#68: Spooky Season #7 (Carving Pumpkins)


Prompt: carved, spine-tingling, orbs

Gin forces the espada to carve pumpkins for Halloween under the guise of a bonding activity (more a creative sort of torture) and the results are…interesting.


"What fresh hell is this?" Szayel's mutter manages to carry around the room despite the cacophony that always accompanied the espada when more than two or three met at once. He's usually the one to toady up and take pleasure in whatever Aizen has planned for them but today Aizen is not here. Instead, Gin is standing at the front of the room with a wide smirk on his face. It widens even further when he hears Szayel's grumbling.

"Glad ya asked!" He chirps and the espada's noise goes down on octave. (It doesn't stop. It never completely stops.) "Have any of ya heard of Halloween?"

For a long moment, no one answers. Then Ulquiorra lets out a quiet sigh and replies in a completely monotone voice. "Halloween is a human tradition. Children beg for food from strangers at night, wearing clothes that conceal their identity. It is a stupid past-time."

"Right you are, Mr. Killjoy!" Gin practically prances his way to the huge table they're all avoiding like the plague. "But that's not all the holiday is! These -." He spreads his hands at the large, orange objects stationed every few feet. "Are pumpkins. It's a tradition to carve these into scary faces!" He waves his hand by his head to heighten the effect of his declaration. His enthusiasm is undeterred when no one reacts. "And I've brought them here so the ten of you can give it a try!"

"What?!"

"Why?!"

"I'm not going to carve a stupid vegetable!"

"Do we have to?"

"Does Aizen know about this?"

Gin lets the new wave of chaos wash over him with a grin on his face.

"Now, I wouldn't want to tell Lord Aizen that you're slacking off!" He sing-songs after a long moment, just before Nnoitra can decimate the table and all of the pumpkins with his zanpakuto. That gives them pause. Only the most powerful four seem unimpressed, but none of them have been participating in the protests anyway. True to form, they'll go along with Aizen's orders, one way or another. Gin isn't interested in them. Instead, he watches Grimmjow's rapidly fraying temper and the increasingly sulky look on Szayel's face.

"…What would Lord Aizen have us do?" Aaroneiro burbles from the shadows, far from the other espada.

"Why dontcha all pick up a knife and have a go?" Gin's grin doesn't fade as he backs towards the door. "I'm sure Lord Aizen would appreciate it!"

He slips out while they are all picking up knives and sizing up pumpkins. He wants to watch this from the surveillance room, where he can react however he wants and none of them know he's watching. It's going to be priceless.


Two hours later, Gin slinks back into the room and has to stifle a laugh. It's pumpkin carnage. There are stringy orange pumpkin guts and small off-white seeds everywhere on the table, the floor, the walls, even the ceiling. The espada themselves look completely fed up and most of them are covered in pumpkin goop too – only Starrk seems to have avoided the party entirely and Ulquiorra looks like someone threw globs at him instead of getting it on himself. There are also plenty of cero-singe marks and knife cuts in every flat surface available.

"Let's see what you've been up to!" He sing-songs, just to see them flinch and jump.

The first one on his right is Yammy, and his offering is…not what he asked for, but pretty much what he expected. There's one sad little piece of pumpkin rind with a crude hole punched in it and a bunch of chewed up bits of pumpkin scattered around it.

"You weren't supposed to eat it, Yammy."

"You didn't say that!" The tenth espada booms, then his face twists in in a sneer. "Can I go now?"

"Not yet." Gin's smile shrinks enough to make the arrancar flinch slightly and reach for his zanpakuto, then he turns to the next one in line. It's Nnoitra and his pumpkin looks only slightly better than Yammy's, but instead of eating it, the fifth espada has impaled it so many times that it is falling apart. Gin can literally see light through some of the holes, especially the narrow slit carved on the front that's probably supposed to be a sword, or a stick, or something. It's a testament to Nnoitra's frustration and immediately brings Gin's smile back to size.

"Good work!" He carols, met by an enraged snarl, and then moves on to Aarnoeiro.

His pumpkin is also in pieces, two bigger than the rest, and they're floating in a fishbowl. Each of the big pieces has a crude smiling face carved into it and both of them seem to look at Gin as he walks up. In fact, when he slides to the other side of the bowl, it still looks like they're watching him.

