Work Text:
OCTOBER 30, 2019
Queenliestdead: yo yo if you don’t have halloween plans tomorrow!!! please come join me and edgar in our third annual Spooky Scary Cinema Soirée
Queenliestdead: we’re gonna be watching midsommar which according to krishanti is absolutely disgusting and will make you feel miserable and scared of daylight
Queenliestdead: which sounds fucking awesome
Queenliestdead: soooooo we’re starting at 8, hmu for my dorm #
Queenliestdead: OH and lmk if you want candy!!!! we’re stopping by cvs after class tomorrow
OCTOBER 31
Among the most eager to take her up on the invitation was Louisa, surprisingly.
I looove blood&thunder thrillers, she'd written.
i mean there’s plenty of blood in this according to krish, Lenore had answered, so get ready to go nuts! She’d been much less surprised in the rest of the group’s willingness. Annabel and George would have been up for a group outing to a sewage treatment plant, Mary was just a hand-butler away from being Morticia Addams, and Fyodor had the vibe of someone nonplussed by even the most intense gore. The rest of the group were simply fans of candy and opportunities to wear Halloween costumes.
(lmao ten bucks that ernest gets legitimately freaked out by any jumpscares, Oscar had said. Ernest had misspelled about eight swears directed at Oscar before declaring that he would take that bet and win. i mean if i’m going to lose i take it back, Oscar responded. More angry, unintelligible curses.)
It was Lenore’s third year of doing a pre-Halloween party CVS run for candy, and her third year of forcing Edgar to accompany her. “You’re my co-host,” she reminded him. “I can’t do all the prep by myself.”
“I never asked to be your co-host, and it’s not even that much work,” Edgar had complained the whole walk over, though it was in a considerably less-annoyed tone than in the past. Normally, Lenore would be entirely certain that it was just because Annabel would be there, but she also knew that Edgar had a massive crush (“ADMIRATION, Lenore, how could I have a crush if we’ve never even MET”) on Florence Pugh, which had to be some kind of motivation. Anyway, it was enough to get him off campus and to the store on Thursday afternoon without too much hassle. He’d wandered off to find starlight mints, because he was a freak.
(those don’t even have any sugar in them, she’d pointed out over text that morning.
There’s no law that says you have to eat your weight in sugar on Halloween, he’d answered. What’s wrong with liking something a little simpler?
nothing!!!! if you’re a senior citizen.)
Lenore, on the other hand, had already found her personal favorites - orange Kit-Kats, Starbursts, and two of the largest bags of candy corn available - and was currently on the hunt for Reese’s cups (George), pretzel M&M’s (Mary), and Sour Patch Kids (for both Oscar and Mary’s girlfriend). She spotted the last bag of pretzel M&M’s, buried behind a giant pack of Orbit gum, just as her phone vibrated. She grabbed the plastic bag with her left hand and checked the text with her right.
Currerbell: hey! if you aren’t done shopping for candy, would you mind nabbing any snickers that you see? ernest forgot to tell you this morning, because he dropped his phone in a glass of orange juice. i saw it happen, and it was glorious.
Queenliestdead: oh my god that's awesome. the boy can have any candy he wants
Queenliestdead: does he want any…..RICE krispie treats too? (rimshot) (tomatoes being thrown)
Currerbell: booooooo. that was perfect.
Lenore added Snickers to her mental list. It was a secret of the universe, how Ernest’s fucking phone still managed to function.
She found the Sour Patch Kids next. She couldn’t help feeling a little sour herself about the fact that she was buying candy per the request of some girl she’s never met (regardless of what Mary claimed). Still, she grabbed two bags. Lenore prided herself on being a kind and generous hostess (someday, she was going to throw the most kickass dinner parties known to man), what with living in a single-bed dorm room which would already be a tight fit for all of them tonight.
Lenore smacked into Edgar as she turned into the next aisle in search of the peanut butter cups. He carried a bag of white-and-red mints in one hand and a bottle of Perrier in the other.
“I thought you said that tasted like dish soap,” Lenore greeted him, eyeing the Perrier.
“It does, but other people enjoy it."
She smirked. “Did Annabel ask you for it?”
“No.”
“Did you ask her if she wanted one?”
