AN: I wish it was Halloween already! Still, we're heading into fall, so that's equally nice. Hope everyone is enjoying the ride. Love can be slow growing at times...


"You really don't want to go out with the others?" Billy asked, stretching his feet onto the coffee table.

"I'd rather be with you," Machiavelli murmured. He sat beside the American immortal, gingerly putting his feet up as well. "Besides we have plans to watch scary movies."

"That's true," Billy said excitedly.

"I'm sorry you can't go out tonight though. I know Halloween's one of your favorite holidays…"

Billy shrugged. "We still get to hand out candy to the kids. And we're together. I like that." He paused, closing his eyes and leaning back into the couch. "I'm sorry I gave you my cold though. Even if you seem to have gotten over it pretty quickly."

"I'm sorry I kissed you when I was drunk," Machiavelli commented. He'd been reaching for his wine glass but remembering what he'd done a week ago, he left it alone.

"Did Scatty tell you?"

"Yeah, I asked her about it… I kind of remember parts of the night." Billy looked over at him, quietly prompting him in his own way. "…Not much, I just remember… oh, Billy, are you going to make me say it?"

"It was just a friendly kiss," Billy assured him.

"I'm cutting my drinking down to nothing," Machiavelli mumbled.

The outlaw laughed. "That's okay… You're allowed to drink." He gave Niccolo a side smile. "I didn't mind at all. Some people get depressed when they drink. Some people are aggressive. You're so affectionate when you're drunk."

Machiavelli wanted to switch subjects, still embarrassed about before. "It looks really nice in here, Billy. I like the pumpkins in the windows." They'd carved so many pumpkins that in an effort to declutter the front steps, at least enough so that the night's children could easily get up and down the stairs, they'd ended up putting some of the pumpkins in the front window. With Billy's fake bloody handprints in the window and cobwebs carefully placed in the corners of the room, the place looked especially spooky.

"I like it," Billy agreed. "I don't usually decorate for Halloween."

"What?"

"No, really, I don't, Mac. Not too much anyways cause it's just me."

Machiavelli looked around the room again. "I thought you did this, every year. No? Why now?"

"Because I've been having so much fun having everyone around," Billy told him earnestly. "Holidays can be a real drag if you're alone. You know?"

"Sure…"

Billy shivered slightly. "I'm going to light a fire in the grate."

"When are the trick or treaters coming?" Machiavelli glanced at his watch. It was a little past seven now- the sky was already dark outside.

"Shouldn't be long," Billy enthused. "Probably fifteen more minutes. We should have dinner while we can." Moving into their dining room, he used a lighter to start the candles in the center. Machiavelli followed him over, leaning on the doorway to watch the younger man work. Billy glanced up. "I like the candles," he said happily. "Makes me feel like a kid again. We always ate by kerosene lamps, and then gas lights as time went on."

"It's nice. Makes our pizza look fancier," he joked.

"I like it when you dress down, Mac," Billy told him. Sitting cross-legged at the table, he grabbed a plate and dragged the box over carefully. "You look nice, of course, with your suits, but I like it when you go casual too."

"Maybe you just like my casual clothes because they're mostly your clothes."

"That could be it," Billy agreed, his eyes twinkling. "I'll get it," he added when their doorbell rang.

Machiavelli got up too, following slightly after him. He leaned against the wall listening to Billy talking excitedly to their first round of trick or treaters. He smiled faintly, listening to Billy talk with a little girl in a green princess dress. Closing the door again, Billy was surprised to find Machiavelli behind him. "You should have come seen them, Mac, they were so cute."

"I'll get up next time and come with you," Niccolo said patiently. He sat back down again.

Billy was halfway through his third slice and Machiavelli, still working on his first, when the doorbell rang again. Billy grabbed the Italian immortal's hand. "Come on, you promised!" He beamed, pulling the Italian through the hallway. They opened the door.

"Trick or treat!" A small army of children were on the front steps.

"Hello! Nice wings, take two. Are you Harry Potter?" Billy asked the littlest of the group, a small Vietnamese boy with fake glasses and a lightning bolt scar drawn on his face with what looked like eyeliner. He nodded.

"Your pumpkin is out," he said, pointing at the jack-o-lantern on the top step. Taking a piece of candy, he stayed behind even as his older siblings were going down the steps.

