I'll Be Home For Christmas - IV
“Santa Claus… he has friends in high places. You don’t do what he does without making some connections.”
This was originally intended to come out a bit earlier, but I’ve been traveling for the holidays, which has cut deeply into my productivity. But, it’s also a time to relax and spend time with your loved ones, which I hope you’ve been doing, as I have. I’m not sure if I’ll get the last two parts finished up by then, but either way, I sincerely hope you enjoy, and, if I don’t speak to you before, I hope you have a lovely Christmas.
“I can’t believe you made someone drive in this.”
“Hey.” Randy paused and spun the sauce-soaked noodles of chicken lo mein around the tines of his fork. "I didn’t make anyone do anything. Hong Kong Express was open. The guy was gonna be out anyways.” He put the fork in his mouth and bit down, filling his mouth with the delight slightly sweet, slightly savory, and very garlick-y taste of cheap but immensely satisfying Chinese take-out. “Don’t worry. I tipped.”
The sound of utensils scraping against the interior of porcelain bowls filled the dining room, which was really just one small corner of the apartment where a table and two chairs had been placed for the purpose of eating. Randy kept his eyes fixed on the contents of his bowl, stabbing at the chunks of chicken and mushrooms littering the mess of noodles and not looking at Pran.
“I brought food,” said Pran, after a long moment of silence. “From the store.”
“How was I supposed to know that?"
More scraping. More sounds of eating - wet chewing, the slopping of noodles, sniffing and swallowing and sipping at glasses of both water and stiff pours of Stranahan’s whiskey1, which Randy had poured for them, partially to abate the chill that had settled over the apartment, and partially to help bring their collective nerves down.
“Besides,” Randy said as he kept his head down. “I thought it sounded good. You love Hong Kong Express.”
More silence. Awkward, uncomfortable silence that no amount of Stranahan’s could numb.
“I do,” Pran said. “But I also don’t like the idea of some poor delivery guy driving in this weather just so we can stuff our faces with take-out.”
With his head down, without looking at Pran, Randy could have easily believed that it was just another night, where the two were slightly upset with one another but, otherwise, nothing was out of the ordinary. Both of them had agreed that continuing to yell at each other wouldn’t do much more than exacerbate the situation, and that perhaps taking some time to eat, drink, and get their thoughts sorted might be for the best. For the most part, they’d both done an admirable job at bottling up their emotions, but, with every bite that he took, Randy could feel the expanding presence of the unspoken and unacknowledged elephant that was leering at them both from across the room. Or, perhaps, in this case, it was a reindeer.
“I guess you can sympathize,” muttered Randy.
He heard Pran’s fork click against her bowl as she put it down.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Randy took another bite, speaking the last sizeable piece of chicken in his bowl and putting it in his mouth. He shrugged, and said, “Well, I mean - you’d know a thing or two about making deliveries in shitty weather, wouldn’t you?”
Pran sighed. The sound filled Randy with regret. No sooner had he said the words did he know he’d have been better off not saying them, but he did, and how he had to cash the check his mouth had written.
“God damn it, Randy.”
“God damn it, Pran,” Randy said, letting his own fork fall against his bowl.
With some assistance from the whiskey, Randy finally found it in himself to look up from his bowl and face Pran. Across the table, she sat in the same seat she always sat in. She took the seat closer to the kitchen. He took the seat closer to the wall. It was an unspoken and unspecified ritual by which the two had abide for as long as he had lived together, which had been three of the four years they’d been a couple. Aside from the fine, white scruff of hair growing around her neck, the dark lips, the pale nose, horn stubs, deer-like ears, and those weird, weird god damn hands, Pran looked as normal as she ever did, albeit very, very unhappy. She was so unhappy she wasn’t even scowling - just staring, blankly.
“When were you gonna tell me?”
The question has been simmering under the paper-thin surface of their impromptu meal since before the two had sat down. Randy hadn’t wanted to ask, because he wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer, but, finally, the heat had become too much, and the question burst like a bubble on the surface of a boiling pot of water.
“When were you gonna tell me, huh?” Randy asked again, displeased by Pran’s silence.
“Eventually,” she replied curtly.
“Okay. And… when do you think that might have been? Would it have been, like… next year?” Randy took another bite. “When we got married? After we got married?” He took a sip of whiskey. “Never?”
