Obstinate lights on the tree sparkled a rainbow reflection against the living room window, a spattering of green and red and winter blue begging at the glass like excited children at a toy store display the week before Christmas. Though he wasn't much to celebrate the holiday, Goten enjoyed the effort, the scents and tastes and colours that went into its lengthy preparation pulling a warmth and comfort that made him smile despite the frigid drop in temperature, the lack of activity within the household, and the mood of his mother.

Drawing his legs further to his chest, the boy toyed with a hole in his sock, rested his cheek against the faded plaid of his flannels, and waited.

Firelight played against the glittered golds and creased reds of the three packages beneath the still damp tree he'd decorated this morning, threw idle shadows into its undecorated (save the string of half-burnt bulbs he'd salvaged from a box in the attic) branches. It had taken the youngest Son until way past lunchtime to pick the perfect evergreen, though a quick pull had taken it easily from the ground.

However, not one to squander, he'd planted it in one of his father's old tackle boxes, and though it stood nary two feet tall under its haphazardly placed adornments, Goten was vastly pleased with himself.

Though not so happy with the mood his resurrected potting job had put his mother in. She wasn't particularly happy with anything that reminded her of his father, he mused quietly, stretching out a developing cramp in one of his ankles. Even when that thing was him.

But, he had to admit, she had gotten better about looking at him cross-eyed since he'd taken to cutting his hair every other day (if he didn't it just grew out again like it was trying to personally spite her) and had recently begun getting the latter half of his name right every third time instead of attempting to convince him that he was secretly a junior.

Goten not Goku. He may have looked like his father to the naked eye, but he could pretty much guarantee that he wasn't. His father was training with Trunks-kun's father in space somewhere, not sitting in the living room staring at a Christmas tree that would have made even the Who's in Whoville cringe, humming half-eaten shopping mall carols under his breath and waiting--

Sighing as heavy a sigh that a thirteen year old can manage without falling over, the Son curled his fingers under the couch cushion and swung his feet back and forth, each bob back bringing his head up and over the crooked top of his perfect tree and showing him the dark drive leading up to the front steps.

He executed this complicated sea-saw action for ten whole minutes before he felt substantially ill and sighed again, though with slightly less conviction than its previous introduction. It was going on midnight, and while school wasn't an obligation and Trunks-kun wouldn't be free until midday anyway, his yawns were easily swaying the stubbornness of his resolution.

Sure, he could handle…just…a few more…

As Son Goten passed lightly into that dozing state before dreaming, a single amber bulb flickered tiredly, and slept with him.

The grass beneath his foot crunched as he landed; he fought to catch his balance against the icy antagonist, flinging his duffel bag forward to counter the motion. Swallowing his heart and attempting to fit a breath in edgewise, Gohan rightened, glanced at the silent serenity of a snow-shrouded landscape that held bits and pieces of his childhood like frames on a mantel. Pushing back the black and white images of happiness and laughter, the young man threw his luggage over his shoulder and shook snowflakes from his hair as he strode forward with a false confidence.

It was just the three of them this year. At least there wouldn't be any awkward moments that developed into bouts of shouting and tearful apologies. It…his head hung defeatedly before the door…was better that his father was out of the picture. That way…maybe…

The metal was cold and scratched beneath his hand and it turned slippery in his grip. Careful, quiet, and completely aware of how much noise he was making, Gohan slid in through the barely man-sized crack he'd coaxed from the door, closing it as dramatically behind him. Toeing off his shoes, swearing mildly in a lip-synching version of a true curse as the snow around his cuffs touched his ankles, he placed them neatly on the mat next to a worn pair of sneakers that he recognized instantly.

And in that instant, that heart-wrenching soul-staunching moment, Gohan felt every beating vibration of his erratic pulse.

"Goten…"

Licking his lips and running a harried hand through his wet hair, he stole a breath that came haltingly. Reason told him it wasn't right--never had been if he listened to the truth of it. But…

Deep, dark, troubled eyes closed and he pushed numbed fingers into the denim of his pockets as he turned from the entrance. But truth had left without him and reason hadn't kept him from crying in the middle of the night every time he woke to find his parents fighting.

Goten…

Gohan's melancholy was disrupted by the twinkling of lights, a hint of colour in a house that had been devoid of such vibrancy since before his brother had been born. His beacon wasn't brilliant, but a subtly of sparkling candy-coated illumination that drew him as closely and completely as though the lopsided tree were a lighthouse and he a drowning man with only a token of amber, a shimmer of green, a glimmer of blue, and a promise of red to lead him to shore.

Trailing down the nettled branches, flitting from dot to dot of sporadic colour, Gohan's gaze landed on the methodically placed packages beneath the tree each addressed in Goten's sharp, adolescent hand.

Struggling past the lump in his throat, the emotional block that had his eyes stinging, his chest clutched, and his feet stationed, the older Son crouched, touched gingerly the soft pines, and cried.

They were no postcard family. Otousan wasn't going to magically show up in the middle of the night with gifts for them all and smiles for their mother. They hadn't been like that since…

Since…shit, he couldn't even remember when his parents got along. Seemed after they found out they were something called Saiya-jin and that fighting was more than just a hobby things…hadn't been…

And now their father was off with the prince of their disruption and Gohan was trying desperately not to have a breakdown in the living room of his mother's house.

While pretending, always pretending that he--that he didn't want--that--

The last log in the fire cracked, its blackened ember casting one final shadow along the floor. The man made boy wiped his eyes with the drying knit of his sweater and stood.