"Want to see some magic?" Billy asked keenly, kneeling by the pumpkin. He waved his hands over the pumpkin, hamming it up, and then, with a slight snap of his fingers, reignited the flame. The boy's face lit up, especially when Billy extinguished the fire again so that he could try. He was awestruck when the fire lit again, not noticing the hint of cayenne pepper that hung in the air now.

"Come on, Liam, hurry up!" One of the older boys yelled.

Liam ran down the stairs. "Bye!" he called to Billy, who lit the fire one more time, this time with a match.

"Bye!" Billy looked back at Machiavelli. "Help me up?"

Machiavelli grabbed his hand, hauling him back to his feet. Billy sneezed on him and apologized, wiping the Italian's hand off with his patterned handkerchief. "He was sweet," Niccolo commented, pouring more water for his companion as they sat down again.

"Do you think I shouldn't have shown him my aura?" the outlaw asked anxiously.

"No, I think its fine. He probably thought we had a trick candle."

Machiavelli felt a bit shy, himself, talking to the children who came to their door. Billy sent him out alone the next time the bell rang. He was glad to find just one little girl, looking up at him with wide eyes. Knowing that his height must be rather intimidating, he knelt down and held out the bowl for her. She seemed shy; that was okay with him. He sympathized sincerely. Grabbing a lollipop, she ran down their stairs to her father. Their whole interaction had been wordless.

He found that he wanted to say something to them, but didn't know what to say. It had been a long time since he'd directly interacted with a child, barring his experiences this summer, but those had come naturally and these didn't.

"There's no rushing it," Billy said patiently when Machiavelli expressed his doubts. "It took a little while for me to get used to you being small after it first happened. Of course, it helped that you knew me and we spent the first couple of weeks convalescing… Just tell them you like their costume or ask them who they are. It'll get easier."

Billy didn't push him though after that. For the next half hour, he answered the door, encouraging Machiavelli to come to the door with him, but did most of the talking himself. Occasionally, he would seek the Italian immortal's opinion. Machiavelli was mostly happy to lean in the door jamb and watch the outlaw interact with their trick or treaters.

There were a lot of movie characters, he noticed. Halloween was supposed to be scary, he had to confirm with Billy, but the majority of the kids he saw dressed the same. "Does it seem like there's a lot of girls in blue dresses and blond wigs?" he asked the Kid at one point. "What's that about?"

"I haven't a clue," Billy said, shrugging.

The next time a little girl came up in that getup, the Italian had to ask; his curiosity had been piqued. "Who are you?" he asked kindly, holding out the candy bowl. He'd surprised Billy by snagging it first.

"I'm Elsa," she said giggling. Waving at him, she hopped down their stairs, dress trailing behind her.

"Well that tells us nothing," Machiavelli complained, standing up again. They could see another group coming up the sidewalk towards them. Billy leaned on the jamb waiting for them.

"You'll have to interrogate the next one," Billy advised him, laughing. "Hey, you're the scariest costume we've seen tonight," he said to a teenager with an orangy politician's mask on. "You might have lost your chance to find out," he added, closing the door behind the last group. He checked his watch. "Trick or treating will be over soon. We're seeing mostly older kids anyways."

They shut off their front light around 9:30, wanting to start their movie. While Billy was putting the DVD in, Machiavelli pulled all of the blinds in the front windows. He turned off all of the lights except for one, casting them largely into darkness. When the menu for the DVD came up, he switched off that last one, making the room entirely dark.

Billy threw his arm over the back of the couch, resting his hand just slightly on Machiavelli's shoulder. Outside they could hear the shrieks and screams of children still out collecting candy; the movie itself began quite quietly. Still, the Italian couldn't help but draw his legs up underneath him…

Billy leaned over as they watched the little boy going down into the basement. "Why are we doing this again?" he whispered.

"Everything's going to be-"

"Jesus!"

They both jolted. The Kid slid over so that he was touching shoulders with his Italian companion. They breathed a sigh of relief as the tension faded, if only momentarily.

True to every movie based on a Stephen King novel, this one was a strange mixture of the occult and the alarming. By the halfway point, Machiavelli had thrown appearances to the wind and was clinging to Billy's arm. Though the Kid was slightly in front of him, and had thrown out a shoulder protectively, Machiavelli could tell by his posture that the American immortal was just as creeped out as he was.

"This isn't even that scary," Billy whispered to him during the scene inside of the library. "You just don't know what's going to happen next though."

"I like the Shining better," Machiavelli muttered back. "That's a creepy movie…"

Billy paused it at a most inopportune time- two minutes before the end. "I have to pee," he explained, flicking on a light.

