swim for your life (2/2)
(see previous part here for details)
They have a morning interview the next day and Liam’s final is in the early afternoon and Zayn’s nervous, he’s shaking, he feels like they’re on the edge of something brilliant and he’s afraid and excited all at once.
He sneaks out before dawn and takes a left instead of a right and he’s halfway through the buzzing aquatic centre when he’s tugged behind the bleachers and into a hug.
“You,” Liam says breathily, into his neck, “what are you doing here?”
His arms tighten a little more than necessary. “What are you doing under the bleachers?”
“Waiting to snog you,” he teases, and then blushes furiously. “Hiding from the press, actually, you would know all about that.”
He scratches the hair at the nape of his neck and Liam squirms in response. “I know all about wanting to snog you.”
“Zayn,” he scolds, grinning into his shoulder. There’s a pressure on his neck and it might be a pair of lips, but that might be a little wishful. “Why are you here?”
“I needed to wish you luck,” he admits, and yes, there’s the kiss that neither of them are quite ready for. Zayn tries to bite on the groan of encouragement and kisses his collarbone instead.
That’s how they spend the next twenty minutes, kissing all over strong shoulders and laughing in-between.
Zayn’s the first to pull away, but he keeps his arms heavy around him and presses their foreheads together. He considers kissing him properly, but the fear in his blood holds him back. “Music’s on your side, sweetheart,” he says, and Liam’s breath is hot against his lips, “and so am I.”
Liam grins a little helplessly and they don’t kiss, but something fresh and bright flashes in his eyes and Zayn wants to drown in them.
(and in him, too)
/ / /
He’s distracted all the way through the interview and the whole ride back. He registers, he does, he hears them ask about Liam and the closing ceremony and the new album, but none of that matters quite as much as seeing the final.
They’re in the car and Louis is teasing him softly to calm him down, a long breath of ‘you’re going to get fucked tonight, darling, he’s not going to be able to control himself’ which leaves him hot all over and smothering his smile in the heavy bouquet of flowers in his lap.
He misses the beginning of the race but catches the end. The crowd’s screaming and Liam a whole body’s length ahead and the contagious smile cracks his wet lips when he realises he’s won.
He’s pulled out of the water by a few teammates Zayn doesn’t recognise but that melts away, everything melts away, because Liam sees him through all the people and pushes everything else aside.
“You,” he says breathlessly, as though it’s the only word he can remember, “you-”
Fingers curl in Zayn’s leather jacket and he pushes him backwards, through the crowd, out of sight, and against the wall. He makes a soft noise of protest and the huff of breath forced from him is smothered by Liam’s rough kiss.
“I will always associate the best week of my life with you, Zayn Malik,” he accuses, hands pinning his hips to the wall. He tastes like chlorine and Powerade and like the rest of his life. “I hope you’re pleased, arsehole.”
“So pleased,” he says, and Liam groans into his mouth and chases the noise with his tongue. “And I hope that’s where this is heading.”
He nods and their noses brush together as he licks against his teeth. “After the interviews,” he promises, shoving the jacket off his shoulders, “after the presentation, I’m going to feel those trembles from the inside out, I swear.”
Zayn groans and Liam grinds against his hips in response and when they leave their lips are bruised and their hair is messy and Zayn’s heart is somewhere in the clouds.
/ / /
He gives Liam his bouquet in front of twenty thousand people and the whole world and something beautiful and possessive coils in his stomach when Liam holds his hand during all his interviews.
/ / /
They’re barely through the door when Liam pulls off his shirt, shoving him against the wall. The crowd’s cheering on the streets below and there’s James Brown blaring from a set of amps and Zayn’s needy and warm all over.
“I beat the world record,” he mumbles, against his lips, between kisses. Zayn squirms into his touch and against the wall. “They offered me a sponsorship and I had an erection the whole time from thinking of you - here - under me.”
He whimpers a little into his mouth and gnaws at his lips to cover the noise. “I was being patient,” he breathes into his mouth and Liam groans in response. A hand wraps around a thigh to hoist him up easily. “Adrenalin drives you insane. It could have been rape.”
“Consensual,” he says huskily. He tugs at his zipper and pushes him closer to the wall to pull off their pants and bathers in one clumsy movement. “This is completely consensual.”
Zayn grins and sneaks his fingers down, shivering a little at the endless expanse of soft, skin. “Bare here?” he asks breathlessly, drawing circles around the clean shaven root of his cock. Liam shakes at the touch.
“Reduces friction,” he repeats, “and super - fuck - sensitive.”
He grins and rubs against him, precome smearing against his groin, and they both shiver at the touch. He’s distracted with soft kisses and slippery fingers circling carefully around his hole.
“Please,” he whispers, just once, and Liam slides them in carefully.
Their kisses falter as they adjust to the feeling and when Liam starts to move, they both shake a little.
He wraps his legs around his waist and grinds down on slick fingers. “You can-”
Lips are pressed against his neck and his body is pushed a little harder against the wall. “I bench press your weight,” he says cockily, but it’s ruined by the shameless groan that falls from his lips when Zayn tightens around him. “I can handle you.”
“I can handle you,” he repeats, sucking at his jaw until a bruise forms, “test me, show me-”
A breath hitches (it might be his or it might be Liam’s or it might be both of theirs) as he pulls out and scratches across his thighs and lubes up his cock.
He pauses, slick head nudging against his hole, fingers pressing into his hips to hold him up. “Next time,” he whispers, sweetly kissing his neck, “next time we’ll go slow and horizontal and careful. I will make it so good for you, sweetheart, I will shatter you and put you back together-”
His hips buck shamelessly to sink onto his cock and that moment, with Liam buried inside, burning up all his neurons, fills his lungs with water.
They’re still for a little too long and he’s whimpering shamelessly into his neck, scratching down his back where the hints of chlorine stain his muscles. He clenches his thighs over his hips and Liam starts thrusting, quick and deep and brutal in a way that reduces Zayn to whining within seconds.
He grinds back onto his cock, presses their foreheads together, and starts whispering non-sequitur nonsense against his lips like ‘all day Liam all day before the race before the bleachers before last night’ and ‘you’re strong and I’m boneless’ and ‘lets fuck everyday please orgasms are good for the soul’.
Liam grins against his lips and sneaks his fingers to his hole, rubbing gently around the sensitive rim while he snaps his hips, and that’s all it takes.
Zayn comes hot and untouched between them and the noise Liam makes is weak and strong and happy and destroyed all at once. He bites into his collarbone, just over the tattoo, and stutters his hips and almost slams him through the plaster in his climax.
There’s sweat down his spine and between their touching skin. Liam licks at the beads accumulating under his jaw and laughs over the cool saliva. “Fuck,” he breathes, and Zayn’s answering ‘wow’ prompts hands to travel from his arse to his waist and cuddle close.
