I didn't write anything for the twin's birthday soooooo I thought I better write something for Crizstlemas 🎄

Just got arming fluff for the cold 🥺

Enjoy folks

Christmas morning was bitterly cold. Ice frosted the window panes and blurred the view, small piles of snow gradually building up in the lower corners in a lazy curve. The central heating had turned on an hour ago and the house was gently steaming on the inside, the steady tick of the boiler working to keep the house at a comforting temperature against the wrath of Mother Nature outside.

The master bedroom was silent if not for the drag of silk sheets and a creaky mattress, the thrum of the electric blanket a careful heartbeat in the background. They were a light grey colour to match the pillows, slightly ruffled and crimped with the movement of the night.

Arching his arms above his head, Cross stretched out with a yawn. His bleary eyes flickered open and dragged across his bedroom slowly, resting on his wardrobe, his messy desk piled full of overdue library books, his mirror. It sat squatly opposite the bed, reflecting back at him his tired and pale face. He looked as if he'd only got two hours sleep, when in reality he knew he'd had at least five hours. Not the greatest, but it was the sleep schedule he usually pulled off.

Rubbing at his eye sockets Cross dropped his eye mask onto his bedside table with a hum, glancing briefly at his alarm clock with the bright displayed numbers 8:37 AM. A wiry smirk formed against his lips and he breathed out sharply, taking in the sight of the falling snow outside his window. It was Christmas Day.

He sat up quickly and laughed, crawling to the edge of his bed to peer down over the edge of his bed to look at the hulking creature that lay slumped and curled up on his (thankfully inky black) rug that lay across his wooden floor. "Nightmare- wake up-"

The figure groaned lowly and began to unfurl, limbs being apparent as they scraped across the already scratched oak flooring. Once the tentacles came apparent Cross reached out, letting one curl around his wrist for stability as the alien groggily sat up in confusion. Normally he'd let Nightmare sleep in until 11, but today was different. It was Christmas after all.

"What..?" He grumbled as he picked at his skull with a pointed finger, not looking too pleased with being woken up so early.

"It's Christmas, Nightmare, c'mon, I even got you stuff." He stood up and skirted around the bed to stand in front of him, hands sinking under the creature's armpits and hoisting him up into his arms.

"Sleeeep." He whined, groggily flinging his arms and tentacles around Cross and sticking to his body like fabric glue. Nightmare was admittedly rather heavy, as far as an almost seven-ft extraterrestrial goes. But without carrying him there was no possible way that Cross would manage to coax the alien down the stairs.

You see, he still hated them with every fibre of his being - even more so than twirly pasta - and upright refused to go up or down them. But then if Cross went upstairs even for a minute without him Nightmare would wail and scream at the bottom of the stairs and scratch the carpet to oblivion until Cross came back. An issue that wasn't very helpful considering his bedroom was upstairs. So a solution had to be made: carry Nightmare upstairs and let him sleep in his bedroom (but NEVER in the bed).

"You can sleep tonight." He rolled his eyes and straightened his back with a little struggle, tucking a trailing tentacle away so he wouldn't trip on it while halfway down the stairs.

Nightmare hissed lazily and shoved his face into Cross' shoulder so he wouldn't have to watch the descent down those awful sharp edged wooden contraptions. His tentacles flicked lazily and rubbed against the odd skeleton, pushing against the jutting bones and concave dips. He'd seen creatures like him before - they weren't too far apart themselves actually, though this odd skeleton's body was appallingly weak. He had no claws to help grip when climbing fissures or slice open the neck of his pray. His limbs were long and gangly, so fragile to the touch that he was sure a simple fall of 20 ft would fracture them. He couldn't melt, completely solid. What if he bumped into something or was attacked? The creatures on this world were worryingly fragile.

His skull was thin and shockingly hollow, sounding like a Mareana Drooper when you tapped it for its sweet blood. And his spine was completely straight, not twisted like his own. How was he meant to bend over backwards or twist at 180 degrees to look out for both predator and pray. And they lived in awful boxes made of scratchy stones, nothing like he'd ever seen before. The boxes were far too warm and stogy, yet he seemed to be forbidden from going outside. Weirdest of all, the skeleton lived alone. He had no colony to move with, no pile or cave to sleep in at night - it was all so unexplainable. This planet was bizarre.

"Neearly thereee." Cross cooed, scratching the back of Nightmare's skull clumsily as he descended the last few steps, slippered feet pressing against solid and flat floor. "You can get down now."

