Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“So, obviously it’s hard sometimes, because that just does not come naturally to me and real communication in a relationship is fucking hard, right?”

Louis nodded even though there was no way the gorgeous man on his phone screen had any idea he was watching this video right now. He loved Zayn’s videos on TikTok, because he was always so open about all of his experiences, and Louis found he identified with even more of them than he ever expected to. 

Zayn sighed as he scrubbed his hand against the closely shaven back of his head before looking at the camera, maybe a bit embarrassed. “But such is the life of an aroace who has chosen to commit to a partner.”

The video ended, and Louis bit his lip, debating as to whether to comment on the video or not. Ultimately he figured he might as well. He’d commented on a few of Zayn’s videos before, and Zayn had even answered back to one of them. What was the harm in saying something again?

Louis did his best to condense his thoughts and get down to the point of it all before actually hitting post, and thought he did fairly well.

louist91: Mate, real vulnerable communication in a long term relationship is fucking terrifying at the best of times, so the fact you two both go for it and continue to show that dedication despite the difficulty is incredible. I’ve been with my partner for almost eight years now, and you’re absolutely right. It’s still hard for me to talk about certain aspects of my asexuality even now. So well done!

He read it through several more times to make sure he hadn’t made any typos he’d missed and then rolled his eyes at himself. Thankfully he was that dramatic, because he noticed the time.

“Oh fuck,” he swore, standing from the couch and walking back towards their bedroom. “H, are you ready? I lost track of time thanks to fucking TikTok, and we should have already left to meet Niall and Lewis.”

“Yeah, I realized the top I’d been wearing had a big stain on it right as I was finishing up with essays,” Harry said, turning towards the door just as Louis walked in. “I should have gotten some laundry done today while I was busy grading, but I didn’t realize how low on clean clothes we were.”

Louis furrowed his brow. “I thought I’d done…” Louis closed his eyes and made a hissing sound as he turned and looked towards their laundry nook. “I forgot that I didn’t get the load out of the dryer last night before I was called to help Mrs. Obisanya with her WiFi. They’re still in the dryer. Shit. I’m sorry, love.”

“It’s alright,” Harry said with a smile before wagging his eyebrows. “I just figured I’d borrow something of yours.”

Louis hummed and made a little motion indicating Harry should twirl for him. The shirt was a bit snug on Harry since he’d been training at the gym more and the results had him bulking up, but Louis certainly didn’t mind. 

“You always look good in my clothes, babe, but your tits look fabulous in that shirt of mine.”

Harry gave a lopsided smile before he shimmied a bit. “I know. It’s half of why I decided to go with it despite it being a bit more tight than I’d usually like.”

Louis chuckled. “Lewis is going to have a hard time keeping his hands off of you despite the fact that we’re literally going over some of the final plans for the lead up to the wedding.”

“I hope so,” Harry said as they walked towards the coat stand and grabbed their jackets. “I love when Ni’s face slowly goes more and more red. I like to see how far Lewis can take things before he completely loses it.”

“You are so mean,” Louis chuckled.

“Good thing you love me anyway,” Harry said with a wink. 

Louis shook his head, but he wasn’t wrong.

“But that’s just the thing, isn’t it?” Zayn said, staring at the camera. 

When he looked at it so intensely, Louis felt like he was seeing into his soul. Which was ridiculous. 

“Like, I always thought I felt romantic attraction. I genuinely did. Because… in a way I could relate to what they talked about in the books and movies, right? I did get that excited feeling in my belly when I met someone I really connected with. And I did want to be around them all the time to be able to enjoy their energy and their vibes. I wanted to almost just… dive into their space and have our lives come together as one in that way. 

“But it’s more than that, isn’t it? I always thought they were just exaggerating or something when they talked about how their partner was their absolute favorite person in the whole world and how they couldn’t imagine life without them. Or how they were their very best friend they’d ever had. It was so deep, the connection they had, or whatever other nonsense they talked about in the popular chick flicks I watched growing up. Because how could anyone ever feel that way? What exactly was this romantic love that everyone kept talking about?”

Louis’ brows furrowed. Because… fuck. He’d been asked by Harry’s mum when they’d announced their engagement when he’d known he was in love with Harry, and he’d been pulled up short. He felt like a total dick, because… he honestly didn’t know. He just knew he liked being around Harry and they fought, of course, but Harry was special. Louis knew that. He could clearly see that. He liked having Harry as his person and didn’t see a reason for them to break up, so they kept dating. 

