Chapter Text
There was a brief, blurring field of white outside the train window as Doncaster finally came into view — flurries drifting sideways in the wind, powder dusting the platforms, the kind of half-hearted snowfall that wasn’t impressive enough to cancel anything yet still managed to coat every surface in a thin, cold film. Not quite a winter wonderland, but just enough snow for some determined child to craft a lopsided snowman or flop into a snow angel.
And definitely enough to piss Louis off.
He’d been staring past the horizon longer than was reasonable, jaw set, fingers tapping against his knee like the train had personally offended him. December in Doncaster always did this to him. Not because he hated home — he loved the place, really — but because December itself was a cursed month. The worst one on the calendar.
The cold that sliced right through coats. The crowds that materialized out of nowhere. The obnoxious Christmas cheer plastered on every shop window and every stranger’s face. And, of course, the biggest insult of all: his own bloody birthday swallowed whole by tinsel and holiday chaos.
Born on Christmas Eve — a cosmic joke if he’d ever heard one. Festivities eclipsing any hope of a proper celebration, leaving him with a lifetime of “We’ll just do something after the holidays, yeah?” and joint gifts wrapped in Santa paper. It wasn’t the end of the world, he supposed. Just another year older, another candle on a cake no one truly looked at. But it always stung, even if he’d long stopped admitting it.
So he’d learned to live with it. Mostly.
Now, though, he was bracing himself for the incoming storm that was his family — the chaos he could already feel from miles away. Being the oldest — and, until the newly arrived twin babies added one more boy into the mix, basically the lone man in a sea of sisters — meant he was the de facto role model. The one they clung to. The one they shouted for. The one who couldn’t so much as breathe without someone wanting his attention.
And they loved Christmas with a deranged ferocity.
His mum, Jay, would already have the matching pajamas ordered — custom embroidery and all, because she believed in going the extra mile. The girls were surely sugar-buzzed by now, ricocheting off walls. And the house… oh, the house was absolutely drowning in tinsel. Jay probably had the place decorated before November had finished clearing its throat.
Louis exhaled slowly, forehead resting briefly against the cold glass. He wasn’t even home yet, and he could already feel the holiday headache settling in.
When the train finally screeched into the last station in Doncaster, Louis stepped out onto the platform with all the enthusiasm of someone walking into their own execution. The conductor was shouting something about delays, return departures, and platform changes — none of which Louis had the bandwidth to care about. A wave of bundled-up passengers poured out behind him, their boots crunching through the thin blanket of snow that coated the concrete like the town had dusted everything in icing sugar.
The cold hit him instantly, sharp and intrusive, slipping under his collar and nipping at his ears. He adjusted the duffel strap digging into his shoulder and glanced down at his watch, already dreading what it would say. Forty-five minutes until his mum could pick him up. Forty-five minutes of freezing his arse off or wandering around Donny like a lost Victorian orphan. Perfect. Just the kind of heartwarming December vibe he loved.
He let out a long sigh, watching it fog into the air before it drifted away like even his breath didn’t want to stick around. Walking it is, then. He shoved his hands deep into his pockets and headed toward the main stretch of downtown — a route he knew by heart but hadn’t exactly missed.
Moments like this made him deeply resent every ounce of generosity he’d shown Zayn when he said, “Yeah, mate, you can use my car while I’m home for the holidays.” Present Louis wanted to go back in time and slap Past Louis across the face. Because now, trudging through the icy air with a duffel threatening to dislocate his shoulder, all he could think about was how nice it would’ve been to sit in the driver’s seat with the heater blasting, cursing the world from inside a warm metal box.
But no. He was here. On foot. Freezing.
As he moved closer to the town square, the noise grew louder — the unmistakable soundtrack of December chaos. Kids were shrieking with the kind of pure, uninhibited joy only possible during the holidays, their laughter bouncing off shop windows. Everywhere he turned, carols blared from speakers mounted above storefronts, each shop seeming determined to out-festive the one next to it. Adults were out in full force, juggling shopping bags, pushing prams, chatting loudly about nothing and everything as if the entire world needed to hear about their holiday plans.
It felt like the whole of Doncaster had transformed overnight from a normal town into a Christmas-themed theme park, and Louis had somehow wandered in without signing a waiver.
