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“Dante.. What the Hell are we doing?”
Dante looked up from where he was examining an impressive, fat gourd and over to where Vergil was standing, awkward in the planting row. He looked so out of place, like someone dressed up as a person but secretly just a changeling. Dante grinned, however, trying to put his big brother at ease.
“We’re getting some pumpkins for the shop.”
If looks could kill, Dante would be dead in a pumpkin patch.
Vergil’s arms were crossed over his chest, his hands under his arms for warmth. He was wearing a turtleneck sweater and a scarf and little fingerless gloves, and still he shivered in the crisp autumn afternoon. The sky was overcast and gray, but with no smell of rain in the wind, Dante felt safe to try this outing today.
“There is no reason for us to get pumpkins for the shop!” Vergil snarled, rolling his eyes. “We’re too old for this level of .. of frivolity!”
“If I ever need to play Scrabble, you’re my go-to guy,” Dante grunted, going back to examining gourds. He pat a few, enjoying their unique thumpathumpa noise. “But if I ever wanna have fun, you seem to be such a stick in the mud, it’s a wonder you don’t need a bath.”
“I hate it when you try to be clever,” Vergirl grumbled, looking away from him.
This asinine patch his brother had drug him to was crawling with humans. Human couples, taking cute selfies and human families , with their precious little spawns , taking yet more pictures of babies next to their “first pumpkin.”
.. Made Vergil want to puke.
And for some reason, Dante was acting much like these human breeders.
He had brought Vergil out there, without telling him what they were doing or where they were going until well into the car ride. Dante had gotten one of these insufferably cute wooden wagons to drag behind him, and was steadily filling it with round, orange pumpkins as he meandered along the patch. He kept trying to push sweets into Vergil’s hands, as well. Vergil liked sweet things, despite himself, but they were all cute and festive. He felt like an idiot eating a cupcake made to look like a pumpkin patch, little marzipan pumpkins and all. If Dante made him drink anymore apple cider, either, he’d throw up in the damn field.
“You should pick one out,” Dante said, cutting across his thoughts.
Vergil scowled.
“One for what?”
“The shop, goofy. I picked out three, you should pick one so it’s not lopsided.”
Vergil scowled and rolled his eyes again. He pointed at the nearest one.
“I want that one,” he said, plainly. Dante looked at it and frowned himself.
“ .. You sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure, now can we go?”
“It’s kinda .. wimpy, Verg,” Dante said, crouching down to look at it. Small, more oval than round and plump. He raised an eyebrow, looking at Vergil. “You sure?”
“Dante!” Vergile exclaimed, exasperated. “I’m cold and I want to go home. Get that pumpkin or don’t, it matters not to me!”
Dante frowned at him, and Vergil felt like he was faltering in the face of the disappointment in his eyes.
.. Vergil rolled his own eyes again and looked more intently around at the pumpkins. He even took a few steps and touched them. He found one that was mid sized, pleasantly round.
“Very well, this one,” he muttered. He nodded, sure of himself. “This one.”
“You want that one?” Dante asked, still crouched, his elbows on his bent knees.
“Yes.”
“ .. Say it,” Dante grinned.
Vergil knew his face was only red because of the damn chill in the air, and he was worried his nose was running to boot. He scowled.
“I want that pumpkin.”
“I want that pumpkin who?”
“Dante!” Vergil snapped, showing teeth and Dante quickly jumped up, jaunty as can be, and made short work of pulling at the pumpkin, trying to free it from the vine.
“That’s my name, don’t wear it out!” He sing-songed, Vergil crossed his arms again and glared out at the field while Dante loaded up their pumpkins, all .. five? Five? Vergil counted again, frowning.
“You got the little one?” He asked, curious.
Dante shrugged and hemhawed.
“Yeah, I figure, why not? We came late in the season anyway, and Farmer Brown over there who runs the patch said that we could have as many or as few as we wanted, within reason, and that was just for the cost of admission,” Dante grunted, beginning to drag the wagon along behind him. “Come on. Let’s get some cider and a cupcake and make tracks.”
Vergil did make himself drink another cup of cider and eat another damn cupcake, but he wanted to be sick the entire car-ride home ..
__________________________________________
Of course, the day was not finished just because the pair of them made it back to the shop. No sooner did Vergil manage to get inside and flop onto the couch, ungraceful and frankly pooped, did Dante start laying out old newspapers, covering a sizeable portion of the floor.
Vergil knew he would regret asking what his baby brother was up to, so he didn’t. He just laid there and watched. His feet were starting to hurt, and he wanted to take his calf-high boots off, but he worried if he moved, Dante would again rope him into another damnable scheme.
“Okay, scootch down here,” Dante beckoned, sitting down on his rump, motioning for Vergil to join him. He had laid out all but the one small pumpkin, a metal bowl to his right, and a number of sharp, serrated knives to his left.