And then, it just seemed right to get engaged. Because Louis still wasn’t sure what love felt like, really. Not for himself. It didn’t seem to be like the all consuming thing that everyone talked about in the movies, but he figured that was probably just because he was ace and so he didn’t feel the sexual drive really pushing things like so many others did. 

But now that Zayn was laying it all out like this, Louis got to wondering… could it be possible that he was never able to get a really good handle on what exactly aromanticism was because he’d never felt romantic attraction, and without that key piece, how could he possibly figure out what it truly meant to be lacking it?

Louis looked down and he didn’t even know what video was playing now, but it certainly wasn’t Zayn. It actually looked like it might be a band doing something for AutismTok, which Louis occasionally found himself on as well. The music there was soothing, and this song was too. 

Louis quickly added the song to his current playlist on Spotify then toggled back to TikTok to find Zayn’s profile and send him a DM.

louist91: I’m so sorry to come to you here when you probably have a million DMs a day, but I’m having a bit of an identity crisis and I was hoping you could possibly help me

It was sent before Louis thought about it and he cursed himself, standing up and walking around the living room. 

Fuck. He needed to stop spending so much time on this fucking app. It was making him think that he was all sorts of things he’d never even considered before, and he’d never been that kind of person. Which…

Right. He wasn’t that kind of person. Which was why he was having such a strong reaction to this kind of mindblowing realization he was experiencing, probably. He felt like he could potentially finally explain yet another piece of himself if he talked this out with Zayn and Zayn agreed that there was a possibility he was also aromantic.

He shouldn’t be laying that kind of weight on Zayn’s shoulders, though. Zayn was a fucking stranger who didn’t know Louis from anyone else who ever commented on his videos. He didn’t need to validate Louis in the midst of his freakout just because he had chosen to be a spokesperson of sorts for his own identity.

His phone vibrated in his hand, and when he looked down he saw it was a notification that Zayn had replied.

“Ahhh, shit,” Louis said through gritted teeth as he clicked on the notification to see what he’d said back.

ZaynTalks: I think you have an inflated sense of my own popularity or something, because I definitely do not have anything close to a million DMs lol
ZaynTalks: What kind of identity crisis are we talking about here?

Louis whined a little in his throat and figured he had come this far, he might as well go the whole way and if Zayn said nope, not going there, Louis would respect it. That would be fine, right?

With a sigh, he focused on his phone, still stood in the middle of the living room. 

louist91: So, I’m engaged. I just wanted to put that forward off the bat to make it clear that I proposed, we’ve been together for eight years now, like I’m all in with this relationship, right? I’m here. I’m not going anywhere, yeah?

Louis bit his lip and let his fingers hover over the screen as he figured out what to say next when Zayn’s response came in.

ZaynTalks: Noted

louist91: Right, so. Rewind back to when we first got engaged a few years ago. We went up to see his mum and tell her in person, and she asked me when and how I knew I was in love with him
louist91: Except I didn’t know how. I didn’t know when. How does one know that? Do most people know when they realized they loved their person? Is it such a clear thing that they just… are able to blurt out the moment?
louist91: I totes thought that was something that people just said in movies for the cheese and schmaltz of the moment, you know? I didn’t think that was real life.
louist91: And I totally did not just say totes
louist91: You’re reading that wrong

Louis checked the time. He still had half an hour left of his lunch break. He’d accidentally worked through his usual break time and was going to just keep going and log off early before he had remembered he had a meeting he had to be present for during his usual last hour of work. No checking out early for him. A mid-afternoon lunch break consisting mostly of some leftovers from the night before and TikTok it was, then.

Well. With a side of a sexuality crisis, apparently.

ZaynTalks: 😆Yep, I’m apparently still reading it wrong, too because you definitely said totes
ZaynTalks: But that’s what I thought too! I’m guessing you saw the video I posted this morning, then? Because this sounds quite a bit like what I was saying in that

Louis was feeling a bit hyped now that he had finally gotten some explanation out there and Zayn seemed to actually know what he was talking about.

