A/N: Hi! *wave* This is yet another Linkllen idea from Tumblr, and this one's a little unusual for me. *smile* Still, I hope you like it!
Title: Pale Blue Ribbons
Author: liketolaugh
Rating: T
Pairings: Link/Allen
Genre: Friendship/Romance
Warnings: AU
Summary: Allen likes to wear dresses. Also known as: the crossdressing AU. (College AU.)
Disclaimer: I only wish I owned D. Gray-man.
Cross, at present, was scarcely aware of anything outside of a slow, creeping sense of dread. It told him, danger! It told him, not again! He remembered it well from the first time Allen had charmed a stranger into giving them a free room, and from the first time Allen had cheated at cards, and the first time he realized Allen spent a significant portion of his time sitting outside Cross' door, reading and waiting for him to finish fucking whoever he was fucking that night.
"Give us a little twirl, let's see how that dress moves!"
It was, without a doubt, his 'Allen Walker is a weird fucking kid' sense.
A few yards in front of him, Allen twirled, and the light blue dress he was wearing, courtesy of fuck-knows-where, swirled around his knees. A matching ribbon tied into his hair fluttered with the movement. The girls – of which there were no fewer than three – 'ooh'ed and 'aah'ed appreciatively, and Allen beamed.
Cross had expected it to be funny. He'd been anticipating a night spent laughing at his apprentice's misery as the girls wheedled him into trying on dresses and makeup.
But no. No wheedling necessary. Because Allen was enjoying it.
"For fuck's sake, Allen," Cross said, not particularly expecting to be acknowledged.
Sure enough, Allen shot him a brief, nasty look, but didn't have time to say anything before the brunette caught his attention again with a hand on his arm. He looked back at her to give her an inquisitive look, and the woman grinned at him.
"Don't mind him, he's just grumpy that he couldn't pull off a dress half as well as you," she reassured him, and Allen snickered.
Cross almost complained that he didn't want to pull off a dress half as well as his apprentice did, considered how much teasing that would open him up for, and thought better of it. Instead, he sulked.
Fortunately, their attention was no longer on him. Instead, all three women were staring intently at Allen, who was growing more visibly confused by the moment.
"Glitter?" the redhead suggested after a moment.
"Glitter eyeshadow," the blonde said decisively. "Turquoise."
The other two hummed in agreement. The brunette departed briefly to go get it, while the blonde started to explain the finer points of color matching to his attentive apprentice and the redhead pitched in occasionally.
Cross sighed and settled back for a long, long night.
Good thing he had wine.
At eighteen years old, going on nineteen, Allen had very little idea of what had gotten him through his grade school years, let alone out of his grade school years and into college. Constant travel through the most remote parts of the world wasn't really conducive to a good learning environment.
But somehow, some way, Cross – in between drinking and screwing around and collecting debt for Allen to pay off – had managed to tutor him enough for Allen to get his GED, something that Cross had dragged him to the US just to do.
Why the US, Allen had no idea. Cross had insisted on it.
And then, when he'd gotten his GED, Cross insisted on him going to college. In the US.
Allen had given up on understanding his master a long time ago.
The point was, though, that all of this was what had brought Allen here, standing in the apartment he shared with Kanda and Alma, in front of a smirking Lavi, waiting for the axe to fall.
This was why Allen didn't make bets. If he wasn't cheating, his luck was terrible.
"Hm…" Lavi pondered, dramatically stroking his clean-shaven chin. Allen eyed him warily. "You know, I didn't think I'd get this far."
"Then why did you make the bet?" Allen muttered under his breath.
"For the sake of betting," Lavi said plainly, a small grin flickering across his face. Then, half to himself, "Getting you to run naked across the grounds is kinda overdone, Kanda had dibs on making you shave your head…" Lavi abruptly got a very evil grin on his face. "You know what?"
Allen resisted the urge to take a step back. "What?" he asked apprehensively.
"I," Lavi declared grandly, "am going to make you wear a dress."
Allen blinked.
"Is that all?"
Lavi's proud expression immediately collapsed into something dangerously close to a pout. "Is that all?" he demanded petulantly. "It's traditional, is what it is! A classic!"
"Alma wears dresses all the time," Allen pointed out, not adding that he used to as well – the girls at the brothels Cross dragged him to had stopped dolling him up when he was about thirteen, but he still remembered.
"Yeah, but that's Alma," Lavi said, as if that explained everything. A moment later, he made an 'aha' sort of sound and pointed accusingly at Allen. "Oh no, you're not getting out of this by playing nonchalant with me! I've never seen you in a dress before, and you're not getting out of this until I do!"
In all honesty, it hadn't occurred to Allen to dress up by himself. It was something Alma did on a fairly regular basis, but Allen had never made the logical leap into doing it himself.
Well, at least it was serving him well now.
"Alright," Allen said agreeably, hiding a smile at Lavi's increasingly befuddled look. "Give me a few days. I want to talk to Alma about this."
"You don't need to talk to Alma to learn how to put on a dress," Lavi argued, but with a wave of his hand and a clearly amused shake of his head, gave the go-ahead anyway.
Allen honestly found it really, really funny that Lavi was so sure Allen wouldn't enjoy this.
