SMILE – ZIAM AU
PART THREE; VERY INCLUSIVE COBWEBS
WORDS: 1 044
CHAPTER SONG: SUN BY TWO DOOR CINEMA CLUB
Zayn gets under the table.
He makes a dive for it and consequently ends up hitting his head on the tough wood and he very nearly winces at the pain but Liam gives him a ‘shush’ movement with his finger ghosting over his lips and Zayn stays quiet. Then, he whispers something, because Liam is a total stranger and doesn’t deserve Zayn’s co-operation.
“You said that –,” Zayn begins but Liam halts him with a large hand over the raven-haired boy’s face, muffling the rest of his words. (Beyond uncomfortable, Zayn is.)
“Look,” Liam’s voice drops lower and lower until Zayn questions whether even dogs can understand him. “I told the manager we’d lock up, right? Well, he doesn’t trust me and he’s all obsessive with these things so he’s come back to check up on us, okay? It’ll be fine. I just need you to be quiet.”
Zayn nods hurriedly and mocks zipping up his lips, locking them, and then throwing away the key. He can hear the footsteps, but they’re louder this time. A part of him is over-thinking everything to the point that Zayn’s imagining terrible situations in which it’s actually a serial killer lurking around the shadows and oh, my God. Zayn’s going to die in a coffee shop on Christmas Eve.
The footsteps’ owner rummages around in the café’s kitchen for a while until Zayn hears him (or her) take hold of something metallic, which they use to lock the kitchen’s door. They walk over to a table, and Zayn’s heartbeat goes completely insane for the miniscule couple of seconds that the person’s shoes are visible underneath the table. A sound is heard that could be related to that of a phone being unlocked, and Liam suddenly jumps up from where he’s sitting, hitting his head on the way.
“Liam!” Zayn whisper-shouts.
“Zayn.” Liam hisses.
“Liam?” asks the footsteps person, who places the phone back on the table. “What are you still doing here –and ... under the table?”
“Um,” Liam hums, and steps in front of who Zayn supposes must be the manager, leaving the poor boy all alone and helpless. “I was just, um, doing checks that cobwebs aren’t under there, or summat. Yeah. Cobwebs.” then, to add to his lie, Liam plasters that same infectious grin on his face and his boss even manages to reciprocate it.
“We’re a very popular café.” he says, “It would be a pity if we did have cobwebs abiding in our booths.”
“It sure would,” Liam agrees in the most serious tone he can muster, and Zayn nearly laughs. “You’re very lucky I’m here to check for you.”
“Find any?”
“No, sir,” the brown-haired boy puffs out his chest like a proud little bird after catching its first worm. “I have retrieved no cobwebs. This establishment is a hundred percent clean of communicable illnesses brought on by the silly little things living in cobwebs.”
“Spiders, you mean?”
“Well, we could have little tiny poisonous snakes, too. You never know. Cobwebs are very inclusive.”
Zayn holds his own hand over his mouth (and, honestly – to hell with it) he’s smiling like he’s crazy. He hasn’t smiled in such a long time that his face hurts from the sudden use of the muscles he hasn’t used since forever. It has to be months since Zayn’s had a laugh. (And this isn’t even funny.)
(Liam should be proud of himself.)
“All right,” the manager drags out, still moderately skeptical, “Resume your cobweb-checking. I expect you lock up as soon as you’re done? Remember that we can’t have any robberies or else whatever’s stolen comes out of your pay.” his voice is stern and Zayn shivers involuntarily.
Liam nods. “Understood, sir.”
“Here’s your phone,” Zayn’s ears pick up the sound of the metallic object from before being passed on, “Please stop texting that girlfriend of yours while you’re on shift, eh?”
“She’s not my girlfriend,”
“That’s what they all say. I’m going home now, alright? I’ll see you on the twenty-seventh, when the café opens again.” then, the shoes start walking out the door and Zayn can barely see in the light, but his eyes has somewhat gotten used to it, so he can make out the very vague shape of a man opening and then shutting the door again, grabbing his scarf, pulling it tighter around his neck, and braving the cold winter of Christmastime London.
Liam crouches back down and joins his friend (Zayn will just settle for ‘friend’ as of right now) and wastes no time in snuggling up under Zayn’s arm like a baby duck under its mother’s wing. Zayn’s stopped smiling now, and he shuffles his body over a bit, letting Liam fall gracelessly on the floor.
“Hey!” Liam says, full-volume, and makes a grab for Zayn’s arm to pull himself back up. “I was resting on that.”
That was my highly-sensitive torso, thinks Zayn, but he says, “Oh, I’m sorry. I’m just, like. Uncomfortable, I guess.”
“Well, you should let me snuggle because it’s late and it’s Christmas and all my family are still in Wolverhampton,” Liam frowns, (and Zayn does not even think about kissing his pink lips) “’Cos I thought it’d be a really grand idea to come up to London for the week before Christmas. Apparently not,”
Liam smiles. Like he’s somehow happy about not being with his family for Christmas.
(What the hell is wrong with this guy?)
“Don’t you want to be with your family?” asks Zayn, quietly, and he brings his knees up to his chest, distancing himself from the other boy. “I mean, you’d want to. Usually.”
“Of course I do,” Liam pushes Zayn’s shoulder. “But the snow is too thick for me to even think of driving down. I’m meeting them as soon as I can tomorrow.”
The snow’s too thick?
“The snow’s too thick?” Zayn’s jaw practically unhinges and his eyes nearly pop out of their sockets. “I’ve got to get over to Bradford!” Zayn starts to work himself up into a panic, stuttering out random beginnings of hurried swear words and his eyes dart everywhere in the dark.
“Looks like you’re stuck with me, then.” says Liam, and Zayn can’t see him, but he bets that he’s smiling.
AUTHOR’S NOTE:
i wrote this on the library computers so if my teacher sees this i’m getting a detention whoops i told her it was english homework #rebel. i’m really enjoying writing this tbh. hope you enjoy reading this.
QUESTION OF THE CHAPTER:
What do you think of Liam’s character? Would you want to be friends with a person like this?
YOU ARE READING
Smile
Fanfiction[ ZIAM AU ] [ ✓ - DECEMBER 2014 ] ❝You make me smile.❞ The one where Zayn is an amateur writer and is having a bit of a grey day(s) (week) (month) (actually, life is mostly grey) but a nice waiter named Liam manages to turn around his mood in one ni...
