Z.A. Maxfield

Ethan’s bones were tired. He had pinesap on his skin, on his clothes, and in his hair. If he had to hear Karen Carpenter sing “Merry Christmas Darling” one more time he knew he was going to go all chick-from-Exorcist and puke. For six months he’d been telling Barry he didn’t think that anything in the world could be worse than disco.

How wrong he’d been.

Ethan took a drag off his cigarette and hoped that his boss wouldn’t notice that he’d gone missing again. It wasn’t that he didn’t like Christmas trees. He had a deep and abiding respect for anything under which people might leave presents for him. But there wouldn’t be anything under the tree for him this year. He ruthlessly hardened his heart against any fissures that might be cracking the cold granite knob that he’d been trying to visualize in its place.

This year, and maybe all the remaining years of his life, he wouldn’t be welcomed in his family home for Christmas. He blew out a stream of smoke, clouding blue gray in the light of the supermarket parking lot. He’d started smoking around Thanksgiving to get warm and not just because the ‘great gray city of love’ was fucking freezing this time of year. Since he’d gotten caught with his lover Barry in the bathroom at prom in June the family home had been closed to him, and a chill had gone through his bones that he thought he’d probably feel for the rest of his life.

Not that he’d change the outcome of that. Barry was as essential to him, as inevitable as breathing and– new addiction to nicotine not withstanding– Ethan wasn’t about to stop breathing, either.

It had been hard making ends meet. Money for college had not been forthcoming, but he was only going to San Francisco State and had thrown himself on the mercy of the financial aid people. His parents had been happy to disown him, thinking that he’d give in so they’d cough up the money for school. He and Barry currently shared an old two-bedroom apartment with four other students, all of whom had gone home for Christmas, so theoretically it could be good times.

Barry had a job at Nick’s Lighthouse as a waiter, and the tips he brought in were good because he could always make everyone he served feel like he was focused entirely on bringing them pleasure. Ethan had a harder time. He knew he could be personable. He knew he had once been known as charming, even. Everyone’s favorite jock. But he’d been tossed from one job after another because suddenly, inexplicably, he could no longer be a team player.

Barry had held him and loved him, opened himself and given everything and still it was a cold fucking winter. Barry was even forgoing the pleasure of spending Christmas with his own family where he was welcome, where they were both welcome, because of the misery and self-imposed exile of one Ethan Holmes.

Ethan resolutely refused to do ‘family’. No sooner had Barry begun to try to convince him than he shut the subject down with an ultimatum. Even as his brain knew it was wrong and his heart knew it was cruel, he informed Barry that if he wanted to go home for Christmas he could go by himself and not bother to come back.

“Holmes!” the owner of the tree lot barked, not for the first time, to let him know he wasn’t being paid to smoke.

“Sorry, sir,” Ethan said, grinding the cigarette under his foot as he clapped his hands against the cold and prepared himself to cut the bottom off another tree. He hated to admit it, but that was the one thing that had kept him at this job for more than a few days, the chance to fire up a chainsaw and cut something the hell up.

He finished out his shift without saying more than a few words to anyone. He got some good tips from tying trees onto people’s cars. One guy handed him a five dollar bill wrapped around a fat joint and drove off without a backwards glance. Ethan started guiltily and put it in his pocket.

Once his boss had the place locked up, Ethan headed for the bus. His breath misted the air. The joint burned a hole in his pocket. Ethan had never done drugs. It was illegal. He didn’t want to be carrying it, but didn’t feel comfortable throwing it away. In the morning he’d ask Barry what to do with it. While he’d had no problem with underage drinking, this felt different to him, worse somehow, and if he got caught he’d have way more problems than he already did.

It was only two more days until Christmas, and if he made as much as he had the two previous days, he could afford the car stereo for Barry’s Capri. That wasn’t something Barry would expect at all. It would be incomprehensible to Barry both that Ethan managed to keep that job for more than a couple of days and that he would spend the money on a gift.