Pran struggled to provide an answer, squirming in her seat, her bruise-dark lips twisting into odd shapes, black fingers forming odd, vague gestures, before she blurted out - “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“I’ve been -” Pran’s words caught in her throat. She sucked down a deep breath and continued, “I don’t know, okay? I’ve been - I was thinking about it. I've been thinking about it. For a long time. I've been trying to find a way to tell you.”
“For four years?”
Pran threw up her hands. “What was I supposed to say? Oh, by the way, Randy, I'm actually a magical reindeer that defies everything you know about science and, every Christmas, I go home to see my reindeer family and work for a person who you don't think exists in a place that isn't on any map. Would that have made you happy?”
“Well,” Randy said with a sigh. “It would've been preferable to, y'know… being lied to for four years.”
Pran put one hand down on the table flat, bracing herself as she leveled an accusatory finger at Randy. “I… I did not lie to you.”
“Oh!” Randy laughed, though he wasn't amused. “Oh. Man, that is… That is a bold claim, right there.”
“I did not!” said Pran, the hurt in her voice audible. “I didn't tell you. That's… it's different than lying.”
Randy shook his head with a look of feigned of confusion on his face. “I, ah… I don't follow. How do you figure that?”
“W-well,” Pran started. She squirmed in her seat. Pulled on the neck of her sweater, revealing just how far down her chest that white hair went, which was… very. Her ears twitched nervously. “If you had asked, and I… I said no, that would be a lie, but I just - I never told you.”
“Oh. Right, right,” said Randy with a dismissive wave. “Sure. It's my fault. I really should have thought to ask my live-in girlfriend of several years whether or not she was a god damn reindeer. Like ya do.” He tapped his head and pulled a face. "Stupid mistake.”
“Randy,” Pran sighed.
“Oh,” Randy continued, speaking over her. “While we’re on the topic, I should probably ask if you’ve been, y’know - withholding anything else important from me. Just to be safe. Like, ah…” Randy, hand wrapped firmly around his glass of liquor, tapped a nail against the side as he hummed with feigned thought. “Oh. I got one. Is Pran Porochevsky even your real name?”
“Yes,” said Pran flatly. “Yes, that is my name, actually.”
Randy arched a brow. “Really? Are you sure? Is that your final answer?”
“Yes,” Pran groaned. “I swear. It’s… short for something else, but - I promise you, Pran is part of it.”
“Short?” Randy questioned. He narrowed his eyes. “Short for what? Pran-cine? Pran-don? Pran-cis?”
She fidgeted in her seat. “My name is…” She paused. Pran shut her eyes and inhaled, and exhaled as they opened again. With stoic resignation, she said, “Okay. My full name is Prancer.”
“Prancer?” It was a good thing Randy had put down the whiskey - otherwise, it would have been sprayed in a fine mist all over her face.
Prancer pinched the bridge of her paper white nose between forefinger and thumb, kept her eyes shut, and nodded. “I’m named after my aunt,” she mumbled.
“Prancer?”
“Can - can you please not,” Pran muttered, head down, eyes screwed shut, and a growing scowl on her face. “I’ve always hated my name. I’ve never liked it. I really, really don’t need you screeching it like you just learned a new swear word.”
“You told me it was Finnish!” Randy said. “That’s a lie.”
Pran sighed through her teeth. She did not, however, protest.
“Oh, and - let me guess. You’re not actually from Finland, either. Are you even an actuary? Or, have you, like, just been faking that, too, and living off god damn… Santa money since we moved in together?”
“Randy,” Pran huffed. “Please. Now you’re being ridiculous.”
“Ridiculous?! I’m the one who’s being ridiculous? You’ve been lying to me about what species you are for four years, and now I’m - I’m overreacting because I’m asking if everything else you’ve said has been a lie?”
Pran nodded. When her eyes opened, the irritation having melted away into a mix of consternation and concern. “Randy. Calm down. Just - please.”
Despite the changes to her face, Pran’s voice had remained unaltered, and hearing it - the pleading, the sincere and genuine concern in it - brought a temporary halt to the messy cascade of thoughts and emotional impulses raging in Randy’s head. It was enough for him to find the will-power to stifle the flood for a moment, and allow for a moment of tense silence to spread between the two.
