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ipoddymouth · 6 years

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Miracle On Whatever Street My Mom Lives On (An ‘Et Al.’ Holiday Drabble)

“Is Santa real?”

That was it. That was the question that fucked me over. There were so many things Moose asked me that I answered without even batting an eye (what’s sex? Handled. How much is crack? I gotchu, sis!), but that was the one question that I legitimately didn’t know how to answer.

It wasn’t like I could call up Flimsy and ask her if she’d had this conversation with her kid yet. Homegirl was literally dead. Her sticker-covered urn was in my living room, and I didn’t own an Ouija board. Her only offspring/living relative I knew about, Moose, was smart and I often couldn’t tell if she was just testing me or not. It’s degrading when a five year old makes you feel like an idiot and I often tried to avoid it. But this time she was looking at me so innocently that I genuinely did not know if this was a trap.

What was I supposed to say?

My mom swore - even to this day - that Santa was real. My mom also smoked anything that could burn for a large part of my childhood and I was a bit more of a realist than she was, so I’d never fully been convinced. I think that she’d wanted for there to be some sort of stability in my nomadic upbringing and there’s nothing more constant than an old, fat, white man always knowing where you are.

Santa was supposed to be fun though, right? And Moose had had a shitty year. Like, she’d lost her mom and was now living with someone not even related to her. She deserved to have a good time; there was no reason for me to swoop in and crush her childlike wonder.

“Yes, Moose, there is a Santa Claus.”

Once the words left my mouth, I knew that I was fucked. I was now officially #n2deep and there was no backing out.

Moose immediately jumped in for the contradiction. I should have kept my big-ass mouth shut. “I know that Mall Santa isn’t real because there’s Santas at every mall ‘n I’m smart enough to know that you can’t be in multiple places at once.”

Honestly, wouldn’t it really have killed Flimsy if she’d given birth to a dumb child?

And did I really need to have phrased it like that?

“Those are fake Santas, you’re correct. The real one’s at the North Pole getting stuff ready for Christmas.” The lie wasn’t effortless, but there wasn’t much hesitation. It should’ve been enough to hold her over until something else captured her attention. Really, the only thing that prevented me from routinely fucking up everything I said was how Moose would move on before the words would even leave my mouth.

But, for some reason, she wasn’t willing to drop the Santa thing. I swear, the kid had never given a flying fuck about Santa her entire life, and now she was apparently gearing up to write a fucking tell-all.

“Can I meet him?”

Moose had essentially just asked me to square the fuck up.

“Yeah. But not right now. He’s super busy this time of year,” I replied quickly. Game, set, match, little twerp!

“When will he not be busy?” Damn, bitch was straight-up about to interrogate me.

“Um… the summer, probably. Less busy then. Better hours,” I nodded at her. It’s fun knowing you’re going to go to hell solely because of the lies you’ve told a semi-innocent demon-child.

Moose’s mouth fell into the perfect frown. Like, a literal upside-down U. Her eyes got super wide, like a bush baby on speed. And they got all watery too. Moose didn’t cry… ever, so I wasn’t sure why the Santa thing was fucking with her so bad. Of course, there was the chance she was doing this on purpose and was totally fucking with me. The kid was crafty: she’d been in the principal’s office multiple times for all of the fast ones she’d pulled on the lil dummies she went to school with.

“It’s not that deep, dude. He keeps a low profile. Do you wanna get donuts?” I tried to steer the conversation back towards safer grounds.

Her frown immediately switched back into a smile. “Yes!”

Victory!

“But all I want for Christmas is to meet the reaaaalll Santa,” she drawled out, staring me dead in the eye. Terrified shivers slithered down my spine. “That’s alllll I want.”

Well, fuck.

I called an emergency meeting at Harry’s house. The emergency meeting could’ve been held at my house, but Harry’s house has more food and better central heating. So even though it was pretty out of the way for all of the people at said emergency meeting to meet there instead of my place, at least the payoff in their end was much better.

“Why are you always here?” Harry asked me as I shoved a holiday cookie in my mouth.

“Your mom sent you cookies,” I told him through the cookie that I was demolishing.

