The Nettle Tea Chronicles

Multiple

"Jasmine, can you get the last pie from the fridge? And the cake?"

"Yup, I got 'em." Jasmine called back. Her mother-in-law was already carrying two pies herself, hands full as she slipped from the kitchen back toward the dining room as Ashton slipped into the kitchen. Before Jazz was able to get into the fridge, her husband slid a hand around her waist to pull her into a warm embrace and kiss. She grinned and reciprocated for a moment before lightly slapping him away.

"What? We're alone." He said with a chuckle.

"And that's why I hit you after the kiss."

"Did you need a hand?" Ash asked as Jazz opened the fridge to retrieve the pies.

"I dunno, ask your mother. There's probably another two cakes somewhere. Or, actually, I bet she'll want the coffee pot."

"It's not done yet." Ashton chuckled, pointing at the old percolator still working on the counter. "I can't believe she still has that thing."

"To be fair, with this many people in attendance, using that monstrosity makes more sense than the single cup maker."

"True enough. Hey, mom, what else do we need out there?" Ash called.

"The last cake is in the garage." She called back.

"Told you there'd be more." Jazz snickered.

"That's, what, six deserts?"

"Before the ice cream and other treats she probably has stashed away somewhere, yeah." Jazz said, hefting the two pies she was in charge of.

"I'm glad I cleaned out our car's trunk."

"We both knew we'd be sent home with enough leftovers to carry us through New Year's." Jazz said, then kicked Ash in the rear. "Now go get the cake."

"I'm going."

It had been a normal Christmas for Ash's family. His mother spent all day cooking to inundate her entire family with a seven course meal, starting at 10a.m. when people began trickling in, and only wrapping up around six or seven with desert. It was a long day full of chatter, food, and card games.

Jazz had even been lucky enough to win the poker jackpot of ten dollars this year. The buy-in was only a dollar each, but she still cleaned out the other nine family members at the table.

She liked being around Ashton's family for Christmas. They had been rotating between their families for the holidays basically since the second year they were dating, and each year with Ashton's family was always the same - in a good way. The years with her own family were nice too, of course, they were just more…normal. Her parents typically just made a nice dinner and they all relaxed together with conversation and the TV in the background.

Ashton's family was far more boisterous and loud than hers. But they were also welcoming and had pulled her into their family even before they were actually married. After they officially tied the knot, though, the family stopped letting her win at the card games. Her five year losing streak was the reason for her excitement at winning this year.

Once everyone was sitting around the table - her, Ashton, his parents, his younger sister, her husband, Ashton's mother's three sisters, and his father's parents - dessert was finally served. On a whim, Jazz checked her phone to see if she had any messages while at the table, only to see Marissa's picture with all of the treats laid out, followed by the pictures of her and Evie with their chickens.

She chuckled at it before Ashton's mother said "Jasmine, no phones at the table."

"Sorry, sorry." She said, "But do you mind if I get a picture with everyone here before I put it away?"

That was enough to get a smile from the older woman. "Of course. Here, swap with me."

Ashton's mother sat at one head of the extra long three-leaf dining table, with Ashton to her left, and Jasmine on his left. The sudden seat swap was enough to get everyone's attention, so when she eventually snapped the picture, selfie-style, of the entire table, the entire family was smiling wide in various poses.

{Aleister} : [Attached Image]

{Aliester} : Merry Christmas, nerds.

"Bro, you gotta be shitting me."

Blake couldn't help but laugh. Patrick just sat there staring at his D20 that had utterly betrayed him, rolling two natural 1s in a row.

"Pat, buddy, you gotta roll above a five at some point tonight, please." Marc laughed, taking a sip of beer.

"Sometimes the dice just aren't on your side." David shrugged. "At least the rest of us are rolling well."

"We'd be dead if we weren't." Blake said.

He leaned back in his chair happily. He and several of his friends and acquaintances had opted to remain near the campus for the holiday season. So, in an effort to do something for the holiday, one of them had offered to host a holiday one-shot tabletop game, complete with snacks, drinks, and general holiday cheer.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

It was exactly what they all needed to unwind for the holiday after dealing with long video calls from their families wherever they were at. Except for Jon, who had taken the 2 hour drive home only to escape later to come back for the game.

As it turned out, Joe, their GM for the one-shot, decided to make the whole thing horror-Christmas themed. The guy had even gone so far as to decorate the basement of his rental house for them to play. He had done up the room in a delightfully unnerving way, with lots of Halloween decorations that didn't exactly scream Halloween - lots of spider webbing, fake blood, and other spooky set dressings. Then he added a bunch of wintery things like fake snow; he even brought down a few bare Christmas trees to add some greenery to the space. The overall effect was quite impressive.

He had even repurposed a fog machine from somewhere.

Then there was the big dining room table to play on, a few side tables to contain the abundance of food everyone had gone in together on, and the hangout was complete.

It didn't feel much like a family Christmas at all, but Blake was pretty sure if anyone had tried to throw a cozy holiday bash, it wouldn't have gone over nearly as well as this had. They had spent all day laughing together, throwing dice, and generally low-key partying without all the general college party loudness.

