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“It’s funny that you think you get a say in the family costume.”
D-A-D-D-Y-Z Bois
TJ: Guys c’mon, think rationally about this
Nicky: Nope we are doin this
Grant: can it be literally any other year????
Nicky: Lil Granty worried about his boyfriend coming
Sparrow: Leave him be guys!!! Marco is great!!
Sparrow: But if you do not do it Grant you are on patrol duty for the rest of the month
Grant: thanks a ton Soarrow-
Lark: Fuck yeah I am ready for this
Nicky: Lark we’re gonna burn these meutherfuckers down
Lark: Hell yeah
TJ: Why was I cursed to be the rational one of the group!!?
Sparrow: Loser/lamest costume gets patrol duty for all of November you are all on >:3
Lark: Quaking in my boots brother /sar /lh
- • •
Grant and Marco had been scrolling through Netflix when Grant brought up the family costume party. “It’s just a thing we do every year… Mercedes and Henry started it the year after- a year after my dad and the other kids’ all sorta started hanging out.”
Marco nods along, showing his understanding. “ Everyone does matching costumes or… is it each individual family?”
Grant shakes his head, “No, that would get messy with Nicky and Glenn and Jodie. It’s more like we all choose a partner and we match with them in some way.” He scratches the back of his head nervously. “…Dad said I should invite you.”
Marco’s head snaps up at that, locking eyes with Grant. “Wait, are you serious!?” He wiggles slightly, getting up on his knees to position himself directly in front of Grant. “To a family get together at the house? I’ve never been allowed to reunions at the house!”
“Well, since Sparrow and Rebecca started going out, Lark’s been left without a partner and we usually do it together. But, uh, he could probably convince Nicky this year or something.” Grant sighs and grabs both of Marco’s hands, which are vibrating with excitement. “Look, I know my family’s a bit… much… but we all want you there.”
“Even Lark?”
Grant chuckles and releases Marco’s hands, “No smartass, not Lark. You get what I mean.”
Marco chuckles while leaning backwards off the bed, his feet set in Grant’s lap. “It’s been more than a year since we’ve started dating, you know.”
“Yeah… I think that’s why they’re finally letting you come to the house.”
They sit like that, content for a minute. Grant wasn’t off fighting any demons — metaphorically in Marco’s head, both in Grant’s — and things are just peaceful for now.
Then, like a spring trap, Marco shoots up. “Grant, what the hell is our theme!?”
“ Dude, you scared me,” Grant replies, hoping Marco didn’t notice his severe flinch.
“Sorry, sorry,” he waves it off. “We need to start planning what we’re going to be! When’s the get together? In a week? Two? ” Marco’s hands are flying now, opening Amazon and Google, searching up a bunch of different couples costume ideas.
“It’s funny that you think you get a say in the family costume,” Grant deadpans. “You- You don’t have to worry about it. I have a plan.”
“What? No! I want to help! Of course I get a say — I’m practically family!” Marco crawls over to where Grant’s sitting cross-legged on the bed and plants a smooch on his forehead. “Your parents love me.”
“So do Henry and Glenn.” Glenn had taken one good look at Marco’s tats and piercings and decided he adored him immediately, and Henry had watched Marco refuse meat (he was an avid vegetarian) and protest against… well to be frank, anything the Republicans did, and decided he would kill for Marco (and on multiple occasions — though Marco didn’t realize it — he had).
“Ron too!”
Grant pauses. “It’s really hard to tell whether or not Ron likes someone. The only people I’m sure he likes are Samantha, TJ, and Glenn — everyone else is a tossup.”
Marco smiles at that and lies down next to Grant, picking up the remote again.
“I’ll trust you, but the costumes better be something good.”
Grant runs his hand down Marco’s hair until his breathing becomes slow and even, small snores tossed around through the room. He bends down and gives him a kiss on his forehead.
“Don’t you worry, they will be.” Please don’t hate me after this .
- • •
“Should I be worried about why you guys are so good at making fake blood or…?”
The twins look up at Marco in unison — which, yeah, is pretty freaky. Honestly though, he is just glad that they aren’t dressed identically. When their tattoos aren’t showing he has a hard enough time remembering who was who (at least until they talked, Lark never has a nice thing to say to him).
Grant had told him that before, when they were younger, it was easy to know who was who because Lark (L for Lark, L for Long) had long hair, and Sparrow (S for Sparrow, S for Short) had short hair. But now, it's completely different. Sparrow has long hair and Lark has short — and Grant’s whole little tip on how to know who’s who just makes it 10x more confusing.
But not tonight.
Tonight he can tell exactly which twin is who — he thinks.
Sparrow is dressed in a furry brown bear suit. Earlier, Marco had seen Rebecca dressed up as a tree — how the two connect or match is lost on him, she didn’t even have a beehive on one of her branches (oddly enough, when Henry had spotted Sparrow and their girlfriend, his jaw dropped open wide and he openly stared for a long stretch of time).
