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Zayn isn't sure how it started.
He's not sure when he started seeing wide, brown eyes against a canvas of soft, tan skin, but he knows it's important.
He wakes up again, on the twentieth of January, to the half-cocked grin of the dark-eyed boy against the inside of his eyelids. Maybe it's painted there, unseen because only his unconscious mind can view it.
He checks the clock, groans at the bright red 4:34, and crawls toward the living room.
He knows he won't be sleeping anymore tonight. Just like every other fucking one.
He grabs his sketch book and flips to a blank page in a zombie-like trance. He has practically no control of himself.
He never does.
He picks up the charcoal pencil and sketches. Sketches the sharp planes of the boy's face until the sun has risen and is high in the sky. Sketches until the boy's face is perfect and shaded and beautifully confused. When he's finished, he carefully tears out the page and heads toward the spare room.
The 'spare' room isn't so spare, though.
It's his art room. But it's become more of a portraits-of-the-strange-brown-eyed-boy room.
He doesn't really mind. The boy's too beautiful for him to.
He pushes open the door, remains the exact opposite of awed by the sheer amount of paintings and sketches and spray-paintings he'd created of the boy over the months, and sighs.
There's barely any clear space on the walls, the art is so dense.
Zayn scratches his chin, feeling the scruffy messy of unshaved hair, before pinning the sketch to one of the few clear spots.
He's not proud of this room, of the strange unknown boy and his deep, fearless brown eyes. He's never even bloody met the boy, so where is he coming from? And why does Zayn feel the need to take the image of him and print it on canvas?
He shakes his head and exits the room, fed up with the total shit his life has become.
He heads to the kitchen and pours himself a bowl of cereal while turning on the kettle.
He sits at the table, eats his cereal and ponders whether he needs psychological help or something completely different until the kettle whistles and he makes some tea.
Then, he takes the mug into his room where he gets ready for another day of work.
-
When Zayn gets home from a long day of approving and disproving construction designs, he tosses his tie across the room and falls onto the couch, puffing out an exhausted breath.
He really needs to get more than five hours of sleep a night. It's taking its toll on, not only himself, but on his job and his income as well.
Luckily he's the CEO and can slack off more than the average worker.
His eyes close on their own accord and he soon falls asleep.
-
He wakes in his painting room.
It's the same as usual. Coated in drawings and paintings and sketches of the mysterious brown-eyes man.
Except there's someone standing in front of him.
He's tall, wide-shouldered, with muscular arms and short hair. In Zayn's peripheral vision, he thinks he can see a birthmark on his neck? Maybe?
"Hello?" Zayn calls, voice shaky.
Who is this strange man in his secret room?
If he knows The Boy, then it's about to get really awkward.
"Hi," the dark-haired man says.
Zayn finds, surprisingly, that the man is from England with a nice, calm voice. Maybe he doesn't think Zayn's an absolute nutter for his Brown-Eyed-Boy room.
"Who are you?" Zayn asks, but the man doesn't respond. Doesn't even twitch.
"I'm Zayn." He offers, coercive tones in his voice. "Zayn Malik."
The man shudders. It's the first movement he's made since Zayn's entrance into the room. His shoulders shaking cruelly, certainly not from cold considering the room is sweltering. Zayn's begun to sweat through his thin t-shirt.
"Who are you?" Zayn's voice is calm and he feels it, surprisingly.
He feels like he should be more panicked about the strange man in his secret room, but he can't muster up the feeling.
All he feels is calm.
"Liam," the man says, voice cool like Zayn feels. "My name's Liam...Payne"
Zayn nods to himself.
"Well, hi, then, Liam," Zayn says lightly, shockingly. "What're you doing in my house?"
"The real question is what are you doing with a room filled with my picture, Zayn?"
He turns and Zayn's face twists into shock.
How the fuck?
The boy in the paintings is the exact same as the boy in front of him.
Zayn gapes at Liam and his beautiful brown eyes, frozen in shock.
"Huh? What are you doing with pictures of me strung up on your walls like some sort of fucking shrine?"
"I don't know."
"You don't know? How can you not know?" Liam glares at Zayn.
He's attractive, Zayn muses inwardly, even when he's furious.
