i. cacophony
It was the end of November, after the Thanksgiving and Black Friday chaos, and the first time Natalie had been out of the house since. Bundled up in a coat and scarf, a hat pulled over her ears, she walked purposefully without purpose, her boyfriend at her back.
"Where are we going, Gingersnap?" he asked, rubbing his hands together and watching his breath form a cloud in front of him. "It's cold."
When she didn't answer after a moment, he looked to her.
"Natalie?"
She stopped, and looked back at him with a cheeky smile.
"Who said we were going anywhere? I just wanted to come watch them put up the Christmas decorations."
She turned back around and strode forward, into the square, her smile growing wider the closer they got at the music blasting from the speakers of the shops around them.
"Christmas music!" She hadn't considered it when she'd made the decision to come down here, it having somehow slipped her mind, but now that it was assaulting her ears from every angle, she didn't know how she could have ever forgotten.
Michael watched her grin, swinging her arms as she walked, looking on at the decorating efforts and humming the songs under her breath.
Coming forward, he grabbed the hand closest to him, making her glance over and aim that smile at him, her cheeks and the tip of her nose flushed from the cold. His breath caught, and she interlocked their fingers, but never ceased swinging her arm, pulling his along, too.
He laughed, and soon they were both loudly, and badly, singing Christmas songs as they made their way around the square, ignoring the dirty looks they got.
ii. choice
"There's a lot."
"Well, it is a tree farm."
"Touché."
They looked at one another, but Nat couldn't keep a straight face for long, and dissolved into giggles. Michael couldn't help but laugh as well. Her happiness was infectious.
"Okay, okay, we might as well start looking. We have to find the perfect tree. There's no time to waste!"
They both began walking in opposite direction, but neither seemed to notice, set on their task.
It was only when Natalie found a nice tree and turned to Michael for his opinion that she realized he wasn't there.
Frowning, she looked for him, rising on her toes to see if she could spot him through the cracks in the trees.
"Michael?" she called, receiving no response except the whisper of the wind and the chatter of the others searching for their own tree. She took off, back through the rows, retracing her steps to find him.
On the other side of the farm, Michael was searching for her as well. After a few minutes of aimless wandering, he heard his name.
"Natalie?"
"Michael!"
He tried to follow the voice, but every time he got closer, it seemed to get further away. They weaved in and out of the trees, and soon what started out as trying to get back to one another turned into a game of just the opposite.
Natalie darted through the trees, Michael catching glimpses of her hair through the branches, following her laugh when he lost sight of her.
When she ran out of trees, Michael rushed forward, catching her around the waist and throwing them both to the ground.
Both were huffing, laughing breathlessly, their faces red.
"You got a pair of legs on you, Gingersnap," he got out between gasps, grinning, and she wiggled underneath him.
"I've been told," she said cheekily, and then her eyes caught on something over his shoulder.
"What is it?"
"Look."
He rolled off of her and sat up, following her gaze. There stood the perfect tree, not too big, not too small, its bristles glistening in the late afternoon sun.
"There it is. It's perfect."
"Even more perfect than your hair," Natalie teased, booping his nose as she stood. He sputtered in mock indignation and she laughed.
iii. color
"No, no, look. You can't just wrap them around all willy nilly. There's a method to this madness, I promise you."
Michael huffed as Nat took the string of lights from his hand.
"I think I know how to put lights on a tree, Nat."
Natalie gave him a sly little smirk.
"Maybe, but I know how to do it better!" she sang, and danced her way around the tree, stringing the lights carefully across the branches.
"What am I supposed to do then?"
"There's a whole box of decorations, I'm sure you can make yourself useful." She poked her tongue out at him, before making another round around the tree, disappearing from his view for a few moments.
He turned towards the old box, pulling out wreaths and little Santa figurines and bundles of garland.
They worked silently for the most part, the Christmas music playing in the background and their occasional teasing the only breaks in the quiet.
