#fatherharry

Harry had woken up, pressed to Louis back with their fingers entwined and a green eyed boy poking at his spine. He turned over and smiled at his boy, lifting him up and into his arms. Louis was shaken from his sleep by the giggles that they were making and he turned to press a kiss to Harry’s lips and shoot a sleep smile, gathering Avidan’s little feet into his palms and tickling the soles. The high laughter of the toddler rang through the house, accompanied with the deep chuckles of his parents.

Harry felt inspired. He made a cup of tea for himself and Louis, along with cereal for Ave and set them on the table while Louis gave the little boy a bath. Harry didn’t usually shower until before lunch. He mostly just got tea, and tried to write; he made paper planes out of useless drafts and got more tea. Having had his first published trilogy hit the bestsellers list, he was trying very hard to live up to expectations.  Unfortunately, he almost never approved of his own writing.

But today was different, as he swirled his tea, he felt an idea brewing. Three beautiful characters were forming in his mind’s eye. He felt their nerves and tendons and flesh come together. He felt their hearts beating to a tune, and their thoughts developing. Beautiful, insightful thoughts that he could quote. His hand slammed on the granite table and he ran to his study, removing the dusty MacBook from the confines of the cupboard. Harry didn’t care much for technology, but Louis insisted that the best writer had to have the best equipment. Harry would have honestly just preferred a fountain pen.

His fingers slid over the key board as he began to weave his story, eyes flicking from one side to the other with impossible speed. The brightness of the computer was hurting his eyes, but he couldn’t seem to lower it without losing track of what he was writing. He felt someone press a kiss to the top of his head.

“You got something going there love?”

The words seemed like they were piercing his mind through a haze, “Hm? Oh yeah, think it’s gonna be really good.”

“Next bestseller already on the way huh?”

“Nope, cheese lasagna.” The curly haired man said distractedly, tapping away on his computer, lost in a world of his own.

Louis chuckled and ruffled his husband’s hair fondly. Harry looked like a crazy person at the moment. His hair was sticking up in every direction, his eyes were drooping with sleep but the green orbs were alert. His feet were propped up on the chair in his stripy pajama pants and he wasn’t wearing a shirt. He stopped typing for a second and rubbed his nose, staring at his screen, giving a little smirk he began clacking manically again.

Louis put Ave on the counter seat and handed him the spoon, twining his curly hair around his finger. He was glad that Avidan had inherited the curly hair and green eyes, God this boy was going to be a catch.

Harry’s porcelain face was furrowed in concentration, and Louis had to yell before he looked up dazedly with a dumb sounding “What?”

“Harry, I’m sure what you’re writing is really good, but it’s your turn to watch Ave. I’ve got that massive meeting remember?” Louis said, picking up his phone and scrolling through emails while snagging a piece of toast. Harry seemed to only then realize the tragedy of what he was saying.

“What?” He asked incredulously. “I can’t watch Ave, I’ve got… I have to, argh.” He groaned, gesturing at his computer, unable to see why Louis didn’t understand the seriousness of the subject. The blue eyed smiled sympathetically and walked over to peck Harry’s lips and mumble and apology.

“I can’t get out of this Haz, you know I would if I could, and you promised.”

Sometimes, Harry hated how Louis was a ray of sunshine every morning. Avidan was more like Harry per say, sullen and falling over his bowl of soggy cornflakes. Louis kissed his son on the cheek and walked out of the front door saying: “Little give, little take Haz! See you soon love.”

Harry scowled and got on with his story, allowing Avidan to continue with his breakfast. He was getting through to the third chapter of the story that was building itself up beautifully when little fingers began tugging at his trousers. He tried to ignore it as long as he could.

“Dad, dad, dad, dad, dad, dad, dad, dad, dad, dad”

Apparently three year olds don’t like to be ignored.

“Yes sweetheart.” Harry said in a sarcastic voice, reluctantly allowing his fingers to leave the keys. He lifted his son up onto his lap and gave him a tickle.

“And what would his highness like to do today? Hm?”

“I wanna go to the park Dad!” He spoke, his posh British accent ringing clear. Harry sighed in despair.

“But you didn’t want to go to the park yesterday love. Why today?”

“Because. Just because.” He said sassily, in a way he probably learnt from Louis. Harry groaned and put Avidan on the floor, for when had he ever been able to refuse his little boy.

“Okay, go put your shoes on Ave, I’ll go shower. And we will go… to the park.” He said through slightly gritted teeth, reluctantly leaving his computer to break for a shower.

He stuffed a mini notepad into his coat pocket just for little notes in case he was doused in inspiration, today seemed to be one of those days. Usually Harry would nurture those days and carefully milk all the ideas out of himself to go on with, but unfortunately fate was not looking in his way.

He bundled Avidan up in a coat and a scarf and pulled him out of the house. It had been two weeks since his book had been on the best seller list, and it was still there. Teenagers and adults all over the world were sitting on their edge of their seats as they read, but the excitement with the press had died down, just the way Harry liked it. He was recognized but not suffocated, he enjoyed a quiet life.