"All I know is that over the past several months, I've been woken up too early with a picture of you in my head and the need to put you on a canvas. In several different mediums."
Zayn's voice is still too calm.
He wishes everyone has the ability to be this calm. Then there'd be no wars.
"God." Liam mutters, rubbing his forehead.
He glances up, at the walls covered in Liam and presses his lips together. Decides something. Looks back at Zayn.
"At least they're pretty good," he murmurs, sounding a bit disappointed.
"'Pretty good'?" Zayn echos. "They are on point, dude. So on point that if you held up a frame, you could be one of them."
"Okay, okay." Liam chuckles and takes on a mocking tone. "They're 'on point'."
"Thank you. I worked very hard at four in the morning."
Liam pauses for a moment and stares at him, eyes darting across his body like he's searching for something he'd lost a long bit ago. Like he's a fucking profiler for the FBI or something.
"In fact, I know that I know you."
"I've never seen you before," Zayn says and he feels panic settle over his skin.
"Yes, you have, Zayn. Think hard about it. About me. Somewhere in your subconscious, it's there." Liam quirks his mouth ever so quickly before it returns to its insistent flat line. "I'm there."
"No! I don't know you!" Zayn cries, stumbling backwards. "I don't know you!"
"Yes, you do!" Liam snaps, and all Zayn feels is fear.
He trips over a particularly beautiful pastel Liam—one of his favourites—and hits the ground hard.
Liam stumbles forward, face contorted in pure anger.
"You do and you're fucking denying yourself the right to know! Think, Zayn! It's right," Liam reaches out, fingers brushing Zayn's forehead gently. It sparks a memory, but it burns out before Zayn can catch it, "there!"
"I don't!" But the touch lingers, burns Zayn's skin and has him begging for an exit, desperate for an answer, panting so hard he can't fucking breathe—
Zayn wakes up covered in sweat, remembering nothing but the angry face of the boy and, for once, his name.
He heads to his studio, taking the pack of art supplies, and captures the boy's face, burning in anger, in charcoal.
In the bottom corner, above his signature, he writes the boy's name.
Liam Payne, in Anger and Charcoal.
-
The nights become shorter and shorter over the next few months.
Zayn wakes up only an hour or so after he falls asleep, having to spend two, three sometimes four hours on the sketch to get it just right.
Every dream, though exhausting him, leaves a new clue.
First it's the boy's name. And then his favourite band. And then his favourite food. And his turn offs. Turn ons.
Zayn records them in a beaten up journal on his bedside table.
He wakes up, jotting down the released information, before heading to the studio to create some artistic renditions of fucking Liam Payne.
He hardly sleeps. He hardly does his work.
He's so fed up with the whole Liam fiasco that he calls up his friend, Louis, who works side-by-side with the FBI.
He knows some powerful people. It comes along with being the CEO of the most prolific construction company in all of Europe.
"Lou? Hi."
"Hey, Zayn!" Louis says, smile on his voice.
It makes Zayn smile. That's just how Louis works.
He brightens up the days of everyone he speaks with.
"I need you to do me a favour."
"Sure, Z. Anything. What'll it be?"
"I need all the information you can gather on Liam James Payne. I don't have an address, but I know he was raised in Wolverhampton. It's really important," Zayn says, shuffling through his cabinet for some kind of medicine that could knock him out for a few hours.
Anything is better than an hour of sleep over three days, even if it's by medicating himself.
"You got it, dude. After work today, I'll drop it off."
"Thanks, bro. I owe you." Zayn ends the call and grabs the bottle of Xanax.
It's from when he shared his house with Harry, who had a serious back injury, but he doesn't care.
He knocks back two of them with a drink of water and heads to his bed, anticipating the glorious anonymity of sleep. But it doesn't come. Of fucking course it doesn't come.
Zayn's never been particularly lucky.
At nine o'clock, his doorbell rings and he crawls out of bed to answer it.
"Hey, Z," Louis says, one singular Manila folder in his hands.
It's rather thin for the supposed record of someone's life.
That frightens Zayn.
"You look like utter shit. And that's coming from someone who just worked an eighteen hour shift."
"What a great friend you are," Zayn rolls his eyes. "I'm sick, I think."
