Chapter Text
Unsettled by his earlier experience in Zayn’s bedroom, Liam goes to pick up the girls from school with a new resolve, dialling Zayn’s school on the way.
“Hiii, I just wanted to check what time the biology club finished tonight.”
“There must be some mistake, dear. The biology club meets on Thursday nights.”
“Oh, hmmm. Must’ve got my wires crossed.” Liam says quickly, thanking the receptionist before hanging up, a slight feeling of unease spreading through his stomach. Still, he forces a smile when he picks up the girls and follows Zayn’s instructions not to pick him up. The girls seem to act like this is normal, so he tries to relax.
Around 5pm, Zayn trudges in, shoes caked in mud and a smirk on his face. Liam looks up at him from the dining table where he’s helping Safaa with her homework and smiles back.
“Hey Zayn! How was Biology club?” He asks carefully, kicking the leg of the chair opposite him with the intention of offering it to Zayn. Zayn grunts in response, before adding, “got a lot of homework. Seeya at dinner.”
Liam tries to console his disappointment by telling himself that he wasn’t being lied to. Zayn was just omitting the truth, but he still feels hurt, especially when Zayn doesn’t join them for dinner. Liam’s beginning to think Zayn must have a high tolerance to the bell system employed by the Malik family, since he already feels conditioned to head towards the source whenever he hears it. He might not care for Patricia's methods, but they seem effective enough.
Unsuprisingly, the Malik parents are also absent again. Liam’s slightly concerned that he is yet to meet Mr. Malik. He’s even more concerned that Safaa and Waliyha themselves haven’t seen him in days. This job fills him with pity for the two girls – his childhood was rough too, but his one resolve was found in his parents’ support.
Casually, ever so casually, he asks Safaa how she’s getting on at school and who her friends are, relieved that she reels off a number of stories about girls with names like Marie-Beth and Bronwyn. Waliyha is much of the same, talking about the Justin Bieber concert she’s just dying to go to and blushing when Safaa mentions a boy named Oscar in Waliyha’s class, who is revealed to be a ‘total babe’ when Liam presses Waliyha.
Feeling like he’s made progress with the girls (and, in their bedtime reading, less alarmed by the plotlines in The Magic Faraway Tree but ever cautious that he’s going to snigger the next time he says ‘Silky the Elf’), he heads downstairs and makes two cups of tea, stealing some scones from the pantry (while thinking, who in this day and age has a pantry?) and heading up to Zayn’s room, where the lights are already out, darkness visible under the door. Pausing, he dumps the tray outside the room, returns to his bedroom and changes into his pajamas, a too-tight Batman t-shirt and some jogging bottoms. He hopes that the Batman t-shirt will cause... something. He doesn't know yet. He wants Zayn to smile (really smile, not smirk) and open up and this is the closest thing he has to knowledge of Zayn's interests.
Steeling himself, he raps on Zayn’s door. Similarly to last night, a grunt of nondescript nature comes from inside.
“Can I come in?” Liam calls, leaning his forehead against the wood.
More grunts. Taking this as an acceptance, he opens the door and walks in, flipping on the light.
“Hey, you missed dinner. I brought you some food and a cuppa. I thought we could chat.” Liam says bravely, putting the tray on the desk and depositing himself firmly in Zayn’s chair, arms folded.
The face-down lump under the duvet groans and pulls the duvet up further until wisps of brown hair are all that Liam can see.
“Go away,” the lump grumbles in a strange, distorted voice. “’M sleepin’, like,”
“Zayn, please. I just wanna talk to you. You sick? Shall I get someone?”
The lump is still. Liam watches it, unsure of how to proceed. “Zayn…? Could we just talk for a second?”
“Look, mate. Don’t freak out.” The lump says, sitting up slowly, pulling down the duvet. Liam nearly knocks the tray over when he jumps to his feet in surprise because the blue eyes staring back at him guiltily are definitely not Zayn’s.
The person in Zayn’s bed smiles sheepishly. “Errr. So. There is an excellent explanation for this.”
“Who the heck are you?” Liam demands, becoming frazzled instantly, visions of Zayn being murdered or kidnapped by the evil giggling fiends he thought he’d heard in the closet earlier.
“Heck? What era does darling Pat get you people from, are you imported from the 1910s? Or some sort of etiquette school? A nunnery, perhaps? Are you a relative of Julie Andrews?” The boy asks, flipping back the duvet to reveal that he’s fully dressed, shoes and all. He gets up and wanders over to the window, seemingly unfazed by Liam’s presence, as though he gets caught in people's beds all the time. Judging by his cheeky smile and big eyes, Liam suspects his assumption isn't far from the truth.
