Ziam one shots

Only Place I Call Home

Ao3
By: Scottmcniceass
Summary: Liam works at a coffee shop; Zayn is a homeless street performer who plays just outside the shop. Sometimes Liam brings Zayn coffee and donuts and in exchange Zayn sings for him.

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The first cold day of the year has Liam pulling his sweater in around his neck as he hurries to work. The small coffee shop isn't all that far from his apartment, which is what gives him the nice half hour of down time between his last class and the beginning of his shift. Unlike Louis, who has just enough time to run home, change and run to work, and even then he's late more often than not.

There are already people inside the shop by the time he gets there. There's the afternoon rush, people like him, just about to continue with the rest of their busy, important day, and each one of those people needs caffeine. But it's not the people inside the shop that Liam smiles at. It's the guy out front.

Liam doesn't really know his name, to be honest, but he knows the guy. Knows that he likes black coffee and dipping sugar coated donuts into it and he's got eyes that sometimes are so brown they look endless, and sometimes are so golden it's almost unfathomable as to why they don't glow. He's got a throaty, honest laugh that he rarely lets anyone hear, and his jaw is always covered in stubble that swirls and patterns on his skin like artwork. He's got long, thin fingers and he uses them to pluck the string of a guitar and he has the most lovely voice Liam's ever heard, not that he claims to be a great judge on this or anything.

Oh, and he's homeless. It's not like that part was ever explicitly said out loud, but it's known. He's wearing the same grubby jeans that he's been wearing forever now, ones with holes in the knees and frayed bottoms and stains that will never come out, no matter how many times he washes them. The shirt is new. It's white and fresh looking, but the denim jacket he's wearing over it isn't. It's in as much of a need of a wash as his jeans. He plays here sometimes, just outside the store, guitar case open for money and his voice drifting inside. And he's accidentally fallen asleep there on more than one occasion, drifting off with his guitar in hand, squishing the bag on his back and a sweater piled up under his head like a pillow. Louis shoos him away every time; Liam doesn't.

"Hey," Liam says, pausing just out front the door. "Good afternoon."

The guy blinks up at him, almost as if he'd been asleep, which wouldn't be all that surprising. "Liam," he says slowly.

Liam sucks in a breath and hurries inside. It's like— he knows Liam's name, and he's known it for weeks, but every damn day, every damn shift, Liam stops outside and says hi to him, and all he says is Liam's name back, and every damn time, without fail, Liam flushes and hurries inside instead of doing something. Though he's not exactly sure what to do in this situation.

"No pretty homeless boys," Louis says as soon as Liam's ducking behind the counter and pulling on his apron and the stupid visor that's part of their uniform. "No matter how pretty."

"I wasn't—"

"You were," Louis says firmly. "You have a thing with wanting to help everyone, and that's fine and dandy when you're slipping him stale donuts at the end of the night, but I see the way you look at him, okay? Don't think I don't."

Liam smiles dreamily out the window, watching as passer-by after passer-by actually pauses in the middle of their busy lives to stop and listen to the boy outside the window sing. "He knows my name," Liam says briskly, going back to work. He reaches for a cloth and wipes down the counter, trying to act like that's not as big of a deal as it is. As it is to him anyways, because it shouldn't really be a big deal, should it?

"Only because you go outside in your uniform sometimes," Louis reminds him. "It literally says your name."

Liam blinks down at the nametag on his chest. "Oh." He doesn't know why that matters, why it makes a difference, but it does. "I don't know his name."