Archive of Our Own

23rd December, 5:55pm

“Are you, um. Are you here for your sister, or…”

Scott tears his attention away from the sea of families, their tacky Christmas sweaters lined up in clashing reds and greens across the rows of identical black seats. The lights are up and the music is at a lull, so it's the best time to scan the crowd. He's supposed to be picking out which ones are worth paying attention to- who's got the fanciest handbag, the most expensive watch- but for the moment, he's sidetracked by the rare occurrence of being noticed. He turns to lock eyes with some chick. She's not ugly, but she's not anything to write home about, either.

“My girlfriend,” he corrects, pointedly, and resumes facing the front.

“Oh. Well, um,” his tone doesn't immediately scare her off, and it's really fucking annoying “Which one is she? Has she been on yet?”

Scott would quite like to tell her to fuck off and mind her own business- he's busy, god damn it- but upsetting random girls isn't helpful to his operation. He doesn't need the attention. So instead he unclenches his jaw with the intent to make basic, polite conversation, but as luck would have it that's exactly when the lights dim once more, the stupid tinny intro music he's become irritatingly accustomed to playing over the loudspeaker.

“And back to our Christmas Eve Eve pageant; next up on the stage, please give a warm welcome to… um. Sugar Silo?”

“That one,” Scott points her out readily as she comes into view, a toothy grin curling up one side of his face “That's her.”

“Oh,” the girl says politely, turning towards the stage. And then she actually sees Sugar, and what she's wearing, and her eyebrows contort into a fascinating shape as she follows up with a decidedly much less polite “Oh.”

This is the part where Scott ignores the random girl completely and breaks out the camcorder, both because Sugar’s parents ask him to whenever they’re not in attendance, and because, honestly, every single one of these performances are solid gold.

Sugar struts out in sequinned red heels, bare legs leading up to the hem of her skimpy, velvet Mrs Claus costume that, even under the flattering stage lighting, just does not do anything for Scott at all. In fact, when she’d modelled it at home and asked if she looked good, he’d actually thrown up in his mouth a little bit- not because of her. Seriously. Something about all this Christmas shit is just such a turnoff- but he’d swallowed it down and said yes and then they did stuff anyway, because that’s the expected result when she gets a new outfit. And that’s basically a summary of their entire relationship; Sugar seeks validation for her outrageous whims, Scott lies through his teeth, everyone’s happy. There’s no trouble in this paradise.

At least now that she’s up on stage the costume is striking him as more funny than gross, to a degree where he’s already trying not to laugh. It’s an instinctive response at this point- he’s seen so many of these performances that the simple act of Sugar walking out onto a stage nearly has him in stitches. It’s a shame he can’t persuade her to relabel her act as a comedy routine, because she could probably get famous for real that way, but not only would that suggestion put Scott straight in the doghouse; it’d also ruin the magic. It’s her total lack of self awareness that makes this shit truly special.

And special it is. Sugar grabs the microphone off the stand centre-stage, overflowing with confidence, and demands of the crowd populated almost exclusively by old people and families;

“Where my ho ho hoes at? Come on, let’s make some noise!”

The response is less than lukewarm. There’s some disapproving murmurs, and some coughing to cover up laughter, and Scott sees multiple people visibly cringe, and- and Sugar is completely unaffected. He doesn’t know how she never notices, but she fucking doesn’t. She just doesn’t. Absolutely nothing can shake that woman. And then the act is in full swing, a nineties-inspired backtrack playing to tell the audience that, yeah, this chick is seriously going to rap for them now. Scott grits his teeth, and braces himself.

“Deck the halls with the stacks, keep it movin',

Got the jingle bell rhythm and the whole room groovin',

My stockin' ain't full of nothin' but money,

Outta my way, 'cause I'm a sleigh queen, honey!”

Oh, it’s bad. It’s bad, and it does not get any better from there. The sheer second hand disbelief of the audience is so viscerally tangible that Scott feels nauseous all over again, hands shaking where he struggles to hold the camcorder steady in his laughter, but still, he holds it steady. Perhaps most people would be bothered by their partner getting up in front of a crowd and putting on a performance like that, but not Scott. He’s actively encouraging this shit; it’s what keeps her in his league and, besides, it’s fucking funny. This insanity is mutually enjoyable. 

“Jesus. Christ.”

Ah, right. That girl is still here for some reason. She says it in a way that comes off as genuinely shocked as opposed to jokingly; fucking impolite, really, and yet Scott finds himself snickering beside her anyway because, yeah, he knows. He knows.

The backtrack fades out, and the auditorium sits in heavy, awkward silence for a painfully long five seconds before the guy working the loudspeaker gets his fucking act together and announces “Um, right. Right. That was Sugar Silo, everybody. Let’s… give her a round of applause?”

No such thing happens, but Sugar bows and waves and struts away like she owns both the stage she stands on and the entire surrounding tristate area. Sometimes Scott wishes he could possess even an ounce of her confidence, or at least her ignorance. Must be nice, he thinks, living in that pretty little head of hers.

“Yeah, that was a good one,” he declares, grinning like an idiot as he flips the camcorder screen closed. These shows are always such a drag until Sugar comes on, but once she does he tends to find himself uncharacteristically upbeat for the rest of the night.

“That was… definitely something.” The girl agrees, and then turns to him with this overly sympathetic wince, as if his love life is something to be pitied “You are such a nice guy.”

