halloween Fic ooooooooo
I couldn't let Halloween pass without a small ode to my fav holiday :DDD
I wrote this very quickly and just for a laugh, and I didn't edit it, so I hope it's still enjoyable!
Title: Trick or Treat
Pairing: 1=2 get together
Warnings: swearing
Words: 3, 872
Summary: Oh Halloween Mystery! Why is Duo acting kind of strange?
Duo’s hand slowed over the bowl of oatmeal and yogurt he was stirring and his eyes drifted out the large window again. In the Preventer courtyard leaves were blowing in a swirl, making a crackling rustle in the wind that was audible even inside. I could pinpoint his gaze as not exactly fixated on the half-bare tree directly across from his chair, the only one on the Spartan property. It was the third time he’d completely zoned out that morning.
“Duo?” I prodded his cheek with a finger, trying not to be too endeared when he jumped and his wide-eyed gaze swiveled in my direction.
“What?” he wanted to know, getting busily back to his breakfast as if he hadn’t just been gazing dreamily off into the distance.
“You seem distracted this morning,” I said simply, making a point of fixing my own gaze on his face, knowing it would make him squirm and possibly confess.
But, “Oh, yeah?” was all he said before inhaling the last of his food and carrying his tray to the conveyor belt that took them away. I wasn’t finished with my own breakfast, but I was just eating a grapefruit and a granola bar so I picked up both and carried my tray over as well, following Duo out of the cafeteria.
We walked through the labyrinthine halls together, our shoulders colliding every now and then when we turned a corner. Duo had his hands in his pocket and his chin up, his eyes busily roaming around the halls and eagerly calling out whenever he saw someone he knew, which was often, effectively not speaking to me at all. By the time we’d reached our floor I got the distinct impression that he was avoiding me. The style was uncharacteristic of him, definitely; a sort of passive-aggressive casualness pillowing an otherwise complete shunning of my conversation. With me he was usually fairly straightforward with his feelings and if I had done something to warrant this, I really counted on him to inform me of what it was. His office was the first in the hallway and he made to turn into it, but I snagged the sleeve of his shirt and pulled him up short. It was a bit comical, watching him walk until the slack was up and then rebounding, just slightly, into my grasp. He smelled good.
“Hey!” He said, noticing the cause of his near-stumble. I let go of his shirt. “Can I help you?” he asked, lifting an eyebrow up so high that the white around his eye doubled in size.
I relaxed my mouth. Duo would call that a smile. “Yes,” I said. I re-schooled my features into a stern expression. “You can tell me why you’re not talking with me. What did I do to offend your unique sensibilities?”
Duo’s expressive eyebrows drew together swiftly before flying apart again and a smile broke out on his face. “Ha, oh, I’ve been ignoring you, huh?” He laughed and fixed me with a teasing, coy smile that froze me to the spot. “What a turn of events. Heero wants attention. Hm hm hm.” He tapped his finger against his smirking mouth as he’d hummed, pressing into those soft, generous lips and springing back off again. Aaa.
“I’d just like to know if I’ve done something wrong,” I said with difficulty, pointedly looking up at the bridge of his nose, where you could see a slight crest in the bone from where it had been broken. Not that I didn’t find it charming, but as the circumstances were less than so, I concentrated on that.
He sobered up slightly and shook his head. “Nah. I’m just a little preoccupied today. That’s all.”
I began to wonder if it was egocentric to have assumed it was about me. “Is everything all right?”
Duo leaned against his doorframe and crossed his arms, shrugging. “Meh. Yeah. I guess.”
I…didn’t know how to take that. “So, yes?” I tried to clarify. “Or is that really a no?” Quatre had told me something about indefinites usually indicating a negative answer…? Or was it the other way around? Damn. I wish Duo would hold up a sign.
“Yeah, it’s a yeah,” Duo was saying. “I’m gonna get to work,” he went on, indicating his office with his thumb. “I want to get out of here early tonight.”
“Alright,” I said, still unsure. I was almost into my office, the next one down, when it occurred to me to ask, “Oh, plans this evening?”
Duo was already inside, but his voice drifted back out. “Big, frightastic plans!”
I didn’t know what that could possibly suggest, so I went into my office. It felt awkward to carry on a conversation with Duo from the hallway and I didn’t think I should go to his office, since he’d already dismissed me in a manner of speaking. Confusing. Unfortunately my formula about mathematically predictable outcomes in social settings and how to react according to those predictions was still in the formative stage.
For me, the day passed as usual, with work, meetings, lunch with an equally, if not more so, distracted Duo in the cafeteria, and with Wufei, who happened to join us. Then more work and quality time with my laptop.
At four Duo stuck his head in my doorway. “Hey, I’m off!” he said cheerily and turned to go even as I said, “Oh. Alright, let me get my…” but he was already out the door.