God. He had not missed this.
“I need coffee before dealing with my own siblings,” he muttered, turning down a familiar street. “Jesus. Maybe something with enough caffeine to stop my heart.”
He wasn’t even being dramatic. Well — maybe a little.
It was then that he noticed the café. At the very end of the strip, slightly tucked between a gift shop and some new place that looked like it sold artisanal candles, sat a storefront he’d never seen before. And that was strange because Louis had lived here most of his life, and Doncaster wasn’t exactly known for popping up new businesses overnight.
Yet here it was: warm golden lights glowing through fogged windows, spilling onto the snow-dusted pavement in a soft halo. The kind of cozy glow interior designers on Instagram would probably describe as “inviting” or “hygge” or some other word Louis normally rolled his eyes at.
A chalkboard sign sat outside the door, its wooden frame worn and slightly warped from too much weather.
In swirly handwriting, someone had written:
Holiday Joy in a Cup!
And just beside it — a truly heinous drawing of a mug with a Santa hat perched on top. There were also a dozen other drinks scrawled underneath but Louis wasn’t about to stand on a sidewalk in the cold squinting at an essay-length menu.
He took a slow look around as if double-checking the universe for tricks, then back at the café. He didn’t know what was luring him more — curiosity or caffeine, both powerful forces in his life — but either way, he found himself reaching for the door handle.
The second he stepped inside, he was hit with Christmas so intensely it was practically physical.
Warmth enveloped him immediately, soft and heavy, like he’d just walked into a hug he hadn’t agreed to. The air was saturated with cinnamon, vanilla bean, pine, melting sugar, nutmeg, and something that smelled dangerously close to—gingerbread? It was the kind of scent that would give him a headache in twenty minutes but also made him want to sigh into it like a decadent recluse.
Behind him, the little brass bell above the door jingled a bright, enthusiastic tiding-of-great-joy sort of jingle that felt deeply unnecessary.
Inside, everything was glowing. Fairy lights draped from exposed beams and shelves. Garlands wound around the doorframes and windows. Candles flickered on every table, though he couldn’t quite tell if they were real or just aggressively convincing electric ones. A few customers lounged on cushioned seats, chatting quietly, their breath fogging the tops of their steaming mugs. Snow clung to their coats in glittery flecks, melting onto dark wood floors.
From the speakers came a soft, jazzy rendition of a Christmas classic — maybe Let It Snow or one of its close musical cousins — the melody warm and nostalgic in a way Louis absolutely refused to admit he liked.
He stood there for a long moment, taking everything in.
His gaze drifted toward the far end of the café, where a rickety wooden ladder wobbled slightly against the wall. At the very top perched a lanky bloke with a mop of curls so chaotic they looked like they had personally fought the winter wind and lost. He was wrestling a strand of garland into place, tongue poking out in pure concentration as he nearly looped the thing around his own neck like some festive noose.
“Shit,” the boy muttered under his breath — loud enough that Louis heard it, soft enough that it was clearly unintentional.
Louis watched him far longer than he meant to. Partly because the whole scene was mildly concerning, partly because it was undeniably funny, and partly because there was something…ridiculously endearing about someone who could almost strangle himself with tinsel before noon.
Then the boy turned — and their eyes caught.
He grinned. Just a small, quick thing. But the kind that carved dimples so deep Louis suspected they had their own gravitational pull. Bloody hell. Dimples should not be allowed before caffeine.
“Be with you in just a sec!” the boy chirped, far too bright, far too cheerful for any human operating a ladder.
Louis blinked rapidly. “Yeah, uh… take your time. No rush.” Which — unfortunately — came out more like he’d swallowed his own tongue.
The boy scrambled down the ladder with a thud of boots against wood, hair bouncing, cheeks pink from exertion or maybe just general Christmas enthusiasm. When he reached the counter, slightly out of breath, Louis spotted a single pine needle stuck in his curls. The effect was… accidentally charming. Chaotic in that way some people just naturally are — like he lived entirely in his own little snow globe.
“Sorry about that,” he said, smiling like he genuinely meant it. “Welcome to The Copper Kettle — what can I get for you?”
There were those dimples again. For the love of God.
Louis huffed a quiet laugh. “Does this overly festive place offer just a simple coffee? I’ll take that. Bit of milk.”