When Natalie finished wrapping the lights to her liking, she slipped away. Michael hardly noticed, until he turned to her for her opinion on the garland and she wasn't there.
"Making me do all the work by myself?" he called, walking forward, going to find her, but he didn't have to go far. She emerged from the kitchen then, two mugs in her hands, with candy canes sticking out the tops, except half the curve had snapped off of one, and the other was missing it completely.
She handed him the better one, and he took it, looking down into the mug. Hot chocolate, but shards of his abused candy cane was floating along the top, melting into the warm drink.
"How did you manage to mess up candy canes?" he asked, a laughing twinkle in his blue eyes as he raised his head to meet hers. A blush colored her cheeks, but she laughed, waving him off.
"It's impossible to get them out of those teeny wrappers. It's not my fault."
They took a break to drink their hot chocolate (it was more powder than liquid, but Michael wouldn't admit that out loud), sitting together on the couch, Natalie asking him questions about anything and everything to fill the silence.
When they finished, she took the mugs back to the kitchen, and then returned to the living room. She walked right by him, going to the big box of decorations and shuffling through it, until she found a smaller box. She pulled it out and looked up at him with a bright smile.
"Time to decorate the tree!"
She turned the music up, and they sang along as they each took a handful of ornaments, hooking them onto the branches. With both of them working, it didn't take long, even with Michael's complaints about her "tacky" decorations every time he pulled out something her or Max had made when they were younger. Natalie shoved him with her shoulder every time he did, but when they were done, she stood back and looked at the tree, giving a satisfied nod.
"Looks good, doesn't it?"
"I think I got the better view," he replied from behind her, and she smiled before she caught his meaning beneath the laugh in his voice, and gasped, turning to smack his chest.
She opened her mouth to reprimand him, but he grabbed her wrist and tugged her back to the box of ornaments.
"Now where's the angel for the top?" he interrupted loudly, and she forgot about his comment completely.
"Oh, we don't have an angel. We have a star." Michael looked as if she'd insulted him personally.
"No angel? That's nothing short of blasphemy, Gingersnap. We have to fix that."
"You can get up there," Nat said with a cheeky grin, and Michael's eyes narrowed at her.
"Har har. Let's go."
"Go where?"
"To get you an angel."
"But I have one right here."
"You think you're so funny."
"Yup!"
xxx
Nearly an hour later, Nat was sticking an angel on top of the tree in place of the usual star.
"Happy?"
"Very."
Nat rolled her eyes, then looked around the room. There was Christmas reds and greens everywhere, and the tree shined bright with oranges and blues and purples and yellows, dancing across the walls and floor, illuminating the room as the sun went down.
"It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas," Natalie hummed, looking up at Michael with a smile. He wrapped his arms around her waist from behind, and she leaned against him.
"Michaelmas is better," he huffed in her ear, and she laughed for the next ten minutes.
iv. circumstance
Chelle was having a Christmas party, and Natalie had dragged Michael along with her. She was cradling a cup of apple cider to her chest with one hand, the other clutching Michael's as she made her rounds, talking to nearly everyone in the room. She wished Mike a happy birthday, detaching from his lookalike briefly to give her friend a hug.
Michael was still unnerved that the boy shared his face, but Natalie only laughed him off.
"Don't worry, you're still prettier," she assured him, patting his hand and barely containing a snort when he side-eyed her.
"Don't patronize me."
"Well, I never!" Natalie gasped, feigning offense, only to dissolve into more giggles at Michael's sour look. "Okay, okay, I'm sorry."
"No, you're not." A familiar little mischievous grin came to Natalie's face, and Michael knew he'd caught her in her bluff. Before he could comment on it, she downed the rest of her cider.
"Oh, would you look at that? I'm all out. I'm going to get some more, I'll be back!" She disappeared between the throngs of people, and Michael shook his head, going to lean against the wall to wait for her return.
He shoved his hands in his pockets, propping a leg up, and made a game out of counting how many times people came up to him thinking him to be the Panagakos kid.