louist91: Yeah, might have hah
louist91: But seriously, I’m 32. I kinda thought I had my identity all figured out by now, you know?
louist91: Like, I’m pan with a very heavy dose of attraction to men.
louist91: I’m definitely ace, which often presents itself more along the lines of demi than full on completely lacking sexual attraction, but like… yeah it’s complicated and doesn’t really matter here and now.
louist91: I’m… I don’t know how to explain my gender when I feel like our bodies are just kind of the vessels for who we are, but I also don’t care so much about what my body looks like and how people perceive my gender, so I just stick with he/him because it’s easier.
louist91: I took a while to come to these conclusions when I was younger, but I’ve felt good for it, you know? But for some reason your videos… a lot of what you said made sense to me, and not just the bits about being ace. I just didn’t really put it together until today
louist91: But I also don’t want to just jump on it and say YES THAT’S ME when it might not be. Like, how do you know? For sure? What exactly does it mean to be aro? I never could fucking make sense of the definitions people gave on the websites and shit, but now I’m wondering if I couldn’t make sense of it because I didn’t actually know what romantic attraction feels like, and if I don’t know what that feels like, then how can I know that I’m lacking it?
louist91: Does any of this make sense?

Locking his phone, Louis tossed it on the couch. He couldn’t believe he had just spewed so much information about his own damn self to an actual stranger online. Not that there was much he could do with what Louis had just told him… he had no other information about who Louis was in real life. But it felt like he’d just cracked open his chest and shown his whole inner workings and vulnerabilities to someone in a way not even his own fiancé knew. Not completely.

Louis had tried explaining most of this to him, of course. And Harry really did get it, as best as he could anyway. But this whole added layer of possibly being aro was for some reason really fucking with Louis. 

Probably because he had always believed that aromantic people did not want relationships at all. Zayn had seemed like… not a novelty. That wasn’t the right term, but he’d definitely seemed like an exception to the rule as far as Louis understood it. But now he was starting to wonder if maybe he hadn’t actually understood aromanticism at all.

Of course there were people who didn’t want relationships and never would. Who felt uncomfortable with even the idea of being in one. There were asexuals who felt that way about sex, but that didn’t mean every person who identified as ace felt that way. Asexuality was a spectrum, and he presumed aromanticism was too. 

And wasn’t that a bit of a mindfuck? Why hadn’t he ever considered that before? All this time of him trying to explain asexuality to people and getting frustrated when they were surprised that he could not only have but thoroughly enjoy sex, and here he’d been essentially doing the same thing regarding romantic attraction and relationships for aros.

He couldn’t believe that a couple of lines Zayn had said in a video he’d posted on TikTok had thrown Louis into such a whirlwind.

A whirlwind which had eaten up most of his lunch break. He had to hurry and finish this conversation with Zayn or he wasn’t going to get back in time to finish what he’d been working on before jumping on the meeting.

Picking up his phone, Louis saw several messages waiting from Zayn. 

ZaynTalks: Bro, that’s the best summary of the multifaceted identity a queer person could have and be perfectly happy with while still finding things to discover about themselves.
ZaynTalks: You do make sense, everything you’re saying. But also, does anyone ever actually know for sure?
ZaynTalks: That’s one of the dialogue points I see being repeated over and over and over again in the community. That it’s okay to change how you identify as you go and as you learn and as you explore. Something that felt right to you ten years ago might not feel right to you today. What feels right today might not fit who you are in another ten, twenty, thirty years. And that’s fucking okay. No one ever said after you claim an identity, you’re stuck with it forever.
ZaynTalks: I personally think that if what I’ve been saying in my videos about my own experiences are striking a chord with you, that maybe you just might be aro as well. Just a little bit. Perhaps. Lol
ZaynTalks: But it’s up to you as to whether you accept it and latch onto that and decide it’s something you want to claim for yourself or not. Either way is fine. And if it’s something you want to sit with a while first? That’s okay too. Nothing has to be decided for sure right here, right now. You got time.

Louis let that sink in for a moment before his phone’s alarm went off, telling him he had to get back to work. 

louist91: Thanks, mate. Really. It means a lot that you were willing to talk me through this a bit.
louist91: I’ve gotta get back to work now, but thank you for being willing to help me out with my initial… well. Whatever this has been. 

Louis locked his phone and put it back on do not disturb before heading to where his laptop was set up. He could finish figuring out all the aromantic stuff later.

“Where are you going now?” Harry asked, laughing as Louis scrambled out of bed and started digging around in his joggers on the floor. 

He’d heard the smack of his phone hitting the ground when they’d hurriedly removed their clothes earlier, so he knew it was in one of the pockets.

“Not far,” Louis answered before holding up his phone in celebration. “But I just came out to you, again, and I want to tell my mate that’s been helping me talk through all of this and figure it all out.”

Harry smiled softly at Louis. “I’m glad you had someone to help talk you through all of it. I obviously wouldn’t have been able to help you for shit, but I do love learning more about what makes you so uniquely you.”

