Disclaimer: Guess what? They still aren't mine.
The 12 Pains of Christmas: chapter 2
After the fiasco of getting home and forcing the tree through the door, all that was left was to string up the lights. Of course, that meant explaining what the lights were and did to their hanyou guest first. He'd never seen a string of little tiny flashing white lights before. 'This will be fun,' Kagome thought. She held up the cord and began speaking as though he were a slow child."These are Christmas lights. You plug them in here and then wrap them around the branches of the tree. They can either flash or be steady, and they make the tree very beautiful to see at night. This tree, though, will take several strings of them because it's so big." He seemed to understand what she was saying, so she wasn't even going to confuse the poor boy by breaking down how they worked. He'd never understand electricity and circuits and all that…Heck, she barely understood it. She plugged the string in to show him, and then pulled them out and wrapped them around the cardboard they came with.
Inuyasha nodded, not looking at her, and reached out his finger towards the empty outlet.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you," she warned.
"Feh. You're not though," he said, but hesitated all the same. "Why not?"
"It'll hurt. Probably not so much, you being a demon and all, but…" she trailed off, realizing she was rambling.
"So?" he said, his finger getting even closer to the socket. She shrugged, letting him learn his own lesson. But he stopped and drew his finger away, a slightly hurt look on his face. She didn't quite understand, but if he didn't want to electrocute himself, then she was okay with it.
"Hey, mom?" Kagome called to the woman in the kitchen. Mrs. Higurashi was rolling out dough for cookies and humming a carol as she went.
"Yes?" she answered.
"Where are the extension cords?" she asked, seeing that the cords wouldn't reach from the tree to the outlet she and Inuyasha were sitting by. It was one of only two sockets in the living room, and the other one was even farther from the corner where they had put the pine.
"What extension cords?"
"You know, the big orange ones that we use every year?"
"Oh, those. I have no idea. They're probably in the basement, though. With the rest of the Christmas stuff."
"Okay, I'll go look." She hurried down to the basement, finding the boxes all the way in the back, under a bunch of other crates. It took a lot of energy to move some of them, but she finally succeeded in freeing her prize. It was a huge box made to fit the tree and all the trimmings. When that turned up nothing of what she was looking for, she fumbled around a bit more and found the boxes with other holiday stuff. Kagome searched through all the other, smaller containers and still could find no cords.
"Mom! They're not down here!" she called up the stairs.
"Then we have none." Her mother didn't seem to care that much. Inuyasha just sat there, waiting for Kagome to come back. At the bottom of the stairs, she let out an aggravated growl and bit her lip.
"What? We don't have any? Then how are we going to get the lights from the tree to the socket?"
"I trust you'll figure it out, dear."
Another frustrated sound floated up the stairs right before Kagome appeared. She sighed and slumped over to the couch. Inuyasha got up off the floor and sat next to her.
"Couldn't we just use another string of lights to get from the plug to the tree?" he asked innocently. He was surprised when she turned to him with a bright smile of her face. 'Wait, why didn't I think of that?' she asked herself.
"I could kiss you, Inuyasha!" she said without thinking, bounding off the couch. He fell on the floor, completely stunned. 'WHAT?!' he thought. He echoed his thoughts out loud.
"Hmm?" she asked absently.
"What did you mean by that?" he asked.
"What did I mean by what?" he couldn't tell if she was playing or not.
"Feh. Never mind." Kagome glanced over long enough to see him plop back onto the couch. She ignored him and continued ringing the lights around the tree. Things were peacefully quiet for a time, until she reached the last of the lights at the very top of the tree.
"Darn it!" she caught herself before she cursed. The string just wouldn't work. Now she'd have to sit there and find which stupid little bulb it was that was out.
"What?" the confused hanyou asked. One moment she had been happily working and humming something under her breath, and the next she looked ready to scream at the bulbs in her hand.
"One goes out, they all go out. That's how these older strings work. So now I get to sit here and take them out one at a time trying to find which is the bad one," she said, sitting cross-legged on the floor and pulling the string into her lap. He sighed and just watched as she began to work. Just when she was ready to jump up and down on the thing, she found the cause of her problems.
"Ha!" she shouted, causing Inuyasha to jerk out of his bored stupor. "Mom, come string the last bit of lights, would you?"
Mrs. Higurashi came in from the kitchen wiping her hands on her apron. "Sure, where's the step stool?"
A few minutes later, the lights were done and the angel was at the top of the tree. They all stood there for a moment, admiring the tree. However, Inuyasha's outburst disrupted the quiet.
"Why is it blinking?!"
Mrs. Higurashi looked at Kagome. Kagome looked at Inuyasha. Inuyasha looked around for the runt. He was conveniently missing. Just then a quiet giggle came from behind the couch where the outlet was. Peeking over the side, the three found Souta covering his mouth as he plugged and unplugged the first string of lights. Suddenly he did it again, but the bulbs didn't come back on.
"Runt, look what you did!" Souta swung around quickly, seeing he was caught.
"Honey, I think you blew a fuse. You better go fix it." his mother said.
"But, mom—" he didn't want to. He was just doing it to annoy Kagome. He didn't know that this would happen, and he certainly had thought he would be found out.
"No buts, young man. You did it, you fix it." she was firmer this time, and seeing no way out of it, Souta sighed and left to find a flashlight. Mrs. Higurashi turned back to her daughter and Inuyasha.
"Now that that's done, it's time for the garland and the ornaments!" Now she was getting excited.
"Yes!" Kagome cried before disappearing into the kitchen to grab a freshly baked cookie.
**Phew. Finished. New chappies tomorrow. Read, review, and I'll love you forever in the non-icky way.
Thankies lots to:
Tricky-the-kitsune-youkia and Celeste08 The second thing at Christmas that's such a pain to meRigging up the lights
And finding a Christmas tree.