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Halloween. The one night a year where the monsters don't have to hide. That's right, I said monsters.
It's been centuries since the human race has believed they really exist but their frequent advances in technology and weaponry have become somewhat problematic, so the monsters find it best that they stay in the realm of myth and legend. However, on Halloween night they can let their hair down, have some fun and not hide who they are.
"Mommy look at that mans fangs!" Alex chuckled softly at the young boy staring at him from across the aisle. The kids always thought they were cool. Every year they would all stop and stare, utterly fascinated. "Come on Jeremy." His mother called, pulling him along with the shopping cart.
His phone vibrated in his pocket and he pulled it out to see it was his roommate Josh. "Hey man." He greeted. "I was just about to call you, they're out of that honey brand you like, are there any others that will do?"
As a vampire, Alex had absolutely no knowledge of honey. He hadn't eaten anything in so long he'd forgotten the taste of everything. But apparently different honey's tasted totally different to each other, Alex wasn't sure if this was an actual thing or just a fairy thing.
"Forget the honey, we've been invited to a party." Alex frowned as he put the jar he'd been holding down.
"What?" He asked confused.
"The new neighbours are having a Halloween house party, the one you think is hot came over to invite us." Alex rolled his eyes. He'd said he thought the guy was cute one time.
"You're not actually thinking of going are you?" Josh laughed.
"Uh yeah, it's Halloween dude, the one time a year we can actually relax and be ourselves. I wanna make the most of it." Alex frowned as he made his way towards the checkouts. "Is that safe though?"
Josh sighed heavily. "I can't spend the rest of eternity hiding and never leaving the house. If he's gonna try and find me then he's gonna try and find me regardless of where I am or what I do. I'll make sure to protect myself, it'll be fine." Alex wasn't so convinced.
He got the usual stares from people as he made his way back to his car, but today it wasn't accompanied by any whispering or insults.
Apparently his clothing style was what was commonly known as 'goth' and wasn't especially common or popular with the majority of the human race.
Alex was far too old to care what people thought. Besides, it was practical. All-black material that covered all of his skin was the only way he could leave the house in the sunlight. He'd take a few mutters of 'freak' over living nocturnally every time.
When he got back to the apartment he found Josh in full 'costume'. In reality, it was what was once the official garb of the fairy knights but well, they didn't exactly exist any more thanks to the humans.
It consisted of tight khaki pants, a tan tunic that had slits to allow his pearlescent wings through and a brown belt to pull it in a little at the waist, and a crown of twigs and leaves. It seemed he'd decided against wearing the battle plating but was instead casting protective charms in order to hide himself from unwanted attention.
"I'd tell you to get dressed but I'm pretty sure all your clothes look the same anyway." Alex rolled his eyes as Josh turned to him with a smirk.
"Are you sure this is worth the risk?" Josh sighed heavily and shook his head.
"When did you get so old and boring? You used to love causing trouble on Halloween now all of a sudden it's "Don't antagonise the humans Josh.", "Don't play trick's Josh.", "Don't curse the mailman Josh." If that's what happens when you turn four hundred then you can wrap me up in iron chains right now and be done with it."
Alex shook his head as he took the groceries into the kitchen. "I'm not boring, I'm being cautious. You've got one of the most dangerous and powerful warlocks to ever walk the earth hunting you, a Halloween party doesn't seem all that important."
"Lex we literally live in the middle of nowhere and I have cast more spells over myself and this damn building to keep the devil himself out! Stop worrying!" Alex kept quiet despite his better judgement. Stubborn bastard.
Alex did deign to change clothes, replacing the oversized black sweater with a hooded, cape-like black cardigan and the American flag skinny jeans for a plain black pair. He decided to keep the simple black t-shirt the same.
They could hear the music outside on the landing when they stopped at the front door. At least it was something decent, the music of this decade was largely very unappealing at the moment.
Josh rang the bell and they waited. Alex was surprised when the door opened a few moments later; he hadn't been expecting anyone to actually hear the door. "Hey, guys! Come on in."
It was the cute one who'd answered. He had dark hair with a blonde streak down the middle and a penchant for band shirts. Tonight however he was dressed as a slice of pizza. Alex couldn't help but smirk.
"Nice costume." Cute guy just grinned.
"At least I'm wearing one." Alex opened his mouth to protest and that's when he rolled his eyes. "Vampire. Should have guessed." Josh laughed.
