"...I mostly stayed alive through the whole thing"

SecretSantaStuck Promt! (nr12)

This is my fill for the SecretSantaStuck prompt who asked for something christmassy with the troll-girls! Hope you like it! ;w;

Darkness hung over the big house, the silence just as pressing as the thief sneaked down the halls of the house. It was not the first time she had tried, and would surely not be the last this mission was attempted.  But before she could even get halfway across the floor towards the looming (strangly-pointy-and-annoyingly-shining-but-actually-kind-of-fun-making) tree a voice interrupted her.

“Vriska Serket.” The light came on, revealing a Terezi leaning on her cane at the end of the room. Some of the dramatic entrance disappeared as she still had pyjamas and Sleepy-hat (with a tail like a dragon) on. Terezi straightened up and pointed towards Vriska. “You are hereby caught red-handed by the crime of the human-unsaid rule about opening presents before morning!”

Vriska wasn’t the one to back down. “Objection!” She screamed mimicking the game Terezi got for last Christmas. “I was never going to open them.” She was speaking complete truth, but of course that didn’t fool her old-time rival. A fight of words began, slowly going louder and louder.

“You were going to look at them anyway!”

“Like you haven’t smelled yours yet!”

“It was an accident! Who could avoid that tempting red smell?”

“It was only red on the wrapper!”

“Aha! So you have been looking into the presents.” They glowered towards each other for a moment, neither thinking about taking to violence but instead trying to think up their next line. The one who said it wasn’t one of them though.

“Will you two quiet down, you’re waking the whole house. “ If they had been careful they would have noticed the slight light coming from Kanaya, who rubbed her eyes free from sleep and still somehow managed to glare. “I know it’s hard to sleep, but as Rose is our host we have to be good guests and settle for the human traditions.”

The two girls looked at Kanaya, then at each other, and lastly at the presents at the floor, but didn’t make any move. Just as Kanaya relaxed as nothing more seemed to be happening, Terezi grinned.

“Looks like John got you another movie with that horrible actor again this year. That’s the only one smelling dramatic B-movies and sweat.”

“Don’t diss Nic!” Vriska immediately defended and Kanaya sighed as the battle started again, Vriska taking up Dave’s present to Terezi and concentrated. “Oh look, looks like Dave got you a comic. How imaginative of him.”

Before the fight would wake up certain easily annoyed trolls, who didn’t sleep enough anyway, Kanaya interfered and dragged them both out to the front door. “Now shoosh.” She warned them with a glance upwards to the rooms and a glare to Vriska and Terezi (who still made jabs at each other) before she made them put on some warm clothes. “If you can’t sleep and can’t keep quiet you have to go out.” Kanaya concluded, showing them past the doorway, and out into the snow filled night. Only to get hit in the face with a snowball.

“OH MY COD! I’m so sorry Kanaya!” Outside of the house were an impressive amount of snow-creations, Aradia working closest to the door on an unusually thin snowman, looking like the death character from that strange and completely illogical book the kids read. From the quick calculation from where Feferi stood, to where Aradia stood in straight line to Kanaya, it wasn’t hard to understand who had been the primary target for the attack.

“Looks like we’re not the only ones not being able to sleep!” Terezi cackled happily as she dove down to the snow, picking it up to make a snowball of her own, and when Vriska also joined, Feferi let out a shriek of glee and hid behind what was probably (according from the angry face and the small broken off carrots on the head) Karkat. Aradia joined on Feferi’s side (behind a Sollux), the missed attack apparently forgotten in the face of the Scourge Sisters.

Kanaya closed the door behind her, drying away the melting snow from her face and gave up trying to keep the four quiet. They were outside and hopefully wouldn’t bother those still in the house. But she still felt her instincts twist as their clothes was splashed with snowball after snowball.  Then Vriska’s attack suddenly knocked off the glasses from SnowEquius, and was met with a series of attacks from Aradia, who screamed “protect the Derse team!”

From then on the rules changed from peppering each other with snow to trying to break all the carefully made snowmen. Derse vs. Prospit. Gracefully Kanaya bent down and rolled the snow in her hand. With a then quick motion she threw it with perfect aim, never hitting the clothes but the back of Feferi’s head. She joined the battle.

With the help of being three against two, team Prospit finally won and they walked into the house, with slightly less energy than before. As they were all dripping from cold, Aradia even sneezing a bit because of her warm blood, they went back into the living room huddling down in front of the Christmas tree.  

