Chapter Text

December 24th, 12am

When the clock strikes midnight on the eve of December 24th, Louis Tomlinson’s birthday present starts singing out the song of the summer tanager. The male summer tanager is the only completely red bird in North America, and they have been described as chunky songbirds.

The song of the summer tanager warbles through the otherwise silent, newly-bought, partially-renovated home of the Tomlinson-Styles. The rooms are all dark, save for the the shining of a phone screen in the largest bedroom. 

Louis Tomlinson-Styles is awake.

Louis Tomlinson-Styles hears the summer tanager. 

Louis Tomlinson-Syles has been extremely aware of his forthcoming birthday present since it was placed under the tree (in separate wrapping paper, to signify that it is a birthday present as opposed to a Christmas present) one week ago. About three hours after his present had been placed under the tree, he had identified online the model and year. He had also identified that said present had a faulty sensor, because it should not be making this much noise while wrapped up, still in its box.

Harry (Tomlinson-Styles) had grimaced the first time the bird call had gone off. He’d put his head in his hands the second time. The third time, he had sheepishly looked at Louis and said, “Any chance you can pretend you didn’t hear that?”

No. No chance at all. 

If there is one thing Louis loves, it’s birdsong.

If there’s a second thing Louis loves, it’s telling time.

When the song of the summer tanager plays throughout their house, an only slightly muffled ten second clip, Louis knows immediately what that signifies. It signifies that midnight is here, and with midnight, his birthday.

Louis has just turned 33 years old.

And Harry is asleep for it.

Louis grips his phone, swiping through tiktoks with a vengeance, hoping that something will catch his eye and help dampen the visceral desire he has coursing through him to wake Harry up right fucking now because it’s his birthday.

He knows he shouldn’t.

Harry has been asleep since eight. He’s going to be waking up in the middle of the night to go pick Niall up from the airport. He needs his sleep. He gets grumpy when he doesn’t have enough sleep. If Louis wakes Harry up now, he’s going to get snapped at, and those thirty three required birthday kisses will not be given with love. 

Louis swipes past three videos in a row of different people trying tiny jars of advent calendar jam. He pauses briefly at a video instructing him on the best way to deep fry a fruit cake. The distraction-scrolling isn’t working. He wants to wake up Harry. He wants to demand his birthday kisses.

And then his phone starts ringing. 

Years ago Louis had put three people on emergency contact override, so that even when his phone was on silent, calls from their number would ring. The three people were; Harry, Lottie, and Liam.

(Harry had lost the privilege soon afterward because, getting the time wrong, he called in the middle of Louis defending his thesis in order to wish him luck by way of singing Elton John the moment Louis picked up. Harry no longer gets emergency contact override privilege). 

Louis rushes to answer the call as Mister Worldwide himself starts rapping about fireballs— Liam’s custom ringtone. In his haste to silence the call, Louis rolls away from Harry, forgets that he was on the edge of the bed, and ends up in a tangled mess of blankets on the floor. 

Popping up, untangling himself, he finds that there are no blankets left on the bed; just Harry, alone, wearing their special matching Christmas pyjamas and drooling on his pillow as if he hadn’t just been exposed to the freezing bedroom air. 

Not wanting to test fate, Louis does not attempt to cover up his dear husband. He simply flees the room. 

Once the door is fully and carefully closed behind him, Louis finally answers the call. “Liam,” he says. 

“Louis!” Liam cries, from the other end of the line. “Happy birthday!”

Louis pinches the bridge of his nose. This is exactly what he wanted. He’s just still coming down from the adrenaline rush of silencing his phone and falling off the bed. “Thanks buddy,” he says, raising his voice as he gets further from the bedroom. “You just calling to wish me a happy birthday?”

“Well… mostly,” Liam hedges.

“Please continue,” Louis says. He stands in front of the tree in their living room and looks down at his carefully wrapped birthday present. The one that sang him the song of the summer tanager. 

“See, the thing is,” Liam says. “I know you guys are going to be busy today, what with your birthday and all.”

Louis is actually planning on spending the day taste testing about fifteen different cookies that Harry’s convinced he has time to make, and he’s thinking that will keep him plenty busy. “I mean, just staying in the house, having a chill day,” he says. 

“Cool, cool, that’s cool…”

Louis nudges his birthday present with his foot. “Why Liam,” he says. “It seems like you have a question you’d like to ask.”

“I mean…”

Louis waits.

“I don’t want to be in the way…”

“Out with it, my boy.”

“Zedd broke up with me.”

Ah. The ending that everyone had seen coming. “Payno,” Louis says.

“It’s fine! I’m fine!”

“He was a cunt.”

“He wasn’t a cunt!”

“He was a cunt.” Louis looks heavenward— to the zigzag of christmas lights taped to the ceiling. “How far away are you?”

“Well that’s the thing…”

Liam moved down to London when he decided he was going to make it big. That gives Louis about four hours—

“I’m two hours away.”

“Leemo,” Louis says. “Are you driving?”

“…Maybe.”

“Babe.” Louis pinches the bridge of his nose. “Okay. Hang up the phone. And get some coffee, probably. I’ll see you in two hours.”

“You’re a godsend, Lou, I swear” Liam says. “Happy birthday. Again.”

“Yeah yeah. Put on a podcast. I know you always wanted to to an american style cross country road trip but I don’t think Christmas Eve is the time to try it.”

When they hang up, Louis finally feels tired. Exhausted. Now that he’s got a time limit of a maximum of two hours left to sleep. “Bedtime,” he whispers as he pads back to their room. “Bedtime for me.”

He opens the door to find that Harry has starfished across the entirety of the bed, probably seeking out the blankets piled on the floor in his sleep. Louis grabs the duvet and wraps it around himself before nudging Harry over back to his own side. 

One hour down. He sets his alarm for three a.m.