Saber and Rin sat quietly at the table. The TV was on, playing in the background. The rest of the house was quiet. Saber just looked at her lap while Rin's eyes darted back and forth between windows, doors and other points of escape.
CRASH!
Saber look over to Rin, nervously, who look backed with a determined expression on her face. They both rose to their feet.
BANG!
They took a few quick steps, navigating through the house. The room that housed both the living room and kitchen was quickly approaching. They stopped just before they got into the room and peeked their heads out.
SLAM!
Saber grabbed Rin and pulled her back to safety, fear evident across both of their faces. The tension was palpable, so much that you could of bottled it. The room itself seemed to shrink away from the terror that placed itself on the other side of that room.
"Oh Archer, could you pass the seasoning for the pork, please?" Shirou asked, wearing his signature apron, standing next to the oven wear a pair of ridiculous oven mitts. He had a giant plate of meat waiting to be cooked. Both of the girl's mouth subconsciously watered at the sight of it.
"But of course, Emiya" replied Archer as he handed him the seasoning. While doing so however he hit his head on some hanging cookware. But instead of shouting or lashing out angrily like the 2 seemingly unseen spectators both assumed would happen, he just smiled and went back to chopping vegetables.
Just then, Rin's mouth dropped and Saber almost fainted at the sight of Archer. He was wearing a bright, cherry red apron, filled to the brim with Archers own, self made cooking utensils and green fur dancing around the edges and right smack dab in the middle of it all, was the best part of it. In silver tinsel, this was written, "kiss the cook".
Both Shirou and Archer, unaware of the 2 bystanders, continued on their conquest of the kitchen. They prepped, baked, sautéed, fried, mixed, and boiled more and more food. The 2 chefs, working side by side almost like brothers, looked happy.
"What the hell" spat tohsaka, as she turned back to face Saber, who looked pale, as if she had just seen a ghost.
"They must be under a spell of some sorts," she muttered, and stumbled back a few steps, shaking. Rin furrowed her brow and began thinking out loud "who… be...caster... wouldn't work… another mage huh!" that was an audible gasp from Rin "worst possible scenario, that b…." she was lost in her own little world until Saber poked her in the head a few times. "What do you want" Rin said and saw Saber's innocent eyes sparkle with hope.
"What if they just mended their differences and are becoming friends through the fine art of cooking?" Saber inquired, eyes twinkling
Rin sighed and slapped Saber back and forth a few time" Pull yourself together girl. Of course they could never, ever, EVER do such a thing. They have to be bewitched somehow or else they would be at each other's throats."
Saber shook her head " Of course Rin, you are right, we know these people and that is not a possibility."
They when back to watching Archer and shirou, but Archer had disappeared, leaving only shirou chopping up celery.
"And what do we have here" whispered a quiet voice from behind them. The last thing that they saw was a bright red apron reading kiss the cook before they passed out.
When Archer got back to the kitchen, after dragging the 'unseen' viewers into their position, Shirou asked, " What do you have planned from them?"
"Well one of us has to stay here and watch over these bumbling idiots while the other one makes a trip into town, we are super low on seasoning and the shopping needs to get done, soon." Archer said.
At that moment, both of them spoke as if in sync "Ok I'll go, you can stay." their eyes locked and again "no you stay, I'll go." an exasperated breath could be heard from shirou and Archer rolled his eyes. "Fine then, you go, I'll stay!" they looked like they were about to go at it, but right then as if on cue, Saber yawned and curled up into a ball on the floor and Rin sighed contently and rolled onto her side. Their argument over, pacified by the reasons for their collaboration in the first place, Archer took off his apron and handed it up on the hook. Emiya looked like he was about to disagree again but Archer held up his hand and said "look I'll be faster and I can do the heavy lifting, you just get everything set up. The spells I casted will last all of 6 hours, finish cooking, do whatever it is that you are going to do with your decorations and I'll hopefully be back before the spell dies."