Ethan had already been to the car audio place and put in an order for what he wanted. Something good, but hidden because Barry had to park his car on the street. Something where he could crank up the sound and blow out the windows, but where the speakers couldn’t be seen from outside the car. No point in giving him a gift that would get his car broken into the first day he owned it.

The idea for a music system had evolved slowly and from a part of Ethan’s brain he thought he probably used rarely, if at all. He’d had a phone conversation with Sarah Emerson, the only person in Long Beach who still had a kind word for him. She’d tried, unsuccessfully, to get him to come home with Barry for the holidays.

“What about when Barry realizes that just because you were cut off from your family, you expect him to cut off his own family ties? That’s going to be the kiss of death, Ethan. It’s selfish. It’s not like you; what are you thinking?”

“It’s not like that,” Ethan had told her. “Barry and I are family now. We don’t need anyone else.”

“Have you asked him about that?” she persisted. “Did he tell you that he doesn’t want to see his family?”

“Well, no. Not in so many words.”

“Of course not! You made him choose! It has to feel horrible for him to have to choose between the man he loves and his family. He’s an only child; think of his parents. He’s not going to see them, sure, but they’re not going to see him either. That’s not right.”

“He called them. They said they understood. Money’s tight.”

“Of course they said that. They love him. They don’t want him to feel guilty.” She sighed. “You, on the other hand, should be ashamed of yourself.”

“Why, just because I don’t want to go home where I’m not welcome?”

“What?”

“Everywhere I look in town all I’m going to see is all the stuff my family and I did that I can never be part of again.” Ethan swallowed hard and said petulantly, “I don’t want to go home.”

“Then tell Barry to go home without you. Tell him you can have your Christmas when he gets back. Let his parents be his Santa Claus because they still want to. That’s a blessing. You of all people should honor that.”

Ethan was silent for a long time. “I should, shouldn’t I?” Ethan finally muttered.

“You should. No one wants to be held in a death grip… It makes sense not to smother him, not to cut him off from his family. He’ll only resent you if you do, not just now, but in the long run. You don’t want to lose what you have over that.”

What Sarah said made so much sense to Ethan that he’d taken it up with Barry as soon as he got home from work. So of course, they’d had the mother of all fucking fights.

“Are you trying to piss me off?” Barry had finally yelled when they had argued for about an hour about the possibility of Barry spending Christmas with his family and Ethan remaining in their apartment alone.

“No, of course, not. I’m trying to do the right thing, Sarah says—”

“Sarah? You talked this over with Sarah? First you tell me I have to choose and then you talk it over with your girlfriend? Are you seriously that stupid?”

Ethan always felt something stiffen his spine when Barry hit that note.

“Don’t call me stupid.”

“I didn’t call you—”

“Don’t start splitting hairs, Sanders. I’m trying to do what’s right.”

“Why, because Miss Sarah Perfect told you to? You were perfectly happy to make me stay here with you for Christmas break until someone else told you it was wrong?”

“Yes… No. She just said it was selfish.”

“It’s not like that’s a newsflash Ethan,” Barry said nastily. “You’re not exactly a giver, are you?”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“You were perfectly content, since you no longer had any family to speak of, to tell me I couldn’t have mine either. You said all that stuff about being each other’s family, and how we didn’t need anyone else, and now you want me to go and spend Christmas by myself?” Barry bit his lip. “Did you make other plans?”

“No!” Ethan pulled Barry’s rigid body into an embrace. “Hell no. Is that what this is about?”

“Jeez, Sarah,” Ethan was shocked when Barry broke down. “Ten guys–in this apartment building alone–waiting to fuck you and you call Sarah. I’m such an idiot.”

“What?” Ethan felt like he’d missed something vital. “What are you talking about?”

