One night, Liam comes back from a day spent in the city after the rest of the men he went with. He hadn’t meant to get so sidetracked by all of the colors and the smells and the things to see in the market, but what was the point of being in a country as beautiful as this one and not exploring it? Walking back to the camp feels like going back to a room painted in neutral colors after spending a day inside of a paint studio. He can’t fight off his own exhaustion or his guilt over what he’s doing, what he’s failing to do.
The thing is, he loves Zayn. He knows that, and he’s spent the last month or so focused on that, although it isn’t fair to start a relationship during the war. Liam has even developed this sixth sense, like a fine string, linking him and Zayn across all of the horrible things they have to endure. He wonders if this is only for people who fall in love in war. Liam, besides all of that, genuinely doesn’t want to kill these beautiful, intelligent, hardworking people that he has come to admire for their strength and ability to keep smiling.
Lost in his thoughts, he doesn’t see the dark haired boy launch himself from behind a corner and stumbles back.
“What the—”
Zayn’s breathing is heavy and wet against his collarbone, “I was so fucking scared.”
His gun clatters to the ground as his hands wrap around the thinness of Zayn’s thighs where they are wrapped around his waist. “Zayn. Z. Babe,” he knows the fear that Zayn is feeling, is intimately familiar with it, has made room for it in his bed. Which is why he knows that he can’t say a single adequate thing.
There are fingers pressing too tightly against his shoulders. Liam, trying not to stumble, walks them into a dark place, between two closely built buildings, and presses Zayn into the grey scaffolding there. His arms don’t loosen though, and Liam thinks he might feel tears against his neck.
“’M right here,” Liam whispers, low and intimate into Zayn’s ear. He has begun to move his thumbs against Zayn’s legs in a hope that the rhythmic motion will somehow center him better than Liam’s voice can. “’M right here, babe.”
When Zayn pulls back from the place on Liam’s neck that he was nuzzling, there are silvery tracks down his cheeks. His hair is matted ridiculously in the front. His dogtags are mussed and wrecked and caught over his shoulder which Liam fixes, tucking them back in between Zayn’s warm collarbones.
For a long moment, he looks into the sad brown eyes fixed on his, “I’m right here.” When Zayn doesn’t (or can’t) respond, Liam leans his forehead against Zayn’s. They are breathing the same air. Zayn has his fingers resting lightly over the pulse in Liam’s neck. Their lips are close enough to touch, and Liam leans in for a kiss. He catches the other boy’s bottom lip between his teeth, worrying it, waiting for Zayn’s whimper of pain, because that means he is feeling something other than fear.
Liam pulls back, rests his head on Zayn’s shoulder, “I’m sorry.”
“I was so fucking worried all night. I kept, like, pacing and I couldn’t e—”
“Do you love me?” Liam whispers. He can think of no other reason why this would be such a huge problem, something so horrible for Zayn to endure, and that thought sets butterflies loose below his rib cage. If Zayn loves him, then it is okay that he loves Zayn too.
In the shadowy place between those two buildings, Zayn responds, “I don’t want to love a soldier.”
Liam’s laugh is all air and relief and love, overpowering, overwhelming, “Me neither.”
