Disclaimer: While I have immense amounts of fun with the characters of Weiss, I am not delusional enough to think that I own them.

Warnings: shounen ai

Author's Notes: Paper writing season and the general end of the quarter crush scared the muse off for a while, but once finals week came, she returned full force. Unfortunately, that was also finals week for my beta reader, so the process was slowed down a little.

Solstice

By Rapunzel

Chapter 6

Ken was yanked rather abruptly from a very deep sleep at six o'clock in the morning by pounding on his door. Irritated by the noise, he tried to burrow deeper into the covers and closer to the warm mass beside him, not really registering what that mass was until it shifted to accommodate him and a long arm stretched out to settle across his shoulders. Ken jerked in surprise and pushed himself up on his elbows to look down at his bed fellow.

Aya was stretched out on his side next to him, the covers pulled up to his nose and obscuring part of his face. As Ken watched, Aya's face scrunched slightly in annoyance. Evidently his half sitting up had displaced the redhead, and Aya shifted over until he was once more flush against Ken's side. Once there, he seemed to settle again. Ken didn't think he could have stopped the silly grin that spread across his face if he had tried.

The only thing in that moment which wasn't perfect was the ongoing knocking. It continued unabated and was soon joined by a voice. "Ken-kun? Are you awake?"

Ken couldn't be bothered to even turn fully towards the door as he called, "What is it, Omi?"

"It's time to get up, Ken-kun! It's Christmas morning!" Omi said, sounding excited. "We have to go downstairs and eat breakfast and celebrate!"

"Uh... right," Ken replied vaguely. "We'll be down in a bit."

"We?" Omi asked, sounding slightly confused.

"Uh..." Ken looked down at the still-sleeping Aya, feeling a little sheepish. He hadn't meant to let that bit of information slip quite so early on, and now he was at a loss as to what to say.

There was silence outside his door for a moment, and then Omi said, "Um... I'll just go wake Youji-kun up then. You come down when you're ready to. Take your time." The tone of Omi's voice said that he knew exactly what he was implying by the last part of that statement.

Ken blushed, but even embarrassment wasn't enough to truly dampen his good mood that morning.

Next to him, Aya shifted suddenly, and a slight frown crossed his face. Fascinated, Ken reached out and tried to smooth the lines of it with his fingers. In response, Aya only frowned more and cracked his eyes open a bit.

"Lie down," he grumbled. "You're letting all the cold air in."

Obediently, Ken lay back down, and Aya promptly shifted over to curl against him, throwing an arm across his waist and a leg over his. Ken quickly found the goofy grin back on his face, and wasn't sure it had ever left. He suddenly couldn't care that it was Christmas morning and that Omi was probably waiting on them to start eating. As far as Ken was concerned, he already had what he wanted.

There was a soothing rumble next to him as Aya spoke. "Was that Omi at the door?"

"Yeah," Ken said. "He's excited and ready to go because it's Christmas. But don't worry, we don't have to get up for a little while. He said take your time, and he has to wake Youji up, which'll probably take forever."

Aya made a noise of understanding and fell silent.

"Aya?" Ken said after a moment.

"Hm?" Clearly, Aya wasn't fully awake.

"Um..." Ken felt his blush returning. "I kinda let slip to Omi that you were in here with me."

"And?" Aya asked, opening his eyes and looking at Ken rather blearily.

"You don't mind, do you?"

"No. It's not like he didn't already have some idea. Everyone knew after the first ribbon fiasco."

"Oh, yeah." Ken felt his blush get a little hotter at being reminded of the ribbon incident.

"It doesn't matter," Aya said, reaching up to clasp the nape of Ken's neck. Gently, he guided Ken's head down until it was resting under his chin. "Just don't worry about it and go back to sleep."

Ken nodded slightly, his movements somewhat restricted by this new position. Not that he was complaining, far from it. For the first time in a very long time, it actually felt like there was a chance for things to be right in the world again. Omi was right, he mused. Things could only be bad for so long before they reached a turning point. A solstice of sorts, after which the days would grow longer.

Smiling at the thought, Ken drifted back to sleep.

