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Harry rests a hand on his belly, feeling a not-so-gentle kick rise up from inside him. He’s nearing the last couple of months of pregnancy, and has already noticed that this child is far more active than his or Louis’ first kids. He’s grateful to have chosen not to work during this pregnancy at least-- his last one, while gentler in a lot of ways, had definitely been more stressful with the addition of heading into an office every day. Of course taking care of Birdie and Jack is a job in and of itself, easily as exhausting in a lot of ways as his office job was. But it’s nicer, too.
He’s smiling thinking about it when Jack runs in from outside, sweaty curls plastered to his forehead and his cheeks red.
“Papa, Birdie won’t be it for hide-a-seek even though I tag her,” Jack says, his words a messy and breathless jumble. Harry thinks that Birdie probably gave him quite a run around, and his suspicions are confirmed when Birdie runs in after him, hair loose from its ponytail and her blue eyes sparkling with mischief.
“Birdie, did Jackie tag you?” Harry asks patiently. She shrugs and looks up at him with a coy grin and Jack stomps one foot. It’s probably for the best if Harry ends this as quickly as possible.
“Alright, well it’s lunch time now anyway, so we’re going to wash up now. When we go back outside later, I’ll come play too, yeah? Birdie, you can be it and I’ll help you count.” He looks down at the children with as easy a smile as he can muster, aware that if either of them is a bit too tired or hungry or frustrated even an equitable solution won’t do.
“Wha’s for lunch?” Birdie asks, standing up on tip-toes to look at what Harry’s been making.
“Nutty Butty sandwiches and carrots and blueberry yogurt.” Harry raises his eyebrows at the kids and reaches out to poke Jack’s dimple. “How does that sound?”
“Good, Papa!” Jack says as he leans into Harry’s touch. Birdie wrinkles her nose a bit and shrugs-- she inherited a massive sweet tooth from Louis and Harry is certain she’ll be asking for dessert when they’re done eating.
Harry helps them up to the kitchen sink to wash and dry their hands, grabbing their plates in a stack and carrying them over to the table before hoisting the kids into their respective booster seats.
Birdie is nearly five and Jack almost four, and Harry remembers distinctly the reaction people had to he and Louis being pregnant so close together. It may have been a bit unusual, but it was always the right thing for their family. The kids aren’t really like twins, but they’re very close to one another, and their slight difference in age has meant that when Birdie has outgrown the need for something, it’s at almost the exact time that Jack is ready for it. There’s nothing Harry nor Louis would do differently, really.
They eat their lunch without much complaint-- Harry quietly praises himself for convincing the children that his somewhat odd homemade mixed nut butter is a fun and exciting treat and not just a parent blog experiment gone mildly awry --and when Birdie argues for a dessert Harry is ready for her, explaining that he’s made a cake but that he doesn’t think it’d be fair to have it without Daddy there to share it. She agrees, but also “convinces” Harry that they should get to help with making frosting for the cake, and he pretends it wasn’t his expectation to begin with.
He’s just finished getting the kids and their lunch mess cleaned up when the rain starts falling. It’s the kind of summer storm that could stay for twenty minutes or several hours, and Jack’s face falls at the sound of the first drops.
“Papa we can still play hide and seek?” Jack nods as he says it, as though that will somehow make Harry say yes. Harry’s face must give him the opposite answer immediately, though, as he sticks out his lower lip in a pout. Harry ruffles his hair softly.
“Sorry bud, you know we do that game outside, though. We’ll figure something else out, huh?” Jack curls away from Harry a bit and Harry lifts his hand up, watching to see if he’s going to react any further. Then Birdie touches Jack’s shoulder gently, waiting for him to look at her before she moves in to put her arm around his shoulder.
“S’alright. We’ll play forts, Jack.”
It’s Jack’s favorite game and one that Birdie only finds moderately interesting usually, so Jack’s immediate reaction is to smile and pump his fists in the air, practically bouncing with excitement at the idea that he’ll get to do one of his favorite things with two of his favorite people. Harry doesn’t try to hide his fond smile.
