"Vincent come ON!" Cid yelled, pulling on Vincent’s leg.
"No!" Vincent said, clinging to the mattress and burying his face in the pillow.
"Goddamnit, stop being a dead weight and get up! It’s Christmas!"
"Good, wake me up when it’s spring," Vincent said.
"Vincent, I let you sleep until noon and you said you’d get up."
"I will."
"It’s been three hours."
"Five more minutes."
"VINCENT!" Cid yelled, dropping Vincent’s leg.
"Good night," Vincent said, and rolled over, expertly grabbing the blankets so that in the .005 seconds it took to roll over, he had thoroughly cocooned himself in the entirety of the blankets.
"Not this again!" Cid complained.
"I can’t hear you!" Vincent said, his voice obviously muffled through the layers of cloth.
"Vincent get outta there. You look like a goddamn moth!"
Vincent didn’t answer.
"Well, fine!" Cid said, and stormed into the bathroom.
Less than five seconds later Vincent screamed as Cid aimed the extendable shower head at him, soaking Vincent’s little ball with icy water. "Now get the fuck up or I’m getting the hose!"
"I’m up! I’m up!" Vincent yelled, prying himself loose from the cocoon faster than he wrapped himself in it.
"And stay up!" Cid yelled. "Now you had better be out there in five seconds or I’m throwing all your pants out the window." Cid proudly stomped out the room and closed the door to give Vincent his privacy. If he left the door open, Vincent would have been too shy to come out of the wet blankets.
At that point, Cid decided life was good. Shera has made tea and pastries and lounged on the couch flipping through holiday special such as Christmas at Icicle Inn, How Sephiroth Stole Christmas Materia, and It’s A Wonderful Lifestream. The room smelled of cigarettes and evergreen, from the tree that no one had bothered to stand up properly so it leaned against the wall at a funny angle and, once in the house, decided to shed so much that Cid swore there were more needles on the floor than on the tree. The presents, few though there were, were under said tree, all but invisible under the layer of green needles.
Today had been nothing but peaceful, and Cid wanted it to stay that way, just with Vincent being awake. Cid was going to prove, once and for all, that holidays could be enjoyable. There had already been the fiasco on Halloween where it had turned out that AVALANCHE has been so famous that trick-or-treaters showed up in costume as everyone—save for Vincent, which was really depressing. To add injury to insult, two kids were Sephiroth and Hojo and Vincent opened the door and ran away screaming, and then a kid gave him some candy. Then there was the disaster that was Vincent’s birthday that no one would ever speak about, and they all had scars from the explosion. Thanksgiving had managed to be worse. The only ones thankful were the TURKS, glad to be back to work since they had been called due to the fact the normal authorities thought the situation too hazardous.
So far Vincent had panicked from the crowds, lights, and noise in the mall entrance and hid in the bathroom until security had to drag him out and left him at the ‘lost kids’ booth where Vincent had gotten peed on, bitten, kicked, and received two teddy bears. Later, while buying presents, a myopic clerk called him ‘lassie’ and two kids followed him insisting he was ‘mommy.’
But Cid had helped Vincent through it all and helped cheer him up, and was sure there was nothing to upset Vincent from now until March.
"SURPRISE!" a large woman yelled bursting through the door.
Surprise indeed. Cid nearly fell over, but his cigarette managed to escape and would have set the house on fire were linoleum flammable. "Mom?" Shera squeaked, then fainted.
"How’s my pooky?" the woman said, pinching Cid’s cheeks.
‘Okay, not a disaster yet,’ Cid decided. ‘Just gotta keep Vincent from—‘
"What happened? I hear screaming," Vincent said, rushing out the door, his pants so low on his hips that if he breathed in too much they’d lose their grip on his thin figure and land on the floor before his hands could grab them. He had a shirt on, in the loosest sense of the word.
"You didn’t tell me you had guests," both Vincent and Cid’s mother said.
Vincent had hoped for a long pause to gather his thoughts, but luck had never been on his side longer than the time it takes for Cloud to become confused at a word with more than two syllables.
"Aaa!" Vincent yelled, managing to close his shirt over his chest as the woman charged towards him.
"Now, mom…" Cid said.
"Oh, my sweet baby boy!" she said, picking Vincent up and twirling him around. "You got yourself a cudlly-wuddly boyfriend! Why didn’t you tell me Cid—You’re so skinny! My Cid not feeding you enough? Mommy will take care of that, yes she will! We’ll get some color you too!" she said, pinching Vincent’s cheeks.
