Old Money and New Crime

Zayn doesn't hate fraternities, despite the general consensus of the undergraduate population. He didn't orchestrate the drug bust out of hatred.

He doesn't like hating anything. Hatred is a boring, useless emotion, one that darkens his thoughts and clouds his judgment. Hatred makes him biased. Hatred is the reason he flinches away from touch; the reason he stays awake all night and startles himself at every shifting shadow in his dorm. Anger, on the other hand, makes him sharp. Anger drives him forward.

He didn't bust ADPhi because of hatred. A better word would be revenge.

-

The first time Zayn met Liam, he punched him in the face.

It was his freshman year, and there was Liam, who he didn't know was Liam at the time, standing outside of the lecture hall for pre-requisite first year English, talking to some asshole-looking guy with red hair and a guitar strapped to his back.

"Jesus, you were at that ADPhi party Saturday night?" Guitar guy said. "Sounded fuckin' mad, mate."

"It really was," Liam agreed, laughing kind of sheepishly. "I'm not usually, like, the type for that, you know? But I had a good time, I guess."

"Pretty fuckin' exclusive too, yeah?"

"I guess it's just who you know," Liam had shrugged. Zayn's stomach turned, and he felt frozen, briefly, overcome with-- something, something he didn't know how to describe, still doesn't, couldn't if he tried.

Liam was at the party, he was there, and Zayn was too, but he can't remember anything after that first drink, except for the smell of cinnamon and waking up alone with his clothes scattered on the ground of the one of the fraternity bedrooms. Liam was there, walking the same party as Zayn, careless, irresponsible, and suddenly Zayn couldn't breathe.

He followed Liam outside, tapped his shoulder for him to turn around, and punched him in the nose.

Zayn doesn't entirely understand what happened next, or it's blurred in his memory, at least, fogged by the anger and frustration and the base-level disgust, with himself for not remembering, with Liam for being there, with everyone and anything related to ADPhi.

Liam staggered from the force of the punch a bit, taking a few steps backward to regain his footing, and clutched at his bleeding nose. He didn't run, or yell at Zayn, or, fuck, call the fucking campus police. He just looked at Zayn, calculating, while Zayn took heaving breaths and tried to control himself. His knuckles were bathed in Liam's blood.

"Are you okay?" Liam asked him, blood dripping down from his to his chin, onto his shirt.

"Am I--" Zayn frowned. "Am I okay? I just punched you. I've never punched anyone in my entire life."

Liam had sort of smiled. "I thought so. It wasn't the best hit, really."

Zayn rolled his eyes. "What the fuck is wrong with you?"

Liam just blinked at him.

"Why aren't you hitting me back?"

"You're shaking," Liam pointed out. "I don't tend to make a habit of punching people who look like they're about to pass out."

Zayn just furrowed his eyebrows. "I'm not going to pass out."

"Listen, can I... Can I walk you somewhere?" Liam asked.

Zayn shrugged, but started walking towards his residence hall. "You were talking about the ADPhi party. I was there too." He swallowed, trying to collect his words, his breathing, his mind. "I lost something there that night."

"I'm sorry," Liam had said, sounding totally earnest despite the blood trickling down his neck. "I hope you get it back."

"Thank you," Zayn mumbled, looking down at his feet.

They walked in silence for a while. Zayn's freshman residence hall was only about a ten minute walk from the Arts and Sciences building, so they reached it soon enough; Liam hovering outside of the door to Zayn's room.

"Um, does you residence hall have like-- coffee? I could. We could get some," Liam said, and Zayn didn't tell him he didn't like coffee, which he really doesn't, just followed him down to the dining hall and dumped a ton of milk and sugar into his cup until Liam kind of smiled and just went and bought him a hot chocolate.

"I'm not a child, I can drink coffee," Zayn griped. He drank all of the hot chocolate anyway.

Liam had just looked at him, sort of appraising, and said, "I know you aren't." There was still blood on his face.

After that, they were friends.

--

Zayn isn't great at making friends. He's not really good with people, in general, and that was before he was punching strangers and flinching away from everyone's touch.

He didn't have a lot of friends in high school, mostly because of his intense focus on his schoolwork, and he's only ever had one girlfriend, Perrie, in his freshman year of college. He still thinks she's gorgeous, a tiny bottle blonde with pretty blue eyes, but they weren't right for each other, and anyway, in hindsight, Zayn can see she deserves a lot more than a skinny computer programmer boyfriend who spends all his free time investigating campus crimes.

That doesn't mean it didn't hurt like hell when he broke up with her a week after the ADPhi party. She's the only person who knows what happened to him that night-- because she swore she wouldn't tell anyone. She was surprisingly understanding of the break-up, and they never stopped being friends.

Overall, it seems like Zayn does less of making friends and more of just...ending up with them. Niall was his roommate first semester freshman year, and then they just kept deciding to live together. Niall is a literature major, which Zayn wrinkles his nose at a bit, but Niall is still so smart, in ways that Zayn could never be. He's so friendly, so kind to everyone, and he's kind of annoyingly funny, in the sense that Niall's bouts of comedic genius usually come about when Zayn is cramming for a test, or overrun with cases.

Zayn didn't have to work to be friends with Niall. Niall is friends with everyone, so it just makes sense that that would extend to Zayn despite his overall... disposition.

Liam is a completely different story. Zayn almost broke his nose, and Liam offered him coffee. Since then, Liam has just kind of been a constant presence in his life. Zayn knows he's not easy to deal with; he doesn't let anyone touch him and he's constantly snappish and angry. He spends days in his room on his laptop, coding whatever his last idea was and ignoring everyone, living off of energy drinks and candy.

But it's not as if Liam doesn't know those things about him. Liam deals with his bouts of anger and his bad moods on a daily basis, and when he's on a particularly brutal coding run, Liam knows not to bother him and to just bring him a drink when he asks for one. Liam is also there when Zayn would rather him not be-- when he's getting jumped by a fraternity member he'll fight for him, and when he can't think straight and it feels like everything is closing in on him, when being in his own skin feels wrong, Liam knows how to talk him down.

Liam has seen all of him, every terrible facet, and somehow he has always stayed.