Family: A Brotherhood Christmas Story
By: Kichara
Chapter Three: Spiked Eggnog and Three and a Half Logs of Firewood
~So Christmas came, too early for some, While everyone made fun of Pietro's long underwear, and Storm and Logan had too much eggnog with rum, It wasn't the start of an ordinary Christmas Day~
It's kind of funny, but I had no idea just how friggin' clique it is to write a Brotherhood X-mas story until two chapters into it. Bleh. Oh well! This whole story was spawned by me watching On Angel's Wings and getting quite peeved that the BoM didn't get ANY airtime! I mean, GEEZ, they could've had the guys being shown for a whole 8 seconds a t the end of the episode, doing. whatever. Made me quite angry and vengeful. Many lawn gnomes were hurt.
Enjoy!
~*~*~*~
"PSST!! LANCE! LANCE!" Little pokes accompanied the sleep-depriving words and Lance rolled over, groaning in protest.
"G'way." He mumbled, burying his head into his pillow.
"C'mon, you PROMISED you'd go get the tree." The voice was beginning to finally resemble something familiar, and the rock tumbler blearily opened a chocolate brown eye to confirm it.
Todd. The boy was barely half a foot from his face, squatting down by the bed so that his eyes were on the same level as Lance's.
"What time is it?" He grumbled, eyebrow raising above the open eye.
"8 minutes after 7." Another voice spoke up proudly and Lance was forced to open both eyes now, as well as shift his head a bit to see Fred standing at the edge of the bed in his oversized blue pajamas whose army of little yellow ducks were almost painful to look at. He grinned hugely at the sleepy rock tumbler.
" 'First thing in the morning', remember?" Todd quoted, poking Lance in the shoulder again. The older boy groaned, and was moving to roll over to try and become one with the pillow again, when he was interrupted by a pitiful, "Pleeeeeeaaaaase?"
"Oh, alright!" He sat up, shoving the covers back and taking a full ten seconds to give each a baleful glare.
They smiled at him innocently.
The mutant sighed in defeat, a bit of a laugh behind the exasperated action. "You guys are too much. You wake anyone else up yet?"
"Pietro's next, but uh, we're thinking we should wait on Wanda." Fred answered for the two of them.
Lance smiled wickedly, throwing off the covers and standing up boldly. "Why wait? After all, it's Christmas morning. Everyone's gotta wake up early!"
The two other boys were didn't answer, only gawking at Lance instead.
"What?" He blinked in bewilderment, looking down at himself. He looked alright, no unnatural blotches on his skin, hair seemed to be in place, he wasn't breaking out or anything, he was dressed in.
"You look like Tom Cruise in Risky Business." Todd pointed out, blinking slowly. Fred only nodded slowly, unable to fabricate anything comprehendible. True enough, Lance was dressed in a pair of tighty whities, a beat-up white dress shirt, and a pair of socks. "You just need the sunglasses, and it would complete the image, yo."
"Hmmm, you think so?" Lance smirked, looking very amused.
"Wait a minute. you weren't even trying to look like him? It just.happened?!" Fred shook his head in amazement, while Lance beamed.
"Yeah, shows my TRUE masculinity. Being Tom Cruise without even trying!" He grinned.
"Whatever. Put some pants on." Todd said, grabbing a pair of jeans off the floor and tossing them at his housemate.
"You're just jealous." Lance practically whined as he tugged the jeans on, motioning his head towards Todd's nightclothes, which consisted off an ancient sweatshirt was more holes than fabric, and pair of sweatpants that were several sizes to big for him, with the ends ragged and a gaping hole in one of the knees.
"Whatever works is fine with me." The shorter boy shrugged.
"Alright then. SO in the name of Christmas morning, we get to go wake everyone up early!" Lance reminded them, almost bounding out of the room. The other two were close behind, grinning wildly as they headed towards Pietro's room.
They opened the door, finding the white-haired boy was sprawled across the bed, dressed in some long magenta underwear, along with a pair of pink bunny slippers on his feet, arms and legs akimbo, with the covers half on the floor, snoring softly. He mumbled, arm flopping up above his head suddenly.
