Title: The Christmas Commissions
Rating: K+ (10+)
Summary: Sarah Wright, at 31, still whole-heartedly believed in Santa Claus, after that one Christmas when he was skinny and strange. When a lack art threatens her gallery – and her livelihood – she writes a letter to Santa, and gets a gift proportional to her belief.
Warnings: Asexual character, Charlie Calvin/Bernard the Arch Elf, background character death, artist!Charlie, elf!Charlie
A/N: While this focuses on Sarah, there are bits of Charlie in there. I don't know how he became an elf; that's for another fic, I guess. Also, I found myself enamored of the Charlie/Bernard ship; again, I don't know why, but there it is. Finally, I have never been to an art gallery, and have no idea how they work. The idea that sparked this whole thing was a vision of Charlie's stuff featured in an art gallery, and specifically a dream of that last one.
Also, I am not Ace. I tried to do my best to represent it in the small snippets I offered. If I've done it wrong, please let me know - the last thing I want to do is misrepresent something that is so often underrepresented to begin with.
This was inspired by all 3 Bernard/Charlie fics on AO3: Metamorphasis by yuletidefairy, The Literal Once in a Lifetime by beaches_at_treasure_island, and Your Lamps Will Call Me Home by Solarcat. They are all incredibly excellent. Hope you like it, everyone, and Merry Christmas, too!
-TCC-
Sarah didn't understand who 'Santa Claus' was until she was four. Before that point, she just knew that when it got cold enough to snow, everyone got excited and presents came under a tree.
-TCC-
When she was five, she tried so hard to stay awake and see Santa… But she was warm and comfortable from all the cocoa, and her eyes were so heavy. The next thing she knew, the sun was hitting her face, Mama was making Christmas pancakes, and a new doll was under the tree. It was signed from Santa, to Sarah, and the plate with cookies and glass of milk were both empty.
-TCC-
When she was six, she fell asleep again. But this Christmas was still a success, because she woke up anyway.
Santa as not like she'd expected. For one thing, he was really skinny, and for another, he had no beard. He seemed flustered, and nearly forgot to eat the cookies and milk. He told her he was lactose intolerant, and begged her to just go to sleep.
She could tell it was Santa, so she didn't mind that he was a bit sharp with her; she had seen him deliver her new Raggedy Anne doll (seen him make a fireplace out of her family's radiator). That was enough. Doll tucked into her arms, she went back to sleep to the sounds of a man staggering his way back up the temporary chimney.
As the year went by, she came to the conclusion that he was a new Santa. Santa was magic, but even magic people probably wanted to do what her Uncle Marvin had done, and retire to a beach in Florida. Besides, he'd told her first that he was Scott Calvin, not Santa Claus.
She hoped he would be happier next Christmas, after he got used to the magic and the elves and the jolly stuff he was supposed to do now.
-TCC-
When she was seven, her hopes were proven right: Santa was fat and jolly and perfect this year. It was still the "Scott Calvin" man, but it was definitely Santa.
Also, magic had probably made him okay; he made a face with the soy milk that she'd remembered. But he was so proud that she had remembered, and that she was trying to be nice. That made it all worth it, too.
-TCC-
Sarah learned that she couldn't tell her friends Santa Claus was real and be taken seriously by the time she was nine.
She learned the same applied – but with more disappointed faces and less angry teasing – if she revealed her belief to her parents, by age ten.
But that was the thing about belief: as long as she knew, than it was true, no matter that she had to hide it from others. (The fact that, without fail every year, she watched a fat man appear out of a fireplace that only came into being one night a year didn't hurt anything, either.)
-TCC-
When her parents died in a car crash when she was 17, in late November, and she was moved in with her aunt and uncle, she forgot to write a letter to Santa.
She had locked herself in her room a week before Christmas, and had yet to come out. The morning of the twenty-fourth, she woke to a quiet melody. Any other time, and she would have been furious to find a stranger in her room, let alone humming a tune and painting on a tiny canvas; instead, the maybe-sixteen-year-old was greeted with bleary eyes, a sigh, and nothing else.