Forts is a game that Louis invented one especially cold and rainy weekend in December. It goes like this: Each player gets a corner of the room where they take a stack of pillows, blankets, one folded up bed sheet, and as many soft toys as they like. When the game starts, each player tries to construct a fort that’s big enough to hold them without using all their supplies. Once they’ve completed the fort and fit themselves into it, they yell out the word ‘fort’ at which point either Harry or Louis comes to “inspect” the structure and make sure it’s “soundly built” before the player can continue. Once the fort is approved, a stuffed animal takes the place of the player and a new fort is built directly adjacent to the first one. The game continues until someone reaches the couch.
Although Louis invented the game, it’s Jack who’s the best strategist of all of them. It’s because of him that the game has had several new rules added on, and it’s his love of playing it that’s the reason they have such an absurd number of blankets and sheets lying around. As he counts his blankets and stuffed toys in his corner, Harry decides to offer Birdie a bit of encouragement too.
“Alright little bird, are you ready to build some forts?”
Birdie smiles up at him, nodding. Unlike Jack, her supplies lay behind her in a messy pile, her soft toys tossed against them willy-nilly. “We both know Jack’s gonna win, Papa,” she says in what she must think is a whisper. She inherited Louis’ loudness for sure. Harry leans down and kisses her head, smoothing a hand over her hair when he’s done.
“You never know. Remember last time? You were thiiis close,” Harry brings his thumb and forefinger close together only to have Birdie reach up and tug them apart, giggling. Harry kisses her again and then goes to check on Jack. He’s bent over his stuffed toys, arranging them in a perfectly straight line and, from what Harry can tell, giving them a pep talk.
“You gotta be ready when I need you, Bear,” he says, pointing a finger at the stuffed teddy bear that sits at the front of the line. “You’re pretty important.”
“Hey Jack-a-boo, almost ready my darling?”
“Yes Papa. We’re ready I think. Are you playing too?” He looks up at Harry with a hopeful gleam in his eye that makes Harry sad to disappoint him. Still, Harry rubs a hand over his belly and shakes his head.
“The bun and I are the judges today,” he says. Jack gives him an understanding nod. “But I’ll let you say something to them if you want. Might make a difference, hm?” Jack looks dubious, but leans in anyway, putting his lips against Harry’s tummy.
“We need to keep this fair, little bun. Listen to whatever Papa thinks, okay?”
Harry leans down and kisses both of Jack’s cheeks, giving him a warm hug too. “Good advice there. We’ll both keep it in mind.”
With that, Harry shoves the coffee table out of the way and sits down on the couch, checking his watch as if he’s waiting for the proper moment to tell the children to start building. “Prepare to go in thirty seconds,” he says, looking between both of them. “And the countdown from ten,” he says after watching them for a moment. “Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Count with me now. And five, four, three, two, one. Start your forting!”
Birdie dives into her pile and pulls out the first thing she lays hands on, an old baby blanket that belonged to Louis when he was small. Meanwhile, Jack has arranged his blankets in the order he wants to use them, and he grabs the first off the stack, carefully wrapping part of it around a pillow that he manages to get to stand up without it flopping over. He calls out for his first fort inspection only a couple of minutes later while Birdie is still wrestling with her blanket, trying in vain to get it to stretch out further than it ever could.
About twenty minutes later, they reach the trickiest part of the game. Both children are close to the center of the room, and their forts could easily meet as they make their way toward the couch. Initially, Louis had made a rule that opposing players’ forts couldn’t touch one another. But eventually that led to the sort of “she touched my fort, that’s cheating” and “he’s building his fort too close to mine on purpose” fights that ended in tears, and so a new rule was developed.
“Eminent domain!” Harry shouts, hoisting himself up from the couch as quickly as he can (which is not very quickly at all). Jack and Birdie stop building, knowing that what’s coming next could potentially thwart any fort building they might do in the meantime. Harry grabs the cushions and pillows off the back of the couch and lays some of them down flat as he stands others up, leaving enough space between them that he’s left with two pillows in his hands as he reaches the spot where Birdie and Jack wait for him.
Birdie stifles a giggle as Jack bounces on his knees, both children ready for what comes next. Harry holds the pillows out, one over each child’s head, and pointedly clears his throat before saying once again, “eminent domain!” He looks between Jack and Birdie before continuing. “I’m the judge and I’m laying down tracks here! Do you accept? Jaaaack?”