"…Okay."

He moves on to Szayel and finds that the scientist has gotten his hands on three pumpkins and they're all remarkably detailed and graphic anatomical diagrams of his favorite dissections – two shinigami and one arrancar. Gin knows they're his favorites because he gushes about them all the time. The eighth espada himself looks downright murderous and it takes Gin a long moment to realize why; it's because his normally-white clothes are stained orange from the…enthusiastic…carving of his neighbors. He's practically vibrating with the desire to go and change into clean clothes.

Gin offers him a grin and moves on without saying anything.

Next is Grimmjow and his pumpkin closely resembles Nnoitra's, though the image is more elaborate. It's a crude cat rather than a sword (or stick). He doesn't seem to care that his shirt and hair are full of pumpkin goop, but he's glowering at Gin fit to kill and snarling under his breath.

"Not bad, Grimmy!" Predictably, the sixth espada bares his teeth and the only thing that keeps him from responding with a tirade of curses is his desire to leave and his fear of Aizen's reprisal.

Zommari is sitting beside the sixth espada and he offers his pumpkin as soon as Gin looks at him. It's…familiar. Gin looks at it, then back at Zommari, then back to the pumpkin. The surface of the gourd is covered in eyes, carved deeply over and over so they're looking in every direction. It's somewhat similar to the seventh espada's resurrection.

"Feelin' lonely, Zommari?" Gin needles, getting a deep frown in response.

Barragan…should be next, but instead there are a few of his fraccion, Gin never bothered to learn their names.

"Where's your boss, guys?" He tries for pleasant but based on the way they pull away, he probably missed by a mile. One of them manages to respond, though.

"His Majesty Lord Barragan, God-King of Hueco Mundo, has no time for your childish…"

"Yeah, I don't care. He's not here. An' neither's his pumpkin." Either this is where Szayel got his extras or the fraccion completely demolished Barragan's pumpkin. Gin's leaning towards the latter; there's way too much pumpkin goop staining the fraccion for their pumpkin to have been stolen. At least, stolen in one piece. "I'll be talkin' with Aizen about this, don't you worry."

Aizen might not know or care about the pumpkin contest, that's Gin's own little joke, but he will care that Barragan disobeyed a direct order. Discipline is in order.

Ulquiorra clearly drew the short straw because he's standing next to the fraccion and looking as annoyed as his unmoving expression will allow. On the table in front of him, his pumpkin has been carved into an eerily-realistic eye. It's not just a picture, either; the whole thing has been sculpted to resemble an eye. It's another pumpkin that stares back at Gin when he looks at it.

Not much amusement to be had there.

"Good work, Ulquiorra!" He chirps, just to see the muscle in the fourth espada's jaw tense.

Halibel is next and her frigid glare and prominently bared mask-teeth perfectly match the shark that she's carved into her pumpkin. It's not the most detailed or clean carving, but it's complete and the rest of her pumpkin is intact. Her narrowed eyes warn Gin away from any comments and he just offers her a friendly smile before moving on. (Though even that is enough to make her eyes narrow further.)

Last is Starrk, and Gin was expecting his pumpkin to be untouched. While watching from the surveillance room, he didn't see the primera move at all. Not even once. Even now, he appears to be sleeping slumped over the table with his head in his arms. To Gin's surprise, there's an impressively detailed howling wolf carved into the pumpkin, complete with a crescent moon carved in the background. It's even got a little eye carved in place.

"…Huh."

For a moment, Gin just stands there pondering it. He never took his eyes off the camera…was it possible he'd been so distracted by the others' noise that he'd overlooked Starrk carving quietly in the corner? Maybe…

"So, can we go now?" The primera grumbles, lifting his head from where it was laying on his arms. His eyes are awake and alert, annoyed but not to the point of aggression. Still, he's a bit more animated than Gin's used to and that's more of a reaction than he anticipated.

Gin grins and nods his head.

"Thanks everyone! I'll see you back here for the meeting. I'm sure Aizen-sama will be impressed!"

It's a stampede to the door and in seconds Gin is standing all alone.

Finally, he's free to laugh.


Oof. Halfway done and losing a bit of steam...

Thanks to everyone who's read and reviewed!