Love is a Word (You Gave it a Name) l.s

Two Days to Christmas

"Baaaaah."

"Thank you, Ernie."

"Shh," Harry hisses. "Let him talk."

"He's ten months old, Haz. He can't talk."

"Bloo," Ernest says in what Louis assumes is protest. Louis grins down at him.

"They're so adorable," Harry pouts, for what has to be the seventeenth time today. "I want ten."

"I'm telling you, ten is too many," Louis says. He reaches out to boop Ernie's nose, but Ernie has other ideas and puts Louis's finger in his mouth instead. Louis loves him so much he's not even grossed out. "There were five of us, and we gave mum and dad grey hair at thirty."

Harry is settled in the armchair with Doris, twisted up like a pretzel so he can comfortably sit her on his lap. His eyes are sparkling so bright they might as well be made of stars.

"Nope," he says as he attempts to make a braid out of her downy hair. "Tell him ten's not too much, Dory. He'll listen to you."

"Te!" says Doris and claps her hands. The smile Harry gives her is enough to raise Louis's insulin levels on the spot.

"Teeeh," Ernest repeats as they look at each other. They have those moments sometimes, when they seem to get on the same wavelength and proceed to stare at each other like adorable baby owls.

Doris blinks, big blue eyes closing and opening again as if in slow motion, and yawns. They all get an excellent view of her misshapen baby teeth, and Harry, as always, seems to find it endearing.

"Oh," he coos, "are you still tired, little baby? D'you wanna go back to bed?"

It's only been a half hour since they've woken up, and about fifteen minutes since Louis and Harry fed them, but Louis is not entirely sure about the circadian rhythm of babies. Maybe they could go back to sleep again, and then Louis himself could take a nap while the house is blissfully quiet.

Doris, however, seems to have other plans. She waves her arms in the air, buckling until Harry has no choice but to set her back on the carpet. She then crawls to Ernest, grabs a rattler, and waves it in his face. Ernie doesn't seem perturbed at all.

While the babies are making their own fun, Harry crawls off the armchair and joins Louis on the floor. His back pops as he lies down and stretches out, and Louis makes a mental note to rub it for him later.

"What do you think they're doing?" Harry asks as he lays his head on Louis's shoulder and presses a kiss to his cheek. "Do you think they understand each other? Is there, like, a universal baby language?"

Louis smiles involuntarily at having Harry so close. "Probably. They could be plotting the end of the world, and we'd never know."

"Owee," Ernie says. Louis likes to imagine it's an attempt to pronounce his sister's name.

"God," he says as he suddenly realises, "they're going to be talking soon. And walking. And going off to kindergarten, oh God."

Harry chuckles. "You'll be the first one mum calls when they start talking, babe," he says, and puts an arm around Louis's waist. "Don't worry about the rest. It'll take a while."

"But they've grown so fast," Louis whispers, realising he sounds exactly like his mother.

"Brrm," Doris says. She abandons the rattle and crawls to Louis. "Wa?"