My contribution to the Halloween @vldexchange !
Ended up being more of a drabble than anything else but this is for you, @witchly-doodletime ! (Keith and Shiro visit a haunted house) I hope you like it. :)
Keith frowned, staring up at the dilapidated-looking building before them. His gaze was critical and at once, Shiro’s stomach tied itself into a knot.
Upon hearing that Keith had never been to a “haunted house,” Shiro had immediately begun a frantic online search for Halloween events nearby, filtering by best rated and meticulously combing through the reviews until it was almost too late to book. By that time, all the good events were just about full and it took an embarrassing amount of begging, culminating in an offer to do all his roommate’s dishes for a month that he was finally able to convince Matt to let him have the tickets he had ordered for him and his sister Pidge at the “Murder House.”
“If you don’t get together by the end of the night, I swear,” Pidge hissed, punching him a little harder than necessary on the shoulder, her eyes narrowed, “I swear I will personally end you both.”
Shiro had laughed nervously, rubbing his non-prosthetic arm (Pidge may have tiny fists but that girl hit hard) and promising that he would make her proud but now that he saw Keith surveying the building’s facade with narrowed eyes, he found himself rapidly losing what little confidence he had to begin with.
“So, what do you think?” he asked, trying to keep the uncertainty out of his voice.
Keith shrugged, stuffing his hands in his jeans pockets and looking at Shiro curiously.
“What do you think?” he returned, a hint of a smirk tugging at his lip.
Shiro really didn’t want to answer that. At first glance, it looked pretty standard. Two-story cardboard facade hiding a one-story house, the wooden shutters painted black and gray and green to make them look old and moldy, windows completely blacked out except for where electronic green and yellow eyes blinked out into the night. Well-manicured lawn decked out with foamy-looking grave stones and grubby-looking rubber hands sprouting from the grass, complete with a hidden a fog machine rolling out the creepy atmosphere. A set of speakers played a recording of undead-sounding moans and groans, occasionally inaudible over the sounds of actual screams from event-goers who had entered the building and were clearly having a good time. The overall effect was well-done but somewhat campy. Right up the Holt siblings’ alley but maybe not Keith’s. Shiro swallowed nervously.
He was saved the trouble of answering by the front door creaking open and a tall red-headed man with a well-trimmed mustache calling out, “Next!”
“So, we just go in and try not to get scared?” Keith asked, sounding slightly confused. He prodded at a fake spider and grimaced as the cobweb got caught on his glove.
“Actually, you’re supposed to get scared,” Shiro explained, trying to keep the stupid grin off his face as he thought about how adorable Keith looked when he tilted his head to the side like that, the way his eyes got all big when he processed Shiro’s words.
“That’s the whole point of a haunted house. You go in, walk through a scary-looking building with your friends while a bunch of people in masks jump out and try to make you scream. It’s—it’s fun.”
Keith didn’t look convinced.
“Then why didn’t you want Lance and Hunk and Pidge along? Or even Matt?” he asked. “I thought he was your best friend?”
“Well,” Shiro stammered, “You’re my friend too and you’ve never been to one before so I just really wanted to make sure you had a good time.”
Keith didn’t seem the type to get scared easily but Shiro couldn’t help hoping Keith might cling to him if something did manage to frighten him. Given how long he’d had a crush on the man, he’d settle even for a hand hold at this point. Which reminded him…
He cleared his throat and held out his prosthetic.
“If you get scared, you can hold my hand.”
Keith stared at his hand, warily, and Shiro suddenly understood why so many on their college campus compared the young man to a feral cat.
“I’ll be fine,” Keith replied, brushing past him with barely a backwards glance. “Come on, I think they’re waiting for us.”
“Ah, just the two of you eh?” the man asked, checking their names off his box. He smiled brightly, revealing rows of fake, pointed teeth. “Welcome to the Murder House. I’m Coran I’ll be locking you in this evening. I hope you don’t have heart conditions or epilepsy—plenty of flashing lights coming up at the end. Just follow the trail of blood and you’ll make your way to the exit.”
“We’ll be okay,” Shiro assured him.
