Second Christmas

Category: Original Fiction
Notes: This story was originally published in Forbidden Fruit online magazine

Those of you who read 'Gryphons' will recognise the Sferkkaans (it's not necessary to read Gryphons to understand this story)..

“I hate Khalzi. I mean I really, REALLY hate them. Not the way kids hate green beans, or the way my sister hates anything that doesn’t have a Gucci label, I mean flat-out-despise-would-kill-if-I-got-a chance HATE. And not just because my ex-boyfriend is shacked up with one. But because they bite. And not just bite, but de-glove. That’s a medical term I learned. MAN I hate Khalzi, just kill them all and turn them into furry freaking hats….”

The drunken blind man gestured towards the bartender for another drink. Being a Khalzi himself, the tall, beautiful creature selected a dirty mug and filled it from assorted leftover pitchers on the bar before bringing it to him. The drunk took the mug with his left hand, his right tucked under his jacket. He was no more than forty, but years of hard living had aged him so he appeared to be in his mid-fifties at least, and not a well-preserved mid-fifties at that. The two men seated with him saw of course what the Khalzi did, but said nothing. Their own beer came icy cold from the taps and in clean mugs. The drunk kept talking.

“I met Liam three years ago in a dump called The Asteroid Bar and Grill. He was a fighter pilot, training aboard Sferkkaan planet hoppers as part of some sort of good will exchange between Earth and Sferkkaa. I was waiting tables. Why he looked twice at me I will never know; Sferkkaans are beautiful, beautiful people, and he was sitting with five guys that I would have gladly reached up my own ass and hauled my heart out to show them just for the privilege of having them spit on me. Gorgeous, eerie, ethereal beauties that just should not exist. And Liam just kept looking at me.”

The drunk took a long pull at his beer, oblivious to the old cigarette butt floating in it.

“And I just kept looking at the Sferkkaans. I mean okay, so I messed around on him a few times, like what’s the big deal? Every guy does it. And he totally over reacted when I gave the medal that he won rescuing fifteen civilians and flying them to safety in the middle of the night during a thunderstorm in a plane damaged by anti-aircraft fire to that luscious twenty year old whose name I can’t remember. But MAN what an ass…. So anyway he moved out. Just packed his stuff and vanished one night while I was out clubbing. I mean you’d think he would at least let me know. Just because I hadn’t been home in four days is no excuse…. “

One of the two men seated with the drunk, a Sferkkaan himself, raised an eyebrow. “Such ingratitude.”

The drunk ignored him. “And, of course, after he was gone, I realized too late how much I did love him, and what a bastard I was. Far too little, far too late. I had the love of the most handsome, brave, funny, intelligent guy on the planet, and I blew it. So like any loser, I set out to win him back. I sent flowers, I sent poems, I sent singing telegrams, I even stole his medal back for him. I followed him everywhere. I even left notes on his plane… Okay so I stalked him. Sue me. I followed him around for five months begging and pleading on my hands and knees, and then, one night, I see him with a freaking Khalzi. I mean a KHALZI! That’s two steps from doing it with your dog. Nothing like a seven-foot marsupial to get the neighbours talking. A Khalzi. You could have knocked me over with a feather.”

The Khalzi bartender flattened his ears. The Sferkkaan had a feeling the next beer the drunk ordered would be flavored with Khalzi saliva. The drunk rambled on.

“They were in the park, which of course is where you take an animal. Khalza was found about 95 years ago, and its inhabitants were found I suppose around the same time. No one has ever been able to establish if the inhabitants of Khalza ever came to earth, but if you want to know what they look like then open a book on Egyptian archaeology and find a picture of Anubis. We’re talking seven feet of hot man flesh covered in short black fur with the head of a jackal, a mane, and one thing Anubis did not have – a tail. A long soft fox-like tail. Another things these critters have that Anubis did not is a pouch. Remember the pouch. It’s important.”

The bartender’s lip curled slightly, then stalked off to clean tables in preparation of closing.

