A few nights before Halloween, Thomas asks his father to tell him a scary story ...
And it goes as well as you might expect xD
Written for the Kurtoberfest prompt 'A dark and stormy night...'
"Come on, babe!" Sebastian groans, rolling onto his back and clutching his growling stomach. "Make with the snacks! We're starving in here!"
"Yeah, Papa!" Thomas commiserates, lying on the floor and copying the gesture. "We are so so so so hungry!"
"Give me a second, you guys!" Kurt pipes in through the kitchen door. "You can't rush perfection, you know."
Sebastian looks at a giggling Thomas and says, "This is true. And everything your Papa makes is perfect so we need to wait."
"Alright," Thomas grumps, or tries to. The smile on his face from the tickle fight he and his father had seconds earlier doesn't want to go away. "But what should we do until he's done?"
Sebastian shrugs. "I don't know. You got any ideas, kiddo?"
"Ummm …" Thomas stands. He rolls his eyes to the ceiling, pulling a pensive face while he stalls that tells Sebastian that his little boy knows what he wants, he's just acting at thinking it over. Sebastian smirks. That's Kurt's technique, from the way he taps his right toe, to the way he crosses his arms over his chest and worries his chin with his index finger and thumb. Thomas has it down to a T. Their adopted son, Thomas Hummel-Smythe, could be a miniature Kurt Hummel if ever Sebastian saw one. "Tell me a story?"
"A story, huh?" Sebastian asks, but Thomas is nodding like crazy already. "Okay, well, do you want a funny story or a scary story?"
Thomas opens his mouth to admit he's undecided when, from outside, the wind begins to blow, knocking a branch from the huge tree out front onto the roof of the house. The tip of the branch dragging along the shingles makes a nails-against-blackboard sound that makes Thomas shiver. But it also helps him make up his mind.
"Ooo, ooo! A scary story!"
"Really?" Sebastian says as if he's not entirely convinced that's the best idea when, in reality, he's just prolonging the torture. "Are you sure? Because, you know, it would be a bummer if you got so scared out of your wits that you had to sleep in me and Papa's bed tonight." More of a bummer for me and Papa, Sebastian thinks, but still, he doesn't want to scare the little peanut.
"Well, just don't make it too scary, all right? I wouldn't want Hepburn to get scared," Thomas says, lumping the blame squarely on his service dog's shoulders. He wraps his arms around his Labradoodle's neck, snuggling into the animal's body closer than is most likely comfortable for the dog, but Hepburn doesn't object.
"Nah, I won't make it too scary," Sebastian promises. He grabs his pillow and lays on his stomach on the sleeping bag spread over the living room floor. Thomas grabs his own pillow and affects the same position. Suddenly, Thomas doesn't look so much like Kurt anymore, but like Sebastian instead. Sebastian smiles. This mimicking thing that Thomas has been doing is not new, but it's become more consistent. As much as Thomas can look like Kurt, he can also look like a young Sebastian, especially with his big green eyes and chocolate-colored hair that Kurt likes to swoop up in the front, reminiscent of the way Sebastian wore his hair in high school.
It's cute to have a little mirror imitating his every move. He just has to be careful not to do anything too adult in front of him, like pinch Kurt's ass or grab his family jewels.
"It was a dark and stormy night …"
"Oh, this is gonna be good, I can tell," Thomas tells Hepburn, repeating his favorite Dory quote from the movie Finding Nemo. He leans forward, chubby chin perched on the heels of this hands, giving his dad his full attention.
"It was Halloween night, as a matter of fact," Sebastian adds in the hopes of making the story a teeny bit scarier. Halloween isn't for another three days yet, but they had gone all out decorating this year. They draped the house inside and out with glow-in-the-dark spider webs and papier mache ghosts. They stuck bloody gel handprints on the windows, and put electric candles on every sill. They erected a cemetery's worth of Styrofoam headstones on their front lawn (which Sebastian had convinced Kurt, with the help of a brand new pair of Ferragamos, not to rake for added effect). They'd bought a noise machine, a fog machine, a doorbell that played snippets from different horror movie theme songs every time someone pressed it, and, on the tree outside, the same one beating against the eaves, they'd hung several motion-activated ghouls that screeched and flashed blinking red eyes every time anyone came within a foot of the thing.
