Okay for all of you haters out there who don't believe that this is a "classic Christmas story", it totally is. Just sayin'.
Warning: This chapter contains Demyx/Zexion, the implication of a creepy man sneaking into your house, and A LOT OF RHYMING! You have been warned.
What Christmas Is Really All About
Every person down in Yuletideville liked Christmas a lot, but one scientist who lived just north of Yuletideville did not.
This man hated Christmas; the whole Christmas season, but please don't ask why because no one quite knows the reason. It could be perhaps that his shoes were too tight; it could be his head wasn't screwed on just right.
But I think that the most likely reason of all may have been that his heart was two sizes too small.
But whatever the reason, his heart or his shoes, he stood there on Christmas Eve, hating all the citizens in the town below. Staring down from his cave with a sour, grouchy brow at the warm, lighted windows below in their town.
For he knew every person down in Yuletideville beneath was busy now, hanging up holiday wreaths.
His lab assistant, who was his only companion, walked up and stood next to him as he glared down at the town below. "Awww," he said. "Is Zexy feeling a little depressed about Christmas time?" he asked.
Zexion growled and continued to stare. "Demyx, you know I hate it when you mention that word," he said.
Demyx smiled mischievously. "What, you mean...Christmas?" he said, grinning.
Zexion's eye twitched. "Don't you even..."
"Christmas! Christmas! Christmas! Chri—Gaah!"
Zexion grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and lifted him up off the ground before he got to say the word again. "Listen you," he said, "they're hanging their stockings," he snarled with a sneer. "Tomorrow is Christmas; it's practically here!"
Then he growled with his cold fingers nervously drumming. "I must find some way to keep Christmas from coming.
"For tomorrow, I know all the girls and boys will wake bright and early. They'll rush for their toys! And then! Oh, the noise! Oh, the noise! Noise! Noise! Noise! There's one thing I hate! All the NOISE! NOISE! NOISE! NOISE!
"And they'll shriek squeaks and squeals, racing 'round on their wheels. They'll dance with jingtinglers tied onto their heels. They'll blow their floofloovers. They'll bang their tartookas. They'll blow their whohoopers. They'll bang their gardookas. They'll spin their trumtookas. They'll slam their slooslunkas. They'll beat their blumbloopas. They'll wham their whowonkas. And they'll play noisy games like zoozittacarzay, a roller-skate type of lacrosse and croquet! And then they'll make ear-splitting noises galooks on their great big electro whocarnio flooks!
Then the people, young and old, will sit down to a feast. And they'll feast! And they'll feast! And they'll FEAST! FEAST! FEAST! FEAST! They'll feast on their pudding, and rare roast beast, raw roast beast is a feast I can't stand in the least!
"And then they'll do something I hate most of all! Every person down in Yuletideville, the tall and the small, they'll stand close together, with Christmas bells ringing. They'll stand hand-in-hand, and those men and women will start singing!"
Zexion shuddered at the thought of it. "And they'll sing! And they'll sing! And they'd SING! SING! SING! SING!" He stomped his foot into the ground so hard that it created a hole.
Demyx squirmed himself free and straightened his hair. "Okaaay," he said. "So, you have a little bit of a Christmas complex; who doesn't?" He cleared his throat and continued. "But that doesn't mean you should stop the holiday for everyone! That's just...well...it's not right!"
But Zexion wasn't listening. "I must stop this whole thing! Why for eighteen years I've put up with it now! I must stop Christmas from coming! But how?"
He started to pace up and down the mountain slope. Up and down, up and down. Demyx tried to intervene, but Zexion kept shooing him away.
Finally, Zexion snapped his fingers together, the corners of his mouth lifted in an awful smile.
"I know just what to do!" Zexion laughed in his throat. "I'll make a quick Santy Claus hat and a coat."
Demyx cocked his head. "You'll do what now?"
Again, Zexion was too absorbed in himself to listen to his assistant's words. He chuckled, and clucked, "What a great nasty trick! With this coat and this hat, I'll look just like Saint Nick!"
