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“-Hold up, aren’t horror stories meant to be a Halloween thing?”
The snow outside is- well, it’s hardly crisp, it’s far too wet for that. It’s more brown and sloshy than anything, well worn with footsteps through a busy street, but at least they have snow. It’s more than Martyn can say of most years, nowadays. But even if they didn’t, his paper snowflakes on the window would more than sell the illusion, no matter the others’ complaints.
By the fire, Jimmy splutters. “It’s Christmas themed, alright?”
“It’s not even winter! Your dude just wants to cause winter in spring!”
“Yeah, Red Winter! Think of Santa, Martyn, think of the elves!”
“The elves are green!”
“It is a bit strange for a Santa origin story. It is a bit strange.”
“No- B!”
“Told ya,” Martyn grins as he reaches over for a chocolate santa. He unwraps it — then, after a moment’s consideration, bites the head right off. With chocolate still stuffed in his mouth: “Saint Nicholas, everybody!”
Faking offence, Jimmy can’t suppress his laughter. “No, the head’s supposed to go back on!”
The laughter passes around their little circle, air filled with your classic Christmas cheer. When it dies down, Grian’s the one to fill the silence.
“Why did you choose a beheading story, Tim?” His words are normal enough — a punchline at Timmy feels inevitable — but the way he says them is weirdly… crafted. Weirdly cautious. Martyn snatches a glance at BigB, seeing if he caught it, too, but before he can glean anything, the moment arrives. “Knowing you, I thought it would be more, ‘oh, look, the Christmas tree is talking to me! Let’s go on an adventure!’”
“Always complaining, the lot of ya. The lot of ya!”
“And did you ever wonder, Tim-”
“Oi! Not another word. Anyway, it’s something Ren told me-”
“…Ren?”
“Yeah, I was out with Joel, we bumped into him. He’d written a new story, I think? About that guy that got beheaded. And it sounded cool, so he said I could pass it on.”
“Taking people’s ideas without credit. Wow.” It’s a lighthearted comment — BigB knows Jimmy’s not a plagiariser — but it seems to stir something regardless.
“No, it’s literally so weird, he told me not to announce it? Said it came to him in a dream or something, so he’d feel bad about taking credit for a tale that wasn’t actually his.”
Martyn frowns. “Isn’t a dream still you, though? Your mind’s still coming up with everything, you’re just asleep for it.”
“Dreams can make people act weird sometimes.” The words are in that same crafted tone.
“Joel said he was acting weird after, yeah. It was like- he seemed kind of urgent, somehow? To pass it on? I dunno, he said Martyn might get it.”
Martyn feels the moment the attention of the room shifts to him, probing eyes hungry for answers he hasn’t the faintest clue about. “Oi, I’ve got no part in this, alright? I don’t know what sort of stuff he gets up to in his spare time, but I’ve barely seen the dude.”
The defence works: the focus passes, morphing into a more targetless confusion. It makes sense. Martyn’s met Ren a grand total of one time, at a party Grian was hosting — hardly best buds, they are. Grian’s the one who works at Hermits Corp with him, and Jimmy’s apparently the one who randomly runs into him in the street, so why he’d have an inside joke with Martyn of all people, is…
“No! I won’t do it! I won’t do it. You took me in when I was a lowly traveller…”
“Weiiiird.”
Is weird. Just like Bigb’s said.
The comment works, though, and breaks the building silence. The colder tension thaws, the first spring blossoms of Timmy Teasing already showing their smiling heads. “Anyway, I’m cheering for the desert bandits.”
“Grian! It’s a Christmas story! They’re literally warm!”
Grian’s indifference is honed to perfection. “I dunno. They’re cool.”
“Are they? I thought they were warm,” Martyn quips. He seizes the resultant laughter, the resultant resistive ‘very funny’s, and lets him lose himself in the chatter that follows. The mirth, the banter, the protests from a Jimmy who’s never going to be able to finish his tale (or Ren’s dream’s tale, whatever that means) — all of it real, all of it known, all of it here. All too soon, he’s succeeded in washing away the remnants of that strange feeling, whatever was.
It’s…
It’s probably a memory of a movie, or something. He’ll go easy on the mulled wine next time.