The Second Day of Christmas, 2008
Dec. 31st, 2008 11:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ciirceeI just got home from Christmas.
JUST TODAY. JUST TWO HOURS AGO.
The week before Christmas my van decided to have a major electrical problem that took one week and fourteen-hundred dollars to fix. The day before my birthday, the day my niece was getting married, the day I was leaving for home, it decided to have that problem again. Thankfully I only had to sit at Firestone (with all four kids and Ed) until the wedding was over and the reception started. So, you know, basically all day. Because before that every single family member was busy getting their hair done or doing photographs or whatever. And the church, for some reason, could not find the grandmother of the bride and it never occured to them that the bride, the parents of the bride, the matron of honor (the bride's sister), the bridesmaid (her other sister) or the junior bridesmaid (her niece) might know who and where she was.
The best part is that the part and the labor was done on Tuesday--but because they kept unhooking the computer and the battery, the SRS anti-theft device kicked on and it had to be towed to a the nearest Dodge dealer so that a satellite uplink could reset the chip in the key, the key fob, and the ignition.
I didn't have my laptop with me, of course.
The upside is that the repair didn't cost me a dime because I'd had the car back for less than a week. The downside? I'm looking to back date a lot of fic for the 12 Days (I aim to post two a day until I'm caught up starting tomorrow, and then backdate it after a week or so). Here, have some day two Gravitation. I have to pass out.
Close Only Counts
Judy Winchester was called many things—beautiful, talented, gracious, effervescent, luminous. 'Dangerous' and 'scary' got thrown around quit a bit, too.
Sitting in her trailer on the set of her latest movie, Judy was thinking about her favorite thing to be called: 'Mrs. Winchester' in Claude's clear, strong voice from the other end of her Walther P99.
A man like her husband deserved the perfect Christmas present. Normally it wasn't a problem but, this year, her filming schedule was so hectic that it was hard to find time to even think about the perfect gift, let alone find an arms dealer who carried it.
"Mrs. Winchester—please don't kill me!"
Judy frowned at the Assistant Director who had poked his head in the door and then set the .480 Ruger aside. "I wouldn't dream of it, Andrew," she reassured him. "Is Sidney ready for the next scene?"
"Not yet," the AD said, his eyes flittering nervously over to the gun. "B-but we have to take the long way to the set, so I came for you now."
"The long way?" Judy never minded a good hike if it was for a good purpose (she knew most marriages didn't include stalking a spouse and flushing them out of the tactical high ground, she just couldn't understand why they didn't). "Why ever for?"
Andrew gulped nervously as Judy slid her GP35 into her thigh holster. "W-well, the black-powder guys are rigging bags and lines an—Mrs. Winchester!"
"I love black-powder!" Judy said, sweeping out of her trailer and down the main 'street' of the lot. "There's just something about that acrid tang on the air!" She found the pyrotechnics crew easily, looking for the habitual empty space that surrounded their work areas. "Is that artillery shell fuse?"
"Nah, it's the new magnesium ribbon—" one of the engineers said as he turned toward her. An idea sparked in her brain the way the sunlight sparked on the engineer's multiple piercings.
"Mrs. Winchester!"
Judy kissed the unknown engineer on the cheek. "You're a darling," she told him. "Andrew, find Ark for me and tell him that I need Rhienmetall on the phone as soon as he can manage it. I have a special order I need rushed through before my flight to Japan."
"B-b-bu—"
Japan. Judy stopped and reversed direction. "And tell Sidney that I've gone to wardrobe. She'll understand. Darlings," she carol as she entered the wardrobe trailer, "I have a very important request~! It's a mater of life or death."
Christmas in Japan was a lovers holiday, after all.
Judy had the scene set in Claude's Tokyo home by the time he made it there. The candles were lit, the wine was chilling, and she'd managed to slip into something a little more comfortable. She got the drop on Claude at the door. "Hi, honey," she chirped, pressing the muzzle of the .44 WFC against his carotid artery. He smelled of spent jet fuel from the aerial dogfight and the cuff of his crisp, oxford cloth shirt was singed from the subway collisions. "Your Christmas present is on the table."
Claude smiled at her, tipping his sunglasses down to look over the tops at her. "You win this year, Mrs. Winchester," he told her. "Next year won't be so easy."
