Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

INTRO

“He’s twenty minutes late.”

When Louis breaks the room’s silence, Liam turns his head to the clock on the far left wall.

10:20 AM

“He’ll be here.”

Immediately, Liam looks back across the boardroom table at Harry, who’s stopped typing on his phone to confidently address the two sat across from him.

“He might not always be on time, but he’s responsible,” the man presses down on the lapels of his jade coloured suit. “If he wasn’t going to make it, he would have texted me beforehand.”

Louis’ not placated. “He’s got five more minutes and then I’m walking.”

“Hey,” Liam nudges Louis’ arm with his elbow. “It’s alright Tommo. I don’t have anywhere to be after this.”

“Trust me, I know. I’m you manager.” Quickly, Louis unlocks his mobile and refreshes his emails. “And the fact that you’ve convinced the Label to push the due date for the album back a month, means that I’ve got plenty of other things that I could be doing instead of sitting here, waiting for your mystery man.”

A small sigh falls from Liam’s lips at the guilt that his friend’s trying to instill in him. “I know it’s been a lot - and you know how grateful I am for it all - but I told you you didn’t have to come.”

“And miss seeing what this guy looks like after six years? Yeah. Sure.” Ignoring his phone once more, Louis glares at the man sitting directly across from him. “Six years of trying to get this one to crack and at least show me a picture so I can satisfy my own curiosity.” Harry smiles in pride at having held his ground. “Which wouldn’t exist in the first place if you,” Louis turns back to Liam, “just shut up and took this person for a normal songwriter.”

He’s not normal. We’ve been over this a thousand times, Liam thinks to himself, biting his tongue as he stares at the empty seat next to Harry.

As a singer, Liam’s career longevity comes down to sales. He knew that well before he signed on the dotted line of his contract with one of the largest music labels in the world six years ago. Still, that doesn’t mean that he’s been ok with only doing what it takes to get a catchy R&B/Pop beat on the radio; he loves the art of music too much to sell himself out like that. Instead, he’s done everything in his power to stay true to himself in his sound, but more importantly, his lyrics.

Being fourteen and not making it through on one of your country’s biggest tv shows can take a toll on a person. For Liam, it threw him into a downward spiral for all of about a week, before he realized he could use the experience as one to grow from, not one to wallow in his sorrows because of. The two years between being turned away and auditioning for a second time was when Liam fell in love with the craft of music - songwriting included. He wasn’t great back then - not by a long shot - but it was the period in his life when he saw how important and arduous a songwriter needed to be in order to create decent work. Getting told no again when he was sixteen wasn’t any easier than the first time, yet looking back, Liam’s not sure he would’ve made it all that far in the industry if he hadn’t been given the time rejection had afforded him.

Putting out straight pop music like he was on the path to do as a teenager might have suited his voice, but it certainly wasn’t the place for abstract expression in his opinion. His playful personality and youthful smile shouldn’t fool anyone - Liam Payne is more than a rhythmic hook. More than anything, he wants to be clever with what he writes, putting his thoughts down on paper in a way that makes them more than just emotions floating through his mind. When he was finally signed at nineteen after finishing a music tech course at his local college, he knew that being able to master a skill like that would take a lifetime, but he was eager to learn from the best. He’s always been like that - the type to take full advantage of the opportunities he’s given while keeping his feet on the ground enough to accept criticism and use it to his benefit. What he didn’t expect was to have to wait six years to meet the person whose brain he’s yearned to pick the most.

Wanting to be in charge of the music he put out, a newly turned twenty year old Liam almost denied the meeting with Harry to listen to demos from other songwriters entirely. From the beginning, he insisted on being a part of everything, which meant even if he didn’t pen the song, he needed to at least sit in on the writing session. So to be told that it might be in his best interest to select a few songs for his first album without having any influence on them, was crazy to Liam. Right as he was about to give Louis a piece of his mind for subjecting him to a useless listening party for three, only put together because his new boyfriend worked as a song plugger at the publishing portion of Liam’s record label, he heard the voice that would haunt him for over half a decade.

It was powerful, yet smooth in a way that Liam wanted to test. See what other notes it could hit or falsettos it could amaze with. Early on in his sound engineering courses he learned that writers often hired professional singers for their demo tracks, but the one thing that Harry had let him in on was the fact that the man responsible for the lyrics, Icarus Kalim, was also the voice’s owner. When Liam asked for Harry to play the song again, the man and his boyfriend smiled at one another in satisfaction.

All Liam wanted was to have another listen to the voice, but it quickly became apparent that that wasn’t the best part of ‘Vertigo’, it was the lyrics.

Are we better off believing, what the ignorance suggests?

I wish living life was easy, but mine has been a mess

They say it comes with the seasons, but the seasons come and go

I go blurry when I’m thinking. Is it me or vertigo?

They were effortlessly beautiful. That was all Liam could say. Even though they weren’t his, the words were able to hit him as strongly as his own lyrics did, if not stronger. They were him, but also so much more than that. He couldn’t put his finger on what the overwhelming emotion was that the lines had him feeling, but it was how Liam was able to feel anything that powerful at all from such simple words that had him in a trance.

I’ve been better off than broken. I’ve been battered, I’ve been beat

I wish I was more outspoken, but the words are out of reach

Thought I loved you in the moment, I was happy I was young

I’ve been learning, I’ve been growing, but the worst is yet to come

The change from the usual ‘but the best is yet to come’ was all Liam needed to hear to reach in the center of the table, push pause on the stereo remote, and forgo anything he thought about wanting some sort of production credit on all of his work to tell Harry, “I’ll take it”.

Since then, Harry’s sold Liam enough songs of that writer to fill up a third of his discography to date. And while he’s loved all of them, Liam’s been desperate to meet the man who can so easily speak to his soul, without even having spoken a word to him. Coming out of that first meeting with five of Icarus’ songs, Liam had done everything in his power to get Harry to introduce them, but each time he was left with a different version of the same thing - he doesn’t work with others. Even when Liam had tried to sell himself from the angle of just wanting to literally thank the man for his contributions to Liam’s chart topping albums, he was denied access. If Liam wasn’t as humble as he is, he would’ve joked with Harry by asking who the real celebrity is.

Thankfully, Liam’s years of persistence has finally paid off. He’s not sure what Harry had managed to say to his client, but today was the day Liam was finally going to get to meet the subject of his lyrical admiration.

“I’m sorry I’m late.”

Broken out of his thoughts by the conference room door being thrown open, Liam’s head snaps in the direction of the voice.

A man, about his age, dressed in skinny black jeans and a black t-shirt quickly hikes up the green rucksack that’s hanging off his right shoulder. He looks like he’s out of breath the closer he gets to Liam, but that isn’t what the singer’s attention is focused on; he’s too busy trying to take in all of the ink that litters the male’s exposed skin while not looking as disgusted as he feels at the horrible smell of fish that’s radiating off the other.

“Twenty three minutes,” Louis points out, although by his lenient tone, Liam can tell that the payoff of getting to meet this person has alleviated a lot of his manager’s previous annoyance. “Louis Tomlinson,” the man says while standing from his seat and extending a hand out for the newcomer to shake.

“Ah yeah, I’ve heard a lot about you from Harry through the years. Good to finally see you in person,” the writer replies, reciprocating the handshake as he also takes a deep breath.

“Oh, so you’ve seen pictures of me?” Louis snides in Harry’s direction. “Wish I could say the same.”

Liam hears the man respond “don’t kill him. I was the one who told him not to expose me”, but the extremely pungent scent of fish is too much, Liam’s forced to give in to his senses and scrunch up his face.

“Hey.”

Liam’s eyes meet the hazel ones staring down at him and he realizes that it’s his turn to stand. “Hi,” he returns evenly, taking the man’s hand and shaking it firmly.

“Zain. It’s uh...” the writer chuckles as their hands continue to fall up and down. “You really don’t take no for an answer, do you?”

Zain?

Liam’s facial expression must do the job of letting the other know how he feels, since the male continues to speak when their hands drop and Liam can’t find it in him to reply. “I was just taking the piss…”

It occurs to Liam that his silence must’ve made him seem like he was some stuck up celebrity, offended by another person challenging his character, not that he was actually just stuck in a whirlwind of confusion by the name he was presented with.

“No, I-” Liam shakes his head. “It’s not that, I just wasn’t expecting to hear you had a different name.”

A small bit of relief comes into Zain’s eyes and softens them. “Right, yeah. Icarus is just a pen name. My real name’s Zain.”

Liam nods, taking a seat again when Zain’s walking around the table and greeting Harry with a hug.

Six years was a long time, and while Liam had let himself daydream every once in a while about how their first meeting would go or what the man would look like, he wasn’t sure he could’ve expected what was now sitting in the plush leather seat across from him.

This guy was the one who wrote Liam’s favourite songs? Who was able to see inside his head and pull out eloquent lines within it from afar? The scruff around his sharp jaw, mixed together with his high cheekbones made the man undeniably handsome, but this was him? Not a stereotypical writer who wore fashionable pea coats and thinly framed glasses, but an extremely skinny twenty something whose clothing had so much grease on it that Liam could make out the stains through the solid black material. He wasn’t sure what he expected, but it certainly wasn’t a strongly scented Zain with a short, black buzz cut, complete with a huge mandala tattoo that’s just barely visible under the short strands - made noticeable when he took off his black baseball hat.

And god. What fucking fish was that? Sardines?

“Like I said, sorry I’m late.” Zain lifts his bag onto the table and unzips it to pull out a spiral notebook. “Got held up prepping at the restaurant.” Liam’s head tilts slightly at the information spoken. “Ran here as soon as I could.” The singer’s eyebrows rise at that too. “I’ve got about forty five minutes before I need to get back, so let’s just get into it, yeah?” He pulls out his phone from his trouser pocket and messes around with it before staring at the premiere sound system that sits underneath the flat screen hanging on the wall at the end of the table. “Harry told me you wanted to meet and see if there were any other songs of mine you wanted to put on the next album. Even though you’ve already bought five of them for it.” Zain looks up from where he’s completed pairing his phone with the speakers to smirk at Liam.

Most people might’ve blushed at being called out like that, but Liam was proud of having that many of Zain’s songs on his upcoming album; he didn’t see the need to be embarrassed by the large number. “It was supposed to be done by the end of this month, but I convinced the Label to push it back so I can experiment a bit more.”

Zain’s eyes bounce over Liam’s face, taking him in. The gaze has Liam a bit self-conscious of his looks, even though he cleaned up his short beard the day before and considered himself half-decent in his plain white t-shirt.

“Well, I’ve got a few that might suit you based off what you’ve chosen of mine in the past, so just...let me know if you have any questions or,” Zain shifts in his seat, directing his eyes down to his phone, “you want me to stop.”

It’s clear that the man’s uncomfortable with being present while his songs - his personal works of art - are being picked apart by practical strangers, judged and deemed either worthy of being heard by ears outside of the room, or not. Liam doesn’t blame him, especially if he was just as selective with granting in person meetings with other singers as he was with Liam. The writer’s state of awkwardness makes the celebrity want to give him some sort of comfort to calm his nerves, regardless of whether or not he showed up late with a disheveled appearance.

Before Liam has the chance to come up with something to say that’s appropriate for their having just met, Zain pushes play on the first song he has lined up.

Liam relaxes into his seat as the uptempo beat starts up, nodding along to the rhythm as soon as the first verse sounds out. Although he longs to speak up over the words and tell Zain just how much he’s always loved his voice, he keeps his eyes trained on the wooden table in between them so as to not add any unnecessary pressure on top of what the writer is already feeling.

If you like me now, wait ‘til you get used to me

This is not no sit down joint, get off your feet

We could dance all night, girl come and rock with me

This ain’t the same old love that you can get every week

He knows he wants to take the song for its sheer ability to get the listener to do exactly as Zain sings - get off their feet - but he doesn’t want to get ahead of himself in case he hears something else he wants more.

“That one was quite easy, not all that complex or serious,” Zain comments as he spares a quick glance at the other three. “Wrote it pretty fast one day, but I thought you’d like it because of the sound more than anything else. Think it’d be fun to perform too.”

Before Zain can barrel into the next song, Liam speaks. “I agree, it made me want to dance.” He can see the man fight with himself to keep eye contact and avoid shying away at any sort of feedback, regardless of it being positive. “It’s a great arena song.”

Zain gives him a tight lipped smile in response, “thanks.” His pointer finger presses down on his phone screen. “This one’s really slow, but I thought if you got a producer to spice it up, it might be something you could use.”

Liam loses sight of the man’s light brown iris’ as soon as he finishes his brief introduction, but that’s alright, the room’s filled with achingly slow piano chords that are almost just as beautiful.

I drown in the oceans that keep us apart

Mapping distant stars, oh their voices call me

To the shelter of your skin, where the end begins

Between the fragile way Zain’s voice sounds singing the lyrics, and the poetic lines themselves, Liam finds himself being consumed by sorrow.

Oh I’m fading through, Oh I’m fading through

Nothing left to do

And can’t you see it was all for you?

He can’t help himself, he needs to look at the person who was responsible for such vulnerability.

Zain’s still got his eyes angled downward, but now so is his head, hanging heavily like how Liam’s heart feels.

I’d climb onto rooftops, to catch a glimpse of the moon

A fading trail of you

A mountain of effort, and a wall of prayer

But this war is to the death

Closing his eyes, Liam lets the rest of the song play out and paint a solemn picture of emotions in his chest. He only opens them when the last few lines pierce into him.

Can you make this new?

Can you make this new?

Body crumbles to dust

But I can’t lose you

The sound of Louis clearing his throat is the only one any of them make for a few seconds after the song finishes. Liam’s feeling too many things to be able to grab hold of just one and express it to the person who pulled it out of him, so he feels lucky that Harry’s salesmen side comes out and saves them all from looking like idiots.

“You could easily swap out the grand piano with a drum beat and add a few synths to it to pick up the pace.”

It’s his job to sell Zain’s music to artists, but Liam knows Harry doesn’t believe in his own words, so he opts to play the bad guy instead.

“I don’t want it,” he says point blank, Zain’s chest rising and falling from taking a deep breath at the decision that was vocalized. “I don’t think you should sell it to anyone.” Liam stays calm as he’s met with Zain’s confused stare. “Your voice is made for it.” The writer’s eyes dart to the side in discomfort before coming back to Liam’s’. “Adding or taking away anything would ruin it. It’s beautiful as is.”

No matter if it seems like the two businessmen are holding their breaths in anticipation to what Zain would say to such a declaration, Liam keeps his vision focused on the person responsible for making the conference room smell like anchovies.

“Thank you,” Zain replies simply, looking to still be battling with himself to hold Liam’s gaze, but doing so because of the way the sincerity in the singer’s voice demands him to.

As much as Liam wants to keep praising the same brain he’s grown so attached to, he knows that he’d be doing Zain’s anxiety a favour by leaving things there and letting him continue on.

Zain reads the room and leads them through a handful more songs that are much more up Liam’s alley, not needing hardly any tuning to fit with his sound, but Liam’s got a small secret.

“They were all great, but I only want the first one,” he announces after Zain makes it clear that he’s got more, but he doesn’t think they’re good for the R&B star. That, and he’s got to get back to the restaurant soon, which Liam’s given up on trying to distinguish the cuisine of. His best guest is sushi.

“Or at least, I want to hear what my voice will sound like on it,” he clarifies. “But I didn’t bring you here to see what you had in your reserves.”

Both Harry and Zain look at Liam with unsure expressions at being, what sounds like, tricked.

“I know you know how much I love your work by the amount I’ve bought throughout the years,” Liam explains hastily. “And you were right, I don’t take no for an answer. Which is why I had to have Louis convince Harry, that I just wanted you here for a change while I shopped more of your songs.” Zain’s eyes continue to narrow as Liam’s plans are being laid out in front of him. “I’m grateful you said yes, because it really has been good to finally put a face to a name.” Liam frowns at himself, “or a face to a real name I guess. But what I really want is to work with you to come up with more songs for the album.”

Liam can see it in the way Zain sits back in his chair at the same time his features transform from perplexed to betrayed, that he’s beating himself up for not sticking to his gut and refusing another one of Liam’s incessant requests.

“I know,” the singer adds in a rush, “you don’t work with anyone else, but I really want this.” Zain doesn’t seem to budge, but his eyes do float down to Liam’s sleeve of tattoos on his left arm. “You’re so talented and I’ve fallen in love with your writing style since the first time I heard your voice when I was putting together my debut album. What do I need to do to make you say yes?”

Liam can hear Louis mutter “jesus” under his breath at how desperate his friend was acting, but he didn’t care. He meant his words - whatever it took, Liam would do.

“Look,” Zain starts, beginning to pack up his notebook that he’d used to scribble a few words on while the music had been playing. “I appreciate you liking what I write, and I definitely appreciate the sales.” Liam holds his breath. “But there’s a reason you didn’t know my real name until today.”

“Please…”

Zain zips up his bag and stares at Liam, who’s now doing his best to make his expression look just as convincing as his pleading tone had sounded. The writer’s eyes flicker over to Louis for a second before settling back on Liam.

“I’m not about to go on some retreat that singer’s take songwriters on to get inspired or some shit,” he says sarcastically, guard clearly still up.

Liam holds up his hands in surrender, “no trips to the forest.”

The promise seems to make Zain ease up, even if just a tad, yet Liam can tell that he’s still being tested for trust. Especially after the stunt he just admitted to pulling in order to get them in the same room.

“I’ll pay you,” Liam offers, which earns him a swift kick in the shin from Louis.

“I don’t need your money,” Zain objects strictly. “I have a full time job.” At ‘the restaurant’, Liam presumes. “I’m just trying to figure out if this will work.”

The clever wording nearly has Liam laughing since he knows the man probably would’ve preferred to say something a lot more along the lines of ‘if I want to be bothered with you’ based on his initial joke that proved Zain wasn’t going to treat Liam as anything other than a regular guy on the street, not the international celebrity that he is. Honestly, Liam wishes that Zayn says yes for that reason alone; he could use another friend in the industry that isn’t obsessed with image.

“I work about seventy hours a week, sometimes more.” There’s a daring glint to Zain’s eyes and phrasing to his words. “If you can do things on my terms, then I suppose I can give this a go. No one’s ever been as steadfast as you.”

Liam beams in pride, “you call the shots. I’m at your disposal.”

“Alright, we get it,” Louis chides, but Liam’s filled with far too much exaltation at being granted something he’s asked for about a hundred times, if not more since the start of his career, to care about what he sounds like.

“It’s only for a month,” Zain says aloud, as if he’s convincing himself that things will be ok. “I’ve really gotta go though.” He nods to Liam’s phone that’s screen side down, “take down my number.”

Not wasting a second, Liam flips his phone over and starts a new message. After typing in the number that Zain’s spouted off, he sends him a quick text: this is liam.

A ding goes off on the opposite side of the table, but the writer doesn’t do anything to entertain it, instead, positioning his hat back on as he stands. His bag’s being slung over his shoulder right after he gives Harry a hug goodbye. This time, Liam stands well before the man makes his way in front of him.

“I’ll text you when I can to figure something out,” Zain tells him when he’s shaking his hand after Louis’.

Again, Liam can read between the lines. He hears Zain’s assertion of having the upper hand loud and clear. The male won’t be getting any complaints on the vague timeline.

“I’ll keep my eyes open for the message,” he replies, sending the other a blinding smile to show his appreciation one last time for Zain accepting his request.

The writer’s lips tilt up to the right in amusement at Liam’s eagerness. “Don’t hurt yourself.”

If he blinked, Liam would’ve missed the way Zain’s eyes drifted down his figure before switching to the door, but he most definitely didn’t.

“I’ll work on writing up a co-publishing deal for the two of you,” Harry says as soon as the door closed behind the writer. “He’s only got an admin deal with me, so I’ll get that to you to sign when it’s done.” Liam looks up from his phone where he’s saving Zain’s number from the text thread he’d created. “That smile can get you anything,” Harry chastises with a shake of his head, making a few notes on the memo pad in front of him.

When he glances up and sees Louis sending him a wide, cheesy grin, Harry glares. “Not yours. You’re sleeping on the couch tonight for what that turned into.”

TRACK 1

Five days later, Liam receives a text.

It’s not what he expects on a Saturday, given that most people his - and he can only guess Zain’s - age are usually preoccupied with friends or making the most of their weekend. Because of this, Liam feels a bit special at having crossed Zain’s mind at three in the afternoon enough to finally award him a time slot in his busy schedule.

I should be free tomorrow at midnight. That work?

Life as a musician has made Liam a night owl on tour and an early bird during bouts of promotion. Any other time of the year was his to do with as he pleased. All one month of it.

Yeah. I’ll see what studio has free space

Technically, recording put him within the night owl phase of life, albeit leniently since he only had plans to add to his third album if it was with any songs he and Zain penned together. Or if Zain was the sole writer. As long as Liam was able to witness the process of that magic, he wasn’t going to be picky.

No, meet me here

Liam hits the address that was sent in the next text, quirking an eyebrow when he sees that it’s for a 24/7 diner in the center of the city. Was this the place Zain worked? From what Liam knew, diner’s didn't typically have a fish centric menu. Maybe this was just a neutral meeting spot. It was only a fifteen minute walk from Sony’s publishing offices they had met at earlier on in the week.

As long as you’re paying

Aha, your accountant run away with your money?

Liam smiles to himself.

He’d be picking a shit time right before I drop my third album

Zain’s reply takes a couple minutes instead of a couple seconds, making Liam wonder if he’s actually forced the other to stop and think up a witty enough response, or if he’s just gotten distracted.

You’re going under the assumption that it’ll do well

Liam really shouldn’t be laughing at that. A career as an entertainer’s as fickle as they come, but he can’t help it; the man’s got a good sense of humour and he’s not afraid to show it at Liam’s expense.

Ouch. I’ll see you tomorrow night, dream crusher

See ya dreamer

Liam stares down at his text thread the next night in the back of his Uber. He’d opened it up again to retrieve the diner’s address and look up pictures that people have posted to get a leg up on what he’s going to get to eat.

The sight of decadent pancakes make him wish he had gone harder in the gym that morning, and also contemplate whether or not he can still order them, just make up for it tomorrow morning. Which, in theory, was only ten minutes away. Monday’s the start of a new week. Or something like that.

“Hi,” Liam grins at the server who welcomes him when he walks through the door to the restaurant. He’s about to inform her that he’s here for a Zain… Well, just a Zain. Which not only sounds pathetic because he doesn’t know the lad’s real last name, but also due to the fact that a diner wasn’t exactly a place that a person would normally put a reservation in for.

“Perfect timing.”

Another all black Zain appears to Liam’s right, a tired smile gracing his lips. When he directs it towards the server, the woman looks to have just put two and two together with how she knows the singer.

“We’ll take the corner booth in the back.” Zain grabs the menus that the woman’s fetched from behind her podium and leads the way to where he’s mentioned they’ll sit. Before he follows behind the writer, Liam throws the girl a courteous nod.

“You come here a lot?” He asks, keeping his head down so the few random customers that are scattered around the restaurant don’t take notice of him before they reach, what sounds like, a safe zone to settle in.

The writer throws his green bag into the booth he’s chosen before scooting in after it. “Couple times a month maybe, when I don’t feel like waiting to get home to eat and the thought of Chinese makes me want to be sick.” He slides over the second menu that was in his grasp. “But I could tell she was about to say something. Probably still will.”

Taking his seat, Liam debates on looking around the corner of the booth’s high wall to see if the man’s right, but decides against it. “I’m used to it, but thanks anyway.” Instead of opening the laminated tri-fold, Liam takes his phone out of his pocket so it doesn’t dig into his thigh, making sure that when he does, it’s facing down. “What’s the connection with Chinese food?”

“The restaurant I work at is in Chinatown,” Zain provides, not looking up from the open menu in front of him. “I love the cuisine, don’t get me wrong, but a person can only take so much.”

Right then it occurs to Liam that tonight, he can’t smell any sort of fishy scent coming from the male. Perhaps it’s from the already overwhelming aroma of grease and burnt coffee on the bottom of a pot that masks the odor.

“So you’re a chef?”

Folding up the menu once more, Zain looks up and flags down a waiter. “Not a head chef, only a chef de partie.” When his eyes switch from the view behind Liam, to the man himself, it must be clear that the name doesn’t clarify anything, only makes Liam worse off. “I’m basically in charge of the meat section of the kitchen,” he elaborates.

Liam hums in response, unsure if he’d be pushing any invisible limits by bringing up the fish thing.

“What can I get you two?”

A male stands in front of their table, ready to take their orders, pen and paper in hand.

“Can I have eggs benedict and an orange juice?” Zain pushes his menu towards the edge of the table, waiting for Liam to do the same.

“Pancakes and a coffee, thanks.” Along with handing over his menu, Liam gives the worker a small grin to accompany his words.

“You plan on staying up all night?” Zain asks once it’s just the two of them again, his figure relaxing into the leather seat behind him.

Briefly Liam looks over at where the other’s bag lays discarded. “There’s no way you’re able to write the songs you do in the blink of an eye. That’s way too good to be true.”

“Who said anything about writing?”

All it takes is those five words for Liam to slip into a sulking posture. “Just didn’t want to eat alone then?”

The singer’s only half kidding, but Zain takes the question as a full on joke. “You’re the one paying, so if that makes this a date, then you move fast. You should know that I don’t date to get inspiration, though.”

The man in front of him is completely different to the one who needed to ward off the instinct to crawl into himself on Tuesday morning. This person is cool and collected, suave almost. Without being reminded of a shrimp cocktail every time he inhaled, Liam found the man irrefutably intriguing.

“Neither do I,” he confesses calmly. “So if this is payback for deceiving you the other day, then I’ll take it. It’s what I deserve.”

Zain’s tongue peaks out to lick his lips. “It’s not, but it should be. The only reason I took that meeting was because I thought you did deserve it after refusing to give up for six years.” He scratches at the underside of his beard, “and I figured of all people, you understand confidentiality, so there’s no need to worry about my identity being compromised.”

If it weren’t for Zain’s serious tone, Liam would’ve made a comment about how the male made it sound like he was some sort of superhero. “There’s not. You don’t have anything to be worried about, which is exactly why I don’t feel the need to be nervous either.” Both men thank the waiter for their drinks when they’re being put in front of them. “But if this isn’t retaliation, then what are we doing here in the middle of the night?”

“Can’t we just talk?”

Liam sobers at Zain’s genuine tone, as well as the other’s honest, even expression. “Yeah, there’s nothing wrong with…” he trails off trying to rid himself of the guilt that had crept into his system from realizing how narrow minded he’s being. Here was this normal, everyday man who had been nice enough to allow Liam a glimpse into his world, and the singer had completely ignored all humanistic elements of getting to know someone. “I’d like that actually.”

Whether it’s because he was the one to ignore formalities or Zain just wanting to reinforce his leadership role in their agreement, Liam finds himself starting the conversation when the male sitting across from him raises his eyebrows in playful impatience. “Can we not talk about music at all?”

An amused smile finds its way onto Zain’s lips. “You don’t meet a lot of new people out of the industry, do you?” The curve creeps up higher when he sees he’s managed to tug at a string of childish aggravation that was hidden beneath the celebrity’s rose coloured jumper. “There aren’t any rules you need to abide by when making friends.”

“I know how to talk to people,” Liam objects with just as much of a juvenile tone as his expression exhibits.

“Should we get the twenty questions over with then, so you can get to talking about music?”

“It’s a common ground of ours,” the brunette argues, desperate to explain himself and not go misunderstood. “I was just trying to start on an even playing field.”

“You’re overthinking things.”

The truth to Zain’s words have Liam falling back on his quickly constructed wall of defense.

“Here, I’ll start.” A short pause comes from the writer taking a sip of his juice. “My name’s Zain. I’m twenty six. I was born in Bradford. And I hate technology.” He extends an open palm as a gesture of invitation.

While Liam despises the sarcastic treatment he’s being given, he has to admit that those were foundational pieces of information that he was actually grateful for being made known. “My name’s Liam.” His eyes slit at the enjoyment Zain’s getting out of this. “I just turned twenty six. I was born in Wolverhampton. And I hate loud talkers.”

The other male drops his power trip when he hears one of Liam’s pet peeves. “Yeah? I can’t stand ‘em either. I’d much rather be in a quiet room than a full one. Besides the kitchen, I’m stuck with that noise.”

Liam makes a mental note of that before getting to something he can’t wrap his head around. “How do you not like technology?”

As if it’s obvious why, Zain shrugs nonchalantly. “It gets in the way. I like traditional methods.”

“Of?”

“Life.” Both men laugh lightly at Zain’s answer. “When my last iPhone broke, I carried around an old Nokia before I got around to buying another.”

“Why not just keep the brick?”

After the Northerner swallows his latest mouthful of juice, he smiles. “No voice notes app. Can’t exactly write a guitar harmony.”

Liam knows that frustration intimately, but he’s taking advantage of Zain being the one to bring the topic full circle. “So about music…” As the writer squints, Liam gets a satisfying feeling at how the tables have turned, although it doesn’t take long for the tone of the conversation to switch to something more genuine. “I meant what I said before about your songs sticking out and staying with me through the years. Yours are the ones I listen to the most of mine.”

When he sees Zain start to revert to his uncomfortable state, Liam figures he might as well just go for it since the retraction’s seemingly unavoidable at this point.

“I was adamant on always having some sort of hand in the making of my music, but you were the one who let me see that that doesn’t have to be the case if I feel moved enough by someone else’s work. I’ve allowed myself to buy a couple other songs that I didn’t help create, but the total number of those doesn't even come close to yours.” Liam takes a small break to drink his coffee, that he’s grateful to find has cooled down enough to be able to take a long pull from and not burn his tongue.

“I always find it difficult to explain what it is I feel when I hear your songs,” he continues after letting the hot liquid heat his insides. “I just think you can string words together in the most simplistic of ways and yet they still wind up packing a powerful punch. I’ve come to realize the more I listen to your lyrics, that the best songwriting comes from being able to do that - getting the audience to relate to an every day message, not one that’s trying to be overly complicated, yet having the same impact as if it was.” Liam tilts his head a bit to the left. “Does that make sense?” By the way Zain’s face softens and eyes come off as warm as the coffee mug between his palms, Liam thinks that it does.

“You said you found it difficult, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard someone be able to pinpoint exactly what I aim to do, so clearly.” Zain’s tranquil state - expression, lighter version of his thick accent, overall aura - does the same thing his songs do to Liam: make him feel understood. “When I was a kid, maybe eight or nine, I fell in love with poetry. I can blame my Dad actually.”

The male runs his pointer finger around the rim of his glass. “It was the night before Valentine’s Day and I was working on homework at the dining room table when he came to sit next to me. He wanted to write a poem for my Mum in the card he bought her. My parents have always been sickeningly in love, I’ve been lucky to grow up in that sort of environment.” He shrugs, “maybe I can blame them for being one to fall in love with certain things in life so hard.”

Zain’s already got his attention, but Liam’s ears perk up even more at the notion that the other can admit to the fact that he can get swallowed up in passion. If it weren’t for Zain continuing on, Liam would’ve blurted out that he too falls in love at the snap of a finger; it’s a curse of his that he’s not sure if he loves or hates.

“Anyway, I tried to help with the rhyming and all that, but the vocabulary of an eight year old doesn’t make for the most eloquent of poems.” A single laugh falls from Zain’s lips. “For whatever reason, it sparked the romantic in me, and from then on, all I wanted to get my hands on were poetry books.”

The image of a little Zain tucked away reading poetry makes Liam happy.

“I’d write nonsensical things that rhymed until I joined the school choir to meet girls when I was twelve.” The male shakes his head, “didn’t expect to be told that I had a good voice. I hated the attention it got me though, that much I could’ve expected. I’m not a very…” Liam watches as the writer debates on the right way to describe himself. “I can be outgoing if I want to be, but I’m usually a pretty soft spoken, private type. Still,” he swirls around the contents of his glass, “I do like to sing, so I started to combine that with poetry.”

“Which equals songwriting,” Liam interjects absentmindedly.

“Yeah.” Zain lets his hands fall into his lap gently. “I went to uni for creative writing, just in case the songwriting thing didn’t work out; a degree was going to make my parents proud and let me sleep at night knowing that I could become a teacher at the very least. To make the most of it, I picked a course with a lot of practical modules so I could work on my storytelling skills and take inspiration from the fictional characters I made up.

“In the beginning, a lot of the songs were either overly simplistic, which account for a majority of the pop songs that I’ve sold, or overly complicated. It took me a while to mature and practice how to say a lot in a little, but the story writing helped tremendously.” Zain lets out a small yawn, covering his mouth so as to not be rude. “I still like to play around with clever wording that’s relative to poetry nowadays though. Sometimes it’s too much, but sometimes it works.” He nods in the other’s direction, “like your ‘Entropy’.”

In a second, Liam’s memory goes into overdrive trying to remember the lyrics to the song he bought from Zain for his sophmore album. He starts to hum the melody, grateful that the words come along with it from having sang it relentlessly for that record’s tour.

“His eye’s on the sparrow, eyes is on me

More eyes than the KGB

Sometimes I suffer, sometimes I bleed

Not all at once, time flows linearly”

A tiny smile shows itself when Zain hears Liam’s voice sing his own words in person for the first time.

“Only forwards, never backwards

Seek the darkness, seek the laughter

Raise my jersey to the rafters

Let moths consume me in the light”

The first time Liam heard the pre-chorus, he was sold on the wit behind the lines. Getting a brief glimpse into where the author’s mindset was when he wrote something Liam was overly proud to have his name attached to was exactly what he hoped to get out this whole experience.

“But I’m not an idiot,” the older man continues. “I know what I come up with isn’t usually radio single material, and honestly? It doesn’t bother me in the least. I write to write and that’s all there is to it.”

Liam’s eyes trail down from Zain’s, to the tattoos around his neck, only bouncing back up when he hears the other ask if he can guess what his favourite lyric of all time is. “Is it one of your own?” By the way the other nearly rolls his eyes, Liam can confidently say he’s nowhere close to being on the right track.

“Do you know how many songwriters are registered in the world?”

Liam does know. Not only is he one of them, but he uses the registered databases online to keep track of his favourite writers and to see what they’ve put out. It’s how he’s aware of Zain’s songs outside of the ones he purchases.

“If I thought I was the best, I’d be the worst creative in the world.” Looking past Liam, Zain gives him the right answer.

“I get lost on the boulevard at night

Without your voice to tell me ‘I love you, take a right’

The ten and two is the loneliest sight.”

Immediately, Liam’s brain goes into overdrive trying to think of where the lyrics are from, keeping his focus on Zain to soak up every bit of the insight he’s sharing.

“John Mayer.”

Fuck, Liam should know that.

“I write about ninety percent R&B music, but the man’s a genius. No one can deny that.” Zain’s eyes flick back to Liam’s when he’s done analyzing whatever it was that stole his attention before. “Driving, listening to someone give you directions, it’s the most mundane thing on earth, but that’s the beauty in life. Every day isn’t exciting.” He stops himself and licks his lips, “maybe for someone like you they are, but for the other six billion of us they aren’t. You might miss someone’s looks or how they whispered to you at night, which is actually-” Zain digs into his bag and retrieves his trusty notebook, along with a pen. “Whispers at night,” he mumbles, writing down the same words in the margins of an already pretty full page. “Anyway, those things are normal to miss and they’re usually the things people talk about the most, but the small parts of a relationship - the accumulation of tiny moments that get you to say ‘I love you’ to someone for the first time - those are what hurt the most. I just don’t think people want to deal with the pain of those memories, so they block them out for the most part.”

Dropping his line of eyesight down to the table, Liam stares at the notebook that’s been brought out. His vision doesn’t try and clear the blur in order to eavesdrop on what’s written there, he just needs something other than the freckle in Zain’s left eye to stare at.

The notion makes sense to Liam, it does, but what doesn’t is how he’s managed to go so long in life without thinking about it. There wasn’t one word that he didn’t agree with, yet he’s getting himself upset over never having discovered a concept he relates to so well.

“I’m single now,” he confesses, still looking down at the pen that’s cap has multiple bite marks on it. “But my ex used to always use a bar of soap instead of body wash. I travel a lot anyway, so it’s not as if I took a shower with her every day, but still, watching the soap bubbles around the drain…” Looking up, Liam sees that Zain’s staring back at him intently. “That’s sort of the same thing, yeah?”

Calmly, Zain nods, “Yeah, I think that’s what he was getting at. And it’s what I try and do with my lyrics - make simple things that people overlook, have immense beauty.”

That explanation was exactly why Liam had held out for six years. That was why he trusted his heart when it made him cling to whoever was behind the lyrics of his favourite songs.

“Can’t let me go if I’m fallin’

I’ve been on the path of importance

Let the love pull you in slowly

The river is running, we’re flowing”

Instead of Zain commenting on Liam’s singing, he adds more to the song’s second verse.

“Pour me a, pour me a potion

I’m rocking, I’m rocking the motion”

Clearing his throat, the writer changes back to his regular speaking voice. “That was the first song you bought of mine where I had to give you notes.”

“Harry told me, ‘if you buy this, you have to sing it how he does: without a ton of pronunciation’”, Liam recalls before taking a drink of his coffee once more.

“Because it’s supposed to flow like a motion.”

Liam’s lips turn up in a warm smile when the last line Zain sang and the reasoning for the delivery was so important to him, matched the track’s title: ‘Motion’. “What about ‘Adore You’?” Liam, asks eagerly. “From my EP last year.”

Distracted by trying to remember the words, Zain looks away from Liam for a second. When it comes to him, he shrugs his left shoulder. “It’s not realistic for every song of mine to be deep. Sometimes I just have to write cheesy love songs to get them out of my head; they don’t have all that much meaning behind what I literally put down. Although,” his expression changes to one of contemplation, “I suppose if you really wanted to read into things, lines like

You’re making my heart sing

You’re making my voice reach places that it’s never been

could really have no corniness to them at all. The fact that I can’t come up with a better way to word how I feel, other than to use unoriginal examples, might actually be a statement to how indescribable the feeling really is.” Another sly smile is thrown Liam’s way. “I can get quite philosophical, but the way you sang such a repetitive chorus with so much emotion, is what really makes the song.”

All Liam wants to do is listen to Zain speak his mind. In no way is it disappointing, rather exceeds any expectations he had going into this. He wants to tell him how he feels like he’s sitting down, chatting with a friend he’s known for six years, that they click in an instant sort of way that he always hoped they would; the way their emotions and brains worked, similar, without being groomed to be. It’s remarkable.

“You got all the music stuff out of your system now?” Zain smiles behind his glass.

“I don’t think I ever will,” Liam replies earnestly, now taking the time to pay attention to Zain’s worn out notebook up close, instead of from across the conference table they sat at almost a week ago.

“Well too bad,” the older man sits back as their plates are set down in front of them. “I’m good on it for the night.” Before he has the chance to dive into his eggs, Zain puts his notes back in his bag. Liam nearly frowns at the action as much as he does the other’s words. “What do you do other than sing? Celebrities have some weird habits, I’m convinced of it.”

The stack of pancakes in front of him make Liam’s mouth water and just barely allow him to forget about the fact that they’ve moved on from songwriting for the time being.

He can’t remember the last time someone asked him about life outside of entertainment or what was going on in his love life. That’s not to say that people close to him didn’t care about his well being, he knew they did, it’s just that besides the few friends that he’d kept from his years in school, all those around him now had one thing in common: entertainment. It was nice to have people be able to relate to on some level regarding the attention or, as Zain had put it, the confidentiality of it all, but Liam wasn’t used to people coming at him so genuinely and without any sort of motives for themselves.

“You come up with that from reading the papers?” Liam questions, starting to cut up his meal into manageable bites.

“I don’t really read the papers.” Examining the consistency of his hollandaise sauce, Zain cuts into the first poached egg. “I know a bit about you from doing my own research after Harry came back to me one day and said one artist had bought five of my songs for their debut album. Not much out there about you back then except for the X-Factor stuff, and articles about you finally getting signed a few years after that.”

As Liam watches the man judge the food on his plate, he can’t help but think how simple it was for someone to boil down the hardest years of his life, into one sentence. How Zain had put it was exactly what happened, yet to Liam, it felt like the most troublesome, soul searching, trying times; it was difficult to hear it be summed up that easily.

“Then your single came out…”

Liam looks up from his pancakes when Zain trails off, nervous to hear what he thought of a piece that he was solely responsible for the production of. He’s put at ease when he sees how the male looks to be holding himself back from giving Liam too much satisfaction from a good review.

“Had it on repeat for about three weeks,” Zain confesses before taking his first bite.

It may have been six years since the most nerve wracking day of Liam’s life, but he still got rosy cheeks any time someone brought up a love for his first release. “I didn’t write the lyrics, just produced the sound.”

“Yeah, and the fact that there’s only a handful of lines throughout the whole thing tells you that the music’s strong enough to carry the track.” Using the side of his fork, Zain cuts up more of his food. “Just hold on, we’re going home,” the man sings softly, head shaking afterwards. “Fucking brilliant.”

When he finishes chewing, Liam thanks him kindly. “‘M still not sick of singing it surprisingly.”

“Neither am I,” Zain chuckles into his napkin. “But after that, I pretty much just stuck to keeping you on my music radar, not headline. I may not be in the spotlight myself, but I’m not ignorant to think that what you put out there isn’t just that - what you want the public to know of you. Besides tabloid stuff of course,” he adds hastily.

Hearing Zain say that he knows Liam, but he really doesn’t at the same time, is downright refreshing to the singer. He probably could’ve guessed that with a brain like his, Zain would be someone that’s mindful of Liam’s positioning in the industry he’s a part of. However, that doesn’t stop the celebrity from contributing even more positive attributes to the man who still doesn’t seem too sure about what he thinks of his midnight breakfast.

Liam feels himself fall further into a state of comfort the longer they sit in the booth. “Well, we’re going to be seeing a lot of each other over the next month, so hopefully you can show me the person behind the words and I’ll let you see into who’s responsible for singing them.”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” Zain warns light heartedly. “I told you we were going to be doing things on my terms, and since I don’t write with others, I’m still trying to figure out how that’ll go. Maybe we’ll see each other every day, maybe you’ll only see me once after this. You’re gonna have to wait to find out.”

Impatience floods Liam’s system. It’s a soft buzzing that’s just under his skin, and he’s desperate to make it go away by staying in Zain’s presence where he can get all his lyrical questions answered, but things don't look like they’re going to be that easy.

“So you like tattoos?”

Liam looks to where Zain’s staring at his exposed arms, smiling to himself as he tries to figure out where to start.

TRACK 2

Despite the bossy attitude that Zain takes whenever their timetables are brought up, this time, Liam only has to wait three days for his next text.

Got some free time in a few hours

The address attached to the text that had come in at six that morning wasn’t far from the diner they spent a couple hours getting to know each other at a few days ago. In fact, the second Liam’s maps application opens, he doesn’t have to guess where he’s assigned to meet that day, it’s obvious by the ethnic neighborhood: Zain’s place of work.

Even though the singer could see that the message had been delivered before sunrise, he didn’t actually read it and respond that he’ll be over at round ten, traffic depending, until an hour later.

Walking to the Chinese restaurant from a nearby valet car park, Liam wonders if showering was worth it after his session at the gym earlier. He’d been training hard as of lately, wanting to put on some muscle for a change, rather than living with his lean build for another winter, but given how Zain had smelled in the past, he wondered if the shower would go to waste now that he was going to spend however long he was allowed in a place full of such strong scents. Fish scents nonetheless.

Except, as he walks through the doors of the noted storefront at the beginning of an extremely deserted Chinatown, his nose doesn’t pick up any hints of seafood at all, only onions.

He’s in the middle of trying to piece together what meal might be cooking when his thoughts are interrupted by a medium sized, older Asian gentleman wearing black trousers and a white apron covering, what looks to be, a blue button down. Liam’s head spins as he’s being bombarded and yelled at in a foreign language he’s got no way of identifying.

“I’m here to see Zain,” he reasons, eyes blown wide in worry at having possibly walked into the wrong establishment, subsequently embarrassing himself into the next universe. He’s about to get his phone out to show the man the address he’d been sent, but another voice cuts into the very one sided conversation.

Liam doesn’t even care that the white apron over Zain’s usual black jeans and t-shirt is stained with who knows what, he’s just glad to see someone familiar - someone who can speak whatever language the other worker can to let him know that Liam’s harmless.

After the old man backs down and nods to Zain in understanding, he retreats to one of the tables in the middle of the restaurant where he was sitting when Liam walked in.

“Sorry about that,” Zain says as he passes Liam to lock the front door. “He didn’t know you were coming and we don’t open until noon.”

Not knowing where to go, and very well aware that the man who’s back at his seat is watching him like a hawk, Liam keeps still. “You know Chinese?” The language wasn't entirely a shot in the dark. Given their location, it was an educated enough guess that Liam didn’t feel too much like an idiot voicing it.

“Simplified Mandarin, yeah.” Zain looks over his shoulder at Liam when he walks past him once more, motioning for him to follow. “I mean, I’m not fluent, but I’m getting there. I’ve got about six years under my belt, but it’s so different from English or Urdu that I’m going to need a lifetime to be able to consider myself half decent.”

From living in London as long as he has, Liam’s become aware of a world of cultures. It’s the only way he knew what part of the planet spoke Urdu and he was glad for it. England was a small country with lots of immigrants, but Liam hadn’t paid a lot of attention to that when he was younger. Hearing someone the same age as him be able to speak three languages, especially as difficult as the ones Zain knows, reminds Liam of how much he regrets not taking the required French classes in school more seriously.

“You already sound half decent,” the celebrity compliments as he trails behind Zain’s slim figure. “More than.”

Turning around, Zain points to the open table that’s situated in the back corner of the restaurant. “You’ve got no idea if what I’m saying is gibberish or not.” He watches Liam slip into the padded seating that lines the wall. “But thanks. Hungry?”

The words act as a reminder of the surrounding scents that are coming back to Liam’s senses. “I had a protein shake on the way over here, so no thanks.” There’s no way that he can afford anything else in terms of nutrition other than the basic drink, but he still feels bad for not taking advantage of the opportunity.

“Do you mind if I eat while we talk?”

Liam shakes his head at the still standing Zain, wondering if he’ll be able to sneak a tiny bite to at least give himself a taste of something that isn’t bland; the continuous cycle of whey protein, chicken, and rice was starting to get to him.

When Liam’s left to his own devices, he steals a glance at the man who’s also eating and finds that he’s still being watched. It’s not the type of spying he’s used to from being internationally known either. No, it’s a type that forces Liam to keep his eyes down at the table in front of him because a friendly smile won’t do him any good.

“Can’t say no to tea,” Zain says, causing Liam to look up from his phone that’d he taken to as a form of distraction while he awaited his company.

Kicking out the serving table that was folded in the crevice of his elbow, the man sets down the large circular tray he was carrying with various items. First, he sets a bowl of steaming hot, milky white liquid at the seat across from Liam, followed by a plate that’s definitely responsible for the onion smell. Finally, he places two cups on the table and pours a generous amount of green tea from the teapot that he keeps on the tray, into each.

“Is that breakfast for you, or lunch?” The clock on Liam’s phone reads 10:07, but both foods look too savory for any early morning meal in his eyes.

“Breakfast.” Taking a seat, Zain blows on the contents of the ceramic bowl before using a nearby spoon that looks like a miniature ladle to scoop up a mouthful. “This is congee.” He lifts the spoon to reference the food. “It’s kind of like the Chinese version of our porridge, but it’s not made with wheat and it’s saltier. It’s usually only for when people are sick or the winter months, but I could care less if it’s the middle of September; I felt like it.” After he eats the spoonful, he uses the utensil to point to another on the table near the napkin holder. “You can try some if you want. Can’t guarantee you’ll like it though. When I first tried it, I was told Westerners either like or it hate it so…”

Never being the one to back down from a challenge, Liam takes the spoon and dips it into the bowl. When the soup sits on his tongue for more than a few seconds, he can see why the food heeds such a warning. It’s tasteless and salt filled all the same. He hates it. “It’s not bad.”

Zain’s eyes twinkle with humour at Liam’s obvious lie, pushing forward the white plate. “Take off a piece of this instead.”

Once he’s done washing his mouth out with green tea, Liam reaches for the thin, yellow food with his fingers, comfortable doing so when he sees that Zain didn’t used a fork either. “I like crepes, so this’ll be ace.”

“It’s not a crepe.”

Liam realizes that as soon as he’s started to chew the food and is met with a myriad of different favours - none of which resemble that of a simple crepe.

“It’s a scallion pancake.”

So it was scallions, not onions.

“I made this one mild, but I like things spicy, so I usually put a chili paste in between the folds.” Ripping off another hearty piece of the pancake, Zain tosses it into his mouth. “It’s got flour, salt, peanut oil, and scallions.”

“It might not be a crepe, but I still love it,” Liam confesses, running his tongue over his teeth to make sure nothing was left over from the small bite.

“I can make you one of your own if you want,” Zain offers, just about out of his seat before Liam even has the chance to answer. “It won’t take me more than a couple minutes.”

“No, no.” Making sure that the male’s convinced by his tone, Liam puts his hand on Zain’s forearm to keep him from standing. “Really, it’s ok. I appreciate it, but I’m on a strict diet.” That seems to be enough to keep Zain sitting and also inspire a smirk.

“Right, I forgot I was talking to someone who gets photographed going to the petrol station.”

There’s enough lightheartedness in Zain’s voice that Liam lets him have the joke without any contest. In fact, all he really wants is to know more about how Zain got to know so much about China while having such a thick Northern accent.

“I thought you just manned the meat part of the kitchen,” Liam recalls, sipping his tea that tastes way stronger than any green tea he’s ever had before.

“When we’re open I do, but I can cook a lot more than just that.” Rather than comment on that, Liam waits for Zain to finish the rest of the pancake he’s scarfing down to hear more. “I want to open my own restaurant one day. A Chinese one, but it doesn’t have to be in Chinatown. I got a late start to cooking, so I’m just trying to learn as much as I possibly can about all the regional cooking techniques, spices, and specialities.”

The man uses his napkin to wipe his mouth briefly. “My Mum taught me how to cook Pakistani foods when I was growing up, which is why they put me on meats. I mean, Chinese meats and East Asian meats are a lot different, but I had a leg up learning the Chinese satay recipes and methods with the kind of foundation I had. Right now,” he takes a quick sip of his tea. “I’m working on perfecting boiled fish and the chili oil sauce it sits in. It’s similar to what’s used for Mapo Dofu, so I’m getting that down at the same time.”

A million questions are running through Liam’s head, and like Zain’s songwriting explanations, he wants the answers to all of them. “What came first? The language or the food?”

Zain seems pleased by his curiosity, but he still takes his time giving Liam a response, eating enough to last him the amount of time it will take to reply adequately. “They came at the same time actually.” Feeling comfortable in Zain’s presence, Liam pours himself more tea without asking. “I did a year abroad when I was at uni. I was already paying the fees, so why not take advantage of paying the same fees in a new place? I wanted to go somewhere that was completely foreign to me. Europe would’ve been too easy, and America or Australia would’ve been practically the same as living here, just minus the accent. My school had an exchange program with an international school in Shanghai, so I went there for a year.

“I thought it’d be good for my writing, and it was, but I fell in love with the food. It surprised me how much too. I sort of assumed it was going to be different than the Chinese food we have here because it’s the real stuff, you know? But there was something about it that just hit me.” Zain shakes his head, “I don’t really know how to describe it because it was so unexpected.