Barry threw himself at Ethan, wrapping around him like a blanket, almost knocking him over. “Don’t you get it? I love you. Love you, love you, love you. Always, you stupid jock! When you figure out how one-sided it is, how much you’ve given up to be with me, you’re going to run like your ass is on fire. Wait until after Christmas. Please… just let’s have Christmas, just you and me, like you said. We’re all the family we need.”

Ethan framed Barry’s face in both hands and lifted him away. “How much coffee have you had, Sanders?”

Barry sniffed. “Shut up.”

“Sure,” Ethan kissed him. “But first let me say that Sarah is my friend. Friend omega. The only friend I have left, besides you. And you’re just going to have to live with it.”

“If you were with her you could have it all back.” Barry said quietly.

“Let’s say I believed that; that my parents would have some sort of convenient sexual-identity memory loss and forget I’m queer and welcome me back home for Christmas, start paying my tuition, cough up room and board, give me back my car, take me to Hawaii with them when they go this summer… HEY! What was I thinking?”

Barry punched his arm hard. “You don’t have to—”

“How rude. I was going to say that even though I don’t know who the fuck I am, I know who the fuck I’m not.”

Barry grinned, still sort of wetly and sniffed. “Shoot.”

Ethan gave Barry another rough hug. “When will you get that there’s nothing I wouldn’t give up to be with you.”

“My parents will understand that this is our Christmas. They do understand, they’ve said as much.”

“Really?” Ethan asked.

“Yes.” Barry smoothed the hair back off Ethan’s face. “It’ll be just us here, and that’s exactly the way I want it.”

Barry had gone off to string popcorn or something, humming a Christmas song under his breath. As Ethan watched him, heard him, the germ of an idea began to form. At its most basic, was the notion that Barry was the music in his life. That Barry provided the highs, the lows, the depth, and the resonance, the richness that made his existence in a foggy gray city where he was lonely most of the time and always cold, bearable. Pleasurable.

Barry made everything beautiful, and it was only the absence of Barry that made Ethan resent his many jobs, his classes, and the grim necessity of relying on public transportation since he’d had to leave his car behind.

Not normally given to this kind of thinking, Ethan nevertheless followed it to its logical conclusion. Barry had been the soundtrack of almost the whole of his life. And Barry needed to be wrapped in music of his own; beautiful music with high quality sound that surrounded him and carried him along wherever he went. An emotional wave caught Ethan up and swept him along and into what could finally be called enthusiasm for a season that had caused him nothing that year but dismay.

While Ethan got excited about Barry’s gift, he admitted to a certain lack of imagination; a linear thought process that led him from the metaphor of Barry as music to Frank’s Auto Sound. And he’d hit on the idea of a second job at the tree lot when he’d realized that since Barry worked nights the whole thing could be a lovely surprise.

So now, two days before Christmas, Ethan unlocked the front door of the apartment and turned on the lights. It was so fucking drab. Barry had tried to do what he could, purchasing a nice little tree and going all crafty with homemade ornaments. They’d been too broke to afford a string of lights. He grabbed a beer from the fridge, thankful the guys down the hall were of age and didn’t mind supplying their young neighbors if they could come up with enough cash for a six-pack.

He was glad his roommates were all gone and Barry worked late. He came home every night with tree sap all over his skin and didn’t want to have to explain it because Barry thought he was studying for an art history project at the public library. He removed the sticky residue with Lava soap so Barry wouldn’t ask him about it. By the time Barry got home he would be exhausted and do little more than breathe in the scent of Ethan’s hair as he curled up in his arms before falling asleep. Once or twice he’d murmured that Ethan smelled like Christmas. To Ethan, Barry smelled like home, and he wanted to do something special to celebrate that.

Ethan sat on the couch watching the news, sipping his beer and feeling peace wash over him. He was disturbed only by the faintest niggling thought that things rarely ever went as he planned for them to go. Tomorrow was the Twenty-Third, and he’d pick up the equipment and put it under the tree with a voucher for the installation. He fell asleep right there, and dreamed of music and Barry and how far he would go just to see the boy’s face light up with a smile.

