Chapter Text
Kara took a few deep breaths while she rested her hands on her knees. Okay, no biggie, this was just harmless fun, none of the monsters were actually real and she wasn’t that scared. Nope, scratch that, she was at least a little bit scared. It seemed silly, a Kryptonian, quick to jump when it came to fake monsters.
In her youth on Krypton, she’d seen several aliens, plenty of them who’d terrify humans instantly, but not her. No, aliens never frightened her. All of the earthly zombie, ghost and other spooky creatures however, did scare her. It was Halloween which was a holiday she liked and disliked at the same time.
The whole pumpkin carving part was fun, now that she finally got the hang of it and didn’t cut it into a pile of mush. The trick or treating was definitely fun, she loved collecting candy, even though her sister claimed she’d gotten too old for that. Eighteen was not too old to go trick or treating, pfft, Alex didn’t know what she was talking about.
So what if the other trick or treaters were mostly half her size? When she rang people’s doorbell, they always smiled at her and handed her candy. None of them gave her the whole you’re too old for this shtick her sister would give her.
Now she was at Midvale’s local fair for its annual Halloween special. And of course she’d readily agreed when Alex asked her to tag along because her sister happened to love Halloween. Even more than Christmas! Who loves Halloween more than Christmas? Well, Alex did and she was always the one convincing her to watch the scariest movies.
She looked at her sister, who was leaning her elbows on the counter of a shooting game where people got to shoot at moving pictures of monsters with a fake gun. Even under the dim lights, she could make out the blush on Alex’s face without having to take her glasses off, who was talking to a petit brunette who seemed to be in charge of the game.
“Hey, Kara,” Alex called out, gesturing at her sister to come closer. “Maggie’s shift is about to end and she’s going to show me around the best attractions,” she said, scratching the back of her neck. “So erm… are you good on your own for a little while?”
Kara raised her eyebrows, glancing at the petit brunette – Maggie – who only seemed to have eyes for her sister and was ever so slightly touching Alex’s left hand which was still on the counter, which had her sister blush more. She had a feeling Alex was into girls rather than boys, ever since she’d noticed how close her sister was to Vicky Donahue, until they had a bad fallout.
“Yeah, sure,” she answered, smiling whilst nodding. “I’ll see you near the lanterns at…?”
Alex glanced at her watch. It was two hours short of midnight. “Around one,” she answered, turning her left hand upside down to lace her fingers together with Maggie’s.
“Okay, around one,” Kara repeated, nodding. “Take good care of my sister,” she said to Maggie with a light tone, though she was serious and would twist her arm if she’d hurt Alex.
“I will,” Maggie replied, sounding earnest. “You should try the haunted house, kid. It’s the best attraction and you can’t have Halloween without going into the haunted house at least once.”
“Right, hah,” Kara said, chuckling nervously. “I can’t wait,” she said with a forced smile.
Maggie hopped over the counter, fist bumping a girl who was taking over from her.
Kara sighed while she watched her sister walk away with Maggie, holding hands. Okay, now she had three more hours to kill on her own. She paced around before decidedly walking to the nearest candy stand to get an apple covered in chocolate. From the corner of her eyes, she saw the haunted house and gasped when children half her age entered it whilst giggling. A haunted house was not funny, it was scary.
“Good ol’ Bill is giving a discount this year,” the man from the candy stand said. “He’s retiring after this year and made the haunted house extra special. You can get three tickets for the price of two.”
Kara paid for her apple, almost scoffing since there was no way she’d enter that haunted house three times. “Thanks, I’ll check it out,” she mumbled with a polite smile.
Screams could be heard from the haunted house, piercing through the air, which had her stiffening. She slowly breathed out when she saw children leaving the haunted house, laughing full and breathily. Okay, nothing bad happened. Deep down she knew it was all pretend of course, but that didn’t make it any less scary.
She spun on the heel of her foot when she thought she caught a glimpse of a figure entering the haunted house through the exit. Taking off her glasses to have a better look, she didn’t see anything. It must have been her imagination and it was rather dark. She jumped up when someone poked her.
“Trick or treat?”
“Luce!” Kara shouted at her friend, clutching a hand to her chest. “Are you trying to give me a heart attack?”
Lucy laughed while her hands rested on her stomach. “Spooking you never gets old,” she answered, grinning.
