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“You’re telling me you forced me up before sundown, screeched at me for half an hour and dragged me out of the wood for this?” Touya gestures broadly at the suburban street, including the candlelit pumpkins and rambunctious children in the sweep of his hand, and turns to a beaming Keigo. “I can’t believe I trusted you on this, you dumb bird. I’m going to go back and catch up on the sleep I should have gotten.”
Keigo’s smile drops immediately. “But Tou —”
“You know what we agreed on when I bonded with you.”
“— Dabi, fine, whatever.” Keigo rolls his eyes, not missing a beat, then latches on Touya’s arm with a winsome little smile. “But Dabi, it’s Halloween.”
“Which means… what, exactly?”
Keigo’s pout is disturbingly cute, but Touya would sooner rebury himself than tell his shapeshifting familiar that. The way he tugs on Touya’s arm and practically drags him further into this awfully cheery street, however — that is not cute at all, no question about that.
“It’s Halloween!” Keigo repeats, like Touya actually cares about the date beyond feeding day and ritual-to-keep-himself-from-unanimating day. “The day humans — uh, adults give candy to children! The day everyone runs around in costumes so nobody can tell who’s human and who’s not! The… you don’t know what I’m talking about, do you?”
“What was your first clue?” Touya snarks back, rolling his eyes right back at Keigo. “Besides, you look like an adult. I am an adult. Neither of us have candy — so by your definition, we should go back because we can’t join in.”
Keigo’s pout grows cuter, which is such a foul that Touya almost shoves his palm against Keigo’s face. Only the knowledge that extreme emotions will hasten his ritual day, which is a pain and a half on a normal cycle, keeps Touya from combusting in sheer anger — that, and the knowledge Keigo would absolutely hug and kiss him on this awful street, where anyone could see and ask uncomfortable questions.
(He is not folding because Keigo’s giving him the avian equivalent of puppy eyes. No, absolutely not, Touya is stronger than this.)
“But Dabi,” Keigo whines, dragging out the last syllable in Touya’s ‘public’ name until it sounds like a mosquito buzzing. “Even adults will go trick-or-treating… and who knows, maybe we’ll find more of our kind. Don’t you ever want to find the rest of your family?”
Touya’s face twists for a moment, a foreign sense of longing welling up in him as thoughts of his body’s family come to mind — but then the reason Keigo’s saying all this catches up to him.
Damn manipulative bird and all the glib smooth-talking he learned from his previous owner, before Keigo had slipped up and somehow convinced Touya to take him in. What the hell does a wendigo want with family, anyway?
“Yeah, I’d totally find my family and duke it out to see who eats who.” Touya snorts at Keigo’s flummoxed expression, then yanks his arm out of his grasp. “Give it up, Hawks. You tried your best, but I’m going back and enjoying a proper Halloween.”
“Does your town have a costume contest though, sir?”
Touya pauses, mouth instantly salivating at the unfamiliar voice butting into their conversation. Damn it all to hell and back, this was why he didn’t want to be near people so close to his ritual day (and so close to his preferred forest, to boot)!
It’s too late to leave and pretend he didn’t hear anything though. When he sneaks a peek back, dread pooling in his stomach, Keigo’s grinning widely at a guy wrapped in toilet paper, what is wrong with humans, and the guy’s giving Keigo’s wings an admiring once-over.
“You folks look like you’re new to town!” The disturbingly chipper man beams, slaps a large and heavy hand on Keigo’s and Touya’s shoulders, then looks between them with sparkling eyes. “I say, I’ve never seen such detailed, authentic costumes!”
Costumes, Touya mouths when he’s (mostly) certain Sir Smiles-A-Lot isn’t looking at him. Beside him, Keigo smiles and shrugs — stupid bird’s probably too busy preening under the attention to care about how much Touya wants to rip all their throats out.
(The stranger’s first though, because who in their right mind smiles that much?)
“The name’s Toshinori, Yagi Toshinori,” Sir Smiles-A-Lot informs them, “and I’m the mayor of this little town. Why don’t you two join in on our festivities tonight? I have it on good authority that there’ll be a prize for Best Halloween Costume, and you two would be strong contenders in that one, I’m certain!”
“No.”
“He means no, of course we wouldn’t think of refusing.” Keigo elbows Touya as he grins, bright and entirely too cheerful, at Toshinori. “Thanks for the invitation, my man. We really appreciate it.”
