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“What the hell are they up to…?” Duke muttered to himself from where he was leaning against the frame to his and Pluto’s dorm, lifting his arm to check a watch he had forgotten was no longer on his wrist.
Funny, it had been a whole month at Nevermore and he still forgot he was missing that. Old habits die hard.
“Do you think they’re okay?” Pluto asked anxiously beside him.
"Eh, probably just sleeping." Duke shrugged. “Worst case scenario we can go without them.”
“...That’s a pretty bad worst case scenario.”
“What!? You don’t wanna hang out with me?” Duke playfully nudged his roommate and stood up, placing his hands on his hips definitively.
“N-no!” Pluto denied, obviously not catching on that Duke was joking. “I do wanna hang out with you!”
Duke laughed at his roommate’s panicked exclamation, nudging him gently. “Calm down, minou. I was joking.”
Pluto started to sigh but interrupted himself with a yawn and stretched out his arms in front of him adorably.
“Like a cat,” Duke teased affectionately.
“Hm?”
“C’est rien.” Duke sneakily stepped slightly closer to Pluto as he yawned again, whistling and putting his hands in his pockets in an attempt to act nonchalant. “So, if it’s only us tonight-”
“Pfft. It’s always only us. We share a room.”
“Yes, but we get back right at curfew, and I’m usually asleep by then- at a normal hour, unlike you. Our sleep schedules don’t match. We’ve really got to do something about those eyebags, by the way.”
Pluto self-consciously fidgeted with his hair, putting up a hand to shove some of his bangs onto his visible eye at Duke’s remark, which couldn’t have made it easy to see at all.
“Right,” he mumbled.
Duke immediately felt a wave of panic rise through him at how his joke had been taken by the obviously already anxious smaller boy, and he reached forward to move back Pluto’s hair so he could once again see his eye.
Nice going, he thought to himself bitterly.
“I’m only joking, again. You can hardly even notice them, really,” Duke lied, sure he was imagining the slight blush on Pluto’s face.
Wishful thinking.
“Okay.” Pluto smiled softly, for once not avoiding eye contact. Duke tried to ignore the part of him that wanted to move even closer.
Their hands were nearly touching, nearly touching, until they were.
It was strange.
Duke never found himself flustered, and here he was blushing more than he could ever remember because some boy had wrapped his pinkie around his. Duke turned to look at him.
The dim candlelight in the hallway lit up Pluto’s face, his gold eye shining, his lips-
Wait, those were moving. He was saying something.
“-uch longer do you think they’ll be?”
Right, Duke thought, mourning whatever could’ve just been. Or maybe he was imagining things again.
Either way- and maybe it was selfish- but he was secretly glad Lenore, Berenice, Eulalie, and Morella had decided not to join them, for whatever reason. He’d been hoping for a moment alone with his roommate for a while now, but something always seemed to get in the way. Nevermore was exhausting, and the moment just never seemed quite right after a long day.
Not that it mattered.
There was no way Pluto felt the same, of course. Duke had always been a bit of a romantic, always seeing things the way he wanted to instead of meeting people where they were at.
At least, that’s what he’d been told by his lovers before, all of whom were just one-off flings that lasted a week at most.
Except this was different.
This was Pluto.
Pluto, who was so much less intoxicating and confusing, so much more present. He made sense, he made Duke feel like he was cared for instead of being a one night stand at a bar in Paris on some rich asshole’s summer vacation.
And yet they were still only friends.
And they would be, forever and for never, of course.
Duke sighed, wanting to pull his hand away from Pluto’s so that he could get over this already, but not finding the strength to do so.
He could pretend, at least for now.
For tonight.
“Duke?”
“Hm? Oh, right. Well, I think if they haven’t come by now, they won’t be joining us, sadly,” Duke said, not sad in the slightest.
“Blooming heck,” Pluto muttered, spinning around to walk back into his room. “An’ I was excited about this, too.”
Duke wasn’t sure if it was the leftover alcohol Berenice had sneaked him at lunch in his system, or just sleep-deprivation from the fact he was up at twelve thirty in the morning, but something in his brain sent the signals to his mouth to blurt out, “We could go without them. Just us.”