"What’s your name, sweetie? No, let me guess, your from that group that saved the world, aren’t you… you must be Tifa."
"Mom!" Cid yelled.
"Not Tifa… Barret? Nanaki. I always thought that was a cute name."
"Vincent," Vincent squeaked from the tight bear hug.
"My name’s Cathy, but you can call me mommy from now on," she said, tightening the hug and preventing the use of his lungs momentarily.
"Mom! I had no idea!" Cid said. "I could have fixed the placed up, got the guest beds out, pretended to have moved to the Northern Crater…"
"Oh, I didn’t want you to got to all that trouble so I wanted us to be a surprise, pooky."
"Us?" Shera asked, just waking up.
Two screaming creatures who could only be proven to be human through DNA testing ran into the house through the open door and Cid reacted by looking like he’d put his hand in an electrical socket.
"Cookies!" one yelled and dove at the pastries on the table easily, despite the fact that her height was almost a foot lower than the table itself.
The other monster ran up and started pulling on the leg of Vincent’s pants, which, thankfully, Vincent was holding up after they had nearly flown off while being twirled. "She hit me!"
"Getitoff! Getitoff! Getitoff!" Vincent yelled.
"My little baby!" Cathy exclaimed, spreading her arms open.
"G’amma!" the kid yelled and instantly ignored Vincent.
Cathy picked the kid up. "Now you be nice to your Uncle Vincent."
"Aww," the kid said.
"More please!" the female exclaimed, having devoured the pastries already if ‘devour’ were defined by putting ninety percent of them on her face and hair and hands while the rest was mostly all over the table. Whether any got in her mouth would be a question philosophers would debate for all time.
"Here, take this, Shera," a new woman said, waddling through the door, overloaded with bags of baby stuff, and handed the baby to Cid as a funny noise went off. "Was that my pager or my cellphone?"
"Laura?" Cid exclaimed.
"Uncle Vincent’s going to stay with my pwecious wittle Cid forever and ever and never leave him—or else!" she growled through gritted teeth.
"Laura?" Shera asked, waking up again then promptly fainted, making Vincent and Cid both very jealous.
"Hello?" Laura said into her cellphone. "Look, that report is due in one hour—what do you mean you don’t have it—hold on I got another call—She said what? No…"
The baby in Cid’s arms started crying, making Vincent even more jealous.
"It slices! It dices! Buy the new Cait Sith action figure today!" the TV blared.
"I want that!" the little girl yelped.
"Where’s my presents?" the boy squealed, pulling on Vincent’s hair.
There was a phrase that echoed so loudly in Vincent’s mind that he was sure everyone else could hear it: ‘This is only the beginning.’
………………………………………………………………………………………
"And there’s my little pooky-bear when he took his first step," Cathy said, pointing at the picture in her wallet. "Never did like diapers. And there he is during potty training."
"MOM!" Cid yelled.
"You have that report on my desk tomorrow morning or I’ll have you fired so fast—just as sec—No, honey, don’t eat that, what? No not you. Hold on, I got another call. Hello? Hi. She wore what?"
"Oooog," Shera commented.
"G’amma, Auntie Shera’s drunk again," the little girl said
"Make her get up an’ give us presents," the boy said.
"I am NOT changing this diaper!" Cid exclaimed. "Here!" Cid shoved the baby into its mother’s arms.
"Uh huh. Yeah. Uh huh. No. No… You’re kidding!" Laura said, fishing a diaper out of the bag and wandering off into the bathroom, still talking on the phone as she changed her kid.
"I’m hungry!" one kid yelled.
"Me too!" the other said.
"I was first!"
"Nuh uh, I was"
"I was!"
"I was!"
"She’s biting me!"
"He kicked me!"
"I don’t fucking care!" Cid yelled.
"CID!" Cathy yelled. "Language!"
"Yes, mom."
"Feed me!"
"Feed ME!"
"Me first!"
"ME first!
"How ‘bout Granny makes some dinner for all of us?"
"I want candy!"
"I want pizza!"
"Uh huh. Yeah. No. Uh huh, uh huh. Here Cid, take this, no not you, hold on, other line, no, that’s not our project. Who told you that was our project? That’s for marketing! I don’t care!" Laura told her phone, dumping the changed baby in Vincent’s lap. "What did Johnson say?"
