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dashuisofanubis · 4 years

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Making Excuses (or 5 times Eddie and Patricia got chores and 1 time they didn't)

Alternatively titled 6 times Victor got a migraine

My @sibunasecretsanta gift for @sibxna, who asked for anything Peddie related. I hope you like it!!!

Read on Ao3

It was all subjective really. Maybe they had been miscreants launching a deliberate and malicious attack against Victor’s prize dahlias, or maybe they’d just been having fun playing catch when the competitive streak kicked in and the flowers were unfortunately caught in the cross-fire. If he hadn’t wanted his flowers to become a casualty, maybe he shouldn’t have planted them there.

Tragically, Victor didn’t see it their way, so Patricia and Eddie were once again stuck doing chores for the foreseeable future. And apparently tending to the garden they’d ‘vandalised’ was a key part of this punishment.

Patricia groaned as she pulled up another weed. Why were there so many of them? If Victor cared about his flowers as much as he seemed to, why did he let them get so overrun? “Why does Victor like doing this to us?” she muttered under her breath.

“Uh, maybe because he likes to see us suffer?” Eddie replied, evidently not understanding her question was rhetorical. Eddie had drawn the short straw and was shovelling manure onto the rose beds. Either he was fine with that task or was doing a really good job at hiding how much he hated it.

“Well, duh.” Patricia shot back, taking out her frustration on Eddie, rather than this weed that would not budge however much she pulled at it.

“Uh, Yacker, hate to break it to you, but that’s a marigold.” Eddie said, watching her battle with the plant.

“Oh.” She released her grip, smoothing the leaves so it looked a little less like it had been viciously attacked. She’d thought it was a deceptively big dandelion, and debated whether she should tell Eddie that, before deciding against it.

Eddie paused in his work and turned to her. “You thought it was some kind of fancy dandelion didn’t you?” He asked, a grin set on his face.

“No.” She said defensively. Perhaps a little too defensively, she thought, as she watched Eddie’s smile widen considerably.

“Aw come on Yacker, it’s okay to admit you know nothing about plants.”

Patricia chose not to reply in words, but with a glare, though it was much harder to manage without bursting into laughter than she thought.

“You know, we could switch jobs, since you’re struggling so much.”

“Fight me.”

“Well, if you insist.” Eddie shrugged, tossing his spade to the side. Patricia had barely a second to process what he was doing before he came barrelling towards her.

“Eddie wai-!"

He collided with her, both of them falling bodily to the ground. They lay there for a few moments, stunned, before breaking out into laughter.

“Maybe the others are right, we are too competitive.” Patricia sighed, feeling the laughter subside.

“Yeah, but it is fun to prove I’m better than you.”

“No way! If I’d been prepared I totally would have taken you down.”

“Okay, you wanna prove this in a proper setting, Yacker?”

“Sure.”

“Tomorrow? At the gym?”

“It’s a date.” Patricia confirmed, then added: “If you buy me a drink after.”

Eddie paused, pretending to consider her offer. “You got yourself a deal!”

It was then, as they made to stand up, that they noticed where they’d fallen. Both of them peered down to see the marigolds, crushed and broken under the sudden weight.

“Uh oh.”

“Yeah, we might need to rain check that date.”

Victor sighed, resisting the urge to press a hand against his face as he looked at the students sat across from him, covered in bits of paint and plaster. Just last month, these two miscreants had destroyed not only his dahlias, but his marigolds too. After that, he’d banned them from all garden work, which made them happier than he liked, but he had to do it if he still wanted a garden to work in. These two seemed determined to give Lewis and Clarke a run for their money.

“So,” he began, “Let me get this straight-”

“More like let me run this bi you, am I right?” Eddie whispered to Patricia, who tried to suppress a laugh while under Victor’s stare. He sighed.

“Let me just check: you two put a hole into yours and Mr. Rutter’s bedroom wall?”

“Yeah, we did.” For some reason Eddie looked vaguely proud of himself, which potentially had something to do with the hand he was keeping firmly in his hoodie pocket.