He carries him all the way to the bed and fits him between the sheets. They kiss until the sun sets and the swell of his heart ambushes Zayn and robs him of everything but Liam and the dark room and the smell of chlorine.
And a few hours later, their reckless kisses are matched with careful hands and Liam shows him just how gentle he can be.
/ / /
Liam’s nervous beside him as they walk into the cafe where the band met before recording and drank strong coffee with hangovers and ate ice-cream right before Christmas. He’s raking his nails over Zayn’s spine and he might be drawing blood and Zayn ignores how much he likes the possibility.
The boys are at the table and stop whispering the second they approach. They jostle a little over the chairs and he raises an eyebrow during the distraction. “This is Liam,” he introduces, tangling their fingers together between their plates, “and you should play fair and be nice.”
Niall grins wolfishly and piles eggs between his toast. “You’re a fangirl fantasy come true.”
Liam laughs and steals all the soft bacon from Zayn’s plate and piles on the crispy strips. “I actually don’t know your music too well,” he admits.
Louis grins and Zayn kicks him hard. “Actually, we were talking about-”
“That’s Louis,” he interrupts, “he’s an arsehole. So are Harry and Niall, left and right.”
There’s a line of grease over his bottom lip that glistens when he smiles. “I know who they are,” he says, “my flatmate wants to shag all four of you.”
Harry’s eyes brighten and he reaches for Liam’s tomatoes. “Do you happen to live with Tom Daley?”
He slaps his hand away but piles them onto his plate anyway. “No, but he always plays your music at the pool.”
They settle into the conversation and Zayn loves this, loves Liam between him and his friends with their thighs pressed together. He doesn’t want to leave, he’s never going to leave, but then a group of guys in matching sweatpants enter and Liam’s out of his chair and in one of their laps before he can argue.
“He’s like us,” Harry says, as one of the boys nuzzles into his hair and gives him his coffee, and Zayn hides his fond smile with an unlit cigarette between his lips.
Liam comes back to the table a little later and the boys sing ‘sugar, oh honey honey’ until he flips them off.
The sun’s hot but the look Liam shoots him is hotter as he lifts Zayn from his seat and pulls him into his lap. His fingers slip into his lips to pull out the cigarette and his tongue follows to lick away the taste of nicotine.
“Sorry,” he says, unfazed, to the rest of the band. “That’s my team. We usually come here together.”
Hands slip under his shirt and toy at the hair below his bellybutton. Zayn squirms. “Our studio is across the road.”
Liam kisses his neck. “My apartment’s just around the corner. We’ve probably-”
(‘seen each other ordered coffee together bumped fingers over the sugar stand’)
He stretches to expose more skin. “If you’d chosen differently-”
“We might have come together as a band,” Louis says, absentmindedly, but in a tone that insists he’s thought about it like Zayn has, thought about Liam in the Bungalow or hiding with them in nameless cities or being another person to share their whole life with.
Liam stares for a moment, maybe fitting them into his own life, before leaning across the table to steal Louis’ bacon. “Or I would have beaten all four of you,” he teases, before nudging his knee against Zayn’s under the table and whispering - “and I would have spent two whole years with you between my sheets.”
Zayn grins and prods his ribs in retaliation and pulls back immediately when Liam winces a little too loud. “Okay, darling?” he asks, biting back the endearment a moment too late.
His eyes brighten with pleasure and he stares at his drink to hide it from the world. “A little stiff,” he admits, “from the-”
“Kinky, contortionist sex?” Louis suggests, and Zayn chucks the crust from his toast at him.
Harry grins and takes a sip of his tea. “Beating a world record?”
“Corrupting our poor Malik beyond recognition?” Niall offers, and Liam grins into his neck and stays there.
That’s all he can focus on for the rest of breakfast and everyone notices. Liam’s a fucking tease, resting a hand on the inside of his thigh and grinding back tauntingly and dragging his eyes down his body every few bites.
When Zayn reaches for his wallet, Liam makes a noise of disapproval that drives him insane and drops him onto the other chair. He pays for the five of them and buys Zayn a coffee just the way he likes and he thinks he might defile his favourite cafe if Liam continues smirking into his skin.
He’s wound tight all the way up his spine when they finish and he knows how it must look, his flushed cheeks and fingers wrapped tense around Liam’s wrist, but his virtue and calibre is the last thing on his mind as he hauls his - no - to his apartment because it’s twenty minutes closer than his hotel.
Liam starts tugging at his zipper, fingers brushing obscenely over his cock every few seconds. “Eager?” he teases, a little smug, but he whimpers when Zayn shoves away his hands to pull him into a kiss.
He waits until he’s pliant and smiling under his hands to push him all the way into his spare room. They stumble into a door as he hastily shoves down Liam’s sweats and he laughs and groans into his mouth at once.
“No boxers?” he asks, and bites at his lips when he tries to respond. “Actually don’t answer. Lift up.”
The hitch is Liam’s breath is muffled by the cotton pulled over his mouth. “I thought you were going to show me your photo albums.”
“After I make you scream,” he promises, nuzzling down his chest to nose at the inside of his elbows. “But right now, I want you to grab the bar and do a pull-up and hold it there.”
Liam obliges and Zayn presses a quick kiss to his lips before dropping to his knees. He brushes chapped lips over the defined hip lines until Liam’s tensing his arms to simultaneously evade and sink into the pressure.
The first hot breath over the shaft forces a broken noise out of Liam’s throat and he was going to go slow, he was going to suck bruises down his thighs and lick the creases between his limbs and kiss gently around the head, but that noise ruins him too. Zayn sucks him to the root and swallows around the head and Liam’s loose and whining beneath him.
He licks sloppily up the shaft and settles on his heels, hands gripping his hips while he takes him deep and keeps him there, groaning needily as Liam squirms out of his mouth.
“Don’t make noises like that,” he scowls, breathing heavy.
He grins and scratches his stubble over the inside of his thighs. “Noises like what?” he asks teasingly, nuzzling into his groin. His lips are smeared with precome and spit and he licks it off eagerly and Liam moans in response.
His cock jolts a little. “Like you’re starving for my cock.”
“What if I am?” he teases, shifting grab the lube and kiss around his perineum. The floor is hard under his knees as he slicks up two fingers, trailing them in circles around his hole and breathing around them. Then, lower, softer - “what if I’m starving for something else?”
Before he can protest, Zayn pushes a finger inside, licking obscenely at where their bodies meet, feeling him fall apart with every gentle thrust. “Smooth everywhere aren’t you?” he teases, and wriggles his tongue inside.
