Third Floor Common Room; Sunday Afternoon [12/06].

[x_discospider_x]

Exactly how all this Christmas decoration stuff showed up in the third floor common room was anyone's guess, really. Maybe somehow, all the stuff from the party on Friday magically just got dumped in the common room instead of the trash.

And exactly how Astrid wound up there explaining some of it to Troy was also sort of a mystery, but there she was, and the concept of Christmas trees and their exploration of their purpose and meaning turned into...well...

There was an small tree on Troy's head with an angel topper; his body was wrapped in garlands and lights, while his hands were held out like branches, holding clumps of sparkling tinsel with a blinking Rudolph nose over his own, while Astrid, marveling the whole time that this was apparently a thing she was doing, was singing along with the gremlin carolers in the room while carefully adding bulb ornaments to the whole ensemble.

"O Christmas Troy, O Christmas Troy," they sang, "thy candles shine so brightly. O Christmas Troy, O Christmas Troy, much pleasure though canst give me~"

It was at that moment that Wayne, looking to grab a late lunch, appeared in the doorway, squinted hard at these shenanigan tom fuckeries, and turned his head to look down the hall to consider just leaving.

"Hi, Wayne," Astrid offered. "How are ya now?"

Well, fuck. Now retreat was a little more difficult, wasn't it?

"Good," he replied cautiously, "n'you?"

"Oh," Astrid shrugged, grinning faintly as she hung another bulb on Troy's garlands, "not so bad. Want to help?"

The low grumble of a response indicated that he didn't really want to, not particularleh, but...well, when a man asks fer help...

"Why do you guys do stuff like this?" he had to ask first.

Astrid looked to Troy, since this had been mainly his idea and she just generally went along with things, and he shrugged, as best he could underneath all of his lovely Christmas trappings.

"'Cuz it's fun."

"Yeah," Astrid offered, because she really didn't have anything better herself.

And Wayne squinted a little harder.

"The sight of thee," the singing continued, now with Wayne stoicly joining in and adding more tinsel, "at Christmas time, spreads hope and gladness far and wide~

"O Christmas Troy," Troy was now joining in with his own empassioned harmony, "O Christmas Troy, thou tree most fair and lovely!"

Astrid stepped back to admire their work, with a grateful look at Wayne, who mostly just looked away as if to absolve himself from any hand in this.

"Don't move," she suggested, because some of that stuff was very precariously perched on Troy's person.

He oblidged, definitely long enough for Astrid to snap a picture, but as he held his breath to hold still, he had to point out, "This nose smells like special drink."

[[ why, yes, I did have to take this scene and revise it for Fandom, I could not live with myself if I did not. ANYWAY, it's open like a common room, come admire the Christmas Troy! ]]

Comments

[seriesofbaddecisions]

Sabine popped into the common room, and then just... stopped. And watched.

[white_oleander]

"Hey, Sabine," Astrid offered with a faint grin, offering out an ornament. "Want to help decorate the Christmas Troy?"

Look, if she had somehow managed to get suckered into this, other people needed to, too.

[seriesofbaddecisions]

"You know what," Sabine said after a moment, "yes."

[white_oleander]

Astrid's grin had to grow at that answer. "Good," she said. "There's tons of stuff. We're admittedly running out of room, but we're creative people, I'm sure we can make it work somehow."

[seriesofbaddecisions]

"The decorations can have layers, that's fine," Sabine said, reasonably.

[white_oleander]

"Christmas Troys don't need to move a whole lot, anyway," Astrid agreed, carefully draping some more tinsel off the small tree balanced carefully on Troy's head.

She did sort of wonder what was going to happen once they were done, but she was pretty sure someone could help him out, either by feeding him or peeling off those layers. But that clearly wasn't a concern now.

[seriesofbaddecisions]

"I mean... he's probably going to have to move at some point," Sabine pointed out.

[white_oleander]

"Everyone who comes in for Monday morning breakfast still can help him out with that by that point," Astrid reasoned with a shrug. "With everyone helping, they might even get him out of it in time for classes."

[seriesofbaddecisions]

"Oh this is going to be a disaster," Sabine said, even as she grabbed an ornament.

[white_oleander]

"But a memorable one," said Astrid. "Neither of us really got to celebrate Christmas growing up, so this is a good way to make up for lost time, I think."

Or it was just an excuse to put stuff on your classmate. To-may-to, to-mah-to.

"But I'm glad you're helping, too, Sabine."

[seriesofbaddecisions]

"I'm just adding some extra color," she said, which really just meant she was hanging more stuff.

[howareyanow]

"Sabine," offered Wayne, with a nod, as he draped some tinsel over Troy's head. "How are ya now?"

He was draping tinsel over a classmate's head, so he figgured she might not need to ask him how he was doing back. This was probably a low point of some kind in some book somewhere.

And yet...he was still doing it.

[seriesofbaddecisions]

"Good. How about you?"

Besides decorating a classmate.

[howareyanow]

There was a faint sort of twitch at it being almost right, but he kept forward all the same, because that wasn't the worst thing that was off with this day.

"Ohhhh," he drawled dutifully, albeit skeptically, "not so bad..."

He looked slightly pained about the next part.

"Jus'...decorating...Troy." His eyes went to another corner of the room. "Got some carollers, too..."

[seriesofbaddecisions]

"Totally normal stuff," Sabine said, casually, nodding.

[howareyanow]

"What. Fun," said Wayne, punctuating each word with every ounce of fun that he was clearly having at that moment.

[x_discospider_x]

"Astrid said that decorating a tree is a big part of Christmas," Troy said, by way of explanation, underneath the mess of holiday cheer that surrounded him, "but we didn't have a tree, so we're decorating me instead. I've never been a tree before. So far, it's pretty dope."

[seriesofbaddecisions]

"It's important to... have traditions," Sabine said, since she was pretty sure one just started today.

[x_discospider_x]

Troy would have nodded, but he was balancing a tree on his head right now and he did not trust it to stay there if he moved his head even slightly.

"I'm not supposed to celebrate Christmas," he admitted, "so Astrid's been teaching me about some of those."

And while that may have made it sound like this was actually Astrid's idea, it 100% was not.

[seriesofbaddecisions]

"By becoming a tree?"

No judgment.

[x_discospider_x]

"It would have been a shame," said Troy, "to let all these decorations just go to waste."

[seriesofbaddecisions]

"You're a problem-solver," Sabine told him.

[x_discospider_x]

Troy was pretty sure no one had ever said something like that to him before, so he thought about that for a moment, eyes narrowed with the careful consideration.

"You know what?" he realized, lifting his chin. Slightly. Because he really could not move right now without imminent disaster. "You're right. I am."