Authoress' Note: Just a little note to give thanks to everyone who's been reading this! And special thanks go to Parasitic Eve, FirieGurl and LovelySinner7 for the encouraging reviews, Rapunzelle and kai's wolf girl for the favourites and Firefly the Umbreon for the alert (along with two lovely people that I've already mentioned). Writing fan-fics wouldn't be the same without you guys.

Chapter 6: The Power of Love.

December 6th.

"Remind me again why I'm here," Kai growled, trying to wipe acrylic paint from his face.

"Because you love me," Tyson grinned, watching as the acrylic on his boyfriend's cheek smeared and made one long red streak ending on the bridge of his nose.

"Okay, rephrase the question. Why are you abusing our relationship like this and submitting me to such torture?" Kai asked, throwing his arms wide, slopping more paint on himself.

Forcing himself not to laugh, Tyson answered, "We're painting the Nativity scene to put up on the nursery wall. Surely you can't refuse something for little kiddies."

"People would never think that you could be so manipulative," the older boy said, quietly seething.

Tyson's grin morphed into a triumphant smirk as he applied more paint to his brush.

"So what exactly is this nativity scene we're painting?" Kai asked after a while, ignoring the drip of yellow paint that had just landed on his nose.

"I thought you were religious as a child," Tyson replied, looking confused.

"Grandfather generally concentrated on the brimstone and fire part of Christianity for my religious education. Forgiveness and love were never his thing," came the carefully blank reply.

"Oh, right. Sorry. Well, the nativity is a representation of the scene at the birth of Christ. Joseph and the Virgin Mary were travelling to Jerusalem and stopped for the night in Bethlehem. They asked around the inns, but there weren't any rooms free. But one inn-keeper felt sorry for them and said they could stay in the stable if they wanted," Tyson answered, trying to remember everything.

"So that's why the inside of the room is bright yellow," Kai mused, looking at what he could now see were bundles of straw and hay.

"It isn't that bad," Tyson said, a sulky tone creeping into his voice.

"I just said the room was yellow."

"I know that tone well enough."

"Look, could you just continue with the story," Kai sighed.

"Oh right, yeah! While they were staying in the stable, the Virgin Mary, who was heavily pregnant, gave birth to baby Jesus."

"Wait. She's a virgin, yet she got pregnant?"

"Don't ask me," Tyson replied, pointing his paintbrush skywards. "He knows better than me. Anyway, elsewhere the Angel Gabriel appeared to a group of shepherds and their flock, and told them that the son of Jesus had been born in a stable in Bethlehem. They decided to go and visit him with the gift of lambs from their flock."

"That'll be the brown splodges on the right there," Kai muttered to himself.

"What was that?"

"Nothing."

"It better be. Anyway, in a far away country, the Three Wise Men had heard news from a prophet that the son of God would be born, and that to find him they needed to follow a bright star that had recently appeared in the sky. So they followed it bearing gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh for the son of God. They all arrived at the stable and worshipped him. That's pretty much the story of this scene. There's something about King Herod ordering for every baby boy in the kingdom to be put to the slaughter to prevent a greater king than him from being born, but that's kinda depressing for the children," Tyson continued.

"The last bit about King Herod sounds like something Grandfather would have told me. With much relish, I imagine," Kai murmured.

"Maybe I shouldn't have mentioned it," Tyson said guiltily.

"Nah, everything's fine. We'd better get this finished quickly," Kai said, punching Tyson lightly on the shoulder, transferring a smudge of white onto the t-shirt that had a mere hour before been pristinely clean.

"Why, do you have something planned for later?"

"No, I just need to get this blasted paint off of my face."

"But you used to wear it all the time."

"I was young and didn't realise how weird it was to wear make-up."

"I thought it was cute."

A long pause.

"Like I said, I need to get this paint off my face."