2.0 Canon - If memory serves, this was the second year we did at least a couple of Christmas pieces. The year before, I think, was a round-robin piece of madness called Cookiemas that had the sugar-high insanity vibes of early 2000s fanfic.
I wanted this one to be a bit more...relatable? To people who don't really mesh with the holiday (I'm one of those).
Fun fact/lore dump:
‘Fate, destiny, all that crap, does it exist?’
He shook his head. ‘You don’t have anything to worry about. Outside of a few very specific cases, no, generally people are in charge of their own lives.’
I think this might be the only (or one of a very few??) hints at this aspect of the world, and something I have in my brain as "back burner canon", ie, a bit of worldbuilding that I treat as canon as much as I can until I actually put words on the page as to how it works. What i can say at the moment is that I have in mind the idea that some people have these weird little points of fixed destiny/fate, not grand things for their life, more on the order of "this person will be on the corner of Queen and Creek at 1pm on August 29th, 2047". (I sometimes parse it in my head as "the dumbest version of Death Note ever").
The Agency doesn't like The Destined, because although their stupid little destinies can't often be taken advantage of, with enough planning and evil mastermind brain, anything could happen, so they try to take what steps they can to find these people and keep other people from finding out about them.
At least, that's the placeholder version right now, if/when this actually gets put into new canon, there may be slight alterations to it.
Next day edit: 2.0 canon confirmed, originally posted 07/12/2010. Was paired with a Curt story, and something labelled "Christmas Spirit" which I have to believe is a blog post, otherwise it's something I have no memory of.
[Stef?]
[Hm?]
[Can I see you for a minute?]
[Sure.]
Stef tapped her touch pad a few more times, confirming the order then waited for it to process. The cursor icon spiralled, begging her patience, then finally gave her the confirmation number. She closed Frankie’s lid and shifted to Ryan’s office.
‘Do you mind if I ask your plans?’ he asked.
She joined him on the couch.
‘Um, go back to shopping online when we’re done?’
He gave her his usual confused look. ‘...why don’t you just require what you want, or are you using a fairy site?’
‘I like just surfing around and buying stuff, then getting packages. Even if I forget to go get them from my flat. It’s why I still like browsing game stores and stuff, it’s...habit, I suppose.’ She leaned back against the couch. ‘What’s the secret password to get access to fairy sites? Is there a directory or what?’
‘Considering they have their own internet, I’m not sure you could use your regular connection.’
She blinked.
She turned to give him her full attention.
She stared at him.
She leaned forward.
‘Say that again,’ she said slowly.
‘I assumed you knew.’
‘Don’t assume I know anything. They have their own internet?’
‘Yes, of course. Why would you...Think about the technological disparity, they’re much more advanced than humans.’
‘To be fair, my thoughts are generally pretty centred on ponyponyponypony whenever we go to fairyland.’
‘Speak with Jones,’ he said with a smile. ‘I’m sure he’ll be able to recommend a good service provider.’
She jumped up, but he grabbed the back of her vest and pulled her back down onto the couch. ‘Stef?’
‘You just told me there are two internets, there’s an entire internet that I have yet to explore. I...pah. Ok. Serious face. Yus, what can I do for you?’
‘Just answer my question, what are your plans for this week?’
‘Internet. Internet. Internet. Let Curt beat the crap out of me. Attempt to finish the pile of paperwork on the left side of my desk, cause fsck the right side, I’m just going to turn that into a sculpture, that’s never getting done, then-’
‘Did you have any plans for Christmas?’
She slumped, all the joy of cheap computer parts disappearing. ‘Do you want me to?’
‘I, er, what?’
‘Just tell me what you want me to do and I’ll follow your lead.’
‘I just wanted to know if you had plans so I could-’
‘Whatever I’m going to say is going to be wrong, so just tell me what to do.’
He moved closer to her. ‘Are you planning on some sort of blood sacrifice?’
‘No.’
‘Requiring another rocket launcher?’
‘No.’
‘Massive accidental property damage of any kind?’
‘Not that I have planned.’
‘Then I’m not sure what you could say that could be wrong.’
‘I don’t like Christmas.’ She brought her knees up to her chest. ‘And now you’re going to start on how it’s so wonderful and how I’m a Scroogette and need to be fixed and why do I always need to be fixed, why can’t it ever be ok? Or you’re gonna hire some ghosts so I go around and start crapping candy canes and being nice to cripple orphans.’ She lifted her head a little, required her vest to change colour to green, and her tie to red. ‘There, Christmassy enough? Just tell me where to go a-caroling.’