“I went from eating out with locals from the university, to spending all of my free time trying hole in the wall places and attempting to use the minimal Mandarin that I was learning at the school there to understand how they got things to taste the way they did, or what spices they used.

“I never wanted to leave, but when I had to go home, I got a job as a dishwasher at a Chinese restaurant near my place in Bradford before I had to move back to campus.” He mimics Liam and takes a long drink of his tea. “I always wanted to be a songwriter and make it big. Hear my songs on the radio and know that I could make something that some random person on the other side of the Earth could resonate with, but after going to China I had this burning desire to cook.

“I still love songwriting. Obviously,” he rolls his eyes at himself. “It’s six years later and I’m sitting here with you, but it’s become a secondary passion, not my first anymore. I’m lucky I got signed the semester before I went to China, otherwise I’m not sure I would’ve put much effort towards achieving that after I came back, given how drastically I changed directions.”

Liam can only imagine how good Zain’s cooking must be if his secondary passion is as amazing as he knows it to be. “Harry told me you were signed almost a year after I was…”

“I don’t know when you were,” Zain admits, “but I was May of 2013 - right at the end of my second year of uni. I was putting up my stuff on Soundcloud, just so that people could hear my music. That’s all I wanted was for others to hear the words that I came up with, not for them to stay in the notebooks that were stacked all over my flat. Only way to do that at the time was Soundcloud, and back then, there were scouts checking that place religiously for talent. Now there still are, but not like it used to be. Problem is that they’re usually looking for talent, not songwriters, so when I got an email one day from Sony I freaked out; they’re the largest publishing house in the world. I thought I’d hit the jackpot, but as soon as I got into the boardroom at the label’s office and not the publishing office, I got worried.” Liam feels like he’s on the edge of his seat, so he can’t help but feel frustrated when Zain takes time to eat more.

“They wanted to sign me as an artist on the label,” the older man informs Liam. “I was gutted, which sounds crazy considering what it was, but the last thing I wanted to do was sing. I can’t imagine anything worse than being in the limelight like you are; I don’t know how you do it.”

It’s a rhetorical comment, or at least Liam thinks it is by the way Zain doesn’t wait for a response, simply moves on to bringing the blue bowl up to his lips and drinking what’s left. He’s not sure what sort of answer he’d give even if he had wanted to hear a play by play of how Liam stays sane living the type of life that he does. It has its pros and cons of course, Zain was smart enough to understand that, but Liam loved singing enough to overlook the negatives and stay grateful for being able to live out his dream in the first place.

“I was lucky they liked my songs almost as much as they liked my voice though,” Zain continues. “They offered me a publishing deal with them for my songs and a solid handshake that if I ever changed my mind on singing, that it’d be for them.” He sits back in his chair, stretching. “Never gonna happen. Not if they doubled their signing bonus or offered me restaurant real estate of my choice. I’m sticking to re-signing my contract every three years where Harry gets 10% for matching my songs with artists, and I write at my leisure. Life’s good that way.”

Knowing how Zain got to where he is and being rest assured that he didn’t work in the back of a kitchen in order to make ends meet, he did it out of love for the trade, gives Liam the material he’s needed to fill in the blanks on the person he’s thought about for years.

Zain’s more of a reality now that Liam knows about the time he pranked his family with a temporary face tattoo that made his Mum nearly have a heart attack, or how he goes through trainers like crazy from being on his feet so many hours a day, ruining the soles. Before, he used to assume that Zain was this person who lived and breathed writing, and he does, Liam doesn’t think that that’s been taken away by cooking, but now the singer can see that Zain’s more complex than he could’ve thought.

“You’re going to have to give me cooking lessons on top of writing lessons,” Liam teases, although he wouldn’t be opposed to the idea if Zain presented it to him. Only recently has he stopped ordering meal prepped food boxes from a nutritionist and started to cook for himself; he could use the classes. Just maybe not the one on congee.

“I’ve barely got time to write, much less hold a master class on how to roast a duck,” Zain smiles charmingly, leaving Liam only mildly upset at his expense being the reason why he’s awarded such a wonderful sight.

“Then don’t let me waste any more of your time, since you’re so generous in lending it to me.” Keeping the writer’s stare, Liam waits to pick up his phone so he isn’t the first to look away and admit defeat. “I’ll play you what’s on the album so far and we can go from there.”

“Deal,” Zain agrees while pouring them both the last of what’s in the teapot. It’s the final thing he says until the most recent song Liam’s written about his ex “boyfriend”, plays.

This time, this time I won’t hold a line

Been giving you time that you do not deserve

No you’re not mine, you just pretend to be

Don’t need you temptin’ me with your alerts

Do not disturb, I’m putting myself on do not disturb

“He fucked you over then?” Zain asks as he messes around with the balled up napkin he made two songs prior.

“That, and I fall in love at the drop of a hat.”

“Oh good.”

Liam’s about to make a not-so-subtle remark about how offended he was by such a comment, but Zain’s providing more context to his initial two words before Liam can really give it to him.

“I was gonna ask if you could play one of the ones that you bought of mine, since I usually have to wait to hear your voice on it when the album comes out, but the next one’s mine.” He leans away from staring at Liam’s mobile that’s been sitting in the center of the table.

Glad that Zain’s not about to ridicule his way of relationships, Liam turns up the volume a notch for the writer to hear the first of many songs that he’s looked forward to listening to.

Do you remember?

The holiday slipped away

Time and place

I definitely remember

Lying on my back and seeing clouds and rays

We’re dreaming with feelings

Forever we’re young

Pages unsung

I feel that you remember

Dreaming of a past that couldn’t last

But now we’re changing

Refraining

“I was worried it’d be too high for you, but it sounds really good,” Zain divulges as soon as the song’s over, looking at Liam curiously when he pushes pause on the playlist.

“What’s it about?” Quickly, Liam clarifies what he’s getting at. “I mean, I can take the lyrics for what they are, but you’re the one who came up with them. I want to hear what they mean to you.”

At the sight of Zain’s right eyebrow quirking up, Liam’s not sure what sort of answer to expect.

“It seems like you want me to explain what all of my songs mean,” the man counters, clasping his hands together on top of the table.

Rather than try and lie that that’s not what he was hoping for, Liam accepts the claim with open arms. “I do,” he confirms. “All of the ones I sing at least. I know you’ve got a million others floating out there, but I’d really like to hear your perspective on the writing process of my own favourite songs. I know what I take from them, but hearing what you do would be the final piece to your six year puzzle.”

Zain seems to be taking in the request, eventually nudging Liam’s phone his way. “You’ve heard three or four already. If by the end of the month you have to submit what you’ve got to the label and I still haven’t explained them all, you have my permission to create a list of what’s left and I’ll go down it one by one.” He takes a deep breath, “sound good?”

The corners of the male’s lips get to Liam in a way that he knows is bad news. He knows himself, and the upward curve has just the right amount of enticement to ring off the alarm in Liam’s overly trusting heart. “Yeah, sounds alright.”

Standing, Zain starts to return the used dinnerware to the serving tray. “So what do you think you’re missing? Sounds like you’ve got a pretty good selection by my standards.”

If Liam knew the answer to that question they might not be there. “I can’t tell you. I just know that whatever it is, I’m going to find it with you.”

“So I’m your secret weapon?”

Liam thinks that it’s a question meant to make him feel exposed. He can tell by the way Zain stops adjusting the utensils on the tray, that the man doesn’t know how to respond when Liam doesn’t take to the intended impression and instead replies with a genuine “you make me a better songwriter”.

It takes the chef a few seconds to gather his bearings before he speaks. “Well, as much as this place is my second home, my first is where I need to be to get into a solid writing mindset.” Backtracking and putting a halt to his tidying up, Zain looks down at Liam. “How brave are you?”

TRACK 3

Liam had answered that there wasn’t anything he was truly afraid of, but five days later, pulling up to Zain’s flat, he’s second guessing his confidence.

It’s not as though he’s scared for himself, he’s got a good uppercut if need be, he’s more worried that his new, limited edition pick up truck won’t be there when he’s ready to leave.

A fair warning came with Zain’s offer to use his place as their next meet up location: you’re not going to blend in with the neighborhood.

At the time, Liam hadn’t given it much thought, but when Zain sent him over his address the day before and he saw the specific part of East London he needed to drive to, he started to wonder if he made the right decision saying yes. Even with his weariness, he still got dressed that morning in a white t-shirt and blue jeans and ventured across the city.

“Hey, you alright?” Zain greets, wiping his eyes of the sleep that was still evident when he opens the door for Liam to come in.

Before he steps into the common stairwell, the singer looks over his shoulder. “You sure my car’s good?”

“I don’t have a garage, so you don’t really have a choice.” Liam turns to Zain with a small glare. “I’m just saying,” the older man shrugs playfully, liking seeing Liam out of his comfort zone. “It’ll be fine. It’s got a good alarm system I assume.” And with that, Zain turns to walk up the stairs to his flat.

It’s 1 PM, and he’s already done so twice, but Liam still pushes the lock button on his keys before following Zain and shutting the door behind him.

When they reach the top of the stairs and enter Zain’s flat, Liam’s charmed by the cosy feeling the one bedroom accommodation has to offer. Stepping into the sitting room, there’s a steel grey couch to his right with a matching side table on one end and a floor lamp on the other. To his left there’s a stand holding a white electric guitar and another with an acoustic right next to it. The third wall has a huge bay window facing the front street (of which Liam’s grateful and takes a moment to peek over and get a look at his truck), a desk with an iMac and silicon drum board situated on top of it, and an electric keyboard to its left. Lastly, the furthest wall has an enormous bookshelf that’s full to the brim, the corner that it shares with the bay window wall housing a makeshift recording “booth” that’s really just a couple of mattresses constructed to stay up around a professional mic.

Liam settles in the middle of the room where there’s a red and gold decorative rug covering the carpet. “This is the perfect set up,” he reveres, trying to make out the frames that cover the space above the guitars.

“The best part’s the sound system.”

Looking up, Liam can see that he’s somehow missed the speakers in each of the upper corners of the room. “We’ll have to test it later,” he winks, taking note of how it gets Zain to crack a smile.

“First, food,” the older man declares, walking out of the room and into the conjoining one.

Liam’s unsure if he should follow or not, but he figures it’s a safer bet than staying alone. “Did you just wake up?” He asks, leaning against the entryway of the kitchen that Zain’s currently buzzing around. It’s a valid question given how raspy the other’s voice is and the way he’s having to force himself to gather ingredients from the fridge and carry them to the countertop.

“I only get one day off a week,” Zain prefaces, unwinding the tie at the end of his bread loaf. “You’re mad if you don’t think I’m going to sleep in as much as possible. I’d go for longer, but then I’d be fucked for tomorrow.” He pulls out two pieces of bread before turning to Liam. “Do you want cheese on toast?”

Hearing such an average food be Zain’s choice for lunch makes Liam wonder if he only eats Chinese when he’s at work. If it were him, he’s not sure he’d be able to even eat that much of the cuisine. “No, I’m not all that hungry. Besides, diet and all that.”

“And all that,” Zain repeats quietly, cutting slices of cheese from his block. “You do know I’m a chef, right? I’m not going to allow you to keep using that as an excuse.”

“It’s not that I don’t like your food,” Liam rushes, not wanting the other to think that he’s avoiding his cooking because he didn’t like the taste he did get of it when they spoke last. In fact, it was the opposite. “I loved the pancake, just not the porridge.”

“Congee.”

“Yeah, that.” Liam notes all the different woks and knife kits around the countertops, not surprised that someone with interests like Zain would have that many variants of tools. “I’ve started to do modeling things that require me to stay in shape.”

As he leans down to check the oven heat, Zain looks to correct Liam. “You’ve always been in shape.”

The ‘always’ part has the singer believing that, like he’s done with Zain’s writing career, the male lied, he had kept tabs on Liam. Noted.

“More than normal,” Liam adds wistfully. “If you can make something heavy in protein and low in carbs, that’d be doable.”

“I was planning on making chicken vindaloo for dinner.” As they wait for the cheese to melt on the bread that Zain’s just put in the oven, the cook crosses his arms over his chest lazily. “Will the protein from the chicken be good enough? Promise it’ll be mild.”

‘I can handle the heat’ is the first thing that crosses Liam’s mind, but he holds himself back from saying it and focuses on how Zain had assumed they’d be having a lot longer of a hang out that day to think of something for supper. It gave Liam hope that maybe they’d actually manage to write something today. “Depends on what the vindaloo part is.”

“Will you just let yourself eat?” Zain takes his eyes away from the oven for a second to scold Liam with his words and expression. “Do some extra sit ups or whatever later.”

He should tell Zain that having a cheat meal wasn’t the problem, that it was the downward spiral it could create if he gets a taste of rebellion and loses his grip on the regime he’s meant to stick to, but maybe that might egg the chef on to pester him more, so he stays away from giving him any insight. “Fine, but just this one time.”

The wicked smile that comes over Zain’s lips, makes Liam wonder what sort of monster he’s unleashed. “This’ll only take a couple more minutes, you can chill in the sitting room.”

Before he retreats back to the room they were just in, Liam watches the other take down a handful of different spices from a rack suspended from one of the upper cupboards. The man’s choices make Liam second guess his decision to turn down the lunch offer since Zain was clearly assembling a much different cheese on toast than he was used to.

You already agreed to dinner, Liam reminds himself, walking out of the kitchen before his curiosity gets the best of him and ruins his self-restraint.

He’s about to take a seat on the sofa before the frames on the wall grab his attention once more. Standing in front of the guitars, he notices that they’re plaques for songs that have reached various sales achievements, not just decorations.

Nearly all of them have gone platinum, some of them multiple times, the highest being a song that Liam had always secretly hated Harry for not sending his way. It’s not even the seven platinum records stacked on top of each other in the frame from the United States alone that hurts Liam’s heart and has him humming the chorus:

Send me your location, let’s focus on communicating

Cause I just need the time and place to come through

It’s the smooth bridge that he sang nonstop for weeks that has the man gutted it’s not his name next to the song’s title. However, the feeling of loss dissipates almost immediately and is replaced with one of gratitude when the next plaque he reads, does have his name on it.

It was one of the more uptempo songs that he’s bought from Zain, and because of that, wound up being the first single for his second album. A good choice if the near 4.2 million units sold was anything to go by.

Passionate from miles away

Passive with the things you say

Passing up on my old ways

I can’t blame you no, no

Underneath that plaque, instead of more shiny records, there are two frames that have fancy letterhead centered inside of them.

“The National Academy Of Recording Artists & Sciences presents this certificate to ICARUS KALIM in recognition of your NOMINATION for the BEST R&B SONG “LOCATION” for the awards period 2017”

There’s another for the same category in 2018, but no win.

If he were to ever receive a nomination himself, Liam wouldn’t know what to do. A Grammy was the epitome of success, although, on some level, he was alright without having one; it gave him a reason to keep working hard.

Moving along to the next frame, Liam has to make sure that he’s seeing the right album artwork.

“You wrote this?”

Zain’s just entered the room, carrying his plate of cheese on toast with more than a few dashes of brown and green on top when he looks over to see what Liam’s staring at. Seeing that it’s one of his dance songs, he nods. “Yeah. I always hated the thought of writing songs like those because they seemed quite hollow and meaningless, but sometimes I just come up with hooks, or a chorus that isn’t the most thought provoking thing ever, and instead of letting it go to waste, Harry gets a producer and throws it on to some electronic song.”

Staring at the gold album from Australia with the title ‘Cruel’ above it, Liam stays confused. “Yeah, but I’m familiar with everything you’ve written and I would’ve remembered this one. I thought the chorus was brilliant.” There’s no way that he missed a song with such a relevant chorus, it’s impossible.

“Here.”

After turning around, Liam sees that Zain wants him to come over to the desk he’s set his food down on.

“I went to uni to have a backup in case the songwriting thing didn’t work out like it has, but also to inspire me to write more.” Taking a pen and post it note off the top of a nearby stack, Zain begins to fill it. “I write primarily R&B, but I know that I can’t be the best writer if I stick myself inside of a box, so…”

Looking down, Liam stares at the words coming to life:

EDM -

Acoustic -

R&B -

Pop -

“I push myself to write in other genres so I can stay well rounded.” Liam stays quiet as more words appear. “But like I told you before, it’s imperative I stay untraceable, while also staying marketable. Someone who writes Acoustic music doesn’t always have the same saleability in the R&B world, so having different pseudonyms for each genre works to my benefit in that regard as well. Now,” he sets down his pen. “Can you see anything?”

EDM - Zion Makil

Acoustic - Aristotle Milak

R&B - Icarus Kalim

Pop - Nour Kamil

Liam studies the names and genres, not really making any connections until Zain underlines the first letter in each of the first names. “Holy shit, it’s like a proper code.”

The response makes the writer chuckle, spelling out one more thing before putting the cap back on his pen. “And my real surname is Malik, so those are all just variants of that.”

All the further explanation does is feed Liam’s curiosity. “And you just randomly came up with the first names?”

“Zion,” Zain starts with, “came from me just looking up cool names that start with zed, since there really aren’t that many. Aristotle’s my favourite philosopher, Icarus, my favourite character from any classic, and Nour, what my parents would’ve named me if not Zain.”

That should’ve put Liam’s mind to rest, but instead, he’s a kid on Christmas morning, looking forward to listening to all the new songs that were already out in the world under Zain’s other pseudonyms that he hadn’t known about before today. Right as he reaches for his phone to jot down the other three pen names for later, Zain crinkles up the post it and tosses it in the small bin next to the leather chair he’s taking a seat at. Rather than let it get him down, Liam’s brain reminds him of something else.

“That means there’s a demo of that with your voice on it,” he thinks out loud, pointing back at the song that had led to the discovery of Zain’s career spanning over several genres other than R&B.

“Somewhere in here, yeah.” Shaking the mouse illuminates the massive computer screen, a picture of Zain and several other women that share his features popping up as the man’s wallpaper. It comes as quickly as it appears when Zain’s file searching replaces it.

Liam’s about to take a seat on the nearby keyboard bench, but he stops when the speakers around the room start to fill the room with the first few beats.

The production’s not exactly the same as the final product, but Zain’s voice is all Liam’s focused on. It’s effortless, perfectly on key without any indication that its owner had trouble getting it there. It’s when the deeper bass hits and the speakers show off their performance that Liam starts to sway back and forth to the tune.

Back where we left off

Watch you take your dress off

I’ve been by myself remembering you

All the younger man can think about is how much better this version is than the radio one. He almost gets through the whole thing without doing anything other than grooving along, but he can’t help himself when he leans into Zain’s space and presses the spacebar mid-bridge.

“There.” He presses the back arrow a couple times so the song can rewind a few seconds. “That.” Play.

Back where we left off

Help you take your dress off

I’ve been b-

Stop. “The subtle switch of wording,” Liam points out, nearly ready to play it back again. “I love how you can do shit like that and it automatically gives the story more life, even though it’s only a couple of words. I know we both speak English, but you’re able to manipulate it in a way I can’t. It’s like it’s your fourth language.”

At the sound of Liam’s comparison, Zain chews the latest bite of his food faster so he can speak. “I’m not taking on another language, three’s enough. But you’re here because you want to learn this fake language of mine, right?”

“Yeah,” Liam answers without hesitation. “I do. No matter what it takes, I’ll commit to it.”

As he goes to take another bite, Zain smiles. “You asked me to show you how to write songs with subtle meaning, not how to become a black belt.”

Finally, Liam takes a seat on the edge of the keyboard bench, facing the other. “I can get impatient easily, ‘m sorry.”

“Yeah, I can tell.” Reaching for a water bottle that was already at the table with his left hand, Zain goes back to scrolling through files with his right. “But you don’t need to apologize for it.”

“You did the same thing with ‘Twenty One’,” Liam brings up, completely ignoring Zain’s last words since his mind’s moved on to something else more important. “When I first heard it I thought it was just about you watching someone else turn twenty one and realizing the negative part of that age instead of the positive everyone always associates it with, but then when I was starting to memorize the lyrics for recording it I noticed that you changed the chorus from

Cause you’re in pain, but who’s to blame?

All our lives, it never ends

to

Cause I’m in pain, but I’m to blame

To win this fight, I have to change.”

Liam shakes his head, “you reference another person in the beginning, but it’s really just about you the whole time.” Zain looks exceptionally pleased by his student picking out such an observation. “And that’s the point in the song where you can’t kid yourself anymore; it’s too overwhelming to try and pretend it’s something it’s not.”

“You sure you’re not bilingual?” The writer doesn’t wait for Liam to respond to his banter, simply presses play on the file that he was looking to find. “See if you can spot the same thing in this one.”

Quickened strums of an acoustic guitar fill the cozy room, Liam ready with open ears to catch what he’s been tasked to.

When we came home, worn to the bones

I told myself, “this could get rough”

And when, when I was off, which happened a lot

You came to me and said “that’s enough”

He’s about to toss this into Zain’s acoustic category since it doesn’t ring a bell, but before he can, the male’s voice opens up at the chorus, proving it to be a pop track instead. Either way, it doesn’t matter, all that does is the way Zain sings with such desperate passion.

So I’ll hit the lights and you lock the doors

We ain’t leaving this room ‘til we both feel more

Don’t walk away, don’t roll your eyes

‘Cause hey love is pain, well darling let’s hurt tonight

Earlier, Liam had been semi-joking about testing how great the sound system was. Anywhere he went, there was a trail of noise complaints or fees to be paid, but he didn’t care. Liam needed to have music blasting at all times. If he didn’t, he wasn’t sure what to do with himself. Noticing how Zain turned up the volume that much more towards what sounded like the last few lines has Liam wondering what sort of flaws the other man has. No one can be this perfect.

So you get the lights and I’ll lock the doors

Let’s say all of the things that we couldn’t before

Won’t walk away, won’t roll my eyes

They say love is pain, well darling let’s hurt tonight

If this love is pain, then honey, let’s love tonight

“There were a few changes to that last part,” Liam notes when the song’s ended and Zain’s waiting for some sort of analysis. “But I was mostly just listening to your voice. You sing differently when you do pop and not R&B.”

Twisting in his chair to fully face Liam, Zain rests his forearms on the leather arms of the seat. “In a good way I hope.”

“In a very good way.” Before he goes on, the younger male tries to figure out a way to word his thoughts eloquently. “You make people feel the truth behind the words you sing.” Regardless of whether or not it was only Harry and whoever Harry emailed the songs off to for consideration who had heard Zain’s voice, Liam still believed that no matter who was listening, they’d feel the same way.

Zain turns modest, like any other time Liam’s complimented his music. “Thank you, but it might just be because that song was one of my most personal.”

Immediately Liam makes him play it back, adamant that he get the importance out of the song now that Zain’s made it known this isn’t just another one of his pieces. And this time around, Liam’s hit with something beyond the writer's voice.

The man sat at the desk, innocently eating his ‘breakfast’, had put it out there just how hard he was willing to fight for love, how desperate he was to do what it took for that specific relationship to work and for them not to leave him; he’d lock them in a room and welcome whatever fighting match came, so long as they made it out in each other’s arms. It made Liam see Zain in a different light - not just as a clever writer, but a man that could be as much of a victim to love as Liam knew he was notorious for being himself.

Instead of asking the other male, Liam merely states his observation, feeling so strongly about it, that he doesn’t fear the possibility of being wrong with such a confident statement. “You love hard.”

“Depends,” Zain says before covering his mouth as he yawns. “If I’m in a relationship, then yeah, but I’m not immune to messing around either.”

There’s not a bone in Liam’s body that’s ashamed of falling in love so easily, but he often wonders what it’s like to hook up with people and not think about them a few days, or weeks, later. He’s tried doing it a couple of times in between breakups, mostly because he thought that that was what he was supposed to do, that he’d missed out on something by not, but he quickly realized that none of that was true; that lifestyle just wasn’t for him.

He’s about to ask Zain which, out of the songs Liam’s bought of his, is the most personal, but he reminds himself to not be impatient. His time will come.

“How long have you been playing piano?” He asks instead, turning in his seat to position himself center with the keyboard.

“Since my first year of uni,” Zain informs him, watching as Liam switches on the instrument. “My parents got me that as a gift when I went.”

Pressing a few of the keys to adjust the volume, Liam’s surprised when he hears that it’s not in the standard register, but much higher, like a xylophone.

“But I don’t really know how to play,” the older man continues. “I can do the basics, but I’ve never had any lessons. Which is why it’s in that mode. I’m usually always playing around on my electric guitar, and I’ve got the drum pads here,” he motions to the square pads next to his plate, “but I’m no producer, and I don’t claim to be one. I usually just find loops online or through the lyricless tracks that Harry sends me over and work on those. Only rarely do I actually make the whole song myself, which is why most of my demos are extremely simple production.” Liam tries to think back to the demo versions of his own songs of Zain’s to validate the statement. “Since I don’t really know how to produce, sometimes I mess with the settings on the keyboard to get a different sound. It’s easier than creating it completely from scratch.”

With that out in the open, Liam now knows that he’s going to have to be the one to take control with the collaborating; his time learning how to record and produce at college was going to pay off.

“I like how this sounds,” he thinks out loud, pressing a few more keys to get a gist of the modified instrument since he did play the piano. “It’s got a positive vibe that I want to mess with.”

One comment that Liam knew was always made about him by the people he worked with, was that as soon as he ‘felt’ something, good luck trying to snap him out of his trance. When he started taking music more seriously during his two years at tech college, more than just singing and getting his pitch perfect, he found himself developing an incredible work ethic that almost always involved getting lost in a zone. It could sometimes be a bubble, which other producers or writers were grateful for since it meant they were in that box together with him, but when it was the type of headspace that only had room for one, he knew that sometimes people had things to say. Even if they did, Liam didn’t care. All that mattered was a wicked outcome, and if that needed self-seclusion in order to come to be, then people could talk as much as they wanted.

“You produce a lot then?”

Liam hardly looks up from the keys when he hears Zain’s question. “Yeah, quite a bit. Went to school for it.”

“So that’s your love language. I’ll teach you mine if you teach me yours.”

And then it clicks.

“Write this down,” Liam demands quickly, letting his fingers work their way around the black and white keys as if they have a mind of their own.

“I don’t know how to read sheet music, so I can’t-”

“I wanna be fluent in your love language

Learning your love language

I know I don’t speak your language

But I wanna know more”

In his peripheral Liam can hear Zain jotting down the lyrics furiously. Even though it might have seemed like it, he didn’t discount what the other said. It’s why he’s getting out his phone to record the session, instead of leaving it up to chance that he remembers the notes he’s playing.

After coming up with what seems like a potential chorus, Liam closes his eyes and repeats it over and over again in hopes that the verses will come just as easily.

“You’ve got two eight bars, so if you want to reverse engineer it, you can do a double sixteen for the pre-chorus or a simple eight for the verse. That’d sound good.”

Liam hears Zain, he does, but he can’t acknowledge him without losing his train of thought. “Do you have a loop pedal?”

“Uh, no.”

“But this is hooked up to your software, yeah?” Controlled by his need to see out his current compulsion, Liam gets off the bench and invades Zain’s space to see what’s on the iMac’s desktop. “What do you have? Logic? ProTools?”

“Logic,” Zain answers, only moving away from Liam’s body enough so that the other can take control of the mouse. “Do you want to take my-”

“No, but do you know how to record an eight bar loop?” Thankfully the computer’s fast and loads a fresh project within seconds, satisfying Liam’s current anxiety for getting the melody recorded.

Zain nudges away Liam’s hand, getting the necessary tools open. “That I can do.”

Back at the keyboard, the singer waits to hear the metronome beat count him in before he lays down the first draft of his xylophone-like pattern. When the appropriate count’s over, Zain plays it back for him, waiting to hear if Liam wants to re-record or if that’ll do.

“Just keep it playing. I want to get a better feel.”

So Zain does. Over and over and over again until the two figure out how long the other portions of the song will be and the words that will fill them.

It’s not the deepest of songs, very straightforward and elementary if Liam were to look back at the tune - production and lyricswise. By the time Zain’s made them the Indian dish he’d mentioned earlier in the day and Liam’s double checked his truck’s still accounted for and in one piece, they’ve added an underlying drum track. After they finish eating, they’ll slate the vocals.

Sitting in the middle of the oriental rug on the sitting room floor, basking in the food coma that Zain’s incredible curry and side dishes have given him, Liam reflects. He’d eaten way more than he should have, but he knew as much when he smelt the spices cooking in the kitchen from where he was adding the nearly impossible to hear shakers in their new song’s background. As much as he should, he doesn’t regret eating a lot. It granted him the time to hear Zain talk all about how he should’ve known he had the cooking bug in him from the amount of time he spent as a kid with his Mum in the kitchen. Apparently a lot of her Indian and Pakistani recipes were remembered by his subconscious, there were only some he needed to still ask her for.

And as he stands in Zain’s smashed ‘recording booth’, waiting for the mic to go live and for him to be able to hear himself in the headphones that are now snug over his ears, Liam ruminates on the reason he’s not in a larger flat or nicer neighborhood. The success that Zain had had so far wasn’t meek, but after he bought his family in Bradford a home, he didn’t find it necessary to buy himself one; he wanted to save for a restaurant with a conjoining home above it (“it needs to have the flat come with it so I can spend more of my time doing things other than commuting, and because the restaurant would most likely be on a street with busy foot traffic. People watching from my bedroom is the dream”). Until then, renting was alright with him. The problem was that he couldn’t bare to live with someone else, working the hours he did and needing peace to write, so the only one bedroom place he could justify paying for was a part of the crime ridden borough they were currently in.

It wasn’t ideal, and Liam definitely had to check his ego about a mile away from the flat, but he admired Zain for his hard work and determination to give himself what he wanted. Getting to where he was now definitely wasn’t the easiest road to walk down; Liam could relate.

Staring at the man hooking up all his equipment, Liam felt that horrible, fluttering feeling he got whenever his heart picked it’s next admirer. Why couldn’t he be turned off by the stains on the man’s clothes like a normal person?

“You good?”

When Liam snaps out of his daze and sees Zain eyeing him suspiciously, he nods quickly while taking a deep breath. “Yeah, good.” Before the other can go back to testing the levels, Liam adds something he has no control over; it’s the sort of comment that he knows will get him in trouble later down the road. “I was just noticing how you look in something other than black.”

Zain glances down at his choice of a light blue t-shirt and grey joggers. “Alright?”

“Great.”

When the man tilts his head back up to look at Liam, he’s got a soft smile that greatly contrasts the smug one he usually gives the singer to remind him who’s in charge. Liam can only imagine his grin looks about the same, and the fact that he doesn’t stop it from doing so just proves that he’s going to have a hell of a lot to write about after this month’s over. Whether it’s going to be good or bad, only time will tell.

TRACK 4

“So…”

Liam pauses bringing a forkful of blueberries up to his mouth. He knows that tone all too well.

“How’s your fairytale romance coming along?”

While he allows himself to go through with eating the fruit, the singer forces himself not to look Louis in the eye, no matter how badly he can sense from across the table that the other male wants him to.

Having breakfast with his manager isn’t anything out of the ordinary for Liam, but when it’s before a contract meeting with Zain and Harry - one that came to be upon the latter hearing that his client and Liam had officially wrote something together before he was able to finish up a co-writing contract for the duo - he knows that Louis has ulterior motives beyond conveniently eating together prior to attending. Although he had to give it to his mate, he lasted without mentioning Zain until their food arrived. Liam couldn’t say that much about his last romantic interest.

“Shouldn’t you be encouraging me to finish the album on time and to not get distracted?”

The diversion doesn’t seem to take well with Louis.

“You’re as responsible as they come,” the man brushes off easily. “Since an explicit date’s been set, you’ll stick to it.”

Reaching for his water, Liam drinks while he tries to come up with a better way to steer away from the topic of him and the songwriter, but nothing comes, and he knows better than to let Louis stew in his anticipation. “You’re one of my best friends, I think you know exactly what’s happening.”

“Can’t say I didn’t warn you,” Louis tisks, raising his eyebrows in arrogance at having predicted the outcome neither of them are admitting out loud to happening.

Liam wants so badly to be able to pour salt into the male’s coffee instead of sugar. The second he put it out into the universe, Louis was just waiting to revel in his glory for correctly predicting that meeting someone after such a lengthy build up would end in Liam falling in love. Boy or girl, beautiful or not, it was bound to be a product of letting his imagination go wild for six years and solely focusing on the parts of themselves this person showed Liam through their writing. It was a romantic’s dream scenario, and Liam? Liam was the type to dive head first into a trap like that.

“I’ve only met up with him a few times,” the singer points out, cutting up his avocado toast.

“And yet you didn’t correct me on my assumptions.”

A growl stays in Liam’s throat at how much Louis wants to rub this in his face. “He challenges me to think in a different way than I normally do and I like that. Is that so bad?” There’s an innuendo in there somewhere, Liam can see it in the way Louis’ lips turn up into a smirk, so he continues speaking to rule out the possibility of his manager getting the chance to voice what he’s thinking. “He’s handsome, you can’t deny that. Just let me have this, ok?”

“Don’t recall saying anything that insinuated I wasn’t letting you have it.” Liam’s glare makes Louis laugh as he picks up his mug of coffee. “I’ll let up now. Just wanted to hear it all come from your mouth. You know how I am.”

Sadly, Liam thinks to himself as he goes back to his food, and then again when he can feel Louis’ leg bounce under the conference room table an hour later.

Zain’s late. This time only by fifteen minutes instead of over twenty, but it’s fifteen minutes that Louis finds irritating. Like Liam had said the last time they were all in this position, he has nowhere else to be, so he’s alright with it. In fact, he’s enjoyed being able to talk more freely with Harry about Zain’s music now that he’s been let into more of the writer's world.

He wasn’t able to remember the name of the pop song Zain had shared with him, but he definitely took advantage of already being a fan of ‘Cruel’ and using the song title to get the man’s EDM alias. What came up had supplied him his playlist for the gym over the past couple of days, and now, a topic of conversation with his most popular publishing agent.

“I had to look up the words to make sure I got them right, now that I know I’m working with the writer,” Liam had said when he first brought up their friend’s work. “I had no idea ‘Boy with a Pipe’ was a Picasso painting. Honestly, I didn’t really know what the intro was saying before, but now I know it’s

Empty my bank account

And buy that boy with a pipe

Buy that boy with a pipe

I might, I might

Did you know that?” When he looked to his side, Louis didn’t seem all that impressed by Liam’s newfound art history knowledge.

“I know what time to get to a meeting.”

From then on, Liam ignored his manager and kept to Harry, who he could safely rant to about how amazed he was that some songs Zain had written in the past were ones that Liam couldn’t get out of his head; for some, the entire summer they had come out.

“I mean, it’s blunt, but

If you gave me a chance, I would take it

It’s a shot in the dark, but I’ll make it

Know with all of your heart, you can’t shame me

When I am with you, there’s no place I’d rather be,

that was my jam for months.” He knows it was Louis’ as well, but the man to his side didn’t say a word, just stayed quiet staring at the clock until Harry got an email he needed to tend to, and put Liam’s rambling to a halt.

It’s why the celebrity’s had to resort to staring at his own phone since then. That is, until Zain barrels through the door in a near identical fashion to his last meeting entrance.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he gets out between heaving breaths. “I did my best, but we got a shipment in late, so I can only stay to sign the papers and then I’ve gotta leave.”

He’s back in his all black attire, which has Liam grinning like some love struck idiot who can see colour in something that’s not bright in the least.

“You only missed Liam going on about the part of your discography he’s just discovered,” Louis lets him know, annoyance still present in his tone even though Zain’s made it clear he doesn’t plan on wasting any more of their time.

“Oh yeah?” Zain’s nodding towards Liam in a rushed greeting, only giving Harry a half hug before he reaches for the pen on top of the already sprawled out documents. “Did you tell him about the one I wrote about you?”

“What?” Liam’s surprised by his own voice when he hears the word come out.

“Almost twenty and a half million streams. You’d think with a number that high, the song’s subject wouldn’t sound so bitter about my writing.”

And if Liam didn’t have a small thing growing for the chef before, he sure does now with the way Zain puts Louis in his place by stating a single fact. Add on the confident smirk that Zain sends the businessman when he looks up from scanning the contract, and Liam’s beside himself. Yet still, the singer’s more than a little confused about one of his best friend’s being the topic of an Icarus Kalim song. Why hadn’t Louis mentioned anything to him after all this time? Was there some sort of inside secret that he wasn’t clued in on?

“My bitterness wouldn’t need to bleed over into your writing if you just showed up on time,” Louis scolds, stealing a glance at Harry who seems to be actively avoiding his gaze. Probably because Zain’s proven himself to be the type to speak his mind, nothing Harry’s going to say is going to stop him from not giving a fuck what people think.

Flipping the first page over to check there’s nothing on the back, Zain fully ignores the slight that was thrown at him. Liam can’t tell if it’s because he’s too busy focusing on reading the contract or if he just can’t be bothered with Louis anymore so he’s chosen to single handedly end the conversation. Liam however, wants answers.

“Is anyone gonna let me in on what this song is?” He looks between the three men, but it’s Louis his eyes stay trained on. “I feel like it should be you since this is the first I’m hearing about this.”

Only a minimal amount of guilt mixes into Louis expression that’s still honed in on Zain’s hunched over figure. “It was years ago.”

Liam scowls, “you’re not helping yourself.”

“It’s about Harry and I,” Louis discloses, turning to the singer when it becomes apparent he wants full consideration. “He’s to blame for you never hearing it. Apparently it’s not under the pen name that you know, so he didn’t want you finding out what it was. You know how you get with information like that.”

That’s enough to garner Zain’s attention, the man looking up and meeting Liam’s eyes with a coy film over his own.

“I was just doing my job,” Harry defends in haste. “Although it’s nice to hear you didn’t manage to crack. Half expected you to only last an hour.”

He knows he should turn away, but Liam keeps with Zain’s stare, smiling warmly instead of with embarrassment like he knows he should feel for his manager outing him like that.

“In that case, I think I deserve a little something for managing to exceed your extremely small expectations for me.”

“You just got out of the doghouse from last week, don’t push your luck.”

“How about something small, like cereal for breakfast tonight?”

Immediately Liam misses the light brown of Zain’s iris’ when the writer’s tearing his eyes away from Liam’s and looking at Louis’ like he’s crazy.

“You call that a reward meal?” The man says, completely taken aback by such a limited choice.

In an effort to avoid World War III, Liam slides his phone over to Zain from across the table. “Uh, why don’t you just play the song for me so I‘m not the odd man out anymore.”

Zain’s eyes flicker down to the mobile, but they’re quick to go back to staring at Louis incredulously. “I mean, you could ask for a steak or home cooked lasagna or something like that, but cereal?”

Liam’s not sure if Zain’s knowingly trying to get under Louis’ skin, able to feed off his energy to know the right things to say, or if he’s just that passionate about his opinion that he keeps going regardless of the anguish he’s causing the man. All Liam does know, is that speaking badly about cereal isn’t going to bode well with Louis.

“Just because you’re some fancy chef doesn’t mean that what you think is law,” Louis snides, glower fully present.

“I work at a normal place in Chinatown.” Picking up Liam’s phone, Zain finally diverts his vision somewhere other than at Louis. “I don’t want to cook Michelin Star meals.” Liam registers the information as important. “I’d rather my shop be known for making authentic flavours in a cool, small corner front somewhere. Regardless,” he looks up when he seems to have found what he was searching for on Liam’s music app, “I’m not ignorant to think that just because I can probably slice faster than you, my thoughts on food are correct ones.” He slides back the phone to Liam. “I think cereal’s good, I just don’t think it’s taking full advantage of an opportunity to get made something rare. You’re wasting your shot on Weetabix.”

“First of all, I don’t eat Weetabix,” Louis counters, the early signs of a snarl threatening to show itself. “And secondly, this one likes to have proper meals for tea. So in our household, cereal is a treat in the evenings.”

When Liam looks over to Harry, he notices how indifferent he is about the whole scenario. The singer doesn’t know all that much about their eating habits at home as a married couple, usually just meets Louis outside of the house for a hang out or business, but Liam’s aware of the fact that Harry’s not a pushover by any means; hence his and Louis’ constant bickering back and forth. He can definitely see the man having unwritten rules for household meals.

“I still think you should change your-”

Before Zain can finish his sentence, Liam pushes the play button on the song that was brought up. Immediately afterwards, he edges the phone closer to his left and away from where Louis’ sitting on his right so the man can’t interfere with the pop song that’s started, just to clash with Zain even more.

The voice that’s singing isn’t familiar to Liam, so he needs to look down at the screen again to clock the name. Though whoever it is doesn’t matter now that he knows it’s Zain’s. He just wants to take in the words.

Walking home I passed by a funeral

There was a woman there

She was crying, cursing at the gods

And it made me want to run home to you

And I ran ran ran, I ran as fast as I could

There’s a flat screen situated on the wall at the far end of the conference table that has a slideshow of recent news that’s taken place in the publishing company they’re currently sitting in, but Liam chooses to stare down at the grain of the wood table to help him focus on the lines instead. Being friends with Louis since the beginning of his six year relationship with Harry, Liam finds it interesting to hear how someone else outside of the couple interprets their getting together, especially considering Liam really only knew it from Louis’ side.

However, he’d heard enough from the man in the early days, that the song’s sappy chorus shouldn’t come as a surprise.

I'm out of words, babe

No way to explain

Why you lookin' at me

What you doin' to me

I'm out of words, babe

No way to explain

Why you lookin' at me

I can't get enough

The difference between those lyrics and the empty ones found in typical pop songs, is that now Liam knew Zain and a little bit of his writing mindset, he knows to take them as a testament to the purity of emotions between the two lovers.

Besides the lyrics, it’s not at all the type of music Louis listens to and now that he knows how Zain and him get along, Liam wonders that if the writer knew that, would he be smug about being a part of something else that irks the other. Liam would like to keep his manager, so there’s no way he’d ever let Zain in on that, but it still makes him think.

As the second half of the song plays, Liam catches Zain cross something out on the contract that he’s been scrutinizing. If he didn’t have Louis, he’d be worried that he’d done a rubbish job at reading over the binding paperwork that Harry told him was identical to Zain’s. If it weren’t for his wanting to focus on a song that he knew the inspiration to so personally, he’d ask what the man had found. Instead, when the music ends, he asks, “do you have any others that are about friends of yours?”

After he’s moved on to the final page, Zain steals a glance up at Liam for a moment. “A few, yeah. One of the most recent ones you’ve bought of mine is about a coworker.” Liam tilts his head in curiosity. “‘Crimes’.”

The singer’s eyes light up at being given the lowdown to another one of his songs, especially one that was a top contender to be the first single for the upcoming album. At the same time, Liam’s glad to hear that lyrics like

I'm against this method of madness

A weapon of sadness

Girl, I can't remember

The last time you took my indifference for peace

And made me believe

I wasn't worth the risk

Wasn't worth the hassle

A stable genius like you are

For 22 years on this Earth

You take what you don't deserve

weren’t taken from Zain’s own personal experience.

Although, that’s all he gets to learn, since the writer’s pointing out the crossed out line to Harry as a reminder after signing the last page. “Looks good, except for the royalty start date being January instead of April like we talked about when you sent me over the first draft. Just change that and you can attach my signature page to the new print out.” He shrugs, while reaching out a hand to the agent, “I trust you.”

Harry reciprocates the handshake, “you can come with me to my office down the hall and I can make the change real quick.”

“I really have to go,” Zain reiterates strongly. “Just email it to me, yeah?” It’s not an idea that Harry seems too keen on, but he stays quiet anyway. “Louis,” the chef nods to the man in dismissal as he goes around the edge of the table towards the front door, “always a pleasure.”

To keep from giggling at his manager’s scowl, Liam presses his lips together tightly, back staying to Louis so he can’t pick out the forced expression.

“Something like that,” Louis mumbles in response.

As he reaches for the door handle, Zain focuses on Liam. “I’ll text you soon.”

“I’m going to the studio tonight to lay down official vocals for the song we wrote on Monday.” Checking the clock on the wall makes the younger male aware that he‘s got the rest of the day to kill until that rolls around. “You should come.”

Zain’s eyes shift behind Liam to where Louis’ shuffling his paperwork around obnoxiously loud. “Weekends, Thursday’s included, are really busy at the restaurant, so I can’t.” With his line of vision back on the singer, Zain’s features soften. “It’s too expensive anyway.”

“No, it’s all on me, don’t worry about it,” Liam promises, knowing that if Louis was up for talking at the moment, he’d tell him he sounded as eager as a school child.

“I trade off between Mondays and Tuesdays for my one day of the week at home.” The door’s yanked open by Zain. “I’ll let you know what time to come over on Tuesday, later.”

Before he’s out of Liam’s sight, the younger male smiles in reply. “I look forward to it.” A small wink comes from him as well - a gesture that causes Zain to leave with a demure expression aimed at the ground and Liam to feel extra pleased with himself at being able to charm someone so out of his league, physically as well as intellectually, even if just a little.

TRACK 5

From the sitting room of Zain’s flat, a small whistling can be heard over the gentle strums that Liam’s producing with the acoustic guitar that’s usually in its stand. If it wasn’t for the singer taking a break to write down a couple of chord progressions on a scratch piece of paper he stole from Zain’s printer, he might have missed the way the sound traveled from the kitchen into his surrounding space.

Like the last time he visited, Liam was hesitant on venturing over to the seedy side of East London, but he was quickly reminded on why he had agreed to the meeting place when Zain opened the door looking just as sleepy as he had standing in that spot the week prior. Also similar, the way cooking the two of them lunch snaps him out of that daze, a fire igniting in his eyes as soon as his guest allows for crawfish - Shanghai style.

It’s not a food that’s included in Liam’s diet. Or at least he’s guessing not, since it isn’t a meal he’s accustomed to knowing the macros of off the top of his head. Sure, he can text his trainer to find out, but Liam’s too intrigued to see what the shellfish tastes like to do so, and there’s no way he’s willing to do anything that will jeopardize Zain’s excitement at being able to cook Liam something new.

When he sees the man walk into the room, carefully balancing a tray with two plates and glass cups atop it, Liam sees that the time he’s spent alone, banished to the sitting room, hasn’t done anything to ruin that enthusiasm either. Zain looks over the moon at being able to serve someone new and hear what they have to say about his cooking.

A staple of his favourite city, crawfish found its way into the chef’s mental recipe book two summers ago during his first visit back to China since studying. It’s lovely listening to Zain speak about the Chinese friend’s he made while living there and how one in particular had welcomed him into his home (and subsequently his family) for homestays any time he wished to go back.

“Do you always eat on the floor?” Liam asks when it becomes evident that’s where the two are going to enjoy their meal.

Once the tray’s safely sitting in the center of the floor rug, Zain sits cross legged, watching Liam lower himself down from the sofa to do the same. “No, I usually sit at the desk.” Liam steals a brief glance at where there’s a new stack of books on the left side of the computer keyboard. “At huge family gatherings sometimes we eat on the floor, as a cultural thing. Not as much anymore though.” Taking the lid off the large center bowl, reveals a huge mound of red crawfish, still in their shells. “The kids have grown up and the adults are getting older. Maybe once a year we’ll sit in a circle instead of at the table.”

Hearing that Zain’s culture contains traditions including seating arrangements like the ones they were currently in, makes Liam want to know more. He thought all he wanted to know about the other’s life was what inspired the songs that Liam held so dearly, but the more the two spent time together, the more he’s starting to see that in order to better understand the personal troubles behind Zain’s lyrics, Liam needs to better understand who Zain is as a whole. Knowing how the writer processes the world, and in turn, his feelings, would fill in the blanks a lot better than simple stories being relayed.

Liam’s impatience stems from the urge to have all that information now. They’re on the same page of just wanting to talk, and hopefully music will come from that, but little things, like a peak into Zain’s culture has Liam coming up with question after question. A small sense of fear comes from their inundation; there’s just too much that he wants to know. If he doesn’t get answers the moment that the questions surface, who knows if Zain will let him come back to them later. Or worse: Liam forgets them, only to remember what they were long after their constant writing sessions are over.

Anxiety aside, the one question that needs immediate answering is: how does one eat crawfish?

“You use your hands,” Zain says with a simper as soon as Liam’s searching around to see if his fork’s hiding in between the other settings. “Want me to show you how to do it?”

Nodding, Liam makes sure to pay close attention as the man sitting in front of him goes over where to pinch along the animal’s shell so that you can pull it off in one foul swoop. When it’s his turn to try, the singer impresses himself on how well he does.

Because the crustaceans are hot from being kept in the pot they were steamed in, the de-shelling’s a lot harder than it looks, but Liam manages to keep up with his streak of good luck. Luckily the repetitive task busies him so that his new line of questions - Where do you get these? Do you you order them by the gram? Are they always eaten plain like this? How did you get them to taste so good without hardly any seasoning? - are silenced.

“I like how we worked last week.”

Liam wipes his hands clean of any juices with the royal blue, cloth napkin that’s draped over his knee, waiting to see if Zain’s got anything to add to that before he replies.

“If we can just do that,” the man continues in an even tone, “talk, and use that as inspiration, then this won’t be as bad as I anticipated.”

“You were dreading it that much?”

The tone that Liam uses isn’t one of offense, more disbelief. He understands Zain’s request to stay unknown, but was the male that put off by the idea of writing with Liam that he was just waiting for the notion that this was a horrible idea, to be confirmed one way or another?

After wiping his hands, Zain leans back on them leisurely. “It’s got nothing to do with you in particular.”

Well at least there’s that, Liam thinks.

“I don’t want to force a dialogue with someone else about what I’m thinking,” the older man informs him. “That’s the lyrics’ job.”

The words give Liam an uneasy feeling, seeing as though that’s literally all he’s asked of Zain.

“I don’t like being put in a box either,” the Northerner adds. “And that’s what I assumed sitting down and writing on demand would be like.”

Liam’s eyebrows bunch together in concern. “I told you that wouldn’t happen.”

“I know.” The way the corners of Zain’s lips slowly turn up make Liam’s do the same. “So maybe you’re to blame for me enjoying myself.”

Receiving blatant flirting from someone that treats Liam like he’s just another person on the street, cracks jokes about him that most would hesitate to do in case they ruin their chances of becoming friends with the celebrity, is an experience Liam didn’t expect to feel so grateful for. It’s a really nice change of pace.

While his younger self might’ve continued to stare at Zain and take the time to admire how long his eyelashes are, twenty six year old Liam has learned that pretending someone didn’t affect you as much as they did, has a much more effective result than if you show your actual reaction.

“You’ve been doing a lot of reading…” Thankfully the words come out of Liam’s mouth as smoothly as he intended them to, Zain’s eyes only trailing over to where the man’s staring after he takes a beat to continue examining Liam’s features.

“My life goes in a cycle.” Zain’s tone matches his relaxed posture. “Cooking, writing, singing, reading. Everything in between is insignificant.” When he looks back at Liam, he’s quick to correct himself. “That wasn’t a good way to put it. I just meant that if I’m not doing one of those four things, I’m probably sleeping. The only insignificant thing about that is how many hours I get.”

From experience, Liam knows what it’s like to have a job that demands a lot of you. In the early days, he was a bright eyed go getter who thrived off working in order to make something of himself. It made sense that he’d get used to the long hours touring seasons and promotional stints required, but the older Liam got, the quicker he found himself getting rundown by it. He’s only twenty six, yet the exhaustion from early call times always managed to get the best of him nowadays. Without a team looking out for him, there’s no way he’d be standing on his two feet. Having to navigate the industry alone would make looking as good as Zain did, impossible.