Curses , Vergil thought, dryly. Foiled again ..
“No,” Vergil said, turning his head. “My feet hurt.”
“Good thing you won’t be only our feet,” Dante said, pulling one of his pumpkins to his lap, flipping it over. “You’ll be on your tushie.”
“Don’t call it that – “
“I’ll call it whatever I damn well please,” Dante scoffed. “Now get down here and give me a hand.”
Vergil knew he’d get no rest, so with an exasperated sigh, he sat up. He made a point to throw his boots near the door, however, and then go to join Dante. If he was going to do something stupid, he’d do it comfortably.
“There. Now we’re both on the floor,” he deadpanned. “Now what?”
“What do you mean, now what?” Dante snickered. He had plunged one of the knives in the bottom of the pumpkin and was sawing through the shell. “What does it look like we’re doing? Halloween is in a week and this place looks gloomy in the not so fun way. Besides, this way, they won’t rot by the time the trick or treaters come by.”
Vergil sighed and let his shoulders slump.
“Dante .. You can’t be serious?” He asked, shaking his head. “Jack-o-Lanterns? Really? Are you twelve?”
“Nope,” Dante grunted, finishing his cut, removing the circular section from the bottom, pulling with it fresh smelling pumpkin guts, tangled with seeds. “I spent my twelfth Halloween in a shelter.”
.. Vergil suddenly and very keenly felt like a horse’s ass.
He sighed and resigned himself to it. It all became very clear. Dante was trying to see to it that the pair of them made up for lost time. As if their innocence could be refound in the tummy of a jack-o-lantern.
Vergil rolled up his sleeves.
“Give me mine,” he said, softly. “They may all look the same, but .. I think I could manage a few faces.”
Dante did smile, softly, and passed him a pumpkin and a knife.
Vergil had forgotten how queer pumpkin guts felt, once he had sawed open an entrance into his, and went elbow deep. He pulled out handful after handful, dropping them all into Dante’s metal bowl.
“We’re gonna roast the seeds later,” Dante explained, starting on the triangle eyes of his lantern. “Like Mom used to .. “
Vergil realized, as he was carving his pumpkin, that their mother used to do a lot of things. She had tried to make their life seemed comfortable and normal. And had their life never turned upside down, they may have never known the difference.
Vergil and Dante were never allowed to go trick or treating. It was too dangerous for them to leave the manor house, Paradiso’s, grounds. They would be sitting ducks. Mother had tried to institute a kind of Halloween indoors. She had hidden so many sweets in the house, all for Vergil and Dante to find, wandering around late at night, while she seemed to play with them, scaring them at times, laughing along with their shrieks.
They had carved pumpkins, too. Once, Mother had surprised them with a pumpkin as big as both of them were. She spent hours using a spoon to core it out, she carved a family into the front of it .. Vergil remembered her explaining it.
*A papa, a mommy, and two little boys. I wonder who they are~*
Vergil and Dante sat together on the floor and carved out their pumpkins. Perhaps due to their inexperience, they were simple creations. Triangle eyes and snaggle tooth smiles .. But they were there.
“ .. Not bad,” Dante said, having carried two outside, followed by Vergil. He laid them on the front stoop of the shop, arranged them. He stood back on the sidewalk to admire them. “What do you think?”
“They need their tea-lights,” Vergil said, with a nod. “Do you have any votive style candles?”
“In the house,” Dante bounded back up the steps. “Under the sink, I think.”
It took some rummaging, but they did find them. Vergil couldn’t help but find the way they look charming, despite not being able to really voice it. The way the lights chased and flickered ..
“ .. What do you think?” Dante said, again, nudging Vergil. They were back on the sidewalk, admiring the lanterns from afar.
“They do have a charm,” Vergil admitted, but nothing more than that. “And now the house smells like pumpkins, which is pleasant.”
Dante looked at his brother for a moment, before he smiled, very softly.
“So long as you’re happy, I’m happy.”
“What will you do with the small, sad pumpkin you picked?” Vergil asked, curiously. Dante shrugged.
“You mean the small, sad pumpkin you picked?” Dante corrected. He reached out and took Vergil’s chin in his hand, turning his face this way and that, very gently. “Hmm. Can I fit this face on that little fella .. ?”
Vergil huffed and swatted his hand away.
“Outside and in the open where anyone could see?” He admonished. “Fool.”
Dante leaned in close, kissing his cheek. Vergil didn’t push him away.
.. He had been jealous, of those couples at the pumpkin patch, almost as much as he was jealous of the parents and their children, at the pumpkin patch .. They looked too much alike to not draw attention to each other. Out in the open, where anyone could see ..
“Come inside,” Vergil said, reaching out and taking his hand. “It’s cold out here. And we still need to roast all those seeds, try to warm up – “
“Just try?” Dante asked, wolfishly.
“If you find yourself more capable, I’d love to see it done.”