This story was written for Swagmasterlowell on tumblr! It's pure fluff all the way through which is really out of character for me, so enjoy it while it lasts I guess.

Multiplication

In many ways, this seemed inevitable. It was the natural culmination of a process that had begun years ago with noncommittal comments like, "If I ever have kids, I'll…" or, "You'd make a good dad someday." As time and the relationship progressed, those off-hand mentions turned it, "If we had kids." Years passed. A marriage happened, but not a wedding, and though they claimed it was just to simplify legal matters since they lived together, neither could deny that they intended to stay together for the rest of their lives. Comments about hypothetical children came more and more often until it was hardly even a surprise when Flynn said one day, "Yuri, how would you feel about being a dad? I mean, seriously."

All those little comments had been the rumbling of pebbles foretelling the avalanche of stress and activity of the next year. Yuri hadn't known quite what to say to Flynn's question. Sure, he'd joked about how he'd raise hypothetical children some day, but… really ? Never having a father himself, Yuri wasn't sure if he was even qualified to be one. He'd had enough trouble getting himself into the shape of a functional human adult with a relationship, house, and employment; how could he be expected to raise someone else to that point?

But then, maybe the fact that it had taken so much work to make something of his life meant he had a better perspective for raising a kid. And after all his years of bouncing around foster care, teenage delinquency, trying and failing the university thing, and generally irritating every authority figure he'd come in contact with, wouldn't it be amazing to raise a kid and leave something worthwhile in the world?

Three days after Flynn first raised the question, he got a phone call while sitting at his desk at the police station. As soon as he greeted Yuri, he heard, "Let's do it, Daddy."

"…Don't call me that. Do what?"

"Have a baby, of course."

Flynn dropped his pen. "Really? You've decided just now?"

"Yeah. I want to do it. Now, how are we going to do this? Are you going to be getting pregnant, or am I?"

That was the beginning of yet another dilemma. Flynn had barely had time to celebrate deciding to become parents before delving into decisions of the practicalities. Adoption? Foster care? Surrogacy? Yuri, who had zero faith in the foster care industry and had seen far too many kids bond with prospective adoptive parents only to be yanked back to the biological parents at the last second, wasn't willing to go that route, but the unbearable waiting times and costs of adoption made that unappealing as well.

They were discussing all these considerations with their friends one night when Judith casually threw out, "Give me a turkey baster and some sperm, and I'll have the baby for you."

Yuri handled most of that conversation because Flynn had gone red-faced when his hypothetical sperm was being discussed by Judith and Estelle. In the end, though, they had settled on an arrangement. Judith would serve as the surrogate (and it would, upon Flynn's insistence, be carried out at a clinic and not at home with a turkey baster) as long as Flynn and Yuri covered all her medical costs. They started the process as soon as possible.

Though Yuri had joked about the risk of their child being ugly as sin, they had decided upon Flynn being the genetic father. After all, Yuri had reasoned, he didn't know much about his mother's family and even less about his father, so who knew what lurked in the Lowell genes? Flynn's parents had been perfectly healthy before the car accident that killed them, and no one else in his extended family had any genetic disease to worry about. It was the safest bet.

All their stress and worrying and decision making had led to one fantastic phone call from Judith.

"I just took a pregnancy test," she told Yuri. "Tell Flynn he has wonderful virile sperm, because I'm pregnant."

Yuri grinned down at Repede, who watched him from the kitchen floor. "I'll be sure to let Flynn know."

After he hung up, Flynn kept his eyes on his book to ask, "Let me know what?" Then he did look up and saw Yuri's grin. "Who was that?"

Yuri climbed onto the couch. Kneeling on the cushion, he leaned over Flynn's curled up legs and put his book on the coffee table.

"Hey, you lost my spot! Yuri, you-"

Yuri cupped Flynn's face and cut off his whining with a kiss. Flynn reciprocated and after a minute of pressing their faces together, Yuri came up for air. Flynn smiled up at him, gently pushed Yuri's hair behind his ear, and then slapped the side of his head. "It's going to be a pain to find what page I was on."

