mpreg jackrry excerpt: christmas tree
Dec. 18th, 2017 08:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ferryboatpeak“I can’t tomorrow,” Harry says. “I’ve got to get the tree up.”
“Christmas tree?” Jack asks, surprised. “Tell me you’re not planning on carrying a tree up to your apartment.”
Harry sighs and sinks further into the couch. He runs his hands over his belly. “Christmas trees aren’t heavy, they’re just… awkward.”
“Yeah, so are you.” Jack pokes Harry somewhere in the vicinity of the baby’s foot. “I’m pretty sure you shouldn’t be carrying a fucking tree.”
Harry looks smug. “I was going to make Zayn do that part, but if you’re offering…”
Jack rolls his eyes. “You could have just asked.” All Harry ever has to do is ask. Jack can’t believe Harry hasn’t figured that out yet.
“Thanks.” Harry kisses him on the cheek, with an exaggerated smack. “I’ll buy you a hot chocolate.”
“There better be booze in it.”
When Jack picks Harry up the next evening, Harry directs him to a Boy Scout tree lot a few blocks from his apartment. He’s wearing a beanie and a giant plaid scarf. Jack can’t tell if it’s seasonal or if it’s an attempt to fill in the gap now that his coat doesn’t even come close to zipping.
Jack follows Harry up and down every row of trees, listening to Harry assess each candidate against an elaborate set of criteria. Height, width, density, branch strength, fragrance… Jack tunes out the specifics and just enjoys Harry’s enthusiasm, his face glowing under the strings of round-bulb lights that line the boundaries of the tree lot.
Harry finally circles back to a tree in the first row. He studies it with his chin propped in one hand. “I think this one’s the winner,” he says, looking at Jack for concurrence.
The tree looks exactly like the rest of them. “Looks great,” Jack says, trying to sound convincing.
Harry waves to the closest Scout, who scurries over with two of his friends. They efficiently untether the tree and haul it toward the gate with Jack and Harry following in their wake. Two troop moms are running the cashier’s tent, bopping along to the Christmas radio station on a portable speaker. Jack wonders if this is what’s in store for them, if their kid’s going to be a Boy Scout, whether they’ll ever have to work any weird fundraisers for him. The Scouts argue over whose turn it is to use the tree shaker while a parent measures the tree and announces the total.
“And two hot chocolates,” Harry adds, handing over a couple of twenties. He smirks at Jack. “Told you I’d get you one.” Mariah Carey sings in the background as a Boy Scout fills two paper cups with hot water from an urn and carefully splits a packet of hot chocolate mix between them. After stirring them with a plastic spoon, he hooks a candy cane over the rim of each cup and hands them to Jack and Harry.
“Cheers,” Harry says, touching his cup to Jack’s. Granules of powder float on top of the liquid. Jack tries to stir it together with the candy cane, which melts stickily on his fingers. Harry watches him over the rim of his cup, holding it in both hands, blowing at the steam. He’s got hot chocolate at the edges of his lips. Jack’s never wanted to kiss him more.
***
“Careful of the top,” Harry warns from the landing as Jack trudges up the stairs behind him, tree balanced on his shoulder. Harry was right, it’s not that heavy, but Jack’s still behaving as if he’s performing a great service.
Zayn’s on the couch when Jack hauls the tree through the door Harry’s holding open. “Thanks for sparing me.” He pauses the Xbox to watch Jack deposit the tree in the center of the room. “Are you gonna get it in the stand, too? That’s the worst part.”
Jack looks at Harry. Harry looks hopeful. “Would you mind?”
Jack does not mind. Harry disappears into his room and returns with a tree stand and two shoeboxes. He positions the tree stand in the corner of the room and directs Jack to lift the tree into the stand and tighten the bolts while Harry holds the trunk in place. After an extensive calibration process (“Tighten the one on the left… no, your left… no, the next one over… now loosen the one closest to you… a little bit more…”), during which Zayn offers unhelpful commentary from the couch, Harry finally approves.
Harry’s already uncoiling a string of lights when Jack squirms out from under the tree and brushes the needles off of his shoulders. He wraps the lights around the tree with practiced technique, passing them off to Jack on every rotation, and then settles on the couch with one of the shoeboxes on his lap. He pulls out a tissue-wrapped bundle and unrolls it carefully as Jack watches. It’s an ornament, a reindeer made out of clothespins. Harry slips an ornament hook through its string and offers it to Jack, dangling by its hook from his index finger. “Hang it up?”
