Archive of Our Own

“Don’t press too hard.”

“Yes, shut up, I know how to use a magnet.” Louis snorts, then guides the magnet gently along the edge of the window, to where the catch is. It’s not as easy as it looks, hanging from a rig twenty floors above the city streets, but he’s not complaining, is he? “There, happy now?”

“I can’t actually see you.”

“You mean you haven’t got the Batman thing? Lame.”

“Shut up, or I’ll trigger the alarm.”

“You wouldn’t.” Louis grins as the magnet moves the catch with it, then pushes up. It shouldn’t be this easy, of course; he doesn’t know exactly what Zayn said about these alarms, but he knows they were complicated and Zayn had spent at least four hours staring at his screens for them, his fingers flying in what was honestly the least exciting part of the job. But it had been Louis who planted the bug in the wires down in the basement of the apartment building, so really he did most of it. “I’d sell you out.”

“Like I can’t disappear.” Zayn snorts through Louis’s earpiece, and Louis laughs too as he slides through the window, landing on the floor of the study with light feet. The room is dark, but Louis’s eyes adjust quickly enough that it doesn’t matter much to him. And anyway, he knows the outlay of the room by heart, memorized through all the cameras Zayn could get. It wouldn’t do to get sloppy, even for an easy job. So he slides easily through the room, dodges heavy desks and ostentatious display he describes under his breath to Zayn, until he gets to the wall that’s not in the plans.

“I can’t believe they have a fake wall,” Louis points out. This is where it gets trickier; they don’t know exactly where the safe is under the wall. But of course, there’s a massive picture of the whole family, all posed with the dog at the father’s feet, and…yep, there’s a crack at the edges. “How Bond movie can you get?”

“I still want a secret room,” Zayn replies. “Before I retire, I want you to have to pull on a book and the bookshelf will swing around.”

“Because we’re in Scooby Doo?” Louis drawls. He has to take off his gloves for this, but he runs his fingers over the edge of the frame, marking where he’s touched so he can wipe it down.

“I’m sitting in the Mystery Machine.” Which is a fair point, really. Even if they’d been high as fuck when they named the van, celebrating a solid ten mil heist successfully handed off to Liam. The rush of adrenaline of Louis having to hide in a cabinet for hours as security searched for him probably had helped too. “And you think it’d be awesome, don’t lie.”

“Of course it would be awesome. Ha!” Louis’s fingers caught, and he clicks on the catch, so the whole painting swings open. Sure enough, the safe’s behind it, the electronic lock blinking at him. “’s open.”

“Hook me in.”

Louis presses the remote-thing Zayn gave him into what’s apparently a port. “You know, someday I’m going to get you to actually come and do this yourself,” Louis says, to be contrary. And because he needs something to do, as Zayn works his magic remotely. “Get you up on the rig…”

“Never in a million years.” Zayn’s voice is a little breathy, like it gets when he’s distracted by hacking. Louis’s always been vaguely curious if sounds like that during sex too, but there are some boundaries in their friendship. They have a strict ‘there has to be a wall between us if either of us is getting off’ rule.

“Come on, it’d be fun! There’s no rush like it.”

“Until the rope snaps and you fall and smash on the pavement.”

“Do you really think I’d let you go up there with faulty equipment?” Louis retorts. It’s an old argument, one they’ve had since the beginning, when sometimes having Zayn in the field really would have meant a better escape route for Louis, but still. He’s offended. He only works with the best. “My ropes don’t snap.”

“I know statistics too well for that.” Zayn hums, and something blinks on the remote.

“But you’re good with me relying on them.” Louis glances around, to be sure, but there’s no one there. The whole family’s out of town, on vacation by the shore; the housekeeper won’t be in until the morning. They’re confident in their security system. That’s the definition of the easy job, when it’s security and maybe police connected to it. Louis shifts, grinning to himself. They always depend on security systems. They never count on Zayn, or Louis.

“You’re replaceable. A thief’s a dime a dozen.” He’s really distracted now, and Louis knows that if he could see him, he’d be hunched over his keyboard, three different screens going at once doing things Louis barely starts to understand. His tongue’s probably pressed behind his teeth, and his eyes are alight and intent like they only get when he’s really into his hacking, when he’s doing what he’s meant to do.

“Like you’d know what to do without me,” Louis tosses back. There’s a nice little statue of a cat on the corner of the desk, just the sort of thing Zayn likes to decorate the Mystery Machine with. He grabs it, sticks it into his pocket.

“True,” Zayn agrees easily, and Louis’s fingers close over the cat. Zayn always does that, at the most unexpected times; breaks their banter for an offhand sort of sincerity that Louis’s never known how to deal with.

“Stop your sap, Malik,” he says, because he doesn’t have anything else to say. The ‘same’ is implied, he thinks. “Aren’t you supposed to be cracking a safe?”

“I…have cracked a safe,” Zayn shoots back, sharper again. “Aren’t you supposed to be stealing stuff?”

“You’re such a nag,” Louis retorts, but he takes the remote out and puts it in his bag, then opens the safe. “Oh, beautiful. Look at you, my lovelies.”

“I assume you’re not talking to me anymore?”

“Don’t even give me that, you talk to your computers like they’re your babies.” Louis can’t help his grin as he lifts up the diamond and sapphire necklace from its place in the safe, watches the jewels fall between his fingers. “And she’s beautiful.”

Zayn hums out a yes. He’s never as excited about home jewelry thefts as he is about the art, but the truth of the matter is sometimes you have to do easier jobs to pay the bills, and museums and even private collections are always harder, and they’re the ones where Louis’s had the closest shaves. “Okay, now get out.”

“No, I think I’d rather take a nap here,” Louis retorts, and closes the safe. He resets the code as Zayn instructs, then closes the painting, wipes it down. Then he’s hooking himself back into the rig, and closing the window with the magnet, and he’s flying upwards with the sky around him and wind in his hair and Zayn’s voice in his ear, and the loot in his bag, and he’s exactly where he wants to be.

---

“This is ace,” Liam says. He brings the necklace closer to his face, so he can get a better look at the jewels. It always feels silly, to stand in front of his desk like this like they’re normal customers, but apparently this is how Liam works best. It still makes Louis twitchy. He wants it done, wants to be able to get out the buzz the job’s given him. “I’ll be able to get you a good deal for this.”

“You better. I risked life and limb to get it, mate. You better make it worth it.”

“He was laughing the whole time,” Zayn adds, and when Louis rolls his eyes at him he just smiles and wraps his arms around Louis’s waist, hooking his chin over his shoulder. It’s unfair, really. He knows how hard it is to argue with him when he’s smiling like that and hugging Louis. Settling him, except for how his fingers are drumming over Louis’s skin, and Louis knows he’s buzzing too. “Had the time of his life, yeah?”

“No, that was Barcelona. This was hardly the time of my week.” What’s a job with no risk, after all?

“Going to do better?”

“When we go out tonight,” Louis announces. He lets Zayn hold him a moment longer, but then Zayn loosens his grip and Louis can wander around Liam’s flat. It’s so posh, he thinks whenever he’s here. It’s not like he and Zayn couldn’t afford something like this, but even if they could ever settle down in one place for long, he doesn’t think he’d want this. Some art on the walls for Zayn, sure, but nothing like the sleek lines and white fabric and glass Liam has. Even if it does give good lines of sight. It makes Louis feel exposed, even though he knows the security here is as good as Zayn can make it, and that’s pretty damn good. But it’s not like Louis will ever have a place of his own like this, and he knows Zayn’s will be more comfortable for him. “You’re coming, Liam.”

“I am?”

“Yep!” Louis nods. He hasn’t gotten so far in his chosen field by asking questions. “Lads night! We haven’t had one of those in ages.”

“You two haven’t been in town in ages,” Liam protests, but he’s nodding. Louis smirks. Liam likes to pretend he’s all grown up and settled down, but he likes a good night out as much as the rest of them. More than Zayn, probably, but Louis knows that Zayn needs it too. He’s better at hiding the adrenaline rush of a good score, but it’s there, in the corner of his eyes when he smiles, in how his fingers twitch on his thigh. In the way he meets Louis’s eye, and Louis knows what he’s thinking. They both need this.

---

Louis wrinkles his nose in the mirror, then tugs a little at his hair. He’s always been pretty comfortable in his skin, especially since he realized that being short is actually an advantage as a thief and that if he was built like Liam he’d never fit anywhere. And he looks good tonight, he thinks; his jeans make his ass look even better than normal, his shirt’s low cut enough that the ink shows through, his hair is just messy enough to look casual. He’ll definitely pull if he wants to. If he decides, in the end, that’s how to get out the energy that’s sparking in his veins.

He nods into the mirror, then heads back out into the main room of the hotel suite he and Zayn rented, where Liam’s waiting, typing on his phone. Because he can’t resist it, Louis shifts forward onto the balls of his feet and ghosts forward, his feet making no sound on the carpeted floor. He waits until he’s just behind an unsuspecting Liam before he lunges forward to slap at his nipples.

“Holy shit!” Liam starts, throwing his phone into the air before managing to catch it again, “Fucking hell, Louis!”

Louis’s nearly folded over laughing, because that was fucking hysterical. “You need to be more aware,” he pants out, because he does. “What if I had been a cop?”

“I don’t think any cops will be going for my nipples,” Liam retorts, glaring. That’s probably true, though Louis’s heard stories about some of the less official security teams doing interesting things with nipples and torture. Louis gives a final laugh, then vaults over the back of the couch to sit next to Liam.

“You never know. They’re very attractive nipples.” Louis pats his shoulder. “I’m sure plenty of cops appreciate your nipples.”

Liam’s nose wrinkles. “Can we stop saying nipple? It’s stopped meaning anything to me.”

“Nipple,” Louis says then, because Liam just threw the opening at him. “Nipple. Nipple. Nip—hey!” he mumbles, into the hand Liam’s slapped over his face. He paws at Liam’s hand, but he’s too bloody strong, so instead he just glares.

“You going to stop?” Liam asks, sternly. Louis rolls his eyes, but nods. “Fine.” Liam smushes his hand into Louis’s face once before he lets go.

Louis considers keeping going with teasing Liam, but it’s not worth risking Liam getting really annoyed. And anyway, he doesn’t want to. He wants to go out, want to drink and dance and have fun with his boys, wants to feel that whole other sort of adrenaline rush.

“Where’s Zayn?” he complains, bouncing back up to his feet. “Is he still primping?”

“It’s Zayn,” Liam replies, leaning back on the couch to watch Louis pace. It’s not a bad point. Zayn takes fucking forever sometimes. He’s as bad as Louis’s mum going on one of her first dates sometimes.

“Zayn!” Louis raises his voice. “Stop plucking your eyebrows or whatever and hurry up.”

“Fuck off,” Zayn calls back through the closed door to his room. “And I’ll be out in a sec.”

“Please hurry up,” Liam adds. “Louis’s going to annoy me to death if you don’t.”

Louis scoffs. “Like I’m not going to annoy you to death if Zayn’s here, too.”

“Nah, you won’t.” Liam shrugs at him. “Zayn would stop you first.”

It’s not wrong, so Louis just turns his back to pace again. He wants to drink. He wants champagne and whiskey and loud music, wants to feel everyone as excited and needing to move as he does. He wants to be out in a club with Zayn next to him, conquering that other sort of battlefield. “Zayn,” he repeats, and looks around. Zayn’s left one of his laptops out, because he keeps the computers with all his most sensitive stuff on it close, but the other ones he tends to just sort of leave about like bread crumbs. “If you don’t get out here soon, I am going to drop your laptop in the tub.”

“Do that, and your mum gets the picture from New Year’s last year.”

“Zayn!” Louis yelps. He sometimes forgets how dirty Zayn can play. Hackers, Louis thinks, torn between pride and annoyance Zayn’s got the better of him. They never have a nice dishonest knife in the back. They’re always so underhanded. “You swore you deleted that.”

“Yeah, right.” The door swings open, and Zayn comes out, smirking a little. “You know I don’t delete anything that could be blackmail.”

Louis glares. Partly for the words, but also because—he is confident in his body. He thought he looked good tonight, and he does. He knows he does. He looks good, and it doesn’t mean anything when Zayn’s standing there raising the bloody bar into the stratosphere. Whatever he’s been doing in the bathroom’s paid off, because he looks slick and hot, his black jeans tucked into combat boots and a black t-shirt on under a leather jacket. His hair’s slicked back into something that should be weird and far too nineties but that of course on him is just devastating, and Louis doesn’t know how he does it, but his eyes are actually sparkling as he laughs at Louis.

Louis humphs. It’s nothing new, the fact that Zayn’s hot. More important is the betrayal. “I thought we were supposed to be partners,” he objects, crossing his arms over his chest. “And now you’re betraying me like this.” The point of partners was the one relationship with no betrayal.

“Always a contingency,” Zayn chuckles. He glances at the mirror over the end table one more time, flicks at a strand of hair. “You might decide to sell me out one day.”

“So you threaten me with my mum?”

“It’s the best threat I can think of.” Louis opens his mouth—then shrugs. It is. “So, are we going?”

“If you two are quite done bickering like an old married couple,” Liam says, standing up. He looks good too, in a very different way than Zayn, in his looser jeans and a clean white t-shirt. He looks like he should be a construction worker, or a lumber jack, not one of London’s most successful fences. “Everyone set?”

“Shot to get us started.” Louis grabs a whiskey out of the minibar, takes a slug, then hands it to Liam. “To a jewel well-stolen.”

Liam takes his own slug, laughing, and hands it to Zayn. Zayn’s eyes are still sparkling as he throws back a shot, his throat working as he swallows. “To a good night.”

---

It is a good night. They dance, they drink, Liam kisses a girl on the dance floor. Louis makes out with a guy on the dance floor, but he doesn’t feel the need to take it farther, giving him a farewell thank you pat on the bum before he finds his way back to Zayn, who sticks to the booth and bar usually. He had to confiscate three of Zayn’s phones, because he’d spend all his time online if Louis didn’t stop him, but he also gets him onto the dance floor, so there’s that. Louis dances with him for a while before he hands him off to Liam and finds another girl to dance with, then he loses them both for a while before he spots Zayn dancing with a pretty blonde girl, his hands on her hips as she runs a hand through her hair. They both disappear for a while after that, and when Zayn comes back his hair’s a mess and his smile’s loose and satisfied.

“Wasn’t this a good idea?” Louis demands, laughing as Zayn fist bumps him, grinning back. “I told you so.”

He did tell them so, and he was right, because he always is, as Louis insists as they pile into a cab. It’s almost four AM, and Albert Booker’s credit card’s gotten a good workout. Albert’s one of Louis’s favorite aliases, an amateur footie player who works in a shop. Sometimes Louis updates his facebook when he’s bored, even if Zayn does all the heavy lifting in maintaining the various aliases that work to throw suspicion away from them. Maybe Louis should post some things on Albert’s wall. Albert would get drunk with his mates. Albert wouldn’t have snogged that boy though; he’s got a serious girlfriend. Or maybe he’s married by now. So maybe really he would have snogged that boy, who knows. He’s sort of Louis, after all.

“You okay?” Zayn asks, nudging his leg. Louis nudges back, which ends up more with him falling over onto Zayn’s lap. He’s really fucking drunk. And so is Liam, given how he’s laughing, and so is Zayn, because he just paws at Louis as he sits back up.

“I am excellent,” Louis retorts, shoving at Zayn because he can. “Do you think Albert’s excellent?”

“Who’s Albert?” Liam’s brow furrows.

“I am!” Louis informs him. “I’m Albert.”

“No, you’re Louis,” Zayn informs him, wrapping an arm around his waist.

“And Albert,” Louis adds. “Is Albert married?”

“You’re not married,” Liam points out. Louis would roll his eyes if he had more energy.

“I know that, but Albert might be. Zayn! Could we get Albert married?”

“You can’t just marry people like that,” Zayn objects. He’s given up on Louis, and has flopped back onto Liam now, nestling into his side because Zayn gets cuddly when he’s drunk. Or at least, cuddly with people who aren’t Louis. He’s always cuddly with Louis.

“Why not? It’s just marriage.” Louis points out. He thinks Albert should be married. It’d really tell everyone he’s not Louis.

“Yeah, you’ve got to be a vicar, right?” Liam sighs dreamily. “I’ve always wanted to be a reverend. Think it’d sound good. Reverend Liam Payne.”

Zayn sits up so he can properly stare at Liam. “You can’t be a reverend!”

“Why not?” Liam demands.

“Don’t you have to go to school or summat?” Louis asks. The cab pulls up to the curb in front of their hotel, and they all tumble out, Zayn shoving at Liam until he’s upright, though Louis then has to grab Zayn so he doesn’t fall over. Louis never falls over. Louis once rappelled down an elevator shaft drunk, even if that one ended in a gunshot graze on his arm. Which means, he supposes, that he’s the one who throws some cash at the cabby before they head upstairs. Zayn’s still leaning heavily on Louis, but Louis’s used to that.

Liam hasn’t let the reverend thing go, either. “I could be a reverend!” he insists, as Louis opens their suite door. “You can just get a certificate online, you don’t have to go to school or anything.”

Louis shakes his head. That seems wrong. “You don’t need to take a course? In vicaring?”

“No! I read about it, you can just buy it online!” Liam insists. His face is flushed, but earnest. No one does earnest quite like Liam Payne. He probably would make a good vicar.

“You can’t be a vicar,” Zayn repeats, as Louis deposits him onto the couch. He sprawls backwards so he takes up the whole space, because he’s a selfish fuck like that, and also unfairly attractive even disheveled like this. “You’re a fence, you can’t just be a vicar. It’s like, a lifestyle.”

“You can buy it!” Liam stomps his foot, sticks out his lower lip in a frankly devastating pout. “Gimme your computer, I’ll show you.”

“You aren’t touching my computer.” Zayn’s hand flails out and grabs his laptop without even looking at it, clutches it to his chest like it’s a baby. “No one touches my computer.”

“You let Louis touch your computer!” Liam protests, but he just turns to Louis. “Let me see your computer, I’ll show you.”

“It’s in my room, go get it,” Louis agrees, gesturing. He’s been standing up too long, he decides, because even if he does have perfect balance and would never fall over, his legs are feeling a little like jelly. He grabs the whiskey from the minifridge, then seats himself on Zayn’s legs, because they’re nearest. Zayn grunts, but doesn’t object, and takes the whiskey when Louis hands it to him.

“We did it,” he tells Zayn, poking at his chest. “We got them.”

“We were always going to,” Zayn replies, grabbing at his hand. He grins, his tongue pressed between his teeth, his nose crinkling, and Louis can’t not smile when he looks like that. “Never don’t, yeah?”

“Never,” Louis agrees. Zayn’s palm is warm against his, his fingers long and strong, probably from all that bloody typing. But when he squeezes, it feels like Louis’s whole world has focused on that one point of contact, on him and Zayn and the connection between them, because fuck, this is really all he needs. Him and Zayn, together. On top of the world.

“No, see!” Liam yells, coming out of Louis’s room with his laptop clutched in one hand in a way that makes Zayn moan. “You can totally become a vicar online!”

“It’s a lifestyle,” Zayn repeats, “And put that down before you break it, it’s gonna—”

“You can print out marriage licenses, too!” Liam goes on, plopping down in the armchair and typing excitedly. “Then it’s official.”

“You’re a fence!” Zayn insists. He sits up, but not enough to unseat Louis. “You can’t just be a vicar.”

“Shut up,” Liam warns, his face drawn in concentration as he types. It’s weird, after years of listening to Zayn type, how slow other people sound. “I’m a vicar…now! I can do what I want. I could marry you to anyone.”

“Anyone?” Louis asks, interested. “Can you just marry two random people?” That sounds like an ace prank. And would save his mum a lot of money, probably.

“Um…” Liam scrolls down.

Zayn sighs, and grabs the whiskey from Louis to drink. “It’s a lifestyle,” he repeats to the air.

Louis takes it back, swallows down more. “He’s a vicar now Zayn, you can’t just say things like that,” he tells him, and laughs at the face Zayn makes as he takes another drink.

---

Louis wakes up with what he swears is an entire rabbit’s worth of cotton in his mouth. It’s nothing he’s not used to, but fuck, he hasn’t gone that hard in ages, he thinks, his head pounding. Maybe he’s getting old. He’s all of twenty-five, that’s rather ancient. Or something. He doesn’t even care, he just needs his head to stop hurting.

He tries for opening his eyes—and yes, that works. That’s okay. The room—his bedroom—is dark, because someone was nice enough to pull the curtains, so thank god for that. And at least he got to a bed; Zayn might be able to somehow sleep in the van every other night but Louis’s back aches whenever he does.

There’s a snuffling against his shoulder, and Louis smiles. There’s Zayn, then. Probably couldn’t make it to his bed alone, because he gets all unsteady when he drinks. Sure enough, when Louis looks down, he gets Zayn’s dark hair and bare shoulders curved into him, because Zayn’s a cuddly sleeper. He manages to get his hand out from Zayn’s clutches to scratch at his head, then extricates the rest of him. He needs to brush his teeth before he pukes from the sheer taste of his mouth.

Dragging himself to the bathroom is less hard than it could be. He brushes his teeth, pisses, then assesses damage in the mirror as he washes his hands. Not as bad as it could be. No injuries, which isn’t always a given when they go out, because neither Zayn nor Louis know when to shut up, and sometimes having Zayn ruin their credit afterwards or taking their wallet just isn’t as satisfying as a good punch. It’s better than the beatings Louis took sometimes in the old days when he got cornered. But his face is clear, and so is his chest, so that’s good. He scrubs at his fingers—and hits metal.

His hand is wet, glistening, and right there, on his left ring finger, is a ring he recognizes. Recognizes, because it usually lives on Zayn’s hand.

All at once, last night comes rushing back, and holy shit.

Louis’s impending hangover is burned away by adrenaline, as he runs back to the bed. He grabs at Zayn’s shoulder, shakes. “Zayn!” He snaps, “Zayn, wake up. What happened last night?”

“Go’way,” is Zayn’s slurred response, and he flails a hand in Louis direction.

“No, you arse, did we get—” Zayn’s curled up more. He’s not waking up, and Louis’s too busy freaking out—not panicking, he doesn’t panic, panic is bad and gets you nowhere—to have the time to wake Zayn up. Liam. Liam’s here, he’ll know.

Liam’s not in the living room when Louis emerges, but after he manages to bang into the coffee table twice on his way around it, Liam comes out of Zayn’s room, his eyes bright like he’s been awake for ages. “Morning!” he chirps, because he’s a fucking morning person and that’s not going to help anything. “Hangover?”

“Liam,” Louis demands. Liam reacts to the seriousness in his voice, his back straightening, his eyebrows drawing together, even though his hair’s a mess. “Did you marry me and Zayn last night?”

Liam blinks, then his eyes widen. “Fuck,” he says, low and heartfelt. Thank god someone’s taking this seriously. “Fuck, I think I might have?”

“You might have?” Louis replies, in something that is not a squeal. “You don’t fucking remember? Some vicar you are!”

“I—we can check, right?” Liam mumbles. Louis’s computer is still on the couch, so he goes over to open it. Louis’s right behind him, looking over his shoulder as the website loads. “I—where were we? Why were we looking up llamas with hats?”

“Llamas with hats is eternal, that’s why. Is there a marriage database?”

“How should I know? I’ve only been a vicar twelve hours!”

“This is why there should be a course!”

“Why’s there shouting?” Zayn’s voice is a low rasp, like it always is in the morning, and he collapses onto Louis’s side like he’d be quite happy going back to sleep there. Normally, Louis loves morning Zayn, because he’s the best to prank and also he’s the only person less of a morning person than Louis that he’s ever met. But right now is not the time for wake up cuddles. “You should be quiet.”

“Zayn,” Louis asks, a little desperate. “How do you look up if people are married?”

Zayn grunts, turning his face into Louis’s neck.

“Zayn!” Louis shakes him, harder than usual, and Zayn’s eyes fly open, his eyes coming together so he looks like an affronted cat. “You have to check if we’re married.”

“Why’d we be married?” he mumbles, but he grabs Louis’s computer and starts typing. Louis’s not even sure he’s properly awake yet.

“Because fucking Liam thought it’d be a lark,” Louis tells him, glaring.

Liam doesn’t look quite as repentant as he should. In fact, he looks more like he’s trying to laugh than anything. “It sort of is.”

“That’s no sort of prank!” Louis insists. It’s not. Pranks are tying someone’s shoes together, or rigging their office so all their furniture falls apart, or something. Not fucking marrying people. Not marrying Louis.

“I mean, you two—you’re already basically a married couple, now you really are.” Liam’s not bothering to hide his grin, “It’s kind of funny.”

Louis completely ignores the fact that if this was happening to someone else, he’d find it hysterical. “It is not,” he says, and turns to Zayn. Zayn, who also has a ring on a chain around his neck, somehow. Louis doesn’t even wear rings, where’d they find something like that? It’s—“Zayn, did I give you the Schwartz’s ring?”

Zayn barely looks away from the screen. “At least you’re not cheap,” he agrees. Louis snorts. That bloody thing took him weeks to get. “And—fuck.” He swears, low and fervent. “Fucking hell, Liam. It’s legal.”

“What?”

“It’s legal,” Zayn repeats, turning the screen to face them. Louis doesn’t understand any of it, but if Zayn says it’s legal, it is. “Somehow, you managed to file everything right. We’re married.”

“Fucking hell!” Louis collapses back onto the couch, as Liam, completely unhelpfully, cracks up next to him. Louis punches him, but it doesn’t help. “Divorce us, then! Or annul, can we annul?”

“Um.” Zayn hits a few more buttons. “I…”

“You were hacking the bloody FBI when you were fifteen!” Louis snaps. He doesn’t understand why neither of them are freaking out. Doesn’t any of them know what marriage means? Louis’s seen plenty of variations, he knows. “Why can’t you just undo this?”

Zayn bites at his lip, but at least he looks away from the screen. He’s awake now, more or less, and his gaze is serious as he looks at Louis. “I don’t think that’s, like, a good idea.”

“Why the fuck—”

“We used our real names, Lou.”

Louis lets out a long breath. They’ve spent years not letting anything of their illegal activities touch their actual identities; no hacking, no illegal goods, no anything. As far as the world knows, they’re more or less normal twenty somethings fucking around for a living. Sometimes they even get a job for a while under their real names, to make it more believable. It’s their final safety net, their last resort if everything else goes wrong, that they can disappear into themselves. So no, Zayn can’t just change records, not for this.

“Okay, then, Liam! Divorce us!”

“Do you really want to?” Liam chuckles, “I mean, think of the tax benefits!”

“Because we pay so many taxes,” Zayn retorts. He’s still typing. Maybe he’s fixing it, Louis doesn’t know. “Although. I don’t think we can be forced to testify against each other now?”

“Zayn!” Louis snaps. Is he the only one taking this seriously? Does no one else understand that in the eyes of the law and whatever sort of religion or something Liam registered, they’re married? Married. For real. As real as any of Louis’s mum’s marriages, at least. “It’s not funny!”

Zayn’s really shit at keeping a straight face, but to give him credit, he tries. “I know, Lou. We’ll figure it out.”

“Do we need to get you lawyers?” Liam asks. He’s even worse than Zayn at a straight face. Louis punches him in the arm, just because. “Ow! What was that for?”

“Laughing at us, when this is all your fault.”

“Think of it as revenge for all the times you got me into scrapes,” Liam retorts.

Louis scoffs. “Like when?” As he says it, he thinks better of it. “Fine. But I never got you married.”

“You nearly got me arrested!”

Louis waves a hand. That’s not really as big a deal as it should be. “Zayn got you out of all those tickets, it’s fine. No one knew.”

“I knew,” Liam mutters. “And it was still your fault.”

That’s harder to deny, because Louis did, in fact, forget that the car had been registered in Liam’s name. For nine months. “You married me and Zayn! Married!”

“This is why being a vicar’s a lifestyle,” Zayn mutters. He’s really, really not helping, but he’s also typing something, so he’s probably doing something important. “I told you you shouldn’t just buy it.”

“See? Zayn agrees with me.”

“Your husband would,” Liam giggles. “Has to, doesn’t he?”

“Really?” Louis doesn’t have much experience with marriage, given that his mum’s never really been married for more than a few years and his dad’s didn’t even last that long, but that does sound like a plus. Louis turns to Zayn. “Are you going to agree with me now?”

“Only when you’re—” Zayn’s brow furrows, and Louis’s about to ask why when he hears the buzzing of Zayn’s phone.

Louis doesn’t wait for him to answer it to start glaring. Zayn’s family doesn’t have that phone number, Louis and Liam are here; there’s only one person that would have Zayn actually answering the phone.

“Hey Shahid,” Zayn says, and Louis’s glare deepens as his hunch is correct. “What’s up?

“What’s up is we’re fucking married, and we should do something about it!”

Zayn ignores Louis, putting the computer aside and getting up to wander back to his bedroom. “No, it’s cool, I can talk. Or, like, I’m in London, I could stop by…”

“No you can’t,” Louis mutters, crossing his arms over his chest and slumping back down onto the couch as Zayn disappears behind a closed door.

“Still jealous?” Liam asks. He doesn’t sound nearly sympathetic enough.

Louis snorts. “I’m not jealous. Why would I be jealous?”

“You’re so jealous.” Liam pats him on the knee. Louis kicks, throwing him off. He doesn’t want Liam’s pity. “Don’t worry, he won’t steal your friend.”

“I know that,” Louis retorts. He does. Even if it’s nice to say it. “He’s just an asshole.”

“Seems to be a pattern, in Zayn’s friends.”

Louis narrows his eyes at Liam. “Are you calling yourself an asshole?”

“I’m the exception,” Liam informs him cheerfully. Louis really wants to hit him, but it’s always risky hitting Liam. Sometimes he lets you, but other times he remembers he’s actually a lot bigger than Louis, and does boxing things, and Louis’s too hungover and fucking married to deal with dodging him. “But see, there’s another plus side to marriage! Now Zayn’s legally bound to you.”

“I—don’t be stupid.” Louis knows Zayn’s his best friend and his partner, and he trusts him. Just because there’s something warm and fluttery in his belly at that thought, at him and Zayn formally together forever, that’s probably the alcohol. And it’s not like marriage really means forever anymore. Partners mean more than husband, these days. “I just don’t get why a thirty-five year old man calls himself Naughty Boy. It just shows how douchy he is.”

“He calls himself that because he chose that user name for the forums when he was sixteen, and you know that,” Zayn replies, coming back in. The phone’s gone, but he’s lit up, excited about something. Probably some stupid hacker thing Shahid told him about, that Louis won’t understand. Louis spreads out more over the couch, taking up all of it so that Zayn won’t have a place to sit.

Zayn doesn’t hesitate before plopping down on Louis stomach. Louis lets out an exaggerated breath, even though Zayn’s a skinny bastard and doesn’t really weigh much of anything.

