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Halloween has always been your favourite holiday. When you were a kid, it was about trick-or-treating - though, oddly, you were less focused on the candy and more on putting together the perfect costume to scare the pants off your friends and neighbours - but as you grew older, it was all about the rush you got from being frightened. Your fascination with the horror genre began when you were around ten, and it’s persisted until the present day.
This year is a little different from more recent years, in that you won’t be holed up in your room, hunching over your laptop and eating an entire bowl of popcorn by yourself; instead, you’ll be spending your night in the living room of the Sawyer family home. There will still be popcorn, you won’t get a crick in your neck from several hours of terrible posture, and you’ll get to snuggle with Bubba on the couch, so it’s perfect.
Until you actually tell Bubba what your plans are.
His eyes go comically wide, and he shakes his head ‘no,’ whimpering softly.
Your eyebrows furrow. “Bubba, they’re just movies. I watch them every year, it’s one of my favourite Halloween traditions. I’ll be right there with you.”
Bubba fidgets, quite obviously conflicted.
You wouldn’t normally argue the point if he didn’t want to do it, but it means a lot to you, and you think he can tell; after about a minute and a half of silence, he huffs and grabs your hand.
You beam, standing on your toes and using your other arm to pull him into a hug. “Thank you, Bubba.”
He chatters obligingly at you and pats your back gently with one hand.
Drawing back, you say, “I’m gonna make some popcorn. You can set up the couch if you want.”
You kiss him on the cheek before you leave, and he chirps happily.
Once the popcorn has been made and the throw pillows carefully arranged for maximum comfort, the two of you settle in, a blanket spread over your legs and the popcorn bowl in your lap. Bubba hands you the remote, and you flip through channels until you find the right one, biting your lip. You light up after a few seconds.
“Ooh, I’ve seen this one! It’s one of my favourites! We’re lucky, it just started so we haven’t missed any of the good stuff!”
Bubba nods, staring at the TV. You can tell he’s trying to put on a brave face, and it makes your heart melt.
You reach out and squeeze his arm gently, drawing his gaze to you.
“Don’t worry, big guy. It’s just a movie; nothin’ to be afraid of, okay?”
He nods again. You let your arm fall back to rest on your leg, your attention fully focused on the screen.
A quarter of the way into a fourth movie, you’ve started letting out jaw-popping yawns, so you decide it’s time to call it quits. You turn your head, mouth opening to tell Bubba you’re going to call it a night, and your heart skips a beat at what you see.
He’s clutching tightly at a pillow, peeking around it timidly and trying to make himself as small as his towering frame will allow in order to hide behind it. The wet sound of someone being stabbed, followed by a sharp scream, comes from the TV, and he flinches, but despite the fact that he’s frightened, he doesn’t look away.
Reaching out and gently laying a hand on his shoulder - slowly so as not to spook him even more - you say, “I think I’ve had enough for one night. Ready for bed?”
He nods eagerly, ducking his head to hide behind his hand-embroidered shield with a whimper. You can’t help but chuckle at this, rubbing his back gently with one hand and reaching out to press the power button on the remote with the other. Once he’s sure that the bloody scene is no longer playing, Bubba finally feels safe to emerge, though he still holds the pillow close to his chest. You decide you’ve put him through enough, so you’ll handle clean-up yourself.
As you clean up the remnants of your two-person watch party, Bubba hovers anxiously at your side. He fidgets with his fingers while you fold the blanket and fluff the pillows. You’re forced to wash the popcorn bowl out one-handed because he seizes your other one as soon as you leave the living room. You might ordinarily be a little annoyed, but you can’t bring yourself to be; not when it’s sort of your fault in the first place, and certainly not with Bubba. So you humour him, even going as far as to walk him to his room and tuck him in, with a kiss on the forehead and everything.
“Night, Bubba. I love you.”
With that, you make your way toward the guest bedroom, which (despite the fact that it’s still called ‘the guest bedroom’) is actually your room, now. You brush your teeth in the hall bathroom, change into your pyjamas, and slip under the covers with a sigh.
You wake up to the sound of your door creaking open, and despite your grogginess, your heart begins to pound.
It’s too dark to see who it is, so you call out a soft, hesitant, “Hello?”
You’re answered by a soft whimper, and the tension in your body immediately melts away.
“Bubba?” You sit up and reach over to your bedside table, switching your lamp on. “What’s the matter?”
He whimpers again, shifting in place, and the floorboards creak under his feet. You wrack your sleep-addled brain for any reason that Bubba would be in your room in the middle of the night, and then barely keep from smacking yourself in the forehead when you realise, because it’s pretty obvious.
“Did you have a bad dream?”
Bubba sniffles softly and nods hesitantly.
“You wanna sleep in here with me tonight?”
He nods again.
You move over to the other side of the bed, patting the empty space. “C’mere.”
He shuts the door behind him and crosses the room, slipping under the covers with practised ease and curling up.
You lean across him to turn the lamp off, and then lay back down, reaching blindly and taking hold of his hand, rubbing circles into the back of it with your thumb.
“Y’know, if you wanted to cuddle, all you had to do was ask,” you say jokingly. He titters sleepily, turning to press his face into your neck.
Within minutes, he’s fast asleep, and you’re not far behind him.