I usually looked forward to walking Duo to the bus stop and waiting with him before turning back onto the compound myself. He had a small apartment in the city center, while I had chosen to maintain my residence in the dorms at the Preventer Training compound. Everyone had to stay on campus while undergoing training and orientation, but a few agents had chosen to make that situation permanent for the sake of convenience. There had been weeks at a time when I’d first joined when I didn’t actually set foot off the campus. While Wufei had looked rather overcome with awe, Duo had been particularly appalled. He said for sanity’s sake one couldn’t spend all day at their workplace, especially if that was Preventers, and since the bus stop was actually across the street from the property, I’d agreed to stand over there for the space of time it took the bus to come, to meet his quota of a daily trip off-campus. Usually, even if I was planning to stay later, I would take a break whenever Duo decided to leave.
I sat stunned for a few moments. Maybe he was upset with me after all. Though often open about the most random collection of feelings, Duo could masterfully hide emotions that he didn’t want anyone, including himself, to try to contend with. But then, he wasn’t hiding this very skillfully. I’d noticed almost as soon as he’d arrived in the cafeteria that morning that something was off. We always ate together but that morning he hadn’t waited for me before getting in line and he’d even headed in the opposite direction of our usual table before stopping dead in the middle of the room, moving his lips in a little, private argument, and then abruptly turning around and heading to our table. When I’d sat down he’d done all that zoning out.
Whether it was me or not, I suddenly felt that there was something wrong. And if there was something wrong, it was a known law that Duo would need to talk about it eventually. Duo only had an unfriendly cactus plant at his apartment and he would need someone able to respond verbally if there really was a problem. He would talk to himself of course, but Wufei and I were trying to curb that behavior before Sally pulled him in for another psych eval.
I logged out for the day, grabbed my coat and my gloves, and raced after Duo. I got outside the building just as his bus pulled away. I could see his figure silhouetted in the yellow light from inside the vehicle against the darkening sky. It got dark so early already. He was hanging onto the little handles suspended from the ceiling, leaning over just slightly to listen to something a shorter, womanish figure was undoubtedly saying. His braid was dangling away from his body and his hip jutted out just slightly. Duo.
Damn it, Duo Maxwell.
With a huff of frustration that came out in a chilly white cloud, I pulled the collar of my jacket up and went to the bus stop to wait for the next one. It was strange to wait there without Duo. The evening was quintessentially Autumn. The dim, pale orange glow of the sky, studded with black clouds; forlorn, raw bird calls overhead, and the ever-present rustling of leaves at my feet and in the trees. There was a slight wind that was nonetheless icy. I could tell that the moon was full; though so early it was only a ghostly outline and not yet shining. A bus came trundling up the street, but it wasn’t the right one, so I let it pass and continued to wait. Autumn was Duo’s favorite season, even since he’d experienced them for himself, and I tried to study Duo and the seasonal changes in relation to each other to pass the time, wondering what made him love the fall best.
The darkness grew deeper and the cold more penetrating. As a rule the only windows in the Preventers buildings are the ones facing courtyards, so that a casual, or ill-intentioned bystander couldn’t just glance in and construct a layout. Therefore the great, hulking mass of shining black stone, with countless corridors that stretched like slithering legs looked highly intimidating and mysterious as I stood across the street, like some great creature, readying to pounce. I had never really looked at the building when standing here before. There had always been something else. But now, it kept cutting into my thoughts. It wasn’t just the massive nature of the building that disturbed me, but how, from this vantage point, I was, essentially, looking at the physical entirety of my life. I woke up at Preventers, I ate there, I worked there and then I slept there, only to repeat the process. The whole scene, standing there without my usual partner, was solitary and narrow.
Two more buses passed before the one I needed arrived. I paid my fare, thankful to get away from what was fast becoming a creepy scenario and took a seat, urging the belabored vehicle to go faster. As we pulled away from the outskirts and came into the city proper, I saw that many shops and restaurants had strings of orange lights up, or had black-lights in their doorways. It was a pleasant if spooky effect and it was then that I remembered it was Halloween. There were a few men and women walking the streets in costumes, no doubt going to parties. There weren’t any children but one could hardly expect that in the city. I felt foolish. Duo loved Halloween ever since he had discovered it that first year working for Preventers. He was probably just overexcited about some party or séance, or some kind of dramatic devil-worshipping thing he would be going to. He wasn’t upset and there wasn’t a problem. Duo could never concentrate on work when something incredibly enjoyable was on the horizon. The next stop was Duo’s though, and since I had come all this way, I wasn’t quite sure what to do. I got off when the bus stopped and considered just hopping on the next one going back out of the city. It would be a massive waste of time though, if I didn’t even see Duo after all this. I knew he’d probably be getting ready for a party, but I thought if I just stopped in and wished him a nice holiday, that would be okay.
There was a small convenient store to my right selling all manner of chocolates and candies, which I knew were customary gifts for the holiday, but when I went inside I realized that I didn’t want to bring him just anything. It was his favorite holiday, after all. I walked up a few blocks until I found a specialty chocolatier and bought him a few pumpkins made out of different sweets. Marzipan, chocolate, sugar. At the cash register I saw they also had cookies shaped like mean-looking little bats, so I bought him one of those too, knowing he would laugh.
