Takedown - A 13 Nights of Halloween Patreon Exclusive (Patreon)

Unbeta'd/Unedited. Just for funsies. Enjoy.

August knew to trust his gut. Even before Lucas Blackwell had upended his carefully constructed life with his gorgeous coke bottle green eyes and shocking abilities, August had understood that trusting his gut was just an ambiguous phrase for a very scientifically explainable biological mechanism designed to keep humans alive. Trusting that instinct had saved his life more than once.

But once they’d had children, that survival instinct had achieved a near god-like level. So when his cell phone rang, St. Agnes Prep flashing across the screen, August knew with nauseating certainty that his spawn had–yet again–done something worthy of the last name Mulvaney.

Maybe that was why he chose to answer as he did. “What did they do now?”

“Mr. Mulvaney?” a woman asked.

August rolled his eyes. “Yes, Sister Josephine. We have this phone call at least once a month. Did you not dial my cellphone number?”

She gave a barely there huff before steel edged her tone. “Yes, well, forgive me for being a bit flustered. I’m afraid your children were involved in a rather unusual incident… again.”

“And what kind of incident was it this time?” August asked, affect flat.

More often than not, the girls were simply conducting research that the other students weren’t adept enough to grasp. Last month, they’d dissected a dead frog they’d found on the playground, carefully detailing each body system for their classmates before Sister Sarah tracked them down in the high-school bio lab and put a stop to the lesson.

The month before that it had been an extremely detailed game of cops and robbers on the schoolyard that had resulted in the girls hog-tying one of the boys in their class while screaming ACAB. Lucas had laid that one at August’s feet like an offering, telling him he couldn’t–as a former FBI agent–even begin to explain their daughter’s hostility toward local law enforcement without giving away far too much of their personal history.

When Thomas had convinced them to enroll the children at St. Agnes Prep–which was now co-ed–he’d promised there would be safety in numbers, that they could have each other’s backs in a way August and his brothers never had. Instead, in a twist none of them had anticipated but most certainly should have, the Mulvaney cousins had banded together to form a tiny cult with their classmates as acolytes and the Mulvaney offspring as their gods.

And his children were not benevolent gods. They were clever, ruthless, and entirely too much like the men who’d raised them. So perhaps it shouldn’t have surprised him when the headmistress of the school requested–no, demanded–that both August and Lucas come to the school immediately to get to the bottom of the ‘ritualistic’ incident involving the Mulvaney cousins.

August was starting to loathe the sound of his own last name.

“Define ritualistic,” Lucas said now that they were in the car together, navigating through traffic. He sat in the passenger seat, already rubbing his temples in that way that meant he was getting a headache. Or a vision. Or shielding too hard. The faint shimmer of tension always followed when Lucas’s psychic senses were overworked, like heat rising off asphalt.

“She refused to explain further,” August said grimly.

Lucas shot him a startled look. “Was someone hurt?”

August’s tone was frigid when he said, “Not yet,” through gritted teeth.

“So… they didn’t hurt anyone, right? She said nobody was hurt, right?” Lucas asked, sounding slightly more frantic with each word.

The tension bled from August as he took Lucas’s hand, threading their fingers together, squeezing until Lucas squeezed back.  “Deep breaths, umnishka. They’re children.”

“Our children,” Lucas breathed.

“Yes, our children, who are shockingly well-adjusted considering their parents. They didn’t hurt anyone or kill anyone. They’re just highly intelligent children with active imaginations. Their cousins—”

“Jett and Jagger too?” Lucas groaned.

“You know the four of them are thick as thieves.”

“Atticus is totally gonna blame us for this,” Lucas said, slowly bumping his forehead against the passenger window again, then again, just as traffic slowed to a dead stop in the center of the mile long tunnel that ran under the river. 

“What is happening now?” Lucas asked, his voice taking on that razor’s edge that let August know things could go downhill very quickly.

The tunnel around them was a ribcage of concrete and light, its walls sweating condensation in thin, steady lines that glistened under the jaundiced lamps. The water wasn’t intrusion, just heat meeting cold stone. Structural integrity intact, he noted absently. No visible stress fractures, no spalling at the joints.

The car ahead idled red brake lights into the dimness, their glow smearing across the windshield like blood. A low hum of engines pulsed through the confined air, steady and suffocating.

Sound behaved differently underground, too compressed, every raspy cough of an engine or impatient tap of a horn rebounding until the air itself seemed to vibrate. August studied the geometry of it: the slight curvature of the ceiling, the seam of expansion joints, the way sound shifted depending on which surface it struck.

