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“It’s unlocked!” Warlock yells, aiming his voice out of the bathroom door and down the hall before returning to the careful task of applying his makeup. It’s precisely five o’clock, and of course, Adam is right on time. Adam is always right on time. Warlock on the other hand, is still a bit of a mess.
He hears the front door open and shut, followed by the excited yapping of Dog as he bounds down the hall.
“Hiya!” Adam’s voice floats in on Dog’s heels, finding Warlock at the same time as the former hellhound.
“Buddy!” Warlock cries, setting the makeup brush down as Dog bursts into the bathroom. He drops to his knees to greet him and two bright yellow paws land excitedly on his thighs. “Oh my god,” he whispers, choking back a laugh and scratching behind Dog’s ears.
“Figured you might not be ready, so I brought him up,” Adam says, leaning against the doorframe and grinning. “Wow, you’re really going all out, huh?”
“Me! You dyed Dog yellow!”
“Well I wouldn’t be much of a trainer without my Pikachu, now would I?”
Warlock glances over Adam’s outfit, a red baseball cap and fingerless gloves added to his otherwise normal clothes. Then he looks down at Dog, every patch of white fur dyed yellow with two bright red spots on either side of his muzzle. Realizing his friend is already in costume, he takes a brief moment to close his eyes and draw in a deep breath. You’re always so damn extra , Warlock Dowling.
“You know how much they love Halloween. Figured I’d lean into it too,” he says, letting out the breath and forcing a casual shrug. His tight black leather and high collar creak as he does so. He gives Dog a final scritch, then stands to resume blending the dramatic dark hollows around his eyes.
“God, do they ever,” Adam laughs and moves to perch on the counter where he has a better view of Warlock’s makeup routine. Always so comfortable and easy, Adam Young. Fitting effortlessly into the world as though it were built specifically for him. After all, hadn’t it been? There had been a time when Warlock found it unnerving, but there are certain things that, when shared with another person, it’s impossible to not become friends over.
For example, bonding with incredibly powerful supernatural beings and saving the world. Also university. Admittedly, the world saving act was mostly Adam (okay, fine, all Adam), but the first bit would always be Warlock’s. As far as he knew, no other human in existence grew up with a literal demon as their nanny. And as for uni, it turns out the gravitational pull of a familiar face is exceptionally strong when two people suddenly find themselves lonely and overwhelmed in Edinburgh. Once in each other’s orbit, the friendship between one former-Antichrist and one never-actually-the-Antichrist bloomed naturally.
“You know, I’ve always thought it was funny,” Adam pipes up as Warlock begins work on his other eye. “I’d have pegged them more for Christmas fans. Or, I dunno… Easter?”
He stops blending and stares. “You’re not serious. Easter ?”
“Sure! Think about it. It’s got just enough religion and food attached to it for Aziraphale, and lots of flowers and treasure hunts for Crowley.”
“But over Halloween? Candy and fancy costumes and trickery!” Warlock decides it would be petty to point out to Adam, who had once been the object of a frantic and failed treasure hunt, that Crowley most definitely would not enjoy such things.
“Just said it was funny, not that it didn’t fit. They certainly make it work.” He leans back against the mirror and flashes one of his impossibly charming Adam Young smiles. “People surprise you. Love the hair by the way.”
Warlock’s eyes flit to the reflection of the wild black stormcloud encircling his head. “Oh, um. Thanks. Didn’t even need a wig, just a lot of pomade.” And two hours of teasing, and an entire can of dry shampoo, and hair dye , and oh my god why do I insist on being this extra?
“He’s going to love it. It’s very edgy.”
“Ah, well,” Warlock says, smiling sheepishly. “It’s kind of an inside thing. Less edgy than you’d think. We used to watch the movie together all the time back when… you know.” He lets the sentence hang unfinished in the air. It feels somehow too strange to finish, no matter what angle he approaches it from. When he was my nanny. When they thought I was the special one. When I’d go so long without seeing my parents that I thought I’d die of loneliness but he was always there to catch me.
But distance has a strange way of softening the past. Looking back on the pre-Armageddon times through the lens of adulthood, all he sees is a fond sort of nostalgia. His nanny wrapping him up in a quilt, making him cocoa, putting on their favorite movie and cuddling up next to him on the sofa. Occasionally, they’d invite Brother Francis in to watch with them and he would sit on Warlock’s other side, sometimes looking up for the newspaper in his lap to tut at the screen before returning to his crossword puzzle. They made an odd sort of family, accidental and unlikely in every way, but one that Warlock has always cherished.