He put a hand on her shoulder and her uniform regained its regular colours. ‘Why do you always assume the worst of me?’
She stared at her dirty shoes. ‘I’m not assuming the worse of you, I’m assuming the worst in general. Christmas is supposed to be one of those big-ass holidays that everyone expects you to celebrate unless you’ve got the flimsy excuse of, yanno, not buying into the religious or secular reasoning behind it.’
‘So I can take it you’ve got no plans then?’
‘Not yet.’
‘That’s all I needed.’ He lifted a clipboard and put a tick next to her name.
‘Buh?’
‘This wasn’t an interrogation, Stef, we just need to know who is available so we can allocate shifts and offer staffing to the outposts if they’re running short. We try, but not all the recruits put in their leave applications on time...or at all. Combat usually manages, but that’s thanks to Magnolia.’
‘How many are off?’
He flipped the sheets on the clipboard. ‘Overall, it looks like a third off on the twenty-fifth, with another third taking one or both of the days either side. New Year’s isn’t looking good, so we’re going to have to knock back some of the requests.’
‘Or clone some more recruits.’
‘We’re not cloning anyone,’ he said with a smile. ‘With these numbers though, I may send you to Caboolture for all three days, Stuart always requests the holidays off to be with his family.’
‘I told you, I don’t like bunyips. Those fsckers bite really hard.’
‘You would essentially be in charge of that outpost for the duration.’
‘And what the hell makes you think I can handle that?’
‘I trust you.’
‘Even with the chance of massive accidental property damage?’
‘Even with that.’
She sighed. ‘Fine, but expect to be on my speed dial.’
‘I’m one shift away, you’ll be fine.’
She grabbed the clipboard and started looking through the names. ‘Most the techs have leave booked, but you don’t cross them out.’
‘Because they’ll be here. They have their Christmas party here, and most of them don’t have families to go to, but they book the time off...essentially just because they want to. They’ll be here if we need them, so it looks better for our numbers if I don’t mark them off.’
‘You didn’t request time off.’
‘What would I do with it? I’m only just learning to adjust to having some actual free time thanks to having an Aide. That and...that’s why I asked about your plans.’
‘If you want to do the Christmas thing, I’ll-’
‘I don’t.’
‘You don’t?’
He looked away for a moment. ‘It isn’t a tradition I was brought up with, so to speak. Reynolds never made a great deal of fuss about it, there would be a few perfunctory decorations in the lobby, but just for the sake of appearance. He would attend parties, and take me, but he never treated them any differently to any other social function that we would attend. I could see the importance that others placed on the season, but I could never understand it myself.’
‘What about...when you were married?’
‘Eilise loved Christmas. Before Alexander, we would go visit her family – very big event, both sides of her family, cousins, children, partners...at least a few dozen people. It was very crowded, but she enjoyed it, so I did it for her. It was...however one of those times when being an agent is more of a hindrance – being able to look at someone and know their name, but keeping track of whether or not you’ve been introduced, if they told you their profession or you just saw it flash by on a file summary. It...did lead to some awkward situations, easily resolved, but still unnecessarily uncomfortable. And most of those people, I only saw on the holidays, I didn’t know them, but it was supposed to be...wonderful because all of these people were celebrating at once.’
‘And...with Alexander?’
‘It became two parties. One, just the three of us, family time, giving Alexander his presents, and generally a brunch before driving to wherever the main event was.’
‘Do you miss it?’
‘Frankly...no. According to Eilise, I never quite “got” the idea. It was a point of contention for her.’
‘What didn’t you get?’
‘The main thing that seemed to bother her is...the present embargo. It has never made sense to me to wait for an arbitrary day to give a gift, just because it’s what every else does. If I saw something in a toy shop, I would buy it or require a copy and give it to Alex when I got home, or would shift it to his room so it was waiting for him after he got home from school. It may be a failing on my part, but I’m not sure why a present is more “special” because the recipient has to wait for it. If it’s...a reward, or given as congratulations, then I understand, but not for events like this. It almost seemed as though to her a gift was soured if it was given too close to a holiday.’
‘Sorry.’
‘I’m not sure what you’re apologising for.’
‘That wasn’t a very nice way to be treated.’
‘It was a minor issue, and she always forgave me.’
‘Wow, that’s generous.’
‘You do your best to please the ones you love.’
‘Just so you know, I’m glad you didn’t wait until Christmas to give me Buttercup.’
‘Lucky for me, you are astoundingly easy to please.’
She grinned. ‘It’s just everything else about me that’s complicated.’ She let her legs slide away from her chest, no longer needing their protection. ‘Thanks for not being weird about this.’
