"I told you, I'm not doing this."
"Come on," G said. "It will be fun."
Sam gave his partner a disbelieving look. "No."
"It will."
"For you. I am not dressing up."
"Sure, you are. It's a partner costume competition."
"Couple," Sam corrected.
"No, it's partner competition now."
"Only because you said yes! Why did you say yes?"
"Because we can win," G said in a tone that implied Sam was very stupid if he didn't get it.
Which he didn't but that did not mean that he was stupid. When G decided that his statement did not need any elaboration, Sam had to force the issue.
"And how can we do that?"
"I'm not quite sure yet but I know we can."
"Not interested."
G raised an eyebrow at him.
"Not interested in winning?"
"No," Sam replied shortly but even he could hear how unconvinced he was.
Because of course he was interested in winning. He wanted to win. Who didn't want to win? But a win wasn't worth all of this ridiculousness. It wasn't. Great, even his thoughts were faltering over that. Fantastic.
"I'm not." He said out loud, probably louder than necessary in an effort to silence his thoughts.
That smirk on his partner's face said that be wasn't successful at that and that it was all too obvious what he was doing.
"Uh huh. So, you just want to lose, do you?"
And of course, his partner knew that the best way to go about doing this was to appeal to his competitive side. Which he fully admitted he had. There was no shame in being competitive. Unless it was a stupid costume competition. Which this was.
"No, I don't want to lose," he said with a sigh.
He hated the fact that he gave in but he couldn't help it. He didn't want to lose. And not turning up in a costume would be a form of losing so it looked like he was going to have to. His pride was at stake now.
"We're some of the best undercover agents," G told him confidently. "We can do this, no problem."
"Yeah," Sam agreed, feeling his own confidence growing. "Yeah. We can."
"We just need to come up with something really good."
"Amazing even."
Then they both went silent, thinking.
"I got nothing," Sam admitted.
Why was it when you were put on the spot you could think of nothing? This was supposed to be easy. G opened his mouth and Sam cut him off, knowing what he was about to say. "And, no, we are not doing superheroes. I don't do tights."
"Neither do I," G reassured him. "Though I think you'd look good in them."
Sam took a deep breath so he didn't give into the urge to throttle him. Hetty would definitely disapprove of that, even if it was warranted.
"No tights. Unless you want to be stuffed down one leg of a pair."
"I'm pretty sure they stretch so that's not really an effective threat."
"G."
"Well, we have to come up with something."
They were smart and, like G said, good at this. It was their job. They could do this.
They could not, in fact, do this. They couldn't even think of a decent idea for a costume never mind get to the deciding bit. Well, G had decided that they weren't doing any variation of Men in Black or any other spy related thing, apparently it was "too cliche" and "would win them nothing". Which was a shame because Sam was all about looking good in a suit but he saw where G was coming from, they did want to win, after all.
"Look, there has to be a hundred costume shops in LA. There's bound to be something we can find." Sam said, looking around him.
Why was it when you weren't looking for something, that was all you could see but as soon as you needed it, it was nowhere to be found? They had had cases make them end up in costume shops and they'd run through them and even bought pieces of wardrobe from them on occasion but could they find a decent one now? No, they couldn't.
All the ones they had looked into were either just for children or basically had slutty costumes for adults. For both men and women. Sam was not, ever, going to put himself in a slutty costume. No one needed to see that.
"And there's going to be. We just need to find them." G told him, also looking around like one was going to materialise out of thin air for them.
It didn't. Unfortunately.
"You mentioned being some of the best undercover agents?" Sam mocked. "Well? Where's the great costumes?"
"They'll come to me, they'll come to me."
"Uh huh." Sam folded his arms and looked at his partner expectantly.
"I don't see you coming up with any ideas!"
"Because none of this was my idea. I don't have to do anything except go along with it. I don't have to go looking for coveralls or work boots like we suddenly need a cover for a case or anything..."
A look of realisation suddenly came over G's face only to be replaced by a smirk. That never boded well for him and Sam immediately went on guard.
"Whatever you're thinking, G, I'm sure it's a bad idea."
"You haven't even heard it yet."
"I don't need to, I just know."
"Even if it will make our lives far easier and we'll have to expend little to no effort?"
Okay, Sam had to admit, he was intrigued.
He should have never been intrigued. He should have just put his foot down. Even if G complained and moaned and whined for a week after. That would have been far better than this.
"Look, we're kind of out of options here," G said, not looking exactly thrilled at their choice.
"And who's fault is that?"
"You wouldn't agree with any of my suggestions!"
"You wanted me to be Paul Bunyon, G."
"It would have worked!"
"No."
"Well," G gestured at the rack in front of them. "This is all we have left."