"He doesn't even stay still in his sleep." Fred realized in awe. "So. how we getting him up?"
They stood in silence for a long moment, contemplating seriously as to how to take on the current situation. The concentration and silence that accompanied it broke off, however, when Todd suddenly made a running leap, landing squarely on the slender boy.
"MERRY CHRISTMAS!!" He exclaimed, voice full of merriment and joy.. and was promptly thrown off the bed.
"Jesus, you guys!" Pietro sat up quickly, looking around and taking in the other three that were occupying his room: Lance and Fred standing by the door, looking as if they were about to bust out laughing at any given moment and Todd, who was on the floor, a triumphant grin on his face. The speed demon shook his head, rolling his sky blue eyes toward the ceiling, then smiled. "Merry Christmas, then." He looked over at his alarm clock, wincing. "Very EARLY Christmas." He groaned, flopping back onto the bed.
"Nope, can't have that!" Todd jumped off the floor, landing next to Pietro. He shoved the taller boy off the bed, neatly depositing him into a heap on the floor.
"Lemme alone." The heap complained, curling up into a ball. "It's too early to face the world."
"Not on Christmas, it isn't." Lance answered, stepping over and lightly kicking the curled-up mutant. "Everyone's waking up early. Wanda's next."
Pietro's head snapped up at the last sentence, a mischievous grin on his face. "Reeeeaaally?" He questioned, hopeful.
"Yes, really. Now c'mon, it's going to be a group effort, I'm sure." Pietro picked himself up off the floor, and the boys headed in the direction of what could be their inevitable doom: Wanda's room. (dum dum duuuumm.)
They crept into the Goth's room, peering around cautiously. The big lump on the bed was obviously Wanda, completely covered with blankets. "So. how're we doing this?" Fred whispered, keeping a wary eye on the mound on the bed.
"Dunno, but I'm dying to see what the hell Wanda wears to bed. I can't believe she's been living with us for months now and none of us have seen her in her night clothes." Lance remarked thoughtfully.
"Maybe she wears pink underoos like her brother." Todd teased, getting a sharp poke into the arm, courtesy of Pietro.
"Oh shut up and go wake her up. It'll be fun to watch you get zapped again." He hissed, pushing Todd further into the room.
"Man, permission from family? Alright!" He exclaimed eagerly, hopping over to the bed and grabbing a hold of the blankets, while the rest of the guys watched in anticipation, wanting to either see Wanda in a nightgown, or Todd get turned into a crispy froggy for the fiftieth time that month, or both. The teen carefully pulled off the layers of blankets, interrupted in what he was doing by a voice in the corner of the room.
"What the hell are you guys doing?" The male population of the room turned to the source of the nonchalant words, wide-eyed. Wanda stood in the frame of her bathroom, toothbrush in one hand, and they all blushed sheepishly, especially the mutant that still had her bedcovers fisted in a hand.
"You're.already awake." He realized aloud, blush burning brighter as he dropped the blankets back onto the bed.
"And already dressed." Pietro pointed out, narrowing his eyes at her in question. "Do you even wear night clothes?"
"That's a secret." She answered smugly, leaning against the frame. "But I can guarantee if I do, their not long hot pink underwear. Merry Christmas, by the way."
"It's fuchsia!" He protested, looking down at the offending garment.
"And they match your fuzzy bunny slippers." Fred pointed out, sending the rest of the room into giggles.
Wanda chortled to herself, shaking her head almost affectionately. "Good. Now get out of my room. I've got to finish getting ready."
*~*~*~
The Scarlet Witch descended the stairs a few minutes later to find her brother, Todd, and Fred milling about the living room thoughtfully. "Did Lance already leave to get the tree?" She questioned, reaching the bottom of the steps.
"Yep, we're just trying to figure out what to do." Pietro answered, both for himself and for the other two in the room.
"Speak for yourself; I gotta go start dinner." Fred spoke up, heading for the kitchen.
"Still pretty nippy in here, huh?" Pietro remarked, tugging down his sweater more. He'd changed out of his ridiculed nightclothes into a pair of tight fitting jeans and a kitted Christmas sweater.
