Perfect. It's almost Christmas and it certainly doesn't feel like it. Nick sat in his little meeting room somewhere in Alaska: he was supposed to host the meeting today since it is almost HIS holiday. So he was. He would host it in the North Pole, but his dad was still pissed off at him. Took away most of his 'Santa Magic.' To top it all off, he was having a terrible hangover from drinking some Vodnog the night before. He sat there at the long round table, head in his arms as he tried to nap at the table before the others arrived.

 

Miguel already arrived. He loved coming to these things just to watch Nick get annoyed at everyone. He sat down in his usual seat with a snicker. "Hola my red-nosed amigo."

 

"Did you hear me say that you're not allowed to be here?" Nick asked with an aggravated groan.

 

"Didn't YOU hear me say that I don't give a firetruck and I do what I want?" With that, Miguel kicked back and relaxed while he waited for the others, most notably Grim and Samhain. He liked them the most. Especially Samhain. He was so adorable. He didn't know if the other infected holidays would show up. The gloomed infected were technically banned from the meetings recently, but they could still show up. He was gloomed himself, but at least it didn't really change him; it was like a cold to him so far.

 When Varmill began to apologize, Clover's eyebrow twitched in annoyance as he looked away from the holiday. "You worry so much." He mumbled underneath his breath. Suddenly, the entity spotted the teacups sitting on the nightstand. "Hey," Clover gave Varmill a glare like a stubborn kid. Ever since he found himself here, Clover wanted to ask these questions, "Why did you help me? Didn't I threaten you back at the meeting?" He recalled a feeling similar to bloodlust directed at Varmill when he was fighting Aurora. Now, sparing the holiday and receiving a huge headache, Clover felt more like..himself. 

Patty lowered his head for a second as Clover asked the questions. He looked back up at him with a determined look in his eyes.

     "Yes, you did threaten me...but...I'm not scared anymore. And I helped because...well...I care. Ya' mean WAY too much to me for you to just...wither away like that." He smiled softly at him.

     "Ya' know, yer' luckier than I thought...", he said. "At least I still try to treat ya' like a regular entity. If I hadn't, you'd probably still be in the cold rain. Oh, and...I'm sorry for whatever I did that made you mad at me..."

He took the two teacups from the nightstand and handed one to Clover.

     "Here. It's peppermint tea. I-It helps with fevers. A-And it's nice for Christmas." He smiled again, hiding the sheer amount of sadness deep in his chest. He wanted to tell him more, but he felt like he should wait. So, He asked him some questions.

     "Hey. Somebody named Aurora told me that...you infected her...but you didn't kill her. And there was also stuff about...flashing yellow eyes, illusions saying they'd take over, and that...there's still good in ya'...somewhere. Please tell me...what is goin' on, Clov? And...what DID I do that made you so upset with me?"

Edited February 11, 201510 yr by Hargleblargleboo

(omg I thought I posted in this)

Miguel was extremely pissed as soon as he saw Mucury attempt to attack them in the air. It was never easy, was it.

"Aye!!! Fantastico Cuatro estas loco?!" (Fantastic Four are you crazy?!) Miguel peered his eyes and noticed that Mercury was being controlled by something, or someone. He tried to stop Jack from attacking, but too late. The bastard caused an avalanche to go right into of Mercury!

"Jack!" Miguel yelled. "He's being controlled! You just hurt him, pendejo!" He leaned over the front of the sled, careful not to fall off.

"We have to go down there and try to see what going on! Vamanos amigos!" (Let's go guys!)

 

Meanwhile Nick jumped at the sudden Ayano popping out of bloody nowhere. In response to Ayano's question, Nick just shrugged and tried his best to find something that made sense.

"Well whoever wrote this is fu***** rocket scientist. I wouldn't be surprised if Stephen Hawking wrote this confusing s***." He couldn't even barely pronounce most of the words in the book.

 Ayano glared at Nick with a mix of shock and anger. "Don't curse in front of the kid!" She was tempted to kick the holiday but she decided not to. Nick just suffered from a huge fever, and kicking him would lead him to an even worser state. 

- - - - - 

 Yellow eyes and taking over, Clover remembered hearing that from one of his own illusion copies. Sipping the tea that Varmill gave him, Clover thought to himself, 'I wasn't controlling myself back then, it was more like...my emotions were guiding me throughout the whole fight.' Looking at his childhood friend, he spoke, "Do you remember the promise we made together after we first met? You said you would always be there whenever I was hurt." Clover looked down at the teacup resting in his hands. "You kept your promise but, one day I was alone at the meadow. I was taking a nap underneath a tree when suddenly, someone attacked me. Just from that person's presence, I knew it was a holiday. No matter what illusion or escape method I pulled, I was too weak to get away." He tightened his grip on the teacup. "After he finally caught me, he demanded my pot of gold. I could tell he was a greedy holiday and there was no way in hell was I giving him something so precious to me. So I obviously refused, and the holiday started beating me up." Clover's hand was clutching the tea so tight, cracks started appearing on the cup. "And during the whole time I was waiting for you to come rescue me again I realized something, I was pathetic." Just as he said that, the cup shattered in his hand, cuts covered his palm but Clover didn't seem to notice as he continued. "The holiday gave up and left me there completely beaten up. I fell unconscious several times and that was when I was infected with the gloom." Clover smirked, he was losing himself again. "When I discovered that I had become stronger, I knew I didn't need to depend on you anymore. And yet you just saved me again." The fact that Varmill wanted Clover to return back to normal pissed him off, does Varmill want him to be weak and helpless again? 

