The Franklin dining hall bustled with activity. Sparkling decorations hung from the ceiling, and glass artworks of the younger students accented the windows, while holy music fit for the occasion filtered in through radios spread throughout the hall. Dozens upon dozens of students holding their trays waited patiently in line for their portions of Christmas meats – Turkey and beef, prepared much as it had been in the distant past, even though their procurement was much more of a challenge than it had been in those days. Serving-maids ladled helpings of gravy and cranberry onto presented plates. The gleam of well-polished stainless steel instruments flashed in the night, knives cutting immaculate slices of meat, shining as bright as the smiles of the students. Beyond the central serving line, full of stuffing-breads and potatoes and the calorie-dense foodstuffs needed by an Angel-in-training, kiosks stood alone, full of cake and confectioneries and baked goods and chocolates, the greatest fancies the great empire of the True Church could produce. Laughter filled the air, and all felt, in their hearts, the promise of the soon-to-come new year.
It was a feast of delights well beyond the purview of man's daily life in these times, but if any time and any place deserved it, it was on the celebration of the birth of Christ, and in the home of his greatest servants.
In their booth, both Gabriel and Alexander leaned in towards Maxwell, who had frozen, a slice of turkey impaled on a fork paused mere inches from his mouth. Gravy dripped slowly onto his napkin as a blush spread across his face, as fast as if he'd been hit by a bucket of paint. Behind his thick spectacles, he blinked in utter panic.
His fork clattered to the table, and he dedicated both hands to waving desperately in front of his face, trying and failing to hide his smile.
“No, no no no, I haven't!” he protested. His mop of chestnut brown hair flopped back and forth with every shake of his head.
“Swear on your honor?” Gabriel asked, smirking.
Alex, despite his honest attempt at maintaining a serious face, giggled at his friend. Maxwell stammered what could have been, if given some time and effort, a denial. Instead, he sputtered out a defeated sound, and slumped. For all his failings of will and determination, Maxwell at least managed to be quite cute, and Alex wrapped an arm around his shoulders, and pulled him in.
“Come on, Max, we're all going to get what's right for us, but there's no shame in saying what you're wishing for,” Alex said, just loudly enough to be heard over the holiday din. Maxwell furrowed his brow, and placed his fork down on the table, finally taking his food out of danger. He closed his eyes, and rested his head gently on Alex's shoulder. “Okay, okay,”, he said, in a half-whisper.
Alex hugged him tight, and let him go. Gabriel, his eyes alight, smiled wide. “So, tell us!”
Alex shot him a brief look, a sort of “let him do this at his own pace”, but Maxwell spoke before Gabe could read Alex's expression.
“I want her to be shy,” he said.
“Oh?” Gabriel asked, in the same moment as Max's “But,” and he waited for Max to finish. The wait was long, as the air had to clear, but eventually, Maxwell finished. “Not as shy as me.”
Alex raised his eyebrows, meeting Max's gaze. That wasn't a tall order.
Gabe snorted; not meanly, but only in the nicest of ways. “Why's that?”
Gabriel had a way of keeping a conversation going, balancing on that knife's edge of pushing and yet not pushing too far. Maybe it was in those eyes, the color of dead leaves, that could always make you feel like you were his friend, no matter what silly things he said.
Max grabbed Alex's arm, pulling from him the strength to answer.
“I don't want her to think I'm lame… But…” He paused. “I want her to pull me along. To see more than I do, y'know?” Maxwell's eyes grew distant behind his glasses, the blue fading out of focus, looking to an invisible horizon.
“Oh,” Gabriel said.
“Ah,” Alex added. He pulled his arm off of Maxwell, and plunked both elbows down on the table. Gabe did the same, and they looked into each other's eyes, conferring.
“You're thinking of someone,” they said in unison.
Maxwell recoiled backwards into the plush seat-back, blushing furiously. “No, I-”
His protests didn't last long. Silently, he slumped down. Alex patted him on the head. It wasn't how you were supposed to think before the Pairing, but plenty of people did.
“It's okay, Max. Even if it's not her, she'll be like you imagine.”
“Or better,” Gabe chimed in.
Max blushed even more, but now, he was smiling. Alex gave him a one-armed hug until Max started eating again. He mustered a mischievous grin of his own, and stared down Gabe with false confidence. “How about you?” Max asked.
Gabriel smiled. His golden eyes and matching hair shone in the incandescent light, right alongside that smile, a smile that you could follow through the gates of Hell itself and not feel a smidgen of regret. He hadn't even picked up his fork – knowing this was coming.
“Well,” he said. “I'm the same as you, Max.” His smile grew wider. “I want her to be just like me, but better.”
Alex raised an eyebrow. He'd read the textbooks. And the supplementary materials. Thrice over, for that matter. “Yes, that's what we all should want.” He pointed his knife at Gabriel. “But what does that mean to you?”
Gabriel swallowed loudly, and waited for Alex to lower his knife, or his gaze – either, really. But neither came. Max shoveled in a few mouthfuls of bread stuffing, laced with thyme and rosemary, while he waited for Gabe's comeuppance. Gabe, for his part, took a spoonful of cranberry sauce, and swallowed it without putting it on anything. His cheeks puckered, though whether it was from the question or the tart flavor, no earthly force could tell.
“I…” Gabe started. The other two waited expectantly, but received nothing. This was an unusual bounty – Gabriel almost always had his words about him.