“So, your first solution is not to come to me, but to try and fix it yourselves.”

“We didn’t want to get in trouble.” Patricia said, at the same time as Eddie says, “We thought we could handle it.”

“Oh, you did, did you?” Victor asked. “But neither of you take DT, and neither of you have any proficiency in DIY, so what did you end up doing?”

“We made it bigger.” Patricia muttered, rolling her eyes.

“What was that Ms Williamson?” Victor said, in a tone that was almost patronising.

“We made it bigger! Jeez!” She exclaimed.

“Exactly. So, what’s the reason you made the hole in the first place?”

The two students exchanged a look.

“It was an accident.” Patricia said quickly.

“Okay, how did you accidentally put a hole into the wall?”

“We, uh… tripped?” Eddie offered, rubbing the back of his neck. He glanced at Patricia, who exasperatedly mouthed why?

Victor raised his eyebrow raised impossibly high “Tripped? Both of you? Into the same patch of wall with enough force to break through the plaster?”

“…yes?” Patricia pressed a hand to her face and sighed. Victor wanted to do the same. Eddie couldn’t even lie convincingly, let alone well.

Victor leant back in his chair, considering an appropriate punishment. The two wall destroyers were whispering furtively to each other, both of them berating each other for not thinking of a decent cover story before they came in. Victor cleared his throat deliberately, and they jumped, turning to face him as he delivered his verdict.

“Since the two of you seemed to want to solve the problem yourselves, you can help me repair the wall this weekend.”

The duo nodded, neither of them seeing fit to argue, for once.

“You can go.” Victor dismissed. He did not like plastering walls by any means, but at least by teaching them, he had someone he could relegate the task to if it happened again. Which, if he knew his students, which he unfortunately did, would happen sooner than he’d think.

“Well,” Eddie said as the two left the room, “That didn’t go as badly as I thought.”

“No.” Patricia agreed. “And we’ll get to learn how to fix walls, you know, in case you ever put your hand through one again.” She smirked.

“I was just trying to show you how tough I was, I didn’t know the walls were that thin!” Eddie defended, pulling his hand out his pocket and examining the bruises. They’d definitely help people think he was tough - he needed to make sure other students knew he was still a ‘bad boy with a heart of gold’, since they knew who his father was. “But” he added with a grin, “how cool is it that I was able to do that! Do you think it’s one of my Osirian powers, or do you really think I’m that strong?”

“I dunno.” Patricia said. “Maybe we should try it out with Sibuna later?”

“Maybe… ah.”

“What?”

Eddie looked at Patricia, a grimace forming.

“Who’s gonna tell Fabian about the hole in the wall?”

This was all KT’s fault. She was the one who suggested playing knock knock ditch with Victor’s office. And yet she was sat on the counter, swinging her legs as she watched Eddie and Patricia clean the windows.

“You could help you know.” Patricia said pointedly as she scrubbed the glass.

“I could,” KT replied, a smug grin on her face, “but I’m not the one who got caught in the act.”

No, that had been Patricia. It was the 6th time someone had knocked on Victor’s door that night and he’d been determined to catch the perpetrator. So much so that the second Patricia knocked Victor yanked the door open, causing the startled student to fall over. Eddie made the mistake of going to check on her, and as such had been stuck with the punishment too. Meanwhile, KT had been watching the goings on from a distance, laughing to herself at her friends’ continued excuses as to why they’d knocked so many times.

Patricia scowled as she dunked her sponge back into the bucket. “Next time, we’re totally dragging you down with us.”

“Good luck with that.” KT laughed. “Victor doesn’t like it when I pull the ‘that’s homophobia’ card, so he just doesn’t convict me of anything.”

“Maybe we should try that out.” Eddie said, casting a look at Patricia, who was scrubbing at the window like it had insulted her. “It might work better than our excuse did.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she responded, “I thought ‘there’s a fire that keeps reigniting’ was pretty inspiring actually.”

