#p1t

Niall looks over at Zayn, startled, then back at the screen. One of the three – Liam’s – has gone black. “What’s happened?”

“Rift junk,” Louis answers. He sounds a little tense, although Niall wouldn’t be able to tell from looking at his screen – he’s carrying on as though nothing happened. “Got him on the head.”

“He’ll be fine,” Harry adds. “Just keep on with BOPs, we’ll be done soon.”

Sure enough, the mystery projectile is the only interesting thing that comes out of the Rift. Nothing else at all even flickers around the edges. Zayn seems disappointed with it, which has Niall wondering exactly what he was expecting.

“All right,” Harry says once it’s all over. “You can shut down, we should be back soon.”

“Aye-aye,” Zayn answers smoothly, hitting a few keys with his left hand. “Shut-down codes are same as activation.”

“Right.” Niall frowns a moment, trying to remember, then quickly taps in the same three codes. “17-BG16-12… and then with 11… and 07. Does that happen often? With the Rift junk?”

“Happens enough,” Zayn says shortly, the one-handed typing looking even more awkward as he continues. The sling looks like it’s holding him back from what he really wants. “I’ve been hit a few times. If you stick around it’ll happen to you, too. There’s procedure for it.”

He doesn’t want a fight. He really doesn’t. But… “If I stick around?”

Zayn starts visibly, and fixes his eyes on the screen. “Well, um. Yeah.”

“Do you think I’m going to leave?”

“I think… this job is a bit much for some people.”

Don’t get angry. “I worked at UNIT for three years.”

“This isn’t UNIT, though. It’s dangerous.”

“So you don’t think I can handle danger?”

Zayn seems to hesitate, and then at last looks up at Niall. “Not like this.”

Okay, maybe he can let himself get a little angry. “What does that mean?”

“How long have you known Liam?” Zayn asks abruptly, and then immediately ducks his head again.

“This is about Liam?” Niall doesn’t believe this. If this were happening at UNIT – but this isn’t UNIT, he reminds himself fiercely. This is different.

“It’s about you understanding that nothing here is permanent. Especially not people.”

“And you’re hoping I’ll be just another one floating through?”

Zayn jumps up and turns to start pacing, brimming with frustrated energy, and runs a hand through his hair. “This isn’t about you!”

“What did I do to make you hate me?” Niall demands, ignoring a flutter of fear at how confrontational he’s being. He doesn’t want a fight, but that wish is being outweighed in the face of how much he does want answers.

“You shouldn’t even be here.”

“What does that mean?”

“You’re not Alex!” Zayn explodes suddenly, whirls around, storms back. Niall gets to his feet automatically: this isn’t peaceful anymore. “Everyone is just adapted to you being here now, and they think you mesh better, and I bet they like you better, but you’re not him. I never got any closure. I never got to say goodbye, I’m not ready for hello.”

“Nobody gives a damn about ready,” Niall retorts, finally unable to keep his temper down. “You need to learn to suck it up. In UNIT, if somebody is burned alive, you can’t let yourself show that you care, or you’re gone. You’re expendable.”

“That’s why you’re not ready,” Zayn says, sounding strangled. “You use your head. We use our hearts.”

“My head tells me this,” Niall answers, leaning in dangerously close. “Alex McCarthy is dead. I’m here now, and you’re too busy being a whining prat to-“

The punch that connects with his mouth sends him reeling backwards. He’s on the floor before he even realizes he’s been hit. There’s a solid crack, and he can feel blood welling up under his tongue. Without even thinking he spits it out on the floor, climbs back to his feet, and surges towards Zayn.

Immediately Niall has a plan of attack – he’d always been good at hand-to-hand. His eyes flit to the arm in the sling, Zayn’s left, his weaker arm. But Niall’s left is his stronger arm.

Quickly, he throws an intentionally fumbling uppercut with his right hand. Zayn pushes it down with his own right, and Niall slams his left fist into Zayn’s right eye.

Zayn staggers back with a small cry of surprise. Tactically speaking, Niall knows he could further incapacitate him, but he doesn’t actually want to damage Zayn.

“Fuck,” Zayn mutters, his good hand clapped over his eye. “You hit hard.”

“So do you,” Niall admits, hoping that the talking means a truce. “I’m going to have a fantastic bruise.”

“And I’m going to have a fantastic black eye. Fuck.”

And it’s really stupid and sort of bad, but Niall can’t stop laughing. “They breed us violent in UNIT.”

