Posted by CrazySugarFreakBoy! on October 31, 2000 at 15:16:47:
Dan Drury grumbled, the blue-and-red spandex of his costume clearly chafing against his sensibilities as much as it did against his sensitive bits. "Feel like a freakin' fruit in this fairy suit. Whut kinda man goes out in public wearin' blue tights an' a red cape, with his underoos onna outside an' a big flamin' red 'S' on his chest, anyhow?" Happy Halloween, everybody.
Meggan Foxxx adjusted the golden eagle that struggled to contain her voluminous chest, and smirked affectionately at her grousing Superman. "Now, now. It's a Halloween party, and you promised you'd show some holiday spirit. Besides which, my baby picked out the theme for our costumes, and I think it's just plain peachy. Now, you wouldn't be CRITICIZING my darling boy's taste in superhero wardrobe selection, would you?"
Dan stammered and stumbled over his reply, nervous about conveying to Meg that he didn't always necessarily relate terribly well to her son, whom she loved dearly but he barely understood at times. "Hey, I ain't knockin' the kid's ... ah, enthusiasm, or anythin', but you know, bein' the head of an organization like S.P.U.D. means I gotta convey a certain sense of proper bearin', even when I'm off-duty. An' paradin' around with this getup on, well ... I've served with guys whut got kicked outta the military fer actin' less queer'n this."
Wonder Woman Meg rolled her eyes at Dan, and whispered breathily in his ear. "Just look at it this way, hon. If you can't be my Man of Steel, who am I gonna have to tie up with my magic lasso later on tonight?" This seemed to silence any further argument on the subject.
Likewise, Louis Laughing Fox had also elected to attend the Halloween party being held at the Parodyverse mansion, taking his son up on the invitation that had been extended to himself and whatever guest he might choose to bring along for the ride. As Louis pushed the pointy-eared cowl up and back off his head, he leaned in towards the lady in the catsuit whom he had selected as his escort for the evening, to offer a few words of explanation.
"Sorry about Meg earlier," the faux Batman muttered, distinctly but briskly to the exotic-looking Catwoman on his arm. "Always been a bit awkward between us, ever since my departure. Still a bit territorial, I guess. Glad to see her happy with someone else, though. Seems like a good guy."
Isis Nekhbet flashed a cryptic Mona Lisa smile which matched that of her equally guarded companion. As their costumes complimented one another, so too did their appearances reflect certain similarities, his mid-fifties aged visage corresponding to her own apparently late-forties appearance, even though her Egyptian heritage was markedly far removed from his own Native American ancestry. "I could tell that you held him high regard. Otherwise, you would have knocked him flat as soon as you'd caught sight of him, wouldn't you?"
Supressing an amused reaction to Louis' stubborn silence, Isis gazed once more at Meg and Dan - as Meg cooed over Christopher Waltz, who found the cape to his Robin outfit to be very useful for chewing on and playing peek-a-boo with - and continued on with her observations. "I like Meg, although it's clear that she doesn't care for me. I wish that were otherwise, but I can hardly blame her, all things considered. Even when we women relinquish our hold over those men we cherish, it still burns like a slow venom to see them in the arms of another. I'm gratified that your son didn't seem to harbor any grudges against me, at least."
Louis allowed himself a rare chuckle, and grinned ruefully in Dream's direction, observing his son as he chatted with Anna Kensington, the boy's one-time girlfriend. "Resentment's not in his nature, even when it's merited. Certainly had enough justification to tell me where to go, when I came waltzing back into his life, but all I got was, hey Dad, great to see you again, welcome back. Couldn't even stay mad at that one girl, Christine, when she finally burned him badly enough for him to stop sniffing around her, although I get the definite sense he's still a little gun-shy around her."
Isis nodded, and murmured to herself, without even realizing she'd uttered the words aloud, "Mm, yes. Christine always was a touch closed off, but then, such vigilance is the price one must pay to adhere to the standards expected of a Serpent of the Hood." Glacing up from her reverie, he registered Louis' faint smile of recognition. She suspected that he had ascertained most of the truth, but so far, he was content not to press her for the important details ... yet.
