Disclaimer: see some other chapter
Notes: Wow! I got a couple of very thoughtful reviews this time! Responses at bottom.
Please review!
^w^ ^w^ ^w^ ^w^
Holiday
by Nightfall Rising
part seven
^w^ ^w^ ^w^ ^w^
'Fuzzface' was as tall as Zel, at the shoulder. He had red eyes, fangs as long as Zel's palm and bristling black fur, and they called him Fenris to his face. Zelas was a little smaller when she transformed, and Xellos was only the size of a highly-developed regular wolf, but by working in tandem they had the giant showing his neck in four action-charged minutes.
She made a striking canine, a ghostly silver-white with mad green eyes. Xellos was... well, he would have been imposing among regular wolves, but in this kind of company he looked more like a pretty, playful Husky. He had the kind of coat that would let him blend into a tundra almost as easily as a forest, a tail that wouldn't quit, and the feline-slitted lavender eyes gave him a really bizarre fey look. Even more so than usual.
They were all playing with a frisbee Xellos had nosed open the drawer to and whined pathetically at when Val breezed in with a kiss for Zel, a wave for his siblings, a perplexed look at Fenris, and an expletive for the world in general.
"Was church deadly?" Xellos asked sympathetically as soon as he had a mouth instead of a snout again. He appeared to have forgotten about the suit jacket he had been wearing, and was casually resplendent in white shirtsleeves and a sleeveless sweater with a green and grey escher pattern. Zel considered himself very thoughtful for noticing, given the unusual but tasty tailored perfection of his boyfriend. Zelas had changed back, too, but she'd remembered all her clothes.
"Church? Nah. Uncle Ceiphied's good to have on your side. We're in for some rough sailing, though," Val said, slipping an arm around Zel and leaning in for a nuzzle while Xellos closed one eye, made a hook out of a hand, and chuckled, 'Arr."
"What kind?" Zel asked.
Val turned to answer him, stopped, looked, and made a dismayed face. "Zel! You didn't get a sword! And your hair..."
"No, that's right," Zel agreed, unperturbed, as Val tried and failed to primp at him. "I didn't."
"Oh," Val sighed, making a disappointed face at Xellos, which Xellos mirrored right back at him. "Well, we'll have to find you one." Xellos tsked, and started to adjust the fall of Zel's cape, brush lint off his shoulder, and poke at his hair.
"Will you two cut that out?" he asked, annoyed. "I feel like a goat being led out for slaughter." Xellos leaned over and baaed in his ear. "Now, that's a sheep," he said, pointing an accusing finger.
"What you need is a drink," Zelas advised, from her giant furry futon.
"What you need is a coach," Xellos corrected brightly, himself flopping onto one of Fenris's enormous paws.
"I'd be grateful," he said to either or both of them, arranging himself carefully on the couch.
"First things first," Zelas said, not moving to procure any liquid. "How are you fixed for money?"
"Zelly," Val growled.
"Now, now," Xellos tsked, and turned to Zel, explaining, "You wouldn't expect it of a man in Father's comfortable position, but power is our gawd here, and money is certainly its best supporting deity."
Zel took off his money-pouch and peered into it. "I have," he announced, "Two gold, about ten silver, a bunch of coppers, and a couple of coupons for the Mipross Hot Springs and Sauna."
"Can I have the sauna one?" Zelas asked, interested.
But Xellos had clasped his hands together in horror. "Whaaaat?" he exclaimed. "No orihalcon statues with emerald eyes? No deeds to vast silver-mines manned by hundreds of miserable, toiling peasants? No dragon- flesh and esoteric-parts farms?"
"Would you get your mind off food?" Val demanded irritably as Zel rooted through his pouch. "Lunch is in only half an hour, for crying out loud."
Xellos stuck out his tongue briefly, then stuck his thumbs through his belt and rocked back on his heels. "I'm afraid he won't do, Val. Oh, he's a comely boy--"
"Comely?" Zel laughed, startled, handing Zelas the coupon. 'Rugged' was about the best he thought he was entitled to.
"--but probably just another of the vast army of tuppence-ha'penny mercenary barbarians."
"Bar, bar, bar," Zel couldn't resist agreeing.
"Now that is..." Xellos paused, planted his elbows on the back of the white sofa, rested his chin in them thoughtfully as he looked for an alternative to 'barbarian,' and triumphantly finished, "a law student!"
