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It's not quite insomnia that keeps Liam awake late into the night when they're on tour, it's just that he has always loved these tired and purple midnight hours. He loves spending his nights on the tour bus best of all, has always preferred travelling the world by road rather than by air. There's a certain kind of feeling Liam gets deep down in his chest, with the hum of the wheels on the ground and the sturdy buzzing of the engine and the stillness of the cool air, all the lights turned down low except for the high beams illuminating a wide angle of asphalt ahead.
These long rumbling nights always have a way of turning Liam's boys into teenagers again; half-undressed, sleepy and silly, terrible rubbish food, beer in the minifridge, hoodies and sweatpants and room for all five of them to play cards without much trouble. It feels like the road trips they've always wanted to take if they ever got the time, an exhausting adventure sprawling across continents, a safe and sturdy place where Liam can be as soft and sincere as he wants without being punished for it with the usual punches in the shoulder or knuckles shoved against his scalp. In this overly air-conditioned bus they'll all flop together on the couches and the floor, tangled up in a mess of arms and legs as they read magazines and play Angry Birds on their phones, slowly fall asleep in a big pile, and when Liam says he loves them (his head resting on Louis' stomach, his legs over Niall's thighs) there might be a teasing edge to some of their voices, and Louis might tug a little on Liam's hair, but they always say it back.
After his boys have gone to sleep, Liam will waste the hours by fiddling about on twitter, trying to get something trending (#harrysmellslikepinecones or #louisshouldgetabatmantattoo) or else watching films on his laptop in the cosy box of his bunk at the back of the tour bus, but the best part of staying up late is catching one of his boys doing the same thing and getting the chance to share in the quiet currency of talk, too dark and too late for sarcasm and nipple pinching.
Sometimes it's Louis, soft-haired and sleepy, curled up in his bunk around a copy of Goblet of Fire at three in the morning, who obligingly lets Liam squeeze into the too-tight space of his bunk. They curl together, face to face, and talk in hushed whispers that smell of toothpaste and stale weed about the quiet things that come out at night, nocturnal animals like homesickness and anxiety and the things they miss about England. It's harder to get sad about wanting to be back home when Louis is with him, squeezing Liam's hand and talking quietly about how much he loves his sisters, his mum.
Or it's Niall with a bowl of popcorn sitting up in the front half of the bus watching Little Miss Sunshine at an incredibly quiet volume, subtitles on, an easy escape as he lifts the blankets off his knees so Liam can sit next to him, covering him up too. Or Harry, a little tipsy from a few beers, naked under his blankets, who clings to Liam's sides and snores softly and keeps him safe, Liam never moving, even when his arm floods with pins and needles as Harry sleeps on top of it.
But, if Liam is very lucky, it's Zayn who is up too late, having nodded off one too many times during the day, his hair a soft sweep across his forehead and his eyes dark and his skin warm and smooth, wearing the thick framed black glasses he's usually too self-conscious to use.
It's two thirty in the morning when Liam gets that insistent pull in his body, tired boredom, and he closes his laptop and tucks it into the netted pocket at the foot of his bed, wanting another sleepy boy to spend the night with. Leaning out over the edge of his bunk, his head upside down and red with blood, Liam tugs open the curtains of Zayn's bunk to see if he's still awake, hoping against hope that he hasn't just fallen asleep with his reading light on.
"Hey, man."
Zayn looks up from the sketchpad he's got balanced on his thighs, his knees making a triangle against the plane of his thin mattress, leaning up on a pile of pillows. He's got big Dr. Dre headphones over his ears, just a whisper of tinny noise coming from them, and when Zayn sees Liam he smiles, lowers his knees until his legs are flat against the mattress like he's untangling himself, opening himself up to Liam.
"What're you drawing?" Liam asks, swinging down from his bunk and landing barefoot on the floor of the tour bus, as softly as a cat. Zayn is dressed for bed, in sweats and a faded Sonic Youth t-shirt with one sleeve rolled up around a pack of Marlboro reds. Everything about him is soft, his clothes washed too many times and his hair worn down and his fingertips smudged with the black of pencil lead. It's the side of Zayn that Liam loves most, the kid happy to be ordinary with his sketchpad and his delicate fingers and a sleepy puffiness under his eyes, the kind of boy with his heart sown on his sleeve (stitched like a patch over his pack of cigarettes) and a smile that catches Liam off guard with how sweet it can turn, even when he's just talking about why he likes Marvel more than DC.
Zayn turns his sketchpad over, tugs his headphones down around his neck. "Nothing much," he says, as he hands it over.
The only light at the back of the bus is the glow coming from within Zayn's bunk, a copper shine like a streetlamp. Liam huddles in close to Zayn's bed, ducking into the pale wash of light, and takes the sketchpad from Zayn. In the half-shadows, Liam can make out a mess of bodies and doodles and poses, as cluttered as the tattoos of Harry's left arm. In the middle of the page, though, is a hugely muscled comic book character, obviously a villain with his v-shaped cowl and a wicked torn up cape that looks like streaming tentacles. "Who's that?" Liam asks.
"Mr. Sinister," Zayn says, turning on his side towards Liam, propping himself up on an elbow. The light catches him in halves, a moon going through its phases; Zayn's lashes cast long shadows down his cheeks, his eyes lost in darkness, the curve of his lips catching the light like wet silver. "From X-Men. Remember him?" Zayn asks, his voice delicate, almost academic, going over his drawings like they're notes from a lecture Liam has missed. "He was in that whole Apocalypse story thing."
"Oh yeah!" Liam says. "He was so cool in the cartoon." Liam traces his fingers over the sketchy, uncertain lines drawn over in a harder hand as Zayn got more confident with the shape of him. He smudges some lines, accidentally shading in parts that are probably meant to be clean, getting Zayn's ink on the pad of his thumb. "That's so cool," he says. "It's sick, man."
Liam sits down cross-legged on the floor, his knees touching either side of the narrow hallway between their two rows of bunks. Zayn's bed is only three feet off the ground, and he leans out so he can take a look over Liam's shoulder as he flips through the rest of the booklet, casting a shadow Liam hides underneath like a duvet, his breath tickling and warm against Liam's ear.
"Jean Grey," Zayn says as Liam turns the next page. "Catwoman. Thor. Spiderman and –"
"Doctor Octopus," Liam says. He grins wider then. "He's one of my –"
"– favourites, I know," Zayn says, a slow and sleepy smile that reaches his eyes as he looks down at Liam, a fondness in him that Liam can never explain. It's not the first time Liam has wondered what is it exactly that he does to get Zayn to smile at him like that. He's never very sure, it always seems to happen at odd times and for no reason, unpredictable chemistry catching Liam off guard with a rush of heat to his cheeks and a stammer in his words. "You can keep it. If you want."
With Louis there has always been a certain amount of earning to be done, Liam working hard over months to hold Louis' love, winning a place by his side, but with Zayn it's like Liam never needed to try. From the beginning it has always seemed like Zayn loves him simply because of (or, maybe, despite) the way he is: Liam can pretty much do anything, say anything, be anything and Zayn will smile at him like Liam has done something to deserve it, and Liam can't help but wonder if he's being funny or if Zayn is just laughing because it's Liam who told the joke. It doesn't quite make sense, because right now Liam is only smudging Zayn's sketches and ruining his hard work with too-eager fingers but Zayn is watching him like Liam hung the moon and stars. Liam would be lying if he said that deep down he didn't need a smile like that, because he does, it's something Liam has come to crave (especially in the darker nights when things are threatening to be pulled apart), he just doesn't understand it. It's like somewhere in the last few years Zayn has made a promise without telling Liam, a promise that no matter how bad it gets Zayn will always always be there to think that Liam is worth a damn.
"Can I –"
"Rip it out," Zayn says, his hand ruffling the back of Liam's hair, hand resting there limply with his thumb brushing against the top rung of the ladder of Liam's spine. "Though, you've got like hundreds of them, man. I don't know what you do with them all."
Carefully, Liam rips the page out of Zayn's sketchbook, holding the drawing in his hands and admiring it again. "I've got a little bit of room left to decorate in my bunk," Liam says. "It's mostly my mum and dad and Ruthie, I need some badass, too." Closing the sketchbook again, Liam leans his head against the edge of Zayn's mattress. "The rest of 'em are in a box in my flat, on my coffee table."
"Really?"
"Gonna be worth something some day," Liam says, and Zayn laughs. He can feel Zayn start to play with the short hair at the nape of his neck, his fingers running through it softly. "I'm not kidding. It's so cool what you do. Niall tried to nick them off me once, he loves them too." Zayn laughs again. "I'm serious, dude," Liam says, turning his head slightly to get a better look at Zayn.
"It's all right," Zayn says, brushing it off. "They're really not anything that special." It has always been like this, Zayn refusing to talk at length about his artwork, never being able to take a compliment about it. Liam knows that this is a secret part of Zayn, a private gallery where the paintings are covered in thick curtains, and that Liam's only allowed to take a peek because he's been trusted with the keys. They've all got their private stuff – Louis with his football team and charity matches, Harry with his book of scribbled lyrics and guitar chords that he shares with Ed Sheeran – and Liam knows that it's a special thing to be invited into those events, the tight orbit of those hidden planets, so he takes special care when he hands the sketchbook back to Zayn, like he's holding something precious.
"Naw, it really is so cool," Liam says, and he knows it's futile but he needs to try, he needs to pay Zayn back a little for the things he's given Liam for free. How many days have been rescued just because Zayn decided that Liam was worth his time? Sitting him down when he's homesick to watch a bootleg copy of The Avengers, taking him shopping and somehow paying for both of them before Liam even gets his credit card out, flinging bits of salmon roll and sweet potato tempura at paparazzi when they go out for sushi together, all of it just to get a smile out of Liam.
"You can take whatever you want," Zayn says. "They're just sketches."
"No, no," Liam says. Sleep is gathering at the corners of his eyes, the heavy shadow of exhaustion inside him darkening the skies in his head, and even though he's knackered and the words come out funny, he has this need in him to be understood. "It's so much cooler than that."
"S'just comics," Zayn says. "It's basically just tracing."
"But for me it's like, I know you can do all this wicked cool stuff," Liam says. Zayn gently raises an eyebrow, a curiosity in his expression as he watches Liam, looks at his eyes, looks at the shape of his mouth when he talks. "Like, you sing so great and you're so funny when you're messing about with Louis and you can draw, you can make things that are so amazing." Zayn's lips are troubled for a second, a word he keeps hidden, a twitch in his mouth like he doesn't know how to react. "I'm just an idiot, you know how dumb I am sometimes," Liam says, and he catches a laugh on the sharp edge of where Zayn's teeth bite into his soft lower lip. "Yeah, exactly, and sometimes I forget all the stuff you can do, but that's okay because then I get to remember them all over again." Liam smiles down at his drawing, Doctor Octopus with his metal arms spread to each corner of the page. "And I get to be amazed by you, like, every other day. Do you know how cool that is?"
Zayn laughs, ruffles Liam's hair again. "Go to bed, man. Jesus."
Liam grins. "Like, it's been three whole years and you still blow me away."
"You're exhausted," Zayn says, a red circle on his cheek where he's resting it against his palm, his glasses sliding low on his nose. "You sound drunk, dude."
"I'm so tired I feel drunk," Liam says, laughing a little. "But do you get it?"
"I get that you don't know much about art," Zayn says, but it's warm with fondness. "Get some sleep, Liam."
"I might not know much about art," Liam says, standing up carefully, wobbly with tiredness and the gentle sway of the bus as it moves. "But how 'bout you draw me something new? Like, something you made up."
Zayn pushes his glasses up to the bridge of his nose, wrinkles his brow slightly. "Like what?"
"Dunno," Liam says, holding his drawing close to his chest. "Something that will blow me away. Again."
Zayn laughs, but it's drawn back, thoughtful. "Okay, maybe."
"Cool, really cool," Liam says, grinning. And he reaches out then, because he likes putting a touch to the words, the way that telling his boys he loves them is nice but feeling them warm and study against his shoulders and around his waist is better. He touches Zayn's cheek, thumb brushing over the prickly late-night stubble Zayn has rough along his jawline, and he watches as Zayn smiles at the touch, soft and almost a little sad. It's funny, Liam thinks, funny and so fucked up at how easy it feels to love someone and how hard it is to explain it.
"Night, rockstar," Zayn says, poking a finger against the gap of skin between Liam's low-slung boxers and the too-small t-shirt he stole off of Niall.
"Night," Liam says, letting the touch go, pulling his hand away, breaking the connection.
Clambering back into his bunk, Liam hears Zayn move underneath him, changing positions, tucking himself into bed.
"Thanks," Zayn whispers, like they're schoolboys in their dormitory after hours, not wanting to wake up their house master. "Thanks, Liam."
"Love you," Liam whispers back.
"Love you too," Zayn says, quiet and sleepy like he's letting himself be the boy he normally tries to hide.
*
When they get a chunk of days off after playing in Illinois, Liam starts searching about on the internet, googling for things he's been too busy to check up on: cool restaurants nearby, theme parks, films that have come out, watching trailers on YouTube for an hour, two, until he finds the perfect one.
"Zayn," Liam says, lying on his stomach on the floor of Zayn's hotel room. "Look, man. Look at this."
Harry and Louis are playing FIFA '13 on the Playstation Louis bought on a whim, a surprisingly good investment for long hours doing nothing between interviews and soundcheck and the show. Zayn slides off the bed from where he had been watching the action, twirling an unlit cigarette between his fingers like a drumstick, and he sits down next to Liam, skin showing through the rips in the knees of his jeans.
After watching thirty seconds of the trailer Liam found, Zayn grins. He laughs and looks at Liam and throws an arm around his shoulder, pulling Liam in and kissing the top of his head.
"Monsters, giant robots, it's got everything," Liam says, happy to be in the headlock. "You want to, mate?"
"Sick," Zayn says. "Let's do it."
"I've gotta make some calls first," Liam says. "But you wanna go tonight?"
