Viva La Vida

Part 3

  

"That's not very fucking funny, Louis."

"Yeah, well, it was to me." A slight snort. "You should have seen your face."

"I hate you."

"You love me."

"I hate you."

Liam wakes up to the sound of spirited bickering. His captors are, apparently, having a rough morning.

"I just drove the whole goddamn night and this is how you repay me? Really fuckin' nice, Louis."

Louis, to his credit, has the decency to look a bit shamefaced for whatever he's done. "Pull over and let me drive, then. You're not yourself when you're tired." He grins a little at his joke, and Zayn rolls his eyes.

"Trust me, we're switching at the first available exit."

"What happened?" Liam asks, stretching and yawning. They both turn and look at him; there are dark circles under Zayn's eyes, and he looks extremely pissed off.

"This genius thought it'd be funny to tell me there are no gas stations for the next fifty kilometers when we're basically running on an empty tank. Just about gave me a heart attack." Zayn shoots Louis a glare. "Attacking me when I'm tired, honestly. Below the damn belt."

"What's even the fun in that?" Liam asks before he remembers that he's supposed to hate these people.

"That was my thinking exactly," Zayn says with another dirty look in Louis' direction. "There was no point at all."

"Sure there was," Louis chirps with far too much peppiness for someone who's slept the whole night in a van driving over an extremely bumpy highway. "The look on your face was priceless, I'm telling you."

Zayn mutters something that sounds like a suggestion that Louis do something anatomically impossible.

"Are you brothers?" Liam blurts out. You're supposed to hate them. You're not supposed to know anything about them that could make them human.

They both burst out laughing.

"We're definitely not brothers," Zayn says. "What makes you ask? Surely not the family resemblance? Cause I'm not nearly as white as he is, thanks."

"No, you just bicker like siblings," Liam says with a faint grin. "My sisters and I used to go at it like that all the time."

Zayn shoots him a smile in the rear-view mirror. "Yeah, me and me sisters were like that too."

"Were?"

Zayn shrugs, pulls into the nearest exit, and yawns. "Yeah." He doesn't elaborate, but Louis picks up where he leaves off.

"We are basically brothers, though. Zayn's been living with me and me family for—what, how many years now?"

"God, dunno. Ten, maybe?"

"Yeah, sounds about right. So he's like me adopted brother. He bickers with me sister like this, too. Although they all spoil him like you wouldn't believe."

"I've always said you're my least favorite Tomlinson," Zayn says in a fond tone that makes Liam think that it's quite the opposite.

He hates how human this is making both his kidnappers seem. Two normal blokes with loves and losses and families of their own. If this was a movie, they would have no redeeming qualities, nothing to give Liam any qualms about someone putting a bullet between both of their eyes the minute they all get caught.

Things are rarely as simple as the movies in real life, he's beginning to find out. Everything is messy and tangled up and crooked.

"Okay, everyone out. Time to stretch our legs." Louis says as they pull into a deserted parking lot. "No toilet, I'm afraid, but I'm sure Your Highness will have few reservations about using the bushes like we all do? No? Excellent. Wake up His Curliness over there, and I'll go get breakfast."

"And I," Zayn says, "will keep an eye on you until he returns, and then promptly pass the fuck out in the front seat." Liam raises an eyebrow at him, and he shrugs. "Forty-some hours of wakefulness has not been kind to me."

"You do realize that that basically sounds like an invitation to make a run for it? Or to take my chances trying to fight you or something?"

"I wouldn't suggest that," Zayn says with a crooked smile. "I may be half-dead, but they don't call me Knockout for nothing."

"That so? What, can you knock someone out in single blow?"

"Something like that," Louis says. "Also, his stunning good looks have been known to knock out some of the weaker members of society. I mean, get a load of those eyelashes. They've laid low many a worthier man than you, Your Highness."

"I'll keep that in mind when making my escape plans," Liam says wryly. He mimes checking off a list of items on his hand. "Watch out for the guns your kidnappers carry—done. Make sure you bring Harry with you—done. Be careful of the devastating good looks that could distract you from your plan to return home at any cost—oh, God damn it, I've been foiled again."

