West of Mars

If you missed the lead-in to this, clickie here. You won’t be sorry. Then come back and read on; it’ll make more sense.

Mitchell was the only one not into it.

Daniel was all about his new sticks. Signature models, in fact, although Mitchell didn’t really get how a piece of wood could be something special. Oh, he’d played drums often enough to know that sticks felt different and could be different weights.

But a signature style? It seemed extreme, even if the whole reason was marketing shit. Dans and the band got money to put his name on the sticks. People bought the sticks, wanting to sound like Daniel. Everyone won.

Slightly less stupid was Eric’s new amp. Actually, it was a lot less stupid. The guy had needed something new for awhile now. The whole band was tired of his whining and his clueless attempts at making changes. Even Chuck, his tech, had started refusing to help. “Call the rep,” Chuck would grunt and walk away as Eric stood there, mouth flapping, probably secretly wishing he was Mitchell and had the balls to fire the guy for not helping.

Mitchell didn’t know who had called the rep. Eric sure hadn’t. Chuck wouldn’t without being told by Eric to do it. It wasn’t his business, so Mitchell hadn’t done it, either to be nice or in a desperate move to shut the guy up already.

The best gift, though, had to be Mitchell’s new guitar. If Eric’s amp was suspcious, the guitar was even more so. The only person who’d known he wanted it was Trevor. The only person.

Mitchell didn’t believe in Santa. Not anymore. Not after Amy and Beth had ruined it for him when he’d been nine.

That meant there was no way Santa had been behind all this. No fucking way in Hell.

Of course the alternative was even more mystifying. There was no way Trevor would have done this. The guy refused to be organized, refused to think beyond the here and now, refused to plan. Pulling this together, here in Portland where they’d gotten stuck by a freak snow, and making it appear…

Trevor was watching them play with their new musical presents. “Pretty good of the Old Fat Man to find us here, huh?” He crossed his arms over his chest and nodded like he was satisfied.

Mitchell eyed him. There was no fucking way Trevor was satisfied. Not with a lump of coal as a present. Something smelled.

“I knew Christmas was the season of miracles,” Eric sighed, brushing at imaginary dirt on the top of his new amp.

“Yep,” Trevor said, picking up his coal and tossing it in the air.

“You got coal,” Mitchell said.

“I’ve never known anyone who got coal before,” Eric said, giving his amp one last lingering pat and coming over to look at Trevor’s gift. “I didn’t think that really happened. Everyone’s got some goodness in them.”

“This has nothing to do with being good or bad,” Trevor said.

Mitchell caught the sly smile and braced himself.

“Then what’s it for?” Daniel asked. He cocked his head, his eyebrows drawn in toward his nose. “And what sort of present is it, anyway? We all got the cool stuff and you got…”

“It’s a good present,” Trevor said. “It’s what I wanted.”

“It’s coal,” Mitchell said.

“Yep,” Trevor said and grinned. He held it up so they could all see it. “Gotta keep the fire lit.”

With a grandiose gesture none of them could misinterpret, Trevor pushed the lump of coal down the front of his pants.