sunhawk16

Here we are at Christmas eve one last time, at least where my work is concerned. Feels a little sad, a little nostalgic, a little what-was-I-thinking on some of these works. I had fears there towards the end of these I was losing my ‘writing voice’, so to speak, but I think everything came out well in the wash with a little proof reading.

The art here is again by the wonderfully talented and patient t_shirt1x2 and wraps up the little side story this year has been telling. We’ve seen Christmas morning, with Duo hastily doing his last minute wrapping, followed by Christmas afternoon in which presents are given and everyone feels all warm and fuzzy. And then, like in all things, we have the end of the day and the peace of Christmas night.

GW Team assemble! Cue the awesome Disney-Marvel budget level intro screen. One last time I have to thank Merula, lavendarlizard, and t_shirt1x2 for all coming together to help fill enough days to make this thing happen. At least I’m pretty sure that is what I’m seeing in the crystal ball. Things are a little fuzzy, must be a bad connection. While I retune the crystal settings on this thing, or at least give it a few helpful whacks, I’ll pass things over to my eyes on the ground for anything else that needs said.

Note from offspring – Uh...... art! I don’t know what all normally gets said, but it looks like we have some links so I'll add those in. And I want to give my own huge thank you to everyone for coming together for day nine here, which has allowed me to keep on trucking getting these days posted.

Merula’s art was a scene chosen from a gift fic she wrote, found here: http://www.amymizunogwpage.com/merula/stars.html

Lavendarlizard’s art is from an upcoming BFB parlet. I do not yet have a link but will edit and update this post just as soon as I do.

I have placed the art under the cut in case anyone would like to avoid spoilers, I guess? Day nine needed more of a road map o.o
( Day Nine Art )

This ficlet came about when some failed Christmas carol rewrites meant for day six met up with the memory of an actual real life event from a few years back. The event Duo describes here more or less happened when the music system at my work malfunctioned early on in the holiday season and had an office full of jovial people ready to riot. And a mob only becomes more intimidating when they mobilize while wearing festive ugly sweaters.

I feel the need to add here that this work was something I dictated and the kid typed, as it was faster and easier at the time when I started working on this. I also need to give credit where it is due because she came up with the snippets of carols used, so you can think of this as a little collaboration we worked on together.

The Song that Never Ends

If you have ever spent any significant time around a cat you come to note certain traits that are shared by the species as a whole. They tend to have more than enough brains to tell the difference between right and wrong but have also extrapolated out that ‘wrong’ is only considered to be such when a human is present in the area to discipline them. Generally this is true of dogs as well, or any domesticated pet. The variation with cats however is that they get themselves into situations where they get so absorbed in what they are doing that they forget to pay attention for their owners. This in turn tends to lead to them freezing in place and simply staring at you while taking a few seconds to rethink their life decisions. When furball.exe begins working again it usually does so in a flurry of limbs and fur.

Walking around the drawn curtain of Duo’s hospital room it was obvious he and the common house cat had a number of things in common in that very moment.

I had clearly caught him as off guard as he caught me. He was standing precariously balanced on his hospital bed, no small feat in and of itself, with one foot steadied on the bed rail. Under one arm he held your common grade hospital crutch, his weight shifted to provide for optimal equilibrium as he was holding the other crutch aloft with his other hand, the end of it outstretched towards the ceiling. It took me longer than I cared to admit to notice he had somehow attached a manila folder to the end of the crutch. His hair was a mess as well, signature braid loose and undone in places, strands of hair sticking out at odd angles which only added to the absurdity of what I was seeing. It was comical, to a point, right up until his eyes widened in that universally translated way that means ‘oh fuck’.

I discarded the bag I was holding and began moving practically before he even realized he had let his concentration lapse enough disturb his balance, though he nearly instantly begin flailing his lifted crutch around in the air to try and find stability again on instinct alone. For my trouble I took a sharp crack up the side of the head, though I at least managed to grab him by the waist in the process and help lower him back to his knees, then his butt, and finally to lay back in bed. With the threat of receiving a face full of floor tile averted I then took the crutches and set them aside. Other side of the room kind of aside, where Duo could not so easily get hold of them while the entire time he sat and started at me as though I had been the one with the audacity to cause him to fall.

‘Do you know how long it took me to learn the nurse’s rounds?

‘All of five minutes,’ I grunted and drug the visitor’s chair over to the bedside. ‘It’s a hospital, not a jail cell.’

‘Might as well be…’ he grumbled and crossed his arms over his chest, which would have been mildly endearing if I wasn’t silently seething. ‘Do you realize what you’ve done?’

