#Cameron in a vampire costume - can you imagine that?

[meteorit3737]

2

Noise and dim light reigned in the bar, full of Symphonic's employees and several partner companies, there were small lanterns in the form of candles on the tables, casting the shadows of visitors on the halloween surroundings. Bartenders with scars painted offered Bloody Mary, and in the hellish flickering around zombies and vampires it was sometimes difficult to get to know work acquaintances whom you see every day in formal suits. Donna greeted fifty people in 15 minutes, made her way to the bar and ordered a glass of wine, feeling that the evening had barely begun already bored her. Cam, as usual, was late. No, to be honest, since the beginning of their new collaboration, Cameron was almost don't late and Donna had nothing to reproach her with, but now she suddenly felt very lonely and was seized with a burning desire for her business partner to be here this very second.

- Donna Emerson? - Donna heard from the neighbor on the right and turned in that direction. Two girls in skeleton costumes and Harley Queen looked at her and smiled uncertainly.

- Yes?

- Oh, it's really you! - exclaimed Harley Queen, - I am Laura, and this is Casey. We work in Symphonic.

- Nice to meet you! - Donna shook the girls' hands, painfully trying to remember if she saw them in the office building.

- It's all right, you hardly remember us, -  Casey-skeleton shrugged. “There are so many people. I don’t even know the one tenth here."

- To be honest, I don’t know everyone, either, - Donna admitted.

- We thought we would meet someone interesting here, but under all this make-up zombies it’s hard to see if the guy is cute in front of you, and all the vampires are lisping, - complained Laura.

- Girl's costumes are much more beautiful! You look great in a witch costume! Well, I didn’t mean that you look bad in an ordinary suit or ...  - Casey was embarrassed, and Donna hastened to reassure her that everything was all right.

They ordered another glass of wine and took a sip when the girls looked somewhere behind Donna's back. She turned around. There stood a tall slender vampire in a typical vampire costume with a cloak, lined with a scarlet cloth, with a pale face and thin dark mustache, brown hair smoothly combed back. The vampire smiled at Donna, showing sharp fangs. And there was something so familiar about him ... As Donna tried to gather her thoughts, the vampire said in Cameron's voice:

- Hello, Donna! Sorry for being late, but you can’t imagine how difficult it is to fit a false jaw! Although it’s even more difficult to talk to her, mouth is dry.

Cam neatly took a glass of wine from the hand of a dumbfounded Donna, took a couple of sips and returned the glass back. During this time, Donna managed to recover and once again look at Cameron. She obviously used hair styling products, her dark hair combed back lay in even strands. The natural light color of the skin was emphasized by a dark mustache, glued so neatly and so well matched to the tone of the hair, that if you did not know, it was easy to take them for real. Although the smooth skin on her cheeks suggested some thoughts, the jaw line and large blue eyes drove all thoughts away. Donna recognized the obvious truth - her friend looked like a handsome young man.

- Cam, your suit really suits you!

- Thanks! - Cam flashed a smile again.

Laura and Casey introduced themselves and extended their hands in greeting, Cam shook them, saying: "Cameron Howe." The girls, who were just chatting normally, began to smile wider and shoot at Cam with glances. Donna pondered how to tactfully hint to them that they were mistaken and Cameron is not a guy (although, to be honest, the guy from her turned out to be just a sight for sore eyes), but then one of the employees of Symphonic approached her and asked to take a couple of minutes to talk to him. The man was already drunk, confused in words and interrupted himself, Donna glanced over his shoulder at Cam and the chirping girls who remained at the counter and tried to understand why their conversation occupied her much more than the dialogue with Peters.

Casey fidgeted in a chair and asked Cameron:

- So who do you work? I have not seen you before in Symphonic.

- I am a programmer, but I don’t work in Symphonic, I’m a partner of Donna ... - Cam wanted to finish “in Phoenix”, but Laura interrupted her.

- Oh, I knew that, Donna will have all the best! - Laura exclaimed with only half ostentatious despair.

- A high position, a great figure, a beauty ... - Casey listed, bending her fingers.

- ... A lisping vampire! - added with a laugh Cam.

Laura and Casey burst out laughing.

- Cameron, are you younger? How do you deal with this? - asked Casey.

- What does it matter? - did not understand Cam.

- Well, no, it’s just, uh, it usually happens that the older partner in the pair is a man, and when it’s a woman, then everyone thinks that guy ...

- Hey, wait! - Cam's eyebrows soared up and she just realized that all this time her words were misinterpreted. - Donna and I ...

When mentioning the name of Donna, Cam automatically looked in her direction and saw that the man with whom she was talking now drags her towards the dance floor, and Donna was resisting.

