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"Pumpkin Carving Party "Written By: Kaeru Shisho Disclaimer: I don't own any part of Gundam Wing
or its characters, nor do I make any monetary profit off this story. Rating: R Warnings: Romance/Humor Pairings: 1+2, 3+4 Summary: 2013 Halloween fun-for-all with romantic and vegetable entanglements A/N: Many thanks to Waterlily for her helpful
comments and editing and to Snowdragon for her inspiring Halloween
gifts.
"Pumpkin Carving Party " Duo stared at the orange-yellow vegetable resting at his feet, resisting the urge to give it a sharp kick and be done with it. He harnessed his inner executioner, exhaled expressively, and asked flatly, "So, Quat, you've done this before, I take it? I mean, it's your party. Where do we begin?" "I already washed them all, so now you have to cut it open and take out the seeds. Smile! It's fun!" Quatre laughed at the looks of defiance and, possibly, hostility aimed his way. "This part is really messy, that's why we're on lawn and not Relena's lovely porch. Oh, don't cut the top of like that! Here, let someone else. Heero! That's a beautiful job. See, Duo? Look at how Heero cuts at an angle so the top is like a lid and won't fall in?" "Don't listen to him," Heero advised. "Just get started." Trowa looked askance at Quatre, weighing whether or not it would be worth the effort to begin carving a pumpkin. One false start and who knows what Quatre would make him do for punishment? He heaved a sigh matching the one Duo let out in volume and intensity. Quatre meant well, Trowa supposed, but he recognized when his friend's enthusiasm for a project was about to overwhelm his own meager interest. It already had, in fact. "Nuts," he muttered. Immediately he felt everyone's attention on him and was sorry he hadn't kept his complaint to himself. "No, it contains seeds," Quatre corrected him. Heero abruptly cut off anything more Quatre thought he needed to contribute. "Want me to cut this one for you?" With the point of his blade, he indicated Trowa's pumpkin was his intended subject. "Yeah, thanks," Trowa rolled the pumpkin his way with a gentle push. "I'll just watch. Don't want to mar the merchandise." Duo smiled at Heero as Trowa sat back on his heels and observed the carving disinterestedly. "You look like you've been practicing," Duo remarked to Heero. Heero hacked and carved with expert ease. "I had to do this for all Quatre's sisters' kids last week, so I became efficient." "Ah..." Trowa commented, hiding a yawn with his hand. He stretched out on the grass and closed his eyes, an arm pillowing the back of his head. "Wake me when it's over." Heero flicked a seed off his knife blade and into the air. The seed landed on Trowa's face. "Nice launch!" Duo commended him. He scooted closer to Heero. "What is all that goop- the seeds?" "Yeah, you have to scoop it all out. Quatre! We need some bowls!" Heero shouted. "Bowls for the bowels!" Duo barked. "Heh, heh..." Wufei made a face then looked at a similar pumpkin mess in front of him awaiting his attention. His stomach turned. Bowels indeed. He simply could not compel his hands to touch the slimy, slippery seed and pulp mass. "I see why Relena left this foul task to us. She'll be in late tonight? How convenient. Couldn't this have been a night carving party instead?" "Wufei!" Quatre said in a sharp tone. "The real party is tomorrow. You can imagine how much she has to do for that! It's for the children." "Do it for the children," Trowa echoed in the background. "Too bad her brother couldn't have lent a hand," Duo remarked, keeping along the same vein as Wufei. Heero turned to him with a hard stare. "Zechs is still on a mission," he said sharply and added under his breath, "Consider that good luck." "Good luck if he makes it back," Quatre said to anyone who might care. He had Wufei's rapt attention, at least. "Preventers keeps him off planet most of the time." "There's a reason for that," Trowa murmured. "A good one," Heero tagged on. He didn't bother to hide his dislike for the man. "So, do we dump these bowls somewhere? Mine's pretty full," Duo asked. "The seeds, roasted make nutritious snacks." Heero scraped and smoothed the interior some more. "Oh yeah? Hey, we outta save all these and toast 'em," Duo suggested. "Oh, yes, roasted and salted, the seeds make the best treat!" Quatre agreed. "That's what I just said," Heero muttered. "I'll take care of it then," Wufei announced, standing. Pleased that he had found a task suited to his taste, Wufei swept away the close-to-overflowing bowls of pulp and seeds and disappeared indoors. Quatre opened his mouth to say something to him, but Wufei was out of range. "Well, the rest of us will have to make two more each then to make up for what he doesn't do. Are we all clear about that?" Feeling Quatre level his meaningful gaze upon him, Trowa removed the arm covering his eyes and waved in the general direction of Heero. "He's doing the prep work." "Hey, you are good at the prep work," Duo smiled