Godric Goes Costume Shopping
Title: Godric Goes Costume Shopping
Author: septemberoses
Fandom: True Blood
Characters: Godric/(Eric)/Stan/Isabel/Mary Sue (OC)
Rating: G/PG for Stan, language, clowns, crossdressing, Girl Scout cookies
Words: 3900
Summary: Godric in the vampire world is a BAMF, but what happens when our favorite ancient teenaged fun-size undead sheriff has to cope with humans? In this story, Godric really wants to go trick-or-treating for once in his long, undead life. But strange things happen when he tries to pick a Halloween costume. Will he be saved by Mary Sue, the special girl from next door? I took a small break from my porn and angst to cleanse my palate with some cracktastic fluff...
Godric opened the door and stepped tentatively into the cavernous, cluttered interior of the costume emporium that catered to all sorts of event needs, from fancy costume balls to performances by local theater groups. He'd waited too long to select a costume the previous year and then changed his mind at the last minute. This year he was going through with it.
This year he was going trick-or-treating for Halloween.
It didn't matter that he was far too old -- two thousand years too old, more or less -- to participate in the great American childhood tradition of going from house to house dressed as a goblin, or possibly Mr. Spock, ringing doorbells and asking for treats. It didn't matter that he couldn't eat the sackful of tooth-rotting candy he'd no doubt come home with. He wanted to try it, just once, so he would know exactly how it felt, because it looked wonderful.
He'd been plying the children who trick-or-treated in his tony Dallas neighborhood for years with enough candy to send them all into diabetic comas. He'd even quietly mentioned dressing up in costume to answer the door. But Isabel kept insisting that he was overestimating neighborly goodwill toward vampires and he'd find himself on the wrong end of a child-molestation charge if he got too friendly with the human spawn. Last year he'd spent weeks planning the horror-movie decoration theme outside the house - dry ice cauldron, some local witches pretending to do their thing (they owed him), and - the crowning touch - Stan buried in the fake graveyard next to the front door, sitting up out of the dirt periodically to wave his arms around in his zombie outfit. Stan hadn't been too delighted, because he couldn't wear his ten-gallon hat, but he'd done it.
This year, though, Isabel was going to hand out the candy to the droves of neighborhood kids who now showed up to see what crazy Halloween display they'd cooked up. She assured Godric that the planning was well in hand, and that no humans would be injured or die of fright.
Now all Godric needed was the right costume. He looked around hopefully, taking in the wild mix of colors and fabrics jammed into racks and racks of clothing. He'd heard the selection in this store was great, and glancing around he could see the makings of almost any character one could dream of. Faced with an overwhelming array of choices, however, Godric wasn't sure how to proceed.
He didn't want something cartoonish - no Shrek, no Bugs Bunny. He didn't want anything really terrifying, like a clown - in fact just looking at the clown outfit hanging on the wall in front of him, with its multicolored polka dots, its accessory bag holding a rainbow wig and a bulbous red nose, made him step back involuntarily in horror.
He let his eyes drift around the room some more, with costumes covering literally every wall. He was too short for the Darth Vader costume, and the Dracula outfit was just silly. He was sorry he'd mentioned his plan to Eric, who kept mocking him by suggesting Little Red Riding Hood. Eric offered to fly there just so he could be the Big Bad Wolf. Eric wasn't taking Godric's interest seriously at all.
"Can I help you?"
Godric turned around and found himself face to face with a young man with long, dark hair and exceptionally white teeth. He was exceedingly handsome. All of a sudden Godric was feeling a bit foolish.
"Hello, I was looking for a costume for Halloween, please," he said, although when it came out it sounded a bit rushed, like one long word.
"For a party?"
"Mmm … yes," he said, thinking it sounded less strange than Actually, I, the Sheriff of Area 9, am planning on going trick or treating with the neighborhood children!
"Is there a theme?" The young man smiled, waiting.
"No … no, I just want it to be … something special." He looked away, embarrassed. "I've never done this before."
"So, you don't have any particular costume in mind?"
"No, not really…. Stan sent me here. He works for me, perhaps you know him. He said you had great costumes-"
The young man's face lit up.