Liam shakes deep to his bones. “Friction,” he repeats, and lasts a total of six seconds before contracting his biceps and moaning loud enough to echo and wriggling out of reach, “but stop stop I’ll pass out and strain a muscle your tongue Zayn-”
He smirks and shifts to suck at his shaft again, tight and wet and a little too much for either of them. Liam clenches around the fingers automatically and Zayn swallows around the head until he’s wriggling, desperate, unsure whether to thrust in deeper or grind against the penetration.
He manages both and Zayn gives in. The sight of him, muscles stretched taut with sweat dripping down his torso and mouth lax and wild and forming unrecognisable noises and ‘please please Zayn please’, is enough to force a blur of testosterone through his blood. He groans helplessly around his cock and palms at his erection through the denim.
Thighs settle on his shoulders and press down impatiently. “Are you touching yourself?” he asks roughly, and then, rougher - “Zayn, you’ll be the death of me” - and his name sounds so pretty from those lips.
Liam shifts to free one of his hands and trail sore fingers down his jaw and slip into his mouth to feel their touching skin. They hold down his tongue as his hips stutter and Liam comes all the way down his throat.
He swallows and the taste of sweat and boy and chlorine shouldn’t taste so good but he can’t help licking him clean.
A car honks below them and Liam slowly drops to the floor and nudges him back to mouth eagerly at his crotch until Zayn freezes all over.
The sun is heavy in the sky when they move from the unforgiving floor to the cool sheets. Liam’s blush stains his cheeks as he shows him all his baby photos, and Zayn can’t help studying the line of his jaw for the rest of the afternoon.
/ / /
The next day, he wakes up to a cold bed and the sound of Liam across the room. He’s coaching Harry through some breathing exercises with a hand spread across his abdomen and that husky morning voice is saying ‘see just breathe with your diaphragm not your chest it increases lung capacity by something crazy, and I know you’re nervous but when you’re surfacing from somewhere deep you need to breathe out slowly so nitrogen doesn’t compress your brain so just breathe, okay, cuddle your band who loves you, sing to the world who loves you, and you will grow into your lungs’.
A few songs later, when Harry’s retaught his stiff body, he wraps his arms around Liam’s neck and whispers something that Zayn can’t hear and he’s not quite sure why he likes watching his halves merge so much.
Liam sees and crawls back into bed with a ‘morning sleepy’ and they kiss lazily until their lips are bruised. The boys leave and Zayn cuddles into his cold skin.
Afterwards, he pulls out his laptop and tugs Liam between his legs and plays him all the videos from the tour and the Brits and the nights in-between.
And later, after he’s twisted all the way in his grip to kiss him a million times, Liam pulls out his Mac to show him his iTunes and he sings old jazz songs and ‘going nowhere fast we’ve reached the climax’ in a falsetto that drives him insane.
(so insane that he knocks the computer to the side, takes a dozen photos of them cuddling with the webcam, and records their hips stuttering against each other)
/ / /
Zayn lasts a total of twelve hours without him before giving in and sneaking through the hallways to Liam’s room. He knocks and waits before using the key he left and he’s walked in on a lot of things in the past few years (some including Niall, some including Harry and Louis, most including all three), but seeing a line of swimmers practicing handstands half-dressed and blaring his album shocks him a little more than it should.
Liam twists his neck, laughs, and shifts gracefully to his feet. Zayn’s heart beats a little faster. “You,” he says happily as he tugs him into a hug, “I thought you had practise.”
He shrugs and passes him a coffee and the row of boys behind them wolf-whistle and cat-call and turn a little wild when Liam hides his grin in his shoulder. “You tweeted about coffee yesterday,” he says, and Liam whispers something into his skin that he doesn’t quite catch.
What Makes You Beautiful finishes and the swimmers shift back to their feet. They bump shoulders and walk out of the room and chime ‘see you tonight, sugar’ until Liam laughs.
“Are you going out?” Zayn asks, as one of the boys props himself on the windowsill and plays with his phone.
He nuzzles into his neck. “It’s the end of the swimming week,” he says, “we’re celebrating and we’re allowed to drink.”
“Do I get you tomorrow?” he asks, slipping his fingers over the bare, relaxed muscles in his back. “I owe you lunch.”
The boy jumps to his feet and crowds close. His chest presses against Liam’s back and he swears he sees lips press against his neck. “Speaking of,” he mumbles, low and rough, as hands graze over Zayn’s on his way to Liam’s hips, “I owe you a blowjob. How about an endorphin rush for the meet in Mexico next month?”
Liam squirms between them and Zayn’s hands fall to the sides. “I don’t-” he starts, before leaning into Zayn’s neck, bumping against his loose hands, “this is-”
His eyes brighten with recognition and he steps back. “You’re Zayn,” he says, taking in their touching skin with a mischievous smirk. He slaps Liam’s arse to push them closer. “I’m Jude and I did not expect you two to fuck so soon.”
They flush and Jude shucks out of his sweatpants and disappears into the bathroom.
All his muscles stiffen a little and he fixes his hair to hide his eyes. “Why do they call you that?” he asks, stumbling backwards, staring at his neck and the soft pink from Jude’s lips. Liam frowns and shifts closer.
“They say I’m too sweet,” he says. “Are we-?”
He fumbles for the doorknob. “I should get back, we’re having problems with the amps-”
Liam grabs his wrist and tugs him back into his space and stares at him until he has to look away. “Zayn,” he says softly, and he butts against the bare collarbone in response, “I haven’t - not since our first date-”
He opens his mouth to respond but Liam nudges him against the doorway and kisses him soft and his reply is lost somewhere in the atmosphere.
/ / /
“Jude,” Zayn groans, into Louis’ neck. Fingers scratch his scalp soothingly and every so often lips press to his hair and he likes that Louis hides this side, the side that would twist his bones to cheer them up. “I can’t compete with a Beatles song, Lou.”
Harry laughs across the room. “You’re panicking, Malik,” he teases, “it’s not like they’re still fucking. It would be like him being jealous of Nick Grimshaw.”
He twists to pout at him. “I don’t room with Nick Grimshaw. Nick Grimshaw doesn’t slap my arse and give me a hickey before we play. Nick Grimshaw isn’t an Olympian trained in endurance and strength and throat capacity-”
Louis bites his neck in reprimand and shoves his phone into his hand. “He turns you into a teenage girl, sweetheart,” he whispers, and Zayn automatically checks his messages with a smile on his lips.
There’s a tweet from Liam saying ‘@zaynmalik I miss your stupid quiff’ and a voice mail saying ‘I’m drunk and I wish you were here and you’re such a better fuck than Jude I promise’ and there’s a monster deep in his chest that purrs in content.