It’s so startling that Scott abruptly snort-laughs, startling the girl in turn “Sorry, sorry,” he waves off her confused expression, trying and failing to sober up “I just- I really don’t hear that too often.”

She purses her lips in concern, and that somehow makes everything even funnier, and, god, he hasn’t been in this good a mood in weeks. There must be some kind of illness going round; all that spirit of Christmas kind of shit. And then the girl says “Well, you should. Look,” and her face flushes awkwardly as she lifts up a little piece of paper that she’s apparently had tucked between her fingers this whole time “You could take my number, if you want it? Y’know, just if you ever got tired of… all that.”

She jerks her head towards the stage, indicating where Sugar made her exit, and something in her tone rubs him exactly the wrong way. All that. Fat joke. Scott’s mood plummets instantly, mind flashing through a dozen quiet revenges, and if the grin he forcibly keeps plastered on his face happens to turn sharp, or menacing, then the girl sure doesn’t notice.

“Well, that’s awful sweet of you,” he tells her, and accepts the piece of paper. He looks at her hand as their fingers briefly touch, and then up at her face, and imagines the sequence of colours it might turn if he scrunched up her number in his fist, and proceeded to use that fist to clock her in the teeth. But of course he’s never going to find out. Instead, he opens out one arm, and prompts her to “C’mere.”

She goes in for the hug without a second thought. It’s short, a squeeze that lasts less than a second, and then he lets her go “Nice to meet you.”

“Yeah, you too,” she backs away, and she’s too shy to maintain eye contact but he can see she’s smiling as she ducks hurriedly under his still open arm. Once she’s halfway down the aisle going back to her seat she turns to make a quick call me gesture at him. Scott just waves.

And then she sits down, and he’s no longer in her line of sight, so he lets the false grin slip back into his natural scowl. The piece of paper with her number is immediately crumpled and discarded, freeing up his other hand to go over his newest acquisitions.

The little purse displays a paisley pattern that screams old lady, and contains slightly over forty dollars cash, including loose coins. That all gets pocketed. The phone, upon inspection, appears to be a model from nine years ago, so that’s essentially worthless, but it’s whatever. He wasn’t stealing her stuff to make a profit- this was solely done to ruin her night.

But he’s bothered to do so, so he’ll be making more than a measly forty dollars out of it. Now, Scott’s no hacker, but identity fraud doesn’t actually require more than the most basic of computer skills. A fucking monkey could do it; he’s got her debit card and her ID, which features her full name and address, and so the obvious outcome here is that there will be many, many online purchases made tonight. Him and Sugar are going to run this sucker dry.

Satisfied with the results of this impromptu job, Scott makes another quick decision and, instead of throwing her phone in the trash (someone could just call her to find it, and then she’d only go and cancel her cards), he dumps it into a nearby audience members open styrofoam cup of hot chocolate. Ha. Now that’s a good revenge.

Maybe this is all a little harsh- after all, she only tried to express that she liked him, and it’s not often that Scott garners female interest- but unlike most young men probably would, he really doesn't appreciate the attention. He wouldn’t even if he were single, because he never, ever has. Besides, these days being noticed is bad for business, and he is, in fact, not single; already proudly claimed by the only woman who’s ever swayed his lifelong opinion that dating is for suckers. 

Well, she didn’t sway him all that much. He’s just happily a sucker these days. For her.

And with that thought in mind he leaves behind the scene of this particular petty crime, whistling as he makes his way towards an aisle a little further down. The lights dim for the next act he couldn’t give less of a shit about, and he hones in on a row of unfortunate suckers who happened to have made the mistake of discussing their upcoming family vacation in Bora Bora a little too loudly. Fucking rich southerners.

///

“I didn't even place?!”

It's loud; close enough to a shriek that Scott's knuckles whiten around the steering wheel.

“Next time,” he says lightly, a quick attempt to pacify “It'll happen next time. Those judges don't know shit.”

“Darn right they don't,” Sugar agrees. She, unfortunately, hasn’t changed back into her normal clothes since the show ended, and now she’s fuming so hot in all that velvet that her slightly-too-dark foundation is visibly starting to run down from her face into her neck “But none of them do. This is the third pageant in a row now- when the hell are we gonna hit one that- that understands what I try to-”

And then suddenly she's crying. It's an awful sound- ugly and congested in a way that's reminiscent of a seal's bark- and Scott would be inclined to snap at her to knock it off if she were literally anybody else, but she’s her, and that demand would only go down like a lead balloon. Especially because he knows what it sounds like when she’s crying for real- the range, the pitch- and this decidedly isn’t a bout of crocodile tears. She is genuinely sitting here, in her horrendous little Santa outfit that borders way too hard on the line of lingerie, bawling her eyes out over a fucking talent show. Scott cringes in the driver's seat, and fails to tune out the noise.

It's the same every time; he takes her to the pageant, she does her thing, she gets mad when other people don't like it. Hell, he doesn’t like it, but he'd never say that to her face. He's perfectly willing to pretend that everything she does is amazing, because that’s what keeps her happy with him, and he has zero desire to call out and have her work on any of her faults, because he happens to like her faults.

One of the many joys of Sugar- which also happens to be a fault, in his opinion at least- is that she reads like an open book. She makes her cues so loud and so obvious that Scott finds it almost comically easy to do the remaining guesswork and meet her unspoken demands; so much so that the task is actually kind of relaxing. Or, it is when she’s not fucking crying.

