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John's birthday is three days before Halloween and you'd think that he'd be excited, right? You'd think that he'd want to have a huge party celebrating the two of them equally, right?
Well, you're fucking wrong. Twice.
John loves his birthday, and he loves Halloween. Always has, always will. But when the two happen so close together in time and you want to celebrate them separately, you kind of have to adapt to the urge of wanting to slug someone every time they politely ask if his birthday party is going to be a costume party. It's an understandable curiosity, but not one John appreciates.
So, it's John's birthday, or rather it was.
It's November fourth, exactly one week after John's actual birthday, and he, Alex, and Hercules are all sitting at the small table in Olive Garden, waiting for Lafayette to show up and complete their quartet of idiots who love each other a little more than what could be considered platonic. Correction, quartet of idiots who love each other a lot more than what could be considered platonic. It's actually embarrassing to witness.
"Where are they?" Alex asks, kicking John's leg under the table because he thinks it's the table leg and can't tell the difference. John jumps and Alex apologizes and goes back to doing the exact same thing. John hides the pain.
"They said they'd be late but I didn't think they meant this late," Hercules says, checking his watch for the time. He never wears watches, and in fact is only wearing this one because he wanted to tap it condescendingly when Lafayette actually shows up.
After about ten more minutes of sitting in silence, asking the waitress twice for five more minutes in ordering food, and tearing through two baskets of breadsticks, Lafayette shows up.
More specifically, Lafayette shows up dressed like Little Bo Peep.
"Sorry I'm late," they apologize.
They set a small duffel bag on the one empty chair at the table, stepping to John across the table, running their hands through his hair to get it off of his forehead. They kiss there leaving a lip gloss stain on him. John grimaces, hiding his secret shame because he actually loved it, and wipes the mark off. He stares at smudge on his hand now and evidently decides to fuck his better judgement in wherever it consents because he licks the lip gloss off of his hand without even hinting that he would rather not be doing that.
It tastes like strawberries. He's fucked.
"Do we want to know where you were?" Hercules asks cautiously, completely forgetting to tap the face of his watch condescendingly. The Little Bo Peep costume is the hoop skirt and corset combo along with a dress thing underneath it to keep it modest and every time he moves his hand he can feel the sweat making his watch slide around on his wrist.
"Costume party," they answer simply. John is so fucking done. His birthday is being celebrated one week after it's supposed to be and it's still being smothered to death by the spooky scary skeletons and their bag of bony bullshit.
"It's practically Christmas, already," Alex says, and Lafayette furrows their perfectly on point eyebrows, ready to argue when they're interrupted.
The waitress is there, asking Lafayette what they would like to drink. After a very detailed explanation of how raspberry lemonade tastes and one throw away line about how apparently 'mediocre' the peach-Bellini raspberry iced tea is, Lafayette decided to just go for regular iced tea to spare themselves the judgement of this girl. The girl shakes her head sadly and leaves.
"I'll be right back," Lafayette tells them, taking their bag and leaving to the bathroom. Hercules, Alex, and John don't even want to know at this point. They don't want to even ask.
The waitress, whose nametag says Angela, drops off Lafayette's iced tea, muttering under her breath about who knows what.
Lafayette runs out of Olive Garden holding every single piece of their costume in one arm.
They sprint to their car. Alex, John, and Hercules just kind of stare at them, wondering what the fuck is going on and what exactly happened in their life to make this scenario one that they have to live through. They can all see through the window as Lafayette struggles to stuff the hoops of the skirt into the backseat of their car. It takes three whole minutes, not including the fifty seconds that Lafayette spends genuflecting in front of their car door once it's shut, eyes closed, finally at peace.
Lafayette comes back, a sheen of sweat covering them. They sit down at the table with a huff, forcing their feet in between Hercules' ankles. Hercules moves his own feet, scoffing at the sheer amount of bullying he is being exposed to.
"So, Lafayette, how are the sheep?" Alex asks, not being able to find a better joke to make.
"They're all here," Lafayette responds gesturing to the three of them. They laugh when all three of them gasp, offended.
Five minutes after the exchange, Angela comes back to get their food orders.
John eagerly orders a serving of mozzarella sticks with his Chicken Parmigiana because it was his birthday a week ago and he's been dreaming about those fuckers since a week before that. Hercules sighs at him and then politely orders Tour of Italy for himself, because he has been to Olive Garden more times than he can count and personally cannot and will not decide on one food if he can have multiple.
"You're aware that that's just shrimp and pasta, right?" Angela asked when Lafayette ordered Shrimp Scampi without and asparagus or tomatoes. She looks at them, hesitating to write the order down on her little tablet.
"I know who I am," Lafayette says, folding their menu and handing it to her. She takes their menu and the others, walking away.
"I swear to god I hate you sometimes," Alex tells Lafayette, his hands exasperatedly pushing his hair back from his hairline.
