Ziam one shots

I'm letting you know

SoftlyandSwiftly

Summary:

Liam's POV of Just Let Me Know.

Liam's world shattered two years ago, and he hasn't been able to piece it back together since. When Zayn forgets everything from the past two years, Liam thinks he truly will never be alright again.
But maybe Zayn can fix that.

Chapter 1: Parts I and II

Chapter Text
Part I:

Zayn looks different.

Not physically exactly, even with the longer hair and the new tattoos and having grown up. That's just normal; they've all changed like that. Beyond that, he's still that gorgeous bloke that Liam met at McDonald's when he was only 16, that lad who grinned at him as they talked about superheroes and dreams, that boy that Liam fell in love with. Zayn's still all sharp cheekbones and defined jawline, thick hair and long eyelashes. Beautiful.

But he's looked different to Liam for the past two years.

It's the way he carries himself, Liam thinks. Like he's constantly got his guard up, Zayn's harder than he used to be. He's always kept his personal life close to his chest – play your cards close to your heart right Li – but now he has all of these walls up. It's like traversing an obstacle course just to get a genuine answer from him, and even after Liam's contorted himself to make Zayn just see him, he's not entirely sure he ever does actually get a real answer.

It's just – Zayn's different.

Or maybe he's just like that around Liam.

Liam doesn't know, can't tell, refuses to ask anyone else what they think about it. The words are nearly tripping off his tongue every single time he talks to Harry though – Zayn's different, right? Because he needs someone else to see it, needs someone else to acknowledge it so that he knows it's not just him. Liam doesn't think he could handle it if Zayn truly only acted different around him. He's worried though that Harry would just frown at him and shake his head, endlessly sad because he sees every single crack in Liam's heart.

So he can't ask, but Zayn does look different. He's changed, more than just physically, and Liam sees it every single time he looks at him.

Except for when he's sleeping.

When he's sleeping Zayn looks exactly the same, like the boy that Liam fell asleep next to for two years. His face goes slack, all the tension seeping from his wiry limbs, and his features lose every fine edge until he just looks soft. Liam aches with the ghosts of memories, moments when Zayn would let himself melt into Liam, let Liam see the softness underneath the hard edges, let himself just be for a second.

He looks like that now again – the soft boy from the darkest parts of Liam's ruined heart. As he curls into himself on the hospital bed, Zayn looks exactly like he had just under two years ago, and Liam's torn on how he feels about that. He doesn't want Zayn here, of course not –

(The blind panic when he got the phone call, the way he dropped everything he was doing, how he lost security and the other boys unintentionally in his absolute need to get to Zayn, the way he'd had to slump into the wall for support when he heard that Zayn was unconscious – head trauma, could be serious, don't know don't know don't know – how the relief had ached right along his bones when the initial scan hadn't turned up anything serious, how even still his heart pumps with worry)

- but he never gets to see Zayn like this anymore, and he misses it. He's terribly pathetic, nursing a heartbreak that's nearly two years old like it happened last week because he just doesn't know how to move on.