"Well, Lance fixed the heater, but it' below thirty out there." Wanda pointed out, motioning to the window with a nod of her head, then sat down on the couch and wrapping the worn blanket lying on it around her shoulders.
Todd grinned suddenly, hopping past them and towards the front door.
"Where're you going?" Pietro wondered, sitting down next to his twin.
"Gotta check something out," was the simple answer as Toad grabbed his jacket and tossed it on, then headed outside.
Feeling restless, Wanda got up, sauntering into the kitchen. Fred was rummaging through the cabinets, pulling out pots and pans. " Hey Wanda," He greeted her with a smile as she walked in. "What's up?"
"I'm just feeling a little agitated, I guess. I don't want to just sit around and do nothing." She answered, watching him pull out two sacks of potatoes and dump them onto the table. The food shopping they'd done yesterday had mostly been just to make sure they had a lot of food. The rest had, surprisingly, been done before, to make sure that they had enough.
"Yeah, I feel the same way. " He agreed, setting down the potato peeler and a pot onto the table by the vegetables. "Plus it's cool, cuz I get to make dinner. I didn't get to last year." He added regretfully.
"So Pietro told me." She moved closer, leaning against the table and listening to him intently.
"Yeah, of all the times for Mystique to make us go do something," He scowled at the memory, then brightened suddenly. "It could've been worse, though. Todd got us started on singing Christmas songs, and it wasn't all that bad. Maybe it's cuz we were together, and that was all that really mattered in the end."
Wanda nodded thoughtfully. The front door opened with a bang, and they looked over to see Todd, shaking snow off his shoulders, holding a funny- looking broom. thingy, and surprisingly enough, wearing a pair of scuba goggles.
"What's that?" Wanda wondered, looking over the item in his hand.
"Chimney sweeper. Geez, didn't you ever see Mary Poppins? I found it in the shed."
"Why're you wearing swimming goggles?" Fred pointed out.
"Because they bring out the color of my eyes." Todd said sarcastically. "'Cause I'm gonna sweep out the chimney so we can actually use it, and dun wanna get dirt and crap in my eyes."
"Ohhhh." Fred nodded in understanding, then diverted his attention back to the potatoes on the table.
Sweeper tossed over his shoulder, Todd marched into the living room, past Pietro, who blinked at him uncertainly from his position on the couch, then without further ado, scrambled up into the fireplace. The silvery-haired teen looked over at Wanda as she walked in, only raising an eyebrow in question.
"He says he's cleaning it out so we can use it." She answered to the look, flopping back down next to him and listening to the scuffling echoing from the fireplace, then raised an eyebrow as she heard the mutant inside the chimney began humming "Whistle While You Work." "So. uh," Pietro studied her expectantly. "I'm bored; Since he's doing that, you want to go get some firewood."
Her twin wrinkled up his nose. "Manual labor?"
"Get your lazy ass up." She said, pushing him off the couch.
"Heyyyyy!!!" He whined. "That wasn't very nice." He added with a very visible pout.
"Quit being a whiny bitch." The Scarlet Witch held out a hand, which he accepted for her to help him to his feet. "Now let's go get some wood."
"Neh neh nehhhh." Pietro taunted childishly, following her out of the room.
*~*~*~
Several hours later, the Maximoff twins had miraculously managed, after numerous arguments, Pietro whining more, Wanda zapping him repeatedly, both of them attempting to figure out how to use an axe (and thankfully they still had their hands attached), and several bottles of aspirin, to be able to dump a whopping three and a half logs onto the living room floor. By that time, Fred had half of dinner finished, Todd had cleaned out the chimney, taken a shower, gotten dressed and was now sprawled out on the couch, flipping thorough Christmas specials. He watched the brother and sister come in, proudly dumping the meager amount of wood by the fireplace. He look at the "pile", then at them expectantly, then back at it, then up at them again. "Um, is that all?"
"Of course! Do you have any idea how much work was put into these?" Pietro pleaded, eyes almost looking watery.
Todd gazed up at the ceiling thoughtfully, going back to the arguments he'd heard going on between the twins when he's been in the chimney..
"But I don't wanna chop woooood.."
"Too bad, because you are anyway."
"You're a big meanie."
