Word count exclusing Author's Note: 3914
Quick note before you begin reading: Mello is fourteen, Matt is thirteen, and my OC (Sorry!), Rayne, is twelve. Near is the youngest, a year younger than Rayne. And L is 19, and still in the House.
Pairings include M&M (MelloXMatt) and NearXOC fluff, as well as sibling MattXOC and I guess those are the only actual pairings… I wish I could have had more, but I'm content with this (I lost sleep for you guys! I stayed up all night on Christmas Eve just to get it to you on Christmas day. How awesome am I?). :) Happy reading and happy holidays!
Christmas day itself wasn't much fun for the teens at the Wammy house, orphanage for the Super-Intelligent, though that was mostly brought on by the fact that most of the kids had their own ways of figuring out what everyone else was getting for them. All of their strategies were different each year, so nobody had a chance of stopping the snooper from figuring it out. Such was considered the fun of the petty holiday. Roger Ruvie, the man in charge of the house, didn't allow many holidays, due to their religious origins, but Christmas was just about the presents, right? How could one see fault in that, especially when dealing with children? Despite being considered super-intelligent and gifted, they were all still young—perhaps their young-to-mid teens, though some were slightly older—and still enjoyed the holiday season. Most of them, anyway.
"I don't get how you can get so into the holidays, Rayne."
The young redhead in question looked up from the present she was wrapping and saw the video-gaming chain smoker.
"I don't get how you can stand those things," she countered, gesturing to the cigarette in the newcomer's mouth. "Honestly, you're much too young to be handling those things, and I don't think any of the others like it much, either. You know that they're a danger to your health, right, Matt?"
The older boy sighed, shoving his hands into his pockets. "I don't care. You know that once someone gets hooked on something, like a habit, it's hard for someone to break that habit, right? Besides, you're younger than I am. So shouldn't I be telling you what to do?" He grinned stupidly at the girl, who was still trying to wrap her present for one of the other boys in the house.
Rayne looked up again and rolled her eyes. "That may be true—regardless, it doesn't stop me from being more mature."
Matt scowled. "Still, I—"
He was interrupted by the younger female. "At least you're ranked higher than I am. I suppose that could compensate for your immaturity. Though you're not higher than Near, or even Mello or L. You should be happy that I choke under pressure, or I'd be ranked fourth, rather than fifth, as it is now, and you'd be below me." She smiled sweetly. "Granted—"
She stopped. She could see that Matt was getting irritated, and the last time anybody got him angry was when Mello kept insisting that video-games were stupid. It was rather funny, actually. He stole all of Mello's chocolate and hid it in the loose floorboard in the hall. It had taken Mello almost a month to find it, so he went out to buy more chocolate, somebody had put it all on his bed, and he got extremely angry when he had returned after having bought twice as much chocolate as usual.
With barely hearing a mumbled "Sorry…" from Rayne, Matt stomped out of the younger redhead's room.
"Jeez…" Rayne muttered to herself as she, yet again, went back to wrapping the present.
.:xXx:xXx:xXx:.
A large Christmas tree was set up in the common room, decorated by the residents. A couple presents sat, just asking to be opened, under the tree. Rayne bounded up in an excited manner, elaborately wrapped present in hand, a large bow on the box's top face. She set it under the tree, adjusted it so that the name tag could not be seen by merely looking at it, and stepped back to admire the fake evergreen. Fiberglass spheres of all colours hung on the spindly branches, silver tinsel wrapped itself around the tree like a snake, large, artificial snowflakes rested themselves in a pattern, a shiny star rested atop the tree, looking down on anybody who walked by. Truly a beautiful sight, especially for orphans who were handled by a man who preferred insects to human children.
"You'd better get me something, shorty."
Rayne spun, startled by the new voice, even though she already knew who it was.
"I wouldn't push your luck if I were you, Mello." Her tone was almost teasing.
The blond chocoholic, clad in his normal attire—black leather; who did he think he was trying to attract? (Matt, perhaps? Rayne smiled at the thought)—had a usual chocolate bar half-hanging out of his mouth.
"Luck, schmuck," Mello said sarcastically, rolling his eyes before taking a bite of his chocolate. "I still expect something from you under that tree on Christmas morning." Without another word, he walked off, probably to find Matt.
