Ah, Halloween. It was the one day of the year where Lucy, under no circumstances, couldn't get mad, irritated, or even a little annoyed with Bickslow for calling her Cosplayer, rather than her actual name. As Lucy frowned and looked at herself in the full length mirror, she knew she was never going to hear her actual name come from Bickslow's mouth for the entire night.
Lucy ignored the snickering women behind her, and attempted to pull down the hem of the tight blue-and-white crop top when she could feel the fabric being pushed up ever so slowly. If she hadn't been six months pregnant, she wouldn't be fighting with the fabric, because not only was her bump getting in the way, but her chest had also increased in size with her changing body, and when the shirt had been tight before she'd fallen pregnant, it was even more of a bitch to wear now. Of course, Bickslow didn't seem to mind her changing and growing body. He didn't mind one single bit.
But with this particular ensemble, Lucy minded more than one single bit.
"I can't believe I let you two convince me to even think about wearing this," Lucy mumbled as she adjusted the matching pleated skirt that thankfully had a much stretchier and forgiving waistband. The skirt, too, was somewhat being pushed out of the way by her growing belly. Still, it wasn't anywhere near as uncomfortable as her shirt.
"Oh, come on, Luce," Levy said as she pushed the orange glasses she was donning for the night further up the bridge of her nose. "Bickslow will love it!"
"Yeah, I know he will," Lucy mumbled again. "But I don't love it. This is completely absurd. I just feel fat."
"Nonsense," Mira gasped as she quickly stepped forwards to stand right beside the frowning blonde. "You are not fat. You are gorgeous, and Levy is right. He'll love it!"
Lucy rolled her eyes as she turned around to face her friends. "Guys, this just isn't going to work. I think I'll just go home—"
"No!" the other two cried out as they quickly stepped in front of Lucy and blocked her from taking a single step forward and away from the mirror.
"You can't do that," Mira insisted, smiling sweetly. Although, the entire Satan Soul takeover wasn't really making it appear very sweet at all. "If you leave, Bickslow will be disappointed."
"And so will we," Levy added.
Lucy sighed as she turned around to face the mirror again. She really didn't want to disappoint her friends, or her husband, for that matter. And granted, he really would be disappointed. She'd promised Bickslow she'd go to the party that the guild held on Halloween, and that he would would be in for a treat when it came to her costume, even though she was going to be miserable when almost every single person around her was drunk. It wasn't like Lucy was ordinarily one of the people in the guild who got blind drunk every night, because she wasn't, but on the rare occasions that the guild threw parties, everyone drank; even people like Levy did, and for such a small woman, she could hold her liquor surprisingly well.
But she really had promised Bickslow she'd show up, and Lucy was never one to break her promises. If that meant going to the guild party as a pregnant cheerleader, then so be it. Lucy could only be glad that at nearly six months, her belly wasn't actually all that big. Sure, she was going to get bigger, and she was totally ready and had accepted that fate, but if she were any bigger at that moment, then there would be no way in hell she'd have even been able to get the damned costume on.
In all honestly, Lucy was still amazed she'd kept it. She had only worn it once in her entire life, and that had been the day she'd actually met Bickslow (and also turned to stone, but hey, it was a thing of the past). It was part of the reason she'd let herself be convinced to think about wearing it for Halloween, because in the time she'd been with Bickslow, the man had made far too many jokes about her being a cheerleader. And, of course, a cosplayer.
Which she wasn't.
But it was Halloween, and on Halloween, she was a cosplayer.
"Another!" Cana shouted, only to cause Gajeel, Gildarts, Natsu, and everyone else at the bar to agree with their own cheers.
Bickslow groaned as Kinana refilled all of their shot glasses, and as everyone else who sat at the bar picked up their drinks, so did Bickslow. "I swear you guys are trying to make her divorce me," he muttered.
"Come on, just one more! She won't even know!"
"Yeah, just one more, Bicks," Gajeel agreed, shoving the other man's shoulder as he laughed mischievously. It was only six o'clock and the guy was already well on his way to being drunk.