Beside him, Lucas exhaled too sharply, knuckles white where they gripped his hand. The muscle in his jaw twitched once, twice. August glanced at the clock, calculating just how late they’d be before dismissing the thought to focus on what actually mattered.

His real equation was subtler, the rate of Lucas’s unraveling versus the tone of voice required to stop it. He shifted slightly toward him, voice even, deliberate. “We’re fine,” he said, as though stating a scientific fact, and watched the words settle between them. “You’re fine.”

“Who said I wasn’t?” Lucas bit back, his words snapping like a cord pulled too tightly.

“We’re okay,” August said again, softer.

Lucas wasn’t claustrophobic exactly. But after his time in that…mental health facility…he didn’t do well with the feeling of being trapped. He could handle an elevator, but if one was to get stuck between floors, there was a timer that appeared and if they weren’t rescued within that time, Lucas would start to forget just how strong he was.

That fear wasn’t rational, it was cellular. A memory imprinted in muscle and marrow, the ghost of fluorescent lights and locked doors. August could feel it radiating off him, sharp and cold as ozone before a storm.

It wasn’t just elevators, staircases with locked doors, a room that only locked from the outside. It wasn’t the size of the container, it was his ability to free himself from it that mattered and the tunnel was rarely an issue even in heavy traffic. But this wasn’t heavy traffic, it was a standstill. August gave his hand one last squeeze then pulled up their GPS app, cursing under his breath when he realized that they were showing a forty minute wait. 

August checked his phone, two bars. He shot a text to the family chat, hoping it went through. 

August: @freckles, @jericho Stuck in the tunnel. If we’re not there by the end of the parent-teacher conference can you wait with kids?

Jericho responded first. We’re stuck too. Texted Sister Josephine. Dad en route as our stand-in just in case. 

August: 👍🏻Thanks, @dad. 

“Jericho and Atticus are in here somewhere too. Dads going to get the kids. Everyone is safe. Okay?” 

Lucas nodded, eyes darting around like he wasn’t sure he believed him despite his nod. He needed to take his mind off this before he spiraled. There were only two things Lucas cared about enough to distract him to the degree necessary to keep him from coming unglued. One was their children, who were currently a massive source of stress, the other…

August glanced around at the people around him, some sat on the hoods of their cars, others sat bouncing to the beat of whatever music blasted through their speakers, enjoying the AC before an overhead speaker would demand they turn off their engines. Some appeared to be dozing, taking advantage of their unanticipated break. 

He and Lucas were hardly alone, but their windows were tinted enough to ride the line of barely legal. It would easily shield their…activities. August reached over, fingers adeptly opening his husband’s belt. 

Lucas’s startled gaze darted to his, hand clamping around his wrist. “What are you doing?” he asked, voice a bit strangled. 

“Interpretive dance,” August teased. When Lucas glowered at him, he smiled, leaning forward to give him a barely there kiss, before saying, “I’m giving my best student a handjob in the tunnel as a reward for doing so well in class today.” 

“We can’t?” Lucas said, but it came more like a question than a definitive statement. 

“I can fuck you in the school library but I can’t jerk you off in the car? You’re sending me mixed messages, Mr. Blackwell. I thought you liked my reward system.” 

Lucas’s pupils blew wide at the sound of his last name on August’s tongue, the response reflexive after all this time. Still, he said, “I don’t think roleplay is going to work this time.” 

“Oh, ye of little faith,” August murmured, plunging his hand past the waistband of Lucas’s underwear, working him until he hardened beneath his touch. “Seems to be working just fine, no?” 

Lucas shifted, legs falling open. “I-I’m not sure I can make it happen.” 

August smirked, stroking him a bit faster in his dry grip. Lucas hissed at the pleasure-pain sensation, his head falling back, lids closing, jaw going slack. 

“There we go,” August purred.He turned fully in his seat, stopping briefly to switch hands–sometimes being ambidextrous was so helpful–so he could tangle the other in Lucas’s slightly too-long hair, tongue trailing up the side of his neck then sucking on his earlobe. “You’re already doing so well for me. You’re, by far, my hottest student.”

August’s own dick strained against his zipper just from watching his husband fall apart. He was always beautiful, but especially so like this, chest heaving, lips parted, writhing beneath his touch, tiny little sounds escaping against his will. 

