Earn Me (Niam)

Six Years Earlier

Guess who's back from the grave! This is long overdue which is why it is long (and unedited). Enjoy!

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The purples of the very early morning slowly transition into dark blues, which quickly shift into the misty, dewy grey of a typical January winter morning. Golden sunlight barely shines past the density of the thick, wintery clouds of grey and black. Nonetheless, an ethereal, pink glow paints the sky like a foggy haze. Slowly but surely, the clouds part and the rosy light of a rising sun travels down to the warm and cozy house of the Maliks. Regardless of the ungodly time in the morning, everyone in the house seems to be bustling around, zipping throughout the house even though three-fourths of the neighborhood still have not waken up. Not even the old senior couple across the street who Niall and his adoptive sisters find absolutely adorable are up and awake; they don't start their morning yoga routine until 6:45. But time never seems to be an issue for the Maliks. They all seem to wake up before every other normal person in society and start their individualized morning routines without even batting an eye.

Yaser Malik, with slow and steady fingers, adjusts the blue-and-purple checkered tie snugly wrapped under his crisp white dress shirt collar. Taking a rough, tanned hand, he runs a flat palm over his smooth, black hair. Satisfied with his slightly rugged yet sharp appearance, he exits his bedroom and thunders down the stairs into the kitchen, where the aromas of breakfast mingle and dance together in a delicious harmony. His golden eyes immediately soften the second they land on his wife. Taking large steps as quietly as he can, he tiptoes towards the smaller woman speedily flitting her eyes across her phone screen. Trisha Malik snickers to herself without taking her eyes off of her phone as she listens to her husband's futile attempts of trying to sneak up on her. Even when their kids were younger and the most delicate pin dropping would wake them up, Yaser always had a hard time staying quiet. Maybe that's why he and Geoff are such wonderful friends, she thinks to herself. But that first strand of thought quickly snaps Trisha out of her reverie and she glances back down at her phone screen, the text Karen sent just minutes ago making the black-haired woman bite her lip to suppress her laughter. Of course, the images that are conjured up in Trisha's mind do not - cannot - distract her from the heavy footfalls of her husband.

"You realize that you're not light on your feet," Trisha says just as Yaser lifts his arms in some sort of mock horror movie monster pose. She can't help but smile brightly when she can practically hear the pout forming on Yaser's face. He slowly slides his arms from in the air to across his chest, his bottom lip jutting out even further as the statement sinks deeper inside of his mind.

"I just wanted to say good morning to my beautiful wife," Yaser whines like a child. Trisha slowly and gracefully turns around, the phone and message long forgotten so that she can raise an eyebrow at the sulking man-child. Her sulking man-child.

"But nooo," Yaser continues with his pout, extending the vowel, "you just had to crush all of my hopes and dreams!" Trisha just rolls her eyes again as her husband proceeds to wail and moan. Just as he is about to go off on another irrelevantly childish tangent, Trisha gently places her hands on Yaser's cheeks and plants a chaste kiss on his lips. Trisha smiles against his lips as the large man goes through an entire range of emotions before melting into the kiss and sighing in placated victory.

"Y'know," Yaser murmurs against his wife's lips, the feeling making her let out her suppressed laughter, "that you have to admit that I was kind of sneaky." Trisha rolls her eyes yet again and places another gentle kiss on his lips. "Because this is the first time I almost made it all the way to you before you caught me."

All the woman can do is scoff playfully and let her husband get away with his petulant way of thinking. Because without it, she is very sure that her life would not be as entertaining as it is now. So without hesitating or skipping a heartbeat, she happily leans forward and presses her lips on Yaser's. And all the man can do is deflate in delight while his chest inflates with love.