A/N: I had some highly entertaining holiday fics planned, but they either failed or seemed to go on forever, so here's my Christmas present to you all!
Nollaig Shona! And have a great day!
Sina xxxx
Spreading Christmas Cheer
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Van Fanel had a lot of people on his list of people he was pissed with; his ever so generous brother, his kind and loving sister-in-law, and his astoundingly talented pink haired cousin. They headed it at the moment, though the blonde hair conditioner advert bastard wasn't too far from the top, and neither was that pyro idiot. And then he would have to add all the people who had cooed at him and the women who had succeeded in groping him.
He cringed at the mere memory of only minutes before, when it had been somewhat of a free for all with his body as the first prize.
And for the life of him he couldn't remember how in the hell he had agreed to or been blackmailed into this damned Red suit. If he heard someone tell him once more that he looked good in red, he would break something, like his brother's neck. Despite his parents believing kendo classes would help him become more outgoing, in fact it made him slightly more inclined to violence. And violence seemed like such a good answer right now.
He had been forced to wear a Santa suit, luckily without padding Merle had tried to pacify him, but he didn't give a toss as to having to wear padding or not. He still looked ridiculous. The women who said he looked hot in this were obviously heading towards the menopause and were constantly flushed, or were deprived of male contact that they seemingly leapt on any male stupid enough to enter their habitat unawares and without riot gear.
Straightening up from his depressed slouch, he turned round to yell at whoever had decided to follow him into the empty office, and continue to enjoy his torture. His eyes swept the room, but he didn't yell at the person he found. They weren't even looking at him. Violence gave way to self-pity as another person on his list sat on an empty desk by the window, chattering into a phone merrily.
"Ne, Kaa-chan it's fine. Really. I'll be home for Christmas, my flight's booked and everything!"
Van didn't know why, but he leaned against the side of the desk, listening to the woman he was angry with talk so freely. Not that Hitomi knew he was angry with her. And it wasn't that she had done something so atrocious to him like his own family had today.
No. Van was more annoyed than angry with Hitomi Kanzaki because the extremely intelligent woman she was, she was wholly and entirely oblivious to his feelings for her. It wasn't the cliché idea that he was loathe to admit his feelings, he would openly do so to her. In fact he had told her, or tried to. And Hitomi being Hitomi had not clued into anything in the slightest.
Truth be told, it hurt.
He loved Hitomi Kanzaki with a scary amount of energy, even shocking to him when he first realized. But she seemed unaware of every opportunity that he had taken to tell her of how he felt. And it was highly draining when his friends and family decided to henpeck him for not telling her the truth.
Snorting to himself on many an occasion he inwardly joked that surely that job belonged to Hitomi. Or it should belong to her, as he did want her in a girlfriend/wife/lifetime partner capacity. But Hitomi Kanzaki was ignorant of all and sundry in the category marked Van Fanel and his feelings for you.
He could tell he was acting like a sap when he started thinking how the moon in the sky seemed to make her glow iridescently. Shaking his head, he decided to leave and find somewhere completely devoid of people—especially people on his list—where he could mope around in peace.
Turning towards the door to another adjoining corridor, he stopped as he overheard Hitomi say,
"Oh I didn't come for the party. I just stopped by to give Van his Christmas present. Folken said he'd be here towards the end."
Van was caught in indecision. Should he walk over to her, tap her on the shoulder and ask for his Christmas present? Or pretend to just walk in the room and let the door slam shut to alert her to his presence. His thoughts quietened again as Hitomi heaved a tremendous sigh and replied to whatever her mother had said,
"Kaa-chan stop worrying. It's perfectly safe in here. So I'm alone in an office? There's 24 hour security for the building and security cameras everywhere…"
"Kaa-chan! Just because it's Christmas does not mean it'll turn into a replay of Die Hard! PLEASE!"
He couldn't help himself but laugh at her last remark, fully aware of how nervous a person Mrs. Kanzaki could be when it came to her daughter's safety, and she could conjure some deranged theories. Who honestly worried about their children being spirited away to other planets with life-forms identical to ours?
The first snort of laughter caused Hitomi to jump up in shock and cry out at the sudden noise, swivelling round with her eyes full of wariness. They narrowed for a second and then widened at recognizing him. She cheerily waved him over, rolling her eyes at her mother's response to her sudden noise and sighed, exhaling tiredly,
"KAA-CHAN! I'm fine! It was just Van. He surprised me. Don't worry! There aren't any weird looking men around…" she paused, smiling cheekily, and continued, "…well none apart from Van anyway."
Laughing as she ducked his swatting hand, she patted the desk she sat on, speaking at a brisker pace,
"Kaa-chan I have to go. I promise I'll call you later, and when I get to the terminal on Tuesday so you can get Mamoru ready to pick me up at the other end. Hai, hai. Ja."
He watched her flip the phone closed and then turn to smile at him. He couldn't help but smile back. Another reason she was on his list.
"Hey Hitomi." managed to escape his mouth without his brain overheating in attempt to find the perfect conversation opener.
"Hello Santa Claus!" she returned, chirruping with a smug smile on her face. He would happily kiss it off, but then she might return that gesture with one of her own, a violent one too.
"Oh shut up!" he retorted, wondering if his good mood suddenly caused by her, could be flipped 180 by her as well.
Blinking as she poked his side in jest, she pouted in a way that sent blood flowing in a direction he wasn't sure was good or not, after all he had no clue of her feelings,
"Aww, come on Santa, I've been such a good girl this year, don't I deserve a gift?" Any lesser man would have replied with an innuendo or taken her words as their cue to jump on her. But he, Van sodding Fanel had been raised to respect women and treat them equally, if not better. So he growled,
"Not right now you're not. And I've only coal left."
