and if your heart starts to wonder (1/?)
title: and if your heart starts to wonder
pairings: liam/zayn, important background harry/louis, ot5 feelings
ratings/warnings: PG-13 (for language), angsty angst angst, background homophobia
word count: ~2400 (this part)
summary: zayn's supposed to have moved on, but he can't help but wonder if maybe liam still feels the same. inspired by "man who can't be moved" by the script.
A/N: i'm shit at summaries, i'm sorry. this was supposed to be finished before i posted it, but i'm stuck and school's started so i figure i might as well give you what i have. and yes, it started off as kind of a song fic and veered so off course it's basically nothing to do with the song. oh well.
disclaimer: ridiculously untrue. also, if i owned anything or anyone in this story, i would not be here writing fanfic.
they met, like liam says, at a mcdonald's.
zayn had been sitting in one of the back booths, where he could stare out of the window and eat his chips and not have to talk to anyone.
he had been unpleasantly startled when feet shuffled beside him and a tray slid onto his table. zayn had glanced with mild horror at the oatmeal and fruit (did mcdonald's even serve oatmeal and fruit?) before he looked up.
"hi," the boy with brown hair and browner eyes had said, and he had been smiling. he had said it with a strange mixture of shyness and confidence and zayn already felt like he was in over his head.
"hi," the boy had said again, when zayn said nothing. "i heard you at boot camp, and I thought you were really good. you're zayn, right?"
zayn had gaped a little and the boy added, "i'm liam. liam payne." his smile was drooping.
i know, zayn had tried to say. i heard you too. you were better than me.
"hi," he had said instead, and blushed.
liam's smile had turned back up and zayn had been less unpleasantly startled at the way liam's eyes crinkled. his teeth are very white, zayn had thought faintly. and his lips are very...red. then he had stopped thinking.
"i, uh, i heard you too," zayn had stuttered, and it had been worth it when liam's eyes turned into perfect crescents.
that was the first time zayn malik had ever talked to liam payne. it was also the first time zayn had ever looked at a boy and thought, beautiful.
he would do a lot of both in the next three years.
//
"i met zayn at mcdonald's," liam says to the interviewer, twisting around to grin at zayn. zayn's stomach kind of clenches and his heart squeezes kind of painfully, pushing the corners of his mouth up.
he thinks he would be more worried about his reaction if it hadn't already happened so many times. zayn's like this every time liam smiles at zayn, for zayn, and this happens a lot so he's used to it.
zayn wonders if eventually it'll start hurting a little less.
//
that night he ends up in liam's room.
zayn's supposed to share with niall tonight, but niall's snuck off to get drunk with josh and the rest of the band and the room is too empty without a second body. zayn knows from experience that the "do not disturb" sign on harry and lou's doorknob isn't just for the cleaning lady, so he has nothing to do but go further down the hall and tap on liam's door.
when liam opens it zayn considers turning around and going back, because fuck liam doesn't have a shirt on. zayn is used to a lot of things but he doesn't think he'll ever get over what hours in the gym does to liam's body.
liam just blinks at him with a sleepy smile and walks back to the bathroom. zayn closes the door and finds himself on the inside.
fuck.
liam emerges wearing a shirt and somehow zayn survives. (what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, zayn's brain sings, and it's more bitter than kelly clarkson ever meant it to be.)
half an hour later they're wrapped up under the duvet and zayn's halfway to sleep with his hair touching liam's pillow, when -
"zayn?"
zayn mumbles, "yeah?"
"i was just thinking," liam says, and zayn wonders if it'll be something about kiwis and apples again, or why hotels never have shaving cream and hair gel. "you know how we met, at mcdonald's? i remember you had a chicken sandwich, and a coke."
oh. zayn opens his eyes because he did not expect that and nearly regrets it because liam's face is much too close.
"erm," he says. "i did?"
liam nods, cheek rubbing against the pillow. "yeah. i just thought it was weird, you know, that i remember what you were eating but i can't remember what i had."
oatmeal and fruit, and zayn almost says it, but liam's eyes have slipped shut and there's a weird tightness clogging up zayn's throat.
//
when the band splits up zayn wishes he could say he didn't see it coming.
harry and louis had come out a month before their third anniversary, and it had been better than anyone expected. most of the fans had been supportive and happy and they had thought that maybe, maybe things would be alright.
but then harry had stopped going on twitter and a few weeks later louis actually deleted his, thin lips pressed into nothing. while the media had exploded over the whywhatwhohow, zayn knew something had broken.
he hadn't known exactly what, though, until now.
they're sitting in a strange arrangement, zayn and liam with niall squashed between them, and then harryandlouis pressed up against each other on the opposite couch. it's strange, zayn thinks, because they never sit on separate sofas if they can help it. the space on his left side feels like an open wound.
chris comes into the room with two of their publicists and drops a very quiet bomb.
we think you guys should take a break.
