Side Note : You guys are fucking awesome. Just- don't change. Here's all of my love wrapped up at gay kisses and infinite food :3
As much as I hate to say it, this is the last costume idea for the story since everyone's actual costumes will be revealed in the next chapter, so I'll make it extra special and give one for all five of the gang instead of just Benny and Ethan. This time I was thinking of them all going as horrific monsters, like Benny as a vampire, Ethan as a the Headless Horseman, Rory as a poltergeist, Erica as a banshee and Sarah as a wendigo. I mean, there's gotta be some of the originality in Halloween, right?
Anywho, here's chapter five. Thanks for understanding my schedule difficulties!
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When walking to school the next morning, Ethan was more grateful of the cold Canadian wind than he had even been before in his life. After he and Benny had fallen asleep together, his mom had let them stay that way for nearly three hours, resulting in his hyper-awareness until the wee hours of the morning. On a school night, no less, so he put his open time to good use and researched even further into what could possibly be causing chaos around Whitechapel.
His brain had been so stuffed full of different urban legends and folklore and greek myths that he thought he was going to explode. But the sharpness of the autumn weather outside helped to clear his head as he walked to school. It was kind of like the moment when taking a really big, important test and getting to watch a movie afterwards in class.
The only downside was that Benny wasn't with him- he'd left at the same time as Ross and Samantha to get to school early and take a test, so Ethan was left to walk alone. But the silence was more than welcomed.
His cheeks were bright red by the time he made it to school, and it looked as though someone had slapped him or smeared blush anywhere they could reach. Everyone he passed looked at him with pity because most of them had cars to drive to school in- Ethan still had to save up for one, and thus was left to walk.
"Jesus Ethan, you look like someone shoved your head into a snow bank." Rory said helpfully when he finally scuttled up to the group. Ethan blanched.
"Thanks, dude. I guess the fact that I can't tell if I'm frowning or smiling wasn't a total give away."
"That's why I got you some hot chocolate from the school cafe."
And suddenly there was a warm body behind him, and a large hand holding a steaming cup of hot chocolate in front of him, and Ethan almost wanted to cry.
"You're the best, Benny." he practically sobbed, and forwent drinking the hot chocolate in favor of putting the styrofoam cup up to his face.
Benny grinned wildly at him and kissed the side of his head, and Ethan leaned into his side as the three vampires rolled their eyes at them.
"You two are so sickening." Erica scoffed, and Benny replied, "Thanks, so are you."
Just a regular morning at Whitechapel High.
Sarah decided to get in the middle of the two taller members of the group before an actual all-out battle started, and clearing her throat, she produced the local paper.
"He was probably also buttering Ethan up," she said. "because we've got another case of the creepies on our hands."
Ethan's heart almost broke, wanting nothing but the morning off and getting the complete opposite with an up of hot chocolate and his furnace-like boyfriend.
"What happened this time?" he asked, preparing himself for the absolute worse.
"Becca Gomez was driving home last night and someone kept flashing their lights at her from behind." Erica started off. "When she got out of the car finally, there was a rusty hook dangling off of her back seat. And she didn't even notice that there was someone else in the car with her until the flasher told her what he was doing."
Ethan's entire body shuddered, because he remembered the Hookman being one of his worst nightmares, too.
"But there's more," the other girl broke in, and scanning through the front page, Sarah searched for the other story. "Wendy Porter's dad was out in the corn field, gathering up the rest of it when apparently his scarecrow came to life and chased him around with rake."
"God, we've got to get this under control before someone else gets hurt. Or killed." Ethan insisted, and the whole group nodded.
"We'll keep digging today in class." Benny agreed, and then they had to split up to go to class.
Ethan's skin crawled the entire time, and couldn't shake off the feeling that something awful was going to end up happening sometime soon. So close to Halloween, it could be just about anything.
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"I thought that since it's so close to Halloween, we'd talk about our favorite scary movies. Maybe find out if there's really a reason why we like them so much."
Super, Ethan hissed in his head. Another opportunity for the creature to pick someone out.
The class, for comfort purposes or whatever the hell their teacher wanted to blame it on, sat in bean bag chairs instead of at desks for psychology. So they all pulled the bean bags closer into the circle they were in, and Mrs. Renner started off by saying that hers was Friday the 13th, probably because camping exhilarated her and she found pinstripe suits to be fascinating.