“So, are you going to deal with getting us divorced now?” Louis demands. Their problem. The one Zayn should be thinking about, not whatever’s got his eyes lit up like that, his fingers twitching and his teeth digging into his lip.

“No, fuck that, we can deal with that later, Shahid just said—”

Louis shoves at Zayn’s side. “Excuse me, that’s pretty bloody—”

“Lou, he found the Emperor’s Sword.”

Louis freezes, midway through another shove. Zayn’s just grinning at him, his tongue tucked between his teeth and his eyes curved, and there’s no way he’d fake that. “You’re shitting me.”

“No! I mentioned it to him once, and we’ve both been keeping an eye out since, and he found it. It’s out there.” Zayn grabs his phone, opens it, and shoves the picture at Louis.

“You’re shitting me,” Louis repeats, staring. There it is, golden-jeweled sheath and all, sitting displayed in what looks like some party for rich people. “Zayn, we can—”

“I know! We don’t—”

“Have anything else coming up, no. We can be wherever. I can’t believe you fucking found it!”

There’s no way for Louis to express his joy other than to shove at Zayn again, and he just sways with it. “I know!” he repeats. “It’s in LA. I figure some preliminary planning here?”

“See how much we can throw at it,” Louis agrees. He turns to Liam, but it’s Zayn who asks,

“How much do you think you’ll be able to get for the necklace, if we need cash now?”

Liam’s just staring at them, his brow furrowed in confusion. “What?”

“The Emperor’s Sword,” Louis says. He throws the phone to Liam. “We’ve got to go get it, need to know our resources.”

“It’s pretty,” Liam agrees. Louis can feel Zayn roll his eyes in how he shifts in his lap. “And it’ll be worth a pretty penny, obviously. But—weren’t you planning a vacation? And don’t you have to get divorced?”

“You can deal with that, right?” Louis tells him. This time, he pushes gently at Zayn, and Zayn gets up, then reaches behind him to tug Louis to his feet. “Get us some lawyers we can trust, we can pay them.” That makes more sense anyway. Despite his experience in seeing them happen, Louis wouldn’t be helpful in a divorce. And Zayn’s never seen a divorce, he won’t know what to do. It’s the sort of thing Liam’s good at. “We’ve got to go to California.”

“For a sword?” Liam asks, but he’s getting up too. He doesn’t want to know more about what they’re planning than he has to, and he’s known them long enough that he can tell when they’re on edge.

Zayn throws an arm around Louis’s shoulder, squeezes at him with an excitement Louis can feel in his own veins too. “It’s a bit of a special sword.”

“To us, at least,” Louis adds, nudging at Zayn’s hip with his own. “Okay, Liam’s on divorce duty. We’re on sword duty. Everyone, break!”

---

“There’s no reason we have to fly first class,” Zayn argues, as they take their seats at the terminal. It’s a midday flight, because neither of them are going to fly either red eyes or morning flights if they don’t absolutely have to, so the terminal’s fairly crowded, but not so much that Louis couldn’t dodge around an obnoxiously accented American woman and get them two seats next to a charger. Zayn gets cranky when his electronics die. “Coach is just easier.”

Louis rolls his eyes, kicking his feet into Zayn’s lap. Zayn pushes them away. “C’mon, sweetums. Don’t you want to fly in style for our honeymoon?” He flutters his eyelashes. A day’s sleep, and the discovery of a prize they’ve been looking for six years, help a lot to let him see the humor in things. And really, if there’s anyone he wouldn’t mind being married to for a little while, it’s Zayn. At least the divorce will be amiable. And no one will disappear. “Have some privacy for a few quick handies?”

Zayn snorts, and pulls out a laptop, though he doesn’t open it. “What, am I not worth the mile high club?”

“If you think you can properly appreciate an ass like this in a little place like that…”

Zayn smirks, his top lip curling in that way he has that gets all the birds and blokes he’d want. “Oh, I can be creative.”

Louis rolls his eyes, swats at his head. “Put it away, Malik. Save it for someone who appreciates it.”

That gets a laugh out of Zayn, and he sinks back into the chair, propping his computer against Louis’s feet. Louis looks around, but there’s nothing interesting happening, and there’s always so much security in airports, they’re never really worth the risk. Though there is a woman wearing a fairly gaudy emerald, but Louis’s pretty sure it’s as fake as her tits.

He’s just considering going to grab it, just to see if he can, when a couple settles down across from them. They’ve got the pinched face and haughty look Louis knows too well from marks, from all those assholes who don’t deserve what they have. Them, Louis thinks, them he can work with.

“If I have to hack into airport security one more time because of you...” Zayn’s hand wraps around his ankle, holds it tight.

Louis groans, throws his head back. “I’m bored, Zaynie. Amuse me.” Because he is bored, and the woman of the couple is looking at them now, her blue eyes cold and judgmental in a way he knows, he shakes off Zayn’s hand so he can stroke up Zayn’s leg with his toe. “Come on, baby. Amuse me.” The man leans over to whisper in the woman’s ear, and he might think he’s being quiet but Louis hears “those people” perfectly well.

He sits up, then turns around so he can replace Zayn’s computer in his lap with him. “It’s our honeymoon!” he says, loudly. “Don’t you want to pay attention to me?”

Zayn’s smirking. “Of course, honeybuns.” Louis makes a face. “Now that we’re married, we can get started on kids right away.” He wraps his arms around Louis, draws him to his chest, and Louis knows he’s caught on to the game. “I want a dozen, I think. Babies, definitely.”

“How else are we supposed to dress them in rainbows and glitter? Especially the boys,” Louis agrees. Zayn’s neck is right there, so kissing it seems like the right thing to do. Zayn’s skin is warm as always under his lips.

“And so I can raise them as a proper Muslim,” Zayn agrees. Louis doesn’t need to glance back to know they reacted to that, because Zayn’s lips quirk. “That’s the most important, for us to have our Muslim gay babies.”

“Oh lovemuffin!” Louis throws his arms around Zayn’s neck. It would probably overbalance people who aren’t Louis, so Zayn grabs at his hips to steady him. “I can’t wait. Us being married is the best thing ever!”

“They’re actually getting up,” Zayn mutters under his breath, ducking his head so his lips are brushing against Louis’s cheek. “Fuck them.”

“Honestly. Who are they to judge our love?” Louis agrees. He bounces once on Zayn’s lap, then gets up. Sure enough, the couple’s moved to a few rows over. Honestly, fuck them. He gives them six months, anyway, way the bird was looking at Zayn before this started. “That was fun. I’m gonna go to the bathroom.”

“Grab me—”

“Gum’s in the front pocket of my bag.”

Zayn rolls his eyes, but he slaps Louis’s bum companionably to send him on his way.

It’s pure coincidence, really, that Louis ends up leaving the bathroom at the same time the man from the couple goes in. It’s really pure coincidence—instinct, even, Louis might say, an instinct to relieve assholes of their toys—that Louis’s fingers reach out when they brush against each other, the man muttering something that doesn’t really sound like an apology as he passes.

When Louis gets back, Zayn’s just hanging up the phone, and he’s got that look on, the one that makes Louis scowl.

“What did Shahid have to say?”

Zayn rolls his eyes. “Just updating me on the sword, wishing me well. He says hi to you too.”

“No he doesn’t.” The one decent thing about Shahid is that he has the common courtesy to dislike Louis as much as Louis dislikes him. Unlike some of the girlfriends Zayn’s had in the past six years, who are often sweet and nice and really seem to find Louis amusing, which just made him feel bad for disliking them that much. At least Shahid doesn’t try to be friends.

“No, he didn’t. He told me I could make more staying here and helping him with his latest job,” Zayn agrees. Louis’s good mood is evaporating quickly, so before it’s gone completely, he sits down next to Zayn.

“Fuck that. The Emperor’s Sword, Zayn. We can get it at last.” It’s harder to reclasp things than to get them off, but it’s also lower risk right now. And he’s hidden from the cameras, he figures. Zayn can fix it, if not.

“Not getting away this time,” Zayn nods, his gaze fierce and hot, and fuck, but he’s dangerous sometimes. “I—Lou.” He twitches his wrist, where the watch that recently sat on the man’s wrist is now dangling. It’s a little too big, because Zayn’s all fine-boned and shit, but it only serves to accentuate that, the elegant wrist and long fingers.

“Huh. Where did that come from?” Louis smirks.

“You could keep it for yourself. I’ve got a watch,” Zayn suggests, but he twitches his wrist again, so it settles onto his skin, and he’s smiling.

“Nah, looks better on you. And anyway, can’t a man spoil his husband?” Louis demands. That’s what people who are in real marriages that last do, right? He thinks he’s seen Zayn’s dad spoiling his mum. “I’ll drape you in diamonds, honeybun!”

Zayn groans and elbows him. A few rows away, there’s a bit of a screech as the man notices his missing watch. “Don’t fucking call me that.”

“No?” Louis retorts, “Sweetie Pie? Darling man? Kissyface? Sweetums?”

“Whatever you want, sugarpuff,” Zayn shoots back, and Louis snorts. The watch looks good on his wrist, though he’s tugged it beneath his sleeve so no one notices yet. Zayn would look good draped in jewels and gold and silver, probably. Louis wouldn’t mind procuring some for him.

---

First class is quiet. Zayn falls asleep quickly, after a takeoff where he clutches Louis’s hand because he still hates flying with a passion, no matter how much Louis teases him, and first class makes that better but doesn’t fix everything. But once they’re up, he’s out as always, his head on Louis’s shoulder. Louis, who doesn’t have Zayn’s gift for falling asleep anywhere, stares out the window instead.

He hasn’t had a chance to think about it, not really. Their last day in London was last minute plans and getting things together in LA and explaining to his mum why he couldn’t go out to see her and the girls and her fourth husband, then trading phones with Zayn so they could explain that to each other’s mums. It’s only now, now where Louis’s trapped and can’t do anything but think and fiddle with Zayn’s fingers where they’re intertwined with his on Louis’s thigh, that it hits.

The Emperor’s Sword. The fucking Emperor’s Sword, after six years. That one thing, the one they’ve never gotten, the one they lost. Even if Louis’s not sure he’d call it losing, not really.

He glances down, to where his and Zayn’s fingers are wrapped together. Six years. Six years since he’d tried to steal the Emperor’s Sword, and had been thwarted by all the alarms going wonky, and only just gotten out of the museum with dogs literally barking at his heels. Six years since he’d tracked down the person who’d messed up his entrance, ready to scream at them or turn them over or beat them up or something, because that was bad fucking etiquette right there, only to find the most fucking attractive man on the planet there yelling back at him, that he’d messed up Zayn’s plans.

Louis blames Zayn’s eyes, really, for making him stop yelling, for accepting Zayn’s proposal that they work together to get it, because Zayn’s eyes can equal even Liam’s for getting people to do things sometimes. But it was probably his voice that made Louis pull out the vodka that had gotten them so drunk they’d missed their one-night window, and the sword had disappeared again from the museum into a private owner’s collection, someone so private not even Zayn could hunt him down without more risk than either of them thought safe. Louis’s never regretted that vodka, though. The way that one night of shooting the shit and drunken confidences had led to Zayn’s shy smile in the morning, the way he’d offhandedly, in a way Louis knows now wasn’t offhand at all but seemed so because of nerves, proposed they try for something else. Practice, Louis had agreed, for the sword. But that had lasted all of a week, before they were—them. Whatever they were.

Zayn’s ring is heavy on his finger, just like Louis knows if he looked down his own would be tucked under Zayn’s shirt on a chain. It doesn’t mean anything, obviously; just that they’ve forgotten to take them off, but that doesn’t matter. They’re them, and they always will be. Partners in crime. That’s what matters, not any marriage. Louis’s seen that plenty.

Louis drags his finger over the ring, to feel it under his thumb. It’s cool to the touch, like Zayn always is, running cold.

It’s fun. It’s a good joke, Louis’s come to see, them being married. Liam’ll get them divorced soon enough, and they’ll forget about it until Louis has to make his speech as Zayn’s best man, because then he’ll definitely bring it up. And Zayn’s wife better appreciate it, because Louis expects to spoil all of Zayn’s children horribly, be cool uncle Louis who maybe sticks around sometimes until the domesticity gets to be too much. That much he can do.

Zayn nuzzles into Louis’s shoulder, his hair tickling Louis’s skin. Louis wonders, idly, if when Zayn really gets married, his spouse will want them to stop doing this. If Zayn would stop, if his spouse asked them to.

Fuck this. Louis shakes his head. This is why he doesn’t like planes, because he is trapped, and he can’t move properly. He wants to move, to run, to climb something, and there’s only so many times he can pick Zayn’s pocket before Zayn gets annoyed.

“Zayn.” He squeezes Zayn’s hand. When that doesn’t work, he pushes at his shoulder. When that doesn’t work, he gives up and tickles at Zayn’s side until Zayn swats at Louis’s face with his free hand, his eyes still closed. “C’mon Zayn, wake up, amuse me.”

“Shu’p,” Zayn slurs, and bats at Louis again.

“This is abuse. This is spousal abuse,” Louis informs him, grabbing at his other hand. Half-asleep, Zayn’s easy to catch. It’s only when Louis’s got a hold of both his hands that Zayn lifts his head, blinking like an angry cat.

“This is spousal annoyance,” he retorts, and pulls, but Louis’s got too good a grip. “What do you want to do, play I Spy?”

“I dunno, I’m just bored. How many wallets do you think I could take before anyone noticed?”

Zayn hums, straightening as he glances around. “A lot, no one checks their wallets on the plane.” He twists, to get a better view. “There’s like, ten I can see from here that I could get.”

“Good thing we’re nice,” Louis tsks. He does want to move, and he wouldn’t mind playing the game, even if it’s a stupid thing to do on an airplane where they’d almost certainly get caught. He does. But he really doesn’t want to let go of Zayn’s hand, either, or to stop stroking the ring that’s still cold against his skin.

---

“Fuck.”

“I know.” Zayn glares at the screen of the computer like it’s personally affronted him. He’s always in a bad mood after travelling. “We knew this wasn’t going to be easy.”

“Yeah, but I thought we’d be able to look at it at least.” Louis stares at the aerial photos of the mansion—hell, the estate—the sword’s on. They’re the best pictures Zayn can get, and they’re from kilometers away. Louis’s never going to be able to see anything from here. “You can’t get anything more?”

“No.” Zayn taps a few things, and it zooms in, but the picture just gets grainier. “Fucking hell,” he spits. The motel they’re in is just a cheap throwaway room for them to camp out in while they set up an approach, so the bed creaks as he thumps back onto against the headboard.

“Who the hell has a wall around their house anymore?” Louis demands. “What does he think he is?”

“Really bloody rich,” Zayn grumbles. Adding failure on top of jet lag is doing nothing for his disposition; he’ll need to go do something nice and relaxing for a few hours soon, like hacking into a government database. But they do need to get this done, so Louis just sits down on the bed next to him, hooks his chin over Zayn’s shoulder to ground him.

“Are you sure you can’t get into his network?” Louis asks again. He might not be Zayn, or fucking Shahid, but he knows well enough that any place that big has its own wifi, and probably security cameras, and all of that that will give them proper recon. Zayn’s never not been able to get into places before. “It—”

“Yes I’m sure,” Zayn snaps back. Louis just wraps his arms around his waist. There is very little that cuddling can’t fix with Zayn, and a bad mood isn’t one of those things. “This is Ben bloody Winston, he basically invented network security. Half my code is based off of things he did. There’s no way I’m getting in, and even if I did—”

“Hah!” Louis snorts. He knew there was a possibility Zayn could do it.

“Even if I did, he’d notice.” Well, fuck. Louis stares at the classic LA extravagance of a beachside mansion. Somewhere in there, there’s the sword. Somewhere in there, some computer businessman person has the thing he wants most in the world. Of course, it’s some stupid businessman who’s apparently done some sort of sketchy things, according to Zayn, and he probably doesn’t even know or care what he has. That he has the thing that binds Zayn and Louis together, more than any stupid rings. Maybe, he could— “Unless—”

“Unless?” Louis perks up, and he can feel Zayn’s whole body engage, sitting up straighter so the bed creaks again.

“Unless—I could do it from inside the network, probably. Eventually. Maybe. Like, it’s one of the most sophisticated systems in the world, but I think, maybe…If I could get in—or not me, something that transmits to me—he might not see that. I could encrypt it, so unless he was looking…” Zayn trails off, but that just means he can do it, Louis knows.

“Sick!” Louis bites at Zayn’s neck as a reward. “So, how do we get something of yours inside? He’s a recluse, right? He’s not going to just let some random strangers in.”

“No, he’s made way too many enemies to do that,” Zayn agrees. “There’s a reason he’s got so much security.” He’s pulled up another screen, one that’s got pictures of the people coming and going from the estate. It’s mainly the help, or so Louis assumes, and a few people in dark suits who look more like criminals than Louis does on a daily basis (even if personally he thinks his favorite pair of jeans makes his ass look criminally good). But they’re the sort of people with a certain hang to their suits that covers guns. The sort who come in and out with goons. “Maybe, if we got something sent in?”

“Like, a delivery? They’d probably check that. I think we’d want something on a person.”

“Yeah, but it’d have to stay there, you can’t just plant a bug on one of the gardeners.” Zayn’s still flipping.

“So, we get one of them to give him a gift.” Louis hums, as the frames play out. Somehow, he’s fiddling with the ring at Zayn’s chest. Zayn either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care, though, so he keeps at it. “What about—wait, go back.”

Zayn pauses, goes back a few frames. There’s a man coming out, his head tipped back in a laugh as he faces the camera. He’s got sunglasses on, and a ridiculously wide-brimmed hat shading his eyes, but the dimples are as clear in his cheeks as the ink on his chest is from under the open—very open—collar of his shirt.

“Yes, he’s good looking,” Zayn agrees. “But you’re a married man, thank you very much.”

“Don’t worry baby, you’re still the best looking husband I have,” Louis retorts, rolling his eyes. Though the man is good looking, his thighs thick in tight jeans, his features surprisingly delicate. “No, who is he?”

“Um. Dunno.” With a few more clicks, he has facial recognition software going. “Doesn’t look like one of Winston’s usual associates, though.”

Louis hums his agreement. “We might be able to do something with him. Sell him something?”

“Too risky. He needs to be able to convince Winston to keep it, or get him something else if the first one doesn’t work. I think we’d have to—”

“No.”

Zayn’s grinning, his stupid shit eating grin when he’s so pleased, because he probably is, the wanker. “We’ll have to run a con.”

“Fucking hell,” Louis swears, and twists to tackle Zayn onto the bed, because that’s the only way to properly express his annoyance with the prospect. Zayn tries to resist, but he’s too concerned with making sure the laptop doesn’t fall off the bed, so it’s fairly easy for Louis to get him pinned, straddling his waist with his hands pinned. Zayn’s eyes glint up at him, his tongue pressed between his teeth as he grins.

“You wanted some sun,” Zayn points out, and Louis swears again, then bounces on Zayn’s stomach, just to hear him swear. Zayn just keeps grinning, his lips very pink against his scruff, and Louis groans and drops down onto his stomach, digging his chin into Zayn’s chest as punishment.

“I hate you.”

“That why you married me?” Zayn shoots back. He’s still laughing, that wanker, because he has the easy job.

“That was Liam’s fault. I’d rather be married to anyone else.”

“Uh-huh.” Zayn doesn’t look convinced. He’s always been freakishly hard to lie to. “Same to you.”

“Nah, you love me.”

“Don’t.”

“Do too.”

“Not at all.”

“Do too,” Louis insists, and tugs at the chain, just to watch Zayn wince and choke. The marriage might be a sham, or an accident, and better off done before it fucks things up—but that much he knows.

---

“I hate him.” Louis crosses his arms over his chest, shivering. It’s fucking LA, it shouldn’t be cold. Of course, it shouldn’t be six in the fucking morning, either. “Who the hell goes running?”

“Harry Styles, apparently.” Zayn hums, over the comms. He doesn’t sound very happy either, but he’s probably still in his bed, or at the very least, in the kitchen of the bungalow they’d rented, looking soft and sleepy in his sweatpants. And tea. He probably has tea. While Louis has the beach at six AM. “Smile! We’re making contact.”

“Since when are you so chipper?” Louis spits. Harry Styles better make an entrance soon, or screw everything, he’s going back and making Zayn do this.

“Well, I’m pretty comfortable,” Zayn says, and Louis can hear the laugh in his voice. “And my tea is warm.”

“Why can’t you be out here?” Louis moans. He starts to stretch idly, for verisimilitude if nothing else. Though if he’s going to have to run, he probably should stretch. “And I can stay on comms, for once.”

“Because I need to give you lines,” Zayn retorts. Louis can hear him take a sip of something, and sigh. God, Louis wants tea. Wants to be back there, stealing the tea from Zayn, because it makes it a lot better when he steals it from someone else. “And because I’d make a mess of it.”

“He’d take one look at your face and forget words existed,” Louis mutters. At the edge of the beach, the door to Styles’s bungalow is opening, and a broad-shouldered figure in running shorts and a t-shirt is emerging. “Okay, I’ve got eyes on him.”

“We’re not going the seduction route, we can’t be sure that’ll work.” They’d gotten a bunch of info on Styles, but seduction’s always a bit of a last resort. They aren’t professional grifters, this isn’t their game.

“I think you underestimate your cheekbones.” Louis yawns, rolls out his neck, then starts to jog. The sand gives beneath his feet. He’d forgotten how much he hates running. He will climb a dozen roofs, but a run on the beach is the worst sort of torture. It’s all…cold and wet and sweaty and pointless. Well, maybe not the worst sort of torture—actual torture is probably worse—but short of that. “I’m going.”

“I think you underestimate how much you can talk,” Zayn shoots back. “Luck.”

Louis doesn’t reply, because he’s about to draw abreast to the place where Styles is coming down to the beach. He waves a hand to wave, because he is so very friendly, and Styles waves back.

He’s just as good looking up close, his eyes a bright green, his smile wide and inviting, with full lips that look like an invitation for dirty thoughts. “Hi!”

“Hi,” Louis replies. Styles’s voice is deep, a contrast to his broad smile. He’s got a midlands accent, which Louis expected from the quick background check Zayn had done, but it’s still nice to hear in LA. Louis falls into step easily with him. Styles doesn’t seem to register that most people don’t run together, if they’re strangers.

“Good opening, irresistible,” Zayn comments. Louis really doesn’t need commentary from the peanut gallery, but unfortunately, that’s Zayn’s job, more or less.

“Are you the new neighbors?” Styles asks, as they run. Louis’s not breathing fast, exactly. He’s totally capable of keeping up with some civilian. Styles just has longer legs than him. “I live right up there, me ‘n my—and Niall,” he corrects himself, with a sheepish smile.

“Yeah, seduction wouldn’t work,” Zayn confirms. There’s clicking in Louis’s ear, and Louis knows he’s looking up any Nialls associated with Styles.

“Just moved in,” Louis confirms, regulating his breathing. It’s like being in an air vent. Just the same. Except insane.

“That explains why I haven’t seen you before,” Styles confirms. “Running, I mean. I’m out here every morning.”

“Well, I’m trying to turn over a new leaf,” Louis tries. Fucking hell. If he has to do this every morning so Styles doesn’t suspect him, he is going to kill someone. Probably Zayn. Is the punishment worse for killing your husband as for killing your best friend? “You know, new move, new self.”

“Oh, I’m all about recreating myself,” Styles agrees, nodding enthusiastically. As he runs. Who even is he? Not even Liam’s this bad. “And running’s so good for you.”

“If you’re insane,” Louis mutters.

“Hey,” Styles objects, and fuck, he’s heard.

“Great job, really. Way to flatter the mark,” Zayn tells him, but fuck him. Louis’s not a grifter. “Try—”

“Not sure it’s for me,” Louis says, trying for sheepish admittance, and probably ending up more as defensive.

“Establishing commonalities, really well done.”

Louis grits his teeth. But Styles just grins. “Yeah, Niall refuses too, says I’m insane.”

“Niall sounds sensible.”

“He is!” Styles nearly falls as he takes his next steps. “But he’s got this metabolism, not all of us have it. I don’t know what will happen to him when that stops.” He shakes his head mournfully.

“They’re quite cute, actually,” Zayn mentions in his ear, “Look like roommates, but, like, not for long if Styles has anything to say about it. I don’t think Niall—Niall Horan—would mind. You should see this footage, ‘s adorable.”

“Maybe he’ll take it up then,” Louis suggests. How long does Styles run? Why didn’t he ask Zayn that before he agreed to this stupid plan? “Or you can convince him to. Bet you’re proper convincing when you want to be.”

Styles chuckles. He isn’t even winded, god damn it. “Maaaaybe,” he admits.

They run in silence for a little while, as Louis tries not to die and also how to establish another point of commonality. Zayn’s no help, just cooing over pictures of Niall and Harry because he’s a sap and loves a good romance. Louis will, of course, have to look at the pictures when he gets back, because they sound adorable, but now is not the time. Zayn shouldn’t be paying attention to other people’s romances right now.

Finally, Louis comes up with, “I’m Luke,” he says, holding out a hand. It gives him an excuse to stop them, too, and he doesn’t need his breath back but it would be nice to have a break. “Luke Thatcher.”

“Harry Styles.” Styles takes his hand, gives it a firm shake. His hands are big but smooth, none of the callouses on his palm Louis’s gotten from climbing walls, or the slight hardness on Zayn’s fingers from his typing. “I really am glad you moved in.”

“This neighborhood not good?”

“Well, not now that we’re here,” Zayn puts in.

“No, ‘s just, like, old? There aren’t many younger people around. Not many that can afford it. And they’re all so American, you know? Niall and I’ve felt kind of isolated, you know? Makes for bad vibes.”

“Vibes, sure.” Zayn’s laughing in his ear, the asshole. “Well, now we’re here! You can come hang out with us. We’ll make you proper tea.”

“We have good vibes,” Zayn agrees, giggling. Louis can picture him exactly, probably still in bed with his shoulders curved and his nose wrinkled up. Louis doesn’t even have to be there to want to throw some water on him. “Good vibrations…”

“You and—Niall, was it?” Louis goes on. “Your…boyfriend?”

“No.” Styles’s eyes dim a little, and he looks down. “He’s my roommate. But like, friend too. Friend first, really. He’s great, you’ll love him. Everyone loves him.”

“Maybe I won’t then, I like to break the mold,” Louis has to say. He’s not a grifter, he’s not good at lying. And he doesn’t like people, generally. There’s a reason he’s a thief and not some job that makes him have to talk to people. Usually.

“No, you’ll like him. After all, you like me.”

“Do I?” Louis retorts, and Styles grins, his dimples deep in his cheeks, slow and knowing like he’s aware of just what Louis had thought offhand about his lips when he first saw him. He probably does. People who look like him tend to know, like Zayn and the way he can quirk his limps into a satisfied smirk when he knows people are looking.

“Yeah, you do.”

“Dunno. Seem pretty boring, to me. And you run, that’s definitely a down marker.”

“I’m not boring!” Louis picks up his pace, and Styles matches it. Good. That’s a hook, right there.

“It’s okay, most people are boring,” Louis informs him. His legs are aching, not at all used to being used like this. He’s not made for a long distance run, he’s made for a sprint to get away.

“I’m not. And Niall isn’t. And you can’t think that, you’ve got—who do you live with?”

“Your breath’s coming fast, you tired, babe?” Zayn coos, as Harry says that, because he’s the worst human being ever. Never boring, Louis will give him that, but the worst. “Maybe if you collapse, he’ll feel sorry for you.”

“My—” My best friend, Louis knows. That’s the answer. That’s what they say. Best friend. But Zayn’s ring’s still on his finger, and Zayn’s being an asshole, and fucking commonalities and all, so, “My husband,” Louis tells Styles. Zayn goes quiet, fast. “We’re newlyweds, that’s why I’m failing at turning over a new leaf.” Louis holds up his hand, so Harry can see the ring. “He’s not boring, it’s true.”

“Oh!” Harry claps his hands. “That’s so sweet!”

“Louis, the—”

“It is, isn’t it?” Louis goes on, cutting Zayn off. True, they hadn’t meant to bring Zayn in on the grift, but it’ll work. They can be couple friends. And it’ll serve Zayn right, for staying in bed tonight. “He’s the sweetest. My honeybear.”

“I will kill you,” Zayn hisses, typing quickly. Probably to add this to their false backgrounds. “And you are not fucking calling me honey bear.”

“The sweetest,” Louis repeats, loudly. “I just want to stay in shape for him, you know? Don’t want the romance to fail.”

“I’ll show you romance.”

“That’s adorable.” Styles looks about thirty seconds away from hugging him, which Louis’s not okay with, but it’s more fun to mess with Zayn. “What’s his name?

“Zack.” Louis says, at the same time as Zayn. Louis’s not a fucking amateur, he knows how this works. They’re almost back at Harry’s house, he needs to lock this down. “I know he’d love to meet you—”

“Oh yeah, it’d be a joy—”

“We’ll come over tonight, yeah. I can see if you’re boring then.”

Harry blinks, but as with most people, he doesn’t question a firm enough statement. “Um, yeah, I could pull something together?”

“No pork, Zack doesn’t eat it.” Thank fucking god, they’re coming to a slow stop in front of Harry’s house. “So I’ll see you tonight? Good!”

Louis takes off before Harry can say no, jogging next door. Zayn’s swearing in his ear, but Louis can’t help but laugh. Styles is hooked, and Louis can almost taste the sword, and Zayn can just suck it, he’ll deal with grifting too.

---

“You’re the worst.”

“Come on, Zee. Getting out of your cave is good for you.”

“It’s not a cave, it’s very sunny.”

“It’s a sunny cave.” Louis slings his arm over Zayn, hooks his chin over his shoulder. “You’ll be fine.”

“I didn’t want to do this.”

“No, you just made me do it. Ring the bell.”

“You ring the bell,” Zayn mutters. He still clearly hasn’t forgiven Louis for getting him into this, but he will. If Zayn was really mad, Louis would know, because when they get mad they tend to blow up and then they don’t speak to each other for days, sometimes, until there’s too good a score for one of them not to swallow their pride. As long as they’re talking, Louis knows, it’s fine.

“Fine.” Louis pinches at Zayn’s nipple, because his hand’s right there and why not, and laughs as Zayn swats his hand away, then rings the bell.

It chimes cheerfully, and pretty soon Styles—Harry, probably—pulls the door open. “Luke!” he grins, and steps back to let them in. “Glad you could come.”

“You still have things to prove to me, Styles,” Louis informs him. He nudges at Zayn’s feet to push him in. He can feel Zayn’s sigh, but he doesn’t think anyone else does, and that’s just because it comes as he’s letting go of Zayn to pull him in. “This is Zack, my better half. Zack, Harry.”

