This is my first FanFiction so please be nice.

Fancy Dress part 1 – The Halloween Celebration

Every year in Fabletown, a celebration of the Halloween season is held in honour of the Mundy tradition that occurred at the same time at the end of October. Though for the Fables in exile, the event was more of an excuse for them to hold a fancy dress event that led to socialising, dancing, lots of drinking and silence.

Whilst the Mundies celebrated by dressing up in scary costumes, the reality of it was more obvious for the Fables, some would merely have to change form or remove their glamour to achieve such scary appearances, so instead Mayor Cole decided that the event should be a come-as-anything fancy dress party.

Usually everyone would show up and every year the outfits would either remain constant with a previous theme or something new would be tried; for example Mayor Cole would always come dressed as a court jester complete with a stripped uniform, jingle hat and joker baton whilst giving off a very bubbly persona and telling bad jokes.

The only one to never really show up at the celebration was the town's Sheriff Bigby Wolf; he always put his lateness or complete absence down to being busy with work like having to break up a fight somewhere or finishing off urgent paperwork, but most were smart enough to know that it was all a lie; in truth Bigby never felt completely accepted into the community, even after centuries of selfless and loyal service to those around him Bigby never quite felt liked or trusted by anyone around him, well given his background should he expect it?

He was after all the Big Bad Wolf of legend, the most feared creature in the Homelands alongside the Adversary himself, he had always wondered how events would have unfolded had he joined the Adversary instead of Fabletown but thinking back it wouldn't have lasted long, Bigby hated being told what to do by those he deemed as being beneath him, he had suffered enough orders whilst serving in the Mundy wars and even then he had to restrain himself from going rogue and doing as he pleased.

However this year he had told Snow and Cole that he would make the celebration; no one really knew what had brought this on. It had been a full 4 months since the Crooked Man had been turned into a crow and magically imprisoned in a birdcage by Aunty Greenleaf, an act which no one seemed to thank Bigby for, in fact they seemed to resent him for it; Bigby was trying to prove that he had reformed from his evil ways by finding an equally effective alternative to getting rid of a serious problem, but for once his instinct to just kill the Crooked Man would've been the better option. "Ah whatever" he thought to himself, "I did what I thought was the right thing to do and that's all that needs to be said".

Around 7pm everyone was gathered in the dance hall beneath Mayor Cole's penthouse apartment. It was a glamorous and heart-warming affair and quite a sight to behold: Halloween decorations like skulls and pumpkins had been physically and magically adorned all over by the 13th floor witches with a low mist created to add to the intentionally creepy affair. The outfits were ranging from mild to outstanding:

Beauty and Beast had come in typical royal attire, with Beauty wearing a dark red velvet dress and Beast wearing a royal garb made from the same materials but also sporting a pair of brown duelling gloves and a dark blue cape over his left shoulder; Bluebeard was wearing expensive looking sea-faring attire to mimic his pirating days but he had also adorned himself with an expensive looking red coat and a jewel encrusted cutlass to go with it adding in a sense of nobility, Charming had come dressed in black with an eye mask and a flowing cape and simple rapier sword from his collection to mimic a swashbuckling hero (ironic to most people present to say the least), Jack had come dressed as a skeleton while Rose was wearing a rather tight and revealing Devil costume that she had obviously bought from a Mundy store complete with blood red lipstick and horns.

The real show-stealer was Snow White of course; having applied dark red lipstick and a lot of mascara and eye shadow, she was wearing a black dress parted over her left leg up towards the thigh for better movement with the torso consisting of a leather corset tied up at the back in a knot (the whole attire was one dress) the corset did well to accentuate her already impressive bosom and her hair was down and flowing as it pleased, on her feet were a pair of heeled leather boots held in place by buckles and straps. She looked amazing in her witch attire but was about to be shunned aside when the elevator doors opened to reveal a true sight to behold.

Standing tall with his head angled down was Bigby Wolf dressed in a remarkable Victorian-era outfit: an older century white shirt with lace collar and wrists covered by a black tunic vest adorned with light grey symbols over which he wore a large black overcloak that nearly hit the floor behind him, black slacks tucked into a vintage looking pair of black leather riding boots with the tops folded over, a tri-corn hat made of blackened leather with an eagle feather in the left side adorned his head, looking at his waist he wore a simple brown belt to hold up his slacks over which he wore a larger black belt loosely around his waist, the larger belt contained a fancy looking rapier sword adorned with simple decoration and he was carrying a black cane with an ornate steel head in his left hand with the head of the cane shaped like a snarling wolf's head; lifting his face up Bigby had both shaved his stubble and cut his hair to a length that he could comb it back more neatly. Of course it wouldn't have been Bigby if he wasn't smoking, in his mouth was an old-fashioned pipe filled with tobacco shavings which he had just sparked up with a match.

