(OPEN) Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas

[symmetrophile]

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!]

Comments

[symmetrophile]

[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.]

[heartandsoul]

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.]

[symmetrophile]

[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.

[heartandsoul]

[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.

[symmetrophile]

[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!]

[heartandsoul]

No.

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

[symmetrophile]

[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.

[heartandsoul]

[Just a steadily stern gaze in response.]

You know what I mean.

[symmetrophile]

[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?

[heartandsoul]

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.

[symmetrophile]

[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.

[heartandsoul]

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.]

[symmetrophile]

Be that as it may. [Kid says with a little smile somewhat getting underfoot of his precise reply:] The bond between a Meister and her Weapon is unique.

[The brush is traded for the curling iron, and he lapses into silence, as he coils hair around it in the exact number of loops he had done with the other side.]

...

[A few moments later, setting aside the curling iron, he takes both pigtails by their tapered ends and gently pulls at them, coaxing the curls to lengthen to match each other.]

Damn... I should have brought my ruler.

[No, Kid, it's fine to just eyeball it.]

[heartandsoul]

Kid, it looks fine. Your eyes are a lot better than a human's, after all.

[Given that he's the marksman of their group if they stretched it.]

You don't need your ruler.

[symmetrophile]

[Cupping his chin with one hand, and that elbow with the other, he regards his work with gold eyes darting from left to right and back again. They look fine. Maybe they are, but how could he be sure?

He could leave for a few moments and get his tape measure.

What if it was off by a centimeter? Could he even turn his back on something like that? Uuugh, what if she left the bathroom? Everyone would see it, everyone would know--

Kid starts to turn towards the door with the stiff-shouldered gait of the reaper intending on marching off to retrieve the aforementioned ruler.

Hey, hey--wasn't it you who said you'd try?]

...

[He sets about to putting the brush and bottle back where they belong, leaving the curling iron to cool down.]

Of course. Yes, you're right. Naturally.

[heartandsoul]

And...I really like it.

[She hasn't had someone else do her hair for a long time, after all. Sure, Liz would offer when she wanted to try something "new and different" she saw in a magazine, but Maka wasn't one to deviate much from the norm for herself "just because."

It made her feel more important than she actually was.]

[symmetrophile]

[The son of the god of their world just curled her pigtails. It's ridiculous on the one hand, maybe even a little charmingly mundane on the other; to Kid, it's a way to scratch that itch for orderliness and symmetry as much as it is a gesture of his friendly affection.

He looks at her over his shoulder, relieved and, for the moment, surprised into smiling in the midst of his satisfied disbelief.]

Do you really? [And, sobering:] I'm glad to hear it.