/ / /
Liam sneaks into his bed late and presses a trail of sweet kisses up his neck in apology. He smells like sweat and alcohol and stale water from the Thames and Zayn deliberately pushes his body against the coarse fabric of his clothes.
“Is this okay?” Liam whispers, lips buried in Zayn’s hair as drunk fingers sneak around to fit in the spaces between ribs.
“You’re a national treasure,” he teases, “I think it’s parliamentary law I surrender my virtue to you.”
Liam huffs a laugh against the nape of his neck. “You’ll have no virtue left after this weekend.”
“Is that a promise?” he asks softly, a little more serious than intended.
They squirm playfully against each other until Zayn rolls over, tucking himself in the hollows of Liam’s body (the tendons in his neck, the low collarbones, the shallow dip between his muscled shoulders - they feel like they’re crafted for his hands), and whispering an ‘I like you in my bed more than I like the bass under my feet and the crowd’s cheers before my eyes’.
“I hope that’s a lot,” Liam says hastily, all bravado, but he smothers a grin in Zayn’s hair until the sun drifts over the skyline.
/ / /
The next morning, Liam wakes him up with slick fingers dancing gently over his hole and a bit later (a lot later) they crawl out of bed and sneak out of the hotel. He drags Zayn across the city and into a tattoo parlour with hopeful eyes and a hopeless smile.
“The ring tattoo is initiation for the British swim team,” he says softly, tugging off his t-shirt. Zayn watches the exposed skin hungrily and crowds closer to help. “I was hoping - maybe - you could do mine?”
He watches Liam’s eyes brighten and automatically surges forward to kiss him, nudging him into the chair, whimpering into his mouth. They kiss all the way through the safety and when Zayn breaks the contact to listen to the instructions, lips are dragged down his jaw and back again.
Liam straddles the chair and stretches his arms to the floor and Zayn’s ‘are you sure?’ is answered with a kick to his thighs and an ‘I’m sure sweetheart and you have a tattoo of an exploding mic you cannot judge’.
Zayn’s careful, nervous, kneading the opposite shoulder and kissing around the sore skin around the rings. Liam makes these breathless noises that send him insane.
It takes a few hours and when it’s over, his back is slick with his kisses and Zayn’s cock is pressing insistently against his fly and he’s overwhelmed with the desire to wrap his arms around his waist and never let go.
Liam slips off the chair and drags his eyes from his flushed cheeks to his crotch and winks (blinks) in response. He slips into the bathroom to rub in lotion and Zayn quickly hands the artist the coordinates for the aquatic centre and pulls down the back of his singlet to expose the nape of his neck.
Liam raises an eyebrow from the bathroom and Zayn’s suddenly and inexplicably nervous.
“It’s not for you,” he promises, but it is, at least a little, because he’s never met someone able to flip the world upside down and still keep him anchored to the ground.
Liam grins at him like he knows and sits on the hard floor and watches hungrily as he squirms against the needle.
And afterwards, back at the hotel, Zayn slides into his pliant body with his lips pressing against the bruised shoulder and Liam twists an arm to touch the coordinates and the sweet sting reduces their vocabularies to ‘please please fuck please’.
/ / /
Liam fits in his life the same way he fits against his body - subtly, easily, close to all his essential organs. He wakes up the next to him and falls asleep beside him and in the spaces between, Zayn shows him his world and Liam shows him the rest.
(there are also the midnight kisses in the pool and the walks along the Thames and watching his friends compete and waking up to Liam wrestling Niall and sharing notebooks and sneaking through the city and a thousand other things which Zayn will always associate with their week in London)
/ / /
On the day of the closing ceremony, Zayn leaves their dressing room to grab a water and when he comes back, Liam’s on the couch with Harry in his lap, Niall on his left and Louis on his right. Niall’s on the phone to Josh and Harry and Louis are sharing sweet kisses and Liam’s the lungs taking all the carbon dioxide out of their blood. He’s singing something soft and sweet, maybe somewhere over the rainbow like he does when he’s brushing his teeth, and there’s a bouquet of flowers beside his jacket and Zayn’s lungs swell at the sight.
Liam sees him in the doorway and finishes the chorus staring at his lips. There’s a spot between his legs for him but the buoyancy in his lungs and air of serenity surrounding his bandmates drags him away from the sight and into the shower.
He’s halfway through soaping up when the glass door slides open and he’s pulled against that familiar muscled chest.
“You get mine anyway,” Liam repeats, nibbling all the way down his neck.
His legs shake a little at the sensation and Liam grins, sucking a gentle bruise onto his shoulder.
“You took care of me,” he mumbles, hot in his ear as nails scratch through the soap on his stomach, “you took such good care of me, and now I’m going to take care of you.”
Zayn twists eagerly on his axis to wrap an arm around his neck and tug him into a kiss. They grin against each other’s lips and fingers slide over his cock, practised and firm and familiar and warm and twisting around the head and mimicking the grind of his hips.
He bucks impatiently and Liam whispers ‘so fucking sexy, Zayn, remember the pool, remember the numb, remember that feeling no matter what’ that shoves him ruthlessly over the edge and into Liam’s strong grip.
/ / /
He doesn’t remember much of the performance, but he does remember this:
He looks up during Harry’s solo and there’s Liam, propped up on a German’s shoulders, watching them fondly and mouthing something similar to ‘breathe deep, breathe slow, release the pressure’ with a bottle of champagne loosely hoisted in the air.
Zayn thinks he falls a little in love before the end of the song.
/ / /
Zayn’s barely offstage when Liam shifts between the masses and pulls him into a tight hug. “You were brilliant,” he says, muffled by the roaring crowd, and then, clearer, for the other boys - “it was-”
He gives up on finding an adjective and instead wraps a careful hand around his neck, fingers twitching against the hidden tattoo. He guides Zayn all the way through the crowd and into the pit with the athletes and wraps his arms around to cage him in.
There are a million lights dancing before them and Zayn thinks they might be stars because he feels on top of the fucking world and nothing will ever compare to this, this is the beginning and the climax and the resolution all at once.
“Hey,” Liam says, swaying to the cover of all you need is love, blushing a little in the stadium lights, “in a few weeks, I’m in France for a meet when you’re there for an interview and we could - if you’d like-”
He grins and stretches up to nuzzle shamelessly at his neck. “Yeah,” he says, a little more breathless than he’ll admit to, “we could put a lock on the lover’s bridge.”
A hand wraps around his neck, settling low on the coordinates. “We could see the Eiffel Tower.”
He traces the line of his shoulders aimlessly. “Defile another competition pool.”
“Or another dressing room.”
He laughs, but the noise is caught in his throat as he presses their foreheads together. “Or you could come home with me tonight,” he suggests, and the whole world is pulled away when Liam groans and kisses him sweetly and-
He’s okay with drowning, he thinks, if he’s drowning in Liam.
