Christmas on the Closed Ward ~ Secret Santa for Houndoom_Lover

[mistysakura]

Merry Christmas, Wed! I hope you have a great day. Here's my Secret Santa for you, or rather, part one of it; I wanted to give you something by the end of Christmas Day, but the story's not quite finished... hopefully the rest will be done by Boxing Day morning. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the first part of this story.

Christmas on the Closed Ward (a spinoff to “An untitled Short Story”)

I’ve never been very good at short stories. Once I handed one in to my editor, and he did his best to politely say that it was awful.

Awesome.

So I stuck to novel writing. It’s a bit much at times, dry and boring at others and it’s really no way to make a living when you need money. Cranking out word after word, not knowing whether it was going to be your next big break or just a whole lot of nothing. ‘Cause really, you have no idea what you did is a big waste of time or not until after you do it. But I guess that’s just the peril of living.

Which reminds me of a quote some old guy said, “If I had more time, I’d make this shorter,” Or something like that, but since I’m running out of oxygen, I don’t really have ample time to fool around like that. But I need to make it short and simple, since I only have this tiny scrap of paper.

Hold on. There. I just wrote “Need Help” on it, in my tiniest and neatest handwriting. Now I’m going to slip it under the door and hopefully somebody finds it before its too late. Ideally, someone will come by and unlock the door…but since I’ve been pounding on it for the last seven hours it doesn’t look too good.

Ivo was bored out of her mind. She paced her room impatiently, shuffling from one bunk bed to another, wearing out a circuit on the floorboards. The sun blazed through the window, though which bloomed a cloudless cerulean sky. Ivo gazed out the window with a longing sigh. All the other characters who were her roommates at the Fanfiction Dormitory were out, engaged in their roles. Their authors took them out every day, to adventures in faraway lands, to slay dragons or search for lost keys, or just to reassure them that their author had not forgotten their existence. Every time the dormitory door opened, Ivo could not help but crane her neck to see if today would be her turn. But the face which appeared at the door was never for her. As the other characters were led away by their authors, shutting the door behind them, the door clanged shut like that of a prison cell’s. Ivo would once again flop onto the bed, sinking into the cavity which her body had sunk into the mattress time after disappointed time.

Ivo was an abandoned child. She had not seen her author, Houndoom_Lover, since her conception. As a result, she was the runt in her pack of roommates. While other authors’ characters grew, both in stature and in life experience, not one hair on Ivo’s hair had changed since day one. She was born a colourless, squash-allergic, obsolete-degree-holding student up to her ears in debt, and to this day she was a colourless-squash-allergic, obsolete-degree-holding student up to her ears in debt, for Houndoom_Lover orchestrated her life, and without the flurry of her pen upon the parchment of time, time was frozen for Ivo. Hell, she hadn’t even lived long enough for her student debt to accumulate interest.

But she had waited patiently, up until now. Every day, she reread the letter from her author, the one which had come by post, which promised “at least another chapter”. She pored over her one and only piece of fanmail, telling herself that there was at least one person in the world who couldn’t wait for the continuation of her life. In her hands, this piece of paper was a prophecy. She had unfolded it, and refolded it neatly into its envelope, so many times that it was disintegrating at the edges. And still she waited.

But it was now Christmas Day, and still there was nothing! While the other characters rushed to their stockings in the morning, upending them to scatter piles of glittering gifts onto the ground, Ivo’s stocking, the smallest of the lot, hung limp and forlorn. Where was her new pet? She had so longed for a replacement for that useless dogfish of hers.

That was it. She marched up to her fireplace and tore the stocking off its hook, relishing the feeling as the material ripped – such liberation! With the ruined stocking in one hand, she flung the door open with the other, slamming it against the wall with a resounding bang. She stormed out without bothering to close the door behind her, and ran.

She ran all the way past the other characters’ dormitories, past the snow-covered sporting fields teeming with characters building snowmen and having inter-fic snowball fights, past the no-man’s-land between the character and author dormitories. She rushed through the glass doors to the author dormitories so quickly that the automatic doors barely opened in time – for a moment, it looked as if she would crash into the glass and be squashed like a fly.

