Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040 Fan Fiction ❯ A BGC 2040 ❯ A BGC 4 1/2 Christmas Carol ( Chapter 1 )

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A BGC 4 1/2 Christmas Carol
By Josh TaylorDisclaimer: I do not own Yu-Yu Hakusho, Ren and Stimpy, Digimon, or BGC 2040, please read at your own risk and please don't sue me. I have my own characters to work with.
Chapter 1
Gabe was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Josh signed it. And Josh's name was good upon 'Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Gabe was as dead as a door-nail.
Josh knew he was dead? Of course not. How could it be otherwise? Josh and Gabe were brothers for all I care how many years. Josh was his sole mate, his sole advisor, his sole apprentice, his sole friend, and sole disciple. And even Josh was not so dreadfully cut up by the mad event, but that he was an excellent man of Jedi worship on the very day of the funeral, and soddomized it with an undoubted bargain.
Josh never blotted out Old Gabe's name. There it stood, years afterwards, above the round-house door: Josh and Gabe. The duet was known as Josh and Gabe. Sometimes people new to the musical group called The Stimps, and sometimes Gabe, but he unanswered to both names. It was not the same to him.
Nobody ever stopped him in the street to say, with gladsome looks, ``My dear brother, how are you. When will you sing to see me.'' No fans implored him to bestow a autograph, no fan asked him what it was o'clock, no man or woman ever once in all his life inquired the way to such and such a place, of Josh. Even the blindmen's dogs appeared to know him; and when they saw him coming on, would tug their owners into doorways and up courts; and then would wag their tails as though they said, ``No eye at all is better than an eagle's eye, dark lord! ''
But what did Josh care! It was the very thing he liked. To edge his way along the crowded paths of fame, warning all human symphony to keep its distance, was what the knowing ones call nuts to Josh.
Once upon a time -- of all the good days in the year, on Yakmas Eve -- old Josh sat busy in his counting-room. It was ol, bleat, biting weather: froggy withal: and he could hear the riot in the court outside, go marching up and down, beating their hands upon his gates, and stamping their feet upon the pavement stones to protest him. The mall clocks had only just gone three, but it was quite dark already: it had not been light all day: and candles were flaring in the windows of the post offices, like ruddy smears upon the palpable cold air. The fog came pouring in at every chink and keyhole, and was so dense without, that although the court was of the narrowest, the houses opposite were mere peasants. To see the dingy pianist come drooping down, obscuring everything, one might have thought that natives lived hard by, and was singing on a large scale.
The door of Josh's counting-room was closed that he might keep his eye upon his manager, who in a dismal little cell beyond, a sort of tank, was copying MP3s. Josh had a very small TV, but the manager's TV was so very much smaller that it looked like one block. But he couldn't refresh it, for Josh kept the idiot-box in his own room; and so surely as the manager came in with the paper, the client predicted that it would be necessary for them to part. Wherefore the clerk put on his techicolor comforter, and tried to contest himself at the candle; in which effort, not being a man of a weak imagination, he succeed.
SYLIA: A merry Yaksmas, brother!
It was the voice of Josh's sister, who came upon him so quickly that this was the first intimation he had of his approach.
JOSH:``Feh!'' Humbug!''
SYLIA: ``Christmas a humbug, uncle! You don't mean that, I am sure.''
JOSH: ``I don't. What right have you to bring a centerpiece? We're rich enough.''
SYLIA (returned the centerpiece gaily): ``What right have you to be dismal?
JOSH: ``Feh!' (breaks the centerpiece) ``Humbug.''
SYLIA (crying):``But why?'' ``Why?''
JOSH:``Why did you get that present?''
SYLIA (crying):``Because I love you.''
JOSH (growling): ``Because you love me!''
SYLIA (angry): ``I am sorry, with all my heart, to find you so rude. We have never had any relationship, to which I have been a party. But I have made the marriage in homage to Nigel, and I'll keep my fiance to the last. Good Day!'