"Controlled." Grim muttered. Could it be the Gloom? It had to be the Gloom. Grim looked down and looked around. "Well it didn't kill him I can make sure of that." Grim said as he looked around for Mercury. "Regardless, we should give it a try like Miguel said. If he needs help, we should try and give him the helps he needs. I am sure that Santa won't mind in order to save another spirit like us." Grim said as he rubbed his head. Though making himself active, he still had the fever. If the gloom was affecting Mercury, Grim had to be glad that it wasn't affecting him as badly. "What do you think, Jack? If we're going to help you better bring us down, otherwise we should hurry back to the North Pole. But...Mercury is your friend, isn't he? We need to see what is going on." Grim insisted. The presents were delivered, the least they could do was check up on the guy and see if there was anything they could do about it. "If it's gloom however...we need to make sure it doesn't affect the reindeer." Grim muttered as he rubbed the back of his head. Something felt odd, and it wasn't the gloom inside of him. Something just seemed off. This delivery just seemed to have gone a bit too smoothly...even with Mercury appearing in the end.

 

...

 

Aoba tilted his head. Those were pretty bad words. Father time would get mad if he ever said those words. "Anything that would be able to help us with this gloom problem, maybe?"

'The problem with all the enchanted object stories is that even if we did find them, I estimate there are at least a couple tens of thousands of infected people, if not more, and finding every one of them to cure them would be... Well, I guess not impossible, but certainly at least improbable.' 'Mmhm. Hey, can I ask another question? ' Saturn decided now was as good a time as any. 'If you are going to ask if we are there yet... ' 'No! A serious question this time.''... ok?' 'If you could have one wish, a logical one, then what would it be?' 'Logical... I would say I wished that everyone I have lost could come back, but you were a special circumstance. I.. I wish I could rest, but the only way to do that would be disappearing.' 'You want to disappear?!' 'No, I guess not. It's just, protecting the humans and finding a cure have been my only purposes for the last 1600 years, and it seems like it will never end. Sometimes it feels pointless.' 'Huh. Why do you help the humans anyway? They murder each other in millions over a bit of land, the are greedy, corrupt, and narcissistic. They only live a few decades. I just can't find a single redeeming quality.' 'I think it's because of their curiosity. They overcome all their problems with knowledge and ingenuity, and I can't help but love that.' 'So you think they are like you... Nope, I don't see it.' But it did make sense, though, and cleared a lot of things up for Saturn. They continued walking in silence from there, each lost in her own thoughts, with Aurora making a few corrections to their direction.

Patty took his tea and sipped it as he listened to Clover. He looked up at him again.

     "Why, yes. I do remember that promise..." He drank his tea down rather quickly until it was all gone, and put it back on the nightstand. He still listened to Clover's tale and started to shrink in his chair out of fear and worry. 

     "Y-You were beat up?? Oh my word...that makes me feel even worse...Why did you never tell me about that?!" He kept listening as Clover got angrier and angrier, until he broke Patty's teacup into pieces. Patty shrieked and covered his mouth. The shattering promptly startled Puss from her sleep and she frantically jumped off of the chair and ran into the living room. Patty just stared at Clover with wide eyes. Then, he frantically took his jacket off from his chair and wrapped the cloth around Clover's bleeding hands.

   

     "Oh jeez! Don't say that! You are NOT pathetic! It was just that stupid holiday!", he said.

     "I tried...I tried so hard to find ya'...to tell ya' that there was gloom floating about..., Now that you told me all that, I feel even worse for not being able to save ya' all those years ago...I already have nightmares about it every time I go to sleep..." He started to tear up, and looked away from him.

     "All this time...I've wanted to tell you how sorry I am...and to make it up to you somehow..." He squeezed Clover's hands even tighter, his voice cracking and shaking as he spoke. "But...because of all of the other things that happened, I don't think there's anything I can say or do that's good enough...I broke my promise...I honestly would have put my life on the line for you if I made it to you in time. I probably would have taken the gloom for ya' as well."

 

      Letting go of his hands, he wiped away his tears with his arm and regained his composure, looking back at Clover again.

     "Yet I still saved you because...well, I just couldn't let you go knowing that you'll hurt people again. There's already too much in my life that I regret." He sighed.

     "Besides...I didn't want you to be alone, especially on Christmas. A-And...like I said, you mean too much to me. I loved the Clover from all those years ago, up until the gloom incident. You were all I had after Mother died. But...you can't ever understand that. Now, the Clover I used to know is gone, and I need to let go of the past, I suppose...I think all I need to do now is to still treat you like a normal entity, and make sure you don't hurt people." He took the music box from the nightstand and offered it to Clover.

     "Oh, a-and I wanted to give you this...it's my gift to you. It's not much but, I did what I could." He smiled a bit. "Happy Christmas, Clov..."