Author's notes: This was a very difficult piece to write, in the end. Tetheus is damn hard to write, because you have to get the right balance between his fairly limited way of displaying emotions and frank, straightforward style, while still maintaining some emotional value to keep him from being 2D. I have heaps of trouble on a good day with his character, and wouldn't have really had all that much confidence to post this if not for Akisawana and her fabulous beta job. Thank you so much! Any mistakes within the story are mine, not hers. Basically, the story shows the growing friendship/relationship between Kai-stern and Tetheus, using Christmas as a theme.

On a slightly different note, I feel like I have finally arrived as an author. I've been writing yaoi/slash for about six years, and it was not until the DK fandom that I got called a 'Lesbo'. How awesome and witty an insult is that? It truly cannot be beaten.

Finding Christmas.

Tetheus knew more about humans than he knew of them. It was, quite possibly, a demon thing. Demons generally didn't get personal with their prey, or at least, Tetheus had never gotten personal with any of the humans he'd known before he'd found redemption in Draqueen, and that was all that really mattered. For all he really knew, all other Demons became friends with their various humans before eating and or tormenting them, after all.

In Draqueen, it was hard to get friendly with anyone. Demons would be demons would be demons it seemed, even when those demons (or one in particular) dedicated themselves to the Dragon Lord and obtained one of the highest ranks within the Kingdom. It was not that he was not accepted, per se, but more that he wasn't accepted.

But Tetheus was used to not quite ever fitting in, what with being a demon with a conscious and the member of the Dragon Clan with a blackened heart. Considered an insult to the demons he now fought against, and an old enemy to the Dragon Clan who were dedicated to protecting humans from the very likes of himself, it was hardly that much of a surprise.

And it didn't matter, which was all the more important. Tetheus hadn't come to Draqueen to make friends; the simple concept was not something he was overly familiar with in the first place.

Perhaps that was why he was so surprised that someone extended an olive branch three months into his stay.

"I'm returning home for Christmas, would you like to come?"

Christmas. A winter festival where gifts were exchanged between friends and family. A yearly tradition celebrated during the month of December.

A human tradition.

"Aren't you scared I'll eat your family for dinner, or torment you all in many horrible, painful ways?" Tetheus' words were cold and distant, but that didn't seem to put Kai-stern off - quite possibly because everything Tetheus said was cold and distant. Instead, the other Dragon Clan member simply smiled warmly, eyes twinkling behind rimmed glasses.

"You are more than welcome to nibble on my odious grandmother if you wish, but all tormenting must be kept to a minimum, at least in front of the children." Tetheus would have been disturbed by the way Kai-stern winked at him after that last comment if it was not for the fact that it was accompanied by a mischievous smile that quickly gave way to a self-depicting laugh.

"All right."

And so began the first tradition that Tetheus had ever been involved with.

xxx

The third time Tetheus returned to the small seaside village for Christmas, he did a very undemon like thing and brought presents along with him. He didn't wrap them, as while he was willing to go along with the whole 'good will towards mankind' ideal to an extent, his own good will did not extend to wrapping paper covered in pink hearts or demented deer with red noses. Little Jeena-ta loved her scarf, and Kai-stern's parents apparently also loved the vase he'd picked out for them, even though they appeared to have mistaken it for a wine cooler.

Kai-stern had found that far too amusing, even though he'd actually been the one to help Tetheus pick it out in the first place.

Tetheus suspected a set-up.

xxx

It was not until his fourth Christmas with Kai-stern and his family that Tetheus realised that the human was uncomfortable in Draqueen. Kai-stern, who seemed popular with everyone and was always invited to every party and event within the city, never shone in quite the same way that he did when surrounded by badly decorated trees and watered down alcohol. When compared to how he played with his younger sister, Kai-stern was positively tense when corresponding with any of the Draqueen natives, even when simply exchanging jokes with Ruwalk.

Another three Christmas's would pass before Tetheus asked why.

"Oh, you know Draqueen." It was said with a shrug and a laugh, as almost everything Kai-stern said was. "They welcome you into their fold but you never really become one of them."

Accepted but not accepted.

He never wondered after that why Kai-stern had invited him along that first Christmas.

xxx

If Tetheus was disappointed about not returning with Kai-stern this year for Christmas, he did not allow it to show. He was positive, well, mostly so, that Kai-stern would have invited him along if the circumstances had been slightly different. As it was, Tetheus was fairly certain that he wouldn't have been able to make the trip even if Kai-stern had asked, what with five fractured ribs, a broken leg, and half an arrow head still embedded in his shoulder.

There was just something … incomplete about spending the holiday alone in Draqueen, where Christmas was merely another working day. It especially seemed odd to be spending the day in bed and in no small amount of pain (not that he allowed that to show, either), instead of rolling his eyes at Kai-stern's jokes, or listening to tales told around a table heavy with food. He even almost missed those horrid snowball fights that the entire family seemed to participate in at any given possibility. Almost.