“Hey.” Zayn nods, his eyes darting up and down Harry, and Louis knows his thought process. He’s prettier in person, Louis can see the thought behind Zayn’s eyes; he had the same one. And he’s used to the way Harry looks at Zayn, the sudden spark of interest, of heat. Zayn had purposefully dressed to look vulnerable, soft, with his hair shaggy around his face and his stubble deliberately shaped, his button down shirt open over his t-shirt. It does make him look safe, like your usual California computer nerd, but nothing can make Zayn look less memorable. And Harry seems to have noticed, his gaze catching on the tattoos at Zayn’s collarbone.

“Harry,” Harry says, holding out his hand. Zayn takes it, his eyebrows going up just a bit. “Nice to meet you.”

“You too.” Louis knows that note in Zayn’s voice, the one he gets when he’s interested, and he knows the look in Zayn’s eyes, like he likes what he sees. Louis runs his finger over the ring on his finger, feeling the cool silver there.

“So, do we get to meet Niall?” Louis demands. Harry drops Zayn’s hand, and Louis reaches out to grab it, intertwining their fingers. Zayn just squeezes back, like he isn’t the one acting like he’s going to mess up the grift because he’s attracted to bloody Harry Styles.

“Yeah!” Harry nods, then turns around to yell upstairs that “Niall! Luke and Zack are here!” before leading them through the house to a veranda in the back, overlooking the ocean. It’s a big house, bigger than theirs, and nice and airy in design, at least. There are a lot of weird candles and paintings and Louis’s not sure he managed to stop rolling his eyes the entire walk through. Zayn squeezes his hand again, and when Louis glances over, he can see Zayn’s lips twitching, so he knows he agrees.

“So, Luke said you two just got married?” Harry asks, gesturing them onto the loveseat before he sits in some weird hanging hammock thing. It looks a little precarious as he gets settled, and Louis waits in anticipation for him to fall, but he doesn’t, which is a little bit of a shame.

“Yeah,” Zayn confirms. He’s fiddling with his rings, pressing his lips together. He’s always hated grifting. Or going into the field at all, even though this is barely the field. “Still getting used to it.”

“It was a whirlwind,” Louis jumps in. The loveseat’s really too small for both of them, so Louis’s more than a little on Zayn’s lap, which is probably more comfortable anyway. Zayn snorts. “But when you know, you know.” That’s the sort of shit his mum said, for the months when marriage number three was good.

“So how long have you known each other, then?” Harry asks, leaning forward. Louis could really just nudge him a little bit and he’d fall out. Zayn pinches at his leg, though, and yeah, he’s right. He shouldn’t. He’s supposed to be nice. It’s just really not natural for him. “Did you just meet, too?”

“Nah, we’ve known each other for ages, haven’t we, Zee?”

“Ages,” Zayn nods.

Harry hums. He’s still looking at Zayn, in that way people look at him, and Zayn’s smiling, and really? He’s supposed to be married. He is married, actually, and Louis knows both of those aren’t real but Zayn should respect the institution. One day Zayn will be in a proper marriage and he shouldn’t treat it this way. Louis reaches behind him to pinch at Zayn’s leg, hard. Zayn jolts, but other than the way he squeezes at Louis’s hip, doesn’t react.

“So how’d you—Niall!” He grins, as someone else comes onto the porch, and okay, fine, there’s a difference in that and how he’d looked at Zayn. They’re probably okay.

The bloke coming on to the porch looks as different from Harry, in his tight jeans and open flowery shirt and jaunty hat, as possible. He’s in gym shorts and a vest, his bottle blonde hair a little mussed, and he scratches at his stomach as he yawns.

“Haz? Why do we have two very attractive men on our porch?”

“Niall,” Harry replies in a voice that manages to both be a whine and also amused. “I told you new friends were coming over.”

“Oh, right, the newlyweds.” Niall yawns again, then shakes his head, and smiles. “Hey! Welcome to Haz’s humble abode.”

“To our abode,” Harry corrects firmly.

“He says that, but I’m just bumming off of him, ‘til I find a place,” Niall tells them. He takes his seat on the armchair next to Harry.

“You’re not bumming,” Harry insists, swinging a little bit so he can poke at Niall’s leg. Niall just laughs.

“Anyway, ‘m Niall. Luke and Zack, right?”

“Luke,” Louis nods, and Zayn adds,

“Zack.”

“They were just telling me how they’d known each other for ages and then ended up married,” Harry puts in, a little pointedly. Zayn huffs out an amused breath, because Harry’s not being subtle. But that just makes Louis want to call him on it.

“Thank you, Harold, maybe we don’t want to talk about ourselves,” Louis tells him, then shifts so he’s facing Niall. “So, Niall, tell us about yourself.”

Niall bursts out laughing, and even Harry lets out a chuckle. Louis can feel Zayn’s chuckle, even as he tells Harry,

“Luke never gets tired of talking about himself, don’t worry. It’s his favorite subject.”

“No, that’s you. Honeybuns,” Louis corrects, smirking as Zayn grimaces. “I’m my second favorite.”

“Thought we were the same now,” Zayn points out, smiling up at Louis, the smile he gets when it’s a joke just between them, one corner of his lip tilted up. Louis’s smile, just for him. “One flesh, ‘n all.”

Louis swallows, but there’s no reason for that, for the thump of his heart. It’s just Zayn. It’s not like they haven’t always been like this, and Zayn’s always been a part of Louis, for ages. “We never said that,” Louis retorts. His throat’s a little hoarse, so he clears it before going on. “Don’t think that was in our vows. I am my own flesh, thank you.”

“Not what you said last night,” Zayn shoots back, and Harry giggles.

“You like my flesh plenty,” Louis retorts, shifting so his ass is sort of grinding on Zayn’s lap. Zayn laughs, and Harry and Niall are both laughing too. “And it’s not like you have any to spare.”

“I—”

“Anyway,” Louis cuts Zayn off, because he doesn’t really feel like discussing Zayn’s ass, or lack thereof, with these people. “You were telling us about you, Niall. Go. Who are you? Why aren’t you in Ireland like you’re supposed to be?”

It’s actually not an unpleasant dinner, all things considered. Niall and Harry are pretty cool, even if Harry’s kind of weird, and Harry knows how to cook, at least. They hear about Niall’s job sound mixing for some of the LA studios, and Harry talks a lot about meeting people and feeling their auras and friends that Louis thinks adds up to the professional sugar baby that he is. Or not sugar baby, Louis admits, because Zayn was right, about how Harry looks at Niall, how he laughs at his jokes, wide and open. How he beams whenever he gets Niall to laugh, even though from what Louis can see, it’s not like it’s hard. But maybe he’s a professional sugar baby without the sex, or something, because his shirt alone is worth more than someone his age should be able to make.

They don’t ask too many questions, either, just enough that Zayn explains about the fictitious tech start up he made then sold, and Louis about how he’s fucking around on Zayn’s money, trying to find a school to teach at.

“We’re taking a break from it all for a while,” Zayn explains after dinner, back on the veranda. Zayn’s loosened up a little with the wine, even though he was careful not to drink too much. But he’s relaxed certainly, leaning Louis’s shoulder as they sit on a slightly bigger couch, Niall and Harry having taken the loveseat after Niall sat there first. “Concentrating on our marriage, and all.”

“Yeah,” Harry agrees. He darts a look at Niall, then rests his own head on Niall’s shoulder. “So, how did you guys get together? If you were such good friends first?”

“Just kinda happened, yeah?” Zayn starts. “Like, woke up one day, realized we were married.”

Louis doesn’t think he does well hiding his laughter. “Or that we wanted to,” he corrects, though. “Just, saw each other with different eyes one day. I mean, I’d always known this one was too pretty for his own good—”

“Speak for yourself,” Zayn murmurs. He really should speak up, Louis doesn’t think Niall and Harry heard.

“But then, just, realized he was pretty and I wanted to mess him up, too,” Louis shrugs. “Not a big story, really.”

“I like it,” Zayn murmurs again. His head’s still on Louis’s shoulder, so Louis can’t see him properly, just his dark hair, but they probably do look properly married, Louis fiddling with Zayn’s fingers on his thigh, Zayn pressed against him. It’s how Zayn’s parents look sometimes, so it’s probably right.

“It’s sweet,” Harry insists, though he looks disappointed.

“Proper sappy,” Niall agrees. “Good thing you didn’t mess up your friendship, though.”

Zayn shakes his head. “Couldn’t,” he murmurs again.

“Hm?”

Louis elbows Zayn. “Zack.”

“Nothing could,” Zayn repeats, speaking up. “Like, a proper friendship—it could survive, yeah? Even if something messed us up.”

“He’s really the sap in this marriage,” Louis informs them, laughing.

But it echoes in his head. The ‘it could survive’ and the ‘want to mess him up’. The ‘married’. It sticks with him as they bid Niall and Harry goodbye, as Harry insists he’ll see him tomorrow morning for their run and Louis laughs in his face because they’ve made contact so fuck that, as they all laugh at Harry’s pout. As they set up another date for tomorrow.

“Oh, shit, no, I can’t do tomorrow,” Harry says. “I forgot, I’m going to a thing at Ben’s.”

“Ben’s?” Louis asks. Zayn might not seem to change from his sleepy lean on Louis, but Louis knows all of his attention is piqued.

“He’s a friend, lives down the beach a ways. Ben Winston,” Harry clarifies.

“Fuck, you know Ben Winston? He’s a legend, man.” Zayn straightens. “I’m a huge fan.”

“Really? I’ll tell him, he’ll be thrilled!” Harry dimples enthusiastically. “His work’s a bit over my head, but I know he loves to hear people admire it.”

“Over my head too,” Louis admits. “Computer people, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Harry nods mournfully. “Sometimes I don’t understand every other word out of his mouth.”

Louis lets out a sympathetic sigh. He knows that feeling. Very, very well. But then, “Maybe—do you think you could get Zee in to meet him?” he suggests, “You’d love that, babe, wouldn’t you?”

“Could you?” Zayn turns that look on Harry, the one where his eyes look twice as big as his face and his lips purse and he looks like some sort of baby animal Louis just wants to hug and give whatever he wants, drape him in all the gold and silver and jewels in the world if it would keep him safe, even though he knows that’s stupid and Zayn can take care of himself perfectly well.

It works on Harry too, Louis can see him chewing on the gum he’d unwrapped after dinner. “I…he doesn’t like new people, you know? He’s a loner.”

“There’s nothing you could do?” Louis demands. “Really?”

Harry keeps chomping on that gum, his brow furrowed in thought. “I mean, maybe, if you gave me your card, I could give it to him? Maybe he’d call you?”

The face breaks into a grin, and Louis lets his own glare fall. He manages to keep in his smile, anyway, the one that makes him want to cheer and run. “That would be awesome, yeah, Zee?”

“Brilliant,” Zayn agrees, and his grin is blinding. “I, um, I don’t have one on me now, but I could give you something tomorrow?”

“Great!” Harry agrees, and they leave with many protestations of future friendship.

Louis keeps a hold of Zayn’s hand as they walk down the beach to their own bungalow, as they get inside. It’s only once the door’s closed safely behind them that he lets out a whoop.

“Fuck yes!” He lets Zayn pull him roughly into a hug, then lets go, dancing around the room. They’re in, they got this. “We—you have something, right?”

“Of course I have something,” Zayn retorts. He’s grinning too, laughter in his voice, his eyes alight, and his fingers are twitching like he wants to get to work right now. Instead, he reaches out, and they’re running over Louis’s arm instead, one two three four five one two three four five. “I just have to rig it up.”

One two three four five, and Zayn’s smile is close enough that Louis can see the freckle in his eye, his stupidly neat hair despite the drink he had had, and all Louis can think about is ‘mess him up.’

He blinks, then tugs away from Zayn to go grab two beers to celebrate. “A toast!” he declares, handing the other one to Zayn. He doesn’t notice if their fingers brush.

“To us being fucking brilliant.” Zayn clinks his bottle against Louis’s, then drinks. His cheekbones really shouldn’t be allowed, not when his cheeks are hollowed out under them. And Louis shouldn’t be noticing any of that anyway, so he drinks instead, making sure to suck over-dramatically, because he can. And at least Zayn notices that too, even if he rolls his eyes.

“Okay, I’ve got to go make a business card with a transmitter in it,” he says, rolling out his neck. “I hope you enjoy getting some sleep tonight.”

“Whine to me when you had to go for a run at ass o’clock.”

“I was up too!” Zayn protests. “Just, you know. Not being active.”

Louis flicks him off, and Zayn does it back as he heads towards his room, his head already tilting like he’s getting lost in ideas of how he’s about to make whatever it is he’s plotting.

Fuck that. Louis takes a running leap, ends up on Zayn’s back. Zayn stumbles but catches him.

“Go to work, honey bunny,” Louis tells him, biting at his ear as Zayn snorts and lets go so Louis has to hold on just with his legs. That would work better with someone who wasn’t used to clinging to things like this, so Louis stays comfortably where he is. “Should I have dinner in the oven when you come out?”

“You should have coffee ready to pour down my throat,” Zayn retorts, and back up until Louis has to let go or get pressed into a wall. Zayn hasn’t had all those muscles on his back that are pressed against Louis’s chest always, has he? Louis certainly doesn’t know, then or now. “Or an IV.”

“Anything for my darling husband,” Louis agrees, and falls back to the floor. “Flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood.”

“That’s really fucking creepy out of context!” Zayn calls from the other room. “My sun and stars!”

“You better believe it,” Louis shouts back, and goes to get some sleep.

---

Louis hands Harry the card Zayn had made for Zack Mansor (“Not taking my last name, I see.” “You didn’t take mine.” “Why should I have taken yours?” “I’ve got a family name to uphold, you’ve got an older brother.” “No I—” “Luke does.” “Fuck you too, fine.”), then it appears to be a waiting game, the two of them sprawled on the couch to watch Family Guy reruns with Zayn’s computer open the background, searching. That devolves into Louis trying to throw bits of popcorn into Zayn’s hair because he’s bored and it’s taking too long, which devolves into Zayn sitting on Louis because it’s the only way to keep him from throwing popcorn at him. It’s not the worst way that could end up, sometimes Zayn gets annoyed enough to storm off to go do computer things or help Shahid with something, so really it’s a good way to pass the time until finally, finally, there’s a ding and Zayn lunges off of Louis to get to his computer.

Louis follows right on his heels, so he by the time he gets to the counter Zayn’s fingers are already flying over the keyboard, his lip caught between his teeth as he thinks. “We’re in?”

Zayn hums. “We will be in. Hopefully. Maybe. Fuck, this is more complicated than I could have thought. It’s—I’ve never seen anything like this. I don’t know—”

“But you’ll do it,” Louis says. He doesn’t let it be a question. Zayn’s the best hacker he knows, and more than that, he’s Zayn. He’ll do it.

“I…” Zayn shakes his head, distracted. “Fuck, I need to call Shahid, he can…” He grabs his phone, dislodging Louis.

Louis really, really tries not to scowl at the phone. They should do this on their own. They don’t need fucking Shahid to help. “He won’t help. He doesn’t think you should be doing this.”

Zayn doesn’t even roll his eyes, because he’s too into the code, or whatever. “He’ll help, because he’s my friend. Go call Liam or something, Lou. This is going to be boring.”

“I’ll stay.”

“Louis.” Zayn turns around from the computer, which means it’s a Big Deal, but he’s got an amused smile on. “Go play. You’ll just get bored and distracting, and this’ll take days.”

“I see how it is.” Louis retorts. He knows that, he does, he just hates this part. This place Zayn goes where he can’t follow, where only fucking Shahid can follow. He rubs at the ring on his finger again, the gives the chain around Zayn’s neck a quick yank so it digs into his skin. Zayn yelps and slaps back at Louis, but he dances away, and leaves Zayn to it.

Somehow, Louis finds himself out on the beach. He’s not running, because he’s not insane, but he doesn’t want to be inside, and he doesn’t want to go anywhere in case Zayn gets in early. But he can’t sit there and watch TV while Zayn talks about things he doesn’t understand, and he doesn’t feel like being on a computer. He needs to do something, bug someone, but Zayn’s working and none of his mates are picking up their phones, probably because it’s late in England. At least on the beach, he can wander, skip stones across the ocean.

He hears the footsteps before Harry says anything, so he doesn’t jump at the, “Hey!” that comes from behind him.

Louis sends another stone skipping across the water, one two three four bounces, before he turns. “Styles.”

“Harry, please.” Harry jogs up to meet him. He’s in another variation of his flowing shirt and jeans, his hair pulled up into a bun, and he’s grinning at Louis like he’s pleased to see him. They’ve only met twice, Louis isn’t so sure why he’s so pleased, but it means the con worked, he guesses. “Where’s Zack?”

Louis jerks his head at the house. “Working.” And why should Harry be so interested, anyway? He has someone he’s interested in. Louis makes a face. “I’m a work widow already.”

It gets Harry to laugh. “Niall’s out too. Not that it’s the same, but…”

“Working men.” Louis tsks. “So boring to have around.”

“Then why’d you marry him?” It doesn’t seem accusatory, just curious, in the way a little kid would be. It’s a normal question, Louis reminds himself, one a normal person would ask Luke Thatcher, about why he married someone married to his work. He can’t know that Louis’s just as married to the work, that Louis and Zayn are the work. That work marriages are the ones that work best, for Tomlinsons.

“He has other uses,” Louis replies, waggling his eyebrows.

Harry’s smile turns knowing, dirty. He’s probably a menace when he wants something. “He does look like he would.”

“That’s my husband you’re thinking about.” It’s supposed to be a joke, but it comes out sharp. Sharper than it should. Louis hasn’t thought about those uses, he shouldn’t have that knee jerk reaction, but it’s there, the flash of rage that always gets him, that makes him do stupid things.

Harry just raises his hands though, takes s step back. “Sorry! I’m not really, like, obviously you’re married, I wouldn’t. You’re both just hot, ‘s hard not to think about.”

“Well, try.” Louis glares at the sand, then grabs a rock and flicks it into the ocean. It skips five times before it falls.

“Wow, that’s impressive,” Harry breathed. “Can you teach me how?”

Louis looks back up at the house, but of course Zayn’s still in there, probably talking with Shahid about things Louis doesn’t get, can’t get. Shahid’s probably there sighing about how he’ll help Zayn this time but really Zayn should come work with him because he could be fulfilling his potential so much more or some such shit, because that’s what he does. Zayn won’t go, and Louis knows it, but he doesn’t want to hear it, and he needs the distraction.

“Yeah, sure. So, it’s all in the wrist…”

Half an hour later, they’ve mostly given it up for a bad job, because Harry’s hopeless and Louis’s too busy laughing at him to properly help him. He just looks so funny when he’s thwarted, like some sort of pouty frog, and he’s a good lad, doesn’t take offense when Louis laughs.

“Haz?” a voice calls from up the beach. From the way Harry perks up, and the accent, Louis’s pretty sure it’s Niall, but the deepening dusk means Louis can’t quite see, even with his practiced night vision. “You down there?”

“Yeah!” Harry calls back. “Want to come up?” he asks Louis, quieter. “If Zack’s still working, you could hang out with us a bit. Or he could come over too.”

Zayn would have called, the second he was in. Or texted, or something. So, “Sure. If you don’t want some alone time with Niall, that is.”

It’s hard to tell, but it looks like Harry’s cheeks turn pink. “No! I mean, we’re cool, it’s cool. I know he liked you.”

“Of course he liked me, everyone likes me,” Louis informs Harry, who nods because it’s true for a while at least, and lets him lead the way up the beach. They may not need these two for the job anymore, but maybe they’ll get intel or something, or Winston could ditch the card whenever and they’ll need to get something else in.

And anyway, Louis likes them, he finds. Niall’s a laugh and a half, and laughs at all of Louis’s jokes, which always makes Louis like people more, and Harry’s cool too, once you get over how slowly he talks and how he rambles a bit. They sit together on the loveseat again, just an inch too close, and even though it’s not cold out Louis shivers a little, alone on the couch. They’re sweet, though, even though Louis isn’t the sap Zayn is, bickering even as Harry beams at Niall like he’s amazing and Niall grins helplessly back. They’re the sort of people forever relationships could work for.

“So,” Louis asks, kicking his feet up on the chair. He’s drunker than maybe he should be, but he’s fine, and Zayn still hasn’t called. “What’s up with Winston then, Harry? He a good friend?” he leers, to see what they’ll do.

They both stiffen a little, and Niall edges the tiniest bit away. Interesting. But Harry’s smile is wide and careless. “He’s a friend.”

“How’d you meet, though? Doesn’t seem like you’d run in the same circles.”

“Harry’s got a genius for meeting people,” Niall explains. Harry shrugs.

“Like you don’t? Niall knows everyone,” he tells Louis, proudly. “And it’s just, like, going to parties, talking to people. It’s not hard. Like, Ben’s got a party in a few weeks, I’ll meet a lot of people then.”

“So you’re a professional party guest?”

“More or less,” Niall agrees. Harry shrugs again, unashamed.

“I like parties,” he admits. “Don’t you?”

“Not always.” Louis runs his finger over the ring. “Zack and I are more homebodies, don’t get out much.”

“Well, you don’t have to, do you? Have each other.”

“Yeah.” Louis’s phone is still quiet in his pocket. “Always.”

---

Louis is quite drunk by the time he gets back home, leaving Niall to put an even more drunk Harry to bed, if he can get Harry to stop clinging to him any time soon. Louis doesn’t put good odds on it, but it’s fun, anyway. To watch them stumble upstairs, Harry clutching Niall’s back like he’ll disappear if he lets go.

“Zayn!” he yells, when he opens the door. “Did you—” Zayn’s not in the main room, though his computer’s there. Louis has a single moment of panic, enough that he grabs at the doorway—what if somehow Louis missed cops coming, what if something happened to him, what if they made the wrong people angry and they’ve kidnapped Zayn and Louis wasn’t there to back him up—but then he sees a figure out on the porch, looking out at the ocean, and Louis lets out a long sigh of relief. Not now. Not this time. Not ever.

Louis doesn’t really need light to see him, to know who it is. He knows the stance, the way his head tilts, the way his fingers hold the cigarette, knows every line of his body. He could run out and grab Zayn, jump on his back and know Zayn would catch him. He could act like Harry did with Niall, grab Zayn into a hug and just never let him go. But instead, he lightens his footstep, quiet as he would in a house that wasn’t his, and eases his way out onto the porch.

Louis knows he’s not making any sound, but Zayn still doesn’t react when Louis slides in next to him, just opens his mouth to let the smoke tumble out, drift off into the night air. Louis doesn’t even feel the need to talk, doesn’t do anything other than lean against Zayn when Zayn’s other arm comes around his waist, let the waves crashing against the shore and the far off sound of traffic carry him as Zayn finishes his cigarette.

Maybe it’s that Louis’s drunk and hot with it, maybe it’s that it’s Zayn, but Zayn feels refreshingly cool against him, his fingers resting on Louis’s hip, somehow finding the place between his shirt and jeans where there’s skin. Louis can feel it like a brand, Zayn’s fingers against him, how his shoulders move under Louis’s cheek, how the quiet doesn’t need to be broken. It’s normal, it’s utterly normal for them to stand like this, but it’s not normal for Louis to feel it like this, to wonder about how Zayn’s fingers brush against his skin, to look up and see Zayn’s lips, framed by stubble that’s almost a beard after a day’s growth.

“Taking a break?” Louis asks, so he won’t have to think about that. Won’t have to think about what that means.

Zayn nods. “It’ll take a longer. Shahid’s working on—” Louis bites at his neck, to shut him up. He doesn’t want to hear about Shahid. Doesn’t want to hear about anyone other than them right now, doesn’t want to think about the outside world, with its rules, with the facts Louis knows about himself and where he comes from, all the things Louis has to think about, like the ring that’s cool on his finger.

“Working on part of it,” Zayn goes on, his voice a hint higher than it had been before Louis bit him. Louis bites again, then starts to suck, nosing the chain out of the way so he can latch onto Zayn’s skin. “Lou.”

“Luke would totally have fucked Zack tonight,” Louis informs him, scraping his teeth over the mark he’d sucked. “This is keeping up my cover.”

Zayn’s fingers curl in, hard. “Maybe Zack would have fucked Luke.”

“My ass is very fuckable,” Louis agrees. It’ll be a good mark, he decides, and leans back, turning so he can perch on the railing. Like clockwork, Zayn’s hand comes out, grabs at his forearm. “And I’m not going to fall, Zayn.”

“I’m making sure.”

Louis glances over his shoulder. It’s maybe an eight feet drop. “I’d definitely live, even if I fell totally wrong.” He’s done the calculations before, he’s not stupid, he knows the risks every time he gets on a rig, every time he scrambles out a window because someone’s coming and he has to cling to a wall stories above the ground. He knows his limits.

Because it makes Zayn’s lips purse and his fingers tighten, he adds, “I could show you—” He leans back, enough that he’s relying on Zayn’s grip to counterbalance him, and sure enough Zayn’s grip spasms quickly, pulling him back upright.

Zayn does not look pleased by Louis’s laughter, his eyebrows lowering, but it’s always hysterical, how freaked out Zayn is by these things, by Louis on heights, even though Louis knows he’s not going to fall. “I should just let you fall. I’d get all your possessions, right? Maybe this husband lark’s a good thing.”

“Everything’s going to my mum, that’s already in my will.”

Zayn grins, quick and mischievous like he had that first time Louis saw him, in that ratty room when he’d taken the full brunt of Louis’s anger and had just thrown it back without blinking. “That’s what you think.”

“Are you depriving my poor mum of her proper inheritance?” Louis cries, and leans back again, harder. Zayn jerks him forward this time, and he lets himself fall, using the momentum to take Zayn to the ground, so he lands on top of him. Zayn doesn’t hesitate, must have expected it, so he rolls with it until he’s on top, and grappling Louis’s hands over his head. Louis could fight back, could probably get out of this, but he—but Zayn’s grinning down at him, licking at his lips, breathing hard, and is this what he’ll look like? When he’s married for real, will Zayn grin at that person like this, like they’re the center of his universe? How had his father walked away, how could his mother throw himself back in again and again, if they lost this every time, this flutter in Louis’s stomach? Is that something only they can do, resist that look?

“At least you can’t break your neck here,” Zayn muses. He’s got his whole weight on Louis’s stomach, which must be why it feels like this, so heavy, and why Louis can feel his skin heating. “Maybe I’ll keep you here.”

“Only if you make it worth my while,” Louis retorts. Zayn licks his lips again. It’s a tic, Louis knows it’s a tic, he’s seen Zayn do it a thousand times, but fuck, Louis can’t stop noticing. The chain’s fallen out from under his shirt, so the ring’s resting against Louis’s chest now, like a line connecting them. “Are you gonna?”

Zayn’s eyes glint, because he’s never backed away from a challenge in his life. “Oh,” he purrs, his voice low and rough and Louis’s heard him use that voice before right before he pulls, and he’s never blamed the way whoever it is turns to mush. Louis isn’t, of course, because he knows that it’s not Zayn’s normal voice. He’s totally not melting. Not at all. “I could make you consider.”

Louis swallows. Not affected. At all. “Not with that hair, you won’t,” he shoots back, and of course Zayn loosens his grip as he instinctively thinks about checking his hair, so Louis yanks his hands free, then gets them in Zayn’s hair, ruffling so all his careful gelling’s messed up.

“Louis!” Zayn yelps, squirming, “Fuck, Lou—”

A doorbell chimes, and they both freeze, Louis’s hands still in his hair.

“We should—”

“Get the door, yeah. Won’t be anything dangerous—”

“They’d definitely knock,” Louis agrees, and when Zayn rolls off of him the only disappointment is that he didn’t end up winning.

---

“Hey, Niall!” Louis gets to the door first. Niall takes one look at him, then goes bright red.

“Oh sorry,” he says, torn between stuttering and laughing. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“Hm?” Louis glances behind him. Zayn’s there, and okay, yeah, Louis sees it. His hair’s a mess, and the mark on his neck’s coming in nicely, already dark against his skin and ink, and his shirt’s askew, like Louis’s. If you didn’t know what Zayn looked like actually fucked out, if you hadn’t seen him escorting a one night stand out of the apartment with his satisfied smile and relaxed saunter, then yeah, you could think that. That Louis got him there. “Well…” He lets it trail off. If he was Luke, Luke would have been fucking Zack, or vice versa, or whatever. Luke would be good at that.

“So, what’d you want?” Louis asks, trying to sound like he would if he had actually been interrupted with Zayn. Harried and impatient, he thinks. Eager to get back to tasting all of Zayn’s skin, to feeling the rasp of his stubble against his thighs and seeing what sounds he could get out of Zayn’s mouth.

“I just wanted—um—” he stutters, and it takes Louis a second for him to realize it’s because Zayn’s draped himself over Louis back and throwing his arm over his other shoulder. Louis reaches up to grab his hand with both of Louis’s, twisting at the rings there, the ones he puts on when he’s done on the computer that are more or less interchangeable. “You forgot your sweater, wanted to return it.”

“Thanks.” Louis nods, lets go of Zayn’s hand to take the sweatshirt back. That was careless, he shouldn’t have done that, but whatever, no harm done. “Now, if you don’t mind…”

“Definitely,” Niall grins, “Hey Zack.”

“Hi Niall,” Zayn agrees, and there’s that voice again.

“Yes, hi Niall, hi Zack,” Louis agrees. Luke would not be pleased about this delay. Luke would want to take Zack back inside, to turn around so he was properly pressed against Zack, to push him against the wall and kiss him, have him begging for it so Zayn couldn’t look away from Louis. “Bye Niall.” He pinches at Zayn’s arm, and Zayn chuckles.

“Bye Niall,” Zayn echoes obediently, and Niall’s grinning as Louis firmly closes the door. He spins them immediately so Zayn’s back thuds against the door, and he can hear Zayn’s breath whoosh out of him, can feel it too, with how closely they’re pressed together. This is how Luke would have Zack, Louis knows. Would have his husband, who he loves more than anything, this friend who’s become his husband. Pressed against the door, so Zayn’s dark eyes stare up at him, licking at his lips again.

They wait a beat, then another, until Louis hears Niall’s footsteps recede, and he steps back, giving Zayn room. Then there’s another beat—and they’re both laughing, Zayn’s head curled into his shoulder, Louis holding onto his waist to hold himself up.

“We’re good,” Louis crows.

“Well, we are married,” Zayn agrees.

“But—”

“I should get back to work,” Zayn goes on, before Louis can point out the many problems with that statement. “Want to get in as soon as possible.” He pats Louis’s ass casually in good bye, steps around him to go back to the counter.

Louis twists the ring on his finger once, watching as Zayn settles onto his stool, stripping off his rings and drawing inward like he does when he starts to code. Luke would probably tempt Zack to bed now, because it could wait until morning. Luke would lean over Zack, kiss the back of his neck right over the bird, then tilt Zack’s head until he was kissing over the line of his jaw, then his lips. Luke would catch Zack with that, until Zack was kissing him back hard, his hands on Luke’s ass and carrying Luke to bed. That’s what Luke would do, with his husband, his best friend who he married not out of a drunken joke but because he wanted to, because they saw each other with different eyes one day. Because Luke’s parents were happily married, and Luke’s marriage could last.

