Chapter Text
Enjoy the playlist based on Tides of Love HERE
Liam sat, enjoying the view of the harbor, and took another sip of his beer, even though it’s 10am. He was officially in vacation mode and ready to start relaxing.
He wondered what it says about him that his own sister sent him on a blind date cruise at 32 years old; worried he may end up alone since he was such a workaholic and never took proper care of his life.
“Normal people set their brothers on blind dates with their friends at a bar or summat not on a fucking cruise!” he told her when she gave him the tickets two months ago.
“Well, you did go on a date with Patrick once, remember?" she replied with a giggle, making him gag.
"Yeah, but it was so dull, he just stared at me all night without saying a thing!” he whined.
“And what about Kevin?”
“He’s a knobhead and you know it.”
“Or J-?” he didn’t even let her finish, covering her mouth with his hand while screeching, “WE DON’T TALK ABOUT J in this house!”
"See my point?”
He nodded, hating that she was right.
“Also think about it: a romantic trip on a ship to an island, it's like a gay, Ru Paul-ified version of Titanic, and you know you love Titanic!", she reasoned with him, “without the sad ending of course”.
So that’s how he ended up in a harbor, far away from London, about to travel to find the love of his life. Quite literally.
He boarded the ship past noon, the crew was welcoming the thrilled passengers with a cocktail reception in the main dining room when a young man in uniform entered, saluting his crew and standing on a platform with a microphone.
"Good evening ladies and gentlemen, theys and thems, welcome to Cupid’s Cruise, the first-ever LGBT-friendly blind date cruise! I'm Niall Horan, the captain, and it's my absolute pleasure to take you all on a journey not only to Hawaii but also to an experience you'll never forget," he said to the crowd. “Now, you may remember you had to fill out a form about yourselves a few days ago. Based on that info our system paired you with another passenger who’s a perfect match for you, whom you’ll get to know in our two weeks of adventures overseas. Enjoy!”
After receiving his key from a crew member, Liam wandered the ship for a while before finding his room. He saw his initials “LJP” on the door and his new roommate’s initials under his: “ZJM”, and he knew exactly why those initials felt so oddly familiar as he opened the door.
“NO”, he yelled, after seeing the brunette guy lying in the middle of the double bed in his room. Theirs . “NO, NO, NO. THIS HAS TO BE WRONG.”
The guy, Zayn, looked up at him with a smirk after recognizing his voice, too. “Well, well! Look who the tide brought in!” Liam never wanted to be in a nightmare more than at that moment, so he could wake up and be away from Zayn.
He could recognize that voice and those deep honey eyes anywhere. They met a year ago at a tattoo convention in Paris, Zayn went from a studio in New York and Liam from his own in London, and both were strong competitors in the black and grey category. At first, they got along pretty well, but as the competition started to move up, the fighting began.
There were many things about Zayn Malik that bothered Liam. The main thing is that he seems to take pleasure in annoying him. And he never shuts up. From comments on how he uses his machine, the faces he makes while he’s concentrating, or how serious Liam is. Another baffling thing he did was make dirty jokes and Liam couldn't understand why—is he flirting? Or just trying to push Liam’s buttons?
Liam tried hard to ignore him, focusing on his work, but Zayn always found a way to say something that tested his patience, leading to an inevitable fight.
By the time the convention was over, all he wanted to do was to relax at the spa, but Zayn wouldn’t leave him alone.
“Dinner? Dancing? C’mon, let’s have a little fun!” Zayn said confidently, leaning against the booth as Liam packed up his things.
“Ha! You wish. All you’ve done for most of this convention is annoy me and I couldn’t be happier to never have to see your annoying face again. Now I’m going to enjoy my well-earned first place and relax. Have a safe trip home though, number two,” Liam replied with a laugh, entering the elevator, trying not to murder Zayn in front of so many witnesses.
“Oh come on princess, you know I really didn't mean to annoy you. I—” Zayn started to apologize as the door closed in his face and Liam was finally able to take a deep breath and have some peace and quiet.
With the convention finally over, Liam happily went home to London thinking he would never see Zayn again. He even pleaded with the Gods above to never in his life see Zayn again. Clearly nobody was listening.
“There must be a mistake, there’s no way we are a perfect match!” Liam cried out as Zayn cackled from his place, noticing how high-pitched Liam’s voice got with his nerves.
“Are you sure, cupcake? Maybe we are destined to be together, a match made in heaven, who knows?”