"Hey, you should appreciate me more. Not many married men would be so understanding of their husband getting another girl pregnant."

"Presumably pregnant. I mean, the fertility treatment isn't a guarantee, so we can't…." He looked at Yuri's expression, remembered the phone call that kiss had distracted him from, and then said, "Wait. Were you just talking to Judith?"

Yuri nodded.

"And she's…?"

"She wanted me to pass on a congratulations for your sperm because you successfully knocked her up."

Flynn's head fell back on the throw pillow. For a long moment he stared at the ceiling and then said, "Wow." As a second thought, he raised his head again to add, "And don't phrase it like that."

Even after they had decided to pursue parenthood, a baby had been just as hypothetical as it had been in conversations over the years. Now, though, their baby existed as more than just an idea. There was a real, physical fetus existing in the world that was their baby. Having a kid had changed from an idea for the future to a concrete deadline only nine months away. Yuri wasn't sure if he was more thrilled or terrified.

The weeks couldn't pass fast enough. Judith was due in mid-January, and Flynn was sure this knowledge helped him deal with soaring summer temperatures because at least half his mind was settled in January at all times. The other half was preoccupied with Judith and making sure she was as comfortable and healthy as possible. Either he or Yuri drove her to every doctor appointment, and Flynn jumped in to help with any errand she needed done. It took Yuri stepping in and telling him to give her some space to back up and accept that letting her carry a backpack across the room wasn't going to negatively impact the baby.

About halfway through the pregnancy, they arrived at the doctor's office for an ultrasound. Autumn leaves crunched underfoot on their way into the waiting room. They only had a few minutes left to make yet another decision, and had yet to reach a conclusion.

"If we know, we can plan accordingly," Flynn said.

Yuri rolled his eyes. "What kind of planning do you need to know the kid's sex for? How would plans change if it's a boy or a girl?"

Flynn stared at Judith's stomach. She had decided to stay out of this debate, declaring she didn't care either way about knowing and would go with whatever they decided.

"They wouldn't, really, but… don't you just want to know? And it would cut our name-choosing work in half because we could just focus on girl names or boy names."

"Yeah, and if we tell people we're having a girl, suddenly we'll be inundated with pink clothes. Let's not start shoving our kid into a colour-coded gender role before they're even born."

"I guess, but… I just want to know. They can tell me but not you?"

Yuri shook his head. "No, you'll let it slip. You'll accidentally imply it at some point."

Judith leaned forward and stretched her back. "If it's this big of an issue for you, just flip a coin for it."

They thought for a moment and then nodded. Yuri pulled out a quarter. "Heads we know, tails it's a surprise." The coin flashed under the fluorescent lights. After catching it, Yuri held out the result: heads. Slightly disappointed, he nodded. "Ok. Looks like we're going to find out if Judy's got a penis in there."

Flynn covered his face with his hand. "Why do you have to phrase things like that?" he asked while Judith laughed.

Fifteen minutes later, Judith lay on a padded table in a dimly lit room while the sonographer placed the wand on her belly. "So, have you decided if you want to know the sex?" she asked with her eyes on the screen.

Flynn looked to Yuri, who nodded. "Yeah," Yuri said. "You can tell us."

She adjusted the wand and looked closer at the screen. Then she picked up Judith's file and looked through the notes. Flynn and Yuri exchanged nervous looks; she'd found something unexpected, and unexpected in medical settings was almost never good.

She saw their faces and said, "It's ok, nothing is wrong. Are you hoping for a boy or a girl?"

Relief flooding through him, Yuri said, "Yeah, we're definitely hoping it's a boy or a girl and not an alligator."

She smiled a bit and then said, "Well, I hope you enjoy variety packs, because you're having twins."

A long silence met her words. Flynn said, "I beg your pardon?"

"There are definitely two babies in here," she said and then rotated the screen to show them two defined heads in the haze of grey pixels. "One boy and one girl."

"That's…" Yuri began, but wasn't sure how to finish. Twins! How crazy was that? How amazing? How expensive?