"And you're stupid. Now chop."
"No! You chop!"
"No, you!"
"You!"
"You!"
"It was you're stupid idea!"
"And you need to do something productive, so chop the damned wood!"
"But I don't know how to!"
"Well, neither do I!"
"So why should I do it?!"
"It's simple, all you have to do is hold the damned axe up and bring it down!"
"See? You DO know how to do it! Go at it!"
"Pietro.." The words had been following by a very familiar zap, Pietro squealing in indignation, then the argument continuing.
Todd came back to the present. "Sooo. by work is that how much effort it took to actually get the wood chopped from you guys arguing?"
They both deflated, looking at each other sheepishly.
"Something like that." Pietro admitted.
The awkwardness was broken by the door slamming open, accompanied by Lance calling out. "I'm home! Help me with this thing!"
Fred came out of the kitchen to grab the tree from Lance, bringing it into the designated spot in the living room.
Pietro skeptically studied the tree. It was a nice tree, big and full and. still attached to its roots. He raised an eyebrow, looking Lance in the eye. "Soooo. where'd you get the tree from Lance?"
"Oh. y'know that uh, place down the road. They pull it right out of the ground for you so it's nice and fresh!" He smiled brilliantly, not fooling any of the other Brotherhood members for a moment.
"Uh huhhhhh." The speed demon looked down at the rooted tree, then back up at Avalanche. "So where'd you steal it from, Lance?"
Lance blushed, caught, but then his face broke out into a huge grin. " The Institute." He chucked.
"ALRIGHT!" Everyone chorused, exchanging high five's with him.
"So let's set it up then, alright?" Lance suggested, once the noise had settled down. He walked over to the shrubbery, then blinked suddenly in confusion. "Um. we don't have a stand."
"Figures." Wanda shook her head.
"Hey, we'll just improvise, then!" Freddy said. And so they did. Or made many sad attempts to, including, but not limited to: a towel rack, flower pots of varying sizes, the spare tire from Lance's Jeep, and one of Lance's helmets. They wound up eventually combining the largest flower pot they had, set up in the spare tire to give it a sturdy base.
"There! Perfect!" Todd stood back to marvel at the tree's. ghetto-like goodness. It was the effort that mattered. "Now we get to decorate it!"
A mad scramble was made to get the decorations, while Lance took the radio from his room, set it up in the living room, and tuned it into a local station that played Christmas songs all season long so that they could all sing along to "Holly Jolly Christmas", "Frosty", and other such noise-like things filled with joy.
Somewhere in the middle of the decorating, while the Nutcracker Suite was playing on the radio, Wanda heard something outside and went to the window to investigate. What she saw made her jaw drop and eyes widen in its disturbing-ness.
"What's wrong?" Lance noticed her immobile figure and they all got to the window, staring in silent shock and horror as they witnessed Storm in the yard, Santa hat jauntily atop her head, run back and forth, arms in front of her in a Freakazoid-fashion, making sound effects as she mock-flew, "Whoosh! Whoosh! I control the weather! Feeeeeeaaaar meeeeee!!!!!!!" And for whatever reason, probably something that had to do with large amounts of eggnog that had been consumed, Wolverine was prancing after her in a pink tutu, fairy wand in hand. They made several rounds through the yard before making their merry way off into the woods.
It was some time before the Brotherhood managed to regain their composure. Not that they could find anything to say.
*~*~*~
Whoo, writing at 2:14 in the morning, surviving only on Mountain Dew Code Red and fudge does wonders for the creative mind! O.o Many thanks to my boyfriend Chris, for whom I wouldn't have been able to come up with all the ideas for this with out. Plus he got me the fudge. ^^ I Reeaaaally wanted this to have been out by Christmas, but it didn't work out. Ohhhh well. Next chapter will be the last, I'm hoping to get it out before New Years. More thanks to Joriel, who made the very good suggestion to make Freddy actually have (gasp!) character. Please go read her extremely awesome (but sadly unappreciated) story, devil's Dance! It's under my favorite stories, for all the lazy people. ^^ Puppy ciao!
