All I want for Christmas is Ju | June

“What’s Christmas, Jules?” June asks. He has a frown on his face as he tries for the fifth time to fold the now crumpled paper into a star -- and fails. Again.

“Haven’t I told you already?” the other boy sighs. His words are almost sluggish, and June wonders why his twin is always so tired after the doctors run tests in them when, in turn, he always feels refreshed and ready for more. “It’s an ancient Earthling holiday that started out religious but became a time where families would gather and exchange gifts under a decorated tree.”

“Does this mean you have a gift for me?”

“No,” Jules gives his twin a faint smile. June knows he’s not particularly fond of answering his endless stream of questions about everything, but the sight of his freshly shaved head was funny enough to his twin that he won’t mind amusing June for the day. “But it’s said that it was a magical night, and miracles could happen sometimes.”

“So I can ask for anything, then.” June gives up folding the paper and crumples it into a ball, sticking it between the tiny branches of the miniature tree between their beds. The boy leans back with a proud smile, admiring his handiwork. “All I gotta do is make this tree look nice.”

“You had to have been nice to get your wish.”

“Then I’m first on the list.”

“Yeah, to get coal,” his twin coughs a laugh, covering his face with a pillow when June throws another crumpled paper ball at him. “See, naughty list for you!”

June doesn’t really have an argument to defend himself. He was always the one making a mess, or getting into arguments with the people in lab coats that take care of them, or breaking stuff by accident lately. He’d just been feeling stronger, and while he thought every eleven year old boy started getting as strong as he did (not that he knew many others, or any besides his brother), it’d been the opposite for his twin.

Since the doctors started to run the latest test drills on them, Jules had been getting weaker. Headaches are a constant in his days now, and June hates how there’s nothing he can do to help, so he tries his best to distract him. If he has to get in trouble to amuse Jules, then that’s a sacrifice he’s willing to make.

The latest stunt he’d pulled forced the doctors to shave his hair, and although it’s started to grow again, he still catches Jules chuckling to himself at the sight of his poorly shaved head -- and the rare sight of a smile on his twin’s face makes it all worth it.

Christmas holds no particular appeal to June, nor does decorating this tree, but they can’t go outside to play in the snow, so this will have to do.

Well, they could go outside, but June knows Jules can’t afford to exert himself with the way his health’s been acting up, meaning this year they won’t be able to hold their annual snow fort competition. The one June always thought he’d win out of the sheer size of his fort, only for Jules to knock it down with a single, well-aimed snowball thrown from the safety of his smaller-yet-ridiculously-sturdy fort. So unfair.

June gasps when Jules puts down the paper he’d been folding, and springs forward to grab it. “This is it!”

“What about it?” his twin asks with a frown. “I’ve made at least a dozen of these by now.”

“Yeah, but this one is perfect,” he says, grinning from ear to ear as he places it atop of the tree. “And now our tree looks awesome.”

And it does. Between the neatly folded stars Jules made and the crumpled balls June came up with, the tree looks an awful lot like the ones in the pictures Jules had shown him in their holopad.

“I guess it does look kinda nice.”

“Kinda!?” June chuckles, taking a seat next to his twin in his bed. “I bet if we shared a pic of it, people would believe it’s from the Earth age.”

Jules doesn’t reply, his gaze unfocused as he stares at the star June crowned the tree with, and June suddenly gets an idea.

“Time to make our wishes, Jules.” His voice snaps his twin out of the daze he was in, and he purses his lips.

“But…” it seems like Jules was going to say something, but ends up giving up. Instead, he lets out a long breath, shaking his head. “I don’t know what I want to ask for.”

“So can I get your wish rights?”

“Sure,” he shrugs.

June shuts his eyes tight, holding his hands together as if praying. He doesn’t know how this wishing thing works. Should he address someone specific? Should he say some fancy combination of words beforehand? He knows he should have been nice, but he got his brother’s wish rights, and he’d been nice, so… that counts too, right?

“I wish..” he starts. No point beating around the bush, if it works it works. “All I want for Christmas is for my twin to feel better soon, so we can go outside and play again. Please, mr. Christmas.”

Unsure if he should add anything else, but not wanting to abuse his wishing rights, June opens his eyes, finding his brother staring at him with wide eyes.

“Why would you--”

“It was your wish, wasn’t it?” June smiles. “Besides, I didn’t want to ask for something and end up getting coal. That’s just nasty. And… that’s really all I want for Christmas.”

Jules doesn’t reply, and the twins sit in silence for a while. A thousand thoughts seem to be going through his brother’s head, and June wonders what could he be thinking of. It always feels as if his twin knows so much more than he does, and it always makes him curious. He stays quiet though, for this doesn’t feel like something Jules would tell him, just like when he asks him about the feedback the doctors give him.

June starts to think he’d done something wrong when he sees his brother’s eyes tear up, but before he can apologize, Jules throws himself on him, enveloping in a hug that feels much bonier than the last time they hugged, yet the warmth hadn’t changed.

“Thank you,” Jules says in a muffled whisper.

No words are needed, and June simply hugs his brother back, a smile stretching his lips. Jules isn’t a hugger, even less so after he started to get sick all the time, so this… yes, Jules is happy. For the first time in such a long while, he’s happy.

Christmas wishes do come true.