The Vamps Oneshots/Songfics Book.

Songfic #1 - Hoping For Snow (Brad)

~ I advise that you listen to the song (Hoping For Snow - The Vamps) as you read, there's a video in the sidebar if you need it xx ~

At one time, up until the year before, Brad adored Christmas. The hustle and bustle of last minute shoppers, he would chuckle at their disorganisation. The carollers that would bid him good day as he passed, dropping a handful of coins into the pot as he did. The illuminations that hung from the ceiling of every shopping centre, he would smile at how at home the whole atmosphere made him feel. The fact he had Chloe.

This year, things were different. He trudged through the now sludgy snow, whilst fine powdery snowfall dusted his beanie and boots. He would be cynical of every shop advertising Christmas specials, every building blaring out a Christmas classic. He wandered through the shopping centre aimlessly, after leaving everything until the last minute, precisely the type of person he would have mocked mercilessly not a year before.

He passed couple after couple with entwined hands drifting out of shops together, cheerful in each other’s company. At one point that was he and Chloe, way back when.

“Merry Christmas sir!” a far too chirpy cashier smiled as he handed Brad’s bag of shopping back to him.

A mumbled response followed.

He passed a couple on his way home, gazes full of affection. It reminded him of Chloe, but then again there wasn’t much that didn’t. As the couple posed for a romantic photograph, it reminded him of where things began to deteriorate with Chloe.

‘I’ve made mistakes, but so have you’

He regretted the text since the second it was sent, before she even had a chance to reply. He knew it was the beginning of the end, and he had a never-ending grudge against himself as a result.

After a hefty sigh, he continued walking along the white pavement trying to recover some of the childlike reaction to snow he used to possess.

He passed a moving van, and a family proudly moving their furniture into their probably multi-million pound estate. He was reminded of where things went from bad to worse only a few weeks ago.

“Chloe’s back in town” Connor told Brad calmly, well aware of his friend’s most likely reaction.

Chloe, without sounding terribly cliché, had a sizeable quantity of Brad’s heart. It wasn’t the kind of movie love you can see breaking down from day one, it was the kind of love people told you about when you were little, soulmates and ‘the one’. Brad knew Chloe was the one, he just compromised everything, and he would do anything in the god damn world to retrieve the best thing he ever had.

‘Connor tells me you’re back in town…’

He waited impatiently, unlocking his phone every few seconds and Connor sending him sympathetic glances every time he did so.

‘You’re not the only reason I came home’

The wording of her text gave Brad even the miniscule wisp of closure, maybe he was part of the reason. Maybe, on some level, she wanted to rekindle what they had, too. Because that’s what Brad wanted. More than anything. He had to be tactful, without sounding temperamental.

‘What is?’

Another few minutes of tense waiting followed, with Connor always looking concerned in between his sips of hot chocolate.

‘Maybe it’s the season, I don’t know.’

 

Brad swung his shopping bag for entertainment as he continued on the winding pavement, Chloe never leaving his mind. She was back, back in the house they once shared together. He was on the other side of town, setting up lodgings in the living room of Connor’s flat.