Zayn’s watching. It feels like a test. Jack gingerly slides the ornament off Harry’s finger and hooks it over a branch, choosing the spot at random. He looks over his shoulder at Harry, waiting for his approval. Harry smiles contentedly. He unwraps another tissue paper bundle to reveal a stuffed cat made of blue calico. “Oh, the cat,” Harry says, as if the reveal has delighted him. “Gemma’s got a matching one, only hers is pink.”
“Are they all family ornaments?” Jack asks.
“Yeah, my mom packed them up for me after college.” Harry keeps unwrapping, lining ornaments up on the coffee table. “All the ornaments we got when we were kids.” He nudges the box of hooks closer to Jack and Jack picks up the ornament closest to him, a metal silhouette of a guitar. “That was from the year I took guitar lessons,” Harry says. “I have a lot of childhood awkwardness commemorated as ornaments.”
“Why the piano?” Jack points at a different ornament.
Harry’s trying to slide a hook onto the thin wire of a glass pickle ornament. “That was a different year.”
“The basketball?” Jack grabs a hook for that one.
“Like I said, a lot of childhood awkwardness.”
They finish decorating the tree together, Harry explaining the backstory behind each ornament. So many of them seem to have come in pairs: Gemma has a mouse with a red scarf, and Harry has one in green. Gemma has the Big Bird ornament to Harry’s Cookie Monster. Gemma has a matching seashell with googly eyes from some childhood beachcombing expedition.
One of the last ornaments out of the boxes is a crude felt wreath with a photo glued crookedly in the center, almost certainly by a very young Harry. Jack snatches it out of Harry’s hands. “Well, look at you,” he says, studying the two towheaded children in the photo. The girl has a Christmas dress and mary janes, and the boy has a holiday sweater vest and wide-set eyes that are unmistakably Harry’s.
Harry makes a grab for the ornament, but Jack’s taller and also not seven months pregnant. He dangles it just out of Harry’s reach. “You were so blonde!” Jack says. “You and Gemma?”
Harry lunges and grabs the ornament. “Yup,” he says, hanging it on the back of the tree, close to the floor.”
“Come on.” Jack rescues it. “You were adorable. This needs a place of pride.”
“It’s awful,” Harry says. “I made it in kindergarten. I only keep it because my mom would never forgive me otherwise.”
“Is our kid going to look like this? Because I’d be fine with that.” Jack positions the ornament front and center, moving a painted pine cone out of the way.
Harry crosses his arms. “Move that ornament, or I’m buying him the same sweater vest.”
“You’d never.” Jack relocates the pine cone to the back of the tree and adjusts the strand of lights so there’s a bulb directly above the photo wreath.
Zayn’s disappeared into his bedroom. After a half-hour of listening to Harry’s family history told via Christmas ornaments, Jack ventures a question. “What does your family think about all of this?” He waves his hand at Harry’s belly.
“Actually…” Harry’s got a can-you-believe-this expression on his face. He walks over to the table, where there’s a messy stack of mail, and pulls out a bubble envelope with the end already ripped open. He tips the contents into his hand. “My mom sent this last week.” Jack takes a few steps closer, looking down at the Christmas ornament balanced in Harry’s open palm.
It’s a pottery star, painted blue and white. Something’s stamped in the center in typewriter lettering. Jack peers at it. Baby Boy 2017, it says.
“So I guess you could say she’s excited.” Harry slips a finger through the ornament string, dangling it toward Jack.
“Okay,” Jack says. He swallows. “Okay.” The baby suddenly feels very real, a person whose life has already started to be quantified in Christmas ornaments, just like Harry’s has been. Jack takes a step back toward the coffee table and fumbles for an ornament hook. Harry takes it from him and moves toward the tree.
“They’re actually going to be in town this weekend.” Harry’s got his back to Jack, focused on hanging the star ornament toward the top of the tree. “My mom and Gemma and my stepdad.”
“That’s nice,” Jack says, absently, making a mental note that this’ll be a good weekend to watch football with the guys. He starts to gather up the pieces of tissue Harry scattered in his enthusiasm to get to each ornament.
“They’re kind of curious about you.” Harry turns toward him. He’s lined in the colored light from the Christmas tree. The star ornament dangles just above his shoulder. “Do you want to have dinner with us Saturday?”
This is all hopelessly out of order. They’re having a baby and the baby has a Christmas ornament and he’s got no idea where he stands with Harry and now he’s supposed to meet the parents. He’s never going to get this straightened out; everything is his fault and Harry’s family’s probably going to hate him for it. But Harry’s looking at him, waiting for an answer, and it’s never going to be anything but yes.