August took his time, alternating between slow deliberate strokes, and quick flicks of his wrist. His  hands tightened and loosened in Lucas’s hair as he sucked marks into this skin that would be impossible to hide later and whispered filthy things into his ear. 

“I love how you look when you’re unraveling. I love that I’m the only one who ever gets to watch you fall apart like this. The way your whole body becomes mine. Nobody else knows how you whimper for me when I touch you like this, the way you bite your lip raw, how wet you get-” 

“Professor…” Lucas gasped, his hips working as he thrust into August’s fist, moaning low when his thumb swept across the head of his cock.

“-the way your voice gets breathy and desperate and your whole body trembles.” 

August used the wetness drooling down his cock to ease the glide of his hand, thumb swiping over the head every third or fourth stroke just the way his husband liked it. 

“I’m not gonna last,” Lucas warned. 

August glanced at the time, there were going to be stuck another fifteen minutes at least. “Well that won’t do,” he murmured. 

He stopped working him, loosening his grip to keep Lucas from fucking into his fist.  Lucas whined, then choked out a desperate, “Why?” 

“I’m distracting you,” August said, biting at his throat, then using the hand in his hair to force him to look at him, before capturing his mouth in a kiss that was like well-practiced choreography at this point. 

They’d done this a million different times in a million different ways but no matter how their lips met and parted, it never grew boring. Exploring Lucas’s mouth, tasting coffee or toothpaste on his tongue, feeling him sigh into his mouth or swallowing his cries as he came hard was still so hot to him. He couldn’t imagine ever wanting anyone the way he did his husband. 

“Please,” Lucas begged, hips restless as he tried to fuck August’s loosened fist. 

“Since you asked so nicely,” he teased, tightening his grip.

He groaned as Lucas reached over to palm at the bulge in August’s now much too tight trousers. 

“I wish I could fuck you right now,” Lucas whispered against his lips. “My head always goes quiet when I’m inside you, feeling both of our pleasure makes it impossible to care about anything else. It feels like it's been forever.” 

August worked him with efficient strokes, biting at his plush bottom lip. “It was yesterday in the shower,” he recalled. 

Lucas nodded rapidly, even as he pressed their foreheads together, seemingly too distracted to keep kissing with August dragging him to the point of no return. “Like I said,” he panted. “Forever.” 

August laughed, feeling a little breathless himself with Lucas running his thumb along the ridge of his cock. “Fuck, I wish we were home.” 

Lucas nodded. “Me, too.” 

His tongue swiped across the seam of August’s lips. He opened for him immediately, the scent of his husband’s cologne making him feel high. 

“Fuck. Fuck. I’m so close. Please don’t stop this time,” Lucas begged. 

“I won’t,” August promised, no longer stroking him but letting him fuck his hand. 

He dropped his hand between the seats, blindly feeling for the box they kept in the backseat, hand snagging the tissues and covering his husband’s cock just as he came hard over his fist with a cry. 

Lucas’s stomach clenched and relaxed as he rode out his orgasm. August gently cleaned him up, then righted his clothes, before reaching for the hand sanitizer to clean his own hands of the sticky mess the tissue missed. 

Lucas was reaching for August’s zipper when the car in front of them began to move. 

“Later,” August said, giving him a reassuring smile. “I’m okay.” 

Lucas nodded, dropping another lingering kiss on August’s lips as he righted himself in the driver’s seat. He bit back a smile as Lucas cued up a Chappell Roan song and began to hum along quietly, watching the world pass out the passenger window until they arrived at the school.

St. Agnes Prep looked exactly like the kind of school that used to be for boys only, stone arches, saints with missing fingers, a brass plaque listing every headmaster since 1894. The new banners–STEM for Girls, Inclusivity Week–hung like polite apologies over a century of marble testosterone. The building’s air carried that faint blend of beeswax, old wood, and sanctimony, the smell of money pretending to be virtue.

The conference was still going on when they arrived at the headmistress’s office. Atticus and Jericho were having an awkward staredown with Sister Josephine, while Thomas stood in the corner, arms crossed, studying the woman down like he was evaluating her performance. They weren’t alone. Another set of parents sat beside two empty chairs that August assumed were reserved for them. They appeared to be around Lucas’s age, both impeccably dressed, not a hair out of place. 

Their children sat in their Halloween costumes, lined up on the antique gold sofa like perfect little angels, along with another child who sat with her arms crossed looking just as put out as Atticus, as if she too had been called away from important business. August didn’t know her, but her costume matched the twins. He wasn’t sure if it was a sign of friendship or a poorly-timed coincidence. 

