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It’s Station Three’s annual costume party, and Galo is trying exceedingly hard not to lose focus.
Stay focused, Galo Thymos.
Stay focused.
Gueira laughs at something, loud and with a snorting smile.
Galo’s eyes flit in his direction, for a moment, and immediately dart down to where Lio’s vampire cape most definitely does not cover his ass in those too-tight little high-waisted pants.
Before he can bring himself to look away, he’s hit in the head with a snack-size pack of Skittles.
“Hey horndog!” Lucia says, as it hits him on the side of his forehead.
“Ow!” Galo whines, before fumbling to catch the candy. He succeeds, after it slips through his fingers only a slightly embarrassing amount of times. It’s like he’s playing the world’s saddest solo game of hot potato.
He turns to glare at her once he has the candy in his hands. “What was that for?”
He throws the candy back at her, but she catches it one-handed, without even looking up from her tablet.
“I can practically hear you being whipped over there, you know.”
Galo shoots her a questioning glance. “Huh?”
Lucia looks up, unamused. “You know.” Galo shakes his head. She mimes a whipping motion. “Wha-psh!”
Galo blinks blankly at her, again.
“Hallowed be thy ween, or whatever, but I do not wanna see yours.”
Another blink. “What?”
“Ugh,” she groans, finally setting her tablet to one side. “Dude, can you go, like, two seconds without ogling your boyfriend?”
Oh. Galo runs beet red.
“He’s pretty, we get it. Chop chop, don’t burn the cookies!”
Galo stammers as he pulls the cookies out of the oven just a little more forcefully than necessary.
“Wha- I wasn’t- you can’t- I was just- it’s not like I was-“
“Yeah, yeah, eyefuck him later, come on!” She hops off the stool at the kitchen island and bounces over to him, only to have her hand twacked away with a spatula when she tries to grab a cookie straight from the pan.
“Hey!” Now it’s her turn to glare at him.
Galo tuts, waving a finger at her, before using the spatula to gently scrape them off the tray and deposit them on the drying rack.
“You know, for someone who’s supposed to be a firefighter, you sure do a lot of things that would end up in you being burnt.”
She wiggles her fingers before trying to dart in for another cookie. Galo swats her away again.
“My nerves in my finger-pads are all shot. You don’t make mechs like I do without a few soldering burns, now and then.”
She darts her hand in, again. Galo swats her away.
“You little-!” Galo gets into a cat fight with her as they swat at each other, one determined to get a cookie, and the other determined not to let her in before they’ve cooled down.
It’s distraction enough for Lio to slip behind him and grab one from the drying rack.
Galo only notices when he hears the telltale crunch of a bite beside him.
Like barn owls, he and Lucia slowly turn.
Lio stands here, red handed, cookie still in his hand, one cheek puffed out from the bite in his mouth.
He holds the eye contact for the briefest moment before he resumes his chewing.
Immediately, Galo is on him instead.
“You!” He lunges for his boyfriend, and Lio dodges playfully, out of reach.
Galo reaches for the cookie again, and Lio vaults himself over the island.
“No fair!” Galo laments, as Lucia and Vinny both sneak some, while he gives chase. “No ganging up on me! You don’t do this when Aina bakes stuff for you!”
As if on cue, Aina waltzes in from the other room, Remi in tow.
“They don’t do it to me because I am a lady,” she says, batting her eyes. She sprawls herself over the common area’s couch, for good measure.
Galo scoffs. Lio shoves the rest of the cookie in his mouth, just to spite him.
“I’m a gentleman!” Galo says, in defense, before looking back at Lio, and his faux-annoyance cracks. He puffs his cheeks out in imitation of his boyfriend. “You look like a hamster with those cheeks.”
“Yeah, sure, ‘cause those were the cheeks you were looking at,” Lucia teases him.
Galo throws the spatula at her.
Meanwhile, Lio just swallows what’s left of his cookie, and smiles. “What can I say?” He wipes the crumbs from his mouth. “Not my fault the vampire costume makes my butt look good.”
Lucia takes the false chainsaw from her creepy clown costume, and starts chasing Galo around with it.
“You know,” Aina says, “I’m surprised you guys didn’t do, like, a cheesy couples costume.”
Meis shoots her a blank glance. “I am standing right here.”
He and Gueira are in a peanut butter and jelly costume. Gueira is the peanut butter slice. Meis is the jelly one.
Lio rolls his eyes. “This is why you never let Gueira pick the costumes.”
Gueira gasps, faux-scandalized. “For your information, boss, I, for one, enjoy being a peanut-buttered piece of sliced bread.”
Meis does the biggest facepalm. “You’re so lucky I love you.”
Gueira points finger guns at him. “You’re the bread to my butter.”
“Please stop.”
“This,” Lio interrupts, “is why we chose vampire and werewolf.” He does a little twirl to show off his cloak. “They’re classics. They always look good.”
Aina hums. “A lot less intimidating when they’re being chased by a tiny, bloody, neon clown, though.”
There’s more distant screeching from Galo and Lucia as she chases him down the hallway.
Lio chuckles. “God,” he sighs, “he’s so stupid.” Even as he jokes, his smile softens, eyes growing more endearing by the second. “I gotta marry him.”
Aina raises an eyebrow.
Gueira snorts. “Who’d’ve guessed that boss had a type?””
Meis rolls his eyes. “You’ve got low standards.”
Lio levels them both with a glance. “You are dressed as two halves of a sandwich that barely even counts as a sandwich in the first place.”
Meis says “touché,” while Gueira clutches his metaphorical pearls. “I will have no such PB&J slander!”
Lucia finally chases Galo back into the room, their pace having slowed from a run to more of a speed walk.
“Okay, okay, fine!” Galo says. “At least wait till I frost ‘em!”
“Frost them! Frost them! Frost them!” Lucia chants.
Lio tucks his cape over the back of the sofa, and rolls up his sleeves to join him.
“Could you use a hand?” Lio asks, as he sidles up to him.
Galo lights up, and hands him a bowl of frosting. “If you’re asking, firebug? Always.”
Lio dips his finger in the frosting, and splats just a dollop onto the edge of Galo’s nose.
“Wha- hey! Firebug!”
They’re covered in frosting by the end of the evening.
As they’re about to shower for the night, Galo glances over at him.
“So, you’re keeping the pants, right?”
Remi throws a towel at him. “No flirting in the showers!”
Galo gawks. “Oh, okay, mister Reads-Playboy-On-Company-Time!”
Remi’s voice echoes in the tiled chamber of the shower rooms. “Not the same thing as flirting!”
Lio does end up keeping the pants from the costume.
He wears them on their next day off.
He may or may not deliberately wear heeled boots to give himself just a little extra pop.
Galo may or may not walk into numerous objects that evening. For reasons that may or may not be related, of course.
And if Lio decides to wear an even more enticing costume next Halloween, well. Galo will just have to figure out a way to survive it.