Corridors and corridors to the scores of authors on TPM branched off in all directions. Ivo swiveled her head, dizzied by the choice of directions. She had never been here before. The reception was empty. Ivo jammed the bell repeatedly, until a Jynx in pyjamas and a lopsided Santa hat shuffled out of the back room, nursing a cup of tea. “What can I do for you?” the Jynx grunted -- but even in her grumpiness her voice was strangely hypnotizing.

“I need to see my author. Houndoom_Lover,” Ivo panted.

The Jynx raised one thick eyebrow. “You don’t know the way to your own author? Okay…” From the shelf on her desk, she pulled out a directory as thick as a dictionary, and began flipping through it. “Blademaster… Dark Sage… ah, here’s Houndoom_Lover. Room 117…”

Ivo was halfway down the corridor whose sign read “Rooms 101-120” when the Jynx’s voice called her back. “Hang on! She’s not there at the moment. She’s in detention.”

Ivo’s head snapped around. “Detention? What? Why?”

The Jynx shrugged. “Oh, she’s just in Writer’s Block, I reckon.”

***
Writer’s Block looked like any other prison cell block. Ivo’s high heels clopped down the long linoleum corridor, where on both sides authors wasted away in punishment. Ivo peered into each cell like a spectator at a freak show. Unshaven authors with inkstained hands stared back at her. Those with computers in their cells glowered with eyes bloodshot from the glare of the white screen of a blank Word document. The terror of the blank document so possessed them, they could not tear their eyes from it, were haunted by it; and yet, their fingers could not move to break its curse.

Houndoom_Lover sat in the very last cell, facing the wall. On her computer screen, too, the cursor blinked like Big Brother’s eye, monitoring her every move. Around her lay wads of notebook paper, unfinished cover art for unfinished fics. There was a slip of paper protruding from under the gate of her cell. In the neatest handwriting, it said: “Need help”. Ivo seethed. Houndoom_Lover was wrecking Ivo’s live, and she needed help?

Ivo gripped the bars of Houndoom_Lover’s cell and rattled them hard. “You!” she yelled.

Houndoom_Lover turned around in surprise. “Have you come to release me?” she asked hopefully. Her face was gaunt, her cheeks sunken, as if she had been starved of ideas for weeks.

Ivo roared. “Don’t you recognize me? Sure, you’ve never bothered to visit me, but thanks to you, I haven’t changed an inkling since I was born! And even if I’m nothing to you, surely my colourless appearance would tip you off that I’m a citizen of the kingdom of Malaria?”

“…Ivo?” Houndoom_Lover asked hesitantly. “Is that you?”

“Damn sure. Now haul your ass out of here so I can get going with my life.”

“And a Merry Christmas to you, too,” Houndoom_Lover grumbled. A single strand of tinsel hung forlorn on the back wall of Houndoom_Lover’s cell. The sticky tape had fallen off on one end, so it simply slunk down to the floor like a limp ponytail.

“You don’t deserve a happy Christmas!” Ivo shrieked. “Where’s your spirit of giving? Sure, you gave me life, but then you just abandon me? And it’s not just me either – look at all the other fic characters you’ve left behind! Give us back the rest of our lives!” She rattled the bars of the cell again, and they groaned in rust.

Houndoom_Lover stomped her foot down. “I’m trying, I’m trying!” She wrung her hands in frustration. “But I can’t get out of here! I tried to do Nanowrimo to get those juices flowing, but I just couldn’t keep going… the blank Word document is too much for me! Will you help me? Please?” New tears of hope glimmered in her eyes.

“No.” Ivo, too, put her foot down. “Why should I help you? You’re the responsible one here. You’re the one who’s created all these problems, and I’ll be damned if you don’t fix them yourself.” With that, Ivo swept away from the cells of Writer’s Block. She was seeing red.

[Houndoom_Lover]

X3 This story is made with love and awesome. The ironic thing here is that Ivo is gunna hafta wait until I get to the I's after New Years too :0 My New Years resolution is to complete and polish my babies.

Oh my gosh-- I love this story. Words can't express how much I love it. I'm up to the part where Ivo get's to the Writer's Block X3 This is so freaking clever. I'm gunna finish reading it as soon as I get back. This is great! They'll be more of it too? X3 This is getting printed out *glomps you* This is wonderful~ Squee!