Honestly, he thought it was about as perfect a holiday as he could have had without the corny but traditional family dinner and everything that came with it.

A bit after dinner time, Patrick decided they collectively needed more drinks - which was true. They had drunk everything they had brought downstairs with them. So, when he ran up the stairs to fetch more and Joe decided they may as well take a bathroom break, the whole crew went up to congregate in the messy kitchen.

They were still empty boxes from all the frozen hors d'oeuvres they had brought scattered on the table, along with a large case of beer and some other bottled drinks. Blake snatched one of the beer cans to have while everyone posted up against a countertop in the kitchen to lean on and relax while chatting.

Idly while the other guys were discussing Patrick's absolutely awful dice luck, Blake took out his phone to check his notifications. He had a couple texts from his mother, following up on some things they had discussed earlier on the phone - mostly random expenses she saw on his credit card. But there were also messages from the Nettle Tea crew.

He looked over the other pictures that everyone had sent of them in various celebrations. It was pretty neat to see faces for the first time, but it also really drove home exactly how much younger he was than the others. Not that he'd say they looked old or anything, but they were definitely more adult than he was.

He glanced up at his friends crowded around the room, now that everyone was back in attendance. With a shrug, he spun around where he was and shot a selfie to get everyone in the kitchen in the frame.

"What're you taking pictures for?" Marc asked, confused by Blake's sudden spinning around.

"Some friends online are showing off their Christmas celebrations. Figured I'd add mine to the pile." Blake said while he lined up his message.

{Firo} : [Attached Image]

{Firo} : Happy Holidays!

Marc and Joe had slid up beside him to look over his shoulders. He tried shrugging them off, but they had apparently caught a glimpse of the image Evie had sent. And she had been clad in cozy but attractive pajamas.

"Yo, scroll back up. She was hot."

"Who was that?"

Blake sighed. "Dunno her real name. In the game it's Evie." He didn't scroll back up, instead turning off his screen and dropping his phone back into his pocket.

"Well, you're no fun." Marc said.

"Let's just get back to the game." Blake said, changing the subject. No one was interested enough to fight him on it.

"Grab the rest of the drinks. And get the big ass bag of chips from the pantry." Joe said, pointing toward the pantry.

"Yessir!"

"What time is it?"

Evan struggled to check his phone, slowly working the device from his pocket. "Uh. Little after 8, looks like." He said, completely out of energy. His arm flopped back onto the couch lazily where he was spread out with little Eli laying on chest.

Samantha, his wife, was equally spread out, but she had chosen to collapse on the floor just below him, snug in between the couch and the ottoman that went with it. She let out a spectacular, full-body sigh. "Who's taking tonight?"

"I said I would, remember? Since we're not raiding until Thursday this week."

"Oh. Right." Sam's arm came up to cover her eyes as she yawned. "My mind's a jumble."

"That's what happens when you don't sleep." Evan said, equally with no energy. "Trying to work our schedules to have a workable first Christmas was not the move."

"Nope. Regret. So much regret." Sam said.

In an attempt to make Eli's first Christmas more of an event, Evan and Sam had decided to try to fix their schedule in such a way that they would both be awake during the bulk of Christmas day. It hadn't quite gone to plan, when Eli decided to spend most of Christmas Eve's night and Christmas morning being upset and requiring attention. It had left both his parents functional for part of the day, but as they were reaching the evening now, Evan and Sam were equally fried.

And of course, that meant Eli was now content and sleeping peacefully on Evan's chest.

"There's no point in forcing anything. You may as well go get some sleep. I'll keep Eli company here and try to stay lucid until midnight at least. Maybe longer if I can manage it."

"Yeah? Sounds good." Sam muttered from the ground but made no motion to move.

Evan, in a bid to try to stay awake, pulled up his phone again to check on the notifications he saw when he checked the time. He grinned while scrolling through the messages from his friends. There were even a few texts from Kieran jokingly asking if he was alive. Rather than respond to those, he chose to dump a picture they had taken earlier into the Clan's chat. It was a Christmas card worthy photo of him, Sam, and Eli at the table with a classic looking holiday family meal on it.

No one needed to know that they ate it at lunch time, when they felt mostly awake.

{Fiona} : [Attached Image]

Before he added some variant of the holiday greeting, he paused and chuckled to himself. He passed the phone to his left hand, which was closer to the back of the couch, and pushed it up, angling to get a selfie shot of himself, Eli, and Sam collapsed the way they were.

"Hey." He said.

"Hm?" Sam muttered, still barely moving.

"Say cheese."

"Huh?"

Sam moved her arm just enough to peek out from under it with one eye, and Evan snapped the picture. When he checked the image he laughed - they looked absolutely awful. Completely disheveled, hair was a wreck, they both had massive bags under their eyes…it was bad.

And yet, he also definitely liked the picture more than the neat portrait they had taken earlier at the table.

"I don't even have the energy to throttle you for that." Sam said sleepily. "Share that with my family, though, and I'll kill you."

"No worries, it's just going in the Clan chat."

"Great."

{Fiona} : [Attached Image]

{Fiona} : Help.