Avidan played around in the park for a while, forcing his dad to push him on the swing, and catch him as he came down the slide, and meet him on the other side of the tunnels. Harry had a little smile lingering on his face as his toddler spoke to him animatedly about the bug he’d found in the back garden the other day. But Harry’s mind never strayed far from the word document open at home.  As an author, he was kind of a maniac and a dick when it came to writing days.

Finally, when the green eyed child was tired of the park, Harry picked him up and carried him back home, relishing the only amount of physical activity he would have all day, probably all week he thought as another piece of the story popped into his head.

“Dad, how do you write stories?” Avidan lisped.

Harry hoisted the boy up higher on his hip and spoke, “Well you see Ave, you know all the bedtime stories I tell you yeah?”  Curls bounced as the little boy nodded.  “Do you remember the people in the stories?”

“Like King Lou and Prince Ave? Yep.” Avidan confirmed, popping his lips on the ‘p’.

“Well when I write my grown up stories, the people in them, they talk to me from my head. They tell me everything they go through, all their dreams and happy thoughts and sad thoughts.”

“And you tell their stories to everyone else?”

Harry nodded with a smile and opened the door to their mansion, giving a wave to the gardener trimming the flowers.

“But how do they know you’ll tell the stories right?”

“Because they trust me.”

-

Harry’s head was in his hands as the toddler on the sugar rush of candy raced around the house. Harry vaguely thought of the ways Louis was going to kill him when he got home.

“Please sit down Ave. I’m trying to work.”

Avidan had spent the whole day making Harry play with him, from the Legos, to baking cookies, they had done it all. Every time Harry tried to claw himself back to the computer, he was pulled away with some new attraction that his son had discovered. When he finally shook the green eyed boy off and got back to the addictive story that he was spinning, he was too distracted to notice Avidan consuming a bag full of candy, which meant hyper Ave. Hyper Ave was never good.

“I’m not sitting down! I wanna run around!” He giggled as Harry tried to grab him.

Harry tried to ignore the young boy and gather his thoughts, when he looked back at the thousands of words he had typed out; he seemed to have forgotten what he was planning to write down next.  The patience inside him snapped and before he knew what he was doing, he had Ave’s arm in steel like grip and was raising his palm.

The little boy’s lip began to tremble, and he began to shiver in fear, making Harry freeze. Avidan flinched, his face turning away, body reacting in defense to the blow it thought it was going to receive, but looking upon the fear in Avidan’s eye’s, all the anger dissolved in Harry’s.  Right that moment, the door slammed open to reveal a smiling, but tired looking Louis. As his eyes landed on the scene in front of him, the grin quickly slid off his face.  Avidan used his father’s moment distraction to wrench himself of Harry’s grip and run upstairs. The sound of his door slamming shut made Harry flinch.

“Um, do I want to know?”

The realization of what he had been about to do crashed down on Harry and he groaned, letting his head fall into his hands as he slid to the floor against the wall. Louis’ expression softened as he saw the Harry crumpling, it was times like this that Louis remembered how young they really were. He walked over to where his husband sat, and got on the ground next to him.

“C’mon Haz, it’s not that big a deal, everyone loses it a bit sometimes, you didn’t actually hit him.”

“But I was going to! Jesus Christ Louis, I was going to slap my own son, what the fuck is wrong with me?”

Louis didn’t understand, he had always been the parent to dole out punishments, and correct Ave when he misbehaved. But Harry wasn’t like that. He was always the good parent, the parent who spoilt the kid rotten, the parent who never lost his cool.

“I don’t know what happened!” He groaned. “I was writing that stupid story, and he was running around and screaming, and I just lost it, how – maybe I should just stop writing this crap, it’s making me a shit parent.”

“No Harry,” Louis said firmly, “Don’t ever think that you should give up on this because of that. Writing, it’s your life! And you’re a good parent, everyone makes mistakes babe.”

“But what if he hates me forever?” Harry said despairingly, the worry clear in his eyes.

Louis sighed. “Nobody could ever hate you, I know from experience” he winked. Harry gave a watery grin and leaned over and let Louis put his arms around him.

“You’d just think I’d have gotten the hand of this parent thing after three years of doing it.” He mumbled into Louis’ shoulder.

“You and I both love.”

Harry pulled away from Louis and sniffed.  “I’ve got to go and apologize don’t I?” Louis responded with a dry smile.

“You’ll do fine love. Just lots of cuddles and kisses, does the trick every time.

-

Harry peeked into his son’s room, speaking softly. “Ave?”

His eyes landed on a small ball of toddler curled up in the corner of the room. His heart melted at the sight of green eyes pooling with tears, and he mentally kicked himself for getting so out of control. He sat down cross legged in front of Avidan and sighed, taking tiny hands into his own.

“Hey love.”

Avidan didn’t answer.

Harry gently pulled his son closer and into a tight hug, mumbling apologies into curly hair that looked just like his own. The little boy began to cry and bury himself further into his father’s shirt, responding to the embrace.

-

Avidan cried himself to sleep in Harry’s arms that night, but Harry knew he had been forgiven. He tucked his son into bed tenderly, pressing a kiss to his forehead after that, and making a silent promise to him.

“I’ll never let anyone hurt you Ave, I promise.”