[video]

[symmetrophile]

Everyone, we're coming up on a very important day, the last of its kind before we turn over to a new year.

As with all such momentous occasions, I think we at the Villa should host a holiday party. On that date, precisely.

[This is actually a message intended for other Villa residents, but whatever, the rest of the bubble will get to enjoy the rare sight of the young reaper looking, dare we say, a little jolly? A little affected by holiday spirit?

Actually, more like he's being a fanboy.]

Of course, I'm speaking of December twenty-first, being the last day of the year that is a perfect palindrome, the numbers of the month being a mirror-image of the date.

[Good old 12/21.

Death the Kid's fingers, gloved and interlaced, tuck up under his chin as he exhales with contentment (and a little longing, that total weirdo), letting out a plume of steam. The moment is abruptly shattered by a snowball planting itself against the side of his head, startling him out of his reverie.

It's a good thing the SFC cuts out when it does. No one should witness the Snowball Retribution Apocalypse (Shinigami Version).]

Comments

[heartandsoul]

Resonate...I don't know, my gri--grigo--[this is broken off by a yawn.]

Soul might hurt him.

[But she's asleep now, having looped her arms through Kid and Rin's out of some impulse to make sure they stay close, she couldn't continue the discussion even if she wanted to.]

[keepsthefire]

Won't know... 'less we try...

[And there goes Rin, head rolling to the side as he finally falls in with the other two.]

[symmetrophile]

[Time has a way of getting slippery in sleep. At some point, Kid becomes vaguely aware, in a gray area between sleep and wakefulness, that Pip has migrated from his spot before the fire to nestle in the hollow of blanketed laps and dozing bodies. That his fingers have become tangled in a handful of what later could be identified as Rin's shirt, his wrist against the lowest curve of Maka's ribcage, face buried against the crook of one's shoulder and the back cushions of the couch, a loose tangle as graceless and comfortable as can be.

His mug, empty, had long since slipped from his lap, caught in the little valley between feet crossed at the ankles, and from there tumbled harmlessly onto the floor.

Kid dreams in funerary black and bone white, in the neon brilliance of cold blue flames in deep shadow, vast as some nocturnal ocean, and perhaps as old. Of familiar voices and a lunatic moon shrieking into the night. His fingers curl, possessive of the warmth.

It's hours before he stirs awake. Minutes longer just mutely assembling the puzzle of where he is and who he's tangled up with, still and motionless and half-asleep.]