FIC: for the taste and touch
Pairing Zayn/Liam
Rating: G-13
Warning: luff. Liam being confused. If you're against that and all.
Word Count: 200~
Summary There is a reason Zayn doesn't drink when Liam's around
Liam doesn’t drink. He’s never had. Everyone’s aware of it and everyone knows the reason why, even the fans. So whenever Louis, Harry, Zayn and Niall feel like going out, Liam’s never really bothered to tag along because as much as he wants to hang out with them, being the only sober one doesn’t seem like a very fun prospect. Besides, they have their bodyguards responsible for getting them back home in one piece, Daddy Direction isn’t needed.
From time to time Liam hears about, as Louis calls it, “the adventures of drunk direction sans Liam Payne” (mostly from Louis who brags about them the next morning or Niall who doesn’t stop laughing days after the incident had happened) and he admits it makes him feel a bit sad because it takes him back to the X Factor days. Where a small part of him secretly feels excluded, afraid that the others don’t see him as one of their own. But it’s always better to be safe than sorry; he says it time and time again just so he won’t ever forget it.
“So we walked past this minimart yea, and suddenly Zayn shouts for us to stop the car. And Zayn, that idiot,” Louis recalls as Niall half chokes on his cereal from all the laughter. “He walks inside to this really old fat man who was at the register and asks if they had any rogan josh. Then Zayn he gives the man his phone number, writes it on his bloody hand, and asks the man to call him when the rogan josh’s ready and if he could, please if really could, make it like the way his mum used to make it. And then he sits on the floor, leans on the counter and falls asleep! Just like that! The security had to carry him home, that bloody idiot! Thank God there wasn’t anyone there but us.”
Liam forces a laugh - as amusing as the story was to imagine, he really wishes he could have witnessed it himself. Zayn walks into the room and buries his head in his hands as he sits down. Niall laughs even harder and Zayn groans as he realizes Louis has probably recounted last night’s events to Liam already. Liam pats his shoulder, grinning at him as he turns a shade of red from the embarrassment.
“Did I mention he mentioned your name right after he called out his mum’s while he was falling asleep?” Louis adds.
One night, Liam announces to the group that he’d like to tag along on their night out. Niall cheers and puts an arm around his shoulders but the other three throws him confused looks. Harry looks suspicious at first but then cracks into that mischievous smile of his. Louis asks him if he’s sure and if he’d be okay with them all probably getting hammered by the end of the night, but welcomes him anyway. Zayn on the other hand looks a bit uneasy. He smiles at Liam when he realizes that Liam’s looking at him, but then turns away and continues to look uncomfortable with the idea.
It doesn’t hurt that much, Liam tells himself that night as they head out. Stings a bit but really, the weather’s probably the reason I feel like throwing up tonight.
The club they attend to that night is recommended by a lot of the friends they made in the business. The least terrible place in town everyone says. They sit in a corner booth and Liam looks around the place, trying to get himself to at least be a little more enthused about tonight.
“Nah, I won’t be having any tonight man,” Zayn announces to the rest of the group after Louis volunteered to get their drinks.
Liam turns to look at Zayn so quickly that his neck nearly breaks. There is a beat of silence before Louis and Niall bursts into bouts of laughter. Harry puts his arm around Zayn’s shoulders, forehead pressed to Zayn’s as if he’s making sure Zayn isn’t getting feverish, and asks him, “You alright mate?”
Zayn backs his head away and playfully rolls his eyes at Harry and turns at the rest of the group. “I’m fine. I just don’t feel like it,” he explains.
Harry makes a suspicious face but then steals a glance at Liam before lowly laughing and turning away from Zayn to Louis. “So, our drinks then?”
Liam doesn’t miss the grateful look Zayn throws at Harry.