Shirou nodded his head but as he began to turn, he called out " hey Archer, take this" he tossed over a list and a small purse of money. "That should cover it. It is just my end of the shopping. And if they have gift wrapping there, that would make my life a lot easier"
Archer nodded and went on his way, his dry remark dying before it made it past his lips.
Shirou watched as Archer left and said to no one in particular " all right then, 5 full course meals to go, then I'll start on the house."
Archer's mall trip had gone swimmingly so far, if he did say so himself. He had gotten all his big-ticket items and a few smaller ones and was quite proud if he did say so himself. It had only been about an hour and a half, he thought and a quick glance at the clock told him that he was right. Archer had changed from his normal attire to a pair of blue jeans, a red shirt, brown leather jacket and some sunglasses. Knowing full well about shirou's tendency to over do things he took out the list and subconsciously gulped in fear every time the list unfolded itself and around 5 times vertically and 2 horizontally he actually did. It was massive and the handwriting so neat, so precise,so freaking small! Archer muttered, "damn him, he's cooking and I'm here, dammit!" as he started toward the first of many items on the list. A few miles away shirou bated at nothing as if a noisy annoying insect were bothering him. Archer continued on his shopping spree, cursing emiya every time he jumped stores, every time a new cart was filled. As the day when on, archer realized that shirou had planned this down to the penny. Archer was taken back, by the effort put into this. Archer glanced back to the 5 full shopping carts he was dragging through the all, gaining him some odd stares from people around the stores. Just then archer had an idea, an awful idea, Archer had a wonderful awful idea. He crossed off the halfway mark on emiya's list, inwardly groaned and made his way through the mall.
Shirou was getting nervous. It had been 5 hours since archer had walked out that door, and every hour the stress of the ticking time bombs that he called friends were getting closer to blowing up in his face. There would be a reckoning, but he wanted Archer to be here for it, so that he wasn't the only one to take the brunt of the…
"Shirou, I'm hungry" mumbled a sleeping Saber and began shuffling to and fro, but remain sleeping. The boy in question was shaking on the floor, in fear, hiding from what would be the sure death of him should they wake early. The fitful stirs of the 2 girls, while putting the fear of god into him, also made him want archer to hurry his ass up.
Just then the door burst open and a pile of gifts came pouring through the door. The amount of gifts was massive, covering half the room, but nothing, not training, not a lifetime of it could have prepared him for what was coming through that door next.
Archer waded through the gifts like a benevolent god, like a saint. He was clad in red head to toe, the white beard and the hat, shirou also couldn't believe it but here it was. Archer was dressed as Santa Claus.
"Ho ho ho…" and with that he passed out, crashing down into the ocean of presents beneath him, his mana gone, depleted from the shopping spree of hell, as it would be know in the years to come.
Shirou was looking around. He had spent the day decorating the house for them tomorrow; the tinsel was up, as was the lights. The tree was decorated with ornaments and candy canes. The stockings were set up on the counter. The rugs all read with phrases like "merry Christmas, happy holidays, and peace on earth" and other things such as that. Shirou sighed; this was his favorite time of the year. He began to clean up the presents and place them under the Christmas tree. Large and small, shirou could name all of them, marked or not he knew whose was whose. He took his time, making the gifts look just right for the following morning. It would be a spectacular sight to see for sure.
Just then Rin thought it would be a bright idea to wake up. She rose to her feet with a stomp and started at shirou angrily.
" Oh, hey tohsaka" shirou smiled and rose to his feet, away from the tree.
"Don't you 'hey tohsaka' me! What the f…" the words died on her mouth as she looked around the room, saw what was the mountain of food, a sleeping Saber, a dead santa that looked suspiciously like archer and a Christmas tree and decorations that weren't there before.
"Oh" she whispered and proceeded to pass out again conveniently right in between archer and saber.
"Well then" Emiya said and began to grab and drag the sleeping master and servants into their respective rooms in his house. Archer Claus prosed a problem but he made it work. After that he himself climbed into bed and as he slept he dreamed of the day that would be Christmas, tomorrow.