Trick Or Treat! [Any Students]

[Iceman]

((I don't really care where this is in relation to the movies, only that it's before John left. So before X3. So between X2 and X3, I guess. Rogue and Bobs are already dating.))

It was Halloween, and Bobby hadn't been so excited since Christmas. He had gone trick-or-treating every October since he'd been born. As a kid, he'd been the red power ranger, Scream, a T-Rex, a ghost, a vampire, and Woody from Toy Story (Ronnie had been Buzz).

As he got older, he turned to more acceptable things like a zombie, a baseball player (big stretch for someone who'd been in Little League and on the school team his whole life), Freddy Kreuger, a surfer, and the likes. He always went with a big group of friends, all of them under the impression that you never got too old for candy.

At Xavier's, he'd kept up the tradition. The first year, he'd gone home for it. But since then, he'd come to think of Xavier's as a second home--and a more exciting one, at that--and he'd decided to trick-or-treat around Westchester. He also had made sure that there would be a celebration going on that spanned the entire school until well into the morning hours, a celebration which included everyone from the faculty to the chilluns.

Bobby had also demanded that everyone attending wear costumes, though he knew that some people would never comply--He couldn't picture Logan in a costume, somehow. Unless it was a Hugh Hefner to Jean Grey's Playboy Bunny. Though in a way it was Dr. Grey who was the pimp. Which was amusing.

At first he'd wanted to theme the trick-or-treating and partying around powers--everyone had to wear a costume that had to do with their powers. But he'd immediately thought of Rogue and abolished the idea. If he had anything to do with it, nothing would ever pain her. A party he forced everyone to do was not going to put Rogue in an uncomfortable situation.

That celebration hadn't really got rolling yet; most people were either getting ready or hadn't even gotten to that yet. But Bobby had decided that his group of trick-or-treaters would start going around the staff's offices asking for candy.

This year, Bobby was going all out. He had thought long and hard for the perfect costume. He'd wanted something suave, yet of course the gruesome element was also exciting. So, he'd tried putting "dead" in front of every costume idea. Dead surfer, dead James Bond, dead Red Sox player, dead...zombie?

Then, finally, he'd found it. The only thing he'd needed then was face paint. Lucky for him, Jubes was a master with a brush. So she'd come over to his room, and he'd his his costume in the closet--even she didn't need to see the whole ensemble until it was time for the trick-or-treaters to meet.

Then he'd shooed her out and finished getting ready, pausing to grin at his reflection in the mirror every few minutes. Finally, at ten minutes past the time that he'd told everyone to meet in the rec room, he headed out. He wanted to make sure everyone was there for his arrival.

[Iceman]

Finally, five minutes past meeting time, Bobby appeared at the top of the stairs in the rec room. He wore a dark blue suit, with a white collared shirt beneath and a blue silk tie, which his mother would have killed him for wearing (if she wasn't too afraid of him to speak to him these days).

But the family problems and the dangers of wearing silk were far from Bobby's mind as he stood at the top of the stairs, his head bowed an one hand grasping the rim of what he'd always called a 'pimp hat' (but which was correctly called a fedora), which was pulled low over his face.

His other hand held the top of a long, slim cane of clear-blue which gleamed and sparkled in the light. Go figure--an ice cane.

He paused for a moment before he looked up and proceeded to walk toward those already gathered and chatting as they waited for the rest of the gang. When he lifted his head, he couldn't keep a smile off of his face, but managed to contain it to a smirk so that the stitches across his lips would be closed together, to add to the gruesom effect.

Jubes had done a nice job. All of his face and neck were deathly white. Black stitching covered sick-looking lips. His eyes looked sunken, with dark circles around them. Shading to his cheeks had given him a skeletal look.

He held his arms out in a displaying gesture and spoke.

"Post mortem Al Capone."

[Jubilee]

Jubilee caught sight of Bobby stopping at the top of the stairs and elbowed the unlucky two on either side of her, jerking her head in Bobby's direction--carefully, so as not to disturb the chopsticks stabbing through the incredibly tight bun she'd twisted her long black hair into.

