[fic]: one direction/ziam: I used to pray to recover you (1/1)
Title: I used to pray to recover you
Fandom: One Direction
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1 182
Characters/Pairing: Liam/Zayn
Summary: Liam takes up prayer when he can't take up Zayn.
Warnings: none.
Disclaimer: Not mine, not true.
Author's Note: Alternate timeline but still in a band. The boys are in NYC and Zayn gets more bad news.
-
Liam doesn't know what makes him do it. How he goes from contemplating a wank to getting on his knees to talk to a superordinate entity. Maybe it starts when Zayn leaves, just like everything always unravels when Zayn leaves, when Liam is left staring at his unscrewed organs trying to figure out how to slot them together again, the same way Niall can never quite shove the leftovers back in the fridge and it’s all a stinking mess in the morning.
-
Their first night in the city, he doesn't do anything about it. All of their hotel rooms have a bible beside the bed; Liam’s just the only one who sees it because he’s the stupid idiot still a bit awestruck, still likes to rifle through the free things and 'features' like he doesn't have all that money now. He finds it on his inventory of the nightstand and leaves it where it is, mostly because he doesn't do that kind of stuff, same as he doesn't do pay-per-view porn or fourteen-year-olds with his name magic-markered on their chests.
It’s not that he has anything against religion; he just doesn’t understand it. Faith is something in a George Michael song, though he supposes that it's also a kind of faith on the hotel's part to think that there's still piety in the world -- at least enough for the courtesy, which is an oddly nice notion.
Just for that, Liam hopes that somebody is getting use out of it, making dents in the carpet with their knees and whispering into the shaded curtain, through the slender balcony grille, like they care about what God thinks, like somebody really does know better.
Wall Street is dark at 9 pm and he makes a trip to Duane Reade with Paul just to see what his window looks like from the outside, imagines his outline if he were to pray against it, if he were to fall.
-
Then he really does it.
It starts out jokey. Little concerns. Liam prays for Niall's stomach, for all Nando’s everywhere. For Louis and Harry's bedsprings. Then it gets more specific. Zayn loses another family member and his damp face on Liam's hoodie feels like a wasted cigarette, a goddamn pity.
Later, when he's tucked Zayn’s limp body into his bed and gathered up the beer bottles, he finds himself on the balcony again excavating for words, his hood pulled up as though he’s simultaneously submitting to and hiding from God.
At some point he guesses that he should choose and just starts talking. Then thinks maybe he should kneel. But his legs feel funny, flaccid, like he can't quite find his knees and he guesses that's a pretty bad thing as far as prayer goes -- the fuck is with him, if he can’t even get that right.
Maybe the problem is Wall Street. The fact that even on the eleventh floor he doesn’t feel any closer to heaven, not when he can see straight into empty offices across the street where mugs and legal pads are still strewn over the counters - the wrecked viscera of real America, he heard the BBC call it once - while lanes upon lanes of traffic flow bright and urgent below.
In the end, Liam doesn’t look. He shutters his eyes and talks about Zayn, his salted face, and angry hair, who matters and matters and matters.
-
Zayn leaves. Liam talks.
He creaks by degrees and soon he can almost get all the way down. One night there’s a woman typing late in her cubicle across the street and they just stare at each other, until she blinks first and resumes her own litany, the screen a blue flame against her face.
Liam asks for things for Zayn, but all the while wonders if he’s only asking for himself, asking for Zayn.
His head starts to quiver, and this is wordplay that even he knows he’s not clever enough to contemplate, so he goes on twitcam and acts silly for a while, though in the end that doesn’t quite seem to compute either.
-
They play two sold-out shows at MSG. The fans notice, or don’t notice; Liam doesn’t know. But on the fourth day he’s pooled on the concrete blabbering on about death when the screen door slides behind him.
“Busy,” he mumbles, and it’s a shock when he smells the smoke, his eyes flying open.
“Zayn. You’re back.” Liam doesn’t know if he should go for a hug, or explain, or what it even looks like he’s doing. He blinks at the dark-haired boy who’s looking at him through those ridiculous eyelashes, and Zayn doesn’t seem surprised at all, just goes on roasting the air and sending occasional gusts of smoke towards the balustrade. Then of all things, he hears Zayn sigh.
“Figured it was something like this. Christ, Li. Get up.”
“What?”
“Get up.” And Zayn is crossing the threshold, hooking his free hand in Liam’s elbow and hauling him to his feet. "Get the fuck up, you knob.”
“Zayn, I was just-“
“What, Liam. You were just what.”
Liam’s sure his cheeks are red. “Praying.” It sounds a lot sillier when he says it out loud and he really hopes that no one is watching across the street tonight.
“Right, praying. Except, you don’t.”
“What’s that supposed to mean. You don’t either and you’re supposed to.” They’ve never talked about this before and Liam doesn’t know why he brings it up now, only that it’s sort of a knee-jerk response to Zayn’s abrupt physicality.
"Sure I’m supposed to. That’s how I know that it means a lot to some people.” Zayn is still holding on to his arm, a funny expression on his face. “And you're not doing it right."
Liam’s confusion wriggles inside him. "And how should I be doing it?"
"Like this."
Zayn holds the hot tip of the cigarette just beyond Liam's shoulder and sort of slots their bodies together, his lips immediately sealing off Liam’s protest while his free hand curls around into his hair.
For a second it’s absolutely terrifying; Liam’s mind sparks all over the place and he wonders if Zayn is on drugs or if he should ring whatever NYC law enforcement is closest. Then Zayn is prying his mouth open and licking into him so painfully slow, and he stops trying to reason through it, lets himself fumble and unfold there on the balcony because it’s Zayn and it feels so fucking good.
“Oh,” Liam stutters finally when Zayn pulls back. They’re both breathing hard, though Zayn is looking at him with exasperation bordering on amusement while he’s sure his own face is just bright red and shellshocked.
“Oh,” Zayn mimics him, and it’s so stupid that they both chuckle a little. “I missed you too, you fool.”
-
And then it’s just easy, and he doesn’t need a book or his knees or anything. Zayn finishes his smoke, kicks it off the ledge, and they steeple their foreheads together instead.