Countdown to Final Christmas: 23
The next contribution to the Christmas Countdown. Enjoy :)
Title: Sugar Cookies
Rating: PGish
Summary: The Wests don't have cookies for Santa on Christmas Eve. Piper and Tricks are called in to save Christmas for the twins.
Characters: Piper/Trickster, Wally, Linda, Irey, Jai
Christmas Eve in Keystone was accompanied by a massive snowstorm that made a joke of the streets, ruining many a Christmas party and wreaking havoc with peoples’ plans. It made two reformed Rogues in particular very happy they’d kept a small social circle since Trickster’s resurrection.
“Glad I did all my holiday volunteering with checks this year,” Piper commented, looking at the wall of white out the window.
“I told you, there’s no shame in contributing financially instead of in person. You know, as long as you’re incredibly wealthy and the financial contribution isn’t a pittance,” James said with a grin. “Now c’mon, we’re supposed to be all cozy watching Christmas spe-”
The phone rang.
James gave Piper a look as he started towards it. “Do not answer that phone. It’s Christmas Eve and you said you’d watch the Grinch and Charlie Brown with me.”
“It could be important...”
“But I’ll bet you anything it isn’t.”
“If the world’s about to end-”
“Babe, this might hurt, but the Justice League isn’t going to call us. There are a whole lot of people they trust more who can do the things we can. Not as well mind you, but that’s their loss. Piper I mean it, put that phone-augh!” James pulled a throw pillow over his face and groaned loudly, collapsing backwards onto the couch with much melodrama.
“Hello? …Hi Wally, Merry Christmas…yes, of course James is here…um, have you seen what it’s like outside? …well yes…um, actually we were…um…”
“No Piper, just say no. Just say no.”
Piper put his hand over the mouth of the phone. “It’s Christmas Eve and they don’t have cookies for Santa. Irey’s crying James. It’s going to ruin her Christmas.”
“Well I guess her FATHER should have PREPARED for this!” James yelled. He managed to be heard despite Piper’s hand over the mouthpiece, because Piper was clearly getting an earful.
“He was on his way to buy the cookies yesterday when he was sidetracked by saving lives.”
“He’s the Flash! How long does it take him to get cookies?! Can’t he just run to a different time zone to get the cookies now?” James demanded.
“Yeah Wally, that’s actually a really good point. How come you can’t go somewhere that’s open to get the cookies…oh.” He put his hand over the mouthpiece again. “Apparently he’s got to buy half their Christmas presents. He won’t be back in time for the twins to see the cookies going out. Come on James, this is the kind of thing that could ruin a kid’s Christmas. I always had such sucky Christmases when I was young. I’d like it if my goddaughter’s were as perfect as they could be.”
“Oh, oh, playing the damaged childhood card and the godfather thing, that’s just…cheap. And effective. Fine. So what’s the plan? He’s gonna run over here and grab ‘em, right? Piper?”
“Um…he hung up already. I think he’s off to buy the Christmas presents.”
James looked out the window at the swirling blizzard. “No. No-no-no-no. We are not delivering cookies in a snowstorm! Pi-per…”
“James, we already said we would.”
“We so did not! I did not agree to those conditions! He hung up prematurely.”
“James, Irey is crying…”
“But…but…snow…”
SOME TIME LATER
Linda was sitting in the living room with her children, idly staring out the window when she saw a blurry shape moving towards the house. At first her hand was on a JL communicator to call for help, but then she noticed patches of glaringly bright orange and blue peeking through the snow. “Oh what did my husband do now?”
She left her children in the living room watching Christmas specials, went into the kitchen to put the teakettle on the stove, went into the guest room to get some blankets, then made her way to the front door just in time for the doorbell.
James and Piper brought a small mound of snow in with them as they basically fell into the front hall. James was carrying Piper, who had a plastic bag clutched in his shaking hands. From the looks of it they’d run over the inaccessible streets via jet shoes.
“Hi guys,” Linda greeted, bemused.
“H-hello.”
They quickly shrugged out of their soaked coats, mittens, scarves, hats and boots and graciously accepted the blankets. “I’ve got some water on the stove for cocoa and the kids are watching Charlie Brown by the fire. Why don’t you go warm up and then you can tell me why you’re here.”
James shot Piper a glare. “I thought we were here to save Christmas.”
“Did someone threaten to steal it?” Linda joked. Then she looked at the bag Piper was holding again. “Did you bring cookies?”
“You still need them, right? We didn’t run here in the blizzard for nothing-”
“Oh, we ran, did we?” James repeated. Piper rolled his eyes.
“Wally made it sound urgent. He said Irey was crying.”
