Work Text:
A Little Over Ten Years Later
"Valentine's Day's coming up this Friday," Simon noted. He passed his companion section two of the Eerie Examiner, which featured an ad for the World O' Stuff's annual candy and interesting underwear sale next to the article about Mayor Chisel's new tax policy.
Dash took it, but didn't otherwise react or even look up from his bowl of chocolate-coated sugar puffs with marshmallows.
Subtlety was not working this morning. "I think you should do something nice for Marshall."
Dash did look up at that. "What?" He sounded genuinely confused. "Why?"
"Because it would be nice." And because he'd woken up to find Dash asleep on the living room couch again, having clearly spent the night there for a transgression Simon wasn't going to ask about.
Dash's eyes narrowed. "He's still not over the 'something nice' you made me do last week."
That was true. The next time Simon suggested Dash surprise Marshall by doing some of the chores before he got home he was either going to have to be more specific or make sure Dash had more supervision. Dash had never quite gotten the hang of separating laundry and was now no longer allowed to touch Marshall's clothes again, while Marshall was still seething over the number of pink shirts he suddenly owned.
"This is a different something nice. Besides, it's tradition."
Dash's eyes narrowed further.
"I just mean that in a lot of ways, Marshall's kind of traditional. You know his parents make a big deal about this day every year."
That was also true. Every year since they'd moved to Eerie—save the one in which the entire town except Simon spent February 14th in what was meant to be an eternal slumber—Marilyn and Edgar Teller had exchanged gifts, then gone out dancing and to a fancy dinner followed by a night at the Historic Eerie Motor Court Lodge and Spa. It seemed the tradition was still in place, as two nights ago when they were over at the Tellers, Edgar had happily mentioned he'd gotten their usual reservation for the third best table for two at the Eerie Bus Terminal and Supper Club.
Simon noticed the way Marshall had looked over at Dash then and given a small, quiet sigh. Which may have had something to do with the way Dash was reaching for his fourth helping of Swedish meatloaf without anything resembling table manners, but Simon suspected also had a lot to do with the way the closest Marshall and Dash had ever come to doing anything romantic on Valentine's Day had been the one year they'd been trapped together all night in the prep room of the Happy Brothers Mortuary.
"It doesn't have to be anything big," he told Dash. "Just, I don't know, flowers or a card. Maybe take him out for a nice meal." Simon considered the number of nice restaurants in Eerie that might still be taking reservations, mentally subtracted the ones from which Dash had been banned for life, and amended, "Or make him something here. I could help, if you wanted to do anything complicated. Or there's always chocolate."
Dash seemed to at least be thinking about it. "He doesn't hate chocolate," he said at last.
***
"Valentine's Day?" Marshall said some time later, as he took a sample from the giant blob of ectoplasm blocking the spiral tube slide in Deadwood Park. "It's an ancient pagan ritual morphed into a liturgical feast and eventually into an overly commercialized excuse to put societal pressure on people to express their romantic feelings in ways that make money for modern day greeting card companies, restaurants, candymakers, and the love spell black market. Why?"
"I just thought maybe you might want to do something nice for Dash is all," said Simon as Marshall handed him the specimen container. He put it in his bag. "I could clear out for the night if you wanted to the apartment to yourselves."
"Why?" Marshall repeated. "Not that I don't appreciate the offer, but Dash doesn't care about stuff like Valentine's Day."
"Do you know that for sure, Mars?" Simon asked. "Has he ever even had a Valentine's Day?"
He noted Marshall's guilty look and knew he was reflecting that his significant other had never gotten to participate in school events and that as far as anyone knew, their Valentine's-less, on-again, off-again relationship through the years represented Dash's entire dating experience.
"I know you guys don't normally celebrate these things, but maybe do a little something to show you care about him. Just this once?"
Marshall didn't respond, but as the thing in the slide made a belching noise and shot a stream of goo into their faces, Simon could tell he was thinking about it.
***
Sure enough, when Simon got up the morning of February 14, Dash was in the kitchen arranging dishes on a tray. It wasn't an elaborate breakfast, but it did feature some of Marshall's favorites: corn flakes, a hard boiled egg, a cinnamon roll, and coffee.
Simon was about to congratulate himself on a job well done when he heard Marshall's footsteps behind him. His most trusted associate was already up and dressed.
"Hey guys," Marshall said, giving the tray Dash had just assembled a cursory glance and no other acknowledgement. "Gotta run. Early morning appointment with the new president of the credit union about that thing in their vault."
Under the circumstances, Simon supposed it wouldn't make sense to order Marshall back to bed so Dash could at least treat, if not surprise him.
"Aren't you even going to have any coffee?" he asked instead. Leaving without even that much breakfast was entirely unlike Marshall, who was, true to form, looking glassy-eyed and sluggish without his morning jolt of caffeine.
"I'll make some down in the office," he said and was gone.
Dash watched him leave. "Damn," he muttered under his breath, and then headed for the shower.
Simon was about to call after him, then got a closer look at the breakfast tray. He stuck his finger in the "milk" surrounding the cornflakes.
Yep, it was glue.
The "cinnamon roll" turned out to be made of soap, and when he picked up the egg, he could tell it was neither hard nor boiled. The coffee—the entire pot of coffee Dash had just made—was full of salt.
"Dang it, Dash," Simon muttered. He appreciated a good prank as much as the next man, but there was a time and a place.
He passed Marshall and Dash's room on the way back to his own and noted a large red envelope propped up on one of the bed pillows with Dash's name written on it. At least, he thought, one of them was trying. Maybe.
He got dressed, washed out the pot, and made more coffee. He sat sipping it, reading the latest issue of Modern Cryptid Hunter magazine with one eye on the open bedroom door, until Dash emerged from the shower clad in a towel, walked in, and spotted the card. Simon watched as he picked it up, smirked, and then threw it, unopened, in the small trash can by the light switch before shutting the door.