- Damn it! - Cam forgot what she wanted to say, jumped up and began to advance towards the bickering pair. Casey and Laura also got up and watched what would happen next.

Donna despaired to quietly pull her hand out of the grip of a more physically strong man who, after a rambling story, decided to invite her to a dance and did not accept refusal, and was about to scream to embarrass Peters and force him to let her go, when an angry voice sounded near her ear:

- She doesn't want to go with you!

Peters cast a glance at Cam, considered her a weak adversary and, without releasing Donna’s hands, lazily replied: "In turn, fellow, first the lady will dance with me."

Cameron's long arms went around Donna, reached Peters’s arm, her left hand grabbed him just below the wrist, and her right hand lay on the wrist, Cam took a small step forward, clinging to Donna’s back, her hands got a little more space and she made a slight elusive movement with his hand, turning the wrist of the man from whom Peters cried out choked, his grip loosened, Donna's hand was released, and Peters fell to one knee, as if preparing to be knighted. He looked up at Donna and Cam and his face showed that he sobered up quickly and realized his actions and their possible consequences. His eyes widened with horror and pain, he looked from second to second from Donna to Cam and back, muttering apologies.

- Let him go? - Cameron asked so close to Donna's ear that she felt her breath with her skin.

- Uh, yes, perhaps. He seemed to understand, - replied Donna, acutely sensing Cameron’s closeness and wondering if it was normal to want to extend this sensation. Her mark of the soul itched, but now Donna was not up to her.

- Sorry, yes, I get it, - Peters said, barely audible.

Cameron let go of his hand, he immediately clasped it his second hand (the existence of which, it seems, had temporarily forgotten while Cam held it), carefully standed on his feet. Throwing a guilty look at them and again apologizing, he disappeared into the crowd.

Donna turned to Cam and smiled at her:

- Thank you for saving from the dragon, oh beautiful knight!

- Um, well, it's nothing, nothing like that, - Cameron shrugged embarrassedly and put her hands in her pockets.

The movement near the bar counter attracted Donna's attention and she pointed with her eyes at Cam - Casey and Laura joyfully waved their hands, holding their thumbs up.

- It seems you have your own fan club. - Donna playfully nudged Cam with a shoulder. She did not want to return to the girls and tell what happened. - Hey, vampire knight, will you dance with me?

- What? You mean, I saved you from the a thirsty dance dragon, so you took me prisoner and made me dance? - Cam spoke in a mock indignant voice, but took her hands out of her pockets and allowed Donna to take herself to the dance floor. She, too, did not want to return to Laura and Casey. Moreover, they are now finally convinced that Cam and Donna are partners in a more common sense. By the way, had to tell Donna ... They were dancing for about a minute, when Cameron gathered her courage and said:

- Listen, Donna, here, umm ... There was a misunderstanding with Casey and Laura. The fact is that they misunderstood me and now think that you have a boyfriend.

- Indeed? And who is it? - surprised Donna.

- A certain Cameron Howe, - Cam looked at Donna and they both burst out laughing. They stopped dancing, moved to the edge of the dance floor and grabbed a glass of wine from a waiter who was passing by. Before drinking, Cameron removed the vampire teeth, which annoyed her more and more every minute, and put it in her pocket.

- The evening started badly, - Donna said thoughtfully.

- This is all a bad company! I mean, not you, but everyone else.

- Do you propose a change of scenery?

- Why not? On this street, a whole bunch of bars and in each of them today celebrate Halloween, so we will fit.

Cam looked at Donna expectantly, she thought for half a minute and decided that no one would notice her leaving, after all, she was here, Peters would definitely not forget that. Halloween with the co-worker's no longer seemed to her a good idea.

- Let's go! - She grabbed the Cam's hand and went to the door.

***

A few hours later, a taxi stopped near Donna's house and a vampire and a witch clumsily got out of it. Having paid the taxi driver, they staggered into the house and, supporting each other (the vampire was more stable), began to climb the stairs. Hayley met them there.

- Mom? - the girl asked in alarm, looking around their rumpled suits and a red spot on Donna’s companion’s shirt and trying to figure out what to do. - Mom, who is it?

The question triggered an explosion of giggles from both (Giggles? From a vampire? Haley's eyebrows crawled up) and a slurred waving of hands. She took a closer look.

- Cam? Wow! Cool costume! - Haley was thrilled. She went to her mother from the other side and took her hand. Donna and Cam were both staggering, but Donna was clearly more drunk. - Why are you so drunk as a skunk?

