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Once upon a time, they had been happy.
Young and stupid, maybe, and definitely naïve, but they were starting their lives together and they were incredibly happy. They married straight out of high school, and moved into the best flat they could find with their less than generous budget. It was tiny, and falling apart at the seams, and there were months where they couldn't scrape together enough money to afford hot water, but they were together and it was enough for the two of them. Liam got a job as a mechanic not far from home, and Zayn started waiting tables at a large restaurant a few blocks from Liam. They pay could definitely have been better, but it got them through, and they were content.
It was just the two of them, after all, and as long as they had each other, they didn't need much else. They bathed in cold water and slept on a mattress in the corner of their flat and they were just as happy as anybody else, until maybe three years into their marriage, when they learned that Zayn was pregnant.
It had come as kind of shock, and Zayn had nearly thrown up on the doctors shoes, but god, it was good news to hear. They had been talking about a family since they were seventeen, and they were finally starting one together, after six long years of no avail. The only problem they had was their current flat, and their less than disposable income. It had become kind of a stretch for a while, but they saved up as much money as they could manage, and Liam took a second job when Zayn had to stop working. They moved into a bigger, cleaner flat just a month before their son was born, who had come out at six pounds, eight ounces and was probably the most beautiful thing Liam had ever seen.
His name was Layne, and he had fit perfectly in Liam's arms when he had held him. He cried a hell of lot, and half of Liam's paycheques went towards diapers for him, but he was perfect and the two of them loved him more than they loved anything. He was this little, kind of whiny ball of sunshine, and when he died everything kind of started to fall apart.
Liam's still not entirely sure what had happened, but the doctors told them he had suffocated. He had somehow managed to roll onto his stomach and smother himself with his sheets and now the same little ball of sunshine that had been giggling into the air as Liam had rocked him less then ten hours ago was now lifeless and pale beneath a thin white sheet.
Liam had been heartbroken, and punched a lot of walls on the way out, but Zayn hadn't really reacted. He didn't cry, and he didn't really get angry, and instead he had just kind of retreated into himself, and become very quiet. He didn't say so much as a word to Liam as they left the hospital, and he had barely looked at him in the months that had passed since Layne's death. Liam had barely even seen him around the flat, save for the beginning of the day and the very end, until he had stumbled into the bathroom after getting home from work one evening to find him bloody and unresponsive in the bathtub.
After that, it's kind of a blur, but Liam can vividly remembering pulling his limp body from the water and not knowing whether or not it was a corpse.
The paramedics had shown up not long after, and whisked him away to the hospital, and Liam had spent the last seven and a half hours of his life waiting with blood on his clothing for the doctors to let him out of surgery. Unfortunately, while he had been stitched up and more or less brought back to life, Zayn had lost enough blood that he hadn't woken up like the doctors had hoped. He's not dead, but he's slipped into a coma, and he's pale and lifeless against his sheets in his room in the ICU. Liam takes his hand, wary of the oximeter and the bandages around his arms, swallowing around the lump in his throat.
"Hi," he greets. Zayn's heart monitor beeps.
Liam swallows again, wrapping his free hand around Zayn's. His skin is cold, and he has thick bandages wound around his palm, from where he had cut his hand with the broken glass he had been using to try to cut up the rest of him. It had been a piece from their bathroom mirror, which Zayn had broken and which was still lying in shards along the bloody floor of their bathroom.
"I'm sorry," Liam murmurs finally, careful not to hold too tightly to Zayn's injured hand. "I should have known. I should have taken better care of you."
He doesn't mean to sit in silence and stew over everything he should have done, but he doesn't think he can help it. There was so much he could have done to try to help Zayn, and he hadn't done anything. He should have stayed home from work more, he should have spent more time with him, he should have tried harder to hold a conversation even when Zayn didn't respond. He hadn't known how hopeless Zayn had been feeling, but he should have, and he should have done everything in his power to try and change that.
He almost can't believe that he hadn't noticed that Zayn was feeling so hopeless that he was willing to tear apart a mirror to try and make himself feel better. It had been his job to make and keep Zayn happy, and he had let him down because he hadn't been willing to admit that everything wasn't okay.
