Turn Up Your Telephone (Ziam Artist AU)
Title: Turn Up Your Telephone
Summary: In which Zayn is a photographer, Liam is an artist, people fall in love and break up, and a lot of art is made.
A/N: so...this exists?
--
"Yes, please." The teen steps forward and helps Liam maneuver the painting into place. "Thanks. I'm Liam, by the way. Painter."
"Zayn Malik. Photographer." They shake hands briefly, Liam noting details about the stranger. He was shorter than Liam by maybe a centimeter, skinny and angular. He wore battered jeans and a red t-shirt under a worn grey hoodie, with a canvas bag crossing his chest and a camera hanging around his neck on a thick black strap. "You here on scholarship?"
Liam blushes--of course this is one of the teens who actually earned their right to be here. "My sister's running the exhibit, so..."
Zayn whistles between his teeth. "Damn, you're Payne's brother? I was wondering when I'd meet you. We're exhibit buddies." At Liam's puzzled look, Zayn clarifies. "Right, you weren't at orientation. Blizzard in Denmark?" Liam nods, still completely lost as to what Zayn is talking about. "Part of the exhibit is contrast between mediums. You're a fairly abstract designer--not that your detail work isn't great, it's pretty cool actually, especially with those watercolor backgrounds--but I'm more of a realist. I mean, look."
Liam immediately looks at the photographs hanging beside his paintings, and instantly notices the sharp contrast, as well as the similarities. The painting Liam had been hanging was of his boarding school during the early stages of a fierce winter blizzard, before they'd gotten dug out. The entire work was soft snowbanks in muted blues and pinks as the sun went down, the buildings blazing with light and one lone person walking on the snow covered path, wrapped in thick coats and scarves; the matted photograph three feet to the right was almost exactly the same, albeit in photograph version. Liam's painting really is more abstract than he'd thought when put in comparison to Zayn's photograph, but when he glances back over to Zayn's, the photo now seems painfully sharp.
It's a fantastic display, the two pieces together. It shouldn't work, but it does.
"Whoa," Liam breathes, suddenly noticing the same contrast in every single display around the room. "That's insane."
Zayn ruffles his hand through his hair, stretching. "That was my reaction, too." He fiddles with the strap of his bag. "Wanna go get coffee?"
Liam blinks in surprise. "Um, okay?"
They find a quirky little cafe two blocks away from the museum and settle in as it begins to snow lightly. They just start talking, about their art, about other interests outside of it, about their lives.
Zayn admits he'd been attacked in a brutal assault by homophobes in his school, and he'd almost died, but since he pulled through, a zero-tolerance policy had been instated with investigations into the behavior of multiple students.
"I'm not exactly the most well liked student," he admits, stirring his coffee. "But at least I'm not getting beat up. And my best friends help."
Liam kind of stares for awhile. "My life's not nearly so...I mean, I'm pretty sheltered. I live in this insane boarding school--and I really mean insane, my dormmates are crazy, I mean it, Harry and Louis should never be let loose on the world, like ever--and I'm in the school choir--which isn't as lame as it sounds, it's a lot of fun--but other than that--oh, crap."
He'd accidentally elbowed his cup, knocking lukewarm coffee all over his shirt.
Zayn jumps up with a handful of napkins and helps mop up some of the mess, but Liam's shirt is certainly damaged beyond repair.
"Here." Liam looks up to see Zayn holding out his hoodie. "I've got my coat, and besides, you'll get really sick wearing that outside."
Liam takes the sweatshirt and goes to the bathroom to change.
Zayn wears the same size as Liam, and even though it had been a little big on Zayn, it fits Liam perfectly. It's soft, and clearly well worn, as comfortably textured as it had looked earlier. It smells nice, a kind of mix of some sort of spice and a faint floral scent as well. The thing is, it's the kind of clothes he'd never pick out for himself, but there's something comforting in the old grey fabric. He'd never admit it, but he's not looking forward to relinquishing it when the time comes to give it back.