“Wouldn’t be able to tell by the way your skin looks,” Liam compliments, testing the waters to see how the older male would take to flattery that wasn’t geared towards his work.

A very minimal blush paints Zain’s cheeks, “Harry’s got me on some all natural cream shit, I dunno.” As he starts to clean up their area, he lets out an extra, “but thanks.”

Liam can’t say he’s all that surprised by the action, only pleased to see that he’s confirmed a method to fight Zain’s hubris with. “What do you like to read?”

“Literally anything I can get my hands on,” the writer replies while neatly stacking their plates. “I just love words. Every author has a different way of manipulating them - to either tell a story or get an emotion across in a poem. I think that’s fucking sick.” Before Liam can get lost in his head about how appropriate such a comment is given the subject of the song they wrote last week, Zain’s standing up. “When I was in uni, before I discovered cooking, I was in heaven. I was in a place that told me all I should be doing is reading and writing.” He motions for Liam to hand up the tray from the ground. “Like I told you, I used uni as an opportunity to experiment.”

Right after he lifts the tray, Liam follows Zain into kitchen, where he uses the sink to wash his hands.

“I had one long relationship while I was attending,” Zain carries on, talking over the water, “but I wanted to take advantage of what was being expected of me with assignments, and use those as a chance to get inspired. I might’ve been in love, but creating fictional stories for classes and writing songs based off those characters’ lives was a lot more fun back then versus coming up with something I was experiencing myself.”

As Liam dries his hands on a nearby tea towel, he finds himself overwhelmed by the notion that there’s a whole library of long form, fictional pieces of Zain’s writing somewhere out there.

“I can always write about being in love or going through heartbreak because I’ve got direct access to those feelings,” Zain divulges with a philosophical tone that Liam’s learning to love. “Tapping into a character’s, even though I’m responsible for creating them,” he raises his eyebrows in delight, “now that’s fun.” Right as he’s about to open his mouth, Liam’s overtaken by Zain continuing to think out loud, “I used to write songs about characters from books we were assigned to read. It’s been a while since I’ve done that though.”

Finally, Liam finds a gap wide enough to get in the question that Zain probably could’ve predicted would eventually come about. “Can we listen to a few?”

The two switch places so Zain can take his turn getting the crustacean oils off his skin. “Have you ever read Madame Bovary?”

Truth be told, Liam hasn’t read much of anything. “No.”

“It’s about a man who marries a girl, but she quickly becomes bored with him. To make her happy, he moves them to a big city, but it winds up giving the girl too much freedom and she falls in love with other people,” Zain says over his shoulder. “I wrote a song from her perspective, but you’re only going to understand it at surface level without having read it yourself.”

“I don’t care,” Liam shrugs, following the male back into the sitting room after he’s dried his hands like an obedient puppy would its owner. “I want to hear it.”

At his spot in front of the keyboard, Liam turns to face where Zain’s taken to his leather throne, breaking out into a small grin when he hears the other’s singing voice fill the room. He should be paying attention to the words, but Liam realizes he already knows them once he hears the first few; it’s a song that Liam’s come across during his time searching the writing credits of ‘Icarus Kalim’. The production of this demo is much softer than the version he’s familiar with however, and because of that, Liam wonders if Zain chose to play his original to make Liam happy, or if it was just the first file that showed up.

Because I gave my heart to a goddamn fool

I gave him everything, now there’s nothing left for you

Because I gave my heart to a goddamn fool

I lost everything, now I have nothing left for you

The chorus brings back Liam’s full attention, Zain’s voice raw with emotion in a way that makes him frustrated. Frustrated knowing that there’s more to the lines than he’s picking up on and frustrated that the rest of the world will never hear the talent that Zain has.

I can’t pretend, pretend that I care

I see how you look at me, but I am not there

The damage is done, I’ll save you the time

And if there are feelings there, they are not mine

He may have only been given a quick explanation of the book, but Zain’s words do their job in relaying the inner conflict that the woman endures throughout. It hadn’t ever really occurred to Liam to write about a fictional character - maybe a superhero or someone from a tragic period film - but now it seems so obvious that the narratives found on the telly, are unlimited resources of inspiration.

Once the song ends, Liam looks up from where he was staring at the wooden piano bench underneath him. “Now you’ve got me wanting to read the book.”

“I’ve got it on the shelf somewhere if you’re serious,” Zain comments, eyes distracted as he skims through the files in front of him. “This one’s another I wrote because of uni. Had to do an assignment on religion for a module on Medieval dreaming and visions. Back then, pretty much everything had to do with religion and war, so I wrote this after turning in the paper.” A hit of the space bar starts the music back up.

If there’s a god, do you think he’s looking down curled up on his couch right now?

As we fail to figure it out, does he turn down the sound?

Is he proud? Are we proud?

Guess we forget how to live a life with no filter

Making boring people famous, let’s pretend they’re fascinating

Let’s tell little girls that pretty girls are better, or that pigment or religion really matters

Usually Liam likes to focus on something solid coloured when he listens to music critically - a table, the wall, his phone case - any sort of surface that won’t be distracting, but he can’t help himself when his eyes drift from the red of Zain’s shirt, up to the man’s face.

It’s contrenated, tuned in like Liam knows his mostly likely looks as well, yet he’s not entirely sure why. He most likely didn’t produce the music, but Zain did write the lyrics - clever lyrics - so surely hearing his own work would be boring.

We’re in some trouble

Mr. Maker don’t turn away from your screen

At least the bubble that we’ve created could make for some good tv

Oh Mr. Man Upstairs, I know you’re tuning in up there

Way up there, would you care to answer my question?

Oh the land of poor taste, the spectacle of cut and paste that we’ve made

Would you say, please say, it was worth the seven days

“If you had to choose between writing songs about romance, or concepts like that, which would you choose?” Maybe Liam should’ve complimented the song when it ended instead of launching into a heavy question, but he thinks he and Zain are on the same level of understanding when it comes to how the singer feels about Zain’s music, so his compliment can be inferred.

“They’re both equally important,” Zain answers with his hand hovering over the spacebar. “Suppose I write more songs about love, and poems about life, but the world needs to hear both. Doesn’t mean they do, but they should.” The last few words are grumbled - something that Liam takes notice of. “Third year I had a class on ‘the girl’ in books. Wrote a hell of a lot during that time.”

He knows he’s asked for their relationship to revolve around Zain’s writing, practically begged for it to be that way, but that doesn’t make Liam any less taken aback by how eager the other’s starting to become on the topic. If the next song wasn’t already erupting through the room, he most definitely would’ve asked for it to have been.

He’s heard the song once in the past, and it’s nice.

Honey on your knees when you look at me

I’m dressed like a fucking queen and you’re begging “please”

I rule with the velvet tongue and my dress undone

And I’ll get you lost, but I’m having fun

It has a sense of power that Liam likes knowing has come from studying the female image in literature, but his mind’s stuck on trying to guess how often Zain actually gets to talk about his music.

The man’s made it evident that his work schedule takes up a majority of his life, and today he’s told Liam that any other time outside of that is usually spent on solo activities, so it would make sense that the reason Zain’s started to show Liam his work unprompted, is because no one’s ever usually around for him to share his annotations with. It’s a bit self-centered, but Liam doubts that even if Zain did have friends who asked about his song meanings, they would care half as much as Liam did.

“The girl who bought that one sounds sick on it,” the writer comments with certitude. “Her voice has that ‘yeah that’s right, I’m fucking in charge’ sound to it, while still nailing the notes. Couldn’t have asked for a better match up.”

That’s the second time Liam’s noticed Zain mention the importance of line delivery. Hearing an author demand that sort of attention from artists who showcase their work, has Liam gaining even more respect towards Zain for his appreciation of music.

“So not all your songs are about you then?” To make it apparent that the question is meant to be rhetorical, Liam keeps speaking. “You use pretty much anything that moves you.”

Zain pulls out a notebook from the stack that’s to the right of the iMac screen. “Exactly. Sometimes it’s my own life, sometimes it’s others’. I keep a notebook next to my bed in case I get ideas from dreams too.” This guy was a genius. “Other times, I have enough fleeting thoughts noted down to compile together for a song.”

They’re just starting to get comfortable with each other; Liam doesn’t want to disrupt that, but he also really wants to ask if a few songs he’s recently stumbled across as Zain’s are about his own struggles or imaginary ones.

Chorus’ like

I hope that I can turn back the time to make it all alright

All alright for us

I promise to build a new world for us two

With you in the middle

and

Seasons change and our love went cold

Feed the flame ‘cause we can’t let go

Run away but we’re running in circles

Run away, run away

I dare you to do something

I’m waiting on you again so I don’t take the blame

Run away but we’re running circles

Run away, run away, run away

that he found through adding Zain’s EDM and Pop pseudonyms to his songwriting database bookmarks (he’s still trying to remember the acoustic one to include), make him want to learn about what the man’s gone through. He’d be emotionless if he didn’t want to hear about the stories that led to those words, but Liam holds off from diving into personal vulnerabilities like those, in order to continue to build their trust with one another.

Plus, he’s a bit confused with the latter part of Zain’s answer.

“What do you mean fleeting thoughts?”

A few pages of the notebook that Zain’s flipping through have colourful post-it flags coming out from them. The place he settles on has a red. “I don’t know if it’s a poetry thing or not,” he hands over the journal to Liam, “but sometimes I just have lines come to me. They could come in pairs, or just by themselves; and at the most random of times. I’ve always got a notebook with me, or my phone, so I jot them down when I think them up. Occasionally I go back and look at them to see, if I jumble them together, will they sound decent as a song?”

The only way Liam can tell that that’s the case, is how the lyrics vary in pen colours. When he starts to read them, he recognizes the song as the one he plans to use as an interlude of sorts for the next album.

The first three lines are in pen - blue, then black, and then blue again; the last two are in pencil.

It’s always colder in the morning

Holding a bolster in my arms where your heart was

Walking alone to talking alone

How I wish you were home with me

You are home with him

The chorus is only one colour of black pen, minus the last lyric, which is red. Eerily fitting for the words.

Called it off and saddled up

'Cause all I ever wanted was to be in your arms

Could’ve been a better love

Fallen off a stairway and you tore me apart

Without any warning, Liam starts to sing acapella, using the memory of his recorded version to keep the right timing.

Can’t you see that the light has sunken beneath our feet?

Can’t you feel that the rain has swallowed us in?

From silence to sobering again

Could you begin to falter in?

Maybe I’ll be within

The reach of the stars

We saw when our hearts hurt

He keeps going until the high pitched outro,

Cuddled up and barely heard

Hoping that the girl would always be home

Could’ve been a better love

Holding onto something that I’ll never wish for again,

then letting his eyes trail over the page of put together puzzle pieces so he can marvel in Zain’s artistry. He loves music for how creative it is, but he feels a wave of rejuvenation for that passion when he stumbles upon things like this - an unconventional technique he would’ve never discovered on his own.

“I can’t believe you can just do something like that,” Liam gawks, reluctantly handing back the notebook.

“It takes a while before I can accumulate enough good lines to put them together. For every one line, I’d say about ten are useless.”

Ten? Liam would’ve guessed about five times that. It goes to show how brilliant Zain’s mind is, that he could come up with such workable material as often as he did.

“I think it goes without saying that I've never heard you sing in person before,” Zain adds, letting his notebook lay forgotten on the desk so he can address the other properly.

Liam doesn’t think it goes without saying at all. Now that he knows Zain’s British and lives in London, the possibility that they’ve crossed paths, or that Zain’s been to one of his shows, isn’t hard to believe in the slightest.

“You’ve sang a few lines since we’ve met, but nothing like that.”

Without any type of backing track, Liam assumes.

“You’re not fake.”

And that’s what gets Liam to finally crack. “Is that what you’ve thought of me?” He gets out after a small bout of laughter. “That I can’t sing?”

“Well no,” Zain proclaims, a smile on his face when Liam’s eyes stay in their squished up position. “I saw you when you were a kid on X-Factor.”

A kid…

“I know you can sing. I guess I just don’t have all that much faith in the system.” Fiddling with the pen near his right hand, Zain goes back to his notebook.

“A system that you’re a part of,” Liam reminds him candidly.

“Barely.” Again, the man falls into his own world on the computer. “I want your help with something.” Liam’s ears perk up. “I told you, I don’t really know how to make the music part of a song; I stick to only using mixes that are sent my way or free samples online. Sometimes I strum a pattern up myself or mess around on the keyboard, which is why a lot of my demos are just extremely stripped down versions of the tracks that get put on albums eventually.” Liam can tell by the way Zain’s measuring him up after that speech, that he’s not gauging his opinion on the singer’s literal appearance, there’s something else he’s trying to figure out. “I’ve started to write a song about a short story I wrote. Do you think you could make the music?”

It’s not the first time someone’s asked this of Liam, and he’s sure it won’t be the last, but there’s something about the entreaty that has him believing this is a solid sign of Zain’s trust being handed over. It isn’t a move Liam plans on taking lightly.

“Not on my own,” he replies easily. “Last time I was here, we wrote a song about our love languages, so-”

“No one said anything about that being based on one another.”

If it weren’t for the sly smile dancing on Zain’s lips, Liam would’ve thought he was being serious and not undeniably coy. He’s right in the sense that they never explicitly spoke about each other directly when they were writing, but the two of them knew. It would be their little secret then, if that’s the way Zain wanted for it to be.

“Right, well, whoever the song’s about, doesn’t matter.” Liam wants to simultaneously kiss the smug expression that’s come from his words off of Zain’s face, and ignore it, so as to not let the man see how simply he can affect Liam. “What does is that you said you wanted me to teach you my love language. So if you want me to make the music, I will, but you’ve got to help.”

Zain must see the advantage of the arrangement, since he agrees straight away. “Deal.”

Stretching his fingers, Liam turns on the keyboard and plays a few random keys. “So what’s the story about?”

“Two teens who were born on the wrong side of the tracks. They go to the same school, but they didn’t really get to know each other until they joined the same gang.” Liam’s hands drift towards the lower register of the keyboard due to the tale’s setting. “I’ve never been in a gang myself, but growing up, I knew people who were. A lot of the times it’s just something that’s expected of you when you live in a certain area; people don’t usually choose that sort of life unless they have to. It fills the hole that’s dug from not having a family. Not always, but often. Anyway,” Zain shakes his head, “the two main characters, they bond over hating the familial circumstances that made them a part of the gang in the first place. The story’s about them, confiding in each other between dealing, escaping in far-fetched fantasies of what they wish they could be doing instead of collecting payments and doling out bags.”

It’s an original concept, at least in Liam’s eyes, which are limited in scope given how few novels he’s picked up and finished in his lifetime. “Do they ever escape?”

“They’re not in prison,” Zain snickers.

“No, but,” Liam exhales loudly, earning him another amused look from the older male, “you know what I mean.”

Back with his hands at the computer’s keyboard, Zain asks, “What’s your email? I’ll send it to you. If we get the sound done, I wouldn’t really want to start writing with you until you’ve read the whole thing.”

Liam likes to think of himself as the type with a relatively welcoming spirit, but he’d like to know what he’s specifically done for Zain to feel comfortable enough with him to, not only breathe life into a song of his, but also hand over a form of his writing that Liam’s never touched before.

“I’ll start it as soon as I get home,” the singer promises after he’s rattled off his personal email.

With a fond glint in his eye, Zain nods towards the keyboard that Liam’s sitting in front of. “It’s called ‘The Chased’, so I want the tempo to match one. As if they’re running away, but with a little dystopian flare, since it’s all about their daydreams. Illusory, sort of.” He stares at Liam in concentration, “Does that make sense?”

Explaining a melody or musical feeling’s tough to do, Liam knows the feeling all too well, but he thinks he gets the gist. “We’ll figure it out.” He knows they’ll definitely need a synthetic sound, so he starts to see what options the keyboard has that aligns with that. “What do you have written?”

“The chorus.” Zain waits until Liam’s done playing with the settings on the instrument before he reads off what he’s got.

I don’t want to wait here another day

You and me could stay or we could run away

We should build a city in another place

You could either chase me or we’ll be the chased

I’m so done with the kids we run with

We’d have fun if we could rule the world

Just a boy and a girl

Knowing how Zain will react, Liam refrains from commenting on how this is his first time on hearing the man sing without background music. He hasn’t got much direction with the lyrics, so it’s not full singing as much as it is melodic speaking, but Liam still finds it stunning either way.

“Try singing the second part slower,” he instructs, finding a modified sound he likes enough to stick with.

As he plays along with Zain’s voice experimentally, Liam can tell that the man’s finding it difficult to stay on track with his original cadence and not get lost in Liam’s random chords.

“I’m not used to doing things this way,” Zain confesses the second Liam stops playing and drops his hands into his lap.

The vulnerable tone isn’t one the younger male’s used to hearing come out of Zain’s mouth. It’s in stark contrast to the arrogance that was used by the writer when he first tried to negotiate his dominance with their meetings. For whatever reason, the switch fills Liam with protectiveness.

“It’s alright, we’ve got plenty of time.” he reassures Zain softly. “And students aren’t meant to be perfect. That’s why they’re students.” The comparison seems to act as a calming aid for the man. “We can use a metronome if that’ll help. I’ve got an app on my phone, or you can practice keeping time with yourself by closing your eyes and focusing. It’s like muscle memory - the more you do it, the more it’ll stick with you. Each song’s beat will be different, but you’ll know how to stay steady with yourself and not fall into whatever I’m doing over time.”

From where he’s sitting, Liam can make out the way relaxation encompasses Zain’s figure. “I could listen to you talk like that all day,” the Northerner bares.

Like what? Quietly? Or encouragingly?

They’re valid questions in Liam’s mind, but he doesn’t want to ruin the moment, so he sticks to accepting the compliment for what it was and makes a mental reminder to test out both theories in the future to ensure he knows the direct way to earning himself a tranquil Zain.

“Like I said,” Liam says evenly and with a peaceful smile, “we’ve got plenty of time.”

Just when he thought the writer couldn’t get anymore at ease, he mimics Liam’s grin and sinks into his leather seat even more. The content aura radiating off Zain transfers to Liam and it’s then that he’s sure he’s a goner.

TRACK 6

“I’m gonna run it back. Just take it from the top.”

Behind the glass of the plush recording booth, Zain readjusts his headphones and nods in recognition.

Liam’s hands are a blur, twisting one knob and flicking up a level tab expertly. It’s like he’d said to Zain about keeping on beat - practice enough, and it’ll become second nature. When he was seventeen, all Liam knew how to do was turn up the volume of a mixing board, but two years of music school and an insatiable want to learn, and now he was a pro. Even when classes ended, Liam had always been the one to stay after hours, tweaking the smallest of things to make sure the sound was to his liking. It’s those restless nights and early mornings that got him to where he is in the producer's chair today - quite literally.

It’s been two days since Zain filled up Liam’s stomach with a light tofu and rice dish that the latter had insisted upon so his trainer seriously wouldn’t have a go at him, and the two called it a night. For Liam, it was an odd thing - to stop working on a song just because a certain hour had hit, but Zain had insisted that if Liam didn’t want his rims to go missing, he should go. It was such a tender demand that the singer didn’t even put up a fight, say that he was more than capable of handling his own on the walk from the front door to his truck, he just acquiesced with a promise to text Zain as soon as he finished the story waiting for him in his inbox.

It took all of three hours, from start to finish, before he was sending a message: book was fucking brilliant mate. Gonna try and find studio time at night asap to finish the song

At that point it was almost midnight, and while recording studios themselves were usually nocturnal, their front desks were not. There wasn’t anything wrong with Zain’s makeshift front room studio, in fact, Liam actually found it inspiring in itself - homey and intimidate in a way that professional places weren’t - but equipmentwise, a real studio couldn’t hurt.

In less than twelve hours, Louis had somehow managed to snag them a two hour slot at one of the city’s best studios for the next night. Liam didn’t dare ask what sort of favour would need to be redeemed in the future to whoever originally had the spot.

From the second he’d received the news, to the moment Zain entered the booked room smelling of a mixture between lamb and duck an hour ago, Liam had been throwing around ideas for lyrics to build around the writer’s chorus. It helped that they had already put together a sound for the track at Zain’s, but there was a worry that lingered inside Liam each time he wrote down a possible line or two.

This was based off of Zain’s story, Zain’s creative work. For whatever reason, Liam felt like there was more room for error or to offend because of that. Maybe it doesn't make sense, since writing about someone’s love life is just as personal, but when it comes to someone as private and as sensitive to words as Zain is, Liam will do anything to avoid letting him down.

He didn’t vocalize his fear in those exact words, but when Zain accidentally took out his recipe book instead of his writing one, Liam was reminded that there’s nothing superhuman about the other male; he‘s a regular person who isn’t only his lyrics. Just like how he’s treated normally by the writer, Liam needed to do the same for him. So he did.

After Zain playfully shoved him in an attempt to get him to quit going on about how much he loved the short story and move on to the song, Liam didn’t hesitate to show off a few lyrics he’d come up with on his own.

Turns out he’d been nervous for nothing; Zain loved what he had and things clicked into place at the blink of an eye. Not only was it a huge pressure lifted off his chest, it was also an electrifying moment knowing that he could jive so well with someone he admired as much as Zain.

The beginning of the second verse starts back up after Liam’s scrubbed to the appropriate point on the recording software so Zain’s vocals can record over the last take.

I’m not gonna take another beating

I’m not gonna cry another tear

There’s nothing left for me that’s worth repeating

I’ve got everything I need right here

Grab a pair of trainers out your wardrobe

Take some money from your Mother’s purse

You and me are gonna hit the open road

Unless you want a Chinese burn

Liam clicks the stop logo on the screen, and then presses the intercom button. “Ace. Come in and hear it on the big speakers.”

As he waits for the man to join him, Liam plays the section back for himself.

It’s not the most vocally challenging song, but that doesn’t stop Zain’s voice from sounding wonderfully unique on it. Liam’s glad he fought the man on using the studio as their location for finishing the song, because it meant Zain would have to sing the lines by default, seeing as though he couldn’t operate the mixing equipment. Maybe Liam had been selfishly tactile with that, but he didn’t care. It afforded him the luxury of getting to see how Zain even sings with artistry. He’d heard it in his demos, but getting to witness the way the male’s face contorted with his emotions during a certain line or how he concentrated whenever Liam gave him constructive criticism on a specific inflection, was another layer of Zain Malik peeled away.

“You’re just going to replace my vocals with yours,” the writer says as soon as he throws himself into one of the leather swivel chairs that are on Liam’s left. “So long as I got the timing and intonation right for you to follow later, it doesn’t matter how it sounds.”

Zain can be self-deprecating sometimes. Liam’s taken note of that. He hates it, wants to launch into a lecture on how the man’s a better vocalist than most of the signed artist’s that he knows, but they’re just getting comfortable with one another. He doesn’t want to scare Zain off with his let-me-praise-you-because-you-won’t-do-it-for-yourself trait that’s been oppressed a lot throughout the years by those who found it overbearing and kiddish.

“Let me at least listen to the bridge again.”

The fond eye roll that comes from Zain goes completely ignored by Liam. If he’s going to hold himself back from letting his opinions on the man’s talent be known, the least he can do is repeatedly play the recording.

Let’s be adults, live where they leave us alone

Let’s leave home, if we don’t, I’ll turn to stone

Just rock and bone, I don’t know

I just wanna go away, I just wanna leave today

Now or never, alone, together

There’s a quickened pace to the short section, one that makes Zain have to rap the words instead of sing them. It makes Liam bop his head, finding it extremely difficult to refrain from singing along and sit still at the same time - both surefire signs that the song’s going on the next record.

“It’s fucking sick,” he compliments, mostly because he simply can’t help himself. “The song, the story, the fact that a song can come from a book. One that you’ve written nonetheless.”

“It’s fifteen thousand words, I wouldn’t call it a book.” Off to the side, Zain plays with a couple of empty water bottles. “It’s cool though, you know?” His eyes flicker over to Liam’s, contemplative. “Having a concept of mine live in two different formats. Sort of assisting each other, even though the story’s alright to stand on its own if it had to.”

Liam’s eyes and ears soak up Zain’s mindfulness, finding it captivating and appealing at the same time.

“The one thing that’s stuck with me since uni was something a professor once said in my first creative writing class. It was like an intro thing,” Zain waves his hand in distaste at needing to get the course name correct. “She said that where most writer’s go wrong, is that they try and do too much. A story is three acts, full stop. A book can be three hundred pages with a climax on page two hundred ninety; the distribution of the arcs or acts don’t have to be equal. It’s alright if the last act is only ten pages, but you’ve gotta follow that formula and keep it simple.” There’s a look in Zain’s eyes that makes Liam keep quiet. “You don’t have to write a romance all crazy-like. If you want to write one, write a love story where two people fall in love and include a conflict. They don’t need to fall in love while having overly detailed backstories that only serve a small purpose, and then halfway through the story one person goes on a side quest away from the main journey to overcome the conflict. It’s unnecessary. All you need is a clear beginning, middle, and end. Don’t try and complicate the in between. Falling in love’s boring when you strip it down anyway.”

The romantic in Liam aches a little at Zain’s bold statement.

“You see someone, you like how they look - figure you can wake up to it every day if it comes down to it. Then you hang out for a bit, see if you can do more than just have breakfast with them for the rest of your life. Eventually you realize you’ve been hanging out a lot and end up making a pact that you two will just hang out with each other that often. Somewhere down the line one person throws a ring out of their pocket and then your pact’s just a pact on paper and worth twenty thousand quid. Writing a love story that doesn’t put the reader to sleep and yet isn’t completely over the top, unrealistic, is hard to do.”

Zain’s break down of what a relationship is was one of the most disappointing, accurate things Liam’s heard in a long time. There was no mention of fireworks or grand gestures, Valentine’s Days or finding a new best friend. But maybe that was it - they were only your best friend in the moment, until they left. Then you’re back on your own, back to restart the cycle with the promise that one day, you’ll find out it’s not a cycle, but a straight line.

Ok, so maybe falling in love is boring, and because of such, he could see how writing about it could be difficult to do, but for the sake of his happiness, Liam plans on associating it with magic instead.

Standing up, Zain goes to the mini-fridge where he grabs himself another water bottle, motioning to Liam if he wants one. When the singer shakes his head silently, Zain returns to his chair and unscrews the cap. “As a poet going into a creative writing degree, that was a big thing for me to absorb. I loved overcomplicating things because that was my style of philosophical writing, but I had to learn that great stories are - at their core - very simple. I had to translate that into my songwriting, too.”

Which is the exact point Liam had made to Zain on their first night out. The man’s lyrics stood out from others based off that simplicity holding so much weight to it. In Liam’s mind, Zain was the master of it, and now it made sense that the reason why was because the male had practiced the concept over and over through story writing.

“It’s like with the story we just wrote this about,” Zain tilts his head towards the computer screen that’s still showing the recording software and multiple instrumental tracks below Zain’s vocals. “I could’ve written about all the little drug deals they had to do, or them interacting at school, or something like that, but it didn’t aid to the story. Or that story at least. If it doesn’t push the story forward, then it’s not necessary. Unless it’s there to establish character development or how characters interact with each other,” he adds after taking a swift drink from the bottle, “then its purpose isn’t outwardly apparent, it’s just there for the reader’s subconscious to clock.”

Liam doesn’t plan on writing anything other than songs anytime soon, but he feels like he should after receiving a lecture that informative.

“My whole point,” Zain laughs lightly, “is that the story didn’t need the song to be complete, but it’s cool that it’s got a little companion piece.” His eyebrows come together in confusion when Liam doesn’t respond, just continues to stare at him, “What?”

“Remember when we were at yours and you told me you could listen to me talk a certain way all day?” Liam’s eyes follow Zain’s head when he bows it in embarrassment, most likely knowing where this was going. “Your mind’s brilliant.” He holds back the ‘just like your eyes, so let me see them’, hoping that by being patient with his feelings for once, he’ll be rewarded.

“Do you want to hear another song of mine?”

The soft expression Liam’s holding hardly falters at the diversion. “Sure,” he breathes, watching as Zain unlocks his phone and searches for a track that will placate Liam’s want to listen to as many song explanations of his as possible. This tactic might just be the man using Liam’s desires against him now that he knows what they are and how badly the singer wants them, but it doesn’t bother Liam enough for him to say anything. If Zain’s comfortable, and the way to that is through exploiting his own wishes, then Liam’s more than sure he’ll survive.

“I wrote this one when I was starting to really get the hang of simple story writing.” Taking the chord that Liam’s handing him, Zain hooks his mobile up to the speaker system. “It’s just an easy metaphor about this girl I was in love with in secondary school. That’s all there is to it.”

All Liam can do is nod in response, wait until the song starts, and do what he does best: feel the music.

Leaves are fallin', it's September

The night came in, it made her shiver

I told her she could have my jacket

Wrapped it tight around her shoulders

And I was so young 'til she kissed me

Like a whiskey, like a whiskey

“Can you tell I produced it?”

Liam’s eyes dart from where he’d locked them onto a bass guitar in the corner of the room, to Zain’s awaiting ones when the man speaks above the music.

So far, the song only consists of three piano chords spread far apart from each other, and now, an extremely simple guitar progression that wasn’t even made up of strums, but plucks instead. It’s the easiest production on earth, but somehow, Liam finds it more enticing than any full orchestra composition. It helps that he’s an avid drinker of whiskey, because he gets it. Gets how that simple smile or whiff of perfume can be as smooth as a sip of scotch. Addicting like one too; you’ve gotta taste it slowly, but you always keep drinking. A strong enough glass, and by the time you realize you’ve finished the whole thing, it’s too late - you’re a dead man.

It never occurred to Liam how fitting it was that his favourite alcohol was a clear view into how he fell in love. Even the rap that makes up the bridge has Liam smiling in familiarity.

I ain't like the other Cognacs

Or type of cat that'd never call back

Or lose contact when you runnin' out of rum and you make a run

(Feelin' light and dizzy, might be tipsy)

All of that tequila's a killer, little vodka

Break her off somethin' proper

Pop a cork and play spin the bottle

(Every time you kiss me, like some whiskey)

Punch drunk love, it's a fine line

Dom Pérignon, she the fine wine

Someone call 911, I'm runnin' out of time

She done got off with my heart

Another round of the chorus and Liam knows exactly what he’s going to say once the music stops.

“You always see that in American films, you know?” Zain waits patiently for the male to explain himself. “Like the ones from the 50s or 60s where the guys would have their sports jackets and give it to the girls.” A sense of pride comes over Liam when he sees the others’ brown eyes warm in recognition. “I always wanted to do that. I mean, I do that now - let whoever I’m dating wear my jacket when it gets too cold. I like seeing them wear my stuff in general.” He stops himself from going too far down a side tangent when Zain’s eyebrows raise humorously at the information he’s already given out. “Anyway, it’s like I told you early on - you always look at a moment from a different angle than I do and I love that.”

Much to Liam’s surprise, Zain doesn’t turn away after the compliment’s been given. He remains silent with a pensive gaze, one that makes Liam wonder if he’s doing it right now - breaking down this moment from a poetic standpoint that Liam would never be able to conceptualize on his own.

The time allows for the younger man to envision what Zain would look like in one of his jackets. A leather one would look killer, maybe a bit big because even though he’s only seen Zain out of all black twice, he can still tell that his frame’s tiny; anything he wore of Liam’s would most likely hang loose. There are still remnants of Zain’s thirteen hour work day lingering in the studio, yet Liam would gladly let his favourite jean jacket with the wool collar smell of Chinese spices for days if it meant getting to see how it swallowed the writer’s figure for a night.

“What was your first love like?”

The blurry vision Liam held from zoning out comes back into focus when Zain’s question registers. “My first relationship?”

An air of indifference comes with the man’s shrug, “If the two are separate, then whichever came first.”

Even the way Zain phrases his normal conversations reminds Liam that he’s not just sat around a table with his mates from school. “They were the same.” Memories of the girl come flooding back all at once, a mixture of uneasiness and a feeling of youth stirring within him. “It was like a dream that turned into a nightmare right before I woke up.”

Liam’s the first to look away this time. He should be over the moon that Zain feels comfortable enough with him to ask such a personal question, especially since by doing so, Zain couldn’t expect to get away with not answering the same one himself, but Liam can’t see that silver lining. All he sees is fearful susceptibility.

“Mine was right before the girl that song was about,” Zain speaks up when it’s clear Liam’s lost his voice. “We were fourteen, and I hadn’t ever been in a relationship before, so I think the newness of it all had me falling deeper than I normally would. I was just taken by her.”

Zain opening himself up in a way that went against the mysterious front he put up upon their first meeting, gives Liam something to anchor onto other than the ominous emotions that were currently swirling around in his head.

“To me,” Zain smiles, “the whole five or six months we were together was like one long sappy greeting card.” Liam chuckles half-heartedly at the comparison. “I woke up with a hop in my step and slept peacefully knowing that the next day would have the same energy. Which is mad,” Zain shakes his head. “That a single person can make someone else feel that way by just existing. It was too much of a revelation for me not to write a song about it.”

Maybe it’s the extremely small portion of Liam that’s a cynic, but instead of feeling excited that he’s being given another song to listen to, he’s desperate to ask what went wrong. Why, after six months did Zain’s happy ending come to a halt, and how could he look back on it so positively when all Liam can do when it comes to his first relationship, is do his best not to second guess every person he surrounds himself with? He wasn’t jealous. He was only...slightly bitter.

Swimming pools, swimming pools

Now that you put her on a pedestal

Light the fuel, light the fuel

Flyin' off the edge, it feels like

HD reality came back in '93

Please drive me off this canyon

Into paradise

Thelma, Louise and I

Liam really wishes the song was at least in Zain’s voice so he can focus on that, because the chorus doesn’t help with his feelings of non-jealousy.

And it's so beautiful

We're flying through the yellow of the sun

So magical

Like flying through the yellow of the sun

He may be fighting with himself to get through the soundtrack of fourteen year old Zain’s lovesickness, but Liam can’t deny how badly he wants to turn it up and move. It does the exact job Zain’s assigned it to do - portray good vibes - and that in itself makes it impossible for Liam to hate the man.

“I would’ve sabotaged myself if she asked me to; I was that blind.”

The short insight to the lyrics isn’t prompted by Liam this go around, and that fact doesn’t go unnoticed by the younger male. He’s grateful for Zain having caught on, although he should’ve known that a poet would be that observant.

“She left me when I came back from a quick holiday to London with my family that summer. I didn’t bring her back a gift, and apparently that’s a must, even though I knew she’d been there before.” The man pauses to roll eyes his nonchalantly. “Wrote her like a hundred poems just to try and get her back too, but whatever.” He rubs his right palm along his jaw that’s got a short beard growing, before staring down at his body with an arrogant smirk. “Her loss though, yeah?”

“No question.”

Zain looks up at Liam’s immediate response, his attitude switching from cocky to revered and then back to conceited when the singer adds more to his initial answer.

“You’d never be able to get rid of me after one poem, nevermind a hundred.”

Hearing the words outside of his head has Liam thinking that maybe they were a bit too much, but there’s no going back now. While he had no idea what Zain looked like at fourteen, he did know that no matter what someone looked like, if they wrote him a poem, he’d be smitten for ages. Perhaps Zain’s talents weren’t at the level they had matured to now back then, but still, Liam could only imagine what a desperate poem from him might sound like. Forget the jealousy he had towards Zain and his first love bliss, Liam was jealous of this ungrateful teen girl from twelve years ago.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Zain says in an objective tone that tells Liam he’s not kidding.

If it wouldn’t put the nail in his coffin, the celebrity might risk making a fool of himself in letting Zain know that he doesn’t know what he would be getting himself into if he actually did write Liam so much as a ‘roses are red, violets are blue’ sonnet.

“Which song’s about your person?” The question comes after Zain’s taken a quick drink of his water. “Music’s good like that - you can have it do the talking for you when it’s too painful.”

And there were the piercing insecurities again.

“I haven’t written one about her.”

Zain’s eyes widen during his second sip, completely ignoring how feeble Liam’s voice had been. “How have you managed to avoid writing a song about your first love? That’s like…” he looks around their immediate surroundings as if one of the mixing boards will light up the word he’s looking for. “I mean, that’s ludacris.”

“Well, I have,” Liam states firmly, taking a much needed deep breath straight after. “It’s not a pleasant memory.”

“I know, I heard the nightmare part.” Closing his water, Zain sets the bottle to the side and sits back in his chair. “But good or bad, that’s the kind of intense emotion that I thrive off of as a writer.”

A streak of irritation pulses through Liam and it scares him. That sort of emotion hardly ever gets close enough to the surface to concern him, but right now, it is.

“That’s great for you, but I don’t want to have anything to do with it.” Liam’s voice is strained and the words are nothing like the ones of weakness he uttered a minute ago, but it’s what the topic does to him.

“I think that’s what we should write about next.”

It’s like what he just said went completely over Zain’s head.

Because underneath the bubbling anger he’s kind natured, and because he doesn’t want the writer who he’s chased after for six years with hopes of learning from, to up and leave due to Liam refusing literally that, the younger man concedes. “Just not today.”

“No, I agree.” As if on cue, a yawn escapes Zain. “I’m exhausted, and we’ve only got another half hour in here. I’ll do a few ad libs and then I wanna head home.”

Glancing at the bottom of the computer screen behind him, Liam notes that it’s nearing 1:30AM. He himself had been up since seven, but unlike Zain, he could sleep in the next day and take it easy.

“With a voice like yours, it shouldn’t take long.”

It’s not Liam’s strongest of lines, especially considering he thinks of himself as a relatively flirty guy without a handsome face in front of him, but it gets the job done - the sight of Zain licking his lips in ardor gives Liam’s imagination just enough to run with, that he no longer has to think about the previously scarring flashbacks.

TRACK 7

Four days pass between the time Liam and Zain part ways at the North London studio, and the former kicking off his shoes in the front doorway of the writer’s flat.

Not one of those days went by without Liam having to ward off thoughts that would send him into a downward spiral thanks to Zain wanting to sift around in his emotional turmoil. He knows it’s for the betterment of their art, which is the statement of justification he’s come up with that he thinks might come close to how Zain would put the torture, but Liam’s emotions don’t seem to care about why they’ve surfaced; they have and that’s all that matters. It’s not going to dissipate until some sort of creative work comes out of it either, Liam knows this.

He’s stayed at home for the past four days because of it as well, only opening the front door to go to the gym or pop around to the shop to fill the fridge. Thankfully Liam lives alone, otherwise he’s sure he’d get shit from his partner or flat mate for moping around as much as he had over something that happened well over twelve years ago.

At one point Liam actually sat himself down in his home studio, pen and paper in hand, ready to write his emotions out of him before Zain had the chance to poke and prod for however long it took to get material for a song Liam wanted nothing to do with. He wanted to just rip the plaster off, because if he could show Zain that ‘look, here, I did it’ then maybe they could move on and construct words he actually wanted to put on his next album.

But nothing came.

Well, a few tears and balled up pieces of paper came, but that was it. Nothing to act as a Get Out Of Jail Free card for when Zain would inevitably ask for him to take a deep breath and start with the story of his ultimate heartbreak. A thoughtful approach seems like something Zain would use.

“You want a hit?”

Or not.

From where he’s sitting on the floor, finishing up the bowl of Weetabix that Zain had made for the two of them after he arrived (“I just woke up and I can’t stand the thought of anything overly flavourful at the minute” was Zain’s response to the singer’s inquiry on why such a boring cereal for a chef like him), Liam peers up to see a joint being pointed his way. Zain’s preoccupied with rummaging around his desk to see Liam’s surprised expression at the offer his left hand’s extending.

“Is it just weed?”

A red lighter shows itself from under one of the many papers scattered about. “Yeah,” Zain chuckles as he faces Liam, bringing the tip of the rolled up paper to his lips and lighting it there. “I’m not trying to kill you.”

There’s a bit of cereal left at the bottom of his bowl, but Liam leaves it, he’s too fascinated in the way Zain’s whole image changes with the smoke that’s swirling around him now. It’s seductive, even in a platonic sense; the way the fumes escape the man’s lips make him overwhelming alluring.

“If it’s not your thing, that’s cool. I just thought it’d make things easier for you to talk about the past.”

Liam pauses as he stands with their stacked bowls.

“Or I’ve got alcohol if that’s more your thing. You don’t seem like you’d want to do this sober.”

Continuing to avoid looking Zain in the eye, Liam adjusts the bowls in his hand. “Having something to take the edge off would be good,” he agrees, depositing the bowls in the kitchen sink before joining Zain in the sitting room once more.

“I used to smoke cigarettes, but when I started working in kitchens I had to quit,” the older male shares as he hands over the joint when Liam walks to where he’s opening the large window that’s right behind his work desk. “It kinda just happened, since I didn’t really have control over my breaks and even when I did, there weren’t that many, so I just gave it up altogether. Can’t give this up though,” he nods to the drag that Liam’s just taken.

A light burn settles in the back of Liam’s throat before he blows the smoke out towards the open window, passing the joint back to its owner. His usual vice is alcohol, but he’s not a stranger to a spliff every now and again, and for that he’s thankful. The last thing he’d want is to make a juvenile fool of himself in front of someone as cunning as Zain because he didn’t know how the drug would hit him.

“Do you like drugs?”

The lyrics just fall from Liam’s lips effortlessly, the image of the two of them acting as a reminder of a song Zain had written for another R&B artist that he hasn’t tired of hearing (or singing) for years.

A look of endearment fills Zain’s eyes as he blows out his latest hit. “Have you ever felt alone?”

It’s the next line of the song, but with the way Zain’s voice sings the words, Liam feels like he’s actually asking him the question. Even if it’s just by coincidence, he still loves where this is going, so he goes ahead and sings the next line, finding it perfect to sing to a philosophical poet.

“Do you still believe in love?”

“Do you like drugs?” Zain hands over the roll once again. “Do you like drugs?”

“Yep,” Liam sings quickly, keeping with the lyrics of the song, but also genuinely answering back.

Zain’s eyes don’t move from staring at Liam’s lips around the joint as he sings. “Well me too, me too, me too, me too.”

The younger man swallows to get the roughness out of his throat before singing the next two lines that he finds unbelievably appropriate coming from a lover like himself. “Do you like hugs? Do you like hugs?”

“Yep,” Zain nods with a grin.

“Well me too, well me too.” A small frown comes over Liam’s face when he’s left with the joint in his hand and Zain removing himself from his position leaning against the windowsill to mess with his computer. He was liking where this duet was going; it fit them both perfectly even though the song was originally just sung by one person. He’ll just have to keep going himself.

“What about Batman movies and pointless-”

Liam’s singing comes to an abrupt stop when Zain bursts out laughing.

“Batman movies?” The man coughs a few times having gotten himself worked up so quickly after inhaling smoke. “Babe, you know that’s not the lyric, and that the person you’re singing it to is the one who came up with it, yeah?”

Sadly, Liam knows this all too well. “I know, it’s matinee movies, but I didn’t know that for ages. It sounds like Batman and I love Batman, so I just keep it that way.” Liam can tell from Zain’s spirited expression, that the man must think of him as a child. “You can see an old Batman film at the matinee showing,” he defends, tapping the edge of the paper so the accumulated ash can fall into the tray on the window ledge. “You should try it that way.”

When he looks up from the tray, the original singer’s voice of the song blasts through the stereo system and Zain’s shimmying back to join him behind the desk. Liam watches as his lean figure fits back against the window. There’s a moment where he gestures for Zain to take the joint from him, but the man shakes his head, so Liam just sets it down in the ashtray for later.

As the first verse gets close, he wonders if Zain will do as he suggested and swap out the word. To make sure he doesn’t sing over the other and miss if it happens, Liam motions for Zain to take the first verse.

“What about Batman movies and pointless secrets.”

Liam beams at the extra emphasis and smirk Zain pulls, holding back from saying ‘see? I told you it was more fun’ so he can enjoy the man’s voice.

“Midnight summers, swim private beaches

Rock, paper, scissors, wait! Best out of three

My mama said the greatest things in life are free”

There’s enough of a pause between the first and second half of the verse, that Liam uses it as the perfect time to hop in and take over.

“What about lust? What about trust? What about fun?

She said, you know that I do

Oh you do, baby, hope you do now

You do, do, do, do”

Throughout the chorus that the two share, Liam can’t keep the smile off his face. He’s full of so many positive emotions all at once - from getting to hear Zain’s voice up and close and personal, from the energy that the song exudes, from the small high that’s creeping up in his system - that it’d be impossible to do anything other than crinkle his eyes in joy.

There’s an unspoken communication going on between him and Zain, Liam can sense it. It’s in the way the writer tilts his head to the right just barely that Liam knows he should hold off from taking the first line of the bridge.

“So let’s dance a little harder”

Maybe it’s not the smartest move, because afterwards, Liam nearly misses his own line reveling in the fullness of Zain’s voice and the way the man’s neck elongates as he belts out the last syllable. He imagines that his facial expression was probably a lot like how Zain’s is after he’s finished his line of

“‘Til I feel like I know”

- awestruck - except much more intense; Liam’s got a mug that always seems to show every inkling of his emotions. Zain’s a bit too cool for that.

There’s nothing really all that cool about Liam. Especially not when his lips part in amazement when the other male’s hitting a high note like Liam’s never heard before at the end of his

“All the things”.

The performer side of him has Liam going on autopilot and continuing to take over the chorus that’s come back around, even though that’s not entirely necessary - this is the published track and therefore the original singer’s still pulsing through the speakers in the room. If it wasn’t for his years of being on stage, combined with knowing these lyrics by heart, Liam would’ve given away his thoughts on the indescribable run by stumbling over his own notes.

It’s when Zain makes it clear he’s going to let Liam sing the rest of the song on his own, he’ll take care of the high register adlibs, that the younger man snaps back into the present moment.

As the two keep singing, Liam falls in love with the way Zain stares at him, the edges of his lips curving up slowly as he croons along with Liam’s deeper voice. When he goes to sing

“I feel like we’ve got so much in common now”

he realizes that the action might’ve been a direct response to the wide smile that’s already on his own lips.

“It’s you and me, yeah tonight

You and me tonight

You and me tonight

You and me tonight”

Liam’s started to rock his head as he sings, which causes the grin Zain’s holding to grow larger at the enthusiasm, but he feels constricted in between the desk and the window; the energy of the music’s too much for him to feel so contained.

He keeps singing along to the same line that’s repeating as he slinks his way out of the small space and into the middle of the room. Back by the window, Zain stops harmonizing and laughs at the way Liam extends both his arms out and starts to sway back and forth like some sort of flying bird or plane, but Liam just lets himself feel the music and closes his eyes as he sings the last few lines of the song.

“Oh I feel like I’ve known you for so long

Right about now baby

I wanna do you like drugs tonight”

“Never end in fun,” Zain sings softly, picking up the joint from the tray and letting the song fade out as he brings it up to his lips.

As the drugs start to infiltrate their way into Liam’s brain, he settles himself down in the middle of the floor rug, hands behind his head as he stretches his torso.

That’s why he’s a musician. Singing in front of thousands of people is a thrill, but it’s the way a song can grab hold of his whole being and energize him in a way nothing else could that made him want to do it as a profession.

Another random song starts playing, yet it’s the gears of Zain’s lighter sparking a flame that grab Liam’s attention, not the piano playing from each corner of the room.

He tilts his head to the left so it’s easier to marvel at the way Zain’s silhouette looks against the bright light coming through the window. The grey oversized jumper swallows the man’s figure, softening his appearance and not making him come across nearly as guarded as he first was with Liam. It also makes the singer want to pull him down to the floor and lay next to him so they can snuggle up and enjoy life a little more, but the rational side of his mind keeps him quiet.

Watching Zain look down at the street as he pulls from the joint reminds Liam of another song the writer’s penned for an artist other than himself.

Woke up a little too late this morning

But I think I’ll be ok, I’ll be ok

Damn my car still smells my marijuana

My Mom is gonna kill me, gonna kill me

It’s a miracle Liam can remember the words and sing them in his head while another song plays out loud.

Because I’m 18 and I still live with my parents

Yeah, they’re not like yours - yours are more understanding

I’ve never fell in love, I saved those feelings for you

So let’s do all the stupid shit that young kids do

It’s me and you

Now that he knows Zain’s first love was at fourteen, he has to question whether this song is really about its author, or someone else. Liam doesn’t find it all that difficult to envision a much younger version of the man who’s trying to make ringlets out of the smoke he’s exhaling, opening the door to his parents’ car and panicking about how to get the smell out of the seats from the night before.

“What kind of stupid shit did you do when you were a teenager?”

Liam’s voice startles Zain, even though the music blasting throughout the room surely muffled the singer’s question immensely. At first, Liam thinks he’s going to be asked to repeat himself from the way Zain’s brow creases in confusion, but the other simply gets up from his spot and turns down the music a considerable amount.

“That’s random. Are you stoned already?” Zain questions with that hint of humour that’s starting to become a staple in the way he talks to Liam each time the singer speaks his mind candidly.

“No,” Liam dismisses right away, keeping his positioning while Zain returns to his seat on the window sill. “I mean, I can feel it a bit, but not a lot. I was just thinking that, it really does feel like I’ve known you for years, but I haven’t.” He returns to gazing at the ceiling from the strain his turnt head is causing him. “What were you like when you were younger? What sort of crazy shit did you get up to?”

At the sound of Zain sucking in smoke, Liam closes his eyes peacefully. “I dunno, I guess I was the same. Maybe slightly more adventurous just because I had more time on my hands than I do now.” Another short pause. “Bradford was a rough place to grow up. I got into a few scuffles, but I wouldn’t categorize ‘em as crazy.”

“I broke out of my college once in the middle of the night.”

“Out of?”

Liam brings his hands out from under his head and clasps them together over his stomach. “Yeah, I got locked in by a janitor or something one night while I was working on a project in one of the studios, since I didn’t have the music software at home. Thank god I had the internet. I learned how to pick a lock.”

“You’re serious?”

Even though small bits of laughter are coming from his left, Liam stays still. “Yeah, I’m a proper MI6 agent now.”

“Can’t say I’ve done that, but I did hop a lot of fences as a teen.”

“What for?”

“Mainly this one lad I dated for a while.”

Liam’s ears tune in a bit more.

“I should’ve known he was trouble by the way we had to sneak around at night all the time, but it’s always the thrill, innit?”

“Why’d you have t-”

“He hadn’t come out to his Dad yet.”

“Been there,” Liam replies without hesitation.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. More than once.”

“Love hasn’t been that great to you, has it?”

Even if it’s going to hurt, Liam turns his head to the side again so he can look at Zain while he talks to him, seeing that the older man’s already got his eyes on Liam when he does. “Every relationship I’ve ever been in - like proper ones - they’ve broken up with me.”

The confession hangs in the air while a new song shuffles, Zain breaking their stare to set the joint in his hand back down in the glass tray.

“I know what you’re thinking - there’s something wrong with me.” Liam can see it in Zain’s empathetic eyes that roll back to his that he’s right. “And I’m sure if people knew my track record, they’d think the same thing.”

Zain looks to be careful with his words. “Your mates don’t know?”

“The three friends that I still have from before fame, I met after the first girl,” Liam answers in a steady tone. “Even then, only me parents know the honest full count. And now you.”

