“Never had one?” Her puzzlement was clear in her voice. It had nothing at all to do for not dressing up at Halloween and more he’d never really dressed up at all. “I never had a costume when I was a kid either.” That part was probably pretty obvious given what he knew about Sandra but it was more for an ‘it wasn’t just you’ sentiment. “But I didn’t need one. I didn’t go get candy. Might not puke all over the place from more than three pieces at a time if I had but I don’t think I really missed out on anything. But when I got this one, my first Alice? It was one of those best day ever’s that can’t really be matched by much.”
“More you.” She grinned. “It’s always been my favorite holiday, or has been since I was nine or so. Whenever I actually had somewhere to go to with people instead of it being just me or Dom and I. But what you just said reminds me of him. I’m not sure if I showed you this or not when They gave it to me.” She came out of the bathroom with her makeup finished and tossed her eyeliner on the bed so she could retrieve the picture of her brother from inside of a dresser drawer. It took her a moment to debate on handing it over before she realized she couldn’t so she just held it up. “Like now it doesn’t matter but when you’re running around like this at twelve and thirteen and your makeup is more on point than the entire mean girls section put together? I mean it was taken care of after a few months, but still. I know it’s not the same reason but it just…clicked for a second.”
She held tight to the picture like it was going to fly away on a phantom hurricane-style wind as she continued. “The only downside of Halloween? All the fucking random people who try to tromp through the cemetery here and there when you’ve all made your nice little area for the next few hours. Don’t get that any other time, not really.” That probably sounded like a giant group and not just four of them. Five whenever Rissa came around years later before they’d taken her away for the rest of eternity. “I’m not sure why I always liked it. Not exactly because of the ooh spooky. I mean haunted houses stopped even producing jumpscares after the first few times I went to one. Scarier shit than that slept on my couch. And when you’re right there and can’t even pretend for thirty seconds that the carnage is real, it loses something.” At least movies you could enjoy a lot more than that. She put the picture back into her dresser nestled safely by clothes.
“It’s different here but I’m more on the other end of the fence. Would have been a lot more fun if Linc hadn’t spoiled the hallucination surprise. See, now I’m going to have to play pretend.” She made a hrmph noise. “I don’t think you really got screwed too badly. I mean, you kinda get an original Sin creation here. No one else can show up wearing the same exact thing even if they tried."
“We are not putting other people’s makeup on either of us unless it’s not used or if you found a lighter somewhere out there that I can use to try and disinfect shit. We’re not getting herpaghonasyphalitis to look good because unless you could tell how long they were dead, which wouldn’t work anyway since they’re out in the elements of here plus wherever plus whatever They did to them in between so we’re just not. But if you have anything unused and black in general or red eye-colors, I want those. Could recreate my vampire makeup minus my fangs and red contacts when I got bored.” But not with Alice because that would look ridiculous. "And I'm claiming a pencil. I'll trade you something whenever I go scavenge."
“Okay. Sit back up all the way and we can figure out what we're doing with you. And you kinda have to be sure you want me to do this so I'm not just wasting eyeliner for you to go scrub it right off because I would kick the fuck out of anyone for that."