Title: Hallowed pieces
Summary: When going to a party, don't flirt with strangers, don't order costumes from shady stores and never, ever make any bets.
Rating: T
Pairings: KaiRay, BryanTala, BrooklynMystel and GarlandClaude. Others are up to the reader to decide.
Warning: boyxboy-material and coarse language.
Disclaimer: I do not own Beyblade or any other famous things/people mentioned in this fic.
A/N: This was supposed to be a Halloween-fic. :3
I deleted the mentionings of the word "Halloween" in the story because, as everyone surely knows, Halloween is looong gone. Do Keli a favor and imagine it's just some random party. Or Christmas get-together, considering the time of posting this.
Enjoy, or read it anyways.
The Party Extravaganza was turning out to be a great success. 45 people plus some additional adults, all in one place, separated into an unidentified number of smaller rooms and three main rooms: the kitchen-area, the hall and the lounge, which covered pretty much the whole upper storey. Party had been officially going on for half an hour and most of the invited people had already arrived, but of course there were always those few who liked to be fashionably late and make a scene. Visitors marvelled each others' costumes and chattered with familiar faces. The evening was bound to be momentous.
- - -
Ming-Ming and Crusher were sitting on a large sofa and chattering with others guests when Garland arrived to the event. He rallied through the hall – somehow knowing exactly what to look for and where –, climbed the stairs and soon joined the people in the lounge.
"Garland!" Ming-Ming shouted, her voice positively glistening with joy. He bounced to hug her former teammate, who really didn't mind the gesture. Crusher was only slightly more controlled with his actions.
Garland observed his friends' costumes and smiled. Crusher was wearing a private detective jacket, the light brown one, straight from the movies, and even had the hat and sunglasses. Garland was suave enough to ignore that Crusher, with his physique, would have been quite conspicuous for someone who has to be imperceptible in his work. And Ming-Ming, with her blonde wig and white dress, had clearly watched The Seven Year Itch one too many times.
To return the gesture, it seemed, his friends looked at his costume. The light-greenish tunic, the cape, the long boots and, of course, a bow and a quiver, apparently made them very amused.
"What? I just happen to like J. R. R. Tolkien."
"You mean Orlando Bloom?" Crusher asked innocently.
"No, I mean Tolkien", Garland said, face completely blank.
"Orlando Bloom."
"Tolkien."
"You live in total self-denial", Ming-Ming stated happily, and Crusher snickered.
- - -
Many thought that the costumes had been a really clever idea, and some of the quests had really put some effort in them. Most of the people could hardly recognize Michael beneath all the white powder, black make-up, dark clothes and a matching wig. He was surprisingly convincing as a goth, and joked the whole evening how he had now seen 'the darkness' and would soon dye his hair and get more safety pins to his clothes.
Emily's choice of clothing was equally shocking, but in a completely other way. No one had ever imagined her as a platinum blonde, for instance. But now she was. And she was also wearing a pink top and a mini-skirt with boots. She said "Oh my god, that is like such a coool costume, I looove it!" to almost everyone she saw. She presented her own image of the modern, popular teenage girls, and made sure everyone knew how she felt about the subject. Most of the girls screamed "Oh my gaawd, that is like totally sweeet!" when they saw her. The boys figured it was some sort of insider-thing, and didn't even bother to ask.
Johnny's outfit had also been shocking in its own way. Few would have guessed that the fierce, stubborn Scot was a huge fan of the original Star Wars. Robert, Enrique and Oliver, dressed as the three musketeers – it had been Oliver's idea; Johnny had been asked to be the fourth musketeer but he had declined – had spent all evening snickering at the flashy lightsaber and Jedi knight clothes. Johnny had, eventually, got fed up and marched to the kitchen to, in his own words, get heavily drunk.
It might have been just a coincidence that Michael soon followed him there.
- - -
Hilary had been talking with Max in the hall when Kai arrived. His Dracula-looks gave everyone the chills, though mostly in a good way. The crimson eyes seemed more blood red than ever, and his teeth were pointy and clearly visible when he smiled. His coat and old-fashioned yet classy suit made him appear old and ageless the same time. And just like the original Dracula, Kai had an aura of intense yet so subtle sexuality, which seemed to ooze everywhere and make most of the people a bit light-headed.