“Aw, come on- it doesn't matter what they think though, does it?” He pushes, in the repulsively simpering tone he knows she finds comforting. It's the same one her parents use “Look what I swiped.”

He reaches into his duffel bag, and produces a tiara. The tiara; glittering silver plastic, studded with equally false, equally plastic diamonds, perfectly representative of the false, plastic win that she so loves to chase. Scott may not understand what's so special about a plastic crown, or winning a talent show, or anything about pageantry, really. But he understands what's special about Sugar, so he can pretend to care about these things for her sake. 

And the practice is well worthwhile, because Sugar stops crying. Messy panda eyes blink open to tentatively peek at the oh-so-coveted crown, and her bottom lip wobbles just a little bit like she might start full-on bawling again, but-

“Oh, you shouldn’t have,” she says. It’s exactly the line he was expecting, but the tone is off; there’s no excitement, no immediate snap back into her usual overconfidence. She doesn’t even snatch the tiara out of his hands. If anything, she sounds morose, which is such an un-Sugar state of being that Scott’s about to ask if she’s coming down with something. Before he gets the chance, she requests “Can we get on the road already? I wanna be home before Mama goes to bed.”

And on top of that, she apparently wants to talk to her mother, and not him. Sugar and her Mama may be close, but she always unloads her grievances about the pageant to him first, unabashedly and without restraint, so it’s only natural that this small display of odd behaviours- as inconsequential as they might look to anyone else- tell Scott exactly one thing.

“Did I… do something wrong?” He asks slowly as he places the tiara on the dashboard, where it remains, unloved.

Sugar doesn't reply right away. In fact, she doesn't reply at all. They sit there for a long minute, air heavy with his unanswered question, before she pops open her obnoxious, fluffy handbag and pulls out a compact mirror. Scott blinks, watches her quietly fuss at her ruined mascara and then, unnerved, decides to get to work navigating them out of this parking lot.

The driving is a welcome focus, but it still doesn't stop his mind from racing off a mile a minute, going through every possible thing he's done today that she may not have liked, and then inventing further things he didn't even do, but she might think he did, and- and none of the mental mapping helps. He's not coming up with anything solid. He's basically a perfect boyfriend in every way- what the hell would she even have the right to be mad about? It can't just be a bad mood. It can't be, because Sugar has gone silent instead of just telling him what's up, which either means she's really mad, or that she's (god forbid) thinking through her response.

Which is infinitely worse. It's just not something Sugar does. She always knows how she feels without thinking at all- it’s part of her magic- so she's not sat there trying to figure out what to say for her own benefit. No, she's trying to think of a way to say what she needs to say… without hurting his feelings. 

She's about to dump him. She's going to dump him, and then he's going to have to resort to living out of his truck, or joining a gang, or go back to freezing his nuts off up in Canada, and he doesn't want to do any of those things. All of those things suck, and she's still thinking, and the sudden inevitability of his entire world falling apart has Scott shaken to his core. Eyes on the road he blindly paws at the glove compartment, searching for his pack of chinese cigarettes.

Before he knows it Sugar’s got the box in one pudgy, pink-nailed hand, a smoke hanging from her identically hued lips. She lights it, takes a drag, and places it in his mouth for him all without a word. Angel. She then proceeds to take one for herself, and a long three drags later she finally says;

“Scotty-”

“Please don’t leave me.”

Well, looks like that’s what he’s going with. Okay, maybe that was a little pathetic, or someone might think it's embarrassing to resort to begging straight off the bat, but, god, he doesn’t care. Scott will do and say literally anything to get the outcome he wants, in any situation, but apparently his willingness to prostrate himself won’t need to be showcased today, because Sugar just stares at him for a long second, and then cracks up laughing. 

Now that- that has him confused. Is she laughing because he read her wrong, or because she finds his desperation just that funny? It’s impossible to tell. It’s also then that Scott becomes aware of how ungodly sweaty this whole exchange has made him, even in winter with the heat off. He yanks nervously at the collar of his nondescript hoodie and prays that, on top of so quickly humiliating himself, he doesn’t also stink.

“I- I ain’t- oh Scotty, you are just somethin’ else,” her laughter dies down from that cute piglet-type squeal of hers to more conventional giggles, and it’d almost be a shame if Scott weren't so keen to hear the rest of her statement “I ain’t leavin’ you, dumb-dumb. Get a grip. We just need to… have a little talk.”

Okay, that’s technically an improvement on the situation. Scott releases a breath he didn’t realise he was holding “What do we need to talk about?”

“Promise not to get upset?” Sugar pulls a face like she’s actually kind of worried by the notion, which seems absurd to Scott, because even when he is upset about something he’s a deft hand at hiding it. But for now he just nods in agreement “Alright, here’s the thing- I need you to stop stealin’ the crown for me, okay? It’s like- it’s like you don’t even think I could win it by myself. You agree I should be winnin’ these shows, right? And all those judges are wrong?”

“Of course,” he says immediately, and pretty much honestly. You know, if she appropriately relabelled her act as the comedy routine that it is.

“Okay. Okay, good, I just- the crown don't really mean nothin’ if I didn't win it for real, you know? And I know you're tryna be sweet, and it was sweet the first few times, but if you swipe me the tiara every time we do this then that don't really mean nothin’ neither. It ain't, like- it ain't romantic no more.”

