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Wrapping paper crinkles easily under your bare fingers, shaking slightly in the cold.
To Jake, Love Dirk
You don’t know what’s inside.
And this snow is making you seriously reconsider this whole ‘fingerless gloves’ thing.
You should know what’s inside.
It’s wrapped pristinely, orange paper and a green wire tied around top in place of a ribbon. It fits easily in your palm, tiny enough to whisper important even with only a vague idea of the contents. It would be a shame to unwrap it now, you suppose. You clearly spent enough time wrapping it in the first place. And anyway, it isn’t for you.
You shrug it off and look up into a puff of opaque air. You jump a little
(gas, poisonous, need masks, quick-)
before remembering what Roxy told you, what you saw through a screen, what you know from what chemistry you’ve picked up (cold air hot breath CO2 and such). Just your breath. Not chemicals, not smoke.
You shake your head against the prickle of dread that brings. There’s no good reason for it.
Instead, you follow the path. There’s really nothing else logical to do, someone shoveled this (and did a really shitty job) despite the length so it’s only polite of you to follow. Besides, who would want walk on all this snow?
Minutes pass, your boots skidding in freezing slush on the concrete, white flakes flying into your glasses and making you jump. All is calm, clouds shuttering an intimate sky, and so silent.
You don’t know where you're walking.
But you hope there’s someone there.
When you hear her, the relief almost trips you (thought they all were dead) and you turn, lip already curling up, hand automatically shifting the present into your pocket because, sure enough,
Wump
You’re down in the snow, a pink blur beaming over you.
“Diiiirk! Merry Christmas!” she laughs, eyes gleaming pink as her scarf tickles at you nose.
“Hey Rox, you too,” you smile back. You wish you could tell her how happy you are to see her, how relieved, except that (why would she not have been here?)
You stand, pulling her up with you, and she is already talking a mile a minute about who knows what and looping her arm into yours. Oddly, a light appears almost as soon as it’s Roxy guiding the way, not you, but you don’t dwell on it.
You see them, in the window. Standing next to a tree, singing and talking.
You count without thought, automatic (who’s here get a tally keep them safe) numbering
Five.
One familiar, short black hair over baby blue sweater, holding out a plate of delicately patterned sugar cookies to a disgruntled looking boy with glasses and floppy hair (almostJake) and there’s a stab of disappointment.
You look on, (where is he?), see the blond boy (who makes your heart pound for a second because that’s him, that’s your bro, you’ve rarely seen him before) smirking at the crazy haired girl with dog ears and fake antlers, and finally the second-Roxy, eyebrows lifted slightly and martini balanced neatly in her thin fingers.
Roxy keeps jumping on, “We’re here come on they’re waiting!,” and you start a “where-” before the door flies open (there)
You swallow, everything still for a single crystal moment of Roxy’s laugh and Jake’s smile and their heads turning towards the door,
then he’s bounding out, not even wearing socks (the fool, he’ll get frostbite, no idea how to take care of himself), mouth open in a shout of joy
and you’re both being hugged, Jake and Roxy and you, and Jane’s calling from the door to ‘get over here before you freeze I’m not putting my boots on.’
You’re inside before you know it, where it is a whole new kind of warm (radiators and heartbeats instead of sun glares and computer fans), hugging and laughing and moving from one to another.
Jake ruffles your hair and smiles, lights glaring off his glasses and you wish they weren’t hiding his eyes (haven’t seen them in so long), before promising you’ll talk later and leaping on to Roxy.
Jane hugs you tightly and forces some baked good into your hands, and then it’s on to the new kids, Rose kissing your cheek before stepping on, pale faced, to her mother/daughter, John beaming and shouting about Dave’s awesome bro, Jade hugging you and already asking about your robots, and then Dave, staring for a moment through his glasses before offering a fist. You reply in kind and then hug him anyway because as stiff and confused as he is, he’s your brother and there’s some sort of emotion hiding behind the grimace. He hugs you back after a moment, arms bent at stiff angles but firm none the less.