She laughed lowly, delightedly. "I'll look forward to it." She boosted herself up to sit on the table, next to the present in its candy-striped wrapping, and watched her husband's capable hands work the ribbons. "I hope you like it."
The wrapping fell away and she watched Claude's hands still for a moment. "Mrs. Winchester," he said in a hush, "you are a wonder."
"It's Kevlar under the leather," Judy told him, lifting the modified flak jacket out of its nest of tissue paper, unable to wait. "I had them tailor it based on your shoulder holster," she went on as Claude turned and let her slide it over his shoulders. His back was broad and handsome under the black expanse of the vest. She fussed with the quick-release buckles at his shoulders and his waist as he turned again. "And, of course, RWM Arges changed out all the pins and levers." She did up the strap across his chest. He looked beautiful covered in grenades, the gold of the specialty pins gleaming in compliment to the gold of his hair, setting off those blue, blue eyes that she'd fallen in love with.
"Stun, flash, fragment, chemical, burning," he murmured, his long fingers drifting over the assortment of anti-personnel devices. "You didn't miss a trick." A smile lifted one side of his mouth. "You've seriously hampered your chances of making me open my gift first next year," he warned her.
Judy put a hand over her mouth in feigned dismay. "Oh, no," she gasped.
"Oh, yes," Claude replied, leaning in. "You're in trouble now."
"You're going to force me to do something desperate," Judy said, curling one leg around one of Claude's and revealing a long stretch of bare leg as her silk robe parted.
"Is that so?" his eyes were roving over the garter (sans gun) high on her thigh.
"It certainly is." Judy tilted her head, looking up at Claude through the thick fringe of her eyelashes, hiding her smile behind a professional pout as she undid the tie on her robe and let it slip off her shoulders to puddle on the table behind her.
Claude's hands landed on either side of her body with a dull, shocked-sounding thud. "Ma'am," he breathed, "I do believe you are in a very dangerous situation."
Judy looked down at the lingerie that she'd had the wardrobe staff make for her and then back up at her husband as she hooked a finger in the gold grenade pin that held her black-lace bra closed. She pulled the pin and leaned back on her hands. "Now it's a dangerous situation," she purred.
"I'll protect you, Mrs. Winchester," Claude told her, "even if it means covering that bombshell with my own body."
"My hero," she laughed as he bore her back against the table.
ETA: Here, have some cuts from the FIRST day of Christmas!
---------Christmas no Arashi!--------
They don't really give each other Christmas gifts.
This isn't lack of interest or love, but rather because one year Sho gave everybody a box of spermicidal—ribbed for her pleasure—condoms.
Each box had been personalized: Nino's box had been wrapped in a year-by-year breakdown of the cost of raising one child to the age of eighteen. Ohno's box was wrapped in a list of common STDs and just what, exactly, they could cause to rot and fall off. Jun's box had been wrapped with wrapping paper and a note that said 'I trust you, but you never know'. Aiba's box had been wrapped in three layers of color-coded charts containing the cost analysis, the STDs, and the fact that Sho did not think Aiba was a slut but that he was sick of worrying every time he walked into the resting room and found Aiba with a new set of legs acting as earmuffs.
("Are we having an orgy?" Aiba had asked in a confused-yet-enthusiastic way.
"I need a bigger size," said Nino.
"GROSS," said Jun.
Ohno had opened Nino's box and blown four of the condoms up like balloons.)
Sho still spends part of every Christmas getting mocked for the Christmas Condoms. Nino and Jun, in a rare display of total unity, re-write one carol every year to sing just for the occasion.
"Say what you will," Sho tells them, "but at least none of us has ever gotten anybody pregnant."
("Nino got Ohno pregnant that one time," Aiba reminds them all seriously.)
---------------A boy and his turtles----------------
"No, no," Aiba says hastily. "It's good! Anything's better than the year you called me crying because your turtles froze."
Jun is still embarrassed by the incident. Not only because he completely forgot Aiba's birthday and only remembered a week later thanks to an off-hand comment that Yoko made but because he'd cried. All over Aiba's shoulder. Sobbing and sobbing about his dead turtles. And fuck Ninomiya anyways; Jun had never asked to fall in love with five tiny, smelly, shelled losers capable of being ressurected by Aiba and a warm water bath.
