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He showed up in a fucking Santa Suit, the culture-traitorous bastard. Red and white monstrosity that he was, he still had on those stupid mismatched shoes and glasses and... was that a sack over his back? Jegus fucking Christ. Every other human expletive ever. Fuck, Sollux. No. No. This was not happening because it could only be bad. Fuck. It was full of gifts. Moderate sized boxes (all the same), wrapped carefully in a few different kinds of wrapping papers. Fifteen in the set. He had gotten one for everyone. This violated the rules of secret Santa one hundred percent. If that wasn’t proof that this would all end in bloodshed, then nothing was.
He was going to kill him if it was the last thing he did that night, before John and Terezi joined forces and drugged and/or beat him into complacency. He hoped that he was heavy and difficult to carry home.
Shit, there they went. All in a catalogue-clean mess around Equius’ little tinsel appeasement tree. Also, fucking cats. The angel was a fucking cat, the bulbs were cats, or had tinsel attached like whiskers... how was he tricked into attending one of these every year? He hated this apartment. He hated every inch of it, every time he set foot in it. Here. He. Fucking. Was.
Again.
And Sollux was dressed like some warped version of Capitalist, Coca-Cola Saint Nick explaining how he had bought one of these bullshit things for his secret Santa, and then it had been too much of a good idea to just get one. So one for everyone. So they had to guess now, when they all opened these things, who he had first bought for.
Karkat brooded on this throughout an uncharacteristically uneventful dinner for the sixteen of them. Whoops, seventeen. Eridan had brought some blonde bimbo with him. One that wasn’t Dave. Other than that, no one was maimed, no one got stuck in the turkey and no one (coughVriskaDaveEridanorTerezi) made Tavros cry. John was just telling him how much easier than Thanksgiving it had been when Sollux announced that he really wanted to open gifts.
And they still thought it was a good idea. Morons. But he knew. Karkat had known that sniveling nook muncher since they were old enough to type, and this was a fucking shitty idea. So much for being easier than Thanksgiving. At least at Thanksgiving Eridan had been without some bullshit blond-flavoured arm candy. That was disaster number two waiting to happen. She smelled like a media-whore tattle tail, to him, and it wasn’t just because she had her hair pinned in a bun with a designer pen. An ugly, designer pen.
He voiced his concerns to Terezi.
“Heh,” she said, “lighten up Karkat.”
“No,” he said, “you don’t understand how much of a bad idea this is. We should just cull him for his own good before he fucking bursts with smug stupidity. That’s suicide and I don’t want to have to explain that he killed himself with his own stupid to the police, as Eridan’s bimbo screams her makeup right off, alright?”
“Would you disagree with a blind girl?”
“Yes, you sniff-witch, I fucking would!”
“Cruel, Karkat. Cruel. Hehe.”
Fucking useless. He viciously shoved a shortbread cookie into his mouth. Then another. And another until John caught his hand.
“Karkat, that’s like your sixteenth one. Geez, save some for other people.”
“What?” he said, still stuffing his mouth with shortbread.
“There’s aaaall these other cookies, you know. Here, have a jam cookie.”
“Does it look like I want a fucking jam cookie, Egbert?”
“Yes?”
“I fucking don’t, okay?”
“Well... what do you want then? And you can’t say you want to leave!”
Karkat turned away and scowled, only to catch Eridan’s newest girlfriend staring. Bitch. Why was she even here? Shit. She sauntered up to him.
“You like cookies, huh?”
Oh God, not this.
“Have you tried these ones?”
She held up a little gingerbread man, complete with icing smile and gumdrop buttons.
“I made them myself!”
“Uh... I don’t really like gingerbread.”
“I’m Cassidy, by the way! Hi! You’re...?”
“Hi Cassidy,” interjected John, “I’m John, this is Karkat!”
“It’s so nice to finally meet Eridan’s friends.”
Right. She handed them both a cookie. Which he had expressly said he didn’t want.
“Mind if I snap a picture? Thanks!”
There was a flash and an automated clicking sound, and then her camera phone was gone again and the topic was back to gingerbread. Jesus Christ.
“I love gingerbread, “ she went on, “and these have real ginger in them, you know? And the icing is so cute! The gumdrop buttons were Eridan’s idea, just like the gingerbread man in that funny movie about the Ogre, you know? I thought it was funny, so I put them on. Come on, Karkat try one!”
“I told you I don’t like gingerbread.”
He ignored a warning glance from John.
“But they’re really good, Eridan even said so.”
He grit his teeth.
“No, I’m alright.”
“Come ooooon, have a gingerbread man! This one is shaped to have little horns, see?”
“And that one came out shaped like a real size version of Eridan's finned cock, so why don’t you shut up and put that in your mouth!”
“Karkat! That’s so rude!”
Cassidy’s face turned stormy, but she didn’t say anything. She got up and walked away, without excusing herself, to go look for Eridan in the kitchen. John shot Karkat the most murderous look he could manage, and scampered after her to apologize. Oh well. He bit into another shortbread cookie when Eridan, who had not been in the kitchen, came up behind him and put his hands over Karkat’s eyes.
“Guess wwho?”
“Don’t. Touch. Me.”
“Oh, lighten up, Kar. Havve one of Cassidy’s cookies, they’re great!”
Screaming in wordless rage was just not an option.
“Eridan, if I could hate you in a more intensely platonic way, you would painfully burst into flames.”
“That doesn’t sound vvery platonic to me.”
“Fuck off. Right now. Before I hurt you.”