“Actually,” belched the drunk, “only the males have a pouch. And only the males form villages. The females are sort of free-roaming forces of nature. They roam wild, alone or with other females, and only pay attention to the males when they want a little hot fuzzy love. Then she’s off again. If she’s pregnant, then after eight weeks she finds a village, passes something that’s more fetus than baby, and hands it off to the nearest male, who sticks it in his pouch while she goes off to do the whole thing over again. It doesn’t even have to be his baby…puppy… whatever. Nope. He just shoves the little bastard into his belly pouch and bounces off with the other kangaroos. He doesn’t even have to ever had sex with a female, all he has to do is pick up that nauseating pink squirming slug and stick it in his pouch. Nauseating. And there’s my Liam with a Khalzi. It was more than I could stomach. I went walking up to him and dog-boy. He’s wearing a black leather flight jacket. He’s another pilot! Didn’t know they could teach dogs to fly a jet.”

The bartender reached his limit. He threw down the cloth, and called out to the three at the table, “Time, gentlemen, if you please.”

“We’ll leave when we’re done,” roared the drunk, slurring his words. He continued with his story. His two listeners worked on getting their beer down before they left.

“Khalzi. Bloody Khalzi. He dumped me for a dog. ME! Can you believe it? Well okay he never was bright, but you’d think he would have at least had brains enough to keep with his own kind. Well we argued for a bit, and I accused him of making puppies with the thing. I guess I might have had a beer or two in me at the time. Anyway I reached out to grab the pouch and look inside. Nothing hard, I just wanted to look. Bad move. You don’t touch a Khalzi’s pouch, that’s like coming up to strange woman and sticking your finger up her…”

“TIME, gentlemen,” repeated the bartender.

The drunk waved him off. “So I grab the pouch and he sinks his teeth into my arm and degloves it. Degloves. You know what that is? It’s when something yanks the flesh off in one whole piece, as if pulling off a glove.”

The drunk pulled forth what was left of his right arm, which was gone from about the mid forearm down, and with his left mimed yanking off a glove. “Stripped the meat right off. Then the piece of crap goes for my face. Totally unprovoked. Sank his teeth right into my eyeballs. They popped like…”

“TIME!” shouted the bartender, shoving a chair hard against the table for emphasis.

The Sferkkaan and his companion rose to their feet. The drunk sat, huddled over his beer, and did not seem to notice the departure of his companions. The two walked out of the little pub and into the warm, starless darkness of a Sferkkaan night. They made their way down the quiet street, saying nothing as they headed to the little hotel where they were currently residing. The Sferkkaan pulled out a pack of cigarettes and offered one to his companion; a man from Earth, currently living on Sferkkaa. Liam took the offered cigarette and sighed heavily, placing it between his lips and lighting it, the faint lines of colour on his uniform blazing briefly in the glow of his lighter.

“Are you sorry you came?” asked the Sferkkaan.

Liam shook his head. “No, Fearyn, I’m not. I needed to hear it. I needed to prove to myself once and for all that I did the right thing walking out on him.”

Fearyn raised one eyebrow. “You were not thinking of going back to him, were you?”

“No! Of course not. But… I did feel badly about the way I ended it. I just… needed to settle some things in my mind. Wow he looks like crap. Hard to believe it was only eighteen months ago.”

“Shar certainly worked him over.”

Liam’s green eyes grew cold. “Shar was provoked. Rick didn’t just try to look in his pouch, which you do NOT do with a Khalzi, but he stuck his whole fist in it; just shoved it right in and Shar screamed. The bastard really hurt him. I’m not surprised Shar bit him. I AM surprised Shar didn’t do more damage than he did.”

Liam took a long drag off his cigarette, plainly angry, his voice rising. “I mean you do not treat a Khalzi that way. He tore up delicate capillaries and membranes, hell Shar was in the hospital for two days. And Rick actually has the nerve to sit there sucking back booze and making himself out to be the victim. I don’t get it. I just do NOT get it.”

A voice called something in Sferkkaan from the window of an apartment. Liam responded in the same tongue, turning slightly red. That was one of the reasons Liam likes Sferkkaa so much: polite people. No “Shut the fuck up you asshole!” Instead he heard; “Need I remind you both of the hour?” Sferkkaan culture in many ways was not so different from that of Earth. But in other ways, it truly was another world. Liam felt Fearyn put an arm around him.

