Chapter Text
Halloween for the Drake-Todd household has been an experience.
They start the week of Halloween with a trip to the store to get Halloween decorations.
None of the inhabitants of the Drake-Todd household have ever had Halloween decorations growing up, let alone bought them, but they’ve always wanted to. Tim and Moss, whose parents would never have dared to besmirch themselves by putting up something so uncouth, and Jason and Minnie whose parents never had the money to spare for cobwebs and spiders.
They end up going a little overboard. Their house is almost a haunted house with the many glow up decorations, their lawn littered with oranges and purples. There’s a group of ghosts in the garden and a skeleton climbing up the garage wall. Moss wants to keep the skeleton all year round.
They buy pumpkins and they carve them. Well, Jason carves them. Moss and Tim gag at the feel of pumpkin guts unlike Minnie who loves the feeling of the squishy orange goop. Tim cleans the seeds and sprinkles one tray with cinnamon sugar and another with garlic salt before roasting them.
Moss has Jason carve, to their surprise, a pig. She saw a pumpkin with little pumpkins as ears and a nose in a magazine and she needs to have her own pumpkin pig. Minnie asks for a cat which Jason is relieved is an easy design. Jason carves Tim a stereotypical face and for himself he carves the word “boo” with a bat (which is so cheesy and he will definitely not let Bruce see because he’ll think it’s about him and he’ll make it a whole thing and it’s really not - totally.)
They watch all of the classic Halloween kids movies throughout the week. Hocus Pocus and Nightmare Before Christmas honestly didn’t match up to the hype but Moss is now obsessed with the music from Girl vs Monster and Minnie is definitely crushing on Marnie from Halloweentown.
Tim makes the girls’ costumes, mostly because he knows that store bought ones would be an absolutely no-no texture for Moss and Minnie wants to be something that there is no costume for.
Moss, of course, is a frog. Tim makes her a red-eyed tree frog costume with a hood with the red eyes and gloves with the orange hands. Minnie is going as Elizabeth Bennett and Jason has been studying period accurate hairstyles to wrangle her curls into. Jason is going as Minnie’s Mr. Darcy and Tim is staying home to pass out candy.
Jason makes them a Halloween dinner of mummy meatloaf (with bacon bandages) and Frankenstein guacamole. They have some ghoulish strawberries (dipped in white chocolate with chocolate chip eyes and mouths) for dessert and they get ready to leave for the night.
“Alright,” Jason says. “Costumes?”
“Check!”
“Buckets?”
“Check!”
“Glowsticks?”
“Check!”
“The Wall Street Stock Market Crash of 1929?”
Moss and Minnie giggle.
“Sunny!” Minnie says. “That’s not a thing!”
“Oh it’s most certainly a thing,” Jason says with a grin.
“You can’t hold it so it’s not a thing!” Moss says.
“There’s lots of things that you can’t hold,” Jason says, “like air! And feelings.”
Moss puffs out her cheeks. “Hmph. I guess you’re right.”
“So we’re ready?” Minnie asks eagerly.
“Hmmm,” Jason says, tapping his chin. “I don’t know. Maybe we need to get another cup of water in your bellies. Hydration is important.”
“No!” Moss and Minnie shout together.
“We’ve got water bottles in our buckets, Sunny!’ Minnie says. “Let’s go, c’mon, c’mon, c’mon.”
“Hmmm,” Jason says, tapping his chin even more dramatically. He drops his hand and sighs loudly. “I guess you’re ready to go Trick-or-Treating.”
Moss and Minnie cheer, jumping excitedly as they squeal.
“Well?” Jason says. “Let’s go!”
The girls hold onto his hands as they walk through the neighborhood and navigate through the crowded sidewalks. Their buckets quickly fill with candy and the girls get many compliments for their good manners. But, as the night progresses, Moss’s grip on Jason’s hand starts to tighten, her little fist trembling slightly.
Jason pulls them aside, away from the sidewalk, and kneels in front of Moss.
“Hey,” Jason says softly. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Moss says, shrugging once and shuffling stiffly.
“Are you having Too Much Time?” Jason says.
Moss shrugs once again, looking at the ground.
“It’s okay if you are,” Jason says.
“I don’t wanna ruin Halloween,” Moss mumbles.
“Hey, you’re not ruining anything,” Jason says. “We can go home if you want. Halloween isn’t just about Trick-or-Treating. We can do lots of stuff.”
“Like what?” Moss says, looking up to meet his eyes.
“Well, we can watch another movie,” Jason says. “Or we could bake a Halloween treat. Or we could do some Halloween crafts. There’s lots of stuff.”
“And I’m not gonna ruin Halloween?” Moss asks, her voice small.
“You’re not ruining anything,” Jason promises.
Moss barrels into him, clinging onto him tightly. “I-it’s just so-o loud and there’s s-o many p-people.”
Jason runs a soothing hand down her back. “It’s alright, lovebug. You’re alright.”
“What’s wrong?” Minnie asks, concern evident in her voice.
“Moss is having some Too Much Time,” Jason says.
Minnie gasps. “We have to go home!” Minine looks around, noting all of the people and how bright all of the decorations are.
“You’re not mad?” Moss sniffles.
“Of course not!” Minnie says. “Who cares about stupid Trick-or-Treating? I care about you!”
A smile grows on Moss’s face.
“Do you want me to carry you?” Jason asks Moss.
Moss nods into his neck.
“Alright. Up we go!” Jason scoops her up in his arms and she wraps her legs around his middle, her arms looping behind his neck. “Let’s go home.”
Tim knows immediately when they get back and he already has Moss’s weighted blanket ready for her.
Tim gets her changed into her pajamas and tucks her in with Cilantro to unwind.
“Can we make Moss some yummies for when she’s feeling better?” Minnie asks.
“Of course we can,” Tim says.
They end up making chocolate chip pumpkin muffins and when Moss is able to peel herself from her bed, she comes down to the scent wafting up the stairs.
The four spend their evening munching on candy and muffins, cuddled up on the couch as they watch Spooky Buddies.
It may not be a typical Halloween, but it’s there’s, and that’s all they need.