"Khg?" Max greeted him, before his brains started taking control of the situation. He hoped he hadn't been drooling or anything. But even if he had, he wouldn't have been the only one in the room. Even Hilary seemed a bit stunned, but snapped out of it relatively fast.
"Where's Ray?"
There was a look of pure, sexy evilness on Kai's face.
"Oh, he's coming. He's just a bit embarrassed, that's all."
Hilary frowned.
"Embarrassed? Why would he –"
Max realized the room had, yet again, grown silent. He also spotted the reason and, to stop himself of thinking funny thoughts about Kai, said rather loudly:
"Hey, who's the black-haired chick? She looks hot."
The 'chick' seemed utterly pissed off about this.
"Max. Shut up or I'll make you eat this duster."
Hilary and Max, as well as many others in the hearing range, stared with wide eyes. Kai chuckled rather alarmingly.
"... Ray?"
And true enough, it was Ray. Ray in a short, black dress and white apron, dressed as a French maid. He also had black nylon pantyhose and high-heeled shoes. His make-up didn't quite cover the blush of embarrassment and anger on his cheeks.
Everyone turned to look at Kai, now, as if asking for a logical explanation to it all.
"We had a small bet. Me and Bryan won, Tala and Ray lost."
Ray was now standing in front of Kai, giving him a death glare.
"I'll bloody remember this one, Kai. And no, Max, you can not touch my boobs, this is fucking humiliating already as it is."
After that remark, everyone tried to act as if their male friend wasn't wearing a black dress and looking freakishly nice in it. It might have worked unless Tyson would have, after realizing what had happened, suddenly commented how peachy Ray's legs looked on high heels. Ray showed everyone what a scary fighting weapon a feather duster could be.- - -
An hour had passed since the opening ceremony à la Tyson and Max. As Garland noted, only four people he knew were missing from the action: the two evil-tempered Russians, and then two some of the most unpredictable people in Beyblade history. The latter-mentioned also happened to his friends and former teammates, so Garland felt automatically responsible about them. If they had decided to skip the event to see the local landscapes or something, he'd surely maim them.
But he didn't have to. Right on cue, Brooklyn and Mystel arrived, peacefully and not making a scene. Somehow they still managed to gain everyone's attention. Garland, having spent a lot of time with the duo, shouldn't have been surprised about this. But now, even he had to stare. It might have been partly due Brooklyn's costume.
Mystel was wearing, as far as Garland could tell, a white tunic and, on top of that, a similar colored toga. He had apparently lost his shoes somewhere. He had a pair of cute little angel wings in which, of course, it would have been impossible to actually fly, had they been real. This seemed to be the usual deal with people and wings. But with his blonde hair loose and flowing, Mystel did look quite angelic, even Garland had to admit that much. But this didn't come as a surprise to him, Mystel had called him the day before and told what they would be wearing. Garland was now happy he had told the blonde not to jump from buildings and float around while wearing his costume. Mystel hadn't seemed to understand how it might have caused any controversiality, but Garland had been persistent.
Brooklyn... was dressed in an unexpected way, to say the least. Garland smirked.
"Oohh, baby, that's what I like!"
Brooklyn looked seriously confused about the attention he received. He also blushed at Julia's comment. The girl was dressed as a clown, and gave Brooklyn the thumbs-up. To Garland's personal amusement, Mystel looked suddenly very calculating, and then relaxed. Supposedly the threat level wasn't high enough to worry.
"I love your outfit, Brook!" Ming-Ming shouted from the other side of the room, making sure that absolutely everyone decided to pay some attention to the newly-arrivers. Brooklyn, normally laid-back and comfortable even in bigger crowds (due to the fact that he had amazing skills to be ignored by most of the people if he happened to want that), looked like he wanted to disappear from the face of the earth and rather fast.
Garland walked lazily to them, grinning like the Cheshire cat.
"Well, well... Hi Mystel. Brooklyn. Nice suit you've got there."
"Don't. Even. Start", the usually so calm and collected voice was now frosted with a desire to hurt someone.