"I mean that's just him every day." Alex sent him a warning look as Pizza Slice laughed.
"Well, I didn't want to say it." Alex just rolled his eyes.
"Beats being normal." Pizza nodded with a smile and shrug.
"Well, it works for you anyway man." He winked before leading them into the living room where the party guests were congregating.
"You fed before we left right?" Josh whispered. It wasn't that he didn't trust Alex, but accidents happened and since the skunk-haired human was obviously interested in him, he had to be sure. The last thing he needed was a late-night phone call asking for help because he'd accidentally lost control in the moment and needed to hide a body.
Alex nodded as they made their way to the drinks table. He watched as Josh picked up a cup that contained a bright blue liquid and sniffed at it. Deciding it would do he took a sip and nodded in approval. "It tastes like skittles!" He exclaimed excitedly. Alex had no idea what skittles tasted like but he knew they were sweet as hell which was why Josh loved them.
"There's beer in the kitchen if you're not into cocktails." Cute pizza slice appeared behind them, noticing Alex hadn't picked up a cup.
"I don't drink." Alex said with a shrug. As always this seemed to surprise his host.
"Oh, I mean I think we've got some coke somewhere..." He offered but Alex just shook his head.
"It's fine, I've got my own."
He pulled a hip flask out from the inner pocket of the cardigan with a smile. It was his emergency supply so he always made sure to keep it on him. Pizza boy nodded with a smile. "Cool, okay well let me know if you need anything else I guess."
A few hours later Alex found himself watching with dismay as Josh placed what appeared to be money, but no doubt was just some disguised rubbish, down on the pool table. "Never trust a fairy." He muttered, watching as the rather drunk skeleton shook his hand and made to break.
"What was that?" Alex jumped slightly, he hadn't realised he had company, the loud music dominating his usually perfect sense of hearing.
"I said never trust a fairy." He turned to face his companion and found that his cute pizza slice had returned.
"What?" He was giving Alex a look that told him he was being weird.
"In folklore fairy's are notorious tricksters. You can't trust them." He explained, this apparently didn't clear things up enough so he indicated towards the table. He chuckled musically. "Your friend a bit of a hustler then?" Alex laughed but nodded. Understatement of the millennia.
"I'm Jack by the way." He said. "I don't think I actually said that earlier." Alex smiled, grateful to have something other than 'cute pizza slice' to refer to him as. "Alex."
They shook hands and Jack's eyes widened in shock. "Dude you're freezing!" Alex just shrugged as he retracted his hand.
"I don't regulate temperature very well." It was surprisingly easy these days to explain away the little things that would otherwise have exposed him as abnormal.
They spent the next few hours in their little corner getting to know each other better and really Alex was a little surprised, they seemed to have a fair few things in common. More than he'd had with any other human at any rate.
Jack had slowly moved in closer and closer to Alex as they spoke, probably thought he was being subtle. He stood barely a few inches away, arm pressed against the wall next to his head. Alex was more than happy to play along.
Jack's eyes flicked down to Alex's lips and back up to his eyes, he was just about to lean in when an exceptionally loud wolf whistle sounded, breaking the spell and causing Alex to hiss in pain. He reached up to his ear and rubbed at it with a frown. Stupid sensitive hearing.
They both looked around to see whom it was being directed at only to find a guy who was dressed in a sexy cop costume had a guy in a penguin suit pinned up against the wall with his tongue down his throat.
Jack pulled a face. "Fucking animals." He muttered bitterly shaking his head. "I don't think they can go twenty minutes without being all over each other." Alex frowned as he glanced over to them, it still fascinated him how far humanity had come. That certainly wouldn't have been acceptable behaviour back when he was human.
"The not so sexy cop's my roommate Rian." Jack explained. "The penguins his boyfriend Zack. They're still in the honeymoon phase at the minute, it's sickening."
Before Alex could respond there was an angry shout. It seemed the skeleton had caught onto Josh's tricks. "Oh god." Alex groaned, pushing off of the wall with intent of rescuing his sorry fae ass.
Before he could take more than a step there was a loud pop sound as all the light bulbs in the apartment simultaneously exploded and the power went out. There were a few screams as people ran out of the way of the falling glass. Jack jumped backwards with a yelp as Alex looked to Josh whose eyes were wide with fear and panic. Oh god. "Everybody out now!" Alex yelled, but it was too late.