Zayn laughs at that. “I guess they do.” He glances over at Jeanette on the autopsy table. “You know,” he says slowly, “there’s something you haven’t considered. For the green people.”

Niall glances over his shoulder. “Yeah?”

“You’re assuming it’s some kind of alien animal?”

There’s a moment where he doesn’t understand, and then suddenly he does. “Oh,” he murmurs, suddenly awed with Zayn and what kind of genius it takes to think of this. “Oh, that’s good. A plant.”

Zayn nods, satisfied. “Maybe you can stick around after all."

---- 

“Niall, check up on Liam. Zayn, Louis, hazmat lab, rip this thing up, be careful.” Harry pauses in the door, where he’s one end of a stretcher. “And what the hell have you two been doing?”

Zayn smiles wanly at Harry. “Bonding. You ready, Lou?”

“Whenever you are,” Louis answers easily. “Just let me drop off the stretcher. The Rift junk is in the trunk.”

Zayn slips out the door, and Harry drops his end of the stretcher. “Ready to look?”

“Ready,” Niall answers, moving over to examine Liam.

“You know, when Harry and I say bonding, we usually mean sex,” Louis says as he sets his own end on the ground.

“Although the bruises aren’t normally on our faces,” Harry adds.

“Nope, no sex here,” Niall answers easily, kneeling down by Liam’s head. “We had a deep and moving discussion of our innermost feelings.”

“Complete with deep and moving punches,” Zayn agrees, reappearing in the doorway. There’s a metallic-looking lump in his arms, about the size of a shoebox. “Feels hollow.”

“That’s why we’re breaking it open.” Louis stands to join Zayn. “All right, shouldn’t be long. We’ll be out soon.”

Harry kneels next to Niall and waves a hand without looking up. “Careful.”

“Always,” Zayn agrees, and he and Louis head out.

“Punches, though?” Harry says as soon as they’re out of earshot. “Are you two having problems?”

“Nah.” Niall leans over Liam and spreads his eyelids open. “You know those people who you don’t get along with, and then you fight, and then you’re okay? That’s us.” He picks up a pen-sized flashlight and aims it into Liam’s eye. “Liam, can you hear me?” He switches eyes. “Liam?”

“Mmmmph,” Liam mumbles, to both of his friends’ relief. “Geroff, m’fine.”

“You’re awake,” Harry corrects him. “Not the same thing. You took some Rift junk to the head, you’re back in the Hub.”

“I noticed.” Liam blinks hazily. “Louis? An’ Zayn?”

“Analysing the Rift junk. How many fingers am I holding up?”

“Three. Ow.”

Niall lowers his three fingers. “You’re good. There’ll be a bruise but no concussion.”

“You have a bruise, too.” Liam props himself up on his elbows, looking concerned. “What happened?”

“He matches Zayn,” Harry says solemnly. “They were bonding.”

“Oh!” Niall jumps up so suddenly he nearly pitches backwards. “That reminds me! I need you both to help me run cell tests on Jeanette and Clark. I think he cracked it!”

“He as in Zayn?” Liam looks at Harry in alarm. “How long have I been out? What’s happening?”

Harry claps Liam on the shoulder. “I have no bloody idea. Let’s go help him.

---- 

“Hazmat suits?”

“Doubt it, should be routine.”

“A routine non-routine procedure?”

“Exactly. Did you hit him first?”

“Yep, and he deserved it. But he was smarter about it. He’s a good strategist. Pass me the pry-bar?”

“Here you go. So you guys are over whatever was up with you? We all saw it.”

“Yeah, we’re fine, we’re good.”

“And bonding is code for punching?”

“Oh yeah, violently. And bloody. You should’ve seen- shit –“

“Zayn, get down-“

---- 

The alarm has always been considered an unfortunately necessary fixture. In the all-metal Hub, a siren had immediately been deemed impractical when first mentionedEven after installation, it was rarely used. But effective, as Niall learns, because he immediately knows something is wrong when it starts blaring during his analysis.

He lets out a yelp as soon as it starts. “What the hell?”

Liam is kind enough to set down his petri dish of skin cells before clapping his hands over his ears. “We need a better siren.”

Harry has gone stock-still and white in the face. “Biohazard alert,” he rasps. “The lab – Zayn and – they –“

“Shit.” Liam leaps out of the medbay and takes off at a run. Niall bolts after him without a second thought, Harry hard on his heels. The three of them literally skid to a halt just before hitting the window to the lab, staring in horror.

