Agrippa’s Christmas Special (Patreon)

Agrippa’s Christmas Special

Well, remember how I’ve hinted (or outright stated) through the whole week that I wanted to do a little something extra for Christmas? And that I wasn’t sure I would manage? The good news is that, depending on what part of the world you are in, I managed! The bad news is that I’m not in such a part of the world.

So, it is with my customary tardiness and lack of sleep that I present to you the following compilation. Most of these are canon-compliant rather than canon, extrapolating situations to the nearest Christmas the characters would go through. The flashbacks are all canon, though, and there are a few cracky things sprinkled in it that are, most definitely, non-canon.

That being said, all of it is fanfic, so none of it is actually canon. Sorry. I promise I’ll try to buy the rights to all of those as soon as I am able to.

Also, to all my readers and supporters (moral and otherwise), I wish you all a very Merry Christmas! Enjoy the rest of the season and do whatever it is you are supposed to do at this time of the year (or dodge it, if that’s your preference) as much as you possibly can. I hope I can bring you just a little extra cheer with this whole thing.

=====

April 17th

Living with Selina had proven to be at once far easier than Bruce had ever expected and much more challenging than he had ever feared in those rare instances he allowed himself to dream about a more peaceful future.

On the one hand, having a supportive partner that he didn’t have to hide anything from who didn’t have an English accent (despite being a trained actor) and a wit sharper than Katana’s Soultaker was proving to be a boon that someone as versed in psychological profiling as he was should have anticipated ages ago.

On the other, the Cat got everywhere.

Namely…

“You haveto tell me what’s the story behind this. Is this a contingency plan to fight the Grinch?” Selina said, wearing her perfectly decent, yet somehow not, purple housecoat as she held aloft…

The Bat Santa Suit.

It… It was a red thing, fluffier than any fabric he’d ever used for any other Batsuit. It still had a cape and his customary cowl, but they were lined with white fur and…

And he was… Well, if the burning feeling across his cheeks and the warmth at the tip of his ears were any indication, Batman was blushing.

Dick must never know…

Mostly, because it was the damn brat’s fault.

“How did you even find this thing?” he tried to stall.

“Oh, you know, browsing the shopping catalog—I mean, taking a detour through the cave’s vault.”

“The vault.”

“You know, has a big, round door? Some weapons from defeated supervillains? Could be used to stage the next Ocean’s Eleven movie, if you were on speaking terms with George Clooney?”

“He knows what he did.”

“Of course, dear, of course.”

“Also, that vault is supposed to be able to keep out alien invaders. It containsthings to ward off alien invaders.”

“… Your point?” Selina looked genuinely confused.

Bruce sighed.

“Nothing, I suppose.”

“Right. Now, are you done with the stalling? I’m not letting this one go, you know?”

Bruce, yet again, sighed.

He found himself doing that far more often these days.

“It’s… A bit embarrassing.”

“Duh. Why do you think I’m asking?”

‘Because that thing about curiosity and cats seems not to have stuck when you were a child,’ he very carefully did not say.

“Right… It… Do I really?”

“Of course you don’t, dear. You have a right to keep your secrets.”

“Thank—”

“I’ll just ask Alfred.”

Bruce stared at Selina. Selina smirked at Bruce.

Bruce, yet again, sighed.

“Fine.” It wasn’t. “When I took Dick in… He was quite young.”

“I know. The little tyke was hard to hit, with how short he was.”

“I’m reassured that was a concern you kept in mind.”

“You don’t want to know what some of the girls kept in mind when he kept showing up in those briefs.”

“Did you—”

“What?No! Gack!”

“I—”

“He was your kid! Gross!”

Bruce shouldn’t have felt relieved by Selina’s exaggerated display. He did, nonetheless.

“Anyway, he was a kid.”

“Yeah, that too. I saw him grow up, it would’ve been… Ugh.”

“When I took him in, I mean.”

“Oh. Right, embarrassing storytime, please do proceed.”

Once again, the Batman found himself massaging his temples.

“Dick was… He was about to spend his first Christmas without his parents, and… I… made up a crime.”

“You what?”

“Someone had kidnapped Santa Claus, and we had to deliver gifts to the poor kids in Gotham.”

“…”

Selina looked at him, open-mouthed. Silent, for once.

