Hey everyone! Nighty here, bringing a Folklore fic to the archives! Yay! We totally need more Folklore fanfiction.
Anyways, this fic is about Christmas. When Ellen, Livane, Scarecrow, and Belgae invade Keats's apartment to try to bring a bit of Christmas to it, how will he react?
…Not positively, that's for sure.
Everything was fine.
Oh yes, everything was perfectly fine. Of course, there was nothing irritable about this situation in the slightest, to be certain.
Yes, almost as certain as the fact that there was a headache throbbing in his temples, most probably induced by the circumstances he was trapped in right now.
Keats clenched his teeth together in barely suppressed irritation, feeling his jaw ache painfully from the countless number of times he'd ground his teeth. Which would be, considering the situation, about five times per minute.
It was Christmas Eve, a wonderful occasion, when people enjoyed a night of pleasure and family before going up to bed to await the arrival of Christmas morning so they could open their presents. Which, would be, for the average happy family, the average happy Christmas Eve…
…But if you happened to be an easily aggravated, ill-tempered twenty-seven-year-old journalist, Christmas Eve brought you nothing more than an evil mood and a thumping migraine.
Which was exactly what Keats had at this moment.
Keats surveyed his office in utter disgust. What had once been his organized, solid, peaceful, quiet office had been transformed into a horror show of sickeningly bright ornaments and loathsomely perky decorations.
And what had been the cause of all this? he asked himself, as the headache strengthened at the nauseating sight of the lot of Christmas stuff.
Ah yes. Ellen.
The young Irish woman had infiltrated his home, claiming she wanted to wish him a merry Christmas. Of course this should have taken her only a few minutes, but then she offered to make tea, and the minutes stretched into hours, and then she went into the kitchen and began to bake something, and then the portals opened up.
It was all very sudden. Two portals had opened up simultaneously in Keats's office, depositing three very unwanted visitors inside—Scarecrow from one portal, Livane and Belgae from the other. Scarecrow had come to see Ellen, Belgae had wanted to consult Keats about something and Livane had come with him….
How on earth had that turned into this?!
Keats scratched his head, attempting to summon up the explanation for this, but he was utterly confused just trying to make sense of this all.
Resigned, he sat down heavily on the leather couch, glowering rebelliously at the revolting scene before him.
A Christmas tree—a nauseating shade of green, Keats thought—had been set up near his desk, bedecked with blindingly shiny ornaments and sickeningly sweet little animals and elves, and sparkling tinsel so irritating that Keats longed to yank it off the tree. The floor was strewn with boxes and boxes of Christmas ornaments—no doubt scattering glitter all over the carpet, Keats thought with a sudden flash of alarm—all tangled together in a jumbled clutter. A radio on the floor blared horrible Christmas music into the air.
Ellen stood on her tiptoes near the tree, hanging a small ball on a branch, biting her lip and seeming completely focused on her task. Livane was leaning near the door, looking slightly bored as she flicked the Christmas star with one hand, attempting to determine if it was useful as a throwing star. Belgae stood next to her, absorbed in his book and sipping a cup of Ellen's tea, occasionally muttering random facts about the impact of Christmas on society.
Scarecrow skipped past Keats's couch at that moment, strings and strings of jingle bells slung around his whole body. They made a deafening racket as he moved, and Keats winced as the keen, harsh sound pierced his ears.
"Uwee hee hee," giggled Scarecrow, twirling and making the bells jingle louder. "Here are the bells, Ellen."
"Oh, thank you," Ellen said, her voice as soft and timid as usual, as she unlooped a string of bells from Scarecrow's arm.
Keats dropped his head into his hands, grinding his teeth once more as the cursed radio burst into another refrain of "Jingle Bells."
It was astonishing, the number of dreadful situations he was getting into lately.
"Keats?"
The journalist slowly lifted his head at the timid sound of his name. It took all his strength and politeness not to glare viciously at the young woman standing cautiously in front of him. She was the initiator.
"Yes?" he said slowly, struggling valiantly not to grate his teeth together.
"Doesn't it look nice?" Ellen asked with a hesitant smile, gesturing to the Christmas tree. "Scarecrow and I are almost finished decorating it."
Keats did not even glance at it. He knew if he did, he would puke. Nice?! he wanted to scream. It looks absolutely revolting!
But Keats forced himself to grimace and nod rigidly to her, his eye twitching slightly.