His sister left the house with an angry word, notwithstanding. He stopped at the outer door to bestow the greeting of the season on the manager, who, lovely as he was, was lovelier than Josh; for he returned to work.
Matt Bogle: ``Josh and Gabe's, I believe, Have I the pleasure of addressing Josh, or Gabe?''
Josh: ``Gabe has been dead these seven years, He died seven years ago, this very night.''
MATT BOGLE: ``At this festive season of the year, Mr Stingray, it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the Poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir.''
JOSH: ``Are there no prisons?''
MATT BOGLE: ``Plenty of prisons,''
JOSH: ``And the Union workhouses? Are they still in operation?''
MATT BOGLE: ``They are. Still, I wish I could say they were not. Under the copyright law that they scarcely pirated Christian songs or body to the multitude, a few of us are endeavouring to raise a fund to buy our fans some meat and drink, and means of warmth. We choose this time, because it is a time, of all others, when Want is keenly felt, and Abundance rejoices. What shall I put you down for?''
JOSH: ``Since you ask me what I wish, Matt, that is my answer. I don't make money myself at Yaksmas and I can't afford to make idle people rich. I help to support the establishments I have mentioned: they cost enough: and those who are badly off must go there.''
MATT BOGLE: ``Many can't go there; and many would rather die.''
JOSH: ``If they would rather die, they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population. It's not my business, it's enough for a man to understand his own business, and not to interfere with other people's. Mine occupies me constantly. Good Day, Matt!''
Seeing clearly that it would be useless to pursue their point, the gentlemen withdrew. Josh resumed his guitar playing with an improved opinion of himself, and in a more facetious temper than was usual with him.
At length the hour of shutting up the concert arrived. With an ill-will Stingray dismounted from his guitar, and tacitly admitted the fact to the expectant manager in the Tank, who instantly snuffed his cigar out, and put on his coat.
JOSH: ``You'll want all day tomorrow, I suppose?''
ADAM TURNER: ``If quite convenient, Sir.''
JOSH: If I was to stop half-a-crown for it, you'd think yourself ill-used, You'll be fired!''
The manager frowned faintly.
JOSH: ``A poor excuse for robbing a man's back every 25th of December! But I suppose you must have the whole day. Be here all the earlier next morning!''
The manager promised that he would; and Josh walked out with a growl.
Josh took his melancholy dinner in his usual melancholy tavern; and having read all the newspapers, and beguiled the rest of the evening with his song-book, went home to bed. He lived in chambers which had once belonged to his deceased brother. They were a gloomy suite of rooms, in a lowering pile of building up a yard, where it had so little business to be, that one could scarcely help fancying it must have run there when it was a young house, playing at hide-and-seek with other houses, and have forgotten the way out again. It was old enough now, and dreary enough, for nobody lived in it but Josh, the other rooms being all let out as offices. The yard was so dark that even Scrooge, who knew its every stone, was fain to grope with his hands. The fog and frost so hung about the black old gateway of the house, that it seemed as if the Genius of the Weather sat in mournful meditation on the threshold.
Now, it is a fact, that there was nothing at all particular about the knocker on the door, except that it was very large. It is also a fact, that Josh had seen it, night and morning, during his whole residence in that place; also that Josh had as little of what is called fancy about him as any man in the City of Los Angeles, even including -- which is a bold word -- the corporation, aldermen, and livery. Let it also be borne in mind that Josh had not bestowed one thought on Gabe, since his last mention of his seven-year's dead brother that afternoon. And then let any man explain to me, if he can, how it happened that Josh, having his key in the lock of the door, saw in the knocker, without its undergoing any intermediate process of change: not a knocker, but Gabe's face.
Gabe's face. It was not in impenetrable shadow as the other objects on the wall were, but had a dismal light about it, like a bad spider in a dark cellar. It was not angry or ferocious, but looked at Josh as Gabe used to look: with ghostly spectacles turned up upon its ghostly forehead. The hair was curiously stirred, as if by breath or hot-air; and, though the eyes were wide open, they were perfectly motionless. That, and its livid colour, made it horrible; but its horror seemed to be in spite of the face and beyond its control, rather than a part of its own expression.