"That's only funny because it's true," Louis says with a quick, teasing smile that reminds Liam of the way Gatsby is described by Nick Carroway—he feels as though Louis has seen into him, past the façade of royal propriety, and understood him. It's a feeling that's comforting as it is ridiculous. "I'll be back with breakfast, bitches. Try not to kill each other while I'm gone."

"He's joking, of course," Zayn says as Louis sashays away in a manner very unsuited to an evil kidnapper of the crown prince. "He just likes to wind me up."

"And modest, too? The ladies must be all over you."

Zayn shakes his head. "Men, mostly, actually." He grins. "I must just seem like the epitome of sin to a good Christian prince like yourself."

Liam wonders what has happened to the world so that it's ended up with him sitting here exchanging banter with someone who has no qualms about killing him. For maybe the first time, he understands the deeply impersonal nature of politics, and the terribly random lottery of birth, and how they both end up making enemies of people who might otherwise be friends.

"Me too, actually." The minute the words are out of his mouth, he can feel himself going deep red. "I mean—men, mostly. For me."

Zayn looks at him for a long moment, amber eyes impossibly old and wise in his young, sharp face. "I didn't know that."

"Most people don't."

"That sort of thing get in the way of your prince duties, or what?"

"Less then you'd think."

Zayn nods, face frozen in thought, and then briskly stands up. "Wake up His Grace so we can all take a piss together, yeah? We can pretend that it's like a brotherly bonding activity rather than a kidnapper-captive thing that also comes off as a bit homoerotic."

"How is that—you know what, I don't want to know."

"We're kind of showing each other our dicks, it's a little homoerotic."

"This conversation ends right here."

"As you wish, Your Highness."

And Liam hates the laugh that bounces off his lips when Zayn shoots him a wicked grin and hops out of the van, and hates the heart that has made him recognize that Zayn and Louis are human too, and most of all hates the world that has trapped them all in a cage of hate with guns pointed at each other's heads.

***

True to his word, the minute Louis gets back in the van and starts driving, Zayn's out like a light ("Now that I think about it, Knockout is a triply appropriate nickname because he can sleep literally anywhere," Louis says) and the rest of them eat dry cereal and drink orange juice out of the bottle. Without Zayn to monitor him, Louis is even fuller of dirty jokes, teasing remarks, and outrageous stories, and he and Harry quickly deteriorate into bickering over what the best brand of cereal is. Liam also takes the opportunity to quiz Louis a bit about himself—angry when he realizes it's not for the information, but rather just to get to know him—and finds that behind the sparkling blue eyes and quick, Gatsby-esque smile, there resides a deep, fierce, protective love for Zayn and the rest of his family, which consists of a small army of sisters and a young mother whom he speaks of in a voice so warm it could melt butter. Louis, in his turn, gets a bit of information out of Liam and Harry, but not quite as much as he reveals—although he seems to think that's fair, probably because their daily and family lives are significantly more politically charged than his.

Mainly, he just seems to want to know about the aristocratic lifestyle—what they eat, how much they eat, how often they see their families, whether they can go out shopping whenever they want, what the court fashion is like, whether their daily lives are disrupted by paparazzi—and he's full of smart retorts to everything they say, in a way that simultaneously pokes fun at them and makes them feel in on the joke. Liam can't help but think that if life was a little different, if circumstances hadn't driven him to his current state of desperation, he would have made a very good comedian.

But the world is full of what-ifs and lost chances, and it won't do him any good to dwell on any of them. This is his here and now, and it's a harsh one. No matter how well they all get along now, they aren't friends. When they get caught—even Zayn and Louis must know that's inevitable—it's very unlikely they'll all walk out of this alive. There will be, Liam realizes, has known from a very young age, no happy ending.

"I understand this is somewhat of a taboo question," he says finally. "But I have to ask."

"Shoot, Your Princeness," Louis says. "I love breaking the rules."

"Why are the rebels—well, rebelling?"

Louis frowns at him in the rearview mirror. "What, you don't know? Isn't that rule number one of war? Know thine enemy, and all that?"

"His Majesty the king doesn't tell me much about you," Liam admits. "I don't think he wants me to worry."

"I was under the impression that it's sort of your job to worry about things that effect the country."

"This worry he wants to bear alone, apparently."