When he emerges from the bathroom, Zayn is kind of blushing, but Liam dismisses it. "It's really comfy."
Zayn scratches the back of his neck. "Yeah, well, I think every single one of my friends has borrowed it at some point. If it smells kinda flowery, it's because Danielle spilled perfume all over it a while back. It's never really gone away."
Liam gets another coffee and they settle back at their table. One coffee turns into three, and an hour turns into two. Phone numbers are exchanged, and Zayn takes at least a dozen pictures of Liam. Well, Liam only knows of a dozen, and there are probably more that he didn't catch.
They only stop talking when Liam gets an annoyed call from his sister.
"I gotta go," he apologizes, putting his phone back into his bag. "But it was definitely fun. See you tonight?"
"I'll walk you back," he offers, and Liam agrees, blushing.
The walk back is interesting, filled with anecdotes and camera flashes ("Don't you dare, I look horrible!") and Liam only trips twice and slides in four puddles, which has to be some kind of record. (He's the biggest klutz in the world. His mom used to say it was because the universe has to balance out his entire being, or else he'd be too perfect)
Once they reach the museum, Zayn fixes Liam with a steady gaze. "Are you gay, Liam?"
The taller boy is utterly taken aback and only blinks at Zayn confusedly. "Why?"
"I'm wondering if it's alright to ask you out."
Liam squirms a bit and finally just shrugs. "I dunno. Never really thought about it."
Zayn is about to say something when a shriek of "Liam!" echoes through the marble archway and both boys jump.
"I'll let you go," Zayn says, stepping back. "But think about it, 'k?"
It's not until Liam is back in the hall and he's getting weird looks from Eleanor, his sister's assistant, and the two curators that he realizes he's still wearing Zayn's sweatshirt. He mentally curses and promises himself that he's going to return it that night. Really.
...
Turns out they don't see each other that night, because they're both so busy talking to guests and explaining their various pieces. ("No, I'm not a photographer; those are Zayn Malik's, he's over there" is said so many times Liam just does it on autopilot after the first fifty times.)
On the ride back to his apartment, Liam texts Zayn, and they proceed to have a fifteen minute conversation about one woman's insistence on bringing her poodle into the exhibit and the fact that half the guests were completely drenched due to the sudden rain storm (what exactly happened to the snow from earlier isn't clear) and how there was a fair number of women in ball gowns looking like drowned Chihuahuas.
They each take an hour to dry off and warm up, but come midnight, Liam is sitting in the kitchen with a mug of hot chocolate, Coco's head on his lap, texting Zayn.
Nicola sails into the kitchen and catches the expression on Liam's face.
"Either you're more excited about this exhibit than I thought, or you're in love," she teases, ruffling his hair and taking a can of Pepsi out of the fridge. "I'd say love."
Liam stares at his sister, who never teases him and never drinks soda. And she especially doesn't ruffle his hair.
Nicola catches his shocked expression. "Oh, don't look at me like that. I am human too, you know." She leans on the counter and studies her brother's face. "What's her--or his--name? You must've hit it off, considering you haven't taken off that sweatshirt yet."
"Zayn," he finally replies, after she snapped her fingers in front of his face. He sips his hot chocolate, careful to not spill the near-scalding liquid. "But I'm not sure if I like him or anything."
His sister chuckles. "Liam, love, I saw that very expression every day when Dad was with Mum." Nicola reaches over the brush a curl off Liam's forehead. "You might not know it yet, but you're in love." She sets her can down and twists off the tab, cutting her finger in the process. "Ow!" She grins wryly as she produces a designer bandaid from a pocket. "I don't know how you managed to avoid the family clumsiness gene."
Liam doesn't reply, seriously trying to figure out if aliens have replaced his sister, because this is so bizzare, and so out of character for her, that he's kind of terrified that something bad is about to happen.
"...why are you bringing this up now?"
