Struggle Siblings Christmas Drabble
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“Happy holidays, Dr. Hayes!”
“Let’s go out tonight, ‘tis the season, right?”
Frankly, Vera had expected a hyper-covert science facility filled to the gills with everything the world hid under the covers from to be less festive. Everything they dealt with on the daily was depressing at best, mind-melting and reality altering at worst. Just last week, one of the janitors accidentally bumped into the favorite plant of a particularly grouchy astral entity and lost all of his orifices.
Yet there were glittery garlands hung along the hallways and a wreath with a rosy-cheeked Santa Claus on the bathroom door. Her coworkers, while usually on rather neutral terms, were chattering like old bitties about their holiday plans. The crabby Dr. Winters had even wished her well. It put an itch in her feathers.
“Miss Hayes, good morning!”
She huffed – spotted already, that was almost a record.
“Morning, Mr. Conway,” Vera said with a short smile. “How are you?”
“Cold! They’re calling for snow tonight, and I’m ready for vacation, y’know?” Alex prompts, sidling up to fall into step with Vera’s brisk, uneven pace. He keeps to her good side, well-trained not to get his overeager paws in the way of the metal leg. From his pocket comes a wrinkled slip of obnoxiously green paper. She eyes it as he holds it out to her with a bright grin. “They’re holding a little craft show down at the conference hall, the one by site 125. D’you wanna check it out?”
Vera pursed her lips as she held back a grimace. She knew, logically, that it would be good for her to get out for once. Healthy, even. But there was vomit burning up in her throat before she could consider it beyond a passive idea. Still, she gave Alex a smile and took the flier with tentative talons.
“Maybe. I’m – I’ve got some plans already,” Vera sputtered as gracefully as she could muster, “lots of… things to do. We’ll see. Don’t wait on me, okay?”
“Okay,” though his energy dimmed, her coworker nodded resolutely. “That’s alright. Maybe next time, right?”
Vera strode past as Alex waved from his office doorway before ducking into her own workspace. He wouldn’t miss her for long; she was mindful to keep her coworkers at wings’ length for their sakes. She didn’t intend to be there longer than necessary. Merrik was the priority. Always.
The thought burned in her chest. Fuck, she couldn’t think about him first thing in the morning, but the endless holiday cheer around her just kept digging and digging into her skin until she felt like she was going to explode.
Fuck that stupid, shady company that took him to god knew where.
Fuck her chatty fucking coworkers who had to broadcast to everyone just how good their lives were with their families and friends and craft shows.
And fuck Christmas for reminding her how fucking much she missed her brother.
The stupid puppy calendar she’d hung on her wall mocked her, the days passed way too fast to be real. Time didn’t deserve to keep moving forward when she felt so frozen. It couldn’t have been three months already. It just wasn’t possible.
Still, as she choked back the sob in her throat, Vera had to keep working. She was close to a breakthrough, she was sure of it. She begged for it. She had to be close, she didn’t know if she would survive the holidays without him. Wherever he was, he had to be close, so she hoped he would hear her in some cosmic, unscientific, magical way that TV shows and Hallmark movies would have you believe were possible.
“It’s been a while, Merrik,” she said under her breath, a prayer to everything she didn’t have faith in and knew had no care for, “I’m on my way, okay? So just… hold on. Wherever you are. I’ll save you, I swear it. I’ll save you.”
Her legs gave out beneath her, suddenly unable to support the weight upon her shoulders. The lab was quiet, dark. She hadn’t bothered with setting up for the morning yet. She had to, eventually, because how else would she get her brother back? For just another minute, though, she allowed herself to fall apart, just a little. To sob and whine and be as pathetic as a part of her wanted to be every single minute that her family was gone.
“I miss you,” Vera allowed herself to say, “Please, come back.”
It snowed that night, she noted absently. Late into the evening, she found herself staring blankly into the dark, watching the fat flakes lazily dance in the winter wind. The tenseness in her shoulders were waved away as concern for the trip home. She lived in the employee lodgings, but the walk from the main facility could be slippery. It was just long enough to reasonably meander through the cold with only a lab coat to warm her. Feathers were coverage enough, surely. She didn’t mind the bite against her cheeks anyways. Vera stood in the courtyard, head turned skyward, lost in space for but a moment.
“Merry Christmas, Merrik,” she said, “You’ll be home in no time.”
Time didn’t really flow quite right anymore – at least, as far as Merrik was aware. The infinite hell he’d fallen into didn’t have any windows to watch the sunset through, nor did it have any rain or snow or stars. The sky instead consisted of flat tile roof and popcorn ceilings. Sometimes, in the space that pretended to be a pool and a water park and a blank slate all at once, there were sky lights that were close enough to the real thing that Merrik liked to tell himself he was getting closer. But the light they gave off was static and no fresh air filtered through to diffuse the sting of chlorine in his lungs.
Still, Merrik did his best to keep a somewhat steady log of the time that passed. After so long of wandering through mildewy hallways, he would stop to eat, note the date, and take a nap. Upon waking, he would pack up his meager collection of things and set off.
Wander, refuel, rest, repeat.
He had nothing to do but think down there. Though, he wasn’t even sure if “down” was the correct term. He had long since determined that this place was not just a deeper part of whatever fuckass facility he’d been looting on his crew’s last mission. God, it really was their last. Everyone was dead, he was dead-
Merrik didn’t need to dwell on the “where” of it all anymore. It wouldn’t do him any good, anyways.