Louis shakes his head, and goes to his room to sleep with a goodnight ruffle of Zayn’s hair.

---

Zayn’s asleep on the couch when Louis comes out in the morning, his computer on his stomach. It’s a fairly usual sight, Zayn conked out somewhere with a computer near him, so Louis stumbles past him to the kitchen. He puts the water on for tea, and turns on the coffeemaker, because Zayn’s coder overtakes his Englishness sometimes, and his caffeine addiction is one of those places, then heads to the bathroom to shower and brush his teeth. A glance at his phone assures him it’s far too late for him to even consider making Harry’s run, thank god, so instead he takes the water off right before it boils so the whistle won’t wake anyone, and heads to the veranda with his mug.

He gives his mum a quick call, even if he can’t tell her anything, but she updates him on the girls, on the babies—who are more toddlers now than babies, really. On Joshua too, though Louis knows he’s scowling when she talks about him. It’s been almost a year, and she’s still talking about him with soft affection, but it always starts off like that. It’s the after when it starts to go downhill. To varying degrees, of course, and none so bad as Louis’s father, who’d left without a word and left her with three kids and no support, but it always goes downhill somehow. It might not have yet, but it will, Louis knows. No matter how many times she tries. He’s stopped expecting otherwise, for both their sakes.

For a second, he considers telling his mum what happened—but he can’t. She’d be so mad. Or worse, she’d be happy, be convinced it was fate, because he suspects she loves Zayn more than him sometimes. She’d think it could last, because she always does, because she doesn’t understand Louis got the worst of her and his father, and there’s a reason he hasn’t had anything serious for at least five years.

Instead, he bids goodbye to her, and calls up Liam. Liam fills Louis in on all the gossip, like he’s taunting Louis, before Louis finally demands an update about the marriage—he’s working on finding lawyers for their divorce, figuring out how to keep it as legal but low-key as possible, but it doesn’t sound particularly high on his priorities. Louis’s about to start ranting about how he’s the only one taking this seriously, when Zayn appears in the doorway, covering his mouth with his mug.

Louis can appreciate how hot Zayn is on the pull, sure, but sometimes he thinks this Zayn is better, his skin flushed from sleep and his eyes soft and dazed, leaning against the threshold like it’s all that’s holding him up. This Zayn that just Louis gets.

“Morning,” Louis says, and Zayn grunts, sitting down on the couch next to Louis and hiding his face in Louis’s shoulder. Louis laughs, because it’s always funny how inarticulate Zayn is in mornings, and cards his fingers through Zayn’s hair, because he can in mornings.

“Oh, Zayn’s up?” Liam asks. “I can talk to him too, then.”

“How do you know that was Zayn?” Louis demands. Zayn makes a complaining noise at the volume of his voice, but Louis scratches his hand through Zayn’s hair and he subsides. “I could have had someone over. We could have made friends.”

“You only talk to Zayn like that,” Liam says, like it’s a known fact. “Put him on. I want to talk to him about a job the Dawson twins are pulling.”

“He just woke up,” Louis argues. “Call him back.”

“Lou—”

“Later, Liam,” Louis warns. Zayn’s no use to anyone right now. He needs time to wake up on his own. “Bye.”

“Look at you, acting all husbandy,” Liam coos, and Louis has the distinct feeling he’s laughing, but he hangs up before Louis can tell. Whatever. He can laugh, as long as he gets them divorced.

“Coulda talked to him,” Zayn mumbles.

“Nothing urgent,” Louis argues, and pets at Zayn’s hair again. He loves London, in all its claustrophobic old glory, but he could wake up like this more often, watching the waves hit the beach with Zayn. Maybe after this job is done, they can take a proper vacation, at some villa in the middle of nowhere somewhere.

“You get anywhere last night?” Louis asks, when he can feel Zayn waking up enough to form actual words. It’s a subtle change but it’s real, watching Zayn’s eyes sharpen, even though he yawns around his mug again.

“Yeah, good stuff. I mean, it’s impossible, ‘cause we shouldn’t be able to get into Winston’s systems at all, no one has before, but like, maybe. If Shahid does what he thought he could, we can get in soon.”

It’s a nice morning; Louis tries very hard not to scoff about what he thinks about relying on Naughty Boy. Either he succeeds, or, more likely, Zayn lets it go. Instead, he just shakes his head, tilts his face back to look up at the sky. The sun’s sinking into his skin, and his eyelashes are dark against his cheek, and he’s smiling, soft and pleased. Louis could—

“How soon’s soon, then?” he demands. Zayn nudges at Louis’s thigh, rolling his eyes. “We’re so close, Zee.”

“Soon,” Zayn informs him. “He’s got one of the most sophisticated systems in the world, it’ll be—”

“Morning!” Someone calls, and Zayn goes stiff as Louis shifts forward, looking around for the source of the call.

The panic recedes quickly, when he sees Harry waving from his veranda, Niall’s hand on the back of his shirt like he’s worried he’ll fall. Like Zayn had held onto Louis last night, even though they both knew he didn’t need it.

“Morning!” Louis calls back.

“We’re about to go get breakfast, want to come?” Niall yells. Louis glances at Zayn, but the shock’s jolted him up, the softness receding as he shrugs.

“Sure!” Louis yells, “Give us half an hour?”

“Yep!” Harry gives him a thumbs up, then turns to Niall to say something. Niall must complain back, because Harry laughs, and they head back in.

Zayn sets down the empty coffee mug and reaches above himself to stretch, his shirt riding up so the ink at his hip is as obvious as the line of hair at his navel. All of which Louis’s seen a thousand time before, he reminds himself, and slaps at Zayn’s stomach while it’s exposed before going to get dressed.

They’re ten minutes late because Zayn had to fuss with his hair, which on average isn’t bad. Niall’s munching on an Eggo waffle when they go out the streetside exit, and they walk up just as Harry says,

“At least you could have a banana, those are healthy for you.”

“We can’t all share your obsession with bananas,” Niall retorts around a mouthful of waffle. “And you’d yell at me if I ate all of them.”

“I don’t object to you being properly nourished,” Harry tells him, his jaw jutting out.

“We’re here,” Louis announces. He tugs on Harry’s bun, because he has far too many sisters not to pull pigtails, then lets Zayn pull him back in. “We’re only late because someone had to fix his hair.”

“Well, it’s very nice hair,” Harry grins at Zayn, and Zayn grins back. “But sorry if we disturbed you, you were looking awfully cute and I didn’t want to mess up your honeymoon, but Niall was hungry.”

“I was hungry, I said we should let them be,” Niall retorts, opening the passenger side door of the car.

“Well, I was trying to be a good neighbor. And let one of them have the front seat.”

“We’re fine,” Zayn assures them, climbing into the backseat. He’s pulled out his phone, and is doing something on it that, from Louis’s glance over his shoulder, is not texting.

“See? They’re fine. Now I’m hungry, let’s go.”

“So am I,” Louis adds. He’s not, particularly, but listening to them bicker is only funny for so long, especially when Zayn’s put his phone back into his pocket and, apparently, gone back to sleep. “I was promised breakfast.” Zayn makes an inarticulate sound. “We were promised breakfast,” Louis amends obediently.

“Did you understand him?” Niall asks curiously, as Harry pulls out of the driveway.

“Learning how to speak Zack is a special skill of mine,” Louis admits. Zayn kicks him, but doesn’t otherwise comment. “It’s a pillar of our marriage.”

“Like learning how to speak drunk Niall,” Harry nods knowledgably, and cuts off three cars getting into the right lane. Zayn grabs onto the car door, gives Louis a look. Louis nods back. He’s all for an adrenaline rush, but this is going above and beyond.

Nevertheless, they make it to the restaurant unscathed. It’s natural, when they’re shown to a booth, that Harry and Niall sits next to each other, and Zayn slides in next to Louis. Even sitting there is natural, it feels like, chatting about the Bachelor, which Louis definitely never watches at all, or only when it’s on and Zayn’s busy, and whether that dog down the road is actually going to kill them or only Niall.

“Don’t know what you mean,” Zayn protests, when their conversation is interrupted by the waitress taking their drink orders. “She’s never been threatening to me.”

“You don’t count,” Louis informs him. “Animals always love Zack,” he tells Niall and Harry.

“Are you going to get pets, then?” Harry asks. Zayn twitches next to Louis, and they share a glance. It’s a sore spot, Louis knows. Or, not a sore spot. A thing Zayn doesn’t like to think about.

But this isn’t Zayn and Louis, and their constant motion, never settling down long enough to keep a pet. Never knowing when they might have to burn an identity or an apartment and never come back. Zayn always dreaming of the someday when he’ll get a home to keep a dog or three. This is Zack and Luke, so even though Zayn’s face goes a little dark, he says,

“Soon, yeah? Like, we want some time to ourselves first.”

“I’m not good at sharing,” Louis agrees, and wraps an arm around Zayn’s waist to bring him closer. He bites idly at Zayn’s shoulder, and Zayn smiles again. “I don’t want any dogs on our bed.”

“Dogs would take up less space than you,” Zayn retorts. Louis scoffs.

“I am a perfect sleeping companion.”

“For a tiny person, maybe.”

“Like you’re so big!”

“I don’t hear any complaints,” Zayn throws back, smirking, and Louis opens and closes his mouth. Zayn always does that, changes the teasing so Louis gets floored. He’s the only one.

“Don’t worry, babe, it’s all in how you use it,” Louis tells him, patting his head condescendingly, which has the added bonus of messing up his hair a little. Zayn scowls back, swats at him. Louis dodges, then, “I’m going to the bathroom. If she comes—”

“You want the strawberry waffles,” Zayn finishes. “Yes, thank you, I’ve only known you for six years.”

“I am not that predictable, excuse you.”

“So, do you want something else, then?” Harry asks. His face is all innocence, but next to him, Niall’s cracking up. Louis glares.

“I happen to enjoy strawberry pancakes,” he informs the table at large, and detaches himself from Zayn to stand up. Zayn looks up to meet his gaze, a bit of a plea in it, but he can handle himself for the five minutes it’ll take for Louis to go to the bathroom. He’s not nearly as bad with people as he thinks he is. “It has nothing to do with what I may or may not have ordered before. Unlike you, mister buttermilk pancakes drowned in syrup every time,” he retorts, and leaves before Zayn can say something back.

Louis goes to the loo, takes the opportunity to check his phone because unlike some people, he doesn’t check his phone at the table, and then heads back to their booth. He’s sort of expecting Zayn to still be either half asleep or awkward, because Zayn’s not normally good with people he hasn’t known for very long, but he’s halfway across the room before he hears Zayn’s laughter.

He doesn’t mean to pause. It just takes him aback a bit, because while Zayn’s actually the biggest softie on the planet, it takes a while for people to notice that. Except—except Zayn’s laughing at something Niall said, his nose wrinkled and his tongue between his teeth, and the sun is streaming through the windows next to them and sinking into his skin. Not that he’s noticing that. Just that he knows Zayn’s hot, even beautiful when he’s feeling poetic, and he appreciates Zayn for everything he is.

The laughter fades from Zayn’s face, but he’s still smiling at Niall, not the smile he gives his sisters or Louis, but not the knife-edged smirk he gives when they go out.

“What’s the joke?” Louis demands, sliding back in next to Zayn. Zayn turns to him, and the smile’s still there, changing into one that’s just in his eyes, that’s secret between them. Something in Louis’s stomach…relaxes, at that. Or maybe it starts to flutter. He’s hungry.

“Niall was telling me how Harry hadn’t wanted to say anything to us this morning because we were so cute,” he tells Louis.

“I didn’t want to impose on the honeymoon period!” Harry insists, but he’s grinning too. “You looked like you could be on the cover of a romance novel or something.”

“We—this morning?” Louis asks. He hadn’t known people were around this morning. They’d just been lounging around like usual. Zayn’s foot digs into his, and Louis nods. “It’s a good thing you interrupted us. Don’t know when I’d have gotten this one out of the house otherwise.”

Zayn shrugs shamelessly. “I had coffee. Didn’t need much else.”

“Not even Luke?” Harry asks.

“Yeah, not even me?” Louis demands. Zayn laughs again, and leans in to brush his lips over Louis’s cheek.

“You’re necessary too.”

“Well, Niall and I like to get breakfast together, right?” Harry puts in. Louis blinks. Right. There’s something here other than Zayn’s smiling eyes and the warmth of his lips against Louis’s skin.

“I like to get breakfast, period,” Niall agrees. He cranes over the edge of the booth. “Think she’s coming with the food soon?”

“But it’s better with me, isn’t it?” Harry prompts. Niall shrugs.

“Sure. Long as you don’t insist on us going to one of your weird organic places.”

“They’re good for you!” Harry replies. “That’s important, right?” he looks at them for support, but Louis’s already shaking his head.

“We’re with Niall on this one,” Zayn says.

“You—”

“Yes food!” Niall announces, and straightens excitedly as the waitress sets down a massive omelette in front of him, then a side of bacon, and one of toast.

They eat more or less in silence. It’s good, or at least good enough, and it kills the time waiting for Zayn’s phone to buzz or whatever he needs well. The strawberry waffle is warm and fresh, and the pancake that Zayn cuts off and puts on Louis’s plate in exchange for the corner of waffle is similarly good, even if Zayn does always drown them in syrup and destroy the taste, no matter what Louis says.

To no one’s surprise, Harry doesn’t seem satisfied with his yogurt parfait, tries to steal some of Niall’s omelette instead before Niall bats his hand away with something close to a growl of “if you steal my food again Haz, I will drown you in your sleep.” Harry subsides, pouting, and not even Zayn’s offer of some of his pancakes soothes him.

Paying is negotiated by Zayn’s digging out enough cash to cover them both, then they all head out. Niall doesn’t seem any worse the wear for the amount of eggs he consumed, bouncing along next to Harry, the two of them giggling about something.

Louis takes the opportunity to lean close to Zayn, so he can whispers, “Anything?”

Zayn shakes his head. “Nah. Shahid got somewhere, but I need to do more here. I’ll get back to work. You can go stake out the mansion, I guess?”

“Yeah.” Louis sighs. He wants to do more than that. He wants the sword. He wants the rush. He wants to move, to do something useful, because this is all Zayn in a way he hates.

Zayn gives a wry smile, squeezes his hand. “You’ll have enough to do soon.”

“I know,” Louis snaps. He does. He knows, and Zayn saying it and being so close with his big eyes and pink lips doesn’t make it come faster. “If you’d just stop doing things like eating, we could be in by now.”

Zayn snorts. “If you stopped doing things like bullying people into being your friends, we’d be in by now.”

“People should be glad of having the honor of being my friend,” Louis tells him. “As you well know.”

Zayn’s lips curve, and there it is, the smile that’s just for Louis, that not even Liam gets, that Niall and Harry certainly didn’t get, no matter how Zayn laughed or leered at them. That Shahid definitely doesn’t get. “Yeah, ‘s all Stockholm syndrome with us.”

Maybe the food wasn’t that great, because Louis’s stomach is a little unsettled. “You’d be lost without me.”

“I would be.” Zayn blinks. His eyelashes are so stupidly long, and his cheekbones are stupidly sharp under them, even though Louis knows he’s got perfectly good cheekbones. Better than good, really. Just, not Zayn. Not Zayn, and how his thumb rubs against the back of Louis’s hand, and how he’s so stupidly sincere sometimes, amid all the teasing.

Louis rubs at the ring on his other hand. “I—”

“Why are your hands all sweaty?” Niall demands.

“They are not! Your hands are just dry.” Harry glances back over his shoulder at Louis and Zayn, at where their hands are joined. Louis hadn’t noticed when they’d started holding hands. But now that they are, Louis doesn’t see any reason to let go.

---

Zayn disappears back onto his computer when they get back, so Louis heads out to stake out Winston’s, because he needs to do something and Zayn promises to call him when anything happens. Nothing much happens at Winston’s gates; no one goes in or out, and for all the time Louis spends sipping his tea at the café a little down the road, he can’t see past the gates. It’s all going to be up to what Zayn gets off of cameras once he’s in. It’s times like these that he can’t remember what it was like not to have a partner, to have to rely on just his rudimentary computer skills and a lot of luck. A lot of luck he really shouldn’t have had, honestly. He’s still sometimes surprised he didn’t end up in jail in those early days, or at the bottom of a ditch.

Louis rubs at the ring, as he scrolls through his facebook. It’s always weird, to look at his old grade school mate’s lives, their marriages and kids. To look at the houses they’re buying, seeing their posts about nine to five jobs and grabbing meals with friends. It’s Luke’s life, Albert’s life. A life Louis will never know. A boring life, Louis thinks. If he’d taken that path, gone to uni or gotten some office job, maybe even become a teacher like he joked…he doesn’t know where he’d be now. But he can’t imagine he’d be happy, without the rush of the heist. Without Zayn’s voice in his ear, urging him on. Without Zayn at all, which is the least conceivable. Everything else, he thinks, he could do, if Zayn was there. And it’s not like he’d be married anyway, so no kids either. Just the normal job.

Even if fuck, it does look a drag, to be doing the same thing every day for no money, to slog through life without knowing the highs that come from walking the knife’s edge all the time. Louis likes a photo of a high school girlfriend, who’s on her third kid, this one with her husband’s eyes and her hair. Her husband’s there next to her, one hand on her hip and the other on the kid’s head. It’s sweet. Louis twists the ring again. Very sweet.

He shoves back from the table. He needs to move, needs to do something. He’s not made for sitting around like this, for thinking. Next thing he knew, he might end up as broody as Zayn.

---

It takes four more days of Louis fruitlessly staking out the mansion and messing around with Harry and Niall, but finally the text comes as Louis pockets the fourth wallet of some rich banker type on the main drag. He nearly fumbles the lift, surprised by the buzzing in his pocket, but he’s no amateur and the wallet ends up in his pocket and the banker walks on, still yelling at his assistant on his phone with no one the wiser.

Louis’s not stupid; he ducks into an alley, ditches the credit cards immediately, though he keeps the IDs because Zayn like to play with those, transfers the cash to his own wallet, then sticks the leather Burberry into his backpack. It’ll be worth some spending cash, if Zayn doesn’t prefer it to his current one. Or a gift, wallets always make nice gifts.

It’s only once that’s done and he’s a few blocks away that he checks his phone.

J ! from Zayn. Louis grins, lets out a quiet whoop, then hurries back towards the house.

He passes Niall and Harry doing what looks like some sort of handstand contest on their lawn—Louis can’t really tell, and doesn’t much care to, he just knows they’re mainly lying on the ground giggling. He waves a hand at them, but doesn’t stop, just lets himself into the house and slams the door shut.

“Zayn!”

“Louis!” Zayn sits up from the couch, like some sort of jack in the box. He’s got a massive smile on, wide and loose, and it just widens when he sees Louis, in a way that doesn’t make Louis feel anything.

“Did you—”

“We’re in,” Zayn confirms, giggling. “C’mere, Lou, celebrate with me. I fucking cracked it. Cracked Ben fucking Winston’s code. I am the shit.”

“You’re high as fuck,” Louis retorts, but fuck, yes. They’re in. It’s not a surprise, he always knew Zayn could do it, but they’re in. He drops his bag on the floor, crosses the kitchen to the living room. “Did you see it?”

“We’re in,” Zayn repeats. He’s splayed out on the couch, a joint in one hand, his computer on the floor next to him, securely closed because there are some things Zayn doesn’t fuck around with. “Come here, Louis. Loooouis. Tommo.” He giggles again, smoke spilling out of his lips. “I just did the impossible. Come celebrate.”

He reaches out, like he would grab onto Louis if he could, and whatever. They can find the sword in the morning. They have all the time in the world, because Louis’s partner is brilliant and they’re brilliant.

“Hand it over,” Louis orders, shoving Zayn’s feet out of the way so he can sit down. Zayn just puts them back in his lap, but he also hands over the joint, so Louis takes a hit before he turns so he can shove his own bare feet into Zayn’s face.

Zayn very graciously lets Louis have the joint for a while to catch up, so it’s not long before somehow they’ve both made it to the floor, lying back on the floor with their shoulders brushing, trading their second joint back and forth.

“D’you think there’ll be lasers?” Louis asks. He can’t stop thinking about it, about the sword, about how it’s so close. “It’ll look fucking sick on our mantelpiece.” Zayn hums, but he follows, Louis knows. He always follows. Always knows what Louis’s thinking. “I want lasers and sharks and a fucking, like, spinning tops of doom or something.”

“Spinning tops of doom?” Zayn echoes, his shoulders curling in on himself as he laughs. Louis elbows him, and Zayn just catches his elbow, then props himself up so he’s hovering over Louis. He’s just so beautiful, he should be in a vault somewhere too, under lock and key where only Louis’s good enough to steal him out.

“I could steal myself out,” Zayn retorts. He’s tracing over Louis’s face now, because if Zayn’s cuddly normally and a tactile drunk he’s a fucking handsy high, one of his legs thrown over Louis’s and his hand all over Louis’s stomach, like he needs Louis to anchor him to the ground, even if Louis’s as high as he is. “And you’d be in that vault right next to me.”

“Then we could steal each other,” Louis agrees. Zayn grins, all his sharp edges dulled by weed and by Louis, because he doesn’t have edges with Louis, not anymore. “Already did, didn’t we?”

“Sap.” Zayn teases, pokes at Louis’s nose. It’s true, and Louis doesn’t like it necessarily even if he can’t quite tell why, so he pushes at Zayn until he’s lying back down and Louis’s the one sitting up. Zayn doesn’t protest, just plucks the joint from Louis’s fingers and takes a drag.

“Lasers,” Louis goes back. He wants lasers. “Can you make lasers? We should have lasers.”

“Yes!” Zayn tries to get up, but Louis pushes him back down. He doesn’t want Zayn going anywhere. He wants Zayn right here next to him, where he can grab at the ring on his neck, the one they stole together but that’s Louis’s even if it’s on Zayn. “We can totally have lasers though Lou, make anyone who wants to come in go through them, no one’d ever bother us again.”

“You couldn’t get through them,” Louis protests. He’s the one who’s bendy and could get through lasers. Zayn’d get zapped, and Louis doesn’t want that. Everyone else should get zapped, but not Zayn. And maybe Liam. Except Louis would pay good money to see Liam try to get through a laser grid, teach him to tell Louis off for not going to the gym. He’d definitely make Shahid have to go through them to get to Zayn. He couldn’t go through laser grids like Louis can.

“I’d have the off button,” Zayn says, and it takes Louis a second to remember what he’s talking about but then he starts to laugh, because of course Zayn would have the off button, of course he would, and Zayn’s nose wrinkles when he starts to laugh too and his lips are so pink and his ring’s cool on Louis’s finger, the only thing that is right now, and Louis would give up all those stupid facebook photos of people who don’t know what they’re missing for this, and he leans down and kisses Zayn.

Zayn’s lips aren’t chapped even though he licks them constantly. They’re smooth and wet and warm and soft and Louis can feel them smiling against his, and he tastes like weed and smoke and the skittles he mainlines when he’s coding, which Louis is sure he already knew. Louis tastes like weed too, feels like it, like he’s floating with Zayn’s lips on his and his hand on Louis’s neck, not pinning him down just resting there so they can kiss properly, and fuck but of course they’re good at this, always are good at everything together, and Louis can feel every motion of Zayn’s lips through his whole body, like it hits every nerve ending at once.

Louis bites at Zayn’s lower lip, because he’s always wanted to do that, and Zayn makes a little moaning noise Louis’s never heard before. Zayn’s making plenty of noises Louis’s never heard before, and that shouldn’t happen, he knows Zayn and he should know all of Zayn’s noises, they’re partners, that’s what it means. He bites again, and Zayn’s mouth opens and that’s even better, at least it is when Louis moves to straddle Zayn so he can get a better angle and Zayn’s tongue is in his mouth and Louis’s hand can tangle in the chain at his neck to keep him close and Louis’s pretty sure the whole world has stopped for this.

They kiss and they kiss and Louis doesn’t know why the weed isn’t wearing off because he’s never felt this good, until suddenly they’re both laughing too much to kiss anymore and Louis flops down hard on Zayn’s stomach because he can and because it makes Zayn breath out hard.

“We’re in,” Zayn repeats, his fingers running over Louis’s back like he’s typing on him, like he’s trying to hack into Louis. “We’re bloody in, Lou.”

“Lasers,” Louis agrees. Zayn’s eyes are like lasers. Or not lasers, they don’t cut. Zayn’s eyes are like xrays, smiling as he looks at Louis. No one else smiles at Louis like that, like he’s the best thing they’ve seen, like they’re not hiding anything from him.

“We’ll have lasers,” Zayn nods, and pats Louis’s back. Louis nods, and turns his face into Zayn’s chest, around the ring there. They’re the best partners ever.

---

Louis is on the floor when he wakes up. He knows this, because his back doesn’t hurt like this when he slept in his bed, and also because this rug is rough on his cheek. He is on the floor, and they should really start making an effort to get back to their beds after smoking up, though that’s what Liam’s for, Louis supposes, for carrying them back to bed. Zayn never carries Louis.

Louis opens his eyes as he yawns—and Zayn’s right there. He’s still asleep, of course, curled up on his side with their knees touching and his hand on Louis’s hip, his forehead almost touching Louis’s shoulder. The morning sun is drifting through the curtains, highlighting the shadow of his eyelashes, the softness of his cheeks, the slight curve of his lips—his lips.

Holy fuck. Louis scoots away from Zayn, his hand coming up to his own lips. He’d kissed Zayn last night. They’d kissed, right here on the rug. Right here, he’d been on top of Zayn, which wasn’t unusual, and they’d been high, which wasn’t unusual, and then he’d kissed Zayn, which was unusual.

Because he’d been high and happy, Louis figures. He gets quickly to his feet. Zayn’s still lying there on the rug, in the sweatpants and t-shirt he’d been in last night, the t-shirt riding up a little so he can see the heart at his hip, the sharp line of his hipbone, and Louis backpedals quickly out of the room.

He needs to move. He needs that rush, needs to steal something, needs to not think about how he’d kissed his best friend last night. That broke all the rules they had. So he changes quickly into shorts and a t-shirt, and hits the beach.

He’s run for about ten minutes, and is already regretting it quite a lot—he should have just gone and broken into the house next door or something, found a nice bank to rob—when there are pounding footsteps behind him. There’s no reason for anyone to be chasing them here, they haven’t done anything, he tells the worry that wells up quick and fierce. And it’s not Zayn, because Zayn really doesn’t run, and waits for whoever it is to catch up to him.

It’s Harry, grinning as he falls into step. “Hey!” he chirps. He sounds happy and fulfilled this morning. Louis hates him on principle. “Keeping your resolution, then?”

It takes Louis a second. “Yeah, sure,” he mutters. “Gotta keep the husband satisfied, you know.”

The husband. Zayn, Zayn’s lips hot against his, Zayn’s hand on his neck and—Louis puts on a little burst of speed, pushing himself farther. They were high. That was why. They were high and it didn’t mean anything.

“He should be satisfied with you as you are,” Harry informs him sternly. Louis could laugh. “But a run’s nice in the morning, isn’t it? And I like having company for it. Niall never comes. It’s good motivation, having a buddy.”

“Sure.” It’s distraction at least. They run in silence though, their feet pounding together, and Louis’s starting to ache but it’s something to focus on. If he keeps running, he won’t have to think about last night. About how he kissed his best friend, and his husband, and it was the best kiss he’d ever had and they aren’t married really except they are, and he’s not sure which is worse. He presses forward.

“You should pace yourself,” Harry warns. “If you aren’t used to running…”

“I can do it,” Louis insists, and keeps going.

---

Zayn is waiting for them when they get back, leaning against the porch rail with a coffee mug in hand and his eyebrows raised. He’s still got that fucking morning softness, and Louis sort of wants to reach around to cover Harry’s eyes, except he’s not certain he’d trust him not to fall if he did and then he’d drop Louis.

“Should I be jealous?” Zayn drawls, his eyebrows raised as Harry carries Louis up the steps.

“We went too hard,” Harry explains. “He couldn’t walk, so I had to carry him. He’ll be okay. Is the couch—”

Zayn just rolls his eyes. “Luke, get down.”

“No, he was wobbling,” Harry protests. “I tried to stop him, but he wouldn’t listen, and—”

Louis lifts his head up so he can meet Zayn’s eyes over Harry’s shoulder, and smirks. Zayn doesn’t have to know that he did push a little too hard, probably. Zayn rolls his eyes again, but his lips twitch. “Yeah, you can put him on the couch, come here.”

He leads Harry in, pointing to the couch. Harry nearly trips on the coffee table, and Louis curses as he lets himself drop down onto the cushions. “Think I would have been safer walking,” he observes. Harry just laughs.

“Sorry my husband’s an ungrateful twat,” Zayn tells Harry, chuckling.

“No, it’s fine. I’m glad of the company.” Harry smiles again, dimpling, and that’s just not fair. He’s so fucking earnest, almost as bad as Liam, and now Louis almost feels bad. Not actually, but almost. “I should have stopped him sooner, though.”

“No one makes him do anything he doesn’t want,” Zayn shrugs.

“That is true,” Louis agrees, so they both turn to him. He stretches out his legs. “Now, husband dearest, you should probably rub my feet to soothe me.”

Zayn snorts. “In your dreams.” He shakes his head at Harry. “Thanks for bringing him back. Want some tea or summat?”

“Nah, I should get home, told Niall I’d make him breakfast.” Harry brushes his hair out of his eyes.

“You don’t want his tea anyway, he’s shit at making it,” Louis puts in. Harry snorts, then bids them good-bye.

Zayn raises his eyebrows at Louis when he’s gone. “Push too hard?” he snorts.

Louis grins back, easy. Okay. This is easy. They aren’t talking about it. It never happened. Great. “He’s such an easy mark.”

“Yeah, ‘m sure.” Zayn rolls his eyes, takes another sip of his coffee, then sets it down. “Get off your ass and take a shower now, you stink.”

“I smell like a rose in spring,” Louis retorts, and gets up, He makes a show of stretching and groaning as he walks towards his room, which Zayn ignores, going to the kitchen to look for food.

Louis makes it to the door of his room before he turns around. “Zayn,” he starts. Zayn glances over his shoulder.

“Yeah?”

He doesn’t look bothered. Okay, Louis isn’t either. Louis isn’t bothered. Louis is ignoring it too, because sometimes friends kiss when they’re high and that happens then it doesn’t matter, because he and Zayn are more important than that, and Louis’s already forgotten. Zayn clearly didn’t think it was a big deal, it’s not like it was a kiss that mattered. Zayn’s been in a lot of relationships, has always had the example of his parents. He probably knows the difference.

“Never mind.”

Zayn’s head tilts, and he gives him one of those long, x-ray looks. For the first time in a long while, Louis wants to squirm under it. “Go take a shower,” he says, after a beat. “We’ve got cameras to look at.”

“Right!” Louis knew that. That was the important thing that happened last night. “I expect breakfast when I’m done.”