JUST TODAY. JUST TWO HOURS AGO.
The week before Christmas my van decided to have a major electrical problem that took one week and fourteen-hundred dollars to fix. The day before my birthday, the day my niece was getting married, the day I was leaving for home, it decided to have that problem again. Thankfully I only had to sit at Firestone (with all four kids and Ed) until the wedding was over and the reception started. So, you know, basically all day. Because before that every single family member was busy getting their hair done or doing photographs or whatever. And the church, for some reason, could not find the grandmother of the bride and it never occured to them that the bride, the parents of the bride, the matron of honor (the bride's sister), the bridesmaid (her other sister) or the junior bridesmaid (her niece) might know who and where she was.
The best part is that the part and the labor was done on Tuesday--but because they kept unhooking the computer and the battery, the SRS anti-theft device kicked on and it had to be towed to a the nearest Dodge dealer so that a satellite uplink could reset the chip in the key, the key fob, and the ignition.
I didn't have my laptop with me, of course.
The upside is that the repair didn't cost me a dime because I'd had the car back for less than a week. The downside? I'm looking to back date a lot of fic for the 12 Days (I aim to post two a day until I'm caught up starting tomorrow, and then backdate it after a week or so). Here, have some day two Gravitation. I have to pass out.
Close Only Counts
Judy Winchester was called many things—beautiful, talented, gracious, effervescent, luminous. 'Dangerous' and 'scary' got thrown around quit a bit, too.
Sitting in her trailer on the set of her latest movie, Judy was thinking about her favorite thing to be called: 'Mrs. Winchester' in Claude's clear, strong voice from the other end of her Walther P99.
A man like her husband deserved the perfect Christmas present. Normally it wasn't a problem but, this year, her filming schedule was so hectic that it was hard to find time to even think about the perfect gift, let alone find an arms dealer who carried it.
"Mrs. Winchester—please don't kill me!"
Judy frowned at the Assistant Director who had poked his head in the door and then set the .480 Ruger aside. "I wouldn't dream of it, Andrew," she reassured him. "Is Sidney ready for the next scene?"
"Not yet," the AD said, his eyes flittering nervously over to the gun. "B-but we have to take the long way to the set, so I came for you now."
"The long way?" Judy never minded a good hike if it was for a good purpose (she knew most marriages didn't include stalking a spouse and flushing them out of the tactical high ground, she just couldn't understand why they didn't). "Why ever for?"
Andrew gulped nervously as Judy slid her GP35 into her thigh holster. "W-well, the black-powder guys are rigging bags and lines an—Mrs. Winchester!"
"I love black-powder!" Judy said, sweeping out of her trailer and down the main 'street' of the lot. "There's just something about that acrid tang on the air!" She found the pyrotechnics crew easily, looking for the habitual empty space that surrounded their work areas. "Is that artillery shell fuse?"
"Nah, it's the new magnesium ribbon—" one of the engineers said as he turned toward her. An idea sparked in her brain the way the sunlight sparked on the engineer's multiple piercings.
"Mrs. Winchester!"
Judy kissed the unknown engineer on the cheek. "You're a darling," she told him. "Andrew, find Ark for me and tell him that I need Rhienmetall on the phone as soon as he can manage it. I have a special order I need rushed through before my flight to Japan."
"B-b-bu—"
Japan. Judy stopped and reversed direction. "And tell Sidney that I've gone to wardrobe. She'll understand. Darlings," she carol as she entered the wardrobe trailer, "I have a very important request~! It's a mater of life or death."
Christmas in Japan was a lovers holiday, after all.
Judy had the scene set in Claude's Tokyo home by the time he made it there. The candles were lit, the wine was chilling, and she'd managed to slip into something a little more comfortable. She got the drop on Claude at the door. "Hi, honey," she chirped, pressing the muzzle of the .44 WFC against his carotid artery. He smelled of spent jet fuel from the aerial dogfight and the cuff of his crisp, oxford cloth shirt was singed from the subway collisions. "Your Christmas present is on the table."
Claude smiled at her, tipping his sunglasses down to look over the tops at her. "You win this year, Mrs. Winchester," he told her. "Next year won't be so easy."