Yeah, sick in the head.
Zayn should just admit himself to the hospital now.
302 himself and get it over with.
"Jesus. You should go to the ER. I saw you a few weeks go and I think you've lost, like, twenty pounds since then."
Louis pushes into Zayn's flat, frolicking over to the couch.
"About this boy...Liam? There's not much on him. Actually that's an understatement. There's only a page or two of info, really."
Zayn closes the door and shuffles over to sit across from Louis.
He's feeling dizzy anyway.
"So his DOB is 29/7/93. He lives in Wolverhampton with his parents. Then there's a mention of a marriage? To a guy. Name's unavailable. Initials, though, are Z.P. Which lead to a missing person's page."
Louis pauses and Zayn wonders if it's for dramatic effect. Louis always has been a little dramatic.
"What?" Zayn snaps, confused and angry and tiredtiredtired.
"It's better I just show you." Louis passes the folder to Zayn.
Zayn glances warily at Louis who nods, before opening the file.
Inside is a picture of him.
Okay, maybe it's not him per se, but it's a picture of a younger Zayn. Twenty or twenty-one at most.
"The fuck is this?" Zayn says, anxiety filling his chest, but his voice is nothing but smooth.
"I think it's you, Z," Louis frowns. "I aged the photo a few years at the borough building and...Zayn, it is you."
"What does this even mean? I've lived here for a long time. In London."
"Are you sure?" Louis says, eyes sharp. FBI eyes. "I searched Z.P in the database along with the picture and it gave me some...concerning results."
Zayn leans back on the couch, folder in his hands. His head is pounding and all he feels is the rhythmic beat of his pulse.
"There was a man...of English descent. His parents' names were Trisha and Yaser Malik. They were killed in 2013 in a tragic car accident. All four of their children were in the car with them. The only boy, though, his body was never discovered. The Wolverhampton police assumed he'd run away. He was twenty years old, so they very well couldn't look for him. Just a runaway case, they'd said. It's in your file. Your real one."
"What the fuck is going on?" Zayn doesn't get up but he feels the itch of panic settle over his skin again.
"His--your--husband, Liam Payne, never stopped searching. He remains, to this day, focused on the now-thirty-year-old's missing persons case."
"What's Z.P stand for?" Zayn asks, eyes closed to block out the burn of the lights and the sear of the skin on his neck.
"Um..." Louis says, frowning.
"Tell me. I'll be okay."
"Zain J. Payne, né Malik. There's some discrepancies with his middle name, varying upon the spelling, but it all adds up to Zayn J. Malik-Payne. It all adds up to...well...you."
"Well that's a bit odd," is all Zayn can say, lying back on the couch, in fucking shock.
He blinks against the harsh light of the room, shapes on the walls becoming less and less distinct. He hears Louis' voice and glances at him, instantly regretting it.
Everything sharpens, back into focus, and once again, Zayn's drawn into wakefulness.
"Odd? It's quite odd?!" Louis says, exasperated. "It's more than fucking odd! Zayn, you resided in Wolverhampton! It was you! Where do you think that scar on your neck came from?"
"Scar...on my...neck?" Zayn says, frowning.
Does he have a scar on his neck?
He can't remember.
His whole world's been flipped upside down.
He pulls the collar of his shirt down, hearing the fabric tear and watching the buttons fall until his shoulder's revealed.
He gawks at the pink scar tissue on his shoulder and neck.
How long has that been there?
"That scar, yes!" Louis says, motioning with his hands in a way only he can manage.
"How'd it get there?" Zayn's voice is small compared to Louis'.
"That's what I'm saying! God, have you lost all your sensibilities?" Louis stands, paces across the room, sits back down, gets up again, sits down again.
Zayn can feel his restlessness, but can't get past the panic settled over his skin.
"I think you suffered a severe head injury that resulted in amnesia. From the car accident," Louis stands again, crosses the room to Zayn and hands him a paper from the open file. "This says that you were in the passenger's seat with a seatbelt. It's speculated that you hit your head off the dash...and wandered away in a stupor."
"But then how'd I get here? My earliest memory is..." Zayn thinks long and hard, but he's too tired for this.