Scott hears what she’s saying, and can comply without issue, but this unexpected declaration actually raises a whole new issue: If sparkly tiaras are somehow no longer cutting it, then he just plain doesn’t know what to give her. Sugar is, without a doubt, a materialistic woman, and he's suddenly at a loss on the nuances of what is and isn't a romantic thing to steal for your girlfriend.

“So what, um,” he starts, because he needs to know “What should I be swiping for you?”

But apparently it’s the wrong question. Sugar actually winces, and turns away to look out the window. It’s dark out already; clear and crisp and cold, but not too cold. Not like back home. They don’t even get snow down here. The highway ahead is black and endless, a million red tail lights setting out their path back to Sugar’s parents place; a quaint little country house set in the middle of a successful, multiple acre dairy farm. So far Scott’s found staying there to be a real mixed bag of an experience; it’s like living in a caricature of what his own family's farm could have looked like- you know, if the ground weren’t barren, or the barn wasn't dilapidated, or they actually had money- and while it’s an objectively nice place to live, the impression of familiar but better often leaves a strange, bitter taste in his mouth.

“Actually…” Sugar says a few miles down the road, dragging out the word in that cutesy, childish way that she thinks he likes, but he doesn't “I was wonderin’ if you ever thought about, oh, I don’t know. Not stealin’ stuff anymore.”

“What?” Scott snaps his head round to look at her with an incredulous expression “Where the fuck is that coming from?”

"You're gettin’ upset,” she warns, waggling her cigarette.

The accusation as well as the way she actively leans away from him sets him off “No I’m fucking-”

“Scotty!”

The sound of his name being shrieked like a banshee is accompanied by several horns beeping in unison. Scott sucks in a sharp breath as the car in the adjacent lane swerves in tandem with him to avoid a collision that would have been one hundred percent his fault, had it happened, but it didn’t, because he was lucky enough to be surrounded by better drivers. He quickly veers the truck back into his lane, and wills his heart rate to slow.

“See, this is exactly why I didn’t want you gettin’ upset!”

Sugar huffs dramatically before sucking down the last of her smoke. She rolls down the window to discard the butt, just in time to hear the driver in the next lane scream ‘Asshole!’ as he passes by, and that’s just the icing on the cake, really. Scott clenches his teeth, and feels a muscle pop in his jaw.

“What, you were expecting me to crash the truck?”

“Oh, don’t be a smartass.”

“Then don’t say stupid shit!” Scott snaps, slamming both palms against the wheel, and only then does he realise that, okay, yeah, he is getting upset, and he ain’t hiding fuck all. The stress of that little near death experience there didn’t help either. He rolls his own window all the way down, desperate for the cool evening air.

“Sorry” he all but spits the word, and then after he’s completely mangled his cigarette between his teeth, more calmly “Sorry. I just- I don’t understand what you're asking me to do, or why you're talking that way at all.”

Sugar just tuts at him “Oh, you’re alright. I know you're just a big kitten, really,” she breaks the tension by jokingly petting his hair, and maybe he is a bit of a kitten because it actually feels kind of nice, and she must be either blind or immune to the greasiness of it because she doesn’t comment, or even wince “I just think maybe we… we’re real grownups now, y’know? I don’t want you endin’ up in jail or nothin’, and it wouldn’t hurt to go honest.”

But he does catch her discreetly wiping off her hand on the side of the passenger's seat. Scott sighs through his nose “Look, I can see what you’re getting at, but what we’ve got going on is better than being honest, alright? If you don’t believe me, grab my bag and check out tonight's loot. And I promise I won’t end up in jail, because I’m never gonna get caught,” he takes one hand off the wheel to place it over his heart, catches her eye in the rearview mirror “Promise.”

It’s a good speech, in his opinion. It addresses all of her concerns while also gently, nicely, telling her that he won’t be changing a god damn thing. What she’s suggesting is ridiculous anyway. Scott hopes that’ll be the end of the discussion, but the way Sugar’s thin, neat eyebrows pinch together in response, alongside the irritating little huff tell him exactly the opposite.

“Don’t you go dismissin’ me, mister,” she snaps and, oh god, that tone. It's the same one she uses on rowdy cattle back on the farm, right before she wrangles them into submission “I tried bein’ nice about it, but I guess that never gets the point across with you, huh? You can go diggin’ your heels in all you want, but this ain’t like with the reindeer costume. This is-”

“Oh my god, are you still bringing up the fucking reindeer costume?”

“Are you still refusin’ to wear it?”

“I don’t understand why you even want me to,” Scott waves one hand around wildly, genuinely at a loss “Like, how could you see that god awful thing in the store, buy it, and then seriously expect me to put it on-”

“It is fun, and festive, and I like couples costumes, okay? Is that alright with you? Tell me, why is it my problem you’re such a sour- oh, no, I see what you’re doin’. Quit sidetrackin’ me with Christmas talk!”

“You sidetracked yourself."

“Shut up. Facts is, I ain’t spendin’ another minute hangin’ off the arm ‘a some two-bit thief!”

“Fucking- excuse me?” He can’t help but laugh at the nerve of her, throwing that insult out there “Sugar, babe-”

“Nuh-uh. I ain’t bein’ funny, so don’t you start laughin’. I am so serious right now, Scotty- you’re riskin’ everything, and for no good reason, and you don’t even see it that way, and-”

“Okay, okay, I hear the words that you are saying. Just hold your fucking horses, alright?” He insists, and Sugar huffs and folds her arms and makes a big show of resituating herself unhappily in the passenger's seat, but at least she stops yelling nonsense at him for a second, and then he can finally think. And when he does, it just seems obvious that there’s something more at play here.