"Incredible," Flynn finished for him. "Judith, did you suspect?"

She shrugged. "I thought I seemed bigger than average for this stage, but since I've never been pregnant before to compare, it's hard to say."

"The important news is," the sonographer said, "that nothing seems to be wrong. You have two healthy babies here."

Yuri nodded slowly. His emotions were still all over the place, but as long as they were healthy, they could figure this out.

Later, after dropping Judith off at home, both of them had managed to process the news somewhat. They sat on the couch, gazing forward at the blank television.

"So," Yuri said. "Two babies."

Flynn nodded. "Two."

In unison, they looked at each other and broke into grins.

"Twins ," Flynn said. "Can you believe it?"

"You know, maybe this is good. I don't know how many kids you wanted to ultimately have, but all this surrogacy stuff is expensive as hell. We're basically getting a buy one get one free deal here."

Flynn laughed, pure joy lighting up his eyes. "Seems so. And both a boy and a girl, so we'll get a taste of both worlds."

"How are we going to pay for this? We'll have to buy two of everything."

Flynn rubbed Yuri's thigh. "We'll manage."

For several minutes, they sat together in contented silence. They both had a lot going through their minds, and cuddling on the couch made it easier to deal with it all. Yuri gazed up the stairs and asked, "Do you think we should convert the computer room into a second nursery?"

"Hm…." Flynn rubbed his chin. "No. Not now, anyway. If they're both crying, I don't want to keep running back and forth between two rooms for feeding and diapers and everything. They can have separate bedrooms when they're old enough to care."

Yuri nodded in agreement. "Right, they'll definitely want separate bedrooms when they get older, since we're having both a boy and a girl."

Flynn leaned over to bump Yuri's shoulder. "We're having a boy and a girl."

"Twins."

"We're having twins."

"We're going to have two babies."

And then it was back to the cuddling.

They spent the rest of the pregnancy trying to prepare. Flynn, who had been devouring parenthood books since they first decided to do this, had discovered an entire new genre of parenting twins books to tide him over. They finished renovating the spare room to a nursery and doubled-up on all their supplies. They hosted a baby shower with Judith, where they received a tidal wave of pink and blue from more distant friends who didn't know Yuri's stance on cliche colour coding. They showed their printout of the ultrasound to their friends, which was when Flynn discovered that Yuri, objecting to labelling their kids as Baby A and Baby B, had scribbled out the sonographer's labels and written in "Baby" and "Another Baby".

What they debated the most was the subject of names. Flynn liked longer, more traditional names. He claimed they carried more maturity and formality, which the kids would appreciate when they were adults. Yuri protested that making a six year old write a lengthy name on every paper was cruel, and having a long and fancy name would just make them the target of bullies. Eventually they decided to use longer names with common nicknames, and let the kids decide what they wanted to use as they got older. Even after deciding on first names, though, they had to discuss surnames. Yuri had jokingly suggested that one of them be Scifo and the other Lowell, but they both knew that having twins with different surnames would just cause confusion.

"I've decided," Flynn said over dinner one night. "They should both be Lowell."

"Oh, should they?" Yuri raised his eyebrows. "And why's that?"

"Because they're ours. Both of ours. I don't want anyone to ever have any doubt about that. Since they're biologically related to me, though, I think they should have your name. Your name, my genes. That sounds fair, right?"

Yuri swirled spaghetti around his place. "Sounds good to me."

Yuri pretended he didn't care, but Flynn knew it meant a lot more to him than he was letting on. Yuri barely knew his biological family and had never had close ties with anyone else named Lowell. It would mean so much to him to have family that shared his name - maybe more then he even realized himself.

"They'll appreciate it," was all Yuri said. "Scifo is spelled weird and they'd spend the rest of their lives correcting people that it's a C, not an H."