Zayn nods again, letting Liam out of his grip. He has a cigarette tucked behind one ear, too, and the blackness of some of his tattoos peek out from under his white t-shirt, and he has dark stubble along the sharp line of his jaw, and Liam wonders again how he got a boy like this, a boy this cool to ever like him. There's still a part of Liam that's stuck back in school, bullied and lonely, sixteen and so unwanted that no one came to his birthday, still the kind of boy who would look at Zayn and never in a million years think they could be friends. And then Zayn breaks, and he giggles, and he bumps his forehead against Liam's shoulder, that full grin he gets when he can't hold it back and Liam feels his heart skip and his stomach swoop. He can't get over it, this boy, this Zayn who puts on a goofy American accent and mimics the movie trailer ("today we are canceling the apocalypse!") and loves Liam for no reason, no reason at all except maybe for this, their perfectly twinned hearts, all those comic book superheroes and giant monsters and best friends saving the world.
*
He stops suddenly when the car pulls up, looks over at Liam like he didn't realise what he was doing. "We here?"
Liam swallows, clears his throat. "Uh, yeah. Yeah."
He hears Zayn sing every day, has memorised his rocky growl and vibrato over the hours they've spent rehearsing, but in the closed cockpit of their Range Rover it's mesmerizing. With the lights dimmed, only the neon blues and greens of the signs and advertising outside smeared through the tinted windows, it has the feeling of a dream, of some quiet club with Zayn whispering music in Liam's ear, the kind of haunting music Zayn does when he really gets into it, eyes closed and dark lashes and his lips rounding out the sounds.
"Was I shit?" Zayn asks, his voice low, raising his eyebrows at Liam, who only just realises he was staring.
"No, no, oh my God," Liam says, stumbling over his words until he settles into a grin. "Every goddamn day, man. You amaze me, like, every day."
"Shut up," Zayn says, but he's smiling. He pats Liam's shoulder a couple of times, squeezing it, before he opens the car door. "You hear me sing all the time."
"Yeah," Liam says, grinning as he slams the door behind him. "I do."
"You rented out a whole theatre?" Zayn asks, shoving his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket as their security guards lead them to a back entrance, away from the crowds. His voice has that same tone as before, can't accept a compliment without it burning his cheeks, scuffing his combat boots on the asphalt of the car park.
"Yep," Liam says, getting in step beside him, unconsciously mimicking him with his hands balled in the pockets of his jean jacket. "Just us."
"We should've brought a flask," Zayn says as he laughs, nodding his thanks as their security holds the door open for them, bowing them into the dim light of the private theatre.
Which is funny, because Liam feels kind of drunk. Not the sloppy kind, no, it's the kind where your skin glows and you can't stop grinning and the whole world feels like it's been made for shouting, where nothing can go wrong because there's so much love out there, just waiting. And when they choose their seats, dead center, and put their feet up on the chairs in front of them, Liam can feel it in Zayn too. It comes out in Zayn in the heat of his body and the squint in his grin, all of their shared silliness, and underneath that a smile, the one reserved for Liam, a hand on his knee that doesn't go away, a love that never seems to need a reason to exist.
*
"That was fucking sick," Zayn says, pulling his leather jacket on again, a spring in his step.
"So cool, oh my God," Liam says, hopping up and down a bit, wanting to see the whole thing over again right away. "That part they use that giant sword was amazing. And using the boat like a baseball bat. Oh man," Liam says, punching Zayn's arm, clinging to him, wanting to share everything he's feeling right then.
"Yeah, man, and like, the way they walked," Zayn says. He imitates the wide staggering steps of the robots in the movie, the giant pistons of their legs.
"Yeah, yeah," Liam says. "With their brains all linked up and stuff, that was the best part, how the pilots were like, hooked into each other."
"Come on," Zayn says, grabbing Liam's hand, squeezing it and pulling him along.
All the way back to their car, surrounded by five burly men hired to protect them, Liam and Zayn walk like the machines in the movie, feet slamming down on the ground like they're made of metal. They move in unison, tied together through the knot of their hands, every step perfectly in sync as they pilot themselves back home.
*
Zayn's reading light is on and he's still dressed in the day's clothes, but he's fast asleep curled around his sketchbook, pen still held loosely between his limp fingers.
"Zayn?" Liam says again, shaking his shoulder gently. Slowly, Zayn opens his eyes, his pupils dilating hugely and then contracting again as he adjusts to the light. "We're stopping for a rest, if you wanted to stretch your legs."
"Time'sit?" Zayn asks, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
"Three thirty," Liam says, consulting the huge round moon of his wristwatch. "Come get some snacks with me."
Harry and Niall skip out on the late night break, blearily waving Liam away, Harry landing a pert slap on Liam's cheek. With Louis leading the way in sweatpants and a too-big t-shirt stretched at the collar, they shuffle into the truck stop, late and lit up in the white-blue of industrial fluorescent lights. It's completely deserted, the till operated by an old woman who clearly has no idea who they are, and Liam feels himself relax, knowing he can be himself, can breathe fresh air without being mobbed.
"What were you working on?" Liam asks as he gravitates towards the small section at the back of the store filled with fresh fruit, some browning bananas and bruised granny smith apples and navel oranges. Louis makes a bee-line for the crisps, but Zayn ends up following Liam, his eyes sunken and dark and his shoulders slouched low.
"What?" Zayn asks, wincing at the bright lights, rubbing his eyes with his fists.
"The thing you fell asleep drawing," Liam says, picking out all the apples for sale, and a couple of bananas for Harry when he wakes up. "It looked like a comic."
"Oh," Zayn says, his fifth yawn, his third stretch. "Yeah. It's that thing we talked about."
Liam raises his eyebrows. "What thing?"
"Where I draw you something I made up," Zayn says, trailing after Liam as he picks up some Red Bull and chocolate.
"Oh, shit, right!" Liam says, and he can't help but smile. "Can I see it?"
Zayn shrugs one shouldered. "Buy me a couple of packs of Marlboro reds and I'll show you."
It's still and quiet out here in the empty American countryside; only a few cars passing by on the motorway, a flurry of moths bouncing against the huge floodlights normally seen on football pitches, the hum and buzz of insects, the fresh green smell of the forest that swallows everything around them in purple darkness, and a cool night that hits Liam like a slap. It's so late Liam can feel the exhaustion it on his skin. It's a clammy and cold feeling like dried sweat and it tugs at his eyelids, making him shuffle his socked feet on the gravel of the car park as he carries two bags filled with snacks back to the bus, but not even exhaustion is enough to stop Liam from sitting with Zayn on the end of his bed and flipping through his sketchbook.
"Is that – is that me?" Liam asks, looking at Zayn in awe.
"It's you as a superhero," Zayn says, rubbing his eyes with his fists again, his voice dismissive and casual. "He's called the Wolf of Hampton."
"Like Wolverhampton!" Liam says, flipping the page, Zayn already having filled in fifteen panels of art.
"Yes," Zayn says, laughing and shaking his head. "Like Wolverhampton."
"Holy shit," Liam says, his breath knocked out of him like a sternum to the ribs. Stretched across the pages (divided into a neat block of squares) is Liam, short hair and arrows drawn up his arm and a microphone stand that seems to double as a sword, a cape billowing out behind him. By day he's a singer – solo, apparently, the first few frames are him singing at a small club – but when he senses trouble, Liam transforms into the vigilante superhero known as the Wolf of Hampton, and he chases foes down on a motorcycle, smashing their heads like watermelons with his microphone-sword. It's funny, the drawings silly and cartoonish and covered in buckets of blood, and the villains of the piece seem to look an awful lot like The Wanted. Over the course of five pages Liam battles the paparazzi, choking them with the straps of their cameras, hurling them into the sun. It's revealed near the end of the comic that Liam has a trusty side-kick, a nerdy boy with thick-rimmed glasses and a gravity-defying quiff known as the Bradford Bad Boy. "Zayn," Liam says, looking up at Zayn, his mouth open, words drying out on his tongue.
"It's not done yet," Zayn says, taking the book back from Liam. "It's nothing much though, just something funny I had stuck in my head."
"Zayn," Liam says again because it's the only word he can think of, the only thing he can think of. "Zayn."
"Yeah, well," Zayn says, shrugging.
Liam doesn't have the words he wants, all of them too far out of reach, spinning and tangled up in his head, a jumbled mess of what he wants to say, has always wanted to say. So, instead, he leans forward and kisses Zayn, catching him on the corner of the mouth, lightly, just once. His cheeks flood with heat and he can't help but grin as he pulls away, a hiccup of a laugh. They kiss sometimes, it's what they do, a tradition Harry started on sleepy mornings when Louis made breakfast, or when Niall buys them all a round of beer, but this feels different: stolen, sudden, a meaning behind it more than hey, you're great. Liam knows it's different because he suddenly wants to do it again, to make whatever cluttered words he can't say into a press of his lips, to tip Zayn's head up and kiss him again. To let him know something, somehow.
"You like it?" Zayn asks, his voice low, not moving, looking up at Liam through his eyelashes.
Liam nods. "It's so great, Zayn."
"I should finish it?" Zayn asks, a sleepy smile.
"Yeah," Liam breathes out, quick and sudden like he's about to laugh. And then he does laugh, and he stops himself by kissing the top of Zayn's head, pulling him in for a hug. "You made us fight crime together."
"Yeah, I did," Zayn says, his arms going all the way around Liam, holding him close around his hips. "I'll show you the rest when I'm done."
Liam pulls away, rubs the back of his neck, smiling out of the corner of his mouth. "All right."
Zayn gives Liam a long look, a significant look in the short hesitation they have as they pull away from each other, still so close together sitting next to each other on the cramped bunk. Liam feels like he ought to do something, move in, close the gap between them because Zayn seems to open himself to it and Liam really wants to feel the touch of his lips again and remember how it feels.
The bus starts again, a loud growl as it wakes up, and Liam startles suddenly, covering it up by clearing his throat. "Time for bed?"
"Okay," Zayn says shrugging. They bump knuckles once and Zayn ducks down, sliding himself into his lower bunk. Liam stands there awkwardly as Zayn gives a nod, a little wave of his fingers, and closes his curtains, the reading light going out soon after. Only then does Liam realise he's holding his breath.
*
Tonight it's Niall's turn, his room always somehow the cleanest, with a minifridge full of tall cans of Foster's. After keying open the door, the fight for territory begins as it always done, places to be claimed, television programmes to be chosen, everything on a first come first serve basis (that is unless Louis starts jabbing their sides until they give in to him, with his wicked little grin.) Louis steals the bed like he always does, running past them into the room and belly flopping onto the mattress, taking his place. Harry sits by the foot of the bed (his lumberjack shirt open down to his navel, tattoos visible, always such a flower child with his bare legs crossed at the ankle,) while Niall begins the search in the obscure channels for a football game to watch. Zayn, never that keen on televised footie, has a few back catalogue issues of the Walking Dead rolled up in the pocket of his jeans, and he takes out the scroll of comics as he flops down in the plush, over-sized armchair in the dark corner of the room.
Liam doesn't take part in the fight, he just bows out for a moment to wash his face in the bathroom, running his wet hands back through his sweat-limp hair. He tries to circulate his breathing (in through the nose, out through the mouth,) as he shuts down for the night, exchanging the racing heartbeat of the show for the calm of the evening. Shutting down has always been difficult for Liam, seemingly much harder than it is for the rest of the boys. Sometimes, more often these days, he has a hard time getting his pulse to settle, his throat raw and his chest still tight with trying to be perfect, trying to be the best he can and pushing himself to his limit. Tonight feels like one of those times, a tremble in his fingers that won't go away, a restless feeling like he needs to run from everything, reckless and desperate.
Arsenal are playing Queens Park Rangers when Liam leaves the bathroom for the bedroom, and Harry and Niall are sitting at the foot of the bed together watching it on the big screen, their knees drawn to their chests, Harry pushing the hair from his face every three minutes. Zayn is curled up on the armchair, legs drawn under him, glasses low on his nose as he reads his zombie comics. Like a shot, Liam realises he needs him, really needs him. He needs the love Zayn is always so willing to give him, he needs to know it right now but he can't bear to ask. He needs it suddenly and he needs it so bad it's almost scary.
Louis catches Liam's attention with a nod of his head, patting the spot next to him.
"Game's on," Louis says as Liam walks to the bed.
"I don't really mind," Liam says, flopping on the bed and crawling closer to Louis. Liam's in his basketball shorts and a black Adidas jumper, and he tugs at the hood fitfully, his fingers still shaking as he tries to snuggle into the gap next to Louis. He crosses his arms over his chest, wondering if Louis can see the fire under his skin, the struggle to pull himself back down to earth. Liam tries not to drum his fingers anxiously, he tries not to change positions every forty-five seconds, but the effort of trying to seem okay is just making him more restless, in a mood to burn bridges, bust his knuckles and watch the blood.
"You okay?" Zayn asks. He's looking at Liam from over the top of his comic, dark glasses, dark eyes, dark eyebrows raised in a look of mild worry. This seems to get Louis' attention too, his face doing that sweet thing with his pink cheeks and alert eyes and sweep of hair over his forehead.
"A little jumpy," Liam says quietly, not wanting to draw attention to it, just hoping it will bleed out of him before he tries to go to sleep. He hopes it isn't so obvious, he hopes he doesn't look as anxious as he feels.
"Jumpy?" Zayn asks, his eyes tightening in focus even as he keeps his voice smooth and even, like a cool hand on a fevered forehead.
Liam shrugs like a shiver. "What're you reading?" he asks, wanting to change the subject, wanting the calm of Zayn's voice again.
Zayn lifts his comic book a little higher to show Liam the title. "Want me to read out loud?" Zayn asks. "I can describe the drawings."
Liam can feel Louis looking at him, searching him for cracks but trying not to seem like he is. Louis knows Liam well enough to know not to try too hard, which just makes Liam feel worse. He knows he's a hard person to take care of, too focused on everything but himself, too easily upset and too difficult to bring back, and he hates himself for putting Louis in that position. Liam knows he cares, but it just plays into the shakiness, it makes Liam feel even less in control when Louis and Zayn stop making jokes and start to look worried. He just wants his head to stop racing, keeping pace with his heart, he just wants to stop feeling like he might forget to breathe, like he's on the edge, like the walls will shake and the sky will fall.
"Okay," Liam says, wanting to stop thinking about it, wanting to hear Zayn keep talking, drowning out everything else with his lilting Yorkshire accent.