She laughed lowly, delightedly. "I'll look forward to it." She boosted herself up to sit on the table, next to the present in its candy-striped wrapping, and watched her husband's capable hands work the ribbons. "I hope you like it."
The wrapping fell away and she watched Claude's hands still for a moment. "Mrs. Winchester," he said in a hush, "you are a wonder."
"It's Kevlar under the leather," Judy told him, lifting the modified flak jacket out of its nest of tissue paper, unable to wait. "I had them tailor it based on your shoulder holster," she went on as Claude turned and let her slide it over his shoulders. His back was broad and handsome under the black expanse of the vest. She fussed with the quick-release buckles at his shoulders and his waist as he turned again. "And, of course, RWM Arges changed out all the pins and levers." She did up the strap across his chest. He looked beautiful covered in grenades, the gold of the specialty pins gleaming in compliment to the gold of his hair, setting off those blue, blue eyes that she'd fallen in love with.
"Stun, flash, fragment, chemical, burning," he murmured, his long fingers drifting over the assortment of anti-personnel devices. "You didn't miss a trick." A smile lifted one side of his mouth. "You've seriously hampered your chances of making me open my gift first next year," he warned her.
Judy put a hand over her mouth in feigned dismay. "Oh, no," she gasped.
"Oh, yes," Claude replied, leaning in. "You're in trouble now."
"You're going to force me to do something desperate," Judy said, curling one leg around one of Claude's and revealing a long stretch of bare leg as her silk robe parted.
"Is that so?" his eyes were roving over the garter (sans gun) high on her thigh.
"It certainly is." Judy tilted her head, looking up at Claude through the thick fringe of her eyelashes, hiding her smile behind a professional pout as she undid the tie on her robe and let it slip off her shoulders to puddle on the table behind her.
Claude's hands landed on either side of her body with a dull, shocked-sounding thud. "Ma'am," he breathed, "I do believe you are in a very dangerous situation."
Judy looked down at the lingerie that she'd had the wardrobe staff make for her and then back up at her husband as she hooked a finger in the gold grenade pin that held her black-lace bra closed. She pulled the pin and leaned back on her hands. "Now it's a dangerous situation," she purred.
"I'll protect you, Mrs. Winchester," Claude told her, "even if it means covering that bombshell with my own body."
"My hero," she laughed as he bore her back against the table.
ETA: Here, have some cuts from the FIRST day of Christmas!
---------Christmas no Arashi!--------
They don't really give each other Christmas gifts.
This isn't lack of interest or love, but rather because one year Sho gave everybody a box of spermicidal—ribbed for her pleasure—condoms.
Each box had been personalized: Nino's box had been wrapped in a year-by-year breakdown of the cost of raising one child to the age of eighteen. Ohno's box was wrapped in a list of common STDs and just what, exactly, they could cause to rot and fall off. Jun's box had been wrapped with wrapping paper and a note that said 'I trust you, but you never know'. Aiba's box had been wrapped in three layers of color-coded charts containing the cost analysis, the STDs, and the fact that Sho did not think Aiba was a slut but that he was sick of worrying every time he walked into the resting room and found Aiba with a new set of legs acting as earmuffs.
("Are we having an orgy?" Aiba had asked in a confused-yet-enthusiastic way.
"I need a bigger size," said Nino.
"GROSS," said Jun.
Ohno had opened Nino's box and blown four of the condoms up like balloons.)
Sho still spends part of every Christmas getting mocked for the Christmas Condoms. Nino and Jun, in a rare display of total unity, re-write one carol every year to sing just for the occasion.
"Say what you will," Sho tells them, "but at least none of us has ever gotten anybody pregnant."
("Nino got Ohno pregnant that one time," Aiba reminds them all seriously.)
---------------A boy and his turtles----------------
"No, no," Aiba says hastily. "It's good! Anything's better than the year you called me crying because your turtles froze."
Jun is still embarrassed by the incident. Not only because he completely forgot Aiba's birthday and only remembered a week later thanks to an off-hand comment that Yoko made but because he'd cried. All over Aiba's shoulder. Sobbing and sobbing about his dead turtles. And fuck Ninomiya anyways; Jun had never asked to fall in love with five tiny, smelly, shelled losers capable of being ressurected by Aiba and a warm water bath.