“I don’t think it’s that there’s anything wro-”

“Don’t,” Liam cuts him off, using his core strength to sit himself up once the angle starts to get to his neck again. “You’ve done a really great job at treating me like you really have known me since I was fourteen. I don’t want that to go away just because you feel sorry for me.”

Scooting backwards, Liam waits until his shoulders hit the couch before leaning against it. “You know ‘Bad Luck’?” It’s a stupid question considering Zain doesn’t seem the type to forget any song he’s written, but Liam waits for the man to nod in response before continuing anyway. “I remember I was going through a huge period of writer’s block when I got Harry’s email with it attached.” He brings his knees up for a place to rest his chin. “The guitar in the intro was enough for me to know I’d love it, but the pre-chorus...it was like you knew how I loved better than I did.”

Zain makes a move to go back to the computer, presumably to either shut off the music altogether since the conversation’s taken a serious turn, or to put on the song they’re talking about, but he stops when Liam keeps speaking.

“You don’t hear men sing things like that. They sing about love, yeah, but it’s usually girls who are the ones willing to expose their habits of falling in love. And even then, not all of them can do that. So when I got over my shock of how a stranger could put my thoughts to paper so well, I realized it was just as important for me to sing it as a man, as it was because it fit me as a person.”

“I could tell it’s important to you by the way you sing it live.” This time, Zain doesn’t let Liam stop him from settling down in the leather computer chair, clicking away soon after.

“You’ve seen me live?”

From where he’s sitting on the ground, Liam can only see Zain’s tattoo’d right arm guide the mouse, but that’s ok as long as he gets an answer to his question.

“No, but when someone buys my lyrics, I keep an eye out to see if they ever perform them,” Zain clarifies, typing for a few quick seconds. “You know just as much as I do - you can understand an artist much better when they sing outside of a recording booth.”

A full screen video of himself with huge over the ear headphones is put on display for Liam to watch when Zain rolls his chair to the side. Press circuits are always a blur in the end, yet Liam remembers this performance at London’s biggest radio station three years ago as a part of his second album promotion. In his opinion, it was a huge honour to be invited to play in the intimate studio setting, which was why he put together a small medley of songs, including the song he just dissected, instead of only one or two full tracks.

So if you're gonna love me

You gotta love all of me

You gotta love, deeper than that

Now, if you're gonna leave me

You better run far away

I’d hate for you to leave me attached

Already the session’s stripped down, but watching the performance back, Liam can see in the way he clenches his eyes closed at the last line that the raw emotion of being a susceptible lover that needs handling with care, is a painful thing to put out in the open.

'Cause I'm in love with bad luck

I’m in love with bad luck

Move too close, get caught up

Move too close, get caught up

Stealing a glance at Zain, Liam tries to guess if he’s judging the man on the screen now that he knows his past in connection with the words. If he does, he isn’t voicing it to Liam when he hits pause.

“I wrote that about myself,” Zain starts, keeping his eyes locked on the screen. “Harry had sent over the music from a producer and I came up with lyrics for it in about an hour because I’d just been broken up with. The freshness of the sting made it easy to write, except I was a little surprised with how that first half came out. Whatever I was feeling from that break up I wrote down, but when I read back what I had, I didn’t expect to see something so blatant. Almost like I’d been kidding myself about how primitive wanting someone’s whole heart could be. And then I kept going,” he stops to give Liam a wicked smile, “and as you can hear, my frustration turned towards everyone else and not just her.”

The screen starts to move again at the press of Zain’s mouse.

Hurt feels better when I'm by myself

No one really means it when they're wishing you well

I got no one to call, no one

And people only love you when they're needing your wealth

Damn, laying down, staring at my ceiling fan

Everybody acting like they give a damn

Where is everybody when you need a hand?

I've been burning rubber on the Michelin

Flying in the rain like I'm Superman

I could say I love it, but that just depends

Little does Zain know, Liam resonates with that section of the song even more than the first - which says a lot, considering how connected he’s just said he is to it. If the man asked, he’d find out that the break up Liam’s avoiding talking about revolves around that last verse’s theme, along with the demons he’s had to face being a celebrity. Instead, Zain lets the video continue with on screen Liam swapping out that song’s chorus with the next one’s.

Why we always at war?

What am I here for?

'Cause you know I really don't wanna be in the way

Just wanna make you feel safe

Let, let, let me in

Let, let, let me in

At the end of each line, Liam watches himself close his eyes as he changes to a higher register, pulling the microphone away from his mouth while he does.

You puttin' up a wall

You ain't pick up my call

I'll still be there regardless

No, I don't understand

You never let me in

I know you ain't heartless

If it's mine, if it's mine

I'm getting impatient 'cause I've been giving it time

I've been giving it time

So let me in

Right as the song’s about the transform into his main single for that album, Zain cuts it off.

“It’s fitting you put that track after the first one,” he comments, not yet turning around to face Liam. “It was my bad luck that the second girl wouldn’t open up, even after months of me doing what I could to make her trust me.”

Even though Liam’s not one to rewatch footage of himself too often, he was sort of looking forward to seeing out the end of the video, but then Zain adds another small something that makes him completely forget about that.

“The second one is my favourite to hear you sing of mine by the way. It’s supposed to be a song of confusion, but you make it sound so smooth - sexy even. Reminds me of how this girl makes one of my more poetic songs sound like it belongs on a bedroom playlist or something.”

When Zain turns his chair around after selecting the mentioned tune, he smiles loosely at Liam. If the drugs weren’t already hitting his system, the singer would have the right of mind to smile back, or at least look at the screen to see who the female was because Zain was right, the way she made the lyrics

When I’m fresh out of ideas again

And the lost dog out the window finds its home

I let the smog roll over my mind

Walk around tying up my loose ends

I memorize what I can’t say out loud

What will make you uncomfortable

Let’s take off both of our crowns and

Surrender this battle

flow together is brilliantly sultry, but he’s stuck on the words ‘sexy even’ to pay it any mind.

Through papers and comments online, Liam’s seen himself be described as sexy, though they were almost always referring to his body, not his voice. Being told his tone, and how he used it was sexy... Now that wasn’t a compliment he was used to receiving, especially when he’s being told it’s the reason why it’s Zain’s favourite.

When the song ends, Liam can’t resist forgoing any remarks about it, he needs to ask the man, “what other songs do you like to hear me sing?”. If need be, he’ll blame it on the familiar fog that’s starting to cloud his judgment.

Zain tries to be coy and hold off on smiling too wide at Liam’s impatience, “Of mine?”

Twisting back to face the screen, he brings up a playlist that Liam can just make out the title of: ‘Sold to: Liam Payne’. I’ve bought enough to warrant a whole playlist. Jesus, Liam thinks.

“Let me see…” A few seconds go by as Zain makes his decision and a recognizable synth starts to play. “I won’t lie to you, I was a bit surprised when Harry told me you were the one who bought this off me.” Liam’s eyes meet Zain’s when he turns around again, seeing that they’re a dark sort of humoured this time. “Made me see you in a different light.”

You and the rest of the world, Liam keeps to himself, heat filling his cheeks as his voice starts to fill the room with an overly arrogant tone that’s not anything like his usual soulful one.

You know what you're doing when you're giving me a rush

I know I'm only chasing in lust

Feeling too high

And I'm face down, laid out, taking too much

I know I been a little too blunt

When I tell you what's mine

Got you on cloud nine

His cheeks may still be red, but Liam keeps a cool composure while Zain stares at him as though he’s waiting for the singer to prove his words true.

Now you dreamin' bout me while you sleeping

When you wake up I'm the reason

Eager for me like the weekend

Whatchu want, whatchu been needing?

Out of the corner of his eye Liam spots the two thirds finished joint sitting on the edge of the ashtray. The red lighter’s spinning around in the palm of Zain’s left hand, calling for him.

“You know it’s really not fair that you get to hear me sing about being a tease, but I can’t do the same with you,” Liam complains above the music, standing up and motioning for Zain to throw him the lighter.

All in your feelings so I need to get back

It was so good

And now you gon' ask me to change my flight

But it wouldn't be right

“Are you forgetting I wrote the thing?” Zain chuckles, lifting his right foot up onto the chair and hugging his knee close to his chest as he watches Liam get a good flame out of the lighter.

Liam shrugs, bringing the fire up to his mouth where he’s placed the roll. “Still,” he lets out after smoke escapes his lips.

Flicking his fingers, Zain gestures for the man to hand the joint over, although when Liam does, he lets the paper sit in his mouth while he scrolls through another playlist. “You’re the type of person who appreciates when someone plays you something no one else has heard,” he declares, rather than guesses, putting the joint back after having pulled it out to speak; the long pull he takes off it afterwards makes a statement.

To Liam, who’s standing against the wall next to the window, it almost seems like the writer’s taken such a deep breath in order to prepare himself for what’s to come based on the song he’s pressed play on. He’s more concerned about figuring out why that is instead of agreeing that yes, of course he’s that type of music listener, but after he hears the first few lines filter through the room’s speakers in Zain’s voice, he knows exactly why.

I can taste it on your mouth and I can't leave it

You're a freak like me, can't you see?

We can work this something out and I'm believin'

You get off on me, it's like cheating

A billow of smoke comes between the two men when Zain’s lungs clearly can’t hold it in any longer. Liam doesn’t think it’s meant to get in his face, the older male’s most likely just sending the smoke in the direction of the window he’s standing next to instead of aiming it straight into the sitting room, but it does. And oddly enough, he likes it. It must not come off like he does though, not if Zain getting out of the chair and taking the two or three steps towards him and the ajar window is anything to go by.

The closer the other gets, the more Liam holds his breath. It could be because there’s a new tension in the air from what the song’s clearly about, or out of a bodily reflex to not get smoke in his face again; Liam’s not sure. Either way, he’s enraptured by Zain’s slinky figure invading the small space around him.

I just wanna watch you when you take it off

Take off all your makeup, baby, take it off

I just wanna watch you when you take it off

Take off all your clothes and watch you take them off

As if he was just complaining about not hearing anything suggestive come from the writer.

Now that his request’s been fulfilled, it’s hard to process; Liam can barely let one line sink in before the next is overwhelming him.

The continuous ‘take it off’ that’s echoing in the room eggs the younger man on. Not to strip, but to do something with much more immediate danger.

He times it. Waits for Zain to take the inevitable hit and offer the drug so he can turn it down. He shakes his head - that’s completely dizzy with a mind of its own - to give the message. Right as he can sense Zain’s about to tilt his head to avoid hitting Liam with another cloud of smoke, the singer leans forward.

Push me up against the wall, don't take it easy

You like it hard like me, it's what you need

Their lips don’t meet like a kiss, more just ghost over each other. No context was made before Liam put them in this position, but Zain must understand since he opens his mouth for the other to suck the smoke out of.

Let's get naked and explore our inner secrets

For what it is, it's what it is

Liam’s already in a settled high, and because of that, he doesn’t care too much about keeping the fumes in his own mouth; that wasn’t the point of the exchange in the first place and they both know that.

As the chorus loops back around, Liam half expects for Zain to load up for another go; the cunning look in his eye tells Liam that he’s thinking about doing something, he’s just not sure what.

There’s hardly anything left of the joint when Zain passes it to him, the action being all that Liam needs to fill in the gap - it’s his turn.

Take it off, take it off

Baby, just take it off

When Zain pulls the air out of his mouth, Liam can’t stop his eyes from closing at the intimacy. Their not touching makes the singer feel as though if they did, the delicate magic would be lost. And the invisible barrier between their bodies is an intensity that Liam doesn’t want to lose.

With the street right below them, the view’s a free show, but Liam doesn’t worry about that when he finally opens his eyes, just focuses on how much of a lighter brown Zain’s are compared to his own after the man turns his head to release the smoke. Redness hasn’t creeped in too much yet, so he’s able to fully appreciate the hazel up close and personal without any deterrents.

I just can't wait to see it all

I'm so turned on, and it's all mine

It’s blunt - the message Zain’s written and the way he’s recorded himself singing it. Liam likes it that way though. He’s felt the same way, sitting at the end of a bed, just knowing what’s to come from whoever’s in front of him at the time, so why skirt around the truth of it? It’s the second recitation of the lines, with the last ending in an earth shattering run that makes Liam act on his adrenaline.

Once Zain can tell that his body’s about to be bracketed into the desk by Liam’s, he drops the last remnants of the joint into the ashtray for Liam to avoid being burnt by. It comes right in time, as the singer takes Zain’s bottom lip with his own.

Given their activities not even a minute prior, Liam isn’t overly surprised, only welcoming, when he feels Zain lean into the kiss.

It’s slow, languid. Exactly how Liam feels from the drugs at this point, along with the separate high he gets after inhaling Zain’s cologne - his favourite thing about getting to meet with the writer on his days off. It’s imprinted into Liam’s system the longer they stay connected, but it’s all too much, and not enough at the moment - Zain’s scent, his lips, how his small frame fits against Liam’s larger one, the way his voice sounds on the recording that’s still playing behind them. It’s difficult to hold on to one thing for too long before wanting to tap into, and appreciate, the next.

There’s a second where Liam needs to pull away for them to take a breath and he immediately regrets it, not because he misses the feeling of Zain’s stumble rubbing against his own (although yes, that’s truly missed as well), but because when he leans in again, the other man’s putting a hand on his chest to stop him.

Zain sings along softly with his recorded adlibs, eyes just barely open as he does so. His voice is raspy from the smoke they’ve been inhaling, yet Liam loves it more than the original. Maybe Zain knew he would. Maybe that was the reason for halting a second round of discovering how the other kissed. Or maybe it wasn’t.

“That’s why you get attached so easily,” Zain chastises fondly once the song ends, not making a move to force Liam away, but also not inviting him any closer either.

“I don’t care.”

In a likely effort to tease him even more, Zain licks his lips swiftly, “You will.”

Liam backs up when he’s receiving a soft nod of the head to do so. “Not with you,” he asserts strongly. And Liam believes that, mostly because he knows he’s already there.

Icarus Kalim, the phantom writer that spoke to Liam’s soul through uncommissioned lyrics, was such a constant in his life for the past six years, that it would be impossible for a person as easily willing to devote themselves to another as Liam was, to not already be attached. He might not have known what the man looked like - or that his name was actually Zain Malik - but that was neither here nor there. He captured his inner thoughts in a way that no person Liam knew in his real life, could. The chase he’d put up for all these years wasn’t one that he would’ve given up if Zain had refused to attend his proposed meeting two weeks ago. The bond Liam had manufactured with a name and its work had reached a point of no return long ago. Shotgunning weed and a few kisses wasn’t going to push him into territory he hasn’t already guided himself into.

“It’s a good thing you’re a decent kisser, because you’re terrible at someone calling your bluff,” Zain jeers, not moving away from his space against the desk like Liam thought he would have after holding steady on his opinion regarding the younger male’s social habits.

“It’s not every day that it’s to do with a topic like that,” Liam argues with a lazy smile, clearly not all that offended by the latter half of Zain’s statement, given the former part. “Play me in poker and then we’ll see what you have to say.”

“You’re rubbish at poker.”

The immediacy of Zain’s answer has Liam breaking out of his positive bubble. “You don’t know that,” he frowns.

“I don’t need to,” the man toys with the lighter Liam had deposited on the corner of the desk, “your emotions are always written on your face.”

There’s absolutely no room for argument; Liam knows it's true. All he can do is sigh in defeat and watch Zain return back to his leather chair.

“Going back to my favourites of yours,” the writer goes on, “that are actually mine.” He squints in concentration, “This one. You always dance around with it even though it’s chill.”

Like Zain predicts, Liam immediately starts to bob his head back and forth once the beat hits his system. It only takes the first pre-chorus to move him enough to push off from the wall and take to the middle of the room so he can sway with freedom.

Don’t look now, but she’s moving too fast

And you’re about to back out

All at once, cause if she’s on the run

I’d never keep up

As if he’s drifting, perhaps alone in a hotel suite somewhere, Liam lets his feet guide him around the sitting room without purpose.

You got me spinnin’ round, round, round

You don’t have to make a sound, sound, sound

And it’s hard enough keeping my head above the ground

Because your touch, your touch, your touch

Is pulling me under

There’s no way to tell if Zain enjoys hearing Liam’s voice in person as much as the celebrity does his, not without hearing a clear declaration of it come from his mouth, but he figures that just in case, he’ll sing along with the rest of the song. Maybe it’ll force the smile on Zain’s face up even higher than his dancing’s already done.

Once the music ends, Liam completely forgets about checking to see how wide the other’s grin has gotten. It’s all about making sure his mood isn’t ruined. “Now this is my favourite to dance to,” he says while inviting himself into Zain’s space and pulling up the record he’s thinking of.

“Come on.” Liam holds out his hand for Zain to take and use as a means of pulling himself out of the computer chair.

The writer hardly acknowledges the offer, simply keeps his smile of endearment (which the younger male really wants to know came from him and not the drugs) directed at Liam and shakes his head.

“Come on,” Liam whines. Seeing that he’s going to need to take things into his own hands, he grabs Zain’s left wrist, but the man doesn’t give in.

Are the trees high enough, baby?

Leave you so high, your feet won’t touch the ground

“I don’t dance.” An exaggerated glare comes from Liam at such a pathetic response. “I’d rather watch you even if I did.”

Would you look up, baby?

It’s pineapple purple skies

Promise everything gon’ be alright

Liam should fight with Zain about how it’s just him, not a room full of strangers that’ll judge either of them for making a fool of themselves, but he doesn’t; the music’s too good for him to waste any more time trying to persuade the cool kid to join him.

Got altitude, no storm clouds

Everything gon’ be alright

Been talkin’ to you for the longest time

Everything gon’ be alright

By far, this was the one song Liam had written and produced that he felt represented him the most - both via the sound and the lyrics. Sadly the dryness in his throat from smoking and singing the second half of the last song won’t let him belt out the lines like his recorded voice does. It’s alright though, his air guitaring makes up for it.

Got you dancin' on the sun, why you do it like that?

Lights so bright, why you do it like that?

And, I ain't kissed you yet

I ain't kissed you, you, you, you

But, everything you do, got me wishin' you, you, you, you

The sight of Zain raising his eyebrows in contest at the lack of truth in the second to last line makes Liam laugh like mad and waver in his enthusiastic dancing around the room.

Everything about this moment is what he loves about the song; it makes him feel alive. The message it carries of having a positive outlook, the occasion adlib exclamations that are metaphors for the dramatic peaks in life, the higher registered instruments that were purposefully in those keys to elicit a joyful emotion while listening, the way it’s made every person he’s ever played it for move in one way or another - it’s all exactly who Liam is. Or at least, how he thinks of himself and wants others to.

The years after getting rejected from his dream job on public television - twice - weren’t the most upbeat Liam years, nor were the scattered months full of ambiguity towards fame that came and went after he finally was told yes, but overall, the singer considers himself to be a pretty fun loving person. He wants to experience life to the fullest, no matter what that entails - eating scorpions, winning Grammys, jumping into freezing cold pools, he’ll do it. Somehow, he’d managed to wrap up that part of himself and compile it into a four minute song. He’s even more grateful that after four years, he still can’t help but move his hips to the rhythm.

Each time Liam’s eyes land on Zain, he’s met with a sweet smile. It’s all he wants to see for the rest of the day, or for as long as the man’s willing, whichever lasts longest. For that reason (and the fact that he’s got a small case of the giggles from the combination of weed and Zain’s toe tapping), Liam continues to dance his way through the rest of the afternoon. Anything to keep that smile.

TRACK 8

Piping hot liquid threatens to burn Liam’s tongue when he brings his mug up to his lips, the warm steam that hits his cheeks warning him to second guess taking a sip. The humid air should be convincing enough, but it’s the smell of the chamomile coming from the cup that forces Liam to put it down on the side table next to him. When he’d picked out the tea bag in the shared kitchen located within the music studio, chamomile sounded like a good idea for easing his voice into singing at the late hour of half past eleven at night; he hadn’t considered its sleeping properties that would render his voice unnecessary.

He’s trying to decide which herbal blend to rebrew back in the kitchen when a thought strikes him.

If you haven’t already left can u bring me green tea from the restaurant?

The Chinese green tea is exactly what would hit the spot. Now that he had the idea in his head, Liam really hopes that his text isn’t too late, and Zain hasn’t already started to make his way over from his day job.

Yeah sure. I’m headed out now. Should be there in 20 min

Perfect.

Louis wouldn’t want to hear it, but Zain had actually been relatively punctual any time he met with Liam after work. For that reason, when he gets back into the studio he has booked for two hours, Liam picks up the guitar he left on the couch in the hopes of coming up with some sort of melody for them to work with before Zain gets there.

As much fun as he had dancing away his high two days prior, the impending due date for the album was fast approaching. Even though he’s thrilled at being able to incorporate two more songs onto the track list, Liam knew that they were products of the two man team just warming up; the real hit was still waiting to be concocted.

Now more than ever, Liam felt like he needed to prove himself as an artist. Similar thoughts ran through him when it was time to introduce himself to the world as a real musician, let everyone see that he had matured and not given up after his bittersweet X-Factor days. Those were ultimately over ruled by a pent up hunger to release music to the public though. And while the success of that first album had allowed for him to make the second, Liam focused on making that music authentic to him, rather than worry about its success; he figured if the sophomore curse chose him as a victim, then at the very least he’d be able to proudly stand by what would be his last album. When that wasn’t the case, and he’d been blessed, rather than damned, with another chart topper, he felt the pressure with the next album. The release of a four track EP in between the second album and now, was a product of those nerves.

Publishing those songs on an EP held the fans over until he figured out the third album, while also eliminating the worry that came with putting out songs that were from the reject pile.

Like an all acoustic track that sat at the bottom of the EP. It’s not anything like the signature R&B/Pop associated with ‘Liam Payne’, yet Liam couldn’t help it; the simple premise and string slapping was too good to keep stored in a vault, never to see the light of day. The lyrics might be overwhelmingly corny,

No one seems to understand the way I conversate

You have no idea how good it feels to be accepted

I can’t help but to fall for you every day

I just can’t believe someone like you exists

a stream of consciousness more than well crafted lines, but Liam loves it. It’s him and he thanks being told no when he was younger so that he could take the time he needed to explore himself enough to know that; no doubt if he had stayed on the show - or god forbid won - he wouldn’t have had the time or freedom to be able to figure out pure pop wasn’t what he was destined to make.

It wouldn’t have led me to you either, Liam thinks when he finally sees Zain’s text that he’s downstairs, and to come unlock the door.

“You’re a lifesaver,” he says as soon as he sees the thermos in Zain’s hand after undoing the latch that’s done once the building’s receptionist has left for the day and it’s just late night artists coming in for their sessions.

“Thirty seconds later and you would’ve missed out.” Zain’s eyes show signs of exhaustion, but his enthusiasm could’ve fooled Liam. “Do you have an Oyster card?”

Confusion washes over the younger man’s features. “Like for the Tube?”

“And the bus,” Zain adds, handing over the thermos before stuffing his hands in his red hoodie. Liam’s jealous, he’s only got on a t-shirt and the open door’s causing him to really feel the chilly London breeze that’s typical of this hour. “I want to go for a ride.”

“To where?”

Zain shrugs haphazardly, “anywhere. Sometimes I just get on and ride.”

Right then, the smell of Chinese food hits Liam’s nose, the hoodie over Zain’s work tee most likely to blame for why it took so long for the scent to come to his attention. He’ll get used to it like he always does in about a minute.

“That’s…” Staring down at his watch, Liam tallies up that they’ve still got a little over an hour and a half left booked. Louis’ going to kill him for not taking the time that probably cost him a fortune to get last minute.

“Look,” Zain starts when Liam doesn’t pick back up, “you were the one who wanted to shadow me and figure out how I operate. This is me.”

Great, now he’s given off the wrong impression. “No, it’s not like that. I want to know every single thing about you.”

“Your impatience is showing,” Zain interjects when he sees an opportunity to do so. The intrusion to Liam’s explanation earns him a glare.

So much for continuing on with his clarification. “I haven’t had an Oyster card in years, but I can use my contactless card, yeah?”

Hearing that Liam was on board seems to gain him some respect by Zain’s guise of acceptance. “Yeah.”

Then that settles that. “Let me grab my stuff upstairs and lock up.” Liam’s got half a mind to text one of his musician friends to take their slot and not let it go to waste. He almost does on the way back down the stairs to Zain, but the travel time it’d take one of them to get there deems it useless. “My car should be alright in the back,” he thinks out loud when he makes sure the front door’s shut well behind him. “Where’s the nearest stop?”

A small laugh falls from Liam’s lips when Zain points to a red overhang literally right in front of the studio, “Oh.”

Twisting his head back and forth, the older man makes sure it’s clear to lead the way across the street. “Here,” he takes off his trusty black baseball hat, extending it out for Liam to take. “It’s the middle of the night and a week day, but you never know.”

Liam’s eyes go from the cap that’s now in his grasp to where Zain’s running a hand over his buzzed hair. He wants to feel the short spikes tickle his palm too, but he keeps that desire to himself, putting on the hat and pulling it down for discretion instead. “Thanks.” Sticking his hands in the pockets of his black athletic trousers, Liam stares down the street in anticipation. “So what is it about the bus that you like?” He turns his eyes back to the man next to him after identifying the only oncoming headlights as ones from regular cars.

“Public spaces are the ultimate sources of inspiration in the real world,” Zain replies simply. “Fictional things - my short stories, poems, films - are all sourced from me, my brain, but everything outside of that is best taken observing from afar.”

If Liam didn’t constantly remind himself Zain was a poet, he’d really feel like an idiot half the time the other spoke.

“Taking a ride, whether it be in the car or on public transport, is a great way to come across all sorts of influence.” Seeing the other start to pull out his wallet makes Liam do the same. “People getting on and off are one thing, but watching the city go by out the window is a whole other experience. I’ve lived in London for a while, yet it’s impossible to see all the little streets or going-ons outside of the regular route I take to work every day.”

A large red bus pulls up in front of the two men, Liam motioning for the older to get on first. Following close behind, he taps his credit card on the reader, grabbing on to the yellow rail that extends down the walkway so he doesn’t fall when they start to move again.

Thankfully not that many people are sat on the bottom level, only a mix of random individuals that look just as exhausted as Zain, and because of that, Liam’s alright with taking a seat in the back row; even though none of them seem in his demographic, he still keeps his head down as he walks.

“Do you want the window?”

Shaking his head, Liam scoots into the plastic seat, blocking Zain in. The backpack he’d pulled from the studio that holds a small notebook for writing, his wallet, car keys, and a few other miscellaneous tokens, falls to the space between his feet, as does Zain’s while the other gets comfortable.

“Anyway, yeah,” the chef starts up again. “Doing things like this is good for writing. Or even to unwind,” he adds.

Unwinding can sometimes come across as a foreign concept to Liam when his career goes through periods of madness. Putting himself in such a public environment would almost be counterproductive during a time like that, but maybe it was all about the perspective. If he looked at it the way Zain did, it was possible it could be a calming agent.

They sit in silence for a minute before Zain’s voice can be heard once more. “Talk to me,” he prompts gently, eyes still transfixed on the streets.

Liam’s in the middle of uncapping the thermos to see if its contents are still too hot to drink when he replies, “About what?”

The two words force Zain’s eyes away from the window. “Well, since you’re asking for direction, why not about this first love of yours that you’ve been avoiding?”

Fucking shot myself in the foot, Liam berates in his head, trying to figure out a way around this. It’s not possible to avoid it forever though, he knows that.

Making sure the nearest rider’s far enough away that they won’t hear anything, Liam gives in. “After I got off X-Factor when I was fourteen, life was weird. I had to go back to school, back to normal life, after having gotten a taste of what my dreams were like. That transition isn’t easy.” The same sinking sensation he experienced back then hits his stomach. “Some people treated me like I was a freak being on tv and others gave me positive attention for it. It was weird. The whole thing was.”

Darting his eyes to the side for a quick second, Liam sees that Zain’s giving him his full, undivided attention. Feeling the man’s hoodie against his right arm gives Liam an odd form of comfort, so he leans into it just a little bit. “A few months into the school year and I started to gain what little self-confidence I did have, back. I figured I’d go back in two years like Simon had told me to, so in the meantime, I might as well pick meself up off the floor and live a little.”

Liam watches as people get on and off at the next stop, the view giving him a little something to hold on to rather than the rapidly approaching feeling of dread. “Her name was Lauren, and the fact that she was the prettiest girl in our year should’ve been enough of a red flag.”

A small nudge from the arm he’s leaning against has Liam looking Zain in the eye. The writer doesn’t need to say anything aloud, the message is clear: don’t talk down about yourself like that. How he can say so much with and without words, Liam doesn’t know, but he cherishes those characteristics of Zain’s deeply.

“One day I just went up to her and asked her to dinner. Genuinely didn’t think she’d even look me in the eye, but…” The memory replays perfectly, like an evil reminder. “She smiled and said ‘I was too nervous to ask you out first’.” A one minute conversation from his past really shouldn’t still hurt this bad. “And I remember how much my face hurt from smiling. I could’ve taken on the world in that moment because she’d been waiting for me, you know? I didn’t have to convince her, she already wanted the same thing.” He could feel himself going down a tangent, so he quickly steers himself back on track. “We dated for a year. A whole fucking year,” he grinds out, the sadness in his heart turning to self-hatred. “I lost my virginity to her and I-”

Feeling Zain’s knee bump into his own from a sharp turn the bus is taking grounds Liam, takes him out of his spiral of anger. “We were at a party and I went to go get us drinks. When I was on my way back to where I left her, I heard her friends talking about me, saying I looked good that night. So I hung back to see what she’d say, thinking it’d be cute or something, but it was the opposite.” Instead of stalling, Liam just barrels through the memory. “She said ‘I’ve been trying to get him to cut his hair for ages. When he goes back for his X-Factor audition in a few months, he better cut it or I’m not going with him.’ And the thing was, I had already cut it shorter than it was when we started going out. I had the straight fringe thing going down way past my eyes then and I’d cut it to be right above my eyebrows, so I thought that was alright, but then one of her friends laughed and said, ‘he’s a nice guy. He really doesn’t deserve you playing him like this. And for over a year. I thought you’d cave by now.’ And then it all hits at once, like you see in the films, you know?” He looks down at the mandala tattoo’d on Zain’s left hand as he delivers the final blow. “She says, ‘Me too, I’m a much better actor than I thought. But when he makes it big, it’ll all be worth it. I’ve been dropping hints that I want a new purse for my birthday. He’s gonna get it for me, I know he will, but when he’s rich and famous, can you imagine the things I’ll make him buy me then?’”

Liam’s not even ashamed, nor surprised that he can still recite the lines verbatim after all this time. It was a life altering moment for him, relationship wise, and career wise. It was his first taste at what it was like to be used, through his emotions, body, money, all of it. She wanted him because he was on the road to becoming wealthy, not because she loved him, like she claimed she did.

Zain doesn’t say anything, though he looks like he’s processing a worthwhile response when Liam glances up from running his fingers over the side of the metal thermos to see his reaction. The fact that the man’s taking his time and not rushing into an apology, or saying that Liam didn’t deserve that is enough to prove to Liam that thinking so highly of Zain before he knew he was Zain, was warranted.

“Fuck her.”

An authentic smile takes over Liam’s facial expression at Zain’s blunt assertion.

“Seriously, I mean that,” the older man says convincingly. “She was thinking that way at fourteen and fifteen? Fuck her.”

The bus makes another stop, but no one gets on, only an elderly man with a bag of groceries exits. Liam unzips his backpack and pulls out a pair of AirPods, handing one of the buds to Zain.

You only show me love when it comes to the music

It’s like when I feel lonely, that’s when you start actin’ choosey

I don’t wanna keep playin’ them games cause I feel like I’m losin’

The chorus that he plays for them is one of his own that he couldn’t pass up buying from Zain with how well it matched his past, but it’s also that same resemblance that makes it impossible to perform live. The same goes for the next because of its outro:

Had a hundred friends, but I cut em off, I don’t need em

Not like any of them gave a fuck if I was breathing

Summer's over so they switching around like the seasons

Gotta keep my guard up, now I'm playing defense

Everybody wants a favor, everybody needs me

But I'm too busy trying to fight away all of my demons

I'm too busy trying to fight away all of my demons

Everybody wants a favor, everybody needs me

Outta sight, outta mind, got no time

So blind, hundred days and I'm still alive, what a life

Pushing pause, Liam catches Zain’s gaze, hopeful that his gratitude is being conveyed. “It’s like you were writing about me, rather than for me.”

“I don’t write for anyone,” Zain corrects without hesitation.

There’s no malice in the man’s voice, but Liam still apologies, out of instinct and care before continuing with his train of thought. “I think a lot of people in the limelight can relate to lyrics about getting used, but it’s a lesson I had to learn early. I question my own footsteps a lot of the time because of her and I hate that. I hate that she did that to me.” He stretches his legs out into the aisle, “but the worst part was that even though I knew what she had done to me was horrible, I still loved her; I couldn’t let go. Who does that? Still love someone after they screwed them over for that long?”

“A sane person,” Zain comments honestly. “Someone who actually puts themselves into a year long relationship like they should.”

“Because it all ended in seconds, I don’t think I could process it - believe it.” To find more comfort and warmth, Liam openly pushes himself up against Zain’s side more. “Looking back, it was like a blissful paradise, not knowing the real reason she was with me all that time.”

“Write that down.”

Given their working relationship, Liam doesn’t need to ask why, just follows Zain’s command without contest. As he’s writing down his words in the notebook he’s pulled out of his backpack, the uneasiness of writing a song about Lauren sinks in. That’s exactly what she’d want, and even though he’s written a few lines about their relationship throughout his career, he can’t stand the thought of giving her the satisfaction of hearing that he’s dedicated a whole song to her. He’s about to express his hesitation to Zain when the other steers the conversation in another direction.

“Pain can come from friends too.” Stopped at a red light, Liam has the ability to properly stare at two men having a screaming match on the sidewalk. “Love isn’t always the most productive topic for someone to write about. Sometimes the cathartic attributes of writing about love are needed when you’re infatuated or heartbroken, but people often overlook the healing elements of exploring other areas of life.”

“In a past life you were some well respected philosophy professor,” Liam theorizes, not finding the need to explain himself after Zain’s wordy response.

The man opens up his palm for Liam to deposit his phone into. “Being judged on the lexicon of my head sounds like a horrible career.” Liam nearly cuts in to say that songwriting’s close to that, but he holds his tongue. “Maybe another creative subject though. Art? I dunno,” he relaxes into the back of his seat after selecting a song to play.

Liam mimics the stance when he realizes the music’s meant to act as their entertainment until Zain deems it enough, still keeping a portion of his weight leaned into the male’s side.

Gun crime into your right ear

Drugs and violence into your left

Default white headphones flooding the auditory

Subconscious waves you accept

You’re sitting on the 4 back home

‘Where you at, G? Answer your phone!’

Pause the poison to answer his message

Your boy sounds rushed, fears for his adolescence

Stops come and go, as does the coolness of the London night each time the doors chugg open to let out a passenger or two. Without fail, Liam finds solace from the frigid temperature in Zain’s hoodie. It only takes him a few songs before he starts to fall victim to the peaceful lull of the ride that Zain had pointed out might come. It’s accompanied by songs of Zain’s that speak on things other than love affairs - the struggles of figuring out who you are, with and without others at your side,

Fuck it ‘til the night comes down

Feel it baby, soul to soul

I got you where I want you now

And I just can’t stop to let you go

In a foreign world, dancing foreign ways

Baby we find ourselves

In a foreign world, you can find yourself

reflections on how the traits of a person’s Father have shown themselves later in life,

I heard it's in your blood, baby

I heard you got the same taste in your mouth

You know that's nothing new, baby

We try hard to change, but it's still the same

Maybe I'm my father's son, maybe I'm my father's son

Oh, I'm nothing like you, oh, I'm nothing like you

and the masked truth of what it really means to be a young adult living in an age where nightlife’s a societal norm.

We open with the vultures, kissing the cannibals

Sure I get lonely, when I’m the only

Only human in the heaving heat of the animals

Bitter brown salt, stinging on my tongue and I

I will not waiver, heart will not wait its turn

It will beat, it will burn, burn, burn

Your love into the ground with the lips of another

Do you get lonely? Sure, I get lonely sometimes

Passing by Piccadilly Circus grants new life to Zain’s face through various billboard lights illuminating his cheeks and sharp jawline. He’s too busy (or he’s playing it off like he is) watching the stragglers of the night to notice Liam’s stare - intrigued and smitten all the same.

They haven’t spoken about the kiss that took place a couple days ago, although even if Zain did bring it up, Liam doesn’t know what he’d say. The fact that he was handed a compliment straight after and wasn’t met with any opposition to meeting at the studio that night made Liam believe that they were alright. But it’s like he told Zain early on - he was cursed with the tendency to fall in love overnight. Now that the other knew his most vengeful inner demon, Liam felt himself getting closer to that point day by day; the handsome serenity only helps quicken the process.

Following the chorus, a rap verse takes over, and while Liam’s extremely familiar with the song, now that he knows the writer, he ponders if Zain’s also responsible for penning any of the raps that are included in a track of his, or if he leaves that up to the rapper.

“No, those are mine too,” Zain replies when Liam’s curiosity gets the better of him and he looks for the answer to his wonderment after the song ends. “You’ll like this one.”

Peaking down at his phone screen that Zain’s tilting his way, Liam reads the title: ‘Taboo’.

Welcome to the darker side of taboo

All I’ve got is permanent scars and tattoos

Creases at the edge of Liam’s eyes form when he hears the all encompassing lyric that clearly fits the both of them.

Take another step in the path that you choose

Make a bad choice in your path and you lose

It’s a chorus sung, not rapped, and that alone has Liam’s attention, never mind the relatable visual.

Gorgeous beautiful taboo always with a lot on her mind

You’re giving me all of your stories in the littlest amount of time

You loving me is forbidden, loving you back is a crime

I wrote this poem for you, forever remain in my rhymes

I knew you wasn’t normal ever since the age of nine

I heard you were molested when you hit the age of five

So, in a sense I sense that all your innocence had died

You swallowing all of your pride, won’t let anybody inside

As the song ends and melts into the next, Liam allows whatever stress was left from the day, fade into the night. Not even when the bus ends its route twenty minutes later and the two switch to whichever shows up next at the stop they were dropped off at, does Liam allow it to come back.

Settling into the first row atop the double decker bus, perfectly equipped for observation of the world outside with the expansive front window, the singer goes right back to the relaxed position he was in before - body slumped against Zain’s, half finished thermos in between his legs. He’s kept his notebook out just in case he’s told to write something down again, but he doubts he’ll come up with anything worthwhile in this state of tranquility. Even though he should. They’re on a time restraint after all.

For a second, Liam lets his eyes close so the next song Zain’s chosen can sink in alongside the sound of the bus’ steady engine. But that’s all he gets - a second - because Zain’s swiping the notebook off his lap and tapping the pen that’s stuck in its metal binding, out.

Liam hardly moves, will only do so if Zain really needs him to. Which doesn’t look likely, since he’s right handed, rendering the body on his left ok to stay where it is.

You go searching for paradise

You sit back and close your eyes

Burning, yet so alive

It’s not the best handwriting, but Liam can definitely make out the words. They’re about him; they have to be. Acknowledgment of his journey towards a love that isn’t blindsighting. The image he’s creating right then. Full of anger, but still a lover of life. It’s three lines of genius.

“Have you ever written a song about me?” Liam’s brazen question is one he’s sure he already knows the answer to, but he asks anyway on the off chance his assumption is wrong.

Without moving the notebook from his lap, Zain pauses the song that’s been playing. “Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but no. I don’t set out with a subject in mind unless I’m particularly inspired by a recent story I’ve read or written. That’s the beauty of having an admin deal with the publishing company and not any other type - no quotas to hit or clients to forcefully write for.” Liam sends him a cheesy smile in irony. “I don’t think it’s fair to write about someone you don’t know in real life all that well anyway. The way you perceive them from afar could be completely different to how they actually are.”

It’s an expectant, fair answer. One that allows Liam to reach over and push play so they can go back to easy people watching.

Seems like street lights, glowing, happen to be

Just like moments passing in front of me

So I hopped in the cab and I paid my fare

See I know my destination, I’m just not there

In between Zain pointing out the beauty in components of life Liam would normally overlook, like how the swerve of a bike rider’s movements emits an emotion akin to cutting through water, or the way hair that spills out the sides of a man who’s walking across the street’s hat gives him a greater sense of vulnerability and makes him more human, the younger man does his best not to drift off. Each time he comes close, the song changes to something loud, something with lots of drums or electronic noises. If Liam wasn’t so comfortable, he’d have a go at the dj.

Forty five minutes after their first bus swap, the second one ends. Appropriately, it’s right outside London’s most famous arena. A venue Liam’s been fortunate enough to sell out twice already.

“Can you get us in?” Zain teases, looking up from behind his long eyelashes to let Liam in on his humour.

“At…” The man’s watch shows that it’s nearly 1:45 in the morning. “No, there’s no way. Don’t think I’ve got that kind of power even if there was anyone here besides security.” When he looks to his side, he can see Zain calculating their next route. “Isn’t your place just on the other side of the river?”

“Literally sure, but without the Tubes running it’s another forty five minutes and two busses.” At the sight of Liam holding out his thermos, Zain stops typing on his phone. “You finished?”

“No, I want you to have the last bit,” Liam shakes the container in an effort to get the other to take it. “It’s cold, you need it.”

A short shake of the head ‘no’ from the writer almost makes Liam fight him like some sort of doting Mother. “You need it more than me. You’re the one in a t-shirt,” Zain points out while simultaneously leaning his weight onto his left leg, causing that side of his body to lean on Liam once again.

As if he’s a teenager hanging out with his crush who just made a smooth move to show their interest, the younger male bites back a wide smile.

“You were falling asleep at the end of that one,” Zain adds. “I’ll tackle the rest, you take a cab back.”

Not that there was any formal agreement at the beginning of the night, but leaving the writer here seems like Liam’s giving up. He’s not sure on what exactly, but it gives him a feeling of dissatisfaction. At the same time, Zain’s right - he’s pretty much done for the night. “Why don’t I order a car and put your flat as a stop?”

Almost at once, Zain pockets his phone, “Alright, yeah. Car rides are just as good as buses, I just don’t know anyone with their own besides my friends and family up North.”

“Well now you do,” Liam nudges the other lightly while staring at his phone.

“Why’d you buy a truck living in London?”

Your car will arrive in 11 minutes

“I don’t live in central.” Looking up from his mobile screen, Liam can just barely make out the tops of the financial buildings clumped together across The Thames. “I live outside the city, but I used to live in a penthouse over there when I was younger.” Zain’s vision changes from the app that shows a small black car making its way to their location, to the skyscrapers of Canary Wharf. “Nearly died climbing out onto the ledge of the building one night too.” Liam’s heart rate picks up at the memory. “Parents weren’t too happy with me when those pictures surfaced.”

“I’m getting queasy just thinking about it,” Zain worries from Liam’s side. “I hate heights.” The singer stores that information away. “Bet it was too high for people watching, huh?”

“Can’t see much from the 34th floor, no.”

“Thirty fourth floor,” Zain mumbles in disbelief and horror.

Checking the status of their car, Liam decides to direct the conversation away from what his money’s gotten him and towards a detail he isn’t going to skip over. “What’s your threshold for people watching? Floor wise.”

“I’ve never really thought about it.” A small shrug comes from the man, “I guess six or seven. So I don’t pass out staring down from the window for hours, and because any higher than that and you don’t really get to see the details all that well.”

He wasn’t averse to people watching when he was in hotel rooms, but it was never something Liam actively did; he always thought the higher the floor, the better the view. Guess it depends on what sort of view you’re looking for.

They fall into an easy silence with the deserted streets of Greenwich as their car finds its way to them. Liam pushes play on the music app Zain had been using to dictate what their bus soundtrack consisted of when it becomes evident both of their quiet sides have surfaced.

For the remainder of the time they stand under the bus stop, Liam fights back the urge to wrap his arm around Zain’s waist; their positioning’s begging for that protective, possessive instinct of his to kick in. He knows there isn’t anyone there to report on it if he did based on the stillness in the air that would make a whisper sound as loud as an excited declaration, but it’s a dangerous move to make.

In the end, he teaches himself how to take what he’s been given and if he leans his head on Zain’s shoulder halfway into the drive to the writer’s flat, then oh well.

Chapter Text

TRACK 9

“Sounds sick.”

Swiveling around in his chair to face Zain, Liam grins in pride. He’s just played them the final mixings of each song they’ve written together in the past few weeks, and while he thought they sounded great when he received the files from the sound engineer this morning, he’s fully comfortable including them on the album now that he’s got the seal of approval from his co-writer.

“There’s still room for more,” Liam sing songs, hopeful Zain hasn’t tired of him yet. Although, if the writer lounging on the sofa situated in the studio Louis had booked for them last minute was anything to go by, Liam doesn’t think he has anything to worry about on that front.

In fact, it’s a little ironic how Zain’s so okay with meeting up this often, given his initial unwillingness to give Liam the satisfaction of hearing they’d see each other as frequently as they are now.

“I’m sure there is,” Zain replies with a smirk that tells Liam the man doesn’t plan on giving up his entire air of mystery just yet.

“These two add good upbeat energy like the single’s got.” The singer nearly plays the track he plans on releasing first off the album, but he refrains; each minute not throwing around song ideas is much more than a dollar wasted. Besides, when they’re done here, he’s got an hour drive back home to listen to one of the catchiest choruses he’s ever written -

Try to believe I'm the one for you

Try to see from the other side

Baby, give me a night or two

'Cause you know if I could I would try

To put nobody before you

Give you all of me 'til I die

Baby, give me a night or two

'Cause you know if I could I would try -

as much as he wants.

“Do you want to keep that up then?”

Watching Zain take a sip out of his thermos after asking his question, makes Liam do the same. Without requesting the drink, the chef had shown up with two full canteens of green tea, one for each of them. Liam had felt his eyes squish up from how wide he had smiled at the gesture.

“It doesn’t matter,” he responds once the warm tea’s coated his throat. “I don’t want the melody to get in the way of us writing a Grammy winning ballad.”

“Yeah that’s good, because I think you know by now - I’m not used to sitting down and being told to write one way or another.” Sitting up straighter and adjusting his black baseball cap so that it sits backwards instead its normal placement facing straight on, Zain voices an opinion. “I know what she did to you was the opposite of upbeat, but it might be kinda cool to play around with writing something about your first love in a non-depressing way.”

In no way did that sound fun to Liam. He knows it’s not what Zain meant, but he didn’t find it enjoyable to second guess every new person that came into his life. Because he and Lauren had been together for so long, and the betrayal came as such a shock to him, he wasn’t sure how to test someone’s loyalty, or even for how long; not even after ten years did he have a good grip on that.

“Can we just talk? Like we usually do?” Liam’s not even embarrassed by how weak his voice sounds in comparison to how he had just been a second ago, he knows Zain will understand.

There’s a flash of discernment that washes over the older man’s face and for a moment, Liam thinks he’s guessed wrong, but then Zain pulls through. “Why’d you buy ‘Gone’?” Liam’s right eyebrow quirks in confusion. “I mean, thank you,” the older man chuckles, “but if you like my stuff because it’s deep, then I’m not sure why you’d pick that one; it’s basic.”

“Your voice,” Liam confesses without shame. “I mean the lyrics aren’t bad, I like them too, but the way you elongated certain vowels made me want to see if I could get my tone to sound just as smooth.”

Laying back down on the couch, Zain puts his hands on his lower stomach after discarding his hat on the floor, “Let me hear it again. It’s been a couple of weeks since you played me what you had.”

The raw files for the album as it is are already up on the studio’s main computer, making it easy for Liam to find the track and hit play.

It’s not as if what Zain’s got to say about his vocal delivery will make a difference, Liam loves how the final recording sounds, but that doesn’t mean he’s any less nervous to hear what the writer thinks of his attention to detail singing verses like

Damn

I poured the concrete

You laid the ceiling

And it hurts to tear it down

But our home is empty

And all of the memories

I keep trying to erase

But I spent all my change on you

He nearly thinks Zain’s fallen asleep to the slow pull of the song when it ends, and he hasn’t said anything, nor opened his eyes. The sight’s actually quite peaceful to witness, inviting too. They’re already wasting time in the room not using the equipment, but Liam really wants to join him, dig into Zain’s grey jumper that’s hiding his black work ensemble. He wouldn’t even care if he fell asleep to the scent of dim sum, the body warmth would be worth it.

“You’re going to close your eyes when you sing that if you do it live.”

The sudden statement from the motionless body almost makes Liam jump. “Why do you say that?” He counters once he’s registered that Zain’s still very much awake.

“When you get caught in the emotion of a song, you tend to close your eyes and kiss the mic.”

Humming in acknowledgement, Liam keeps his eyes on Zain’s figure wondering if he should drive him home; maybe he was just being kind and placating Liam by being there when all he really wanted to do was be asleep at home. If he wasn’t there, that’s what he’d most likely be doing, right?

“In some ways, when you sing, you probably let out a lot of the pain you don’t write about. Subconsciously,” Zain ruminates. “Or consciously, I don’t know.”

If Liam was more outspoken with his thoughts, he might ask the other why he cares so much about the way Liam deals with his inner torment, whether it be from heartbreak or life’s pressures. He’s experienced enough to know that suffering makes for great songwriting, but that doesn’t mean he always wants to. Certain things hurt for a reason.

“That’s probably how you stay sane,” the chef continues. “I’ve spent enough time with you to know that you present yourself as you are. You’re not trying to hide anything.”

“Is this what it’s like to be with a poet?” Zain cracks an eye open and directs it towards Liam when the latter voices his thoughts. “You, always analyzing and picking apart characteristics?”

“Are you telling people we’re together?”

Liam sends the other a pointed glare. He knows exactly what Liam means, especially with that smirk that’s playing on his lips. “Only my reflection.”

The answer puts a crack in Zain’s façade, but the man recovers quickly. “I like to be wined and dined I hope you know,” he teases, shifting so he’s facing Liam, head propped up by his right hand.

“Which isn’t going to be easy considering you’re a chef.” Tension falls from Liam’s shoulders as the conversation moves towards flirting and not an unprompted therapy session. “I can make a mean avocado toast.”

“Yeah, so can my eight year old cousin,” Zain throws back, completely unimpressed. “When you can make me a proper shakshuka for breakfast, then we’ll talk.”

“Shakshuka,” Liam mutters to himself, testing how the foreign word sounds out loud in his own accent. In his peripheral he spots his notebook. Before he can forget it, Liam jots down a note on the top corner of the open page.

Shackshooka - breakfast food for Zain

“It’s Middle Eastern,” the older man adds.

From Middle East

“What about your favourite meal for lunch and dinner?” Liam asks, waiting to hear the answers before turning around.

“And you still wonder why you get attached...”

Liam tenses his jaw at Zain’s joking around, “I never said anything about wondering; I know how I get myself there. Just give me the answers.”

There’s a brief pause as Zain either tries to get under Liam’s skin another way, or scan his brain for adequate dishes. “This isn’t counting any Chinese, Pakistani, or Indian foods,” he mentions as a disclaimer. Liam twirls his pen around as the seconds pass by. “For lunch, I’d say really well marinated steak tacos, and for dinner…” The plate gets scribbled down quickly. “Shit, this is hard without choosing any of those cuisines.”

