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"No way, you moron."
"Yes way, Ronald-kun. Yes. Way."
"We can't do this." Ronald shook his head, feeling despair bubble up inside him. "C'mon, Drac, be reasonable. We can't."
"It's what John wants." Draluc insisted, pointing to the paper between them, which was covered in Christmas-colour glitter and very adorable handwriting. "And it's what John will get, so help me God!"
"But…"
"It's what John wants." Draluc repeated, as if that was all that mattered… and, in all honesty, it kind of was, to Ronald, too. There was very little he wouldn't do for that armadillo.
...unfortunately, said "very little" may or may not include what John had written in his Christmas Wish Letter to Santarmadillo Claus.
Dear Claus-sama,
I'm happy to tell you that I've been a very good armadillo this year. I helped Master Draluc cook and protected him when I could, and I put those little trees that smell of pine needles into Ronald-mama's boots because they're so very stinky. I also only stole cookies from the kitchen 3- well. 13 times. Also, I gave one of my favourite pastries to a very kind vampire who saved my life.
(Please look out for Tsu-san this coming year, too, and send him someone to care and be there for him. I think he really needs a person like that...)
There's nothing I want this year… except for one thing.
My Christmas Wish is that Master Draluc and Ronald-mama will stop fighting so much, and be happy together, because I love them both very much, and want them to love each other, too. Nothing would make me happier.
Thank you very much.
Festively Yours,
John O. Guardian
"Look. Draluc. It just isn't feasible." Ronald tried. "You know I'd sell the shirt off my back to give John whatever he wants, but you and me l-l-loving each other? That's not something we can get him."
"He made a Christmas Wish." Draluc said, with the grim determination of someone who didn't like this any more than Ronald did, but had committed to a certain course of action he was going to see through until the bitter, bitter end. "And he has been a very good armadillo this year. He'll think he ended up on the naughty list! Is that what you want, Ronald-kun? Is that it!?"
"Of course not!" Ronald snapped. "But, really, John's nearly 200, isn't that old enough to know that there's no real Santa Claus?"
"Oh, don't be silly, he knows Santa isn't real." Draluc rolled his eyes. "He just… believes that wishes always come true on Christmas, if you've been a good boy."
A sigh.
"There've been… hard times, in the past, for me and John. You know how social he is, how much he loves to make friends - and then us, always solitary, in the castle, because going out just with him wasn't an option for me. He was often lonely, or bored, as much as he tried not to let it show. So I'd tell him to write a secret letter to- well, back then it was still Moş Crăciun, and wish very hard, so that on Christmas, just on Christmas, that wish would magically come true. This way, I could give him just one day of real happiness each year... and all the consequences be damned. So you understand why I’d move heaven and earth to get him whatever he asks for, yes?”
Ronald was getting the distinct feeling that a vampire onion might’ve escaped from the kitchen and started cutting itself up nearby. Yeah. Very likely.
“...yeah, I get it.” He said, a little wetly, wiping his sleeve over his eyes. “I do.”
“There’s really no way around it.” Draluc briefly looked heavenwards, either in the hope some higher being would lend him strength, or to check if there was a guillotine’s blade ready to drop down onto him. “You and I will have to pretend to-” a grimace, a shudder, sanding a little at the edges from disgust “-be in love. Dating.”
Ronald gagged, he couldn’t help himself. Draluc, too, looked rather like he wanted to wash his mouth out with soap.
“I can’t,” Ronald begged, putting his head in his hands and willing his nausea to go away. “We can’t, Draluc, I won’t-”
“It’s for John. All for John.” Draluc rubbed the space between his shoulderblades consolingly. “And just for the one day, too. He knows how Christmas Wishes work, he won’t expect it to last. The next morning, we can fight and make each other’s lives Hell again, you can kill me to your heart’s content - it’s really just one day of playing pretend.”
“But…”
“Ronald-kun, please,” Draluc said, very earnestly, and with what Ronald privately called his “serious John-related matters” face, which he only used when he was being completely and utterly serious about something concerning the most precious little thing he had in his life.
Ronald chewed on his lip. Looked down again at the letter containing John’s pure, sweet wish, the way his adorable little paws had written the word “love” so preciously.