“...Do you have all the refined sugars you’re looking for?” was all he retorted, very snippily. He so asked Annabel if she wanted one.
“Oh, Ed. Listen, baby boy,” began Lenore in her wisest voice, as she began scouring the shelves for Reese’s.
“What did you just call me?”
“Ed. It’s your nickname, baby boy. Anyway, you’ve got to tone back your Very Obvious Attempts At Flirting with Annabel. She’s got a boyfriend. Don’t be that guy.”
Edgar made a sputter-y noise before composing himself and loftily replying, “Lenore, I am not trying to bring a wedge or any kinds of conflict between Annabel and her boyfriend, Edwin. Or whatever his name is, I don’t know. Edfurt? Edrod? Who knows?”
“It’s Eduardo.”
“Who knows!”
“If someone was going anywhere that Guy was, and buying stuff for him, and pretending like I didn’t exist, I’d be pretty annoyed.”
“Well, let’s hope no one is, just like no one is in this situation. Speaking of, I noticed we aren’t getting Twizzlers. No Guy tonight?”
“No, which sucks. Do you know how much people in pre-law have to read? It’s inhumane. Anyway, no subject changing.”
“I wasn’t. My point is that I am just trying to offer my supportive services as a friend. Just like you are.”
“Yeah, but I don’t actively simp for any of these people. Least of all Ernest who, by the way, we’re looking for Snickers for.” Lenore snagged a bag of Reese’s cups and added it to the leaning tower of candy in her arms.
“I’d appreciate it if you stopped referring to me as a simpleton, Lenore.” Edgar slapped a Snickers bar into her barely-free left hand.
“Sweet, we’ve got everything!” Lenore started for the cash register. “Also, I’ve told you over and over that simp does not mean simpleton. Also-also, you’re totally simping for Annabel. What you’re doing is more than just friendship, baby boy. It’s semi-possessive behavior.”
"It is not possessive - I’m just trying to be kind - why baby boy, of all names -"
Lenore’s phone buzzed again. Her arms were still laden with too much candy to multitask, so she dumped the candy onto the scratchy carpet and dropped down to sit beside it.
“What on Earth,” Edgar said flatly, staring down at her.
“Yeah, yeah, one second, simp.” Lenore checked the message, and was glad to find it was from H.G. They’d hung out earlier the previous week to finish their Co-Pair and Contrast assignment, and Lenore had been surprised by how much fun he was to spend time with. He wasn’t her conventional type of fun, like Krishanti or Oscar were, but something about his dedication to wringing meaning from every letter of The Orange had made her grin. Unlike Edgar, H.G. didn’t ask her to “please play the quiet game for twenty minutes” so he could do all of the work on their project; instead, he asked her questions the entire time, and didn’t mind that she usually opened with a joke answer before giving a real one.
Wellwellwells: Hello. Is there any chance that you’re still on your candy expedition?
Queenliestdead: there’s a 99.1% chance i am! (the .9 percent is just in case we’re living in a simulation but i’m too naturally beautiful to be AI)
Wellwellwells: Excellent (both the still-at-the-store news as well as the non-simulation news). I meant to ask that, if you’re still on the trail of discount candy, would you be able to grab any Kit-Kats that you see? It’s completely understandable if not.
Queenliestdead: DUDE i literally just got myself kit kats
Queenliestdead: great minds amiright
Queenliestdead: wait do you like the orange kind
Wellwellwells: The what?
Queenliestdead: orange kit kats
Wellwellwells: I don’t know what those are.
Queenliestdead: they’re what they sound like
Queenliestdead: they only sell them around halloween
Queenliestdead: they don’t even taste that different but they’re somehow just so much better
Wellwellwells: I see. Well, that sounds excellent. And I’ll pay you back.
Queenliestdead: it’s a literal act of kindness bro
Queenliestdead: except for ernest. he has to pay me back <3
Wellwellwells: Very fair. Thank you.
“Are you done?”
Lenore looked up at Edgar with squinted eyes. “I’m busy being an actual generous friend with no side agenda, sir. If you want to learn how, I accept payment in candy corn.”