[mistysakura]

Aww, I'm glad you like it! I was afraid you might be a bit insulted, seeing as I'm haranguing you for not finishing your stories Here's the second and final part!

***

Ivo flopped onto her lumpy mattress once again, burying her head under the covers. At first, she simply lay there, clenching her fists at the injustice of it all. How dare she ask for help? But soon, Ivo grew restless. She tossed and turned, soon kicking the threadbare covers to one side. Surely there was something she could do? She couldn’t lie on her bed and rely on Houndoom_Lover to come to her senses. Ivo would die of boredom first, or her hair would start sprouting fungi. Surely there was something… With thoughts buzzing in her head like hornets, she drifted off to sleep.

***

“Ivo!” a distant voice called to her, cackling.

“Who is it?” Ivo hollered back, peering through the smoke which obscured her landscape. A dark figure was approaching slowly, gliding through the haze. Ivo twiddled her thumbs in apprehension.

Suddenly, the figure pounced, landing not two inches from her face. “BZIIIIIIIIGNAAAAAAAAAWWWWW!!” it proclaimed. Swooping over her was the cannibalistic robot replica of Severus Snape. He was indistinguishable from the “real” Snape, the Canon Snape which all fanfiction Snapes worshipped at the Rowling shrine – except his hair, instead of dripping with grease like a mechanic’s rag, crawled mechanically in the air like mince meat emerging from a grinder. And his fangs were not yellow, but a blackened silver, dripping with saliva. They hovered too close to Ivo’s curvaceous shoulder for comfort.

Ivo, who had read all about Snape’s Moving Relationship, felt her hair stand on end. She slowly began to edge away from the cannibalistic robot Snape, but he caught her by the shoulders. “Relax. What would I ever do to hurt you?”

Ivo’s imagination was only too happy to oblige. She shivered. Snape patted her shoulder – he probably thought it was comforting. “Physical torture may be – interesting – to behold, but I have no intent to inflict it on a potential ally,” he intoned. “Besides, it is only too well-known to me the ill effects of bother.” His eyes sparked with electrical rage. “Damn those Potter Puppet Pals,” he muttered.

“Potential ally?” Ivo struggled to comprehend what this Snape wanted of her.

“Well… I suppose a more mortal creature would say… friend.” He spat the word out as if it were stoppered death. “You, of inferior intellect, cannot possibly begin to comprehend the excruciating boredom of existing only in people’s dreams, just because your author never deemed it necessary to give you a three-dimensional life. And in that know-it-all Granger’s head, no less.”

Ivo had never thought of it that way. As if sensing her slightest empathy, Snape’s hair began to crawl onto Ivo’s shoulder like migrating maggots, making her leap a foot away. “Ever heard of personal space?” she yowled. After her heartbeat settled, she asked, “How can I help you? It sounds like we both have author problems, but it’s not like I can make Houndoom_Lover write you a sequel. Heck, I can’t even get past being born.” She pouted like a child who had spat the dummy.

“You and I, with our misunderstood powers of the Dark Arts, could unite to release us characters from the flytrap of dreams! Then we could unleash Hermione Granger, the reincarnation of Vishnu, on all the authors in Writer’s Block, and have her replace them with robot monkeys on typewriters! In no time, our stories would gush forth into the world!”

Ivo recalled Houndoom_Lover’s slight figure, crouched in the corner of her cell in Writer’s Block. She was so small, so malnourished in inspiration… yes, Ivo ached for life, but Bachelor of Evil or no Bachelor of Evil, Ivo was Houndoom_Lover’s creation, and life without Houndoom_Lover was as alien an idea as… as evil being obsolete.

Seeing Ivo’s hesitation, Snape pressed on. His mechanical hair coiled around Ivo’s shoulder like serpents. “Houndoom_Lover would not have to disappear forever. We could replace her with a monkey on a typewriter merely for as long as necessary to clear up our affairs. And you said yourself that Houndoom_Lover didn’t deserve a happy Christmas! Why should we not give ourselves a chance?”

Ivo’s lips pursed in doubt. Then she nodded. “I’ll do it.”