Ten minutes later, Dash emerged fully dressed. "See you later, Shrimp," he said on his way out of the apartment.
"Something nice!" Simon called after him. "For real this time. I mean it!"
"Yeah, yeah," Dash said over his shoulder as the door closed behind him.
Simon got up and retrieved the card from the bedroom trash. He mostly trusted Marshall to have been the one to listen to him this time. Still, he decided to open it at arm's length. While wearing gloves. And standing out on the balcony.
That last decision was an error, he realized when he got the card open just as the wind picked up and blew all the glitter it contained back into his face.
"Dang it, Marshall," he said, spitting glitter out of his mouth.
As pranks went, it was mild, but messy. By the time Simon got all the glitter out of his hair and got dressed again, he was almost late for his talk at B.F. Skinner Junior High's career day, which with one thing and another took longer than expected and meant that by the time he made it into the office with a brand new case to research, it was after noon.
There was a card on Marshall's keyboard and a what looked like a wrapped, heart-shaped box of chocolates next to it on his desk.
Simon was about to inspect them when Marshall himself came in followed by a middle-aged woman in a tracksuit. She took a seat in the chair in front of Marshall's desk and observed in slight alarm as Marshall swept both items into the trash can before he turned to her and asked, "So when did you first notice the dimensional rift in your refrigerator?"
With a client in the office, there was no way Simon could make the argument that Marshall should at least give Dash's latest gesture a chance. Instead, he glared at him from across the room and mouthed "Something nice, remember?" when Marshall looked his way. Marshall just nodded vaguely, but that may have been in response to something in the story their client was telling about what happened when she'd tried to clean out her produce drawer.
When he was alone in the office again, Simon took the gifts out of the trash. He was heartened at first to discover the box of chocolates actually contained chocolates, but dismayed when further investigation revealed at least one of those the map on the lid identified as a vanilla crème was filled with toothpaste, while the cherry cordial was in reality a dark chocolate-covered ghost pepper.
Okay, that would have been a little hilarious if Marshall had fallen for it, but still.
He didn't bother opening the card after realizing it was the kind that played music or a recorded greeting. He now suspected he knew the reason Dash had insisted on investigating the banshee report at the Eerie Trailer Court by himself yesterday afternoon.
He threw them both away again, then settled in behind his own desk and continued researching bunyips and potential ways to get one out of a school swimming pool drainage system.
At two o'clock, he signed for a dozen red roses for Marshall, which he took out back to the dumpster after his fingers brushed against one and it immediately withered and began to smell of dead skunk.
Half an hour later, he did the same with the chocolate-covered strawberries that arrived for Dash when he realized one was smoking and giving off a slight glow.
At three o'clock, he sent the singing siren strip-o-gram packing.
At around three-thirty, he went looking for his missing stapler and discovered a small jewelry box on Dash's desk. And that Marshall had found a new use for some of the leftover ectoplasm.
At four, he refused delivery on a stuffed jackalope holding a tiny red heart in its paws. He wasn't sure what it really was or what it really did, but he was no longer in the mood for taking chances.
Finally, progress made on his research and the office devoid of either his associates or any new walk-in clients, Simon made the decision to close up for the day and headed back upstairs to the apartment, careful to check the door for traps on the way in.
He wasn't sure which of them had set the table for a romantic candlelight dinner. Using the good tableware, wine glasses, and placemats Marshall's parents had bought them was a nice touch. Of course, of the three candles in the middle of the table, one was one of the compost-scented ones they'd purchased at the World O' Stuff's April Fool's Day sale last year, one was a cleverly-disguised smoke bomb, and the third he recognized as Item #3213 from the Evidence Storage Closet. If lit, it had a sixty percent chance of summoning the demon Abnoxas, dark lord of furniture with unexpectedly sharp corners and small painful objects on the floor encountered in the middle of the night with your bare feet.
The kitchen chairs were covered in cushions for the first time in forever, which no doubt meant there was a hidden contraption under at least one of them that would trigger something startling or embarrassing when someone took a seat.
Marshall and Dash were standing on either side of the kitchen, arms folded, staring each other down.
"All right, guys," said Simon. "Enough! Forget it. Forget I said anything, or thought you were capable of acting like a normal couple doing nice, normal things for each other for just one day. Have fun. I'm going out!" He ran to his room to grab his jacket, then left the apartment, slamming the door behind him. Somewhere in Eerie, there was a bar where miserable single people were drinking what was left of the day away, and he and his fake ID were going to join them.
***
"Well," Marshall said as soon as Simon was gone, "he didn't last as long as I thought he would."
"I know," Dash crossed the kitchen floor. "You owe me fifty bucks. I told you he'd lose it before we started dinner."
"You did. It's too bad. I had this whole bit with a raw cow heart planned and everything," Marshall replied. "And I couldn't wait to see the look on his face when he realized the chairs weren't actually rigged, but the wine glasses…" he trailed off when noticed Dash's crooked smile. "What?"
Dash grabbed him around the waist, hooked his fingers in his belt loops, and pulled him closer. "Never change, Teller."
Marshall leaned down and kissed him. As he did, he felt Dash's hand in his back pocket, removing his wallet. "Never change, X," he said as he retrieved the wallet minus the ten and two twenties it had once contained. "Oh, and Happy Commercialized-Pagan-Fertility-Ritual-Slash-Saint's-Day-Slash-National-Excuse-for-Fancy-Restaurant-Overcrowding."
"Happy...whatever the hell that was you just said," Dash responded. He kissed Marshall again, his hands moving so they were now flagrantly violating the policy about permissible activities on or around the kitchen sink Simon was no longer home to enforce.