fetchingly over at Heero. "Want me to do one for you?" he inquired. Heero wasn't fooled by Duo's flirty look. He knew Duo. When there was something Duo wanted, he had his many ways, and this was one of them. It didn't make him mad either. He accepted Duo in all his guises and with all his faults. Perhaps, had he thought about it-which he didn't, not being one for deep introspection on a warm, fall afternoon with friends-those were the very qualities that drew Duo to him. Unpredictable but loyal, cute, but not pretty, and conveniently located-he lived right down the street from Heero. "Oh, me, too! I can't even get started!" Quatre cried out. "Your hands are so strong," he sighed at Heero's elbow. "You make it look so easy. How do you get the edges so smooth?" Trowa stirred and turned so as to keep an eye on what Heero and Quatre were up to. "Just taking my time. Rush it and you'll over shoot and slice too deeply or too far. Some sawing action here to do the curves." Heero explained his methodology to anyone who was listening. Then he made quick work of Duo's pumpkin. "There...ah...don't you want to get a better looking one? That one's deformed." Satisfied that Quatre wasn't hitting on Heero, just being friendly, Trowa closed his eyes again, hungering for some attention of his own in the warmth of the fall afternoon. "Deformed? What?" Duo cried out. "No way! This is one'll make a great gruesome ghoul," Duo said, grinning. "Okay..." Heero said, returning a smile. "Whatever you like. Quatre, yours next, since it looks as if we've lost Trowa for the afternoon." "Not true," Trowa mumbled and started to move. Wufei flounced out the door, redistributed the bowls, empty, and zipped away back into the kitchen. "Was he wearing a skirt?" Duo whispered to Quatre. "Oh, no. That was an apron," he assured his friend. "Rashid wore one for barbequing." "It was a pretty fancy one," Heero pointed out. "Rashid's was plain canvas." "Not fancy-ruffled," Quatre insisted. "Cook probably forced it on him." "I didn't know Wufei could be forced into anything," Duo commented, "although, he is here doing this-" "Doing something," Heero said, "but not this." Heero settled into a rhythm, constructing plain hollowed out shells ready for the others to decorate. He had next to no creativity, nothing like Duo. He couldn't see faces on squash. Preparing them was what he was good at, and so, it made him feel good. "I've got some ideas, but I'm not doing Tro-bro's and 'Fei-man's shares!" Duo said. "I's gots my limits." Trowa sat up at the sound of his name being abused. "I'm up!" He rolled near to Duo and looked over his shoulder at his sketches. "Those look pretty cool. I'm gonna borrow those eyes for this one of mine." "Borrow all ya want. The great and deadly Duo Maxwell has more sensational design ideas where that one came from!" he laughed a bit at his own bravado. Trowa drove a knife blade through the thick shell and twisted. "This is harder than it looks, huh?" "Haven't you carved Halloween pumpkins before, Trowa?" Quatre asked. "No...but I've done a lotta carvin'," he smirked. On people, not pumpkins. Quatre made a face. "Hit him for me, Duo." "Me? Oh, not me. He wouldn't even feel one of my attacks-or care. You go for it." Duo chuckled. "Just sit there and give him lots of that 'go-gettum' encouragement of yours." He smiled to himself and focused on digging out an eye-hole. "I can show you how to get started on a face, Trowa. And then...you can learn right along with Duo. I'm sure you'll do a great job!" Quatre said with boundless zest. "Wufei has been gone a long time. You don't think he's run out on us, do you?" "He's in the kitchen," Heero supplied. "I can hear him insulting someone. Better go see who he's talking to." "I hope it's not the cook! We might never get dinner!" Quatre shouted and left dutifully on the quest. Trowa shook his head and give Duo a quick twisted smile. "And then there were three. The team reduced to the cutting edge." "Heh, heh." Duo tossed his braid over his shoulder, saving it from a puddle of pumpkin guts. "Poor Quat, he's going to miss all the fun out here. And it's his first pumpkin carving party." "Second," Heero revised, "that I've been to." "I'm just trying to avoid the work," Trowa admitted. "Poor baby," Duo repeated, but his remark held little sympathy. "C'mon." Heero sounded gruff and skewered Trowa with a hard gaze. "Get started. We have a few dozen of these to do, and I am not doing your allotment." "Sure." Trowa looked over Duo's designs one more time. A sly smile crept over his face. The drawings had sparked an idea of his own. "You can have this back," he said and pushed the paper back to Duo. Duo and Heero worked side-by-side. They were serious and absorbed. Heero was carving picture-book perfect, jack-o-lantern faces in each of the two hollowed out gourds he had prepared. He had production down to a science and might possibly complete more than ten on his own. Duo had spent all the time he was going to in the planning stages and was now