Rayne sighed, murmuring quietly to herself. How could her brother's best friend not get along with her? She supposed it happened all the time, but was still skeptical. It was rather odd, wasn't it? Mello spent pretty much every moment of his spare time with Matt, even when the redhead was "busy" playing some kind of video game. But, be that as it may, it was amusing arguing with the blond chocoholic and knowing that she would win. Just because she wasn't number one at Wammy's didn't mean that she wasn't still a genius. And being a genius didn't mean that she wasn't also extremely sarcastic. In any case, it worked in her favour—being a genius, she could easily come up with excuses, as well as comebacks, at the drop of a hat.
She smiled at her magnificently wrapped present once more before nodding and turning to walk up the stairs to her bedroom.
She'd only gotten one gift so far that was left unwrapped, for her brother, so she made a mental note to make a trip to the store as soon as she could.
.:xXx:xXx:xXx:.
It was Christmas Eve, and Rayne still had yet to buy her final two gifts. For her brother, she'd purchased a collection of different Super Mario games—he had a soft spot for the classics—and for the number one boy at Wammy's, L, she got a cake. So he liked cake, so what?
Sticking a candy-cane in her mouth, she laced up her boots, grabbed her jacket, and began to take a step out the door, when she was stopped.
"Where do you think you're going?"
Rayne turned and saw Roger, towering over her small height of five feet, two inches (roughly 160 centimeters). She wondered idly how he knew that she was going somewhere, as he was normally in his office, looking at the official insect Wikipedia, and rarely left unless there was something important happening. Ah, life's mysteries.
"I was going to the—" she hesitated and faltered after seeing Mello's head poke out from behind Roger's shoulder, "—uh, the store. For Christmas."
"Well don't take too long. And take Mello with you." With that terse statement, he promptly turned to walk, leaving Mello, as well as Rayne, staring confounded as they watched him walk away, turn around when he felt like someone was watching him and pretend as though they were doing nothing, and stare as he walked away once more.
Rayne was the first to recover, crossing her arms and chewing on the candy-cane. "So are you gonna hurry up or not? 'Cause I'm going to leave you if you stay there any longer."
"Okay, okay, I'm coming," mumbled the chocoholic as he tried putting on his lace-up leather boots (shocker, huh?) while standing up. After promptly falling over, he sat on the damp linoleum floor to lace his footwear, cursing irritatedly under his breath. He took longer than a normal fourteen-year-old boy should have, but nonetheless finished and the two were off.
The town of Winchester, England, was beautiful this time of year, everything covered in a sheet of fluffy snow. The young children were out in their Winter gear, frolicking about carelessly, making Rayne feel a bit nostalgic. Her parents had passed away when she was only four years of age, so she never really knew them, but she had a photo of them and herself, as well as her brother with his usual scowl, as an infant on her bedside stand.
"Are we almost there?" Mello asked suddenly, breaking the redheaded girl from her thoughts.
"Yes, Mello, just a few more minutes." Honestly, for someone who was two years older than she was, he sure didn't act it.
"…Can we get chocolate?"
"I don't care, so long as you pay for it yourself."
"But I didn't bring any money."
The anime-vein was almost visible on Rayne's temple as she reached up with her forefinger and middle finger to adjust her glasses. She gritted her teeth and said irritatedly, "Well you'd better pay me back when we get back to the House, or I'm keeping any chocolate that we happen to pick up."
A somewhat-horrified expression replaced the blond's previously indifferent one, as he paused in the middle of the road that they were crossing.
"Mello, I highly suggest that you come out of the middle of the road before you get run over by a passing car," Rayne teased, turning her back after smiling just-slightly to walk in the direction of the store.
With each passing minute of Mello's complaining, Rayne could feel each of her brain cells dying, one-by-one, all because of Mello. She cursed him silently, clenching her fists tighter and tighter, the more annoying he got. God, did he ever shut up? The young redhead wanted to reach back and punch him, slap him, kick him, something to get him to stop yapping! Did he honestly think someone was listening?
.:xXx:xXx:xXx:.
Upon leaving the store, Rayne was left with about half the sanity she had entered with. Mello just would not stop prattling!