“Right then, if you and your boyfriend will step this way–”
“Oh, uh, we’re not—” he sputtered, waving his hands in the air, his face beet-red. He turned to check on Keith, praying he wasn’t offended. Luckily, Keith looked oddly unbothered and had walked off to his right to stare at the peeling wallpaper in the parlor. Perhaps he hadn’t heard.
“Not to worry,” Coran said, winking conspiratorially at him, “We’ll have him clinging to you by the end of the night. A little birdy told me it was his first time at this sort of thing.”
“Pidge told you–?!” Shiro squawked but Coran had already closed the door as he left.
At once, the lights in the parlor went out, accompanied by an eerie laugh and he jumped as a hand descended on his shoulder. He whirled to see Keith looking at him with concern in his dark blue eyes.
“Yeah, fine,” Shiro lied. Given how quickly his heart was beating right now at having Keith’s face so close to his, staring at him so intently in the dark, his body was sure to give out by the end of the night. “Shall we get going?”
“Sure. Follow the bloodstains, right?”
As one, they looked to the floor, where a trail of red splatters led them into the darkened hallway. Overhead, a dimly lit bulb flickered as they passed, bathing the hallway in a sickly pale green. The walls were covered in the same peeling old wallpaper as the foyer and as they passed a broken mirror, Shiro had to fight the twitch that moved him just an inch closer to Keith when he saw his own reflection, the shock of white hair in front of his eyes multiplied in the broken glass.
“For a second, I thought that was someone coming out to scare us–”
He was pushed roughly out of the way as a large figure brandishing a knife came surging out of a hidden doorway. Before Shiro could react, Keith had raced to get in front of Shiro, assumed a fighting stance and delivered a quick punch to their “attacker’s” stomach. Shiro’s mouth dropped open.
The man staggered, dropping his knife as he doubled over, which bent oddly as it hit the ground. The knife had been made of rubber. He pulled off his mask and glared at Keith through watering eyes.
“What the hell, man? That really hurt!”
“Keith, what was that for?” Shiro exclaimed, grasping his companion by the wrist and turning him so they were face to face.
“Shiro!” Keith exclaimed. He wrenched his hand out of Shiro’s grasp and put both hands on Shiro’s face, running his fingers over Shiro’s forehead, through Shiro’s hair, checking him for lumps and bumps, his wide eyes searching Shiro’s body for injuries. “Are you hurt, are you okay?”
“I’m fine, Keith! Why did you punch him?”
“Wha–?” Keith was looking more confused by the second. “What are you talking about? I thought he was going to hurt you. You’re sure you’re okay?”
Shiro might have laughed if he wasn’t worried about an upcoming lawsuit.
“Keith, I’m fine! He was just coming to scare us—that’s the point of a haunted house. Nobody actually gets hurt here.”
As the lights came on and footsteps raced towards them, shouts of “oh my God!” filling the air as the other performers came out of hiding to help their companion to his feet, Shiro saw the light slowly dawning in Keith’s eyes as his face grew pinker and pinker. Suddenly realizing he still had his hands on Shiro’s face, he let go as if burned and turned his attention to the crowd that had formed in the hallway.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispered, looking horrified. “Are you okay?”
“Not the first time I’ve been punched,” the man admitted, wincing, “But you’ve probably hit me harder than anyone ever has. You must really love this guy.”
Now it was Keith’s turn to sputter incoherently. Shiro thought he might faint. A hand descended upon his shoulder again but this time it was Coran, now looking stern instead of jovial and his mustache twitched as he declared, “I think I’m gonna have to ask the two of you to leave.”
Embarrassed and apologizing profusely, they turned back towards the front door, as a pair of large security guards in black uniforms marched them out. Shiro was so caught up in his own thoughts that he barely noticed when a smaller hand clad in a fingerless black glove reached for his and he took it without a word.
“Sorry, Shiro,” Keith mumbled as they walked out into the chill of the late October evening. He was chewing his lip and looking at his feet. “I think my body just reacted instinctively… I just don’t like to think about you getting hurt. You mean a lot to me, you know…”
He gripped Shiro’s hand tightly and looked up at him, his soul laid bare in those beautiful dark eyes. His lip, worried raw, quivered just a fraction.
“For what it’s worth, I did have fun. So… Please don’t be mad.”
Not knowing how else to respond, Shiro just pulled him in for a kiss.