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“...So they’re going to take the kiddos home now, but we still have like an hour until Shiro gets off work, so it’s not like we can start the Halloween party early.”
Keith brought his phone back to his face. “I’m not sure how this affects me.”
“So, we have an hour to do whatever we want!” Lance’s voice came through the phone again, too loud as always, and Keith pulled his phone a few inches away from his face again. “I was thinking maybe we could go find a haunted house or something fun to go explore!”
“Haunted houses are scams,” Keith said flatly. He fiddled idly with the metal-tipped wooden stake he was going to bring with him to the Halloween party that evening. He was going as a vampire hunter to counter Lance’s vampire costume, which was by far the best coordinated costume idea Lance had ever come up with. (Lance kept calling it a “couple’s costume.” Keith had stopped bothering to correct him.)
“I don’t mean one of those fake haunted houses with the jumpscares and fake blood! What kind of tasteless lowlife do you take me for?”
“You don’t want the answer to that question.”
“...Okay, you’re right, I probably don’t. Anyways, I did a little research online, and there’s an empty house nearby that is totally, legitimately haunted. There haven’t been any reports of activity there in previous years, but there’s been a LOT of paranormal activity this year!”
“Uh-huh.” Keith was unconvinced.
“I’m serious! There’s been all kinds of reports on a couple of different internet forums, and a lot of them are eerily similar! And the experienced people are saying that it’s not a ghost -- it’s a demon.”
Did Lance ever listen to himself speak when he rattled off these crazy ideas? “If it really is a demon, we should steer clear.”
“Pff, we’ll be fine. Besides, you know me! I don’t really believe in demons. It’s probably just a powerful ghost.”
Keith only barely held himself back from pointing out that Lance had, on a separate occasion, insisted that ghosts weren’t actually ghosts, but rather just demons pretending to be ghosts. Trying to apply logic or consistency to Lance’s statements was a fruitless endeavor. Honestly, the truth was probably that Lance didn’t believe in anything supernatural at all and just thought that it was fun to pretend. As long as he wasn’t making fun of him, though, Keith didn’t care. He knew that supernatural creatures were real, no matter what Lance thought. “Fine. If you really want to go, we can go.”
“Great! Come on out, then, because I’m already on your doorstep.”
Of course Lance had already walked over here before even asking. Keith hung up with a sigh and then grabbed his coat and wooden stake before heading toward the door. Just before he reached it, he thought about his knife, and he turned back to grab it, too. Who knows what they might encounter?
Keith opened the door and, as expected, Lance was there, smiling wide to show off his fake fangs. He was dressed in vintage clothes that looked a little ridiculous, but it helped make his intended costume more obvious. He grabbed Keith’s hand and pulled him out of the house. “Come on!”
“Fine, fine, just let me lock my door.”
~*~*~*~
The “haunted” house was… underwhelming. It was just a normal two-story house that had been foreclosed on earlier that month and hadn’t been sold off to anyone just yet. Keith highly doubted that there would be any spirits tied to this house, so the only reason why there would be any paranormal activity would be if a supernatural creature of some kind was hiding out here, and that seemed fairly unlikely. Still, Lance looked excited, so Keith decided that the path of least resistance was to go along with him and head inside.
While Lance darted around, peering around corners with only a mockery of caution, Keith crept into the upstairs rooms, pulling out a small, silver-backed mirror he’d brought with him. His natural ability as a seer allowed him to glimpse otherwise invisible creatures, but his ability didn’t extend to glamours, so the only way he could see through a glamour was with assistance from a magic-resistant object. While being able to see fae currently trying to be invisible was a helpful ability, it didn’t do him any good when they instead opted to use a glamour to look like a regular person or even a collection of vines or something. Besides, while he was only pretending to be a vampire hunter (honestly, he would never harass a vampire who was just going about their business. That would be rude), everyone knew the best way to tell whether someone was a vampire was to see if their reflection showed up in a silver-backed mirror. And no, aluminum-backed mirrors did not work, Lance.
Honestly, Lance was going to get himself into trouble someday with his blatant disregard for common sense defense against potentially hostile paranormal beings. And, of course, Keith would have to bail him out. Like usual. Honestly, he wondered sometimes why he even bothered, but he told himself it was just because they were in the same friend circle and it would suck if everyone else was moping around, mourning Lance’s death because he was a dumbass and got himself killed or something.
The house wasn’t very big, so Keith had pretty quickly finished sweeping through all of the upper floor. There were some cluttered objects here and there, but nothing seemed paranormal in nature. He was just about to head back downstairs and drag Lance out of the house by his collar when he noticed a reflection of a ladder in his mirror. He looked over and saw only an ill-placed coat stand, but when he pointed the mirror at it and looked at the reflection, the reflection clearly showed a ladder leading up to an open attic door in the ceiling. The only explanation was a glamour, which meant that there had to be a supernatural being of some kind here.
Using the mirror’s reflection to guide his hand and foot placement, Keith climbed the ladder. He hesitated to go up through the ceiling, since his eyes were telling him that there was definitely a solid ceiling above him, but the reflection clearly showed a hole there, so he forced himself to go up through it all at once. Sure enough, there was no solid ceiling there after all.
In the darkness of the attic, a pair of softly-glowing eyes stared at him, wide and alarmed. “I’m not going to hurt you!” Keith blurted quickly. “I was just curious.”
The pair of eyes tilted questioningly. Then, after a pause, a low, smooth voice queried, “How did you see past the glamour?”
“Silver mirror.” Keith held up the object in question. “Plus, I’m a seer. You can call me Akira. Who are you?”
The stranger leaned forward, and the light from the room below partially illuminated their features, just enough that Keith could tell that they were humanoid. “I… you can call me Sincline. What are you doing here?”