“Really?”

“Obviously not.”

“Oh.” Eddie said, and the group lapsed into silence as Eddie and Patricia washed the windows and KT offered them ‘helpful’ comments.

“You missed a spot.” KT said again, pointing to a patch of glass that was, admittedly, dirtier than the rest. Patricia, however, wasn’t appreciative of KT’s constant interruptions and picked up her bucket.

“Woah, woah hey!” Eddie said, placing a hand over Patricia’s and lowering the bucket down before KT ended up drenched.

“It’s fine, Eddie,” KT replied, “This is the kind of entertainment I was hoping for.”

“Really? You want to be covered head to toe in dirty window water?”

“Well, it’d make for a more interesting time, this is boring!”

“You don’t even have to be here!” Patricia exclaimed.

“Yeah, but I feel kinda guilty.” KT admitted.

“But not guilty enough to help.”

“Obviously not.”

They were now cleaning the windows in the living room, and KT was sat on the arm of the sofa, still watching them despite her claims of boredom. Eddie had set his bucket down on the floor just within arm’s reach of her sitting position, and the duo were getting competitive over who’s cleaning better. KT grinned, sensing the opportunity. She leant down, stuck her hand in the bucket and flicked a handful of water at Patricia before moving quickly back into position as she said “Eddie!” in a shocked tone of voice.

Patricia spun round, glaring accusatorially at the supposed culprit. “Hey!”

“What?” Was all Eddie managed to reply before the water hit him. “Oh, okay if that’s how you want to play it!” He said, shaking the water out of his eyes before retaliating.

“You started it!” Patricia shouted.

“No I didn’t!”

“Yes you did!”

The argument continued for a few minutes, each opponent getting slowly more drenched, before Patricia asked: “Okay if you really didn’t do it, who did?”

It dawned on KT that she really should have left before this point, as the two window cleaners turned to her, realisation clear on their faces. KT’s realisation was that maybe she should have helped, at least then she’d have her own water to defend herself.

“Oh sh-” she exclaimed, scrambling back. But she’d united the two against a common enemy and they were unstoppable.

Once they’d successfully driven a soaking wet but laughing KT out of the lounge, the two turned to each other, sighing with laughter.

“Okay, I’ll go with KT, this was more entertaining.” Eddie admitted.

“Yeah, it was.”

They stared into each other’s eyes, and Patricia thought she’d quite like to kiss Eddie. He evidently thought the same, as he placed a hand on her face, wiping away some of the water. They leaned in towards each other and-

“What on Earth is going on here?”

They sprang apart as Victor stared at them, two bedraggled teenagers, then at the room, which was decidedly more wet than when they’d started. They both looked at him, an excuse on their tongues:

“It was KT!”

“What have you got to say for yourself this time?” Victor asked. He looked like he needed a stiff drink, or at least a nap, which was impressive, considering it was 9 in the morning.

“Well you see,” Eddie started, “We were bored, so Alfie suggested we play 21, so we all said ‘yeah! That’s a great idea!’ Now, I don’t know if you know the rules to the game- “

“I’m familiar.” Victor interjected. The look on his face suggested he wasn’t 100% sure but was desperate for Eddie to cut to the chase. Eddie, however, was determined to drag this out as much as he could.

“Okay, good. So, we played a few rounds before this one but suddenly it gets to me and we’re up to 19. Willow was sitting next to me, so I could have passed it onto her, but I’m a gentleman, so I took 21 for myself. I choose dare because the last couple of rounds had been truth and we needed to spice things up a bit.”

Victor resisted the urge to press a hand against his face, and settled with a hard stare at the troublemaker, hoping he’d get to the point. He didn’t.

“So, the others go off to do some intense discussion on what the dare will be. Fabian and Mara return fairly quickly, because the others apparently don’t want the voices of reason guilting them into something less drastic. After, like, 10 whole minutes, they come back and tell me I have to get into your office and put a tiny party hat onto Corbierre. So, you see it wasn’t my idea, or my fault.”

