Fairytale of New York

Author's note: This started out as a tribute to Shane MacGowan and Kirsty McColl, but it's also a tribute to everyone who has the patience to put up with an extreme introvert.

*

Christmas Eve in New York, there was nothing quite like it. Lights and cheers, drunks singing and celebrating and lovers kissing on street corners. All strung together like beads on an icy wind that could cut through the thickest coat.

It was a time and place for dreams to come true, or to be shattered. Sometimes even both on the same night.

It was the one time every year that Pod felt comfortable walking around in the open. In the self-centred gloom he could be just another figure hunched over in a puffy jacket, hat pulled down low and a scarf masking his face. Just someone going about their business like so many others.

It was the one time every year that he forced himself to leave the safety of the tunnels.

Oonagh knew that. She'd always known it. "There are nights like it all winter," she'd say. "Months and months when we'd be invisible in the crowd. Let's go out and enjoy ourselves!"

She'd gone, and he'd stayed, and then one time she hadn't come back.

He hadn't cried. Not with real tears. He wasn't even sure if he remembered how. It didn't come naturally to trolls anyway. The last time he'd cried was when they left the Old Country, so long ago he couldn't remember when. They stowed away on a steamer and he spent the whole voyage worrying about being found.

But Oonagh was there with him, and her optimism kept him going. It had even been fun, like the time she'd sucked him off despite his objections, and his moans were so loud that men in caps and thick pea jackets came to see what was happening. Oonagh giggled like a teenager while they hid. Luckily a troll's orgasm sounded just like the natural groans of a steamship at sea.

They'd had dreams back then. A new world, with opportunity and room for everyone. But guess what? There were no opportunities for trolls, just as there'd been no opportunities in the Old Country. Precious little room either.

For a while they tried, even Pod. They ventured out at night and did their best to appear harmless. But six feet of stone with a diamond heart stands out whatever you do, and it's a short step from standing out to becoming a scapegoat.

Pod finally convinced Oonagh to go underground with him. Into the new tunnels. She was reluctant, but he promised they'd venture topside whenever they could. "At night, and in the winter," he told her. "People don't pay attention to each other when they're cold."

But as time went by, and the disappointment became oppressive, it took more and more effort to leave his tunnels. Oonagh tried to be sympathetic, but there were limits. "You're going back to rock!" she complained more than once. "When was the last time you moved?"

In the end it had been too much for her, and she left for good. Pod couldn't blame her. In fact, in some ways he was relieved. He wanted her to be happy, he really did. But more and more, he realised that what made her happy made him deeply, profoundly unhappy.

They'd had fights. Huge shouting matches that even drowned out the noise of the subway trains rolling through the tunnels. More than once Oonagh had hit him too, and he'd been tempted to hit her back. She was as strong and hard as he was, of course, but it was a line he refused to let himself cross. The hurt wouldn't be physical, but the emotional pain it would cause was something he just couldn't bear.

Looking back, he wondered whether he'd been wrong. There had been something in Oonagh's expression the last time they fought, something in her eyes pleading for some response from him.

Instead, he just turned away. He told himself he was protecting her, but even then he'd known that it wasn't true. He'd just been too selfish to make an effort anymore. Too selfish to find the energy to do more than drink stolen petroleum and touch the rails.

Petroleum and electricity. It was a potent combination, and too many trolls he'd known had succumbed to it down the decades. The kick was unlike anything they'd experienced in thousands of years. Relief from the tedium of life in the tunnels.

Addictive.

Oonagh was stronger than he was, better able to resist the lure. Even she'd given in occasionally, though, and some of Pod's happiest memories down there in the dark were of them taking a hit together.

Petroleum to warm inside, an electric shock to make the heart shiver. The fucking was incredible. They'd rolled and roared and banged away at each other. The tunnels had shaken with their lust, and when they climaxed the whole city seemed to tremble.

But that all ended when Oonagh left. Long before she left, actually. By the end, Pod was taking hit after hit by himself, roaming the tunnels alone like they were undiscovered passages in his mind.

Alone. He'd sunk into a pit of despair then, and he'd loved it. All by himself, with no-one to worry about. No-one to make demands, no-one to hound him into moving.