“My friend and I were just exploring. He heard that this place was haunted or something. Of course, I knew that a house less than forty years old that was only abandoned because its previous owners couldn’t make their house payments was extremely unlikely to have or attract a ghost, but he can be… insistent, so I came along to see if maybe there was some other sort of paranormal or supernatural being here.”
“I’ve been hiding out here for a little while now,” Sincline admitted. “I can usually stay invisible or at least hide my non-human features, but I forgot that All Hallow’s Eve weakens the barrier between the mortal and magical worlds until a couple of humans had already caught glimpses of me through the windows. At first, when the mortals started coming in to explore the abandoned house, I attempted to use magic to scare them away, but that only attracted more. I’ve been forced to retreat up here.”
Okay, so that meant that Sincline was probably a fae of some type. Keith pulled himself the rest of the way up into the attic, sitting on the far side of the opening from Sincline to leave some space between them. “How long have you been hiding out here?”
“In this particular house?” They made a noncommittal gesture that Keith could barely make out in the dim light. “Only a few days. But if you mean to ask how long I have been hiding in the mortal realm… it’s been quite some time now. I move around from place to place as necessary to stay hidden.”
“You’re an exile, then?” After Sincline nodded to confirm, Keith asked, “Why haven’t you set up a human identity and integrated into the mortal world? That would be the easiest way to stay hidden -- hiding in plain sight.”
“That requires resources that I don’t have.”
Keith hesitated, considering his next words carefully. “I have a friend. She’s a fae, but she’s successfully living a normal life as a mortal. Maybe she could help you.”
Sincline remained quiet for a moment. “Perhaps…”
“Keith?” Lance’s voice filtered up from below. “Keith??”
The mortal in question froze, looking over at the fae across from him with trepidation. He hadn’t meant to tell this stranger his name yet. Names held power, after all. Still, it wasn’t like Lance had given Keith’s full name, so it was probably f--
“Keith Yorak Kogane, this isn’t funny anymore!!” Lance sounded a little desperate now.
Groaning, Keith covered his face with both hands. Seriously?
Across from him, Sincline chuckled. “Don’t worry. I will not harm you as long as you do not harm me. And if we’re going to address each other at least on a first-name basis, you should know that my common name is Lotor.”
That relieved a little of Keith’s anxiety about the fae knowing his name, though only knowing the stranger’s common name while said stranger knew his full name put them on rather unequal footing. Still, it was better than nothing. “Nice to meet you. Anyways, Lance and I will be going to a party soon, and Allura -- my fae friend -- is going to be there. You could come meet her?”
Lotor hummed in consideration. “I suppose that is not a bad idea, as long as you think that your friends will not mind my sudden appearance.”
“I can blame Lance. He makes random friends all the time.”
“And if Lance insists that it was you?”
“Trust me, they’ll take my word over his.”
Lotor laughed wholeheartedly, and his laugh was really nice to listen to, low and rich like his voice. “That sounds like an excellent plan.”
~*~*~*~
It had been one year exactly since Keith had first met Lotor, and a lot had changed since then. Keith stood in front of the mirror in his new apartment, willing his inhuman features to become visible, and since it was Halloween, it was honestly easier for him to make them visible than to keep them invisible, now that he knew the truth about his mixed heritage -- just one of the many things that had been revealed to him over the past year.
As Keith stepped out into the apartment’s living room, he found Lotor sitting on their couch, casually using his cell phone. There had been a few amusing incidents with introducing Lotor to human technology, but it seemed that Lotor had adjusted fairly well by now. Of course, he had not put any real effort into a Halloween costume, content to simply let his fae features show, including his ears, wings, and inhuman skin color -- though, at Lance’s insistence, he was wearing some fantasy-style clothes that looked befitting of an elf or fairy.
Speaking of Lance, it had taken some convincing, but he now really did believe that supernatural and paranormal creatures and spirits were real, and he was starting to exercise a little more caution. Well, in comparison to his usual lack of standards for caution, that was. He still wasn’t nearly as careful as Keith would have liked, but any progress was better than no progress, he supposed.
Keith was about to ask Lotor if he’d seen Lance when the boy himself stepped into the living room. He had adapted Keith’s outfit from the previous year, now armed with an “iron” dagger and “iron” chains as any proper hunter of fae would be equipped. “Well,” he asked, “how do I look?”
“Terrifying,” Lotor answered easily, though he wasn’t even pretending to be intimidated.
“You look fine. Still don’t know why you wanted to do basically the same costumes as last year but reversed.”
Lance shot Keith a look. “Well, now that we know that you really are a supernatural creature, it’s funnier to have me be the hunter! Besides,” he used a sing-song tone, “I’m only really hunting your heart…”
Though Keith rolled his eyes, Lotor seemed amused. He gave Lance a distinctly flirtatious expression. “Ah yes, the terrifying Loverboy Lance, who has captured the hearts of mortals and immortals alike. However shall we escape?”
“I think it’s already too late…” Lance purred.
“Seriously?” Keith gave them both a deadpan glare. “I’m dating the two cheesiest idiots in either realm.”
Lance shot him the biggest shit-eating grin. “But you love us.”
Keith sighed. “Yes, I love you two. Now come on, we’re going to be late for the party.”
“Ah, of course.” Lotor stood and donned his cloak to cover his too-realistic wings and complete his costume. He also handed over Keith’s and Lance’s coats. “Are we planning to walk or drive?”
“It’s not that far,” Keith pointed out. “We can just walk.”
“Yeah, and we can see all the Halloween decorations along the way!” Lance added.
“Then,” Lotor held out his hands to them both, “let’s head out.”
They walked to the party hand-in-hand, ready to spend a lovely evening together and with their friends.