‘Saved you from a concussion,’ I side eyed the mass of medical equipment that would have been in Duo’s trajectory. ‘Possibly also from impalement.’

‘It doesn’t count as saving if you are the one that caused the problem in the first place. I was fine, I had it worked out. I wasn’t expecting any visitors was all,’ a pause and I recognized the look of dawning realization that was starting to ghost over his face. ‘So… what are you doing here, anyway?

‘I took off work. I thought you may like the company instead of sitting around here by yourself,’ I said as I noticed the manila envelop laying on the floor a few inches away, resting in the same area it fallen in. I leaned over and retrieved it. On one side in the middle was what could only be called a blob of tape. I lifted an eyebrow though at how strips of tape also lined each side, all sticky side up. ‘Now however I am thinking you may be losing your mind.’

‘That is only fun the first few times you do it.’

I waited for him to continue but he refused. I narrowed my eyes and gestured that I was still awaiting an explanation as to what I had walked in on but he met my eyes evenly and returned my expression in kind which resulted in some sort of demented glaring contest. Once a few minutes passed of this I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose.

‘If we are just going to be sitting in silence all day I may as well go back to work.’

‘Excuse me?’ his eyes knit together and at first I thought that it was because it was a threatening enough statement that he wanted to talk it out. When he threw his head back and let out a bitter little laugh I realized somewhere in my statement I had made a misstep. ‘Silence! That would be a lovely little thing wouldn’t it. But oh no, trust me Heero, we are not sitting around in anything close to silence.’

Admittedly he was right. Hospitals did not exactly become known for their quiet and relaxing nature, where all the medical bells and whistles actually seemed to come with actual bells and whistles. Constant beeping, alarms, announcements, the sounds of other patients or the coming and goings of visitors caused a constant background din.

‘Ah,’ I sighed and stood. At least it was easily fixable. ‘I’ll shut the door then. You could have just asked.’

‘Won’t do much good when it’s in the room with us,’ he groaned and plopped his pillow up over his face muffling whatever he said next.

‘I’m not well versed in that kind of pillow talk, Duo,’ I said with a bit of a smirk then took a moment to really get a feel for the room.

It was sparse, as hospital rooms usually were. A tv hung from the wall but wasn’t on while the stereotypical monitors and connections beeped and blipped at steady intervals. The bed creaked each time Duo shifted even a minuscule amount as well, the sheets and pillow case likely the same scratchy uncomfortable brand that I was familiar with from my own stays. From a ceiling speaker music played softly in the background and I could hear the familiar hum of the heater working to keep up with the chill outside. Despite his previous statements I went ahead and shut the door to the room anyway to drown out extra noises from the hall.

‘I spoke to the nurses at the front desk when I got in. You should be discharged later this afternoon,’ I said and watched the pillow retreat a bit from his face. He had originally come in due to a fracture sustained in a fall after slipping on a patch of ice and had been kept overnight due to a moderate level of dehydration. ‘Getting you home should…’

‘Not again!’ he groaned and the sound was of a man tormented and on the verge of defeat as he replaced the pillow fully over his head and clapped his hands down on it. I stood there for a moment and just stared before walking over and lifting the stuffing filled barricade away from his face. He looked up at me with an expression of utter betrayal and reached for the pillow, which I only lifted higher and away from his grasping hands. In defiance he instead tugged the blanket up and wrapped it around his head, which I was also quick to liberate.

‘I will strip everything off of this bed,’ that got a sly grin out of him and he moved his good leg to pose suggestively. When I refused to acknowledge him he sighed and covered his face with his hands.

‘Sleigh ride,’ he said miserably while pulling his hands down his face and my expression must have said a number of things all at once because he gestured upwards, towards the ceiling, then flipped the ceiling off for apparent good measure. ‘It’s the hospital music system. It’s not a radio. It’s one of those company programed things or whatever they’re called. No commercials, just continuous background music that plays from a pre-selected set list?’

‘I know what they are,’ I returned his pillow to him and fluffed the blanket before draping it over him and tucking him back in. ‘I’m still completely baffled at what you’re going on about though, aside the fact that their system has somehow offended you. I thought you like Christmas carols?’

‘I do. Great pieces of music, lovely to hear in December, specifically the week leading up to Christmas. These aren’t carols, Heero. This is nothing short than slow merciless torture. Sleigh ride… it played forty two times over the course of a twenty four hour period. Six of those times were in a row. A row! All different versions of it but you know what? You can only change a Christmas tune so many times.’