Feferi didn’t mind being a little bit wet, that had actually been her motivation to go outside in the first place, but the rest of the landdwellers didn’t see it as much and Aradia ran off to fetch towels.  

Somehow they managed to stay quiet enough, even after getting a Christmas-songbook Dave had left for “ironic-family-traditions” (and that John had played and sung on the piano with enthusiasm) and tried to translate all the things to the Alternian lore and words. It didn’t go that well, but at least they had something to pass the time with.

They were so engrossed with the comparison between Porridge and Grubmix, that they didn’t notice the arrival of a sixth troll until she revealed herself.

“And it is furrainely done!” Everybody jumped, as Nepeta shrieked from the doorway, announcing her presence.   

“The what?” The four girls asked in unison, finally agreeing to something, as confused as they were. And Nepeta looked at them just as surprised, as if she hadn’t noticed them yet. It didn’t take long for her to compose herself with an excited smile.

“Dave told me about it! The other kept weirdly quiet about it for some reason…” Finally she took one of her paws up, and jingled a green-earth-flower-made-up-by-leaves in front of them. “A shipping flower! You have to kiss whoever is under it.”

Vriska looked at the others, not knowing whenever to feel mischievous or scared at such a power in the hand of Nepeta, before looking around the room. True, small but cleverly hidden mistletoes were seated across the room, and also the hallway, and in the doorways. There would be no escape from it, and Vriska realized why Equius had asked everyone not to tell Nepeta about this part of human-tradition.

“I can’t wait for morning!” Nepeta smiled, and looked at all her decorations. “All the canon, fanon and crack pairings this shall make!” Before she could continue telling her plans and where all the mistletoes had been hung, Aradia came back. She was carrying towels and a blanket, dumping it in front of them, and suddenly Feferi seemed to get an idea. As everyone was drying off, she whispered something to Nepeta, and they both ran off smiling, coming back with pillows from all the couches in the house.

“What are you doing?” Terezi wondered, looking as if she wanted to join and as an answer got a rug dropped over her by Nepeta. Feferi made it clearer as she fixed the pillows in her arms and walked over.

“We’re doing a Christmas-pile!” She said happily, dropping the pillows over the presents on the floor, baking them into the newly made pile. “If we’re going to open presents, why not do it our way with everyone else?”

Maybe it was only the tiredness speaking, but soon everyone was running around gathering things into the pile. Everything they could find became a part of it, to make sure everyone would fit and everyone would be comfortable. (After some consideration they even sneaked around like Christmas-elves and stole some horns, shitty wands, and one or another robot-part from the cornered victims). Finally they seemed to be done and everyone flopped down on their newly-made heap of random-things-that-mostly-were-random-but-still-had-something-christmassy-in.

“And what do we do now, huh?” Vriska asked, sounding bored even though her body was submerged in pillows in an incredibly non-threatening way. Or, maybe the staying up all day and then almost all night was starting to take its toll.

Even Nepeta, who had been running around excitedly and fixing her decorations, rolled herself in as a larva and shuffled further down. Terezi made rustling sounds as she moved around, taking all the red wrapping paper into her part and hung her glasses on a branch of the tree.  Feferi was deep down, glubbing happily as she hung her glasses on another branch, Vriska reluctantly joining with her own, finishing their makeshift-new-tree-glasses-decorations.  Aradia took a corner of the pile, halfway laying on the floor and halfway almost kicking Vriska with her legs. Content with this, Kanaya sat down and rested her back against the pile, stealing only a blanket before finally answering Vriska’s question.

“Now,” Kanaya, looking at the five others as their eyes started to droop, the energy zapped away by warmth. “Now, we wait for morning.”

It didn’t take long for the girls to settle down in the pile and so, they fell asleep.

——

“WHAT THE FUCK HAS BEEN GOING ON HERE?!” Karkat shouted, as quietly as he could, noticing the  a giant pile made out of presents, wrapping paper, pillows, clothes, curtains and other strange decoration next to the Christmas tree. It was way too quiet, and he hadn’t found anyone else in the house yet. Only too late did he notice fourteen pairs of eyes watching him carefully from underneath the heap. And before he could even get out another question, Nepeta pounced him, pushing him into the pile to open the first gifts.

 It looked like the human-traditions would get some additions this year.