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"I didn't get you a gift cause you've been bad this year!"

"Am I on the naughty list!?" Aidan gasps, a hand over his heart for drama.

"Ah! On my naughty list!? You hold the record!" (y/n) says the line of Santa from Rise of the Guardians, her little playful prank on her boyfriend backfiring when he smirks in response.

"Good." he leans over and grabs her jaw, pulling her face up to kiss her. He muffles the sound of her gasp, leaning back with a look of achievement on his face seeing his love flush red.

"You are having fun with this, aren't you?" she clears her throat, hoping no one in the restaurant saw what happened, especially not his parents who went to pay for dinner.

"I could never!" her boyfriend feigns hurt but smiles at her knowing his teasing had her blushing. 

"Ready to go?" the parents come back and the couple nods, getting up to follow them. The brunette holds his loves waist to help her down the stairs while she held her dress, leading her outside of the restaurant.

"We'll go get the car and come get you." Lauren says, quickly shushing her husband and pushing him to the parking lot to let the kids spend time together.

The night had turned cold and Aidan takes his blazer off to let (y/n) wear it, hugging her to his side to keep her warm and she smiles up at him. He leans down to peck her lips sweetly, pecking her nose and her forehead which makes her scrunch her nose cutely.

"Come here lovely." her pulls her to stand in front of him, holding her waist as her arms hang around his neck. He just looks at his girl in his arms, wondering how the woman in front of him managed to come into his life and just make everything brighter. 

"What?" she chuckles softly as he nuzzles his nose against hers. "What's wrong Aidan?"

"How did I get so lucky?" he breathes out shakily. "To be with you, to have a life with you..."

"I should be saying that... You would never have known I even existed if it wasn't for my assessment." his love's words made his heart break, knowing it would've been true. They would've been worlds apart if it wasn't for that one instance. He would've moved on and continued acting, creating while she would be across the world travelling and living her own life. 

"I'm sure we would've met one day... if not then... maybe later..."

"We lived across different worlds, Aidan... I admired your character, your acting and your songs but I would never have been able to meet you in person... you're famous and I'm ordinary."

"You're not just ordinary..." the brunette hisses softly, holding his love tightly. "I don't ever want to let you go. Don't make me let you go... don't leave... whatever happens, stay with me."

(y/n)'s breath hitches when Aidan holds one of her hands to lay it on his chest where his heart was, feeling it race and thump against his chest for her and only her. "What if-"

"-no what ifs. We can work it out together (y/n). No matter what happens, I'm not going to stop fighting for you."

"...I won't stop fighting for you either Aidan..." 

The couple hold each other tightly, letting out shaky breathes from the sudden heat of emotions. They just held each other, silent but comfortable with each other until Rob and Lauren come to pick them up. The brunette opens the door for his love and helps her in before getting in after, the car driving off back home so the family could open their gifts together. The couple leaned their heads against each other, feeling melancholy until they got home and their spirits lightened up seeing the gifts under the Christmas tree that they could open now. The brunette kneeled down and took his love's heel to rest against his thigh, helping her take her shoes off and pressing a soft kiss on her ankle before he stood up again to take his own shoes off after.

"Who's ready for gifts!?" Lauren exclaims, all excited now to see what her son got his girlfriend.

"Lucky for me it's boxing day back home so I can open gifts with you." (y/n) muses, sitting down on the floor with her back against the couch as Aidan brought over all the gifts, the Gallaghers sitting together. He sat on the couch next to her, letting her lean her head to rest on his leg as he stroked her cheek while the couple watched the parents open their gifts to each other. The young couple handed their gifts to the parents and the parents gave their gifts to the couple, hugs going around and it was finally time for the couple to hand their gifts to each other.

"Aidan you're up next kid." Rob says and his son brings over a shit tone of gifts for his girlfriend, making her gasp in shock.

"You better have the fucking receipt for most of these!" she screeches, not even unwrapping the many boxes that littered around her.

"Nah, I chucked them out." the brunette winks at her and she fumes. "Baby, let yourself be spoiled for once."

"But us being equal-"

"-this is a special occasion. They're all yours and I won't take them back." (y/n) looks at the gifts warily but relaxes into Aidan's hand as he strokes her cheek and she nods. "I got them over the last couple months. Different things you were interested in."

"You didn't!" she knew exactly what her boyfriend was talking about and he nods, pointing to one specific box and she unwraps it. "HOLY SHIT!" There, right in her hands was the replica of Loki's royal headpiece, the exact Marvel replica with the certificate to prove its authenticity.

"There's more baby."

"Boy are you out of your mind!? Did you get the Wanda one too!?"

"Maybe." he winks and she looks at him absolutely gobsmacked, unravelling another box to reveal an authentic Scarlet Witch headpiece. "One more (y/n)."

"Aidan what the fuck!?" another box was unwrapped to reveal a working Iron Man helmet that closes around your head and a working JARVIS and the helmet. "This is too much-I can't-Aidan don't do this..." (y/n) started tearing up, feeling like she didn't deserve any of this.

"No no, baby, you deserve all of these. they're my gifts to you." Aidan drops down to his knees in front of his love, wiping away her tears. "Does it make you feel better if I told you they weren't that expensive?"

He was lying. They were expensive but he wouldn't tell her that.

"You got a discount or something?" she sniffles and he nods. "Yeah... I guess that does make me feel a little better." he smiles and kisses her forehead. "But there are so many other things."

"Small things but I know you would love them."

