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“Lou?” Harry shouts from upstairs.
He’s early. Louis wipes his hand on his shirt and checks his phone. Well, Harry’s not early. Louis is seriously late. He’s only cleaned out one pumpkin, he’s halfway through emptying a second one, and the others are still sitting untouched on the floor beside him. None of them are carved yet.
“Lou?” Harry's voice is louder, closer to the basement.
In a last ditch effort, Louis shoves both hands into the pumpkin and drags out handfuls of stringy, sticky pumpkin flesh and seeds.
“Louis? What are you— Oh!” Harry hurries down the basement steps and Louis looks up at him from the floor, sitting in the middle of an old plastic tablecloth, surrounded by piles of pumpkin guts. “Why didn’t you wait?”
With a heavy sigh, Louis looks down at his orange hands. “Wanted to surprise you.”
“We always do the carving together. It’s our thing.”
“We have a lot of things, Harold,” Louis says, wiping his hands on his shirt again, briefly wondering if pumpkin stains. He gets to his feet and points to the mess. “It’s stupid. I should’ve known. You’re better at pumpkin carving. But I thought it would be cute and I was going to take pictures when you saw and…” Louis heaves another sigh. “Don’t suppose you want to go out for another couple of hours so I can finish up?”
“Not really, no,” Harry says slowly. “I mean, I will, if you need me to, but… You could just tell me what’s going on.”
“I, um…”
“Why so many pumpkins? We usually only get one big one.”
“One for each of us,” Louis answers.
“Oh, are the boys coming over?” Frowning, Harry looks around at the messy basement.
Louis shakes his head. “No.”
“I don’t understand.”
“This one?” Louis points to the emptied pumpkin, tall and slender and leaning to the left. “This one’s you.” Harry nods slowly so Louis continues, pointing to the one he was working on when Harry came home. It’s not quite as tall, but it doesn’t tip at all, due to the slight flare at the bottom. He thought it represented his ass nicely. “This one’s me.”
“Okay. I can see that.” Harry snickers and steps closer, reaching around to pinch Louis’ bum and jumping back before he gets smeared with pumpkin. “What about—”
“Babies.” Louis points to the two smaller pumpkins and shrugs. There’s no use keeping it to himself any longer. It’s been hard enough not to scream about it for the few hours since he found out. “Someone picked us.”
Harry gasps, holding his hand to his open mouth, watery eyes darting from Louis to the pumpkins and back. He shakes his head and Louis steps closer, wanting to hold him.
“Baby?”
“There are two little pumpkins,” Harry whispers and when Louis nods, Harry's eyes go wide and before Louis can get to him, he’s crying.
Louis wraps his arms around Harry's trembling body, holding him, and cringing when he combs his fingers through Harry's curls and remembers he’s covered in pumpkin guts. He tries to put some space between them, but Harry grips him tighter, whispering into his neck, “Don’t care about the mess, Lou. We’re having a baby. Oh my god.” Dropping his arms and backing away, Harry shouts, “Two babies! Twins?” Louis nods again. “This is crazy! Twins! Two of everything. Two car seats, two cribs, a double stroller. Do you think Lottie will—”
“Harold.” Louis tries to use his no nonsense tone, but he can’t stop grinning even as he wipes the tears from his own eyes. “We have time to—”
“How much time? When are they due?”
“Early March.” Louis moves closer again, holding his arms open.
Harry crashes into him, kissing him hard and mumbling against his mouth, “Love you. Love you so much.” He pulls back a bit and Louis catches his eye, reaching up to brush a tear away with his thumb.
“We’re going to be dads, Harold.”