Dark eyes drifted closed, as he wondered exactly how long it would be before Alfeegi returned to try and convince him to take his medicine.

"If I didn't know you better, I would say that you were positively sulking."

Only to flicker back open far quicker, much to the amusement of Kai-stern, who was propped up against the doorframe, a smirk very much in place.

"You're supposed to be at home." It almost came out accusingly.

"Who says I'm not?" Kai-stern's teasing didn't quite reach his eyes, where there was instead only warmth. Yet there was something that was obviously not quite right about the human, unnoticeable perhaps to anyone that hadn't gotten to know his mannerisms as well as Tetheus had. "I just had to go and retrieve a couple of things to make sure we had a proper Christmas." Tetheus' eyes widened slightly in disbelief as Kai-stern moved aside, allowing Jeena-ta to enter the room, a basket that appeared to be filled with natural remedies adorning one arm, a handsome enough fiancé adorning the other. Other relatives flowed in after the young pair, even the batty old family dog had been brought along.

Everyone but Kai-stern's mother.

It was easy then to place what was wrong with Kai-stern, and when he next glanced at him, Kai-stern smiled back with a tight, forced grin that seemed to be more for Tetheus' benefit than Kai-stern's.

Kai-stern was starting to feel the effects of his immortality.

xxx

Tetheus always found some of the reactions of others to his yearly Christmas trip somewhat amusing. Ruwalk inquired with a sly grin at least every couple of years on whether he and Kai-stern were officially an 'item' yet, always disappointed when potential gossip was met with a disgusted snort. Alfeegi managed to go into a panic for months before hand, wringing his hands and crying foul - how was he ever going to find sufficient staff to cover for the entire week Kai-stern and Tetheus were away for?

Most certainly amusing.

There were less amusing reactions, ones whispered in corridors or spoken quietly when it was thought Tetheus was out of hearing range. A demon and human interacting was abnormal and strange, and most were sure that there was some deeper conspiracy there, somewhere. More often than not, it was suspected that each year they went on a secret sort of mission, but there were occasionally darker, harsher thoughts that filtered through the senses of the supposed open-minded nature of the castle's residences. After all, neither demons nor humans could really be trusted, could they?

Tetheus didn't find that amusing at all. Strangely enough, Kai-stern did. Tetheus was never quite sure why.

xxx

Tetheus had learnt quickly to be weary wary. Weary is to be tired of. of mistletoe. He'd kissed almost everyone in Kai-stern's family at least once, with both Jeena-ta and the dog having received a grand total of seven kisses each. It was, however, not until their fortieth Christmas that Tetheus found himself beneath a cluster of mistletoe with Kai-stern.

"Aw, how sweet," Jeena-ta cooed as Kai-stern shrugged easily before pushing himself up onto his toes and gently pressing his lips against Tetheus'. It was hardly a kiss in the real sense of the word, lasting the briefest of moments. Yet, Tetheus found that the feel of Kai-stern's lips lingered long after the human had left the room; off to save Jeena-ta's husband from the disaster zone he'd made the kitchen.

xxx

Sometimes, the weather was too bad for them to travel back to Kai-stern's hometown, and Christmas Day was spent in one of their rooms with a fire burning and a makeshift tree stuffed in some corner. Kai-stern always insisted on hot chocolate followed by an amazing amount of eggnog, far more than either of them would have consumed if the rest of Kai-stern's family had been there.

It was during these times that Tetheus really began to get to know Kai-stern, who would talk about everything and anything yet let his true emotions be told with the words he left unsaid. Kai-stern, Tetheus learnt, read him in the complete opposite way, managing to extract a mass of meaning out of the one or two words Tetheus allowed himself during the course of any given conversation.

They made an interesting pair, that was for certain.

There were times when they didn't quite play be the same rules, such as the Christmas that he had told Kai-stern about his younger siblings and the guilt that occasionally threatened to consume him, or when Kai-stern had exploded in a very untypical Kai-stern way about how sick and tired he was of being treated by others as though he was fragile and useless just because he was a human, even if an immortal one.

They stopped drinking quite as much eggnog after the Christmas where Tetheus woke up with foggy memories and in an unfamiliar bed, with Kai-stern wrapped tightly in his arms. It was something they chose never to spoke of, afterwards.

xxx

The hardest Christmas was also their 50th, although they did little by way of celebrating. There were still presents under the tree, and Kai-stern chattered away warmly, smile firmly in place, but there were fewer presents than the year before, and Kai-stern's smile failed to fool anyone. That had never before stopped Kai-stern from trying, and his grin did not falter once during the evening.

It was one of those things that Tetheus can never quite decide whether he admired about the human, or found distracting.