/-/-/-/

Youji was already downstairs, sitting at the table and drinking coffee when Ken and Aya finally made their way down. He raised an eyebrow at seeing the two of them appear together and remarked, "Well, look who finally decided to show up. Running a bit late this morning, aren't we? The chibi's been up for hours now."

"We stayed up late," Ken said. The minute the words were out of his mouth, he could have kicked himself. Saying things like that to Youji was like giving him an invitation to tease.

And who was Youji to refuse an invitation? "Oh, I'll just bet you did," he said, giving Ken a wink and a knowing smile.

Ken felt his face heat up.

"And I think we can all guess what exactly you stayed up late doing, hm?" Youji said suggestively.

"You know, Kudou," Aya's voice interjected from somewhere behind Ken, "that doesn't sound terribly like an apology to me."

Youji had the good grace to look contrite. "Oh yeah. Hey, Ken, I just wanted to say that I'm really sorry about screwing up your birthday. But in my defense, my intentions were good."

Ken scowled at him. "You should be apologizing to Aya, not me."

"Already taken care of," Youji said. "Aya and I have already sorted things out, right Aya?"

"Hn," was all Aya had to say to that.

"See?" Youji said. "So now I just need you to forgive me and everything is golden."

Ken looked at him for a moment without speaking. "Well," he finally said, "you did totally screw up my birthday, even if you meant well. And you didn't check with me or Aya first like you should've before trying out that stupid plan. And you drugged Aya, which was really wrong of you." He paused and surveyed Youji, who was looking somewhat remorseful. "But I guess it all turned out okay in the end, and it's Christmas, so I guess I can forgive you."

Youji gave him a smile with a hint of relief in it. "Great! Because having you mad at me on Christmas would really suck. In fact, having you mad at me period sucks. Anyone ever tell you you have a mean right hook, Ken?"

Ken smirked. "What, did I bruise your pretty face and ruin your chances of getting a date for a while?"

"Nah," Youji said easily. "Some girls really go for the roughed-up look. Makes you seem tough."

"Or like a wimp who loses a lot of fights," Ken shot back.

"Hey!"

"Of course, you could always use the bruise to get sympathy points from the girls," Ken said.

Youji glared at him, but the look lacked any real malice. Ken answered it with a grin, pleased and a little relieved that he could still banter with Youji like this after what had happened. He had been absolutely furious with the blond the day before, but it was hard to hold a grudge when the world suddenly seemed like such a nice place. Besides, he supposed that Youji really had meant well.

Rather abruptly, Omi came bursting into the kitchen, all energy and excitement over the holiday. He paused to take in Ken and Youji, then beamed. "Have you two finally made up? That's good!" he said brightly. "Now hurry up and eat breakfast! We have lots of things to do today. We'll eat cake and exchange gifts..."

"All right, all right, we'll hurry," Ken said, raising his hands in a placating gesture. He wasn't about to spoil the boy's fun.

As he sat down at the table, however, he noticed that Aya made no move to join him. Turning, he saw that the redhead was standing in the same spot, looking ahead blankly with something that might have been alarm in his face.

"Aya?" Ken said hesitantly.

"Presents," Aya said tonelessly. "What with all the commotion, I completely forgot to get you a Christmas present."

Ken blinked in surprise, but then his face softened and he smiled. Standing up, he moved over to Aya and leaned against him. "What are you talking about?" he said. "You already gave me my present, remember? The best one I've had for a really long time."

Youji, who was still sitting at the table watching them, grumbled half-heartedly, "That present was my idea, and he gets all the credit."

Ken ignored him. "C'mon," he said, tugging Aya's sleeve lightly. "Come eat breakfast. Omi'll explode if we keep him waiting too much longer."

Omi made a face. "I won't explode," he said. "Now hurry up and eat!"

Ken sat down and watched Aya settle into the chair next to him with a smile. He'd eat and open presents to humor the boy, but he didn't really care what he got now. As far as he was concerned, he had already received the perfect gift.

Owari

Author's Note: I finally finished it! My first multipart Weiss fic (not including Quirks, which doesn't really count because it's a series of short fics rather than chapters).