Unfortunately for Touya, the killing intent in his eyes is clearly no match for Keigo’s sunny smile. The mayor pats their shoulders again, making Touya’s hands spasm by his sides, but leaves them with a few pleasant nothings and an all-too-cheery wave.
“I’m going home,” Touya says as soon as Keigo turns towards him, sunny smile and all.
Instead of pouting and pleading like before though, Keigo winds an arm around Touya’s waist and leans a cheek on Touya’s shoulder, grinning winsomely up at him. “No can do, Dabi. We promised the man we’d stay in town, so we’ll stay in town — until the costume prize, at the very least, okay?”
It would be so easy to refuse again, so much simpler if he shook of his clingy bird and made a mad dash back for the forest, but Touya makes the mistake of looking into Keigo’s wide, pleading eyes. It’s so obvious that he doesn’t expect Touya to stay but wants it anyway, for a reason Touya can’t and might never fathom, and something about it makes the stone in his chest give… just slightly, but still enough to matter.
Touya sighs, rests his cheek against Keigo’s soft hair for the briefest of moments, and says in his most ungracious voice, “One of us had better win this stupid prize, or I’m forcing you into bird form for the next month.”
Keigo blinks up at him, grins wide enough to almost blind Touya, then throws his arms (and the wings he’d kept tucked behind his back… to look more like a costume?) into the air with a whoop.
God, Touya regrets this already.
An hour, six dozen pictures and an armful of candy later, Touya is definitely still regretting this.
“This town is filled with humans,” Touya hisses when they’re finally alone and not being swarmed by sugar-crazed children. That it’d involved dragging Keigo between two houses and crouching by an overflowing rubbish bin doesn’t help with the slight hysteria in his voice. “I don’t see a single shapeshifter like you, let alone a ghost or werewolf or vampire or whatever the hell else these humans are dressed as. If this costume contest doesn’t happen soon, Hawks, so help me, I’m going to shove the next kid I see into my mouth and eat them in front of these people.”
Keigo must see how dead serious Touya’s threat is, because his wings flutter and he chirps at Touya in his oddly soothing way.
(Touya tells himself that it’s soothing because Keigo isn’t human, for all he can shift into a passable imitation of them, and not because Keigo’s also combing soft hands through his hair.)
“But you had fun, didn’t you? Isn’t it better than shambling through the woods, preying on whichever idiot backpacker wandered in too deep?”
“Honestly? I prefer the shambling. Really adds to the whole ‘haunted woods’ thing they have going for the place, you know.”
Keigo snorts, but manages to muffle most of his laughter with his wing. For all that they’re crouching in the dark, it’s still an obvious, glossy red — red like the blood Touya craves, and red like the lips brushing against his.
If it were anyone else touching him like this, Touya would rip their lips off and then set in on the rest of them. Keigo’s always been different though, from the moment Touya had come across him and was somehow convinced into keeping the chirpy bird around, and he sinks into Keigo’s plush lips with a soft, resigned growl.
Before Touya can really lose himself in Keigo’s sweet forest scent or the fingers scratching lightly at his scalp, however, Keigo pulls back and says, “C’mon, tough guy — it sounds like that costume contest is gonna start soon, and you wouldn’t want to miss winning that.”
Touya glares, rare good mood instantly dissipating, but Keigo laughs and grabs his hand before tugging him back out of the alley. At least Keigo doesn’t sound like he’s lying, if the empty-looking streets and the burst of noise up ahead is anything to go by, but Touya scowls harder as he intertwines their fingers.
“You know what?” Touya asks, just before they join the milling crowd in the town square. “I’ve changed my mind. If I don’t win this Best Halloween Costume thing, you’re staying in bird form for the next month.”
Keigo turns back to look at him, but there isn’t a hint of surprise or indignation — only amusement, and something that definitely doesn’t make Touya’s ears test the capability of his mostly-dead body. “And if you win, what’s in it for me?”
“Not getting shot at or perved on by some naturalist?”
“Nah, those are boring stakes. If I’m gonna go by your rules…”
In the moments before Keigo tugs him into the crowd proper and the mayor begins addressing the town, Keigo leans in to brush his lips against Touya’s pink ear and whisper, “I think it’s reasonable for you to do a little something for me, don’t you?”
“And your idea of a little something is this?” Touya asks, pinning Keigo with a dead-eyed glare.
“You won, didn’t you?” Keigo shoots back. Touya scowls at how chipper he sounds, wings practically shaking in excitement for all that he’s still pretending they’re not real, but Keigo beams brighter and says, “C’mon, it’s just one house! I’ve always wanted to try this — what better time to do it than now?”
