Your Beauty Never, Ever Scared Me - Wintumn Stories

For Her Honor

The only trait the Knight sibling's would admit to inheriting from their father was their love of Halloween. The whole family took the holiday incredibly seriously.

Autumn fondly remembers the first year she was deemed "mature enough" to attend the annual Knight Halloween Ball. It was the party of the year in their social circles. Everyone dressed up in detailed costumes hoping to win that year's contest. The prizes were always so extravagant that many people took an entire year to plan their outfits hoping to have a chance.

That first year she had to get her costume approved by her father so he knew she wasn't going to embarrass the family. It took weeks of planning and four different ideas before he finally said what she came up with would be the bare minimum of acceptable. Thankfully she always took her costumes very seriously and that year was no exception. She worked tirelessly on her prosthetic makeup and wig to make the perfect Medusa costume she could. It all paid off as she ended up being the winner of the contest that year. It's the only time she remembers her father expressing any emotion toward her other than disappointment.

This time last year she decided her and Winter's relationship wasn't at a level where she wanted to bring him to the party. It was only about a week after the staff party and even though they had decided they were seriously giving the relationship a shot, she didn't want to expose him to her family yet. It was still so early and they were trying to keep things underwraps. Not to mention anytime she had brought a date to the party before her father was incredibly harsh on them. They wouldn't last at the party an hour before they left, without her, because of his comments. She never heard from any of those dates after bringing them. She had actually started using it as an easy breakup. But Autumn didn't want to risk her relationship with Winter by bringing him, he was special.

She had a miserable time at the party that year, as all she could think about was how she wished Winter was with her. She spent the whole night imagining what it would be like when she finally got to bring her love to celebrate their favorite holiday together the next year. But as the event inched closer, she grew more anxious about bringing him. This time she wasn't just bringing a new partner to the party, she was bringing her husband. Autumn knew on a base level that he wasn't going to leave her because of Roger. Winter knew the history there and was always there for her in tough times. But in the back of her mind she couldn't help but worry.

Autumn never properly introduced Winter and Roger. Her father knew who Autumn was seeing. Given their work dynamic she thought hiding it completely from him once the rest of the nursery knew would cause more problems than him knowing she was with someone. And since he worked at the nursery of course Roger had met him, just never in the context of being with his daughter. But they'd never had a conversation. There was no need for them to. Autumn barely ever spoke to her father and she wasn't interested in trying to make Winter.

She knew Roger saw them together the day she bashed his car in and Winter came to her aid. Autumn saw that he noticed how they were together and he reacted exactly as she expected. He never liked seeing someone take care of her. He would try to pry them apart if he ever had the chance.

They hadn't invited Roger to their wedding but Autumn wasn't naive enough to think he hadn't heard about it. He had eyes and ears all over the nursery. Even if his spies hadn't told him they hadn't asked anyone to hide the fact they were married. They weren't going to announce it on social media but many of their friends had wanted to post pictures from the day and they were more than happy to let them.

Winter, on the other hand, was incredibly excited to attend the ball. He had heard Autumn speak fondly of it before and he wanted to experience it with her. He even picked out their costumes. They would go as Gomez and Morticia Addams. And not just because it took very little work to make Winter's hair and mustache look like John Astin's version of the character. The couple loved watching episodes of the 60s TV series, as well as the movies from the 90s. Autumn had told him many times that one of her go-to costumes when she was young was Wednesday. The main reason though was that they were the Adams family. He wasn't the type of person that could resist that pun.