Just himself and the hit. What more did a troll need?

Well, something more at least. Pod didn't recall when the realisation dawned on him. It was a gradual thing, but when it was there, it was impossible to ignore.

It filled him up, and made him feel hollow. It was a shining beacon of bleakness. It overwhelmed him with a loneliness that was the most loyal of companions. It drained his energy, and it forced him to get up out of his misery and do something.

It was what drove him out of his tunnels every Christmas Eve.

Because it told him what he wanted. What he needed. When the despair was at its greatest, pressing in on all sides like it would crush him to rubble, to dust, that was when he fought back. The diamond that was his heart could be broken, but would never succumb to pressure.

His hope never died.

So at the darkest time of the year, and the brightest, he went out looking for Oonagh. It was useless, he knew. The chances of finding her in a city the size of New York, another formless mass huddled together against the freezing cold, were so small that he could search for a troll's lifetime and never find her.

But he needed it. He spent a whole year in fear and anticipation of Christmas Eve. Conserving his energy, keeping hope alive like a pilot light, building up walls to keep the despair and hope at bay for one night.

So when he saw a tall, formless shape standing by the bridge in the Park he didn't expect it to be Oonagh. It was the right size, and standing motionless enough to be a troll, but that described dozens of faceless strangers on a winter's night in New York.

Still, his feet were almost eager as he strode closer. The snow crunched under his weight, even after hundreds of others had trampled over it and pressed it into the tarmac beneath.

The sound must have alerted the stranger, because the hooded head turned towards him as he approached. And there it was.

If Pod had been a human, his breath would have caught in his throat. But he wasn't. He had no lungs to expel warm air into the freezing night. He had no cloud of silver smoke clinging to his face.

Neither did the stranger.

"Pod." The voice was like the thunder of a subway train, low and rumbling and making him tremble deep inside.

It was the sweetest sound he'd heard in years.

"Oonagh." It was as if electric currents were swirling round his heart. The trembling became worse.

She turned all the way round now and pushed back the hood of her coat. She's so beautiful! The blunt face was the same as he remembered. The eyes too. Perhaps a little more worn, or maybe his memory had blurred during their long years apart. He took off his hat and unwound his scarf, and watched as she studied his face.

Her mouth opened as if she was going to speak, then it closed again. They stood there, facing each other. Her look was apologetic, but defiant. She has nothing to apologise for, Pod thought.

He wanted to say so, to tell her that she'd probably saved both of them by leaving. He forced his mouth open before his mind could stop him, but movement off to the side caught his attention.

People were gathering. Has someone spotted us?

But the crowd wasn't for them. A marching band was setting up, he realised. New York's proud immigrant heritage. Plenty of blood from the Old Country. He glanced at Oonagh and their eyes met. She must have been thinking the same, because they grinned at the same time.

It broke the awkwardness between them.

"How have you been?" Oonagh asked, looking back at the band.

"Alright." It was an automatic reply, a stupid reply. Of course he hadn't been alright. "Worse than before. Better, too."

"Hmm." There was another sideways glance. "I know what you mean."

That was all Pod needed to hear. His heart pulsed inside him. Of course she knows what I mean! No-one knows me like she does.

But it wasn't just that. Worse, and better. No-one knew her like he did, either.

"Were you waiting for me?"

Now she turned to face him full on. When she spoke, her voice was soft, like the first faraway train of the new day, leaving the yard. "I've waited here for you every year."

In the distance people were clapping and shouting. The band was striking up. Since when do they play in the Park, anyway? The thought floated across his mind like snow over the teeming city.

"If I'd known..."

"If you'd known it wouldn't have been worth the wait." She raised a hand and pressed it against his chest. Even through the bulk of his coat he could feel her warmth. "We needed this time. We needed however long it took."

This is what it's like to be alive! The wildest trip from petroleum and electricity paled in comparison.

He stepped closer, his arms coming up to reach around her. For a moment he thought that she might push him away, that the hand on his chest would turn hard. For a moment it seemed she didn't know either.

Then her arm slipped aside and the other came up, and they were standing together, holding each other close, swaying gently as the crowd's voice began to swell. "If you ever cross the sea to Ireland..."