"What about socially, then?" Zelas asked. "With skin like that, you must be some relation to Dynast or Dolphin."
"Nothing there, either, I'm afraid," Zel said cheerfully, "except a crackpot old white healer grandfather who carried the Shard for a while."
The full mazoku looked at each other and winced. "Er... better not bring up the quack," Val cautioned, fingering his horn resentfully. "White magic, after all, and not reliable, you know."
"You really aren't?" Zelas asked, with what would have been disbelieving surprise on a less well-bred young lady. "Not even some lagoon monster or brau demon or something?"
"Brau demon was a component, but it's all artificial, Miss Rubyeye."
"You mean your mother wasn't even a kraken?" Xellos mourned, full of sorrowful disappointment.
"Not even a lake dragon, I'm afraid." he agreed, the corner of his mouth twitching.
"Oh, stop it," Val scowled.
"No, but this is terrible!" Xellos exclaimed in concerned earnest, pushing off the sofa-back for emphasis. "Do you realize, young man, that you're trying to marry into the highest echelons of the Mazoku hierarchy?
"It's a stickler," Zel agreed gravely. "Well, in situations like this, I always ask myself what the Hammer of Justice would do. And then I do the opposite."
Val snerked. "You could always run up the walls," he suggested.
Xellos lit from within. "Can you really run up the walls," he gushed, "can you really? You've got to teach me! I can do anything else. Show us! Oh, it'll be a pity if this doesn't come off," he announced to Val, "a real pity!" After a moment, he added wryly, meaning the demonstration, "It'll be a pity if this doesn't come off, too."
Zel was about to push off the floor when the door rang. This was a surprise, since in his experience it was mostly outside doors that had buzzers, but he was prepared to ignore it and proceed. He was bracing himself again when Val caught his cape. "Hey, but what about the--"
"No!" Val chided. "Zelly, take him away; us guys'll talk to Daddy first."
Zel folded his arms, unimpressed with the phrasing. "And why should I leave? I haven't even shown your brother--"
"Um, 'cuz, you're not supposed to be here yet? You're supposed to get here at one, remember? Zelly will tell you when to come down. And do something about that hair!"
"This is all getting very delicate, if you ask me," Zel grumbled.
"Nobody did ask you, so vanish," Val said firmly, but minimized his offense by biting Zel's tongue in an affectionate manner.
Zelas gagged, wheeled around, and exited, grabbing Zel's cape and a cowed Fenris's ruff on the way out and dragging them with her, bump-bumping down the stairs like Edward Bear and leaving a trail of slightly chipped stairs behind. As they left, Val yelled after them, "Lend him a sword, Zelly!"
***
"So, you like him?" Val asked Xellos a few minutes later, as they meandered down the sweeping staircase.
"Oh, my, oh, my, oh my my my my dearest dear," Xellos gushed. "Val, do you realize a breeze swept into this stuffy old mausoleum with that boy? Don't you let him get away!"
"It's same old, same old, of course," Val noted fatalistically. "It's the money and the power, just like always."
"Don't forget the horn."
"Oh, right, and the horn. But it's mostly the power. I mean, you should see him drool when I flex."
Xellos's mouth pursed minutely as he stared at Val for a moment from between apparently sealed lashes. "...That's always flattering," he concluded finally, with neutrality, and went on with the cynical optimism which Val was more accustomed to receiving from him. "After all, what's all this wealth of accumulation for if not to secure for us a really superior type of mate?"
"Bleah," Val said, disgusted. "I don't usually mind when people are vulgar- -"
"Dread Lord forbid," Xellos agreed dryly.
"--But it's different when you do it, somehow."
"Less scatological, as a general rule," his brother laughed. "No, but seriously. Here we all are, rotting where we sit--this is your chance, Val!"
"I know!" he said happily. "I know Daddy'll agree with me when I've explained it properly. I've just got to show him that Zel has all of Grandfather's qualities."
"...He does?"
Val growled happily.
"...And you want to marry him?"
"You are the most disrespectful little freak I know. Hells, yeah. Ambition, determination, ruthlessness--you don't know how far he's already come."
"Or where he's going," Xellos suggested with a secret smile.
"I do." Val sighed like a hormonal schoolgirl. "I can see it, bright as candles."
"Val," Xellos started, excited, "would you--well, first, if Father says yes, when will you be announcing it?"