People were at a complete loss for words! Bigby had not only shown up on time but he had come in a very authentic outfit and the look suited him. Bigby then very elegantly strode out of the elevator with his pipe in his mouth and stood in the room in silence waiting for the others to begin laughing at his attire or commenting negatively on his presence there; but neither of those things happened.

Bigby was instead met with appreciative smiles and pleasant surprise; the Fables began to flock around him commenting on how amazing his outfit was and how good he looked now that he had cleaned up. Snow was standing in the back of the small crowd with Rose, looking on in pleasant surprise at Bigby's sheer presence; Rose broke the silence with bites on her lower lip whispering into Snow's ear.

"The Wolf looks tasty dressed like that doesn't he?"

Snow playfully elbowed Rose in the side and the two sisters giggled at the comment, indeed Bigby did look remarkably dashing and handsome in his very noble attire, almost as if he was born to wear it... Snow became lost in her thoughts "No Snow, stop thinking about him like that, you are NOT attracted to Bigby Wolf, besides he'll just hurt you like everyone else has... right?" Snow pondered on her thoughts for what seemed like an eternity; she had never really thought of Bigby as anything more than a trusted colleague, maybe even a close friend, but to consider that she might have feelings of love for him was something else entirely, maybe she did?.

The happiness was eventually ruined and Snow was brought back to reality by Bluebeard who broke the joy with a question, standing only 2 feet away from Bigby, Bluebeard asked

"And what are you supposed to be Sheriff? Some kind of nobleman or literary figure? Am I to start calling you Lord Wolf!?

Bluebeard smugly grinned at his mockery, Bigby would usually reply with something gruff but instead he just took a final drag of his pipe and blew it into Bluebeard's face, returning the pipe to the inside of his cloak, Bigby then pulled out 2 pill-shaped capsules from his pocket, put them in his mouth and crunched them in his teeth; Bluebeard's expression grew more confused when thick blood-like liquid began oozing from Bigby's mouth, his expression of shock was then shared by the rest of the crowd when Bigby's eyes turned red and he flashed his now wolf-like blood-covered teeth at Bluebeard; moving closer to him Bluebeard took a couple of short steps back and gulped before Bigby spoke.

"Count technically, although Lord Wolf has a nice ring to it, I am a son of the North Wind after all and he is the King of the North so maybe I should be awarded a title for my many years of service"

The crowd chuckled very quietly before Bigby continued.

"It's my own take on Count Dracula, you know the vampire of legend, hence the blood"

Bluebeard simply turned away with a huff, clearly defeated in his attempt to single out Bigby's choice of outfit.

The crowd dissipated to doing other things as Bigby went over to one of the tables and removed his cane and sword from his outfit and laid them out to be collected later, he turned around to see Snow standing behind him with a sweet smile on her face, that smile always made him brighten up inside; apparently lost in a trance Bigby was roused back to reality with Snow's words.

"What's the blood made of?"

Bigby quickly replied with a slight shake of his head "It's a recipe I learned a while back to help recreate violent murder scenes, it's just corn syrup mixed with food dye, not really my thing taste wise but it mimics blood pretty well"

Snow just smiled and continued talking about various other work-related things; she only ever seemed to talk about work, never anything personal but that was Snow, she was the tightest lipped person in Fabletown and everyone knew it.

As the night continued on Bigby was trying his best to be a socialite, although it was clear from the get go that he was somewhat forcing his attempts at talking to people; 5 times in 1 hour Bigby would step outside onto the balcony and continue smoking his pipe, the thickness of the smoke deadened his senses to almost nothing but the effect wouldn't last for more than a few minutes. He was joined on his 6th outing by Snow, who mimicked Bigby by leaning up against the edge of the balcony, after a brief silence she spoke.

"So why did you come tonight of all nights?"

"I wanted to impress people, you especially, loosen up, the usual..." He eyed her up and down "You look really beautiful Snow"

Snow couldn't help the blush that crept to her face but remained consistent nonetheless "Thank you Sheriff, you don't look too bad yourself"

Snow flashed a playful smile which Bigby mimicked with a low chuckle; "Yeah, tonight is gonna be a good one" he thought to himself.

Next time: Bigby and Snow discover a revelation