Chapter Text
December 1st
24 Days Till Christmas
~~~~~~~
It was the beginning of Zack’s second December living in Jefferson County, Danville, and he was thankful for exactly two things at the moment: one, that their school buses actually had heat, and two, that he wouldn’t have to wake up in the dark the next morning.
It was early in the morning, and it was still frigid out. The temperature had gotten to the point where it was hovering right around freezing during the day and dropped down into the 10s at night. Things weren’t going to get better any time soon, so they just had to deal with it. With the temperatures being in such extremes, the school buses having working heat were a lifesaver. Honestly, if the school buses didn’t have heat, there would probably be several lawsuits due to cases of frostbite and hypothermia. Freezing your pants off while waiting for the bus wasn’t pleasant anyway, but at least their stop was in a less windy area. Being stuck in the cold sucked. Being stuck in the cold with the wind was a nightmare.
But at least it was a Friday. It was just one more school day to get through, and then he would be able to sleep in. He still had to get up around nine to run some errands for his parents, though. And he had to be quick about it since he had to be back to watch his little siblings before lunch. His parents had to go to work by then. Even if he did have work to do, he still got around an hour and a half of extra sleep. Always a win.
Despite his excitement, neither the cold nor sleeping in was at the forefront of his mind. That would be Milo.
The brunet had been visibly excited as he ran up to Zack as soon as he saw him at the bus stop. He was so distracted that he hadn’t been examining the sidewalk and slipped on a patch of ice that had nearly taken half of the other kids out earlier. If Zack hadn’t been close enough to catch him, Milo would have fallen flat on his face. Once they had gotten out of the ice zone and Milo had righted himself, he started talking, fast and full of excitement. Faster than Zack could understand at the moment. He probably would have continued for several minutes if Zack hadn’t asked him to stop.
As much as he wanted to know what Milo was trying to tell him, Zack wasn’t going to be able to concentrate on anything if he was turning into an icicle. Milo completely understood his explanation and just made some idle small talk. That didn’t change the fact that he was practically vibrating while waiting for the bus to show up. He was even more curious when Melissa finally showed up, and it became clear that she knew what Milo had been trying to talk about. But he wasn’t going to go back on what he said now and would just have to wait for the bus.
It couldn’t have arrived soon enough. It looked like steam was gushing out of the doors as they opened, and Zack practically melted with relief as he stepped through them. Not many feelings were better than that blossom of warmth.
So now he was sitting with his friends just like they usually did, except that Melissa was sitting in the seat in front of them this year. It made it a lot easier for them to talk before school since Zack and Milo no longer had to crane their necks every time they wanted to talk to her. Melissa didn’t care if she had to lean over the back of the seat or not. Their bus driver didn’t care about anything.
Once they had finally gotten warmed up again and settled, Zack let Milo talk again. He was so eager that he was talking a mile a minute, Zack had to keep asking him to stop and repeat things just to understand his occasionally off-track rambling. Melissa did not explain anything, just watching them with amusement. But once Zack understood what Milo was talking about, he understood why he had been so excited.
“So, your family has its own Christmas Countdown?” Zack asked with a grin.
“It’s not anything official,” Milo said with a shrug, keeping his head ducked slightly. “We just do our best to celebrate the spirit of the season.”
Melissa looked back at the two of them while propping herself up with her arm. “I’m the one who named it three years ago,” she said with pride, raising her hands to either side of her face to emphasize her words. “The Murphy Christmas Countdown.”
“Do you, like, try to do the same things every year or something?” Zack asked.
Melissa stared at him deadpan. “Do you really think that Murphy’s Law would allow that?”
“Nope. Still had to ask, though.”
Milo chuckled. “We just try and do something fun every day of the month. Like baking or wrapping presents, or just hanging out with each other.”
“Snowball fights, hot chocolate, and all that jazz,” Melissa added with a shrug.
Zack smiled at his friends, but couldn’t help a small thing from nagging at his mind.
“Why didn’t you guys tell me about this last year?” he asked.
“None of us wanted to make your mild wrist sprain worse,” Melissa deadpanned.
Milo rubbed at the back of his neck sheepishly. “And arranging for my dad’s entire side of the family to visit was time-consuming, to say the least.”
“I was wondering what you had been spending so much time on last year.”
“Yeah, I was busy convincing them all. But this year will be even better!”
