swim for your life (1/2)
Title:swim for your life (OLYMPICS AU)
Author: transgenicveins
Pairing: Liam Payne / Zayn Malik
Rating: Uh NC-17 supposedly
Word count: ~12500 (total, holy fuck)
Warnings: Real person slash, a teensy bit of rimming.
Summary: 'and during the London Olympics, he performs in front of the whole world, becomes infatuated with an athlete, breaks Twitter, makes softcore porn, and learns how to swim. (not necessarily in that order)'
A/N: OLYMPICS AU. This is the by-product of my shameless love of the Olympics. It took over my life and it's entirely Jay's fault and an early birthday present to myself.
During the Beijing Olympics four years ago, Zayn snuck out, smoked a joint and kissed a boy for a very first time with track events in the background, in that order.
And during the London Olympics, he performs in front of the whole world, becomes infatuated with an athlete, breaks Twitter, makes softcore porn, and learns how to swim.
(not necessarily in that order)
/ / /
It’s just after the opening ceremony and the four of them are in the penthouse of the Village. Harry’s losing sleep over his solo and Louis is bored out of his mind and Niall is learning some solo on his old acoustic and Zayn just needs out.
He grabs his Ray Bans and Louis’ wrist and slips through the hectic streets. He takes a left instead of a right and tugs him into the London Aquatic Centre without a second thought.
/ / /
His first memory of Liam Payne goes a little like this:
/ / /
They’re watching the qualifiers from behind about twenty different camera sets. It’s easier, there, with the chlorine haze and the echoes of the announcers and fifteen thousand people who couldn’t give less of a fuck about What Makes You Beautiful.
“Hey,” Louis says, under his breath, nudging Zayn with his hip. Louis isn’t quite the leader and he’s not quite responsible but he’s the eldest and somewhere between the competition and the tour and the studio, he attuned to the other three without any warning. “We’re playing at the Olympics.”
Zayn grins, ducking his head to cover his wonder. “Paul fucking McCartney played at the Olympics.”
“Paul fucking McCartney,” he echoes, drawing little circles with his fingers on Zayn’s wrist, and he can’t imagine dealing with the homesickness or the nerves without those soft fingers.
They settle against the damp walls and watch the next set walk to the edge. One of the boys representing Great Britain can’t be older than them. He’s wrapped up in a fuzzy grey hoodie and loose sweatpants with headphones disappearing beneath the material. Another competitor- France, probably, from the fair skin and loose tongue- has a hand on the small of his back and lips muffled against one of the headphones. The Brit absorbs the crowd with a certain awe and Zayn’s not staring, exactly, but he can’t help grinning at the boy’s nervous smile.
He diverts his eyes while they undress because he has manners but when he looks back-
Oh.
The boy’s curled over, splashing his biceps with stolen water from the pool and Zayn can only see his back, but that means he can also see the droplets slipping down his spine, the wiry muscles stretching as he twists his arms, the - fuck - the shoulder to waist ratio and the line of his hips and the shallow dimples carved into the small of his back.
Zayn’s heart almost thumps out of his chest at the sound of the siren, and it refuses to stop pumping adrenalin to his cells for a whole minute and fifty-five seconds.
“Malik,” Louis says, clutching his forearm at the peace sign, “that one’s our age. He just qualified for the fucking Olympics and I spent all morning beating my own Scoops score.”
He watches the boy laugh and lurch over the lane divider to cuddle close to the first place from France. His eyes crinkle with happiness when he’s announced as second qualifier and Zayn has to look away, then, before he drowns in the bliss or in the pool or both.
(he can feel it lapping around his ankles, though, when the announcer offers a Liam Payne that makes his head spin)
/ / /
Zayn tells the boys everything but that sensation, the rush of blood and the buoyancy in his lungs and the burn in his stomach, that’s just for Zayn. It’s like the taste of smoke between his lips or the thousand pinpricks of ink scarring his body and it’s an anchor, it’s a comfort, it’s something the rest of the world can’t pull him apart with the appropriate enzymes and steal from his cells.
The boys understand. They’re nervous and disappearing into their anchors (Niall in his childhood, Louis in his words, Harry in his music) on the two beds in the master bedroom pushed together. Harry’s along the bottom, Louis is on the left, Niall’s in the middle, and Zayn’s propped against the headboard. They’re touching - feet tangled together, fingers rubbing at the nape of the neck - and they’re so close but floating so far apart.
Zayn watches them, for a moment, watches Niall giggle at Scooby Doo with a hand tucked under Zayn’s leg, watches Harry twitch his toes against Louis’ in time with his iPod, watches Louis curl fingers through Niall’s hair with his spare hand while he writes. He thinks about tugging them back to shore and instead buries himself in his laptop without a second thought.
He feels suspiciously like a voyeur. Most of the videos of Liam Payne are of his meets and training and he watches the boy grow up, grow into his curls and cut them off; hug his mum then coach then girlfriend and later his coach then boyfriend then mum; shed his headphones then his clothes and eventually his clothes then headphones; beat his own record and then his age’s and then his state’s.
Three hours and half their broadband later, he knows his routine and his technique and his smile and now - now he wants to know the way he tastes and the way he feels and more than that, more than anything, he wants to peel back the goggles and the swim cap and dive right in and know him from the inside out.
He can’t swim though and he’s a little afraid of the water, so instead, he settles with curling up against Niall and groaning shamelessly into the pillow.
/ / /
That’s how the three of them find him, an hour later when they’re ready to fight the tide.
“You look like our fangirls,” Louis teases, stealing his laptop and checking his search history. He cocks an eyebrow and maybe drowning would be the safer option.
He muffles a noise in the sleeve of Niall’s shirt. “I feel nauseous and voyeuristic and infatuated.”
“Correction,” Harry laughs, “you are our fangirls.”
Niall runs a soothing hand through his loose hair. “Welcome to a life of continuous pain, disappointment, and heart palpations.”
Zayn bites his bicep in response and mumbles an ‘I hate you and you and you you sadistic twats I will feed you to the judo champions without a second thought’ that forces a euphony of giggles from the three of them.
“You love us,” Louis coos, crawling a little closer. “Besides, you need us. Your possible future with Liam Payne-”
(Zayn whines into Niall and refuses to ever ever admit it)
“- needs us.”
“You’ve probably met him before,” Niall offers, texting with his spare hand. “He was at bootcamp. He got an offer from Bill Furniss, though, and disappeared. He was supposed to win.”
Louis frowns. “Why did he leave, then?”
Niall shrugs. “Furniss is the Simon of swim coaches. No one says no to him.”
“And you saw him today?” Harry asks slowly, that cheeky grin twisting his features. “Zayn, this is basically destiny. You’re Anastasia and he’s-”
Zayn throws a pillow at him before he can finish and Harry throws back and the conversation escapes through the cracks in the walls, but the sensation is still heavy in his heart.
/ / /
They’re sneaking out the next day, around the pool, away from the crowds, and Zayn doesn’t deliberately search for Liam, but-
Oh.
He’s stretched out on the pavement in a pair of Topman’s boxer briefs and glassy Aviators. There’s rough stubble across his cheeks and behind his jaw and the tendons in his throat work as he laughs and it would be so easy, so easy, to sit beside him and maybe splash his ankles or ask about his semi-final and just forget the world -
Instead, he stumbles on one of the deck chairs and Niall - the arsehole - laughs loud enough to draw the attention of two dozen athletes and Zayn wants to disappear in the gaps in the pavement.
Then, though - then a hand wraps around his knocked ankle and caresses the sore skin. “Okay?” Liam asks, with a soft frown and gentle fingers.
He nods, his veins thrumming around his body, and Liam removes his hand and shoots him a lazy smile and that’s the extent of their conversation, but it still tugs him to the clouds.
/ / /
That night, he waits until everyone - his bandmates, the athletes, the eight million people populating his city - is asleep before tugging on a woolly jumper and disappearing into the streets. He takes a left instead of a right with a thousand neuron messages sparking up his spine.
/ / /
The only light in the centre comes from the bottom of the pool and the ripples of the water are dancing eerily across the walls. Kings of Leon echo through the acoustics and it’s a cacophony, it should be terrifying, his heart rate should increase, but instead Zayn props himself against the wall and watches the boy swim.
(watches is too modest, too polite, too conservative- he’s learning, learning the ripple of his shoulders, the wave of his legs, the crash of his arms)
Liam surfaces, tugs off his cap and goggles, shoots him a smile that warms the humid atmosphere. He shakes out his hair and pushes it off his forehead. It sticks up at the back. “You look lost,” he laughs, eyes dragging over his body, and Zayn bites his tongue on the ‘graceful you look like a dolphin or maybe a swan or maybe a bit of both’.
“You look fantastic,” he offers, and the droplets of water that sparkle on Liam’s lips slide down to his jaw when he smiles.
He swims a little closer and Zayn wants to offer a hand, but he’s already propping himself out of the pool with a practised arm.