The baby in Vincent’s lap began squirming and making noises that were impossible to spell, let alone pronounce by anyone over the age of two.
"What?" Vincent asked. "What do you want?"
The baby, unable to answer coherently and finally aware of the fact, grabbed Vincent’s shirt and pulled.
"You want my shirt?" Vincent asked.
The baby just kept pulling and started screaming.
"Yeah. Yeah. No. Look, you tell marketing that is not our project and that the documents are our priority. I don’t care! She said what? No… Yeah, here. No. Not you. What do you mean you haven’t started the report?" Laura asked, tossing a bottle at Vincent. She completely missed and Vincent had to get up, the screaming baby holding itself up on it’s own, to retrieve it after it flew past the TV.
"Hey kids!" the TV blared.
"TV!" the both yelled and tackled the couch.
"Boring!" the said to one channel, then changed it.
"Stupid!" the said the next second, then changed the channel again.
Vincent sighed and Cid sighed. One because the kids had stopped bugging him and the other because it was now his turn to deal with the rabid little ankle-biters.
"Cid, take your sister somewhere else, I need to cook," Cathy said, pointing at Shera, drunkenly passed out in the middle of the floor.
Vincent sat down. "I guess you are hungry," he said to the baby, who had by now undone all the buttons on his shirt and crawled in.
The baby just innocently and eagerly looked up at him, obviously disappointed that the universe had endowed only half the adults in the world with breasts.
Vincent adjusted the baby so it wouldn’t hurt itself on his arm and held the bottle. The baby almost grabbed the bottle out of his hands and gave no sign of gratitude.
"Buy me that!" the boy yelled.
"Me first!" the girl yelled.
"No. No. No, you tell marketing—hold on—support the head, no, not you. Oh my god, she did not! She did…?"
…………………………………………………………………………………………..
"Aw, you’re so cute. Yes you are. Yes you are," Vincent said, fawning over the baby. "You’re so silly, aren’t you?" Vincent started making noises at the baby, nicer than the baby’s noises, and more easily pronounced.
"Vincent, I need some help here—put that down!" Cid yelled chasing after the two kids.
"Aw, you’re such a—ow!" Vincent yelled, as the baby decided it wanted to show how much it liked his hair by yanking on it and refusing to let go. "Not the hair! Notthehair! Notthehair! OW! Cid, help me!"
"Gimme those matches!" Cid yelled, unsuccessfully trying to catch the children.
"Make it stop!" Vincent yelled, as the baby decided to both put his hair in its mouth and pull harder.
"Dinner!" Cathy called.
"FOOD!" both the kids yelled and dropped the matches and scissors. They charged at the table and bowled Cid over like a hurricane blowing a leaf away, despite the fact that he was over three feet taller than they were.
"Too… Lou…d…" Shera muttered.
"You’re so silly, peaches. You think getting drunk is going to keep your mommy away. Here, sit up," Cathy said, propping Shera up in the chair, and then rescuing Vincent from the baby, whom he was now convinced was determined to eat his head.
"I think I’m gonna be sick," Shera complained.
"Good, then you and your niece will have something in common, here, hold her," Cathy said, handing the baby to her, which promptly belched louder than Cid during one of his drunken burping contests.
"Vince, you got puke on your shirt," Cid said, as they both sat down.
"Among other things. That one’s crayon, that ones’ ketchup, that ones—I hope that’s not from the diaper."
"Here ya go," Cathy interrupted, serving a strange and colorful concoction before Vincent. "You get extra, my god, you’re so skinny!" she said, somehow holding the pot and spoon while simultaneously pinching Vincent’s cheeks—again.
"Looks great," Vincent said. "What is it?" he whispered to Cid, who shrugged.
"Pretend you like it," Cid whispered back.
Vincent thought Cid was overreacting, but the thought was immediately gone once Vincent put his fork in his mouth.
"Something wrong?" Cathy asked, and from the look she was about to dive across the table and give him the Hiemlich Maneuver if he blinked wrong.
"Egg’s a little runny," he commented, forcing himself to swallow, and forgetting his fork was still in his mouth and nearly swallowing that as well.
"It’s chicken Honey."
‘3…2…’ Cid mentally counted.
"Yeah, well tell marketing to stick it up their—"
"SO…" Cathy said, drowning out her daughter as she turned off the cell phone.
"Lunch already?"
"This is dinner," Cathy said, rather annoyed.
‘…1’
"Oh."