And she did. Small little trinkets like her own Jello Cat figurine and plushie, a crocodile Loki plushie, the Hogwarts Legacy game that paired with the PlayStation her boyfriend gifted her for their 6-month anniversary, and many other gifts. 

"Did you actually just sign a poster of Five Hargreeves and gift it to me?" she chuckles as her love just nods happily.

"I know you love it." he muses and she nods, a wide smile on her face.

"I do! This is being framed and put up on my wall!"

"Now that Aidan is finally done playing Santa himself, (y/n) has a special gift for you kid." Rob says, signalling to the girl who jumps up in excitement and rushes over to a crevice behind the tree to bring out a big box. (y/n) gently sets it down in front of Aidan and rushes to grab a basket to set next to him before sitting down again.

"What is this!?" he gasps.

"Open it!" his love urges him and he unwraps the basket first. There were stacks of journals of different kinds, normal paperback, creative journals and photo-scrapping ones. He flicked through them to see photos of him and his girlfriend throughout the year. She wrote little notes for each photo. From the moment she saw him on Patreon, at the club, at her work, at the stadium in Sydney. 

The entire year. 

Her coming to visit him the many times she did, her coming to work on set with him, their dates, their important days of confession and when they started dating. Their anniversaries and just their everyday life. The dockets of their plane tickets to see each other, the cinema tickets for movies they watched together, even the receipts of their late-night shopping sprees, the flowers they picked when they went out for their walks together, the pictures from the local shopping centre photobooth, a letter filled with little notes they shared on set when they had to be quiet, even the makeshift signs they made during Halloween.

Aidan didn't realise that he had started tearing up, looking over at each photo with so much love and smiling happily at each little note of love (y/n) wrote to him. "I wanted to remember our moments, in a way we could look back at. My family is known to keep albums of our lives, my mum started the tradition so when we grow old we can look back at it. Now it's my turn to continue the tradition... with you." the brunette looks up at his love as she moves to wipe his tears away this time. "I wanted to remember every moment I have with you... and these empty journals," she takes out the empty ones and flicks through them. "I wanted to continue to fill them up with you... if you want."

"Of course, I want that. Of course, I want to continue having you in my life. Of course, I want to journal our lives together." he laughs happily with a choked cry, reaching over to hold his girlfriend's hands. "Shit, I'm worried about the next gift now." he chuckles softly, unwrapping the next gift and his heart stops. "How..." Now he really was crying. It was a directing camera that he had dreamed of having when he was young, forgetting about that dream when he grew up but now seeing the directing equipment before him sparked long-lost joy in him. Like remembering a forgotten piece of his childhood and feeling complete.

"Your dad told me the story of how you weren't actually interested in acting, but you were interested in directing. He told me how you would be on set with him and watch with so much interest about how the producers made their cinematic piece but eventually, you got roped into acting instead. I know you have your music career and your acting career, but I'm hoping with this that you might be able to fulfil your dreams of being a director-"

Aidan shuts (y/n) up when he gently held her cheeks and pulled her into a desperate kiss, his brain unable to express his words of gratitude so he showed her how much he truly appreciated her gift. He never let her go, never pulled away, hoping that he expressed every ounce of love for her in the passionate kiss, pulling back only when he needed air.

I love you.

"I don't understand-this exact piece stopped being manufactured. It's impossible to find a directing camera like this anywhere." the brunette gasps.

"I might have had help from your dad hunting this down but it was just a lot of research." his love smiles happily. "It has everything, reels, adapters, cords, just everything you need to film and be able to connect it to your laptop so you can edit it-oh!" the girl gasps when her boyfriend jumps to hug her, the both of them tumbling to the floor and he smothers her with kisses. This was the parent's cue to leave.

I love you.

I love you.

I love you.

"I'm assuming you like your gifts." (y/n) smiles as she looks up at Aidan.

"I love them! I love them so much! I-"

"-I actually have one more gift for you..." his love mumbles out and he gasps remembering the one last thing he had for her too.

"I have one last gift for you too!" he scrambles up on his feet and dashes upstairs to his recording room, rushing back downstairs and slides to his knees in front of his girl who catches him. "I didn't have enough time to wrap this and I wasn't sure if I should show you know or surprise you later-"

"-breathe." she places her fingers on her love's lips to silence him, moving her hand back so her boyfriend could breathe. "Whatever it is, I'm going to love it anyway." she takes hold of the item from her boyfriend's hands gently and turns it around. "Is this-no way is this your album!?" she gasps in excitement at the finalised album in her hand, opening it up to see the booklet of songs, the CD inside and a signed poster.

"The album design is just a final draft but it's the songs that's completed." the brunette takes out the booklet with his list of songs, showing his love the title track of his completed album. 

"'Her.' What..." his girlfriend looks at him with wide eyes while he turned to the page with the lyrics to show her and she read over them.

"I wrote a song about you." he breathes out, his cheeks burning red like he revealed his inner soul.

"You wrote... a song about me?" his love croaks softly as she teared up, reading the heartfelt words that hit her heart, her hands shaking and he reaches over to hold her hands. "You wrote a song about me..."

"I did." Aidan nods, wiping (y/n)'s tears away.

"The words, they're beautiful but I can't believe-"

"-I mean every letter." he whispers to her, kissing the back of her hands. And true to his words, he did mean every letter, his girlfriend unfortunately missing his clue at the beginning of each lyric that spelt

'I

L

O

V

E

Y

O

U'

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