Victor did not look convinced. “There wasn’t any way for you to refuse this ‘dare’?”

“Of course not, that’s just bad sportsmanship!”

“Of course.”

“Plus, if I did back out of it I’d owe them. We didn’t discuss what I’d owe them but just owing everyone in the house is enough. So really I’m the victim here, Victor! Go give the others a lecture on peer pressure!”

“Oh, I assure you I will, but first, tell me how you managed to conduct this dare of yours.”

“Really?” Eddie asked. He’d assumed Victor was just going to give him chores, especially since he’d spent the past 10 minutes looking like he wanted Eddie never to talk again.

“Oh yes.” Victor said, sounding vaguely interested. “I’m intrigued to know how you did it.”

Eddie felt a sense of unease wash over him but continued his retelling of last night regardless. “Okay, so the hard part was getting you out of your office. I needed to create a distraction, but tragically I cannot be in two places at once - I needed an accomplice. So, I called in a favour to Patricia. She didn’t want to help seeing as it wasn’t her dare, but she owed me for something completely unrelated to the hole in my wall, and the others agreed that the laws of owing people are ranked higher than the rules of 21, so she had no choice. I came up with the distraction idea, but she had to enact it, so I could slip in and place the hat on Corbierre…” Eddie trailed off, suddenly realising why Victor had wanted him to continue.

Victor smiled- well, it wasn’t a smile exactly but more like the look someone gives when they’ve got someone right where the want them. “So, it was Patricia who set the smoke alarm off, hm?”

“No-I- did I say that? I didn’t say that!” Eddie fumbled. Why was he so bad at lying when put on the spot?

Victor looked unimpressed. “Okay, Mr. Miller, I’ll give you a choice: either you and Miss Williamson get put on chore duty for the week, or you do chore duty yourself for a fortnight.”

Eddie considered the offer. He didn’t want to turn Patricia in any more than he had done, so really he should do the noble thing and take the two weeks but… that was a long time to be doing chores. Alone. Besides, he and Patricia were good at working together and technically this meant he could spend a week hanging out with her. Chores were never that bad when they were together, in fact they were almost fun. He sighed. Patricia would not be thrilled by his decision. “We’ll do the week of chores.”

Victor nodded. “Good. Now, go downstairs to the living room. I have a talk on peer pressure to give.”

Victor watched the boy leave. He didn’t seem to be entirely at fault this time, Victor was well too aware of the chaos that went down in the students’ games of truth and dare. But that didn’t mean he was exempt, Victor was fairly certain Eddie was behind several of the dares, especially the one that led to Jerome belting Bohemian Rhapsody outside at 1 in the morning. Plus, he’d talked Patricia into helping him, so he could sit through this talk just like everyone else.

Once Victor was certain Eddie had gone, he opened the drawer and pulled out the small party hat. He would never admit it to anyone, but he thought Corbierre was rather dashing in a hat.

“It was Jerome.”

“Liar I don’t even eat that crap!”

“Oh yeah, then why did I see you with a box yesterday?”

“We needed the box to build Victor Jr Jr’s home, everybody knows this Patricia!”

“Enough!” Victor’s voice cut through their argument. “This bickering is getting you nowhere! Patricia, I know you are covering for Mr. Miller, he has already confessed to taking the cereal from the cupboard.”

Patricia sighed internally. “Well, if you already knew Eddie did it, why did you ask us?”

“Because, Miss Williamson, while I don’t doubt his dedication to making my life difficult, he usually has an accomplice, and it’s usually one of you two.”

“I would never partner with Eddie willingly!” Jerome exclaimed, sounding affronted.

“Why? Afraid he’ll outshine your reputation?”

“Stop, both of you, before you give me a migraine.” Victor sighed. “Patricia, go join Eddie upstairs and start clearing up your mess.”