Brooklyn was overreacting, really. It wasn't as if he was wearing women's clothes, as that Chinese blader, Ray, did. Yes, admittedly, the police suit was obviously a bit too tight and close-fitting to be something that a real cop would wear, and the package where it had been delivered would probably have the words "sexy!" and "for men with naughty girlfriends!" printed all over it, but the point was that it suited Brooklyn and made his figure look rather tempting. Brooklyn would have never been allowed to join the police force, though, and not only because he might have given older ladies mild heart-attacks just by visiting them and asking 'what seems to be the problem, ma'am?'. The other reasons for inapplicability included the will to rescue the animals before humans and, of course, the occasional slight insanity.
"I though you were supposed to dress up as Einstein?" Garland asked. He was slightly bothered by the fact that he couldn't see Brooklyn's eyes, the hat and the red wisps of hair were blocking the view.
"Or as a flower", Mystel added happily, clinging on to Brooklyn's hand. He didn't seem to have any qualms whatsoever about his friend's outfit.
"So what happened?"
"A small mistake at the shop", Brooklyn muttered. Garland made a mental note to check whether any costume stores would mysteriously burn during the following night.
"But it looks really nice. Doesn't it, Garland?" Mystel asked emphatically. The look he gave to the other pointed out very clearly that a wrong answer would cause someone to jump out of the window to scare innocent people as a holy creature bringing apocalypse to the world. Garland smiled impishly.
"It's nice."
Brooklyn looked down at Mystel doubtfully but saw only a sweet and innocent smile. He seemed to relax. Things might have stayed like that if Garland hadn't noticed something hanging on the backside of Brooklyn's trousers. Evil thoughts entered to his mind, which led him to chuckle.
"Are you planning on using those handcuffs on someone special tonight?"
The last thing Mystel saw under his blush was Garland laughing and fleeing, and Brooklyn running after him with a maniacal gleam in his eyes and a baton in his hand.
- - -
Ray stayed flatly against the wall as Garland and Brooklyn ran past him. He didn't know what was going on and, frankly, he didn't give a damn. Wearing high-heeled shoes was worrying enough.
Damn Kai and his uncanny abilities to cheat at card games. No wonder Ray always lost in strip poker, too.
Ray had done his best at suggesting other kinds of "punishments", including things like doing the dishes for a month and studying Russian properly. Some ideas had been the kind you couldn't have said in front of kids, or some adults for that matter. But no. Ohh, no. Kai had insisted. Insisted, and dragged him to a special kind of store, which sold special kinds of things to very special kinds of people. And then the evil one had nearly laughed his head off.
Make no mistake, Kai was going to pay for this.
Someone laid two hands on Ray's hips. He growled in response.
"Tyson, if that's you messing around, I swear to all higher forces that I will maim you."
A snicker.
"Guess again?" the mysterious person advised. Ray felt teeth brushing his neck. The identity of the person was now very clear to him, and it didn't make his mood any better.
"Get away from me, you sadistic pervert."
"What, aren't you happy to see me?"
"After you made me wear this? Sure, I'm happy as hell. Fly me to the moon and let me play among the stars, why don't you? Take your damn hands off of me."
"Is that really what you want, Ray?" Kai asked smoothly.
"What I really want is to get out of these clothes."
"Oh, so eager, are we? Control yourself Ray, it's a public place after all..."
"Trust me, perv, that's the last thing on my mind right now", Ray snarled. He had a mirror in front of him, he could see the awkward dress he was wearing.
"Really?" Kai asked incredulously, testing his fake teeth by giving gentle bites to Ray's neck.
"Really. I have a massive headache", Ray said loudly and broke free from Kai's grasp so suddenly that Kai's teeth left with him. They crashed to the floor, making a happy little kaching!-sound as they shattered into little pieces. Ray didn't bother to apologize as he marched off in his black dress, in Kai's mind bearing some weird resemblance to angel of death.
Kai was still for a while and then, calmly, took another pair of teeth from his pocket and adjusted them to their right place. He smirked experimentally and felt satisfied with the result.
Now he only needed to find some aspirin-pills. Just because his sadistic side got kicks out of seeing that special look of anger on Ray's face.