*****

Barry was not smiling. He was paralyzed with doubt and fear, and all of that was about to be consumed by a shit storm of anger. Sensing Ethan’s mood and knowing how lost he felt since they’d moved to the bay area, he’d been wondering what he could do to help Ethan feel a little holiday cheer. He’d saved his tips, bartered his work time, and appeased the management at Nick’s and had gotten the nights of the twenty-third and Christmas Eve, the whole day and night, off work. It had taken some spectacular planning on his part as the newest member of the wait staff. He’d given up a number of other days including New Years’ Eve.

But when he’d gotten home, the place was dark and Ethan wasn’t there. At first Barry didn’t think anything of it. He headed to the library where Ethan had been studying all week, in one of the best moods, certain he could warm his lover’s heart with a little extra attention and a kind of let’s-do-this-or-that list of inexpensive (well, totally free) things they could do to celebrate their day together. But of course, it wasn’t long before he found out from a friend on the staff that Ethan had been nowhere near the library since Thanksgiving.

Barry felt the coldness in his heart as it began to crystallize like frost through his bloodstream. Ethan had lied to him. However he defined it, however he tried to look at it, it made him feel faintly sick inside, so much so that he wasn’t able to leave the library right away.

He thumbed through a number of magazines, memorizing recipes for cookies he knew he’d never bake, gazing at furniture and jewelry ads, reading stories about happy families and people who had driven off of bridges into icy rivers and been rescued by what seemed like angels in heartwarming holiday stories. He spent a little time crying behind the stacks in the section on gardening where he didn’t think a lot of people would be spending time the day before Christmas Eve. Just sitting there, crying. He asked himself over and over how he could have been so stupid, but the answer was always there. He was stupid for Ethan. He would always be stupid for Ethan.

Finally, though, the library closed for the night, forcing him out into the cold, crisp air. For once, the city suited his mood, crowded and noisy but lonely at the same time, brightly colorful but cheerless while his heart was breaking. Barry headed to the parking lot, with the idea in his mind to get in his car and go home to his parents’ house, to spend his few free days of Christmas with the two people on earth he could count on to love him unconditionally, and think over his plans for the future.

*****

Ethan had gone way past worried. Barry had disappeared. He’d contacted their few friends and received no news. It was almost five a.m. and there was not a single other place he knew to call to find out where Barry could possibly be. Hospitals, maybe. He hadn’t yet resorted to that, but it was what his own parents had usually started screaming when he was late coming home, that they thought they’d have to start calling the hospitals and the morgue to find him.

Ethan had thought his parents were being overly dramatic, but the sick worry he felt in his gut when he contemplated Barry, lying in a hospital somewhere, hurt, gave him a new perspective. When a key finally scraped against the aging lock on the door, Ethan jumped up ready to kiss Barry if he walked through it, then kill him and fuck him or just throw him out the window, but he was so glad that all he did was stare, the lump in his throat making it impossible for him to talk.

Barry slammed his keys onto the kitchen counter and walked past Ethan, yanking the refrigerator open hard enough to rattle its contents which were, sadly, pretty few in number. He took out one of the last two beers and opened it, chugging it almost all down. Then he grabbed the last one and took it with him into the bedroom.

“Uh,” Ethan frowned. “You want to tell me why you’re so late?” His heart had slammed so hard into his ribcage when he’d first seen Barry that now it was doing this exhausted kind of flopping around and panting thing, but Barry’s attitude was making him angry. He would have liked that last beer but was determined not to say anything. The last thing he wanted was a fight.

“I was at the library, studying for an art history project,” Barry told him, pulling a battered backpack down out of one of their roommate’s closets. He took it into the room he and Ethan shared and started shoving his clothes into it, and right on cue, even though he didn’t want it, Ethan knew he had a fight on his hands.