Nicola shrugs, sipping her Pepsi, finger now wrapped in a paisley patterned bandaid. "You're growing up. I hadn't realized it. You've always been my baby brother, and I guess I hadn't realized you weren't the little boy who got dumped in my lap at the worst possible time until you came running into that hall, your face lit up like that and drowning in someone else's sweatshirt." She sighs, and tilts his chin up. "You might still be hopeless with your clothes and your hair might be as horrible as your mine, but you're not my baby brother any more. I've missed so much already, and I just want to be part of this. So, tell me, what's Zayn like?"
For some reason, Liam finds himself opening up and talking about Zayn--it's one of the most surreal experiences of his life, sitting in the kitchen with his sister, drinking soda and hot chocolate, discussing his practically non-existent love life. It's the first time he's had a conversation with his sister that hasn't been monosyllabic or involved art or fashion in some capacity, and it simultaneously terrifies and elates him.
...
The next day, Liam finds himself sitting the gallery, watching people flit through. He notices that people tend to pause the most at first Zayn's photos and then linger at his before moving on to everything else. A group of kids swarm past the bench were Liam is sitting--he'd say it was a school class, except it's three days past Christmas and there's not a single school in New York that's in session right now--and one of them almost knocks over Liam's sketchbook, but nothing comes of it.
He's not sure how long he sits there, but a significant amount of time has passed when Zayn settles next to him.
"It's weird," Zayn says. "There are sixteen artists showcased here, and none of us have anything in common other than art, but everyone's got the same kind of themes in their stuff."
Liam's grown up around this kind of thing, and he's seen enough of the exhibit to know that's not quite true. He says so, citing examples and explaining how everything is different, even if it has a theme, and that's what makes it a collection and a unique exhibit, because the only requirement was that the pieces focused on expression and freedom.
Zayn counters, arguing the use of medium and how Kelsey DeWitt's photography is frighteningly similar to Angela Rickett's charcoal and pastel pieces.
They leave the museum still debating.
At Central Park, Zayn takes a dozen Polaroids and at least three hundred with his DSLR, 95% of which featured Liam in some way.
They spent two hours talking, playing the What's-That-Person-Really-Like game, Any 10 Questions, learning things about each other. Liam finds himself admitting things he'd never said to anyone else and he likes it when Zayn laughs, eyes sparkling.
They're about to cross the street to find a place to eat lunch when Liam notices his sister's personal assistant Eleanor surreptitiously following them.
"Zayn," he says, carefully not looking at Eleanor. "Don't freak out, but I think my sister sent her PA to stalk us."
Zayn pauses midsentence. "Okay? I thought we were talking about music? I mean, Niall and Danielle have been threatening to buy tickets to London since I made the mistake of telling them about you. She's not doing anything bad, is she?"
"No, just following us."
Zayn stops, turns, and waves. Eleanor immediately snaps a photo with her iPhone and then melts into the crowd. Zayn turns back to Liam.
"You were saying about a visit to Central Park?"
.
It turns out they're going to the airport at the same time, although they're on different flights. Zayn walks Liam to his gate and dips him to give him a kiss.
The little old woman Liam sits next to on the plane doesn't stop talking about how cute they are together for the entire eight hour flight to London, and then for three more hours when it turns out they're seatmates again on the flight to Denmark.
.
Liam's never been in a long distance relationship. Actually, scratch that, he's never been in a relationship period. So he's not entirely sure if this is normal, texting and skype and long phone calls.
It feels right, though.
When they do finally see each other in person, it feels like it was always supposed to be that way. They don't do fancy or extravagant date--kind of hard when they have to travel long distances to see each other--but what they do is fun and sweet and just right. They go for long walks and watch cheesy movies projected on a bedsheet in Zayn's backyard and go out for ice cream with their friends and a lot of kissing.
Eleanor calls weekly to check in on them, and honestly, this is the longest any of his sister's PAs have ever stuck around. Nicola hasn't sat down with Liam or even talked with him since that night in the kitchen, but he'll find occasional notices of competitions where Zayn is involved or train tickets out to Bradford, England. When he's home, he'll sometimes find notes in her looping handwriting, informing him that Zayn called, and that's a lot better than previous breaks.