The lab is sealed off all around – even the glass has been fortified – but they can still see inside. They can all see the thick cloud of pale green, swirling in the air. And right in the middle, without hazmat suits, looking definitively unhappy, are Zayn and Louis.

“Lou,” Harry chokes, sounding like the word is being wrenched out of him. “Lou.”

“There’s a PA system,” Liam says weakly. “That panel there, we can talk to them-“

Niall almost jumps on the panel in question, throwing a switch and trying to stay calm. He’s been trained for this at UNIT and none of the others have. It’s up to him, isn’t it? “Zayn, Louis, are you two okay? What happened?”

“Kodama,” Louis answers, eyes locked on Harry through the glass. “It’s in the files, I was looking through them before, spreads with spores and poison-“

“What were you thinking?” Harry demands, and Louis falters at the broken note to his voice. “No hazmat, not even masks, after what happened to Alex?”

Zayn flinches visibly at the name. “We’re sealed off, we were ready to risk it, we knew-“

“Kodama poison has a cure,” Louis continues doggedly. “They create it naturally. If we find it, we can use it.”

“Kodama?” Niall says, because that’s the only part of this that he can’t make fit.

“Tree spirit,” Harry explains, at last turning away from Louis. “It’s a Japanese legend. Our kodama is probably an alien, but the lore matches enough that we use the name.”

“And we just need to find it,” Louis insists. “It’ll have some kind of cure. These-“ he waves his hand at the roiling green cloud – “they’re spores. Venom. The kodama will have an antidote.”

“But more importantly, we can find it,” Zayn jumps in. “Jeanette and Clark both got poisoned. They would’ve crossed paths, or gone to the same place on a similar timeframe. Like, say, a few days before death.”

“Okay.” Harry pulls his hands through his hair, trying desperately to think. “Okay. Niall, finish the cell work, cross-reference with kodama. The file is old but it’s there. We need to be sure. I’ll check credit cards and receipts, see if I can find where they might’ve met up. Liam, you’re our go-between for the three of us, and the two of them. I know there’s a foot of glass, but take care of them. And you two – “ he looks at Zayn and Louis. “The spores are less potent, they’re not in your bloodstream, but that’s a lot of exposure. We can’t let you out yet. I’m sorry.”

“Not a problem,” Zayn answers, although his smile has an odd twitch to it. “Someone left a deck of cards in here, we won’t be bored.”

“No strip poker,” Liam says immediately, and Niall whacks him on the arm.

“Move out!” Harry orders. He grabs Niall by the elbow and pulls him away.

Liam leans in closer to the glass. “You two are really okay in there, considering?”

“Shaken,” Louis admits. “But alive.”

Suddenly Liam’s phone buzzes in his pocket. Fishing it out, he frowns at the readout but answers anyways. “Zayn, what are-“

“Shut off the PA,” Zayn cuts him off. “I want to talk alone.”

Liam frowns curiously at the request, but nods and flips the switch off. Inside the lab, Louis dutifully moves to the corner opposite Zayn. It looks like he’s shuffling the deck of cards. Zayn seems to wilt with the distance, and Liam is suddenly afraid of what he’s about to say. “Zayn, we’re going to get you two out of here, I promise.”

“Liam,” Zayn says, “shut up a second, this is important.”

“But-“

“Li. Listen.” And maybe it’s the look on his face or maybe it’s that he says Li, but something makes Liam do exactly that. “If you can only get one of us out of here, it needs to be Louis.”

“What?” Liam stares, aghast – how could he even think of that – but Zayn doesn’t even flinch. “But-“

“But nothing.” Zayn’s voice is totally even, like he thinks this is sane. “He has his friends and his sisters and parents. He has Harry. I don’t even have Alex anymore. Nobody will care.”

“I’ll care. You have me.” How could he have not seen this? How could he let Zayn, of all people, let himself feel like nobody cared? “I’m not going to lose you!”

Zayn just watches him, seeming tired and sad and brave. Unyielding. Like the kiss, Liam thinks, and suddenly he remembers Zayn’s mouth on his, passion and force and something deeper. Something he wonders if he wants to feel again.

“Then get to work,” Zayn says at last. “I’ll die in here before I let him. He’s more important to more people.”

“Zayn-"

“And I swear to God, I won’t let them lose him.

Liam looks at Zayn through his glass. Looks at the set of his mouth and the stone in his eyes and the determination shining off him. Wonders if Zayn has always been so beautiful.

“You’re not dying,” Liam says with finality. “And when you get out, I’m going to thoroughly explain how wrong that point of view is.”

“With tongue, I hope,” Zayn teases halfheartedly.