“Why are you opening my mail?”

“Um, we’re related, so that’s technically okay now.” I mean, it was. “Do you think that she’d send me some if you asked her? Like, I’m not her daughter, but I’m still kind of like her daughter.”

Harry couldn’t complain anymore because that was the moment that the rest of the guys and Ella showed up. Ella was the only one of them that Harry was happy to see, which was a bit rude, but I also couldn’t complain anymore because I was about to draft all of them to help me out with my problem.

“Am I missing something?” Harry looked at me. Okay, so maybe he was going to complain some more. Whatever; I’m fine with that.

“It’s about Moose,” I said, waving the guys over so that they too could enjoy the cookies that Harry’s mom had made. Sharing (other people’s food) is caring.

The mention of Moose’s name made everyone stop and pay attention to me. I mean, no one gave a fuck about me or my issues, but they all cared greatly for Moose. I understood that; even though the little grub was generally annoying as hell, she’d remained relatively untainted by the horrors of aging.

Once I finished basking in how I was the sole center of attention, I finally told them why we’d all gathered together. “She’s never had a Christmas without her mom. Or, at least, I’m assuming that she’s never had one without Flimsy. And now Flimsy is dead, so she’s definitely not having another Christmas with her. So we need to go balls to the fucking wall to make sure that this is the best damn Christmas that Moose has ever had.”

“What did you do?” Harry glared. It was kind of rude for him to automatically assume I’d fucked something up, but if I were Harry then I’d totally automatically assume I’d fucked something up. Because, like, I had fucked something up. I had to pull a real-life Santa Claus out of my own ass.

“I just want to give Moose the best Christmas possible,” I blinked innocently.

No one bought it.

Like, at all.

Like, they were literally folding their arms over their chests and staring me down.

Which, like, yes, I was being fake as hell. But my doe-eyed approach typically had a high success rate. I wasn’t sure why it wasn’t working on the people who knew me best. It wasn’t like I ever used that face on them.

“And there’s one more thing,” I added on quickly. Now that my jig was essentially up, I went back to my normal face before I broke the bad news. “I told Moose that Santa’s real and that means we need to prove to her that Santa is real.”

Everyone went quiet.

“She’s… she’s too smart to believe a fake Santa costume,” Niall said slowly.

“Moose is the girl who would tell the other kids on the playground why Santa is illogical,” Ella chimed in. Like, thanks, girl, for showing me how hard this was going to be. “In fact, I’m pretty sure that Moose told one of my brothers that Santa wasn’t real.”

“Why do you have so many brothers?” Niall asked.

“How many brothers do you have?” That was Louis.

“Too many. Back to the Santa issue!” I clapped my hands together before Harry could ask Ella if he could meet her hoard of siblings. I wasn’t sure where their relationship stood at that point, and even though I wanted to somehow know both everything and nothing at the same time, it wasn’t the time. “What are we going to do?”

“Tell her the truth?” Harry Styles, Santa Slayer deadpanned.

“Damn, you’re really no fun, are you?”

“I’m sorry, did no one ever introduce reality to you?” Harry sneered.

“How many lumps of coal did you have to get before you could turn it into that charcoal toothpaste you have in your bathroom?” I shot back. For the second time that day, game, set, and fucking match.

“Verity’s mom convinced me that Santa’s real,” Niall interrupted with complete and utter seriousness.

My mom loved telling people Santa was real, and it was one of the most embarrassing things about her. Like, more embarrassing than how she had me before she was legally able to drive, and also more embarrassing than how she chose to procreate with the unsalted baked potato that was Des. I never talked about the Santa thing with anyone because there was no cool, kitschy way to make it not seem totally fucking weird. It was supposed to follow my family to the grave, where it could then potentially be murdered for a second time, just to ensure it’d never have to be brought up in the future.

Damn it, Veronica. Couldn’t you just stay in your place, wherever that was?

I immediately jumped in to do damage control, but there’s only so much you can do when you know your mom’s already given the full spiel to your incredibly naive best friend. “When did the two of you ever talk about Santa in the first place?” When was Niall hanging around my mom when I wasn’t there? I mean, I knew that it’d happened before, but what the fuck? Normally he told me every single detail because he enjoyed comparing me to my mother, which was another annoyance of mine.

