kitchen_maid | Christmas Party! Millitimed Vaguely to "Sometime Around Christmas"

Christmas Party! Millitimed Vaguely to "Sometime Around Christmas"

Anne and Amy have been very very busy over the last week or so, transforming their usually simple white room into the perfect place for a Christmas party.

There are garlands of holly and balsam strung around the room, leading away from the wreath between the windows (and there's a grumpy looking crow, perched in the middle of the wreath, trying to figure out how to get the red ribbon from around his neck). A Christmas tree, candles ablaze, stands in one corner, with presents tucked under its branches.

Welcome, dear friend, to Anne and Amy's Christmas party.

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Logan's getting into the spirit of things.

He didn't even think about Lynn's famous Christmas punch when he proposed it. He's not thinking about it now.

"Good choice," he says, noting the label. "When you've got an endless variety available, why stint?"

"Not at Christmas."

Or, really, any other time.

It's what the black AmEx is for, right?

"Cheers."

The punch is now officially spiked.

And Logan helps himself. "Cheers, Sis," he says. "So, you met anyone exciting in the Bar yet?"

"Not really. Ran into Veronica, and Lilly. But that's about it, really, so far. Haven't been here much. Anyone here tonight I should meet?"

She looks around. It's a very . . . sweet party, by Neptune standards.

Logan shrugs. "There are some very good people here," he says. "Emphasis on the good. Kind, clever, funny."

It is sweet. Quiet. Nice. That's probably why Logan likes it. No stabbings. No murder. Minor soap operas that will resolve themselves easily enough.

"So nothing at all like home then?"

She looks around.

"This really is what Lynn was trying to make her parties look like, isn't it?"

Logan smiles. There's not a lot of humor in it, but there's something sort of soft there, a fondness, maybe.

"It is," he says quietly. "I think these are the kind of people she always wanted us to be. Considerate and friendly and, well, better than we were at being a family."

"Well," she says, "I'd say something about doing better next year, but we both know we won't."

Nothing for it, then, but to refill their glasses.

And hope no one gets stabbed this year.

A few glasses from the new, improved, Merrier Christmas punch, and things are looking even shinier. "So," Logan says, gesturing expansively at the Bar. "Did I tell you I'm Bound now? Again?"

"Really?" Trina looks at him. "Didn't know you were into that sort of thing."

What? She hasn't heard the term yet.

Logan smiles faintly. "What am I not into?" he asks rhetorically. "The first week I was here, I kept looking for S&M chicks, until someone clued me in that it's about the door back to Neptune not opening. I'm stuck here until Bar lets me out."

He scowls. "She kinda hates me, I think."

"Oh is that what it means? Oh. How come you're Bound? And how do you know?"

"Dunno why," Logan says. "Never really understood the whole thing. But I know because every door I open takes me where it's supposed to, and the one that follows me around sometimes is gone."

This definitely requires more alcohol.

"A door follows you around? What, like a puppy?"

Lots more alcohol.

"More like a stalker," Logan mutters, drinking. "When I didn't want to leave last time - I was in the hospital, at home, after the bridge thing? - it wouldn't go away. Totally annoying."

"Wow. Your stalker is a lot more interesting than mine was."

You haven't really arrived until you've had a stalker.

"I mean, the story is. The door itself is probably pretty boring."

Logan laughs. "Your stalker," he says, "Was the most pathetic individual ever. I really wanted to give him money so he could buy a proper dinner."

Lucky Logan!

"The door? It looked like the Neptune cafeteria one, actually. It just went home, though."

"I think stalkers are, by definition, pathetic."

Trina will not have her stalker belittled. Not after all the work she went to in order to get that story into the tabloids.

"I've never noticed you not being around for weeks at a time."

Not that she necessarily would have.

"Good point," Logan says. He won't go any further. Trina gets very protective of her stalker's reputation as 'scary.'

"Mostly I'm not," he says. "You've noticed you seem to arrive home about the time you left, whereever you meant to go, right?"

You'd find it scary, too, if the best you can come up with for a stalker is a guy named "Laurence." That says very scary things about your lack of career.

"I seem to, I guess."

"Same thing for me, no matter how long I spend here."

Except for the summer, which he was...there and not there for at the same time. It's weird, and he doesn't want to get into it.

"It's good, but it also kinda sucks. Sometimes I'd like to fast forward and get to the end of the ~~season~~year, you know?"

Such is the problem created by the schedule, really.

She looks at him.

"Yeah, I think I do."

Fortunately, there is still plenty of punch.

And if that runs out, well, there's a whole bar downstairs.

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Christmas Party! Millitimed Vaguely to "Sometime Around Christmas"

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