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“What’s the meaning of this!?” The unmistakable tone of Bdubs echoes loudly through the warehouse building, accosted by a sudden pinch at either side of his scalp.
Both hands shoot up shortly behind his gaze to meet the sudden invader at his temples. Fingers quickly wrap around the arch of a plastic headband, pushed half an inch off his head by the presence of his own, a thick red cloth wrapped tight around his skull.
“Shoot, couldn’t get it all the way down,” the red-haired woman behind him doesn’t quite respond but rather talks, truly, over him. By several inches.
Miss Apo weaves around the man and his inquisitions as she glides towards the intended recipient of her defeated remark; a young man in business attire, dark and unassuming in design but painstakingly crafted and tactical to the well trained eye. Same goes for the clothes too.
Abolish is stood at the rounded linoleum table in this carpeted break room corner of the warehouse, stood as to rifle through the large cardboard box sat atop it. While none of this exchange so far has pulled his attention from the box’ contents, he’s at least kind enough to give Bdubs a straight answer.
“Stacy brought headbands, we’re doing a Christmas photo.” His hands emerge victorious from the box and promptly crown himself a pair of thick felt antlers. No sooner does Apo drag the box to her chest from across the table as to take up the search herself.
Bdubs finds his hands at 10 and 2 pressed between the glaring protrusions atop his head. Pulling it down from its half-saddled position lets him examine the details of his lovingly picked accessory. Atop the center is the flattened image of a pointed green cap wrapped in a golden ribbon and set with a small red feather. Below it on either side reveals, in felt skin far paler than his own, the pointed ears of an elf.
“Why I gotta be the stupid elf!?”
Bdubs’ explosive indignity sends a shake up Apo’s shoulders, not out of shock as a wry anticipatory smile would betray, but from the suppression of a full-bodied laugh at his expense.
“Well y’know,” she peers back, still distracted with the box and highly amused, to defend herself half-assedly, “you’ve got the work ethic, the green…” a chuckle escapes, “the height.”
“Why I never!”
Abolish’ gaze widens and averts as his mug rises to obscure a stifled laugh.
Her attention finally lifts from the box as her head cranes back in modest laughter and she can’t help but applaud herself.
“I- I- Preposterous!” He stammers, despite his familiarity with this particular punchline, before he drops an octave and steels himself for a retort, “And let it be known, little lady, that you’re not all that taller than me are you?”
“Wooow,” she feigns indignity, turning to Bdubs with a playful look, “I’ll have you know the height I lost in blood back in Oakhurst. That’s fucked up.”
“Wow Bdubs,” Abolish interjects between sips, “short-phobic.”
“Wha- I-!?” Shaken from his brief veneer of confidence.
Apo exchanges a glance with Abolish, the comedy duo they are, “gave two inches for Martyn’s sake, thank you very much,” she snoots mockingly, crossed arms and an upturned chin.
Something mischievous light up in Bdubs’ eyes, a chance to deflect and a painfully obvious innuendo, “yeah you and Ren both.”
“Pffft,” Abolish scoff’s into his drink, turning to walk off Bdubs’ verbal riposte and tend to however much drink was left in his shirt and sinuses.
Apo goes through a similar process, reeling their head down and back towards the box, shaking their memory, “besides,” she begins, reaching in one last time, “I’ve already made my choice,” a headband emerges in hand and is triumphantly placed atop her, a large flat Santa hat with belt buckle and white fur to boot.
“Santa Claus!?” Bdubs laments, “and I’m not? I’m portly, I’m jolly, I got white hair and a beard for cryin out loud!”
Abolish steps back from the break room’s kitchenette now empty handed and throws an arm around Miss Apo, “well think about what she has. She’s charitable, only wears red, big wife guy,” while his free hand articulates his other lifts from her shoulder to push the band towards the small white patch in her hair, “and if you position it right it looks like Santa Claus has a little beard.”
Her eyes shoot open, looking first to him then up to catch the light of her few snowy white bangs, “I- You- Traitor!”
She turns on her heel to lay a few kicks into his shins like an awkward dance, “ow, ah, alright, real mature.”
Bdubs takes this moment watching evil destroy itself to scavenge this parcel personally, stepping up to bat and tilting the packaging towards his chest.
