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"What," Karkat screamed as he stomped down the stairs, "the holy hollering hell is all this?"
"This," Kanaya stated flatly, pointing at twelve socks nailed to the fireplace, "is a human holiday tradition."
"Did you-what-you nailed my socks to the mantle!"
"As is tradition." Kanaya showed a brief sign of being worried. "I think."
"And what is Feferi doing on the ladder?"
Feferi turned and flashed a smile. "Helping!"
"She said it herself. Helping. Namely, stringing up the traditional multicolored lights."
"Of all the people to put on the ladder, you pick the disaster magne-"
As if on cue, Gamzee stumbled into the archway Feferi was putting lights over, carrying an extremely tall pile of cardboard boxes. "Shit, man, do not even say what I motherfucking think you are about to say." He tripped over a snarl of lights and ran into the ladder, making the inevitable happen as Feferi was thrown off her perch and into three boxes of ceramic snowmen.
"Well, shoot. There goes that deposit."
"Fuckin' sorry, bros."
"Kanaya, you used house money to buy these..." Karkat grabbed a shard of ceramic. "...these frozen precipitation humanoids?"
"Fuck bro, don't forget the lights."
"And this CD!" Feferi weakly held up an arm, holding Now That's What I Call Redundant 37³: Traditional Holiday Hits from Washed-Up Artists from the 70's You had Just Managed to Forget!.
"And," Kanaya cast a worried glance toward the kitchen, "dinner."
"D-dinner?"
"Yes. I looked at a few commercials and pieced together what I think to be a traditional holiday feast: a roast, corn casserole, mashed cauliflower, bread spheres, and, uh..." She consulted a list,"...'pie.'" A door somewhere opened and slammed; someone was yelling at someone else. "Oh, that would be Equius and Vriska with the lawn ornaments."
"I told you," Vriska was shouting, I could have drive...driving..."
"Drove," Equius corrected.
"Fuck off."
"The lawn ornaments‽ Okay, Kanaya. I am putting my foot down. Look at my foot. Fucking look at it."
"Which foot?"
"What the fuck does it matter which foot? All I want to know is what the hell is going on!"
Kanaya rummaged around in her Sylladex and pulled out a thick black book. "We are celebrating the traditional human holiday of Fistmas. As far as I can tell, it's remarkably similar to Twelfth Perigee's Eve, with decorating, gift giving, and quality time barely tolerating your pitied and hated ones. There's also a great feast, and this tome here mentions something about 'the Coming of the Great Right Haymaker.'" Kanaya flipped through the book in her hands. "I'm not too sure about that last part."
"Give me that!" Karkat grabbed the book from Kanaya, reading the gold leaf title out loud: "The Bible of Bláqlebuh?" He flipped to the end: "'and so Bláqlebuh said: 'look, I'm not really that sort of god, but if you guys really want an apocalypse, I guess I'll see what I can manage. Not anything terribly flashy, mind you; it'd probably take up three days, max.' And His Faithful heeded His words and flipped their collective shits, and it was good.' What the fuck book did you buy?"
"It's volume five of three of the Gospel of Bláqlebuh," Kanaya said, snatching the volume from Karkat's hands, as if her statement had meant anything.
Equius cleared his throat politely. "I hate to interrupt, er, story time, but Vriska and I, well, Vriska, acquired lawn ring decorations."
Kanaya made a check on her paper. "Though I don't much care for the ambiguous wording of acquired, I'm willing to overlook it so we-"
"I'm not!" Karkat shoved past Kanaya. "What did you two idiots do?"
"I did nothing. Vriska, on the other hand, broke into a house after stealing its lawn ring décor."
"And you nothing to stop her?"
"Well, I did express my disapproval by crossing my arms and frowning. And I had to pull the bus home."
"Why couldn't she drive? What the hell's wrong with her?"
"When she broke into the hive she stole half a gallon of eggnog and a bottle of Kahlúa. She's incredibly drunk."
"I'm not eggnog, I just had some drunk," Vriska slurred, stumbling into the room and using Equius as a wall to balance on. In the hand not grabbing Equius' coat she clutched a mostly empty bottle. "Don't listen to sweaty...face...guy." She laughed at her own poor insult, tried to drink, and missed. "He's just being lame. Hear me, sweaty? Laaaaaaaame. It was almost impressive Vriska could measure her vowels in eights even while drunk.
"Oh, dear." Kanaya worried over her list. "Nobody should be drunk until after dinner. Speaking of dinner, Equius, did you happen to see Tavros in the kitchen?"
"No," Equius stopped glaring at Vriska (who was rapidly becoming a bit too affectionate for his liking) and glared at Kanaya instead. "I did not see Tavros, but Gamzee was there."