When summer comes around, Zayn comes and visits for two whole weeks. They don't really stay in London--okay, they do for three days, doing all the touristy things like Madame Tussauds and Buckingham Palace and all that--but take the train up to Scotland and down to France, and when they get back, they take a pottery class. It's perfect, and Zayn has the photos to prove it.
Sometimes though, Liam wonders if this is too easy.
Because curled up into Zayn's side, that feels perfect. And he can trust Zayn with anything, and taking is so easy. Zayn gets it when Liam needs time to just paint and clear his head.
Except...every relationship Liam has ever witnessed has always included fights, and broken items. Mum and Dad divorced. Nicola keeps breaking up with and getting back together with and yelling at Wes. There's the infamous Louis-Harry thing back at school. They always fight--and Liam never fights with Zayn.
And he's only seventeen (okay, eighteen in two weeks, but that's beside the point). How's he supposed to know if this should be forever?
So he breaks it off. Over text, like a coward, and he makes it just haughty enough that Zayn and his friends will be convinced that Liam was just some spoilt rich brat jerking Zayn around for the fun of it. With that kind of breakup, they won't want to know why. They'd assume they'd already know.
It hurts, and he returns to school a little bit lighter and a whole lot heavier.
Harry is the first to catch on that something is off. Probably because he finds Liam outside, setting Zayn's album on fire.
"Liam?" Harry's voice is hesitant and worried. "Dude, what are you doing?" He smothers the flame with a quick blast of fire extinguisher and sits next to Liam. "What happened? I thought you and Zayn were solid."
Liam shrugs, and turns away. "We were. And then we weren't." He misses texting Zayn, and those weird phone calls with Zayn's friends. But he'd been the one to break it off, so he probably doesn't have a right to complain. He's never been in this position before, so he has no clue what he's supposed to be acting like. Right now he just feels a whole lot like crying and calling Zayn and telling him he messed up.
"Well, if you need to talk, any of us in Milagrosa House are willing to listen." Harry picks up the album. "And I'm keeping this safe for you."
"Whatever."
Liam stands, nearly trips over the doorstop and returns to his room.
Various people drop by and attempt to get answers out of him--including Josh, which is really just plain awkward and weird--but he manages to wave them all off with simple excuses, a trip on the stairs, an "oh, look, what are they doing?" Slowly, people shut up and back off about it.
.
He gets a phone call from Niall Horan a week into first semester, where the slightly older boy just yells and yells and yells. Liam doesn't say anything, just cries a bit, and so he's surprised when a cool hand takes the phone from him and starts yelling back at Niall.
"I don't know what is going on but Liam's obviously broken up about it and if you don't stop yelling at him right this minute you insufficiently intelligent moron who probably can't spell worth shit, I swear to God I will track you down and rip your hair out of your scalp and donate it to a homeless shelter."
Niall is sufficiently shocked into silence, as is Liam, who gapes up at Louis Tomlinson.
"He's broken up about it?" Niall finally spits back. "Zayn hasn't left his bedroom for almost a month."
"And Liam's turned to pyromania. So shut the fuck up, delete the number and tell him to get over it." Louis hangs the phone up with a distinct click. "Hi. Sorry about that. You're one of the art TAs, right?"
"Yeah?"
"Great, come help me figure out Mrs Peterson's project from hell. Just because I'm in drama doesn't mean I'm artsy. I can't tell Monet from Picasso."
Liam looks suitably horrified and lets Louis drag him off into the depths of the campus.
.
It's strange, that having broken up with his boyfriend makes Liam more creative. He vaguely thinks it shouldn't work that way, but he's not complaining.
He paints Zayn once, twice, three times, and never lets anyone see them. Instead, he throws himself into a portrait series, painting people in monochrome schemes, hiding pieces of what he associates with them in every part of the canvas.
