Archive of Our Own ^beta

As the morning sun began to peek through the windows of the archival office, Elias smiled. As usual, he had gotten to work long before any of his staff, and grinned to himself, knowing that he had quite the surprise in store. After surveying his handiwork, Elias made the trek back to his office and sat calmly behind his desk. They would be here soon enough.

~~~~~

At 8am, Jon, Martin, Melanie, Tim, and Basira begrudgingly opened the door to the archives, Jon reaching around the wall to flip the lights. The group startled as at once, more light than they were accustomed to filled the space.

Christmas lights.

Strung from ceiling beam to ceiling beam, wrapped around the strings of the overhead lights, and all leading to the focal point of the room: a Christmas tree.

“Jesus,” said Melanie, her voice a blend of shock and disgust.

Basira carried on for her, “That’s… quite the tree, isn’t it?”

And it was. Not just a Christmas tree, it was perhaps the most extravagantly decorated tree any of them had ever seen. Ribbons in a rich green, garland (made of…were those glass eyes?) circling the branches, ornaments of eyeballs in all shapes and colors, flocking shimmering against the vibrant white lights, picks springing out in white glitter, and atop the whole thing, a large glowing eyeball.

They starred at the thing, none bothering to take a step past the doorway. Finally, Tim said,

“Alright. Lovely. I’m getting a tea, if you need me, don’t.” He disappeared behind the break room door, and as the others began to file in to the office, there was an abrupt expletive from behind the door. Tim burst back out, a gift bag in hand. “He got us presents.”

~~~~~

Elias laughed as he watched his employees march up the stairs to his office’s level holding their gift bags. Oh, he thought, they must be coming to share their appreciation. He secretly hoped that they would bring along his present as well. Just as Rosie was beginning her practiced, “I’m sorry, but Mr. Bouchard is very busy at the moment,” Elias swung the door open. “It’s okay Rosie,” he said, “I’ve been expecting them.”

The group shuffled in, their voices a flurry of confusion and anger. “Please, please, please,” shouted Elias, barely hiding his own confusion, “one at a time. Jon.”

“Right. What exactly are you trying to communicate with these?” Jon said.

“What? Is it not customary around the holidays for the boss to spread a little cheer to his employees?” Elias smiled sweetly, discreetly scanning the hands of the people in his office. It was with mild confusion that he observed they were empty.

“Well, I’d say the situation is a bit different than in—“ Jon was cut off by Elias’ raised hand.

“You’ve had your turn Jon. Martin?”

“I mean, yeah, I think Jon was right. This is a little different than in past years, isn’t it? This isn’t the office holiday party, and this—“ he held up his gift bag, a jumper adorned with little sailboats peeking out— “isn’t exactly a Christmas bonus.”

“Right. Well, we know why we’re not doing the holiday party again, hmm? Not after last time,” Elias trailed off ominously, his mind filled with thoughts of Peter overindulging in punch and turning one of the researchers into fog. Took months to convince everyone that they had left of their own accord. That was the end of their sixth marriage. Remembering where he was, Elias refocused and said, “Tim, Melanie, Basira, anything?”

They paused for a moment before Basira spoke up. “Why did you get me an empty dog urn?”

Elias starred at her with wide eyes. “Ah yes. A mistake on my end, surely. Why don’t you just keep it though.”

After the group hesitated, Elias chimed back in. “Oh come on everyone, is it such a bad thing that I wanted to show my appreciation for you all as my staff? I felt that we’d really gotten closer this season, like a little family.” Once this caused another uproar of protests through the group, Elias sighed. He looked at his corner bookshelf, the sign labeled “Institute Store” collecting dust. Prizes untouched, save for the Beanie Baby that Tim won earlier that month.

