ZIAM ONE-SHOTS (BOTTOM LIAM)

Tragedy: You'll Remember Me When I'm Gone 4

Chapter 4: Fight for the Sun

Zayn leaves on a Tuesday morning and drives into the rising sun.

Liam is half awake in the kitchen wearing his pants and a too-tight t-shirt that might actually be Zayn's. He doesn't say goodbye, because goodbye sounds oddly permanent, and nothing about Zayn has ever screamed permanence.

"Don't crash and die," he says instead, and Zayn snorts. He doesn't say anything in return, and if it were anyone else, Liam would be offended, but it's Zayn, so he just purses his lips, and watches him go.

Liam spends the next month drinking coffee by himself, drinking beer by himself, reading books that he thinks Zayn would like by himself, and pacing around in the kitchen, avoiding the phoenix's eyes. He feels dumb, like he's skirting this fake bird in his own damn flat, but at the same time, it feels right, like he shouldn't be looking at it without Zayn.

He lasts a week before he slides the door to Zayn's room open – a week and a half before he starts periodically wandering in to smell Zayn's cologne and bed sheets. (It's dumb, because they're clean, and they both use the same laundry detergent, but Liam pretends that Zayn's scent clings anyway).

"I miss you," Zayn says. His voice sounds tinny and far away on Liam's cheap laptop speaker. The Skype window is up and Zayn is lounging on someone's couch, petting someone's dog. Liam wants to lie on that couch and put his head in Zayn's lap like that dog. He cringes.

"I miss you too," He says. "I think, uh, the fireball in the kitchen does too." Zayn's lips curl into a smirk.

"Oh, does he now?" Liam laughs.

"Yeah, he does."

He doesn't wonders why Zayn never moved the painting. He's stopped wondering why Zayn does the things he does at all.

"I'll be home soon," Zayn says.

And he is, home soon, that is, tumbling into Liam's open arms as he struggles to stay awake, the van clunking out of the driveway with his friends, already forgotten as he buries his face in Liam's neck, and breathes in deep.