Pran sighed, visibly relieved. “Randy,” she said, her words spoken slowly, deliberately. “Listen to me. You’ve seen my green card. It’s not fake. Am I from Finland?” She shrugged. “Technically, yes.”
“Technically?”
“The North Pole as you know it,” Pran said, adding scare quotes around the term North Pole. “Is in the northernmost territory of Finland. When I left, I was able to get Finnish citizenship. I lived and worked in Helsinki before I came to America, as I’ve always told you.”
“And how the Hell did you manage that?” Randy asked.
“Santa Claus… he has friends in high places. You don’t do what he does without making some connections.”
As much as Randy wanted Pran to elaborate further on Santa’s friends - and explain whether or not that meant Santa also had legal Finnish citizenship - he let her continue.
“And, yes, I am an actuary.” She smiled - just a bit. “We went to my company Christmas party last week,” she said with a small laugh. “Do you think I just… I don’t know. Faked that whole thing? Do you think that I’ve been… that I’ve been paying those people to pretend to be my co-workers for four years?”
Pran’s smile was infectious. In spite of everything, Randy felt his own lips twitching with the beginnings of one. “I mean… maybe?”
“Trust me,” Pran said with another small, weak laugh. “If I never had to see any of those people again… I’d be happy. If I was going to pay people to pretend to be my co-workers, I’d do better than Ryan.”
Both of them shared a mutual chuckle over the memory of Ryan making an ass of himself at the party, trying to hit on Pran while Randy stood right beside her. He had to give the guy credit for his audacity, but, as for his game… it needed work. Extensive work.
Pran took her own glass, her fingers clicking against the glass as she did. She looked at the contents and swirled them like she would a glass of wine. She took a quick sip. She didn’t have a taste for hard liquor, so it was about all she could stomach at once. “I didn’t lie about everything,” she said in a small voice. She found it in herself to meet Randy’s eyes. “I’m still me,” she said. “That didn’t change. And… I know…”
It was clear that she was having trouble keeping that eye-contact.
“I know that this… this is a lot to take in. And I know that this can’t be easy for you. It’s… not easy for me, either. And…” She took a deep breath as she mulled over her thoughts, giving them additional deliberation before articulating them. “And you have every right to be upset. You do. You’re right to be mad at me. I’m… I’m mad at myself. And, honestly, I have been for a long time because I never… I never had it in me to just tell you what I am. And I should have, because after four years together… and, ah… well, talk of marriage. You deserved to know before now. And you deserved to find out in a way that wasn’t… y’know.” She gestured to her face, shame darkening her expression. “This.”
Pran’s words trailed away. For a long, quiet moment, she looked at Randy. He looked back. He refrained from speaking any of the thoughts swirling around in his head, as he got the sense that Pran had more to say.
“I’m sorry, Randy. Truly.”
Randy waited for the but. It didn’t come. He got the sense that Pran, finally, had finished.
“Can you accept that?” Pran asked.
“Would you fault me if I didn’t?”
Pran thought about it for a moment. Then, she shook her head.
Randy gave it thought, too. “Tell you what.”
With a sigh, he pushed away from the table. He went and got the bottle of Stranahan’s. He held it up with a grin. “Give me another glass or two of this… and I think I’ll find it in me to start making amends.”
Pran tilted at an angle, as she often did when she asked a question. “Will that just be the liquor talking by that point?”
Randy looked at the bottle. He shrugged. “Well… you know what they say about drunken minds and sober hearts.”
“So, are you like… turning into a reindeer, or - or are you like… always a reindeer?”
Randy kept his eyes fixed on the ceiling. It was beginning to ripple and move in ways that ceilings shouldn’t, which was the most damning indication that he’d had too much to drink. Unfortunately, there was another can of Rainier that had yet to be finished still sitting on the coffee table, and he’d been raised by the simple credo of waste not, want not.
Whatever. It wasn’t as if he had work in the morning.
“I’m not -” Pran made an odd noise, something between a cough and a hiccup. “I’m not - I already said, I’m not, like - a reindeer reindeer.” She paused and groaned as she twisted herself into a more comfortable position on top of Randy’s body. “I’m not a mindless animal.”
