Work Text:
“I’m just saying, why include all this holiday crap if it only applies for a short time of the year?”
“Because at least you can be festive for that time of the year.” Sarah chuckles at Jack’s groan as she flips through the catalog. “There’s so much stuff. We could decorate the entire town if we want to.”
The two are playing an open-world sandbox co-op game, which was just updated with a whole new set of holiday items. A bit late in terms of the Halloween or otherwise spooky stuff, but adequate for the current winter season. The past few weeks they’ve built up a town in their game, and tried a few different things with it.
“I’m not decorating the town in lights and… fir… stuff.” Jack scoffs. Sarah could pick up the annoyance and obstinacy in his tone.
“Don’t like Christmas time?” She asks him, picking up her mug filled with hot cocoa. She wouldn’t say she’s the most enthusiastic person in the world for the holiday, but she enjoys it as much as anyone else. Cocoa case in point.
“It’s… fine. I don’t have any moral objection to the holiday or whatever.” He grunts. “Just… never been that big a fan of it.”
She hums as she sets her mug back down. “Is this a recent thing or,” she hesitates, “um, h-has it always been…” she trails off, not wanting to continue in fear of possibly setting him off.
“It’s always been a thing.” He tells her plainly. He chuckles melancholy, Sarah waiting for him to continue or explain the chuckle… but doesn’t. And she doesn't push it.
From the time she knew him, it took a lot to get anything about him that wasn’t an overblown fabrication. And even with the two of them dating now, it’s still hard to get a straight answer on himself, especially his past. She doesn’t force him or pry much, and tries to be respectful. But it’s good that he is opening up, little by little. Knowing how he was before, it’s helping; maybe even more than he realizes.
“Well it’s a good thing I’m so cute then.” She says trying to lighten the mood. she takes her time to scroll through the catalog, wanting to decorate at least one house.
“Excuse me?” He asks incredulously. “I’m pretty sure out of the two of us, I’m the cute one.”
“Whatever you say, bun.” She pulls out some decorative items she found and lines them up for consideration. Even if she’s doing only one house, she wants it to look nice; there has to be some kind of plan.
“Wha-” Jack’s avatar appears from around the bend, giving a full view of the things she has out. “Stop setting stuff up.” he tells her, removing the garland she just placed down.
She sighs in exasperation. “Come on Jack, either I decorate the digital town that can be easily reset to the last save,” a mischievous grin spreads across her face as a thought comes to mind, “or I come over there and decorate your apartment.”
A tentative pause as he stops deleting stuff. “You wouldn’t.”
“I have the key now, don’t I?” she asks smugly.
He scoffs. “You know I never leave right?”
“Don’t need you to. I’ll come in the middle of the night, decorate in silence. When you wake up, your place will look like the department store in Elf.”
He winces at the thought. “Please don’t.”
“Then let me decorate the town!” she lightly smacks her desk, practically begging him. “I can’t decorate my apartment; I need something to tie me over. Let me live my fantasies vicariously online.”
As if it didn’t take nearly dying to escape that very problem.
He groans. “Fine, you can decorate it!” she giggles victoriously and searches for the garland he deleted earlier. “But,” he interrupts. She could practically see the wide toothy grin she’d come to love. “We blow it up afterwards.”
“… I’ll allow it.”
“You want to see it explode, I know you do.”
A shy smile plays at her lips. “Maybe a little.” The explosive simulation in the game is surprisingly entertaining. Especially with the cinematic feature that you can set to record, making it all the more fun when you watch it back. It would mean an additional setup, but nothing too tedious.
“You have to help me decorate though.” She adds, eliciting a good-natured groan from him.
The two start decorating their little built-up town. Starting mostly with general decorations that apply to all buildings, and then going through and adding a few variants. Such as adding a tree in the town center, extra drapes on the city hall, lights on some of the houses, and so forth.
As Sarah flipped through a few different color options for lights, a thought came to mind. “Hey, Jack?” He hums, letting her know he’s listening. “You know what’s something we could have done if we planned it ahead of time?”
“… what?” the hesitancy is obvious in his question.
“Just, maybe,” she shrugs, despite knowing he can’t see her. “We could have all gotten together for a Christmas thing. Or a regular get to see each other IRL thing.”
He didn’t respond immediately as they added a few more things. “I guess a meet up wouldn’t be the worst thing; especially after Digital Circus-mageddon.”
