I hope I can get this chapter done fine. I've been into my fuel stash, which consists of giant pixi stix, and hopfuly it will serve me well. One would think that if one had consumed fuel, that one would be able to compleat a simple chapter in a short amount of time, right? But there is a bit of a draw back. I am being forced into listening to my sister practice playing the oboe for her spring consert tonight. It sounds almost like some one is trying to strangle a duck. And one more thing, I forgot to say that I don't own Corpse Bride in the previous chapter. If you can tell me which part it was, I'll give you a cookie. Well, here's the fic.

chapter 17, new years

It had been about one month after Kit and Allen had married. So far, their bond was going quite well. Nothing was going bad between them, and Komui didn't seem to mind too much at the fact that he couldn't have Allen. In fact, he seemed to have changed his mind and decided to go for Reever instead. Or, at least, that's what every one thought, for they were always together lately. And one of the finders could have sworn he saw them kissing once when walking down the hall.

Any way, so the people at the order were planning for the New Year's celebration. Christmas had already come and passed, and it was time for the New Year's party. The main people who were supposed to make the preperations were Lenalee, Kit, Reever, and Komui. They had all hung streamers all over the mess hall and hung all sorts of decerations all over the place. Because of Kit's condition, she wasn't alowed to hang anything up, for fear of falling off of the ladders, so she was incharge of telling everyone what to do, and where to put things.

"NO! The purple streamers are not supposed to be twisted with the pink ones! They're supposed to be twisted with the blue ones!" Kit turnned to another group that was asking her where to put a giant ball that had previously been on the Christmas tree. Kit looked up at the cieling for a place that it would look good. "How about over there, next to that snow flake?" the red head pointed at the spot she was talking about. The group thanked her and walked off to hang the ornament.

"Hey, Kit, what do you think we should have set out for snacks and munchies?" Jerry asked, wanting to be able to do something.

"Are you REALLY sure you want to ask that question to a pregnant woman with all sorts of wierd cravings?"

"I'll go ask Lenalee then..."

"But if it makes you feel better, some peal and eat shrimp is a nice party munchy. And I'm not saying that just because I might have a craving for shrimp. I've seen it at parties all the time! and deffanitaly can't forget about potato chips in a veriety of flavors. I strongly suggest barbeque, but that's just my favorite kind."

"Okay!"

"AND DON'T FORGET ABOUT THE ALCOHOL!" she yelled after Jerry.

With that, Kit sighed in a tired mannor and sat down in a nearby chair, relieved to get off of her feet.

"You okay, honey?" Allen asked, stopping infront of Kit, holding a box of decerations.

"Yeah, just a little exausted from all of the excitement going around."

"Are you sure it's not the pregnancy talking?" Allen asked in what was supposed to be a joke, but Kit didn't laugh.

"...Sort of. I'm really only about 15 sure about that."

"Well, anyway, I need you to tell me where to put these baloons after filling them with helium."

"Fill about half of them with helium and distribute them between all corners of the room, fill the others with air and hang them from the streamers."

"Okay."

About two days later was the actual day of the party, although it wasn't supposed to start until around six P.M. Kit made sure everything was in good order for the party. She did things that would be good to her condition, such as straighten out the position of the food, move the helium filled baloons to a more decerative position, and other things like that. Then it was time for the party. Emoen and Lavi hit the booze imediatly when they got to the party. And pretty soon, every one in the order was gathered in the mess hall for the party.

There was music that everyone could dance to, party games, and they even brought in a big screen TV for when it was time for the countdown.

About half way through the party, Jerry had to refresh the food table. At this point, Lavi, Emoen, Knives, Ryumaru, Allen, Kit, Leanlee, and (suprisingly) Kanda had engaged into a drinking game called 'Big liar!' It was a game that Ryumaru had played in Japan when he went to parties with geisha. He had said that the rules were that every one took turns telling two stories, one true and one false, and everyone else was supposed guess as to which one was true and which one was false. Any one who was wrong had to drink a penalty glass of sake. The group decided to change the sake to any drink they wanted. The only one who wasn't drinking alcohol was Kit because of her condition.

"This game sounds like fun!" Kit said. "I'll start. Okay my first story is...one time, Emoen spent the night at my house and we did our usual ritual of staying up until three in the morning, well, I still wake up really early in the morning wheather I go to bed early or late, it doesn't matter, while Emoen will sleep till like, noon if we went to bed at three in the morning. Any way, so, I had woken up actualy an hour later than I normaly would, and when I was getting dressed as I normaly would, when Emoen started talking. She said, 'No, Mama! I don't want to go to school with the blue monkeys! They'll eat me! I wanna go to school with Duo! Not cookie dough, Duo!' and when I woke her up to tell her, she actualy woke up, and she was totaly embarassed about it!"

Everyone but Emoen laughed at this one. Emoen was sitting in a bit of a cold sweat. She knew the answer to this one.

"That can't be true! Emoen can't be woken up by anything!" Kanda stated.

"Well, what's your next story?" Allen asked.

"Okay, one time, I was walking in the woods in my back yard, because my home back in America was in the forest, and I came upon a soda bottle that was all dirty and old and stuff. I don't know how I didn't nitice it earlyer, because when I lived there, I would walk through the woods on a regular basis. Any way, so when I rubbed the dirt from the bottle to see what kind of soda it had been, I saw a tiny glowing thing inside of it. And when I opened the bottle to see what the glowing thingy was, it turnned out to be a fairy that had been captured and ptu into the bottle. It said that it would grant me three wishes for letting it out, so I made my wishes, which all had to do with food, because I had been hungry, and the fairy made it all apear, the only problem was that it was all portionned to fill the belly of a fairy. and then I got so mad that I stuffed the fairy back into the bottle and chucked it as far as I could accross the street to that person's property, which was also forest. Ant that's it."

