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tamingthemuseI'm attempting the monthly challenge. WOOT!
Title: A Christmas of Much What the &^$%
Rating: R for language and suggestive material
Chapter: 1 of 1
Prompt: #125 - Chiwara for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
tamingthemuse
Fandom: Original
Wordcount: 2,151 (over the 1,000 mark for the monthly challenge attamingthemuse
Disclaimer: MINE. Mineminemine.
Summary: Three friends, a planned party for Christmas Eve, and a wooden statue. Humor, language, friendship, and a wee bit of schmoop.
Ashley stared until she thought her eyeballs were going to dry up, and then stared some more for good measure. When Matt still stood there, the stupidest, biggest grin on his face, she finally had to say something. “What. The. Fuck.”
“Isn't it cool?” Matt enthused, holding the damn thing even closer. “C'mon, admit that it's cool.”
“No, I asked my question first, and mine had a lot more weight behind it,” Ashely countered. “Seriously, Matty, the fuck is it?”
Matt rolled his eyes but held it a little farther back. Thank god. “It's a Chiwara.”
“That's not a dog.”
“Not a chihuahua, a Chiwara,” he patiently explained. “It's a ritualistic object that...you don't care, do you.”
Not when it was following her every movement. To be triple sure, she leaned to the left again, and then back to the right. The hollowed out eyes still followed her, little empty things of wood that wouldn't leave her alone.
“You need mental help,” was all Matt said.
“I'm not the one who brought an ugly ass wooden chihuahua into the house,” was all Ashley replied.
Matt heaved a heavy sigh and moved over to their excuse for a fireplace. Little college condo; not a lot in the way of furniture besides the essentials. Still, they'd managed to erect a small mantle over the fireplace that didn't exist. Because it really didn't.
A lot of the condo didn't exist. Paintings were literally painted onto the walls, a couple chairs were painted onto the walls to look like they existed (the one by the front door always caught people and led to a lot of laughing), stuff like that. The fireplace was the pièce de résistance, though: they'd sprung for an antique metal grate to place in front of it, and then the wood for the mantle they'd placed over it. It was huge, took up most of the wall, and if they changed the overhead light bulbs, it looked like it was glowing.
It was really pretty sweet. Half the campus had to have come over when they'd finished it. Of course, that might've been because of the major ass paint fight afterwards, but Ashley wasn't claiming any responsibility for that.
Matt moved away from the mantle, but the damned thing didn't. “Um, what the fuck?” she asked, tired of it being her staple phrase already.
“It's staying,” Matt said stubbornly. “We got to keep your stupid thing. And mine's way better.”
“Okay, for one? Mine actually has a purpose, besides looking creepy, because my thing's a lamp. That's purposeful, Matt.”
The front door opened with a long creaking sound, and the sound of cursing followed it. “Y'all ever gonna oil this thing or what? And get out here, help me, or I'mma track snow through y'all's place.”
The holiday party. Right. The other thing that was supposed to be 'cool' and really made Ashley want to curl up far far away from people. “It's staying,” Matt insisted.
Ashley threw her hands in the air and hurried towards the front door, her fuzzy brown braid bouncing against her tank top. “Whatever, Matt.” Geek. Give him two shots and he'd be out for the count, and then Ashley could introduce Mister Wooden Doggy to her friend, Mister Awesome Lighter.
Dark black curls framed David's face as he slammed the front door shut, his darker skin tone a nice mix to the bright white snow covering him everywhere. “I warned y'all,” he said, glaring at Ashley. “And what the fuck's up with you an' a tank top, girl? Go get clothes on, god.”
“Merry Christmas to you, too,” she muttered. “Where'd you put all the supplies?”
David looked down at the bags next to his feet, then back up at her. “Up my-”
“No need for violent suggestions,” Matt hurriedly intervened, giving David a look through his glasses. “We're glad you went and picked up everything for the event tonight.”
Event. Event. Ashley slowly turned to regard her friend, even as David did the same. Matt flushed and slid a hand over his already smooth, dark hair. “What?”
“Your momma send you a pretty sweater vest to wear for tonight's festivities?” David said, trying his best to hold back his Southern drawl and imitate Matt's Northern one.
“Screw you,” Matt muttered, even as David crowed his laughter. Ashley snorted and grabbed a bag, hauling it to the kitchen. “How bad is the snow out there?”
