Fic with a (slightly late, but only by an hour... and a bit =]) Halloween flavour!
D/C: You know the drill!
Also, for anyone who cares... Tears WILL be updated tomorrow. I apologise for the ridiculous wait for the update! =]
xx
"No."
"Please."
"No."
"But you'll be the only one looking like an idiot."
"No, I'll be the only one not looking like an idiot Jones! What the hell are you dressed as?"
"Zombie teacher."
"Zombie teacher?"
"Well, everyone always goes as zombies so I wanted to make it doubly scary and what's the scariest thing in the world? Teacher," the little boy announced proudly. His dad raised an eyebrow and was about to continue his scepticism of the zombie teacher when Richmond walked through the door.
"Ahh, Richmond," cried Howard, "that's horrible. What have you dressed up as?"
"Dressed up?" The boy frowned, looking down at his black trousers, ruffled shirt and cape. "I'm not dressed up."
"Howard," Vince scolded, from behind him. "Are you suggesting Richmond looks like he's dressed up?"
"He's got fangs," Howard protested before swinging around and catching sight of his partner. He was stunned into silence and Vince giggled.
The electro-poof loved Halloween. That wasn't surprising. He loved spending money on an outfit and then spending hours on the make-up but most of all, he loved the attention being dressed up brought him. Especially when that attention was Howard stood jaw-dropped in the middle of the room.
Not that it was Howard's fault. If Vince Noir was stood in front of you in skin-tight black jeans, a white shirt unbuttoned to the middle of his chest and a long flowing black cape, you'd stare too. Especially if said costume was accompanied by with snow-white skin, fangs and thick trails of fake blood flowing from bright red lips.
"What?" Vince asked after a moment or two.
"Nothing," Howard said, shaking himself free of his obsessive gawping. Not that Vince minded. He liked that even after all these years he still had the ability to reduce Howard to a blubbering wreck.
"Why aren't you dressed up?"
"Because dressing up is stupid."
"Howard, you're going to be the only one not dressed up. Even Vinward is dressed up."
"Is he?"
"Yes."
"As what?"
"He's going as some boring explorer and Lauren's going as the thing he discovers."
"You're kidding."
"No, they look brilliant. Look here they come."
Howard couldn't really comment on the site ahead of him. Vinward dressed up as Christopher Columbus next to Lauren, who was draped in gold chains and silver medallions, whilst Vinward tried to explain that Columbus had been searching for potatoes not gold.
The argument continued for a long time and Howard chose to ignore it. Sometimes it worried him just how much of his and Vince's own childhood he saw in Vinward and Lauren. Looking at them now, he was transported to the time Vince had dressed up as a devil, with impressive red horns and a brilliant attention-grabbing tail and Howard (so that they could go as a pair) had dressed up as a trident, which wouldn't have been so bad, if the costume hadn't involved Howard holding his arms up like he was about to be shot for the entire evening. Even the memory made his shoulder protest in agony.
"See Howard," Vince was saying, "you're going to be the only one not dressed up."
"Well, it's too late to buy an outfit now."
"It's never too late. Just rip up a shirt and go as a zombie."
"But I don't want to rip up my shirts."
"Howard, all of your shirts should be ripped up," Vince reminded him. "But that's not necessary," he smirked, "I've bought you an outfit. It's on our bed. Come on, you can't go trick or treating dressed like that."
--
"I can't go trick or treating dressed like this!" Howard exclaimed.
Vince creased up, almost falling off his chair with laughter.
"Why not?" He demanded. "You look lovely. Look, kids. Doesn't Daddy Howard look lovely?"
The children just stared up at Howard for a moment, a look of horrified confusion etched on each of their faces.
"Umm, Dad," Jones started, when he'd recovered enough to speak, "why are you wearing a dress?"
"It's my Halloween costume," Howard growled, glaring pointedly at Vince, who was failing miserably to stifle an onslaught of giggles.
"I like it," Jones decided.
"Me too," agreed Richmond.
"And me," Lauren smiled.