"All right," Zayn says, clearing his throat and sitting more upright, like he's giving an important speech. "So they're escaping from this mob of zombies by covering themselves in blood and guts and stuff so the zombies will think they're one of them." Every so often Zayn looks up at Liam, checking him, making sure he's keeping up, focusing his attention on Zayn and the story. "And there's this awesome lady called Michonne who has a crazy sword and she's slicing these zombies up. And it's working, the plan looks like it's working, they're walking through the zombies and they're not being bitten –"
"But," Liam says.
"But," Zayn agrees. And he talks the whole time with that same measured voice, as calm and steady as Liam needs to stay in control, just this honeyed voice that runs through Liam like a mantra, familiar and sturdy and keeping him in the moment. Louis soon loses his hair-trigger worry, his glance darting between Zayn and Liam, and he relaxes as he realises that Liam is being slowly walked back from the edge. Louis puts a hand in Liam's hair, pets him gently, a physical presence, and then he just leaves it there. "Just when they think they're going to get out, one of the zombies notices," Zayn continues, "because this woman didn't put enough guts and stuff because she didn't like the smell, and they get her. Like bite down on his shoulder and start tearing at her and all hell breaks loose, man, everything's all fucked up and now they're in the middle of this mess of zombies, too."
And even as Zayn describes the carnage, the blood and guts in black and white, the horror as the zombies overwhelm everyone, biting on skin and chewing on flesh, Liam feels his whole body come undone, like a fist that can finally relax. Liam can feel his breathing grow steady, matching the slow cadence of Zayn's voice, his rounded vowels and dropped consonants. Zayn reads the rest of the comic to Liam, describing every action shot, even giving some of the characters voices, keeping it up long after Liam has calmed down and lost the panic. When he's done that issue, Zayn picks up the next comic and keeps reading even as Liam falls asleep, his face pressed against Louis' side, Zayn's voice an anchor keeping Liam together, keeping him safe on the ground.
*
"Come on, rockstar," Zayn says. "You've had enough of a lie in. I've got a surprise."
Zayn waits patiently for Liam to change ("wear your swimsuit, man") and brush his teeth, and then grabs his hand and drags him out into the desert heat.
"Where are the lads?" Liam asks, realising too late that wearing jeans over his swimming trunks in this heat was probably a stupid idea.
"Shopping," Zayn says. "We're meeting up for dinner later at the Bellagio."
"That's the one from Ocean's Eleven?"
Zayn grins. "With the fountains, yeah."
"Well," Liam says, following Zayn into Mandalay Bay, the casino they're booked at for their nights in town, "which one are we gonna rob first?"
"I'm Clooney," Zayn says, with a grin like of course he's the suave, debonair tuxedo-clad leader of this game, "you're Pitt."
"Deal," Liam says, grinning back at him.
They walk fast through the casino floor, this one all done up in classic style, red and gold, the lights the colour of champagne, decore like the south of France, Monaco. The lights of the slot machines are like frozen fireworks, a splash of every colour glittering wildly, the buzzing and ringing of bells like some crazy videogame, clunking of coins and the rattle of winnings playing out all around them. Zayn notices that they're getting some attention, mobile phones pointed in their direction, so they pick it up to a run, still holding hands, sprinting through the casino like they're being chased by security, a lock-box of poker chips held between them as they make a break for it.
"Where are we going?" Liam asks, laughing, trying to catch his breath.
"The beach," Zayn says, and Liam laughs and holds his hand tighter and follows.
*
"Come on," Zayn whispers against the back of his neck, tickling Liam's skin. Those words are enough to twist Liam's insides, to get him excited for something he can't imagine, the little gift of spending a day with Zayn. And yeah, he's supposed to be the one paying Zayn back, so he just adds the thrill he gets to his growing tab.
Fizzing mimosas are waiting for them on a tray between two huge sun loungers, along with a basket of tropical fruit, plush bathrobes, fluffy white towels, a huge range of magazines fanned out like a hand of cards, and a four page gourmet menu. The wind breathes through the cabana, lifting the curtains and tossing them around, the sound of the waves close and rhythmic. Liam stands there in a t-shirt stretched at the collar and jeans ripped down the thighs and knees, in beaten up Keds, wondering how the hell he got here.
"Did you do this?" Liam asks, running his hands over the magazines, no fewer than three of which bear their faces.
"It's Vegas," Zayn says shrugging but still grinning, that wanting grin like he's waiting to see if Liam approves. He makes it sound like this just happened on its own, cans of Red Bull and Stella cooling in a basket filled with ice. "You sounded excited about it, so."
Liam grabs Zayn's hand and pulls him in real quick, arm steadying him around the small of his back, and he plants a kiss, the Hollywood kind, loud and wet and definitive on his lips. Zayn comes away still grinning down at the ground, and Liam can feel his quick breathing in the way Zayn's chest moves against his own, back and forth as they try to calm down from the run. "This is amazing."
"Wanna get lunch?" Zayn asks, still in Liam's grip, his anxious smile turning warm and full, settling down again into that boy who loves so much it's kind of incredible. Even though Zayn did all the work he's looking at Liam like this is somehow his idea, grinning at him like he's so proud of Liam (for what? for just being here? for just being himself?) and like there's no one he's more fond of in the world. When Zayn smiles like that it's like there's nothing else around, everything fading into the background like the lights dimming in a theatre except for the golden circle around them both.
"I'm starving," Liam says, a bit light-headed, letting Zayn loose again. "Let's put some Frank Sinatra on, get a bottle of champagne, and nap for hours."
"Couldn't think of anything better," Zayn says, his arm lingering around Liam's waist as he walks by, picking up the menu and flopping down on one of the sun loungers, as cool as anything. When he grins up at Liam there's a razor-edge there, his lips still soft and red from the press of Liam's mouth, and he waggles his eyebrows. Liam has no idea what he did to deserve this, but he's sure glad it happened.
*
Zayn is reading his comic books again and Liam gets bored with playing on his phone, so just stays curled up on his plush chair and watches Zayn flick through the pages of the zombie horror here in this little wedge of sunshine. Zayn licks his thumb every time he turns a page, and Liam wonders if he's always done that or if Liam is just now noticing the quick dart of his pink tongue against the pad of his thumb, the way he rifles the edges of the pages as he reads. Liam wonders if he's missed a lot of things about Zayn, things he's so used to he glances past without noticing.
Zayn is shirtless, dressed just in his long boardshorts, still damp from when Liam made Zayn stand waist-deep in the pool with him ("come on, you can at least do that much, Zayn,") horseplay that Liam can still see in fading red marks on his skin. Zayn's tattoos are stark, and Liam tries to count the ones he remembers coming with him to get, watching him go through designs online for hours, even drawing some himself. Zayn's skin is like a map of the last three years, the few he had when he first joined the band, and each one added after (he remembers that skull on his shoulder, the way Zayn squeezed his hand as the artist tattooed over bone, the way Liam's hand went numb Zayn was holding on so tight) like rings around a tree, marking each month that passes as he builds his half-sleeve. He's still as skinny as he always was, not interested in their sudden fitness craze except for the odd sparring match when he boxes with Liam still dressed in skinny jeans and combat boots, and there's a dark line of hair leading from the taut lip of his navel to the elastic waistband of his boardshorts.
There's a sturdiness to him that Liam has come to love, learning to appreciate the slightly awkward, self-conscious way Zayn has of touching. He doesn't have the huge hugs of Harry, or the soft cuddle of Louis, or the snuggling sweetness of Niall, he has his own very Zayn way of touching Liam. Never to hurt, never to tease, just this way of putting his arm around Liam's shoulders right when Liam needs it, hands on his hips, an arm around Liam's stomach to pull him in, a mouth by his ear laughing and mumbling a bad joke, knuckles brushing against Liam's cheek. It's the kind of touch Liam wants to nuzzle into, like each of Zayn's contacts are carefully planned to remind Liam that he's loved right when Liam most needs to feel it. Sometimes he feels like he's spent his whole life trying to be that guy that everyone likes, trying so hard to be what people need him to be, and then there's Zayn. A hand on his chest, touching from thigh to shoulder as they sit next to each other on a couch, fingers petting the hair at the back of his neck. Each time a reminder: you are loved, you are loved, you are loved.
"Hey," Zayn says, nodding at Liam shortly.
"Hi," Liam says, biting down on his lower lip, wondering how long Zayn has been looking at him, wondering if he noticed.
"Here," Zayn says, plucking out his left earbud and holding it out to Liam. The gap between their sun loungers is a bit too wide, so they scoot towards each other and Liam puts the headphone in his ear. He's still curled towards Zayn, waiting for the music to begin, watching as Zayn moves to pick a new song. And then, with a sudden flurry of noise, Daft Punk is picking up a rhythm and telling Liam to get lucky, ringing in one ear with the ocean in the other. Liam looks over at Zayn, and they smile like they're only ones alive. All at once, at the same exact time, as in sync as if they're co-piloting that giant robot warrior from the film, they starting grooving together: bobbing their heads, cutting the air with their palms, jamming out to the song in ridiculous ways and laughing together. Zayn squints when he laughs, a hummingbird beat of his eyelashes, and he's grinning when he looks over at Liam, the artery of music stretching between them like it's keeping them alive.
*
The evening sky has been spray painted pink and orange in wide speckled lines, a bright graffiti end to the day, and it's dark enough and the crowd large enough that no one really notices them as they try to find a place to watch. Between the Las Vegas strip and the huge lake in front of the casino there are a row of stone scalloped balconies stretching out over the water, and Liam drags Zayn until they're dead center, the prime viewing spot. The railings are all too full with people so Liam hops up onto one of the squat columns, concrete rough against bare skin as he hoists himself onto the ledge. Zayn rolls his eyes but Liam offers him a hand, one that Zayn grabs as he scales the stone to climb up next to Liam. There's not that much room on the pedestal so they squish together, legs dangling out over the dark green water, looking out over the sunken plastic yard-long margarita glasses and red solo cups that litter the water's edge. A couple of ducks swim lazy circles below them, looking from scraps thrown by the tourists.
"What're you doing for our August break?" Liam asks, kicking his legs, bouncing his heels against the stone like he's twelve again.
"Just going back home, I think," Zayn says, pulling out a pack of cigarettes from the breast pocket of his tartan shirt, tapping one out and putting it between his lips. The wind is too high so Liam puts his hands around Zayn's lighter, giving shelter to the flame that licks the tip of his cigarette. "Thanks," Zayn says, smoke slipping from the corner of his mouth. "I think just seeing mum and dad. We won't get to do Eid cause we'll be in LA then, so I think we're doing it when I get back."
"That'll be really nice," Liam says.
"Yeah," Zayn says, blowing out a stream of smoke, nodding thoughtfully. "What about you?"
"Yeah, family, same," Liam says. "Maybe have a holiday down in Cornwall or something silly. Alton Towers with my sister."
Zayn nods, palming his cigarette to keep it out of the wind coming off the artificial lake. "It'll be weird. I always find breaks in the middle of tour strange, like. We get into this rhythm of working and breaking it makes me feel kind of put out, all loaded up but nowhere to go."
Liam takes a deep breath in, a calming breath that smells like green lake water and smoke. What Zayn said hits just too close to home, and lost in the chattering crowd and hidden under the brim of his snapback, Liam feels everything just come out at once.
"It's – so hard for me to come down sometimes. Especially – especially lately. I don't know why, I just feel all tight inside, like I know I'm not working hard enough. All the fancy dinners and huge expensive hotel rooms don't help much," Liam says with a short laugh, trying not to make it as heavy as it probably sounds. Zayn tilts his head as he listens, a curious look like he's trying to piece things together. "Sometimes – sometimes it's so hard to get into the groove, I always feel like I'm not giving it my hardest, you know? But then I push myself too much and then I can't stop thinking about all the stuff I did wrong, stuff I messed up, and, And it keeps going on and on in my head and when we get off stage, over and over again, but then it's like three in the morning and, like, how'm I supposed to sleep?"
Zayn is nice enough not to argue with Liam, doesn't try to calm him with the easy oh but you're wrong, you do a great job, knowing how much that doesn't help. He just continues to puff on his cigarette meditatively, shuffling closer to Liam until their thighs are touching, their shoulders too. "Is that what – that other night, is that what was wrong?"
"Well, uh." Liam pauses. "Yeah. Yeah, man," Liam says, but giving a shrug like it's not that bad, like it doesn't eat him up. "I don't know. It comes and it goes, you know?"
Zayn nods, but he knits his brow. "Do you feel like you don't deserve to get a break?"
Liam is quiet for a moment, letting the swell of the crowd's noise and the cars rushing by fill the void. Even at twilight the heat is ridiculous, a dry heat like a huge cast iron stove, heat trapped in the nooks and crannies of Liam's body like sand – the prickle of sweat under the collar of his shirt, in the hollows of his knees, arm pits, hairline, around the waistband of his jeans. The wind is hot, too, and it's like Liam can't get a breath anymore, sweat and stubble on his upper lip, salt in his dry mouth. "Something like that, yeah," Liam manages, trying to sound off-hand, pushing the knot in his throat back down to his chest.
"I think the thing's starting," Zayn says, nodding with the cigarette in his lips towards the lake, as the lights on the casino dim to purple and dozens of nozzles protrude from the surface of the water. Zayn takes his cigarette from between his lips and flicks the ash over the water, and with his other hand he quickly grabs Liam's own, squeezing his fingers and not letting go.
A slow waltz begins to filter through the speakers that have been nailed up into the trees, the music filling the air as the lights in the water turn on and the fountains begins to the dance. Their movements are mesmerizing, like fizzing champagne bottles lit up from underneath, their froth swaying from side to side. The wind carries a mist from the spray, water clinging to Liam's eyelashes and the tips of his hair like dew, all cool and calming and a merciful rest from the heat. With the water on his burning cheeks and Zayn's long fingers tangled with Liam's (hidden between the press of their thighs, no one can see) Liam feels like he can breathe again, taking in huge lungfuls of easy air. As the song begins to build, huge rings of water are shot into the air with a sound like a cannon, thirty, fifty feet high. It's like fireworks, frothy white fireworks with the noise of the jets as they explode into the air and fall back down like a waterfall. Liam's mouth rounds, and he feels the huge booming noises in his chest, can taste the water on his lips.
