Christmas at the Lang's: Book Four

7

"Strange, you really can be a little shit at times," Loki complained once he'd caught his breath. "Glad that's over."

If Loki had only just caught his breath, it would be another forty five minutes before Scott caught his. They were in the mirror dimension for an hour, but it felt like much, much longer. Stephen hadn't let them rest after the streetlight incident, constantly making the ground change shape and make them fall (though there were no more abysses) and Scott hadn't stopped screaming for about 98% of the time, hence why he couldn't catch his breath. They were only back now because Scott had reminded Stephen they needed to be back before eleven. He'd made a portal right under their feet and let them unceremoniously crash on the sofa in his living room.

Stephen just smirked in reply to Loki's comment. "Glad that you get a rest?"

"No. Glad that I can retaliate," Loki said. Scott knew the guy was totally hacked off, so he stayed quiet. He was hacked off too, but Loki had a more, um, explosive temper than he did.

Stephen wagged his finger. "Nuh uh. You specifically said until eleven. Still have five minutes and twenty three seconds until eleven."

"Just gives me more time to warm up some crazy magic. Might teleport you to space. I know how much you love being teleported," Loki said, and Scott watched Stephen's face turn paper white. Part of him wanted Loki to do it, another, very small and kind part of him thought maybe he should help Stephen because he was a good friend (Scott was going to ignore that part for now) and the other part took a mental note not to annoy him so much that Loki did it to him.

"Please, no, anything but that," Stephen almost pleaded. "Just take it out on me when we all play games later."

Loki grinned, satisfied. "OK."

"Just," Scott panted, "don't take it out on me."

"Or me," Cassie added.

"I'll make no promises," Loki said, smirking evilly.

Damn it. Scott exchanged looks with Cassie. It looked like no one would be safe later. Maybe not even the cloak.

Scott didn't particularly care that Stephen would be facing Loki's wrath. He still wasn't happy with him because of that mirror dimension stuff.

Scott coughed. "Anyway... we have a while before we play games. We've got Christmas dinner to prepare for, and guests to welcome in only a couple of minutes. So let's get all our threats out now, while we can, and then we need to tidy this room up."

Cassie looked around. "Dad, the room's nearly spotless."

"Exactly! Nearly spotless, nearly being the key word there," Scott argued. "We need to clean up that wrapping paper and the presents, and some of the decorations are just the slightest millimetre off!"

Cassie groaned, but as she got up, all the aforementioned things righted themselves, all by themselves. Scott stared around in amazement. This room was magic! Wait...

"Uh, thanks Loki," Scott said, knowing it wasn't Stephen, because there were no magic glow-y orange sparkles anywhere. "That was easy."

"Well, your family's about five seconds away from knocking on the door, and they're standing out in the cold, so I thought you might want to let them in rather than stressing about cleaning," Loki shrugged, and, sure enough, they heard a knock on the door.

Scott hurried off, but he poked his head back around the door. "How did you know they were here?"

"Looked through the window," Loki said, rolling his eyes. When Scott hurried off to the rapidly increasing urgency of the knocks, he added under his breath, "Idiot."

In the hallway, Scott fumbled with the key for a moment before he managed to unlock the door. It swung open and he was hit with a blast of cold from the outside world. Damn, that was cold!

It was Maggie and Paxton outside, and they hurried in as soon as Scott opened the door. Scott shut the cold out, getting a split second glimpse of the light sprinkle of snow that was starting to fall. He turned around to his guests and said hi.

Instead of saying hi back, Paxton, being Paxton, said, "That's a new record for you, Scott. Usually you open the door before we knock."

"Haha, hilarious," Scott said, mimicking Loki by rolling his eyes.

Maggie slapped her husband lightly. "Hey, don't act like that. It's Christmas! Standing in the cold is all part of the fun."

Scott laughed. Yep. Their little tradition was proof of that. "Well, you better come in and warm up. I'll get Stephen and Loki to do some magic for you, if you want. Then we'll get dinner started."

"Sounds like a plan," Maggie smiled. "I have a feeling, if it's anything like last night, this Christmas will be one to remember."

Scott smirked. "Aren't they all?"