Liam can hear Niall calling his name, and his lips quirk into a half-smile. “We’ll see about that,” he answers, then snaps his phone shut, turns on his heel, and begins to walk to the medbay.

“What’ve we got?” he asks as he arrives at the entrance.

“A, it’s definitely kodama,” Niall says. He doesn’t look up at Liam, only ever breaking in his furious typing to glance at a vial of blood. “Didn’t show up at first because it’s so old, but it’s there.”

“And B,” Harry continues, typing on another screen, “Jeanette Moore and Clark Jacoby were customers at Velvet Mountain Spa four days before their respective deaths. They both received acupuncture, from one Morgan Guthrie.”

“Acupuncture?” Liam repeats incredulously.

“The scars on their back,” Niall explains, looking up at him. “It poisoned them through the needles, or maybe a claw or something. It dragged the poison through the veins. Neither of them would’ve known it was wrong unless they knew the process.”

And as nice as it feels to have Zayn kissing him, this isn’t right. Zayn’s still in the grief period for Alex and besides, any sort of relationship between them grounded in death was doomed to fail.

So he shoves Zayn back and stares at him.

“I’m sorry,” Liam chokes out, and sprints back the way he came, entirely forgetting to ask Zayn about the injuries.

Zayn lets out a strangled wail and slams his fist into the shelf beside him before sliding down the wall and bending his head into his knees. For the first time since Alex’s death, he allows himself to cry.

…

After their little conversation, Louis returned to his desk. Niall’s transfer was proving to be messier than he’d anticipated--UNIT being their typical asshole selves and international relationships kicking up a fuss meant that it was a general hassle to get Niall completely involved. Louis thinks it might be more trouble than it’s worth, but Harry was adamant that Niall stay.

He hears a curse from the medbay--probably Niall frustrated with the workstation computers, they never do get along well with gloved hands--and decides to check up on the CCTV. Sure enough, there’s Niall swearing at the computer, and flips down to the archives, just because. The corridors are mostly empty and then--oh. That’s new.

Louis gestures Harry over to his workstation. “Take a look at this.” He rewinds the tape to where Zayn kisses Liam. Harry watches wordlessly, and audibly groans when he sees Liam run away from Zayn.

“We’re going to need to do damage control, aren’t we?” Harry mutters. “Alright, I’ll go talk with Liam; you deal with Zayn.”

Louis nods and disappears down into the Archives while Harry heads out to the main floor.

…

Down in the medbay, Niall is getting more and more frustrated with this case.

Glancing around and seeing no one nearby, he lets out a string of curse words in three different languages--English, Gaelic and Spanish--making sure to make as many creative combinations as humanly possible. He knows objectively that swearing doesn’t actually help, but it makes him feel better.

After finding the correlation between Jeanette and Clark, he’s quite honestly curious as to what this could possibly be but the computer is proving absolutely no help at all and Liam doesn’t look like he’ll be back for a while.

He made a mental note to ask Liam what was going on with Zayn--he got the general feeling that Zayn just did not like him for some inexplicable reason and it was really bothering him--and decided to take another look at Clark’s back.

He flips the body over and takes another look at the shallower cuts. They’re slightly tinged green and--oh.

Niall groans and reaches for his magnifying glass. It’s a small rectangle, more like a transparent credit card than the stereotypical magnifying glass. He leans in close to look at the shallow cuts more carefully and pauses to sniff the air. He smells expensive aftershave that he only recognizes because Sean’s mum had sent him a bottle for Christmas a year or two back, his coffee from the table a meter and a half over, lingering Weevil scent and not much else.

He sits back and frowns. This man has been dead for several hours and has been sitting out in a brightly lit, somewhat warm room for nearly as long. Why the hell does he not smell like hamburger meat that’s been left out of the fridge?

He glances over at Jeanette and mentally smacks himself. Of course. Whatever had killed these two was obviously some sort of preservative as well, considering Jeanette has been sitting out in the middle of the Hub for weeks now and has yet to decompose.

Frowning, Niall examines Clark’s back more carefully, checking up on what he’d noticed before. The cuts aren’t smooth, like he’d previously thought. Instead, they’re jagged cuts--almost like a serrated knife had been used.

He picks up the yellow legal pad he uses for post-mortem examinations (touch screen technology always acts funny when being used by bloody, latex-encased hands) and started marking down what he knew about this mysterious assailant, not minding the blood that smudged across the page.