“Oh, don’t go getting all sappy on me now,” Louis teased despite the fact his throat had gotten a bit thick. Harry definitely noticed too, based on the way his eyes sparkled at Louis just now. “I just had told him that I was going to be talking to you about it soon and wanted to follow up since he’d played such a big role.”

Harry hummed and stood up, stretching a bit, distracting Louis fully. “I’m gonna get our wet towels hung up to dry and then grab a glass of water. Want one for yourself?”

“Yeah, thanks,” Louis answered, giving him a smile before thumbing over to where he’d left TikTok open to his DM with Zayn earlier.

louist91: I told him. It was just as hard as I knew it would be, because I feel like I’m even worse at explaining this than I was at explaining asexuality at first, but I think he got the idea

Louis thumbed out of the DM to see if Zayn had posted anything since he’d last checked. Sitting at the top was a new video. Perfect.

The video had just started, and Zayn was wheeze laughing as the camera view bounced around a field he was running through or something. “I left my phone in the house, so when Shelby started doing what I’ve been telling you about I had to run back and get it so I could have the proof for all of you disbelievers. But I don’t want to miss it either, so I started the recording now. Shit! She’s moved! Where’d she go?”

Zayn started panning the phone around the field as he called for Shelby and then Liam.

“Liam was trying to convince her to come back in so he could clean her hooves since she’s had those brushes with infections this spring, right? And she stood on her back hooves and was like bleating at him like they were having a fucking conversation again, but now they’re gone. Fuck, where’d they go?”

Louis was laughing along with Zayn as he gave minute ridiculous details as he kept yelling their names before finally finding them behind the barn, with Shelby doing exactly what Zayn had promised. 

As soon as she saw Zayn with the phone, she dropped back down and ran at him instead, though, with the phone tumbling to the ground as the video ended.

“What has you laughing so hard?” Harry asked, a smile already on his face. 

“This video my mate posted. He’s got a farm with his partner, and one of their goats did the funniest thing. Here, check it out.”

Harry set down the waters and took the phone, his eyes going wide before looking at Louis.

“Your mate’s name is Zayn?”

“Yeah,” Louis said slowly. “Why?”

Harry hushed Louis and waved his hand at him. “I need to hear him talk more.”

Louis held his hands up and mimed zipping his mouth shut.

“I can’t imagine… I mean what would the odds be that it’s the same guy, right?” Harry mused as he turned the volume up on Louis’ phone and concentrated. “I’m going to another video. You can show me this one again after I figure out if this is… Holy shit.”

Louis had no idea what was happening with Harry right now. Harry had never spoken of anyone he knew named Zayn, especially not anyone of importance. Louis had no idea why this particular Zayn who lived on a farm in Pennsylvania with his partner Liam would be so shocking to Harry.

Harry’s mouth was opening and closing at a ridiculous pace.

“Darling, are you going to fill me in on whatever it is that I seem to have missed?” Louis asked, chuckling a little at how Harry’s shock and surprise was almost overdone. “Based on your face alone it seems like it’s probably a pretty good story.”

“I cannot believe… I just assumed I’d never see him again or connect with him again in any way. But Lou, he’s… everything! I never would have met you if it weren’t for him! What are the odds? And you not only found him on here, but you two became friends!”

“I’m sorry, he what?” Louis asked, sitting up now, but shaking his head. “How exactly is he the reason for us getting married?”

“You have to message him,” Harry said, thrusting Louis’ phone back at him. “Message him and ask him if he remembers a flight he took just over eight years ago from Chicago to New York City when he saved a guy named Harry.”

Louis gave Harry a questioning glance, because he still didn’t know what Harry was referring to, but he could ask Zayn this question and see if Zayn at least would fill in everything Harry was leaving out.

Chapter Text

Zayn settled into his car. He’d just finished a rare day in the office and had checked his messages on his way to his car, only to find one from Louis that had confused him at first, but as they continued to chat, his mind was blown. He knew that he’d be making another one of his TikTok videos from his car, because there was no way he was going to be able to make the forty minute drive home without exploding. Liam would understand him being a bit later than usual for this.

He set his phone up on the phone stand and made sure he was in view before hitting record and for once, he didn’t think too much before starting. Usually, he had very clear points he was wanting to make, but this time he knew his disbelief over the situation would carry through and make the video better. If he let himself think too long on it all, he’d ruin it. 

So, shaking his head, Zayn started.

“Alright. I wasn’t going to make a video today, but I have a wild story for all of you.” 

Zayn couldn’t help but chuckle to himself a little bit before clapping his hands together in delight. 