“I’m not making you tea if you’re going to bitch about it,” Zayn warns, and Louis flips him off s he ducks into his room. He doesn’t think about how Zayn’s tongue had wet his lips just as he turned away, or how those lips had felt against his.

---

Louis watches over Zayn’s shoulder as he scrolls through Winston’s cameras, looking for the sword as Louis cases out the security. It’s good, motion detectors and pressure sensors and plenty of cameras Louis can see, but nothing Louis can’t get through.

“How fucking big is this place anyway?” Louis complains, as yet more cameras appear and no sword yet, not in any of the living rooms or the bar area or even Winston’s fucking bedroom, where the bed is far too large for three people.

“Dunno.” Zayn tongue’s sticking out from between his teeth, his gaze focused as he searches. He hadn’t looked like that last night, but maybe he would if—

Louis cuts that off, hard. “Look! That fucker just ditched your card.” They’ve hit Winston’s office, and he can see the business card Zayn had made mostly buried under other papers.

Zayn’s eyebrows go up. “Yeah, that’s good for us. Means he won’t be moving it or looking into us.”

“He should pay attention to it,” Louis retorts. He should have noticed Zack. Even if he knows this is better, that people store business cards and never look at them, and he could have thrown it away or noticed the chip in it, but still. “Your resume deserved to be looked at.”

Zayn laughs, reaches behind him to pat at Louis. He thinks it was supposed to get his head, but it brushes against his neck, and Louis Does Not Think about how his fingers had lingered there last night. He needs to stop this. Zayn’s clearly not brooding about it, because when Zayn’s brooding everyone knows, so Louis shouldn’t either. “Zack’s very offended,” he assures Louis. “But he appreciates Luke’s concern.”

“Yeah, well. Luke’s a good husband.” Louis wiggles a little so he’s next to Zayn instead of draped over his back. It’s better for him to cross his arms over his chest, and it’s—he’s touching less of Zayn like this.

“I know.” Zayn looks away from the screen to smile at Louis, soft and fond, and the only way Louis knows how to respond to that is to elbow him hard in the side. Zayn catches his elbow without blinking, turns back to the screen.

He’s still holding Louis’s elbow. Louis looks at it, blinks, then—“Where are we now?”

“Um…” Zayn lets go of Louis to reference another screen, paging through plans. “The vault, looks like.”

“Of course he has a vault,” Louis mutters.

“No lasers though,” Zayn hums, and Louis huffs out a sigh of disappointment.

“What’s the point of a vault without lasers?”

“Don’t worry, babe. Ours will have lasers.” Zayn pats at Louis’s thigh, and now Louis’s thinking about last night again, about lasers and Zayn’s x-ray eyes and how his lips had felt, and this is so stupid. He’s known Zayn’s hot for years. It’s one of those facts you know about Zayn when you’re his friend, like you know he’s shit at mornings and he gets wrapped up in coding and he’ll watch any superhero movie you put in front of him no matter how bad and that his nose wrinkles when he really, really laughs. Louis’s always known that, and it’s never been a thing. It won’t be a thing. Because Zayn’s ring might be on his finger, but they’re not really married, not with Liam working at the divorce, and he doesn’t want to be because it’s Zayn. Zayn with his sharp bones and soft eyes and his voice in Louis’s ear and if Louis loses him—

“Got it!” Zayn crows, in Louis’s ear, and Louis makes a noise that is not a yelp and pushes at him so he won’t be so loud so close.

“What?”

“Look, Lou. ‘s the sword.” Zayn gestures at the screen, and sure enough, there it is. Or at least, there’s a label for it, in one of the shelves in the vault, not even properly out. But Louis knows what’s inside, the gold and jewels and finally, and it’s so close. He leans forward, like he could just grab it through the screen.

“Okay, we’ve got it.” Louis nods. This is what’s important. The sword. The job. Not—not how he can’t look at Zayn’s fierce smile without remembering how those lips had felt on him. “Now, how do we get it out? A distraction?”

“What, a fire? House is too big, too much staff. It’d never get everybody. And I don’t want you in a burning building.”

“I can go into burning buildings if I want,” Louis mutters, but yeah, that wasn’t his best suggestion. “The roof?”

“With a helicopter?”

“Fine,” Louis snaps. “Do you have any helpful ideas, or are you just going to shoot me down?”

Zayn doesn’t flinch away from Louis’s anger, just hums as the cameras continue to cycle through. “When do a lot of people he doesn’t know go in, yeah? Best to keep it classic.”

On camera, Harry and Winston come into view, lounging by the pool. Harry laughs at something Winston says, pats him on the arm, then sips at what looks like a daiquiri. He’s in the skimpiest yellow bathing suit Louis’s ever seen outside a speedo, and it looks utterly ridiculous, though Winston seems to be enjoying it.

“I think Harry mentioned a party?” Louis muses. “Sometime soon, yeah? We can—”

“Staff, sure,” Zayn agrees. He hunches forward, typing on the other screen to pull up what looks like a list of caterers. “How about—”

“Waiter, that’d be best.” Louis’s still watching the cameras. Harry grins at Ben, dimples bright in his cheeks. Does Niall know about this? He wonders. Should he? There’s nothing in Harry’s look that’s overtly sexual, except he manages to make all of it sexual, from his lips sucking up the drink through the straw to the way he fiddles with his hair. How does Harry even do it? Louis doesn’t doubt he loves Niall, not when he’s seen them laughing together, seen how Harry looks at him, but then he goes and does this for a living, effectively… Louis rubs at his ring. He could do that, he knows. He has done it, batting his eyelashes and smirking with Zayn’s voice in his ear. But Harry doesn’t have Niall’s voice in his ear, to remind him of home.

---

It’s a good plan. It’s a very good plan, and it’s going to work, and they are going to get the sword and get away scot free, Louis is sure of it. It would just be a much better plan if the party wasn’t scheduled for a full week after Zayn got into Winston’s system.

Louis’s just not good with empty time. There’s only so much he can watch the outside of Winston’s estate without being suspicious, there shouldn’t be a spree of robberies around the neighborhood if they’re trying not to attract attention, and there isn’t a decent footie team for miles, which basically sums up all of Louis’s options. He can play video games with Zayn of course, can watch movies and all the stuff they usually do, but he gets antsy in the lead up to the heist, and Zayn’s working, doing some sort of side project for Liam Louis doesn’t understand.

Normally, Louis would be fine staying in with Zayn, but he—he can’t. He can’t spend too much time with Zayn on the computer, because the longer he sits there playing Pokemon or whatever as Zayn works the more likely it is he’ll start watching Zayn, start remembering the feel of his body under Louis’s, wondering how his lips would feel on Louis’s skin. As long as he keeps active, he doesn’t think about that, though, so he stays active, and whenever Zayn’s eyelashes get to be too much he jumps on Zayn and makes him do something that won’t make Louis wonder how he looks when he’s properly turned on.

Most nights, they find themselves at Harry and Niall’s, because they’re good company and it’s reconnaissance and Harry keeps inviting them, and also because it means Harry makes them food, and he’s a much better cook than Louis. That’s a different sort of not okay, because it means he and Zayn have to spend time together. Which isn’t a problem, it never has been and it won’t be, but somehow it’s weird when Harry’s watching and pointing them out, making sure Niall notices how cute they are. It’s just taken for granted now they’ll share the loveseat, and Zayn’s arm somehow always wraps around Louis so his fingers rub idly at his hip where his shirt’s ridden up. It means Zayn’s head rests on Louis’s shoulder, and Louis doesn’t know what to do with his hands anymore, if he should grab Zayn’s waist and hold him tight. It was just a kiss, and it hasn’t changed anything. Louis won’t let it.

“Hey,” Harry says, the day before the heist. Louis’s sprawled on their veranda, because Zayn’s on the phone with Shahid about something and Louis really doesn’t need to hear them talk, not when Zayn gets so enthusiastic about something that his hands start to wave and it’s not cute at all and about something only Shahid gets. So clearly, going next door for reconnaissance is the best use of his time. “Can I ask you something?”

“No. Never. I am an eternal mystery,” Louis retorts. The sun’s sunk into his bones here, he thinks, and he could just sun himself for hours. He really has to look into that beach vacation once this is over, someplace without internet so Zayn won’t work.

“You love Zack, right?”

“Yeah.”

“And he loves you.”

“Yeah.”

Harry sighs. “And you just—saw each other one day and realized that? That you wanted to be together forever? It happened at the same time for both of you?”

“Yeah,” Louis snaps. They hadn’t quite fleshed out their backstory that well, but sure, he supposes. It would work out like that for Luke, that he and Zack would just see each other and know, both of them, together. They would both want to get married and no one would be drunk and it’d work out forever, because that’s how people who weren’t Louis and didn’t have his shit worked. “There were violins, too.”

“So, no?” Harry hums. “Were you first, then? Did you have to woo him?”

“There was no wooing.” Louis’s fingers tap against the side of the couch. How would he woo Zayn, anyway? Candlelit take away dinners? Romantic heists? Throwing jewels and riches into his lap, to see him smile?

“Oh, so he realized first? How did he get you to realize, then?” Harry presses. Louis is actually going to throw something at him. He fucking hates long cons, hates that Zack would’ve done something romantic and sweet probably, made Luke a nice dinner or maybe he’d just have looked at him, because Luke could’ve read all the emotion in his eyes.

“He just—he did,” Louis retorts. He swings up to standing. He needs to do something, and he’s found out Harry’s even easier than Liam to make do pranks or something with him. “Come on, let’s go turn Niall’s room backwards.”

“But—isn’t that an invasion of privacy?” Harry asks, but he’s getting up too. Louis rolls his eyes. Sometimes, he forgets people are still concerned with those things.

They’re only just finishing when there’s a buzz in Louis’s pocket, and Louis bids Harry good-bye to go answer Liam’s call. It’s a pity he won’t be able to see Niall’s reaction, but hey, maybe Harry will take advantage of it somehow.

“Payno!” Louis answers the phone, stepping out onto the beach. “How’s my favorite fence?”

“Good, good. How’re you?”

“Fine and dandy.” There’s a note in Liam’s voice, something tentative, that puts Louis on edge. He only sounds like that when he thinks he’s delivering bad news and is worried how Louis’s going to take it. It’s the note he usually gets before he goes and gets Zayn. “What’s wrong, Liam?”

“Nothing’s wrong.”

“You’re okay? No problems?”

“No. No.” The second time Liam says it, the more it sounds sure. Louis lets out a breath. Liam’s slightly less in that sort of danger than him and Zayn, but he’s never safe, and it’s always a constant worry, that one day they’ll get a call from London tell them something happened to Liam. “I just wanted to let you guys know—I got the divorce papers drawn up.”

“Oh.” Oh. Divorce papers. Louis rubs at the ring. “So that’s done, then?”

“I can mail them, then you both have to sign, then get them back to me, and it’ll be done. Legally and quietly.” He hears Liam’s exhale. “Are you—you want me to mail them, right?”

“Of course. Why wouldn’t I?” Louis retorts. He pauses before getting to their steps, looks back at the ocean. He doesn’t want to have this conversation inside. “Were you going to fax them? Because I don’t think even Zayn has a fax machine anymore.”

“No. Like.” Liam pauses, but, “You don’t…I dunno, Zayn just didn’t seem in a hurry, when I talked to him? He said it could wait.”

“When is Zayn ever in a hurry?” Louis points out. They were accidentally married, now they need to get divorced. That’s how this works. They’ll get divorced and be them again, and Louis won’t think about Zayn’s lips or his skin or his hips ever again. It’ll all be back to normal. “Mail them, Li. We’ll get them back to you.”

“Okay.” Liam still doesn’t sound sure. “I could—”

“Just bloody mail them!” Louis snaps. The sooner it’s over with, the better. Then they won’t be married and Louis will stop thinking about Zayn’s lips and this shit show will be over and Zayn will get a real someone who will be domestic with him and Louis will never tell his mum about it. Fuck, he needs to do something. Needs to get out this energy, this buzzing that’s leading up to the job.

Liam’s silent for a long second. Then, “Are you okay, Louis?”

“I’m fine.” Louis runs a hand through his hair. There’s the sound of someone talking, and Louis cranes his head back to see. Zayn’s on the porch, his own phone to the ear, and he’s grinning at something, wide and bright. He’s shirtless for some reason, in just his jeans, and Louis’s only human, can’t help tracing down the lines of his tattoos from broad shoulders to his narrow hips. “Totally fine. I’ll update you on the job soon, yeah. Later!” he hangs up before Liam can reply, then runs up the stairs.

Zayn’s still on the phone, but his smile’s a little tight. “Maybe in a while, mate,” he says, tugging on his ear like he does when he’s anxious. “That’s not my deal now, you know that. I’ll help where I can.”

Louis ignores that to come over to stand next to Zayn. Zayn’s smile changes as he looks at him, he knows it does, into that thing he only does when he looks at Louis, and his arm wraps around Louis’s waist. Louis’s close enough to Zayn that the only logical thing for him to do is bite at his shoulder, so he does, as Zayn hums something into the phone Louis isn’t listening to at all, then hangs up.

“You okay, babe?” he asks, and it should be as annoying as when Liam does, but it’s not.

“We should go to a bar tonight,” Louis declares.

“We should not be hungover tomorrow.”

“We can go out without being hungover. Need to get you some fresh air before you keel over midjob.”

“I’m in fresh air now!”

“Real fresh air. Out of the house.” Louis pokes at Zayn’s side. His hand’s warm and solid on Louis’s hip again, rubbing idly against his skin, and he’s not sure if he wants to melt into Zayn’s side or burst out of his skin.

“If it’ll get you to settle,” Zayn agrees. Louis snorts.

“You want to just as much. You’re ready for this to go down too.”

“Yeah,” Zayn admits. He drums his fingers on the railing, both of them looking out at the ocean, and Louis just breathes in Zayn. This is what’s important. Not anything else. “’m ready to move on.”

---

“No, fuck you, Tony Stark could totally take Spiderman,” Zayn protests, his hands waving wide because he’s just on the right side of tipsy. Louis snorts, as disdainfully as he can, except he’s laughing too because he’s also on the right side of tipsy. It’s like normal, he thinks. Like normal, him and Zayn shooting the shit at a bar, just the two of them despite the people around them. Just like normal. Even if they are married.

“Spiderman has power, Tony Stark doesn’t. It’s clear who wins.”

“Tony has brains—I mean, Peter does too, he’s a genius too, but not, like Tony Stark.” Zayn kicks at him for emphasis, then his foot doesn’t move, still pressed against Louis’s. It’s a small table, admittedly, but it was the only one left, because the bar Louis’d noticed during his wanderings was apparently pretty popular on a Friday night. It almost makes him wish he’d dressed up a little more, in something other than jeans and a t-shirt, but fuck that, really. If he’d done that, he probably wouldn’t have been able to kick his shoes off as soon as he got here, and he definitely wouldn’t be feeling the pressure of Zayn’s boot against his ankle. Not that that would be a good or a bad thing. It just wouldn’t be. “Tony could take anyone.”

“Tony gets punched once and he’s down,” Louis protests. “Spiderman’s got superstrength! And he could climb circles around Tony.”

“Tony can fly.”

“Only if he’s got the suit. Peter’s got his webslinger things.”

“Not in most of the comics, they started out as machines too,” Zayn shoots back, and Louis rolls his eyes.

“You’re such a nerd.”

Zayn just laughs, his cheeks flushed and his eyes bright. “Your nerd, though.”

It’s—Louis chokes on the last bits of his beer, sputtering. He doesn’t—Zayn is, but—

“I’m getting another,” Zayn announces, getting up. His foot only draws back now. “You want one?”

Louis nods. He can do that much, even if he can’t quite find words as Zayn leaves.

Louis lets out a long breath, and looks down at the table to trace a pattern in the condensation, his thumb rubbing over his ring. He is Zayn, and Zayn’s his. They were before they were married, and they will be after, it’s not a thing. Partners in crime. It’s what they are.

He leans back again, surveys the bar. It’s a game he likes to play with himself sometimes, a game of ‘how many valuables could I take if I wanted to’. He counts at least fifteen on a first sweep, mainly wallets in back pockets and purses on the ground. Moving on to jewelry is harder, but even that’s doable. He starts at one end of the bar, at the man with the diamond bracelet that really, it would be a gift to take off his hands (god, maybe Harry is rubbing off on him, if he’s making bad puns in his head). He moves down the line, picking one thing from each person—then he gets to Zayn.

It’s automatic, the way he picks it out—ring on his necklace, rings on his fingers that he only puts on when he’s going out, nice watch that would be (and already had been) Louis’s first approach. Louis doesn’t think he’d have gone after him anyway. Even now, drunk and careless, there’s a watchfulness to Zayn, an awareness of his own space that only Louis or his family gets through.

He can’t not watch, though, as Zayn brushes away that one stupid lock of hair that’s falling in front of his face even though the rest is slicked back perfectly well, that one lock that Zayn’s been playing with all night and that Louis’s going to cut off pretty soon if he doesn’t stop touching it, because every time he does Louis can’t not look at his fingers, his wrist, the way his hair slides through his fingers like it would Louis’s. It’d serve Zayn right if he cut it off, he decides. Stupid fucking hair.

Zayn turns, then, and there’s someone next to him, a man with sunbleached hair and the sort of body toned by the gym, not by, say, laser grids. Louis doesn’t need to read his lips to know what he’s saying, some cheesy pick up line that he’s surprised didn’t come sooner, with Zayn in black on black and that stupid hair.

“No,” he mutters, watching, “I don’t want your drink.” Zayn holds up his drink, sure enough.

The guy shrugs, gives a blindingly white grin that’s really overkill. “That’s okay I don’t make any money anyway because I’m just an ass with too much plastic surgery.”

“Yes, I could tell,” Louis keeps going to himself, even though he knows perfectly well Zayn’s probably not even saying anything. “You look like an asshole, and I’m going to ruin your credit score as soon as I get my phone out.”

“What’s that? I didn’t understand you because I was too busy thinking about how to get into your pants to listen,” Louis fills in—then sits up. The guy’s put a hand over Zayn’s on the bar, and he took a step forward, into that invisible bubble Zayn puts up.

Louis’s fist clenches, and he half rises out of his chair before he makes himself stay still. It’d be a bother to lose this table.

Zayn gives the hand a long look, then he just turns that gaze on the guy, and Louis grins to himself. People never quite notice Zayn’s dangerous, or they think he is in all the wrong ways. But the guy backs away fast.

Zayn’s smiling as he gets back to the table, setting a glass in front of Louis before settling back into his own chair.

“Have fun?”

Zayn shrugs. “Told him my husband was sitting at our table, worked well enough.”

“That’s all?”

Zayn’s grin flashes, bright and quick and sharp enough to cut glass, and Louis’s stomach does nothing at all. “You were looking pretty scary, babe. Think it was enough to scare anyone away.”

“I am intimidating,” Louis agrees, and takes a sip. He hadn’t meant to look scary. He’d just been watching. “And you’re fucking wrong, Peter’s got brains and a superpower, what could be better?”

“Um, shit tons of money and brains?” Zayn retorts.

It’s half an hour later, when Louis’s on his way back from the bathroom, that he just happens to spot the blonde guy, playing darts with his friends. It’s not out of his way to detour so he’s walking past them. It just takes a single sidestep, then he stumbles against him, just as he’s throwing the dart.

The dart goes wide, and the guy swears, turning to glare at Louis. “What the—”

“Sorry!” Louis says, almost halfway convincing. He even smiles at the guy. “Someone pushed me. Quite a crowd in here, innit?”

“Yeah,” he agrees, shortly, and turns away again, already arguing with his friends about getting another shot.

“Happy now?” Zayn asks, when he gets back to the table. “You didn’t have to do that.”

Louis shrugs, feeling the weight of his wallet and keys in his pocket. “Can’t have anyone thinking they can hit on my husband, can I?” he asks, and Zayn rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling at Louis, and his foot’s against Louis’s ankle again. Louis can be in his bubble, but no one else gets to think they can just invade it. Louis pulls out the keys, investigating. “Think we can figure out which Audi is his?”

They don’t find the car in the end, but somehow they’re both more drunk than not as they stumble into the house. Zayn’s worse off than Louis, because there’s always the unspoken agreement that one of them stays more sober when they go out, and Zayn’s got less to worry about for a hangover tomorrow. So tonight, he’s got an arm around Louis’s waist and his nose buried in his neck as Louis gets them into the house, not bothering not to laugh at how Zayn’s utterly incapable of walking in a straight line.

“Don’t know how you did anything before I got here,” he tells Zayn, locking the door behind them and heading towards Zayn’s room. Zayn’s warm like this, which is the only reason Louis shivers as his lips brush against Louis’s skin as he smiles.

“Me neither,” Zayn agrees. He intertwines their fingers, which doesn’t help them walking, but it means he’s rubbing over Louis’s ring. “Best mate anyone could have. Best partner.”

“And you’re a sap,” Louis retorts. “I should be recording this.”

“I’d delete it.”

“Not if I hid it.”

“You can’t hide things from me.” Louis sneers, and Zayn laughs. “I know all your secrets, babe.” He grabs Louis face, and for a second—but he kisses both of Louis’s cheeks instead, loud and smacking and wet, and then doesn’t object when Louis pushes him back onto the bed.

“Go to sleep.”

“I need to get into the guy’s facebook,” Zayn sits up, reaches for his computer, but Louis shuts it before he can get there.

“No drunk coding.” That’s always risky, or it is the night before a job. “I already stole his car.”

“My hero, aren’t you?” Zayn sticks out his tongue.

“I am,” Louis informs him. “I’m actually the best superhero, obviously.”

“Obviously,” Zayn agrees, and flops back onto the bed. The ring—Louis’s ring—is resting on his chest, and he’s still got that one stupid lock of hair falling across his face. “No one I’d rather be married to.”

“At least I’m easy to divorce,” Louis agrees. His stomach’s hurting, or his head is, and Zayn’s smile isn’t helping, looking at Louis like he’s glowing. He doesn’t know what marriage can do, how quickly it could ruin everything. “Night.”

Zayn grabs Louis’s hand before he can leave, fast as Louis ever is. “You’re, like, I’m glad we’re doing this,” he says, and Louis can feel his callouses against Louis’s palm. He’s always like this when he’s drunk, needing to touch, to hold onto things. “’s turning into something good, isn’t it.”

“Yeah, it’s always been good,” Louis agrees. They’re so close. So close to the sword, to finally doing it, so yeah, he’d say it’s good.

Finally, because it’s been annoying him all night, he tucks the strand of hair back behind Zayn’s ear. “Now I need my beauty sleep, because I actually have to do work tomorrow.” He tugs at his hand, and Zayn lets go. “So good night.”

“Turn out the light when you go,” Zayn says, and kicks off a boot, narrowly missing Louis.

“You turn off your own lights,” Louis retorts, and slams the door before the other boot actually does fly at his head.

It’s only when he’s back in his own room, his door firmly shut, that he closes his eyes, and takes a breath. Zayn knows all his secrets, so if Zayn doesn’t know it, it doesn’t exist. The kiss was just a kiss. He can’t still feel Zayn’s lips on his neck, even though he’s done that a thousand times before.

The job. Louis falls asleep to him running over the plan again and again his mind, his fingers twitching with anticipation.

---

“So.” Zayn turns around in his chair. He’s settled, all of his screens are up and running, packed in his bedroom so it’s less conspicuous if he’s interrupted. Louis looks up from tying his shoes. “Feel like we should say something, yeah?”

“What, to each other? Want to make a speech?”

“You’re the speechifying one,” Zayn throws back, his face relaxing into a smile. Louis flips him off, then goes to the mirror to glare at the bowtie hanging at the neck of his uniform tux. He hates bow ties with a passion. “Just feel like, it’s a moment, yeah?”

“It will be once we have the sword,” Louis retorts, tugging at the ends of the tie. He didn’t have an office job so he wouldn’t have to tie ties. “You just have to sit here for a few hours. I’ve still got work to do.”

“Yeah, my job’s so boring. Come here,” Zayn adds, and hooks a foot around Louis’s ankle so he has to come closer, enough that when Zayn stands up he can get his fingers on the tie. “Someday, you’ll need to learn how to do this.”

“Why? You’re always here.” Louis grins, and Zayn smiles back. They’re so close Louis can see the freckle in his eye, the little pores on his face no one else sees, the way he’s looking at Louis, his lip caught between his teeth. Louis glances down, away from that look—but there’s the chain on his neck, and Louis can’t think about that, not now. He meets Zayn’s eyes again. “And in a few hours, we’ll have the sword.”

“Yeah.” Zayn’s done tying, but he doesn’t step away, his hand lingering at Louis’s throat. Louis should hate it, but Zayn’s…Zayn. Zayn’s Zayn, and he’s here, and they’re so close to the one thing they’ve been dreaming of for years. “You set?”

“Gear all in,” Louis agrees, rolling his eyes. “Who are you, my mum? Liam?”

“I’m not the one who forgot my cell phone last time.”

“And that didn’t matter, did it?” Louis retorts. Or, well, it almost had, but they’d been fine and Louis’d gotten out. The clock’s ticking, and he should go. He needs to go meet up with the rest of the waiters, so he can shuffle in with the crowd. “We’re gonna get the sword, Zee.”

“We’re gonna get the sword,” Zayn echoes, and his eyes are starting to light up, reflecting or amplifying or just the same as the buzz starting in Louis’s veins. “Just…” he bites at his lips again, rubs at his ear. His gaze flicks down, then back up to Louis’s eyes, but it doesn’t seem like he’s planning on saying anything.

Louis steps back. He takes another look at himself in the mirror, head to toe, checking for anything out of place, but everything looks good. And as long as he’s looking at himself in the mirror, he doesn’t have to look at Zayn, and think about how his lips had felt, and anything else.

He reaches up to fiddle just a bit with the tie—and finds the final off note.

It’s the first time he’s taken off the ring since he woke up with it on. He’s not sure why, honestly; it’s a joke, their marriage, and the ring’s just more of that. A joke, and a bit of a nervous tic now. Nothing more. But his hand feels light and a bit naked as he slides it off.

“Don’t want this catching anywhere,” he jokes, holding it out to Zayn. “Keep it safe, will you?”

Their fingers brush as Zayn takes the ring from Louis’s palm. “Don’t want you losing the symbol of our eternal love and having it incriminate us,” Zayn agrees, laughing. Laughing, because it’s a joke, because the job, that’s what’s important.

“Yeah. I’m gonna—time to get going.”

Zayn nods, and trails Louis out into the kitchen, towards the door. “If you get arrested, I’m not bailing you out,” he warns, like always. Since their first job, when that was a serious statement. Louis turns to glare, but he’s already grinning. He can see the brightness rising in him, how he’s started to smile like he gets on a job, the way it looks like he glows with it. “I’ll break you out, but I’m not spending any money on you.”

“You better. I expect spoon tunnels, Malik,” Louis throws back. He’s got a hand on the door knob, but then Zayn’s hand’s on his shoulder, turning him back. He’s so close again, like back in the bedroom, like that night on the floor warm with weed and him. Louis raises his eyebrows in a question, and Zayn leans forward. For a second, Louis is convinced he’s going to kiss him again, and Louis’s eyes close because he doesn’t know what else to do.

Instead, Zayn’s lips brush against his cheek. “Just stay safe, yeah?”

Louis swallows. Zayn probably didn’t notice him closing his eyes. “What’s the fun in that?” he asks, and slips out the door before he meets Zayn’s eyes again. The job. The job is what’s important. Not the warmth of Zayn’s lips on his cheek, or how he squeezes his shoulder, or how he laughs as Louis shuts the door behind him.

---

The first part of the plan is easy enough. It’s a cliché, maybe, that no one looks at the help, but it’s also true. So Louis slides into the flock of waiters as they load into vans, just another out of work actor looking for a gig, and looks out the window as the vans carry them past the gates of Winston’s estate. Finally. They’re in.

He mutters as much to Zayn, and Zayn’s hiss of victory is everything he can’t say right now. Then they’re in, and Louis putters around doing waitery things as he waits for the crowds to fill the public parts of the house. They’re counting on everything being concentrated there for tonight, security not looking at the vault when there are guests and valuables all over the main room. Louis has to consciously keep his fingers from twitching at the jewels around him at this tiny little intimate gathering of a few hundred people or so, but that’s the hardest part. He spots Harry, laughing with Winston, but it’s easy enough to avoid him, circling on the opposite side of the room, until Zayn gives him the go ahead that security just completed their walk through.

That’s his cue. Louis ducks back into the kitchen, then back farther, into the closet off the back hallway. It’s a convenient closet, both because Louis can stash his tuxedo there, but mainly because there’s an air vent that Louis can climb into, once he’s out of the loose tuxedo and in the jumpsuit he’d worn underneath it, his bag tucked against his back.

“Someday, I’m going to make you climb through the airvents,” he mutters, pulling himself up.

Zayn chuckles. “You like the air vents.”

“Yes, but I’ll do it,” Louis retorts, “Just so you know what it’s like.”

“Don’t think that would go well with claustrophobia,” Zayn points out, and there’s not much Louis could say to that, as his hips stick a little at a seam and he has to take a long breath to calm himself. “You’re lucky your ass isn’t any bigger.”

“My ass is beautiful, and it’s not like that’d be a problem for you,” Louis points out.

“Fuck off. Left here, then four more meters and you’re there.”

Louis turns, smirking to himself. His lack of ass is the one thing Zayn’s vaguely sensitive about in his appearance. Not that it’s much of a problem, and in the right pants it’s not one at all. Louis suspects even without pants it would be—the job. He has to think about the job, and not wonder about Zayn’s ass, which he shouldn’t even be thinking about in the first place, and wouldn’t be if Zayn hadn’t brought up asses on the job. Zayn’s ass or lack thereof doesn’t matter, just like the feel of his lips don’t, and Louis’s here, so he gets to work opening the vent that’ll drop him into the study, that’s on the edge of this system of vents.

“Wait a sec, Lou, there’s—the fuck?” Zayn says, but Louis’s already dropping down, and fucking shit hell, he’s already tensed to dive out the window or run or do whatever’s necessary when he sees the room.

“The fuck?” Louis echoes.

Harry looks up from the desk, a file still held in his hand. He looks just like he did downstairs, his shirt half open, his hair in loose curls, his pants ridiculously tight—but it’s very, very clear from his face, and the fact that he’s rifling through Winston’s files in a darkened office while a party’s going on outside, that he’s not expecting anyone.

“Luke?”

“Harry?”

“Lou, those are confidential files, I can’t see what, but they aren’t things Winston would want people to see. Trade secrets? Fuck, I should have looked at him better…”

“Yeah, that’s pretty clear.” For once in his life, though, Louis’s not sure what to say. Harry seems to be having a similar problem, both of them standing there in that darkened room, staring at each other.

“Um.” Harry runs a hand through his hair. “Were you…” he gestures to the files.

