Theresa had moved quickly the moment she thought something was wrong, booking a ticket for herself and her ex-husband without delay, packing a bag, and heading straight for the airport to meet with Michael. The flight from California to Sweden was a nonstop, 12-hour flight that gave Theresa enough time to explain herself, but she had a hard time elaborating beyond a vague feeling of unease.
“Tess, I really think you’re making a big deal out of nothing,” Michael had said about six hours into the flight, while they were passing over the Atlantic Ocean. “I mean, you said it yourself that young man Tom’s getting engaged to, Hans or whatever his name was… You said he seemed like a good guy, right?”
“His name is Lars, and he’s a perfect gentleman. That’s beside the point,” Theresa replied. “I could just tell that both of them are hiding something. See, I actually talk to our sons more than once a year, so I know when something’s wrong.”
Not taking the bait, Michael smugly thought to himself as he sat back in his seat and tried to relax.
“Well, have you considered the possibility that Finnish men are just extremely handsome and seductive?” Michael replied. “Our boys are both still young, so what’s wrong with them hooking up and having a little fun while they’re on vacation?”
“See, this is exactly why it was never going to work between us, Michael,” Theresa began to lecture. “If I’m worried about something, you just tell me why I’m being stupid instead of listening to me-“
Michael made a cheeky grin and slipped a pair of headphones over his ears, then he mimed a ‘I can’t hear you’ gesture to Theresa. She gritted her teeth in annoyance at his antics, but knew there was no reasoning with him. At least he had agreed to come along, so she knew that at some level he realized that something odd was going on here…
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The long flight and the train trip from Stockholm to the Foxfire Resort gave Eric, Clyde, Tom, and Lars plenty of time to figure out their game plan for dealing with Eric and Tom’s family.
“Okay, this is an easy one,” Eric said confidently. “Once the train arrives at the resort, we’ll have Fiia bring mom and dad to a private area of the resort, avoiding letting them see any magical creatures on the way there.”
“Right. Obviously, we won’t be able to keep them completely shielded from everything, but that will give us time to ease them into the way that things work up here,” Tom added. “Once they’ve accepted that werefoxes, magic reindeer, elves, and Santa are real, it shouldn’t be too hard to explain to them that their sons have transformed into magical creatures…”
Eric and Tom smiled confidently and nodded enthusiastically to one another, only for a silence to fall over them a moment later.
“…This is never going to work, is it?” Eric groaned, clutching his head.
“They’re going to freak out…” Tom agreed, his tail flicking frantically behind him. Tom had switched over to his human form and used one of Eric’s bracelets to lock him in, but apparently it was next to impossible to make a werefox’s tail disappear.
“You two, I think you are worrying a bit too much,” Clyde said with an amused expression on his face. Both him and Lars were currently in their own human forms, waiting for their future in-laws to arrive so they could put Eric and Tom’s plan into action.
“Right? I mean, they’re going to find out no matter what you do. And I don’t remember either one of you making too big a deal about the existence of us magical creatures, so give your folks a little more credit,” Lars sighed, lounging on a couch with his usual laid-back attitude. “Besides, what’s the worst that could happen? I doubt they could drag a big strong reindeer like you away like you were a whimpering fawn, and Tom’s been living and working on his own for years. Neither of them can tell you what to do with your lives, so if you want to be a reindeer and a fox and enjoy lots of hot sex at the North Pole with your extremely handsome boyfriends, what’s the problem?”
Eric and Tom both sputtered and tried to come up with a reasonable response to that, but in the end all they could do was exclaim, “You two just don’t understand!” and leave it at that. They both knew they were being irrational, but the prospect of having to justify their choices to their parents was still daunting.
“…They’ll be here in an hour. Here’s hoping this all goes according to plan…” Eric muttered, double checking himself in the mirror. He knew he’d have to come up with a lot of excuses to explain his massive chance in appearance, but he trusted his brother and the others to back him up on whatever he came up with.
“Oof, Eric. Why would you say that? It’s kirous,” Clyde replied uneasily.
“Kirous? I’m trying to learn a little Finnish, but you can’t just keep throwing words out like that,” Eric sighed.
“A curse. A jinx, söpö. I’m saying you’re asking for trouble.”
“Oh, come on Clyde…” Tom laughed, though he was still looking a little nervous. “We might all be magical now, but you can’t expect us to believe in jinxes and stuff like-“
Suddenly, the door to the room they were waiting in burst open, and none other than Tag dashed in, completely out of breath.
“We got trouble, guys!” Tag gasped, looking back and forth between Clyde and Eric’s human forms. “What’re you doing looking like that!? We’ve got an emergency to deal with here! Unless you want to freeze your hairless asses off pulling that train, you’d better turn back to normal!”
Eric’s eyes went wide hearing that. “H-hold on, did you just say ‘train’!? You don’t mean the train bringing guests into the resort!?”
“Joo, that’s the one! The engine gave out a few hundred kilsat away from the resort, and there’s a big snowstorm coming in right on top of it! So unless you want to dig them out in the morning, we’re getting the team together and hauling them in tonight!”
Clyde had already begun stripping out of his clothes and pulled off his form-locking bracelet, effortlessly switching back to his anthro reindeer form as soon as he was no longer in danger of shredding his nicest human clothes.
“It was a lovely plan, söpö, but plans change. Come on, let’s get your parents out of the cold,” Clyde said with a smile on his face and holding a hoof out to Eric.