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Happy birthday to him …
Happy birthday to him …
Happy birthday, dear Pierrot …
His eyes, black and bottomless, glimmered in the shadow of your curtains, irises pulsating in yellow concentric hearts.
Happy birthday to him.
He pulled the balcony window open so slowly it barely made a sound. Quietly—so quietly that a mouse would be slack-jawed watching him—he slipped through the slitted opening. For a single second, he only listened. To the sound of your air conditioning whirring. To the soft creaks of your apartment settling. To you, tucked under your blankets like the world had any right to keep you from him on the day of something like his birth.
You didn’t awaken. Good. Nothing aided your slumber tonight, except pleasant dreams, he hoped. You’d stir if he wasn’t careful.
The curtains brushed over his shoulders as he entered, and the bells on his hat didn’t make a single jingle, because he was good. Because he could be so good when it mattered. Because tomorrow—today, technically—you had plans.
He knew you did.
You’d written them down in your planner in that adorable handwriting of yours, your yellow star doodles in the margins marred with only the faint scribble of a green heart, which he’d kindly erased for you. Breakfast at that creamery with a strawberry, coffee, and chocolate ice cream sundae that he liked so much. Lunch in your kitchen as you made brigadeiros together (“sort of”). A special surprise outing, punctuated with a “!!!” to the park at night, where the two of you would picnic under the stars.
Pierrot had read it six times. Seven, if the first time counted, though he’d been shaking so badly with delight that he’d had to start over.
Plans for him.
For his birthday.
His hand clamped over his mouth, his claws grazing the cheeks of his mask. He laughed, the noise muffled as his shoulders trembled in pure, unadulterated glee. Oh, his sweet dear. You precious little criatura. Did you have any idea what you’d done to him? Did you know a monster could be incapacitated with a spiral-bound planner? Impaled by a gel pen? Left bleeding out on the floor by the words “Pierrot day <3” written in red ink?
Of course you didn’t. That was alright. He could forgive you for not knowing how cruel you were. He crossed the room and stopped beside your bed. There you were. Sleeping.
Pierrot leaned down. He didn’t touch you, not tonight. He was capable of restraint, of course. People forgot that about him. They mistook hunger for carelessness, devotion for clumsiness, obsession for an inability to behave. But he could behave wonderfully. He could stand right here, with you close enough to ea—breathe in, and do nothing but look.
So he looked, a vow forming in his mind as he took in the earnest expression on your slumbering face. There was a pucker between your brow, even in sleep, and he knew you were anxious for tomorrow. You’d worked so hard to keep everything under a veil of canvas and secrets.
“Tomorrow,” he promised, barely loud enough for a dust mite to overhear, “I won’t know a thing.” You’d be happier that way. “I’ll be surprised,” he whispered, smiling down at you with his fingers twined together as if in prayer. “I’ll be so surprised for you.”
And he was.
By morning, Pierrot gasped at the creamery like he hadn’t already known. He clasped his hands beneath his chin when you suggested his exact favorite flavor combination, eyes shining like polished marbles.
“For me, my dear?” he asked.
“Of course. It’s your birthday.”
He was so happy he almost forgot to pretend.
In your kitchen, he sat on his hands while you made the brigadeiros. You shooed him away any time he tried to help. “These are my gift to you,” you insisted, and Pierrot nearly melted right through the chair. “You don’t get to help!”
At the park that night, beneath the stars, he stared at the picnic blanket. It was laden with juices of all kinds, finger sandwiches hearty enough for dinner, and neat slices of bolo de rolo. And the brigadeiros you’d made, of course. Not that very many were left, for Pierrot had gone into a rapture at the thought of eating something made by you, and had sampled them voraciously as soon as they were pronounced acceptable.
You had chosen a spot tucked just off the path, far enough for him to forgo his human disguise and from the light pollution that’d dim the stars up above. A trio of candles offered a cheerful glow across a blanket that you’d had since childhood. He assumed, at least, since it smelled so much like you. You fussed with the candles, apologizing that you hadn’t brought LED ones, since these might drip wax or catch fire or smoke up the air or any number of things that Pierrot, who was no stranger to torch performances at the Circus, barely registered.
He was looking at the paper plate you’d carefully drawn yellow stars into. And then, his eyes roved to the way your teeth bit your lip, as if you were nervous as to how he’d react to it all. As if there were any world where he wouldn’t love this.
Then he smiled. Widely. With all his teeth bared, from molar to incisor, bright and white and gleeful.
“My dear,” Pierrot breathed. “You really did all this for me.”
You looked away, embarrassed, and mumbled, “Well, yeah. It’s your birthday.”
His fingers curled in his lap. He wanted to laugh, to scream, to grab you by the waist and drag you close across the blanket and bury his face in your neck and inhale what he could of you and bite down until the throes of emotion waned and he wouldn’t scare you as much. But he only leaned closer to the candles, letting their golden flames get lost in his irises.
“I, I,” he said, “I don’t think anyone has ever been this kind to me.” Then, he brightened at once. “But it’s alright, my dear,” he added, beaming. “You can be my first and my last.”
You’re stunned by that, but then you laugh. Ruefully, you say, pouring him a glass of juice, “Happy birthday, Pierrot.”
His smile sharpened, and he wondered what it would be like to split open in sheer adoration right then, right there. He took a sip of the juice, richer only because you’d poured it. Sweeter because you’d swished it around in the glass. Poisoned because that was what you did to him, and he would be forever grateful.
Happy birthday to him, indeed.