And became a man again.

He dared not breathe, not move, nothing to disturb his angelic countenance where it lay stretched on the loveseat like the cloud he had fallen from. For nothing, nothing in this world or the next could possibly…

Emotion warred bodily within him. This was the real reason he'd taken the trip, why he bothered with any of it at all…

Goten. That which he loved more than any god in heaven. His angel. His light.

Licking his lips, enraptured by the burnt orange and black relief in which his brother's face was cast he walked, uncertainly, forward.

He knelt, like a humbled man, and brushed lowly fingers against the shortened obsidian hair, pushed it lovingly from his forehead. Swallowing again, thickly, his mind a mask of emotion he had no name for, his body a physical confrontation, Gohan caressed down an elegant cheekbone, his thumb worshipping lips slack with sleep.

The rational part of him screamed as it always did, but he paid it no mind as he allowed his lips to eagerly follow his finger's path.

Cream puffs and cupcakes piled a mile high with frosting and shaved bits of chocolate that were so long they curled and so rich they melted on your tongue like ice cream…

Dig in, Trunks-kun grinned like a cat, whatever that meant, and handed him a spoon the size of his head and as tall as an umbrella.

But it'll make me sick.

Nah…Trunks-kun picked up a gummy bear that looked unmistakably like Goten's mother. She just tells you that 'cause she doesn't want you to enjoy it. His teeth grew in size and he opened them wider than a doorframe and bit her head off.

Goten blinked again as his best friend chewed, made a face, and spit the chewed mass back out where it frowned sternly at its attacker before rolling away.

Sour…Trunks-kun reached out and plucked a piece of chocolate garnish from a cupcake in the shape of Vegeta-san's hair. Try this.

Goten looked at the mussed hair and dark eyes, the suspenders and casual button-down shirt. Overwhelmed with hunger, the kind of hungry that makes you sick not to eat, the Son bit deeply into the cocoa-covered cake image of his brother.

It was the sweetest thing he'd ever tasted. Opening his mouth, he took more…

Supple, pliable, as desirable as he remembered, Gohan was greedy as Goten began to respond, his persistent tongue persuading the other to join him. His hands, always too big in the beginning, always too clumsy, too unsure, slid easily down the slim curves and bony dips of his teenage brother, met the elastic waistband and rebounded to boldly push beneath the weathered and once-black hand-me-down t-shirt.

Solid with training but yielding with youth the boy's chest was a delicious discovery of hard and soft of yes and no as the younger Son arched forward to his touch and backward with his aggression. Gohan's substantial form was bridged artfully over his brother's flattened figure, all call to reason gone mutinous at the simple taste he'd sworn never to revisit.

Even these thoughts were incinerated as Goten's seeking fingers tugged tiredly at his own shirt and they broke the kiss, briefly, to divulge the glorious arcs and graceful planes of the teenager's developing front.

Then Gohan had no more reason in his head than a murderer hell-bent on revenge and his lips claimed their ransom along the offered neck of his willing victim.

As his brother's teeth nipped lavishly at his throat, Goten moaned and pushed upward into the man above him, hands braced lovingly, desperately at the broad back, down damp shoulder blades. This was better than his dream--which he could barely remember--but it was better than cakes and ice cream! Being like this…with his brother…

"Haii…Oni-niichan…" his breath caught as Gohan's zealousness prevailed and those hands he loved traveled down, under his flannels and grasped him unexpectedly between the legs.

Goten's world exploded in a flash of colour brighter than the lights over Gohan's shoulder and he shuddered hard as the ache intensified wonderfully against his brother's hand and--

Released--

No man had ever received a greater gift and Gohan clasped it reverently. In all their times together, the nights of mutual comfort, the days of leisure affection, never had Goten been able to enjoy it to the extent of his sibling. The realization was profound; the man was quick to assure his brother of the normalcy--

Or would have. Had the boy not been such a fast learner. Had not spent his formative years building his brother to that exact point of gratification.

"My turn!" Years of practice had Gohan's button and zipper undone in a flash and Goten clasped his prize with both happy hands, relishing the familiar swell and groan, the beaded, furrowed brow and grinding teeth. Thrusting hips and flickering hair.

Greedy in his own right, Goten begged another kiss, got it forcefully, delightfully deep, the rich taste and smell of his brother purging all the moodiness of his mother and absence of his father into nonexistence. Making nothing real save their movement, their dire need of each other's presence, their devotion and unfailing fierceness.

Their…chaotic sedation…

"Uhhh….ahhhhhhaiii…"

The older Son groaned his completion into the mouth and hand of his brother, riding the sensation until it subsided and he was left with warm lips and soft fingers. Sitting back on his heels, suddenly exhausted, flushed and blushing, Gohan glanced bravely up through his hair at his quiet companion.

What he saw was not the boy he left. Large, beautiful eyes he'd feared he had corrupted were filled with a knowledge he'd never seen. A knowledge of what they'd done.

Their eyes met, held, and an understanding reached. No regrets and no guilt.

Stunned, Gohan watched as his younger brother brought his dirtied fingers to his lips and licked away the traces of their tryst.

"Merry Christmas, Oniichan…I missed you…"

Goten's impish face betrayed a smile, flickered red in the dying light of the fire; the older Son blinked, taken off guard and aback at the audacious action.

And then it sunk in and he blinked again. Shouldering off seven years of guilt, remorse, and the inevitability of damnation, Gohan began to laugh.

"Merry Christmas, Goten."