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Bunty had been peacefully dusting the halls in silence when Elfo had finally found her. He had spent about half an hour looking for the maid to ask her where some supplies might be. He could’ve asked Bean, or even Luci due to how much he snuck around, but he wasn’t looking for alcohol or drugs, so they wouldn’t really know where to find it in such a big building.
“Oh hello Elfo!” Bunty said as she saw him walk up to her from the corner of her eye.
“Hey Bunty. Do you know where I could find some art supplies around here?” Elfo asked.
“Of course dear! There’s plenty of art supplies in Giuseppe’s office! I’ll show you the way there!” Bunty replied with her usual upbeat tone, but she frowned when she continued. “Don’t tell him I let you in there though… he’s been really mad about other the other servents stealing it…”
They walked up a few stair sets until they finally reached it and Elfo grabbed tons of coloured papers, scissors, glue, and an ink & feather. He almost walked out when he spotted the pink glitter last minute.
“Can’t forget about you!” Elfo stated to himself as he struggled to put it into his full arms. After having to drop and pick up a few things he managed to carry it all to Beans room.
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Beans door burst open as it was kicked open, waking Bean from the depression nap she’d been having over being single.
“Gah! Elfo you scared me… and how did you open the door like that?” Bean asked as she sat up and adjusted her eyes to the sunlight peering in.
“I didn’t. Pendergast opened it for me.” Elfo answered with a smile that barely peeked through the pile he held in his arms. “Thanks Pendergast!” Elfo called out towards Pendergast who was now turning the corner in the hallway, before he walked out of Elfos eye sight he gave him a thumbs up.
“Ugh… I gotta find a lock for that door… anyways what do you want?” Bean muttered. She didn’t mean for the attitude against her friend but couldn’t help it after an interrupted nap. A depression fuelled one at that.
“Just a quiet place to make a little something for Valentine’s Day! Did you know it’s tomorrow?” Elfo asked obliviously. Bean looked at him confused.
“What the hell is Valentine’s Day?” She asked.
“What? You guys don’t know the holiday of love?” Elfo wondered, speaking dreamily as he spoke of the holiday.
“I think that might be another one of your elf holidays.”
“Huh… well that would explain all the candy involved.” Elfo said spreading out his materials on the coffee table between Beans couches. He wasn’t very quiet as he began his work, already starting to irritate Bean.
“Aren’t there other quiet places around here? Like a bunch?” Bean asked as she slumped back down just a bit with a minor eye twitch.
“I usually get kicked out eventually or they don’t have a table as short and wide as this.”
“How do you know I won’t kick you out?”
“…Cauuussseeee I’m your best friend?” Elfo answered with a pleading face at the end. Bean sighed and laid back down, putting a pillow back over her head.
“Just be quiet about it…”
“Will do!” Elfo responded loudly.
After spending quite an unnecessary amount of time on 3 cards, he packed up his cards and hid them in his room for the next day, leaving his mess behind in Beans room, but that was more of a Bunty problem. He had spent the rest of that day convincing Bean to get out of bed to do something productive. She did get out of bed, but ultimately her feet led her back to a less productive activity which was drinking at Lucis bar. It wasn’t exactly what he had in mind when he wanted to cheer Bean up in a healthier way but he didn’t mind a drink at the moment.
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Valentine’s Day had finally came. Well finally came to Elfo, being an elven tradition no one else in the castle really cared about the tradition. Elfo only needed one thing to top off his letters to his valentines this year. Candy. The second best part of the holiday aside from celebrating love. He went straight to elf alley to get the best of the best for his friends. As expected the line in front of every candy shop was long. The elves loved getting it ‘fresh’. Not that it really was, but it felt that way. Once Elfo was finally inside one he had grabbed a salty caramel chocolate bar, a spicy dark chocolate, and a coffee flavoured one. Each candy sold there came with a complimentary little card. Elfo took those too and quickly wrote down some puns based off the person getting the candy. It wasn’t his first holiday, and like every other elf he had worked at a candy factory around this time, so it was relatively pretty easy.
Bean was still feeling down about being single lately, and the mentioning of this holiday wasn’t really helping her case, not that Elfo had processed that yet. Because she was down in the dumps he decided to give her valentine first.
“Heyyy Bean! I got you something! Remember how I mentioned that ‘Valentine’s day’ yesterday?” Elfo once again didn’t bother knocking and just barged in, talking in a loud gleeful tone that highly contrasted the vibe in Beans room.
“5 more minutes…” Bean groaned. Elfo hopped onto her bed and ignored her request.
“As per tradition I got you chocolate and made you a letter!”
