Smile

seven; kiss the living daylights

SMILE – ZIAM
PART SEVEN; KISS THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS
WORDS: 1 030
CHAPTER SONG: KISS ME BY ED SHEERAN

Zayn’s eyes widen like saucers and he places his hands on Liam’s shoulders, pushing him away. He thought he was ready for this, he really thought he was. But the terrible truth is that he never truly is.

“Oh,” Liam’s lips separate in an ‘o’ shape when he’s disconnected from Zayn. “I – I’m sorry –,”

Zayn just wants to either curl up and die somewhere very far away (and never, ever see Liam again) or he wants to rush back into Liam’s embrace and kiss the living daylights out of him, but he can’t; he can’t even move. He’s frozen, stuck, glued in place.

Liam pushes the blanket off his shoulder and it falls to the ground, discarded. Zayn moves his mouth but no sounds come out, he desires to shout, “Liam, no, please come back,” but it’s as if a brick wall has been built between him and speech, even as the Wolverhampton boy gets up and walks over to the kitchen without a single word being said.

Before Liam turns a corner so Zayn can’t see him anymore, Zayn sees him stuff his hands into his pockets and stare down at the ground. Whether it was in shame, or sorrow, Zayn will never know.

After what feels like a few hours but was only probably a few minutes, the black-haired boy manages to stand on his wobbly legs, shifting the red blanket off his body, and he walks in the general direction of Liam. He doesn’t know what he’s doing, but he knows that he has to do it.

“Liam,” Zayn says, quietly, but it’s still loud enough for Liam to jump in surprise since he was facing the opposite way. “I’m sorry,”

“No,” Liam turns around and crosses his arms, defiant, “I’m sorry. I know you probably like your personal space, and I just went and ruined it, like I didn’t even know. Sorry, Zee, I – I just really wanted to do that.”

“That’s okay –,” Zayn starts to say but Liam interrupts him, either having not heard him or blind with the amount of words spilling out of his mouth.

“You’re just so – I don’t know. But it’s nice, and I like it, and you were so close and I was too, so I just. You said you were gay, so I. Um, I’m sorry, I’m rambling,”

Liam brings a hand up to palm his forehead, and he looks so frustrated, so angry at himself. At least, Zayn hopes he’s angry at himself and not Zayn.

“You kind of are,” Zayn shrugs, and makes his way out of the kitchen, Liam on his heels, “Rambling, that is. If you want to forget all about this, we can do that.”

Liam nods eagerly, “But can I ask you one little thing before we start again?”

“Sure,”

The brown-haired boy draws a deep breath, “Did you want me to kiss you? It’s okay if you don’t, I mean, if I were you I wouldn’t want to kiss me either. But, like, did you? I just don’t want to mess up again, Zayn.”

Zayn shakes his head, slowly, disrupting his fringe and he brushes it out of his face, “I don’t need to kiss you. I’ve never even thought of kissing you. But now that you’ve brought it up, it’s like, I wouldn’t particularly mind?”

Here is when Liam would usually smile, but to he doesn’t. “Why’d you pull away?” he asks.

“I was getting really anxious, you know? Over-thinking things and whatever – I was thinking into the future, like how difficult it would be to, like, have a relationship from Bradford to London, or Wolverhampton. And how you’re you and I’m just... I’m me. Dating me means dating my random panic attacks and my anxiety and my Hopeless Uselessness, Liam. I didn’t want you to have to deal with something like that.”

Liam opens his mouth but Zayn steps closer, and Liam closes his mouth. Now, the two boys are back in the main room, the light flickering dimly as a storm swirls in the air outside, making the blinds on the windows shudder against the glass. The only sounds in the café are the deep breaths of Zayn, the shallow inhalations of Liam, and the wind rustling through trees.

“Because no-one else has managed to deal with it, so far, in my entire life,” Zayn continues, “I thought, ‘why should you?’ and then I got mad at myself because you didn’t even ask me out. And now I’m just being stupid,” he smiles, but it’s not true. It’s one of those smiles that are self-deprecating and the only thing funny is how badly Zayn is handling this situation. “That’s why I pulled away,”

Liam’s eyes gaze down at the carpeted floor, but after a few seconds he looks up, and this time he’s grinning. Zayn grins, too, and it feels pretty good. “Jesus, you think too much,” Liam says, after much consideration.

“I know,” Zayn shrugs, because he already knows this fact too well.

“What if I told you,” Liam says, stepping forward, so close that Zayn’s heartbeat picks up again, “That I wouldn’t be dating your panic attacks or your anxiety? Those are separate things, Zee, they aren’t part of you. You are Zayn, you’re a cute guy I met in a café and then I consequently got snowed in the previously aforementioned café with you, and you’re the cute guy who writes stories, and I wouldn’t mind dating that.”

“Are you sure?” Zayn says, “I’m really anxious.”

“I really don’t mind,” Liam smiles, with his white teeth, and Zayn feels Liam’s hands find home on the skinny boy’s waist. “Can I kiss you, now that we’ve cleared that up?”

“Um,” Zayn mumbles, intelligently, “I – uh, yeah, sure.”

Liam kisses him, but this time, Zayn doesn’t pull away. Zayn pulls Liam’s hands away from his waist and instead holds their hands together, Liam’s thumb rubbing over Zayn’s bump of bone on his wrist. It’s not perfect, and Zayn can faintly hear a cat squeal outside and Liam sort of tastes like beetroot and cheese, but it’s okay. And Zayn kisses the living daylights out of him.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: i seriously cannot write drama it always ends in fluff i’m sorry. this is dedicated to @AussieTard because she let me use her laptop to type this up when mine had gone flat. i love ya, girl x
((true friendship is letting your friend write gay fanfiction on your laptop when hers is dead.))

QUESTION OF THE CHAPTER:
Do you see a bit of yourself in either of these (Zayn or Liam) characters? Which one? How?