Just a few chapters of pointless Halloween fun. As always, this story wouldn't exist without my wonderful beta Stefanie. Thanks for pushing me to post.
October 1st
"I'm home," Harvey announces his presence when entering their house. He simultaneously tugs on his tie with one hand while tossing the keys on the side table with the other.
"Hey," Donna greets him. She closes the book she was reading and heads towards the stove.
He is about to grab her for a kiss when he notices the candles on the dinner table.
Donna swoops past him with a pan of food and announces, "Dinner is served Mr. Specter."
She dashes back to the counter to grab the open bottle of red wine that had been breathing for the past 15 minutes. Harvey has loosened his tie by now and he quickly steals a kiss when she pours the wine.
"I absolutely love this setting but I'm a bit worried I might have forgotten some sort of anniversary of any kind." His voice has a hint of nervousness in it.
"It's October first," Donna announces excitedly.
Harvey wracks his brain and mentally ticks off all the dates he remembers. They met in November, so is their work anniversary. They haven't been married long enough either to celebrate that milestone. Or was it some month anniversary he doesn't keep track of? He hadn't pegged Donna as someone who'd really care about the milestones but—
Donna's chuckles interrupt his thoughts. "Relax Harvey, you haven't forgotten anything." She pulls him closer while he visibly relaxes. "It's the start of Halloween."
Inwardly Harvey rolls his eyes but he smiles at his practically bouncing wife and thinks it's cute how excited she gets over this holiday.
"Right, your favorite month of the year." He squeezes her sides and kisses her fiercely. "Did you ask Mike for the day off already? I'm not the one to sign off on this anymore."
Donna smirks at him. "First item of negotiations with Rachel about my hiring package."
"Of course. Not our anniversary but Halloween, I should have known." Harvey feints hurt.
"I got my priorities straight, Babe." And with another kiss, she pushes him to his chair. "Sit, eat. Your domestic wife cooked you dinner."
Half an hour later their plates are empty and their wine glasses topped up again.
Harvey wants to take them over to the couch when Donna calls from the kitchen. "Not so fast mister. There is still dessert."
He raises his eyebrows and his eyes start gleaming. "I'm starting to wish every day is October first."
"Close your eyes," his wife orders.
"You're not going to feed me weird stuff or push my face in a cake or something, are you?" Harvey narrows his eyes.
"Ye of little faith."
"Ye has 14 years of knowing you."
Donna is about to lose her patience. "Harvey. Eyes. Closed."
"So bossy," he mumbles while obeying.
He hears something being placed on the table and the scraping of a chair.
"You may look now." Donna's soft tone penetrates the silence.
Harvey opens his eyes and looks at the face of his wife across the table.
"Beautiful," he exclaims.
"You haven't even looked yet."
"I like what I see."
Donna rolls her eyes. "You're an idiot."
He shifts his attention to the plate in the middle of the table and grins.
In front of him are three cupcakes, each with a green swirl and a strawberry on top. The strawberries have a notch that has been transformed into a mouth with sharp teeth made from icing.
"Where did you find these?" He smirks.
"I made them."
He looks up surprised and sees a hint of nervousness in her eyes he hasn't seen too often yet.
"You can bake?"
"Harveyyy," Donna whines.
"What? I like that I still get to find out new things about you."
Donna pouts a little. "I know I'm not the strongest cook and stick to the few recipes you and Rachel taught me. But I can bake. I thought you knew that?"
Harvey frowns. "How should I have known?"
"The cupcake?"
Harvey gives her a bewildered look when suddenly his eyes grow wide.
"The birthday cupcake?" he asks in a low voice.
His wife nods and a new warmth spreads through his chest.
Each year at ten o'clock sharp his now-wife would come bouncing in his office with a pretty looking cupcake with a swirl and candle on top. Whether she was his secretary or his COO, had a boyfriend or not, they were close or drifted apart temporarily.
If they had been skirting the lines of just friends, it would contain a hint towards strawberries and whipped cream. If he had been too much of an ass, it would be lemon or other citrus fruits.
"Donna," his voice husky, "I had no idea."
14 years without fail, after a long day in the office together, she had gone home and had whipped up a batch of cupcakes. For him. Just for him. Because he was sure she baked a batch. I mean, who bakes only one cupcake, right? But she never brought more than one. Not one for herself either. That would've been too intimate, to share cake for his birthday. Besides he always pretended to hate it but devoured the thing within two seconds when he thought she wasn't looking.
"So now that you know that, dare to eat these?" Donna challenges him.
He looks from the cakes to her and back. "The frosting is green."
"Yes but it's vanilla buttercream. I just used a few drops of food color. You won't taste it." She knows who she is dealing with.
"And there is something brown in the mouth of the strawberry and on the plate." He gives the plate a questionable shove.
"That's just crumbs from a brownie. You know, for the finishing touch." Donna suppresses a sigh.
Harvey's eyes light up. "There are brownies?" His head swivels to the kitchen. "Can I have one?"
"When you have finished this one first."
"So bossy," he mutters again and reluctantly grabs the plate.
He decides to go with the strawberry first. Strawberries are his favorite fruit but he's just not good with unexpected flavors hidden in food, or weird colors.
