#santaplier

Holidays at the Manor were always interesting. At first it was Wilford dropping random gifts off for Dark if he remembered that year, to which Dark responded with a gift of his own.

Then they got Bim, and gifts on Christmas became a common thing. Bim was lavished with gifts and sweets. Traditions of stocking and trees replaced a drab and colorless Christmas.

They had started getting into a rhythm when the Lost Ones were brought into the Manor. Their childhood awe for the season was extinguished when the only children to receive gifts from Santa that weren’t oily and flammable were King and Yancy. But Dark and Wilford supplied them with a mountain of gifts of all kinds.

Now that they were older with various types of crimes from their time in the criminal underworld they all got coal and rather scathing notes from the “jolly” specter of Christmas. But they had their own traditions and now they were trying to include the Manor’s newest inhabitants in those traditions.

It was Christmas Day.

Illinois was talking to Memento and Mori. He was trying to get them away from the stairs before Memento destroyed the stairs by dragging an obscene amount of snow into the House and turning the Manor’s stairs into a ski resort for himself and Mori.

“Look, being a demon in Egoton means you just get coal for Christmas,” Illinois warned.

“So, you’re saying it’s the one time of the year that we can burn our gifts?” Memento smiled.

“Sure, yeah, in the fireplace, not in the rest of the House,” Illinois promised.

BANG!

“Ho! Ho! Ho!”

Illinois looked back to see that Santa Claus had taken a battering ram and burst open the door.

“You asshole! We have a chimney!” Illinois shouted.

“Santy Claus!” Mori shouted with absolute glee. He threw his hands up in the air.

“I’m not testing that again with your crazy father.” Santa’s battering ram disappeared in a flash of glittering magic. In its place was a large red bag and he threw it into the house with the force of a disgruntled FedEx employee.

“What are you doing back?” Wilford shouted as he raced in, Dark following after him and rubbing at his temples.

“Merry Christmas, you bastard!” Santa tossed a small wrapped gift at Wil, the object bouncing off his head and landing hard on the ground.

“Chris,” Dark sighed in greeting.

“Bitch,” Santa greeted Dark, tossing him a small wrapped box before he was tackled by a very angry Wilford. Wilford had gasped upon hearing the insult.

While the two were fighting on the floor, Wilford literally biting Santa whenever he had the chance to, Dark took the opportunity to unwrap his gift. Inside was a carton of cigarettes.

“Huh,” Dark looked at the box. “Marlboro. Nice. Thank you, Chris.”

The Entity opened up a portal to send Santa away and pulled Wilford away from him like an unruly pet.

“Wil, he’ll be back next year,” Dark sighed, sliding his new carton of cigarettes into his suit pocket.

“If death wasn’t a hilarious joke, I would have him murdered and strung up,” Wilford told Dark.

“Noted, you can find him later,” Dark promised.

“Looking forward to it,” Wilford huffed and picked up his “gift” which was just a lump of coal. An object he planned on hitting Santa with after he found that nice powerful rifle Dark kept up in the attic with the incorrect spelling of his name engraved into it.

“William” was a terribly incorrect way to spell “Wilford”.

Illinois had already dragged the bag over to the tree where it opened on its own and the bag disappeared into a puff of silver and red glitter.

Unlike other years there were tags on the gifts, and there were four gifts that were obviously not coal. One was a large, oddly shaped gift for Eric. The other three were smaller boxes for the triplets.

“Why did you fuckers get gifts?” Bim demanded angrily, Mori scooping up his gift immediately.

King scoffed, “I get on the naughty list for tax evasion, and you two have literally killed people. That’s absolute bullshit.”

“Well we’re obviously not hellians like you,” Mori boasted.

“No, Santa’s just mad that Dad fucked his wife,” King dismissed. “That’s the difference. You three are only one-third Wilford and so he doesn’t have to give you a bad gift.”

Tempus opened up her gift to see a small stained glass vase. Memento had a new wallet. Mori got something that looked like a spyglass.

Tempus gasped as she opened up the gift. “Oh it’s so pretty.”

There was a loud squeal of delight as Eric timidly opened the gift and found a giant stuffed teddy bear.

Eric’s entire face lit up as he hugged the giant teddy bear.

Illinois rolled his eyes and smiled, ignoring the wrapped lump of coal in light of Eric’s happiness. “Pretty cool bear, huh, dulcito[1].”

“I-t’s so big,” Eric was practically shaking in excitement.

Illinois smiled and just scooped up Eric who was still holding the bear and relocated them to the couch. Mori, King, and Bim had devolved into some kind of argument.

“What’s the bullshit barrier for entry in this damn holiday?” King demanded. “I’ve never hurt anyone.”

“You do scream at people in the park and attack them with squirrels,” Illinois reminded.

“Yeah, but I don’t kill them,” King said. “This is absolute horseshit.”

“Nah, this is a wonderful time of the year,” Memento cackled.

Illinois participated in teasing King and ribbing the triplets. He instinctively glanced at Dark. The Entity had been tense almost all day, but apart from that it was a relatively normal celebration. Dark, Wilford, and all the kids.

But that was the problem.

Chase hadn’t shown up.

All of the Lost Ones had been expecting Chase to drop by, or at least take the triplets for the night. The marksman was nowhere to be seen. Dark hadn’t even brought him up.

“아빠[2], when is Chase coming over?” Illinois asked.

Dark froze, looking at Illinois in apprehension.

Mori, however, spoke up, “I’ll get him.”

