All I want for Christmas on At Home

Oz Spellman

December 16, 2020 5:14 PM

All I want for Christmas by Oz Spellman

In some ways, the world had shrunk back down to sensible proportions. One bedroom, one living room, three people. In others, it was bigger again. He was no longer in the safe little bubble of Sonora where, apart from monsters, bad things just apparently didn't happen. He sort of wished he lived in some inhospitable snow laden part of the country where winter was an excuse not to go out or do anything.

Right now though, he was focussing on the people within the apartment. He got to see Mom every day. Not always for a long time, and not always with both of them being awake, but at least just a little bit, every day. And Henry was almost always some level of around. In shouting distance, if not in touching distance. Not that Oz shouted for him or touched him much. He fidgeted at the end of the couch when Henry watched TV. He was worried Henry would think he was bored or tell him to go away if he didn't want to watch, but he wasn't fidgeting because of either of those things. He was wanting to sort of cuddle up and be close but pretty sure that was weird and that they weren't like that any more.

A lot of the time, he did leave Henry alone. At least, he occupied himself in the other room of the house (as much as anyone could be occupied indoors all the time) because he didn't want to be mean but he also wasn't really how to be nice. He could ask to hear Henry play guitar. He could get him to teach him to play Magic. Those would be nice things to offer but he also couldn't offer them.

Tonight though, they were having a proper family evening. Mom had scored Christmas Eve off, and didn't even seem too worried about missing out on the generous tips that often came with it. Apparently not having to feed him and Henry for a couple of months really made a difference in that regard. Not that she had said so directly, but they all knew it nonetheless. They were going to have a pizza and movie night. Not take out, obviously, they weren't like suddenly stupid rich, but they had a whole cook from frozen spread. There was a mini pizza for each of them (because Henry was boring and wouldn't eat pineapple on his) and fries and onion rings. And carrot and cucumber sticks because mom felt the need to be responsible and make sure she gave them a vegetable, and onions didn't count or something. And there was microwave popcorn ready to go.

Mom had left him and Henry in charge of choosing a movie. In preparation for Mom joining them in front of the TV, they had turned parental control back on. Oz figured it wasn't really worth making a case for watching 'Die Hard' - sure, it was rated R for language and violence, but they already knew all the bad words that were in it, and it was like... 1980s violence, which wasn't that bad. They could just watch it when she was out anyway. It was sort of weird seeing the Netflix home screen and the bright, primary colours of the title cards it was currently displaying, not a single one of them with a chalk outline or a smear of blood. Just...happy stuff. There were lots of puppies. And whilst it all looked kinda tame, tame actually sounded kinda nice.

"Whatever you want," he shrugged to Henry.

Mom joined them, handing a plate to each of them and settling in the middle with one for herself.

"Quite the feast, eh?" she grinned.

Oz found his eyes meeting Henry's. He was pretty sure a vastly different mental picture had come into both their minds at that word.

"Best feast ever," he confirmed, without a shadow of a lie. He took his own plate, snuggling firmly into Mom. Henry was a snuggler, and would probably do the same from the other side, and then it would almost be liking he was snuggling Henry too. And even if it wasn't going to fix everything out there in the big messy world, or even in here with the mess he had made of things, at least the three of them were here together.

13 Oz Spellman All I want for Christmas 1514 1 5

Henry Spellman

December 17, 2020 7:41 PM

Just say the word. by Henry Spellman

A feast was different now. Family was different now. The word "house" meant something different now. Everything was different now but it was all the same, and Henry hated that it felt familiar and foreign all at once. Henry had selected Charlie Brown Christmas for the night because it always made Mom emotional and because she was looked tired on her day off and he knew she wouldn't probably make it through a whole movie. Henry took his spot beside his mom, agreeing wholeheartedly that it was the best feast ever as he snuggled up beside her. Oz was there too. Christmas break was the first time they'd shared a room - even a "house" - in months and it felt strange and familiar all at once. Henry didn't have any roommates at Sonora, and he hadn't realized how much he missed falling asleep to the sound of other people breathing nearby.

Eventually, Charlie Brown was over and mom was asleep and Henry took her plate to keep it from falling on the floor. It wasn't the sort of fancy plate that would break if it did fall, but still. For all intents and purposes, Henry and Oz were alone now. It seemed silly to feel sentimental about that but Henry did nonetheless.

"Merry Christmas," Henry said softly, reaching into his pocket and passing a small wrapped item to his brother. "A bit early, but that's alright."

Henry wasn't an artist. He knew that there were a few students at Sonora - at school - who could do better than he'd done but he didn't see himself asking one of them for help, so he'd done the job himself. He'd even looked it up on YouTube to make sure he knew exactly the best way to do it when they'd gotten back to the world of technology.

Inside the flimsy scrap of wrapping paper, Henry had taken an old Magic card, done his YouTube fueled muggle magic, and redrawn (badly) an picture of himself and Oz. Magic Twins, the card said at the top. It required one black mana (MtG didn't have brown) and one red mana to tap, and was a Creature - Wizard type card. Henry wasn't too sure whether Oz knew enough about the game to know that that was not a thing, but . . . well, it was now. In the text part of the card, in his very neatest handwriting, Henry had written: Magic Twins is indestructible. Magic Twins only takes half of the damage it is targeted for. Whenever you tap Magic Twins, you gain 3 life. Below that, where bits of lore and snark usually were written, Henry had done instead: The twins are most powerful when together, and always share any damage they take, resulting in either of them taking less than they would on their own.