🎃🎃🎃
Almost everyone that Lenore had expected to show up in Halloween attire did - that is to say, not Edgar, Ernest, H.G, or Fyodor. Charlotte was rocking a Wednesday Addams dress, Annabel had on Hogwarts robes, Mary and her girlfriend Evelyn were incredibly adorable witches, and Louisa, while not in a costume, was sporting a set of glow-in-the-dark skeleton pajamas.
“I’ve had these since I was in middle school,” she sighed, “and they still fit.”
Oscar and George were the last to show up. Oscar wore thick fake glasses and a patterned shirt, while George had on a polo and a fake arm cast with LOVER printed on it in red letters.
“We’re the gay little kids from the clown movie,” Oscar announced on their arrival.
“Fucking superb,” Lenore answered immediately. She’d gone with her standby since high school, the Ghost Bride from the Haunted Mansion, and was being appropriately praised for it by everyone but Edgar.
“I can’t believe you dragged that whole thing up here again,” he was still saying. “It’s a wedding dress.”
“No costume, no valid opinion,” Lenore retorted haughtily.
Louisa and Fyodor were helping shake out the candy into Lenore’s mugs and cereal bowls. They’d contributed two additional bags of candy corn, so Lenore knew she’d have an orange tongue within the hour.
Charlotte had brought a thermos of hot chocolate for herself and a pack of White Claw for everyone else. Oscar helped himself to a Black Cherry and George to a Mango. “I thought you were only twenty?” he asked, before raising the can in cheers and adding, “Fully not complaining, though.”
“I am, but parents let me get a fake,” Charlotte answered casually.
“Are you serious.” Lenore gaped at her. “What the fuck is in the tea over there that makes your parents so cool? And how quickly can you get it shipped to my house?”
Charlotte laughed. “It’s only because I can legally drink when I’m back home. They hate basically every American law, so they did it out of spite. I’m not mad, though.”
Ernest squinted at one of the cans as if it was written in Latin (though knowing him and his freaky language habits, he would probably be able read it fluently). “Is this alcohol?” he asked loudly (Ernest was incapable of speaking at any volume below a nine).
“No, it’s just illegal to buy if you’re under twenty-one,” Oscar said, stone-faced.
“Yes, it’s alcohol,” Charlotte told him at the same time. “It's basically a hard seltzer. Want to try one?”
Ernest took one sip, then promptly spit it back out in perhaps the best, and only, spit-take Lenore had ever seen in real life. She would have been delighted if he hadn’t immediately set the can down on her floor so hard that it tipped over and spilled.
“Ernest,” she wailed, leaping up and running to her closet for paper towels.
“Ernest,” Charlotte echoed in an even deadlier tone. The top part of her dress was beaded with backwashed White Claw.
Fifteen minutes of cleaning ensued. Ernest was banished to sulk next to Oscar and George (who supported the cleaning efforts but did not move from the beanbag chairs they’d brought), while complaining about how “that did NOT taste like alcohol,” in between dramatically dry heaving and repeatedly apologizing to Lenore and Charlotte. Both of them ignored him. Edgar helped Lenore soak the spilled drink from the carpet, while Louisa took Lenore’s hair dryer down the hall to the bathroom to help rinse and dry Charlotte’s dress. Mary and her girlfriend took over preparations of the candy bowls, while explaining the less-familiar sweets to Fyodor.
“Fyodor,” Lenore declared, “if you try any of the candy and spit it back out onto my floor, I’m kicking everyone out and never celebrating Halloween again.”
Fyodor blinked, concerned. “I had no intention of spitting on your carpet.”
“Thank you.” Lenore beamed at him, before shooting Ernest a final (for the time being, anyway) glare. “If you spill anything else, I’m kicking you right the fuck out.”
“Wouldn’t it be great if this night culminated in a murder?” asked Mary cheerfully. “That’d really get us into the spirit.”
🎃🎃🎃
Forty minutes into the movie, Annabel choked on her Perrier for the sixth time.
“It gets grosser,” Mary unhelpfully informed her, also for the sixth time. (She’d already seen the movie twice.) Ellie (who Lenore knew she had never met before and could not pick out of a lineup of one) continued munching on Sour Patch Kids, as unfazed by the blood and guts as Mary was. She seemed nice enough. At least she wasn’t close to throwing up on Lenore’s bedspread.