A loud thunder-like crack sounded as there was an explosion of bright white light and then a very large black smoke cloud which began violently swirling around the living room throwing things everywhere. Oh shit
People began running and screaming as Alex dived at Josh, pushing him down behind the couch and out of the way. "I told you this was a bad idea!" He hissed as Josh sent him a look of disbelief.
"Now, really?"
"We need to get you out of here!" Alex glanced over the back of the couch to see the cloud was getting bigger. They were running out of time.
"And go where?"
"Anywhere, it doesn't matter. He's not manifested fully yet, we've got time." Josh just shook his head, face a mix of terrified and determined.
"It's time Lex. We can't run forever."
Before Alex could argue they were interrupted by a borderline hysterical cry of. "What the hell is happening?!" Alex glanced over his shoulder to find Jack crouched behind him, glancing over the couch back to watch the carnage. "Get down!" Alex hissed, pulling him down out of sight.
"Why is there an angry black cloud in my living room?!"
"Joshua. Come out now, I know you're here." Jack's eyes bulged as the cool voice spoke out, it seemed to emanate from all corners of the room. "How can smoke speak?" Alex ignored Jack's panic in favour of watching Josh, silently begging him not to do anything stupid. So naturally, that's exactly what he did.
Josh got to his feet, stepping out from behind the couch. "Hello, Oliver. It's been a while." Jack continued to gape as Alex swore.
"Oh, only what? A hundred years or so? Blink of an eye for us immortals though right?" Josh stayed silent. "I assume the vampire's here somewhere. He never lets you out of his sight."
Jack exchanged a look with Rian who was trapped between the recliner and the overturned pool table. What the fuck?! He mouthed as Jack just shook his head.
"Leave Alex out of this. It's got nothing to do with him." Jack turned to face him like he was crazy and really Alex didn't have time to deal with him right now. "Oh don't worry. I won't hurt him, I won't hurt any of the humans either if you give me what you stole."
Josh shrugged, trying to seem more confident than he felt. "Sorry to disappoint you but I don't have it. I sold it a few years back." Oliver's tone was sharp. "You wouldn't be that stupid."
"It seems you give me too much credit. You'd be surprised how much a crystal ball will go for these days."
Alex couldn't believe what he was hearing. "You're fucking shitting me." He said in disbelief standing up and catching them both by surprise. "We've been on the run for the last century because you stole his crystal ball?" Josh just gave an awkward shrug.
"You saw how sparkly it was!" Alex was going to kill him.
"He didn't sell it." Alex turned to Oli who seemed overly amused by the sudden change of events. "It's sat on our fucking mantelpiece." Josh's jaw dropped in disbelief as he turned on Alex with a look of betrayal. "Seriously?!" Alex just rolled his eyes.
"Wait here and don't hurt anyone. I'll go get it."
It had been a while since he'd gotten the chance to use his heightened speed, even on Halloween it was a bit of a give away that something wasn't quite right. Right now though it didn't really matter. It wasn't like they could explain all this away.
He grabbed the sparkly white orb and returned to the apartment to find the pair flirting, much to the confusion of the remaining party guests. Alex rolled his eyes before lifting the ball up. "This what you're looking for?" Oliver's face lit up with delight as Josh pouted.
He took the ball and stuffed it into the inner pockets of his robe. "No hard feelings boys. Sorry about the mess."
Jack felt like his brain was about to explode as he watched the mess of furniture begin flying around and righting itself at a flick of Oliver's wrist.
The black smoke began to swirl once more as he winked at Josh. "We should reconnect some time. Get a coffee." Josh just nodded as Alex rolled his eyes. With that, he was gone and the lights and music all came bursting back to life, magically fixed and once again causing the remaining guests to jump.
There was a long silence as people slowly came out from their hiding places looking utterly baffled. "I hate you." Josh said flatly.
"Don't even." Alex warned. "That's a century of my life you owe me." Josh just rolled his eyes.
"Get over it, you're immortal."
"Try anything like that again and I'll rip your wings off." Josh rolled his eyes, unfazed by the threat.
"Try it and I'll curse your sorry fanged ass so hard you'll wish you never met me."
"I already do that every day." Josh glared at him as Alex smirked. "Seriously, if I'd known how much of a pain in my ass you'd be I'd have left you in that forest where I found you." Josh feigned hurt.
"You'd have left a poor, defenceless, innocent, little fairy with a broken wing to die in the forest? You heartless monster." Alex laughed and shook his head. "You were never innocent."