What he did like to consider, though, was what time it would be in the real world.
From what he could remember, his last trip was sent off just before October. There were black and orange streamers thrown haphazardly around the Company building and a jack-o-lantern for sale in the directory. He had just received a transmission from Vera with plans to smuggle him into her office for the holiday. She’d saved some pretzels for him.
It’d surely been a few weeks already. He began making his notes shorter, less spaced-out, to save what remained of his half-filled notebook. The mental state of the coming months would entirely depend on whether or not the mall-like area he was in coughed up something, anything else to write on. He was praying to a god he didn’t believe in for a Radio Shack for some music. Or maybe a book to read. Or literally anything to keep him sane. God, he was so fucked.
Merrik felt heavy as he shuffled through a neon-lit corridor; the vibrant red made his feathers turn a sickly purple. The air tasted of shitty popcorn and mothballs. The prospect of food kicked his heartrate into gear as he picked up the pace. The end of the hall opened into a movie theater lobby, though the bright lights and flat colors of the place made it feel as generic and empty as the rest. Yet, sure enough, there was a popcorn machine lit in dull reds behind the service counter, filled with half-cooked kernels.
With a trill, Merrik soared straight for it, talons screeching where they scrabbled at the glassy plastic of the machine. The whole thing groaned like an ancient beast awoken from its slumber before Merrik sent it to work once more. The image threw his head into the clouds for a moment, losing an abstract amount of time to the indulgence of imagination. It wasn’t hard – there was nothing to really pay attention to out there, aside from the figures the brain found in the dark.
When he eventually came back to earth, Merrik’s eyes were stinging and his haunches ached where he was still perched awkwardly on the counter. He eased himself to the floor as he blinked harshly and just breathed. He pushed the palms of his talons, achingly cold as ever, tightly against his eyes and pretended the claws kneading at his brow were Vera’s.
The growl of his stomach drew Merrik from his thoughts. He was no brother to Vera if he was dead; there was time to yearn later.
Finding the thing’s power switch was trouble enough with the contrasting lighting, then the damn thing turned out to not even be plugged in. Cobwebs covered his arm as it wiggled desperately beneath the counter in search of the outlet and Merrik passively hoped the place had functioning sinks. Soon enough, though, the hum of electronics reached his ears as the machine sputtered to life.
“Oh my god,” Merrik said as he narrowly avoided clocking himself on the lip of the countertop as he shot upright and squished his face against the glass. It emitted a soft light that glistened in Merrik’s eyes; it was already warm. With a little more fiddling, the lofted pot inside began to pop merrily. A grin pulled at the tender scar on his muzzle. “Holy shit…!”
The machine’s gentle glow felt like a beacon in this endless hellscape. Maybe, just for a little while, Merrik could stay there under its warm glow. The yawning emptiness filled with the steady popping of delicious, buttery, movie theater popcorn. It made the air smell familiar, cozy, right. Between that and his stance kneeling in front of the heat, Merrik found himself in his family’s home at Christmas, fledgling claws tapping against the fake fireplace’s glass window.
“One day, we’re gonna have a real one,” Vera said beside him.
She too held her talons up to the simulated flame. The heated vents blew hot air directly at their faces, but neither of them moved to pretend the fire was anything but real. Merrik’s eyes burned.
“You chop the trees,” continued Vera, “and I’ll make the spark. I already found some flint down by the mill!”
“’Found it,’ huh?” Merrik huffed, voice high and breathy like the little kids in school. He wasn’t little anymore, but his voice hadn’t gotten the memo. Mom said it was normal for boys his age and Vera said it made his voice sound nice, no matter what the other kids said. “Vee, you’re gonna get in trouble. Mom’s already getting susup-susp-“
“Suspicious, I know. But that’s why we did our chores already,” Vera smirked.
Merrik hummed a half-hearted agreement. He dropped his talons to his lap as his wings shuffled with barely contained energy. His eyes darted towards the kitchen; the smell of buttery, homemade popcorn was making him drool. Vera poked a claw into his side.
“Fine. We can hang ‘em up now.”
“Yes!” Merrik shrieked. He shot up from his seat and, with a single wingbeat, was in the dinette with a bowl of popcorn in his talons. Vera trailed behind with the fishing wire and scissors; somehow she was the one mom trusted with sharp things even though they were the same age. He plopped back into place beside the fireplace, bowl snuggled between his legs, as Vera took her place across from him.
He had gotten better at threading popcorn throughout the years as his claws grew out of their fledgling clumsiness. Vera’s still shook a little, but she danced careful talons through string to make her garland more skillfully than he. They both took turns sneaking popcorn off of each other’s garlands to snack on as the gentle hum of the heater lulled them into a cozy state. Merrik had nearly fallen asleep when his sister nudged his leg.
“Look, Ricky,” she whispered, “Merry Christmas.”
He followed her sparkling gaze towards the frosted window to be greeted by the fat white flakes of Winter snow. With an odd wetness in his eye, Merrik smiled softly. The sound of the popcorn machine had long since quieted, its contents filling the glass enclosure with a sharp smell of the burnt kernels stuck inside the pot. Buzzing from the neon lights above dug into his skull, chaining him down to the endless maze of isolation around him. Despite the heat pressing against his cheeks, Merrik shivered.
Vera owned by @sp4cer1otz (:
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