"I say the first one is true," Kanda said in his usual monotone voice. "There's no such thing as fa-"

he was cut off by two hands being slapped over his mouth. One belonged to Kit, the other belonged to Emoen.

"Don't say that!" Kit warnned him. "Everytime someone says that, a fairy somewhere falles down dead."

"Yeah. So don't say that!"

"Well, I say that the second one is true," said Allen, Lavi was in agreement with the silver haired boy.

Emoen made sure to wait untill everyone else had guessed before she said hers. Allen and Lavi wound up drinking a glass of alcohol each. Lavi went for vodka, while Allen stuck to the origional rules of the game and had a glass of sake.

"Okay, my turn!" stated Ryumaru. "one time, When I was a little kid, I had been sitting by the river that flowwed through the middle of my town, and fishing. Well, when I finaly got a bite, it trunned out that the fish was about five feet long, while I, at the time, had been about three foot four."

"That is so not true," Kit said.

"What's the next one?" asked Lavi.

"Whe I was about sixteen, I decided to look through my older brother's room for no reason in particular, and I found all sorts of naughty things in there, incuding some nudie mags and then I read his diary, and it had some major detail about this one girl in the town that he secratly liked. That's it."

Lavi, being the perv he is, said the second one was true. Kit had said the same thing, sticking with what she said about the first story. Knives agreed with Kit. Emoen had a mind much like Lavi's and said that the second one was true. Allen and Kanda both said the first one was true, however for different reasons.

Kit, Lavi, Emoen, and Knives all had to drink. Kit had bubble water, because she didn't want anything to go wrong with her pregnancy, and large amounts of alcohol would make things bad. Lavi went for rum this time, Knives had vodka, and Emoen had a vodka bomb.

"I knew that story wasn't true, because everyone in the town knew that Ryumaru's brother was as strait as a circle," Kanda explained.

"I chose the fish one, 'cause I would rather keep my mind away from that kind of stuffs," Allen said.

So this went until everyone had finnished, and the only one not drunk off their ass was Kit.

"Hey, hun," Allen slurred, placing his arm around the girl's neck. "Why don't we go off some where, and make out?"

Kit took Allen's arm off of her shoulder. "I'm sorry, but no. Not while you're drunk off your ass. Maybe tomorrow, while you're recovering from that nasty hangover."

At that moment everything went quiet for a second, then Kanda asked Knives to take off her sunglasses.

"Hell no!" Knives said. "I don't take these off unless I'm sleeping or bathing."

Then Kanda did one of the stupidest things he could have ever done. He removed the sunglasses from Knives's face, and so she couldn't put them back on, he snapped them in two, dropped them on the floor, and stepped on them, shattering the lenses into a million tiny pieces. That snapped anger into the German woman. She wound up grabbing Kanda's neck and ringing it roughly, much in the way Homer Simpson does to Bart.

"I'll teach you to break my sunglasses, ponytail!"

"Knives! Calm down!" Kit yelled at the drunk woman. The red head tried to pull Knives off of Kanda, but the woman wound up hitting Kit in the side of her head. The girl fell, causing Allen to sober up instantly, and in enough time to catch the girl befor she hit the floor. It was the nthat Knives had reallised what she had done.

"Kit! Are you okay? I didn't mean to hit you!" Knives said in rapid succesion, letting go of Kanda, and focusing all of her attention to the pregnant woman. Kanda fell in a heap on the floor, trying to regain his breath.

"I'm fine, and I'm pretty sure that the baby's fine too. You had scared me when you hit me. Please don't do that again."

And the party went on, everyone had fun, and Kit took out a video camera to record what was going on.

"Well It's the Black Order's New Year's party, and Lavi is drunk," Kit had the camera pointed at Lavi. "Hey, Lavi, do you have anything you would like to say?" Kit asked the hamer wielding exorcist.

"Yeah."

Lavi walked over to where Komui and Reever were having a conversation about something private. Lavi disregarded what they were saying, and snatched Komui's hat off of his head, getting a 'hey!' of protest from Komui, who held his head where his hat had rested just a little while ago. Lavi placed it on his head, not caring about the fact that he was still wearing his head band.

"I'm kearing Fomui's hunny wat!" Lavi slurred.

"Yep. Lavi's drunk."

"I assure you, my friend, I am cone sold stober."

Just then, the count down from ten seconds started, and every one chimed in.

"TEN! NINE! EIGHT! SEVEN! SIX! FIVE! FOUR! THREE! TWO! ONE!!! HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!" Every one toasted with a glass of champagne, except for Kit, who had sparkling apple cider. And once they had made the toast, Kit and Allen had a new year's good luck kiss.

Then, Lavi gathered Kanda and Allen with him, drooping his arms around their necks.

"I luuuvvvee you gguuuyyzzz!"

Allen only sweatdropped, while Kanda had a pissy mark.

At some point during the countdown, Komui had gotten his hat back.

-end chapter 17-

Well, funny, ne? It was great. I have a few things I need to say about the chapter, though. The drinking game I got the idea from the book Memoirs of a Geisha and the line where Lavi says "I assure you, my friend, I am cone sold stober," I got from the book Howl's Moving Castle which some of you may recognise as a Hayao Miyazaki film, but the book was better, and it came first. The line was in the book, NOT the movie. Howl's moving Castle was writen by Diana Wynn Jones, who is a Welsh woman, not me. And Memoirs of a Geisha was written by Arthur Golden, who is an American man, not me. And that story about Emoen sleep talking about blue monkeys is really a true story. Only replace Emoen with my good friend Demon's Sinner. Sorry, Demon's Sinner! But I had to include that story! It's just too funny not to! Any way, Ja ne!