The boy nodded enthusiastically and stepped away, and the scent of brewing beans filled the air — warm and dark beneath all the cinnamon and gingerbread.
Louis glanced at the pastry case, pretending to study scones he absolutely wasn’t buying. “Say,” he called, “I’ve grown up here and never seen this place. How long’s it been open?”
“Only about a year!” the boy replied, voice floating over the hiss of the machine. “Moved from Manchester and bought the shop. Used to be a pawn shop, I think?”
Louis snorted. “Very Donny to replace a pawn shop with…whatever this is.”
The boy returned with the cup — naturally, in the most aggressively Christmassy cup imaginable. Deep green, patterned sleeve covered in tiny gold trees, looking like it came straight from Santa’s personal pottery wheel.
“I think the café fits perfectly,” he said cheerfully. “That’ll be £2.50.”
Louis tapped his card, grabbed the cup, letting the heat seep into his fingers. “Cheers. Have a good one,” he muttered, trying not to sound flustered about speaking to someone who literally had pine stuck in his head.
The boy flashed another dimpled grin — rude, truly — before turning back to his ladder like nothing could bring him joy the way hanging garland did.
Louis pushed back out into the cold, the bell at the door giving that obnoxious little jingle again as if announcing him to the street. Outside, the air bit sharply at his cheeks, snow dust swirling in little spirals at his feet. He lifted the cup, eyeing it like it might explode into a carol at any moment.
One sip. Immediate regret.
“Jesus—” he grimaced, wincing at the unexpected sweetness. “Bloody hell.”
Still, he kept drinking. Mostly because he needed the warmth. And the caffeine. And maybe because the stupid cup was sort of…cute, in a dizzy, holiday-vomit kind of way.
He glanced at his watch — still ages before his mum would arrive. Figures. But at least he had something hot in his hands, and a sliver of energy returning to his limbs.
As he started back down the street, he cast one last look over his shoulder at the café. Twinkle lights glowing through the window, garland swaying where the boy had nearly strangled himself, that chalkboard sign leaning crookedly by the door.
A faint scoff escaped him. “If Doncaster’s gone soft enough for a Christmas café…” he muttered, shaking his head.
The coffee was decent, though.
Chapter 2: Chapter 2
Chapter Text
A moment of peace — a rare moment, really — lasted only the five hours Louis managed to sleep. Coming home last night had been exactly what anyone with sense would expect: Jay swinging open the front door with a baby on her hip and a shriek of joy like he’d just returned from war; Daisy practically trying to crawl inside his jacket, clutching some Christmas teddy bear Lottie had apparently sacrificed an entire day’s wage for; the twins wide-eyed and sticky-fingered; wrapping paper explosions; someone already wearing reindeer antlers. It was a full sensory assault, and honestly remarkable he’d slept at all.
Right up until 9 a.m. When the house erupted.
Kids screaming downstairs about burnt toast. Someone tearing into him for finishing the cereal even though he literally just walked in last night. The unmistakable sound of the telly blasting Frosty the Snowman loud enough to rattle the windows. Babies crying. Sisters shouting over each other. The whole place sounded like Santa’s workshop if Santa let toddlers run quality control.
“Fuck sake,” Louis groaned, slinging an arm over his face as if that alone could block out the noise. “Should’ve just stayed in London at this rate.”
It took a few minutes to even remember his own name, let alone gather the courage to move. Eventually, he swung his legs over the side of the bed and began the dreaded descent. The noise grew louder with every step — a rising wall of sound that nearly sent him bolting back upstairs to bury himself under twelve blankets and fake his own death. Almost.
He did love them. Unfortunately.
The second he stepped into the kitchen, it was another full sensory overload. Toast burning, the smell of it hitting him like a brick. Wrapping paper already spreading across the counters — in early December, Christ help them all. Phoebe whining that her toast hadn’t even been buttered yet. The kettle screaming. Jay in full festive overdrive, humming along to the radio while sipping coffee from a massive bright-red Santa mug topped with peppermint cold foam like she’d singlehandedly committed to perpetuating holiday cheer for the entire country.
“Good morning, sunshine!” Jay beamed, as if anyone should be that happy willingly. “You’re awake early. Sit, sit! Get some breakfast in you — you’re quite thin.”
