Drunk

'So sorry I can't make dinner tonight, something's come up. :( Hope you had a great day all the same and I'll see you tomorrow. Love you, xx.' Liam put his phone away without replying to the message from his girlfriend, a little disappointed she'd cancelled their plans on his birthday. It seemed like everything was going wrong for him today; first he and Zayn had been kept back at the studio due to some technical problem and now Danielle was standing him up.

"Why the long face, Li?" Zayn asked as he stepped out of the recording booth, noticing the air of disappointment around his friend.

Liam looked up, pushing the hair out of his eyes with a sigh. "It's Danielle. Something's come up and she can't make dinner tonight."

"Oh. That's no good," Zayn commiserated, sitting next to his bandmate. Liam wasn't to know it, but Zayn happened to know exactly why Danielle had cancelled on him. "Tell you what, why don't we go to yours and order pizza or something? I'll call the lads and see if they can come on such short notice. You can't not celebrate your birthday."

"Are you sure?" Liam asked, cheering up slightly at the offer. It'd be nice to spend some time with the boys outside of work, they hadn't done much of that lately.

Zayn stood up, clapping him on the shoulder before checking his phone and sending off a quick message. "Of course I'm sure. It's your birthday, mate."

At a subtle gesture from the Bradford boy, the technician stepped out of his booth into the room containing two fifths of One Direction, settling his headphones around his neck. "Alright, thanks for that boys. That's fixed the recording error on your vocals, you're right to go."

Liam and Zayn thanked the man and gathered their things, finally leaving the studio a good three hours after the rest of their band had been dismissed. Climbing into the car as Liam reeled off his address, Zayn couldn't believe it had taken the others three hours to set up, unless they were baking the cake themselves, which he doubted. Even with Harry involved, Niall's presence would still drastically slow any progress they made.

Zayn's phone buzzed and he smirked, reading the text from Danielle. 'He doesn't suspect anything, does he?' Zayn shook his head as he chuckled, feeling Liam's eyes on him as he replied, 'Not a thing. Be there in five.'

"Who was that?" Liam asked, his curiosity spiked by Zayn's reaction to the message.

"Niall," Zayn lied easily. "Says he'll be there in twenty and not to order until he gets there. Because apparently we got the order wrong last time."

Liam laughed as well, knowing his Irish friend's commitment to food. "He'll probably just change his mind five minutes after we order anyway."

The car pulled up outside Liam's building and the driver turned in his seat to address the boys in the back. "Here we are. Have a good night."

As Liam issued another 'thank you', Zayn sent one last message and hoped that everyone was in their places upstairs. All their meticulous planning would be for nothing if Liam saw or heard movement inside his flat.

"No word from Harry or Louis yet?" Liam asked as they began their climb up the stairs to his flat on the third floor.

"No. But when has Harry ever been quick about replying to a message? They'll come Li, don't worry."

Zayn hung back as the two boys reached the third floor, letting Liam take the lead as they headed to his door. Liam fished his key out of his pocket and slid it into the lock, looking up to double check he had the right flat even though he'd been living there for three years. He pushed the door open and Zayn found himself leaning forward on his toes, eagerly anticipating what was to come. In spite of the sun shining outside, the interior of the flat was dim, the curtains drawn to hide the occupants a moment longer.

"I could've -?"

Liam made it two steps inside the door before the lights came on and a deafening shout of "SURPRISE!" echoed from the twenty people waiting inside. Louis and Harry, who'd positioned themselves either side of the door, threw confetti over him and placed a sparkly pink party hat on his head.

"What?" Liam asked in shock, looking around at the grinning faces of his family and friends, not quite able to take it all in. "When did - how did you...?"

Danielle stepped forward, beaming at her boyfriend. "Happy birthday, Li. Hope you don't mind I changed our plans."

"You planned this?" he asked, taking in the streamers and balloons strewn around his living room, the assortment of food on the coffee table and the party hats perched on everyone's heads.

"Of course," she grinned, eyes dancing. "The boys helped, but it was my idea. You didn't honestly think I'd cancel on you on your birthday, did you?"

"No-"

"He did." Zayn interrupted, laughing at Liam's expense. "He pouted the whole way here."

"Aww, baby," Danielle cooed, kissing Liam's cheek as the boys snickered.

"Alright!" Niall called, nudging Danielle aside and slinging his arm around Liam's shoulder. "The Birthday Boy's here, we have food, we have alcohol and we have music. Let's get this party started!"



Liam was vaguely aware that he was drunk, or at least well on his way to getting there. He was Daddy Direction for a reason, the responsible one of the five of them, but it hadn't taken much convincing for him to end up with a bottle in his hand. Niall's repeated insistence that he 'live a little' on his birthday had been all it took.

Danielle and the others had long since taken their leave with claims of work and school, leaving One Direction to celebrate Liam's birthday the way they'd wanted to from the beginning: together and without restriction. Which realistically meant Harry had stripped down to his underwear, Niall could no longer comprehend the term 'inside voice', Zayn had morphed into a person who could imitate Beyonce's Single Ladies dance routine remarkably well, Louis had appropriated all the abandoned party hats and distributed them over various parts of his anatomy and Liam hadn't made a single move to reign in his bandmates' exuberance.

The sound of giggling drew Liam's attention away from where Niall and Zayn were attempting to dance to Michael Jackson's Thriller, their party hats still on their heads. Laughing at their complete and utter lack of coordination, he turned to see Harry and Louis debating the merits of some idea or other.

"No, no!" Harry snickered, clutching at Louis' forearm. "What if we-"

The rest of his sentence was garbled by a fresh burst of laughter but apparently Louis understood, the pair collapsing into renewed giggles.

