One Heart

Brian’s POV

Since our house was by far easily the biggest out of everyone’s the Christmas celebrations happened here, and even though I said not to bother, Nathalie happily got into the Christmas spirit and decorated every inch of the house she could, both indoors and out. By the time she was finished, even I had to admit it truly was a winter wonderland. Well, an artificial one at least, since it didn’t actually snow down here in Huntington. Instead, she made her own snow.

“Brian, this is amazing!” Val gasped as she walked underneath a steady shower of snow that coated the back garden in a blanket of white. “How did you even manage this?”

“With a little help from a couple of Santa’s little helper,” I replied, glad that Nathalie had warned us all to dress warm before stepping out into her winter creation.

“It’s cold,” Matt commented, his large muscular frame shivering behind a thick coat and at least three blankets thrown on top. “I don’t like it.” A moment later, a snowball connected with his head. “Hey!” He glared at Val, who cracked up in hysterics.

“Wasn’t… me…” She tried to say, having to force each word out between her laughs. “Oh God… it hit you… right… in the face!”

“I’m glad you find it funn-” He couldn’t finish as another hit him from the other side, followed shortly by a number of others. “Okay, who the fuck keeps throwing them?!” He glared at his so-called ‘band mates’, each holding a snowball poised ready to throw. “You guys are fucking dead,” Matt growled, lunging after the closest who just so happened to be me.

“Oh shi-” My eyes widened as Matt shed his outer shell of blankets and tore off after me down the garden, shouting a stream of curses as he chased me. Unfortunately even though I should technically have been faster since Matt was more bulky it seemed that his added muscle actually made him faster, launching himself at me as soon as he had closed the gap enough and bringing both of us to a heap on the floor. Once there, he grabbed a handful of snow from beside him and slapped it in my face, looking triumphant.

“How’d you like that you little fucker!” His grin faltered as another snowball hit him in the back of the head, but the person who threw it he wasn’t appeared to chase after like he did to me.

“The way you guys are acting it is like you haven’t seen snow before,” Nathalie said as she walked over, dressed in a scarlet dress that skimmed her thighs, trimmed with white faux fur. Her hair lay in tousled curls down her chest while a hood fashioned in the same colour and trim as the rest of the dress protected it from the melting snow.

Matt picked himself up off me, taking a sweeping glance of Nathalie before quickly asking, “How the hell are you not freezing in that? You might as well be wearing nothing!”

“I think Val might think differently,” Nat replied casually, flashing me a grin as Matt worriedly looked at his wife. “Anyway, you forgot your hat.” She reached up and placed my red fedora on my head along with the Santa hat on top I had worn at a few gigs before. “Perfect.”

“Thanks babe.” I pecked her on the cheek before asking, “Where’s Rae?”

“Rae?” She frowned, looking around. “She was with me a moment ago… Rae?” After searching for a while we both soon heard a light giggle from behind one of the snow machines, revealing our grinning daughter when we found her.

“Aw, you found me!” Rae was wearing a miniature version of her mother’s outfit, but the dress was of course longer and she wore red and white striped tights underneath to protect her legs from the cold. After being found she moved out from behind the snow machine and tugged gently on Nat’s sleeve. “Mummy, when is Mickey getting here? I want to give him my present.”

“Just be patient honey, he’ll be over with Uncle Alex and Auntie Sophie soon,” Nat replied, gathering the pouting child into her arms. “Come on, let’s see that smile.” When she instead carried on pouting Nat began to pull a load of different funny faces at her, soon making Rae unable to start giggling at them. “There it is! Now let’s keep it that way, okay?”

After lowering Rae back onto the ground she crouched down beside her, whispering something in her ear before straightening again when we watched her run off towards the others.

I turned to Nat. “What did you say to her?”

Instead of replying she merely brought her finger to her lip to gesture silence before directing my gaze at Rae as she slowed in order to creep behind Matt. I watched as she bent down and scooped some snow into her hand before cackling after throwing it at him. His face was thunderous as he expected to find one of the guys behind him but instantly softened as he saw Rae behind him.

“You are so evil,” I whispered to her, trying to hold back from laughing as Rae then continued to throw snow at him, with Matt unable to do anything about it. “An evil fucking genius.”

“Be proud you married one,” she replied with a smile. She sniffed; covering her mouth with the back of her hand as she coughed into it. “Maybe I should have dressed warmer,” she groaned, sniffing again. “Being Santa’s little helper isn’t an easy job.”

“But it is fucking sexy,” I murmured, moving behind her as I left a trail of kisses down the length of her neck. “Maybe you could wear it to some other place…”

“Is sex all you think about?” She asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Well… no,” I replied awkwardly. “I… It’s…”

“You are asking a guy that?” Chloe snorted. “Of course it is all they think about.”

“Cheers for that Clo.”

“Any time.”