“Alex is around here somewhere,” Kara said, vaguely gesturing around.
“Oh, I know,” Lucy replied, her grin turning into a smirk. “I saw her behind one of the stands,” she said, smiling as she spoke. “I’m sure she’s having lots of fun.”
Kara arched an eyebrow because Lucy was acting strange.
“I’m gonna go shoot some monsters,” Lucy said, fishing her wallet out of her pocket. “By the way, the haunted house is awesome!” she shouted, excitement dripping off of her features. “I got a ticket left, here,” she said, pushing it in Kara’s palm. “Go knock yourself out.”
“Yay, I can’t wait,” Kara replied, about as enthusiastic as a child receiving a coupon rather than candy.
“Go on,” Lucy said, nudging Kara. “You’re not scared, are you?”
Kara tried to glare, but she was never good at glaring at people she liked. Lucy knew the haunted house scared her, but just as her sister, she made it her goal each year to try and get her to enter it. “Scared, me? Hah… nooo,” she answered, averting her eyes.
“Mhmm, sure thing,” Lucy teased, smiling when Kara pushed her. “You’re eighteen, all grown up.”
With Lucy’s voice in the back of her mind, along with the one of the man from the candy stand, Kara made her way towards the haunted house. Yes, she was an adult this year and she wasn’t going to be scared of a bunch of people dressing up scary. If she rationalized it, they weren’t much different from how children dressed up to go trick or treating. The only difference was that their makeup was much more realistically applied in the haunted house and they had skeletons!
An old man, whom she assumed must have been Bill, accepted her ticket and let her in. She breathed in through her nose and slowly breathed out through her mouth. After two steps, a skeleton fell down from the ceiling, attached to a rope, which drew a small gasp from her lips.
“I’m not scared,” she whispered to herself, balling her fists while she walked further. “Ahh!” she screamed when a zombie jumped out in front of her.
“Brains,” the zombie said, clawing at Kara without touching her.
Kara frowned because zombies weren’t supposed to talk. She let out a sigh of relief and didn’t scream when two more zombies appeared. The deeper she went inside the haunted house, the darker it seemed to get until it was nearly pitch black. She was considering taking her glasses off when she heard the haunted noises of ghosts.
“It’s not real,” she whispered, shivering slightly. “It’s not real,” she repeated.
Two ghosts suddenly touched Kara, which had her stumble back. She’d have fallen on her ass if it wasn’t for the zombie behind her who caught her.
“Nam, nam, brains,” the zombie moaned.
Kara almost managed a chuckle, feeling lighter since zombies definitely didn’t say nam. It added humor to the scariness of it all. The zombie and ghosts left her alone to go scare others as she walked further.
She saw a light bulb in the near distance and all of the sudden it was out. Only, it hadn’t been switched off, the glass had broken, she’d heard it shatter. That was just a part of the spooky act, right? Her steps grew unsteady as she didn’t know which way to go. She felt like she could go left or right, but she couldn’t remember the haunted house coming with options in the past. No, there was always a path that needed to be followed.
A faint chuckle in the distance made her go right. Can’t go wrong with right, right? She felt around, which she didn’t like while she waited to step into a lighted place. An icy touch on her neck startled her. She spun around and whisked her glasses off of her face, needing to see something other than utter darkness.
In front of her was a vampire. Pale skin, sharpened vampire teeth and apparently approaching her.
Kara backed away until her back met a wall. “I love your costume,” she blurted out, impressed, although initially the woman wearing the costume had scared her. “Whoa, that blood looks so real,” she whispered, touching the blood on the woman’s costume. “It even smells realistic,” she said, chuckling because others tend to smell like ketchup or some other red stuff, like tomato soup.
The vampire didn’t even blink, but she did smile and then her hands gripped Kara while she brought her lips to her neck.
Kara shuddered when she felt those fake teeth, which actually didn’t feel fake, graze her impenetrable skin. Well that was new. Never before had one of the people clad as a vampire attempted biting her neck. Every other living prop had barely touched her. The woman’s lips were cold against her skin, frostily so.
Was that a groan? Did the woman just groan while she backed away to look at her?
“That tickled,” Kara whispered, bringing a hand to her neck where the cold touch lingered. She wondered how hard the woman would have bitten to keep up her act if she’d been able to pierce her skin, because it felt like she was really going for it.