It still wasn’t worth the deadly dose of embarrassment, but at least it ameliorated it.

“You… You took in a traumatized orphan and made him spend Christmas delivering gifts to the poor?”

“When you put it like that—”

Bruce shut up.

Mostly because of the tongue currently trying to invade his throat.

Selina was sitting on his lap, very enthusiastically showcasing how little underwear she was wearing beneath the purple housecoat as her arms almost choked him and her lips took care of what little air he could still have managed to get.

Batman, being the trained everything that he was, decided it may be the right time to counterattack. Mostly because he didn’t want Alfred to find him unconscious on his bedroom’s chair. Again.

So, the detective’s fingers traveled up his lover’s back until she arched it in answer and hugged her close to him, her (abundant) chest mashed against his. Selina groaned, and he took the chance to abandon her lips and attack her neck.

“Just… Just when I think I can’t love you any more than I already do…” she muttered, maybe even aware of it.

And Bruce smiled despite himself before dragging her up and carrying her to their bed in his arms.

It was looking to be an interesting Christmas.

=====

Zaimokuza Gaiden

Yoshiteru’s ginger tea is delicious.

It’s… one of the things that stood out, back when we were getting to know each other. The way he cared for these little things, for something just a bit extra from what was expected of him. It wasn’t about being a good host, or adding a personal touch, it just…

… I refuse to even think I fell for him because he added a damn spring of mint to my tea. That’s shoujo-grade bullshit, right there.

“So…” he nervously begins, looking at me from his side of the sofa.

The side he was sitting on the first time I came here.

Kinda… uninvited.

Which was perfectly justified! The damn chuuni had been evading me after our date! He was basically ghosting me! Anything I decided to do in retaliation was perfectly justified!

Like, you know, stalking him to his own home after getting my little brother to spill his address. And barging into his room before his sister told me it was all right to do so, catching him wearing those tight, tight, sweaty clothes that—

“My Lady Minami? Art thou blushing, by any chance?”

… Fuck, I am.

“It must be an allergic reaction.”

“Oh no! Do you require some medication?! What is it that could cause such a thing in one such as you?”

“… You.”

“Ah! How your words wound me! If only I could have averted such careless cruelty by—”

“The tea is nice.”

“Thank you!”

“And it was… nice of you to invite me over. Today. You know, specifically today.”

He manages to blush boisterously. I don’t know how, he just does.

“I mean, isn’t this the date where couples are supposed to—”

I shut him up by covering his mouth.

With my hand. Apparently, I’m still not at the point where I think the best way to shut him up is to physically restrain his tongue with my own.

… Barely.

Gods, I’m far too nervous about this whole thing. I knew it was a bad idea.

“Look, Yoshiteru, I… I was thinking, and… There’s something I would, maybe, if you are fine with it, like to do, but it’s taking me a bit—”

And, right before I decide in which convoluted way I can manage to lengthen the sentence enough that my embarrassment dies of old age, his sister bursts into the room.

Wearing a Santa cosplay outfit with an outrageous neckline that suits the university student as well as a doujin artist could hope for, and a skirt that is little more than a belt.

My hand drops. Yoshiteru gags.

“Sister! What is the meaning of this travesty!”

“Oh, you know, just trying to spread the spirit of the season.”

“The season is not a Comiket photoshoot!”

“You know, I was a bit unclear on that; thanks for clarifying. So, that means I should take this outfit off?”

“Yes!”

“Ah, well, if you insist…”

And she reaches for the zipper in the back.

It is at this point that Yoshiteru flushes redder than I’ve ever seen him and exits his own living room to flee from the female demon set on torturing the both of us.

Which means he leaves me behind.

Mostly because I’m currently frozen with shock, but that’s not the kind of excuse that will get him out of trouble until long after Grimgar is renewed.

When the door to his bedroom clicks shut, the awful being who sometimes pretends to be a regular human approaches me with a soft smile that barely manages not to remind me of any predatory animal. I mean, other than the one wearing it.

“Nice try, sister-in-law,” she says, and I try not to choke, “but our parents will come home early tonight, so I hope you will understand why I had to interrupt your plans before Yoshi learned what was going on?”

Is… Is this her being nice?

“You could’ve done it any other way.”

“Yes, but then I wouldn’t get to laugh at Yoshi’s face for the next week and a half.”

“And that was just a secondary concern, wasn’t it?”