He can’t find the proper way to wrap up the sentiment in words, so he just lets it settle back into him like glittering flakes in a snowglobe. Some treasures are best kept in the heart.
“Kind of a weird movie to watch with a little kid,” Adam says.
Warlock lets out a tiny snort of laughter. “Show me one thing about my childhood that wasn’t weird.”
“Fair point.”
They fall into a comfortable silence as Warlock dabs on a dark lip stain and brushes powder over the fakes scars zig-zagging across his cheeks. Adam switches between watching curiously and slipping into brief daydreams, characterized by a thousand yard stare and a few quick swings of his feet over the side of the counter. These bouts of daydreaming only seem to last a few seconds, but Warlock knows him well enough to know when his imagination is tugging at his edges. He observes this childlike wonder out of the corner of his eye, affection thrumming pleasantly through him.
“Well I think that’s as good as it’s going to get,” Warlock says, taking a step back and moving his head through the light to admire the accents and highlights of the finished look.
“What about, uh…” Adam holds up his hands and wiggles his fingers.
“By the door. They kind of have to be the last step.”
“Right. Makes sense. Shall we then?” Dog stands and stretches from his resting place on the bathmat, as though listening in on the conversation.
“Absolutely. Feel like walking? It’s not too far and the weather’s been so nice lately.”
“It’s like you read my mind,” Adam says with a grin. Dog gives an excited bark and leads the way to the front door.
Warlock picks up the final piece of the costume from the table by the door. He’d spent weeks crafting this piece in the evenings after work; clicking through YouTube cosplay tutorials about foam sculpting and painting, sewing, and how to use an awl. An informal camp had been set up on the floor in his living room, Edward Scissorhands or The Princess Bride playing on the TV in the background, and half-eaten takeaway sitting forgotten on the coffee table as he slowly chipped away at his own version of the iconic scissorhands. It had been a hyperfixation which devoured all of his free time for the entire month of October, but holding the finished product made it feel suddenly worth it.
Adam whistles softly through his teeth. “You made these?”
“Yep. I really wanted them to be perfect and the flimsy plastic stuff you find in the shops just felt so wrong ,” Warlock answers, pulling on and securing the bulky gloves. He puts on the naive, distant face he’d been practicing in front of the mirror all week and holds his hands out to either side, the long bladed fingers fanning out impressively. Dog lets out a whine.
“Bloody hell . You really are one extra son of a bitch, you know that?” Adam breathes, an eerie echo of Warlock’s thoughts.
Warlock drops the face and beams at his friend. “Get the door for me?”
The evening air that rushes in to greet them is cool and crisp, carrying the sound of laughing children with it. For as small as the town is, it’s always had a surprising number of children, a fact made even more obvious on nights like Halloween. Warlock has always wondered, in the back of his mind, if that was the reason Crowley and Aziraphale picked this town. In the eleven years since the world had failed to end, the two of them seemed to embrace life with a renewed intensity, often radiating the same kind of wonder and joy that Warlock saw in Adam. He supposes it might even be possible that they were the reason families ended up being drawn here.
That had certainly been the case with him anyway. He had spent two agonizing teenage years back in America, wretched with homesickness, before aggressively pursuing a university path in England. He'd ended up in Edinburgh, which had helped, but it was just a band-aid. It was forging the friendship with Adam that had been truly healing. That, and wrapping up in a quilt with a mug of cocoa for his regular Sunday night Skype calls with Crowley and Aziraphale.
His mother had been confused but not overly troubled the first year he didn’t come “home” for the holidays. He had driven down to spend Christmas with Crowley and Aziraphale at their home in the South Downs, the pair welcoming him into their cottage without question. Adam and Dog had driven over from Tadfield for a Boxing Day full of leftovers, cheesy movies, and boisterous stories.
It was the best holiday he’d ever had. It was the first time he’d felt truly at home since he had been a six year old sandwiched between his nanny and the gardener, lost in the dissonant fairy tale playing out in front of them. After that Christmas, he’d returned to the little seaside town every chance he got. The pull to this place, to these people, was not unlike the natural orbit that he and Adam had fallen into. It felt magnetic. Warlock had never bothered to fight it.
It was last autumn when he finally managed to move from his tiny flat in Edinburgh to a slightly less tiny flat in walking distance of the cottage. The smell of fallen leaves and the chill currently creeping back into the air drags memories of a tiny but exceptionally joyful flat-warming party with it. An indescribable feeling of home rustles in his center.
