#tillsunset

It all starts with a package.

A plain brown box that would have had absolutely no significance had Astrid not started tearing into it before realizing the name on the side reads Liam Payne, Flat 501. 

Not Astrid Jo, Flat 502. 

Oh. 

“Shit,” says Astrid, looking unhappily at the utterly mangled cardboard. There’s a violently pink colored box inside, and she realizes she’s probably just half-destroyed Liam Payne, Flat 501’s Christmas gift for his girlfriend.

Well done, Astrid, what a bloody great way to introduce yourself to your new neighbor, she thinks. Cranky old Mrs. Patterson had moved out the week before, and Astrid had rather been hoping for a neighbor who didn’t hate her and ring the landlord every time Astrid dared play music after nine p.m. 

And now Liam Payne, Flat 501, is going to think she’s an absolute nutter and will probably turn and run the other way when he sees Astrid in the halls. 

Excellent. 

Half an hour and half a roll of scotch tape later, she’s rearranged it into something resembling a normal cardboard box again. If you were looking at it from, like, across the room. And squinted really hard. 

With a heavy sigh, Astrid resigns herself to her soon-to-be pariah status, and braves the short walk across the hallway. 

She’s barely knocked on the door before it swings open, and Astrid finds that Liam Payne, Flat 501, is going to be a real problem.

Because Liam Payne, Flat 501, is stupidly, stupidly gorgeous, and Astrid has a habit of making a fool out of herself in front of beautiful people.

“Hello!” Liam says cheerily, giving Astrid a sharp little wave. “You’re the girl who lives across the hall, right? I’ve seen you running out the door to catch the bus— not, um, that I’ve been watching you, or anything.” He trails off, running a hand across his forehead. “Shit. Could you, um, pretend I didn’t just say that last bit?” 

He’s looking at her with impossibly wide eyes, and Astrid just barely manages to give him a tiny nod. 

Christ, he’s lovely. And now she’s going to ruin it. 

“I, ah—” she holds out the package uselessly, “I just wanted to give this to you. They seem to have given me your mail by mistake.”

“Are you in the habit of opening other people’s packages?” Liam says mildly, eyeing the rubbish tape job as he takes the box from her.

Astrid prickles. “Well, I didn’t quite realize it wasn’t mine until it was a bit, ah, too late. “ 

“Well,” Liam examines the disaster in his hands for a few more moments, “no harm, no foul, right?” He smiles brightly at her, and Astrid feels rather faint. He’s being so inexplicably kind.

“Right,” she says, “right, well, I should probably go.” 

“Oh!” Liam says, looking the tiniest bit deflated. “Yes, of course. Don’t let me keep you.” 

Astrid is about disappear into her apartment, where she plans to wallow alone in utter embarrassment for the next day or three, when she hears a small squeaking noise. 

She turns back around, furrowing her eyebrows, “What was that?” 

“That was my daughter,” Liam says, frowning vaguely in the direction of his foot. “Violet, darling, don’t be rude.” 

A small blonde head peeks out from behind Liam’s knee, looking slightly worried. 

Astrid softens. “Hello,” she says, crouching down to the girl’s level. “I’m Astrid.” She holds out a hand for her to shake, grinning when Violet does so almost immediately. 

“Hello,” Violet peeps shyly, still clinging to Liam’s leg. At a gentle nudge from her father, she adds, “It’s nice to meet you, Ash— Astrid.” 

Grinning at the quick correction, Astrid says, “It’s very nice to meet you too, Violet. How are you liking living here? It’s a pretty tiny building, I know.” She scrunches her nose up, and Violet giggles. 

“Yeah, but it’s really nice! I like the— I like the little garden behind the building.” 

“That’s one of my favorite places, too,” Astrid confides. 

“D’you garden, Astrid?” Liam asks, smiling down at her. 

“Well, I daresay I’ve got a bit of a green thumb,” Astrid says, wiggling her fingers. 

Violet leans in close to look at them and pulls back, a pout on her small face. “You do not! You only have normal thumbs!” 

Astrid pulls back to look at them, eyes going wide with mock-horror. “Oh goodness, you’re right! They’ve gone all brown!” she gasps. 

“Oh no!” Violet gasps with her, seemingly spooked as she digs her fingers into Liam’s knee. “Why aren’t they green anymore?” 

“Well, Vi,” Liam says, looking very serious indeed as he, too, bends down to Violet’s eye level, and Astrid suddenly realizes that they must make quite the picture, the three of them, all crouched together in the doorway like conspirators. 

Liam seems unperturbed by the impromptu huddle situation as he continues, “Maybe she hasn’t got green thumbs any more cos it’s winter, eh, love?” He raises his eyebrows at Astrid, and she hastens to agree. 

“Yes, yeah, they’ve just gone brown like the earth outside, y’see.” She gives Violet a quick little thumbs up, only feeling the slightest bit silly as she does so. “You’ll see, in spring they’ll pop back to green, like the plants.” 

“Okay,” Violet nods, tiny brow furrowed with concentration. “Will you show me, when they— when your green thumbs are back?” She sticks her own thumb in her mouth as she waits for an answer, and Astrid feels her heart melt. 

