vatheon | (OPEN) Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas

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(OPEN) Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas

Who: Villa residents and all visitors.
When: December 25th
Where: The Villa
Style: Whatever you like!
Status: Open!

[Hey, guess what?

IT'S CHRISTMAS! Which means Villa residents will be trading gift-wrapped presents and enjoying a delicious holiday feast prepared by a very hard-working Rin Okumura, so be sure to thank him!

The threads below are meant for mingling, the exchanging of gifts and other holiday activities!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Thank god, it's a distraction, just as distracting as... he is, apparently.

Do the holidays just inspire short attention spans? ~~Of course they do.~~]

Maka. Merry Christmas.

[This, with understated relief; it's good to see her, of course, better when he can divorce his thoughts from the chorus of wrong wrong wrong whenever he looks at that mess under the tree.]

Nothing of consequence, just retrieving a gift.

You're not going to open them with us?

[WHY THO.

Actually, worried pacing and where he's been don't exactly read "nothing of consequence."]

I see, you want to organize the gifts, don't you?

[That noise implies Am not! This look just screams Are too!

He's trying, Maka. Really!]

[The gift in question is tucked under one arm; the other hand rises to lift a pigtail with the tip of one pale finger.]

Hm. I would have thought, for a festive occasion such as this, you would have done something a little different.

[YOUTHFUL DODGE: SUBJECT CHANGE!]

Would you mind if I curled them? In any case... this one, I'd like to give to you personally.

...Ah, actually, I was just going to offer that.

[As a distract--errr as a nice gesture because it would make him happy.

All right, so it's both. It can be both, right?

Either way she takes his hand as if that's not a completely weird thing to do.]

I'd be honored to have you curl them.

Oh? Great minds think alike.

[He's allowed to compliment their brilliance. Maka's top of her class for a reason!

And he's. Well. He's Lord Death's son. If he didn't stand out, he'd be bringing dishonor to his great father's name, so everything must be done perfectly.

But there are things that aren't quite perfect, yet nevertheless feel right. Like two sets of five different fingers and how they fit together, the strange, somewhat alien comfort such a small and mundane gesture as this can bring. He isn't used to it, but she does it without hesitating, and he's reminded for a moment of how an afternoon in front of the fire had felt as effortless.]

It won't take long. You have a curling iron, don't you?

[Great minds that want to keep each other sane and happy, at least.

She nods, nonetheless, gesturing back down the hall.]

Yeah, it's in the bathroom in my room.

[Not that she has much occasion to use it, so it just stays in its box most of the time.]

[Considering they're seemingly here for the long haul, maintaining 'happiness' may just be a greater challenge than sanity. Or, at least, it would be if they didn't have their friends.]

I'll get it ready. You can join me whenever you like.

[But, left unattended, Kid might just reorganize the whole bathroom while he's waiting for the curling iron to warm up.]

...You're saying that like I'm not coming with you.

[Come on, Kid, really. She was holding your hand in a kawaii anime friendship manner and everything.]

[Kid hasn't forgotten, he is keenly aware of how this is more novel to him that the abbreviated gestures he's more used to, like handshakes, high-fives, and a companionable clap on the shoulder.]

It's only polite to offer the option.

[He'll just...sidle over that way, and take her along.]

You don't have to be polite to me, I'm your friend.

[Duh.

But she'll follow along with him anyway, still with her uncomfortable yet apparently novel closeness.]

...

[He might have graduated marginally from 'loosely holding hands' to 'holding with conviction', if momentarily. It could even be called a squeeze. Maybe. He's a little embarrassed, to be frank, and can't precisely put his finger on why.

Kid may be overdue for a little critical self-reflection.

And no, the mirror that he eventually encounters in her bathroom doesn't count; the reaper wastes no time in searching for the hair iron, beginning to pull open drawers and cabinets one-handedly without regard for anyone's privacy.]

[It's the squeeze that makes her pause; that gesture, small though it may have been, spoke to her about her own dependency on her friends, in that she didn't mind it at all.

He told her it was fine to rely on her friends.

But was it really all right to rely on him in particular? Eventually there would come a time where they couldn't just spend little moments like this together, looking towards the future only made Maka realize again that Kid would soon be in an unreachable place again. Was it really all right to care so deeply about someone like this when she knew she was going to lose him anyway? Why did she care so deeply, anyway, why couldn't she just regard him with the same passive friendliness she did back in their world? Why did she care so much in particular about him being able to be happy and move forward with his life when she knew that it would be moving in a direction away from her?