- We corract ... corrected the evening! Inspricti ... Inspected the bars! - answered Cameron. He and Haley maneuvered and the three of them went into the doorway of Donna’s room, reached the bed and carefully put Donna on it. Donna immediately fell on her back across the bed and blissfully closed her eyes. Haley threw "I am now!" and ran away. Cam looked at Donna with a hazy look, trying to understand what was wrong with her position, then tried to persuade her to stand up, did not succeed in this, somehow turned her 90 degrees and took off her shoes. For some reason, this terribly tired Cam and caused her an overwhelming desire to sit down and also throw off her shoes.

Then Haley entered the room with two glasses of bubbling liquid in her hands. "Alkazeltser!" she announced, holding out one glass to Cam and trying to wake Donna. Cameron drank and put an empty glass on the nightstand, helped Hayley to set Donna and they even managed to pour half a glass into her before she stopped responding to the outside world and fell into a deep sleep. Haley took the glasses to the kitchen, and when she returned, she found that Cam was sleeping peacefully next to Donna. It looked very ridiculous - Cam in the guise of a vampire, with this stain on his shirt (Haley bent to sniff and made sure that she was right - this is wine), an unbuttoned jacket, and next to Donna in a witch costume. Haley giggled, ran into her room behind the Polaroid and snapped a couple of frames, then she turned off the light and left, carefully slamming the door.

[notbang]

R/N - #11

halloween prompt meme | read on ao3

It takes him a second to recognise her beneath the wig, but he should have guessed, really. Who else would rent a costume that takes up approximately one third of the office space with its multiple layers of petticoats?

He waits until Paula peels away from her side in the direction of the bathroom, his nostrils flaring at the probably health-code-violating screen of dry ice he has to push through in order to reach where she’s leaning against a column, eyes glued to her period-anachronous phone.

“Figures you’d be involved in this productivity suck somehow,” he says as he sidles up to her, hands stuffed in his pockets in a way he likes to think exudes nonchalance.

Rebecca regards him, unimpressed, over the top of the screen. He’s not sure if it’s the light reflecting from her phone, or her makeup, or both, but she’s even paler than usual; glowing alabaster amongst the dimly lit cubicles.  

Her answering laugh is entirely mocking. “I see your invite failed to get lost in the mail. Kudos on the costume, though—rich white dude is about the most repulsive thing I can think of.”

He gives a pointed once-over to her dress—a complex concoction of white frills and lace—and feels his lips curl back in a smirk. “Almost as terrifying as the prospect of eternal matrimony,” he agrees. “Once again, my deepest condolences, by the way.”

Any chance she has at supplying some kind of rejoinder in retort is squashed by the approach of a waiter—exactly how much money had Darryl spent on this thing, anyway?—with a round mop of black hair that looks like it escaped from a disco in the mid 70s, brandishing a tray boasting an array of dips and elaborately carved carrot sticks.

Rebecca frowns, apparently already somehow acquainted with the server. “Marty?”

“Rebecca B! This is where you work? How about that! Sweet digs. Sweet digs indeed.” The disco flunkey’s eyes light up when they roam across to Nathaniel. “And aren’t you two a fright for sore eyes? A perfectly spooky bride and groom! Yeah, that gaudy ring really finishes the look. That’s gotta be from that pawn shop over on East Cameron—they sell the weirdest old junk there. Something borrowed, something boo, am I right?”

The blossoming red blush breaks out across Rebecca’s chest like bright, blotchy watercolour beneath her skin.

“It’s not—we’re not…” she begins, face scrunching. “This is not—he’s not even wearing a costume!”

Nathaniel, amused enough at her discomfort that his disdain for the entire scenario is secondary, catches the eye of the source of her distress over her shoulder, shaking his head minutely to confirm the absurdity of the assumption.

He can’t help himself, though—his palm finds the small of her back of its own accord. Rebecca’s eyes, if possible, bug even wider as he tugs her towards him. “It never feels like a costume when it’s as real as what we have, though, does it, Muffin?”

Marty lets out a low, appreciative whistle. “Right on—I hear you, buddy. Hope you two enjoy the… patê,” he adds, indicating the tray of dips before disappearing with a playful shimmy.

Barking out a polite laugh at the eye roll-inducing pun, Nathaniel shepherds a still spluttering Rebecca into the break room—currently empty, ostensibly in favour of the makeshift dance floor forming over by the elevator—before promptly dropping his hand away from her back as if badly burned.

“Muffin?!” she seethes as as she whirls to face him, giving him an incredulous shove before batting haphazardly at his chest with her tiny, ineffectual fists.

“It only seemed apropos,” he drawls, lazily, “given how many of them you eat.”

“You…” she growls, then shakes herself, her train of thought seemingly lost to her irritation. “Why are you even here? I thought you couldn’t be within a ten mile radius of candy without your teeth literally falling out.”

