Chapter 125
Previously: The Rose of Whitby – Chapter 124
What they find in the salon is a smaller Christmas tree. The ornaments on it are clearly well-used and hand-made, not as fancy as those the house gave them for the big tree in the solarium. But Arthur thinks it looks maybe even nicer for that personal touch. And under the tree are presents, neatly wrapped, and Lucy and Mr Basarab are already waiting for them.
Running up from behind them, Darcy gets in front of the tree, throws her arms wide, and chirps loudly: “Merry Christmas! Or rather Joyeux Noël so that we can open the presents today!”
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Sudden realisation dawning on him, Art stares at Jack. “That’s why you never came over on Christmas Eve already!”
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“Obviously I couldn’t take either you or rose petal pouting at me for not spending Christmas with them, so I just celebrated twice.” After a smirk at his best friend, Jack strolls over to Darcy and hands her one more ornament so that they can do one of their yearly traditions. Then he hesitates, despite her already having her arms up. “Actually, rose petal, I’ve been doing this for years, how about you let your daddy lift you up so you can put the angel up top?”
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If Art looks any more like an eager puppy, Lucy is going to burst into snorts, aw! And of course Jack put that look on his face, her two men are just the best thing that could ever happen to her… Well, if one or preferably both were even closer than they are, anyway, but hey, a woman can dream. Instead, she lets herself enjoy Darcy’s giggles and Art’s happy rumble when he lifts her up by the waist and she puts the tree topper on, then a big kiss on her daddy’s cheek.
Okay, that was enough pseudo-motherly appreciation; can they get to the presents now?
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Presents on Christmas Eve already? Arthur can get behind that tradition. Not that he has much in terms of Christmas traditions anyway, unless you count peering into shop windows at all the toys he could only dream of. He isn’t sure where his presents for everyone are, though, he assumes in with all of the other ones? He heads over to have a look at the pile, and finds that they don’t have names but numbers on them. He sees a 3 and an 8 and a 1.5?
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Noticing his look, Art sets Darcy back down and starts laughing. “Not my idea. I only helped carry them over from where Lucy Jr wrapped them.”
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With a raised eyebrow Mina inspects a few packages and shakes her head, of course it would be numbers, but when she asks what they stand for, her daughter declares that it’s obvious, those are ratings for the different people.
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“Little honey, I better be one or two then.” Quincy jokes and takes a closer look but can’t really make heads or tails of it either.
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Then Vlad finds the ones he knows he added and gives the numbers a long look, he knows who he got gifts for. And then it suddenly makes sense, causing him to chuckle and tell Mina that her daughter is truly showing her mother’s fey heritage. “These are ordered by height.”
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“Height?” Arthur blinks. “…Why’s there a 1.5, then?” And, well, if they’re rating by height, he’s not going to rate very high… and that was more of a pun than he meant to think. Anyway, he’s going to be down at the bottom with Darcy and Lucy.
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Counting through how many people are in the room, Lucy dives into the pile and snatches everything that has a nine on it. “That ought to be me, I’m second shortest, you tall orders, you.”
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Jack isn’t sure if he should really follow his hunch, but having taken notes on everybody and yes, easily having put Lucy Jr, Lucy, Darcy, and Arthur into their slots, the middle field is somewhat more difficult, especially with Mr Cobb not even showing up (good riddance), but he is fascinated by the 1.5. Lucy Jr, from the little bit he’s seen of her, appears to be a child who likes things exact, so what could it mean?
If it had been rose petal who did the marking, he’d expect the 1.5 to denote Art as secondary father, who shouldn’t be rated lower, but here it is height and that would easily fall to Draculya, but with an exact measure, he wonders if a certain man has vampiric advantage. So he dares ask Draculya and Art to stand next to each other.
The image presented is impressive but he feels like his senses are betraying him, then it’s Quincy huffing and striding right in the middle between them, puts a hand on either their heads (making Draculya nearly duck, and Jack did not think he could find the man pitiable at his obvious insecurity with his own son).
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“Bloody hell! They’re the same height! How is that so impossible to spot?” Going into a crouch, he checks if either of the men is wearing heels but no, from close up, they are somehow equivalent despite the fact that he would have sworn his father is taller.
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Arthur tilts his head. He also would’ve sworn Mr Basarab- Vlad – was the tallest. Also, he and Art look very awkward, standing next to each other. “Um… Mr Basarab is a bit broader?” he offers. Maybe that’s where that extra-height impression comes from?
