"Here's a tip," Louis says. "Zayn. Zayn. Are you listening? I have a tip for you: don't ever, ever get married. As your older and wiser brother, I can tell you with utter certainty that it's a bad idea and you should never do it. Okay?"
"I'm sensing that you're in the 'I'm regretting my decision to have the most extravagant wedding on the planet' stage of your decision to have the most extravagant wedding on the planet," Zayn says drily. "Tell me, is it the questionable decision to have potted orchids as your party favors or the knowledge that I'll embarrass you to hell and back in my best man speech that's putting you off?"
"Oh, shut up. Your wedding is going to be way worse than mine, anyway, so you don't have room to talk—you're going to have a royal wedding. The whole world is going to be obsessed with you. Yankee Candle might even come out with a scent line based on your unique musk."
"Please never say the words 'unique musk' in reference to me or anyone else ever again," Zayn says. "Also, I have no plans to get married anytime soon, so you don't need to be worrying about any of that."
Louis stops in the action of tying his tie and gives Zayn a withering look. "I have no plans to get married anytime soon, he says. Please. You'll be wedded and bedded by this time next year, I can tell you that for sure."
"Technically, I'm already bedded."
"Things I never needed to hear about: your sex life," Louis says boredly. "Anyway, my point is that weddings are a huge hassle and you shouldn't ever bother having one. But also if you don't marry Liam soon I'll fucking kill you both."
Zayn ignores this last comment. "I feel like you should have done something about your aversion to weddings sometime before the night of the wedding rehearsal," he says. "Speaking of which, are you done getting ready? We're already late."
Louis sighs and checks his reflection in the mirror one more time. "Yeah, I'm done. Let's get going."
Louis and Harry are indeed getting married in two days, and it's been the talk of the palace—and of the nation—for days. It's been a surprisingly well-received affair, which does make Zayn hopeful for his and Liam's future. But to be fair, Harry and Louis aren't facing quite so many barriers and traditions as he and Liam will. Harry is the second child in his family, meaning that there aren't any pressures to produce heirs, and even though he's a relatively high-profile noble because of his closeness to Liam, he has nowhere near the level of scrutiny and celebrity Liam has. Maybe most importantly, he's not the first noble to come out as gay—while it's rare and somewhat frowned-upon in the aristocratic community, there are out nobles, and even more that harbor their sexuality as an open secret. Liam will be the first king to ever announce his attraction to men.
But today isn't about how much easier Louis and Harry have it compared to him and Liam. It's about the overjoying fact that they've finally gotten their shit together for long enough to plan this ridiculously overdone affair, and that they'll finally be legally joined as man and husband. Needless to say, there have been several long quibbles over who is the man and who is the husband. But like most of the arguing they've been doing lately, it's mostly for show, and also utterly sodden with love-sick glances and lingering touches that make Zayn wish he didn't have eyes.
(He's ecstatically happy for the two of them.)
(He would never tell them that.)
(He's told them several times already.)
They end up being late to the rehearsal, but it's fine because Harry and Liam are too, and so they're met by a very early and pissed-off group wedding party who are very curious to know why the grooms, one of the best men, and the wedding officiate are late to their own wedding rehearsal. Niall, as Harry's best man, is standing behind Harry's furious sister Gemma with a glass of wine and a smug smile. How he got here on time—even early, by the sounds of it—Zayn has no idea, because when he'd left to go drag Louis out of his room, Niall had texted him saying he wasn't even dressed yet. But he doesn't question it—with Niall, it's often best not to.
Harry and Louis have played with the traditional wedding arrangements out of necessity; after a prolonged and heavily thought-out discussion over who would walk down the aisle, they decided to fuck the heteronormative standard and both walk down the aisle side by side and accompanied by their mothers. The rest of the wedding party is made up of their respective sisters, Niall and Zayn, and a few other friends from the aristocracy and the rebellion. It's an eclectic and unconventional group to say the least, but Zayn thinks that the tweaks they've made to the usual lay out and the people they've picked will make the wedding one to remember, if only because of the fact that they've decided to wear powder blue suits.
