Sanders Sides One Shots & Shorts

A Crazy Christmess (Familial LAMP)

Last year for Christmas, I did a Vinyl Cafe AU, and I love it so much I'm doing it again this year. This story is based on "Polly Anderson's Christmas Party"

This is not as edited or imagery-y as I'd have liked... but I wanted to get this out today so :)

TW: Alcohol consumption, blood (from a nosebleed, nothing graphic)
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Date Published: Dec 25, 2020
Word Count: 3214
POV: 3rd Person

"Just come without your jacket!"

Logan stood in his driveway, yelling impatiently at his son, on Saturday evening. It was the night of Emile and Remy Picani's annual Christmas party. "You don't need it. The car is warmed up. Just come," he called as he slipped into the driver's seat.

Roman, his youngest, bounded down the front steps with his shoelaces undone, his shirt untucked, and jumped into the car beside his father.

"Back seat," said Logan as Roman reached for the radio.

Patton was next. He slipped into the newly-emptied passenger seat and scrutinized his clothes in the mirror on the back of the sun visor. Logan assured his husband that he looked lovely.

Logan had to send Roman back inside to fetch Virgil.

"What's the hurry?" the teenager said as he slumped into the back seat. "No one will be there yet. This is stupid. There's never anyone my age. Do I have to come?"

They were, as it turns out, the first to arrive.

"Come in," said Remy Picani, who hadn't yet finished setting things out by the time the Sanders' had arrived. "It's good to see you," he said, looking as though it wasn't. He stepped aside to give the family room to enter.

"I told you it was too early," grumbled Virgil as he stepped onto the mat.

"It's okay," said Patton. "We'll help out!"

Ten minutes later, Patton was holding an open bottle of rum in front of two bowls of eggnog. He was helping out.

"The Lalique crystal is for the adults," called Emile Picani from the kitchen, where he was currently setting out appetizers alongside Patton's husband. "The glass bowl is for the kids."

Patton took a step back and peered at the two bowls. Both were transparent, set, fragile...

"Um, which is the crystal?" he called back.

The doorbell rang.

Emile said, "The one on the left! Would you mind getting the door?"

"Just a minute," Patton said as he stared at the two bowls.

The doorbell rang again.

Patton frowned and said to himself, glass left, and crystal right... or crystal left and glass right?

From the kitchen Logan said, "Patton, please get the door."

Patton winced, picked a bowl at random, poured the rum, and then ran for the door. As he left, out of the corner of his eye he saw Remy pick up one of the bowls and head down to the basement where the kids were going to be sent to play.

***

Patton has always left the Picanis' Christmas party feeling defeated and inadequate. There was the spiral staircase, the Lalique bowls, and Emile's bonsai collection in the hall– which this year he had decorated with miniature origami birds, each one no bigger than a painkiller. Patton felt defeated by these things, and by the moment at the end of each year's party– a moment that was not unpleasant, but just so perfect– when everyone gathered around the Picanis' Christmas tree. The one that always seemed taller and more grand than the tree that Logan and Patton had found. Then, Remy turned off the lights and lit the real candles, and they all sang carols. Defeated by these things that the Picanis seemed to do so effortlessly. It all made Patton feel small.