Title: Charades 24/24
Author: Magpie and Wolfling
Email: magpie@moracle.co.uk and wolfling@sympatico.ca
Show: Buffy
Rating: NC-17
Category: angst, hurt/comfort
Warnings: spoilers up to the end of Chosen
Pairings: Giles/Ethan
Series: Of Old Mystics, sequel to Sleight of Hand
Summary: Searching for meaning in the signs and symbols of life.
Author Notes: Many thanks to Mad Poetess and Wesleysgirl for betaing :) This is
the third story in the Of Old Mystics series; previous stories in the series can
be found
http://www.myarseisnotpansy.co.uk/piedm/mystics.html.
Ethan woke with a start. His hands had lifted in his sleep; his bandaged fingers were clutching at air. Turning, he saw Rupert in the dull light coming from the streetlamps outside; he was making the exact same futile gesture.
Opening his mouth to discuss what had obviously been another shared dream, Ethan froze as the smell hit him. Smell... sensation... something anyway. Something *wrong*. Fuck. "We're under attack." As soon as he said the words, the dogs started barking from Megan's room.
"I know." Rupert was already moving, rolling out of bed and grabbing his robe on the way over to the chest where he kept his personal weapons.
Ethan stumbled into his trousers, doing them up as he cautiously opened the door. Everything seemed quiet. Too quiet. And then he saw it. Oozing slowly up the stairs like thick black smoke came Chaos. Raw, lethal Chaos. "Rupert. Get Megan and the dogs out of here," he said urgently, flashback memories of the night on the tube train almost staggering him. Oh God... "Don't... don't let it touch you."
"On it," Rupert said, already heading down the hallway towards their Slayer's room. "Megan!"
He had to clear the stairs. Shutting his eyes, letting himself see only patterns, Ethan began to weave a defence against the Chaos, which now appeared to him as a writhing mass of tiny ebony snakes, slithering over each other in their eagerness to reach him, weaving and unweaving their thin bodies together.
He wove a tight-mesh net more or less from the air itself, from the possibilities of directions and decisions, and he pushed it against the snakes. Dimly, he heard his puppy barking. "Keep them back," he yelled, and walked down two steps.
Footsteps came up behind him, stopping at the top of the stairs. He knew if he could spare the concentration to look, he'd seen Rupert and Megan hovering, waiting for a target to fight.
Slowly, he forced the writhing mass further and further back, but it was hard and becoming harder. He was having to use everything he had just to make headway. When he reached the last few steps, he felt like crying. The whole living room was smothered, alive with the squirming Chaos; the walls, even the ceiling in places, dripping with serpentine void.
After the magical drains of the scrying and protection spells, he was meant to deal with this? Where was a sodding storm when you needed one?
Rupert came down the steps behind him. "This isn't the way to fight." He rested a hand on Ethan's back, fingers tingling with magic. "We're stronger together."
"It... you can't... what if it touches you?"
"You can't fight this alone, Ethan. Let me bloody help!"
"I just have to get you to the door," he said weakly, but he knew he couldn't do it, knew Rupert was right. It was only a few feet through the lobby door and out the front, but it might as well have been miles. He couldn't walk another step. Not alone.
"*We* have to get *us* to the door," Rupert corrected, frustration and urgency making his voice sharp. "Now stop being so blasted stubborn about working alone!"
"Alright," Ethan agreed, staggering back a step under the pressure. "But you mustn't touch it. Please, Rupert."
"I wasn't planning on touching it," Rupert said, reaching out and joining his magic with Ethan's with an almost audible internal click, the sudden boost in power stabilising the barrier he was holding. Rupert stepped down to the same step Ethan was standing on, holding his sword up in front of him, a sword that was glowing with their combined magic. "I thought I might slash it to ribbons, if that's permissible?"
Ethan said nothing, and really he wasn't thinking very much either. Letting instincts take over, he put his hand on Rupert's shoulder and extended his net again, wrapping it around all of them, the shield to Rupert's sword. They slowly made their way off the stairs and out into the living room, Rupert's sword cutting a large swathe through the writhing darkness as they moved.
"Megan, stay close," Ethan warned. "It mustn't touch you or the dogs." He let Rupert guide them. The sword sliced a way and the shield held it open. They only had to get through the lobby now.
