Chapter Text
Liam sits on a hard and uncomfortable chair; tense and a bit sweaty in his suit. With shaky breathing he slowly looks up at the judge through his lashes, smiling inside because there's no way he can be found guilty, but in the inside he’s like a scared child. Stealing jewelry? No way, not Liam, he was innoce.... ‘‘We find the defendant guilty!!'' the words ring out through Liam's ears. His head drops and with a look of shock across his face, he holds back anger and tears.
''Please stand for sentencing'' says the judge, and Liam stands up too embarrassed to look at him, but he does turn to see his parents who have this look that will haunt Liam for months. Those looks were not anger, not sadness, but just pure disappointment in their son, their ‘’perfect’’ son Liam. ''We sentence Liam Payne to 120 days at Green Lake Manor for Troubled Boys.'' The judge says in a stern voice. 120 days? that's four months of pure torture Liam thinks to himself, but it's his fault for being in a neighborhood he was told to stay far away from, of course the first time there after disobeying something happens, just his luck right? Wrong place at the wrong time, and all it took was for an elderly woman to mistake him for the young boy who stole from her shop. Anyways a quick ride home, some packing of bags and a horrible night of sleep he thought to himself, and then Liam would be saying goodbye to his crying mom in the morning, and that’s exactly what happens. Liam is escorted into the van by a manor representative.
Upon arrival Liam is practically tossed out onto his head by the driver and he has his paperwork slammed against his chest as the fat guard points him through the gates and he walks like a mummy onto the grounds, the rusty gates screech and begin closing behind him and he sees his luggage driving ahead of him by a worker in a golf cart. Liam's in his own world until.... ''Look at that damn fag there boys'' a cruel voice rings out with a sexy Bradford accent. Liam looks over as the boy says ''what are you looking at huh? You want my ass loser?'' the brown skinned boy beams out. Liam looks down quickly and begins walking faster into the main office building, he can hear their laughter and taunting as he hurries up to the old lady at the front desk inside, she smells of cheap men’s cologne and cigarettes.
''You’re Liam Payne right? We've been waiting for you,'' she says just as something finishes printing, she snatches it from the printer and grabs a badge hanging on the wall behind it with a key card attached. ‘’Here's your I.D, your room key and a schedule with some manor information on it. Field work is at 7 AM so get sleep tonight.’’ Liam glances over the paper work while thinking ‘’field work? What’s –‘’…. when something causes him to stop suddenly and his eyes grow very wide, he’s sees it on the paper ''a roommate!?'' he asks the woman. She laughs rudely ''Um yeah who do you think you are Prince Harry?'' go on now dinner will be soon, get settled.’’
His luggage has already been delivered to his room by the bald man he saw driving past with it earlier so no worries about that, besides there were tons of other things he had on his mind at that point, he takes the key card from his badge and slides it through the pad, the light beeps to green and he steps inside to a faint smell of cigarette smoke and hairspray. His roommate’s side is only a bit messy, cigarettes on the floor, only a slight amount of clothes lying around, leather jackets and cool shoes. Liam notices a sketch pad lying on the pillow.
Being the nosy boy he is, he walks over to the pad, picks it up and begins flicking through the works, ’’damn this is good stuff’’…. he doesn't even notice the cruel boy from earlier walking in until, ‘’hey!!’’ Liam nearly jumps through the roof…. ‘’ what the fuck are you doing mate?'' the pad falls back to the pillows. ''I was um, just looking-''
''Don't touch my shit'' Zayn says and he walks over and shoves Liam away. ''You're that kid from a bit ago, oh great a raging fruit is my roommate.’’
''I'm Liam'' Liam says smiling and reaching his hand out to shake Zayn's. Zayn eyes his hand like it's a weapon, and doesn’t shake it at first, but for some reason Liam is brave, grabs it and shakes weakly. Zayn pulls away and rushes a step up in Liam’s face, but when he sees how scared the younger boy suddenly looks, he remembers it’s the same look he himself had when he first got to this place. Something inside him softens a bit and he says lowly ‘’Name's Zayn, Zayn Malik.’’
