The 'I Can't Face A Christmas Without A BagEnders Special'
PseudoBagEnders Christmas Special
'The Passage of the Fangirls'
Epilogue
by Bridget and Trojie
Disclaimer; None of the characters herein are ours. The Fellowship, the Twins, Faramir, Eowyn and Eomer all belong to J.R.R. Tolkien. Dave is Lady Alyssa and Random Dent's. The characterisation of the Tolkien characters is from LA and RD's BagEnders, which we are trying to emulate.
Naturally, Dotsie, Sadie, various mangled lines, and general ambience are all either property of the Great Terry or inspired by him.
Anything Shakespearean is not ours. Anything 'Buffy' is not ours either, and we take no responsibility for the erratic programming of the BBC. Charlie Dimmock belongs to herself, as does James Marsters. Only in his case it's a himself.
WARNING: Silly slash hints in this epilogue. Because we couldn't resist. But they're incredibly mild, so if you're an avid non-slasher, don't run away.
xxx
Boxing Day 2004'Frodo, don't you think food parcels are a little extreme? They're only in the police station down the road, not a POW camp.'
'I don't care. They need to keep their strength up.'
'They won't thank you for the sprouts, you know.'
Frodo lifted his chin. 'I shall ask the duty officer to be sure they eat their vegetables,' he said in a determined voice as he stacked packages of turkey, stuffing and all the other accoutrements of a world-record sized Christmas Dinner into his tartan shopping bag.
'I'm going now. I shan't be long.'
'Frodo, it's Boxing Day, they'll be let go. They won't really keep them in any longer, they think they're only ten. And then you can feed them all the leftover turkey you like.'
But it was no use. Frodo had gone.
'If Bob Geldof had had him, then we wouldn't have to worry about all those starving children. Frodo would have found a way to feed them all,' said Aragorn, watching the resolute little Hobbit trundle down the path.
'If Bob Geldof had had him, maybe we wouldn't have been forced to listen to that bloody Band Aid song all Christmas,' said Boromir from the living room, where he had overcome his nose's objection to the Smell and had settled down to watch Buffy with Gandalf. If he plugged his ears with cotton wool then it almost cut out the heavy breathing. It cut out most of the 'witty repartee' too, but since when did any red-blooded male watch Buffy for the dialogue?
The Buffy theme tune had alerted the other members of the household to the prospect of imminent sweaty-fighting-women, and opportunities for ripped shirts, and all save the elven members crowded into the living room for a bit of 'quality viewing'. The absence of Frodo meant that they could enjoy Boxing Day the way the Valar intended, via blobbing and watching television, rather than out in the freezing sleet and gale force winds going for a 'nice healthy walk.' It had been unanimously decided that, for this reason alone, Merry and Pippin would be entirely forgiven for all transgressions pertaining to handcuffs, bed-sheets and the feisty captain of the USS Voyager.
xxx
Legolas sat at the top of the stairs, staring gloomily at nothing in particular. This was not an uncommon pose for the Elf, especially at Christmas. There was something about the sparkliness and the good cheer that gave him intense and inexplicable urges to go rummaging through Aragorn's old chests of extremely pointy things in the loft, and put them to the uses they were originally intended for. Well, mostly. In the case of, for example, Gandalf, he was willing to exercise a little creativity.
Voices came through from the airing cupboard and punctuated his gloom.
'Dude, what's that, like, vibe?'
'Dunno. It's like, totally evil though.'
'Makes you want to hurt people.'
'…With forks, I think.'
'No, like, blunter than that.'
'Paperclips?'
The prince of Mirkwood ignored the inane babble, and banged his head against the banister. He'd seen depressed people doing things like that on the dread box in the living room. Maybe the repeated thumping was supposed to dislodge all of the negative emotions?
'Can you hear that?'
'That, like, repetitive banging noise?'
'Yeah.'
'Like, yeah.'
'Are the little dudes home yet?'
The airing cupboard door opened a crack.
'It's Mirkydude!'
'Mirkydude! Like, what's wrong?'
Legolas tried to remember what the big spiky ball of metal on a chain was called, and mentally thanked himself for not forcing Aragorn to throw it away when they last moved house. He made a move to get up, but the Twins took an elbow each, and dragged him into the airing cupboard.
