It was Christmas Eve, a cold bleak one with biting weather and a dense fog blanketing everything.
Sean Scrooge did not feel the cold weather as he made his way to his office. The cold was always with him but he didn't ever notice it, inside or outside. It had perpetually frozen his still-handsome features, sharpened his prominent nose and stiffened his bearing. He looked much older than he actually was, and his once beautiful green eyes had turned murky, like dead pools.
He sped through the streets that teemed with shoppers, oblivious of the cheery holiday atmosphere. Nobody ever stopped him in the street to exchange aimless pleasantries, but what did Scrooge care? It was the very thing he liked. To edge his way along the crowded paths of life, warning all human sympathy to keep its distance.
He stopped before the door of his investment firm. The sign on the door read 'Scrooge & Marley' but as things were, David Marley had been dead for seven years. It was just that a new sign would cost money and Sean Scrooge was of the firm belief that money would be put to better use where it would spawn more money.
He knocked some snow off the top of the sign with the handle of his old umbrella and walked into his office.
He immediately started bellowing as he caught his employee, Viggo Cratchit, coughing and fiddling with the thermostat of the heating system.
"Cratchit, how many times must I tell you to leave that thing alone? Did you see the heating bill for last month? Do you think the money to pay that grows on trees?"
"But Mr. Scrooge, it's freezing in here, my fingers are so stiff with cold that I can't even write entries in the accounts ledger!"
"They're stiff because you're slow and lazy, and if you were busy doing what you're paid to do you wouldn't even have the time to notice whether it's warm or cold in here. Get down to work, I don't want to hear a sound from you until closing time."
***
"Ok Cratchit, it's time," Scrooge eyed the ancient clock on the wall and nodded to Viggo, eyes glittering in his totally blank face.
Viggo rubbed his tired eyes and closed the ledger, trying to work a kink out of his neck from too much bending over the books. He rose and went to get his threadbare coat from the peg on the wall.
"No Cratchit," Scrooge had risen too and was grabbing Viggo's elbow, "I didn't mean you could go, it's Wednesday evening you know, must I remind you every time ?"
The hand grabbing Viggo's elbow crept up to his shoulder and propelled Viggo back towards the desk.
"Get ready," Scrooge admonished.
'Get ready'? Viggo would have laughed, and not in fun. He was always ready when it came to this, but he always had to pretend, to wait until his employer held him back. Ready, yes, he was ready, as ready as he would ever be for this...
He unbuttoned his pants and tugged them down. He was naked under them, underwear an unnecessary luxury not featured in his budget.
He bent down on the desk, resting his forehead on his crossed arms. He had long since stopped trying to crane his head back to catch a glimpse of Scrooge's face while he fucked him, he had long since stopped hoping for a kiss, a caress, anything other than the quick pounding his arse would get.
No tenderness, no warmth, just being used for relief.
And, despite this, Viggo loved Sean Scrooge so much that he could barely wait for their Wednesday routine to come, and he pined to be the recipient of the only human contact his employer apparently felt a need for. And the muffled groan Scrooge could never hold back as he came always made Viggo come too, pressing his hard cock painfully against the side of the old-fashioned wooden desk.
The scene replayed as usual, but today Viggo found it hard to focus on feeling his treasured only body contact with Scrooge. Today most of his energy and concentration were going into trying to stifle the persistent cough that had been racking him for several days. It took a particularly vicious slam of Scrooge's hips, pushing him into the desk so hard he almost cried out, to focus his senses back and trigger him into coming.
"You may go now Cratchit," were the only words Viggo got, as he wiped himself with a paper hankie and drew his pants up.
He stole a glance at his employer's back and grabbed his coat. As he was about to go out the door, Scrooge called to him again.
"Cratchit, you're forgetting something.."
Viggo turned slowly, hope gleaming in his eyes.
"Here," Scrooge tossed him a bulging linen sack, "It's laundry day, here's my stuff.
The hopeful gleam faded as Viggo caught the sack and made to leave.
"And I imagine you'll be wanting all day off tomorrow," continued Scrooge."
"If it's quite convenient, sir, seeing that it will be Christmas Day."
"It's not convenient at all, but I suppose it must be so. Be here all the earlier the following morning."
"Yes sir, thank you sir."
Still hugging the laundry sack, Viggo opened the door and left.
***
Viggo closed the door of his small, dingy flat.
He sighed. The place was not as freezing as Scrooge & Marley, but somehow he felt warmer there, less alone, even if Scrooge ignored him most of the time and acknowledged his presence only to scold him or to fuck him. At least there he could steal a look at him now and then...