“How does it get grosser than this?” cried Annabel, looking even paler than usual. Louisa helpfully passed her a handful of candy corn for sustenance.
“Swedish people are freaks, that’s how,” Oscar answered. "Apologies to anyone here of Swiss descent."
Annabel ate a single piece of candy corn, as if her stomach couldn’t take any more than that. “Mary, can you please warn me before the rest of the gross stuff happens?”
Mary obliged, and dutifully told Annabel to close her eyes when they got to the cliff scene. Unfortunately, Mary said it was safe for her to open her eyes a second too soon, and Annabel got an eyeful of bloody, hammer-smashed remains.
“Oh, shit, sorry.” Mary winced guiltily. Annabel slid off of Lenore’s bed and knelt by her trash can. Louisa inched over to rub her back. Lenore paused the movie.
“There are still, like, seven people that haven’t died yet,” Mary warned Annabel when she finally lifted her head back, her nausea subsided and her lips no longer the color of Lenore’s wedding dress.
"You can start it again," Annabel groaned, climbing right back to where she’d been sitting. Edgar offered her the Perrier again, and she gratefully accepted. “In terms of Halloween movies, I don't think I like this as much as Halloweentown.”
“Halloweentown fucking rules,” George agreed. He had food dye from the M&M’s on the tips of his fake cast. “I think I used to pray that Debbie Reynolds would turn out to be my witch-grandmother.”
Fyodor had finished about half of a bag of candy corn by himself already. H.G., thankfully, loved the orange Kit-Kats too. His expression of appreciation for something was shown via an eyebrow raise and an approving, “My, that’s delicious.”
“I could totally do this,” Ernest observed, unprompted, during the maypole dance.
“You’re almost always as drunk as these girls are high, so I buy it,” Charlotte said thoughtfully.
Ernest nodded enthusiastically. “Exactly.”
“This might be worse than the dead bodies,” Annabel said faintly.
“How is this worse?” asked Oscar.
“I have motion sickness. The venn diagram of carousels I’ve been on and the carousels I’ve thrown up on is a perfect circle.” Edgar held out one of his mints to her, and she took it with a wavery smile.
When the gutted bear carcass appeared, Annabel, mouth open in horror, turned to Mary.
"It only gets worse," she warned apologetically.
Within the minute, Annabel was laying face-down on Lenore’s comforter. Lenore pushed the trash can closer to her. (She'd just washed her sheets.)
George eugh-ed for each peeled face, smashed head, drowned body, and bear-suit that appeared in the last five minutes. His stomach, unlike Annabel’s, seemed to be made of steel at the rate he was putting away peanut butter cups.
Mary swayed to the eerie score like she was at a concert, Fyodor’s brow was furrowed in intense focus as Louisa whisper-splained the current plot to him, and Erica was, weirdly, near tears. Edgar looked as though he wanted to comfort Annabel, who’d closed her eyes to avoid any glimpses of the screen. Lenore could tell their conversation from the store was sticking with him, though, because he only slipped another mint into her open palm.
Charlotte raised her can of White Claw when Dani began smiling. “Good for her!”
“Wait.” Oscar held up both of his hands. “Is she just...in a cult now? That’s bad, right?”
“She feels held by them,” insisted Charlotte.
“THEY JUST KILLED, LIKE EIGHT PEOPLE."
“IT’S THEIR CULTURE.”
“THAT DOESN’T MAKE MURDER LEGAL, THOUGH.”
“Charlotte,” Lenore asked seriously, “if you were faced with the opportunity to join a potentially-white-supremacist murder cult where you could make out with Swedish guys and wear flower crowns, which three of us would you sacrifice to make yourself the May Queen?”
Edgar said, “Lenore, that’s a ridiculous question,” as Charlotte rolled her eyes and answered, “Well, I don’t want to join them. They’re creepy, and I don’t look good in white.”
“That’s the dealbreaker, though,” Mary said dryly.
“If I HAD to choose, though.” Charlotte looked thoughtfully around the room. “Um.”
“I volunteer to go!” Ernest looked completely sincere. “They’d put me in that temple, and I’d be like, okay, whatever, you got me. But when they left? I’d bust out of there Liam Neeson-style and go live in the woods. Like a man.”
