Chapter Text
Five Years Later
March 12, 2019
One Direction Is Tossing In The Towel
World famous boy band, One Direction, have decided to call it quits after being together for the past eight years. Sources say that the split was a group decision and has nothing to do with any artistic differences or clashes in the group. After touring for so long, the boy's seem more than ready to settle down with their respective partners. Niall Horan, 25, and his girlfriend of the past four years, Perrie Edwards, 25, have had pregnancy rumors flying around for months and while both parties claim that there is no pregnancy, perhaps now that the boys aren't going to be working, a pregnancy wouldn't be such a far fetched idea.
Harry Style, 25, once the teen heart throb of the group, admitted to being in a relationship two years ago with sixth form drama teacher, Louis Tomlinson, 27, and rocked the entire world and the One Direction fandom when he became the second member of One Direction to be in a relationship with another man. Most people in the industry thought that after Harry's announcement, the band would surely end due to a lack of support, but as the Directioners have proved with the coming out of Liam Payne's, 25, relationship with Zayn Malik, 26, who is graduating with his PHD in May, they will stand with their boys through anything.
So what will happen with the 1D boys, or should we say men, now that they have time to settle down? We know for a fact that Liam Payne is interested in settling down with his partner. Last year, in an exclusive interview, Liam admitted to always wanting the typical married life and that hasn't changed since being in a relationship with a man. So who knows? Maybe now that Mr. Malik is going to become Dr. Malik next month, maybe we'll hear wedding bells in the near future. We here at Sugarscape can only hope. Although Zayn, we suggest keeping the last name because even though you'll be a doctor in Literature, Dr. Payne sounds a little intimidating.
Zayn chuckled as he read over the article that had been tweeted at him hundreds of times in the past few hours with people asking him if he was going to be changing his name to Dr. Payne. He decided to send out a tweet to help keep his 3 million followers at bay.
zaynmalik: @sugarscape Thanks for the advice! Not sure about the name yet but Dr. Payne does have a nice ring to it ;)
He knew that would cause quite a stir and bring up more engagement rumors, but Zayn figured that was alright. While he and Liam had a rough idea of where they wanted to go together in life and knew they didn't plan on every breaking up, marriage was kind of a subject they didn't have any real serious, sit-down conversations about it. He watched and read every interview that Liam had been in even before they got together and he knew what Liam wanted, but they still haven't really discussed it with each other. Zayn was too nervous to bring it up on his own and really, they were both too busy to even consider about getting married but with Zayn's approaching graduation and Liam's retirement, Zayn had been thinking about it more and more. He liked the idea of getting married to Liam. Growing up, he never really thought much about it and when he figured out he was gay, he pretty much through that idea out of the window. Gay marriage was legal in the U.K. as well as many other parts of the world and it was becoming more and more accepted, and he had the best partner he could ever hope for so maybe marriage wasn't such a bad idea after all.
One thing he was scared of that he knew Liam really wanted was kids. Kids were alright, and Zayn helped his mum a lot when his two younger sisters were born but those were his sisters. If they decided to have kids, it would be their sole responsibility. Zayn would be held responsible for how people, actually living, breathing people turned out. The closest thing he had to that kind of responsibility was when Liam decided they should get a dog when Zayn moved in after their first year of being together. Loki was great, and yeah, he had to feed and take care of him but it was pretty hard to fuck up taking care of a dog. People were much more complex and had emotions and needs and it really, really freaked Zayn out.
He supposed he should worry about other things, like graduating and finishing editing his final doctorate paper. He sighed as he sat up a bit on the bed and pulled his laptop to his lap as he continued reading his editing, Loki at his feet chewing a bone at his feet. He scratched behind his ear a bit and smiled as the dog turned to lick at his hand. He was able to get about another hour of reading and editing done when he heard the front door open. Loki stood up and full alert and dashed out of the bedroom to investigate the intrusion. "Hey bud," he heard from the hallway and Zayn quickly saved his work and shut his laptop before climbing off the bed. He walked to the entrance and saw Liam crouched on the floor trying to take off his shoes as Loki jumped up on him. "Have you been good for Baba?" Liam looks up at Zayn and he can't help but roll his eyes. They may not have real kids yet but Liam treated Loki more like his child than anyone he's ever met before with a dog.
"He was perfectly fine," Zayn said as Liam finally stood up so Zayn could kiss him. "Probably a lot happier now that his Daddy is back. I'm the boring one."
Liam chuckled and picked Loki up and carried him into the living room and sat back on the couch. "You've never been boring, love," he said as Loki curled up into Liam's lap. "You're just the smart one in his relationship. I never even finished my schooling and here you are about to become a doctor."
"And you're about to retire and you'll still make more money than I ever will," Zayn said as he sat down next to Liam. "I see a flaw in this system." They joked with each other some more, when Zayn decided to bring up the article he had read. "So Sugarscape posted an article about the retirement," he said. "Of course, they brought up the pregnancy rumors with Niall and Pez, but they gave me an idea about changing my name if we get married. How intimidating would it be to have a class be taught by someone named Dr. Payne?"
Liam tilted his head to the side and Zayn was scared he may have crossed the line about bringing up the marriage thing. He knows Liam has left hints here and there, mostly in interviews, but this was the closest they've come to talking about it just between the two of them. "You would want to change your name?" he asked. He didn't sound put off at the idea, more of just honest curiosity.