He heard her murmured assent as they continued their slow exodus. Ethan's attention was fully on his task of maintaining his shield, but still he was aware of how magnificent Rupert was, swinging his brightly shining sword with an implacable expression.
And then, almost suddenly, they were outside on the pavement, shivering in the winter's night. Ethan shoved the door shut, then slammed his shield over it, unsure if it was necessary, but refusing to take any chances. Then he relaxed enough to take a deep breath and look with pattern sense over the others, including the dogs. "Is everyone all right?" he asked, bending to lift Skunk into his arms, even now worried about the road.
Megan nodded, eyes wide as she stared back at their house. "Was that... What *was* that?"
"Chaos," Rupert answered before Ethan could. Gwydion was too large now to easily be picked up, but Rupert shifted his sword to his other hand and bent down to pet the dog's head, a soothing move for both of them.
"It was an attack," Ethan said darkly. "And it didn't come from thin air. Rupert..."
"Can you trace it?"
"Not exactly. Dark Chaos shows up within my sight as absence rather than presence, but... I think... Rupert, we need to do some fast and efficient breaking and entering."
Rupert nodded. "Right." He turned to their Slayer. "Megan, take the dogs and wait for us in the car."
"But--" she started.
Ethan put Skunk in her hands. "You can't help with this. I'm relying on you to keep the dogs safe." He didn't wait to see if she obeyed, but went straight to the door of their neighbours on the left. "If we're quick and quiet about this, the Opies, if innocent, may never know we've been inside. You take the lock; I'll do the alarm."
Rupert put his hand on the doorknob, closed his eyes and murmured in Latin. There was a quiet but definite click as the lock opened. "Feels almost like cheating doing it that way," Rupert said with a frown. "Should be going at it with just my picks and skill."
"Magic isn't cheating," Ethan murmured distractedly as he ensured the alarm system inside would be blind to their presence. "It's an artform."
"So's lock picking."
"Alarm's off." Ethan stepped back enough to push the door open. Lowering his voice to a whisper, he added, "I can sense it, or at least can sense where nothing at all is."
He felt Rupert's hand come to rest against his back. "I'll follow your lead."
As they walked into the strange house, Ethan felt upstairs with his pattern senses, finding two sleeping bodies, the Opies. He tweaked just enough to ensure they were deep in sleep and unlikely to wake unless there was a lot of noise. The only other life of significance in the house was small and also upstairs, and Ethan was relatively certain that it was a cat.
He led Rupert into the front room... which wasn't too different from their own, albeit with a lot more purple and lilac. Rupert was silent as he followed, almost quite literally in Ethan's footsteps. He kept his hand on Ethan's back, a connection that helped anchor Ethan.
The Opies had a real fireplace, not a gas fire pretending to be coal like Rupert and Ethan had, and above it there was a mantelpiece, strewn with tacky porcelain. One piece -- which to Ethan's normal sight was a thoroughly cringeworthy statue of an Edwardian coquette on a swing -- within his pattern sight, was merely a hole, a black area of nothingness. He pointed it out to Rupert. "Your sword?" he whispered.
With a grim smile, Rupert used his sword to knock the bit of porcelain to the floor, where it shattered quite satisfyingly. Ethan watched as the black void dissipated, leaving only broken china.
'That seemed to work,' he sent.
'That always was Buffy's solution,' Rupert replied. 'When in doubt, smash something.'
Ethan made one last check around before sending, 'Let's get out of here. We need to do number fifteen as well.'
'All right.' They retraced their steps back through the house and outside, where they carefully closed and relocked the Opies' door. The poor cat would undoubtedly get the blame for the broken porcelain, but that couldn't be helped.
They then headed to the house on the other side of theirs. Laying his hands flat on the front door, Ethan sensed through the wood. "There's no alarm... oh. Bugger it."
"What?"
"Whatshisname is awake and downstairs."
"Bugger," Rupert said with feeling. Then he took a deep breath and composed himself. "Well, it's not like this is the first time I've been in a situation when I have to lie my way into a place. Sunnydale was particularly good as a training ground for that." He glanced at Ethan. "You think you'd be able to tweak his pattern to make him more likely to believe?"
"If he's an innocent in this, yes."
"If he's not then we won't have to weave him a story. I'll just knock him on the head."
Ethan reached out and felt his way around the man's patterns. It would be easy enough to stop fear and aggression hormones spiking. "Ready," he murmured. Rupert nodded and knocked on the door.
