12:30 P.M – Gallows' House
"What do you think of this coffee, Jet?" Virginia asked him, taking a sip of her own.
"It's okay I guess, but I liked the thirty-seventh one more."
Virginia had looked around the house for something to do, and found Halle's amazingly large collection of coffee beans from all over Filgaia. Currently they were on their fifty-second.
"Uh, Virginia, isn't it bad if we drink this much coffee?" Jet said anxiously. His stomach felt strange and his tongue tasted as though there was a layer of coffee beans attached to his it.
"I don't think it is… Well, one thing that'll happen is we'll be up all night after this!" she laughed. "Oh well, we're probably gonna party all night anyway. Should I go make another blend?"
Jet looked at his empty cup, which had already been filled with fifty-two cups of coffee. "…No, I think we should do something else instead of drinking so much coffee."
"Yeah, you're right. How about I check on that wound now? It's probably healed properly, and we'll be able to go outside and join everyone."
Virginia got up from her seat and crouched next to Jet. He removed one arm from his jacket to give Virginia a full view.
"It's looking much better now. I think we should be okay if we go outside. Just don't push yourself, and it should be fine."
"Yeah, whatever."
Jet put his jacket back on, then the two left the house to join the crowds that had returned to the Colony after the end of the festival. The Colony square had become a mass choir of a sort, many people singing their lungs out, and many others joining in.
"It's pretty loud out here." Jet said to Virginia.
"What?" Virginia couldn't hear him.
"I said it's pretty loud here!"
"Huh?"
"IT'S LOUD OUT HERE!"
"I can't hear you, it's too loud out here!"
"I SAID I-" A loud chime coming from the square cut him off.
"Ladies and gentlemen!" a man said with a megaphone. They looked closer and realized in surprise that it was Clive. "I would like to announce that I came here with this lovely woman, Catherine, and my daughter, Kaitlyn, to celebrate not only our Christmas, but our wedding anniversary. And now, Catherine," Clive had put down the megaphone and called Catherine on the platform. She was shy at first, but the crowd's cheers had got her on.
"Wonder what Clive's up to?" Jet murmured, but Virginia wasn't listening, she was watching the square with intent.
"Catherine, we've been married for many years, and every year has just been wonderful. You always stood by me, and you've always supported me."
"Oh, Clive." Catherine said happily.
"I would like to announce that Catherine and I will be renewing our vows today, and we'd like everyone to celebrate with us! I've been treated well whenever I visit here, so I consider all of you as friends!"
The crowd cheered in agreement, and soon the square had turned into a small ceremony area. Chairs had been set up, and Halle was set to run the show. Soon crowds filled the seats, and people even stood around behind the seats.
"Wow, this is so romantic!" Virginia said in delight.
"It is?" Jet said in confusion.
"Of course it is! Every girl dreams of getting married! And having someone who'll do things like renew vows and remember anniversaries is even better!" she sighed. "I hope I can be the girl up there someday."
Jet scratched his head in thought, but gave up as the ceremony began.
1:25 P.M – Baskar Colony
And so, after the eventless ceremony, Clive and Catherine kissed, the crowd cheered, and Gallows drank himself stupid.
"So, that was a wedding?" Jet asked.
"Yep."
"…I don't get it. What's so special about it?"
"It's what you do when two people… how do I put this…" Virginia thought for a moment, then hit her fist into her hand. "It's when you want to tell someone you want to be with them for the rest of your life."
"Oh…" Jet thought deeply about this. He was interrupted by a drunk Gallows.
"Hey… You! Hic! This guy right here, he's like… like a… mother to me! Hic!" Gallows was intoxicated beyond belief, throwing his arms around Jet.
"Ugh, get off me, you smell bad." Jet sneered, shoving Gallows away.
"Aw come on, Ma. You're so nice to my cousin, Virana here!" Gallows had then made to grab on Virginia, but was stopped when Jet booted him away.
"Dammit, go drink some water or something!" Jet said in annoyance.
"Ugh… Ma… Hic!" Gallows passed out on the floor.
"How are you guys?" Clive had appeared behind them with Catherine.
"Hey you two! Congratulations!" Virginia said happily.
