theresalwayshope | meet the (grand)parents...

Allison felt a little like she was going insane.

She started out just planning to invite Aramis and Porthos over to meet Jason. Dinner and drinks, nothing big. Then she realized she didn't just feel obligated to invite Athos, she wanted to. So, if she did that, she obviously had to invite D'artagnan, and she really wanted to meet Constance...and she'd promised Grey a chance to help her bake a cake, so if she did something more than dinner, she could let him come over at some point...

The small family dinner became a small dinner party, and with a few more additions morphed into an impromptu potluck for the whole building...or anyone that wanted to show up. She told the family about it privately, asking Porthos and Aramis to make sure the others at least stopped by (with a subtle warning that Jason would be there), told everyone else she knew in the city, and for the rest of the building she posted a couple of handmade fliers: one in the elevator, and another in the laundry room announcing that, with either a main course or appetizer offering, an invitation to the holiday celebration taking place in apartment #39...dressy casual to formalwear welcome, bring your favorite Christmas CD as a bonus.

And, of course, she told Jason...and told him her family would be there.

By the night of the party, Allison was ready...she just felt a little like she was going insane.

She kept her outfit cute, but simple, and took care of dessert by baking some cupcakes, gingerbread cookies, and a two layer chocolate cake which she invited Grey over to help her bake. With a little careful scheduling, she also managed to contribute to the food on hand with her second ever attempt at beef bourguignon: rich, hearty, and sort of impressive under the right circumstances. By party time, she had her front door standing open, some Trans Siberian Orchestra carols playing on her stereo, and while she didn't yet have a tree, she'd gotten some cute plastic holly garland to hang around the apartment, and for fun had ringed her whole living room ceiling in multicolor Christmas lights for good measure.

The party was good to go. The place smelled good, the food came out okay with more to come...the evening was good to go.

And when Jason showed up, her family would show up...and they'd all meet each other...

While she waited for her guests, loved ones, and boyfriend to start arriving, Allison puttered around in her kitchen, swore to herself she was not hiding, and tried to pretend that she wasn't having visions of someone either drawing a sword or a knife by the end of the evening.

Tonight had to be perfect.

(HOLIDAY GATHERING POST! Treat it thusly. :P Front door's open, come and go as you please, anyone in the Bramford Building is welcome, and if you know Allison even remotely she told you about the party. Gather at will, and leave a call for Allison in your subject line if you want to play with her directly! Open eternally, will probably be linked near the end of the month. :D)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I'm trying not to notice that the bread I contributed is getting looked over for other, brighter dishes. It shouldn't surprise me anymore than it does that I'm also passed by for brighter personalities, those who are more at ease with the crowd while I stick to the people I know. Athos, at least, seems to be the same and I slide along the edge of the crowd so that we're both pushing up the same corner of the wall and I fiddle with the edges of my sweater. I wish now that it had buttons; it doesn't seem acceptable to be biting my nails here.

"We're the life of the party, huh?" I ask, even though I'm glad for his presence.

“And ever in demand,” Athos agrees with echoed wryness. He has found himself a glass of wine, and even holding it in his hand makes him a little more at ease in his surroundings. “Joyeux noel,” he offers, lifting his glass with a faint smile.

I laugh a little, despite myself. In some ways, he reminds me of Tobias, dour and standoffish, but with more goodness than he'll ever admit. It must be why I like being near him.

"I'd agree with you...but I don't know what Noel is," I admit. "Or Christmas, really."

Athos blinks, surprised, somehow, by this news. Everything that Tris has said about her world has indicated its strangeness, and yet this piece of news still startles him. He has no particular attachment to Christmas, but intuitively expects it to exist in the fabric of the civilized world. "But you have learned something of it, I imagine."

"Something about the birth of God's son," I say. That particular story I know, but the rest of it escapes me. I don't remember a man in a red suit or a special tree in the Bible. "None of the rest of it makes sense to me."

Ah, that he can understand better. “Not to me, either,” Athos confesses with a touch of wry amusement in his eyes, almost conspiratorial, as though he is sharing a great secret. “I gather the rest has been tacked on in the intervening years."

Something about the secretive way he regards me makes me smile, even as something like embarrassment rises up in me.

"I'll play along if you do."

"Only if I don't have to sing-" what did they call the dreadful song? Athos is sure it's been following him since the start of the month, in shops, and on streets, and in his very dreams.

"Jingle Bells."

"Well, I'm definitely not going to make you," I say, grinning at last. "...honestly I don't know how to party. I was too, well, they called us Stiffs. I'd probably have dropped off my bread and run if Allison hadn't blocked the exit."

“Don’t expect to learn much from me,” Athos warns, a touch of self-deprecation in his voice, for he knows how blindingly obvious that must be.

At the mention of Allison, he presses his lips together to suppress a sigh. For Aramis and Porthos sake he knows he must gain some sort of handle on the girl, and learn to better tolerate her presence. But he does not relish it. “Do you know Miss Argent well?” he asks Tris, wondering if the two are friends.

"She's a friend. I live one floor up and she's been kind to me." As lethal as Dauntless and as sweet as Amity, what might be a total contradiction in my world is a sphere that Allison occupies completely.

"You don't like her?"

Athos swears he can feel Tris' worry, though perhaps it is merely his imagination, an automatic reaction caused by the scolding looks Aramis and Porthos tend to throw his way when he speaks of Allison in less-than-glowing terms.

"I don't know her well," he replies. It's barely an answer at all.

"You're lucky I'm not Candor," I say. "I'd needle the truth out of you otherwise."

There's tension between them, then.

It’s quip enough to break the tension, and Athos rolls his eyes with a flicker of a smile.

“She has grown quite close to Aramis and Porthos.” Athos knows that’s not good enough reason to be wary of her, that it should push him towards quite the opposite opinion, in fact, but the familial intimacy that sprung up between them all while he was absent still unsettles him. He isn’t convince that she’s worthy of his friends. Not quite.

"She has," I agree. "They're like family. Or they are family. I'm not sure about the details."

But she's been kind, stubbornly friendly when I'd otherwise let myself fade back and live as an island unto myself.

"She's good at keeping me from being by myself too long."

In those words, Athos is reminded of Aramis and Porthos, and understands a bit better what drew Allison to his friends. They have so long fought to keep him from disappearing into his own thoughts, it must be like breathing to them, and no matter how much Athos grumbles, he knows he would not be alive now if they had not been so vigilant. Grudgingly, he must credit the girl for doing the same thing for Tris.

“I know the sort,” he confesses ruefully, and with a tiny smile, he gaze settles on Aramis and Porthos across the room.

I smile back, feeling a little warmer toward the situation now that some of Athos' tension is redirected. "They used to invite me up to dinner before they got too busy with the wedding," I say. Now Allison is the one inviting me to descend on quiet evenings.

"I've been coming here since."

meet the (grand)parents...

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