“Veronica and I go way back, Verity,” Niall replied like that meant anything to me.

“We go way back too! She’s my mom!”

“I argue with Verity enough on my own; I don’t need to hear the two of you fight either,” Harry interrupted us, probably because he was feeling left out and he can only survive for mere minutes when all of the attention isn’t on him. “Can you get back to the purpose of this meeting? I have things to do.”

Harry didn’t have anything to do, and if he did then it was something lame that he was better off missing than attending. The dude is really not interesting.

“Help me show Moose that Santa’s real,” I insisted. “Please. All of you. That’s all I ask.”

“You want us to trick the trickster?” Louis asked. “Sounds pretty fucking impossible.”

“A Christmas miracle,” I leveraged.

“Miracles and Santa,” Harry snorted. Seriously, who hurt him? Was he really naturally that awful? “Must be nice having your head so far up in the clouds.”

“Chill out, Krampus,” I rolled my eyes at him. “So, are we in or are we in? I’m only acting like I’m giving you options here; I’ve built an entire lifestyle out of forcing people into doing what I want them to, so there’s really no out as long as I know where you all live.”

“Make your existence sound less illegal,” Ella scolded me. Hm, maybe her and Harry had more in common than I thought.

“I will help you,” Niall, the man of the hour/someone who contractually had to agree to all of my plans (it’s what happens when both of you are reckless; you always have to go along with the other person), insisted. “But do you have a plan?”

Psh.

Hell no, I didn’t have a plan.

“I’m working on it,” I told the room. “And it’s definitely going to work.”

Liam hadn’t been at the emergency meeting because he had to work or whatever. I couldn’t penalize him for having an actual, non-boring job, but it sucked having to recap the entire afternoon to him. I mean, yeah, it only took a few seconds, but those seconds could’ve been spent doing other things, like wallowing in self-pity.

Moose had been propped in front of the television with a giant stash of dinosaur nuggets and a vault of apple juice, watching some annoying animated shit that I would never agree to watch with her. She was in her ~zone~, so I knew she wouldn’t do anything too terrible for a couple hours. I was counting on her to be chill long enough for me to formulate an actual plan, since no one from that afternoon had contributed anything even remotely useful. Honestly, what’s the point of having friends if they can’t solve all of your problems for you?

While Moose was having the time of her kindergarten life, Liam and I were holed up in my room like we were in one of those emergency bunkers that doomsday preppers build. We weren’t coming up for air until I had Santa on lock.

“Why are we hiding from Moose?” Unfortunately, the guy I was banging wasn’t entirely caught up with the crisis mode lifestyle adjustments.

Liam knew I wasn’t about to fuck him because of my strict no-penetration-while-the-child-was-in-the-apartment rule, but I typically didn’t sequester her alone in a room.

“Did you not read the messages?” I asked him. Like, there was literally a fucking group chat made specifically for this event.

“There were 47 of them and the last eight of them are between Ella and Niall talking about the best kinds of frosting to use on Christmas Tree cookies. I figured it wasn’t important,” he shrugged. “Why? Is something wrong with Moose? Does she have the chicken pox or something?”

“Worse,” I shook my head sadly.

Liam looked at me blankly. “You aren’t about to make me guess, are you?”

“No,” I told him and he let out a sigh of relief. “But it really is awful. The only thing Moose wants for Christmas is to meet Santa. The real Santa. None of that mall shit.”

It took Liam a few moments to realize I was being serious. I mean, I was also being dramatic, and he knew that, but there were overall serious tones in the room. Once he figured it out, he spent a few more seconds trying to figure out what he wanted to say.

“This… this doesn’t have to be hard, Ver. There are probably hundreds of Santas you can rent out this time of year. Just hire one of those,” Liam came through quick with the rational response I could’ve used hours ago. “Feed them some facts about her ahead of time so she seems surprised. Parents do this all the time.”

“But it’s Moose,” I stressed, gliding over the fact that I was technically a ‘parent’ in this situation. Like, where had the fucking time gone? “She’ll tear all of those imposters apart. I need the most genuine Santa I can find.”