"what?" zayn and liam and niall say, almost perfectly together. harry and louis say nothing, and the silence makes zayn panic.
chris looks at the couple on the sofa (the couple, zayn thinks wildly, finally we can call them that so why -) and sighs through his nose.
"harry," he says, "and louis," and it's painful how separately he says their names, "have decided that it'd be better for them to take some time off, to allow themselves time to adjust." chris pauses, taps something out on his blackberry. "we as management have agreed that this is the best course of action for the moment, and seeing as how the band cannot perform with only three members, we've decided to give you all a break."
he smiles and it's almost sad. "maybe it will give the fans time to adjust, as well."
zayn feels the silence swallow the rest of chris's words. finally he leaves and zayn looks up.
harry has his face in his hands, curled so tightly into louis they both look like they're suffocating. when harry raises his head, his voice is like cracked gravel.
"i'm sorry," he whispers. "i couldn't - "
"it was horrible," louis says, his tone flat and sharp as knives. "the things they said," and blue eyes burn darker than zayn's ever seen them before, "no one has any right to say that, to my harry."
"why didn't you tell us?" liam is soft but hurt. he's got an arm curled around niall's shoulders, and zayn starts when he notices the tears inching slowly down niall's cheeks.
harry looks back down. "i thought," he swallows, "i thought i could do it, i thought i could be brave. but then management found out and they didn't let us tell, they told me and lou to be quiet and they'd take care of it."
"we didn't think it'd come to this," louis says softly. "but it's true, a break - we need it."
harry's eyes are closed. "we're sorry."
zayn shakes his head. "no," he says, and liam says "don't be."
"it's not your fault, harry, lou." niall sniffs wetly and launches himself across the empty space. "we'll always love you."
liam nods. he wraps his hand around zayn's wrist (and it tingles, incongrously, but he can't help it even after all these years) and pulls them both to collapse around harry and louis and niall.
"we'll always have each other," liam says, "you know that."
what he doesn't say is we'll always be together. zayn's glad, because that would only make everything sound like a lie.
"yeah," he murmurs, and the sudden feeling of falling makes him clutch harder at niall's shoulder.
//
zayn stirs his coffee unnecessarily and rubs at his eyes. he's thankful classes don't start until ten today - he's knackered from a late night and restless sleep. his dream creeps back into his head and he catches a glimpse of soft brown and strong arms and an angel's smile before he shoves it away. zayn stirs his coffee a little harder, angry at himself. foam flicks over the edge of his cup.
it's been almost two years. a year and nine months. zayn knows he shouldn't but he can't help but keep track, remembering just how long it's been since they were all together.
he hasn't seen liam in exactly five months and twenty one days.
zayn rips himself away from that trainwreck before it can dig the hole in his heart any deeper. he's moved on - he tells himself - and he's got a new life, his own, studying english at uni like he always said he would if the best thing in his life hadn't happened to him. the past is too heavy and he doesn't want it to break him again.
he looks out the coffee shop window and notices the mcdonald's across the street.
it looks back at him, tan paint and golden arches (zayn misses the old design, the blatant red white and yellow) and it's mundane and generic and a thousand other mediocre adjectives, and it makes zayn want to cry.
fuck you, he thinks, hand gripping too hard around the cooling mug. he doesn't know who he's cursing. it could be himself, no one, everything. zayn closes his eyes and tries to breathe through his nose.
i've got my own life now, he whispers to himself. and so do they.
(it's been five months and twenty one days since he's seen liam)
zayn throws his half-cold, untouched coffee away and pushes through the door, bells jingling.
//
three days later zayn realizes how morbid his curiosity is. there really isn't any other explanation for why he's driving around the old x-factor neighborhood, looking for familiar yellow arches. there's nothing but old memories here, turned sharp and painful by separation.
he turns more than a few circles before he spots it.
it's been remodeled, and even though he'd expected it the beige blandness and tastefully weathered stone still feel like a punch to the chest. everyone and everything seem to have moved on.
