take our job with pride

“You don’t think it’s actually not?” Lock asked, tilting his head to the side slightly, questioning, a slightly teasing smile on his face. “Chances are someone inside’s done something to piss off whoever died around here - there’s always someone who has - you’re new around here, aren’t you? If you're only just hearing about it now, then, well -" he clicked his tongue, looking away, "- could be that the ghosts aren’t a big fan.”

“Well usually the place isn’t packed to the fucking rafters, so.” Lock shrugged, his tone far more bitteresque than he’d been going for - but then again, he hadn’t really been going for anything at all. It wasn’t as if he wanted to cling to Oogie’s place being exclusive, but for years, it had been a sanctuary if nothing else - but now, it was managing to make three of his favourite things (Halloween, overly packed parties, and Oscar’s) nothing short of boring, irritating - somewhere in between, anyway. He glanced sideways towards the person speaking to him, looking her costume up and down, and though it took him longer than he’d like to admit, when what she was finally clicked into place, he couldn’t help but give her a genuinely impressed sort of smile. “When you’re in costume, you have to make sacrifices. You’ve chosen to commit to this - you’re not gonna back out now or risk ruining it just cause of the heat down here, are you?”

“this feels wrong,” he scowled at himself in the mirror, pulling at the sleeve of his jacket, resisting the urge to play with his hair or hurry to dig out something that actually looked like a costume before people would start arriving. sure, oscar wanted security, fine, whatever, he could do that - but at this point, he was fairly sure having to ‘look the part’ was going to be the death of him before the night was up. though there was one thing, he supposed - with the suit, the neat-enough hair, he definitely hadn’t come as he was.

Lock squinted slightly at her response, in a way that could be read as mocking of her own expression upon seeing him - she didn’t massively seem like someone he should risk trying to take the shit out of, but then again, that had never stopped him before, and now he at least had the excuse, no, the motivation that she wanted to upset children. No one who was openly willing to admit that deserved their own privacy, not in his eyes. “If I were you, then, I’d keep an eye out for the ghosts of Halloweens past,” he said after a moment of considering her, a half-smile sliding onto his face as he continued, “And I do try my best to keep tabs on my community, yes - but then again, I don’t think I’ve seen you round here much before. Lucky me, though, did I catch you on a good day?”

Lock looked more relieved than anything else at her protest, as if her saying anything else would have been a crime punishable by death - which, in his eyes, it was. If there was one type of person he hated more on Halloween than the ones that didn’t give anything, it was the ones who only bought one 20-piece bag of chocolates and called it a day - they deserved whatever punishments the kids they had to turn away (including himself, years ago) dealt upon them, no matter what onlookers might yell. It wasn’t trick or treat for no reason. “Thank fuck, okay-“ for a moment, he seemed as if he’d be willing to let her just go back about her day (a rarity for someone like him) but then, she mentioned something that suddenly caught him off guard, “What do you mean you don’t hand them out?”

To him, her sort of reaction wasn’t all that remarkable - Lock wasn’t unfamiliar with someone shooting him a glare and a sarcastic remark when he got under their skin (hell, it was what he did best when he was out during the day, it would be more shocking if they were able to cause offence) but there was just something about watching her go through the quick process of removing the airpod that made him unable to resist a small smile, a choked back laugh only disguiseable by turning his head away for a second. He hadn’t set out to be annoying, but bothering someone who was that willing to show off their wealth, that was something he was always able to get a kick out of. He looked back towards her with a small curious squint, his head tilted on an angle as she began to explain herself, but he could only smirk and raise an eyebrow at her explanation. “Ooh, a garland,” he drawled in his worst possible posh English accent, rolling his eyes with a grin before quickly shaking his head and putting an apologetic hand up, expression suddenly mock-solemn, “no, Dame Maggie Smith, I’m sorry, it was wrong of me to assume that you buying candy on Halloween meant that you were doing with that candy on Halloween what everyone does with candy on Halloween. I hope you can accept my absolute sincerest of apologies. Well,” he stuffed his had back into his pocket, dropping the act as he looked back down to her basket for a moment, “at least you’re not actually giving that shit to kids. Fuckin’ insane they even sell it, do you know anyone who can even stand candycorn?”

“And why the fuck is that?” Lock asked incredulously, looking somewhat disbelieving. “Y’know, the closest thing you could get to directly, fuckin… helping a starving kid is giving them this sorta stuff. Plus it’s fun as hell. You’re losing on a lot of levels.” Hoisting up his bag, he crossed his arms, regarding her for a moment before following her gaze back down to the food she was buying. “Fig newtons,” he repeated under his breath, looking back up towards her, “generally I try to avoid stuff that sounds like my grandma would eat it, so forgive me for saying no - what the fuck even is a newton?”