“You’re the one who put limits on yourself,” Liam comments while he doodles around his fresh writing.

“Yeah, because there are too many to pick, and even if I could choose one,” Zain considers, “you wouldn’t ever be able to do it justice.”

Only the spiral notebook can see Liam’s eye roll. “Gee thanks.”

“You’re welcome to try, but between the amount of times I’ve had authentic dan dan noodles and my Mum’s chicken biryani, you’d just be wasting your time.”

There’s no doubt in Liam’s mind that Zain’s right, but he makes a note of the two anyway.

“Maybe a real nice chicken parmigiana,” the writer finally decides on, his tone distant, as if he’s dreaming of having the Italian marinara sauce at this very moment. “Right out of the oven, fresh mozzarella melted over the chicken.” Now Liam’s craving it. “Yeah, a proper chicken parmigiana.”

Underneath the name of the dish, Liam makes two sharp underlines. Zain could’ve easily named a food he hadn’t ever heard of, left him needing to sound out the syllables like his choice of breakfast, so to be as familiar with the Italian meal as he was made Liam relieved. He still hasn’t ever cooked it, nor done so at an advanced enough level to impress the person he’d be serving, but he’s always up for a challenge.

“In case you’re wondering, mine’s pizza,” Liam says sarcastically, finally twisting around in his chair after ditching his pen and paper.

Zain stays looking unimpressed, “Again, so is my eight year old cousin’s.”

“Let’s go back to music.” Absolutely no guilt appears on the other’s face at Liam’s menial irritation. “Talking food with you is impossible.”

“Aw come on,” Zain coos. “I’m only messing about. Pizza’s great, I like pizza.” Because he’s weak, Liam eases up with his glower. “I’ll make you a protein heavy pizza when you come over Tuesday. How’s that sound?”

Like Zain’s mentioned in the past, Liam’s horrible at keeping his emotions hidden, which means it’s impossible for him to fight off the small smile that’s taking over. He’s not sure how his trainer would feel about him eating pizza, but if he ran with the whole ‘protein heavy’ thing and tried to argue that it was healthier being made from scratch than if he got take away, then maybe he’d only have semi-hell to pay when he showed up to the gym Wednesday morning.

Right as he’s about to agree, smile even wider at the fact that Zain’s openly admitting that his days off are now automatically ones he’ll meet up with Liam on, a witty remark comes to the singer’s mind. “What makes you think I’m the type that wants to be wined and dined?”

Now that he’s back to facing the ceiling again, Zain’s chuckle doesn’t sound as loud as it might have been if he was still angled towards Liam. “No, I reckon you’re a lot easier than that. You’ve already admitted what it’ll take.”

“I have?”

This wasn’t the position he thought he’d put himself in when he went looking for more room to flirt. Even now, with the topic fresh on his mind, Liam’s not sure what he’d reply with. He’s an easy person to please; just be nice and accept him for who he is, and that’s pretty much it. The fact that he’d managed to give Zain an answer other than that - a specific one - is surprising.

“Yeah, but don’t worry about it,” the writer reassures him. “As long as I’ve remembered it, that’s all that matters, right?”

Zain’s not wrong, and knowing he’s got whatever it is Liam’s told him in his arsenal makes the celebrity eager to have it revealed to him if Zain chooses to do so, but he’s still stuck on what it could be.

“Play me another song you’re dying to know the meaning of.” Sinking into the couch even further makes the older man look like he really is about to go to sleep. “Maybe something I mention will spark an inspiration for us to run with.”

While they might be putting a bookmark in their flirting for the time being, it’s not hard to forgive when it involves entertaining Liam’s thirst for insight.

Now that he knows Zain’s other writing names, his list of songs needing explanations has practically doubled. Being prompted to throw them out one by one is like music to Liam’s ears, quite literally. He’s especially proud to hear that the mysterious tune he’s had on repeat lately, one that starts out with an intoxicating first verse of

I've been havin' dreams

Jumpin' on a trampoline

Flippin' in the air

I never land just float there

As I'm looking up

Suddenly the sky erupts

Flames alight the trees

Spread to fallin' leaves

Now they're right upon me

and a dark chorus,

Wait if I'm on fire

How am I so deep in love?

When I dream of dying

I never feel so loved

is a poetic reference to what it might be like if a person embraces the moment a dream turns into a nightmare.

It’s wonderfully different, but then again, Liam’s starting to associate Zain with that description more and more as the days pass and he discloses how his brain works. Even so, when they’re packing up their things and Liam’s about to label their session as nothing more than another late night with a new friend, not a productive writing meeting like it was meant to be, Zain stops him from putting his notebook in his backpack.

Hate don’t give

Love don’t rewind all the good times

All the dollars you’ll spend

Give it up for nights like this

Don’t give in to overthinking

Pour a drink when it ends

“Alright, I gotta catch a cab ASAP. I’m exhausted,” Zain sighs, capping Liam’s pen and throwing it next to his bag. “I thought I told you I can’t hang out Friday or Saturday nights? The restaurant's way too busy for me to function afterwards.”

But Liam’s too transfixed on reading the lyrics Zain had written down on the page that had been otherwise blank the entire night, to reply, or even register, how the older man had scaled down what were supposed to be professional meetups, to informal “hang outs” between mates.

How long had Zain been sitting on these lines? And where did they even come from? For the past hour and a half, he hadn’t shown any signs of creative sparks igniting within him. Liam would ask how the other envisioned the lyrics to be sung, but he knows by now that they’re probably without any melodic rhythm; Zain’s professed that he can’t really produce beats, so it’s highly unlikely that he was able to set one to the words in his head without messing around with an instrument to give him direction first.

Maybe it was a short poem that he’d come up with, or maybe they were separate lines that he’d thought up in between rambling off song explanations to Liam. Which reminds the singer, he needs to start doing that more often - jot down random lines to piece together a full song when he’s got enough.

“You coming?”

Liam’s eyes trail over the words one last time before leveling with Zain’s. “Yeah,” he nods at the man waiting for him at the doorway, backpack slung over his left shoulder lazily and hat backwards yet again.

Quickly, he shuts the book and tucks his pen into its binding. After zipping the combination away in his bag, Liam takes a look around the room to make sure they haven’t forgotten anything.

“Gonna take the bus home?” He asks once they’re walking down the corridor, their designated room now locked behind them. “I could give you a ride.” Holding open the door that leads to the lobby of the building, Liam snags the hat off Zain’s head when he passes through the threshold.

The writer’s left hand comes up to feel his now exposed buzzed hair, vision turning to where Liam’s placed the cap on himself with a crinkly eyed smile. “I don’t know where you live, but I know for sure my place isn’t on the way,” he insists, assessing how Liam looks in something of his for a few extra seconds before continuing to move towards the exit.

Since he’s not being told off for stealing what isn’t his, only given the silent go ahead to continue on with himself, Liam’s grin widens. “It’s not, but-” Taking a few hasty steps forward ensures Liam beats Zain to the final door that will lead them outside. “I don’t have any obligations in the morning like you do.”

“Thanks,” Zain nods as he steps out onto the empty sidewalk. “You’ve got a point there. How far out of the city do you actually live?”

Unzipping the front pocket of his backpack, Liam takes out his keys and hits the unlock button. In response, the sports car parked on the other side of the narrow street flashes its lights. “About-”

“Fuck no,” Zain laughs, stopping in his tracks. “You’re crazy if you think you’re gonna drive to East London at two in the morning in that.” Not bothering to look as he crosses the street, Zain walks over to the Aston Martin. “Never mind Forest Gate,” he adds, checking out what he can of the car under the street lights.

Liam opens up the drivers side door and throws his backpack into the passenger’s seat since it’s clear it won’t be occupied that night. Zain’s reaction was more than likely over exaggerated, but the writer is too stubborn for a fight to be worth it. “I wasn’t going to put on a show, just drop you off.”

“And it’s a nice gesture,” Zain expresses fondly, “but I don’t want to take any chances. The last thing I’d like is for either your pretty car or your pretty face to get scuffed up.” As he starts up the engine in an effort to heat it up before taking off, Liam’s smile returns. “I’m just gonna order a car or cab, but thank you - for wanting to play chauffeur and attractive race car driver at the same time. Maybe another night.”

Stepping back out onto the sidewalk, the supercar purring to his side, Liam watches Zain fiddle with his mobile. It’s not polite for him to interrupt the man while he secures his way home, so while Liam waits for him to finish, he repeats the way Zain’s Northern accent made him pronounce ‘attractive’. Even when the cab shows up five minutes later and Liam bids him goodnight, he still hears the shortened vowels. That is, until he’s checking himself out in the rear view mirror to see how tired he looks when he realizes he’s still wearing Zain’s hat, then his brain switches off entirely. Drives are meant to be for observation and winding down anyway.

TRACK 10

He forgot about the pizza.

That’s the first thing that comes to Liam’s mind when he’s walking into Zain’s flat four days later and the only scent his nose picks up is that of old white rice. That’s alright though, it’s not as if he had skipped out on a post workout shake after hitting the gym an hour ago in preparation to eat his weight in meat covered pizza. No, that wasn’t the case at-

“How hungry are you? I made the pizza dough last night, but you were my alarm just now, so it’s probably for the best if I wake up a little bit more before I operate the oven.”

Halfway through stepping out of his shoes, Liam hears the word pizza and he’s fairly certain his lips curl up in record time.

He didn’t forget.

“I think a snack could hold me over for an hour or so.” The singer’s second trainer gets kicked to the side of the entryway rug. “Do you have pistachios?”

“That’s awfully specific,” Zain’s words getting caught in a yawn. “I don’t think so. How about popcorn?” Soft footsteps can be heard against the light brown tile flooring that leads the way to the kitchen. “Or I think I’ve got a small packet of Wotsits sitting in the cabinet, though it might be stale. It’s been a while since I bought them.”

Watching Zain force himself awake while maneuvering through the kitchen, pings Liam with a deep sense of guilt. If it weren’t for his knocking on the door, his request to collaborate in the first place, Zain would still be sleeping. Liam hadn’t believed the man when he claimed that he never gets up later than one on his days off; the dark circles under his eyes were proof that he needed more sleep. The bags were so sunken in, Liam would bet that if throwing off his sleep schedule is what Zain’s worried would happen if he had an extremely late lie in, he should just forgo waking up for a full 24 hours all together; he probably had it in him. Selfishly, on top of all that, Liam entered the session with Zain’s cooking as his main concern - something that would probably drain whatever was left of the chef’s energy. He really needs to sort out his priorities.

“Let me make something for you.”

Zain’s in the midst of rummaging through one of his bottom cabinets, most likely searching for the orange crisps (even though he’s outwardly professed their unappealing state), when he hears Liam speak from the corner of the room. “There’s no way you mastered shakshuka in twelve hours. I won’t believe it.”

As much as he’d like to take the idea and run with it, Liam knows he wouldn’t get very far. Hell, he wasn’t even sure where in the kitchen to prepare whatever needed to be done to the dish's ingredients, forget stand there and act confident while doing so.

“No, but I can have a look around and throw together something edible so you can relax,” Liam insists, pushing away from his position against the wall to investigate what sort of foreign surprises await him in the fridge.

Back at a standing position, Zain crosses his arms over his chest, keeping his eyes trained on where Liam’s inspecting his groceries. “I see you took good care of my hat.”

Liam’s right about to open a drawer that looks like it’s got cheeses inside, but he stops when he hears the other’s statement about the accessory he’s chosen to wear that day with the intention to return it to its rightful owner. Thankfully, it feels like the cool air from the fridge helps to decrease the amount of redness in Liam’s cheeks. Even if he’s keeping his back to Zain, it’s important that limited signs of embarrassment are noticeable in case he can’t conceal himself for as long as it takes to fully bounce back. “It’s important to you, so it’s important to me.”

“I’ve got a handful of others in my room, but thank you,” Zain commends. “It suits you.”

Before Liam can stop himself, the words spill out of his mouth. “Not like it does you.”

Zain shoulders shake from a small rumble of laughter, “Then why’d you steal it?”

“I wanted to.” He can tell the other wants to hear Liam say it out loud - the real reason they both know he snagged the cap, but he’s not going to give Zain that satisfaction. “It’s as simple as that.”

While his low chuckles seize, Zain still looks at Liam with a humoured gaze, “Well, you’re free to keep doing so as long as you keep them in good condition.”

He had planned on it before receiving the man’s blessing, but now that he has, Liam’s struggling on figuring out if that sucks the fun out of it, or if it will only act as smug motivation now that he knows Zain’s a fan of the result. As far as there being one condition, Liam’s learned that Zain likes to paint himself as a lot more threatening than he actual is; a week more and he could easily learn what smile of his is the writer’s weakness. In the meantime, Liam keeps looking through the fridge, waiting for the moment when a flavourful combination will jump out at him, but it’s not as easy as he thought it might be.

“I haven’t been able to do my weekly shop yet,” Zain informs him, “so if you can’t come up with something, I don’t blame you.” Just as he’s about to deny that he’s stuck, Liam feels a small body crowd his space from behind. “In fact…” Reaching around Liam’s side, Zain grabs the white jug on the first shelf. “Let me use up this milk that’s in there before it goes off. I’ll make porridge.”

The moment he’s back to standing alone, no body heat to balance out the refrigerator's cold air, Liam gives in. “British porridge?”

“Yeah.”

“You really have zero faith in me if you don’t think I can at least make porridge,” Liam accuses, stealing the milk out of Zain’s hand, but then soon realizing that he can’t act too defiant; he still needs help figuring out where everything else is.

The cockiness was warranted in the end however. Sitting down in the center of the sitting room rug, prideful of the two empty bowls that have been discarded in the sink, Liam’s stomach is content. Outside of his expertise in combining milk and porridge oats in a pot, Zain helped with that feeling of satisfaction by possibly adding a spoonful of honey to each portion, which possibly caused another string to attach itself to Liam’s heart. Possibly.

“I’ve had to lie to Louis about why he’s needed to get us studio time at such last minutes,” Liam says once he realizes that the two of them, laying on Zain’s floor in comfortable silence, was again, not what they were meant to be doing together. “I’ve been saying it’s because we’re working on something really good and we can’t lose the momentum.”

Liam’s half expecting for Zain to rib him for thinking a stupid lie like that was worth bringing up, but he doesn’t. Being woken up from getting food into his system, he’s back to his usual prying self that originates from the need to feed his poetic fire with whatever muse he senses has a lot to lend.

“Let’s give you a reason to not have to lie then,” Zain suggests, switching positions so he’s now sitting cross cross on the rug facing Liam. “What do you love about love?”

Such a huge question makes Liam smile peacefully, the grin aimed at the silver necklace that’s peeking out from under the collar of Zain’s navy jumper that’s about two sizes too big; it’d even be big on Liam.

“Where do I start?”

Liam’s rhetorical questions sits in the air for far longer than he expected. As time stretches out, memories of butterflies and skimming of shoulders flood his system, the sneaking of glances and rush of energy that comes when you get a snippet of confirmation that they’re feeling these things too. Love to Liam is addicting, in more ways than one, but apparently none of those are all that easy to put into words. He’s sure that if he starts rambling, Zain would most likely be able to pick out the good parts and understand what he’s trying to get across, most likely take a nearby pen and magically write mind bending lyrics like they’re nothing afterwards too.

The last thought is what spurs Liam to just start talking, it doesn’t matter if he’s not sure where it will lead. “Well, I love to be in relationships.”

Zain nods him along. It’s comforting, like the man’s reassuring him that even though there is no right answer, he’s on the right track. Just talk. I want to hear how your heart works. That’s what the warm, hazel eyes are telling him.

“I know they’re not for everyone, and when I was nineteen it became very clear that I was a minority in that sense, but I’ve never been able to only see someone for a month or two; I don’t work like that.”

During his short pause, Liam nearly leans forward to pull Zain’s necklace out from under his jumper to see what the emblem hanging from the end is. There’s a small outline, but he can’t make out much more than that. Then it occurs to the singer, how odd it might feel to fall asleep with jewelry on. The discomfort that comes over Liam’s own neck at what that must feel like has him wondering if that’s not at all what took place. Perhaps Zain threw on the chain in an attempt to look presentable when Liam acted as his alarm clock half an hour ago.

“You can’t choose who you do and don’t love,” he starts up again. “It just so happens that when I do, I don’t have an off button.” Zain bites his bottom lip like he’s endeared by the idea of Liam as some sort of robot. “I like that feeling you get when someone else brings you a blanket of safety or when you sink into bed after a long day and the person you’re with wakes up from it and clings to you in their sleep. Having security-” A different thought, worth more, steals Liam’s attention. “Making someone other than your family, love you? I think that’s wild. Like, you didn’t know they existed up until you did, and yet you get along like you were made for each other.”

Staring at Zain’s Spider-Man socks, Liam feels confident he can say what’s on the tip of his tongue without judgement. “I believe in soulmates. I know statistically, it’s next to impossible, but I do.” Zain just blinks back at him softly, completely undisturbed by Liam’s schoolboy confession. “I enjoy feeling like every time I get into a new relationship, that maybe they’re it. I think that’s why breakups always ruin me.”

Rather than locking himself into a negative headspace, Liam takes a couple steps backwards to a point he knows Zain would want to hear about. “I’ve been thinking,” he leans back on his hands, legs spread out perpendicular to Zain. “You know, about Lauren, and what happened.”

Worry flashes over Zain’s face, but Liam’s quick to dispel his concern. “No, it’s alright. Your quasi therapy didn’t traumatize me.” The twitch of the older man’s lips doesn’t reassure the younger that he believed him, but he moves on anyway. “She was my first everything, yeah? And the other night, when I was looking through my notebook, I came across what you wrote on the bus - about how, even though I was blind sighted by her in particular, I still go searching for that sensation of paradise that comes when you first start falling in love. I’ve been thinking a lot about how much I love that feeling.”

“What’s it like to you?”

Liam tilts his head, a bit lost at what Zain’s wanting to know until he finally speaks.

“I mean, try and describe it to me,” the writer clarifies, pulling himself off the ground and going to settle in his leather computer chair like he normally does anytime Liam’s there. “The paradise.” Right as Liam opens his mouth, Zain adds one more thing, “And don’t say happy.” Liam’s face drops animatedly. “You’ve done really well so far with the paradise keyword.”

He isn’t twelve, he has a wider vocabulary than that, but Liam’s glad Zain laid his expectations out on the table. Knowing himself, ‘happy’ would’ve come up somewhere in the singer’s explanation, and there would’ve gone what respect he has gained from Zain. Secretly, he wishes he could take a second and use his phone to look up synonyms for ‘happy’ just to stick it to him.

“It’s got its ebbs and flows.”

How’s that for sophistication? Liam gibs to himself quickly before going back to his serious line of thought.

“But when it’s at a peak, it feels like when your stomach starts to hurt because you can’t stop laughing,”

“You mean soreness?” Zain butts in sarcastically, laughing loudly as soon as Liam glares at him. “I knew where you were going, I just couldn’t help myself.”

Once Zain’s come down from his own joy that’s come at Liam’s expense, the younger male continues. “As I was saying,” he emphasizes dramatically, “when you’ve been laughing for too long, your abs start to hurt, but you’re kind of alright with it because you’re just happy that something got you to laugh that hard in the first place. It’s the energy around that. Or-” Liam scoots himself backwards to lean against the couch so he can get a better vantage point to look at Zain. “Or when I’m in front of an arena and I’m singing, but I don’t really feel the words come out of my mouth because I’m so numb to the excitement of all the lights and noise and people.” Just the thought wakes up his adrenaline. “It’s as much of a high as when you reach the top of a rollercoaster, and yeah, you fall, but I wouldn’t say that represents the start of the end of a relationship, but more when it picks up speed to get to the loops or spirals.” For a second he gets lost in the image, “fuck, I really want to go on a rollercoaster now.”

It only takes the quick movements of Zain’s right hand jotting something down, that brings Liam back to life. “What have you got?”

Without assessing the space between them, Zain tosses him the notebook.

You’ve got your hands up

Hoping you catch the high

Feels like the summer time

He’s not sure if the connection to summer is due to the season being the one associated most with going to theme parks, or if that’s what the paradise feels like to Zain, but either way, Liam loves it.

“You’re brilliant,” he says earnestly, fighting off the want to turn the pages and see what other gems lay hidden from sight.

“Do you want to know why I write music?”

Liam’s head snaps up when he hears Zain’s question, “Of course.”

When Zain’s hand extends out for the return of his paper, Liam crawls over to give it to him. “I’ve written many many more poems than I’ve written songs,” Zain starts as he waits. “And I consider myself a poet first before anything else - even a chef - but not everyone can understand the wittiness behind my stanzas or the complexity I put into a limerick that the more you think about, the more new meanings are visible within it.”

With his notebook back, Zain writes down a couple more words as he keeps speaking; Liam’s too low to be able to see what they are. “I can write ‘I love you’ a million different ways without using those exact words, but nothing compares to the emotion someone feels when they listen to something I’ve written paired together with instruments.”

It’s indescribable, the energy music can create. Liam likes to think that he understands that better than anyone, working as an artist. In actuality, the only person he’d succumb to admitting defeat to in that category is the man whose flat he’s in. Zain’s lyrics are enough for Liam to know that they share a lot of emotional connections, but becoming privy to more than that allows him to see how strong those invisible bonds are.

“I know you’re aching to ask me what my paradise feels like,” Zain accuses while he turns to his computer, “but I’d rather you listen to it, then I tell it to you.”

If he wasn’t already smitten, those words would’ve tumbled Liam over the edge. The only thing that could make this moment any better, is if they could listen to the demos of whatever Zain’s about to put on so he could hear the man’s voice, but he knows they can’t for an exercise like this; the demos Zain’s created weren’t ever fully produced, and the whole point was to get the full effect of lyric meeting sound.

We could take a plane right to outer space

One with the stars now

Yeah, we are far out

When I’m with you, I’m dizzy

Can’t stop my head from spinnin’

Everything’s slow

You make me feel like water

Go with the flow further

We’re not growing old

The bass practically shakes the room and Liam wonders how often Zain gets noise complaints from his neighbors because of it, but the chorus is too wildly vivacious for Liam to pay any mind to how many write ups Zain’s done himself in for.

Louder, wilder, harder

I’ma make you feel

I’ma make you feel young

Deeper, bolder, stronger

I’ma make you feel

Show you something real

When the pop song ends, Liam expects to give commentary on what the song’s revealed of its writer, but Zain’s not giving him the chance; it’s on to the next.

Got a lot on my mind

You got a lot on yours

But we can run like the wind, baby

Go lock the door

You know we lose it sometimes in love and war

But we roll like a river

We'll reach the shore

Unlike the first song, which was rich with power in its sudden hits of synths and punching vocals during the chorus, this track is mellow, smooth. In a lot of ways, it’s a song Liam could see himself make.

Sink slowly, just hold me

I just wanna spin around in circles

I’ll fall on the ground with you

This time around Liam doesn’t need drugs in his system to get him up off the floor and swaying in the middle of the room. The chorus’ simple “duh duh duh duh” that follows after every “with you” is easy enough to pick up on that Liam’s joining along with the woman after only the second time it comes around.

He takes note of how the word dizzy shows up in this song, just like it had in the last -

Down and drunk and dizzy for it

Come on, I'll fall on the ground with you

Zain’s not one to reuse phrases or words, so the fact that this is the second time he’s heard the adjective, and straight after the first song in a purposeful lineup, tells Liam that it’s not just a word the man likes the sound of.

“Can you play that?” Liam asks above the bridge’s instrumental lead in. A low tuned electric guitar’s just started to play a minimalistic solo out of nowhere, but the string bends make him want to air guitar along.

In bed with the bottle open

Give me that sweet shot of lovin’

No, I don’t know where we’re going

But I wanna be alone with you

Without disturbing the song, Zain nods, miming out the finger picking when there’s another two second appearance of the instrument in the middle, and at the end of the bridge.

But it’s the start of the next song - a C chord lazily being slid down four frets of an electric guitar, one by one, that strikes something in Liam.

Everybody’s got opinions on our thing

Say we’re flying down a path with no ending

And if I die before I wake

Don’t let me wake up from this dream

Whoever’s singing has a voice so soulful that it lulls Liam’s aura into a state of calm that he thought he was already in. The serenade runs over the same humble guitar arrangement that’s been looping back around after each eight count, but Liam’s taking that simplicity as more - as another means of Zain getting his message across.

When we collide

When we collide, it’s a beautiful disaster

When I crash into you, you, you

Crash into you

He doesn’t care if he looks ridiculous or if Zain will poke fun at him, Liam starfishes himself back on the floor. In the center of the room, he can get the full surround sound effect of the stereo system Zain’s set up for himself and absorb it all. He’s had one too many instances where a song was ruined because of the place he was in, to know that surroundings were everything when listening to a song for the first time. Lying on the floor, eyes closed, Liam’s determined to just let the music consume him, let the smoky voice of the male, and newly introduced female, sing the bridge

Without you, I’m just a fraction

Closing in on my demise

And I love you religiously

With everything inside of me

As long as I’m

As long as I’m alive

with the care that Zain no doubt instructed them to use.

As the couple close out the song, ad libbing over the beautifully sung chorus, Liam reflects on what he took away about Zain’s paradise by listening to a song about falling for someone you know isn’t good for you. He can relate, more than he’d like to honestly, but the best Liam can come up with for why the other had him listen was to illustrate how blinding the feeling can be, riding you of all your normal senses.

Settled into his new spot, Liam’s ready to listen to whatever comes up next, but the room stays quiet after the last notes of Liam’s new favourite song ring out.

“Has that just come out?” The singer nearly whispers. “I haven’t heard it before.”

“In a few weeks. It’s going to be on a film soundtrack.” Zain’s voice mimics the same volume as Liam’s, traveling to the younger man’s ears delicately.

“I thought you said you didn’t know how to produce?”

Zain stares down at where Liam’s still got his eyes closed, arms spread out in complete vulnerability. “I don’t, not really. Sometimes I stumble on chord progressions by accident just playing though. I told you,” he asserts, “if I make something, it’s usually really simple and repetitive.”

“Like that was.”

“Yeah, like that was.”

Liam turns his head to the left so he can see Zain’s calming features. They’re looking back at him, unashamed at being caught already doing so, and that confidence alone makes the younger man smile. “Let’s experiment today. You play guitar and I’ll sit at the piano and we’ll just see what happens. I’ll finally get to my part of the deal and teach you how to properly produce.”

An excitement that Liam hasn’t seen before, brightens Zain’s brown eyes. It’s not a tremendous amount of shimmer, but it’s there, and Liam wants to keep it that way.

Watching Zain play guitar is like watching someone pick up an instrument for the first time - unafraid of getting things wrong and extremely prideful when the opposite happens. Because Zain’s not new to the guitar, the unique process of trial and error isn’t what Liam expected. He’s not sure what he expected, considering the pieces he’s heard of Zain’s that he has produced, impressed him, but maybe a little more hesitancy and weariness. The lack of direction’s still there however, so Liam clings on to that and tries to teach the other how to get more out of what his hands are doing in terms of composing a song, rather than just letting them ghost over the strings randomly as he sees fit during the moment.

In that way, Liam notices that soloing and single finger plucking is a lot more up Zain’s alley than normal chord guitar playing. It’s an apt match up with the writer and his independent nature. So much so, that while Liam does try to get him to branch out and play what comes to him in conjunction with Liam’s keyboard playing, he also doesn’t want to dampen that unique pattern of playing that Zain inherently gravitates towards.

They don’t speak outwardly about it, but Liam thinks that Zain picks up on the singer’s technique of mentoring and appreciates the lack of insistence on a right or wrong. Liam knows enough to know that no matter how many methods of organic melody creation he teaches Zain, the male’s always going to do his own thing regardless. And in the end, Liam respects him a lot more for it.

—

Sitting on the end of a countertop in the kitchen, Liam swings his legs while watching Zain prepare them dinner. He’s not surprised that time got away from them, and if it weren’t for a call that came in from a mate who wanted to see if Liam was free for dinner, they probably would’ve gone longer getting lost in practicing how to take Zain’s lyrical abilities and reverse engineering them to illustrate that he was capable of coming up with their foundation sound just as well.

“Hey,” Zain says in a semi defensive tone as he checks on the pizza crust that’s cooking in the oven. “Who said you could take any pictures?”

Already scrolling through his sticker options to add to the photo he’s just taken of Zain at the stove before he posts it, Liam shrugs. “You look good, don’t worry.”

“I’m not worried about that.” Liam glances up to the hint of an arrogant smirk that matches Zain’s intonation. “Have you forgotten that I don’t like attention, and you’ve got about ten million followers?”

Eighteen, but Liam doesn’t correct him.

Reevaluating the photo on the screen, the singer sees how it might not be ideal for Zain’s request to stay anonymous. “Here,” he takes off the man’s hat he’s been sporting all afternoon and hands it over. “Pull it down over your eyes.”

Flickering his gaze over to where Liam’s perched, Zain takes a moment before obliging.

The alteration gives Zain the animosity that he’s looking for in the same way a superhero mask that only covers a person’s face might; his tattoos are still recognizable, although you’d have to know Zain to know they’re his, but without being able to see his eyes or profile straight on, he’s just a young man in front of a busy kitchen.

“Do I have your permission?” Liam turns the phone to show Zain what the final photo looks like, animated chicken sticker included, for his approval.

“Put the sticker over my tattoos and you’re good,” Zain says after a quick glance.

It’s an easy alteration, and Liam understands why he’s been asked to make it, so he doesn’t protest, just does it and hits ‘Your Story’ for it to post.

Setting his phone off to the side, Liam goes back to watching Zain in his other element, his more passionate element. The man’s creativity can be seen in the way he cooks, just as much as it can when he’s creating music. Deviating from his original meal idea of pizza, with Liam’s blessing, Zain decided that after their afternoon porridge highlighted his need to go to the shop, their supper would consist of whatever was left in the fridge so it didn’t go to waste. There wasn’t much, but Liam was pleasantly surprised when their dinner wound up consisting of a trip around the world.

On the sitting room rug, Liam snaps a picture of the food that’s on display: Chinese steamed white rice, Korean fried chicken, an Indian butter chicken sauce to pour over both, and Italian pizza base cut up to act as naan bread to bring it all together. He never had a chance at winning an argument with his trainer anyway, and if there’s one thing that Liam’s learned about his mental health over the past couple years, it’s that yes, he needs to stay disciplined and follow what’s expected of him, but he also needs to be conscious of his well being in the process. Enjoying a meal like this wasn’t going to erase his months of training, it was going to make him proud of holding off on such a heavy supper for so long, and happy at being able to have a sit down meal prepared by a person he loved spending time with. That’s why the initial dread that came from watching Zain prepare a vat of boiling oil has dissipated, and Liam doesn’t think twice about serving himself a second spoonful of curry sauce.

“What’s China like?”

Zain chuckles at the random question, eyeing Liam as he takes his first bite of rice and chicken. “Everything you think it is, and then some,” he provides simply.

“God this is good,” Liam thinks out loud after swallowing. The sauce is so much different than the one Zain made for the vindaloo curry they had the first time Liam came over, and while the spices in the chicken breading shouldn’t work with that type of flavour, it does.

Zain’s answer registers as soon as Liam stops to take a drink of his water. “Weren’t you intimidated going to a place like that? Especially so young?”

“That’s why I decided to go there in the first place, remember?” Liam’s memory pulls the information before Zain keeps talking, “Getting out of my comfort zone was the goal.”

“What was the worst part?”

“Besides not knowing the language?” Zain inquires, moving on once he gets a nod from the other in response. “Getting stereotyped.” He waves his fork in the air, “But I’m used to that here, so it wasn’t a total shock to the system.”

Societal judgements pull Liam’s brows together, but he knows trying to change the actions of others is useless, so he doesn’t dwell on that. “I’d like to go one day,” he surmises, “but I wouldn’t want to go by myself.”

“I imagine it’d be a lot different going on holiday for a short period of time.” Leaning down, Zain mixes more sauce into his rice. “Being able to live there for a year really let me see everyday life and things you can’t see in museums.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. Just general mannerisms and customs I guess,” Zain gets out right before he stuffs himself with more food. “Shanghai’s the biggest city in the world,” he adds after swallowing. “Like, it has the most people living there, so it’s crowded as fuck, but it’s quiet because car’s aren’t allowed to use their horns in the city limits. Living there, you learn that sort of thing and can appreciate it.”

He’s right - Liam would’ve taken it for granted even if someone had let him in on the fact. “Have you been back?”

“Twice,” Zain answers from behind his red cloth napkin. “The two summers after I moved home.” A look of forlorn comes over his features when he says, “It’s been too long...”

“I know what it’s like to have work get in the way of what you actually want to do,” Liam empathizes, taking a break from eating so he can speak his mind. “When I got signed, I was willing to only get a few hours of sleep a night. You know, whatever it took to make sure I was successful. Not even for the money, just to get the opportunity to do what I love for a living.” His chest rises and falls as he takes a deep breath in remembrance. “It was hard, but I felt so accomplished knowing that I gave it my all.”

Appreciative of Zain’s attention, Liam keeps going, feeling like he’s participating in another round of Malik therapy. “So I prepared myself well for that side of the job, but not the fame part. Don’t get me wrong,” he raises his eyebrows, “I didn’t think it was going to be a walk in the park, but I didn’t think it’d be quite as bad as it turned out to be either. I mean, I think I’m quite boring; I don’t know why people care about me or what I do.”

Liam takes notes as he watches Zain expertly rip apart the pizza crust and use it to pick up a portion of chicken and rice. “I don’t have it as bad as some people. I don’t get mobbed, but it can get annoying when someone wants a picture out in public and then a line starts or a crowd gathers. Even if they don’t know who I am,” he laughs, Zain smiling as he chews. “They see people giving me attention like I’m famous and then they want a picture with the famous person too. I end up just feeling bad because I have to leave, otherwise I’ll be there for hours.”

A familiar feeling of darkness starts to creep in when Liam’s memories have him coming across a part of his life he tucks away. “There was a while there where I couldn’t build up the courage to go out. The anxiety of being bothered was too much for me.” Stealing a glance, he sees that Zain’s tuned in to whatever emotions Liam’s emitting. “It started with making coffee at home in the morning so I didn’t have to look picture perfect at seven. That mentality spread to lunch and then at one, I could justify not going out altogether because the day was already half over.” He clears his throat awkwardly and uses an overcompensating tone to downplay the severity of his words, “Nothing a bit of therapy can’t fix.” Zain stays quiet, sending Liam a thin lipped smile when the man dares to look at him again. “Now I just say fuck it. It’s not worth my happiness to think like that and have it dictate my quality of life.”

Picking up his bread to do the same as the other has just done using it as a means of picking up rice, Liam figures that’s enough rambling for the time being. “So for a while there, the mix of my schedule and the anxiety of possibly getting recognized made it hard to go on holiday.”

A draft comes through the window that Zain opened earlier in an attempt to air out the smell of his cooking, causing Liam to brace himself at the cold. “You’ve been on tour though,” Zain points out as he gets up and pulls the frame closed.

While he watches the man take his seat, it becomes clear to Liam just how observant Zain is of him.

“All over the world, yeah,” Liam confirms when they’re back to being at eye level. “Festivals too, but when you’re there for work you hardly get to go out and see the city. I’ll fly in the day before, get used to the time zone - sometimes I don’t even get to do that - and then leave the morning after the show. Occasionally I’ll get the opportunity to stay a little bit longer and check things out, but not a lot.”

Again, Liam catches himself before he gets caught up in the negative aspects of his life. “There are a ton of cities that I want to go back and do properly,” he shares, hoping that Zain doesn’t ask which, because they’ll be there for a while.

“If I didn’t ever discover Chinese food, I might invite myself along so I can see what a private jet’s like.” The writer sends Liam a closed mouth smile as a consultation for his self-insertion. “But as you now know, my days off are limited.”

Liam’s distaste for the unfair causes him to frown. “Legally they have to give you like five something weeks off.”

“They do,” Zain sighs, “but I usually spend them going up North to see my family or hanging around here and reading.”

“No writing?”

Shaking his head, Zain pauses taking a bite to answer. “Writing either comes or it doesn’t.”

“Right.” Looking away, Liam spots his favourite seat in the room. “Speaking of which, do you want to see what your keyboard can really do after we eat?”

Zain’s face turns perplexed as he finishes chewing. “What does that mean?”

“If you’ve got an electric keyboard, you can produce anything.” Eyes still trained on the instrument, the creative part of Liam starts to go into overdrive. “I don’t think you know the amount of power that thing has.”

“With the different settings you mean?” Zain asks for clarification, still looking like he’s not following.

The nativity of the reference to the ten or twenty preset effects the keyboard came with, brings Liam’s attention back to the other man. “Just wait…”

Zain’s confusion turns into amazement when Liam shows him how he can program the black and white keys to basically be a remote for unlimited instruments. All it took was a few minutes downloading various ‘kits’ Liam got off his favourite website where developers or other producers put out their virtual instrument programming codes for free, and Zain’s mind was blown with how much of a new world a few clicks of a mouse could unlock; should he chose to produce his own sounds more often, this discovery would make things infinitely easier. Switching between these virtual instruments on his producing software could allow for the keys of his keyboard to act as notes of a violin or clarinet, no need to be able to actually play the instruments. There were even electronic sounds outside of a normal synthesizer that Zain really took a liking to.

Still, even though Liam can tell Zain’s grateful, can hear it in his straight forward acknowledgements, Liam can see that he’s overwhelmed beyond belief.

“It’s alright,” he reassures the other male when he messes up switching plugins from the silicon drum pads he has on his desk to his keyboard. “You’re still stuck with me for another week and a half.”

“You make it sound like we’re going to be conjoined at the hip for the next nine days,” Zain jeers lightly, taking a moment to relax now that the frustrations of learning a new skill has halted.

“I would if you let me.” Liam’s completely kidding, and he thanks a higher power that Zain’s smiling at the joke, otherwise he would’ve taken back the man’s hat and hid under it. “In all seriousness, I should get going.” He nods in the direction of the window, “It’s getting late and you’ve got to wake up early.”

Following Liam’s movement, Zain looks to the window. “I was just getting the hang of the plugins,” he complains, although not to Liam in particular, just outwardly. “You could stay if you want.”

When the man’s head turns back to face him, Liam isn’t sure how to react. Zain’s got this sore expression that tells the singer he’s being serious, but given how hard headed Zain can be, the offer seems too good, and much too forward, to be true.

“The couch is comfortable,” Zain adds, clearly writing off the idea that they’d be doing anything other than sleeping if Liam did decide to stay. “I know from falling asleep there on accident a few times.”

Staring at the circles under Zain’s eyes give Liam his answer. The writer may have offered him to stay in order to genuinely continue learning, or maybe just to talk, but either way, it’s not what his body needed. Now that he knew Zain’s alright with them lying under the same roof at night - without needing to be heavily intoxicated - Liam felt ok with waiting until the next opportunity arose. He’s a patient man.

“Don’t think that’d be good for my attachment,” he replies, licking his lips after just to show Zain that his words weren’t all they might have seemed to be.

Letting his chair recline back with his weight, Zain seems to accept the answer. He lets out a small “right” to try and convince Liam that he’s not at all disappointed, but the singer can see the small cracks in his tough exterior.

“I’ve got a fashion thing tomorrow night,” he says while standing up off the keyboard bench and stretching, “but what if I pick you up from work on Thursday night and we’ll work on it some more?”

Even when it’s obvious he’s pleased by the counteroffer, Liam can tell Zain’s holding himself back from smiling. “Alright,” he agrees evenly. “We can do that.”

The writer can try to hide his emotions by controlling his facial expressions, but he can’t do anything about the excited light in his eyes, and Liam’s glad, because it’s all he needs to see to know that he’s not the only one who’s getting attached.

TRACK 11

You speak in dictionaries while fearing less than all will understand

Virgo moon, I'm so used to your dance

Tongue too swole to comprehend

I see you duck and dodge at every bend

Afraid to play your card, be forced to show your hand

I hope you take from this that it'll make you no less of a man

To break your walls and simply grab my hand

Love shouldn't be contraband

It shouldn't trample on your confidence

Shouldn't be seen as less than compliments

Liam turns down the music as he pulls up to the curb. The lights of London’s Chinatown entrance gate bathes his truck in red from behind, and for 11:30PM on a Thursday, the surrounding area’s busier than Liam would’ve thought it to be.

Your Uber has arrived. You’ll be charged extra if your driver has to wait longer than five minutes

He’s about to add the last few digits of his reg plate to the text, but Zain’s seen his truck plenty of times, so while it’d go along with the game he’s playing, Liam leaves it at that.

✔️Seen

Great, Liam thinks to himself when it’s clear Zain doesn’t plan on responding. Rolling his eyes in frustration at the man’s stubbornness, he sets his phone in one of the cup holders to his left.

“Even better,” he mutters when it starts to rain.

The sound that the wiper blades make starts to annoy Liam, especially since it’s difficult to find a setting that fits the amount of rainfall. To drown out the dragging rubber noise, he turns the music back up again.

Driving into the city that night was a long drive. Normally this close to solidifying the track list of an album, he’d be listening to the temporary lineup nonstop to make sure he was positive he liked what he’d chosen and that the order he’d placed them in flowed well. Usually the hour drive would consist of that, but tonight he’d opted to pick out songs of Zain’s that he personally categorized as above average in complexity, which he can now attribute to their writer getting stuck in poet mode.

Quickly, Liam checks his mirrors to see if anyone’s waiting behind him, or better yet, if Zain’s jogging from the front door of his restaurant to the truck with his hat catching the falling water. He doesn’t see either.

Life for the past forty eight hours has been more reflective for Liam than normal. Ever since Zain forced him to delve into himself and explain what it is about love that gets him to fall so deeply - and stay that way - he found himself constantly trying to come up with different answers.

His last relationship ended almost six months ago and it took the betterment of that to get over it; it wasn’t the easiest (it never was), but Liam had gone through worse. See: the break up of 2014 when he drank himself into oblivion for about a month straight after hearing the ever so graceful, ‘it’s not you, it’s me’, which really translated to: ‘you’re getting way too serious for me and we’re only twenty one’. Liam understood that; he wasn’t blind to his attachment problems, as Zain now knew, but when he was starting to talk to his parents as if she was it for him, having a pair of dry eyes let him down easy was a hell of a lot to handle when his were blurred - then from tears, later from the over consumption of Patron.

The mourning of that two year relationship was much, much harder than this last one, whose ending also involved copious amounts of alcohol, just not on his behalf, and not to cope with the heartbreak. His boyfriend had gone out one night on a stag do for a mate from school and didn’t come home until the next morning. Wearing the wrong sized Calvin Kleins. And while cheating under the influence was bad, subtly being told that the way you loved is too much, was a lot harder to stomach.

Each time Liam would come up with a new reason why he loved love, he’d write it down. None of the thoughts even came close to what simple beauty Zain had extracted from his initial answer, but at the very least, Liam was practicing writing random lines. He doubted that within the next week he’d have enough to be able to put together a song out of their randomness like Zain had demonstrated is possible, plus come up with a melody to match, but certainly by the next album.

Like right now. Lyrically, there had to be something to pull from the rain hitting the tinted windscreen and soothing background music, he just wasn’t sure what.

You are but a phoenix among feathers

You're broken by the waves among the sea

They'll let you die, they'll let you wash away

But you swim as well as you fly

Liam’s eyes follow a specific water droplet twist and turn down the glass. The man swerving on his bike that he and Zain saw riding the bus last week comes to mind, how the writer had tried to get him to see the invisible energy and angles, rather than the tires and metal frame. Blindly he reaches for his phone to open up the Notes app in case something comes to him, but when he does he just gets lost staring at the different races taking place between the various droplets.

“You locked the door and it’s raining!”

Zain’s shout comes after the jostle of the passenger’s side door abruptly breaks Liam out of his trance.

“Ass,” Zain grumbles once he’s inside, the rain doing nothing to mask his usual stench of fish and meat.

Pretty little bird

Pretty little bird

You've hit the window a few times

The window a few times

You pretty little bird

Pretty little bird

You still ain't scared of no heights

When the spiral down feels as good as the flight

When hating you feels good for the night

When the morning comes I hope you're still mine

Reaching down, Liam turns on the passengers side seat warmer. “I’m sorry, I got distracted.”

“Yeah, well since you love my hats so much,” Zain takes off the baseball cap that kept his head dry during the short run to the car, and puts it on Liam, “your hair can absorb the wetness, not mine. No complaints.”

The black hat isn’t completely soaked, only damp, but even if it was dripping, Liam wouldn’t make a peep. He’s too giddy at the excuse Zain had taken to flirt with him to do anything other than obey orders.

“Should I be concerned that you don’t listen to any other music except mine?” Zain points to the car’s navigation screen that’s showing what’s playing from Liam’s phone.

Told you I like gentle giants so you softened up

And you been jack’n, bean’n, stalk’n, just to get to me love

I wanna be your golden goose

“I like a wide range of things,” Liam counters while he puts the car in drive and starts the ride to Zain’s. “But hypothetically speaking, if I did only listen to your stuff, would that win me points?”

Sinking into his leather seat with closed eyes, Zain smirks. “Would I get to choose what the points were redeemable for?”

It’s all hypothetical like he’d said, but the dangerous tone that the other uses worries Liam. At the same time, it entices him, so he agrees with a curt, “Of course. They don’t expire either.”

Zain’s short laugh gives the music in the background a run for its money. “Then sure babe, you’d get extra points.”

Even though he’s proud of himself for being the reason behind the man’s precious laughter, Liam knew the joke would be ruined if he kept going with it, so he lets Zain in on why his discography’s on in the first place. “I was listening to your more abstract songs. I’ve got a new appreciation for them now that I know you’re a poet.”

“What’s your passcode?”

Glancing to his left when it’s safe to do so, Liam sees Zain staring at his lock screen of his parents’ two dogs fighting over a bone. “Uh,” he looks back at the street and then again at the phone Zain’s holding towards him so it’s easier for him to punch in. “No, you can do it.” But he doesn’t remember the numbers, only the pattern, so he relays that to Zain instead.

“Either you really trust me, or you’re the most boring person on the planet,” the older man debates as he searches for what he’s looking for.

“Both.”

Zain snides, “I doubt that.”

It’s true though; Liam doesn’t see why he needs to hide anything from Zain. He feels safe to be open with the real person he’s dreamt up for years, which is probably why that is - Zain seems like an old friend, not a new stranger. Not a mate from school who just nods along either, but one who offers him a few crisps from their packet while they sit in a park and listen to Liam go off about whatever pressure he’s feeling that day. He’s about to tell Zain that too, but his own voice starts to pour out of the truck speakers and puts his thoughts on hold.

Shotgun to the back of my heart

I don't turn around to see who let one ring out

Said you'll never do me wrong?

Guess we see how that plays out

Is it true? Is it true?

“I think this is your most poetic,” Zain opines before the hook can start.

Heading to the Massacre

Bodies arriving every day

What were those shells you heard?

Picking the bones up along the way

Let it ring out

“Honestly? Not just because you wrote it,” Zain locks the phone and puts it back in the cup holder, “I think it’s one of the best I’ve ever heard, lyrically speaking.”

Sharpshooter in my backyard

Killed a small boy once, never told no one

If it wasn't for my shotgun, he'd be alive and I'd be halfway to heaven

Instead of sitting in the dark, going through hell

You should've been here

Wish you had been here

As Liam’s voice wavers through the interior of the truck, the singer tries to comprehend the compliment he’s just been given. It’s not as if Zain’s God and what he says should be taken as the highest living praises there are - theoretically those would be the people who hand out Grammys - but to Liam, Zain’s words matter just as much.

To hear from the person he’s idolized for his entire adult music career that he had managed to impress him enough to make it into his all time favourite songwriting moments in history wasn’t possible to Liam. The only way he knows he didn’t dream it up is the fact that Zain’s still talking, letting him in on why he believes Liam’s work is impressive after the outro finishes.

Lately I've been questioning

Am I all that I pretend to be?

I doubt it, I doubt it

“I must’ve listened to it about ten times after the first,” the man admits openly. “It’s about the execution walk, right? That’s why you called ‘Green Mile’.”

Nodding, Liam turns onto the next main road. “I saw a documentary about it around the same time I had a relationship end. Going into that last conversation, I knew that that was what was going to happen too.” He checks his mirrors as he merges lanes, “it felt like walking into a death sentence, so I played around and combined the two.”

A long pause of silence makes Liam check that the man next to him is alright. He didn’t think anything he said was out of line.

“You know,” Zain finally speaks while staring out the passenger window. “It was one of the reasons I agreed to doing this. Knowing you had that in you made me confident that you weren’t just some artist who wanted to milk me for their own benefit. I don’t think you give yourself enough credit beyond your voice. You’re a really great writer as it is. I suspected you just thought you needed me to teach you how to write, and that was exactly it. All you really need is new methods of inspiration to pull out the genius in you.”

The pure kind heartedness behind Zain’s words and in his voice touches Liam as he shifts gears smoothly. This time it’s got nothing to do with who the sentiments are coming from, but simply what they’re saying - you need to believe in yourself because you don’t see yourself in a bright enough light. Liam’s not used to hearing things like that. Occasionally Louis will praise him on his hard work, tell him he sounds great and that if he stays making what he does, then he’s going to have a long career, but he doesn’t usually tell Liam that he’s not doing himself justice. The only person who has really brought up the importance of how Liam talks to himself is his therapist.

“That’s why I knew this would be alright in the end,” Zain adds. “Because I knew you’d actually take what I had to say to heart and the outcome wouldn’t be rubbish.”

Instead of overthinking his answer, Liam just says what comes to his mind, “Thank you for giving me a chance.”

“You can thank yourself for continuing to endure six years of constant no’s to get one yes.” As Liam smiles at Zain’s response, the radio gets switched on. “But I’m sick of my own stuff. And yours.”

Liam doesn’t think he’ll ever tire of Zain’s, including the ones with the man’s voice on them, but he doesn’t put up a fight, just keeps his eyes on the road for the remainder of the drive.

—

“Are you hungry?”

The phrase is starting to become more of a welcome to Zain’s flat than it is a real question. “It’s a bit late for a meal,” Liam answers, kicking off his shoes.

“I went shopping yesterday, so I’ve got a bunch of snacks.” Tossing his backpack onto the couch from the entrance of the sitting room, Zain basically does the same thing to himself. “Help yourself to whatever’s in the fridge or cupboards.”

Even if he was hungry and something within his dietary restrictions could be found in Zain’s kitchen, Liam would rather not leave the other’s presence. “I’m good thanks.” Before he goes to take his regular seat at the keyboard he eyes the couch to see if there’s enough room for him to squeeze, but doesn’t find that that’s the case. “You want to hear this beat I’ve been working on?”

Zain’s head lulls to the side, an action that proves to Liam that tonight's not any exception, the chef’s exhausted as usual. “Yeah, put it on. The computer’s sleeping, just shake the mouse.”

For the first time, Liam claims the leather seat, testing out its rocking ability while he searches for the file in his email that he’s just logged himself into. “It’s not done,” he prefaces when double clicking on the file opens up the layered track on Zain’s music software. “I’ve only got the guitars and drums, but I like where it’s going. Tell me what you think.”