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“Size of character,” is Quincy’s assessment, and normally he’d enjoy the impact the compliment made, on any other man he’d like the hidden signs of how pleased Basarab is with that, but on that particular man, no, he’s just playing into his mother’s good taste. So he strolls away again, suddenly feels a little less keen about the gifts and that’s not like him.
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Darcy, meanwhile, doesn’t like how awkward those two seem, this is meant to be great for everybody! So she chirps and goes on the attack, by running at both of them and stretching her arms as far as they will go to sort of, kind of, manage to hug them both. “Daddy and tăticu are both big where it counts!”
She meant the heart, but at least she got Quincy to stop looking a bit down when he snorts loudly (oops, right, um, that might have sounded differently, and no, shoo, dhampir brain, no… too late).
Mina is giving Lucy a side-glance but then can’t help chuckling along because of course Lucy is putting on her naughty grin.
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“Before I declare my medical interest piqued and get a ruler, that would clear up the package labels,” Jack says, with the most unaffected face possible, because yes, with Art this kind of joke would be nothing, but he thinks he should feel more hesitant about Draculya. But Lucy has protected them before and also, if he isn’t completely mistaken, suddenly it’s Draculya, not him, who is the most socially unsure in the room.
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Arthur is just going to pretend to himself that he has no idea what any of that is about- no, none whatsoever. Instead, he decides to figure out what his own number is. Since there’s no “7.5.”, clearly Lucy Jr didn’t think he was the same height as Darcy, even though he would’ve sworn they were.
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Trying to recover from her blunder, Darcy runs to find the right packages for the two men, who both silently decided to find a spot to sit a good bit away from each other. So she runs back and forth between them, then asks if Papa and Arthur have this all figured out, can she hand things out?
Jack gives her the ones he has but admits that he would need a discussion and height check on three through six.
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“…Do we all need to line up for comparison?” Arthur asks. Which would be silly, but also maybe fun?
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With a grunt, John walks over to stand next to Mrs Basarab because he’s pretty sure he won’t like how he compares next to the bean stalk that is their molly, and he could do without feeling emasculated.
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As if Quincy can’t see what John is grunting about there, fine, one round of male ego stroking coming in. “We might still need that ruler because given that my sister is taking in sheer masculine prowess, I think I’ll end up looking dainty standing next to our resident manly man here.”
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“From down here you both look huge!” And again Darcy notices too late that maybe that sounded different in her head, but now it has John and Quincy snort at each other and that’s much better than John wrinkling his nose.
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“I shall trust my rose petal on that assessment without verifying it, however, this is indeed a difficult comparison. I am not seeing an obvious difference between you two in head height.” Jack comments, again, perfectly noncommittally and maybe he shouldn’t enjoy himself so much with jumping on his rose petal’s innocent exclamations, but his rose is giggling and bouncing about it so he will keep doing this.
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There’s still more innuendo going on than Arthur is entirely comfortable with, but it’s not so explicit that he really feels bothered, so he considers instead that they could ask Lucy Jr about how she went about it- but she’s watching them with a mixture of interest and puzzlement. Like she’s not sure why they are making this so complicated, but it’s fun to watch, anyway.
So instead, he walks over to peer between John and Quincy, trying to decide which of them is taller. “I think you’re a tiny bit taller,” he tells Quincy, “but it could just be your hair…”
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“My hair, obviously, is magnificent, but I think I might have indeed got half an inch in height that went straight to the shoulders on Blondie.” Noticing that, despite the compliment, John still is a bit insecure, Quincy finishes that statement out with: “And obviously, even my mother is taller than Cobb, so I think that solves that.”
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Yes, Gregory is taller than him, Arthur knows, but not by that much. And now that he’s over here, Arthur goes to stand next to Darcy, and realizes, that, yes: “Huh. Since when am I taller than you? I thought we were the same height!”
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“From a medical standpoint, I have to presume you beginning to have adequate nutrition is helping your body to build towards the height you should have, but I’m sure my rose petal has a different explanation.” Even as Jack says it, he can see he got that right, Darcy is hugging Arthur tight and looking very concentrated. It would appear this time, she wants to make sure to not have another round of inadvertent innuendo.
“Your heart is too kind and sweet to have enough space to shine to its full potential if you don’t grow, so there, you’ll be the tallest here yet!”
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Arthur hugs her back for that, even while blushing. Dr Seward’s explanation sounds far more probable, but Darcy’s is a lot… sweeter. “Thank you,” he says. “Though I’m not sure about ‘tallest’, that’d be a lot of growing…” Though he was tall in that vision… But then, well, that wasn’t a vision of the future, so who knows.
