#useradiranna

Cobwebs hang from the ceiling, the glow in the dark kind that had gotten stuck in the fake snakes of her tiara, but had been worth the pain it was cleaning the mess up from her costume. The hotel room she had checked out for the week was a little more luxurious than their usual accommodations, Nile wanting to spare no expense as a thank you to her new family, her new whole family. 

One thing she had learned of her older companions is that despite their claims of being reserved, all of them had told her stories of the parties they would attend on vacation, and while most had been for business over pleasure, all of them had been increasingly wild. In long terms, they were well-lived individuals with unique lifestyles that had given them opportunities in which to have grandeur adventures. 

In short terms?

They loved to fucking party. 

While Nile had been to some great Halloween parties in the States, she had to make do with the fact that she knew her family couldn’t completely relax around strangers and that meant her party would be toned down to the six of them. There wouldn’t be questionable liquor in odd colors but there would be some decent pizza, or however decent pizza could be from Germany - it certainly couldn’t beat the deep dish back in Chicago - and of course good company. 

The decorations she ordered had come the night before, and she had spent most of the day alternating between tracking when the rest of her family would get there and preparing the room for a spooky night in. The idea was a surprise, a fun night in while they enjoy the rest of their short downtime between missions. Nile had been put in charge of going ahead and finding a hotel for the rest of them. The others all had rooms on the same floor and seeing that they had been separated for a few weeks it was tradition to have dinner together when they reunited. 

When they got there, Nile predicted she would get some raised eyebrows at her being in a costume, but she hasn’t gotten to properly dress up for Halloween in years and she’s heard enough stories of various undercover shenanigans that they probably wouldn’t mind, they might actually give her some pointers and that was a conversation Nile was looking forward to having. 

There’s a knock at the door, Joe’s specific knock that she found both silly and endearing, and she adjusts her dress before crossing the room and opening the door. 

Nile is greeted by a whole lot of chest and she has to blink because is that glitter?

“Surprise!” Joe says cheerfully, roller skating - yeah roller skating - into the room with an equally glittery Nicky in tow who is also rocking a pair of roller skates. The rest of their family falls behind the skating pair and Nile closes the door and blinks her surprise away.

All of them were wearing costumes. 

“What-”

“We wanted to celebrate Halloween with you properly,” Nicky explains, his sparkling fringed arms opened wide, showing off the expanse of his costume. He and Joe are in coordinating ABBA inspired roller disco getup. Joe is rocking a plunging yellow and white sleeveless jumpsuit. The sequences catch the light and the fringe on his pants moves slightly as he adjusts his balance on his roller skates. There’s body glitter on his chest and Nile’s eyes would keep staying on Joe if it weren’t for Nicky’s equally loud costume. Where Joe was showing off his chest with his legs covered, Nicky was the opposite. His own jumpsuit ended in a pair of shorts, stopping midthigh in a sparkling tight dark blue color and went up stopped all the way to his collar bone, his sleeves fringed like Joe’s pants. The two were sparkly and loud and casually rolling through the hotel room with an ease that spoke of many hours roller skating. 

The others were more subdued. Quynh was wearing a long red dress, a dramatic slit up one side revealing a fishnet lined leg in a pair of black heels. Her long hair was pulled and curled to one side, the other side revealing two fake puncture wounds. She made a good vampire, and Andy was the handsome pirate paired with her. Her own costume all separate pieces that Nile had seen Andy wear before but when paired with what she suspected was one of Joe’s shirts opened wide she looked like a dashing deadly lady of the sea. A sword - Nile hoped was fake - finished her look and Quynh and Andy, while not as eye-catching as Joe and Nicky, were breathtaking as a pair. 

Booker on the other hand?

“What are you dressed up as again?” Nile asks, raising a brow at Booker’s usual appearance. 

“I kind of forgot so I picked this up at the gas station on the way here-” Booker pulls a cowboy hat from the plastic bag in his arms and puts it on. “Howdy.” 

Joe snorts and the two start bickering, Quynh adding in her own commentary as Andy watches on fondly. Nicky skates to be by her side, pulling out a fake cobweb from her hair with a fond smile. 

“Remind me not to look at you directly in your eyes,” Nicky remarks on Nile’s own Medusa costume. The deep green of her Grecian dress was interwoven with gold threads that shimmered as she moved. Her own neckline wasn’t as plunging as Joe’s but Nile’s smooth skin was on display. A gold snake was around her neck and another was banded on her bicep. Her look was finished with a snake tiara and dramatic green and gold makeup, scales painted on her face carefully around her hairline. 

“I thought I was going to actually surprise you guys this time,” Nile admits, smiling softly. “Though I suppose it's hard to surprise people that are centuries older than I.”

They quickly eat dinner, their topics going back and forth from what made good pizza and their plans to hit a very exclusive Halloween masquerade that Booker of all people had gotten them into. Andy had a bag of masks for all of them to wear and it was agreed that as long as they didn’t make too much of a scene - this was followed with a fond smile in Quynh’s direction, and if they agreed to keep their masks on they could let loose for a night.