(not for the first time, zayn feels so old.)
he parks his car in the clean, spacious lot and shuffles through the side entrance. the lady at the register rings up his chips and pineapple mango smoothie with far too much cheerfulness and zayn slinks away to the back of the brightly lit restaurant.
he doesn't remember exactly where the old booth was so he picks the second one from the corner. zayn slumps into the smooth plastic and brushes crumbs off the tabletop.
why the fuck am i here?
because i'm pathetic, zayn thinks, and i can't fucking let go, and it's been almost six months -
zayn presses the heel of his palm into his eyes and tries not to choke on his smoothie.
//
and it's like this:
it wasn't always unrequited.
zayn loved liam like a war he could never win for two years and seven months. then some things happened - the band breaks up. harry and louis don't. liam and danielle do.
liam tells zayn, she said she wanted to focus on her career. she said i had enough to deal with already, and just like that, the tide turns. zayn and liam deal with it together and it's almost more than zayn ever dreamed of, and for almost a whole year zayn lets himself think that just maybe he's won his war.
but then he slips, and this is too good turns into this is too good to be true. zayn applies to uni because liam makes him practical and liam goes back to wolverhampton college because he is practical, and they promise to always be together.
(zayn should have known, because that's one promise they were never able to keep)
zayn gets into uni and liam settles back into music theory, and they watch the distance slowly wring them dry. they call less often and see each other even less.
liam phones two months into zayn's classes and says sorry, but he can't make it back to london next saturday, and maybe they should take a break.
we think you guys should take a break.
"but we'll always be friends, you know that, right zayn?"
zayn nods (and he feels so useless - liam can't see him, liam never saw him) and pretends he can hear his heartbreak reflected in the static of liam's breathing.
"yeah," he whispers.
this time niall isn't there to catch him.
//
zayn goes back the next week. the mcdonald's is a good twenty minute drive from his flat, forty in traffic, and it's not even lunchtime. zayn's disgusted with himself.
can't even come up with a good excuse.
he orders a fish sandwich from the same smiling lady and sits in the second booth from the corner. there's a man reading a newspaper two seats over and he looks ridiculously like an older version of harry - all long curls and wide hands.
zayn rests his forehead on the slightly sticky plastic, arms curled around his head. harry and louis moved out of their penthouse a few months after the break up. he's been to their new address a couple times - it's in a quietly wealthy neighborhood just outside of london.
the last time he was there, it still didn't smell like them.
the man turns a page and coughs loudly, scratchy and drawn out like harry, and zayn decides that yeah, maybe he should visit them again. he's got this saturday free after all.
(it's been six months and four days since he's seen liam)
pairings: liam/zayn, important background harry/louis, ot5 feelings
ratings/warnings: PG-13 (for language), angsty angst angst, background homophobia
word count: ~2400 (this part)
summary: zayn's supposed to have moved on, but he can't help but wonder if maybe liam still feels the same. inspired by "man who can't be moved" by the script.
A/N: i'm shit at summaries, i'm sorry. this was supposed to be finished before i posted it, but i'm stuck and school's started so i figure i might as well give you what i have. and yes, it started off as kind of a song fic and veered so off course it's basically nothing to do with the song. oh well.
disclaimer: ridiculously untrue. also, if i owned anything or anyone in this story, i would not be here writing fanfic.
they met, like liam says, at a mcdonald's.
zayn had been sitting in one of the back booths, where he could stare out of the window and eat his chips and not have to talk to anyone.
he had been unpleasantly startled when feet shuffled beside him and a tray slid onto his table. zayn had glanced with mild horror at the oatmeal and fruit (did mcdonald's even serve oatmeal and fruit?) before he looked up.
"hi," the boy with brown hair and browner eyes had said, and he had been smiling. he had said it with a strange mixture of shyness and confidence and zayn already felt like he was in over his head.
"hi," the boy had said again, when zayn said nothing. "i heard you at boot camp, and I thought you were really good. you're zayn, right?"
zayn had gaped a little and the boy added, "i'm liam. liam payne." his smile was drooping.
i know, zayn had tried to say. i heard you too. you were better than me.
"hi," he had said instead, and blushed.
liam's smile had turned back up and zayn had been less unpleasantly startled at the way liam's eyes crinkled. his teeth are very white, zayn had thought faintly. and his lips are very...red. then he had stopped thinking.
"i, uh, i heard you too," zayn had stuttered, and it had been worth it when liam's eyes turned into perfect crescents.
that was the first time zayn malik had ever talked to liam payne. it was also the first time zayn had ever looked at a boy and thought, beautiful.
he would do a lot of both in the next three years.
//
"i met zayn at mcdonald's," liam says to the interviewer, twisting around to grin at zayn. zayn's stomach kind of clenches and his heart squeezes kind of painfully, pushing the corners of his mouth up.
he thinks he would be more worried about his reaction if it hadn't already happened so many times. zayn's like this every time liam smiles at zayn, for zayn, and this happens a lot so he's used to it.
zayn wonders if eventually it'll start hurting a little less.