Zack shook his head fondly at Milo’s enthusiasm as the school buses rolled to a stop. A small spark of curiosity ran through him as he watched everyone line up on the sidewalk instead of walking through the front doors. You would have thought that after becoming friends with Milo, he wouldn’t be surprised by anything. That had been proven wrong, taking sentient plants and aliens into consideration. And now, as he continued to stare at the fire that was blazing in one corner of the school roof. Firetrucks had already lined up and were working on it.
“What’s happening with the school?” he asked with a voice that remained completely flat at the end.
“This is also a yearly thing,” Melissa supplied, staring at the flames as they slowly started to fizzle out under the onslaught of water.
Zack’s eyebrows narrowed in confusion as he turned to his friends. “Did I miss December first last year”?
“Yeah, you were in the hospital with your wrist.”
“I was, wasn’t I?”
Milo stopped watching the firefighters and turned toward the two. “My dad said that half of the entire school burned down one year when he was going here.”
Zack whipped his head around. “Really?”
“Yeah,” Milo continued, shrugging as the flames finally died down. “Nowadays, the fire department is already here when the buses arrive, so most of it is saved.”
“Most of it?” Zack asked.
No sooner than he had spoken, the corner of the school started to crumble. The falling rubble just barely missed the fire trucks and blocked off the sidewalk to their right. All of the kids just stared at the exposed room, the blackboard visible in the back.
Melissa sighed. “There goes our math classroom.”
As soon as the firefighters made sure that the fire was completely out and probably wouldn’t catch again, and the rubble had settled enough, all of the kids were ushered into the building. The construction crew would be there soon enough to give them an estimate on the cost, and they didn’t need a bunch of kids getting under their feet.
After that, everything proceeded as normally as things could get. Aside from the trio’s math class being held in the gymnasium. Nobody was put off by the change of setting since they had been forced to hold class in weirder places before. Melissa promised that she would tell Zack about all of that later.
It was nice that the gymnasium and cafeteria weren’t freezing like they usually were. Not having to wear a jacket just to eat in peace was very nice. It could have been warmer still, but at least the gym was only for that one class. With how little their math teacher cared about teaching them that day, it was basically a free period. How's that for a stroke of luck?
After school was over, everyone filed out of the building as fast as they could, standing around on the no longer frost-covered sidewalk to wait for the buses. They never showed up. All of the kids, except the ones who got picked up, waited for a bit since having to walk home in the chilly weather would be miserable. Eventually, everyone had to resign themselves to walking when an announcement came out that the bridge the buses came in on had been closed.
The trio was used to having to walk back on their own on occasion. The buses being severely late was not a rare occurrence. It helped that they could walk most of the way by themselves. None of them needed to be back quickly, and it had warmed up enough that wearing a thick coat made things mostly bearable, so they took their time with it. It was pretty nice, Zack thought with a peaceful smile on his face. Just getting to stroll along in the crisp air and talk to his friends.
He was snapped out of his pleasant thoughts when Melissa started talking.
“You have something on your mind, Milo?”
“Yeah, kind of.” The trio stopped in the middle of the sidewalk so that they could listen to him. Thankfully, there wasn’t anybody else about.
“So…” Milo said, trailing off and turning toward Zack. “Do you want to join us this year?”
Zack grinned, eyes brimming with excitement. He knew exactly what Milo was referring to. “Do you even have to ask? Of course, I do!”
Milo grinned with excitement, and Melissa gave him a playful nudge with her elbow.
“So, what are we going to do tomorrow?” Milo asked.
“Well, I have to get some new decorations for my dad. Some of them broke while we were putting them away last year,” Melissa said.
“I have to get new decorations too! You guys know we always need a lot of spares. Specifically, ones that aren’t too much of a fire hazard. And aren’t glass.”
Zack couldn’t help but laugh at Milo’s statements and the coincidences. “And my mom wants to make our house look like Candy Cane Land this year. So I guess we all need to go to the same place.”
Melissa also laughed, but she restrained it. “At least we won’t have to figure out a separate meeting place.”
“So we can meet at the bus stop around nine-thirty or so?”
“Yeah.” Milo nodded, grinning from ear to ear.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t long before all of them realized that they had reached the place where they had to split up. The one unfortunate thing about their friendship was that all of their houses were in different directions. But none of them were too sad. They’d probably text later, and they would be seeing each other again before they knew it.
“See you guys tomorrow!” Milo called out behind him as he started walking his way home.
“Yeah, see ya!” Zack replied as he turned down his street.
It was certainly going to be an interesting December, he thought to himself. And hopefully, a really fun one.