Pluto froze and turned back around (Mon Dieu, Duke needed to stop imagining that blushing on his face), furrowing his eyebrows. “Oh, I don’t know…”
“Come on, it’ll be fun,” Duke said, doubling down.
Just for tonight.
“It’s only to the forbidden wing.”
Pluto hesitated for a second, pulling down the cuffs of his sleeves before relenting with a sigh. “Fine. I guess that sounds alright.”
“That’s the spirit!” Duke exclaimed, wrapping an arm around the smaller boy’s shoulder and practically dragging him away down the hall (despite his protests).
“Quiet without the others, hm?”
Duke was holding the small lantern that Lenore and Morella had donated to place at the entrance of the Forbidden Wing to light the path for him and Pluto as they headed up the winding stairs.
Unbeknownst to Pluto, though, Duke was leading them in a different direction than the way they normally went- he’d taken a left turn instead of a right in the direction of a small balcony covered in vines he’d seen from outside during one of Miss Poppet’s classes in the woods.
“Mhm,” Pluto muttered, sounding very much as though he hadn’t really listened to Duke’s question at all.
Duke scoffed and stopped abruptly, causing Pluto- who’d been looking at the floor like it was the Mon Lisa since him and Duke had gone into the Forbidden Wing- to bump directly into his taller roommate.
Duke snickered as Pluto looked up in a huff.
“Oi!”
“Watch where you’re walking, minou.”
“Why’d you stop?” Pluto looked down again as he spoke, making Duke tilt his head to the side as he tried to decipher why his roommate was acting so strange.
“Why are you being so quiet?”
Pluto looked up just enough so that Duke could see he rolled his eyes and pushed past Duke to continue walking even though the taller man was still holding the light.
“‘M not being quiet. No more than usual, at least.”
Duke hurried to catch up (it wasn’t hard) and peered down at his friend.
“You’re usually not like this around the others when we all hang out.” He smirked, pushing his luck. “You’re not… nervous around me, are you?”
It was a cheesy, flirtatious line that Duke had used in vain many times before, and one that he was sure would earn nothing but confusion from his definitely-not-into-him roommate.
Except.
He definitely wasn’t imagining the blushing this time, right?
“Wait, you’re not actually, are-”
“Are you sure this is the right way?!” Duke shook any wishful thoughts from his mind when Pluto called from where he’d once again run ahead.
“Positive!” Duke lied, walking over to find Pluto waiting for him, a frown on his face and his arms crossed. “What, you don’t trust me?”
“Not really, no.”
“Pfft. Well, minou-” Duke put his lantern on a nearby windowsill and moved towards his roommate impulsively.
“W-what are you-”
“I assure you that you can.” Duke picked up his smaller roommate in a bridal carry and tossed him gently up in the air, earning some panicked yelps from Pluto before he caught him, grinning.
Expecting immediate anger or annoyance, Duke was surprised when Pluto just squeaked and hid his face in Duke’s chest, making the taller man’s heart skip a beat as his face decided it was his turn to blush.
He laughed awkwardly and placed Pluto down, reminding himself it wasn’t a good idea to feel that stuff.
“See?” Duke asked after Pluto was safely on the ground, hoping it was too dark for his blush to be visible. “I’m very trustable!”
Pluto shot him a glare that didn’t seem to contain much malice, seeing as his face still looked slightly rosy in the candlelight.
“I- You-” he spluttered before groaning. “Wanker,” he finally muttered, reaching for the lamp at the same time as Duke and pulling back as if electrocuted when their arms brushed against each other.
“Oops,” Duke teased with a shrug as Pluto buried his face in his jacket.
“This cannot be the right direction,” Pluto repeated after he’d seemed to calm down. “That’s not the door to-”
“Nonsense!” Duke said as he pushed open the door to the balcony that was definitely not their hideout.
The sky was its usual purple-ish-blue color, highlighting the stunning dark wooden mahogany floor and railing of the balcony, slightly damp from the small sprinkling of rain outside. The vines looked strangely well-kept for a plant living in a forbidden part of the school, and they wrapped perfectly around the railing of the deck and the wall it was connected to.
“This is exactly where we want to be,” Duke finished, grabbing Pluto’s hand to pull him outside.
He leaned back over the edge of the railing, noting the sharp inhale from his roommate before he leaned forward again.