"If you're going to make the wedding party wear those atrocities, you can find yourself another best man," Zayn had said when he'd seen the plans.
Louis rolled his eyes. "You'll look fine in them. You look fine in everything."
"No one," Zayn said, "looks good in a powder blue tuxedo, Louis. No one."
"Niall will wear them, won't you, Niall?" Harry had said pleadingly, perhaps hoping that at least one of the best men would be cooperative. "It'll match your eyes. You'll look really handsome."
Niall had snorted. "The day you put me in a light blue suit is the day you put me in my coffin. Not a day before, Harry. Not a day before."
So they'd reached a compromise which has the two grooms in the blue suits and black ties, and the wedding party in black suits and matching blue ties. Zayn still isn't sure how they'd managed to change their minds, but he's thankful they dodged that bullet. It's the least Harry and Louis could do to make up for the fact that they're stuck in a sweaty celebration hall for the next four hours on a Friday night. This isn't even the goddamn wedding, for fuck's sake. Zayn has no idea why you need to rehearse a wedding, but from what he's heard from Gemma's apoplectic scolding in the past five minutes, it's crucial.
"How're you doing?" Liam asks under his breath as Harry and Louis finally appease Gemma and turn face down the wrath of their mothers.
"I'm being thankful that neither of us has any family to yell at us if we ever end up doing this," Zayn says just as quietly.
Liam snorts. "Honestly, it's the only time I've ever been grateful for that." He pauses, shoots Zayn a sideways glance. "That's not what I meant, though."
"I know." Zayn had found himself in the shower this morning with no idea how he'd gotten there; Liam had told him later that they'd woken up together, had a conversation, and that he'd gotten up to shower after about an hour of being awake already. Zayn still doesn't know what had triggered his memory loss—he suspects it might have been a flashback connected to nearly drowning, but there's no way to know—but he'd nearly had a panic attack when he'd finally come to. Things like these are happening with less and less frequency these days, but it's still disconcerting each time it happens.
"I'm fine," he says. It's not necessarily a lie; for all Zayn's complaining about the wedding preparations, they've been a great distraction for him today. "Seriously. I'm dealing with it."
"Dealing with it doesn't mean you're doing good."
"When am I ever doing good?" Zayn says. "I'm taking it one step at a time, Liam. Two months ago I wouldn't be able to do anything today because of what happened this morning. The fact that I'm here means that I'm doing as good as I ever am."
Liam looks at him for a long moment, and then simply says, "Okay." It might come off as abrupt to anyone else, but Zayn knows that his lack of protest means that he's just taking Zayn at his word. The boys are all working at being less protective of him, but Zayn knows that one of the hardest things for them is trusting him to tell them when he's not doing okay. He can't blame them—because of the sort of life he's led, it's been engrained in him to ignore pain and discomfort and trauma in favor of staying on the move and appearing strong—but they're all slowly getting better at it. He's more willing to tell them when he's not okay, and they're more willing not to pressure him. They're all slowly getting better in general, really. It'll take years for the effects of what they've all been through to fade, but the important thing is that they're still here. Zayn knows firsthand the effectiveness of clinging to life and health by your fingernails, and he knows survivors when he sees them. They'll be all right, his boys. They're going to be all right.
"Let's get this shitshow on the road, shall we?" Louis snaps, storming past them. He's looking markedly peevish after being yelled at by a majority of the women in his and Harry's combined families. "I've had enough of being told that I'm an irresponsible fuck who's incapable of being on time for my own wedding."
"I mean," Zayn begins, but Louis cuts him off by slapping his shoulder with a bit more force than necessary.
"Say one more word, and I will personally make sure they never find your body."
"You've already gone through not being able to find my body, and from what I hear you weren't thrilled about it," Zayn says. "Are you hoping it'll be better the second time around, or—"
"One more word, Zayn."
Zayn grins and falls into place with the rest of the wedding party as Louis strides off to yell at the long-suffering musicians, who have been there are an hour already waiting for them all to get their shit together. Zayn hopes that they're being paid well.