Eridan put his hand to his nose and scurried after Cassidy, leaving Karkat to finish his shortbread in peace. Checking to see if John was anywhere close, he picked up a jam cookie and sniffed it tentatively. Nibbling it’s edge, he conceded that it was kind of good, and stuffed it in his mouth. No one had to know.
Still. He got up and away from the cookies and any incriminating evidence. What if John had counted the jam cookies, though? Ah, fuck. Time to escape.
He made a round of the living and dining rooms and didn’t find anyone he would even consider worth hiding by. Dave was enduring Terezi’s bullshit on one end of the dining room table, and Gamzee spoke more quietly with Tavros and Fereri on the other. Equius and Nepeta sat between the two groups being disgustingly pale until Eridan came wailing out of the kitchen behind his bullshit matesprit of the week and trailed her as she stormed all the way into the hallway and out the door. Equius made sure to look especially awkward and disturbed at that. The kitchen, then. Maybe there was someone sane in the kitchen.
Or not. Sollux was draped over the counter like a cheap whore in a Santa suit, laughing and trying to cry at the same time. Aradia and John looked up at Karkat for help.
“Cathidy, Cathidy, come back! I only deleted the audio fileth and pictureth! I bet there are thtupid appth you paid for that I mithed! In the thpirit of Chrithtmath, I promith to get you a camera phone that doethn’t thuck ath harder than Karkat doeth-oh Hi KK.”
He didn’t miss a beat.
"You stupid fuck. Shut your whore mouth and get off that table."
“You’re not my moirail. I don’t have to lithten to you. I don’t have to lithten to you tho hard I’m going to go get thith prethent thtuff thtarted.”
So he shut his whore mouth and got off the table to round everyone up. Aradia and John looked at Karkat in wordless thanks. He grumbled and went to drag Gamzee into the living room so he could get this bullshit over with. Everyone gathered in the living room, and the pile of little gifts under that hideous tree suddenly meant something. There was one for everyone. Twice over since Sollux decided to break the rules and do his own thing. By the time Eridan skulked back inside, alone and dejected, Tavros had unwrapped a beanie baby from Gamzee, Terezi was already licking her new scented, non-toxic chalk from Tavros and John was pulling the wrapping off of a kids piano toy from Terezi. John beamed and handed his gift to Sollux and sat back down. Sollux put on his new dual red/blue gloves and started to throw presents at people.
Karkat avoided being beaned in the head by... not even cardboard. A plastic corner. What the fuck was this?
“Don’t open them until everyone hath one, okay? Altho, here Er. Have thith one- It wathn’t fair for everyone to get two exthept you, tho I got you two thingth. Unwrap thith one firtht.”
The grin on Sollux’s face shone in sadistic glee as Eridan unwrapped a plush seahorse, but even that doubled when it was time for his other secret presents.
They were plastic cornered, rectangular boxes, some wrapped in blue and some in red (surprise). All about the same size, Terezi shook hers before sniffing the box.
“Hehehe, Sollux you shouldn’t have.”
This was going to be a horror show.
“Alright! Open them now!”
Karkat tore at the side of his box. It was clear plastic on the inside... and...in the clear plastic was a long cylindrical shape, blurred by the sharpie writing on the front “a ta2te of home”. Rock candy? No... what the fuck. He looked up as Terezi pulled her rainbow dildo out of it’s casing and licked it.
“This is... very lewd, Sollux.”
Equius’s silicon miniature of a horse penis sat unopened in it’s box, and Sollux couldn’t contain himself any longer. He burst out laughing, and just didn’t stop. He doubled over and rolled off his chair. He was gasping on the floor like a hysterical fish when Karkat had had enough. Grabbing his ‘present’, he found himself on the floor, beating Sollux over the head with it.
“Now, Kar, that’s not vvery-”
Eridan was cut of with a veiny, grey dildo to the face. Gaping for a moment, like of one Feferi’s stupid fish puns, he joined the battle unfolding on Equius’ living room floor. Karkat swung his dildo wildly in every direction, until either Sollux or Eridan dislodged it from his hand. Screaming obcenities, he straddled Sollux and took his weapon, holding it out of reach.
“What the fuck, Sollux! What the fuck!”
“It’th okay, KK, we can jutht thtay like thith for a while... you on top of me, with that dildo in your hand, hitting me. It’th okay, KK. It’th okay.”
“You stupid fucknib, I hate you!”
“Thay it again, KK. Oooh, thay it again.”
Wordless rage.
“I’m fucking leaving, right fucking now!”
“What the fuck man. You can plug this thing in to your ipod?”
“Mine has a geology pun on the box.”
“Hehehe, in ROYGBIV colourful flavours.”
“Mine seems to say that it is modeled after a Vampire’s reproductive parts. Oh, and it sparkles?”
“Terezi, you are the only one who will ever wear out a dildo only by licking it.”
“I only lost because it doesn’t shoot anything, okay?!”
Right. It was time, to go. In fact it had been time to go for maybe half an hour. John was already at the door by the time Karkat got to it.
“There needs to be a party that doesn’t end with us leaving early with you all angry, sometime. Do you think we could ever manage that? It’s Christmas, Karkat- this is supposed to be a family holiday.”
“You are my family, they are assholes, and I will give up Christmas forever if it means I never have to repeat tonight again.”
“Karkat you’re still holding Sollux’s dildo.”
“Gaaah!”
He dropped it on the floor with a clatter as Sollux called from the other room,
“Merry Chrithtmath, KK! Have a good night”
“Fuck you, Sollux. Fuck you.”