“Hell, no, it was the main objective. The secondary one would be to keep this sweet thing I’m wearing.”

I look at said ‘sweet thing.’

That is, at the Santa dress I brought to give Yoshiteru a special treat.

A treat that he will now and forever associate with his demonic sister.

“I’m charging you for the dress,” I finally say in grudging defeat.

“Pleasure doing business with you,” she says.

And, as usual, it isn’t.

=====

All Right! Fine! I’ll Take You!

Symbolism.

Symbolism is the mark of the hackneyed author. The pretentious Zaimokuza wannabe who will show an injured bird in a panel to showcase the heroine’s lack of freedom or have the savior-slash-Messiah archetype fall down with his legs straight and his arms extended (bonus points if it’s in slow motion, the camera lingers, and the director is called Zack Snyder).

Some people may claim symbolism is a tool for the skilled author to subtly handle the themes of the story without a need for the characters to make grand declarations or dwell in seemingly endless and pointless internal monologues. It is a very poignant reminder that people are morons who don’t know what the Hell they are talking about.

“Really?” Shizuka asks.

“Of course,” I answer automatically, in part because I get carried away by her seamless intrusion upon my internal monologue, which was nearing a natural ending where its point would have been made perfectly clear, and in part because answering with ‘I wasn’t listening’ to that tone seems particularly suicidal.

‘Oh. He can learn.’

Reluctantly: improving my already superlative skills will only serve to foster even more resentment among my peers.

“Senpai… You really, really should have consulted me,” Iroha says from her natural habitat, lounging on Shizu’s suspiciously grey sofa.

Haruno doesn’t contribute to the conversation, mostly because she’s laughing her ass off.

In front of me, on the other side of the kitchen counter, Shizu’s eyebrow keeps twitching.

And so, I look her in the eye, raise my fork, and keep eating my portion of Christmas Cake.

It’s the second one. I bought as many as her *undisclosed* age.

Symbolism.

It tastes like type B diabetes.

=====

Wake-up Call

The winter’s wind in Brockton’s Bay isn’t particularly harsh, as the sea keeps us from the extremes other places suffer, but it’s still something not quite pleasant to suffer through while in costume, at night, and on top of a pretty exposed roof.

I would complain, but really, at this point, it shouldn’t even be a surprise that Taylor’s flair for the dramatic extends to Christmas gift-giving.

“Are you sure I can’t convince you to adjourn to someplace with, I don’t know, a chimney? Or at least a ceiling?”

“We are standing on somebody’s ceiling,” she calmly replies. And I groan.

Taylor Hebert trying to copy deadpan humor as—

I know. I know, yet it still irks me.

“Come on, Tay, I’m freezing my ass off, and I’ve got it on good authority that you enjoy my ass in its current state.”

“Don’t be so dramatic; it will just take a moment.” And now I’m the one being dramatic. Oh, the sheer irony.

Taylor Hebert’s propensity for theatrics learned trait shared by—

Fuck you.

“Fine! Fine! Power’s also ganging up on me, so I’ll start, and, hopefully, we can get back inside and out of costume before I need replacement toes.”

“Aren’t we going to patrol—” I shoot her a glare that seems to be intense enough to get past her goggles. It’s always somewhat bizarre to see Skitter back off when in full regalia, but girlfriends get their own privileges.

Speaking off…

Trying not to show how nervous I actually am about the whole thing, I dig through my messenger bag until I get a small parcel wrapped in festive purple out.

And hand it toward her.

…

Any day now.

“Are you gonna—” she starts to say.

“Yes. Of course I am.”

…

“Should I take it myself?” she asks, not unkindly.

I nod.

She grabs the parcel.

So do I.

She pulls.

So do I.

“Lisa, this is ridiculous.”

“And you’re surprised why?”

“Oh, not surprised, just distracting you.”

“Uh?”

And she pulls the damn gift right as I look up at her.

… Familiarity breeds contempt and all that jazz.

Still, I guess now’s the time for me to anxiously watch as she unwraps the damn thing, and then opens the damn box and…

Could you take off the damn mask while looking at the gift? I swear it makes it kinda hard to read your reaction.

Likelihood of Taylor Hebert purposefully concealing reaction—

Yeah, that also isn’t a surprise.