Stupid…I'm so stupid…

She forces a smile, watching him rummage though the drawers.]

It's in the bottom cabinet, Kid.

[The apple doesn't fall far from his father's tree.

Lord Death rooted himself to the same place to seal away a great evil that threatened not only his "order", but doubtlessly those he counted as his allies and friends. As busy as he was, he made time to connect with others, even when there were surely countless others who had come and gone before them, their generations long gone and buried.

At any rate, Maka did not merely represent a piece of home for the homesick to cling to. She was a steadying influence, delicate for her humanity and unstoppable when her courage had been sufficiently aroused, a friend who had lost her life at those same sallow hands and yet found the immeasurable generosity in her still to give him another chance.

Trial, too, had a way of bringing people closer together, but it wasn't the case here.

Kid had stolen from a friend an "order" that should never have been broken, and now owed her total reparation. With the same hands that tore down her confidence and introduced her to such madness, he would try to rebuild an order that would not creak under the weight of regret.

He would make it up to her, and would see her at last consider her worth sufficient for the loyalty, the friendship her soul drew to her as naturally as breathing.]

Wonderful. Please hold this.

[Kid held out to her a bristle brush, as he dug out the boxed curling iron from the bottom of the cabinet.]

Right, right.

[Completely heedless of him thinking the exact same thing, that's usual!

She takes the brush and turns it over in her hands a few times, waiting for what her friend was going to do next.]

[The rest is easier with both hands free, extracting the curling iron from its box, plugging it into the wall outlet, and waiting for it to warm up as he scrounged up -- from the medicine cabinet, likely -- a bottle of hair product.

Before anyone raises an eyebrow at how a young man/grim reaper happens to know which products help protect hair from potential heat damage when exposed to a curling iron, keep in mind that Liz and Patti were dressed similarly because Kid often enforced this dress code.

Grooming them was a thing whenever they deigned to allow him.]

We'll start with the right side, if you don't mind. Close your eyes, Maka. It might do to hold your breath while I spray this.

[It really says something about how she hasn't done anything particularly intricate with her hair for a while that she doesn't recognize the product at first.

Oh. Okay, then.]

You're way too experienced with this, but okay.

[Do you not know the terrible secret of ~~space~~ medicine cabinets? They're event horizons of stuff. You might think you have your essentials in there, but then you'll open it and discover all kinds of shit you don't recognize. Who does it belong to? Where did it come from?

It is a mystery.

Also, Kid is spritzing one pigtail down before plucking the brush from her hand to comb through it.]

I would have thought being experienced would give you confidence in my competency. ...Brushing this eighty-eight times should be sufficient--

[Kid, stop, they'll be here all day!]

No.

We're not spending all of Christmas in the bathroom playing around with my pigtails.

[There's an audible exhale through his nose at that.

Fine.

He'll make it eight, and trade out the hairbrush for the curling iron. Gosh, Maka, why you rain on his parade.

Actually, he should take that back. She is being very indulgent.]

I'm not playing.

[Just a steadily stern gaze in response.]

You know what I mean.

[Stubborn meets stubborn like the way an unstoppable force meets an immovable object, but Kid knows which one is at fault, and isn't too proud to admit it. He's being petty, and she doesn't deserve it.]

Yes.

[A fingertip beneath her chin directs her to turn her head, setting down the curling iron, and taking up the bottle of product. His hand then shields her face as he sprays the other pigtail.]

...I haven't seen Soul, have you?

He's...

[Gone again.

No, stop that, you don't know that for sure.

Just because he's in a coma...but she can't help but associate that with someone definitely being gone.]

Knocked out.

[The bottle is put on the edge of the sink, and, taking up the bristle brush again, Kid moves around behind her to the other side. There's a disappointed exhale, and he sets to work brushing out the remaining pigtail.]

He's missing everything. He and Black☆Star both.

[A moment passes, in which he regards her reflection in the mirror, with a sidelong glance.]

I had hoped for better, since your last holiday was spent alone.

I'm not...all that alone. There's you and everyone else in the house.

[Though, yes, there was some part of her that had hoped Soul would be with her for the holidays. Like old times.]

(OPEN) Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas

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