Another week passes, and all of a sudden, it's only a week until Christmas.
Perry finds himself in Danville's main town square, holding a cup of tea, walking around a Christmas market with nobody other than Heinz Doofenshmirtz himself. On yet another information gathering mission, definitely-not-a-date-why-does-he-keep-thinking-that.
He's holding a cup of oolong tea, while Heinz has what has to be the most ridiculously complicated holiday drink Perry has ever seen.
"It's really not disgusting," Heinz says. "It tastes like Christmas in a cup."
Perry, whose hand is a bit occupied, settles for raising an eyebrow instead of signing anything.
"Fine," he says. "You try it."
Heinz hands over the cup, his fingers briefly brushing over Perry's. Perry does his best to ignore the way his face gets warm when that happens.
The blush intensifies when he actually tries the half-sugar concoction and comes to the conclusion that it really isn't all that disgusting.
It's just the slightly embarrassing fact that he's been proven wrong, not the fact that Heinz's expression is ridiculously endearing.
He shoves the cup back at Heinz as fast as possible, sticking out his tongue at Heinz and ignoring that absolutely unnecessary thought.
"I can't believe you'd insult my masterpiece like that, Steven," Heinz says, shaking his head. "More for me, I suppose."
Perry shakes his head again. As long as Heinz doesn't blame him for his inevitable sugar crash.
They walk around the market, the scents of pine and cinnamon swirling in the crisp, clear air. Heinz points out everything that draws his attention, which happens to be almost everything.
After about an hour and a half, the sun begins to dip behind the buildings around them, street lamps turning on. Curse the sun setting so early in the Northern hemisphere. (Curse the sun? Heinz's mannerisms must be rubbing off on him much more than he wants them to.)
I should get going, Perry signs as they loop back around to the entrance of the market. I'm seeing some family that's in the area tonight.
"Right," Heinz says. "You'll have to come by again before Christmas- this was fun." He looks down, cheeks flushed.
He must be cold. In fact, the air feels like it's going to snow tonight, a stiff breeze fluttering the ends of Heinz's scarf.
"I-" he stammers "can I-"
Perry raises an eyebrow.
"Um- nevermind. Have fun with your family."
Perry smiles and waves before he turns to head back to his temporary apartment.
A few hours later, after dinner and putting the kids to bed with stern reminders to stay put, the adults get to work on wrapping presents.
"I'm glad to see you warming up to Danville," Linda says as she pulls packages down from their hiding places.
Perry shrugs, a smile creeping onto his face. Danville, well, it's grown on him. The city is certainly a pretty place, and most of the people are just fine. His niece and nephews are great- honestly, if it weren't for the weirdness surrounding Heinz and the whole 'Steven' nonsense, he'd stay here forever.
That and the Santa thing. The rest of the Christmas obsession is kind of growing on him (not that he'll ever admit it out loud), but the Santa thing is just weird.
"You'll have to come visit us more often, the kids love having you around," Lawrence smiles. "See if you can get that crazy job of yours to give you a vacation every now and again."
Perry grins and rolls his eyes. Evil never rests, although it's not like his brother knows anything about that.
Maybe he does. He does run an antique business, and evil scientists love using old things to give their creations a hint of extra validity. The lovely argument from antiquity fallacy.
Perry pulls a few of his own gifts for the kids out of his bag. Mostly little things from Australia, although he did stop by Blueprint Heaven on his way over from the Christmas market for Phineas and Ferb.
"So, got anybody special back in Australia?" Lawrence asks, setting a box of bows on the counter, and Perry shakes his head.
"Are you sure about that?" Linda asks with a wink.
Absolutely certain, Perry signs. Despite his brother and sister in law's insistence at sticking their noses where they don't belong, it's true.
He's kind of (ok, almost entirely) a workaholic. He doesn't exactly have time to get to know people enough to fall for them.
Case in point- he's dated exactly three people in his thirty-six years of life.
A girl in secondary school, which lasted for about a week before he actually confronted the painfully obvious fact that he is quite gay. A man in his criminal psychology class in his second year of university, who he went on one disaster of a date with and never talked to again.
And a fellow agent a few years back, who ended up stabbing him in the back after about a year. Literally- he has the scar and everything.
If one's longest relationship ends in actual attempted murder, one kind of stops dating.
Of course, Lawrence can't know about that, since it's completely classified.
So no, there's really, truly, nobody back in Australia.
"What about anyone here?" Linda asks. "Got your eye on anyone local?"