His mind is too tired.
He tries to focus until he catches the edge of a memory.
"I remember turning twenty-three with you. You took me out. And before that, I remember working at McDonald's for a few months. And then...streets. It was cold. I was wearing shorts...and a t-shirt. Dirty buildings. An old guy...James?...I think he might've put the down payment on my first flat."
"Holy shit," Louis says, face drawn in wonder. "You're practically Taylor Lautner in Abduction!"
"How the fuck didn't I remember?"
"Amnesia, as the WebMD article says, comes back piece to piece when you're looking for it. You, Zayn, didn't even know you were missing something," Louis shrugs. "Happens to the best of us."
"No it doesn't!" He shouldn't take his anger out on Louis. He has to calm down.
"I need to lie down." Zayn says, shaking his head.
He stands on wobbly legs and hugs Louis tight. He doesn't have the capacity to comprehend what the fuck just happened. Like, at all. He'll try to get some sleep then make sense of this. Maybe that'll help.
"Thank you so much. You don't understand how much this means to me."
"It's no problem, Z." Louis says and Zayn can feel his smile against his neck. "I'll see you later?"
"I'll text you."
Louis nods and heads to the door, glancing wearily at Zayn.
"You'll be okay?"
"I'll be fine. I've just got to...digest this. I love you."
"Love you more, Z," Louis quirks a grin, opening the door and leaving, a soft smile on his face.
Zayn goes to his room and collapses on his bed, head aching, vision spinning. He feels as if he's ridden a Merry-Go-Round on its highest setting for hours.
He barely has enough energy to tug his pants off before he's passing out surprisingly easy.
The last thing he remembers thinking is is this what my mind wanted me to know?
Zayn sleeps twenty hours that night.
-
When Zayn gets up the next day, it's the crack of dawn and he feels so good that he wants to scream.
He hadn't even dreamed of Liam.
Which saddens him, but is also a relief. He's finally gotten some sleep.
Out of habit, he heads towards the drawing room and frowns. He's got nothing to paint or sketch or draw.
He goes back into the living room, opening his laptop and searching his name.
He doesn't find much. Just an old Myspace page and a few phony results.
He opens up the Myspace page anyway, cringing when he realizes that it's his. Like, the one he remembers making.
He goes back to Google, searching for Liam James Payne instead.
He gets a hit.
He opens up his Facebook page, hungrily staring at the beautiful photo of him. He's got an arm wrapped around his shoulders, lips pressed to his cheek, and Zayn realizes with a gasp that it's him. He's kissing Liam.
It hits him harder than he'd thought it would. Like a brick in the chest.
He clicks the message button and tries to compose a well-thought out message. But his heartbeat in his ears is so fucking loud that he can hardly focus.
He has enough sense, though, to log in under Louis' name. Wouldn't want to freak the poor lad out.
To Liam Payne at 6:59am
Liam. My name is Louis and I know where your husband is.
He sends the message, looking away before he can regret it.
He collapses back on the couch, eyes heavy, and waits. At seven thirty sharp, his screen lights up, the message button glowing with a minuscule one.
Zayn shoots forward, opening it up.
From Liam Payne at 7:30am
really? are you serious?
Zayn smiles, sad, and responds.
To Liam Payne at 7:31am
Seriously. He had amnesia, apparently, but he's beginning to remember. I could give you his address?
Almost immediately, his computer dings with a new message.
From Liam Payne at 7:31am
oh fuck yes. please. i miss him so much. it's been years. please.
Zayn frowns, brow creased in sorrow. How had he forgotten someone so quickly?
To Liam Payne at 7:32am
He's in London. 23 Portabello Road, Notting Hill, London. I swear to God he's there. He's made a life for himself here, it seems.
Zayn crosses his arms across his chest, extremely nervous.
What if Liam doesn't recoginze him?
The screen lights up again, with two messages sent directly after one another.
From Liam Payne at 7:34am
i'll be there later today. tell him, will you?
thaank you, louis tomlinson, stranger i've never met. you don't understand what you've just done. holy shit. i can't belivce this is actrually happenign fuck
To Liam Payne at 7:35am
He'll be waiting for you.