"You can't wait? Caro, it's almost done."

"No." He shuffled a little. "Will you come with me?" he asked sheepishly.

"Really, Billy?" But he got to his feet and followed Billy down the hall. The Kid didn't even have the decency to look embarrassed. Machiavelli stared fixedly at the Garfield comic on the wall, not wanting to be caught looking at the American's physique.

"I think the movie has a lingering scariness to it," Billy chatted nonchalantly, as if he wasn't taking a piss at that very moment. "Like, it's not so scary when you're watching it, until you want to go into a dark room and then it all comes back to you."

"Mm," Machiavelli said distractedly. Glancing over, he was greatly relieved and also slightly disappointed to find that he couldn't actually see anything due to the layout of the room. It did allow him to use all of his cranial functioning again; he felt a little bit of the blood in his body make its way back up to his brain. "It doesn't have the finesse of the Shining or the sincerity of the Green Mile, but it does still find a way to frighten you," he agreed. "It's just not the same subtle terror of the other movies."

"We should watch more movies. We could do movie reviews," Billy said eagerly, leaning his head back to look at the Italian ("You're going to pee all over the wall," Machiavelli reproached him. Billy only grinned). "Do you have to go?" he asked, zipping up his pants again. He began to wash his hands.

"No, I think I'm good." He led the way back to the other room. He wondered if Billy was trying to torture him- the American immortal leaned over him to turn out the light again, pushing some of his weight onto the other man.

Billy paused it as soon as the end credits rolled. "Okay, are we actually going to watch a second one, or are you too scared?"

Machiavelli looked affronted. "I'm not scared. Are you?"

"A little bit," Billy admitted. "But I know it's not real," he added hastily. "Okay, so we started with It. Now what do you want to watch, Psycho or Amityville Horror?"

"How about Amityville? I've seen Psycho before…"

"Okay, but I'll warn you now, Amityville stays with you for a couple of days…" Getting up, Billy put the DVD in the player. "I'm going to make some popcorn… want to come?"

"Sure," he agreed, not wanting to be alone. He got up from where he was sitting and followed Billy down the stairs to the kitchen. Popping open their microwave, Billy set the time and leaned back, resting against him just slightly. "I was a bit frightened at times," Niccolo conceded. "Good thing we don't have to go anywhere tonight."

"We should have movie nights more often," Billy opined again. He put his head on Machiavelli's shoulder, taking advantage of their height difference.

"Sleepy?"

"No, just comfortable."

The microwave beeped and darkened again. Grabbing the bag, and a bowl from under the counter, Billy led the charge back up the stairs. Machiavelli stopped to grab a couple of waters and was thus left behind; he hurried upstairs, realizing that the house was rather spooky alone. He sat beside the outlaw, tucking his feet underneath him so they wouldn't touch the ground.

"Okay, ready?" Billy hit play without waiting for him to answer. He handed over the bowl of popcorn. Occasionally, their hands would touch when they both reached in. Machiavelli felt a warm fluttery feeling in the region of his heart, every time it happened.

Candy bar wrappers scattered on the coffee table as the movie went on. Machiavelli flinched at the surprising turn of events; next to him, Billy leaned forward, looking half horrified and half intrigued. Without thinking about it, he hung on to the Italian's hand, squeezing it when strange things began to happen across the screen.

A loud slamming upstairs made them both jump significantly. The bowl of popcorn went flying, kernels scattering everywhere. Hitting pause, Billy looked over at his companion. "What was that?"

"Don't know. We should check."

Billy sighed. "I thought you'd say that." Climbing to his feet, he stalked behind the taller immortal as he went up the stairs. There was nothing on the second floor, so they climbed up the next flight. "Let's look in here, first," he whispered, peering into the bedroom.

"Nothing," Machiavelli observed, lighting his aura up to see the dark corners. "Must be across the hall."

Billy turned on his heel to go across the hall. Machiavelli made one last sweeping glance of the bedroom- he heard the Kid yell something incomprehensible- and ran out across the hall, ready to attack whatever the outlaw had found. "Billy, what on Earth?" Turning, he nearly jumped out of his skin. "Che cazzo! Oh fuck, William…" he yelled, clutching his heart.

It was the clown Billy'd hid in the closet of the two other male immortals. In the dark, it truly looked alive, leering at them. Patting his chest weakly, Billy flicked on the light in the room. "It was the window," the Kid said at last, still rubbing the place over his heart as though a little faint. "The wind slammed the door shut."