"Dude, how did you do that?"
Now the shock had warned off and the fact that they were no longer in danger had sunk in, the people were desperate to make sense of it all. Actively ignoring the most obvious yet unbelievable explanation like always.
"That was so cool!"
"How'd you get the furniture to fly about?"
"Where'd the wizard guy go?"
Rian sent Jack a baffled look, hoping that he'd have some sort of explanation for everything. Unfortunately for him, Jack was still sat on the floor behind the couch looking like he was having an aneurysm. "We should get going." Josh muttered. Alex could only nod in agreement.
Alex had half expected the whole building to come banging on their door with pitchforks but when he woke up the next morning with all his limbs intact he decided it was probably safe to leave the apartment. He needed to stock up on blood.
The trip passed by like normal and he'd just managed to relax when he got back to the apartment to find Jack awkwardly hovering in front of the door. Oh great.
He made a point of making noise as he approached so Jack wouldn't totally panic at his sudden appearance. That didn't stop him jumping at his presence.
"I didn't think you're kind could go out in the sun." He'd been aiming for a light-hearted joke but it seemed he couldn't shake the edge of terror. "Why do you think I'm dressed like this?" Alex said flatly.
The only skin not covered by black material was that of his face which was protected by the wide brim of his hat. Jack's eyes widened at that, realisation slowly sinking in despite how much he didn't want to believe it.
"Can I help you with something?" Jack opened and closed his mouth a few times before finally managing to form words.
"What happened last night?" Alex rolled his eyes.
"You know what happened last night." Jack shook his head.
"I want you to explain it to me."
Alex pursed his lips a moment as he took in how tense and uncomfortable Jack was before shrugging. "A very powerful and overdramatic warlock crashed your party because my idiot roommate stole his crystal ball about a hundred years ago and he wanted it back." Jack just stared at him like he'd grown a second head.
"Anything else?" Alex asked as he unlocked the door.
"You realise how insane you sound right?" Alex rolled his eyes as Jack followed him into the apartment.
"Yes. I'm aware of how crazy this sounds to the human mind. You've all become far too logical over the years, it's so disappointing."
He could feel Jack's eyes on him as he began putting the blood bottles into the mini-fridge that sat in the corner of the kitchen. Josh wasn't too keen on having it in with the regular food and drink. "Oh god... is that..." Jack's sentence trailed off as he turned a pale greyish colour.
Before Alex could respond Josh appeared in the doorway in nothing but a towel. His hair was damp and his wings were fluttering slightly as they dried themselves off.
"What's the human doing here?" He asked as Jack stared at him wide-eyed and slack-jawed.
"He wanted to know what happened last night." Josh rolled his eyes.
"And?"
"He doesn't believe me." Josh laughed as he poured himself a glass of milk.
"Naturally." Jack glanced between them in horror.
"Oh god, I'm going insane."
"That's what everyone will tell you." Josh said with a shrug.
"Please tell me you're not going to eat me." Alex rolled his eyes as Jack turned to him. Typical human response.
"Okay first off, I don't 'eat' people. I drain their blood. Second, if I were going to drain you you'd be dead by now. You've lived here what, two months now? And no one has turned up dead. I mean you literally just watched me put bottles of blood into my fridge." Jack seemed to genuinely consider that.
"So what happens now?" Josh and Alex exchanged a confused look.
"What do you mean?"
"Well I mean, I know. Everyone who was there last night knows. Are you guys going to have to like go into hiding or something?" Alex had to try not to laugh at that. "I am not moving again." Josh said flatly, folding his arms across his chest.
"Jack, do you see an angry mob outside trying to break down the door and get us?" He shook his head, eyebrows furrowed. "Exactly. In the past, yeah we'd probably have had to go into hiding. Now? Well, you know how many people from last night will actually believe something supernatural happened?" Jack shook his head again. "Zero."
"Well, one if we count you." Josh added. Jack nodded slowly, struggling to process it all.
"How many of you are there?" Josh sent Alex a look that told him he was not going to be dealing with any more of Jack's questions before leaving with the excuse of getting dressed.
"Well?" Alex sighed and sat down at the kitchen table, indicating for Jack to join him.
"There's not exactly a solid number, it's not like we take surveys or anything. We hide for a reason after all. But I mean probably 1 in 3 people aren't actually people." Jack's jaw dropped.
