair and her deep brown eyes and her warm yet impish smile, and repeats, "Leah? Really?"
Louis and Harry look at each other, raising their eyebrows and then dissolving into giggles, which they try valiantly to stifle.
"Zayn, you really don't see it?" Harry asks.
"See what?"
"She looks a lot like…" Louis trails off, looking at Zayn meaningfully.
Zayn has no idea what they're on about, so he apologises to Leah and tells her they're the kind of drunks who babble nonsense. "Better than violent drunks, I guess," Zayn says, shaking his head, and then has to rethink that assessment when Louis kicks him in the shin.
Later, as the night winds down, Leah tells him that Simon's letting her stay in a room for the night since she lives far away. Zayn's about to send her off with a goodnight kiss when Niall approaches them and casually grabs his elbow.
"Sorry, can I just borrow him for a second?" he says, smiling ruefully at Leah. He tugs Zayn far enough away for Leah to be unable to hear them and whispers, "Simon says I should tell you that she's one of the escorts hired to service the party. If her 'services' aren't what you're after, you should probably tap out, yeah?"
Well, that explains why she put up with Zayn's terrible company all night. He feels a bit like he led her on, now.
He tells Niall to go on with the lads in their van, and he'll catch a cab a bit later. Niall squeezes his elbow and says something horrendously Niall-like about condoms and little babies with Zayn's face that Zayn immediately tries to banish from his mind forevermore.
And, because they're that kind of friends, Zayn feels compelled to tell the boys the next morning that he slept with Leah.
Louis and Harry start laughing hard enough to sound like they've contracted whooping cough. "The hooker who looked like Liam? You slept with her?" Harry chokes out between breathless gasps.
"Wait, what?" Liam turns to look at Zayn, puzzled but smiling.
"I felt bad, okay?" Zayn says defensively. He wants to move away from the weight of Liam's arm around his shoulders but is unable to think of a way to do it inconspicuously. "She talked to me all night and I felt like I wasted her time, and time is money, and it would've been rude not to." If the burning sensation in his cheeks is any indication, he must be ruddier than a fire engine at this point.
"Oh, Zayn," Louis says, still laughing. "That is the most chivalrous excuse to sleep with a prostitute I've ever heard. You're a true gentleman."
"No, but seriously," Harry says, coming over to join Zayn and Liam on the couch. "That's really sweet. It's really you. I can't wait 'til our fans are old enough for us to be telling this story in interviews. 'Hey, remember that time when Zayn slept with a hooker because it was the polite thing to do?'"
"Shut up."
"Are we just going to gloss over the part where this hooker looked like me?" Liam wonders.
"Yes," Zayn says, dropping his face into his hands. He can still feel Liam's arm on him, the warmth of Liam's hand through his shirt as he rubs his back comfortingly even though he has no idea just why Zayn needs comforting.
- - -
Contrary to rumours on the Internet and what his extended family all think just because he got his ears pierced, Zayn has never done it with a guy.
He's pretty sure he wants to, but he never has. There wasn't a lot of time between hitting that stage of sexual development and then getting world famous, not a very large window of opportunity for him to experiment discreetly. Now he feels a bit like he lost his chance, maybe. What if he never gets to find out?
The only way he can think of to solve this problem is to hire a professional. They honour some kind of client confidentiality, right? And they'll know what they're doing, how to make up for Zayn's total lack of experience. It's the logical choice, and the fact that you can also pick exactly what kind of facial features and body type they have and find a guy who sort of looks like your bandmate, well, that's just a coincidental bonus.
He waits until they're in Amsterdam, because he vaguely remembers hearing that prostitution is legal there. He would research it more, except the boys are always grabbing each other's laptops to use and the last thing he wants is for Google to autocomplete "male hustler" the next time Liam looks up McDonald's or Mariah Carey or mariachi bands.
Harry and Louis go out to gay bars every now and then, when there's a fun one in the town they're visiting. Harry likes it because he gets to go on about subverting heteronormative expressions or something boring like that, and Louis likes it because he likes attention. Zayn can tell that's where they're going on their second night in Amsterdam when Louis breaks out his skin-tight neon jeans.
"Do you mind if I come with you?" Zayn asks them. He's trying his hardest to sound casual. Liam and Niall have decided to stay in for an early night's rest and it's perfectly natural that if he wants to go out, he would tag along with Louis and Harry. Perfectly natural. Casual.
"Of course we don't mind," Harry says, looking at him funny, and Zayn realises that he is shit at being faux casual because it's an odd thing to ask someone you go out with all the time.