“You really are aiming to just be a dick.” Lock half-scowled, furrowing his eyebrows slightly with an accusatory glare. It wasn’t as if he himself were some sort of saint, hell, he was probably one of the furthest worthy of the title in their area, if not most of the city - but he had standards. Practically everything to him was free game, but Halloween and messing with kids (proper kids, not kids people called ‘kid’ but weren’t actually kid kids) those were off limits for fucking up. “Why... why, the fuck? Aren’t they just a waste of money on your end, anyway? Like you could get those... shitty little sherbert straw things for like, a quarter of the price.”

@sunnysidestarters

Though in reality it had been a small handful of hours since he’d finished his night’s work and let himself fall onto his bed, it felt to Lock as if he’d only been able to shut his eyes for five minutes before he was awoken by his (uncharged, shit) phone ringing next to his head. Apparently unable to trust his future self to abide by an alarm the night before, he’d handed off a twenty and his number to one of his friends (really more a coworker than anything else, if such a thing was possible with Oogie Boogie - but still quite possibly the closest to a friend he would have had nearby at the time he made the deal) and now, after a quick, groggily grumbled conversation, he was having to force himself to blearily make his way out of his room and down the hallway, his only real motivator being the person he’d trusted with getting him up also being perfectly capable of bashing his face in if he didn’t arrive on time. Only then remembering it had been quite a while since he’d gotten up rather than arrived home at such an early hour, he was hit with the realisation he had no idea what he was meant to expect - only that it wasn’t finding his sister folding clothes in the kitchen. “Well, that’s what we aim for,” he conceded matter-of-factly, cutting himself off for a moment to yawn, “but Oscar’s got some fuckin’… meeting thing in like an hour, he wants backup ‘nd one of the regular guys’s out, so he asked me. What’re you doing up?”

Though Lock simply shrugged at their conclusion and appeared uninterested, he did slightly raise an eyebrow when they started describing what they meant by his energy. It wasn’t as if he were unfamiliar with the concept of having something about himself that was seperate to him but still very much there - hell, Shock probably could have given him more extreme examples given with what she dabbled in - but whether or not they were fully serious about there being an actual energy was what he supposed made the difference, and it was that part that he cared about the least. “Fuck it, fine, I’ll take that.” he conceded, remarkably seeming not too unimpressed with their verdict - though his expression faltered when he heard the results of the coin. Originally, his plan had been to keep listening until the streak of heads had broken, and then he would leave at tails - but now, though he wasn’t sure why other than just not being bothered, he was less keen to follow through with it. “It’s whatever.” he yawned, leaning back further still and shutting his eyes. “So what’s your energy, then? That something you can tell?”

Looking unimpressed as she failed to properly prove him wrong, Lock had leaned forward with his arms crossed, elbows resting on his knees, seeming unwilling to obey her command in turn and only dropping down to the ground with a roll of his eyes when nudged - it was too early (for him, anyway) to deal with the potential of her going any further to make him move. “Your job,” he muttered, half mocking, half scornful, leaning back against the bench and crossing his arms, “Don’t be boring, Ramirez, or I might as well just fuck off.” He went silent for a moment to watch her rearrange the pieces - if he wasn’t trying so hard to avoid it, he might’ve been impressed with how precisely she was placing them back into their original positions. “What, I need to book a fuckin’ appointment to see you now or some shit? It’s not enough to simply grace you with my presence? It’s like you don’t appreciate me or something.” Putting on a hurt looking expression, he reached over and plucked up another piece, twisting it around in his hands. “God, this isn’t how you treat your customers, is it?”

(@audrcyramircz​)

Though Lock nodded idly as she started to speak again, still apparently transfixed on tossing the coin - why was it still only heads? - he finally glanced up at her, a slight look of curiosity dawning on his face as she suggested saying whatever she wanted, though he only shrugged slightly and didn’t break eye contact at the conspiracies. “Who’s to say none of that’s true?” he asked quietly, testing, seeming to be posing a genuine question, though he finally returned his attention to the penny once she started back up again, dismissive of her ideas of his reactions, but being called dear did give him a split second's pause. “A raw energy?” he finally asked, half quizzical, half disbelieving, as he looked back up towards her again - though as he did, he managed to flip the coin back towards her side, with it finally landing on her arm. “Shit - what does it say?”