Chapter Thirteen: Pumpkin Eater

It was quite a known fact, Watanuki thought as he cautiously took another sip out of his glass, that aside from being obvious, Fai Fluorite also had to be bipolar. It'd been less than three days since the musician had been spotted with his fair head down, moping incessantly. And now, at the Maestro's house party tonight, he was dancing on the tables, drink in hand, fair head tossing to the music, skin rather than shirt.

And when Ashura Ou climbed on to the table and grabbed Fai's waist, spinning the violinist round to kiss him upon the lips, it reminded Watanuki highly of a wolf marking his territory. But then again, Watanuki also suspected that there had been something going on amidst the Circus that was setting them into high gear, and apparently, that same "something" had been solved and this was their victory night.

The entire house was filled with an uproar of music—booming and blaring from the sound systems, laughing—flirting and giggling from both girls and boys, clinking—crashing and banging, falling from tables and shelves and just adding to a mess that was almost mandatory from a teenage house party. And although no one amidst the dancing, drinking, reveling socialites and celebutantes would dare admit it, even Watanuki noticed the fact that the host himself wasn't in his best of moods tonight.

The Maestro was looking more than a little murderous tonight, smiles and all precisely locked in, and thus, everyone seemed to be giving him a subconsciously wide berth, meaning Seishiro was encumbered infamously in what was known to be his mother's favorite white ottoman—the same ottoman that he had first publicly made-out with Subaru with years ago.

Watanuki would guess that the trumpeter was the main cause that the Maestro looked as if he would kill the first person that came within a two-meter radius. It wasn't the best-kept secret that no matter how much the Maestro might've been a socialite bad boy, he was nothing short of an idiot in love now. The only thing everyone needed to know now was what they always seemed to do behind the doors of Akamizu.

Well, not really. It was obvious what they did—but Watanuki wasn't stupid, and neither was the rest of the Circus's audience. They knew when something was amiss backstage. Especially when it concerned two of the main attractions. But the goalie knew it was none of his business—and unlike his peers, he knew that it was just better to stay out of the ring and keep your words to yourself. Doumeki never seemed to fail in this regard, and Watanuki was learning quickly just how the forward operated. Silent, sly, clever and swift. And more importantly: Simple.

Subaru slid away on the Town car's leather seat—away from Yuui, who was watching him with a curious little smile. "Okay," he said, the blue eyes scanning the trumpeter from head-to-toe in a way that Subaru not only found uncomfortable and frightening, but immensely violating. "So there are only two possible reasons why you would be wearing something like that out into the public." Yuui edged closer still, and Subaru slid away further still. "Either the apocalypse is approaching and you've decided to do what you want with the little life we all have left, or you're about to do something tonight that's going to make me extremely proud of you."

Subaru scooted away more.

"Which is it?"

"Could you…not ask me questions? I'm not Kamui."

"I know you're not. I know how Kamui's mind works. I don't know how yours does. Which means I have to ask you questions. So which is it?" Yuui smiled. He glanced out the window. "We're almost there—you better hurry and tell me."

"It's my task," Subaru said slowly. "I'm not allowed to."

With one tug and one twist, Yuui somehow managed to shove Subaru onto his back and roll atop of him, pinning the trumpeter's wrist to the car's seat. The strands of pale hair tickled Subaru's cheeks. "Ah. Then it's not the apocalypse. That's good. I think it's about high time that you show the Maestro that he's not as hot as he thinks he is, and you're not a little ugly duckling."

Subaru stared. "But he is as hot as he thinks he is."

"True," Yuui conceded. "But he doesn't need to know that. And plus, he may be gorgeous, but so are you." He raised his eyebrows and inclined his head. "You know that."

The trumpeter's eyes went wide and his eyebrows curved up so high that Yuui laughed. Subaru laughed with him—a quieter laugh, a trembling laugh. He was nervous, and no amount of casual flirting with Yuui would abate that. He'd be lying if he said that he didn't know precisely how good-looking he was—just as the rest of them were. But good looks and sex didn't necessarily go hand in hand. And the person Hokuto had scheduled for tonight was a difficult one.