“Rick is a self-absorbed bastard who would not know a good thing if it bit him on the leg,” he said. “Ignore him. Put him out of your mind, he is not worth your anger.”

“It’s not just Rick,” said Liam, mindful now of how loudly he spoke. “It’s that attitude. It’s THAT attitude in THIS century. You heard what he said about Shar. ‘May as well be doing it with the dog, the park’s where you take an animal, you should stick with your own kind.’ And what was it he called the baby when the female hands it off to the male? Oh yeah. A nauseating pink squirming slug. Human beings were supposed to be passed that sort of crap by now.”

“It will happen as long as humans and humanoids exist,” said Fearyn. “There will always be those afraid of what is different, of what they do not understand.”

“Sferkkaans don’t act like that.”

Fearyn laughed. “Oh I beg to differ my friend. Walk up to any Sferkkaa and utter the word ‘Kyphisian’. You will hear a most comprehensive list of racial slurs.”

“That’s not the same. Kyphisia overran your planet and tried to eradiate your people.”

“True. But the point remains the same. No race is without hate and prejudice. Sometimes it is understandable. Usually it is not.”

Liam sighed. “You’re right, of course.” He took another drag off his cigarette. Sferkkaans all smoked like Victorian factory stacks, it was hard to live on their planet without picking up the habit. At least they grew excellent tobacco.

Liam glanced at his friend. Fearyn was truly beautiful. Most Sferkkaans were, but Fearyn was a rare sort of beauty, the offspring of a Sferkkaan mother and a Kyphisian father. He was ice-white all over, flesh and hair, with the most intensely blue eyes Liam had ever seen; eyes like a jungle cat on a branch looking down at the unwary. Liam had tried for the longest time to get into his pants, but Fearyn had been with his lover Faunnis for fifteen years. He was not about to throw that away on a fling with some human. Over time, Liam and Fearyn had become close friends. Liam would still not kick Fearyn out of his bed for eating crackers, but he enjoyed his company too much to lose his friendship over wanton lust.

“It still just bothers me,” mumbled Liam. “When I told my mother I was gay, she… wasn’t exactly happy about it. In fact she begged me to get help. Wept for days, followed me around demanding I tell her who did this to me; like it was a disease someone gave me. I finally shut her up with a book I found about how bad gays had it in past centuries, some of the things that had been done to them. When she got to the chapter about some of the “treatments” that had been performed in the past she stopped harping about me going to a doctor. Eventually she sort of got used to the idea and stopped worrying about it. Then I brought home Shar and… it was just awful. She sounded a lot like Rick did just now. Called him an animal, said I really was sick. She couldn’t see how wonderful he is, what an amazing person. All she saw was the black fur and those big-ass ears. And I love him but man he does have the biggest freaking ears I ever saw.”

Fearyn laughed in agreement. “All the better to hear you with, my dear.”

Liam laughed. “Yes and let’s not forget the teeth. So I admit, he’s not human. But he’s a kind, loving intelligent person and very important to me. I love him, fur, fleas and all. I wish she could just be happy for me.”

“Ah,” said Fearyn, “I see we come at last to what is really bothering you.”

Liam shook his head. “You’re over-simplifying, but okay, yes. I wish I could just take my lover home with me when I go to see my family without it being a disaster. He’s special to me. And I’m angry I had to choose between Christmas with my mom or Christmas with Shar. And I’m absolutely furious with myself that I let her make me choose, and that I left him home alone so I could waste what used to be my favorite holiday with a group of… bigots.”

“I’m sure Shar was all right, Christmas is not exactly a Khalzi holiday.”

“That’s not the point! I should have been home with my lover, not stuck at a table with my mom staring at me with an expression like a depressed basset hound, getting drunk and saying ‘My poor, poor baby, someone did something so horrible to you.’ And my brother with that bitch of a wife of his barking at me, and dad demanding to know how I could do this to the family. I should have been home with Shar, watching Christmas specials and trying to explain the significance of the dead evergreen in the corner being humiliated.”