Still, going by the way her hands freeze completely unnaturally when she pulls the hairbrush out of the package…

I think she likes it?

It’s an antique. A silver thing decorated with mother of pearl, the bristles soft like a mother’s caress. Which is precisely the point, as it would have been awfully insensitive of me to try to replace her lost silver flute, but the material, the connection to the physical trait she associates the most with her mother, the fact the damn thing looks like something that people stab other people over in classic fairytales (that her mother would have read to her)… It’s… It’s not a replacement. It never can be. Lost things are lost.

But it’s another connection. Because you can always find new things.

“Thank you…” she whispers. And—

Taylor Hebert’s low tone and careful enunciation—

Right. Of course.

I hug my overly stoic and disproportionately emotional girlfriend, and she hugs me back as if she needs me just to remain upright.

Which, seeing as it was her who dragged me to the straight and narrow… All right, not that straight, after all.

After a while, Tay, without speaking another word, hands me a package wrapped with standardly festive paper. You know bells, mistletoe, … The works.

“This better not be a Gift of the Magi thing. I haven’t worn a wristwatch in ages,” I try to joke.

She doesn’t answer, just…

Suppression of body language—

Yeah. Of course.

Before she twists herself into an anxious wreck, I rip the wrapping and…

It’s clothing. Black and purple. An addition to my costume.

An addition to my costume that, after shaking it unfolded, turns out to be…

“I… It’s spider silk. As protective as my costume, but Armsmaster suggested adding some extra weight to help absorb blunt trauma. Which, hopefully, would be the only trauma that manages to make it past all the layers.”

Right. Practical, as something coming from Tay should be.

It’s also a trench coat.

A very particularkind of trench coat.

(That will have taken her weeks of work, and I better not think about that if I want Taylor to be the only emotional wreck around.)

“It’s not the only thing you have for me, is it?” I ask, trying not to get misty-eyed. And because the hint was pretty obvious.

With a gesture that I always associate with one of her shy smiles, Skitter hands me a box that I immediately unwrap.

It’s a Columbo DVD boxset.

And I laugh. But mostly because she’s still wearing a mask that doesn’t let me kiss her.

“There’s just one more thing,” she says, her voice raspy, and my laugh starts to hurt my sides.

Then she hands me a piece of paper with a name and a number.

When I turn it around, it has a simple message.

‘Thomas Calvert cellmate. Merry Christmas. Colin Wallis.”

And my laugh changes just a tiny bit…

“That can’t be good for our heroic reputation,” Taylor says.

Which, I mean, obviously. But I’m not about to give up the sheer, exhilarating pleasure of a good mad genius cackle.

It’s therapeutic, and I’ve got plenty of stress in my life to work through.

=====

Fitful Nights

The nights in the Fire Lord’s palace aren’t peaceful. The flames burning in every corner dry the air, which doesn’t do wonders for my constantly tingling scar, but they also add a quiet, background roar that makes me feel like I’m always about to confront a beast set on tearing my throat open.

Like, I don’t know, some other member of the royal family.

Thankfully, my tossing and turning on a bed that’s far too big for a single person gets interrupted by a gentle knocking on my door.

That can’t be Azula, because when has Azula ever knocked on any door?

So I make sure to clinch my robe closed after I get up and walk to said door, which opens to show me… Ty Lee?

“Ty? What are you doing here—”

“Azula’s gone insane! You have to stop her!”

My blood freezes. The words aren’t unexpected, not at all, and that very fact is what makes them so horrifying—

“She wants to kill the Dawn Bringer!” the distressed acrobat says.

And I relax.

***

“Sister, get down from that tower,” I would add ‘before you hurt yourself,’ but really, that won’t fool anyone.

“No! This year is the one I vanquish him! You can’t stop me, Zuzu!”

At my side, Ty Lee wrings her hands.

“You aren’t going to catch him. You’ve never even seen him.”

“I’ve trained all my life for this! You won’t deprive me of my moment of triumph!”

I sigh and clap Ty Lee’s shoulder.

“Well, we tried. Better leave her to her moment of triumph.”

“She wants to kill the Dawn Bringer! We can’t let her! All the good kids will lose their gifts!”

…

Oh Spirits, not another one.

“Ty Lee,” I say, in the patient tone one uses to speak to children and the mentally ill. Or in what passes for it when I try to speak to someone I don’t want to cry or cower, “what did your parents tell you about the Dawn Bringer?”