“She was. I finally got the kids to calm down and watch cartoons. Jai was convinced Santa was going to think we’re cheap and only give them half as many presents when he sees there aren’t any cookies. Which was almost true, but Wally should be rectifying that mistake as we speak. Oh, if you brought cookies then you actually are saving Christmas.”
“We don’t have cookies exactly…I kinda ate them all when I was wrapping presents yesterday,” James admitted. “But…” He took the bag from Piper and showed it to Linda. “I went through the pantry and got all the ingredients for my sugar cookies. I figured you and the rugrats could make the cookies yourselves…? Y’know, family activity?”
Linda beamed. “That’s perfect! Here, give me that,” She took the bag of ingredients and started walking towards the kitchen. “I’ll set up and bring you guys your cocoa, and then we can all make cookies together.”
“We? Linda, this is family time,” Piper pointed out.
Linda quirked an eyebrow. “You’re not leaving in the blizzard.”
“But Linda-”
“I’m sorry James, did that sound like a question?”
“You can’t use the Mommy voice on me. I’m a grown man.”
“Please, I use the Mommy voice on the Flashes. All of them.”
“They listen too. I’ve seen her do it,” Piper whispered, smiling. “I guess we’re staying.”
James still looked reluctant. It was tempting. The West home was nice and warm, he’d been grooming the kids in proper cartoon appreciation every time they babysat, so they were watching exactly what he’d wanted to watch for Christmas specials, and the house would soon be filled with the smell of delicious baked goods. But one obstacle remained. “Isn’t your husband going to have issues with us butting in on your family holiday time?”
“He’ll have to suck it up. Besides, he’s the one who made you come over during a blizzard. You’re our friends, not delivery boys.”
“Linda, I don’t think I express my sincere appreciation for your charm and beauty often enough,” James said with a grin.
She waved her hand in a manner that highlighted her wedding ring. “Flattered but spoken for.”
So the three adults and two children baked special Santa cookies together, and when the children were asleep the adults ate the cookies, leaving conspicuous crumbs on the plate. James wrote up a note (in penmanship the twins would never recognize) thanking them for the wonderful cookies and signed it with an S, then they helped Linda put out the presents she had on hand.
“Well that’s not much of a haul,” James observed.
Linda was looking at her watch. “That’s about to change. Wait for it…”
There were a few blurry sweeps of red through the room, each one adding more and more presents until the living room was overflowing. Finally Wally stopped in the center of the room, and his face fell when he noticed Piper and James standing with Linda. “What are you guys still doing here?”
“Not freezing to death,” Linda snapped. “And really Wally, you couldn’t have run over and gotten the cookie ingredients before you went shopping?”
“I…uh…the stores were gonna close.”
“Every store on Earth?” Piper asked.
“Hey, Christmas was saved. It all worked out in the end. There’s totally no reason for anyone to be mad at-ow!” Wally rubbed the back of his head where he’d been whacked with a yo-yo.
“Merry Christmas. Your wife already said we could stay,” James informed him.
“Linda-”
“Piper’s practically family anyway, and he and James are a package deal,” She pointed out. “Plus they make amazing cookies.”
“And we saved you some,” Piper added.
Wally looked at Linda again, as though checking this was really okay. “So…when Jai shakes us awake at four am, can one of them do the video camera this year-ow! I’m gonna take that yo-yo if you keep doing that!”
“You’re welcome to try.”
“Hartley, you’re normally up late anyway, would you actually mind?” Linda asked. “Last year Wally got some spectacular footage of the ceiling and some torn wrapping paper on the rug, but I didn’t see much of my children.”
“I’d gotten less than an hour of sleep! So my hands weren’t steady, big deal. Plus you’re exaggerating. We got at least fifteen minutes of Jai flipping off the camera and diving behind the Christmas tree while Irey sang Silent Night.”
“I don’t mind helping.”
“Cool. Thanks Piper.”
Piper and James settled themselves into the guest room, James making all kinds of threats if Piper tried to wake him up at four am (“Seriously, I love you and everything, but I will bite you if you expect me to be up with less than two hours of sleep!”).
James took another look at the blizzard through the window, then flopped onto the bed and snuggled up to his boyfriend. “Not that this isn’t kinda nice in a weird way or anything, but you really do gotta start saying no sometimes.”
“Why?” Piper asked. “Tonight we baked cookies and watched your favorite Christmas cartoons with the kids. Those were pretty much our plans anyway, we just got to do them with company. The only part that’s missing are my rats.”
“You would say that, wouldn’t you? Ah well…Merry Christmas Pookie.”
“Merry Christmas James.”