It's about two in the morning when Liam starts mopping the grand foyer. He's doing it because he wants to, not because he has to. If he doesn't, Harry'll end up doing it, and while Harry is a very good cleaner, it takes him three times as long as it does Liam because he's anal about getting every single inch of the floor completely spotless.
Liam has no idea where the others are. Last he'd seen, Niall was in the main living room, sleeping with his mouth hanging open and his limbs falling off the sofa. He hasn't seen Harry at all today, and he'd passed Zayn on the staircase a little while ago, but Zayn isn't talking to him, apparently.
Sighing, Liam dips the mop back in the bucket, just as the front doors open. The heavy wood bangs against the walls, cold, strong wind breezing into the room. Liam freezes, mop hovering over the bucket, eyes wide.
A man strides into the house, arms weighed down with luggage. He takes a single look around, chin tilted up in a way that could only be described as haughty, before dropping his bags to the floor. He easily shuts the door behind himself, blocking out the cool wind once again, and Liam is still too stunned to move.
There's this current in the air, like the electric wind of a stormy night, lightning ready to strike at any second. There's a thundering in Liam's ears to match it, his heart beating wildly. A pair of cold blue eyes meet his own, and the man who'd just stepped into their house regards him with the kind of smirk that is all teeth. All sharp teeth, that match his jaw and his eyes. Eyes that are slowly turning black by the second, icy blue melding seamlessly into black.
"Aren't you going to offer to take my bags, pet?" the man demands. Liam blinks at him. "Do you speak English?" He crosses the room in the blink of an eye, finger on Liam's chin, tilting it up much the way Zayn likes to do, only it's not a gentle sort of touch. He jerks Liam's chin up and up until it hurts. "Or are you instructed not to talk?"
"I- I can talk," Liam says, trying to lower his chin.
Liam doesn't trust himself to say much else. He's not stupid, and he's alone right now with a stranger. With a vampire stranger. Which means that, if he'd like to keep most of his blood in his body, and his life, he needs to just be still and quiet and pray that one of the others heard the doors opening.
"Mouth-watering," the man says. His teeth graze Liam's neck, and Liam can feel himself trembling but he doesn't try to push the guy away in fear of upsetting him. One wrong more and it could be his hands wrapped around Liam's neck instead. "I see why they decided to keep you around."
"Louis!"
The man releases him, taking a step back, and Liam stumbles back a bit, too, hand reaching up to wipe away the dampness of the man's breath from his neck. His legs are unsteady, and the mop slips from his fingers just as an arm goes around his waist. Zayn straightens him, makes sure he's not going to collapse, and then he easily moves so Liam's behind him, blocked almost completely by his body.
"So you actually came home, then," Zayn says. "How nice of you."
Liam blinks and Niall and Harry are suddenly in the room, Niall lounging lazily on the staircase. Harry strides past the three of them, shouldering Zayn out of the way a bit. "Louis," he says, soft and barely audible.
That sharp coldness disappears from the man's face, replaced by a blindingly sweet smile. "Harry."
And then Harry attacks him. Louis' head hits the ground, cracking the tile underneath it. Liam can't figure out who has the upper hand, because Louis slashes a gash into Harry's cheek while trying to get him off, and Harry tears at his chest and—
"Get him out of here," Harry hisses over his shoulder, and the second he looks away gives Louis time to flip them over. There's black blood marring Liam's freshly cleaned floor, and Liam thinks Harry means Louis, thinks he's telling Zayn and Niall to get Louis out of the room before they kill each other.
But apparently he means Liam, because next thing he knows Zayn's hauling him off his feet, and Liam's arms wrap instinctively around his waist and neck as Zayn carries him easily up the stairs. Sometimes Niall does it just for fun, pulls Liam off his feet and flits him around the house. Or he had when Liam was younger, but the older Liam got the less tolerable he was with that shit. He hates being carried by them. He hates the butterflies in his stomach he always gets and the disconcerting way they move inhumanly fast.
Zayn doesn't stop until they're in the attic. He drops Liam to his feet and ushers Liam into his room. "Thought I'm not supposed to be in here," Liam says, fully aware that right now is probably not the best time to make jokes, but he's completely incapable of stopping himself.
Zayn clucks his tongue in annoyance and cups Liam's cheeks in both his hands. He slides them down Liam's neck, next, and then his chest, finally stopping at his waist. "Are you hurt?" he demands. "You're not bleeding, I can't smell anything, but—"
"I'm fine," Liam assures him. "Undamaged, I promise."
"Good," Zayn says gruffly. He steps around Liam, pacing the room. "You need to be careful. We were all worried about this, but I never thought he'd actually come back."
"Worried about what, exactly?" Zayn's worrying is worrying him now. Liam goes and perches on the edge of Zayn's bed, hands folded neatly in his lap. "Is this about Louis?"
"Yes," Zayn snaps. "Of course it's about Louis." He tugs a hand through his hair. "Do you remember William?"