And with that, he rushed back into his cave to start working.
Demyx shouted after him, "What are you, Mr. Grouch all of the sudden? What happened to our whole, 'not ruining Christmas' idea? ...And why are you rhyming?" He ran after him, hoping to stop his plan.
You're a mean one, Mr. Grouch. You really are a heel.
You're as cuddly as a cactus. You're as charming as an eel.
Mr. Grouch! You're a bad banana with a greasy black peel!
You're a monster, Mr. Grouch. Your heart's an empty hole.
Your brain is full of spiders. You've got garlic in your soul.
Mr. Grouch! I wouldn't touch you with a thirty-nine-and-a-half foot pole!
"Gaaahhhh!" screamed Demyx. He frowned. "Okay, who let the random boy band into the cave?" he said.
The lead singer of the band shrugged. "We let ourselves in," he said. The rest of the band nodded.
Demyx rolled his eyes. "Okay, well can you show yourselves out? I'm kind of in the middle of stopping an evil scheme right now."
"Sure. Come on, guys," said the leader. The rest of the bad gathered up their music and equipment and started heading out the cave.
"I thought it was good, Xemnas," the drummer said to the leader.
"Aw, thank you Xigbar," said Xemnas, blushing.
Demyx ran over to Zexion, who was still sewing and stitching like he had been hours ago. "So, about this evil plan of yours," started Demyx. "How's it coming along?"
Zexion sewed on the final piece, cut the thread with his teeth, and clapped his hands. "Done!" he cried. He lifted up his handiwork so that Demyx could see.
Demyx raised one eyebrow, his mouth gaping wide open. "A Santa Suit?" he said. "You're going to ruin Christmas...with a Santa Suit?"
Zexion nodded, a crazy look in his eye. "Now all I need is a reindeer!" He looked at Demyx, and another one of his smiles crept onto his face.
Demyx's eye widened as he realized what his master was thinking. "Hooooo no!" he said. "No, no, no! I signed on to this job to help change the world with experiments of scientific nature! I did not sign up to dress up like..."
Zexion's eyes grew so big that the light from outside of the cave shined off of his pupils. He stuck out his lower lip just a little bit, and held out a pair of antlers. Tears formed in his eyes.
Demyx's heart ached. Unlike Zexion, his heart was just the right size, which made him a very vulnerable person. Not to mention, he had always had a little crush on his master, even though he would never admit it.
He gave up and sighed. "Gimme the antlers," he said. Zexion jumped up and down with one of his rare outbursts of joy, and set to work on making the right costume for his new reindeer.
Taking some black thread, he tied the antlers on top of Demyx's head. Then he loaded some bags and some old empty sacks on a ramshackle sleigh and he whistled for his new reindeer.
Then Zexion said "Giddyap!" and the sleigh started down toward the homes where the people lay a-snooze in their town.
All their windows were dark. No one knew he was there. All the people were dreaming sweet dreams without care when he came to the first little house of the square.
Zexion chuckled as he climbed out of the sleigh and onto the roof. "This is the first house," he said. Picking up empty bags, he turned to Demyx (who was half dead from pulling the sled down the hill and across town). "Stay!" he said.
Demyx managed to move his head in a weak nod, even though the animal treatment was very degrading.
Then he slid down the chimney, a rather tight pinch. But if Santa could do it, then so could he. He got stuck only once, for a minute or two.
Then he stuck his head out of the fireplace flue where the little stockings hung all in a row. "These stockings," he chuckled, "are the first things to go!"
Then he slithered and slunk, with a smile most unpleasant, around the whole room, and he took every present!
Pop guns, pampoogas, pantookas, and drums! Checkerboards, bizilbigs, popcorn, and plums! And he stuffed them in bags.
Then the Grinch, very nimbly, stuffed all the bags, one by one, up the chimney.
You're a vile one, Mr. Grouch. You have termites in your smile.
You have all the tender sweetness of a seasick crocodile.
Mr. Grouch! Given the choice between the two of you I'd take the seasick crocodile!
