Mobile Suit Gundam 00 © Sunrise
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Lyle exhaled soft whispers of curling smoke into the frosty morning air, watching with disinterest as they languidly rose to a point of disappearance against a backdrop of winter-grey overcast. His nose and cheeks stung in the chill of the nippy morning, brightening his face to a festive cherry-red as he leaned against his brother's Lancia, watching his little sister shovel beside his older twin. Her strokes were smaller and less burdensome, but easily twice as energetic: Neil always gathered and tossed with a measured, steady rhythm, but Amy sort of went at it all haphazard like, scooping and tossing at will, throwing more into their faces than over the bank framing their driveway. Lyle's own shovel was propped up beside him while he took a break from their collective chore, choosing to stretch his limbs and enjoy a smoke instead of slaving away. This was one chore he had quickly come to dislike as he grew older.
From beneath sweaty, frost-cicled strands of curling chestnut hair, which in turn peeked out from beneath a snow-laden head, Neil turned his disapproving gaze toward Lyle while the younger twin paused in his observations to take in another drag of nicotine. "Hey," Neil said in that way of his that let Lyle know exactly what he thought of Lyle's smoking around Amy, "put it away."
Amy giggled and Lyle grinned at her devilishly in response. All three siblings knew the cigarette wasn't going anywhere until he finished it first. Lyle never wasted his smokes.
Neil rolled his eyes and continued shoveling as Lyle continued to watch. Still smiling, Amy hopped through the un-shoveled section of the driveway, sinking up to her calves in the snow but clearly having a grand old time as she made a mess of everything they had worked so hard to keep clean the moment she made her stumbling exit. Catching herself in front of Lyle, she shook and brushed the snow off herself as best she could, leaving a halo of semi-clumped white blobs surrounding her insulated boots. Satisfied, Amy then looked up at Lyle with her bright, sparkling eyes shining, so clear and beautiful as always, and he never could tell her no when she looked at him like that.
So he tapped her lightly on her freckled, cold-red nose and handed his cigarette over. She cradled it carefully in one mittened hand while she tugged the other off with her teeth. Succeeding, she looked again at him for approval, and he pulled her close to block Neil's view of the whole thing. Both siblings watched warily for a moment while Neil continued to shovel, oblivious to their troublemaking, and when Lyle was certain their older brother had once again applied himself wholly to his rhythm, Amy put the dying cigarette in her mouth and inhaled deeply.
The look on her face was priceless, but it only lasted a split second before she began wheezing, choking, and spluttering all over herself while she sank to her haunches, trying her best to breathe. Lyle laughed into the frozen morning air, but stopped as soon as he caught sight of his twin's face. Neil, alarmed by the sudden coughing fit which so terribly seized Amy, had dropped his shovel and run over immediately. But while he may have been ignorant, he wasn't stupid: his sharpshooting eyes nailed the dropped cigarette beside Amy's boot with a gaze as angry-hot as his sniper's shot, and he was on Lyle in an instant.
"You bastard!" he shouted. "Why'd you let her try that?"
Lyle raised his leather-gloved hands in front of his chest and backed slowly away from his enraged twin. "Whoa there, Neil," he said, keeping his voice level and calm. "She wanted to try it."
"She's only sixteen," Neil growled, face furiously red with anger and chill.
"Plenty old enough, then!" Lyle smiled lightheartedly. "I tried my first when I was, what, fourteen?"
"I don't mind losing you to lung cancer."
Lyle laughed. Amy choked. Both twins instantly fell to the ground on either side of her, hovering protectively, argument momentarily forgotten. It took a second of worried concern, but both realized Amy had been laughing, giggling madly between choked-lung gasps, trying her hardest to breathe at the same time her sides clenched with laughter and she found she couldn't. Neil tried to calm her down, pulling her close to his chest, smoothing her unruly curls beneath his leather gloves. She nuzzled close to his warmth and Lyle went to fetch the runaway shovel before they lost it to the next snowstorm.
It took him but a minute to dig the shovel out from the place it had buried itself after Neil had thrown it aside, but the moment he turned back to his siblings, he was clobbered in the upper torso by a snowball. "What the hell?" he hollered back at Neil, gesturing to the shovel in his hand. "I was getting this stupid thing for you!"
"That was for letting her smoke."
"You damn brat," Lyle growled, shifting his gaze to playfully scowl at Amy, "you went and got me in trouble with Mommy."
Neil wasn't amused. But Amy was, and that was the entire point, so Lyle didn't feel too bad when the next snowball hit dead-on, impacting in the same place as its predecessor. Neil never really missed. But then again, neither did Lyle.
Dropping the shovel back in the drift, Lyle crouched down to scoop up a handful of snow and compress it as fast as he was able. Eyeing his target, he bent to the side to avoid another incoming projectile before eagerly slinging back his own. Amy gasped when Lyle's snowball exploded on Neil's left shoulder, spraying her with wintery shrapnel. She promptly ran to hide behind the other side of the Lancia while her brothers duked it out in the snow. Snowball fights were always fun when she and Lyle teamed up on Neil, or vice versa, but the boys tended to settle their differences in one-on-one battles and she couldn't keep up with them when they were hell-bent on demolishing one another. So, instead of joining the ruckus she began stockpiling her own arsenal, preparing to lay siege upon both victor and defeated.
Lyle was the fun one, always letting her do things Neil would never let her so much as consider. Lyle drove recklessly and fast: a speed demon with grin set, glasses on, and elbow out the window as he drove Neil's car around the countryside, teaching her to drive when they were far enough away from the busy city and no one would be watching when he showed her how to shatter the speed limit. Neil was the one who would take her to a parking lot and make her do drills, slow and careful until she learned how to handle the vehicle. But Lyle would hand over the keys with a grin and whoop, laughing whenever she stuck the car in some mud, ran off the road, or hit a tree. But that was why they took Neil's Lancia and not his own.