- - -
Mystel was alone and bored beyond belief. Brooklyn was somewhere, possibly killing Garland, and both Ming-Ming and Crusher were in large groups of people, obviously not wishing to be disturbed. All the other people Mystel could have imagined himself talking to seemed busy, too.
Mystel made some skips, causing his wings to jostle threateningly. No one paid any attention.
Brooklyn wouldn't have needed to get so fidgety about it all. The police-suit really did look nice. Or better yet, if one didn't wish to be so innocent about it all, it looked hot. And there was no reason to get upset about that harmless little handcuff comment, either. It wasn't as if they'd actually be doing something with them.
To his own displeasure, Mystel realized that even his thoughts sounded disappointed about it.
"Hello, angel."
If Brooklyn hadn't existed, that voice might have been pretty similar to those Mystel would have heard in his daydreams. He turned around very slowly, and saw the devil looking at him.
After a few moments of paralyzed, slow thinking, Mystel recognized the devil as Bryan Kuznetsov, a team member of the former Blitzkrieg boys. His body was throughoutly colored in red skin-paint, and we has wearing only a pair of black biker-shorts and a smirk. A tail was attached to the shorts and a pair of horns was pointing through the silvery hair.
"A bit far away from heaven, aren't you?" Bryan asked. His smile was nothing short of devious.
And suddenly, just like that, Mystel came to understand the concept of the Temptation of Other Men.
It wasn't particularly indicated to the undeniably sexy guy in front of him, he just generally realized that there were other men than Brooklyn, men who might give him things what he wanted but couldn't get with his current boyfriend. Sure, probably he would never find anyone who could understand him as well as Brooklyn did, but he might get other things, maybe even better ones. Brooklyn would easily get over him and find someone else to take long walks in the park with; there were lots of people with potential to do that. Maybe it would be the best for everyone.
Mystel realized he still hadn't said absolutely anything to Bryan.
"Uh... I think I need some fresh air."
Grantedly not the smoothest possible choice of words, but Bryan seemed to settle for it.
"Sure thing, angel. Need some company there?"
Mystel knew that the devilish guy in front of him was just being friendly or joking around - for reasons that were extremely hard to predict - but he still had to wonder just how Bryan would have reacted if he had started flirting back.
"What do you think you are doing, Kuznetsov?"Apparently Brooklyn had returned. He was not amused.
"What does it look like I'm doing, Masefield? I'm seducing your former teammate to the dark side."
Mystel was slightly worried, now. As Brooklyn was standing there, looking more or less ready to mutilate someone, the blonde remembered one of the things which were mutual for the two of them. Both of them couldn't really understand why the other might get jealous about something they did, and both of them could get really jealous about the other, sometimes really fast. And Brooklyn, with his attention-grabbing apparel, was already only a few beats away from summoning black holes to appear to the roof. Mystel rather liked the place, and the people, in their current state of existence. Also, it seemed like a terrible waste to witness Bryan being ripped to pieces by a very small but extremely feisty tornado.
"Knock it off. I know what you are trying to achieve, and you are using the wrong person to do it. You wish to get back at him? Go harass someone else and leave this angel alone. Or I'll do something much worse than spray you with mace."
Mystel was certain that considering the last line hot was somehow terribly wrong. Still, there was something incredibly sexy about the way Brooklyn was glaring at the devil next to him.
Apparently, nothing says 'I love you, honey' better than willingness to cause major pain and suffering to someone who happened to flirt with your boyfriend.
Bryan, naturally ready to search and destroy anyone who had the nerve to try and pick a fight with him, frowned.
"How did you..." he changed his mind in the middle of the question, and continued, "why do you even care?"
Mystel counted seconds to hear the famous 'because he's a good friend of mine'. Instead, Brooklyn was shaken enough to actually demonstrate his thoughts; he stepped beside Mystel and laid his hands on the blonde's shoulders. His burning eyes, nailed to Bryan, seemed to message: This is Mine. Do not Touch.
And suddenly Mystel, usually merely annoyed by the whole 'I'm dating you so I must own your ass' –mentality some people had, came to realize very clearly what people meant when they said 'good things are worth waiting for'.
Bryan looked at them and, unexpectedly, burst into a grin.
"Oh, my bad. Have a nice evening."
He turned around and, just like that, disappeared into the masses of people.