“These cookies can be personalized,” the older man behind the counter said as I laid it down. “We can write the name of the child, or a spooky greeting in icing, if you like.”
I smiled, thinking of Duo unknowingly referred to as a child, and because it wasn’t altogether untrue. “Okay,” I agreed. I was just going to say ‘Duo,’ when better inspiration struck. I wrote out what I wanted and the man said he could do that, so I waited as he iced the angry little bat. When he was finished he brought it to me for inspection. It was very well done and I nodded and paid, happy.
I walked back up the streets to Duo’s apartment building and went inside. He’d chosen a building with a lobby and 24 hour guard, which was lucky for me, since they knew me and said I could go right up without having to ring Duo that there was someone coming to see him.
I took the elevator to his floor and approached his place. I could hear music pulsing out from behind the door and wondered suddenly if he was the one throwing the party. I wondered if any of our mutual friends had been invited since I clearly wasn’t…
I rang the doorbell anyway, figuring he’d appreciate the gifts and because now, I argued with myself, I’d already told myself I would see him and so I wanted to, no matter what. It took a moment and then I could see that the peephole was blocked when he looked through it before throwing the door open.
He looked…phenomenal. His hair had a hundred black wires running through it, looking like modern snakes pulling the locks back in a strange, swirling and gratifying style that was both messy and precise, so that it fell tantalizingly in wisps to his shoulders where it wasn’t coiled. His face was pale and there was a light, blue, shimmering dust on his cheekbones, brow bones and various other places that caught the light. The paleness set off his eyes, which were lined in a rich black. His lashes were highlighted too and looked impossibly long. His lips were painted a dizzying black, as if there was a mass-less black hole in the center of his face.
His clothes were black, as usual when he was off duty, but these were more than casual, night-out clothes. It was a throw back to his old days in that priest's get-up, but with a decidedly more sinister angle.
He wore a high collar, just like the old one, but with an alluring, spiky lace jutting over the black material. The collar dipped down into what could only be called a terrifying, gorgeous fusion of steam-punk fashion and death-metal lack of. There was something like a woman’s corset, but it wasn’t fitted, it merely held everything together. There were little silver gears, red laces woven through, a small pocket watch hung off his chest. The sleeves were long and artfully torn to reveal a blood-brown color underneath that made the whole costume pop out. His pants were black and tight, scattered with the same kinds of gears and wires. He had on a thin, floor-length, black cape and there were acid green skeletal wings attached. His fingernails were painted black.
That was when I stopped looking.
“Trick-or-treat,” I said solemnly, the only thing that came to mind, holding out the little bag and staring at my shoes. Preventer issue, all-terrain. Very boring. I hadn’t gotten as far as his shoes. I didn’t think I could handle knowing.
I had thought he’d like a cookie. A bat shaped cookie. And here he was looking so unlike a child that it was criminal.
Duo wordlessly took the bag from my hands, though I’d no idea of his expression. I could hear him rummaging around, pulling out the box of different pumpkins and the cookie.
Then, he burst out laughing. I couldn’t help it. I looked at his face.
“How’d you know?!” he was asking, holding the cookie in his fingers and brandishing it at me. “You’re a fucking mind-reader!”
I really, really enjoyed those words coming out of those black lips. Not unhelped by the fact that my throat always got a bit dry whenever he swore. He’d become much better at not doing it at work, so hearing him speak so freely outside work was like something private. Something only I knew about.
“Huh? Oh, I…”
I’d gotten two characters on the cookie. 死神. Shinigami.
“That’s who I am!” he said, with such delight that I missed the point for a moment.
“I know you are, that’s why I…OH!”
He was enthusiastically pointing to his costume and grinning like a certified lunatic. “Awesome!!” He set about trying to tie the cookie onto his corset-type-piece using some of the dangling lace.
“Happy Halloween,” I said, uncertain what else to say, given that I was still taking him in.
He attached the cookie to his satisfaction and put the box of candies on his side table alongside his keys and phone and things. “Thanks,” he said, smiling happily. A true smile, purely him. “That’s really nice.” He seemed genuinely surprised and pleased and it was enchanting.
“I know you like Halloween,” I said carefully.
Suddenly Duo fixed me with a very shrewd, very Duo look. “Did I rush out before you could give this to me?” he wondered.
Feeling like I was caught, I shook my head and even managed a small smile about it. “No. You were acting strange today and I thought…I got you some candy and thought you might need to talk.”
Duo’s grin was sort of shockingly large. It split his entire face. I felt like I could see every tooth in his mouth. And he…laughed at me.
“Trick!” he cackled. He did something like a victory dance, that didn’t actually involve dancing. “Trick! HAHAHAHAHA! Trick!”
I had my finger on the number assigned to Sally’s speed dial on my phone, sure he had succumbed to insanity, when he abruptly stopped, though he was still grinning.