Liam sighed, falling back on my bed. I’m glad he was calm enough to sleep at a time like this. “Can’t you just ask your mom? This seems like something she’d know how to solve.”

“I’m trying to not ask her for things. You don’t understand how weird she gets about Santa; I’d rather not have to fight with her about this again.” I may have shuddered at the thought, but deep down I knew I would have to consult The Expert sooner rather than later.

Liam pulled me down so that I was resting on top of him. If I wasn’t about to have the stress-induced anxiety attack of a lifetime, I totally would’ve made out with him. But my libido had been shot. “I know you don’t want to talk to her, Ver, but seriously? Who else is better equipped to handle this shit than her?”

“A psychiatrist? Google?” I tried.

“Stop being so difficult, dude, and just ask her.”

It was my turn to let out a deep sigh. “Ugh. I wish she had chicken pox instead of this shit.”

Veronica Clare was my mother, not my sworn enemy. Her and I were super close; probably a lot closer than we should be. But that didn’t mean that I wanted her help with this. I wanted to do everything on my own.

Unfortunately, I knew how much this meant to Moose, and I also knew how often I messed things up.

I had to concede.

Finding my mom was easy because a) she’s my mom and b) she typically had a phone on her ever since she married Clive the Guacamole Guy (he made good guac; his actual job title had nothing to do with food) and became a regular member of society. Clive made enough money for Veronica to keep with her normal busker lifestyle, so while he was doing his shit as an art dealer, my mom… made art?

Anyway, I kicked into her studio like the hellforce that I was, ready sign my soul away in order to help a potentially troubled youth. Like, let’s not pretend like Moose wasn’t going to go through some #phases. I mean, with me as her legal guardian? I went through a phase an hour and both of my parents were still living.

“I need your help,” I announced. No need to beat around the bush!

My mom wiped her paint-colored hands off with a towel as she practically floated her way over to me. Bitch was ethereal, I’d give here that. “With what, petal?”

“I need for Santa to meet Moose.” Wow, it just finds a way to sound even dumber each time I said it out loud.

My mother, to her credit, didn’t flinch. Like, at all. She was almost too calm, if you know what I mean. In fairness, she’d probably been waiting for this day since I was a child. The only man I’d ever even kind of wanted to meet was my biological father (imagine my disappointment when I found it was just Des’ old baldin’ ass), so Santa never held any appeal to me. He, much like my father for all those years, was just another mythological being. Like, at least my dad paid taxes.

“I’ve been waiting for this day!” my mom cried out with outstretched arms. See? I told you. The bitch loved Santa.

“Please sound a little less excited,” I replied with a slight frown. I knew what was coming next. Things were going to take a turn for the worse.

“Well, I happen to know Santa!” she exclaimed in a concerningly non-joking manner.

Ah, yes, the worse was here.

“You’re kidding me, right?” I narrowed my eyes at her.

“Oh, petal, quit being such a non-believer! Who do you think gave you all those Christmas presents when you were young? We were poor; you know I couldn’t get you all of them.”

“They came from homeless shelters and charities. I was one of those kids who’s name was on a little tag on a tree. People would pick it off and buy me presents and then drop them off and there we go.” Just because I wasn’t the smartest person on the planet, it didn’t mean I didn’t know how being both poor and a child worked.

Veronica gave me soft smile, reaching out and playing with the ends of my hair. “Oh, petal, no. That never happened.”

“It did, though.”

“Okay, it happened, but that’s not where all of the gifts came from. Some came from Santa, I swear.”

I could’ve argued to have my mother institutionalized, but I didn’t know if that would actually help anything. Like, was there any point in me trying to convince her otherwise? Clive probably knew about her weird Santa thing and he married her anyway, so I guess this wasn’t a controversial issue for everyone. To me, it was plain-fucking weird, but maybe this was the universe’s way of presenting me with a solution to my problem.

“Well, can you get Santa to meet Moose? It’s urgent.”

Not a second passed.