Dream ran his scarlet-covered fingers through his floppy auburn hair, and was eagerly introducing his close friend and former lover to the Commedia Dell'Arte, an eclectic collection of characters whom he's come to think of as an extended family, in part because half of them WERE his family.
"Guys, this is Anna Kensington, one of my coworkers at Odyssey Opportunities, and a good friend. Anna, I'd like you to meet the gang.
"My aunt, Olivia Hastings," he gestured to the slender woman in her early forties, decked out in the black leather costume that Jean Grey had worn in the X-Men movie, whose henna red hair was done up in a bun in back, and whose oval-lensed glasses perched in a scholarly fashion on the tip of her nose.
"My uncle, Chris Constantine," the man in his late twenties, with the dangly gemstone earring and the shock of white at the crown of his otherwise brown hair, similarly clad in Cyclops' leather X-Men movie jumpsuit, smiled with genuine good will in greeting, as he gave his red-haired older wife an affectionate squeeze, making her duck her eyes, both gratified and embarrassed at the dislay, and blush.
"And their friends, Jamie Beckett," the towering, beefy fellow in his mid-fifties, with the long, almost dreadlocked, curly sandy blonde hair, gradually receding and loosely collected up into a ponytail in the back, flashed a frightening feral grin, flexing the muscles of his unshaven cash register jaw as he bared his teeth, which he idly picked between with the plastic claws of his X-Men movie Wolverine suit.
"And Easton Wisdom," Dream completed, his sweeping arm coming to rest on the arm of the wheelchair occupied by the rail-thin, goateed gentleman, also around about the middle of his fifties, whose normally jaggedly spiked, close-cropped black hair, with the graying temples and the bald spot in back, was concealed by the flesh-colored skullcap that he had donned to mimic the Patrick Stewart movie incarnation of Professor X.
Since Anna herself was adorned in the ensemble that Halle Berry had worn as Storm, minus the white-haired wig - the weight of her braided hair was enough to bear up against, without sweltering in skintight leather AND sweating under some badly done rug of patently fake-looking hair - the somewhat awkward introductions were made slightly easier by the air of false familiarity, and as Dream wandered off to kick off a ribald round of Twister, Anna soon found herself involved in an engaging conversation with Olivia.
As it turned out, Olivia, who was Meg's younger sister, was also a professor of psychology at Miskatonic University in Arkham, Massachusetts, where Anna herself had briefly considered attending school.
Olivia's young husband, Chris, was a first-generation Irish immigrant, who reported on styles, fashions, trends and entertainment for The Black Cherry, an alternative metro mag based out of New York City, for which he also wrote "K.C. & The Sunset Lands", a nationally syndicated column on all the oddities and anecdotes of life in the big city. Anna remembered seeing Chris' books, drawn from the interviews he'd done with denizens of this brave new world of never-ending night life, on the bestseller stands.
Jamie was a bail bondsman who owned his own bounty-hunting business in New Orleans, where he seemed to specialize in tracking down parole-skippers and various other low-rent fugitives from justice. Given this hazardous profession, Anna was not surprised by the jagged, healed-over scars that peeked out from under his pirate-style eyepatch, although she wondered at the gold hoop that dangled from his ear.
As for Easton, he was actually moderately notorious, in the geeky code-crunching circles that Anna circulated through as a computer programmer, for being a virtual "skeleton key" among hackers, purportedly able to crack any encryption or unravel any riddle that was handed to him. As Anna learned from a curt but eventually pleasant exchange with him, he was currently putting his talents to a creatively satisfying end, testing the internet security of the firms that hired him by attempting to break into them.
Of course, in the midst of her stimulating dialogue with Olivia, Anna was also treated to such scintillating soundbites as the following.
Jamie: "Is that Lou Laughing Fox? Jesus, I gotta say hi to that bastard! It's been fuckin' ages since the last time we had a decent goddamn talk ... hell, probably since before Dream went off to college. Motherfucker STILL owes me for all the beer I bought his sorry zoomie ass, at the goin' away party me an' my fellow proud Navy squids held for him when he retired outta the Air Force."
Easton: "Mhm. Yes, and I'm sure that it'll be an edifying exchange, full of informative dialogues about how much 'pussy' or 'poontang' each one of you scored, during your respective terms of service."
