Day 25 - Debriefing
title: 25 days to Christmas -- Day 25 - Debriefing
characters: EXO
rating: (P)G
WC: 965
summary: Everything must come to an end (for now).
❆masterpost❆
< prev
“Ugh, my back…”
“I can’t feel my legs anymore.”
“Ouch.”
The reindeers drag themselves to their respective stall and almost fall asleep, some still in their animal form, some as hybrids, some as humans in their birthday suits, before going back to the meeting room in Santa’s cabin. Guess who didn’t give two shits and fell asleep anyway, tiny mice huddling in the hollow of his arm --his partner had to wake him up and tug him to the cabin, leaving two parallel trails in the soft snow.
The Night is finally over. The bag is empty. The sleigh is being taken care of (there’re some scratches on the bum, caused by one or several little accidents…) and it will wait patiently under the tarp for next year’s Delivery.
Tao is asleep in Yifan’s arms, still worn out after being sick somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean; Joonmyeon is at their side, keeping a strong façade out of habit ingrained by his responsibility as the head elf, but he’s visibly dead on his feet as well.
As for Yifan, his mind is focused only on the coziness of his bed (he’s kind of hallucinating it’s calling him alluringly), but he can’t rest yet. He can’t blame the reindeers for hating him for cockblocking them from running, with what’s left of their energy, to their inviting beds into the blissful embrace of Morpheus; he hates formalities as much as they do, but he can’t help it’s the procedure -his father and the elder elves were pretty strict when they told him about his duties.
“Just a little bit longer, guys, then we’ll be free to get our well deserved night of sleep,” Yifan tries to encourage the walking dead.
“I’m so tired I can’t even come up with a snide comment.”
“Night of sleep? Make it a whole day and we have a deal.”
Yifan looks sympathetically at the half asleep guys, extraordinarily resembling a pile of puppies; he himself can barely keep his eyes open, using duct tape on his eyelids sounds more and more like a good idea with the passing of the time, but he resists and quickly recaps The Delivery’s results with Joonmyeon’s assistance.
“Okay, I’ll keep it brief,” he begins, as Joonmyeon quietly hands him the freshly printed paper, “Thank you. This year we delivered presents to 1.9 billions children. The number of naughty kids increased by the 5% from last year. We’ve been spotted a total of eleven times, one less compared to last year. The damages amount to a roof and gutter (“At least that dude now has an excuse to clean that disgusting gutter. I’m pretty sure a new microworld is going to develop under all those leaves.”), a handful of scared animals in three different farms (“That stallion was totally hitting on Yixing!”), some littering, a scratched car and another with a bump on the roof and the hood. We still have to work on braking and parking, but all in all, I’m pretty satisfied (“Don’t use the royal ‘we’ and admit you suck at parking”). Thank you for your hard work, I hope to see you at tomorrow’s dinner.”
“Food?” comes a feeble voice from his left.
The reindeers mumble their assent and with a concert of grumbling, pained cries, and yawns, they shuffle to their rooms.
❆
After sleeping off the exhaustion of the world tour and the food coma of the subsequent Christmas feast, it’s time for the twelve of them to go their separate ways. Until next year, of course.
“So, uhm,” Yifan begins oh so eloquently, “this is it.”
They’re all gathered in the hall, elves and reindeers alike. Yifan is standing on a stool (as if he needed to stand out more, tsk), facing the seemingly endless crowd of elves; the reindeers are standing by the door, luggage at their feet and coats already on.
“Thank you so much for working so hard this whole year and especially this past couple of weeks. As always, I wouldn’t have made it without your precious collaboration.”
Some of the present giggle lightly at the corny words. Tao is the only one showing watery eyes, and it’s getting worse the longer Santa’s speech lasts.
“Thank you for still sticking with me, but fuck you for always teasing me,” Yifan jokingly snarls in the reindeers direction.
“That’s our main job. Being Santa’s reindeers is only secondary,” Baekhyun points out, eyelashes fluttering innocently.
“It was our pleasure!” Chanyeol exclaims, because despite hanging out with the instigator Baekhyun, deep down he’s an eager to please puppy. He earns an elbow to the side for that.
“Thank you for the mask, but I insist you consider investing in a lamp or something, next year,” Sehun suggests.
“Thanks for rescuing our asses,” Jongdae says; Yixing and his dimpled smile nod along (oh my god, he doesn’t have his head in the clouds, he’s really paying attention).
“It’s always great to drive you up the wall,” Luhan grins, but one look at Minseok makes him go back on his words, “I mean, it’s always great to work with you.”
“Thank you for having us,” Kyungsoo says, one of the longest phrases he’s ever uttered.
“Thank you,” Jongin nods, still a bit sleepy (he overdosed on sleep the past couple of days).
“Duizhaaanggg,” Tao whines, running to hug Yifan without a second thought. Yifan always ends awkwardly petting the elf’s head when they meet or depart, why is that?
“Thank you for your exceptional work, Joonmyeon,” Yifan thanks sincerely. The blushing head elf is about to respond when a chorus of “Now kiss!” quickly spreads through the room.
Joonmyeon clears his throat, “There’s still the End of Year party, see you there?”
As one, elves and humans alike yell, “Of course!”
A/N: aaaand that's it! thank you for reading and commenting. But fear not, it's not really over: in the next few days I should be able to post some bonus contents, including some more drabbles (definitely shorter than the ones posted till now XP), even though they won't be posted daily...we'll see... Until next time!
