Smile

eight; this modern glitch

SMILE – ZIAM
PART EIGHT; THIS MODERN GLITCH
WORDS: 1 012
CHAPTER SONG: TECHNO FAN BY THE WOMBATS

Zayn has never truly realized how healing a good kiss could be. He can remember when he was only little and when he fell off his bike and scraped his knee, and how his mum would kiss it better; he remembers how it stung a bit, but then the pain melted away like ice cream on a hot day. Right now, as he’s kissing Liam, he can feel his worries melt off his shoulders as his concentration of brought away from his anxious thoughts and closer to the wonderful boy he’s kissing.

(Evidently not something six-year-old Zayn would have foreseen, but twenty-two-year-old Zayn certainly appreciates it.)

11:20PM

It’s been twenty minutes (or something like that – Zayn doesn’t have a watch) since him and Liam’s first kiss and now they’re still at it, but not standing in the middle of the hallway like before. Instead, they’ve huddled themselves back under the blanket in the corner of the café underneath a huge Christmas tree, the star of which touches the roof. It’s kind of cute, and Liam’s face is almost perfectly shadowed in all the right places by the silhouettes casted by the tree’s branches, and it’s wonderful in that elusive Liam way.

Neither of them is tired, which doesn’t surprise Zayn since he stays up half the night on a daily basis, but it’s starting to get to Liam, who begins to get ready for bed at the early time of eight pm, so he can get up at some stupid hour so he can go for a run. It doesn’t make any sense to Zayn, because a) who would want to run in weather like this? Who actually could run in weather like this? and b) Liam does not need to go for runs every morning; at least, in Zayn’s opinion. In Liam’s opinion, it’s healthy. (Liam, in fact, used a whole lot of health words like ‘cholesterol’ and ‘ratios’ and the importance of a good heart rate but Zayn, obviously bored with the line of conversation, kissed him quiet.)

(The point is that Liam’s quite fit.)

Right now, Liam is letting his hands rest peacefully on Zayn’s hips while they kiss, Zayn’s hands on Liam’s cheeks, like they’re in a cheesy, sentimental chick flick supposedly based off of a Shakespearean play that actually has nothing to do with anything. Liam breaks for a second, and kisses Zayn’s now-closed mouth quickly and softly once he pouts at the loss of Liam’s warmth.

“I want to dance with you,” Liam announces, and shakily rises to his feet, grabbing a hold of Zayn’s hand, bringing him up too. “Dance with me, Prince Zayn of Bradford.”

“It’s ‘Malik’.”

“Right,” Liam winks, “Prince Malik of Bradford, may I have this dance?”

Zayn shifts his weight from foot to foot, nervous. “We don’t have any music,” he ends up saying, in a monotonous voice that he didn’t mean to use.

“Hang on a second, I think Ashton left his CD here,” Liam plants a smooch on Zayn’s cheek before Liam walks off, back to the cupboards this outside the kitchen and Zayn watches, bemused, as Liam bends over slightly to reach the cabinets. (Zayn does not look at Liam’s arse. At all.)

Liam produces an album with blue as the main colour on the cover, and Zayn can’t see the smaller details, but he can see the words ‘The Wombats Proudly Present… This Modern Glitch’ in a white, bubbly font. Zayn’s never even listened to the Wombats, but he can tell that it’s definitely a band Liam would love.

The brown-haired boy digs out a CD player that looks nearly as old as he is from the cupboard next, and plugs it in to a power point, running a line from the kitchen. “Have you heard of the Wombats?” Liam asks, as he walks back and reaches over to press play on the player.

“Nah,” Zayn answers, and holds his hands behind his back. “Um – Liam, I don’t dance.”

Liam shrugs and presses a button on the CD player until a synthesizer and a 80s hip-hop drum beat come floating through the speakers. “I also don’t dance. Just go with it.”

Those are words that Zayn has always tried his best to ignore. Things never really worked out well when he just went with it. But he finds himself saying, “All right,” and walking into Liam’s open arms despite himself. Something about Liam, Zayn concludes, just makes him feel safe.

Liam holds Zayn’s hands and together they move with the over-used beat and the heavily accented lyrics, and Zayn laughs at some and Liam kisses him by way of you laughed, babe, that’s wonderful, and soon enough they’re both moving around the café like a couple of lovesick fools in the middle of the night.

For some reason, that’s not really a problem, and Liam spins Zayn around like a little ballerina.

1:00AM, CHRISTMAS DAY

Liam and Zayn are now sharing their fifth coffee of the night, and it’s delicious – it seems like Liam makes good coffee no matter how tired he is. He’s good at hiding it, is the thing, because he’s not yawning or anything but Zayn is positive that he’s got to be tired.

“Merry Christmas,” Liam whispers sleepily, nuzzling his head into Zayn’s collarbone.

“What?” Zayn’s head jerks up, and Liam laughs softly.

“Check my watch,” he says, showing Zayn the timepiece on his wrist. It’s one of those cutesy, white, chrome-y watches that Liam probably got from a cheap jewelry store, because of course he did – he’s Liam.

The Bradford boy’s jaw hangs open, and Liam pokes him in the nose. “Oh my God,” Zayn says lowly, slowly, “It’s Christmas Day. I’m – I’m not home. I said I’d be home.”

Liam laughs, he actually laughs, and then uses a hand to swipe Zayn’s messy fringe out of his pretty brown eyes. “I’m supposed to be home, too. But I’m kind of glad I’m with you.”

Zayn pauses for a second, and then he smiles, because why the hell not? “So am I.”

AUTHOR’S NOTE:
dedicated to @theriots bc u like the wombats thus u are amazing.
so everything’s getting pretty ((extremely)) fluffy and it’s cute, ((obv it’s ziam duh)) and we’ve only got two more chapters. comment what you think is going to happen. also, gif bc ziam dancing is aw aw aw xx

QUESTION OF THE CHAPTER:
How would you describe Ziam’s relationship now?