“That he’s a spirit that brings gifts to good kids on the night of the solstice, because their bright smiles help bring the light of dawn? Everybody knows that, Zuko,” she says, in the gentle tone one uses when trying to be very gentle with someone who may have a head injury. She’s so good at it it’s not even aggravating.

So I look at my sister, whose life ambition has been to catch the elusive spirit and exploit him as an unlimited source of wealth, at her best friend, whose parents should have really told her what every child before ten usually learns by themselves…

And I sigh.

“Fine. We’ll keep an eye on her. Make sure her evil plans don’t come to fruition.”

“A traitor of my own blood, I always knew!”

Ignoring Azula’s ramblings and Ty Lee’s impassionate pleas for her to return to the fold of virtuous kids everywhere, I sit on the floor, preparing to, once again, spend the night in the company of the two girls.

Somehow, it seems like today will be more peaceful than usual.

=====

Yui’s Yuri Garden

Mama is the best cook in the world!

Christmas chicken is tasty, and it almost melts in my mouth, and the skin is crispy, and—

“Leave some for me, will you, little monster?”

I roar over my plate, and Mama cowers.

Mama is sometimes silly like that, but she’s always funny when she does.

“Oh, no! Yuizilla is loose on the dining table! What can I do to save Christmas now?”

“You could… give more chicken to the monster, so it gets sleepy?”

“Ah, what a clever plan! And when the monster falls asleep, it will be time to launch my counterattack!” she says. And then she grabs me and tickles me.

“Mama! Mama, no! I’m not sleepy yet; you can’t attack now! I’ll eat you!”

“Oh no! I launched my plan too soon; now I can only push forward to keep the monster in check!”

“No! No, Mama! Ah—I can’t—I can’t—” The rest of my protests are swallowed by my laughter.

Ouchy laughter. Not fun.

… Well, not much fun.

All riiiiight, quite fun. It’s Mama. She’s silly, and warm, and the best cook in the world, and… And I always have fun with her.

Especially when she hugs me and holds me, and—

“Yui?”

“Yes, Mama?”

She’s hugging me very tightly, and I can’t see her face, but it’s all right, because she’s hugging me, and I can hear her just fine. Even if I’m still breathing hard after all those giggles.

“Do you… Do you like this? Just the two of us, alone?”

I try to turn my head up, but I don’t manage.

“Mama is the best in the world,” I say. Because I don’t know what else to say. She just is.

“But don’t you feel a bit… lonely, at times? When I have to work and leave you with Haruka?”

Haruka is the neighbor next door. She’s nice, and she always lets me watch TV when she comes over, but she smells a bit like old people. Well, I guess that’s because she’s old people, but it’s still weird.

But if Mama is worried about me being lonely…

“Can we have a dog?”

“A… dog?”

I nod against Mama’s chest.

“Yes! I promise I’ll take it on walksies, and bathe it, but no more than I bathe myself, and take care of it, and—please, Mama?”

Mama’s hug lets up a bit, and I can look up at her. She’s smiling, but it looks a bit weird.

“Is a dog the only thing you really need? You don’t feel lonely aside from that?”

It’s a serious question. I can tell because she’s not tickling me, or calling me a little monster, or being silly like Mama usually does.

So I think about it hard.

And I finally answer.

“I like dogs.”

Mama looks at me, the weird smile turning softer right before she hugs me again.

“Of course you do, Yui. Dogs are wonderful.”

And that’s not a yes, but it’s also not a no.

So I start looking at the presents beneath the Christmas tree, trying to guess if any of them could have a puppy inside it.

I hope the puppy isn’t lonely.

***

“Yukino… Just how bored are you?” my big sister asks me.

I look around at all the adults speaking of some serious stuff that I think has to do with the newspaper’s first page. The men are wearing suits, and the women are wearing long dresses.

Like I am.

It’s a white thing with long gloves and a skirt that reaches my ankles. I guess I should feel like a little princess wearing it, but Haruno is by my side, and we all know who would be the one to marry the prince between the two of us. She’s wearing a purple dress mom picked for her, and I can see how many young men are looking at my sister.

I can also see her not looking at any of them, using me as an excuse not to bother.

My sister rarely bothers.