“Aw shit, Barry.” Ethan was tired. “What are you doing?”

“I’m going to visit my family,” Barry reached into the drawer and scooped out some socks and underwear and tee shirts. “I think you’re right; it’s a good idea.”

“I thought you wanted to spend Christmas just the two of us here…”

“Yeah, well, I miss my mom,” Barry pulled away when Ethan put a hand on his arm, so Ethan tried again, stepping into his path and slipping his hands around Barry’s waist he went in for a kiss, and Barry turned his head at the last second, saying, “Don’t.”

“Barry—”

“I got the evening off,” Barry began, as he began to stuff his jeans in with his other things, squashing them, not caring how they fit, but mashing them down with the heel of his hand and emptying the rest of his dresser drawer into it. “So of course I looked for you at the library.”

Ethan swallowed hard. “I can explain, Barry.”

“I’m sure you can,” Barry replied. “And someday, I’m sure I’ll want to hear it.” He cracked open the second beer and started drinking it, taking a long swig and wiping a hand over his mouth. “But not today.”

“It’s just that I got this idea, Barry. And I wanted to surprise you, and Sarah and I—”

“Ah, how did I know that name was going to come up?” Barry’s shoulders sagged, and suddenly he was moving slower than before, but no less determined. “You shouldn’t be too proud, it isn’t exactly a surprise, so far.”

“Barry, I don’t think—”

Barry turned on him. “You never think! You’re a total fucking idiot. I get the night off and I drive over to the library to see you, like I’m going to warm up this city for you single handedly and show you a Christmas you’ll never forget, and you’re where? Not where you said you’d be! Not where you’ve been saying you’ve been for three weeks! Did Sarah know where you were?”

“Well, sure,” Ethan was flummoxed. “Barry, Sarah’s in Long Beach, it’s not like we could—”

“I know you weren’t with Sarah,” Barry said woodenly. “Only that you told her the truth and you told me a crapload of lies. He was fastening the pack together, tugging the straps. “The difference between me and you? Is that that I’m smart enough to understand why that might be a problem for me.”

“Okay, that’s the last fucking time you say I’m not smart.” Ethan yanked the beer out of Barry’s hand and finished it off in one swallow, and then tossed it carelessly into the hard plastic trashcan they kept next to their bed.

Barry rolled his eyes.

“I get what’s eating you and I get why, but what I don’t get is why all of a sudden you can’t wait to can my ass over something you could ask me about.”

“What?” Barry asked.

“Guess I’m not smart enough to understand a superior mind at work, but if I was all pissed off at someone because they did something I didn’t like, I might even ask them why they did it, if I thought it was worth my time. If they were important enough for me to double check that I wasn’t jumping to stupid ass conclusions.” Ethan gave him a filthy look and walked back out into their tiny living room, cramped as it was with the belongings of the two boys who slept on the fold-out couch there and sat. He used the remote control to switch on the televsion. He folded his arms and waited, pretending to be fascinated with the morning kid’s shows. Barry came out carrying the backpack.

“Why’d you lie?” Barry said in a smallish sort of voice. He seemed uncertain, but Ethan knew if he got the wrong answer there’d be hell to pay.

“Think a minute. When have I ever told you the truth at Christmastime”

Barry seemed to consider this.

“The hot wheels 65 mustang? And the fastback, the ‘Bullet’ car?” Ethan prompted.

Barry came over and sat down. “You got those for me,” he said.

“And…? before Christmas I told you…”

“That Sav-On was sold out of the fastback.”

“And the year of that heinous Raindrops song?”

“You said Wallich’s Music City was closed due to a burst pipe.”

“And you believed me. I went with Dad that year and got it at Fedco anyway, I just lied to throw you off.” Ethan wished he had another beer.

“You were lying to get me a present.” Barry sighed and got a little smaller somehow, and Ethan wasn’t too proud to rub it in a little.