“Oh, no.” Louis blinks, gathers himself. Okay. So. Unexpected happening. He can roll with that. This isn’t the worst thing he’s encountered on a job, and definitely not the most dangerous. “Carry on. I’m just going to…” he edges around Harry, Harry circling so he can keep watch on him, until he’s at the window. Then he slides the window open.

Harry’s eyes widen as Louis hops up onto the windowsill. It’ll be easy from here to get over to the hall next to the vault, inside the internal systems.

“Tell him the password’s ‘devito’,” Zayn says in his ear, and Louis grins. Harry’s still gaping at him a bit, which, to be fair, Louis might be, if he didn’t have other things to concentrate on.

“By the way,” Louis announces, glancing out the window. “Password’s devito. If you need it.”

Harry makes a sound like he’s not sure if he should laugh or not, then shuts up as Louis swings himself out the window.

“Fuck, that was—”

“Not what I expected, yeah,” Zayn agrees. Louis’s laughing, though, and it’s only partly adrenaline and relief as he edges his way over to the other window. Harry fucking Styles. Who would have guessed? He guesses they’re lucky he wasn’t an undercover cop or something.

The magnet works as well here as it did in London, then Louis’s on the ground, padding over to the hallway. Then he’s up into another fucking air vent—honestly, why people need to make things so complicated with two separate vent systems, he doesn’t know—and then he’s over the vault.

He slides the grate off carefully, then hooks his legs over the edge, swings himself upside down so he can get a look. It’s a crisp white room, covered in metal shelves, and a few things that look like display cases. The sword’s not even in one of them. Winston won’t miss it for ages, and if he does, well, fuck him. It’s wasted here.

“Having fun hanging around?” Zayn asks, and Louis glares in what he presumes is the general direction of the cameras Zayn’s in control of before lifting himself back up into the grate.

“Well, if you’d managed to deactivate the pressure sensors, I wouldn’t have to.”

“I told you, they’re—”

“On a different system, I know.” What Zayn had actually said was a lot more complicated, but what Louis had heard was, ‘go steal the sword without touching the ground.’ “You love to make my life difficult, don’t you?”

“You’d get bored otherwise,” Zayn points out, which is very true. Louis drops down on top of a bank of shelves in the middle. Luckily, the sword’s in the lowest compartment there, so he stretches out on his stomach, bends down.

“You are enjoying the upside down stuff,” Zayn muses.

“Stop admiring my ass and go back to making sure I don’t get caught,” Louis retorts.

“I can multitask. Harry’s looking through the computers now. I really should have done a deeper check on him.”

“You know, picking locks upside down isn’t easy,” Louis points out, because Zayn can’t see his smile.

“I do love to challenge you, babe.”

Louis doesn’t have to see him to know Zayn’s self-satisfied smile, or how he’s hunched over his screens, watching all of them at once, ready to warn Louis at a moment’s notice. Watching Louis’s back. Watching Louis’s arse, maybe, even, Louis can’t help but think. Maybe this is like when he watches Zayn coding, how rapt he gets in his computer, how it’s so clearly his element.

The lock clicks, and Louis slides the drawer open.

And there it is, the sword. Shining and gold, set into a drawer made just for it. Right there.

Louis has to run his fingers over it, to make sure it’s real, but it is, at last.

“Timing,” Zayn warns, and Louis blinks. Right. He picks up the sword, slides it into his bag. He’s about to close the drawer when the thing next to the sword catches his eyes, what looks like a crown, or something smaller than that. Zayn would know the word.

Louis grabs it too, stuffs it in his bag, then shoulders the bag.

“I’m good,” he says, and reaches up to pull himself back into the vent.

---

Harry’s gone by the time he gets back to that room, which is just as well. It’s hard enough to get through the rest of the night, back in his tuxedo holding out trays for rich fuckers who don’t know what he just did, knowing the sword’s resting in his bag, so close. Hearing Zayn’s commentary in his ear, quick and fast like he gets when he’s excited, the words spilling out like he can’t control them, like he’s caught the rush that’s burning in Louis, talking about what they’re going to do and what he sees and all sorts of shit.

Louis can’t keep his leg from jiggling in the van ride back out of Winston’s, then as he waves good-bye to the other waiters. He can feel the weight of the sword banging against his back, thousands of pounds right there, and the heaviness of the circlet under it.

“Zayn!” he yells, banging the door open. He doesn’t have to yell—Zayn’s right there, on his feet, his eyes wide and bright, his hair a mess from his hands running through it, all his muscles tense and buzzing.

“You got it?”

“May I present to you…” Louis pulls off the backpack, so he can pull it out. “The Emperor’s Sword!”

Zayn takes it from him, his fingers soft, reverent as he strokes over the sheath. Like he touches his computer, like he touched Louis that once, or maybe not. Because he’d dug his nails in on Louis, willing to mark him up, to claim him. Louis can’t look away, at Zayn’s long fingers against the gold of the sheath.

“Louis.” Zayn looks up, and his smile is fierce and proud. “We did it.”

“As an added bonus…” Louis digs in the bag more, brings out the circlet. “Got you a present.”

Zayn’s eyes roll, and he sets the sword down on the counter. “Lou…”

Louis ignores him, puts the crown on his head. It falls a little off center, but it’s bright against his dark hair, and Zayn’s eyes are shining as he sets the sword aside, and fuck it. Fuck everything, they have the sword, there’s nothing wrong in Louis’s world, so he takes another step forward so Zayn’s back hits the wall, and kisses Zayn.

If Zayn’s surprised he doesn’t show it, just grabs on to Louis’s hips, his fingers digging in, and kisses him back. It’s as good sober as it was high, or maybe Louis isn’t sober now, maybe this is the best high he ever had, the score of his life on their counter and Zayn pressed against the wall under him. It’s not a nice kiss, not sweet, they’re both too keyed up for that; it’s teeth and tongue and the edge of the crown bumps against Louis’s forehead and it’s brilliant.

“Fuck, Lou,” Zayn moans, as Louis wrenches his mouth away, to kiss down Zayn’s jaw, suck at his neck like he’s wondered about for ages, whenever he sees marks on Zayn. “Enjoy the heist a little too much?”

“Enjoyed it just enough,” Louis retorts. He needs this, this is better than anything he could get in a club, because Zayn’s right there with him, his hands roaming over Louis’s back as he bites at Zayn’s skin. He’s on his way to hard already, his dick pressed against Zayn’s thigh and Zayn’s hands on his ass now, but, “And you enjoyed it too, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Zayn admits, shameless, and Louis can feel the press of his dick against his leg. “Are we—”

Louis kisses him to shut him up, because he doesn’t want questions tonight. He wants Zayn, wants all the things he’s been wondering about, wants it now when he’s rash and reckless and brave. Zayn must understand, because he just kisses back, and his t-shirt’s really getting in the way so Louis pulls it off, just letting go of Zayn long enough to do it. Zayn must agree with that too, because as soon as he’s free he’s at the buttons of Louis’s shirt, opening them quick and competent. There’s something so Zayn about that moment, that even now, his pupils blown and his cock hard, he can still open the buttons without his hands shaking, that Louis just—he wants to break that. He wants Zayn to be as desperate for this as he is, to fly as high and be as wrapped up in Louis, to be as obsessed with him as Louis’s been recently. He wants Zayn in pieces on the floor that only Louis knows how to put back together.

“Why do you have so many layers on?” Zayn hisses, when the shirt comes off just to get to the black shirt underneath it.

“Some of us can’t do jobs in our pajamas,” Louis retorts, sliding his hands over Zayn’s torso, tracing at each line of ink, up to the wings.

“At least they’re fucking easy access.”

“They are,” Louis agrees, and his hands might be shaking a bit but he’s not a thief for nothing; he’s got Zayn’s jeans open and his hand in his pants quick as breathing. Zayn groans, his head falling back as Louis squeezes him, and that’s just more room for Louis to explore.

“Fuck, Lou, your hands—”

“That’s what you get for marrying a thief,” Louis jokes. Zayn tilts his head back up so he can look at Louis, and there’s—Louis doesn’t know what to do with the look in his eyes, doesn’t know what it means, so he licks down Zayn’s chest to circle his nipple with his tongue until Zayn’s swearing at him and the hands on his ass are kneading in a way that’s getting Louis pretty desperate too.

Louis drops to his knees, and Zayn swears again. Good, Louis decides, yanking Zayn’s jeans and boxers down, good, he should swear, because Louis’s burning with this, with this need come all at once.

Zayn’s cock isn’t a surprise, because nothing of Zayn could be, really, but it’s thick and it feels good on Louis’s tongue as he licks up the vein, so Zayn groans and his head thumps back hard against the wall. He spares a glance upwards before he swallows Zayn down again, because there’s rules about this, about having sex with your best friend—but Zayn’s flushed and his hair’s a mess and the crown’s still askew on his forehead, and he looks beautiful and messy and bright, and Louis’s been breaking rules his whole life.

Zayn grins when he sees Louis looking at him, the quick fierce smile he gets before a job, before he does something brilliant, and Louis knows what it means. He licks over the head of Zayn’s cock again, and then takes him in his mouth.

Louis might be an asshole, but he’s been thinking about Zayn for weeks, so he teases, sucks deep only to go back to licking when Zayn groans. Zayn’s hands move off the wall, cup the back of his head, but he’s not holding him there he’s just holding on, and it’s good, feeling Zayn’s hands clenched in his hair.

“Fucking hell, Louis, gonna…” he trails off, and Louis glances up again. Zayn’s a mess, and it’s beautiful, and it’s Louis’s, Louis did this, and he just wants it to last forever.

“No,” he says, and pulls off. Zayn’s makes a noise Louis’s going to mock him about forever, then glares down at him.

“The hell?”

“Not yet,” Louis tells him, and stands up. Zayn’s sagging against the wall, the muscles of his neck tight enough the veins are standing out, and Louis’s still buzzing with the heist and his need and he has to kiss Zayn again. Even now, Zayn meets him, teeth digging into Louis’s lips so he whines, his hips shifting against Zayn’s thigh.

“If you got that fucking jumpsuit off, I could help,” Zayn observes. It’s tight, but almost offhand, like he could take it or leave it, like he’s not making little breathy sounds every time his cock brushes against Louis’s jeans, and Louis glares as his fingers dig into Zayn’s skin.

“You’ll help,” he mutters, and grabs Zayn’s wrist. He tugs, and Zayn raises his eyebrows just enough to let Louis know he’s only doing this because he wants to before he lets Louis pull him into Louis’s bedroom, before he pushes him down onto the bed so he can strip out of the jumpsuit.

Zayn leans back against the headboard as he does, watching with that same lazy smile. He’s naked except for the crown that’s still shining on his head and the ring thumping on his chest, over the lips, and Louis can’t look anymore.

He climbs onto Zayn, straddling his hips like he’s done so many times before, and kisses him, hard, so he’ll stop looking at Louis like that, like it’s real, like this is more than adrenaline and Louis’s stupid mind.

“Almost got distracted by your ass during the job,” he tells Zayn, and Zayn snorts that turns into a low groan as Louis nips at his jawbone.

“Think we decided it’s your ass’s worth getting distracted over,” Zayn retorts, and his hands are over it like to prove a point, and Louis’s so fucking hard, he could probably get off with just Zayn’s voice in his ear and his hands, but he needs more. Needs Zayn there with him, like always.

“We even out,” Louis tells him. Zayn chuckles, then his voice changes when Louis edges his knees apart.

“Louis, just finish me off than you can have your turn, come here, I can—”

“I’m gonna,” Louis retorts. He knows he has lube here somewhere, but he just…

Zayn rolls his eyes, then reaches over to the bedside table, digs in the second drawer. “Prepared, babe?” he drawls, holding it up.

“A boy’s got needs.”

Zayn’s eyebrows furrow, for a second. “You didn’t—”

“I haven’t fucked anyone since London, you know that.” Since London. Since they’d gotten married. Since Louis’d started getting distracted by Zayn’s stupid mouth. “I wouldn’t cheat on my beloved husband.” He’s not that kind of asshole.

“You better not.” Zayn sounds like he’s joking, but his fingers tighten around Louis’s wrist, his nails digging in. He’ll leave marks, Louis thinks. Marks that he was there.

“Who could I find better looking than you?” Louis retorts, and grabs at the lube. He pushes Zayn’s knees up, apart, and then presses a kiss to the lips right next to the ring on his chest.

“Just fucking do it,” Zayn mutters. Louis smirks at him.

“Patience,” He agrees, and when he circles Zayn’s hole with his finger Zayn’s skeptical snort’s cut off. He’s loud in bed, Louis’s always known that, had heard it through walls and stall doors, had heard his grunts and cursing and moans and pulled a pillow over his head so he wouldn’t have to hear it, and it had always been hot, of course, because people getting off is hot, but it’s so much more now. So much more as he opens Zayn up, quick and efficient because he’s painfully hard with how Zayn’s hands are everywhere on him, how his mouth still tastes of Zayn.

“I’m good,” Zayn mutters, as Louis curves three fingers in and Zayn’s back arches.

“You sure?” Louis pulls his fingers out though, fumbles with the condom Zayn hands him.

“Just fuck me already, know you want to.”

Louis’s hand slows at that. He wants to, but he wants Zayn to need it too. He knows he does, has proof of it in his hand, in how hard Zayn’s biting his lip, but he’ll show Zayn. Zayn will know, will remember, long after the ring’s gone and they’re done, he’ll think of this, look at the sword and think of this. In his stupid perfect marriage and home Louis will only sort of be in. “So you don’t want me to?” he asks, hovering over Zayn. “Don’t want me to fuck you in the crown I stole for you?”

Zayn’s hand comes up to touch the crown almost unconsciously. “Lou—”

Louis ignores his aching cock, slides his fingers into Zayn again so he can hit his prostate. “Fuck, Louis, I…” Louis wraps his other hand around Zayn’s cock, jerking him off, and he’s so close Louis barely needs to see him tense to know when he’s coming, spilling over Louis’s hand. It’s nothing he’s seen before, Zayn’s face like that, and fuck—he kisses him before he does anything else.

“Give me a minute, I’ll do you,” Zayn murmurs into his mouth, but Louis shakes his head.

“Didn’t think I was done with you, did you, Malik?”

“Hm?” Zayn hums, his head tilting back so Louis doesn’t have a choice but to lick his neck, then shifts back, so he can get a hold of his own cock. “Okay, yeah.”

“Okay, yeah,” Louis teases, “You’d think you weren’t grateful.” He guides himself in, watching Zayn’s face as he adjusts so he knows how deep he can go, until he’s as deep in as he’s going to get and fuck but it’s good, Zayn hot and tight around him, his legs wrapped around his waist. “Good?”

Zayn bites his lip. “Go ahead.”

Louis thrusts once, then braces himself with one hand and gets his other on Zayn, so he can stroke him to the same rhythm Louis’s thrusting into him. He needs to feel this, needs this once before the papers come, wants to know every part of Zayn, even the hiss of breath that comes out of him that’s more pain than anything.

“Lou, no, I can’t—”

“You can,” Louis retorts. He knows Zayn, knows every muscle in Zayn’s body, and this is what he’s for. To push Zayn, to make him do things he doesn’t know he can, to ask for the things he doesn’t know how to ask for. “Come on, Zayn, want to do this together.”

“’s—it’s a lot,” Zayn murmurs, soft enough Louis doesn’t think he was meant to hear, and his fists are clenched in the sheets and his eyes are screwed shut like they do when he’s overwhelmed, but Louis can feel him getting hard in his hand and he’s shifting under him, and they’re moving like they always do, together. They don’t need to say any more, don’t need any more; it’s just the two of them, and fuck but it’s as good as anything, as Louis thrusts into Zayn and Zayn’s hips rise up to meet him, and Louis can feel his orgasm rising but he can see it in Zayn too and he’s not going to lose this, not when it feels like he’s won so much tonight.

“Come on, Zayn,” he grunts, and grabs at the ring so the chain yanks at his neck, and it’s probably not that but it seems like it is that makes Zayn come, his head tipping back so the crown falls off and his muscles clenching around Louis.

Louis fucks Zayn through it, then Zayn’s sagging back on the bed but Louis’s so close, and Zayn grabs Louis’s fingers, intertwines them. “So good, Lou,” he murmurs, and guides Louis’s hand up, to where a bruise is already blooming on Zayn’s neck. “Gonna come for me, babe?” he asks, and Louis breaks, or soars, or falls, the only rush as good as a theft toppling in on him.

---

Zayn’s stolen all the blankets. It’s that that strikes Louis first, waking up, that he has no blankets and that’s not fair. It comes to him before the memory of last night, of what they’d done. Done sober, Louis realizes, opening his eyes. Sober, except for the adrenaline of the sword, which might count? He can make it count. They were both keyed up, and Louis’d been thinking about it because that’s what happens when you get married to someone, you start thinking about that. That’s all. One fuck while they’re married, just to know, then it’ll go back to normal, to what’ll last.

That decided, he sits up, looks over at Zayn. He’s still asleep, of course, on his stomach with the blankets that he’s stolen bunched around his waist, his head buried in the crook of his elbow. It’s different from last night, from the club, seeing Zayn’s back exposed like this, the bones of his spine leading up to the ink at his neck, to the bruises Louis had put there last night. Louis strokes a hand up his spine, watches Zayn shift just the littlest bit, remembers what Zayn had looked like squirming for him. There’s nothing he doesn’t know of Zayn, now. No matter what happens, no matter who he marries later, they’ll never know him like this. Inside and out and forwards and backwards. No matter what, Louis has this. Better than any stupid marriage.

Zayn makes a noise in his sleep, and Louis draws back. He has this, but not for long. Until the divorce papers come in. Until Zayn moves on.

Louis gets up, out of bed. He brushes his teeth, then wanders back into the bedroom, but Zayn’s still fast asleep, so he goes back into the living room to make tea and scroll through the news. There isn’t even anything about the sword disappearing, because they’re just that good. They don’t even know the sword’s on their table right here, expensive and beautiful and theirs.

Or the crown, either, for that matter, Louis realizes, scrolling. He should probably remind Zayn to look it up, see it’s provenance—but then he remembers it on Zayn’s forehead as he moaned, and swallows, hard. Maybe he’ll keep that one too. Maybe he’ll make Zayn keep it, so he’ll remember.

There isn’t any mention of anything being stolen from Winston, just that he had the party. But they weren’t the only thieves there. Which reminds Louis. He has someone he needs to talk to, to make sure everyone stays nice and safe and comfortable.

He goes out onto the porch. Harry should be getting back from his run soon, and Louis always did love the element of surprise. It’s far easier than it should be to get into Harry’s house, just a lockpick and disabling an alarm, so Lois has time to make himself another cup of tea before Harry comes in.

He freezes at the door from the porch, midway through wiping sweat of his forehead, his jaw falling slightly open.

“Hey!” Louis grins from the counter, sipping on his tea. That’s his favorite look. “Fancy seeing you here.”

“Luke.” Harry tilts his head as he sidles in. He’s smart enough to be wary, at least. “Or is that really your name?”

“Nope,” Louis admits. No harm in that, he supposes. “Oh, I’m not going to hurt you,” he snaps, when he sees Harry reaching for a phone, “Don’t call the police. It’s just a bit of friendly breaking and entering.”

“Well then.” Harry gives him a long look, that Louis’s not quite sure what it means. “Want some melon?”

Given that Louis was expecting some sort of threat, it takes him a little aback. “Melon?”

“Yeah, I just cut some yesterday. Want some?”

“Is this an excuse to get out your knife?”

Harry rolls his eyes. “This is me being a good host. And Niall’s asleep upstairs, don’t want to wake him.”

“Couldn’t have that,” Louis agrees, but he scoots over so Harry can get to the fridge. He kicks his heels a bit as Harry lays out some melon on a plate, then puts it between them. He certainly seems relaxed. It’s relaxing Louis too, despite himself. Not that he has much to worry about—he’s pretty certain Harry’s harmless, if not so innocent as he’d thought, and Zayn will find him if something goes wrong. Really, Louis’s just curious. And pissed he missed this. It could have been a lot worse.

“So, what’s your game, then?” Louis asks, as Harry fusses. “You seduce these men, then steal their secrets? Is it blackmail?”

“No!” Harry yelps. He pokes at a piece of melon, then carries the plate into the living room, so Louis has no choice but to follow. “I’m distributing information. Information should be free, you know. So I’m just making sure no one has a monopoly.”

“And if they have to pay you for it—”

“That is a bonus,” Harry grins, dimpling shamelessly. Louis can respect a bit of shamelessness, now and again. “So, what was the game, then? Why’d you talk to me?”

“Needed you to plant something,” Louis tells him, and takes a bite of melon. He’s not sure about this whole fruit as a meal thing, but it’s good. “Had to get something inside somehow.”

Harry nods, his lips twisting. “So, then. You were just using me?”

Louis’s not sure if he’s actually offended or not—he’ll have to assume he doesn’t know any of Harry’s reactions now—but he is sure of some things, so he just scoffs. “Like you weren’t using us to con Niall into thinking you should be a couple.”

Harry just shrugs, shameless again. Louis thinks he likes this version of Harry even more. “I use resources at hand,” he says, and chomps down on a piece of melon.

“Does Niall know about the grifts?”

Harry bites his lip. “Think he suspects? I’ve been—I don’t want him hurt, if it gets out.” Louis thinks of the crown on Zayn’s head, of the sword on their table. Of running together. He doesn’t get that urge. Zayn’s next to him or not at all. “Does Zack know?” Louis opens his mouth, but Harry doesn’t stop. “’course, he was in your ear, yeah? That’s cute.” Harry beams. “Very Bonnie and Clyde. Without the dying, that is. Very romantic.”

“It’s not like that.” Louis runs his finger over the place where the ring would be, but he hasn’t gotten it back from Zayn yet. Harry shouldn’t talk about things he doesn’t understand. They’re Deadpool and Spiderman, not Bonnie and Clyde. “We aren’t really a couple.”

Harry’s eyebrows go up. “Really? ‘Cause, like. I thought something might be up with the two of you, felt so convenient and all, but I didn’t think it was that.”

“We’re friends. Best friends. Partners. Just not a couple, like,” Louis explains. He doesn’t know why he needs to explain, but he wants Harry to understand that. He shouldn’t get the wrong idea. They aren’t a couple, not even with the accidental rings, not even with the scratches Zayn’s fingernails left on Louis’s back. They’ll sign the divorce papers and everything will go back to normal, and Louis won’t remember this at all. They aren’t a couple, they’re more. Better. Something that Louis can maintain. Even his mum has best friends still. “Probably chose the wrong people to do your dirty work with Niall, mate.”

“I don’t think so.” Harry grins. “Do you know your voice goes soft whenever you talk about him? It’s not even his name, but you say it differently.”

“What?” Louis demands, but Harry’s standing up, setting aside the plate of melon. “Styles, what do you mean by that?”

“Just, like, I read people for a living, and that was the one thing I never doubted. That you, like, love each other.” Harry shrugs, goes to set the plate in the sink.

Well, duh. Louis snorts. Obviously he loves Zayn, that’s a given. If Harry can’t tell the difference between friend love and romantic love, well, he’s not much of a grifter, clearly. “Well—” he starts, then there’s the sound of someone coming downstairs and he freezes. If Harry did manage to call the police—if he told Winston—Zayn can still get out, Louis needs to make sure he knows to run—

But it’s only Niall, stumbling downstairs in sweatpants, rubbing at his stomach. He ignores Louis, looks right at Harry, who, to Louis’s very observant eye, is absolutely glowing with the force of his smile.

“Hey, Haz.” Niall goes a little red, and he rubs at his neck.

“Niall.” Harry bounces forward, then doesn’t hesitate to grab Niall’s face and kiss him, long and deep and enough that if Louis were a person who was easily embarrassed, he’d probably be embarrassed.

Louis leans back against the counter to wait, because that’s new. And rather pretty, really, even if it’s a bit early for Harry’s hands to be grabbing Niall’s ass like that. And neither of them kiss like Zayn, with the way he held Louis’s neck like he couldn’t let him get away, how he didn’t let Louis push him around except when he wanted to.

“Good technique, boys,” Louis says, when they don’t seem to be breaking apart any time soon. “Though that was a lot of tongue, Niall.”

Niall’s brow furrows. “Was it too much?” he asks Harry, a little bashfully. He’s adorable.

“Nah, just right.” Harry winks. “Enjoy the show, Luke?” He stresses the last word just enough.

“Like my own private porn channel,” Louis confirms, because he thinks he can get Niall to blush a bit redder. He does, but he also snorts out a laugh. Louis wishes Zayn were here, he’d get a kick out of this. Probably be cooing over them inside, but he’d have a laugh teasing them. “So, this is new.”

“Yeah, last night.” Harry hasn’t stopped beaming, and his hand is still on Niall’s ass. Apparently everyone was getting some last night. “He finally noticed.”

“It’s all your fault I’m stuck with him,” Niall tells Louis. He doesn’t seem much fussed about the hand on his ass, though he’s still red. Oh, Louis could have so much fun with this if they didn’t have to leave soon. “With you and Zack around, making lovey dovey eyes everywhere. Couldn’t help but think of romance.”

“See?” Harry’s grin turns to Louis, and it’s more a smirk. “Maybe I did pick the right mates.”

He picked mates who are good actors, more like. Who are good actors and comfortable enough with each other to be in each other’s spaces, because that’s all they are. Who’ve fucked, now. Who’re married. But not for long, and once, just so Louis knows. So there’s no secrets between them. So Louis will always know him more than anyone else, so no one can have a part of him Louis doesn’t have. It’s not love, or it’s not in love. Not even if now Niall and Harry are giving each other moony eyes across the kitchen.

Suddenly, Louis doesn’t want to be here, with these two who woke up after fucking and are looking like they’re on their honeymoon. He’ll go back and start packing up. Maybe it’s time he and Zayn went to that tropical island for a while, away from other people who make Louis think things like this, who make him want things he know he can’t have, that he’ll go back and Zayn will look at him like that, with hearts in his eyes. But he doesn’t look at Louis like that, or even if he does, that’s just because Zayn’s a romantic and shit and he’s the marrying type. It won’t be for the long run. That’ll be for someone else. Someone who can give Zayn what he needs.

“I’ll leave you two to it, then. Just promise to use protection,” Louis says, and sets down his mug. “And, Harry, if you’re ever in London—give us a call, yeah?”

“Yeah.” Harry beams, though Niall looks a bit confused. Louis will leave it up to Harry to figure out what he wants to tell him, though. He figures his own secrecy will protect them. “And, um. Luke? What’s, like—who should I ask for?”

It can’t hurt, Louis supposes. And he likes Harry, and Niall too, and it’s always good to know a grifter or two that you have dirt on. “Louis,” Louis says, opening the door. “Louis or Zayn.”

He’s gone before Niall can ask anything, out the door.

He takes his time walking back towards their house, the sand warm between his toes. Just because they convinced Harry and Niall doesn’t mean anything. It just means that they’re good at what they do. That’s all. They can’t—Louis doesn’t. He won’t. He won’t be in love with Zayn, because when the marriage ends they’ll be back to normal, and that’ll be fine. He’ll just never think about last night ever again, about how fucking good it had been, how they’d moved together like they were made for it, and it’ll be fine.

Maybe he can convince Zayn to make him breakfast. That would be normal of a sort, because Zayn’s a decent cook when he wants to be, and nothing says normal like Louis waking him up by jumping on him and then bullying him out of bed to make him food.

He’s considering if he’ll be able to get Zayn to forgo his morning cigarette in favor of pancakes if Louis’s already made him coffee when he gets inside. Zayn’s not in the main room, though the sword’s still on the counter, but Louis can hear him moving around in his own room. Which means he’s up already, brilliant. Louis won’t even have to wake him up.

“Hey, Zee, how do you feel about—” Louis cuts himself off when he sees Zayn, already in jeans and a t-shirt, with all his clothes in his suitcase and, more worryingly, his computers in their cases. “Why are you packing already? We don’t have to leave for a few days.”

Zayn’s back is to Louis, but he can see the tension in it as he throws a pair of sweatpants into his suitcase, so far from the lazy boy he left a few hours ago. “I’m going to head back now, I think. Shahid’s got a project I could help on.”

“Oh, well, if Naughty Boy calls,” Louis retorts. Zayn’s leaving? He doesn’t leave. He doesn’t just go. They go together. “Come on, don’t you want to celebrate?”

At that, Zayn spins. His jaw is set, and fuck, he’s angry, that raging anger that shows up so rarely but is blind when it does. Louis’s eyebrows go up. Why the fuck is he angry? Louis’s the one being ditched. “Apparently that’s what we did last night,” he snaps back.

Louis blinks. “Are you pissed I wasn’t there this morning?” he asks. That’s the only thing he can think of. “Did you want me to make you breakfast in bed or something, like the pretty little flower you are?”

“Don’t even,” Zayn warns. He stuffs another jacket into his bag, then starts to zip it close, cursing quietly when the zipper catches and stalls. “I just thought that we were on a page we clearly weren’t.”

“What page was that?” Louis crosses his arms so he can glare better. “Was it the page where you fuck off to go help fucking Shahid instead of helping me clean up here?”

“The page where I thought we were married!” Zayn shoots back, and Louis would falter except he can’t. “But I guess that’s a lie.”

“It was a lie!” Louis’s not wrong. “We were pretending, remember? For Harry and Niall’s sake. Don’t know why you’re so bothered, it’s not like it mattered. It was stupid shit we did when we were keyed up.” That’s all it can be, Zayn knows that.

“I guess so,” Zayn snaps, but he’s not agreeing, not really. He finally yanks the suitcase closed. “I guess I was just, like—”

“Like what?” Louis demands. “We talked about this!”

“When, when you had my dick in your mouth?” Zayn’s eyes are narrowed to slits, and each word’s like a knife, but Louis just glares back. He’s being weird, and he’s going to fucking Shahid instead of talking to Louis and Louis can’t—he can’t go. He’s not supposed to leave.

“Nah, when I was in your ass,” Louis retorts, and Zayn straightens.

“Fuck off.”

“You fuck off.”

They glare at each other for a beat, and it can go on for ages, them snapping at each other. But Louis doesn’t know what else to do, doesn’t get why Zayn’s mad when it’s him who’s being abandoned. Him who’s losing to fucking Shahid, because apparently he’s more important, despite the sword on the counter.

“You know what?” Louis snaps. Fine. If Shahid is more important, Zayn can go, because Louis’s got the sword and he’s got the crown and he can do this on his own. If Zayn doesn’t want to be here even after last night, then fuck him. “Go. Fine. Have fun playing with your computers with Shahid.”

“I will.” Zayn stomps past, dragging the suitcase after him. Louis doesn’t follow him, he just happens to be going the same direction, so they both end up in the living room. “And here,” Zayn adds, grabbing a fed ex envelope off the table. “Here’re your papers, all nice and signed. Guess this marriage was short-lived.”

“It was never not going to be!” This is why he’s pissed? Louis doesn’t bother even looking at the papers, which must have come while he was out. Because the papers are here? Papers they were both expecting?