-Causes victim to turn green post-mortem -Short, serrated claws -Venom/substance injected preserves body -Causes death?? -Abandoned body with no further damage than cuts on back

Pursing his lips, he realizes that those conclusions are not anything to go by. He draws a line splitting the page and compares the two victims themselves instead, hoping to find a correlation.

-Male vs female -Both mid-forties -Both blood type A+ -Neither had preexisting medical conditions (other than other post-mortem injuries) -Tall vs short -Jacoby Black, Jeanette White -Inexplicable wounds on back (both) -body found where?? -blood test results similar??

Niall looks up when Liam hurries back into the room, flushed red. “You find Zayn, or…?” he trails off, leaving the statement purposely open-ended.

“Found him, opened a barrel of worms,” Liam mutters, striding over to the autopsy table. “I’ll tell you later. How goes the autopsy of Mr Jacoby?”

Niall rolls his eyes. Of course, personal drama. “What’s Torchwood’s policy on dissection?”

“Frowned upon but not banned,” another voice replies. Niall turns to see Harry leaning on the upper railing of the medbay. “Give me three reasons why--good reasons why, mind you--and I’ll consider it. Hell of a lot of paperwork, though.”

Niall pursed his lips and drew the blue sheet over Clark’s face. “One, there’s some really funky results on the toxicology scans that match Jeanette’s. Two, he hasn’t begun to decompose, not even a little bit. Three, he’s beginning to turn green. Four, the Weevil wounds weren’t enough to kill him, and blood flow, scabbing, and skin injury suggests he was already dead when the Weevils got to him, not to mention that they weren’t even deep enough to knock him unconscious, much less kill him, unless he keeled over from fright. Oh, and five, he had no preexisting medical conditions that would cause him to drop dead like that. He was a healthy bloke. At least, that’s what it looks like.”

Harry raises an eyebrow. “And yet, there he is, dead. So then…what killed him?”

Niall smiles grimly, stripping off his gloves. “Whatever killed Jeanette, of course.”

…

Zayn stays in the archives after Liam flees, curled into himself and staring at a row of alien translators like they’re the most fascinating thing to grace the planet since sliced bread. He doesn’t want to face Liam, who is probably laughing over the whole incident with Niall right now.

Stupid fucking Niall bloody Horan.

He doesn’t understand why Niall is here. Well, he does. Niall is replacing Alex. What he doesn’t understand is how Niall is so accepted by his teammates when, as far as he’s concerned, Niall has done nothing to earn that trust.

Footsteps sound behind him, then Louis appears and perches himself on the low shelf beside Zayn.

“So…Liam. Really?”

“He told you?” the shock was apparent in Zayn’s voice.

Louis snorts. “Hardly. I was checking the CCTV and happened to catch the end of that.” He shrugs. “I wasn’t snooping. But they’re, uh, taking apart our guests up there and I figured I should beat a hasty retreat.”

“Taking apart as in autopsy or taking apart as in interrogation?” Zayn asks.

Louis rolls his eyes. “Autopsy, of course. Niall found some sort of compound in Clark’s blood that matched Jeanette’s.” At Zayn’s almost inaudible chuff, he sighs. “Niall’s a good addition to the team, Zayn. Yeah, it would be better if we still had Alex and you weren’t shot, but Niall’s got some helpful skills.”

Zayn snorts. “Helpful skills? He can’t even shoot straight.”

“He’s perceptive, though. A little more delicate than any of us are. I think you two would get along well if it weren’t for Liam.”

At that moment, the alarm goes off.

“Oh, hell,” they both groan at the same time.

…

Harry nods slowly as Niall goes over his list of findings. “So, what kind of creature are we looking for here?”

Niall pauses, surprised. “I assumed you’d know. The toxins didn’t match anything in the database.”

“I’m asking you as a forensic anthropologist.”

Niall fixes his boss with an incredulous stare. “I do autopsies and patch jobs on idiots who shouldn’t be allowed to handle lethal weapons,” he says coolly. He reaches for a new pair of gloves. “Why would I have any idea as to what attacked these two?”

Liam hides a smile. He knows Niall’s been working this out in his head, checking this case against his mental database as well as the computer, and not being able to solve it must be driving him nuts. He also knows that Harry knows this and is testing Niall--and judging by the smile on his face, Niall just passed.

“Thought you might have run across something like this in UNIT. Okay, run me through what we’ve got.”

Liam slips off while Niall gives descriptions and correlations to Harry. He’s tapping away on his computer keyboard when they hoist Jeanette up onto one of the autopsy tables and placing a phone call to Torchwood One about Harry’s paperwork habits when the Rift Alarm goes off.

