Prompt list : Surprise 3) “What do you mean it broke?”
The Witchiest Witch to Ever Witch
Author’s note: The thrilling sequel to The First Night of Spoops!
Warnings: food mention, that’s about it :)
Roman was sitting in his room, eating sorting through the candy that his dads had picked up for himself and his brother, Virgil, to hand out to trick-or-treaters on Halloween, which just so happened to be tonight.
It also just so happened to be Virgil’s absolute favorite holiday of the year by far. Seriously. The dude cared more about it than Christmas, or his own birthday.
Roman thoughtfully popped another candy into his mouth. (Its wrapper was bent, which obviously meant it was too substandard to be saved for the children). He supposed Virgil’s affinity for the holiday wasn’t exactly surprising—the aesthetic certainly bled out into his year-round wardrobe, for one thing—although he took it to a bit of an extreme.
Virgil had woken them up practically at the stroke of midnight on the first of the month to get them all to decorate the house, dance to Halloween music (at least, Roman and Dad danced), and to bake pumpkin pie. And sure, that was a lot of fun, but… overkill, much?
They’d also spent much of the month doing suitably ‘spoopy’ activities: going to haunted houses, browsing for new decorations that may or may not take up a permanent residence in Virgil’s room after the holiday, watching Halloween or horror movies (Dad did not participate in the latter), and of course, putting together their costumes.
Virgil’s Halloween costume was a labor of love. He was going as a witch—as their Dad had called it, the Witchiest Witch to ever Witch. He was just going to be handing out candy, but Virgil was going all out. Virgil had hand-sewn—hand-sewn—a cape, hat, and shirt for the costume, decorated a broom that he got from a second-hand store and artfully arranged the bristles, and gotten help from their Pa to put together a smoking cauldron for him to hand out candy from.
Roman was honestly impressed. (Not that he’d ever tell Virgil that. He’d never hear the end of it.)
Roman looked through the rest of the candy, not seeing any more that he could get away with stealing based on their sub-standard quality. He sighed, took one last handful—payment for his services, obviously—and got up to return the candy to the kitchen.
A loud knocking on the door scared Roman out of his skin. He may or may not have shrieked. A little bit.
“Roman!” a voice called through the door.
Roman winced, set down the large bowl of candy, and approached his door.
“I didn’t take that much—” he excused as he opened the door, only to break off as he was met with his terrified brother Virgil. He was already dressed in his witch outfit. As soon as he saw Roman, he started talking in a voice much faster and about an octave higher than usual.
“Roman, I don’t know what to do, it just broke and I don’t have time to—”
“Wait wait wait wait,” Roman said, reeling back. This wasn’t about him stealing the candy. “Calm down, Wicked Witch of the Pest. What do you mean, it broke?”
“My broom!” Virgil cried. “I was getting it out of my closet and I must have bumped something because everything just fell….” He pulled the broom into view. It was snapped, the two pieces ending in jagged splinters, and the bristles he’d spent so long getting just right were all bent to one side.
“Oh,” Roman said, staring at it in surprise. “Can you just… not have a broom?”
Virgil stared at him as if he’d just suggested cancelling Halloween altogether.
“Help me,” Virgil begged. “Pa’s not home, and I don’t know what to do, and you know Dad….”
Virgil had a point there. Their Dad would probably just make it worse, even though he always meant well. And, Virgil would owe him one…. Roman sighed, then opened his door wider.
“Alright, enter my workshop. Let’s see what we can do.”
Together, with the aid of Roman’s art supplies and eye for detail, they were able to mend Virgil’s broom. They managed to hide the breaks with paint, glue, and a bit of modelling clay, and the bristles were bent back into place. A few of them had snapped, but a little bit of glue, tape, and carefully matched paint hid that, too. Of course, the broom wasn’t quite like before, but a stranger would never know it had ever been broken.
Roman was quite pleased with how it turned out. And, probably more importantly, so was Virgil. He didn’t even tell their dads that Roman had stolen about a fifth of the Halloween candy.
That night, as he handed out candy to eager trick-or-treaters, Virgil was the witchiest witch to ever witch.