He checks his hair five more times in the bathroom and he checks that he has condoms in his wallet and he checks that it isn't too obvious to Louis and Harry that he has condoms in his wallet and maybe, just maybe, he's overthinking this.
He's never been to a club like this before, but he's watched enough Queer as Folk (furtively, late at night in the darkness of his room, ears pricked for the sound of his parents' footsteps) to know that the long line of guys outside the toilet wearing sleeveless crop tops aren't actually all waiting to use the toilet.
Zayn chats with a few of them in the only way he knows how: awkwardly. They're rent boys but they somehow still look way too cool to be talking to him, all buff and European and proud. There's one guy who isn't blond, whose hair looks kind of like Liam's back when he spent hours every day straightening it. He could reasonably pass for a relative of Liam's if they stay in the dark, and it's dark everywhere so that shouldn't be hard. He has a deep voice too, low and rich and if Zayn ignores the Dutch accent it's almost like Liam's. He communicates to Zayn through a series of simple English phrases and complicated hand signals that it'll cost 50 euro for a blowie and 80 for a fuck. It sounds fair to Zayn, but he wants to clarify that he wants to be the one getting fucked. He wants to try something that he can't get from a girl, and the thought that this man has probably fucked hundreds of guys before shouldn't be comforting, but it is a little.
Just as they're coming to a solid agreement of the terms and conditions, Zayn feels someone press up against him from behind and hook their chin over his shoulder.
"Hello, Louis," Zayn says without having to turn around, recognizing the feel of that sharp chin. He tips his head to press back against Louis' temple briefly.
"Hello, Zayn. Hello, large, fit man."
The hustler who may or may not bear a passing resemblance to Liam quirks an eyebrow at Louis.
"You doing alright?" Louis asks Zayn. His hands are on Zayn's shoulder and he's peering into Zayn's face intently, eyes concerned and not as drunk as Zayn was expecting.
Zayn looks to the side, and to the floor, and to the space just left of Louis' ear. "Yeah. Everything is fine. I was just gonna go out back for a smoke with my new friend here."
Louis frowns a bit. He checks out the hustler again, sweeping his eyes up and down him. "Listen, Zayn, Harry and I got a booth right over there. And we agreed we'll be leaving in two hours. Promise me you'll come meet us at our table as soon as you're done…smoking."
"Will do."
"We're leaving in two hours, and you're coming back with us, yeah?"
"Yes Louis, I'm coming back with you."
"Text me if you leave the premises for any reason."
"I'm not going to leave 'the premises,' Mum. I'm just stepping out for a quick smoke. I'll come straight back, I promise."
Louis gives the hustler one last hard look. He squeezes Zayn's shoulders with both his hands before he turns around and heads back for the dance floor.
"Was that your boyfriend?" the guy asks as they exit out the back door.
"More like my older brother," Zayn shrugs.
Not that the hustler cares either way. He's just making small talk as they make their way to an alley that can't be seen from the street, a sectioned off area clearly meant for business. There's another pair of bodies out there already, someone standing and someone on his knees. Zayn's not sure he has the nerve for this after all, but then the guy is mouthing at his neck and palming his dick through his jeans and then it all becomes a bit of a blur.
The crumbly brick scratches his palms where he's braced himself, hands against the wall and bent forward. He's got slippery fingers up inside him and it feels weirder than when he does it to himself in the shower. The guy's telling him that it's not too late to change his mind, that they can swap positions if he doesn't like how it stretches and burns, and Zayn wishes he would shut up because his accent keeps breaking the illusion that it's someone else, someone with a similar build and similar moan but softer hands.
It hurts when he finally pushes in, but Zayn's ready and he just accepts it, lets it wash over him and take him until it starts feeling like something close to pleasure. He rests his forehead on the backs of his hands and watches the way he rocks up onto his tiptoes with every thrust inside. A hand wraps around his half-hard cock and helps him most of the way there. He can't see behind him and that makes it easier to imagine.
Fifteen minutes later and it's all over. The guy finishes first and throws his condom away before he sinks down and swallows Zayn's cock all the way to the hilt in one move. Zayn gasps because that really does feel fantastic, and then he's coming down a strange man's throat in a dark alley behind some bar in the Netherlands.
He goes back inside 80 euro poorer, the smell of sex all over him. He quickly washes his hands in the lavatory and averts his eyes as he walks back past of the line of guys lounging outside.
Harry's sitting alone at their booth when Zayn finds him, sipping a glass of cranberry juice and taking a breather. He waves toward the general direction of the dance floor when Zayn asks where Louis is, and wraps his limbs all around Zayn when he sits down with a slight wince.
