Forever and Always - Scomiche One-Shots

Zeus

Happy Halloween!

It was 20 minutes until closing and the last customer had left almost 5 hours ago.  It's not surprising a costume rental shop was this quiet on Halloween, everyone who was smart already had their costumes and were probably out already.  I was 30 seconds away from flipping the sign, knowing that no one else would come in at 11pm but just as I stood from my seat behind the counter, a blonde haired mess came flying in, looking flushed and sweaty.

"You're open!  Thank god," he panted, heavily, leaning on his hand that was placed on the table in front of him. "Do you know how many stores I've been to that are either closed or have no costumes left?"

I huffed and plopped back down, annoyed to be stuck here until this customer leaves. "That's what happens when you leave it until..." I glanced at my bare wrist, imitating looking at a watch. "...almost 11 on Halloween."

He looked up at me, flustered and with a flash of annoyance. "Well," he started pointedly. "I wasn't planning on going out this year so I didn't think I'd need a costume."

"Okay. Is there anything I can help you with?"

He straightened up and walked closer to me, face relaxed from the scowl he was sporting only a minute ago. "I just need a costume, literally anything. I'm not creative enough to make something out of things I have at home so whatever you have is fine."

"Right well there's not a lot of good ones left." I got up and headed into the heart of the store, looking at the few costumes we had left. "You could be a mommy?" I glanced back and watch him screw his face up, clearly not happy. "Okay, I'll take that as a no. How about... oh, there's an elephant?"

He raised a brow skeptically. "An elephant?"

"Yeah, you know the big grey pachyderm with a long trunk..." I explained simply as though talking to a child.

"Okay, sassy McGee, I know what an elephant is but I'm not going as an elephant for Halloween."

"For someone who will take whatever we have, you're being awfully picky," I teased, sifting though more costumes.

"Okay, I retract that statement.  I'll take whatever you have... within reason.  I don't want to show up looking like a freakin' elephant," he laughed.  "How am I suppose to impress people dressed like that?"

You could impress anyone dressed in a potato sack. Of course, I didn't say that aloud. Instead I settled with, "fair enough. We have some couple costumes that only have one half. We have ketchup but no mustard, Adam but no Eve..."

"Hm," he looked over the costumes and picked up the red ketchup one. "Would I look hot in this?"

"I don't think anyone would look hot in that," I laughed. But if anyone could pull it off, it'd be you.

"True. Is there some place I can try some of these on?"

"Yeah, there's dressing rooms at the back. Why don't you take a selection and go try them on?" I suggested. Moving to the next rail and grabbing a couple more outfits. "We have the very basic, very lame costumes like clowns, vampires, Frankenstein. We have a load of these but no one wants them anymore." I sifted through the kids costumes to find an adult size. "I take that back. They don't have your size in the clown or the vampire. You can still do Frankenstein?"

"I'll try it. In the right lighting, or rather wrong lighting, I've been told I resemble Frankenstein so you know, I'll be able to pull that off," he chuckled and took the ragged material from me. "Anything else?"