Edgar gaped at him. “You would choose to go?”
“Fine, Ernest is one of them. I don’t want to pick two of you guys to get skinned or drowned or whatever.” Charlotte grimaced. "Seriously. Gross.”
“So you’d let only Ernest get sacrificed?” Oscar raised his eyebrows. “Yeah, I’d go with that, too.”
“FUCK YOU,” declared Ernest at a volume too loud for the space, “I WOULD WIN.”
“How do you win getting sacrificed by a murder cult?”
“I told you, I’d escape.”
“Okay, and if you didn’t?”
Ernest scoffed. “I would. But I guess fire sacrifice is a pretty metal way to go out.”
George nodded sagely. “I’ll drink to that, bro."
“Is it safe to look up now?” asked Annabel, her voice muffled by the mattress.
🎃🎃🎃
As an apology to Annabel and a treat for the rest of them, Lenore pulled up Halloweentown (on the same illegal streaming site as Midsommar) and snagged herself a Kit-Kat.
“I want that outfit,” Mary sighed when the grandmother witch showed up. “I think wearing it to class every day would be a real power move.”
“You’d totally have to get it magically dry-cleaned, though,” Eve pointed out, making Mary giggle. Okay, so she did speak.
George looked on edge.
“I thought you liked this movie?” Lenore asked him.
“Oh, I do. I like it more than some of my family members. But-” George raised his eyebrows and dropped his voice to a whisper. “You know that the school, like, shuts off your Wi-Fi if you’re doing piracy, right?”
“They do not,” snorted Lenore. “I wouldn’t be able to be on my phone half as often as I am if they did.”
“I heard about it freshman year from an R.A., though,” George insisted. “That’s when I need to pirate something, I go to Starbucks and use their internet. Leeching off the corporations in order to get what I need, man. That’s how to pirate something.”
Lenore was impressed. “I could never put in that much effort. Good for you, Georgie.”
“THEY’RE LANDING IN HALLOWEENTOWN,” Ernest yelled, and everyone snapped their attention back to the movie.
Fyodor didn’t seem to get the movie half as much as Midsommar, but he seemed appreciative of the witchcraft. “This place, it is fictional only, correct?” he asked at one point.
Everyone nodded sadly.
“My cousin used to believe that it was real,” H.G. threw out. “My siblings and I all wanted to break the news to her, but every adult in our family was adamant that we didn’t. I don’t know if she still believes in it or not.”
“I would still believe in it if I hadn’t googled halloweentown bus stops near me when I was ten,” sighed Lenore. “Broke that illusion fast.”
🎃🎃🎃
Lenore put on “The Monster Mash,” once the movie was done, and danced around the room, sweeping candy wrapper-trash into her bin. “This is what used to make me cry as a kid. Our music teacher played it every year for Halloween, and preschool-through-second-grade-Lenore would sob until she got to leave the room.” She looked at Annabel seriously. “And that's a way dumber fear than Midsommar, girlie.” Annabel giggled.
"How were you scared of this?" asked Mary. "It's about a vampire rave."
"Yeah, but the beginning with the chains and the cauldron bubbling freaked me out. I had a low tolerance for aural horror."
"Aural horror," repeated Louisa. "Aural horror. That's catchy."
“Fun fact,” Edgar added, “that is one of the first things Lenore ever told me about herself.”
“I’m thoroughly unsurprised,” Oscar said.
“How’d that come up?” asked Annabel, looking amused.
“During orientation, we were doing one of those annoying mixer things, and we had to pair up with someone really close to us,” Lenore began. “And I turned to see a kid with a full fucking mustache and penny loafters on, and was like, Oh, I gotta hear him speak. I was hoping he’d sound like someone from an old-timey movie, with that awesomely weird way of speaking, whatever it's called...”
“Transatlantic accents,” Charlotte said.
“Bingo. But he just sounded like Edgar. Anyway, the prompt was like, your name, your major, where you’re from, and a fun fact about you, some boring shit like that. I said, my name’s Lenore, I’m as undecided as I am hot, I’m from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and I used to be scared to the point of weeping of the song ‘The Monster Mash.’”
Lenore paused, grinning, as everyone broke into laughter. Even Edgar was smiling fondly.