"Are you alright?" Harry asks, burying his nose between Zayn's ear and neck. Sometimes Zayn wishes they weren't all so damn sincere all the time. The muscles in the backs of his thighs ache and he thinks maybe his heart is aching too. His brain keeps randomly reminding him that he's no longer a virgin in any sense of the word.
"I'm dandy," he says quietly. He steals the cranberry juice from Harry.
Harry strokes his fingers through Zayn's hair and doesn't even complain when Zayn drinks it all.
- - -
The boy who's been hanging around the back entrance of their hotel looks so much like Liam that it's almost too creepy for Zayn to sneak him up to his room.
He has a single room, as does Liam, although there's a door adjoining their two suites. They're technically making enough money now for all of them to be allowed single rooms of their own, but Harry and Louis are weird and like to share and Niall is even weirder and likes to sleep over in their shared room. Zayn doesn't really question it.
He's noticed this boy, who's in his late teens or early twenties, who keeps waiting to catch a glimpse of them in the hotel lobby, and who looks creepily like Liam. The resemblance isn't just physical-he even copies Liam's mannerisms and clothing style. It's hard to tell if he's doing it deliberately. He seems too old to be such a big fan of their band, but there aren't a lot of other reasons for him to skulk around stairwells emulating one of them. Zayn is genuinely confused and thinks he might just be having a very strange fan encounter as he pushes the guy backward onto his bed and pulls his jeans off.
"I want to suck your cock," Zayn tells him, because he's never tried it before.
He doesn't clue in until he's swallowing the last of the guy's come that he is in fact not a groupie but a hooker, because at that point the guy hauls him up by the shoulders and tells him he has great lips and that "I like you so much that I'm going to give you a freebie."
Oh, Zayn thinks, as the guy works his hands into Zayn's boxers and starts jerking him off with an expert grip.
It's good, the way the guy who looks disturbingly like Liam runs his thumb over the ridge of his cock and uses his other hand to cup his balls. It's really good, and Zayn comes in no seconds flat. And then he says "Sorry, I didn't know it was ever not going to be a freebie? I assumed you were-um. Sorry. Anyway, I feel bad about it, so can I pay you anyway?"
The guy's putting his clothes back on and fixing his hair in the mirror right next to the door. He turns to see if Zayn is serious, then laughs when he realises Zayn is one hundred percent ready to pull out his wallet.
"Don't worry about it, kid. It was fun. Take care of yourself." He ruffles Zayn's hair and Zayn wonders what it is about himself that makes prostitutes feel like they should act as condescending as possible toward him.
They check the hall to make sure no one will see him sneaking out, and before he goes Zayn has the absurd urge to ask how much it would cost for a kiss. He knows better than to actually ask, though, and he closes the door quietly behind him and turns the deadbolt.
He flips the sheets around so he doesn't have to sleep on the wet spot, and then decides he needs a smoke before he can go to bed.
He's out on the balcony and on his second puff when he hears the glass door slide open behind him. He turns to see Liam step out to join him, snug in a hoodie and pyjama pants but feet bare, toes curling up against the cold concrete.
"Hiya," Zayn says, automatically turning his head to direct the smoke away from Liam. "How'd you get in?"
"The door between our rooms. It wasn't locked."
Zayn's eyes widened. He did his best to hide his dumbfounded alarm, but holy shit, he did not realise that Liam could've just walked in through that door the whole time. He shuffles and clears his throat and smokes his cigarette right down to the filter.
Liam does that thing he does sometimes, where he's looking off into the distance but really he's looking at Zayn in his peripheral vision. The city lays out below them, bright against the night. The stars are mostly indiscernible, but the twinkling skyline is almost as good as the real thing.
"You never hang out with me late at night anymore," Liam says quietly, his eyes on the faraway lights and his focus on Zayn.
"I do too."
"Not as much. Not lately."
Only because I'm a little bit in love with you and cuddling on your bed kills me inside, Zayn carefully does not say out loud. He rubs the butt of his cigarette on the railing until there's nothing in his fingers but streaks of grey ash.
"Come watch a movie with me," Liam says.
"Okay," Zayn says.
He follows Liam inside, through the door that he still can't believe was unlocked, and they find a mindless action comedy film to stream on Netflix.
The bed is plenty big enough for them to sit a reasonable distance apart, but of course Zayn's head ends up pillowed on Liam's shoulder, the smell of Liam's soap in his nose and the steady, solid rhythm of his pulse thumping in his ear.
