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The doorbell rings, for the billionth time that night, and Keith groans.
“Please,” he begs, “please can we pretend we’re not home.”
His husband gleefully ignores him, disappearing with a faint ‘pop’ sound. If Keith let his ears hear as far as they would like, he’d hear another faint pop as Lance reappeared in front of their door, candy bowl in hand, and the subsequent delighted gasps of various costumed children. He’s hear the young voices yell ‘trick or treat!’ in unison, and mourn the time when he very well could give them a trick instead, as Lance fawns over their little costumes, shovels a truly ridiculous amount of candy into their little pails, and then poofs back into the living room.
But he does not listen in, because he is — as Lance says — the Scrooge of Halloween, and refuses to find any joy in the stupid holiday.
“You are going to get yourself caught,” he mumbles into Lance’s hair, once the witch has resettled on the couch.
“Am not, batboy,” Lance responds breezily, leaning into Keith’s hold. “And so what if I get caught? What’re they going to do? Burn me at the stake again?”
“You jest, but that was a horrible thing to witness. I can’t believe how stupidly happy those asshole pastors and judges were.”
Lance hums, turning his head to press a quick kiss to Keith’s cheek. “That was 400 years ago, my love. Let’s let the past stay in the past, hm? Plus, it didn’t even hurt, and you bled those motherfuckers dry, anyway.”
“And they were delicious,” Keith growls.
“Mm, somehow I doubt that. Didn’t the abundance of lead in every living surface in the 1600s make blood taste bitter?”
“…Okay, yes, but the satisfaction was very sweet.”
He feels Lance’s smile where its pressed into his collarbone. “Of course, cielo.”
They have a single moment of peace, then Keith’s ears twitch, and he growls.
Lance grins wider. “Hear some footsteps?”
“Your insistence on indulging this stupid tradition is making me want to break my no-eating-children rule.”
Lance laughs as he gets up — again — and puts on his truly gigantic witch’s hat, which is objectively kind of funny, but Lance has been making that joke since the 70s so Keith refuses to laugh. “Haven’t you heard Hansel and Gretel’s story, my love? Eating children is my job.” His eyes twinkle with mirth (literally. He lets a flash of green envelop his irises when he’s amused. Every time). “Don’t you know I’m fattening them up for a reason?”
He pops away again as the doorbell rings. Keith rolls his eyes fondly, unmuting the TV — a human invention he’s admittedly quite fond of — and watching absentmindedly some silly, animated character tries to outwit a bedlam.
Keith scoffs. As if a human could outsmart a bedlam. Those bitches could outsmart G-d. (Keith knows. He’s talked to the guy. Not very bright, that one, despite knowing all information ever to be known.)
“Oh, those ones were so cute!” Lance coos, popping back onto the couch. Keith rolls his eyes again.
Children-eater, his ass.
“The youngest one could barely walk on her little legs. She had the most adorable little fairy costume —”
Keith perks up. “Really? A faerie costume? With the empty eyes and sharp teeth and everything?”
“No, you dork. One of the fake fairies. The human-made ones.”
“Oh.” Keith pouts. Of course humans can’t even get a simply faerie right — as if the fae have tiny iridescent wings and slave their lives away keeping human lives in balance.
(Tinkerbell was a blight to human society. Pidge was so offended when she saw it that she snapped the disc used it to stab the last person she saw litter in her forest.
It was hilarious.)
“I hate humans,” Keith grumps. “They tolerable before, but now they’re infuriating. Damn the printing press.”
Lance bursts out laughing. “I promise you that humans were annoying long before literacy was widespread.”
“Yeah, but at least then I didn’t have to hear about it.”
“No? You never once donned your velvet cape and lace blouse and went looking for human gossip? I seem to recall you taking me to a masquerade ball or seventy in the gothic era, and you were quite happy to do so.”
…Fuck. Lance knows him too well.
“That was different,” Keith insists, lying like a liar. “Gothic era gossip was hilarious. They were terrified of me. I can’t count how many humans would whisper warnings to me about ‘dangerous blood-suckers living in the castle in the mountains’ only to faint when they saw my fangs. Now that —” Keith sighs wistfully — “that was an era.”
Lance places a gentle, mocking hand on his shoulder. “There, there, batboy. Humans still tremble at the thought of you and all the other Edward Cullens of the world.”
Keith glares at his husband, but there’s no heat behind it and the man knows it, judging by his smug, sunny smile. “You are a menace,” he says, leaning over and nipping his ear, just sharp enough to draw blood. “How dare you bring up that… disgrace to the vampire name.”
“The bane of your existence?” Lance clarifies, giggling. “The main reason you have so much beef with the 21st century?”
“I’m completely justified!” Keith cries, digging his fingers into Lance’s ribs. “Now humans write horny fanfiction about my kind instead of wallowing in terror! It’s horrible!”
“I mean, I get why they’re so lusty,” Lance says, wiggling his eyebrows. “There’s a certain something about those teeth, let me tell you.”
If Keith could blush, he would, but luckily for him he left that behind several hundred years ago.
(A thousand years ago?
Whatever. He’s been alive a long-ass time. Years start to blur.)
He grabs Lance by the ankle, pulling him closer and leaning down to press sharp kisses up his calf.
“Trying to ask for something?” he asks, voice muffled into Lance’s warm skin.
“Definitely trying to get somewhere,” Lance says, voice breathy and affected. “You should —”
Ding-dong!
“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” Keith yells, and Lance bursts out laughing, hands pressed to his reddened face.
“Okay, okay,” he relents. “I think we’re done with trick or treating for tonight.”
He snaps his fingers, and a bowl painted like a jack-o-latern filled with candy appears hovering in front of him. He pulls it gently towards him, whispers something in Latin, and tosses the bowl in the air. It hovers directly above them, bright green smoke billowing around it in opaque clouds, before the smoke clears, leaving the bowl looking unchanged. Lance snaps his fingers again and the bowl pops out of existence again.
“There,” Lance says with no small amount of satisfaction. “Now they can get their own candy, and they won’t be able to take more than two, so it should last.”
Keith sighs, pretending to be indifferent, but really he’s just all fond and squishy. He hates Halloween, sure — but he loves his husband, and his husband loves halloween, so he’ll put up with the holiday with as minimal complaining as possible.
Keith grins, devilish and sly. Besides, he thinks, the annoying part of Halloween is over, now. Now comes the good part: Lance is always more…energetic, when there’s dark magic in the air.
And All Hallow’s Eve has plenty of dark magic hanging over every street corner.
“Now that there are no more interruptions,” he says, manhandling Lance until he’s straddling Keith’s hips, arms around his shoulders, their faces inches apart. “I think we were getting somewhere.”
Lance smirks, closing the distance.
“Yes, I think we were.”
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art by my love, mothmanavenue