“Apparently!”

“What the fuck does that mean?” Louis demands. He hooks out his foot to grab Zayn’s suitcase, stop him from going anywhere. He’s not getting away without explaining that. If he explains that, maybe he won’t leave.

“It means I was an idiot, and you should fuck the hell off,” Zayn tugs at his bag, but Louis’s not letting go. Not now.

“What does that mean, Zayn?” he presses. He drops the papers on the table so he can step closer, get in Zayn’s face.

“It means maybe I thought that if you just wanted to someone to fuck, you’d have found someone who didn’t matter!”

Louis’s foot drops. He shouldn’t be angry, he knows that somewhere in him, that if he were a little less angry that might mean something, but Zayn’s leaving, Zayn’s leaving, and as long as he’s angry it’ll be okay. “Didn’t have to, did I? With my husband right there and all.”

“Like that ever mattered to you.”

“Like it ever mattered to you!” Louis shoots back. “We were always getting divorced!”

“According to you!”

“According to us!” Louis needs to move, to hit something, but Zayn’s in his way and he can’t move away from Zayn. “You didn’t think we weren’t, did you?”

Zayn’s mouth opens—then shuts. “Did you?” Louis asks again, taken aback. They were always getting divorced. It was a joke marriage and it would be a joke divorce, and then Zayn would find someone to properly marry someday. They both knew that. They both knew that Louis wasn’t the marrying sort.

“I guess not,” Zayn spits. He yanks on the suitcase, and it goes. Louis’s too shocked to even stop him. “You can have the bloody sword. Since that’s all that mattered to you.”

The door slams shut behind him, and Louis’s left staring at the door, sword on the coffee table and divorce papers on the counter.

---

Louis gets home. Or, he gets back to London, and Liam’s spare room, which is as much home as he has, because he doesn’t want to go back to his mum’s and see her and the new husband who she’s already, according to Fizzy, starting to fight with a lot. He’s already sat through three of her marriages breaking, he doesn’t want to see another one. Not with Zayn maintaining a conspicuous radio silence.

So he deals with getting the sword and the crown through customs, which is fucking wonderful without Zayn to deal with airport security, but he deals with it because he doesn’t run away from his responsibilities because of something they both already knew. He sits in the airplane, watches the clouds, and doesn’t at all think about the space on his finger where his ring had been. Zayn’s probably thrown it away, he does shit like that when he’s mad. Except he’s also a sap, and he liked the ring, so he might not. Maybe he’s wearing it now, and he’s taken off Louis’s around his neck.

Whatever, it’s not like Louis cares. At all. He’s fine, and Zayn will get over it soon and realize it’s for the best, the divorce. No matter what he thought. Which Louis still isn’t clear on, and that’s almost the most terrifying thing, that he doesn’t know. He always knows what Zayn is thinking, except he hadn’t, and now he doesn’t, and he’s never dealt with that before.

He deals with it now by getting drunk, in Liam’s living room, because Liam’s a proper mate who listens to him bitch.

“He’s being stupid,” Louis points out, a number of drinks that in he didn’t care to count.

“Mm-hm,” Liam nods. Louis has a feeling he’s just humoring him, but he doesn’t want to hear it if he is, so he doesn’t ask. He’s also more than a little drunk, so that might be the problem. He doesn’t have good judgment when he’s drunk. When he’s drunk, he marries his best friend then fucks everything up.

“He’s just—what did he think, we would just be married forever?” Louis goes on. He glares at the sword that’s sitting on Liam’s table, because there wasn’t anywhere better to put it.. “That we’d just forget that we got married because we were too drunk to remember not too?”

Liam hums again. Louis slaps his forearm. This is his fault too, for sending the papers when and how he did. For marrying them in the first place. “You have an opinion?” he demands.

Liam coughs quietly. He’s good to cuddle with, is nice and warm and solid next to Louis, but fuck, Louis misses Zayn’s quiet warmth. Misses how they fit together. No, he doesn’t miss him, because he was an asshole and disappeared. Just because he had—what, expected them to be married forever? Didn’t Zayn know that wasn’t how it worked? Wasn’t how Louis worked?

“So?” Louis repeats, and goes for Liam’s nipple. Liam bats his hand away, flinching.

“Just, um. Why would that be so unreasonable?”

Louis sits up so he can properly gape at Liam. “Because it’s—because it’s—because we weren’t!” Louis is very certain if he was more sober he would have a better argument, but he thinks this one works well enough. “Because it’s us,” he comes up with, triumphantly. Liam does not seem to understand how good an argument that is, however, because he’s still watching Louis with that calm look like he knows more than Louis does, and Louis hates that look from anyone other than Zayn, because it’s only true with Zayn. “Because we weren’t til death do us part.”

“Really?” Liam raises his eyebrows. When did he get so judgmental?

“Not like that!” Louis pokes him again. Maybe they were a little til death do us part, if Zayn hadn’t been a wanker who left him because bloody Shahid had a job for him, but not—not like Liam’s eyebrow seems to be saying. Marriages don’t last, partnerships do. And Zayn and Louis do. Except for now, apparently, because Zayn’s pissed for such a stupid reason. “Or, we were, because it wasn’t like that. Marriages aren’t like that.” Not Tomlinson marriages, though Malik marriages are. And that’s the difference. Zayn knows that. Tomlinson marriages end. Liam still doesn’t look convinced, though, so Louis adds, “And we aren’t in love.”

There it is, that’s the argument. The argument about marriage that trumps everything, because marriage is supposed to be about love and forever and all that bullshit and Louis’s never had a relationship that lasted longer than a week and Zayn was always going to end up with a picket fence, so hah.

Liam’s eyebrows don’t go down. “Really?” he asks again. “’cause, I mean, I wasn’t always sure of that.”

All of Louis’s triumph goes out of him. “What?”

“You’re one of my best friends, Lou, but we aren’t…you and Zayn weren’t just best friends.”

“Sure, we were partners.” Were, are, whatever, Louis doesn’t know, because apparently Zayn doesn’t want them anymore, because if he did he’d call.

“No. Or, yes, obviously, but I don’t know.” Liam makes a considering face, like he’s trying to choose his words carefully. He has an irritating way of doing that. “You always did seem a bit like a married couple, to me.”

“We were,” Louis has to point out. “We are,” he corrects. He hasn’t gotten around to signing the papers yet, somehow, even though they were in his carry on on the flight back, the flight he spent not at all wondering if Zayn had been okay on his flight, because he’d probably gotten coach and didn’t have Louis to change it to first class or to distract him. It had been Zayn’s choice to go, he could deal with flights on his own. But Louis had had the papers since then, and he’d thought of signing them, but—but he couldn’t. He’d looked at the line, at Zayn’s scribbled signature, but he just—he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Not until Zayn explained what the fuck he meant. He knew what Louis’s opinions were about marriage, why had he thought otherwise? “Because you bloody married us.”

Liam opens his mouth like he’s going to snap back, but then he takes a deep breath. “I just, like, Zayn’s been your most meaningful relationship for six years.”

“And now he’s gone,” Louis agrees. He needs more alcohol. Maybe if he drinks more, he’ll wake up and this whole thing didn’t happen and it’ll be him and Zayn against the world again, before he fucked everything up by being attracted to Zayn. Or by noticing he was attracted to Zayn, whatever. Before Zayn fucked this up by disappearing, or not understanding, or whatever the fuck he meant, thinking that they wouldn’t get divorced. Thinking this was something less than what it was. “Because he was surprised we were still getting divorced, the idiot.”

“Um.” Liam makes a face, but Louis glares. “Don’t hit me or anything. But why is that so idiotic? Why couldn’t you stay married?”

“Because!” Louis waves his hands, then hits Liam’s shoulder, because it’s the only way to properly express himself. “Because—because that’s not how it works. Because we weren’t really married.”

“You were though,” Liam says, and Louis ignores him to drink more. The alcohol will help. The alcohol will make Zayn make sense again.

---

Because Louis is a good friend and he knows what Zayn needs, he gives him a week. He can sit and brood for a week, as Louis puts out feelers about new jobs and hangs out with Stan and Olly and doesn’t answer any of their questions about Zayn, as he rubs over and over at the place where his ring should be. If Zayn wants to disappear, though, he can. Louis is fine without him. He doesn’t need him, not when he’s just hanging around.

After a week, though, it’s getting ridiculous. It’s been enough time, Zayn should be over it by now, and he should have finished his thing with Shahid, and he should be back. Back with Louis, where he belongs, where Louis can see him and touch him and talk to him about what the fuck he meant they weren’t getting divorced and yell at him for leaving his partner because who does that and not worry if something actually happened to Zayn. And if Zayn can’t get his head out of his ass enough to realize that, well. That’s what Louis does.

Except Zayn’s really good at disappearing. It’s great when it’s the two of them going to ground after a job, but it is very much not great when it is from Louis. He tries Zayn’s mum first, because always check the obvious, but she doesn’t know anything except “isn’t he with you, dear?” and Doniya had been similarly unhelpful. Louis tries all his usual haunts, the comic book store, the bar he likes, the café, and there’s nothing. Nothing at all.

Which leaves Louis one place to go. For Zayn, he reminds himself, and goes. He takes a bus, because it’ll delay more, and then he tries texting Zayn one last time because maybe it’ll work this time and Louis won’t have to do this, but nothing. So Louis drags himself up the walk of the townhouse, and makes it all the way to the stoop before he stalls again.

He stares at the door. The door stares back. Probably literally, actually, because who knows what kind of security there is here? And all of it is probably pointed to keep Louis specifically out. Or maybe not, because they both know this is the last place Louis wants to be. He shouldn’t have to be here to look for Zayn, he should be the one who knows where Zayn is. Fucking hell. Zayn better appreciate what he’s doing.

Just before he finally gets up the initiative to knock, the door swings open.

Louis glances at his outstretched hand before looking at the man in the doorway. Was he seriously just waiting for Louis to knock so he could preempt him?

“Louis Tomlinson!” Shahid says, not impolitely, Louis supposes. He’s got that slightly manic look Zayn gets when he’s in the middle of a project, but he’s smirking, like he knows something Louis doesn’t. Louis is seriously going to hit him, in about five seconds. “What brings you to my door?”

Fucker could at least be rude. “Is Zayn there?” Louis snaps.

Shahid’s eyebrows go up, and he crosses his arms. He doesn’t look mad, though, just, like enigmatic or some shit. “Did you lose him?”

“I need to talk to him,” Louis gets out. He tries to stand on his tiptoes, to look in, but he can’t see past Shahid, and it’s not like Zayn would have just been hovering there. Louis knew he should have just broken in, but he knows Shahid’s got insane security—not that it would have mattered in the long run, he just didn’t have the time or energy to waste on him, when Zayn shouldn’t have disappeared from him in the first place so they could just talk. “Where is he?”

“Not here.”

“Then do you know where he is?”

“If he didn’t tell you, I don’t see why I should.”

“Because he’s my bloody husband!” Louis throws his hands into the air, and moves forward. Shahid can’t say that. Even if he won, if Zayn ran to him rather than staying with Louis, he isn’t married to him. He isn’t bound until forever, legally in the eyes of the law and some religion Louis thinks maybe, and maybe it won’t really be forever but it’s right now. And Zayn is Louis’s, and he needs to see him.

“Not how I heard it.”

“I didn’t sign the papers, he’s still my husband,” Louis retorts. Shahid’s eyebrows go even higher. “Is he there?”

“You’ll see him when the time is right,” Shahid replies, and god, Louis had forgotten just how annoying talking to him was, with all his weird ambiguous statements like he was some sort of guru or something. Fuck this.

“I just want to talk to him,” Louis is going to keep his temper. He is. If he has to play nice with fucking Shahid to figure out where the fuck Zayn has gone and stop him from avoiding Louis so they can talk, he will. Even if it’s the most annoying thing he’s ever done. “We’ve got husbandly things to discuss.”

“Even if I did know where he was,” and yeah, that smirk isn’t fooling anyone, Louis wants to say, “he would be busy. We’re working on something big, you know. Much bigger than all your cute little thefts.”

“Yeah, ‘m sure you hitting some computer keys ‘ll be massive,” Louis snaps back. Fuck politeness. If this is what Zayn wants, bloodless boring sort of theft just sitting here stealing from Louis doesn’t even know what with this asshole, then fine. He can have it. Louis doesn’t need to go looking for him if he doesn’t want Louis at all. “Well, have fun with that shit. I’ll be doing something that actually involves getting off your ass once in a while.”

“I’ll tell Zayn you stopped by, yeah?” Shahid retorts, and Louis’s fairly sure he growls before he storms away. Fine. Zayn can have Shahid and that life and Louis will let him go, if he doesn’t want to stay and fight it out then get back to them. He’s fine on his own. Who needs partners anyway? Especially one who leaves, when the whole point of the divorce was he wouldn’t. That he would stay and they could still be them, cuddle in front of the TV and meet each other’s eyes in inside jokes and Zayn’s hands and lips and eyes—and Louis doesn’t need all that.

Louis takes three bracelets and a wallet on his way back to Liam’s, just because he can. Because his cute little thefts add up, and Shahid can talk all he wants about how hacking is so much more profitable or safe, it will never match the thrill of the job. And Zayn—Zayn knows that. Louis knows he does. He has to.

---

Even if Zayn doesn’t know, Louis’s not going to sit around and wait for him. He’s a perfectly good thief without Zayn, and so when he gets wind of a bunch of gold bars in a safe in some posh penthouse, he’s not going to just let that go to waste. Home invasion is always the easiest, and it’ll be a simple in and out job. If Zayn wants to sulk, he can, Louis can do this on his own. Tomlinsons know how to fend for themselves.

“No, really, this is so cute,” Louis mutters to himself, as he slides in the window. “So cute, I—” He cuts himself off. He’s not talking to himself. Just because he’s used to Zayn in his ear on a heist doesn’t mean he needs him. He got this job on his own didn’t he; he disabled the security system all on his own. It might have been six years, but he’s not out of practice. He doesn’t need Zayn. If Zayn wants to go out and do boring jobs all day, that’s fine.

Louis resolutely shuts his mouth, and pads forward. The room is all dark wood and expensive furniture, the sort of place that someone spared no expense to make look expensive. There’s a big oak desk with gold knickknacks on it, and Louis’s fingers twitch to take one, because they’d look good on Zayn’s workstation, but that doesn’t matter. He’s got a job.

The safe’s there, in the place he’d noticed on the plans; and he doesn’t need Zayn to pick it. He’s good at this, he reminds himself, good at it alone. The buzz is there, the whip of it, and maybe he has to press his lips together to keep from talking to the empty room, and maybe it feels like something’s missing, but whatever. Zayn’s the one avoiding him. And why the fuck is someone calling him at three am, he wonders, as his phone starts to move in his pocket.

He ignores it, and swings the final button on the safe. The safe door swings open—and there’s nothing there, just an empty compartment, echoing in metal.

Louis stares at it. Did they move them? But the safe probably isn’t big enough for the sort of gold bars the rumors had talked about. Louis has a second of confusion—then he spins to run, his feet hard on the rug because he doesn’t know what’s happening but it can’t be good and why isn’t Zayn here why isn’t he here to get him out of this, and he’s almost to the window before something hits him and it all goes black.

---

Louis wakes up handcuffed to a chair. He takes stock even before his eyes open, even before he’s fully processed the ache in his head that comes from someone whacking him over it (and honestly, couldn’t they at least have drugged him? That hurt less in the long run). Headache, but no other injuries. Chained to the chair, but he can feel the locks, and they haven’t searched him, and his legs are free, so really, he’s fine there. He thinks he hears at least two other people breathing, but he can’t be sure about that.

All in all, not the worst place he could be, but not the best. And it all depends on what whoever got him wants. Nothing good, he’s thinking, because if they were just a good Samaritan they would have called the police, and he’s not in a police station. Maybe he should have pushed a little harder on his research about who owns this flat.

“Hello, Mr—what name are you going by now?” Louis doesn’t bother trying to pretend he’s not awake. He opens his eyes.

He was almost all right. There are three people in the room, two big goons and a smaller man who’s obviously the boss, and he’s not in the room he broke into, but he’s definitely in the same flat. This room’s windowless, but still has that same expensive sort of look to it, and the boss man is leaning against his desk with the sort of comfort that means he does a lot of business here. It never bodes well when people have interrogation cells in their homes.

“I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours,” Louis retorts. The boss smiles. It’s a pretty scary looking smile, mainly because it seems sincere. Nothing about him looks hugely dangerous, not his strong jaw or his dark hair or the salt and pepper chest hair peeking out from under a partially unbuttoned shirt, but there’s something about him that Louis’s finely honed instincts yells ‘shark’. Fuck. Zayn will have to—but Zayn doesn’t know where he is. No one does.

“I’m Simon Cowell,” he says.

“Never heard of you, I’m afraid.”

Cowell chuckles. “Which means I’m doing my job right. You’ll find, young man, that the moment someone’s heard of you, you’re in danger. Take, for example, your current situation.”

With that sort of invitation, Louis can’t help but glance around. One of the goons gives him a broad grin. Louis glares back, but by the time he’s looking at Cowell he’s trying not to look impressed. The handcuffs won’t be a problem, but the goons will be. Maybe if he throws the cuffs… “I’ve been in worse scrapes.”

“Have you? And has your partner gotten you out of them?” Louis blinks.

“Partner?”

“You, Mr.—I’ll call you Thatcher, though we both know that’s not real—recently acquired something from a friend of mine. A Mr. Winston.”

“Did I?” Louis drawls back. Fuck fuck fuck. “How interesting.”

“Friend is perhaps a strong term,” Cowell admits, waving a hand dismissively. “Nevertheless, you stole the Emperor’s Sword from him.”

“And he hired you to get it back?” Louis retorts. “Just a mercenary, are you? Honestly, I would have expected a higher class of kidnappers.”

Cowell chuckles again. “Oh no. I don’t much want the sword, though it is a lovely piece. How much are you selling it for, I wonder? If you need a fence—but I digress. What intrigues me is not the sword. What intrigues me, is that somehow you got through one of the more sophisticated computerized security systems in the world.”

Louis’s mouth goes dry, but he meets Cowell’s eyes. “I’m just that good , aren’t I?”

“No, Mr. Thatcher, you aren’t.”

“Could be!”

“But you aren’t.” Cowell shakes his head condescendingly. “Your skills are impressive, I’m sure, but you didn’t do that yourself.”

“More than impressive, mate.”

Cowell ignores him. “The only conclusion, then, is that you had a partner. A partner who not only broke through Winston’s defenses, but also has managed to disappear well enough that the only way I could get to him was through you.”

Fuck fuck fuck. “Maybe he’s a ghost,” Louis tells him, leaning back. They didn’t search him, which was a mistake; he’s got a bit of wire he can get out of his sleeve. “Maybe I’ve got a ghost partner.”

Cowell smiles again, then gestures—and the slap comes across Louis’s face, leaving his head ringing. He can taste blood from where he bit his lip, thick and coppery. “Or maybe he’s real, and you’ll tell me where to find him. Or her, I suppose. I don’t much care.”

Okay then. Louis pushes down the pain, keeps going with the pick. He’ll—somehow, he’ll get out of here, and then he will punch Zayn so hard for getting him into this, for getting him into this and then not being here to get him out, for leaving when fuck does he need him. “What’re you going to do to him?” he demands.

“Oh, I won’t hurt him,” Cowell assures him, in a way that Louis doesn’t find at all reassuring. “I simply find it useful to have people with certain talents in my employ.”

“You want to hire him? I’m not his handler, I don’t get jobs for him. And what is your employ, anyway?” Louis goes on. The longer he talks, the closer Louis is to getting out of the cuffs, the closer someone is to finding him. Zayn will find him, and get him out of here somehow. No matter how he’s disappeared. “There are plenty of hackers you could get.”

“Oh, I do this and that.” Cowell waves a hand. “And I don’t want just any hacker, I want the best. And he is the one of the best, Mr. Thatcher. Your friend is very talented, did you know?”

“Obviously,” Louis retorts before he can think better. “But I still don’t see why you haven’t just put a notice out there yourself, if you want to hire him.”

Cowell’s face twists for the first time. Score one for the good guys. “It would seem he has rejected my invitation.”

“Think that’s your answer, then.”

Cowell’s eyebrows go up. “Really? Do you really think it’s so simple? He just rejects my invitation? To me, it seems more like…a bid to escalate, perhaps. So here we are.” His eyes narrow, and they’re cold, Louis realizes. That’s the shark in him. The way his eyes are cold and calculating, even when he was smiling. “Now, where is he?”

“Honestly, mate, I have no idea.”

The slap’s less of a surprise this time, but it still hurts like a motherfucker. “Where is your partner?” Cowell repeats.

He’s still just looking at Louis, vaguely smiling but with those cold, cold eyes, not even any pleasure in them at Louis’s pain.

Slowly, very slowly, Louis straightens. He spits out the blood in his mouth onto the rug. He hopes it fucking stains it forever. He’s almost got his hands free, but he’s not sure of a plan after that. He just knows one thing: he’s not giving Zayn to this man. He’s not giving up Zayn. “Honestly, mate, if I knew, you’d be the last person I’d tell,” he drawls.

Cowell nods, slowly. “I see.” He glances at the goons, and they step away. “I’ll give you some time to think about your answer.”

“It’s not going to change!” Louis yells, but Cowell’s already through the door, and the goons are shutting it behind them. Louis waits for the clunk of a lock, and hears three, all from the outside.

Shit.

He finishes unlocking himself, then takes stock. The room is windowless, and the chair is the only furniture. There’s a vent in the center of the ceiling, but it’s too high for Louis to get to. The door’s probably his best bet, but there’s just the handle on the inside, no more locks. His phone isn’t in his pocket anymore.

Louis rubs at his jaw. He’s going to kill Zayn. He’s going to hunt Zayn down and kill him and fuck he wants Zayn here, wants Zayn’s voice in his ear telling him it’ll be okay he’s working on a plan. He wants to be back in LA, sitting on Harry’s porch basically in Zayn’s lap, feeling Zayn’s laugh against his back.

But he’s not. Louis rubs at his finger, at where he’d gotten used to his ring being. He can’t see a way out of here right now. So he better be ready when Cowell comes back.

---

Cowell isn’t the next person to come back. Louis doesn’t know how long he’s waited—it feels like hours but it could be more, and he’s getting hungry and a bit cold, though he’s not going to sleep here—but the next people in are his goons. Louis’s sitting back on the chair, not bothering to pretend like he’s handcuffed anymore. Fuck them, if they’re going to underestimate him.

One of the goons, blonde haired and bulky like an American football player, gives a vicious smile. “Mr. Cowell wants to know if you’ve changed your mind.”

Louis smiles back, just as viciously. “With hospitality like this?” he drawls, and the other goon chuckles, a grating sort of high-pitched sound.

They work him over well, professionally, focusing on points that will hurt the most but not permanently. It’s a small mercy, Louis thinks, dragging himself over to the wall when they’re done. Ribs and face, and he doesn’t think any broken bones, though his head’s ringing and he can feel blood filling his mouth. He’ll get out of here. He’ll make it. Zayn will get him out. He doesn’t know much but that thought sticks in his foggy head, that Zayn will get him out. He won’t give up Zayn, and Zayn will get him out.

He clings to those thoughts, as he lets his head fall back against the wall. He closes his eyes. If he imagines hard enough, he’s leaning on the couch with Zayn, and the probable concussion is him high as fuck, and Zayn’s leaning up to kiss him, his eyes sparkling with laughter and love.

---

He doesn’t mean to sleep, but it’s either that or wallow in the pain, so he’s not entirely surprised when he wakes up as he’s being moved. The goons put him back on the chair, handcuff him roughly enough his arms scream. They’ve taken his lockpicks, he checks instinctively, but they really must not be prepared for him because they didn’t bother to check the seam of his jeans where he has a bit of wire that’ll do as well.

Cowell’s there this time. He’s wearing a suit, a different one, so it must be a different day. It’s a nice suit. He’s probably rich as fuck, it makes sense.

“He’s coherent, isn’t he?” Cowell asks the goons, and Louis blinks, focuses. He needs to focus. He starts working at the locks again.

“He is,” Louis answers. One of the goons makes a move, but Cowell shakes his head before he hits him.

“Good. Did you have a good day, Mr. Thatcher?” Cowell asks, all politeness.

“Delightful. I’ll be sure to give it a five star review. Floor was very comfortable, visitors very personable, though probably not the sharpest knives in the drawer.”

Cowell just smiles, something amused in it. Like he actually finds Louis amusing. It’s almost scarier than anything else.

“Did you reconsider, then?”

Louis smiles back, sharp as he can. Fuck him. Who does he think he is? “No.”

The punch goes to Louis’s ribs, over the other bruises that are starting to go past ache and into a thrum Louis’s trying his best to ignore, and all his breath whooshes out of him. He can feel himself laughing as he looks up. “And really, this is all sort of overdone, don’t you think? All the monologuing and torture. Not very twenty-first century.” Another punch to his ribs, and he’s not sure but something might crack, given the sudden sharp bolt of pain. His vision goes fuzzy for a second. Then one to his cheek again, and he bites something that makes the coppery tang of blood fill his mouth. “Fine, fine! I’ll tell you where he is.”

Cowell holds up a hand. “Yes?”

“He’s at five up yours lane,” Louis tells him, and he’s laughing at the next punch. “Come on, that wasn’t bad!”

“If you don’t give me what I want—”

“What?” Louis interrupts him. “What’re you gonna do, punch me more? Not gonna work.” He’s grinning, and he probably looks insane, but—what does this fucker think, he’s going to give up Zayn? Zayn, who’s his partner in everything? Who he married, who he’s still married to, and somehow that’s a comfort, that if he does die here it’ll be married to Zayn. That til death do us part would be the real thing parting them, not a stupid divorce. He might not be able to last forever in a marriage, might not be built for it, but he will not give up the man he loves. He can do that much. He thinks of Zayn, giggling into his shoulder, and musters up his most irritating smirk, layering bravado over bravado against the pain. “I’m not going to give him up.”

“He won’t, you know.”

For a second, Louis thinks he’s hallucinating. That he’s concussed and he wants Zayn to be there, in his ear, so badly that he’s making him up. But Cowell and the goons are looking around for the source of the noise too, and Louis can only start to laugh, helpless, because Zayn’s here, or somehow he is, and fuck he knew bloody Simon Cowell couldn’t beat them. Knew that Zayn would come for him.

“He’s a stubborn bastard, he won’t give in.”

Calmly, Cowell pulls Louis’s phone out of his pocket. It’s activated somehow, probably more of Zayn’s magic. Who knows what Zayn did to it. “I presume I’m speaking to Thatcher’s partner?”

“Yeah,” Zayn says, simply, and Louis sucks in a breath as he finally gets the handcuffs off. The breath hurts, but he’s free again. He doesn’t know Zayn’s play, but whatever it is, he’s ready. “Heard you wanted a word.”

“You’re a hard man to find.”

“You’re not. You really do need better IT men, yeah? I can see why you need me.” Louis snorts, even if it hurts. Cowell makes a slight grimace. “’course, you’re not going to get me, ‘cause, like, I don’t take it well when you torture my partner, and I wouldn’t sign on anyway ‘cause you’re sorta evil, but I can see why you want me.”

“Everyone wants you, you know that,” Louis gets out. Who knows if Zayn has cameras; that’ll let him know he’s conscious enough to joke. “’s that pretty face of yours.”

“Well, one of us has to be the pretty one,” Zayn retorts. “We can’t all have your arse to be distracting.” Okay then. Visuals.

“Boys,” Cowell says, like he’s scolding children. “As amusing as this act is, I believe me and Mr—” He pauses for Zayn to fill in the blank, but Zayn just waits. Louis smirks again. He’ll have a long wait trying to out-wait Zayn. “Me and you have business to discuss.”

“Yeah, like, I don’t think we do? ‘cause it’d just be me saying no and you hitting L—my partner more. Seems pretty counter-productive to me.”

“Not to me, though,” Cowell says, and raises his hand to the goon again. The goon on the left lifts his hand, and—

“Don’t do that!” Zayn snaps. Louis rolls his eyes. Sap. “You hit him again, I put a knife through that Monet of yours.”

“Oh, don’t do that,” Louis puts in. The world’s going blurry in front of his eyes, and he’s not sure if it’s his vision or tears from how much he hurts, but he’s going to play this out. “It’ll break your heart. Can’t you find an ugly one to break?”

“Maybe a Pollack?” Zayn agrees. Cowell’s forehead is starting to furrow. “Dunno, we’ll have to see what I have here.”

“Is there a point to this?” Cowell snaps. Louis manages to grin. He has to hold out. He has to get himself out of here when Zayn does whatever he does—maybe just a blackout? Maybe something more clever as a distraction? Louis doesn’t know, but he’s ready. He’ll make himself be ready.

“See?” he says, and spits out blood. “He’s more trouble than he’s worth, really.”

“Think that’s you, babe,” Zayn retorts. Cowell’s looking at Louis too, his head cocked, and he’s starting to smile like he knows something.

“Well then.” He sounds entirely reasonable. “We seem to be at an impasse. I have your partner, who I won’t give up until you come work for me, and you won’t come work for me. So what do we do with this?”

“Yeah, ‘s not an impasse,” Zayn tells him, and his voice is suddenly cold, all joking gone. Louis shivers, but it’s not fear. He loves it when Zayn uses that voice. That’s Zayn’s ‘let’s get dangerous’ voice. He can hold onto that voice, use it to keep him from how it hurts to breathe. “You’re going to let him go.”

“And why would I do that? He certainly seems important to you.”

“Because if you don’t, the police will find out that the Emperor’s Sword’s been stolen and is sitting in your pent house.”

“Hah!” Louis spits, but Cowell doesn’t look perturbed. He should.

“So I remove the sword. Not much of a roadblock, son. You could—”

“If you could, like, find it, yeah,” Zayn agrees. “But there’s a lot of space there, and they’ll know where it is and you won’t. And even if you do find it first, there’d still be news crews, yeah? Lots of attention. No more shadows for you.”

Cowell’s fingers are curling into a fist, Louis notes, with growing joy. Whatever happens to him, even if he doesn’t make it out, Zayn’s got him in a corner. He won’t be trapped here, working for Cowell, doing god knows what.

“Or,” Cowell says, still sounding so reasonable. “I could just kill your boy now unless you tell me where it is.”

Three things happen at once. The goons start towards Louis. Louis tries to dive out of the chair. The lights go out.

