Chapter Text
As a kid, Sollux had always loved Halloween. What kid didn’t? She got to dress up and go out trick-or-treating, then come home and eat herself sick in Pixie Sticks, Snickers, Red Vines, and Mituna always wanted to trade his Almond Joys for her Milky Ways. The magic had worn off at some point, as everything about childhood did, something that probably happened somewhere around the same time that Mituna got hurt. And for a while, she’d actually hated Halloween. Hated the joy, the fun, that everyone else in her middle school got to still dress up and go trick-or-treating, while she just had to go home to a brother who drooled on himself and screamed when she tried to touch him. Halloween was very not fun any longer. Not that any holiday was, really, but it sucked that those memories in particular had been completely destroyed.
Even after leaving home, Halloween still wasn’t much fun. In college, Halloween just meant dressing up in skimpy, or vulgar, costumes and then getting drunk, something she couldn’t even participate in, what with her cocktail of drugs. (Thanks, schizophrenia, bipolar, and migraines!) For three years, exactly how long it had taken to get her community college degree in computer science, she’d been designated… well, not driver, but she’d been the one making sure her roommates made it home at the end of Halloween night, and each year she’d gotten puked on. By age 22, she had decided pretty firmly that Halloween sucked and should not be engaged in. It was just another night to get through, and then the week after was for buying cheap candy, enough to last for a while, but there would be no decorations or celebrations. No costumes, no parties, no pumpkins, hell, not even Halloween movies. There was always work to do instead.
Things had changed when she met Eridan. Eridan was as passionate about Halloween, specifically the costumes, as he was about anything else in his life. In the beginning it had just been another annoying thing about him, the way he’d barged into her apartment behind Feferi and judged it all to be horrible, disgusting, and sorely inadequate for any sort of gathering. She’d had to remind him, rather loudly at that, that she wasn’t hosting a Halloween party, she was hosting their DnD session because she was the one with the best space for it. (Her dad and Mituna had been out of state that weekend, seeing some specialist that was supposed to be able to do something about one of Mituna’s issues. She’d called the specialist a snake-oil salesman more than once before the two of them had left.)
And yet, in spite of her protests, Eridan had taken off at such a speed that the tires of his car actually squealed against the pavement. When he’d returned nearly an hour later, and 45 minutes late for the session, it was with a giant bag of decorations and candies in hand. The dining room looked like a Spirit Halloween had exploded by the time they could finally start rolling their first dice of the evening, and she blamed Eridan when her tiefling bard got knocked out in the first fight. Bad vibes and all that.
By the time the next Halloween came around she’d just moved in with Eridan, kicking him out of his office to make space for her computer and shoving over his collection of dresses to make space for her wardrobe. It had turned out that Eridan was actually pretty cool, dorky, and romantic. Once she’d gotten past his complete lack of social skills and brain-to-mouth filter, of course. It’d been an impressive hurdle, but worth it, because most of the time he didn’t care that she couldn’t make her mind up about anything, not even her own gender. He didn’t give a shit, so long as she didn’t give a shit that he did drag shows, and didn’t mess with his collection of safe foods stashed in the pantry. It was tumultuous, but they made it work.
T hrough all of October she’d watched him carefully sew, by hand at that, a whole red sequin gown, obsessively pluck and crimp and spray a wig, and hell, he’d pranced around in a brand new pair of silicone tits for a whole hour while she’d just sat there, howling with laughter.
Come Halloween night, it almost all seemed worth it. Why she had to be dragged along to the drag club where Eridan had managed to score a show, that was a mystery, but she went along nonetheless. Hell, she even accepted the rabbit-eared headband Eridan shoved into her hands before vanishing through the door to the changing room. By the time Sollux had found her way to the bar and ordered a Shirley Temple, the music was already playing. It wasn’t quite the way she’d planned on spending her night, but watching Eridan, in the guise of Miss Angel, slink onto the stage in a shimmering red gown, almost equally red wig, and enough padding to have filled up most of their car’s backseat, it made it worth it. The way her bright red lips caressed every syllable of the song, how her hips swayed, the shimmer of the glittering gown with its thigh high split, and the easy flip of her hair. It was not an upbeat dance song, it was a show, and Miss Angel had been ponied up well enough to parade through the entire town if she wanted to. She owned that spotlight.
Watching Miss Angel glide off the stage somehow, in spite of her six inch heels, made it even more worth it, especially when she joined her at the bar. Hell, she even let Miss Angel perch those stupid rabbit ears on her head, simply because it earned her a kiss afterwards. When someone asked why Miss Angel was hanging on the arm of someone so plain, she laughed and responded, “Because she makes me laugh!”
Maybe Halloween wasn’t so bad after all.