Bickslow groaned again as they all almost begged him to take the shot, and giving in to the peer pressure, he did, throwing his head back and downing it all quickly and slamming it back down on the bar. "Fuck, I hate you all," he muttered again, only for everyone to cheer.
He wasn't supposed to be drinking at all, given that it was one of the conditions of Lucy actually coming to the guild's Halloween party. She had made it quite clear that she wasn't really in to the whole being the only sober person in the entire room thing, regardless of the fact that she was quite often one of the only sober people in the guild (you know, before she got pregnant). Bickslow had always known that about her, but he also knew that when it came to holidays and events, everyone had a little bit to drink – even Lucy did on occasion. It was just that for this Halloween, Lucy wasn't allowed to drink, whether she'd wanted to or not, and she didn't want to be boring.
So of course, Bickslow being the awesome husband that he was (his opinion, not so much Lucy's) had said he wouldn't drink either. Anything to make his incredibly amazing wife (also his words) comfortable.
But given that Lucy had decided to go over to Levy's room at the dorms to get ready, all to make sure that her costume remained a surprise (and Bickslow really loved surprises, so he didn't mind one bit), it meant that he'd arrived at the guild way before she had, and that also meant the guild had had plenty of time to convince him to drink… just a little bit.
It had all started with that one shot because Cana wouldn't get off his back about being boring, and then Gildarts had decided to join in with his daughter's teasing and say that a few drinks surely wouldn't hurt, and that he was just wrapped around Lucy's finger (which he was, and he always had been). But then Gajeel had so eloquently used his words and called him a pussy, and, well… Bickslow was anything but that. Sure, Lucy was a little terrifying sometimes, but he wasn't that scared of her, nor was he scared of a few shots.
But then it was another shot, and another, and then another, at which point he'd drawn a crowd and they had all been rooting for him to take yet another fucking shot, and Bickslow really was convinced they were all trying to give Lucy reasons to be mad at him.
"Alright, that's it," Bickslow mumbled as he turned on the stool and got up, adjusting his crown for his costume as he did so. "No more drinking." As everyone at the bar booed at him and called him weak (he was not weak, he just valued his marriage and he really was just that little bit scared of what Lucy would do once he found out he broke his promise of staying sober with her for the night), he slowly made his way through the guild, pushing past the drunken mingling morons that were louder than usual, and over to someone who he knew would keep him sober until Lucy arrived.
It was none other than Freed. Bickslow just hoped even he had decided not to drink too much, given that Laxus and Evergreen had both been among the people at the bar and egging him on.
Traitors.
Lucy had to be dragged into the guild by the time they finally got there at a quarter-to-seven, and she was honestly just a little glad that by that point, the party was in full swing and no one really noticed the guild doors being thrown open by the demon herself, Mirajane Strauss.
She wasn't really there for the guild though – she was there for Bickslow, and she'd have to put her embarrassment over her costume aside, because somewhere in the sea of drunken bodies she called her guild mates, her husband was waiting. Hopefully sober, too, thought she honestly didn't expect much. It had been a nice gesture, honestly, but she really didn't expect him to avoid drinking for an entire night at a party. It was Fairy Tail after all.
So doing her best to ignore the searing heat on her cheeks and the giggling women behind her before they went off in search for their own friends, Lucy slowly made her way through the guild in search of Bickslow. The blonde couldn't help but duck her head ever so slightly when a few people would compliment her on her costume, and she'd be lying if she said the few wolf whistles from a few heavily intoxicated males weren't just a little flattering. She wouldn't tell Bickslow that though, because he'd had to put up with guys flirting with her and asking her out for over a year and he couldn't do anything about it. It wouldn't have been fair to tell him that some of his drunken comrades were still doing some of the things that they'd been doing before they'd found out she was in a committed relationship (and very happy in said relationship), even if it was probably only because they were drunk. As much as she loved seeing Bickslow suffer just a little bit, because it really was entertaining and it had been highly amusing to watch him squirm when she'd been hit on in the guild a few times, she just thought he deserved a break now.
But eventually, Lucy found him sitting at a table with Gajeel and Pantherlily, and smiling almost wickedly at Gajeel's single eye that wasn't covered by the eye patch from his own costume going wide, she quietly came up behind Bickslow and gently placed her hands on his cloak-covered shoulders. "Happy Halloween," she whispered in his ear, coming to stand just next to where he sat on the bench seat when he turned.