“...fuck it. Let’s do it.” He said, resigning himself to his fate. “One day of being in love with a shitty vampire. I can pull that off.”
He held out his hand, and he and Draluc shook on it, Draluc’s hand sanding only a little under Ronald’s grip.
“For John.” Draluc said grimly.
“For John,” Ronald echoed. “Let’s make his wish come true, no matter the cost.”
And they would. By all that was holy and unholy both, they would.
“John? We have something to tell you.”
Ronald glanced at Draluc.
Draluc raised one eyebrow.
They stepped slightly closer to each other, and, with the distinct air of two people putting their head onto the executioner’s block, held hands.
(They couldn’t quite suppress the shudder that went through the both of them at the contact, but at least neither of them let out a sound of abject disgust, which had been a real issue during the practice runs they’d conducted while John had gone out to his ribbon-dancing classes in the days leading up to Christmas.)
“Draluc and I are d-d-da- we’re dati- we-”
“We’re dating,” Draluc helpfully finished, rather quickly, like ripping off a band-aid, though he did look pained enough to suggest the band-aid had taken multiple skin layers with it.
“Nu!?” John gasped. And then, bursting with joy, “nunununuNU! Nu nu! Nu!!!”
“Haha, yes,” Draluc said, and looked like he really wished Ronald would kill him on the spot.
Alas, no murder was forthcoming.
“We’re happy together.” Ronald added, as stiffly as the stiffest stiff in the history of stiffness. “We won’t fight so much. ……..and- andweloveeachother.”
Having forced out that last sentence, he promptly dropped Draluc’s hand and turned on his heels, leaving the room. Shortly after, there was a muffled sound, not unlike someone screaming their despair into a pillow.
“Well, John, sh-shall we prepare C-christmas dinner?” Draluc soldiered on bravely, though he looked like he was precariously close to tears, or death, or both.
“Nu!” John beamed, already hopping up on the kitchen counter.
Ronald returned about halfway through putting together the dough for cozonac (Ronald had wanted KFC for Christmas, Draluc had told him “no” and then “fuck no” and then increasingly cruder variants of this before promising, still in rather colourful language, to prepare a Christmas dinner Ronald would never forget, calling up some old tutor of his to send over scans of all his old recipe books and getting to planning), and managed, after manfully steeling himself for half a minute, to slide up behind Draluc, put an only-very-slightly-trembling hand on his hip, and hastily press his lips to the side of Draluc’s head before jerking back like he’d been burned, free hand flinching upwards as if he’d only barely managed to stop himself from frantically wiping it over his mouth.
John nu’d in delight, the very picture of innocent joy, and went back to weighing the cocoa, while Draluc and Ronald helplessly grimaced at each other.
It was going to be a very, very, very long Christmas Night…
“Here you go, darling.” Draluc forced out between gritted teeth.
“Why, thank you, dear.” Ronald retorted, spitting out the endearment like it had personally insulted his aniki.
“More pork chops, sugarplum?”
“Don’t mind if I do, honeybunch.”
“You’re the sweetest.”
“No, you are!”
They smiled at each other, both showing far too many teeth, rigidly and with mutual murder in their eyes.
John peacefully munched on his own portion, nu’ing his compliments to the chef, none the wiser to the way Draluc and Ronald wanted desperately to put both themselves and each other out of their misery.
(“What the wee-wee is going on,” Hinaichi murmured very softly, looking from Draluc to Ronald and back again, halfway through stuffing cookies into her pockets. “What are they DOING!?”
“Grub’s way too good for me to care,” Handa shrugged, heaping more servings onto his own plate. “Try the stuffed cabbage rolls, they’re delicious.”
Next to them, Hiyoshi had had his head buried in his hands for the past five minutes of aggressive flirting, now, and was giving very little indication of having the intent to surface again.
And who could blame him, really?)
There was mistletoe above them.
There. Was. Mistletoe.
“Nu?” John prompted, waddling up to them and pointing up at the offending greenery. “Nu nu mwah nu?”
Draluc and Ronald met each other’s eyes.
A silent argument ensued, conducted only via minor facial tics and moving of the eyebrows, complete with an account of the one time John had wished for world peace for Christmas, and cried his little eyes out after that wish could not be realised, and a very detailed and graphic description of what Ronald would do to Draluc if the vampire bastard tried to slip him any tongue.