"Yes, of course! Stan!! Now I understand." He grinned at Godric and patted him on the arm. "You should have said so in the first place and saved a little time and effort explaining. Didn't he tell you to ask for me? No? Well, I'm Daniel. I always help Stan's friends." The boy winked at him inexplicably. "Follow me."
They walked to the back of the store; Godric could see immediately that in this somewhat smaller room, the costumes went up dramatically in detail and probably in expense as well. There were no cartoon characters or ninjas or Grim Reaper props in this room. These were the sorts of costumes you might rent for some over-the-top historical fancy-dress ball. He supposed that this was what Stan needed costumes for, although it was difficult to imagine his giant underling in anything other than his usual Dallas cowboy wear.
"Now… let me see…" Daniel was looking at him appraisingly. "You said you haven't done this before? Well, don't worry, I'm here for you every step of the way. So, don't be shy. Although, I'll be honest with you, you don't look like most of the boys Stan brings in here. That last one, I think he was on drugs, he wasn't good for Stan at all." Daniel shook his head, pursing his lips. Godric had a vague recollection of a fey, emaciated young blond boy hanging about the house for a few weeks. "You are a definite improvement. So let's make Stan happy, shall we?" Godric nodded, although he wasn't quite following the bit about Stan.
"May I make some suggestions? Since I know this room like the back of my hand?"
"Please, if you wouldn't mind."
"Certainly." And Daniel shoved some pale blue satin aside and reached into the rack.
"I think you'd look phenomenal in this."
He was holding up a costume of fine silk, in a green color that made Godric think of seaglass. It had a low neck and fitted, three-quarter-length sleeves, and a long, full ... skirt. The garment Daniel was holding was … it appeared to be ….it was in fact a dress. Godric blinked twice at it, and then looked back at Daniel, baffled.
"No? I'm telling you, it would look amazing with your coloring, and it would really bring out your eyes. Also," Daniel leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially, "I happen to know Stan is crazy about this particular gown but that last boy was way too bony for it."
Godric was now thinking maybe the clown outfit wasn't so terrifying after all.
"Oh, come on, honey. Don't look like that, it's nothing to be ashamed of. We get lots of men in here who like to dress up and take a walk on the other side of the street. Come on back to the dressing room, you'll need help with this one. Since you didn't bring Mister Big himself to give you a hand lacing yourself into it." And Daniel winked again.
Godric hung the garment bag hanger very carefully over the hook inside the back of his Prius. Then he got in the driver's seat, shut the door and stared straight ahead.
Well… that hadn't worked out quite as he expected. He was grateful he'd decided to wear underwear today, as that had been all he had on for several minutes while Daniel helped him into his petticoat. The costume had a lot of eyelets and hooks and buttons, and it came in several layers, with various undergarments that could be adjusted with lacings. It was surprisingly comfortable for all the fussiness. Now all he had to do was figure out how to exchange it for the pirate outfit he'd seen near the front door on the way out. He felt reasonably confident he could pull off a pirate outfit.
Isabel waylaid him as he headed for his room.
"Are you going to show me what you decided on?"
"No. Definitely not."
"Come on, Godric - what is it? What did you get that you won't even show me? Wait, you got one of those Toy Story costumes, didn't you?!"
He shook his head.
"Oh - I know! I know! Robin Hood!!" Isabel laughed. Godric sighed.
"Go on, then," he said. "But I have to explain…"
Isabel unzipped the garment bag and pulled out the green ballgown, taking a moment to register all its silk-brocaded, faux-Medieval glory. She looked at the sleeve detailing, and then at Godric.
"Ohhh…kay, I admit, I'm surprised. I was thinking you'd go with something more conservative for this neighborhood."
She looked down at his feet.
"Godric, you're going to need some shoes to go with this. I'm seeing sandals… no, not your Jesus man-sandals. Something jeweled, a low heel, you have to be able to walk … what size are you? Your feet are pretty small, you could borrow my--"
"No, no, Isabel - you don't understand, there's been a terrible mistake-"
"Sure there has." She looked at him curiously. "Godric, are you going out with Stan? All these years, I had no idea you shared his … passion for dressing up. Stan's always asking me to help zip him into those latex bondage pants--"
Godric held up his hands toward Isabel in the universal symbol of Too Much Information.
