if zayn thought the band's reactions were horrible, he wasn't ready for his family.
unsurprisingly, his mother cries. stifled wails of grief and anguish that tear him apart even as she cradles him close, trying her very best to shield him from the world that has so horribly broken and corrupted him. the ink tinting his arms, the clinging smell of ashes, the lustreless glimmer of his eyes; the yellow of heartbreak- a hollowed shell of her baby boy.
doniya cries as well, but instead of reaching for her brother, she reaches for Allah. never the most dedicated or devout of followers, she now prays and prays and prays, tears balancing on lashes like morning dew on grass. she begs for Allah to not take zayn away- he's too young, too kind, too talented, too full of potential he'll never fulfill if he's not on this earth. zayn finds himself praying as well, for Allah to take care of her, to protect her when he no longer can.
waliyha does not follow her mother or her sister. she rages instead, destroying every smudge of yellow in the house, tearing from room to room like a tornado, ripping her sister's skirts and shredding her father's sweater, smashing old vases against the tiles and yanking old toys off the shelves. she hates the colour, hates everything to do with it, and for as long as she breathes it will never decorate this house again. zayn feels as though he is being demolished as well, ground into the floor as he witnesses the same girl who once gave up her umbrella for a stray kitten transform into something so bitter and angry he can barely recognise her. something he made her into.
and then there is safaa, with her round cheeks and big eyes and chubby hands that zayn used to tease her about, but are now too small to grasp the magnitude of the situation. she can't imagine her big brother dying, because her grandpa died too and even though she didn't know him very well, everyone cried for days and she doesn't want to see her mum like that again, doesn't want to see waliyha angry or doniya refusing to speak or eat. and she doesn't like harry anymore either, with his pretty green eyes and infectious laugh, even though he used to push her the highest on the swings and make daisy crowns with her sometimes. but she doesn't ever want to see him again, because if her brother is dying because harry is too stupid not to love him, she doesn't love harry either. zayn is not the easiest person. he can be brooding and moody and he threatens to dye her hair while she sleeps, but he's also caring and sensitive and goofy, and he never complains about watching mean girls and lets her sleep in his room when he's home. to not love him... it's unthinkable. impossible.
zayn acts as though nothing's wrong, or at least he tries. attempts to joke around with doniya, but the violet circles beneath her eyes only darken, prods safaa out of her stupor with jelly babies that do nothing to fade the faraway look on her face, and is met with a ferocious, tear filled scowl from waliyha at his half-hearted conversation. even his mum, who he spends every spare second with, always appears to be crying at the sight of him. he has broken them in ways he cannot comprehend, cannot understand completely, so he locks himself in his room. slides the latch, places a chair in front of it so waliyha won't pick the lock, slides headphones on so he won't hear safaa's muffled pleading. maybe like this, he will rot faster. he's already caused enough suffering in those he loves.
and yaser watches helplessly as his family falls apart.