“Chocolate?” Bean muttered with curiosity, turning her face out of the pillow she buried it in. Elfo laid it on the bed in front of her face and she slowly put her hand on it to slide it closer. She finally got up and looked at the smaller note attached it to it that read ‘you’re wine in a million!’. Bean smiled at it and nudged Elfo with her elbow.
“Those business owners… always writing dumb puns to sell crap for more amirite?” She said. Elfo avoided her eye contact.
“Hehehe… yeah…” he responded nervously. Bean hadn’t noticed the embarrassment and opened the salty caramel chocolate bar to eat it while she read the bigger letter.
‘Dear Beanie.
I made you this for Valentines because you’ll always be in my heart!
When I left Elfwood I never expected to meet someone like you, or to even share this holiday with someone again.
You’re the best thing I could’ve found in this world. Thanks for being my friend Bean.
With love,
Elfo’
“Dawwhhh that’s sweet. Thanks Elfo. You mean a lot to me too.” Bean said softly as she adored the letter. She carefully placed it down and held Elfo in a tight embrace.
“You’re welcome Bean. I noticed you didn’t get me anything back, but it’s fine I guess.” Elfo sassed as he slowly let go after a a few seconds of hugging.
“Oh come on! You know I just found out about this yesterday! You were the one who told me!” Bean fought back, shoving him lightly.
“I know I know that’s why I’m letting it pass this time.” Elfo stated. Bean rolled her eyes and continued to eat her chocolate.
“Right… anyways, who are the other cards for?” She asked.
“Oh these two? This one’s for Luci and the other is for Mop Girl!” Elfo said holding them up for a better view, blushing a little when mop girl rolled off his tongue.
“Mop girl huh?” Bean said in a knowing smile, it was nice to know at least one of them might be having a better dating life, though some of that nice feeling might’ve been powered with the fact it was VERY nice to know Elfo was no longer pining after her now. It was nothing against Elfo but she definitely preferred being his friend. “You know I’m pretty sure her shift is in throne room today. You can probably still catch her! She takes forever to mop… don’t tell her I said that.”
“Really? Thanks Bean!” Elfo exclaimed, leaving the room to joyfully continue his valentine distribution, leaving a much more pleasant vibe in the previously dull bedroom.
As Elfo walked his way to the throne room he got more nervous each turn. His stomach quickly started to feel empty and his thoughts got restless, sometimes even unintelligible when he didn’t focus on them enough. Once he got to the door he just stood there looking at them, beginning to sweat a little as he slowly placed a hand on the door. He quietly peeked inside and saw Mop girl mopping, her back turned from the entrance.
She was really pretty, even if he couldn’t see her face from here. It made him feel a little bad for wanting to chicken out, but somehow also want to do it more. She wasn’t paying attention so he softly walked over to the thrones. When he successfully snuck over to them he gently waited to make sure she still wasn’t paying attention, and left his gift. He snuck back out the doors and loudly shut them to get her to look up. When the doors slammed her head jerked up fast to look in that direction.
When she saw the door closed she instinctively looked around the room to see if someone entered and was somewhere else. That’s how she saw the gift. She walked over to it and saw her name written on top. Elfo carefully peeked through the doors once more and saw her open it. He reflected the smile and blush she made when she read the letter and finally walked away.
It had been much later when he finally got to give Luci his gift as he had to walk all the way out the castle and down town, right to where Luci was working another shift in his bar. He worked a lot there recently, it’s like he had moved on from the job of being Beans personal demon to being a bartender. Elfo didn’t mind though, they still hung out just as consistently, so now it was even more like he was hanging out less because it was his job for Bean, and more because they were real friends.
“Hey Luci! Guess what!” Elfo had climbed up onto the bar stool closest to where Luci was cleaning the counter.
“You’re gonna pay your bar tab?” Luci guessed with fake excitement knowing it wouldn’t be that.
“Well… no… it’s Valentine’s Day!” Elfo was about to continue by explaining what it was, until Luci already responded.
“Really? That’s today?”
“Oh, you know about Valentine’s Day?” Elfo asked with pleasant surprise.
“Of course I know about it! All the fresher elf souls in hell that still remember it always complain about missing their loved ones and the stuff they did on that holiday. It makes torturing so much easier when they remember all the lovey dovey crap like that!” Luci explained, added one more thing with a day dreamy like tone. “So much heart break and suffering!”
“…oh… probably should’ve guessed that…” Elfo muttered before moving on. “Well since it’s today I got you a gift!” Elfo revealed the gift from behind his back and slid it closer to Luci on the hard wooden counter. Luci immediately perked up at Elfos words.
