It’s Halloween, a holiday Sehun looks forward to as well as dreads. He loves the candy but hates the excessive villainization and romanticizing of his culture.

Sehun is a vampire. Part-vampire, at least, on his mother’s side. A fascination and craving for blood is natural and normal. A recurring fantasy of peeling back his best friend’s flesh and picking out the arteries and veins is perfectly understandable; it’s just a part of the prey drive passed down through the generations. Jongin is warm and fun and probably tastes really great.

Not that Sehun would ever actually take his blood.

Without his full consent.

Because he seriously does smell delicious. One time they were riding bikes together, and Jongin wiped out, trying to avoid a squirrel that ran onto the sidewalk and just stopped. To not hit Sehun, Jongin swerved to the other side, rode up the bit of grassy hill, and skidded down sideways. Somehow, his leg passed through the bars, and he scraped his skin raw.

Sehun blamed the bit of drool at the corner of his mouth on panic.

Every little cut, scrape, and even hangnail releases such an aroma that Sehun feels like a monk whose beliefs are being tested. He remains zen, however, and dutifully points out bandages, unwilling to help or let the image of Jongin on his sore finger or even his arm go any further.

Crushing on his best friend is awkward enough without the added bloodlust. Jongin didn’t even believe him when he admitted his heritage, but Sehun still doesn’t advertise it and lives as an average human with weird dietary and health restrictions that he’s teased for but accepted.

This year, he’s decided to go classic and embrace the aesthetic of Count Dracula. His best-friend-since-forever and crush-since-junior-high, Jongin, asks him to go along as his nephew trick-or-treats. They have a unique couple costume: a shark and its victim.

Sehun fully expected a lot of fake blood and board shorts, but when Jongin opens the door that afternoon, Sehun’s brain short-circuits and does a hard reset. “Dude...is that safe to wear around a little kid?”

Jongin looks at himself. “What’s wrong with it?” Sehun chokes. He can see Jongin’s left when he picks at the tattered shirt with a critical frown. “The blood is fake; he knows it is. It’s fine.”

That’s not the issue. Sehun had watched Jongin mix up the homemade blood using corn starch and water. He was the one to add the food coloring, aiming for the perfect blood red. As a vampire, he knows what good blood looks like and wishes there was a way to make it smell better, too. It’s supposedly edible but probably tastes awful. What a waste.

But what’s wrong with wearing board shorts, a shredded shirt exposing his chest and abs, and pretty much nothing else in late October?

Absolutely nothing, in Jongin’s mind. He’s been swimming with his sister’s kids; he’s even bathed with his sister’s kids. Casual near- is no big deal.

Sehun follows him inside, lifting his cloak over the cluster of eager Poodles that dance around his feet. A shriek announces the arrival of Jongin’s nephew, but he goes quiet and shy when he sees Sehun, clinging to Jongin’s leg and peeking out like a rabbit from its burrow.

He’s already in costume—a slightly fuzzy-looking light blue and white outfit with a hood and floppy fins sticking out.

Jongin takes the bodyboard from his nephew and pets his hair. “You gonna say ‘hi,’ Reonie?” The boy nods and bows slightly. Children usually like Sehun, because he’s tall, but some seem to be more sensitive than others and are wary of him.

Raeon is quiet for all of twenty seconds until Sehun draws his cloak up over his face and makes clawing motions with his fingers. “I vant your uncle’s blahd!”

“No!” Raeon giggles. “Uncle Jongin’s blood is mine!”

When his nephew eagerly announced he wanted to be a shark for Halloween, the second thing he said was supposedly, “And Uncle Jongin’s gonna be my victim!”

So Jongin’s a surfer under attack from a tiny, bloodthirsty shark.

It’d be cute, if Sehun was less gay or at least more in control of his hormones.

Why does blood look so good on him, anyway?

“Ugh, I’m dripping…” Jongin wipes at his neck with his thumb and sticks it in his mouth to the syrup off, making a face. “Doesn’t taste very good... Here.” He hands Sehun a plastic baggie of viscous red liquid. “Pour some more on my wound, please.”

His nephew circles around them both, chanting, “More blood! More blood!”

“You’re asking a vampire to put fake blood on a fake wound? I could just make a real one…” He opens his mouth wide over Jongin’s shoulder, but his friend just laughs and whacks his arm.

“As if you would, dude.” Jongin never believed him when he admitted he was part vampire. It’s only a fraction of his heritage, but it’s still there. A taste for blood, flawless appeal like a carnivorous plant, dislike of direct sunlight. The sunlight thing is because he burns easily, though. Looking like a cooked lobster isn’t all that attractive or comfortable.

Pouting a little, Sehun opens a corner of the bag and dribbles blood over the raised prosthetic edges of the wound. He has to wipe a little bit of drool from the corner of his mouth before it runs down his chin.

Blood shouldn’t look so good on anyone, but it’s just the topping on the Halloween treat that is Kim Jongin.

“Are you going to be warm enough?” October is still fall, but it’s quickly creeping into winter. Jongin is a lot like a bear in that he likes his warmth and comfort.

