They get paired to go into the city together along with the Americans again. It’s okay, really, because Zayn is having a good day, all charismatic grins and speaking to the little boys and girls with the same eyes as him. He practically glows, even in his fatigues, with health and beauty. Liam can’t look away from him. The Americans do their own thing, loud, boisterous, and Liam can’t even be bothered to care.
The man with the pomegranates clasps Liam’s hand in his. He places a nearly perfectly circular, ruby red fruit in Liam’s hand, smiles without any teeth, nods.
Liam smiles, feels his eyes crinkle.
At his side, Zayn says something soft and uncomplicated, most likely a thank you. His fingers brush against Liam’s as he grins, taking the pomegranate and cracking it open. The seeds are plentiful. The pomegranate is juicy and red and practically sets his entire body to smiling, something so simple and profound, fruit from a toothless old man, but Zayn is being almost couple-y with him in public.
As the sun beats down on them, they continue to walk around the marketplace. Liam and Zayn are walking in synch, not really talking when they see the girl.
Another small, homeless looking girl crouched in a doorway. She has her brown hands, caked with dirt, pulled into her chest, her eyes huge and glassy. Zayn is gentle as he pries the rest of the fruit from Liam’s hands with a confident smile, like he knows that Liam will understand. He does.
Zayn sinks down to her level across the street from Liam. She has his eyes, those liquid pools of innocent gold, black eyelashes like a canopy over her eyes to protect them from the horrors of her world, if only she’d close them. She probably smells like Zayn too. Cinnamon and sand and the exotic, not quite nameable-ness of a foreign place and people. Just as she reaches out for the half of fruit, Liam hears the hollow echo of a gunshot.
He whips his head around in a vain attempt to find the source of it. No one is standing anywhere near them with a gun, Liam can’t see anyone frozen. He can’t even hear the screaming until the shrillness registers.
The little girl has got her hands pressed along the line of Zayn’s shoulder, her body wracked as she screams and screams and screams and no one helps. Liam is sprinting across the sand as quickly as he can. He falls to the ground, mind blank.
There is a gaping, rapidly reddening hole in Zayn’s upper shoulder, and fuck fuck fuck, none of the people who came here with them are around, none of them would care. Liam is utterly helpless, hands flitting uselessly over Zayn’s not moving frame. What does he do? Who does he call? He loves Zayn. They can’t take Zayn away from him. They can’t do that.
“Zayn. Babe. Zayn.” His voice is stuck on repeat, mind not even conscious of the little girl. “Zayn, don’t go, babe. Zayn, come on.” He reaches out to lightly hit Zayn’s cheek as his eyes flutter closed, “No, babe, look at me.”
“Li…” is the only sound that Zayn makes.
Then, Liam is yelling, “Help! Help me!”
Inside of his mind, the words bounce around unhelpfully as a man lands in the dust beside Liam, tell me we’re dead and I’ll love you even more.
“We studied him in my poetry class, yeah? He’s, like, a legend. He’s brilliant.”