"This is fuckin' incredible," Zayn says, actually sounding genuinely impressed.
"Yeah," Liam says. The music continues to build towards the crescendo, sending huge walls of water into the air, and Liam feels Zayn's hand squeeze his own, linking them together in the immediate now. "It's just like, when we get a break, even though I get to see Ruthie and my parents and it's so great, it's really great, I miss them so much –" Liam pauses, trying to figure it all out, the two of them illuminated by the bright white glow of the fountains, Liam losing his words as he stares out at the water and the wonder. "But it's like there's always something in me that never feels quite, uh, right, I guess? And I think it's cause – well, I think I figured it out last time over our long break," Liam says. "And it's just. Sometimes I. Well."
"Yeah, man?" Zayn says, his voice a little far away, lost in the gathering awe of the crowd. He pulls away from it though, to look at Liam, his face lit up in the glow of the fountains.
"It's like, we spend so much time away from home so it's sort of like – like we built our own home on the road together."
"Yeah," Zayn says, tilting his head just so, whiskey-brown eyes searching Liam, resolving into a smile. "I know, man. I don't even like staying in hotels anymore if we've got our bunks."
"Yeah, yeah," Liam says, picking up the thread, knotting it, trying to hold on feelings that seem to be unspooling too fast. "Like today, just being in the same place as you. Not even talking, not even doing the same thing, just –" Liam wipes his cheeks, water from the fountains gathering thick and dripping from the tip of his nose, his chin, "like I'm just messing about on twitter while you're drawing or whatever. There's nothing better than that, man. Nothing beats doing that with you. I don't even need anything, I love being bored s'long as I'm next to you. It's like – it's like –" a big burst of water, booming cannons, Liam's voice darting underneath the roar quietly, "like when I'm with you I feel good. I feel like I am good, that I can do good, that I can be good. I – I really like feeling like that."
Liam's voice competes with the music, drowned out under the rush of the water and the cars and the crowd, but he knows Zayn heard him because Zayn is leaning close and his hand doesn't move from Liam's own and his cigarette has an inch of unflicked ash.
"Then how about I stick around?" Zayn says, his voice quiet too, barely a whisper under rushing water. "How about we stick together you and me? Like heroes oughta do."
It's so easy, such a casual thing to say, but Liam can actually feel it unfold into so much more (hands, fingers, shared hotel rooms, dinner, bunks on the bus, movies, reading together until half-lidded and almost asleep, the sound of Zayn always nearby, all of it already happening but somehow more now that Zayn has named it) and Liam can't help it, a noise in the back of his throat somewhere between a groan and a whimper. "I didn't mean – you don't have to –"
Zayn elbows Liam, almost pushing him off their plinth. "Shut up. You're ruining my fuckin' Ocean's Eleven moment, dude."
Liam laughs. The laugh feels like something coming loose, something leaden and hard that he drops into the Bellagio lake like a cheap souvenir he doesn't need anymore. The fountains continue to sway as the waltz builds to its finale, the crowd cheering and clapping, and Zayn and Liam sit there on their rough stone pedestal with their hands linked together like together they've just pulled off the greatest heist in history.
*
Liam is the last one out, apologizing to everyone he sees as he follows Louis and Niall's whoops and laughter, and Zayn keeps tugging at his shirt telling him "damage done, let's just dash, man." And even as Liam says sorry, sorry, sorry he knows it doesn't mean much because he can't stop laughing as Zayn pulls him out of the restaurant.
*
"Y'know," Niall says, slumped down low on one of the cream-leather couches, his head resting in Harry's lap, looking up at the midnight sky. "Best part 'bout Vegas is you can get drunk anywhere and your hotel room is like right there, right there," he says, arm pointing towards the ground. "And then, like, whoosh and you're home. No taxi business, no sir. Just get in an elevator and boom. No messing about with the papo – popa – the popesaputsi."
"The what?" Louis asks, snickering.
"The postaritsi – the popesadopey –"
"The Pope?" Zayn says, trying to keep from laughing.
"Not the Pope," Niall says, swatting limply at Zayn. "The – the soparopesi."
"The Sopranos?" Liam suggests.
"No, no –"
"Paparazzi?" Harry asks, stroking Niall's sweat-spiky dirty blond hair with one hand, sipping at a frozen strawberry margarita with the other. Harry does the nice thing and doesn't laugh at Niall, he just pets his hair and looks all pert and happy with his headband pushing his hair back and his shirt open down the front, spread open over his tan skin.
"Them's the ones," Niall says, smiling up at Harry, endlessly fond.
"Yeah, but don't all our hotels have bars?" Liam asks.
"How many of them are on the roof? How many are private?" Louis says lazily, sprawled out along the couch across from Harry and Niall. He's in his sweats and a striped t-shirt that rides up a few inches above his hips, bare feet and shadowed arches, stretching like a cat. Just seeing his boys relaxed and happy is enough to calm Liam down, a place safe for him to live. "Any of them have this view? Any of them have a hot tub in the middle of the floor?"
"He kind of has a point," Zayn says, shooting Liam a laughing look from across the hot tub. It's a strange set up, with the couches surrounding the radiant circle of the whirlpool like it's a campfire, and instead of red and orange they're all lit up an unearthly blue giving everything the feel of an aquarium, a sensation only heightened by the glass surrounding them on all four sides, glass tables too. It gives Liam the feeling of floating, like he can almost feel waves nudging him to and fro, though that might be the liquor.
"Whose room is this, anyway?" Harry asks. "Did we ever decide?"
"Aren't they all connected?" Liam says.
"I think so," Zayn says. "I've got all my stuff next door in any case."
Liam looks to where Niall, by far the drunkest, is lying in Harry's lap, sticking out his tongue to catch the drips of frozen margarita Harry is dropping like snowflakes. "Maybe this should be Niall's room," Liam says. "So he, you know, doesn't have to go that far."
"Bam, and I'm already at home," Niall says, his sweeping gestures hitting Harry in the stomach and sides, making him spill sugary liquor in Niall's hair, on his shirt. "S'fuckin' grand here."
"Well," Louis says, turning to sit up on his leather couch, planting his bare feet on the ground and cracking his knuckles. He rolls his head from side to side, and Liam gets a familiar tug in the pit of his stomach, a call to arms, a happy warning. He recognizes the warm up, the stretching of muscles that Louis does when he has an idea, the bad kind of idea. "Then this is his hot tub. It'd be a shame not to get any use out of it." Liam can see the alcohol bright red in Louis' skin, and he knows exactly what's going to happen next. "Harry?"
"He'll drown," Liam says, ducking away from Louis' lazy slap.
"No, he won't," Louis says, creeping up on Niall. Niall, bless him, is either too drunk or too trusting to see what's coming."
"I'm pretty sober," Harry says, holding on to Niall's shoulders like he's trying to protect him even though he knows there's no use. "I can rescue him."
"Grab his arms," Louis says to Harry, eyes flashing. Zayn, sensing danger, leaps off their couch, taking a few steps away from the hot tub and Louis.
Niall only catches on, buzzed and bouncy, at the last second. "What're you – argh, augh, Liam – oh God, get off, Louis – Liam help me –"
"Sorry, Niall," Liam says, giving a little salute and trying not to laugh as Louis grabs his ankles and Harry his wrists and – one, two, three – swing him into the tub. The wave of water splashes around Liam's ankles and he darts away and takes cover, like Zayn, behind the couches in case he's going to be targeted next.
"Liam, quick, come on. Run, man," Zayn says, dragging Liam's attention from the show going on in front of him. "Come over here."
"Hold on," Liam says, looking over to where Zayn is retreating, away from the hot tub full of splashing boys, towards the glass railings at the far end of the patio. He still feels like maybe he should help, step in and stop the madness, but then Louis gives him a toothy grin and Liam feels like maybe flight is a better choice than fight.
Niall sputters as he surfaces, his clothes a sopping mess, the water sloshing from one end of the tub to the other, lapping like waves. "I'll murder you," is the first thing he says, standing up wait deep in the water. His tank top and jeans cling to him, describing the lines of his body, pink nipples showing from behind sheer white cotton, his hair dark and flattened against his forehead. "Tomlinson, get in here, get in here, you evil fuckin' monster."
"Nah, don't think I will –"
Liam turns away just as he hears the shout and the splash as Harry betrays Louis, sending him into the drink as well. Liam is laughing as he catches up with Zayn, but as he steps in next to him and looks out to where Zayn is staring the noise dies in his throat.
"Whoa," Liam says.
"Yeah," Zayn says, throwing an arm around Liam's shoulders and tugging him in close.
Spread out before them, one dizzying step off the ledge of the penthouse, is the Las Vegas strip. From up here everything is a mess of light, every possible colour, broken into a thousand different shapes. It's not just a constellation of lights strung up together, it's a dozen of them, hundreds, Las Vegas glowing like one huge nebula. The long red and gold and white lines of the streets mark geometric lines against the flood of other colours, purple and green and blue in rotating splashes, flashing on and off advertising cheap beer or a topless show or a buffet dinner. There are huge floodlights, dominated by the piercing white needle coming from the top of the Luxor casino pyramid stabbing the night sky. Marquees in the hundreds, gold lights chasing themselves around and around in circles. It's like the pinging and blinking lights of the slots but so much bigger, the enormous blocks of hotel rooms lit up like pinball machines, and instead of the ringing and chattering of coins going in and winnings coming out there's the honking of horns and the dim whisper of a hundred different pop songs going off at once.
"Holy shit," Liam says under his breath.
"Yeah," Zayn says, his hand squeezing Liam's shoulders, the leather of his jacket cold on the skin at the back of Liam's neck. "I got a look at it when we first got in, but that's nothing to how it looks at night."
"It's amazing," Liam says, trying to take it in, trying to make sense of the glow in his chest matching the glow out there.
"Yeah," Zayn says again, deeper this time, his voice and the squeeze of his arm tying them together: this is their memory, this will stay like a tattoo, remember this.
Liam can hear a third splash, most likely Harry jumping in on his own, and then the laughter and shouting as a war breaks out behind them. The sound is instantly comforting for Liam, the familiarity of the boys rough housing together, and Liam is just so damn happy to have them nearby, listening as they play their stupid games like idiot teenagers, splashing about in a penthouse worth millions and millions of pounds, laughing so hard they're hiccupping. In the shadow of their noise and all warm with love, Liam stands with Zayn in the buzzing evening, the both of them caught in this neon blue halo of swimming pool light. He breathes in the night, the chlorine and the hot gasp of the desert, and he breathes out a sigh, snuggling closer under Zayn's arm. And as the war carries on behind them, Liam and Zayn stick together on the rooftop of this gaudy, glittering, perfect Gotham City.
Zayn turns to look at Liam properly, to share this with him, his sleepy eyes reflecting the glow of millions of lights, his lips dry and smiling. The set up is too easy, Zayn too obviously looking for it, and Liam can't stop himself. It's like all the other times when he has too much inside him but never the right words, too dumb to ever transform the coal in his lungs to diamond, so instead of saying something stupid Liam leans close and kisses Zayn again, kisses him in a way that is becoming familiar, that slow, simple kiss like a thank you.
In that moment Zayn moves, just enough, tipping his head to the side so Liam suddenly wants to push in for more, deeper than just the press of lips. Before he knows what he's doing Liam is leaning in to kiss Zayn fully, their lips locking and a soft hum of pleasure tickling his mouth. It lasts for a long time, and Liam feels like he's holding his hand over a candle flame, seeing how long he can ignore the hundreds of little explosions going off inside of him. The kiss is much longer than any little reminder that they're friends, none of the silly lightness that he's felt on his lips before, but at the same time kissing Zayn like this feels like the easiest thing, the only thing Liam wants to do. It's a thank you, and then it's more, it's a lot more. It's a whole city of lights in his chest, blinking on and off as fast as the gunfire patter of his heart, the glowing and pulsing workings of the bright gold in his body lit up against the softness of Zayn's mouth.
Zayn blinks lazily, lingering in it as they pull apart. He licks his lips, already wet from Liam's mouth, and he coughs a little, clearing his throat. "So, just like that?"
Liam shrugs, a tingling in his fingertips like the time he first took a drag off a cigarette. "Uh. No, I – that was just. Oh." Liam presses his lips tightly together, and he feels every emergency automatic response rise to his lips at once: no, not like that, it's my fault, oh gosh, ha ha whoops, well that was a funny thing to have happened. In the end he swallows, blinks a few times, and manages a stupid little: "Sorry."
Zayn begins to nod slowly, like he's working something out, watching Liam closely until he seems to understand. It's always that hidden something, Zayn finding these things in Liam that Liam is pretty sure don't exist, like somehow only Zayn sees the good in Liam that won't come out. Sometimes Liam feels like he cheated, skipped some steps and ignored the rules, that he somehow tricked Zayn into seeing more than there is to see. It makes Liam helpless around him, so caught up in the way Zayn looks at him, looks at him like he's the boy Liam so often wishes he could be.
"Yeah," Zayn says. "All right, okay." He's still hunched up in his leather jacket, his arm around Liam, now silent under the screams and shouts of Niall and Harry echoing in the aquarium of the night. He looks at Liam with the same curious interest he gets when Liam takes a hit off his joint, or a sip from his double whisky coke no ice. "I get it, Liam."
"No, no, Zayn, it's not like that," Liam says, knowing he probably said the wrong thing. "It's just – you always, always amaze me," Liam says, a hiccup of a laugh, a thudding in the pulse point of his throat and the pads of his thumb. "You're so great and sometimes I forget that because I'm a giant dumb loser, but you're always so great. I can't get over it. It's like, I want to tell everyone. I want everyone to know." Liam frowns because it still doesn't sound right, it will never sound as good as it feels inside him. "I just never can figure out, like, how, though. How you make me feel like this all the time."
Zayn shrugs again. "You make it sound so damn hard, Liam. It doesn't need to be that hard. Try it."
Liam smiles hesitantly, nodding, tears pinched at the corners of his eyes from the cold of the wind. Carefully, very carefully he leans forward again, bridges the gap, taking Zayn's promise that it might be this easy. His nose nuzzles against Zayn's, a quick brush from side to side as they draw in close to each other. Liam stands there in the cold wind, buffeting his face, his shirt, making goose pimples crawl up his arms.
