“Lars, darling! I missed you so much!” Jason exclaimed, hopping off the train and running over to squeeze the little fellow tightly. He lifted Lars up off the ground for a quick spin in the air before setting him down, then he looked at him curiously. “You know… I think you might have gotten shorter since the last time I saw you.”
“You think that’s bad, you should see Dave! I swear he loses a few centimeters in height and gains that much in ear length every year!” Lars replied, while Tom just sighed off to the side while watching his boyfriend get so chummy with the other man. Lars immediately sensed Tom’s annoyance and looked back with a smirk of pure mischief on his face. “Oh, are you jealous, kulta? I was only going to ask him to join us for kolmen kimppa?”
“Unless that’s some kind of food, I’d rather you didn’t,” Tom replied immediately, then he looked around for the others that he had invited along, happy that there hadn’t been any further accidents with the train for a few days.
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It had taken a lot of calls, but Tom had finally managed to convince a couple of his closest friends to make the trip up to the resort to give him and Lars a hand in overhauling the resort’s systems before Christmas rolled around. Okay, closest might not be the best word, but he trusted them. Mostly. And once the offer of an all-expenses paid vacation through the New Year was made, they said they’d believe just about anything that Tom told him. With the tickets ordered, the team that Tom assembled cashed in their holiday vacations from work and caught a flight northward.
First off was Jason, who needed barely any convincing at all since he’d been along with Tom and a few others the first time they’d come upon Santa’s village years ago. Tom and Jason had fooled around a little bit during college after they’d returned from the North Pole, but deep down Tom had never stopped thinking about Lars and so they agreed to just be friends. They even followed each other into the workforce, and had plenty of contact with each other during their travel for work. Tom only had to give a quick explanation of what he’d need and Jason already had the parts ordered and sent off to Stockholm to away him when he flew in.
Other than Jason, there was also Chase and Victor, the brains and the brawn, both of whom had been a bit skeptical of Tom’s explanation but agreed to give things a shot. Chase was a coworker that Tom had known back while he still worked in the office of his company, before Tom was promoted to on-site work. He wasn’t a big guy and just might have been an even bigger nerd than Eric, but he could make just about any computer system work with any satellite, and he could do it fast. On the other hand, Victor was a tall and powerful fellow that was strong enough to rival any of the reindeer at the North Pole, and a specialist in assembling and calibrating remote communication systems. In other words, he took parts out of the box and welded them together, but he did not appreciate when people phrased it that way. “It’s much harder than it sounds. And if it gets done wrong, you’ll be out more than a few bucks,” he’d often have to say. “So, if you don’t want me to mess it up, you’d better be a little more respectful.”
The three of them, with Tom managing the project and Lars handling morale (i.e. making coffee), would have quite a job ahead of them; Tom had managed to design a prototype satellite receiver that was able to get a stable signal in spite of the aurora, high latitude, and ambient magic around the North Pole, but now they’d have to make something that could do the same thing for the entire resort’s population, as well as be able to broadcast through those same conditions.
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“I’m sorry, but this is just… you sound crazy, okay?” Chase said, clearly not accepting everything Tom and Jason had told them about the magic up at the resort. Quite frankly, he could accept that things like werewolves and humanoid foxes and reindeer might exist, but magic and Santa were another question entirely. New species are discovered every day, after all, but believing in magic at his age just seemed silly, especially magic that could transform any one of them into a completely different form like it was nothing.
Tom and Lars had met the three newcomers at the train station, where they unloaded all the heavy equipment they’d ordered with some help from a few of the reindeer who were off from their practice. The reindeer wasted no time in bringing the boxes of computer parts, disassembled satellite dishes, and other hardware into storage for the time being while Tom and Lars got the team up to speed.
“Look, I’m not asking you to believe in magic. I’m just asking you to believe me that something makes it hard to get a satellite signal up here,” Tom sighed. At the moment, both him and Lars were in their human forms to keep from scaring Chase and Victor away, but he knew he’d have to let them see the real him sooner or later.
“Well, I am asking them to believe in magic, ilonpilaaja!” Lars stepped in with a pout on his face. He immediately switched over to his refined PR voice and said, “While you are here, we have many transformation packages to offer you, which come complete with a focus object, lessons to harness your new abilities, and-“
“Lars, they’re here for work! We can talk about your packages or whatever later,” Tom replied tensely, his tail waving behind him. Victor and Chase had caught sight of the tail earlier, but weren’t sure if it was real or just an eccentric accessory, but now that it was flicking and waving wildly they were beginning to realize that it was actually attached to Tom’s body.