"Hey, I don't judge…. I think you should let me do your makeup, though," Isabel added thoughtfully. "Does your waist really fit into this? I'm so jealous. Is there a corset?" She started to root around in the bag.
Godric sat in a chair in the corner of the ladies' shoe salon at Neiman Marcus a half hour before closing time, his iPod in one hand. He was listening to Dvorak's Symphony No. 8 in G major - he found it very soothing.
"Are you … waiting for your mother?" the well-dressed clerk asked him in a friendly, polite fashion.
"No, actually, I need a pair of sandals - to go with this dress," Godric said equally politely, turning the screen in his hand and enlarging the image so the clerk could see it. He'd agreed to let Isabel take the photo so he wouldn't have to bring the dress with him to get the shoes. And he'd agreed to get the shoes - shoes that he would never wear, since he wouldn't be wearing the dress - only because every effort he'd made to explain to Isabel that the entire thing was a bizarre misunderstanding had failed. Isabel had countered with such an intense barrage of stonewalling and bribery that he finally gave up. Buying ladies' shoes at Neiman Marcus was infinitely easier than arguing with Isabel.
The clerk looked at the photo for quite some time, and then looked up at Godric, his smile even warmer.
"I think I have several things that might be perfect," he said. "Let's measure your foot." Godric noticed that the man handled his bare foot with particular tenderness, and also that the man's hands were warm and sweaty and trembled slightly.
The clerk returned a few minutes later with several boxes in his hand, balanced atop one another, and slipped onto the low upholstered stool in front of Godric.
"You do have a relatively slim foot for a man, but these still might not work. Let's start with my first choice." And he lifted the vampire's pale foot in his hand and squeezed it a little, an odd expression on his face. "You have very … well-formed feet, if you don't mind my saying so." He wasn't rushing to slip on the sandal. Godric studied the man, one eyebrow raised a fraction. Another foot fetishist. Of course it would make sense, he worked in the shoe department… the man continued to run his thumb over the instep, caressing it. Godric was half expecting him to throw caution to the wind and kiss it; stranger things had happened to him in Neiman Marcus. Godric thought that one of his special powers must be attracting humans with foot kinks.
Godric walked into the house wearing his usual shoes and carrying a shopping bag. Isabel looked down at his feet and up at him.
"You didn't think I'd wear them home, did you?" Godric said.
"Did you just roll your eyes at me?"
"Isabel, would you like to see the $350 ladies' dress sandals that I don't want or need, to go with the Halloween costume I won't be wearing?"
"Oh, come on, Godric! Live a little! You should at least let Eric see you in that dress, he's such a pervert I think he'd love it." Isabel looked at the box in the shopping bag. "Well, they're not Manolos, but let's see-"
They were pale silver in color, with small, clear crystals adorning the delicate leather straps.
"My foot's wider than I thought."
Isabel was grinning at him.
"All right, all right," Godric grumbled. "But if I show you, you're taking it all back and getting me the pirate costume."
Godric stood in the center of his room while Isabel slowly and patiently did the hooks up the back of the dress. There were lacings involved that pulled it tighter once the hooks were done; Godric had found the sensation not unpleasant when he tried it on with Daniel the store. Still, though, the design was absurd. You needed another person to help you in and out of it.
"Godric … you know…." Isabel said thoughtfully as she worked her nimble fingers up the hooks, "you really should have some nice lacy underthings for this dress--"
"That's it. Stop right there. I'm done."
"Oh, come on, I'm teasing-"
He didn't even want another costume at this point. He wasn't going to risk sending Isabel to that store, he'd probably wind up dressed as a nun. Or Tinkerbell. He would cut a couple of eyeholes in a white sheet and go as a ghost; he could wear whatever he wanted under a sheet.
He looked at himself in the mirror. The neckline framed his tattoo. With his short hair the effect was singularly bizarre. He pondered whether the evening could get worse.