"You sure?" Liam asks, his breath hot in the gap between them. Kissing Zayn felt so simple when it was nothing more than a sudden need in his chest, an impulse to thank him and to feel him, to be instantly with him and sharing a moment. Kissing Zayn like that was as obvious as kissing Louis when they're going to be apart for a little while, or kissing Harry when he brings a bag of doughnuts in for breakfast. But now, leaning in and kissing Zayn because he wants to kiss him, because he wants to leave his mark in red on his lips, feels almost impossible.
Zayn nods, and Liam can feel it in the brush of skin to skin, the slight trickle of Zayn's stubble against Liam's chin. "Try it and see."
Zayn tastes the same as he did before, but it's somehow different now because Liam wants it, really wants it. He feels Zayn's lips part, the wet of his tongue, the sharp white lines of his teeth. Liam is careful, so hesitant as he tries not to give too much of himself away but it feels so good to just let go for a second, to be the boy Zayn sees, to act out that role for just a few seconds as he touches a hand to Zayn's chest and then around to his shoulder to pull him in closer. Kissing Zayn makes everything go away, and it makes Liam feel like he might be as good as Zayn thinks he is. He can believe it, in the short press of their lips, he might be able to believe it.
"Liam! Help – shite! – help me!" Niall shouts, another huge crash like someone cannonballing into the hot tub. "LIAM!"
All of a sudden Liam realises where he is, what he's doing, the shy press of his lips against Zayn's like he means it, and Liam breaks. He pulls away instinctively and plants a hand on Zayn's sternum, breaking the current they've wired together, the contact splitting and the light in Liam's body dying like the plug has been pulled. The real world rushes back in to the fill the vacuum in Liam's chest, like stepping out from under the umbrella Zayn's been holding above their heads and stumbling into a thunderstorm. He almost laughs, feeling like he's crazy to do something like this, kiss Zayn like this. It's just the night, getting carried away from the vodka, the love of the bright city, the way Zayn has of making Liam feel like a good person. It's a lot of things, Liam thinks, and if there's one sure way to fuck up their relationship it's by taking too much. Liam wants so badly to give something to Zayn, to somehow thank him for the strange and perfect shape of their friendship, but it seems no matter what he does that he's always the one taking.
"Sorry, I –" Liam says, touching his lips, blinking quickly and feeling fucking foolish. He gives another shaky laugh. "I should – I should probably go help him."
Zayn looks at Liam for a moment before shrugging, pulling out his pack of cigarettes soon after. He doesn't look sad or upset or annoyed at Liam, just tired again, tour-tired, worn out, the bright alertness in his expression dimming and purple shadows under his eyes like he hasn't slept for a week. "You better watch out for Louis," Zayn says, cupping a hand around his lighter and clicking it to life. He smiles around the filter of his cigarette. "You know he'll drag you in. Like a sea monster."
"Yeah, he totally will," Liam says, smiling shyly, feeling a little ashamed of the lightness Zayn still floods him with. "You – want anything from the bar?"
Zayn shakes his head. "I'm fine, Liam." It's just when Liam turns to walk away that Zayn clears his throat, his fingers lingering around the belt of Liam's shorts, one curled finger holding him for a moment. "You know, man, I won't be far. I'll never be too far." He shrugs again, easy as anything. "Just in case."
Liam swallows, gives a quick, assuring nod. "Okay."
"So long as you know," Zayn says, puffing out a cloud of smoke, a wry little smile in the corner of his mouth before he turns and looks back at the city, taking another long drag.
And even as Liam is walking away, with his heart pumping a rhythm of something a little too much like regret, all messed up with thoughts that clash and ring out together like crossed swords, he still feels that same rush of happiness when he sees Zayn. Even when he feels stupidest, even when he acts like an idiot, even when his lips tingle with apology because of an unearned kiss, Zayn still somehow makes him feel like he's floating. So cool with his leather jacket, so soft with candy pink lips that taste like beer and cigarettes, and Liam might be lost but even as he walks away he swears he'll never get over how good it feels to just be near Zayn.
*
"Category five monster over there, bro," Zayn says, jerking his head to where Louis is standing on top of a cabinet in the green room, throwing grapes and plums across the room at Harry.
"What?" Liam asks, trying to keep a hold on himself.
"The fuck you waiting for?" Zayn asks, holding out a hand. His hair is still slick and sweaty from the show, his breathing coming short like he's been running, adrenaline pumping through him and making his eyes come alive. "We can't let him destroy Tokyo. Or we should at least stop him from bruising Styles."
"Oh. Yeah, no, we can't." Liam tries to keep calm and steady, tries so hard to maintain the control he's beginning to feel like he's lost in the last few weeks. When Liam grabs Zayn's hand, though, and lets Zayn pull him up off the couch, it kind of feels like Zayn is taking half of the weight on his own, sharing the load of the planet Liam has been balancing between his shoulder blades. Holding his hand, Liam even laughs as he adopts the proper position, mirroring Zayn, right leg forward and left leg back, matching the rhythm of Zayn's breathing. As they walk across the room (Zayn making buzzing mechanical noises to punctuate each step of their imaginary robot) Liam feels himself level again, his heartbeat familiar, a grin settling on his lips. Zayn doesn't bother untangling the Gordian knot, he just cuts it straight through, grabbing Liam and dragging him into the light.
"Tomlinson," Zayn says, almost a growl. "Your trail of destruction ends here."
"We're here to stop you once and for all," Liam adds, dropping his voice like Zayn's.
Louis' face lights up, and he begins to throw fruit at them instead. "Come and get it, then."
Louis runs as Liam tries to boost Zayn up on the cabinet, and they end up chasing him in circles: around the green room, down the halls, half-dressed and exhilarated, bleeding off the energy left from the show. Louis cackles as he leaps over chairs, past security guards and roadies, dropping pieces of fruit they squish underneath their trainers. Louis dodges over plastic chairs and folded up tables, just missing Zayn's arms as he runs back through the halls, past people telling them "cool it down, boys," back into the green room. It's there, Louis pausing a moment to figure out which way to go that Liam sees his opportunity. He launches himself forward and slams into Louis, pinning him down on one of the couches, arms cinched around his waist.
"This isn't fair!" Louis shouts, wriggling away from Liam as Zayn grabs his arms. "Lads!"
And it isn't fair, because it turns out Louis has back-up. Harry and Niall fling themselves on top of Liam, tickling him and jabbing his sides until he has to let go and Louis manages to crawl away, a shout of glee as he grabs some sandwich halves leftover from dinner and begins to pelt his enemies, his allies, anyone who tries to go after him.
Harry and Niall give chase, but Liam is still aching and laughing from the hands poked into his ribs, his stomach. He lies back on the couch, his breath so much easier to catch when it has been lost with Zayn. Zayn groans and doesn't move either, pressed up between Liam and the couch cushions, still only in his briefs. He rolls awkwardly, all elbows and knees, to face Liam, his bare chest rising and falling quickly, an indelible smile on his lips. Pulling an arm out from where it was wedged in the couch cushions, Zayn puts two fingers to the pulse point on Liam's throat, his mouth moving silently as he counts in his head.
"I'm okay now," Liam says, whispering because he's so close to Zayn right now, only inches apart.
"Good," Zayn says, huffing out a sigh. "Ow."
"Yeah," Liam says, laughing, his breath lifting the front curl of Zayn's hair. "Me too."
It's only a little movement, just a nod of his head as Zayn brushes the tip of his nose against Liam's, but it feels immense. Liam doesn't move, doesn't react even as the soft touch sends coils of electricity running through his body as Zayn does it again, this time moving gently from side to side. Zayn's face is happy and open, a wetness to his bottom lip like an invitation, his body wiry and close and filled with heat. Liam smiles as he feels Zayn's nose nuzzle against his own again, and he closes his eyes, and feels how close their lips are. Really, really close. But it's a green room, but there are other people here, walking in and out, but there's too much noise in Liam's head. But their lips really are very close together.
"I'm almost done your comic, by the way," Zayn mumbles, his breath warm on Liam's mouth.
"Oh, man," Liam says. "Really?"
"Yeah," Zayn says. "But I can wait."
"Wait?" Liam says, still in a hush. "For what?"
"Until you wanna see it," Zayn says, his words tickling Liam's nose.
"But I do want to see it," Liam says, opening his eyes, taking a second to focus what with Zayn so close, his half-lidded eyes the colour of amber beer.
"Yeah?" Zayn says, his voice arching like his eyebrow, a teasing question. A long moment thuds between them with a racing heartbeat, a frantic silence as Liam tries to figure out what to do, what to say. He's so messed up these days, confused at how the easy kisses he has spent three years pressing against the corner of Zayn's mouth became so suddenly huge, like they've gained superpowers when Liam wasn't looking: the ability to make Liam feel good, Zayn's arms wrapping around Liam like super strength keeping him safe, a telekinetic shiver shared between them as Liam grins against Zayn's mouth and feels like he's found somewhere he belongs.
"Yeah, I do," Liam says, leaning a bit closer, but not too close, still too scared of letting his worry show, scared to death of needing Zayn this badly.
"Okay, well," Zayn says, pulling away now. He leans on his elbows and then pushes himself up to his knees, crawling over the arm of the couch in awkward steps, careful not to hit Liam. Zayn stands there towering over Liam and he adjusts the elastic waistband of his briefs around his hips, a glimpse of hip and a dark rasp of hair reaching below his navel. "Just tell me when you wanna see it, all right? Say the word."
Liam's not quite sure what Zayn means, but he nods. As he sits there and watches Zayn all tall and strong above him Liam feels a lot like he has failed some kind of test, refused to stand up to the marauding monster in his chest that's keeping him frozen still. "Oh, yeah. Okay."
"You sure you're feeling okay?" Zayn asks.
"Mm-hm," Liam says.
"Nah, come on," Zayn says, pointing a finger gun at Liam and letting off a soft bang. "Get changed. Have a shower. Calm down a little, you'll see things are right where you left them. You'll feel better, rockstar."
"Ow," Liam says as he sprawls out on the couch, like Zayn's mimed bullet gives him permission to finally relax, falling back into the cushions as his breathing comes slow and even. "Zayn?"
"Yeah?"
"We still fight crime in your comic?"
"Yeah man," Zayn says, grinning over his shoulder. "We fuckin' save the world, Liam. You really ought to see it."
*
"No, sweetheart, it's nine in the morning," his mum replies, her voice flooding Liam with an ache, the ache he's spent so much energy trying to keep away, finally defeated by it.
Another day on the road brings Liam to yet another night in yet another outrageously expensive hotel in another expensive part of another brightly lit American city, but this time something in Liam bends too far, twists until it breaks. Instead of taking time after the show to have a dip in the pool, or to go out to the club with Louis and Niall, Liam spends the night sitting alone in his room in the incredibly expensive room they've rented out, his telephone pressed between his shoulder and his ear, sitting cross-legged in the middle of his bed. He can see the city out his windows, the glow of the enormous pool down below, the shine on the granite and chrome of his space-age suite, and he almost can't stand it, torn up by how much it isn't his home, his proper home. It's not even the bus with its familiar smells and his boys at arm's length. It's expensive, and enormous, and incredibly lonely.
"Did something happen, Liam?" his mum asks. He called her on an impulse, knowing that he's probably too tired and it's too late and most likely a bad idea, but he just needed to hear her voice, to let everything fall apart in a way he can almost control. If it's here in his bedroom and not before a show, not during a dinner out with the lads, not in Zayn's arms, it's almost okay. If he can't help doing it, at least he doesn't have to burden any of the boys with it.
"I just needed to hear your voice," Liam says, his voice rasping like Louis' after he smokes a joint. He tips the peak of his snapback higher, stretches his roomy hoodie until it's over his knees, tries not to curl into a ball and just cry it out to his mum like he did in his first week away from home.
"What's wrong, Liam?" she asks, his voice as soothing as it is dangerous to him right now. "Were there more signs in the audience?"
"Yeah, no, I don't know," Liam says. "There are always some signs. Someone on twitter. It's not that. Well, it is that, but I just wanted to hear your voice." Liam swallows, tries to count his breathing evenly. "I miss you so much, mum."
"I know, sweetheart," she says. "We'll see you soon. So soon, Liam."
"I don't know why it's so hard this time," Liam says, the hand that isn't holding the phone pressing against his eyes until stars explode behind them, pink and green phosphors like a kaleidoscope. "I feel like I'm not trying hard enough. I feel like I'm doing something wrong this time. It never used to be this hard."
"You're under so much pressure, Liam," she says, and her voice catches, and that's enough to make Liam squeeze his eyes closed, feeling hot tears gather in the corners. "You're only nineteen, Liam, it's so much for you. I know how hard you are on yourself, and this is so much pressure for you to deal with."
"It's what I wanted, though," Liam says, his voice hoarse. "God, mum, I thought I wanted to do this on my own, you know? Be a singer on my own, like. But I'd die if I did this alone, I can barely hold it together even though I've got the boys."
"Let them take care of you, Liam," she says. "You told me before you can count on them. So count on them, sweetheart."
"But they're going through the same thing, and I just, I can't," Liam says, drawing the hand away from where it's pressed against his eyes, rubbing them blearily instead. As he shifts the phone from one ear to the other he looks up and notices a shadow standing in his doorframe, a shape that resolves itself into Zayn as he steps closer. "I can't put that on them," Liam whispers, hating the crack in his voice, hating that Zayn is seeing this.
"Oh, Liam," she says, sounding like she's full on crying now, sniffling against the phone. "You'll be home soon, so soon. You can count the days."
Liam is crying despite himself, angrily telling himself to hold on even as a few hot tears sting his eyes. He wipes them away and tries not to look at where Zayn is standing awkwardly by the door, his shoulders slumped, a half-wince like he's sorry he walked in on this, sorry he's just standing there. "I will. I've got to go now, mum."
"All right, Liam. Only a few more days. I know you'll do your best. I know how good you are. I know how good you can be, love." Liam's mum gathers her breath, sorting herself out to make it sound like she isn't crying, just like Liam wishes he could do right now. "Sleep well, Liam."
