This was written for the A2A Xmas Exchange on LiveJournal for a prompt by Dutchess_Sandra.
The prompt is as follows: This is as Christmas-y as they come. I would like an AU were Damon and Elena are both actual elves at Santa's workshop. They are at odds because Damon is all about quality (wrapping the gifts the neatest and prettiest) and Elena is all about quantity (sloppily wrapped gifts to get as many out as possible). Due to their constant bickering a large order for a children's hospital gets overlooked and they have to work together to still get it there on time. During their race to make it before Christmas morning you can have them, for example, "borrow" one of the Reindeer, get caught in a snowstorm, use the Coca Cola truck, etc. I'd be happy if there is a lot of (fun) tension and perhaps some steamy kisses ...
Enjoy and read and review. Thank you and have a merry Christmas.
"Pick up the pace here people! Only eighteen hours left until Christmas" The head elf, one step down from the big man himself called out to us as we put the finishing touches on one of our last shipments. In the North Pole, in Santa's workshop everything was run in order and all the orders were done in a particular order. It was run like a well-oiled machine and we had a 100% success rate. No child was ever left without his or hers Christmas wish.
"Elena, where are you at?" He shouted at me to see where I was at on my pile of gifts to wrap. It was my job along with a few other elves to wrap the presents while a larger group built all the toys. We boxed and made them look good for the kids.
"Only thirty-five more." I spoke confidently. I knew I was far faster than most of the other elves. They wanted it done so they were going to get it done. I felt that the quantity should surpass the quality only on wrapping. The kids don't care if it's wrapped nicely, they're only after what's in the box.
"Very good. Damon? Where are you at?" He called out. Ah yes, Damon the Elf, he was my arch-nemesis if it was possible for an elf to have one of those. He operated on a completely different theory as I did, he took his time making sure everything was wrapped beautifully. I thought it was a waste of time and I thought that since I got more wrapped in a shorter period of time that I should get a promotion. It never happened, the big man seemed to like lumping the two of us together. He was cruel. Despite what all the children of the world think, Santa Claus is a cruel man.
"I have eighty five left, but mine are wrapped nicely." He told Twinkle. The thing about the North Pole is that when you're an elf the stupider your name gets the more power you have. So therefore Elena the Elf is never going to get anywhere since my name isn't Jingle, or Fruit Cake, or Yuletide, or Sugar Plum. The only thing that made me happy about my demise in the workshop is that Damon isn't ever going to get a promotion either.
"Very good. Keep up the excellent work. You have eighteen hours before Santa has to leave." Twinkle told us. Both Damon and I nodded and got back to work.
As usual I was the first one done. I signed off on my part of the shipment and went to take a quick break. A little while later Damon came back with a smug look on his face. He was easily the most annoying elf here, he was a cocky, smug bastard. Now I know elves shouldn't think like that, it's not in our nature. But if you knew Damon the Elf, you would too. It's a knee-jerk reaction and I hate him. He brings out the darkness in me.
"I won again." I boasted.
"You think you won. Whose gifts do you think the kids are going to like more? Mine or yours?" He asked, he said "yours" with a disdainful lilt to his face and I chuckled.
"You seem to think that kids care about wrapping paper. They don't Damon. You're just jealous because I'm the best." I gloated and he shook his head.
"You may not think they care about wrapping paper, but they do. Maybe not as much as what's in the box but no one wants to open a gift that looks like it went through a shredder." He told me and I was seething. He was a jerk and I didn't like him. Not one bit.
"New order." Twinkle called and both Damon and I returned to our seats ready for the presents to come flying through on a conveyer belt. Soon enough the presents started coming and when the belt in front of me was full, I shut the machine off so I could start wrapping. When what was in front of me was done I turned it back on and it kept going like that until this one would be done. This one was a lot smaller, it was for some small town in Canada. Every town, every village and every city was separate. Inside every city there were bigger classifications for different areas or hospitals or anything like that. It was a long process and it's why it took us all year to get ready for Christmas. Damon was working a bit faster this time and somehow his gifts were still impeccably wrapped. I hated him.
"One hour to take off" Twinkle shouted. The big man came into the workshop and praised everyone. Most of the orders were already loaded up on the sleigh and the reindeer were already hooked up ready to venture out. We finished the order with fifteen minutes to spare and they loaded it up.
"Excellent work elves. You have saved Christmas for another year." Santa shouted over the room. When Santa Claus spoke everyone listened. He was the best boss anyone could ever have. He made me love being an elf, even when I had to deal with Damon on a daily basis. Once all the gifts were loaded up Santa was on his way. When Santa was gone we took the time to clean up the workshop because now we had until January before he had to start working again.
