Allow me to to bring your minds back to a few days ago to Halloween. It was pretty great right? Well just imagine if you will that this isn’t being posted now and was posted on Halloween. Man, what a glorious way to add to such an awesome holiday, right? …Right?



*Runs away before people remember it isn’t Halloween anymore*

One shot – Halloween

On October 31st it has become tradition in the western world in particular to celebrate a holiday known as Halloween. From dressing up in creepy outfits to getting soaked while apple bobbing, Halloween is a tradition that many have come to enjoy. However, for some this holiday is a minefield of social expectations and awkward situations which is only amplified when there is a romantic attachment involved.

Elsa Interritus was such a person who found Halloween an annual battle. From the time she was forced into a Cinderella costume at the age of eight, Elsa has not been quiet about her Halloween displeasure. However, when she met the red headed ball of energy that was Anna Navitas she was forced to scale back her disapproval as Anna simply loved every bit of Halloween. Anna has always been adamant about the two of them celebrating Halloween together, but due to a series of unfortunate events – or fortunate in Elsa’s case – concerning work or family, the past four Halloweens have been called off for the pair. This year though, after Anna scheduling their entire October, the couple are presented with their first Halloween together.

“So nothing too over the top, right?” said Elsa eating her breakfast while Anna announced the intrusion-free Halloween with much glee.

“Elsa, come on, when exactly have I ever gone over the top?”

“Well there was that time you fried the electrics in our old flat because of all the Christmas lights.”

“Yeah, but think how we were the envy of all our neighbours in those brief moments when our kick-butt display lit up.”

“And that time you bought all of the Easter eggs from the corner shop and tried eat nothing but chocolate for a week.”

“That was a delicious and extremely scientific experiment, I’ll have you know.”

Elsa couldn’t help but admire Anna’s enthusiasm for festivities. “Look, I know how much Halloween means to you, but promise me I’m not going to find our bed replaced with two coffins or something.”

“Well I guess I’ll cancel the order from the funeral director. Shame, he was pretty excited about the idea.”

“Anna!”

“I’m kidding! I got them from Amazon, shouldn’t be too hard to cancel.”

Elsa jabbed softly at Anna’s arm.

“Okay, okay! There’s nothing too much going on. I’ve invited our friends over with a plus one. Most of them haven’t seen the new bungalow yet!”

The Halloween party was something that had been discussed and agreed upon when they first moved in. Elsa wasn’t keen on the idea, but Anna had a point in that most of their friends hadn’t been round to their new home since they moved in a few months ago.

“Okay,” said Elsa finishing off her bowl of cereal, “but nothing much else, right?”

“Well,” said Anna drawing a circle with her finger on the table absentmindedly, “I was thinking we could dress up?”

Elsa looked up from her bowl with face of pure terror.

“I promise it won’t be anything bad! No Cinderella, I swear!”

When Elsa made no reply Anna came around the breakfast table and sat on her lap with her arms around her neck. “Pretty please?” she whispered into her ear.

Elsa took one look into Anna’s bright blue puppy dog eyes and gave a groan of defeat. “Fine, you win. But I swear if so much as a Princess steps inside this house I’m catching the next plane to the north pole.”

Anna gave a squeal of delight along with a kiss and a hug before rushing off excitedly.

“Where are you going?” Elsa called after her.

“Gotta search Amazon for our costumes!”

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” Elsa said quietly to herself.

And so the weeks of October rolled by with Anna dropping not so subtle hints about how much she and Elsa would enjoy Halloween. At last, the long awaited day arrived and began with a rude awakening.

“What the-!” exclaimed Elsa as a bundle of auburn hair and decorations thumped on top of her in bed.

Elsa wiped away the sleep in her eyes to find Anna laid across her legs with chains of paper skulls tangled around her.

“Oh, hey there! Uhm- Happy Halloween!” said Anna raising her arms and beaming at her.