They get through the wedding rehearsal without anyone killing anyone else, which Zayn thinks is an accomplishment in itself, and then agree between the five of them go out for drinks once it's done. Liam puts up a token fight that it's not a good idea for them to be seen out drinking, much less at such a late hour, but Niall promptly shuts down his opposition by saying he knows of a good bar that has an exclusive VIP top floor where they won't be seen and bothered.
"We can even buy out the whole floor if you're that worried," he says casually. "They let you do that, you know."
"No need for that," Liam says, sounding resigned. "Let's go. We'll need to call a few more security guards, though. Paddy'll have a fit otherwise."
So they call up more guards, and sure enough, the bar is the perfect place. People leave them alone, except for a few other aristocrats that are there who greet them merrily and without fuss.
"How'd you find this place?" Harry asks as they get their drinks and sit down. "It's, like, what I've been looking for my entire life. You know how hard it is to sneak out and get a good undercover drink when you're a young noble? It's virtually impossible."
"I'm sure he knows," Louis says. "He was once a young noble too."
"He's Niall, which means I'm sure he never had a problem sneaking out, and he's Irish, which means he probably didn't need to sneak out. The Irish just don't give a fuck about their nobility being any better than them."
Niall grins. "Couldn't have said it better myself, Haz. I found this place through an old friend; he'd heard that I was hanging out with the big time crowd and thought we might need a good place to go wind down without everyone knowing where we were."
"Any point in asking who this friend is?" Liam's voice is that of a man who's asking a question he already knows the answer to.
"A man needs a few secrets, Liam."
"Or if you're you, more secrets than anyone could possibly count."
"Same thing."
The conversation dies after that for a bit; they're all tired and thirsty, and the drinks here are phenomenal.
"How does it feel knowing you'll be married men in two days?" Liam asks finally. "We didn't plan you two a stag party, sorry. We thought it'd be a little weird to have two stags, because then, like, would we have two parties? Just one party? How would we all split up if there were two?"
"Oh, it's fine," Harry says. "I think we've got enough of a production going on as it is. But it is a little crazy to know that I'll be legally bound to this idiot for the rest of my life on Sunday. S'a bit scary, to be honest." He laughs when Louis makes an indignant squawk. "Sorry, babe."
"Oh, I don't know about for life, Harry," Zayn says with a lazy grin. "You can always get divorced, you know. Don't worry, we'll all understand if you show up on Monday morning asking him to sign the papers."
"What Zayn means to say is that I'm a marvelous best friend and he's sure I'll be an even better husband," Louis says, elbowing him.
"That is not what I meant to say."
"Shut up, yes it was."
"Anyway," Liam says hastily before the argument can progress, "I'm really happy for the two of you; you really deserve to be happy together."
Harry smiles fondly, reaching out to scrub an affectionate hand through Liam's hair. "Thanks, Li. I can't wait for when we can all do this for you and Zayn."
There's a very long silence, and then Harry claps both his hands over his mouth. "Wait—have you two not—are you not going to—I just assumed—"
"We've been talking about it," Zayn says slowly, "but I mean—it's not—no one's asked. It's not, like, official. We haven't—yeah."
"Don't kid yourselves, it'll happen," Louis says. "Once they've worked up the balls to ask, we'll never hear the end of it. Can you imagine—a gay royal wedding? The Americans will go nuts."
"What part of it's not official do you not understand?" Zayn asks, but there's no real fire behind his voice.
Harry and Niall tactfully steer the conversation in other directions, and a few minutes later, Liam asks Zayn if he wants to go help him get more drinks. They get up and walk to the bar; Liam orders refills of everything they'd gotten and then turns to Zayn.
"All this stuff with Haz and Lou has started me thinking."
"A dangerous practice," Zayn quips, ignoring the way his heart beats faster. "About what?"
"Us. And like—you know. How that could be us."
"Are you asking me to marry you?"
"No! No. Not yet. I wouldn't—not here. But like. I want to?"
"I want to, too," Zayn says quietly. "We could, you know. You know that there's nothing stopping us. We can take whatever bullshit people come up with to try and stop us."
Liam takes a deep breath. "I know. Just—let me do it?"
Zayn chokes back a laugh. "Are you asking me to let you propose?"