Jeena-ta obviously appreciated it, either way, and Kai-stern occasionally managed to draw a small smile or even a tiny laugh from his younger sister, who, with grey streaking her hair, and wrinkles marring a once beautiful face, appeared many years older now than her ageless brother.

That year, Tetheus found it almost impossible to look the woman he had known since she was a mere child in the eye. Jeena-ta's husband had been killed only months earlier by a youkai.

Not all that long ago, that youkai could have been him.

"But it wasn't, you fool," Kai-stern pointed out lightly, balancing a tray of food in each hand as he pushed open the door to the kitchen with his foot. "And believe me, when my sister looks at you, she doesn't see the monster who killed her husband. She sees that annoying brat that beats her at Putong each year, but is going down this time, come hell or high water."

And Tetheus did, although that might possibly have been because he didn't play quite as hard as usual. Generally a sore loser, he didn't mind all that much when Jeena-ta rubbed his long coming loss in, as she was the most animated then than she has been all day.

It didn't hurt either that the smile Kai-stern's gave him was his most genuine of the evening.

xxx

He did not hear it from Kai-stern, which should have bothered him. Alfeegi had seemed to think it would, blue eyes flickering with a slight nervousness as he'd stiffly told Tetheus that Kai-stern had informed him earlier that neither Kai-stern or Tetheus would require time off this Christmas, and was Tetheus aware of the change of plan? It was said with an attempted subtleness that was so unlike Alfeegi, who often pretended not to care about 'silly' things such as emotions and problems associated with anything outside of work.

But there were some things that were very difficult to pretend did not exist.

And it should have bothered him, that Alfeegi had somehow known first. Perhaps later it would, when he was back in the warmth and the familiarity of the castle, instead of searching through the bars that littered the darker corners of Draqueen.

Naturally, Kai-stern was at the last bar Tetheus searched.

Unnaturally, the tall, exotic drink before him had not been touched.

Tetheus did not know what was worse, the thought of dealing with a drunk and hysterical Kai-stern, or one who was drowning instead in sobriety.

He said nothing to the blond as he sat in the empty seat to Kai-stern's right, instead ordering a drink of his own, occasionally glancing at the other out of the corner of his eye while he took calm, methodical sips of the bitter alcohol. Hair shot through with silver had slid over pale eyes, clouding the emotion that was hidden there, while one hand was wrapped almost desperately around the glass on the bar top, long fingers trembling just silently. It had been near dawn by the time Tetheus had been able to finally track Kai-stern down, and most of the bar had emptied, the drunks and those who wished to profit off of them long since having returned to their beds.

"I suppose you know." Tetheus was on his second drink before Kai-stern spoke up, and while it was said with an evenness that was deceptive given the situation, Kai-stern refused to lift his gaze from his own glass.

"Yes. Alfeegi rather blatantly implied it."

"Ah." Several more, uncountable moments passed. "I'm surprised he figured it out."

"I'm not."

More silence came then, broken only by the occasional muffled noise from the back room of the bar, where the one remaining staff member had disappeared quickly to after Tetheus had entered. This was hardly a decent part of Draqueen, crime and filth spread through the streets and businesses here without discrimination, tainting everything in a darker shade of corruption than was ever seen without the walls of the castle. Few ever ventured down here if they could so help it, and even Tetheus rarely sent his men here, there was little that could be truly policed when the people themselves were almost always corrupt.

Corrupt they may be, but they had an innate intelligence that was often missing amongst those who had never seen the darker side of life. The bartender had known that the pair had needed solitude even with a glance, and that only trouble could possibly come from denying what two such important members of Draqueen's elite obviously required.

He only returned occasionally to refill Tetheus' drink. He was still a businessman, after all.

Tetheus was known for going days without speaking if there was no particular reason for him to, but Kai-stern was different, had always been so very different from anyone Tetheus had ever known. Kai-stern dealt with things either with words or by getting as drunk as soon as possibly and as quickly as possible, and if that failed, then it wasn't rare for nearby evil demons to suddenly find themselves without heads or other, more random body parts.

Kai-stern rarely ever dealt with anything with quietness.

"It's fine though, just a bit of a shock." When Kai-stern did choose to speak again, Tetheus almost wished that Kai-stern had instead stayed in his strange silent. There was a forced humour in his voice, a lightness there that belittled more than it convinced. "She was over 80, after all. That's very old for a human, especially one who grew up so far north." The light chuckle was anything but.

"Kai-stern. Look at me." The bitter laugh that was Kai-stern's only reply was devoid of all the pretence that all his others responses had been heavy with. "Kai-stern." If he had been Ruwalk, worry would have coloured his voice, or obvious concern, if he had been Alfeegi. But Tetheus was neither - and thank all available deities for that small fact - and as a result it came out more as a growl.

