Chapter Text
“So, that’s really all you need to know. You’ll drop the kids at school each morning, then you’re free to do whatever you want until 3:30. Zayn occasionally has a free period but he usually spends those studying. I work til quite late most nights and their father travels a lot, if you want to go out with friends then it’s probably best to give me a few days warning-“
“That won’t be a problem. Everything sounds great.”
“Excellent. Can you start tomorrow? I’ve got the guest wing all made up for you.”
Patricia Malik, is, quite frankly, terrifying, all hair extensions and perfume and bright red lips.
Liam Payne is sitting opposite her at the foot of the longest dining table he’s ever sat at. He tweaks his red tie uncomfortably, pushes up the sleeves on his slightly too big suit and nods compliantly.
“Yeah, of course. Thank you so much.”
“I’ll get the children. You should meet them now. They didn’t react too well to their last nanny leaving, but I’m sure if you stick it out a couple of weeks, they’ll like you just as much.” Patricia reaches across the table and picked up a small bell, ringing it three times. Almost immediately, two young girls spill into the room, as though they’d been waiting outside the door the whole time. (They were.)
“Hi!” The older one said, flicking long, dark hair. “I’m Waliyha. I’m 11 and three quarters.” She smiles big at Liam, batting her eyes.
“You’re a man. And young. How can you be a nanny?” The other girl asks, receiving a shove from Waliyha. “Safaa. I’m 8… and a half.” She adds apologetically.
Liam grins, thinking maybe, this won’t be so hard.
“I’m Liam! And I’m 19 and a quarter, and I’m your new au pair. Please don’t call me your nanny.” He offers a hand for them to shake and they both take it gladly.
“Where is your brother?” Patricia demands, interrupting the moment.
“He’s in his room.” Safaa supplies.
“Looking at those rude magazines I bet. I saw him the other day. The superheroes had boobies and you could see their minki-“
“That’s enough!” Patricia rings the bell again in annoyance, and Liam can’t help but flinch. She turns to Liam with an acidic smile. “We use a bell system here. Three tolls to call the children in. Two for the staff… that’s you, the maid, the cook. And one for attention. I don’t like shouting in my house. ZAYN. GET DOWN HERE. NOW. ”
Liam shrugs, trying not to smirk. He hears thudding down the stairs and then a tall, skinny boy careers in, brown eyes on fire.
“What?” He demands, arms folded.
“This is your new au pair.”
“I don’t need an au-pair. I’m seventeen.”
“That’s okay,” Liam jumps in. “We’ll be mates, yeah?”
“I’ve already got mates, thanks. I’m going out.” He’s gone before Patricia can close her long red talons around her bell.
“Okay, you can leave now, girls, go do your latin.”
“Latin?” Liam repeats.
“Yeah, they’re aiming to be fluent by the end of the year.”
Liam doesn’t say what he thinks – that Latin is a dead language. Instead, he takes the (slightly smaller) bell that she hands him, along with a house key, a car key and a pager.
“Any questions?” She asks, her eyes already on the door. “Because I have an appointment I need to get to.”
“On a Sunday afternoon?”
“Well, time stops for no man. And definitely no woman.”
“…No questions.”
“Excellent.” Liam’s starting to hate that word. “You can have today to sort out your room, settle in. Have the maid show you to your quarters. Two rings, yeah?”
“Yeah.” Liam nods, and then he’s alone, staring at the ornate bell between his fingers and giving it two short, loud shakes experimentally. Almost instantly, an old woman who talks in a thick Portuguese accent appears, barking: “you new nanny? I will show you room. Come.”
“Au pair, actually.” Liam corrects glumly, following her all the same.
His new bedroom is approximately the size of a tennis court. When the woman who introduced herself as May has left, he sinks onto the king sized bed and looks around, a little stunned. Pulling out his phone, he snaps a picture of the room and sends it to his best (and only) friend, Niall.
“New digs… pretty sick x x “
“Pls don’t say sick! Or digs! Miss ya already! I’ll have a pint for ya!” came the instant reply. Niall was loud and blonde and little, and pretty much the opposite of Liam, which is probably why they got on so well. (that, and the fact Niall had only just moved to Wolverhampton, and thus had never met Liam in his most awkward stage of awkward stages). Liam shuts his phone and stretches out flat on the bed, at a loss for what to do now. He didn’t really have a lot of stuff – just a suitcase with some clothes, some books, his laptop. Eventually he settled down to re-read one of his psychology books, yellow highlighter clutched in his hand.
Around 7pm he hears three tolls, followed by two tolls, and goes to investigate. The two girls are sitting side by side in the dining room, staring at the empty chairs and empty plates that surrounded them, as though the dancing candlestick from Beauty and the Beast was about to appear and present their dinner.
“Where’s Zayn?” Liam asks, settling into a free seat. “Your parents?”
The older girl, Waliyha, shrugs. “Dunno. They’re not often here for dinner. Zayn’ll be back before they are though, don’t worry.”
“They?” Liam repeats.
“Mum and Dad. It’s okay.”
“We got May and Cook and you now.” Safaa adds, smiling. The cook enters then, holding plates of steamed vegetables and chicken, which she places in front of the children. Liam pokes a carrot experimentally with his fork, before eating it.