“You’re being all really adorable, but can I please get to my presents now?” Lucy mewls from where she has horded her things in a corner.
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“Mother!” Darcy fires back, but still gets the remaining packages to everybody before sticking her tongue out. “Now you can. I make for the better mother.” That was maybe a bit harsh, but Lucy only winces for half a second before beginning to laugh and points at John. “Clearly, you better, that got your man right in the feels. Thanks, I’ll stick to my scoundrel and my man of science.”
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Arthur finds himself on a sofa near Art with his own pile of presents- and there really is a pile, there’s got to be half a dozen or so there! He isn’t sure whether he wants to just unwrap everything, or watch everyone unwrap their presents, but in the end, curiosity wins out and he starts- smallest package first.
Which is actually simply an envelope. When Arthur opens it, he finds a card inside with a picture of a tree house on it- and a message telling him where on the grounds to find it, and expressing a hope that he’ll enjoy it. It’s signed “Mina & Vlad”, and Arthur is torn between feeling really amazed and excited, and bad that he didn’t get them anything, after all!
Yes, Quincy was right with pointing out that it’s Darcy’s money he’s spending, but he thinks Darcy would think spending it on family a good purpose. But, well… it might only have been a few days ago, but oddly enough, he feels like he’s gotten to know Vlad and Mrs Harker quite a bit better in those few days. He’ll have to apologize for his lack of gifts, he resolves, and carefully tucks the card away again to go look for the tree house later- a real tree house!
Not that the rest of his gifts are any less great. There’s another envelope with two tickets to the Christmas Science lecture at Cambridge, and a note that he’s going to get another present in a few nights from Darcy and John, and a package from Quincy with something made from leather and straps that he has to figure out for a moment- it’s a notebook holster! It also has loops for pens and even a hidden compartment at the back.
Then there are two books, one with logic puzzles based on Greek philosophy from Lucy that looks like a lot of fun, and one from Art that he can’t read. It’s in that language that he now knows is Romanian, but from the few words he can make out, he thinks it’s about something to do with vampires and magic. Which seals it, now he has to learn Romanian, because he wants to read this book!
He leaves the largest package for last- it is really big and quite heavy. After everything else, he wonders what this could be, and is really excited. Justifiably so, because it turns out to be a saddle!
Not an English one, it looks more like the cowboy ones in the illustrations in Art’s western books, but also not quite. The horn at the front is more of a half circle and higher. It looks really comfortable, and the leather has beautiful leaf patterns worked into it. Arthur runs his fingers reverently over it- it’s so beautiful! Much more so than the generic saddle the house has given him for Hannibal.
The card with it says it’s from Dr Seward, and Arthur… finds himself actually really touched by how thoughtful a gift that is. Well, and useful, and also for him and Hannibal, and also, really fancy.
The only gift he isn’t sure what he feels about is a box with a pistol in it. According to the card, it’s from Gregory, and the pistol belonged to a real pirate. And Arthur has no idea what to do with it.
He knows nothing about guns and doesn’t really feel the urge to learn lots about them, either. And he likes pirate stories, not real pirates. He likes the idea of adventuring on the ocean and discovering new islands and treasure and all, but real pirating involves murdering people and stealing from them.
He doubts real pirates are nice people at all, and he definitely doesn’t care much for a gun one of them might’ve used to kill people with. On the other hand… well, he supposes Gregory tried? He certainly went out of his way to find Arthur a gift. But he’s also not here for the gift giving. So… no, Arthur doesn’t know what to feel about it. Then he gets distracted by John whooping.
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This is so fucking cool! John feels the heft of the blade in his hand, even though the scabbard is heavy, too, being all metal, there’s still more weight to it than he thought when he drew it. He jumps up and gets into the middle of the room to slash it through the air. This thing is real! He has a real sword, wait, curved and only one edge, that’s a sabre, he thinks. Even without having much clue how to wield this, really, it’s still fun to just hack at the air, occasionally get a nice swoosh out of it. Grinning from ear to ear, he can’t believe he has a Christmas, well, any celebration where he gets gifts, and he gets a sword, a gift for a man, a real man.
Nope, not getting too touched, he won’t ruin it with tearing up, so instead, he whoops once more and yells a thanks at Art.
There is another big box for him, but he could see Darcy tense a bit when he had held it, so that must be from her, he’ll leave it for last, because he just knows that no matter how wicked the sword is, his girl definitely will have gotten him the best thing ever!
