Work Text:
Louis Tomlinson needs a small pink bathtub.
He needs it.
His fucking family had forgotten to include him in the email chain for Doris for Christmas, with her very carefully thought out Christmas list, until every easy item was gone. Only when he asked Lottie if anyone else had heard from Doris yet, only then did they realise their mistake and forward the email chain to him.
So, it’s either a small pink bathtub or an entire bouncy castle. And if he had the money for a bouncy castle that would be fine, but that fucker costs more than his monthly rent and he simply does not make that much working as an optometrist assistant.
So.
Louis Tomlinson needs a small pink bathtub and he needs it now. On Christmas Eve. Because there’s nothing he wants to do more on his birthday than wander through a frighteningly magenta store where everyone is manic and angry and every small doll accessory costs more than the human sized equivalent.
The shop cannot be that big. There’s simply not that many doll things to exist. So why does he feel like he’s been searching for hours? How did Louis end up in a labyrinthian maze of tiny room furniture being watched by the soulless eyes of display dolls?
This place is hell. Has Doris been here? Does she enjoy this place? How are little girls able to withstand this loud and colourful chaos that is slowly melting his mind into sherbert sludge?
Maybe Louis needs to take a smoke break.
He wanders by the wall of small doll’s pets (three kinds of dog, one cat, two hamster looking creatures and a frog) and is just about to turn around because this seems to be morphing into the doll gardening furniture section, when —
Oh. No, that’s not the pink bathtub. That’s a shiny pink mini cooper. False alarm.
There’s a small child laying face down on the floor in front of it, wailing. This is not at all a surprising sight, and not the first wailing child. Louis carefully steps around the child and continues on.
He enters a section of the store that very briefly goes from magenta to vivid blue. Ah, the Hanukkah section. Three menorahs, a dreidel and a pet Hanukkah moose.
Not the best.
Moving on.
He’s finding the store more crowded as he continues. Does this place not close soon? Do all these young children not want to be home on Christmas Eve? Surely their exasperated looking parents do.
Suddenly the windows he comes by indicate that he is no longer on the ground floor. This store has more than one floor? There were no stairs. He would’ve remembered stairs.
Just as Louis is beginning to spiral and lose all hope that he will find a small pink bathtub or the exit, he spots it— a small pink sink.
He must be close.
He barrels toward the sink, almost knocking over a small boy in the process. There’s tiny washing up accessories, a pink shower stall with frosted glass, a rainbow selection of rubber ducks, and—
A small pink bathtub!
Louis could crow in triumph. Maybe he does, a little. There’s only one left, sitting alone in the middle of an empty shelf. It’s still heinously expensive, but significantly less than a bouncy castle.
He’s so ready to get out of here, to get home where it’s peaceful and quiet and he can enjoy his birthday with a pint and a showing of Love Actually. Running forward, he grabs the bathtub, and—
Someone else grabs the bath.
They both grab the bath.
It flies off the shelf between them, and Louis gives a tug because that’s his , but the other individual seems stronger than he has any right to be, and Louis’ tug does nothing.
“Um,” says the other someone. “Sorry, this one’s mine, actually.”
“Like hell it is,” Louis says, looking up at him for the first time. The someone has curls clipped up haphazardly with a tiny pink hair clip shaped like a flower, and he’s wearing an oversized sweatshirt with very short running shorts.
“I grabbed it first, I’m afraid,” the stranger says very politely. Well, screw that. How rude.
“I definitely grabbed it first,” Louis says. “As it’s still in my hand. And I need it, so you can find some other equally pink bath accessory.”
“I’m afraid I really need this one,” the stranger says. “Sorry.”
“You’re not sorry,” Louis argues. “Because you should be giving it to me—” he glances at the sweatshirt. “Umbro.”
“Did you just call me Umbro?” Umbro asks.
“I sure did,” Louis says. “Now let go of the bath. I did not just spend a million years in the hellscape of a store to give up my prize.”
