Work Text:
“ Ow! Fuck! What the hell - stop fucking - ow - Ollie!! ”
“Language,” Vesper chides, poking at Whitney’s ankles with her fancy fake cane without breaking her stride. “And stop fucking pulling her hair, Oliver.”
“You swore too! I’m gonna tell mum!” Littlest Cassandra - a knight this year - giggles, tidying Whitney’s fairy pigtails.
Oliver sulks, jack-o-lantern basket swinging as he stomps a few paces ahead. There’s chatter as the three slightly more well behaved kids discuss classmates’ costumes and candy hauls and optimal routes. Oliver eventually slows to join them, unable to resist.
Julius is perfectly content to let his sister handle the siblings. He and Vesper are definitely too old for trick-or-treating, but once the littles are tuckered out, they can drop them on the doorstep and take off to the nearest Halloween rager. Not like he hasn’t been pregaming it - his jack-o-lantern has a smile of brown glass and slooshes like it’s about to vomit.
Oh, he could be there now, swimming in a sea of sexy nurses and sexy lady CEOs and sexy sexy sexy with himself, the hottest fireman ever, in the middle of it all, while Vesper and her friends binge old Halloween classics. There, instead of chaperoning a knight, a fairy, a ghost (Ludwig is so quiet Julius almost forgot he was there) and the gangliest Godzilla he’s ever seen. He could be, if not for his wonderful middle brother.
Percival ‘too old for Halloween’ de Rolo got to skip out on this delight of being an older sibling by citing a project due tomorrow in his morning class. For the record, the nerd never leaves anything to the last minute. It was deliberate, Julius would swear on it. He's going to have words with the nerd when he gets back. Or tomorrow, after the hangover.
Vesper thwacks his ankle. Julius glances up - it didn’t hurt thanks to the fireman boots - to see her frowning.
“Where are we?”
A quick glance at the streetsigns answers him - though understandable Vesper can’t read them with her black shades. It’s getting awfully dark, and more lamps are unlit than not for the Halloween atmosphere. “Academy Lane? The Soltryce is at the one end. Dad has a lot of friends that live here.”
It’s definitely the sort of neighborhood Julius is familiar with - gated snaking driveways, walls mimicking castle architecture, the self-importance of the nouveau-riche.
Nothing can beat an actual fucking castle, though.
Vesper frowns, adjusts her tie (his tie that he lent her). “Mhm. I don’t see many pumpkins out. We should turn back.”
“One more and we’ll go to the car,” Julius promises. Cass is flagging anyways, not helped by all that aluminum platemail. She’ll be begging for bedtime soon.
But there is a pumpkin on this porch - two, actually, a horribly ugly pair - so Julius ducks past the toothy open gate and keeps an eye on the hooligans. At least they’re having fun.
Never would he admit it, but Vesper has a bit of a point. It’s creepy - the tamed and trimmed trees look like manicured hands, backlit by faint light from the road and sick pale gold from the mansion. Despite how well-kept the place is, it’s crawling with vines. Trying to pick a late-season flower from one is a mistake - Vesper turns when he yelps.
“Just a thorn,” says Julius. When she’s not looking he presses his thumb to his lips, to swipe off the blood.
He and Vesper pause two-thirds the way to the house just as Cass reaches the front steps, Ludwig hushing the twins so she can catch up and be ready to yell with them. Whitney insists on ringing the bell - echoed down the drive, the sound makes Julius shiver. It’s getting cold.
The door swings open, delighted to see them, and the children just as delighted.
“Trick or treat!” hollers the host of little monsters. Everything looks less scary by the light: Cass is a little knight, and the imposing owners of the home are familiar faces with candy at hand.
“Oh, Lady Briarwood!” Julius calls, relieved. “What a surprise!”
Her smile glows just as the jack-o-lantern’s does. “What a pleasant surprise indeed.”