“A bit,” I ruefully admit. And she smiles that wide grin that usually means she’s about to get me in trouble.

“Nice to see the brainwashing isn’t already complete.”

“What brainwashing?”

“Oh, you poor, deluded child.”

“I’m not a little girl anymore, sister.”

“As long as you keep arguing that you aren’t, you will definitely be.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. One should be able to argue what things are.”

“When was the last time you read an age-appropriate book?”

“When was the last time you did?”

And she shuts up.

Which… is not a usual reaction.

It’s even more unusual for my sister to grab my hand and drag me away to the small garden behind the hotel where mom and dad are throwing this Christmas party.

When she kneels down in front of me, I’m already feeling disoriented.

“Yukino… You are you, and I am me. We are different. You should be happy we are and stop imitating me,” she says, in that tone that…

And the words hit.

I hold back a stubborn grimace, the words on the tip of my tongue, the… the tantrumI can feel building up, because I don’t want to be childish just after telling her I’m not, and…

And she looks… displeased.

It always hurts when she does.

“Stop trying to please mom, Yukino. You are a kid; you are allowed to be bored to tears by this awful snore-fest.”

I don’t know what a snore-fest is. I think I can guess.

But…

I look straight at Haruno’s eyes, not nodding, not replying to her words. I… I don’t know how to. How I can do that and not be a little kid like mom says I shouldn’t be now that I’m old enough to go to these things without embarrassing her, and…

Haruno looks down, and her hair hides her face.

When she looks up again, she has that wide smile that doesn’t mean anything.

“Well, you still have some time to learn. I’ll try not to get too disheartened. Enjoy your grown-up party, sis.”

She leaves.

I’m alone in the garden, with the stupid dress that doesn’t make me feel like a princess, and I…

It’s childish. Far too childish.

But I just wish I had a friend to play with.

=====

Wordsworth

I no longer mind the cold.

Something about this new me feels like I’m made to curl in front of a fireplace, but, as vulnerable as I am to fire, cold itself isn’t much of a nuisance. It’s just… Information, I guess. I know it’s cold; I just don’t feel any of the usual inconveniences associated with it.

Which is a good thing when I’m out and about in the middle of Christmas Eve, pondering whether this patrol will do any actual good. It’s not like I have anything better to do, despite Lisa’s insistence, so I’ll just… walk.

And exist.

And, in the solitude that a night that should be spent in company affords me, I ponder.

Until I arrive at an idea that makes it clear how true it is that idle hands are the devil’s tools.

***

It’s late enough that most people have been in bed for quite a while, never mind good children waiting to get up at an ungodly hour to see what presents have been left beneath the tree while they slept.

Sophia Hess, despite having stopped being a good kid long ago, is also asleep. In her bed. In her house.

At an address that Lisa made sure I knew.

Sometimes I wonder how much she intends when she gives me these little gifts. How much she actually is just following my wishes and giving me what I want and how much she plans to guide me without my knowledge. In this particular instance, I don’t mind.

Well, not too much.

Because, as Sophia sleeps and I watch her through her window, I can’t help a spark of cruel glee at the words I am slowly reciting, at the inflections and bends in my tone and cadence. At the story unfolding in words made of ink and ink made of something other.

And, when I finally stop, and the shadowy figure of a man steps into Sophia’s bedroom, and she wakes up, horror in her eyes, just as it speaks…

As the thing I’ve called from one of my stories lets out the terrible words…

“Sophia, I’m the ghost of Christmas Past,” it reverberates.

Sophia cries.

And I thrill.

=====

The Danger of Komachi Points

I’m sitting on brother’s lap, watching TV.

“When will mom come?” I ask him.

He ruffles my head, and I pretend I dislike it.

“I don’t know. Does it really matter?”

“Of course it does! It’s Christmas! She’s supposed to be here!”

“Komachi… Do you really think that’s true?”

“Uh? What do you mean, brother?”

“Do you really think Christmas is a time where mom and dad should be here with us?”

“Of course! That’s what all the movies are about, aren’t they? People learning the true meaning of Christmas and spending time with their family, and—”

“And they make movies about it. They also make movies about pirates, Komachi.”

“Pirates are cool!”

“No. Movie pirates are cool. Because they never do the things actual pirates did. You never see a movie pirate letting innocent people drown out in the middle of the sea or attacking a coastal town and leaving with enough food that it’s certain somebody will die next winter. Movies, thus, show us cool things, and cool things are not true. Source: me.”

