TWO
It isn't uncommon to find them hard at work long after practice is over, but a snowy December evening causes Holle and Pieter to spend way more time at DSM's headquarters than necessary.
While it is true that the World Acapella Championship is only held once every four years, most people tend to forget about the many tedious hurdles a group must first successfully navigate in order to qualify for the competition. And even without the Worlds to take into consideration and prepare for, there are still a number of other competitions a group can participate in to secure their top ranking: the Global Acapella Competition, the Worldwide Acapella Sing-Offs and a dozen others or so. The fact is that there is no official governing body when it comes to acapella and so there is no one contest to determine the best group.
All of which is to say that DSM likes to enter and win most of these competitions, just to be sure. Holle does so enjoy being able to truthfully state that DSM is the best there is. The only downside is that between victory tours, paid performances and constant rehearsals to practice new numbers to win more competitions that will lead to more victory tours and more paid performances, time off is almost unheard of among the members of the collective. But with Christmas fast approaching and winter particularly biting this year, Holle has no choice but to end practice early today and send her performers packing.
"Two weeks off and not a day more," She reminds the others as they shuffle off to pack their things and gather their coats. "I expect all of you back here by the third of January. We will have ten days to perfect our routine for our performance on the thirteenth, two days off after that and then we will begin working on a new arrangement for the Valentine's Day party we have been asked to sing at."
To their credit, none of her singers show any sign of displeasure at the reminder of the work that awaits them. Some nod, others promise to be back and hard at work the minute their two weeks are over and nearly everyone wishes her a merry Christmas and a happy new year with a genuine smile as they leave the dance studio.
"Am I too hard on them?" Holle wonders nevertheless, voicing her question out loud as the glass doors close behind the last of their altos.
"They are used to it by now, I would imagine," Pieter assures her from across the open space, approaching her with a towel and a bottle of water. "Most of them are every bit as bad as you; I should think they enjoy the endless work."
Holle uncaps the bottle and downs a third of it in one go. "I do not enjoy the endless work," She protests. "There is simply a lot to be done, and I happen to be in charge of most of it."
"You are constantly putting together new set lists," Pieter retorts. "We have enough of those to last us a full year, at the very least. You think of new choreography in the kitchen, Holle. And don't think it's escaped my notice that you are mentally running numbers in your mind whenever we go to the movies."
"Perhaps if you chose more interesting films to watch, I would not be driven to do calculations in my head," Holle teases, conceding the point. "But speaking of new choreography," She quickly tacks on, ignoring Pieter's exasperated groan. "I've just received word from our sponsors regarding the Valentine's Day performance."
"Out with it, then," Pieter sighs in defeat, giving up on his plans to drag Holle out of the studio before sunset and get her to have dinner at a reasonable hour. They'll probably be stuck ironing out new moves for the next two hours at least. At this point, he can only hope they don't get snowed in. "Are we still doing the Iron Throne move as our grand finale, at least?"
The Iron Throne move, as Pieter has dubbed it, involves the rest of the group arranging themselves in order to resemble the famed throne from the series as they harmonize the final notes of the opening theme to Game of Thrones while Holle pretends to sit on the 'throne'. It is utterly embarrassing and, just as Pieter had predicted, a huge hit with their sponsors. "Yes," She sighs, ignoring Pieter's fist-pump. "The two representatives who sat in on our rehearsals sent a video to our liaison, and we have been asked to ensure that particular bit of our performance makes it to the stage."
"I told you they would love it," Pieter grins. "Everyone loves Game of Thrones." Holle cannot deny that the show is ridiculously popular, especially for a series that had just finished its first season a few months ago. Despite Pieter's continued attempts however, she hasn't been able to sit herself down and really concentrate on the show. What little free time she has is best spent on set arrangements, choreography, arranging performances… in other words: work. Pieter might have a point about her workaholic tendencies, after all.
"I would wipe that smile off my face if I were you," Holle cautions, redirecting the conversation back to her main point. "They are pleased with the Game of Thrones number, but they have also made a specific request of us."
"Come now," Pieter frowns as he snatches the bottle of water from her hands and proceeds to drain it. "It cannot be anything too difficult to accommodate. For Halloween they merely asked that we wear heavy make-up and masks."
Holle grimaces in distaste. "It was 'seasonally appropriate'," She parrots the words mockingly, thinking of the hour it had taken Pieter and her to remove each other's excess of eyeliner when they'd gotten home that night. The rest of DSM had gotten away with easily-removed masks but as team leaders and the group's most recognizable faces, the two of them had not been allowed to hide under disguises. Instead, they were made to hide under ten layers of make-up. "But that was bearable; merely a matter of our appearance. This time the fools have asked that we amend our performance itself to better reflect the holiday."
