Secret Santa
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Notes: Written for tailfluff as part of the DeaYza Secret Santa project, following the request: "Comedy/Romance with this premise: Christmas Eve at the Jule house + hijinks with mistletoe." It's a bit short (I'm out of practice writing for SEED!) but hope you like!
Also, please excuse the Shakespearian mangling 8D;
those little things
The year after the Genesis War was quiet, every side involved hunkered down to nurse their wounds and regain some semblance of their previous peacetime order. In its last month, two notable things happened to affect one Yzak Jule's daily life – first, some prankster set the normally temperate PLANT weather controls to randomized snow, and second, he found himself playing host to an impromptu Christmas party at his family home.
He wasn't sure whether or not to be pleased about either. On the bright side, it was nice to have guests over for the rare holiday, and the weather meant that everyone stayed longer. However, he was still undecided on his feelings about some of those guests (unfortunately, his mother had made him let all of them in), and the weather meant that
everyone stayed
longer.
It meant that Athrun had scored his latest point in the Zala-Jule Annual Tipsy Chess Challenge-and put the sparkly tinsel back on the walls after Yzak threw the chessboard at it. That had been preceded by the Annual Who-Can-Drink-a-Jug-of-that-Eggnog-We-Know-Dearka-Spiked-but-Don't-Care-Fastest Challenge (it would have been more than one jug, but Ezaria Jule was for once home for the holiday, and there are some things one just does not do with their parent in the same house.) And
that had been after the snowballing Strike's pilot and his sister (what were
they doing here, anyway?) had initiated, and...
All right, so maybe it wasn't that bad, especially after everyone had calmed down, and most of them had left a while ago-
A heavy weight dropped onto the couch next to him, nearly causing him to spill the contents of the mug cupped in his hands.
Most of them.
"But soft, what light through yonder window breaks! It is the east, and Yzak is the sun!" came the warble to the ceiling. "Arise, fair Jule, and do not grieve thy loss this day, for it is Christmas, and no time to be acting like a wet plucked chicken-waugh!"
The silver-haired man leaned over the arm of the couch, rolling his eyes at the blonde now sprawled on the living-room carpet. "You're drunk, aren't you."
Dearka stuck out his tongue. Very dignified. "Oh, thy accusation, how it wounds me!" he gasped out, as he clasped one hand to his chest and threw the other outwards-all without getting up. "Pray, the wound isn't that deep, or that wide; but who cares? 'twill serve, even if thou didst not use a beam saber..."
Yzak very nearly snickered, despite himself. "Dearka..."
"...It's just a scratch, a scratch, but it's enough – fetch me a surgeon to tell my woes to as I die!"
"
Dearka. You only use poetry that bad when you're drunk." He was frowning.
The other just grinned up at him. "Oh, right."
"You're drunk.
In my house."
"It's Christmas!"
Yzak upended his cocoa over him.
-
A few spluttery, somewhat sobering hours later, Dearka had somehow cleaned up, wheedling Yzak into lending him another shirt-both of them agreed the carpet would never be the same again-and somehow invited himself to stay for the night.
He managed it
every year, barring the couple of times he'd spent it with his own father, or the times duties had left neither of them time for any sort of celebration. The silver-haired man couldn't figure it out; one day, he promised himself for the umpteenth time, he'd manage to get the whole process on record and then find out just where he slipped up and found himself agreeing.
"Well, you've been quiet this evening," Dearka remarked, having gone back to sitting next to him on the couch. "Has the shock of not having to do paperwork suck in? Has the lack of meetings unbalanced you, great and mighty Councilman Yzak?"
"Oh, shut up," he snapped reflexively, though it lacked any heat. "Don't ruin the holiday."
"But the sour expression on your face has already marred it past repair!"
"Come here. I'm going to dunk your face in cold water..."
It degenerated into a shoving match from there, both young men wrestling out their differences off the couch, landing in a heap on the floor yet again. They grappled and threw mock-punches until they had to roll apart, gasping out laughter, legs tangled together and the both of them clutching their stomachs and sides, wheezing, celebratory draw in tribute to the season.
After awhile, Yzak grinned, looked over, and said, "I needed that."
Dearka snickered weakly in return, and opened his mouth to reply, but then opened his eyes at the same time, looked straight up above them, and choked.
-
"
Who's brilliant idea was it to put mistletoe there?!" the silver-haired man screeched, pointing upwards, to where the little green sprig nestled innocently among the other festive hangings.
"Hey, calm down!"
"Like hell!
Who put it there? In the middle of the room?"
"Why's it such a big deal?"
"
I don't remember having any there yesterday!"
"So maybe Athrun did it as a joke! Or...someone else!"
"I'm going to
kill him!"
Dearka's hands were on his shoulders; his eyebrows were raised. "It's not that big of a deal!"
"What do you mean, not that big of a deal?! I don't want to kiss you!"
The blonde looked only mildly chagrined, at that. "We can always break tradition, right?"
"Who said anything about breaking tradition?!"
"Uh..."
"Shut up," Yzak grumbled, and kissed him anyway.
It lasted just long enough for him to register that the other tasted a lot like cocoa and nothing at all like alcohol; that Dearka had made a muffled noise of surprise and then tightened his grip on Yzak's shoulders and he didn't mind it a bit; that one of his own hands had slid its way into the blonde's hair and...hey...
wait...
"Boys?"
The two of them sprang apart as though they'd been burned, eyes wide with shock, faces turning in tandem to where an extremely surprised Ezaria Jule was standing in the doorway, a tray balanced in one hand, the other raised to her lips. It was hard to tell whether her expression was shocked or smiling.
Yzak was fiercely aware that his cheeks were burning.
Next to him, Dearka had enough presence of mind left to raise his hand, very slowly, and point.
His mother's gaze went up.
She took her hand away-she
was smiling-as she set down her load on the nearby table. "I'll just leave this for the two of you tonight, then!" she told them in an uncharacteristic cheery chirp, while they stared blankly back. "Merry Christmas!"
The door slid shut.
"So," the blonde remarked into the embarrassed silence that followed, sounding surprisingly relaxed, "Wanna try again?"
He glared. "You never quit, do you?"
"But we're still underneath it, aren't we?"
"
Ass."
"Merry Christmas to you too, Yzak!"
He was going to
kill whoever was responsible.
After the holidays were over.
