A fire crackled in the hearth, large enough to warm the entire library. After bringing the tree inside, putting it in place, and getting a ladder tall enough to reach the top, Anna was sweltering in her wool sweater.
"How many lights are we going to stick on this fucking thing?" Anna wove yet another strand of fat, gaudy lights around the giant tree.
"I guess as many as will fit?" Anna could see Scott's head bobbing on the other side of the tree. It was easy to spot with the half cocked Santa hat on. "You can pass me that end of the lights you're holding, Anna, and I can loop it across my side and back to you if it'd be easier."
"I don't need your help, Scott."
"If you're sure. I know I wouldn't be super comfortable with that many branches in my face, is all."
"I said, I - got - it," Anna had to hold her breath to stretch far enough to reach the cable from the other side of the tree. "See! There, it was that easy."
"You're right. You got me, Anna."
"One more string of lights," Evan said, sitting on the floor cross-legged with one knee bouncing rhythmically. His face was buried in his laptop with a cable connecting it to the lights.
Kurt reclined on the couch nearest Evan with his head resting near his shoulder. "Watchya doin'?'"
"You'll see." Evan took a baby carrot from the coffee table loaded with snacks, soaked it in ranch, and mouthed the whole thing.
"You sure you don't want help with this last string of lights, Ann?"
"I told you I'm not a wiener, Scott! Now stop trying to take this from me!"
Scott held his palms up to shoulder height, "Won't find any wiener talk over here."
"Good," Though from this height, Anna had to admit she was feeling at least a cousin to the hot dog family. At the top of the ladder and having to reach across the tree at another weird angle was starting to make her palms sweat inside her gloves. "Now sit there and watch how a professional does it."
Anna took the string of lights and tried to drape them gently across the branches, but the other side was just too far out of reach. She could feel her center of gravity tipping dangerously over the edge of the ladder, but there was something very important on the line… pride. She stretched her arm and body as far as it would go, then something miraculous happened.
Suddenly, the string of lights started floating from her hand and wrapped around the opposite end of the tree as if the spirit of Christmas itself was giving her an assist. Even more importantly, it happened out of the view of everyone else. Like a she was a running back catching a football for a touchdown, Anna grabbed the flying cord and plugged it into the top where the star would be mounted. Like the hero she was, she pumped her fist.
Scott clapped, "And here I thought you were going to take the whole tree down with you."
"Shows what you know, Summers!"
"Nicely done, Anna." Jean joined the group from where Anna then realized she'd been standing at the threshold of the library. "The tree looks great!" She gave a little wink to Anna.
"Whose doing the star on top?" Evan said through a mouth full of carrots.
"I know Kitty would have wanted to." Anna got off the ladder, a little more grateful to be on terra firma than before.
Scott plopped down on the free couch and sipped his cooling cocoa that had been waiting for him on the coffee table.
"Because it's the part that gets the most praise and has the least amount of work." Anna pulled out her phone. "Maybe I can FaceTime her so she'll at least be here in spirit."
"She might still be on the plane," Jean approached the tree and cradled one of the ornaments in her palm. It was a 'New York' ornament with the year 97 in smaller text set to the city skyline in the background.
"Yeah, she's not picking up."
"She could also just be enjoying some time with her folks. I know she was looking forward to it."
"Yeah, she was." Anna closed her contact list, but not before getting one last glance at Kitty's contact photo. It was a smiling Kitty giving the peace sign to the camera next to Anna, who'd fallen asleep watching a movie. She was sure to let Anna know when she woke up how loudly she snored. "How about, Kurt?"
"What about Kurt?" The boy himself looked up after being entranced by something on Evan's screen.
"Want to put the star on the tree?"
"You want me to do it?"
"Unless you know of another blue-haired little weirdo living here." Anna picked the star, which was the size of her head, out of a box and offered it to Kurt.
"Uh, yeah! Sure!" Kurt got up, grabbed the star, and more crawled than climbed up the ladder. The actions he took to get up the thing might have made a little more sense if his personal hologram wasn't distorting his normal imp physiology to look conventionally human. Because with it on, climbing up that thing made him look possessed.