‘I could say the same to you.’
‘Telling people I don’t like Christmas always...sort of feels like coming out or something, I’ve just found that people tend to treat you differently, even though it’s...really so unimportant. I mean, I’m not gonna go around screaming humbug and burning down trees, but I just don’t want to be included in that.’
‘It’s understandable.’
‘I like Christmas, just...not for anything to do with the so-called proper reasoning. I love the sales, I love the cheap-ass candy I get to buy afterwards – advent calendars for like fifty cents make excellent breakfasts at four a.m. after you forget to go to sleep the night before. I always used to go buy like a garbage bag worth and just stash it away, most of the time I could make it last till nearly Easter, when I’d do the same thing.’
‘I’m surprised it lasted you that long.’
‘I’d ration it out. And forget about it.’
‘Now that, that doesn’t surprise me.’ He paused for a moment. ‘And was that the only thing you liked?’
‘Not even close, what I liked the best was that it was the one time of year that I could be assured of being left alone. Nine out of eleven times, we went over,’ she said, jerking her thumb in the vague direction of England, ‘so we could see the rest of the family. My parents...they’d be busy, like even more than normal, so I would just be free for a week or so. Used to wander around, go up into the attic and storerooms, sit in the library and read things like Grey’s Anatomy and whatever else was there. I think one of the books on the Enigma Machine sealed my fate.’ She gave him a sideways glance. ‘Now that’s one of those questions I’ve been afraid of asking, so let’s get it out of the way.’
‘I’m not sure that you asked a question, at least one that I could hear.’
‘Fate, destiny, all that crap, does it exist?’
He shook his head. ‘You don’t have anything to worry about. Outside of a few very specific cases, no, generally people are in charge of their own lives.’
‘Cool.’
‘Let me finish up with this, then we’ll go see Stuart and see what needs to be done this week, and how much can wait until their own staff are back.’
‘And not drunk on eggnog.’
‘Not to parent you, but to warn you, think twice about accepting any seasonal drinks from Stuart or Michaels or...just scan whatever you’re offered, a lot of the time, they tend to add in fae alcohol, to get the proper effect.’
‘Yessir. Oh. Hey. Wait.’
She shifted from his couch, to her flat, ran into the kitchen and retrieved a package from beneath the sink, then shifted back. She pushed the box at him. ‘Totally forgot I had this. I think I need to exorcise some of these latently human thought patterns, I’m not sure I’m supposed to forget this much stuff.’
He looked at her, then sent an executable command. She opened it, and a note taking application opened. ‘You should use this,’ he said, ‘I know it’s invaluable for me. And your memory will become more organised as you get older, you’re still learning to think in a new way.’ He opened the lid of the box, and pulled out one of the bottles. ‘...where did you get this?’
‘Grigori’s place,’ she said as she entered a few notes with her HUD keyboard. ‘When me and Curt went raiding. Both bottles are the same vintage. I think it’s a good year.’
‘Even rotgut unicorn wine is good, considering the rarity of the remaining bottles. I do have a few stored away, are you sure you don’t want to keep them for yourself?’
‘The concept kind of grosses me out, actually. I mean, isn’t there a danger of bloodborne diseases or something?’
‘No recorded cases, so far as I’m aware. It all went through a purification process beforehand.’
‘It’s still gross.’
‘It was an unforgivable crime. It was genocide.’
‘And you’re still drinking it?’
‘It would do no good to destroy it. And...the taste is unlike anything else.’ He opened the bottle in his hand and poured a measure into two freshly-required glasses. ‘Trust me.’
She took the glass, but didn’t drink. ‘Does that...like, happen often? Genocide among the fae?’
‘Their numbers were always limited,’ he said as he took a sip from his glass. ‘And they were a completely insular society, xenophobic, worse even than the fairies before they began to relax their trade and immigration laws. It came down to the fact that no one knew they were sentient until they were already irreparably headed towards extinction.’
‘They didn’t like, say anything? Ask not to be hunted? Show off quadratic equations?’
‘They thought they were protecting themselves. They were wrong. They’re officially extinct now, with only the same conspiracy sightings you would attribute with any other extinct animal. There was one in captivity after the others were all gone, but it died. Some say murder, some say suicide. It isn’t spoken of.’
She lifted her glass. ‘To, er, extinction.’
She sipped the wine and bit back on the urge to gag as she tasted it. It didn’t taste like blood, there was none of the coppery taste that could be so easily associated with a mouth full of blood. It just tasted like something expensive, something stolen from the wine cellar – one of the bottles hidden well behind all of the cheap stuff for unimportant guests.
