Title: Eggnog, Mistletoe, & that Certain Holiday Spirit
Author: aces
Rating: G, maybe PG, but I doubt it.
Warnings: You know how some artists draw caricatures? I write 'em. If you don't believe me, I've got a Stargate SG-1/Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy crossover to show you…
Disclaimer: I am not making fun of anyone's religion. This is all very much tongue-in-cheek.
Notes: Sometimes, my brain is so weird it even shocks me. Case in point: the entire mistletoe incident.
Eggnog, Mistletoe, and that Certain Holiday Spirit
"Hey, Claire!" Darien called as he loped into the Keep, "I need a—"
He stopped dead.
"Shot," he finished, and gaped.
"Be right with you, Darien!" a cheerful voice called from behind the partition, and a moment later the Keeper appeared, grinning at Darien. "Hullo, how're you this morning?" she chattered, coming toward him.
"Claire?" Darien's voice was a little higher-pitched than usual.
"Is something wrong, Darien?" Claire frowned.
"What happened in here?"
"Sorry?"
The lab was, to Darien's eyes, practically unrecognizable. There were strings of little white lights strung over tables, cages, walls, even along the computer monitors, along with wreaths and garlands strewn wherever seemed feasible. Bing Crosby quietly crooned "White Christmas" from the corner where the Keep's stereo was placed.
"What happened?!" Darien repeated, shocked.
Claire gave him a look and took his arm, steering him into the chair in the other room for his shot. "Darien," she said, "do try to get into the holiday spirit a little, wouldn't you?"
"But…but…"
Claire poked her head into the refrigerator, shifting its contents around in her search for counteragent. "But what?" she called.
"But it's the Keep! I thought I'd be safe from all that commercialized, sappy crap in here!"
The Keeper turned back to Darien, holding a vial of blue liquid. "Now, Darien," she lectured, striding across the room for a syringe, "is that any way to talk? Christmas is a wonderful time of year, friends, family, loved ones, everyone's nice to each other…"
"People buy crap for other people they know those other people won't want, parents yell at their kids and kids scream at their parents even more than during the rest of the year, and you have to deal with every single bastard trying to cut in line in front of you at the stores. This is a horrible time of year, Keep."
Claire frowned at him. "Scrooge," she said, and injected him with counteragent.
"Ow!" Darien yelped. The Keeper gazed at him coolly. "See what I mean?" he sniped, rubbing his arm.
"Serves you right," she said, turning away to deposit the needle in the waste basket.
Darien slunk out of the room in an attempt to escape unnoticed.
"Darien!" Claire sing-songed from behind him just as he reached the door.
"Yes, Claire?" Darien responded as sweetly as he could, turning around slowly.
She grinned back angelically. "Look up," she said with a small gesture.
Darien rolled his eyes upward without moving his head. There, between his fringe, he could see a piece of mistletoe.
Claire walked up to him. She grinned. He grinned back, weakly. She leant up to give him a soft kiss on his cheek. "Happy Christmas, Darien," she said and stepped back.
"Yeah," said Darien and stepped backward so the door, triggered by his presence, would open. "Uh…same to you."
He fled for the elevator with as much dignity as he could salvage.
He decided to be polite for once and knocked twice on the Official's door, opening it without waiting for a response. He almost smacked right into Eberts, who was standing on a somewhat precarious stepladder just inside the doorway, hanging…a piece of mistletoe.
"Oh!" Eberts said, and wobbled. Darien automatically reached out to steady the ladder. "Mister Fawkes," he went on, composing his voice. "Merry Christmas." He looked up at the mistletoe he'd just stuck to the wall, looked down at Darien again, and flushed. "Oh. Oh dear…"
For an unworthy moment Darien considered tipping the ladder over. Instead he let go of it, sighing heavily. "Just—no," he said. "No. Obviously I woke up in a parallel dimension or something this morning and need to go back home to bed so that I can wake up in my reality again."
"Excuse me, Mister Fawkes?" Eberts sounded very, very confused.
"Eberts," the Official barked from somewhere deep within his office, presumably behind his desk. "Let Agent Fawkes in, if you would be so kind."
"Yessir," Eberts said, and quickly slid off his ladder, moving it out of the way so Darien could enter. He hovered in the way for a moment and Darien frowned at him. Finally Eberts stood on tiptoe and kissed him quickly on the cheek, blushing all the way. He stepped back, averting his face.
Darien blinked. "So a parallel dimension," he said, and stepped into the office.
An instant later, he considered stepping out again and fleeing for his life.
Where Claire had attempted to tastefully stick to white lights and simple wreaths and other decorations, the Official—or, more likely, Eberts—had run riot with strings and strings of multi-colored lights, gaudy and gigantic wreaths with pine cones and cutesy little animals seated in the middle of them, a fake Christmas tree in the back of the room smothered in blue tinsel and purple glass balls, a giant poinsettia sprawling over the center of the large meeting table, and reindeer and Santa Clauses stuck to the windows.