The door to his room banged open.
It was Stan.
"Sheriff, sorry to interrupt, I need Isabel and I figured … you … two…" Stan stared at them, speechless for a moment before continuing, "… you two weren't doing anything… jesus … fucking … christ..."
He'd wandered closer to them, his eyes bugging out as he took in the full glory of the scene in front of him.
"Sheriff…. Sheriff… I had no idea…."
Isabel's eyes darted back and forth between the two of them, amused.
"Hey, Stan, guess what? He's not wearing anything under that dress," Isabel lied. "Also, look at his sandals. Dainty, no?"
Stan stood for a moment in front of Godric, towering over him, and then dropped to his knees in what was surely awe. With a vampire-sized portion of lust on the side. Godric closed his eyes briefly, collecting himself.
"Stan, get up please." It was times like these that Godric's decades of training in Zen meditation came in handy.
Instead, Stan slowly doffed his giant black cowboy hat, leaned forward, and bestowed a single, long, reverent kiss upon the top of the lovely sandal-clad foot on the carpet in front of him, prepared now to worship Godric in every way possible.
"May I help you?" Godric asked doubtfully when he answered the door. Usually Stan answered the door when their humans weren't around to do it, but Stan had been gone much of the last two days, after the incident with the dress. And the foot-kissing, followed by Stan's enormous, chilly hands wandering upward underneath the petticoats as he'd pressed his face into the silken material of the full skirt and moaned. It made Godric wince just thinking about it. He'd been polite but firm with Stan regarding the impossibility of any future relationship between them that would include Godric dressing in women's clothing and culminate in Stan demonstrating his ardor in ways which Godric preferred not to contemplate, now that he'd already had a little taste. Stan was a loyal employee, if somewhat hot-headed, and this couldn't be allowed to spoil their working relationship.
The girl gave a warm smile, a mouthful of braces gleaming in the porch light. She was pulling a child's red wagon behind her full of boxes. She had light brown hair and she looked familiar.
"Hi, I'm Mary Sue? I'm the girl next door? I'm sorry to bother you… my little sister, she sold Stan some Girl Scout cookies, but my mom asked me to deliver them instead. Is Stan here?"
"No, not at present… do you want to leave them?"
"That'd be great, if you don't mind." She was just about Godric's height and dressed in what looked like some sort of martial arts uniform. "I'm curious, do you have any idea what Stan was going to do with 48 boxes of Thin Mints? Seeing as how he's a vampire?"
"Well… no. Not really." Godric was wondering the same thing. Perhaps Stan was going to hand them out in lieu of Snickers bars this year. "How much do I owe you?"
"Nothing, he paid already. If you want you can keep the wagon, I can come back and get it tomorrow." The girl looked over Godric's shoulder. "My mom says not to go in your house or you'll suck me dry like a lemon. No offense, mom's not very progressive. Are you gay?"
"I-beg your pardon?"
"I'm sorry, it's none of my business. I just thought since you lived here with Stan, and you're always wearing those … shirt …tunic … things … never mind. Hey, if I write my phone number down, will you consider calling me if you need errands run or anything? I can pull weeds too. I'm trying to earn some extra cash, I'm saving up for a dress to wear to my homecoming dance. I want something really fancy. Not like one of those regular slutty ho dresses all the girls are wearing now. I want … something more like a princess gown, you know? Like, more old fashioned. My mom says it's stupid because no boy's gonna ask me, and she's right, but I'm going anyway."
Mary Sue looked over her shoulder, then back at Godric. "My mom thinks taekwondo's making me a lesbian. But the truth is, I've always been in love with girls. I know, I talk too much." Godric remembered the girl now; the last time he'd seen her she'd been walking a large dog on a leash while wearing a tee shirt emblazoned with a Viking helmet and the words Lock Up Your Daughters. He supposed this was irony, but he wasn't sure. Perhaps he should ask Eric.
"Is that your taekwondo uniform?" he asked her.