Reminiscing as I listen to Sailor Moon music and tossing a Wal-Mart plastic bag up into the air repeatedly, Kichara
Chapter Three: Spiked Eggnog and Three and a Half Logs of Firewood
~So Christmas came, too early for some, While everyone made fun of Pietro's long underwear, and Storm and Logan had too much eggnog with rum, It wasn't the start of an ordinary Christmas Day~
It's kind of funny, but I had no idea just how friggin' clique it is to write a Brotherhood X-mas story until two chapters into it. Bleh. Oh well! This whole story was spawned by me watching On Angel's Wings and getting quite peeved that the BoM didn't get ANY airtime! I mean, GEEZ, they could've had the guys being shown for a whole 8 seconds a t the end of the episode, doing. whatever. Made me quite angry and vengeful. Many lawn gnomes were hurt.
Enjoy!
~*~*~*~
"PSST!! LANCE! LANCE!" Little pokes accompanied the sleep-depriving words and Lance rolled over, groaning in protest.
"G'way." He mumbled, burying his head into his pillow.
"C'mon, you PROMISED you'd go get the tree." The voice was beginning to finally resemble something familiar, and the rock tumbler blearily opened a chocolate brown eye to confirm it.
Todd. The boy was barely half a foot from his face, squatting down by the bed so that his eyes were on the same level as Lance's.
"What time is it?" He grumbled, eyebrow raising above the open eye.
"8 minutes after 7." Another voice spoke up proudly and Lance was forced to open both eyes now, as well as shift his head a bit to see Fred standing at the edge of the bed in his oversized blue pajamas whose army of little yellow ducks were almost painful to look at. He grinned hugely at the sleepy rock tumbler.
" 'First thing in the morning', remember?" Todd quoted, poking Lance in the shoulder again. The older boy groaned, and was moving to roll over to try and become one with the pillow again, when he was interrupted by a pitiful, "Pleeeeeeaaaaase?"
"Oh, alright!" He sat up, shoving the covers back and taking a full ten seconds to give each a baleful glare.
They smiled at him innocently.
The mutant sighed in defeat, a bit of a laugh behind the exasperated action. "You guys are too much. You wake anyone else up yet?"
"Pietro's next, but uh, we're thinking we should wait on Wanda." Fred answered for the two of them.
Lance smiled wickedly, throwing off the covers and standing up boldly. "Why wait? After all, it's Christmas morning. Everyone's gotta wake up early!"
The two other boys were didn't answer, only gawking at Lance instead.
"What?" He blinked in bewilderment, looking down at himself. He looked alright, no unnatural blotches on his skin, hair seemed to be in place, he wasn't breaking out or anything, he was dressed in.
"You look like Tom Cruise in Risky Business." Todd pointed out, blinking slowly. Fred only nodded slowly, unable to fabricate anything comprehendible. True enough, Lance was dressed in a pair of tighty whities, a beat-up white dress shirt, and a pair of socks. "You just need the sunglasses, and it would complete the image, yo."
"Hmmm, you think so?" Lance smirked, looking very amused.
"Wait a minute. you weren't even trying to look like him? It just.happened?!" Fred shook his head in amazement, while Lance beamed.
"Yeah, shows my TRUE masculinity. Being Tom Cruise without even trying!" He grinned.
"Whatever. Put some pants on." Todd said, grabbing a pair of jeans off the floor and tossing them at his housemate.
"You're just jealous." Lance practically whined as he tugged the jeans on, motioning his head towards Todd's nightclothes, which consisted off an ancient sweatshirt was more holes than fabric, and pair of sweatpants that were several sizes to big for him, with the ends ragged and a gaping hole in one of the knees.
"Whatever works is fine with me." The shorter boy shrugged.
"Alright then. SO in the name of Christmas morning, we get to go wake everyone up early!" Lance reminded them, almost bounding out of the room. The other two were close behind, grinning wildly as they headed towards Pietro's room.
They opened the door, finding the white-haired boy was sprawled across the bed, dressed in some long magenta underwear, along with a pair of pink bunny slippers on his feet, arms and legs akimbo, with the covers half on the floor, snoring softly. He mumbled, arm flopping up above his head suddenly.
"He doesn't even stay still in his sleep." Fred realized in awe. "So. how we getting him up?"
