October 31st, 1989, 15:03, Heathrow Airport, United Kingdom

The airplane touched down gently on the tarmac, some of its passengers cheering and clapping. To Kurusu Shuutaro, the descent felt harsher than to the others, due to his heightened senses, and the clapping and cheering made him nervous. Was it really a thing to cheer about? Was this airline known as bad?

Having been dragged around to the rare nighttime or evening airshows and the like by Takeuchi, alongside Suwa and Yatsufusa, he’d seen a lot about the advancements of airtravel, but after his first time flying back to save Aoi, he hadn’t really liked the constriction of commercial airplanes. He’d helped Takeuchi improve his wings countless times, and now that big planes that could hold many people at once existed, he felt boxed in. He became hypervigilant, and his extraordinary senses were working overtime. He avoided flying as much as possible these days, but Takeuchi swore that the more it evolved, the less scary he would find it. He was sure that Takeuchi was right, but that didn’t make him less anxious either way.

This time, the reason he was travelling in one in the first place, was to visit said vampire and his partner, as he and Suwa had moved to England just about a year ago.

He made his way through the airport, looking around. He’d only been to the UK two times before; the first time to London itself, the second time he’d been to Wales, and he had found the country’s proclensity for cloudy weather favourable to the existence of vampires. This was, he knew, one of the reasons that Suwa and Takeuchi had decided to move there, though he knew it was a much smaller draw than the many prestigious universities and fantastic libraries they had to offer, and the size of options for theatre and movies.

He boarded the underground, starting the trip northeast. The two older vampires lived in a small suburban town about a 20 minutes car ride from Colchester, close to the coast. He’d never been there before, otherwise it would have been much faster just to run, but first he had to figure out how to even get there. He was both happy and relieved that Suwa had been right about the weather. The sun hadn’t yet quite set above ground, but it was completely hidden behind thick clouds, leaving the outside world safe, even if he hadn’t been wearing layers of Takeuchi’s ever-improving sunscreen.

16:58

Shoes hit the pavement as Shuutaro stepped off the bus. He heard the sound of its doors closing, the vehicle taking off. He was the only one to have gotten off, but there were people out and about the little town as he unfolded the map in his pocket. Following the directions, he finally came upon rows of townhouses, squashed together in a line. The pro to this apartment, he’d been told, was that there weren’t as many windows, thanks to it being connected to houses on either side, removing the risk for sunlight from two sides. Strategically, the vampires had chosen a house where the sun rose against one such side, and set against the other.

It was pitch black in the sky by the time he came to the tiny front yard of Suwa and Takeuchi’s house, and just as he’d been told by Takeuchi, he could immedeately tell which was theirs.

Halloween as it was now hadn’t existed for very long in the UK, and hadn’t really touched the Japanese isles yet, so he hadn’t experienced it first hand yet. Theirs wasn’t the only house decorated for the evening, but there were certain elements to the decorations of the house in front of him that was obviously the work of Takeuchi.

He rang the doorbell, shuddering when it let out a strange groaning, hopefully something they only had for the evening rather than their usual bell. Looking to the side as he waited, he met the stare of something unidentifiable next to him, making him shriek just as the door opened. He heard the sound of Takeuchi’s laugh, and when he looked over at the shorter man, he had to cover his mouth to keep from gasping, reminding himself that surely, Takeuchi was just wearing a costume, and hadn’t aquired a whole lot of scars and… screws through his throat and forehead, in the short years that had passed since he last saw him? And there was no good reason that he would be slightly green to the skin unless it was makeup. He’d spent enough time with Defrott to know just a little bit about the existance of special effects makeup.

Takeuchi’s grin was facesplittingly wide, made to seem even more sinister with the stitches going from each corner of his mouth across his cheeks and onwards. He was wearing a European wedding gown splattered in oil and other substances looking familiar to what he’d seen Takeuchi use for his experiments, though they smelled less dangerous. On a night like this, he wasn’t wearing his eyepatch, but he was wearing creepylooking contact lenses that made his entire eyes look white.

