Free Talk- This is my first attempt at writing about a m/m pairing. I am primarily a het fangirl, but Kid and Tetsuma are just too cute together. This is also my first attempt at a oneshot. For both these reasons, I am very nervous about how it turned out. It's just a fluffy-sweet G-rated Christmas treat. Please tell me what you think.

The Greatest Christmas Gift
By Angelsaurus

The clock on the wall across from me says it's eleven forty-five. In fifteen minutes it will be Christmas.

Even after six years, the holiday makes me think about the Deimon Devilbats and American football. In fifteen minutes it will be six years to the day since the Devilbats achieved what all of us in Kanto dreamed for ourselves.

I dreamed it too, of course, but not for myself. It was for them, always.

I feel a growing pinch of pain in my belly and draw in a sharp breath.

"Is another one starting?" The gentle voice of concern is coupled with a warm squeeze from the calloused hand wrapped around mine.

My answer is a quick bob of the head and a jagged breath that barely forms the word "yeah." The contractions are getting more severe and more frequent, and the dance of white flakes outside the window is losing its distractive powers. I squeeze back against that rough hand and look up at the face it belongs to in search of diversion.

Crooked eyebrows are anxiously knit over dark brown eyes. He's wearing the same expression I saw on him right before the Hakushuu game.

"Don't worry, Kid, he'll be here," I reassure once the pain has subsided. "The roads may be a bit slick due to the snow, but there is still plenty of time. And if you told him to come to the hospital as quickly as possible, he will."

"Oh, I'm not worried about Tetsuma," Kid says, combing the fingers of his free hand through his shaggy mane. "Bad weather won't even slow him down. I just…" He gives a little shrug. "Well, you know what I think when things seem too good to be true."

I let loose a sigh. "Yeah, I do. I suppose it would be useless for me to tell you to just relax and that nothing bad will happen?"

"I know you're probably right, Aiuchi. But I don't want to start celebrating just yet. We got our hopes up more than once when we were dealing with the agencies, only to have those hopes dashed."

There's sadness beneath the surface of his young features, as if they'd been painted over a much older face with just a shear topcoat. I've always believed it was emotional trauma (not facial hair) that had aged his appearance from the time I went to middle school with him.

The more time I've spent as the Kid's close friend, the more evidence supporting my theory has built up.

His real name is Mushanokoji Shien, the only son of a multiple gold medal winner who wanted his boy to succeed him in marksmanship so badly that he used Kid's performance in tournaments as a criterion for giving him affection.

Besides Tetsuma, I'm the only one who knows.

"This is a dream that is coming true for you," I tell him. "There is nothing left to get in the way."

Kid pushes a hopeful smile onto his face. "Ah, you're probably right. But just in case you change your mind…" His voice dissolves like a smoke trail as he turns his eyes away.

"Shien…" I deliberately use his real name to bring his eyes up to meet mine. "I gave you my word on this. I won't change my mind."

"But how can you be sure when you haven't even met her yet?"

A tiny but jagged chunk of doubt catches painfully in my throat like a bur. "I start a new job halfway around the globe in a month," I say, as much for my own sake as for Kid's. "There isn't room in my life for a baby just yet."

Despite my effort to extinguish it, the little bur still prickles. Less than a second later, however, it's washed away completely by the encroaching pain of another contraction. My fingers constrict around Kid's hand and I mutter squeaky noises through my tightly clamped jaw. "Ow ow ow ow ow!"

"It's alright, Aiuchi," Kid says in a calm voice. "It'll pass. Just imagine you're at the bottom of that cheerleading pyramid you used to do. You know you're strong enough."

But I don't feel particularly strong. My brain keeps going back to the football tournament when we were second year students. Whenever I think about it I still have to remind myself that there was nothing I could have done to prevent what happened.

But you were the team manager, a small voice in my head sometimes whispers. You had the highest grades and test scores in all of Seibu. Surely there was something you could have done, some strategy you could have come up with to get past that beast Gaou. If you had only been a little bit smarter, a little bit stronger, you could have given them the greatest Christmas gift of all: making their dreams come true.