(Zayn watches his forearms work like smooth muscle, so involuntary, so automatic)
They sit by the edge and every few breaths, their knees knock together.
“Liam Payne,” he introduces, eyes crinkling into a smile, holding out a hand. Water drips onto his shorts and he watches it stain the denim before taking his hand. His grip is strong and Zayn might just lose himself in the pressure on his tendon.
“I know who you are,” Zayn admits, and Liam’s eyes brighten, but it might be a trick of the light. And then, because he’s a little embarrassed (for the voyeurism, for the ankle, for being uncomfortable in his own skin with Poseidon beside him), he holds on a little tighter and says “Zayn.”
He grins and releases his hand, but he places it close enough to cause that tight coil around his lungs. “I know who you are too, Zayn Malik.”
His eyes dart to his pink lips because, well, his name never sounds quite that pretty. He hides his smile in his sleeve and notes the Ed Sheeran in the background. “There is no positive correlation in this playlist.”
Liam rolls his eyes. “Is too,” he argues, as though he bickers about this daily. He reaches behind them and switches to that Foster the People song. “Just on a blood level instead of a noise level.”
He frowns at the choice of words and Liam ducks a little closer to say ‘you need to feel it, silly, deep in your bones instead of light in your mouth’.
Automatically he sings softly under his breath, tapping his bare foot against the tile in time, and Liam’s answering smile sets his heart on fire.
“Exactly,” he breathes, clambering to his feet, “feel that and watch me.”
He steps away from the edge and dives in and swims a lap in perfect, quick, brilliant time, and thankfully Zayn’s breathy ‘wow’ is muffled by the water.
Liam surfaces by his feet and slicks back his hair. He sings along and Zayn’s quite content, really, listening to their voices harmonise, until the words escape from between his lips.
“Why this?” he asks, and they’re both still swaying in time.
He grins and wades a little closer. “Well,” he starts, his chin resting on the cement between Zayn’s knees, hands holding his legs down while thumbs stroke the inside of his thighs. He looks confident, cocky, almost, but there’s an odd vulnerability behind his lazy smile. “On the first day of bootcamp, I got an offer from Furniss.”
“You don’t say no to Furniss,” Zayn echoes, and Liam grins in encouragement.
“And so it goes,” he teases. “But I didn’t - I wasn’t -I didn’t know which to choose. So I picked a boy in the crowd-”
(he props himself up, their eyes level, and his arms are still under the exertion)
“One around my age-”
(he’s close, too, and swaying softly in time with the music)
“And he flipped a coin, hid it, and asked which one I wanted to win-”
(he cuddles closer, lips nearly brushing against his earlobe, and Zayn resists the temptation to lick the droplets sliding down his neck)
“And I made a choice. Sound familiar?”
(it does, it sounds familiar, it’s like something buried under the past two years, but Liam shifts to catch his eye and they don’t want to acknowledge it, quite yet, not for another whole Olympics, so instead he shakes his head)
“Maybe you were afraid of being a shit singer,” he teases, hands curling against the concrete.
Liam raises an eyebrow and fiddles with the iPod dock behind them. “Maybe I was afraid of boys like you,” he teases, and Zayn would reply but a song they heard a thousand times in Australia echoes through the room.
He sings the harmonies at the beginning and the ‘sleep now under my skin make sure you try to conjure the wind’ and the chorus and the bridge but Zayn’s lost, by then, lost in his strong voice which settles low in his spine and refuses to dilute into his blood.
Social conventions would dictate that he should clap or compliment him or maybe sing to the next song (something old, something jazzy, something out of his range), but instead he smirks. “And I thought all swimmers were steroid-pumped tasteless arseholes.”
Liam looks a little affronted and Zayn wants to kiss away that momentary frown, but Liam grins back and the moment passes. “I’ve never touched steroids,” he scowls, “and I thought all boy bands were needy, auto-tuned, tasteless arseholes.”
He makes a noise and squirms against the pavement. “Oh please. I’m all natural and raw and I have an excellent taste.”
(he considers adding ‘in the bedroom sugar’ but it’s barely been an hour)
Liam shifts close. “Are you needy?” (in the bedroom)
Zayn grins. “You’ll find out, eventually.”
His muscles freeze, half out of the water now, before dunking under and splashing him on the way up. Zayn quickly rearranges his hair and splashes back and it continues like that, with MGMT in the background and his clothes sticking to his cold skin and that lightness in his lungs and heaviness in his heart, until Liam raises his hands in mock surrender. He props up on his elbows beside him.
“Swim with me,” he says, and everything - the cockiness, the vulnerability, the teasing - is gone, leaving a nineteen year old boy in a too big pool.
Zayn smiles through the chills. “I can’t swim,” he admits.
He looks lost, for a moment, lost in the ‘if you leave I won’t cry I won’t waste a single day’, before he comes a little closer. “I’ll teach you,” he promises, climbing out of the pool. He passes Zayn his spare towel and wraps his own around his shoulders and leads him all the way back to the village. “Tomorrow. It’s like singing and you’ll love it I swear.”
Zayn flashes him a smile and glances at the birthmark in the hollow of his neck and it’s so endearing he needs to look away. “You don’t need luck,” he says softly, “but you get mine anyway.”
Liam grins back and they smile stupidly at each other until the Big Ben, all the way across town, chimes at the hour mark.
/ / /
“Zayn,” Niall says, scrolling through his Twitter feed while they wait. The reporters eye them curiously but focus on the streams of athletes and it’s nice, really, to be in orbit instead of in focus. “Please tell me someone hacked you and you didn’t tweet Liam this morning in front of five million followers.”
Louis almost falls out of Harry’s lap in his haste. “Malik, you didn’t!” he exclaims, but he sounds too pleased to reprimand. His delicate hands grab the phone and the two thousand people in the row turn when he roars with laughter.
Harry reads over his shoulder. “@Real_Liam_Payne,” he mocks, in a weak imitation of Zayn’s voice, “you get mine anyway.”
Louis raises an eyebrow. “He replied,” he says, and he knows, he’s read it a million times. “@zaynmalik maybe we could get dinner before rolling around all sweaty?”
“That one’s not him,” Zayn says half-heartedly, avidly watching the barrier for caramel hair and warm eyes. “It’s-”
“And then he wrote ‘@JamesMagnussen my hatred for you is unrivalled’,” Harry interrupts, “and ‘@zaynmalik you me low lighting and carbohydrates at seven?’”
Louis grins and Zayn hides his burning cheeks in Niall’s hair. “You bought him flowers for your date?” he asks softly, and Zayn flicks him two fingers in response. “Wow, you really are hopeless.”
He scowls and turns back to the pool while the three of them - the pricks - plan innuendos for interviews and Meeting Liam (capitalised).
“This is painful,” Niall groans, fixing his hair. In the early sunlight, the blond looks almost white, and Zayn’s reminded of late nights and packets of seven-day-dye. “This is like Harry with Caroline.”
Zayn pouts a little into the bouquet in his lap and listens to the announcer introduce the semi-finalists.
“Worse,” Harry laughs. “You’re like me with Lou.”
“Don’t kid yourself, Curly,” Louis teases. “Sixteen year old Styles reached a whole new level of hero worship.”
Harry elbows him in the ribs and Louis starts pressing messy, hard kisses up his neck in retaliation but that’s white static to Zayn because Liam’s been introduced and he’s already shedding his clothes.
He catches the eye of Billy in the tech booth and, as promised, Two Door Cinema Club blares through the speakers. The swimmers nearly jump out of their skin but Liam, Liam stretches his arms in time and-
(he looks up and searches the crowd hopefully but their eyes don’t meet)
“Staring,” Harry whispers, but he doesn’t look away. He watches Liam flash one of the competitors a smile and take a deep breath and dive in and then he’s lost.
“Holy fuck,” Niall laughs, and Zayn nods in agreement because holy fuck Liam’s good, he’s fast and strong and his adrenalin is contagious, and Zayn can’t conceal the soft, excited whimpers or the shaking or the breathless cheering.
Liam wins (of course he wins) and the camera zooms in as he’s hoisted out of the water by one of his teammates and Zayn can’t help it. He trips between legs and down stairs and into his line of vision.
Liam looks at Zayn and the bouquet and the twenty-six cameras and disentangles himself so quickly he flicks water all over. “You,” he accuses, a little breathless, and tugs him into a hug.
Zayn grins. Liam automatically tightens his hold and swings in an effort to shield them from the cameras.
“You’re not meant to be here,” Liam accuses happily. Zayn’s feet are knocked off the ground and he thinks his heart floats all the way into the clouds.
Zayn shrugs. “Winners deserve flowers.”
Liam squirms a little, but into his arms instead of away. “I don’t need courting,” he scowls, smiling against his neck. And then, quieter, as though he’s afraid someone will hear - “no one’s bought me flowers before.”
(his heart swells at that and he’s sure Liam can feel it against his shirt)
His hands are drawing soft shapes into his back. “Is this okay?” he whispers, wet hair saturating Zayn’s shirt.
