josh "elixir" foley

On the first day of Christmas, Kavinsky put up a tree. The boys had been planning to do one already, obviously, they were former child soldiers (ish) and victims of prejudice and superheroes in spandex, not heathens. But this one is probably better: still alive and thus, according to David's exhaustive knowledge of flammable fir oils and herbological dehydration, less a fire risk. It sits in a pot and they must take turns watering it. It is tall and wears a tree topper shaped like a star.

On the second, they have two dutch ovens. On cast iron and the second enameled, a dove grey, barely finding space in David's handsomely outfitted kitchen. You can bake bread in them, so they can stay.

On the third, the boys each now own holiday sweaters. Josh's has disembodied cat heads shooting lasers out of their eyes onto an array of gift-wrapped parcels. David's demonstrates THE SCIENCE OF GOODWILL TO MANKIND, a formula that requires both INT and WIS. Kavinsky's shows a deer drinking beer, its mug clutched in the halves of its hooves.

On the fourth day of Christmas, their home is suddenly station to a fleet of four Roombas. They appear to be in love with David Alleyne, as their voice activation only appears to work when it's his voice activating them, their day-to-day operation otherwise quite mundane: push the 'CLEAN' button at the top. Occasionally, when they get stuck on the carpet or under the corner of the kitchen cabinets, they get flustered and cry out for assistance. One invariably detects a faint, polite note of disappointment if it is the wrong boy who comes to their aid.

On the fifth, five bottles of mead and mix spices present themselves on the kitchen counter. Thereafter, they are followed by six giant, prismatic snowflakes cling to the biggest of the first floor windows. When unobstructed by curtains, they distill the dawn light into effervescent rainbows and sparkling festively from the outside; they don't seem to melt, or only very slowly, leaving no trace. A seven-piece knife set then fills in for any blades that happened to be missing from the set, including a paring knife with a blade as small as a fingernail and something like a Goddamn machete.

Eight strings of solar-powered fairy lights. Nine cornish hens, just in case they were planning to do some big holiday party, but they now also have a freezer in the garage if they don't. Ten recent video game releases, accompanying a VR console of the latest make; mostly puzzle games, two action-adventure things, and a popular virtual encyclopedia which may or may not have been designed by low-key Prodigy fans who recorded David's voice, his demeanor, at FanPort and seem to have embedded their program with his aesthetic. Eleven movies! Actual Earth stuff. All of Alien.

Then there are exactly twelve security camera covers, fist-sized half-spheres made of one-way alloy, reflective for camouflage purposes. That's when Josh kind of catches on.

And he isn't sure what to say, though he has the impulse to try. Something like: It's okay to want things for yourself. It's even okay to want things for other people. But it gets a little weird, to try and spoil someone only because you like someone who loves them. He notices how closely Kavinsky watches David, over the chore huddle on Tuesday, then at the table as Josh serves his latest disastrous attempt at a six-course microwave dinner. Josh decides it isn't creepy, and secretly hopes this decision isn't wrong.

(Of course, he doesn't catch Kavinsky looking at him. When Josh grins up at David on the ladder, installing the camera covers. Or configuring the Roombas to operate in strategic concert, or absent-mindedly correcting the encyclopedia's grammar. But Josh was never very good at his own happiness, anyway, and that was the point.)