She didn't trust the uncharacteristically-talkative chocoholic with any of the bags, not even the one with the chocolate. Especially not the one with the chocolate. Oh, hell no.
They walked back to Wammy's House without really talking to each other, despite the grumblings of both orphans—Mello's of the chocolate he was supposedly depraved of; Rayne's of how Mello wouldn't stop talking, and what she would do to make him…if she wouldn't be arrested for them.
"Hey, I was wondering where you two had gone. I needed my baby sister to help me with something."
Mello and Rayne were greeted by the gamer when they returned to the House, a cigarette sticking out of his mouth. Mello practically attacked the redheaded girl for his chocolate, but she refused to give it to him until he payed her in full.
She ignored his pleas when he stated that he had no money left (Ironically, it was all spent buying chocolate) and turned to her brother. "What is it you need help with? If it's that Harry Potter computer game again, I swear I'm going to break that disk. Then I'm gonna throw it in the trash, and burn the trashcan."
Matt's eyes widened when he heard this, however it was, for once, not what he needed assistance with—that game just seemed to stump him without end. He took a final puff of the cigarette before dropping it on the ground and stepping on top of it, putting it out. "Actually, it's SuperTux. I can't get through this one level…" He was slightly ashamed to admit that he actually needed help on a video game (even if it was on his computer), but his baby sister, although not as good as the chain smoker, was pretty decent when it came to video games herself. She learned it all from the master, or so said her brother; she said otherwise. Even so, he still hesitated when asking for help—especially from his sister, and especially when it came to video-games.
Rayne sighed. "Fine, I'll help you. Let me just get my payment from Mello and I'll—wait, since you two share a room, I'll just come on up right now. He claims he has no money left…"
With his little sister in tow, Matt made his way to his shared room with his best friend. Down the corridor, through the common room, up the stairs, down another long corridor. Rayne wasn't very familiar with this end of the House—it was the boy's end, and she made her stay in the girl's end, obviously.
Upon opening the door, Rayne spotted Mello, lying on his side and hugging his knees in a lying fetal position while sucking his thumb. Matt thought nothing of it; he was used to seeing his best-friend-slash-roommate acting this way when out of chocolate with no means of getting any for a while.
Rayne sighed, sitting herself down on her older brother's bed—the one that wasn't inhabited by an insane chocoholic.
"You should remember to bring money next time, you idiot."
Despite what you may think, it was not Rayne that had allowed these words to slip from her mouth—it was Matt. He pulled out his Nintendo DS Lite and began to press buttons. He walked, but rather than sitting atop his own bed with his sister, he bypassed it and settled himself on his friend's, and began to try to comfort him. It didn't exactly work; Mello made a strange sound and wiggled away, promptly falling off the bed.
Rayne, wide-eyed, stood from the bed in shock. "I-is he okay?"
Matt turned off his gaming device and looked at his sister. "Yeah. Happens all the time."
With that terse statement, he walked over to the computer and turned it on. Starting up SuperTux, he moved out of the computer chair and Rayne sat down. Working her fingers quickly over the keys on the keyboard, she beat the level fairly quickly.
"There. If you need any more help, you know where to find me," she said over her shoulder, walking out of the room. Honestly, how such a skilled gamer get stuck on such a juvenile game was beyond her.
.:xXx:xXx:xXx:.
Rayne had just finished wrapping her final gift, when she thought she saw something out of the corner of her eye. Sure enough, the white-haired eleven-year-old had gotten into her room. But wait…hadn't she locked it? And what was he doing on this end, anyway?
Pushing the thought out of her mind, she turned to face him. "Hi, Near." He didn't answer, just looked her in the eye. "W-what is it? Is there something you need?"
He shook his head. "No."
The redhead sighed and stood up. "Well then would you like to help me bring these down to the common room?" She gestured to the two wrapped masses on her floor and smiled to the younger boy. "It'll be faster than doing it myself."
"Sure." He walked over and bent down, lifting the larger but ironically lighter package—the one for L.
Lifting the other one, the one for Near, Rayne motioned to Near to follow her. They made their way down the stairs.