If I didn’t know him I would have been concerned, but I did know him and so the concern I did feel was less get a nurse and more this can be worked through. And he wasn’t wrong. When I stopped to listen it was the song that was currently drifting out of the speaker system.

‘I thought it would be kind of nice, right? Quiet Christmas music playing while I dozed through the night. Sure the leg thing is a bitch but I can work with that. But that wasn’t the case, because I couldn’t sleep and then I started realizing I was just hearing the same thing over and over and over again. I asked a nurse about it somewhere around three in the morning and do you know what she said? Apparently the selected playlist has had any carols that could be considered insensitive removed. That leaves a very limited amount of music to fill a very unlimited amount of holiday hours, Heero. I haven’t heard a peep about herald angels, resting gentleman, or even silver bells.’

‘Duo, have you… slept at all?’

‘How could I? Do you think the singers in sleigh ride were invited to farmer Gray’s party or do you think they just decided to crash it? When you got in this morning I had finally had it after the twentieth rendition of All I want for Christmas is You and I was waging war. I figured if I could get something stuck over the speaker my suffering would end.’

‘You’re suffering would have ended when you took a header off any number of obstacles around here. Where did you even get the tape?’

‘Nurse’s station. There was an emergency this morning that had everyone busy. I did try to just keep myself preoccupied at first. Look! I rewrote some carols to try and make them more modern,’ he rolled over and reached towards the rolling tray that sat beside the bed and picked up some papers, shuffling through them before handing a particular crumpled piece over to me.

‘Three ships,’ I read out loud. ‘Tune?’

‘Yep.’

‘She saw a Gundam fall to earth, a shooting star, a shooting star. She saw a Gundam fall to earth like a shooting star cross the night sky…’

‘Can you believe they took out I saw Three Ships? It’s nothing but a mess of repeating chorus lines. What’s insensitive there?’

‘There are a number of things I can’t believe and that number is steadily growing,’ I said in a lowered voice but still got a light back handed swipe. ‘Silver bells... Red alert, red alert, sirens have all started blaring. Soldiers run to get their guns, someone’s attacking the base. Pull up visuals, launch the Leos, go and hold the front line, the reports coming in are all jumbled. Hear the gun fights, somethings not right, what the hell is out there? It’s a Gundam you hear someone say… How did you take a Christmas carol so universally loved and make it this politically incorrect?’

‘Pretty easily, actually. And don’t give me that look. I know it’s bad, that’s why it’s all crumbled up and not leaving this room. Sometimes the grim humor just… well, you know.’

I did know, and I understood. ‘Probably not going to be a remix that catches on. Away in a Manger… Away on a freighter with Howard and crew, My parts all got… ripped off when I went and saved you. It appears someone thinks they are being funny. Are you ever going to let it go?’

‘Oh, that’s good! I bet I could really rework the lyrics to that one!’ he laughed and it was my turn to groan about music that had long out stayed its welcome. ‘And to answer you, I’ve ‘let it go’ but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to tease you a bit about it from time to time.’

We continued on that way for a bit, just talking and teasing lightly, spending some time reminiscing about warm memories and avoiding or ignoring the bad ones. At some point conversation turned to the topic of work and holidays, meandering through the latest work place gossip and who in the office was doing what with their vacations. Dup sheepishly thanked me for taking the time off to stay with him and apologized for his attempts at Cirque du Soleil style stunts, promising to leave future performances to the professionals.

Shortly after ten I excused myself from the room and ran out to grab a breakfast for us both from a little bakery café across the street, which Duo was overjoyed at and launched in to a spirited soap box rant about hospital food and the clear inability to use anything even remotely adjacent to flavor. I pointed out the need to keep things basic due to dietary restrictions but recognized a fool’s mission to try and sway his opinions. Besides that, hospital food really was as bland as it came.

When exhaustion finally overcame him and he got to sleep I retrieved the bag I had brought with me and withdrew some reports to read over. Paid time off was fine but there was also no point in sitting around staring at a wall waiting for something to happen. I could at least keep up to date on a few things and not go back to work and be swamped. And despite everything the work environment was oddly cozy.

When I first heard the soft tinkling of bells I didn’t even really register what I was hearing. The song was half over when I had to turn the page of the report, the pause in concentration just enough for me to shift focus over to the music playing. I chuckled to myself and shook my head, returning to reading. Not long after I noted the song was still playing, but was different if only just slightly. I lowered the paper and paid closer attention to the song. It definitely had a slightly faster tempo and was being sung in a higher octave. I listened until the song ended, moved to get back to work, then looked up as yet again the ringing of bells drifted down from on high. This version was all instrumental with more of a classical feel, but still the same base principle.