Jerome smirked at Patricia like he’d won. In response, she turned to Victor and said in a sickly-sweet voice: “Oh Victor, just before I go, I think you should know that Jerome’s the one who’s been stealing pens from your office. He’s been selling them to first years.”

Jerome paled. Patricia left and made her way upstairs, grinning as she listened to Jerome’s attempted excuses. Eddie was rifling through Victor’s drawers, pulling out cheerios’ and placing them into a bowl by his side. He appeared to have only filled a tiny amount of the bowl, but that could be because he was eating them as he went along.

“Oh, hey Yacker.” Eddie waved a handful of cereal in acknowledgement of his girlfriend.

Patricia wasted no time in returning the greeting. “Why did you tell Victor! Jerome would have taken the blame, I know it!”

“Please,” Eddie laughed. “There is no way Jerry was going to crack that easily.”

Patricia snorted. “Oh yeah? Tell that to the guy who’s now trying to explain why first years are using Victor’s fancy handwriting pens.”

Eddie looked impressed. “That’s cold.”

“Eh, he had it coming.” Patricia replied. Jerome had told Victor it was her who tracked mud into the house the other week, and she knew he would get her back sooner or later, but that was just how they worked. The more pressing issue was why Eddie dobbed her in again. Last month he told Victor of her part in the Party-hat Corbierre incident, when she hadn’t even come up with the idea- that had been Alfie- and he’d only pulled her into it because she’d helped put a hole in his bedroom wall.

“So why did you drag me down with you, Edison?” she asked.

“I just like spending time with you, Yacker.” Eddie admitted.

“Aww, that’s sweet.” she said, smiling. It was sweet, and it kind of made sense, they did work well together, after all. “But maybe next time just ask if you want to hang out, then maybe we could go see a movie instead?”

“You make it sound like spending the day clearing out cereal from Victor’s papers isn’t fun.”

“It’s not the first thing that comes to mind when I think ‘fun’, no”

“Why not? We’ve got free snacks-” Eddie shoved a handful of cereal into his mouth to demonstrate “-and we get free run of Victor’s office, at least till he finishes shouting at Jerome.”

As if on cue, Victor’s voice rose up from the living room. If Patricia thought she had it bad, Jerome was gonna be grounded till the end of the year.

“Okay,” she said, “You make a good point.”

“Of course I do.” Eddie replied, holding up a small book. “I mean, don’t you want to read Victor’s journal? I wonder how many times he calls us ‘miscreants’ or ‘the bane of my existence’?”

Patricia grabbed a handful of cereal from the bowl and sat down next to him, nudging him with her shoulder. “Go on then, start reading.”

He smiled, nudging her back, then opened the book. “January 1st, 2011…”

Oh, this time they were definitely to blame. Sure, it had been an accident, but that wouldn’t stop Victor. Neither of them could think of any good excuses, and they were standing right at the scene of the crime. Patricia grimaced. They were supposed to be going out to see the movie Eddie had promised her, but now it looked like they weren’t leaving the house for another few weeks. She looked up at Victor, who was standing in front of them with his arms folded, staring at the broken picture frame.

“Would you believe us if we said KT did it?” Eddie asked, hopefully.

“No.”

“Okay, well in that case…we were really hoping it wouldn’t come to this but,” Eddie took a deep breath, as if steeling himself for what he was about to say. “There was an Egyptian spirit in the house.”

Patricia tried not to show the incredulous look on her face, because of course this was how Eddie was going to play it. Victor, however, merely raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“Yeah, they showed up last week and started following me around, y’know because I’m the Osirian and they wanted my help.” He nudged Patricia, who nodded. “It’s true he wouldn’t shut up about it.”

“Anyway,” Eddie continued, “They turned on me, as ghosts seem to do, so we had to fight them here in the foyer. I blasted them a couple times with my powers, which got sent them right back to the underworld-”

“Afterlife.” Patricia interjected.

“Yeah that too. So, I sent them packing and Anubis House is once more safe from spirits.” Eddie performed a bow. “You’re welcome.”