“Kurusu-san! Welcome, I’m so happy to see you again!” He pulled Shuutaro in for a tight hug, and the younger vampire could feel the warmth from inside carrying over from Takeuchi’s body to his own. Before the former military man could do more than open his mouth to speak, he’d been grabbed by the wrist and pulled inside, Takeuchi closing the door behind them. 

“I’m happy to see you too, Takeuchi-san,” he managed, as he took off his shoes and lined them up neatly on the shoe rack. “You look very, um…”

“Spooky?”

Shuutaro looked further into the house, where Suwa was wearing a skirt that went down mid-calf and a blouse along with what was most definitely one of Takeuchi’s lab coats and aprons, also stained by the same liquids as Takeuchi’s dress.

A flush spread across Shuutaro’s cheeks at the teasing grin on Suwa’s face. They all knew that if it was one person out of the three of them who couldn’t handle horror in media, it was him. Funny, really, considering all the true horrors he’d faced in life.

Takeuchi was laughing again, and pressed a quick kiss to Suwa’s cheek as he passed him by, the long skirts swishing as he went into the room where Suwa had come from. Shuutaro followed both the other vampires into what turned out to be the kitchen.

“You’re just in time,” Takeuchi told him, picking up a large bowl full of various candy, all most likely inedible for vampires. “The neighbourhood starts trick or treating officially at 5.30, so you have just enough time to get dressed up while I prepare the hallway.”

“Um, I didn’t bring anything to dress up in though…?”

“That’s fine, we weren’t expecting you to.” Suwa straightened up from where he had been leaning against the doorframe, and at the amused look given, Shuutaro knew to follow him up the stairs. It was clearly a workroom for Takeuchi, with a nook with an extra coffin to nap in, or for Suwa to just lounge in while keeping Takeuchi company, but what they were there for was a hanger in the closet (as the room had obviously been supposed to be an extra bedroom originally), tossed into his hands by the whitehaired vampire.

“You’re my assistant,” he instructed, before heading back out the room. “Put that on and come downstairs.”

Shuutaro blinked at the clothing in his hands. He wasn’t surprised that Takeuchi knew his measurements, the man did know how to sew and had made him several items over the years, but he hadn’t expected to be set up with a full outfit when he came here. He stripped out of his comfy and soft travel clothes, pulling his costume on. He looked himself over in the mirror in the little upstairs hallway. He certainly looked like someone he could imagine working alongside Takeuchi, with the trousers and shirt underneath the apron and the durable gloves. His outfit too had the grime he’d seen on his friends outfits, and he warily sniffed it. It didn’t really smell much of anything? He was surprised it didn’t smell like natto, considering it was such a commonly used ingredient when working with Takeuchi.

17:20

Wandering downstairs, he stopped just at the bottom. “What are you doing?” he aksed, furrowing his brow. In front of the door was clearly a coffin, though it had some sort of machinery underneath it, as well as a decorated inside with… cobweb? He had arrived just in time to watch Suwa help Takeuchi inside of it without disrupting the decorations.

Takeuchi and Suwa looked up, the former almost tripping as his food slid a little, before getting steadied by his partner. “Oh! Remember the movie Bride of Frankenstein we saw in ‘35?”

Shuutaro vaguely remembered being very scared and hiding behind his hands a large chunk of the movie, but nodded at the reminder. He did remember surprisingly much about it. “Aaah, okay, I see.” It clicked into place what their costumes were inspired by, now. It wasn't quite the same, it was more of a loose inspiration, but it did make him think about the movie. “But why do you need a coffin? Aren’t the kids just going to get candy after knocking on the door and then leave?”

“We were in USA a couple of years ago during Halloween, saw some pretty interesting things that had machines and acting in it.” Suwa answered as he helped Takeuchi lie down on his back inside the coffin. With Takeuchi’s love of creation and Suwa’s love of the theatre, that did make sense.