"Pretend the white is whipped cream," his wife smirks. She picks up a strawberry too and takes a slow lingering bite from it.
The sight wins him over and he does the same. The strawberry and brownie crumbs hit his pallet and he likes it. "Maybe we should consider adding some brownie to the strawberries and whipped cream next time."
Donna raises one eyebrow. "Maybe."
"Just saying it is a good combo."
"Ice Cream is a good combo with strawberry and whipped cream too, but you don't see me bringing that into our bedroom."
He grabs her hand across the table and laces their fingers. "Maybe we should," he says with a suggestive look.
"The cold, the melting, the running everywhere, the stickiness of your body, the sheets." Donna reacts unenthusiastic.
"I'll lick it all up before it can run anywhere. Although running south is allowed." Harvey wiggles his eyebrows at her.
"I will think about it."
He squeezes her hand. "That's all I'm asking, Babe."
.
.
October 2nd
Harvey slumps down on their couch. He and Mike had disagreed on how to move forward in a difficult case and it had sucked the fun out of his day.
He hears his wife rummaging in the kitchen and that's when he notices the five cardboard boxes sitting on the floor of his living room.
Hadn't they just gotten rid of them all?
"Donna, what are these boxes?" he calls out to his wife.
She walks into the room, barefoot and her hair in a bun but still in her designer dress. His heart skips a beat at the beautiful sight. No one else gets to see this cross of home life mixed with office appearance and he feels so damn lucky.
Donna is carrying four plastic bags and dumps them on top of the boxes. "It's Halloween stuff."
"All of it?" Her husband looks shocked.
"It's our first time in the neighborhood, we don't have kids. I have to decorate the house to let the kids know this is the place to get candy." She pulls out some cobwebs and a spider from a box. When folding out his legs, the spider grows to pretty massive proportions and Harvey's eyes grow even wider.
"That's going up on our house? The house we just had sandblasted to look beautiful and clean?"
"Relax, it's just for a month and it won't leave any traces, I promise."
"How much stuff do you even have?" Harvey eyes the boxes.
Donna waves him away. "This is nothing. This is purely decorative. When we'll do a haunted house next year, I'll bring in those large boxes from the garage."
"Haunted house?!" Harvey splutters.
His wife's eyes start gleaming. "We finally have the space to think big, go all out. This year was a no-go as we only arrived here in August and weren't settled until September. And setting up a haunted house can't be done that quick. That requires months of planning, obviously."
"Obviously," he replies with a scared look in his eyes. They hadn't celebrated Halloween, or any other holiday, together before they got married. He now wonders if that was a wise idea?
"So all those boxes in the garage are for Halloween too?"
"Yes," she admits. Up until now, she had been vague about it when they came out of the storage container they had shipped to Seattle.
Harvey exhales. "Gotta say, I'm a little relieved," he laughs. "You were so secretive about it. At one point I thought you had some corpses hidden in there."
Donna stifles a smirk and just shakes her head. "Now I thought we had established I'm not a black widow." She decides now might not be the best time to tell him about the skeletons in her boxes.
He points to the bags. "And in there are more decorations?"
"Yes but also—" Donna practically bounces with excitement and empties one on top of the pile of boxes. "Halloween candy."
She runs to the kitchen and comes back with a few large bowls. In one swift movement, she pours the candy into a bowl and starts emptying the other bags into the next bowls.
Harvey is too dumbfounded to move and just sits there, looking at it all, his eyes practically saucers by now.
"Just how many kids do you expect?" he asks hesitantly.
"I spoke to the neighbors and this is a very popular neighborhood apparently."
"Of course," Harvey mutters.
"I found this store near the office with lots of candy I haven't seen in New York so I had to buy it."
"When did you have time to do that?" The surprise evident in his voice.
"Today." His wife sits down next to him. "During lunch, when you were too busy arguing with Mike."
"We were not arguing, we were—" Harvey shakes his head. "Never mind."
He barely knows how to find the coffee place that is in the same street as the office. His wife is on a whole other level.
"So, before we can hand it out to the kids, we need to make sure this candy is edible." Donna hands him some candy from the pile.
Harvey groans. "Donna, you know I don't like weird colored food." He examines the candy in his hand. It's red and yellow striped, nothing special. He wants to ask more about it but she looks so happy that he swallows his words and pops the candy in his mouth.
He sucks on it and a strong garlic flavor hits him. He suppresses the urge to spit it out immediately and pushes it around in his mouth with his tongue instead. "What is this?"
"It's pizza candy," Donna replies in a cheerful voice and pops one in her mouth.
"That's not pizza," Harvey says with a sour face and races to the trash bin to spit it out.
"I like it," he hears her say. "Sure it's a bit garlicky but there are also pepper flakes, basil, marinara sauce."
She has followed him into the kitchen and true to her word she's happily eating the candy. He gulps down a can of coke that he found in their fridge but it doesn't do much for the lingering disgusting aftertaste. He runs his tongue over his teeth and is hit with more garlic.
"I'll be in the bathroom. Brushing my teeth. About ten times." Harvey sprints away. "Throw it out. You can't feed that to the kids," he calls from halfway up the stairs.
Donna swallows the remains of her candy. "This was fun. Let's do it again tomorrow."
To be continued