Nine months seemed to last forever, until finally the day arrived. Yuri was in the living room, watching fluffy clumps of snow drift to the backyard when Judith called him to say she was on her way to the hospital. Yuri and Flynn dropped everything to meet her there. There was a bit of confusion when a nurse asked who the father was and in their excitement, Flynn told her, "We both are." Yuri thought the nurse was considering giving them a lesson in how sexual reproduction works before he jumped in to explain the situation. They were both let into the delivery room to wait in anxious anticipation.

It took hours. Yuri guessed at least a hundred, but Flynn later told him it had only been about ten. Yuri spent most of it wandering around the hospital looking for a vending machine that would accept his money and feeling terribly guilty for putting Judith into this painful situation. He and Flynn were both in the room when their son arrived, pink, screaming, and wriggling. Judith smiled and breathed a sigh of relief, but there was still one more to go.

Yuri and Flynn were torn between staying at Judith's side to wait for the next one, or shadowing the nurses who were wiping down the messy and crying baby on the other side of the bed. Flynn had a moment of panic upon realizing this was the first in what would likely be a lifetime of tiny decisions over which twin to focus on, and worried that choosing wrong at this moment would spell disaster for the rest of the kids' lives.

Yuri nudged him and then nodded to their son. "Two babies, two dads," he murmured. "I got this."

Flynn squeezed his hand quickly and then hurried around to watch what was happening. He didn't want to get in their way as they cleaned, weighed, diapered and swaddled him, but his heart ached to reach out and hold him. It seemed to take forever before they finally put the squirming bundle in his arms.

Flynn held him close to his chest and tried to wrap his mind around the fact that this was his son. "Matthew," he said, and was elated when Matthew stopped crying and blinked up at him at the sound of his voice.

"Matt," Yuri corrected.

"It's going to say 'Matthew' on the birth certificate." Flynn raised his eyes to Yuri, but he was too overjoyed to have any room for irritation.

"Ok, but we both know it's really Matt."

Ten minutes later, the miracle repeated and a second bundle of crying arrived in Yuri's arms. This was a good arrangement, Yuri felt, because if they'd had triplets then they'd have more babies than parents and that sounded like a nightmare. He held the little girl carefully, paranoid that he'd move his arm wrong, her head would flop back, and she'd die minutes after birth. This was why Yuri had never gotten on well with babies. He didn't know what to do with a human that couldn't keep themselves alive for more than five minutes at a time.

"Your name is Kate," he told her.

Flynn added, "Katherine, officially."

Yuri winked at his daughter. "It's Kate."

They were allowed to take the kids home two days later. It was a cold, snowy day in January and Yuri stood on the curb with Matt while Flynn struggled with Kate's car seat. Matt was asleep, but Kate was wide awake and squirming as Flynn tugged on her belt.

"Do you need any help, Flynn?" Judith offered from the front seat.

"No! You stay there." He shivered and fumbled again, making Kate whine. "I just… can't get this to tighten right…." He paused to curl his bare hands under his chin to try to get the feeling back into them. Only the eyes and noses of the babies were visible through the ring of fuzz around the hoods of their tiny winter onesies. Yuri had to admit, they were pretty damn adorable, even if the world's tiniest parkas made them almost twice the size.

"What exactly is the problem?" Yuri edged closer to the car door. He was cold, Kate was cold, and Matt would be cold as soon as he woke up. Judith was no doubt eager to go home after spending a few days in the hospital, the kids were probably going to start screaming for food in another hour and he'd like to get home and settled down before that happened.

"The tightener is stuck. I can't get the straps snug enough. There's still slack."

"Here." Yuri pushed Matt into Flynn's arms. "Your fingers are frozen. I'll give it a try." He bent over the car seat and took over the job. Kate gazed up at him, her little face clearly upset and very close to crying. With fingers he could actually feel, Yuri was able to wiggle the strap through the buckle and pull it snug. "There, see?" he said quietly and then booped her nose. "That's why you need to have two dads - in case one of them is incompetent."

"Did you say something, Yuri?"

"Nope. Hand me Matt; I can reach his car seat from here."

They dropped Judith off first. As they pulled up into her driveway, Flynn asked, "Are you sure there's nothing we can do for you?"