Allen stared at the mirror, more than a little bit dumbfounded.
"You are magical," he informed Alma, who beamed, clearly proud of himself.
"I know a lot of tricks," he explained, grinning at Allen. "I've been playing with makeup since my painful acne years, so trust me, I've tried everything."
"My scar is not acne," Allen pointed out, but he couldn't stop smiling.
"It's not," Alma agreed. "But apparently a lot of the same tricks apply, because look." He made a little explosion gesture with his free hand. "Poof. Gone."
Allen laughed. "Thanks."
"Anytime," Alma beamed back, straightening up. "I can't believe you didn't mention this to me sooner." He pouted at Allen. "Think of all the fun we could have had. For months you've kept this from me. Months, Allen!"
"I'd kind of forgotten about it," Allen admitted, chuckling sheepishly.
While Alma was rolling his eyes and sighing dramatically, Allen pushed himself up from the makeup table (complete with large mirror) and stood back, looking himself up and down quickly.
He'd needed Alma's help to obtain some of this on such short notice, and a lot of it had been borrowed from Alma, but at eighteen rather than ten, there were a lot more things to play with than just dresses and eye shadow.
Allen was wearing a dark blue, one-shouldered dress, designed so it fell in folds and gathered under one 'breast', with an ice blue ribbon tied around the waistline and a bow resting on top of the center of the folds; it dropped almost all the way to a black pair of two-inch heels. His scarred left arm stood out clearly, all the way up to the tattoo he'd gotten on his eighteenth birthday. He'd put on eye shadow a few shades lighter than his dress, as well as eyeliner and mascara, but hadn't had the time to get fake eyelashes as well. On the other hand, he'd managed to lend his face the illusion of being more feminine than it really was, which almost made up for it.
And, to top it all off, Alma had helped him figure out how to cover up his scar so it was like it had never been there at all.
The dress had been a gift from Cross (who had either anticipated this or was trying to be an asshole, Allen could never tell which) while the makeup had been borrowed from Alma. The breast forms had been purchased from a place Alma knew, and the shoes as well.
"Lavi won't know what hit him," Alma smiled, clapping Allen on the shoulder.
"And Kanda's going to know you had a hand in this," Allen pointed out in return, amused.
"That's alright!" Alma said cheerfully. "He won't mind!"
No, he would just grumble endlessly under his breath. Allen laughed.
"Go on, then!" Alma urged, pushing lightly. "I want to see the look on Lavi's face."
"Okay, okay," Allen chuckled, going on and out the door.
In the main room, Lavi was lounging on the couch on the opposite end from Kanda (after having been shoved over multiple times, if experience was any indicator) while Lenalee was perched on the arm beside him, having come to watch the show.
All of them looked over when the door opened, and Allen took a great deal of satisfaction out of seeing Lavi's jaw drop, even as Kanda sat up sharply and Lenalee's eyes widened.
In the beat of silence that followed, Allen crossed his arms and let his satisfaction leak into his grin, hips tilting in a way he didn't normally let them.
"Uh, Allen," Lavi said hesitantly, after a moment, "You know I only said you had to wear a dress, right?"
"For being top of your year, you can be pretty dumb sometimes, Lavi," Allen said cheerfully. "I like wearing women's clothing. Honestly, I should've done this a long time ago."
Lavi stared, and then flopped backward with his hand over his eyes. "Damn. I wasted my chance." Under his breath, "Should've made you run across the grounds naked after all."
Another beat, and then Lenalee was sliding off the arm of the couch and approaching him, pleased. "You look gorgeous, Allen," she told him, looking delighted by this turn of events, probably at least partially at Lavi's expense. "Did Alma help you?"
"Yeah, he did," Allen confirmed with a smile and a nod. "I asked him almost right after Lavi first named his price." He barely refrained from shooting a smirk at the still-despondent Lavi.
"He knew a lot already," Alma offered, cheerfully ignoring Kanda's almost accusing look. "I think he's better with eye makeup than you, Lena!"
"No," Lenalee gasped, but a smile still twinkled in her eyes. "Now that's just not fair."
"Does this mean I'm going to get locked out of the bathroom even more now?" Kanda asked, voice an amusing mixture of annoyed and plaintive.
He was ignored.
"Well, now that you're all dressed up," Lenalee said matter-of-factly, "it would be a waste not to go out."
In the end, Lenalee and Allen went out together, while Alma stayed back to soothe Kanda's ruffled feathers. (Allen wasn't even sure precisely why Kanda's feathers were ruffled, but it amused him nonetheless.)
They chose a halfway nice restaurant and got only a few more weird looks than Allen got on a regular basis, and it surprised Allen how much he enjoyed himself (and some of the looks he got, too).
And at the end of the night, Allen said to Lenalee, "You know, I think I might have to do this a little more often."
Lenalee grinned at him. "I'm sure you and Alma will have fun together," she replied. "Just don't count me out of it, okay?"
"Okay," Allen said, and grinned.
The Tumblr influence is strong with this one. *grin* No Link in this chapter, obviously, but he'll appear next chapter, which will incidentally be the only other chapter - this is a twoshot. *smile* I'll post the next part next Monday, 'kay? Thanks for reading, and please review!