The tragedy here is that Holle had actually been quite fond of Valentine's Day before this debacle. Perhaps it can be attributed to the fact that she's spent most February the fourteenths with Pieter and so she associates the day with bad romantic comedies, an excuse to make Pieter buy her chocolates and too many jokes at the expense of other couples happily celebrating in public but yes, the Kommissar actually enjoyed this commercial, sappy holiday. This year, however, any fond memories she might have of drinking games and bad American movies have been tainted by the looming horror of a Valentine's Day performance. It is a deal she had willingly made, of course: they would be freed of their usual Christmas obligations in exchange for a Valentine's Day performance. And Pieter had even found a way to make the whole thing bearable, by making half of their performance a tribute to a show about murder, incest and backstabbing. Unfortunately, even that wasn't enough.
"They have asked," Holle crosses her arms. "That we include a more romantic song," And she briefly scrunches up her face here, just long enough for Pieter to reach out and tap her nose, "And find a way to work in a slow dance." She swats at Pieter's offending hand.
Pieter considers her for a moment. "Is that all, then?"
"Excuse me?" She blinks, incredulous. "Pieter, were you paying attention to what I just said? The idiots have asked that we rework our entire arrangement and slow dance. We do not slow dance. We move in perfectly synchronized interpretive dance."
"You and I slow dance," Pieter shrugs, entirely missing the point. How in the world are they to deliver a performance that starts off slow and sappy and seamlessly transitions into the Game of Thrones theme?
She intends to snap at Pieter and get him to focus, but Holle ends up prolonging the conversation. "That was at your sister's wedding and your parents' anniversary. We didn't exactly have a choice."
"And so we find ourselves in exactly the same situation for the third time," Pieter points out as he pulls at the towel around Holle's neck. He sets the towel and the empty bottle down on the floor and leads a perplexed Holle to the center of the practice area. "Speaking of my family-"
"What are you doing?" Holle asks, interrupting him when one hand comes to rest on her waist.
"Slow dancing," He tells her easily, as if it makes all the sense in the world. "Now, speaking of my family, my mother-"
"Pieter," She frowns in lieu of a properly-worded protest. "What is the point of this? It makes no sense for us to dance without music, and we have yet to find a song we can work into our routine." Oddly enough, Holle does not put an end to the dance herself.
"Humor me," Pieter requests as they dance on. "Besides, it has been nearly two years since my sister's wedding. We could use some practice, don't you think?"
Holle hums wordlessly; it's not quite an agreement, but she makes no move to pull away from Pieter and so they keep practicing. "You know," She muses out loud after a minute or two of comfortable silence, during which her hands had somehow ended up wound around Pieter's neck. "I think I liked you better when you were a lovesick fool who listened to my every word. Young Pieter would have helped me think of a way to salvage our set."
Pieter grins and shakes his head at her. "You cannot lie to me, Liebling," He sounds unbearably smug, and Holle loosens her grip on him to put some distance between them. "I know for a fact that one of your favorite things about us is that we stand on equal footing."
It is true, but Holle is certain she has never said as much to Pieter and as perceptive as he can sometimes be, this is not something he would have picked up on. "And who told you that?" She asks, head questioningly tilted to the side.
"You did, actually," Pieter claims.
"That cannot be," Holle tells him. "I love a great many things about you and us, but we both know I do not speak of such matters." It is a good thing that Holle is so physically affectionate because if it were up to words alone, theirs would be a cold, one-sided relationship. After having spent the first two decades of her life as emotionally distant as everyone else in her family, it is a wonder that she is even capable of saying the words I love you to Pieter.
"Of course you don't," He agrees nonchalantly, "except for when you're drunk."
"Pieter-" She laughs, a short exhale of amusement and disbelief.
"You don't get drunk, I know," Pieter dutifully completes her sentence. "But do you remember the last time we spent Christmas with my family?" Knowing that Holle can't possibly recall the day in its entirety, he fills in the blanks. "After almost everyone had gone to sleep, my mother cornered you while I was on the phone and pestered you for grandchildren. I found you and a half-empty bottle of vodka in the kitchen ten minutes later."
Well, that explains a lot. "Oh," Holle says, for lack of an appropriate reply. When seconds pass and it becomes apparent that Pieter has nothing to add to his tale, she leans in and wraps her arms around his neck once more. Somehow their dance has reached a natural end, and they prolong it by swaying in a small circle. There is so little footwork involved that Holle doubts it can be called a dance at all.