Liam bows his head and answers with a shaky and no where near confident ''got it.''
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The next morning the bell sounds for breakfast, so Liam grabs his books for the class afterwards and heads down to the cafeteria. Of course just like in a cliche high school movie he gets his food on his tray and looks around like a lost puppy for a table, some of the boys look at him, chuckle a bit and look away. Then suddenly he sees an arm outstretched and waving. ''Over here, fresh meat!!'' it’s Zayn. Liam walks over trying to hide his excitement, he's slightly expecting the whole get up and move when he sits or have somebody slide in right before him trick, but to his surprise he sits down and is ''welcomed'' with judging eyes.
’'Boys this thing is Liam, Liam the boys.'' Liam with a ''I'm not a thing'' look on his face studies them. The one right in front of him has ear length brown curls and lovely green eyes ''I'm Harry'' the boy says with a nod and a very low toned voice. Liam nods and looks over to the next boy ''names Niall'' an Irish accent comes out from this younger looking boy with bright blonde hair kind of brown around the tips and pretty blue eyes.
Lastly Liam here's a voice proclaim ''I'm Louis mate!!'' a friendlier voice this time, Liam leans forward and looks past Zayn to see an older cute boy with purposely messy hair and a cool preppy style smiling at him..
Liam starts eating when Zayn speaks ''so alright boys I've got something new up my sleeve so pay very close attention,'' they all look at Zayn amazed while Liam looks confused. ''Tonight we wreak some havoc on Mr. Larson’s office yeah? ya in mates?'' but the other four boys just look down, Liam keeps on eating. ''Is there a problem?'' Zayn says annoyed.
Harry speaks up ''um we have detention, all three of us remember? Took the fall for ya on that pool prank?'' Zayn curses ''Awww come on mates, what am I supposed to do now on a Saturday night? Can’t you get out of it,'' they don’t answer and just look away eating again. Liam chimes in, ''I've got some sick games, we could play, if you want to?'' he says while still stuffing his face. ''Which ones?'' he asks Liam in a bored tone. ''Find out mate'' Liam's being cheeky. Zayn sighs and thinks for a few seconds, ''Fuck it then, I'll do that. Make sure you've got stuff to eat.''
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Zayn is sitting on his bed with Liam right beside and they're playing away at a rough fighting game. Zayn is having tons more fun than he will admit or show on his face, but it doesn't matter because Liam can definitely tell. ''I'm not gonna lose this!!'' Zayn playfully smacks at Liam's controller while laughing loudly and spilling some of their crisps on the bed. ''Hey cut it out cheater, I'm still gonna destroy you'' and just as Liam says that a loud ‘’K.O!!’’ comes from the TV speakers.
‘'It's on now, you can beat me in a game but not here'' Zayn leaps onto Liam and starts tickling his side and playfully punching him all over while Liam laughs and tears begin to come out from how hard he's laughing and trying to hit Zayn back. Suddenly Liam grabs Zayn by his sides and flips him on his back and is now on top, he presses his arms deep into the bed about to hit him but…. Zayn stops in shock and Liam falls quiet because he's not sure if Zayn is pissed off about it, which is the last thing he needs right now after the shit that has gone on lately.
Instead though, Zayn stares into his eyes while Liam stares back confused and a bit frightened at the stillness. A slight smirk comes into play at the right side of Zayn’s mouth, his hands slide to Liam's back and he starts pulling him down…. then he stops harshly when Liam is just a foot away from his body.... pushes him off onto the floor while shaking his head like he's confused as to what just happened.
‘’Um…. I was just uh-‘’ he just storms out of their room, leaving Liam looking dumbfounded at the door, then to look down with a strange feeling in his tummy.