Yes yes yes yes, he wants to say, loud enough for the fifteen thousand people to hear, so okay that you should never move never let go never leave. Instead, he tightens his grip on his shoulder and only lets go for the press and walks around in damp, chlorinated clothes for the rest of the day.
/ / /
“Stop fixing your hair,” Louis scowls, cuddling against Zayn’s back, slapping the brush out of his hands. Zayn frowns and slaps back. “Your quiff may be pretty indestructible but I don’t think it can withstand international chlorine standards.”
He stares at Louis scathingly in the reflection. “You fix your hair before bed, arsehole, you cannot judge.”
Louis opens his mouth to protest but Harry steps out of the kitchen to cut them both off. “Stop worrying,” he says idly, standing behind them and tangling his arms around the two bodies, “the whole world loves you together, even without hair product. They’re calling you two the next Brangelina.”
Zayn smothers a noise against the mirror. “Please tell me we don’t have a ship name.”
Niall, from his upside-down position at the foot of their bed, laughs and takes another swig of his beer. “Maybe you shouldn’t check Twitter.”
Harry grins. “Or Facebook.”
“Or Youtube.”
“Or any news website.”
“Or tumblr.”
“You don’t have a tumblr, Lou.”
“Which is a true testament to your intense flirting, Malik,” Louis laughs. “Stop fighting fate. Embrace the support!”
“Besides, you’re totally the Angelina,” Niall adds, and Zayn wants to seep into the carpet and never ever return.
“I’m the homewrecker?” he asks, a little hysterically, half from the nerves and half from the very graphic memory of a girl in New York ditching her wedding for coffee with him.
“Of course not,” Harry soothes, fingers massaging his shoulders, mouth twisted into a sceptical frown as he watches Niall. “But I think he’s a Brad. He has the heartbreaker-heartache-heartburn smoulder.”
Niall stretches across the floor, revealing a pale strip of skin just above his waistband. “Nah. He has the eyes and the lips and the pointless-”
(Zayn makes a noise of protest)
“- tattoos. He’s an Angelina.”
“I guess he likes a cock in his-”
“Do not finish that sentence,” Louis scowls, “bottoming is not more feminine, Harold-”
“That’s not even my name-”
“Besides, muscles and height do not equate to a top, Haz, you and I being Exhibit A-”
Niall chokes on his bottle behind the three of them. “Please stop talking about your sex life.”
“We don’t have a sex life off tour,” they say, in perfect synchronisation, and Niall and Zayn’s scoff (also in perfect synchronisation) is interrupted by the firm knock at the archway.
Zayn hip checks Harry and Louis aside and skids across the room. Liam looks a little nervous and a lot happy and he’s not wearing the skin tight material to reduce friction and increase performance - he’s wearing a set of bathers that look as new as Zayn’s.
(Zayn had dragged Harry across the city to buy a pair that day, just for Liam, just for his eyes, but he doesn’t want anyone to know that quite yet)
Liam’s stare drags over his loose v-neck and it pauses on the exposed tattoo on his collarbone. “You,” he says happily, stepping forward, “you look fantastic.”
Zayn grins and Liam grins back and they smile at each other for a wonderful, uninterrupted moment, until-
“We were just discussing your sex life,” Louis teases, arms wrapped around Harry with his feet in Niall’s lap, “do you top?”
“Lou,” Zayn groans, automatically burying his blush against Liam’s shoulder. They roll under the touch. “We were not you don’t need to tell them-”
Liam grins. “They’re going to hear it in a few days,” he whispers against the shell of his ear. Louis moans a ‘fuck that’s hot Niall you should dirty talk me in public’ and Zayn shifts restlessly. Then, a little louder, for the others - “I like both.”
Niall glances up from his phone. “Both?”
Taut muscles stretch under Zayn’s cheek and he’s overwhelmed with the impulse to soothe out all the stiffness buried in his cells. “I like pushing in deep and I like being full. It’s an equal opportunity.”
Zayn stares at him seriously for a moment and presses against him, before whispering a ‘fuck’ and dragging him into the hallway.
Liam’s smile shifts into something infinitely sweeter when they’re alone. Zayn can still feel the pressure of his collarbone against his skin but he doesn’t mention it, just follows him mindlessly through the city until they reach the centre.
He bumps his shoulder and places a heavy hand on the small of his back to keep him close. “Big love and good luck to @Real_Liam_Payne,” he recites softly, fingers squeezing his hip. “That broke my Twitter.”
Zayn grins and squirms under his touch. “Sorry for my display of support,” he teases, and Liam’s eyes brighten in the dark hallway of the centre.
“Don’t be,” he says, “I’m not,” and he looks like he wants to say more, but instead he just presses his fingertips into his spine and guides him all the way to the edge.
/ / /
“Ready?” Liam asks, once they’re undressed with softer, gentler, sweeter music in the background.
His toes brush over the cold water and he shakes his head stubbornly.
Strong arms wrap around his waist, hands gripping his hips, fingers tracing the waistband in the most suggestive manner possible. “I swear you’re safe,” he says softly, and they sway softly to the Rolling Stones in the background. His leg brushes against Zayn’s when he stretches forward to toe a stretch of plastic beside the pool. “I’ll keep you safe. And if I can’t do that, this goes under your hips and keeps you afloat. You have physics and me on your side.”
Zayn twists to shoot him a sceptical look and decides to stay there, neck twisted, hair mixing with Liam’s. Their bare skin presses together and yes, that’s the necessary distraction. He grins at Liam. “Why are you hairless?”
Liam huffs out a laugh. “It reduces friction,” he says slowly, in a lower register, just for him, “I thought you’d know all about that, babe-”
A shamelessly horrified groan escapes his hips and Zayn grins and steps into the water so it laps around his neck. Liam follows, smiling into his hair, and whispers a soft litany of ‘you’re doing so so well, babe, you’re safe I’m here you know I won’t let you go’ until his heartbeat slows and he relaxes against Liam’s back.
/ / /
Admittedly, Zayn only remembers this:
Liam has an arm wrapped around his waist and he’s wading enough for both of them, but every few verses he’ll crack a joke or sneak his fingers into his sides and produce a wave of shivers and squirms and thrashes from Zayn that keep him afloat.
The arms disappear halfway through a story and instead fingers trail along his waistband underwater and Zayn automatically shifts his legs to keep the contact. Liam grins and sneaks a little under the drawstrings (just a little) in reward.
/ / /
And this:
His own voice, their single, echoes throughout the stadium. “Seriously?”
Liam grins and nudges him back onto his stomach. The water is cool on his chest in comparison to the heat in his touch. “No shame,” he laughs, then changing tactics and prodding the sensitive skin behind his knees so he automatically kicks. “Did I tell you how I discovered the whole beat tactic?”
Zayn shakes his head but keeps kicking - at first, because of the momentum, and then because the frothing water drowns out his singing, and then because Liam’s fingers are all over him and he needs the distraction.
The song changes in the background and Liam starts swimming beside him, something lazy which doesn’t quite have a name. “I was training and you were performing on the show,” he says softly, reaching over to reteach the positioning of Zayn’s hips. His fingers stay there for a moment too long. “And I couldn’t sing along because I was underwater, so I tried to match my strokes instead and your voice was all I heard in between.”
Their contact breaks and fingers start dancing all over his back, sneaking over the waistband and across kicking ankles and along the veins in his thighs.
“You’re so distracting,” he says softly, and Zayn shivers all over. “Your arse is on display for me, like this, and all I can think of is propping you over the edge on the concrete so I can pull these down and tongue at your rim until you scream loud enough for it to echo through my race tomorrow.”
A blush stains his cheeks and he quickly tugs the plastic out from under his hips to hide underwater, and he learns to swim with Liam’s husky laugh and heavy promises in his ear.
/ / /
And this:
“No,” he says stubbornly, tucking his chin closer to his chest. He likes lying with his stomach and skimming his nose and hair and lips along the water, and he likes the feeling of tension in his legs when he kicks, but he is not-
A finger trails up his spine in time with his laughter. It feels like an assault and it feels like Zayn is losing. “It’s wonderful underwater. I promise.”
Zayn shakes his head and nails are raked over his back in response.
“There’s no oxygen underwater,” he argues.
Liam raises an eyebrow, tracing the feather tattoo. “Your substandard and incomplete education is showing, darling,” he teases, and Zayn splashes the smile off his cheeks.
His smile melts into something a little more fond and Zayn melts into something a little warmer. “I’m right here,” he promises, hand curling around the nape of his neck, “you can trust me. Just take a deep breath-”
(he obliges)
“- and focus on my fingers and the music-”
(his body sinks a little heavier into the water and Liam tickles across his shoulders in reward)
“- and go underwater and breathe out nice and slow and come up when you need to.”
The water caresses his cheeks as Zayn breathes out bubbles. Liam tightens his grip on his shoulder on the way up.
