The plan was pretty simple. The android would use her neural link to cause some pretend problems with the ship – nothing that she couldn't easily fix again, but something that would lead to the emergency alarms coming on and cause the ship to shake and jolt. This should force Three and Four to come out of their rooms and go to the bridge, to find out what was going on and help deal with it. Two and the android would then vamp, making up a bunch of problems and things going wrong, to keep them there for as long as they could.
While the rest of them were on the bridge doing that, One, Five, Adrian and Solara, however, would be elsewhere, under the guise of helping Five try and deal with stuff in the engine rooms. But in reality, they had another job to do. They would be heading to Three and Four's sleeping quarters. One and Five were in charge of Three's; Adrian and Solara were in charge of Four's. They each would be armed with as many rolls of toilet paper as they could hold. And by the time they were through, both Three and Four's rooms would be covered top to bottom in streams of white tissue.
It wasn't the most sophisticated thing in the world, sure, but it ought to be good enough to get under Three and Four's skin, and that was all they wanted to achieve from this.
After they'd done that, the four of them would find a place to hide nearby, and Five would go on the comms and tell Two they'd finished 'fixing the engines', cueing the android to put everything back to normal with the ship. Then, crisis averted, Three and Four would go back to their rooms… and find a bit of a surprise waiting for them.
In the meantime, Two, Six and the android would join the other four in their hiding place. And when Three and Four no doubt came looking for them to lay into them, they'd all jump out and scare the crap out of the two no-fun spoilsports.
At this point, with any luck, they would explain that it was actually their fault for refusing to treat, and then drag them along to the mess for the party.
One had to admit, he was really looking forward to this. He always loved an opportunity to piss Three off, and covering his room in toilet paper before jumping out and scaring the pants off him sounded like it would do just that very nicely. Served the bastard right for moaning every step of the way and then refusing to even do something as simple as give out sweets at the end.
He may not have shown it, but when Five had suggested this Halloween idea, One had been almost as excited as she was. He couldn't help it; it just sounded really fun. Decorating the ship with all things spooky, carving pumpkins, dressing up in an awesome costume, and getting loads of nice food… Sure, it was kind of childish, and he felt a little embarrassed about it, but… he'd definitely been into the idea. And so far, with the exception of Three and Four, it had been just as good as he'd imagined. The decorations all looked amazing, the pumpkin carving had been really fun and not as hard as he'd thought, he was pretty proud of his costume, and who wouldn't love a big basket full of sweets? So this trick to put Three and Four in their place ought to be the icing on the cake.
"So, everyone know the plan?" Two asked the group at large, and they all nodded. "Great. Then let's get started!"
With that, she, Six and the android headed for the bridge, while One, Five, Adrian and Solara headed down to the storage rooms and grabbed all the toilet rolls they could carry. Thankfully they had plenty spare, so they weren't going to run into any problems trying to visit the bathroom until their next supply run. As they were starting to head back up, the lights dropped into the red emergency lighting, and alarms started blaring.
Five looked at the other three with a grin.
"Showtime."
They hurried back to the sleeping quarters, and then Adrian and Solara split off to Four's while One and Five carried on to Three's. Once there, Five pressed the open door button, and they both held their breath as it slid across. If Three had decided not to bother leaving his room, the plan was ruined.
But they found the room delightfully empty, and grinned at each other.
They got right down to work. Five took the left side of the room and One took the right. And then they started unrolling the toilet paper and draping it over everything in sight. The coat hook, the bed, the tables, the sofa, the desk and chair and computer, all of Three's guns he had hanging on the wall. Five even opened Three's cupboards and toilet-papered his clothes, while One went into the bathroom and covered the shower, sink and toilet. Lastly, they even covered a good proportion of the floor, and draped the last few strips over the wardrobe doors.
By the time they were done, after about twenty minutes, the whole room was covered in strands of white, like a fresh snowfall. One and Five looked at each other with satisfied smiles.
"Think we got everything," One said.
"Yeah," Five agreed. "Now for part two."
Together, they headed back out of Three's room, and over to the arranged hiding spot, behind some boxes in a corridor roughly halfway between Four and Three's rooms, and on the way to the mess. They crouched down there to wait for the others, and a few minutes later, Adrian tore around the corner, followed shortly by Solara who looked rather exasperated.