“And he stared at me, fully-fucking-baffled for a second. Then he said, 'I’m Edgar Allan Poe. I’m not scared of "The Monster Mash," because that isn’t a scary song at all.'” More laughter.
“It was so mean,” sighed Lenore, “and I knew anyone who could be that cruel to me within seconds of us meeting could only be meant to be one of my best friends.”
Edgar rolled his eyes. “You didn’t leave me alone all week. I mean, I appreciated it, but I thought it would be terribly pathetic to tell you so.”
“That’s so sweet,” smiled Louisa, pressing her hands to her cheeks. “Your origins!”
“My first Lenore-memory,” said Oscar, “was when you were in my Intro to College Writing class our first year. I was in one of your peer review groups.”
“Yes!” Lenore pointed at him, nodding emphatically. “And we had both written persuasive essays about Legally Blonde."
"I swear, I cried reading yours."
Annabel had begun giggling so hard her cheeks turned pink. “I was in an elevator with just Oscar at one point freshman year, and I remember - I never brought it up after, but I kept thinking of it - you dropped your iced coffee on the floor, and just stared at it, then closed your eyes and said, in the most dead-inside voice I’ve ever heard-” Annabel’s whole face was pink now, and she could barely get the words out- “‘fuck my stupid liberal life.’” Annabel tipped over, her head on Edgar’s shoulder, nearly cackling.
Everyone broke out laughing, none harder than Oscar. “That was the worst fucking moment of my life. And I had to tell my Roman Catholic grandmother that I was gay.” He sighed. “‘Fuck my stupid liberal life’ - yeah, I still feel that. Constantly.”
“Same,” said Mary.
“Same,” said George.
“Same,” said Charlotte.
"I was a communist in high school," said Ernest.
After a minute, the laughter subsided. Eudora tilted her head back until it hit the wall and groaned. “I have an eight a.m. tomorrow.”
“On the day after Halloween?” Mary made a face like Eloise had said her teacher was making them run a mile. “But it’s the day after Halloween.”
“I have my ten a.m., still,” commiserated H.G. “I’m glad it hasn’t been cancelled, it’s a fascinating class. But...if it could be pushed somehow...I believe that it would make my week."
Eventually, everyone realized they had reasons to go: classes or homework or birth control (well, that was just Charlotte, who gasped and said, “Oh fuck, my placebos!”). So the goodbye train began, and okay, even if Lenore loved spending time with people, she loved the validation of goodbyes even more.
“This was fantastic,” Mary told her as she dug her keys from her pocket. “I think we should do it for every holiday. But still with Halloween movies.”
“Agreed,” Louisa chimed in. “I had an amazing time.”
Annabel beamed at her. “Thank you so much for inviting us. This was amazing. And I’m sorry for almost getting sick in your room.” She grimaced. “I’m really not that brave.”
“You’re brave in all the ways that count,” Lenore announced, and hugged her. She hugged everyone before they left, most of which were nice. Ernest hugged mostly with his chin, which was weird, but Lenore didn’t expect anything different from him.
“I’m sorry again about your floor,” he said seriously. “I did not mean to.”
“I’m over it. For now.” Lenore locked eyes with him warningly. “Don’t let it happen again.”
H.G. still looked surprised when Lenore hugged him; his hands hovered above her back, before giving her a quick reciprocation.
“Thank you for the Kit-Kats,” he added. “They really did have something better in them than the regular kind.”
“I know!” Lenore grinned at him, then turned to Edgar. “So. Successful third year?”
“Definitely.” Edgar glanced over to where Annabel was sliding on her cardigan.
Lenore poked his shoulder, but gave him a small smile. “You’re a good horror-movie friend, Edgar. You’re mean to me about ‘The Monster Mash,’ but nice to other people. That’s really sweet. If rude.”
Edgar rolled his eyes again, and gave her one of his one-armed embraces. “Call me if you vomit from all of that orange food dye.”
“I will, just to brag about it.” Lenore shoved him towards the others, who were waiting in the hall, and waved to the retreating mob. “Get home safe! And if a nice Swedish stranger offers you a trip to their commune…”
“We’ll be sure to go!” Mary yelled back.
“Send me a bear!” Lenore called, and shut her door.
🎃🎃🎃