'Hello,' Ethan sent to Rupert as they waited. 'We're your mad gay neighbours. And we're knocking you up at 4 A.M. in this half-naked state in order to ask you if you'd consider reading this copy of the Watchtower...'
'Do *you* want to do this?' Rupert sent back testily.
'No, dear.' Ethan tried to look suitably apologetic as the door opened. Whatshisname, a short middle-aged scouser who was almost certainly, in Ethan's opinion, an ex-soldier, was fully dressed and scowling; Ethan immediately tweaked the man's system to release endorphins and cease the flow of adrenaline.
When whatshisname said, "Do you know what time it is?" he sounded more confused than angry.
"Yes, I know the hour is definitely not civilised," Rupert said, all smooth and official sounding; all that practice in Council meetings no doubt. Although Ethan strongly doubted Rupert had ever chaired one of those in his bathrobe. "We apologise for disturbing you, Mr. Barnet, but we have a bit of a situation."
The man peered out into the street to see if anyone else was about. "What kind of situation?"
"It's rather embarrassing actually," Rupert said with a small smile. "Our ward has rather a penchant for exotic pets -- spiders actually -- and one of the more exotic of her collection has turned up missing. We fear it's got into the vents and may have made its way into your house."
The man frowned. "Tarantula?"
Rupert shook his head. "Scarlet widow. It's a rare -- and more deadly -- subspecies of the black widow. Quite poisonous."
"Don't you have to have a license for this sort of thing?" Mr Barnet asked, looking behind himself nervously as Ethan spiked the man's fear chemicals.
"Really, you need to let us in," Ethan said. "We know how to handle the species and where it's likely to be lurking. There is an antidote, of course, but I've heard it's almost worse than the bite."
"We'll be in and out quickly," Rupert assured him. "You won't even know we were here."
As Barnet stepped outside, his arms wrapped around himself for warmth, or perhaps for comfort, Ethan reached out and gripped the man's shoulder suddenly. "Just a second," Ethan said in a deadly serious tone. He made a big song and dance about looking over the man's hair and back; he could feel Barnet trembling slightly under the investigation. "You're clean. You'd better wait outside."
Ethan still had a slice of evil in him.
'You enjoyed that far too much,' Rupert sent dryly as they stepped inside.
'Serves him right for the 'bloody poof' comment he thought I didn't hear the other day,' Ethan sent back, only feeling very slightly guilty.
This house had quite a different layout to their own and was austerely furnished. There was a heavy smell of stale tobacco.
This time the Chaos focus seemed to be one of those plastic-pretending-to-be-gold trophies that littered the shelves of blue-collar bachelors up and down Britain. Barnet had apparently won this one at a pub quiz before Christmas.
'Not so easy to smash this one.'
'The thing about plastic,' Rupert said, raising a hand toward the little trophy, 'is that given enough heat, it melts.' Aloud he intoned, "Aurum simulaire vis solaris senti."
Ethan watched the fake gold ooze over the stone base, the Chaos dissipating, just as it had from the smashed porcelain two doors down. 'Well, that's that then. The Chaos has gone; the threat's averted...' His mental tone hardened. 'Well, apart from the rather important fact that our enemies were able to get into these houses to hide their weapons in the first place.'
'We're definitely going to have to reassess our defences,' Rupert agreed. 'But our place should be safe enough for the rest of the night at least.'
Ethan rubbed his eyes. 'Possibly. I'll have to check over every inch of it before I'll be able to relax. Do you think our scrying spurred them into action tonight?'
Rupert nodded. 'It's too much of a coincidence otherwise. We got too close.'
'Rupert, we can't stay here. We're too vulnerable and...' He sighed aloud. 'And we're putting civilians at risk, and I know how you'd feel if innocents, even that twat, Barnet, got hurt in the crossfire.'
'This isn't the place to discuss it,' Rupert told him, resting a hand on Ethan's shoulder. 'Let's get back home and then we can have a war council.'
Ethan nodded unhappily. 'If you appease Barnet and get Megan and the hounds, I'll start making absolutely sure the house is clean.'
Rupert leant in and gave him a quick if heartfelt kiss. 'They attacked and we beat them off. Again. Just remember that.'