Louis sighs. "Look, I don't know how much you leave the palace, or how much you know what's going on in the world, but England's economy is going down the shitter. There isn't enough money to support the healthcare and welfare systems, so Simon cut them. There are people dying and starving and on the streets, and fuck-all the crown does to help them. The United Nations is after us for getting involved in overseas wars while neglecting our own people. Nearly every family has been affected in some way, and nearly everyone's unhappy with the way things are. We just want to change the way things are. It's fucking the modern-day Victorian Age out there—people starving on the streets while an elite few live in such fucking luxury they could pay the rest of our rents for life and not even notice."

"So you're trying to create more problems by waging war on the crown? What happened to—"

"Don't you dare say peaceful protest," Louis says flatly. "The time for that was over for me when my dad's body was delivered to my doorstep by the Crown, and my little sister found him lying there. Simon's a fucking tyrant."

Liam's blood runs hot, and then cold, and for a moment he can't see straight—everything seems warped and ugly. Harry is very quiet beside him.

"You're delusional," he says finally, his voice steady and his fingernails cutting into his palm. "My uncle—His Majesty to you—is one of the best kings we've ever had. You're fucking delusional."

Louis just fixes his eyes on the road, all traces of his comedic openness and teasing smirk gone. "I'm not the one who spent my whole life behind walls, Your Highness."

Liam swears that if he had a gun, he'd kill him. It turns out seeing the humanity in someone just isn't enough.

***

He has the dream again that night, and it's awful, that feeling of being trapped, maybe even worse because he knows he's trapped in real life, too.

A life which, by the way, just keeps getting stranger.

"Any reason why you were talking in your sleep?" Zayn asks when he wakes up.

Liam, still full of resentment, rubs his eyes and glare at him. "Why the hell does it matter to you?"

Zayn's eyebrows shoot up. "It very much fucking matters when it's my dad's name you keep saying in your sleep, thanks."

There's a long silence. Zayn's the one driving again, and the other two are asleep.

"What's your dad's name?" Liam whispers, his mouth dry.

"Yaser," Zayn says, his eyes fixed on Liam in the rearview mirror. "Yaser Malik."

"He's a real person?"

"What, you think the last raid of the palace was done by people who only existed in your head?"

"The last raid of the palace?"

Zayn frowns. "About ten years ago, yeah. A bunch of rebels went in and tried to kidnap you for leverage against Simon."

"That actually happened?" Liam feels sick to his stomach. For years, Simon was lying to him about his own safety. He knows it was probably to protect him, to make him feel safer in the aftermath of the tragedy at Wolverhampton, but—

"Yeah," Zayn says. "I'd say it did. Was a fucking fiasco. Everyone got killed early on, so only two guys actually made it up to your bedroom. One of them was my dad." His frown deepens. "You don't remember?"

"Most of that time is a blur in my head," Liam admits. "Everyone told me it never happened." He pauses. "Did you know that our father refused to—"

"Refused to take you in the last minute? Yeah, I know." Zayn's eyes settle on the road again, his face a mask. "Irving Azoff—the other man who was with him—told me. Said my dad was too good for this world. Too soft. Too kind. Not willing enough to allow for collateral damage. Maybe that's why Azoff is the leader of the rebels now, and me dad isn't."

"So you grew up to do exactly what your father refused to do out of mercy and morals and kindness," Liam spits, a bitter taste in his mouth. "God, I hope he's proud of you."

"He doesn't know," Zayn says acidly, "because he's dead, Your Highness. The royal guards killed him. So yeah, I grew up to do something my dad wouldn't, because look how he turned out. I have to be tougher and crueler and harder than my dad was because by being kind, he got himself and the entire rest of my family killed." His knuckles are white where they're clenched on the steering wheel. "I think you know what it's like to watch your sisters and your mother die, Your Highness. I think you'd do anything to prevent something like that happening to you again, too."

And Liam is just silent, humbled in the face of Zayn's anger, furious in the face of all the ugly deeds that has driven two young men to hate as strongly as they do, frustrated in the face of Simon's massive betrayal and Zayn's brutal honesty. The world is rocking in its axis, and all he ever wanted to do was goddamn survive.