There was a small silence.
"You just blew my date."
"Boo-effing-hoo. Want me to go get him back for you?"
Brooklyn was really losing his nerves. Mystel leaned closer to him.
"Nope. But I still need that fresh air. Are you coming with me?"
He gave Brooklyn a look which promised that he would be a good boy for the rest of the evening if the redhead would just calm down. Brooklyn seemed to consider his choices.
"I saw a balcony upstairs. It's locked, but I'm pretty sure I can get it open."
They shared a small smile and left. They didn't know about the two pale-haired males looking at them from the opposite sides of the hall.
- - -
Kane, a poor lonesome cowboy far away from home, had taken a bit too much fruit punch. He was feeling rather festive, he wanted to wave his cowboy-hat and shout 'yippee-ki-yay!'. He wasn't ready to admit that playing Die Hard ten hours in a row had damaged his brain permanently.
Talk. He obviously needed to talk to someone, right now. But Jim was talking with some blond in a miniskirt and Goki was apparently telling a joke to King-Kong. Kane didn't want to disturb them, people were often angry and quick to say stuff like 'stop drinking!' when they were disturbed. And so Kane continued his journey through the kitchen-area, searching for people he could dazzle with his clever remarks.
Suddenly he spotted some people he knew. He came up with a Creative Idea how to start the conversation.
"Helloooo, nurses!" he yelled.
Mariah and Salima, both dressed in nurses' uniforms, looked at Kane, then at each other, and then simultaneously burst into laughter.
- - -
Bryan was carefully standing close to a wall, careful not to touch it and ruin the perfect colouring on his back, when the last arriving guest of the party spotted him. Bryan had known he was there already for some time: the room had grown silent for the tenth time or so in that night. It seemed to be a perfect time for people to get shocked.
"Kuznetsov, I'll fucking kill you!"
Bryan opened his eyes and took a glance. Tala looked much better than he had expected.
"Now why would you do that? The colour or your dress brings your eyes out beautifully."
Tala was downright burning with rage.
"Even the god-damn shoes are pink!"
"Nothing wrong with pink", Mariah noted as she walked by.
"I rather like Pink, her music has a nice beat to it" Kenny said, then realized he had said something out loud, and quickly moved elsewhere.
Tala placed his hands on his hips, a gesture which, to the redhead's great annoyance, made Bryan chuckle.
"Don't you fucking dare to laugh! I'm wearing a pink dress and a tiara, I'm this close to bringing you to an endless state of comatose!"
Bryan struggled hard to look innocent. His choice of costume didn't really help his situation.
"Does this mean that you won't be my pretty, pretty princess?"
If Bryan's reflexes hadn't been top quality, Tala would have managed to punch him right in the face. This time, his fist was stopped in mid-air.
"Temper! Princesses are supposed to be lady-like, you know."
"Bite me."
"That would be Kai's job, I merely trade souls for favors. May I interest you in doing business?"
"Suuure. I hope your private member will painfully explode, and that you will sleep on the couch from now on."
"I happen to own the bed, you can't really evict me."
"Fine then. I'll sleep in Ian's bed."
"Oow, man, what did I do wrong?" Ian asked, looking quite distressed in his phantom-suit.
"Shush. And why are everyone staring at us, get back to your business people! Move along, nothing to see here, these shoes will hurt like hell if I decide to start kicking you, and so on."
Quite a noise was born when 30 people suddenly started talking about the weather.
Bryan, on the other hand, wasn't ready to let go of his amusement.
"Hey, is that lace? It looks luscious."
"Bryan, I swear to gods, stop now or I will hurt you. Badly."
"And your hair, it's so smooth and shiny, I just – alright, alright, I'll stop!" Bryan promised through laughter as he kept Tala away from strangling him. But somehow, his boyfriend in a dress which reminded him of cotton candy wasn't exactly a very threatening image. And the neatly and carefully put make-up only made it worse.
"Bastard."
"Love you too, my lady."
'He had it coming' was the only possible thing to say when Tala kicked Bryan in a very sensitive place.
- - -
Claude had no idea why Ray and Tala were wearing what they did, but he figured he really didn't even want to know. He was standing in a corner of the lounge-area, with about 15 people around him. No one was paying much attention to him.