Once safely ensconced within its foetid walls, the Twins took it upon themselves to discover the problem with Legolas, and try to cheer him up. All attempts, however, met with sullen silence and carefully folded arms, until Elladan, giving up for the time being, asked;
'What was that, like, shouting about?'
'Yeah, like, just before you came upstairs?'
Legolas tightened his grip on his own elbows, and remained resolutely silent. The reason for the shouting (and cackling, sniggering and general excitement) was a secret he was determined to take to his grave, should he ever succeed in terminally escaping the Fellowship.
'What, and I realise I may regret asking this, are the pair of you doing in the airing cupboard?' he asked, in a futile attempt to change the subject. The Twins looked shifty, but were saved from answering by the sudden patter of footsteps and crashing of the fridge door that heralded the return of the Hobbits.
'Elladan! Elrohir!' came Frodo's voice from the bottom of the stairs. He didn't sound at all happy, and Elrohir, in a desperate effort to escape the wrath of the Hobbit, forcibly kicked his brother out of the cupboard and burrowed under a pile of towels.
Legolas raised an eyebrow.
'Aren't you supposed to be noble and honourable?'
A squeak from the quivering towel heap indicated that honour was not an issue in the face of an irate Frodo. The Twins had long ago learned that, in such a situation, the best course of action was to run away, or, failing that, sacrifice one Twin in order that the other might live to see another sunrise.
'You're going to abandon him to torment and death in the hands of a cantankerous Hobbit?'
Elrohir popped his head out from the towels.
'Dude! At least this way I'll be around to nurse him back to health!'
The almost total lack of American affectations was a clear indicator of the Elf's terror.
'You don't even know what you're supposed to have done.'
'Doesn't matter. He'll do The Face.'
'The Face?'
Elrohir seemed disinclined to elaborate, so Legolas dragged him out of the airing cupboard by his ankle.
'Dude! Have mercy!' The shrieks were mirrored by the faint sounds of Elladan's suffering downstairs. But Legolas wasn't feeling particularly charitable today. The return of the Hobbits, combined with the derisive snorts and badly suppressed laughter that had followed him out of the living room, had put him in a distinctly bad mood, and seeing Frodo being angry at someone else would probably cheer him up.
As Elrohir's head banged on every step on the way down to the kitchen, Legolas muttered to himself under his breath.
' . . . wish I could live in a crypt . . . away from Twins . . . ooh . . . leather coat . . .'
For the sake of coherence, it should be pointed out that one reason Legolas tended not to watch Buffy with the other members of the household was because the subject of his amorous remarks rather differed from that of the rest of the Fellowship. It is entirely possible that he should have, with hindsight, realised that telling a roomful of people including Boromir and Gandalf that he had a yen for a very blond, very male vampire was about the worst idea he'd had since going on the bloody Quest in the first place.
Sighing, the blond Elf decided to deliver Elrohir to Frodo personally, out of a combination of curiosity and desire to see exactly which of Frodo's many patented Disapproving Faces it was that the Twins feared so much.
xxx
'Ah, Elrohir, good of you to join us.'
The Elf in question made a small noise, not unlike a cornered rodent, and joined his brother at the kitchen table. Frodo got straight to business.
'I saw something very interesting when I went to pick up Merry and Pippin.' It was a mark of how much power The Face (for the curious, it was No. 3.5: Severe Disapproval with a Tinge of Disappointment) had over the Twins that they didn't try to guess at what interesting thing Frodo had seen, and so he continued.
'It was on a bus stop. Someone had been writing graffiti on it.'
'Isn't that what people normally do with bus stops?' asked Legolas.
'Funnily enough, no,' said Frodo, his arms folding in a menacing fashion. 'Normal people wait for buses in bus stops. Notice I say "people", Elladan, Elrohir.'
The Twins didn't meet his eyes.
'As in human people,' the Hobbit continued.
'What about Gimli, he's not human.'
'He's a statistical error. That's not the point.'
'What is the point?' Legolas asked, as the Twins subtly tried to slide under the table.
'Have you seen the bus stop recently? Go and have a look.'