Catherine hugged herself onto Clive's side. "Clive can be such a sweetie when he tries!"
Kaitlyn and Karen were behind them, wearing ceremonial dresses. They had been asked to play the flower girls.
"Jet! Don't I look nice in my dress!" Kaitlyn squealed, running up to Jet.
"Uh, yeah." Jet said, trying not to sound offensive.
"What about Karen, doesn't she look good?" Jet looked over at Karen, and had to admit she looked really good. Karen was hard to see though, since she was hiding behind Clive.
"Yeah. You both look nice." Jet said.
"Heehee!" Kaitlyn said happily. "Come on over here, Karen, I told you Jet would say you look nice!"
Karen blushed madly, and started to walk off. "Eh? Karen, wait for me!" Kaitlyn yelled, following her.
"Okay…" Jet said bemused.
"Are you two going to take part in the after-wedding ceremony?" Clive asked Jet and Virginia.
"What's that?" Virginia asked in excitement.
"Well, in Claiborne, we have a tradition. First, the bride throws a bouquet of flowers while turning her back, and all the girls try to catch it. Whoever catches it is said to be the next to marry."
"Ooh! I definitely wanna try that!" Virginia squealed.
"And the second one is for the guys. I throw a specially designed bomb, made by me of course, into the air, which is designed to home in on one of the women. The men have to try and shoot it before it hits her. However the rule is you can only shoot for it if you care about her."
"…That's a strange sounding tradition." Jet said. "What happens if nobody cares about the girl?"
Clive stood in silence for a moment. "Well, it hasn't happened yet. So…" Clive shrugged. "You guys going to try?"
"Of course!" Virginia said. "Right Jet?"
'Oh man, she did it again.' Jet thought to himself. "Yeah, whatever."
"Great, it's starting now, so go join the groups!" Clive and Catherine headed back for the platform, and Jet and Virginia joined the groups of men and women.
"Ready?" Catherine called, her back to the ground of single, excited women. She tipped forward, and then threw the bouquet high into the air. The women looked up in anticipation, trying their best to find the best position to catch it.
"I've got it!" a lady screamed. The bouquet hurtled down to her, but at the last moment, another woman pushed into her, dazing the two of them. The bouquet effortlessly bounced off them, somehow rising into the air again. As it began to fall for the second time, the group of brides-to-be charged in, pushing and shoving.
"It's mine!"
"Get outta here, you old hag!"
"Old hag? Why you!"
The women eventually forgot about the bouquet, instead more interested in breaking each other's noses. Virginia however stood just outside the group, watching with a bewildered look on her face.
"Eh, I think I'll just forget about the bouquet, if I go in there I could hurt myself…" she said to herself. She was about to walk away, but saw the bouquet reach the crowd. In all the commotion, nobody paid it any mind, and it toppled over everyone's head, right into Virginia's hands.
"Wow, I got it! Yay!" Virginia said happily as the bystanders applauded. The crowds of angry women turned to her, finally ending their silly quarrel and clapping with everyone else.
"Congratulations Virginia! Great effort, even if it almost seemed as though you put no effort at all." Clive joked. "Well, time for the guys!"
Clive got up on stage, and Catherine joined the crowd. "Well, I've explained to everyone where they must stand, and what's going to happen. All you men get ready to shoot!"
The men hollered, raising their ARMs in the air. Even Jet did so, although it was half-hearted, with a faint 'yeah' and an uninterested look.
"Ready?" Clive took a bomb out of his coat, similar to the ones he always took out of his coat, except it was covered in gadgets and gizmos. "Go!"
He tossed the bomb in the air, and everyone watched, their ARMs aimed at it. As it began to fall, the men began to concentrate more, waiting to see where it would land. As it became more obvious as to who wouldn't be hit, some of them had already begun to lower their ARMs. Jet had actually lowered his ARM at the very beginning, even while the bomb was heading up.
"It's almost there…" one of the guys said. Only two men had their ARMS up, and soon one of them put it down. Jet looked up and saw that the final guy put his gun down as well.
"Heh, whoever's going to get hit by that sure is screwed." He smirked. Then he saw who it was going to hit. "…Uh oh."