Crossing the room, Machiavelli shut the window firmly. "Fred was reading up here before. He must have left it open." Unamused, he gave the clown figure a hard smack. "We should destroy this."

"No, I've got a better idea," Billy said, beginning to grin. Grabbing a knife out of the top drawer of the desk, he carved off pieces of the mannequin. He handed the taller immortal the head and a leg. He himself gathered the other limbs. Crossing the hall, he hid the parts in different places in the room, finishing by putting the head in the drawer of Black Hawk's bedside table. "Let's let Black Hawk find those, tomorrow. Let's finish our movie, Mac."

"Billy, you're unbelievable."

"Thanks."

He thumped down the steps. Machiavelli carefully followed behind him. "That wasn't a compliment," he said with exasperation. Starting the movie again, he extinguished his auric candle, leaving wisps of white smoke in the air. This shimmered, then too disappeared from sight.

Billy grabbed the blanket. Tossing it over them both, he leaned once more on Machiavelli, reclining against him as the movie began to reach its climax. Inadvertently, Machiavelli couldn't help but smell the American's shampoo mingling with his cologne. With Billy gripping his arm as the dark figure on the stairs began to descend on the screen, Machiavelli was developing a very confusing erection. He shifted under the pretense of getting comfortable, hoping the American immortal couldn't feel what was happening.

No such luck. "Does gore turn you on? Not that it's surprising, but I didn't need to know that," Billy teased, warping into Machiavelli's space as the family ran down the stairs.

"I can't help it. And you're grinding into it."

Billy wiggled his hips suggestively before relenting. He moved over slightly. "Sorry," he apologized, grinning. "We don't have a typical friendship."

Two minutes later, Billy was back against him, arms wrapped around Machiavelli's middle. So engrossed were they in the end of the movie that the unexpected bang of the front door caused them both to scream. In the darkness, there was a mad scramble for the remote; it fell on the floor with a loud clatter and the batteries popped out, rolling away. "Boo!" Black Hawk mock whispered, jumping over the back of the couch and landing in the space between them.

Scatty came in next, flicking on the nearest light. "Why is the light off out front?"

Billy finally managed to pause their movie. "We forgot to turn it back on after the trick or treaters left… damn," he added, rubbing his chest. "Don't laugh at me," he said, jabbing Black Hawk. "That was the scariest part of the movie."

"Can't be scarier than some of the things we saw tonight," Billie interrupted him. Sitting in between Black Hawk and the Kid, she crowded him into a corner. Somehow, Machiavelli and Billy found themselves as far apart as they could be.

After an hour or more of listening to them detail what they'd done that night, Billy extracted himself from the couch. "I'm going to turn in. Scatty, Mac, can I tempt you?"

"Yes, I think so." Machiavelli helped Scatty up from her seat. "Good night," he called behind him.

"Did you have fun tonight?" Scatty asked them, gratefully pulling off her shoes for the first time in hours. She threw them into the corner. "Ugh," she added, falling back onto their bed. She pushed herself up so that she was fully lying in the middle of the bed.

Niccolo climbed on next to her, wrapping an arm around her waist. "I did. Didn't you?" he called to the American immortal.

"I had so much fun." Billy sat Indian style next to Scatty on her other side. He trailed his fingers across the edge of Scatty's face, smiling down at the Shadow. "Sleep with us tonight," he said suddenly.

"What?" She laughed.

"No, really. Like a real sleepover. We all fit." Scathach looked over at the Italian immortal, perhaps to share an exasperated look, but he raised his eyebrows and shrugged. "You wouldn't believe all the scary things you think of after watching two horror movies back to back," Billy continued. "I don't want you sleeping on the floor."

"Billy, I sleep on the futon, that's hardly the floor. And you know these things don't actually exist…" She sighed. "Okay, but let me get under the covers. This is going to end poorly," she muttered, climbing in the middle again.

Billy climbed in after her and clicked off the light. "Nonsense, we're going to have fun. You're just like a baby sister to me."

"Kid, I'm thousands of years older than you."

"Still," he said stubbornly. Propping himself up on his elbow, he grinned lazily. "Another late night," he pointed out, glancing at the digital clock. "Good day, though…"

"Are you comfortable?" Machiavelli asked the Shadow, not really sure where to put his hands now that the lights were out. He touched her hip gently.

"I am. You?" He nodded. "We do fit well on this bed together, I'm surprised…"'

"It's cause we're all so skinny," Billy told her conversationally. He settled down at last. "Good night…"