“Alright, alright, that’s enough,” shouted Elias, slamming his hands on the desk. “You know, I have really tried to make this place fun for you all. And what do I get in return? Interrogated. That will be all, I’m sure you all have work to do.” Elias sat himself down in his plush leather chair, pointedly avoiding eye contact with any of them. They filed out of his office, and in his mind he watched them retreat back down the stairs. He had failed in his attempt to spread merriment. So much for his perfect Institute holiday.

~~~~~

“Hey, Melanie, you wouldn’t know where Tim is would you?” Asked Martin, ducking around the corner of a library shelf.

Melanie looked up the books she was organizing. “Think he’s lying down in artifact storage. He seemed really upset after this morning. Did you see what Elias got him?”

“He threw it in the trash the second he opened it, I think. Took a peek in though. It looked like a stuffed animal, like a clown that was also a bear or something. Really weird. And mine, look, don’t get me wrong, it’s a nice jumper, but I don’t know, do I seem like a sailboat guy to you?”

“All the gifts were weird. Basira’s weird dog urn, and he got be braille playing cards. Why would I need to learn braille?”

Martin’s face twisted in thought. “I feel like he was expecting us to get him something.”

“Have you all done that before? Before all of this, I mean,” she said, leaning down to grab another book to shelf.

“I mean, yeah, there would usually be an office-wide pool to get him a nice gift card, or something. But I don’t know, thought maybe we would let that go by the wayside in light of, well…” he trailed off, motioning vaguely to the room. “But, I don’t know, he’s been acting weird recently. Rosie mentioned he recently got divorced, I mean I’d forgotten he was even married, but he hung mistletoe in his office, I don’t know who that could be for…”

As Martin rambled, Melanie thought for a moment, briefly looking down at the stack she still had to sort. No organization, no logical shelving system. She frowned. “You know what, fine,” she said, setting the book back down. “I’ve got nothing going on.”

Martin watched in confusion as she got up and began walking back to their desks. “Um, Melanie? What, eh, what are you doing?”

“That creep wants a gift. We should give him one.”

~~~~~

About half an hour later, Melanie presented her masterpiece. A folded piece of copy paper with “Merry Christmas, Mr. Bouchard” written on the front in scratchy black ink. On the inside was a crudely drawn hand making a certain vulgar gesture.

“It’s nice, it’s just a bit, eh… I mean, wouldn’t want him, I don’t know, retaliating, y’know?” Martin said in a somewhat timid voice.

Melanie looked down at the card, then back at Martin. “I wouldn’t worry. Bet he’ll be so excited to get anything at all, he probably won’t even care. But anyway, if you don’t want to be involved, you don’t have to sign it.”

“Well, eh… no. No, you’re right.” Martin took the marker from her, scribbling his name in small letters underneath the hand.

Melanie took to finding the others. Tim, while at first unhappy with being bothered in the solitude of artifact storage, gladly took the opportunity to sign his name to the thing, writing it in big, bold letters. Jon looked up from recording a statement long enough to sign, and Basira, like Tim, gladly scribbled her name across the top of the page once she got over being interrupted while she was reading.

~~~~~

When Melanie reached the top of the stairs, she looked at Rosie, who met her gaze with eyes that seemed to offer pity for what Melanie was about to do. “Go ahead in,” she said, “he’ll be happy to see you.”

Melanie opened the door to see Elias slumped forward on his desk, his cheek pressed flat to the paper he was signing. “Um…” she said, and he shot up, the paper sticking to his cheek. Christ, thought Melanie, he’s been crying.

“Ah, Melanie,” said Elias, hurriedly wiping his eyes on his sleeve, ”what can I do for you?”

“I, um.. well, here,” she said, shoving the card towards him. He opened it, slowly. And as he processed what the card meant, Melanie watched as his eyes turned from sadness to pure, unbridled joy.

“Um… Elias?” She offered.

Elias smiled. He set the card down, and met her confused gaze. “You made me something. You all did,” he said in a faint voice.

“Well, I… yeah. Yeah.”

He glanced back down at the card, his gaze as soft as she had ever seen it. “Thank you, Melanie. Tell the others as well.”

“Eh… sure. Sure thing,” she said with confusion, slowly inching back towards the office door.

“Oh, and, Melanie,” called Elias, and she turned back around long enough to see him beaming at her, “Merry Christmas.”