New Beginnings

Christmas

The next day, Phantom blinked open his eyes to find the spot next to him empty. Sitting up, he glanced around the room to find that Sam and Wes were still asleep. They had all decided to have a kind of mass sleep over in Tucker's room last night, so it shouldn't have been that hard to hear someone wake up and leave right?

He looked over at the bed, finding that Tucker was missing as well when a scent hit his nose that would make someone who wasn't a ghost's mouth water. Movement and quiet laughter floated up from down stairs and Phantom rolled his eyes; like he didn't know Fire had swiped some of his ectoplasm, the wolf girl hadn't really bothered to hide it. He just wondered if she was gonna do something stupid with it. Not likely, but he never really got around to telling her the side effects of consuming too much or even allowing the others who weren't technically half ghosts.

He got up from the sleeping bag that he, Danny, and Fire shared last night and quietly made his way down to see what was happening.

Fire was laying on the couch with a smile on her face. After everyone had fallen asleep she'd spent most of the night just making presents. The other part went to decorating.

Swirls of frost covered the walls while red garland and ember lights went around the living room, a tree she'd gotten from the forest sitting in the corner in place of the fake one that had been there. It had been pretty damn hard to work while hiding what she was doing from Phantom, but it had been worth it.

Now, she had a glass of ectoplasm sitting on the coffee table that she was slowly starting to drink. Sure, the wolf loved dark chocolate cherries, but there was only so much chocolate she could have before getting sick and that counted for ectoplasm too. That came with being part canine and was really unfortunate in her opinion.

Tucker was in the kitchen cooking everything you'd want for a Christmas dinner; ham, a duck that Fire had caught that morning from god knows where, and he was even cooking some veggies, much to his distaste, but Sam needed to eat too and everyone else weren't going to just eat meat. Phantom chuckled when Tucker would absentmindedly swat Danny's hand away from the deserts like a mother with an eager child.

"Come on Tuck~ just a taste~? Danny whined.

"No Danny, wait until after dinner," was Tucker's muttered reply.

"But apple pie~!"

At this Tucker huffed exasperatedly, "Drink some ectoplasm if you wanna taste apples so bad Danny."

Danny whined again, looking at the apple pie as if he was a baleful puppy and Phantom snickered at the sight.

The wolf girl smiled slightly, opening her eyes, "Good morning Sleeping Beauty."

Mikey snorted from where he was in the kitchen, but didn't say anything as he helped Tucker set things up for Christmas dinner.

Phantom rolled his eyes, used to the nicknames by now, "Tell that to the two still asleep upstairs; I hope you have coffee or something for them when they wake up."

"Waaaay ahead of you," Tucker said, pointing to a pot of coffee brewing without looking up, "I don't know about Max, but Carrie is a demon when she wakes up in the mornings."

Danny snickered, "It is funny though," He reached towards the apple pie again...

And immediately got his hand smacked with a wooden spoon, "OW!" He exclaimed, rubbing his hand and meeting Tucker's glare with one of his own.

"If you're going to hang around the kitchen Danny, then help," Tucker scolded as he pointed to a pot of gravy on the stove, "otherwise get out; you're gettin' in the way."