A muffled bass drum starts out the song, along with a retro distorted electric guitar. The more the melody plays, the louder the slow build up gets, until it’s at normal volume and starts to loop. There’s a bass guitar in there, although it too is slightly distorted in order to pair with the other guitar. Its tempo’s just fast enough that the listener won’t get bored, but not overly energetic that it cheapens the meaningful lyrics he wants to fill it with; he doesn’t want anything to come unnaturally, but he’s secretly hoping he and Zain can come up with lines for it within the next week.

“I think it’s sick,” the older man regards after the loop’s played enough for him to form an opinion. “Hand me my electric guitar.”

Liam had expected to go into teacher mode, explain to Zain the way in which he stacked the recorded tracks and why in that specific order, but apparently Zain isn’t interested. He’d much rather play different guitar riffs over Liam’s loop.

Hearing the different string bends and high pitched slides makes that ever present impatience that Liam has around Zain, start to show. He wants to plug in the instrument and capture some of this, but he doesn’t want to disturb Zain’s creative, spur of the moment playing, so he sneakily opens the voice notes app on his phone and records it that way instead. When he played it back later down the line, at least he’d have something to give Zain to mimic.

Five minutes goes by, and while Liam loves the beat he’s produced, without any words, it’s annoying to listen to for too long on repeat. He may have turned the song off, but that doesn’t stop Zain from mindlessly playing the instrument that’s laying on his chest. The angle makes the man look even cooler than he normally appears to be, like he’s a master of guitar effortlessly. With the sounds he produces, Liam thinks he might be worthy of the title. He can play guitar too, but not in the way Zain can, not like he was partaking in a never ending solo.

“Crazy to think that a man can’t hurt.”

Liam’s eyes move from where they were entranced by Zain’s fingers, to the man’s face, that’s now peaceful as he sings softly.

“Love takes its toll every time it don’t work

One door closes and another opens

But it’s hard to let go, when your heart’s broken

I’ll give you my trust, can you give me your word?”

Sitting up, Zain’s voice opens up some, but doesn’t fill with its full power. Liam wouldn’t care if it was whispering, the voice is beautiful at any volume.

“Come take my heart of glass

And give me your love

I hope you’ll still be there to pick the pieces up

Cause baby I’m fragile, fragile, fragile”

The pick in Zain’s right hand expertly pushes and pulls strings that go along with the notes he’s singing, although Liam isn’t sure if they’re part of the final song or if the man’s free styling it. If this wasn’t the original, it should’ve been, it sounded incredible.

“Your voice is gorgeous,” Liam says straight away after Zain’s ended the ballad with a few long drags of his pick down all six strings. “Especially when it’s only accompanied by one instrument.” He watches Zain weave his pick into the top strings of the guitar for safekeeping, “You got my attention with the first line.” A surge of energy from being offended takes over Liam, “Because you’re right, why’s it so hard to believe that a man can hurt just as much as a woman? With love, or anything?”

“For the same reason kids don’t want to be the first to raise their hand in class: they don’t see anything wrong with it, they just don’t want to be the first to do it because then they’ll stand out before the masses follow.” Zain sets his guitar to the side of him when he makes a move to get up and walk over to Liam.

“Well, I think it’s brave of you to put out something so vulnerable, even if it’s got someone else’s voice singing the message,” the younger male praises, nearly pulling Zain down to sit in his lap so he doesn’t have to spend what’s left of his energy standing next to the plush seat Liam’s occupying.

“Nah,” Zain scoffs, taking over the mouse. “My most vulnerable stuff is here.”

At the top of the short playlist of four, Liam reads the header ‘Not For Sale’. Underneath he can see a ‘Not Yet Sold’, so he’s not sure what to expect or why Zain’s deemed certain songs off limits.

“By the title, I think it’s obvious that no one can buy these,” Zain chuckles lightly, “and the main reason why is because of how close they are to me. No one would ever be able to do them justice and I don’t want anyone to ever try to. These are for me.”

“Does Harry know about them?” Liam doesn’t know why he’s asked that question or why it matters if his manager’s husband has, but he takes from Zain’s insight that he’s being let in on something exclusive.

“Not specifically,” Zain replies while leaning his weight on the desk, “but I don’t think he’s daft enough to think I hand him over everything I write down. Here,” he clicks once on the song ‘windows’ to highlight the track. “This one’s really raw for me.”

Sound wise? With the lyrics? Is it just your voice?

Liam’s head jumps to a million conclusions when he hears the word ‘raw’.

“I’m gonna hop in the shower really fast if that’s ok,” Zain informs him, twisting the hat that’s now dried on Liam’s head around so that it’s facing backward.

Looking up from a lower vantage point makes the action feel like one that would be done to a child, but Liam takes it for what it is and grins up at Zain.

“Be right back.” Before he walks out of the room to replace the scent of oil that’s stuck to his skin with the fresh redolence of citrus mixed with wood that Liam’s learning to love (anytime he gets a clean Zain that is), the writer hits enter on the keyboard.

An elegant acoustic guitar plays while Liam waits for Zain to leave so he can right the hat back to its original position; the brill won’t hinder him from leaning his head against the seat this way.

Oh, well I'm not here to startle you

Hell, I only came ‘cause you asked me to

It's such a shame that we can't renew

All these feelings that we shared back a month or two

You know, I kept everything that reminds me of us

It sounds weird but your picture's still hung up

I've tried getting distracted by other stuff

But it's not enough

All of Liam’s past questions surrounding the element of rawness are answered after listening to the first verse. So far there’s nothing to the song other than the acoustic guitar - a blend of chords and simple hammer on and off fingerwork. Liam’s learning that this is his favourite way to listen to Zain. In some ways, he’s glad the other doesn’t really know how to produce his own music beyond a couple guitar loops and drum beats to set the timing; it allows for the power of the lyrics, and Zain’s ability to move people through them, to shine.

I'm sleeping with a pillow, under lamplight

I’m freezing cold, cause you always liked the windows opened wide

And just so you know, I'll be here when you make it home

A higher harmony joins in at the chorus, but it’s the only addition to the song, so Liam can still focus on the desperate sadness in Zain’s voice - something that’s brought on by the desolate feeling of clinging to a habit formed during a relationship he can’t seem to let go of.

So I'll call you up at like 3 am, again

Just to make sure that you know that I don't mind waiting

Although the call will end with us both saying

That we both hate this

I'm not sleeping too well now I'm sleeping alone

And all you have to do is pick up the phone

And I'll come running to your aid but I'm sure you know

This won't help us grow

The concept of heartbreak certainly isn't anything groundbreaking, yet it’s the way in which Zain characterizes it through his torturous practice of keeping the window open, which leaves him shivering from the temperature and coldness of being left, that makes Liam understand why it isn’t for sale. The idea reminds him of the delicacy behind Zain’s favourite lyric; it’s the smallest of things that hurt the most.

Liam pushes the back button each time the song nearly ends in order to soak in the story as much as possible, since he doubts Zain will ever allow him to have a copy. It’s special to the man in a way that Liam doesn’t think makes it appropriate to ask for one either.

He’s got his eyes closed on the fourth listen, too lost in the song’s tranquil sorrow to realize that he needed to push back. The next song doesn’t seem to be playing, so Liam assumes it’s not on autoplay and leaves the keyboard untouched so he can take a couple minutes to himself before Zain returns.

When the quiet sound of Zain’s singing voice starts to slowly build in volume, Liam goes to reach for the mouse and stop it. The writer had shown him the contents of the playlist, but he hadn’t outwardly expressed that it was ok for him to listen to any song other than the one he’d started himself. It felt a bit invasive to continue to listen to the dreamy song that consists of Zain singing hypnotic notes alongside the plucking of an acoustic guitar.

Once the random notes turn into words, Liam doesn’t feel all that bad anymore; he can’t understand a thing.

It’s not English, that much Liam knows, but he doesn’t think it’s Chinese either. Then again, he hasn’t been around Chinese speakers enough to be able to confidently write it off, so maybe it was. Regardless, Zain’s voice sounds so much different singing in it than it does in English - much lower and with much more dramatic vibrato.

It sounds like something out of East Asia the longer the track plays, and then Liam remembers that Zain had disclosed that he speaks Urdu. Being able to recall that fact makes the whole genre make sense, but Liam’s still stuck on the meaning.

“Do you need a translation?”

Spinning around in the leather chair, Liam’s faced with a squeaky clean Zain adjusting the collar on the oversized grey t-shirt he’s changed into; he’s also sporting a new pair of black sweats.

“Please, yeah.” Without receiving any kind of beratement, Liam can safely eradicate any lingering guilt from his system at hearing something his ears weren’t meant to hear. Still, he wouldn’t feel right without adding, “It just started playing, I didn’t mean to listen. I haven’t heard any of the others.”

“It’s alright,” Zain murmurs softly, walking over from under the room’s threshold. “It’s an Urdu saying that someone in my family told me a while ago that stuck.” The role’s are completely reversed when he takes a seat on the keyboard bench where Liam usually sits. “It means, ‘until the flower of this love has blossomed, this heart won’t be at peace’. I added ‘give me your heart’ three times at the end for emphasis.”

In his head, Liam repeats the translation. For a family proverb, it’s awfully complex in its wording, and it makes Liam wonder if poetic speech goes hand in hand with the Malik surname. “Is that what Urdu music sounds like then?”

“Not all of it,” Zain states while running his fingers over the black and white rectangles of the keyboard, “but traditional stuff has that style of singing.”

And really, that’d be the only reason Liam would want to replay the song, since he’s not going to try and match the translation with the foreign language any time soon. Zain on the other hand, has different plans.

“Ok, so should we get to work?”

Liam grins at the man’s attempt at enthusiasm when it’s clear that he’s on his last leg. The thirteen hour work day, almost exclusively on his feet and in front of immense heat, shows in Zain’s tone, as well as the tension in his shoulders that not even a hot shower could get rid of. If Zain hadn’t made it painfully clear how much he loves his job, Liam wouldn’t understand why anyone would put themselves through such intense work when they had a good chunk of money coming in from another avenue.

“You need to sleep,” Liam advises, hands coming off and away from the computer keyboard so he can get across his seriousness. “Tomorrow’s Friday, and you always say how busy it gets on the weekend.”

Gratitude falls over Zain’s facial features, yet Liam can still see guilt overweigh it. “You drove all the way here, let’s at least go through the patching stuff one more time.”

Zain makes absolutely zero movement to follow through with his words, which is how Liam knows the man’s just waiting for him to fight back so he can be polite and accept. “Really, it’s ok. It gave me a reason to leave the house today.” Liam smiles in unison with Zain, glad that his pathetic laziness could loosen the other up. “I’m always a call away. If you forget something, you can just FaceTime me the screen and I can walk you through it. Besides,” he smirks slyly, “I’ve got a surprise for you tomorrow night that you should be well rested for.”

Zain turns skeptical, “What are you getting at?”

“It’s a surprise,” Liam pushes, proud of himself for managing to keep the secret that he’d put into place over a week ago. “But you’re going to need a change of clothes.”

“You know that you’re not supposed to give your victim a heads up if you plan on successfully kidnapping them, right?” Zain giggles after Liam takes his hat off and throws it at him.

“I’ll cancel it if you keep that up,” Liam threatens, with a fake glare.

“Calm down babe, no need to cancel your scheduled kidnapping,” the writer shields himself just in case Liam decides to toss anything else his way. “I’ll bring whatever you want me to. Do they need to be all fancy?”

Liam takes in the comfy outfit that the male’s wearing at the moment and shakes his head, “No, not at all. What you’ve got on now is fine.”

“This better not be some sort of ambush, and I show up in my work clothes and the only thing I’ve got to change into are sweats and you’re wearing a bloody tux,” Zain growls through his grin. “I’ll be the murderer if that’s the case.”

“I’m not lying,” Liam insists. “Going anywhere that required I wear a tux probably wouldn’t align with your request to stay invisible to the public, don’t you think?”

Hearing that Liam’s thought about his wishes forces Zain to keep his mouth shut.

“I’ll text you the address at closing so it can stay a surprise as long as possible.” Not having to ask what time the restaurant shuts down on a Friday makes Liam exceptionally proud of himself.

Zain’s short, “ok” says that he thinks the same of the singer. “How long did you say your drive home is again?” He asks when Liam opens his navigation app to see what the best way to get home is.

“From here,” he types in his address, “probably about an hour twenty.”

“The offer to stay the night still stands if you don’t want to just turn around and go back to where you came from.”

Zain’s got no idea, but the invitation is an ironic one based on Liam’s surprise tomorrow, but maybe that’s a good thing; this would be good practice.

“Ok, but I don’t have anything to wear,” Liam notes, watching as the comment brings Zain’s eyes down from his honey ones, to the fitted tee that he’s got on. “So if you’re alright with me just wearing my pants, then yeah, I’ll take the couch.”

For a second, Zain’s vision drifts further south to take in the mentioned uncharted territory, but then quickly flickers back up. “You can borrow something of mine,” he proposes. “Come take your pick.”

Following the man into his bedroom, Liam takes in the tattoos that cover the back of Zain’s head, mainly the rose whose stem curves down and to the left. He’s got a fair amount of tattoos on his arms, but Liam wouldn’t ever be brave enough to get something straight on his skull. It’s done well though, all of Zain’s tattoos that have been visible to him have been.

His attention’s stolen when he’s being shown which collection of t-shirts and shorts he can choose from. It comes right before Zain gives Liam the room to change while he goes to brush his teeth.

Having never been in this room of the flat, Liam lets his eyes wander around it after peeking out the window and locking his truck two times for good measure. It’s small, the wardrobe and double bed taking up practically the whole space, but there’s just enough room for a side table on the left side of the bed that the door just barely misses when it’s closed. On it there’s a picture of Zain, and what Liam assumes, is his immediate family on his last birthday, the huge cake with a ‘26’ candle the date’s dead giveaway. In front of that, there’s another one of his spiral notebooks and a pen.

When Zain walks back in, Liam’s sitting on his bed, finishing folding his clothes and just starting to undo his watch clasp. “How often do you write down your dreams?”

Zain’s eyes drop down to the small drawer where the notebook is, “Not a lot. My body usually just wants to absorb the sleep, not have fun while doing it.” A yawn escapes the older male as he moves Liam’s clothes onto the top of his main wardrobe and takes their place, nudging Liam over to the side of the bed that’s pushed against the wall. “You can read through it if you want, but I’m sure most of it’s rubbish.”

Now that he’s trapped in by Zain’s body and the wall, Liam hands the man his watch to set on the side table. He isn’t sure how he ended up in this position, but he isn’t complaining. Not because of the way his own body thanked him for giving it a rest when Zain pulled back the comforter for them to get under after shutting off the lights, and definitely not when the warmth of the slender body next to his could be felt.

“Maybe another time,” Liam mutters fondly as he watches the man next to him get comfortable in the dark. “Go to sleep.”

“If you get hot, you can open the window,” Zain instructs, practically half asleep already.

After having listened to a song revolving around Zain’s solemn relationship with windows, the idea of doing such a thing, even if he did run hot most of the time, doesn’t sit well with Liam. “I’ll be fine,” he reassures him calmly. “Goodnight.”

“Night Leeyum.”

The way Zain’s sleepiness, mixed together with his thick Northern accent, makes Liam’s name sound, has the singer’s heart swelling in affection, but it’s got nothing on the butterflies he gets when Zain slings an arm over his torso.

Without thinking about the consequences, Liam leans down and presses a small kiss to the top of the man’s head. “Dream up some good stories,” he whispers before finally shutting his own eyes to succumb to sleep.

TRACK 12

Waking up the next morning was rough, and to Liam’s surprise, it wasn’t due to the hour; Zain’s alarm went off at a generous 8:30. It was the raspy, sleep induced voice that told him ‘I need to be out of here by nine’ when Liam squeezed him tight in a dramatic stretch that made it difficult to leave the duvet sanctuary. Eventually Liam complied and got changed into his clothes from the day prior in the front room so Zain could have peace choosing another black on black ensemble for the day’s work. He’d done them the service of making coffee, sipping from his mug as he watched the other pack them both a change of clothes for that night, since Liam deemed it useless to drive home if he was just going to need to be back in the city in a little over twelve hours.

The drive to Chinatown hadn’t been what Liam expected either. Music is his and Zain’s connection, so he was under the assumption they’d blast the radio and beat the London morning traffic that way, but the hour drive was occupied by the opposite. Rather than hooking up his phone to the truck’s Bluetooth when he got in, Zain pulled out a small book from his bag, explained that in comparison to his night, his morning commute was when his attention was at its highest, and therefore he could concentrate on whatever he was currently reading; at night, he could listen to music tiredly.

Right off the bat, Liam could tell it was the type of book that was going to go over his head. With an author whose name was Dostoyevsky, how could it not? He didn’t need to tell this to Zain, it was obvious by the way the older man included a running commentary on what the Russian scholar was trying to say, that he knew where Liam’s comprehension level was.

Listening to Zain’s interpretation of the poetic short story, and the way his voice transformed the words into ones with movement, was unlike any other experience Liam had reading on his own. Granted, he wasn’t the biggest of readers to begin with, but Zain made him want to be. He wanted to go out and buy complicated, philosophical books that he could barely pronounce the words of and lay on Zain’s bed in his cramped bedroom, listening to what it all meant. Try and grasp more of what Zain means when he says time periods, authors’ countries of birth, and nearby war zones influence how an Italian from the Renaissance might write differently than a mid-century American. In between chapters, Zain would cook them something new, Liam sitting on the countertop getting told off for sticking his finger into a sauce when it wasn’t ready, or begging to help cut up something, only to be shooed out of the kitchen after getting the sizing wrong. He wanted that. And when he pulls out from in front of the deserted Chinatown gate after Zain bids him adieu, the fantasy nearly made him drive to the nearest bookstore and make it a reality.

Instead, he ends up at the gym, grateful for the locker that he rents there for instances like this - where he wasn’t planning on coming, but finds himself with time to get in a session. He doesn’t tell that to Louis when he meets him for lunch though, only makes it out like it was any other day that included a morning workout. The manager already pries as much as he can to know all the gossip on Liam and Zain’s ‘working’ relationship, that letting him in on his night with the writer willingly would’ve been a death wish. To keep himself in the clear, Liam doesn’t even mention what he’s doing with Zain later that night because that too will surely cause a rumour mill that he wants nothing to do with, even if the only other person that would partake in Louis’ comical banter would be Harry.

And maybe his personal assistant, who he gets together with for a small dinner after catching up with his mates for the afternoon. But she’s a lot more professional than Louis, as made evident by the way she refrained from making any sort of suggestive comment when she handed him over the keycard for the hotel room he’d requested for her to get for him that night, only held a cheeky close lipped smile when he thanked her graciously.

He may put his career in Louis’ hands (which invariably turned into the man becoming his best friend), but it’s his PA who he trusts with basically everything else. She knows his likes and dislikes more intimately than anyone, has seen Liam at his best, and inevitably his worst because she was the one who was tasked with doing what it took to try and help him out of it with booking helpful services or buying tangible goods that might uplift his spirits. If it weren’t for her, Liam would be lost, and not just because he’s a mess with schedule keeping.

As he enters the modern, top floor hotel room after dinner, he’s even more grateful for how well the woman knows him; the suite’s perfect.

He walks straight into a reception that features a large bouquet of flowers and an elegant, personalized thank you note. To his right’s an entryway to a living area that’s more than spacious enough for the two men to work in, but not ostentatious to the point that it will turn Zain off. Liam had made it clear - he wanted a premium suite with space to produce, but not a penthouse. Zain made him feel normal, he didn’t want that to change because he did something with his money or status that subsequently tainted Zain’s view of him.

Curtains decorate the curved windows that take up the entire North side of the room. After setting down his keycard on the red lounge couch in the middle of the room, Liam goes to pull back one of the curtains, smiling widely when he takes in the view.

Below lives the busiest plaza in London: Leicester Square. Its lights and crowds make it the best place in the city to people watch at night. From tourists to drunk uni students, there’s an endless amount of stories to pick apart, and with the hotel only being seven floors, Liam hasn’t put himself in jeopardy of breaking Zain’s seven floor maximum rule for viewing. He’s just glad that with it being late October, yet not quite Halloween, it wasn’t too difficult to get a room for the night. It may have taken a small name drop, as evident by the thank you card being addressed to ‘Mr. Liam Payne’, but at least it didn’t take anything other than that.

Being in a hotel room without any luggage feels weird though. All Liam’s got is Zain’s backpack of clothes and the male’s laptop, along with his own backpack that he’d brought the night before that has his writing notebook and wallet. There’s a massive entertainment system opposite the windows, which he uses to watch a few tv shows and pass the time waiting for eleven o’clock to roll around.

By the time it does, Liam’s hungry again. He doesn’t dare send another text to Zain asking for him to bring something. The man’s already left his first message of the hotel’s address on read, Liam doesn’t need to be ignored twice in a row, especially when it might end in the singer actually getting what he wants and then regretting it the next morning when he had to face his trainer again.

Yet, it doesn’t matter how well he avoided the urge to text the chef, Zain still shows up holding a plastic bag of food.

“I brought dinner!” He lifts the white packaging, “I hope you like dumplings.”

“Uh,” Liam moves out of the way as Zain enters the suite. “I’m not sure I’ve ever had them, but-”

“You’ve never had dumplings?”

When Liam turns around after locking the door, Zain’s staring at him in disbelief. “I don’t think so, no. Maybe when I see them I’ll realize that I have, but the name’s not ringing a bell.”

“Have you tried any Chinese food other than fake ass kung pao chicken?” Before he moves to drop the food off on the desk Liam’s set up his laptop on, Zain shakes his head in pity. “So what are we doing here? This had to have cost you like two thousand quid for the night.”

“Check out the view,” Liam directs, pointing to the wall of curtains.

Stepping forward, Zain takes hold of the closest set of drapes and pulls them back to reveal the bustling square below. “Fucking hell,” he swears, trying to take in the all lights and chaos at once.

“You love to people watch,” Liam states plainly. “No place better on a Friday night in the city than down there.” Carefully, so as not to startle the other, he comes up on Zain’s left. “Hope we’re not too high up that you get freaked out. I checked when I got here, but it doesn’t seem like we lose any detail by being on the top floor.”

“You did this for me?”

Bringing his head up from where it was staring at the pedestrians below, Liam takes in the man’s cautiousness, like he doesn’t want to give in to the idea just yet in case his assumption is wrong. “Is that ok?”

Liam’s gentle tone of voice doesn’t seem to reassure Zain all that much. He’s still skeptical, asking, “For our songwriting?”

Turning his shoulders, Liam meets the writer’s apprehensive eyes. “I mean, I told you to bring your laptop this morning just in case something comes of it, but we didn’t write anything when were on the bus that one night, and that ended up being one of the most eye opening things I’ve done in a while.”

With the explanation, Zain’s expression starts to show signs of acceptance. “So if we just talk…”

“About music, life, whatever,” Liam finishes, confident that his generic response would be taken positively.

When Zain’s eyes turn away from his own bashfully, the singer can tell he’s done well. “Well first, we’ve gotta start with the dumplings,” Zain says once his vision catches their late night dinner sitting on the nearby desk. “They originate from around Shanghai, but you can find them in any province in China.”

Casting a glance at the containers Zain’s unveiling, Liam’s stomach starts singing, while his better judgement begins to scold him. But he can’t listen to the latter, not when there’s an excitement to Zain’s voice as the man talks about how the food’s prepared in different parts of the country, that’s there surely because of his love for cooking, but maybe also as a lingering after effect of his reaction to Liam’s thoughtfulness. Plus, it’s a lot more fun listening to Zain laugh as he tries to suck the juice out of the dumpling like he was taught without getting it all over his chin, than it would be if he ordered a chicken salad from room service.

Zain’s animation doesn’t stop when he goes on to discuss his day at work, namely how the new kid nearly chopped his finger off mincing up spring onions, and it’s then that Liam realizes how free spirited the other can be when he lets himself; he’s capable of branching out of his stoic disposition, but only on his own accord. That playfulness falters for a moment when Liam expresses his love for the shrimp dumplings, but his hesitation towards the yellow tinted pastry that’s being handed to him as dessert.

“What is it?”

“You’re not allergic to anything, are you?”

“No.”

“Then just put it in your mouth. The worst that can happen is that you spit it out.”

But that doesn’t happen. In fact, the opposite happens - Liam wants more. The pineapple bun has no fruit inside of it, yet the sweetness is as strong as if it did. Liam would be lying if he said he didn’t sneak a peek inside of the bag by Zain’s side to see if there were anymore. The only thing that gets his mind off the cravings beast he’s unleashed within, is the look on Zain’s face when he mentions the conspiracy show marathon he watched while waiting for the man to get off work.

Zain’s a different person when he gets to talking about the possibility of life beyond earth. He quickly cleans up the desk they’ve been eating around and pulls his laptop back in front of him from where it was off to the side, away from any chance of getting spilled on. There’s an urgency to his movements as he hooks up the laptop to the flat screen so it can mirror the video he’s pulled up online of his favourite alien conspiracy theory. The excitement is infectious, and just like he planned on finishing the story Zain started this morning, Liam would have to do his fair share of research on aliens so that he could have an educated conversation with the writer in the future.

Eventually Zain runs out of steam, and they find themselves watching people scurry around outside, sitting on the flat, open faced couch that Liam moved to be flush against one of the floor to ceiling windows when the chef excused himself for five minutes to wash away the stench of his day.

The younger man takes a break from scouting the crowds to conjure up his version of what a spaceship looks like, next to Zain’s intricate depiction.

“There,” he places the finished drawing in between their bodies. “It was kind of spur of the moment to have to come up with, but I reckon that’s what they look like.”

Zain takes one glimpse at the typical oblong shape and rolls his eyes. “You’ve just copied every comic or fictional film known to man.”

“You sprung the topic on me! I don’t typically think of these things.”

Snatching the pen from atop the pad of paper, Zain starts to write words underneath both of their drawings. “Yeah, well, you should. Your guess is super unoriginal.”

While the other finishes writing what he is, Liam looks over the thin triangle design that Zain had been adamant was an accurate representation of extraterrestrial transportation. He’s about to point out that there’s no means of fighting off enemies, when Zain’s hand stops moving and shifts to reveal what he wrote.

Say you’re dreaming and I’ve been too

The lyrics make Liam’s head spin. “We were just talking about spaceships, how’d you…”

“Always thinking,” Zain says while tapping his temple with his right pointer finger.

“Way deeper than I am,” Liam mutters under his breath, although he knows that more likely than not, Zain heard him based on their close proximity. “I just think about what I’m-”

I’ve been thinking a little deeper

“What rhymes with deeper,” Zain thinks out loud, chewing on his pen’s cap and staring down at the line he’s just written that had stopped Liam’s speech altogether.

The singer just snickers. He gives up on trying to figure out how Zain’s brain works, he’s alright with it staying a mystery after all. Ha, rhyming. Zain. Brain.

“My name’s Zain,” Liam starts to rap, throwing his hands around like he some sort of gangster. Zain’s eyebrows raise, along with his eyes when he sees this. “I’m insane in the brain, I’m wrapped all over by Mr. Liam Payne.”

The older man’s line of sight drops back down to his notebook.

Contemplation, getting cleaner

“You’re cute,” Zain purrs, putting his pen behind his ear and sending Liam a smile that shows him he’s serious as much as he is being arrogant with his writing abilities.

Gaping at such a sophisticated line having been produced immediately after Liam outwardly made a joke of himself, the celebrity tries to come up with a good comeback, but he’s got nothing. Zain’s more clever than him, he’s not too ashamed to admit that through keeping quiet.

When he goes back to looking outside, the sight of a teenage girl jumping on a boy’s - presumably her boyfriend’s - back, brings up a question Liam would like to know the answer to.

“What do you want in your next relationship?”

Zain leans his left shoulder into the window pane, “Specifically?”

“Just, you know,” Liam steals a quick glance to his side, “if you could have your perfect relationship, what would it look like?”

“I don’t need a lot.” That much seems obvious to Liam. “Mutual respect, understanding with my job, someone who doesn’t take themselves too seriously. I’ve got broodiness covered for the two of us.” The lopsided smile on Zain’s face challenges his words, but Liam’s almost certain that it’s on purpose.

“Ok,” he pushes, “but what about the fun stuff?”

Zain’s attention gets torn away from the window. “Are you making an innuendo?”

“No.” It’s apparent Liam’s going to have to give his own answer first to get the ball rolling. “I want to be with a person who’s all of those things, but I’d like someone who loves to sing loudly with me in the car too.” He shifts in his seat so one leg’s underneath him. “I had an ex who was so self conscious all the time, that they couldn’t even let go when it was just me, and that made me realize, I’d really like someone who doesn’t need prompting to have fun.” The opportunity’s there to share the imagery he created that morning on their morning drive, but Liam doesn’t dare expose himself like that. “I want someone who can challenge me too, who isn’t afraid to put me in my place. And they’ve got to be spontaneous, because I love to just do whatever comes to my mind.”

Zain motions to the semi-luxurious room around them.

“Yeah,” Liam chuckles, “exactly. Oh,” he adds enthusiastically with wide eyes, “they need to love dogs too. I want to get a dog after my next tour.”

Hearing Zain say “me too” makes the singer divert his eyes down to the street so the attempt at hiding his fondness can’t be seen.

“I guess I’ve never really thought about fun stuff like that,” Zain continues wistfully. “Maybe I’d like for them to be an adventurous eater. Although,” he stops to smile at himself, “I think that’s kind of a given.” A small pause comes, but Liam lets him think, doesn’t interrupt any. “And they’ve got to be ok with me going on philosophical rants. Like, be interested in them, not just put up with them.” Gazing over, Liam feels himself grin at the peaceful expression on Zain’s face as he gets lost in his fantasies. “If they wake up in the middle of the night, and I’m hunched over my notebook because something came to my mind, I’d want them to get up and make me a cup of tea without me asking them to. I think that’d be pretty perfect.”

Driven by his emotions, Liam blurts out, “how do you take it?”

“Plain,” Zain replies, features softening as if he’s figured out why the other asked. “Here.” In the flash of an eye, Zain’s navigating through his thousands of computer files on his nearby laptop, narrowing it down to one.

Oh, I can’t wait to get home

I don’t know why, but I’m feelin’ low

Happened again and I want you to know

Having my woman there is good for my soul

I try to be strong, but I got demons

So can I lean on you?

I need a strong heart and a soft touch

And you’re the one when I want love

Liam changes positions so that his back leans against the glass and the blaring music that’s playing through the Bluetooth sound system can hit him straight on.

It’s you and only you, who can be takin’ away

The shit that I go through each and every day

When I’m alone with you, you make it better again

Your arms are where I wanna remain

Catch my eye, and you start to say

Already familiar with the chorus, Liam sings along with the two voices, his head swaying back and forth as he does.

Hey baby, we can dance slowly

My darlin’, I’ll be all you need

I know it hasn’t been your day or week

So put it all on me

Oh my darlin’, put your worries on me

Can’t judge because I feel the same thing

And I’m here for whatever you need

To put it all on me

To say that Liam was enamored by the writer after it was evident he’d chosen this song to indulge Liam in his desire to discover Zain through the man’s lyrics, would’ve been a major understatement. The romantic in him wanted to be the one to take away Zain’s stress, to make him a plain tea and hold him close when it all got to be too much.

By the time he’s breaking out of his daydream, the next song’s already into its first hook.

Oh, that never gets old

Promise you'll never let go

I don't want no one else

So we should be chillin' back

Ain't nothin' wrong with that

So tell me that, tell me that

Along with the horns, the girl’s voice has a tone about it that’s building up to something - something Liam knows he’s not going to be able to sit still listening to.

Tell me I'm the best, aw, yeah

I'll be feelin' like, yes, I am, I am

You know I'm the best, aw, yeah

You’d be a fool to not take me as I am

Before those lines of the chorus repeat themselves, Liam’s up and out of his seat bopping around in the middle of the room that’s perfectly bare now that they’ve moved the sitting couch to the window.

Zain watches on, and really, Liam’s too busy applying the message of the song and feeling unafraid of who he is, to care. Besides, he thinks it’s pretty clear that if Zain’s laughing or pulling any faces, it’s not because he’s making fun of Liam; he accepts him for him.

When the second verse plays, he continues to swivel his hips, but goes over to Zain’s backpack to pull out the clothes that are in there for him while he waits for the catchy chorus to come back around. Even when it does, he continues with changing out of his two day old clothes and into his choices of Zain’s from the night before. Out in the open, Liam should feel a lot more self conscious than he does, but he’s enjoying himself too much to be bothered with however Zain took the public offering.

“I’m gonna play this one,” the man says after the song’s ended and Liam’s comfy in his terrycloth shorts and t-shirt. “But it’s because I already had it in my head as a song about what I’d want in a relationship, so don’t get any other ideas.”

Liam cocks his head to the side in curiosity, finishing up folding his trousers when the electric guitar lights up the room.

I can just watch you dance all night

And you would never me down

You could never let me down

I can fall in love with you all night

And you would never let me down

A crush is my favourite sound

A huge smile’s plastered on Liam’s face so much that it hurts. The simple complexity of the different instruments, all arranged in such a stand out way, doesn’t give him any other choice but to dance. There’s that, and the fact that Zain’s the one who’s voice is accompanying the music.

I never planned to crush

But I'm saying all them things to make you blush

This is such a rush

Blood to the head like I'm upside down

Let you cool down, you ain't a tough guy

Unless you looking for a rough ride

Poppin' wheelies in the sunshine, play that

Put you on my BMX, feel like a Maybach

Oh, throw it back just like a 8 track

The verse is nearly rapped, not sung, but Zain’s voice flows from line to line seamlessly that makes Liam think, to hell with what key he’s in, I just want to keep hearing it.

Marvin Gaye, we do it your way

Usher Raymond, do it my way

What happens when you stick that jam in the middle of the yams?

Crush

“Ooo, that’s ace!” Liam exclaims over the chorus that’s looped back around, an air guitar already coming out. He doesn’t even care that he’s got no idea what Zain means with jam and yams and one getting crushed by the other, as soon as the song ends and he’s out of breath from hopping around so much, he’s quick to say, “I want that.”

Now it’s Zain’s turned to look confused. “Huh?”

“Your voice was on it,” Liam points out. “Which usually means that you haven’t sold it.” In a few strides, he’s back at their shared seat. “I want it.”

“You’re about two weeks too late. I already signed on the dotted line, he just hasn’t recorded it yet.” Checking the date on the top left of his laptop screen, Zain corrects himself, “Or maybe he has, but I don’t have a copy of the new version.” There’s humour in his eyes when he looks up from his computer at Liam. “You can’t have everything I write…”

The younger male frowns, “Is that in your contract?”

“Well...no,” Zain hesitates, his brow creased in consideration. “I don’t think so, but I write way more than you can handle.”

“Handle?” A growing smirk replaces Liam’s turned down lips. “Is that a challenge? I don’t plan on retiring anytime soon.”

“Cooking has been a blessing in disguise,” Zain reveals, the only sign he’s getting around to addressing the dare is the way his eyes shine with determination to prove a point. “I used to write a couple songs a week when it was all I was doing. Now that I’m behind a pan all day, when I sit down to write, usually a ton pours out because it’s not what I’m strictly thinking about 24/7 anymore. I’ve written a couple songs in a night before. Trust me, you can’t handle them all.”

There’s a fire in Liam that wants to grow and argue that Zain’s wrong, he’s got enough passion for music that he could record how ever many songs are thrown at him without tiring, but realistically his albums can’t be hundreds of songs long, nor does he fit all the genres Zain writes for, so he simply clicks his tongue and puts up a fake front of defense.

“See anything interesting?” He responds with instead, getting comfortable in his spot pressed against the window once more.

Zain’s “I was too busy watching you” remark makes the red in Liam’s cheek show itself for a second before disappearing.

“I’m always going to be here for inspiration, we’ve only got the room for one night.” Out of the corner of his eye, Liam can see that his comment’s gotten to Zain. In a good way, judging by the older male’s bitten back smile. “School me on the wonders of the world through a poet's eyes.”

Liam’s probably opened Pandora’s box with a request like that, but he means it. Just because he doesn’t plan on writing poetry any time soon doesn’t mean that he’s not capable of enjoying the mind behind someone who does.

“Human nature’s very basic,” Zain starts off in the true and tried philosophical tone that Liam was looking for. “People try and make it out to be like it’s some complex ant farm, but it’s really not.”

The singer quirks a brow at the world below at the comparison. Ant farm...

“Every book, every song, every film, nothing’s original; the foundation of everything’s recycled.” Zain counts out on his fingers, “The hero overcoming an internal or external conflict, coming of age, normatives of being a part of an otherwise dysfunctional family. If you strip down what we consume, it’s all just the same twenty or thirty themes. It’s how people choose to exemplify the one they select, that sets the stories apart from each other.” He drops his hands into his lap, “Shawshank Redemption and The Hangover are the same. They’re in two different genres, but underneath it all, they’re both just about survival.”

Liam’s got hardly any time to relate each plot to one another before Zain’s continuing. “That’s why I like people watching. It’s a playground for picking out the main themes without having any context to it all; you can create the fulfilling storylines yourself.” The man leans the side of his head on the glass, “They’re not aware of us watching, therefore their actions are completely authentic, untainted. It’s the only real way to get a hold of the beauty and disaster of humanity in my opinion. Trying to seek that out in people you already have a preconceived connection with, would be biased.”

Zain’s eyes turn to Liam’s, “Like you.” The singer stares with intrigue. “I haven’t known you for that long, but I know that when you laugh, like really laugh,” Zain emphasizes. “You get crinkles by your eyes and the indent under your right becomes more prominent. It’s gorgeous to witness, and I could write a hundred sonnets on the one second it takes for you to go from listening to squinting, and another hundred comparing the final form to the warmth of Saturn, but-”

“Not the Sun?” Liam interjects, taken by surprise at the unusual choice of planet.

“Not the Sun,” Zain confirms resolutely. “The Sun’s common, the Sun’s expected, the Sun’s scorching hot. At its core, Saturn’s even warmer; it’s the planet with the most orbiting moons because of its strong gravitational pull.” Zain licks his lips innocently, “You’re not like the Sun. You’re like Saturn.”

The muffled sound of London outside the window is all that can be heard while Liam tries to process the magnitude of what Zain’s just said. Liam’s gotten the compliment about his laugh before, and while he doesn’t see the appeal himself, he always takes the flattery to heart each time he hears it, but this wasn’t just some person trying to win him over. Zain genuinely meant what he said, his sincere, tight lipped smile made that clear. On top of that, a parallel with Saturn was so unbelievably unique, that the fact that Zain just came up with it so effortlessly, and with real purpose, took Liam’s breath away.

“My point is,” Zain goes to finish, “I know that part of you now, so while those feelings of enrapture are there, they’re nothing like they were the first time I saw you laugh.”

Immediately Liam’s brain tries to think back to when that might’ve been.

“Here, watch that curb by the fence.” Breaking out of trying to wrack his brain for memories, Liam follows where Zain’s pointing. “Did you see the way that bloke hopped up onto it?”

A second before and Liam would’ve missed him. “Yeah, but not well. It happened so fast and I wasn’t really sure what I was looking for.”

“Someone will do it again, just wait,” Zain says patiently. “Each person does it differently - the way they push off one foot to gain momentum and how they land. Do they float up or come down forcefully? If they’re carrying one, their bag will be affected too. Maybe it’ll drastically swing around, or an attached keychain might catch a street light and shine; it’s a moment for it to show off. It’s saying, ‘I’m here, often overlooked, but not forgotten’. That small token has its own backstory.” As if a light bulb goes off in his head, Zayn sits up straight and grabs his pen that’s laying on top of his open notebook. “Actually, that’d make for a good short story.”

“How do you do that?” Liam thinks out loud while he watches Zain write down the plot that he’s just randomly crafted.

“It’s like you said,” the man says, staring at what he’s come up with, “a poet’s eyes don’t only see colours.”

Even that simple response touches Liam deeply. It’d make for a good tattoo, maybe a pair of eyeglasses with a swirl of colour in the lenses.

“What sort of songs have you written from watching others?” He asks before the notebook goes back to being forgotten, only to be attended to when Zain comes up with another prodigal idea.

“Wrote this when I was waiting for Harry in his office once,” the writer describes as he flips through the pages to find what he’s looking for. “It’s nice, right on the fifth floor.”

The book’s twisted around so that Liam can read what’s written.

A bird with the word came to me

The sweetness of a honeycomb tree

And now I look, what's taking over me

Couldn't fake it if I wanted to

I had to wake up, just to make it through

I got my patience and I'm making do

I learned my lessons from the ancient roots

I choose to follow what the greatest do

“Started from seeing a group of birds perched on top of a bus stop, then it just went from there,” Zain explains further while Liam’s eyes scan the rest of the lyrics on the page.

Hearing the writer speak about the song’s inspiration as if creating such perfectly strung together lines was as easy as tying your trainers, gave Liam a surge of determination. “Let me try,” he passes over the notebook, casting his eyes down to the street with drive.

“I see a few people that would-”

“No,” Liam snaps. “I want to give it a go alone.”

A girl in her late twenties is smoking against a tree, but she’s too far away to be able to tell if it’s a cigarette or something heavier.

“Alright, but don’t think too much about it,” Zain cautions. “Just start with what you see and then talk it out.”

“The girl by the bench, near the telephone box, wearing a short white skirt.” Too afraid to blink in case he misses something important, Liam takes Zain’s advice and freely speaks his mind without taking his eyes off the mentioned female. “Do you think she’s smoking because she thinks it’s cool, or because she needs the stress relief?”

“That’s the beauty of it, we’ll never know…”

“Smoking isn’t going to get rid of all her problems,” Liam criticizes at the same time as the girl exhales a cloud of white, “just fuck up her lungs.”

Zain chuckles, “It’s an addiction.”

Realizing how idiotic his last statement might’ve made him sound, Liam decides to rephrase the opinion. “Yeah, no, I get that, but she should change her coping mechanism to something a little less likely to give her cancer.”

“People don’t think rationally when it comes to ridding themselves of pain. They just want it gone.”

Fuck, isn’t that the truth, Liam thinks to himself, shifting his eyes to the woman’s right when Zain brings attention to the beggar that’s there, bent over, prostrating with his hands above his head in prayer.

“Does he really believe in God?” Zain questions pensively. “Or is he just doing that because a lot of people do, and so he’ll gain their sympathy in the form of a few quid?”

It’s a blunt accusation, but Liam sees where it’s coming from.

“My relationship with religion has changed over the years, but…” Zain’s speech trails off, causing Liam to divert his focus away from the window and back to the man at his side.

“Life doesn’t stop the more we pray.” As Zain says the words, his pen inks the words on paper. “And from what I’ve come to understand, most Holy Books promote the individuality that a higher power has given its creatures.” The black ball point finds its way behind Zain’s right ear, right above the cursive ‘Yaser’. “So yeah, the scriptures lay out morals and rules to abide by, but God - let’s say - has given you autonomy to either follow these decrees out, or not. If you’re practicing, you can pray to him, her, it, but you still need to go about your life to make them proud and pass the test of Earth.”

Liam’s head frantically tries to reach out and grab all of that information while he still can, before it blurs together into a confusing haze.

“Now,” Zain proclaims after taking a deep breath, “let’s put this together with your girl…”

“How about, ‘smoking won’t rid you of all your problems’?” Liam’s back staring at their subject, eyebrows bunched together in concentration.

“I like that, but make it more poetic.” The pen comes back down from behind Zain’s ear. “How else do you get rid of something you don’t want?

“Toss it? Burn it? Send it away?” Liam stops rattling off verbs to think of what sorts of things someone would want to get rid of in the first place. Zain’s typical scent of a wok comes to mind. “Scrub it off?”

“Perfect.” Liam beams at the writer’s praise, attentively watching the page as Zain keeps talking. “And instead of problems, let’s use sins.”

Smoking won’t wash all your sins away

“Keep them at bay,” Liam tosses out.

‘All your wrongs from yesterday’ gets added by Zain under Liam’s follow up.

Instead of keeping up with their streak, the singer identifies a sense of unease. “I feel bad,” he voices, gathering Zain’s attention. “What if she just started doing it as a teen and can’t quit, and there’s nothing really to it other than that?”

No one knows what you’ve been through

Amazement replaces Liam’s feelings of guilt when Zain’s silence turns out to be from his conceptualizing. “This is so sick,” the singer whispers. “I’m just gonna keep talking and you can translate.”

A small huff of laughter comes from low within Zain’s chest. “I could, but then you wouldn’t be learning.” For the second time, Liam’s met with the notebook being turned around for his viewing. “This is one of my favourites that I’ve ever written.”

‘EVERYDAY’ reads at the top of the clean page with impeccable penmanship below it, to Liam, acting as confirmation that Zain’s writing comes naturally; revisions or rewrites weren’t necessary, the first versions of his thoughts were already flawless.

I once said "give my head a drink 'cause my heart is full"

I want everything

I should be married somewhere with children

Dance in the sunlight, cries in the distance

If love is the answer, what is the question?

See, I've been wandering 'round these city streets

But I'm not lost

Keep your head on straight

You'll see better days

Life's a choice we make

Every day

Cause someone died

And my face went numb

We're all asking "why does that make us dumb?"

I should be living somewhere in Paris

Chasing the skyline, far from our parents

From what I imagined

I'm not so perfect

Though I've been wandering 'round these city streets

But I'm not lost

“It just came to you?” Liam asks, rereading the words for a second time.

“Over the course of a couple hours,” Zain replies, nostalgic. “My room in Shanghai had a great view of the largest intersection in the neighborhood. It wasn’t that busy, but even that was a nice idea - that it was a smaller version of an urban staple, especially in the world’s largest metropolis. At first it was just going to be a poem, but I fucked around on my guitar like I always do when I’m just laying around, and came up with a small hook.”

He smiles when Liam opens his mouth, “Yes, we can listen to it.”

Being understood, not mocked or scolded for being impatient, makes the edges of the singer’s lips curl up. As he watches Zain bring up his ‘Not For Sale’ playlist on his laptop, Liam admires the softness of the man’s aura. It’s a direct contrast to his never ending tattoos and the harshness that comes from having a buzzed haircut. Knowing that both things are only a figment of people’s immediate perception gives Liam a sense of pride that he’s been allowed to discover who Zain really is, his beautiful intellect, the way he curls into himself when he sleeps, all of it. Maybe it should make him upset that the rest of the world might get him wrong upon first glance, but the notion that Liam doesn’t have to share with all of them gives him peace of mind.

He stops staring at the bristles of Zain’s short beard when another song written during a time of contemplative observation lights something inside Liam.

“You can write really sexy songs sometimes.”

Liam’s eyes are forced to look up from the sharp jawline when Zain turns his head at the singer’s comment.

“It’s about not needing anyone to navigate the world,” Zain corrects him in a humorous tone.

Liam knows that, but the music’s just so slow and hypnotic that he can’t help the way the instrumental portion makes him feel. His shoulders rise and fall in a small shrug, “Still makes me want to kiss you.”

Both men enter a heated stare down while, the slow, sultry voice of the woman who’s singing Zain’s song floats in the background.

Made up of hope and meditation

Love, imagination

Water my creations

“Come on then,” Zain tilts his chin towards Liam gently. “Come on.”

Baby it’s amazing

All the days I’m facing

Nothing seems to phase me

Cause I am confidently lost

With London’s city lights illuminating the left side of Zain’s face, Liam takes a second to appreciate the striking nature of the man in front of him, before he gives them what they both want. He’s not thinking about anything or anyone else at that moment, only Zain. Just the gaze he’s holding that’s so easily identifiable as loving, and not lustful.

I don’t need you to find me

Cause I’m not hiding

Anything

Leaning in, Liam lets his beard brush against Zain’s sensually before attaching their lips together.

Thinking about where I’ve gone

Where I’m going

And I wouldn’t change it for the world

Kissing Zain sober has a different vibe to it, a calming one. It’s not like the chemistry Liam’s had with others where anything physical with them kickstarts a specific energy inside him, this is so much better.

Thinking about where I’m from

If I belong there

But I wouldn’t change it for anything

Even though Zain had been clear that he was on board with the kiss, it isn’t until he’s pulling Liam back in by the front of his shirt after the younger man had tried to pull away, that Liam understands just how much. It’s the first time Zain’s come close to Liam’s level of impatience. Or at least, this is the first time he’s allowed himself to show it. Maybe he’s felt this way all along, but only just now felt it appropriate to let Liam in on that secret. Realizing that that was very much a possibility makes the singer bite down on the other’s bottom lip during their next small part. And just because Zain pushes himself closer as a reaction to the nip, Liam does it again when it’s clear they’re done for the time being.

Instead of making any comment on what just happened, an unspoken agreement is made that they should go back to taking advantage of their home for the night.

Somewhere in between getting into a random chat about politics and laughing after Zain tells a story about the time he almost fell asleep at the grill from staying up all night getting a short story out of his head, the two come up with countless short lines that might mean something one day, but aren’t meant to be pieced together at the moment.

They retreat to the suite’s king bed after scribbling down a few thoughts on a passerby wearing a full tux and their abstract guesses on where he might be headed. While Zain shuts down his laptop and starts to put away his notebook, Liam goes to make them tea with the room’s kettle.

“One of these days, I’ll have the energy to do a lot more than just literally sleep with you,” Zain promises as he gets settled underneath the covers.

Sex hasn’t even crossed Liam’s mind, which actually tells him a lot about how he values his relationship, platonic or not, with Zain. Generally, Liam’s not a very sexually driven person, but he does enjoy it, so to not have it cross his mind, even with all the different situations they’ve been in where it could’ve arose, confirms to Liam that this person’s different. He wants to spend his time getting to learn Zain’s mind, not his body; they’ve got all the time in the world for that.

“I’m not in any rush,” Liam confides, opening his arms for the smaller male to get comfortable in.

“Some celebrity you are.”

Zain’s words don’t do anything to Liam other than remind him that he is a celebrity. When he’s with the writer, fame, or the life it brings, is a million miles away. Liam’s curious to see how long that oblivion can last, because it’s impossible for it to fade completely. There’s no way one person could do that, it’d be a miracle.

“I’m patient,” Liam maintains while wrapping his left arm around Zain’s shoulder now that the man’s claimed his chest as a pillow.

A small rumble of laughter comes from the thin frame on top of him. “Yeah, sure,” Zain chuckles. “If you say so babe.”

There’s room for a playful fight there, Liam knows it, but he also knows that the chef needs another proper night’s sleep. “Good night babe,” the singer mumbles against the top of Zain’s head where he’s placing the last kiss of the night.

“Night Leeyum.”

TRACK 13

Liam’s got himself into a bad, very dangerous habit, of putting himself in place of whoever, or whatever, Zain’s songs are actually about.

It started as soon as he got into his truck the morning before. He’d just left Zain in the hotel lobby with flushed cheeks after their ride down the lift consisted of a quick snog session - instigated by Liam after the writer noted how the sight of lift doors closing always inflicted a sense of evaporated hope towards a could’ve been love in him. Somehow, they made it all the way to the ground floor without any interruptions.

Being in such a good mood, it was easy for Liam to start his truck and begin his pattern of self-insertion with a techno track.

I'm going down in flames and you're feeding the fire

Each word you breathe

Call me insane, I'm in love with your games

Oh, I hear your name in the song of the fire

Where else would I be?

I'm letting it burn, burn, burn

For the next twenty four hours, Liam continued with this default mindset any time he put on a song written by his new acquaintance; in the shower, at the gym, picking up around the house, and especially on the drive to pick up Zain at work the next night.