Jamie: "Hey, if you and one of your little homo buddies wanted to get together and trade tales about how many other guys' hairy asses you shoehorned your gay blade schlongs into, you wouldn't catch ME talkin' all sortsa trash about you faggots' conversation not bein' up to my intellectual par, or any kinda bullshit like that, so don't be givin' ME shit for enjoyin' a hearty discourse regarding the finer things in life."
Easton: "You know, in all the years that I've been involved with other men, I don't think I've ever had ANY conversation that revolved entirely around the concept of trying to impress them with how many other men I'd engaged in anal intercourse with, so I doubt I'll take advantage of the opportunity to do so at any point in the future. On behalf of all the gay men in the world, however, I'd certainly like to thank you for so graciously granting us your permission to do so."
Chris: "Heh ... more than anything else, this is why I miss having your nephew around on a regular basis, Olivia. By this time alone, he would have spun off at least fifteen different comic book superhero tem dynamics that he'd argue our idiosyncratic interactions are meant to mirror, everything from the Fantastic Four to the fun bunch from the original Star Wars trilogy. What was it, he had you cast as Leia, me as Luke, Jamie as Han, and Easton as Obi-Wan?"
Olivia: "Hmh. And with himself as R2-D2, if I recall correctly. Although even he conceded that Jamie was just as much Chewbacca as Han, and that Easton had a healthy dose of C-3P0 in him as well."
Anna: "Um, don't take this personally, but ... are they ALWAYS like this?"
Olivia: "Hah! Yes, my dear, I'm afraid so. My fate, it would seem, is to play Wendy to a rag-tag crew of middle-aged Lost Boys. One benefit of having Dream accompany us on our excursions, back when he was still just a wee tot, was that the presence of an actual child forced the emotional children of the group to act their physical age. I'm guessing that this answers a lot of questions that you've probably asked yourself, since you first met Dream, about how and why he turned out the way that he did. Although, hindsight being 20/20, I'd argue that it prepared him quite well for his current profession - wouldn't you say?"
As Anna inquired further about the adventures of Dream's childhood, the CrazySugarFreakFlash! himself once again pushed the golden-winged cowl of his shiny red speed suit off of his head, like a hooded sweater, to run a gloves hand through his hair. Squatting beside him, his already stocky green features accentuated by the blue cape, red harness, and blue trunks of the Martian Manhunter, Doctor Xeno Phobia consumed tray after tray of Jack O'Lantern-faced cupcakes, and addressed the discontented expression that had crept onto Dream's face. "You look like something's missing."
Dream shrugged. "Well, Jay was supposed to swing by in a Green Lantern outfit, to round out the JLA costume theme that I had going, but now he's off doing important stuff with Whit at Hagatha Darkness' place, I guess, so in the meantime, I'm minus one Justice Leaguer."
"Excuse me," Dream heard from behind him, "Did I hear correctly? Is the world-famous Justice League of America searching for members to fill out its roster?" He turned to face a slim girl in her early twenties, with pale white skin and tousled black hair, clad in a later-era Hal Jordan Green Lantern outfit, complete with green domino mask and green extending over the shoulders. She beamed, a brilliantly bright smile framed perfectly by her black-as-night lipstick, and Dream instantly recognized who she was.
Isabel Shapiro, clad in the Green Lantern costume she had worn on the Halloween before her death, extended her hand to the man she had loved, and asked him, "Is it too late for one last Flash/Green Lantern team-up?" Dream took her white-gloved hand in his own, and the couple danced together one more time, his arms encircling her waist, her head on his shoulders, as everyone around them wondered who the new girl to arrive at the party was.
Normally, the dead remain dead, and the living busy themselves with living, and never the twain are allowed to touch.
But on certain nights, it's not uncommon for the rules to be overlooked, so that old loves may share in the warmth of each other's embraces again, and have one last adventure together.
"So," Izzy whispered, nuzzling against the warmth of her lover's cheek, "Am I still your favorite fellow costumed crimefighter to team up with?"
Dream smiled, and kissed her neck tenderly, before whispering back, "You're the coolest superhero partner ever."