Started my daily ficlets to make the hiatus pass, then decided to keep going with a 2nd cycle, and then a 3rd, 4th, etc through 52nd cycle. Now cycle 53!

THIRD ANNIVERSARY CYCLE: It's late October again, and within this cycle I will be completing my third year of daily gleekathon stories and commencing a fourth! As in previous years, this means special things happening. I've selected my favorite stories from throughout the year, and I'll be treating them to something special. In previous years this included Prequel, Sequel, and POV Swap, and then Additional Scenes and Alternate Endings. This year I'm adding two new treatments: Genre Swap (I think that's pretty straightforward) and Element Change (I change one thing in the story, see how it affects the rest). Note that in both these cases and some of the others, there may excerpts directly transferred from the story it references. Also, since this year saw the addition of 'shift days', and since I suck at picking, I have selected 42 stories, to be treated two per day! So here we go!

This story is a Genre Swap to Elf, a Chang Squared series story, originally posted on December 14th 2011.

This is a double shift day. There will be one more upload today: Expect Nothing of Silence.

"All Pointy Ears & Whimsy"
15yo Mike/Tina
Chang Squared series extra
(all series now listed under the communities tab in my profile)

Genre: Fantasy

The morning after they'd been assigned their fake spouses – he was paired with Cheerio Alicia, while Tina had been stuck with Azimio – and their egg babies, Tina wasn't on the bus with him. He figured she'd overslept… that happened. But then he got a message. "I need to see you. Meet me at my locker. Don't bring the wife…" He frowned, unsure of what was happening. But this was Tina, so he just went with it.

When he arrived, she saw him and there was this look on her face kind of… mysterious, dramatic. "Hey, I got your message, what…"

"Michael, we need to talk…" her voice matched the look on her face, like she was acting.

"O… kay?" She gestured and he guessed that meant 'play along.' So he took a step. "What is it?" he intoned.

"I know what we have isn't much, you have your wife, and I have my husband. But I'm afraid something has come along…" She reached in her locker, presenting 'something,' cupped in her hands. "We're pregg-nant…" she emphasized the 'egg' part, momentarily breaking character at her own joke, and he just knew she'd hesitated between that and 'egg-specting.' "It's yours…" she got back into it, turning her head away dramatically.

"What the hell?" Azimio passed by right then, drawing Tina out of character again.

"Egg beater!" she called at him, which only got them the sound of his cackling down the hall. Tina turned back to Mike. "Okay, moment's kind of over," she shrugged. "But, you know, I figured why shouldn't we get to do this after all."

"Our secret love egg?" he smiled, and she laughed.

"Isn't he adorable?" she handed the egg over.

"So it's a he?" Mike asked.

"Hey, if you can find proof one way or another, go for it. Until then it's a he," she nodded.

"Well I'll take good care of him," he promised.

So Mike had taken the egg child home with him. Getting it there in one piece had been a hassle already, and soon after he'd arrived home, he'd had an idea. Taking a tin box, he had found a pair of socks and the bag of cotton balls from the bathroom. Filling the socks with the cotton balls, he had then closed them with elastic bands before laying them in the tin box and laying the egg there in the middle. Proud of his accomplishment, he had laid the box there on his desk and started doing his homework.

Only he would get distracted, staring at it, and after a while he'd had an idea, reaching for a black marker and taking up the egg. He stared at it for a moment before flicking off the cap and drawing a pair of eyes, a smile, then a nose, a hair curl… He'd finished this off by starting to draw one ear on one side. When he'd looked at it, he found it was kind of pointed, like an elf. But it was working for him, so he turned the egg over and produced a matching ear on the other side. Placing the egg back in the tin box, he was pleased. So he got back to work.

It was late, he wasn't sure when, and he woke up in his bed at the sound of… cracking? Rubbing at his eyes, he turned his head over, trying to see what was happening. There was just enough light for him to see that there was something moving, over on his desk. He reached over to turn on his lamp, and then he saw he wasn't imagining things, there was something moving, cracking… inside the tin box. He got up, slowly approaching. It was only as he reached his desk and looked in that he saw… him… He backpedalled and almost fell over on his back before he regained his footing and came close again.

There, sitting amid the shell fragments, was a tiny creature, with the same little features Mike had drawn to the egg, down to the pointy ears. Its eyes blinked up, staring at Mike, like a newborn looking to a parent… "Hey," Mike hesitated, reaching out and carefully picking up the creature, which was no bigger than what the egg could have held. "Where did Mrs. Meier get these eggs?" he breathed to himself. The thing was odd, but it was kind of… well, cute. Mike smiled, petting it with one finger from his other hand. "Hi," Mike spoke again, and the creature made a squeaking noise of recognition. "Okay…"

He had hurried up and gotten dressed, cleaning out the shells and putting the thing back in the cushioned tin box before hurrying out of his house as quietly as possible. He couldn't close the box, afraid the creature would suffocate, but he covered him up with as best of a blanket as he could hope to find, not wanting him to freeze either… Maybe it was his previous conversation with Tina, but he'd decided it was a he. For now he had to get to her.

He'd waited outside her house, sending a text saying he was there and she had to let him in without anyone knowing, that it was urgent, and he hoped she would wake up and see it. It took a few minutes, in which he would stand there letting the creature hold his finger, but then the door opened. "Mike? What are you doing… here?" He turned, finding Tina there in her PJs.

"Don't freak out, okay? I mean it, no screaming or…"

"Why would I…" she started, but then he let her see what was inside the box he carried. She gasped and covered her mouth with her hand. "What…"

"It's the egg child, you know, the one you gave to me earlier? I don't know what happened, I woke up and it was… hatching," Mike explained.

"Come in, come on," she gestured and they went into the house. She led him up to her room, shutting the door. They sat on the ground by her bed, and there he uncovered the creature for her to see properly. "It's really… It's real… Can I take… him?"

"Go for it. He's not going to bite," Mike promised, and Tina stared at him like it hadn't even occurred to her that he might. She held out her hand and carefully scooped him up. He made noises like he was confused by the new presence at first, but Tina was quick to comfort him.

"There, there, it's okay," she hushed, still amazed at what she was seeing. When the creature gave something of a smile, both his 'parents' smiled back.

"I think it likes you," Mike commented.

"Well who wouldn't?" she teased.

"Good point," Mike nodded. "What are we going to do with him? Can't give him back to Mrs. Meier, what if they hurt him?" he asked.

"We can take care of him," Tina shook her head. "If anyone asks, we broke the egg. We can ask for another one… What if there's another one inside though?"

"I don't think there will be," Mike shrugged.

"Well… then I guess this one is ours to look after…" she smiled down to their 'love child' as they had deemed it earlier. "Right, little Elf?" she decided on the name. "We'll take care of you."

It was late, he wasn't sure when, and he woke up in his bed with the vivid memories of sitting with his girlfriend and the sweet hatchling, needing a moment to realize it had been a dream. Still he had to make sure, turning on his lamp and getting out of bed to go up to his desk and see. The egg rested just as he'd left it when he'd gone to bed, with the features he had drawn on to it, ears and all. Mike let out a breath, rubbing at his face. It was the last time he'd eat his mother's leftovers right before bed.

THE END

A/N: This is a one-shot ficlet, which means that signing up for story alert will not bring you any alerts.
In the event of a sequel, the story will be separate from this one. And as chapter stories go, they are
always clearly indicated as such [ex: "Days 204-210" in the summary] Thank you!