“Yes, darling, of course.” Astrid makes a mental note to buy some green nail polish before March, cos she’s dug herself quite a hole here—no pun intended—and she probably shouldn’t, like, crush a small child’s hopes and dreams with the reality that her thumbs remain boringly flesh-colored year round. 

Violet beams up at her, and Astrid’s heart immediately stops melting, stutters, and tightens into a deeper feeling of something a little more— what, she isn’t sure. But more, yeah.

Definitely something more.

☃☃☃

Liam knocks on her door later that week with the infamous mangled package in his hands, and Astrid almost thinks he’s taking the piss out of her until his eyebrows wrinkle and he gets this dumb-puppy look on his face and he says “help, please.” 

It turns out Liam is absolute rubbish at wrapping gifts, and so after Astrid helps him tape red striped paper around the pink Barbie box, he shows up the next day with an entire basket full of presents he’s been putting off wrapping for the better part of six months. 

“Six months, really?” Astrid says, torn between amusement and disbelief.

 Liam shrugs, flushing a bit. “I just, like— when I see things that remind me of people in my life, I buy it straightaway cos otherwise I’ll forget and wind up scrambling around the week before Christmas, and, well, yeah.” He ruffles up the back of his hair self-consciously, and Astrid has to fight the urge to grab his hand and stop him from looking so nervous.

 Astrid, by the way, is totally one of those people who scrambles around the week before Christmas because she hasn’t bought a single present for anyone as of December 18th.

 She admits this to Liam, and he promptly offers to go shopping with her and carry all the heavy shopping bags she’s sure to end up with, “provide a little muscle, eh?”

 Astrid looks over to see that he’s somehow stuck his fingers together with double-sided tape.

 She snorts.

 “Yeah, sure.”

☃☃☃

“Much better,” Liam says happily, and Astrid hums her agreement.

 The two of them have emerged from an afternoon at Wolverhampton’s Christmas market laden down with bags and bordering on grumpy from the swarming crowd around them

 Liam, bless his sensible little heart, had suggested a much-needed break in the form of the giant mugs of hot cider sold by one of the vendors, and they’ve now camped out along the edge of the market, leaning up against a fence spun through with fairy lights.

 “So,” Astrid blows on her cider carefully, watching the steam curl away into the cold December air.  “Are you going home for Christmas, then?”

 “Nah, me and Vi are just going to my parents’ house for Boxing Day. We’re going to have Christmas Day for the two of us, start up a new tradition and all.”

 “That’s really sweet,” Astrid says, taking a tiny sip from her mug and frowning immediately as it singes her tongue.

 “Careful, it’s hot,” Liam says belatedly, blowing a little obnoxiously on his own cider.

 Astrid elbows him. “Gee, thanks.”

 He laughs back, looking the tiniest bit smug. “What about you— are you going home for Christmas?”

 “No, I’m not. Can’t quite afford it this year,” Astrid shrugs, matter-of-fact. “Tickets to Seoul aren’t very budget-friendly, so I usually go in the spring for my mum’s birthday. Having a bit of an ‘orphan’s Christmas’ with some mates instead, should be fun.”

 She tastefully elects to not mention that Christmas in the Jo household has always been an unnecessarily stressful affair, thanks to her mum’s fanatical need to outmatch her always top-notch hostessing from years prior.

 And the fact that her entire extended family always makes the long trip to Seoul, meaning the Jo apartment is inevitably packed wall-to-wall with distant relatives who still don’t understand why Astrid lives in a dreary little town in England, even though it’s been eight bloody years since she moved here.

 And yeah, it’s possible Astrid had watched a few too many movies with her gran growing up, movies that showed gran’s native England as this magical, fog-filled, snow-blanketed wonderland that she just had to live in.

 And maybe by the time Astrid figured out that “fog-filled” meant rainy as hell and “snow-blanketed” lasted for all of two days before the rain washed it away, she already had a decent job and wonderfully insane friends and she’d never wanted to stay in Seoul her whole life, anyway.

 Really, the “it’s too expensive” excuse is a blessing in disguise— getting roaringly drunk and eating obscene amounts of Chinese food with her friends is going to be an infinitely better time.

 Astrid tips her head at Liam. “So your family lives nearby, I’m guessing?”

 “Yeah,” he says, “I’m quite lucky, my parents live just outside Wolverhampton so it’s dead easy to pop over to see them. Before Violet and I moved back, we were down in London with— ah, with Vi’s mum, so.” Liam’s eyes go flat, and he shuffles around a bit, kicking up the slush at their feet.

 “Your parents must like having you and Violet so close, I bet,” Astrid smiles at him, suddenly desperate to get that downtrodden look off his face.

 He brightens instantly, she’s happy to see.

 “Yeah, mum loves getting to see her darling granddaughter every chance she gets. Spoils her rotten, but, y’know, that’s what grans do. It’s been nice being close to them again, it really is.” Liam smiles sideways at her, and Astrid mirrors the action instinctively, all warmed up from the inside out from cider and holiday songs and twinkling lights and one really really lovely man.