“Look,” Scott starts, the perfect example of a calm and reasonable boyfriend “You love what I do. All the free shit, the risk that we both totally get off on- you’ve never complained about it once. So seriously, babe, where has this come from?”

Sugar only tuts in response. She won’t meet his eye either, the quiet stretching on for an eternity as her bottom lip trembles where it’s caught between her teeth, until;

“Last night,” and now he knows they’re getting into the real crux of the problem, because she sounds genuinely distressed talking about it “...Pawpaw asked me if you were a drug dealer.”

Ah. There it is. The old man strikes again, making Scott's life ever more miserable “Well, I’m not, am I? So-”

“Yeah, but- but stealin’ ain’t all that much better, is it?” Sugar cuts him off “Like, sure, he guessed wrong, but it’s not like I can tell him what you’re actually doin’, neither.”

“But you don’t need to tell him anything.”

“Oh, I do,”

“Why?”

“Because,” Sugar rolls her eyes, as if he’s being purposely obtuse “When someone’s unemployed, livin’ rent free at their in-laws’ place, and then also got themselves a nice truck all paid off like you do? It raises some questions! Good ones! And that ain’t even goin’ into some of the crazy stuff you buy me-”

“Are- are you seriously complaining about the fact I have money?”

“I’m complainin’ about how you get it! Like, I know we’ve had a lotta fun with this kinda stuff, but after Pawpaw went interrogatin’ me and all, and I had to make up a whole bunch ‘a lies without you there, I sorta realised it’s… I dunno, Scotty. It made me feel all guilty. What we’re doin’ is bad, and I don’t wanna have to lie to my folks forever. They didn’t raise me like that.”

Inconvenience aside, Scott honestly thinks she's being pretty cute right now. He was always aware of Sugar's sporadically relevant moral compass; the fact it exists at all is part of what makes her such a charming, genuine person, and having that difference between them keeps things interesting. It’s nice that she cares about what her parents think. And while obviously she doesn't say as much, nor does she imply it on purpose, that doesn't mean he can't read between the lines and draw a second comparison in that, evidently, Scott's parents did raise him like that. Lying is practically in his blood. So his solution to solving this pointless debate is simple: he’s going to lie. He’s going to lie and pander and say pretty words until she forgets what they’re talking about, because all he wants is for this conversation to end, and for her to be happy after it does.

“Oh, babe,” he practically melts over the word “You don't have to feel guilty- the rich shmucks I rob obviously deserve it. I mean, they're rich.”

A beat of silence. And then she snaps.

“For the love of- yeah, alright. Whatever. Guess that one’s on me for tryn’a appeal to some secret better nature I knew full well weren't hidden in that shrivelled little soul ‘a yours.” Sugar rolls her eyes, all patience for his evasion game finally dried up “Bottom line is; I don't like what you're doin’, so you're gonna stop doin’ it. Besides, how are you ever plannin’ on makin’ an honest woman outta me if you don’t even wanna be an honest man yourself?”

And then he snaps in turn. There are several things in that statement that are just- they're going too far. Too far. Scott's eyes flick down to where he steers the truck with one hand, at his chapped knuckles where they bend around the curve of the wheel, and wonders whether a car crash would be even half as scary if you were anticipating it. 

But of course he isn’t going to find out. Instead he mimics one of the irritating little huffs she so loves to subject him to, and says “You want an honest man? Fine. I fucking hate that costume.”

Sugar gasps the gasp of the mortally wounded, blindsided by the turn this has taken “What? But I'm- I'm a cute Santa Claus!”

“What could possibly be cute about that?” He sneers, and it's all coming out now “It's not cute- it's fucking weird is what it is. It's cringe, and it grosses me out, and it's reminding me of my mom for some reason, and-”

“But- but we-” Sugar pulls a face “Ew.”

“Yeah,” Scott readily agrees “Ew.”

“...There's somethin’ wrong with you, you know that?” Sugar shrinks into the passenger's seat, all self-conscious in her skimpy outfit with arms hugged tight around herself, and while her statement is objectively true, Scott knows she's only saying it to try and upset him back. So he says nothing. He says nothing, and Sugar fidgets in her seat, and directs furious glares at the side of his head, and once she truly can't take another second of being ignored she demands, at deafening volume;

“Why do you hate Christmas?!”

And, not entertaining that petulant, childish, purposely inflammatory question with any kind of answer, Scott responds with one of his own.

“Why do you hate me?!” It comes out explosively, like a match lit near a stove that's had the gas going too long “You think I'm garbage for the way I provide for us, and you just- you have no right!”

“Oh, shut your pasty, miserable pie-hole! It ain't crazy ‘a me to want my man to hold down a real job, but you're just so god damn stubbon, and lazy-”

“Lazy?!” He's going to lose it. He's going to fucking lose it “No, no- I’m not lazy. What I am, Sugar, is Canadian.”

He barks the word at her, disgusted that he has to remind her of that fact. Sugar just looks at him like he's gone insane, because he probably has “What the hell kind of stereotype is that?”