She was even more proud of how Bobby's face had turned out than she was with her own face, which she'd painted completely white. Her lips stood out against the white, a vibrant red. Her eyes were heavily lined with eyeliner and loaded with mascara. She wore a yellow and white kimono, which was at least the fiftieth she'd tried on while in search of a costume in NYC. It actually managed to hug to and compliment her slim frame, which she'd thought was impossible under all of the thick layers of fabric.

A red ribbon and white flowers hung from her bun, and chopsticks were stuck through it in an X. She held a large black fan, decorated with yellow birds, which she was fanning herself with absent-mindedly as she grinned at Bobby.

"I'm so proud," she said wistfully with a wink. It did look good. Even on Bobs.

[Pyro]

In the corner of the room, in front of the televison, games controller in his hand, John was busy proving (yet again) that he was Halo Master. He had put up resistance to the Trick or Treat idea ever since it had been suggested and the best anybody had been able to get out of him was a promise to at least see everyone's costumes.

He himself was not costumed. He was wearing his regular jeans and t-shirt, and an incredibly sour expression. He didn't do Trick or Treating. He was too old, too anti-social. And he didn't wear fancy dress, due to a very traumatic experience he'd had when he'd been seven, which he refused to talk about.

He glanced up at Bobby and couldn't stop a smirk. It was a good costume. Nice idea.

"Suits you, Bobs," he said, and turned back to Master Chief.

[Shadowcat]

Kitty had been the same thing every Halloween since she'd started dance. In Kitty's mind - the center of all pragmatism, until it started dealing with human (or mutant) evils - it just made sense to be a cat every year, unless she wanted to be a dancer. She could use the black leotards that made their appearance every year in the big Winter Recital, throw on some dancing flats and legwarmers and dig up the kittykat ears and tail she'd worn since she was six and she was set, always. It even looked kind of cute, though she was always worried about baring so much thigh, especially since, as she'd grown older, she had thigh to bare. But in the end, it was Kitty, the opposite of sex appeal through innocence overload; it wasn't like anyone would think she was trying to, like, tart herself out. It was fine. The leotard was even long-sleeved, the neck cut in a wide slit from the tops of shoulders, bottom out barely four inches below the base of her neck. It was fine.

Plus, it wasn't like she was the ONLY cat this year, and her bare thighs had nothing on Rogue's freaking catsuit. Not that she had many options, but seriously.

Even so, Kitty edged in behind Jubes and Bobby (post mortem who?), sticking to the walls. Why did she insist on putting herself into situations involving large groups of people? She always ended up in the corner...

Except that the corner was already taken. John, uncostumed and apparently too good for Halloween, had taken it.

Kitty sat on the arm of his couch, folding her hands neatly in her lap and peering at his screen before giving his lack of costume a disapproving look.

"You are not serious," she said.

[Pyro]

"I'm perfectly serious," said John, not looking up at her and ducking slightly back and forth with the motion of the game. "I'm not going, Kitty. It's not my thing. You guys have a great time though."

He had plans of his own for that evening and not one of them involved knocking on people's doors and taking money or candy off them. He didn't mind spending social time with his friends at places like the museum, or the mall, but he never went out on a night out and the whole idea of going out with them tonight filled him with an inexplicable sort of cold dread.

"Yeah," he repeated, his eyes still doggedly fixed on the screen. "Yeah, I'm serious."

[Admin]

It wasn't hard to find a leather bodysuit in the X-mansion. All one had to do was find a prototype X-man suit in roughly Storm's size, without all the stylized X's and funky padding in key places, and walah, one skin-tight, full-leather catsuit at hand. The ears and tail had take a bit of finesse, but easy enough in themselves. The tail had been a pillowcase, dyed black for the occassion, sewn into a cylindrical tail-shape, and stuffed with plastic bags to keep its shape and stiffness. The ears were made from left-over pillowcase covering a cardboard base set on a headband, and Rogue had painted her face, hands, and bare feet black, giving herself little white whiskers and holding her hair back in a ponytail. She'd left the white streak in her hair down along her face, and painted her chest that wasn't covered in leather stark white, making herself into a tuxedo pussycat. Overall it was a well-put-together costume, and her green eyes just brought out the cat-like appearance of her face.

