(rummages around for a while before finding this)

Merry Christmas ... Lady-Nikki! (hands gift-wrapped fic and hugs)

Kai/Ray at last! (dances)

This is also for Yazzy, Shin Rigel and Vampireycent, who are victims of my horrendus laziness. I knew what everyone wanted by the start of December. So what did I do? Leave it until the 14th, when I knew I had to post them by the 22nd. And trust me, eight days is not long enough for me to write seven decent-sized oneshots. Especially when I really only had seven days. I only managed the four oneshots.

I apologise times a thousand. I'll know better next year.

Enough grovelling!!!

Here we are, Nikki, what you asked for!!

"Kai? They're playing Truth or Dare!"

"And?" Ray groaned and tugged lightly at Kai's arm.

"Come on! You need to lighten up! It's Christmas!"

"I don't celebrate it. Neither do you." Kai looked at Ray with a look that screamed "Idiot!" Ray's pupils narrowed.

"And that matters?" He made a conscious effort to bring his temper back down. Kai shrugged, clearly quite happy to stay exactly where he was. "Well, I'm going to go and join in. You can come, if you want."

"I think I'll pass." With a glare in Kai's direction, Ray headed for the large group that were clustered around an empty wine bottle.

"Hey! Ray's here! Sit down, pal!" Ray returned Tyson's wide grin, watching with trepidation as Michael and Rick's eyes developed an interesting gleam.

"Let the games begin!" Daichi yelled, already overexcited. Rolling his eyes, Tala reached into the centre of the cirle and gave the bottle a hard spin. It slowed to a stop with the lid pointing at Ming-Ming, who squealed and hid behind Brooklyn. Folding his arms, Tala smirked nastily.

"Truth or Dare, brat?"

"Truth." came the squeaked reply. Ray found himself shouting out potential questions along with the others. Mob mentality, he scolded himself.

"Do you ever sing live?" A hush fell.

"No ..." Several of the boys dissolved into hearty guffaws of laughter. Ray, however, had spotted the young teenager's mortified face as she burrowed into Brookyn's arms, and felt no desire to crow. That and Brooklyn was glaring at the laughers with a truly terrifying look.

"Moving swiftly on ..." Brooklyn said calmly. The noise died down with astonishing speed.

The game progressed swiftly. After a while, Tala banned Truths. Which, of course, made life far more interesting.

"Tyson, strip to your underwear and make out with Emily!"

"Mathilda, kiss Michael!"

"Tala, say the alphabet backwards while hopping on one foot and patting your head with one hand!" Even Kai came over for that one.

Eventually, it came. The dreaded bottle pointed at him. Lee grinned at him.

"Ray, find a dress and get into it."

What did he just say?

Ray looked pleadingly at Kai, who was openly grinning.

"You'd better use one of Julia's, she's the closest to your height." Raul said, with a worryingly knowledgeable tone.

Ten painful, squished minutes later ...

Ray felt his face flood with heat and would have backed away if he hadn;t been surrounded. Similar height or not, there were certain vital differences between Julia and himself that were making this an ordeal to be forgotten about as quickly as possible And his boyfriend was just standing there, ogling. Hey, there was a thought! Why not use it to his advantage?

"You like what you see, Kai?" he purred. Kai shrugged.

"Nah. It's you in a dress." he said flatly. "You just look like an idiot." A small, crafty smile exposed one, pointy canine.

"I saw you watching. Why don't you come and play?" Kai's protests were cut short by the roar of approval.

And soon, Ray's unspoken wish came true, thanks to some careful spinning.

"Kai. Put on a dress. And makeup."

When the most respected beyblader in the entire sport emerged, preceded by a beaming Hilary and Julia, Ray threw his head back and laughed.

"Now who's the idiot?"

If it seems at all rushed, I'm sorry, I did it in 2 hours, including distractions of music and MSN. If anyone here was online to me just now, they'll know how much I was panicking.

Hope you liked it, Lady-Nikki!

(hands out Xmas crackers)

Please review!