Feuer zu Asche, Wasser zu Eis
-Four-
Everything is Always Done Last Minute
It's Christmas Eve and there's so much to do. Too much for one night. I'll be more organised next year, I promise!
-x-
It's Christmas Eve and I've only wrapped two fuckin' presents.
It`s Christmas Eve and I've only wrapped two fuckin' presents.
And I hate, hate, hate your guts,
I hate, hate, hate your guts,
And I'll never talk to you again.
"Well, this is a great Christmas song," Roy mused as he watched Link and his epic struggle with the roll of Jolly Ol' Saint Nick wrapping paper from his computer chair. Link sighed in frustration and said a few terse words in Hylian.
"If you're not gonna help me, then shut it."
Roy shook his head and drummed his fingers against the arm rest.
"You're in my room, Link," Roy said as he gestured to the floor. "I don't have to listen to you."
"Do you realize how juvenile you just sounded?" Marth said, his eyes glancing at his boyfriend as he tried to read a book called Epic Polishing 101: How to Get Your Swords and Various Other Lethal Weapons Gleaming to the Point of Blindness! "Are you sure you're going to be eighteen and not, oh, ten?"
Roy threw a bed roll at him; it missed and instead capsized the large pile of presents Link painstakingly put together.
Marth sighed and went back to his book. "Don't get blood on the carpet—it's a pain to remove."
Roy gave him a weird look. "What?"
"It says, 'When polishing the blade of one's weapon, don't get blood on the carpet—it's a pain to remove.'"
"That's why you wear leather gloves, Marth."
Marth shrugged. "I've got enough callouses and scars to prevent anything severe anyway."
As they babbled about various sword polishing techniques, Link, oblivious to the fact that his replica of Hyrule Castle was just destroyed, finally won the fight with the stupid roll of wrapping paper.
"Ow! I got a paper cut!"
Marth ignored Link's outburst. Living with him for four years gave Marth the ability to tune Link's craziness out. Most of the time.
-x-
One would never know that it was Christmas Eve at The Manse unless you saw the gigantic banner on the bulletin board by the kitchen and were wary of every single doorway in the place. Peach was in the kitchen baking the traditional Christmas fruitcake, along with several Christmas-themed cakes, cupcakes, and various other pastries with vaguely French sounding names. She just finished her third batch of cookies when Zelda poked her head into the Oreo-scented kitchen.
"Peach?"
"Hmm?" Peach walked over to the fridge and looked at their wares. "Oh darn, we're all out of eggs. I wanted to make some eggnog."
"Where do you want the garland and the last sprigs of mistletoe?"
Peach shut the fridge door and leaned against the granite countertop, giving Zelda her full attention.
"Where didn't you put the garland yet?"
Zelda consulted a list. "Stair banisters, but we weren't sure if we should put them on all of the staircases… And what do you want us to do with the boys' dorms? Should they have garland and lights or just one or the other?" She pointed at the list. "It's not really that clear…"
Peach digested all of this information for a brief moment. "Put them on all of them except the porches; go all out with the boys' dorms and do both; and as for your mistletoe question from before… Did you do all the doorways?"
Zelda nodded.
"Well… I guess we could hang them from the ceiling fans…"
There was a crash from the living room and the sounds of cursing in a language that sounded rather alien.
"Why the hell did I get the fucking tree?!"
Zelda and Peach both cringed as they heard something else break.
"I thought Samus was helping you with decorations." Peach raised one delicate eyebrow at her princess-companion.
Zelda sighed. "She got stuck underneath the mistletoe with Donkey Kong and is a little bitter about it still, so I told her to go decorate our tree and… I guess it isn't turning out well."
Next year, I will be more organized! Peach mentally vowed as she tried to block out Samus's attempts to murder everything in her path. No longer will this be done last minute! No more!
"And if you touch me again, Monkey-Butt, then I swear to whatever deity is above that no one will recognize your remains! Not even the Nintendo God who created you!"
Donkey Kong gave out a cry that sounded suspiciously like a Wookie and ran out of the room before Samus could try to throw another rather expensive vase at him.
-x-
And I hate, hate, hate your guts,
I hate, hate, hate your guts,
And I'll never talk to you again.
In an effort to drown out 'Happy Holidays You Bastard' and keep his sanity, Roy secured his noise-canceling headphones over his ears and blasted something, anything, just so he didn't have to hear something about grandpa 'always fucking shitting his pants' on Labor Day. He decided a Gotthard song was in order.
Link was still wrapping presents. His replica of Hyrule Castle made out of said presents now had a moat and a fully working drawbridge. All of these presents were, of course, for his princess and liege, even though he still hated her father's choice in husbands for her. ("Seriously, whoever thinks Ganondorf of all people is an excellent choice for anyone, go kill yourselves," he had said right before the start of her wedding. "Especially if you think he's a good choice for my princess.") Though he wasn't exactly 'bitter' about it much anymore, he still wasn't happy about it, and he fancied himself as a way better choice than that big nosed freak any day.