"I'll finish this up, you can all go take the rest of the day off." I shouted out, I was trying to make myself seem better than Damon. He got all the praise, all I got was a thumbs up for being able to finish something as fast as I could.
"I'll stay and help." Damon tacked on and no one was going to argue with us. It's been a long year and everyone was ready for some days off.
"By all means, go." I told him. The last thing I needed was him coming in and stealing my credit. I wanted out of the wrapping department so much it hurt, and Damon was going to ruin that for me. Again.
"Nope, I can't leave knowing you're down here working." He said shaking his head and I sighed in exasperation. What it too much to ask to finally be rid of him? It seems like I never will be because he can't leave well enough alone. I grabbed the broom and went back to sweeping under the tables. When I moved my broom underneath the table at the back an order form slid out.
"What's this?" I asked looking at it.
"What is that?" Damon asked coming by to read it over my shoulder. I really didn't like the look of this, it said "150 parcels for one of the children's hospitals.
"Go check in the toy room to see if there is an order completed that's not wrapped." I ordered him and he actually listened to me. The idea of some children not getting their presents is an elf's worst nightmare, especially when it's a sick child. Damon returned about a minute later with a sack over his shoulder.
"We need to wrap these, now." He told me and this time I listened to him. There would be no competition this time around,, it was all about the children who were missing their presents.
"How are we going to get them to the kids? Santa is long gone by now." I asked hoping he had an idea.
"Let's just get them wrapped, then we'll think about it. One step at a time. At least it's a small one." He shrugged and I agreed. We went to work, me wrapping at my usual pace and Damon working faster than usual too.
"I'll wrap you put bows and whatnot on." I told him and he moved over to where I was sitting to work with me. We went so much faster like that and we were done quicker than I would have thought. As much as I hated it, the two of us made a pretty good team.
When we were finished Damon told me to take the bag outside and he would be with me shortly with something to transport us. I wanted to tell him I would go alone but he would never allow that. He wouldn't let me take all the credit for this epic save and I couldn't actually blame him. I tapped my foot as I awaited Damon's ride. I shook my head when I saw him flying over on one of the leftover reindeer. Anyone who thought Santa literally only had nine reindeer would be surprised to know that he in fact had lots. These one just weren't at the stage yet where they were ready to fly Santa's sleigh.
"Hop on." Damon called out and I obliged putting the sack in the small sleigh he had fastened to the reindeer we were taking out. I guess some would call this kidnapping, or in our case, "reindeer-napping" but I didn't care. I didn't want to be the reason some poor sick children didn't get Christmas. This mission so to speak was the only reason Damon and I were even tolerating each other right now. Usually elves got along so much better but clearly Damon and I weren't typical elves.
"I think you should let me drive." I suggested and he shook his head with a smirk.
"No way. As a man that is my duty. Besides you would probably get us lost." He answered with a smirk and I glowered in response. Such a typical male, always having to do everything himself. I had no reason to associate with misogynistic elves, but clearly tonight that wasn't going to work in my favour. Tonight I had to deal with the most misogynistic of them all, Damon. I huffed and glowered into the snow knowing I wasn't going to win this one. He made the reindeer take off and soon enough we were flying through the night sky heading towards the big city.
"Alright the directions I printed off from the elf map says that if we take a left at New York City we'll head straight there." I told him.
"We'll take the short cut. We need to make it there before tomorrow." He told me and I huffed again.
"Do not take a shortcut, I want to actually get there." I hissed and he laughed.
"I am a man, I don't get lost. I especially don't take directions from a female." He muttered and I fought the urge to clock him upside the head. His attitude was severely getting on my nerves. He was being a typical man and I really wanted to slug him.
Of course it would happen that as we were flying in the directions that Damon chose that we would fly into a cloud of snow literally.
"We could avoided all of this if you had just taken my directions." I yelled as he fought to control the sleigh as we flew through the storm.
"Damn woman always has to be right." He yelled back. The reindeer made some sort of distressed noise, he clearly wasn't too happy with us.
"It's Damon's fault, not mine." I yelled to the reindeer although I knew that he couldn't technically answer back. I just needed to say it because telling him it was his fault was completely useless. He won't listen to me anyway.
"I'll get us out of here and when I do, I'll be your hero." He hissed as he held on tight to the reins. After a few minutes he had us out of the storm and I was ready to kill him. There was no way I'd ever admit he was my hero, it was his fault we were in this situation in the first place.
"You will NEVER be my hero!" I hissed.
"Well now because of that highly inconvenient storm, we are lost." He said and I nearly reached over and strangled him. But as much as I hated to admit it, I kind of needed him at the moment. I needed him to navigate us out of her and help me find the hospital. I pulled out my GPS and typed in the hospital I needed.