Liam flushes and turns to pay the bartender as he rolls his eyes. "Listen, I'd just really like to, okay? I'd really like to be the one to ask. If that's okay with you."
"Yeah," Zayn says, warmth flooding his chest as he watches Liam try to balance the drinks tray, his cheeks still pink and his eyes bright as he glances up at Zayn. "Yeah, that's okay with me."
***
Harry and Louis' wedding is spectacular. Zayn honestly thought that it would crash and burn halfway through—hell, he thought it would crash and burn fifteen minutes in—but everything goes more smoothly than he would have ever been so optimistic as to imagine. The grooms arrive on time, the powder blue suits don't look too horrendous, the wedding party makes it down the aisle in one piece, and the long-suffering musicians play beautifully. It's a little hilarious to see Liam solemnly asking Harry and Louis to say their vows and then saying, "You may now kiss each other," but it's also really sweet and he does a good job. And Zayn's not just saying that because he's got a ridiculous boner for him, either.
Their vows are long and rambling and filled with private jokes and many repetitions of "and honestly I hated you so much when we first met that it's unbelievable that we ended up here," but they also make everyone cry—yes, Zayn included. And if he's being truthful, it's not that unbelievable to him that they ended up here, even considering how they first met. There's always been something that feels fated about Harry and Louis—about all five of them—and while it would have seemed preposterous at the time, in retrospect, it seems impossible for it to have turned out any other way. And Zayn hates being reflective and getting sentimental over how far they've come, but as he watches Louis stretch up on tiptoe to press a kiss to Harry's lips to the cheers of the guests, he can't help but be deeply touched by all the odds they've overcome to get here. Not even a year ago, Zayn himself had been struggling to find to will to live even one more second, to draw in even one more painful, tortured breath. And now here he is, watching two of his best friends in the world get married.
What he said to Liam on Friday is true—he's never doing good by any normal standard of the word—but that doesn't stop him from being happy. Every single fucking day is another fight against his body and mind, and every single fucking day he goes to bed with another million reasons to keep on living.
The wedding ends with a spectacular dinner in the palace banquet hall; former rebels and aristocracy mingle freely, drinking and dancing and talking together. As he walks through the crowd to find the wedding party's table, Zayn reflects that it's like a vision of the future they'd all imagined for the country all that time ago in a cramped hospital room as they swore to fight for a better England with Liam as its king. The country now is by no means perfect—Zayn himself is living proof of the damage that's been left by the fight for peace—but people are learning to live differently now, learning to live better. It's a far cry from the sort of wedding that would have been held here under Simon's rule.
"Zayn! There you are," Louis says as he slips into his seat near the head of the table. "Are you ready to embarrass me in your speech?"
"You aren't even ready for what I have to throw at you."
Louis sighs. "Scotland?"
"That's just the beginning, mate. The tip of the iceberg, if you will."
Harry leans over, amused and exasperated. "Are we ever going to find out what happened there?"
"Definitely not," Zayn says. "I kept it vague enough that no one would figure it out."
"Oh, go to hell."
Zayn and Louis exchange wicked grins, as gleeful to be partners in crime as they've always been. Liam once said that even though they don't share any blood, they must be true brothers in spirit, but Zayn and Louis have never needed anyone to tell them that. They found each other in the darkness and stuck with each other through trauma, and that is more powerful than any bond of blood they could have had.
Zayn's speech is actually just minimally embarrassing and majorly emotional, but he's not going to tell Louis that. Better to surprise him with the affection; maybe then Louis will end up crying and Zayn can get some pictures of it for blackmail.
(Yes, Zayn really does have ulterior motive for everything.)
"You were great up there," Zayn tells Liam as Harry and Louis are ambushed by a crowd of well-meaning relatives. "Fucking killed the ceremony, babe."
"I was honestly so scared I would mess up and then everyone would remember me as that guy that ruined Harry and Louis' wedding for the rest of my life," Liam says. "No one would ever let me marry them ever again."
"And what a pity that would be," Zayn says, rolling his eyes. "Your life would just be over."
"Shut up. I was petrified."
"I could tell."