"I don't know if it's weird. No one really has to tap us, that's just what it's called in the game," Henry added, aware that Oz was probably gonna make some comment about getting tapped or whatever. He was a bit red already and wasn't sure he could handle his effort being made fun of, even though it probably would be or whatever but it was fine. Being apart all term sucked and he'd felt like he wanted to tell Oz that he thought that.

22 Henry Spellman Just say the word. 1513 0 5

Oz Spellman

December 28, 2020 6:58 AM

Stop by Oz Spellman

One day, Oz was gonna learn to do the Snoopy dance. He could half do it. He had assumed his own lack of skill was to do with not being a cartoon character, but he had seen sone videos on youtube where people had it down. The trouble was, he only ever watched youtube in places where he was not gonna attempt the Snoopy dance, and he also only ever really thought about it after getting done watching Charlie Brown, at which point he wasn't near youtube. He considered trying it out and getting Henry to give him pointers because he minded looking like an idiot in front of Henry just a little bit less than he did other people. Henry, however, had other ideas. Early Christmas present ideas. He wondered if it was something secret, and that brought with it a painful tug of shared conspiracy - back when it had been them against the world, and the world had mostly been mom. It was bigger now, it had been for a while...

He opened it, finding something that looked more for Henry than from Henry. Except he recognised his brother's drawing, and his writing. The writing, he could do just the same if he really, really tried. He had spent enough time when they were younger on making sure no one could tell their writing apart. That might have meant Henry slowing down to Oz' level, that would have been the easiest way, but it had been back when trying as hard as he could hadn't seemed so complicated, and Henry had been averse to having messy writing, so Oz had pulled his socks up. He had gone out of his way since to give his own writing a slant, or to just try less hard so it didn't look quite like Henry's, but his best writing would still have looked like this. Mostly.

He was familiar enough with Magic terminology that he knew about tapping. It had been pretty funny the first hundred times. It still raised an occasional giggle from him now, and he forced a slight one out around the lump in his throat. Although he really hoped no one ever wanted to tap him and Henry, and definitely not together. Some of the people he hung out with at school had access to even worse things than him and Henry, and said twins featured prominently. But that was girl twins, so he hoped it was only a thing that people found hot with girls. He didn’t really get it, but a lot of the things people said were hot were just confusing. It was a weird thing about being a twin, wondering if the same people were going to be attracted to both of them. If they were, hopefully they would keep it to themselves.

“Probably, you made it,” Oz responded, when Henry said his present might be weird. His tone was gentle, like it was joke between them instead of him being mean, although he thought it might be the case that he had said it and meant it too many times for it to come off that way. It was a jerk thing to say, and he knew it. It was just Henry had set it up so easily, and the other option – the not being a jerk, and talking about how this actually made him feel – was not an option.

“It’s neat,” he assured Henry. Neat. Cool. Whatever. It was a word that probably hurt more than agreeing it was weird, because it sounded like it didn’t mean much. Like he didn’t get it or appreciate it. “Thanks,” he added just as flatly.

“Lemme get yours,” he said, scrambling off the couch and diving into their room. With the safety of a wall between them, he took a deep breath. He took another look at the card whose text he’d already read – which he thought might be permanently seared onto his brain like a physical scar. Part of him wanted to screw it up or rip it into a thousand little pieces but none of that was going to destroy what Henry thought. That they were a team.

He pushed his feelings on that deep down, forcing a happy smile onto his face as he retrieved the small, wrapped package from under his bed. He had made Henry a Magic Card once for their birthday - the first year when Henry had got into playing, Oz had made him a level 1 million monster card that could smash everything. Over the years, Mom had been the primary recipient of their homemade presents, often getting two of something she barely even needed one of. Oz had always tried to buy things for Henry when he could. Except for the Magic Card, he wasn’t really great at thinking up that stuff (and, in retrospect, it hadn’t been that great because they didn’t work like that anyway).

He’d got him a probably-unnecessary bookmark. Bookmarks were a thing which, in Oz’s experience, you got a lot of and lost a lot of. They were often given out as freebies, especially by charities that wanted to encourage you to read, and they were cheap, easy presents and souvenirs. And he lost them because lots of them weren’t worth keeping. Henry, who actually marked books, probably had half a dozen in his desk drawer already, neatly arranged in some kind of order. He probably didn’t need another one. But it was an easy association – books and Henry, and bookmarks were cheap and easily available. And he’d seen this one with a bunch of constellations on it, and it had Gemini in the bottom corner. Like, not blatantly enough that it looked like he’d chosen it for that reason, even if he totally had, and also because he sometimes looked out at the stars when he couldn’t sleep at Sonora and wondered if Henry was doing the same. So, he’d got him that. And a chocolate lollipop with a reindeer on it.

“Happy Christmas,” he smiled, returning to the living room and holding out the parcel.

13 Oz Spellman Stop 1514 0 5