“Could’ve fooled me.”
A light slap hit his chest.
“Hush.”
“So… I’m not gonna wake up tomorrow to find that I’m spooning with a full-grown reindeer?”
Pran arched a brow. “Would you like that?”
Randy gave it some thought. Reindeer weren’t exactly the cuddliest looking animal. He shrugged. “Probably not. But I’m always open to trying something new.
Pran reached for the glass of red wine on the table, sitting innocuously beside the beer, and took a sip. She let her head fall back against Randy's chest. He could feel the blunted end of one of her horns poking against him through his shirt. It didn't hurt, but it certainly was strange. No more so than the hard, calcified surface of her hoof-fingers around his own, or running through his hair, though. It wasn't anything more beer couldn't fix.
“Hate to disappoint,” Pran mumbled. “But what you see now is all you’re going to get…” She made a face and gingerly touched one of her horns. “The… the horns are still coming in. But, besides that…” She made a small, ambiguous noise. “I’m about done.”
“So… how do you pull a sleigh like that?”
“Christmas magic,” Pran said as her eyes fluttered shut.
Randy hummed in acknowledgement. “I got that much,” he said as he wrapped an arm around Pran’s back. “I mean, obviously… some dumbass magic bullshit is goin’ on, here.”
“Hey.” He felt another light slap of admonishment, this time against his cheek. “It’s Christmas magic. Get it…” Pran hiccuped. “Get it right.” He breath smelled like the same wine she’d been drinking, which Randy had sampled more than a mouthful of since they’d popped the bottle and decided that their problems could be best solved as most problems were - with copious amounts of alcohol.
“What’s the difference?” Randy asked.
He felt Pran’s fingers trace along his scalp as she reached up and teased his hair, and he pretended to be less weirded out by the sensation of their hard, carapace-like touch than he really was.
“Christmas magic is Christmas magic,” Pran mumbled into his ear. “It’s different than regular magic.”
“There’s different types of magic?”
Pran grunted in affirmation.
“What are they?”
Pran made an ambiguous noise as she turned again, readjusting her position. “Not now.”
“Tired?”
Pran’s eyes remained shut as she shook her head.
“You need to drink some water,” said Randy.
Pran made another sound, this time in defiance. Her arms wrapped around Randy's middle and pulled. “Later.”
“There isn't gonna be a later,” Randy said. “You're gonna fall asleep - you know you are - and you're gonna wake up hungover.”
Pran mumbled something - what it was, though, Randy couldn't tell. With the way she was laying, her horns were pointing towards his face. They were, thankfully, still blunted and not much more than a few inches in length a piece, a deep, almost black brown in color and covered in a fine coat of velvet fuzz. They sang a siren song to him. His fingers ached to touch them - just to see how they felt. He'd touched enough velvet in his life to approximate the sensation, but, at the same time… how many people could ever claim they got to touch their girlfriend's horns? How many people could even say that their girlfriend had horns at all?
Given the many revelations he had been subjected to over the course of the day, that number was probably more than he would guess, and he most likely wasn't as special as he thought he was, and, somewhere out there, there was probably a woman curled up in bed with a vampire partner, or a guy who was playing fetch with his werewolf girlfriend, but, still - he liked to think that he was part of some exclusive club, now. He had the opportunity to touch his girlfriend's horns, and, given that most of humanity would never have such a possibility presented to them, he felt as if he now bore a mighty responsibility to do so. For them. For the people. For science.
“Pran?”
Pran - face down against his sweater - groaned. The sound vibrated through his chest cavity.
“Can… Can I touch your horns?” He felt stupid for asking. It was, after all, a patently absurd question to ask, but he also didn't want to overstep his boundaries. With his luck, touching someone's horns would be some egregious faux pas that he'd never hear the end of were he to do it.
“Is that alright?” He asked. “Or, is that, like - a personal thing. Is that rude to ask? Is that even, like - what are the rules of etiquette, here?”
While he was blithering, Pran's hand lazily moved to his own. Her fingers wrapped around his wrist, and, with what little grace she could scrounge up in her inebriated state, guided his hand to her head without ever looking up. His answer came as she laid his hand on the right horn, stroked the back of it, and then let her arm go limp and fall back by her her.