David followed behind them into the small kitchen, sliding out of his slush covered boots as he did so. “Fuck'n lot of it. More than I've seen in years, man.” He reached across the counter for the coffee pot. “Figures, right? One time we wanna bash in the holidays, and we get hit with the mother-freakin' snowstorm of the year. And I can't even see if y'all get anybody to show.”
Ashley stopped, rewound his words, then turned to him, appalled. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. The hell is this? You're not coming? You bought supplies! What the fuck?” Seriously, the phrase could end, any day. If her mom heard what she was saying on freakin' Christmas Eve...
David's eyebrows waggled, and before he even said a word, both Matt and Ashley put up their hand. “Victoria,” they said in unison.
“Stop right there,” Matt added. “I don't want to hear about it.”
“You wouldn't understand it if I explained it,” David shot back. He reached straight across to the wall for a mug, and cursed when he touched the wall. “The fuck y'all hidin' the real damn coffee mugs, and not the painted ones?”
Without removing her glare from David she pulled a mug out for him. “You suck, man. You promised you were coming. Last I heard, Victoria was in New York!”
“Yeah, and now she's in Baltimore,” David replied, filling his coffee mug to the brim. He took a long sip, exhaled with a smile, and Ashley swore some of his curls bounced back up to life against the dripping snow. “So I'mma hangin' with her for the holidays. Y'all enjoy D.C.”
“Thanks for the supplies, at least,” Matt said, and Ashley rolled her eyes. Guy could find a silver lining in anything.
“Y'all are welcome,” David drawled. He squinted and perused the counter, before turning to them again. “Wanna tell me which one of those sugar things is real, and which one's painted?”
The party was scheduled for eight. Not too early, not too late. Perfect time.
It was nearly ten at night when Matt finally took a seat beside Ashley in the big bay window. After a moment, she felt something drape over her, and she glanced up at Matt as he arranged her fleece blanket over her. “It's freezing near the window,” was all he said. “And I don't think anyone's coming.”
“We told everyone there'd be plenty of booze. That implies a lot of people coming, Matt.” Even if most people had gone home over the holidays, including their other roommates. Only her and Matt had stayed, both for various, odd reasons.
“Yeah, but that snowstorm?” Matt peered out into the blanket of darkened white that continued to come down hard. “We'll be lucky if we don't lose power.”
“Ever the optimist,” Ashley muttered, but moved away from the window and followed Matt back to the living room. He had two bean bags set up on the floor, a small bowl of popcorn between them, and several unopened bottles of alcohol next to the bowl. “...And maybe you really are. We still having a party?”
“Fuck yeah,” Matt said, and the word sounded so foreign out of his mouth that Ashley couldn't stop the snicker that sneaked past her lips. Matt glared at her, and between his well ironed, button-up shirt, his slicked back hair, and his glasses perched near the end of his nose, well, he was just lucky she hadn't been drinking anything.
“You need serious mental help,” Matt sighed. Ashley brought her laughter down to chuckles and glanced at the clock again. Past ten. Matt was right; nobody was coming.
She moved over and took a seat in her beanbag, which was conveniently placed in front of the fireplace. “We should get the light-bulbs out of Stephan's room,” she said as she inspected the bottles. All her favorites, lined up in a row.
“I got a better idea,” Matt said, and knelt down by the fireplace. Ashley uncapped one of the bottles and took a sip, sighing happily at the warm tingle down the back of her throat. Good stuff; David had picked well.
Calling and thanking him wasn't a really good idea at this point. Not when he was probably buried deep in...snow. Trying to get to Victoria. Really.
...Nope, too late; the image was there.
“Oh god, the eyes of my mind,” she moaned, pressing the heels of her hands against her closed eyes. “Make it stop.”
“You have one sip of alcohol and you're seeing things,” Matt muttered. “Good god, Ash. Anyways, look.”
She finally pulled her hands away when she trusted them to see anything except what she wasn't going to see, and found herself staring at dancing flames that looked suddenly a lot realer than they should've. Brandi was a hell of an artist, but not that good. She'd just had the one sip, nothing more, right? She looked at the bottle again, just to double check.
When she looked back up, Matt was beaming at her expectantly. “I dug a hole out of the wall,” he said proudly. “Well, I cut the original fireplace painting out and went behind that, and I installed a little disco ball of sorts. What do you think?”
The light behind the cut out panel escaped out beyond the edges, coating the entire wall with it. The wire leading to the plug in the wall was obvious against the usual pale blue paint, and it was so cheesy and sweet that Ashley suddenly found her throat closing up and her eyes burning for no reason whatsoever. “I think it's wonderful, Matty,” she said softly, when she could talk again.