"Do you have all of your presents wrapped already, Roy?" Link asked, and was somehow heard through a chorus of "TORA TORA TORA" blasting through Roy's eardrums. Roy pressed a few buttons on his computer and went back to listening to 'Light in Your Eyes'.
"Damn hotkeys," Roy muttered as he tried to edit something in Microcrappe's latest version of OpenWord. "Anyway, what'd you ask, Link?"
"Do you have all of your presents wrapped already?"
Roy chuckled. "Of course. They've been wrapped since the sixteenth."
Link blinked, unable to comprehend how—or why—someone would want to do all that stuff early. There were more important things to do than sit and wrap presents—
—which was why Link was down to the wire, with an hour left before it was officially Christmas. He had to ignore the scent of cookies and cake and cookie-cake, ignore the demons of procrastination that Facebook and Wikipedia provided, and stay away from those torrent sites and Pop Cap games. He was almost done with his present wrapping, of course—and he thanked Farore for that. He fingers were blistering and his wrists ached from using a pair of rusted scissors.
"Why do we lack a decent pair of scissors?" Link cried out as they refused to cut a simple piece of paper. Link was trying to be rather artistic with the leftover scraps, creating bows and ribbons to adorn the packages. "And why are they not left handed friendly?"
"Because," Roy began as he started a new Minesweeper game, "Master Hand is cheap with most of the stuff we use, and you're the only lefty in the house, so there's no reason for a pair of special scissors."
"Young Link is left handed."
"Young Link is you, Link. Just seven years younger."
Link completed his pile of Zelda's gifts—all twenty six of them—and placed the rest of the gifts in a sack.
"Actually, I think we're in a perpetual state of eight and fifteen or something."
"Young Link ages and you don't, so you're in a perpetual state of agelessness," Roy corrected. "Aww, shit! I didn't mean to click that and land in a mine field! Damn you, smiley face! Damn you!"
Roy's computer promptly Blue Screen'd as a silent 'fuck you'.
"No! How dare you get me addicted to your Minesweeper and then screw me over? I will not tolerate this! I, Lord Roy of Pherae, command you to work!"
Somehow, Roy's computer began working normally, as if nothing had just happened. Maybe it was the deep, persuasive tone Roy used, or maybe it was the sexy hand movements. The Pheraean didn't really care how it started working, and so he continued to play a new expert game with a whopping four hundred mines.
-x-
"I need help."
Link's plea for assistance barely registered with a bloodshot eyed Roy, who had been playing Minesweeper for the past four hours in an attempt to beat the game. Out of four thousand and forty two tries, he had only successfully won maybe forty two of them.
"Wi' wha'?" Apparently playing computer games for such a long time took a toll on Roy's Nintendian skills.
"With the presents." Link gestured to the gigantic sack next to him. "I need another able-bodied person to help me cart this downstairs."
Roy, bleary-eyed and sleep deprived, was about as able-bodied as someone with no arms. And to be honest, they were more able-bodied than he was right now.
"Go ask Marth." Roy's standard answer to everything.
"Marth can barely pick up his sword, let alone a fifty pound sack of gifts."
"Excuse me? What did you just say about me?"
Link turned around to see Marth towering over him, and that was only because Marth was balancing on a chair to get a book from the very top of his bookcase.
"Anyway," Link said, ignoring the very peeved prince behind him. "Since you're both too…busy to help me, I guess I'll just drag this stupid thing downstairs myself."
"Have fun," Roy said, preoccupied now with a game of Bejeweled.
"Beware of any books falling from the sky," Marth muttered as he watched the blond drag the sack of presents out the door. He heard it slide down the stairs and the screams he heard signaled to everyone that Link had fallen with it.
"Hey, Roy?"
"Mmm?"
Marth fingered the worn spine on one of his books. "…Who said Link could come in here, anyway?"
Roy turned around in his chair slowly; their eyes locked in an intense stare, neither knowing exactly what to say.
"I did have the door locked, but he's got a lockpick and he knows how to use it."
-x-
Author's Notes: This is a day late (because I suck at deadlines apparently, haha), but hey, it's still the, uh, Christmas spirit. And posting it a day late doesn't have any penalties, right? In any case, this is a Christmas one shot based off of my experiences every single Christmas Eve, that is, don't leave everything until last minute, because it'll bite you in the ass later. I'm sure Link will start wrapping things a little earlier next year, hmm?
Oh, and the song at the beginning is "Happy Holidays You Bastard" by blink-182, off their Take Off Your Pants and Jacket album, which is one of my favourites of theirs. I just thought it fit with the overall theme.
Merry Belated Christmas, and a Happy New Year guys!
Jayden