“So I just got out of work, right? And I saw I had this message on TikTok from a friend I’d been talking to over the last couple of weeks. We’d bonded and it was pretty cool getting to talk to him about his own aroace journey and how it has been pretty interwoven with his relationship with his own long term partner. It’s been pretty cool, but that’s literally like, all I knew about him, right?”

Zayn sucked in his lips before licking them and smiling widely.

“So imagine my surprise to see a message from him asking if I might have been on a flight from Chicago to New York City eight years ago. And not just any flight, mind you, but a flight where I saved a man named Harry.”

Zayn cleared his throat and leaned forward. 

“Folks, I sure do remember that flight from eight years ago. Let me tell you about it.”

Zayn leaned back and could feel himself really getting into his storyteller mode. His arms always got a bit wild during this and his facial expressions weren’t always as calm as he liked them to be, but it was fun when he was primed for it. And he was certainly primed tonight.

“Okay so the flight had just taken off, and you know those situations where sometimes you just know that something is wrong? Something is… off somehow? Well, a couple rows behind me there was this guy, a real talker, who definitely had a bit much to drink. He was leaning into the guy seated beside him. Getting all into his space, and asking a lot of questions. Like a lot of invasive questions.”

Zayn rolled his eyes. He could still smell the whiskey that practically leaked from the man’s pores on top of his grating voice.

“The guy was trying to be polite, after all the flight was going to be a little while longer, and he was seated beside him with not many other options of where to go, but he was also clearly giving off signals that he was not happy. His responses were terse, short, and very much not inviting further conversation, but the jerk was not understanding. If he was, he was blatantly ignoring it. So, I pretended like I knew him.”

Zayn laughed a little again, rubbing at his chin as he looked out of the windshield at the sky for a brief moment before continuing. 

“It was one of those moments that was really over the top, right? I turned around and was all like, ‘Oh my god, what? I had no idea you were going to be on this flight! How have you been?!’” Zayn was using over the top facial expressions through the entire thing, just like he had originally as well. “And I had a free seat next to me, so I was all like, ‘Why don’t you move up here with me and we can catch up!’ Except I’d forgotten I definitely did not know this guy’s name, so I offered him a quick hug before moving out of the way so he could take the seat beside me, so I was all, ‘It’s so great to see you… Andy!’”

Zayn made a face and waved his hands around. “He went with it, and thanked me profusely, and it was seriously one of the best flights I’ve had. He was such a great guy. But afterwards, we went our own separate ways and that was that.” Zayn leaned forward dramatically again before saying, “Or so I thought! Because I finally got to hear more of Harry’s story!”

Zayn was getting warm in his car with the sun shining on him, so he took off his jacket quickly before continuing.

“So Harry, that was his real name, you see. Harry’s final destination wasn’t New York. His final destination was London, and it turned out that only around half an hour into that flight, the same thing happened to another person! So Harry, with his experience where I saved him from the other guy fresh in his mind, decided to use the same trick to save this girl. She switched seats and they chatted the entire rest of the flight. Became true best friends to the point that when the flight ended, after walking to the luggage claim together, they decided they wanted to try to get together and see each other again.”

Zayn wagged his eyebrows a bit as he rolled up his sleeves for the best part of the entire thing.

“Here’s where it gets really good, alright? So they walk their bags out to the curb to wait for their rides and this girl’s brother was already waiting for her there. They all get introduced and he and the girl exchange numbers and the girl promises she’ll text. And yes, a few days later, Harry did get a text, but it wasn’t from the girl, it was from her brother. And so they end up dating, for like years, and they’re getting married next month!”

Zayn shakes his hands in the air while making some ridiculous shocked faces since that was about as wild as he could get inside his car in his work parking lot. 

“What?!” he cried. “You guys! I am a matchmaker. An accidental matchmaker, which is the best kind of matchmaker. So yes, I do remember that flight! But how do you know about it in the first place? How do you know Harry and why is my friend the one messaging me about this rather than Harry? The final piece to the puzzle, friends!”

Zayn’s arms fling out, one of them against the window, and he doesn’t even care about the sound it makes.

“My friend! The one with his own long term partner who has been on his own aroace journey that we’ve been bonding over, is the brother! His partner he kept referring to this entire time was someone I know because I saved him on a random flight eight years ago named Harry!” 

Zayn made one last face and then saw the time. 

“Speaking of partners, I’ve got to get home to mine.”

With a quick wave, Zayn ended the recording and posted the video. What a day.