Matt's smile seemed to grow even more. “Cool. Merry Christmas then, Ash. We have as close to a real fireplace as we're gonna get.”
The burning feeling faded, her throat opened up, but the feeling of sweetness remained. “Awesome. Hand me the popcorn already.”
Matt rolled his eyes hard enough that Ashley thought he was going to have a seizure, before he moved back to the bean bags and picked up the bowl that was right next to her knee. He then lifted it and presented it to her, practically at her very fingertips, and with a grin she reached in and pulled out a handful. “Glad to be of service.”
“Yeah, well, thanks to you, we're not getting our security deposit on this place back now.”
“We weren't going to get it back anyways. Look at what we've done to the place.”
“Easy enough to get repainted over.”
“I meant on a general whole.”
“Oh. Okay, point. But now you have as much blame in the matter as the rest of us. You are no longer blameless.” Ashley grinned and stuffed popcorn in her mouth. Not that she wasn't going to take a ton of blame for most of the problems in the household, but...
Her eyes drifted up from the fire to the mantle, where the lone wooden statue stood. She bit her lip, undecided for a moment, then made up her mind and stood from the bag. “Hold on,” she said, sliding out of the room in her socks and hurrying down the wooden hallway. She returned a moment later, a small santa hat in hand. She could feel Matt's eyes on her as she approached the mantle and the wooden creature and, without a moment's hesitation, plopped the hat down on top of the thing's head.
She sank back into her bean bag, reassessing the scene and giving her nod of consent when it looked better. “There. Now it can stay,” she declared.
When she glanced over at Matt, there was another smile on his face, this one much softer and almost wistful. It slid into a grin a moment later. “I appreciate it, I really do.”
“Just make sure it figures out what it wants to be, because wooden monster or wooden dog...I'd have complex issues if I were that thing.”
“You do have complex issues. No one says anything, though.”
“...Shut up.”
“Merry Christmas to you too, Ashley.”
They exchanged grins and settled back in their bean bags for a night of wall watching, popcorn munching, and booze drinking. That alone probably deserved a 'what the fuck', but whatever. She was done with the phrase.
It was going down as one of her favorite Christmas Eve's she'd ever had anyways.
~Nebula
Title: A Christmas of Much What the &^$%
Rating: R for language and suggestive material
Chapter: 1 of 1
Prompt: #125 - Chiwara for
tamingthemuseFandom: Original
Wordcount: 2,151 (over the 1,000 mark for the monthly challenge at
tamingthemuseDisclaimer: MINE. Mineminemine.
Summary: Three friends, a planned party for Christmas Eve, and a wooden statue. Humor, language, friendship, and a wee bit of schmoop.
Ashley stared until she thought her eyeballs were going to dry up, and then stared some more for good measure. When Matt still stood there, the stupidest, biggest grin on his face, she finally had to say something. “What. The. Fuck.”
“Isn't it cool?” Matt enthused, holding the damn thing even closer. “C'mon, admit that it's cool.”
“No, I asked my question first, and mine had a lot more weight behind it,” Ashely countered. “Seriously, Matty, the fuck is it?”
Matt rolled his eyes but held it a little farther back. Thank god. “It's a Chiwara.”
“That's not a dog.”
“Not a chihuahua, a Chiwara,” he patiently explained. “It's a ritualistic object that...you don't care, do you.”
Not when it was following her every movement. To be triple sure, she leaned to the left again, and then back to the right. The hollowed out eyes still followed her, little empty things of wood that wouldn't leave her alone.
“You need mental help,” was all Matt said.
“I'm not the one who brought an ugly ass wooden chihuahua into the house,” was all Ashley replied.
Matt heaved a heavy sigh and moved over to their excuse for a fireplace. Little college condo; not a lot in the way of furniture besides the essentials. Still, they'd managed to erect a small mantle over the fireplace that didn't exist. Because it really didn't.
A lot of the condo didn't exist. Paintings were literally painted onto the walls, a couple chairs were painted onto the walls to look like they existed (the one by the front door always caught people and led to a lot of laughing), stuff like that. The fireplace was the pièce de résistance, though: they'd sprung for an antique metal grate to place in front of it, and then the wood for the mantle they'd placed over it. It was huge, took up most of the wall, and if they changed the overhead light bulbs, it looked like it was glowing.
