DN One-Shot: Fabulous

"You look like a store detective."

Hal heard the low growl of Mello's voice behind her and looked up, "Um?" He was standing behind the carousel of evening wear, smirking at her, his blue eyes shadowed under the fall of his blond fringe. "What did you say?"

Mello didn't repeat himself. Instead, he started sifting through the outfits in front of him. "What are we buying?"

"Are you stalking me, Mello?"

"Possibly." He bobbed his tongue out. "Or possibly I could have been driving past and saw your car, so came to investigate. What's the occasion? Party dress?"

Hal surveyed him carefully, looking past him for his usual companion. Matt was nowhere to be seen. "I'm flying home for a wedding next week. I'm looking for something stylish that will do for the day and the evening. I don't want to lug two outfits across the Atlantic."

Mello affected a snobbish tone, "Well you know, I bought this in Europe." He sniggered. Then swooped down on a hanger. "This has potential! I was about to say that, between you and me, you'd be better shopping in LA than London, but this..." He held it up. "You should try it on."

Hal blinked. "It's a skirt. When did you last see me in a skirt?" She frowned slightly and circled the carousel, fingering the label. "Yes. It's also totally the wrong size. And black. I can't wear black to a wedding."

"They do it in red too." Mello replied, helpfully. He raised the garment on its hanger in his other hand. "I like it."

"No." She turned away to return to the pastel purple trouser suit, which she had been close to buying, when Mello had pounced. She wasn't sure about the white embroidery on the lapels. Also she had to be careful with purple. Some shades just made her skin seem washed out. Maybe a second opinion could be in order. Hal turned, expecting Mello to be close by. He was exactly where she'd left him, still minutely inspecting the two identical items that he'd been holding before. "Mello." He looked up, slightly flushed and her eyes widened. "What are you up to?"

"Nothing." His head hunkered down into his shoulders.

"You look startled."

"Oh." Mello reluctantly returned the hangers to the carousel and hurried around to her side. "What?" A bar of chocolate was produced from his pocket, but he took his time over unwrapping it. "It's boring."

"What is?"

"That purple thing." He nodded towards her suit. "You'd look like someone's granny."

Hal scowled at him. "You're a man. You'd rather I'd be wearing..." She stalked across to whip off one of the outfits he had been holding. "Mello! This has a split right up the thigh!"

"I'm a gay man." Mello shrugged. "We are born with style."

"You wear it then!" Her eyes met his and suddenly she knew. "You want to. You want this outfit. That's why you're so insistant on me having it. It's you wearing it by proxy!" Mello's mouth gaped in affected outrage, but Hal didn't give him chance to begin an outburst. She collected both the red and the black versions and rushed across to press them against his chest. "Buy them, I dare you, Mello."

His mouth opened and closed like a goldfish, but the expected tirade didn't come. Mello seemed almost coy as he held them. He busied himself looking at the label again. "Female size 10. That will be about 32-34 inches. That's equivalent to male size 34, so way too big. Is there an 8?"

Hal stared. She was trying to determine whether this was a test. It usually was with Mello. Nevertheless, she fell on the second surprising comment there. "That is never a 10!"

"UK 10 is roughly US 6. Freak." Mello shook his head, as if she should have known that. Hal bit her lip. She hadn't bought any new clothes since leaving NYC months ago. He was already back at the carousel. "This is 8, that's 30-32, 22-24, might be a little..." He caught her watching him. "I'll try the 8." His grin was downright devilish. "You dared me!" He countered, in response to her unspoken comment.

Hal laughed. "I didn't say a word. Go for your life." She watched him practically sashay across to the changing room and she cast an intrigued look at the shop assistants. Neither appeared perturbed nor moved, beyond the fact that a customer was trying on some clothes. Hal wondered if that meant that they had a lot of cross-dressing men in here. The insidious thought followed that it wasn't that at all. They merely assumed that Mello was a woman. Hal giggled and moved forward herself. She would try on her trouser suit and damn him if he thought it wasn't sexy enough. She was half-way through getting changed, eyeing herself with a critical gaze in the full-length mirror, when it finally occurred to her that Mello was being too confident about this. He had cross-dressed before. Hal blinked at her reflection. Mello's clothes were hardly the most masculine in the world at the best of times, but she had never actually imagined him going all the way into a fully feminine attire.

Mello called out, "Are you ready for this?" His voice, she noted, had raised a touch up the register. Not presumably faux female, but certainly not the rasping depth he usually affected.

"Hold on!" She gushed, quickly pulling on the suit. It made her face looked drained. She sighed, but stepped out anyway. The shop assistant watched her with a bored expression. Hal flashed a smile. "Let's see then, Mello."

One thing that she could say about Mello was that he knew how to make an entrance. His gloved hand crept out of the dressing room drape, like he was emerging from a curtain onto a baudeville stage. His naked, slender arm followed and then a leg. It was perfectly shaved. Probably waxed, given the soft smoothness. The rest of him shimmied out, the dress fitting against him like he was born to wear it. He looked like a pretty girl. No. He looked like a stunning, sexy woman. The shop assistant still seemed no wiser to his actual gender. Hal found herself wondering what he would look like with female breasts. The top section was the only part slightly baggy, but it had been designed for a flat-chested figure, so it wasn't too noticeable. Mello licked his lips, as he paraded past her, up and down the narrow aisle between the cubicles. His whole carriage appeared changed, though, Hal noted, not too different from normal, now that she considered it. Eventually he turned, practically posing with his back to the main mirror. "Well?"

