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"Ringa-dinga-ding-ding! Debbie, wakey wakey!!!" The overexcited voice of Holly woke Debra up as she pushed Curt out of the way of the windows. Debra slowly sat up, his eyes adjusting to the sudden brightness of the real world.
"Wha..." He sniffed. "What? Wha-What do you want?" Debra coughed slightly as he groaned.
Holly turned quickly to face Debra, her bells and trinkets jingling as she moved. "It's Christmas, Debs! You're always moping around on Christmas, and it's so sad! Isn't there anyone you wanna spend time with? There's that boy you like, riiiight?"
"I do not like Francis!" Debra almost immediately snapped, before quieting down and talking in his usual flat, sleepy voice. "Plus, he's probably doing stuff, and... I'm just," He sniffed again, wiping his nose on its long sleeve, "Too tired. I can't do anything right now." Debra lied back down on his side, facing away from Holly. Despite its best efforts, Holly immediately jumped onto the bed and crawled over to it, speaking a little too loud for Debra's liking. "Don't be a downer, Debbie! I'm sure he'd love for you to come and say hi!"
"Waah, you're just bullying me at this point. He'll probably come around here anyway..." Debra mumbled.
Francis fucking Friendship.
Francis always went around the house, every holiday, every event. New Year's, Valdiviantines Day, Bunny Day, Mirthday, Christmas... He would go around giving out little sweets and trinkets, "For my best friend!" He would say, and he would say it to everyone. It was endearing to everyone else, but his kindness enraged Debra. Francis enraged Debra.
I mean, if your situationship sent you a stupid cute image captioned "us" every night, wouldn't they be your thirteenth reason too?
Suddenly, Holly broke Debra's train of thought.
"It's not bullying, it's encouragement! Just get out of bed for one day, Debbie! You can help me deliver Christmas letters!" Holly stared down at Debra with puppy-dog eyes. "Pleeeeease?"
There was an awkward silence for a moment, before Debra let out a loud, angry groan, and sat up. "Jesus fuck—" He started coughing, then took a deep breath and continued, "Fine, fine! I'll... I'll go around the house with you. Just," Debra sniffled again, "Don't go looking for me if I run off."
Holly nodded excitedly, before bouncing right off of the bed again. "Okay! Now, c'mon, and let's spread some Christmas cheer!!" Holly pulled a bright red santa hat out of one of her pigtails, and threw it right at Debra's face. "I'll just let you get that on."
"God fuckin'," Debbie sniffled again, "Dammit." He groaned with pain as he took off his own hat — a fuzzy one shaped like a cloud with little plue raindrop gems on the edges — and pulled a little key out of it. He unlocked the chain he used to keep himself stuck to Betty, and stood up, leaving the cloud hat on the bed and the key in the lock.
Debra stared at the mirror, finding himself staring at Amir in it.
"Ahh, Debra, finally getting up! Wonderful to see you... Definitely. You should... Go see Barry, if you need a hairbrush!" He smiled as he spoke to Debra.
Debra hated how he sparkled, how he shone. He wanted to watch him shatter. He hated how he was so clearly finding him disgusting. What would Amir think if Debra told him he thought he was disgusting, huh?
That's what I thought.
"I'm not here to brush my hair. I'm here to try to put on a stupid hat without it looking stupid." Debra coughed. "You gonna help or are you gonna be a dick?" He stopped looking at Amir, instead turning his attention to the alarm clock as he ran his hand through his tangled, navy-blue curls. With his own mental health getting worse, so did the constant wind that surrounded him.
The wind was very literal, as when he looked down at himself, Debra found that it was causing his sweater, the same colour as his hair, to sway and flap slightly. The bottom was torn as always, only barely covering his underwear and the scars on his upper thighs. His sleeves, however, were long. Very long. Debra had to pull them up an awful lot just to reveal his hands to the light. There were those fishnet stockings he never bothered to pull up and connect to its thigh garters, either.
Debra used a finger to fix his side parting, leaning slightly on the drawers before putting the santa hat on his head.
Debra coughed again. "I look like a fuckin' dork... Like, uh..."
Francis. That damn nerd. With his tooth gap and his stupid glasses and stupid blazer and stupid smiley-face tie and stupid fluffy blonde hair and his stupidly pretty face—
"Ugh! I don't even wanna think about it. Fuck my life. It's fine, I look like a—" He coughed, "Gross mess anyway." Debra grumbled, before standing up straight again. He stared at himself, and grimaced when he saw Amir also staring at him, from within the mirror.
"At least you're up." Amir twirled his head as he spoke. Debra clenched his fist, resisting the urge to slam it into the mirror, before walking over to Holly. "I'm ready, I guess." He mumbled, while casually looking down and adjusting his bra.
Holly immediately put her hands onto Debra's shoulders, shaking him. "Oh, good! Good! Let's go, okay?" Holly squealed.
For the next few minutes — though, it felt like the next few hours — Holly dragged Debra around the house as she gave out Christmas letters and little stickers. They were just leaving the office, trying to quickly get away from Jerry and his crazed carousel daughter-figure when—
CRASH!
The wind around Debra seemed to stop.
Holly had already gotten out of the office, but Debra, clearly lacking behind, hadn't. He had crashed straight into Francis, who was now tightly gripping the box of sweets he was holding, trying not to drop it.
Francis quickly put down the cardboard box as he leaned down and put his hand out. "G-Gee, Debbie, are you alright? You look a little shaken up there!"
Debra put his hand out for a second, before pulling it back and getting up by itself. "Yeah, no shit Sherlock, I randomly crashed into you and fell on the floor. Absolute mystery to why I could possibly be shaken."