"Yesterday," answered Val with admirable promptness.
Xellos pounced, dragging him down to sit on the steps by the vest lapels. "You'll let me give the announcement party, won't you? Let's keep Father's straitlaced ideas out of it. You know I'm good at planning occasions--if he does it, it'll be all black suits with crimson embroidery and enormous holes cut out of them and bits of people on toothpicks, without any imagination--let's have some fun for once!"
"Well... if Daddy doesn't mind."
"Come on, Val, don't be a pompous goody-two-shoes, it doesn't suit you. Don't you see? Just intimate and openhanded, like a hopeful thing should be--just your friends and Zel's. Something in the study with penguins, maybe. We could take them out on the grounds for a hunt afterwards--a scavenger hunt if any of them--the guests, I mean, not the penguins--are human, and if there's anyone Father wants to get rid of it would be a great opportunity! And Zelly could get everyone drunk and we could play strip Twister or some kind of truth-or-dare and get loads of blackmail material, you know Father would love that.. Let me do something for you for once. Please?"
Laughing, Val agreed, "That'd be a hell of a time."
"I mean it, Vally," Xellos said coyly, in the happy voice that his family had learned to fear. "Don't let anybody touch this party, will you? If they do--why, I just won't come, that's all!" He beamed.
Val regarded him affectionately. There weren't many people in the world who could effectively threaten him, and Xellos managed to do it with an admirable panache. Xellos had even managed his way around Gaav, once or twice. He was a truly manipulative little stinker. "I'm really going to miss you," he said, punching his brother lightly in the shoulder, and meant it.
"I don't know what I'll do without you, either," Xellos said, the stubborn malice underneath his cheerful grin turning depressed and his closed eyes screwing up even tighter. "Die. Of stultification, I suspect. I've got to get out. Soon. If I'm not mad yet, I'm getting there post-haste," he muttered, mostly to himself. The grin never wavered, but Val didn't expect it to. "I could curl up and die right now."
Val punched him in the nose. Hard. "Cut it out, you spooky freak," he said calmly.
Xellos casually reset his nose and grinned again without undertones, the pain having restored them both. "Cut what out, Vally-boy?" Val made a retching noise, and Xellos laughed again. "No, don't worry about me, just look out for yourself." He stood up, stretched, and slid the rest of the way downstairs on the elegant, sweeping banister. Val followed suit.
Stopping downstairs at the door to their father's study, Xellos took Val's shoulders in his hands, opened his eyes to meet his brother's gravely, and commanded, "Don't let him bully you."
With great affection and greater force, Val slapped his brother in the face and went in.
^w^ ^w^ ^w^ ^w^
[end part seven]
Ukchana, I'm flattered and honored, but girl, we have to introduce you to some of the *good* writers--if you're interested, since I know it's not exactly your OTP. Xellas and ShoSen, in particular, are good at staying IC. This is a movie fusion, so I'm afraid they're going to be ooc, but when it's over (which may take a while) I'm going to start posting Fill the Gutters With Gold, which is only AU in it's backstory and therefore much, much more IC. There's something I'm curious about, though. You said you didn't see them as gay in the series, but Zel and Gourry are all over each other. I'd certainly agree that they aren't flaming, but then, they have a different culture than we do. Why should they be? Especially given the names Xellos gets called just for being soft-spoken and showing attraction. Ouch. Anyway, you keep up the good work, too. Looking forward to your next chapter! ^_^
Fragile Reflection--I swear, you get up earlier than I do. I'm staring blearily at my email one morning and it dings at me with wonderful ego- bolstering stuff! Sankyuu!
Kaeru Shisho: To your second, thanks for the support. To your first, I know you have; I read some of it when I was an evil ungrateful lurker. You have a lot of imagination and you're a terrific worldbuilder. I'm thrilled that someone's seen the movie! It's soooo good. I like banter... I like Val sometimes, too, but not in this fic. Sorry, he gets no love. ;^P
The Usual Disclaimer: This story is not only based but riveted into the cement of an absolutely marvelous movie called 'Holiday,' starring Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant, played respectively in this fic by Xellos Metallium and Zelgadis Greywhatever. If you haven't seen it (and most of you probably haven't; it's not even as well known as 'Philadelphia Story,' gloom), please, please, make an effort to! This is a black and white movie! It's from the time when movies were about the acting and the scripts, and not about disguising the lack of either with splashy special effects! Go see it, go!