“I’d never considered seeing either of you act before,” he admitted, helping with adjusting the fake cobweb so that Takeuchi was sorted and looking just like he’d been lying there for quite some time. Suwa handed Takeuchi the candy bowl that had been waiting for them on the floor by his feet before flipping a little switch on the side of the coffin. Electricity buzzed and made hidden wires underneath the cobweb look like the light was dancing, giving the impression of an electric shock typical in some of the foreign comics and cartoons they’d seen during their travels. 

Shuutaro let out a little wow, brushing his finger hesitantly against it at the urging of Takeuchi. “It doesn’t hurt. Did you build this, Takeuchi-san?” The man inside the coffin smiled brightly, nodding vigorously. He was just about to open his mouth and tell him all about it when the doorbell rang.

The door slowly opened all on its own, though Shuutaro’s sharp eyes spotted a hidden mechanism attached to the buzzer of the doorbell. The coffin started to move along with it, slowly raising until it was upright.

He watched in curiosity from the sideline, mouth hanging slightly open as he stared at the show.

Suwa was posted next to the coffin, having picked up a staff that was also dancing with electricity, raised over his head. “My beloved has risen again on this hallowed night!” he said, in dramatics Shuutaro had never seen from him before. Glancing at the front door, he saw two kids and an adult outside, one of the kids, a two year old at most, was looking a little scared in their ET costume, but the one that was maybe five or six looked absolutely in awe, eyes round, smile wide and open, the witches costume bobbing with her movements. “They’ve come to celebrate, my love.”

That’s when Takeuchi opened his eyes, and they were glowing. How, Shuutaro had no idea, but the girl outside looked to be excited about it. “Hello children,” Takeuchi said, voice soft, but still with that hint of insanity that so often crept into it. “Please, celebrate with us.”

He held out the bowl of candy that he’d made sure stayed upright while the coffin was being lifted. The older kid happily yelled ‘happy halloween!’ as she grabbed some of the candy. The toddler, possibly on its first trick or treating trip in its short life, was propped up on the parents hip in a fake bicycle basket, sucking its thumb, looking between Takeuchi, Suwa and their parent, dressed as Elliott from the ET movie. The parent stepped closer to Takeuchi, smiling at the vampires as they picked up a orange fruit cup with a pumpkin face painted on the plastic lid. “What do we say, Heather?” they asked their daughter. “Thank you!” the kid giggled, bouncing up and down on the spot. “I like your dress, mrs Frankenstein,” she followed up, pointing at the wedding gown.

“Thank you, little witch, yours is very cute too,” Takeuchi replied, making the girl giggle even more. The parent smiled as their daughter pulled their hand in excitement, ‘papa, papa, next year I wanna be Frankenstein too!” The parent bent down to scoop their second child up as well, the older child helping the younger wave good bye. Suwa, Takeuchi, and Shuutaro too when the older child looked at him as well, waved back as the door slowly started closing when the family stepped left the stoop

The coffin lowered down after the door closed, and Shuutaro couldn’t help but give the two a little applause. He could just barely make out the awkward blush on Suwa’s cheeks. Takeuchi looked really happy where he laid. “It went so well! They were a bit early so we didn’t get to brief you on the plan, but that’s okay, we can do that now.”

Suwa nodded, pointing toward the side of the coffin Shuutaro was on. “In case any kids have allergies or there’s stuff they can’t eat, we’ve got more options there. Your job is to make people know about that.”

“Oh, okay! I can do that!”

He was an absolutely terrible actor, so he was glad they weren’t giving him any lines, but this, this he could do.