"I'm never gonna be able to look at someone without wondering again."
"How come I've never noticed anything weird about you two before?"
"Because we hide it, Jack. We have to appear normal in order to protect ourselves. Halloween is literally the only day we can get away with it because it's expected that people will be in costumes. Everyone wants to look like a monster." Jack hadn't really considered that before.
"So your teeth..." Alex relaxed a little, allowing his fangs to extend from his upper gums. Jack pulled an odd face, part fascinated and part disgusted. "They look more snake-like than I expected." Alex chuckled softly, retracting the thin stems in order to make Jack a little less uncomfortable. "I suppose they serve a similar purpose."
It turned out Jack had a lot of questions. Alex was starting to regret letting him in.
"No." Alex groaned. "I do not sparkle. I burn." Jack looked rather disappointed by this.
"That's boring." Alex rolled his eyes.
"Yes. Excruciating pain, third-degree burns, blistering and potentially death. So boring." Jack blushed at that and mumbled an apology. Twilight was the bane of Alex's existence.
"So, uh. Last night." Jack began but was interrupted by his phone ringing. "Sorry." He muttered before answering.
"Hey man, what's up?" It was Rian.
"Dude, where the hell are you?" Alex played with a loose thread at his sleeve and pretended that he couldn't hear the whole conversation.
"I'm at the neighbours. I told you that." Jack rolled his eyes.
"Still? I thought you were just going over there to ask him out and come back not spend the whole day! What are you doing, screwing him?" Alex had to hide a smirk as Jack floundered. "What? No! Who do you think I am?"
Rian laughed. "Come on dude, we both know you're a sucker for that twink goth look and you've been gagging for it since we moved in!" Jack flushed scarlet as Alex bit down hard on his lower lip. "Shut up man! I'm hanging up." Rian just continued to laugh as Jack ended the call.
"I'm so sorry about that. It was-"
"Rian." Alex supplied as he looked up, there was no point pretending at this point. Jack's eyes grew wide. "Hypersensitive hearing." Alex said with a shrug. "You mean you... oh god." Jack groaned as he buried his face in his hands, cheeks aflame. This was really the last thing he needed after how weird a day it had been.
Alex stayed quiet, smirking softly as Jack recovered from his embarrassment. He couldn't help but feel a little smug at the fact Jack thought he was hot, even if the newly acquired knowledge did change things.
"Uh, do you want to go for a coffee sometime maybe?" Alex couldn't help but laugh.
"I don't drink coffee." Jack looked personally insulted by this.
"How can you not drink coffee?" He gave Jack a long look.
"I don't drink anything." Jack blushed scarlet, realising his mistake.
"Right of course. Okay, what do you do that could be considered date like?" Alex smiled.
"I like movies?" He offered which seemed to relax Jack a little.
"Great! Okay, so movie some time?"
Alex couldn't deny he was a little surprised. "Are you sure you want to?" He asked carefully. Jack shrugged.
"You may be like a real-life undead mythical creature but you're still hot and I mean things were going pretty well yesterday before your wizard friend showed up." Alex laughed.
"Don't let him hear you call him that."
Jack just grinned as he got to his feet. "How's next Saturday for you?" He asked as Alex walked him to the door.
"Sounds good." He smiled softly as Jack paused in the doorway; he seemed to be having some form of internal debate.
"Fuck it." He muttered before leaning in and capturing Alex's lips.
It caught him a little by surprise but he kissed back eagerly all the same. He tried his best to keep things innocent but Jack was too damn intoxicating. He was soon kissing Alex fiercely and pushing him up against the wall.
He gasped a little which Jack took as an opportunity to slip his tongue into Alex's mouth. It was short-lived however as Jack's tongue came into contact with the sharp tip of Alex's fang which had extended during his lapse in concentration.
He pulled back startled as Alex took a deep breath, trying to calm the violent spike of hunger that shot through his system at the small taste of Jack's blood. "That's going to take some time to get used to." He mumbled apparently unfazed and unaware of Alex's inner turmoil. Alex nodded, not trusting himself to speak.
Jack smiled pressing a swift kiss to his cheek before stepping back. "I'll see you Saturday." With that he was gone, leaving Alex still in place against the wall.
Once he'd recovered enough he closed the door and took a deep breath, trying to calm his body. He turned around to find Josh stood in the living room doorway watching him with a slight smirk. "Don't say a word."