“Zayn, if you’re not drinking because of me then I-, “ Liam says a bit too quickly. Sometime in between Harry dry humping Louis and Niall licking salt from Louis’ face, Zayn had snuck out through the back doors. Liam hadn’t noticed at first, he was too busy looking around the place to make sure no one could see them but no one really seemed to care. When he finally did realize Zayn was missing, he knew exactly where he would be. “I’m sorry for making you uncomfortable mate,” Liam offers.
Zayn’s eyes grew at Liam’s apology and although Liam could’ve sworn he looked a bit sorry for a moment, he cracks a smile and chuckles lightly, blowing out a puff of smoke slowly. He shakes his head and says, “Nah mate, I just really don’t feel like it right now. Don’t want that rogan josh incident to happen all over again.”
Liam blinks a few times before registering what Zayn had said. The story was quite embarrassing. He doesn’t blame Zayn for not wanting it to happen again. So he laughs and consoles his friend. “It really wasn’t that bad.”
Liam keeps tagging along with the boys the next few night outs and still Zayn doesn’t drink. Louis starts looking at him suspiciously and Niall asks him, very seriously, if he’s terminally ill and keeping it a secret from everyone (and if he is, then he needs to stop with the fucking cigarettes too, Niall adds quite sternly - to everyone’s surprise). Harry keeps coming to Zayn’s defense, telling them to leave the poor lad alone or changing the subject entirely.
This one night where Zayn does have a drink in his hand, Liam overhears Zayn asking the bartender to ‘make it a virgin please’. He doesn’t tell the other boys because he thinks Zayn must really want to hide whatever this is from the rest of the boys.
“He’s not actually terminally ill, is he?” he asks quietly. Liam hates that he has to ask Harry.
Harry turns to look at Liam, face on the verge of laughter. Seeing the expression on Liam’s face, he does laugh and Liam hates thinking that Harry’s laughing because he knows something Liam doesn’t. Harry’s laughter calms down and he shakes his head. “He’s on this detox thing. Good for the skin apparently.”
When Liam finally decides he’s had enough of the stench of sex and booze to last him a lifetime (or at least for a while now), he gets a phone call from Louis. In bed with a bowl of popcorn, he forgets about the ‘Finding Nemo’ playing on his screen. It is too early in the night for the boys to be heading back already, and he’s never been called before. Liam frowns worriedly at his phone before picking it up.
“Lou is everyone alright?” he asks immediately.
“Liam, Liam! Jesus mate, you really chose the worst night to stay home,” Louis screams ecstatically from the other line, stopping to laugh wildly. He sounds like he always does when he’s drunk. “Harry and Zayn, oh god, they’re trying to give Paul a lap dance.”
Liam feels a ball dropping in his stomach. “Zayn? Is he drunk?”
“Fucking right he is!” he hears Niall shout in the background. Louis must have had him on speaker. Liam ends the call.
The thing is Liam doesn’t exactly know how to feel. On one hand, he feels grateful that Zayn cares enough to not drink and leave him the only sober one. On the other hand, it sucks that Zayn doesn’t just admit what he’s doing for him.
But then Liam realizes how that might not even be the case because Zayn never had a problem drinking in front of him early on in their friendship, and the thought frustrates him so much he starts kicking the air around him, causing the bowl of popcorn sitting on his lap to spill all over him.
Liam tries to not look so terribly distraught whenever Zayn’s around him after that incident. But he reckons Zayn’s already noticed he isn’t his usual self. That’s the worst thing about Zayn - nothing ever passes him unnoticed. He sees things too much.
And because of that Liam is even sadder when he realizes Zayn doesn’t look very sorry for being so dishonest.
He doesn’t immediately confront Zayn about it. He wonders if he’s just overreacting to the whole thing and if the fact that Zayn doesn’t want to have fun when he’s around really doesn’t mean anything. Maybe Zayn’s detox is finally over. But still, no matter how hard he tries to forget, it lives in him - the curiosity and the doubt - it crawls under his skin just making him itch even more every second.
Opportunity comes to him one night when they are finally alone as the rest of the boys went out for food earlier that night. Zayn was already getting ready to sleep when Niall’s regular sudden hunger strikes, and Liam gave the same excuse to the other boys although everyone was aware that he sleeps later than most of them.