He dropped the bundle of his employer's dirty laundry on the table, filled the sink with hot water and cheap detergent, and started soaking Scrooge's stuff.
As he was about to drop the last dirty shirt into the soapy water, he hesitated. He sunk his face into the fabric and inhaled. It smelled like Scrooge...
His face still hidden in the shirt, Viggo kicked off his shoes and went to curl up on the bed, snuggling under the worn blanket. The shirt balled up under his chin, his nose buried in it, he fell asleep, tired and hungry and filled with longing for someone he could not have, as he was day after day.
***
After a solitary dinner in a run-down pub, Scrooge headed home, to the gloomy suite of rooms that had once belonged to his deceased partner in business and in life, David Marley.
As he was fumbling with the keys, the large knocker on the front door suddenly glowed eerily in the darkness and its shape morphed into Marley's face.
The face had an unearthly livid tinge, but there was no mistaking the blond hair, the full lips and especially the prominent nose, so much like Scrooge's own that when Marley was still alive they'd often been mistaken for brothers.
As Scrooge stared at it, shocked, it suddenly morphed back to its original shape.
Scrooge shook his head, dazed, and went into the house and climbed up to his room. Darkness was cheap and normally Scrooge loved it, but this time he turned on all the lights. And checked every corner, in every cupboard and under every bed.
Satisfied that all was as it should be and blaming the strange vision on overindulgence with food, Scrooge locked himself in his bedroom.
As he was undressing for the night, he heard a deep clanking noise from below, as if someone was dragging a heavy chain up the stairs. The noise reached his door and suddenly a glowing apparition came through the door itself.
Headlights flashed from the street below and Scrooge recognized the ghost - it looked like Marley -
A heavy-looking chain was clasped around his middle and wound around him like a snake. It was made of cash-boxes, ledgers, purses, all wrought in steel.
"Who are you?"
"I am no more; in life I was your business partner and bed companion, David Marley.
"Humbug!" Scrooge cried. "You are merely a slight disorder of the senses, an undigested bit of dinner. I knew I shouldn't have had that extra slice of beef on account of it being Christmas Eve.."
At this the spirit howled and shook its chain with a hideous noise.
"Sean, you must believe in me, you must listen to me, I beg of you! Look, do you see this chain binding me, suffocating me? I forged it myself, during my life. I forged it link by link, day after day, by my own free will. I have been dragging it around for seven years. And it is unbearably heavy, Sean. Yet I have to carry it until God knows when. I am allowed no rest, no peace, just this weight sinking me down and the incessant torture of memory and remorse."
Scrooge trembled and cowered. "I am sorry about this, David. But I can't see why you've come to haunt me and frighten me"
"Fool!" Marley cried. "Can't you see that you are forging such a chain around yourself as well, link by link, day after day? It was permitted that I come to you, to warn you off the path I took, the path you are walking too."
"Speak then David, what is it that I must do to avoid such a fate?" Scrooge asked, still sounding doubtful.
"You have yet a chance and hope of escaping this, of shedding the chain. A chance I begged for and procured for you Sean, because in my own cold, twisted way I loved you, and I realized that only too late. No, don't interrupt me, hear me out, for my time with you is running short. You will be haunted by Three Spirits. "
Sean's countenance fell. "And would they be the chance and hope you spoke of, David?" he asked, his tone disappointed.
"Yes Sean, without their visits there is no hope for you. The Spirits will come to you the next three nights, on the last stroke of midnight. Remember me, my love, as I was and as I am now, for your own sake."
The apparition walked backwards to the window and passed through it, beckoning Scrooge. He followed it to the window and looked out. The air was filled with phantoms, wandering and moaning, every one of them bound in heavy chains like Marley's and wailing in misery.
Scrooge found he could recognize most of them. People he had had business dealings with, business partners, business rivals. They faded, wailing into the mists, and the night became as quiet as it had been when he walked home.
He tried to say 'Humbug!', but the first syllable stuck in his throat.
He was tired, he was confused. He went to bed and fell asleep immediately.
Summary: Humbug! But there's hope for Sean Scrooge.
Rated: NC-17
Categories: Actor RPS Pairing: Sean/Viggo
Warnings: AUChallenges:
Series: A Christmas CarolChapters: 5 Completed: Yes
Word count: 10508 Read: 6668
Published: 07 Aug 2009 Updated: 07 Aug 2009