Another family member was introduced just a couple weeks after the adoption was settled.
"Daddy, Daddy!" Niall yelled as soon as he burst through the front door after being picked up from school. Liam hurried from his spot in the kitchen to see what all of the commotion was about, and saw Zayn smiling widely, Louis clapping and Niall bouncing about wildly.
"Whatever's the matter? You almost gave me a heart attack," Liam said, eyes wide.
Niall grinned. "Sorry, Daddy, but guess what!?" he shouted, and then continued without even giving the man time to guess. "I'm in the big class now!"
Liam grinned, engulfing the small blond in a tight hug. "Nialler, that's amazing! I told you you'd do it!"
Niall smiled and hugged his father back. "I got all the answers right in maths, and - and the teacher asked me to stay behind at the end. I thought I might be in trouble for something, but she said I could join the rest of the class for the rest of my lessons and see how I do," he rambled excitedly.
"He did really good, Daddy, he put his hand up for every question!" Louis piped in, grinning at his brother. The two of them stood side by side, grinning from ear to ear with their blue eyes equally wide made them look like twins, and the two men's hearts swelled with pride.
"Come on, Ni, I wanna watch telly," Louis said, grabbing Niall by the hand and dragging him away.
Liam smiled and shook his head. "Dinner's gonna be ready in half an hour, boys," he called after them.
"Okay, Daddy," they chorused back.
Zayn and Liam smiled at each other. "Are you really proud right now? Because I am," Zayn said.
Liam smiled and looped his arms loosely around his boyfriend's neck, pressing their lips together softly. "Of course I am. It's crazy how much they've all grown since we found them..." he trailed off. "Harry seemed happy when he got home," he said.
Zayn smiled. "He did? He's been kinda anxious the last few days, with going back to school and everything," he said.
Liam nodded. "Yeah, I know. But he looked almost hazy, like he was thinking about a certain someone," he said, smiling still.
Zayn let out a soft laugh. "Who do we think? Ashton?" he asked.
"Who else?" Liam replied with a grin. Everything seemed to be falling into place. Life was going well, the boys were happy, they were happy. Life had never seemed better.
#
Dinner was half an hour later, like expected.
"Boys," Liam called as he set the plates down on the table. Zayn and Harry got there first, laughing about something. Louis and Niall followed, Lou with a smile on his face and Niall looking rather down all of a sudden.
Liam frowned as they all sat down to eat, and that frown deepened when he saw that the blond boy didn't participate in the conversation around him, resting his cheek on his balled up fist and poking at the food on his plate with his fork.
He nudged the boy softly from opposite the table, not wanting to draw attention from anyone else. When two sad blue eyes looked up at him, he felt the familiar parent instinct to know exactly what was wrong with his youngest son, who had been so happy earlier.
"You okay?" he asked, softly.
Niall chewed his lip, then nodded. "Just tired," he mumbled, before dropping his gaze back down to the table and continuing to look upset.
He frowned, wondering what had happened in the space between being in the kitchen earlier to sitting down for dinner. He turned his attention to Louis, who was happily munching on a chicken nugget beside his blond brother.
"What did you watch on the telly, Lou?" he asked, wondering if maybe the sudden mood change had something to do with a certain movie or show.
Louis swallowed his mouthful then grinned. "Animal rescue, it was so cute, Daddy. There was this one dog, and it was sooo adorable," he said.
Liam sighed. It didn't take a genius to figure out that Niall had been reminded of his own pet dog by the show. Zayn caught his eye from across the table and he knew he had worked it out too.
"He was the cutest dog I've ever seen, didn't you think so too, Ni?" Louis was still gushing.
Niall chewed his lip, glancing up at his brother with a shrug. "Dunno. I'm tired, can I go lay on the couch for a bit?" he asked, and Liam sighed at the untouched food.
"You need to eat, buddy," he said gently. Niall sighed and picked up his fork again, shuffling the food around on his plate.
There was a moment of unspoken communication between Liam and Zayn, where they made eye contact once again and then both nodded.
"Well," Zayn began, smiling. "If you don't eat all of your dinner, I don't suppose you'll be wanting to get your surprise afterwards, hm?"
The small blond frowned, blue eyes flitting from one parent to the other. "Surprise?"
