fates_jaye | Christmas Eve afternoon, Niagara Falls

"Why are you bothering with cards at this point?"

Mahandra shrugs as they get out of the car and head to the entrance of the grocery store. "Because I couldn't come up with a better reason to get out of the house," she says.

Jaye grins. "Have I told you lately how awesome you are?"

"Tell it to me with presents. They haven't been too bad, though."

"I've only been here fifteen hours," Jaye points out. "They haven't had time to do anything. Oh, and I've been slightly tipsy since leaving Fandom."

Mahandra tries not to laugh. "And I thought I was a bad influence on you."

"You are a bad influence on me?"

Jaye steps up onto the curb, trying to not notice the bell ringer in the Santa suit standing outside the entrance. Which was bad, especially on Christmas Eve, but she didn't bring any money with her and it was easier to do happen to be saying something to Mahandra instead of doing that acknowledging head nod thing to the guy.

Except it's kind of hard to not notice the guy when he reaches out and grabs her arm. Jaye tries to pull away, but when she turns around and sees the expression on his face, she stops. "Um, hey, are you okay?"

"Guuuuah," the bellringer says.

Mahandra turns around, frowning. "Oh my God. I think Santa's having a heart attack."

"Santa's having a death grip," Jaye says, still trying to grab her arm back.

The people coming in and out of the store are starting to form a crowd, and Mahandra elbows someone on his cell phone. "Wanna try calling 911?" she asks.

The guy is actually gripping Jaye's shoulder harder, half dragging her to the ground, so she goes along with it. Her dad's a doctor, but Jaye isn't, so she doesn't know what to do. "You better not be going all rigor mortis on me already," she tells him, trying to get him to lay down while also trying to free her damn arm.

"Ring the bell," something says.

With the crowd, it takes a second before Jaye realizes what talked to her. And even then, it means she's looking around frantically for something, anything that might be sticking its nose in where it didn't belong. Remembering what she's wearing, Jaye unzips her coat and sees the attack panda on her shirt looking up at her. "Ring the bell," it orders.

Which is hard when a guy's having a heart attack in front of you and he's not letting go of you. Jaye finally manages to wriggle out of her coat, letting him spaz out on that, then goes to pick up the ringer's bell.

"Jaye!" Mahandra says.

Jaye shrugs. She knows it looks bad, but she does what she's told. Most of the time. She picks up the bell, stands beside the collection bucket-

-and bumps into the kid trying to take the bucket off the hook.

Before Jaye even really knows what's going on, the kid looks up at her in complete terror, then runs off before she can do anything like make a citizen's arrest. So for now she's just going to stand here and watch the cash until the ambulance arrives.