“Anna, what in the name of Dairy Milk are you doing?” Elsa’s question was answered before Anna could say another word, for all around their bedroom were an assortment of Halloween decorations. From candlelit pumpkins on the dresser and fake bats hanging from the lights to the half spider web covered curtains, which Anna looked to have been decorating via a stepladder until she fell off onto the bed.

“Anna… please tell me that you’ve only decorated our bedroom.”

Anna grinned sheepishly and looked away, whistling innocently.

Elsa jumped out of bed, walked down a hallway covered in torn sheets, paper cut-outs of bare trees and signs reading “boo” and “mwuhahaha” into a front room where every surface was covered in some form of Halloween memorabilia. She peered behind a curtain to look out into the front yard and saw a field of pumpkins, gravestones and cauldrons. The more Elsa looked around their little bungalow the more she realised that Anna had mostly likely bought out all the Halloween supplies from the nearest stores. Even their toilet seat had an orange cover on it reading “Happy Halloween!”

Anna crept into the front room, wringing her hands while Elsa stood in the middle with her mouth wide open.

“I-I… I don’t even know how you managed this,” said Elsa, dumbfounded. “It’s only eight o'clock, too! What time did you wake up?”

“Oh, well, half six. But I can’t take all the credit! Olaf came round at seven and helped out a bunch too. He just popped out to resupply on fake cobweb spray, we really chewed through those five cans,” said Anna laughing nervously

“Anna, I seem to remember a conversation at the start of the month where we discussed a low-key Halloween, one where you weren’t going to go overboard?”

Anna looked down with her hands behind her back while she dragged her right foot backwards and forwards. “Well, you see, I started planning things out and bought a few things, then Olaf found out and got excited which made me excited so we, uhm, started to plan to… surprise you?”

Elsa glanced around the room in disbelief, as if she had accidentally woken up in the wrong house. “I need… I need cereal.”

Elsa went into the kitchen and pulled away the cobwebs covering the cupboards to retrieve a bowl which had a few plastic spiders in it. She sat down at the table with a large bowl of cornflakes, and began eating in a trance while Anna slid into the chair across from her.

“Elsa, are you okay?”

Elsa nodded slightly while she crunched on her cereal.

“I’m really sorry if I woke you up and gave you a shock. I’ll take down the decorations if you want,” mumbled Anna sadly.

Elsa snapped out of the trance with a shake of the head and reached across the table to take her hand. “Hey, don’t be silly. You just caught me off guard a little with everything. I know how much you enjoy Halloween, I just didn’t expect… all this,” said Elsa gesturing around to the orange and black covered kitchen. “Just give me a heads up next time, okay?”

Anna smiled at her warmly and Elsa gave her hand a gentle squeeze.

“Then I should probably give you a bit of warning about the scary maze we’re going to at five.”

“What?!” exclaimed Elsa, nearly spitting out a mouthful of cornflakes.

“Come on! Kristoff is running it for the first time this year. He needs all the support he can get.”

“Stupid reindeer king,” grumbled Elsa under her breath.

The day ticked by with Elsa struggling to find items concealed by layers of sheets and cobwebs and Anna squealing with delight every time someone stopped outside the bungalow to take in the mountain of decorations. By the time five o'clock rolled around Elsa was fairly certain she never wanted to see another Halloween decoration for the rest of her life. She was glad to get into a car that had been left Halloween free until she looked at her key chain and saw that Anna had slipped on a small smiling pumpkin onto it.

Anna jumped into the car ecstatically. “This is going to be the best! I heard from some of the others that Kristoff really went to town with the maze.”

After a ten or so minute drive they pulled into a wide stretch of gravel next to the cornfield on the outskirts of Kristoff’s farm. Elsa walked arm in arm with Anna who was practically bouncing on the balls of her feet. Elsa couldn’t help but admire her love for the holiday.

Kristoff stood at the entrance to the maze taking payment from a family dressed up as witches and wizards. Anna tugged Elsa’s arm and pointed them out to her.

“Don’t worry though,” whispered Anna with a wink, “our costumes will make them look like bone-heads!”

Elsa inwardly groaned.

Kristoff spotted them approaching and strolled up to meet them.

