Chapter Text
When Sean was a kid, he used to hate when Halloween fell on a weekday. Dad never let him stay out too late on a school night, and he always had a massive sugar hangover the day after. Now at 16, he doesn’t mind it as much. Dad usually takes Daniel out trick-or-treating, leaving Sean the house to himself to invite Lyla over to watch scary movies and pass out candy to kids. It’s a Halloween tradition.
But Halloween is on a Monday this year, so as Sean drags himself out of bed and into the shower, he has to reconcile his Halloween excitement with his post-weekend blues. Especially after the amazing weekend he had at Eric’s cabin party. He was still too shy to ask Jenn out, but they talked! Like a lot! So that’s something, right?
Once he’s showered and brushed his teeth, he wakes up Daniel as always—by gently tapping on his door and proclaiming it’s time to get up—and heads into his room to get dressed.
“Time to get in the Halloween spirit,” Sean says to nobody in particular. He flips on the Halloween playlist he spent all month cursing—it starts with the all-time classic “Monster Mash,” and ends with “This is Halloween” from Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas , with some other classic spooky tunes, and some Oingo Boingo thrown in for good measure. He nods his head and shakes his hips along to the music as he gets dressed.
Peacock High School has a No-Costume policy, which is beyond lame, but people like to dress up anyway—little things, school-appropriate things, like Jenn with her adorable cat ears and whiskers. The school staff doesn’t like it, but there’s nothing stopping him from slapping on an eyepatch and a puffy shirt and calling himself a pirate.
Sean gathers his things for school and goes to head out to the bus stop. Daniel’s door is still closed, so he bangs on it before leaving. “Hey, come on, dude. Are you ready yet?”
Daniel doesn’t respond.
Sean groans. “Your bus comes 15 minutes after mine, so you’d better be ready.”
Still no response on the other side of the door.
“Daniel?” Sean tries to open the door, but it’s locked. “Oh for fuck’s sake.” He bangs on the door again, louder this time, and raises his voice. “You better not have fallen asleep again. Dad told you not to stay up all night on your tablet.”
Speaking of Dad, he usually hates when Sean starts shouting this early in the morning. He’s also usually in the kitchen, scrambling some eggs or making waffles for Daniel’s breakfast. (Sean doesn’t like to eat first thing in the morning.)
Oh yeah , Sean remembers. Dad told him last night he had some new client who needed a fast fix, so he had to go to work early this morning.
Daniel still hasn’t responded, and Sean is about to be late to the bus stop. There’s no fucking way he’s missing the school bus again. It’s way to fucking cold to run all the way to school. Besides, Sean’s a track runner, not cross country. He’s good for speed, but distance and pacing are not his forte.
He bangs on the door one last time for good measure. Fuck it. Not his fault if the kid misses school. “Da—”
“I’m up! Jeez! Gimme a second.”
True to his word, a second later, the door cracks open and Daniel appears in the space between, wearing his tattered blue flannel dyed red with his fake zombie blood.
“I was just finishing up my costume,” he says.
“Well, don’t take too long. You’ll miss your bus.”
“If I do, Dad’ll just take me.”
“Dad’s not here, smartass. He had to work early.”
“Oh.”
Sean rolls his eyes. Dad never offered to drive Sean to school when he missed the school bus, but he tries not to let it show.
“Yeah well, I’m heading out. You gonna be okay on your own?”
Daniel nods. “Yup. I’m almost done.”
“Okay. Cool. Then I’m out.” Sean flashes him the peace sign and starts out the door. “Don’t forget to eat something,” he calls out. “There’s granola bars in the cupboard, and no chock-o-crisps for breakfast.”
“Okay, Dad! Jeez.”
# # #
“Nice eyepatch, Captain Diaz,” snorts Lyla as Sean reaches the bus stop.
“ Arrgh. ” Sean hooks his index finger. No way the school would allow him an actual pirate hook, fake or no.
Lyla’s dressed in a sailor outfit with a red-trimmed skirt. It’s a lot longer skirt than she would usually wear with a Sailor Mars costume, (yes, Sean watches Sailor Moon and can identify which sailor scout she is by her skirt color, shut up), but that’s just so the school doesn’t have an aneurysm over her dress code violation. She’s also wearing a pair of blag leggings which Sean is pretty sure Rei doesn’t wear. But it’s cold, and Lyla’s not even wearing a hoodie, so he’ll let it slide.
