Reason To Be (A Zouis Family AU)

Part Two, Chapter Eight

Louis curls up next to Zayn on the couch one evening a week later, his husband's arm over his shoulder and his head rested on the taller man's chest, just over his heart beat. It's the loudest thing in the room, and he hates that he's already almost familiar with the quietness of the house.

Niall isn't as lethargic as he'd been the first couple of days after the accident. Just this morning, he had been running around like usual, giggling when his Papa caught him and tickled him but still not saying a word. And he's relieved about that, of course...but god, he misses the eight year olds little voice, that excitable rambling that never ceases to end as he talks about everything in irrelevant detail.

He's healing, physically. Even after a week, his bruises have almost entirely faded and his ribs don't hurt anymore. The cast is going to be there for a few more weeks yet, and he prays that the boy will be speaking again by then because dammit, the silence is driving him mad. He doesn't know how he ever survived without it before the boy came along.

Of course the physical side is so much simpler than the mental.
He seems happy most of the time, when he's laughing at something Harry is telling him or jumping from couch to couch until he wears himself out just like always. But then there are the moments in between.

Like when Harry had finally snapped on the second day.

"Just talk to me Ni! You can talk, you're just choosing not to!" He had yelled, slamming his hands down on the table when they had been eating breakfast.

And Niall had panicked, instantly bursting into heartbreaking sobs. He'd been trembling like crazy when Louis had picked him up and hugged him in an attempt to soothe him, and he had come to understand that the boy wasn't just choosing not to speak. He was terrified to speak, terrified to recount the events that had happened on the day of the crash.

Harry had cried too, mainly out of guilt, and thankfully Niall has always been quick to forgive. No less than an hour later, the two youngest were curled up on the couch together, laughing at cartoons.

After that, they had taken Niall to one of the specialists mentioned in the brochures from the hospital.

She had welcomed them in with a greeting smile, introducing herself as Kate. Niall has never been one to be shy around new people, and even with the silence, that hadn't changed.

He'd wasted no time in pulling out one of the board games from the cupboard in her office, and whilst Louis and Zayn had sat on the couch together and watched, Kate had set it up.

They ended up playing scrabble, sitting on opposite sides of a low table on the floor, with Niall possibly the most focused they had ever seen him aside from when he draws.

"Wow, you're good at this game," Kate has praised, and the eight year old had beamed with pride, turning to grin at his parents, who had been quick to add onto that praise.

Kate had placed the word 'ash' at some point, and then after a few more rounds, Niall had placed a 'cr' at the beginning of it. Then he'd just frozen and climbed up from the floor and onto Zayn's lap, curling into him.

"Hey, it's okay buddy. Don't you wanna finish your game?" He had asked, but Niall had just shaken his head adamantly.

Kate had pulled him aside after that.

"From what I can tell, this is likely a temporary solution until his mind manages to process what happened. It's a big thing for a kid to go through, but I'm fairly certain he's going to see it through to the other side," she had said.