Just like Gajeel's eye had, Bickslow's eyes went as wide as his grin when he saw Lucy's costume. "Holy shit," he said almost breathlessly, looking up and down his pregnant cheerleader of a wife before he gently pulled her down to sit on his lap, chuckling when she let out a squeak of surprise and her cheeks only got darker. "I see I got my treat, but where's my trick?" he murmured before softly pressing a kiss to her lips.
"You'll just have to wait for that," Lucy giggled before she slid just to the side to sit on the bench, rather than Bickslow's lap. She could only laugh along with Bickslow when Gajeel let out a groan of annoyance opposite them and promptly got up to depart, leaving just Bickslow and herself at the table. "So, what do you think?"
"What do I think? I think you look absolutely fucking amazing. I didn't even know you still had that thing around. How come you never wore it on my birthday, huh?"
Lucy shrugged as she leant back against the back of the bench, folding her arms lightly over the top of her belly. "I have some secrets, you know. And besides, I believe you specifically requested something else for your birthday."
"Yeah, but if I'd known I could have had you wear that, then I so would have requested this instead," Bickslow leant in to press a kiss to her flushed cheek before murmuring, "Regardless of how long it would have stayed on you."
"Oh, shush…" Lucy giggled again as she gently shoved his shoulder. "Anyway, what are you supposed to be? A King?" she gestured to the crown on the top of his head that looked strangely familiar.
Bickslow shrugged then as he let an arm drape over her shoulders, and he briefly glanced down to his own ensemble. A speckled fur-trimmed cloak made of red velvet, a black shirt with golden buttons and almost military-esque details on either side, and of course, the black crown sitting atop the fur base that was sitting atop his forever badass (his words, not Lucy's) hair. "Something like that," he mumbled.
She hummed in thought for a moment as she continued to stare up at the regal crown before she quickly took it between her hands to look at it closely. "Where have I seen this before?" she mused aloud.
"Borrowed it from Natsu. He said he couldn't remember where he got it."
"Natsu…" she echoed, continuing to turn it around in her hands and rack her brain for how it was all so familiar. And then it hit her, and she stared in shock at the crown in her hands. "Oh god, I remember now."
"What?" Bickslow asked, an eyebrow raised in confusion.
Lucy turned her head to look up to Bickslow with a coy smile. "Remember that ball after the games a few years back? And everyone was wondering where Natsu had run off to?"
"Yeah, and he'd ended up going to fucking terrorise the King of Fiore or something. Why?"
"Well, do you remember when we came back to Magnolia after that and we were walking through the town?" She waited until Bickslow had nodded before she continued and she gently placed the crown on the table. "And how the mayor asked to see the cup, but then Natsu pulled out the King's crown he'd stolen instead?"
Bickslow blinked back at Lucy for a few seconds before it finally clicked, and then his eyes flicked to the heavy crown on the table, and then back to Lucy who was barely biting on her bottom lip. "No fucking way," he breathed, and then Lucy nodded. "Holy fucking shit, this is…?"
"Yeah, it's the King's actual crown," she laughed quietly, only to get louder when Bickslow quickly reached to pick up the crown and put it back on his head with his wide tongue-lolling grin. "Oh my god, you're such a dork."
"Does this make me the King now?"
"No, it doesn't," she laughed again. "Now, give me that cloak of yours before I embarrass myself any more or freeze to death."
Bickslow slowly climbed the stairs to their apartment building with Lucy following just behind him, the ends of his cloak trailing on the steps behind her as she walked. She waited until they were comfortably back in their apartment and the door was locked behind them before she lazily laced her arms around the back of his neck and softly pressed her lips to his with an equally lazy smile.
"I can't believe you punched that guy in the face," she said softly, the sight of her husband punching one of Magnolia's many residents who had joined Fairy Tail's Halloween party in the face after the man had made the idiotic mistake of whistling at Lucy when Bickslow had been in earshot fresh in her memory.
