Disclaimer: I don't own anything.
A/N: For UltimateParadox.

It all starts with a stray cat. More specifically, it all starts off with a stray cat that has somehow managed to get stuck in a tree in their backyard, thereby leading Fai to come up with a brilliant plan called Oh Poor Kitty I'll Go Save It Yuui Hold the Ball Okay.

Being the stubborn little kid that he is, Fai chooses to ignore Yuui's equally brilliant counter-plan, aptly named I Don't Want to Hold It Are You Crazy That's What Firefighters Are For, and clambers up the tree. It's only when Fai has the cat tucked safely under his arm that he realizes two things: one, the ground is a lot farther away than he thought. Two, he kind of has no idea how to get down.

"Yuuuuuuui!" Fai wails, bursting into tears and crushing the cat against his chest in a death-hug. The cat's eyes bulge out dangerously.

"I'll get Daddy," Yuui volunteers, and he runs into the house in search of their father, thinking that he should hurry lest Fai squeezes the life out of the poor cat.

Upon hearing that there's a cat stuck in the tree, Ashura pauses in his cleaning, concerned, and heads out of the bathroom. Upon hearing that Fai is also stuck in the tree, Ashura rushes out of the house, stubbing his toe, banging his shin, and running into a doorframe (in that order) along the way.

"It's okay, Fai!" Ashura shouts comfortingly to his crying son as he hobbles into the backyard. "I'll get you down! Don't worry!" He turns to Yuui. "Yuui, hold this, please."

Wrinkling his nose distastefully, Yuui nevertheless accepts the toilet brush and settles back to watch Ashura very slowly inch his way up the tree, the latter cooing reassurances to Fai all the while along with a few self-directed 'Don't look down's and 'Oh dear God this is high's.

It's only when Ashura has a sniffling Fai wrapped securely in his arms that he has a couple epiphanies: firstly, the tree somehow grew several feet while he was climbing. Secondly, he does not exactly know how to climb backwards.

"Er, Yuui?" Ashura squeaks (a manly squeak, that is).

"I'll call 911," Yuui offers, and he takes off to find the telephone with the vague notion that he should probably do it before Ashura's weight causes the branch to break and therefore injure the cat.

Well Respected Citizen and Father Rescued From Tree.

The article, along with a picture of Ashura in all of his apron and rubber gloves clad glory, takes the front page of the town's newspaper for an entire month.

"Don't tell me," Yuui sighs as he wipes a cool washcloth across Fai's burning forehead. "You tripped over some roots that were hidden by the snow and fell down. And when you were getting up, you ran into a nearby tree trunk and fell down again. Then, your little collision caused the branches to dump a ton of snow on you, and you were buried until someone, I'm guessing Kuro-puu, found you and dug you out."

Fai peers up at Yuui in bleary-eyed wonder- a look that normally would've been cute and flattering had his face not been covered in sweat and snot and other contagious body fluids. "How did you know?" he croaks/hacks/wheezes nasally in amazement.

Yuui smiles wryly and tucks the comforter more tightly around his older brother. "Lucky guess," he states simply as Fai coughs uncontrollably, and pats the Fai-shaped blanket-covered mound sympathetically.

Then, Fai sneezes all over Yuui's new shirt, and Yuui becomes unsympathetic pretty quickly.

Yuui has no clue as to how Fai manages to get himself stuck in the tree in their backyard. Again. Neither does Fai, for that matter, even though he is the one clinging to a tree branch for dear life.

Ticking down his fingers, Yuui runs through his options. Ashura is at work, the fire department most likely never wants to hear from them again, the trampoline plan was a failure the first and last time they implemented it, and Fai still doesn't know how to climb down. So that leaves him with…

"I'll go fetch Kuro-tan!" Yuui trots off merrily without waiting for a reply.

Skipping down the block to the residence one house over, Yuui is delighted to find the Kuro-tan in question mowing the front lawn. In a sleeveless black shirt. Yum. "Kuro-rin!" he trills, waving enthusiastically.

Kurogane looks up, blanches, and immediately marches off to the back of his house with the lawn mower in tow. Undaunted, Yuui vaults the fence and follows close behind, taking the time to yell out a greeting to Kurogane's mom.

"Good morning, Kuro-chi," Yuui chirps, plopping himself down on the grass. "Whatcha doing?"

"Chores," Kurogane grunts, ripping out a few offending weeds with much more violence than necessary. "So quit it with the nicknames, stop staring, and go away," he adds pointedly.

"Ooh, how interesting," Yuui gasps. He then proceeds to babble about anything that comes to mind, from mochi buns to the symbolism of a phoenix, while the taller boy determinedly and futilely attempts to ignore him.

After some time, Kurogane interrupts with, "Hey, did you two idiots get a cat or something?"

Yuui blinks. "No, why?"

Rising to his feet, Kurogane narrows his eyes. "Because I can hear one."

Sure enough, once he listens for it, Yuui hears a series of pitiful mewls. Which are coming from the direction of the Fluorites' house. Which sound a lot like Fai. Which are indeed being made by Fai who has been stranded for the past half-hour that Yuui spent oogling Kurogane's biceps.