At any other time Liam would have found this sight cause for concern, because anything that caused them to laugh like that usually spelt trouble for everyone else. As it was, Liam merely shrugged and decided it was time for another drink.

"Anyone else need a refill?" he asked, getting to his feet as Thriller came to an end.

"Yeah, buddy!" Niall slurred, his brogue strengthened by the amount of alcohol he'd consumed. Louis nodded his affirmative while Zayn and Harry shook their heads, raising bottles still half-full by way of explanation.

On his return from the fridge, Liam misjudged the distance he had to cover and his shin connected with the corner of the coffee table. He stumbled, falling onto the couch and drawing a poorly smothered laugh from Niall.

"Is Daddy a little tipsy?" he mocked, ignoring the fact that he was so far gone himself as to be incapable of walking in a straight line.

"Shut it, leprechaun," Liam warned, his words also slurring as he handed Louis a bottle. "It's my birthday, I can do what I want."

"Oooh, leprechaun, are we starting on the Irish jokes now?" Niall demanded, becoming defensive for the simple reason he could.

"I'm sure we can come up with a few you haven't heard before."

Liam's declaration was followed by a defiant challenge from Niall. "I've been around a long time, Li. I don't think you can."

With an eager "Challenge accepted!" from Harry, the four boys began taunting Niall, trying to come up with a joke about his home country he was yet to hear. After half an hour of hilarity in which the blond boy insisted he'd heard it all before, Louis gave up.

"Fine, you win!" he stated, throwing his hands in the air. "You are the Irish-est Irish person I've ever met! Why don't you just tattoo a shamrock on your forehead already!?"

Niall spluttered, choking on the mouthful of beer he'd just swallowed, coughing the amber liquid across the coffee table. "I've never heard that before. A shamrock tattoo, eh?"

"You don't need one, Nialler. The world already knows you're Irish," Zayn sighed, leaning back in his chair and exhibiting a kind of drunken maturity. "Speaking of ink though, I was thinking of getting another."

It was then that Liam surprised them all. "I was too," he said suddenly, the other four turning to stare.

Harry narrowed his eyes at him suspiciously. "How can you get another if you don't have a first?"

Liam blinked as he worked out the distinction. "I mean a first," he corrected.

"You want a tattoo?" Louis asked.

Liam nodded. Getting to his feet and swaying slightly, he held one hand over his heart and threw the other out wide. "I, Liam James Payne, am going to get a tattoo," he announced, over-enunciating his words the way only a drunk person could.

"Doesn't mean anything if you don't sign to it." Harry was the one closest to sobriety and he knew that he and his friends would remember very little of this night come the following morning. He wanted physical proof that those words had actually left Liam's mouth.

A piece of paper and a pen were found and Niall swept the party debris off the coffee table and onto the floor. Concentrating to keep his writing legible, Liam copied the words he'd just spoken onto the sheet of paper Louis had produced, even dating it for good measure. "There," he said decisively.

Zayn shook his head. "You have to actually sign it or it doesn't count."

It said something about just how wasted the five of them were that not even an hour after Liam signed his name at the bottom of the piece of paper, every member of One Direction was out for the count, fast asleep in various locations on Liam's living room floor.



'I, Liam James Payne, am going to get a tattoo.' On discovering the note the morning after his surprise birthday party, Liam hadn't expected he was going to be held to his drunken promise. After all, he had no recollection of writing the words and was merely thankful he hadn't gone out and actually gotten a tattoo.

However, the rest of the band had a different idea. Swearing up, down and sideways that they remembered watching him sign the note, they used a combination of blackmail and peer pressure to ensure he kept his word.

"Drunken actions are sober thoughts," they said each time he pleaded clemency, always poised to share his most embarrassing moments with the world, leaving Liam with no choice but to decide on the design he wanted permanently inked into his skin. Which was how he found himself stepping over the threshold of Zayn's preferred tattoo parlour almost a month later.

Crossing into a waiting room that was not nearly as stereotypical as he'd pictured it to be, Liam took a breath to steady himself, Harry placing a bracing hand on his shoulder. Both Harry and Zayn had decided to accompany him on this absurd venture; Harry because he was contemplating a new tattoo and Zayn because his latest needed checking over. Liam had done his research, he knew the risks, he knew what to expect and he had Zayn's reassurance that the man about to attack him with needles knew what he was doing.

Before long Liam was ushered through to a back room and seated on a padded chair that reminded him of a dentist's office, his shirt unbuttoned and pulled open to expose the right side of his chest. The tattooist chatted easily to the three boys as he prepared his equipment and cleaned a section of Liam's skin.

"First tattoo?" he asked Liam.

Liam cleared his throat and nodded, "Yeah."

"Well," he said, looking down at the design he was about to make permanent, "At least you seem like you're prepared for it. Though you three are the first sober ones through the door today."

Liam's eyes found the clock on the opposite wall, it was just past four. "Really?"

The man nodded and paused with the needle just inches above Liam's skin. "Most people are drunk when they get a tattoo. Well, the smart ones are," he clarified.

Liam turned his head to stare at Zayn and Harry who just gave him Cheshire cat grins and shrugged. He figured it made sense, he'd definitely been drunk when he first voiced his intention to get a tattoo.

"Ready, kid?" At Liam's nod, the needle continued its descent. "Brace yourself, this shouldn't take more than half an hour."

True to his word, Liam's tattoo was complete less than half an hour later. Grimacing as he rubbed the heel of his hand over the temporary dressing, Liam couldn't see why Zayn had willingly put himself through that kind of pain more than once. The next decision Liam made was the easiest he had ever made in his life. Swallowing the pain killers Harry had handed him when they reached the car, he decided he was never going to get another tattoo, drunk or otherwise. One was quite enough.