“Bugger fuck,” he swears. “Sorry about that, Lloyd. Call you back once we’ve dealt with this, yeah?”

“You do that, Payne. And tell Styles to send in those forms, please.”

“Will do.” Liam hangs up with a click and keys in the code to open the scanners. “Double spike, Harry! We’ll need at least a three-person team, armed.”

“Kit up, then.”

“Sorry?”

“Well, Zayn can’t go and Niall’s not safe with weapons yet,” Harry snaps, comfortably sliding into his role as leader.

“This had better be Weevils,” Zayn yells as he skids into the room, followed by Louis. His uninjured hand rests on his hip, where his gun usually hangs.

“You’re not going,” Harry counters, vaulting over the medbay railing. “You’re teaching Niall how to run BOPs.” Zayn mutters a curse; he hated running Base Operations and would much rather be out with the boys than operating a computer and talking Niall through the process.

Louis winces. “Rift?”

“Rift,” Liam confirms, pushing his chair back and reaching for his bulletproof vest. “Kit up.”

“Louis, move it!” Harry barked, holding up Louis’ vest. The shorter man slid across the floor, grabbing for it and shoving it on. “Hurry up!”

Niall follows Zayn to the bank of monitors. “Why the vests?” he asks. “You didn’t use them earlier.”

“Teflon’s not much good against Weevils,” Zayn says absently. He scans over Liam’s screens. “This is a Rift spike; we have no clue what’s going to come out the other end.”

“Last time it was a troop of very shell-shocked Vietnam War soldiers,” Harry says, clipping his headset over his left ear. He pulls on his pair of cam glasses, and then the three of them--Harry, Louis and Liam--are sprinting out the door, running for the SUV.

Niall winces, then gingerly settles into the seat next to Zayn. “What can I do?”

“Headset’s to your left, put it on and then bring the glasses cams online,” Zayn orders. “Keyboard commands 17-BG16-12, command 17-BG16-11, command 17-BG16-07.”

Niall keys the codes in and then there are three screens lit up, from the field agent’s points of view. Zayn nods at the headset, and Niall pulls it on.

…

Liam sits in the back of the SUV. Louis is driving while Harry consults the monitor. Usually, Zayn would drive and Alex would navigate, but things have changed.

“Left up ahead,” Harry says suddenly, and the car jerks. Liam hears Zayn issuing orders to Niall and scan results to Harry over the headset. “Right.”

Liam is unfortunately all-too-used to Louis’ erratic driving by now and so he switches his attention to the small variety of weapons in the back of the car. He checks that a small revolver is loaded and locked, then drops it into Harry’s lap. “For Louis,” he says, and focuses on double-checking his own gun.

“Zayn, what’ve we got?” Harry barks.

“Rift readings are off the charts both ways, spiking every fifteen seconds. T-minus six minutes thirty before Rift emergence.” Zayn’s voice is brisk, and it’s odd for Liam to hear his own job shot back at him. “Niall, any life signs?”

“Seven life signs, all non-human, unrecognized by computer database. Request maintained observation when in eyesight.”

“Any clue where the Rift is going to open?” Liam asks. Zayn pauses before replying and Liam can almost feel the tension roll down the line between them.

“On the beach, near the bay,” Zayn says when Harry coughs pointedly. “It’s looking like it’ll be somewhere along that two kilometer stretch near the docks.”

Louis swerves the car around a particularly slow moving truck and turns left, despite Harry’s irritated instructions.

“The quickest way to the beach is down Sunset,” he explains, jerking the wheel just in time to avoid a collision with a moped. “So I’m taking Sunset.”

“Sunset is three kilometers longer!” Harry shoots back, waving his GPS. “You should’ve taken the highway!”

“The highway’s always clogged at this time and we don’t have time to be sitting in traffic!”

Liam rolls his eyes as Harry and Louis bicker. He knows this is what keeps Louis from freaking out before shootouts and how Harry gets his mind in order, but it’s still a little weird.

Finally, they reach the beach (he internally smacks himself for that rhyme) and sure enough, there’s the shimmery gold that means the Rift is opening here. Louis screeches to a stop and they all leap out. Liam tosses a blaster at Louis, drawing his own. The wind has definitely picked up, whipping the water into a fury and blowing grains of sand past them.

Of course, Liam doesn’t see much more because something flies out of the rift and knocks him out.

The last thing Liam sees before he blacks out is a large object hurtling towards his head at a high speed.

--