His friend waves a hand dismissively. “It’s just for a little while, and we’ll be inside for the most part. I’ll be fine. Ready, Raeonie?” He offers a hand, and his nephew lifts a flipper to grab Jongin’s fingers. “I don’t know how long he’ll last, honestly. Their class party was earlier today. Raehee could keep him going better than I could, but it’ll be fun.”

Trick-or-treating isn’t Sehun’s idea of fun. Regardless of how cool and collected he looks, he’s shy. Going to strangers and asking for candy is nightmare material. As a young adult, he’s at least seen as aloof and brooding; as a kid, he was picked on by the adults for being quiet and antisocial.

None of that matters to Raeon. Spotting another group of kids, he starts bouncing and pointing them out to Jongin, who gets just as excited and hustles them across the street to follow the group to the English hagwon with pumpkin stickers in the windows, showing they welcome trick-or-treaters.

Sehun follows behind more leisurely.

The little shark does well for himself, always hamming it up with growls and shouts and proudly pointing out his uncle victim.

Raeon declares he wants to go to the last room by himself, so Jongin goes outside with Sehun to wait and keep an eye on him through the window. He shudders with a grunt and laughs. “Why is it already so cold?”

“I asked if you’d be warm enough.”

“I was until I stopped moving.” He vibrates with shivers. Sehun rolls his eyes and lifts his cloak with an arm, draping it over Jongin’s shoulders. He doesn’t comment, moving closer to leech as much heat as he can. “What kind of vampire are you? You’re so hot.” Jongin has to try creeping closer, hugging Sehun’s waist. Any closer, and he’ll be in Sehun’s pants.

Which wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing, in a more ideal setting.

He’s also tucked his face between Sehun’s neck and shoulder. Sehun can practically feel the pulse beating along his neck. It’d be so easy to just wrap his arms around him like so, closing the cloak over them both, and pop his fangs through the makeup and flesh to bring out the hot blood beneath…

“Uncle! Hyung!” Raeon toddles back with a candy bar as long as his arm in either hand. His candy pail hangs from an arm. “I said noona’s sick, ‘n the auntie gave candy for noona, too!”

“That’s great! Did you thank her properly?”

Raeon nods, distracted by his haul. “Uh huh…”

“Let’s go back, so you can share with Mom and your sister, okay?” Jongin takes the pail of candy and his nephew’s flipper with his other hand. Looking at Sehun, he asks, “You up for the Halloween party, still?”

Sehun shrugs. He’d kind of rather not, but there will be a lot of their friends there. A night of costumed characters, booze, and candy. It’s like most of their hangouts, except the outfits aren’t usually included.

Except for Jongin, who has a modest collection of bear-themed sweaters complete with little ears and a tail. And they tease Chanyeol for being a furry...

To be fair, it’s more a literal thing for Chanyeol. At the party, he’s easy to spot among the crowd, and Sehun trails behind Jongin as they weave among the throng. Cartoon characters, drama characters, superheroes, animals, nurses, and more classic horror icons mingle together among fake cobwebs and tombstones, kicking through swirling fog over the floor. Sehun rolls his eyes at the plastic vampire capes and fake teeth.

Chanyeol spots them and smiles broadly, pulling them both into a hug as if they’ve not seen one another in years. He nods approvingly at Jongin’s bloodied body when he brandishes his stuffed shark, but he raises an eyebrow at Sehun’s fancy suit and cloak.

“Dude, isn’t that a little...unoriginal?”

“You’re dressed as a dog, hyung.”

Chanyeol throws his arms out, nearly clotheslining a girl dressed as a Sailor Soldier. He catches her, apologizing, and pulls his arms closer to him sheepishly. “I’m Scooby Doo!” His outfit looks more like pajamas, being a union suit of the talking Great Dane complete with tail, teal collar, and a stuffed hood pulled over his head, making it look like he’s been eaten.

“Somehow, we were roped into a group costume.” Kyungsoo, the only person who could possibly pull off an orange turtleneck sweater and red pants, crosses his arms over his chest. He looks uncomfortable, pushing his glasses up his nose as he looks around the room.

“If we hadn’t, you would’ve been something creepy, like the kid from The Ring, and everyone would’ve had nightmares.” Baekhyun hugs Kyungsoo’s back. He is dressed as Daphne, and Sehun wonders where he found a purple mini dress in his size.

Jongin’s partly bared skin is too great a temptation for him, apparently; he detaches from Kyungsoo to tug the collar of Jongin’s shirt apart at his neck and manages to unfasten three buttons before Kyungsoo shoos him away and rebuttons them.

For his part, Jongin just stands there and accepts the manhandling with laughter, feeling over his buttons with a hand to check they’re attached. He looks over the crowd, waving to some other friends. “Where’s Jongdae hyung?”

“Right here. I had to find Freddie.” Jongin looks over his shoulder, continues his spin, and drops his face into Sehun’s back with snorts of giggles. The shark falls to the floor by his feet, rescued from trampling by Baekhyun.

“You didn’t even have to buy the ascot, did you, hyung?”

