(no subject)
Title: make him love me
Author: A
Pairing: Zayn/Liam
Rating: PG
Warning: this is just fluff, yo
Word count: 1700
Summary: a five times fic except actually only four times: the four times Zayn listens to Frank Ocean with his bandmates and one time he doesn’t. background Louis/Harry and…I suppose there’s also some Niall/Justin Bieber there but who really knows what's going on there anyway. lyrics from bad religion and super rich kids, both by frank ocean aka the key to my soul rn. originally posted here at the Ziam ficathon aka everyone go there and prompt and write right now.
So, Channel Orange’s leaked and Zayn’s got it downloaded on his computer like, as soon as it does but he doesn’t get a chance to listen to it until Niall harasses him about the cover Justin Bieber did a while back of Thinkin Bout You, all “Shit, Zayn, have you heard this? Like, why haven’t I heard this before? Fuck,” and so Zayn’s listening to the original on his iTunes before he lets the Biebz taint his memory of it (“Fuck you Zayn, it’s a really good cover like, what he does with his voice? Fuck off.”) and it’s so good that he keeps listening to the album, getting a bit emotional through Sierra Leone and pretty fucking into Super Rich Kids but it’s only when he’s on Bad Religion that he feels his gut twist.
And once he’s started he can’t stop, there’s no way he can hear the line, “this unrequited love” without feeling his cheeks flame up and when Liam, who’s sitting beside him, always fucking sitting beside him, says, “Hey, Zayn, you all right? You look flushed, mate,” it’s all Zayn can do to not shove an earbud into his ear and say, “Shit, Liam, this is my heart here, I am giving it to you,” but he’s so used to this hiding, this fucking pining, that he looks away and says, “Nah, I’m good. Hey, have you seen the shit Niall’s been tweeting Bieber?” When Liam starts humming the strains of Boyfriend under his breath, Niall’s faintly anguished squawk is enough to distract Zayn from thinking that this is another fucking song that will be the death of him.
-- --
The next time Frank Ocean gets mentioned it’s by Harry, which would be weird because Zayn is pretty sure that the extent of Harry’s knowledge of R&B begins and ends at Beyoncé, but is also not surprising because Harry likes to consider himself current-event savvy when it comes to celebrity sexualities.
“Hey,” Harry says, tapping his laptop screen and gesturing at Zayn to lie down beside him, “Have you heard Frank Ocean’s new album? It’s got like, five references to how he fancied this boy when he was nineteen, and people are calling him the fucking Michael Jackson of R&B.”
Zayn’s not really sure how to do this, but the words are out of his mouth before he can stop himself and he’s saying, “Have you listened to it? Um, Bad Religion, that’s one of the ones, right? About the boy? Who he fancied? Um, a lot?”
Harry’s head snaps up and he closes the laptop, rolls over on to his side so he can stare at Zayn some more.
“Bad Religion? That’s the one that goes like, ‘it’s a bad religion to be in love with someone who could never love you’?” Harry’s still staring at Zayn, obviously waiting for an answer, and Zayn can feel himself blush, the blood flooding to his cheeks hot and sure and he bites his lip before he looks at Harry and says,
“Uh. Yeah. I like it a lot? I mean, I just-yeah. I like it.” Harry’s face changes then, his eyebrows unfurrow and instead one side of his mouth quirks up and the expression is almost piteous but Zayn thinks Harry might understand, a little bit, because instead of saying something shit about Zayn and Liam, or whatever, he just rolls over onto his back and says,
“Yeah. I like it too.”
-- --
It’s when Louis starts making, “too many bottles of this wine we can’t pronounce” the one thing he says whenever they’re at a club, or in a hotel minibar, or just talking about their newly acquired fame at every interview they have for the next week, trying to be as stoic as possible but unable to keep the smile off his face as Niall and Harry dissolve into laughter that Zayn thinks there’s something going on he isn’t privy to.
After Louis’ most ridiculous use of the line yet, (“So, what do you guys think about gifts from the fans? Louis, I know you get a lot of carrots-“ “Actually I would love some bottles of wine! In fact, too many bottles of wine we can’t pronounce!”) Zayn kind of shoves him in the back on the way to their hotel room.
“Really, Louis?” He says, “You’re really doing that to Frank, man?”
“Hey, you don’t get to have Frank Ocean all to yourself, Zaynie, I can appreciate his smooth voice and manly angst too, you know.”