Grumbling in a mess of clicks and growls Nightmare dribbled off of his body, leaving a lovely sticky patch on Cross' black sweater. (He'd given up buying white or grey clothes now). Stretching up he stood beside his skeleton, casting a rather distasteful glance at the stairs before ambling into the living room by his command.

As soon as he stepped through the doorway he stopped, body sinking to the floor like a cat that had spotted a bird. Hundreds of multicoloured lights glowed brightly on the shaggy looking bush in the corner of the room, all of them flickering and fading. It was entrancing.

Cross snickered as he watched Nightmare's pupil shine, stepping around him and patting his shoulder. "It's Christmas, Night." The alien wasn't very good with nicknames, but he liked to come up with a few anyway. "I'm almost certain you wouldn't have a sort of celebration like this in your world, but uh, it's kind of big over here."

The alien looked at him quizzically as he sat down, patting the spot next to him. "It's like, the biggest holiday we have."

The living room had been decorated as safely as humanly possible. Tinsel was discovered to be a no as Nightmare had swallowed it on sight and spent the next five hours hacking it all back up in disgusting slimy hairballs. So all that had gone up in the attic, leaving Christmas Card bunting and decorations that looked odd enough to be unappetising. The Christmas tree had lights of course along with many red and silver baubles - Cross had also had to wrestle one off of the creature before it was crunched in his mouth.

He'd never really put eccentric efforts into Christmas, but decorating was always fun to do. It just made everything look nice. Cross was far from believing in Santa, but he had a small collection of presents under the tree from friends and work colleagues - one being a battered once square shaped present that had looked as if it had been through a war. His friend Epic had admitted upon gifting that he'd accidentally sat on it.

Ambling over slowly Nightmare slumped by his side, resting his chin on Cross' lap and grumbling softly to himself as he watched the smaller drag out a present from under the tree. Humming softly, he passed it to him. "This one is for you."

Perking up the alien took it in his claws, the tips already puncturing through the paper. "What?"

"You unwrap it - look." Cross sat back and chuckled, picking up his battered present from Epic and showing him as he slowly peeled away the wrapping to reveal the present inside. "Like that."

Sitting back he arched a brow before meticulously beginning to tear the wrapping paper, one thin strip at a time. He was surprisingly gentle, having not yet shaken, thrown, dropped or eaten the present yet.

While he was busy the monochrome looked down at his own present, pulling away the crumpled paper to reveal a shoe box. He flexed his fingers before pulling it open and peering in at the monstrosity they lay beneath. He grinned. True to tradition, they'd both gotten each other the ugliest sweaters they could possibly find. He had a special draw where he kept them over the years, a draw that was only ever opened or worn when he had to meet up with his best friend. From then on it would lay untouched, neglected. Admittedly he'd already lost one to Nightmare, using it as a decoy for the alien to rip apart while he rushed out to the shops.

It was a hideous shade of neon orange with drips of brown running down it like someone with a rather worrying toilet issue. A fat Christmas tree sat in the middle, a cartoon face sewn on with an expression similar to what Cross would imagine Tom would make after being beaten up by Jerry. Real light up lights decorated the tree too and with a little fiddling he found the switch that lit it all up, bright red and green colours blinding him. And worst of all, the sweater began to sing. It was a godawful version of jingle bells, covered by the Chipmunks and Chipettes or nightcore. He almost immediately dropped the sweater, feeling sick. Maybe this was the year that Epic would win the ugly sweater gifting competition - he'd never seen such an awful, AWFUL sweater, it was honestly disgusting.

Nightmare glanced over and paused his unwrapping to stare at the ugly sweater, slowly reaching out a claw to flick the lights curiously. It snagged on a thread and Cross cursed, pushing him away with a waving hand. "No- no- you can't rip it to shreds until tomorrow- I have to let Epic see me in it first." As much as he'd like Nightmare to tear it to pieces and shove it under a hole to be buried forever.

"Whatever." He muttered, turning his attention back to his own present once again and staring down at it, wrapping now discarded. Cross had decided it was best to get the alien an edible gift (seeing as he'd eat it either way) and had simply packaged a can of Nightmare's favourite Walmart brand of Baked Beans. Grinning widely the alien popped the can, throwing his head back and unhinging his jaw to let the cold beans fall in a compressed lump down onto his mouth, soon to slide down his throat. Licking his lips, he grinned. "I like Crozmas."

"Christmas." He corrected, taking the next present.