Alex stepped up. “It's okay. We're all in this together.”
Gabe nodded, and took a deep breath. “I want her to be kind.” He chuckled under his breath. “Don't we all. But… Okay,” he said, putting his palms together, as if in prayer. “We need to be ambitious. We need to love our fellow man, we need to value the word of God, we need to work his will on the Earth, we need all of that, right?”
Alex nodded. All of this was correct and true, but he was curious to see where his friend was going with this. What was holy oft came into conflict with one's desires.
Gabriel looked down and away, towards the tiled floor. The feet of fellow students passed by, students who held trays of sweets and whose voices carried similar topics, laughing happily. “I want her to love… love. Does that make sense?”
“Yeah,” Maxwell responded, at the same time as Alex's “Not really.” Gabriel looked into Alex's eyes, the dark blue of an ocean that hopefully, they would someday see. “I want her to be someone I can make happy. Whatever it takes, I hope I can do it.”
Alex nodded. It didn't form the image of what that person would be like, but it made the shape of Gabriel's soul even clearer. That was enough. He closed his eyes, and took another bite of his turkey.
“How about you, Alex?” Maxwell asked. Gabriel's mouth hung open for a moment, before he joined in. “Yeah, what do you want in a Pair?”
Alex cut another slice of meat, ate it, and struck into his mashed potatoes without comment. Thoughts whirled in his mind, but if he could just focus on eating, none of that would bother him. The potatoes had that lovely quality, despite being suffused with butter, of having just the slightest amount of solidity and skin, varying the texture beyond a perfect mash and elevating it to something greater by means of contrast. Hints of garlic and pepper danced on the edge of his tongue, along with more seasonal seasonings – was that a hint of chestnut he tasted? He'd have to apply for some chestnuts, they were a delightful thing to roast on their own, unprocessed, their skin flaking away under the heat of well-directed magic-
“Alex,” Max said. “You okay?” he said, waving his open palm in front of Alex's face.
Alex kept eating. His thoughts kept drifting, as much as he tried to forget, ignore, or otherwise shove them under a metaphorical rug.
“What if,” he began, “there was a girl. A beautiful girl, the kind you can't keep your eyes off of.” The other two nodded. The last year or so had taught them that feeling. “Long hair, eyes that could make a demon stop in his tracks.” He thought back. “Jaws set like a trap.”
“What?” Max said, only to be shushed by Gabe. “Let him talk.”
“You know. Teeth ready to hurt anyone who set her off,” Alex said, offhandedly. He barely noticed the question. “She's stronger than you.” Others couldn't admit such things, but Alex prided himself on truth. “You try to keep up with her, but she keeps outpacing you. You push further and further, but when you catch up, you realize she's been doing this for longer than you have, and you've still got hours to go before you match her.” He smiled. “Absolutely incredible. But…”
“But?” Max and Gabe said in unison.
Alex sighed. “When you find her, it's after curfew.”
“Ah,” said Gabe, knowingly. “When you look out your window, and see her looking out hers, across the way?” He smiled, full of a happy memory.
“No. She's just… out there.” Alex stared at a person who wasn't there. “Outside of the dorms. Outside of campus. Waiting in the cold dark.”
The other two boys stared at him.
“And she comes to your window. She grabs you by the collar, and throws you out with her. It doesn't matter what she's supposed to do. It doesn't matter what you're supposed to do. She's got her own thing going on, and what you or the Church or God want won't stop her.”
Alex tensed up. “And something…”
Max and Gabe were held in rapt attention.
“Makes you go along. Something pulls you along with her.”
Alex hadn't realized he hadn't been breathing.
Max looked at him with confusion, and Gabriel looked at him in mild horror. “That's…” he began. Awful? A Catch-22? The kind of punishment another student should never be subjected to? He couldn't figure out what to say.
A laugh pierced the high-strung air. “Oh man, she sounds fun.” Their heads whipped around in unison.
At the foot of the table, hands on her hips, smile stretching to the edges of her face, was a girl barely five feet tall. Her hair hung nearly to the small of her back, framing her arms and shoulders, with just enough cut away from the front to keep her face clear. That hair was an unnatural shade of white that gleamed when it caught the light just right.
A frame so slight had no business taking up so much space, and yet, without even touching the table, she dominated the scene with just that smile. “You been thinking about the Pairing, Alex?” she said, smirking at him.
The others clammed up, but Alex nodded. “A little.” He took a beat to regain his composure, and stared her down. Francesca was indomitable, but somehow, the others always fared worse in her presence. “Have you?”
She tsk'd, and broke eye contact. “You're all really cute with your little concerns and worries, but the rest of us know we're going to get everything we want,” she said. The air vibrated around her, full of energy. Alex never knew quite how much of that the others felt. He was sensitive, sure, but there was only so much one could ignore, right?
“Of course,” Alex said. He'd be damned if someone could call him insecure in his purpose. “I know exactly how things are going to be next week.” He was sure when he said it, but as his gaze drifted towards her, Alex began to fidget. Something about her expressions looked off from her usual bluster, but he couldn’t put his finger on what it was.
Francesca snorted. “I better not end up with any of you dweebs,” she said. She winked at Alex – they always teased each other over training, and he knew the games were always set to continue – and spun on her heel and walked away.
“Well,” Gabriel said.
“That happened,” Maxwell added.
“Yeah,” Alex concluded.
“Wanna get some carrot cake?” Gabriel stood, and the three moved out.