Looking bemused, Legolas exited. Frodo took advantage of the opportunity to make a cup of tea, and as he sat down with a ginger biscuit, the Elf returned, looking no less confused. He opened his mouth to berate the Twins, but closed it again as a vague memory came back to him. On the way back from the pub on Christmas Eve, the Twins had joined them. The details of the return journey were hazy, but he seemed to remember singing a song about the Knights of the Round Table . . . and . . . sequined vests? Hmm. Maybe memory loss was a good thing.
'Well?'
'It must have been them, no one else knows how to speak Elvish,' Legolas declared. Because he was feeling vindictive, however, he added, 'Or maybe it was Aragorn.'
'Dude, that's right!'
'Yeah, it was, like, Aragorn!'
'Not us at all!'
'We're innocent!'
Frodo looked at them suspiciously. 'Why would Aragorn write that on a bus shelter?'
'He was drunk?'
'That wouldn't surprise me, but really, orcs don't even exist any more.'
The kitchen door opened. It was the Ranger in question, looking hopeful.
'Did someone say orcs? Have they managed to clone them from dead insects yet?'
'We were just having a little talk about the bus shelter up the street. Sit down.'
'Um, well, we were going to watch Star Trek actually…'
'That wasn't a question. Sit!'
Aragorn sat, looking just as scared as the Twins. Legolas leaned back against the doorframe to enjoy the show, an annoyingly superior smirk plastered across his face. It was incredible, he thought, the level of terrified obedience engendered by a deranged Hobbit.
Frodo began. 'Can everyone here who speaks Quenya put their hands up please?'
Aragorn, the Twins, Legolas and Frodo himself all put their hands up. Frodo glared round the room.
'Now. I didn't do it. Legolas didn't do it, because . . . wait a minute.' Frodo subjected Legolas to a Face. But before he managed to even start another sentence, perhaps demanding an alibi of some sort, Legolas was gone.
xxx
Aragorn raised a tentative hand. 'Um, what exactly did we do?'
'Defaced public property! Every time, every time I think we're starting to fit into this neighbourhood, one of you ruins it!'
'Dude, like, he's talking about some graffiti in a bus shelter-' Elladan whispered to Aragorn.
'Silence!' barked Frodo, whose grip on sanity really was loosening now. 'And do you know the worst part?' he continued ominously.
'No?' said Aragorn and the Twins in chorus.
'The grammar!'
Aragorn decided that this had gone far enough. He too recalled some singing on the way home from the pub on Christmas Eve, and had suspicious blank spots in his memory, but this did not, he decided, amount to definitive guilt on whatever Frodo was charging them with. And when all was said and done, he was Aragorn, son of Arathorn, King of Gondor and Arnor, and Frodo was naught but a lowly Hobbit, bigods! This was not to be borne!
'Take us to this graffiti!' he declaimed, making a grand gesture. Frodo looked up at him mulishly.
'Fine. Get your coat.'
'Gondor has no coat. Gondor needs no-'
'Yes Gondor bloody well does. It's hanging on the peg. And you two will have to borrow whichever ones you can find.'
'Like, we brought coats.'
'You brought coats, but, to take an example at random, no underwear?'
'Like, we brought underwear.'
'We're wearing it.'
'Yeah, like, you only need one pair-'
'And you turn it inside out every second day-'
'And then you can put a coat in the space that the unnecessary extra underwear isn't taking up!'
'It's a completely brilliant plan!'
'Elladan, Elrohir, you need more than one pair of underpants.'
'Do not.'
'Do so.'
'Do not.'
'Do- oh, for Varda's sake! When we get back you're to borrow some of Legolas's underwear while I wash yours, understood?'
'Like, Mirkwood Dude won't like us wearing his pants-'
'Frodo, I can't find my coat!' shouted Aragorn from the hallway.
'It should be on the peg!'
'It's not!'
'Have you tried the cupboard under the stairs?'
'No . . .'
There were muffled sounds of clanking and banging, and then swearing, less muffled because of the volume of it, and finally;
'Found it!'
'Good.'
Frodo herded the Twins down the hallway, out of the door and into the street, collecting Aragorn from the understairs cupboard on the way. They proceeded down the street towards the bus-stop.
