As he strolled along the sidewalks of Sunnydale currently crowded with trick-or-treaters, including those children he was responsible for, Xander Harris kept on his face throughout his saunter a truly benevolent expression for his constituents. However, the teenager's thoughts were more unsettled, since something very peculiar had made itself evident during his various visits to people's homes. While standing at the front door with his charges as they grabbed for the offered candy, Xander had delivered fulsome sound bites in a certain politician's folksy style, about assorted local topics concerning Sunnydale and its residents. The young man had expected and had truly enjoyed the gales of laughter from those adults handing out the Halloween treats, each and every one who'd promptly recognized their costumed visitor on the doorstep of their homes.
No, what had really disconcerted Xander was the fact that when he hadn't broken character at all during his brief remarks, keeping a gleaming smile plastered upon his face while booming out his friendly and informal statement, his audiences had then done what the high-school student had never expected.
They had listened.
They had paid attention.
That didn't happen to Alexander LaVelle Harris at all, not to the slacker, the goofball, the Scooby Gang member who casually mentioned his sensible suggestions during their research parties on how to deal with the latest Hellmouth Big Bad, while also at the same time proposing that for her next patrol, Buffy Summers should dress up in a black wig, a breastplate, a leather skirt, and carry a Frisbee with numerous razor blades glued to the edges of that toy. Any vamp meeting Xena's little sis in a Sunnydale graveyard would surely be confused enough to be easy prey for the Slayer, right?
The rest of the Scoobies never seemed to notice that after jeering (and in one case uttering a depreciating cough) at Xander's immature and total-teenage-boy-in-lust proposals, they usually wound up following his plans, believing these to be their own ideas. Which was perfectly fine with him. As long as his girls and the others he loved stayed okay, who needed the credit?
On the streets of Sunnydale during Halloween night, Xander had an odd thought, *Geez, is that why Wilkins does it in the first place, talking like somebody from the fifties? They might laugh at him, but they also pay attention, too, and that gives him a chance to make his point. Dude's smarter than he looks.*
Chuckling to himself, the young man in the outdated suit came to a stop on the sidewalk, and he looked around, beaming at the peaceful All-Hallows scene of his fellow Sunnydalers safely out in the streets at night, an exceedingly rare event for that town uneasily located above the Boca del Infierno.
At that exact moment, a ceremony in a small costume shop concluded with three shouted words:
"JANUS! SUME NOCTEM!"
In his office at a deserted City Hall, Richard Wilkins III completed the sharpening of his new pencil, absently enjoying the grinding of the inner mechanism of the old-fashioned apparatus he was diligently cranking away. The mayor firmly disapproved of electric pencil sharpeners, despite how well they served as torture devices. *Really, those things are just gilding the lily. Why can't people simply be satisfied with what works and keep it that way?*
As he then pulled out the finished pencil, Wilkins held this writing instrument up to his face, appreciatively noting the sharpness of the black pencil lead, and sent towards the tip a quick puff of breath to blow off a few minuscule bits of shavings. Humming to himself a Sousa march, the mayor headed to his desk piled high with papers. Settling himself in his executive chair, Wilkins placed the pencil down on a bare space, and then he brought his hands together to clasp them, with his knuckles being cracked in the next moment. When he was doing this, the ruler of a small California city thoughtfully eyed the drudgery he was expected to finish tonight.
Frankly, it was at times like these that Richard Wilkins (I, II, and III, of course) wondered if that perhaps another approach would've worked just as well in becoming the lord and master of the Sunnydale Hellmouth. Back then, over a hundred years ago, he'd hit upon the idea of running for mayor and then using his magic to stay in office, making people forget the man they voted for every couple of years had been the exact same person in that job since the nineteenth century. It was true that lying low as a small-town politician meant potential rivals - demons and other magicial humans, to be exact - attempting to take over his city had usually ignored or disregarded good ol' Richard Wilkins until it was far too late for these now-deceased usurpers.
However, these failed takeovers by supernatural challengers had actually been the high points of his political career while he'd been working towards his Ascension. Wilkins had never really considered before becoming the Mayor of Sunnydale the sheer tedium of in fact running the affairs of those people living, working, and going around their business in a village, a town, and finally a city. Particularly since the problems, demands, and desires of humans had pretty much stayed the same over all the decades Wilkins had been in office, even if the technology had changed (the man in the office flatly refused to use the word 'improved'). Which meant that instead of complaining about their neighbor's chimney smoke blowing into their bedroom window, Sunnydalers now complained about their neighbor watching X-rated cable without closing the shades.
Not to mention those really boring occasions every four years when the mayor had to actually run for office - making speeches, shaking hands, and kissing babies - like there was any point whatsoever in this since nobody ever ran against him. It was all part of Sunnydale Syndrome, except that Wilkins had unthinkingly set that spell up the first time so long ago that in order for it to continue to work, the magical invocation needed him to truly campaign for office.
It hadn't ever gotten any more exciting after so many times. Though, at least during the quarterly bussing of the cute little tykes, Wilkins could also perform a taste test of his future meals. The mayor had become somewhat concerned over the last couple of decades about the high levels of preservatives already discernible in those charming youngsters, which had caused him to have a town law passed ordering all baby food sold in the Sunnydale supermarkets to be of organic origin, avoiding synthetic chemicals. That had been a bit of a mistake, since it had then attracted nationwide attention and praise about a small town's government showing concern for its citizens. Oh, well, during the following meetings with outside media, newly appointed Richard Wilkins III had been at his most cheerfully pompous, causing his interviewers to hastily end their questions before dropping dead from pure boredom. That had entertained the mayor enough so that he'd continued his excessively effusive discoursing during conversations and orations from then on, even though Sunnydalers had become accustomed to that, which rather spoiled the fun.
Sighing to himself as he finished his ruminations, Wilkins allowed his mood to brighten a trifle as he pointed out to himself that at least tonight would be a time when he could actually get some iwork/i done. In the entire town during Halloween, the majority of those fine fellows of demonic species would be staying in their lairs, since no self-respecting fiend would venture outside during something so tacky as this evening's holiday. The master of the Hellmouth had been a little bemused for the last twenty or thirty years on how the normal humans had somehow picked this up, to then unconcernedly step out of their homes into the Sunnydale night, all while attending costume parties and allowing their children to go trick-or-treating. The mayor certainly had nothing to do with it, instead regarding the inexplicable Halloween celebrations of those homo sapiens living in Sunnydale as just another minor mystery, of absolutely no concern to Richard Wilkins III whatsoever.
Instead, the unaging sorcerer had found out that All-Hallow's Night, as it had been called when he was a boy, was one of the few times of the year that nobody bothered him at all, and he could work in peace. Nodding firmly to himself in satisfaction over this, Wilkins grabbed his pencil, reached out to pull towards himself the first document at hand, and he then read the resolution for replacing the sewage system along State Street. As he scribbled a few notes on this document, Mayor Dick thought to himself, *I'm really going to enjoy eating those people.*
At that exact moment, a ceremony in a small costume shop concluded with three shouted words:
"JANUS! SUME NOCTEM!"