They have a morning interview the next day and Liam’s final is in the early afternoon and Zayn’s nervous, he’s shaking, he feels like they’re on the edge of something brilliant and he’s afraid and excited all at once.
He sneaks out before dawn and takes a left instead of a right and he’s halfway through the buzzing aquatic centre when he’s tugged behind the bleachers and into a hug.
“You,” Liam says breathily, into his neck, “what are you doing here?”
His arms tighten a little more than necessary. “What are you doing under the bleachers?”
“Waiting to snog you,” he teases, and then blushes furiously. “Hiding from the press, actually, you would know all about that.”
He scratches the hair at the nape of his neck and Liam squirms in response. “I know all about wanting to snog you.”
“Zayn,” he scolds, grinning into his shoulder. There’s a pressure on his neck and it might be a pair of lips, but that might be a little wishful. “Why are you here?”
“I needed to wish you luck,” he admits, and yes, there’s the kiss that neither of them are quite ready for. Zayn tries to bite on the groan of encouragement and kisses his collarbone instead.
That’s how they spend the next twenty minutes, kissing all over strong shoulders and laughing in-between.
Zayn’s the first to pull away, but he keeps his arms heavy around him and presses their foreheads together. He considers kissing him properly, but the fear in his blood holds him back. “Music’s on your side, sweetheart,” he says, and Liam’s breath is hot against his lips, “and so am I.”
Liam grins a little helplessly and they don’t kiss, but something fresh and bright flashes in his eyes and Zayn wants to drown in them.
(and in him, too)
/ / /
He’s distracted all the way through the interview and the whole ride back. He registers, he does, he hears them ask about Liam and the closing ceremony and the new album, but none of that matters quite as much as seeing the final.
They’re in the car and Louis is teasing him softly to calm him down, a long breath of ‘you’re going to get fucked tonight, darling, he’s not going to be able to control himself’ which leaves him hot all over and smothering his smile in the heavy bouquet of flowers in his lap.
He misses the beginning of the race but catches the end. The crowd’s screaming and Liam a whole body’s length ahead and the contagious smile cracks his wet lips when he realises he’s won.
He’s pulled out of the water by a few teammates Zayn doesn’t recognise but that melts away, everything melts away, because Liam sees him through all the people and pushes everything else aside.
“You,” he says breathlessly, as though it’s the only word he can remember, “you-”
Fingers curl in Zayn’s leather jacket and he pushes him backwards, through the crowd, out of sight, and against the wall. He makes a soft noise of protest and the huff of breath forced from him is smothered by Liam’s rough kiss.
“I will always associate the best week of my life with you, Zayn Malik,” he accuses, hands pinning his hips to the wall. He tastes like chlorine and Powerade and like the rest of his life. “I hope you’re pleased, arsehole.”
“So pleased,” he says, and Liam groans into his mouth and chases the noise with his tongue. “And I hope that’s where this is heading.”
He nods and their noses brush together as he licks against his teeth. “After the interviews,” he promises, shoving the jacket off his shoulders, “after the presentation, I’m going to feel those trembles from the inside out, I swear.”
Zayn groans and Liam grinds against his hips in response and when they leave their lips are bruised and their hair is messy and Zayn’s heart is somewhere in the clouds.
/ / /
He gives Liam his bouquet in front of twenty thousand people and the whole world and something beautiful and possessive coils in his stomach when Liam holds his hand during all his interviews.
/ / /
They’re barely through the door when Liam pulls off his shirt, shoving him against the wall. The crowd’s cheering on the streets below and there’s James Brown blaring from a set of amps and Zayn’s needy and warm all over.
“I beat the world record,” he mumbles, against his lips, between kisses. Zayn squirms into his touch and against the wall. “They offered me a sponsorship and I had an erection the whole time from thinking of you - here - under me.”
He whimpers a little into his mouth and gnaws at his lips to cover the noise. “I was being patient,” he breathes into his mouth and Liam groans in response. A hand wraps around a thigh to hoist him up easily. “Adrenalin drives you insane. It could have been rape.”
“Consensual,” he says huskily. He tugs at his zipper and pushes him closer to the wall to pull off their pants and bathers in one clumsy movement. “This is completely consensual.”
Zayn grins and sneaks his fingers down, shivering a little at the endless expanse of soft, skin. “Bare here?” he asks breathlessly, drawing circles around the clean shaven root of his cock. Liam shakes at the touch.
“Reduces friction,” he repeats, “and super - fuck - sensitive.”
He grins and rubs against him, precome smearing against his groin, and they both shiver at the touch. He’s distracted with soft kisses and slippery fingers circling carefully around his hole.
“Please,” he whispers, just once, and Liam slides them in carefully.
Their kisses falter as they adjust to the feeling and when Liam starts to move, they both shake a little.
He wraps his legs around his waist and grinds down on slick fingers. “You can-”
Lips are pressed against his neck and his body is pushed a little harder against the wall. “I bench press your weight,” he says cockily, but it’s ruined by the shameless groan that falls from his lips when Zayn tightens around him. “I can handle you.”
“I can handle you,” he repeats, sucking at his jaw until a bruise forms, “test me, show me-”
A breath hitches (it might be his or it might be Liam’s or it might be both of theirs) as he pulls out and scratches across his thighs and lubes up his cock.
He pauses, slick head nudging against his hole, fingers pressing into his hips to hold him up. “Next time,” he whispers, sweetly kissing his neck, “next time we’ll go slow and horizontal and careful. I will make it so good for you, sweetheart, I will shatter you and put you back together-”
His hips buck shamelessly to sink onto his cock and that moment, with Liam buried inside, burning up all his neurons, fills his lungs with water.
They’re still for a little too long and he’s whimpering shamelessly into his neck, scratching down his back where the hints of chlorine stain his muscles. He clenches his thighs over his hips and Liam starts thrusting, quick and deep and brutal in a way that reduces Zayn to whining within seconds.
He grinds back onto his cock, presses their foreheads together, and starts whispering non-sequitur nonsense against his lips like ‘all day Liam all day before the race before the bleachers before last night’ and ‘you’re strong and I’m boneless’ and ‘lets fuck everyday please orgasms are good for the soul’.
Liam grins against his lips and sneaks his fingers to his hole, rubbing gently around the sensitive rim while he snaps his hips, and that’s all it takes.
Zayn comes hot and untouched between them and the noise Liam makes is weak and strong and happy and destroyed all at once. He bites into his collarbone, just over the tattoo, and stutters his hips and almost slams him through the plaster in his climax.
There’s sweat down his spine and between their touching skin. Liam licks at the beads accumulating under his jaw and laughs over the cool saliva. “Fuck,” he breathes, and Zayn’s answering ‘wow’ prompts hands to travel from his arse to his waist and cuddle close.