"What's all this?" one of the other Wammy students questioned, inspecting the thing in the boy's hands. Near said nothing, but walked over to the tree and set the gift near the one Rayne had placed earlier that day. Rayne, breaking the almost-staring-contest with the other Wammy boy who she didn't know very well, did the same.
She walked back to her room without another word, the ghost-like eleven-year-old in tow. While not many words passed through the air between them, they still enjoyed each other's company, silent or otherwise…though, most of the time, silent.
The silence was suddenly broken, "The Funtom Company's newest toy, huh?"
"Wh-what—what are you talking about, Near?"
"That's what you purchased for the holiday for me." The boy in question looked at Rayne with a small smile. "Am I correct in saying so?"
Rayne looked down, smiling herself. "You really are perfect for L's successor, Near."
.:xXx:xXx:xXx:.
It was Christmas morning, and Matt woke earlier than normal—but it wasn't like he was excited or anything….
After using the restroom and washing his face, the redheaded chain smoker looked at his shared closet and sighed. After taking off his Super Mario(*) sleep shirt, he reluctantly slipped one of the striped shirts over his head. At least the stripes are dark green…, Matt thought in irritation that his own sister would do something so extraordinary as changing all of his normal shirts, the red ones with black stripes, to "Christmasy colours," as she would put it. Sighing again, he stuck one leg, then the other, into a pair of relatively baggy jeans. He didn't bother with the vest today. It didn't go with the colours of the new shirt anyway. Not that he was going to keep it, but he still had to look good.
After waking up his roommate (which promptly resulted in a pillow to the face and a death glare. Needless to say, the chocoholic wasn't exactly what you would call a morning person…), he went to wake his sister. That is, if she wasn't already up.
And sure enough, she was. On her laptop, no less, typing away.
"Rayne?" She looked up without a word, so he continued. "Did you even go to sleep last night?"
The younger redhead shook her head, shaking her ruby-coloured bangs from behind her ears. They covered her eyes, but she quickly tucked them behind again. Shutting her laptop and setting it aside, she stood, allowing her nightgown to fall to its full length—just above her knees. "I didn't see any sense in it. I go to bed late anyway, and I've got that bad habit of waking early on Christmas, which seems to have rubbed off on you."
Matt scowled. "Actually, I had a rough night's sleep. It's not my fault." He averted his gaze from his cocky sister.
She smiled and slipped into a pair of dark blue boot-cut jeans. After receiving a death glare from his junior, Matt turned around so that she could change her top. She replaced her nightgown with her normal long-sleeved dark-blue-and-black-striped top.
"You can turn around now."
Matt did so, eyes widened with shock. Rayne tilted her head to the right in confusion, her way of silently asking what he was going through.
"Y-your shirt…wha…?"
Rayne looked down at her shirt self-consciously, making sure nothing happened to it. "What are you talking about, you idiot? I always wear this. I would have asked about your own, but I assumed you were finally getting into the spirit of Christmas. Was I wrong?"
"Yeah, actually—! I was expecting some elaborate freakin'…Christmas sweater; I woke up this morning to find that all my favourite shirts were…defiled and replaced with this!" He gestured to his shirt, pinching a part on his stomach with his thumb and forefinger, looking at it in disgust.
Rayne smirked. "Well I can honestly say that I have no idea as to how that happened. Though…" she trailed off thoughtfully, head still tilted to the side.
"What?" Matt demanded fervently, feeling self-conscious.
"It brings out your eyes. I'll bet someone'll like that," the young girl said vaguely, tilting her head to the side.
With a roll of his eyes, he walked out the door, sister in tow.
They spotted Mello stumbling wearily down the hall, still in his pyjamas, holding a pillow.
"Hey, what happened to you?" Matt asked, referring to Mello's abnormally messy hair.
"I'm tired, you idiot, but I was just woken up—" he was interrupted by a yawn, "—by him! I didn't even have a chance to fix my hair or anything…."
Seeing the blond pout like this was shocking to Rayne. He was usually so…so…the opposite, for lack of better term. Even so, only one person could make the chocoholic this angry—Near.
Sure enough, he poked his pale head from around the arm Mello was holding the pillow with.
Mello turned around, almost knocking Near down in the process, and walked back to his room, grumbling something about being too early to be up and about.