“I will talk about my packages whenever I like! No one says they can’t enjoy themselves while they work!” Lars shot back. He turned to the others with a mischievous look on his face “Look, if you don’t believe in our magic, how are you to explain this, ei?”
Lars reached over and gave Tom’s tail a sharp tug, which immediately caused Tom’s fox ears to pop out and to make fur shoot out of his skin all across his body. Within a second, Tom’s entire werefox form was on display, with his whiskered muzzle twitching nervously at having been revealed like this. Jason, on the other hand, was absolutely loving this. He remembered how much of a playful guy Lars had been the first them they’d all met, so it was a relief to know that nothing had changed there.
“Haha! That’s a cool trick, Tom! Tug-My-Tail Tommy could be a cool Christmas toy! You should pitch that one to Santa!” Jason managed to say through his laughter, making Tom roll his eyes. “All that fur, though… We’re gonna have to be careful setting up these computers, or you might zap the whole system with a little static electricity!”
“I condition my fur every day, Jason! I’m the last one who wants to be getting zapped all the time!” Tom replied indignantly, his fur completely standing on end with annoyance and the air around him starting to glow as his aurora kicked in.
“Yeah, I bet you and Lars learned that the hard way, huh? All that fuzz rubbing around in bed, I’m sure you had a quite a few nasty zaps in all the most sensitive spots!”
Lars was nearly in tears laughing at Tom’s embarrassment, sharing a quick high-five with Jason over their shared hobby of teasing Tom senseless. They’d been great friends seven years ago, and he’d been almost as sad to see Jason go as he was to part with Tom.
Meanwhile, Victor and Chase were just staring in awe at the werefox that Tom had become before their eyes. They both considered themselves sensible men, so the sight of a man changing into a fox right in front of them was a shock, to say the least. They’d gotten the same spiel as the other guests from one of the resort workers on the train, but they’d suspected it was all a big act, a bit of showmanship to really make the resort feel more special. Now, they could see that they’d really gotten themselves into a bizarre situation.
“Installing an internet connection for a magic resort at the North Pole? Now that’s weird,” Victor finally managed to say, a wry smile forming on his face. “Couldn’t they have asked us to clean out a drain in Atlantis? Or wash windows for a UFO?”
“I still don’t believe it… it’s nuts…” Chase muttered to himself, desperately looking for any other explanation other than ‘magic’, but he was rapidly running out of alternatives.
“Well, I hope that we will be able to convince you otherwise, dear guest,” Lars said dramatically, returning to his own fox form with a shimmer. “However, for now, let us head inside and get to work. It is only a few weeks until Christmas, and I’d like to be able to enjoy the holiday with my Tommy instead of sitting inside with a bunch of nerds. Shall we?”
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The five men quickly found their way to an unused room at the main guest center, which would make a serviceable work area for them over the next few weeks. Tom began going through all the steps they’d need and delegating work to the others, while Lars headed out of the room to brew up a fresh pot of coffee for them.
“Ugh, all this nerdy paska. It is good Tommy is cute, or it would be too much to handle…” Lars sighed as he got back to the front desk. However, laying at the desk was a small envelope made of a fine paper, sealed wax that was pressed with the image of a wrapped present.
“From Santa…? How odd,” Lars mused to himself as he carefully opened the letter and flipped it open, letting the scent of peppermint and pine waft off the paper as he read. “…’I am well aware of your project, and I understand your intention. However, I must discourage you from inviting any more attention to the tribes and to the resort. I offered my support for the resort because of you and Fiia’s passionate please, and I won’t revoke that support. However, I think you are being reckless in expanding so quickly. The world is not ready. Please reconsider. Best wishes and merry Christmas, Santa’…”
Lars’ eyes narrowed reading this and it took all he had not to throw the letter down to the ground. He gently placed it back on the desk and stormed away with his tail whipping furiously behind him, swearing and muttering to himself all the way down the hall.
“You tell me what to do with my resort!? Pyh, like you have a monopoly on spreading Christmas Cheer!” Lars grumbled, pacing back and forth in irritation. “Maybe you wouldn’t be so stressed out if you let someone else help you make people happy at Christmas, ei! And I know you can hear me! Put me on your naughty list if you like, but I’m not stopping this plan!”