He does one of Louis made out of many little Louis figures. He does a collage style portrait of Harry, and an all black and white shadow portrait of his sister. He even does one of Eleanor, who plants a kiss on his cheek and proudly hangs it in her apartment. When he runs out of people he knows, he goes and sits in the off campus coffee shop with his sketchbook and lead pencils and sketches, then makes paintings from the sketches.
He tries sculpture and paper mache, different types of paint and various materials, until he finds the perfect medium and goes with it.
The only thing he doesn't try is photography.
It's best to leave some things to memory.
Either way, his portfolio grows and grows, and university is a no brainer. He's grown up and moved on--except sometimes he realizes he hasn't. He mostly tries to ignore that, though.
.
Zayn pauses at the corner, seeing a familiar mop of hair across the street. There was no way that was actually him, was it?
Niall tugs at his arm. "C'mon, Zayn. We're going to be late." When Zayn doesn't move, still staring at the stranger, Niall huffs and turns to see what had caught Zayn's interest. "It's not him, Zayn. What are the chances?"
Zayn shakes his head, seeing that it was someone else entirely. "Yeah, you're right. I don't know what I was thinking. Let's go."
The art gala is at the same museum where Zayn first met Liam and he's given pause, considering some of the pieces look scarily familiar. He can't bring himself to look too closely, because he's not sure what he'd do if it was actually Liam. He's alright with pretending he has no idea why the gallery is named the Payne Gallery, and he's alright with pretending he has nothing to do with Liam Payne.
That disillusion is shot to hell when someone slams into him.
Zayn stares at Liam. "Holy hell, that's actually you," he breathes, staring at the familiar face. "Liam, it's you!"
Liam shuffles awkwardly. "Um, yeah." he ruffles a hand through his hair. "Hi?"
Suddenly, Zayn lunges forward and wraps Liam in a tight hug, face buried in the crook of his neck. "Jesus Christ, Liam, I missed you so fucking much."
A pointed cough beside them makes Zayn pull back. He studies the boy with curly hair curiously, not recognizing him.
"Um, Zayn, this is my roommate and best friend, Harry Styles. Harry, this is...this is my ex-boyfriend, Zayn Malik."
Despite himself, Zayn snorts. "And then you ended it."
Liam at least has the tact to look embarrassed. "Yeah. Sort of. What are you doing here?"
"Attending NYU, arts program. You?"
"Colombia."
"I feel like I should warn you, Niall's still out for blood."
Harry snorted. "Louis practically adopted Liam after whatever happened. He'd tear your Niall to shreds."
Small talk is awkward, until Zayn excuses himself for a smoke break and Liam trails behind, leaving Niall and Louis to glare daggers at each other.
"So you want to give this another go?"
Zayn exhales a cloud of smoke, and Liam has an intense desire to take Zayn's own camera and take a photograph. "Only if you tell me why you ended it in the first place."
"I was scared," Liam admits in a small voice. "Fucking terrified, actually."
Liam half expects Zayn to laugh, but instead his voice is only a little bitter. "Of what?"
"We never fought. And everyone else I know...they fight when they're in love."
"It's not always like that." Zayn grinds out his cigarette and lifts his camera to snatch a shot of Liam, looking loose and vulnerable. "Frown."
Liam immediately breaks out into a wide, joyful grin and Zayn takes the shot. "Why do you always say that? Frown?"
"Easiest way to make people genuinely smile."
"Always works on me," Liam admits and stares up at the smoggy New York skyline. "You ever wonder why so many love stories are set here? It's like the least romantic place in the world."
"It's got potential, though."
"I guess."
They sit in silence, and that's it, that's everything that Zayn's been missing.
Zayn leans over and kisses Liam, tasting of cigarette and wine and everything Liam used to love.
"We fell in love too early, is all." he explains. "Ready to try again?"
"With you here?" Liam smiles. "Anything at all."
--
Questions, comments, concerns.