Perry shakes his head again, perhaps a bit too quickly based on the look Linda and Lawrence share. No matter what his subconscious likes to believe, he does not have any feelings for his nemesis. They are nemeses! Heinz doesn't even know that Steven and Agent P are the same person!
Lawrence chuckles. "Whatever you say, Perry, whatever you say."
Five days to Christmas, and Perry's back at Lovemuffin Coffee. He's casually skimming the local newspaper (hey, it was sitting on what he's starting to think of as "his" table, why not) with a cup of tea, Heinz is doodling in a sketchbook and rambling about the flammability of various types of window blinds.
A man typing furiously on a laptop, a group of high school students argue about the cube rule of food, and a few couples are scattered around the cafe, providing a low hum of conversation (and occasional cries of "Soup is a wet salad!", which, okay then) under Heinz's rough accent.
Perry flips to the crossword in the newspaper, finding it half filled in. Whoever left this on the table must have gotten frustrated halfway through and given up.
For no good reason, since Perry can already see several words he can add. He pulls a pen out of his pocket, penning in the word eggbeater. Nine down.
"-Which made me realize, I should probably just not have blinds on that window, since it keeps blowing up."
Perry nods along with Heinz's words, writing in another word.
The bell over the door jingles, and Perry looks up.
His heart drops. It's the Major, Major Monogram. Quickly, Perry tries to hide behind the newspaper, but it's too late. He walks right over to Perry and Heinz.
"Oh hello, Francis," Heinz says.
"Hello, Heinz," the Major says, indifferently, before turning to Perry.
"And Perry the Platypus! It's so great to see you taking the extra step and talking to Doof outside of the usual thwarting. I knew you were the best agent here for a reason," the Major says, and Perry's stomach plummets further.
"I expect the debrief on my desk by tonight," he says, leaving without doing anything else, completely unaware of all the trouble he's just caused.
The door jingles behind him in the now-silent cafe, all eyes on Heinz and Perry.
Heinz narrows his eyebrows.
"Is that all I ever was to you? Just a job?" Heinz shakes his head."I- I thought we had something special, Steven. Or, I guess I should say Perry."
I can explain, Perry signs, but Heinz refuses to look. He takes a deep, shuddering breath, his voice almost on the verge of tears.
"I don't want to listen. I just want to know one thing. Was any of it real?"
I- Perry pauses before he gets too far in his explanation. Was any of their camaraderie true? Or was it all part of the job?
Did Heinz think they were dating? They weren't, obviously, but…Perry can see how Heinz thought they might have been.
The look on his face must give away his inner conflict, because Heinz is steamrolling on.
"It wasn't real, was it." A deep sigh. "Just- I- go."
Perry wants to protest, but something stops him. Are you sure?
"Please, leave me alone. I don't want to see you any more."
Right now, eye contact with his shoes and a quick retreat seems like the best option. As the door closes behind him, he can hear hushed conversations starting in his wake.
Walking out the front door of the coffee shop, eyes following his retreating back, feels worse than the actual backstabbing that ended his last relationship.
That time, he had been unsuspecting. This time, he caused it. Maybe that's the reason.
But that's just secret agent life, isn't it. His turn to backstab- and Heinz is evil. He deserves it, right? So why does it still feel so awful?
Even in the bitter cold, his feet carry him all over downtown Danville for hours. Up and down every street, staring directly at the ground in front of him. Occasionally, his eyes prick with tears, but he blinks them away
His feet carry him to where the Christmas market was set up just earlier this week. The square is empty at this time of night, just a few strings of Christmas lights strung between buildings.
He sits down on one of the benches under a tree just as a light dusting of snow starts to fall.
Screw this. Stupid snow. Stupid Christmas lights. Stupid holiday. Why did he ever have to go to that coffee shop? What's the point of all of this?
He sighs. There is no point. It's just useless. This is all useless. No point, whatsoever.
There's only one question left. Why does he feel so awful about deceiving his nemesis like he did? He's a secret agent, it's his job to be a double-crosser.
Really, there's no rational reason to be this guilty.
…but what about irrational reasons?
The answer hits him like the truck of -what else- Christmas trees driving by on the street.
Goddammit, he is in love. With his nemesis. Who thinks that this was just a job. Even though it really…wasn't.
The skating, the cookie-baking, the Christmas market. Maybe those were dates. Perry drops his head in his hands. His brother and sister-in-law were right.
Fuck.