A Meaningful Gift

"What is this?" Beryl scrunched up his face as he took the small wrapped box Gaia offered him.

"A gift?" Gaia tilted his head. "You do know what that is ri-"

"Of course I do!" Beryl cut off the other xero. "I'm not dumb I know what this is."

"Then... why did you ask?" Gaia frowned. Somewhere else in the room Fleet snorted.

"Why are you givin me anything?" Beryl huffed. All he'd done was insert himself into their lives, why were they not only tolerating him but giving him things? It didn't make sense.

"Tis the season." Fleet shrugged as he walked over and leaned on Gaia.

Gaia rolled his eyes. "Just open it yeah?"

"Yeah sure." Beryl cut the colorful paper with a claw before peeling it off. With little fanfare he popped the top off the box that was underneath. Inside was a key. A simple, inconspicuous key. "Wha..?" Beryl frowned, trying to figure out what that simple object meant. 

"It's a key." Gaia explained unhelpfully.

"No duh it's a key." Beryl glared at Gaia. "What's it to?"

"The house." Fleet said is so casually. Like the other xero hadn't just dropped a verbal bomb on Beryl. He opened and closed his mouth several times but any words that came to mind died in his throat. This wasn't happening. There was no way these two actually trusted him enough for something like this. Hell he'd been stalking er... observing them for a while before he even properly talked to them again. Fleet looked over at Gaia, he looked slightly amused. "Told you he would freeze up."

"Yeah yeah." Gaia snorted. "Do we think that's a good thing?"

"Give him a moment to process and we'll find out." Fleet waved a paw in the air.

Finally Beryl seemed to pull his thoughts together and get his voice to work. "Why?" Well he could only manage one word but still!

"Cause we want you to know you're always welcome here." Gaia's expression softened. "Fleet had the idea actually and I was all on board."

"It's a physical thing to let you know we mean what we say." Fleet locked eyes with Beryl. "We can say it but I know you're the kind of person to not believe it unless you have some sort of proof." He gestured to the key in Beryl's hand. "Well, there's your proof."

Beryl closed his paw around the key and put it against his chest. "Y-you two are real dumb if you're lettin your stalker have a key to your home."

"Good thing we didn't give it to a stalker then." Gaia nodded. 

"I wouldn't let him do something so stupid." Fleet rolled his eyes. "One of us has to have some common sense."

"You two really are idiots huh?" Beryl ignored how watery his voice sounded.

"So Fleet keeps telling me." Gaia sighed dramatically. "Guess I'll have to put up with someone else calling me it too." He had a playful smirk on his face by the end.

"I really don't get you two." Beryl rubbed at his face with his free paw. His paw was not wet. He refused to acknowledge the wetness so it wasn't real.

"Nothing to get." Gaia shrugged. "Other then us wanting to keep you around."

"Yeah but why?" Beryl's voice was thick with emotion. "I'm not- I'm just not worth all this trouble."

"You're worth however much trouble we say you are." Fleet gave him a stern look. "That's something we get to decide, not you."

"And you're worth every little bit we've gone through." Gaia tilted his head, his smirk softening into more of a genuine smile.

"You really are a sap." Beryl sniffled.

"Guilty." Gaia chuckled. "Happy holidays Beryl." He held out a paw. "Here's to many more to come."

Fleet drifted a bit closer to Gaia and watched Beryl. Beryl regarded the hand as he sniffled again. Well... this was better than before, he'd be dumb to turn this down. Even if he'd only get a little time to soak up the duo's attention he'd take it. He grabbed the offered hand and nodded. Yeah, he'd live in this delusion for as long as he could.