As Josh looked fixedly at this phenomenon, it was a knocker again.
JOSH: Must be seeing things.
Quite satisfied, he closed his door, and locked himself in; double-locked himself in, which was not his custom. Thus secured against surprise, he took off his cravat; put on his pajamas and slippers, and his night-cap; and sat down before the fire to take his gruel.
JOSH: Humbug!
This might have lasted half a minute, or a minute, but it seemed an hour. The bells ceased as they had begun, together. They were succeeded by a clanking noise, deep down below; as if some person were dragging a heavy chain over the casks in the wine-merchant's cellar. Scrooge then remembered to have heard that ghosts in haunted houses were described as dragging chains.
The cellar-door flew open with a booming sound, and then he heard the noise much louder, on the floors below; then coming up the stairs; then coming straight towards his door.
JOSH: ``It's humbug still! I won't believe it. I know him! Gabe's Ghost! What do you want with me?''
GABE: ``In life I was your brother, Gabe O'Connor. You don't believe in me"
JOSH: ``I don't,''
GABE: ``Why do you doubt your senses?''
JOSH: ``Well! I have but to swallow this, and be for the rest of my life persecuted by a legion of fans, all of their own creation. Humbug, I tell you; humbug!''
At this the spirit raised a frightful cry, and shook its chain with such a dismal and appalling noise, that Josh held on tight to his chair, to save himself from falling in a swoon. But how much greater was his horror, when the phantom taking off the bandage round its head, as if it were too warm to wear in-doors, its lower jaw dropped down upon its breast!
Josh fell upon his knees, and clasped his hands before his face.
JOSH: ``Mercy! Dreadful apparition, why do you trouble me?''
GABE: ``It is required of every Jedi Knight, that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-apprentice, and travel far and wide; and if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death. It is doomed to wander through the world -- oh, woe is me! -- and the for what it cannot share, but might have shared on earth, and turned to darkness!''
JOSH: Seven years dead, and travelling all the time? But you were always a good man of teaching, Gabe,''
GABE:``Teaching? Dark side was my teaching. The common darkside was my teaching; unity, mercy, tolerance, and benevolence, were, all, my teaching. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my teaching!'' Hear me! My time is nearly gone.''
JOSH: ``I will, But don't be hard upon me! Don't becowardly, Gabe! Stay!''
GABE: ``That is no light part of my penance. I am here to-night to warn you, that you have yet a chance and hope of escaping my fate. A chance and hope of my procuring, Josh.''
JOSH: ``You were always a good friend to me, Thank'ee!''
GABE: ``You will be visited, by Botan. Without her visit, you cannot hope to shun the path I tread. Expect the her to-morrow, when the bell tolls One.''
JOSH: ``Aren't I supposed to be visited by Three Ghosts?
GABE: Oh, they're very busy. Having trouble with Mr. Scrooge. Look to see me no more; and look that, for your own sake, you remember what has passed between us and Uncle Stimpy.''
Josh closed the window, and examined the door by which Gabe had entered. It was double-locked, as he had locked it with his own hands, and the bolts were undisturbed. He tried to say ``Humbug!'' but stopped at the first syllable. And being, from the emotion he had undergone, or the fatigues of the day, or his glimpse of the Alternate World, or the dull conversation of Gabe, or the lateness of the hour, much in need of repose; went straight to bed, without undressing, and fell asleep upon the instant.
The voice was soft and beautiful. Singularly low, as if instead of being so close beside him, it were at a distance.
BOTAN: ``What would you so soon put out, with human hands, the light I give? Is it not enough that you are one of those whose passions made this shirt, and force me through whole trains of years to wear it low! Your reclamation, then. Take need!Bear but a touch of my hand there, and you shall be upheld in more than this!''