“Where’s Alister?” Lucas asked, a thread of worry creeping back into his tone. 

“I had Aiden take him home with Theo, Oscar, and West,” Thomas said.

Lucas’s shoulders sagged, nodding toward Thomas, his gratitude obvious. The tightness in his face softened for the first time since the tunnel, like a string finally slackening.

As soon as Lucas and August took their seats beside Atticus and Jericho, Lucas leaned toward Atticus and asked, “What’d they do now?”

“I don’t know, she refused to tell us until you arrived,” Atticus stage-whispered back, glowering at the woman, who responded with an icy smile.

The couple beside them watched Sister Josephine warily.

Another woman hovered behind her, in her civilian clothes and veil just like Sister Josephine. They’d long ago given up the traditional habit that was mandatory in August and Atticus’s time at St. Aggie’s.

“This is Sister Mary Elizabeth. She’s new, therefore, she wasn’t aware of the Mulvaney–” she glanced at Thomas. “–legacy.”

“What did they do?” Thomas asked, voice steely. “We’ve been waiting to hear for almost an hour now.”

Sister Josephine gave each of the children a withering look before turning to their parents. “They attempted to perform an exorcism.”

The woman beside them gasped, while her husband gave a sigh like he’d known this was coming.

It was Jericho who spoke first. “Come again?”

“They were attempting to perform an exorcism,” she repeated slowly, like they were daft.

“Yes, we heard you the first time,” Atticus said. “I believe my husband was asking for clarification. What exactly does that entail?”

Sister Josephine steepled her fingers, leaning forward. “They had another student in the chapel, lying on the altar while chanting at him in Latin while sprinkling him with holy water.”

“Is that all?” August asked, relieved to hear it was something so mundane.

“Is that all?” Sister Mary Elizabeth gasped. “What do you mean?”

“Yes, what do you mean?” the other student’s mother asked.

“Was your child the demon in question?” August asked, tone bland.

She gave him an affronted look. “Excuse me?”

“Mrs. Jones, please calm down,” Sister Josephine said.

“Yeah, Cherice. Calm down,” the man–presumably Mr. Jones–said.

Cherice did not, in fact, calm down. “Calm down? Our child was participating in an exorcism.” She gave him a look that screamed danger to everybody in the room, scoffing before muttering under her breath, “Tell me to calm down again and see what happens.” 

“Babe-” the man said. 

“Don’t you babe me,” she said. “Now, hush.” 

The man shook his head, looking at her pleadingly. “They’re second graders. It wasn’t an orgy.” To Sister Josephine, he asked, “Can we speed this up? The Tokyo market opens at eight p.m. I have clients who aren’t going to care that my child got a little too caught up in a children’s game.”

“Tyrell Jones, don’t you dare call an exorcism a children’s game, or I will have my father call the Archdiocese and request the next exorcism be yours,” she snapped, clutching her Chanel bag closer to her chest like a security blanket.

The man’s name sounded familiar. He was clearly a foreign trader. A good one, if they could afford to send their child to St. Agnes. August assessed their attire in a moment, two-thousand-dollar shoes, eight-thousand-dollar handbag, Burberry coat, Gucci scarf. They didn’t just have money, but pull too, if her father could personally contact the archdiocese. 

“I’m with Ty,” Thomas said. “Aren’t you taking this a bit too seriously?”

Ty turned and nodded toward Thomas, the nod of two men who had clearly interacted before. His father really did know everybody.

“Did they restrain the student?” August asked, forcing himself to participate in this silly discussion.

Sister Mary Elizabeth seemed to stumble around that one. “Well, no.”

August fought not to roll his eyes. He’d missed a midterm for this. “Did they harm him?”

“No, he was a willing participant,” she said hesitantly.

“And where are his parents?” Lucas asked. “Did they demand this meeting?”

“They opted not to participate,” Sister Josephine said primly.

“That was an option?” Atticus snapped. 

“Can we please stay on task?” Sister Josephine asked.

“As soon as you tell us what it is,” August countered. “Why are we here? Was their Latin incantation incorrect?”

“I–well, actually no.” Both August and Atticus exchanged smug looks, causing Sister Josephine to give an exasperated huff. “But do you not find this at all concerning?”

“What I find concerning is that you dragged all of us here for something that feels like it could have been an email and a few house point deductions. Would you rather the children invoke demons or rebuke them, Sister?”

“Yeah, what he said,” Ty added. “I thought the Catholics were big on this sort of thing.”