Lark still wears his usual clothes — combat boots, a vest, jeans, etc. — so he must not have changed into his costume yet. Which is fine, neither had Marco. Grant hasn’t even told him what they were going as (though their’s better be better than the Oak Twins and their partners or so help him- ).
How the three of them were all assigned “fake blood making duty” together is a whole other thing. Lark and Sparrow together makes sense, they barely do anything apart, but it’s no secret that Lark and Marco just do not get along .
He’s pretty sure the adults as a whole weren’t quite certain what to do with him just wandering around the house (he was curious! Mercedes and Henry had an interesting home and he wanted to explore and see the space that Grant spent a bunch of his time growing up in) and just shoved him into the first open job they saw.
Which led Marco back to his question…
“Seriously, it looks almost exactly like real blood.” He goes to dip his finger in the pot before Sparrow swats him away.
“Don’t touch it!” Sparrow walks around the counter over to where Marco stands. “It needs to be perfect.” They reach down to try and grab at a little container of food coloring, but his big furry paws can’t grasp it.
Lark reaches over and nabs it, opening it and pours the entire thing into the mixture. “We do this every year, though normally Grant helps out. He’s really good at the color matching ,” Lark sneers at Marco, like it’s his fault Grant wasn’t here helping right now.
The moment they had stepped through the door, Grant was whisked away to help Terry Jr. with something. Apparently Ron had tried to bring a ton of pumpkins all inside of his tiny car instead of in a truck.
Marco paces around the kitchen. The twins really do know what they are doing. Everything they do is entirely in sync. Dump this in here, cut this over there, mix this. It’s like a dance that Marco desperately wants to know the steps to but is cursed to only be an onlooker.
He takes the time to really look around when he is awkwardly standing, trying not to get in either Lark or Sparrow’s way.
The kitchen is decked out in Christmas lights, programmed orange and purple for the season. Leaves collected from outside are dumped artfully on almost every surface, and pinecones are hung up in garlands on the ceiling.
The windows are opened — there is still a warm breeze despite the distinctly fall smell — he can see Jodie and Morgan talking together, and Nicky (also not in a costume) running around with Rouge 2.0.
On the walls of the kitchen there are a ton of framed pictures. One has Ron and Henry and Darryl and Glenn all huddled together, underneath it’s labeled “ Dad Huddle ”. Next to it is what looks like Henry and Mercedes on their wedding day. On the other side of the room, in a blue frame, is a picture of two young boys, arms wrapped around each other and an innocent mischievousness in their eyes. Marco’s gaze catches on this one, hardly believing that it is the twins — it is very hard to believe either of them could look so carefree.
Sure, Grant has shown him pictures of Lark laughing and Sparrow letting loose. But it always seemed so artificial… here, it was as though it was their natural state.
It makes Marco sad. He looks away.
A timer goes off and both of the twins rush to grab at their concoction of “blood”. Marco ambles over too, curious to see what it looks like now.
Lark reaches to take off the lid and… BAM! All the red liquid explodes from the pot onto all three of their clothes (luckily their bodies block it from getting everywhere ).
“Fuck.”
They all look at eachother. “Blood” dripping down their faces, dripping down their clothes, pooling on the floor.
Sparrow looks like they’re about to throw up and latches onto Lark’s arm. Lark glances at Marco and outside where everyone else was gathered… and now staring. At them.
Marco starts to laugh. Because, c’mon. The chances of this happening on his very first time at the house. Fate hated him and fuck was it funny.
Slowly, all eyes turn to him. Then they all burst into laughter. Starting quiet but quickly gaining in volume.
Sparrow wipes his finger down his arm, pulling up some of the “blood” with it, and sticks it in his mouth. “At least it tastes good.”
This makes them laugh even more, for some reason.
Outside Marco can see Grant hurriedly rush in, Rebecca at his heels. In the doorway he pauses after looking at him, his eyes going blank (in the distance, Darryl notices too and makes a beeline in their direction).
Lark tries to stifle his giggles. “Hey Grant, your boyfriend is covered in blood. Is that an issue for the… costumes ?”
That knocks Grant out of his stupor and he glances at Lark, a lazy grin on his face. “Actually, it’s perfect.”
Lark’s eyes narrow and he gives Marco a once over.
“C’mon Marco, let’s go get our costumes on,” Grant grabs him by his arm and starts to drag him towards what looks like the bathroom. He turns back and puts a cheeky grin on his face, “You and Nicky should get changed too… unless of course, you don’t want to be part of it this year.”
- • •
The costume Grant is holding is perfect . It’s got a little eyepatch. A skateboard. A cool ass outfit.
Completely worth the wait. Except…
“How does what you’re wearing match with a skater boy?”
Grant wears a football uniform that has Wilson printed on the back of it (probably Darryl’s then) and carries a huge bowl in his arms. He looks vaguely uncomfortable in the stuff he’s wearing, fiddling with the bowl like he’s not sure he wants to bring it out or not (in the end he slides it back in his bag, opting not to take it).