And I do understand, I think. I work with the police so I had access to the files. Thank you for not giving up on the search for him. He'll really appreciate it.
Zayn closes the computer and stands up, crosses the house and goes into his room.
He showers, scrubbing through his hair for a long time, before getting out and dressing better than he has in months.
He pulls on nice jeans and a navy-blue button-up, styling his hair into the best way he can think of.
And then he waits.
And waits.
And waits.
Soon it's lunch, so Zayn makes coffee and pours two cups, nervous and so fucking excited. He places out a tray of biscuits and eats them slowly, waiting for the jingle of his front knocker.
He's just finished off his fourth cookie when he hears someone on his front porch.
They don't slam the knocker, just noisily pace back and forth in front of Zayn's stoop.
So Zayn waits, paces in front of the door for ten minutes until the person outside slams the knocker down thrice.
Zayn pulls open the door quickly, eyes filling with memorial tears as images pass through his mind.
Two boys, inseparable as totts, hands clasped tightly between them as they sleep.
Two boys, one brown-eyed, the other gold, sitting on green, green grass, eyes on each other, laughing.
Two boys as teenagers, tall and short, both extremely gorgeous, laughing at dumb teenage things.
Two boys, kissing for the first time, a shaky brush of lips against lips.
Two boys wrapped in each other, long muscular legs and tan arms, naked to the very core.
Two boys in suits in a church, saying 'I do' and kissing.
Zayn sees everything flash before his eyes, his entire life as it comes back to him, filling him with misery and anxiety and pain.
He collapses under the weight of it, knees buckling, body falling.
The man catches him, muscular arms just as Zayn remembers them from his wedding night.
"Zayn," the boy sobs.
Zayn sobs out, too, throat aching with the violence of it. He grips the man's shirt tight in his fists, head buried in the space between his neck and shoulder. He screams there until his throat aches like the rest of him does and then he screams some more.
The man sobs against Zayn's shoulder, tears warm and damp and so familiar that it burns deep within Zayn, aching and singeing and molding him into that old person.
The man is changing him, altering his ego and thoughts and memories and past and Zayn just lets it happen. Sobs against the man's shoulder, smelling the familiar cologne, the bitter undertones of his spicy shampoo, the cool scent of his tears and forgets everything new. Allows the old to take over.
Eventually they stop crying, but they don't release each other. Zayn's not done changing yet.
The man stands, holding Zayn delicately like he weighs nothing, and leads them into the flat toward the couch. Zayn clings to this familiar man, flashes of Wolverhampton and sisters and his father and mother.
His eyes are still wet, entire body and mind aching with the new memories, but he pulls back, smiling.
"I remember," he croaks, voice aching like his heart. "I'm so sorry. Fuck. I'm so sorry."
"For what?" The man swallows hard, voice soaking wet.
"For forgetting you. For forgetting everyone. Everything." Zayn reaches up, wiping at the man's tears.
He knows the man's name, practically breathes it, but he's not ready to profess it. Not just yet.
"It's okay," the man smiles, watery and aching. "It's all okay."
"I remember it all..." Zayn pauses, choking out the man's name like a frog in his throat, "Liam."
"I know, my love," Liam says, pressing a lingering kiss to Zayn's forehead. "My beautiful Zayn."
It stings like a burn and sears like a finality, but Zayn holds onto it, drags it into his heart and squeezes tight, refusing to ever let go again.
"This is a nice place you've got here," Liam muses, grinning, eyes and voice and mouth wet. "You've done well."
"Yeah, guess I have," Zayn smiles, still squeezing Liam's shirt in his fists. "Guess you'll just have to come live with me. Here."
He relaxes his hands and looks into Liam's eyes, surging forward to kiss Liam hard, a movement so practiced it's like they'd spent all these years trying it.
He doesn't pause to rethink it, just smashes their lips together. Liam mumbles approvingly against Zayn's lips, kissing him back just as hard.
Zayn opens his eyes, seeing the specks of gold deep in Liam's eyes and realizing he's missed him all along. He just hadn't realized what the aching feeling of nostalgia meant. Now, though, now he gets it.
Liam is a part of him. A whole big chunk that Zayn had forgotten.
But he swears he'll never forget again.
Never.