I look over my shoulder, trying to show my big brother how utterly unimpressed I am with his disparaging of pirates and coolness everywhere.

“That doesn’t have anything to do with Christmas.”

He pats my head. I, generously, don’t bite his hand.

“All right, let’s delve into the mystery of the true meaning of Christmas more in-depth: it is a time of union, of loving family, and thus one is supposed to show how much those bonds mean. Do you agree so far?”

Reluctantly, because I know my brother, I nod.

“Then, how convenient it is that Christmas itself provides a medium to show the value of said bonds! The gifts! What would Christmas be without gifts, asides from the wet dream of nutritionists and gym owners everywhere?”

“What is a wet dream?”

“Something that you should tell me about if you ever have one involving another person, because then it will be time for me to take care of unpleasant business.”

“Wet dreams are business?”

“The anime industry seems to think so. Anyway, Christmas makes you think that gifts equal affection and that more expensive gifts equal more affection. Thus, how is one to best demonstrate their affection?”

“By… giving an expensive gift?”

“Precisely,” brother says, proudly and patting my head. I definitely don’t blush at it. “But expensive gifts require money and money can only be earned by being born into it or by working long hours, and, thus, spending less time with one’s family.”

“That… sounds awful.”

“Because it is. But that’s only the tip of the iceberg, because all of this means one thing, and one thing only: the key to the true meaning of Christmas.”

Brother points to the ceiling in one of his ‘cool’ poses. That aren’t cool at all, but I feel a bit bad about telling him.

Also, he’s waiting for me to ask, but I feel like making him fidget, so I think I’ll lean back against his chest and pretend to take a nap—

“Ahem!” he says, not even pretending to actually cough. “As I was saying, the true meaning of Christmas is thus made clear: it is a day for the rich to lay back and relax while they contemplate how corporate slaves have to choose between being with their families and showing their affection to them through an expensive gift after working so much their faces have all but been forgotten by said families or to be with their families without being able to provide the gift that is the only socially acceptable way to show their love.”

…

“I… I haven’t forgotten mom and dad’s faces…”

“That’s because you are a very smart kid, Komachi, but they are obviously very busy trying to get you the most expensive gift they can so they can show their affection.”

I shut up and rub my head against his chest until he pets my hair.

“Will you work a lot to get me a gift when we are older, brother?”

“Not even an hour more than I have to,” he automatically replies.

“I’m glad,” I say myself

And I smile as he keeps petting my hair, and a stupid movie that doesn’t know what Christmas is actually about plays out in the background.

=====

Tangled Regrets

I have faced many things. Awful things. Terrible things. Things that should make anything else I will ever confront irrelevant by comparison. It’s hard to get stressed by the mundane when I’m so used to literally shooting the supernatural in the face.

Or, at least, that’s how the theory says things should go.

“Sooo… you really into plushies, are you?” Sayaka asks, leaning her head over my shoulder with her usual brashness and lack of consideration for my personal space.

“Madoka does,” I answer with my usual lack of emotion and consideration for her inconsideration.

“Still? Hasn’t she, like, a few centuries worth of getting tired of the damn things?”

“I could say the same thing about you and Kyouko.”

“… You are mean.”

“To be fair, you bit me in half a few times.”

“And you shot me in the face plenty more.”

“Preventive self-defense.”

“Resting bitch-face.”

“Overly touchy lesbian.”

“Ice Queen. Maybe Madoka would like some warm gloves? You know, in case you two want to get busy?”

…

“Oi, terminator-lite, I’m trying to be nice. If you don’t want any banter, just say so.”

“So.”

“… Ha. Ha.”

With a resigned sigh, Sayaka leans back and away from me. It’s a bit of a relief not to have her crowding my personal space.

“This was a terrible idea,” she finally says.

“It wasn’t mine.” I can’t help the inflection.

“Madoka may be a lot of things, but a good planner, she isn’t.”

“… She always was a bit impulsive, wasn’t she?”

“You kidding me? Remember that time she started shooting a witch from the inside out?”

“Remember? I have nightmares about that. And she just jumped in, just like…”

“Like it was the most natural thing to do. Because why wouldn’t she do that when Mami was about to get…”

Sayaka and I look at each other, and, for the first time since far too many repetitions, we reach an agreement of a sort. Now it’s only a matter of nailing down the details.