They stood in silence for a long moment, contemplating seriously as to how to take on the current situation. The concentration and silence that accompanied it broke off, however, when Todd suddenly made a running leap, landing squarely on the slender boy.
"MERRY CHRISTMAS!!" He exclaimed, voice full of merriment and joy.. and was promptly thrown off the bed.
"Jesus, you guys!" Pietro sat up quickly, looking around and taking in the other three that were occupying his room: Lance and Fred standing by the door, looking as if they were about to bust out laughing at any given moment and Todd, who was on the floor, a triumphant grin on his face. The speed demon shook his head, rolling his sky blue eyes toward the ceiling, then smiled. "Merry Christmas, then." He looked over at his alarm clock, wincing. "Very EARLY Christmas." He groaned, flopping back onto the bed.
"Nope, can't have that!" Todd jumped off the floor, landing next to Pietro. He shoved the taller boy off the bed, neatly depositing him into a heap on the floor.
"Lemme alone." The heap complained, curling up into a ball. "It's too early to face the world."
"Not on Christmas, it isn't." Lance answered, stepping over and lightly kicking the curled-up mutant. "Everyone's waking up early. Wanda's next."
Pietro's head snapped up at the last sentence, a mischievous grin on his face. "Reeeeaaally?" He questioned, hopeful.
"Yes, really. Now c'mon, it's going to be a group effort, I'm sure." Pietro picked himself up off the floor, and the boys headed in the direction of what could be their inevitable doom: Wanda's room. (dum dum duuuumm.)
They crept into the Goth's room, peering around cautiously. The big lump on the bed was obviously Wanda, completely covered with blankets. "So. how're we doing this?" Fred whispered, keeping a wary eye on the mound on the bed.
"Dunno, but I'm dying to see what the hell Wanda wears to bed. I can't believe she's been living with us for months now and none of us have seen her in her night clothes." Lance remarked thoughtfully.
"Maybe she wears pink underoos like her brother." Todd teased, getting a sharp poke into the arm, courtesy of Pietro.
"Oh shut up and go wake her up. It'll be fun to watch you get zapped again." He hissed, pushing Todd further into the room.
"Man, permission from family? Alright!" He exclaimed eagerly, hopping over to the bed and grabbing a hold of the blankets, while the rest of the guys watched in anticipation, wanting to either see Wanda in a nightgown, or Todd get turned into a crispy froggy for the fiftieth time that month, or both. The teen carefully pulled off the layers of blankets, interrupted in what he was doing by a voice in the corner of the room.
"What the hell are you guys doing?" The male population of the room turned to the source of the nonchalant words, wide-eyed. Wanda stood in the frame of her bathroom, toothbrush in one hand, and they all blushed sheepishly, especially the mutant that still had her bedcovers fisted in a hand.
"You're.already awake." He realized aloud, blush burning brighter as he dropped the blankets back onto the bed.
"And already dressed." Pietro pointed out, narrowing his eyes at her in question. "Do you even wear night clothes?"
"That's a secret." She answered smugly, leaning against the frame. "But I can guarantee if I do, their not long hot pink underwear. Merry Christmas, by the way."
"It's fuchsia!" He protested, looking down at the offending garment.
"And they match your fuzzy bunny slippers." Fred pointed out, sending the rest of the room into giggles.
Wanda chortled to herself, shaking her head almost affectionately. "Good. Now get out of my room. I've got to finish getting ready."
*~*~*~
The Scarlet Witch descended the stairs a few minutes later to find her brother, Todd, and Fred milling about the living room thoughtfully. "Did Lance already leave to get the tree?" She questioned, reaching the bottom of the steps.
"Yep, we're just trying to figure out what to do." Pietro answered, both for himself and for the other two in the room.
"Speak for yourself; I gotta go start dinner." Fred spoke up, heading for the kitchen.
"Still pretty nippy in here, huh?" Pietro remarked, tugging down his sweater more. He'd changed out of his ridiculed nightclothes into a pair of tight fitting jeans and a kitted Christmas sweater.