Finally, a decision was made, a bullet was bitten, and two pairs of lips slowly, but with grim determination, inched closer towards each other.
With their eyes screwed very firmly shut, both of them managed to fight their way through the kiss quite alright. They had practised this, after all - though, actually, come to think about it, they’d practiced fake kissing, where the lips never met, not- uh-
Well.
Never mind that then.
It wasn’t so terrible a kiss, after all. No harm done in adding a bit of authenticity.
…even if Draluc died two minutes in due to… sheer disgust, probably. Luckily, John seemed to chalk it up to shyness, hurrying over and fretting over Draluc’s remains, which were taking a curiously long time to re-form.
(Ronald stumbled back slightly until his back hit the doorframe, raising one hand to very, very gently touch his bottom lip.
He didn’t look nauseous or angry at all, strangely. Just very, very dazed, and a little confused, like some fundamental truth of his life had just been called in question.
And if a sand heap had any kind of facial expression, let it be known that Draluc would’ve looked much the same.)
“What kind of Christmas movie do you want to watch, John?” Ronald asked, his arm around Draluc’s waist, who was wearing the brave and empty smile of someone long dead inside. “Die Hard? Die Hard 2?”
“Nu!” John held up DVD from the library, reading ‘When Helsing Met Dracula - A Love Story Between a Vampire and a Hunter (and it’s Christmas)’.
Ronald opened his mouth.
Closed it.
Had to hold Draluc up somewhat, on account of his lower half having turned distinctly sand-y.
“Sure. Whatever.” He finally sighed, depositing Draluc’s half-dead form on the couch and putting the DVD into the player. In for a penny, in for a pound, and all that. This might as well happen, now.
Returning to the couch with the remote, he hesitated, and finally decided to put his arm around Draluc’s shoulders, who sagged to lean into Ronald’s side, head dropping on his shoulder. Which, fair, Ronald rather felt like just slumping into the couch cushions himself.
John hopped up onto the couch to curl up on both their laps, wearing the cute little sweater Draluc’s father had knitted him and looking extremely happy.
It was worth it. It was.
“Merry Christmas, Ronald-kun,” Draluc said, softly, as the movie began to play, turning his face up towards him just very slightly.
“Merry Christmas, Draluc.” Ronald replied.
And then, since he was already in for a great many pennies, he leaned down to press a kiss to Draluc’s lips - who met him halfway, actually - brief and simple, before they parted and returned to watching the movie.
They were probably a few pounds in too deep, by now, but in the face of John’s obvious happiness, they couldn’t quite bring themselves to regret it.
Finally, the movie - which had been surprisingly tender and romantic, actually, and had coaxed that damned vampire onion out of hiding during the heartbreaking last farewell, and then again at the miraculous reunion at the very end - was finished, the credits were rolling, and this absolutely torturous Christmas Night was about to come to a close.
John yawned, uncurling himself, and dusting a few Christmas cookie crumbs off of his sweater.
“Nu nu,” he muttered, moving to jump down to the floor and waddle to his basket - but then stopped.
Turned back.
Set his paws onto Ronald’s and Draluc’s hands, which just so happened to be holding each other, fingers entwined.
“Nu, nunu, nu nu nu,” he said, full of emotion, glowing with love. “Nu-nuhu, nu nu. Nu!”
And then, cute little eyes brimming with tears, “nu!”
“Oh, John,” Draluc breathed, his own eyes filling with tears, as well. “I- thank you. Thank you.”
“Yeah. Thank you.” Ronald agreed, hoarsely. He didn’t speak Nuu, but it didn’t take any kind of genius to figure out that John was very, very happy for them.
“Nu,” John murmured lovingly, and then climbed up their arms to press a sweet little armadillo kiss first to Draluc’s cheek, then to Ronald’s, before sliding back down and making his way to his basket with a few happy skips in his usual waddle.
Ronald and Draluc watched him climb into bed, pull his blanket up, and go to sleep, without a word.
And then, they sat in silence for a good deal longer, staring unseeingly at the TV.
(The music playing during the credits was something exceptionally trite about lovers during late Christmas Eve after the children had gone to bed, just to add insult to injury.)
“...he was so happy.” Ronald finally said, faintly. “So, so happy.”