Once they’re inside the school, Sean takes off his hoodie to show off his puffy shirt, which gets another laugh out of Sailor Lyla. Sean doesn’t care, though, because when he walks into homeroom, he gets a smile from Jenn Murphy.
She’s wearing the same cat outfit from the Halloween party on Friday, and it somehow looks even cuter on her now than it did then. Sean smiles back at her as he makes his way to his seat, hoping it doesn’t look as dreamily goofy as he thinks.
“Sick costume dude,” Eric says, coming up behind him and smacking on the back—he does it affectionately, but it’s one of those “playfully hard” smacks that actually kinda stings.
“What arr ye talkin’ about?” Sean says in just the most abysmal pirate voice he’s ever put on. “I be lookin’ this ev’ry day.”
In the row next to them, Jenn giggles, and Sean’s heart flutters.
“Downloading movies doesn’t make you a pirate,” Ellery says, sliding into the desk behind Sean’s.
“ Arr , ye just be jealous.”
From the front of the room, Mr. Ellison coughs, and Eric, along with a few other stray students, scurry to their desks.
The day goes by pretty quickly. Sean gets some compliments on his outfit, and his eyepatch nearly causes him to walk into a wall at least twice before Vice Principal Miller asks him to take it off.
When he gets home, the house is still and empty. Quiet. Dad must still be at work, and Daniel won’t get home for another half hour.
He has the house to himself.
He never has the house to himself!
Granted, he just uses that time chilling in his room, but it’s nice knowing that Daniel won’t just burst into his room and catch him off-guard. He takes off his “costume”—lingering for a bit before getting dressed—and lays on his bed, listening to his playlist through his speakers.
It’s partway through “Don’t Fear the Reaper” by Blue Öyster Cult when he hears the front door open, which means it’s unfortunately time to put on pants. Sean mourns the loss of freedom as he slips into a pair of bright orange boxer briefs and slides his jeans over his legs.
“Hey, enano ,” Sean says, joining his brother in the kitchen for a mid-afternoon snack. “How was school?”
“Good.” Daniel stands on his tip-toes, gazing into the cupboard for something to eat. He eyes the bucket of Halloween candy greedily.
“Hey, that candy is for the neighborhood kids.” Sean smacks his hand away as he reaches up for it.
“Hey! I’m a kid in the neighborhood, aren’t I?”
Sean smirks and rolls his eyes. He ruffles his brother’s hair. “You’ll get plenty of candy tonight, buddy. You just gotta wait for Dad to get home.”
“Okay…” Daniel pouts. He settles for a bag of chips and trudges over to the couch to turn on the PlayBox.
“What did everyone think of your wicked zombie costume, dude?” Sean vaults himself over the back of the couch to join Daniel, landing by his side with a bit of effort.
“They said it was cool. Noah dressed as Master Chief and pretended to shoot me with his light up ray-gun.”
Damn, the kids get full-on space war attire, but Sean can’t even have a damn hook?
“Where’s Dad?” Daniel asks.
“Still at work, I guess,” says Sean with a shrug. “I didn’t see his car in the driveway.”
“Oh. I hope he gets home soon. I can’t wait to go trick-or-treating.”
He is out a bit later than usual, Sean notices. Maybe he’s gotten stuck in traffic or something? There’s probably a lot of people heading out to bars tonight (despite it being a weekday.)
Whatever. Sean just hopes that Dad gets home soon so he doesn’t get stuck with Halloween babysitting duty. He steals a chip from the bag and puts it in his mouth, crunching the salty snack loudly. “I’ll bet.”
# # #
At around 7:30, Sean is still jamming out to his Halloween playlist, waiting for Lyla to arrive, when there’s a knock at his door. He can barely hear it over the chorus of “Time Warp,” but its persistent pounding cuts through. Sean groans and turns off his music before opening the door.
Daniel stands in the doorway, dressed in his zombie costume. His mask sits atop his head, ready to be pulled down at a moment’s notice. Masks are the one thing his school doesn’t allow kids to have, for some reason.