“I asked for directions,” Umbro says. He says it in a way as if he’s both sort of confused by Louis’ vitriol and a little triumphant that he used logic to solve his problems.”
“Well la-di-dah,” says Louis. “I took the scenic route and now I’m scarred and I deserve the small pink bathtub as a reward.”
“Unfortunately I really do need it, very imminently,” Umbro says. “I’m supposed to be somewhere with it in twenty minutes, actually.”
“I’m supposed to be at home,” Louis says.
“Well that seems to be neither here nor there,” Umbro says. He pauses. “I’ll give you twenty quid for it.”
“You know you’ll still have to pay for it up front, right?” Louis asks.
“I know,” Umbro snaps. Ooh, Louis is starting to get under his skin. “But I really do need to be somewhere and if you’re willing to stop this silly fight for twenty quid then that’s worth it to me.”
Louis thinks. “I need at least two hundred,” he says.
“Two hundred,” sputters Umbro.
“It was either this or the bouncy castle, mate, and I can’t afford a bouncy castle with twenty quid.”
“Can you even buy a bouncy castle at this hour on Christmas Eve?” Umbro muses.
“Hell if I fucking know,” Louis shouts, tugging at the bath again. “All I know is I am in this nightmare of a store because my sister wants the pink tub and I would much rather be anywhere but here.”
“You really should’ve ordered it,” Umbro says calmly.
Louis will bite him.
He maybe snaps his teeth a little.
“Well what’s your excuse?” he hisses.
Umbro stands a little straighter, tugging the tub toward himself. “I planned ahead,” he states. Then pauses. “I just happened to have broken the tub I had.”
“You broke it?” Louis asks incredulously.
“Yes,” Umbro says. “So I need another.”
“Glue back together the one you had,” Louis says. “This is mine.”
“Can’t,” says Umbro. “It’s melted.”
Louis narrows his eyes. He’s contemplating whether he could keep hold on the tub while enacting a sort of rag doll move like that child from earlier. “Are you trying to make tiny drugs in the tiny bath?” he asks. “It’s plastic. You can’t use it like a real one.”
Umbro stutters. “No,” he says. “I did nothing! My roommate put it in the dishwasher!”
“Your roommate put it in the dishwasher.”
“It was filled with juice and he was trying to do me a favour!”
Louis thinks this man may be crazy. “Listen. I just need the tub. Tell me what I need to do to get you to take your hands off my tub.”
The man stares into his eyes with dizzying clarity. “Go out with me,” he says.
“What?” Louis yells.
“Well I don’t know,” Umbro yells back. “Would you?”
“It’s my birthday!” Louis yells.
“Happy birthday!” Umbro yells back.
“Fine! Fine!” Louis waves his hand. “I’ll go out with you! Give me the tub!”
Umbro lets go and Louis falls back. He realises, laying on the floor with a pink plastic bathtub on his chest, that about everyone else is staring at him.
At them.
“Oh my god,” Louis breathes.
Umbro offers him a hand up, which Louis takes.
“So, uh, any idea how to get out of here?” Louis asks, clutching the tub to his chest.
“Oh yeah, the till is right around the corner this way,” Umbro says, beckoning him to follow. Louis does. Louis feels sort of dazed.
The line is, of course, long enough that Louis fears he may grow old and have children before he reaches the end. Umbro stands with him, though, instead of leaving.
Wait, that makes sense. Louis is going to go on a date with him.
“Where are you taking me on this date?” Louis asks.
“Not sure,” Umbro says. He slouches when he stands. “What are your likes and dislikes? Your hobbies? Your name?”
Louis glances at the small child in line in front of them who is clutching a whole horse stable like her life depends on it. “My hobbies are getting lost in bubblegum pink labyrinths and assaulting strangers,” he says.
“I thought it was more magenta,” Umbro remarks.
“Show off,” Louis says. “Mister Umbro’s a show off.”
“At least call me by my full name,” Umbro says. “Umbronathan.”