“I got you,” he said triumphantly. “Sucker!” He actually poked me in the chest and pretended to drill a little hole.
“I think I’m lost,” I said honestly. “I don’t get it.”
“It’s Halloween!” he said loudly and obviously. “I tricked you! Like, trick-or-treat? You know?” Now he looked like he doubted my sanity.
“How so?” I asked, very lost in Duo’s mind games.
“I made you think I was nuts and bolts today so you would come after me!”
“I…” I made to argue when a salient point hit me. “I didn’t think you were ‘nuts.’ I thought you were upset.”
“Whatever, it worked, right?” Duo grinned, tilting his head.
“You don’t have to work at being nuts,” I continued, eager to regain some footing and quite literally stepping into his hall. “It’s your natural state.”
“HA HA YUY,” Duo said, his eyes alight. “It’s a Halloween Miracle!”
“Why did you want me to come after you?” I pressed. The door was shut behind us and Duo was conveniently braced between the little table and me, without any actual touching.
“It’s rules,” Duo said casually, as if the situation were completely normal. “You have to get tricked before you can get a treat.”
My heart most likely dropped into my boxers at that point. If you know what I mean?
Duo Maxwell should not be allowed to say the word ‘treat’ in the way he just did. It’s riot-inducing. It would launch a thousand ships.
I swallowed. “Oh,” was all I came up with.
Suddenly Duo was dancing away from me, sort-of to the music, around the table and into the apartment proper. His wings moved very naturally. He was wearing ankle high, lace-up, blood red boots. Fuck.
“Want to know what the treat is?” he asked, sounding very, very slightly anxious. Under all that bravado and sex-appeal.
“Yes,” I said. No, I think I whispered it. I had no choice.
“Great!” Duo cheered, grinning again and he dashed away, down the hall into his bedroom. I wondered for a split second if I was supposed to follow him in there. I wanted to, but my feet were rooted to the floor. I was experiencing a mild form of shock, I just knew it.
But Duo rushed back out a few seconds later, holding a hanger aloft. “Here it is!” he said and he looked ecstatic.
I took the hanger from him and found, to my utter surprise, a green tank top and a pair of black biker shorts.
“It’s your costume,” Duo explained easily. “Get it?”
“I’m…myself?” I asked, turning the hanger around.
“Yeah! You’re the perfect soldier!”
I lifted an eyebrow at him and pointedly, though with difficulty, studied his costume. “This is all you could come up with?” I asked.
Duo looked sly. “What? It was already perfect.”
His look was just slightly disconcerting, so I put it on hold for a moment. “So, my treat is to dress in my old clothes and what?”
“And come to this party a friend of mine is having.” Duo took a moment to breathe, in which I was biting my lip to keep my personal fantasies personal. “As my date,” he finished willfully, smirking at me.
I tried hard to be cavalier. “And that would be a treat, how?” But I saw the excited lights in his eyes dim and knew I didn’t have to pretend anything anymore. “That was my trick,” I said quickly and gently. “Now I can treat you.”
I leaned in, just the way I’d always wanted to. My fingers were brushing at the back of his neck, his chest pressing lightly against mine. I could feel blood rushing through my veins, through my lips, heating my face…and then he pulled away.
His finger was resting on those succulent looking lips again. “Lipstick,” he said. “You’ll get it all over your face.” He pulled his finger away to reveal that, yes, though his lips were still completely black, so too now was his finger.
“You think I care about that?” I asked, really incredulous, but he smiled.
“So you really wanna go?” he asked. “And be my date?”
“Yes,” I said without hesitation. “I want to.”
“Cool,” Duo said, letting out a tell-tale puff of breath. And then a little hesitantly, “I’m glad.”
I nodded. “I’ve wanted to ask you…” I said, but didn’t know how to finish. He knew what I meant, I was sure.
“Yeah,” he grinned again. “I think we’ll make a good team.”
I nodded again. It sort of was a Halloween Miracle, at least to me.
"Why didn't you just ask me?" I wanted to know. "Why all this production?"
Duo rolled his eyes good-naturedly. "Because I had to trick you, duh. And then treat you! It's Halloween."
I was off trying to figure out if that had really been necessary when Duo’s hands on my chest brought me right back to earth. “Go change!” he was saying, pushing me towards his room. “We can go soon!”
I dutifully did as I was told. The shirt and shorts were new of course, not the original, but they fit quite as well as my old clothes had and when I walked out there was an appreciative whistle from the spirit in the corner.
“Yum!” he said, biting into one of the pumpkins I’d brought. He really looked fabulous, all dressed up like that.
“This is really your idea of the perfect solider outfit?” I asked once more, pointing my chin at his elaborate costume.
“Oh,” he said, winking at me. “It’s not the outfit, it’s the one in it that makes it perfect.”
I sort of thought he was joking, until he crossed to me and slipped his hand in mine. It felt really, really good.
“Besides,” he went on, smirking devilishly. “MY treat is your butt back in those pants, finally!”
