[Night]

"Why exactly do you need a costume to go shopping, again?" Jay was casting furtive glances into the back of the van from the front seat, leaned awkwardly over the headrest. Lero waved him off, ducking low into the floorboards and trying to see if there were anything lurking beneath the chair that he could use in his Halloween creation.

Bob swerved the vehicle into the next lane, pitching him forward into the plush of the seat and making him swear. "Watch the road, Dupree!" Lero's voice was muffled as he dug further underneath, his knees protesting every movement that crushed him further into the unknown world that was the floorboard of the van. Bob was unmoved by his protest, and swerved a bit without changing lanes just to throw the other man off balance.

"If you would sit your midget ass back down and put a seat belt on, you'd be fine." He pointed out, which didn't help Lero's cause in the slightest. Didn't anyone have any sort of Halloween spirit anymore? He pulled his head out from the depths of the discarded object hell that he had found himself shoved into, shooting Oliver a look that was somehow supposed to display his betrayal and seek equal exchange of said emotion from the priest.

Oliver, having been doing his best to entirely ignore the exchange, had his nose shoved in one of his stupid religious texts and wasn't even paying him any attention. Some best friend. A glance at Brian told him that he wasn't going to be receiving any help there, either. He stuck out his lip, pouting up at the front seat where Bob couldn't even see him.

"I need a costume because it's Halloween, duh." He said finally, picking through the various cast off items that were pooled in the floor around his legs. Living in a van with four other dudes was seriously disgusting, and he seriously needed a shower. He was pretty sure he had touched some of Jay's underwear a minute ago, and he probably had some kind of space plague from the experience.

[Night]

Jay continued to berate him by insisting that it was strange for anyone past their teen years to dress up for Halloween, which spurned a lecture from Oliver on 'staying true to yourself' and the importance of self expression or something. Lero would almost definitely be making fun of him and trying to wind him up further if he weren't currently working in his favor. Instead, he began digging through an open bag that was spilling its contents into the floor around him.

There was honestly slim pickings as far as costume creation went. He wasn't sure if he was surprised, or just annoyed. Disappointed at the very least. He sighed a bit too loudly, knocking his head rather purposefully against the back of Jay's seat. "There's got to be something in here!" He gave a frustrated groan, stilling his head against the chair and trying to look as pitiful as possible.

He must have succeeded, because Oli finally took pity on him and offered to help out. Between the two of them, it certainly seemed like less of a task to sort through months worth of accumulated objects. Brian did his own sort of helping by leaning over the back seat and demanding they clean up and sort the items into piles while they were 'already going through them.' Lero ever so kindly flipped him off, but began setting them into meticulous little arrangements to appease him. For himself, of course, not because Brian asked.

Oliver was doing his own sorting, though his system seemed a lot more... artful than a normal person's might be. Instead of arranging by use or owner or anything that actually made sense, he appeared to be shoving things into little stacks based on what color they were, or if they had an interesting shape or not, or maybe even alphabetically. It was kind of hard to tell. He watched the other man drop a few drawing pens into a pile of mostly grey and black things, along with one of his shirts and -

"Is that duct tape?"

[Night]

Lero snatched the found item up and held it like a prize, lifting it over his head and waving it all around. "It is! Yes!" He had never been happier in his life. Or, if he had, it wasn't coming immediately to mind, which was basically the same thing. "I can totally use this to make some kind of crazy, duct tape mummy thing." His grin was almost manic now, and he began pulling strips of tape off in long strands, scrunching his eyes against the sticky, scratchy noise that it made as it was unwound. Brian stopped him.

"You are not going to wrap yourself up in duct tape!" He said, all shrilly and insistent because he knew that Lero wasn't able to do anything against it when he got that way. "What are you even thinking!?"

Bob was, as defined in his contract (No, really, in small print where he didn't think Brian would catch it but he totally had, and made Bob change it but he still insisted it was valid if it was crossed out), unhelpful. "I call first dibs on pulling it off your eyebrows!" He didn't look away from the road as he said it, darting over into the next lane with barely any time on the signal and preparing to exit to take the road into the city.

