Take Me Home

Chapter Forty

Louis' birthday rolled around pretty quickly.

Liam and Zayn knew the kid didn't want a huge celebration - he did the same thing most years. A BBQ in the back garden with Luke around. Now that they weren't in the group home however, there was more freedom of what they could do, and so they ended up inflating a paddling pool on the decking and buying a ton of games the boys would be able to play.

It wasn't until the night before, however, that they realised something major.

"Ni," Louis had called, sitting on the couch in the living room and watching the TV after finishing his homework. Niall was still sitting at the coffee table in the floor with Zayn, doing his maths. "When's your birthday?" he asked, because he was going to be eight the next day and it felt odd that he would be a different age to his brother.

Both men looked up at that, apparently realising the same thing, which was only confirmed when the blond gave a small shrug and looked at the two men as if they had the answer.

None of them knew when Niall's birthday was.

Of course, when he had first gone into the system, there had been background checks by the police, who had attempted to find information about his birth parents and where exactly he had come from, but they hadn't been able to come to one clear conclusion - as far as everyone knew, the little blond had been dumped as a baby and gotten his name on the streets. There hasn't been any record of his birth, let alone his birth date.

Which meant they couldn't be sure of his exact birthday...and the two men were quite annoyed at the fact that they had managed to dismiss it quite so easily until now.

Liam chewed his lip. "Well...didn't you ever have a birthday on the streets, Ni?" he asked.

Niall shrugged again, twisting his pencil between his fingers. "Not really. Keith just used to tell me when I was older," he replied, then glanced up with a worried expression. "Does that mean I have to stay seven forever now?" he asked.

Zayn let out a soft laugh and shook his head, resting a hand on the smallest's back. "Course not, kiddo...do you remember what day Keith would tell you it was your birthday?" he asked.

Niall shook his head. "Not really. It was warm every year. And it was sometimes on a bank holiday, Keith used to like them 'cos we always got more money," he said, frowning slightly at the memory.

Zayn rubbed his back again, looking up at Liam. It sounded as if his birthday, or what Keith had named his birthday, was in May. And it was May now.

Louis perked up from the couch again, seeing that his brother looked a little sad. "It's okay, Ni. You can share my birthday, can't he Daddy? Papa?" he said, and the two men shared another look.

They supposed it would make sense to do it that way, since there was no way there was anything more than a matter of months between the boys anyway, and they were essentially twins in every other sense of the word. Plus, they weren't likely to ever find out when Niall's real birthday was.

They both smiled and gave a nod, grinning when both boys cheered.

So maybe this year, the birthday would be different after all.

#

The party was tiring enough for the two men, sitting on the decking next to the barbecue. They dreaded to think how exhausted their boys must have felt, particularly with how hot it was - none of them had stopped running around.

Luke, Louis and Niall were playing tag and chasing each other with the pools noodles, all wearing wet clothes that were already drying in the heat. Harry had taken to sitting in the shade at the top of the garden, beneath the trees because his medication made him particularly sensitive to the sun and he didn't want to dehydrate himself.