He carries him all the way to the bed and fits him between the sheets. They kiss until the sun sets and the swell of his heart ambushes Zayn and robs him of everything but Liam and the dark room and the smell of chlorine.
And a few hours later, their reckless kisses are matched with careful hands and Liam shows him just how gentle he can be.
/ / /
Liam’s nervous beside him as they walk into the cafe where the band met before recording and drank strong coffee with hangovers and ate ice-cream right before Christmas. He’s raking his nails over Zayn’s spine and he might be drawing blood and Zayn ignores how much he likes the possibility.
The boys are at the table and stop whispering the second they approach. They jostle a little over the chairs and he raises an eyebrow during the distraction. “This is Liam,” he introduces, tangling their fingers together between their plates, “and you should play fair and be nice.”
Niall grins wolfishly and piles eggs between his toast. “You’re a fangirl fantasy come true.”
Liam laughs and steals all the soft bacon from Zayn’s plate and piles on the crispy strips. “I actually don’t know your music too well,” he admits.
Louis grins and Zayn kicks him hard. “Actually, we were talking about-”
“That’s Louis,” he interrupts, “he’s an arsehole. So are Harry and Niall, left and right.”
There’s a line of grease over his bottom lip that glistens when he smiles. “I know who they are,” he says, “my flatmate wants to shag all four of you.”
Harry’s eyes brighten and he reaches for Liam’s tomatoes. “Do you happen to live with Tom Daley?”
He slaps his hand away but piles them onto his plate anyway. “No, but he always plays your music at the pool.”
They settle into the conversation and Zayn loves this, loves Liam between him and his friends with their thighs pressed together. He doesn’t want to leave, he’s never going to leave, but then a group of guys in matching sweatpants enter and Liam’s out of his chair and in one of their laps before he can argue.
“He’s like us,” Harry says, as one of the boys nuzzles into his hair and gives him his coffee, and Zayn hides his fond smile with an unlit cigarette between his lips.
Liam comes back to the table a little later and the boys sing ‘sugar, oh honey honey’ until he flips them off.
The sun’s hot but the look Liam shoots him is hotter as he lifts Zayn from his seat and pulls him into his lap. His fingers slip into his lips to pull out the cigarette and his tongue follows to lick away the taste of nicotine.
“Sorry,” he says, unfazed, to the rest of the band. “That’s my team. We usually come here together.”
Hands slip under his shirt and toy at the hair below his bellybutton. Zayn squirms. “Our studio is across the road.”
Liam kisses his neck. “My apartment’s just around the corner. We’ve probably-”
(‘seen each other ordered coffee together bumped fingers over the sugar stand’)
He stretches to expose more skin. “If you’d chosen differently-”
“We might have come together as a band,” Louis says, absentmindedly, but in a tone that insists he’s thought about it like Zayn has, thought about Liam in the Bungalow or hiding with them in nameless cities or being another person to share their whole life with.
Liam stares for a moment, maybe fitting them into his own life, before leaning across the table to steal Louis’ bacon. “Or I would have beaten all four of you,” he teases, before nudging his knee against Zayn’s under the table and whispering - “and I would have spent two whole years with you between my sheets.”
Zayn grins and prods his ribs in retaliation and pulls back immediately when Liam winces a little too loud. “Okay, darling?” he asks, biting back the endearment a moment too late.
His eyes brighten with pleasure and he stares at his drink to hide it from the world. “A little stiff,” he admits, “from the-”
“Kinky, contortionist sex?” Louis suggests, and Zayn chucks the crust from his toast at him.
Harry grins and takes a sip of his tea. “Beating a world record?”
“Corrupting our poor Malik beyond recognition?” Niall offers, and Liam grins into his neck and stays there.
That’s all he can focus on for the rest of breakfast and everyone notices. Liam’s a fucking tease, resting a hand on the inside of his thigh and grinding back tauntingly and dragging his eyes down his body every few bites.
When Zayn reaches for his wallet, Liam makes a noise of disapproval that drives him insane and drops him onto the other chair. He pays for the five of them and buys Zayn a coffee just the way he likes and he thinks he might defile his favourite cafe if Liam continues smirking into his skin.
He’s wound tight all the way up his spine when they finish and he knows how it must look, his flushed cheeks and fingers wrapped tense around Liam’s wrist, but his virtue and calibre is the last thing on his mind as he hauls his - no - to his apartment because it’s twenty minutes closer than his hotel.
Liam starts tugging at his zipper, fingers brushing obscenely over his cock every few seconds. “Eager?” he teases, a little smug, but he whimpers when Zayn shoves away his hands to pull him into a kiss.
He waits until he’s pliant and smiling under his hands to push him all the way into his spare room. They stumble into a door as he hastily shoves down Liam’s sweats and he laughs and groans into his mouth at once.
“No boxers?” he asks, and bites at his lips when he tries to respond. “Actually don’t answer. Lift up.”
The hitch is Liam’s breath is muffled by the cotton pulled over his mouth. “I thought you were going to show me your photo albums.”
“After I make you scream,” he promises, nuzzling down his chest to nose at the inside of his elbows. “But right now, I want you to grab the bar and do a pull-up and hold it there.”
Liam obliges and Zayn presses a quick kiss to his lips before dropping to his knees. He brushes chapped lips over the defined hip lines until Liam’s tensing his arms to simultaneously evade and sink into the pressure.
The first hot breath over the shaft forces a broken noise out of Liam’s throat and he was going to go slow, he was going to suck bruises down his thighs and lick the creases between his limbs and kiss gently around the head, but that noise ruins him too. Zayn sucks him to the root and swallows around the head and Liam’s loose and whining beneath him.
He licks sloppily up the shaft and settles on his heels, hands gripping his hips while he takes him deep and keeps him there, groaning needily as Liam squirms out of his mouth.
“Don’t make noises like that,” he scowls, breathing heavy.
He grins and scratches his stubble over the inside of his thighs. “Noises like what?” he asks teasingly, nuzzling into his groin. His lips are smeared with precome and spit and he licks it off eagerly and Liam moans in response.
His cock jolts a little. “Like you’re starving for my cock.”
“What if I am?” he teases, shifting grab the lube and kiss around his perineum. The floor is hard under his knees as he slicks up two fingers, trailing them in circles around his hole and breathing around them. Then, lower, softer - “what if I’m starving for something else?”
Before he can protest, Zayn pushes a finger inside, licking obscenely at where their bodies meet, feeling him fall apart with every gentle thrust. “Smooth everywhere aren’t you?” he teases, and wriggles his tongue inside.