“Excuse me? Where the… where the fuck is Zayn?” Liam asks, the swear word coming out odd in his voice.
“He’s fine. Just gone out, y’know.”
“No, I don’t know! Who are you and what are you doing here?”
“Err, there’s great ventilation in Zayn’s room? Not to mention an excellent collection of reading and watching material.” The boy smiles cheekily. “Nah mate, this is just a thing we do. The other nannies weren’t as stupid and or smart as you to actually come in and check if the person sleeping in Zayn’s bed was actually Zayn. So, kudos for that.”
“Where is Zayn? I won’t ask you again.” Liam steels himself, squaring his shoulders.
“God knows, in a pub or a club somewhere probably. You’ll never find him mate.”
“Zayn’s 17.” Liam says nervously. “He can’t get into a club.”
“Yeah well, I’m 18 and as you can see, I don’t need my ID right now.”
“You look nothing like him!” Liam exclaims.
The guy laughs as though Liam is a child. Liam stiffens accordingly, trying his best to look threatening in his Batman t-shirt.
“Bradford, man. Nobody asks too many questions or looks too closely. As long as you look old enough and the license says you’re old enough, you’re good to go, the two are pretty mutually exclusive. Zayn looks about 25, whereas you look about 15. Nice Batman pajamas. Where you even from, Birmingham?”
“Wolverhampton.”
“Interesting. Well you’re an improvement on the last one I suppose. She chased me with a saucepan. I was only trying to borrow a bottle opener. Some people are so touchy. So, Mary Poppins, been a pleasure talking to you. Must dash. Cheerio, pip pip.” The boy says, ducking out the window and darting across the roof of the garage and down the trellis before Liam can stop him. Alone again, Liam sighs, pulling his phone out of the depths of his joggers. He dials Zayn’s number and hears a faint buzzing coming from a nearby drawer. Pulling it open, he sees Zayn’s left his phone behind. Slowly he picks it up, turning it over in his hands before putting it back. He’s worried, but he’s not going to make Zayn hate him more by going through his phone. He leans his head back against the wall and groans, settling into his seat and picking up one of Zayn’s comic books from the neatly organised pile beside him. He glances up at the window every few minutes, prepared for a long night.
· * *
Liam hears a motorbike followed by a scuffle at around 4am and thudding outside the window, before Zayn’s silhouette vaults through the window gracefully, stopping abruptly when he spots Liam.
.
“Hi, Zayn. Was hoping we could chat. Brought some tea. Several hours ago.” Liam says.
He definitely didn’t spend some of the hours waiting for Zayn to come back thinking up a good opening line.
“Shiiiiiit.” Zayn says woozily, running his fingers over his swollen lip.
“Indeed.”
“Can it wait?”
“No.”
"Where's Louis...?"
"He had to 'dash'. Said 'cheerio' and 'pip pip'. Friend of yours, I assume? So charming." Liam says, narrowing his eyes and folding his arms.
“Can you just, like, piss off? You’re not here to look after me, you’re here to look after the girls. Could you just butt out? Everyone’s happy this way.” Zayn says quietly, cautious of the sleeping household around him but his furious eyes betraying the anger that was burning inside him.
“My job is to take care of the children, and despite what that boy’s ID might say, you are still a child.”
“I’m 17! Two years ago, did you consider yourself a child?”
Liam falters.
“Legally, you’re a child.” He manages to respond.
“You’re not much more than a 'child' yourself. Don’t paint me into an angsty young adult novel unless you’re gonna paint yourself with the same brush.”
“The difference is, I wasn’t sneaking out to god-knows-where with god-knows-who when I was 17.”
“Jesus, you’re like a little middle aged man! Just leave me alone. Don’t you have better things to do at 4am than lecture me? Like, I don’t know, sleep? Because, I have a long day of school tomorrow, so I’m just gonna…” Zayn toes off his shoes and collapses face-first onto the bed, effectively ending the conversation. He turns his head and adds, “Light off and door shut when you leave.”
Liam leaves silently, doing as Zayn asks and feeling more useless than ever as he climbs into his own bed.
A few minutes after, Zayn stumbles to his desk and eats one of the scones Liam left behind, feeling slightly remorseful and having no idea why. He ran his hand over the comic book Liam’d left open on the desk before closing it and sighing. “Fuck off.” He says to himself, and it makes him feel slightly better as he tries his best to get some sleep, the Red Bull from the several Jagerbombs he downed earlier making his thoughts jumbled and speedy and his legs jiggle. Alcohol thrums in his veins and he closes his eyes tight, the lights from the club still flashing behind his eyes.