Characters not mine.

(originally written for an unconventional holidays challenge at comment_fic. Takes place after Turn Coat but before Changes, because I have not yet managed to get my hands on Changes.)

Thomas's birthday was Valentine's Day, mine was Halloween, and while the two of us acknowledged each of them as the day of our brother's birth, there was always so much else going on. So much magical stuff on my birthday, and Thomas's was, when you got right down to it, a day for lovers and not brothers.

But the day we'd soulgazed each other, and I met a shadow of our mom, who told me exactly who Thomas was, that was a day for us.

The first year it passed, we'd both been entirely broke and my housekeeping service had seen fit to fill my cupboards with nothing but Fruit Loops. Even Thomas's perfect teeth were probably due for a looksie by the dentist, since it was two weeks in to our attempt to clear the cupboards out for something else and he'd even gotten sick of teasing me about my moment of cereal madness. So we figured what the hell and ordered a couple of pizzas and borrowed an old television and Murphy's VCR, and attempted to keep it working long enough to watch the original Star Wars trilogy. We got about halfway through Revenge of the Sith before we had to give up and resorted to watching Mouse and Mister instead.

The second year was the year Thomas had almost disappeared despite, technically, sleeping at my place, and the fact that he actually spent the day at home, giving dramatic readings of Bob's romance novels and teasing me about whatever else came to mind was plenty.

Both the third and fourth years he'd shown up at my apartment with a giant cake bearing progressively more embarrassing script, and afterward we just went to Mac's and had a few beers.

This year I made sure me and the dog were with Molly, giving her a lesson that took my entire concentration, because that way I at least wouldn't be there when my big brother didn't show up.