Pieter makes another attempt at conversation. "As I was saying, before you so rudely interrupted me twice: speaking of my family, they've invited us over for Christmas. Shall we accept?"
Given the newly-unearthed nugget of information regarding the last time she had spent Christmas with the Krämer family, it is perhaps understandable that Holle has certain reservations when it comes to the idea of spending the holidays with Pieter's family. "Well, it would be rude to miss Christmas for the third year in a row, I suppose," Holle says, conveniently side-stepping an actual answer.
The entire point of agreeing to the Valentine's Day trade-off had been to allow DSM's members to spend Christmas with their families and friends after three years of being put to work on the holiday itself. But with the way things are going, Holle is confident this will be their first and last Valentine's Day performance, so who knows when they'll next get to take some time off for Christmas? Besides, she likes Pieter's family; really, she does, even though they both agree it can be quite exhausting to deal with the entire Krämer brood at times.
Holle thinks of her own family, and the invitation her mother had extended to her. You know, we do have one seat to spare at the dining table, she'd said over the phone last week. Your father would love to have you around, her mother had claimed when they'd run into each other earlier this month. And then, a note penned in elegant cursive at the very bottom of the invitation Holle had received four days ago: we're doing something more intimate this year, only family.
In other words: don't bring that boyfriend of yours.
Pieter's chuckle drags Holle away from her thoughts and back to the present. "We should have just done the Christmas performance, yes? It would have been a good excuse to get out of sharing a table with my sister's children."
"Your nieces would be devastated if they heard that," Holle chastises him, but she can't help the laugh that bubbles past her lips. They've been absent from Christmas dinners for the past three years but Pieter's mother had managed to guilt them into joining the family for a meal five months ago, and the three-year-old twins had entertained themselves by pelting their favorite (as Pieter often brags) and only (as Holle often reminds him) uncle with what should have been their dinner. For reasons unknown, the little angels had spared Holle from their flying vegetables.
"Little monsters," Pieter mutters fondly. "I would have paid a good amount of money to see them fling their mashed potatoes at you. Alas," He laments with a sigh. "You intimidate even children, Kommissar."
"They are not scared of me," Holle protests. "We have a mutual respect for each other. It also helps that I address them by name, and not with those awful nicknames of yours." Little monsters is mild compared to Pieter's usual assortment of goblins, trolls and perhaps the most hated of all: tiny people.
Pieter snorts. "They love those names," He says, ignoring the skeptical look in Holle's eyes. "Now, are we going or not? My mother wants you to know that she is not above bribing you with all of your favorite dishes if that will convince you to come along."
"Oh, alright," Holle sighs, putting an end to their dance as she unwinds her arms from around Pieter's neck and pulls away from his hold on her waist. "How could I say no to that?"
"I'll call and let her know," Pieter grins, eyes lit up with excitement. He practically sprints across the room to the corner where his and Holle's bags are, rooting around for his cellphone. Holle trails after him and proceeds to sit cross-legged on the floor. She locates her own phone and checks for messages while Pieter ends up tapping out a short text to his mother when she fails to pick up her phone.
"Thank you," Pieter leans down and presses a kiss to Holle's forehead. "I know it can be unbearable at times, to have so many of us crammed under one roof and all of us clamoring for your attention." He's exaggerating, but only by a bit. It does seem like nearly everyone wants to talk to Holle whenever she's around; his mother had slapped him on the wrist and reminded him of the values of sharing when Pieter had voiced this observation out loud once, before she swiftly turned back to Holle and started on another embarrassing tale about his childhood.
"Don't be foolish," Holle frowns as Pieter sits down next to her. "I did not agree to this for your sake alone. As it so happens, I quite enjoy the chaos of a proper family Christmas." As a child, Christmas had meant to Holle a new and horribly uncomfortable dress, at least four hours of behaving herself in front of important strangers and in later years, obliging her parents when they asked her to play a carol or two on the piano so that they could show her off like another antique vase or diamond necklace. Though it had at times felt like a hardship only she had to shoulder, her early years were nearly identical to those of hundreds of other children born into wealthy families. But even knowing that she was, all things considered, quite fortunate did not stop her from yearning for the kind of Christmas frequently depicted in the American movies her father made her watch to rid her of her accent. It was, like most of her other wishes, something young Holle had quickly learned to cast aside and forget about.