As the three watched him walk, Rayne pulled out a candy-cane from her back pocket, and promptly received a strange look from her brother.
"What?"
"Where the heck are you getting all these candy-canes from, Shortstop?" Matt eyed the peppermint flavoured candy in his sister's mouth.
Rayne shrugged, disregarding the jab at her height. "I stock up on them. And actually save money to buy them. A concept you boys seem to not understand."
They walked down the staircase, Rayne first, then Near, and finally Matt. The Christmas tree looked pretty much the same as when they had left it last, but it seemed there were a couple more gifts under it. The younger children crowded in wonder, while the older teens were clustered near the back, L included, though he was alone. Rayne and Near bounded up to him, though Near did so quietly with a neutral expression on his face, while Matt approached him in a more relaxed manner. Mello, who was the last one, came down shortly after, hair now in its normally tidy style and changed out of pyjamas, signifying the youngest of the orphans to go ahead and dig into their own gifts.
Though nobody in the House believed in Santa, it was still nice to get new things…even though the older students pretty much figured out what the others had gotten for them. The younger students were still not quite smart enough to figure out how to somehow manipulate someone to tell them or otherwise, they still tried.
.:xXx:xXx:xXx:.
Once all of the presents had been opened, Rayne looked to her left and saw the ghostly eleven-year-old coming towards her, holding something in his palm. A gift for her, no doubt—it was colourfully wrapped, and had shiny gold-coloured bow on top. His stride, while similar to L's, was very unique.
The boy had a sheepish expression on his face, and a slight blush stained his cheeks. Not something you saw everyday. He held out his hand, the one with the small gift in it, to Rayne, and she took it without hesitation. Smiling, she unwrapped it, revealing one of Near's finger-puppets—the one of Near himself.
"Thank you, Near." Despite the fact that she thought it was just slightly strange, she took it smiling. She held her arm out, a gesture that he should come closer to her. He did so, snaking his own arm around the redheaded girl's waist. "Merry Christmas."
"Yeah. Merry Christmas."
Looking to her other side, Rayne spotted her brother and Mello, standing close to each other. Mello made a movement, brushing his lips atop the gamer's head. Matt smiled and snuggled closer, obviously not caring who saw them. Rayne smiled. How sweet, she thought, happy that they had finally accepted that no female alive would go out with either of them and that they should be happy with each other. If he was gay, bi, or straight, and it seemed the first was most likely, she didn't care; he was still her chain smoking, video gaming big brother, and he always would be just that.
She heard a whisper from the blond Seme, "Merry Christmas, Matt. I love you."
The gaming Uke answered in a mumbled tone. "Mmm. Love you, too."
(*) As previously stated, Matt's a fan of the classics XD
Aww, how sweet~ ^.^ Now let that be a lesson to all y'all people who don't like gays. They're still people, who cares who they like/love?
Anyway…. Yes, I do, in fact, know that Watari is the head of Wammy's House (he's Wammy himself), but I felt like I could make it better with Roger. Him and his preference of bugs over children. Tsk, tsk. Lol. Don't get me wrong, I like Watari, but I think Roger makes stories funnier 'cuz he hates kids XD And yes, I used the Funtom Company from Black Butler. I just think it works, don't you? I mean, both the Wammy house and Funtom Company reside in England, so…I just thought it worked…plus I was watching Black Butler and that came to my head, so deal with it, bitches. Haha~ Sorry, it's five on Christmas morning, and I'm hyper. :)
I really enjoyed writing this, and I hope you all enjoyed reading it as well! Admitedly, it was somewhat rushed. I actually stayed up all night on Christmas Eve to get it to you guys on Christmas day… Oh well :D I'd planned on staying up all night anyway XD
Love, peace, and happy holidays~ 3
DISCLAIMER: Death Note, Harry Potter, SuperTux (Although I have it downloaded on my laptop), Nintendo DS (lite or otherwise…even though I do have one in my possession…it's blue =D)…Christmas…as awesome as they may be, they don't belong to me…yet. And the Funtom Company belongs to Yana Toboso, the creator-slash-author-slash-artist of Black Butler, aka Kuroshitsuji. That's also not mine, along with Toboso-Sama. Oh, and neither is Super Mario.