ZIAM ONE-SHOTS (BOTTOM LIAM)

Connected

Author: lazy_daze

Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1104782

Summary:

Liam works at Poundland and Zayn does the windows displays - it's no Selfridges, but it's a start. When they open a musical box that Zayn borrowed from Styles Antiques, something interesting happens...

Zayn is humming something when Liam enters the shop. It's smooth and melodic, and the little jangle of the bell is terribly discordant.

Liam hums along, then sings a few words. Zayn stops what he was doing and stops humming, too, giving Liam a flat look.

"That was Drake, right?" Liam knows it was Drake, because once Zayn hummed something that Liam recognised off the radio and it turned out to be Drake and Liam promptly went home and downloaded every Drake song he could get his hands on. "I love Drake," he says hopefully.

Zayn stays quiet and and turns his attention back to the window display he's perfecting.

Liam is the weekend manager of the high street Poundland, while he does his BTEC in Music Technology at the sixth-form college in the week. Being a Poundland, it's not exact normal practice for them to have elaborate window displays – if there were a scale of shops that deserve elaborate window displays, Selfridges would top the list, and Liam is hard-pressed to think of a shop lower in the list than Poundland. At least it's a chain. Perhaps one of those tiny corner shops that still sell milk for less than a pound for a four-pinter, maybe they'd be at the bottom. Anyway. The point is, Zayn's a bit of an artistic genius – Liam doesn't think this is a biased observation, it's practically objective fact – and his uncle owns the shop and lets Zayn create whatever he wants in the windows long as he doesn't infringe on the household goods aisle. So they are a Poundland with incredible window displays. At least they stand out.

Currently, Zayn is working on something sort of – gothic, maybe, Liam isn't exactly sure of the artistic influences, but he's sure they are many and complex. There is a lot of black and some very anguished-looking faces and a generous smattering of blood.

"Do you need anything?" says Zayn, smearing red paint over the face of a broken child's doll. It's a bit scary. And sexy. Liam swallows.

"Oh," he says hurriedly. "I just. I like this month's display. October, like, it fits, it's. It reminds me of – um. Like, death."

Zayn carries on smearing, then shoots Liam a sideways glance. "That's the point," he says.

"Oh," says Liam. "Well, okay, I'm just going t--"

"Do you--" says Zayn, talking over Liam, then stopping.

Liam shuts up and raises his eyebrows hopefully at Zayn. They stare at each other in only slightly excruciating silence for a while.

"Do I--?" prompts Liam.

"Never mind," says Zayn, and goes back to smearing.

"Okay," says Liam. "I'm just going to, you know. Shop opens soon," he says brightly, and scurries off to the till.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Zayn lean forward and rest his forehead against the glass of the window. Liam himself feels somewhat like dropping his own head down onto the register when he reaches the till.

Still, he thinks to himself as he starts cashing in, look on the bright side. Zayn almost sort of actually nearly reciprocated conversation with him. Progress.

It's quite a horrible day – it's always busy, but it's half term and even though it shouldn't make a difference – it's still a Saturday – it's like the kids are drugged on the joy of being off school for a week, and it's frankly chaos. On top of the general sense of mayhem, someone drops a basket containing both a bottle of shampoo and a bag of flour, both of which explode, and Jade is busy on the till so Liam has to clean it up before it sets like bubbly concrete; there seems to be a never ending parade of screaming babies in buggies narrow enough to fit down the aisles but wide enough to keep knocking stuff off the shelves; and Liam argues for nearly half an hour with a man who wants to return over twenty-five quid's worth of items.