Louis crossed his arms. "No fair. Do I get a surprise too?" he asked.
Zayn and Liam laughed. "It's a surprise for all of you," Liam said.
Zayn nodded at Harry's smile. "Yeah. A way to say thank you for being the best kids we could've asked for," he added.
Niall grinned at his two brothers and quickly began wolfing down his food. The other two followed suit.
Just over an hour later, the family was packed into the car, driving through the night. Zayn and Liam hoped that the last minute decision they had made was the right one, but they supposed that it was too late to back out now.
And besides, the look on the boys faces when they climbed out of the car and realised where they were was enough to stop their doubts.
"A dog? You mean it?" Louis asked, jumping up and down as soon as he saw the cages on either side of the long hallway inside the building. Most of them were filled with puppies and old strays, heads pressed up against the bars in excitement.
Zayn nodded. "Yeah, Lou."
"Sweet. I always wanted a pet," Harry said, grinning. Liam grinned right back, thinking of how much brighter their oldest had been the past few days in comparison to before. They knew they still had a long way to go, but he was appreciating every baby step along the way.
Niall seemed wary, surprisingly. He was still clinging onto Zayn's arm, peering cautiously into the cages whilst his brothers ran ahead and cooed at every dog along the way.
"They're all rescue, Ni, so a lot of them have come from bad homes or off of the streets. Like Charlie," Liam told him gently.
Niall chewed his lip, nodding slowly.
"Daddy, Papa, come see this one!" Louis shouted from the end of the hallway, pointing at an oversized pug gleefully. The two adults went to join him, and Niall hung behind.
They were there for a long time, the boys constantly switching from one cage to the other and calling their parents to come and see. Liam took a moment to step back from the excited chaos and realised that Niall had been sitting by the same cage the entire time; cross legged, one hand tangled loosely in the bars, head rested forward. He carefully approached the blond boy and smiled when he saw the dog on the other side - a chocolate lab, the name 'Cooper' printed above its cage, was sitting on the other side, light blue eyes staring straight at Niall.
Silently, so as not to disturb either boy or dog, he waved the rest of the family over. Zayn smiled at the scene, eyes glistening slightly with unshed tears because it was almost too pure to watch as the dog pattered closer to the bars and Niall gently reached a hand through, resting it gently on the top of his head.
"Lets get that one!" Louis yelled suddenly, and both the dog and Niall jumped out of their skin, turning to see that everyone was watching them. Harry rolled his eyes at his younger brother, whilst the two adults simply shook their heads with amused expressions.
"Really, Loubear?" Liam murmured, ruffling his hair whilst the kid simply beamed and pointed at Cooper.
"He's so cute," he said, excitedly.
Niall nodded in agreement. "He's a good boy, Daddy, I can tell," he murmured, eyes soft.
Liam and Zayn looked at each other, then at their three smiling boys and the chocolate coloured puppy.
It was definite. Their family of five was becoming a family of six already.
#
Cooper settled in well, and the boys didn't tire of playing with him until long after their usual bedtime.
Harry came in at around ten, flopping down on the couch beside Liam and smiling when the man threw an arm over his shoulders and pressed a kiss to the top of his head. "You feeling okay, bud?" he asked.
Harry nodded, truthfully. Today had been a better day, and it turned out that playing with a dog for hours made it pretty difficult to get caught up in your own thoughts. He knew that taking things one day at a time was best for him; today had been good but tomorrow may be a bad day - what was important was that he was surrounded by people he knew loved him.
"Yeah, Dad. I'm okay," he murmured, and Liam squeezed him tightly to his side, then let out a chuckle as Louis came in, slamming his feet down and frowning hard with his arms crossed tightly across his chest.
He came to an abrupt stop in front of the two of them, and his bottom lip was jutting out.
"Papa says we have to go to bed now. I want to play with Cooper," he stated, stamping one foot for emphasis.
Liam raised an eyebrow. It was adorable. "Cute. Go on, get to bed, you can play with Cooper again tomorrow," he said softly, given the boy a stern look when he looked ready to argue.
He scowled instead, mumbling a 'fine' before disappearing out of the room and up the stairs.
