ZIAM ONE-SHOTS (BOTTOM LIAM)

you slow it down (so damn slow)

Author: transgenicveins

Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/704182

Summary:

Zayn's world is too fast and Liam tries his hardest to slow it down.

It's like this:

Zayn's world speeds up on a Tuesday, about twenty seconds after singing a Mario song in front of a thousand people, and has refused to slow down from that absolutely dizzying pace since.

He doesn't mind, though. He doesn't mind the rush or the overdose of adrenalin or the blurring world around him and he definitely doesn't mind the four boys that are stuck in this crazy orbit with him.

It's a welcome distraction. Interviewers assume it's tiring but, no, living in quarter-time is their automatic response, their reflex, and when it all slows down and they're alone, that's when Zayn's tired because he can't help the onslaught of hey, have you acknowledged that you're nineteen and all you have is an album and a letter jacket and a bunch of tattoos which are the by-product of these slow moments what happened to an Oxford education and Sunday roasts and a favourite coffee shop and fuck you Malik-

No, in the hazy world, he finds his peace.

His calm is in a crowd of nineteen thousand and a sore throat and sweat dripping down his collarbones and not a moment of silence in sight.

(well, until Liam happens, at least)

/ / /

It's like this:

Zayn wakes up a few weeks into the recording, the tempo of his new life still dizzying, with Liam only inches away and curly hair in his eyes and fist in the blankets, and he realises-

Oh.

Wow.

His body reacts to the alteration quicker than he can process- his heart thumps and a certain jolt of dopamine and adrenaline and Liam diffuses into his cells, and he simultaneously wants to touch the natural twist of his lips and stay in this position on the floor of an overpopulated city forever to study the line of his neck.

He's cuddling closer and learning the indent of his collarbone when a pile of curls collapses between them. "Rehearsals in ten," Harry says, and Zayn crawls out of the pile of blankets with a spared profanity.

"Ten?" he repeats, attempting to tame his bed-hair, but he's distracted by the hints of a wide-eyed and half-dressed boy in his peripheral vision.

"I cannot be to blame for your affinity with cuddling," he teases. Zayn throws a hairbrush in his direction.

He's halfway through his gel when Liam stumbles past, presses a sloppy kiss on Zayn's tense shoulders, and whispers 'don't it looks hot loose'.

(and he spends the next five hours in the hall with his hair hanging in his face, scribbling down nonsense proses which don't even begin to quell the ache in his lungs)

/ / /

It's like this:

Nothing happens after Zayn becomes near infatuated with Liam because they're not like that, they're not the melodramatic antics of Niall and Louis and Harry, they're the quiet before a show and the whispers after bed and the walks through anonymous cities, and Zayn doesn't want to give that up for peace of mind.