Victor’s eyebrow was once more raised, causing Patricia to wonder if he practiced in a mirror to make sure it was the perfect amount of condescending. If he did, it needed some work, his tiredness was bleeding through.

“I see.” He said, and was Patricia going delusional or did he sound vaguely impressed? “So, how does that explain the state of my picture?”

“Oh, well,” Eddie began, before Patricia cut in:

“Would you believe it, our oh-so-amazing Osirian cannot aim to save his life? He completely missed his first shot and hit the photo, then it fell off the wall.”

Eddie gave Patricia a look at the albeit accurate statement. Sure, he was terrible at archery but was that necessary?

“Is this true, Edison?” Victor asked.

“…yeah it is. Sorry. It was an accident.” Oh, Patricia could buy her own sweets for this - if they make it to the film, of course. The two of them braced themselves for Victor’s verdict.

He said something truly shocking.

“That’s okay.”

The two students were taken aback. What kind of shapeshifter had replaced Victor? Maybe there was an actual Egyptian spirit possessing him that Eddie needed to vanquish.

“What, so you’re not going to make us do chores?” Patricia asked dubiously.

“No, like you said, it was an accident, and we apparently have you to thank for saving us from another spirit.” Victor said, unfolding his arms and making a shooing motion. “Now go wherever it was that you were going.”

The two exchanged incredulous looks, shocked that it had worked. They turned to go before Victor changed his mind, or the force controlling him left. Eddie realised he was still holding the photo frame, so he darted across and set it down on the table before taking Patricia’s hand and leaving, all the while glancing across at Victor. Once they were out of earshot, the two burst into laughter.

“I cannot believe that worked!”

“I know right? The guy’s losing his touch! And he thinks I saved the house from an evil spirit! Again!”

“Come on, oh so amazing Osirian.” Patricia said, pressing a kiss to his cheek. “We’re gonna be late.”

Victor watched them walk away, hand in hand and exchanging relieved looks. He heard Eddie whisper ‘See? Told you we could convince him!’ and struggled not to smile. Of course, he hadn’t fallen for it, what did they take him for? But it was one of their more entertaining excuses, and he knew grounding them giving them chore duty just led to more catastrophic results than their original crime. At least if they went to the cinema, they’d be out of the house and trouble caused out there didn’t need him to deal with it.

Hopefully, this meant he’d have a couple hours of peace, to account the tale in his journal, and to find a better hiding place for it than his desk drawer.

Naturally, that’s when a loud crash came from upstairs, accompanied by a range of shouts. Victor sighed, cursing the day Sarah had talked him into founding a school, and went to get an aspirin.

#house of anubis #Eddie Miller #patricia williamson #sibunasecretsanta #this ended up longer than i expected #as in its the longest fic ive written so im kinda proud

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incorrectsibunaquotes · 6 years

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Deck The Halls (of Anubis House) With Boughs of Holly

Happy Holidays, everyone! This is one of my Secret Santa @sibunasecretsanta gifts for @kittenshark!! I tried to encapsulate the mirth of Christmas in a household of friends that you requested (this is pre/post relationship for everyone but Mick and Mara, but Mick’s not in this whoops), and I think I did an okay job. Also, NOTE: Nina is Jewish in this fic and all my other fics, because Nathalia Ramos is Jewish.

ALSO! This isn’t my only Secret Santa gift to give, so watch out for another one coming soon! I will be posting this on AO3 within the day, so make sure to go check it out there, too! Okay, without further ado—ENJOY! 🎄

_____________________________

“Hold on tight!”

Joy shrieked in surprised delight as Eddie’s arms wrapped around her waist, lifting her high enough to reach the very top of the doorframe leading into the kitchen. Laughing, she pinned up the last of the garland, and Eddie obligingly lowered her back to Earth.

Patricia peaked her head through the opening in the wall from the kitchen, lips twitching in amusement. “I thought for sure he’d drop you,” she quipped, pointing her rolling pin at them as she leaned further out into the living room. Flour streaked her hair and face, and Eddie chuckled.