Fearyn burst out laughing, having asked that question of his friend years ago. Liam grinned despite himself, and tossed away the remains of his cigarette. They walked together in silence for a little while, their footsteps echoing quietly down the dark street.

“There’s always next year,” said Fearyn softly.

Liam suddenly stopped in his tracks. Fearyn paused as well, looking at his friend. He raised an eyebrow and smiled.

“You look as if you have just had an epiphany.”

Liam looked towards Fearyn. “Let’s celebrate Christmas.”

“I thought Christmas was over.”

“Yeah it is, but why can’t we do it again?”

“I beg your pardon?”

Liam was looking more and more delighted with his idea. “Sure! Why can’t the four of us have Christmas together? You and Faunnis and me and Shar. Snow and a tree and carols and turkey and gifts…”

“Liam, this is Sferkkaa. It does not snow here. Rain, yes, snow, no.”

“I have a cabin on Earth, in the mountains. I was thinking about selling it because I seldom use it anymore but… I don’t think I will now.”

Fearyn raised an eyebrow. “So, just the four of us, in the middle of no where?”

“It’ll be perfect!”

“You don’t think for one moment you are going to get Shar out in the snow.”

“Stranger things have happened. So are you with me?”

“Of course, it’s a brilliant chance to study the intricacies of an alien culture. Besides I’m dying to see you get Shar outside making snowmen. Or snow-Khalzi.”

“I’m sure I can persuade him. And I get to live out every kid’s wildest fantasy.” He grinned at Fearyn. “Second Christmas.”

***---***

Liam said good night to Fearyn in the hallway, and then quietly unlocked the door to his own hotel room. He stepped inside, pocketing the room key, then turned and smiled at the being on the bed.

Rick had been accurate when he compared Khalzi to Anubis. In fact the similarities were far too close to be a coincidence, though not even the most meticulous of space historians and archaeologists could find evidence Khalzi had ever come to Earth. Shar was lounging on the bed, reading. In one hand he had a book, in the other a partly melted chocolate. The short whiskers at the end of his long muzzle were perked forward, which they always did when he was engrossed in something. The tall, erect ears were forward as well, and the heavy, golden hair that began between the large ears fell in a heavy curtain around his shoulders and down his chest. His frame was long and slender, powerful and well muscled, yet light: the body of a dancer, or swimmer. He was covered all over in very short, very black, very silky fur that always reminded Liam of a cropped rabbit fur coat his favorite aunt, Helen, used to own. But Shar was softer, and warmer.

Shar finally recalled his melting chocolate and ate it, then idly sucked the remains off his long, elegant fingers. Liam’s eyes narrowed, and he felt his jeans begin to get tight. He walked over to the bed and plucked the book from Shar’s hand.

“What say we put on The Bangles’ ‘Walk Like An Egyptian’ and do naughty things to each other?”

Shar’s large ears directed traffic. “I was reading that, mortal. Do not make me scoop your brains out with a hook.”

“You can read anytime. Let’s play Little Red Riding Hood. You can be Red.”

Shar rolled his eyes. “You’re a pervert, you realize.” He moved closer to Liam, snuggling against him, his head on his chest. He could smell the unmistakable stink of beer and cigarettes. “Did you and Fearyn enjoy yourselves?”

“Well… yes and no. You’ll never guess who was in the pub. Rick.”

The ears flattened. Liam ran his hand over them, smiling faintly. “I didn’t know he would be there, believe me if I had I would have stayed here. He’s blind now, and he lost that arm you stripped. You know I was hoping it would have made him wake up and do something about how he was living his life, but if anything, he’s worse. It was the same old crap, just more so. Nothing is his fault, and even if it is his fault, it’s still not his fault. Someone made him do it.”

“I’m sure he had a few choice words about me.”

Liam nodded. “Oh, yeah. Bastard. I can’t for the LIFE of me see what I saw in him. I must have been out of my mind.” He looked down at Shar, and smiled, unable to resist scratching him behind the ears. “Glad to see my taste has improved.”