//
that night he ends up in liam's room.
zayn's supposed to share with niall tonight, but niall's snuck off to get drunk with josh and the rest of the band and the room is too empty without a second body. zayn knows from experience that the "do not disturb" sign on harry and lou's doorknob isn't just for the cleaning lady, so he has nothing to do but go further down the hall and tap on liam's door.
when liam opens it zayn considers turning around and going back, because fuck liam doesn't have a shirt on. zayn is used to a lot of things but he doesn't think he'll ever get over what hours in the gym does to liam's body.
liam just blinks at him with a sleepy smile and walks back to the bathroom. zayn closes the door and finds himself on the inside.
fuck.
liam emerges wearing a shirt and somehow zayn survives. (what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, zayn's brain sings, and it's more bitter than kelly clarkson ever meant it to be.)
half an hour later they're wrapped up under the duvet and zayn's halfway to sleep with his hair touching liam's pillow, when -
"zayn?"
zayn mumbles, "yeah?"
"i was just thinking," liam says, and zayn wonders if it'll be something about kiwis and apples again, or why hotels never have shaving cream and hair gel. "you know how we met, at mcdonald's? i remember you had a chicken sandwich, and a coke."
oh. zayn opens his eyes because he did not expect that and nearly regrets it because liam's face is much too close.
"erm," he says. "i did?"
liam nods, cheek rubbing against the pillow. "yeah. i just thought it was weird, you know, that i remember what you were eating but i can't remember what i had."
oatmeal and fruit, and zayn almost says it, but liam's eyes have slipped shut and there's a weird tightness clogging up zayn's throat.
//
when the band splits up zayn wishes he could say he didn't see it coming.
harry and louis had come out a month before their third anniversary, and it had been better than anyone expected. most of the fans had been supportive and happy and they had thought that maybe, maybe things would be alright.
but then harry had stopped going on twitter and a few weeks later louis actually deleted his, thin lips pressed into nothing. while the media had exploded over the whywhatwhohow, zayn knew something had broken.
he hadn't known exactly what, though, until now.
they're sitting in a strange arrangement, zayn and liam with niall squashed between them, and then harryandlouis pressed up against each other on the opposite couch. it's strange, zayn thinks, because they never sit on separate sofas if they can help it. the space on his left side feels like an open wound.
chris comes into the room with two of their publicists and drops a very quiet bomb.
we think you guys should take a break.
"what?" zayn and liam and niall say, almost perfectly together. harry and louis say nothing, and the silence makes zayn panic.
chris looks at the couple on the sofa (the couple, zayn thinks wildly, finally we can call them that so why -) and sighs through his nose.
"harry," he says, "and louis," and it's painful how separately he says their names, "have decided that it'd be better for them to take some time off, to allow themselves time to adjust." chris pauses, taps something out on his blackberry. "we as management have agreed that this is the best course of action for the moment, and seeing as how the band cannot perform with only three members, we've decided to give you all a break."
he smiles and it's almost sad. "maybe it will give the fans time to adjust, as well."
zayn feels the silence swallow the rest of chris's words. finally he leaves and zayn looks up.
harry has his face in his hands, curled so tightly into louis they both look like they're suffocating. when harry raises his head, his voice is like cracked gravel.
"i'm sorry," he whispers. "i couldn't - "
"it was horrible," louis says, his tone flat and sharp as knives. "the things they said," and blue eyes burn darker than zayn's ever seen them before, "no one has any right to say that, to my harry."
"why didn't you tell us?" liam is soft but hurt. he's got an arm curled around niall's shoulders, and zayn starts when he notices the tears inching slowly down niall's cheeks.
harry looks back down. "i thought," he swallows, "i thought i could do it, i thought i could be brave. but then management found out and they didn't let us tell, they told me and lou to be quiet and they'd take care of it."
"we didn't think it'd come to this," louis says softly. "but it's true, a break - we need it."
harry's eyes are closed. "we're sorry."
zayn shakes his head. "no," he says, and liam says "don't be."
"it's not your fault, harry, lou." niall sniffs wetly and launches himself across the empty space. "we'll always love you."
liam nods. he wraps his hand around zayn's wrist (and it tingles, incongrously, but he can't help it even after all these years) and pulls them both to collapse around harry and louis and niall.
"we'll always have each other," liam says, "you know that."
what he doesn't say is we'll always be together. zayn's glad, because that would only make everything sound like a lie.