“Hey guys, thanks for coming down. To be honest, I didn’t think this would be your cup of tea Elsa,” he said with a smirk.

Elsa shot daggers at him.

“Actually,” said Anna drawing her closer, “Elsa has been pretty great about everything.”

“Well now there’s a surprise. The maze should only take you about twenty minutes, that is if you two don’t get grabbed by the ghouls!”

“By ghouls do you mean people with cheap masks shouting ‘boo?'” said Elsa with a stony expression.

“Oh, I wouldn’t mock Elsa. I hear that people have found the maze particularly scary. There are even people coming back round for another go!”

That was enough to tip Anna’s excitement over the edge. She hastily paid Kristoff and ran into the maze with Elsa barely being able to hold onto her hand from behind. The maze was gloomy with dusk settling in above them. The original path split into a left and right turn which led onto further twists and turns both narrow and wide. The first scare happened about a minute or so in when a large person dressed as the grim reaper jumped out from behind a corner and sent Anna straight onto her behind. While Elsa was busy laughing another actor dressed as Freddy Krueger came behind her and scared her so much that she ran into a wall of corn. The rest of the maze did it’s job well with corpse brides humming eerie tunes, a plague doctor showing up once in a while behind them while ringing a bell and even a masked chainsaw wielding murderer who was seen in the distance chasing the family they saw at the start. At the last stretch Elsa and Anna were breathing heavily and giggling at each others shrieks throughout the maze. Halfway down the stretch there was a loud animal cry. They turned to see that a large horned creature with a demonic mask stamping its hooves. Elsa took one look, grabbed Anna’s hand and ran the rest of the stretch with loud cries of “Don’t stop!”

Kristoff met them at them at the exit laughing heartily and folding his arm triumphantly. “Well I hope it wasn’t too scary for you two!”

“Are you crazy?!” cried Elsa, “What in the name of KitKats were you thinking putting a wild beast in the maze?!”

Kristoff gave a loud laugh. “Oh, that was especially for you. But by wild beast do you mean-,” he coerced the large creature out of the maze and pulled of its mask, “Sven?”

Elsa blushed and gave a confused looking Sven a pat on the neck. “Hey Sven, uh, nice work.”

Elsa and Anna returned to their car after complimenting Kristoff on his maze. Elsa was still a bright shade of pink as she belted herself in.

“So, did you have fun?” asked Anna with a small smile on her lips.

“It was actually pretty good.”

Anna leaned over and gave her a peck on the cheek and Elsa’s blush was renewed. After a short journey they pulled back in next to the bungalow or 'Mt Halloween Overkill’ as Elsa now dubbed it.

“So what’s next?” said Elsa once back inside, pulling off her shoes and lying back on a sofa covered with a green and black blanket.“We’ve still got a few hours before everyone arrives for the party.”

“Oh, hang on, I haven’t shown you the costumes yet. It’s nothing fancy, but let’s just say it represents the bare bones of Halloween.”

Anna disappeared into their bedroom and returned with two black outfits with bones on top to give the impression of a skeleton. “Don’t judge it yet,” she said, “there’s a mask too which really completes the thing. Now I know the material looks a little thin but I’ve read the reviews and people said there won’t be a chill down your spine. We don’t want to be catching a femur now, do we?”

Elsa brought up her palm to meet her face. “Anna, please tell me you didn’t buy these costumes to make skeleton puns all night?”

“Man, some might say you can see right through me!”

“Anna!”

After much pleading from Anna, Elsa eventually went into the bedroom to put on her outfit. The outfit was surprisingly comfortable and the bones disguised the fact that it clung to the shape of her body. She emerged after a few minutes to find Anna overwhelmed with excitement.

“You look so cute!” Anna said looking over the outfit. “But where is your mask?”

“It won’t fit with all my hair, unfortunately.”

“Are you sure you’re not telling me a little fibula?”

“Anna!”

“Alright, alright! Yeah, I didn’t really think about the hair. Give me a minute and I’ll get changed too.”