Before he could protest, she herded him toward an empty chair with the force of a sheepdog, depositing him like a sack of potatoes. A full English appeared in front of him almost instantly — extra sausage for good measure, eggs, tomatoes, mushrooms, and of course beans he hated but she insisted on pretending he loved.
“Mum,” Louis groaned, looking up at her with pure suffering. “I don’t need this much. But… thanks.”
Jay scoffed dramatically and thrust a steaming mug of coffee into his hands — mercifully normal, without whipped cream or cinnamon or whatever crimes she committed to her own mug. “Well, how would I know? You’re stick-thin. Are you even eating properly in London? Work pushing you so much you can’t cook? Or is it those takeaway shops doing you in?”
Louis rolled his eyes and took a sip of coffee, letting warmth settle in his chest. It was good. Rich. Ground in a way that tasted like she still used that old machine he bought her years ago for Mother’s Day. Not at all like the unhinged sugar-bomb he’d endured yesterday.
“I eat fine, Mum,” he mumbled around another sip.
Jay waved him off like he’d personally offended her. “Need to get you a woman in your life who’ll cook for you. You used to have a bit of pudge in your belly.”
Louis stabbed at a sausage with all the dignity of a man accepting defeat, tuning her out with practiced precision as she continued rambling about his tragic lack of domestic structure.
He managed to shovel a generous scoop of beans onto Lottie’s plate when Jay wasn’t looking. Lottie froze mid-bite, slowly lifting her gaze toward him with the kind of dead-eyed, older-sister glare that could peel paint off a wall. Louis only answered with an overly innocent grin, raising his brows as if to say, you like beans, don’t be dramatic. Lottie muttered something under her breath but kept eating, and Louis happily reclaimed his plate, victorious.
From across the kitchen, Jay rustled through a stack of sticky notes and a notebook that looked like it held the entire month’s holiday schedule. “Lou! Do you think you could help me decorate today?” she called, already halfway distracted by whatever list she was cross-checking. “I need to get some garland up, and I’m not sure where the ladder’s gone.”
Louis’ eyes nearly shot out of his skull. Decorating. Garlands. Ladders. Immediate, full-body rejection. Absolutely not.
“Uh—” he stalled, scrambling for the first feasible excuse that wouldn’t get him roped into scaling walls for tinsel, “I’m meeting with Liam today, actually. Like in… ten minutes. So I can’t. Sorry.”
Jay perked up so fast she nearly spilled her Santa-mug coffee. “Liam! Oh, I haven’t seen him in ages!”
Of course she hadn’t. That was the risk of using Liam as a human shield — she actually liked him.
Louis pushed back his chair and stood, taking his plate to the bin, scraping the remnants with practiced urgency. “I’ll make sure he comes round for dinner sometime,” he offered with a tight smile — the kind of smile that definitely did not mean that. Not even a little.
Because the last time Liam came round, Louis was convinced Jay had been two seconds away from drawing up wedding invitations. The poor lad practically fled the house. And Louis already had one stepdad — he didn’t need a second one named Liam Payne.
⋆꙳❅* •❆ ₊⋆
The local gym Liam owned was—thank God—the least festive building in all of Doncaster. No blinding tinsel, no twinkling lights plotting to give him a migraine, no inflatable snowmen threatening his will to live. Just the steady hum of treadmills and the smell of sweat and industrial-strength cleaner. The only nod to Christmas was a tiny fake tree sulking in the corner near the entrance, decorated with whatever mismatched ornaments the patrons had brought in over the years. A limp tinsel star hung off its top like it had given up sometime in mid-November.
Honestly, it was the only place Louis could breathe without being assaulted by holiday cheer.
He stood with his back against the wall, thumb drifting lazily across his phone screen while Liam wrapped up a training session. The gym echoed with the usual chorus of clanking weights and grunts—no carols, no jingles, no “Santa Baby” threatening to ruin his morning. Bliss.
Liam clapped his hands, sent his trainee off with a cheery goodbye, then turned toward Louis with a grin big enough to melt the polar ice caps. “Hey mate! When’d you get back in town?” he beamed, entirely unaffected by the storm cloud hovering over Louis’ head.