"Alright, follow my directions completely." I told him firmly and he answered with a sigh but I figured that he meant it affirmatively. We were quickly running out of time and there was no way we were going to let Christmas be ruined for a bunch of children. It wasn't fair, especially since I knew that it would likely be the last Christmas for many of them.
"Yes ma'am." He mock saluted me and I fought the urge to shoot a very inappropriate finger at him. But I was an elf and I would never do something so immature, it didn't mean that I didn't want to though.
The rest of the trip went off without a hitch despite the fact that I hated the person I was there with.
"There is it." I said pointing to the large lit up building. I could see Christmas trees in some of the windows and the lights on dim so the children can sleep. I'm so happy we made it it in time. I could see a confused Santa on the rooftop of the hospital as he went though his magical bag looking for the sack labelled for this hospital.
"Santa." Damon called stopping the reindeer next to Santa's much larger sleigh.
"What are the two of you doing here?" He asked us as we got off the small sleigh.
"There was an issue and this order was missed. We finished it off and got it to you the best way we knew how." I told him hoping he wouldn't be angry. We were forbidden to leave the North Pole at Christmas. It was hard enough for Santa to remain inconspicuous. It would be harder with elves following him.
"For this hospital?" He asked and I nodded.
"Thank you. The two of you have went above and beyond the line of duty. I appreciate that." He told us.
"You're welcome. Glad we could help." Damon said and I was completely shocked that he responded so warmly. He disappeared seconds later and I stood next to Damon waiting for him to come back. I didn't want to leave until I knew for sure the children got their presents. I was emotionally invested in this now.
"So we make a pretty good team, Elena." He told me as we leaned against his small sleigh.
"We would have been better had you listened to me." I told him.
"Meh, I got us here." He shrugged and I fought the urge to hit him. What surprised me more was the urge to kiss that stupid smile off his face. I had never had that urge before and I had every intention of fighting it to the end of me.
"Are you always this egotistical?" I asked him, trying to keep my voice curt and annoyed. I had to admit that before he turned into such a world class jerk I was attracted to him.
"I think you need to thank me for coming through for you tonight. What would you have done if I hadn't offered to stay behind with you to clean up the workshop?" He asked me. I sighed and tilted my chin up so I could look into his crystalline blue eyes.
"I would have figured something out." I told him and he chuckled.
"Somehow I don't doubt that." He answered and I looked at him again.
"What do you mean?" I asked him and he shrugged in response.
"You always get everything done. You're a force to be reckoned with. Somehow without even being told to you command the entire workshop. You inspire everyone to be better. Everyone we work with strives to be as good as you are. You work faster than anyone in the shop and I know that your stuff doesn't come out as pretty but I'm pretty sure it was because of you that we got this order here on time." He told me and I smiled at him. For the first time I was seeing him in a different light. I actually kind of liked him right now. Plus, the urge to kiss him wasn't going anywhere.
"Why did you just tell me that?" I asked him finally.
"You deserved to know. One thing about me is that I give credit where credit is due. You definitely deserve credit. It also kinda helps that you're adorable." He told me and I blushed.
"You think I'm adorable?" I asked him and he nodded. As far as being called adorable goes it was quite a compliment. He was the best looking elf in our department and the fact that he noticed said lots about me.
"I want to try something." He said sliding a bit closer to me. It was taking Santa a long time down there and I didn't mind. I knew the spell would be broken when he came back up here.
"What?" I asked and he didn't respond. Instead he leaned closer and held my face in place with the palm of his hand. I was frozen in place and was momentarily shocked when he pressed his lips to mine. He kissed me hard and picked me up so I was sitting on the front of the sleigh with my legs around him. I wasn't overly experienced in matters of intimacy but it was clearly he was. His lips were hard and soft at the same time against mine and I wanted to savour this feeling and his taste for as long as I could. He tasted of the peppermint candy-cane he had been sucking on as we flew here. I loved peppermint, it had to be an elf thing. His tongue pushed against the seam of my lips and I parted for him. His tongue played in my mouth and I was sure I was going to explode with need. I had never experienced anything like this before and I never wanted it to stop. His entire body was pressed against mine and I wanted more.
"This is a new development." Santa mused as he emerged from the hospital. Damon pulled away immediately and I was immensely embarassed.
"I'm sorry." I said shaking my head.
"Don't be. I'm just confused, I thought the two of you didn't like one another." He asked us.
"We didn't, until right now it seems." I answered honestly.
"I see. You clearly didn't hear how I fell in love with Mrs. Claus." He mused stroking his long white beard.
"How?" Damon asked.
"Exactly how the two of you were. We were at odds for many years and then all of a sudden we weren't anymore. Come let's go home." He told us.
"Okay." We answered.
"The two of you should be proud. You saved Christmas." He told us and I had never felt better.