“Zayn, hey, mate can we talk?” Liam knows he shouldn’t disturb Zayn when he’s about to sleep but he is desperate to know, doesn’t think he could survive another night thinking up various plausible explanations for Zayn’s behavior.
Zayn looks at him confused but shifts from his place on his bed anyway, giving room for Liam to slide in right next to him. “What’s up mate?” he asks.
Liam doesn’t know how to begin and Zayn’s face, looking at him worried, not more than 5 inches away from him isn’t really helping. He sighs and turns to look at the ceiling instead. “I-I really don’t know where to begin to be honest.”
“Start anywhere Li,” Zayn replies, voice so low and soothing it could only belong to him.
“Do you-do you think I’m no fun to be around Zayn?” he asks.
Zayn frowns at him as if it is the most ridiculous thing he’s ever heard. “That’s a stupid question Li.”
“You don’t have to lie to me you know. It’s okay if I make you uncomfortable.” Liam says, still looking at the ceiling and not Zayn.
“Liam, what are you even on about mate?”
Liam sighs and decides to come clean. “You don’t drink whenever I’m around. I used to think it’s because you didn’t want me to be the only one sober, but then you… you pretend to be drunk anyway. But that’s it, you only pretend to be drunk.” Liam finds himself rambling. He was bound to anyway. He knows he needs to get everything off his chest tonight. “Like…I don’t get it? I’ve spent nights staying up, thinking of possible explanations for this but nothing really clicks.”
Zayn’s eyes widen for a fraction of a second but then he goes back to looking at him with the same expression he usually has, mouth slightly apart, and Liam doesn’t really know what to make of him - he never does. Zayn chuckles lowly and turns to look at the ceiling himself. “Li that’s a really stupid thing to get worked up about. It’s nothing.”
This time it is Liam’s turn to look at him. “No, no it isn’t,” Liam says, eyebrows furrowed. “Don’t you dare tell me it is.”
Zayn returns his stare and then sighs in frustration, seeming desperate to change the subject. “Look I don’t have a reason okay. Some nights I just don’t want to get totally hammered.”
Liam doesn’t know why he has such a hard time believing his friend. He just isn’t satisfied with Zayn’s answers, (he doesn’t really know what he wants to hear though). He looks at Zayn sadly, a look he secretly knows Zayn could never resist, and whispers, “Zayn you can tell me anything. Don’t you trust me?”
Zayn covers his face with his hands. “Liam that’s not it.”
“Then what is?” Liam feels a little guilty for nagging on.
“Look when I’m around you,” Zayn suddenly says, dropping his hand to his sides and staring at the ceiling. “I-I have to put in effort to consciously restrain myself from you. If I let myself loose and you happen to be around…I-I can’t tell what would happen.”
There’s the bus crash.
Both of them stay quiet for a while, and then: “Fuck,” Zayn let out quietly, seeming to realize what he had just confessed.
And it isn’t ‘but this is zayn, this is my best friend, zayn’ that runs through his mind because that isn’t the surprising thing, surprisingly. What is surprising is the fact that he accepted those words so easily, like he’s been waiting for it all this time. Like a small part of him has already suspected it, or maybe even known it, for a long time. And so his mind wanders to elsewhere, to the more pressing problem at hand. “I have a girlfriend.”
“I’m aware,” Zayn says and turns his head to look the other way.
Liam - God knows he’s terrible at times like this. Times he’s not sure of what to say, hasn’t planned it out in his mind yet - finds himself leaving Zayn’s bed and crawling back to his own room soundlessly. He doesn’t get any sleep that night just thinking about how horrible and terribly wrong of him to leave Zayn like that.
He thinks of Danielle that night. Pretty little Danielle with her nice smile, nice eyes, nice everything. Counts the number of days they’ve been together. Counts the number of days since he was first sure he’s in love with her. Counts the number of days it’s been since they last talked to each other about stuff other than the minutiae of everyday life. Tries to remember how her presence made him feel back in the early days.