"That’s all you have to say, Laura?" Cathy asked.
Cid was about to tell Vincent to hit the deck, when Cathy continued, diverting the dinner table off the warpath temporarily.
"Aren’t you going to say ‘hi?’"
"Hi, mom," Laura said.
Her kids giggled save for the baby, who seemed too distracted with putting Shera’s meal in its ears.
"Not to me," Cathy said.
"Hi, Cid," Laura said to Shera.
"Try again."
"Hi… bro?"
"Is mommy in trouble again?" the girl asked.
"She di’n’t say no bad words," the boy said.
Laura pointed at each person at the table, silently counting each person. Then she shrugged.
"Laura! I swear you pay no attention to this family! I could be killed seven times over before you noticed!"
"No, I’m pretty sure you can only be killed once, mom," Laura said.
"There’s a new member in the family and you didn’t notice!" Cathy exclaimed.
"You mean the one blowing bubbles in chicken casserole?" Laura asked. "I brought that one. She wouldn’t notice if meteor fell."
"It’s not always about you, Laura!" Cathy yelled.
"Here we go," Cid said nihilistically.
"Young Lady, you have two seconds to greet the new member of our family!"
"Whatever," Laura answered, and went back to eating.
"Laura, look over here," Cathy said, pulling Vincent across the table to hug him. "Can’t you just say ‘Hello’ to your new brother in-law."
Vincent would have complained that Cathy was getting food all over his shirt, but at the moment he couldn’t breathe. Cid would have complained about his mom calling Vincent ‘brother-in-law’ but at the moment one argument was more than enough.
"Hi Vince," Laura said, earning Cathy’s sudden happiness and Vincent the use of his lungs again. "Come here often?"
"Vince, don’t make eye contact!" Cid whispered to Vincent.
Vincent was about to ask, but it was too late, contact or not, eyes or not, Cathy asked the ominous question: "So, how did you two meet?"
Vincent swallowed painfully, this time without the fork going down his throat. "I…" he stared.
"We met… at…uh…" Vincent started. "Well, he… then… and…so…"
"Sounds like my last date," Shera said.
"Hush, sweetie, Vincent-honey’s telling a story," Cathy said, so engrossed in listening that she didn’t notice her grandchildren finger-painting with the butter.
Vincent sighed. "I was locked in a room and I was in a coffin after someone had replaced my arm and performed unorthodox experiments on me for their own perversion. After I was left at the plane without any explanation, Cid was making the bikinis on the women on his plane smaller and dropped the paint can on my head."
"Oh," Cathy said. "Isn’t that… nice."
"Yet again, sounds like my last date," Shera said.
"I guess things could have been worse," Cathy said.
‘Yeah, you could be calling me ‘pooky" Vincent thought.
"So, did you hit it off during the concussion, or what?" Cathy asked.
"Mommy, what’s a confussion?" the boy asked.
"Is that like a spanking?" the girl asked.
"No, that part came a bit later," Shera commented.
"Shera!" Cid exclaimed.
"Cid!" Cathy exclaimed.
"What?" Cid asked.
"He got in trouble!" the kids exclaimed, pointing to Vincent. "He got spanked!"
"Shera!" Cid complained again.
"You, young man, are in so much trouble!" Cathy yelled.
"What? He asked!" Cid retorted.
"Hey!" Vincent complained.
"I’ve raised a horrible bunch of bullies! My poor wittle pooky’s a mean ol’ drunkard who hits people!" Cathy cried. "All my precious babies are going to be murderers, I know it! Where did I go wrong?"
"I wasn’t drunk!" Cid complained.
"Vincent was," Shera said.
"I was not!" Vincent complained.
"I’m perfectly normal," Laura complained.
"Yeah, Cid, quit making us look bad in front of mom," Shera said.
"Cid, go to your room!" Cathy said.
"Mom!" Cid exclaimed. "I’m thirty-two, don’t you think I’m too old for that?"
"I don’t care, what have I told you about hitting people?"
"He started it!" Cid said, pointing at Vincent.
"Well, the chocolate sauce was your idea!" Vincent retorted.
"I want chocolate!" one kid yelled.
"I want chocolate too!" the other yelled.
"Me first!"
"No me!"
The baby flipped the plate onto Shera’s lap and onto the floor, then, seeing the food thoroughly distributed on Shera’s person, decided it wanted to suck her thumb.
"Suddenly I’m glad I’m the neglected one," Shera said.
