Work Text:
“Buster! Buster, vhake up!”
Buster rolled away from the voice. “Gunter?”
“Ja! Is me! Vhake up!”
Buster propped himself up on one arm to look at his clock. “Gunter, it’s five in the morning!”
“Ja! Is Christmas! Come on!”
“…what?”
“Is Christmas! Everyone’s waiting!” Gunter grabbed Buster by the shoulders and tried to tug him out of bed.
Buster pulled away and curled deeper under the covers. “It’s still night, Gunter.” Yes, he was a morning person, but this was ridiculous even for him.
Gunter grabbed him by the shoulders again and this time succeeded in flipping him onto his back. “Of course! Is Christmas!”
As if that explained everything. But then, it didn’t look like Gunter was giving up anytime soon, and Buster was too tired argue. Besides, he told himself as he rolled into a sitting position, he’d wake up quickly. He’d probably feel just fine once he got dressed and down the stairs.
Without another word to Gunter, who was so excited he was bouncing like a toddler – well, to be honest, like Buster whenever he was excited – he rolled out of bed and went to grab his day clothes.
“Vhat are you doing?” Gunter asked, planting both hands on Buster’s shoulders yet again and steering him toward the door. “There’s not time for that! It’s Christmas!”
Buster wrapped his arms around himself, shivering slightly as he allowed himself to be shepherded out into the hallway. The whole place felt freezing cold after the warmth that had built up while he was buried under blankets. “You keep saying that like it’s supposed to explain everything.”
“Vell, ja! It does, doesn’t it?”
Buster shook his head. He was starting to wake up a little. “No. It does not.”
Gunter paused, thinking about it, then seemed to shrug it off and kept pulling Buster down the hallway. The koala was now awake enough to start quietly theorizing to himself about what this was all about.
And then Gunter dragged him into one of the larger rooms backstage.
Welp, he was awake now.
His entire cast was there, along with Rosita’s and Johnny’s families and Ms. Crawly, even if the old lizard was asleep in a pile of wreaths. They’d dragged the Christmas tree from the lobby into the room and set up a bunch of lights, and it looked like everyone had brought some sort of candy or dessert. Beneath the tree was a pile of presents.
Buster stared at the room, gaping, eyes sliding from one face to another as his slack-jawed expression of shock slowly changed to one of delight. He took a step forward, unprompted by Gunter for once.
He stood perfectly still for one long moment, unable to quite believe he wasn’t dreaming – and then he shot forward, leaping to throw his arms around the nearest person available – which happened to be Rosita.
She caught him midleap, holding him such that he could rest his head on her shoulder. He did, closing his eyes and smiling contentedly.
“I can’t believe you guys are here…”
Rosita patted him on the head. “We thought you’d like to celebrate Christmas with your family.”
Buster could feel Ms Crawly joining Rosita, putting her arms around his shoulders. Then Johnny joined the group hug, then Porsha, then more and more of them until nearly every one of them at least had a hand on him.
For a few minutes, Buster couldn’t see, and could hear very little, and his world shrank down to a small circle of warm, safe darkness and the feeling of other bodies pressed up against his own, dozens of hands pushing into his fur.
He would have been happy to stay that way forever.
But no good thing ever lasts that long, and, sooner than Buster would’ve liked, his friends and family let go of him, put him down and backed off.
He stood there, surrounded by them, for a moment before Porsha shoved a Rice Krispie treat into his hands and wrapped his fingers around it for him. “I made them myself. What do you think?”
Buster took a bite, then smiled and nodded.
Porsha leapt to her feet and went charging off.
“She’s already eaten half a ton of candy,” Nooshy explained. “So she’s a bit hyper.”
“A bit?” Ash replied sarcastically.
Buster shoved most of the rest of the Rice Krispie treat into his mouth and sat down next to Rosita, who was now keeping watch as her piglets churned up a paper tsunami in a mad dash to get all their presents opened as soon as possible. “You guys didn’t have to come so early…”
Rosita smirked, eyes still fixed on her children. “Try telling that to Gunter. Heck, try telling it to Caspar.”
“Why Caspar?” Buster asked, caught off-balance. He could understand Rosita’s allusion to Gunter – the pig was just as good at getting carried away by whatever idea popped into his head no matter how well it was likely to work as Buster was – but what did her youngest piglet have to do with it?
“I’m not sure why,” Rosita said, “but it’s always the younger brother who takes it upon himself to wake everyone else up at an ungodly hour to open presents on Christmas.”
“I remember when that was my role,” Norman put in nostalgically. “My siblings hated it.”
Up until just a few months ago, Buster had always been an only child. Hearing this, he finally realized what this was all about.
He looked around the room, grinning. “You guys are the best family ever.”