He knelt next to her bed, stroking her forehead, and she spotted the sharp points of his ears, poking out of his shaggy brown hair. Dimly she wondered why he was so old; weren't elves supposed to look young? Santa had said they did, anyway.
He introduced himself as Charlie, and when she found herself leaning into his fingers, touch-starved (but uninterested in anything other than cuddles, ever) he pulled himself onto her bed and curled himself around her, smoothing circles over her back. What finally made her break – what finally made her cry for the first time since the funeral – was when he told her he understood, because his mother had died the year before. That was all he said, all day long, and all day long, he just held her.
When she woke up in the middle of the night, he guided her down to the living room (with a real, regular fireplace, so strange) and they waited together on the couch for Santa to show up. When he did, he dropped his bag, and hugged her long and hard. He tucked her into the throw-blanket on the couch, and she guessed he used a touch of magic, because when he told her to sleep, she did.
It was only when she woke up that she realized that Santa had called Charlie 'son'. She figured that explained the age. When she returned to her room, a tiny portrait of a small, brown-haired boy and a large, laughing man graced her pillow.
-TCC-
The next time she trusted that she wouldn't be laughed out of the room for being caught writing her yearly letter to Santa (mostly transformed over the years from 'I want', to 'thank you, if you can', to 'I know the children are more important, I just wanted to say hi, and thank you again. Merry Christmas!') was when she was 22.
Her best friend's son, Jeremy, was just coming on 3 – a very observant 3, no less – and she figured it would be the perfect way to introduce him to her friend. She grinned in triumph when he asked what she was writing, and proceeded to spend the next two hours explaining all about Santa.
Jeremy was enamored, and she edited her letter to Santa before sending it, to write all about the experience of sharing his joy and magic with a new generation. She hoped it made him smile.
-TCC-
At 23, she wrote simply and regretfully, I'm sorry for ending up on the Naughty List.
(She was and she wasn't. She was sad that she'd probably disappointed Santa, but she was otherwise pleased with the results of her actions. That idiot down the street who wouldn't take 'no' for an answer, who didn't believe Ace's existed, who thought he was God's gift to females? He wouldn't be using his right hand for groping the unwilling… or much else, really… for a good few months yet. And that, she was very proud of.)
She still couldn't bring herself to look at Santa that year, pretending to be asleep when he gently rubbed her shoulder and said, "You not. You weren't. I know you, just like you know me."
(She cried. They both knew how hard it was to be believed in when people weren't willing to see.)
-TCC-
When she finally made her way into the art community, at 26, she was excited enough to mention it in her Santa letter. She wasn't known enough to have any clients who wanted her to sell their paintings, yet, but she was the assistant of someone who was. It was hard work, but it got her used to the atmosphere of an art gallery, and that was good.
-TCC-
The Christmas that she was 29, her entire letter consisted of:
Dear Santa,
It's been busy this year – I finally own my own gallery! I'm so excited! Sorry in advance for my short letter this year, because of it.
Is this what it feels like to be the head of a workshop full of elves? Between the picky artists and the snooty buyers, I sometimes feel like I'm herding cats. Although, I suppose if you're Santa and the elves work willing for you, they wouldn't try to make life hard for you, would they?
As always, keep an eye on yourself, and say hello to Mrs. Claus for me. I hope your season is enjoyable, and I look forward to Christmas Eve!
Always yours,
Sarah
-TCC-
Sarah's entire income had ended up based in her gallery and its business and sales; she even lived up above it. It was hard work, but she was proud of what she'd done.
However, when she was 31, tragedy struck. In the space of two weeks, a bigger, better gallery bought her out almost before she knew what was happening. She was suddenly destitute, and it was nearly Christmas.
This Christmas letter was the first since she was 16 that she actually asked for anything. She knew that Santa worked in toys, and for children's joy, but without the contents of her gallery, or her customers, all she had was an empty space below her tiny, cramped home.
The letter was tear-stained, and frantic. She didn't know what he could do, but she'd heard of him working miracles, and she'd seen his magic first-hand for years. Maybe he had at least a temporary solution?
She didn't know what she was expecting. Walking down Christmas morning at Santa's (hurried, and apologetic about it, but excited) behest, she was floored. Before she could understand what she was seeing, Santa had gone. She broke down in grateful tears without an audience for long minutes, before hauling herself together and opening her doors.