“Ha ha,” he says with exaggerated sarcasm. “As distasteful as this entire embarrassing excuse of party is, it is a company event. It’d be unseemly of me not to at least make an appearance.”

“Couldn’t resist ruining everyone’s fun, more like it. God, it’s like everything is some kind of masturbatory performance with you, isn’t it?”

Her ample bosom, amplified by the cut of her gown and in considerable clear and present danger of spilling over and out entirely, rises and falls with the uneven rhythm of her steadily mounting frustration.

Not that he’s looking, or anything. Just that it’s making some kind of point of filling up his field of vision.

“Please,” he sneers, looking down the ridge of his nose and being careful to focus on her splotchy face rather than directly below it as he gestures out towards the bullpen. “Are you telling me you didn’t choose that costume as some sort of dry run for your impending nuptials to the flip flop? I bet you’ve been parading around in that dress all evening, flashing that ring at anyone that so much as glances in your direction. Congratulations, by the way—purple is his colour. Really makes that pawn shop gemstone pop when it’s curled around your fiancé’s spandex covered bicep.”

“There was a slight miscommunication on which Phantom he was dressing up as, okay,” Rebecca snaps. “And I’m not bothered by it, because it’s a charming anecdote that I’m going to tell all the Jewish-Filipino babies we’re going to have every year on Halloween.”

He forces out a sardonic laugh. “Well, have fun with that. Remind me again—why is this a Halloween party?”

“It’s Halloween in September,” she says, incomprehensibly defensive, the no duh implicit in her voice. She crosses her arms, and it does nothing to coax her heaving cleavage back into its confines. “It’s like Christmas in July, except for Halloween. Darryl’s a big fan of mixing things up, unlike you—we get it, dude! You like burgundy ties!”

Just as a riposte is forming on the tip of his tongue, Jim—an eyesore in bright red pleather if one ever existed—barrels through the break room with a drunk and disorderly, vampire-fang-bearing Tim hot on his heels, forcing Nathaniel to sidestep abruptly out of their path. The issue with that is, he fails to notice until he hears the resulting sharp intake of breath, is that it has him pressing Rebecca into the corner of the bench in front of the tinsel-adorned coffee maker.

The smart thing to do would be to step away. The dangerous thing—the stupidest decision possible, really—would be to stand his ground. To loom and crowd her further.

God, it’s like the idiocy of this place is seeping into him via osmosis.

Rebecca gulps, untamed breasts brushing distractingly against his sternum, and casts a frenzied glance out into the party proper, making sure no one is watching them through the slats.

A little light headed but ultimately spurred on by her fluster, Nathaniel straightens his spine and dips his head, voice tipping low to tease. “It still makes sense, you know. The costume choice. After all, your life is basically a soap opera. And nobody can blame you for wanting to hide that—” He nods towards the photocopier, where Josh is otherwise occupied with his attempts to get a Jenga game going with several desks’ worth of highlighters. “—away behind a mask.”

“Yeah, well,” she sputters, “it’s lucky that he got the costume wrong. Because his left is actually his best angle. Yeah. So you’d be missing out, otherwise. And you’re, like, so incredibly wrong. I don’t want to hide his face. I love that face. It’s my favourite face.” He doesn’t miss the way her gaze flits down to his lips, and his tongue darts out to wet it on autopilot. “I wanna rub my face all over his face, all the time.”

He leans in further, and he can’t be imagining it—the way her breath falters, and her eyelids start to flutter as his breath fans out across her face with deliberation. “Uh-huh.”

Interesting, he thinks, filing away the visible pluck of the cords in her neck as she swallows, as if in slow motion, to revisit later.

As if compelled by some inexplicable urge and drunk off finally, finally feeling like he has the upper hand, he tilts minutely, mouth moving towards grazing the shell of her ear. “I know it’ll be tempting, when you’re lying in bed tonight, trying to get the image of your mediocre choice of a life partner squeezed into a morph suit the colour of Barney dinosaur out of your head. But do me a favour, Rebecca, hmm? Try not to—” He pauses dramatically for effect. “—think of me.”

He can tell by the way her eyes widen with surprise for a split second only to scrunch in confusion that she’s caught the reference. Finally, he thinks as his pulse thrums through him with intense satisfaction: a use for having to spend hours inside a stuffy theatre box with an aunt that always smelled too strongly of peppermint oil.

A moment later and Rebecca’s spring-loaded, shoving him aside to make her escape. Just before she melts back into the throng of partygoers, though, she turns, left hand curling around the edge of the wooden partition, ring glinting red beneath the disco lights; the only time all night she’s managed not making it look embarrassingly staged.

“In your dreams,” she tells him, deadly serious, then hikes up her voluminous skirts and stomps off in flurry of frilly white lace and bouncing black-brown synthetic curls.