Louis hits the floor hard, and his vision goes white for a second as everything in him jars. Or no—it’s not his vision going white, though the pain’s there, and he can’t hold it back much longer, he’s not even sure he can move, but it’s a flash of electricity, and Louis thinks he sees a face he knows but Zayn’s not here Zayn doesn’t come into the field ever—then another flash, then another, and there are thumps and Louis’s having trouble focusing. He must be hallucinating but he has to get out of here Zayn gave him this distraction he just needs to get up—

Then there’s a hand on his shoulder and Louis tries to roll away, because he won’t be leverage against Zayn—“Lou, ‘s me,” comes Zayn’s voice, not over Louis’s phone, just him. Louis forces himself to focus. It’s still too dark to see anything, but he knows Zayn’s hand, and he knows the shadows of his face, and fuck but it’s good to see him but maybe he is hallucinating because Zayn shouldn’t be here, he should be back in the van with his computers, where he’s safe. “Come on.”

“Zayn?” Louis asks, on a rush of breath as the person who is probably Zayn but it doesn’t make sense levers him to his feet. He can’t help his moan, at just—at everything.

“We’ve got to get out of here, come on.”

Right. That’s the important part. Louis takes a step, and, “Fuck,” he swears. He thinks his ribs are on fire. He thinks everything’s on fire.

“I know, but you’ve got to come on, they’ll fix the lights soon and I can’t carry you.”

“What’re you—” It doesn’t make sense. Zayn doesn’t come in the field.

“Hey. Hey, Louis, no, focus.” There are hands on the side of his face, and Louis’s eyes have adjusted enough that Zayn’s face swims into focus, his eyes dark and shadowed, all his bones sharp. Zayn. Just like he’d imagined him. Not smiling, but he’s all Zayn, swimming in front of Louis’s eyes. “Just stay with me, yeah?”

“You came?” Louis murmurs. Zayn’s fingers are digging into his hip, and he takes one step, then another. He can do this. He will get the fuck away from fucking Cowell and his goons and anyone who wants to hurt them.

“Heard you were looking for me,” Zayn replies, and Louis tries to chuckle, but it just hurts more.

Everything starts to fade in and out as they go. Louis’s concentrating on moving one leg at a time to get out of there, with Zayn’s voice in his ear hurrying him on, through dark halls that Zayn leads him through until they’re back in the study where this had started, where the bait had been that Louis had been dumb enough to take.

“This is—” Louis braces his hands on his knees to breathe, as Zayn goes to the window. “’s like twenty floors up, how’re we getting out?”

“Same way we got in,” Zayn replies, and then he’s opening the window and there are two rigs there. Louis blinks.

“But you’re scared of heights,” he says. He knows that. Zayn’s scared of heights. Zayn’s not going to go on one of those rigs no matter what Louis tries. He doesn’t.

Zayn’s not very good at putting the rig on, his fingers fumbling with the straps, but he still looks up as Louis gets that out. His eyes are so big and dark and it looks like there are so many secrets there, secrets just for Louis, or maybe the truths are just for Louis, or maybe he’s just still concussed. “I’m more scared of losing you,” he says, and then he’s tightening the straps and another bolt of pain goes through Louis as it hits his ribs.

Then they’re in fresh air, going up, and Zayn’s hand is tight around his and that hurts too but in a good way, and they’re up and up and Louis could almost laugh, because they’re here and they’re out and Zayn came for him.

---

Louis wakes up hurting again. The panic comes on the heels of the pain, that they didn’t get out he’d imagined all of that he’s still in that room—but then he takes in the sheets around him, and how the surface is soft beneath him. He’s in a bed. He’s in a bed, and he’s not tied down except there’s a weight over his chest and when he opens his eyes he lets out a breath, because he knows this room. He’s back at Liam’s, and Liam’s hand is what woke him, shaking him awake.

“Hey,” Liam whispers, Louis blinks. Everything hurts, all of him, but somehow what he focuses on is how Liam’s whispering. He didn’t hurt his ears, and he’s awake, so why…Liam gestures to Louis’s side, and Louis looks down.

Zayn’s asleep next to him, his arm the weight over Louis’s chest, his head buried in Louis’s neck so Louis can feel his breath.

Louis lets out a long, long breath, until it hurts his ribs and he swears. Zayn is here. Zayn’s here, and Louis might hurt but they’re safe. Even if there’s still a furrow to Zayn’s brow as he sleeps, and his hand’s fisted in Louis’s shirt like if he lets go he’ll escape. Louis knows the feeling. Just looking at Zayn, he wants to grab him and never let go. To trace over his lips and cheeks to make sure he’s really here.

“Don’t know if he’s slept since you disappeared, didn’t want to wake him,” Liam explains. “But you were concussed, I had to wake you. Soph looked you over, you’re just beat up.”

“Oh, is that all?” Louis asks. He’s not sure if he’s sarcastic. He’s still not focusing right, still hurts too much, but his hand is in Zayn’s hair, somehow, and Zayn sighs into his neck and wiggles closer. Zayn’s here, he knows that much. “Just concussed and beat up, wonderful.”

“By some miracle, you didn’t break anything,” Liam goes on. “I’ve got some painkillers here.”

“I take it back, you’re wonderful.” Louis reaches out the hand not in Zayn’s hair for the pills. That will make it better, he knows.

Liam hands them over, then just smiles at him as he takes them, his full on earnest puppy grin that always makes Louis want to muss him up, make him realize the world isn’t always going to let him be a puppy. Or to make sure he never knows it. He’s concussed, he’s not sure.

“What?” he demands, anyway. Or he means to demand it, it comes out fuzzy too, because everything’s fuzzy. Even Liam’s outline is a little fuzzy. The only thing that isn’t is Zayn.

“Just. It’s good to see you two together,” Liam says, still grinning shamelessly. “Go back to sleep, I’ll wake you in a few hours.”

“Good.” Louis waves, and Liam grins again, and closes the door behind him.

Louis’s hand falls back down to the bed. Even that hurts, though he can feel the drugs kicking in. He looks down again, at where Zayn’s pressed against him. He reaches out, drags his finger over Zayn’s neck, the ink on his collarbone, through his hair. Over the straight line of his nose. He’s real. He’s not fuzzy, he’s real, and he came back, and he won’t let anything happen to Louis.

The last thing Louis notices before the pain and the drugs drag him back into sleep is that the chain is still around Zayn’s neck.

---

Liam wakes him up twice more during the day, though the first time he doesn’t give Louis any more drugs no matter how he swears. The second time he gives Louis pills again, thank god, and Louis’s awake long enough to register Zayn’s still there before he’s asleep again.

Finally, Louis wakes up on his own. He still hurts, but the drugs must have worked, because it’s not as…present as it was, just hovering in the back of his mind. But his brain is working again, the fuzziness gone, whether that’s getting over the concussion or the drugs not letting the pain overwhelm him. It’s an almost overwhelming relief, knowing he can think. But Zayn’s not tucked up against him either, and Louis can feel the loss, like he had for the past week, except for how he can still hear breathing.

“Watching me sleep, Malik?” he asks, without opening his eyes. Zayn’s laugh is a bit harsh, but not surprised. He must have known Louis was awake. “Kinda creepy.”

“Fuck off.” But Zayn’s hand is gentle as it pushes his hair away from his eyes, and when Louis opens his eyes, Zayn’s face is right there, his smile soft and fond and oh so very Zayn. “How you feeling?”

“Like a flower—” Zayn’s smile is fading as he chews on his lower lip, and Louis lets out a breath. “It hurts. But could’ve been a lot worse.”

“Yeah.” Zayn traces over Louis’s cheek, over what he expects is a bruise. Louis can barely feel the pressure, though, so it doesn’t hurt. “Don’t get kidnapped again, yeah?”

“Not even so my hero can swoop in and save me?” Louis starts to flutter his eyelashes, then he remembers something, and uses his good arm to pinch Zayn in the side, hard.

“The fuck?” Zayn yelps, but he doesn’t back away, stays braced over Louis. He’s still smiling, that gentle smile Louis had held onto when he didn’t have anything else, and Louis would smile back except he’s remembered he’s mad.

“What the hell were you doing, going in there?” Louis demands. “You knew he wanted to get to you, why’d you ever get close?”

“What was I supposed to do, leave you there?”

“You were supposed to stay out of the field! I go into the field, it’s my part.”

“Well, you were a bit tied up,” Zayn retorts, then he does wince. “No pun intended.”

Louis ignores that. “You could have gotten hurt.”

Zayn’s eyes go very, very cold. “You were getting hurt.” His voice is flat and hard and dangerous, and for a second, Louis remembers why Zayn’s in this game too.

But he’s still pissed. On so many levels. “And I wouldn’t have if you hadn’t disappeared,” he retorts, sharp. “How the fuck’d you know where I was?”

Zayn’s still got that flat look on, but his lips twitch. “You really think I don’t have you bugged?”

Louis’s mouth opens—but no, really, he’s not surprised. “So what, you just happened to be looking in?”

“I saw where you were, and Liam said you were doing a job, and you’d been gone too long.” Zayn pushes his hair out of his face. It’s loose and unstyled today, just a mess of soft waves in a way it only gets at home. “What the fuck were you thinking? Any research at all would have told you it was a trap, c’mon. Gold bars?”

“It was a job,” Louis snaps. He’s right, but that doesn’t mean anything. “Not all of us can do research like you. Some of us prefer to actually do things rather than disappearing for a week.”

Zayn’s eyes narrow. “I had to get my head on.”

“And you couldn’t do that with me?”

“Not when you were the one mixing me up!” Zayn throws up his hands, but he doesn’t get off the bed. “No, fuck, I don’t want to fight again. You’re still hurt.” He glances at something on Louis’s face, winces.

But no, fighting is good. Fighting means they’re talking. Fighting means Zayn’s here. “Oh, I was mixing you up? Good to know you weren’t the only one being confusing as hell.”

“Excuse me for thinking that—” Zayn cuts himself, off, shakes his head, then starts again, calmer. “Why didn’t you sign the divorce papers?”

“What?” That’s not the question Louis was expecting, not the one he can answer.

“If you want to fight—Shahid said you told him you didn’t sign the papers. I thought—like, you wanted it to be over, didn’t you?” Zayn blinks, his eyelashes feathering on his cheek. He’s unfair in the shadows like this, because Louis just wants to kiss him, just wants to run his hands over every part of him to make sure he’s real, he’s here, he got Louis out, and then he’s asking hard questions when Louis’s brain only just started working again. “That’s why you told Liam to send the papers. You were done with us.”

“Clearly I’m so done with you,” Louis drawls. He can’t—he doesn’t know. Or maybe he does, maybe he found the answer in that moment when he’d decided he’d rather die than give up Zayn. In that moment when all he could hold onto was the memory of Zayn. He doesn’t know how long it’s been true, if it’s only in the past months or if that’s why nothing else has compared to Zayn since they met, but it’s there. “So done I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”

“Louis.” Somehow, Zayn’s holding Louis’s hand, intertwining their fingers on his chest, and all Louis can see is the faint tan line where his ring had sat for a month in the LA sun. “Why didn’t you sign the papers?”

“I needed to know why you left first,” Louis says, to their locked hands. “We were always going to get divorced, Zayn. So why’d you get so mad at me?”

“I—” Zayn swallows. He’s not looking at Louis either. They’ve never had to talk like this before, to explain themselves. Maybe they should, more. “I thought—I mean, like, things had changed. They were changing. I thought we were, like, seeing where it was going.” He shakes his head again, brushes his hair out of his face with his free hand. “Guess I was wrong.”

Fuck, Louis hates this. “You weren’t entirely. Things were changing.”

Zayn’s lips twitch. “Yeah, thought I’d have noticed if you were staring at my lips for the past six years.”

“Like you haven’t been ogling my ass for just as long,” Louis retorts. But he has to set this straight. “But, I mean. That doesn’t change the fact that we were going to get divorced anyway.”

“Why?” Zayn asks, his fingers tightening. Louis really wishes he was sitting up properly for this, but he has a feeling doing that would hurt a lot. “If we both, like. Want to see how things are changing, why do we need to get divorced yet?”

“Because you don’t want this!” Louis gestures around the room, then winces as that bothers his ribs. But Zayn needs to understand, needs to get why Louis can’t. Why it’s best for both of them. “You want to end up married with a house somewhere and like, ten dogs and kids and be all domestic and forever.”

Zayn’s head cocks. “I do,” he agrees. Louis’s heart thumps painfully. He knew that, he did. The confirmation of it, though, that Zayn will find someone else one day…that’s hard. “But what makes you think I can’t want that with you?”

“Because I can’t!” It hurts as bad as one of Cowell’s goons punches, having it ripped out of him. “Because marriage doesn’t work out for me, not for my family. It’ll just end and you’ll be gone again, and that’s not going to happen, Zayn. I won’t let it. If we aren’t married…”

Zayn rolls his eyes. “You’re not your parents, Lou.”

“I know. That doesn’t mean it’d work out. Marriages don’t. Not for people like me.” He sets his jaw, glares. “I’m not going to be that person. If we get divorced now, we can stay together.”

“And who are people like you?” Zayn retorts. “People who were ready to be tortured rather than give me up?”

“Zayn—”

“People who steal me a crown to make me laugh? Who is sure to take care of their mum and sisters? Who make me better, make me, I dunno, more?”

“Zayn—”

Zayn’s glaring now, though, and he doesn’t let Louis finish, just gazes at him with his jaw set like it gets when he’s not moving, when he’s found the line he won’t cross. God, but he’s beautiful like this too, like this is the core of Zayn, that steel that makes him so good at what he does, so unwilling to be anything but the best. “I love you, Louis. I’m in love with you. I can live without the house, or the kids, or the dogs, but I can’t live without you. If you want to divorce me because you, like, don’t feel the same, or any of those reasons, then sign the divorce papers and we’ll be partners and that’ll be that. But if you just want a divorce because you think we’re going to fuck up, then I’m ripping up those papers right now.”

“It doesn’t work, though,” Louis mutters. He can’t look at Zayn, because if he looks at Zayn, he’ll start crying, and he refuses to do that. He wants him so badly he aches, but he can’t. He can’t risk it, can’t risk Zayn, can’t let this be him leaving like his father did, or just a temporary thing like his mother has. Can’t let Zayn leave, if he decides he wants the house before Louis knows if he can ever give it to him. If it ends up that Louis is his parents after all. “Marriages don’t, as a rule.”

“Since when do we give a fuck about rules?” Zayn retorts, and Louis snorts out a laugh. “Lou.” With the hand not holding Louis’s, he tilts his chin up, so Louis has to look at Zayn. Zayn’s holding—fuck, he’s holding Louis’s ring, the one he gave him before the heist in LA, before they managed to fuck it up. Before Louis had managed to make Zayn leave. “Do you want it back?”

“I already drove you away once. You went away once,” Louis points out. His heart’s beating hard against his ribs, and he doesn’t know what to do with this, with Zayn here laying everything in front of him, asking Louis to do the same. Making Louis want to do the same. “What if—”

“I’m back, though,” Zayn cuts him off. The ring’s still caught between his fingers. “I found you, and I came back for you, ‘cause that’s what we do, yeah? Have each other’s backs. No matter what.” He brushes at his hair again, nervous. “Do you want it?”

“But you want the house and kids and I’m not domestic, I can’t—”

“We’ve been living in domestic bliss for a month, babe.” Zayn’s lips are tight, like he’s nervous, but there’s nothing uncertain in his gaze. “And I don’t need or want the house and kids now. They’ll wait til you’re ready.”

“What if I never am?” What if he’s like his father, who thought he was but left?

“You will be.” Zayn smiles, gentle and small and still a little uncertain. “I know you, Lou. Better than you know yourself. And I know you could be ready, if you wanted to. And if you aren’t, then, we’ll be pretty kick ass itinerant uncles.” He spins the ring between his fingers, those long fingers that Louis can almost feel on his skin. “Do you want it?”

Louis takes one more look at the ring, catching the light. At Zayn, who’s somehow made himself into the center of Louis’s world, who came to save him even when they were fighting. Who wants him, who believes in him and what he can do. Who has never, ever, let Louis down, or been anywhere other than at his shoulder when he needs him. Who he’d die to save. Who he loves, because that’s what he’d found in that windowless room, that he is in love Zayn. But this—this isn’t just love, this is commitment, this is a risk that everything will fall apart. It feels like he’s on a cliff’s edge, and if he jumps, he can’t know what’ll happen next.

Fuck it. Louis’s always loved the free fall, and he wants Zayn’s voice in his ear when he does. “Get over here so I can kiss you,” he orders, and Zayn’s laughing as he does.

He kisses him gently, like he’d break; like he’s afraid to touch Louis. And it’s good, it is, Zayn’s lips on him like he’d imagined into that room, but he wants more. Louis wants everything, wants all of Zayn, and he gets his hands in Zayn’s hair to tug him closer, biting on his lip. Zayn gets the message because of course he does, and laughs into Louis’s mouth to kiss him harder. That’s much better, much much better, and Louis pushes into it—and can’t help that cry of pain that comes when he moves wrong.

Zayn sits back immediately. His hair’s messy and his eyes are dark, but they’re concerned, and that’s never the look Louis wants when he’d much rather kiss Zayn everywhere. “Come back,” Louis orders.

Zayn laughs, but he doesn’t. Instead, he lifts Louis’s hand, and Louis watches as he slides the ring back onto Louis’s finger, until it’s back where it belongs. Louis strokes his thumb over it, feeling the cold silver underneath his callouses.

“Okay.” He rubs it once more, then focuses back on Zayn. “Now are you going to come back?”

Zayn’s lips twist, and he’s got a different grin on now, one of the ones that’s half a smirk. “Eager?” he asks, then they’re kissing again, Zayn braced over Louis and Louis groans as Zayn trails his lips past Louis’s, down his jaw, cold and wet on the ace in Louis’s cheekbone.

“Thought about this,” he admits, as Zayn’s tongue flicks over his ear. “In—there. Thought about you. Kept me—happy thought, right?” It’s supposed to be encouragement, supposed to—fuck, he doesn’t know, let Zayn know he’s serious, but instead, it makes Zayn stop again, and draw back.

“Fuck, Lou.” He’s looking at Louis, and there’s desire in it, but there’s something darker, deeper. His fists are clenched at his sides, and the spark in his eyes in what he gets before he ruins someone. Louis knows the feeling. “You…”

“Are the best husband ever?” Louis inserts, laughing. “Husbands that are kidnapped together…”

“Fuck,” Zayn says again, then there’s a hand pushing Louis back onto the bed, pulling the blankets down. Louis doesn’t even want to look at his chest, doesn’t want to see the bruises there. “Stay still.”

“That doesn’t sound like fun,” Louis complains, but Zayn just pushes down on his shoulder, presses his lips to Louis’s collarbone.

He goes slow, so stupidly slow because Zayn’s annoyingly thorough, except it’s delicious too, how slow he goes, moving down Louis’s torso with his lips and hands and tongue, like he’s kissing every one of his bruises. Like he doesn’t mind the bruises, all the beaten up parts of Louis, the parts that hurt and don’t work right.

By the time he’s pulling Louis’s sweatpants down Louis’s already a mess, and he gets why all the people Zayn slept with were always so loud if this is how sex with Zayn is, this slow torture that’s enough to make him stop thinking about the other sort.

“Zayn,” he groans, as Zayn pulls his sweats down, and then pauses, just looking at his hard cock, “Hurry up.” He sits up to glare properly, grinding his hips down into the bed to make the point.

Zayn’s hands run down his sides, to settle on his hips, and push them down. “Don’t move,” He tells Louis, firm. “Let me take care of you.”

“Yeah, no complaints here—”

“You got these for me.” Zayn’s finger runs over a nasty, greenish bruise right below his hear. “Let me, fuck. Want to make it better.”

“I don’t mind.” Louis reaches out, grabs at Zayn’s shirt so he can bring him closer. “Wouldn’t give you up for anything.” That much he knows he can do, no matter what happens with anything else. With the ring on his finger. He’ll wear these bruises with pride. And it’ll be better, once Zayn actually does something.

“God, Louis.” Zayn murmurs something in what Louis suspects is Urdu, then his hand wraps around Louis’s cock and Louis groans, arching up into it.

“No, don’t move.” Zayn says again, pushing down. “Just—let me.”

“Zayn,” Louis complains, but his tongue’s licking up the vein of Louis’s cock and it’s really hard to complain when Zayn’s looking up at him through those eyelashes, his cheeks hollowed out around Louis.

Because Zayn’s an asshole, he takes forever, with his mouth on Louis and his hands on Louis’s cock, his balls, and his other keeping Louis pinned down so he can’t move like he wants and it’s horrible and wonderful and Louis just needs—he just wants—he just wants, and he wants Zayn and he wants this and his muscles are starting to tense and shake, his hands fisting in the sheets because when he’d tried to move them Zayn had put them back.

“Zayn,” he groans, and it might be begging, he doesn’t even care, “Zayn, come on, please—”

He knows Zayn’s smile, because he’s a smug motherfucker, but Louis can’t really say anything because he’s wicked with his tongue too, and when he pulls off of Louis there’s a line of spit from his lips to Louis’s cock and it’s probably the hottest thing Louis’s ever seen.

“Not gonna hurt yourself?” he teases.

“Gonna hurt you, if you don’t hurry up.”

Zayn laughs, and then he’s swallowing Louis down again and sucking hard and his hand moves from Louis’s hip to brush against his hole and Louis’s swearing and coming, his hips jerking into Zayn’s mouth and it can’t hurt it feels too good.

Zayn keeps his mouth on Louis until it’s too sensitive, then moves when Louis slaps at his shoulder to get him away. Everything in him’s relaxed, and he can barely feel the pain, it’s so far away. Zayn looks obscene, licking his swollen lips and his cheeks flushed and his hair messy, and the only thing Louis can do is grab his shirt to pull him up to kiss him again.

Zayn comes easily, and there’s no gentleness in his kiss any more, just a desperation that has Louis smiling as he reaches down to get his jeans unbuttoned and his hand around Zayn. Zayn groans at the contact, at Louis biting and sucking at his neck, around the chain where his ring is. He wants to taste, to feel, to know Zayn’s there over him and with him and he’s not going to let him go, that he’s throwing himself into this as hard as he can.

Zayn comes with his head buried in Louis’s neck and a moan of Louis’s name. He falls back next to Louis, not on top of him, like even now he knows it’d hurt, like even now he knows Louis like himself, and then rests his head on Louis’s shoulder.

Louis wipes his hand on the closest cloth he can find, which turns out to be an old ratty t-shirt of Liam’s that Louis hopes he doesn’t care about, then noses at Zayn’s hair, breathes it in. The pain’s coming back, as the buzz recedes, but Zayn’s here, and the ring’s on his finger again.

“So, did you really plant the sword?” Louis asks. “In Cowell’s home?”

Zayn looks up from where he’d started tracing the ink on Louis’s arm, his smile soft and warm and sated. It changes, though, going a little worried. “Yeah. Honestly, ‘m not sure I won’t need to follow through. He seemed pretty determined. Dunno why, there’s plenty of hackers who’d want to work for him.”

“Because you’re the best,” Louis informs him. “But he’s not getting you.” He bites at Zayn’s shoulder again, though not hard. Not like all the marks he can see forming. He doesn’t even care, though. He wants Zayn marked up, wants everyone to know they aren’t getting him. That he’s all Louis’s. “I won’t let him.”

“Nor you,” Zayn replies, vicious and dark as the roil of emotions Louis feels when he thinks of Cowell getting a hold of Zayn. Louis nips at his ear, to calm him down. To remind him not to go off, not yet, even though they’ll get their revenge soon enough.

“I knew you’d come.” It’s something that should be said, Louis thinks. Not one of the many things they’ve let go unsaid. Zayn laid himself out, and he’s owed this. For when Louis does mess up. If he messes up. “When I was in there—like, you were all I could think of. I knew you’d get me out.”

“Always,” Zayn agrees, still hot and fierce, and it feels like a vow. Like til death do us part. “I’ll always come for you.”

It’s too much. It’s all too much, and more than they need. “Oh, I know.” Louis waggles his eyebrows, and Zayn’s intensity breaks as he chuckles, rolls his eyes, and inches closer, his fingers running over one of the bruises on Louis’s ribs.

“Fuck off,” he retorts. Then he sobers. “But—are you mad about the sword? It was the only thing I could think of, when we realized you’d been taken. And he’ll find it eventually, won’t even last that long.”

The sword. That fucking sword, the thing that brought them together and broke them apart, the sword that Louis wants on their mantle, when they get a house someday. On their mantle where the dogs and the kids can’t get it. “Nah. We’ll get it someday,” he tells Zayn, confidently. They will. They always do. “It’ll show up again. And we’ve still got that crown, yeah? I want to ride you when you’re wearing it.”

“Yeah? Like me in the things you’ve stolen?” Zayn retorts, smirking his stupidly hot come hither smirk. Louis considers not letting it work on him, but Zayn’s his husband. He figures he’s allowed. And he likes Zayn as a better painkiller than drugs.

“I’ll get us some gold chains to play with, that’ll be fun,” he purrs, and Zayn’s eyes go dark as he barks out a laugh. Louis grabs Zayn’s hair and pulls him in to kiss him, hard and fast until somehow it turns softer, lazier, comfortable. Like every day. Like something Louis could never get tired of, like something that maybe could be more than what he knows. That maybe could last. They’ve done the impossible before, the two of them.

He twists the ring that’s back on his finger, a familiar weight, not a chain tying him down. A promise. Of Zayn and him, forever.

---

“Your mum’ll kill you if you got dust on that jacket.”

Louis laughs, and slides his arms around Zayn’s waist, so he can hook his chin over his shoulder. He was sure he’d made no noise dropping down from the vent leading into the dressing room, but he’s never been able to fool Zayn. “I can brush it off.”

“She’ll know.” Zayn doesn’t turn around, even when Louis bites at his neck, above the collar of his bright sherwani. “She always knows, Lou.”

“Whatever. Wanted to see you.”

“You’re not supposed to see the groom before the wedding, yeah?” Zayn retorts. Louis bites him again, and Zayn swats at his head without looking. “Bad luck and all.”

“That doesn’t count if we’ve already been married a year,” Louis informs him.

“Want to tell our mums that?”

“I don’t see them around, do you?”

Zayn laughs, and finally turns around, so Louis can properly get his hands on him. “Fair point.”

“I do have those quite often, honey bear.”

“Not as often as you think, sweetie pie.” Louis sticks out his tongue. “They will be around soon, though. We’re getting married in like, an hour. Again.”

Louis groans. He doesn’t mind the idea of weddings, he supposes, or at least, the idea of a wedding to Zayn. Of celebrating with their family. But it all turned into a bigger deal than they’d wanted, trying to blend cultures and religions into a wedding both families could agree on, trying to figure out how to warn everyone that their families weren’t entirely aware of their professions, trying to remember who knew their actual names and could be invited.

“Should have just told them the truth,” he mutters. Zayn’s eyebrows go up.

“Yeah? You wanted to face your mum and tell her you got drunkenly married and then didn’t tell her because you were convinced you couldn’t make a marriage work and that you weren’t in love with me?”

“That was not the reason.”

“That was absolutely the reason. And look.” Zayn smirks. “A year later. Gonna say you were wrong?”

“Never,” Louis swears, and then he has to kiss Zayn, because he’s there and it’s been a year to the day since that panicked morning when he woke up with Zayn’s ring on his finger. A year of them, together, and it’s not different except for how it is, and even then it’s better.

There’s a buzz, and Zayn pulls away from Louis to grab his phone from the table. Louis huffs out a breath. This part is not better. “If that’s Shahid, I’m going to break it,” he snaps.

“Don’t think he’ll be calling me any time soon,” Zayn says idly, checking the message. Louis tries hard not to gloat about that. It’s been long enough he thinks he manages it. “It’s a job,” he goes on, scrolling through. “Looks like—fucking hell.”

“What?” Louis tries to crane over his shoulder to read it, but the angle’s wrong, and his suit is constricting in the most annoying ways.

Zayn turns, and he’s grinning incredulously. “It’s the sword. It’s surfaced again.”

“Fuck me, really?” Louis demands, grabbing the phone. There it is, the sword on display at what looks like some sort of auction house. It’s been months since they’d heard from it, since they finally managed to get Cowell off their trail; he’d thought it would be years before they found it again. “That’s—”

“A good sign, yeah,” Zayn finishes. He gives the phone one more look, then clicks it off and sets it back down. “We’ll finally get it. No freaking out this time?”

“No disappearing after we get it?” Louis retorts, pinching Zayn. Zayn makes a face, and Louis’s about to kiss him again because he can when the door bangs open. The only reason Louis jumps is because it might be either of their mothers.

Liam doesn’t even look surprised when he sees Louis there, just sighs. Harry, behind him, looks more perturbed, because he’s a bit of a traditionalist, they’ve discovered in the past months since he and Niall showed up in London and did, in fact, give them a call. Niall just laughs.

“No, you can’t see each other!” Harry insists, hands on his hips. “It’s bad luck!”

“We’re already married, Haz,” Zayn points out, like Louis hadn’t just had to use that argument on him. Harry huffs out an annoyed breath.

“I don’t think that counts.”

“Honestly,” Liam agrees, but he’s smiling. He’s been smiling all day, bouncing around helping arrange things, hugging Louis and Zayn both whenever he sees them. “I can’t marry you a third time, my vicar’s license runs out soon.”

“And you aren’t renewing?” Louis asks. “But you did so well with this one! You were such a good vicar!”

“I still don’t think you count as a vicar,” Zayn objects. “It’s a lifestyle.”

“Last time we had this argument, you two ended up married,” Liam warns, eyes crinkling.

“Convenient. ‘Cause of what’s happening today,” Niall points out.

“Right!” Harry claps his hand. “We’ve got ten minutes until the wedding starts, and no one else knows you’re already married, so they can’t find you together. Niall, you take Louis back to his room, stay there with him. I’ll stay with Zayn.”

“So we’re flight risks now?” Zayn drawls. Harry just gives him a glare. Louis glares back, grabbing Zayn’s hand.

“Lou. Come on, back to your room,” Liam sighs. “You can see each other again at the altar.”

“Well, I do have the cameras—”

“At the altar,” Harry interrupts, grabbing Zayn’s phone, and Zayn grins into Louis’s neck. “Nope! Separate, come on.”

“Yeah, yeah.” But Zayn doesn’t let go. Instead, he brings Louis’s hand up, so he can brush his lips over the place where his ring’s sat for a year, even if right now it’s in Stan’s breast pocket, like Zayn’s is in Jawaad’s instead of around his neck. Instead, the chain around his neck is a delicate silver, something Louis swiped a few days ago just for this, like the earrings he’s wearing. “Ready?” He’s got the same look on he has right before a job, his eyes alight with it, like electricity’s crackling in his veins. “We can still get out. That’s what air vents are for.”

Louis grins back, the same grin, and it’s like it’s just the two of them, the two of them there against the world. Louis wants to spend the rest of his life like this. Louis’s going to spend the rest of his life like this, with Zayn next to him, part of him, and fuck everything and everyone else. “Nah,” he says. “I want everyone to see when I steal you.”

“Fuck off, I’m stealing you,” Zayn retorts.

“I’m the thief.”  

“We stole each other,” Zayn suggests, and Louis nods, and when he kisses him again, he thinks if this is falling he never wants to hit the ground.