“It's not a-” Scott cuts himself with a groan, suddenly overwhelmed by the burden of having to constantly spell things out for a grown ass woman. That, and the stress of all this arguing has him sweating buckets even with the window fully down and crisp winter air streaming in. He recklessly removes his hands from the wheel to strip down to his wifebeater, tossing his hoodie haphazardly behind them in the cab and- and yeah, that’s better. His back is fucking wet, but it’s better, and if he happens to stink then she’ll just have to deal with it.

He does. She’s pulling the face that tells him he smells like ass right now, and the quiet revenge of subjecting her to that is just satisfying enough that he can continue to calmly lay out the facts “Alright, let’s get some things straight. I need you to listen, closely, and process what I’m saying. Okay? Can you do that for me?”

The glare he gets in exchange for that bit of condescending bullshit could melt steel, but he keeps talking before she gets the chance to castrate him over it “Right: We are in America. I am not American. I don’t have a social security number, or an American bank account, so unless you're about to turn around and pull a green card out of your ass, I don’t think I’ll be getting a real job anytime soon.”

Sugar clams up, eyes going wide as she really thinks about it, possibly for the first time since he moved down here six months ago “Oh yeah- you’re an illegal.” She says, slowly, like everything is only just clicking into place. And then she gasps “Oh, we can not let Pawpaw find out.”

It makes him snort “Yeah, no shit. Why did you think we were telling him I’m from Montana?” And maybe he’s still a little tetchy, and poking fun at her, but he’s basically gotten a handle on his temper now, because he’s officially won the debate. She can’t keep arguing something once she understands what she wants is impossible “So forgive me for not having some magical, unheard of legal means of making money, that I can do from anywhere in the world, with a foreign bank account. If I could change things for you, I would, but we’re pretty much stuck with the current setup. Which is a good setup, by the way. No point fixing what ain’t broken.”

And that’s the end. The discussion is over. It got a little nastier than Scott had meant it to, and Sugar looks both pissed off and alarmingly thoughtful in the aftermath, but at least they finally, finally put a pin in it. Or at least he thinks they have, until;

“You know…” Sugar starts, eyebrows pinched together in concentration “I don’t think this magic means is so unheard of. You just ain’t thinkin’ magic enough.”

Oh god. That was not an invitation to start problem solving, but he can’t say he isn’t curious “...Alright, enlighten me. What have you come up with so quick?”

“Well, you know my friend Leonard?”

Scott’s eye twitches.

“Yes, I am aware of Leonard.”

“See, he’s got himself one ‘a those Youtube channels,” she explains, as if he doesn’t already know this. As if she hasn’t made him sit through hours of inane, nerdy shit that she for whatever reason thinks is just magical “He does all these videos, and he’s started makin’ some actual money from it, and-”

“Okay, alright, just to clarify,” and his temper flares once more, roiling at the implications behind what she’s saying “You think that I should be making Youtube videos, like Leonard.”

“It’s not a bad idea, Scotty. You really don’t need to take that tone about it.”

“Oh, I do,” Scott spots the sign that tells him their exit is coming up in five miles, changes lanes a little too quickly, and in turn gets honked. Again “Because I know what Leonard does. He sits in his mom’s basement, and films himself roleplaying as a fucking wizard, and- and that’s it! That’s literally it! You’re telling me he makes money out of that?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And you’re telling me you’d consider that a real job?”

“Well, yeah,” Sugar insists, oblivious to how insulting this entire comparison is to Scott and his hard-earned livelihood “And actually, he’s moved out of his mom’s basement now. He’s got a new basement, all his own, over in Coquitlam-”

“Where the fuck is Coquitlam?”

“How the hell should I know? All I’m sayin’ is, you’re wrong. There are legal ways to make money. You just gotta be creative.”

Oh, Scott is creative; infinitely more so than Leonard. It’s just not the kind of creative where he’s going to sit in front of a camera playing make believe for a chance at earning peanuts through online content, or the kind of creative that, um, knows how to do that. At all. It’s stupid, and he doesn’t even want to, but suddenly he’s having the world's dumbest insecurity attack over the fact he struggles with technology more complex than phone calls and emails, or the camcorder in his bag from 1998. He didn’t grow up around computers, alright? Nobody’s good at everything. But apparently Sugar would prefer it if he was good at that in particular, and was earning money through it. Go figure. It feels like this conversation- this ongoing argument, this whole day- has become an attack on not just his character, but his entire life.     

“Are you saying- and be serious now,” Scott starts quietly, tone strange and rough where his mouth inexplicably feels like a glue trap “That you would honestly rather I go straight. You would rather give up all the nice stuff, the date nights, the sparkly fucking tiaras, and have us stay home at your parent’s place all the time, flat broke, while I dick around on Youtube. Like Leonard.”

For what it’s worth, she really does think about it. She thinks about it long and hard; debating the pros and cons, their preferred lifestyle, her personal values, and it’s as their turn comes into view only a little further down the road that she comes to her decision.

“Honestly? Yes.”

It’s a punch in the gut that he definitely didn't expect, let alone need. He’d really, really thought that, with the reality of it laid out so clearly, she’d change her mind. But she didn’t. What a shame.

Scott yanks the handbrake sharply upwards, the truck coming to an abrupt stop only fifty yards from their turn.