Notes: Wow! I got a couple of very thoughtful reviews this time! Responses at bottom.
Please review!
^w^ ^w^ ^w^ ^w^
Holiday
by Nightfall Rising
part seven
^w^ ^w^ ^w^ ^w^
'Fuzzface' was as tall as Zel, at the shoulder. He had red eyes, fangs as long as Zel's palm and bristling black fur, and they called him Fenris to his face. Zelas was a little smaller when she transformed, and Xellos was only the size of a highly-developed regular wolf, but by working in tandem they had the giant showing his neck in four action-charged minutes.
She made a striking canine, a ghostly silver-white with mad green eyes. Xellos was... well, he would have been imposing among regular wolves, but in this kind of company he looked more like a pretty, playful Husky. He had the kind of coat that would let him blend into a tundra almost as easily as a forest, a tail that wouldn't quit, and the feline-slitted lavender eyes gave him a really bizarre fey look. Even more so than usual.
They were all playing with a frisbee Xellos had nosed open the drawer to and whined pathetically at when Val breezed in with a kiss for Zel, a wave for his siblings, a perplexed look at Fenris, and an expletive for the world in general.
"Was church deadly?" Xellos asked sympathetically as soon as he had a mouth instead of a snout again. He appeared to have forgotten about the suit jacket he had been wearing, and was casually resplendent in white shirtsleeves and a sleeveless sweater with a green and grey escher pattern. Zel considered himself very thoughtful for noticing, given the unusual but tasty tailored perfection of his boyfriend. Zelas had changed back, too, but she'd remembered all her clothes.
"Church? Nah. Uncle Ceiphied's good to have on your side. We're in for some rough sailing, though," Val said, slipping an arm around Zel and leaning in for a nuzzle while Xellos closed one eye, made a hook out of a hand, and chuckled, 'Arr."
"What kind?" Zel asked.
Val turned to answer him, stopped, looked, and made a dismayed face. "Zel! You didn't get a sword! And your hair..."
"No, that's right," Zel agreed, unperturbed, as Val tried and failed to primp at him. "I didn't."
"Oh," Val sighed, making a disappointed face at Xellos, which Xellos mirrored right back at him. "Well, we'll have to find you one." Xellos tsked, and started to adjust the fall of Zel's cape, brush lint off his shoulder, and poke at his hair.
"Will you two cut that out?" he asked, annoyed. "I feel like a goat being led out for slaughter." Xellos leaned over and baaed in his ear. "Now, that's a sheep," he said, pointing an accusing finger.
"What you need is a drink," Zelas advised, from her giant furry futon.
"What you need is a coach," Xellos corrected brightly, himself flopping onto one of Fenris's enormous paws.
"I'd be grateful," he said to either or both of them, arranging himself carefully on the couch.
"First things first," Zelas said, not moving to procure any liquid. "How are you fixed for money?"
"Zelly," Val growled.
"Now, now," Xellos tsked, and turned to Zel, explaining, "You wouldn't expect it of a man in Father's comfortable position, but power is our gawd here, and money is certainly its best supporting deity."
Zel took off his money-pouch and peered into it. "I have," he announced, "Two gold, about ten silver, a bunch of coppers, and a couple of coupons for the Mipross Hot Springs and Sauna."
"Can I have the sauna one?" Zelas asked, interested.
But Xellos had clasped his hands together in horror. "Whaaaat?" he exclaimed. "No orihalcon statues with emerald eyes? No deeds to vast silver-mines manned by hundreds of miserable, toiling peasants? No dragon- flesh and esoteric-parts farms?"
"Would you get your mind off food?" Val demanded irritably as Zel rooted through his pouch. "Lunch is in only half an hour, for crying out loud."
Xellos stuck out his tongue briefly, then stuck his thumbs through his belt and rocked back on his heels. "I'm afraid he won't do, Val. Oh, he's a comely boy--"
"Comely?" Zel laughed, startled, handing Zelas the coupon. 'Rugged' was about the best he thought he was entitled to.
"--but probably just another of the vast army of tuppence-ha'penny mercenary barbarians."
"Bar, bar, bar," Zel couldn't resist agreeing.
"Now that is..." Xellos paused, planted his elbows on the back of the white sofa, rested his chin in them thoughtfully as he looked for an alternative to 'barbarian,' and triumphantly finished, "a law student!"