"Don’t say that, peaches," Cathy said, suddenly ignoring Vincent and Cid, much to their relief. "I love you, you know that, don’t you?"
"Mom, you called the mechanic than let me fix your toaster for you," Shera said.
"Oh, I didn’t want to bother you."
"I was right next to you when it happened! Don’t you remember me telling you not to put the fork in there?"
"Kids, let that be a lessen: no forks in the toaster," Laura said.
"Mom, I wasn’t joking when I called social services to take me away," Shera said.
"Of course you were, peaches," Cathy said, petting Shera’s hair, which was full of food.
"Well, she only pays attention to me when I do something wrong," Laura said.
"G’amma, do you hate mommy?" the girl asked.
"Why?" the boy asked.
"Laura, I do not!" Cathy exclaimed
"Sure, you do. I can prove it."
"Oh, don’t be silly, pumpkin."
"I got a new tattoo."
"You what?" Cathy screamed.
"Oh, boy," Cid said, covering his face in his hands.
Vincent used the situation as an opportunity to dump his food onto Cid’s plate.
"What do you mean a ‘new’ tattoo?" Cathy exclaimed.
"The last one was a flower," one kid said.
"Afore that, it was a snaky," the other said.
"Yeah, I can show you. Looks just like the women on Cid’s plane," Laura said.
"No, Laura…" Cid said.
"No, it’s no problem at all," Laura said, ignoring her angry mother, and started undoing her belt.
"LAURA!" Cathy exclaimed and covered people’s eyes.
"Uh…" Vincent said, noticing one of the sets of eyes covered was his own.
"Oh, for fuck's sake, mother, they came out of my ass, why shouldn’t they be able to see it?"
"Laura, don’t use that kind of language!" Cathy yelled.
"Why? I use it all the time."
"She does too!" the girl said.
"An’ a buncha other words, but she won’ tell us what they mean," they boy said.
"They’ve seen Cid’s ass, before too," Laura said.
"They broke the lock on the bathroom!" Cid said, defending himself from his mother.
At that moment, the table exploded in fighting; not that it was much of a change. Everyone was screaming at each other and the kids were throwing food. The only real change was how much went on simultaneously and how much food was now airborne.
"Welcome to the family, Vincent," Shera said.
Vincent said nothing as a large gob of food hit him in the face.
Shera started whistling the tune to ‘Consider Yourself…’
…………………………………………………………………………………….
The fight did not exactly end, everyone just wound up with metaphorical wounds and crawled off to lick them, obviously saying that is was far from over with their eyes as they glared at everyone else.
Shera was drunk again, the toddlers were wearing out the Lifetime Guarantee on the TV, Laura was prying the baby off the tree after it had knocked it down for the fourth time in the hour, Vincent was changing his shirt, concerned with some mystery smell he had acquired, Cid’s food (plus the amount Vincent had secretly dumped on the plate) had first wound up on Cid’s head, and later on the ceiling, and Cathy was reprimanding Cid.
No one exactly knew who said it, or when, but someone had let slip that Vincent indeed had some complaints about their sex life, the main one being that he wasn’t on top enough. Why exactly his mother had taken in upon herself to scold him about it, and why she thought that meant he was the worst person in the history of the world and meant she was the most terrible mother ever was only understood by her, if that.
When Vincent came out of the bedroom, after changing all of his clothes twice and a long shower, the smell was still there and he was left wondering where it had come from, why it wouldn’t leave, and what exactly it was. He noticed Cid, looking bored and embarrassed as his mother rattled on and on about proper and equal sex life and not giving him a chance to let him ask why it was any of her business. It suddenly occurred to Vincent decided that considering the topic of the scolding and the argument they already had about the spanking, his Christmas gift to Cid wouldn’t be a good thing to give to him in front of his mother.
Proving their annoyingness transcended into the realm of the metaphysical via ironic telepathy, the kids starting screaming they hadn’t had their presents yet.
Thankfully no one started setting up for it until Vincent had tossed his present under the bed, in hopes Cid’s mother wouldn’t go looking for porn in order find yet another topic to yell at Cid about.
"Presents!" the children yelled.
"...Next thing I know you’ll be the next Sephiroth, killing everybody and trying to set the world on fire…"
"Presents!"
"Mom," Cid complained.
"I will not have my son-in-law treated like he’s second rate.
"Mom, we aren’t married! Don’t call him your son-in-law," Cid said.
