A/N: Written as a Christmas gift for my best friend. May this next year bring you many Mars Carrots and bollocks :3
Fictional Reality
Chapter One - Letters to Santa
The first two successful Red Mars clones - the peak of achievement after the prototype had proven herself as capable - were carefully monitored as they grew. Only the correct diet was allowed, and even their small amounts of leisure time were regulated carefully. They were only built for one purpose, and so all 'play' activities were actually war games designed to build a grounding in tactics and strategy. All their books were factual accounts of great leaders, or sometimes the bible if they had done something worthy of reward. They were not allowed frivolous games, storybooks, or even a basic knowledge of what most children took for granted.
So when Cain came into possession of his first contraband item, he guarded it fiercely. It was a small and battered book titled 'Christmas Tales for Children'. He had found it after he had finished his programming lesson in the library on the colony that was to be his new home, browsing the other books and coming across this brightly coloured treasure. Perhaps at ten years old it was supposed to be a book for younger children, and Cain had well surpassed that reading level... but it fascinated him totally and completely.
He spent hours studying it, going over each line of each story until he was absolutely sure of his facts. Only then did he go to his brother with his amazing discovery...
"...presents from a fat man?" Abel looked up at his brother as though wondering if he'd finally cracked. "What the hell are you talking about?"
"Don't swear, Abel. You know Lilith doesn't like it."
The small silver-haired boy just scowled in response, folding his arms over his chest and doing a credible impersonation of someone who didn't care. Small for their age at ten, Abel didn't quite give off the same air of innocence as his blonde doppelgänger. Almost always with a bruise of some kind marring pale skin, his face was set in a perpetual frown and his language was shocking for a man almost three times his age. The main thing that drew them together as identical were their eyes - identical pairs of winter blue that seemed already too old and a little too jaded from experiences no child should have to suffer.
Except now Cain's were sparkling in suppressed excitement, carefully drawing out his book and turning to an illustration of Santa Claus. Finger almost reverently touching the page atop the legendary figure's red-coated person and smiling.
"See. He's right here, coming down a chimney. They say he's called Santa Claus, and he delivers presents on one night each year to all the children of the world who have been good."
"Give me that." Abel said with an exasperated sigh and grabbed the book, flicking through its pages one at a time. He was about to scoff about the probable validity of these tales, and laugh at Cain for being such a gullible idiot, when he saw how many notations were written in his brother's handwriting in the margins. Page after page carefully annotated and catalogued, as though Cain actually believed this would happen. For some reason, Abel kept his silence and just pushed the book back into his brother's hands.
"We've only got two months until Christmas." Cain noted with barely concealed excitement, taking Abel's silence to mean he was convinced. "The first thing we have to do is write letters and send them to the North Pole."
Were they really doing this? Abel wondered vaguely if Cain wasn't quite the genius everyone said he was, but accepted his notepad and pen with only the smallest of grumbles. Tapping his pen on the page, all he could think about was how stupid this was. It was obviously a made up story to make Terran children behave, a stupid gimmick applied to the holiday to make people cough up more money for each other in a desperate bid to fuel consumerism. So why was he sitting here trying to think of something to write to this fictional man in the North Pole? It certainly couldn't be because his idiot other half had swallowed the story completely, and it absolutely had nothing to do with the naked hope and joy in Cain's eyes that there was something to look forward to. No. Not at all.
...Sigh.
Leaning over slightly to peer at Cain's paper, he saw lines and lines of excited scribbling asking for books and toys for all his family, for a day outside in the rain on Earth, and for a weekend to be free with the people he loved. Something hooded and filled with longing flashed into Abel's eyes as he turned back to his own sheet of paper and firmly put pen to paper, hiding the embarrassing letter from prying eyes right to the moment he sealed it in an envelope.
"Santa.
Be real for my brother. Please.
Abel."