"Well that's good, I need warming up."
He turned to her, watching her face for any trace of irony as her words seemed to be coming from the script of a very badly written porn film. Not that he had ever watched porn for any literary value or intellectual conversation. Scratch that, he had never watched porn. Yet another reason why that blonde Barbie and the fire retardant moron were on his list.
Pulled out of his inner rant by Hitomi placing her head on his shoulder, he found it very hard to concentrate as the scent of her shampoo wafted past his already stricken senses.
"I take it the Santa gig didn't go too well?" she said, ending with a yawn for effect.
"No," he ground out, trying his best not to sniff her hair, or look down and see if he could see down her blouse. Though the light from the moon and the fluorescent lights from the corridor highlighted the strap of her bra, which was a forest green colour. He always thought green looked good on her. And he also thought he needed to stop thinking in such a way or Escaflowne knows what would come out of his mouth next. Or where those thoughts would lead.
"So what happened?" she turned towards him, her face, her lips, only painstaking inches from his. But not in the way he wanted.
She was calmly looking into his eyes, no romantic or sexual thought running through her mind whatsoever, whilst his was running scenario after scenario. He wished he hadn't read that hentai manga he had stole from his brother as a teenager. The whole setting of sweeping the desk clean of objects and throwing the girl down on it only served to cloud his thoughts further.
"You don't have to go into minute detail, not if you're going to have mentally scarring flashbacks, but at least did you spread Christmas cheer?"
Oh he badly wanted to, how very badly and with the woman leaning against him. Why if she turned her body only slightly towards his…
He sighed aloud, trying to stop the thoughts as they would only make him feel lonelier afterwards, and even more of a failure. He just wasn't able to take her face in his hands and kiss her. As much as he wanted to, he knew if she didn't want to then every bridge between them would be nuked instantly. And he was very fond of those bridges.
"Van?" she seemed to have moved closer, apparently his inner monologue took longer in the time of the real world. He shrugged gently, hoping she wouldn't move away as her warmth was rather appeasing, like candy for the soul.
She smiled gently, patted his arm and sat beside him again,
"No need to talk about it. I get you. You didn't enjoy it, so you don't want to go over it."
"Didn't you come here to give me my Christmas present?" he blurted and instantly set about scouring the room for something to impale himself on, or hither hard enough with so she would forget what he just said. Maybe if he hit her hard enough she would get amnesia and would forget they were just friends. He could tell her…
Knocked out of his slightly twisted fantasy by her laugh, she elbowed him gently and murmured,
"Yeah. Aren't you eloquent today?"
He gave another one of his copyrighted non-committal shrugs and looked at her, waiting for her response. She smiled gently at him, batting her eyelashes coyly, in idyllic ignorance of how it was affecting and disappointing him.
"Shouldn't it be you handing out the presents?" Groaning at her feeble joke he sighed, and got up from the desk, pulling away from her very accommodating figure, murmuring in a slightly pitiful tone,
"Well if there's no present I'm leaving. I've had enough mental scarring for one year."
"So you'll be back next year?" she put on a childlike expectant face, and he couldn't help but laugh.
Grinning at him in return, she took hold of his arm and nodded,
"I have your present. Well one of them. But you need to stand…" she looked at him, almost sizing him up, letting his curiosity bubble at what on Gaea she was up to now, "…here." She pulled on his arm so he stood directly in front of her, sitting on the desk, her knees touching against the front of the desk.
"Why do I have to stand here?" he asked, waiting for whatever she was about to give, wondering why he needed to stand directly in front of her.
"Because—" she murmured quietly, sliding off from the desk to stand in front of him, her body touching his as she exhaled.
His brain seemed to grind to a halt as her arms extended towards him, upwards. One hand curled around his shoulder and the other flat against his cheek as she pulled him down towards her. Her eyes half closed, the jade orbs gauging his reaction as she leaned upwards to press her lips against his. Sliding her lips against his gently, slowly, her breaths curling against his lips as she pulled away slightly.
She started to pull away and he managed to gain enough coherency to ask,
"Why did you—?"
She smiled shyly, blushing a variety of exquisite red shades that he found alluring, as she whispered, her head tilted at the perfect angle for him to kiss her back,
"Because, even Santa deserves some Christmas cheer." Her finger slid under his chin, making him shiver as she pushed his face upwards.
His eyes made out the swirl of green leaves and white berries taped to the ceiling right above them. Still gazing at the foliage he asked quietly,
"Mistletoe?" he looked back down at her watching her eyes examine his face, waiting for a reaction, as she nodded, not moving away from him.
"Perfect." He muttered, wrapping his arms around her so she was pressed up against him deliciously, then bending down to thank her profusely.
A door swinging shut loudly brought them back to their senses as Hitomi pulled her mouth from his, her hands gripping his shoulders as she straddled his lap. Placing one hand on the desk beneath him, he watched her smile ecstatically at him, her eyes dancing,
"So Santa, what am I getting for Christmas?" he smiled, not bothered by the Santa jokes any longer, his focus on the heavenly woman nestled in his lap,
"What do you want?" he murmured, his eyes surveying her flustered form, the top buttons of her blouse undone roughly. She smiled and pressed her forehead against his,
"Isn't it obvious? All I want for Christmas is you."
They both laughed, but realised they much preferred their new found pastime, so reverted back to spreading their own Christmas cheer.
A/N: MERRY CHRISTMAS! And to Shaif as it's already 12!
God bless us everyone!
Sina xxx