Guests, brought by the dozens and attracted by the fliers that had seemed to go up almost overnight, flocked in to stare at the dozens of paintings and drawings that adorned her walls.
They were all scenes from the same place, in different mediums, showing different people, and at different times, but it was clearly a theme. A city, bright and colorful, walled off by barriers of thick ice in the distance, shone from the canvases. Snow and light dominated many of the scenes, and it was almost possible to smell the peppermint and hot chocolate, and to hear the talking and laughter, that was seen as well.
Every inhabitant had pointed ears, and silver cheeks. Sometimes it was a focus on one, hard at work building a toy truck. Others, it was a whole line of them, all coming together to create tinsel and lights. In one, it was even a small group, eyes wickedly laughing, clothing more stern than in other paintings, and postures defiant, all emblazoned with E.L.F.S on their chests.
In a few, it was Santa: playing a wild game in a courtyard with a dozen elves; sitting alone at a desk, eyes on the List, while a young girl poured him cocoa; climbing into a sleigh attached to eight reindeer, all of them caught in motion; or simply smiling at his wife, a beautiful woman with a happy smile and a polished posture.
Others were landscapes (loosely speaking): empty workshop rooms; the winding streets branching out from the main square; the ice walls lit up by the brightest, most astounding aurora borealis she had ever seen in her life; and a lone, striped pole standing out against the rolling hills and valleys of arctic snow.
But the quirk of this artist was that in every painting, regardless of focus, there was a constant: in the background (standing, sitting, tucked into a corner, dangling from a distant tree, emerging from snowy shadows) there were two elves, taller and older-looking than the rest. One had a dark spill of curls controlled by a beret, and the other a familiar (to Sarah) brown-haired, dark-eyed face. The one with curls was always looking elsewhere, with the air of a supervisor, and the brown-haired one was almost always caught with a pensive, faraway look in his eyes and a pencil tucked behind an ear (or sometimes in his teeth), occupied with a sketchbook. And the pair were always together, always close by, and always touching: holding hands, rubbing shoulders, back-to-back, always.
A golden calligraphy initials – CC – decorated the lower right-hand corner of every painting, the tiny whorls and decorations slightly different in every rendition. When asked who the artist was, the first thing that popped out of her mouth was, "His name is Charlie."
By day's end, she had new backers (ones less likely to jump at the drop of money), new artists, and a new lease on life. By day's end, she was exhausted.
She found a canvas hung on her plain wall (she loved watching the fireplace appear from nothing), with a note beneath it: This one's just for you, Sarah. It was my first painting of anything at the Pole, and it means a lot to me. I've not painted, drawn, or even sketched anything I was unsatisfied with since this one. You deserve its luck; you are, after all, one of the few adults left in the world who understand that believing is seeing, and you've been good to my dad that way.
If you don't mind, I think I'm going to be sending you stuff every Christmas. I paint all the time, and Bernard said I need to do something with them; we're losing wall space in the house. It'll be as much a help to us as it is to you. Merry Christmas, Sarah, and keep believing!
- Charlie Calvin
This painting was different. The signature in the corner was just 'Charlie', and the calligraphy was muted, the attention drawn to the work instead. It was two left hands, twinned tightly on top of a desk. Bands of simple silver wrapped around the ring finger of each hand, and ink darkly stained the fingertips of one in particular. If she looked close enough, she could spot the hazy reflections of the hands' owners in the candlestick on the edge of the desk, smiling warmly at one another. The whole thing radiated love.
Sarah smiled, touched by his gift, and started planning her next letter. When a guy goes out of his way to be there for you when you're in trouble – not once, but twice – it's possibly a sign that you'd make good friends. When he gifts you with the best of his efforts (and it's seconded by his husband), it's a friendship offer flat-out. And she'd been mailing Santa only on Christmas… Who was she to say he wouldn't be pleased if she actually tried talking to him, more often than that, rather than just at him, during the expected season?
The Calvin's may have been tossed into this, so many years ago, but they'd certainly earned a life-long friend out of Sarah Wright.