“Wow,” he laughs huskily, reaching up to push Zayn’s wet fringe out his eyes. His fingers graze all over his jaw on the way back. “Fuck you’re gorgeous.”
He practises until he doesn’t flinch anymore, and when he surfaces, Liam’s eyes are blown and there are little crescent marks all over his shoulder.
“You,” he says breathlessly, squirming in place, before flashing him a grin and sinking a little. “One more. Open your eyes, this time.”
The fingernail marks sting his shoulders and he focuses on that as he sinks underwater. When he opens his eyes, the fuzzy outline of Liam is swaying before him, just a few metres below the surface, arms stretched out to display his muscles.
They grin at each other and Liam reaches forward to touch his floating hair and the burn in his lungs isn’t entirely due to the lack of oxygen.
/ / /
Liam teaches him to freestyle and changes his mind halfway through, swimming just under Zayn and resurfacing with him on top. He tugs Zayn’s thighs onto his hips and carries him out of the water. Their bodies shiver in the warm air.
“Hungry?” he asks, depositing Zayn on the ground behind the bleachers. Hands rub up and down his arms to create friction and there’s a blanket and a candle, as though he planned this, and Zayn just wants to kiss him. “I promised my coach I’d eat tonight.”
He raises an eyebrow and takes the offered container sceptically.
“Oh fuck off,” Liam laughs, but there’s no heat to it, “as if you don’t do everything your manager tells you to. Do letter jackets ring a bell?”
Zayn throws a piece of chicken at him. It’s caught easily. “Not everything they ask,” he admits, staring at the place their hands almost meet. Fingers deliberately ghost over his and Zayn hides his grin in the low lighting. “And I don’t change my lifestyle on command.”
He rolls his eyes. “Your affinity for nicotine makes that apparent.”
(Zayn’s chest tightens at the disapproving tone and he frowns at the sensation and the urge to promise ‘I’d quit I’d quit for you’)
Instead, he lets the towels fall from his back. Eyes trace over his exposed skin. “Why don’t you wear a suit?” he asks, and Liam flashes him a smile as he pours the iced tea.
“Why don’t you auto-tune?” he counters, stretching out his legs to kick his ankle gently. Zayn kicks back. “It’s cheap. It’s cheating. It’s relying on technology instead of talent.”
Somehow their legs shift to touch. “Are they similar? Swimming and singing?”
Liam grins and turns to press their sides together. “It’s the same,” he says softly, breath cool from the lemon twists, “it’s all adrenalin and fun and attention and it’s that missing piece, right, it’s like you’re only you when you’re in the water, and the pool is the stage and medals are the awards and everyone loves each other, we’re like a family, we stretch together and room together and eat dinner during meets and it’s peaceful, it’s the calm, it’s a whole new world that’s only for you.”
The air’s warm and Zayn feels like he’s falling - not in love, not from the clouds - just falling. They stare shamelessly and it’s as though they’re going to close the gap between their lips and learn the shape of their bodies with their fingertips, but then the song ends and Liam looks away first.
Zayn grins and stirs the dish. “What’s this?”
Their bodies twist towards each other. There’s a hand heavy on the blanket just behind his arse. Liam’s chin hovers above his shoulder and he’s different, out of the water, a little nervous and a little shy and a little younger. “There’s the protein,” he says, pointing at the chicken, “that’s for essential amino acids and cell repair. There are carbohydrates in the rice for energy, spinach for folic acid and iron, starch in the potato, and vitamins in the carrot and peas.”
The heartbeat against his back slows and Zayn asks - “are you nervous?”, nudging his fork through the rice to find all the peas. He automatically scoops them into Liam’s bowl and Liam picks out all the carrots and does the same. “About tomorrow, I mean.”
He nods, staring at the Arabic on his collarbone. “Are you?”
Bravado convinces him to shrug and Liam shoulders him in response. “We struggle with lung capacity.”
Liam watches him for a moment and settles a little closer. “I can’t wink,” he whispers, keeping his arm pressed up against his body, “or swim breaststroke because it’s fucking impossible or bake a cake. No one will hate you if you’re a little out of breath.”
His body presses back. “Can you wink for me?” he asks, a little sweeter than his usual voice. Liam squirms and blinks really hard and Zayn just wants to push aside the food and the candle and the towels and bury himself in the crook of his neck.
Instead, he wraps his hand around his wrist and eats awkwardly to keep the contact.
They talk (over the hum of the machinery, just under the gentle music) while they eat, and the candle burns out as they shift a little closer.
Liam stretches his arms behind him and his shoulder muscles work under the stress. “Just stay here a little longer,” he says softly, and Zayn melts at the tone, “you’re not allowed to swim yet and I-”
(‘want to keep you here’)
They wriggle closer and nails scratch his hair and he nudges into the touch and they stay there in the dark for a little longer than necessary.
/ / /
A little bit later, after a play of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club and a few too many accidental touches and a dozen too few with intention, Liam places a warm hand on the bare small of his back and leads him back into the water.
Halfway in and halfway through a story about sneaking out in Australia (‘the streets are insane Liam, they were all in one direction and do not make the joke puns are the lowest form of humour, arsehole’), Liam turns around and flashes him a grin which freezes all his muscles together.
“What is it?” Liam teases, wading the deep water, “don’t you trust me?”
(and no, no, no, that’s not it, it’s the opposite, it’s the way Liam’s somehow gained his trust and snuck into him without any resistance on Zayn’s behalf, and that scares him a lot more than the deep water)
He takes Zayn’s silence as a sign of weakness (which it is, fuck) and swims a little closer. The happiness crashes like waves against his skin. “Please let me return the favour.”
He’s rearranged onto his back and careful hands spread his limbs in a way that feels more sweet than sexual.
Liam’s hand is wrapped around the back of his neck like a promise and the touch burns against the tattoo. “Lie back,” he says softly, pressing simultaneously against his side and the nape of his neck.
He flashes Liam a doubtful look but obliges anyway, sinking into the touch and into the water, and it’s terrifying, he wants to press harder and he wants to cry and he wants to crawl out of the unforgiving water, but instead-
It’s silent. It’s silent and peaceful and numb, numbing like nicotine used to be, numbing like music will always be, numbing in a way he has begun to associate with the boy beside him. The Temptations are muted and his heartbeat echoes and-
“Wow,” he breathes.
Liam laughs and Zayn feels it through the water. “Wow,” he repeats, eyes locked on Zayn, fingers trailing down his bare back and sneaking between their bodies to tangle around his wrist.
(and it’s a little cheap and a little cheesy and it feels like a line from someone else’s lips, but that doesn’t stop Zayn’s smile, doesn’t stop the blush staining his cheeks, and certainly doesn’t stop the automatic way his body lolls to the side to share both with Liam)
/ / /
Afterwards, Liam passes him a towel and that grey jumper from the qualifiers. He talks while they dress - a soft hum of ‘tonight was brilliant I hoped you liked it and hey it’s okay to need to escape, I need it too, and I know you’re scared about the ceremony but you’ll be fantastic, Zayn, you’re crafted for greatness’ over the James Morrison - and the jumper smells of chlorine and Axe body spray and Liam and he wants to keep it forever.
A hand heavy on his back leads him all the way up to the penthouse and under their breaths they talk about their families and their schedules and Zayn laps it up eagerly.
He’s deliberately fumbling for his room key because he wants to hold onto this (this being the chlorine, the low lighting, Liam’s nervous smile and his own shaky breaths) for as long as possible. Liam’s loose and happy and he thinks it’s safe to dive in, maybe, if there’s the crinkly smile to save him.
The door is tugged open and Louis - from the doorway, with a mischievous smile and a cup of tea, as though he planned this - raises an eyebrow at them.
Somewhere in the lazy conversation, Liam had pressed Zayn gently against the wall and started tracing his forearm tattoos and Zayn’s fingers had tangled in his shirt. He thinks about moving away for a total of three seconds before deciding against it.
“Shameless, Bradford,” Louis teases, “putting out on the third date?”
(‘only our second’, Zayn whispers softly, ‘one more’ and Liam laughs and smiles and groans all at once)
“Jealous, Lou?” he laughs, tugging Liam closer. There’s a smile against his shoulder but Liam complies and nuzzles close and grinds his hips in an idle circle.
Louis grins fondly and sneaks back into the room. “Painfully. No hickeys, kids, Paul will murder you and throw your frail body into the Thames.”
(‘not frail,’ Liam mumbles, against his skin, ‘and I’d save you’)
They stay like that, for a moment, cuddled against the wall until affection fills Zayn’s lungs and escapes from his lips.
“I think you’re-” he starts, and there is no adjective appropriate to describe him, so he settles with - “the calm.”
Liam laughs and clenches his wrist a little tighter. “That’s good,” he says, more to his neck than to Zayn himself, “because I think you’re the breaths in-between.”
He considers kissing him, considers tugging him inside and grinding away the nervous twist of his lips, but instead he tightens his grip on his shirt and whispers ‘good luck’ until Liam laughs into his shoulder.