“And of course you had to turn that into some sort of romantic cliché, running home to your mother. Like I Love Lucy, for fuck’s sake.”

“Ethan,” Barry’s eyes sparkled moistly,

“Calling me stupid,” Ethan prodded.

“I never called you stupid.”

“Come here, you.” Ethan pulled him into his arms. “I’m sorry. I should have been more up front. I got a second job. I’ve been working for three weeks, and—”

“You what?” Barry pushed on his chest, “No way. Far out! Three weeks?’”

“Have you ever noticed you have a bad habit of interrupting me? Yes. Three weeks. I’ve been working in the tree lot at the market.”

“That’s why you always smell like Christmas!” Barry relaxed into his arms and Ethan felt almost like he could breathe again.

“Yeah. I made pretty good money. People gave me tips. This one guy… Hey!”

“What,” Barry asked as Ethan dumped him off and went to the kitchen. He’d left the joint in the drawer by the phone the night before when he’d gotten his wallet out for the number to call Barry’s work. By the time he’d called though, everyone had been long gone.

“You worried the crap out of me, Barry, I thought I’d have to call the hospitals and the damned morgue!” He winced, even as he admonished exactly like his parents, returning to the living room with his illegal tip. “Look what somebody gave me the day before yesterday.”

“Is that—“?

“Yep,” Ethan told him. “You ever tried it?”

Barry blushed hotly. “No! Why would I try it, all you had to do was look at the stoners to know it wasn’t exactly…”

Ethan raised his eyebrows.

“What?” Barry asked.

“Never wanted to try it?” Ethan grinned.

“No!” Barry was still looking at the dope, and he caught the side of his lip between his teeth. “Not really.”

Ethan grinned at him. “I’m going to.”

“Did you ever before?”

“No way. If Coach found out about me doing something like this he’d have had my ass off that team so fast—”

“Yeah, but then he found about a me having your ass.”

“That worked too.” Ethan said sourly. He had yet to get over being manhandled out of prom. “Did you know Sarah’s dating my damned loser brother?”

Barry went still. “Does that bother you?”

“Yeah, but only because I can’t stand the thought of him landing someone as fine as her, and it makes me doubt her judgment.” Ethan laughed, and Barry laughed with him, and they sank together onto the couch. “What do you say Barry, shall we spark her up?”

“Well.” Barry still hesitated. “We are in our own home.”

“Mmhmm.” Ethan agreed.

“And we’re not going anywhere. Tomorrow’s Christmas Eve.”

“Nope, we don’t have to leave the house. I have enough cash to call for a pizza if we get hungry.” There was no sound except for the singing of kid’s songs on television.

“So what the fuck, light it!” Barry said. “You don’t think it’ll be like reefer madness and I’ll want to kill my grandma or something, do you?”

“Uh, no. I doubt that. But your grandmother’s far enough away you’d probably sober up before you see her anyway.” Ethan leaned forward and pulled his lighter off the table. “All right,” he lit the thing and it crackled as he inhaled, sparking a little. He held it out to Barry who gingerly took a small puff and immediately coughed it out again.

“That’s awful,” Barry choked out. Ethan shook his head, still holding his breath. He’d at least seen enough people do this that he wasn’t a spaz.

“Blow out all your air,” Ethan told him. When Barry was done coughing he did as he was told. “No here, breathe in, then hold it.” He watched as Barry took a hit, his eyes watering. Barry held his breath, gazing at Ethan with such trust that Ethan couldn’t help falling in love all over again.

“You’re so fucking pretty.” Ethan blurted out. One of Barry’s eyebrows went up as he blew out a thin stream of smoke.

“Shit must be working already, because I could swear I just heard you call me pretty.”

“I did.” Ethan didn’t back down. “You are pretty. You have those eyelashes.”

