[Meta] The Crispmas Party

The car pulled into the parking bay, the crunching of the gravel surface quietening to silence as it came to a gentle stop. From out of the drivers’ side door stepped Garver, while from the passengers’ side stepped Incon. Since they were roomies, they had decided to carpool to the night’s festivities. Around them was a number of other vehicles, presumably belonging to the other partygoers. And of course, in front of them was the grand hall that was the venue for the party in question.

“‘Welcome to the inaugural CrispyChat Crispmas party!’,” Incon said. “This is the place, alright.”

“I told you I’d get us there,” Garver replied. “We’re only, what, an hour late?”

“More like two. Who cares, let’s just get in there. I need a drink!”

The two men made their way over to the ornate double doors that formed the entrance to the hall and pushed them open and subtly as they could, so as not to attract too much attention. To their surprise, not a soul noticed their belated entrance, such was the life of the party.

“Damn, big turnout,” Incon said, impressed.

“Yeah. Mehk wanted to make sure as many people from Crispy, past and present, could make it. Basically everyone was invited.”

Incon arched his eyebrow. “‘Basically’?”

“We didn’t invite Temby.”

“Oh, of course,” Incon chuckled.

At a table near an elaborate stone pillar, a man with a plateful of food called Garver and Incon over with a jolly wave. “What up, guys? I didn’t see you at the opening.”

“Hey there, Captain Stupid,” Incon greeted. “We just got here, actually.”

“We could have been here earlier if you didn’t make me stop to check out that all-hours gym,” Garver muttered.

“I see you guys are as gay as ever,” Captain laughed. “Come on, have a seat. Henry and Yoop will be back soon with some drinks.”

“Speaking of gay,” Incon started, “is Banda here?”

“Yeah. Last I saw he was trying to chat up Prof Allister.”

“He does know Prof’s a dude, right? Or, at least, I think he’s a dude.”

“Prob’ly. And married with a kid too. But you think that’ll ever stop Banda?”

As the three men finished laughing, Henry and Yoop returned to the table with a tray each stacked with booze. Garver and Incon stood from their seats so as to allow them to sit back down.

“You don’t need to get up, we can just pull up more chairs,” Henry offered.

“It’s cool. We’ve gotta catch up with everyone else,” Garver said.

“Oh, sure thing. One for the road?”

“Thanks, man. Sorry we couldn’t stay and catch up.”

Yoop brushed the apology off. “It’s cool. You’ve got a lot of people to see. Later guys!”

Incon and Garver wandered through the crowd, keeping an eye out for familiar faces. It seemed that even though most everyone there was a member of Ms. Crispy’s Book Burning Session, the majority had never even shown their faces in chat before. As they pushed through a particularly dense group of people in front of the buffet, a young man bumped into Incon, shouting ‘s-sorry!’ as he ran to the bathrooms with a skip in his step.

“Was that Benny?”

“I think it was,” Garver agreed. “Spilling spaghetti, as usual.”

“Yo! Garver, Incon, how’s it going!” called a young man with an accent nearby.

“Waltz my man, good to see you!” Incon cheered, shaking the Australian’s hand. “You actually came all the way out here!”

“Yeah, and it wasn’t cheap, lemme tell you that!”

“And Med, can’t forget you,” Incon added to the man standing at the buffet with him.

“Did you see Benny just now?” Med asked.

“I thought it was him. He bumped into me on his way to the bathroom.”

Waltz and Med burst out laughing as they heard Incon’s reply. He and Garver shrugged at each other as they waited for the laughter to die down.

“What’s so funny?”

“We told Benny we were sorry for picking on him in chat all the time,” Med sputtered between breaths. “So to make it up to him, we’d set him up with a girl we knew.”

“There are girls here?” Garver asked, scanning the crowd in sight of one.

Waltz and Med grinned at each other. “Nope!” they replied in unison.

Incon and Garver couldn’t help but laugh at that. Poor Benny.

“Wait, but then who did you set him up with? Is there even anyone waiting for him?”

“There is,” Waltz replied, “but you’ll find out soon enough – I guarantee it.”

“Oh, Garver,” Med added, “Hoa was looking for you before. I think he’s with Helb and a few others near the bar.”

“Thanks, we’ll go find him now. Good to see you guys.”

The bar was on the far side of the hall, a mirror to the location of the buffet. There were a number of small tables scattered around it, and of course the bar itself. Seated at one of the tables was indeed Hoa, as well as Helbereth and Prof Allister.

“Gentlemen. And Hoa,” Garver greeted.

“Fuck you, Garver. Where’ve you been all night? I was looking for you.”

“Fashionably late, you could call it. What’s up?”