“Hey! Looking good, zom-boy!” Sean says.
Daniel does a little twirl to show off the whole outfit, and flips his mask down. “ Grrrrah!!!! Thanks!” he says in a gravelly, fake monster voice. He lifts the mask back up. “Have you seen Dad? It’s time for trick-or-treating!”
Sean blanches. “He’s not home yet?”
Daniel shakes his head.
I’m sure it’s fine, Sean thinks. It’s probably fine. There are tons of reasons he would be home late right? Like maybe the garage got extra busy right before closing? Or maybe he decided to stop for dinner and the wait was long because of the Holiday. Yeah. There’s gotta be a totally reasonable explanation.
Sean swallows. “Weird. I’ll...give him a call. You go get your pillowcase for your candy. I’m sure he’s just stuck at work and didn’t realize what time it was.”
“Okay!” Daniel says, completely ignorant to the worry creeping into Sean’s voice.
Dad’s been late coming home from work before, but he always calls. At the very least, he texts. This is unlike him. Sean can feel the fear chipping away at his stomach like a sculptor chiseling a new statue. He shudders to think what kind of anxious, panicked sculpture would come from that.
The first time he calls, he gets Dad’s voicemail. He doesn’t bother leaving a message—Dad never checks them anyway; he just calls back. The second time, the ringer stops abruptly, but he hears nothing. “Dad?” he says.
There’s a click. The line goes dead.
Panic starts to bubble up from the pit of Sean’s stomach. What the hell is happening? Did Dad just hang up on him? He would never do that. But then...Who was that, and if not Dad…?
Before he can think to do anything else, he’s dialed Lyla’s number. Her cheery greeting when she picks up leaves Sean feeling nauseated.
“Diaz! What’s up? I was just about to hit up the Momster for the keys and head over. I was thinking we could start with Nightmare on Elm Street this year, and then—”
“Lyla, I can’t find my dad.” The weight of the words drag down his heart even further. Saying it, it’s like admitting it. And Sean isn’t...he still can’t wrap his head around it.
A stunned silence is Lyla’s response, until finally she says, “Wh-wait, what? What do you mean, you can’t find him?”
“I haven’t seen him all day. I think he may have even been gone all night. He worked late and his car was gone in the morning so I just assumed—”
Sean has to stop and catch his breath. A sob hitches in his throat.
“Whoa, whoa, okay. Calm down. I’m sure everything is fine. Have you tried calling him?”
“Yes! First time he didn’t pick up, and the second time...someone answered, but I don’t think it was him, ‘cause they hung up on me. Lyla, I’m so scared. What if something happened to him? And I didn’t even notice until a day later, I…what kind of son doesn’t even notice his own dad is missing?”
There’s shuffling on the other end of the line, and Sean hears the clanging of a set of keys. “Okay, don’t freak out. Stay calm,” Lyla says. “I’ll be over in five minutes and we can figure this out.”
“Okay.”
“And Sean? Breathe. It’s gonna be okay.”
It’s only now that Sean realizes he’s been hyperventilating. He tries to slow his breathing and return his pulse to a steady beat.
“I’ll see you in a few.”
Sean only nods—a gesture he only realizes after he’s hung up that Lyla can’t see—and paces the room. Once his breathing has evened out, and he’s wiped the stray tears from his eyes, he steps out of his room and back into the living room.
Daniel is back on the couch, watching that Scary Godmother Halloween cartoon on TV that Sean always thought was creepy. He looks over the back of the couch when Sean walks in. “Is he on his way?”
Sean swallows. He can’t tell Daniel that Dad is missing. He would freak . He doesn’t want to lie but…
“No, sorry, enano . He’s...he had to work late again tonight.”
Sean tries not to feel his heart break when Daniel’s face falls. It’s for his own good. “Oh.”
“But...uh…” Sean pulls at his fingers. “He said I should take you. Yeah, me and Lyla, we’ll go with you.”
His eyes light up. “Really?!” He jumps up off the couch and runs over to give Sean a hug. “Thanks, big brother.”
Sean bites back a shiver, feeling the dread boil up in his stomach again. “Yeah. No problem.”