“Sure, Petal. I can see if he can swing by my holiday party this weekend. You and your friends are coming, right? Santa will only be able to stay for a couple minutes and he probably won’t be able to bring any of the elaborate gifts because it’s so close to Christmas and all, but he’ll probably have activity books. Moose still likes those, right?” She said in one breath as she fluttered around her studio.

I stared at her, my mouth slightly open. Like, I didn’t think she was going to commit this hard. The things Clare women will do for a bit, I guess.

“I, uh, yeah, sure. We’ll all be there.” Was I supposed to thank her? I think I was supposed to thank her. I mean, in the odd chance she actually had a convincing Santa come through and not ruin Christmas for an innocent child.

A weird thing had happened where even though I knew Moose wasn’t my child and I had no reason to, like, care all that much about how she acted-slash-looked, ever since she’d been shacking up in my apartment, I felt like I had to make sure she was on her best behavior and looked at least kind of okay. Not, like, great or anything, since I’m literally a blood relative of Harry Styles: World’s Worst Dresser, but good enough for someone to not call CPS every time the kid walked into a room.

I didn’t want to enforce gender roles on her and shove her in a dress, but the only decent thing she had was a dress, so I wrestled her into one before brushing her hair and making sure there wasn’t dirt in her teeth or whatever gross things kids acquire.

I looked… okay…, which was good enough for me.

“Is Santa going to be here?” Moose asked. Yet again, I couldn’t tell if she was testing me or not.

“If everything goes the way it should, then yes, you should be meeting Santa soon.” Was I not playing it cool enough? Veronica was reliable enough (she managed to keep me alive and out of jail), but, like, this was fucking Santa we were talking about. Could she work that one?

Moose looked up at Liam, who was riding over to my mom’s with us. “Will Santa be there?” Um, what the hell, bitch, wasn’t I all the validation you needed?

“Of course!” Liam smiled without hesitation. He was able to do that because he didn’t have to live with Moose, so he wouldn’t have to hear the inevitable fallout when she found out Santa wasn’t real.

The kid rode that high all the way to Veronica(and Clive and Raf)’s house. Meanwhile, I wondered if this was going to be the panic attack that finally took me out. I knew the situation wasn’t, like, dire whatsoever, but this somehow felt more daunting than signing the guardianship papers that allowed me to have legal responsibility of Moose. I started stress-squeezing Liam’s hand with such ferocity that he started pretending he needed both of his hands to fake-text people on his phone. Well played.

Moose immediately went on alert mode the second we stepped into Veronica’s place. She was keeping her eyes peeled for Santa. She looked like a damn meerkat. Moose was so ready to throw down that she literally stopped talking to Liam mid-sentence so that she could begin her hunt. What had I created?

“Wait!” I grabbed Moose’s arm before she could go and do whatever the hell it was kids do at someone else’s house. I pulled her close to me so that I could hiss threatening messages into her ear. “Keep your Santa propaganda to yourself,” I whispered to her. I didn’t want for her to hype up all of the other kids just to have them all get their lives ruined. Like, that would suck for literally everyone.

The gremlin shot me an annoyed look but nodded. I’d trained her well.

“Now, be free,” I commanded, letting go of her arm.

Moose tore off like a rocket so that she could wreak havoc upon people who didn’t have to speak to her on a regular basis.

“Relax, Ver, it’ll be fine,” Liam assured me before my step-sister swooped in so that she could tell Liam something wildly uninteresting. It wasn’t her fault it was boring; there’s just nothing interesting about being fifteen.

For the next twenty minutes, I forgot about the Moose-and-Santa thing. I was at my mom’s house with some of my best friends, so I logically wasn’t going to spend all of my time worrying about a malleable five year old. Like, I was a full nogg-and-a-half in before I realized I’d been stressed out all week about this party, and now Moose was nowhere to be found. I didn’t care about all the work I’d put into this (stop: I did some work). Santa whom? I wasn’t even worried about where she was. She could’ve been playing in traffic and I was so at ease that I would’ve just told her to not get her dress yet. And, knowing her, she probably really was playing in traffic. I was never going to see here again.

That is, until she barrelled directly into my legs.

I literally doubled over because Moose had almost taken out both of my kneecaps in one foul swoop.