“I’ve never seen him quite like this before,” Draluc agreed, voice trembling with how very terribly close he was to despair. “He loves us, Ronald-kun, he loves us with all his heart. And all he wants in life, the thing that brings him the greatest joy, is to see us happy.”
Ronald swore, softly, wondrously, and very, very miserably. Draluc helplessly responded with the same.
They looked over to John softly and peacefully snoring.
“Fuck, it’ll break his heart when we go back to normal tomorrow,” Ronald whispered. “He’ll have expected it, but- it will still hurt him, won’t it.”
“Terribly.” Draluc nodded, looking like someone had driven a stake into his heart and twisted it around. “He’ll put on a smile and a brave face, but I know my John. He’ll go quiet when we’re not looking, maybe even cry himself to sleep. Our next big argument, he’ll probably just curl up in a ball and tremble in pain.”
They met each other’s eyes, both of them recognising a sort of mournful determination in the other - and perhaps, underneath, something else.
(They were, coincidentally, still holding hands.)
“There’s nothing for it,” Ronald murmured solemnly. “We’ll have to keep up the ruse a little while longer.”
“Agreed. At least until New Year’s.” Draluc nodded grimly. “Maybe even for a few weeks. Months.”
“A year or two.”
“Yes.”
“We’ll have to hold hands more, kiss, do the whole PDA thing and the pet names,” Ronald counted. “Really sell a committed relationship, and a happy home for John.”
“Maybe we’ll even have to get married someday.” Draluc added thoughtfully. “To make it really convincing.”
“Oh, good thinking!” Ronald nodded eagerly. “Marriage will provide some definitive stability, I’m sure John will find that very reassuring, that we’ve made vows of love to each other in front of all our friends and family.”
“It’s the only way we can do right by our beloved John.”
“Yeah. Nothing else for it.”
They smiled at each other, in the glow of the Christmas tree lights, the whole flat smelling of delicious food and cozily warm despite the snow falling outside.
“Mind, this is really only for John’s sake,” Draluc piped up to clarify, tightening his fingers around Ronald’s. “Just in case you’ve gotten some kind of impression that I would want to be romantically involved with and kiss and marry some kind of mindless gorilla brute.”
“Ditto,” Ronald scoffed, raising one hand to cradle Draluc’s cheek, thumb running along the edge of the bags under his eyes. “You think I want to waste myself on some dusty old man who’s the most pathetic worm of a vampire I’ve ever known? No way. I’d never do that out of my own free will.”
“Oh, very much not.” Draluc agreed readily, turning his face to press his lips to Ronald’s palm. “This is a sacrifice I’m making for John alone. I’ll probably regret it every day.”
“It’ll be terrible.” Ronald pulled Draluc into his lap, so they were chest to chest, sneaking one arm around his waist. “We’ll suffer to no end. But remember, we’re doing it for the only thing that matters.”
“For John,” Draluc breathed against Ronald’s lips, eyes half-lidded and gleaming with something very like the same joy John had been displaying all day.
“For John,” Ronald echoed, tenderly; and then…
Then, they kissed, like it was something they’d been waiting to be granted permission for for their entire lives, like floodgates had opened, like they were to be executed on the next day and each other’s mouths were their last meals, but at the same time like they wanted to do nothing else for the coming decades, if not centuries…
…and like all the mistletoe in the world was hanging above their heads, even though not a sprig of it could be seen.
John, meanwhile, was pretending to sleep rather convincingly, peeking through his eyelids over at the couch and giggling a soft little “nuhihi”.
He hadn’t been certain if his clever little plan would come to fruition, but was very gladdened indeed to see that it had, in the end. He wasn’t a child, anymore, after all, he knew how Christmas Wishes worked - but he’d figured, with just a little push, just a little encouragement, just a little taste of what they could have, his Master and Ronald-mama might well finally realise what it was that they really wanted for Christmas.
And so they had. A great success, all around. John truly couldn’t be happier.
So, while Draluc and Ronald were wound around each other on the couch, making great and terrible sacrifices for John’s sake only - and with tongue - John turned around and went to sleep in truth, dreaming of nothing but joy and glad tidings, and quite terribly pleased with himself.
His fondest, most hopeful wish had at last come true, after all…