"We did it!" Adrian gasped excitedly as he crouched down behind the other set of boxes. "Four's room is a total mess! What about you two?"
"Yeah, we were pretty thorough. Three's not gonna be happy," Five said, grinning.
"So now we just have to tell the others we're done," One said.
Five nodded. She activated her comm and started speaking.
"Okay – we've done all we can to fix the engines," she said.
"That's great," Two said in reply. "Nice work."
A few moments later, the alarms stopped and the lighting went back to normal, as the android fixed whatever problems she'd caused.
"The ship is stabilising," the android said. "Everything should be functioning normally again soon."
"Excellent," Two said. "Well, I guess we can… get back to what we were doing, then. Meet you guys in the mess, Five?"
"Sure thing," Five replied.
One, Five, Adrian and Solara exchanged pleased smiles.
"Now we wait," said Solara.
-o-
Three trudged back to his quarters, grumbling to himself. Stupid ship breaking down all the time. This time it had been something about the engines or the relays or… He never could follow all that technical drivel. At least, what it was, it hadn't taken too long to fix for once.
He reached his room and pressed the button to open the door. Then, after taking two steps inside, he froze, and his mouth dropped open.
"What the hell?!"
Toilet paper! His room was entirely covered in toilet paper! The bed, the sofa, the tables, the cupboards, the floor – even in the bathroom and hanging off all of his guns!
He just stood there a moment, totally dumbfounded. And then understanding hit him like a punch to the face.
"Those little bastards!"
Fuming, he spun on his heel and stormed back out of the room. He headed in the direction of the mess – that was where those jerks had said they were going to meet.
He should've known they were up to something! Why would Five need One, Adrian and Solara to help her deal with the engines?! God, he was an idiot – they totally played him!
He stormed down the corridors in a rage, brandishing Four's sword, flipping his eyepatch up onto his forehead so he could see where he was going. He was going to show those overgrown children what happened when you messed with him.
As he turned down one corridor, he nearly walked straight into Four, who had been coming down the adjacent one at a similarly brisk pace. They both looked at each other in surprise.
"Four – you won't believe –!"
"Those disrespectful –!"
They spoke at the same time, then paused and looked at each other more fully, taking in each other's mirrored angry stances.
"Did they –?"
"Yours too –?"
They exchanged furious expressions.
"Let's find those assholes!" Three said firmly. Four gave a nod of affirmation.
So they set off again together. After a moment, Four seemed to notice the sword Three was holding, and frowned.
"Is that my sword?"
"Uhh…" Three looked at him with a slight grimace. He hadn't exactly asked Four if he could borrow the sword… "Yeah. I needed it for my costume."
Four glared at him for a moment. Then eventually, he turned away and impassively said, "You will clean it thoroughly before returning it."
Three stared at him for a moment. How dirty does he think my hands are?
-o-
Together, the two of them kept walking, marching angrily around the ship towards the mess hall. A few corridors away, they turned a corner –
"RAAAAHHHHHH!"
"AHHHHHH!"
Three instinctively threw the sword up in front of his face, and Four did the same with his fists. A second later, they both felt another rush of anger and embarrassment, as they looked at the rest of the crew stumbling around laughing their heads off. They'd just jumped out from behind some boxes to scare them like a bunch of five-year-olds. How mature.
"You – frickin' – psychos!" Three snapped. His heart was pounding, breath coming hard.
"What in Zairon's name are you doing?" Four yelled, appearing to be in a similar condition.
The others were too busy laughing to reply. Most of them were doubled over, or leaning on the walls, some wiping tears from their eyes. Jerks.
"So this is how you guys respond to people not taking part in your stupid games, is it?" Three said angrily. "Trash their rooms and then try and give them heart-attacks?"
They all just kept laughing. It was pissing Three off more and more.
"That's gotta be, like, breaking and entering, or damage of property or something," he said, pointing an accusing finger at them. "Right, Four?"
Six finally managed to get ahold of himself enough to straighten up and speak.
"There was no breaking," he pointed out. "And nothing was damaged."
