Their Joyful Tone to Every Home (Clow, Kero, Yue gen)

[storypaint]

Title: Their Joyful Tone to Every Home
Author: rhap_chan
Written For: tsukimineshrine Secret Santa 2008: peacewish
Prompt: Yue and Keroberos exchanging Christmas gifts.
Rating: G
Characters/Pairings: Clow, Kero, Yue gen

Excerpt: "I don't know what to get Yue for Christmas," he said, head-butting his creator's knees in urgency. Clow laughed kindly at his distress.

If one were to exclude Scrooge, the best man who ever kept Christmas was one Clow Reed. It was one of few traditions he retained from his English father. He didn't have many memories of those early years before his mother took herself and her son back to China, but he remembered Christmas-- warm fires and holly and pine trees, family and laughing and an orange if he was lucky.

Even when it was only he and Keroberos and Yue, Clow took the time to bake and decorate. Christmas in Japan wasn't like it was in England, but he didn't let that stop him. He already had a reputation for eccentricity, after all.

Yue and Keroberos shared their master's enthusiasm. How could they resist? Clow would emerge from his workshop for days at a time, his smiles genuine and not masking concern for some future event.

Still, the two of them agreed, it wasn't much fun making Christmas presents for someone who Saw all of his gifts in advance. At least he acted appreciative.

The real problem was finding gifts for each other.

*

Food was an ideal gift for an excitable sun guardian, the problem being that Yue rarely ate and never cooked. It had only taken one or two awkward taste-testings before Yue abandoned that train of thought.

As for Yue, he never seemed to want anything.

But because Clow knew all of this, he always made his own plans. Christmas or not, he could never quite shed his desire to manipulate others.

He did it like this...

*

"Yue, you seem troubled," he said, turning to the guardian idly paging through a book on the couch near the window. The snow outside was still fluttering down gently, but the three of them had already been outside to conduct a fierce snowball fight. Both Yue's and Clow's hair were loose around their necks, drying as they sat near the fire.

"Clow?" Yue said, looking up. The flame dancing in the fireplace made him look oddly warm instead of pale and cold, an illusion aided by the soft maroon blanket he had draped across his shoulders, a gift from a Christmas past.

"Well, you haven't found Kero's gift yet," Clow said with the clarity of foresight, and Yue blinked and nodded.

"I was thinking about some sort of cake," he said, his lip curling with the thought. The last time he'd baked, even with Clow's aid, he'd managed to leave out some ingredient that had caused the center of the cake to fall in.

"Hmm," Clow said. Yue looked at him for a long moment.

"Unless you have a suggestion?" he said, and his master smiled.

*

Keroberos was even easier. He accosted his master in the hallway not ten minutes after Clow had left Yue with directions and a determined expression.

"I don't know what to get Yue for Christmas," he said, head-butting his creator's knees in urgency. Clow laughed kindly at his distress.

"Well, I could give you a suggestion...?"

"Please," the sun guardian said fervently, and Clow smiled.

*

On Christmas Day, Clow woke with two other weights in his bed. It was a habit of theirs to sleep beside him on special occasions, though generally they woke before he did.

But both of them were still snoozing, Kero's tail tickling Clow's foot, and one of Yue's pale hands escaping the blanket.

He grinned and tickled them awake, ten minutes of distraction before Keroberos was nudging him down the hall to see the brightly-boxed gifts. They looked nice, but he wondered, as always, why he'd never thought to make a gift-wrap Clow Card; wrapping took him ages, even when he cheated with a touch of magic.

They were about halfway through when Kero picked up Yue's present for him, and Yue found Kero's gift. They eyed them warily, and glanced at each other before opening the boxes and picking up two nearly identical scarves.

"Huh?" Kero said, running his paw down a familiar pattern, one he'd carefully knitted with dexterous claws.

Clow took the cloth and wrapped it around Kero. The purple color brought out his eyes, even though as a giant lion he looked a little strange in a scarf. Then Clow helped Yue with his own.

"I didn't realize," Yue said to Kero, looking embarrassed.

"I asked Clow for an idea," Kero admitted.

"But I--"

"I just thought I'd remind you that you're brothers, and really, quite alike," Clow said, smiling serenely. "There are matching caps that I made."

Kero looked sideways at Yue, who was fetching, really, in the royal color. Then he grinned and nudged his brother.

"But the hats have little puffballs on top," he said to Yue, who opened his mouth in horror.

"Surely not?" he replied.

Clow frowned just a little. "What's wrong with puffballs?" he asked.

They spent the next eight minutes cheerfully wrapping him up in matching purple scarves, joking and laughing, all stress forgotten.

It was just another family Christmas, after all.