The afternoon they hung them up, their unsuspecting mailman tossed their mail three feet in the air out of fright.
"This story actually happened to me when I was about your age …"
"Really?" Thomas asks, eyes opening wider with wonder.
"A-ha." Sebastian digs into his brain to find a story from his own childhood, growing up in a big, old, empty house that he swore for the life of him was haunted. "On this particular Halloween night, I had to stay home from Trick or Treating because I had the chicken pox …"
"That stinks," Thomas grumbles sympathetically.
"Yes, it did. But my parents had to go to an important fundraiser, so they had to leave me alone with a babysitter."
"Was it a nice babysitter?" Thomas asks, voice thick with concern.
"Well, you see, that's the thing …" Sebastian scoots forward and drops his voice to edge up the tension. "There weren't many people willing to babysit on Halloween night, so I got stuck with a babysitter I had never had before …"
In truth, the girl Sebastian's parents got to watch him that night was a nice high school senior named Emily, whose parents had a membership at the same country club Sebastian's parents went to. For religious reasons, their family didn't celebrate Halloween, so she was available last minute. She had also already had the chicken pox, which made her a perfect fit. She fed Sebastian chicken soup, and they played UNO all night long. In a childhood filled with slightly lukewarm affections from his regularly absentee folks, it's one of the few evenings that stand out in his memory because, for once, it was all about him. Someone caring for him. Someone paying attention solely to him.
He didn't get that kind of attention again until he started dating Kurt.
But as that's a far more bittersweet story than the one he wants to tell, he alters it on the spot to suit their spooky needs.
"When she showed up at the front door, she looked like a normal person. She sure had my folks fooled, but …" Sebastian shakes his head dubiously. "I don't know. There was just something about her that made my skin crawl."
"Like what?"
"Her smile, for one. It was … a little too wide."
Thomas drops his jaw. "How wide?"
Sebastian leans his forehead against Thomas's, explaining the rest close up as if they need to keep it a secret. "So wide that it looked like her face might split in half."
"Ewww …" Thomas says, scrunching his nose.
"Yeah. Ewww. But her eyes … her eyes were the worst."
"Why?" Thomas whispers, hugging his service dog until he's close to strangling the poor thing. "What was wrong with her eyes, Daddy?"
"The blue parts were too blue," Sebastian says, loosening Thomas's grip from his patient dog's neck, "and the blacks were too black. But other than that, she was nice enough. We played games, watched movies. She told me jokes. They were funny."
Thomas nods in agreement that yes, jokes are funny.
"But just as I was beginning to think that maybe her being weird was all in my head, something horrifying happened."
"What, Daddy?" Thomas asks, vibrating with a combination of anticipation and fear. "What happened?"
"Well, it was close to midnight, and I needed some medicine. But the medicine I had to take was downstairs in the refrigerator. So my babysitter went down to the kitchen to get it …"
Thomas gulps. "And?"
"She was gone a long time, and I thought that maybe she'd gotten lost. It was a big house, after all. So I decided to go downstairs and check on her …"
Rain begins to fall, the kaPlunk-kaPlunk-kaPlunk syncopation of it grating against the scraping of the branch across the shingles. Thomas trembles.
"Th-then what?"
"Just as I reached the kitchen door, I hear a strange sound. It sounded like when you get your feet stuck in the mud. You pull them out …"
"And they go squish?"
"Yup. That's the sound. I couldn't remember anything in our house ever making that sound. Then I heard a loud splat, like she was being sick in the sink, and that wasn't something I really wanted to see."
"I wouldn't either."
"I don't blame you. But I needed my medicine, so I snuck up to the kitchen door …"
"Yeah?"
"I put my hand on the knob and turned …"
"Yeah!?"
"I opened the door and peeked inside …"
"YEAH!?"