END.
I wrote this very quickly and just for a laugh, and I didn't edit it, so I hope it's still enjoyable!
Title: Trick or Treat
Pairing: 1=2 get together
Warnings: swearing
Words: 3, 872
Summary: Oh Halloween Mystery! Why is Duo acting kind of strange?
Duo’s hand slowed over the bowl of oatmeal and yogurt he was stirring and his eyes drifted out the large window again. In the Preventer courtyard leaves were blowing in a swirl, making a crackling rustle in the wind that was audible even inside. I could pinpoint his gaze as not exactly fixated on the half-bare tree directly across from his chair, the only one on the Spartan property. It was the third time he’d completely zoned out that morning.
“Duo?” I prodded his cheek with a finger, trying not to be too endeared when he jumped and his wide-eyed gaze swiveled in my direction.
“What?” he wanted to know, getting busily back to his breakfast as if he hadn’t just been gazing dreamily off into the distance.
“You seem distracted this morning,” I said simply, making a point of fixing my own gaze on his face, knowing it would make him squirm and possibly confess.
But, “Oh, yeah?” was all he said before inhaling the last of his food and carrying his tray to the conveyor belt that took them away. I wasn’t finished with my own breakfast, but I was just eating a grapefruit and a granola bar so I picked up both and carried my tray over as well, following Duo out of the cafeteria.
We walked through the labyrinthine halls together, our shoulders colliding every now and then when we turned a corner. Duo had his hands in his pocket and his chin up, his eyes busily roaming around the halls and eagerly calling out whenever he saw someone he knew, which was often, effectively not speaking to me at all. By the time we’d reached our floor I got the distinct impression that he was avoiding me. The style was uncharacteristic of him, definitely; a sort of passive-aggressive casualness pillowing an otherwise complete shunning of my conversation. With me he was usually fairly straightforward with his feelings and if I had done something to warrant this, I really counted on him to inform me of what it was. His office was the first in the hallway and he made to turn into it, but I snagged the sleeve of his shirt and pulled him up short. It was a bit comical, watching him walk until the slack was up and then rebounding, just slightly, into my grasp. He smelled good.
“Hey!” He said, noticing the cause of his near-stumble. I let go of his shirt. “Can I help you?” he asked, lifting an eyebrow up so high that the white around his eye doubled in size.
I relaxed my mouth. Duo would call that a smile. “Yes,” I said. I re-schooled my features into a stern expression. “You can tell me why you’re not talking with me. What did I do to offend your unique sensibilities?”
Duo’s expressive eyebrows drew together swiftly before flying apart again and a smile broke out on his face. “Ha, oh, I’ve been ignoring you, huh?” He laughed and fixed me with a teasing, coy smile that froze me to the spot. “What a turn of events. Heero wants attention. Hm hm hm.” He tapped his finger against his smirking mouth as he’d hummed, pressing into those soft, generous lips and springing back off again. Aaa.
“I’d just like to know if I’ve done something wrong,” I said with difficulty, pointedly looking up at the bridge of his nose, where you could see a slight crest in the bone from where it had been broken. Not that I didn’t find it charming, but as the circumstances were less than so, I concentrated on that.
He sobered up slightly and shook his head. “Nah. I’m just a little preoccupied today. That’s all.”
I began to wonder if it was egocentric to have assumed it was about me. “Is everything all right?”
Duo leaned against his doorframe and crossed his arms, shrugging. “Meh. Yeah. I guess.”
I…didn’t know how to take that. “So, yes?” I tried to clarify. “Or is that really a no?” Quatre had told me something about indefinites usually indicating a negative answer…? Or was it the other way around? Damn. I wish Duo would hold up a sign.
“Yeah, it’s a yeah,” Duo was saying. “I’m gonna get to work,” he went on, indicating his office with his thumb. “I want to get out of here early tonight.”
“Alright,” I said, still unsure. I was almost into my office, the next one down, when it occurred to me to ask, “Oh, plans this evening?”
Duo was already inside, but his voice drifted back out. “Big, frightastic plans!”
I didn’t know what that could possibly suggest, so I went into my office. It felt awkward to carry on a conversation with Duo from the hallway and I didn’t think I should go to his office, since he’d already dismissed me in a manner of speaking. Confusing. Unfortunately my formula about mathematically predictable outcomes in social settings and how to react according to those predictions was still in the formative stage.
For me, the day passed as usual, with work, meetings, lunch with an equally, if not more so, distracted Duo in the cafeteria, and with Wufei, who happened to join us. Then more work and quality time with my laptop.
At four Duo stuck his head in my doorway. “Hey, I’m off!” he said cheerily and turned to go even as I said, “Oh. Alright, let me get my…” but he was already out the door.