Zayn wants to laugh but it’s hitting him too close to the dark, tightly coiled mass he keeps hidden in the pit of his stomach so instead of lightly punching Louis he’s saying, “Wow, I guess Harry’s rubbed off on you in more than the usual ways of just rubbing one off, huh.” And it’s so obviously harsh and uncalled for that he’s immediately backtracking but Louis’ shoving a palm over his mouth and saying,
“I’m going to take that from you because I, unlike you, Zayn Malik, have not one bit of insecurity about my relationship with the boy I am very best friends with, and so I am going to offer you a piece of advice. Talk to Liam, Zayn, because the next time you’re an asshole to me I will hit you.” When Louis lets go Zayn gives him a sort of disbelieving look because Louis says, “Alright, well, I won’t hit you, but I’ll tell Harry and he’ll be sad, and you won’t like that, will you?”
Zayn won’t like it, he knows he won’t, but he also knows that fucking Louis will like it even less, especially since if he were as secure about his relationship with his very best friend then they wouldn’t be doing what they are now, which is pretending that fucking is the same thing as dating when you can’t put a real name to it or hold hands in public or tell anyone other than your bandmates and families and people who are getting paid to hide it.
It’s this line of thinking though, this way that Louis’ looking at him earnestly and Harry’s smiling at him with similar feelings reflected in his green eyes and Niall’s sitting beside him more in interviews now that Harry’s obviously told him, and Liam’s looking at him more and more now, nervous and a bit confused by why Zayn’s been speaking to everyone else normally, everyone but him, that tells him he’s really going to have to do something about this.
-- --
It’s pretty easy to get Liam alone, actually, once Liam announces that he’s staying at the hotel one night when Louis and Niall want to go clubbing, it’s the simplest thing for Zayn to say, “I’m tired too, actually, I think I’ll hang out here.”
When Louis protests it’s Niall who shuts him up, which is surprising, but when he winks at Zayn and gives him a vaguely painful looking crude gesture with his hands, Zayn figures he knows why he’s doing it.
“Hey,” Liam says, smiling, and Zayn steels himself by just breathing for a bit, taking in the smell of soap and fabric softener and Lynx that should be the same way he smells, but is somehow so much sweeter, richer, crisper when it’s on Liam.
“Hi,” Zayn says, and then, “Hey, do you want to listen to something with me?”
And the way it comes out is wrong, so wrong, it should have been more casual, less patently obvious that this means something to Zayn, means a lot to Zayn, but Liam doesn’t look any differently and pulls Zayn down on his bed to lie next to him.
Zayn’s thumbing through his iPod for a minute, scrolling through his artists and trying to buy himself some time but when he’s on the F’s Liam’s already saying, “Ooh, Zayn! Have you heard the new Frank Ocean album? There’s this one song you have to listen to hang on, what’s it called? Forrest Gump? It’s lovely-”
Zayn stops him though, pulls back a bit and really looks at him as he says, “I like that one but. I like this one more?”
When the first strains of Bad Religion come on at first Liam’s smiling but when he sees the look on Zayn’s face the smile drops.
They lie there, staring at each other until, “Allahu Akbar” and Liam’s asking, “What does that mean?” But his voice is husky, rough, and when Zayn says, “Um, God is Great. Kind of like, amen, but not like, really, I don’t-”
Liam shushes him with a finger as the song continues into the chorus and Frank is saying, “this unrequited love, to me it’s nothing but a one-man cult” but by the time he’s saying, “I can never make him love me” Zayn’s pushing Liam’s finger out of the way and pressing his lips onto Liam’s.
He closes his eyes and doesn’t breathe for a second, but as the second verse leads in Liam’s kissing him back, his hands coming to rest on the sides of Zayn’s face as his mouth falls open. Zayn tentatively tongues at the bow of Liam’s upper lip and Liam opens for him and they’re kissing more wetly now, Liam licking along Zayn’s upper teeth and then moving down to his neck as Zayn breaks the kiss to breathe.
Frank Ocean sings, “it’s a bad religion, to be in love with someone who could never love you” but it’s the last thing Zayn hears before he’s reshaping the word unrequited with the taste of Liam’s mouth.
-- --
(And if when Harry and Louis and Niall come back Zayn is holding Liam’s hand he’ll never admit to ducking his head when Louis says, “That’s it, loverboy! You’ll have to send Frank a thank you tweet!” And he’ll definitely pretend that all of his bandmates aren’t giggling at each other, saying, “Like Liam would ever listen to Frank Ocean without our help, Zayn!” In fact, the only thing he will remember is Liam burying his head into Zayn’s neck and moving up to whisper into his ear, “only bad religion could have me feeling the way I do,” and grinning happily as Zayn ignores his bandmates and kisses him.)