"You have got to be kidding me," said Darien over the softly-crooning and omnipresent Bing Crosby.
"Is there something wrong, Agent Fawkes?" the Official sounded quite pleasant.
"I thought the Keep was bad," Darien didn't directly answer his boss. "This place is a nuthouse!"
"Ahh, the Keeper decorated her lab, did she? Splendid." The Official sat behind his desk (now strung with lights and a band of fake red velvet, a little stuffed Rudolph guarding over his picture of himself with President Kennedy back in the day; the Fish and Game seal behind the desk had been festively strewn with red and green crepe paper), rosy-cheeked and strangely benevolent. "I'll have to go down and check it out later this afternoon. Come in, Darien, have some eggnog."
Eberts, with his always-impeccable timing, turned to Darien with a tray, plastic beige pitcher and large Christmassy Dixie cup in place. There was even a paper napkin.
"I hate eggnog," said Darien.
The Official tsked at him. "Come, come, Agent Fawkes! Where's your sense of holiday spirit?"
"Left behind in another reality," Darien said, and made good his escape.
There was only one place left for him in the building, unless he got truly desperate and went down to the archives. But he was sure he'd be safe there. After all, it wasn't as if Hobbes was exactly going to celebrate Christmas, right?
Darien knocked on Bobby's office door. "Come in!" he heard, and slipped inside.
For a wonderful moment of relief, he thought he was safe. Then he heard "White Christmas." And saw a discreet menorah on a table in the corner.
"Hey, Fawkes," Hobbes said, looking up from the computer on his desk. "Didn't know you were in already. 'Fish want to see us?"
"I can't believe you're listening to this," Darien said, still staring at the menorah.
"What, Crosby? Hey, he's one of the great voices, my friend. Anyway, it's the thought that count, rights? It's all in the spirit of the season, isn't it?"
Darien groaned. "Not you too."
"What?" Bobby frowned.
"Okay," Darien said, flopping into the chair across from Hobbes's. "I can expect all the decorations and holiday tunes and crap like that from department stores and people's homes and even public streets, but in here? With the Official cooking the books, Eberts helping him out, the Keeper doing shady experiments in the basement, and you and me kicking terroritst butt? You gotta be kidding me!"
"Where better for a little of that holiday cheer, huh?" Hobbes retorted. "Good thing you showed up early anyway, kid; office party's in ten minutes."
"Oh no. Ohhhh no. I do not do office parties. Especially not office Christmas parties. I expressly turned to the life of a thief to avoid such things as office Christmas parties. You cannot make me go, Hobbes."
Ten minutes later, Darien was still saying the same thing as his partner hauled him down the hall toward the Official's office. They could already hear laughter and voices singing carols together badly and not in tune before they even reached the door.
"Okay, okay, fine," said Darien and ground himself to a halt. Hobbes paused also, but didn't let go of his arm. "I'll go in," he said. "But—just—oh, screw it."
He threw open the door and leaped across the threshold before anyone could try to drag him into a kiss.
Hobbes followed him more sedately. "What's gotten into you today, partner?" he asked but didn't wait for an answer, as Eberts was still waiting around to pounce on unsuspecting passers-by with eggnog.
"Darien!" Claire cried and slung an arm around his waist, her other hand holding a sloshing cup of eggnog. "Isn't this terribly fun?"
"Uh…yeah," he said and tried to surreptitiously bend down to sniff her eggnog. "Eberts!" he yelled, turning them both around to face the ex-IRS man. "What'd you put in this stuff?"
"Just the usual," Eberts blinked. "Eggs, sugar, milk, cream, vanilla extract, brandy, rum—and just a hint of nutmeg and cinnamon," he added proudly.
Darien groaned. "Gimme some of that," he said and grabbed Claire's Dixie cup, downing what was left.
"Hoi!" Claire squawked.
"Really, Mister Fawkes," Eberts sniffed as he poured another cup and snatched the empty one from Darien to refill it. "If you'd wanted some yourself, you could simply have asked."
"Boys, boys," the Official boomed, sailing up to join them by the door, "no need to fight today, is there? Enjoy yourselves! Eberts, give me some more of that eggnog."
"Yessir," Eberts beamed and refilled the Official's proffered cup.
"Thank you, Eberts," the Official sighed and took a long, deep draught of the drink.
"We should sing!" Claire said brightly.
"Why yes, we should," the Official agreed. "'Joy to the World' perhaps?"
"The Messiah has always been a particular favorite of mine," offered Eberts after a surreptitious nip at his own concoction.
"Hey, we'd better sing 'Dreidl, Dreidl' at some point," Hobbes growled.
"Dashing through the snow," Claire started suddenly, thereby making the discussion moot. "On a one-horse open sleigh…"
Eberts had a surprisingly pleasant tenor, and to show him up Bobby decided to start harmonizing, made a tiny bit harder by the fact that he didn't know all the words. The Official backed him up, though.
Darien looked between them all, shook his head in disbelief, shrugged to himself, downed his eggnog in one go, and joined them at the chorus.