But, everytime his eyes land on Marco, he cracks a smile.
“It’s kinda like… a cliche thing. The skater boy with the High School jock.” Marco nods. That makes sense.
Grant reaches over and wipes a bit of the blood off of his cheek and tastes it. “It is pretty good — even if they got the colors off…” He pushes the door open, leading the two of them into the backyard where everyone stands.
Nicky and Lark were in costume now. Nicky in a huge inflatable guitar costume (which Marco notices Jodie keeps glaring at) and Lark in a huge flower headpiece with petals like a lion’s mane. Another costume he’s not quite sure how they match but… oh well.
The moment they both make it out onto the grass of the Oak-Garcia’s lawn all eyes are on them — well, more specifically, him . And his costume.
“Oh my god…” he hears Henry whisper.
“Grant a word!” Darryl loudly says motioning Grant over. He makes a waving motion back, asking his dad to leave it or talk about it later.
To their right Glenn is dying laughing, and the twins and Terry Jr. seem almost ready to do the same.
Ron has no apparent reaction to the costume, and neither do any of the moms or Rebecca. Jodie is still too busy glaring at Nicky’s costume to care much about anything else (which is probably a good thing, he hasn’t ever liked Marco, and he’s still not sure what is so wrong with what he’s wearing).
“ Grant a word.”
Grant’s eyes go wide as he tilts his head towards his friends, who all immediately find the floor incredibly interesting…
“Oh my God… is that why you were so happy about the blood? Because of Yee- ” Terry Jr. grabs Nicky by his head and yanks him away before he can finish his sentence, whispering furiously.
Marco leads Grant back inside of the kitchen. “Mind telling me what the fuck that was all about!?”
Grant stares at him, debating the pros and cons of lying to him before simply sighing and hanging his head in shame.
“I may or may not have made a bet with the other Doodlers about our costumes…” Marco doesn’t really get why Grant calls the other young adults Doodlers (he had probably explained it at some point and he just didn’t remember), but he doesn’t care enough at this point to mention it. “Don’t be too mad please. I wasn’t- I wasn’t sure they were gonna react like that.”
“Just our costumes, or all of their’s too?” His voice comes out harsher than he intends as he gestures back outside to where Lark and Sparrow and Terry Jr. and Nicky all stand, and where Rebecca is fllittering back and forth between where she’s crafting with Mercedes and wrapping herself around the Twins’ shoulders.
Grant flinches at his tone. “No, it was all of ours’,” he says. “I promise we weren’t trying to screw you over or anything.”
Lark walks inside to refill his glass and slaps Grant on the arm, not hard enough to hurt but enough to be an ass, “Speak for yourself, man.” He again glances at what Marco was wearing before cracking another smile (man this has got to be a record, he doesn’t think he’s ever seen Lark smile this much) and strutting away.
Marco sighs and turns to Grant, parking himself directly in front of him. “Can you at least tell me why they find a skateboarder so funny?”
Grant stretches the back of his head awkwardly, “It’s uh. It’s kinda a long story. But, um. You know how you told me that if you had a kid you’d name him Lincoln because you have- had a crush on that one actor?”
“Yes…” On one hand Marco wasn’t sure that he liked where this was going, on the other he felt like bursting into laughter just to get that anxious upset look off of Grant’s face.
“It’s sort of… it’s sort of like that? But- But not at all like that- ”
Marco walks up to him and kisses him, swallowing his words (shuts his dumbass up with a kiss). When they pull apart he whispers, “You know what? I don’t care. I look cool as fuck.”
Grant melts against him gratefully, fighting against the urge to swivel around and take note of whose eyes are on them (he can feel Sparrow’s eyes boring a hole into his head, and can hear TJ and Nicky whispering to each other).
“Let’s just go have a good party.” They slide apart from each other and walk over to the other adults . Marco’s pulled into conversations (and most of them begin with blank stares while they take in whatever they found so funny about his costume), he drinks cider, they carve pumpkins.
After Darryl and Glenn get into a screaming match over Uno and Ron slides in between them all, his skirt getting caught on Jodie’s chair and accidentally pulls everyone down onto the table, collapsing it, Grant walks over to him. He wraps his arms around Marco’s shoulders and whispers to him, “I wish I could tell you we weren’t always this chaotic at the house but that would be a lie. You still wanna be with me?”
“What? And miss out on getting covered in “blood”, laughed at by all of your friends and family, and Ron flashing us all? Of course I want to still be with you, you dork.” Marco pulls Grant into a kiss and turns back to the mess of people still on the ground.
Later he watches Grant talk to the “Doodlers” about whoever won the costume contest — he notices them, Nicky and Lark especially, pointing their fingers at him and then jabbing at their own costumes.
Grant doesn’t tell him who won, but he comes back with a huge grin on his face, and leaves a scowling Terry Junior behind.