“Well your brother David doesn’t think so. He called and left a message. You’re invited to his wife’s birthday party on February first. Oh, and it’s a pet-free event. Then he repeated the message using barks and growls.”

Liam felt a sudden, violent rage. Reaching out he snatched up the phone and dialed, knowing it would take at least thirty minutes for the call to travel from Sferkkaa to Earth, and hoping he didn’t calm down in the meantime. At last he reached his brother’s voice mail.

“Hello, David? It’s Liam. Very funny, asshole. By the way, your bitch wife is fucking both your friend Stewart and your friend Andrew. Happy fucking New Year, shitwad.”

He slammed the phone down so hard he briefly feared he had broken the thing. Then he stood up and began packing. Shar sat up, alarmed.

“Where are you going?”

Liam packed, then walked over to his lover. His beautiful, beautiful lover, with the long gold hair, and warm brown eyes, like pools of dark chocolate swirled with caramel. He touched his face, feeling his rage slowly leave him.

“I want to do something for you. For me, too.”

“You’re not going to kill David, are you?”

“Much as I would like to, no. I’m going to go to the cabin on Earth. Tomorrow night, Fearyn and Faunnis are going to bring you there, and the four of us are going to spend some time far away from the Ricks and Davids of the world.”

“What are we going to do?”

Liam grinned. “Second Christmas.” He kissed the soft muzzle. “I love you. I’ll see you tomorrow night.”

Liam picked up his bag and left the room, leaving Shar alone to wonder what his lover was up to.

***---***

Liam used his own private planet hopper to head back to Earth. A planet hopper was a small craft, not much larger than a fighter jet. It could hold a crew of three, or a family of seven if someone happened to have a can of axel grease and a shoehorn. Liam bought his from the base he was stationed at when this particular model was declared obsolete. However it was still a good little craft, and he had taken endless delight in painting it silk black and decorating it with ancient Egyptian symbols. The planet hopper’s name was, not surprisingly, Anubis: a name to which it had been programmed to respond.

He landed it in the parking lot of a shopping mall, much to the annoyance of the motorists who had hoped to use the parking spaces the wings now occupied, and to the extreme delight of the children in the cars with them. Liam grinned and walked into the mall, ignoring the irritated screech of tires behind him.

He returned to his craft about an hour later, loaded down with three shopping carts full of stuff. Christmas shopping was so much more enjoyable after Christmas. He reached his little planet hopper, humming Christmas carols, finding it surrounded by excited children and amused adults. Liam suddenly realized with a sigh that someone, probably Fearyn, had reprogrammed the verbal warnings the craft’s alarm system would utter. So instead of a calm and soft “Please do not touch the vehicle”, Liam instead heard “Hey! Piss off. Keep your hands away; this paint is new. Hey! I saw that. I have photon torpedoes and I am NOT afraid to use them.”

Liam sighed. “Anubis, stand down.”

“Oh! Come crawling back, have we? Well forget it. I’m not speaking to you. Leaving me out here, all alone.”

Liam grit his teeth. “Anubis, stand down.”

“No. Not until you confirm your identity.”

Liam sighed and held up his hand for the plane to scan his handprint. The plane scanned, then said; “Buttocks not recognized.”

“OPEN THE HELL UP!”

“Password recognized. Greetings, Liam.”

Liam growled, then muttered, “Just wait Fearyn, your own hopper is about to learn to sing like those yodeling cowboys in the old black and white movies.”

“Your plane’s funny!” said a small girl.

“Thank you,” said Liam. “Now I’m going to have to find my friend’s plane and make it funny for him.”

The child’s father chuckled at the idea. Liam loaded everything into the hopper; most of which he stowed in wing compartments meant for carrying bombs and ammunition. It was only eight in the morning, but he had a lot to do before Shar, Fearyn and Faunnis arrived.

***---***

He was starting to understand why his mother always seemed pissed off Christmas Eve.