/ / /
continued here
Author: transgenicveins
Pairing: Liam Payne / Zayn Malik
Rating: Uh NC-17 supposedly
Word count: ~12500 (total, holy fuck)
Warnings: Real person slash, a teensy bit of rimming.
Summary: 'and during the London Olympics, he performs in front of the whole world, becomes infatuated with an athlete, breaks Twitter, makes softcore porn, and learns how to swim. (not necessarily in that order)'
A/N: OLYMPICS AU. This is the by-product of my shameless love of the Olympics. It took over my life and it's entirely Jay's fault and an early birthday present to myself.
During the Beijing Olympics four years ago, Zayn snuck out, smoked a joint and kissed a boy for a very first time with track events in the background, in that order.
And during the London Olympics, he performs in front of the whole world, becomes infatuated with an athlete, breaks Twitter, makes softcore porn, and learns how to swim.
(not necessarily in that order)
/ / /
It’s just after the opening ceremony and the four of them are in the penthouse of the Village. Harry’s losing sleep over his solo and Louis is bored out of his mind and Niall is learning some solo on his old acoustic and Zayn just needs out.
He grabs his Ray Bans and Louis’ wrist and slips through the hectic streets. He takes a left instead of a right and tugs him into the London Aquatic Centre without a second thought.
/ / /
His first memory of Liam Payne goes a little like this:
/ / /
They’re watching the qualifiers from behind about twenty different camera sets. It’s easier, there, with the chlorine haze and the echoes of the announcers and fifteen thousand people who couldn’t give less of a fuck about What Makes You Beautiful.
“Hey,” Louis says, under his breath, nudging Zayn with his hip. Louis isn’t quite the leader and he’s not quite responsible but he’s the eldest and somewhere between the competition and the tour and the studio, he attuned to the other three without any warning. “We’re playing at the Olympics.”
Zayn grins, ducking his head to cover his wonder. “Paul fucking McCartney played at the Olympics.”
“Paul fucking McCartney,” he echoes, drawing little circles with his fingers on Zayn’s wrist, and he can’t imagine dealing with the homesickness or the nerves without those soft fingers.
They settle against the damp walls and watch the next set walk to the edge. One of the boys representing Great Britain can’t be older than them. He’s wrapped up in a fuzzy grey hoodie and loose sweatpants with headphones disappearing beneath the material. Another competitor- France, probably, from the fair skin and loose tongue- has a hand on the small of his back and lips muffled against one of the headphones. The Brit absorbs the crowd with a certain awe and Zayn’s not staring, exactly, but he can’t help grinning at the boy’s nervous smile.
He diverts his eyes while they undress because he has manners but when he looks back-
Oh.
The boy’s curled over, splashing his biceps with stolen water from the pool and Zayn can only see his back, but that means he can also see the droplets slipping down his spine, the wiry muscles stretching as he twists his arms, the - fuck - the shoulder to waist ratio and the line of his hips and the shallow dimples carved into the small of his back.
Zayn’s heart almost thumps out of his chest at the sound of the siren, and it refuses to stop pumping adrenalin to his cells for a whole minute and fifty-five seconds.
“Malik,” Louis says, clutching his forearm at the peace sign, “that one’s our age. He just qualified for the fucking Olympics and I spent all morning beating my own Scoops score.”
He watches the boy laugh and lurch over the lane divider to cuddle close to the first place from France. His eyes crinkle with happiness when he’s announced as second qualifier and Zayn has to look away, then, before he drowns in the bliss or in the pool or both.
(he can feel it lapping around his ankles, though, when the announcer offers a Liam Payne that makes his head spin)
/ / /
Zayn tells the boys everything but that sensation, the rush of blood and the buoyancy in his lungs and the burn in his stomach, that’s just for Zayn. It’s like the taste of smoke between his lips or the thousand pinpricks of ink scarring his body and it’s an anchor, it’s a comfort, it’s something the rest of the world can’t pull him apart with the appropriate enzymes and steal from his cells.
The boys understand. They’re nervous and disappearing into their anchors (Niall in his childhood, Louis in his words, Harry in his music) on the two beds in the master bedroom pushed together. Harry’s along the bottom, Louis is on the left, Niall’s in the middle, and Zayn’s propped against the headboard. They’re touching - feet tangled together, fingers rubbing at the nape of the neck - and they’re so close but floating so far apart.
Zayn watches them, for a moment, watches Niall giggle at Scooby Doo with a hand tucked under Zayn’s leg, watches Harry twitch his toes against Louis’ in time with his iPod, watches Louis curl fingers through Niall’s hair with his spare hand while he writes. He thinks about tugging them back to shore and instead buries himself in his laptop without a second thought.
He feels suspiciously like a voyeur. Most of the videos of Liam Payne are of his meets and training and he watches the boy grow up, grow into his curls and cut them off; hug his mum then coach then girlfriend and later his coach then boyfriend then mum; shed his headphones then his clothes and eventually his clothes then headphones; beat his own record and then his age’s and then his state’s.
Three hours and half their broadband later, he knows his routine and his technique and his smile and now - now he wants to know the way he tastes and the way he feels and more than that, more than anything, he wants to peel back the goggles and the swim cap and dive right in and know him from the inside out.
He can’t swim though and he’s a little afraid of the water, so instead, he settles with curling up against Niall and groaning shamelessly into the pillow.
/ / /
That’s how the three of them find him, an hour later when they’re ready to fight the tide.
“You look like our fangirls,” Louis teases, stealing his laptop and checking his search history. He cocks an eyebrow and maybe drowning would be the safer option.
He muffles a noise in the sleeve of Niall’s shirt. “I feel nauseous and voyeuristic and infatuated.”
“Correction,” Harry laughs, “you are our fangirls.”
Niall runs a soothing hand through his loose hair. “Welcome to a life of continuous pain, disappointment, and heart palpations.”
Zayn bites his bicep in response and mumbles an ‘I hate you and you and you you sadistic twats I will feed you to the judo champions without a second thought’ that forces a euphony of giggles from the three of them.
“You love us,” Louis coos, crawling a little closer. “Besides, you need us. Your possible future with Liam Payne-”
(Zayn whines into Niall and refuses to ever ever admit it)
“- needs us.”
“You’ve probably met him before,” Niall offers, texting with his spare hand. “He was at bootcamp. He got an offer from Bill Furniss, though, and disappeared. He was supposed to win.”
Louis frowns. “Why did he leave, then?”
Niall shrugs. “Furniss is the Simon of swim coaches. No one says no to him.”
“And you saw him today?” Harry asks slowly, that cheeky grin twisting his features. “Zayn, this is basically destiny. You’re Anastasia and he’s-”
Zayn throws a pillow at him before he can finish and Harry throws back and the conversation escapes through the cracks in the walls, but the sensation is still heavy in his heart.
/ / /
They’re sneaking out the next day, around the pool, away from the crowds, and Zayn doesn’t deliberately search for Liam, but-
Oh.
He’s stretched out on the pavement in a pair of Topman’s boxer briefs and glassy Aviators. There’s rough stubble across his cheeks and behind his jaw and the tendons in his throat work as he laughs and it would be so easy, so easy, to sit beside him and maybe splash his ankles or ask about his semi-final and just forget the world -
Instead, he stumbles on one of the deck chairs and Niall - the arsehole - laughs loud enough to draw the attention of two dozen athletes and Zayn wants to disappear in the gaps in the pavement.
Then, though - then a hand wraps around his knocked ankle and caresses the sore skin. “Okay?” Liam asks, with a soft frown and gentle fingers.
He nods, his veins thrumming around his body, and Liam removes his hand and shoots him a lazy smile and that’s the extent of their conversation, but it still tugs him to the clouds.
/ / /
That night, he waits until everyone - his bandmates, the athletes, the eight million people populating his city - is asleep before tugging on a woolly jumper and disappearing into the streets. He takes a left instead of a right with a thousand neuron messages sparking up his spine.
/ / /
The only light in the centre comes from the bottom of the pool and the ripples of the water are dancing eerily across the walls. Kings of Leon echo through the acoustics and it’s a cacophony, it should be terrifying, his heart rate should increase, but instead Zayn props himself against the wall and watches the boy swim.
(watches is too modest, too polite, too conservative- he’s learning, learning the ripple of his shoulders, the wave of his legs, the crash of his arms)
Liam surfaces, tugs off his cap and goggles, shoots him a smile that warms the humid atmosphere. He shakes out his hair and pushes it off his forehead. It sticks up at the back. “You look lost,” he laughs, eyes dragging over his body, and Zayn bites his tongue on the ‘graceful you look like a dolphin or maybe a swan or maybe a bit of both’.
“You look fantastic,” he offers, and the droplets of water that sparkle on Liam’s lips slide down to his jaw when he smiles.
He swims a little closer and Zayn wants to offer a hand, but he’s already propping himself out of the pool with a practised arm.