Pluto rolled his eyes once more once Duke righted himself, acting like he hadn't cared moments before, and hesitantly walked closer to the edge of the balcony to join him- decidedly not leaning back.
Duke snickered again, earning a glare from his roommate before a thoughtful look crossed Pluto's face.
“Well, not what I was expecting, but… I guess it’s nice,” the black-haired boy said.
“Only the best for our night,” Duke said, glancing sideways and feeling a surge of confidence rush through him when Pluto smiled softly and blushed at his words.
Here goes nothing, he thought, riskily putting an arm around his roommate.
Pluto froze. “Oh.”
Duke coughed, seeing this reaction as anything but positive, and was about to pull his arm back when Pluto reached up to take the hand around his shoulder and hold it.
“Oh,” Duke repeated dumbly.
“Shit- Sorry!” Pluto immediately let go when Duke spoke. “Sorry, I-”
Duke breathed out a laugh, wishing Pluto would take his hand again. “Ca va, minou. You worry too much.”
“Sorry,” Pluto mumbled again but hesitantly took Duke’s hand once more.
“You apologize too much, too.”
“S- right.”
Pluto looked down for a second before glancing at Duke with a small smile that made Duke feel like his face was overheating.
“Well, you talk in French too much. Can’t blame me for not really understanding what you want me to say.”
“It’s not my fault you never bothered to learn my language.”
Pluto spluttered, adorable smile still on his face. “‘Never bothered’, my arse! ‘Didn't exactly need French where I was from, and I can’t really take a class now.”
“I mean-” Duke looked back as nonchalantly as he could at the moon in the sky behind them. “-I could teach you, if you wanted.”
Pluto laughed, a sweet snicker that set off fireworks in Duke’s chest.
“Excuser-toi, what’s that supposed to mean? You don’t want to learn?” Duke said in fake offense, dramatically putting a hand on his chest.
“It’s not that- just, you’d be a horrible teacher,” Pluto teased, and Duke swore he held his hand a little tighter. “You never explain anything you say. Sometimes I swear you do it just to piss me off, pfft.”
Duke chuckled. “Ah, you caught me, mon amour.”
Merde, did I just-
“What happened to…” Pluto adorably furrowed his eyebrows in concentration. “‘Moon minnow’?”
“...”
“Don’t laugh at me, you arse! I’m doing my best!”
“I’ll admit that was cute, though very inaccurate," Duke said, not fully realizing what was coming out of his mouth until he said it.
Well, no taking it back now.
He felt Pluto freeze up beside him again- and hell, he wasn’t oblivious. At this point in the night, he was fairly certain he could start ignoring his brain’s previous warnings, and the more time he spent with Pluto the more he really could give a shit about whatever anxious lies his mind made up.
He was dead now, and he’d never felt like this for anyone in all his life. Maybe he could give it a go in death.
“Pluto?” Duke inhaled a deep breath. Funny. He wasn’t used to consequences, to really caring about the person he wanted to kiss.
Because he wanted to kiss Pluto.
(He was glad he finally admitted it.)
“Mhm?”
“...Can I- Ack-!”
Duke was rudely interrupted by his roommate pulling him down by his collar to press a kiss against his lips, eyes squeezed shut while Duke’s remained open in shock.
It was over before the taller man could even process what had happened, and Pluto had snuck out from under his arm while he still had an astonished hand to his lips, which felt as though they’d been electrocuted (in a good way).
“S-Sorry, sorry,” Pluto stammered, taking steps back from the bewildered Duke. “Feck, I ruined- I- I should’ve-”
He squeaked as Duke snapped out of his trance and lifted him up from under his arms to bring them face to face and pulled him into another kiss, this one a bit less gentle than the first.
“What did I say about apologizing?” Duke teased after putting Pluto back down, the smaller boy stumbling back a bit and reaching out instinctively.
Duke caught his hand and pulled him in. Ah, bon, I’ve still got it.
Pluto blinked at Duke’s words before understanding he was teasing and smiling softly, the anxiety on his face fading slightly and getting replaced by nervous excitement.
“Uhm. I think I want to kiss you again.”
Duke leaned down close, grinning as Pluto blushed again.
“Be my guest, minou.”