Once Yuui had quieted down, encumbered again in his own thoughts, Subaru lowered his eyes, going over the clothes he had dug out from the depths of his closet and winced at the sight. He was going to be so dead it wasn't even funny. What the hell was he doing anyway? He wasn't Yuui and he wasn't Kamui and he wasn't Fai. And he doubted the latter two could even attempt to pull this off—they weren't stupid enough to try. Yuui definitely could, of course, since he was Yuui Fluorite—that was explanation enough.

But him? Subaru? Subaru Sumeragi?

Not even over his own dead body.

Doumeki was horny to say the least. Watanuki was near where Ashura and Fai were more or less giving the entire house a striptease show. The bespectacled goalie didn't seem to be watching—rather, he seemed to be suspiciously eyeing where Seishiro sat in his dark, little corner, brooding with a smile. Ever since the one time last week at Watanuki's house, Doumeki hadn't gotten lucky any more. In fact, Watanuki had practically banned the forward from his house and from his body. At least until the SATs were over, so he'd said.

And not that he was resentful or anything, but he didn't think that Watanuki quite understood what he was saying. Perhaps, Watanuki didn't even know that no sex meant no relationship in the language socialites spoke. Maybe if it was someone like Yuui or the Maestro, no sex could still mean a relationship, but Watanuki wasn't. Doumeki was more or less free to do anything he pleased if he was heartless enough to. But he wasn't, so he wouldn't. Though he might want to clue Watanuki in.

The forward took another swig of the rather strange-tasting alcohol in his hand and frowned at the liquid. He wasn't even half sure this stuff was supposed to be drunk. Ah well. He leaned away from a high female celebutante's unintentional physical advance and watched as she fell flat on her face at his feet, snoring away. Doumeki shrugged and stepped away.

As he was walking around for a new corner to inhabit, the doors downstairs flung open, and a collective gasp went around the first floor. He walked to the nearest banister and peered down at who had just arrived. The front doors were flung open, and everyone standing in the foyer had shimmied back by at least five feet—staring at the newest arrivals.

Doumeki first narrowed his eyes to peer better through the lights and then drew his head back with his eyes twice their normal size. "Jesus, Mary, Joseph," he muttered to himself.

The two figures standing a few feet in from the doorway were Yuui Fluorite and Subaru Sumeragi. And while Yuui was dressed in his usual wear, black jeans and a black wife beater that fit him like a second skin, Subaru was wearing what was…not his usual wear and something that looked perhaps like most dangerous outfit known to gaykind.

Subaru Sumeragi was wearing black leather.

No. Not only black leather. But tight black leather. And it didn't fit him like a second skin. It might as well have been his skin. Yep. That tight.

And if Doumeki hadn't been too busy trying to get his mind working again, he would've been able to observe the way nearly every male down below had begun to squirm and turn away, leaving only females—who didn't have to be afraid of their lust physically showing itself—to ogle.

But Doumeki did manage to get his mind back into gear and when he did, Subaru and Yuui were still standing there, only now Subaru looked like he wanted nothing more than to die in a dark black hole, while Yuui was laughing beatifically. The trumpeter looked nothing short of positively terrified at the reaction he was receiving—not quite realizing that it wasn't a negative one. Neither moved until the pianist finally seemed to get bored of their audience's shock, and dragged Subaru away from the door.

Kamui had received more than just one scared glance as he approached Seishiro—the first person to approach the Maestro all night, aside from his own younger brother. And while Fuuma was duking it out with Syaoran about last night's scores, Kamui took the liberty of sneaking away and visiting the bane and love of his twin brother's existence.

He sat down on the edge of the armchair of Seishiro's seat, and nudged the Maestro's shoulder with his drink. "So, no Subaru?"

Seishiro smiled daggers up at him. "He said he'd be here."

Kamui threw his eyebrows up and absolutely laughed. "Oh. I love this. He's late? Are you pissed that you're darling Boy Blue might be blowing someone else's horn before he's going to blow yours? Seriously, when he gets here," Kamui looked up with his grin, "I'm going to—" He blinked at the sight his eyes had met and processed. "Holy fucking shit."

Seishiro continued to nurse his glass of scotch. "What?" he sighed in mock. "Is my darling little brother kissing someone else's ass? If so, I'm sure a bitch slap would entertain us all. Go ahead—I won't call the cops."

