Take Me Home

Chapter Thirty

It wasn't too long later that Liam and Zayn found themselves ready to take the biggest step that they had taken yet since fostering the boys.

They stood together in the living room, holding hands, pressed shoulder to shoulder, both more nervous than they were sure they had ever been. "You ready for this?" Liam asked, turning to look at Zayn, who took a deep breath and smiled.

"I am if you are," he murmured.

Liam grinned back and pressed a chaste kiss to the corner of the older man's lips, then pulled away and listened for a moment to the sounds above them.

It was a Saturday morning. The boys had all slept well, since Niall hadn't woken up screaming or crying since Keith had been locked away. They hadn't even come down for breakfast yet, too content with their own activities to have stopped to think about hunger.

The men could hear Louis laughing and Niall doing an impression of someone with a voice much deeper than his own, and Harry telling them they were annoying in a tone that sounded irritated to cover up the fact that he found it funny too.

"Boys," Liam called out, listening to the sounds fade out as three voices called back with 'coming!', and then footsteps ran down the stairs and three pajama-clad boys appeared in the living room.

"What's going on?" Harry was the first to speak, glancing from one man to the other with nervous eyes, as if expecting to be in trouble for something.

Louis stepped closer to his older brother and Niall copied his actions, all of them worried that something serious was about to happen, that maybe they were being sent away to live with new families, or maybe -

"We have something we wanted to ask you about," Liam began, glancing at his boyfriend with worried eyes.

Zayn gave him a small smile that said, 'I got this', and turned to face their three boys, who all bore the same mixed expressions of confusion and worry.

"Are we in trouble?" Niall asked quickly, fiddling with his fingers in front of him.

Zayn smiled. "No, not at all...we just want you boys to know how much we love you all, how much you all mean to us, and -"

"You...you're not sending us away, are you?" Harry asked, looking afraid.

Liam quickly shook his head. "No, baby, never...what your Papa is trying to say is, well, how would you all feel about staying here with us, permanently?"

There was a space of silence, and Harry was once again the one who broke it, this time with a whisper. "You mean, like...adopting us?" he asked.

Liam chewed his lip, nodding his head slightly as Zayn offered them a nervous smile with watery eyes.

More silence followed, and the two men couldn't tell if it was good or bad because there were so many different emotions flying around.

Then Louis burst into tears and the two men snapped out of their reverie. Liam knelt down as Louis flung himself into his arms, sobbing and wrapping his arms around the man's neck tightly and nodding.

"Yes, yes, yes," he managed to cry in between sobs.

Harry was quick to wipe a tear from his own cheek. "You really mean it?" he whispered.

Both men nodded, and Harry joined the hug. "Yes," he murmured, hugging his parents tightly.

Then all that was left was Niall, looking wide eyed and unsure.

"Ni?" Zayn asked, and Niall blinked at him.

"You mean we'd be a family? A real family?" he asked, quietly.

"Yeah, kiddo," Zayn replied, softly. He grinned when Niall smashed into his side and wrapped his arms around his waist, small hands clinging onto his side, nodding his head quickly. "A real family."

EDITED 14.12.21