little do you know: the december drabbles // niall horan au

day 12: unwrapping presents (in which mona is a history geek)

Zayn's entire attention was on the new sketchbook and fancy pencils Niall had gotten him, too distracted with perfecting the first drawing to focus on what Harlow was telling him. Niall noticed that she didn't seem too tossed about it, instead focusing her words to Liam when she wasn't getting the attention she wanted. Niall hadn't a clue what she was going on about, though. He was too busy flipping pancakes and watching as Mona tested out the new stand mixer Harlow had gifted her.

"So Mademoiselle Shaw," he teased, bumping their hips together. Last night, in her frenzy to come up with another conversation starter in lieu of Niall's heavy emotional breakdown, she'd begun talking about her favorite historical figures and Niall had been way too amused to shut her up. What had started as an innocent discussion—well, more like a one-sided dialogue—suddenly morphed into a heated rant on the abominable lies written in history books after she'd revealed that her favorite person in history was none other than Marie Antoinette, the last queen of France. "What're ya gonna make in your new mixer? Some cake?"

Mona huffed and Niall snickered at her rather offended expression. "I told you she wasn't the one who said that! That was a rumor made up so the people of France would hate her more than they already did."

He watched her for a few more moments, the way she always tried to suppress a smile and the way she fidgeted slightly whenever someone got too close, but never with him, was so intriguing. She reached up to retrieve the bag of chocolate chips from the shelf above before opening the bag and pouring some in the cookie dough she'd been mixing. She swiped some of the mixture on her finger, tasting a bit of it even though Niall had told her about a hundred times that eating raw cookie dough was bad, which was saying a lot considering they hadn't been at the cabin that long. He thought of how strange it was, how fast they'd clicked in all those days when she wouldn't have given him a second glance when they were on campus. But then her tongue darted out to catch the bit of the batter that had smeared along the corner of her mouth, his eyes flicking to her lips for a few seconds before he caught himself, realizing that he was burning his pancakes.

"So," he breathed, hoping no one noticed he'd been staring, but Zayn, Liam, and Harlow had already filed out of the kitchen. "Who said it then? The 'Let Them Eat Cake' bit, I mean."

Mona looked at him thoughtfully for a moment, knocking her hip against his much like he did earlier. "Well," she started in that matter-of-fact tone of hers. "The phrase is written in one of Rousseau's works that was published, like, over a decade before she was even relevant. You know Rousseau because you do political science, right?" Niall nodded, flipping the last few pancakes. "So, yeah, he was basically writing about a princess who didn't really care about how the peasants had no food so she was all, 'Oh, well, let them eat brioche!', which was basically some type of rich people bread or something. Some people think he was writing about Maria-Therese, who lived like a century before. And people famously attributed the saying to Marie Antoinette because they didn't want to like her, you know?" He didn't know, but he nodded anyways. "Because she was such an easy target to, like, be angry at. They were so blinded by their hatred for the aristocracy that they made up lies against their queen to spark a revolution."

Niall hummed in understanding. Mona was so incredibly fascinating that he'd stop whatever he was doing to listen to anything she'd say, really.

He also had the sudden realization that he really, really, really wanted to kiss her, because her lips looked so warm and inviting, and she was giving him that small smile that made him want to melt into a puddle. Instead, he just shook the thought out of his head and picked up the platter of pancakes, gesturing towards the door. "You should tell me more sometime. But for now, I think we should get this food outside before Harry and Zayn come running in here."

She chuckled, eyes twinkling as she gathered the juice and the syrup. "Yeah. I know how you feel about them being in the kitchen."

Together, they walked out to put breakfast on the table only to find that it was empty. The group was, instead, huddled around the tree again, opening the remainder of the presents that weren't from secret santa.

"Hey!" Mona complained. "I thought we were gonna eat breakfast first!"

Harlow smiled sheepishly. "Well, yeah. But then you guys were taking a while and we were getting impatient."

Niall looked at Mona, who met his gaze, the two of them huffing out a laugh before joining their friends on the floor. "Well," Niall said excitedly, slapping his hands against his knees. "Where's my pile then?" Harry patted his head playfully before sliding him his gifts, doing the same to Mona, and they spent the rest of the morning laughing at the silly presents they all received before finally retreating to the dining table to eat their pancakes.