focused on the execution. He figured that spontaneity would help create some of the most terrifying visages, and so far, he was right. He had one with six melting, tortured eyes complete with pupils, each looking in a different direction, in a sea of bumpy, oozing skin, with three moaning mouths full of jagged teeth in random places. There was another that was all sharp, triangular fang-like cuts, with evil-looking eyes and a mouthful of fangs that took up nearly the entire face. Then there was the one with stitch-marks over a hideously disproportionate face, as if several heads had been sown together into one; the one with mouths for eyes (an homage to a comic book he'd read, he claimed); one with several long, snake-tongues protruding from a wide, wide grin full of tiny little razor-teeth and small, perfectly round eyes he'd made by punching a thin knife through the pumpkin flesh and turning it 360 degrees. In his wild fervor, Duo became covered in little flecks of orange pumpkin, like a slasher-film villain splashed with his victim's blood. Yes, Duo was into phantasmagorical, emphasis on the "gore." Trowa chose a different approach. His would be fewer in number, maybe only two or three total for the day, but each would be a masterpiece. Using the tip of a sharp blade, he drew an elaborate spider web motif onto the outer surface of one large, twisted pumpkin. With studious attention to detail and technique, he scraped away the lines in thin strips. Soon, he'd mastered the skill and had the carving techniques down to a fine art. Now he was having fun. The other one, he planned, would be a haunted house, with cracked windows and broken shingles, and a twisted tree in the yard. He also had plans for a werewolf head with long hairs like trails of blood, and maybe a mummy with unraveling bandages, if he had time. "Wufei should be done soon. He's making us snacks." Quatre rejoined the group, looking over the carvings in progress before taking a place near Trowa. "I just can't think of anything to make," Quatre sighed. "You guys all seem to have such great ideas...I'm, like...you know...a blank right now." "You'll come up with something. You like cats," Trowa suggested. Duo snickered. "You like cats! One Quat in particular-" "-Duo, shut up." Heero elbowed him in the ribs for emphasis. "Do something traditional then." That had been his solution. "Or gory and sca-ary! Caw-caw!" squawked Duo with an added crow call. "I can't be so ghoulish and I don't want to copy you, Heero." Quatre stared at his hollowed, blank palate pumpkin and then at Trowa's intricate creation. "Hmmm-" And with a tentative slice he started to carve. Trowa finished his spider web and cleaned his knife blade on the grass. "You must have settled on something." "I'm making cat faces!" Quatre announced. "Oh? Let me see," Trowa said, leaning closer into Quatre's work area, and brushing up against the young man. "Watch out!" Heero said to Duo, who was so intent on his own task he wasn't paying attention to the pile of goopy pumpkin cuttings between them. "Don't move backwards!" Duo froze in place automatically, generally trusting Heero's judgment. So did Trowa, weighing whether or not his aggressive hovering over Quatre might have triggered some kind of protective reaction in Heero. Duo turned and looked behind him. Another inch and he would have been sitting in the muck. "Good save, my man! Thanks!" "What do you think, Trowa?" Quatre asked. "That's..." Not about me, he heaved a sigh of relief, "... the cutest kitten face ever." He gave the pumpkin a pat and removed his hand, bringing it to rest on Quatre's shoulder in celebration. Both Duo and Heero stood and walked over to look. They'd never heard the mercenary utter the word "cute"-ever-so they couldn't miss this. "See? You use the triangles cut out for eyes, and stick them in the top with toothpicks for ears! Then the part you cut away for the slits in the eyes becomes the inside of the ears!" Quatre explained his inventive process. "Hey, that is cute. Why don't you do one like that?" Duo prodded Heero in the side. "Would you mind if Heero stole your idea, Quat?" "So could you," Heero returned. "Oh no!" Quatre cried out. "I don't mind at all! The more cats the better! Besides, we have dozens of these to carve so it wouldn't be right for me to keep just the one cat to myself, would it?" he smiled cheerily and added, "I've got some pipe cleaners and glitter glue and ribbons too. We could dress them up!" Quatre was looking in the direction of Heero and Duo, and missed Trowa's horrified expression. "Umm," Duo and Heero said together. "I'll go get my supplies. I left them in the trunk of my car from the other day." "I'll help y-" Trowa began. Heero's arm shot out and clenched his ankle in an iron grip. "You will stay and help us." "I'll help by... staying," Trowa said, sitting again. "We'd better get going on the rest of these then, huh?" Duo reminded him. "Correct. I want some time to do something else, later," Heero said. "Right." Trowa shared eloquent