Everything around them jerks violently forwards. Scott’s bracing gasp is drowned out by Sugar’s eardrum-shattering scream, which is again drowned out by the cacophony of horns beeping and blaring as they rightfully demand; what are you doing? What the fuck are you doing? And it’s a good question, one that Scott doesn’t actually have an answer to, because the fact that all these assholes honking at him are driving around their stationary vehicle as opposed to ramming straight into the back of it and taking away his ability to answer at all… is pure luck. That really could have gone either way.

“Do you have any idea,” and then Sugar’s yelling at him, because of course she’s yelling at him “How dangerous that was? Are you insane? Are you a real life fuckin’ crazy person? Are you-”

But he tunes her out, because whatever he is, it’s a direct result of having to listen to this shit. Scott wrestles the door open and hops down onto the highway, visibly, literally steaming with anger in the frigid December air, and wanders out into traffic like the real life fucking crazy person he evidently must be.

“Scott!” She’s stood up, leaning out the open door of the truck to shout after him “What the hell do you think you’re doin’? You get back here right now and drive us home!”

“Why don’t you get Leonard to drive you home!”

“Oh, you can not be serious,”

“I’m serious! I’m so fucking serious!” He turns around to face her once he’s about ten yards in front of the truck, and is immediately blinded by the glare of both his own headlights and the headlights of dozens of strangers bearing witness to this spectacle as they pass by “I’ve had enough, alright? I’m done. We’ll go back to the farm, and I’ll pack my shit, and then I’ll take me and my questionably nice truck back up over the border, and-”

“Stop it! Don’t you dare talk that way when you know full well you ain’t gonna follow through. Oh Jesus, Mary and Joseph this is the single most embarrassin’ thing I have ever seen in my life.” Sugar’s practically tearing her hair out, ever more distressed by the constant beeping horns all around them “How could you be doin’ this to me? And on Christmas Eve Eve-”

“Not a holiday!” And then he’s laughing, humourless and hysterical “That doesn’t mean anything!”

Sugar’s face crumples, eyes all big like she might start crying again “You’re a grinch!” She accuses, furiously pointing a finger “You’re a grinch, and a bastard, and I wish I never laid eyes on you!”

“Oh yeah? Well let’s see how much of a bastard I am when we get back, and I burn the fucking reindeer costume!”

A gasp “You wouldn’t.”

“Oh, I would,” and then he’s stalking back towards the truck, seething with every word “Because that’s who I am. You should know that by now. So if what you actually want is some stupid nerd who’s raring to play dress up with you, then maybe you should go shack up with Leonard in his basement studio in Coquitlam!”

“...Oh. My god.” Sugar balks down at him where she hangs off the side of the truck “Why the hell do you think I’d wanna shack up with Leonard?”

“Because you basically fucking said so! You want me to change all this shit about myself, and be more like him, and- and it’s like- that guy? Seriously? That’s the guy I’m being compared to?” Scott’s resolve shatters, fury morphing into something a lot less manly. And if he audibly sniffles; no he fucking didn’t “Like, you can be better than me. I can take that. But don’t- don’t act like the wizard is better than me.”

Sugar just stares for a long moment, dumbstruck, and then “I don’t think Leonard is better than you,” she says, genuinely shocked she has to reassure him of that “Hell, I don’t think I’m better than you.”

She is neither making fun of him nor angry at him for expressing his feelings, and for whatever reason that’s something he finds surprising. Scott looks at his feet, and pushes for more with a tentative little “No?”

“No,” she just about manages to resist rolling her eyes “You’re tellin’ me this whole stunt was over nothin’ more than a little insecurity? That’s- that’s crazy, Scotty. I ain’t never even heard of a man-tantrum like this before. Just- just come get in the truck, will you?”

Tantrum. It’s exactly the right word, and he fucking hates it. Sugar has tantrums. He does not. Except he does, and he's in the middle of major one, and he can see the headline now: Pathetic man in wifebeater throws tantrum on interstate highway, traffic backed up for miles. It’s this realisation, and the shame that comes with it, that snaps him out of this bout of insanity and gets his legs moving again.

It’s then that he realises just how cold he is, too; shivering out here like an idiot in his gross, wet undershirt. He climbs up the side of the truck and resituates himself in the cab. Sugar does the same, both of them rolling up their windows in unintentional tandem, and then they fall into the single most awkward silence that has ever hung between them. Scott wordlessly starts the engine, an unfamiliar guilt clanging against the inside of his ribcage.

It’s eating him alive “Sugar, babe-”

“Please don’t leave,” she cuts him off, quiet and emotional and exhausted “Not like this. Not when it’s about how I don’t think you’re good enough, or I just plain don’t like you, when neither of those things are true. You know that ain’t true, right?” 

She looks at him then, expecting an answer, but if he lies and barks yes like he’s probably supposed to then she’ll stop saying all this nice stuff he never, ever hears, so Scott doesn’t give her any answer at all. His silence is taken as intended.

“Well it ain’t! I like you just the way you are, mean and grinchy and everything. And I know this all started ‘cause I told you I don’t want you stealin’ no more, so I need you to know that ain’t because I don’t like it. ‘Cause I do. All the theivin’ and lyin’ and blowin’ rich folks cash on dumb shit- it’s hot. Hell, I don’t really wanna give it all up if we don’t have to, and even just the idea of givin’ it up is makin’ you fuckin’ insane, so maybe we can just, I dunno, come up with some better lies, instead? To tell Pawpaw, I mean.”