Francis just stared, with that near-permanent smile on his face.
"I, uh... I don't really know what you mean. I'd be pretty glad if you were to tell me, though!" He commented.
Holly butt in with a little, "Oh, I'm sure I had a mistletoe in here!" as she searched through her hair, but before she could find it, Debra grabbed Francis by the collar of his white dress shirt and dragged him upstairs. Francis started loudly protesting, "Wha— Debbie, wait, I've still got thingies to give out—!"
"Shut up!" Debra snapped. "I've got a damn bone to—" He coughed again, "To pick with you."
Debra continued dragging Francis, taking him all the way into the attic that had recently opened up. Dorian glared suspiciously at the two concepts as he stepped aside to let them in, but Debra ignored him and slammed Francis into the wall directly across from the doorway.
The height difference was obvious. Francis stood at a whole six feet, whereas Debra was around, if you were generous, five feet and three inches tall. Having to look up at the person you're trying to pin down is a little awkward, but Debra didn't care.
He was mad.
"You." He growled.
"Me?" Francis questioned.
"You—" Debra coughed, "You go around, 'for my best friend' this, 'because you mean so much to me' that— Does a best friend mean anything to you at that point!? Plus, are we even just friends after what we've done together?! I thought we were at least a little closer than that!"
Everyone in the attic made sure to turn their gazes away. In fact, you could even hear Hector quickly scurrying to go to a different part of the ventilation system.
The two concepts were weirdly close for being such opposites. The cruel personification of being mentally ill, and the concept of friendship, being friends? It was weird.
The fact they had drunkly made out before and still spoke afterwards was even weirder.
It had been late at night, after Debra had a breakdown and lashed out violently at Francis. The news had somehow gotten to Beverly, and she recommended that they settled their issues by getting drunk together. Francis had been hesitant, but he was upset enough about Debra hating him that he agreed to it as soon as Debra did.
Rather than actually going to see Beverly for drinks, as she had probably wanted them to, they went to The Breaker Box. After all, it was a bit of a hazard to keep an angered, and especially a drunk, Debra in the kitchen for too long, especially with all those very shatter-able plates.
It didn't take long for both Francis and Debra to get completely hammered.
Francis, the poor man, had started crying and apologising for having ever done anything wrong. (This was, however, despite the fact he hadn't really done anything than be kinder to Debra than Debra was used to being treated.) Debra, however, was a bit more intimate. He used sweet little names, and the two started walking around the house, talking, until they were back upstairs, in the attic, and...
Exactly where they were now.
Debra had Francis against the wall, just like how they had kissed that night.
The only reason they still spoke was because neither of them actually regretted it, and the only issue was that they wanted to pretend it didn't mean anything.
"Debbie, I'm really not sure what you mean! Everyone's my best friend! Well, you're my bestest friend, but..." Francis stumbled over his words a bit, causing Debra to cut him off.
"God, I am going to rip your heart out of your chest one of these days!" He screamed. "You're so fucking dense! I hate it! I hate you!" Debra pushed off the wall, stepping back, but Francis took his hands.
"Debbie... No, no... Xi.. Xia? Your actual name was Xia, right?" Francis quickly asked, not waiting for an answer before continuing, "Xia, I know you don't mean that. You've said it enough times now that I know... You never mean it. You're just upset." Francis gently pet the back of Debra's hands with his thumbs. "Plus, it's Christmas and stuff, so... You should really try to think of the happy things! Like... Like this!" Francis pulled Debra's hands up to cup his face. Debra could feel Francis' slight stubble under his palms.
"Hi! It's me!" Francis giggled, sticking his tongue out playfully. Debra, against his own will, giggled slightly. "God, I wish I had genitals right now." He mumbled.
"W-What?" Francis stammered.
"What?"
"You just— What did you just say?"
"I said I wished I could kiss you right now."
Liar.
"Oh, okay!" Francis nodded. "I-I mean, I wouldn't really be against it... Just, no weird stuff!"
"I wasn't gonna use my tongue anyway. It gets used for one thing and one thing only." Debra responded. For a moment, there was a pause. "That one thing being licking my cat back. I hope Essie's okay, actually, I did kinda leave her with Betty... Meh." Debra pulled Francis down by his shirt collar and kissed him, just gently, on the lips. Surprisingly, kissing the guy Debra had claimed to hate just around a minute ago wasn't actually that difficult. After a few seconds, he pulled away. Debra struggled for a moment to pull his eyes back up to Francis'. In that moment, he made note that... Francis had quite a bit of a star and smiley-face theme going on. He had smiley earrings, a tie with smiley faces on it... Then he had bright yellow, star-shaped buttons on his beige blazer, and a star belt buckle, and even the laces on his yellow trainers were tied to look like stars.
Cute.
Francis gently placed a finger on Debra's chin, coaxing him to look up again. Francis pushed up his glasses and cleared his throat. "Uhm... So... Merry Christmas?" He snickered.
"If that was just a Christmas present, I will actually rip out your heart and eat it." Debra laughed, playing along, despite also being serious. Francis knew that Debra could... and probably would. "I'm gonna go back to bed now, so, uhm..." Debra went quiet, before taking the Santa hat off his head and pressing it into Francis' chest. "Merry Christmas, handsome." Debra turned around, and walked out.
God, the flustered smile on Francis' face was cartoonish. If you squinted hard enough, you could maybe even see hearts bubbling up around him and in his eyes. He hated to see Debra go, but he loved to see him walk away — especially considering the fact that Debra usually didn't get out of bed to even be able to walk away.
Maybe in a moment, Francis would go and get his box from downstairs, but for now...
He was going to be appreciating the best Christmas gift of all; Debra's love.