(Zayn watches his forearms work like smooth muscle, so involuntary, so automatic)
They sit by the edge and every few breaths, their knees knock together.
“Liam Payne,” he introduces, eyes crinkling into a smile, holding out a hand. Water drips onto his shorts and he watches it stain the denim before taking his hand. His grip is strong and Zayn might just lose himself in the pressure on his tendon.
“I know who you are,” Zayn admits, and Liam’s eyes brighten, but it might be a trick of the light. And then, because he’s a little embarrassed (for the voyeurism, for the ankle, for being uncomfortable in his own skin with Poseidon beside him), he holds on a little tighter and says “Zayn.”
He grins and releases his hand, but he places it close enough to cause that tight coil around his lungs. “I know who you are too, Zayn Malik.”
His eyes dart to his pink lips because, well, his name never sounds quite that pretty. He hides his smile in his sleeve and notes the Ed Sheeran in the background. “There is no positive correlation in this playlist.”
Liam rolls his eyes. “Is too,” he argues, as though he bickers about this daily. He reaches behind them and switches to that Foster the People song. “Just on a blood level instead of a noise level.”
He frowns at the choice of words and Liam ducks a little closer to say ‘you need to feel it, silly, deep in your bones instead of light in your mouth’.
Automatically he sings softly under his breath, tapping his bare foot against the tile in time, and Liam’s answering smile sets his heart on fire.
“Exactly,” he breathes, clambering to his feet, “feel that and watch me.”
He steps away from the edge and dives in and swims a lap in perfect, quick, brilliant time, and thankfully Zayn’s breathy ‘wow’ is muffled by the water.
Liam surfaces by his feet and slicks back his hair. He sings along and Zayn’s quite content, really, listening to their voices harmonise, until the words escape from between his lips.
“Why this?” he asks, and they’re both still swaying in time.
He grins and wades a little closer. “Well,” he starts, his chin resting on the cement between Zayn’s knees, hands holding his legs down while thumbs stroke the inside of his thighs. He looks confident, cocky, almost, but there’s an odd vulnerability behind his lazy smile. “On the first day of bootcamp, I got an offer from Furniss.”
“You don’t say no to Furniss,” Zayn echoes, and Liam grins in encouragement.
“And so it goes,” he teases. “But I didn’t - I wasn’t -I didn’t know which to choose. So I picked a boy in the crowd-”
(he props himself up, their eyes level, and his arms are still under the exertion)
“One around my age-”
(he’s close, too, and swaying softly in time with the music)
“And he flipped a coin, hid it, and asked which one I wanted to win-”
(he cuddles closer, lips nearly brushing against his earlobe, and Zayn resists the temptation to lick the droplets sliding down his neck)
“And I made a choice. Sound familiar?”
(it does, it sounds familiar, it’s like something buried under the past two years, but Liam shifts to catch his eye and they don’t want to acknowledge it, quite yet, not for another whole Olympics, so instead he shakes his head)
“Maybe you were afraid of being a shit singer,” he teases, hands curling against the concrete.
Liam raises an eyebrow and fiddles with the iPod dock behind them. “Maybe I was afraid of boys like you,” he teases, and Zayn would reply but a song they heard a thousand times in Australia echoes through the room.
He sings the harmonies at the beginning and the ‘sleep now under my skin make sure you try to conjure the wind’ and the chorus and the bridge but Zayn’s lost, by then, lost in his strong voice which settles low in his spine and refuses to dilute into his blood.
Social conventions would dictate that he should clap or compliment him or maybe sing to the next song (something old, something jazzy, something out of his range), but instead he smirks. “And I thought all swimmers were steroid-pumped tasteless arseholes.”
Liam looks a little affronted and Zayn wants to kiss away that momentary frown, but Liam grins back and the moment passes. “I’ve never touched steroids,” he scowls, “and I thought all boy bands were needy, auto-tuned, tasteless arseholes.”
He makes a noise and squirms against the pavement. “Oh please. I’m all natural and raw and I have an excellent taste.”
(he considers adding ‘in the bedroom sugar’ but it’s barely been an hour)
Liam shifts close. “Are you needy?” (in the bedroom)
Zayn grins. “You’ll find out, eventually.”
His muscles freeze, half out of the water now, before dunking under and splashing him on the way up. Zayn quickly rearranges his hair and splashes back and it continues like that, with MGMT in the background and his clothes sticking to his cold skin and that lightness in his lungs and heaviness in his heart, until Liam raises his hands in mock surrender. He props up on his elbows beside him.
“Swim with me,” he says, and everything - the cockiness, the vulnerability, the teasing - is gone, leaving a nineteen year old boy in a too big pool.
Zayn smiles through the chills. “I can’t swim,” he admits.
He looks lost, for a moment, lost in the ‘if you leave I won’t cry I won’t waste a single day’, before he comes a little closer. “I’ll teach you,” he promises, climbing out of the pool. He passes Zayn his spare towel and wraps his own around his shoulders and leads him all the way back to the village. “Tomorrow. It’s like singing and you’ll love it I swear.”
Zayn flashes him a smile and glances at the birthmark in the hollow of his neck and it’s so endearing he needs to look away. “You don’t need luck,” he says softly, “but you get mine anyway.”
Liam grins back and they smile stupidly at each other until the Big Ben, all the way across town, chimes at the hour mark.
/ / /
“Zayn,” Niall says, scrolling through his Twitter feed while they wait. The reporters eye them curiously but focus on the streams of athletes and it’s nice, really, to be in orbit instead of in focus. “Please tell me someone hacked you and you didn’t tweet Liam this morning in front of five million followers.”
Louis almost falls out of Harry’s lap in his haste. “Malik, you didn’t!” he exclaims, but he sounds too pleased to reprimand. His delicate hands grab the phone and the two thousand people in the row turn when he roars with laughter.
Harry reads over his shoulder. “@Real_Liam_Payne,” he mocks, in a weak imitation of Zayn’s voice, “you get mine anyway.”
Louis raises an eyebrow. “He replied,” he says, and he knows, he’s read it a million times. “@zaynmalik maybe we could get dinner before rolling around all sweaty?”
“That one’s not him,” Zayn says half-heartedly, avidly watching the barrier for caramel hair and warm eyes. “It’s-”
“And then he wrote ‘@JamesMagnussen my hatred for you is unrivalled’,” Harry interrupts, “and ‘@zaynmalik you me low lighting and carbohydrates at seven?’”
Louis grins and Zayn hides his burning cheeks in Niall’s hair. “You bought him flowers for your date?” he asks softly, and Zayn flicks him two fingers in response. “Wow, you really are hopeless.”
He scowls and turns back to the pool while the three of them - the pricks - plan innuendos for interviews and Meeting Liam (capitalised).
“This is painful,” Niall groans, fixing his hair. In the early sunlight, the blond looks almost white, and Zayn’s reminded of late nights and packets of seven-day-dye. “This is like Harry with Caroline.”
Zayn pouts a little into the bouquet in his lap and listens to the announcer introduce the semi-finalists.
“Worse,” Harry laughs. “You’re like me with Lou.”
“Don’t kid yourself, Curly,” Louis teases. “Sixteen year old Styles reached a whole new level of hero worship.”
Harry elbows him in the ribs and Louis starts pressing messy, hard kisses up his neck in retaliation but that’s white static to Zayn because Liam’s been introduced and he’s already shedding his clothes.
He catches the eye of Billy in the tech booth and, as promised, Two Door Cinema Club blares through the speakers. The swimmers nearly jump out of their skin but Liam, Liam stretches his arms in time and-
(he looks up and searches the crowd hopefully but their eyes don’t meet)
“Staring,” Harry whispers, but he doesn’t look away. He watches Liam flash one of the competitors a smile and take a deep breath and dive in and then he’s lost.
“Holy fuck,” Niall laughs, and Zayn nods in agreement because holy fuck Liam’s good, he’s fast and strong and his adrenalin is contagious, and Zayn can’t conceal the soft, excited whimpers or the shaking or the breathless cheering.
Liam wins (of course he wins) and the camera zooms in as he’s hoisted out of the water by one of his teammates and Zayn can’t help it. He trips between legs and down stairs and into his line of vision.
Liam looks at Zayn and the bouquet and the twenty-six cameras and disentangles himself so quickly he flicks water all over. “You,” he accuses, a little breathless, and tugs him into a hug.
Zayn grins. Liam automatically tightens his hold and swings in an effort to shield them from the cameras.
“You’re not meant to be here,” Liam accuses happily. Zayn’s feet are knocked off the ground and he thinks his heart floats all the way into the clouds.
Zayn shrugs. “Winners deserve flowers.”
Liam squirms a little, but into his arms instead of away. “I don’t need courting,” he scowls, smiling against his neck. And then, quieter, as though he’s afraid someone will hear - “no one’s bought me flowers before.”
(his heart swells at that and he’s sure Liam can feel it against his shirt)
His hands are drawing soft shapes into his back. “Is this okay?” he whispers, wet hair saturating Zayn’s shirt.