"What?" Lafayette asks, genuinely confused. All three of them a speechless.
"I know who I am," all three of them mock together, each doing their own over exaggerated shoulder motion as a form of additional mockery.
They wait ten minutes until the mozzarella sticks finally come, John immediately grabbing one in each hand. He takes a bite of one, ignoring the burn on his tongue that's hotter than Lafayette in jean shorts and eats it. He does this until both are gone and by the time he's reaching onto the plate to grab his third they're all gone and Hercules, Lafayette, and Alex don't even apologize. Pricks.
Their actual food is brought out fifteen minutes later, and they collectively moan on the first bite of their own respective dinners.
The dead silence washes over them like a waterfall, all of them embarrassed and slightly more aroused than they were when they each first showed up. They don't move until Alex coughs, sits up further in his seat, and digs into his alfredo noodles, deciding to focus on that rather than them. All of them take that cue to resume eating. They notice everyone in the restaurant staring at them, four people moaning together isn't really something you just ignore without so much as a glance, but they choose not to pay attention to it, as it might only embarrass them further.
The four of them eat in silence after that. They shift around in their seats, not wanting to talk about what just happened.
Alex's phone starts buzzing five minutes after that, probably one of his alarms that he forgot to turn off. He sets down his fork in his plate of Fettucine Alfredo, which he ordered because he's a basic bitch that knows what he wants and goes for it. (This is, of course, strictly in terms of food and fundamental opportunities because god knows this man cannot admit his feelings for shit.) He reaches for his pocket, hand recoiling faster than he's ever moved before when he touches a plastic buckle under Lafayette's jeans. He and Lafayette both stutter as Alex corrects his mistake, pulling his phone out of his pocket and stopping the alarm.
"Lafayette, what was that?" Alex asks.
"That, Alex, was part of my garter belt," they respond, voice desperately seeking for confidence that they cannot find here. John's eyebrows shoot up so quickly that they're being escorted to the hospital for drug overdose. Hercules closes his eyes and resigns to death.
"Why are you wearing garters?" Alex asks, staring at Lafayette's jean covered thighs as if he might get x-ray vision if he focuses hard enough.
"I was Little Bo Peep," they choke out.
"I understand, but why would you keep them on?"
"They're fun?"
"True, but we're in an Olive Garden. Who wears garter belts to an Olive Garden?"
"You once wore a garter belt to a fucking Ruby Tuesday and you're interrogating me?" Alex gasps and hits them on the arm. John is going to pass out. Hercules can't hear any of it. He can't hear a single word. He's also not incredibly aroused right now because his closed eyes are apparently his mind's open window to start fantasizing about this. Nope. Not at all. Someone help him.
Lafayette and Alex are still arguing about this when the pay the check using the little monitor things at the end of the table. They give Angela a large tip considering she had to deal with Lafayette, and they leave.
"Lafayette, you know that you're driving us home right?" John asks when they're out of the Olive Garden and in the parking lot.
"Yes," they respond.
"And you know that means you'll have to move your hoop skirt so we can all fit, right?" John asks, face colored in amusement.
"Motherfucker!" They yell, not caring about anyone who can hear them running over to their car.
The door opens, and Lafayette is thrown to the ground, the hoop skirt popping out and whipping them in the face. Alex is cackling, declaring himself the winner of the Garter Belt Argument. Lafayette mumbles for Alex to go fuck himself, standing up and pulling the hoops all out of the car. They open their trunk, compacting the skirt together and stuffing it in. They slam the trunk closed, huffing.
"Get in the car, we don't have all night!" They yell when the three of them are just standing there stupidly, moving to climb into the drivers seat. John gets in the passenger seat because it's his birthday, causing Hercules and Alex to be stuffed in the back.
They get back to Alex and Lafayette's dorm, Hercules and John stopping to stare at the fact that Alex and Lafayette's beds are pushed back together like they were on Lafayette's birthday almost two months previous. They don't say anything about it, but both of them are dying to ask.
Later in the night, when all of them are platonically partially nude and almost asleep, John takes the time out of his falling asleep process to stare at each of the three people that fate has chosen for him to love. After contemplating whether or not it's healthy to be this gay, he takes one more look at all of them again.
"Stop tossing, you're keepin' me awake," Alex mumbles, cuddling further into John's chest than he was previously. If they were fucking glued together they wouldn't be as close as this. John reciprocates, hugging Alex tighter. The action draws them closer together, causing Hercules and Lafayette to move closer to the both of them, enclosing them.
"Sorry," John whispers.
"Don' be, it's fine. G'night, John, love you," Alex mutters sleepily. John's breath catches in his throat, hand moving up to run his fingers through the hair on Alex's nape. Alex hums his content, falling asleep.
If this happened every year on his birthday, he wouldn't celebrate it a week after it occurs. And if Lafayette happened to be wearing garter belts every year, he'd celebrate it even sooner.