"Ready!" He said at the very top of the ladder. He raised the star above his head and then jammed it into the top. When the star made contact, the whole tree ignited into a sudden light show. There was a popping of white and yellow light from the star that traveled down the lights like a firework. Next followed a subtle flashing effect from each bulb that made the whole thing look like a sparkler, till finally the whole thing settled into a soft golden glow.
Kurt grabbed the top of his head. "Did I do that?"
"Yeah, you did," Evan closed his laptop and looked up at Kurt on the ladder. Anna had never been privy to the ins and outs of Kurt's and Evan's relationship. How they treated each other in private, or what they talked about when no one was around. But she caught a glimpse of it in the way Evan looked at Kurt in that moment. It was like he had captured the warmth and light of the sun in his hands, and he'd never dare to let it go. "Merry Christmas, Kurt."
Kurt smiled a goofy, toothy grin back. "Merry Christmas, Ev."
"Who wants short ribs?" Logan's voice rebounds off the walls of the room. All the attention got sucked away from the nice moment and redirected onto Logan who was walking in wearing a chef's hat dotted with red stains and an apron that read "Kiss My Grits." Between his two great paws was a platter weighted down with meat drenched in sauce. With little care for what was on the coffee table, he cleared it with a swipe of his hand and dropped the platter on top. The stout little coffee table shook.
"Ribs?" Jean blinked, "It's two in the afternoon."
Logan peeled off his oven mittens. "Now it's ribs in the afternoon."
"I mean, why couldn't this have waited for dinner?"
"Because it's not ribs for dinner." Logan grabbed a hunk of red off the platter and bit into it. What was even worse was… that it actually smelled pretty good. "And the meat was going bad soon, so I figured…" Logan looked down. "Are those baby carrots? You kids just eat little carrots?"
"They're good with ranch," Evan looked over the spread of former animal.
"I go through all this trouble to make something decent, and you little goblins would settle for rabbit food?"
"There are such things as snacks, Logan." Anna peered around the stout man and into the hallway. "Where's Ororo?"
"She's taking some personal time in her garden. I'd like you all not to bother her." Logan bites another huge hunk off his ribs. The sauce was beginning to drip down his hand, but he intercepted it with his lips.
"Is she okay?"
"She'll be fine as long as you all don't bother her." Logan looked at the tree as if noticing it for the first time. "Hey, looks pretty good! Is that what you kids were in here doing and yappin' all day?" He finished off the meat on his rib in one remaining bite, tossed the bone on an empty plate, and clapped any debris off his hands. "Ya'll didn't waste any time with that evergreen I cut, did ya?"
"I hope you don't mind," Kurt got down from the ladder. "It's just with Christmas so close and we finally had some time with our break -"
"Don't mind at all! It's why I cut the thing. Kids need a tree for Christmas."
"Logan," Jean leaned against the piano. "Do you know… if the Professor will be joining us for Christmas?"
The man stared at the fire for a beat. "That's not looking likely."
Jean gave a sort of half nod, "I see." She then lowered herself onto the piano bench.
"But, uh, Ororo and I will be here." Logan sucked in the breath in his mouth, giving his cheeks a concave look as he contined to stare at the fire. "And, uh, we're going to do some fun stuff."
Evan grabbed a rib and bit into it. "Like what?" he asked mid-chew.
Logan continued trying to find something in the fire before him. He made a popping sound with his lips, "We got guns downstairs, and guns are fun to shoot." He clapped a single time and rubbed his hands together. His hands were dry enough that it sounded like two strips of sandpaper were being scraped together. "Monopoly," He said after a while. "We probably have that somewhere."
There was a long pause where no one but the crackling fire spoke up. Eventually Logan sucking in a lung full of air was enough to regain everyone's attention. "Well, enjoy the ribs. Dinner at six." With that he vacated the room faster then Anna had ever seen that man move.
"This is going to be a fun vacation," Kurt said from his seated position under the tree with his little knees bouncing. If you'd stuck a bow on him, he'd look like a gift. "I can already tell."
** AUTHOR'S NOTE
Hey there! I wanted to let you know that I've decided to publish the entire backlog of Rogue Evolution on my website, artoflupin.com. There, you will be A CHAPTER AHEAD and still be on the same upload schedule you've gotten used to here!
If you'd prefer to wait for uploads here, no worries, uploads will continue here as scheduled.
Thanks! **