"Not fair! I was going to do it." Jay was doing the closest approximation of pouting of which he were capable, something that mostly had to do with his eyebrows and the alignment of mars. Mostly he just looked constipated.

"You can call shotgun." Bob supplied, his face an entirely new level of serious.

"Can you really call shotgun on pulling tape off of someone?" Oliver was asking now, leaning forward curiously. His book was forgotten in his lap, getting his black pants all dusty.

Brian sputtered, his face turning red. "No one is pulling tape off of anyone!" His glare could wipe the paint off a new car. "What is it with you people! If I weren't here you'd all be dead trying to make toast in the shower or something! None of you have any common sense!"

There was a few short seconds of silence before Jay broke in. "I only did that once." He offered, at the same time that Oliver kindly put in "Jay only did that twice." Brian was going to have an aneurism.

[Night]

"Twice? I'm pretty sure it was only once, Oli." Jay was turned around in his seat entirely, somehow managing to shove his knees up into it to kneel over the headrest without removing his seatbelt. Lero was grudgingly impressed.

"You were drunk the first time." Oliver shrugged. Brian was seriously considering just murdering them all and getting the inevitable over with. If left to their own devices, they would probably all just perish in ridiculously painful and unlikely circumstances, anyway. He would honestly be doing them a favor.

Lero waved the tape around impatiently. "Can we get back to the issue at hand?" He said loftily, trying to call this very important meeting into order. "What can I make with this?" They all paused in their squabbling amongst themselves to turn to him, which gave him an undue sense of satisfaction. "I need to figure something out before we get to the shop. I can't go without a costume!"

Oliver, for once, refrained from pointing out that he definitely had the ability to show up without festive dress. Lero was almost proud of him. He pushed his fingers into the sticky side of the tape, watching as it adhered to his skin and then pulled at it when he tried to lift it away. Nothing was immediately coming to mind, and it was kind of a let down. He had finally found the one thing in the van that was actually a bit crafty, and it wasn't even really usable. Pity.

"I think I have some green paint in my bag. You could ball it up for bolts on your neck and go as Frankenstein." Jay supplied after some heavy contemplation. Lero wanted to kiss his perfect face.

"Frankenstein's monster," Oliver corrected.

[Night]

Amidst the ensuing debate over the correct terminology to use when referring to the Mary Shelly classic, Lero pitched himself over the middle seat of the van and into the back to begin searching for Jay's bag. His fingers scrambled between boxes of various religious paraphernalia until they finally closed on canvas. He was grinning broadly when he hauled the duffle bag over and into the seat between himself and Brian, almost forgetting for a moment to question why Jay had green paint stowed away in his luggage to begin with.

He carefully skirted through clothing and personal objects - mostly consisting of comic books and various chargers - until he found the tube of paint and held it aloft for Brian to inspect. The other man shrugged. Lero was half tempted to question after it, but part of him told him the answer may be dangerous. The Hudson brothers were a minefield, and had to be approached very carefully about just about anything. He decided that the answer may not be worth any mental scarring that may ensue.

"Found it!" He yelled instead, waving it about above his head to display to the rest of the van. Oliver offered him a crooked smile; the only acknowledgement that he received.

[Night]

For one heart stopping moment, he thought he had lost the duct tape among the hurricane that was five bachelors in a van. He scrambled around for it, snatching it out of Oliver's hand when the priest held it out to him. Now for the hard part.

He pulled the tape off in strips, balling it up as he went until it looked the appropriate size. The difficult part, he decided, was keeping the adhesive side covered up enough that it wasn't going to be sticking out anywhere. And figuring out how to attach them. A small frown pulled at the edges of his mouth, threatening to turn his entire face.

Brian was watching him raptly, waiting for him to mess up or do something slightly wrong so that he could swoop in with unnessicary advice. The little project was actually a tad harder than he had imagined it would be at first, and realistically he knew that he had limited time to devote to it. Bob had promised him exactly fifteen minutes at the store, starting from the moment the van came to a halt in the parking lot. It wasn't much, but it was something. Jay, of course, had deemed this small window of allotted time as his 'birthday present.' He wasn't entirely sure that they were joking.