“Mr. Mulvaney, Mr. Jones, if you refuse to take this seriously—”

“Then what?” Thomas asked, menacingly. His tone wasn’t raised, but it filled the room anyway.

She gave him a pissy look. “Then we might have to consider expulsion.”

“Then perhaps it’s time I considered buying the school,” Thomas countered. “I feel quite sentimental toward it.”

Ty’s face split into a grin, his arms crossing to mirror Thomas’s as he leaned back in his seat like he was about to watch a Wimbledon match. Cherice elbowed him in the side, but he continued to grin at Sister Josephine like they had a personal beef August wasn’t yet aware of.

The silence that followed was taut, the kind that made even the saints in the paintings look like they were waiting to see who’d break first.

Sister Mary Elizabeth looked utterly confused by this whole exchange, but Sister Josephine leaned back in her seat. “Mr. Mulvaney,” she said evenly, “you can’t simply buy the school because you’re unhappy with how we conduct ourselves. The Sisters’ charter can’t be bought.”

“Then I’ll build another school,” Thomas said mildly, straightening his cufflink. “Bigger, better funded, and far less… encumbered. One that allows for creative… expression. When the donors and parents follow their children through its doors, perhaps you’ll understand what can–and cannot–be bought.”

Ty nodded. “Sign me up, Tommy. I just know Jasmine would do amazing in a Mulvaney-run school.”

Tommy. Nobody but Aiden had ever gotten away with calling Thomas Mulvaney anything but Thomas. Who was this man? Did Aiden and Thomas have…friends? August spared a moment to try to picture Aiden being sociable with anyone outside the family but it just didn’t track. It felt…unnatural. 

His father gave Ty a nod of approval, like Jasmine’s acceptance to this nonexistent school was all but guaranteed. The grin that flickered across Ty’s face was the kind of look that said he’d just found his new favorite billionaire.

That seemed to throw the headmistress, who cleared her throat. “Perhaps we’re getting ahead of ourselves–”

“Perhaps,” Atticus said tightly. “Have you asked our children why they decided to… perform an exorcism?” He said the last part like it physically pained him to shape the words.

“Well, no.”

“I suggest you start with ours,” Lucas said, staring pointedly at the girls’ costumes. “I have a feeling it’s far less complicated than you might imagine.”

“Adelyn. Arabella. Come here,” August said, crooking his finger.

The two girls stood, walking to him, heads down, fingers clasped. “Yes, Daddy?” they chorused in unison, so sweet sugar wouldn’t melt in their mouths.

August fought not to roll his eyes. “Can you please explain why you were… exorcising your friend?”

“He was a demon,” Adi said.

Jasmine nodded hard from the sidelines, like she was prepared to testify in her–and their–defense if compelled by the prosecutor.

“What does that mean?” Lucas asked, voice tense.

“He was a Saja Boy,” Arabella said. “Duh.”

August bit his lip as reality came crashing down on all of them. The Mulvaney children–all children, really–had a new obsession: K-Pop Demon Hunters.

Arabella had dressed as Mira, her pink wig split into two pigtails that fell to her hips. Adelyn was dressed as Zoey, her dark hair twisted into what Lucas had called space buns. Jasmine’s participation now made sense as she was dressed as Rumi, her thick hair plaited into a purple braid that fell over one shoulder and rested in her lap.

They were all dressed in the Huntrix group’s white and gold costumes. Jagger was dressed as the three-eyed raven, and Jett was dressed as the derpy blue tiger. The level of detail would have impressed a Comic-Con judge, down to the fake runes drawn on their wrists.

They’d chosen to exorcise their classmate who’d had the misfortune of deciding to dress like a Saja Boy. August absently wondered which one, but quickly shook the thought away.

“And he agreed to let you exorcise him?” Atticus asked, sounding genuinely impressed.

“Yeah, it was the only way Jinu and Rumi could be together.” Well that answered that. “We had to return his soul and expel Gwi-ma. We were gonna do Rumi next to sever her demon side so they could be free,” Ara said, looking deadly serious about the process.

Silence fell again, thick with the kind of collective adult disbelief usually reserved for tax audits and PTA meetings. Even Thomas’s lips twitched, betraying amusement he didn’t bother to hide.

“Don’t y’all just kill demons in the movie?” Ty asked, then snapped his mouth shut like he’d realized he was focusing on the wrong aspect entirely. “I don’t remember there being an exorcism.” 

