We Are The Dead - Louis/Zayn - Chapter 1
Title: We Are The Dead - Chapter 1
Pairing: Louis/Zayn [also implied- Nick Grimshaw/Harry, Nick/Harry/Louis, Louis/OMCs, Louis/OFC]
Disclaimer: This is a complete work of fiction and none of the events within genuinely took place. The title is taken from a song by David Bowie.
Word Count: 2, 270
Warning[s]: Gender non-conformity/being gender queer, references to drug use [both illegal & prescription], a necrophilia-related metaphor.
Summary: Blitz Kids!AU They had both been golden, Louis knows. They’d been stalked in awe; the prettiest post-punks London had to offer. Coils of smoke that nobody could catch. Nobody’s property to cage and label. Whenever Louis spirals down, he wonders what Bowie had desired from Zayn that he couldn’t give, too; he would of given anything. His signature for his soul and fifteen minutes of fame. His signature for his soul and his rightful place tucked close to Zayn’s side. He feels like half a boy without him and no matter what makeup has framed them, his blue eyes have been dulled since their last kiss good bye.
A/N: This piece is inspired by the Blitz Club kids/Boy George's teenage years & early career/the film Worried About The Boy. I um, started this pre-Liam's unimpressive spat with Boy George, and gosh didn't that feel awkward... Anyway. The next four chapters will flick back and forth between flashbacks and present time [presents for the eighties, anyway]. Also available on ao3.
I couldn’t give a fuck you know, couldn’t give a shit about him Louis insists vehemently; spits it from his sneer though there’s nobody in the Blitz Club bathroom to hear him but his own reflection.
Louis. A venetian mask of oh darling, you’re not fooling anybody: white as a mime, kohl tracks through the violent pink sliced beneath his cheekbones, lips a cupids bow of dried blood and eyebrows inked into doubting arches; drawn by his own hand and yet siding with someone else. Regardless, Louis puffs the bird bones of his chest and he smiles. It’s a cruel thing, taunting, but it’s beautiful too. As quick as a butcher’s knife. Fangs bright even under the shitty light of the bare bulb dangling from the ceiling.
He is pretty. If Louis is nothing else, he has that in spades. Wickedly pretty. androgynous and fabulous, dripping in jewelry like fucking Marie Antoinette- had the queen dared to swathe herself in yards of black lace and buckled bondage. Leather cutting into his hips, lace frothing out from his sternum and great jewels gleaming at his earlobes, his throat, each of his dainty fingers. Cheap from the high street, stolen from charity shops, and cultivated into a whole movement. Into a glorious gender fucking celebration of being barely twenty one and unemployed.
He says it again, says fuck him and his fucking luck and he has himself convinced- until Nick Grim comes sashaying in, Louis hearing his heels click before he sees him. Nick likes to make an entrance and follow through and tonight, true to form, he’s wrapped in a dramatic cloak with a feathered hat set back behind his curly quiff. Beneath the grey of the bathroom walls and sparse light, he’s tinged green. He’s serpentine and he sends a snake up Louis’ spine when he speaks-
“Is that Zayn’s luck, love? You wont cope with him being back tonight and everybody knows it. You’ve never been the same since he was whisked away.”
Right behind Nick is Harry, because Harry is Nick’s lap dog, but he is far softer than the older man. Dressed in a cloud of billowing cheese cloth ruffles and brocade, Louis thinks of him as a mop headed pirate. Liberal with his rouge and with his heart in the right place- often pinned to a gathered sleeve.
“You need a hug?” He asks, up behind Louis, smelling of perfume tainted with weed, “Don’t worry, you know. The club’s going to be packed, you’ll be able to avoid him, I’m sure.”
With Harry’s head bowed to Louis’ shoulder, the pair of them in the mirror, cheek to cheek, look like a drug induced dream. Nick leers at them and Louis despises himself for knowing that he would- probably not in the bathroom, but the three of them on some bedroom floor. He calls it an option, dependent on how many Screwdrivers he gets through and how many pieces his heart cracks in to.
“I need a drink, baby,” He sighs, but he lets Harry throw his arms around him and they squeeze like children.
At the bar, Louis can’t escape the whispers. Zayn’s name is alive on absolutely everybody’s lips. Little murmurs of wonder- will he be a stranger? Will he have Bowie’s telephone number? Will they have fucked? Louis broods into his vodka orange and scowls at anyone who hopes to drag him into the conversation or worse, taunt him with sly comments- funny really, we all thought you were the golden boy- that get his heckles up.
