12 Days Of Shipmas (A Multi Fandom Compilation)

Eight Maids a-Milking (Benthan from Mission Impossible)

   Benji Dunn stared bleakly at his computer monitors, hoping one of them would start telling him something new. But no matter how many times he refreshed the pages, or opened new windows, or hacked into the government's meteorology department, the facts remained the same: the weather was verging on apocalyptic, and there was no way he was getting on a plane.

"Bugger," he said emphatically to himself.

For the past few days he had ensconced himself on one of IMF's administration floors in order to wrap up some paperwork and hold out as long as possible, hoping the snow would ease and he could get his flight back to London. In fact, by that afternoon he would have taken anything: Manchester, Southampton, bloody Glasgow, but he'd finally had to admit defeat now that not a single aircraft was flying out of Washington.

He was stuck. On Christmas Eve. By himself.

He sighed and text his mum the bad news, knowing she'd be gutted that he wouldn't be making it home. Again. Guilty and miserable at the prospect of going back to his sparse and lonely flat (which he hardly lived in most of the year, let alone bothered to put up any kind of Christmas decorations in) he pulled out his handset and loaded up an old game he'd not had a chance to play since being properly reinstated into the IMF.

Being the only one left in the office, he turned up the volume and let the hail of gunfire and explosions drown out his thoughts. It wasn't just his mum who was disappointed he wouldn't be able to make it home for Christmas day; it wasn't often that things were this completely out of his hands.

It seemed like this year had been nothing but out of his hands though, and a little normalcy of home had been what had been keeping him going the last couple of months. Between the IMF's dissolving and that business with Lane (in London, ironically), Benji had been left reeling with a sense of being completely out of control of his own destiny. Maybe that's why he'd been so determined to catch the flight he'd booked, daring the weather to thwart him.

If he'd thought about it, he could maybe have driven out of state, maybe down south where the weather was better so he could have got a flight, but it was too late for that now. He'd half thought about trying to make it back to England for New Year's Eve, but he couldn't afford to be away from the office that long, he was lucky not to be out on a mission as it was.

No, he had truly sabotaged his holiday by stupidly assuming that his flight would somehow miraculously still be allowed to fly, despite no others making it off the runway. Yet again, events had totally screwed him, and he'd been left sitting on his hands like an idiot.

He grimaced as a lack of concentration caused his avatar to lose yet another life, and took the opportunity to turn the game's sound down as it reloaded so he could blast out a bit of Beethoven over the top. A good solid sonata generally helped lift him out of most sulks, but he figured this was probably a bit more serious than that.

He sighed loudly to the empty room, Ludwig throbbing against his ears. He'd just have to embrace Christmas alone this year. He could swing by the supermarket on his way home and pick up some food (and beers, more importantly) and spend the day watching DVDs. It wouldn't be so bad. Maybe.

"Benji?"

He jumped out of his skin, sending his controller clattering across his desk as he clutched at his chest and spun his chair around to see who had snuck up on him.

"Ethan?" he gasped, mildly relieved but mostly just mortified that he had been so easily scared. Ethan was chuckling at him as he came over and leaned on his partition wall, which just made things infinitely worse. "Bloody hell, I didn't think anyone else was still here," he breathed as he hastily turned down his music . He hoped he wasn't too red-faced; Ethan had a way of unsettling him more than anyone else. "How'd you find me?"