You're a rotter, Mr. Grouch. You're the king of sinful sots.
Your heart's a dead tomato splotched with moldy purple spots.
Mr. Grouch! You're a three decker sauerkraut and toadstool sandwich with arsenic sauce!
"What the..." Demyx looked up and saw the boy band from before sitting in the sleigh.
Xemnas put up his hands. "Don't look at me," he said. "He invited us!" He pointed to Zexion, who had just come back up from the chimney, full bags in his arms.
Before anybody could say anything, Zexion had already dumped the full bags into the sleigh, grabbed another batch of empty bags, and headed back down the same chimney.
Then he slunk to the icebox. He took the family's feast! He took their pudding! He took their roast beast!
He cleaned out that icebox as quick as a flash. Why, that man even took the last can of their hash!
Then he stuffed all the food up the chimney with glee. "Now," grinned Zexion, "I will stuff up the tree!"
As Zexion was stuffing their Christmas tree into a bag, he heard a small noise behind him, like the cooing of a dove.
Turning, he came face to face with a small girl no more than two years old. "Mr. Santa Clause," she said softly. "Why are you taking our Christmas tree? Why?"
Zexion almost panicked; what was he supposed to say? But then an idea sparked in his mind, and he smiled as sweetly as he could. "Why, hello child. What is your name?"
"Namine," said the girl, who had begun to suck her thumb.
Zexion smiled again. "Well, little Namine, I just happened to notice that there is a light on this tree that won't light on one side," he lied. "So I'm taking it back to my workshop, and I'll fix it up there, and bring it back here!"
And his fib fooled the child. Then he patted her head, and he got her a drink, and he sent her to bed.
But as he did, he couldn't help but feel a slight sense of warmth in his heart. Her eyes almost reminded him of Demyx...
Zexion shook his head, and got rid of the thought. There was still so much more work to be done!
And when Namine was in bed with her cup, he crupt to the chimney and stuffed the tree up!
Then he went up the chimney himself, the old liar. And the last thing he took was the log for their fire.
On their walls he left nothing but hooks and some wire. And the one speck of food that he left in the house was a crumb that was even too small for a mouse.
As he continued on his journey, he did the same thing to the other people's houses, leaving crumbs much too small for the other mouses!
You nauseate me, Mr. Grouch, with a nauseous super "naus"!
You're a crooked dirty jockey and you drive a crooked hoss.
Mr. Grouch! Your soul is an appalling dump heap overflowing with the most disgraceful assortment of rubbish imaginable mangled up in tangled up knots!
You're a foul one, Mr. Grouch. You're a nasty-wasty skunk.
Your heart is full of unwashed socks. Your soul is full of gunk.
Mr. Grouch! The three words that best describe you are as follows, and I quote, "Stink, stank, stunk"!
Demyx groaned and covered his ears with his hands. "Pleaaaaase! Make them stooooppp!" he yelled.
Zexion laughed. "Don't worry, Demyx! We're almost done here anyways!"
It was quarter of dawn. All the men and women still a-bed, all the families still a-snooze, when he packed up his sled, packed it up with their presents, their ribbons, their wrappings, their snoof and their fuzzles, their tringlers and trappings!
When he was done, he brought the sleigh, which was stuffed with goodies, to the very edge of Mount Crumpet, where he planned to dump it! "Pooh-pooh to them!" he was horribly humming. "They're finding out now that no Christmas is coming! They're just waking up! I know just what they'll do! Their mouths will hang open a minute or two then the citizens down in Yuletideville will all cry boo-hoo!
"And that is a noise," said Zexion, "that I simply must hear!" So he leaned forward and put his hand to his ear.
And he did hear a sound rising over the snow. It started in low, then it started to grow.
Fahoo forays, dahoo dorays
Welcome Christmas! Come this way
Fahoo forays, dahoo dorays
Welcome Christmas, Christmas Day
Welcome, welcome, fahoo ramus
Welcome, welcome, dahoo damus
Christmas Day is in our grasp
So long as we have hands to clasp
But this sound wasn't sad! Why, this sound sounded glad! Every being down in Yuletideville, the tall and the small, was singing without any presents at all!