“No!” Jack shouts, springing up from his crouched position and reaching for the pillow that Harry dangles over his head. Harry lifts it, but Jack grabs a corner and gives it a hard tug, bringing the pillow swiftly down and clutching it to his chest. “I reject your emmamit domain!” With the pillow in hand he sits back down and smiles proudly. Harry can tell he’s already considered the possibility this would happen and maybe even planned for it; he’s still got his bed sheet available to use and might even make it to the couch with the addition of the pillow he’s holding.
Harry turns to Birdie, who’s looking up at the pillow Harry holds over her head with her tongue between her teeth, eager to answer him when he asks her the same question he asked Jack.
“Eminent domain! I’m the judge and I’m laying down tracks here now. Do you accept? Biiiiiirdie?”
“Ye-essss,” Birdie yells through her laughter as Harry tosses the pillow in the air. It lands next to her and she throws herself on top of it. “Uh oh, s’mine now,” she says. “My domain.”
“Drats! Two failed attempts at taking land from the people!” Harry huffs, feigning upset, and crosses his arms over his chest. “We’ll see how well you little builders reach the final destination now anyway.” With that, he returns to the couch, lowering himself down gingerly, both children waiting for the word that they can start again. When he finally says “go” they get right back to it.
Jack builds efficiently, but somewhere along the way Birdie has picked up her own excitement about building and she works just as hard, using the pillow she’s just claimed to quickly build a new fort that’s much bigger than most of her others. The two of them are almost to the couch when Harry hears Louis’ key in the door. It’s too late to tell either of them to pause, though, so he simply turns around to wave at Louis from the couch as he comes in, hair a bit damp from the rain that’s still falling outside. He grins when he realizes what the kids are playing; inventing Jack’s favorite game is still one of his proudest parenting moments.
“Well, well, well, if it isn’t my favorite little builders,” he says as he leans over the couch to kiss Harry’s neck and pull him into a gentle hug. He runs his hands over Harry’s belly and whispers, “and my favorite big builder too.”
“Daddy we’re almost there!” Jack says, not even pausing in his work. He really does love this game, and Harry thinks it’s at least a bit because he knows that Louis is an architect. He only went to work with Louis once, but it sparked an interest in all things building that’s only grown since then.
“And I might even win, Daddy,” Birdie says as she peeks her head out from under the blanket she’s using.
Louis throws one leg over the back of the couch and then the other, letting himself plop down next to Harry. “Came home early because of the rain,” he says, leaning into Harry’s side. “Didn’t know if these two would be going stir crazy with it.”
“No, they’ve been at it for a while now. And they had a little time running around outside while I made lunch.”
Jack’s hand lands on Harry’s knee and he looks down in time to see Jack smile before yelling “fort” quite loudly. Jack settles in under his final fort and Harry nudges Louis, prompting him to do the judging. He makes a show of it, standing up and stepping over the fort carefully before getting on his hands and knees and looking at each pillow individually, bringing his nose close enough to touch them.
“Daddyyyy, you can’t touch my fort even with your nose. What if you knock it over!” Jack furrows his brow.
“Oh Jackie you nose he would never do that,” Harry teases. Louis groans, but Birdie laughs. Jack keeps his brow furrowed, worried that Louis’ nose really could destroy his beautiful fort building.
“Well it’s sturdy and sound, passes allll inspections,” Louis says finally. “We have a winner!” Birdie springs up from inside her own fort, destroying it and at least one other that she’s built, while Jack climbs out carefully before raising his hands in the air and cheering.
They knock down all the forts together as a family, one of Harry’s favorite parts of the game, and then they fold up all the blankets and sheets together too. Well, they try to anyway-- Birdie and Jack lose interest in that part quickly and always start pretending the blankets are capes or the sheets are parachutes.
When the mess is cleaned up, Harry herds them into the kitchen and lets the kids help mix up frosting while he and Louis talk about their days. It makes a terrible mess, but it still tastes good, and they’re getting baths tonight anyway.
Louis swipes his finger through a bit of frosting that’s landed on Birdie’s cheek, giving it a taste and nodding his approval. Harry just looks on, happy with the scene in front of him. Their little family might not make sense to everyone, but for him, they’re home.