Smiling albeit weakly, Ethan nodded again. He followed Rupert out of Barnet's house, ignoring the man and heading straight back to their own, only to then remember he'd shut the door firmly, and he was half naked. 'Um, dearheart...?' Rupert was talking seriously with Barnet, but he glanced over his shoulder at Ethan, then smiled faintly. Ethan felt the small surge of his husband's magic as the door in front of him clicked open. He left it ajar and went cautiously inside.
Wandering around the house, Ethan checked everywhere for signs of Chaos, but it was as if the writhing black serpentine mass had never been here; their house was clean...
Ethan felt far from clean himself. That abhorrent mess had once been him. It had been in his every cell, poisoning him, allowing his anger to manifest in ever more deviant forms. And he'd welcomed it, invited it in, because he'd hated himself enough to think it fitting.
Not that he would have phrased it like that at the time.
It made him sick to consider that treacly morass, that lack-of-substance which had nearly destroyed Rupert, had once been inside him. He couldn't help but feel somehow responsible for this attack. Yes, that made no logical sense, but still.
Having checked upstairs thoroughly, he began to check downstairs for a second time, knowing he was being neurotic, and that the sense of infestation came from inside him not from without, but unable to stop himself. Rupert would come in soon and calm him down, he could only hope.
Ethan was just coming out of the study when he saw the lobby door start to open. But it wasn't Rupert or Megan who came in. Somehow though, seeing Ian come through that door wasn't surprising at all.
"Hello, old crow." Ethan said quietly, smiling as he walked over.
"Young fox," Ian replied in kind. "Did you have a pleasant evening of jumping on the hornet's nest?"
"Pleasant is not quite how I'd describe it," Ethan said dryly, opening his arms to embrace his mentor. Ian hugged him back, but Ethan felt himself freeze as he looked over Ian's shoulder to spy Dawn.
He didn't ask what the girl was doing here. He knew. The dream had told them everything, or would have done, had they had time to consider it.
"Are you all right?" he asked her urgently, then turned back to Ian. "Both of you."
Ian nodded. "They weren't expecting me."
Dawn looked shaken but trying to hide it; she was doing a pretty good job of holding it together, but Ethan thought that the wrong word or action could cause her to shatter.
"Come and sit down. The house is clean of nastiness." He didn't let any doubt into his tone. Mentally, he sent to Rupert, 'Ian's here. With Dawn. Did you see them? The dream...'
He got wordless acknowledgement from his lover, and it seemed like only a second or two before Rupert was coming in the door with Megan and the dogs at his heels.
"What happened?" Rupert asked, looking from Ian to Dawn and back again.
The question seemed to break through Dawn's thin resolve; she was up off the couch and into Rupert's arms in a heartbeat. "It was Doc," she said, looking up at Rupert with wide, frightened eyes. "The guy who cut me for Glory."
Which meant little to Ethan, but it clearly did to Rupert who looked alarmed and a little haunted by the news. Ethan patted Megan on the shoulder, trying to give her some reassurance in these disturbing circumstances. They shared equally weak smiles.
"I'm going to put the kettle on," he announced suddenly. "With apologies for being an English cliché, I think a cup of tea each will help restore some sense of normality for us all." As he walked to the kitchen, he gave Ian a pointed look, inviting his mentor to come and talk with him.
Sure enough, Ian followed him into the kitchen. Ethan pushed the door shut, although not before Skunk had slipped in after him.
He picked up his puppy. "Met the familiar?" he asked Ian with a slightly embarrassed wink.
Ian smiled faintly as he held out a hand for Skunk to sniff. "You've certainly gathered quite the menagerie about yourself."
Ethan gave him a wry look before putting Skunk down and turning to fill the kettle. "Yes, it worries me at times. So they tried to... what? Kidnap Dawn? Kill her?"
Ian gave a typically obtuse answer. "If you don't want certain locks to be opened, you destroy the key."
"I knew it," Ethan muttered. He switched the kettle on and turned to face Ian. "Keri was able to warn you? Are you sure you're all right?" He let his senses run over Ian's body, not really caring if the older man took offence, although he didn't think he would.
There were no wounds, obvious or otherwise, but Ethan could tell that Ian had used far more of himself than he was letting on.
"Do I pass muster?" Ian murmured with a raised eyebrow.
Ethan nodded with a small self-effacing smile. "If the student is allowed to congratulate the teacher, well done."