After the seventh had approached him and he'd redirected them, he began to wonder where Nat was. It shouldn't have taken so long to just refill her cup.
He pushed off the wall and made his way through the crowd, looking for the ginger with the Santa hat. It didn't take him long - she wasn't even in the kitchen yet, instead being occupied just outside of it, talking to several people.
The way she was moving her hands around told him she hadn't even filled her cup up yet. She glanced over and caught his eye, and then turned back to the group she was with. She said a few more words, then came back to his side.
"You were taking too long," he said, pouting a little.
"I got caught up with a few friends I haven't talked to in awhile," she said, smiling sheepishly. "Let me fill it up now."
She made her way back into the kitchen, where only a few people lingered, to get herself some more cider. He leaned in the doorway, waiting on her.
When she was satisfied, she met him in the doorway. He straightened up, but a few of the people around them starting ooohing, their eyes trained on something above their heads.
Both Michael and Natalie froze, before turning their own eyes upwards, only to find they were caught under mistletoe.
Natalie looked at him and flushed pink, as friends and strangers alike began chanting for a kiss. His own cheeks darkened, and for a moment neither did anything.
Then Nat rose up on her toes and pressed her lips to his cheek, lingering there for longer than necessary.
When she pulled away, she was red, and couldn't meet his eyes, even as those around them teasingly protested that that wasn't a "real" kiss. She made a blind grab for his hand and then pushed past the people, back until they were submerged in the crowd once more.
It didn't take much for her blush to fade and for her to immerse herself back into the party, but he felt the burn of her lips on his cheek for the rest of the night.
v. commencement
There were at least half a dozen New Years' parties that were going on at the time, but Nat had wanted to stay home, and who was he to protest being alone with her?
She had ordered a pizza and they had played dumb games and at one point she had pulled out a package of frozen cookie dough that they attempted to bake while they waited for midnight (attempted because they had forgotten them, and by the time they had pulled them from the oven, they were charred and hard as a rock. "Little late for coal, isn't it?" Natalie had laughed, knocking one against the edge of the counter).
Now they were on the couch, her legs in his lap, and she was flipping between an old, cheesy horror movie and the recording of the Times Square feed as the clock inched closer to 12.
Natalie let her head fall over the arm of the couch, the remote on her stomach, making fun of the poor graphics and effects.
"You can tell that's a mask, the edges are loose around his face," she pointed out in delight, loving the horrible quality to bits.
She flipped back to the New Years' party and sat up when she noticed there was just over a minute left.
"We almost missed it!"
"And who's fault would that have been?" he teased, tapping his fingers against her leg.
Natalie huffed, sticking her tongue out at him before she shifted to sit beside him properly, and turned back to the television.
"Only one minute," she grinned, leaning forward and watching with wide eyes. There was something about the ball drop that never got old - she loved seeing it, every year.
But Michael's attention was trained on her instead, taking in the way her cheeks flushed in anticipation in the dim light, the way her lips parted in excitement, the way her fingers curled over her knees.
He hardly noticed when the countdown began, but he sure did notice the way her mouth formed the numbers.
10
Jesus, but she was close.
9
He could feel the warmth of her against his side, against his leg.
8
Heaven help him, he wanted something more than hand holding and cheek kisses.
7
He felt the slight tug of guilt in the pit of his stomach.
6
The curiosity was nearly overwhelming.
5
Her lips looked so soft and he just wondered…
4
Wasn't there some kind of New Years' tradition?
3
Something involving a kiss?
2
At… midnight?
1
To hell with it, he thought, and reached out, grabbing Nat's chin and turning her face towards his. Before he could second guess himself, he leaned down, pressing his lips to hers as fireworks went off on the screen.
She gasped, surprised, but just as he felt the beginning stirrings of uncertainty, she sighed against his mouth and relaxed into him, her arms going up around his neck.
It wasn't perfect, neither of them knowing exactly what they were doing, but it was enough.
And as time rolled over into the new year, they realized that they had plenty of time to figure it out.