Liam shakes deep to his bones. “Friction,” he repeats, and lasts a total of six seconds before contracting his biceps and moaning loud enough to echo and wriggling out of reach, “but stop stop I’ll pass out and strain a muscle your tongue Zayn-”
He smirks and shifts to suck at his shaft again, tight and wet and a little too much for either of them. Liam clenches around the fingers automatically and Zayn swallows around the head until he’s wriggling, desperate, unsure whether to thrust in deeper or grind against the penetration.
He manages both and Zayn gives in. The sight of him, muscles stretched taut with sweat dripping down his torso and mouth lax and wild and forming unrecognisable noises and ‘please please Zayn please’, is enough to force a blur of testosterone through his blood. He groans helplessly around his cock and palms at his erection through the denim.
Thighs settle on his shoulders and press down impatiently. “Are you touching yourself?” he asks roughly, and then, rougher - “Zayn, you’ll be the death of me” - and his name sounds so pretty from those lips.
Liam shifts to free one of his hands and trail sore fingers down his jaw and slip into his mouth to feel their touching skin. They hold down his tongue as his hips stutter and Liam comes all the way down his throat.
He swallows and the taste of sweat and boy and chlorine shouldn’t taste so good but he can’t help licking him clean.
A car honks below them and Liam slowly drops to the floor and nudges him back to mouth eagerly at his crotch until Zayn freezes all over.
The sun is heavy in the sky when they move from the unforgiving floor to the cool sheets. Liam’s blush stains his cheeks as he shows him all his baby photos, and Zayn can’t help studying the line of his jaw for the rest of the afternoon.
/ / /
The next day, he wakes up to a cold bed and the sound of Liam across the room. He’s coaching Harry through some breathing exercises with a hand spread across his abdomen and that husky morning voice is saying ‘see just breathe with your diaphragm not your chest it increases lung capacity by something crazy, and I know you’re nervous but when you’re surfacing from somewhere deep you need to breathe out slowly so nitrogen doesn’t compress your brain so just breathe, okay, cuddle your band who loves you, sing to the world who loves you, and you will grow into your lungs’.
A few songs later, when Harry’s retaught his stiff body, he wraps his arms around Liam’s neck and whispers something that Zayn can’t hear and he’s not quite sure why he likes watching his halves merge so much.
Liam sees and crawls back into bed with a ‘morning sleepy’ and they kiss lazily until their lips are bruised. The boys leave and Zayn cuddles into his cold skin.
Afterwards, he pulls out his laptop and tugs Liam between his legs and plays him all the videos from the tour and the Brits and the nights in-between.
And later, after he’s twisted all the way in his grip to kiss him a million times, Liam pulls out his Mac to show him his iTunes and he sings old jazz songs and ‘going nowhere fast we’ve reached the climax’ in a falsetto that drives him insane.
(so insane that he knocks the computer to the side, takes a dozen photos of them cuddling with the webcam, and records their hips stuttering against each other)
/ / /
Zayn lasts a total of twelve hours without him before giving in and sneaking through the hallways to Liam’s room. He knocks and waits before using the key he left and he’s walked in on a lot of things in the past few years (some including Niall, some including Harry and Louis, most including all three), but seeing a line of swimmers practicing handstands half-dressed and blaring his album shocks him a little more than it should.
Liam twists his neck, laughs, and shifts gracefully to his feet. Zayn’s heart beats a little faster. “You,” he says happily as he tugs him into a hug, “I thought you had practise.”
He shrugs and passes him a coffee and the row of boys behind them wolf-whistle and cat-call and turn a little wild when Liam hides his grin in his shoulder. “You tweeted about coffee yesterday,” he says, and Liam whispers something into his skin that he doesn’t quite catch.
What Makes You Beautiful finishes and the swimmers shift back to their feet. They bump shoulders and walk out of the room and chime ‘see you tonight, sugar’ until Liam laughs.
“Are you going out?” Zayn asks, as one of the boys props himself on the windowsill and plays with his phone.
He nuzzles into his neck. “It’s the end of the swimming week,” he says, “we’re celebrating and we’re allowed to drink.”
“Do I get you tomorrow?” he asks, slipping his fingers over the bare, relaxed muscles in his back. “I owe you lunch.”
The boy jumps to his feet and crowds close. His chest presses against Liam’s back and he swears he sees lips press against his neck. “Speaking of,” he mumbles, low and rough, as hands graze over Zayn’s on his way to Liam’s hips, “I owe you a blowjob. How about an endorphin rush for the meet in Mexico next month?”
Liam squirms between them and Zayn’s hands fall to the sides. “I don’t-” he starts, before leaning into Zayn’s neck, bumping against his loose hands, “this is-”
His eyes brighten with recognition and he steps back. “You’re Zayn,” he says, taking in their touching skin with a mischievous smirk. He slaps Liam’s arse to push them closer. “I’m Jude and I did not expect you two to fuck so soon.”
They flush and Jude shucks out of his sweatpants and disappears into the bathroom.
All his muscles stiffen a little and he fixes his hair to hide his eyes. “Why do they call you that?” he asks, stumbling backwards, staring at his neck and the soft pink from Jude’s lips. Liam frowns and shifts closer.
“They say I’m too sweet,” he says. “Are we-?”
He fumbles for the doorknob. “I should get back, we’re having problems with the amps-”
Liam grabs his wrist and tugs him back into his space and stares at him until he has to look away. “Zayn,” he says softly, and he butts against the bare collarbone in response, “I haven’t - not since our first date-”
He opens his mouth to respond but Liam nudges him against the doorway and kisses him soft and his reply is lost somewhere in the atmosphere.
/ / /
“Jude,” Zayn groans, into Louis’ neck. Fingers scratch his scalp soothingly and every so often lips press to his hair and he likes that Louis hides this side, the side that would twist his bones to cheer them up. “I can’t compete with a Beatles song, Lou.”
Harry laughs across the room. “You’re panicking, Malik,” he teases, “it’s not like they’re still fucking. It would be like him being jealous of Nick Grimshaw.”
He twists to pout at him. “I don’t room with Nick Grimshaw. Nick Grimshaw doesn’t slap my arse and give me a hickey before we play. Nick Grimshaw isn’t an Olympian trained in endurance and strength and throat capacity-”
Louis bites his neck in reprimand and shoves his phone into his hand. “He turns you into a teenage girl, sweetheart,” he whispers, and Zayn automatically checks his messages with a smile on his lips.
There’s a tweet from Liam saying ‘@zaynmalik I miss your stupid quiff’ and a voice mail saying ‘I’m drunk and I wish you were here and you’re such a better fuck than Jude I promise’ and there’s a monster deep in his chest that purrs in content.
/ / /
Liam sneaks into his bed late and presses a trail of sweet kisses up his neck in apology. He smells like sweat and alcohol and stale water from the Thames and Zayn deliberately pushes his body against the coarse fabric of his clothes.