They had both been golden, Louis knows. They’d been stalked in awe; the prettiest post-punks London had to offer. Coils of smoke that nobody could catch. Nobody’s property to cage and label. Whenever Louis spirals down, he wonders what Bowie had desired from Zayn that he couldn’t give, too; he would of given anything. His signature for his soul and fifteen minutes of fame. His signature for his soul and his rightful place tucked close to Zayn’s side. He feels like half a boy without him and no matter what makeup has framed them, his blue eyes have been dulled since their last kiss good bye.
He can barely dance without Zayn’s rock steady rhythm, his hands and their intimate knowledge of his sloping hips. He tries, though- musters up all the effort that he can for a girl with spiraling curls who near sets him alight with her beauty, her bold lips prying at his; for Harry when he comes swooping by- eager to be twirled and preened over. Louis is ever so fond, but ever so tired, too. It shows in the weight of his painted eyelids, his lackluster cupping of Harry’s jawline and cheeks before he guides Harry into Nick’s claws and quietly excuses himself.
Louis pushes blindly through the crowd until he finds his favourite booth. He sinks into it’s deepest corner and folds in to rest his forehead on the table’s edge. He lets himself be swallowed by the shadows there and they lay themselves over the bend of his back. As heavy as a corpse, it takes his breath away but he thinks that he doesn’t notice it really, he’s so used to being numb recently. And oh- he’d always looked dead, like a necrophiliac’s wet dream- but there had been constellations of life sparkling beneath the pallor of his skin. They’d left with Zayn. He’d walked out with stars stuck to the soles of his boots, lingering like grime beneath his fingernails.
Far too often now, Louis imagines flaking to dust and disappearing. Swirling down the plughole, or simply scattering across the pavement and being kicked up and away by mindless London pedestrians. He thinks about it when he’s sucking cock that isn’t Zayn’s, or bolstering his cheery tone up ten notches whenever his lovely Mum telephones; he thinks about it when his reflection in their big Georgian mirror is devastatingly handsome and Zayn’s not there to see; he thinks about it when he’s nothing but tear stains and coke residue. He thinks about it when Nick rests an unexpectedly gentle hand against the back of his neck and ducks in to whisper-
“Darling boy, Zayn’s car has just pulled up.”
A great gust of wind goes sweeping passed Louis as the inhabitants of the Blitz Club surge towards the stairwell, shoving and pushing up onto their tip toes to get a good view. The nighttime children- with their strangely decorated faces and dramatic hair- all awfully eager; their stilettos clattering and their chatter bouncing back from the low basement ceiling. Louis slips lower in his seat, sucking his lip back behind his bottom teeth and scraping his nails against his palms. Small, useless distractions. Above him, Nick effects a look of genuine sympathy that’s foreign on his features.
“He probably missed you too, you know. He’ll have been busy as fuck, probably didn’t even have time for fag breaks never mind calls to the wife.”
“Doubtful.” Louis scowls and kicks out like a mule against the table leg, the pointed toe of his shoe giving him as sharp pinch, “Probably doesn’t even remember he had a boyfriend.”
“Damnit Louis,” Nick sighs, exasperated, “We all miss you! Where have you gone? You haven’t been Louis Tomlinson for too long. Hell, if it’s gonna make you feel better- push through that bloody crowd of wannabes and demand some sort of apology from him right now.”
“Not worth it,” Louis lies, same tone, and strolls across to the bar instead. There, he demands four people’s worth of drinks and slams them back like shots so that rivulets of orange juice smear the burgundy of his lips. Those down, he orders a fifth to wallow in.
Niall, the head bartender and a good friend, thumbs anxiously against the knob of Louis’ wrist after he takes his money. He fixes him with an affectionate gaze and then lifts up across the bar to give his cheek a dry kiss-
“Slow down, Louis. And don’t look behind ya, alright?”
With Niall’s words, Louis senses his ex’s presence as a hot prickling at the nape of his neck. He sees Zayn’s silhouette on the steps, and the crowd ascending on him to worship, without having to glance backwards. His cheeks burn beneath their film of makeup, tears threatening to spill and ruin the canvas of it, like a crack spidering through porcelain. Crying is never really beautiful, though. Never the watercolour portrait one might imagine, with it’s rubbed raw skin and bubbling snot. Louis lifts careful lies when he sobs, so he swallows the possibility with a long swig of vodka and juice.
