Title: 100% Not
Rating: T for alcohol
Pairing: Zayn/Liam
Summary: "I'm 100% not gay" he tweets, to convince both his fans and himself. He's not sure he believes it though, especially when he sees Zayn's beautiful face.
Chapter 1 The final show of the Where We Are Tour was last night and, despite what he said on Twitter in yet another attempt to convince himself he loves Sophia more than Zayn, he’s not that excited to see his “baby” soon. He knows that as soon as he sees her face he won’t be able to kid himself anymore, no matter how hard he tries. He’s excited to see his family again, but he’s not excited to finally be forced to deal with his feelings about his ‘girlfriend’.
He’s about to get on the plane when he feels a tap on his shoulder. “Hey Liam, wait.” He nearly jumps and turns around, face to face with Zayn. “On October 11 after we’re done with the music video, do you want to do something together?”
“Sure,” he responds immediately, not even thinking about what else might be going on that day. He’s just glad to be doing something with Zayn before the On the Road Again Tour starts. “Just text me a reminder and what you want to do and I’ll be there.” He’s not sure he’ll need a reminder though. He’s pretty sure he’ll be counting down the days until he can do something with Zayn again.
“Cool, see you then.” He hugs him and then starts walking away to his own plane yelling, “Goodbye, I’ll miss you Liam!”
Liam frowns slightly at that because he’s not sure Zayn will miss him as much as he’ll miss Zayn. He doesn’t have much time to think about it though because his plane’s waiting on him. “Goodbye!” He calls back at him, finally going to get on the plane.
***
It’s October 7. All Liam wants to do is sleep in more, but Sophia has other plans for the two of them. He was able to take a nap on the 9 hour plane ride, and went straight to sleep when he got home, not caring what time it was. Sophia reasons that should be “enough for him”. While that couldn’t be farther from the truth, he decided not to argue with her on the first day home.
So now he’s here with her at the local restaurant her cousin owns, ordering the biggest cup of coffee he can get.
“You’re going to regret drinking so much coffee at this hour, Liam,” Sophia tells him, watching him attempt to chug it all down at once.
Well, I wouldn’t need to drink this much if you’d let have me sleep in, he thinks. Out loud though, he says, “It’ll be alright, babe” and plants a kiss on her cheek. “So how has life been for you lately?”
“It hasn’t been the same without you around,” she responds, frowning. “I know I saw you on September 8 and all but still. It’s hard to let a day go by without seeing you.” She bites her lip. Liam hates hearing her talk about him like this because it makes him feel guilty for not feeling the same way anymore. “I saw your last show though. Via one of those livestreams or whatever they’re called that your fans make.”
“Oh you did. How did you like it?”
“You were fantastic, babe. You really command the stage, and I don’t think it’s just me that feels that way.”
Liam chuckles. “You’d be surprised.” Liam loves what he does a lot but it’s hard for him to miss the fact that most of the cheering in the crowd at their shows happens whenever Harry, Niall, or Louis have a solo, or when Zayn hits one of his high notes. The critics also seem to only pay attention to Harry and Niall commanding the stage or Zayn’s vocals. Not that Liam can blame them of course; Niall and Harry are really good at crowd interaction, and Zayn has the voice of an angel. Still though, a lot of times it makes him feel a bit self-conscious that the fans never seem to appreciate him as much as the other boys.
He tries not to look upset when thinking about all of this, but Sophia reaches her hand over to hold his. “Well anyone who doesn’t appreciate your stage presence and vocals is wrong. I hope you don’t let them get to you because you’re loved by a lot of people, including me.”
He breathes in, squeezing her hand three times to say ‘I love you’. People like Sophia always make it sound so easy, believing in yourself and not listening to anyone who hates you. The truth is self-confidence is a lot more difficult than that and takes a lot of time. Liam feels like he’s gotten better at it since they started out, but he still has a long way to go. Sophia squeezes his hand four times to say ‘I love you too’. “Thank you Sophia.”