***

Madoka is ecstatic when Christmas morning comes, and she finds a wrapped gift signed by both the blue-haired terror and me.

The all but giddy smile lasts just as long as it takes her to open it and find the contents.

“Homura, Sayaka… not that I don’t appreciate it, but why would you give me a condiment set?”

On the sofa, playing with an eager Tatsuya, Mami twitches.

=====

Of Sisters and Shadows

Vicky is my child. I carried her inside me for months. I fed her, bathed her, clothed her. Took care of her.

I watched her grow. Go from baby to child.

Amy…

Amy was forced on me. And I feel awful whenever I think about it, but she’s not mine. Not like Vicky.

I… I don’t want to be a bad mother.

I don’t want to be cruel, to be unfair to a child whose only sin was being born to a man who—to him. So I do my best to be fair, because I know warmth is… is not what I can offer her.

It’s always a struggle come Christmas.

I know what Vicky wants, mostly because she has never been shy about shouting it, so I don’t have any trouble picking her presents. Mark doesn’t even have to try and put up the pretense of being somehow engaged in the process. No, her gifts are always bought long before any last-minute shopping rush ever needs to happen.

But Amy…

I never know what Amy wants.

She never writes any letter to Santa, she rarely speaks of what she likes or doesn’t, and…

And there’s always that nagging feeling, that voice that tells me if I don’t spend precisely as much on Amy’s presents as I do on Vicky’s, I’m punishing the child, yet money shouldn’t be how this works, I should…

I should just know.

But I don’t.

So I’ve feared Christmas morning for the past few years, because I’ll have a bundle of excited energy gushing about whatever it is caught her eye this year, and a quiet child beside her, never knowing how to express her disappointment.

Mark has taken his meds, has made breakfast, gone the extra mile to make at least this morning a bit better than all the others, yet I can barely offer him an appreciative smile before my eyes roam to Vicky tearing through the packaging paper like it has personally offended her while Amy carefully tries to pick at the adhesive tape without damaging the colorful drawings below.

And suddenly, Vicky is holding aloft a bright, mauve shirt with sequined stars that change color when rubbed—flipped—in one direction or another. The colors match her, and she’s been more interested in clothing since some time ago, and I—

Amy has opened her present. It’s the same shirt. Because that’s what’s fair, isn’t it? Even if those aren’t her colors, even if I don’t know how much or little she likes having clothes bought for her, even if—

“Mom!” Vicky yells. “Mom, look! We match!”

And the bright child, my daughter, stands side by side with Amy, both of them wearing the same shirt, as it’s only fair.

Vicky is radiant.

Amy… Amy is smiling.

Soft, subdued.

Sincere.

And I choke up just a little bit.

=====

Periodical Cicadas

“You can’t be serious,” I say, looking at a widely smiling Noah who seems to be, in fact, quite serious.

“It’s a classic!” he says.

“He is, in fact, serious,” Audrey comments in a tone that’s the driest thing in the room thanks to Florida’s unholy tendency to challenge Leviathan for dominion over the aquatic medium.

It’s December. I shouldn’t feel balmy in December.

“You told me we were going to watch a Christmas movie. I was expecting Die Hard at worst.”

“And aren’t you glad for the chance to broaden your horizons?”says the boy whose natural habitat seems to be the inside of a locker. Speaking from personal experience.

Also, I still wonder at how he manages to get to some classes without someone throwing his books to the ground. I almost never have to use wasps.

“So, Broody, are you joining Bicurious and me for our special holiday tradition or not?”

I look at the enthusiastically grinning teen whose overabundance of energy always leaves me exhausted in mere minutes and at the girl whose flannel shirt is enough of a proclamation of sexual identity that the ‘curious’ part of her title is, at the very least, grossly understating things.

Then I look at the DVD he’s so proudly holding.

Black Christmas.

A slasher flic.

A classicslasher flic, if they are to be believed.

Fuck it.

“If somebody gets murdered to the tune of a Christmas carol, I reserve the right to laugh.”

Ignoring Noah’s triumphant smile and Audrey’s knowing smirk, I sit between them in the sofa.

It could be worse.

I could still be tracking a serial killer.

… Oh, and single, I guess.