Snape’s while-knuckled hand gripped Ivo’s colourless one tightly. “On the count of three, the magic words,” he growled.

“Please? Or thank you?”

Snape rolled his eyes. He leaned close, and whispered the curse in her ear. “One… two…” Green fog, even denser than that which swirled around Ivo’s landscape, spouted from their clasped hands like gibberish from spambots. Magic crackled in the air.

“Three.” The two of them chanted,

“CONSTANT VIGILANCE!”

***

Ivo found herself in her bad, tangled in her sheets. The bed and the room spun around her, as if the sheets were a broomstick gone berserk, tumbling her across the bed like laundry in a spin cycle. “Oompf!” she protested as she hit the head of her bed, her voice muffled by the pillow there. When the stars faded from her vision, she yanked the sheets off and sat up straight. Gone was the face of the cannibalistic robot replica of Severus Snape. In his place was an equally terrifying figure sitting at the foot of the bed, with legs tucked in the lotus position – that of Doctor Jeanette Ticks.

Ivo didn’t know which was the more repulsive sight – Snape’s dripping mechanical fangs, or the Doctor’s rotting face. She wished Houndoom_Lover would write Doctor Tick’s mask back on, and stick it to her face with superglue. So engrossed she was by this sight that she temporarily forgot the strangeness of her situation, and merely stared. The Doctor stared back. The clock on the wall ticked. Tick. Tick. Tick.

Finally, the Doctor snapped. “I didn’t exert all my powers to summon you back, just to have a staring contest! Don’t you have anything to say?” she snapped, in that gravelly voice of hers.

It was then that Ivo recalled everything. The confrontation with Houndoom_Lover, the plan to reincarnate the cannibalistic robot Snape and replace the authors with monkeys on typewriters, the jynx… “What happened?”

“And you have the gall to ask!” Doctor Ticks roared.

“Do you want me mute or not? Make up your mind…” Ivo muttered.

“Don’t you talk like I can’t hear you! Youngsters these days, with no respect! If I hadn’t sensed the havoc you were wreaking, hadn’t countered your silly spell in time, who knows what could have happened!”

“Wha?” Innocence was plastered all over Ivo’s face. She was an evil graduate, but this time her plans were not evil for evil’s sake… “I was just trying to save Snape! And, uh, maybe myself as well, but that’s an afterthought…”

Doctor Ticks, who had practically sprung off Ivo’s bed in agitation, recomposed herself into the lotus pose. “I suppose you can’t help but be ignorant, young as you are…”

“And whose fault is that? If Houndoom_Lover had bothered to continue my story, I wouldn’t be young and stupid, would I? She brought it upon herself!” Ivo heard herself retort, before she could think her words though.

Doctor Ticks shook her head with a sigh. “Patience, my child… being a creator of a soul myself, I naturally sympathise with the author, the Great One… Although my story, like yours, awaits its continuation, I bear no resentment.”

Ivo stared. “Not even when she gives you nothing for Christmas?”

“Not even then.” It was then that Ivo realized that the Doctor, despite her rotting face, didn’t need a mask – the mask of serenity on her face calmed Ivo down, once she learned to see past the physical grotesqueness.

Still, Ivo had doubts. “You stopped my spell out of loyalty to your author? An author who hasn’t even acknowledged your existence for months? You’re not angry at her?”

“You know, you’re like the biologically superior fetus I created.” Ivo had been on the receiving end of many pickup lines and curses in her lifetime, but this was the first time she had been likened to a fetus. She did not know whether to accept the compliment or hurl the insult back in the Doctor’s face. Sensing Ivo’s confusion, Ticks continued. “The world may comment all it wants on your miserable existence. You yourself might lament your life. But the truth remains that if it weren’t for Houndoom_Lover, neither of us would be sitting here today.” Ivo remained silent.

“Wow, looks like the girl does stop and think sometimes,” Doctor Ticks said with a sardonic smile. “And besides, you say you haven’t had a life? What’s all this adventure you’ve just had? If it weren’t for Houndoom_Lover, would you ever meet a cannibalistic Snape, who just won’t accept that his story is over? Would you make wild plans to revolutionise the Writer’s Block? Would you be sitting here, listening to this Good Guy’s Clichéd Spiel I’m spouting?”

