hariana drabbles

045

– Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder

Warning: none
3.7k+: fluff, light angst, university!au, spooky szn
Summary: The one where Halloween complicates a marriage when you couldn't care less about Halloween while your wife's the kind of person to paint 'YOU'RE NEXT' on your new walls with fake blood

-:-:-:-

After five of years of marriage and being together for nine years in total, Harry thinks he knows his wife pretty well at this point. So, when she came into their living room one summer morning, her eyes suspiciously aglow for someone who had to go to the pharmacy to pick up his ointments, Harry knew that she was up to something. He could see the cog wheels in her mind turning as he met her eyes from across the room.

"Look what I picked up. I saw it in the shop next door, and thought it was the cutest thing. I think it'll look great on our mantle," Ariana says, the pitter patter of her socked feet thud over their half-done wood floors to where Harry is sitting by a pile of floor boards. She pulls out a small skeleton doll, made mostly of tiny (he hopes are fake) bones and a barbie-sized head. Only the head is missing a face, and had a head full of matted black hair.

"It's creepy," Harry makes a pinched expression as he looks at it up close, "isn't it a bit too early for shops to sell Halloween decorations?"

"It's never too early for Halloween," Ariana disagrees as she takes the doll from Harry, taking it to the fireplace to place it on the mantle.

They're currently re-doing the living room so, the mantle isn't flocked with family photos and the small gifts they'd collected at past weddings and birthdays. She sets the doll down in the middle of the mantle, stepping back to admire it in its lonesome.

"Have we decided on 'silver chalice' or 'silk pillow' for the walls?" Harry asks as he sets his phone down.

"Silk pillow," Ariana sighs, "but I still think black would be divine."

...

The house begins to look like a haunted house well before October 31st.

They finished refurnishing the walls and the floors of the living room three weeks into September and are now in the process of putting in furniture and decorating. Harry didn't really bat an eye when Ariana was bringing home small Halloween related pieces like ceramic jack-o-lantern models and a practical witch's spell book, but he felt he needed to step in once he saw her carrying a familiar bust into their living room.

"You are not putting that in here," Harry immediately takes the bust from her, maneuvering it away from her grabby hands as they reached for it.

The bust was from a shoot he did for his first year, special effects makeup class in university. He had to create a prosthetic of his face; a mask, essentially. It turned out a little wonky since Harry didn't have the experience he has now, and he might have been high while working on it. He kept it as a portfolio piece before it inevitably ended up in a storage unit. He would have thrown it away if Ariana hadn't wanted to have it, and now he's strongly reconsidering his decision to keep it.

"Come on, you know how much I adore that thing. It's art!" Ariana huffs as she tries for the bust with Harry's face again, but he only holds it above his head where he knows she won't be able to reach it. "Hey, careful with him!" She gasps, making the jump to grab the bust from Harry which she quickly runs and places on the coffee table.

"It clashes with my Michaelmas Daisies," Harry huffs motioning to how the fleshy bust dampened the soft nature of his purple flowers.

"What if I put him with the landline?" Ariana asks.