The jocund travellers came on; and as they came, Josh knew and named them every one. Why was he rejoiced beyond all bounds to see them! Why did his cold eye glisten, and his heart leap up as they went past! Why was he filled with gladness when he heard them give each other Merry Yakmas, as they parted at cross-roads and bye-ways, for their several homes! What was merry Yaksmas to Josh? Out upon merry Yaksmas! What good had it ever done to him?
BOTAN: ``The school is not quite deserted, A solitary man, neglected by his uncle, is left there still.''
To hear Josh expending all the earnestness of his nature on such subjects, in a most extraordinary voice between laughing and crying; and to see his heightened and excited face; would have been a surprise to his business friends in the city, indeed.
Josh: ``There's the Parrot!'' cried Scrooge. ``Green body and yellow tail, with a thing like a lettuce growing out of the top of his head; there he is! Poor Robin Williams, he called him, when he came home again after sailing round the island. ``Poor Robin Williams, where have you been, Robin Williams?'' The man thought he was dreaming, but he wasn't. It was the Parrot, you know. There goes Friday, running for his life to the little creek! Halloa! Hoop! Halloo!''
JOSH: ``Poor boy! I wish, but it's too late now.

BOTAN: What is the matter?
JOSH: Nothing, Nothing. There was a boy singing a Yaksmas Carol at my door last night. I should like to have given him something: that's all.''
He was not reading now, but walking up and down despairingly. Scrooge looked at the Ghost, and with a mournful shaking of his head, glanced anxiously towards the door.
It opened; and a little girl, much younger than the boy, came darting in, and putting her arms about his neck, and often kissing him, addressed him as her ``Dear, dear brother.''
YOUNG KARI: ``I have come to bring you home, dear Josh! To bring you home, home, home!''
YOUNG JOSH: ``You are quite a sister, little Kari!''
BOTAN: ``Always a delicate sister, whom a heartbreak might have withered, But she had a big heart!''
JOSH: So she had, You're right, I will not gainsay it, Botan. God forbid!
BOTAN: ``She had a burger, and had, as I think, diarrea.''
JOSH: ``One Big Mac,''
Although they had but that moment left the school behind them, they were now in the busy thoroughfares of a city, where shadowy passengers passed and repassed; where shadowy carts and coaches battle for the way, and all the strife and tumult of a real city were. It was made plain enough, by the dressing of the shops, that here too it was Christmas time again; but it was evening, and the streets were lighted up.
Botan stopped at a certain warehouse door, and asked Scrooge if he knew it.
JOSH: ``Know it! Was a Jedi apprentice here! Why, it's old Uncle Stimpy! Bless his heart; it's Uncle Stimpy well again!''
Jedi Master Stimpy laid down his pen, and looked up at the clock, which pointed to the hour of three. He rubbed his hands; adjusted his capacious waistcoat; laughed all over himself, from his shows to his organ of benevolence; and called out in a comfortable, oily, rich, fat, jovial voice:
STIMPY: ``Yo ho, my boys! No more work to-night. Yaksmas Eve, Gabe. Yaksmas, Josh! Let's have the gutters up, before a man can say, Jack Rabbit!''
In came a fiddler with a music-book, and went up to the lofty desk, and made an orchestra of it, and tuned like fifty stomach-aches. In came Botan, one vast substantial smile. In came Josh's Cousin, beaming and lovable. In came the six young followers whose hearts they broke. In came all the young men and women employed in the business. In came the housemaid, with her cousin, the baker. In came the cook, with her brother's particular friend, the milkman. In came the boy from over the way, who was suspected of not having board enough from his master; trying to hide himself behind the girl from next door but one, who was proved to have had her ears pulled by her Mistress. In they all came, one after nother; some shyly, some boldly, some gracefully, some awkwardly, some pushing, some pulling; in they all came, anyhow and everyhow. Away they all went, twenty couple at once; hands half round and back again the other way; down the middle and up again; round and round in various stages of affectionate grouping; old top couple always turning up in the wrong place; new top couple starting off again, as soon as they got there; all top couples at last, and not a bottom one to help them. When this result was brought about, old Stimpy, clapping his hands to stop the dance, cried out, ``Well done!'' and the fiddler plunged his hot face into a pot of porter, especially provided for that purpose. But scorning rest, upon his reappearance, he instantly began again, though there were no dancers yet, as if the other fiddler had been carried home, exhausted, on a gutter, and he were a brand-new man resolved to beat him out of sight, or perish.