“In hell more like.”
“Oh, c’mon! You know that very deep down you like me!”
“I have no idea why you'd think that. All you've ever done is driving me crazy.”
He couldn't take it anymore, so he left the room and looked for Captain Niall to beg him to swap with someone else.
“Sorry, kid but Zayn is your only choice. Don’t blame me— the system did all the matching and who are we to argue with science? whether you believe it or not, he’s your perfect match,” He explained.
Liam couldn't believe it. There must be something wrong with the system, but obviously there was nothing that could be done about it. So he ended up touring around the ship instead, trying to get out of his head and stay away from Zayn. It was his first time on a cruise and he was amazed to see how big and amazing it was. He even got a reservation for dinner at a Mexican restaurant, before going back to their room.
He was hoping that by some miracle Zayn wouldn’t be there when he came back, but there he was, smiling stupidly at him. “So, what are we doing here? Are you leaving me stranded in the middle of the ocean after all we’ve been through in this…three-hour adventure or what?”
“Shut up.”
“So, since you’ve been blessed with my company for two weeks, let’s start with how did the almighty Liam Payne end in a love-matching cruise with me?”
Liam counted to ten first, and then to twenty trying to calm down before he replied. “It was a gift from my sister for my birthday.”
“When was your birthday?”
“August 29th. Two months ago.”
“Oh, a virgo. That explains a lot actually.”
“I didn’t know you were into astrology.”
“You don’t know anything about me, princess, but luckily we have fourteen beautiful days to get to know each other,” Liam rolled his eyes so hard he wondered how they didn’t fall out of his head, making Zayn laugh. “So, what’s next?”
“Well, since we can't seem to be around each other without fighting, I suggest we stay as far away as we can, so I'll just get a nap close to the pool and then grab some dinner.”
And that's what he did. A few other passengers were already swimming and chatting with their partners when Liam got there. He felt kinda relieved when he saw one specific couple who didn't seem so smitten with each other too.
“How many times do I have to say that I’m sorry for you to believe me?” a man in the water close to Liam asked his partner, looking at the curly-haired guy who was sitting on the edge, his feet in the water.
“You didn’t even say it once, Louis! You can’t just stare at naked people five minutes after meeting them!”
“It was an accident!” the guy, Louis, replied.
“You were practically drooling over me!”
“It was a very fortunate accident!” Louis said, making the other guy snort.
“You know what? I should just leave you here and go meet my true love…like that guy, he seems nice,” he pointed deliberately at Liam with a flirty smile, making his date look at him too. “Hi there, I'm Harry and this one is Louis, my partner that I want to drown at the bottom of the ocean.”
“Rude,” Louis surfaced out of the water, sitting beside Harry. “Nice to meet ya, lad. Excuse our little fight, we’re still getting used to each other, right Hazza?”
Harry shook his head with a fond stare. “So, where's your partner?”
“Hi, I'm Liam. My partner is a wanker, so I left him in our room.”
“See? That's what I should've done,” he joked, making Louis yell.
“Oi! Unlike me, you haven't seen the best of me yet .”
They kept chatting for a while, and Liam saw it. Behind the bickering, they kinda fit together. Where Louis was loud and rambunctious, Harry was calm and patient. And strangely, he wondered for a second if he and Zayn could be the same if they could get past their differences.
When Liam noticed it was getting dark, he said goodbye to his new friends promising to bring Zayn tomorrow so they all could spend the evening together, before heading to the restaurant.
He was halfway there when a pang of guilt came over him, thinking of Zayn, alone in their room when he was here to meet someone too. Grumbling to himself, he went back to fetch him. As he opened the door, he found the boy sleeping with his mouth half-opened, his hair soft, falling over his forehead, making him look younger. Way too far from the cheeky man he knows and maybe a version he could like a little bit more.
“Zayn?” he tried at first. When he kept sleeping, he tried slapping his cheek softly. His long lashes batted a few times, bringing him back to reality with a yawn. “Come on, get up”.
“What? Why?” he asked, confused and still half-sleep.
“We got dinner reservations, so get your ass up.”
“Oh, so you’ve been thinking about my ass?” he replied, back to being the Zayn that Liam knew.
“You wish,” Liam mumbled, questioning himself why he thought this could be a good idea. “Now let’s go before we miss it.”
“But I like to hear you talk about my bum!”
