this is not an mpreg (but if you like mpregs you should read mine mhm) okay i just could not think of another appropriate title
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"Hi, Gem."
Gemma is sixth months pregnant and very, very irritable. Harry is holding onto one of her hands as she wobbles in through their front door huffily, her free hand placed on the small of her back, with her fading purple hair tied up messily atop her head. Louis is sat on their sofa watching, footie raging on their television, but that doesn't mean he can't still pay attention to his future sister-in-law. Especially since she's he and Harry's surrogate mother.
"Right then, where's your loo?" Gemma asks, straightening and stretching her arms; her back cracks loud enough for Louis to hear it and he takes a moment to direct his eyes toward the ceiling to thank any superior force that may exist that he doesn't have to be pregnant.
"Around the corner, same place it's always been," Louis hums.
"'s enough out of you," Gemma snaps, waddling angrily through the front room and into the kitchen. Harry purses his lips as he closes their front door behind him, like he's afraid to laugh but also really, really wants to. Louis rolls his eyes.
"Go ahead." And Harry does: he giggles like a five year old.
"Pregnant people are funny," says Harry, ducking his head.
"Oi!" calls Gemma, "watch your mouth! Don't think I will hesitate to smack you upside the head with this diaper bag, Styles."
Harry doesn't speak for the next ten minutes.
Gemma's generosity is very much appreciated, though. Harry and Louis have both thanked her more times than Louis thinks he's even capable of counting on his fingers and toes. It had been her idea, actually, to be their surrogate - Louis had always spoken honestly of her scary resemblance to Harry. What better way to ensure their next child share traits from both of them than to use the very egg of Harry's possibly-evil-twin?
The fact that Louis and Harry combined have enough money to send any child they have through university twenty different times and still have some to spare automatically tackled the obstacle of the price of artificial insemination - which was a must, said Harry, because there's no way Louis' dick was going anywhere close to the inside of a Styles ("I don't count, of course," Harry had reminded him). Gemma's pregnancy has been a bit of a bumpy road, especially because she loves to stop by and eat all of their ice cream before grabbing her purse and leaving with Paisley to go buy more, which is efficiently turning their daughter into a sugar-addict, but mostly because Harry is hypersensitive about everything Gemma does. He nearly followed her into the bathroom one - which nearly resulted in an intervention - but he's been getting better.
Louis understands. He wants this to go perfectly as well. He's excited. Very excited. He's always wanted children, especially since he met Harry, and to see the physical results of that can be very pleasantly overwhelming. His hand is practically glued to Gemma's bump every time he sees her.
So, to put it simply, they're a bit baby-crazy.
Gemma returns with a noticeably less tense expression and plops down on the sofa, squirming for a moment until she gets comfortable, and sighing to herself. She still looks fabulous, Louis thinks, even more than halfway up the spout; those Style genes can do no wrong. Louis is so ready for this baby, thinks it's going to be the prettiest baby in the whole entire universe, and he's not even exaggerating - if Paisley is anything to go by, that is. Though Gemma's eyes are brown, Louis knows there's the green-eye gene floating around in there somewhere; he can only hope that the newest edition to their little family bears the same emerald beauties that make his knees go weak, as he isn't sure he could live with himself if their child was stuck with the boring grey-blue to match his own.
He's watching a program on the telly when Harry slides into the cushion next to him, burrowing himself in much like a cat and, eventually, resting his head on Louis' shoulder so that he gets a nice face-full of fruit smelling curls. God, does Louis love Harry.
"How are you, Tommo?" Gemma asks, patting her stomach, "I haven't spoken to you much, thought you'd dropped off the planet."
Louis isn't sure if Gemma knows in extensive detail what's going on back in Donny, so he decides to play dumb. "I'm just chillin', yeah, not much. Um, Harry and I were trying to decide on a color scheme-"
"Green and blue," she interrupts, "of course."
"Gems, that's too predictable," whines Harry, and boy, we go again-
"But it makes sense."
"Okay, but, like. Imagine. Mint green, really really light, and a nice light pink color. And white flowers, maybe, or some lilacs-"
Gemma wrinkles her nose. "Sounds like something Mum would pick."
"I personally like the idea of red-" begins Louis, but both Styles siblings turn their heads toward him with the exact same squinty-eyed "don't you dare, Louis, we've discussed this a million times and we all know you're going to lose this, give it up, but I still love you" expression, he swears, so he lets his jaw clamp shut and purses his lips together as tightly as he can. Never mind, then.