“Everyone has eyelashes.” Barry watched as Ethan inhaled. He should have known Ethan would have some weird but kind of sexy way of inhaling smoke that made him seem… “Ethan?”

“Mmhmm.” Ethan looked down as Barry sank under his arm and nestled in.

“I hate that you smoke, and it makes your breath smell like a dirty bar, but damn, you look…”

“What?” Ethan deliberately leaned over and blew smoke in Barry’s face.

“Ew, never mind,” Barry said, taking the joint and putting it to his lips. He blinked a few times. “What’re you supposed to feel when you do this?”

“I don’t know. The only thing I’ve ever heard anyone say is it makes them hungry.”

“Mm.” Barry’s hand was making a lazy circle over Ethan’s thigh, and he wondered if it was his imagination or did it just get higher up on his leg?

“Food sounds good though,” Barry murmured.

“Mmhmm.”

“Like, something…salty.” Barry took a long experimental lick up the side of Ethan’s neck, and then covered Ethan’s lips with his own. “Or something sweet.”

“Yeah,” Ethan said stupidly, realizing he’d been feeling the effects of the dope for a minute but hadn’t known it, until Barry’s tongue hit his neck and it made his head spin. “Sweet.”

Barry’s eyes were on Ethan’s and he was turning on the couch next to him. “So,” he said, as he straddled Ethan’s lap and took another hit, sharing a kiss and the smoke and the dizzying press of one hard dick against another. Ethan took the opportunity to fall onto his side, and they lay there for a minute, kissing, until he realized that everything was still pleasantly tilting, him included, even though he was lying still.

“You feeling it?” he asked Barry, who was slack jawed and staring at something on the television.

“I’m feeling something.” Barry growled in his ear.

Ethan’s head fell back. “Me too.”

Barry nudged at him. “What’d you get me?”

“What?”

“What did you get me for Christmas?”

“It’s not Christmas yet, and you nearly gave me a heart attack. Shit, this thing’s going to burn my fingers.”

Barry, who had slimmer, more delicate hands, took it from him and got up. He took a long drag, and held it easily, his eyes unfocused and getting red. A goofy smile manifested itself on his face and Ethan’s heart twisted a little.

“I thought you’d gotten hurt or something. Where were you?”

“At the police station,” Barry said, shaking his head. Ethan sat up so fast Barry slid toward the hardwood floor between the couch and their tacky coffee table.

“You’re shitting me.” Ethan grabbed at his shoulder but missed as Barry landed bonelessly and started to laugh. “Are you all right?”

Barry seemed to find falling on his ass hysterically funny. “I’m fine,” he chortled. “Except now your head is way far away and it sounds really small. Like you’re talking through a tube. Talking through a tooooooooooob. One minute I was one way and then the next—”

“Get a grip, tiger,” Ethan tried to pull him back up onto the couch without sitting up but it was like grabbing hold of egg white or something, he kept just slipping back down, and he had to admit, it was kind of funny. “Look,” he laughed. “Here, I’ll just—”

“Here I come,” Barry said, hoisting himself up and dropping back down on Ethan, astride his hips. He held the now tiny roach to Ethan’s lips and said, “Here, one more I think. What kind of a person gives dope as a tip to a Christmas tree boy?”

“I was a good Christmas Tree boy.” Ethan leered.

Barry’s eyes lit up. “Oh yeah? Got any wood for me?”

“Always. But I’ll beat you with it if you don’t tell me why you were at the police station.”

For a minute Barry’s jaw went slack again and his eyes did…something Ethan couldn’t quite explain, but he liked it, because he felt a corresponding surge in Barry’s cock. His own eyebrows went up.

“Right. You’ll beat me with it.” Barry teased, but he ruined that disinterested look on his face by swallowing hard.

“If you don’t tell me why you were at the police station, why are you avoiding the subject?”

“Look, it’s not the most pleasant memory and I’d just rather forget it, all right?” Barry snapped. “Come on, I’m sorry I scared you. I should have called but I was angry because I thought… Can’t we just forget it?”