"Well, Lance fixed the heater, but it' below thirty out there." Wanda pointed out, motioning to the window with a nod of her head, then sat down on the couch and wrapping the worn blanket lying on it around her shoulders.
Todd grinned suddenly, hopping past them and towards the front door.
"Where're you going?" Pietro wondered, sitting down next to his twin.
"Gotta check something out," was the simple answer as Toad grabbed his jacket and tossed it on, then headed outside.
Feeling restless, Wanda got up, sauntering into the kitchen. Fred was rummaging through the cabinets, pulling out pots and pans. " Hey Wanda," He greeted her with a smile as she walked in. "What's up?"
"I'm just feeling a little agitated, I guess. I don't want to just sit around and do nothing." She answered, watching him pull out two sacks of potatoes and dump them onto the table. The food shopping they'd done yesterday had mostly been just to make sure they had a lot of food. The rest had, surprisingly, been done before, to make sure that they had enough.
"Yeah, I feel the same way. " He agreed, setting down the potato peeler and a pot onto the table by the vegetables. "Plus it's cool, cuz I get to make dinner. I didn't get to last year." He added regretfully.
"So Pietro told me." She moved closer, leaning against the table and listening to him intently.
"Yeah, of all the times for Mystique to make us go do something," He scowled at the memory, then brightened suddenly. "It could've been worse, though. Todd got us started on singing Christmas songs, and it wasn't all that bad. Maybe it's cuz we were together, and that was all that really mattered in the end."
Wanda nodded thoughtfully. The front door opened with a bang, and they looked over to see Todd, shaking snow off his shoulders, holding a funny- looking broom. thingy, and surprisingly enough, wearing a pair of scuba goggles.
"What's that?" Wanda wondered, looking over the item in his hand.
"Chimney sweeper. Geez, didn't you ever see Mary Poppins? I found it in the shed."
"Why're you wearing swimming goggles?" Fred pointed out.
"Because they bring out the color of my eyes." Todd said sarcastically. "'Cause I'm gonna sweep out the chimney so we can actually use it, and dun wanna get dirt and crap in my eyes."
"Ohhhh." Fred nodded in understanding, then diverted his attention back to the potatoes on the table.
Sweeper tossed over his shoulder, Todd marched into the living room, past Pietro, who blinked at him uncertainly from his position on the couch, then without further ado, scrambled up into the fireplace. The silvery-haired teen looked over at Wanda as she walked in, only raising an eyebrow in question.
"He says he's cleaning it out so we can use it." She answered to the look, flopping back down next to him and listening to the scuffling echoing from the fireplace, then raised an eyebrow as she heard the mutant inside the chimney began humming "Whistle While You Work." "So. uh," Pietro studied her expectantly. "I'm bored; Since he's doing that, you want to go get some firewood."
Her twin wrinkled up his nose. "Manual labor?"
"Get your lazy ass up." She said, pushing him off the couch.
"Heyyyyy!!!" He whined. "That wasn't very nice." He added with a very visible pout.
"Quit being a whiny bitch." The Scarlet Witch held out a hand, which he accepted for her to help him to his feet. "Now let's go get some wood."
"Neh neh nehhhh." Pietro taunted childishly, following her out of the room.
*~*~*~
Several hours later, the Maximoff twins had miraculously managed, after numerous arguments, Pietro whining more, Wanda zapping him repeatedly, both of them attempting to figure out how to use an axe (and thankfully they still had their hands attached), and several bottles of aspirin, to be able to dump a whopping three and a half logs onto the living room floor. By that time, Fred had half of dinner finished, Todd had cleaned out the chimney, taken a shower, gotten dressed and was now sprawled out on the couch, flipping thorough Christmas specials. He watched the brother and sister come in, proudly dumping the meager amount of wood by the fireplace. He look at the "pile", then at them expectantly, then back at it, then up at them again. "Um, is that all?"
"Of course! Do you have any idea how much work was put into these?" Pietro pleaded, eyes almost looking watery.
Todd gazed up at the ceiling thoughtfully, going back to the arguments he'd heard going on between the twins when he's been in the chimney..
"But I don't wanna chop woooood.."
"Too bad, because you are anyway."
"You're a big meanie."
"And you're stupid. Now chop."