Zayn shrugged his shoulders. "I dunno," he replied. "It's not like I'm apart of the Malik family anymore. I'd be better off changing my name to Tomlinson than keeping Malik but I dunno. I really haven't given it much thought."
And that was the last they talked about it for over a month. Zayn was just glad it didn't make anything awkward between them, even if he still always had marriage on his mind now. He knew he was just as capable of asking Liam to marry him, he may be the primary bottom but he was hardly close to being "girly", but deep down, he kind of was hoping for Liam to ask him. Maybe it was because he was self-conscious. They had been in a serious, loving, successful relationship for over five years now, but Liam didn't identify as gay. It was silly, because obviously Liam's sexuality never affected their relationship, but Zayn still hoped that Liam would be the one to take that step to show that he was truly committed to this.
Liam came home one day after a meeting with Syco about the band's "farewell" concert and told him that his family was going to be coming to London for Zayn's graduation. Zayn was thrilled, he pretty much fell in love with Liam's family right away but they had only grown closer as the years went on, especially with his mother, and they had really become his second family. His first being Jay and the girls, of course. He was excited that they would be there along with everyone else he cared about and was filled with overall relief that he was finally done. His final paper was done and turned in and he already had his cap and gown to walk in just a few days. He had finally done it. He had a job lined up the following fall working at Oxford and he and Liam had been having a house built out there for both of them. It was a huge fucking honor to be able be considered for a job there at all, and Liam was still close enough to London that he could travel there for any business that might occur in the near future. Plus, Zayn knew it wouldn't be too long before he missed Louis and Pez and would want to come visit London himself.
Things were all coming together so perfectly that Zayn didn't even have time to think about marriage. The day of his graduation, Zayn was felt his nerves starting to get to him. He knew that somewhere out in the sea of people, Liam, Louis, Perrie, Harry, Niall and both Louis and Liam's families, for some reason, knowing they'd all be watching him made him nervous as hell. He couldn't really believe he was where he was. He was about to graduate with a PhD and he had all of these wonderful people here to support him. He couldn't believe just how lucky he was.
When they called his name, man, that was a sweet moment. Graduating from Uni the first time around was pretty wicked, but it felt nothing like this did. When they handed him his diploma, he became a fucking doctor and it kind of made goose pimples spread across his entire body. He could hear his friends and family cheering for him, Liam and the boy's especially. He waved at them to get them to calm down, no one needs to read a headline about One Direction getting kicked out of a graduation ceremony.
After the entire ceremony was over, Zayn went to go find everyone who came out to see him. He spotted Harry first since he was the tallest and easiest to find out of a crowd, and then his eyes landed on Liam whose own eyes reflected pure love and pride. Liam picked him up off the floor and swung him around a bit, making Zayn laugh as he held onto him for dear life. He placed a kiss against Zayn's lips and told him how proud he was of him. Before Zayn could even think of a response, he was being pulled away into a hug with Louis and Pez. It went that way from there. Before he really thank the person who was hugging him, he was swept away into another pair of arms.
The ended up at the same restaurant that Liam had taken him for his twenty-first birthday and somehow, they managed to all fit in the same room as before, even though it was a tad crowded. Even so, it was perfect because everyone he loved was sitting there at the same table. After they had their dinner, Liam stood up to get everyone's attention and Zayn's eyebrow arched in confusion. "Everyone," he said as everyone stopped their own conversations and turned to face Liam. "I'm just really happy that everyone was able to be here today to celebrate this new chapter is Zayn's life. I'm so proud of him and I know all of you are, too. I have loved watching how much this man has grown over the past five years which without a doubt have been the five best years of my life which is saying something considered how blessed I've been in life. Everything became better once Zayn came into my life and I hope to never spend a day without him for the rest of my life." Zayn's heart was already beating quickly at this point, but when he saw Liam drop to his knee, his eyes went wide and he swore his heart literally burst through his chest. He brought his hand to his mouth as he watched Liam pulling out a small black box, pulled up the top and revealed a ring nestled inside. He could hear everyone else in the room gasp as Liam looked Zayn straight in the eyes, with a stupid grin on his face. "Zayn Malik," he said. "Will you marry me?"
Zayn nodded his head quickly and said yes because really, was there ever a chance he'd say no? Liam slipped the ring on his finger and as soon as he was standing up again, Zayn was on his feet with his arms around the man's neck and pulling him close. Zayn's life has been filled with so many ups and downs, but ever since Liam came into his life, his life had been skyrocketing up with no sign of returning to Earth. He felt so blessed to be where he was right in this moment. Surrounded by all of his family and friends, graduated with a job on the horizon, and with the best man he could ever have hoped for. After a tear-filled round of hugs and all of the females pulling at his hand in order to see the ring, Liam pulled out his phone and Zayn couldn't help but roll his eyes. He snapped a picture of Zayn's hand, ring resting on the digit and instantly brought up the Twitter app on his phone. A minute later, Zayn's phone buzzed with a notification and he couldn't help but smile when he read Liam's new tweet.
@Real_Liam_Payne: He said yes :))))))) @zaynmalik
The picture of his hand was attached to it and already it received a ridiculous amount of likes and retweets but right now, Zayn could hardly care about that. He owed Twitter a lot, but all he cared about at that moment was the people around him and the man he was so stupidly in love with. Everything else could wait.