"You have grown certain of yourself, haven't you?" It was said without heat, but with affection.
"It's more I'm discovering a new side to myself," Ethan admitted, putting it into words for the first time. "The menagerie is part of it. I..." He gave Ian a look of embarrassed humour. "I mother." The verb bothered him, so he carried on quickly. "Will you tell me the nature of the attack on Dawn?"
Ian pressed his lips together in a thin line. "Physical. My opposite number is rather enamoured with things that are sharp and pointy."
"Human?"
"Oh no." Ian smiled, and it wasn't a pretty one. "Although he may have been once, a very long time ago, and still would appear so to unknowing eyes."
"Dead now?" Ethan spooned tea into the pot, some of the powdery leaves sticking to the bandages on his fingers.
"Not even close." It was very clear this was a sticking point with Ian.
"Bugger. I don't suppose you're ready to tell us more about what's going on? We had another dream tonight." He frowned, remembering. "Some of it was obviously about you and Dawn, but some of the rest is perplexing."
"I will be ecstatic to offer you my viewpoint on your dream," Ian said, glancing around him, "but I think at the moment our energies would be best used at regrouping and coming up with a safe haven."
"I was giving Rupert a chance to calm Dawn," Ethan said with a shrug, turning back to the counter and stacking a tray with mugs.
"I know." Ian sighed. "I guess our young Key is not the only one who is a bit jumpy." It was an apology of sorts.
The kettle clicked and turned itself off. Ethan turned and gave Ian a rueful smile before filling the pot. He lifted the loaded tray. "Well, hopefully that's long enough for now." He nodded at the door. "After you." Ian gave a mock little bow before heading back into the living room.
Dawn and Rupert were on the sofa. Her face was tear-stained and his arm was around her. Megan was perched on the arm of one of the chairs, looking uncomfortable, Giddy lying at her feet. Ethan put the tray down on the coffee table and knelt stiffly down beside it. "How does everyone want their tea?"
Dawn gave a watery giggle. "You're so... English."
"There are any number of sound psychological and physiological reasons why tea, and the ritual of tea, is good at a time like this," Ethan replied implacably. "Take a perch, Ian," he added. Ian obeyed, a slight smile on his face, although Ethan found it easy to perceive the tension and worry the man still felt.
Ethan poured tea for everyone, even Dawn, guessing that she'd like it sweet. They all watched him in silence as he filled and handed out the cups, and he had to repress some totally inappropriate giggles in reaction to the atmosphere in the room. Settling down in the chair that Megan was leaning upon, he surveyed them all. Everyone was still looking at him. "Oh, come now, I'm hardly the best suited to chair this emergency session.... and anyway, shouldn't Xander be here?"
"I'm thinking we may not have time to gather the troops before decisions are made...?" Rupert said with a questioning glance at Ian.
"You may be right at that," Ian admitted.
Ethan frowned and swallowed down fear. "The house is clean. Really, it is. And the foci destroyed. You think they may try a more direct attack tonight?"
Ian cocked his head to the side, obviously considering. "I don't know. It should take a while for them to organise enough to do so." He gave a ghost of a smile. "Organisation is not one of their strong suits."
Ethan's frown deepened, his forehead pulling tight. "Maybe not before. Now they have one of Order's finest minions on their side."
"'Finest' may be stretching the point a bit," Rupert put in. "But yes, there are alliances forming on all sides."
"Most enthusiastic then." Ethan stood again, swigging his hot tea down and hardly noticing it. "So, if the situation is potentially this urgent, why pray, are we sitting here having a pleasant tea party?"
"Because it's better to have a direction before we start running," Ian said.
Megan put a hand on his arm and tugged until he looked down at her. "Ethan?"
He gave her a weak smile and sat back down. Skunk jumped up on his lap, and Ethan cuddled his dog distractedly. "A hotel then? Or Council HQ? Where we can have a proper meeting?"
"Unless there's an attack imminent here in the next hour...?" Rupert asked. looking questioningly at Ian who shook his head. "We should be able to slow down and take this one step at a time. But definitely, high on the list should be a new base of operations."
Rupert seemed to be gathering himself up to take control of the impromptu meeting. Gratefully, Ethan sank back into the cushions and let his husband do what he was best at.