The Twins were the first to spot the offending sentence. The started sniggering quietly to themselves. Then Aragorn saw it, and had to hide his grin by pulling the hood of his coat right down over his face. It was only when Frodo had to push him out of the way of a street-light that he decided to sacrifice levity for vision, and bit the inside of his lip to keep from grinning, as Frodo marched them up to the bus shelter and pointed violently at the graffiti.
'Gwaith estennin Yrch badir i adab,' said Frodo in a voice as cold as the sleet that howled around them. 'Would anyone care to hazard a rough translation? Elrohir?' The name was used as if it were a weapon. Elrohir, all sniggering forgotten, gulped.
'Um, like, 'People called Orcs . . .'
'Yes?'
' . . . they . . . go . . . the house?'
xxx
'All right,' said Legolas, coming through into the living room after his hurried retreat from the kitchen. 'Who let the Twins watch Monty Python?'
'Wasnae me,' said Pippin through a mouthful of lasagne sandwich. 'Ah wis in pris'n, remember?' He glared at Legolas. The Elf decided that this was not the time to bring up the fine distinction between 'prison', and 'the cells at the local cop-shop', and instead moved on to the next person in line for questioning.
'Gandalf? Was it you?'
'Feck off!'
'He's been watching Buffy re-runs all week,' said Faramir, who still had his eyes glued to the screen. 'Wasn't him.'
'If he's been watching Buffy all week, then how did the Twins manage to see Monty Python?' asked Boromir, for once the voice of almost-reason (readers take note - this may never happen again).
'Must have snuck in while he was asleep,' reasoned Legolas. He also had vague memories of stopping off at an all-night video shop on the way back from the pub, but pushed away any feelings of guilt. He hadn't done the actual writing, and the spiked fruit juice ought to exonerate him of all blame, anyway.
'Anyway, how d'you know the Twins've bin watching Monty Python?' asked Merry.
'Gwaith estennin Yrch badir i adab,' intoned Legolas solemnly.
Merry, Pippin, Sam, Eomer and the two sons of the Steward regarded him blankly. Gandalf cackled. Then Legolas remembered that all the Quenya-speaking members of the household (with the exception of Gandalf, naturally) were in fact out looking at the graffiti.
'Never mind,' he said, and went to sit despondently at the top of the stairs again, as the current Buffy episode was one of the many in which James Marsters took his shirt off, and he just couldn't face any more catcalls.
Faramir was moving his lips silently, trying to work something out.
'What is it?' asked Boromir, curious.
'Sshh. Almost got it . . . something about orcs? And a house?'
'That's ridiculous. Orcs don't live in houses.'
'Maybe they were burning it. That sounds like orcs.'
'But still, there aren't any orcs left any more.'
'Shut up! Buffy's on again!'
The brief period of cogitation afforded by Legolas's interruption had officially ended.
The rest of Buffy passed without incident, unless you count the occasional sniggering erupting from Gandalf and Boromir at random intervals. Star Trek was next, and everyone present was looking forward to scantily clad ladies with plastic foreheads in very tight suits. Unfortunately, no one had bothered to check the TV guide and see what havoc the BBC had decided to wreak on the Christmas scheduling, and instead of exotic alien beauties, the screen was suddenly filled with Charlie Dimmock.
There was only one appreciative murmur, and several cushions immediately flew in the direction of Sam's head.
It could have been worse. It could have been snooker. But Sam was fastest, and several bodies, most of them bigger than him, piled on top of him in an attempt to wrestle the remote from his surprisingly firm grip. Through the assorted thumps, clunks, groans and yelps a few of Ms Dimmock's words could be heard.
'… Charity garden … Children in Africa … Lots of volunteers … Then the turnips … And I'm going to be doing a lovely water feature.'
That was enough to gain Sam a brief respite, as all heads turned in the desperate hope that a charity volunteer with a sense of humour would attempt to instigate a wet T-shirt competition.
The living room was filled with shocked silence. The lovely unrestrained breasts were in the foreground, but, trundling a wheelbarrow along in the corner of the screen, a look of utter bliss on his face, was . . . Sam?
'What?' he protested to the accusing glares. 'I do have a life outside these walls, you know.'