Nearly a decade later, Pieter had shown up in her apartment two days before Christmas their senior year, shortly after they'd started dating again. He sat her down and begged her not to freak out, even insisted on extracting an actual promise from Holle (Pieter, you idiot, let go of me. Yes, alright, I promise not to run – unless you get on one knee. I swear, if you ask me- oh, you're not? Good. Well, what else was I supposed to think?) before he extended an invitation to his family's Christmas celebration, on behalf of his mother. That year, Holle finally experienced the kind of Christmas she'd nearly forgotten existed: loud, chaotic, migraine-inducing and filled with more warmth and love than any holiday movie.
Of course, this isn't something she thinks Pieter needs to know. "Besides," Holle says instead, deliberately keeping her eyes on her phone as her lips curve upwards. "Your mother promised to dig up your baby photos the next time I drop by."
"I know," Pieter shrugs nonchalantly, an unexpected response. "That's why I burned all of the embarrassing ones."
Holle looks up from her phone to study him for a handful of seconds. "Liar," She scoffs, hauling herself up. She rolls her eyes when Pieter holds out his hand, but gives in when he fakes a pout and helps him up as well. "I want to make it known," Holle states in a firm tone as they pick up their bags. "That I reserve the right to get completely drunk if your mother brings up the matter of grandchildren once more."
"Fair enough-"
"And," She shoots Pieter a pointed look. "You cannot use anything I say while intoxicated against me."
Pieter considers her terms for a brief moment. "Fair enough," He says again, and that seems to be the end of that. No words are exchanged as they turn off the lights and leave behind the practice area.
"Holle?" Pieter calls as he catches a glimpse of the front doors and the world beyond their threshold.
"Yes?"
"You do realize we have been snowed in, yes?" He informs her, grimly observing the falling snow outside.
"There was a possibility that we would be trapped," Holle shrugs. "I did not think to mention it, however." It will hardly be the first time they spend the night in DSM's headquarters. The second floor houses a few fully furnished dorm rooms, which their members sometimes make use of when practice runs late or they have no means of getting home. The showers are equipped with hot water, and the kitchenette is decently stocked. Holle mentions these details to Pieter. "We will probably have to make do with DSM sweatshirts for sleepwear, though." At least they keep a supply of those upstairs.
Pieter shrugs, a hint of mischief tugging at his lips. "It is a good look on you," He tells Holle with a grin.
"You said the same thing after covering me in grey paint when we painted our living room," Holle reminds him as she leads the way upstairs. "So you will understand if I choose not to put much faith in you."
"Suit yourself," Pieter shrugs, and promptly starts singing under his breath. "I really can't stay; baby, it's cold outside. I've got to go 'way; baby, it's cold outside. This evening-"
"You sound ridiculous, singing both parts on your own," Holle informs him as they head for the last door down the hallway. None of the rooms are assigned to a specific member but they've always used this one whenever they need to stay the night. "It's supposed to be a duet."
"So sing with me," Pieter suggests as they enter the room. He keeps Holle in place by settling his hands on her waist. "This evening has been-" A slight pause, and then he sings on, hoping to wear Holle down. "So very nice,"
Holle rolls her eyes at Pieter's expectant look. "I'll hold your hands, they're just like ice," She finally gives in, and Pieter leans in to rest his forehead against hers while they sing.
Perhaps they could work this song into their next Christmas performance. Holle finds she quite enjoys singing the lines that traditionally belong to the man while Pieter worries that there's bound to be talk tomorrow.
"Baby, it's cold outside," Holle is smiling by the last line, and Pieter takes that as a sign that she actually enjoyed this little duet of theirs.
He tries to make her reprise it on Christmas Eve in front of his family, and Holle ends up giving in at the end of the night when Pieter recruits his nieces and the three of them give her what Pieter calls 'puppy eyes'. Despite that embarrassing little incident, Holle decides their Valentine's Day trade is well worth the time off to spend Christmas with Pieter's family.
And even Valentine's Day ends up being somewhat enjoyable once she manages to talk their sponsors out of their ridiculous requests. Love songs and DSM just don't go well together, and slow dancing like awkward teenagers with a chaperone present… well, that's something she and Pieter will keep for cold winter nights.
Second Christmas-themed fic in July within a week; someone either send help or come sing carols with me. Also, I know: I went so far with the fluff that OOC doesn't even begin to cover it.
This one's a bit shorter, so I might be getting the hang of these short one-shots after all. I was hoping to have this up earlier but I'm all written out for the week and it took a while to sit myself down and write. This is the second out of five chapters but if you've got an idea, I'd love to write more for these two. So leave a prompt in the comments!
E Salvatore,
July 2015.