"You’re not married?" Cathy exclaimed.
"Whoops."
"Presents!"
"My pwecious babies are living in sin! How long had this been going on? Anything else I don’t know about?"
"Shera, don’t you dare say anything!" Vincent whispered, dashing out of the bedroom.
Shera just snored.
"Presents!"
"Anyone seen the diapers?" Laura asked.
"Presents!"
"Never mind, here they are. How’d they get here?"
"Presents!"
Shera snored some more.
……………………………………………………………………………………………
Eventually, after Cathy had threatened to take Cid’s toys away and had to be told they all belonged to Shera and Vincent as well and that would be mean to them, and Laura changing the baby twice, they all sat down to open presents. All but Shera, whom they just propped up before she slumped out of the chair.
"Come on, kids, presents," Laura said, turning off the TV.
"No presents!" they complained.
"Cookies!"
"Movies!"
"Cid, why are there so few presents?" Cathy asked.
"We… we were planning just to have a little holiday," Cid said. "We weren’t planning on anything big, Vincent doesn’t like those."
Indeed Vincent was trying to blend in with the wall and failing at it. Somehow, to Cid and Shera, a man dressed in the darkest black and the brightest red managed to look invisible against an eggshell colored wall. The trick wasn’t working on Cathy however. While Shera and Cid, once they noticed him, always noticed when he was even the slightest bit upset, scared, or angsty, Cathy wouldn’t have noticed if he were drowning unless someone blamed Cid for it.
"You poor baby!" Cathy exclaimed, hugging him so hard he fell over due to lack of oxygen to the brain when she let go. "What on earth could make you dislike Holidays? I should drop by more often to cheer you up!"
"Thanks a lot, Cid," Vincent hissed, after he finally stood up
"Where’s your present for my pooky-bear?"
"Uh… I…already gave it to him," Vincent said.
"You did?" Cid asked, earning a sharp elbow in the ribs. Cid was thankful it hadn’t been the metal one. "Right. He did. I liked it a lot."
"Oh? And what was it?"
"Book." "Wrench."
"A what?" Cathy asked.
"A book on wrenches," Cid answered.
"Come on, presents," Laura said.
"Don’ wanna!" they complained.
The baby, left unattended, decided the war with the tree had not yet ended and it would be the victor and knock it down and keep it down no matter what the cost. Then its plans were foiled as it was picked it up. The valiant baby got its revenge by drooling all over Vincent, then kicking and crying, while holding onto Vincent’s finger and refusing to let go. That should teach him.
"Cid, this tree doesn’t have any lights on it," Cathy scolded, ignoring the baby’s treatment of Vincent.
"So?"
"It doesn’t even have a stand, when did you buy this, today?"
"Yesterday," Cid said, pulling the baby off Vincent, which nearly took Vincent’s finger with it.
"You’re improving," Cathy conceded.
"Look, I said presents and we’re going to have presents!" Laura yelled.
The kids pouted, but complied and went over to the tree.
"Okay, presents, let see what everyone got," Cathy said cheerfully.
Cid recognized that tone. "Great, deodorant again."
"Oh, honey, don’t say that," Cathy said. In Mom-talk that meant she was disappointed he knew what it was before opening it. Cid faked cheer and handed it to Vincent to toss it in the bathroom trash bin. It wasn’t even good deodorant.
Cathy had given the two children a truck for the boy and a Barbie for the girl. The two started fighting over the truck and who got to run the Barbie over with it. The baby had received a Cait Sith plushie, but paid no attention to it and was elated at the discovery that whatever unknown and newly evolved life forms under the couch were edible.
Laura had received a One Free Paid Date at a dating service and then paid her kids to hide it.
Shera had received a new set of makeup, which Cid knew would join the deodorant in the trash, save for the lipstick, which she always used to mark places to put new wiring or not to cut into.
Laura had given all three of her children Get out of Trouble Free cards, including the baby, hoping it would be incentive to read someday. Cid got a huge package of cigarettes, she had even remembered his favorite brand, and Shera got a new lab coat, at which Vincent fainted.
After reviving her ‘honeybunches’ with smelling salts and almost making him pass out again from hugs that would make a Midgar Zolmom think twice, Cathy made Cid give Vincent and Shera their presents.
"But Shera hasn’t woken up for any of her other presents," Cid said, already smoking one of his Christmas cigarettes. "Can’t it wait?"