“Christmas tree?” Jack asks, surprised. “Tell me you’re not planning on carrying a tree up to your apartment.”
Harry sighs and sinks further into the couch. He runs his hands over his belly. “Christmas trees aren’t heavy, they’re just… awkward.”
“Yeah, so are you.” Jack pokes Harry somewhere in the vicinity of the baby’s foot. “I’m pretty sure you shouldn’t be carrying a fucking tree.”
Harry looks smug. “I was going to make Zayn do that part, but if you’re offering…”
Jack rolls his eyes. “You could have just asked.” All Harry ever has to do is ask. Jack can’t believe Harry hasn’t figured that out yet.
“Thanks.” Harry kisses him on the cheek, with an exaggerated smack. “I’ll buy you a hot chocolate.”
“There better be booze in it.”
When Jack picks Harry up the next evening, Harry directs him to a Boy Scout tree lot a few blocks from his apartment. He’s wearing a beanie and a giant plaid scarf. Jack can’t tell if it’s seasonal or if it’s an attempt to fill in the gap now that his coat doesn’t even come close to zipping.
Jack follows Harry up and down every row of trees, listening to Harry assess each candidate against an elaborate set of criteria. Height, width, density, branch strength, fragrance… Jack tunes out the specifics and just enjoys Harry’s enthusiasm, his face glowing under the strings of round-bulb lights that line the boundaries of the tree lot.
Harry finally circles back to a tree in the first row. He studies it with his chin propped in one hand. “I think this one’s the winner,” he says, looking at Jack for concurrence.
The tree looks exactly like the rest of them. “Looks great,” Jack says, trying to sound convincing.
Harry waves to the closest Scout, who scurries over with two of his friends. They efficiently untether the tree and haul it toward the gate with Jack and Harry following in their wake. Two troop moms are running the cashier’s tent, bopping along to the Christmas radio station on a portable speaker. Jack wonders if this is what’s in store for them, if their kid’s going to be a Boy Scout, whether they’ll ever have to work any weird fundraisers for him. The Scouts argue over whose turn it is to use the tree shaker while a parent measures the tree and announces the total.
“And two hot chocolates,” Harry adds, handing over a couple of twenties. He smirks at Jack. “Told you I’d get you one.” Mariah Carey sings in the background as a Boy Scout fills two paper cups with hot water from an urn and carefully splits a packet of hot chocolate mix between them. After stirring them with a plastic spoon, he hooks a candy cane over the rim of each cup and hands them to Jack and Harry.
“Cheers,” Harry says, touching his cup to Jack’s. Granules of powder float on top of the liquid. Jack tries to stir it together with the candy cane, which melts stickily on his fingers. Harry watches him over the rim of his cup, holding it in both hands, blowing at the steam. He’s got hot chocolate at the edges of his lips. Jack’s never wanted to kiss him more.
***
“Careful of the top,” Harry warns from the landing as Jack trudges up the stairs behind him, tree balanced on his shoulder. Harry was right, it’s not that heavy, but Jack’s still behaving as if he’s performing a great service.
Zayn’s on the couch when Jack hauls the tree through the door Harry’s holding open. “Thanks for sparing me.” He pauses the Xbox to watch Jack deposit the tree in the center of the room. “Are you gonna get it in the stand, too? That’s the worst part.”
Jack looks at Harry. Harry looks hopeful. “Would you mind?”
Jack does not mind. Harry disappears into his room and returns with a tree stand and two shoeboxes. He positions the tree stand in the corner of the room and directs Jack to lift the tree into the stand and tighten the bolts while Harry holds the trunk in place. After an extensive calibration process (“Tighten the one on the left… no, your left… no, the next one over… now loosen the one closest to you… a little bit more…”), during which Zayn offers unhelpful commentary from the couch, Harry finally approves.
Harry’s already uncoiling a string of lights when Jack squirms out from under the tree and brushes the needles off of his shoulders. He wraps the lights around the tree with practiced technique, passing them off to Jack on every rotation, and then settles on the couch with one of the shoeboxes on his lap. He pulls out a tissue-wrapped bundle and unrolls it carefully as Jack watches. It’s an ornament, a reindeer made out of clothespins. Harry slips an ornament hook through its string and offers it to Jack, dangling by its hook from his index finger. “Hang it up?”
