I've Got you Ziam --> kid fic

Part 1

It’s not a common question that gets thrown about a lot.

Especially not in the interviews where everyone is out to pry and pry in an attempt to gather as much information from the two lads sat next to one another in the large love seat with a microphone to each mouth.

Their simple answers to this particular question are always nearly the exact same: back in secondary school.

And that’s it, that’s enough for interviewers to move onto the next question, clearly already thinking they had the answer they were out searching for.

But oh. That doesn’t even begin to explain it all.

-o-

You see, they were best friends before the mayhem had even begun...

Zayn moved about a lot. 

As Zayn grew up from an awkward toddler to a young kid, he quickly had to learn very difficult lessons.  Not everyone in the world had good intentions and not everyone in the world would want to be a friend of the Muslim boy.

At first, Zayn could not understand why there were such rude, nasty people who tried to bring down his religion, his traditions, and his family. He couldn’t understand it and it was apparent that words and asking were never going to get him the answers he was searching for.

So he fought.

Quite a lot.

It wasn’t as if Zayn enjoyed coming home with a swollen cheek or a busted lip with his mother Trisha’s scolds dying down in her throat as she pressed the gaze with hydrogen peroxide to any visible cuts.

 It wasn’t like Zayn enjoyed harming anyone in return, that so much he had promised to his Baba who had had to pick up Zayn from school early one day because he’d gotten into a squabble with one of the jerks in his class. But if there was one thing he would not, could not, let slide, was people talking ill of those three things: his religion, his traditions, and his family.

Yaser had only exhaled a breath, leaving the grounds of the school and making his way towards his car before stopping and turning to face Zayn. “Beta.” He had begun, kneeling down in front of the nine year old boy, a hand reaching to squeeze at Zayn’s small shoulder. “I understand you’re having a tough time here, I do. Which is why I’ve asked my firm to transfer me over to Barnsley.  It’s recently renovated and they’ve got a position opened for me if I decide to take it. Would that be alright with you? If we moved from homes and schools?”

Zayn had wanted to protest because no!, this was home, Baba! But at the same time, how could a place filled with nothing but hatred and angst be anything like home?

They moved later that month.

It didn’t last for long.

From Bradford to Barnsley to Derby to Stafford. And then, their most recent location: Wolverhampton. 

He was fifteen, going on to sixteen when he first met Liam. A memory Zayn doesn’t think he’ll ever forget.

~

Zayn’s always loved a good theater production long before he even made it to Wolverhampton. Practically since he was a kid where other kids concerns were things like why Zayn hadn’t brought a show and tell item again or if Zayn would share some of his m&ms with them. But as years went on and the realization that adding theater didn’t help him in his current situation of sticking to one city for more than a year, Zayn decided to watch from the balcony of the auditorium rather than being up on stage with the rest of the cast and crew instead.