He was already drawing a portal to Chase’s apartment, and leaning inside. “Hey, Dad!

Chase had been watching something on the TV and was startled when Mori ran in.

“E’erythin’[3] alright?” Chase asked.

“Yeah, was wondering when you were coming over,” Mori smiled. “We got gifts from Santa. Well I got a gift. Bim got coal.”

“Fucker!” Bim shouted from the Manor side of the portal.

Mori turned and flipped Bim off.

“Kinda[4] used ta[5] not seein’[6] the kids on the holidays,” Chase admitted with a shrug.

“Then get in here,” Illinois called out.

Chase hesitated before following his son into the Manor. Bim stared at Chase as he walked in, but not saying anything for the moment.

“Dark,” Chase gave Dark a little smile.

“Hello,” Dark greeted stiffly. He didn’t move over to Chase.

Wilford however appeared right by Chase’s side when the portal snapped closed.

“Hello~” Wilford smiled.

“Wil,” Chase said in reply.

Suddenly Wilford and Chase were standing in a billiard room. Chase had a pool cue in his hand and they were alone in the room.

“Hey,” Wilford smiled, leaning over the table at Chase.

“Touch me, an’[7] I’ll break yer[8] fingers.” Chase already was feeling his fingers twitch.

“One day,” Wilford winked.

“Yeah, well well don’t hold yer[8] breath,” Chase huffed.

“I do have to thank you, it’s nice seeing him relax a little bit,” Wilford smiled.

“Dark ain’t relaxin’[9] when we’re in the same room,” Chase reminded him, wanting to crack the pool cue over Wilford’s head.

“You could give it a shot, it does leave a nasty headache, though,” Wilford said.

“Dark an’[7] I are datin’[10],” Chase reminded.

“No harm in Dark having fun,” Wilford’s smile didn’t fade. “He lets me have fun, why shouldn’t I let him have some fun of his own. He’s more relaxed than he’s been in years.”

“No he’s not, yeh[11] obviously don’t know shite[12].” Chase decided to put the pool cue away instead of beating Wilford with it.

“I know he does,” Wilford chuckled and tapped his temple. His eyes tracked Chase like a cat.

Chase glared at him.

“I know my memory’s garbage, I just—” Wilford trailed off. “It would be easy for him to take Bim or the others away. When I lose memories they don’t ever come back. I get impressions, feelings if I’m lucky, but never the memories. The memories I have of Bim are very precious to me. I have to admit, it scares me a little, knowing that if I push him too far he can just take them away from me.”

The marksman stared at Wilford before letting out a begrudging sigh. “Yer makin’ it hard ta hate yah, Bubbles. An’ I wanna hate yeh.”[13]

“Well what did I do?” Wilford gestured to himself. “I’m a lovely person.”

“He was so heartbroken when yeh[11] died,” Chase told Wil. The vague feelings of sorrow, guilt, and frustration burning in his soul. After all this time he could still feel future him’s dark, all consuming emotions.

“Death, my friend, is a joke,” Wilford smiled. “It doesn’t exist.”

“Look, the options were: yeh died, or yeh fooked off an’ left him fer years. Which yeh want it ta be?”[14]

“Both of those sound awful and dull,” Wilford told him. “Why would I want to stay away from Darkling? Have you met him? He is very lovely.”

“I have an’[7] he is,” Chase agreed.

“There we go,” Wilford slid next to Chase and clapped him on the back. Which made Chase want to punch Wil in the face.

But suddenly they were back in the living room and no one was reacting as if the two of them had gone anywhere.

It took everything Chase had not to deck Wilford across the face in front of his own children.

Dark had moved to sit on the couch and Chase shrugged Wil off to go and sit next to Dark. Chase used his presence as a silent palette cleanser.

At first Dark didn’t seem to acknowledge him, glancing at Bim and Illinois but when they seemed to be embroiled in their own little argument, the Entity seemed to start calming down. Or at least he became less on edge.

Finally, Dark leaned against Chase and he seemed to get a little less tense. He only tensed up a bit when Wilford flopped down on the same couch, on Dark’s other side. The madman threw his arm around the back of the couch.

The madman placed a couple kisses on Dark’s head and face before leaning back comfortably. Wilford’s eyes glanced over to Chase, giving him a goading smile.

Chase internally bristled at that smile, and decided not to let Wilford show him up. So he leaned over to kiss Dark on the cheek.

The Entity completely froze, looking over at Wilford who was just smiling at him. Both he and Dark were sitting side-by-side. But he was subtly trying to lean Dark against Chase.

It took a little bit for Dark to calm down, but after a minute, the Entity was completely leaning against Chase.

“Yer[8] alright,” Chase promised Dark, the three older adults just watching the chaos around them. Wilford laughed and made jokes as the festivities continued.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Post A/N: Did you know that Santa is a canon Ego? Cause I did? Do you know what else is canon: Wilford sleeping around with the spouses of people who hate him/he dislikes. So guess what my brain came up with? Yeah, Wilford fucked Mrs. Claus. It’s not my fault it’s the most likely explanation of why Santa hates Wilford but not Dark. It’s Mark’s. I’m just taking credit for calling it out. 

Accessibility Translations:

1. sweetheart

2. Dad. (Used informally; phonetically can be read as: Appa.)

3. Everything

4. Kind of

5. to

6. seeing

7. and

8. your

9. relaxing

10. dating

11. you

12. shit

13. You’re making it hard to hate you, Bubbles. And I want to hate you.