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Title: Yule: Preparation Is Key
Timing: Present.
Characters: Roger & Jackie. Because they are still family.
Author's Notes: Kenneth can turn into a bat once he's a vampire, and Jackie's a vampire now, right? So she should be able to, and Roger can still shrink, and so
kiffie came up with Santa Roger and the Christmas Bat. And then I found this e-card (while looking for a good picture of a UK-local bat to photoshop into the Christmas Bat). And then I wrote this. XD
Roger was perusing the shelves of a cookware store when his mobile phone chimed in the way he'd programmed it to tell him he had email. He pulled off his gloves before fishing it out of his pocket; he'd learned his lesson after the last time it squirted out of his grip like a bar of wet soap, and anyway the touch screen wouldn't work with them on.
He caught one of the twentysomething shop clerks smiling at him as he efficiently got into the right program; probably didn't see too many men his age at home with tech this new, but he'd been working with sentient robots and secret government tech since the 40s.
Jackie had sent him an e-card. He opened it and snorted in amusement and surprise at the picture, before reading the simple message. 'Happy Christmas, Luv!' indeed.
He called her.
"Jackie, have you been modelling for charity fundraisers again?"
She laughed brightly, before telling him in her faux-serious voice, "Well, you know, Roger, it's such a good cause. Every species in the Kingdom is at the very least endangered. Why, the mouse-eared bat is extinct in Britain!"
"That's a crying shame," he told her, adding two gingerbread house kits to his basket.
"It is! How am I supposed to blend into the night sky if I'm the only bat around? I ask you."
"Surely there must be a pet salon willing to dye the fur of a flying mammal in dark camouflage for just such an eventuality." He winked at a middle-aged man in the same aisle who had tried to cover a laugh with a cough upon overhearing that. Probably thought he was talking to a grandchild.
"Stop taking the piss, darling. Where are you, anyway?"
"I'm getting supplies for the yearly attack of the gingerbread men." He contemplated a potato masher, but it wiggled a bit in the handle, so he put it back. "How is your end coming along with that?"
"The plastic explosives were no problem, but I need to pick up some new buckets. Do you really think luring the blighters in with a booby-trapped gingerbread village will work?"
"We can but try. Am I making the cider, or are you?"
"Oh, I'm having Cookie do that."
"Seems a shame to waste his efforts."
"After what they did to his kitchen last year, he's eager to help, trust me." There was the sound of a voice calling, 'Lady Crichton?' on her end. "Just a moment, Susan. Roger, dear, I have to run. I'll talk to you later. Oh! Wait'll you see the tiny little riding harness I had made! Ta!"
He laughed at the mental image of Jackie commissioning a bat-sized set of riding tack, added a set of steak knives to his basket, and went up to the cash.
Santa Destroyer and the Christmas Bat would be ready for the Gingerbread Men again this Christmas.
~Fin~
A/N 2: I... can't explain the Gingerbread Men thing, really. Every Christmas, Gingerbread Men attack Roger. Jackie's been helping him fight them off. That's about the shape of it. Hey, this is comics, it doesn't have to make sense!
Timing: Present.
Characters: Roger & Jackie. Because they are still family.
Author's Notes: Kenneth can turn into a bat once he's a vampire, and Jackie's a vampire now, right? So she should be able to, and Roger can still shrink, and so
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Roger was perusing the shelves of a cookware store when his mobile phone chimed in the way he'd programmed it to tell him he had email. He pulled off his gloves before fishing it out of his pocket; he'd learned his lesson after the last time it squirted out of his grip like a bar of wet soap, and anyway the touch screen wouldn't work with them on.
He caught one of the twentysomething shop clerks smiling at him as he efficiently got into the right program; probably didn't see too many men his age at home with tech this new, but he'd been working with sentient robots and secret government tech since the 40s.
Jackie had sent him an e-card. He opened it and snorted in amusement and surprise at the picture, before reading the simple message. 'Happy Christmas, Luv!' indeed.
He called her.
"Jackie, have you been modelling for charity fundraisers again?"
She laughed brightly, before telling him in her faux-serious voice, "Well, you know, Roger, it's such a good cause. Every species in the Kingdom is at the very least endangered. Why, the mouse-eared bat is extinct in Britain!"
"That's a crying shame," he told her, adding two gingerbread house kits to his basket.
"It is! How am I supposed to blend into the night sky if I'm the only bat around? I ask you."
"Surely there must be a pet salon willing to dye the fur of a flying mammal in dark camouflage for just such an eventuality." He winked at a middle-aged man in the same aisle who had tried to cover a laugh with a cough upon overhearing that. Probably thought he was talking to a grandchild.
"Stop taking the piss, darling. Where are you, anyway?"
"I'm getting supplies for the yearly attack of the gingerbread men." He contemplated a potato masher, but it wiggled a bit in the handle, so he put it back. "How is your end coming along with that?"
"The plastic explosives were no problem, but I need to pick up some new buckets. Do you really think luring the blighters in with a booby-trapped gingerbread village will work?"
"We can but try. Am I making the cider, or are you?"
"Oh, I'm having Cookie do that."
"Seems a shame to waste his efforts."
"After what they did to his kitchen last year, he's eager to help, trust me." There was the sound of a voice calling, 'Lady Crichton?' on her end. "Just a moment, Susan. Roger, dear, I have to run. I'll talk to you later. Oh! Wait'll you see the tiny little riding harness I had made! Ta!"
He laughed at the mental image of Jackie commissioning a bat-sized set of riding tack, added a set of steak knives to his basket, and went up to the cash.
Santa Destroyer and the Christmas Bat would be ready for the Gingerbread Men again this Christmas.
~Fin~
A/N 2: I... can't explain the Gingerbread Men thing, really. Every Christmas, Gingerbread Men attack Roger. Jackie's been helping him fight them off. That's about the shape of it. Hey, this is comics, it doesn't have to make sense!