V.
BONUS >
characters: EXO
rating: (P)G
WC: 965
summary: Everything must come to an end (for now).
❆masterpost❆
< prev
“Ugh, my back…”
“I can’t feel my legs anymore.”
“Ouch.”
The reindeers drag themselves to their respective stall and almost fall asleep, some still in their animal form, some as hybrids, some as humans in their birthday suits, before going back to the meeting room in Santa’s cabin. Guess who didn’t give two shits and fell asleep anyway, tiny mice huddling in the hollow of his arm --his partner had to wake him up and tug him to the cabin, leaving two parallel trails in the soft snow.
The Night is finally over. The bag is empty. The sleigh is being taken care of (there’re some scratches on the bum, caused by one or several little accidents…) and it will wait patiently under the tarp for next year’s Delivery.
Tao is asleep in Yifan’s arms, still worn out after being sick somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean; Joonmyeon is at their side, keeping a strong façade out of habit ingrained by his responsibility as the head elf, but he’s visibly dead on his feet as well.
As for Yifan, his mind is focused only on the coziness of his bed (he’s kind of hallucinating it’s calling him alluringly), but he can’t rest yet. He can’t blame the reindeers for hating him for cockblocking them from running, with what’s left of their energy, to their inviting beds into the blissful embrace of Morpheus; he hates formalities as much as they do, but he can’t help it’s the procedure -his father and the elder elves were pretty strict when they told him about his duties.
“Just a little bit longer, guys, then we’ll be free to get our well deserved night of sleep,” Yifan tries to encourage the walking dead.
“I’m so tired I can’t even come up with a snide comment.”
“Night of sleep? Make it a whole day and we have a deal.”
Yifan looks sympathetically at the half asleep guys, extraordinarily resembling a pile of puppies; he himself can barely keep his eyes open, using duct tape on his eyelids sounds more and more like a good idea with the passing of the time, but he resists and quickly recaps The Delivery’s results with Joonmyeon’s assistance.
“Okay, I’ll keep it brief,” he begins, as Joonmyeon quietly hands him the freshly printed paper, “Thank you. This year we delivered presents to 1.9 billions children. The number of naughty kids increased by the 5% from last year. We’ve been spotted a total of eleven times, one less compared to last year. The damages amount to a roof and gutter (“At least that dude now has an excuse to clean that disgusting gutter. I’m pretty sure a new microworld is going to develop under all those leaves.”), a handful of scared animals in three different farms (“That stallion was totally hitting on Yixing!”), some littering, a scratched car and another with a bump on the roof and the hood. We still have to work on braking and parking, but all in all, I’m pretty satisfied (“Don’t use the royal ‘we’ and admit you suck at parking”). Thank you for your hard work, I hope to see you at tomorrow’s dinner.”
“Food?” comes a feeble voice from his left.
The reindeers mumble their assent and with a concert of grumbling, pained cries, and yawns, they shuffle to their rooms.
❆
After sleeping off the exhaustion of the world tour and the food coma of the subsequent Christmas feast, it’s time for the twelve of them to go their separate ways. Until next year, of course.
“So, uhm,” Yifan begins oh so eloquently, “this is it.”
They’re all gathered in the hall, elves and reindeers alike. Yifan is standing on a stool (as if he needed to stand out more, tsk), facing the seemingly endless crowd of elves; the reindeers are standing by the door, luggage at their feet and coats already on.
“Thank you so much for working so hard this whole year and especially this past couple of weeks. As always, I wouldn’t have made it without your precious collaboration.”
Some of the present giggle lightly at the corny words. Tao is the only one showing watery eyes, and it’s getting worse the longer Santa’s speech lasts.
“Thank you for still sticking with me, but fuck you for always teasing me,” Yifan jokingly snarls in the reindeers direction.
“That’s our main job. Being Santa’s reindeers is only secondary,” Baekhyun points out, eyelashes fluttering innocently.
“It was our pleasure!” Chanyeol exclaims, because despite hanging out with the instigator Baekhyun, deep down he’s an eager to please puppy. He earns an elbow to the side for that.
“Thank you for the mask, but I insist you consider investing in a lamp or something, next year,” Sehun suggests.
“Thanks for rescuing our asses,” Jongdae says; Yixing and his dimpled smile nod along (oh my god, he doesn’t have his head in the clouds, he’s really paying attention).
“It’s always great to drive you up the wall,” Luhan grins, but one look at Minseok makes him go back on his words, “I mean, it’s always great to work with you.”
“Thank you for having us,” Kyungsoo says, one of the longest phrases he’s ever uttered.
“Thank you,” Jongin nods, still a bit sleepy (he overdosed on sleep the past couple of days).
“Duizhaaanggg,” Tao whines, running to hug Yifan without a second thought. Yifan always ends awkwardly petting the elf’s head when they meet or depart, why is that?
“Thank you for your exceptional work, Joonmyeon,” Yifan thanks sincerely. The blushing head elf is about to respond when a chorus of “Now kiss!” quickly spreads through the room.
Joonmyeon clears his throat, “There’s still the End of Year party, see you there?”
As one, elves and humans alike yell, “Of course!”
A/N: aaaand that's it! thank you for reading and commenting. But fear not, it's not really over: in the next few days I should be able to post some bonus contents, including some more drabbles (definitely shorter than the ones posted till now XP), even though they won't be posted daily...we'll see... Until next time!
V.
BONUS >