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Now a sword is definitely much more to Arthur’s taste than a gun, that’s cool! He decides to wait with making his round of thanks, though, and instead watch everyone else unpack their gifts- he hopes they like his, he’s not sure he managed to be as thoughtful with them as everyone did with what they gave him.
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As John digs through his other gifts, he comes across a small box that he opens carefully to find a pocket-watch with the Westenra crest on it. When he clicks the watch open, it has a picture of Darcy on the inside. But what gets him is the little letter Seward added, explaining that he wants him to know that he sees him as part of the family, his preferred son-in-law and, ouch, that definitely makes it hard for John not to show anything. As insecure as the man always is, he is fucking good at this being-a-father thing.
Sorting through the other presents, one makes a slight clink and, curious now, John opens it next but isn’t sure what he’s looking at. Sure, it’s some little vials and there’s… okay, he can’t read that language, so he asks Seward, who takes a moment to read both the labels and the little brochure before he smirks and tells him to keep these away from Lucy or she may steal them. “It appears to be something from the vampire court that can influence the taste of blood in a human.”
Huh, but that would mean… Okay, yupp, he can see Basarab pointedly not looking his way while Mrs Basarab is winking. Right, seems he has plans for later all of a sudden. Better unpack the other things before he gets preoccupied with this one.
There’s two books, one from Arthur (he’s not surprised one bit that Arthur would get him a book,) but it’s such a fucking sweet gesture because it’s a collection of adventure stories for boys. Arthur deserves to be told that yes, this is a good gift, so he smiles at him and tells him that he’ll read it and definitely will keep it so he can read to his sons from it, too.
The other book, however, makes him flinch and throw a worried glance at Lucy. Why would she gift him a romance story collection? Is she making any comments about… but then she giggles and whispers right in his mind that she knows he builds Darcy dreams. Just her little bit of input on what women like, since guys never get that, and those stories are racy, so he should have fun with a riled-up dhampir.
Oh… okay, that is actually, totally fucking inappropriate from his sort-of-mother-in-law, but he’s not surprised, so he just shakes his head at her with a chuckle but thanks her.
Finally getting to Darcy’s gift, because he opened the one from Quincy before and is absolutely not telling the molly how much he loves his new hunting coat, John needs a bit longer to figure out what it is, because it’s not just packaged in gift wrap.
No, there’s a wooden box with a sealed band around it. He needs to cut that open first to be able to lift the lid, then nearly drops it on his fingers as his eyes go wide. He’s read about them! Of course he has, there’s only so many famous gun makers in Britain, but still, this one is so obviously made for him, Darcy must have commissioned this weeks ago.
There are engravings of some of their puppies and definitely of Darcy in her wolf form herself on the rifle. But the one that gets him is the “For my strong man” carved into the stock. This one isn’t just provided by the house spirit or even a family heirloom, no, this is his, and his alone. His own custom-made double-barrelled shotgun.
He… he totally has to take Darcy out hunting with this so he can truly show her how much it means to him… Also because he refuses to tear up in the middle of so many people. So instead, he whistles for her, and the moment she sits next to him, he kisses her hard, taps her temple, and in half a moment’s waking dream tells her that he loves her.
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She wants to yell so hard back at him that she loves him… just not the right way, and that feels so, so bad. She wants to be good for him, only more for the gift he got her. She didn’t even really expect anything, it’s his first Christmas, he should just get to enjoy it, but of course that’s not who her strong, wonderful man is. No, there was a box for her with a letter on top to please not let anybody see what’s in it. She’d never if he isn’t comfortable with it, so she went all the way behind the tree to hide away and open it in secret.
In it was… at first she didn’t really recognize it, but then she realized that she couldn’t have. The note from him said it’s a re’em, something kind of like an ox that wants to be a unicorn, and she can tell he made it. It smells of him, the fabric and the little wooden horns and hooves where she can still see a bit of carving marks. She didn’t know that John knew how to make a stuffed toy and she is going to so proudly put it into her collection.
He is always, always so thoughtful and loving and knows her to the depths of her drac. All she wants is to see him just as deeply and love him and maybe dream of somehow getting to marry him after all!
But now that he pulled her into his dreamscape to show how much her gift means, she has to tell him how much his means to her, too, so, no, she can’t yell back at him that she loves him… But… but she thinks she can tell him honestly that he is the man in her life who she feels safest with and who she needs the most.
Of course she loves all her gifts, but she thinks this one comes from deepest down in anybody’s heart and she tells him!