Silver Bells (5 Seconds of Summer)

Chapter 3

Ashton woke the next morning to Christmas music. He was just thankful that it wasn't five-thirty in the morning this time. When he checked the clock, he saw that it was about 10:30. The smell of bacon and eggs filled his nose, and he got out of bed. 

Most of the guys were up. Harry and Louis were cooking breakfast in the mini kitchen, Luke was the one singing Christmas music, Liam was setting the tabble, and Michael was being... well, Michael, as he danced around the room wearing all red and a Santa hat. Only Calum, Zayn, and Niall were still asleep on the couch that Ashton had just gotten up from. Zayn and Niall looked like they were using one another as a pillow, and Calum was curled up on the opposite end of the couch, trying to make himself comfortable with no pillows. 

"Morning! Merry Christmas, Ashton!" Luke cried as Ashton came into the kitchen. Luke had a Santa hat on his own head, and was playing Christmas music on his phone as well as singing it. At the moment, he was playing a song called Mary's Boy Child by Boney M., a band Ashton liked. 

"Merry Christmas, Luke," Ashton replied. "How's the breakfast going?" He came up behind Harry and Louis, who had their own Christmas music playing since they didn't want to listen to Luke. They were playing an album called A Very Merry Perri Christmas by Christina Perri. 

"Good. It's almost ready," Harry told him. It was in that moment that Ashton realized Harry and Louis were wearing matching pajamas. "Can you see if Liam needs help?" 

"Daddy Direction doesn't need any help. He does everything himself," Louis snickered. 

Liam chose that moment to duck into the kitchen. "Oi, I'd love some help!" he exclaimed. "Come on, Ashton." Feeling awkward, Ashton followed Liam into the dining room. Liam gave him some forks and knives, and told him to set them in the correct order at each place. 

Ashton went around the table, putting forks and knives at every table. Five minutes after he finished, Harry called, "Breakfast!" and everyone came to the table except for Calum, Zayn, and Niall. Ashton went into the living room, having been tasked with the chore that was waking them up. 

"Guys," Ashton said softly. "Wake up, it's Christmas." Ashton shook Calum's shoulder, but Calum didn't respond, so Ashton turned to Zayn and Niall. He shook Zayn first, because Niall was using Zayn as a pillow, and if he woke Zayn up, it would wake Niall up as well, killing two birds with one stone so to speak. 

Zayn let out a moan as he woke. He rolled over, but he didn't realize he was on a couch and fell off. In the process of doing so, he took Niall with him, and woke Niall up. They both groaned, and Niall smacked his bandmate. "Christmas!" Zayn exclaimed with the sudden realization, and sprinted to the dining room, probably smelling the breakfast Harry and Louis had made. Niall quickly followed, and Ashton turned to the devil himself, Calum, who was still asleep. 

"Cal," Ashton hissed. "Cal." But Calum didn't respond. If Ashton didn't know any better, he'd think Calum was dead. Suddenly, he had an idea. He filled a large glass with eggnog, and, with the rest of the boys behind him, headed to the living room. He had a camera in his left hand, the one that wasn't holding the glass of eggnog, and then tossed the eggnog on Calum's head. 

Calum let out a yell as the coldness woke him up. Everyone sprinted from the room and quickly sat down at the table, pretending they were totally innocent. A furious looking Calum came into the room, his hair drenched with eggnog. "Okay, whose bright idea was that?" he demanded. Ashton hid a smirk and a laugh, but he failed miserably, and burst out laughing right in front of the person he'd just dumped eggnog over. "Ashton, what'd you do that for?" 

"You were like a dead horse! You wouldn't respond to anything! I couldn't think of any other way to wake you up-" 

"With amnesia! And forget about the stupid little things!" Luke sang, and they all burst out laughing. He grinned around at everyone. "Hey, it's Christmas. I'll sing what I like." They laughed and went back to eating. 

"You guys want to stay over at our place tonight?" Harry asked. "We've got room for about twenty, and it's not like we planned much anyways." 

"Sounds good!" Michael exclaimed. "We'll bring our stuff over." He grinned, his mouth full of sausage and eggs. Ashton laughed, and they eased into small talk about upcoming songs and albums, and possibly doing a collab in the near future. 

They finished breakfast, and they packed everything up. Since they knew they'd probably come back to the room after Christmas, they just packed some overnight clothes and the presents. The guys slid into a limo that Liam had called while they were packing, and drove to One Direction's hotel. 

It took them half an hour to get all of their stuff up to the room. When they finally had everything, they flopped down on the couch and decided to watch the movie Elf on Netflix. 

Halfway through the movie, Ashton's phone rang. He told the guys to keep going, and he answered, since it was Ed calling. 

"'Sup, brotha?" Ashton asked, pacing back and forth in the kitchen. "Having a good day so far?" 

"Pretty good, yeah. Taylor and I-" 

"Taylor and you? You're spending Christmas with her? For God's sake, just tell the public you're dating and be done with it!" 

"Oi, shut it. We'll tell them when we feel like it." 

"So does that mean you're dating, or you're not?" 

"Er..." Ashton could practically feel Ed's blush through the phone. "Kind of." Ashton cheered. "Mate, keep it quiet for now, would ya? Tay and I are still figuring things out." 

"Is that Ashton Irwin?" Ashton recognized Taylor Swift's voice on the other end. "Ashton, it's Taylor! How are you?" 

"I'm good, how are you?" 

"Fantastic! Amazing! Top of the world! Merry Christmas! Now take me shopping, big boy!" Ashton grimaced and hung up the phone. 

"So, then. Who was it?" Michael asked as Ashton went back into the living room, where the guys had continued watching the movie. 

"That was Ed Sheeran. And, um, Taylor Swift." Ashton was still disturbed. 

"Ooh, they're dating now?" Luke guessed. Ashton blushed deeper than the Santa hat on Michael's head, and they all took that as a hint. 

Later that evening, Ashton was lying in bed, unable to sleep like the rest of his friends. He was never able to get any sleep on Christmas, even though he knew that Santa wasn't real. There was just something about Christmas that made it impossible to sleep. 

That's when Ashton heard a loud crash in the living room. He figured that either Harry or Luke had gotten up for a late night snack, but Ashton wasn't prepared for what he saw when he got there.