“Is this okay?” Liam whispers, lips buried in Zayn’s hair as drunk fingers sneak around to fit in the spaces between ribs.
“You’re a national treasure,” he teases, “I think it’s parliamentary law I surrender my virtue to you.”
Liam huffs a laugh against the nape of his neck. “You’ll have no virtue left after this weekend.”
“Is that a promise?” he asks softly, a little more serious than intended.
They squirm playfully against each other until Zayn rolls over, tucking himself in the hollows of Liam’s body (the tendons in his neck, the low collarbones, the shallow dip between his muscled shoulders - they feel like they’re crafted for his hands), and whispering an ‘I like you in my bed more than I like the bass under my feet and the crowd’s cheers before my eyes’.
“I hope that’s a lot,” Liam says hastily, all bravado, but he smothers a grin in Zayn’s hair until the sun drifts over the skyline.
/ / /
The next morning, Liam wakes him up with slick fingers dancing gently over his hole and a bit later (a lot later) they crawl out of bed and sneak out of the hotel. He drags Zayn across the city and into a tattoo parlour with hopeful eyes and a hopeless smile.
“The ring tattoo is initiation for the British swim team,” he says softly, tugging off his t-shirt. Zayn watches the exposed skin hungrily and crowds closer to help. “I was hoping - maybe - you could do mine?”
He watches Liam’s eyes brighten and automatically surges forward to kiss him, nudging him into the chair, whimpering into his mouth. They kiss all the way through the safety and when Zayn breaks the contact to listen to the instructions, lips are dragged down his jaw and back again.
Liam straddles the chair and stretches his arms to the floor and Zayn’s ‘are you sure?’ is answered with a kick to his thighs and an ‘I’m sure sweetheart and you have a tattoo of an exploding mic you cannot judge’.
Zayn’s careful, nervous, kneading the opposite shoulder and kissing around the sore skin around the rings. Liam makes these breathless noises that send him insane.
It takes a few hours and when it’s over, his back is slick with his kisses and Zayn’s cock is pressing insistently against his fly and he’s overwhelmed with the desire to wrap his arms around his waist and never let go.
Liam slips off the chair and drags his eyes from his flushed cheeks to his crotch and winks (blinks) in response. He slips into the bathroom to rub in lotion and Zayn quickly hands the artist the coordinates for the aquatic centre and pulls down the back of his singlet to expose the nape of his neck.
Liam raises an eyebrow from the bathroom and Zayn’s suddenly and inexplicably nervous.
“It’s not for you,” he promises, but it is, at least a little, because he’s never met someone able to flip the world upside down and still keep him anchored to the ground.
Liam grins at him like he knows and sits on the hard floor and watches hungrily as he squirms against the needle.
And afterwards, back at the hotel, Zayn slides into his pliant body with his lips pressing against the bruised shoulder and Liam twists an arm to touch the coordinates and the sweet sting reduces their vocabularies to ‘please please fuck please’.
/ / /
Liam fits in his life the same way he fits against his body - subtly, easily, close to all his essential organs. He wakes up the next to him and falls asleep beside him and in the spaces between, Zayn shows him his world and Liam shows him the rest.
(there are also the midnight kisses in the pool and the walks along the Thames and watching his friends compete and waking up to Liam wrestling Niall and sharing notebooks and sneaking through the city and a thousand other things which Zayn will always associate with their week in London)
/ / /
On the day of the closing ceremony, Zayn leaves their dressing room to grab a water and when he comes back, Liam’s on the couch with Harry in his lap, Niall on his left and Louis on his right. Niall’s on the phone to Josh and Harry and Louis are sharing sweet kisses and Liam’s the lungs taking all the carbon dioxide out of their blood. He’s singing something soft and sweet, maybe somewhere over the rainbow like he does when he’s brushing his teeth, and there’s a bouquet of flowers beside his jacket and Zayn’s lungs swell at the sight.
Liam sees him in the doorway and finishes the chorus staring at his lips. There’s a spot between his legs for him but the buoyancy in his lungs and air of serenity surrounding his bandmates drags him away from the sight and into the shower.
He’s halfway through soaping up when the glass door slides open and he’s pulled against that familiar muscled chest.
“You get mine anyway,” Liam repeats, nibbling all the way down his neck.
His legs shake a little at the sensation and Liam grins, sucking a gentle bruise onto his shoulder.
“You took care of me,” he mumbles, hot in his ear as nails scratch through the soap on his stomach, “you took such good care of me, and now I’m going to take care of you.”
Zayn twists eagerly on his axis to wrap an arm around his neck and tug him into a kiss. They grin against each other’s lips and fingers slide over his cock, practised and firm and familiar and warm and twisting around the head and mimicking the grind of his hips.
He bucks impatiently and Liam whispers ‘so fucking sexy, Zayn, remember the pool, remember the numb, remember that feeling no matter what’ that shoves him ruthlessly over the edge and into Liam’s strong grip.
/ / /
He doesn’t remember much of the performance, but he does remember this:
He looks up during Harry’s solo and there’s Liam, propped up on a German’s shoulders, watching them fondly and mouthing something similar to ‘breathe deep, breathe slow, release the pressure’ with a bottle of champagne loosely hoisted in the air.
Zayn thinks he falls a little in love before the end of the song.
/ / /
Zayn’s barely offstage when Liam shifts between the masses and pulls him into a tight hug. “You were brilliant,” he says, muffled by the roaring crowd, and then, clearer, for the other boys - “it was-”
He gives up on finding an adjective and instead wraps a careful hand around his neck, fingers twitching against the hidden tattoo. He guides Zayn all the way through the crowd and into the pit with the athletes and wraps his arms around to cage him in.
There are a million lights dancing before them and Zayn thinks they might be stars because he feels on top of the fucking world and nothing will ever compare to this, this is the beginning and the climax and the resolution all at once.
“Hey,” Liam says, swaying to the cover of all you need is love, blushing a little in the stadium lights, “in a few weeks, I’m in France for a meet when you’re there for an interview and we could - if you’d like-”
He grins and stretches up to nuzzle shamelessly at his neck. “Yeah,” he says, a little more breathless than he’ll admit to, “we could put a lock on the lover’s bridge.”
A hand wraps around his neck, settling low on the coordinates. “We could see the Eiffel Tower.”
He traces the line of his shoulders aimlessly. “Defile another competition pool.”
“Or another dressing room.”
He laughs, but the noise is caught in his throat as he presses their foreheads together. “Or you could come home with me tonight,” he suggests, and the whole world is pulled away when Liam groans and kisses him sweetly and-
He’s okay with drowning, he thinks, if he’s drowning in Liam.