“Yacker, you look like the Pillsbury Doughboy’s wife,” he teased, reaching out to brush away some flour from her cheek. She glared without any heat behind it, swatting his hand away with the rolling pin and pulling back through the opening.

“Jokes on you. Anyone’d be lucky to be have the Pillsbury Doughboy as a husband,” Patricia said, returning to her previous task of rolling out the gingerbread dough.

Trudy chuckled from where she was pulling one batch of cookies from the oven. “Don’t tease her, Eddie,” Trudy warned bemusedly. “She might sabotage your cookie.”

“Bold of you to assume she hasn’t already,” Joy snickered, lifting a box of tinsel from the floor behind the couch.

Patricia and Eddie rolled their eyes simultaneously, and Trudy shook her head fondly. The patter of feet behind her caused her to pause, but when she turned to look, no one was there. Except...

“Hmm...” she bummed out loud, drawing the attention of the three teens. “I could have sworn there were a dozen cookies on this tray a moment ago, but now there are only ten.” Trudy fixed her gaze on the conspicuously ajar laundry room door. “I wonder where those two could have gone.”

Knowing the jig was up, Alfie sheepishly exited the laundry room, speaking through a mouthful of gingerbread, “You know I can’t resist a Trudy/Trixie baking collaboration,” he groaned, relishing in the flavor before finally swallowing. “You two blow Gordon Ramsey out of the water.”

Trudy, who’d attempted to stay stern, could no longer hold back her giggles, laughing along with Joy, Patricia, and Eddie.

Jerome and Mara made their entrance then, chatting quietly about this and that, before Jerome stopped short, breathing in deeply. “Trudy, you’ve outdone yourself again,” he praised, practically sprinting into the kitchen, only to be halted by Trudy’s body in the doorway.

“These are for later,” she admonished, shooing both him and Alfie back into the living room. “And don’t give me all the credit; Patricia was the one to do most of the work.”

Alfie and Jerome shared a brief look, then dramatically began to whoop and clap. Patricia sarcastically curtsied, and Mara shook her head fondly, moving to hover by Joy and Eddie.

“Where are the others?” she asked, leaning against the dinner table.

Eddie shrugged. “I think picking up the tree,” he said, and Joy’s smile faltered.

“That used to be our thing, remember Trisha?” Joy said wistfully, and Patricia smiled softly. “You, me, and Fabes.”

“Well...now our thing is decorating and baking,” Patricia said, still smiling even as she tried to steer her best friend away from boy-talk.

Alfie moaned as he bit into his second stolen cookie. “And you’re so good at your new thing.”

The front door burst open, and cold air tore through the house. Amber’s shrill babble floated in from the foyer.

“...and that’s why One Direction is the most unproblematic boy band to ever walk the earth—including the Beatles,” she was saying, removing her white fluffy earmuffs and tossing them on one of the chairs along with her equally fluffy mittens. Eddie was biting his knuckles to keep from laughing at the blonde’s grand entrance, and Patricia didn’t even try to hide her laughter.

In the foyer, Nina and Fabian were left to wrestle with the tree.

“Uh-huh, Amber, sure,” Fabian placated his friend, who’d almost immediately turned her attention to the pretty Christmas decorations in the living room, as he tried to get the body of the Christmas tree through the door without pulling all the pine needles off. Nina held the trunk in her mittened grip, grunting with the effort of trying to push it through.

“You know,” she said, strained, “this is only the second time I’ve ever celebrated Christmas.” She pushed on the trunk, while Fabian pulled. “Hanukkah is not this much effort last I checked.”

Fabian laughed at his friend—gosh, that still stung—finally getting the birth of the tree through into the foyer. “I’ll bet,” he agreed, and Nina smiled at him from the other side of the evergreen. “You don’t have to celebrate if you’re not comfortable, you know.”