Then he spotted a familiar face getting closer. He smiled.
A good-looking elf stopped in front of him and gave him an evaluating look. Elf raised his eyebrow.
"Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me?"
"Drink up, me 'earties, yo ho, mate."
Claude was rather proud of his outfit. He had started with the idea of Jack Sparrow's appearances, but transformed it into something that suited him rather marvellously.
"And my sword beats your arrows."
Garland shrugged, waving his bow inconspicuously.
"You do realize that sword is a clear phallos-symbol, don't you?" he asked with a sudden careless grin.
"Ah. That would explain why I have this weird urge to keep it lifted up whenever you are near."
Claude's smile was far too toothy and perverted to go unnoticed. Garland looked around and saw a slightly opened door to the balcony.
"Outside?"
The balcony, to their vexation, was occupied. Brooklyn and Mystel, who had been leaning over the bannister, turned to see the people who disturbed their peace.
"Garland. I'm glad you are still alive", Mystel noted happily.
"I bribed Brooklyn with goodies for your hedgehog and survived with slight injuries."
Claude's mind ignored the things he didn't quite understand and instead marveled the police-suit hotness from a close range.
"Weee-eell. Arrest me, officer, I've been a very naughty boy", he said with a wide grin.
He could feel Garland's disapproving stare on his neck, but Brooklyn's face was worth it.
Brooklyn, once calmed down, had returned to the state of oh-my-god-this-is-so-embarrassing, and was now blushing charmingly. Mystel gave Claude an undefined look and then seemed to instantly glue himself against Brooklyn's torso. His eyes seemed to yell 'mine mine MINE can't touch it's miiine!'. Claude was rather familiar with that look, he had used it rather often in all of his relationships.
"Relax, blondie. I don't steal people's boyfriends", he said easily and enjoyed the shocked looks he received.
"Garland, did you tell him about –"
"Oh, please, don't mock my eyes like that, it isn't really that hard to realize. He didn't told me anything. Oh, and how could he have, since we were both by coincidence in need of oxygen, just met before we saw you, and thus haven't really talked about anything at all", Claude added, not because he felt like lying, more because he knew that if he hadn't, Garland would have. This way, he could at least make his secret boyfriend feel the burn of the sarcasm.
He felt slightly vindicated when Brooklyn and Mystel gave him puzzled looks and Garland made this little sound he did always when something severely annoyed him but he couldn't say anything about it out loud.
Claude didn't personally appreciate Garland's request to keep their relationship in secrecy. Explanations about the media-fuzz and its damaging effects to a new relationship seemed a bit paranoid, considering how many bladers had already declared themselves as couples. But Claude wasn't really in favor of declining something his lover had directly asked him to do, either. Besides, as it became more and more obvious to him every day, they weren't the only unknown couple within the sport.
Brooklyn kept shifting his gaze from Garland to Claude, jumping occasionally to Mystel, and then again to Garland. Mystel, for some reason, looked like Claude had just turned into his personal hero. Then he seemed to realize everyone was being awfully quiet.
"So, uh, Claude, right? Where were you from, again?"
- - -
Ray was standing in the kitchen, drinking punch and hating the world. Tala walked right next to him, without a word. They looked at each other in silence for a while.
"Tala?"
"Yeah?"
"If I ever agree to play cards with Kai and Bryan again, hit me."
"Wouldn't it be more proper to just hit them?"
A small silence.
"Tala?"
"Yeah?"
"If we ever again agree to play cards with Kai and Bryan, we obviously need to cheat."
"... agreed."
- - -
Granger and Tate's Party Extravaganza was a great success. 45 people said later on that they would love to do the same again, some day. Two of those people said that their evening would have been momentous in a better way without those bloody dresses.
If you didn't understand the "hellooo, nurses!" -thing, you need to watch more Animaniacs.
Kai and Ray's costume ideas came from a wonderful picture that can be found from DeviantArt. It's made by user called ShinigamiTenshi. Check it out. :D
I'm sure I've seen Tala in a pink dress, too, but I couldn't find the picture. Help, anyone?
If you read it, please leave a review, they are much appreciated.
... Happy holidays, everyone!