Dominic loves celebrating Christmas in warm climates, preferring the reds and golds of ripe fruit and summer sunshine to falsities fashioned by northern consumers. Parades run smoothly and defy cancellations by black ice and wet snow, and Santa always looks so much jollier with a lighter jacket. Boiled cranberries in mulled wine, music played on instruments with names he can only begin to pronounce, carolers on horseback, and enough fireworks and sparklers to put Guy Fawkes to shame. The traditions change with the degrees in temperature, and Dom enjoys soaking them all in with the warm noon rays.

Dom likes being able to head to the shops without having to take a good half-hour to dig his car out of a snow bank, or chip frozen, white raindrops from the rear windshield. He doesn't miss chilly downpours that freeze to clinging ice at the bottoms of his pant legs; Dom finds it the best kind of holiday season when he can surf on Christmas morning without a wetsuit and not catch pneumonia. He likes buying bottled eggnog and brandy in his shirtsleeves, and his cheap Christmas carols covered by The Beach Boys and not Bing Crosby, thank you very much.

::

"It's brilliant, mate. A palm tree inside my flat."

"Dominic." Viggo sounds exasperated.

"No farmed, shipped-in shite. Pick your own in the wild, I say."

"What happened to protecting..."

"It's in a pot."

"I see."

"Festooned with silver glitter."

"The pot?"

"The tree."

"Dominic."

"So you'll come, yeah?"

"I'll come." There's a clatter from across the miles, scritch-scritch of antique pen on scrap paper.

"Stop making a note," Dom says.

The sound stops. "Why?"

"Already booked your flight, mate. LAX, three in the afternoon, December twenty-third."

Viggo's chuckle slips down the line. Dom can practically see him shaking his head.

::

Manchester was all very well and good. There was something enchanting about the rows of identical houses when they were set apart by each occupant's unique decorating dream. The snow was always welcomed when it softened the rain, and Dom had affection for the blinding crystalline glitters on its surface when the sun peeped out, but it was never long before he wished the sun would make good on its promise and warm more than just his face. When he was a boy, Dom found himself hoping that the water dripping off the eaves would make puddles rather than icicles.

He enjoyed Christmases as a child. Holidays from school, little piles of presents, and all the time in the world for tomfoolery were only the beginnings. Each year, his aunts and uncles would descend upon his little home sweet home, and turn the house into a joyous whirling dervish. Sure, his younger cousins hogged his toys and got the chicken drumsticks at dinner, but Dom's family was always all together, and even when he was not quite higher than his mother's waist, Dom knew how important that was. How good that felt. Even when he had to share a bed.

::

"What about New York, a classic Christmas?"

"Sugarplums, fruitcake, fa la la la?"

"Snow, Dom, remember snow?" Elijah sounds half his age over the phone and half that again during the holidays. "Angels, forts..."

"Down the front of your pants."

"Funny."

"Yes."

Elijah guffaws. "You won before I made this call, asshole."

"Yes, I did." Dom hopes Elijah can hear his smirk across the ocean.

"Hawaii it is. Viggo up for the trip?"

They talk for forty more minutes of invites and planning, and Dom loves how not once does Billy enter the conversation. They both know he's a given.

::

New Zealand entranced Dom with its summer solstice and trees as heavy with white twinkle lights as fruit. Dom went on long drives on dry roads to see displays and dragged along anyone who showed the slightest interest, and many who showed none at all. Elijah liked the sparkling orchards, but mainly drooled in slumber on his headrest. Dom kept the heater jacked up when Viggo insisted on keeping the window open and leaned out every few minutes to click the shutter at a passing illuminated plastic snowman. Billy sat in the passenger seat, touching Dom's thigh whenever they laughed.

He always took the long way home, past any kiwi or apple farm he could find, and when Billy called him a nut, Dom confirmed that there was indeed a walnut grove bedecked in green and blue up the street from Billy's own house. It was the first excuse Dom used when he showed up on Billy's stoop one evening, dripping sweat from his jog, the ghost glows of the lights deep in his eyes. He'd been to see the lights, he said, invited Billy to run back with him to see.

Billy said he could see them just fine.

::

The phone rings six times before Dom reaches it in his skid across the kitchen floor.

"You're here a day early," he huffs, hoping, into the receiver.

"Hello and a happy holiday to you, too." Billy's voice is always on the very precipice of laughter when he's happy. "I am, as a matter of fact."

Dom feels his smile stretch toothy and wide towards his ears. "Move faster, then, you bugger. It's been too long."

"Well, I would love to oblige if you'd open the damn door."

The receiver of Dom's phone swings back and forth wildly on its cord.

::

They don't go to bed. They don't sleep. They talk until the sun melts green where it meets the watery horizon, throwing long shadows behind the wooden chairs on Dominic's back deck. They plan infantile pranks to play as each of their friends comes through Dom's front door in the next couple of days. They drink cheap red wine that tastes more like hard liquor and eat vegetable crackers from the box and it's just like old times.

They lay on the floor with their heads together and Billy complements Dom on his sparkly tree, and Dom turns his head and presses his lips to the corner of Billy's mouth in thanks. Fuck it, he thinks. They're together this year - both of them, all of them - and that is all Dom cares about. His home sweet home is a little warmer this year, a little newer, and the joyous whirling dervish has taken up residence in the pit of his stomach over the past few months, but the importance of that feeling stays the same.

When the sun rises, the rest of them will start to arrive.

And if Dom has to share a bed, so be it.

::

Slashababy 2004 Stories