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"You're a reaper, of course Halloween would be your favorite holiday."
Although Lotus always wore all black, today it felt a little different than normal. "Obviously! It's spooky time, and you know me, I am one spooky bitch!"
"I love you so much, you know that?" Rurik said with the most amused look on his face.
"Good! Because we're foraging after the sun goes down."
"We're doing fuckin' what now???"
Lotus could barely contain their excitement as they flapped their hands and explained, "This evening is Samhain! It's the end of the harvest season, the veil between our world and the afterlife blurs tonight, and many say the souls of the dead come home."
Rurik's confusion settled down, but only slightly. "Okay but what are we doing about that?"
"Collecting hazelnuts and spending time with Mother Earth," Lotus said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
With as much deadpan as he can possibly muster up, Rurik replied, "Of course, the notorious modern Halloween tradition."
Dante looked up from his cup of coffee and said, "I, for one, am fully supportive of this plan."
"Of course you are." Rurik immediately took the opening to bully his partner (just a little).
With both genuine interest and commitment to the bit, Dante stated, "There is bugs. In the outside." He gestured toward a window like that would somehow illustrate his point.
"See, Dante agrees this is a wonderful idea and I am the smartest man (gender-neutral) alive," Lotus said because of course they did. Parentheses out loud and everything. "Also I am going to hex my abusive ex from when I moved away. He has that shit comin'."
And with that sentence alone, Rurik's entire demeanor changed into something mischievous. "Now THAT'S something I can get behind."
Most of the day continued without much else. It was a Saturday, so all three of them were home. Lotus went about their tasks with slightly more enthusiasm than normal, feeding the cat, clearing their desk, making coffee in a black mug with a pentacle on it, repairing a tear in their patch pants, the usual. Dante spent the day working on carving a stamp for block printing, since Lotus taught him how a couple weeks earlier - he was carving, of course, a moth. A Luna Moth specifically. Rurik spent most of the day either with Dante and listening to him infodump, or doing...god knows what.
The evening approached calmly, and Lotus began packing their bag. A cursed tome, a book of shadows, a book of hexes and curses, a couple lighters and candles, a pack of cigarettes...some pumpkin pie flavored Pop-tarts. You know, normal stuff to carry in your satchel. And as soon as the sun fully set, they ran to get their partners, flapping their hands and rocking. "Ok ok, come on, is time to go, we go now!!"
"In all the time I've known you, Lolo, I've never seen you stim this much. You're really excited about this, huh?" Dante looked at them fondly, and he didn't miss the "They're so fucking cute," Rurik muttered under his breath either.
"Well yeah! Halloween is practically a special interest for me. I listen to emo music and wear all black all year-round. This is my whole aesthetic." With a partner's hand in either of their own, Lotus set off down a path to the edge of town.
Rurik wouldn't necessarily call himself a superstitious person. But he knew when to not go into a (probably haunted) mysterious forest: which is any time, ever. Unfortunately for him, his boyfriends both really like weird and unsettling and spooky shit, so he was kinda screwed on the "avoiding getting haunted" front.
On the bright side, Lotus' fluttery sleeves and the way the light illuminated them as they walked ahead of the other two was...making him think some queer thoughts, to say the least. Their fluid and elegant movements made them look exactly like the deity they are - and Rurik was attracted to it like a magnet.
And of course Dante noticed and decided it was bullying time. "Enjoying the view, hm?"
It was like Rurik snapped out of a trance. "What?"
"Oh my stars, you're practically undressing them with your eyes already. They're not gonna let you fuck them in the middle of the woods, you know," Dante teased, with the smuggest look on his face imaginable.
"Wha- no!" A beat of silence, then, "I can't help it, they're so pretty," in the most wet-cat pathetic voice Rurik could possibly have.
"And they're ours."
"And they're ours," Rurik repeated back.
...
"There's a weird amount of cat souls in these woods."
"Lotus, what the fuck are you talking about."