She exuded sex appeal like Mystique.

Only a bit self-concious as she made her way into the rec room, Rogue searched out Bobby, Kitty, and Jubes right away, they being the only students she really knew. And of course, Kitty was in a cat-suit too, although on her it looked kinda... kittenish. Cute and adorable and kidlike, rather than the whole sex-kitten look Rogue had ended up with. She hadn't even been going for that kind of look either, it had just seemed wise to cover most of her body up, and cat was the first thing that came to mind when she saw the suit.

"Hey ya'll," she said cheerfully, moving her tail to the side as it got caught on the chair she was standing next to. That was going to get annoying real quick. Maybe she'd end up being a bobbed-tail cat instead.

[Iceman]

(ooc: Super duper long, I know, and I'm sorry, but this is what happens when I'm in a car or hotel room forever and ever)

Bobby's eyes skimmed over everyone in their costumes--except for John, of course, but that would change soon enough. He examined Kitty's costume before shooting her a suspicious look. "Didn't you say you were a cat last year?" To Bobby, being the same thing twice was a cardinal sin. Fortunately for Kitty, if anyone could deflect his disapproval, it was Kitty. Reprimanding her was like kicking a kitten, it just made you feel bad inside.

"Nice," he complimented Kitty honestly before turning to Jubes. "And you know, it's a good thing I decided to go with dead mobster, because I was this close--" He accompagnied it with a gesture of just how small it was, "--to going with geisha."

"Hey y'all."

Bobby knew the voice instantly, and he turned to find Rogue. He'd known what she was going to be, as much as he'd tried to not hear, but he'd refused to be told anything about the costume. The surprise of it was half the fun.

And the surprise was a very, very pleasant one.

Bobby's eyebrows rose floated upwards as he looked her over from head to toe. He took a step back and did an exxagerrated double-take. "Good God!" he exclaimed with the grin of a very pleased teenage boy.

"Wow, I, uh..." Bobby reached for his hat and pulled it from his head as he feigned being flustered. "I'm just gonna..." He didn't need to finish; the way he slyly maneuvered his hat over his fly said it all.

Bobby could only hold the pose for a few moments before cracking up. He rolled the hat end over end and landed it on his head, sliding his fingers across the fedora's rim as he moved over to Rogue. "Meow," he said, clearly impressed, as he slid his arms around her waist and hugged her from behind.

The gesture was a tad more PDA-ish than Bobby usually displayed, but he was clearly chanelling the dead mob head. If drama hadn't been for flaky guys, and Bobby had had the concentration to do more than baseball and snowboarding back home, he would have enjoyed theatre immensely.

In a movement that wouldn't have been noticed at all by anyone who didn't know about Rogue's powers (though unfortunately everyone present did), Bobby tilted his head away to the side and back slightly as he hugged Rogue, evading any close contact with her face and neck. It could easily have passed as Bobby wanting to make sure that their face paint didn't smear on each other's faces, but he and she both knew why such precautions had to be taken each time they were together. In the few weeks they'd been dating, Bobby had adapted magnificently well to keeping their skin apart, though there were times when he forgot or came too close unintentionally, and it was thanks to Rogue that they'd averted a crisis. Unlike Bobby, Rogue never forgot.

Bobby looked over Rogue's shoulder at John. It only took one glance at the screen to recognize Halo. The boy was just as obsessed as John was. "Still trying to beat my records, Burnie?"

He grinned, his eyes examining John and seeing his total lack of a costume. 'Oh, no, you are not sulking out of this one,'[/i] Bobby thought to himself.

"Oh, come on. We all want you to come," he said coercingly. Then an idea struck him, and he glanced at Kitty. He thought better of asking her out-rightly for her agreement, and he instead discreetly nudged Kitty's leg with his foot. When she'd look at him, he'd raise his eyebrows and jerk his head at John, clearly petitioning for her help to convince him.

Bobby knew John would suck it up and join them--it would just take a certain cat in legwarmers to invite him.