This only proved farther why everyone thought she was entirely fit for the job as a psychology teacher, because she was a good combination of wacky and relaxed.
As the circle went on, everyone said the usual movies like Halloween, Halloween Town, Casper the Friendly Ghost, It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown, and Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
But then when it came around to where Kate and Ingrid were sitting together, another friend of theirs, Monica, was next to them and she said confidently that Nightmare on Elm Street was her favorite horror movie because the thought of getting into people's heads was fascinating.
"That's really sadistic, Monica." Abby didn't look intrigued or amused at all. "That's what put Kate in the hospital."
"I was just being honest, Abb. Don't get so worked up about it."
Abby just set her jaw and looked away to glance at Ingrid, who looked just as frosty and irked. Monica looked faintly pleased by the reactions, and out of all the times Ethan's supernatural instinct had kicked in, this went far past the red alert.
"Ladies, let's try and be supportive of each other, okay?" Mrs. Renner suggested, and Monica's entire body rolled along with her eyes.
"Sure."
When Mrs. Renner wasn't looking Ethan texted Benny.
I think we've got a lead, Ben.
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When Ethan got home, he immediately trooped up to his bedroom and got to work on cracking who and/or what was terrorizing the town. With new search ideas in mind, he practically sprinted home with Benny trying to keep up, and only gave the other boy a swift kiss before running inside.
And now, nearly three and a half hours later of non stop picking apart of the internet, it was dinner time and Ethan hardly had a clue until his mother came upstairs and forced him downstairs for dinner.
"Ethan, dinner's ready!" Samantha called as she came up the stairs.
"Can you just bring it up here, please?" he shouted over his shoulder. "I'm kind of busy. Lots of researching for this class."
Ethan never figured it out, but somehow Samantha had the ability to appear behind him as though she flew, and when he felt her looking over his shoulder not two seconds after she'd called out for him he nearly fell out of his chair.
"Native American mythology?" his mom muttered. "Ethan, what class is this for?"
"Uh, English." he spit out, and gave himself a metaphorical handshake for the good, fast lie. "We're learning about Native American folklore and stuff like that. Just wanted to do some extra background checking on it."
Samantha smiled, but gripped his shoulders firmly. "That's great, honey, but you really need to come down and eat some dinner. You're skinny enough as it is."
"I will, Mom, I just need to finish-"
"Ethan."
They fought lightly over Ethan needing to come downstairs and eat, and eventually Samantha had to physically pull Ethan out of his chair. He ended up on the floor, laughing, and following Samantha downstairs to eat.
"I had to pull your son away from his computer," she told Ross. "Literally. He's addicted to the thing, I swear."
The entire family laughed about it and settled into a conversation about strange addictions, but it wasn't until Ross brought up something he'd heard about on the radio that everything fell into place.
"This one guy was addicted to eating glass. It was really amusing."
That word echoed in Ethan's brain like a pair of blinding lights through the dark, and in a slideshow of sorts he saw all of the weird things that had happened, Monica's biting smile, and the word amusing bleeding together like a watercolor painting.
He shoveled the last bit of his dinner into his mouth and shouted out an excuse before running back up stairs, tripping over his own feet.
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Ethan couldn't get to school fast enough the next morning, and even ran into the sharper corner leading to the junior's lockers. He hardly noticed everyone laughing at him through the haze in their sleep-deprived heads.
Benny was in the middle of a sentence when Ethan barely avoided knocking him over.
"Guys, I figured it out!"
Ethan was quite the sight, with his hair sticking up even more than usual and dark circles under his eyes from staying up so late, but no one noticed but Benny. He let on no more concern than the light creasing of his eyebrows.
"What?" Erica was hardly awake enough, and hadn't been paying attention to Benny's nerd rant at all.
"I figured out what's messing with everyone!"
A collective breath was taken from the other four teens, and eyes owlish, they all stared at him expectantly.
He grinned with exhaustion. "We're dealing with a Trickster."
A/N: That took me like five hours to write because I kept getting distracted. Also my dad's watching Roadhouse and I just saw Patrick Swayze's golden ass so I literally can't even function anymore. So I hope this was good and that you're looking forward to the next chapter as much as I am :D I love the gang's costumes to death!