Her hand started to glow. She lifted it to her face and flexed her fingers, the bright blue outline lagging just behind the movement. ‘Why am I sparkling?’
‘You aren’t.’
She pushed her hand at his face and shook it. ‘Sure looks like it.’ She blinked, and looked at the faint blue outline around him. ‘You are too!’
‘No, it’s just your perception. If you were to take a photograph, you wouldn’t appear any different to normal, the wine’s just shifted your thoughts a little – it makes magic visibly perceptible. It looks amazing when you’re surrounded by a few different kinds of magic, or even just a room full of fae.’
He shifted across the room, then shifted back, glowing blue particulates hanging in the air at his points of arrival and departure.
She took another sip. ‘So it turns you into a magical MRI?’
‘Sort of, but not really. It just makes it an experience.’
She looked down at herself. ‘I have this weird urge to unzip my chest and see what my heart looks like.’
‘It doesn’t look like anything special,’ he said, ‘I’ve seen a piece of mirror whilst...inebriated. I think it’s because a higher order of magic, or it’s more pure...whereas fae magic, agent magic, they aren’t as pure, so we’re seeing particulates of that inexactitude.’
‘Okies...So it’s magical dandruff?’
‘I suppose, in a sense. What do you think?’
‘Tastes ok,’ she said, then drank a little more. ‘Not sure why people hunted a race to extinction for it, the party trick is pretty cool though.’ She waved her hands again. ‘Hehe, glowy.’
‘This...things like this are another thing I could never understand. When given a consumable gift – wine, chocolate, anything of that nature – it’s somehow bad to share it? The same item under any other circumstances...it would be rude not to share it, but when it’s presented as gift, selfishness is encouraged?’
‘Maybe if you weren’t so generous, you’d understand.’
He drained his glass, and it disappeared from his hand, leaving blue points of light in the rough shape of a glass hanging in mid-air for a moment. ‘The one thing I do miss?’
She stared into the glass, watching red flecks shine in the liquid. ‘What’s that?’
‘Playing Santa.’
‘Did you go for a full glamour?’
‘Beard, belly and full fur suit. A huge sack, but mostly filled with air. Alex always used to get a peek, but then I’d shift away, and run a program with the sound of reindeer on the roof.’
‘Gods...you made Santa real for him. That must have been so incredible for him. I didn’t even hang up a stocking.’
‘It was the one time of year that I could actually be myself around my son. It was the one time of year I was overtly allowed to use magic. The rest of the time...no. I didn’t get to show him anything. If we went somewhere, we drove. I could get away with requiring something, so long as he didn’t see. Eilise wanted him kept out of our world. She wanted him to be normal.’
‘But...didn’t you say he knew? And that’s why...stuff?’
‘She told him when he got older, around the time when we divorced, just so that he wouldn’t want anything to do with me.’
She finished off her glass, burped, then leaned against his arm. ‘Would you hate me if I said your ex sounds like a bit of a jerk?’
‘We weren’t compatible in the long-term, it happens. I wish things had turned out better, but...you move on, things hurt less, and you find other people to care for.’ He ruffled her hair. ‘You let me show you magic, you want to see all that you can, it...it’s not a replacement for not being able to do it with Alexander, but it’s something I’ve always wanted to do. Showing your child is different to showing a recruit.’
‘I’ll never get sick of it, promise. I still just shift randomly because it’s so cool.’ She required a bottle of water and began to sip at it. ‘I just hope I don’t get a hangover.’
‘You’ll be fine.’
‘You keep saying that.’
‘Maybe it’s because I believe it?’
She required away her glass, laid her head on his knees and stared at the ceiling, waving her hands about, watching the small glowing, flowing trails.
‘Come on, let’s get some lunch, get the alcohol out of your system.’
‘Pancakes?’
‘Pancakes aren’t lunch food.’
She pouted. ‘Fine, but they’re dessert.’
‘As you wish.’
She nodded and jumped up. ‘It is, it’s my Christmas wish. Pancakes!’
‘We should still be able to avoid the lunch rush somewhere, and I need to get out for a while, if you’re fine with not eating in.’
‘Sure, okies.’
He handed her a candy cane. ‘Happy Candy Season, Stef.’
‘That doesn’t have a ring to it. I’m thinking of renaming it Cookiemas.’
He gave her a nod and a serious look. ‘Happy Cookiemas, Stef.’
She hugged his arm. ‘Happy Cookiemas, dad.’
He hugged her in return, ruffled her hair again, then shifted them towards lunch.
