A/N: So, this is sort of a companion piece to "Tea and Cookies." Once again, it was inspired by the prompt "Lights" for TLC Shipweeks 2017. It's a little late, but I hope the cuteness makes up for it!
Presenting: the male half of the Rampion crew decorating for Christmas. The title, "Stringing up the Lights" comes from the Bob River parody "The Twelve Pains of Christmas" where this is just the type of problems that puts "Stringing up the Lights" as the Second thing at Christmas that's such a pain to me! (If you don't know it, I highly recommend you go look up the song. It's hilarious.)
Now, without further ado:
Lights – The Rampion Guys
"What is all this stuff?" Jacin surveyed the cargo hold, piled with cardboard boxes in every corner, and strewn across the floor so that the path through was treacherous.
"Christmas lights!" Thorne sounded like a 5 year old who had just been told he could have ice cream for dinner.
"You're redecorating?" Jacin asked dryly, beginning to stack the boxes into some form of neat piles.
"We're putting them up on Scarlet's farmhouse, the barn, the sheds, the Rampion, anywhere we can hang them!"
"We?"
"Yes! As soon as Wolf finished his chores, and His Majesty gets himself out of bed." Thorne was already pulling on his coat.
"I'm up, I'm up." A half-dressed, half-awake Kai stumbled into the hold.
"Stars above, Thorne. You really think we're getting this al out today?" Kai's eyes widened at the number of boxes.
"We have a full week 'til Christmas – plenty of time to get it all up."
Wolf's steps were heard coming up the ramp. He stopped short when we surveyed Thorne's preparations.
"Isn't this a little much? We don't want the European Union to think we're setting up a new landing zone."
Jacin snorted. Kai grinned. "Thorne just wants to make sure he can't miss it when he's coming in for a landing."
Thorne waived a hand airily in their direction. "Nothing you say can upset me today."
Wolf shrugged as he picked up a stack of boxes. "Scarlet's still sore about the sugar beet crop."
"What happened to it?" Kai had managed to find his jacket, and followed Wolf out with another box.
"Thorne flattens it every time he lands." Wolf explained.
"If you want to avoid it, put in a slab, and call it a landing pad." Jacin suggested unsympathetically.
Wolf acknowledged him with a low grunt, opening the top box. He pulled out a tangled mess – lights wrapped around themselves and each other. Wolf counted at least five missing lightbulbs.
"Aces" Thorne stopped short and stared at the tentacles of wires hanging from Wolf's fist.
"Kind of puts a damper on our plans, doesn't it?" Kai asked, already blowing on his hands to warm them up.
Thorne jumped up on top of the box he had just carried out. "No it does not! We defeated the evil Lunar queen, we vanquished letumosis, we're not going to let a few tangled wires stop us aargh!" Thorne's speech turned into a strangled cry as the cardboard top collapsed under his weight.
After a full minute of laughter as Thorne struggled to disentangle himself from the wires and bits of cardboard, Wolf finally offered Thorne a hand up, still guffawing.
Thorne muttered something insulting about their lack of imagination or team spirit, but no one was paying him any attention.
Kai picked his box back up. "If I'm untangling wires all day, I'm going back inside where it's warm."
Several minutes later, they were all back aboard the Rampion. "We need to move everything to the perimeter of the room, and work on one box at a time." Jacin surveyed the available space. "Then, once we've gotten all the kinks out, we need to find out if they'll light up."
"Of course they'll work." Thorne muttered. "Where do you think I got them from – a dump?"
"Noo." Kai drawled. "But there's some who would wonder if you stole them." He put his hands up defensively. "None of us here, of course."
"I'm choosing to ignore that." Thorne's voice was thick with a false hurt.
"Are we going to work, or are we going to compare adventure stories?" Jacin asked.
"Work," they all muttered, beginning to complete the tasks Jacin had laid out.
"Ta-da!" Thorne was the first to have an entire wire laid neatly from one end of the cargo bay to the other.
Wolf grunted in satisfaction as his own string straightened out next to Thorne's.
Kai glanced over at them. His brow was furrowed in concentration as he unconsciously chewed his lip. Jacin's own strand was intricately looped around itself.
"Amateurs." Thorne scoffed, pulling another box closer.