It became clear who the bomb was going to hit, but no one showed signs of shooting it. Suddenly, a single bullet echoed across the crowd, destroying the bomb and saving the girl, who just happened to be Virginia.
Everybody's head turned to where the shot originated from, and there stood a shaken, sweaty Jet, overcome with anxiety of making the shot at first, and now embarrassment with all eyes on him.
"Wow, what a timely shot!" someone in the crowd said
"Not bad, not bad!" another voice said.
"Well, what are you waiting for?" someone next to Jet said, pushing him towards the center. "You gotta end the ceremony!"
"I gotta do what now?" Clive had only told Jet they had to shoot the bomb. He had no clue what everyone was talking about.
"Silly! Whoever shoots the bomb has to prove he cared for the girl by kissing her!"
Jet was now standing at the empty space in the middle with Virginia, the other women joining the circle that had formed around them. He saw Clive standing by the sidelines, and ran up to him.
"C-Clive! What's going on?"
"I uh…Guess I left a small, itty bitty detail about the ceremony." He said cautiously, twiddling his thumbs.
"You call this a small detail?! This is a HUGE detail!" Jet was becoming hysterical.
"Calm down Jet, just do it and get it over with." Clive tried to comfort him. "Besides, the crowds are getting restless, you wouldn't want to disappoint them."
Jet grumbled something incoherently, then, walking almost like a robot, he made his way up to Virginia.
"Um…Hey, Jet!" Virginia said shyly.
"Hey…Uh…" Jet replied.
From the way Virginia looked, she also hadn't seen this coming, and was feeling flustered.
"I guess we should just do this and get it out of the way." Jet replied. "I mean, they probably won't let us go if we don't."
"Yeah, I guess you're right. It just feels weird having everyone watch us."
"I know what you mean. Just try and ignore 'em."
Just then, a group of people was pushing their way through the crowd.
"Hey, shove over! I wanna see!" a familiar bellow called out.
"Move it or lose it, creep!" a pushy female voice said.
Jet and Virginia looked to see that Gallows and Iris, along with Karen and Kaitlyn, had taken a place at the front of the crowd.
"Dayum! Kaitlyn was serious! Hey, punk, pucker up! HAHAHAHA!" Gallows cackled.
"Hey, that's not fair! I should've been here to join in the ceremony!" Iris whined.
Jet and Virginia looked at each other, suddenly feeling even more embarrassed.
"Stupid Gallows…"
"That Gallows…"
They looked at each other, finding themselves saying the same thing at the same time. Virginia smiled timidly. "Well…"
"Yeah…" Jet replied, not sure what to say. Virginia closed her eyes, her face still glowing pink, and tilted her head slightly up. The crowd screamed in support, dying to see them do the deed.
Jet was still in a state of confusion, not sure of what to do.
"Aw, that's it!" Gallows was tired of waiting, so he waltzed up behind Jet, then threw him right at her.
"Whoa!" Jet wasn't prepared for Gallows' antics, and toppled forward into Virginia, his lips surprisingly landing on hers, as they fell to the floor. And by some twist of immature physics, their lips were locked the whole trip down.
'Wha-?' thought Jet in a torrent of emotions.
'Wai!" Virginia squealed in embarrassing delight inside her head, making her feel perverted.
The crowd cheered madly applauding Jet's forward actions.
"…" Jet had closed his eyes in the impact, and opened them now to see Virginia's flustered expression right next to his face.
"J-Jet…That was…New." She said. Then she started giggling uncontrollably. "J-Jet, you're tickling me!"
"Huh?" he looked at his hands, and found them caved around her, both grasping onto her… 'cheeks'. "Ack!" he hurriedly pulled his hands out from under her and got off her.
Virginia got up and brushed herself off. The crowds were dissipating, and Clive, Catherine, Gallows, Iris, Kaitlyn, and Karen gathered around them.
The first thing everyone did was eye Jet. "…What?" he asked sternly. "You guys got a problem?"
"No, not at all!" Clive responded, a smile creeping into his face.
"Tch… And you, Ogre! What was that push for?"
"What push? Did I push you?" Gallows put on an act of innocence, pissing Jet off to no extent.
"Well anyway, Catherine and I are off to enjoy are married life… Again!"