Joonmyun pulls his chin into his neck to try and look at the orange ascot, picking at the tails and setting it just so. “I didn’t have one in this color, actually,” he mutters. His shirt is partly opened to reveal his smooth, pale chest, and he somehow found groovy, wide-legged jeans. Somehow, it suits him.

Jongdae just looks comfortable in an olive green T-shirt and khakis. Smacking Chanyeol’s shoulder, he points towards the kitchen. “C’mon, Scoob. Let’s get some snacks.”

After Joonmyun calls for a quick group photo, the duo abscond, and Joonmyun looks both Sehun and Jongin up and down. “Overeager vampire and victim?”

Sehun shrugs. It’s half true.

Jongin dances in place to a catchy Halloween song, stopping abruptly to pat his pockets and look around frantically. “Oh, where’s my shark?” Baekhyun bumps the shark’s soft nose against Jongin’s head. “We went trick-or-treating with my nephew earlier. He was a shark; I was his victim.” He puts the shark’s mouth over Sehun’s arm. “Now I’m Sehun’s.”

Joonmyun frowns. “Were you warm enough?”

“Inside, yeah. I shared his cloak for a while.”

“That would’ve been cute.” Jongdae and Chanyeol reappear with entire bowls of food and bottles of beer they pass around. “A vampire and leech. Blood, heat—he’ll take whatever he can.”

“How is a leech cute?”

“If anyone could manage it, it’d be you, Jonginie.” They all nod in agreement; he hides his face in his shark. Sehun notices the red flush of his ears and takes a drink of beer.

Alcohol at any time with his friends can be dangerous, in that things quickly get out of hand. Jongdae is an enabler; Baekhyun is a lightweight. Chanyeol gets louder; Joonmyun gets friendlier. Jongin, a giggler regardless, giggles even more and louder as well as getting friendlier. He seems to wrap himself around Sehun, trying to get as close as physically possible.

Nothing fazes any of them. Chanyeol’s getting hairier the closer to midnight and more beer he consumes. Baekhyun’s hair turns red from ginger, fading to a pink. Kyungsoo watches over them all, although there’s a blush across his cheeks that Joonmyun and Baekhyun find fascination with.

They find a spot on the floor of the living room, uncaring of the others who walk between them and over them, although Jongin tries to make room for a couple girls to pass and rips his shirt more, moving while his hand unknowingly holds the shirt to the floor. It’s more rags than a shirt, now, and when he scoots back to his spot beside Sehun, he thinks he can feel his friend’s body heat.

Sehun takes off his waistcoat and gives it to Jongin, just so he’s not completely shirtless. It doesn’t match his shorts by any stretch of the imagination, but Jongin still accepts it gratefully.

A heated game of horror movie trivia erupts from the kitchen, criticism and praise twisting together in a debate that overwhelms the game itself. Spoons are passed out to a pair of Jokers; they carry candy corn from one bowl to another and are timed. Jongdae plucks an apple from a large bucket of water and shakes the water from his face and hair over Baekhyun.

Someone dumps a bag of candy out in the middle of their circle, shoving the empty plastic into the backpack of his costume. He salutes and rips open another bag, meandering to another cluster of people at a table and covering it with candy.

Midnight strikes with a howl Chanyeol answers enthusiastically. “Happy Hallowmas!” He falls over himself, trying to get to his feet, so he crawls to each of his friends to deliver a kiss to their cheeks. Kyungsoo has to be held fast just blushes; Joonmyun echos the kiss with one of his own on Kyungsoo’s other cheek.

Kisses are traditionally a new year’s thing. No one cares. Chanyeol’s just affectionate. Openly and bravely.

A quality Sehun envies. It takes him a while to be comfortable with anyone, but then when he is, he’s awkward again with a crush. Jongin’s chatting happily about whatever nonsense they’ll not recall after their hangovers pass. He leans so heavily against Sehun that a normal human would have fallen over already.

He’s in his own thoughts and doesn’t realize his friend’s moved until Jongin kisses his face, just before his ear, and lies on his lap. Flashes of strobe light highlight his nearly bare chest, throwing weird shadows.

“Hallowmas,” he states, as if that explains it.

“You don’t even know what that is.”

Jongin shakes his head, rolling it back and forth over Sehun’s thigh, and giggles into his hands. Baekhyun’s adopted his shark as a pillow and sleeps with an unwrapped er still in his hand and a beer bottle in the crook of his elbow.

“Do I really need an excuse, though?” His eyes are clearer than they had been, or maybe they were never clouded by booze in the first place.

Sehun shakes his head. He unwraps a candy just for something to do and holds it to Jongin’s mouth. He opens a tiny package of candy for himself.

It’s the day after Halloween. More has happened in a night than his whole life, and his heart beats with the thumping bass of the music.

---

a/n: Written for Project 94's amnesty/adoption round. (prompt no.R2030 Sehun asks his best friend to go trick or treating with him and his nephew. He doesn't know what to do when Jongin shows up wearing a y costume.)

Hallowmas is All Saint's Day, November 1st. I've never actually seen it celebrated, but it's very similar to All Soul's Day/Day of the Dead, except it focuses on church saints.