"Maybe, if you looked, you bastard," Kamui muttered, in a way that seemed to wish not to attract attention that they were speaking at all, "you would know. I think you'll like this—God, he's really gone insane now."

The Maestro sighed again, clunked his glass on the table and glanced up to where Kamui's eyes were staring.

Oh. Oh. Oh.

Fuck.

"Kamui," Seishiro continued quietly, as if about to inquire the writer about the going-ons at Fuki and other educational purposes, "why is your brother wearing black leather?"

"I—"

"And why are my guests staring at his posterior?"

"He's—"

"And why," Seishiro's smile was brighter than ever now, and about as dangerous as a hammerhead shark who'd gone without food for two weeks, "is he wearing boots?"

"I would answer if you'd stop interrupting me!" Kamui said, his face flaming red by merely looking at his twin. He looked directly into Seishiro's eyes—anywhere was better than looking at Subaru at the moment. "God, he needs to be sent into an asylum. Maybe give him the shock treatment, or something—he's lost his mind."

Seishiro was silent a moment. Then, "So what's the answer?"

The writer opened his mouth. He closed it. He glanced at the conductor. And shook his head.

"Nice answer. Eloquently put."

Subaru grasped the cold stone countertop of the bathroom sink and dared to look up at his reflection. He still couldn't bring himself to believe he even owned black leather. But he did—even if it was one of Yuui's most wayward birthday presents, it didn't erase the fact that Subaru Sumeragi owned black leather and was definitely going to hell because no self-respecting person should ever wear black leather in public, private, or just ever in general.

They just shouldn't.

Black leather should be illegal. Especially black leather that fit the way the leather Subaru wore did. It was just…guh.

But the more Subaru stared at himself, the more he had to admit. He had to admit that if he was being honest with himself, he would stop cringing, because he knew deep, deep, deep down somewhere in his frightened self that he did look good. Very good. Extremely and immensely and brilliantly good. But even so, Subaru didn't dare admit it to himself. This was Yuui's range of expertise, and Subaru was just completely and wholly lost—out of place.

He really didn't want to do this. The nervousness was getting to a point where he felt as though he might possibly puke. And that would just be fantastic, now wouldn't it?

The trumpeter stared at himself once again for another two minutes before shaking his head like a dog trying to dry itself. He ran a leather-gloved hand over his face and then kicked off his left boot. He turned it upside down and out onto his hand fell a small bag of already-rolled joints. His free hand went into his vest pocket and dug out a lighter.

When the smoke began to drift up, Subaru closed his eyes and inhaled. It made things a bit better, and he knew that if he got another five minutes with the drug, everything would be fine, he wouldn't puke, and he could go through with this. Maybe if he took a few drinks in afterward, it would be better still.

The green eyes opened and Subaru considered the ceiling. He had seen the way Seishiro's eyes and flickered towards him when he'd walked past—running, nearly, to the bathroom for cover from the awed and impressed eyes. He'd seen the expression in those eyes—the respect. It was almost frightening how by just dressing differently—albeit, differently to an extreme—Seishiro looked at him as though they were on equal footing, on an equal level. With desire, rather than disgust. With lust, rather loathing.

Why couldn't Seishiro look at him like that when Subaru was Subaru?

The trumpeter laughed a little bit. Of course Seishiro wouldn't look at him that way normally. Seishiro didn't want boring, plain, ordinary Subaru—the Maestro didn't want boring, plain, ordinary anything. The conductor wanted intriguing and seductive and lustrous and impulsive and compelling—like Yuui and Fai and Kamui.

He paused and pulled out the joint—the light had gone out. He relit it and replaced it between his lips. Subaru was going to need a lot more than that if he was going to get through this night with his sanity intact.

If you'd told Doumeki that he would be pinned to the wall by a tight, black leather-wearing senior trumpeter from Fuki named Subaru Sumeragi, also known as the Maestro's Little Boy Blue, in the center of the donut of socialites and celebutantes during the Maestro's homecoming Thanksgiving party, then Doumeki would have punched you in the mouth, knocked your jaw out of alignment, and if you were a man, kicked you in the nether regions hard enough so that you would have to tell your parents that you could no longer bear them grandchildren.