The silence didn't settle for long before Zayn and Niall were entering the room with the brown lab stuck to the little blond's side - clearly the pup had taken as much of a liking to Ni as the kid had to him.
Niall had his hands clasped in front of his face, eyes bigger than Liam had ever seen. He shook his head; these kids were too cute for him to handle. He still couldn't seem to get his head around the fact that the three of them were his and Zayn's - he was the co-parent of one amazing teenager and two adorable kids, and now an equally as cute puppy too? If anyone had told him that a year ago, he would never have believed it. Yet here he was.
"Please, Papa, please! Please, please, please!" Niall was begging, over and over again as the dog whined at his ankles, eyes just as wide as his middle-son's.
Zayn shot Liam a 'help me out here' look, quickly briefing him with, "Ni wants Cooper to sleep in his bed with him."
Liam shook his head. As much as he wanted to keep his kids happy, there had to be rules. And one of the rules that came with owning the dog was that he slept in the dogbed that they had spent fifteen pounds on earlier that evening, which was currently in the corner of the kitchen.
"You heard what I said earlier on, Bug. No Cooper upstairs," he said, softly, because Niall looked ready to cry, one hand absently stroking the puppy's head.
"But Daddy, he'll be lonely down here. What if he gets scared?" he said, and Liam wanted so badly to give in. But he was the parent, it was his job to stand his ground.
He smiled gently. "Baby, Cooper's a brave dog, he'll be fine. Papa and I are gonna be down here for a few more hours anyway, so he won't be alone," he said, and Niall chewed his lip before giving a small nod.
"Okay," he murmured, dropping to his knees and throwing his arms around the dog, hugging him in a way that just about made everyone watching coo because even at seven years old, the kid was adorable and it was still so unbelievable just how much he had changed since they had first met him. "I have to go to bed, boy. I love you," he whispered into the dog's coat, before looking at his parents with a smile. "Thank you for letting us have him."
Zayn ruffled his hair. "No need to thank us, kiddo...now go get to bed before I have to pick you up and take you there myself."
The blond giggled at that, then turned on his heel and ran up the stairs, shouting his 'goodnight' over his shoulder as he went.
The two men smiled at each other, then down at Harry, who was half-asleep on his Dad's shoulder. "We really did do good," Zayn whispered. And Liam nodded - he couldn't have agreed more.
#
It was three in the morning when the men were woken by small hands shaken them, and they both sat up immediately when they caught site of Louis' panicked face in the dark room.
"Daddy, Papa, I can't find Niall," he rushed out, tears gathering in his eyes with fear.
Liam looked to Zayn with wide eyes, because it was the middle of the night and he wasn't sure where the kid could have possibly thought to go, or why he would. His mind flashed back to Niall's worry of being taken by Keith in the night, but he quickly shoved that thought away because Keith was locked up; his boys were safe.
He took a breath to calm his unease, kicking back the covers. "He can't have gone far. Did you check the bathroom?" he asked, softly. He stood and took Louis by the hand as Zayn joined them in leaving the room.
Louis nodded, which made Liam a little more worried because surely the kid hadn't run away? Not in the middle of the night...not when he had been so happy earlier.
"I checked under the bed and the wardrobe and the bathroom and I even went down to the living room but he's gone!" he exclaimed, working himself up again.
Liam hushed him, lifting him up into his arms and allowing the boy to cling onto him tightly. "He'll be here somewhere, Lou, don't you worry," and despite everything, he felt a burst of pride that his kids all cared so deeply about one another.
Just then, Zayn popped up from the top of the stairs. Liam had been so preoccupied with calming Lou down that he hadn't even noticed his boyfriend going down in the first place. "Li, you're gonna want to see this," he whispered, and had the words been in a different tone, they would only have made him feel worse. However, they calmed him because they were light and his boyfriend was smiling.
He followed him down the stairs quickly, Louis still in his arms as they entered the kitchen. Zayn stepped aside, and sure enough there was their smallest son, curled up next to Cooper and fast asleep in the dogbed.
Liam looked at the scene with a smile for a moment, feeling Louis rest his head on his shoulder and let out a yawn now he knew that his brother was safe.
Zayn grinned.
"Well. The kid definitely knows how to bend the rules, I'll give him that."