He hadn't stopped Christmas from coming! It came! Somehow or other, it came just the same!
And Zexion, with his frozen feet ice-cold in the snow, stood puzzling and puzzling. "How could it be so? It came without ribbons! It came without tags! It came without packages, boxes, or bags!"
He puzzled and puzzled till his puzzler was sore. Then Zexion thought of something he hadn't before: Maybe Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store. Maybe Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more!
Zexion grinned as the idea finally dawned on him at last. He turned to Demyx to tell him his discovery. "Demyx, you were right all along!" he cried. "Christmas isn't about the packages, boxes, bags, ribbons, or any of—Demyx!"
Demyx clawed at the mountain surface as the sleigh slowly started to fall over the cliff. "Zexy!" he cried frantically. "Help me!"
Zexion panicked. "Hang on!" he yelled. He ran forward and dived for Demyx's hand as the sleigh fell back.
Holding on tight, Zexion pulled and pulled, until he finally pulled so hard that Demyx fell out of his harness completely!
They gasped as the sleigh made its final wobble as it went over the side and out of view. Zexion ran forward as fast as he could, the snow on the ground making it hard for him to move. In a desperate attempt to stop the sleigh from crashing to the ground below, Zexion jumped over the side and grabbed onto one of the sleigh's ridges as it slid down the cliffside.
Demyx jumped forward and grabbed onto the seat of Zexion's pants. Both of them groaned as they struggled to keep the sleigh from sliding down, but instead they were getting dragged down with it.
Demyx shook his head. "Man, I never thought it would end this way," he said.
Zexion scrunched his eyebrows together. "What, being dragged down a cliff by hundreds of Christmas presents?"
Demyx shook his head again. "No, more like holding onto your pants for dear life while wearing antlers. It's just downright humiliating."
Zexion managed a half-smile. "Well, at least we're together one last time," he said. He knew I sounded cheesy, but he didn't care; they were about to die anyways.
These words gave Demyx the courage and strength to say what he had wanted to say for a very long time. "You know," he said. "I'm glad I get to spend my last moments, with someone like you. I always have liked you, Zexion. A lot."
Zexion felt a tear run down his face. "Yeah, me too," he said. And what happened then? Well, in Yuletideville they say that the man's small heart grew three sizes that day!
He smiled a really goofy, creepy kind of smile. Demyx stared at him, unsure of what had just happened. "Zexion?" he said.
Zexion blinked a few times, narrowed his eyes determinedly, and then turned to Demyx. "Hang on," he said.
"Huh?" said Demyx, and not a moment too soon. Zexion, overcome with his strange new strength his heart had given him, jumped up and lifted the sleigh up over his head like it weighed absolutely nothing at all.
And now that his heart didn't feel quite so tight, he whizzed with his load through the bright morning light. With a smile to his soul, he descended Mount Crumpet, cheerily blowing, "Toot! Toot!" on his trumpet.
He road into Yuletideville. He brought back their toys. He brought back their floof to the good girls and boys. He brought back their snoof and their tringlers and fuzzles, brought back their pantookas, their dafflers and wuzzles.
He brought everything back, all the food for the feast! And he, he himself, carved the roast beast!
Demyx held his hand as they ate through their meals. "Merry Christmas," he said.
Zexion smiled and squeezed his hand back. "Merry Christmas," he said.
The End.
Yeah…I was originally going to end with "Merry Christmas to you."; "Don't talk while you chew", but that didn't seem very romantic….
By the way, for all you "Open When I'm Dead" boys and girls, the boy band who performed, "You're A Mean One, Mr. Grouch" was the same boy band who did the song, "Falling For You All Over Again and Again." Just sayin' ;D
Sorry some of the rhymes were a little awkward sounding; I wanted to go with the original script, but I had to replace words like "Grinch" and "Who" and stuff.
Please R/R!