Lover Dearest (Ziam Vampire AU)

Chapter 2

The rest of dinner is spent mostly in silence, the only sounds being the scraping of utensils against plates and the occasional satisfied groan from Niall. Liam spends his meal eating and watching Zayn push his food around on his plate, looking down at it with disinterest and a bit of disgust.

So he is in one of those moods, then. They happen periodically for seemingly no reason, where Zayn's attitude plummets and with it so does his appetite for anything, food or blood. Liam sighs at him for it, and Zayn lifts his gaze, like he knows why Liam did it, can read his mind. He can't, thank goodness, but Liam used to wonder until Harry assured him that, no, they can't read minds. Liam's not sure what he'd do if they could, but he has a feeling they wouldn't have kept him around long enough to find out. (Not that he thinks a lot of bad things about any of them, but when you live in a confined space with only a small group of people, sometimes they all rub each other the wrong way.)

"So," Harry says loudly, finally ending the silence. "I sort of have an announcement."

"Oh, this'll be good," Niall groans. "What this time? Tell me you haven't hired one of those human decorators to do our living room again, Harry, because last time—"

"No, I haven't," Harry says lowly, finally looking a little annoyed for the first time that night. It's a touchy subject, the remodelling they'd tried to do a few years ago. Liam wasn't here at the time, but he's heard stories. (And that blood stain hasn't ever come out of the carpet in the formal living room.) "It's about Louis, actually."

That piques even Zayn's interest, and excitement has Liam sitting up a little straighter in his seat. "You mean the Louis?" Liam asks. "The other member of—"

"Yes." Harry doesn't cut people off, normally. He's very polite, Harry, has taken etiquette courses numerous times during his life. But in certain situations, Harry knows when he has to cut people off, or it'll take him forever to get through what he's trying to say. "Yes, Liam, that Louis. The postcard came in the mail today, and he says he's coming home."

Zayn snorts loudly. "That's what he said three years ago, remember? When he was in Spain, he sent us a letter saying he'd be home within a month. He never showed."

Louis is the fourth member of their clan (unless you include Liam, in which case he'd be the fifth, but Liam never does count himself, not really). Liam's never met him. He was thirteen when he'd arrived at the manor, and Louis had been gone since then. They'd told him Louis was on a trip visiting family, and that he'd be back eventually. Liam thought that 'eventually' meant a couple weeks, maybe a month or two at the most. But apparently vampire vacations take a lot longer, since it's been five years and Louis has yet to return.

It's a little hard not to get his hopes up, but Zayn has a point. Louis' sent word that he's coming home several times over the years, and he never has. "Do you think he really will this time?"

"I know he will," Harry says confidently.

"What are you basing that assumption on?" Zayn asks. "Just because you want him to come back, doesn't mean he's actually going to."

Harry frowns at him. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Zayn shrugs. "Means he's been gone ten years, Harry. I doubt he's coming back."

"Fuck you," Harry hisses. He pushes away from the table, his chair scrunching up the carpet as he does. And then Harry's flitting from the room, gone in the blink of an eye.

"What did you do that?" Niall demands. "You know how he gets."

"And you know that we should stop coddling him," Zayn snaps right back. "Louis isn't coming back and we both know it. Pretending that he's going to is only going to make it harder for Harry to get over it when he inevitably realizes it isn't going to happen."

Liam slowly inches his chair back. A human stuck in the middle of a vampire argument is never a good idea. While he has no doubt that neither of them would ever mean to hurt him, he doesn't exactly trust them to refrain themselves if they're fighting. Liam could easily be a casualty in a fight that left neither of them with a single scratch, and he doesn't want to risk it.

"Sit down, Liam," Zayn growls. Liam sits immediately.

"Oh, put your fangs away, you prick," Niall mutters. Unlike Harry, he barely jostles the table as he stands. "You know, just because you're miserable doesn't mean you have to bring the rest of us down with you."

And then there were two. Zayn rubs a hand over his face, shoulders drooping. Liam sucks his bottom lip into his mouth, moving his plate away from him. Suddenly the food doesn't seem at all appetising. He wants to move to the other side of the table and put a hand on Zayn's arm, wants to comfort him even though he knows that Zayn is the one in the wrong here. He was the one who went off on Liam, first, and then Harry, and then Niall, but that doesn't stop Liam from wanting to take that pained look on his face away.

"Eat," Zayn says without looking up. "All of it."

"But I'm not—"

"Liam."

Liam flinches, he can't help it. Zayn's eyes are black again, and there's something dangerous in his tone. Or maybe it's just the flash of pointed, deathly sharp teeth. Either way, Liam picks up his fork and starts clearing his plate in heaving bites that taste like cardboard.

When he's done, he stands and starts clearing the table, but Zayn gets out of his seat and waves him off. "I've got it," he says. And, before Liam can even protest, "Go."

"Someone woke up on the wrong side of the coffin today," Liam mutters, heading for the door.

"I heard that," Zayn calls after him.

Liam grins over his shoulder. "I know. Come see me after, okay?"

"Okay," Zayn says, offhandedly, and Liam knows he doesn't plan on it.

He heads for his room anyways, climbing the winding back staircase. The house is huge, ridiculous so, and sometimes Liam is still afraid of getting lost. But he loves the back staircase the most, out of every place in the manor. It goes up and up, past the second floor, past the third, all the way to the attic room at the top, where Zayn spends most of his time. Liam's own room is on the second floor, in the east wing, along with Niall's. Harry's is on the third, as is Louis' empty bedroom that Liam's snuck into on several occasions, too curious or bored to stop himself. And then on the top floor is Zayn's room. It's the only one up there, in this wing of the house.

Liam's bedroom is the smallest, but he doesn't mind. It has the biggest window, with a bench seat and everything, as well as thick curtains that are usually kept closed. Vampires are nocturnal by nature, and Liam has learned to be, too, which is why his curtains are made specifically to keep the light out so he can sleep peacefully through the day without the sun shining through the cracks.

The first thing Liam does inside is go over to the window and push those curtains open. It's still dark out, and it will be for a few more hours. It's a gloomy, cloudy night, the kind where the sky looks more grey than black, where the stars don't shine and the moon shows in slivers and intervals as the clouds blow past. Liam cracks his window just to feel the cool air, and he breathes deeply, even as goosebumps break out on his skin.

Liam has everything any guy his age could possibly want in his room. He has a large flat screen TV against one wall, an Xbox hooked up to it. He has an extensive DVD collection in a glass stand, along with an expensive stereo system and any CD he's ever wanted. He has a desktop computer, and a shelf of books and comics.

It's their way of making it up to him, he thinks. Anything Liam asks for, he gets, like the spoiled child of two parents who aren't around enough that buy his love instead of earning it. But he doesn't mind because, again, he could have it a lot worse. And maybe it's still terribly boring, being stuck on the property at all times, but he once read in another one of those history books that some clans make their humans sleep on the floor at the ends of their beds like dogs.

At least Liam's treated like a human, even if he's a trapped one.

*