For the next few days Liam finds himself watching Zayn more often. Things are still uncomfortable between them. They try pretending nothing’s going on for the sake of the group but Liam reckons no one’s fooled. Neither of them seem to know how to act around each other, so Liam opts to stay in the background instead.
It isn’t like Liam’s never paid any attention to Zayn before. In fact, he’s quite surprised at how well he knows Zayn without realizing it - surprised to know the sense of familiarity when he watches the way Zayn’s lips curve into a smile, or the way his fingers look so long and gracious when he flicks his cigarette butt. Liam doesn’t even try being subtle at the way he observes Zayn anymore. He loves catching Zayn stealing a glance at his way every ten second.
“How’s the recording going?” Danielle asks him one night via a Skype video call.
“It’s going pretty well,” he answers. “How did the video shoot go?”
“Yea, everything went fine,” she answers, eyes going up and down the screen. “How are the boys? Zayn feeling any better?”
Liam freezes. He hasn’t told Danielle about what happened between him and Zayn that night, he doesn’t think he ever will. “They’re good. Zayn’s…Zayn. Why do you ask?”
This time it is Danielle who freezes. She stops looking at whatever she was looking at on her screen and shrugs, looking more than confused. “I don’t know? Wasn’t I supposed to ask that? Are you feeling alright?”
Liam ends things with Danielle not long after that. He stays with her as she cries, asking him where they went wrong and if there is anything she could do to fix things. He offers smiles and reassurance, and she accepts after a few hours. They hug and part as friends after he drives her home. She winks at him at the end of the night right after saying, “The fans are going to revel in this one. Maybe Niam or Ziam or whoever else they think you’re in love with is going to happen after all.”
He doesn’t tell the group until the next week and when he finally does, everyone races to give him a hug. Niall suggests getting hammered on too much food since he doesn’t do pints. Louis makes bad jokes before promising to take him out on the best day of his life tomorrow. Harry offers hugs and comforting smiles and more hugs. Everyone but Zayn.
Zayn stays behind the group, seeming to not know how he should respond to the news at all. No one believes him when he tells them he’s alright but they storm out of the room immediately after he says he’d just like to be left alone tonight.
“Zayn,” he calls out, stopping him just as he was about to leave the room as well.
Zayn turns around hesitatingly, hand rubbing the back of his neck. “Hey, so sorry mate,” he says to the floor. “Danielle was a gre-“
Liam’s lips and tongue prevent him from completing the sentence. Now, Liam, he usually isn’t one for the daring and bold moves but he wasn’t going to wait for Zayn to help him get the answers he needed any longer and besides, he figured this is a way to return the favor - since Zayn was brave enough to tell him how he felt in the first place, he should be the brave one this time.
Zayn smells of cologne and cigarette smoke - a scent Liam finds himself more familiar to than anything else. He tastes like how Liam imagined he would, like cigarettes and breath mints and though it sounds gross when he says it in his head, he’s surprised at how good it makes him feel. He pulls Zayn’s head even closer to his and when he hears Zayn release a quiet guttural groan, he wonders how he’s been able to restrain himself from all this.
“W-w-what?” Zayn says, finally able to pull himself away from Liam.
“I just thought I’d let you know that from now on I’ve decided I won’t be holding myself back from you anymore,” Liam says, grinning. “I don’t want you to feel like you have no say in the matter. In return, you don’t have to restrain yourself whenever you feel like it any more either.”
Zayn blinks a couple of times before breaking into a grin. “Ah so all of this is just a business transaction.”
Liam pretends to think the words over. “Yea, consider it a proposition.”
Zayn chuckles before muttering then it’s a deal and leaning in to kiss Liam all over again. Liam sighs contently into the kiss and thinks about how they’ve got a lot of lost time to make up for. Liam thinks he’ll try learning the recipe for rogan josh later that night, or maybe some other night