He cut down a tree and hauled it into the cabin, then got a fire started and turned on some carols to get him in the mood. He put the tree in the stand, then went to get the turkey ready. He made stuffing, then prepared a few pumpkin pies, which went in at the same time as the turkey, so they would be ready in plenty of time to cool. He started decorating the room, and then realized he’d forgotten to buy tree ornaments. Recalling the beautiful ornaments left by his aunt in the attic, he went up to find they had all been destroyed by raccoons. Certainly it smelled like raccoons. Disgusting beasts; there wasn’t an animal alive he hated more than raccoons. So back to the mall for ornaments and a few other odds and ends, and back to the cabin he went. He returned in time to realize he had forgotten the pies in the oven and they were now burned.

Oh yeah, he was getting the holiday spirit all right. He opened a bottle of orange brandy and started over.

***---***

It had, without a doubt, been one of the most infuriating days of his life, but by the time the turkey was ready and Shar was due to arrive, the place was perfect. The tree was up and decorated, the fire was lit, and the room smelled of spice and wine. The table was laid, the stockings were hung, the gifts were wrapped, and Charles Dickens himself could not have done better. It had even begun to snow. Liam stood in the living room, staring out over the snow, basking in the glorious warmth and beauty of the lights and the fire. It was all so wonderful; he could just stand there forever.

He was broken out of his peaceful reverie by the sight of not one planet hopper arriving, but three. One was definitely Alloicious, which was Fearyn’s craft, but he did know the other two. He watched Fearyn and Faunnis hop out of their plane, and try to talk someone out of it, while the other two craft unloaded what looked like…

Liam suddenly bolted out of the house and into the falling snow. He laughed in surprise and joy. “Sherry! Oh my god Sherry it’s been six years!”

“Almost seven,” she replied. “And you have the Sferkkaan Armed Forces to thank for landing in my yard on Alcardia Three, scaring the hell out of me and kidnapping me to see you.”

Liam leapt on his favorite cousin and hugged her, then pounced on her husband to hug him too. “Brendan! Missed you! Jesus where did all these kids come from? Sherry there’s seven of them!”

“Well only four of them are mine, the other three belong to my friend Diane, but she’s sick right now so I have them. Besides, I thought they could use a second Christmas as well, they didn’t have a very happy one what with mommy ill and dearest daddy… well… we can talk about that later. Here.”

She passed him a bag. Liam took it and opened it, and felt a cold fear go through himself.

“Aw Sherry, no, please, you can’t be serious, don’t make me do it! What about Brendan?”

“The kids will know it’s him, and before you suggest Fearyn or Faunnis, no! Santa Claus does not wear make up.”

“He does on Sferkkaa.”

“He does,” said Faunnis, “I used to date him.”

Sherry rolled her eyes. “Please, we all know Santa has been happily married to Mrs. Clause for many, many years, and no matter what either of them may do on the side, we do not discuss it in front of the kids.” Sherry fixed her favorite cousin with laughing green eyes. “Right, Santa?”

“I hate you. You’re not really my cousin, you know, you’re adopted.”

“Just help me get the presents out of this nice man’s hopper before he’s AWOL from his base.”

“I wish I’d known you were coming, I would have got something for the kids.”

“You did. I sent Brendan out and told him to think like a jar-head.”

“I am not a jar head. Marines are jar heads, I am a member of His Imperial Highness’ Royal Air Force.”

“So you’re an air head.”

“You’re adopted and your real parents are in prison.”

“So that’s why I keep getting letters from the penitentiary.”

They unloaded the hoppers, and the pilots were off almost before Liam could thank them. Then he walked over to Alloicious, smiling as he leaned inside, looking down into a pair of nervous dark eyes, the tall ears back in a worried position.

“It’s not dangerous, you know,” said Liam.

Shar’s ears did strange things as their owner surveyed the falling snow. “I’ve never seen it. To tell you the truth I thought it was just a story.”

Liam smiled, reaching in to touch his lover’s face. “Nope. It’s real. Coming inside?”

Shar looked nervous. He watched the children shrieking and playing, pelting Sherry, Brendan, Faunnis and Fearyn with snowballs. “Perhaps I’ll just go inside.”

Liam smiled. “We can do that.”

Shar smiled. It looked odd with his jackal face, but it was definitely a smile. He opened his jacket, and a small head poked out. Liam sighed.

