salute ➳ 〚h.s.〛 〚a.u.〛

chapter 16 - trimming trees & reverent reminiscence

"Pips, could you get the door?"

"Sure mum," Piper called over her shoulder, already headed away from the kitchen where she had been carefully eating Hershey kisses on the right side of her mouth. Upon arriving at her mum's house for Christmas Eve, Piper had been forced to tell her some hare-brained excuse about why she was favouring her left side (she'd mentioned something about a pulled muscle) but she had kept the teeth a secret. She really couldn't think of a good excuse for that one.

Piper tromped down the hall and threw open the front door to the house without glancing through the peep hole. They'd already had three sets of carollers so she figured it was just another bunch of old folks dressed in weird period costumes singing about decking the halls and o tannenbaum and all that nonsense.

Not so. Standing on the other side of the threshold was one Harry Styles. He was glancing sideways at the house beside them with Christmas lights so bright they could light up the city, and his face was pinched. He looked uncomfortable, his hands stuck in the pockets of his coat for warmth. When he heard the door open, he turned his gaze around and his face brightened immediately upon seeing her. He reached his hands out to rest on either of her shoulders.

"Thank Christ, you're here," he said on a sigh as he leaned in and pressed a hard and chaste kiss to her cheek. "Where have you been? I've been worried."

"What do you mean, where have I been?" Piper repeated back incredulously as she shook her head at him. "Where did you think I was going to be?"

"I went straight to Vauxhall when I landed this afternoon because I know you've been working despite my telling you not to – don't think we won't be talking about that later," he added with a stern finger pointed in her direction. "You weren't at work so I went to your flat but that was empty too and it didn't look like you'd been there all day. I went to the Starbucks by your house, I went to the bookstore you like, I even went back to HQ in case you were there. I came here as a last resort because I didn't think you'd be here on a Wednesday – what are you doing here anyways?"

Piper scowled at Harry, wondering if he'd hit his head particularly hard while he'd been away in Morocco. He certainly had quite the tan – a concussion wasn't totally out of the question either in his line of work. "What am I doing here?" she repeated as she raised the water gun in her hand, squirting him with it. "It's Christmas, you moron."

Harry looked around confused for a moment, his eyes taking in the Christmas decorations that literally exploded out of the neighbouring houses. Piper could almost see it clicking on Harry's face, the gradual widening of his eyes and then the smile that broke out across his face. "Oh right," he said with a bright gleam in his voice, "Christmas. I'd forgotten."

"You – you forgot Christmas?"

That made Piper incredibly sad. Christmas had always been her absolute favourite holiday. There was just something about it – the cold nights and the warm fires, the trees and the lights, the sense of family and joy and peace – that made it such a special time to her. The idea that someone could forget about it seemed preposterous in her mind.

"Is it really the 24th?" Harry pondered as he glanced down at his watch which displayed date and time. "Wow, it is. I owe Louis a birthday present."

"It's Louis's birthday on Christmas Eve?" Piper asked surprised.

Harry nodded as he hummed his agreement. "It's part of the reason that I had no idea it was Christmas. When we all learned it was Louis's birthday on the 24th, we made a pact not to celebrate Christmas Eve and focus instead on celebrating Louis. He doesn't like to talk about it but I know that he's always hated sharing his birthday with a major holiday."