'But you're on telly!'
'That's no' fair! We got arrested and we didnae get on telly!'
'If everyone who ever got arrested got on telly, there'd be no time left for Buffy.'
'But t'coppers think we're ten! That's got to be newsworthy.'
'More to the point, there's no Star Trek because he's on telly,' Eomer remarked, putting his finger on the crux of the problem. There was a definite change in the atmosphere of the room at that point, and the glares in Sam's direction suddenly all held a hint of menace.
'It's not my fault! I'm not in charge of scheduling at the BBC!'
'S'your fault the programme's fit to be aired at this time o' day.'
'What, so I should have instigated a bloodbath so they wouldn't show it before 9 o'clock?'
'No. You should've told us what you was up to, and we'd've come and . . . helped out.'
'You mean you'd've made perverted comments and tried to pull Charlie Dimmock's trousers down?'
'Give us some credit, we've got more subtlety than that.'
'Subtlety, is that what you call it? Most people call it assault!'
'Oh, you want to try assault, do you?'
'No! I want you to go away!'
It was a shame for Merry and Pippin that they chose to attack Sam at that moment, as it meant they weren't watching the screen, and so didn't see that Sam really did care about them after all. As Charlie Dimmock leant over her partially constructed water feature, Sam-on-the-telly snuck up behind her with a hose pipe. An increase in heavy breathing alerted the Hobbits, but they were too late. By the time they disentangled themselves, she was already wrapped in a towel.
Merry took this as reasonable grounds to continue the assault.
xxx
'Dave?'
'Like, Daaaave?'
The Twins had discovered that Dave was missing, and were instigating a search, which largely consisted of wandering the hallway, shouting his name and rattling the Paxman food dish, which no-one had got round to getting rid of yet.
'Shut up!'
'Go away!'
'He's not here!'
'Dude, what if he's upstairs?'
'We left the lembas up there!'
In a rare display of co-ordination, Paxman dish forgotten, the Twins raced up to the loft.
'Dave!'
'Dave, are you up there?'
'Hunh?' Dave's head appeared, upside down, through the hatch of the loft. Elladan and Elrohir climbed up to join him, with Elrohir deftly catching him as his grip and concentration gave out simultaneously.
He was still wearing Pippin's shorts and the Jim Morrison t-shirt, and appeared to be still conscious, which meant he probably hadn't found the special lembas yet.
'Dude, like, what are we going to do with him?'
'Well we're still, like, in the planning stages, so he'd better stay.'
'Right. Dave?' Elladan tried to attract the human's attention. 'Should we, like, let Hobbit-dudes in on the plan?'
'No. Frodo-dude might not let us.'
'Mirkydude definitely won't.'
'But it'd get us out of the house! And he, like, likes that! When we're gone.'
'No, we have to wait. We don't even have a place yet.'
'A fireproof one.'
'I don't think Gondor-dude has enough stuff left in the tin.'
'Like, that's for waterproofing things. Fire-proofing would be different.'
'Oh.'
xxx
Legolas was still sitting on the steps when Aragorn came up quietly and sat down next to him. The silence endured for a while, then;
'Aren't you missing Star Trek?'
'Doesn't matter. Weren't any trees anyway.' An awkward pause, then: 'So. James Marsters . . .'
'Look, Aragorn, just go away.'
'Sorry. I'm not trying to take the piss, I'm just . . .' Aragorn sighed. 'Christmas really isn't your time of year, is it?'
Legolas scowled. 'It's the . . . the festivity. It really gets me down.'
'I know.'
More silence. Neither Aragorn nor Legolas was making eye-contact; Aragorn was staring fixedly at the ceiling, and Legolas had apparently found something fascinating in the weave of the carpet that was taking up all his attention.
Legolas felt a hand on his shoulder, and looked across at Aragorn, who had an awkward expression on his face.
'What?' said Legolas, suddenly feeling inexplicably tongue-tied.
Aragorn coughed nervously, then said, 'Um, you know, James Marsters really isn't that bad . . .'
Legolas stared at him in disbelief.
'. . . when you think about it. I think it's the blond hair . . .'
Aragorn's hand inexpertly caressed the strands of blond hair that overlaid Legolas's shoulder, in what he thought was a soothing yet saucy manner.