They got there just in time. The view was astounding with the sunset coming to an end in the sea so close to them. At first, the silence was a bit uncomfortable considering he was used to Zayn’s ways, but he couldn't avoid getting a bit lost in the way the last bits of the sun created colorful shadows over Zayn's angular face with his high cheekbones, while he was lost in his thoughts.
“So…you like Mexican food?” Liam asked, breaking the silence after a while and making Zayn smile.
“You ask me now that you made the reservation, we ordered and we’ve been sitting here for…thirty minutes if I like it?” Liam nodded, feeling his cheeks getting hotter. “Well, yeah. I like spicy food in general because I’m half Pakistani and most of our food is spicy. Isn't even remotely the same, but the sentiment is there, kinda reminds me of home,” he shrugged.
“So that’s where your accent is from?”
“Yes, in my house we spoke a lot of Urdu with my dada— sorry, my grandpa. But we lived in Bradford so there’s that too. I get you’re not from London either, right?”
“I grew up in Wolverhampton, left when I turned 21, and now just go to visit my family. It was hard, you know? Growing up in a little city, being the weird kid and all that. It got worse when I came out as bi at 14.”
Honestly, Liam didn’t know why he was telling these things to Zayn, but he was paying so much attention that Liam kept talking.
“I suffered bullying at school. It got so bad I almost ended my life. That's when I started drawing and boxing, to defend myself from them, but also to stay out of my head. At 18 I knew I wanted to be a tattoo artist so I found a mentor and moved out as soon as I could,” he took a sip of his water when the waitress came back with their tacos order.
"You have no idea how much I get that. My community is very old-fashioned, and for them being gay is like being sick. I always was the quiet kid,” that bit made Liam laugh. “Believe it or not I was loved by a bunch of elders because of how chill I was when I was younger. Everything changed when they found out I didn’t like girls at all. I tried to stay in the closet as much as I could, but when they figured it out, I wasn’t welcome anywhere so I left as far as I could as well,” he explained.
“But when did you become…you?”
Liam was curious, trying to picture a quiet, teen Zayn, so different from the man sitting in front of him, being expelled from his home at a very young age and he felt a familiar pain in his chest. Meanwhile, Zayn laughed it off, taking a few bites of his food and making an obscene sound that made a few heads turn from other tables and making Liam’s skin prickle.
“This is delicious, by the way,” he said first, sucking the food from his fingers and taking a sip of his drink. “I don’t know. I guess it all changed when I realized I was finally free to be whoever I wanted after losing everything. I kinda like me right now though, don’t you?” he smirked at Liam, raising his eyebrows.
“Hardly”, he grinned back.
“And why did you invite me then?” he asked finally, “I must admit you surprised me, after disappearing for so many hours. I thought you were plotting my demise.”
“Are you always this dramatic?”
“Of course, cupcake. It’s one of the things I do best”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Okay, princess.”
“You know what? I—” but Liam was interrupted by the host of the restaurant calling it Karaoke Night.
Zayn immediately ran to the stage, singing a surprisingly amazing version of Can't Take My Eyes Off You that Zayn dedicated to him, leaving Liam a bit breathless and blushed. It felt like that 10 Things I Hate About You scene. For a second, Liam wondered why Zayn would choose that song and dedicate it to him. Was he just being silly? Or did he really mean it?
“You have to sing the next one with me!” Zayn decided in a rush a few songs later, interrupting Liam's train of thoughts and dragging him to the little stage.
“Are you crazy? No, absolutely not,” Zayn turned to him and used his best pout on him, a dirty move with those damn long lashes and sultry eyes. That's how they ended up making a very trashed version of Ain’t No Mountain High Enough that earned them both a few laughs and free tequila shots to end the night.
Everything was okay until they reached their room again because while he was on better terms with Zayn, sleeping in the same bed was not going to happen.
“I don’t know why you’re making such a big deal of it, it’s just a bed!” Zayn shrugged, dropping himself on the bed.
“That's exactly my point. We shouldn’t have to share so soon,” Liam complained, sitting on the opposite side.
“So soon? Thinking a bit ahead, aren’t you?” Liam threw a pillow at his head. “No, but for real, you can build a pillow fort between us if you want, I swear I won’t bite… unless you ask nicely.”
“UGH! You’re the most irritating person I know,” he said, starting to put pillows between them, grumbling the entire time. “I hate you.”
Zayn just chuckled, sighing while turning off the lights. “And I like you. Goodnight princess”.