"Night, mum. Love you."
"Love you more," she says, and Liam hangs up, dropping his phone onto the bedspread and staring down at where it lands, not willing to lift his eyes to where Zayn is standing. He stays that way, hunched over with his hands drawn up into the sleeves of his hoodie, watching the black rectangle of his phone until, out of the corner of his eye, he sees Zayn's knees bump up against the edge of the mattress, close enough that Liam can smell the smoke and cologne on him.
"I'm okay," Liam breathes out quietly, husky and raw.
"I know you are," Zayn says, kneeling on the bed now, crawling closer to Liam. "I know you are, but let's just pretend for a second that you're not, okay?" His voice is so calm, not thick with worry, not heavy with pity, he just sounds like Zayn when Zayn is talking about what tattoo he wants next, how bad he is at FIFA, how much he likes stealing Liam's Captain America shirt. He sounds so normal and Liam craves it. "If you weren't okay, what would you want me to do?"
Liam looks up finally, red-rimmed eyes puffy, his bottom lip bitten until it's sore. He doesn't say anything, and he can see Zayn read him like his favourite book.
"Okay," Zayn says. And then he smiles, and the world shrinks down until it's just the two of them. "Got it."
Zayn shuffles closer until he's next to Liam and facing the same way, towards the door, imitating his crossed-legs. Slowly he slides an arm around Liam, and without much easing Liam lets his head drop to Zayn's shoulder, leaning against him, his ear still hot from where it was pressed against the phone, now crushed up against Zayn's hard muscle. They stay like that for a little while, a short forever with Zayn's arm holding Liam close, Liam resting his head on Zayn's shoulder and staring blankly at the white wall opposite his bed. It's not until Zayn whispers "you know, dude, even Batman had some dark fuckin' days, even Batman felt like he was shit at being Batman sometimes," that Liam properly breaks.
All at once Liam is laughing, and maybe he's crying a little too, and he clings to Zayn, holding him with both arms, burying his face into Zayn's shoulder. Liam feels all of his control slip away, pressing his wet eyes and mouth into Zayn's chest, falling apart like a building demolished. But even as he does, even as he tries so hard not to cry, he's so fucking thankful he isn't alone, because even though he's pressed up desperately against Zayn's shoulders he somehow feels okay, like he's allowed to fall apart because there's someone he trusts to rebuild him in just the right way.
"You are such an idiot," Liam says, his voice trembling, caught halfway between crying and laughing. "Shit at being Batman, Zayn, oh my God."
"You're not shit at being Batman," Zayn says, holding Liam just as tight as Liam is holding him. "You're an excellent fucking Batman."
"No, no," Liam says again, his mouth muffled as he talks against Zayn's shoulder. "I wish – I wish I could be as good as you think I am, but I'm not. I'm not as good as you think I am, Zayn. And when I – when I kiss you I kind of feel like it, but when I'm not with you it – it all comes apart."
"Oh, shut the hell up," Zayn says, making it sound even more fond than saying I love you. "I know you're not great. Just like me. We're not fucking great. Fuck, I can't draw for shit and, you know, most people don't find endless talks about the diversity in X-Men as interesting as you do. Who the hell wants to be great?" Zayn takes a deep breath, his hand rubbing a wide circle around Liam's back. "You know what? We're great when we're fucking together. That's when we get great."
Liam has pulled himself together more or less, but he still holds on to Zayn. "I need you so bad. And I'm really sorry, I've been – I've been trying so hard to give you something, to pay you back, but I guess I really suck at that. I just – I need you, I really need you Zayn." It's a lot easier saying this into his shirt instead of to his face, buried in cotton, so Zayn doesn't see the tremble in his lip or the furious blush in his cheeks.
"I need you too," Zayn says quietly, his voice so smooth, a smile in it like he's finally letting something off his chest. "Who else would look at my doodles like they're art and pretend my jokes are funny."
"Hey, I don't pretend," Liam says, sniffing, trying to sound sarcastic but coming off more soft and wounded.
"I know," Zayn says, a hand in Liam's hair, stroking the back of his neck gently. "I don't mind you being bad, you know? I don't mind that you're shit at some things."
"Hey," Liam says, laughing a little.
"Like when you couldn't spell Philadelphia even when it was written on your shirt, and when you thought Austria and Australia were the same thing. Or when you mess up a solo and you get that look on your face, with that jutting lower lip. Yeah," Zayn says, looking down at Liam, "that one. Or when you talk so fast about something you love and you tumble over your words and your voice gets really high because you're so enthusiastic." Zayn shrugs, an easy shrug, a shrug that doesn't really dismiss anything so much as welcome whatever comes next. "And I like you because you're a fucking idiot, you're my fucking idiot, and you mess up and just try harder after that." Zayn is blushing now, blushing so hard Liam can almost feel the heat in his skin. "You're just a good dude, and I've always kind of liked you."
"But none of that is – I mean, I never, like, did anything to deserve that," Liam says. "Why do you like me?"
"Jesus," Zayn says, laughing. "Does anyone need a reason?"
Liam slides down into Zayn's lap, resting his head back on the pillow of Zayn's thigh, looking up at him and smiling even though his eyes are still red. "I need a reason," Liam says, his voice so small, needing to hear this, needing to hear Zayn tell him.
"Well," Zayn says, touching his tongue briefly to his lips as he stops to think. "Because the first day we met, I went to shake your hand and you hugged me," Zayn says firmly, looking down at Liam. "And the first day we spent apart you texted me. Six times, like. And the first time I had to leave you went to the airport with me." Zayn shrugs and shakes his head, his hand still playing with Liam's hair absently. "And the first time I called you my best friend you told me you loved me."
Liam listens, smiling so hard his cheeks hurt. He takes in the silence for a moment, watching Zayn's slightly nervous smile, eyes half-lidded, a fan of dark lashes. "Man, that's really cheesy, Zayn."
Zayn frowns indignantly, his hand gripping Liam's hair, tugging it a bit. "You started this fucking mess."
"I make you feel good?" Liam asks, shyly still, but floating on it, life always so much easier when Liam is tangled up with Zayn, right where he belongs.
Zayn nods. "I make you feel good?"
"The best," Liam says.
"Want me to stick around tonight?"
Liam nods, dopey and soft, Zayn's hand in his hair lulling him towards sleep, feeling all soft and clean the way you get after a good cry, the right kind of cry, the one you do on the shoulders of someone who loves you. "Can I see the comic?"
"It's not quite done yet," Zayn says. "Give me a couple of days."
"Can I see it anyway?" Liam asks.
"You wanna see it?"
"You think I'm ready?" Liam asks.
"I'm not sure," Zayn says, arched eyebrow and sly smile.
Zayn doesn't see it coming. Liam leans up, straining his abdominals as he lifts himself up into the air, pulling Zayn down to meet him. He kisses Zayn, and it doesn't last long, precariously held between them as Liam's stomach trembles from the effort, but this is exactly why he has been exercising so long. The kiss is deep, wet with the slight touch of Zayn's tongue, and Liam can taste the soft gasp Zayn lets out. When Liam falls back down onto his lap, Zayn has a punch-drunk, happily shocked expression, blinking rapidly. Liam grins up at him, because it didn't feel at all like he was just taking; judging by the way Zayn runs his fingers over his lips and grins. That kiss felt a lot like giving, too.
*
"Hey," Zayn says, pushing his sunglasses down the bridge of his nose and looking at Liam over them. He's got a cigarette propped in the corner of his mouth, a denim cut-off worn over a tight white t-shirt, jeans torn up at the thighs (tartan boxer shorts revealed underneath) and at the knees, big unlaced combat boots on his feet. With one hand at the twelve-o'clock position on the wheel, he looks like James Dean, a young Marlon Brando, with a sly grin on his lips that Liam knows has been borrowed from Louis. "You lookin' for adventure, darling?"
"Who let you on that thing?" Liam asks, laughing.
"Louis had it first but I stole it from him," Zayn says, grinning in a way that ruins his tough guy image. "And actually," he adds, tilting his head to one side like he's listening for something, "I think some security guards are out looking for me." It's only then that Liam sees the writing STADIUM SECURITY 001 printed on the side of the golf cart.
"You're a wanted man," Liam says, pocketing his mobile and standing up, his toes curling over the rough lip of the concrete steps.
"Hop on," Zayn says. "Quick, man."
"Is this something Batman would do?" Liam asks.
Zayn huffs out a sigh, pushes his sunglasses back up. "Remember when they tried to hunt down the X-Men? Sometimes even superheroes gotta do the wrong thing in order to do the good."
Liam grins. "Are you just saying that to shut me up?"
"Hey," Zayn says, shrugging. Liam can definitely hear other golf carts now, coming closer by the second. "Even the villains are superheroes sometimes."
"Magneto," Liam says, tapping his chin.
"Exactly," Zayn says.
It's not quite a code this, the superhero way of living your life, it's just something Liam's kind of built up with Zayn over the years, trying to justify their games with back issues of Spider-Man, that if Peter Parker can get away with doing this, well, they can too. It's just a game, but sometimes when he's back at home, or alone late at night, Liam starts to feel like he's half of a pair, a sidekick without a hero, that there's something just missing. Liam never really knew what it was before, this phantom half, but as he jogs quickly down the steps and jumps into the passenger seat of the golf car and kisses Zayn wildly on the mouth, the two of them peeling away in the golf cart and scattering a plume of gravel and dust behind them, Liam thinks he's figured it out. When it comes down to it, that other half is as easy as a foot hard down on the gas pedal, it's the feeling of tossing sandbags over the side of a hot air balloon, it's letting out a scream that's been sitting in the bottom of his lungs since he was thirteen, it's the feeling Liam gets when Zayn is close and Liam can still taste his mouth and he lets himself believe that he can be good, so good, that they can be heroes, like the song says, just for one day.
And Liam laughs so hard his sides hurt as Zayn weaves around traffic cones, flower planters, parked cars, pedestrians. He almost falls out of the cart twice as Zayn makes a sharp turn, laughing too hard at the grin of manic glee on Zayn's face as he puff puff puffs on his cigarette like a cartoon villain and drives their Batmobile like they're running from the police. He laughs and his eyes crinkle and Zayn is right there, always so close.
The path they take leads them up a ramp, away from the endless corridors of the labyrinth of the underground garage, and as the golf cart drives up the hill it's as if they're cruising into the wide clear blue sky like a rocket ship taking off, and Liam stands up. He holds onto the roof with one hand while he throws the other out into the wind, and he lets out a pure whoop of glee because he feels about as great as a person can feel. Almost immediately Zayn joins in too, a crazy shout into the wind, like two wolves howling at the moon once they've found each other in the wild.
*
After his shower, Zayn comes shuffling into Liam's room dressed for bed: sweatpants and a loose t-shirt, bringing his sketchbook with him. His hair is spiky and damp, his skin rosy and freshly scrubbed, smelling of satsuma body wash and a whiff of minty toothpaste. Liam has been watching golf on the television in his underwear and an undershirt, but he turns it off when he hears Zayn clear his throat, Liam rolling onto his back and resting a palm in the middle of his chest, the other motioning for Zayn to come join him.
"Hey," Zayn asks, and if it weren't for the razor edge of his cheekbones and the dark rasp of stubble along his jaw he'd look about sixteen, all soft and brushed down and slightly wide eyed and sleepy. "I used your toothbrush, I forgot mine. Sorry."
"Whatever, dude. C'mere," Liam says, laughing as he lifts himself up in bed, squirming to sit upright with his back against the wall. "You finished?" he asks, nodding his head at the sketchbook.
"Almost," Zayn mumbles, shrugging it off.
"Can I see it?" Liam says, pulling the blankets from one side of the bed, nodding towards the empty space.
"Yeah, okay," Zayn says, fidgety and quiet, the same nervous energy he gets when he reluctantly lets someone go through his art. It's so nice seeing Zayn like this, cautious and self-conscious, and then comparing it to the other sides of Zayn, like a shape split into thousands by a cracked mirror. It's a juggling act being Zayn's friend, because all at once Liam ends up loving this boy who is made of leather jackets and smoke rings and neat whisky, the same boy who talks too much comic books with a stupid smile on his lips, suddenly worried and anxious about his ink-blackened fingers. It's all the same boy, at different times of the day, and Liam has grown to love the grumpy eight in the morning Zayn, and the sly and sarcastic two in the afternoon Zayn with a cigarette in his mouth, and the sweet and quiet one o'clock in the morning Zayn who offers his sketchbook to Liam like it's a piece of his heart.
Zayn flops onto the mattress after Liam takes the sketchbook from him. It's almost too dark to see with the dimmed lamplight, so Liam draws his knees in close, huddling around the book. Zayn seems embarrassed and he refuses to watch, curling up in a ball next to Liam, his forehead resting against Liam's side and his knees pressed up against Liam's thigh.
The comic picks up from the last adventure where Liam, the Wolf of Hampton, is reunited with the Bradford Badboy in their bat cave, a clever hideout named (of course) the Wolf Den, located underneath the streets of London. It seems the Wanted – no, not The Wanted, this is a band made up of supervillains called The Unwanted – are trying to blow up the O2 Arena because they couldn't sell out their show, and it's up to Liam and Zayn to save it.
"Oh my God," Liam says, turning the next page, trying not to giggle as he traces the story with his fingers, a scene where a bazooka blows a hole in the side of Big Ben, the paparazzi scattering like bowling pins. "This is perfect, Zayn. This is amazing, you need to show it to the lads."
"Well," Zayn says, looking a little overwhelmed. "Maybe – maybe, yeah. Just, keep reading."
With a billowing cape and oversized muscles, Liam bursts into action, using his bulging fists to figure out where the Unwanted are hiding out. Everything is drawn out with such careful, deliberate lines, inked with a sharpie, every curve and every speech balloon so precisely laid out. Liam can almost see Zayn bent over it on the tour bus, careful that the bumps in the road don't mess him up, his tongue bitten between his teeth. There's more love put into those silly shapes than in any song, any poem Liam has ever seen. It's in the way Zayn makes sure to include the birthmark on Liam's throat in every frame, the brackets of his dimples when Liam smiles, his tattooed chevrons crawling up one arm.
"Zayn," Liam says, almost a whisper now.