"Well, it's some kind of violation!" Three insisted.
Five grinned over at him. "Entering and decorating."
That made the others burst into a whole new wave of laughter. Two was gripping the wall for stability and One was clutching his belly like he had a stomach ache.
"Oh my god, I need to sit down!" he gasped.
"'Entering and decorating', that's genius!" Adrian got out between giggles.
Alright, maybe it was kind of funny…
No! He wasn't going to laugh at these idiots' stupid jokes! Three firmly forced the smile back off his face and shoved his scowl back on.
"Non-consensual entering and decorating!" he said accusingly.
And that just made them laugh more. Goddamn it!
"I'm serious!"
Nothing.
"Oh, no – what have we done?! We non-consensually entered and decorated! We're monsters!" Five cried over-dramatically.
The others laughed harder, and before Three could stop himself he was starting to join in again. Dammit! Why did laughter have to be so infectious?! Four even seemed to be fighting back a smile when Three glanced at him.
Unfortunately, before they could rein it in, the others noticed and grinned.
"They're laughing! We got them!" Adrian said, pointing at them excitedly.
"No we're not!" Three protested. But it was getting harder and harder to force down his unruly amusement.
"They are!" One said weakly, still recovering from the excessive laughing, but managing to straighten up enough to flash them a teasing smile.
"Definitely," Two agreed, smirking.
Three and Four looked at each other with mirrored expressions of frustration.
"We are not amused by your unwarranted acts of vandalism," Four said.
"Yeah, vandalism! That's good!" Three exclaimed, pointing at them again.
The rest of the crew were finally starting to sober up from their laughing fits.
"It wasn't unwarranted," Five said, with a far too sweet smile.
Three scowled at her. "Oh, 'cause it's such a crime to give people toothbrushes so they don't get cavities after scarfing down candy all night."
"Actually, Five is correct," the android chimed in.
Three and Four frowned at her.
"What are you talking about?" Four asked.
"The trick-or-treating is more than just visiting people and filling up baskets with candy," she told them. "Technically, the trick-or-treaters are telling the house-owners that they will perform a trick on them unless they receive a treat."
"So…" Two continued, smirking, "since you refused to give us anything, Four, and you just gave us toothbrushes, Three… we were perfectly entitled to trick you both, according to the rules."
Three and Four just stared at them in disbelief.
"Well, no one told us that before!" Three complained indignantly.
The others just laughed again.
"You can't just suddenly decide to go along with some centuries-old stupid tradition's rules without even telling us, that's just –"
"Oh, come on," Six said, looking exasperated as he stepped forward and put an arm around Three's shoulders. "Can we leave the ranting there and get on with the party?"
Three and Four eyed him suspiciously. The others were also grinning, which was a very bad sign.
"Yeah – let's go!" Five agreed, running forward to grab Three's wrist and start pulling him forward.
"Who said I'd want to party with you assholes?" Three said darkly, as he was slowly dragged along.
"Come on, it'll be great!" Five said cheerfully.
Three looked at her sceptically.
"Well, you can't really stay in your rooms now," Solara said, with a smirk. "Unless you're really big fans of toilet paper."
That just got her a deathly scowl.
"There's alcohol," One said. Three turned to him with an eyebrow raised – that sounded more like it. One smiled, knowing he'd got him. "Lots of alcohol. Remember? We stocked up on the station."
He did remember. He'd made sure to get loads of whisky.
Three allowed himself a reluctant smile. "I guess I can make that work."
One's lips pulled up more at the corners. Three stopped resisting so much and let the others pull him along.
"And snacks!" Five added. "We have loads of stuff we got on the station, and the android's been making stuff for us all day."
"Yes – there are lots of food options that I hope will be very enjoyable," the android confirmed with a small smile.
"I am hungry," Three conceded.
"You're always hungry," One said, grinning and jumping away from the smack Three aimed his way.
Two looked back at Four, who hadn't moved and was looking at them all with narrowed eyes.
"Come on, Four," she said. "We're not asking you to dress up or do any other silly Halloween stuff. Just come for a drink and some food."
He kept glowering for a moment. But, eventually, he sighed and started to walk. Two smiled.