It was really pretty sweet. Half the campus had to have come over when they'd finished it. Of course, that might've been because of the major ass paint fight afterwards, but Ashley wasn't claiming any responsibility for that.
Matt moved away from the mantle, but the damned thing didn't. “Um, what the fuck?” she asked, tired of it being her staple phrase already.
“It's staying,” Matt said stubbornly. “We got to keep your stupid thing. And mine's way better.”
“Okay, for one? Mine actually has a purpose, besides looking creepy, because my thing's a lamp. That's purposeful, Matt.”
The front door opened with a long creaking sound, and the sound of cursing followed it. “Y'all ever gonna oil this thing or what? And get out here, help me, or I'mma track snow through y'all's place.”
The holiday party. Right. The other thing that was supposed to be 'cool' and really made Ashley want to curl up far far away from people. “It's staying,” Matt insisted.
Ashley threw her hands in the air and hurried towards the front door, her fuzzy brown braid bouncing against her tank top. “Whatever, Matt.” Geek. Give him two shots and he'd be out for the count, and then Ashley could introduce Mister Wooden Doggy to her friend, Mister Awesome Lighter.
Dark black curls framed David's face as he slammed the front door shut, his darker skin tone a nice mix to the bright white snow covering him everywhere. “I warned y'all,” he said, glaring at Ashley. “And what the fuck's up with you an' a tank top, girl? Go get clothes on, god.”
“Merry Christmas to you, too,” she muttered. “Where'd you put all the supplies?”
David looked down at the bags next to his feet, then back up at her. “Up my-”
“No need for violent suggestions,” Matt hurriedly intervened, giving David a look through his glasses. “We're glad you went and picked up everything for the event tonight.”
Event. Event. Ashley slowly turned to regard her friend, even as David did the same. Matt flushed and slid a hand over his already smooth, dark hair. “What?”
“Your momma send you a pretty sweater vest to wear for tonight's festivities?” David said, trying his best to hold back his Southern drawl and imitate Matt's Northern one.
“Screw you,” Matt muttered, even as David crowed his laughter. Ashley snorted and grabbed a bag, hauling it to the kitchen. “How bad is the snow out there?”
David followed behind them into the small kitchen, sliding out of his slush covered boots as he did so. “Fuck'n lot of it. More than I've seen in years, man.” He reached across the counter for the coffee pot. “Figures, right? One time we wanna bash in the holidays, and we get hit with the mother-freakin' snowstorm of the year. And I can't even see if y'all get anybody to show.”
Ashley stopped, rewound his words, then turned to him, appalled. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. The hell is this? You're not coming? You bought supplies! What the fuck?” Seriously, the phrase could end, any day. If her mom heard what she was saying on freakin' Christmas Eve...
David's eyebrows waggled, and before he even said a word, both Matt and Ashley put up their hand. “Victoria,” they said in unison.
“Stop right there,” Matt added. “I don't want to hear about it.”
“You wouldn't understand it if I explained it,” David shot back. He reached straight across to the wall for a mug, and cursed when he touched the wall. “The fuck y'all hidin' the real damn coffee mugs, and not the painted ones?”
Without removing her glare from David she pulled a mug out for him. “You suck, man. You promised you were coming. Last I heard, Victoria was in New York!”
“Yeah, and now she's in Baltimore,” David replied, filling his coffee mug to the brim. He took a long sip, exhaled with a smile, and Ashley swore some of his curls bounced back up to life against the dripping snow. “So I'mma hangin' with her for the holidays. Y'all enjoy D.C.”
“Thanks for the supplies, at least,” Matt said, and Ashley rolled her eyes. Guy could find a silver lining in anything.
“Y'all are welcome,” David drawled. He squinted and perused the counter, before turning to them again. “Wanna tell me which one of those sugar things is real, and which one's painted?”
The party was scheduled for eight. Not too early, not too late. Perfect time.
It was nearly ten at night when Matt finally took a seat beside Ashley in the big bay window. After a moment, she felt something drape over her, and she glanced up at Matt as he arranged her fleece blanket over her. “It's freezing near the window,” was all he said. “And I don't think anyone's coming.”
“We told everyone there'd be plenty of booze. That implies a lot of people coming, Matt.” Even if most people had gone home over the holidays, including their other roommates. Only her and Matt had stayed, both for various, odd reasons.
“Yeah, but that snowstorm?” Matt peered out into the blanket of darkened white that continued to come down hard. “We'll be lucky if we don't lose power.”