Anna returned after a few minutes in a matching outfit, insisting that they take photos to show everyone. Soon after they were lying together on the sofa watching a movie called 'Hocus Pocus.’

“Elsa?” Anna whispered in her ear while nestling against her.

“Hmm?”

“You want to do something a little crazy?”

Elsa shifted a little under a developing warmth. “What were you thinking?” she whispered back with her breath ghosting over Anna’s ear.

“How about… we go trick-or-treating!”

Elsa looked at her incredulously.

“Hey, it’s not that crazy. Just think of all the sweets we can get!”

“Is this after we’ve shoved all the little kids out of the way?”

“I’m serious! It kills a few hours and we get free chocolate.”

“I guess free chocolate is a hard thing to pass up on.”

“And we can enjoy it after we’ve got these outfits off too,” Anna whispered in her ear.

Elsa shot up off the sofa and within no time at all they were knocking on the doors around their neighbourhood. People complimented them on their matching outfits and they came away with a good haul from each house they went to. Before long they were walking back down their street towards their bungalow, hand in hand.

“Elsa?”

“Yeah?”

“Why did dressing up as Cinderella bother you so much as a kid?”

Elsa was silent for moment before making a reply. “I guess, it wasn’t so much that it was because I was Cinderella, it was just that I wanted a pirate instead.”

“And your parents wouldn’t let you?”

“Yeah, they said that girls don’t dress up in boys outfits and suggested I go as a princess instead. Each year as a kid it was the same story, if it wasn’t pink or girly my parents weren’t a fan of it. All of that changed later on of course and I don’t hold it against them, but that’s all Halloween has ever been for me, just a series of rules that everyone is expected to adhere to. Go out as a princess as a kid, go to Halloween parties and get drunk as an adult.”

Anna stopped them outside of their door and gave her a hug. “Elsa, that’s not what Halloween is about. Well, I guess it’s about a lot of things, but I always see it as a day where people get to dress up as some character or thing they like and kind of break away from the same sort of rituals they go through everyday. I guess that’s what I like about most holidays, people kind of collectively take a day to breathe a sigh of relief and express themselves a little freer. I know I roped you into a lot of things today and I should have respected that that might not be how you wanted to celebrate Halloween. I guess I just wanted to give you a new light on some of the things you did or missed out on as a kid. I’m sorry if I forced you into anything.”

Elsa pulled her close and gave her a quick kiss. “Hey, don’t be so hard on yourself. I know how much you enjoy Halloween and you’re just as important in this relationship as I am. I admit that while this isn’t the day I thought I’d be taking part in, I was always going to give things a shot for you. And all things considered I actually enjoyed myself.”

“You mean it?”

“Yeah! I mean, maybe next year we could do without so many decorations that people can’t find the front door. Apart from that, I’m more than happy to go to scary mazes and spend time watching cheesy Halloween movies.”

“Hey, Hocus Pocus isn’t cheesy!”

“Okay, okay. The point is, I want to spend these Halloweens with you doing this stuff not only because it’s fun but because it makes you happy too.”

“You’re the best, you know that?” said Anna leaning in for a long kiss on their doorstep. “Hey, next year you can go as pirate if you want to!”

“Yeah, but why are pirates pirates?”

“Why?”

“Because they arrr!”

And so Elsa and Anna retreated into their bungalow to enjoy their party and chocolate, content with the holiday that was now a tradition in their new home. And for the first time in her life Elsa had a new view upon what some consider to be the perils of Halloween.

Thank you for reading this goofy one shot. I admit that this wasn’t exactly the best and it was more of an excuse to use truly terrible puns. However, one thing I wish to draw attention to is how people celebrate holidays. While for some getting into the spirit of things is easy and comfortable, for others it might be more comfortable to do their own thing. It’s nice to encourage friends, partners and family to get involved in the festivities, but for some the holiday just might not be their thing, for any number of reasons. Respecting feelings in general is important to any kind of relationship.





I hope someone is able to enjoy this despite the obvious late posting among other things. Thank you for reading once again and I hope you had a wonderful Halloween.