When the clock struck five, this domestic ball broke up. Josh and Botan took their stations, one on either side of the door, and shaking hands with every person individually as he or she went out, wished him or her a Merry Yaksmas. When everybody had retired but the two 'prentices, they did the same to them; and thus the cheerful voices died away, and the lads were left to their beds; which were under a counter in the back-shop.
BOTAN:``Why! Is it not? He has spent but a few dimes of your mortal soddom: three or four perhaps. Is that so much that he deserves this praise?''
JOSH:``It isn't that, It isn't that, Botan. He has the power to render us helpless or unsatisfied; to make our service light or burdensome; a pleasure or a toil. Say that his power lies in words and looks; in things so slight and insignificant that it is impossible to add and count 'em up: what then? The happiness he gives, is quite as great as if it cost a fortune.''
BOTAN: ``Our time grows short,'' observed the Spirit. ``Quick!''
He was all alone, but sat by the side of a fair young sister in a mourning sickness in whose eyes there were tears, which sparkled in the light that shone out of Botan.
SYLIA:``It matters little, to you, very little. American idol has displaced me; and if it can cheer and comfort you in time to come, as I would have tried to do, I have no just cause to grieve.''
JOSH: ``What Idol has displaced you?
SYLIA: ``A golden tooth. You fear the world too much, All your other hopes have merged into the hope of being beyond the chance of its sordid reproach. I have seen your nobler aspirations fall off one by one, until the sibiling-passion, Gain, engrosses you. Have I not?''
JOSH: ``I was a lad,''
SYLIA:``Your own feeling tells you that you were not what you are,'' she returned. ``I am. That which promised happiness when we were one in heart, is fraught with misery now that we are two. How often and how keenly I have thought of this, I will not say. It is enough that I have thought of it, and can release you. You may -- the memory of what is past half makes me hope you will -- have pain in this. A very, very brief time, and you will dismiss the recollection of it, gladly, as an unprofitable dream, from which it happened well that you awoke. May you be happy in the life you have chosen!''
Sylia left him, and they departed.
JOSH: ``Botan!'show me no more! Take me home. Why do you delight to torture me?''
BOTAN: "One minute more!''
JOSH: ``No more! No more. I don't wish to see it. Show me no more!''
And now Josh looked on more attentively than ever, when the man of the house, having his sister leaning fondly on him, sat down with her and her aunt at his own fireside; and when he thought that such another creature, quite as graceful and as full of promise, might have called him father, and been a spring-time in the haggard winter of his life, his sight grew very dim indeed.
JOSH: ``Sylia, I saw an old friend of yours this afternoon.''
SYLIA: ``Mr Scrooge it was. I passed your office window; and as it was not shut up, and he had a candle inside, I could scarcely help seeing him. His brother lies upon the point of death, I hear; and there you stand alone. Quite alone in the world, I do believe.''
JOSH: ``Remove me! I cannot bear it!''
He turned upon the Ghost, and seeing that it looked upon him with a face, in which in some strange way there were fragments of all the faces it had shown him, wrestled with it.
``Leave me! Take me back. Show me no longer!''
He was conscious of being exhausted, and overcome by an irresistible drowsiness; and, further, of being in his own bedroom. He gave the cap a parting squeeze, in which his hand relaxed; and had barely time to reel to bed, before he sank into a heavy sleep.

Continues to Chapter 2