Work Text:
Beneath: Halloween 2020
by Duointherain
disclaimer: I don’t own Gundam Wing
Note: I do own Gael and Jack though. I meant to write out the whole middle scene, but I just can’t deal with any more angst at the moment.
Earth holidays were not his thing. He’d been suspicious about them, and then St. Patrick’s Day had confirmed everything he’d ever feared and some. He’d come home from that party with two green kids who had bonded to him like ducklings and a bad case of banshee. Sure he’d come home being able to walk again and that was very nice, but not even Heero really believed that St. Patrick and St. Francis had been there and talked to him. Apparently, a previously unknown form of hominid was okay, but two old dead Europeans was beyond the pale. It didn’t really matter. Duo wasn’t sure he even believed himself. Beyond that, Rey had pretty much moved in with her girlfriend, and Duo wasn’t going to complain, because then everyone would know he missed her.
Missing her just made his life seem more unreal. It was all well and nice to have family, live in a mansion, and have a monthly allowance that was big enough to support the town’s children’s home in style, and still have more money than he’d ever imagined having. The experience was surreal though and tore at his identity in ways he didn’t understand.
On the subject of things he did understand, there were candy, kids, and being scary. At the entrance of Maureen’s driveway, he’d built a small little cave, with a cauldron full of candy and school supplies inside. Tucked back inside the cave, he had a dozen backpacks with food and clothes, cases of bottled water.
In the middle of the evening, he had the most utterly vivid hallucination of being turned into a great big toad, carted around by a little by like a stuffy, and a conversation with a crow named Merlin, before Heero kissed him restored him to being himself. It felt like whiplash, so utterly real and yet, could not possibly have happened.
In front of his cauldron, a pair of boys watched him. Just old enough to be trouble, maybe about the same age he’d been when he’d first seen Deathscythe, they smiled at him like old friends. Whiplash, very much whiplash. The red head nodded profoundly, an expression for a much older man. “You should probably sit down. Such shifts can take a lot out of you.”
The blond, who was dressed like the devil, red horns and blue eyes, a smirk of a smile that suggested he was older than old. “He’ll be fine. Don’t coddle the boy. He’s having fun.”
“I am,” Duo said. He also reached into his little cave and grabbed a folding stool to sit on. This brought him down to about their height. He’d had a powerful growth spurt since St. Patrick’s day and was nearly 5’9”. “What are you?”
“I’m the devil,” Gael said. Pointing towards Jack, he added the obvious, “He’s my angel. I’ve decided to kind of be your fairy godfather.”
“He’s the king of time,” Jack explained, while searching around in the cauldron. “There aren’t any Necco Wafers in here, are there?”
“What are those,” Duo asked. “The marshmallow chocolates are good. Was I a toad?”
“Oh don’t get him started,” Jack complained, “He’ll go on about time mechanics until you’re too old to understand fun anymore.”
“Well, then,” Gael said, taking three chocolate bars in hand and marching off with a great huge stride like he was Peter Pan, “Onward, Jackie! We’ve good deeds to do!”
While Duo was rubbing his eyes and trying to get the memory of squished fly out of his mind, a little girl barely tall enough to see over lip of his cauldron asked, “Do you have any books?”
“I do,” Duo said, smiling happy, leaning forward to look into her eyes. “What kind of books would you like little mouse?”
“I would like books about mice,” she said, moving around the big black cauldron, hands still on the lip. “I like coloring books.”
Duo had been sure he hadn’t stocked any coloring books, but there was a coloring book about mice and a box of crayons on the top of the stack. He’d take good luck over bad any day.
“How’s this?” he said, holding them up. “Hey are you okay?”
“I thought a car hit me. My mommy had to stop and have a cigarette because she thought so too.”
“I’m very glad you’re okay!” Duo handed her the book and crayons. “Here, take your mom a candy too. Okay?”
“I didn’t get hit by a car,” she said firmly.
“Nope. You’re okay.”
When he stood back up, Heero was there, right up in his space, a hand cupping his face, with no respect at all for his scary make up. “You’re beautiful,” Heero said with a sigh of relief.
“Are you okay?” Duo turned his head just a bit and kissed Heero’s palm.
“Yes, but I had a very detailed hallucination that you were a frog.”
“Sometimes we just get lucky,” Duo said, arms going around Heero to hug him tight. “Stay and give out candy with me?”
“Yeah,” Heero said, keeping a hand on Duo somewhere for the next two hours. Duo didn’t mind, he liked that connection with Heero. It made the day perfect. It was just a perfect day.