“I’m sure,” I muttered darkly, grumbling only until Nat gave me a gentle shake on the arm.

“Hey no pouting or you won’t get your present.” She winked at me. “And I’m sure you wouldn’t want that to happen.”

--

Nathalie’s POV

“Where’s Daddy gone?” Rae asked, looking up at me curiously. This was one of the first times she had actually stood still in the last half hour since she had spent most of it hopping around the house, most likely thanks to the new full bunny costume Alex, Sophie and Mickey had bought her for Christmas. Mickey had played along but instead of hopping was jumping around from the floor to couches and tables and back again, overjoyed with the Spiderman costume Rae had chosen to get him for his present.

“He just said he had to nip out with Uncle Zacky to pick up something, he’ll be back soon,” I replied, hooking on a few decorations that the kids had accidentally knocked off the tree.

Her face brightened up. “Oh! I know a secret!”

“Are you going to tell mummy?”

She shook her head, grinning. “Everyone told Rae it was a big secret, and that I mustn’t tell mummy what it is!”

I glanced at the others who all seemed to look away in unison. “Everyone, hmm? Well I know a secret about you Rae.”

“What is it?”

“It wouldn’t be a secret if I told you now would it?” I replied, shaking my head. “Although…” I crouched down to her, whispering, “If you tell me what you’re secret is, then I can tell you-”

“Nathalie Amber Haner, how dare you try and trick our daughter into telling,” a voice behind me said. The sound of the door closing alerted me to Zacky and Brian walking back in the front room, with Brian then continuing, “That’s not very nice now is it?”

I scowled. “It’s not nice to tell everyone a secret and not your wife either,” I replied, soon noticing the slightly wriggling box in his arms. “What is in there?”

“Your present.” He walked over and held it out in his arms, gesturing for me to untie the large ribbon bow holding it in place. “Merry Christmas Nathalie.”

Brian revealed no clue towards what was in the box when I looked at him and neither did Zacky. For some reason my hands shook as the ribbon fell away, almost as if I expected something to jump out at me.

And I was right to suspect it.

“Aah!” I shrieked, almost falling backwards as something leapt out at me from the box, falling backwards and landing flat on the floor. The thing crawled up from where it had ended up on my chest and began to lick my face. “What the-?” I pushed myself upright and caught the licking culprit in my arms, gazing down at the bright blue eyes of the most adorable puppy I had ever seen in my life. “How cute!” I gently stroked the Husky that seemed already complacent in my lap enough in order to curl up on me. “Oh Brian, they’re adorable!”

“I’m glad you like her,” he chuckled, crouching down in front of me and stroking her ears. “What are you going to call her?”

As I ran my hand across her fur I noticed that for the most part her body was a gorgeous caramel colour apart from her left front paw, nuzzle and two patches on her back that greatly resembled angel wings. It didn’t take me long to decide on her name. “Cassiel.”

Brian looked at me oddly, repeating the name slowly, almost as if he hadn’t heard it right. “Cassiel?”

I nodded. “After the angel, since she has little wings, see?” I pointed to the white wing-shaped patched on her back. “But we can just call her Cass for short. Right Cass?”

Cassiel’s ears pricked up at the sound of her given name and wagged her tail almost in agreement, dragging her tongue across Rae’s cheek after she bounced over and began to play with the new addition to the family. Brian helped me to my feet as soon as Rae and Mickey began to chase Cass around the room and then out of the house, allowing me to finally thank him with a kiss since there was no danger of one of the three running by my legs and tripping me up.

“Cass is beautiful, thank you.”

“At least Cass will be able to keep Rae preoccupied now,” Brian replied, running his fingers through one of my curls. “You know Nat; you haven’t given me my present yet.”

“You get yours later.”

He pouted. “That’s not fair, everyone else got-”

“Hey guys,” Leana interrupted, pointing upwards. “Guess where you two ended up.”

We both looked up expecting to see mistletoe, but as soon as our attention was caught we were pounded with the snow from outside which quickly melted, drenching our clothes.

“What the fudge!” I screamed, turning to look at everyone who was in hysterics. “It’s not fudging funny!” Both Brian and I had mutually agreed that ‘fudge’ would respectfully replace any curse we might want to yell if any children were present. “I’m fudging freezing now!”

“You know, I could go for some fudge,” Jimmy mused, thinking clearly about the food and not the other word it was meant to mean.

I scowled. “I do all this work for you guys to have a nice Christmas, and then you have to go and do this.” I sneezed, rubbing my nose. “And now I’m going to get a cold. Fudge.” Just as I was about to grumble some more, Brian swiftly swept me up from the floor and onto his shoulder. “Let me go! I’ve got to get revenge!”

“You can get revenge later,” he replied simply, leaving the room and walking upstairs to our bedroom. After he closed the door behind him he laid me out on the bed, crawling on over me. “Since I think I’ve waited long enough to open my present.”