“All right,” Ethan told him making up his mind. “Here.” He shoved Barry off him so he could stand, and got up to turn off the television set. “Here’s what you would have come home to, if you’d come home last night.” He took his lighter and lit one candle on the coffee table and then a second, and started going around the room setting the stage. Last night he hadn’t been quite so wobbly, and things had stayed pretty still for him while he’d worked, but he tried for the same effect.

“You went to a lot of trouble,” Barry sat up and watched as Ethan went around behind their spindly tree and plugged something in. “Oh, you got lights!”

“Yep,” Ethan said. He turned on the radio and finally went to the closet and pulled out Barry’s gift. It was badly wrapped, and had gotten crumpled a little when he’d shoved it back in the closet in his frustration the night before. “This isn’t the whole thing,” he said. “I just—”

Barry tried to get to it but Ethan pulled it back. “Wait, I had some stuff I wanted to say, and—”

“Mine, gimme. I hope it’s brownies. Or potato chips. Or both.”

Ethan took a big step back. “NO.” Barry immediately sat back down. Ethan snorted. “That was cool. Do you suppose you’ve ever done what I’ve told you to do before?”

“I don’t think so.” Even Barry was laughing he was so surprised. “Must be the drugs. I know! You’re exercising mind control!”

“Your lips to God’s ears, Barry,” Ethan rolled his eyes. “The thing is, I just wanted to give you something that makes you feel the way you make me feel. Something that fills you and carries you along and wraps around you like warmth and breath and everything good.”

“Yeah?” Barry whispered, finally serious.

“Yeah.” Ethan swallowed. “Thank you for spending this Christmas with me. Thank you for being my family. I love you.”

Barry swallowed hard. “I had such a lousy night last night, thinking we didn’t have that anymore.”

“I’m sorry. I’ll try to tell you when I’m lying to you from now on.”

Barry pursed his lips. “Can I?”

“Sure,” Ethan gave him the gift and watched as he tore off the paper. Barry could unscramble the enigma code to get to a present and he had a verifiable knack for managing to unwrap even a carefully wrapped and well-taped present with one yank. Even when they’d been kids he’d been really remarkable. When he saw his gift he just stared at it for a long moment. As the time ticked by Ethan became worried, looking down at the gift and then up at Barry’s face trying to make sense of what he saw there.

Barry just stared.

“Well?”

“You got me music,” Barry said covering his mouth with a hand as though he were overcome. Ethan thought maybe Barry understood what he had been too inarticulate to say.

“Yeah, because you make me feel so—”

When the noise began coming from behind Barry’s clenched fist at first Ethan thought that maybe the dope was working a little too well and he was getting all emotional. It took a second for him to realize that Barry was trying not to laugh.

“What?”

“You… got me a… car stereo!” Barry choked out, actually spitting a little, and then he dissolved completely and doubled over, holding his sides.

“What?” Ethan asked him. “Don’t you like it? Don’t tell me, that’s what your parents got you! I knew I should have called them.”

“No,” Barry wasn’t even trying to control himself, he gave Ethan a shove and then gave up and fell over backward onto the floor, crushing Christmas paper under him as he rolled.

“What then?” Ethan was getting angry, and hungry and damn, he remembered he made brownies the night before and the neighbor girls, the ones who worked at the wharf had brought them taffy and homemade cookies.

Barry was saying something but it was garbled and wasn’t coming out right, and Ethan thought if he ever smoked dope again it wouldn’t be with Barry Sanders because the man was like a kindergartner who’d had too much red velvet cake.

Mmm… Cake.

“What?” Ethan finally snapped. This was so not going according to plan.

“Last night,” Barry finally got out, “When I was so mad, I went to track you down at the library…”

Barry started laughing again and Ethan very nearly smacked him. “And?”

“And… My car was stolen from the parking lot!”