"What about socially, then?" Zelas asked. "With skin like that, you must be some relation to Dynast or Dolphin."
"Nothing there, either, I'm afraid," Zel said cheerfully, "except a crackpot old white healer grandfather who carried the Shard for a while."
The full mazoku looked at each other and winced. "Er... better not bring up the quack," Val cautioned, fingering his horn resentfully. "White magic, after all, and not reliable, you know."
"You really aren't?" Zelas asked, with what would have been disbelieving surprise on a less well-bred young lady. "Not even some lagoon monster or brau demon or something?"
"Brau demon was a component, but it's all artificial, Miss Rubyeye."
"You mean your mother wasn't even a kraken?" Xellos mourned, full of sorrowful disappointment.
"Not even a lake dragon, I'm afraid." he agreed, the corner of his mouth twitching.
"Oh, stop it," Val scowled.
"No, but this is terrible!" Xellos exclaimed in concerned earnest, pushing off the sofa-back for emphasis. "Do you realize, young man, that you're trying to marry into the highest echelons of the Mazoku hierarchy?
"It's a stickler," Zel agreed gravely. "Well, in situations like this, I always ask myself what the Hammer of Justice would do. And then I do the opposite."
Val snerked. "You could always run up the walls," he suggested.
Xellos lit from within. "Can you really run up the walls," he gushed, "can you really? You've got to teach me! I can do anything else. Show us! Oh, it'll be a pity if this doesn't come off," he announced to Val, "a real pity!" After a moment, he added wryly, meaning the demonstration, "It'll be a pity if this doesn't come off, too."
Zel was about to push off the floor when the door rang. This was a surprise, since in his experience it was mostly outside doors that had buzzers, but he was prepared to ignore it and proceed. He was bracing himself again when Val caught his cape. "Hey, but what about the--"
"No!" Val chided. "Zelly, take him away; us guys'll talk to Daddy first."
Zel folded his arms, unimpressed with the phrasing. "And why should I leave? I haven't even shown your brother--"
"Um, 'cuz, you're not supposed to be here yet? You're supposed to get here at one, remember? Zelly will tell you when to come down. And do something about that hair!"
"This is all getting very delicate, if you ask me," Zel grumbled.
"Nobody did ask you, so vanish," Val said firmly, but minimized his offense by biting Zel's tongue in an affectionate manner.
Zelas gagged, wheeled around, and exited, grabbing Zel's cape and a cowed Fenris's ruff on the way out and dragging them with her, bump-bumping down the stairs like Edward Bear and leaving a trail of slightly chipped stairs behind. As they left, Val yelled after them, "Lend him a sword, Zelly!"
***
"So, you like him?" Val asked Xellos a few minutes later, as they meandered down the sweeping staircase.
"Oh, my, oh, my, oh my my my my dearest dear," Xellos gushed. "Val, do you realize a breeze swept into this stuffy old mausoleum with that boy? Don't you let him get away!"
"It's same old, same old, of course," Val noted fatalistically. "It's the money and the power, just like always."
"Don't forget the horn."
"Oh, right, and the horn. But it's mostly the power. I mean, you should see him drool when I flex."
Xellos's mouth pursed minutely as he stared at Val for a moment from between apparently sealed lashes. "...That's always flattering," he concluded finally, with neutrality, and went on with the cynical optimism which Val was more accustomed to receiving from him. "After all, what's all this wealth of accumulation for if not to secure for us a really superior type of mate?"
"Bleah," Val said, disgusted. "I don't usually mind when people are vulgar- -"
"Dread Lord forbid," Xellos agreed dryly.
"--But it's different when you do it, somehow."
"Less scatological, as a general rule," his brother laughed. "No, but seriously. Here we all are, rotting where we sit--this is your chance, Val!"
"I know!" he said happily. "I know Daddy'll agree with me when I've explained it properly. I've just got to show him that Zel has all of Grandfather's qualities."
"...He does?"
Val growled happily.
"...And you want to marry him?"
"You are the most disrespectful little freak I know. Hells, yeah. Ambition, determination, ruthlessness--you don't know how far he's already come."
"Or where he's going," Xellos suggested with a secret smile.
"I do." Val sighed like a hormonal schoolgirl. "I can see it, bright as candles."
"Val," Xellos started, excited, "would you--well, first, if Father says yes, when will you be announcing it?"
"Yesterday," answered Val with admirable promptness.