Liam freezes. "Oh my god, could you really? I was trying so hard to hide it, oh my god, do you think that anyone else could—"
"I was joking, Jesus Christ. You were great. You killed it."
Liam deflates, and then looks indignant. "You arse. I was genuinely worried for a second there."
Zayn laughs. "Yeah, I could tell." He reaches over and squeezes Liam's hand under the table, where no one will be able to see it. "You're cute when you're nervous."
Liam's face softens; no one's looking at them right now, but Zayn is sure that their relationship is written all over their faces and body language for anyone to see. "I really want to kiss you right now."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
"Someday, right?"
"Yeah." Liam squeezes his hand back and shoots him a smile so warm Zayn can feel it in his bones. "Someday soon."
***
Liam wakes up in the middle of the night from a hazy, undefined nightmare that slips out of his head the moment he's awake. He can't remember the details—it's like trying to hold water in his bare hands—but he remembers the terror, the memory of being chased by shadowy figures whose faces he never quite caught a glimpse of. For a moment, he just lies there, covered in sweat and shaking, and then he opens his eyes.
The first realization he has is that he's alone in bed.
The second realization is that there's a shadowy figure moving towards the foot of the bed.
Liam is instantly paralyzed in terror.
Then there's a loud bump, and the figure stumbles, swearing audibly in Urdu.
"Zayn?" Liam says, relief flooding his body.
"Shit, did I wake you up? Sorry, I was just coming back from the bathroom."
"I was already awake. Bad dream."
"Hey, me too—I woke up and was, like, utterly convinced that I was bleeding, so I went to go check."
"And?"
"I'm totally fine. Like always. Can't wait for the day when I'm finally over that shit." Zayn makes it to the bed without any more mishaps and slips in next to Liam, pulling the covers up to his chin. "What was yours?"
"Can't really remember, if I'm being honest. I just know I was being chased, and it freaked me out so bad that when I first saw you coming towards the bed I thought you were an intruder."
"And you did nothing but lie there? Killer reflexes, babe."
"Shut up. I was absolutely terrified before you tripped over your own feet."
"It's dark." Zayn rolls over and tucks himself under Liam's arm, fingers curling against his chest so gently Liam can barely feel them. "You okay now?"
"Yeah. It was just a moment. You?"
"Yeah." Zayn's quiet a moment, and then adds, "I'm really good."
"Really good?"
Liam can hear the grin in Zayn's voice more than he can see it. "I've been doing really good lately, yeah."
"Even after tonight?"
"Even after tonight. That shit is inconvenient but I can deal with it. It passes. It's not real. This—" He nudges against Liam's shoulder "—this is real. I'm doing better with remembering that."
Liam smiles softly, brushing a kiss on the top of Zayn's head. "You want to hear something?"
"Sure."
"I love you."
"I already know that," Zayn says teasingly. "Tell me something I don't know yet, Liam. Tell me something new."
"I want to marry you."
There's a long pause. Then, quietly: "I know that too."
Liam swallows. He's been thinking about this ever since Harry and Louis' wedding; it's gotten to the point where he's overthought it so much that he's actually terrified. He really shouldn't be—he knows Zayn will say yes, they've talked about it enough to establish that, so there's nothing to worry about but—it's in Liam's nature to worry about things. It's just the way he is.
But it is so easy to be brave here in the dark.
"I have a ring for you."
The silence between them is a flower that thrives in the night, opening up until it lays between them, a symbol of the beautiful, fragile thing that is their relationship.
"I think it's your turn to tell me something," Liam says finally.
"Okay." Zayn's voice shakes so slightly that Liam wouldn't have noticed if he wasn't also feeling Zayn's hands shaking against his. "Okay."
"Will you marry me?"
Zayn's hands go still, and for a moment Liam is seized with sudden terror again, but then Zayn just laughs and says, "You already know the answer to that one."
"Tell it to me anyway."
"You know it's yes," Zayn whispers, reaching up and pulling Liam's head down to meet his so they're forehead-to-forehead, lips brushing when they lean in. Liam has swears he has never felt his heart grow this big in his chest. "A million times over, it's yes."