“A gift you say?” Luci said with intrigue as he dropped his cloth and picked up the chocolate and letter. Luci instantly recognized the chocolate. He didn’t have candy often, he actually never had it all before he met Elfo, as real candy just melted in hell, but thanks to Elfo finally getting him to try it he discovered he LOVED spicy dark chocolate.
“Awh sweet you got the good stuff!” Luci exclaimed as he immediately ripped open the wrapper, missing the message Elfo had wrote on it. Elfo didn’t mind that. He was actually kinda relieved, if Bean thought it was stupid Luci would have a lot worse to say about it. Luci had already gotten a few big bites into the thing before continuing to talk.
“I gotta hand it to you elves, you sure know your way around flavour. You guys should totally make drug ones!” Luci suggested, taking more bites as he did.
“Oh we already do, we just sell normal ones more.” Elfo said casually. Luci’s jaw hit the floor and his eyes went wide as saucers when the information slipped out. It’s like he told Luci he’d won a million dollars a week ago and it wasn’t a big deal.
“You guys do that?! Why didn’t you tell me?!”
“I guess it never came up.”
“Never came up?! What about when you forced me to finally try candy? What about then?!”
“Elf alley was still developing! There was like one candy shop open when I was getting you stuff to try and it was a normal shop. Now open your letter!” Elfo insisted, Luci was confused by his request.
“What letter?” Luci asked, Elfo rolled his eyes and pointed at the card that was still lying on the counter.
“Oh yeah. Can you tell me how much of your cheesy friendship love stuff you wrote so I can prepare myself for the worst?” Luci asked before opening it, looking at the glittering pink cover.
“Just open it!”
“So a lot. Got it.” Luci retorted. He finished off his chocolate and opened it. There was tiny little pop up flames coming up as soon as he fully opened it. Other spots were covered in red glitter shaped as blood splats. Luci appreciated the detail.
‘Dear Luci
You’re the greatest guy I know. I’m so happy that you’re my best friend.
I couldn’t have had a better one, there’s no one as cool you Luci.
Also, I’m glad you didn’t do anything stupid to bring me back to life, because I don’t think I could live it without you and Bean.
Thank you Luci. I owe you forever for everything.
With love,
Elfo’
Lucis eyes widen as he started to read the last bits. Once he was done he felt a stinging in his eye start to grow, he assumed it was all the glitter Elfo had put in the card. Or at least liked to blame it on that.
“You ok Luci?” Elfo asked concerned.
“Huh?” Luci responded, internally scolding himself when it came out in a pitch much higher than usual. He tried to cover it up by trying to play it off in his usual tone, but him clearing his throat before started might’ve given it away.
“What? Of course I’m not fine. I had to bore myself with your cringey declarations of mushiness and love. It’s pretty bad.” Luci retorted. Elfos face immediately turned sour with annoyance and he scoffed and responded angrily.
“Well if it’s so bad that’s the last time I’m making you a card!”
That was a lie.
“Well good. I didn’t bring you back to torture me with them. Speaking of which, why would I do stupid for that? I only did it cause I didn’t have anything else to do.”
That was an even bigger lie.
Elfo didn’t truly mind that remark. Deep down they both knew they were liars. After a bit of silence and Elfo looking mad enough for Luci to kinda feel bad Luci finally spoke up.
“The praise was kind of a nice touch… I am pretty cool. Thanks Elfo.”
Elfos face turned back into a sweet smile. “Anytime Luci.”
“Yeah… well it was a nice sentiment in a crappy paper while it lasted.” Luci said while getting up, taking a big stretch before walking into one of the bar closets with the card.
“What? Where are you going?” Elfo asked, leaning over the counter to see him behind the walls that blocked his sight of him because of the angle he was sitting instead of following him. Luci yanked open the floor hatch and climbed down it.
“I’ve been trying to build a paper tearer down in the basement for legal files. I’m gonna test it with this. Consider this the first step in an amazing project! You’ll be part of history, kinda. I’m calling it the paper shredder!” Luci called back with a condescending looking grin. Elfo sighed and Luci shut the door, slowly climbing down the latter, careful not to tear or wrinkle the card.
He walked over to his cat bed and pulled out a big flat case. Inside it was a bunch of stuff he had slowly started to collect ever since he met Bean and Elfo. Flower crowns, random trinkets they had given him because it ‘reminded of them of him’, a few pictures of them, and a pile of paper in the corner made of other cards and pages that spoke positively of Luci he had ripped out of Bean and Elfos diaries. Well, really he had intricately torn them out carefully in a way that he could blame it on rats eating it out.
Luci smiled at the contents of the case and placed his new card on the paper pile and then closed it, putting the case back in its spot in his occasional makeshift bedroom in his bar that he used when he didn’t feel like walking all the way back to the castle after a long shift. He climbed back up the latter to continue his shift.