As Garver caught up with Hoa, Incon respectively greeted Helbereth and Prof.

“It’s been a while,” Helbereth mused. “And the longer I’m away, the more I feel I’m the oldest one here.”

“That’s because you are,” Prof quipped with a smirk.

“You’re not far off yourself,” Incon noted.

“Kids’ll do that to you.”

“Didn’t bring ‘em along?”

“Left them with the spouse. Figured people wouldn’t want a screaming toddler at a Christmas party.”

“But Vekter’s here,” Helbereth returned, laughing.

In the distance, a muffled ‘fuck you!’ was heard, followed by a door slamming.

“So what have you oldfags been up to?” Incon asked.

“Steadily eking out another book in my Tomorrow’s Doom series,” Helbereth groaned.

“Don’t you mean chapter?”

“That’s what I said.”

“Same,” Prof said, ignoring the correction. “Except for my own story, of course.”

“Man, you guys, still writing about KS?” Hoa interjected, rejoining the group. “It’s been almost three years.”

“Funny,” Garver said, smirking, “isn’t that how long it’s been since Love Despite updated?”

“Shaddup. You want me to buy you another drink or not?”

“Actually, I’ve gotta talk business with a fireman. I’ll hold you to that drink, Hoa.”

Rising from the overcrowded table, Garver threaded through the crowd towards the bathrooms, located in the back of the hall. As he approached the door, it opened from the other side and a sharply dressed man stepped out.

“Evening Gabber,” he said, zipping up his fly none-too-conspicuously.

“Banda.” With hesitance, Garver added, “Are you wearing lipstick?”

“Don’t worry, it’s not mine. Also, you might want to use the ladies room. Later, nerd.”

And without a second glance, Banda was off, lost in the crowd of people. Garver shuddered. Banda could only have been implying one thing. He didn’t want to think of what unfortunate sight lay in store for him on the other side of the door, but he was compelled to look anyway. And when he did, he merely took in the sight in question, nodded his head once in acknowledgement, and used the ladies room as suggested.

When he returned, Incon waved him over to their now-double table. “So, how was business?”

Garver nodded slowly, grimacing. “Ran into Banda.”

“That bad, huh? Did you see Benny? Did he get any?”

“Yeah. Doomish too.”

“With each other?”

“No. Not exactly. Anyway, Hoa, I’ll take that drink now.”

“You got it. By the way, Scissorlips and TheMocaw were wondering: where’s Mehk? Wasn’t he the one that organised this whole thing?”

“He had to work. Poor guy, he’s been working shift after shift recently. Can’t catch a break.”

“That’s a shame,” Incon sighed. “What’s Crispmas without Mehk?”

At that moment, the music permeating the hall went silent, and shortly thereafter the chatter of the attendees. The double doors at the entrance burst open, and through them stepped a man dressed head to toe in red and white, with a long white beard and a sack full of god-only-knows-what.

“Ho, ho, ho!” he laughed, voice loud and a little hoarse. “Have you all been good boys and girls this year?”

No one answered. Whether people were silent for being dumbfounded or for not wanting to lie to Santa, Garver couldn’t ascertain. Nevertheless, Santa didn’t lose his stride.

“Well whatever you’ve been, it doesn’t matter, because Santa has presents here for everyone!” And with that, he pulled up a chair and dumped the comically-oversized sack next to it. “So, who wants to come tell Santa what they want for Crispmas?”

After a brief period of hesitation, people began to filter towards the jolly red man, forming a line. One after the next, they sat on Santa’s lap, told him what they wanted, and Santa pulled exactly that out of the sack. Soon enough it came to be Incon’s turn, and Garver’s after his. Thinking he’d be clever about it, Garver whispered “world peace” into Santa’s ear.

Santa laughed merrily, removing two items from the sack. The first was a card, inside which was written, “It has to be a real thing you little shit”. The second was a wrapped box, and as Garver tore away the wrapping paper he saw that it was just the thing he’d been saving up to buy. He looked up at the Santa, who smiled a knowing smile that formed slight wrinkles at the corner of two very tired eyes.

“Mehk…?” Garver thought, inaudible to anyone else in the room.

Nevertheless, the Santa put a finger to his lips, whispering, “Shh,” before moving Garver along.

Around the room people were showing off their gifts, bewildered by their benefactor’s foresight. Men young and old were reduced to giggling schoolgirls, figuratively speaking, such was the joy they had been brought.

Incon approached Garver, clutching a tasteful dakimakura of Saber under his arm. “Amazing, isn’t it? It really is a shame that Mehk couldn’t be here to see this.”

“I wouldn’t worry,” Garver replied. “I get the feeling he’s not missing out on much at all.”

*****

Merry Christmas, you fucking faggots. <3