Louis, against his will, cracks up a bit. “So sorry,” he says. “I’m Louis. It’s nice to meet you, Umbronathan.”
“Hello Louis,” Umbro says. “My friends just call me Harry.”
“What do your dates call you?”
“My dates call me on the phone.”
Louis smacks him with the corner of the tub. Two children behind him gasp in horror.
“Where are you taking me on this date?” Louis asks. “And when?”
“Well,” Harry Umbro says. “Would you like to see what one usually does with a child’s pink bathtub?”
“I’m a little afraid to, honestly,” Louis says. “Especially since I think you might steal this one, and if you do I will probably have to murder you.”
Humbro shakes his head. “You’ve won that one fair and square,” he says. “We’ll just have to make do with the old one.” He smiles, a little crookedly. “It’s your birthday, you said? On Christmas Eve?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Louis sighs. “Second worst day of the year to have a birthday, but we survive.”
“Well I would love to take you on a date today, if you were up for a birthdate,” Umbrarry says. “But I understand if you have more important things to do.”
Louis is holding a pink plastic tub on Christmas Eve. “Somehow, I think I can move things around,” he says.
They get to the front of the line and Louis pays just short of three digits for a pink piece of plastic that his sister had better treasure for the rest of her life.
—
Harry picks Louis up from his flat at seven in the evening on Christmas Eve.
Harry also had (with permission) followed Louis home from the store, boarding the train with him under the guise of warding off any potential thieves who might want to steal a plastic bathtub. So he’s actually been at Louis’ flat this whole time, but he still exits and has Louis lock the door so he can properly greet him for their date.
Louis, who has wrapped the tub (Harry wrapped the tub) and put a ribbon on it (Harry is good at tying ribbons apparently), now stands just inside the entryway, hands empty of any small pink tub.
“Hello,” says Harry when Louis opens the door to him. “Fancy seeing you here.”
“This is the strangest birthday of my life,” Louis says.
Harry takes his hand and leads down the street. They take a bus, and then another when Harry realises they’ve grabbed the wrong one. Then, eventually, Harry leads him up to a small church. It’s well lit, covered in Christmas lights and with an abundant number of small children running in and out of the propped-open doors.
“Are we going to a Nativity Scene?” Louis asks, as Harry has steadfastly refused to elaborate on what the date entails.
Harry pulls him inside and down to the front of the church, through throngs of laughing children all with sweets in their hands, past a number of tables with Charity Bake signs.
At the very front of the church, up on display, is a child-sized nativity scene.
But instead of people playing the parts, or fancy old sculptures, Mary and Joseph are…
Spiderman and Spiderman.
The three wise men are… Spidermen.
The Shepherd’s sheep. Are spider sheep.
The manger that baby Spiderman lays in is shaped like a small bathtub, but painted to look like a spider web. Louis wonders if he is hallucinating. He wonders if this is what having a stroke is like.
He looks closer at the small bathtub.
The middle is propped up with duct tape. It seems to have melted through.
“Oh my god,” Louis says.
“It was for charity,” Harry begs by way of explanation.
“I think this is the worst thing I’ve ever seen,” Louis says, drawing out his phone.
“In a bad way?” Harry asks.
“Is there more stuff like this in your home?” Louis asks in return. He starts taking pictures. He takes so many pictures.
“I’m an artist,” Harry sniffs. “Nothing in my flat looks like this because having everything the same would be boring.”
“I’m going to marry you,” Louis says.
“What?” Harry asks.
“It’s my birthday,” Louis swings around and snaps a picture of Harry. “You have to go on a second date with me because otherwise that means you’re breaking up with me on my birthday and that’s illegal.”
“Okay,” says Harry. “I don’t want to be illegal.”
Louis nods. Then he kisses Harry, very quickly, on the cheek. “There will be Spidermen at our Christmas wedding,” he whispers to himself.
“I heard that,” Harry whispers back. “The correct term is Spiderthem.”