“Shar what is that?”

“It’s my brother’s baby.”

“Shar…”

“I wanted her here. It has nothing at all to do with trying to talk you into starting a family. Nothing at all.”

Liam sighed and picked the baby up. She was about a year old, a tiny bundle in a little pink dress with matching boots and mittens. She was too young for her ears to have formed properly yet, so they lay flat, like a rabbit’s. She would be five before they stood erect. She had the end of her tail in her mouth; the Khalzi version of thumb sucking. Liam sighed again, and watched his tall leggy lover exit the hopper.

“You’re incorrigible, you know it. And think how my mom and brother will be if they ever found out you had one in the pouch.”

“So who are you living for?” said Shar. “Them or yourself? Why is it our problem they choose to be bigoted fools?”

Shar was right, of course. Liam looked down at the little bundle of black and pink in his arms. She was awfully, nearly painfully, cute.

“Come on, let’s get her inside, it’s cold.”

Shar nodded, and they began walking towards the cabin. “Dinner in half an hour,” Liam called to the rampaging hoard of children. “Then early bed so Second Santa can come.”

The mention of Second Santa elicited shrieks of approval from the kids, and the baby Khalzi hid beneath Liam’s jacket, frightened by the outcry. He held her close, and they walked into the soft, beautiful light of the cabin. Shar gasped quietly, eyes large, his nose working as he tried to sort all the scents and sights.

“It is all so very beautiful! Oh what is that smell?”

“Turkey and stuffing, sausage gravy, onion bread, stuffed mushrooms and pumpkin pie.”

Shar breathed in all the wonderful scents, then looked at Liam and smiled.

“This was a brilliant idea.”

Liam smiled. “Yeah, I was actually thinking of making it a tradition.”

“I think we should.”

Liam leaned close and kissed Shar’s face. His one regret that this simple act was the only one a Khalzi could not do. He passed him the baby.

“I’ll be right back, I have one last thing to do.”

Liam went to the closet and pulled out an old full-length coat of cropped rabbit fur. It still smelled of his aunt’s favorite perfume, though the scent was becoming faint now, and musty. He remembered snuggling into this coat in this very cabin on Christmas Eve, waiting for Santa, but always falling asleep just before he came. He carried the coat into the living room and spread it on the floor before the tree. He then took the baby and set her down on it, smiling as she immediately pulled a candy cane down from the branches. Liam put an arm around Shar.

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but you don’t have a brother. And… she doesn’t seem to have a name.”

Shar stared at Liam with those intense brown eyes. “We could give her one. A Second Christmas present.”

“Where did she come from?”

“She was found in a smuggler’s ship, in a crate in the hold. She was covered in blood, probably her father’s. The team that went out to apprehend the ship didn’t know what to do with her, so they brought her back to the base. We bathed her, and one of the Sferkkaan officers had the little pink outfit left over from her own daughter. She gave it to her.”

Liam sighed heavily. “I have to hand it to you, Shar. You not only get what you want, you make sure you have guilt enough to keep me from arguing about it.”

“So we can keep her?”

“Well I’d have to be a bloody ogre to send her away after that! Fine. We can keep her.”

Shar leapt on him, holding him tightly, wrapping his long legs around his waist. Liam laughed.

“Of course you know that means you have to marry me.”

Shar froze, and raised his head to look at Liam. “Oh Liam, you know very well Khalzi don’t marry, we’re a nomadic race, and males and females generally don’t stay together, although there have been exceptions…”

“Well what kind of parents would we be if we let that poor little sad nameless baby grow up without her daddy and daddy properly married?”

Shar’s ears flattened. “That’s not fair, using my own tactics against me.”

“Is that a yes?”

“Yes. And I love you.”

“I love you, too. Now you go help her get the candy cane out of her fur while I start laying dinner on the table."

Disclaimer:

All original fiction and the characters, places and situations with them are copyright Alyx Shaw, and may not be published, copied, distributed or archived without the author's prior written consent.

The characters, places and situations described in these stories are fictional unless otherwise stated in the story headings.

(C) 2008 Alyx Shaw