Hold On To My Heart // narry au

chapter 12

a/n : because of my religious beliefs, I have to state clearly I do not believe in Santa. This is just pure fiction x

; niall

The guys had left now.

I looked at the digits on my phone indicating it was now 9:30 pm. They spent the whole day here. We watched movies on Netflix, first watching stupid humour like We're The Millers and then switching to Finding Nemo once Rian woke up from his nap. Then, we switched to stuffing our faces with McDonalds and Pizza - well they did, I only ate some bread or something because I wasn't feeling hungry.

I rubbed my stomach absentmindedly, what's wrong guys? Maybe you're too stressed too huh? What with all the big news of moving and stuff.

I leant my head back on the headboard and watched as Harry snored next to me, his stuffed nose making him have difficulty in breathing. Michael - bless his godfather heart - had carried Rian to his room once he fell asleep at the third disney movie.

My fingers went through Harry's hair at its own accord, carding through the soft strands and humming a tune from Hercules just now.

"Are you seriously humming Meg's song while watching me sleep?" Harry mumbled, eyes still closed.

I put a hand on my chest to stop my heart rate suddenly picking up from the shock.

"Har!" I scowled, pinching his already red nose.

"Ow ow ow!" He said in a weird voice and I laughed at how he sounded and how he looked right now.

"Niall! This is not funny!" He said, his voice still weird because of me pinching his nose and I couldn't stop laughing.

"Yes, yes it is" I laughed even harder when he tried to sound threatening but ended up sounding like a chipmunk on crack.

"Niall James Styles, let my nose go now before Rudolph starts running towards me thinking the red nose is a mating call"

I let go of his nose involuntarily because I was laughing too hard I didn't notice I had. My husband has made some pretty awful jokes in his life but this has got to be one of the most awful yet funniest one yet.

"I always make you laugh, easy work" Harry said, smirking with that red nose of his.

"Babe, Rudolph isn't even real" I pointed out, my laugh finally subsiding. Harry's eyes widened- shushing me immediately after i said that.

"Shhh! Rian will hear you!" Harry whispered.

I raised my eyebrows at him.

"Babe, Rian is asleep and are we gonna tell him that Santa is real? Really?" I asked. Harry frowned at me and instead made himself comfortable by throwing an arm around my rounded stomach, still lying down as I sat up on the bed - my back resting on the headboard.

My fingers went to his hair again.

"Don't you remember that feeling of immense happiness and hopefulness when you thought he was real, Ni?" He asked, his palm rubbing my stomach.

A smile slowly appeared on my face. Yeah, I do remember that. And I remembered something else also. Back in my high school years, when I first came out as gay - my friends were all fine with it. Well, except for a few.

And I remembered that feeling of rejection stung a lot. I wasn't a happy teenager then. It was Christmas Eve and I was walking alone in the cold, looking at all the couples and feeling so lonely. My 5 year old cousin - Taylor noticed me being so sad and asked me why that night.

I said that nobody loved me.

And on Christmas morning, my aunt went up to me while I was moping and showed me a paper.