Xellos pounced, dragging him down to sit on the steps by the vest lapels. "You'll let me give the announcement party, won't you? Let's keep Father's straitlaced ideas out of it. You know I'm good at planning occasions--if he does it, it'll be all black suits with crimson embroidery and enormous holes cut out of them and bits of people on toothpicks, without any imagination--let's have some fun for once!"
"Well... if Daddy doesn't mind."
"Come on, Val, don't be a pompous goody-two-shoes, it doesn't suit you. Don't you see? Just intimate and openhanded, like a hopeful thing should be--just your friends and Zel's. Something in the study with penguins, maybe. We could take them out on the grounds for a hunt afterwards--a scavenger hunt if any of them--the guests, I mean, not the penguins--are human, and if there's anyone Father wants to get rid of it would be a great opportunity! And Zelly could get everyone drunk and we could play strip Twister or some kind of truth-or-dare and get loads of blackmail material, you know Father would love that.. Let me do something for you for once. Please?"
Laughing, Val agreed, "That'd be a hell of a time."
"I mean it, Vally," Xellos said coyly, in the happy voice that his family had learned to fear. "Don't let anybody touch this party, will you? If they do--why, I just won't come, that's all!" He beamed.
Val regarded him affectionately. There weren't many people in the world who could effectively threaten him, and Xellos managed to do it with an admirable panache. Xellos had even managed his way around Gaav, once or twice. He was a truly manipulative little stinker. "I'm really going to miss you," he said, punching his brother lightly in the shoulder, and meant it.
"I don't know what I'll do without you, either," Xellos said, the stubborn malice underneath his cheerful grin turning depressed and his closed eyes screwing up even tighter. "Die. Of stultification, I suspect. I've got to get out. Soon. If I'm not mad yet, I'm getting there post-haste," he muttered, mostly to himself. The grin never wavered, but Val didn't expect it to. "I could curl up and die right now."
Val punched him in the nose. Hard. "Cut it out, you spooky freak," he said calmly.
Xellos casually reset his nose and grinned again without undertones, the pain having restored them both. "Cut what out, Vally-boy?" Val made a retching noise, and Xellos laughed again. "No, don't worry about me, just look out for yourself." He stood up, stretched, and slid the rest of the way downstairs on the elegant, sweeping banister. Val followed suit.
Stopping downstairs at the door to their father's study, Xellos took Val's shoulders in his hands, opened his eyes to meet his brother's gravely, and commanded, "Don't let him bully you."
With great affection and greater force, Val slapped his brother in the face and went in.
^w^ ^w^ ^w^ ^w^
[end part seven]
Ukchana, I'm flattered and honored, but girl, we have to introduce you to some of the *good* writers--if you're interested, since I know it's not exactly your OTP. Xellas and ShoSen, in particular, are good at staying IC. This is a movie fusion, so I'm afraid they're going to be ooc, but when it's over (which may take a while) I'm going to start posting Fill the Gutters With Gold, which is only AU in it's backstory and therefore much, much more IC. There's something I'm curious about, though. You said you didn't see them as gay in the series, but Zel and Gourry are all over each other. I'd certainly agree that they aren't flaming, but then, they have a different culture than we do. Why should they be? Especially given the names Xellos gets called just for being soft-spoken and showing attraction. Ouch. Anyway, you keep up the good work, too. Looking forward to your next chapter! ^_^
Fragile Reflection--I swear, you get up earlier than I do. I'm staring blearily at my email one morning and it dings at me with wonderful ego- bolstering stuff! Sankyuu!
Kaeru Shisho: To your second, thanks for the support. To your first, I know you have; I read some of it when I was an evil ungrateful lurker. You have a lot of imagination and you're a terrific worldbuilder. I'm thrilled that someone's seen the movie! It's soooo good. I like banter... I like Val sometimes, too, but not in this fic. Sorry, he gets no love. ;^P
The Usual Disclaimer: This story is not only based but riveted into the cement of an absolutely marvelous movie called 'Holiday,' starring Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant, played respectively in this fic by Xellos Metallium and Zelgadis Greywhatever. If you haven't seen it (and most of you probably haven't; it's not even as well known as 'Philadelphia Story,' gloom), please, please, make an effort to! This is a black and white movie! It's from the time when movies were about the acting and the scripts, and not about disguising the lack of either with splashy special effects! Go see it, go!