"Iris, Gallows, can you two watch Kaitlyn while we're gone?" Catherine asked.
"Oh, shuuure! Hic! I tell, I tell, I tell ya now, kid, those three bananas will be in good… They'll be good. Hic! Okay, I just get the water to go three times that way!" Gallows finished before falling to the fall unconscious.
"… Iris, can you please take care of Kaitlyn and Gallows while we're gone?" Catherine asked nervously.
"Of course! And I'll 'take care' of Karen too while I'm at it! I have many plans for them!" she grinned, her head spinning with dirty clichéd scenarios. Namely things like teacher-student, nurse-doctor, Superman (er, woman)-Lois Lane, and every other kinky situation you could ever imagine.
"……Virginia, Jet, could you two take care of Kaitlyn and Karen? And Iris, I guess… you can take care of Gallows." Catherine asked, hoping that she got it right this time.
"Sure! You two have fun!"
"Yeah, whatever."
And with that, Catherine and Clive went off to enjoy their married life again, while Jet and Virginia took care of Kaitlyn and Karen. Iris decided to drag Gallows back to his home, to do God-knows-what to him. The crowds from the wedding had begun to die, and returned to aimless walking around the place.
Jet and Virginia had taken a seat by a tree while Kaitlyn and Karen ran around the place, joining people in singing carols.
"So…" Virginia started.
"So…"
They had both intended to talk about their estranged kiss, but weren't sure of how to. Jet got up in a huff of confusion and walked off.
"I'll be back later." Was all he said.
"Jet!" she called, but he didn't hear over the chorus of carols.
5:00 P.M – Somewhere at the Colony (must've been one hell of a wedding, aye?)
"Hmph…" Jet puffed, leaning on a tree. "That wasn't a kiss…was it? I mean, it was more of an accident. But she was…and it felt kinda…Urrggh…" Jet grumbled in annoyance. "Thinking sucks."
Suddenly, Jet noticed a girl heading in his direction. She walked up to him and stood in front of him.
'She want something?' he thought to himself. Suddenly the girl lashed forward, giving him a full-blown kiss on the lips. After a few seconds she pulled out, clearly satisfied, leaving Jet with a twitching red face and a brain softer than marshmallows.
"What in the world?" Jet stuttered out loud. He saw more girls coming, the same insatiable look on their face as the first. "Eh?"
The girls latched onto him, kissing him, holding him, groping at his body like eagles attacking a dead dog. Jet was in a daze of squishy body parts flanking his body and a body temperature exceeding boiling point.
After minutes of utter sexual destruction, the girls were all satisfied, leaving with giggles and murmurs of 'ever since I saw him I've always wanted to do that' and 'not every Christmas is a hot guy sitting under mistletoe'. Jet was left in a heap on the ground, his eyes rolling.
"I like the pink one, daddy… Wearing the bow tie and screaming like a hyena… from Alcarty…with googly eyes…"
5:54 P.M – Baskar Colony
"I wonder where Jet wandered off to…" Virginia thought to herself. She had started walking around the Colony in hopes of finding him.
"Where could that boy be?" Virginia finally spotted him sleeping under a tree. "There he is!"
She waltzed up, about to yell at him for being so irresponsible, but found his sleeping face so adorable that she forgot what she was about to do.
"Aww, Jet looks so nice when he's asleep." She sighed and glanced upwards. "Hey… isn't that mistletoe?" she thought for a moment, then had an idea. She slowly turned back to the sleeping Jet, his lips standing out with a surprising vibrance. "Ah…"
Virginia took a deep breath, and started descending towards Jet's face…
TO BE CONTINUED
A/N: Okay, I've been finding using full twelve hour gaps for a chapter is becoming too much of a hassle for me, and ends up with an inscrutiatingly long chapter, especially with the amount of events I'm stacking in. So, unless there's particularly little happening, I'm going to try and write in six hour format. Hey, the one major goal I was aiming at was having a fic set-out unlike any before. And unless I'm mistaken, time format is pretty dang rare. No 'next chapter' summary this time, I'll let you guess. Again, thanks for the reviews, and thanks to all people who are steady readers of this random surprisingly witty garbage!