I looked at Duo’s sleeping form, limbs sprawled out haphazardly in the way that you could only do when in a deep, restful sleep. Part of me had expected him to be awake and watching me while grinning his fool head off.

‘It’s just background noise,’ I mumbled to myself and shuffled my reports, the rustling noise enough to help me refocus on my work.

I didn’t really flinch when the song began playing a fourth time.

I stood up and investigated the speaker for an off feature when it started playing a fifth time.

When it started playing the sixth time I felt it was a good opportunity to get up and stretch my legs by taking a lap around the floor.

The seventh time I investigated the speaker again only this time with the passing thought of probable dismantlement.

Eight was in the middle of playing when the nurse arrived to wake Duo and get everything ready for him to be discharged, which proved to be a decently successful distraction. I put my focus on getting the few personal items that were there together and then helped Duo squirm his way into a pair of pants that I had thought to bring with one leg trimmed off to better accommodate the cast. With everything squared away we made small talk until the nurse returned with a wheel chair and I excused myself to go and fetch the car, confirming where to meet them for pick up.

Once I arrived at the car and settled everything I double checked the seat was far enough back for Duo to get in and out easily and that there was nothing in the passenger seat that would get in his way. I put the car in reverse and started to pull out when I hesitated. I pulled out my phone and let it sync via blue tooth to the car stereo system, then queued up a Christmas carol play list before heading off to meet Duo and the nurse at the main entrance, the words Sleigh Ride scrolling across the stereo console. I thought I could handle listening to it one more time, just for Duo.

I’m pretty sure part of the stress of this little tradition I have going is half figuring out the placement of what goes where... Three pictures in the first five days seem a little heavy, but if I spread them out it clogs up the back half… maybe I’m just over thinking it since someone else is doing the actual posting this year and I’m trying to wrangle up my rabid little duckies in advance…

Again we have the wonderful t_shirt1x2 to thank for the image. It should be a nice Christmas afternoon, a few hours after breakfast has been cleared away but slightly before lunch, and with the presents unwrapped we get to see exactly what Duo had been so diligently finishing up earlier in the day. It’s a special gift, because a gift given from the heart is always the most meaningful package under a tree.

And here day two has arrived, bringing with it a brand new little ficlet. It’s a sequel to a previous Christmas ficlet, one I specifically wrote in 2016 after a brand new and highly popular phone app hit the market. One whose sole purpose in life was to make you get up and… Go. Or throw your phone across the room in frustration due to poor product management and constant glitches, I honestly never figured out which. Maybe that was the grand scheme all along. You got up and went to retrieve your phone from where you lobbed it in some demented game of humanized fetch.

I’m going say this one is dedicated my daughter, the best damn Pokemon buddy I could ask for, or maybe I was hers. I like to think I was. She proof read the original ficlet back in 2016 and was rolling, and I couldn’t help thinking about it when I started trying to come up with ideas for this final year. So here’s hoping we can all get another good chuckle as Heero and Trowa learn that

EX is short for exasperated.

‘They’ve nested…’ Trowa stated blandly as we paused at the crosswalk outside of Preventers headquarters.

I nodded somewhat numbly as my mind worked to reconcile the scene before me while at the same time putting the breaks to the immediate threat assessment that had me absently reaching for my firearm. First impressions were critical in any situation, which was why upon seeing upwards of at least forty five individuals milling about just outside headquarters I justifiably had some concerns. Large gatherings generally didn’t happen in front of headquarters that weren’t some variety of negative. Riots mostly, maybe the occasional threat or arrest that always managed to draw in a crowd. Events of that nature.

They were typically not made up of a growing horde of children and adults all glued to their phone screens, some waving and getting the attention of other newcomers in what looked to be some poor attempt at organization.

‘I’m going to take a wild shot in the dark and say that something has changed in game again,’ Trowa sighed as the crosswalk sign flashed to walk and we started across, another five individuals sprinting passed us and joining the larger group.

‘Duo mentioned last week about the building being a hot spot for something,’ I muttered. 'Rare spawn. They’ll clear out quick as ever.’

‘How rare is a randomized collection of ones and zeros that at least fifty five people all have?’

‘Sixty two. You missed the group that just ran up from the east side.’

Trowa snorted and shook his head with an expression that straddled the line somewhere between awed and annoyed. Around us people were chattering excitedly while tapping at phones and tablets, ignoring everything about their surroundings and causing Trowa and myself to have to weave around them more than once to avoid a collision.