"yeah," he murmurs, and the sudden feeling of falling makes him clutch harder at niall's shoulder.
//
zayn stirs his coffee unnecessarily and rubs at his eyes. he's thankful classes don't start until ten today - he's knackered from a late night and restless sleep. his dream creeps back into his head and he catches a glimpse of soft brown and strong arms and an angel's smile before he shoves it away. zayn stirs his coffee a little harder, angry at himself. foam flicks over the edge of his cup.
it's been almost two years. a year and nine months. zayn knows he shouldn't but he can't help but keep track, remembering just how long it's been since they were all together.
he hasn't seen liam in exactly five months and twenty one days.
zayn rips himself away from that trainwreck before it can dig the hole in his heart any deeper. he's moved on - he tells himself - and he's got a new life, his own, studying english at uni like he always said he would if the best thing in his life hadn't happened to him. the past is too heavy and he doesn't want it to break him again.
he looks out the coffee shop window and notices the mcdonald's across the street.
it looks back at him, tan paint and golden arches (zayn misses the old design, the blatant red white and yellow) and it's mundane and generic and a thousand other mediocre adjectives, and it makes zayn want to cry.
fuck you, he thinks, hand gripping too hard around the cooling mug. he doesn't know who he's cursing. it could be himself, no one, everything. zayn closes his eyes and tries to breathe through his nose.
i've got my own life now, he whispers to himself. and so do they.
(it's been five months and twenty one days since he's seen liam)
zayn throws his half-cold, untouched coffee away and pushes through the door, bells jingling.
//
three days later zayn realizes how morbid his curiosity is. there really isn't any other explanation for why he's driving around the old x-factor neighborhood, looking for familiar yellow arches. there's nothing but old memories here, turned sharp and painful by separation.
he turns more than a few circles before he spots it.
it's been remodeled, and even though he'd expected it the beige blandness and tastefully weathered stone still feel like a punch to the chest. everyone and everything seem to have moved on.
(not for the first time, zayn feels so old.)
he parks his car in the clean, spacious lot and shuffles through the side entrance. the lady at the register rings up his chips and pineapple mango smoothie with far too much cheerfulness and zayn slinks away to the back of the brightly lit restaurant.
he doesn't remember exactly where the old booth was so he picks the second one from the corner. zayn slumps into the smooth plastic and brushes crumbs off the tabletop.
why the fuck am i here?
because i'm pathetic, zayn thinks, and i can't fucking let go, and it's been almost six months -
zayn presses the heel of his palm into his eyes and tries not to choke on his smoothie.
//
and it's like this:
it wasn't always unrequited.
zayn loved liam like a war he could never win for two years and seven months. then some things happened - the band breaks up. harry and louis don't. liam and danielle do.
liam tells zayn, she said she wanted to focus on her career. she said i had enough to deal with already, and just like that, the tide turns. zayn and liam deal with it together and it's almost more than zayn ever dreamed of, and for almost a whole year zayn lets himself think that just maybe he's won his war.
but then he slips, and this is too good turns into this is too good to be true. zayn applies to uni because liam makes him practical and liam goes back to wolverhampton college because he is practical, and they promise to always be together.
(zayn should have known, because that's one promise they were never able to keep)
zayn gets into uni and liam settles back into music theory, and they watch the distance slowly wring them dry. they call less often and see each other even less.
liam phones two months into zayn's classes and says sorry, but he can't make it back to london next saturday, and maybe they should take a break.
we think you guys should take a break.
"but we'll always be friends, you know that, right zayn?"
zayn nods (and he feels so useless - liam can't see him, liam never saw him) and pretends he can hear his heartbreak reflected in the static of liam's breathing.
"yeah," he whispers.
this time niall isn't there to catch him.
//
zayn goes back the next week. the mcdonald's is a good twenty minute drive from his flat, forty in traffic, and it's not even lunchtime. zayn's disgusted with himself.
can't even come up with a good excuse.
he orders a fish sandwich from the same smiling lady and sits in the second booth from the corner. there's a man reading a newspaper two seats over and he looks ridiculously like an older version of harry - all long curls and wide hands.
zayn rests his forehead on the slightly sticky plastic, arms curled around his head. harry and louis moved out of their penthouse a few months after the break up. he's been to their new address a couple times - it's in a quietly wealthy neighborhood just outside of london.
the last time he was there, it still didn't smell like them.
the man turns a page and coughs loudly, scratchy and drawn out like harry, and zayn decides that yeah, maybe he should visit them again. he's got this saturday free after all.
(it's been six months and four days since he's seen liam)