Winter

Tragic Blood

I look up from my laptop when I hear a knock at the door and push my glasses up my nose, trying to be rational.  It's not normal to be afraid of a simple knock on the door, but my heart jumps anyway, and I curse my brother.  I momentarily feel guilty about it, remembering that he's laying in a hospital bed right now, but he brought this upon himself.   He brought this upon all of us.

"It's me," a muffled, yet familiar voice calls out and I clench my jaw in anger.  My laptop is swiftly closed and I get up from the couch, passing my dad who is coming out of the kitchen.

"Don't let it in," I say with a tight-lipped smile, and I would usually say worse, but I can spot the bags under his eyes from here.  It makes me slightly hate my brother even more, but that's nothing new.  Zayn and I may love each other, but we certainly don't like each other.  He's there for me when it matters I suppose and vice versa, but that's about it.  He's eight years older than me to begin with and I'm certainly not the little brother he always wanted, so our relationship has been strained since pretty much day one.  But he was my favorite person up until five years ago when his life, which is pretty damn tied to mine, started to go downhill.  So while we certainly care about each other and sometimes get along, we're usually bickering about something.  Or at least it was just bickering until he began to get into...trouble.

"Don't be like this, honey.  You're brother is hurt and Harry is the same boy that you grew up with.  Just come–"

"No, dad," I cut him off, "neither of them are.  You would think that Zayn recently having a bullet lodged his chest would prove it to you."  I ignore his flinch and angrily stomp to my room as I hear the front door open, making sure to slam my own loudly before locking it.   

How can he be so blind?  He thinks of those two as the same little boys who used to play baseball on the front lawn and offer to walk me home from school on Fridays so they could treat me for ice cream.  But I felt the change years ago and my once loving older brother and his best friend are unrecognizable.       

Zayn is burning with eyes of liquid gold.  Always spewing fire, boiling with rage, I wouldn't be surprised to find melted metal running through his veins despite the fact that we share the same blood.   Harry is all cold with his polar green eyes.  I see cracking ice and bitter rage, frost and frigid calculations. I always want to scratch away his skin to make sure that I won't find scales instead of flesh and bone.

I lay on my bed with my hands behind my neck, sighing as I hear the heavy boots making their way down the hall.

"Come on, Zaya," he rasps, "He's been asking for you."  I roll my eyes, wondering why we have had to go through this same routine for the past nine days.  Harry knows that I'm not going to go see him, so why bother.  He should conserve his energy for something more useful, like dismantling the drug trades he managed to set up.  I hear him try to open the door and he bangs his hand on it when he sees that it's locked.  "Zayn is your fucking brother, don't you care at all?"

I decided not to waste my voice on Harry about four days ago, so I take out my phone and text him instead.  (A/N: Zaya's texts are bolded and Harry's are italicized)  

I'm flattered that he's been asking for me but I think I'll pass.  Please feel free to tell him that he'll be in my prayers though

I hear his ringer go off and he growls in annoyance.  "Are you fucking serious right now?  I'm literally just feet away from you.  And I don't appreciate the fucking tone."

You say fucking a lot 

"Fu–Jesus christ, Zaya."

You haven't seen him since the first night and he wasn't even conscious.  Quit the theatrics and let's go