Would you ever write a teeny tiny little pdh Father’s Day blurb maybe perhaps mayhaps? pls
:)
this is a canon drabble.
Harry’s consciousness flits on the edges of awareness, barely registering the soft, discordant sound of footsteps on the hardwood floor. His body is still heavy with sleep; it weighs him down, threatening to pull him back under, but the creak of the door alerts him to a new presence in the room.
“Is he awake?”
“No, he’s sleeping!”
Harry’s glad he’s not facing the door; his grin would be too hard to conceal.
“Shh, loves, we have to be quiet.”
“Sorry, mummy.”
More footsteps. They’re approaching the bed now, and Harry thinks he can hear the clinking of dishes. He decides to have fun with the moment, now that he knows what’s coming. Breathing in a deep, exaggerated sigh, he flops around onto his stomach, still facing away from the door.
The footsteps stop. Harry listens intently, waiting for a response.
“Mummy, is he sleeping?”
“I don’t know, baby. We have to be gentle, okay?”
“Okay.”
The footsteps come around to the other side of the bed. Harry can feel the heat of two sets of eyes on his face, so after a few seconds of what he knows is timid staring, he cracks one eye open.
His son gasps. “Daddy!”
“What’s all this, then?” Harry rasps, trying to keep his smile at bay. “M’trying to sleep, it’s Sunday.”
“Daddy, we made you something.” His daughter, eyes wide behind her little glasses, glances up at something behind him. Harry figures it’s probably his wife, but he decides not to shatter the illusion just yet. “You have to get up now!”
“Made me something? S’not my birthday,” he jokes, turning on his side and reaching for his babies.
His son goes easily, climbing onto the mattress. But Harry doesn’t anticipate his momentum, so when his son barrels into his chest and sends him onto his back, he lets out a quiet oomph. It’s an invitation for his daughter to follow, much larger at five years old than his little two year old boy, and she scurries just behind and plants herself on his stomach, knocking his breath out even more.
“Daddy, it’s Father’s day!”
“Made brekkie!”
“Oh, I forgot!” he exclaims, laughing once his children latch onto him with their little hands. He tries to sit up, wrapping his arms around their wriggling bodies so he can pull them into his lap properly. “Father’s day, hm? You made me some food? Thank you, babies.”
“Mummy had to help,” his daughter says almost regretfully. “But we made pancakes! But Mummy cut the fruit. And coffee! I tasted it. It was yucky.”
Harry has to chuckle at her attitude, knowing fully well his perfectionist of a daughter probably waited until the last possible minute to ask her mother for help. With her green eyes and dimpled smile, he sees so much of himself in her. But his son is a carbon copy of his wife, only sharing Harry’s curly hair.
He looks over at his wife now, seeing her leaning against the wall by the bed. She has a soft smile on her face, eyes still gleaming with tiredness from the early morning. It couldn’t have been past eight, so she must have anticipated the kids wanting to do something for him.
I love you, he mouths at her. Her smile widens, and she blows him a kiss.
“Daddy, we eat?” his son asks, drawing Harry’s attention back to his lapful of kids.
“You hungry? Let’s eat all this yummy food, hm?” He plants a kiss on his son’s forehead, and then his daughter’s. His wife pushes herself off the wall, grabbing the tray of food, complete with a little flower in an old bottle, and sits on the edge of the bed. “This looks so good,” Harry comments, squeezing his kids tighter. “Thank you so much.”
“You’re welcome, Daddy,” comes the chorus of replies.
“What else do we say?” his wife asks, settling beside Harry with the tray on the mattress in front of them. “Like we practiced?”
His daughter straightens up, prepared to recite something from memory. His son, more entertained by the bowl of blueberries, looks up. “Happy Father’s Day,” they say in partial unison. “We love you so much, Daddy!”
Something catches in Harry’s throat, clogging it with an emotion he’s felt all too often since becoming a father. Heat presses behind his eyes, though his smile grows so big it’s threatening to break his cheeks from its force. “I love you both very much,” he says, accepting the double hug once more. “Thank you for this.”
When his kids untangle themselves and settle on the mattress to start picking at the plate of pancakes, Harry turns to his wife, who’s been quietly watching the entire masterpiece unfold. “Thank you,” he tells his wife now, beckoning her closer with an outstretched arm. “You didn’t have to do all this.”
He greets her lips with a peck, and she reaches up to stroke her thumb along his jaw. “Don’t thank me,” she says, laughing. “You’re the best father for our babies. You deserve it.”
His children are comparing cards with sticky, fruity fingers on their warm bed, in their family’s home. He has his wife next to him, watching his life’s greatest joys play with each other. It’s a moment straight out of a dream, something he’d never thought he’d get to call his life.
“You’ve given me everything,” he murmurs, pulling his little family closer.