"I saw her, standing right inside the kitchen door, not a foot away from me. Everything seemed alright though. She was popping popcorn. My medicine was on the kitchen counter, waiting for me. But instead of getting everything together to bring up to my room, she was scratching – at her neck, at her face, all over."
The rain falls harder, blowing sideways against the window. Thunder rolls too close for comfort. Sebastian's stomach, complaining from hunger, makes an ungodly noise. Thomas gasps. Sebastian grins. He couldn't have timed all that any better.
"That's when it happened," Sebastian whispers urgently, staring into his son's eyes. "She grabbed her cheeks, and peeled back her skin – slurp!"
"No!" Thomas throws his hands over his mouth in surprise and disgust.
"And I saw her for who she really was …"
"What was she, Daddy?" Thomas pleads in a strained voice, kicking at the floor in excitement. "What was she!?"
"I don't know for sure, Thomas. To this very day, I can't tell you exactly what she was. But I think …"
"Yes?"
"… she was …"
"Yes!?"
"… an alien."
"No!"
"Yes."
"B-but … but how do you know?"
"Her face was covered in a foul smelling, slimy green goo, like melted pistachio ice cream."
"Yuck!"
"That's what I said," Sebastian says. "She must have heard me because she turned around and caught me standing there."
"What did she do?" Thomas asks, peeking at his father through lids squeezed to slits.
"She just smiled at me. Stared at me and smiled. Her blue eyes were the size of dinner plates without her human skin. They took up half her face! And she had two rows of pointy white teeth!"
"Oh no!"
"Oh yes! She stared me square in the face, and said …"
"I have the popcorn!"
Father and son snap their faces towards the chipper voice singing its way into the living room. But one face twists in horror as eyes lock on skin smeared with a thick, green paste; blue eyes shining from behind the gloppy mess; and a mouth smiling so wide, it looks as though the face hosting it might split in two.
"Aaaaahhhh!" Thomas screeches, leaping onto Sebastian's back, with Hepburn following close behind when he hears the fear in his boy's voice.
"Ugh! Kurt!" Sebastian groans when over a hundred pounds of kid and dog scrabbles onto his back.
"What?" Kurt asks, watching the melee taking place with confusion. "What? What did I do?"
With the air knocked out of his lungs, Sebastian can't speak, so he points to his face. Kurt raises a hand to his cheek. His fingertips come in contact with the layer of glop slathered all over his skin.
"Oh my gosh!" Kurt yelps. "I was … I was multitasking! I thought I'd get this done while the cookies were baking! Oh, Thomas! I'm so sorry! I completely forgot!"
Kurt takes a step towards his husband and son, but Thomas ducks behind Sebastian's head.
"Is that a monster, Papa?" Thomas asks, his forehead pressed into his father's shoulder. "Or an … an alien?"
"No, Tom-Tom," Sebastian says gravely. "It's something far more dangerous."
"What?"
"Your Papa, wearing a mint and avocado deep cleansing mask."
"Daddy!" Thomas giggles.
"Sebastian!" Kurt scolds from the kitchen doorway.
"It's the truth, babe. Deep cleaning and moisturizing are like your super power. I saw you do it all through high school, and you had the sharpest tongue of any man I've ever met. Once you got on a tear, you left very few people alive."
Kurt hugs the bowl of popcorn he's carrying to his chest, unsure if it would be safe to approach his son now that he's laughing. "I think I should feel flattered."
"Yes, you should," Sebastian replies.
"How did you survive, Daddy?" Thomas asks.
"The babysitter?"
"No. Daddy's sharp tongue!"
"Because, I have super powers, too, Tom-Tom. I'm immune to your Daddy's tongue slashery. That's how I knew that we were meant to be together."
"Of course you did." Kurt rolls his eyes. "Give me a second to rinse this off, and then we'll get that movie started."
Sebastian's stomach growls again watching the retreat of the popcorn mixed with the smell of chocolate chip cookies wafting in through the kitchen door.
"Wait! Kurt!" Sebastian cries, arm outstretched, trying, and failing, to rise to his feet with a little boy and a dog on his back. "Leave the popcorn! Please, leave the popcorn!"