20:07

The evening passed by quicker than he would have expected. There were a lot of kids coming and going, and most people seemed to enjoy their theatrics. There were a few adults and a couple teenagers who seemed like they were just there out of obligation, or didn’t seem to expect dresses to be worn by men, but no one made a hassle of it on a night like halloween, though as vampires, clothes really didn’t have a gender. Humanity would get there eventually, Takeuchi theorised, as humanity was becoming more open minded.

By the time they helped Takeuchi out of the coffin, there was somehow still a lot of candy left. They were donating the unopened bags of candy and treats to an orphanage Takeuchi had been teaching at, Suwa told him as they unplugged the coffin and unscrewed the lightbulbs hidden inside. It was a way to try and include some of those who couldn’t otherwise join. “We’re going as soon as I take my contacts out,” Takeuchi called from the bathroom.

“Speaking of,” Shuutaro started, peering at the pinkhaired man, though he quickly looked away. Watching Takeuchi stick his fingers in his own eyes made him a little queasy. “How did you get your eyes to glow?”

“UV light, weak enough that it doesn’t hurt us, but to make certain items glow a little bit. My eyes just feel a little sore from the contacts intensifying the rays, but it doesn’t actually damage my retinas.” He showed off the white little piece of material. “I researched contact lenses for a little while, since I’ve heard of the possibility of surgically inserting them into someone’s eye to correct their vision in the future. It’s extremely fascinating, I’ll tell you about it while we get there.”

The look on Takeuchi’s face made it hard to say no. It was similar to the look on the first little girl’s face at seeing their performance. Shuutaro caught Suwa’s smug look in the mirror. He knew Suwa liked that look on Takeuchi’s face too, had seen him listen to the scientist ramble with a fond look in his eyes while he lounged nearby.

“Sure,” he agreed. It had been almost a decade since they last met face to face, and it was still expensive to make oversea calls, so conversations weren’t quite as long as they could be.

20:18

Suwa and Takeuchi had borrowed a small car from a friend Takeuchi had made at the local library. Normally they wouldn’t need one, but the kids at the orphanage knew they would be coming, so it was far less suspicious to show up the human way.

Well inside the car, Suwa had opted to drive, knowing full well that Takeuchi would be distracted by telling Shuutaro all about his research in glasses, contact lenses and visual impairment. He was a good driver, taught by Takeuchi, who had, of course, taught himself. Shuutaro had been taught how to drive by the military, nut had become a more careful driver than ever before after becoming a vampire. They all knew the importance of keeping out of trouble, the more the world advanced. It was becoming more and more troublesome to go through the process of creating a fake identity, what with video cameras and scanners, but so far they had managed well. Takeuchi and Tenmaya had made sure to build an extensive network to help vampires live as normal a life as possible, making contact with similar enterprises across the continents.

Once they reached the orphanage, Shuutaro’s head was swimming with information. He was glad that Takeuchi didn’t expect him to retain all of it, though he did always do his best to follow.

The car came to a stop on a little parking lot, and they stepped outside, still dressed in their costumes (minus Takeuchi’s contact lenses). Picking the bags of treats out of the trunk, they made their way to the main entrance. Takeuchi knocked on the door, and soon a smattering of feet could be heard.

The door was thrown open, and the three vampires were face to face with about seven children. They weren’t as dressed up as the kids that had come to their door, but they had done what their situation and imagination allowed. There were a lot of ghosts, which had honestly become one of Shuutaro’s favourites throughout the evening. It was always endearing watching kids pretend to be floating even as you could clearly see their little legs.

“Trick or treat!” the children’s voices yelled. Shuutaro kept himself from flinching at the loudness of the sound, but once the initial greeting was over, their voices were at a more manageable level, though still loud. He couldn’t blame them; they were excited.

All of the kids already knew Takeuchi, and several of them seemed to have met Suwa before as well. Some of them greeted Shuutaro just as enthusiastically as they did Takeuchi, with hugs and a lot of talking, while some were a bit more shy. One boy who was seemed to be four years old silently raised his arms. “Dakko”, he said. The child smiled at him as Shuutaro happily picked him up. “Did Takeuchi-san teach you that?” he asked, and the child nodded. He was clearly sleepy, but didn’t want to miss out on the festivities, as he soon fell asleep on his shoulder, sucking on his thumb and drooling on his shirt.