Spending two nights back to back together warranted a small break, but with his meeting with the label being Thursday afternoon, Liam wanted to take advantage of any waking moment Zain would give him; just maybe they’d be able to come up within another song in the next four days. If they don’t, well, then, Liam’s not going to feel rueful for at least using the time to admire Zain’s high cheekbones and soliloquy notations.

Sitting in his Aston Martin, another high tempo song blasting, the singer hits send on his text.

I’m here outside when you’re ready

The sports car’s facing the pedestrian walkway that Chinese restaurants line the sides of, prepared this time around to be able to see when Zain leaves his particular storefront so Liam can know when to unlock the doors. Secretly, he hopes it won’t be long; his windows are tinted, and not many are out at 11:30PM on a Sunday, but having a car worth over £160,000 is bound to turn a few heads. At least he stuck with the matte black finish and not the yellow Louis had suggested, then he might have a problem.

✔️Seen

Shaking his head, Liam puts the phone down on the middle leather seat divider, and stares at the front window of the nearest shop - specifically the ornate gold cat whose right arm is rocking back and forth.

I think about you every day

Every day, every day

When I’m without you every day

Every day, every day

Mumbling along to the electronic anthem while continuing to stare at the waving cat, Liam allows himself to play pretend and envision that he’s lovely enough to get stuck in Zain’s head as often as every day.

On cue, the man shows himself, slinging his backpack over his black t-shirt clad shoulder after checking to make sure that the restaurant's front door is locked.

The sleek sound of the door’s being unlocked gets lost in the warped synth that leads the next queued up song.

It never fades away, it's staying

Your kiss like broken glass on my skin

And all the greatest loves end in violence

It's tearing up my voice, left in silence

Briefly, Liam checks himself in the rear view mirror with as much discretion as he can, even though the windscreen’s tinted as dark as legally allowed, and if Zain’s paying attention, Liam doubts he can make out enough to be able to decipher the singer’s intentions. Right before Zain opens the door, he adjusts his posture in the low to the ground driver’s seat - some sort of last second attempt at seeming presentable. There was something about being around Zain that made Liam nervous, like he had to impress. Except for when he’s taking the man’s backpack when Zain lowers it in and gets the first whiff of leftover fish guts that most likely came from cleaning up the day’s work, then Liam’s hesitant.

Baby, it hit so hard, holding on to my chest

Maybe you left your mark, reminding me to forget

It doesn't matter where you are, you can keep my regret

'Cause baby, I got these scars, reminding me to forget

Reminding me, I got these scars, to forget your love

Keep reminding me, to forget your love

With his plan for the night revolving around his six figure luxury car, Liam realizes that the longer they stay in the car, the higher the likelihood he’s going to need to detail it to get the scent out of the leather. Hoping for the best, Liam sends Zain a blinding smile in greeting.

“Hey.”

“Hey,” Zain breathes as he takes in his surroundings once his door closed. “Ah, I see you’re back to my vulnerable songs.”

Truth be told, Liam hadn’t even realized that the song had changed, he was too caught up in fixing himself up to notice the new repetitive electronic chorus.

You left your burn (In my heart)

You left your mark, reminding me to forget

You left your burn (In my heart)

You left your mark (Under my skin)

“Actually, I was listening to your electronic stuff under Zion Makil,” Liam corrects him. “Not anything lyrically specific.” Even so, now that he knows this song in particular resonates strongly with Zain, Liam wants to push ‘back’ and relisten with the utmost care. But first, before he does that and puts the car into drive, “Why are those cats always in the windows of Chinese restaurants?”

Zain follows Liam’s line of sight and grins innocently at the plastic cat. “They bring prosperity,” he answers with ease “Well, actually, it depends on which arm they have lifted; that can change the meaning. The left arm brings good business. The right arm brings good fortune in your relationships. Both up is used for protection. It’s technically a Japanese tradition.”

Liam hums in response, taking a second to clock that information, and hopefully store it well enough in his brain that he’ll be able to recall it at a later date.

“Alright,” Liam exhales brightly. “Time for a drive around the city in: People Watching Part Three.”

The smile that was on Zain’s lips gets wider when he hears of the other’s plans, and in response, so does Liam’s. He can feel the beginning stages of his paradise start to develop when he gets butterflies at how he’s the one responsible for getting Zain to be so excited from someone doing something for him, listening to what his life preferences were even if they might seem boring to most other twenty six year olds.

“This might be electronic,” Zain says, pushing ‘back’ on the song that was playing, almost as if he was saving Liam the trouble since he knew the man had plans to do just that, “but writing this was actually pretty hard for me.”

Even though he doesn’t receive a comment from the writer on their nightly plans, Liam isn’t bothered. The fact that Zain was trying to play cool and act like Liam’s level of thoughtfulness wasn’t that profound, didn’t phase the younger man. He saw the way Zain’s eyes lit up at the prospect of spending hours driving around aimlessly, just because. And that was good enough for him to feel appreciated.

The second time Liam hears the dance song, he listens in properly. Imagery of Zain clutching his heart comes to Liam’s mind this time around, and it hurts him; it’s always rough to hear the explicit depiction of what it feels like to hurt when you know the person who’s in pain, regardless of the degree in which you do. With Zain, Liam just has to learn of his distress through more unconventional means, more heart wrenchingly descriptive methods. But the younger man can see how this song can be powerful for Zain with a bridge like,

Remember I told you to save it, it’s over

And I’ll be alright

So hurt me as much as you like

I need you to let go

I’ve got these momentos

But I’ll be alright;

giving a person permission to outrightly hurt you because it’s inevitable, so they might as well give it a real go? That’s gotta be the hardest thing to have to pen.

Liam wonders if having pseudonyms makes writing things that difficult any easier. As much as he likes to think he’s open with the songs he writes, he still finds himself getting nervous each time he puts out one that pulls back the curtains on his life, even if it’s only slightly so.

The fragility’s just another lesson Liam tells himself he’s got to learn from Zain; write unapologetically and don’t worry about the outcome. It’s good for you, cathartic.

He keeps that thought in mind as he continues to drive around London’s main streets with no real destination in mind, only the instructions he’s given himself to stay within a relatively populated area to give them both enough stimulation to observe. He’s not sure people watching’s going to be their main focus like he thought it would be though, not with the way Zain’s leaning back, relaxed, after having turned up the music. But that’s alright, songwriting isn’t Liam’s only priority surrounding the other male anymore, as long as they’re both enjoying each other’s company, that’s all he cares about.

Twenty minutes later, as Liam’s waiting for a light to turn green, Zain starts to sing along to the loud rock song that’s now playing. The man’s long finished trying to sneak peeks around the interior of the car without Liam noticing; in an effort to try and keep up his cool kid act of not appearing to be taken by the exclusivity of it all like any normal person would be, the driver presumes. To Liam, it’s a sign that Zain’s able to let loose around him and not care if he comes across as something other than sophisticatedly composed for more than a few seconds, a sign that maybe he’s inching his way into Zain’s subconscious just like the writer’s already done to him.

With Zain in charge of the music, there’s a lot more variation to what they’re listening to, which equates to a lot of fuck ups on Liam’s part with singing the right lyrics. At least they’re not any of his own songs, even though he admittedly gets those wrong every once and a while too, but the mistakes remind him of a specific lyric of Zain’s that he came across a while ago. He highly doubts that the man realizes that’s why he’s requesting for that song be played next.

Roses were your favourite flower

And I couldn’t stand the scent

“I really can’t,” Zain laughs above the music when Liam glances over, able to read what he wanted to know through his eyes.

But if it’s what it takes to put a smile on your face

I guess I’ll deal with it

Such unspoken communication makes Liam push down on the gas just a tad bit more and revert back to transference, thinking about what sort of flowers Zain would get him, or even more importantly, which he’d want him to get him. The inner debate between orchids and birds of paradise almost has Liam missing the verse that got him to direct Zain to put the song on in the first place.

We were ridin’ down Dyer with my top down

Singing our favourite songs

But the funny thing is every time we did

You’d always get the words wrong

He sings along to the lines extra loud, and to his greatest pleasure, so does Zain. As the singer moves on, Liam scolds himself for missing the opportunity to screw up the words on purpose to make Zain laugh. Next time.

And I was your biggest fan

You should never forget it

I bet your new man doesn’t love you like I did

Does he love you like I did?

Liam’s thoughts about how he’s Zain’s biggest fan get interrupted when the man asks him how fast the car can go. A quick look to his left and he’s met with a mischievous smirk, Zain’s head leaned back against the cushioned headrest, turned towards Liam.

Zain’s match ignites a fire and in the blink of an eye. Liam’s not continuing down High Street Kensington any more, he’s turning to get them to the nearest motorway and out of the city.

You should walk away with me

In your heart, keep me in your mind

You don’t have to speak of our past

Just keep me in your life

Keep me alive

Not that the streets were busy to begin with, it is just after midnight after all, but Liam’s glad they’re heading away from the urban cage that London can sometimes be. The song’s upbeat vibe pairs better this way, helps him fantasize about a dream world beyond Thursday, where he stays in Zain’s mind like his lyrics say.

When they finally get to an open enough area where there aren’t any speed cameras or police, Liam shifts the car into a higher gear and lets the engine rev. Naturally, his hands take him towards his house in the West, where there’s vast areas of greenery and country streets to play around on without the worry of getting caught or hurt.

Driving forward, the lights of the city fade away, making room for the brightness of the night sky to shine instead. It’s not the type of setting he expected to be in when he chose the Aston Martin over his truck that evening, but it should’ve been. The waning moon against the occasional cloud, the suburbs that Liam zooms past, they’re picturesque in a way that he might not have been able to appreciate before Zain. In fact, he knows he wouldn’t, because he hasn’t.

The route he’s taking to get them to the countryside south of the city is one he occasionally uses to reach the capital from his house when traffic prevents him from going his usual way, and never before has he been able to see the simplistic beauty in the way the broken windows of abandoned buildings scream loneliness, or how much life a chipped roundabout sign has seen in comparison to himself.

It takes them almost thirty minutes to get to a point where farmland, not two story homes, takes over their surroundings, and with that comes even brighter stars. To his left, Liam can see that Zain’s written down a few things in the notebook that he pulled out of his backpack a while ago.

“Chasing the Northern Lights,” he says after turning down the music a bit. Zain looks up from his phone, confusion spread over his face as he goes from staring at Liam, to searching the sky in front of them for any hint as to what the singer is referring to. “Write that down,” Liam instructs. “Feels like we’re chasing the Northern Lights.”

Pride swells in the younger man’s chest when he hears Zain whisper under his breath an enthusiastic “sick”, immediately going for his pen to write down the line.

When he knows Zain’s done writing, Liam goes back to purposefully swerving back and forth over the dotted line of whichever two-lane road they’re currently racing down. He doesn’t talk for a while after that, but then again, neither does Zain. They’re caught up in their own worlds, while simultaneously staying intertwined in each other’s. The driver’s busy focusing on being careful shifting gears and tilting the wheel at such high speeds, while the passenger’s keeping up with making sure their playlist matches the mood of the drive and occasionally writing down thoughts that Liam has him repeat out loud every once and awhile when it’s apparent they’re not just a few words.

A gap of silence takes over the car as Liam grips the wheel with control, taking a rural curve expertly by using the black of the night to his advantage and cutting into the other lane when he doesn’t see any lights approaching. It’s unlike Zain to not have something queued up, but he can only blame himself; he’s asked if the man can put on ‘Cruel’, except the version with Zain’s voice, not the radio cut. Liam had thought that it would be an empty ask, one that would produce an answer of ‘no, I only have it on my laptop or desktop’, but to hear that Zain would look through his emails to try and find the file he sent Harry where his lyrics matched up with the dj’s music, was a surprise. Liam wanted to look deeper into it than was necessary, chalk it up to Zain’s willingness to go the extra mile just to see Liam be happy, but that was a slippery slope for someone who was already as attached as he is, to do. Doesn’t mean the possibility didn’t cross his mind for a split second.

It may take a couple minutes, but Zain pulls through, and soon enough, Liam and real life Zain are singing along to recording Zain at the top of their lungs - something the star’s vocal coach would definitely slap him over the head for.

Liam’s not too sure about Zain, but all he can think of, besides his shifting pattern anytime he needs to slow down before a turn and then accelerate again immediately after, is how insanely good their voices sound together. Even without paying attention to hitting the right notes or keys, they compliment each other’s tones like they were made to be a duo.

I wonder how low Zain’s voice can go, Liam thinks while the man takes the bridge alone. It doesn’t seem like it can go as low as mine, but I bet we would be able to switch up falsettos if we sang together. Or maybe we’d leave Zain in charge of those; I’ve gotten a lot better at my high notes, but they’re nothing compared to what he can do. I wonder what our sound would be? Would he want to stick with R&B Pop like I do now, or would he want to lean more towards soul with a voice and lyrics like his? What if we played love interests in our music videos? Has anyone else done that? Press would certainly be a lot more fun with someone by my side. So would hotel rooms. I wouldn’t have to fall asleep in those unnecessarily large king sized beds that I keep telling my tour manager to switch out for doubles; they’re much too big for just me and make me feel a lot more lonely than I already feel.

Glancing over to his left, Liam smiles at Zain’s enthusiasm as the writer lets himself get lost in the music. I wonder if he’d be charismatic on stage, energetic like I am, or if he’d stick with being the serious type. What would our name be? Would we just stick to Liam and Zain? Zain and Liam? Maybe Zain would want to come up with another pseudonym for his singing persona.

The last thought is what finally has reality striking down on Liam. Zain is only Zain to Liam in the music world. He would never agree to sing with him outside of a confidential space. A feeling of nostalgia for something that never was, and never will be, washes over Liam when that truth sinks in.

“You alright?”

Liam snaps out of his robotic driving mode to realize that the song ended, and not with any help from him. “Yeah, yeah, just got caught up on a stupid thought.”

“No thought’s stupid,” Zain debates, his expression turning to one of concern, which in turn makes Liam feel the same way. He didn’t need the other male finding out what sort of nonsense goes through his head. Zain might be understanding, but Liam knows there’s a limit inside everyone.

“This one was.” Thankfully Liam’s got to keep his eyes on the road, so he doesn’t have to see the look of suspicion he knows Zain’s giving him. If he did, he’d crack and tell him the truth for sure. “One more time, yeah?”

A few seconds pass where the song doesn’t restart and Liam thinks he’s going to have to come up with a lie to answer Zain’s incoming interrogation, but luckily the familiar warped sounds start up before Liam begins to sweat.

This time around he lets the music clear his head for him, goes back to singing obnoxiously loud, and forgets all about the fake scenario he’s just created. Because even though Zain’s right, it is a cruel world, one where Liam won’t ever be able to share a stage with him, he also knows that getting Zain at all, much less singing in his car unabashedly, was pretty damn good too.

Maybe I found something good

“I’ll never get sick of that song, I swear,” Liam declares, trying to gage where they were in the night to see how agitated Zain might get if he asks for them to listen to it again. “And it’s one of the only ones that’s fully produced with your voice on it, which makes it that much better.”

“Yeah, it was one of those instances where I wrote for the beat, not the other way around.”

By his tone of voice, Liam can tell Zain’s distracted, but he doesn’t dare look away from the road this close to a dark curve to see if he’s correct. “Seriously, so fucking good.” A small laugh comes from his side, telling Liam his compliment was heard, but the car’s still void of any other music. With nothing for him to sing along to, Liam’s stuck thinking about the last song and the complexity of its instrumental track overlays.

Zain’s head picks up from looking at his mobile as soon as Liam starts to beatbox a stripped down version of the song he’s just gotten done raving about; the movement’s clocked by the younger man because of its quickness.

Sucking in air and pushing it back out through pursed lips has become second nature to Liam whenever he’s alone and bored. It made sense that it would be what his brain naturally gravitated towards as he broke down the musical elements of an electronic track.

‘Cruel’ might not be a song with many, if any, live instruments on it, but the more intricate Liam starts to make his remix, the more he thinks it sounds pretty ace. It’s all about the placement of his tongue when it clicks at the same time as he exhales or inhales, the way he imitates the snare drums with quick ‘shh’s’ that make it sound near identical to the original.

They’re quite literally in the middle of nowhere at the moment, but out of irrational fear, Liam still looks back in his mirror to make sure no one’s around, cops included, and get the okay to step on the gas for an upcoming straight away. As he’s bringing his eyes back to the road, he catches Zain staring at him in intrigue.

Aware that he’s being watched so closely, Liam finishes off the beat with a smooth ending. He’s not embarrassed, quite the opposite actually, but there’s something about Zain being the one picking apart his little freestyle that makes Liam nervous. He really doesn’t want to hear anything critical about it, even if it’s meant to be constructive, he knows himself enough to know that he’d take it to heart a lot more than he might if it came from someone else.

“Bit of a party trick,” he lies, forgoing the bit about how there’s a whole part in his show where he performs a couple minutes of whatever beat comes to his mind. For once, Liam’s glad Zain knows practically nothing about him other than the types of songs he likes to buy and the occasional performance the writer looks up.

“Don’t put it in the same category as listing off capitals,” Zain scolds him, picking up his pen and noting something down right after. “It’s serious talent.”

Liam’s not sure what to say other than, “Thanks.” He thought he felt comfortable around Zain before, but for whatever reason, getting validation from him about an important component of his musical life other than his voice, confirms that the security he feels from Zain isn’t just a fluke.

So, while the passenger returns to looking for a song, Liam doesn’t restrict himself and reverts back to beatboxing, except this time, he doesn't follow the pattern of an already pre-made song, he lets his creativity drive the sound.

Mindlessly, Liam plays around with different rhythms and timings. He’s not sure how long it’ll take Zain to pick something, or if the male’s even doing that and not texting or looking at something else, but he’s content trying out different tempos while the car stays quiet.

There’s a particular sixteen bar repetition that Liam’s liking, and keeps returning to. He adds a high whine in the back of his throat during a count, but that doesn’t fit, so he tries a lower one instead.

During the next loop, humming mixes in with Liam’s fake snare drum noises.

Zain’s voice attempts to find a key that will sound good with the beatboxer’s mix, humming higher and lower until he finds it a few seconds later. He doesn’t sing anything in particular when he opens his mouth, only the notes he was previously humming, but he seems to be doing his best to keep time with the count Liam’s created using the method the male taught him weeks ago; instead of the metronome Liam had made him use then, he uses his pen to tap out the beats.

As his attention begins to shift away from the road, Liam instinctively starts to let up on the gas. The way Zain starts to mumble nonsense like he’s trying to put Liam’s techniques of how to produce into practice, not only makes Liam incredibly proud, but also overwhelmingly excited at what this could turn into.

He doesn’t stop with his noises, rather taps into his breathing to ensure that he can provide Zain with the beat for as long as he needs in order to grab hold of a solid cadence for a verse. Or a chorus. Zain’s new to this, it could come out of order for all Liam knows.

There’s a steady chanting of different “oh’s” and “um’s”, like Zain’s attempting to figure out the best way to hop into an already moving jump rope. Liam nearly stops to give him words of encouragement, tell him that people can take days to come up with where words should go or what inflections to use, but when he glances over to do so, Zain’s got his voice memos app recording and eyes squeezed shut with intense concentration. He knows then not to give in, he’ll risk fucking up whatever’s going through Zain’s master mind.

A few repetitive words are muttered with no real direction to connect them to full on thoughts - “under me, under me, under me”, “run away, run”, “over, over, over”.

What Liam would give to be able to see the potions being mixed inside the older man’s brain at that moment.

“Ok, ok,” Zain coaxes himself, nodding his head along with his pen and Liam’s imitation hi hat noises. Then, he raises his mobile with the bottom microphone facing up and magic happens.

“I run away, run away

But I see you right under me, u-under me

The truth is all over me, o-over me

You cannot escape from me

Oh no mmm baby

I'm trying to run

I'm trying to hide

I'm trying to find a better place for me

Cause all I see

Is people crying over me, no over me

And I gotta take the blame

Gotta take on me mmm baby”

When Zain stops rapping and goes back to a wordless echo of “oh mm uh ohhh nooo oh”, Liam feels like it might be appropriate to finally stop with his beats and express just how wild that was. He’s seen it happen a few times when he’s worked with rappers in the past, producing their records for them, but he didn’t ever think Zain was capable of something so profound. Especially considering the song he just rapped over didn’t exist five minutes ago, and therefore there were no premade slots for verses to fit into; Zain had to decipher that out on his own. Really, Liam shouldn’t be all that shocked that a mad scientist like Zain is capable of freestyle rapping greatness at this point; rapping is the closest thing to raw poetry as it comes after all.

“Pull over.”

Liam’s eyes widen like something’s wrong, and for a few seconds, he panics like there is, halting his music making to ask Zain if he’s ok.

“I’m fine,” the older man confirms, “but you need to stop before we pass this field.”

Checking behind him, Liam downshifts quickly and puts his hazard lights on; there’s no way he’s pulling an Aston Martin DB11 into the dirt. “What’s-”

“Come on.”

All Liam can do is blink when Zain’s unbuckling himself and exiting the car, phone tightly gripped in his right hand. Frozen in his spot, Liam watches as the man walks straight into the empty field that consists of grass that goes up to his knees. Before he loses Zain to the darkness, Liam undoes his own seatbelt and joins him.

“You’re going to-”

“Shhh,” Zain waves left hand in annoyance.

Crossing his arms, Liam glances back at the car that’s still running. He knows no one would hit it from its warning lights, but also because with as desolate of an area as they’re in, he’d be able to hear someone coming a mile out and make sure it’d be safe, yet anxiety still wracks Liam’s nervous system.

Staring back at the only other person within twenty kilometers doesn’t comfort Liam any. Zain’s squatting down in the grass, his phone aimed away from his body and red with the status: recording.

Where they are is peaceful, undoubtedly; Liam could hear himself breathe, but if Zain’s come out here to get ambient sound, he could’ve just asked Liam to turn the car engine off.

“What are you hearing, that I’m not?” He asks when he deems it safe enough to do so once Zain’s pushed the stop recording button.

“The wind.”

The wind?

As best he can, Liam tunes his ears into their surroundings. He doesn’t hear a thing, although he does feel the wind now that he’s paying attention; it’s not terribly strong, but it is there.

Crouching down makes all the difference. Lower into the grass, Liam can hear the rustling of the blades against each other. “Do you have supersonic hearing or something?” Liam whispers, which only makes Zain grin in response, although he’s not sure if it’s from his volume or accusation.

“You were driving,” Zain whispers back. “You weren’t able to make out the moving of the grass.”

At the mention of his car, Liam turns his head to make sure it’s alright for the second time.

“I didn’t know I could do that,” Zain remarks, motioning with his phone that he’s referring to the impromptu rapping when Liam looks back at him.

The grin comes back to Liam’s lips at the male’s reflection, “you were brilliant. I swear to god, it was insane to witness. You couldn’t be stopped.”

“Alright,” Zain chuckles, back to his normal, quiet volume. “I wouldn’t go that far. I’m not Flash.”

“You could’ve been with how fast you came up with all of that on the spot.”

Liam’s eyes have adjusted to the darkness, but he’s not 100% certain if he saw Zain roll his eyes. Knowing Zain, it’s probably safe to assume he did.

“Yeah, well,” the writer stands up, his knees cracking along the way, “I had a sick MC for inspiration.”

Pride surges through Liam at top speed. “Can I hear it back?”

He’s not sure if it’s being out in the open with absolutely zero interference that makes the difference, but listening to Zain’s recording sounds even better than Liam remembers creating it.

“We’ve gotta record this ASAP,” he presses when it’s over. “You have the day off tomorrow, yeah?” Zain nods. “Let’s go back to mine. I’ve got a whole studio. We can do this up officially.”

The poet looks down at the wavering greenery for a few moments before nodding again, “Alright, yeah. I’m down. Who am I to stop your attachment from growing any more?”

Both men smirk at each other.

“I’m not attached,” Liam replies, breaking into a hearty laugh when Zain slaps his abs passing by to walk back to the car.

“You’re not attached like I’m not afraid of water,” Liam hears him mutter, keeping his smile while also storing away that key fact.

On the drive to his house, Liam doesn't pull nearly as many dangerous maneuvers as he did during the first half of the ride. He does however, keep up with his speed until they get back to civilization.

Zain had demanded he go back to beatboxing instead of putting on real music, which only resulted in another verse -

Get away, get away

Baby get the fuck away from me, away from me

Do you want to see the worst of me? The worst of me?

Pretend that you were wrong about me?

Oh no mmm baby

I'm trying to save you, trying to save you

From the woman that you want to be, want to be

Don't tell me that you need to be, need to be

Another fuckin number in the game for me

Mmm baby -

and a very tense Liam, worried that even though this was all being recorded on Zain’s phone, the longer they stayed in the car, the more likely Zain was going to run out of steam once Liam finally shoved him into a booth.

But Liam couldn’t have been more wrong.

At first, his mansion took away all of Zain’s musical attention. From the second the front gates swung open, the home’s owner could see the male fight to keep his cool and act like he was completely unphased by the grandeur of it. That nonchalant attitude dropped as soon as they stepped foot in Liam’s studio however.

Zain was right back to spitting lines, trying to think up a good chorus for the song Liam was now recreating through his mixing board and square drum pads. With his quick fingers and a recording to go by, it doesn’t take long for Liam to get the exact beat in electronic form, and thankfully so, because Zain came up with a chorus soon after.

“I’m not tired,” the chef responds when Liam tells him they should call it a night, they can record his vocals for the track later, Zain’s had a long day. “I want to go again, with a different beat.”

Liam’s eyes roll up to the clock: 2:14AM.

“Are you sure?”

Zain squints in a playful challenge, “Unless you’re out of beats, Mr. Producer…”

Swiping the energy drink out of the male’s hand, Liam squeezes himself a mouthful of the rose coloured liquid. “Go take a shower. I’ll have a new beat by the time you’re out.”

The answer seems to be sufficient with the way Zain smiles in victory and gets up from his spot next to Liam. “Make it good, yeah?” Liam’s about to sarcastically retaliate at being used, but he’s kissed quiet.

“I’ll make it great,” he says to himself as Zain saunters out of the room.

And he does.

It’s simple, only has a few instrumental tracks to it, but it’s wicked, and Liam loves it. Zain seems to as well, because it only takes hearing the loop in its entirety one time for him to hand over the bottle he took up again and get back in the booth.

This time around is different than the last. Zain doesn’t start to rap, he sings, although it turns into more of a rhythmic, on key, smooth sort of spoken word type of singing than a full on range, but it’s still singing nonetheless. He doesn’t repeat words this time either, he’s confident in what he’s saying. So much so, that Liam would’ve guessed that this was just an extra long poem Zain had written already and was putting to music, rather than coming up with on the spot.

It sounds like a poem too. It might have started out with an easy observation -

I’m sipping pink Lucozade -

but lines like

You don't even wanna know about the things I hear

Quick fix, headlights shine bright, you're the fuckin' deer

and

It's about the path you're choosing

Time heals pain and promotes self-soothing

When the scars are gone you can't see bruising

are so clever, that Liam would expect to see them in one of Zain’s notebooks, scribbled under a meaningful title like ‘Wonderment’ or something.

In the booth, Zain lets loose, moving his hands around as he sings.

Bulls eye you the dot to me

Emotions splattered, same pattern

Can't even begin to spot 'em

I'm sad about shit that never happened

Liam tilts his head in fascination.

No lies in my eyes, nothing but truth will leave my mouth

I'm tryna fuckin’ scream but the words won't come out

I'm tryna fuckin' scream but the words won't come out

“Shit,” he murmurs in response to the random riff Zain repeats the line in.

She's older, I told her

We ain't meant to be

It takes two not three, but I'm here anyway

I hope he's leaving soon

Started not to see the elephant in this room

Disguised as your perfume

But the smell of it consumes, it takes all my mind

You can search the world but you will never find

I see everything you've done to me

Be there, you run to me

I don't need to pace, I don't need the stamina

If this shit was it, girl, I probably woulda ran from ya

Liam’s head keeps bobbing along with the track and unpredictable lyrics. He’s set the loop to never ending, it’ll be up to Zain on how long he can go for.

Kept runnin'

Outwit, cause you cunnin'

That outfit cause you stunnin'

Through the glass Zain sends Liam an arrogant wink.

“Bloody poet,” Liam curses with a blush - there from the flirtatious comment, as well as Liam’s own thoughts on how the man looked in his own borrowed clothes post-shower.

Begging cause I'm losing mage

Got me feeling some type of way I can't explain

The fuck is going on?

I think I got it wrong

When I told you I was over you, or were you under me?

The loop starts up as Liam’s programmed it to do, but Zain’s taking off his headphones and setting them on the podium in front of him. “Now we can go to bed,” he speaks normally into the mic, about to walk out before backtracking and adding one more thing. “Send me a copy of that. I want it for myself.”

Staring at the now empty recording booth, and then at the computer screen that’s still showing it’s recording, Liam sits dumbfounded.

—

“I want to wake up early.”

“It is early,” Liam reminds him while opening up his arms for the other to crawl into now that they’re settling into bed. “Go to sleep.”

“No, like proper early.” A shirtless Zain finds his spot and wraps his left arm over Liam’s toned chest. “Sunrise like.”

Before he secures the smaller frame to him, Liam picks up his phone that’s charging on the side table closest to him. “We won’t even get four hours.” He sets down the mobile and pulls Zain closer, “It’s your day off. You’re supposed to catch up on sleep, not add to your exhaustion.”

“I know, but being in the field tonight made me feel a certain way,” Zain exhales peacefully. “I want to feel it again, but in the still of the day.”

There’s a park nearby that comes to Liam’s mind. Hopefully that works, because there’s no way he’d be able to find the exact field they stopped at that night. “The solitude of it?” Liam guesses.

“The sadness of it.”

The singer glances down at Zain’s head that’s resting on his pecs, “Why would you want to feel sad on purpose?”

“I think it’s a beautiful emotion. Especially when it’s not evoked by an action, but an environment.”

Liam takes back what he said before, Zain wasn’t a professor in a past life, he was a psychologist.

“We can listen to some of my slow acoustic stuff and really set the mood,” Zain adds, sleep finally catching up with him by way of a drowsy voice.

“Alright broody poet, I’ll set the alarm so we can cry together in the grass.” It’s a testament to just how tired Zain is when Liam doesn’t receive any sort snarky comment back.

Carefully, he reaches back over to his side and does as he’s said. Afterwards, the notebook that now lives on the side of his bed as of a week ago, gets opened. Making sure he doesn’t jostle the man on top of him awake, Liam’s slow in biting off the cap of the pen that was next to the book. In his mind, he sings the short chorus that inspired what he’s about to write down.

You don’t have to speak of our past,

Just keep me in your life

Keep me alive

It might not be a dream, like the notebook was intended to record, but it’s a thought just important, one that Liam couldn’t get out of his head all night since it popped up.

Just promise you won’t forget me

In his sleep induced state, Zain throws his leg over one of Liam’s, causing the latter to ditch his notebook and focus on the here and now, not the unknown future, or the answer to the question he falls asleep to: Are you thinking the same thing too?

TRACK 14

Most of the time, waking up after getting less than half the recommended hours of sleep doesn’t make for a happy Liam; he’ll be grumpy for hours and need to chug coffee until it wears off (or honey tea if the reason he’s up early is for a performance), but waking up to his blaring alarm that morning wasn’t as terrible as he expected it to be. With a tattoo covered body spread all over him, how could it be?

Still, Liam makes them both coffee to take on the drive to the park, which the singer does his best to focus on and not get distracted by the way Zain looks in the joggers and red t-shirt of Liam’s he borrowed after his shower the night before.

“The leaves are falling, falling as if from far up,

as if orchards were dying high in space.

Each leaf falls as if it were motioning ‘no’.

And tonight the heavy earth is falling

away from all other stars in the loneliness.

We're all falling. This hand here is falling.

And look at the other one. It's in them all.

And yet there is Someone, whose hands

infinitely calm, holding up all this falling.”

Liam finds himself entranced by Zain’s voice, and the way it makes the words seem less confusing, more profound, like he’s sure they’re meant to be interpreted, he’s just too daft to be able to do himself. Even if Zain knew that, the fact that he would still choose to recite the poem to Liam made the younger male see that his ability to appreciate wasn’t being discounted.

“Rilke,” Zain states as they’re walking out to the football pitch that he’s deemed worthy for their voluntary sulking. “It’s called ‘Autumn’.”

“It was nice.”

“You understood it?”

Scratching his head, Liam looks around at the empty park to make sure they’re alone, as well as to ignore Zain’s judgemental gaze when he says, “Yeah, of course I did.”

“You’re a terrible liar.” Throwing himself onto the ground, Zain looks up at Liam with expectancy for him to do the same. “He’s my favourite poet, German.” After Liam joins him on the grass, Zain continues. “He invented the object poem.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s a poem that describes the finiteness and true reality that a physical object lives.”

Because he can’t grasp what that means for longer than a second, Liam asks what else the famed poet’s written.

“My Holy Book,” Zain sighs dreamily. “In 1929, he published this book, ‘Letters to a Young Poet’, that’s literally just him giving advice to someone who thinks they want to be a poet.” He pauses briefly. “‘Nobody can counsel and help you, nobody. There is only one single way. Go into yourself. Search for the reason that bids you to write; find out whether you would have to die if it were denied you to write’.”

Liam brings his hands up from his sides to rest on his stomach, “Would you?”

“Yeah,” Zain answers simply. “Yeah, I think I would.”

They lay next to each other, left arm pressed up against right, in silence. The early morning sun’s lighting up the sky, and just like Zain had hoped for, Liam starts to feel melancholy. It could be that he’s looking to feel that way, so that’s why it’s so easy to find, but Zain’s taught him how to see things in the life around him, not just look at it. Laying in the middle of the football pitch, distant chirping their only soundtrack to the moment, makes Liam realize how big the world is, and subsequently, how fearful he should be because of it. On the flip side, there’s something about the isolation of the experience that’s starting to evolve into the beauty that Zain had pointed out the night before. He had been kidding about crying when he’d said it, but he could see how, in a similar way to when people cried when they were happy, he could eventually cry from the beauty of sadness. Never would that concept have been one Liam could’ve thought up on his own before Zain; there was just no way.

“Did you bring your earbuds?” Liam fishes out the tangled white chord and hands it over to Zain. “I haven’t given you an explanation of my lyrics in a while. You must be starved for information.”

Mustering up enough energy in his lazy state, Liam throws his body weight into Zain’s side that’s leaning against his. “Be nice to me, I mean well.”

“I know you do,” the writer soothes. “Which is why I was being serious.” He hands over one of the buds for Liam to take. “We’ll start with something easy. No hidden messages, just a song about struggling artists in New York.”

Plugged in, Liam shuts his eyes and waits for the music to start.

Dazed and confused

But most of all battered and bruised

I came with a dream

Shared by more than a few it seems

Fall asleep now, New York City

I need to rest my eyes

Someday I'll rise, New York City

One day you'll dance for me

Delicate guitar picking is almost all the first song is - something Liam’s not at all surprised by. If Zain was going to write stripped down music, of course it was going to include a labyrinth of picking patterns. Or simplistic piano keystrokes rather than full chords, like the second song revolves around.

You don't see it when it's happening

Happens over time

First you're laughing, then you're crying

Then you can't decide

My life's uncertain and sometimes it's strange

But one thing I've learned is it won't stay the same

Even in the darkness, I'll be okay

The sun will come up, the seasons will change

The sun will come up, the seasons will change

The sun will come up, the seasons will change

Liam can guess what the title of the song is without looking, but Zain still tells him it’s the line that gets repeated a countless amount of times towards the second half of the track, and that it’s meant for the listener to take as a mantra, like it closely resembles; for them to repeat in the same way when things get too hard and they need a reminder of how forgiving life is.

But then the next song starts out with the idea that human beings aren’t forgiving at all, that they’re sources of pure pain, and Liam starts to feel that.

When it rains

Yeah, it rains

We can be so unforgiving

It leaves us unforgiven

We're the same

We never change

It's the reason we’re together

We’re just waiting for the weather to pass

I’ve been rolling my days away

Can't turn out the light that keeps me awake

I’ve been trying to sleep for a while

There'll be nothing left to talk about

And no one left to hear

In a while

We’ll throw water on these ashes

And these walls will disappear

For a while

We’ve been caught in the cold light of day

It doesn’t help that the woman who’s singing is heartbreaking in the most gorgeous of ways. Or that the man in the following song conveys the same emotion.

And I'll use you as a warning sign

That if you talk enough sense, then you'll lose your mind

And I'll use you as a focal point

So I don’t lose sight of what I want

And I've moved further than I thought I could

But I missed you more than I thought I would

And I'll use you as a warning sign

That if you talk enough sense, then you'll lose your mind

The acoustic genre lends itself well to the solemn lyrics Zain’s penned for it, but Liam would be lying if he said he wasn’t relieved to hear a track with positive opening lines after so many negative ones.

Not long ago you saw your picture in my wallet

I fumbled the bills to keep it hidden

You said "Stop it, why?"

I wanna run but don't know how

"You keep on worrying

I'm in your back pocket, take me out when you get curious"

It’s an imagery that Liam adores, one that he hopes is about Zain himself and not a fictional character from a French noir film. He’s desperate to believe that the man lying next to him is the type to have a passport sized photo of his lover in his wallet, and then get embarrassed when called out for it. Liam wants to be that photo. He’d do anything to cause the fumbling, not to bring him any sort of compromising emotion, but so he can kiss away the crease lines it brings to Zain’s forehead and tell him he loves him even more for thinking of doing something like that.

Liam thinks it’s going to be a heartwarming song, able to show off how lower production can work the other way and enhance romance, but then he hears the last line of the first verse that Zain’s written.

I don’t want to start again

So much for everlasting love.

Why do we always come up short?

When you fold my world

I barely can breathe, still trapped in the crease

You're wearing out the metaphor

In so many words, just say what you mean

Just say it to me

Blindly, Liam reaches over to pat around Zain’s body until he finds the man’s phone. The sun’s bright in the sky now, so he doesn’t want to have to open his eyes if he doesn’t have to, but he finds it necessary when Zain grabs his hand tightly to stop the progression Liam’s hand is making from pats to tickles.

When they lock eyes, the singer smiles and pulls his hand out of Zain’s grasp. “Be nice,” he reminds the other before quickly swiping the phone that he was looking for and unplugging their headphones.

As much as tapping in to the atypical side of sadness was a good emotional exercise, Liam’s in need of something joyous. “I never played you this, but I’ve only recently decided I’m going to put it on the album.” He takes his own mobile out of his pocket and inserts the headphone jack. “It’s not acoustic, but it’s slow and I’m really happy with how it turned out.”

“Why didn’t it make the cut the first time?”

Liam holds off on pushing play to give Zain a real answer. “You know how you have a list of songs you refuse to sell?”

“Ah, say no more,” and before Liam can give a fuller explanation than that, Zain hits start for him.

In another time, in another place

You would be mine

On a brighter day, under a different sky

Maybe we’d fly

Listening to the song in this setting gives Liam a new appreciation for it. Without the opportunity to go into detail as to why this track wasn’t one Liam wanted to share with anyone else, he can only assume Zain thinks it’s for vulnerable reasons. For the older man, maybe that’s a good reason for having a restricted list, but for Liam, it’s strictly due to loving the song too much to want to share it. While the verses are about a specific person, he left the chorus open to describe how he fell in love as a whole.

Good girl, I knew you were a good girl

That's all I ever fall for, the kind I lose it all for

Yes, I was in the wrong place at the wrong time with the right one

Now you think you're tryna help

But you can't save me from myself

No, you can't save me from myself

With how perceptive he is, there’s no way Zain didn’t pick up on the song being special to Liam because of how he, as Zain would call it, gives in to his “attachment”. He isn’t embarrassed by how quickly he falls in love, Liam just felt like he nailed himself so well, that for once, he wanted to keep that accomplishment to himself.

“Sometimes being able to get your introspection down so clearly makes you want to show it off, and other times you’re just so proud that you want to keep it for yourself.” Zain’s eyes are waiting to meet Liam’s when the singer’s head twists his way. “I can see why you wouldn’t want to put it out. It’s got a sick beat,” Zain adds. “The tape rewinds and nostalgic vibe, I like it a lot. Makes me feel like I’m driving near the beach on a Sunday in the summer.”

Even with my own song, he can make me see new things, Liam thinks to himself, not at all annoyed like he might’ve been towards another person who brought a different vision to his attention than he originally intended the song to have.

He realizes he hasn’t responded in the expected window when Zain’s raising his right eyebrow in question. There’s so much Liam wants to say, though, that’s the thing. About the sensation Zain’s just pulled out from his song, about how extraordinary the man’s eyelashes were, about if he can feel the tension between them at that moment too or if it’s just all in Liam’s imagination.

“Do you like the beach?” The singer whispers so he keeps the moment as exclusive as possible, even if he’s more than certain no one was around at this hour except for a few rogue runners.

“I’ve never been,” Zain smiles softly. “But from pictures and videos, I think the sound you created embodies what the beach might feel like.” Liam nearly darts forward to kiss the male when he turns vulnerable, asking, “Was I close? Is that what the beach feels like?”

Suddenly the mile long eyelashes aren’t sexy to Liam, they’re protection for the immense childlike wonderment that’s taken over Zain’s hazel eyes. “You were spot on.” Liam’s smile grows when Zain’s does, hearing that he’s managed to describe something he’s completely blind to. “I didn’t mean for it to sound that way, but I can hear it now.”

As if on cue, Liam’s stomach rumbles loudly.

“Have you mastered shakshuka yet?”

“Soon,” Liam promises, frowning when Zain chuckles and says, “Which means no.”

“My third album is due in three days, I think I’ve got a good excuse,” the singer argues, taking out his earphone when Zain’s handing over his half of the wire.

“It’s alright, I got a glimpse of your kitchen last night and it’s incredible” Zain confesses while sitting up. “I’ll figure something out. It’ll be like an episode of Chopped.”

“Chopped?” Liam feels like he’s just highly offended the man by not knowing what he’s referring to with the scowl he’s being given.

“The American cooking show?” Zain’s jaw drops even more when Liam shakes his head that it’s not ringing any bells. “You get random ingredients in a basket and then you’ve got to create a meal with it under a time limit. It’s a competition.”

Liam shrugs, “I’m sorry, but I don-”

“Shhh.” Bringing his right pointer finger up to Liam’s lips, Zain hushes him quiet. “Don’t ruin my day off.”

In the least dramatic way possible, Liam rolls his eyes at the request before batting away Zain’s hand and standing up. “You can take an Uber back home. Spend your day off doing that.”

“You would never,” Zain murmurs into Liam’s ear after he too stands and comes up behind the taller male. “Besides,” he says after falling into step with Liam at his side, “that’s not a part of my terms, and I made it clear when we started this that things are to be on my terms, not yours.”

Liam’s just getting over the butterflies that surfaced from Zain’s warm breath on his neck, that he’s only able to scoff in response. They’re way past that point and Zain knows it.

“We can watch this American show of yours while we eat breakfast,” Liam suggests when they’ve reached his truck. “How about that?”

Zain grins victoriously, “Now those sound more like my terms.”

—

“Ooo, ice cream. That’s inventive.” Hand around his cup of tea, Liam keeps his eyes on the flat screen against the wall that’s broadcasting an episode of ‘Chopped’. He’s shoulder’s leaning into Zain’s fully as they kick back on the main couch in his front room.

“No,” Zain refutes strongly. “No it’s not. It’s a cop out in this show and everyone knows it. If you’d watched it before today, you’d know it too.”

Leaning over, Liam turns his head to glare at the man he’s snuggled up with. Once he understood what basket ingredients were, the dessert round’s of bok choy, frozen lemonade, honey, and salted crackers seemed impossible. For a man to somehow figure out a way to mix them into an ice cream seemed creative to Liam, new fan or not. He really didn’t deserve such beratement.

“It’s going to curdle because he aerated the mixture too much before putting it in the ice cream machine, and that’s if it can even solidify,” Zain fumes, completely ignoring Liam’s stare to continue to glower in disapproval at the contestants on screen. “He didn’t give it enough time to churn.”

Liam doesn’t go back to watching the show quite yet, he’s too taken by the passion that normally even tempered Zain has towards the show. “Well, uh, what would you have made?”

“I’ll tell you what I would’ve made,” Zain announces in a tone that tells Liam he hadn’t at all heard that same question just be asked of him; he’s completely disconnected from the man smiling in endearment next to him. “First of all, I wouldn’t have boiled the bok choy, I would’ve diced it into small pieces, and wilted it with the honey to take out most of the vegetable bite that bok choy has. Then while it simmered, I would’ve whipped up a pancake batter - thick,” he emphasizes, “like the American ones, with the salted crackers as part of the binding. Mix in the finished bok choy after straining it and what have you got?”

Zain’s eyes haven’t moved a centimeter from the television, but Liam can tell the question wasn’t rhetorical. “Um, bok choy pancakes?”

“A play on carrot cake.”

Well now Liam just feels like an idiot.

“Take some blueberries and blend them up with the frozen lemonade, cook that on high to warm it up and thicken it. Dash of Himalayan salt to help balance out the sweetness, and because it goes better with a savory flavour like bok choy than table salt.” Liam feels like he should be taking notes. “Drizzle the warm sauce over the pancakes, and sorted.” Taking a pause, Zain brings his mug up to his lips. “Easiest ten grand of all time.”

Forget having followed any of that, he just can’t believe that a human being was capable of coming up with it all in less than a minute like it was a walk in the park.

“What are you?” His tone matches his look of bewilderment aimed straight at the handsome man next to him.

“Full,” Zain replies once he’s swallowed his tea, unphased by Liam’s facial expression.

Truthfully, so was Liam. And the single word response reminded the singer just how much.

As soon as the two got back from the park, Zain was in the kitchen, practically imitating the cooking show and meandering around Liam’s pantry to see what he could throw together for breakfast. Quiche, it turns out.

As much as Liam loves hearing Zain talk music, he loves listening to him talk food even more. It’s apparent how much the man belongs behind a pan by how strongly his passionate energy can be felt by Liam, even when he simply explained the steps he took while putting together the egg dish. There’s the animation that came from Liam hopping up onto the island that’s situated in the middle of the kitchen that gave it away too. The ‘you don’t understand Liam, I want an island in my kitchen so bad. I’ll do anything. The place I’m saving up for has to have it’, that made him glad Zain took the opportunity to go somewhere as far as Shanghai so he could realize his real calling.

On top of the island, Liam found out that Zain’s desperate for a pasta spout too.

‘No Liam, pasta doesn’t come out of a spout. It’s a water faucet installed above your stove so you don’t need to leave the hob to fill your pots. A spout that doles out pasta...what am I gonna do with you?’

And while Liam supported any dream of Zain’s (even if it did mean getting made fun of to understand it), he’s on board with the chef’s desire for more than one oven, the most. It would mean getting fresh out of the oven pineapple bun desserts way more often than he should be having them. You know, if he’s going to be invited ‘round Zain’s flat that far into the future at all.

“What’d I tell you?”

Liam looks back at the TV Zain’s pointing at in time to see the male contestant panicking with the ice cream maker as the clock ticks down.

“Knob,” Zain utters, taking his feet down from the coffee table and moving on to pick up his empty breakfast plate off its edge. “You got a speaker or something to hook up to in here?” He asks once Liam’s joined him with his own bare plate in the kitchen. “So we can listen to stuff while we clean?”

He does, but Liam’s too busy feeling lucky at finding someone to bring him down to earth to immediately respond. ‘Yeah, that’s right, you’re gonna clean with me. You’re not too good for it’ is what Liam really heard Zain say and he couldn’t have been happier.

“The whole house has surround sound,” he finally informs the male.

“Yeah?” Out of his back pocket, Zain produces his phone. “Let me hear it.”

Staring at Zain’s music library, Liam tries to think up a good song that will show off the extensive speaker system that’s been wired to play what Liam tells it to, throughout the entire home at once. It’s gotta be something grand, something full to really flaunt the equipment’s abilities.

Liam’s thumb scrolls through titles until he comes across one that will do exactly what he’s looking for. It’s the one that put Zain - or Icarus rather - on Liam’s radar six years ago, and also the last of the writer’s songs sold to him that Liam’s yet to get a proper explanation of.

The second the string quartet dances through the kitchen, and Liam’s adlibbed harmonies float above them, Zain stops what he’s doing and smiles.

Are we better off believing

What the ignorance suggests?

I wish living life was easy

But mine has been a mess

They say it comes with the seasons

But the seasons come and go

I go blurry when I'm thinking

Is it me or vertigo?

Listening through headphones, one might have to really focus to hear the faint echoes that the end of each line tapers off into, but the clarity of the house’s speakers make them impossible to miss - showcase them even.

Criticized, who am I to give up?

I’m breathing, what's the reason to let up?

Sympathize, who am I to give up?

Putting on my favorite get up

Zain’s abandoned the dishes altogether, coming to lean up against the center island with Liam in anticipation of the powerful chorus that will surely encompass the kitchen in a blanket of blissful intensity.

Are we alive?

Or are we dreaming?

After the ride

Are you leaving?

Are we alive? (Darker days, brighter endings)

Or are we dreaming? (Darker days, brighter endings)

After the ride

Are you leaving? (Darker days, brighter endings)

The dishes stay forgotten as both men prepare themselves for the realism that the second verse carries, not wanting to risk moving from the perfect spot to listen.

I've been better off than broken

I’ve been battered, I've been beat

I wish I was more outspoken

But the words are out of reach

Hmm, thought I loved you in the moment

I was happy, I was young

I've been learning, I've been growing

But the worst is yet to come

Like he does with any song he takes seriously, Liam closes his eyes to let the feeling it brings wash over his senses entirely. It’s ironic considering the outro’s a repetitive

Eyes closed, eyes closed

I've been falling with my

Eyes low, eyes low

but Liam doesn’t care, he keeps them shut until the final note fades into silence and Zain speaks up.

“I remember when I wrote it.”

“And I remember when I heard it,” Liam follows swiftly.

A small nudge is given to Liam’s side by Zain’s elbow. “You first.”

Nearly a quarter of Liam’s life has gone by since the day Zain’s asking him to recall took place, which means Liam’s had all that time to craft a speech that, when spoken, could perfectly convey the emotions he felt upon hearing the prized song. He’s had all those years, but he never thought his relentless requests to get Zain to meet him would actually result in them standing in his kitchen, discussing one of the most impactful songs of Liam’s life. So sadly, he has no speech. He’ll have to cross his fingers, say what comes to his mind, and hope that it all makes sense.

“I’ll be honest,” Liam starts with a sigh. “I didn’t really go into that meeting with an open mind. In fact, I didn’t even know it was a meeting for me to listen to other people’s full songs to buy. I thought I was there to hear mixes producers had made to pick a few to work with. Louis tricked me.”

“Good to know you’ve been a victim of his manipulation as well,” Zain brags smugly. “But you do know I didn’t create the music for that, right? It was sent to me, I only wrote the lyrics.”

“I know,” Liam reassures him, stuck in his emotions too much to remind him that their initial meeting was Liam’s idea, not Louis’ for once. “Harry told me that when I signed the paperwork, but you didn’t know me.” Turning his shoulders towards Liam, Zain looks at the other with undivided interest. “And you don’t write for anyone, I’m not saying that, but those words, listening to them, it was like I wasn’t alone. There was someone out there who had gone through things that made them feel the same emotions. I had no idea what those things were, but that didn’t matter. You’d come out being able to put words to those thoughts and sensations in a way I couldn’t.”