***

Liam never thought England could seem this huge, this unfriendly, this endless. There aren't any windows in the back of the van, but from what he can see out the front, the places they drive through are devastatingly poor and very often empty. He's sure that this is a skewed view of life outside of decadent London—of course they're avoiding rich, Crown-sympathetic areas, or large cities full of bustling people—but it makes him nervous, and it makes him doubt. Not Simon, because Simon is the last thing he has to hold on to, the last person who stayed there for him when everything else exploded, but rather doubting his own blindness, his own faith in the inherent goodness of two men who have never shown him anything but ill will.

He's naïve, he doesn't need Louis or Zayn or anyone to tell him that. But he did think that maybe there was something good about the world. That being human was the same as having empathy.

Humans can be driven to terrible things very easily. It doesn't stop them from having lives and feelings and motives, doesn't stop them from being human. Perhaps the greatest pardon the human race ever received was the first moment when someone saw a terrible deed another person did, and called it inhuman.

So maybe the deserted areas and long road trip doesn't mean a chance to get to know two men who could have very easily been him if the tables had been turned somehow. Maybe it just means a prolonged journey to sure death.

He's not sure when he got so jaded, but he sure as hell doesn't like the feeling. Hope, like innocence, is not easily regained once lost.

***
It's the fourth day in the van when the problems really start.

"Wake up."

Liam's about ninety percent sure Louis' not talking to him, but he pulls himself out of the realm of unconsciousness anyway, lured into the waking world by Louis' urgent voice. Beside him, Harry's already awake; they exchange wary looks that warn each other to listen closely.

"Zayn, goddammit, can you not sleep like a log? It's important. They found us, Zayn."

In the front seat, Zayn jolts awake with the same unpleasant jerk that Liam himself is so familiar with. Rebels have nightmares too, apparently.

"What's the problem?" He's surprisingly coherent for someone who's just been rudely awakened.

"They found us."

"The royal—"

"No." Louis' voice is grimmer than Liam's ever heard it. "The Circle."

Liam has no idea who the Circle is, but the raw fear in Louis' voice makes his blood run cold. If Louis' afraid, it probably means something good for me and Harry, he reasons. Somehow, it doesn't make him feel much better.

Zayn lets out a string of swear words that Liam's fairly sure spans at least three different languages. Then he takes a deep breath, and claps Louis on the shoulder. "Keep driving. Away from them, I don't care which direction it takes us. Just get us away."

"You got it."

Zayn turns around in his seat. "Lads—oh, you're already awake. Good." His eyes dart between their faces. "Listen, we've got a bit of a problem, yeah?"

"I gathered that," Harry says. "But a problem for you—"

"—means a problem for you, too, in this case." Zayn draws in another deep breath. Liam wonders when fear got so physical—it's not just in his head, it's devouring his entire body, all five senses. Salty taste in mouth, cold nervous shaking, a buzzing in his ears, blurry vision, the smell of sweat and something more metallic filling up the van as all of their fear becomes almost palpable. "Dunno if you know this, but there's a branch of the rebellion that wwe don't belong to. To put it simply, they're fucking nuts. They want to kill the entire upper class and burn the country to the ground." His hands are busy in his lap, fumbling a little but still relatively steady. "They'll kill us and torture both of you for information in a heartbeat, okay? So I know you hate us—and god knows you have every right to—but I need you to cooperate with us just for now, yeah? Because I'd like for all of us to get out of this alive." He catches the doubtful glance Harry levels at him and grins, quick and mercurial and edged with something dangerous. "Truly, I would. I didn't go through all this work just for you to be shot by some crazy bastard."

"Thanks, Zayn, that means a lot," Harry says, slow voice heavy with sarcasm and tinged with terror.

"Anytime," Zayn says. "So you gonna work as a team for now and call a bit of a truce, or am I going to have to show you the famous Knockout punch? Trust me, I'd prefer the first. Rather not be carrying around your dead weight if we have to run for it."

"We'll call it a truce for now," Liam says. "If you swear that these people mean us harm and it'll benefit us to stay with you. If they actually want to free us and you're tricking us into making us work against them—"

"I swear on everything holy," Zayn says instantly. "Trust me, you do not want to get mixed up with these blokes."

Liam takes a deep breath. It's hard work, somehow. Takes another. Sometimes, you have to trust your gut. Sometimes, you have to trust that being human is enough, that inherent goodness is enough. "Okay. Just tell us what to do."