You tell him he sucks at hugging and he tells you hugging is for girls and you both ‘smile’ before stepping away, him to Jade and you to Jake.
John plays the piano. Jane keeps bringing more plates. Roxy and Rose, after a brief interval of avoiding each other, have moved into a deep conversation. Jade plays with the big white dog in front of the fire and Dave tells you and Jake some ridiculous stories about the you-not-you. Time passes as easy as can be, no binary ticking one-through-twelve, snow falling, the first real Christmas you’ve ever had.
Just as John finishes explaining the practice of putting a dead tree in the house (with plenty of digressions involving trap ornaments and swinging lights), Dave complains that there hasn’t been a Christmas story. Roxy’s on it in a moment, shoving half the kids to the green love seat and the rest against the red couch. John pushes a storybook onto Rose’s lap and settles back, yawning.
They fall in easily, these kids, Rose primly arranged atop the cushions, John and Jade sleepily leaning into each other and blinking like tired puppies, Dave sprawled on the floor against Rose’s legs.
You’re not sure how to fall in that way with your own loved ones. You think it has something to do with the only beta who grew up alone being an outgoing half-dog.
But you have Roxy, so in another moment Jane is curled in the corner and you are sandwiched between Rox and Jake, half on top of the pile of now-dry coats.
“Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house…”
Something hard presses against your back. Roxy’s curled too tight for that arm to move, but Jake is still a few inches away.
“Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.”
You stretch your fingers back, brushing the pocket of your own coat.
“The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,”
What’s in your pocket?
“In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there.”
Oh.
“The children were nestled all snug in their beds”
Roxy pulls closer. You feel Jake inching over as well.
“While visions of sugar plums danced in their heads”
The button sticks a little, but you pull it open.
“And Mama in her kerchief and I in my cap, Had just settled our brains for a long winter’s nap”
You feel the box, still wrapped in wire, as with a long sigh, Jake’s head falls to your shoulder.
“When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter, I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter”
It does seem windy out, over Rose’s soothing voice. You pull at the package slowly
“Away to the window…”
because you want nothing less than for him to move. She keeps telling the story, most everyone on the other couch slowly drifting off, and you carefully withdraw the parcel and place it between your legs.
Roxy yawns and shifts to collapse on Jane instead (what to my wondering eyes should appear) as Jake shifts to peer up at you, the fire forcing the same annoying glare over his eyes. Something has changed since the last time you saw him. You remember a fight, vaguely (heartbreak bleeding death), but it’s hard to imagine now, with his smile.
(As I drew in my head…)
He leans up cautiously.
You melt when he kisses you, chaste as anything, but then all the family you’ve ever had is in this room.
(His eyes- how they twinkled!)
When he pulls back, you’re left with fingers in his hair and a ghosted apology in your ear. Your heart thumps again, heavy and hard, a reminder (still alive) and you know that was his present to you so it’s only fair to exchange
(I had nothing to dread)
You pull it from the shadows and offer it in an open palm. His smile is radiant, his laugh soft as he untwists the wire and you remember (just as alone as you).
(And giving a nod)
Jake tugs the parcel open after a moment and you swallow when you see the contents.
A ring?
The room is growing darker.
“And away they all flew”
Jake looks up, brow creased, and you open your mouth to explain an explanation you don’t know, not for marriage but for life
He vanishes
“like the down of a thistle”
You cry out, reaching for him, for your sword, for Roxy or Jane or Dave
but everything is getting darker and darker
“But I heard him exclaim”
You look up at Rose, still there somehow, a pink blur with a red smudge next to her leg
“Ere he drove out of sight”
She’s looking at you dead on, book dropped from limp fingers,
“Merry Christmas to all”
Blank eyes.
All white. No pink no black no veins.
White.
Jake
“and to all a goodnight.”
Rose is gone, everyone is gone, and
You wake up
Alone.