'Aragorn, what are you doing?'
'Trying to make you feel better?'
'It feels like you're trying to brush cat hairs off me.' Aragorn stopped, and sighed.
'Actually, I think it's the low-grade nastiness delivered in a sarcastic English accent.'
'You're trying to make me feel better by pretending to fancy someone off the telly, and I'm supposed to appreciate it?' Legolas thumped his head on the banister again, just for good measure, but it still wasn't doing any good.
'How about we go away somewhere next Christmas?' Aragorn suggested. 'Just you and me, somewhere hot.'
'They'd find a way to ruin it. They always do.'
'Who? The Hobbits?'
'The Twins. It's like they've got some sort of radar that senses when people really want them to be elsewhere, but they're confusing the signals.'
'I expect Elrond taught them that. He loves messing with people's heads.'
'Bastard.'
They settled into another gloomy silence. Legolas gradually became aware that Aragorn had resumed stroking his shoulder.
'Aragorn?'
'Hmmm?' Aragorn appeared to be rather engrossed in the wayward strands of blond.
'Well I think we'd better move this off the stairs, in any case.'
xxx
'Right. I've had enough o' this.'
'Of what?'
'You and those bloody things on your head.'
'S'no' my fault the Twins thought Ah wis a dolly an' did me hair.'
'Yes, but every time you turn your head suddenly they smack me in t'face.'
'Well you shouldnae sit so close.'
'Pippin, you are sittin' on my knee.'
'S'comfortable.'
'Not for me.'
'You never complained before when Ah sat on your knee.'
'You never had rats' tails comin' out your head before.'
'Ah'm gettin' used to them. Think Ah might keep 'em.' Pippin tossed his head in what he mistakenly believed to be a seductive and glamorous fashion, and one of the dreadlocks hit Merry in the eye. Merry stood up, one eye screwed shut, and grabbed Pippin round the back of the ear as he tumbled to the floor.
'What're you doin'? Let go o' me!'
'Those things are comin' off. Now!'
'But we tried the scissors! Nothing works!'
'Gimli keeps a blowtorch in the cupboard under the sink.'
'What!'
'If we can't cut 'em off, we'll burn 'em off.'
'Did you no' learn anything from Aragorn and the chainsaw?'
'That was different. This time I get to be the maniac.'
Pippin struggled wildly but in vain. Merry dragged him in the direction of the kitchen, ignoring all protests.
They entered the kitchen slowly, mostly because Pippin had assumed the starfish position in the doorway, and Merry, heavy though he was, was struggling to shift him. The tussle meant that neither of them noticed Frodo until they had fallen into the kitchen and rolled to a halt at his feet. He looked down at them and smiled evilly.
'Ah, Merry, Pippin. Just the Hobbits I wanted a word with.'
He pointed at the table. They sat, vaguely alarmed, and surveyed the assorted items spread before them. A shirt, covered in red handprints. A Polaroid photo of the Hobbits' bedroom, in which thankfully few details could be made out but a red and sticky theme was clearly apparent. A spoon. Two empty jars.
Merry gulped.
'We'd better humour him. You know how close he is to losing his marbles again,' Pippin whispered. Merry nodded mutely, and prepared for the worst as Frodo sat down, a look of terminal insanity plastered across his face.
'Shall we have a little discussion about jam?'
xxx
EpiepilogueIn a cop-shop not very far away…
'But if they're only ten years old why can't we find any school records?'
'I don't know, Dotsie, but the fact of the matter is that their birth certificates clearly show that they were born in 1994, and as such we can't hold them any longer!'
'But the gentleman who came to pick them up didn't seem that much older than them . . .'
Sadie frowned. 'I know. There's something fishy going on in that house . . .'
Fin. For now.
Trojie's A/N: Well that was a riotous Christmas. We've decided we've had so much fun writing this (even if it did mean that we (read; Bridget) lost vast quantities of sleep due to having a time-zone barrier to overcome) that we're going to write more. This is just too much fun to stop doing.
Bridget's A/N: She's right. She's got me hooked now. I take no responsibility, it's all Trojie's fault. Well, hers and the lack of sleep's.