I usually looked forward to walking Duo to the bus stop and waiting with him before turning back onto the compound myself. He had a small apartment in the city center, while I had chosen to maintain my residence in the dorms at the Preventer Training compound. Everyone had to stay on campus while undergoing training and orientation, but a few agents had chosen to make that situation permanent for the sake of convenience. There had been weeks at a time when I’d first joined when I didn’t actually set foot off the campus. While Wufei had looked rather overcome with awe, Duo had been particularly appalled. He said for sanity’s sake one couldn’t spend all day at their workplace, especially if that was Preventers, and since the bus stop was actually across the street from the property, I’d agreed to stand over there for the space of time it took the bus to come, to meet his quota of a daily trip off-campus. Usually, even if I was planning to stay later, I would take a break whenever Duo decided to leave.
I sat stunned for a few moments. Maybe he was upset with me after all. Though often open about the most random collection of feelings, Duo could masterfully hide emotions that he didn’t want anyone, including himself, to try to contend with. But then, he wasn’t hiding this very skillfully. I’d noticed almost as soon as he’d arrived in the cafeteria that morning that something was off. We always ate together but that morning he hadn’t waited for me before getting in line and he’d even headed in the opposite direction of our usual table before stopping dead in the middle of the room, moving his lips in a little, private argument, and then abruptly turning around and heading to our table. When I’d sat down he’d done all that zoning out.
Whether it was me or not, I suddenly felt that there was something wrong. And if there was something wrong, it was a known law that Duo would need to talk about it eventually. Duo only had an unfriendly cactus plant at his apartment and he would need someone able to respond verbally if there really was a problem. He would talk to himself of course, but Wufei and I were trying to curb that behavior before Sally pulled him in for another psych eval.
I logged out for the day, grabbed my coat and my gloves, and raced after Duo. I got outside the building just as his bus pulled away. I could see his figure silhouetted in the yellow light from inside the vehicle against the darkening sky. It got dark so early already. He was hanging onto the little handles suspended from the ceiling, leaning over just slightly to listen to something a shorter, womanish figure was undoubtedly saying. His braid was dangling away from his body and his hip jutted out just slightly. Duo.
Damn it, Duo Maxwell.
With a huff of frustration that came out in a chilly white cloud, I pulled the collar of my jacket up and went to the bus stop to wait for the next one. It was strange to wait there without Duo. The evening was quintessentially Autumn. The dim, pale orange glow of the sky, studded with black clouds; forlorn, raw bird calls overhead, and the ever-present rustling of leaves at my feet and in the trees. There was a slight wind that was nonetheless icy. I could tell that the moon was full; though so early it was only a ghostly outline and not yet shining. A bus came trundling up the street, but it wasn’t the right one, so I let it pass and continued to wait. Autumn was Duo’s favorite season, even since he’d experienced them for himself, and I tried to study Duo and the seasonal changes in relation to each other to pass the time, wondering what made him love the fall best.
The darkness grew deeper and the cold more penetrating. As a rule the only windows in the Preventers buildings are the ones facing courtyards, so that a casual, or ill-intentioned bystander couldn’t just glance in and construct a layout. Therefore the great, hulking mass of shining black stone, with countless corridors that stretched like slithering legs looked highly intimidating and mysterious as I stood across the street, like some great creature, readying to pounce. I had never really looked at the building when standing here before. There had always been something else. But now, it kept cutting into my thoughts. It wasn’t just the massive nature of the building that disturbed me, but how, from this vantage point, I was, essentially, looking at the physical entirety of my life. I woke up at Preventers, I ate there, I worked there and then I slept there, only to repeat the process. The whole scene, standing there without my usual partner, was solitary and narrow.
Two more buses passed before the one I needed arrived. I paid my fare, thankful to get away from what was fast becoming a creepy scenario and took a seat, urging the belabored vehicle to go faster. As we pulled away from the outskirts and came into the city proper, I saw that many shops and restaurants had strings of orange lights up, or had black-lights in their doorways. It was a pleasant if spooky effect and it was then that I remembered it was Halloween. There were a few men and women walking the streets in costumes, no doubt going to parties. There weren’t any children but one could hardly expect that in the city. I felt foolish. Duo loved Halloween ever since he had discovered it that first year working for Preventers. He was probably just overexcited about some party or séance, or some kind of dramatic devil-worshipping thing he would be going to. He wasn’t upset and there wasn’t a problem. Duo could never concentrate on work when something incredibly enjoyable was on the horizon. The next stop was Duo’s though, and since I had come all this way, I wasn’t quite sure what to do. I got off when the bus stopped and considered just hopping on the next one going back out of the city. It would be a massive waste of time though, if I didn’t even see Duo after all this. I knew he’d probably be getting ready for a party, but I thought if I just stopped in and wished him a nice holiday, that would be okay.
There was a small convenient store to my right selling all manner of chocolates and candies, which I knew were customary gifts for the holiday, but when I went inside I realized that I didn’t want to bring him just anything. It was his favorite holiday, after all. I walked up a few blocks until I found a specialty chocolatier and bought him a few pumpkins made out of different sweets. Marzipan, chocolate, sugar. At the cash register I saw they also had cookies shaped like mean-looking little bats, so I bought him one of those too, knowing he would laugh.