“Ever the optimist,” Ashley muttered, but moved away from the window and followed Matt back to the living room. He had two bean bags set up on the floor, a small bowl of popcorn between them, and several unopened bottles of alcohol next to the bowl. “...And maybe you really are. We still having a party?”
“Fuck yeah,” Matt said, and the word sounded so foreign out of his mouth that Ashley couldn't stop the snicker that sneaked past her lips. Matt glared at her, and between his well ironed, button-up shirt, his slicked back hair, and his glasses perched near the end of his nose, well, he was just lucky she hadn't been drinking anything.
“You need serious mental help,” Matt sighed. Ashley brought her laughter down to chuckles and glanced at the clock again. Past ten. Matt was right; nobody was coming.
She moved over and took a seat in her beanbag, which was conveniently placed in front of the fireplace. “We should get the light-bulbs out of Stephan's room,” she said as she inspected the bottles. All her favorites, lined up in a row.
“I got a better idea,” Matt said, and knelt down by the fireplace. Ashley uncapped one of the bottles and took a sip, sighing happily at the warm tingle down the back of her throat. Good stuff; David had picked well.
Calling and thanking him wasn't a really good idea at this point. Not when he was probably buried deep in...snow. Trying to get to Victoria. Really.
...Nope, too late; the image was there.
“Oh god, the eyes of my mind,” she moaned, pressing the heels of her hands against her closed eyes. “Make it stop.”
“You have one sip of alcohol and you're seeing things,” Matt muttered. “Good god, Ash. Anyways, look.”
She finally pulled her hands away when she trusted them to see anything except what she wasn't going to see, and found herself staring at dancing flames that looked suddenly a lot realer than they should've. Brandi was a hell of an artist, but not that good. She'd just had the one sip, nothing more, right? She looked at the bottle again, just to double check.
When she looked back up, Matt was beaming at her expectantly. “I dug a hole out of the wall,” he said proudly. “Well, I cut the original fireplace painting out and went behind that, and I installed a little disco ball of sorts. What do you think?”
The light behind the cut out panel escaped out beyond the edges, coating the entire wall with it. The wire leading to the plug in the wall was obvious against the usual pale blue paint, and it was so cheesy and sweet that Ashley suddenly found her throat closing up and her eyes burning for no reason whatsoever. “I think it's wonderful, Matty,” she said softly, when she could talk again.
Matt's smile seemed to grow even more. “Cool. Merry Christmas then, Ash. We have as close to a real fireplace as we're gonna get.”
The burning feeling faded, her throat opened up, but the feeling of sweetness remained. “Awesome. Hand me the popcorn already.”
Matt rolled his eyes hard enough that Ashley thought he was going to have a seizure, before he moved back to the bean bags and picked up the bowl that was right next to her knee. He then lifted it and presented it to her, practically at her very fingertips, and with a grin she reached in and pulled out a handful. “Glad to be of service.”
“Yeah, well, thanks to you, we're not getting our security deposit on this place back now.”
“We weren't going to get it back anyways. Look at what we've done to the place.”
“Easy enough to get repainted over.”
“I meant on a general whole.”
“Oh. Okay, point. But now you have as much blame in the matter as the rest of us. You are no longer blameless.” Ashley grinned and stuffed popcorn in her mouth. Not that she wasn't going to take a ton of blame for most of the problems in the household, but...
Her eyes drifted up from the fire to the mantle, where the lone wooden statue stood. She bit her lip, undecided for a moment, then made up her mind and stood from the bag. “Hold on,” she said, sliding out of the room in her socks and hurrying down the wooden hallway. She returned a moment later, a small santa hat in hand. She could feel Matt's eyes on her as she approached the mantle and the wooden creature and, without a moment's hesitation, plopped the hat down on top of the thing's head.
She sank back into her bean bag, reassessing the scene and giving her nod of consent when it looked better. “There. Now it can stay,” she declared.
When she glanced over at Matt, there was another smile on his face, this one much softer and almost wistful. It slid into a grin a moment later. “I appreciate it, I really do.”
“Just make sure it figures out what it wants to be, because wooden monster or wooden dog...I'd have complex issues if I were that thing.”
“You do have complex issues. No one says anything, though.”
“...Shut up.”
“Merry Christmas to you too, Ashley.”
They exchanged grins and settled back in their bean bags for a night of wall watching, popcorn munching, and booze drinking. That alone probably deserved a 'what the fuck', but whatever. She was done with the phrase.
It was going down as one of her favorite Christmas Eve's she'd ever had anyways.
~Nebula