Yes yes yes yes, he wants to say, loud enough for the fifteen thousand people to hear, so okay that you should never move never let go never leave. Instead, he tightens his grip on his shoulder and only lets go for the press and walks around in damp, chlorinated clothes for the rest of the day.
/ / /
“Stop fixing your hair,” Louis scowls, cuddling against Zayn’s back, slapping the brush out of his hands. Zayn frowns and slaps back. “Your quiff may be pretty indestructible but I don’t think it can withstand international chlorine standards.”
He stares at Louis scathingly in the reflection. “You fix your hair before bed, arsehole, you cannot judge.”
Louis opens his mouth to protest but Harry steps out of the kitchen to cut them both off. “Stop worrying,” he says idly, standing behind them and tangling his arms around the two bodies, “the whole world loves you together, even without hair product. They’re calling you two the next Brangelina.”
Zayn smothers a noise against the mirror. “Please tell me we don’t have a ship name.”
Niall, from his upside-down position at the foot of their bed, laughs and takes another swig of his beer. “Maybe you shouldn’t check Twitter.”
Harry grins. “Or Facebook.”
“Or Youtube.”
“Or any news website.”
“Or tumblr.”
“You don’t have a tumblr, Lou.”
“Which is a true testament to your intense flirting, Malik,” Louis laughs. “Stop fighting fate. Embrace the support!”
“Besides, you’re totally the Angelina,” Niall adds, and Zayn wants to seep into the carpet and never ever return.
“I’m the homewrecker?” he asks, a little hysterically, half from the nerves and half from the very graphic memory of a girl in New York ditching her wedding for coffee with him.
“Of course not,” Harry soothes, fingers massaging his shoulders, mouth twisted into a sceptical frown as he watches Niall. “But I think he’s a Brad. He has the heartbreaker-heartache-heartburn smoulder.”
Niall stretches across the floor, revealing a pale strip of skin just above his waistband. “Nah. He has the eyes and the lips and the pointless-”
(Zayn makes a noise of protest)
“- tattoos. He’s an Angelina.”
“I guess he likes a cock in his-”
“Do not finish that sentence,” Louis scowls, “bottoming is not more feminine, Harold-”
“That’s not even my name-”
“Besides, muscles and height do not equate to a top, Haz, you and I being Exhibit A-”
Niall chokes on his bottle behind the three of them. “Please stop talking about your sex life.”
“We don’t have a sex life off tour,” they say, in perfect synchronisation, and Niall and Zayn’s scoff (also in perfect synchronisation) is interrupted by the firm knock at the archway.
Zayn hip checks Harry and Louis aside and skids across the room. Liam looks a little nervous and a lot happy and he’s not wearing the skin tight material to reduce friction and increase performance - he’s wearing a set of bathers that look as new as Zayn’s.
(Zayn had dragged Harry across the city to buy a pair that day, just for Liam, just for his eyes, but he doesn’t want anyone to know that quite yet)
Liam’s stare drags over his loose v-neck and it pauses on the exposed tattoo on his collarbone. “You,” he says happily, stepping forward, “you look fantastic.”
Zayn grins and Liam grins back and they smile at each other for a wonderful, uninterrupted moment, until-
“We were just discussing your sex life,” Louis teases, arms wrapped around Harry with his feet in Niall’s lap, “do you top?”
“Lou,” Zayn groans, automatically burying his blush against Liam’s shoulder. They roll under the touch. “We were not you don’t need to tell them-”
Liam grins. “They’re going to hear it in a few days,” he whispers against the shell of his ear. Louis moans a ‘fuck that’s hot Niall you should dirty talk me in public’ and Zayn shifts restlessly. Then, a little louder, for the others - “I like both.”
Niall glances up from his phone. “Both?”
Taut muscles stretch under Zayn’s cheek and he’s overwhelmed with the impulse to soothe out all the stiffness buried in his cells. “I like pushing in deep and I like being full. It’s an equal opportunity.”
Zayn stares at him seriously for a moment and presses against him, before whispering a ‘fuck’ and dragging him into the hallway.
Liam’s smile shifts into something infinitely sweeter when they’re alone. Zayn can still feel the pressure of his collarbone against his skin but he doesn’t mention it, just follows him mindlessly through the city until they reach the centre.
He bumps his shoulder and places a heavy hand on the small of his back to keep him close. “Big love and good luck to @Real_Liam_Payne,” he recites softly, fingers squeezing his hip. “That broke my Twitter.”
Zayn grins and squirms under his touch. “Sorry for my display of support,” he teases, and Liam’s eyes brighten in the dark hallway of the centre.
“Don’t be,” he says, “I’m not,” and he looks like he wants to say more, but instead he just presses his fingertips into his spine and guides him all the way to the edge.
/ / /
“Ready?” Liam asks, once they’re undressed with softer, gentler, sweeter music in the background.
His toes brush over the cold water and he shakes his head stubbornly.
Strong arms wrap around his waist, hands gripping his hips, fingers tracing the waistband in the most suggestive manner possible. “I swear you’re safe,” he says softly, and they sway softly to the Rolling Stones in the background. His leg brushes against Zayn’s when he stretches forward to toe a stretch of plastic beside the pool. “I’ll keep you safe. And if I can’t do that, this goes under your hips and keeps you afloat. You have physics and me on your side.”
Zayn twists to shoot him a sceptical look and decides to stay there, neck twisted, hair mixing with Liam’s. Their bare skin presses together and yes, that’s the necessary distraction. He grins at Liam. “Why are you hairless?”
Liam huffs out a laugh. “It reduces friction,” he says slowly, in a lower register, just for him, “I thought you’d know all about that, babe-”
A shamelessly horrified groan escapes his hips and Zayn grins and steps into the water so it laps around his neck. Liam follows, smiling into his hair, and whispers a soft litany of ‘you’re doing so so well, babe, you’re safe I’m here you know I won’t let you go’ until his heartbeat slows and he relaxes against Liam’s back.
/ / /
Admittedly, Zayn only remembers this:
Liam has an arm wrapped around his waist and he’s wading enough for both of them, but every few verses he’ll crack a joke or sneak his fingers into his sides and produce a wave of shivers and squirms and thrashes from Zayn that keep him afloat.
The arms disappear halfway through a story and instead fingers trail along his waistband underwater and Zayn automatically shifts his legs to keep the contact. Liam grins and sneaks a little under the drawstrings (just a little) in reward.
/ / /
And this:
His own voice, their single, echoes throughout the stadium. “Seriously?”
Liam grins and nudges him back onto his stomach. The water is cool on his chest in comparison to the heat in his touch. “No shame,” he laughs, then changing tactics and prodding the sensitive skin behind his knees so he automatically kicks. “Did I tell you how I discovered the whole beat tactic?”
Zayn shakes his head but keeps kicking - at first, because of the momentum, and then because the frothing water drowns out his singing, and then because Liam’s fingers are all over him and he needs the distraction.
The song changes in the background and Liam starts swimming beside him, something lazy which doesn’t quite have a name. “I was training and you were performing on the show,” he says softly, reaching over to reteach the positioning of Zayn’s hips. His fingers stay there for a moment too long. “And I couldn’t sing along because I was underwater, so I tried to match my strokes instead and your voice was all I heard in between.”
Their contact breaks and fingers start dancing all over his back, sneaking over the waistband and across kicking ankles and along the veins in his thighs.
“You’re so distracting,” he says softly, and Zayn shivers all over. “Your arse is on display for me, like this, and all I can think of is propping you over the edge on the concrete so I can pull these down and tongue at your rim until you scream loud enough for it to echo through my race tomorrow.”
A blush stains his cheeks and he quickly tugs the plastic out from under his hips to hide underwater, and he learns to swim with Liam’s husky laugh and heavy promises in his ear.
/ / /
And this:
“No,” he says stubbornly, tucking his chin closer to his chest. He likes lying with his stomach and skimming his nose and hair and lips along the water, and he likes the feeling of tension in his legs when he kicks, but he is not-
A finger trails up his spine in time with his laughter. It feels like an assault and it feels like Zayn is losing. “It’s wonderful underwater. I promise.”
Zayn shakes his head and nails are raked over his back in response.
“There’s no oxygen underwater,” he argues.
Liam raises an eyebrow, tracing the feather tattoo. “Your substandard and incomplete education is showing, darling,” he teases, and Zayn splashes the smile off his cheeks.
His smile melts into something a little more fond and Zayn melts into something a little warmer. “I’m right here,” he promises, hand curling around the nape of his neck, “you can trust me. Just take a deep breath-”
(he obliges)
“- and focus on my fingers and the music-”
(his body sinks a little heavier into the water and Liam tickles across his shoulders in reward)
“- and go underwater and breathe out nice and slow and come up when you need to.”
The water caresses his cheeks as Zayn breathes out bubbles. Liam tightens his grip on his shoulder on the way up.
