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Twas the night before Christmas and all in the lands-

- were people who didn't give a ******** about the holidays apparently, except for the first floor of the dorms which was fairly decorated, and then the basement floor that nobody really liked to talk about. While the logistics anywhere else would probably have been that perhaps most of the higher ups on Deus were Jewish, and this would have been a reasonable guess, if anyone actually gave a ******** about that either.

The good news was that it was snowing on Deus. Somehow, in all it's pure Joy-filled miracle, there was snow everywhere, without the actual Joy. There was fluffy white goodness on every inch of pavement and grass, and the training fields were littered with a small modest collection of snowmen that had seen better days.

All in all, it was a lovely, snowing day. Was there really not a better day to just stand outside and enjoy it all?

"GALE," someone yelled practically into Jake's ear, giving him exactly two seconds of warning before he was bowled over by Lucky, directly into a particularly large snowdrift. A shower of miscellaneous paper lightly settled onto the two of them like snow.

"GALE GET BACK HERE RIGHT NOW!"

A snowball careened through the air towards Lucky, possibly veering off course in an entirely different direction. For a semi-expert marksman, Gale wasn't exactly the best at throwing things, unless it was at Mark's head.

"NO!" came the Very Mature response, Gale darting around the snowdrift in an attempt to get away.

Peyton, admiring the sheet of half disturbed snow covering the training frills, startled at the sudden loud and unexpected shout not too terribly far away from her. She'd jumped, pivoting on her heels as tiny fists jerked up at the ready, then all tension left in a rush as she realized what had happened.

Hands lowering, she stared across the field at Lucky and Jake as a flutter of paper settled around them.

Her breath left in huffing rush, features turned stoney, and she headed over to lend a hand with gathering everything back up. And to make sure Lucky hadn't broken Jake. "You two okay?"

Oh look, Gale was there too.

-----

Somewhere off to the side, sitting on a bench, smoke rising in lazy wisps from the cigarette dangling from his lips, Zeke was busy ignoring the commotion.

The butt was not moving, and steadily increasing in butt flesh tone per cubic centimeter as what were probably pants continued to droop lower and lower.

A slow look of horror dawned on Jake as he realized what part of flesh he was touching and... slowly, VERY slowly he turned his head.
To be greeted with an a** that WOULD have been familiar if he had seen the face attached to it.
He totally did not just accidentally grope some dude's a**.

There was muffled laughter in his head.
THIS ISN'T FUNNY CHESTER I DIDN'T ******** ASK FOR ANY OF THIS.
Out of rage or pity (WHO KNEW) he grabbed said a** (with pants god forbid) and YANKED AS HARD AS HE COULD.

The laughter in his head was almost deafening.
What the hell was he looking at.
WHY THE HELL WAS HE STILL LOOKING.

Jake looked down at the pair of pants in his hands, threw them into the snow, and walked away.

If the sight of her was any indication, Caroline seemed to have made it a personal mission to embody the spirit of Christmas. Bundled up in a properly festive sweater and scarf, mistletoe pinned up in her hair (for emergencies), she hopped through the freshly fallen snow with what was probably too much enthusiasm for someone her age. For a short while, she didn't notice anyone else was present anywhere nearby; eventually, the sound of voices was carried towards her, drawing her attention in the direction of the noise.

"Hey," she called, waving her arm in greeting as she made her way over. "You guys having a snowball fight? Snow angels? I want in!"