Perhaps Ruwalk or Alfeegi would have been nicer, but they would have fucked it up beyond recognition. not have had the desired effect as Tetheus did. And as he watched the muscles tense in Kai-stern's shoulders, and his grip on his glass tighten so much as to smother the tremors in his fingers away completely, Tetheus waited. Not for tears or tantrums, as he knew Kai-stern to well to expect either of those.

Kai-stern did not disappoint.

In one, stiff movement, Kai-stern turned to him, an almost painfully sharp smile in place, colourless eyes singing in dark bemusement. "It's all right, Tetheus. It's not as though I was not expecting this - I'm hardly a fool, after all. Now, if you would-"

"I understand," Tetheus broke in, the quietness of his words doing little to mask the steel they held. His dark gaze held Kai-stern's slightly surprised one, not flinching even when Kai-stern's perfectly blank mask began to falter. "I understand." Anger sparked in Kai-stern's eyes for the briefest of moments, before Kai-stern forced them shut. His next breath came out almost as a hiss, forced between clenched teeth that were trying to keep from shaking. Tetheus simply watched as Kai-stern fought his own inner battle, waiting for the moment those eyes would open once again. When they did, the bitterness and dark humour was gone, leaving behind only a lost helplessness. And then, suddenly, Kai-stern was in his arms, although Tetheus was not quite sure how he got there. Strangely enough, he was not even sure if Kai-stern had been the one to initiate the hug in the first place, or if somehow Tetheus himself had been responsible.

But that hardly mattered, just like it didn't matter that Alfeegi had managed to figure it all out before him. Because Tetheus understood. He understood why Kai-stern had fled the castle, where everyone would be kind and sympathetic, but kind and sympathetic and confused, as few within the immortal walls of Draqueen had to deal with such things as death and loss, having been born into their immortality surrounded by those who were already immortal. He understood how devastating it was to age only through memories of felled friends and forgotten family. And Tetheus understood, he knew, just how the world seemed to shatter into a thousand pieces that you weren't sure that you would ever be able to put back together again, when someone you loved so dearly died.

And so, it didn't matter. Not as Kai-stern held him with such tightness that, if Tetheus has been anyone else, might have made breathing difficult, not as he held the other man almost as tightly. Not as the tremors started or the tears finally threatened to fall.

"She's gone, they're all gone." Kai-stern's words were hoarse, and muffled slightly by Tetheus' jacket. "They're all gone." The quiet echo held a note of hopeless disbelief.

"No," Tetheus responded, causing Kai-stern to glance up at him, forehead furrowing just slightly. "There's still me."

The tears did come then, but it was ok, because Tetheus kissed them away before kissing Kai-stern, who kissed him back roughly in return. It could not be further from that night that they never dared to talk about, which had been sweet and gentle, even through a haze of drunkenness. This was raw and desperate, a cocktail of need and violent, exposed emotion. As Kai-stern snaked his arms over Tetheus' broad shoulders before wrapping them around the back of his neck, dragging Tetheus in closer still, it also felt very much right.

It was just pure luck that there was an inn right next door to the pub.

This time, when morning came, Tetheus did not leave before Kai-stern woke.

It was not until late afternoon that Kai-stern himself did eventually awaken, exhaustion having claimed him in a way that it rarely dared to do with Tetheus, who had rested in the end for only a few hours. He did not move even then from the bed that had hardly been big enough to accompany both of them in the first place, even as bleary eyes blinked at him, the slight confusion of sleep giving way to comprehension.

"You're still here," Kai-stern murmured, quietly emotionless, as he rolled slightly onto his side to face Tetheus more directly.

"Yes. Is that going to be a problem?" There was no eggnog to place blame on this time, and it had barely been an adequate excuse in the first place, one crafted quickly in a desire to explain away something forbidden and unexpected. Although, perhaps it hadn't been all that unexpected after all, and instead simply a horribly wrong time and way.

But regardless of time and regardless of place, nothing changed the way that a relationship between a human and a demon was not merely taboo, but seen as the greatest kind of betrayal by either of their races.

"Can you think of any reason it should?" Calm and neutral, throwing the heavy question back at Tetheus. Bastard.

"Not that I can think of."

Tetheus was hardly really a demon anymore these days, anyway, and he'd never really given all that much thought to restrictions put on him by others.

"That's good." It was accompanied with the tiniest quirk of a smile, a show of how Kai-stern was not all that caught up in some of the more definable traditions of his race, either. Just the gift-swapping, family-orientated, alcohol blurry ones.

Tetheus was not so foolish as to believe that sex had cured everything, and Kai-stern, to his credit, was not pretending otherwise. Welcoming eyes still held sadness, and when Kai-stern rolled closer, quietly tangling himself with Tetheus, there was a silent, possessive command in the way he held Tetheus close.

Tetheus was not allowed to leave him. Ever.

It was a command Tetheus thought he just might be able to live with.