☃☃☃

They drive back to the apartment building as the sky creeps into navy night, and Liam chatters on and on about Payne family Christmases and the matching pyjamas he and Violet have every year and how last year he nearly knocked the tree down when he was Santa-ing Violet’s presents into place at midnight.

 Astrid learns that when Liam’s really, really happy, his smile goes so wide that his eyes squinch up into little lines of happiness.

 She learns that under his dad sweaters and dad jeans is a former-lawyer-turned-book-editor, “cos I really just got sick of having to wear a suit all the time, y’know?”

 She learns that under that former-lawyer-turned-book-editor is another layer of dad sweaters and dad jeans because his daughter is honestly the light of his life, and Astrid doesn’t think Liam ever stops smiling when he says Violet’s name.

 Astrid learns that maybe she wants Liam to get that sort of crinkle-eyed look when he looks at her.

Huh.

☃☃☃

Astrid realizes that she’s somehow been appointed the Payne family Christmas elf when she goes over to their flat the next day, under the apparently misguided impression that she’s been invited to one of their legendary hot cocoa and movie nights.

 She figures out it’s a ruse when, halfway through How The Grinch Stole Christmas, Liam very loudly announces that he’s going to go whip up another batch of hot cocoa, should take ages, or at the very least a solid half hour.

 He puts the movie on pause, and with a guileless look that’s fooling absolutely no one, goes into the kitchen where he starts banging around pots and pans very pointedly.

 So when Violet pulls out a stack of construction paper and markers and announces that she’s going to “make a Christmas card for Daddy, I’m going to draw him a picture of Santa, you can help me with the glitter glue! And can you write ‘Happy Christmas! Lots of love from Violet’ in it?” Astrid is barely fazed.

 “Of course, love,” she says, and helps Violet print her name neatly with a string of hugs and kisses, “x-o-x-o-x-o, just like that, darling.”

 And when Violet hands her a piece of green paper and a purple marker and orders her to “make a card for daddy too, he loves Christmas cards,” well, Astrid can hardly say no to the most preciously precocious four-year-old she’s ever met, can she?

☃☃☃

Christmas Eve rolls around, and despite herself, Astrid finds herself feeling ever so slightly despondent.

 Maybe it’s just that she’s gotten sucked into the sappiness of all the holiday movies she marathons every December, but something about spending Christmas Eve alone seems… well, lonely.

 She eyes the pale grey sky outside and lets out a small sigh. She’d rather been hoping for snow— if she had to spend Christmas Eve in Wolverhampton, the very least the universe could do was provide her with a white Christmas.

 She’s just ticked the kettle on for a mug of self-pity tea when there’s a brisk knock on the door.

 And when she opens it, Astrid feels like maybe she did fall into a Christmas movie when she wasn’t looking. One of those ones in which an adorable elf shows the tragic young woman the meaning of Christmas joy!

Or something.

 “Hello!” Violet says, waving up at her, looking the very picture of Christmas spirit.

 Astrid looks across the hall to see Liam leaning against the doorframe, looking bemused.

 She raises her eyebrows at him, and he mirrors the action, nodding at his daughter encouragingly.

 Astrid bends down to the little girl’s level. “Hi, darling,” she says, tilting her head to the side to show that Violet has her full attention.

 Good god, she’s adorable in her little Christmas tree sweater and braided pigtails.

 “Do you wanna—” Violet stops, starts again. “Me an’ daddy wanna—” She frowns, then spins around to find Liam. “Daddy!” she whispers loudly, panic rising high in her small voice.

 Keeping an impressively straight face, Liam strolls across the hall and promptly swings Violet up into his arms. He whispers something in her ear, and she nods vigorously.

 Propping his daughter up on his hip, Liam says brightly, “We were wondering if you’d like to pop over to ours for Christmas Eve?” Violet beams, nodding along to her dad’s words.

 “Ah—” Astrid says uselessly, not entirely sure what to say.

 “We’ve made a massive feast,” Liam swoops in to say, “and the two of us can’t possibly eat the whole thing, even if this one is a little monster.” He pokes Violet in the side, and she obligingly makes a tiny “rawr” noise, scrunching up her nose and everything.

 Astrid blinks at the pair of them and carefully reminds herself to stand up straight and hold it together because she’s a bloody adult, for christ’s sake.

 “So…?” Liam prompts, beaming hopefully at her..

 “Please say yes, Ash-trid!”

 Astrid presses her lips together to hide her smile at the mispronunciation. “Yes, okay,” she concedes, and Violet lets out a shrill shriek, practically buzzing out of Liam’s arms in her glee.

 “Alright, monster,” he laughs, letting his daughter untangle herself and drop to the ground.

 And when Violet immediately runs over to wrap her arms around Astrid’s legs, and when Astrid kneels down so she can give her a proper hug, and when Astrid looks up to see Liam smiling fondly at the two of them, well—

 What’s the harm in a little Hallmark movie magic around Christmastime, anyway?

☃☃☃

 haaaappy christmas lots of love liam + violet xxxx

violet says that should be xoxoxoxo, sorry??

haha tell violet xoxoxo from me, yeah?

and happy christmas :) :)

were gonna have a little new years party next week if ur free??

or u probably already have plans dont worry abt it