Zayn’s watching. It feels like a test. Jack gingerly slides the ornament off Harry’s finger and hooks it over a branch, choosing the spot at random. He looks over his shoulder at Harry, waiting for his approval. Harry smiles contentedly. He unwraps another tissue paper bundle to reveal a stuffed cat made of blue calico. “Oh, the cat,” Harry says, as if the reveal has delighted him. “Gemma’s got a matching one, only hers is pink.”
“Are they all family ornaments?” Jack asks.
“Yeah, my mom packed them up for me after college.” Harry keeps unwrapping, lining ornaments up on the coffee table. “All the ornaments we got when we were kids.” He nudges the box of hooks closer to Jack and Jack picks up the ornament closest to him, a metal silhouette of a guitar. “That was from the year I took guitar lessons,” Harry says. “I have a lot of childhood awkwardness commemorated as ornaments.”
“Why the piano?” Jack points at a different ornament.
Harry’s trying to slide a hook onto the thin wire of a glass pickle ornament. “That was a different year.”
“The basketball?” Jack grabs a hook for that one.
“Like I said, a lot of childhood awkwardness.”
They finish decorating the tree together, Harry explaining the backstory behind each ornament. So many of them seem to have come in pairs: Gemma has a mouse with a red scarf, and Harry has one in green. Gemma has the Big Bird ornament to Harry’s Cookie Monster. Gemma has a matching seashell with googly eyes from some childhood beachcombing expedition.
One of the last ornaments out of the boxes is a crude felt wreath with a photo glued crookedly in the center, almost certainly by a very young Harry. Jack snatches it out of Harry’s hands. “Well, look at you,” he says, studying the two towheaded children in the photo. The girl has a Christmas dress and mary janes, and the boy has a holiday sweater vest and wide-set eyes that are unmistakably Harry’s.
Harry makes a grab for the ornament, but Jack’s taller and also not seven months pregnant. He dangles it just out of Harry’s reach. “You were so blonde!” Jack says. “You and Gemma?”
Harry lunges and grabs the ornament. “Yup,” he says, hanging it on the back of the tree, close to the floor.”
“Come on.” Jack rescues it. “You were adorable. This needs a place of pride.”
“It’s awful,” Harry says. “I made it in kindergarten. I only keep it because my mom would never forgive me otherwise.”
“Is our kid going to look like this? Because I’d be fine with that.” Jack positions the ornament front and center, moving a painted pine cone out of the way.
Harry crosses his arms. “Move that ornament, or I’m buying him the same sweater vest.”
“You’d never.” Jack relocates the pine cone to the back of the tree and adjusts the strand of lights so there’s a bulb directly above the photo wreath.
Zayn’s disappeared into his bedroom. After a half-hour of listening to Harry’s family history told via Christmas ornaments, Jack ventures a question. “What does your family think about all of this?” He waves his hand at Harry’s belly.
“Actually…” Harry’s got a can-you-believe-this expression on his face. He walks over to the table, where there’s a messy stack of mail, and pulls out a bubble envelope with the end already ripped open. He tips the contents into his hand. “My mom sent this last week.” Jack takes a few steps closer, looking down at the Christmas ornament balanced in Harry’s open palm.
It’s a pottery star, painted blue and white. Something’s stamped in the center in typewriter lettering. Jack peers at it. Baby Boy 2017, it says.
“So I guess you could say she’s excited.” Harry slips a finger through the ornament string, dangling it toward Jack.
“Okay,” Jack says. He swallows. “Okay.” The baby suddenly feels very real, a person whose life has already started to be quantified in Christmas ornaments, just like Harry’s has been. Jack takes a step back toward the coffee table and fumbles for an ornament hook. Harry takes it from him and moves toward the tree.
“They’re actually going to be in town this weekend.” Harry’s got his back to Jack, focused on hanging the star ornament toward the top of the tree. “My mom and Gemma and my stepdad.”
“That’s nice,” Jack says, absently, making a mental note that this’ll be a good weekend to watch football with the guys. He starts to gather up the pieces of tissue Harry scattered in his enthusiasm to get to each ornament.
“They’re kind of curious about you.” Harry turns toward him. He’s lined in the colored light from the Christmas tree. The star ornament dangles just above his shoulder. “Do you want to have dinner with us Saturday?”
This is all hopelessly out of order. They’re having a baby and the baby has a Christmas ornament and he’s got no idea where he stands with Harry and now he’s supposed to meet the parents. He’s never going to get this straightened out; everything is his fault and Harry’s family’s probably going to hate him for it. But Harry’s looking at him, waiting for an answer, and it’s never going to be anything but yes.
