Notes: By request of Tsukino Akume, holiday fic featuring characters she's actually heard of. So demanding, I tell you. *
Ghosts of Holidays Past
They meet on the Simudeck just after the sun sets on Angel Grove. They come alone, neither having told the rest of the team. Not because they don't want to share with them, but sometimes quiet celebrations are the best.
It's been a long time since Andros properly celebrated a holiday, but he figures it'll be good for Zhane. The new year is the first major holiday to pass since he'd woken from stasis and though the festivities of two years ago are just a few weeks old in his memory, he's been excited about the idea.
Naturally. With Zhane, any excuse for a party is enough.
Andros won't tell him that, just this once, he agrees. The cookies the Synthetron makes don't taste quite like the ones his father would make and he can't sing the songs as well as his mothers could (he refuses to sing at all, but Zhane sings loudly and off-key enough for the both of them), but with Zhane back the memories don't hurt as much as they usually do and it's... nice, sort of.
"Remember last year?" Zhane says, on his back with his hands clasped behind his head. "You could hear the celebration until sunrise."
Andros doesn't remind him that it wasn't really last year. "Of course you could," he says instead. "You were there all night. I was asleep."
"So responsible." Zhane shakes his head. "I guess one of us has to be."
"That's not really fair," Andros complains. "I've been the subject of interplanetary complaints more often than you have."
It was still true even after accounting for the two years Zhane had lost.
"True." Zhane smirks at him. "I think I've been a bad influence on you."
"No," Andros says quietly. "You were the best."