“Ya look bewtichin’ tonight, Lou,” Niall continues, toweling off a tumbler as he does, “Real good, always do. Be brave, eh? All the lads are lookin’ out for ya.”
Louis tries not to smile into his drink, shaking his head, “All the lads are lookin’ like ladies, ya mean?” He asks.
Niall grins wide and shrugs, “Nah. The ladies are all trying to look like yous, I reckon.”
Louis quietens and looks back to his glass- to his fingers wrapped around it, each of them studded with a ring. To the flawless silk of his skin and the ebony lace over it, the gathers of it just tugged above his little pink nipples. He gives himself a moment to admire the way the lace looks with the leather of his pants- the leather hugging at his thighs, the lace just floating against his bones- and then he turns on the spot. For a second, his eyes swim with tears and the lights of the room spin with it, but he sniffs hard and the tears slide to rest obediently beneath his kohl brushed lash lines. So that he can get a steady look at Zayn.
Zayn, who is not a stranger. He is an all too familiar skinny boy in a sharp black suit; velvet lapels and a dainty ribbon knotted into a bow beneath his shirt collar. His hair is taller, all of him is taller, more narrow with it, but not by too much. His face... his face is just as Louis had remembered- which is a small burst of surprise in Louis’ chest, since he’d convinced himself that his dreams were exaggerating the finer angles of it. The way the entirety of him practically hung off of his cheekbones. The way he’d only ever needed mascara to become a piece of art [and Louis has his tube of it still, stashed beside his on the shelf above the bathroom sink].
Before Zayn can catch him staring, sentimentally damp-eyed, Louis slips back to his booth. Determined to ignore the quake in his hand, he carefully places his glass onto the table and lays himself down over the bench seat, so that he is completely hidden. Not quite dust down a plughole, but invisible for a while. His eyes close and his right hand drifts upwards to rub circles over their lids. It’s soothing enough for Louis to not care that his makeup will smear. He feels heavier than he has in a long time, a sharp contrast to the lightness of being absolutely nothing at all. It makes him drowsy.
He doesn’t sleep for long- maybe ten minutes at most, with the bass line of the music thudding up through him, the whirring of electronica like strobe lights behind his eyes- but he wakes to someone who hadn’t been there before. A slim figure sat opposite him, cradling a drink and staying statically still. Zayn, he knows, before his vision has even straightened out. How would he not know someone who had spooned up behind him every night? Someone had had loved. Still loved.
“Alright Lou,” Zayn says, tender.
Whenever Louis had imagined he and Zayn meeting again, it had always been about revenge. Spit and fists. Screaming himself raw and setting something free- all of those angry retorts that he’d thought about ten minutes after the door had slammed shut behind Zayn on that morning. Louis would crash through glass, shake the shards loose from his hair and stalk off. Instead, his throat goes dry and all he can manage it sitting himself up right and reaching for his Screwdriver.
Fight, flight or drained indifference.
“Harry said you’d be here- you were so asleep so,” Zayn looks and sounds uncomfortable, blinking as though he’s in harsh sunlight and swallowing half-way between words, “Didn’t wanna wake you. You alright? I mean like, you gettin’ sick or somethin’?”
Louis shrugs and thinks of the course of SSRIs he’d been prescribed by his doctor, the tub of tablets beside Zayn’s mascara in the bathroom. He doesn’t bother to reply.
Zayn continues, kneading at his glass and shifting an inch, “I missed you, Louis. You look... just like you. When you were sleeping, I...”
“My makeup’s smudged, isn’t it?” Louis whispers.
Zayn’s eyes, more black than brown, search over Louis’ face; finding the bruise like smears beneath his lips and the imperfect strokes of his eyeliner-
“Hadn’t noticed, love,” He murmurs honestly, “I like the lace, by the way. You’re still ahead of everyone else, aren’t you? Trend Setter Tomlinson.”
Louis can’t keep himself from smiling at the compliment, lips tugging up before he’s told them that he can, but his head’s heavier again with- no, no, Zayn, that’s not right. That’s you and this is a costume now, I’m not this person anymore, now that you’ve left me behind.
I can’t do this, don’t make me do this. Go away.