Meaning that somewhere out there, someone was about to have a fat, bleeding lip, a broken jaw, and possibly the great despair of never being able to reproduce, because at the moment Doumeki was being watched by half the town's population of young adults under the age of twenty-five staring at him as Subaru Sumeragi and all the trumpeter's leathery hotness was sucking face with him. Oh, and Watanuki was looking, too, while the Maestro was giving Doumeki a smile that could kill a thousand mockingbirds, and most likely a hundred men.

And although Doumeki had seriously—no, really—intended to politely shove Subaru off, he saw one expression in Watanuki's eyes, and Doumeki grabbed the trumpeter's bare shoulders and began to do the damage that he knew he might or might not heavily regret tomorrow morning. It was just that one facial expression that Watanuki pulled on in the millisecond that Subaru had pushed Doumeki to the wall—that one glance, and Doumeki wanted to fuck it all. That one little look capsized Doumeki's common sense for the night.

So now, Doumeki was forgetting all about Kimihiro Watanuki as Subaru's soft hands snuck beneath his shirt and touched his abdomen and slid down and down and low and unbuckled his pants and went down further and lower and lower still and touched—

He touched it.

Doumeki's lips weren't leaving Subaru, but his hands were roaming all over and over and over and now he began moving them, because they couldn't stay here forever and the crowd was beginning to gasp and he could even hear cell phones taking pictures and recording this but of course he couldn't care less because he could feel leather writhing and squirming against him and he really didn't know if his shirt was dropped into somewhere where he could find it again all he really knew was that he was hot and hot and hot and he needed to cool down but he didn't want to and—

Slam him into the door. Slam him down.

They stumbled everywhere, trying to find a path to the bedrooms where they'd most likely get yelled at by Seishiro or Fuuma for dirtying the beds that weren't theirs but it didn't even matter because Subaru was so good and everyone was clearing a pathway for them watching them and watching and wanting to touch but they couldn't because not everybody could have this and most everyone wouldn't but Doumeki had never been touched like this by Watanuki and a part of him—a tiny part—wished that the goalie would—

Am I touching Subaru? Or am I touching him?

And as they finally managed to collapse onto some bed in some room in near pitch black darkness, Doumeki could only hear one thing—one annoying childish thing that he still remembered from so, so, so long ago when he first learned that the world wasn't full of fair and kind people and the first time it ever happened to him was at a Little League soccer game and as he touched Subaru and made the trumpeter gasp and as he felt Subaru go down and down and down and finally knew why Little Boy Blue was so famous for blowing a horn Doumeki heard it over and over—that one chant—

Cheater, cheater, pumpkin eater.

A/N: *headdesk* FINALLY! *waves a little flag* I did it!

Ugh. I didn't think I'd ever get this chapter done before dying of old age or other accidental/non-accidental purposes. But I did. So I beg of you, review so I can get the next one done before I die or eat a poisonous pumpkin. Anyway, even though I didn't think I could ever do this chapter in a non-cliche way, I actually did (I think), and it was shockingly with the help of one of my ex-classmates (because we all graduated, WHOOT!) who's just the weirdest, funniest, most annoying people I've yet to meet. And he just does random sayings for random, inexplicable reasons, and one day he just decided to resurrect some childhood chants. Y'know, "nya, nya, nya, nya, nya", and "liar, liar, pants on fire", but when he said, "cheater, cheater, pumpkin eater", I told him that I'd never heard that one before.

And then it hit me. "Cheater". So that's where the title came about. And I thought that since this same kid in my class and Doumeki are both sports-obssessed, it's no wonder that they probably heard the pumpkin eater saying more than once, since little kids are apt to accusing cheaters because little kids and sports and losing don't go well together. Actually eighth graders and sports and losing don't go well together. But, I digress. So, anyway, review. And pray that I get a move on with the next chapter. (By the way, I'm officially on summer vacation now, so if I don't get the next chapter done soon, you can yell at me because I have no legitimate reason not to write).

P.S. Y'know Mello from Death Note? (Whom I've always found uber sexy...I wish he'd put something else other than chocolate in his mouth...) Yeah, well, his leather outfit, the vest and gloves and all, is what Subaru is wearing.