“Wow,” he laughs huskily, reaching up to push Zayn’s wet fringe out his eyes. His fingers graze all over his jaw on the way back. “Fuck you’re gorgeous.”
He practises until he doesn’t flinch anymore, and when he surfaces, Liam’s eyes are blown and there are little crescent marks all over his shoulder.
“You,” he says breathlessly, squirming in place, before flashing him a grin and sinking a little. “One more. Open your eyes, this time.”
The fingernail marks sting his shoulders and he focuses on that as he sinks underwater. When he opens his eyes, the fuzzy outline of Liam is swaying before him, just a few metres below the surface, arms stretched out to display his muscles.
They grin at each other and Liam reaches forward to touch his floating hair and the burn in his lungs isn’t entirely due to the lack of oxygen.
/ / /
Liam teaches him to freestyle and changes his mind halfway through, swimming just under Zayn and resurfacing with him on top. He tugs Zayn’s thighs onto his hips and carries him out of the water. Their bodies shiver in the warm air.
“Hungry?” he asks, depositing Zayn on the ground behind the bleachers. Hands rub up and down his arms to create friction and there’s a blanket and a candle, as though he planned this, and Zayn just wants to kiss him. “I promised my coach I’d eat tonight.”
He raises an eyebrow and takes the offered container sceptically.
“Oh fuck off,” Liam laughs, but there’s no heat to it, “as if you don’t do everything your manager tells you to. Do letter jackets ring a bell?”
Zayn throws a piece of chicken at him. It’s caught easily. “Not everything they ask,” he admits, staring at the place their hands almost meet. Fingers deliberately ghost over his and Zayn hides his grin in the low lighting. “And I don’t change my lifestyle on command.”
He rolls his eyes. “Your affinity for nicotine makes that apparent.”
(Zayn’s chest tightens at the disapproving tone and he frowns at the sensation and the urge to promise ‘I’d quit I’d quit for you’)
Instead, he lets the towels fall from his back. Eyes trace over his exposed skin. “Why don’t you wear a suit?” he asks, and Liam flashes him a smile as he pours the iced tea.
“Why don’t you auto-tune?” he counters, stretching out his legs to kick his ankle gently. Zayn kicks back. “It’s cheap. It’s cheating. It’s relying on technology instead of talent.”
Somehow their legs shift to touch. “Are they similar? Swimming and singing?”
Liam grins and turns to press their sides together. “It’s the same,” he says softly, breath cool from the lemon twists, “it’s all adrenalin and fun and attention and it’s that missing piece, right, it’s like you’re only you when you’re in the water, and the pool is the stage and medals are the awards and everyone loves each other, we’re like a family, we stretch together and room together and eat dinner during meets and it’s peaceful, it’s the calm, it’s a whole new world that’s only for you.”
The air’s warm and Zayn feels like he’s falling - not in love, not from the clouds - just falling. They stare shamelessly and it’s as though they’re going to close the gap between their lips and learn the shape of their bodies with their fingertips, but then the song ends and Liam looks away first.
Zayn grins and stirs the dish. “What’s this?”
Their bodies twist towards each other. There’s a hand heavy on the blanket just behind his arse. Liam’s chin hovers above his shoulder and he’s different, out of the water, a little nervous and a little shy and a little younger. “There’s the protein,” he says, pointing at the chicken, “that’s for essential amino acids and cell repair. There are carbohydrates in the rice for energy, spinach for folic acid and iron, starch in the potato, and vitamins in the carrot and peas.”
The heartbeat against his back slows and Zayn asks - “are you nervous?”, nudging his fork through the rice to find all the peas. He automatically scoops them into Liam’s bowl and Liam picks out all the carrots and does the same. “About tomorrow, I mean.”
He nods, staring at the Arabic on his collarbone. “Are you?”
Bravado convinces him to shrug and Liam shoulders him in response. “We struggle with lung capacity.”
Liam watches him for a moment and settles a little closer. “I can’t wink,” he whispers, keeping his arm pressed up against his body, “or swim breaststroke because it’s fucking impossible or bake a cake. No one will hate you if you’re a little out of breath.”
His body presses back. “Can you wink for me?” he asks, a little sweeter than his usual voice. Liam squirms and blinks really hard and Zayn just wants to push aside the food and the candle and the towels and bury himself in the crook of his neck.
Instead, he wraps his hand around his wrist and eats awkwardly to keep the contact.
They talk (over the hum of the machinery, just under the gentle music) while they eat, and the candle burns out as they shift a little closer.
Liam stretches his arms behind him and his shoulder muscles work under the stress. “Just stay here a little longer,” he says softly, and Zayn melts at the tone, “you’re not allowed to swim yet and I-”
(‘want to keep you here’)
They wriggle closer and nails scratch his hair and he nudges into the touch and they stay there in the dark for a little longer than necessary.
/ / /
A little bit later, after a play of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club and a few too many accidental touches and a dozen too few with intention, Liam places a warm hand on the bare small of his back and leads him back into the water.
Halfway in and halfway through a story about sneaking out in Australia (‘the streets are insane Liam, they were all in one direction and do not make the joke puns are the lowest form of humour, arsehole’), Liam turns around and flashes him a grin which freezes all his muscles together.
“What is it?” Liam teases, wading the deep water, “don’t you trust me?”
(and no, no, no, that’s not it, it’s the opposite, it’s the way Liam’s somehow gained his trust and snuck into him without any resistance on Zayn’s behalf, and that scares him a lot more than the deep water)
He takes Zayn’s silence as a sign of weakness (which it is, fuck) and swims a little closer. The happiness crashes like waves against his skin. “Please let me return the favour.”
He’s rearranged onto his back and careful hands spread his limbs in a way that feels more sweet than sexual.
Liam’s hand is wrapped around the back of his neck like a promise and the touch burns against the tattoo. “Lie back,” he says softly, pressing simultaneously against his side and the nape of his neck.
He flashes Liam a doubtful look but obliges anyway, sinking into the touch and into the water, and it’s terrifying, he wants to press harder and he wants to cry and he wants to crawl out of the unforgiving water, but instead-
It’s silent. It’s silent and peaceful and numb, numbing like nicotine used to be, numbing like music will always be, numbing in a way he has begun to associate with the boy beside him. The Temptations are muted and his heartbeat echoes and-
“Wow,” he breathes.
Liam laughs and Zayn feels it through the water. “Wow,” he repeats, eyes locked on Zayn, fingers trailing down his bare back and sneaking between their bodies to tangle around his wrist.
(and it’s a little cheap and a little cheesy and it feels like a line from someone else’s lips, but that doesn’t stop Zayn’s smile, doesn’t stop the blush staining his cheeks, and certainly doesn’t stop the automatic way his body lolls to the side to share both with Liam)
/ / /
Afterwards, Liam passes him a towel and that grey jumper from the qualifiers. He talks while they dress - a soft hum of ‘tonight was brilliant I hoped you liked it and hey it’s okay to need to escape, I need it too, and I know you’re scared about the ceremony but you’ll be fantastic, Zayn, you’re crafted for greatness’ over the James Morrison - and the jumper smells of chlorine and Axe body spray and Liam and he wants to keep it forever.
A hand heavy on his back leads him all the way up to the penthouse and under their breaths they talk about their families and their schedules and Zayn laps it up eagerly.
He’s deliberately fumbling for his room key because he wants to hold onto this (this being the chlorine, the low lighting, Liam’s nervous smile and his own shaky breaths) for as long as possible. Liam’s loose and happy and he thinks it’s safe to dive in, maybe, if there’s the crinkly smile to save him.
The door is tugged open and Louis - from the doorway, with a mischievous smile and a cup of tea, as though he planned this - raises an eyebrow at them.
Somewhere in the lazy conversation, Liam had pressed Zayn gently against the wall and started tracing his forearm tattoos and Zayn’s fingers had tangled in his shirt. He thinks about moving away for a total of three seconds before deciding against it.
“Shameless, Bradford,” Louis teases, “putting out on the third date?”
(‘only our second’, Zayn whispers softly, ‘one more’ and Liam laughs and smiles and groans all at once)
“Jealous, Lou?” he laughs, tugging Liam closer. There’s a smile against his shoulder but Liam complies and nuzzles close and grinds his hips in an idle circle.
Louis grins fondly and sneaks back into the room. “Painfully. No hickeys, kids, Paul will murder you and throw your frail body into the Thames.”
(‘not frail,’ Liam mumbles, against his skin, ‘and I’d save you’)
They stay like that, for a moment, cuddled against the wall until affection fills Zayn’s lungs and escapes from his lips.
“I think you’re-” he starts, and there is no adjective appropriate to describe him, so he settles with - “the calm.”
Liam laughs and clenches his wrist a little tighter. “That’s good,” he says, more to his neck than to Zayn himself, “because I think you’re the breaths in-between.”
He considers kissing him, considers tugging him inside and grinding away the nervous twist of his lips, but instead he tightens his grip on his shirt and whispers ‘good luck’ until Liam laughs into his shoulder.
/ / /
continued here