"Christmas.." Nightmare followed his hands as they grasped another present but soon found that rather boring, now moving on to stare in fascination at the Christmas lights. They were so bright.. pretty.

"They're not edible." Cross warned, smirking lazily in amusement as he watched the creature crawl over before rolling on his back to perhaps get a different angle as he watched them glow. A claw reached up gently to poke them, not accounting for the fake pine needles that sprinkled down and made him sneeze in outrage.

Cross had got a fake tree this year for the reason that nightmare seemed allergic to pine needles. They absorbed into his body like needles and left him screeching until every single little prick had been pulled free from his body - a process that took hours and hours. The hassle really wasn't worth it, especially as Nightmare would still touch the pines anyway.

He didn't seem bothered, gently tapping at the lights and watching them fade. His favourite colours seemed to be the purple and blues, his head tipping to the side for a better angle every time they appeared.

Shaking his head and snickering Cross reached out for his next present, pulling free a small boxy looking shape. A small tag was attached to it which read "To Cross, Merry Christmas. Now you can stop stealing my favourite coffee mug - Bob"

Grinning widely cross tore it open, already knowing what would be inside. The box was popped apart to reveal a large white mug with red printed words scrawled across the sides in a sharp font that read "The worlds WORST coworker". He knew instantly he'd use it every day from then on. You see, he forever stole Bob (his coworker)'s mug because it was large, much larger than your average mug - perfect for copious amounts of coffee. Bob had clearly had enough of him stealing it, bless.

Opening another gift from his mum he found a nice pair of black gloves and a new hat, while his brother had got him the exact same black and white scarf he got him every single year. And in return he send Chara the exact same white poncho every year. Their mother never seemed to understand the odd tradition, but it was endearing for both of them. Flinging it around his neck he purred lowly, enjoying the feeling of the fluffy inner lining that tickled his jawbone softly. He loved to dress up in so many layers that it was difficult to distinguish his true shape. There was something so cozy about it.

Scratching away under the tree Nightmare dragged out another present that was thankfully labelled to him. He sniffed at it curiously before tearing away the packaging quickly, claws splitting the paper as if it were made from wet tissue. Upon something tumbling out he dropped the paper and perked up, staring curiously at the object in his lap.

It was a mini lava lamp.

"...What?" He blinked rapidly, pushing the object next to Cross in confusion. "What is it-?"

"I'll show you." He took it from his hands and grabbed the wire trailing from it to plug into the socket next to his faux fireplace. "You let it warm up a bit, and then it'll work."

The alien seemed sceptical, circling the lamp that sat stoutly in the centre of the lining room as if it were a wounded mouse and he were a cat.

It took a good 20 minutes before the real magic started to take effect as the blue lamp's bubbles slowly started to split and push up to the top of the lamp slowly before falling back down. Nightmare stared in surprise, his pupil widening to double the normal size as he stared at the lamp in curiosity and fascination. He had never seen such a thing before. Ever.

Cross watched with a smirk as Nightmare slunk towards it, stretching out and rolling onto his side to look at it differently in awe. He dared not touch it, simply staring as his tentacles thumped against the floor like a dog wagging its tail.

The monochrome got to his feet and stepped towards the kitchen slowly as not to disturb him. Though it looked as if a bomb could go off in the garden and Nightmare wouldn't blink - not even a magpie would distract the alien now that he had his lava lamp. Cross was sure he could even go upstairs and the taller wouldn't complain. Perhaps he'd finally found Nightmare's true 'weakness'.

Even after the hour it took for him to prep the food, Nightmare hadn't moved much, the only difference being that he was now hunkered down on his belly to watch it, tentacles carefully caressing the lamp as if it were a child.

"Do you like it?" Cross called, leaning against the door and arching a brow.

"Yeah.." He mumbled back, not sparing him a single glance. He was irrelevant to him, a midget in the air trying to distract him from the only thing in the world that currently mattered to him. This lamp.

"Good." He turned back to the kitchen and started to cook the potatoes, humming. That alien was making his life a lot more interesting. And he didn't plan on letting the government take him back.

As he often thought, they could give it their best shot.

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MERRY CHRISTMAS TEHEHEHEHEISKSHZSKSJSJSISKSJSKSNSJSISKSK

and if you don't celebrate Christmas then hi ily ur valid 😔

Anyways I hope ya'll had a good day regardless and you enjoyed alien nightmare being goofy

He's a lava lamp loving boi 🥺

Scared of stairs still bless

Anyways, byeueeueueueyeyeyeye

-Jess-