“Of course,” she says, turning to kiss him. Instead of feeling better though, the kiss only makes him feel worse because she really loves him but he doesn’t feel anything for her anymore. He doesn’t have much time to think about it though because just then the waiter comes to give them their food. After saying ‘thank you’s, they start eating. “So how was the rest of the tour?”
While chewing on his food, he says, “Well, you kind of saw the gist of it on that livestream didn’t you?”
She lightly pushes him. “Come on. Livestreams and pictures can only show so much.”
He swallows his food and giggles. “I don’t know what there is to say really. I had a lot of fun. There’s always going to be drama, both with the fans and the media, but overall I’d say it was probably the best tour we’ve done so far.”
Sophia smiles. “Aren’t artists supposed to say that about every tour they do though?”
“Yeah,” Liam replies, slightly annoyed at that comment but hoping his tone doesn’t show it. “But I really mean it. You may think it sounds cliché but we really didn’t expect to be able to do a worldwide stadium tour ever and we were able to. That’s so great.” He can tell Sophia doesn’t really seem to care about hearing about the fans though, so he returns to eating his food.
“So tomorrow do you have any plans?”
He thinks for a moment. “Uh yeah. Tomorrow I have to leave if I want to get to LA in time."
Sophia looks confused. "In time for what?"
Now Liam's confused. He thought for sure he had told her this already. "On the 10th and the 11th we’re filming our music video for Steal My Girl. The 11th should only be for like, last minute additions and such though. We should be able to get most of it done on the 10th.”
“What?” Sophia looks outraged all of a sudden. He’s not sure why though, he’s pretty sure he mentioned this to her a while ago. “You only just got here. Now you’re leaving me again?”
Liam isn’t sure how to respond to this, so he decides to test his luck with a sarcastic comment. “Now you see why I wanted to sleep in.” He laughs.
She glares at him, but he can tell she secretly liked the joke. “I just don’t understand what the point was of coming here in the first place if you’re just gonna leave again.”
“I wanted to see you,” he tries, taking another bite of his food. “And my family. Are you saying you didn’t want me to come back?”
“I don’t know. I just want to spend more time with you.”
“You will,” he says, putting his hand into hers again. “It’s just four more days. I’ll be back soon.”
“Yeah, but I really wanted you here on the 11th.”
He thinks about this for a minute. “Why?”
She sighs, obviously disappointed he doesn’t understand why she wants him here then. “Nevermind.”
Looking confused, Liam digs into the last of his food and shortly after the waiter comes back with their receipt. He tries to figure out the exact tip he owes them, but after struggling for about three minutes and refusing Sophia’s help several times, he just puts the tip down as $200 and signs it.
The rest of the day he spends mostly playing games, humming what he can remember of the songs from Zayn’s Chris Brown album. He decides to call Zayn while he’s thinking about it. “Hello?” Zayn asks, picking up after the second ring.
“Hey Zayn,” Liam says, reaching over to take a sip of water from his bottle on the table next to him.
“Hey Liam,” his voice suddenly perks up. “Where are you babe? The rest of us went to get ice cream together and we were like wondering where you were.”
“Oh yeah, I went home.”
There’s a moment of silence. “Babe why’d you do that to yourself? You should’ve like just came straight to LA with us. Now you’re gonna be even more tired when it’s time for the video shoot.”
“I know, I know,” Liam sighs. He doesn’t say that he mainly wanted to go home so he could clear his head from thoughts of Zayn. “So what is it you wanted to do on the 11th, after the video shoot is over?”
“Hmm… Well, since you missed ice cream with us, how about we like get some ice cream?” He giggles.
Liam giggles right back. “Sounds good to me.”
There’s noise on the other line that sounds like Louis is torturing the other boys (as usual). “Louis, what are you doing to him? Sorry Liam, I gotta go. I’ll see you on the 10th.”
“No worries,” Liam assures him. “See you then.”
They hang up and Liam goes to sleep shortly afterwards, having yet another dream about kissing Zayn’s face and burying his face in his tummy.