He exhales loudly, and squeezes Zayn's fingers again, eyes on their hands as another lump forms in his throat. "I love you," he says finally, wetting his lips. "I know I should have told you so much more often than I did, but you're my entire life, and I love you."
His ventilator huffs, and Liam thumbs over Zayn's wedding band, smiling sadly. "I was an absolute mess when I met you, you know. I had no family and no hope and the only person that I thought had cared about me had kicked me out when I had come out. I was homeless for, like, six days, until Harry found out and took me in. It was fucking terrible.
"You were, like, heaven sent. I was still living on my best mate's couch and failing all of my classes, but having you around made me want to try harder. I liked who I was when I was with you. I don't know if I've ever told you this, but there were days when I really needed that, and I'm so grateful to you because of it. I'm sorry I couldn't do the same for you."
He looks up to Zayn's face as his heart monitors beeps again, pale and slight against the white fabric of his pillow case."You better not fucking die," he says finally, voice cracking. "I don't know what the fuck I'm supposed to do without you." He'd thought about it, as he'd been pulling Zayn from the bathtub, and he really has no idea what the fuck he would do with himself if Zayn decided not to wake up. Zayn had been his constant since he had been a teenager, and if he suddenly weren't around anymore, Liam thinks he would probably start to fall apart.
Even the thought of losing Zayn makes his stomach turn, and he doesn't know if anything would ever make it better. He could move, and try and distance himself from the memory of Zayn, but it wouldn't work. He'd look at himself in the mirror before work and his chest would constrict as he'd remember Zayn sitting on the counter of their old flat and laughing as he'd help Liam try and sort out his hair. Or he'd lay in bed after a long night of work and be unable to sleep with the memory of Zayn curled up in his arms on the bare mattress in the cold bedroom of their first flat together playing on repeat in the forefront of his mind. It'd be stupid things, too, like seeing somebody sip at their coffee from across a crowded cafe and having to suppress tears as he'd remember that Zayn had used to drink coffee, too.
It's almost bizarre, to Liam, that there's a chance that Zayn's beating heart can just give out. That one second his pulse will be racing beneath Liam's fingertips, and the next, it will stop, and he'll never open his eyes or smile or laugh or sing or kiss Liam again. That twenty four hours ago he would have been breathing and his heart would have been beating and all of a sudden it just wouldn't be, anymore.
His chest hurts.
"You need to stay alive, and stay with me, love," he finally murmurs, so unwilling to take his hands from Zayn's that he wipes his eyes with his shoulder. "I need you to stay alive, and stay with me."
He listens to the monitor beep again, and wets his lips, trying in vain to clear the lump from his throat. "What about you?" He asks him. "You're gonna miss out on so much if you die. It's only twenty fourteen. You're gonna miss out on new music and Niall's first tattoo and being Louis' best man if Harry ever gets off his ass and proposes to him," he says. "And you'll miss out on our fortieth wedding anniversary and our first house together and selling out first house together and watching me go bald. I don't want to have to go bald by myself."
Liam wets his lips again, shaking his head. "I don't want to go bald at all, really," he says, "but I'd rather have you around if I do."
He'd always pictured it that way, too. Any time he'd pictured the rest of his life Zayn had always been there, alive and happy. The plan had always been to buy a large house in the suburbs and have another several kids and a couple of dogs, and Liam was going to try his hand at a career in music while Zayn was going to beat Sean O'Pry out for the worlds most successful male model. Without Zayn, the picture itself kind of crumbles, and Liam can see himself begging for change beneath an awning or on Harry's couch again, trying to drink himself to death.
"Fuck," he says aloud, "I'm so fucked without you, Zayn."
His ventilator wheezes, and Liam squeezes his hand. "I know this is a lot to ask, and I know it breaks your heart that Layne won't be here to greet you, but I will be, and I need you to wake up.
"I know I've said this a lot, love, but you're it for me. You're actually my entire life. I'm nothing without you, and I need you to wake up for me."
His heart monitor beeps, and Liam kisses the back of his hand. He hadn't been expecting a response, but he hopes that Zayn heard him, and will at least consider not letting himself die. Liam needs him, and Liam's breathes out a sigh, kissing the back of Zayn's hand with a quiet, "I love you."
Zayn's fingers twitch.