“These cookies can be personalized,” the older man behind the counter said as I laid it down. “We can write the name of the child, or a spooky greeting in icing, if you like.”
I smiled, thinking of Duo unknowingly referred to as a child, and because it wasn’t altogether untrue. “Okay,” I agreed. I was just going to say ‘Duo,’ when better inspiration struck. I wrote out what I wanted and the man said he could do that, so I waited as he iced the angry little bat. When he was finished he brought it to me for inspection. It was very well done and I nodded and paid, happy.
I walked back up the streets to Duo’s apartment building and went inside. He’d chosen a building with a lobby and 24 hour guard, which was lucky for me, since they knew me and said I could go right up without having to ring Duo that there was someone coming to see him.
I took the elevator to his floor and approached his place. I could hear music pulsing out from behind the door and wondered suddenly if he was the one throwing the party. I wondered if any of our mutual friends had been invited since I clearly wasn’t…
I rang the doorbell anyway, figuring he’d appreciate the gifts and because now, I argued with myself, I’d already told myself I would see him and so I wanted to, no matter what. It took a moment and then I could see that the peephole was blocked when he looked through it before throwing the door open.
He looked…phenomenal. His hair had a hundred black wires running through it, looking like modern snakes pulling the locks back in a strange, swirling and gratifying style that was both messy and precise, so that it fell tantalizingly in wisps to his shoulders where it wasn’t coiled. His face was pale and there was a light, blue, shimmering dust on his cheekbones, brow bones and various other places that caught the light. The paleness set off his eyes, which were lined in a rich black. His lashes were highlighted too and looked impossibly long. His lips were painted a dizzying black, as if there was a mass-less black hole in the center of his face.
His clothes were black, as usual when he was off duty, but these were more than casual, night-out clothes. It was a throw back to his old days in that priest's get-up, but with a decidedly more sinister angle.
He wore a high collar, just like the old one, but with an alluring, spiky lace jutting over the black material. The collar dipped down into what could only be called a terrifying, gorgeous fusion of steam-punk fashion and death-metal lack of. There was something like a woman’s corset, but it wasn’t fitted, it merely held everything together. There were little silver gears, red laces woven through, a small pocket watch hung off his chest. The sleeves were long and artfully torn to reveal a blood-brown color underneath that made the whole costume pop out. His pants were black and tight, scattered with the same kinds of gears and wires. He had on a thin, floor-length, black cape and there were acid green skeletal wings attached. His fingernails were painted black.
That was when I stopped looking.
“Trick-or-treat,” I said solemnly, the only thing that came to mind, holding out the little bag and staring at my shoes. Preventer issue, all-terrain. Very boring. I hadn’t gotten as far as his shoes. I didn’t think I could handle knowing.
I had thought he’d like a cookie. A bat shaped cookie. And here he was looking so unlike a child that it was criminal.
Duo wordlessly took the bag from my hands, though I’d no idea of his expression. I could hear him rummaging around, pulling out the box of different pumpkins and the cookie.
Then, he burst out laughing. I couldn’t help it. I looked at his face.
“How’d you know?!” he was asking, holding the cookie in his fingers and brandishing it at me. “You’re a fucking mind-reader!”
I really, really enjoyed those words coming out of those black lips. Not unhelped by the fact that my throat always got a bit dry whenever he swore. He’d become much better at not doing it at work, so hearing him speak so freely outside work was like something private. Something only I knew about.
“Huh? Oh, I…”
I’d gotten two characters on the cookie. 死神. Shinigami.
“That’s who I am!” he said, with such delight that I missed the point for a moment.
“I know you are, that’s why I…OH!”
He was enthusiastically pointing to his costume and grinning like a certified lunatic. “Awesome!!” He set about trying to tie the cookie onto his corset-type-piece using some of the dangling lace.
“Happy Halloween,” I said, uncertain what else to say, given that I was still taking him in.
He attached the cookie to his satisfaction and put the box of candies on his side table alongside his keys and phone and things. “Thanks,” he said, smiling happily. A true smile, purely him. “That’s really nice.” He seemed genuinely surprised and pleased and it was enchanting.
“I know you like Halloween,” I said carefully.
Suddenly Duo fixed me with a very shrewd, very Duo look. “Did I rush out before you could give this to me?” he wondered.
Feeling like I was caught, I shook my head and even managed a small smile about it. “No. You were acting strange today and I thought…I got you some candy and thought you might need to talk.”
Duo’s grin was sort of shockingly large. It split his entire face. I felt like I could see every tooth in his mouth. And he…laughed at me.
“Trick!” he cackled. He did something like a victory dance, that didn’t actually involve dancing. “Trick! HAHAHAHAHA! Trick!”
I had my finger on the number assigned to Sally’s speed dial on my phone, sure he had succumbed to insanity, when he abruptly stopped, though he was still grinning.