“Last night,” Louis muttered, shoving his phone back into his pocket. “And it’s definitely been a treat.”
Liam barked a laugh, already gathering loose dumbbells from the floor. “You’re quite the Scrooge, you know that?”
Louis pushed himself off the wall and picked up a stray weight, handing it over. “Right, sorry. Forgot it’s the most wonderful time of the year—also known as the single worst month of my life.” He gave a dry, humorless laugh.
Liam paused just long enough to give him a slow, pointed look. “Worst month of your life? It’s Christmas… and your birthday. You’re impossible.”
“Exactly.” Louis shook his head like it was obvious. “That’s two excuses for people to annoy me for thirty straight days.”
Liam pulled out his phone, thumbing through his calendar with a soft chuckle. “Alright, Grinch. Here’s a compromise. How about we go for a pint on your birthday? Nothing big. No surprises. Lowkey.”
Louis looked at him, deadpan. “Lowkey as in actually lowkey, or lowkey as in you tell the bartender it’s my birthday and suddenly I’m being serenaded by four drunk blokes in reindeer jumpers?”
Liam rolled his eyes but couldn’t hide the grin. “Proper lowkey. Promise.”
“Alright, Payne. I’m holding you to that.” Louis chuckled, pointing at him like a warning and a promise all in one.
What was supposed to be a quick check-in had stretched into nearly an hour, because of course it had. Liam had asked forty-seven questions about Zayn, pretending he wasn’t the one who regularly hijacked Louis’ phone to talk to him directly anytime his name so much as popped up on the screen. They caught up on gym gossip, London chaos, and the usual holiday madness they were both pretending they weren’t already stressed about.
By the time Louis finally ducked out of the gym, the world outside had shifted into that perfect late-afternoon winter glow—golden light bending through the cold like honey poured over a snow globe. The thin layer of frost over the pavement sparkled, and the snow didn’t look blindingly white anymore, just mellowed, softened. Louis could admit it was… nice. Not enough to make him festive, obviously. But nice.
He drove through town on autopilot, snark simmering at the ready, when his gaze snagged—immediately, involuntarily—on the sign for the café from yesterday. His eyes flicked toward the windows before he could stop them. The warm fairy lights. The frosted glass. The soft glow of something baking. And then… him.
Louis’ foot lifted slightly off the accelerator, and the car rolled to a slow, unplanned stop at the curb.
There he was again. The lanky bloke with the curls and the dimples and the aggressively enthusiastic attitude toward seasonal décor. He was outside now, wrapping a string of fairy lights around the post by the door like it was a sacred ritual. The wind kept catching the lights, tangling them, but he just laughed—actually laughed—like he genuinely enjoyed the struggle.
Louis sat there in the idling car, fingers resting on the steering wheel, not moving. Not leaving.
For one wild second, he debated getting out. He could use another coffee. And the warmth. And—well. Whatever. But the idea of walking in there, of facing all that cheer and all those dimples again?
Absolutely not.
Instead, he just watched. Through the windshield, through the frost, through the stupid little pang of something he refused to name. The bloke was humming along to something Louis couldn’t hear but definitely recognized as festive, judging by the way he bobbed his head like an overgrown elf who had never known despair.
“Who’s that cheerful hanging tinsel and lights like it’s a sport? Must be exhausting, all that… joy,” Louis muttered to himself, rubbing at his jaw.
The boy looked up suddenly—just a glance around, nothing specific—but Louis snapped his gaze away so fast he nearly gave himself whiplash. He grabbed his phone mount, adjusting it like it was the most complicated machine he’d ever seen. After a second, he risked a side-eye.
Not looking. Thank god.
Louis let out a long breath, turned the key in the ignition again, and shook his head. “Whole place is being overrun by Christmas freaks,” he grumbled, flicking on the radio.
“All I Want for Christmas Is You” hit him at full volume.
He stared at the speakers in betrayal. Then turned it down. Not off—he didn’t have the willpower for that kind of effort. Just low enough that Mariah couldn’t fully judge him.
He pulled away from the curb, the glow of the café shrinking in the rearview mirror, even as a part of him—small, quiet, annoying—kept glancing back.
Irene1975 on Chapter 1 Mon 01 Dec 2025 12:30PM UTC
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