It was nearly lunch before they were finished. Strings of lights were everywhere they weren't. Laid across the floor, stretched over the boxes stacked along the walls, draped over the pilot and co-pilot chairs in the cock-pit.
Kai flopped back into the small space left on floor. "I'm quite sure I'm cross-eyed after that ordeal."
Thorne rolled his eyes. Kai sat back up. "You try deciphering one wire from another when the palace mechanics whisk away anything that's broken."
"That's no excuse." Thorne retorted.
"Uh-oh." Wolf interrupted their argument. "They don't light up." He told Thorne.
"I can fix that." Kai's voice was filled with pride that he had knowledge none of the others had.
Kai grabbed the end of the wire farthest from the plug. He swung it up, and then slammed it hard against the floor. Once. Twice.
As he brought it up for a third time, the lights flickered on to a cheer from Thorne.
It was short-lived. The whole strand went dark again as they whacked against the floor. Several light bulbs shattered, sending sparkles of colored glass around the room. A few empty sockets flashed, fizzled, and sparked from the impact.
Kai let his end fall to the floor. "Now what?" he asked sheepishly.
Thorne sighed. "Now we do it the old fashioned, elbow grease only method." He looked each of them in the eye in turn, as if gauging their resolve and determination. "We wiggle each and every lightbulb."
Luckily, they were able to quickly establish a routine to discover the problem spots.
Jacin refilled all the empty sockets from a bag of bulbs looped in his pocket. When he was done, Wolf ran his fingers up and down the strings, searching for anything loose. If that failed, Thorne had dug up an electric current tester to determine where the blockage was. Once the strands proved they would light, Jacin replaced any burned out bulbs that presented themselves, and Kai wound the cards onto boards for easier transport and tangle-free storage.
Thorne heaved a dramatic sigh when they were done. "Spades. I don't remember ever having to work that hard!"
There were a few exhausted replies of agreement.
Thorne rubbed his hands together. "Now the real fun begins."
Wolf dragged several ladders out of the barn, and set them up in front of the farmhouse. He and Jacin each took a corner, and began tacking the wires to the frame and trim. Kai went back and forth between them and the Rampion, bringing them more lights and tacks as they needed them. Thorne stood halfway out into the yard, yelling instructions.
"Wolf, your line needs to be straighter."
"I think you need to put more space between each bulb, Jacin."
"Kai! That set doesn't match the colors already up there. You need to go get another one."
Wolf and Jacin moved on to work on the barn as Kai began wrapping lights around the railing and spindles on the front porch.
Thorne, finally realizing Wolf and Jacin had the barn under control, tacked a string of lights around the front door, then, muttering to himself, he decided to add them to the front windows as well.
Finally, Wolf closed up the ladders, and all four of them trooped to the middle of the yard to survey their handiwork.
"I think we should write out 'Merry Christmas!' on the side of the barn." Thorne said. "With the lights." He added in response to the skeptical looks he received.
"No way." Jacin's voice was firm.
"But it'd be way cool." Thorne chased after them as they picked up the ladders and collected their tools.
"It's beyond cool, it's cold." Kai responded as Thorne pulled on his arm.
"I bet it'd be the only barn in all of France decorated that way." Thorne turned his appeal to Wolf.
Wolf shrugged. "Looks like overkill to me."
"Fine." Thorne said, crossing his arms. "Leave it unfinished. See if I care."
"Thorne?" Cress' voice floated out from the front door. "Are you done? Scarlet says the soup is done."
Kai slapped Thorne on the shoulder as they all went inside. "Seems the ladies decided this was a good place to stop."
Thorne ignored him.
After dinner, the girls bundled themselves into their coats, and went out to "ooh" and "aah" over the light display. Cress snapped lots of pictures, and even convinced them to pose for her so she could "document" how hard they worked.
Once they were all sufficiently chilled, they all trooped back into the warm farmhouse. Scarlet built up the fire, and came back with steaming mugs of frothy hot chocolate, each topped off with a generous handful of marshmallows.
Sitting in front of the crackling fire, one arm wrapped around Cinder and the other balancing his mug, Kai turned to Thorne.
"You know, after all that work today, I think the fire light is still the best."
Thorne turned to look at Cress, who was talking animatedly with Iko.
"Nah, the best lights are in their eyes." He nodded at Cress, Cinder, Scarlet, and Winter in turn.
Kai grinned in return.
The End.