“No, no, another elf-” He mutters at the lowest volume he can muster amidst his searches, careful not to draw the other two’s now cannibalizing attention. It’s for this caution he’s unshaken when two towering trunks of stone stride up behind him, and from above them, descending to meet him, the long brown hair and soft crimson face of the box’ owner.
“Hey you found them!” She absolutely beams from over Bdubs’ shoulder, looking to and from him and the headbands.
He returns an earnest smile and over-the-shoulder look that turns briefly blank and then mischievous as an opportunity dawns on him, “indeed we have!” He boasts performatively, “here!” Quickly angling his forsaken headpiece up towards Stacy
An “ooh!” Gleefully escapes her as she pushes her head down into his crowning motion, nuzzling against his fingers until her accessory is snug and proper. Once satisfied, she grasps her knees and pushes herself upright until she towers above the party, the strider hybrid easily double the height of Bdubs.
“Ah! I’m a little elf!” Stacy’s entrance was easily noticed by the comedy duo as they transitioned from physical violence to playful bickering by the coffee machine, but this cheerful declaration of hers was enough to draw their attention back to the room at large.
“Well would you look at that,” Abolish returns monotone but upturned out of an admiration for her and a knowingness he eyes down at Bdubs. Apo simply stares daggers at their quarry as she plots her rebuttal, though her avoidance of eye contact with Stacy could be attributed to a certain ‘responsiveness’ for Nether girls.
“I’m so glad you like them!”
Bdubs’ gaze turns smug as it drops from Stacy to return the others’ glances, before it widens at her interjection, “ooh! Bdubs, there’s one in here that made me think of you!” Commenting at his distinct lack of accessory.
“Hold on, close your eyes,” which he was already halfway on doing in solemn anticipation. He can imagine what the tallest woman north of Hell thinks of with him in mind. He feels the warmth of her arms reaching from over his shoulders into the box, and hears the clattering of plastic and baubles before a cute and muted “yes!” As her lumbering limbs retract to his head.
He feels her fingers in his hair lovingly toying with his cloth headband to fit her novelty adornment, far more snug than Apo managed. Apo, who He can’t help but imagine the look of watching Stacy, the sweetest person in the office, finish the nasty joke they started. This dread is washed with confusion as he feels Stacy rest her hands on his shoulders and cutely sing, “o Christmas B, o Christmas B…”
Assuming permission to look, his eyes dart around the room curiously, before Apo tilts open a cabinet door to reveal in it’s reflective surface the mock image of a mossy green Christmas tree atop his head, fit with a little golden star. A wholesome chuckle rises from his chest and pushes open an ear to ear smile.
Stacy continues, falteringly, “how… something something, something…”
Abolish sagely takes command, articulating with his hand a little performatively, “they are green when summer days are bright. They are green when winter snow is white.”
He gestures as to conduct his reluctant carolers, “o Christmas B, o Christmas B…” before resuming control somewhat instructively, “your branches green delight us.”
“Woo!” Stacy leads a round of applause for Abolish, who responds with a restrained yet formal bow, all products of his education.
“Like the look?” Apo banters curiously.
“Love it!” Bdubs responds sharply, pleasantly surprised and a little proud.
“Ah! That’s great!” Stacy enthusiastically shakes their alleged Christmas B hard enough for a pinecone to fall out.
“Oh.” Abolish flatly interjects, “photos.”
Stacy inversely gasps loud enough to momentarily break their impressive crouch, “yeah! Let’s do it!”
The break room is a shuffle of four wildly different statures contorting into frame. Stacy, our lady of massive wingspan, ends up kneeling on the ground and holding the elected camera, Abolish’ strange foldable smartphone thing. Reasonably the best camera between them, though half the prep time was spent him explaining the contraption to the party.
Her left arm wraps around the remaining three, Abolish and Apo crouched on either side of Bdubs, the former on the far end and latter nestled against Stacy and blushing faintly. Still reveling in his escape of the dreaded elf-eared headband, Bdub’s fails to notice when behind his head Abolish taps Apo’s forearm with a two fingered salute he then positions behind Bdubs’ right ear. She breaks into a pearly grin and mirrors it behind his left.
“Everybody say cheese!” The Christmas photo that winds up framed on every desk in the building depicts, in descending order of height…
Stacy, the world’s tallest elf,
The moose reindeer-antlered Abolish,
Miss ApoKlaus,
And our lovely Christmas B, unknowingly fit with two mock elf ears courtesy of Abolish and Apo.