Scott listens to her whole speech, really soaking in his hard-earned win, and has a moment of extreme cognitive dissonance over the fact that he’s somehow achieved the result he wanted all along by… being honest? About his feelings? Huh. Weird.

But also good. Fucking great, actually. Maybe he should try that on her more often. Scott unsticks the handbrake and slowly peels off towards their turn, still ignoring the ever present beeping of horns and says “Now that- that, I can do,” because he can. Lying is his bread and butter. But just to make sure “And you're really okay with that? You're not gonna forever secretly want me to be making Youtube videos, or-”

“No, no, god, just forget it. It was a stupid idea,” she waves him off, and thank god she finally admitted how ridiculous that entire premise was, because it was annoying the shit out of him “Besides, what the hell would you put on the internet? Best I can think of is rage bait, and that ain’t really an honest livin’ neither. Might as well stick to what we know rakes in the real cash. It’s sexier, anyway.”

Scott loves this woman. He really does try to show her that every day. He just has a funny way of going about it “So… you wouldn’t feel bad if we went home and, say, bought you a new wardrobe on some chick’s debit card?”

Sugar tuts and rolls her eyes but he can still see her grinning in his peripherals “And what did that poor girl ever do to you?”

“Actually,” Scott perks up behind the wheel “She tried to give me her number.”

“What?!”

There it is; the ultimate outrage. And then suddenly Sugar’s flying off the fucking handle to a degree that surpasses anything that’s transpired during tonight’s emotional rollercoaster so far, and Scott’s being screamed at for something that wasn’t his fault, and he didn’t even do, and he is genuinely, absolutely thrilled about it.

“That whore. Did you take it?”

“No,”

“Was she prettier than me?”

“No,”

“Well then who the fuck does she think she is? Who even was she?”

“I don’t know, never met her before.”

“What was she wearin’?”

“Um,” that one gives him pause, because he doesn’t have a stockcard answer prepared, and he also doesn’t really remember “... A coat?”

“Oh, that unbelievable slut.” Sugar seethes, fishing for their pack of chinese cigarettes “Okay, now tell me-”

This focus lasts them all the way back to the farm; Sugar asking every arbitrary question under the sun and getting exactly the answer she wants to hear each and every time until she’s fully satisfied, self-assured and, most importantly, calm. Scott parks up on the long gravel driveway, hand on the door, ready to head inside, but-

“Thank you,” Sugar says, seemingly at random, and when he gives her little more than a raised eyebrow in response she clarifies “For swipin’ me the crown, I mean. Just, I didn’t say it before and… y’know. It’s a real nice one.”

She plucks it from where it’s sat unloved on the dashboard throughout and despite everything, and places it daintily on her head. Scott’s eyebrow remains raised, because it looks pretty much the same as the dozens she’s got up in her room, and then he brushes her off with a “Don’t mention it,” because she really doesn’t need to thank him. He mostly just steals them to piss off the pageant organisers at this point. 

“Alright, if you say so,” she agrees, but she’s got this look on her face, all mischievous like she knows something he doesn’t “Your turn anyway,”

He’s about to ask her what the hell that’s supposed to mean when she reaches into the back of the cab, only to procure a fluffy, brown monstrosity that could only be-

“Why the fuck is that in here?” Scott recoils at the sight of the reindeer costume, pressed flat against the truck door in a hopeless attempt to distance himself from it “Have we had that thing with us the whole- why would you even-”

“When I planned out my Christmas Eve Eve,” Sugar cuts him off, not interested in his unfestive theatrics “I pictured me winnin’ the pageant, and then us celebratin’ by havin’ a fun, Christmassy time, and I know nothin’ really panned out like that but- what are you given’ me that look for?”

Scott isn’t sure what look he’s giving exactly, but he’d guess it’s something akin to horror “What the hell kind of fun time involves me wearing an adult onesie?”

“The Christmas kind!” She declares, and when he full-on gags in response she snaps “Oh, grow up. Bottom line is, can I not just have this one thing? Please? Come on, Scotty- just the antlers. Nobody will ever know.”

He looks at the antlers. He looks at her beaming, already-too-smug face. 

Scott sighs the sigh of a sucker committed to keeping his woman happy, and decides that since he's already humiliated himself so thoroughly and publicly today, he may as well do it privately, too. For her. 

He puts the stupid fucking antlers on his stupid fucking head “There. Happy?”

Sugar looks at him like Christmas just came on Christmas Eve Eve “Well aren't you just the cutest gosh darn thing I ever saw in my whole entire life-”

“Oh, give me a fucking- hey!” And then she's on him, wrestling her way into sharing his seat, hell bent on planting the biggest lipstick-clad kiss imaginable on his face “Hey, hey, hold on,” and when he makes his feeble attempt to stop her she takes him by his cold, clammy hands and holds them where they won't cause any more trouble “Sugar, seriously, I- d’you have wetwipes in your bag?”

That actually gets her to stop, leaning back with a confused “I don’t think so- why?”

Scott takes a second to huff a lank strand of hair out of his eyes, where the headband of the antlers had pushed it down “Just- if I go in there with lipstick all over my face, then the old man’s gonna do the whole get the shotgun routine again.”

But Sugar only snorts “Oh, don’t you worry about him. Pawpaw can go suck an egg.”

And with no further argument to be had, she proceeds to kiss him anywhere and everywhere she can reach until he’s red-faced and helpless with laughter.