The Heart of Him

RUOF

"Smells good," Liam thinks aloud after bringing the coffee up to his nose and taking a long inhale of the steam billowing out of the lid's rectangle slit. "Do you want me to set your bag down and then we can take a walk around? There's no food or drink in the lab unless it's a closed water bottle."

Thankful that Liam's offered to take them away from a place where others can listen in on their conversation, Zayn nods and trades Liam's cup for his briefcase.

Maybe they wouldn't fall into a conversation about anything other than Liam's research, but even then, the seriousness that the room exudes has Zayn worried that one decibel above a whisper, and he'd be disturbing any of the others' work; he'd like to keep his pristine keycard thank you very much.

A small smile comes to Zayn when he sees Liam open the door with a bag of Wotsits in hand.

"My vision might not be," Liam says when he sees that Zayn's noticed his half of the deal being upheld, "but my memory's quite sharp."

It's no pastry filled with rich chocolate, but the fact that the crisps still fall into the junk food category will suffice. Saying his thanks, Zayn's rewarded the freshly opened bag in exchange for Liam's coffee.

Twisting the cup around at eye level, Liam searches for some sort of label before they start walking forward. "Which place did this one come from?"

"My own actually," Zayn answers, reveling in the cheesy taste that's just coated his taste buds. "Couldn't be arsed to wake up early enough to go to the place you wrote down that's closest to here." With no real care for directional accuracy, Zayn points his cup to the left of them. "My flat's about twenty minutes up the road, otherwise I would've gotten something from the checklist that's in the city center."

"What's it called?"

"Deli Delight," Zayn says with a full mouth, having just pulled out a handful of the orange puffs and opting to eat them all at once. "They've got good sandwiches too," he makes known, passing the bag back to Liam before he gets more carried away than he already has.

Humoured by Zayn's appetite, Liam smiles around the edge of his cup that's sitting against his lips. "It's not bad," he declares after swallowing.

In his sleepwalking state of mind, Zayn hadn't even thought to ask how the other liked his morning drink. "Just went with the default flat white." Not that Liam doesn't already know that. "Hope that's alright."

"No yeah, it's good," Liam waves off kindly. "I'm not picky." An upcoming bin makes him stop and pry off the lid. "I usually get a plain latte, but they're practically two in the same."

Bringing the cup up close to his mouth, Liam blows on its contents. All at once, his glasses fog up into a cloudy barrier, but that doesn't stop the man from taking a sip.

Waiting in his spot, Zayn bites the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling too wide at the fog that's now taking twice as long to evaporate, as it did appear. Even though it's got nothing to do with age, the action still winds up making Liam look like a child. It's not a rare occurrence for someone with glasses, yet Zayn's never found himself dating anyone who wore frames. The endearment his exes always got from when it happened to him, finally makes sense.

As soon as Liam's lenses start to clear up again, it becomes apparent that he's indecisive on how to react knowing that he'd been watched closely over something so mundane. And now Zayn's even more glad they're not in front of others, so he doesn't have to hide the blatant flirtatious move he's about to make.

Taking a couple steps closer to where Liam's standing allows Zayn to drop his own lid into the bin. He'd been nursing the drink ever since he left the corner cafe, but when he tilts the cup back, he blows with emphasis on the liquid that's left inside so the last of the remaining heat can make his own glasses cloudy.