Unable to look Zain in the eye knowing what he’s about to say, Liam looks down at the white marble flooring. “It’s a song about how messy life can get, and at the time, I felt like life was pretty fucking great. I was finally able to make music professionally, for one of the largest labels in the world, my way, no one else’s. I was nervous, sure, but I forgot about all the hardships that I’d had to go through to get to that point because I wanted to focus on living in the moment and enjoy what I’d always dreamed for. Hearing ‘Vertigo’ didn’t make me fall into a slump being reminded of how horrible life was as a teenager - being rejected twice on national television, having been used by, who I thought at the time, was the love of my life, making it out of physical bullying alive - it made me feel at peace with it all. Whoever could put together lyrics that sounded more like an eloquent version of my conscience, rather than a cheesy depiction of life’s rough patches, was someone I wanted to meet.”

When he glances up again, Liam catches Zain’s eyes follow his up from the floor, but he’s not ready to look at them straight yet. “It was like that, song after song. Every time Harry would email me a track of yours, even if it was bare bones and you hadn’t gotten any producers to make it into something other than you and your guitar, I felt understood. People who saw me every day, people I’d known for years, couldn’t examine me that well. I couldn’t even do that.”

Finally, Liam turns his eyes to Zain’s, finding them both accepting and touched by the words that’ve been shared. “I wasn’t annoying with trying to meet you just because I’m an annoying person. I was doing it because I wanted to thank you,” Liam fights himself from letting his eyes dart away. “For not making me feel alone.”

Zain doesn’t look speechless in the typical sense of the word, although he does stay quiet, he seems like he’s ruminating. Trying to come up with something to say that’s sophisticated and poignant like Liam knows him to be. He doesn’t expect to only hear a simple, “you’re welcome.”

He didn’t need a novel in response, that wasn’t it, he was just so used to Zain’s analysis of every breath he took, that Liam thought he’d have a little bit more to say than ‘you’re welcome’.

“Can I play the next one?”

Looking between Zain’s outstretched hand and the man’s phone in Liam’s right, the latter surrenders it over. “Yeah, of course.” He watches as Zain scrolls through his songs and picks one with purpose.

Can your heart be mine in search?

'Cause I have no time to help you find all the words

Melodies and memories, stories that sound absurd

I will tell no lies

Zain’s voice. It’s got Zain’s voice. It’s such a rarity that Liam gets to hear it on a recording, that for the first verse, he lets himself get lost in its velvet rather than try and decipher if Zain’s telling him something through his song choice.

As long as you look me in the eyes

I'll go wherever you are, I'll follow behind

Next to him, Zain can be seen mouthing the words that are pouring out of the room’s speakers, and it makes Liam want to be able to do the same. He’s not always a fan of the autopilot sing-along mode you fall into after listening to a song enough times, he quite likes the early plays of a track where you’re not yet accustomed to the beats, but he feels left out not being able to mouth the words, so he pays close attention to the lyrics from then on to avoid that.

Heard about all the things you've done

And all the wars that you've been in

Heard about all the love you lost

It was over before it began

Heard about all the miles you've gone

Just to start again

Heard about all that you've been through

And it sounds like you need a friend, a friend

Paying attention strikes up that familiar sense of harmony in Liam that comes whenever he listens to one of Zain’s songs that resonate with him closely. There’s no indication of who it’s about, especially when the second verse talks about some sort of love -

Please don't wait, I'm not coming home tonight

I wanna love you but I can't -

but Liam’s ok with that, just like he’s been ok with singing Zain’s songs as his own for years without knowing exactly who, or what, they were about in relation to their author. He’s content simply knowing someone can understand what it’s like to just need another soul to be there and offer a shoulder to lean on.

“That’s what I’m getting at,” he says as soon as the song ends. “A lot of the time I just needed a friend, like, a real one. For the longest time, your words made me see that there was someone out there who could be that. I just didn’t know what they looked like.”

“Did they disappoint?” Zain asks with a smirk that tells Liam the man’s referring to his looks, not his personality.

“Yeah, they smell horrible about 90% of the time.”

The kitchen fills with Liam’s laughter when Zain swats at his arm in gentle retaliation for being insulted.

“I didn’t write that song about anyone,” the older male enlightens on his way back to the sink. “It’s meant to be a conversation between me and what I see looking back in the mirror. It’s the only other song I have that’s not for sale.”

“You feel lost,” Liam theorizes, walking around the countertops to gather the bowls and utensils Zain had used earlier.

“It comes and goes.” A small smile’s given to Liam for the help. “At that moment in time, I was a jumble of nerves, second guessing if changing careers was the right thing to do. I had my heart telling me it was, but that’s a scary thing, you know?” Not in the same way, but Liam can empathize with fear. “Up and abandoning the one thing I’d committed my whole life to, for something that practically came out of nowhere, after just getting signed to the biggest label on the planet.” Zain shakes his head and lets out a pathetic chuckle, “Each time I say it out loud I’m reminded of how crazy I am.”

Liam stays where he is next to Zain when he’s collected all the dirty dishes. “It all worked out.”

“Yeah, I can say that now, but who the fuck knew that back then?” The writer starts to fill up the sink with hot water, which Liam nearly stops from happening to say he’s got a dishwasher, but he doesn’t want to take away from Zain’s normalcy. “Harry could’ve dropped me as a client hearing that I was going to be spending all of my time cooking and not writing like I used to. It was the longest leap of faith I could’ve ever free fallen.” The enormity of his past decisions are evident in Zain’s loud sigh. “Felt like I needed a pep talk every five minutes.”

From a real friend, Liam thinks.

“Have you ever written something that wasn’t from your point of view?”

Liam looks up from where he was staring at Zain twirling liquid soap into the sink. “No.”

“I’ve got a couple others which came out alright.” After putting back the plastic bottle, Zain reaches for his phone that’s been put out of the water’s danger. “They’re from my exes’ point of view.”

The impatient gene in Liam begs him to ask the male if that meant they were from a specific moment in their relationship or just the other person’s life how Zain saw it, but he keeps quiet and grabs a towel to dry the dishes that Zain’s finished washing; which is ironic, considering the initial picture Zain paints for his listener in the song that’s now playing.

Hands in the soap

Have the faucets running

And I keep looking at you

Stuck on your phone

And you’re stuck in your zone

You don’t have a clue

Well this was not what Liam expected when he heard ‘my exes’ point of view’. He thought the lines would have a cocky tone to them; Liam knows Zain has it in him from the other risqué lyrics he hasn’t been afraid to unveil that revolve around himself in other songs. This was difficult to listen to for a different kind of frustrating reason.

But I don’t wanna give up

Baby, I just want you to get up

Lately, I’ve been a little fed up

Wish you would just focus on

Me

Can you focus on me?

Baby, can you focus on me?

Liam can interpret that this is Zain’s non traditional apology for his actions, but if he saw all of this clearly enough to write a song about it, why couldn’t he just give the girl the attention she wanted? He does it with Liam, why not her?

Baby, baby, focus

Can’t you see?

I just wanna love you, baby

Look me in the eyes

And if Liam thought that song was open and honest, the next was brutally so.

You told me I’m beautiful ‘cause I told you you don’t tell me enough

You’re lying next to me ‘cause I told you you don’t touch me enough

Now you told me you’d stay with me ‘cause I told you you’ve been working too much

You told you care for me ‘cause I told you you don’t show me your love

The lyrics force Liam to see Zain for a real person, in a way he hasn’t before this; the writer’s not as perfect as he’s made him out to be. It could be that Liam’s never heard a piece of Zain’s - poetry, short story, song - about his shortcomings, so he’s given the man a symmetrical halo, but Zain’s not a perfect angel. He’s got it in him to be manipulative even. If he can gauge what it’ll take to keep his lover around, if only just barely, then he’s a far cry from idealistic.

Don't you think that we're too old to play your game?

And we ain't go through all of this to stay the same

But you can pick a player just so I can get my way

And I think you do this 'cause you realise I won't wait

I see right through every look in your eyes

I hear right through every fairytale lie

Won't say a word, but the stories you write

They tell me enough

Liam can imagine he’d be pissed too if he wasn’t being given any attention, and the reason why was because Zain was creating love stories on paper.

“Does he or she know you wrote those?” He asks, reminding himself that Zain’s a good guy. Every second he’s spent with Liam has only reinforced that; he’s never deceived him. He wouldn’t do that to Liam, he promised with his soft touch and unyielding confessions. Zain is good.

“He and she,” the writer corrects in a less than proud tone. “Didn’t learn my lesson the first time.”

Momentarily, Liam can feel his guards start to rise, but he shoves them down. Zain is good.

“But no, they don’t.” Water droplets fling everywhere when Zain shakes out his hands. “I never told them my pen name, and I didn’t want to have to deal with their reaction when someone big bought my stuff, since they’d probably want me to introduce them. I’m sure some of them would’ve understood why I wanted to stay a secret, but I didn’t want that headache, so I just never brought it up.”

He knows he’s naive a lot of the time, but Liam imagines that it wouldn’t be all that hard to figure out Zain was hiding something as big as being a songwriter. “They just thought you had your sitting room set up for fun?”

“They thought I was trying to make it, not that I have.” With his hands dry and dishes too, Zain slips his mobile into his pocket and nods towards the kitchen’s exit. “Speaking of which, let’s get back to yours and record your vocals for the song we came up with last night. You’ve only got a few days left to finish up this album, right?” Liam nods as he folds up the towel he was using. “We can write a point of view song for your next one.”

Gone are any reservations about Zain’s character that might have emerged in the last ten minutes, Liam’s back to feeling convinced the chef’s as good as they come. He plans to see Liam after their current work assignment, and to collaborate nonetheless. Face split in half by an overly enthusiastic smile, Liam consents, “Deal.”

—

Driving Zain home later that night, Liam’s on cloud nine. They’d spent the entire day replacing Zain’s vocals with his for the song that’s now known as ‘Act 1’, derived from it marking the beginning of Zain’s spontaneous sing-rapping. It isn’t fully mastered yet, Liam would do that later, but what had him beaming the entire hour drive was the last minute song they’d constructed after Zain had asked if Liam had any lyrics to put to the beat he’d been using to train Zain in advanced producing with. It was a ten minute blur after that.

Both men took out their songwriting books and started to piece together lines they had written randomly during their time together over the past month in an effort to mix and match them to create a cohesive song.

Liam’s eyes were wide with excitement the entire time their memories were laid next to each other to make sense.

The night on the bus Liam had finally confessed his heartbreak of 2008,

You go searching for paradise

You sit back and close your eyes

We're burning, yet so alive

How he described his paradise, mixed with his imagery from the night before and a few lines they’d invented from watching a screaming match from seven floors high.

And now you've got your hands up

Hoping you catch the high

Feels like the summer time

Chasing the northern lights, oh

Don't like watching your momma cry

You say you'd rather die

She says you're wasting your life

Zain did make a slight tweak to Liam’s smoking line for the pre-chorus however, adding a specific type of cigarette. ‘It’ll elicit more of a sensory take over than just a black and white fag.’

Oh, life don’t stop the more we pray

All your wrongs from yesterday

Smokin’ himalayan haze

Won’t wash all your sins away

The chorus came from the lines Zain had thought up out of thin air one night at the studio after Liam did his best to avoid talking about Lauren and learned about Zain’s favourite meals instead.

Hate don’t give

Love don’t rewind all the good times

All the dollars you’ll spend

Give it up for nights like this

Don’t give into overthinking

Pour a drink when it ends

Inspired by their morning in the kitchen, Liam came up with a couple lines on the spot -

Do you hear me through your speakers?

So much distance, space between us -

to add to the four of five they already had for the second verse, handpicked from their extensive people watching commentary.

Say you're dreaming and I’ve been, too

And no-one knows what you’ve been through

And I've been thinking a little deeper

Contemplation, getting cleaner

See no leaders, need more teachers

I'm in shambles, I don't sleep much

Add a couple loops of the chorus and ‘Paradise’ was born.

It’s too contemplatively slow to be a single, but it’s hands down Liam’s favourite song on the album. He needs to fix a few of his vocal runs that sound good, but need to be flawless, and then it’ll be pushed on to mastering like ‘Act 1’.

The track isn’t about love, not in a positive sense or negative, even though it does include elements of what Liam’s ‘paradise’ consists of. It’s magically thought proving, and after learning how several of Zain’s songs were made from throwing together scraps of leftover thoughts, Liam couldn’t have been more delighted to learn that they had enough material to be able to do that for him. It’s the album’s missing track that Liam had sought out a month ago when, out of desperation, he thought up his trick of a meeting. He could go into Thursday at peace now; after more than two years, the third album finally had his stamp of approval.

“Are you sure you don’t want to spend the night?” Zain’s seat belt comes undone when they pull up to his flat, but the man stays in his seat. “My energy tank’s at about sixty percent instead of it’s normal zero. I reckon that’d get you about five minutes of foreplay before I fall asleep.”

Liam’s eyes squish closed at the suggestive humour, which only makes Zain’s get as close to squished as his get. “As tempting as that sounds, I’m going to have to pass. I told you, I need to work on mastering the new songs. Especially ‘Paradise’,” Liam rubs at his eyes, feeling his own exhaustion hit at the amount of work that needs to get done. “That was so last minute that it’s going to take me awhile to get it fully rendered. Then I’ve got to switch around the track order to fit the new stuff in.” If it weren’t for Zain being there, Liam would’ve taken out his phone and started making a to-do list before he forgot all of this.

“You’re gonna do that tonight?”

Zain’s question has Liam looking at the sports car’s illuminating clock. 10:11PM. “If I’ve got the time, yeah.” It’ll be past eleven by the time he gets home, but maybe he could listen to the tracks while the new ones processed to save time.

“Alright, well, thanks again for driving me home.” The grip Zain’s got on his backpack that’s full of Saturday night’s work clothes and his songwriting book tightens as he shifts to open the car door. “And for the creative outlet.”

“You can cook me breakfast anytime,” Liam smooth talks, hoping that his charming smile will work in his favour like Harry claims it can.

“Yeah,” Zain pushes his door open, “I’m still waiting on mine.”

“After Thursday, I promise.” Because of the low nature of the car, Liam needs to lean over to be able to still see the other male outside. “You’ll have shakshuka fit for a king.”

“Says the person who thought ice cream in the dessert round on Chopped was inventive.”

Liam scowls at both the door being closed and the remark.

Before he walks up to his flat, Zain sticks his head through the passenger side window that he rolled down twenty minutes into the ride. “Night babe,” the writer says with a wink to go along with his overly sweet smile.

Just for the taunting, Liam catches himself thinking about waking up the neighborhood with his V8 engine. If it weren’t for the attention it would bring to his celebrity, he’d do it. Instead, he waits until Zain gets into his flat and waves from his front room window to show that he’s gotten in safely. Then he leaves skid marks in the pavement. Just small ones though. Who would he be to buy a pure bred lion, if not to let it roar every once and awhile?

——

Estimated time remaining: 43 minutes

More than enough time to make a cup of tea, Liam estimates when he sees how long the latest rendering will take. Or coffee, this is going to be an all night thing.

As he leans against the quartz countertop waiting for his water to boil, Liam reflects on how badly he wants a dog. The eerie silence of the mansion beyond the bubbling kettle was too much for him, even at 1AM when it was justifiable.

To pass the time, Liam takes out his phone and scrolls through his texts, replying to a few that had gotten away from him while he was mixing. He hesitates on looking at his emails, too afraid of Louis’ name being there, but when he gives in and opens the app decorated as an envelope, he’s shocked to see another - Zain Malik.

Subject: Talk to Me

Since when do we email each other? Liam thinks. Plus, I just saw you like a couple hours ago. What could you want to talk about over email?

I planned on giving this to you today, but then we came across the grass in the wind last night and I knew I wanted to switch out the shakers in the chorus for it.

Liam’s eyes dart down to the bottom of the email to see two attachments.

I included the final MP3, as well as the raw file, in case you like it and want to use it for the album. Hopefully you get this before you come up with the final track list.

You wrote another song? When have you had the time? You’ve been with me nearly every night for the past week.

Consider this my final project submission for Producing 101 taught by Professor Payne, while also simultaneously acting as my proof to you that I remembered your version of “wining and dining”.

Liam’s heart starts to beat quickly as his brain puts two and two together.

Early on, you told me that if someone ever wrote you a poem, they’d never be able to get rid of you. Well, it’s not a poem, and I can only imagine what this is going to do to your attachment, but I’m willing to take that risk.

- Z

P.S. (because you seem like the type to see the romance in post scripture) - I’m also willing to do extra credit if this doesn’t get me a pass.

Before that explanation, Liam hadn’t even known what P.S. stood for, yet Zain was spot on; he did love the old school sentiment.

Liam’s thumb hesitates pressing down on the attachment for it to load. Normally he’d be impatient to listen to a song written by Zain sent his way, but this wasn’t just any song. It was a song for him, for Liam. There was no need to speculate who or what Icarus Kalim was writing about. Liam had it right there in black and white.

To make sure the first time he listens to the song is as perfect as he can get it to be, Liam hooks up his phone to the home’s surround sound, much like he had with Zain’s earlier that day.

One. Two. Three.

The picking of an acoustic guitar blasts through the kitchen, soft in its tone, but loud in its volume. There’s a morphed version of Zain’s voice singing along to the notes being played by the strings, and for Zain not knowing much about producing to start out with, it’s actually pretty impressive.

You look through

The fear of the world

The way that you say the things that you do

I've been through

All of the games, all of the ways that you been fooled

Zain’s voice is so gentle, so real and convincing in the way he sings, that that would’ve been enough for Liam to cherish the song, but he’s already all in with the lyrics. Mostly because he still can’t get over that they’re about him.

It was his image that Zain’s seen in the papers for years -

I know I’ve seen your face

In different times and places -

but only recently gotten the pleasure of meeting in person. And Liam knows, needs zero confirmation, that Zain would be as proud as ever that his budding producing skills are making Liam start to dance around his kitchen the second the chorus hit.

Come get a little closer

I wanna get to know ya

We ain't keeping no secrets

Start with our sheets between us tonight

Talk to me, let's go deeper

You already know I need ya

We ain't keeping no secrets

I wanna see you, leave on the lights

Talk to me, talk to me

The last line continues to repeat for the remainder of the chorus, as does Liam’s dancing feet. The man’s overlayed the adlib singing that was at the top of the song with his techno additions to the guitar and it sounds genius.

Say your peace

The words that come out, out of your mouth, I wanna hear

We can be

Something divine, planets align where we should be

It was a corny thought to have, but Liam’s glad Zain agrees - the universe brought them together. Two people from completely different lifestyles, born in completely different parts of the country, finding each other in the most unconventional of ways, only to not even know one another’s real names for six years after that - there was no other way to explain it other than yeah, planets aligned in their favour. Hearing that his words never fell on deaf ears with Zain was the cherry on top.

In fact, as he’s swaying around the kitchen when the chorus comes around again, Liam can’t help but think that the topic of talking is as fitting as Zain could’ve written about. In an attempt to tame the younger male’s impatience, the older had been the one to suggest they just talk about themselves before they dove head first into creating music together. It had been a constant for them. Any time either of them got uncomfortable, or whenever inspiration was needed, they’d just talk. Simple as that. No secrets, only deep thoughts.

But it’s the short bridge, hollow with hardly any instruments accompanying Zain’s voice, that triggers something in Liam.

Baby, in my head

We can love forever

Here in my bed

Where we lay together

Could forever really be something that Zain’s thought about? Or was this some sort of illusion that Liam wasn’t getting, only too callow to think anything other than the writer had the desire to spend his life with Liam? It was far too big of an assumption to make and get wrong, so he chooses to shove it way far back in his brain. What he didn’t ignore however, was the urge to write a response.

A cup of tea and about ten repeat listens later, Liam’s back in front of his mixing boards, except this time, not to finish mastering his album, but to hopefully write another song to add to it.

By being the first of the two to create a musical gesture, Zain had given Liam’s impatience the green light; whatever cheesy, infatuation filled mess this song came out to be, Liam couldn’t be blamed.

Impatience.

Picking up his pen, Liam begins flipping it around as he repeats the word in his mind. Yeah, that definitely needs to be included.

You make me super impatient

Well that’s a start, Liam jokes with himself as he stares at the five words he’s just written on an already messy page in his songwriting notebook, laid out from earlier in the day when he and Zain were going through their books for miscellaneous thoughts to include in ‘Paradise’.

Ripping out a fresh piece of paper, he goes through his notebooks and writes down all of the miscellaneous lines that he was forced to keep hidden from Zain, too embarrassed to admit that he’d been jotting down random thoughts about the poet this whole time.

The last two finds are from the past twenty four hours -

Can you feel the tension?

You’ve got my attention

and

Just promise you won’t forget me -

but Liam doesn’t limit himself to his songwriting books, he checks his text thread with Zain in case there are any pieces of gold from banter to pull from there too. There’s not a lot of material unfortunately, just a lot of Zain leaving him on read.

I’m here outside when you’re ready

Staring at the text, Liam evaluates its potential. It’s not really special, very mundane the more Liam repeats it in his head, but Zain wouldn’t think that. It’s like he had tried to explain to Liam - the boring, everyday notions are the ones that often get overlooked, yet they’re actually the most meaningful. Liam copies down the text.

His head replays the nights he’s picked up Zain from the restaurant, a smile instantly coming to his lips when he remembers when Zain had yelled at him for getting distracted with the raindrop races and leaving him to get wet.

You locked the door and it’s raining!

Right after he writes down the memory, he adds

But baby I’m not complaining

He doesn’t have enough quality lines to piece together an entire song, but what he does have is a good start. It’s enough to spark a creative flame in him, which feels like it’s growing exponentially now that his mind’s finally being allowed to unleash what it thinks about Zain, in music form.

Anxiety kicks in with the inundation of ideas, both lyrically and with what direction he wants to take with the sound of the song. Lines are starting to pop up quicker than he can write them, all while his feet are tapping out possible beats. Liam needs help. And fast.

“Niall, yeah, hi, it’s Liam.” With his left hand, Liam starts up his electronic drum kit that’s in the corner of his studio. “No, I’m good. Sorry, I know it’s late,” quickly he pulls his phone away from his ear to see that it’s 1:28 AM. “Look, if you’re not busy-”. Liam pauses plugging in his guitar amps, “Yes, I realize that civilized people are sleeping at this hour, I was just being formal.” He moves on to the one for his bass, “Look, I’m writing this song at the moment and I need you to come over and help record my vocals. By the time you get here I’ll probably have the instruments done, it’s a fast one.” With everything ready to go, Liam takes a seat back in front of his computer to save what’s there and open a new production file. “I’ve got leftover Guinness in the fridge from when you were here last that’s calling your name.” He rolls his eyes at the response that garners. “No, I haven’t added Guinness to the tap downstairs.” Pausing with his mouse clicks, Liam leans back in his chair. “Because you’re the only one I know that drinks it and installing a keg of it in my wet bar would be a waste of a tap.” Liam drags his left hand over his face, “Fine. I’ll consider putting Guinness on my tap, but you’ve gotta get here as soon as possible otherwise I’m putting in a German IPA.”

A satisfactory smile graces Liam’s lips as he hits end call. “As if I have a free spot in the bar for another beer on tap…”

TRACK 15

“You should really sleep.”

Liam barely looks up from the computer, “I took a nap a few hours ago.”

“And one yesterday afternoon, but those are the only two times you’ve closed your eyes since I got to your place Monday night,” Niall counters, while he packs up his things. “It’s almost midnight, Wednesday. Didn’t you say your meeting with the execs is tomorrow?”

“At two,” Liam specifies, still distracted.

“So, fourteen hours from now?” Shaking his head in disapproval, Niall swipes his keys from the side of the keyboard Liam’s furiously using as an editing device. “You’re crazy.”

Liam finally pays attention to his friend when Niall’s putting a hand on his shoulder.

“The song sounds great,” the Irishman affirms with kind eyes that calm Liam’s chaotic brain down for a few seconds. “The album sounds amazing. Don’t kill yourself any more, ok?”

As a fellow musician, Niall’s sure to understand the perfection Liam’s striving for with his work. They may not make the same type of music, but Liam knows that if the roles were reversed and Niall needed help producing a song out of his head under a time crunch, he’d be there for his mate in a flash.

“I won’t,” Liam responds tiredly. “And thank you again, for helping me these past forty eight hours. I owe you.”

A small squeeze is administered to Liam’s shoulder before Niall takes off for the door. “The Guinness Payno, the Guinness.”

Rocking back and forth in his chair, Liam bypasses his mind’s ‘like hell I’m putting in Guinness’ and smiles instead. “I told you I would, didn’t I?”

“Remind me to play you in poker one day,” Niall quips as he opens the door of the studio to let himself out. “You’re a shite liar.”

Even after Niall leaves with a “let me know how the lad likes his song!”, Liam still narrows his eyes at the closing door. Bloody face giving away all my emotions.

When he’s left alone for the first time in nearly two days, Liam takes in the silence. He looks around at the room that he and Niall had migrated to that morning when Harry had managed to sweet talk his way to securing a studio for them to work from in his building. They’re only available for people signed under the publishing part of Sony, so Liam feels guilty for having to use Zain’s name as the booking party, but Louis insisted there was no way he could get a studio at Sony’s main offices and Harry had said that the chef hadn’t minded when he asked if he could book it under his name. Still, when Zain got there, Liam planned on showering him with ‘thank you’s’.

When Niall’s last words finally register and Liam’s over being ridiculed for his lousy facial betrayal, he starts to wonder just how Zain will react to the song Liam had spent so much energy on. Admittedly, it was a last minute put together, but that didn’t mean Liam thought of the song he’d titled ‘Outta My Head’ as a second rate. In fact, quite the opposite; he adored the tune. And even if Zain thought of it as overwhelmingly trite with its name being the bulk of the repetitive chorus, Liam still loved it. It’ll still stay as Track 9 on LP3 and he’ll still dance to it every time he performs it to a crowd of thousands.

“So I failed that badly, huh?” is the first thing Zain says when he walks through the studio’s door an hour later, a trail of Chinese spices right behind him as usual.

Liam swivels in his chair and stands up, already prepared for such a remark when he sent the man a text that morning thanking him for the studio pass and also asking him to join after work in order to get his extra credit assignment. “You passed with flying colours,” Liam smirks, pulling Zain in by his black tee and kissing him to prove his words.

“I’m gonna have to report you to the Dean if you’re using your students then.” Licking his lips after they part, Zain takes his hat off and places it on Liam’s head.

“It got you here, didn’t it?” Liam turns the hat backwards to he can keep his face close to Zain’s without the brim getting in the way.

“You already know I need ya,” Zain sings quietly, which only makes Liam grin from ear to ear.

“I love it more every time I listen to it.” Looking down, Liam watches Zain unzip his backpack. “And I’ve listened to it a lot in the past couple days.”

“When you didn’t say anything, I was a little worried.” Zain hands over the thermos he’s fished out of his bag, the warmth telling Liam that it’s green tea.

“No, no, that wasn’t it at all,” the singer rushes to get out. Both of his hands cradle the thermos, a wave of fondness crashing over him at the unsolicited gesture. “I was busy working on something else, which is why I brought you here.” He motions for Zain to follow him to the two rolling chairs that are in front of the mixing boards, one closer to the room’s main computer than the other. “What kind of impatient person would I be if I didn’t write you a song immediately after you wrote me one?”

Zain’s biting the inside of his lip when Liam turns to gaze his reaction. He looks like he wants to say a whole hell of a lot at that, but he’s stopping himself to avoid coming off as the eager one. “Let’s hear it then,” he nods to the computer screen, eyes still sparkling with ardor.

Play.

I'm here outside when you’re ready

Bring out the shots and confetti

I'll take you home if you let me

Just promise you won’t forget me

A simple, live drum kit sets the tempo, accompanied by a jazzy bass guitar on top of it - chosen specifically because Liam thought the instrument matched Zain’s demeanor better than a synth or piano did. It’s a slow build up - much like their getting to know each other the past month. Only when the pre-chorus hits, did Liam allow for an electric guitar to unleash more excitement on the track.

'Cause the days get brighter when you're here

So I gotta keep you near

Goin' crazy and I just can't get you outta my head

Love is in the atmosphere, you can feel it in the air

Gettin' hazy and I just can't get you outta my head

Glancing to his side, Liam can feel his heart stutter at the wide smile Zain’s finally let himself show.

Ooh-woah, ooh-woah

Ooh-woah, ooh-woah (My)

Ooh-woah, ooh-woah

Ooh-woah, ooh-woah (My head)

There’s not much to the chorus, and it’s not because Liam couldn’t come up with anything better than to show off his falsetto either. He kept it simple because of the way he knew Zain would light up at the dancing Liam wouldn’t be able to hold himself back from.

For the second count of the chorus, Liam moves his shoulders back and forth, eyes closed shut and peaceful grin present as he does so. And because the song’s free spirited in its sound, Liam stays like that until he hears Zain laugh wholeheartedly at the first line of the second verse.

You locked the door and it’s raining

Liam adjusts the hat on his head as a symbol to Zain’s punishment for him that night, and sings along to the following line to keep the man’s smile.

But baby, I’m not complaining, no

We hit the road and we're racin’

You make me super impatient

Zain’s eyebrows rise in good humour as if to say, ‘Oh trust me, I know I do’.

Can you feel the tension?

You've got my attention

I know we're just friends

But I'd rather be together instead

The bold statement comes and goes as the pre-chorus takes over, but Liam still watches to see if Zain’s alright with hearing something so forward. The other had used ‘forever’ in his song, so Liam didn’t think this was nearly as damning, yet the nerves were still there.

Zain hardly blinks an eye. Instead, his fingers are twitching with the short electric guitar chords that can be heard behind Liam’s vocals.

Spotting the movements, Liam gets out of his seat quickly, apologizing when Zain gets startled by the sudden movement, and then going straight for the electric guitar that Niall left plugged in to its recording source.

As soon as Liam hands it over to Zain, it’s as if the older man’s automatically in another zone. His fingers magnetize to the frets, taking the pick that’s being offered without hesitation.

“I was hoping you’d feel something,” Liam confesses over the repeating ‘ooh-woah’, referencing the guitar picking Zain’s playing around with. “The bridge was left plain because I wanted you to fill it with a solo. Play whatever comes to you, ok?”

In a motion of acknowledgement, Zain nods, head bent down to watch his left fingers float around the neck of the electric guitar.

Right after the sound of space shuttle take off that Liam included as a nod to their conversation about space and aliens, the man hits record and waits for fireworks.

Zain stays towards the bottom end of the neck, producing higher notes each time his right hand plucks the string that’s being vibrated back and forth with his corresponding left pointer finger. That’s the sound he stays with too - the higher pitched notes created through string bending. That register sounds incredible against Liam’s lower range voice that keeps repeating ‘my head’ throughout the bridge - exactly what Liam was hoping for.

He’s in awe the more he watches his perfect vision come to life, beside himself when Zain uses the middle finger of his hand that’s holding the triangular pick to press down on a string that’s holding a note already, changing that sound to a higher pitch for the split second his finger pushes down on the string. Then, Zain goes back to using the plastic pick held between his right thumb and pointer finger like the move wasn’t just one Liam didn’t even know existed until then.

For the remainder of the song - only one last round of the chorus - Zain plays along with the recorded bass.

“You wanna do another take?” The man asks when the song finishes and Liam doesn’t do much of anything other than stare at the guitar in his hands.

“You’re brilliant.”

There’s no sign of agreement on Zain’s face, rather he shrugs off the compliment. “I’ve had an electric guitar in my hand since I was ten. My Dad bought it for me when I started taking the songwriting thing seriously. He found it at a thrift shop, so I didn’t really have much of a choice between that or acoustic.” He stands the guitar up to lean against the producing counter. “Whenever I wasn’t writing or reading, I was usually by myself watching TV or hanging out with my friends. I’d just keep the guitar on my lap and mindlessly pluck strings. I didn’t know what I was doing,” Zain flicks the pick that was in his hand at Liam’s chest. “Once the muscle memory kicked in from years of experimentation, hours of just laying around with a guitar on my lap watching Spider-Man and using a pick, I started to sound decent. The sounds in my head, I could reproduce.”

“How come you don’t know how to make music outside of basic piano and guitar solos then?” After locating the plastic that got stuck in a ripple on his hoodie, Liam plays with the pick in his palm. “If you can hear music in your head, and you write the lyrics, then you should be able to get it out like you can guitar solos.”

“Maybe it’s like you with your songwriting.”

Liam cocks his head in curiosity at Zain’s comparison.

“I told you, you didn’t need me to teach you how to write deeper or find the best way to get your emotions across,” the older man explains. “I knew that it was in you, I just happened to be the one to coax it out of you easier than you could with yourself. Maybe you’ve done that with my musical abilities.”

“Your song was ace,” Liam praises, feeling a bit guilty that by being so busy working on this new song, he’d left Zain thinking that he wasn’t impressed. Or flattered. “I mean that.”

“So’s yours.” Under the counter, Zain hooks his ankle with Liam’s. “I mean that. Every last word and note were sick. Thank you.”

Out of the inability to craft any response other than ‘you’re welcome’, Liam stays silent and instead, trails his eyes over the other’s grateful facial expression. There’s an authenticity to it that Liam doesn’t doubt, but he can also see the dark circles starting to form under Zain’s eyes from another start to the work week, day two. A whole new guilt drowns Liam at the sight.

Even though cooking is what Zain loves to do, Liam hates to see him work himself so hard. If Zain lets him, Liam wants to make up for all the late night’s he’s kept him up over the past month, be the one to help the chef wind down and relax as much as possible. After a long day, he’d be able to look to Liam as his net of serenity to count on.

“Let me hear what ‘Talk To Me’ sounds like with your voice on it,” Zain asks excitedly, the zeal disappearing as soon as Liam replies with “I didn’t touch it”.

The writer’s face screws up in perplexion. “I’m confused. I thought you said you loved it.”

“I did,” Liam enforces with gusto to regain Zain’s trust in his words. “That’s exactly why I didn’t open the raw file. You wrote it for me,” he stares at the other man, hoping that Zain can read how seriously Liam took the gift. “No one else deserves to hear it.”

Keeping his eyes glued to Zain’s, Liam can feel himself start to smile at the prideful, shy expression that so rarely comes from the older man. Liam isn’t a liar either (discounting the occasional white lie to get Louis off his back or keep Niall happy), he meant what he said with everything in him.

“I do want to write a song about the concept of talking though,” Liam adds. “It’s us,” the right side of Zain’s lips turn up at the flagrant claim, “you captured that perfectly. I think people could do with hearing about the simplicity of just slowing down and listening to someone.”

“I agree.”

Liam’s eyes widen when the man goes to pick up the electric guitar again. “Whoa, I meant in the future.” The words don’t phase Zain, who’s adjusting the instrument on his lap. “Louis already wants to skin me for working this close to the deadline and that’s with him under the impression that I’m just putting finishing touches on things.” Liam watches on as Zain starts to randomly pick. “I didn’t dare tell him I needed the studio to finish a song I started two days ago.”

“He doesn’t scare me,” Zain says over the sound of the guitar. “He’s all bark and no bite anyway. Or at least that’s what he seems.” The last part seems like the man’s attempt at saving face on the off chance Liam gets offended by the observation of his manager, but Liam’s the furthest thing from offended. In fact, he can’t stop himself from laughing at how right Zain had gotten his best mate.

The arbitrary playing stops as the older male looks over to Liam. “Weren’t you the one who said they wanted someone who’s spontaneous?”

“Yeah,” the singer replies, no feelings of regret at his words being used against him; Zain’s question had been presented in a way that he knows the answer, he just wants Liam to hear himself say it.

“Well then?” Zain purses his lips and raises his eyebrows in challenge. “Render the guitar on my track and we’ll start throwing around ideas, see if anything sticks.”

Hearing Zain refer to Liam’s newest track as ‘his’ brings a new warmth to Liam’s chest. It is Zain’s, it would always be his, even if it got brought up in interviews and he had to deny it was about anyone in specific for the sake of Zain’s anonymity. Liam did wonder though. Now that they were both open with their feelings towards each other, where do they go from here?

“If we don’t finish, then fuck it,” Zain curses, going back to playing around with the endless possibilties six strings and a pick could create. “For the fourth album.”

Liam likes the sound of that. They’ve got nothing to lose other than more sleep. “For the fourth album,” he repeats to himself, soaking in the twangs of the guitar that fill the studio.

“Now, you were right,” the tone Zain uses is bordering on analytic, which means Liam knows he’s to pay close attention to what’s coming next. “The concept’s straight forward, so I say we just do something really simple, no fancy vernacular.”

Taking a sip out of his thermos for the night, Liam stares adoringly at his six year fantasy come to life.

—

“Hey Zain?”

Liam’s whisper sounds frail traveling across the quiet studio to the exhausted man curled up on the sofa, but the shift in Zain’s shoulders tells Liam he hasn’t fallen victim to sleep just yet. He should, considering they’ve worked nonstop for the past six hours putting together a song Liam thinks has massive potential to be one of his biggest hits, but he wants to know the answer to a couple of things before he puts his ear phones on to leave the studio in silence for Zain to get proper shut eye.

“Hmm?”

The tired murmur pulls at Liam’s heart strings, but he’ll make it easy on the man. A few words and then he’ll start working on the technical parts of finishing up a song - the equalizing, tweaking of output frequencies, things that Zain didn’t need to be a part of.

“Real quick,” Liam addresses. “What’d you mean when you wrote that I see through the fear of the world?” It’s a line that has him stumped every time he listens to the masterpiece Zain wrote for him. He’s got a few guesses, but assumptions aren’t what Liam wants to make for something so important.

“You’ve been through so much shit,” the stretched out figure answers. “And you still are, being famous and all that.” Zain hugs the sofa’s extra throw pillow close, “Not letting it get to you anymore. You’re brave.”

Liam’s eyes drop down to the carpet, unsure how to process such a huge word or the sincerity in which Zain had said it. Like he couldn’t have been more sure of something in is life.

“And the forever part?”

In my head, we can love forever

“When you date a poet, your soul never dies.” Zain keeps speaking softly, but that was all Liam needed to hear to know he’d be hopeless after hearing the rest. “If we fall in love-” Yeah, asking for this was a bad idea. “I’ll never run out of ways to write about it.” A yawn slips past Zain’s lips, “And when we die, all of those songs or poems I do write, they’ll live forever, even though we won’t.”

Before he can stop himself, Liam gets up from his chair and pads over to where Zain’s cracked open an eye to see what the commotion’s all about. “I’ll wake you up later,” Liam whispers as he kneels down in front of the couch. “At the very last minute.” His lips ghost over Zain’s forehead, “I promise.”

The small smile that Liam’s gentle kiss brings to Zain’s face is what the younger man plans on using as his energy to get through the next few hours.

TRACK 16

Can we just talk? Can we just talk?

Talk about where we're goin'

Before we get lost, lend me your thoughts

Can't get what we want without knowin'

I've never felt like this before

I apologize if I'm movin' too far

Can we just talk? Can we just talk?

Figure out where we're goin'

Seeing the president of the label and the other executives bob their heads back and forth lets Liam breathe a huge sigh of relief. The group sitting across from him and Louis weren’t the easiest to please, and although Liam was one of their best selling artists, the singer wasn’t blind to their anger when he had requested for this meeting to be pushed back a month. Thank god they liked what came of their reluctant approval, otherwise he would’ve been in massive trouble.

Oh, I've been dreamin' 'bout it

And it's you I'm on

So stop thinkin' 'bout it

“Could you have made it any more obvious that this is about you and mystery man?”

Louis’ breath in Liam’s right ear doesn’t come as any surprise. With the entire second verse a reference to his and Zain’s night at the Leicester Square hotel, save a few details that they had to change for rhyming and aesthetically pleasing reasons, Liam couldn’t argue the fact.

Penthouse view, left some flowers in the room

I'll make sure I leave the door unlocked

Now I'm on the way, swear I won't be late

I'll be there by five o'clock

The track’s got Billboard Top Ten written all over it, and even though Liam was dead set on using his catchy R&B Pop ‘Try’ as his lead single for ages, he was willing to take a risk and switch it out for ‘Talk’ instead.

“We agree,” the oldest of the executives says when Liam voices his opinion. “It’s perfect for the landscape at the moment.” Liam beams in pride. “And a good introduction to the album.”

“Good job Liam,” the one with the hideous polka dot tie puts in. “We reserved December 6th for the release date in the event this album listen went well.” Liam looks around as the professionals start to pack up their things. “I hope you’re ready for the next six weeks. They’re gonna be busy ones.”

“I am,” Liam nods firmly, shaking the hands of the men who stand to leave. “Thank you so much. Really, I’m so glad you all like it.”

“We’ll share a bottle of champagne when it goes number one.” The president turns to Louis, extending his hand out to the manger. “Louis, can we speak in my office? It’s November 1st, I want that single released as soon as possible. Let’s figure out scheduling for the next month. If we can get the music video shot next week, that’d be ideal.”

“Next week?” Louis’ jaw nearly drops.

“Liam’s name holds power,” the president reminds him. “And so does money.” Liam smirks to himself as he checks his phone for messages, knowing how pissed Louis’ going to be having to rush everything for a December 6th release day. “We’ll make it simple - a few dancers, colourful lenses, a compartmented sound stage. Nothing that will take extensive planning or cost a lot. Sound alright Liam?”

Liam pockets his phone and nods hastily, “Yeah, that works.”

“Then it’s settled. Louis, let’s talk.”

The smaller male glares at Liam. “You’re buying all of my drinks tonight,” he growls as they exit the boardroom at each other’s sides.

“Tomorrow,” Liam amends. “I’m going home to sleep until then. Don’t call me.”

“I’ll call you if I bloody well need to,” Louis mumbles as they go their separate ways.

But thankfully he doesn’t. And true to his word, Liam does buy all ten beers he drinks at the soho club they go to the next night. The deep, pulsing beats of the room make Liam’s Patron induced dizziness that much sweeter, but each time he dances to a particularly upbeat track and doesn’t see a familiar smile of amusement, he’s reminded that someone incredibly important was missing. It was a bittersweet night of celebration because of that, and it makes Liam wonder what life will be like now with Zain.

So, when he meets up with the man for an extremely late dinner early the next week, he doesn’t hesitate in bringing it up.

“You missed a good party Friday…”

Zain uses the tongs on the side of the hot pot that’s centered in their table to add more beef to the soup mixture. “Too many people. High profile people,” he corrects himself. “And it was a Friday, I was tired.”

That didn’t stop you before, Liam thinks, worried that maybe things weren’t as ideal as they’d seemed in the thick of it all.

“How are we gonna work?” He meets Zain’s eyes when the question causes the other to look up from the food he’s preparing for the both of them. “I know you don’t want to be in the limelight, and I think it’ll actually be good for me to persue someone out of the public eye, but realistically. How can we make this work?”

The desperation in Liam’s voice seems to connect with Zain, the writer mixing the soup once more before dropping the utensil to the side. “Like we’re doing right now,” Zain gestures to the empty speciality Chinese restaurant that a friend of his let him use after hours. “Nobody knows we’re here and you get to try a new Chinese dish.”

Liam did enjoy the make-it-yourself spicy soup experience, but that’s not an answer with enough substance for him. “I wanted you at the music video shoot today. It felt weird without you there.”

“Side effect of getting attached.”

Narrowed eyes follow Zain’s water glass that’s being brought up the other’s lips. “I’m being serious Zain.”

“I know, I’m sorry,” the older man apologizes when it’s clear Liam’s starting to get agitated by him attempting to lighten the mood. “Listen, I’ve got enough money saved to open up the restaurant, and maybe a second location after your album drops. There’s only like three songs on there I didn’t write.” At the spark of anger that comes to Liam’s eyes, Zain reaches around the huge silver basin that sits in between them and takes the singer’s hands in his. “I just don’t have the confidence or experience enough in a kitchen to be able to run one. I’ve got another five or six years before that happens.” Liam’s heart sinks; that’s an eternity. “But we can continue to do what we’ve been doing and see each other at night. It’s better than long distance.”

He’s got a point, and when Liam goes on tour or does promotional junkets, then the sting wouldn’t be as strong as it normally would with someone who had a 9-5 or worked entertainment like he did.

“I’ve been at this place for two years already, so I need to start looking for new restaurants to apply for. It’s not good to get comfortable somewhere when you feel like you’ve mastered the house specials.” Zain squeezes Liam’s hands before going back to the soup. “And because I’ll come in with more experience, maybe I’ll get two days off a week instead of the one at the next place. We can take weekend trips or something to make the most of them.”

“Or we can sleep.”

Zain smiles widely, “I like that.” Reaching over, he grabs Liam’s bowl and starts to serve him. “Either way, we’ll figure it out. I’m not going to work thirteen hour days forever.” Liam goes to take his bowl back once it’s full, but Zain pulls it away at the last second. “Ok?”

To let the older male know his worries have been put at bay, Liam grins and nods. “Ok Galileo.”

“Galileo?” Zain hands over the bowl and starts to make his own.

“He’s a famous astronomer.”

The writer chuckles as he pours some of the soup’s broth on his plate of rice. “I know who he is, but how did that become my new nickname?”

“He discovered Saturn’s rings.” Zain pauses in picking up his chopsticks when Liam states the fact. “I came across his name when I was doing research on Saturn in between takes today.”

A few moments pass before Zain goes back to positioning his fingers on the thin pieces of wood. “Did you read about his writing’s on why the Milky Way looks like it does?”

Liam stares as the male expertly picks up his white rice, “Um, no. But I did download a really cool app on my phone that identifies the constellations in the sky.”

Chopsticks are pointed straight at Liam as Zain chews. “I’ll tell you all about him,” he says after swallowing. “He’s a fascinating bloke, you’d like him.”

Liam unfolds his napkin and puts it in his lap, holding a small smile. He’s got no idea if that’s true, if he will like Galileo more than because he had something to do with the planet Zain claims Liam is most like, but he trusts the writer. He’s followed his spirit for six years feeling as if he already could trust him. So if Zain says he’ll like the astronomer, then Liam knows he will.

OUTRO

“You want to write a song based on this theoretical essay I wrote the other day about the mystical beauty in the way light travels faster than sound?”

Liam flips to the next channel on the telly, waiting for Zain to add to his question; he knows better by now than to not give the man’s brain a buffer of at least ten seconds to formulate more relevant thoughts before answering.

“We can focus on the part where I question what emotions go through a person during the time they wait for a sound to travel to them after seeing its source,” Zain thinks out loud a couple seconds later. “Lots of long, drawn out notes.”

If that essay is anything like the piece he tried explaining to Liam about how crazy it is that you can put two earbuds in, one on either side of your head, yet the sound meets in the middle of your temple, then the singer was going to need about a week to process the concept before he even attempted to write a song about it.

“Let me read it on the plane to New York and then I’ll get back to you.”

By virtue of Zain going back to strumming the electric guitar on his lap, Liam can infer that his response was sufficient enough.

The sound turns into something familiar thirty seconds into Liam figuring out if he wants to be bothered to watch a football match with only seven minutes left. He recognizes it as a song Zain had shared with him the same night he had voiced his concerns about their burgeoning relationship; most likely as a move to still Liam’s nerves even more.

There's another new love

I know you tryna do right

But maybe we should stay cooped up

Like we don't know what moonlight is

Lately I've been going crazy

Begging you to stay

'Cause I just want you safe

Anger, ominous behavior

Got you feeling anxious all the time

Maybe you should stay the night

It’s a soulful jazz song that Liam adores, because of its lyrics, but mostly because Zain tells him it was written weeks before ‘Talk To Me’.

“I wanna touch you baby

And I wanna feel you too

I wanna see the sunrise and your sins

Just me and you”

Zain’s soft voice steals Liam’s attention, causing him to look over at the man laying next to him and sing along just as gently.

“Light it up, on the run

Let's make love tonight

Make it up, fall in love, try”

It’s such a gentler version of the original they’ve recorded, with Zain’s guitar unplugged and their lazy positioning in Liam’s sitting room.

But you'll never be alone

I'll be with you from dusk till dawn

I'll be with you from dusk till dawn

Baby, I'm right here

I'll hold you when things go wrong

I'll be with you from dusk till dawn

I'll be with you from dusk till dawn

Baby, I'm right here

Neither can give their voices at full strength, but that doesn’t stop Zain from going off on a wispy riff at the end of the chorus.

They stop there when Zain starts to strum something else, and the fact that they can just hop in and out of a song like that is one of Liam’s favourite things about their relationship. That song’s a close second though.

He won’t ever forget the night his work finally got in the way and took him from Zain for two weeks. It started with a million kisses to last the fourteen days, and ended with a song that took Zain’s fear of being let down in a relationship and Liam’s of being used, and turned them upside down; with each other, they never had to look over their shoulder, from dusk till dawn. Listening to their voices melt together through his headphones made the six hour flight and two week work trip alone, bearable.

“You’re gonna have to come up with a singing pseudonym,” Liam tells Zain when the man picks up the notebook in between their bodies and starts to write something down. “We’ve started to record a lot together and I know you’re not going to put them out, but still. To fit the pattern.”

“Those songs are yours,” Zain maintains as he continues to write. “I know it’s your dream, but we’re not going to become a performing duo, only a writing and producing one. Sorry babe.”

“I know, I was just saying,” Liam says in disappointment. If they agreed not to have Liam say he was dating anyone, then they certainly weren’t going to put out music together. Regardless, Liam was curious to see what new pseudonym Zain would come up with, if only to use when he needed to add another name next to his in the artist section of the songs they created together.

“They’re yours,” Zain repeats, underlining the same word he wrote in all caps on the lined piece of paper he was done jotting down potential lyrics on.

YOURS

When Zain shuts his notebook, Liam’s eyes catch the small name on the bottom corner of the cover - something that they had to start doing once they began spending more time together and didn’t want to get their songwriting books mixed up.

Before Zain can throw the spiral notebook on the coffee table in front of them and cover up the various billboard charts showing Liam’s third album going number one, the younger male grabs it. He takes the pen out of Zain’s lap too and scratches out the ‘Zain’ on the front flap.

ZAYN

“That’s your new pseudonym for when you sing with me,” Liam announces proudly.

“What about the ‘I’?” Zain reminds him, but the large smile on his face tells Liam he loves the switch.

“You can be Icarus to the other people you sell R&B songs to, but you’re not Icarus to me anymore.” Pen in hand, Lam circles the new name. “You’re my Zain.”

“Yours,” the named man affirms quietly, his eyes shining with affinity for the new label’s creator.

It’s only fitting for Liam to lean in for a kiss, but he immediately regrets it after hearing what Zain says once they break. “But you know, if you want to be grammatically correct, you need to put periods in between the letters, otherwise it’s not an acronym.”

“Tosser,” Liam curses, shoving the man who’s now breaking out in laughter, away from him. “And to think I was going to make you shakshuka in the morning before work.”

“Leeyum,” Zain whines when the singer gets up from the couch to go make them tea, even though Zain doesn’t deserve it after that snarky I-graduated-uni-with-a-type-of-English-degree remark.

He does however, deserve it for keeping Liam company for six years. For being someone that the singer can accept and listen to as a means of wiggling his way into their heart, no credit card necessary. But most importantly, Zain deserves a piping hot cup of peppermint tea for having the talent to be able to put himself on Liam’s radar and reassure him that there was someone out there who could love his soul before needing to know his name.