Her smile widened slightly, her bright green eyes full of a child's innocence, and she turned back to the tree, her long blond braid swinging against her back.
"Are you done with the bells, Scarecrow?" he heard her murmur to the Halflife. "I think we need more tinsel…."
It took every ounce of Keats's self-control not to ram his head into the nearby wall. He found himself looking longingly at the clock, awaiting the precious hour of midnight when his uninvited guests would finally realize they had intruded on his hospitality for far too long, and would leave at last, leaving his office to the quiet orderliness it had once held.
He should be finishing an article as he waited, Keats realized. Journalists didn't stop working just because it was Christmas Eve, and one of his articles was due merely a week after Christmas. He rose from the couch with a sigh, rubbed his temples, and swept past his merry guests toward his desk. At least that had been left untouched.
Yes, he said to himself with a flash of relief as he approached his desk, everything had been left exactly as it had been. Reassured, he sat down at his desk, glanced at his typewriter….
….and gagged.
His look of utter horror must have attracted some attention, because Ellen came over with a concerned expression and asked, "Do you like it, Keats?"
Keats could barely speak out of shock. Trying to overcome his paralyzing sense of revulsion, he extended one stiff finger and croaked out, "What—is—that?"
Ellen clasped her hands together and murmured, "Well, I thought it would look nice….?"
Keats, for once, was actually speechless. There were no words to describe the depths of the mind-numbing dismay within him. The shock barely allowed him to breathe.
His typewriter, his treasured possession, the thing he valued most over all the objects he owned in his apartment, had been tied with a disgustingly red, horrifically shining scarlet ribbon.
It was an abomination of the worst kind, a mockery of everything he had ever done. As he looked upon his contaminated typewriter, the crimson ribbon seemed to taunt him, being so bold and impertinent as to actually rest on the sacred surface of it. How dare it!
A rage seized Keats, and it was all he could do not to rip that ugly ribbon off at that moment.
Unfortunately for Keats, the ribbon was the least of his worries.
At that moment, Livane let out a fearsome war cry from where she stood beside the door and drew her arm in a swift arc through the air, launching the five-pointed Christmas star toward the wall like a bullet.
Shooting toward the wall with all the force of a rocket, it hit it in a collision and embedded itself deeply within the wall until only the very tip of it was visible, jutting out of the wood.
At this point, Keats was certain that his sanity had left him at last.
Livane dusted her hands off with a satisfied smirk, looking pleased. "I knew that star was useful," she said, returning to lounging against the door.
Belgae looked as impressed as an invisible, basically unfathomable man could. Flipping through his book, he stopped at a page and said, "I will have to reassess the value of the Christmas star. The author failed to note that besides being a bearer of religious symbolism, the star can actually also be used as a deadly weapon, hitting the intended surface at one hundred miles per hour. Intriguing."
Yes, his sanity had definitely left him.
Keats had enough of his mind left that hadn't been turned into a shock-numbed rock to glare at Livane and growl with measured, forced patience through gritted teeth, "Get—it—out."
Livane shrugged a shoulder, strolled over to the wall, gripped the visible point of the star, and pulled. Nothing happened.
After she had tugged futilely with all her strength at the stubborn star for several moments, Livane turned around with an expression of regret and said, "It's not coming out."
Ellen's hands flew to her mouth as she tried not to smile, Scarecrow went ahead and laughed, and Belgae seemed to be even more impressed.
And Keats's temper finally snapped. Marching over to Livane, he pointed one furious finger at her and spat, "And what gave you the right to just throw things at my wall? This is my apartment, I'll have you know."
Livane's dark brown eyes sparked in anger, and she put a hand on her hip. "Well, it's done now," she retorted. "What am I supposed to do about it?"
Sensing a potentially fatal situation, Ellen quickly moved forward and tugged at Keats's arm. "Please," she said softly, "why don't we just go and sit down? We can probably dig the star out later, and repair the wall."
"And the presents still need to be opened!" Scarecrow chimed in, hopping up to them, balancing perfectly on a single skinny leg.
Keats looked down at the girl still holding his sleeve. Ellen, the peacemaker. Her bright green eyes were full of pleading, just like a little child who wants the family to be happy. Keats suppressed a sigh and waved a hand dismissively.
"All right, let's go gather round the tree and open our—presents."