Grumbling irritably about troublesome pain-in-the-ass twins, Kurogane stomps over to the backyard where Fai is doing his best impression of a cat in distress. When he spots Kurogane, he perks up. "Ooh la la, what nice arms Kuro-rinta has," he purrs, running his eyes appreciatively up and down Kurogane's body.

"Oi! I told you two to stop with the stupid nicknames already. And quit staring- do you want to get down from there or not?" Kurogane demands, scowling from the foot of the tree.

Fai shrugs and leaps off the tree branch without warning. "HERE I GO!"

"WHAT THE-?"

"OH MY GOD, FAI!"

"CATCH ME, KURO-WANWAN!"

"ARE YOU INSANE?"

"DON'T DROP HIM, KURO-MIN!"

"WHEE!"

"DON'T CALL ME—OOF!"

"FAI, ARE YOU ALRIGHT?"

Brushing off his clothes nonchalantly, Fai beams up at his younger brother and gives a thumbs up. "Yup! Kuro-poppo broke my fall, so I'm good! Isn't he such a sweetheart?"

Yuui inspects their knight in shining black armor and cringes. "Er, more like you landed on him."

"Oops." Fai examines their savior sheepishly. "Eh, I think I might have knocked him out."

"Uh huh. He's down for the count."

"…"

"…"

"We should run before he wakes up."

"Yeah, we probably should."

Needless to say, Ashura had quite the surprise when he returned home and discovered the neighbor's kid unconscious in his backyard and his own sons conveniently nowhere to be found.

High school art classes are frankly useless. Yuui doesn't see why drawing trees must be a requirement to graduate, but since he's a decent artist, it's not too bad. He just has to smile and nod whenever the teacher comments on his sketches and make the minor adjustments.

Fai, on the other hand, most unfortunately cannot draw anything foliage-related to save his life, let alone an entire tree. Yuui winces as his brother, pouting in concentration, scrubs the eraser viciously across his sketchpad and then uses his pencil to attack it with a vengeance. Before Yuui can tell Fai to take it easy on the paper, the art teacher gets there first.

"Okay, Fai. Let's see what you have so far." Fai sets down his pencil stub with a resigned sigh and shows her his work. The teacher takes one look at it, utters a soft yet scandalized "Oh!" and keels over in a dead faint.

Because half the class is busy trying to revive their teacher and the other half is busy trying to get a hold of the nurse, Yuui peeks over Fai's shoulder to get a glimpse of what is supposed to be a drawing of a tree. "Huh."

"What is it?" Fai asks, perplexed.

Pursing his lips, Yuui squints at that the sketch. Yup, it does bear an eerily striking resemblance to… "That sort of looks like Kuro-pon's cock," he points out.

Fai holds the sketchpad at arm's length, tilting his head and squeezing one eye shut. "I think Kuro-chu's is bigger, but yeah, it sort of does," he pronounces, pleased with his own artistic abilities.

They admire the drawing for a few silent moments. "Shall I go get a frame?" Yuui suggests eventually, finding it difficult to tear his eyes away.

"Oh, yes." Fai nods vigorously, wiping the drool from his chin.

The few classmates that have the misfortune of overhearing deem it best not to ask just how the Fluorite twins are so intimately acquainted with Kurogane's crotch.

"Fai, I think that's a bad idea," warns Yuui as his older brother drags a footstool next to the Christmas tree.

Raising an eyebrow, Fai steps onto the stool anyway, arms full of ornaments. "How else are we going to reach the top of the tree?" he reasons, hanging a glass snowman on a random branch. "Ashura's making the cake, and Kuro-pon and his family aren't arriving until later."

"I could do it instead," Yuui pants as he wrestles with the knotted mess of Christmas lights and tinsel. He is losing miserably.

Waving a hand dismissively, Fai adorns the tree with a shimmering blue orb. "Nope! You get the lights and I get the ornaments. Besides, what could-"

"Don't jinx it!" a trussed-up Yuui yelps from his position on the floor, wondering how he tangled himself into the Christmas lights.

Of course, it doesn't matter whether or not Fai jinxes it. In standing on his tiptoes to set the gigantic star at the very top, Fai loses his balance, and so grabs onto the closest object available to steady himself- in this case, the Christmas tree.

"Uh oh," says Fai.

"Uh oh," agrees Yuui.

The tree and Fai topple over spectacularly.

In the kitchen, Ashura nearly cries when the Santa Claus cake he has been painstakingly decorating with little swirls and mini candy canes gets inevitably marred when, at the sound of the crash and resulting shrieks, he accidentally squeezes the frosting tube much too hard.

Ashura stares mournfully at the big glob of chocolate cream that now covers the upper half of the cake, making it seem as though some reindeer took a poop on St. Nick's face.

One of these years, he is going to remember to nail the Christmas tree to the floor.

xXx Owari xXx

A/N: While on campus, I came out of the bathroom, saw a tree, and thought, "Heh heh, Fai stuck in a tree. That's kinda funny." And yeah, this sort of happened... Thanks for reading, and reviews will be very much loved! :)