“He knew my name!” she whispered excitedly. “Santa knows my name!”

“Moose?” Like, that was all we’d been calling her since… forever? I didn’t even know Moose’s real name until she showed up at my house. Even at that party, she was getting introduced as Moose.

“Maisie!” she shrieked. “He knew my name was Maisie! I never tell anyone that!”

I didn’t have the heart to tell her that both my mother and the entire New York Public Schools System had direct access to her real name. I was just happy she was going with this whole Santa thing.

“That’s… that’s great, dude!” I smiled at her. Huh, I guess my mom really had pulled this off. The bitch was good at what she did.

“He also said that he would bring you gifts every year, ‘n that sometimes you wouldn’t really believe it ‘cause you’d get presents from nice people -- charity… oh, that rhymes with Verity! -- oh, um, he said that you’d get presents from charity, but even when the charities couldn’t find you tha- that he’d still bring you gifts.”

I blinked. “Excuse me?”

Moose kept ramblin’ on, havin’ a good-ass time. “Yeahhhh, because one time you moved right before Christmas ‘n there wasn’t enough time for you to get on a present list but Santa still came and brought you presents anyway because he didn’t want for you to not get anything ‘cause he knew your mommy couldn’t buy stuff!”

I stared at her.

“Man, I love Christmas, Variety!” she said with a happy sigh, slapping me on the arm and skipping off to go become an evangelical Santa fan.

I was so in shock by her a) knowing about my time as an impoverished youth and b) her somehow gaining this information by a man named as Santa that I didn’t even have the chance to make a scene and scold her for calling me ‘Variety.’ Like, I didn’t call her ‘Maisie’; she could extend the same courtesy towards me.

“Why do you look like you’ve just found out we’re related for the first time?” I think Harry was making a joke, but since he’d never intentionally said anything funny in his entire life, I couldn’t be too sure.

He did, however, seem a little too smug. I mean, yeah, that was just how his face looked a lot of the time, but in this situation, it meant a lot more. I yanked his arm and dragged him to the corner of the room, away from all the festivities taking place around us. It was about to be a damn interrogation up in this bitch.

“Was that you in the Santa costume?” I hadn’t noticed him in the room (I hadn’t even noticed him at the party, tee bee aych. The guy can best be described as the word ‘beige’ come to life.), but that would’ve given him ample opportunity to slide off and do this little stint. Niall was nowhere smooth enough to pull this off, Louis couldn’t hide his accent to save his life, Zayn hated me/wasn’t even invited, and Liam was too hot to ever dress up as Santa, and it was clearly someone I knew.

Harry played dumb. I hate calling him smart, but he was smart enough to know when to play dumb. Rather unconvincingly, if I might add. Acting was definitely not this kid’s forte. “Why would I have been in a Santa costume?”

“Well someone had to be inside of it!”

“Yeah, and that someone doesn’t have to have been me,” he scoffed. “It’s not me!” he insisted as I continued glaring. “Verity, I swear, that wasn’t me.”

“I don’t believe you!”

“You don’t have to believe me! But it doesn’t change how it still wasn’t me!” He was getting annoyed now. “I don’t even believe in Santa; why would I want for Moose to believe in something just as fake?” he grumbled.

“Damn, Scrooge McDuck, what’s so bad about having a little fun?” I smirked at him. “Come on, just admit that your alter ego wanted to help me out some and then we can move on.”

My brother didn’t see the fun in this. “Would you stop? I already said it wasn’t me! I never even saw someone dressed like Santa even walk in here! God, you and your mom just never know when to quit!” he threw his hands up in exasperation before stomping off, probably grumbling insults about me to himself.

“Wait! If it wasn’t you, then who was it?” I called after him

Harry glared at me over his shoulder, still walking away. Homie didn’t even have the decency to stop in his tracks. “I guess Santa’s fucking real after all!”

#technically i wrote this last year #and just added random sentences this year #since it was a part of the series i never fully posted #anyway if yall remember et al then youll probs appreciate this more than if u dont know what et al is #poddywrites #also the italics didnt copy so yallre on your own #tryna figure out what i italicized #hint: its p much every other word

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