“Oh,” Randy said.
It felt… well, it felt exactly like what Randy had expected it might feel like. Soft. Fuzzy. Fine, but hard underneath, like the texture of a flocked case for glasses his grandfather used to have.
It felt nice. He rubbed at the horn with his thumb.
“Can you feel that?”
Pran nodded.
“Does… does that feel good?”
Pran nodded again.
So, Randy kept doing it. He massaged the fine velvet between his forefinger and thumb, dully aware of Pran’s breathing mellowing and slowing into the long, easy, and relaxed rhythm of someone deep asleep. He thought that he, too, would do well to get up and drink some water. Take a shower. Change into something more comfortable. But, that would require moving Pran, and, given the fact that she was already snoring, he knew that it would be a little more trouble than it was worth. He’d just let her rest, for now. Only for a bit.
He chuckled to himself.
“Y’know,” he mumbled, hoping that, some way, some how, Pran might hear him as she slept. “This… this is kinda nice.”
That was the last thing Randy remembered before his eyes snapped open to find the living room awash with the gray light of morning. Through a gap in the blinds, he could see the Great Seattle Blizzard was continuing at pace, with fat, puffy snowflake battering the window. He noticed, too, that he was alone on the couch, still dressed in the stupid Star Wars sweater he’d passed out in, and an open, unfinished can of Rainier still on the coffee table, right beside the phone that was currently buzzing and humming and rattling against the wood with an incoming call.
Despite the shrill, unwelcome sound of the buzzing phone, the absence of Pran was his first concern. His mind raced with various possibilities, each depicting various degrees of horror. Maybe she’d just gotten up at some point and gone to their bedroom. Maybe she’d intended to do that, but, in a drunken stupor, tripped over her own feet and smashed her head on the countertop, and was currently laying dead in a puddle of her own blood on the bathroom floor. Maybe, like, him finding out that she was a reindeer - it had broken some sort of sacred Christmas code, and she had to abscond in the middle of the night, never to be seen again. It seemed unlikely, even in his frazzled, hazy, and discombobulated state, but - well, it made as much sense as having a girlfriend who was actually a magical Christmas reindeer. Like a frightened prairie dog, Randy pushed himself off the couch and up to full attention, spurred by a sudden burst of adrenaline conjured by the various morbid mental images of Pran injured, dying, or dead, only to see the blanket that had been shoved between himself and back of the couch while he’d laid their with Pran was now on the floor, and spread out over a curiously Pran-shaped lump that was topped with a bedraggled mess of blonde hair and two modest but respectable horns.
Given that the mound was rising and falling, even stirring with annoyance at the sound of the ringing phone, he figured that it was a safe bet that Pran was still alive and not dead on the bathroom floor. Confident in that assumption, Randy snatched up the phone, both angry and puzzled at why his drunken slumber was being disturbed so early in the morning, and by who.
He snatched up the phone and blinked away the sting in his eyes from the sudden blast of light. He noticed three things as his vision returned; for one, it wasn’t early - it was a little after ten thirty in the morning, which was early for some people, but not for Randy, and certainly not for Pran. For another, while his phone background was a photo of himself and Pran, it wasn’t this one. His lock screen’s wallpaper was of himself and Pran at a Seattle Seahawks game. The image he was staring at was of he and Pran at a winery in Central Washington, arms locked and trying not to laugh and spit wine on one another as they poured the contents of their glasses in the other’s mouth.
Pran had all of her phone contacts organized neatly, in exactly the same way. Even he was still saved as RANDY KRAY, followed by a heart emoji, which had replaced the dubious honor of being titled with the simple label of BOYFRIEND, which it had been when they first agreed to go steady. If it wasn’t a number she didn’t recognize, she didn’t answer it, and woe be to the poor soul trying to contact her if they didn’t find some other method of communication or identifying themselves. It was for that reason that Randy stared at the phone is disbelief, knowing exactly who was calling when he saw the name, emblazoned in bold, white letters, Rudolf Porochevksy, and, in parenthesis, DAD.
Part V
Not a sponsor.
Merry Christmas, and thank you for the great story, I’m so excited to see where it goes next. Some of this is so spot on to a couple spat that I can’t stop laughing.
Prancer? You dont even know ‘er