"Uh huh. I'm a first degree black belt. I can't wait to go to college. As soon as I turn eighteen I'm going to get a tattoo and dye my hair and change my name to something cool, like Chrissie. Like in Chrissie Hynde, you know, of the Pretenders? Then all the nasty cheerleader bitches around here can go suck it."
"I saw the Pretenders play at the Palladium in 1980," Godric said with a smile. "I saw Patti Smith that year too, at CBGB… no, I'm sorry, I think that was 1979."
"No fucking way."
"I have a dress you can borrow," Godric said decisively. "For your dance. If you'd like to wait here at the door I can bring it to you."
"Dude … you have a dress? Although, I get it, that still doesn't make you gay."
"It's a costume. It's … a long story. I have to return it eventually, but it has shoes to match. I think you'd look very … princessy in it." Godric shifted on his feet awkwardly.
"If I come in, do you promise not to bite me? Seriously, that would freak me out. Not the biting part, the you're-a-guy part. I'm only interested in girls, no offense."
"You're quite safe with me. I'm only interested in men."
"Here, I'll even haul all your cookies to the kitchen, how's that? Or do you even have a kitchen? Did you convert it to something useful like a sauna?"
Mary Sue glanced around the cavernous living room she'd stepped into and whistled. "This is pretty fucking ninja even for a vampire crib. But okay, I should probably be going before my mom comes looking for me. How much do I owe you if I use the dress?"
"Oh, you can have it for free, I just need it back when you're through. And the shoes… well, you can keep those." Godric blinked and continued. "But I was wondering, if it's all right with you, maybe … I could borrow your taekwondo uniform for just one night? October 31?"
"Sure, no problem! You having a Halloween party? You guys always have the sickest yard display."
"Thank you." Godric was intuiting that sick was a compliment in this instance. "I'm thinking… I'm planning on going trick or treating. Just this once, I want to try it."
"Wait, you have never been trick or treating?"
"No."
"Never once in your life? Haven't you lived here, like, forever?"
"Well, not forever. But quite some time."
"That sucks. You should definitely go trick or treating. You're kind of on the old side, but nobody'll say anything. I’m taking Delia this year - that's my stupid little sister - I'm dressing up as a scarecrow just to walk around with her, it's more fun that way. She wants to go as a clown, how creepy is that?"
"No!" Godric said, horrified.
"I know, right? I told my mom that was so wrong but she's going to let her." The girl rolled her eyes. "She gets to do anything she wants to. So, anyway," the girl looked a little embarrassed. "You could go walk around with us if you wanted to. I'd just tell my mom you're a kid from school, maybe you could get one of those little black masks just to be on the safe side."
"I wouldn't want to get you in trouble-"
"Nah, she probably wouldn't notice, she's not very observant. And Delia wouldn't tell, she's crazy about you guys for some reason. I think Isabel braids her hair. Look, you totally don't have to go with us if you don't want-"
"I'd be honored. You can have all my candy afterward."
"Seriously?! Thanks. Hey, do you think Isabel would be interested in me at all? As a potential girlfriend, I mean. She's so fucking hot it's ridiculous. I can't figure out how to ask her."
"I… have no idea," Godric answered honestly, although it was true that Isabel dated women sometimes, so it wasn't out of the question. "But perhaps you could ask for her help with your hair and makeup for the dance, I bet she'd like that. Then you could get to know each other better."
And Mary Sue gave him a quick, awkward peck on the cheek.
"If I manage to hook up with Isabel I'll wash your car for the rest of your life," Mary Sue said, and Godric smiled. There was something special about this girl, no doubt about it. He thought Isabel might like her very much. In the meantime he needed to call Eric as soon as the girl left; they were overdue for some time in bed together. He wasn't going to mention being groped by Stan, for Stan's own safety, but it had reminded him acutely of how much he missed Eric's large hands on his body. Thinking about Eric made him a bit weak in the knees. He smiled to himself, pondering what to offer to get Eric to drop everything and come visit right away. They could begin with a look at the preview pictures the photographer had just sent Godric; those would certainly put Eric in the mood, not that he needed much encouragement in that department. Judging by the hair-raising few that Godric had glanced at, they were everything the two had hoped for.