look with the others, even if they all weren't sure what it was they knew, they expressed a similar secret knowledge of it. The three friends worked with renewed energy and a passionate drive to accomplish the mission, and they had several more pumpkins in process by the time Quatre came back weighted down by a heavy-looking box of crafting materials. "I had these left over from my nieces' party, remember Heero?" He did, and for an answer, dipped his chin slightly. "I have come up with a new design for a face," Heero said, his voice muffled as he buried his head, practically, in his largest pumpkin. "Cool, can't wait to see it. Hey, Quat! Lemme see whatcher got there," Duo said. "I'm actually kinda interested in what the extra beautifications can do for my apparitions." Adding some bloody red and baleful black glue suggested dripping wounds. "Oooh, yeah, baby! Gore, gore, gore! But I'm stopping at the ribbons. No, foo-foo for me." Seeing that he wasn't expected to tie bows on his creations, Heero outlined a couple of his jack-o-lantern eyes with gold glitter. Trowa discovered that mixing the green and black made vile slime. "Thanks." Trowa nodded to Quatre. "Anytime," Quatre replied, and flashed a smile in return. When Heero noticed for the third time that Duo looking at him with a smug smile, he set down his tools and asked, "Duo, what's with the look?" "Look? What look?" Duo appeared surprised, but that altered as Heero continued to stare at him. His eyes looked away and his thumb rubbed the warty-looking bumps on a pumpkin. "Like you know something you shouldn't," Heero said, finally. He wasn't trying to make him uncomfortable, but apparently he had. "Oh, well." Duo grew in confidence. "I wasn't doing it on purpose." He flashed Heero a cocky grin and said glibly, "Must have been my subconscious working on its own." "Hn. That was bullshit." "Oh, all right. I was just comparing your old style pumpkin face with your much-touted new-and-improved version and for the life of me I can't tell them apart." "I haven't made one off the new design yet." "Ahhh... so... That's probably it then," Duo replied with an amused tone. Heero was sure he had just let Duo off easy. He was pretty sure that comparative pumpkin carving wasn't what Duo had been pondering when he had been staring at him. He was fairly certain Duo had been checking him out. He hoped that was it, anyway. While Heero was distracted by Duo, who'd been distracted by Heero, Quatre heard a car rumble over the gravel driveway. At the sound of a car door, he raised his eyes from his carving wondering if they might have another helper coming over. A screen of tall, clipped shrubs blocked his view, but he could hear footfalls coming around toward the gate. Before he could point out that they had a new arrival about to enter the scene, the door leading from the house to the patio slammed open and Wufei appeared outside, his arms loaded with a tray of bowls. "Don't anybody bother helping me," Wufei said. "We won't," Duo replied. "See, what sarcasm gets you?" Trowa joked. "That's a lot of food!" Quatre observed. "I'll help!" He started to stand. In his path he spied a recently created mound of slippery seed and stringy pumpkin goop. The tray was so large Quatre guessed that his laden friend couldn't see around it to avoid the mess. "This isn't all my creation," Wufei told them. He seemed unconscious of what seedy trap lay in wait. "Just to set things straight," "Watch your step!" Quatre cried out. "I found the cook and together, we conspired- Oh!" Wufei's rant was cut short. In one universe, Wufei slipped, nicely roasted and seasoned seeds flew, and there were angry words spoken. But not in this one. In this one, Trowa had been distracted by Quatre's presence, much in the way Heero and Duo were skirting the edge of their mutual infatuation, making them a little preoccupied. At the shout, his eyes fell from admiring Quatre's nicely shaped ass to the ground where the blond pointed out the imminent danger. He leaped off the ground, while still assessing the situation, and grabbed the tray, steadying it- or ripping it out of Wufei's hands, depending on who told the story. Although he managed to miss the mound of slippery seeds and stringy goop, Wufei did over-balance enough to fall onto a discarded, partially rotting pumpkin, smashing it flat, with a generous sprinkling of seeds and guts spewing out. Whether it was fair to attribute his fall to Trowa's hasty grab or not, Wufei let out an unscripted tirade in mostly Chinese with a spattering of recognizable swear words affixed to Trowa's name. "-but I saved the seeds you worked so hard on!" Trowa said defending himself. "Thank you, Trowa, for your quick thinking." Quatre showered him with a warm radiance of affection, all the thanks he needed, but the added words bought the blood rising to his cheeks. The garden gate opened from the drive and out strode Zechs shouldering a worn-looking duffle bag. At the same moment from the house came a rotund man carrying a