"Just keep reading," Zayn says again, not even looking up at Liam to see his expression, still buried down in the pillows.
The villains are hiding in the Tower of London. With the use of Zayn's trusty gadgets, Liam infiltrates their nest, big loud starbursts punctuating every kick and every punch he delivers. Together they figure out the location of the explosives, and – turning the page – Liam and Zayn rush in, finding the bomb only has a minute left before it goes off. Red wire or blue wire? Liam asks. Red, I think, the Bradford Badboy replies. In the next speech bubble Liam asks if he's absolutely sure. Yes. But, Liam, if I'm wrong – and there in the comic, the two superheroes hunched over the bomb ticking down from thirty seconds, the Bradford Badboy leans over and kisses Liam. It's not perfect, Zayn obviously couldn't get the angle right, but the lines are drawn with such care that it makes Liam smile instantly. It's the last frame of the comic, bomb ticking towards the end, Liam holding the wires in his hands, Zayn leaning in to kiss him. No the end, no conclusion, just an empty page follows, trailing off into whiteness.
"You can't end it there," Liam says quietly, his smile actually hurting, pinched at his dimples. "What happens next, Zayn?"
Zayn peeks up at Liam, still curled up in a ball beside him. His hair is freshly washed and fluffy, his skin still rosy from the heat of his shower. "What happens next?"
"Do they turn off the bomb?" Liam asks, feeling the quirk of a smile on his lips, the deep and reassuring calm that he gets with Zayn ten times stronger than it normally is, seeing his love drawn onto paper.
"Should they?"
Liam laughs lightly, like he's afraid to break the stillness of the night. "Yeah, they should. The Wolf of Hampton never got to tell the Bradford Badboy how he feels."
"How – how does he feel?" Zayn asks, picking up on Liam's teasing tone, the lightness of it. He unwinds slowly, turning over to rest on his back, looking up at Liam from the pillow. There's a shade of uneasiness in him, still leftover from the private shadow of his art, but he seems to be as comforted by Liam's weight, his solidness as much as Liam is of Zayn's wiry, sly, boyish glow. "I've wanted to know that for a while."
Liam puts the sketchbook down carefully next to him, handling it like a holy book. He touches a hand to Zayn's hair, in love with the softness of it compared to the usual product prickliness, twirling his fingers in it while Zayn looks up at Liam, eyes wide and blinking in fluttering morse code. "Wanna know what should happen next?"
Zayn nods, and his smile grows, and it's that same smile that Liam thinks about in that moment right after he closes his eyes before he falls asleep. Liam is still propped up in bed, sitting tall over where Zayn is lying snug beside him, and he can't help himself. He leans down over Zayn, sliding lower in bed until they're inches apart, until the tips of their noses are almost touching and Liam can feel Zayn's little chuckle against his skin. Even though Zayn's eyes are wide like he's shy and a little uncertain he still brushes his nose against Liam's, and Liam remembers the handful of other times they've been this close and Liam just didn't know what to do, didn't know who to be. Not this time, though. As Liam leans down, Zayn lifts himself up to meet him, curling his arms around Liam's neck and holds him steady as they finally fucking kiss just to be kissing, just to be with each other, just for the hell of it.
Liam can't help but laugh about it, Zayn clinging to him like Liam is saving him from a burning building, or like they're about to fly away like Superman. He laughs because it feels stupid and right, because being with Zayn makes Liam's heart lift like a zeppelin, all this light and fire and joy lit up in him by the burning fuse of Zayn's mouth. They trade a quick flurry of stupid kisses, teenage and soft the way their lips smack, punctuating each one like a sentence, nuzzling their noses together, giggling between each one. Still a little shy, still taking each kiss like it might need to be stolen, still tentatively waiting for their lives to click in place like puzzle pieces. And when they do mesh together and it feels just right, when Liam slides a leg over Zayn's thighs and straddles him, covering him in shadow as Zayn laughs and holds onto his hips, Liam feels whole in a way he'd never really thought about before. That feeling only grows stronger as Liam leans down and kisses Zayn, long and slow as Zayn touches a hand to Liam's face, his fingers brushing against the line of his jaw and cupping his cheek.
"You were – you know, you were right," Liam says, taking a pause in their kissing to pull away from Zayn, grinning down over him. Zayn is flat on his back under Liam, and Liam can feel him gently arch his body slightly as he wriggles against the pillows, hips pushing up against Liam's thighs. Liam can't help but shiver a little as Zayn runs his cool, dry palms under Liam's shirt, resting flat against his stomach. "You really were right."
"I know," Zayn says, a sly grin. "But, uh, what was I right about this time?"
"That it's – that it can be easy," Liam says, shaking his head ruefully and smiling, feeling like an idiot given a second, third, fifth, eleventh chance. If it weren't for Zayn's hands and grinning mouth, if it weren't for his art and his stupid jokes and his neatly rolled joints and his restless wandering soul, Liam is sure his life would not be as full as it is now. But, as it is, Zayn is right here, all five feet ten inches of him with the calligraphy of tattoos on his skin and slight tobacco smokiness on his breath, and it turns out that the boy Liam was once so intimidated by has ended up being the only one who can make Liam feel like this. If getting put together with his band was amazing luck, getting to live his life with Zayn is nothing short of a goddamn miracle. "It – it can, can't it?"
"Oh, yeah," Zayn says, always so cool, always brimming with a confidence Liam knows now is everything in its right place. "It can, dude."
"You amaze me, like, every day," Liam says, hard keeping that awe out of his voice. "All the things you can do."
"Like loving you?" Zayn asks. He might be slight and slender under Liam's thighs, he might be small under Liam's broad frame, but his grin is the grin of a winner, the one who holds all the cards, who owns Liam in a way Liam wants so badly.
"Like loving me," Liam admits.
"I make you feel good?" Zayn asks again, like each time he hears it he glows a little warmer, a little brighter.
"Like a goddamn superhero," Liam says, straddling Zayn's thighs, hands on his hips, trying not to buckle and shiver at the way Zayn runs his hands against the soft fuzz of hair that leads down from his navel, the way Zayn keeps tugging at the hem of his shirt and the elastic of his boxer shorts.
"So what happens next?" Zayn asks, his voice a dark whisper, his chest rising and falling quickly, hands resting on the shallow divots of Liam's hips.
Liam grins and he does the easiest thing in the world: he leans down and kisses Zayn. It's not short, it's not shy, it's the kind of kiss you remember as the start of something. Liam tilts his head just so, puts one hand against Zayn's cheek, and kisses him the only way that seems right anymore.
Zayn makes a happy little noise, and Liam can feel him move again to get a proper hold of Liam's shirt, gripping the hem and tugging at it restlessly. Liam gets the cue, he parts from Zayn long enough to let him pull the sleeveless shirt over Liam's head, hurling it across the room. Liam is just in his boxers now, and every move he makes rolls his hips against Zayn's, and he can hear as Zayn's groan shifts in pitch, dropping lower and huskier as he feels Zayn getting hard through his sweatpants.
It feels new, it feels like over the months Zayn has thought of a thousand things he wants to do to Liam and he's getting the chance to try them all out; kissing his jaw, the sharp bulge of his Adam's apple, hands roaming over Liam's broad back. Liam wants to feel it all, to catalogue them like a comic book collection, he wants to memorize the places on his body that Zayn likes best, the places he most wants to kiss, bite, lick. Liam smiles when Zayn runs a hand up his bare chest again, a rough grasp a little sharp with nails, red circles made from the hot press of his fingertips, a sharp pinch at his nipples making them harden at a touch. Liam counts it all: he likes my chest, he likes my mouth, he likes my arms. The list is growing as Zayn pushes his hips up against Liam, hand brushing over Liam's half-hard dick, palming it through his boxers. Zayn's mouth may be wet and wicked but his eyes are still shining with a kind of shyness, like he's waiting for Liam to draw the next frame in the strip, to colour in the sketches, to make this real.
Liam nods, licking his lips as he pulls away from Zayn. Slowly, Liam slides down Zayn's body, taking his time to remember every freckle, every little scar on his skin. Liam shoves Zayn's shirt up to his throat with one hand so he can trace a dotted line of kisses from the tattoo in the middle of his solar plexus down his chest and stomach to the fuzz of hair just below his navel. And, fuck, all these things they're doing might be shocking and loud and new – the incredible feeling of Zayn's cock hot and hard grinding roughly through his boxers against Liam's bare stomach, the way he bites Liam's lower lip and tugs on it, the kissing less sudden and boyish and more full and red – but being this close to Zayn still feels like it always did. Liam loves being wanted by Zayn, he loves wanting Zayn, and he loves that this is everything they've always been, but just a little bit more. It's a kiss that goes a bit too far, a night that stretches a bit too long, a friendship that's always felt a bit stronger than any Liam has had before. And under it all, as he leans up to kiss Zayn on the mouth again, fingers curled around the elastic of his sweatpants, Liam feels that same flood of relief run through him again. He's a stupid teenage boy in love, he's with his best friend, he's home.
Zayn lifts his hips off the mattress to let Liam tug down his sweats, lifting the elastic over his already hard cock. Liam has never sucked a dick before, but he knows what he likes, and more importantly he knows what Zayn likes (two o'clock in the morning, well buzzed, swapping stories about past hook-ups, Zayn chewing on his bottom lip and blushing furiously as he tells Liam about liking a bit of teeth in a blowjob, liking it slow and intense, liking the feel of a tongue flicking against the head of his dick.) It was all meant as just laddish talk during a dry spell, but Liam remembers the flustered way Zayn got when he talked about it, he remembers the soft hiss of relief that Liam could hear sometimes through the closed curtains of their bunks on the tour bus. He wants to make Zayn do that, he wants to see him all broken up and turned on, he wants to be the one to make Zayn sound like that again.
"Liam –" Zayn says, his voice somewhere lost, like he's only now realising what's going on.
"Yeah?" Liam asks, looking up at Zayn while wrapping a hand around his cock, jerking him off slowly.
"Are you sure –" Zayn starts automatically, nothing else to really ask, just needing a way to figure out if this is real, like he wants Liam to confirm that this is happening, that this is about to happen.
"Really sure. I wanna get you off, man," Liam says, laughing at how stupid he sounds but still smiling and blushing and crouching down mostly naked on a bed and jerking off his best friend. It is ridiculous, it is somehow still unbelievable, it's strange and really hot and, like all great things he shares with Zayn, just a little hard to believe it's actually happening. The kisses on the corner of his mouth that became lingering hugs and sleeping pressed together that became light-headed joy and falling in love that became sticky and sex and warm skin on skin and feeling like he's finally the boy he wants to be. Liam is sure, filled with a kind of confidence only Zayn can build in him: he wants Zayn to come, he wants to see what it's like to make Zayn feel that good, he needs to taste that on his lips.
"Okay," Zayn says, his voice shaking a little, a tremble that turns into a laugh as his eyes soften with a grin.
With one hand on Zayn's cock, Liam reaches down to free his dick from his boxer shorts, jerking himself off as he tentatively flicks his tongue against the head of Zayn's cock. Zayn bucks his hips involuntarily at the touch and Liam manages to grin up at him quickly, winking once before he goes down on Zayn.
Liam's not that great at it, too eager, not quite able to take Zayn all the way down. Zayn is too big and Liam too boyishly inexperienced, but he finds out quickly that Zayn seems to like it most when his mouth is around the head of Zayn's cock, the shear of his teeth just brushing against the ridge. Liam memorizes that, learns exactly how Zayn feels when his muscles tense up and he groans, and Liam makes sure to do it again and again. Just the sounds Zayn makes when Liam hits the right spot are hot enough that Liam has to squeeze his own dick, trying to hold off, trying not to come before Zayn does.
The feel of Zayn's hand reaching out to touch the top of Liam's head, fingers sliding through his hair, is incredible. Shy at first, but then gripping Liam's hair when he sees that it's okay, eventually pushing down on Liam, pushing him lower as Liam bobs over Zayn's cock. Zayn finds the hook of the rhythm immediately and he keeps with it, fucking up into Liam's mouth with his hips and down with his hand guiding Liam at the back of his neck. He tastes salty, and when Liam pulls off Zayn's cock, it's wet with his spit which is so fucking hot, kind of filthy, and Liam is getting off just on how much Zayn likes it.
Liam can feel all the changes in Zayn, the rush of heat through his body, the way his stomach tightens when Liam hits the right spot, the way his thighs shake a little as he gets closer. Liam looks up at Zayn through his lashes, mouth around his dick, but Zayn's got his eyes closed, his hand still working in Liam's hair, more holding onto him for dear life than pushing anymore.
"I'm so close, Liam," Zayn murmurs as Liam goes down on him again, pink lips wrapped around Zayn's cock, tongue flicking against the head. Liam is close too but, fuck, he doesn't want to come, he doesn't want to stop doing this. Feeling like this, knowing how Zayn feels too.
Liam finds the rhythm, working with the shift of Zayn's hips, trying to do everything he knows Zayn likes, and it doesn't take long. Liam jerks himself off in time to Zayn's movements, rolling his palm over the head of his own dick as he works Zayn's cock, down the shaft and back up, feeling the vibrations of Zayn's groans in his skin, echoing in his chest like a bass note. He feels Zayn's legs shake and his stomach flex, muscled and flat, and it's the edge, the very edge of everything.
"Fuck, fuck, Liam, fuck," Zayn groans, and he comes, hard. Liam pulls away just at the last second, the last flicker of his tongue making Zayn lose it, and he comes in Liam's mouth, over his lips and cheek, salty and slightly bitter on his tongue. At the taste of Zayn, at the feel of his come wet and warm on Liam's lips, Liam can't hold back any longer. He comes into his tight fist, a spasm running from the base of his neck down his spine, shooting so hard he almost feels dizzy, light-headed.
There's a moment when they're silent together, the last echoes of their groans fading away, when they're both too lost to the heat of what just happened, trying to put themselves back together. And then Liam looks up at Zayn.
"Holy fuck," Zayn says, his eyes wide now, looking down at Liam and shaking his head slowly like he can't believe it. "You fucking legend."