Nina raised an eyebrow, mouth turned up in a half smile. “And let you guys have all the fun while I sit in my room alone playing Dreidel?” She shook her head. “No way. Besides,” Nina added with a giggle, “I already did that two weeks ago.”

Fabian laughed too, remembering the flabbergasted look on Amber’s face as Nina tried to teach her the basic gist of Dreidel during one of the nights of Hanukkah. Safe to say, Amber had chosen to be a spectator instead.

“Sorry to break up the Yuletide cheer,” Jerome drawled from the living room door, snapping Fabian and Nina from their conversation, “but do either of you need assistance setting this thing up?”

Eddie appeared behind him, one hand bracing himself against the doorframe. “Two strong men at your service,” said Eddie, flexing his biceps.

From the kitchen, Patricia guffawed loudly. “More like two little boys!” she crooned, and Eddie stuck his tongue out at her over his shoulder.

“Hey,” Fabian whined. “What about me? Am I not strong enough?”

Jerome dramatically shook his head, and Nina hid her giggle at Fabian’s pout. “Of course you are, but the more help the better, right?”

The four managed to wrangle the tree into the living room, standing it up in the corner Joy and Eddie had cleared out an hour before. Mara and Joy were sorting through the box of ornaments, and Alfie was trying to eat the chocolate chips out of the bowl Trudy had set aside for the one batch of chocolate chip cookies she planned on making alongside the gingerbread.

“It’s lopesided,” commented Joy with a tiny frown.

Nina shrugged, taking off her scarf. “I think it lost a few needles on the way in.”

Patricia laughed, dusting her hands off on her apron and making her way into the living room. “It definitely lost a few needles on the way in.”

Mara swatted Patricia’s arm with a gentle ‘Hey.’ “Don’t listen to these two, it‘s charming,” Mara assured them warmly.

Amber rocked back and forth on her heels. “See, that’s what I thought. We can make it like the Before and After pictures in magazines. It’s ugly now, but once it gets a taste of”—she flipped her hair; Jerome immediately mocked her by doing so as well—“Millington beauty expertise, it will be the best Christmas tree at Amun Academy.”

“Amber it’s a Christmas tree, not Project Runway,” Eddie reminded her. Amber winced.

“Don’t remind me,” she sighed, lashes fluttering.

The rest of the evening was spent decorating the tree, each student claiming a section to call their own filled with their favorite ornaments and some pictures of their friends and respective homes. When at last the tree had tinsel and ornaments—not to mention the white lights, which Alfie had so haphazardly strung along the branches—it was time to decide who put the star on top.

“Joy should do it,” Patricia said, slinging an arm around her best friends shoulders and squeezing tightly. “It was her turn last year, and she didn’t get to!”

“Uh, yeah, but it’s my turn this year,” argued Alfie, popping a few more chocolate chips into his mouth.

“But you did it last year anyway,” Mara pointed out.

“I don’t know what’s going on,” Eddie admitted to Nina; she shrugged helplessly. After a few more moments of bickering, Eddie couldn’t help but say something. “How about I just do it?” he offered, holding the star.

Quick as lightning, Patricia snatched it from his hands. “Obviously it’s a privilege, doofus” she said with a bite to her voice that made Eddie’s heart flutter pleasantly. “Not just anyone can—“

Victor stalked his way into the living room, face puckered up as though he’d tasted something sour. He pulled the star from Patricia’s grip, reached up, and unceremoniously plopped it atop the tree. “I can hear you miscreants from my office,” he bit out, narrowed gaze sweeping over the students. “Bed is still by ten; keep your...merriment to a minimum.” And with that, he stalked back out and up the stairs, leaving them all in stunned silence.

It was Alfie who spoke first. “Damn, somebody is going on the naughty list for sure.” The Anubis House residents burst into laughter once again, forgetting their previous arguing, and spent the rest of the night—until 10 o’clock, of course—telling jokes and eating cookies around a, really, quite terribly lit Christmas tree.

(...seriously it was a fire hazard, and Trudy had to restring it after they all went to bed.)

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