“Didn’t you say this was all about adults giving kids candy though? And what the hell do we do with it afterwards?” Dabi shakes his bag of candy, distantly grateful that it’s not the armful of candy he’d been carting around before he’d inadvertently won the costume contest. “You bird-brained idiot, neither of us eat candy.”
Keigo, damn him to hell and back, smiles and shrugs like that’s not an issue. “Just gift it away to some random kid before we head home. Anyway, it’s getting late — you don’t wanna linger on this good homestead, do you?”
“I wouldn’t be lingering if it wasn’t for you,” Touya mutters irritably, but sighs through his nose and knocks on the door.
It stays shut for so long that Touya almost turns away, grin beginning to form at being let off the hook so easily, but then the door opens and Toshinori’s beaming smile is way too close for comfort. When he catches sight of Touya’s frozen half-grin, he doesn’t falter in his own smile though. If anything, it widens.
“My, if it isn’t this year’s winner and runners’ up for our Best Halloween Costume!” Toshinori declares in a booming voice. If Touya hadn’t ducked in time, he would have been swept into a rib-crushing hug — like his stupid bondmate is currently suffering in. “Once again, congratulations on your well-deserved prizes! Now, what can I do for you gentlemen?”
Touya almost snorts aloud when Keigo stumbles from Toshinori’s hug with a funny little wheeze, but schools his face into bland neutrality. Just as Toshinori’s eyebrows begin creeping up his forehead, Touya sighs and mutters, “Trick or treat.”
Toshinori blinks. “Beg your pardon, my dashing zombie?”
Touya almost flings the bag of candy into Toshinori’s face for that, because he’s nobody’s dashing zombie and the mayor got his entire species wrong, but he manages to keep from physical violence and grit out, “Trick or treat, mayor.”
There’s a moment when Touya thinks he’ll have to repeat himself again, but then Toshinori practically blinds Touya with his answering grin. “What youthful visitors!” the godawful man shouts far too loudly. “Of course you may have a treat. Perhaps, if you would like to stay a little longer, we can even arrange for some lodgings — it has been so long since I’ve met such amiable visitors as the two of you.”
Touya blanches at the mayor’s sudden decision to adopt them, but a quick glance reveals Keigo to be of no use — the stupid bird’s too busy smirking back at him and mouthing youthful visitors, like Touya isn’t a badly-stapled collection of rotting skin housing a malevolent, man-eating spirit. Clearly, as the saner of the two, it’s up to him to refuse this crazy mayor’s less-than-subtle invitation.
Which is why, as Toshinori moves to give him a bulging bag of candy, Touya thrusts his at Toshinori and laughs in an entirely unamused voice, “Just kidding, here’s a treat from us! Now, if you’ll excuse Hawks and I, we really must be going from your lovely town.”
Touya has Keigo by the collar and is halfway down Toshinori’s front lawn when the mayor drops both bags of candy, pelts down the stairs and yells, “But you haven’t stayed for our annual bonfire tales! And you simply must meet Yamada, his Halloween songs will send chills down your spine!”
“You send chills down my spine!” Touya yells back, glaring at Keigo when he doubles over with laughter. “All right, Hawks, I completed your stupid request. Now for the love of everything undead, can we please get the hell out of here?”
“Gentlemen! Please, let us not be so hasty!”
Keigo’s still laughing when he unfurls his wings, but Touya is hard-pressed to care about his bird’s mockery when wiry arms wind around his waist and they’re launching into the air. As people begin exclaiming at their inhuman feat and the mayor stops in place, jaw sagging open in disbelief, Touya laughs at them and shouts, “Happy Halloween, humans! You’d better enjoy yourselves while you can, because it might be your last!”
It’ll make things complicated when they return home, where humans don’t adopt monsters on sight but might get told about the very inhuman beings who stumbled upon one weird town’s Halloween festivities, but that’s a concern for a future Touya.
For now, with Keigo’s arms steady around him and the night breeze refreshing and chilly against his face, Touya leans back into Keigo’s embrace and shouts, “The next time you wake me up from my slumber for a human festival, I’m going to turn you into your favourite chicken drumsticks!”
And that, thankfully, was the last Touya ever had to experience of Halloween — beyond stupid teenagers stumbling into his neck of the woods as an unexpected but well-timed home delivery, but that’s a story for another day.