Work Text:
During his afternoon break, while Louis was walking to the coffee shop at the end of the hall talking with Oli, he heard his phone ping with a new e-mail. He smiled apologetically to his friend and took the device out of his pocket. They both knew he’d been expecting an email from a specific company for a week regarding a new project he hoped they’d want to sponsor. Once he clicked on the notification, the text he was presented with was not the formal one he had been expecting, but an online currier delivery notice that the progress Pride flag he’d just ordered would be delivered the following day. Definitely not the work email he’d been anticipating.
Also, the pride flag wasn’t his. He hadn’t used that particular website in months… Okay, well, maybe it was Harry’s. He pulled up his iMessage conversation with his husband and typed away.
☀️Did you order a pride flag off the internet?
Not even a minute later he got a reply.
🌻No??
🌻Was just about to ask if you did
Louis received a screenshot of the same email he’d just gotten.
☀️Nope
Right, then.
Neither of them had ordered it, so there were two possible conclusions: either their profile had been hacked and someone had used their premium subscription to order the flag (without using their credit cards), or the culprit was hanging out at home with their dog enjoying her afternoon. Louis smiled at the thought. They were probably enjoying each other’s company very much.
Anyways, back to the flag deal. Don’t get Louis wrong, there was nothing bad about buying stuff online, it was just that normally his family would give a heads up in the group chat about it. Like Expecting a parcel delivered sometime this week or something. It was a strange occurrence, the radio silence. Especially since their daughter had never shown any particular interest in pride stuff. Well, besides supporting her dads and their rights fiercely. He briefly wondered where this flag would show up and what it was for before concentrating once again on Oli and the name of the multitude of hot beverages the place offered displayed on the wall. He also remembered he still hadn’t gotten that email. Damn it.
***
A few days had passed, and Louis had honestly forgotten all about the pride flag. He was just taking the folded-up laundry (courtesy of his husband and their daughter morning trash tv consuming) upstairs to put away when he encountered it again.
He went to his and Harry’s room first and took out their clean and fresh smelling clothes, abandoning them on the bed. Next up was leaving the white plastic basket with the rest of the clothes in their daughter’s room, just a bit behind her door so she wouldn’t kick it when she entered.
He went across the hall and lightly kicked to door to her room open. He went around it and set the basket down, as the door gently swung back ajar. As he straightened up, he was met with a delightful sight: the pride flag hung from the back of the door. His jaw dropped a bit. This display was a bit personal, from what he remembered from his early-20s; a bit like saying “I’m taking what’s mine, one step at a time”. What did this mean to their daughter? Was she trying to carve her space in her own way? Was this just to display to her friends that came over how much she supported her dads? Was she queer? Was she not a she? Louis’ brain was firing off thousands of questions at a supersonic speed. Suddenly, one corner of the flag sagged down, and Louis gasped. He hadn’t even touched it! He stared at it for one more minute before he noticed how the flag had been hung. Some yellow, sticky-rubbery thing was plastered on the wooden back of the door and the upper side of the plasticky cloth of the flag, trying to hold it up.
What the fuck? Louis was flabbergasted: that was not how one hangs a flag. Especially a pride flag!
He decided to bring his husband into this as well. They were gonna show her how to be proud, without forcing her to come out to them if she wasn’t ready. He took his phone out, thumbs flying over the digital keyboard.
☀️Could you come upstairs rn?
☀️Pls. It’s urgent.
In a matter of seconds, Louis heard Harry step quickly up the stairs.
“Lou? Everything okay?”, reached him his husband’s voice.
“In here,” he replied.
Harry burst through the door and, if it hadn’t been for Louis holding his hands out to stop it, it would have hit him straight in the face. From his position, he saw Harry looking left and right, searching for his supposedly distressed husband. Louis smiled to himself, leave it to Harry to always think the worst but always showing up, nonetheless.
“H, I’m okay, babe,” he said calmly.
Harry spun around one last time, fixing his worried eyes on him. Once he’d quickly assessed that Louis was indeed unharmed, he scoffed but stepped closer rolling his eyes. Okay, maybe Louis had played a bit into Harry’s predisposition to worry, but he just wanted his husband to come quickly without alerting their daughter. Who would have definitely figured out exactly where in the house he was, had he shouted for him.
Louis smirked and just tilted his head towards the back of the door. Since it was still hidden from his husband’s view, he added, “just wanted you to take a look at this.”
He stepped back, letting Harry get closer. His husband’s curios eyes immediately found the colorful flag once he stepped around the door completely and a gasp escaped his lips. Neither of them said anything for a minute. Then, Harry tentatively lifted a hand to run his fingers along the synthetic material of the flag reverently.
He took a deep breath and asked, “…what do you think it means, Lou?”
Louis finally stepped beside his husband and held his other hand.
“I don’t know, but I don’t wanna pressure her into coming out to us in any way if she isn’t ready to, you know, to tell us whatever it is she needs to tell us,” his voice shook a little at the end of the sentence. He felt breathless and noticed Harry looked it, too. “I do think though, that we could show her our support without words already.”
His husband looked at him with questioning eyes. Louis let go of his hand and reached for Harry’s other one that was still grazing the flag. He grabbed his fingers and touched them to the sticky adhesive their daughter had used to put up the flag. Harry’s eyebrows showed his understanding at once and he nodded.
“Oh, yeah. She’d really like that, yeah. We should have everything we need in the garage; I’ll go check”, Harry said starting to smile.
Louis nodded, too, “we could do it while she’s out with the dog.”
Harry beamed at him and pressed a sweet kiss to his lips. Louis smiled into it and, once they’d pulled apart, he slapped his husband’s bum on his way out. Harry squawked and ran out the door as well.