‘The Commander is going to have a field day with this,’ I said and lifted an eyebrow as we walked past a man that was sitting on the ground with a cut piece of plywood resting on his knees and no less than nine phones laid out across it. ‘Player or not.’

‘She’s still actively playing?’

‘I’m not sure if ‘actively playing’ is the right phrase, but the game put a ‘base’ on her headquarters,’ I gave Trowa a look and smirked. ‘No one takes something she considers hers, digital or otherwise.’

Trowa made a sound of amused agreement and came to an abrupt halt as two younger kids ran directly in front of our path without so much as an acknowledgement. It made me pause long enough to cast a glance back and reassess the situation. The number of people had continued to grow at a surprisingly steady pace and they hadn’t begun to disperse as expected, which made me realize that Trowa’s initial statement was in fact correct. They were nesting, waiting for… something.

‘This isn’t about something that spawned...’ I was cut off by the front door of headquarters opening and a practical stampede of employees filing out.

‘I can’t get my phone to load!’

‘Mystic! I’m looking for Mystic!’

‘Instinct is camped out over by the east corner according to chat! They have thirty two so far and will be going in two groups!’

‘There is a forced update! I repeat, the game is forcing you to update!’

I gawked and watched as fifteen professionally trained Preventers dispersed into the crowd like school children, each glued to their respective devices.

‘Valor!’ the Commander’s voice rang out coolly as she exited the building and I watched in mounting disbelief as she surveyed the scene, eyes snapping towards a response of ‘ma’am!’ roaring up from one of the larger groups behind us. She didn’t run, but she certainly walked with purpose towards the assembly.

I couldn’t help myself and let out a bark of laughter, causing Trowa to look at me as though the last thread of some fragile reality had finally snapped.

‘She had a meeting scheduled today for data and intelligence review.’

‘I know.’

‘She had a meeting scheduled for today and they are all out here, on their phones, playing a children’s game at one in the afternoon.’

‘Technically, it’s exactly two minutes and fifteen seconds until one,’ Duo interrupted cheerfully and nudged Trowa in the side, having been walking shortly behind the Commander before making a beeline towards us. ‘You two look, what’s the word I’m going for here... bewildered, out of your depth?’

‘It’s a little disconcerting to come back from lunch to find headquarters under siege by what looks to be nearly seventy Pokemon Go players, Duo.’

‘Closer to ninety, actually,’ Duo muttered as he absentmindedly tapped something on his phone screen. ‘We had over a hundred confirm in the discord that they had passes for this thing, but I doubt all of them made it.’

‘Ninety! For what?’

‘The new EX Raid? I was telling Heero about it last week when passes went out and I got one,’ Duo grinned and flashed his screen at us. There was the vaguely discolored shape of the Preventers headquarters with its gym, a silvery-blue blob sitting there with a timer above it. ‘These things are rare right now, and you have to be invited to participate at specific gyms. Ours happens to be eligible.’

‘There were a few points of that sentence that made sense…’

‘It’s part of the new raid system…’ Duo huffed as Trowa and I shook our heads. ‘Look, just know that it’s an exclusive Pokemon, everyone here wants to battle and catch it, and Une gave everyone permission to be on the premises for twenty minutes to partake in the event.’

‘And cancel the afternoon meeting?’

‘Less canceled and more gave a ten minute enrichment and self-care break. After all, a nice day like today? Would be an absolute shame having to stay inside and work on boring reports or sit through dull meetings.’

I opened my mouth to comment about how that sounded suspiciously more like one of Duo’s ideas but missed the opportunity as he glanced at his phone again and quickly excused himself, rushing over to the group the Commander was standing with. Elsewhere people had started to vocalize a countdown, starting at ten and raising in volume the closer they got to zero. I checked my phone to find it read one o clock, right on the dot.

‘Maybe I’m getting old, but I don’t really get it,’ Trowa chuckled a bit and sat down on the front steps, pulling out his phone. I lifted an eyebrow in question and he gestured out towards the crowd. ‘The Commander apparently gave the go ahead to be out here. I’m not saying no to a longer lunch.’

There was no denying that the idea wasn’t appealing. The paperwork on my desk would still be there regardless of if I went back to work right away or a little late so I went ahead and sat down, watching the goings on and noting the different people that had gathered on the front lot.

It was, in some ways I would never quite admit out loud, refreshing. The fact that it wasn’t a riot or emergency situation that would need my intervention was simply an added bonus.