She gives a light yet stained chuckle. “Don’t remind me.” She says, tapping at her hand. She’s a lot better now, but… it’s still hard to manage sometimes. Especially if she hears anything resembling circus music, or has anything rubbery touch her.
“But I don’t think they would want to meet up for Christmas.” He continues, interrupting their thoughts. “They all have family and friends they’d rather be with; unlike us.”
“I guess.” She glances at her closet, where her one-wrapped present is held. “I mean, I have my parents, but it’s not like…” she doesn’t finish.
“You at least have them.” He sounds nonchalant, but she can pick up the subtle bitter jealousy in his tone. She can’t really refute that. the relationship might be a little strained but it’s still there. And they’ve been working on it, mostly.
“Well…” she adds another string of lights to one of the business buildings. “I can talk with my parents and see if I can bring both of you with me for Christmas dinner.” She can always offer that, just so he won’t be so alone.
Jack’s character stops completely, Sarah picking up some muttering on his end. “Both… you want my sister to come after she decimated with her questions?” he asks incredulously.
Sarah chuckles at the memory. “She was pretty insistent, wasn’t she? But, she’s a kid, and your sister, so I don’t blame her. Plus, she’s funny. Funnier than you.”
He gives a dramatic gasp. “Ah, my ego. How will I ever recover?” they both chuckle. They add some more lights and garlands right as he breaks the silence with, “She’s taller than you.”
That gets her to stop. His kid sister is not taller than her, but it still hits in the recovering insecurity. “That’s a low blow.” She mutters, glaring at his character.
“Had to be. Considering how far down I had to reach to get you.”
She forces herself to breathe in. Anything and everything regarding her height used to hurt a lot. A silly insecurity, but a persistent one. She’s gotten better with it now that she has better friends and everything with the game…
But it doesn’t mean she’s letting him off the hook.
“And now I’m banning you from the game.”
“What? Come on, Pinwheels.”
“Don’t call me that.” She tells him, but there’s no real bite. And there’s no real claim to banning him from the game. Instead, she toggles him into spectator mode, disallowing him to do any edits. His character becomes semitransparent, earning an indignant scoff from Jack.
“Seriously?”
“Yes.” She resumes decorating the town, purposefully selecting the bright and gaudy versions, to annoy him. She heard a shudder of disgust from his end. This went on for a while until he gave an exasperated groan.
“Ok, fine! Sorry.”
She nods at his character. “Apology-”
“Sorry that your cuteness was weaponized against you before I came along. I would have done a better job than whatever idiot made you think otherwise.”
“And now it’s ruined.” She mutters annoyed, despite the bright blush spreading across her face. Even now, comments like that still got to her. it’s done in the typical Jack fashion, but it’s not unappreciated. She went ahead and took him off spectator mode, her boyfriend immediately removing and replacing some of the tacky décor she put up.
About an hour later, the digital town was completely decorated. Lights, garlands, wreaths, a few Christmas trees, and ornaments covered every beam, door, window, and railing of every house and business. They even simulated snow falling, covering the town in a nice layer of powdery snow, giving it an ideal Christmas feel.
“It’s beautiful.” Sarah says with slight awe.
“Eh, it’s ok.” Jack replies nonchalantly.
“You like it.” she says. She quickly saves it and sets the cinematic camera to start recording. “Did you set the explosives in place?”
“Been setting them up while we decorate.”
Bites back an ‘Of course’ and starts the recording. “Then light ‘er up.”
“Yes ma’am.” A pause as Jack set off the explosives. Starting from the furthest point, buildings erupted in flames and pieces went flying into the nether of the game’s rendering distance. It quickly moved upwards to them, more of the town becoming destroyed. The last explosive was big and close enough that it sent their avatars flying, flopping on the ground as they died.
“That last one might have been a little too much,” Sarah says with a slight wince.
“I think it wasn’t enough.” Jack responds. “Should have been bigger of an explosion.”
“Maybe.” She ended the recording for the cinematic and waited for it to render. “How much do you think the decorations affected the explosives?”
“Probably not as much as we would like it to be. like I doubt the lights or ornaments or whatever actually combusted realistically.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right.” the cinematic finished rendering, giving her a notification. “Wanna see how the cinematic came out?”
“Obviously.”