Scare and Scare Alike

"Good lunch, Otis," Casey said as they cleared the firehouse kitchen.

"Thanks, lieutenant."

"Well, I have incident reports to catch up on," Casey told the others as he headed towards his quarters, "so nobody bug me unless..."

Everybody murmured and nodded in agreement, nobody dumb enough to say anything to jinx their luck that so few calls had come in that day.

Casey closed his door behind him and went over to his desk and looked over the paperwork before he picked up his pen and started jotting down the events of the last call on the previous shift.

Unbeknownst to the Truck lieutenant, Kelly Severide was lying in wait for him. The Squad lieutenant peeked out from where he'd hidden under Matt's bunk, and with a Cheshire cat grin, quietly half crawled/dragged himself out from under the bed, inching along on sock-clad feet, he'd taken off his boots so the telltale sound of them scraping against the floor as he moved wouldn't tip off the blonde lieutenant about what was coming. Kelly half held his breath as he barely inched his way along like a worm, watching Casey's back as he hunched over his paperwork, completely oblivious to what was about to happen.

Once he cleared the metal frame of Casey's bed, Kelly moved up onto his knees, still as silent as ever, inching along, pausing every so often, determined that Casey would not catch him. When he got a couple feet from Casey's chair, he rested on one knee and pushed up on his other foot so he was kneeling. Very slowly, he raised himself up, his knees bent and his back hunched over, still cautiously testing the waters, Casey was engrossed in what he was doing and not paying attention to anything going on around him. Kelly straightened his spine and stood at his full height, and inched over till he was practically towering over Casey.

"BOO!" he yelled before Casey had a chance to notice anything behind him.

The next thing Kelly was aware of was a blinding pain in the middle of his face as Casey had simultaneously yelped, thrown himself back in his chair, and threw his arm up and halfway behind him, effectively hitting Kelly in the nose and the upper part of his mouth.

"OW!" he exclaimed nasally as he pinched his fingers over his nose in response to the pain.

Casey hopped up from his chair and turned to face the Squad lieutenant, "What the hell are you doing?"

"Trying to scare you," Kelly stated the obvious.

"Well it worked," Casey stated the even more obvious.

"Yeah, and I'm sorry it did," Kelly replied as he released the grip on his nose.

Casey looked at his friend groaning in pain, and asked simply, "Don't you think we're too old for this kind of stuff?"

"Never," Kelly answered defiantly, then winced in pain.

Casey sighed, "Every day around here's either Halloween or April Fool's Day."

"It's how we survive," Kelly replied.

"Ordinarily maybe, but..." Casey gestured to his friend's face that was already starting to turn colors, "keep this up and we won't." He took a moment to revel in his friend's prank backfiring on him but told him, "I'm sorry, Kelly."

"Yeah well, I guess I'm sorry too," Kelly said.

Casey looked at him for a moment and Kelly just looked so pathetic, he couldn't help himself and he started laughing. After a moment, it spread and Kelly laughed in spite of himself.

"You're an idiot," Casey said as he hugged his friend.

"And you love me for it," Kelly smugly replied.

Casey elbowed him in the side in response.

"Oof!"

Mouch groaned as he dropped his duffel bag on the floor by the front door and called out, "I'm home!"

He was met with an unnerving silence. He turned on his heel and slowly looked through the apartment.

"Trudy?"

Today was supposed to be her day off from 21. He took out his phone to see if she'd texted him, nothing. He walked around the rooms and found a note in the kitchen on the table. Trudy had been called in to work and would see him that night.

"Dammit," he grumbled as he balled up the note and tossed it in the trash can by the stove.

Trudy got the weekend off, but as shifts rotated, Mouch could only be home with her for one of them. As much as he loved Trudy, he hated that their work schedule didn't work out better than this. On occasion he'd take double shifts so he wouldn't feel useless just sitting around the apartment all day every other day while Trudy was working.

The firefighter sighed as he parked himself on the couch and grabbed for the remote. If anybody knew his Trudy the way he did, the word 'adorkable' might come to mind if they didn't think she'd shoot them. He knew Trudy acted like a hardass around everyone else and she did have a hard shell, she had to to survive in her line of work, and even off the job she dealt with plenty of morons who just warranted it, but he'd fallen in love with the fiery sparkling woman underneath that exterior. They'd had a whole day planned once he got off shift, all stuff to do for Halloween, and now...

He heard the muffled sound of somebody breathing in a mask just a split second before he felt someone jump up behind him and heard them yell out, "BOO!"

Mouch jumped to his feet with a pronounced shout and turned around and saw someone standing behind the sofa wearing a zombie clown mask. A muffled chuckle escaped through the mouth hole, and a hand reached up and peeled back the latex, revealing.

"Trudy!" Mouch exclaimed loud enough the neighbors could probably hear them.

"Happy Halloween, sweetheart," the desk sergeant replied as she shook her hair loose from the confines of the mask.

"It's not fair," Mouch groaned, "how come you get to pop out and scare the hell out of me, but I'm not allowed to try and scare you?"

Trudy seemed to consider that question for a moment, before she diplomatically responded, "Remember who in this house has a gun and is licensed to use it."

"Fair point," Mouch sighed in defeat.

Trudy continued to giggle in delight at carrying out her prank.

"So how was shift?" she asked.

"Honestly?" Mouch turned his head and looked one way, and another, as if making sure they weren't being watched, or eavesdropped on, and told her, "Quiet."

"That's good, right?" she asked.

"Yeah...just, sometimes bored firefighters can be dangerous. Severide tried the same thing you did and Casey about broke his nose."

"He's an amateur," Trudy scoffed in reply, and added in her hardass tone, "And I would shoot him if he tried it with me."

"I have no doubt," Mouch shook his head with a smirk.