Ziam Smut

Remember These Thoughts

Zayn sighed unwrapping the cord and plugging it in near the sink.

"Why didn't you really?" He tried again warming up to the familiarity that use to be so routine.

"I didn't want anyone to know until I told them." Liam looked up at the boy with blond hair and a black beard, with kind eyes and an even kinder soul, with knowledge to know when to ask the right questions and when to recognize their false answers.

Zayn walked carefully, he sat down gently on the edge of the tub, he waited patiently for the boy sitting in it to look at him instead of his knees. Liam looked so young, sitting there like a child afraid of the dark.

"Liam." Zayn spoke worried brows wrinkling his forehead with concern. "Babe, why are you doing this?"

The question was soft enough to coax a timid answer out of hiding.

"You already know, don't you?" Liam asked turning to see the answer in Zayn's face but it was confusion etched into the boy's features. "You did the same thing, remember?"

Everyone told him remembering would be painful because the end wasn't happily ever after but they were wrong. When Zayn thought of everything he had been through, everyone he had met, he knew he would never want to forget any of it.

Every color, every length, he'd like to say they had meaning that there was something more poetic behind it than 'just for laughs'. The truth was plain, he was free to do what he wanted for once but he didn't know what to do with it. So hair dye it was. No one could tell him he couldn't cut it that short or change the color that many times in one go. It was stupid, but he made that decision himself, no one did that for him.

"I was trying to figure out who I was, who I wanted to be. I had to start from the beginning again."

"I don't want to start over." Liam combed his hand through his hair. "I just want to remember who I was."

The buzzing of the razor was the only sound in the house, save for the shallow breathing of two boys. The silence was threatening, but comfortable. It wasn't the quiet that was frightening but what happened when thoughts weren't described out loud. Doubt, regret, question.

When it was all gone, every last hair trimmed down to a little more than nothing, Zayn slipped from his position behind Liam to in front of him in the narrow tub. His palms were careful when they held Liam's face, his eyes were soft.

"You don't need to change to remember who you were." Zayn spoke low, it was too big a house to speak any louder. "You were kind and caring and quiet. At first you were a little awkward but weren't we all? Yeah, you took it all so seriously but we corrupted you soon enough." Zayn paused long enough for a smile. "You straightened your hair every morning 'cause you reckoned it made you look older. You stopped that time I caught you and told you the curls made you nearly as charming as Harry. You told Niall everyday he would have the nicest teeth in the band when all was said and done. You laughed at Harry's God awful jokes and when I asked why you told me it was because you loved his smile every time he made someone laugh. You're our leader, Liam. Even Louis listens to you. You were always so strong when the rest of us couldn't be, you stood up for everybody no matter if you were on the loosing side. You never gave up on anything; not x-factor, not the band, not me and you. It's easy to lose yourself in a world as big as this, especially when you've been all over it, but you have four guys right by you who would give you anything in a heartbeat and if that means reminding you of who you use to be by cutting off your hair than so be it. You use to be Liam Payne, now, you're Liam Payne of One Direction and you will always be the man I love."