Kanaya and Karkat exchanged worried glances. "Gamzee's in the kitchen‽
"Yes, that's what I sai- darn it, Vriska, stop doing tha-"
"I thought he was just sitting there!"
"Don't mind me, I'm just bleeding." Feferi had been practicing her sarcasm with Kanaya for a while now and hoped nobody would misinterpret her.
"Motherfuck guys, uh, something's going down over here."
"Gamzee!" Karkat and Kanaya nearly fell over each other racing into the kitchen, where something brown, meaty, and nearly humanoid appeared to be crawling out of the oven, clutching Gamzee in a large claw.
"Gamzee, you- what the shitting fuck is that‽"
The roast took notice of the new arrivals and decided to throw Gamzee at them. "All I did was add some shit, and some fuck, and a whole lot of motherfuckin' sopor slime, and-"
"Sopor‽ God dammit Gamzee! Fuck you for unleashing that thing into the hive!"
The roast slowly approached.
"Fuck you Vriska, for being such a drunk!"
"She's doing...lewd things..."
"Fuck you, Equius, for being so fucking creepy!"
"I'm sorry," he whispered.
"Fuck you, Tavros, wherever you are, for letting Gamzee get to the oven!"
A muffled What? came from the closest bathroom.
"And fuck you, Kanaya, for starting all this shit!"
"Still bleeding over here."
"Fuck you for spending all of our money! Fuck you for letting Vriska drive, fuck you for EVERYTHING!" He turned over to face Kanaya and did the only thing that made sense at the time: he punched her square in the mouth.
At the exact moment of impact, the roast exploded as a human burst out of it.
Karkat, Kanaya, and Gamzee stared in awe (though, to be fair, 'awe' was usually Gamzee's base state) as the man brushed a bit of what was probably meat off his suit and glanced around him. "Huh. Whoops," he said. "Am I interrupting something?"
"What the...who the fuck are you?"
"Oh, me? I'm Bláqlebuh. I was summoned here because you, Karkat Vantas, have inadvertently rediscovered the true meaning of Fistmas."
"I did what?"
"See, people, over the years, have confused my holiday with Christmas. Now, don't get me wrong, Yahweh's a nice guy, but I'd rather have my holiday be, well, mine, right?"
"I...yes?"
By this point, Equius was standing in the doorway, still propping up Vriska, whose bottle was regretfully empty. Feferi, too, was there, having managed to pull herself from three boxes of ceramic shards tearing at her skin.
"But you," Bláqlebuh continued, "in that one moment of pure, unfathomable rage where you punched your friend there in the jaw, have rediscovered what Fistmas was once all about."
"And that is?"
"Wantonly decking everyone you know."
"...that's it?"
"That's it."
"No hidden meanings or anything?"
"Well, it is representing the Coming of the Great Right Haymaker, but really, it's just an excuse to clock people."
"So...you mean like this?" Kanaya raised her fist and delivered a blow to Gamzee's nose.
"Ow, sister. Why you be doin' that?"
"Yes, just like that."
"Or like this?" Gamzee threw a hook to Karkat's jaw.
"I swear to god, Gamzee, I am going to tear off your horns and-"
Bláqlebuh hushed Karkat. "Yes, yes."
"Or like-"
"Don't even think about it, horsehead."
"Aw, fiddlesticks."
"Oh, and Karkat, one more thing before I go." Bláqlebuh walked up to Karkat, helped him up, and punched him hard enough to send him through the wall, into the bathroom with an incredibly bewildered Tavros. "You're an insufferable bastard. Now," he gave a brief wave to everyone, "have a merry Fistmas!" He then vanished in a loud bang (which woke Vriska from her daze) and a puff of smoke (which promptly set off the smoke alarm), leaving behind a The Gospel of Bláqlebuh unabridged box set and a scorch mark.
"Motherfuckin' miracles," Gamzee whispered.
"You know, Gamzee, for once, I am going to agree with you," Kanaya stood and helped Gamzee to his feet.
"The only miracle I am fucking seeing," Karkat growled, removing himself from a sputtering Tavros' lap, "is the miracle you are going to have to pull out of your asses to fucking fix this wall!"
"Well, if you weren't so unagreeable at times, maybe Bláqlebuh wouldn't have punched you through it!"
"Don't you fucking start with me, Maryam!" Karkat stopped, jaw slack, and pointed behind Kanaya and Gamzee. "Look out!"
The three ducked as the roast, in the process of reforming itself, threw the entire pot of cauliflower at them. The roast roared in triumph, used the dishwasher to knock out a window, and fled into the night. Arguing ensued, faces were punched, and somewhere, deep within the core of the universe, Bláqlebuh was pleased.
Merry Fistmas to all, and to all, go fuck yourselves.