"It's obvious that this place, despite our best attempts at warding, is too enclosed for adequate defence." Rupert paused to take a sip of his tea. "We should assume, given Francesca's defection, that any other Council property would fall prey to the same sort of vulnerabilities; she knows them too well. We need somewhere that wouldn't be in Council records with all its weaknesses listed in all their glory. Preferably somewhere there aren't so many opportunities for them to use and endanger innocents. Which leaves out most, if not all of London."
"Devon?" Megan suggested. "It's out in the countryside, plus lots of really powerful witchy types." She smiled shyly at Ian.
Ian returned the smile, but shook his head. "They have their own problems right now."
Rupert frowned. "Problems?"
"Nothing for you to worry over," Ian told him. "I think you have enough on your plate already, don't you? Best see to that before eyeing others' meals."
Even as the more overt tension in his muscles relaxed, Ethan was becoming aware of a small tight ball of tension inside of him. Their wonderful idyll was falling apart, everyone he cared about was in danger and... "Rupert and I should go somewhere alone. Or perhaps keep moving, so as not to be sitting ducks."
"Because of course they wouldn't go after anybody else to draw you out," Ian all but drawled, glancing pointedly at Dawn.
"Ian's right," Rupert agreed. "We don't want to leave any targets. When we go... wherever we're going, everyone comes."
"So they can lay siege to us?" Ethan covered his face with his hands and rubbed hard. "Great idea," he muttered.
"Ethan, I'm your Slayer." Megan's voice, hurt yet strong. "You don't run out on me when things get tough, you *use* me."
"No," he said stubbornly, refusing even to think about it.
"The trick," Rupert put in before Megan could argue, "is to make sure it doesn't come to that."
"What about me?" Dawn asked with shaky bravado. "Where do I go?"
"You stay with us, I'm afraid," Ethan answered, looking up from his hands and giving her a sympathetic look. "I am sorry."
"We'll keep you safe," Rupert promised, smiling at the girl.
Ethan knew, *knew* deep inside, that that was a promise they shouldn't make blithely... and yet, somehow, he knew that they were the only ones qualified to make that promise at all currently. And looking at Ian, their eyes meeting briefly, his mentor knew these things too. Ethan frowned and looked down at his damaged hands.
Megan shifted beside him. "Well, if Devon is out, and London is out, where does that leave us?"
Ethan could pinpoint the exact second that his husband came up with the answer; he swore he could see it come into Rupert's eyes.
With a faint smile, Rupert said, "I believe I may have just the place." He looked across the room and met Ethan's gaze. "You've said you wanted to see the Giles estate where I grew up..."
Oh. That was certainly an idea. "You said there was a cousin of indeterminate gender?"
"Oh, Matthew is determinately male," Rupert replied with a bit of a smile. "If a bit... mundane. But the estate has generations of protections upon it, and Matthew knows about the family business even if he's never been a part of it. He won't have any problems with us staying there."
Ethan nodded slowly. He had to admit to some curiosity about the place, and it did seem quite apposite under the circumstances. "Who's coming with us?"
"I am," Megan said firmly.
"Yes, dear, you are." Ethan patted her leg. When he let go more or less of the incipient panic, he had to agree that they were stronger united than divided.
"Xander," Rupert said. "And Pamela -- at least to keep contact with Headquarters for us." He frowned and looked at Ian. "Should we take Kat as well or leave her at Devon?"
"Her path, I believe, is with us during this." Ian paused. "And yes, that means I'll be coming with."
Now that news did surprise Ethan. Although perhaps it shouldn't have, considering their dream. He gave Ian a searching look and sent to Rupert. 'I know other things are more urgent, but we do very much need to discuss our shared dream earlier.' Out loud, he said only, "Yes, Kat is part of this pattern."
"Right then," Rupert said, putting his teacup down. "It's decided. We should pack what we're taking with us and get out while we can. I'll contact the others while we're on the road."
Ethan thought about the size of the BMW's boot, the amount of luggage they were likely to generate even packing quickly, and the number of people and dogs to transport. "Ian, please tell me you came with a car of your own."
"I hardly flew here with Dawn on my back," Ian replied gruffly. "I'm parked outside."
He nodded and thought out loud. "Xander can fetch Kat from Devon; Pammie has her own car. Even so, I suggest we all pack light."
Of course, that didn't mean he was going to leave a single one of his Christmas presents behind.