"Don’t argue with me, young man! Really, all you ever want to do is complain." Cathy said, still squeezing so hard Vincent was surprised none of his ribs had broken. "And hand out your sisters gifts."
"Yes, mom," Cid said.
Cid opened his gift for Shera, which was a coupon for a free gallon of her favorite ice cream; no doubt she’d need it soon to help her imminent headache.
Unfortunately, Cid wasn’t as quick to get the idea to hide a present for a certain someone because of a certain subject. Even more unfortunately, Cathy grabbed it and handed it to Vincent immediately, eager to see what ‘pooky-kins’ had gotten Vincent.
"Mom, that’s kinda private!" Cid said.
"Oh, pooky. What’s so bad you can’t show give it to him in front of your mommy. You start being nice or I’ll have to separate the two of you!"
Cid sighed and handed the present to Vincent, who carefully, opened it, his gaze on Cid’s mother, more afraid of her than interested in the present.
"Oh, come one, it’s Christmas, rip it open!" she said, making Vincent slice the wrapping with his metal arm. "Awww. Isn’t that nice, he can have a nice bubble bath with that," she said, seeing the scented oil nestled in tissue paper.
Both Cid and Vincent were immensely thankful and Cathy mistook as a sign of loving their ‘book on wrenches’ and ‘bath oil.’
"So, what did your sister get you?"
"Dunno, there isn’t anything else under the tree," Cid said.
"What about this?" Vincent asked, pulling out two pieces of paper from under the mountain of needles. How he noticed them Cid had no idea.
"Dear Cid, sorry I never got around to shopping. IOU: present," Vincent read. "Mine’s the same."
"That’s Shera for you," Cid said.
"Come on, wakey, wakey," Laura said, to her two sleeping kids. "We really should be going, mom."
"But I was just getting to know my honeybunches," Cathy said, still holding onto Vincent.
"No, I think it’s time to go," Laura said, and everyone but Cathy got the hint that she had found an excuse to rescue them and that that they owed her for it.
"We don’t wanna," the girl said, waking up.
"We wanna stay up, we’re not even tired," the boy said.
"Where’s Elora?" Laura asked.
"Who?" Cid asked.
"M baby," Laura said.
"Oh, right, that."
Everyone looked around. What little food was still on the table after the fight was still there. No one had a new vomit stain; the tree was still upright.
Save for Shera, they all got up and ran around the house in a panic, even the two kids, who checked the fridge and behind the TV twice, looking for the baby, and, more importantly, the disaster it had caused.
"Found him," Vincent said, emerging from the bedroom, carrying the baby, which was covered in toothpaste, not telling anyone about the lube it had eaten.
"Someone needs a bath," Laura said, taking the baby from Vincent. The baby, being a baby, was less than cooperative until it had gotten half the mess on both Vincent and it’s mother. "Come on, Mom," Laura said, and herded her children out the door.
"Now you be good, or Santa’s going to bring you underpants again," Cathy warned. "And take care of your sister. And don’t forget to brush your teeth. And take care of Vincent-honey. And don’t let your sister go without socks—"
"Mom!" Laura said from the doorway, then turned to her children. "You get in that car, right now! No, don’t eat that! No, trucks don’t eat potato chips, dearie."
"Bye-bye, now pooky, I love you," she said, kissing him on the cheek. She gave Vincent the same thing, and then Shera too, who woke up and suddenly turned green.
After their mother left they all looked at each other, conveying more than any instructional manual ever had, just by glaring sardonically with their eyes. Just by looking at the two, Cid vowed from now on, they’d all vacation to Costa del Sol under false names during Christmas and everyone, purely with their eyes still, agreed. Shera said she intended to be drunk from now until new years and she didn’t’ want to be disturbed. The others said as long as it didn’t involve burning the house down, whatever way she used to forget was fine by them.
Vincent’s message was a bit more complicated and aimed only at Cid, who got the gist of it. Vincent told Cid they were going to go into the bathroom, both of them, use up all of Vincent’s present, and start on Cid’s, or Vincent WOULDN’T be happy to see Cid, and it WOULD be his death penalty—aimed at a very important and beloved place for Cid.
Cid didn’t complain.
"Wait," Cid said, unable to communicate his message through eyes. "I thought I locked that door today. How’d she get in?"
Vincent was already ripping off his clothes and gave no reply. Shera just asked if that was all the beer, wine, and Kailua they had. "I don’t see why I should have to suffer through any of this," Shera said. "I’m Jewish."