Warlock and Adam take a leisurely path through town, Dog running happily ahead of them ( not on a leash, never on a leash ) and kicking up tiny eddies of leaves as he goes. Children dressed as ghouls and fairies roam the streets in packs, their adults trailing behind them in slightly smaller packs. Dog, in all his neon splendor, attracts lots of attention from trick-or-treaters, and Adam is quick to jump at the chance to delight them by running through a checklist of tricks with his Pokémon. Warlock hangs back, watching happily and getting the occasional bald-faced stare from a curious child. He wiggles his blades and shifts stiffly from foot to foot, staying comfortably in character.
The cottage is on the outskirts of town and it takes another thirty minutes before they work their way through the groups of enchanted children that seem to keep congregating around Adam and Dog. They take a moment to stand outside the garden and appreciate the elaborately carved jack-o-lanterns lining the flagstone path to the front door.
“They really do go all out,” Warlock says fondly, nodding to the horribly realistic, meter-tall spider lurking in the chrysanthemums.
“Probably never going to beat the hedge maze from last year though,” Adam chuckles, pushing the gate open.
“I imagine they tried to tone it down to at least a level that could be readily explained to the neighbors,” Warlock says. “A hedge maze appearing overnight in the front garden and disappearing 24 hours later was probably… a bit much.”
Adam shakes his head and follows Dog down the path. “What was it the lady next door said? ‘Incredible prop work’ or some such nonsense?”
“Sounds right. I think Crowley told her he borrowed it all from his ‘old theater company,’” Warlock says, ringing the doorbell with his elbow.
The door flies open almost immediately, Aziraphale standing on the threshold with an enormous bowl of candy in his hands. He’s in his normal clothes with a bright red pair of plastic devil horns affixed to his head and an equally flimsy costume pitchfork tucked under his arm.
“Boys! Wonderful timing!” Aziraphale chirps happily, ignoring the snorts and giggles Adam and Warlock are dissolving into. “The cider’s almost ready and you’ve only missed a couple trick-or-treaters. Come in, come in!”
Aziraphale turns his radiant smile to Warlock as he escorts them in, his eyes going slightly soft as he looks him up and down. “You two,” he says with a shake of his head. “Did you plan this then?”
“Plan what?” Warlock asks, getting his giggles under control.
“Oh! Oh my, I think that makes it even better. You’ll see,” Aziraphale says, his smile somehow widening. “Adam, be a dear and help me in the kitchen?” He begins leading Adam toward the back of the cottage before finishing the question, calling down the hallway as he passes, “Crowley! They’re here, love!”
“They’re late is what they are,” his voice comes floating back, wrapping its old comforts around Warlock’s heart.
Aziraphale just hums out a little laugh and shuffles Adam into the kitchen, leaving Warlock standing stiffly in the entryway, his elongated hands held slightly away from his body.
“How is it he managed to be early when he lived on the opposite side of the bloody country, but now that we’reneighbors -” Crowley storms into the room, his train of thought apparently screeching to a halt with the rest of him. He stands and stares at Warlock. He blinks, an affectation made fully visible since his habitual sunglasses have been abandoned in favor of a sleek black bandit mask. Warlock thinks he sees the slightest twitch at the corner of his mouth.
Crowley is dressed all in black, which by itself isn’t unusual, but this is very different from usual. Tight black trousers are tucked into cuffed, knee-high black boots. A black buccaneer’s shirt is cinched at the waist with a black leather belt, from which a swashbuckler’s sword hangs - probably a real one, knowing Crowley. His hair is hidden under a black pirate’s bandana and the entire look is topped off by the close-cropped shadow of a moustache above his lip.
One thought runs through Warlock’s head on an endless loop as the Dread Pirate Roberts stands staring down Edward Scissorhands. Our other movie. Oh my god, our other movie.
Crowley’s annoyance instantly dissolves and they break into huge grins at the same time. He moves to close the space between them, pulling Warlock into a tight hug. A familiar smell like toasted cinnamon washes over him, dragging him all the way into a memory of being a child, carried to bed by his nanny after falling asleep watching movies on the sofa. It’s a memory of family. Of home. Of love.
“You look amazing,” Crowley says thickly into Warlock’s hair.
Warlock Dowling stands enveloped in all the comforts that make up his patchwork concept of home, and remembers exactly why he bothers to be so damn extra.
“Learned from the best,” he mutters around the lump in his throat.