“Mummy likes us to eat healthy on Sunday nights, because we have tennis training on Monday morning.”
“Do I need to drive you to that?” Liam asks, suddenly realising he didn’t know much about their schedules at all, past the vague plan Patricia had offered. Not for the first time, he felt completely out of his depth, being blinked at in confusion by two young girls who were now his responsibility.
“Oh no, the tutor comes here.” Waliyha laughs as though it would be absurd to not have tennis courts in the grounds of your house. Liam marvels at this for a moment, before attempting to further the conversation.
“So, do you like tennis?”
“Mummy likes tennis.” Safaa shrugs. “And we like mummy.”
Liam shrugs and finishes the rest of his meal in silence before realising that it must be his job to entertain the children until bed time. Shrugging, he lets them show him around the house, peering into rooms where the door is ajar and avoiding rooms where the doors are shut.
He reads to them from ‘The Magic Faraway Tree’ and is only slightly alarmed by a few of the characters. (Moonface? Saucepan Man?! They sound more like stoner superheroes than children’s story characters). Eventually, they fall asleep around 9pm, and Liam retreats to his quarters, settling down on his impossibly large and comfortable bed and cracking open another book.
The front door slams once at 9:13pm, once at 10:20pm and once at 10:57pm.
Around 11:30pm, he hears a vehicle starting in the driveway, jarring him from his half-slumber. Dazed and slightly frustrated, he pads across the landing and down the hall to the closed door the girls identified as Zayn’s room. He knocks three times and hears a grunt from within. Satisfied, and believing he imagined the sounds, he returns to bed and falls asleep.
The next morning, Zayn looks at him from across the breakfast table with a split lip and a black eye, grabbing a banana and slamming out of the house before Liam has a chance to pick up his bag and his new car keys and chase him. Trailing behind, tugging two well-dressed girls fresh from a tennis lesson in his wake, he presses the unlock button on the key curiously. The range rover sitting on the long length of driveway winks its headlights invitingly.
Liam exhales. “Great. I’m officially a yummy mummy.”
He watches Zayn climb into the front seat, still glowering in his general direction. Checking the girls have all their things for school (not that he has any idea what that would consist of – he feels so out of his depth), he ushers them into the backseat, gets them belted up and slips into the driver’s seat, putting on his own seat belt and looking pointedly at Zayn.
“What, mate?” Zayn asks drily, fiddling with the collar on his leather jacket.
“Belt up.” Liam does his best to sound commanding. Zayn snorts. Waliyha sniggers. “I mean it. I’m not leaving until you do.”
“Zaaaayn, I don’t wanna be lateeeeee.” Safaa whines from the backseat. Grunting in irritation, Zayn puts his seatbelt on, glaring all the while.
“Try and smile, yeah? It might never happen.” Liam offers hopefully.
“It already has.” Zayn says vaguely, pulling his phone out and texting furiously. After the girls get out at their school, silence falls uncomfortably.
“Right, where am I going now?”
“It’s just down here.” Zayn gestured, giving monosyllabic directions until they pulled up outside a fancy looking building with an abundance of pillars and gargoyles. “Cheers.”
Liam smiles. “I’ll pick you up at 3:30, yeah?” He confirms, looking at Zayn hopefully, trying not to let his eyes drop to Zayn's lip, which is now bleeding slightly.
“Nah, I have after school… Biology club.” Zayn shrugs. “I can walk. It’s not far.” He climbs out of the car and slams the door, starting in the direction of the gate.
“Zayn?” Liam calls, winding down the window with the touch of a button. Zayn turns around slowly, as if the act of doing so was one of the most taxing chores he’d ever been confronted with. “Like I said… I hope we can be friends.”
“Like I said, I don’t need a friend. Seeya Leo.”
“L- It’s Liam.”
Zayn’s already gone. Liam feels impossibly small. Zayn somehow reminds him of his old classmates, excluding him and ignoring him whenever possible. It wasn’t that they didn’t like him, and he bet Zayn didn’t not like him either – it was just that he wasn’t good enough to be picked up on his radar, not worth his time.
Zayn’s all mystery, skinny jeans that probably aren’t in keeping with the uniform the other students filing past are wearing, leather jackets and locked doors. Liam is hopelessly and horribly in too deep in this job, and he hasn't even been here 24 hours.
Liam’s never been more compelled by any one person in his life.
Curiosity curls around him and follows him all the way home and up the stairs and before he knows it he’s standing outside Zayn’s room with his hand on the doorknob, torn about how to proceed. Steeling himself, he turns it slowly, letting the door creak open. It’s a room only slightly bigger than his, and it looks even less lived in. The bed is made, a few books and CDs are shelved, an empty desk has a stack of papers on. It looked like a page from an Ikea catalogue, not like anyone actually lived there. In fact, the only vaguely personal thing was an old Batman poster, framed. Liam approaches it and touches it, squinting.
It’s signed by Christopher Nolan.
Liam springs back, doing a double take, wiping his hands on his jeans nervously.
At least he’s found something to bond with Zayn over. Feeling slightly guilty, he leaves again, careful to ensure everything is exactly how he left it.
He knows he's there alone, but he swears he can hear giggling coming from Zayn’s closet.