“We’re not allowed to kill people, Mr. Jones,” Ara said in a conspiratorial whisper. “Even if demons technically match the code.”

“That’s a good call,” Ty said, equally amused and conspiratorial.

They all seemed to gloss over her code statement. August sent up a silent prayer to a God he didn’t actually believe in.

“Sister Mary Elizabeth said that K-pop Demon Hunters is just a silly movie–” Adi cut herself off to give the woman in question a look that said just exactly what she thought of her lack of taste. “–and that real demon hunters are priests, and that real exorcisms have to be sanctioned by the Vatican and can sometimes take months or years to approve,” Adi said.

“I don’t have months,” Jasmine said. “I want to get married while I still have my looks.”

All the adults bit back laughs, nodding encouragingly. Thomas pressed a fist to his mouth, shoulders trembling. Even Sister Josephine’s eye twitched like she was fighting a smile.

“We looked up an exorcism during recess,” Jagger added helpfully.

“You looked up an exorcism online?” Atticus asked, sounding genuinely concerned for the first time. He looked at Jericho. “I thought you had the parental controls on.”

“Of course I do,” Jericho said. “Jagger, where did you look this up?”

“YouTube,” he said.

“Can you show me?” Jericho asked, looking a bit constipated.

Jagger nodded solemnly, digging his phone from his bag and thumbing it open, tapping until he pulled up the video and then handing it to Atticus. The adults all gathered around to watch as they hit play and found… a clip of the show Supernatural.

There was a man in special-effects makeup tied to a chair in the center of a chalk symbol. He was spitting and hissing, his skin sizzling each time the water touched him as Sam Winchester began to speak in Latin.

“This is the Latin you used to exorcise the demon?” August asked, lips twitching.

“We looked at Dad’s The Lesser Key of Solomon text, but that only told us how to summon demons, not expel them. We tried to find the official church doctrine on exorcism, but it’s surprisingly hard to find,” Arabella said like a thirty-year-old defending her dissertation. “Even after Jasmine jailbreaked our phones, this was all we could find.”

“Guess that STEM endowment is really working,” Thomas muttered. 

“We checked the Supernatural wiki, and it said that they used real incantations from Roman doctrine, so we thought it would be good enough for our game.”

“Game?” Jericho echoed.

Arabella gave him a pitying glance. “Yeah, Uncle Jericho. Demons aren’t real.” Her gaze darted to the sisters. “Sorry. I know you guys think they are, but they’re not. None of this is really real.”

The other kids all nodded sincerely. The conviction of children, unshakable, smug, and utterly damning.

“Perhaps it would be best if the kids stayed home for a few days,” Sister Josephine said tightly.

“You’re suspending second graders for being atheists?” Atticus asked, disdain dripping from every word.

“No, Mr. Mulvaney, I’m suspending them for escaping recess, breaking into the chapel, stealing holy water, and eating two bags of communion wafers,” Sister Josephine shot back.

A beat of silence. Then Ty snorted. Hard. Lucas coughed into his fist to cover a laugh, and Thomas looked one sideways glance away from writing a check for the chapel’s repairs.

When, once more, the parents turned on the children, Jasmine only shrugged. “We were hungry. Huntrix always carb-loads before their kills and their shows.”

“Still,” Thomas said, “suspension seems a bit much.”

“I agree,” Cherice said, sitting up a little straighter, looking at Sister Mary Elizabeth like the two women might once have been rivals themselves. “After all, it was Sister Mary Elizabeth who decided to give them a lesson in actual demon hunting, was it not?”

Not Cherice coming in clutch. 

All the parents turned to give Sister Josephine a knowing look. The older woman sighed, white-knuckling her own tangled fingers. “Fine. We’ll let it go… again. But this is your final warning. There is only so much protection a last name can provide,” she said, looking pointedly at Thomas. “It seems I’m outnumbered. Still, we will be revisiting our costume policy next year.”

They decided to quit while they were ahead. The meeting dispersed quickly after that, with Thomas asking if they wanted him to take the kids for a playdate with their cousins. Both couples refused; they already had plans for the following day before the official Halloween-weekend festivities. The children were not at all happy about this turn of events but accepted it in lieu of the grounding that was the counter-offer.

Outside, the evening had gone silver-cold, the air sharp with rain and exhaust. The gothic bulk of St. Agnes loomed behind them like it was watching, judgment carved in stone. August tucked his hand into Lucas’s, the faint scrape of wedding rings the only sound between them as they walked to the car.