As He Moves

Chapter 2

Zayn wakes suddenly to the world underneath him shifting. His stomach swoops and his eyes pop open, and he scrambles to grab at the nearest thing before he falls. Only the nearest thing already has a pretty good grip on him, and Liam chuckles softly as he adjusts Zayn in his arms.

"You fell asleep on the sofa again," he explains, still carrying Zayn like he weighs nothing, which is so not true. Liam only has, like, fifteen pounds on him, okay? Only Liam's all muscle and abs and biceps, and Zayn's – he has abs too. They're there. Somewhere. "I didn't want to wake you, but obviously that failed."

"Right," Zayn mumbles, voice rough from being asleep for so long. Liam carefully lowers him to the ground, but Zayn wishes he hadn't. Liam smells heavily like sweat and lingering traces of cologne, which should probably be gross but it's not. And he's a little unsteady on his feet, his mind foggy from waking up so suddenly. "What time is it, anyways?"

"A little after two," Liam admits. Now that he's not carrying Zayn anymore, he's heading for the bathroom. "Gonna take a shower. You should probably go back to bed. You look dead on your feet."

Zayn nods, rubbing a hand over his face. He looks at the sofa, at his books spread out on the table and the novel he'd been reading laying on the cushions, carefully closed and bookmarked with a scrap piece of paper that Liam must have ripped out of the phonebook on the side table. He still didn't finish his chapter, but it can wait until morning. He's too fucking exhausted to stay up any longer.

"See you in the morning," he says offhandedly, since the bathroom door is already shutting between them.

"Night," Liam says before the door clicks into place, and the sound of the lock turning follows close after.

He can hear Liam singing in the shower when he falls into bed without even taking his socks off. It's soft and barely audible, but he knows Liam's got an incredible voice. He can sing better than anyone Zayn's ever met, and it's sort of like a lullaby, the sound of his voice and the running shower, and Zayn falls asleep after blinking at the alarm clock on his bedside table, reading the faint 2:17 and wondering what the hell it is Liam does that keeps him out well past midnight.

o|o

"I hate this place," Zayn grumbles, tucking his arms close against his side as Liam leads him through the trashy bar. There are peanut shells on the ground, the smell of beer and men who haven't showered enough lingering in the air. The windows that show the street outside look like they haven't been washed since 1986, and the inside hasn't been decorated in nearly as long.

Liam laughs at him, not turning around as he heads for a booth with only two occupants. "I know you do," he says over his shoulder. "That's why we always come here."

"You're buying all my drinks," Zayn warns. "If I have to hang out here, I'm not doing it sober."

"Is he already complaining?" Harry asks as they slide into the booth, Zayn beside Harry, Liam moving in beside Niall. "Before you even sat down, Zayn? That's a new record."

"Am I the only one with a functioning nose?" Zayn demands.

"My nose hasn't worked right since I snorted cocaine that one time," Niall says, deadpan and serious.

Harry snorts and the table jostles, probably from him kicking Niall in the shins, if Niall's sudden yelp is any indication. "You've never done cocaine," he states.

Niall frowns at him. "How would you know?" Harry gives him a blank look. "Okay, I've never done cocaine. Why do you have to ruin all my jokes?"

"Because it wasn't funny."