He sees you when you're sleeping... He knows when you're awake...
No, we're not talking about Santa Claus, mothertroopers. We're talking about Superman! Dude's got game, baby! Much like all the other supes you'll find in this year's Christmas issue...
It had been fifteen billion years since the Writers had Written their Stories, or so it had felt for Smith & Jones. No texts, no calls, not one mention in any of the following Tevun-Krus issues—not even a Christmas card! What had the last issue been, anyway? StonePunk? And they—"they" meaning Smith & Jones: a cohesive unit, a package, a buy-one-get-one-free deal—they probably weren't even in that issue of TK... By that point, someone named Rick was going around each new part claiming to be their best friends, then performing oral sex on random strangers.
The end of the Smith & Jones saga had been rough. Just one man slaving away, struggling to get something out for a tale that had long lost its way. It used to be they would have somebody new weaving the next world for them to explore. Smith, Jones, and all the friends they'd met along the way, including but not limited to Kris, and—well, the others have now been forgotten; they thought one might've been called Boogaloo—they all got paid the big bucks for starring in those masterpieces. What the fuck happened to those days, huh?
Look at them now.
Smith & Jones: two Englishmen, early rivals from an apparent "SteamPunk" world, together they travelled for years in something called the Loop, which pumped them from one sci-fi sub-genre to the next at whatever speed it happened to fancy at the time it was Written into the Drive.
Pale and naked and strung-out on nothingness, Smith & Jones were lost in some forgotten void of time. Their friends were long gone. The last time they'd seen Kris she'd no doubt been fucking some rando and suffocating him with her tits and that was that. Their only salvation now was in each other. Hugging kept the vast blackness at bay just a little, kept the chill off. What came next had always been fun. It had been no secret around the set that Smith & Jones liked to party with one another, particularly on their own and with the door locked. But what they did now was to keep their souls intact.
For a character to live away from its Writer, its Story left Untold—that's a tragedy.
It was Christmas now—once every four thousand years it would snow—and... nothing. They'd stopped caring a long time ago. Jones sniffed Smith's hair, and suddenly a hole unzipped before them. Out of the hole stepped shiny leather knee-highs. Long legs that went forever. Wearing denim shorts so short Smith & Jones almost felt straight, a dirty white bellytop, and of course no bra, so the woman's enormous chest swayed as heavily as they did in 1800s Earth novels.
Kris. Kris was back!
Her red hair was sleek and shiny and she brushed it aside before saying, "Long time, no fuckin' see, asshats. When you two sad saps are ready to rock 'n' fuckin' roll, take these genre-travelling pills with me 'n' let's save the motherfuckin' multiverses."
"Genre-travelling pills?" Smith said.
"Multiverses?" Jones said.
"Yes and yes," Kris said. "Now pop 'em 'n' let's rock."
Smith & Jones spoke to one another, not aloud but telepathically. They didn't know if they were soulmates or if they'd inherited the ability out of necessity, but at some point their two minds had fused to one in this pitch-black, forgotten realm of existence.
Should we do it, good man?
Why not, old chap? Is this any life of ours?
Right-o. This is a sign. The Writers are back.
We can live again.
Smith & Jones struggled to their feet. It had been the first time they'd stood for many years. Their muscles ached, their bones ached. They took the tiny, translucent blue pills from Kris and swallowed them.
"How does it all work, milady?" Jones asked.
"Because I don't fuckin' know," Kris told him, and she grabbed both men and kicked them through the hole out of that place.
The hole zipped back up and the darkness, truly alone at last, wept silently to itself.
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