Ivo was still at a loss for words. Doctor Ticks knew she had won. Her lips curled into a smile curiously incongruent to her meditating posture.

“Think about it.”

***

Past the character dormitories again, past the remnants of champagne-infused snowball fights, past no-man’s land. It was Boxing Day, and Ivo’s feet retraced her steps from the previous day. This time, she slowed at the glass doors of the author dormitories, allowing them time to open before she entered.

The Jynx was still there, nursing yet another cup of black coffee. “She’s still in Writer’s Block,” she yawned. “Looks like she’ll be in there a while. No point in visiting again so soon.”

“Don’t you dare assume you know what I’m here for… I am a holder of a Bachelor of Evil, and I can jynx you into oblivion. Pun intended,” Ivo snapped.

“Whoa, chill,” the Jynx said, backing away.

***

Houndoom_Lover was exactly as Ivo had found her on Christmas Day. The mass of papers still lay about her curled-up body – and they were not festive reminders of unwrapped presents on Boxing Day, but frustrated drafts and discarded doodles. The cursor still kept surveillance over her, blinking like a security camera’s LED.

Ivo gently shook the bars of her cell. “Hey.”

Houndoom_Lover did not stir. She merely flapped a hand at her visitor. “Go away, I know you hate me, but I’m still working on you. I’m trying. Really.” Her voice cracked, rasping, as if she had not slept for days.

Ivo shrugged. “Well, if you don’t want me here…” She turned to leave, but before she did so, she reached through the bars and lay a parcel on the cell’s cold tiled floor. “Anyway, I brought this for you. Merry Christmas.” It was ripped stocking from the previous day, which Ivo had been so furious to find empty. Well, it was no longer empty, though its tatters barely concealed the parcel inside.

As Ivo walked down the corridor leading out of Writer’s Block, leaving Houndoom_Lover in peace, she smiled. She imagined Houndoom_Lover turning to see the package, surprise lighting up her bloodshot eyes. In her mind’s eye, she saw her author’s hands unwrap the parcel, tied up with string. If only she could see the shock on Houndoom_Lover’s face when she found the manuscript inside! Ivo had stayed up all night, scratching out her story in her neatest handwriting. She could still remember exactly how it began: “Ivo was bored out of her mind. She paced her room impatiently, shuffling from one bunk bed to another, wearing out a circuit on the floorboards….”

[Houndoom_Lover]

No, I'm not affended at all :B This is wonderful. Now when ever I feel like I'm falling behind, or overwhelm, I'll read this. This is such a great gift!

The second part!!! Robot Snape X3 That magical word! I laughed out loud. I you wraped it up--what a plot twist with Ticks. It was like a roller coasters of emotions. The good kind, not those awful jerky rollercoasters. What a great gift X3 Great story. I'm so inspired. I feel like I should start now...today. I think, I'm gunna start right now....

^w^ Thank you so much ^-^

[mistysakura]

Yay! I'm glad that my gift has come in handy I thought you'd like those little quirks. You've got a gift for really wacky descriptions, and I tried to imitate that. Merry Christmas again!

[Houndoom_Lover]

I really think you hit it spot on X3 OOh, yes! Merry Christmas--I hope yours was shabashing!! Did you get anything good :0?

[mistysakura]

Ah, unfortunately my family doesn't do Christmas, so I spent Christmas carolling with my choir, absorbing the Christmas spirit from the rest of the world... my birthday and Chinese New Year are coming up soon though, so I'll be receiving tons of stuff then! How was your Christmas?

[Houndoom_Lover]

Oh, cool! I was just explaining to my Mom the other day how Chinese New Year works. Sometimes the best part of Christmas is just absorbing everyone's festive spirit. I love caroling.

I got a nice orange blanket and a fake candle :0 It looks so real! You turn it on and it flickers and gives off a soothing candly scent. I got socks and pants of too shortness that I'll be making into a stuffed animal--and the giftcards of Target. So much of them! Blade got me a Wii game, I hafta hook my Wii to the internet >w> And this story *arm wiggles*

Are there New Year Carols?