He regretted the heavy sarcasm in his voice for a moment as Ellen winced slightly, but her smile reappeared in a moment, and she led everyone to the brightly lit tree. Keats quickly looked down, not wanting to puke all over the floor at the sickening sight. Yes, that would definitely ruin Christmas Eve.
He glanced around him, not believing that he was actually celebrating Christmas Eve like a child. Livane had come to lean against the wall near the Christmas tree, still wearing her usual scowl, and Belgae stood next to her, still reading his heavy little tome. Scarecrow hopped up and down on one foot, excitement and mischief in his yellow eyes and unnervingly bright smile.
Ellen knelt on the floor, a solemn expression in her eyes as she pulled out the small boxes from underneath the branches of the Christmas tree, and passed them around to everyone with a smile.
"Merry Christmas," she said.
Belgae handed Livane a small brown box, which she opened to reveal two small daggers ornately crafted from rose-colored crystal, much like the crystal of her spear. Ellen gave Livane a necklace of small golden disks hung on a black cord, Belgae a weighty tome about various scientific institutes in the human world, and Scarecrow a new shirt with the flag of Britain on it.
Keats stood slightly apart from the others, watching the proceedings carry on with a smile—which looked more like a grimace—plastered on his face, his eye twitching slightly, impatient for them to be off.
"Uwee hee hee! This is for you Ellen." Scarecrow offered Ellen a red box, which she accepted with a happy smile. "It's from all of us."
Ellen sat down on the floor, suddenly looking very much like a little girl, and opened her box. Uttering a quiet gasp of delight and surprise, she lifted out a long red cloak trimmed in snow-white fur.
"Oh! How—" Ellen gazed at Scarecrow, Belgae, and Livane, speechless with happiness as she held the cloak close against her.
Belgae cleared his invisible throat. "It happens to be, Ellen, that the properties of your Cloak of Sidhe allow it to be altered, very much like your other Cloaks. This is simply a new form of your Cloak of Sidhe that we fabricated, specially for the occasion."
"Thank you so much!" Ellen stood up, her smile full of gratitude, and donned the red Cloak. Keats had to admit; she looked quite like a Christmas fairy, dressed up in the red and white clothing.
Ellen reached for the last box and handed it to Keats. "This is for you," she said, slightly nervously, as if she were afraid of upsetting his temper again.
Keats blinked down at the box, surprised. "Oh." He cleared his throat and accepted it as graciously as he could. "Thank you very much."
Setting it down on the coffee table, he removed the lid, unfolded the layers of paper inside….
….and received his third monumental shock of the evening.
Once again rendered dumbstruck, he could only stare down into the box at its contents, asking himself if he was imagining everything. Ellen had to be kidding.
She had given him a reindeer sweater.
Scarecrow exploded into a fit of laughter, that was, in Keats's opinion, mocking. "Uwee hee hee, isn't it cute?"
Keats had no words to describe the shock that had struck him like a blow from a hammer. Swallowing with difficulty, he lifted the bright red sweater embellished with an embroidered, smiling reindeer out of the box and forced himself to stare at it.
The utter cuteness of it was burning his eyes off.
Ellen clasped her hands earnestly next to him. "Do you like it?" she asked softly.
Keats looked from the grinning muzzle of the reindeer on his new sweater to Ellen's hopeful expression. She had obviously made it, he noted, and it was clear she had spent a lot of work on it. Even if the sweater wasn't exactly what Keats would have chosen at the store….
So he swallowed his dignity and his pride and said as sincerely as he could, "Yes, it looks very good. Thank you, Ellen."
Ellen's face brightened with happiness. "I'm really glad you do."
Keats tried not to laugh as he looked again at the reindeer. The whole situation was ridiculously hilarious. As if he would be caught dead wearing the sweater. Ah well. What was it folks said these days? "It's the thought that counts."
Looking at the innocently joyful, childlike expression on the Irish girl's face, he almost wished for a moment that he could be as appreciative of the Christmas spirit as she was.
Then Scarecrow turned on the radio.
"Hey! It's playing 'Jingle Bells!'"
And Keats thought: Naaah.
Keats, you're never going to get the concept of Christmas, are you? :P
Please, please, please review! It makes Nighty very, very happy, so, take a couple minutes and tell me what you liked, what you didn't like, and how I could improve in the future.
Thank you, and Merry Christmas!
(Just kidding. It's nowhere near Christmas.)