"See, this is nice, right?" Liam says, and Zayn can feel his voice rumble through him. "You don't have to go out all the time."
It is nice. It's so nice that it makes the sex he just had feel that much cheaper and more meaningless, and then he feels cruel for thinking that because prostitutes are people too and he shouldn't think of that guy as meaningless even if he doesn't know his name. It's too late and Zayn's too tired to ponder the politics of sex trafficking and exploitation; it's more Harry's cup of tea to be thinking about that stuff anyway, Zayn's just not cut out for it.
Liam laughs at something that happens in the movie and Zayn tries to pay more attention, but in the end he just ends up falling asleep all over Liam. And Liam lets him.
- - -
Niall walks in and sees Zayn handing fifty quid over to a half-naked man one day, and between the rumpled bedding and Zayn's clothes all over the floor and the lovebites bruising all across his chest, it doesn't take him long to put it together and then he is, understandably, freaking the fuck out.
"Niall, wait-!"
But it's too late, because he's already run down the hall to tell Louis, and then Louis is in Zayn's room taking in all the evidence and coming to the same conclusion Niall did.
"So, can I go, or…?" The man who, yes, has curly brunet hair and broad shoulders and brown eyes, gingerly edges toward the door.
"You're not going to sell a story to the papers or anything?" Niall asks, and the man scoffs at that. He probably makes much better money by keeping secrets.
Louis waves him out the door impatiently, and then he and Niall are looking at Zayn.
Zayn pulls his shirt on and wonders if his hotel room is too high for him to escape out the window.
"Zayn, you know you can tell us anything, right?" Niall says. He looks so earnest and sad, like he thinks he knows why Zayn is doing this. He's wrong, because that's not it. It makes Zayn want to hug him anyway.
Louis has more of a clue, and he says, "Clearly I shouldn't have let this slide the first time, because this has obviously become a problem."
"What's become a problem?" a third voice chimes in, and then Harry is in Zayn's room too, looking at Louis for an explanation.
"Zayn has been partaking of the services of hired gentlemen, and it's time for an intervention," Louis says.
Harry looks less than surprised. "And do all of these gentlemen look a lot like Liam?"
"They do," Louis confirms.
Before Zayn can protest this charge, Liam comes into the room as well and asks, "Who looks a lot like me? What's going on?"
"The men Zayn has been paying to sleep with him," Harry helpfully supplies. "They all look like you."
And then Zayn can't take it anymore. "I'm sorry, is this a game of sardines? Have we ever had a private conversation where we don't all pile into the room by the end of it?" he bursts out. He just wants them all to get out and leave him alone with his shame. The room isn't big enough for all of them to squeeze in and still hold his shame.
"Stop talking about sardines to distract from the fact that you're sleeping with hookers who look like me!" Liam says.
Zayn freezes. He thinks it's very possible that he might start crying.
Niall, bless him, takes one look at Zayn's face and steps forward. "Alright, sardines, let's give them some room," he says, and pushes Harry and Louis out ahead of him. The door closes behind him.
And then it's just Zayn, Liam, and Zayn's massive sense of shame taking up all the room.
"Zayn," Liam starts, and Zayn hates how gentle his voice sounds. "Maybe we could try, I don't know, going out on a date or something sometime?"
"I don't know, Liam, maybe it's a bad idea to start a relationship based on you trying to stop me from picking up more hookers?!" He really hopes the hysterical hitch in his voice sounds less obvious to Liam than it does to himself.
"Oh, I don't know, Zayn, maybe that's not the only reason I asked? Maybe I find it flattering, in a really weird way, and maybe it's never occurred to me to think of you that way before but now it has? Maybe I accidentally saw you with that guy two weeks ago, just for a quick second, and you looked really hot being held by someone who looked just like me? And maybe I think you would look really hot being held by me?"
"Are we going to keep talking in questions?"
"I don't know, are we?" Liam is definitely teasing him at this point.
Zayn smiles despite himself, a thin watery smile but a smile nonetheless.
Liam takes his hand. "Maybe I don't know what I'm doing either, but maybe this is good enough for a start?"
Zayn looks down at their fingers, and thinks about city lights laid out before them and how they still can't compare to stars. "Maybe," he agrees.
- end
- - -
Endnotes: I usually write a little note to myself re: how I want each person to act in the story, to make consistent characterization easier. My note for Louis in this fic just said "OKAY THIS IS TROUBLE BUT YOU DO YOU, ZAYN." Also, now my own Google history thinks I want to know how much a prostitute costs in Amsterdam.
eta: now mirrored on AO3 for those who prefer reading there.