Liam shudders a little, he can't help it. William had been, hands down, the creepiest vampire Liam had ever met. He was old and cold and terrifying. "Vaguely."
"Right, well," Zayn pauses his pacing, peering down at Liam like this is important, "that's the type of vampire Louis has been surrounding himself with for the last ten years, Liam. He's been visiting others of our kind, staying with them, living by their rules. They're not like us, you realize, which means that Louis isn't exactly like us anymore, either."
Liam frowns, trying to follow him. "I don't understand."
Zayn sighs, coming to kneel on the floor between Liam's legs. He reaches up a hand, cupping the back of Liam's neck, his eyes wide and concerned. "You're not our slave," Zayn says, a little forceful, nails digging into Liam's skin a bit to emphasize. "Technically, maybe, but we don't treat you like that. We won't treat you like that. You're so much more than that to us."
"I know," Liam says.
"I'm glad you do, but the issue, sweetheart, is that Louis hasn't been here," Zayn explains. "He doesn't know you, and he doesn't know how we are with you. And judging by the way he'd come in here and put his hands all over you without—" Zayn cuts off, his eyes flitting from amber to black for just a second before he calms himself. "He's most likely expecting you to be like any other blood-slave, Liam. He'll expect things of you, and I'm not sure how he'll react when he realizes that you've got a mind of your own, that you're not here to jump to his every command and bare your neck whenever he pleases."
"So he's dangerous," Liam gathers.
Zayn nods. "He could be," he admits. "But you've got nothing to worry about, yeah? I'd never let anyone hurt you, you know that." Liam nods. "You've just got to be careful, that's all."
"I usually am, aren't I?"
"Not even a little," Zayn groans. "You're a hazard to yourself and you don't even realize it most of the time."
"How so?" Liam demands, a little offended, a little not.
Zayn pushes himself up, his hands on Liam's shoulders for leverage. Liam falls back against the bed instinctively, and Zayn moves with him, a light weight in Liam's lap. It's not exactly comfortable, but Zayn always smells good and Liam doesn't mind, even if his bony leg is digging painfully into Liam's thigh.
"You walk around here," Zayn says, nosing at Liam's neck, "completely oblivious to how good you smell." He licks lightly at Liam's neck, and Liam shivers without meaning to. Zayn might be cool to the touch, but Liam is suddenly very, very warm. "And how much better you taste." Liam looks down, meeting Zayn's eyes, and any lightness of the situation dies in the blackness Liam finds there. "And how you always look so fucking—"
Liam blinks and Zayn's weight disappears. He's standing in the middle of the room now, arms crossed tightly over his chest. "See what I mean?" he says. "I didn't even mean to do that. Sometimes I just can't help myself when it comes to you."
Liam sits up, adjusting his now wrinkled shirt. "Maybe you just have terrible self control," he says, sounding much calmer than he feels. There's this thrumming in his veins that has the hairs on his arms standing upright, and this sense of loss as he looks at Zayn, so far away from him now when all Liam wants is to have him a little closer.
That's an issue, though. Liam always wants Zayn closer. He might consider Niall to be his best friend, and Harry is more like a brother to Liam than the others, but Zayn — Zayn is never close enough for Liam's liking. Even in those quiet moments where Zayn catches him alone in the hall and backs him up against a wall, resting their foreheads together, he's still not close enough. Liam wants Zayn to open up to him, but he never does, not completely. And even when they're touching, they're not touching enough. There's always too many layers, too much separating them.
"I have great self control," Zayn says. "Just... not when it comes to you."
"Why is that, do you think?" Liam wonders, a little pleased by the fact that he gets to Zayn as much as Zayn gets to him, even if he knows it's in a completely different way. Zayn wants the blood pumping through Liam's veins, and Liam just wants Zayn, all of him, all the time.
"I don't know, Liam," Zayn answers, annoyed. "Just be careful. Promise me you'll be careful around here for the time being. And if anything happens, you call for me and I'll be there."
Liam sits up even straighter, and he's glad, not for the first time, that Zayn can't tell what he's thinking "No matter what?" he presses. "No matter what, you'll come if I need you?"
"Promise," Zayn says instantly.
"Okay, then." Liam stands up, smiling hesitantly. "I'll keep that in mind."
Zayn grabs his arm on the way to the door. "Where are you going?"
Liam frowns down at where Zayn's thick, long fingers bunch up the navy material of his sweatshirt, once again thinking about the fact that there's something separating them, as there always is. "Do I have to stay in your room?" Liam asks. "You didn't mention that part."
Zayn releases him. "No, you don't." His eyebrows draw together, like he's just as confused by his actions as Liam. "You can go. Sorry."
"I think it's kind of sweet, you know," Liam adds on his way out the door. "How you worry about me. It's cute."
Zayn bares his teeth and growls at him before slamming the door shut between them, and Liam laughs all the way to the back stairwell.
*