There were many things that Hal could have said. She settled for the most immediate. "Your figure makes me sick."

Looking decidedly smug, Mello breezed on past her. "I'll have both colours. I'll need better gloves. The leather doesn't accessorise well with this dress at all."

"No." Hal resisted the perverse urge to laugh. It wasn't Mello. He looked like he was born to wear that dress. It was the situation. The shop assistant. The...

"Hal?" It was Matt's voice, softly spoken from the main shop behind her. Hal had retreated under the spectacle far enough to be seen from within, through the open plan entrance. "You seen Mello."

Hal's eyes swivelled first to the brunette bearing down upon her, then back to Mello, who had paused at the drape of his own cubicle. She only had suspicions. She had no idea if Matt had ever contemplated Mello in such attire or, if he had, what his reaction might be now. "I..." She began.

Mello just called out. "In here, sweetie."

Now the shop assistant moved. She positioned herself at the doorway with a stern look on her face, her feet firmly planted on the floor. Her gaze fixed onto Matt. "Sorry, women only in here."

Mello chuckled and Hal worried that it was a little too deep. He drifted by and bypassed the assistant, still clad in his slinky black number. He leaned against the doorframe, arranging himself like someone making an offer. He didn't need to say a word, Hal heard the wolf-whistle from outside. "You like what you see?" Mello drawled. "Should I treat myself?"

"Very nice." Matt replied. For good measure, he added another wolf-whistle. "I can has?"

Mello sniggered. "You don't have the legs for it."

Matt laughed. "I meant the contents." Hal knew there had been a wink there, though she wasn't in a position to see it. She heard the kiss. Hal nodded slowly to herself. Matt's complete lack of surprise confirmed that this was a common occurrance. "I had to walk all down to Gamestation, because they didn't have it in Andy's. But I did pick up a 1984 version of..."

"Very nice." Mello ran a hand up his partner's chest and turned on his heel back into the dressing room. He called back. "Matt, we'll have to get you something to match. I'm having this."

"Er... no." Matt replied. "You go clothes shopping. I'm not going clothes shopping. I've done my time standing outside changing rooms. This is a bonus waiting because you sneaked it in." There was the sudden fanfare of a handheld game player being switched on. Mello just rolled his eyes as he passed Hal and disappeared back into his cubicle. Matt was still waiting, playing his DS, as Hal emerged again a couple of minutes later. The pastel purple suit was despatched to the return hanger. "Hi."

"Hi." Hal smiled. "Mello's buying two dresses."

"Like we need more dresses." Matt smirked, his blue eyes surveying her with what she could only describe as mischief. "But if he's on a shopping kick, I'm going to the pub."

Hal glanced anxiously at the shop assistant, but she wasn't listening. "You said 'he'!" She hissed.

Matt laughed in her face. "Yeah." He shrugged. "You're right. Mello's a girl." He paused, then grinned. "You didn't know, did you?" Matt peered at her and Hal could feel herself starting to blush. "Hal, there are whole reasons that you only ever see him in that black leather two-piece. It's the only thing he owns that could even vaguely pass for masculine and that," Matt shook his head, "is with a huge pinch of leeway."

"Talking about me, I hope." Mello pushed through between them, the dresses flung over his arm. "Matt, I'll call you when we're done. Come on, Hal." He strode away to the counter, smiling at the cashier. "I want these, but I'll be back. I can leave them here?"
The cashier said, "Certainly..." But she paused, as if she alone had pondered the honorific.

Mello just winked at her and whirled away from the counter. "Come on, Hal. We'll kit you out for this wedding if it kills you. The purple thing looked shit. How about blue?"

Hal shook her head, grinning wildly. She watched, as Mello kissed his partner and sent him to the pub to wait out the interlude. The next three hours passed in a tour of all of the stores in the street and then the mall. Both staggered out with more bags than Hal had ever bought in a single shopping trip before. She'd never even done this with her girlfriends back home. It was fun and moreover Mello found her the perfect outfit for the wedding. Hal paused, after Mello had walked her to her car and piled her purchases into the boot. "Thank you."

"You're very welcome." Mello replied. "We should do this again sometime. Next Saturday?"

Hal laughed. "Wedding."

"Oh well." Mello shrugged. "When you're back." He shifted the weight of his own bags over his shoulder. "Time to retrieve my man. Bye Hal."

"Bye Mello." Hal watched him walk away and she smiled at the bouncing gait. He stopped at the corner and looked back, a grin on his face, as he raised his bags and gave a little wave. Then he was gone, back to his Matt and a rainbow wardrobe full of clothes which, she realised with a vague sense of pique, would always look better on him than 90% of the women they were designed for. Hal wrinkled her nose, climbed into the car and drove home happy.