“I got you,” he said triumphantly. “Sucker!” He actually poked me in the chest and pretended to drill a little hole.
“I think I’m lost,” I said honestly. “I don’t get it.”
“It’s Halloween!” he said loudly and obviously. “I tricked you! Like, trick-or-treat? You know?” Now he looked like he doubted my sanity.
“How so?” I asked, very lost in Duo’s mind games.
“I made you think I was nuts and bolts today so you would come after me!”
“I…” I made to argue when a salient point hit me. “I didn’t think you were ‘nuts.’ I thought you were upset.”
“Whatever, it worked, right?” Duo grinned, tilting his head.
“You don’t have to work at being nuts,” I continued, eager to regain some footing and quite literally stepping into his hall. “It’s your natural state.”
“HA HA YUY,” Duo said, his eyes alight. “It’s a Halloween Miracle!”
“Why did you want me to come after you?” I pressed. The door was shut behind us and Duo was conveniently braced between the little table and me, without any actual touching.
“It’s rules,” Duo said casually, as if the situation were completely normal. “You have to get tricked before you can get a treat.”
My heart most likely dropped into my boxers at that point. If you know what I mean?
Duo Maxwell should not be allowed to say the word ‘treat’ in the way he just did. It’s riot-inducing. It would launch a thousand ships.
I swallowed. “Oh,” was all I came up with.
Suddenly Duo was dancing away from me, sort-of to the music, around the table and into the apartment proper. His wings moved very naturally. He was wearing ankle high, lace-up, blood red boots. Fuck.
“Want to know what the treat is?” he asked, sounding very, very slightly anxious. Under all that bravado and sex-appeal.
“Yes,” I said. No, I think I whispered it. I had no choice.
“Great!” Duo cheered, grinning again and he dashed away, down the hall into his bedroom. I wondered for a split second if I was supposed to follow him in there. I wanted to, but my feet were rooted to the floor. I was experiencing a mild form of shock, I just knew it.
But Duo rushed back out a few seconds later, holding a hanger aloft. “Here it is!” he said and he looked ecstatic.
I took the hanger from him and found, to my utter surprise, a green tank top and a pair of black biker shorts.
“It’s your costume,” Duo explained easily. “Get it?”
“I’m…myself?” I asked, turning the hanger around.
“Yeah! You’re the perfect soldier!”
I lifted an eyebrow at him and pointedly, though with difficulty, studied his costume. “This is all you could come up with?” I asked.
Duo looked sly. “What? It was already perfect.”
His look was just slightly disconcerting, so I put it on hold for a moment. “So, my treat is to dress in my old clothes and what?”
“And come to this party a friend of mine is having.” Duo took a moment to breathe, in which I was biting my lip to keep my personal fantasies personal. “As my date,” he finished willfully, smirking at me.
I tried hard to be cavalier. “And that would be a treat, how?” But I saw the excited lights in his eyes dim and knew I didn’t have to pretend anything anymore. “That was my trick,” I said quickly and gently. “Now I can treat you.”
I leaned in, just the way I’d always wanted to. My fingers were brushing at the back of his neck, his chest pressing lightly against mine. I could feel blood rushing through my veins, through my lips, heating my face…and then he pulled away.
His finger was resting on those succulent looking lips again. “Lipstick,” he said. “You’ll get it all over your face.” He pulled his finger away to reveal that, yes, though his lips were still completely black, so too now was his finger.
“You think I care about that?” I asked, really incredulous, but he smiled.
“So you really wanna go?” he asked. “And be my date?”
“Yes,” I said without hesitation. “I want to.”
“Cool,” Duo said, letting out a tell-tale puff of breath. And then a little hesitantly, “I’m glad.”
I nodded. “I’ve wanted to ask you…” I said, but didn’t know how to finish. He knew what I meant, I was sure.
“Yeah,” he grinned again. “I think we’ll make a good team.”
I nodded again. It sort of was a Halloween Miracle, at least to me.
"Why didn't you just ask me?" I wanted to know. "Why all this production?"
Duo rolled his eyes good-naturedly. "Because I had to trick you, duh. And then treat you! It's Halloween."
I was off trying to figure out if that had really been necessary when Duo’s hands on my chest brought me right back to earth. “Go change!” he was saying, pushing me towards his room. “We can go soon!”
I dutifully did as I was told. The shirt and shorts were new of course, not the original, but they fit quite as well as my old clothes had and when I walked out there was an appreciative whistle from the spirit in the corner.
“Yum!” he said, biting into one of the pumpkins I’d brought. He really looked fabulous, all dressed up like that.
“This is really your idea of the perfect solider outfit?” I asked once more, pointing my chin at his elaborate costume.
“Oh,” he said, winking at me. “It’s not the outfit, it’s the one in it that makes it perfect.”
I sort of thought he was joking, until he crossed to me and slipped his hand in mine. It felt really, really good.
“Besides,” he went on, smirking devilishly. “MY treat is your butt back in those pants, finally!”
END.