He followed everyone into a big playroom, where the children were playing and dividing up candy. One of the staff members had taken some of the candy to put away for later, but there was still enough to satisfy every child. 

A lot of other children were also dozing off, several of them demanding or politely asking Takeuchi to tuck them in. It was fun watching Suwa and Takeuchi interact with all the children. They really had an affinity to taking care of them.

He watched Takeuchi cme over to him with a child on one arm, a second one trailing behind him, sleepily gripping the train of his dress. Takeuchi handed Shuutaro another fruit cup, though this one was purple, and had a fish drawn on it. “It’s the only one he eats. Why don’t you come upstairs and I’ll show you where his bed is?”

November 1st, 01:39

By the time they got back to Takeuchi and Suwa’s house, it was late into the night. The street was mostly silent, aside from a few teens who were sneaking out to go to a party or two. Though to three vampires, the night was still young as the morning was to a human.

Shuutaro looked through some of the pictures taken with an instant camera Takeuchi had gotten. Most of the pictures had been kept by the children, but there were a few they had kept. He looked at a picture one of the older children had taken of him with the little boy sleeping on his shoulder. He had been completely unaware of being photographed until the flash went off.

Takeuchi, coming out of the bathroom, freshly showered and clean of makeup (and extra scars and screws), put a hand on his shoulder. “Keep it,” he said, smile on his face gentle as he met Shuutaro’s eyes.

Embarrassed, Shuutaro shuffled around the pictures. It was like Takeuchi knew what he was thinking as he looked on the pictures.

Takeuchi sat down next to him, dressed in a bright pink flannel pajamas with green edges. It clashed worse with his soft pink hair than the shirt he used to wear back when they first met. “A lot of vampires go through phases that we could’ve had if we hadn’t become vampires. Children is one of them; not all vampires want to become parents, but when you live life for so long you get a lot of time to think about it.”

“I never really thought about it, back when I was human. I mean, I guess I did plan on having kids, but back then I thought I had all the time in the world, you know?” It was the first time he admitted it out loud. He was still a really young vampire, though being in ones 80s had sounded older when it had been Takeuchi, back in the 20s.

Takeuchi hummed in understanding. They sat there, looking through the pictures until Takeuchi picked them out of his hands, only to give the one he had looked at back to him. “We’ve all mourned experiences we won’t have. Even if they’re sad, it’s good to have them. Even if you can’t have the same type of family as you might’ve once planned, you can still build a better life for those around you.”

“Takeuchi-san, did you… want to have children, once?”

“I did. But I’m fine with not having any, before turning. I saw how it hurt Yamagami-san to not be able to meet with his son again. It’s a complicated situation.”

Shuutaro nodded, not knowing what else to say. Luckily they were interrupted by Suwa stepping into the kitchen, who undoubtedly had heard every word they said, even while in the bath. “We made bloodpudding earlier, before you came,” he informed as he walked over to the fridge, towel slung over his shoulders, hair still dripping.

Takeuchi tutted at him, making grabby-hands at his partner. “I keep telling you to dry your hair properly.”

“We can’t catch colds, you know,” Suwa protested, though he easily pulled a chair out to sit next to where there other two were sitting on the kitchen couch, a slight smile tilting the corner of his lips upwards.

“Mmhm, but you can make little wet spots everywhere, making others slip.”

“Only because you’re not looking where you’re going.”

Shuutaro watched the two lovingly banter with each other, head propped up on his hand. He missed being around them, watching the easy way they interacted.

“So,” Takeuchi stood up, shuffling past Suwa (whom Shuutarou caught trying not to ogle the pink haired man). “Let’s have that bloodpudding, shall we?”

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