The woman narrowed her eyes and curled her fingers around Kara’s throat. Her grip was firm yet not squeezing, as if she didn’t actually want to hurt her.
“Hey,” Kara objected, grasping the woman’s hand, whose grip was surprisingly strong. Her eyes widened when she picked up on an important detail she’d missed earlier. The woman had no heartbeat, which meant… “Oh Rao, you’re a vampire!” she shouted, muffled when the woman covered her mouth with her other hand.
The woman faltered when Kara pushed her off by using force.
Kara panted when the vampire pushed her against the wall again, but this time it wasn’t hunger she saw in her eyes. Or maybe it was, though it was different from the way the vampire had looked at her the first time. She felt frozen in place when the vampire leaned closer and inhaled deeply.
“Alien,” the vampire rasped, toying with a lock of Kara’s hair.
“People usually call me Kara,” Kara huffed. She should be scared the woman found out she was an alien, but she wasn’t considering she had the knowledge the woman wasn’t human either. “And you’re… you’re a real vampire,” she whispered, processing her shock. She thought vampires were a myth because everyone always assured her they were.
Vampires were portrayed as blood suckers, who often looked like monsters, although some were shown in movies as angelic, until they got all blood thirsty. The vampire she was facing right now was definitely angelic, from the beauty of her raven locks and intense green eyes, but just because she looked angelic didn’t mean her behavior would be the same.
“Lena, succinct for Magdalena,” the vampire supplied, studying Kara’s face. “Exculpate me for my abhorrent manners,” she whispered, brushing a cold kiss against Kara’s knuckles.
Kara frowned upon hearing the strange apology. “Umm… maybe this is rude to ask, but how old are you?” she asked, voice tinged with curiosity, fear abandoned as Lena let her hand go.
Lena chuckled dryly. “How aged are thee?” she asked, her eyes roaming over Kara’s body.
Kara cleared her throat to gather Lena’s attention, feeling exposed somehow. “I asked first,” she muttered, sighing. “Fine,” she huffed, “I’m eighteen.”
“Thou art a youngster,” Lena replied, snapping her eyes up to meet Kara’s. “I am six-hundred and sixty-six.”
“The devil,” Kara whispered a beat too fast to stop herself. Thankfully, Lena was smiling rather than trying to tear her throat out for what could have been taken as an insult. “That’s um… wow, you don’t look…,” she said, ogling the vampire without realizing it. When she did realize it, her cheeks flushed.
“My physique is twenty-four,” Lena explained, her demeanor softening more than it already had. “May I have thy hand, milady?”
“Err, I guess,” Kara answered, feeling surprised the vampire went from grabbing her throat to wanting to hold hands. Maybe this meant she’d made a new friend and she couldn’t wait to tell her sister all about how she met an actual vampire. “Sure, yes, why not,” she said with a shrug and a smile.
Lena kissed Kara’s unexpected lips, hands on her sides as her tongue stroked warm lips.
Kara’s astonished yelp was muffled by Lena’s lips. She wondered if asking for her hand was a vampire’s secret code or language to ask for a kiss. Lena’s lips were cold, but the way she kissed her was anything but cold. “Oh Rao,” she whispered, slowly blinking her eyelids when the vampire took a step back, after having nipped at her lip.
Nobody had ever kissed her like that before and the few people she’d try to kiss ended up with a broken nose, or a nose bleed or a chipped tooth if they were lucky. She found herself wanting to kiss Lena back, even though she just met her and she was a vampire. Something about that kiss was addictive and reeled her in.
Lena surprised Kara further by placing her hand against her chest, feeling the beat of her heart. “We shall court at the stroke of midnight, dearest,” she whispered, using her free hand to caress Kara’s cheek.
“Wait what?” Kara asked, recoiling. She definitely knew what courting meant, since if often happened on Krypton. “Court?” she asked, eyes wide as a newfound realization struck her. Lena hadn’t been asking to hold her hand, she was asking for her hand, literally. It was going to be really weird to explain to her sister how she ended up accidentally agreeing to marry a vampire, while she was an eighteen year old in college no less!
Lena revealed a ring, which looked ancient. “Thou art worthy of my hand, Kara,” she said, slipping the ring over Kara’s ring finger.