Every glamorous sunrise, Throws the planets out of line,
A star sign out of whack, A fraudulent zodiac.
And the God of Wine is crouched down in my room
--Third Eye Blind

Tatsuha, lounging across the leather sofa with his feet on the coffee table, gave Yuki a wide grin when he shuffled out of the bedroom, tugging on a new shirt.

"Tuck the god of wine into bed?" he asked. Yuki shot a dark glance at him and scooped his pack of cigarettes off the table as he sat down next to his brother. Shuichi wasn't a particularly graceful drunk, but if climbing up on the table and proclaiming himself a divinity was the worst thing that Shuichi got up to this week, it would be the best week of Yuki Eiri's life.

"That kid can't hold his liquor at all," Tatsuha continued, leaning over to snatch one of the cigarettes, and Yuki lit it for him along with his own, although he knew he'd catch hell from their father when his prized youngest son came home reeking of it. "You think you'd have him trained up by now, but then again, I guess you get what you get when you fuck a guy half your age."

"And how is Ryu-chan?" Yuki inquired with a thin smile, and Tatsuha laughed harder than was strictly necessary for the old joke; Yuki was fully aware that Shuichi couldn't've had more than a third of the empty wine bottle sitting on the floor next to Tatsuha. "And you know damn well that Shuichi is only four years younger than me."

"Details," Tatsuha waved his hand dismissively through the smoke of his cigarette, "and anyway, I'm drunk."

"Bullshit," Yuki cracked a tiny smile, "you could drink more than that when you were nine."

"Can and did." Tatsuha blew a smoke ring and raised a challenging eyebrow. Yuki answered by trying to blow a smaller ring through Tatsuha's, cursing when it slid into the side of the larger ring and obliterated both of them.

"Fuck you, you can't do it either," he said when Tatsuha snickered, and they spent the next ten minutes working at it and getting progressively worse.

"Damn," Tatsuha laughed, leaning over to stub out the end of the cigarette in the ashtray sitting on the couch beside Yuki. "Sis should be here, she'd school both our asses."

"That's exactly why she isn't, thanks very much," Yuki said dryly, climbing to his feet to get another bottle of wine. He returned from the kitchen with the bottle they'd opened but not drunk earlier; it had been too dry for Shuichi, and Tatsuha had made loud whipcrack noises when Yuki dug out something more to his boyfriend's tastes. He refilled Tatsuha's glass liberally before settling heavily back down onto the couch and taking a swig directly from the bottle.

"Heathen," Tatsuha teased, swirling the wine in his glass and peering at it thoughtfully. "Ah well, Sis couldn't partake anyway in her condition."

"She finally told you?" Yuki asked.

"Dammit, you know everything first." Tatsuha stuck his tongue out at his brother. "She'll probably even name the brat after you. Honestly, though, I'm surprised she got enough attention out of Seguchi to get knocked up in the first place."

"Probably dressed up as Sakano," Yuki commented blandly.

There were a few seconds of silence before both Uesugis broke into hooting laughter, Tatsuha fighting to keep his wine glass from tipping all over the couch.

"Oh man," Tatsuha wiped at his eyes, "ever since you told me that, I can't look that little tool in the eye."

"He probably gets enough of Seguchi's tool in his eye anyhow," Yuki snorted, setting them both off again.

"You're such a gossip when you're drunk, bro," Tatsuha finally wheezed, setting his empty wine glass on the coffee table and flopping down on his back across the couch with his head leaning against Yuki's thigh. Yuki had started another cigarette, and Tatsuha watched the wisps of smoke swirl over his head absently. "You're the one who told me they were getting married."

"I knew before Mika did," Yuki shrugged. "It isn't my fault Seguchi feels the need to spill every single detail of his sordid life to me."

"I remember thinking she'd never be happy with that freak," Tatsuha waved a hand through the smoke so he could see Yuki's face clearly. "Ne, you remember that night, right?"

"Don't be an idiot." It was the first memory after New York that had any clarity; Tatsuha finding Yuki outside by the koi pond, chain-smoking a pack of Mika's cigarettes and staring at nothing in the middle of the night.

Tatsuha had stolen one of the bottles of sake their father occasionally took as payment, and the two of them had drunk nearly half the bottle before Tatsuha had asked Yuki what had happened. Yuki had told him before he realized what he was doing, answered all Tatsuha's prying questions about every lurid detail. For weeks after, Mika had screamed that Yuki couldn't possibly claim not to remember anything when he'd told Tatsuha everything, even though it was the truth; Yuki had always blamed it on the mix of insomnia, alcohol, and nicotine. Whatever caused it, when the hangover cleared, it was all buried even more deeply than before, and Yuki still had to ask Tatsuha to clear up the details sometimes.

Tatsuha had been nine, Yuki sixteen, and they had stayed up until dawn, finishing the sake and smoking another pack and a half of cigarettes before they had both been spectacularly sick in the bushes.

But for some reason when Tatsuha brought it up, the memory was a good one.

"Whenever I have a sake hangover, I always think of you throwing up on the old man's sandals while he screamed at us," Tatsuha chuckled.

"And Mika trying to protect us until she found out they were her cigarettes," Yuki added, snickering.

"Lucky Strike Slims!" Tatsuha laughed harder. "You were such a girl, you could've at least stolen the real ones she hid under her underwear."

"Since I didn't wear her underwear, I didn't know they were there!"

"Ah, fuck," Tatsuha reached up and twisted Yuki's wrist around to get a look at his watch and saw that it was nearly four in the morning. "I have to do the Aoyagi funeral in four hours. Want to come along?"

"Pass." Yuki reached around Tatsuha to stub out his cigarette.

"C'mon, bro, you can hide behind the casket and scare the fuck out the aged relatives when they come up to pay their respects."

"The Kawamura service!" Yuki cackled. "They had to take that old lady to the hospital with heart palpitations!"

"It was a lot more fun doing them with you," Tatsuha agreed, yawning. "These days I just twirl my beads and flip my hair a bit, and all the little old ladies do is try to slip yen bills into my sash."

"Get any thousand bills?" Yuki inquired.

"They don't go in the sash."

"Yuki?" Shuichi stood in the hallway, hair sticking out in every direction and rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand.

"What do you want, brat?" Yuki tried to hold in his snickers, but it just made his mean voice go a bit wavery.

"You're too loud!" Shuichi squinted at Tatsuha, who was still clutching his stomach with laughter. "My head's killing me."

"You're still drunk, idiot," Yuki grunted at him. "Go take an aspirin and drink a glass of water."

"Yuuuuki," Shuichi started to whine, leaning against the wall.

"Oh, go take care of him." Tatsuha gave Yuki's leg a little shove, and rolled onto his side. "I'm going to sleep for a few hours anyway."

Grumbling, Yuki flicked Tatsuha's forehead and heaved himself off the couch, pausing for a moment while the room spun and righted itself. Shuichi clung to his arm gratefully when Yuki pushed him back towards the bedroom.

He came out a moment later to get the idiot his glass of water, carrying a pillow for Tatsuha. Tatsuha seemed to have already dropped off, eyes shut and breathing evenly, and Yuki smiled nastily and whacked the pillow down on his head with a whumph.

"Pedo," came the muffled voice from under the pillow.

"Jailbait," Yuki retorted, and when he returned to the bedroom, Shuichi was just awake enough to ask what the hell he was smiling about.