"Anyway," says Gemma, pointedly and smug as she eyes Louis before glancing over to their telly, "I was saying. Blue and green. They work well together and, like, you lot are exactly the kind of people to go down a route that's as shittily cheesy as that, y'know it."
"Yeah, well." Harry lolls his head on Louis' shoulder until his nose is pressing into the side of Louis' neck and little hot puffs of air hit his collarbones. Louis' hand tightens noticeably on Harry's thigh - a promise for later, and Harry bites on his lower lip 'til it pinkens.
It takes Gemma a few moments to look over to see why Harry isn't responding, and when she does, the two of them are met with a loud groan and a throw pillow chucked at the pair of their heads. "Oi!"
"Gemma, Christ," Louis huffs, Harry cowering behind him and giggling like a child, "pregnant people shouldn't be that strong."
"Take you down any day," she grumbles, "I could take you down right now, Tomlinson."
"Let's be civil," says Harry, always the peace maker, and he even sits up and adjusts his little floral shirt before he raises his hands. His curls are unruly now, a small chunk sticking up in the back cutely, but Louis decides to admire him silently. Harry smiles down at him for half a second before he resumes his bickering with Gemma about the wedding - he loses, of course.
Harry goes to make all three of them lunch at about noon, and Louis watches his little bum as he goes. He's humming to himself before he even reaches the kitchen, hair in a bun now, and Louis is so in love that he nearly sees stars - until Gemma clears her throat, that is, and brings him down from his Harry-induced high. He huffs.
"Heard about your mum," Gemma begins softly, teasing smile gone and replaced by a sheepishness that Louis has never seen on her before as she gazes at her fingers where they rest on her bump. It takes a few moments for these words to process, but when they do, Louis tries not to slump too much. He's been trying to avoid the thought, actually.
"Um, yeah," he says, staring so hard at the television that he's surprised his eyes don't start watering.
Gemma pauses for a beat, and then there's a hand reaching over and taking Louis' own into it. "I'm sorry, Louis." Her fingers are cold and slender, but the gesture feels like the warmest thing he's experienced in a week.
He looks down at their hands and squeezes back. "Yeah."
"It's going to be okay," Gemma says, "I really do think so. I've only spoken to your mum a handful of times, but she gave birth to and raised you, so. She must be a fighter." Louis knows this is an attempt to make him crack a smile, but he doesn't. Gemma wilts a little, "but, I, um. Regardless, she'll be alright. She's got a lot of little ones looking after her, doesn't she? And the wedding isn't for a few more months, so I'm sure it'll all be okay by then. People are rarely in comas for a really, really long time, and you have a baby on the way," she reminds him, brings their hands to her bump; Louis feels like he could cry. Out of happiness or out of sorrow, he isn't sure, but he does know that the wetness swimming in his eyes wasn't there before Gemma launched into this grand speech. He loves her, he really does, but he also doesn't want to talk about it like this. Like she's a lost cause.
"Of course she'll be fine," he scoffs, wet and shaky, "she's my mum. She's always fine."
Gemma smiles at him. It's tight and forced, but it's still a smile, and that's all that matters. "You guys - all of you - you're in my prayers."
Louis has never been a religious person. He wasn't raised in a religious household, certainly doesn't buy into it now - but he's engaged to Harry. He isn't new to the idea of prayer, especially not when Harry tucks his cross necklace between the purse of his lips and closes his eyes everytime he's nervous, or the way he use to clench it between his fingers before every show. Louis has never been a religious person, but the words are still enough to shake him to his core.
"Thank you, Gem," he says, blinks as rapidly as he can, because Louis Tomlinson is not a crier. He prides himself in his ability to keep his emotions largely private - not including the times he's around Harry, of course, where he probably does more crying than anyone else in the entire universe - but she isn't here to see Louis weep into his hands like a small child.
As a reminder, Harry calls for them from the kitchen asking what kind of dressing they'd like on their salads - fat-free Italian for Gemma and just plain ranch for Louis, of course - and the moment is immediately over. He scoots back over to his corner of the couch and Gemma follows suit, and they watch together in silence until Harry bounds in with a pretty smile and a tray full of little bowls and sandwiches.
Louis really does love him.