This sinister voice is usually easy to beat down. I tell it that I got into the best university in Tokyo and that I have been offered a job in the US as a sports journalist.

Tonight, perhaps because all of my energy is being channeled into muscles and physical endurance, the battle between me and the voice seems no longer in my favor. It keeps on reminding me that I was powerless to make their Christmas Bowl dream come true, and it asks what makes me think I am strong enough to grant this one.

The truth is, I don't know.

As the harsh squeeze in my belly eases, so does my harsh squeeze of his hand.

"Aiuchi, Shien," a low voice addresses us both. A tall man with broad shoulders, a square face, and deep-set eyes is framed in the doorway to the room.

"Hey Tetsuma," I greet, curling my lips into the most welcoming cheerleader smile I can make. "You can come in, you know. You're a part of this too."

He approaches with mechanical efficiency until he's at Kid's side and his stiff posture softens. That stoic expression that always looks carved out of stone melts under the warmth of Kid's smile.

"I knew you'd get here fast, Joe," Kid says. "Glad you didn't miss it."

This is a talent of theirs, to convey so much affection so subtly. With just a smile, a nod, a longing look, it's obvious how much Shien loves Joe. Tetsuma's strong hand on Kid's shoulder plainly answers the question of whether that love is reciprocated.

They deserve this. I want to do this for them.

I was aware that they have a special bond from my first day as the Wild Gunmen's manager, but I didn't fully realize how deep it was until that day I had come to visit Kid in this very hospital. It was after he'd suffered two horrendous compound fractures at the hand of Gaou Rikiya and he was recovering from surgery that put four long metal pins in his arm to hold it together while it healed.

Unsure if he was awake or asleep, I tiptoed to his room with a basket of fresh fruit clutched in both arms. What I caught a glimpse of inside was Tetsuma, the stone-faced receiver, in a chair by Kid's bed, reading out loud from Of Mice and Men. Kid's eyes were closed, but I could tell he was awake and listening by the way his chin nodded, almost imperceptibly, to the deep sound of Tetsuma's voice that was rarely heard by anyone else.

For three chapters I just stood there outside the door, feeling vaguely intrusive yet unable to leave, as if held by the emotional gravity they produced. When I heard the padded sound of a closing book, I gently rapped my knuckles against the doorframe to announce my presence.

Four eyes immediately looked up at me.

"Hey there, Aiuchi." Kid greeted, supplemented with that disarmingly boyish smile of his.

Tetsuma just gave me an appreciative nod. "Manager," he said. Then his gaze connected with Kid's and he set a hand on his shoulder for just a second or two, sharing a soundless goodbye, before exiting the room.

"I uh… I brought you… fruit." My voice came out sounding like I had a mouth full of sawdust, dry and scratchy.

Kid either didn't notice my awkwardness or, more likely, didn't care. He was just his usual, humble self. "Aww, you shouldn't have," he said. "And you came here to the hospital just to see me. That's awfully thoughtful of you."

But my brain was still swimming in the tenderness left by the scene I'd just witnessed, and for some reason, my mouth spilled words out before I'd even thought them through. "Tetsuma is more than just a friend, isn't he?"

After a blink or two of surprise, he shrugged his shoulders and answered. "We've known each other our whole lives. I guess that makes him more than just a regular friend. What makes you ask all of the sudden?"

"Well…" Once I'd started talking I couldn't seem to stop. "It's just that when the two of you are together, it's like you don't need anybody else. Like you're in your own little world."

"It's true that he's the most important person in my life," Kid replied. "He's my best friend."

"You're in love with him, aren't you?" I said without thinking.

He stared at me for a moment, looking quite stunned. Then he closed his eyes and chuckled softly. "That's a very interesting theory you got there, Miss Aiuchi."

That was the end of discussion. I was mortified by the things that had come out of my mouth and tried to pretend I had never said them. Mercifully, Kid seemed to be of the same mind and moved on cheerfully to other topics.