Amy peeked through the semi-frosted widows of the car, watching as Neil and Lyle traded shots, firing snowballs to match the other blow for blow like they usually did. Seeing no clear winner, Amy decided she would rather risk having the boys turn on her than sit here in the freezing cold doing nothing more than waiting, and volleyed a couple of snowballs overtop the Lancia to splatter in the midst of the foray. Neither snowball hit, of course, but the misses served their purpose: the twins halted in mid-aim to glance back at her. When they did so, she smirked a mischievous grin of her own and let loose the two snowballs aimed for their faces.
The twins ducked, glanced at each other, and silently nodded their mutual understanding of the terms of their temporary truce. With a sudden shared roar, Lyle launched himself around the back of the car while Neil slid over the front. Shrieking, Amy tugged at the handle and bolted inside, slamming shut the door to her sanctuary a brief second before Lyle reached it. Wasting no time, she engaged the automatic lock. Watching with satisfaction as Lyle tugged on the stubborn door without give, she sat back in the driver's seat and laughed when Neil ran into his younger twin, unable to stop himself on the black ice of the exposed driveway. The twins bounced off the side of the vehicle, off the sides of each other, and began shoving and wrestling in the snow. Amy gently slid from the safety of the car and ran around her older brothers, trying her best to shove snow down the back of either of their pants while simultaneously trying to keep them from doing the same to her or to the neck of her hooded jacket.
Predictably, she started losing the battle against the twins, but when she shrieked loudly enough they relented her torture and turned evil intentions upon one another, allowing Amy escape for a breather. She took some time to regain her breath before she ran back to the car and her stockpile of snowballs, some of which remained usably un-trampled, and picked off her brothers from a more distant vantage point. She didn't have the remarkable aim the two of them did, but they had both taught her well and it was a rarity for her to miss her mark completely. When the twins finally tired of being harassed by their sister constantly lobbing snowballs into their wrestling match, they once more charged at her. Again, Amy hid in the Lancia, grinning smugly as Neil and Lyle trotted up to the locked door.
A look passed between Lyle and Neil, and suddenly the smugness was gone.
Amy watched in horror as Neil nonchalantly reached inside his coat pocket and extracted the set of keys to his car. Pressing the automatic remote to unlock the door, he stood aside while Lyle ripped it open, and Amy was drug out of the car before she could utter a proper scream. It didn't matter: Lyle clamped his hand over her mouth immediately, knowing exactly what she had intended to do, knowing also that she only screamed like that because he couldn't stand the noise of it. Hoisting her by her armpits, Lyle half-carried and half-dragged his sister to another snowbank. Pausing briefly to inspect its depth, Neil gathered Amy's legs in his arms and held fast to keep her from thrashing. Swinging her body back and forth between them - once, twice, three times - they let go and she went sailing into the incredible mound of snow which blanketed the rest of the yard.
It was the twins' turn to laugh as they dug their sister out, trying their best to avoid the scooping handfuls of powdered retaliation she flung into their faces. Laughing, all three siblings stumbled out of the waist-deep drift, staggering like drunks while they linked arms atop shoulders in a chain of frozen giggles.
They shuffled back inside, senses assaulted by holiday warmth and the smell of a deliciously roasting meal while the fireplace danced its own flickering steps. Peeling off the many layers of soaked and heavy clothing was a chore, and soon the entryway was completely trashed with discarded articles of snow-wear while the siblings vacated to their separate rooms to change into warm, dry sweaters. Their mother shook her head as she laid various jackets, hats, and mittens in the garage to dry, but the twinkling in her eyes betrayed her true feelings as she hollered for the children to be quick about it, lunch was almost done.
Lyle and Neil raced each other, of course, but Amy had already beat them both, having anticipated the snow fight by leaving a fresh change of clothing prepared on her bed. So it was with great satisfaction that she heard them thunder down the stairs, shouting at each other for being too slow, and then stop and blink when they saw she was already seated at the dining room table with a steaming mug of cocoa in her hands. Neil laughed and pulled himself a chair facing her from across the table, but before he could sit down, Lyle had shoved him aside and stolen the seat for himself. "Hey, there, pretty lady," he drawled, eying Amy's mug of hot chocolate. "Feel like sharin' some of that?"
She grinned back at him and pushed her cup across the table.
Lyle smiled and took the cup, looking into it to see how much she had consumed so he could be careful and not take too much. "Hey!" he said, looking from the cup to her. "It's all gone!"
Neil laughed at Lyle's outburst and ruffled Amy's hair, choosing to seat himself beside her and away from Lyle. "Good one, kiddo," he said with a chuckle.
Lyle scoffed, but soon enough their mother appeared from the kitchen and filled up Amy's downed mug while the twins opted for making their own coffee. Amy wrinkled her nose when Neil offered her some of his, snubbing it to turn her attention back to her own drink as she watched the miniature marshmallows dissolve and swirl in languorous, cream-colored spirals.
Father said the blessing over Christmas lunch while the family held hands and bowed their heads. But the quiet, respectful moment of grace was only a momentary calm before the proverbial storm, for as soon as the last 'Amen' echoed itself away, the clattering of spoons and clinking of porcelain, glass, and plates began. Knives sawed and forks stabbed, and all manner of laughter arose from the Dylandy table.
While the warmth merrily churned inside, dancing like the comforting flicker of the fireplace beside a tree bedecked with sparkling ornaments and blazing lights, the snow outside continued falling from a thickly blanketed sky. Thousands of flakes descended in fat, lazy swirls, ever so softly laying their heads to rest upon an unfinished driveway, playfully burying three forgotten shovels in a wintery game of hide-and-seek.