"No! You chop!"
"No, you!"
"You!"
"You!"
"It was you're stupid idea!"
"And you need to do something productive, so chop the damned wood!"
"But I don't know how to!"
"Well, neither do I!"
"So why should I do it?!"
"It's simple, all you have to do is hold the damned axe up and bring it down!"
"See? You DO know how to do it! Go at it!"
"Pietro.." The words had been following by a very familiar zap, Pietro squealing in indignation, then the argument continuing.
Todd came back to the present. "Sooo. by work is that how much effort it took to actually get the wood chopped from you guys arguing?"
They both deflated, looking at each other sheepishly.
"Something like that." Pietro admitted.
The awkwardness was broken by the door slamming open, accompanied by Lance calling out. "I'm home! Help me with this thing!"
Fred came out of the kitchen to grab the tree from Lance, bringing it into the designated spot in the living room.
Pietro skeptically studied the tree. It was a nice tree, big and full and. still attached to its roots. He raised an eyebrow, looking Lance in the eye. "Soooo. where'd you get the tree from Lance?"
"Oh. y'know that uh, place down the road. They pull it right out of the ground for you so it's nice and fresh!" He smiled brilliantly, not fooling any of the other Brotherhood members for a moment.
"Uh huhhhhh." The speed demon looked down at the rooted tree, then back up at Avalanche. "So where'd you steal it from, Lance?"
Lance blushed, caught, but then his face broke out into a huge grin. " The Institute." He chucked.
"ALRIGHT!" Everyone chorused, exchanging high five's with him.
"So let's set it up then, alright?" Lance suggested, once the noise had settled down. He walked over to the shrubbery, then blinked suddenly in confusion. "Um. we don't have a stand."
"Figures." Wanda shook her head.
"Hey, we'll just improvise, then!" Freddy said. And so they did. Or made many sad attempts to, including, but not limited to: a towel rack, flower pots of varying sizes, the spare tire from Lance's Jeep, and one of Lance's helmets. They wound up eventually combining the largest flower pot they had, set up in the spare tire to give it a sturdy base.
"There! Perfect!" Todd stood back to marvel at the tree's. ghetto-like goodness. It was the effort that mattered. "Now we get to decorate it!"
A mad scramble was made to get the decorations, while Lance took the radio from his room, set it up in the living room, and tuned it into a local station that played Christmas songs all season long so that they could all sing along to "Holly Jolly Christmas", "Frosty", and other such noise-like things filled with joy.
Somewhere in the middle of the decorating, while the Nutcracker Suite was playing on the radio, Wanda heard something outside and went to the window to investigate. What she saw made her jaw drop and eyes widen in its disturbing-ness.
"What's wrong?" Lance noticed her immobile figure and they all got to the window, staring in silent shock and horror as they witnessed Storm in the yard, Santa hat jauntily atop her head, run back and forth, arms in front of her in a Freakazoid-fashion, making sound effects as she mock-flew, "Whoosh! Whoosh! I control the weather! Feeeeeeaaaar meeeeee!!!!!!!" And for whatever reason, probably something that had to do with large amounts of eggnog that had been consumed, Wolverine was prancing after her in a pink tutu, fairy wand in hand. They made several rounds through the yard before making their merry way off into the woods.
It was some time before the Brotherhood managed to regain their composure. Not that they could find anything to say.
*~*~*~
Whoo, writing at 2:14 in the morning, surviving only on Mountain Dew Code Red and fudge does wonders for the creative mind! O.o Many thanks to my boyfriend Chris, for whom I wouldn't have been able to come up with all the ideas for this with out. Plus he got me the fudge. ^^ I Reeaaaally wanted this to have been out by Christmas, but it didn't work out. Ohhhh well. Next chapter will be the last, I'm hoping to get it out before New Years. More thanks to Joriel, who made the very good suggestion to make Freddy actually have (gasp!) character. Please go read her extremely awesome (but sadly unappreciated) story, devil's Dance! It's under my favorite stories, for all the lazy people. ^^ Puppy ciao!
Reminiscing as I listen to Sailor Moon music and tossing a Wal-Mart plastic bag up into the air repeatedly, Kichara