Even though he had evaded my questions that day, I already knew the answers. I knew before I'd even asked. But I had been wrong about one thing. Shien and Joe don't need only each other.

And that is why I am here now.

Tetsuma takes hold of my other hand and it feels so small in his. He's as quiet as always, but I know he feels the same as Kid. Both of them are placing their hopes in me, just as they put their hopes in winning the Hakushuu game. I won't let them be disappointed again.

Soon the pain becomes near constant and the doctor tells me it's time. Tetsuma and Kid maintain their firm grips as I squeeze so hard I'm afraid I'll break their fingers.

"You can do this," Kid tells me, sweeping a blonde strand off my sweating face.

The pushing was never the part I worried about. I want the labor to be long, to delay the moment when I will have to be stronger than I've ever been before. But with one last powerful push it's over. She's here.

"It's a girl," the doctor proclaims over the shrill newborn cries, a fact I already know. "Would you like to hold her?"

There's a lump in my throat, but I answer around it. "No. Her parents should hold her first."

The doctor knows about our situation and doesn't question my decision. As she wipes off and swaddles the tiny new person, Joe and Shien watch with breathless anticipation. And I watch them, captivated by how the little girl's arrival has multiplied the understated aura of love surrounding them.

"Which one of you wants to hold her first?" the doctor asks.

Kid smiles up at Tetsuma and nudges him affectionately with an elbow. "I see the way you're looking at her, Joe. Go ahead and hold her first."

For some reason, Tetsuma looks to me, and I can read on his face that he is silently asking my permission. "She's your daughter," is all I say. Then I go back to being a spectator, watching the doctor place the pink-wrapped bundle into those thickly muscled arms as Kid peers around his shoulder with paternal eyes.

"She's so small and cute," Kid says, his quiet voice more giddy than I ever imagined possible. "She's perfect." He's the one who will tell her she's beautiful every day, even when she's a teenager and is embarrassed by it.

A tiny hand shakes free from the blanket and its rosy digits wrap around one of Tetsuma's fingers. He smiles. For the first time I can remember, Tetsuma Joe smiles. He's the one who will be overprotective of her even when she whines that he is being unfair.

The two of them bring her over to me and ask if I want a chance to hold her too. I tell them, "okay," because I know I can handle it now. And she is perfect, soft and warm against my chest, a shock of light brown hair over that cherubic face. But she isn't mine.

Kid looks at me, adoring her, with anxiousness he can't hide.

"What's her name?" I ask to ease his worry.

"Her name?" Kid replies. "Well gee, I don't think we ever actually decided on one."

Of course he hadn't. That would have been dreaming too big for him.

"You two had better think of one," I say with a smile. "She can't go nameless for too long."

"Machi."

Both Kid and I immediately turn towards Tetsuma, who had uttered the name, and then all three of us look down at the baby.

The name is a perfect fit and I test it out aloud. "Tetsuma Machi." There is no need to ask about her family name. I know Shien won't burden her with his prestigious lineage. "Happy Birthday."

"And Merry Christmas," Kid adds.

That's right, by now we are several hours into December twenty-fifth.

I gently transfer Machi into Kid's arms, a much easier task than I had anticipated, and he looks like he might be about to cry.

"Hina," he says, surprising me with my first name. "You have no idea how much this means to us, how much you've given us. If there's anything in the whole world that we can do for you, just say so."

Despite how tired I am suddenly feeling, I force the widest smile I can onto my face. "Just remember to send me lots of pictures of your family when I'm living in America, okay?"

Kid nods his head vigorously, those tears that had looked imminent before now glistening on his cheeks. "Of course," he says, voice choking very slightly. "We'll send lots of pictures of our family. Our family." He repeats just for the sound of it. "That's the greatest gift that anyone could give."

"Better than winning the Christmas Bowl?" I ask.

He smiles down at his daughter as Tetsuma leans in to kiss her fluffy hair. "Better than a million Christmas Bowls."

The End