Howard looked at Vinward, who stayed purposefully silent as he looked up at his hero, wearing a blood stained wedding dress, complete with veil, ripped white stockings and high heels.
"Right, that's it. I'm getting changed," Howard announced.
--
He hadn't got changed. He hadn't been allowed to. Every time he'd suggested it, three little people and one rather larger person had stood in his way.
"I look ridiculous," he'd moaned.
"Well, yeah," Vince had laughed, "but I can fix it." And with that, he'd put two dark marks on Howard's neck so it looked like he'd been bitten by a vampire. "Now you are my bride!" Vince had cackled in what Howard guess was supposed to be a Scandinavian accent but had actually sounded like a horrible blend of cockney-French.
--
"Fifty-three, fifty-four, fifty-five, fifty-six. I've got fifty-six sweets. How many have you got Vinward?"
"Erm," Vinward quickly counted his again. "Four," he sighed.
"Four?!" exclaimed the hyper boy. "Four! That's rubbish. I got fifty-six. Woooooooooooo! Fifty-six, fifty-six." He stood up, wiggling his tiny round bottom in Vinward's face.
"Stop it," Vinward warned.
The wiggling continued.
"Stop!"
Wiggle, wiggle. "Fifty-six. Yeah!"
"JONES! STOP!"
Wiggle.
Smack.
Jones howled like a dying banshee. "Daaaaaaaaad," he screamed, "Vinward hit me!"
"I'm sure he didn't meant it." Vince sighed, "come on, lets carve the pumpkins."
Everyone ignored Richmond as he quietly counted his way to one hundred and twenty three sweets.
--
Vince regretted pumpkin-carving almost immediately. Jones had eaten forty-three of his fifty-six sweets and could hardly sit still. He kept running around, talking so fast no one could decipher what he was trying to say.
"Iwantmypumpkintohavefacemakeuplikegarynumanandtheniwanthimtohavelonghairlikejaggerandaneyepatchjustbecauseeyepatchesarecoolandialsowant…"
"Jones, sit still," Howard sighed.
He was fed up now. People had sniggered at him the whole time they were out. One woman had crossed the road with her child because she'd seen him coming. The dress was itchy and uncomfortable and the tights and stockings pinched in all the wrong places and yet, he was still wearing the blasted thing because Vince had begged him to. He'd whispered in his ear earlier and now Howard kept receiving wolfish grins and hungry looks over the kitchen counter, which wasn't helping him concentrate on stopping Jones from cutting his own fingers off.
Vinward's pumpkin decorating was much calmer, he'd become a bit quieter after Lauren had gone home. The face of his pumpkin was a little wobbly, he wasn't as artistic as his brothers but the face was there; two triangle eyes, a square nose and a weird zig-zag for a mouth. He was proud of his achievement and named it Lauren.
"This is Vladimir," Richmond announced, turning his own pumpkin around to reveal a fully lifelike face, carved into the skin of the pumpkin, "I've hollowed him out enough to that the light should glow through the white bits of the picture."
Vince shuddered a little. It was almost too good. There was shading under the chin and hair in curls around prominent cheekbones. Professional artists would be proud of it.
Jones' pumpkin ended up being a load of circles and spirals in a random pattern because, "FacesAreBoring."
"Faces are traditional."
"AndTraditionIsBoring!"
"He's never gonna sleep tonight," groaned Vince, as their smallest son took off across the kitchen singing a made up song about Halloween and pumpkins.
On the contrary, it was only thirty minutes later that Jones crashed and burned, sprawled out on the living room floor like a starfish. Howard chuckled as he lifted him up and took him to bed.
After that, everything was calmer. They lit the pumpkins and watched them glowing for a while. They ate marshmallows and chocolate and Vinward and Richmond got quite competitive bobbing for apples before they sat down to watch Casper, which, though he wouldn't admit it, gave Vinward nightmares for a week.
All in all it was a pretty successful Halloween and Howard learnt that Halloween role play can be a lot of fun...
I couldn't resist the ending...
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!