***
A couple of hours later, when their daughter had just left with the dog for a good ol’ walk in the woods close to their house, Harry and Louis got to work.
Harry had gathered the wooden support needed after lunch, while Louis looked for old newspapers and magazines to put under the door and save them some heavy hoovering. They were still probably going to have to do some mild hoovering, which was to be always expected when DIYing. They searched in the garage some screws that wouldn’t have damaged the frail wood of the door but that could still hold the wight of the wooden support and the flag’s. Once ready, they marched – yes marched, because this was going to be their little fatherly expedition – to their daughter’s room and got to work.
Harry ripped open the magazines and set them on the floor close to the door and under it, taping them together for maximum coverage; while Louis selected the right head for their electric drill and plugged it in. He then ripped off the poorly hung flag and started scarping off the bits of adhesive material from both it and the door. When he finished, he went to find the hoover. Harry, for his part, started working with a measure tape and a level to mark the perfect spots for the screws. He found three of them: one on each upper side of the door and one in the middle, all marked with perfect black Xs. Louis came back with perfect timing. They closed the door and set to work.
As Harry drilled the door, his husband held the mouth of the hoover close to the wood just to catch any flying debris. It wasn’t bricks, so the dusting was minimal. Still better to hoover it sooner rather than later, making clean up quicker for sure. Harry pulled back from his position close to the door, Louis following him, and surveyed his work. Both him and Louis were satisfied. They got their wooden support, checked if it was level with the marks and Harry started drilling through it so screw it to the door as Louis kept hoovering. Once it was fixed, they checked with the level once again and stepped back, closer to their daughter’s bed, to control their work from afar. So far so good. They added to the wooden support as many nails as there were metal hooks on the flag and then, hung it.
Silence fell on them where they’d been muttering low songs or remarks or suggestions before. This moment was monumental, but neither of them dared to look at the finished product openly yet.
Among whispered comments, they cleaned up what they’d left around, picked up all the magazine pages on the floor and hoovered again just to be sure. They unplugged the electric drill, put the hoover in the closet and brought all their supplies back to their rightful place in the garage.
The silence that had held till then felt full of anticipation again. They met each other’s eyes and nodded. This time it was Harry who grabbed Louis’ hand as they calmly made their way upstairs. They both sported shy, excited smiles. As if that were their room. Wait a minute, they could totally do this in their room, too! But this would have to be a conversation for later.
They stood side by side, still holding hands in front of their daughter’s room. The door was ajar, just one push and they’d be inside again. Louis pushed it with his other hand, and they stepped through. They turned around and Harry closed it completely. They sat at the foot of her bed; eyes glued to the flag in front of them. Not only was it hung perfectly, but it sat right in front of her bed, where it’d be the first thing she saw every morning. A happy sigh escaped Harry, Louis scooted closer and squeezed his husband’s hand. His own eyes were moist. He’d always been a sap, even though he teased Harry for it. Harry smiled at him contentedly and kissed his hair.
After what felt like hours, but had probably been twenty minutes, Louis whispered a hushed and heartfelt, “wow.”
“I know,” replied Harry.
“I hadn’t felt this moved or emotional in a while. Especially for something so insignificant as a flag.”
“I wouldn’t say it’s insignificant if it makes you feel this way.”
“Mundane, then. It’s a mundane thing, this flag, but it still touches me deeply. It still represents me and us and our family. Our community. It’s mundane, yet it holds such a deep meaning,” he sighed again.
Harry just nodded with his chin pressed on his head. It felt nice. Louis knew his husband understood. They basked in their bubble for a bit longer.
***
It was after supper: Louis was finishing cleaning the counter since Harry had cooked, Harry was choosing what they’d be watching that night in the living room and their daughter had gone for a shower not five minutes before. In a rush of footsteps, she reappeared in the kitchen doorframe. Harry immediately joined them in the room as well. She looked a bit wild, with her hair a mess from having stayed in a bun all day, her rumpled clothes, and her glassy eyes. She opened her mouth a few times, but no coherent words came out if not for, “I – you – I can’t – how?”
Louis was a bit confused. It wasn’t that he’d forgotten, but the flag thing, as emotional as it had been, had slipped to the back of his mind as he’d busied himself with spending time with his family. As he looked at her (and Harry elbowed him in the side after whispering a gentle “baby?” at her), it clicked.
She’d seen it. She’d seen how they’d hung up her flag.
Was she proud? Was she mad? Was she offended, maybe? They had invaded her space, after all. Or maybe she was just overwhelmed? Harry grabbed Louis’ wrist and stepped forward, bringing him along towards her. Their dog rested peacefully in her bed in the adjacent room. It seemed they’d both thought to say something at the same time because they had taken a breath in synchronization. The corners on Louis’ lips twitched. But neither of them had time to say anything, since their daughter chose that moment to unfreeze. She started sobbing and launched herself at her parents, trapping them in a tight hug. They immediately hugged her back. She was mumbling something unintelligible, squished in their safe, warm embrace – face against their chests, arms tight around her. Louis started petting her head, neck, and nape, wandering at times to her shoulders, massaging her like he did when she was still a baby to calm her. Harry, on the other hand, was murmuring soft little encouraging nothings into her ear, offering comfort and strength. Both men felt warm, because their daughter’s tears didn’t seem sad, rather confused, but grateful.
After an unspecified amount of time spent hugging in the kitchen, she pulled back, wiping at her own undereye before her dads could and blowing her nose in the tissue Harry silently offered her. They were looking at her with tender smiles gracing their faces, still touching her in any non-invasive way they could to keep her grounded. She always felt extremely grateful to have dads like she did, but then more than ever. She took a couple of big, deep breaths before finally speaking.
“Thank you,” she said in a thin, almost broken voice as a fresh wave of happy tears hit her.
They hugged again for a long, long time.