"And I can't believe you kicked that other one across the room," Bickslow replied, trying to contain his laughter. He hadn't been able to stop himself from ending up in a howling mess on the guild floor after watching Lucy manage to kick some drunk teenager across the guild after he'd so blatantly and rudely expressed his desire to get her knocked up again (and yes, he'd actually used the words 'knocked,' 'up,' and 'again' in the same sentence and in that oder). Bickslow hadn't even had a chance to tell the guy to back off before Lucy had dealt with it herself.
"Yeah, well… he kinda deserved it," she laughed before she dropped her arms to cover her mouth with the back of her hand to yawn. "Oh gosh, I'm so tired. I think I just want to go have a shower and curl up in bed for the rest of the night."
Bickslow quickly reached for her free hand and flicked off the lights in the living room with his other, leaving just a single lamp on next to the lounge. "I want to show you something first," he said with a wide grin as he led her over to the glass doors on the side of the living room that led to their small balcony.
"Hmm? What?" she asked, her brow becoming furrowed as she tried to understand why they were standing on their dark balcony that was barely even a balcony in the middle of the night. They almost never went out there in the daylight, let alone at night when there was only really the coincidentally full moon, or the odd light from a neighbour's bedroom window, but not enough to really see much.
But then five glowing objects came down from up above and hovered just above and beyond the balcony railing, and she recognised each of them as being carved pumpkins with differently coloured lacrimas in the centre of them and illuminating them. Each of them had a different carving – the first being a simple 'I Love You' in surprisingly neat letters; the second being just a classic face you'd expect on a pumpkin; the third with 'The King to your Queen' in an almost exceptionally fancy text; the fourth with just another classic face; and the fifth with the side profile silhouette of a pregnant woman and the growing baby, which Lucy just thought was quite fitting – and given that they were floating, she quickly realised that Bickslow had transferred the babies' souls into the pumpkins themselves. "What's all of this?" she asked quietly, barely able to hide her wide grin.
"Well…" he dropped his arm to wrap around her waist and pull her into his side. "You know how much I love Halloween," and Bickslow really did love Halloween. It was his second favourite holiday or event, coming in after April Fools' Day. "And this is our first Halloween as an actual couple, since last year doesn't really count. But… next year it's actually going to be the three of us, and eventually, we'll be able to carve pumpkins with our son, because we'll be a family, and we'll be able to do all those cute family things."
Lucy felt tears threaten to spill. Even on Halloween, the guy was an adorably romantic dork, but she really did love that about him. "You're amazing; you know that?" she said quietly while looking up to Bickslow.
"I do know that, but I'm always up to hearing it again," he chuckled, only leaning down to gently kiss his wife. "Now, this trick of yours you promised…"
"Ah, of course. I almost forgot," she grinned as she turned to lace her arms around the back of his neck once again. "The trick is that there's actually no trick," she giggled, and even with just the moonlight and the faint glow from the pumpkins beside them, Bickslow could see the mischievous glint in her eyes.
"Well, that's no fair," he pouted before the corner of his mouth lifted up into an equally mischievous smirk. "But that's not the case…"
"Where are you going with this?" Lucy asked almost cautiously.
"Nowhere, really," he said. "But you say there's no trick, and I can guarantee you there is." Before she could even question it, he quickly leant down to kiss her again, and with his smirk in place, he quietly murmured, "Because you see, if I'm the King to your Queen, then you're the treat to my trick."
So, I hope you enjoyed this early Halloween one-shot. I did want to wait until it was actually Halloween to put it up, but I decided against it since I'll be spamming you with Shattered (my BixLu week story) for a good portion of November, and that's something I'll come to explain in the first chapter of that next week.
Again, I just want to say a huge thank you to CelticHeart13. It was her that convinced me to do a Halloween one-shot for HWHL in the first place, and Bickslow's line where he asks Lucy where his trick is (since she's his treat) was what made me want to write this, because it's just so damn amazing and I couldn't get it out of my head, no matter how hard I tried.
As usual, please feel free to leave any ideas/requests for things you might want to see in future HWHL stories, and don't forget to review/favourite and all of that other fancy and amazing stuff!
I shall see you all next time!
- April