She opened the door and picked up her bag. "Really, I'm fine. Doctor said I was perfectly healthy, didn't she?"

"Well, yes." Flynn frowned. "Take it easy for a few days, though. And if you need anything-"

"I'll call Estelle, or Rita, or anyone else who isn't overwhelmed with bringing newborn twins into their house." She smiled at them. "I did the easy part for you. Now you two are the ones who have to deal with the screaming and the diapers, so I think I got a better end of the deal here. Go on and get them home. I'll see you later."

"Alright," Flynn relented. "Thanks again, Judith." After she left, he asked, "Do you want to move up to the front seat, Yuri?"

Yuri, sandwiched between two car seats with his knees up to his chest, shook his head. "I don't want to clamber past one of them to get there. Besides," he reached over to lightly tickle Kate's chest, "I like sitting within reach."

They arrived home in the evening. Yuri carried Matt's car seat in while Flynn picked up Kate. While Yuri fiddled with the keys at the front door, Flynn looked down at Kate and said, "This is your new home. We have a room all set up for you."

Yuri pushed the door open and stomped snow off his shoes on the front mat. "Welcome home," Yuri said as he entered. "I'm carrying you over the doorway because I love you, even though my husband never did that for me when we got married." Repede met them at the door, tail wagging. Yuri lifted the car seat over his head, causing Repede to lean upward and sniff in excited confusion.

"Yuri, we'd already been living together for years before we got married."

"It's ok, I know when I'm not wanted." He set Matt's car seat down on the living room floor, unbuckled him, and lifted him out. "You're not even looking. You've got this awesome new house and you're not even looking around. So ungrateful."

"Stop antagonizing your son, Yuri." Flynn lifted Kate out of her car seat, rested her gently on the carpeted floor and then unbuttoned her jacket. "It's already pretty late. I'll get them changed into pyjamas if you go prepare a couple of bottles."

After Yuri left, Flynn got their pjs out of the hospital bag and began undressing them. They'd already done this a few times at the hospital, but it was still nerve-wracking. As Flynn coaxed one of Matt's kicking legs into the foot of the outfit, he worried that it was just so small and fragile and he might accidentally snap it off. They were so little.

Repede arrived on the scene and Flynn held up an arm to keep him back, just in case he carelessly stepped on one of the babies. Repede leaned over his arm and sniffed Kate's head, causing her to blink and squirm in confusion.

"This is Kate," Flynn told Repede while rubbing his neck. "She's part of our family now. And this is Matt, who is also part of our family."

Repede sniffed Matt next, looked to Flynn for reassurance, and then circled around Flynn's arm to lie on the floor next to Kate. His tail slowly flopped up and down, and the message was clear: if these tiny humans were in his family now, he'd protect them as much as he could.

Yuri returned a few minutes later with a pair of warm bottles. He found Flynn sitting between the two babies, who each wore green one-piece pyjamas that only differed in that one has moneys and the other had sheep. Yuri looked down at them, glanced between their sleepy faces, and said, "So… which one is which?"

Flynn pointed at the sheep pyjamas. "This one is Kate…. Or. Wait." He frowned, looked between them, and then quickly unbuttoned the pyjamas and peaked under the diaper. "Ok, sorry, this one is Matt."

Yuri laughed as he handed over one of the bottles and re-buttoned Matt's pyjamas. "We should put labels on them."

"At least they aren't identical. They do have a pretty obvious physical different we can rely on."

Yuri scooped up Matt and got comfortable on the couch. "We should get them hats with M and K written in big letters." Matt eagerly suckled the bottle's nipple while Flynn sat with Kate on the other end of the couch.

Flynn chuckled. "Maybe. But I think it won't be long before telling them apart is easy for us."

Yuri nodded. "I bet." After all, they would be living with these kids for the next eighteen years at the very least, and having them regularly in their lives even after that. It was so crazy to think how different their lives were going to be from now on. For so many years, Yuri's concept of family had begun and ended with Flynn and Repede. His family had now doubled, and life would never be the same. He wouldn't have it any other way.