matching giant tray loaded with beer bottles and chips and salsa. "What's this? And why are you languishing in the muck down there?" The tall, blond asked the red-faced Chinese man. Wufei, mortified, opened his mouth and let it hang there, staring up at the elegant, yet, casually dressed, owner of the estate. "Wu's just getting into his pumpkin," Duo explained. He failed at not smiling. "You got back early!" Quatre shouted, and ran over to greet his friend. "Commander Une wouldn't tell us if you were due back this week, this month, or even this year!" Heero helped the cook place his serving tray of beverages and snacks safely on the long table, while Trowa lowered his platter containing the bowls of roasted seeds beside it. "Does this mean we're done carving?" Trowa whispered. "No. We are done when the pile of plain ones is gone. This is just an interruption to our progress," Heero said, sounding as surly as he felt. "This is great!" Duo cried out. "Zechs, grab a beer and a knife and have a seat. You can learn to carve pumpkins." "Nicely done, Duo," Heero complimented him, although he wasn't close enough to Duo for him to have overheard. "Observe how the slick prince gets away," Trowa said to Heero. "Thank you for the invitation, but I've done that before," Zechs said with a gesture to the pumpkins. "Many times. Here, Wufei-" He clasped Wufei by the hand and hefted the smaller man to his feet. "Come inside and clean up. I'm certain I can find you something to wear, however nice you look in that pinafore." "I-it's an apron! I was-!" Wufei traded off looking offended and starry-eyed. "I'm sure you were," Milliardo clucked, pulling him a tad closer, brushing off a few seeds and fussing with the apron ties. "Aw, man! We just got him out here to do some useful work, and now you're taking him away?!" Duo protested. Zechs winked cunningly at Duo. "My apologies," he said with a curt bow before leading away the silent young man in his grip. "What do you think he meant by that?" Duo asked, baffled by the wink. "Get a beer and go back to work," Heero advised him. "We won't be seeing Wufei for a while," Trowa added, "is my assumption." The group sipped and supped on the snacks, making the work go more pleasurably and a little faster. And hour passed leaving the food demolished down to the last crumb, the carving completed except for a few finishing touches, and the mess mostly cleaned up by Quatre. "DONE!" Duo proclaimed. "I declare we are all through, over and done, fini, complete-" "Mission accomplished," Heero added with a grin at his own silliness. "Right !" Quatre brushed the bangs out of his eyes, painting a stripe of gold glitter across the hair. "Yes. Just look at them!" They stood and examined the host of cats, grinning Jack-o-lanterns, goblins, and creepy scenes carved from the orange pumpkins. "Cool," Trowa proclaimed. "I hope Relena's satisfied with them," Heero said. "I won't do another." "Not for a whole year," Duo agreed with a toothy smile. "I need to clean up, if we're going to eat dinner here tonight," Trowa said. He appeared to be preparing to leave, but paused to scrutinize Quatre's new "hair do". In his mind, Quatre glowed; now he sparkled, which over-stimulated his erotic desires. He advised, "You might want to get rid of that touchup job, too." Quatre didn't understand what Trowa meant, from the quizzical look he gave him, but it wasn't relevant, since he had everything under control-no matter how obtuse Trowa might be. "Relena said we could use the guest facilities," Quatre pointed out to the small cottages which sat apart from the main house. "Fine with me," Trowa agreed immediately. "You have keys for us?" "I do. One for each house." There were two buildings. "Here, Duo," he said dropping a key in his friend's hand, "you and Heero can share the first one." He smiled, attempting, maybe, to look innocent of any pre-planning. "Trowa, you won't mind sharing the other one with me?" Trowa didn't mind at all, if the tiny smile tickling at the corners of his lips was any indication. "No problem." Duo was nodding. "Right. What about Wufei?" Heero prodded him on the shoulder, directing him toward the path to the first cottage. "I'm sure he's well taken care of." "You don't hear him complaining do you?" Trowa said near Duo's ear, snickering. "No, I guess not. Okey-dokey. C'mon, 'Ro, let's see how Relena treats her guests out here." Dinner was late that evening, by mutual agreement. The established story was that they asked dinner be "held for Relena", who arrived about nine o'clock from the airport. She was thrilled to see the pumpkins lit and grimacing on the porch and her half-brother home unexpectedly and all her "boys" completely relieved of stress, and clean and shining with the pleasure of her company. Little did she know what had been going on between pumpkin carving and dinner, but everyone had a memorable night before Halloween. Best wishes for a Happy Halloween of your own this year! The End.
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