Author note: taking place season 4ish.

It was huge. It was heavy and hairy and its eyes never blinked as it stared at her from its heavy positioning on her chest, only inches from being lined up with her, nose to nose. It opened its mouth wide, baring its sharp yellowed teeth and releasing a rather unpleasant odor directly into her face. But most disturbing of all, it was green, and it was intent upon crushing the breath out of her lungs.

Rachel Berry screamed. There seemed to her to be no other logical reaction to such a terrifying occurrence, one that she was becoming convinced was not in fact a terrible remnant of a nightmare at all. Putting her powerful soprano to good use, she screeched, flailing out wildly at the creature.

To her relief, the creature fled- well, if such a rapid adjective could be used to describe something so bulky. Actually it flopped, making odd jingling, clanging noises as it rolled off her and onto the floor beside her bed with a heavy whomp. Rachel shrieked again nonetheless, scrambling backwards against her bed's headboard and clutching her blanket high against her neck.

"What in the name of sweet Madonna are you screaming about?" demanded a rather high pitched but comfortingly familiar voice as Kurt threw back the curtain of her room, eyes darting wildly as he tried to locate the reason behind Rachel's scream. "I almost knocked over the Christmas tree coming to rescue you from what, the shadows on the wall? I ripped a sleeve on one of the pine needs, and it was expensive - and silk!"

"Jesus Christ, tell me Berry isn't finally getting some," half muttered, half shouted a much more scathing and much less concerned voice from the other side of the curtain. "Or did you just walk in on Lady Hummel in the john?"

"Where did it go?!" Rachel stammered, still clutching her blanket tightly around herself as she looked all about herself for the source of her shock. "It was so terrible…it was going to kill me! What if it had bitten my throat, the damage to my voice could have been irreversible!"

"Damn, what an awesome Christmas gift that would have been," retorted Santana Lopez, the owner of the unconcerned voice, as she continued to make no effort whatsoever to join in the drama occurring in the other half of the curtain. "Can I wish hard one more time and see what happens?"

"What are you talking about?" Kurt demanded, spreading his arms out to the side in exasperation. "I don't see anything, Rachel, nothing at all."

"It was there!" Rachel insisted, her voice growing tight with urgency as she nodded her head for emphasis. "It was huge and heavy and it had these horrible sharp teeth, and it was green, like some sort of…of monster! It looked right at me, I just knew that it was going to cause me harm!"

"Rachel," Kurt sighed heavily, rubbing a hand over his face and leaning back against the curtain, before realizing quickly it had nothing behind it to support him and straightening himself back up. "Rachel, you had a bad dream. Just lay back down, listen to some music if you have to- with headphones, please- and go to sleep."

"It was not a dream, Kurt!" Rachel said heatedly, jerking up her jaw in her irritation at his lack of belief. "I almost died! I'm telling you, he looked like he wanted to…to eat me, or something!"

"He probably did," came a calm, nonchalant voice from just behind Kurt as the curtain parted again. "He's been on a Christmas diet this week, red and green foods only, and it makes him very hungry. And with your red and green stripey pajamas, I'm sure he just couldn't resist. It's not very nice of you to tempt him, you know."

Rachel's eyes, and Kurt's along with hers, widened as they turned to look at the placid face of Brittany Pierce, standing just behind Kurt, and holding in her arms a very overweight tabby cat. What struck Rachel about this, though Brittany and the cat's presence in her apartment was in and of itself quite a surprise, was that the cat had been stuffed into what looked like a green elf suit, complete with a green jingle bell hat jammed onto his head.

"Brittany!" Rachel exclaimed, blinking rapidly. "What are you doing here-and- and- what is THAT?!"

"That isn't a nice way to greet a guest at Christmas time," Brittany chided, shaking her head at Rachel. "I prefer gifts of cookies and cash. Or mistletoe kisses, but that's only for Santana. And this is Lord Tubbington, of course. Maybe you don't recognize him, he did lose three ounces this week."

Rachel blinked again, her mouth opening and closing as many, many questions came to mind, but only one of them managed to emerge.

"Why is your cat wearing that?!"

"Well, it's an elf suit, of course," Brittany informed her, as though this were rather obvious for anyone to see. "Lord Tubbington wanted to make sure he looked his best and always matches his food. It lifts his spirit and it keeps him away from heroin."

Again, Rachel was uncharacteristically at a loss for words. She looked from Kurt's smirk to Brittany and the creature she had referred to as Lord Tubbington, and again her mouth opened and closed without words. Brittany cocked her head, observing this.

"I like how your mouth keeps doing that. It reminds me of a goldfish and it's way better than when you talk."

"Babe, come back to bed, already, I'm getting cold without you….and you know my favorite way to warm up!" Santana called out to her. Brittany's flat expression broke into a devilish smile, and she kissed the cat on its nose, then set it down on the ground as she turned, calling out to Rachel without looking at her.

"Just give him some green Lifesavers or some licorice and he'll be fine. But just in case, I'd change those pajamas. We wouldn't want him to get too confused."