Liam is stunned, still totally ablaze, starry-eyed when he finally rocks back on his haunches. He swallows the come in his mouth, the chlorine smell of it on his face like pool water, and he can't help but grin. He has no idea what he expected, never actually imagined that he'd give a dude a blowjob, but he feels oddly proud of how wasted Zayn looks, still really turned on at just the thought of going down on Zayn. Liam touches a finger to the pearly come still on his mouth, and he laughs, a dumb teenage laugh of wildness unleashed as he wipes it away with a thumb.
"Did you come?" Zayn asks, a kind of urgency in his voice, like he only just thought about it.
"Yeah," Liam says, his voice raw like he smoked a pack of cigarettes. "When you, uh – when you came in my – yeah, I did."
"Was it good?" Zayn asks.
"Really good," Liam says, running a thumb over his lips to clean himself off. "Look what you fucking did, dude."
"Wait, c'mere," Zayn mumbles, a full-body blush now that reaches from his cheeks and down to his chest. "I wanna – you know, just – c'mere."
Liam crawls up next to Zayn, lying next to him in bed. He still has a handful of his own come, which he wipes off on Zayn's sweat-ringed t-shirt. "Here, see?"
"Aw fuck, gross, man," Zayn says, laughing now too. As Liam finally flops down next to him though, Zayn leans down and kisses him, tasting himself on Liam's mouth, licking the come from Liam's upper lip, biting his stubbly jawline, sucking a red spot on his throat the size of a twenty pence piece. Liam loves that, lying down and just having Zayn kiss him, feeling the weight of his attention, the heat of his need. He likes just being there, being loved like he didn't do anything to deserve it, a love that Zayn gives him just because. "I owe you one," Zayn says then, planting another, somehow more important kiss on his cheek. "You were fucking amazing."
Liam glows. "First time I ever sucked a dude."
"Beginner's luck," Zayn says, ruffling Liam's hair. "Fuck, I need a cigarette now."
"Typical," Liam says, grinning and pressing him mouth against Zayn's neck, hand running under the front of his shirt, gently running his thumb across the ridges of his abs. "Can't. Non-smoking room, Zayn."
"Oh, what the fuck ever, so crack a window, man," Zayn says, grinning as he reaches for his pack of Marlboro's on the night stand.
"Well, can I have one, then?" Liam asks as he crawls out of bed stiffly, kicking out of his boxer shorts and standing naked in the middle of the hotel room, stretching with a yawn.
"Really?" Zayn asks, leaning up an elbow.
"Seems like an after-sex kinda thing to do, you know?" Liam says, leaning down and pressing a lingering kiss on his mouth. "I wanna taste like you again."
Zayn raises his eyebrows but nods, knocking two cigarettes out of the package. He strips out of his clothes, t-shirt with a wet stain in the middle from Liam's hand, pulling off his boxer shorts so he's naked too. It's funny standing together like this, the sex and want kind of draining out of them in the afterglow, just two friends now, dudes who think walking around naked is inherently funny. And they laugh, giggling like they're doing something against the rules as they sit naked on the hotel windowsill and crank it open. Zayn puts both cigarettes in his mouth and lights them, bright orange coals, handing one off to Liam after a first tentative puff. And, sure, they might have kissed in a way that Liam won't forget, and they might have fucked around, and Liam might still be able to taste Zayn in his mouth, but really nothing much has changed, the heavy evening burning out into the regular glow of having a best friend.
They sit there, lit at their backs by the single bedside lamp and at their fronts by blue moonlight, smoking their cigarettes together, and giggling stupidly as they nudge each other in the ribs, waggling their eyebrows, making jokes about the size of each others' dicks, poking their tongues in the pockets of their cheeks as they imitate giving a blowjob. Two idiots, breathing smoke through the gap in the open window, and when it gets quiet they just look at each other with that kind of love that comes for no reason at all and is beginning to mean everything.
"Wait, hold on," Zayn says, and he springs from the windowsill back to the bed, finding the sharpie tucked into the spiral wire of his note book. When he sits down next to Liam again on the wide window sill, he tucks his burning cigarette in his lips and takes a hold of Liam's forearm.
"What are you doing?" Liam asks.
"Shhh," Zayn hushes on a breath of smoke as he pulls the cap off the pen and draws a wide rectangle across the breadth of Liam's arm. Liam smokes his cigarette with his free hand and watches as Zayn works. The first thing Zayn draws it the ticking time bomb, a cartoonish explosive like Wile E. Coyote, frozen on fifteen seconds. Biting his tongue, Zayn draws a close of up of a hand in smudged inky lines (skin too soft for sharp detail) and a gleaming pair of scissors. A cut wire. The day is saved.
"Love you, Zayn," Liam says with a warm and easy smile.
"Love you too, rockstar," Zayn says, his smile fitted around a cigarette, drawing the next chapter of the adventure on Liam's skin.
*
Liam stays there for as long as he can before the niggling in the back of his mind and the red glow of the digital clock tells him that he needs to get up and get the day going. Liam might be a sucker for this treacly morning love, but he's also a sucker who loves his job.
Carefully, Liam climbs over Zayn on hands and feet, crawling like a ninja. He hops off the bed and lands silently on the ground, feeling a lot like Spider-Man. It's only then, looking down at his arms filled with a new kind of tattoo, a smeared sharpie sleeve, that he remembers the very late hours of last night.
Padding to the full-length mirror, Liam looks at his reflection and grins. All over his arms, on the pale of his thighs, on his ribs, and – turning around and looking over his shoulder – down his back is a story of Zayn's hands. As Liam lay in bed last night, smiling and exhausted, Zayn marked his skin with ink, and Liam begins to remember it all. Zayn gave up on drawing the panels of the comic early on, and the rest is just doodles, graffiti swirls and patterns and shapes curling along Liam's skin. He remembers the warmth of Zayn's hands on his back as Liam half-dozed and felt the tickle of the sharpie's felt tip trace designs along his body. Art deco wings sprawled over his shoulder blades, tentacles and claws and feathers on his biceps, a city skyline curling around the front of his left thigh. Each little drawing, each strange design is like a hieroglyph that means nothing on its own but when read together tells a long story of friendship, of a love drawn out in mouths and hands and dark ink, of belonging to someone entirely.
"You should probably shower, huh?" Zayn says, his voice rough with the morning.
"Aw," Liam says. "I really don't want to. I wanna keep them."
"I can draw on you again whenever," Zayn says.
"Yeah," Liam murmurs, turning around to examine his back again. He loves seeing it, Zayn's work on his body claiming him, and the idea just comes to him naturally: "You wanna design my next tattoo?"
"Me?" Zayn asks, genuinely surprised.
"Yeah," Liam says, looking down at his forearms, the threads of his veins winding through the smeared drawings of superheroes and graffitied love. "I'd really like that. I'd like that a lot."
"I could do that," Zayn says, nodding like it's an ordinary request even though he's betrayed by his sincere and deep blush.
"Get up, man," Liam says finally, pulling himself away from the mirror, stretching out a heavily-inked arm towards Zayn. "Come on, Zayn. We've gotta be downstairs in, like, half an hour."
Zayn groans, but he takes Liam's hand in his own. He doesn't budge, so Liam has to drag him out of bed, pulling him out of the comfy blankets, the duvets and sheets that are darkened here and there by a smear of sharpie ink. Zayn struggles the whole time, resisting the urge to get up, and just as Liam gives a good yank on his arm Zayn falls off the mattress, bringing them both crashing down to the floor in a heap, Zayn groaning and Liam laughing.
"Fuck," Zayn says as he grapples with Liam, kicking at the blankets, still trying to get away.
"Come on," Liam groans, trying to find Zayn's wrists, still laughing the whole time.
"Fuck you," Zayn says, swatting Liam's hands away and still trying to resist him. "Fuck –" he grunts, hand at the back of Liam's neck, half-wrestling, tangled up in blankets, pulling Liam down to bite at his lips, sucking them red, bumping noses and knocking teeth, " – get off, fuck, fuck you, I love you, but fuck you right now –"
Liam finally pins Zayn to the ground, naked and covered in messy temporary tattoos. "I love you but fuck you, too."
Zayn grins, combative and vicious and still somehow never missing a chance to make Liam feel as good as a person can feel. Even though they're naked, even though Liam knows deep down that everything changed last night, this still feels about as dumb and young as his life ever did. "Your move," Zayn says.
"Come shower with me," Liam says, raising his eyebrows.
Zayn groans. "Dirty tricks. I don't remember Batman asking the Joker for shower sex. You're a disgrace."
Liam laughs, leaning down and gets as close to Zayn as he can without kissing him, the tips of their noses touching. "I'm not a disgrace. I am vengeance. I am the night. I am – willing to suck you off in the shower."
Zayn laughs really hard, and Liam can feel his muscles flex, his body change, how he warms to the touch and how his eyes shine when he smiles up at Liam. "You amaze me, dude, like every day," Zayn says, and it sounds half-joking, and half not.
Liam has nothing else to say, he just leans down and kisses Zayn, finding a new stupid thing to love about him every time he does.
*
"Yep, now I can," Zayn says, his face suddenly appearing on the screen, a bit grainy and dark but enough to make Liam's heart drum in double time. "Hey, man."
"I can see you!" Liam shouts, tilting his computer screen to a better angle, grinning hugely.
"I can see you too," Zayn says, laughing, bowing his head down and looking up at Liam again with a grin. "So how's being home, rockstar?" Zayn asks.
"I miss you already," Liam rushes to say. He's lying on his stomach on his bed in his childhood home, kicking his feet back and forth, the furthest away from Zayn he's been in months, only a few hundred miles but feeling like they're on different planets. Hearing Zayn's voice, the way his accent gets heavier when he's kidding around, is almost enough to make up for it. "I mean, it's amazing here, but I – I still miss you."
"It's been two days, dude," Zayn says. He laughs for a moment but then, in a quieter voice, he says: "Yeah, all right, fine. I miss you too, Liam."
"I know," Liam says. "It feels weird having, like, nothing to do. I'm helping my parents weed the back garden. I made a milkshake and broke the blender. I watched telly in my underwear."
Zayn laughs. "Same, like. I'm helping my dad paint the basement for his, like, den or whatever he's going to do with it." He must be in his parents' new house, because Liam doesn't recognize the setting at all. It seems like his parents set up a room just for Zayn though, and Liam laughs because over Zayn's shoulder he can see a framed photo of the band hanging above his bed. "How's the tattoo?"
Liam holds his arm up for the camera. "It's almost totally healed now," Liam says, showing the actual hieroglyphics Zayn drew on his skin, the pictures representing the letters of Liam's name carefully sketched out by Zayn in the tattoo parlour and placed directly on Liam's skin, permanent drawing this time. "It's fucking wicked. Thanks for that, man."
"It looks sick," Zayn says. "Oh, wait, hold on a second." He turns from the camera for a moment, returning with something in his hand that he bites down on. "Sorry, I've got leftovers, I've been stuffing myself all day."
"Is that one of your mum's samosas?"
"Yeah," Zayn says, talking with his mouth full. "We did our own little family Eid today, still got loads of food. A bit late, but, you know. Better than never."
"I love her samosas so much," Liam says. "Tell her I said so."
Zayn laughs again. "I will. Actually, one of the first things she did when I got home was ask about you. She wants you to come see the new house, maybe stay for a couple of days when you get the chance. My sisters all miss you a lot, too."
"Aw, man, I really want to," Liam says, watching Zayn finish his food, licking the crumbs from his fingers. "That must be – pretty cool, I mean. Actually living in a house that you bought them."
Zayn gives a shrug, but he's blushing now, Liam can just make it out over the webcam. "It's all right."
"You did that, dude," Liam pushes gently.
"I just. I don't know. I like making people happy, whatever," Zayn says, shrugging again.
"I know it," Liam says, losing the joking edge, just being honest. A moment of silence passes between them, Zayn chewing on his lips like he's trying not to betray himself, just looking around the room he bought, the life he made, the lives he's changed.
When Zayn looks back at Liam there's a wetness in the corner of his eye, and he clears his throat conspicuously. "So, uh, when are we getting back together? When can I – when can we see each other again?" Zayn asks then, betraying some of his relaxed cool, sounding a little lost.
"Film premiere, I think," Liam says softly. "Only a few days, Zayn."
"Right, safe," Zayn says. He takes a deep breath and kind of angles away from the camera, like he can't quite meet Liam's eyes when he talks. "Maybe we could, like, chat a few more times before then, though. Maybe?"
Liam laughs and nods. "Definitely."
"I've still got family over right now," Zayn says. "So how about we skype later tonight?"
Liam waggles his eyebrows. "Naughty skyping?"
Zayn covers his face like he can't believe Liam, a muffled laugh against his palms. "Yes," Zayn says, wearily. "Naughty skyping."
"Good," Liam says, still endlessly grinning, still kicking his legs back and forth. "Send me a text when you're ready. I think mum's cooking tonight and we're just going to watch a movie or something. I won't be far."
"Sounds fucking ideal," Zayn says. "I'm going to be covered in cousins for the next four hours."
"Nice being back home," Liam says with a bright laugh.
"Yeah," Zayn says warmly. "And it's nice knowing I've got two of them."
Liam's cheeks burn, and he catches the lump in his throat before it becomes a sniffle, a shakiness in his voice. "Same," Liam says softly, burying his face in his crossed arms, only peeking up when Zayn laughs. The moment lingers for a moment, the two of them looking at each other over their webcams, trying not to show too much, the both of them at heart still two stupid boys kind of embarrassed by how fully they can feel, laughing about it even as Liam feels his fingertips tingle and his cheeks ache from the smile. "Go and say hi to everyone for me," Liam says. "Give them all my love, yeah?"
"Will do," Zayn says, relaxing then with a grin. "See ya, man."
"Fist bump?" Liam asks.
Zayn nods, his tongue bitten between his teeth as he smiles. "For sure."
Zayn is laughing as they both bring fists to the cameras in their computers, pressing against it until the screen becomes a muffled shadowed blur, a traded fist bump over the internet. Liam can almost feel the hot touch of Zayn's skin as he knocks his knuckles against the screen, the both of them grinning as they pull apart.
"Later," Zayn says. "I'll text you."
"See ya," Liam says.
"Love you," they both say at the same time, mirrored syllable for syllable, their voices and grins and hearts beating together like planets aligned.
End.