always had that heart of mine

halloween

Senior year continues on.

They make it 'official' on October 9th. They get a bunch of congratulations, but mostly they hear, "it's about time."

The days grow shorter and nights become longer.

Tyler is always complaining about the cold, but Josh is like a furnace for some reason, always warm and always radiating heat. Tyler uses this as an excuse to cuddle up to his side constantly.

Tyler has always enjoyed Halloween, although he isn't really one for being spooked. He proves this when they go to a haunted house one night with Josh's sister and some of her friends.

It's Tyler's (and Josh's) first time going to a haunted house, as he's always chickened out. 

While they're waiting in line and he starts hearing screams, Tyler begins to back down. His heart is racing and he really doesn't want to go, but Josh pleads with him and holds his hand so he does it anyway.

Tyler walks with his eyes closed the entire time and his face buried in Josh's shoulder. Josh gets stepped on by one of the workers and they hurry their way through the haunted house as fast as they can.

It wasn't too bad, Tyler admits. 

He could definitely do it again, with Josh by his side of course.

They carve a pumpkin together. They're terrible at it and Tyler complains about how squishy the insides are. Josh eats a few pumpkin seeds and Tyler makes a gagging noise before giggling and accepting a kiss from his boyfriend. He ends up letting Josh finish the pumpkin because he's better at it and has more patience.

Tyler asks Josh what he wants to dress up as for Halloween a week before the day and Josh simply shrugs.

"I've never really done Halloween." Tyler's eyes nearly bulge out of his skull at that.

It's a monstrosity, truly.

Josh tells Tyler about how his parents never let him go out for Halloween or even dress up. Their family would instead go roller skating with other church people. Tyler's parents aren't as strict.

Tyler continues to bug Josh about his costume, although Josh doesn't seem very interested in going trick or treating. He thinks they might be a bit too old, but Tyler insists that they have every reason to go trick or treating because Josh has never been before. 

They have to wrong this right.

So Josh listens to Tyler list out all different ideas, 'ooh'ing and 'ah'ing at a few.

They end up going to Hot Topic a few days before Halloween, where Josh buys the weird Tokyo Ghoul mask with the teeth. Kaneki's mask. His hair is blonde at the moment, and that's close enough to white, isn't it?

Tyler decides at the very last minute, literally, that he wants to dress up as a mermaid. They spend most of the day running around stores looking for different objects so that he can put together a makeshift costume. 

Tyler hot glues shells, fake pearls, seaweed, a fishing net, and even some fake fish to a skin colored shirt. He buys blue spray in color for his hair and Josh sprays it down for him. Tyler paints his face using fishnet to create the illusion of scales and then pops in some whiteout contacts. He let's Josh borrow his Sclera lenses and does a little makeup so that Josh looks.. Ghoulish.

They're slightly terrifying for two tiny boys.

Once they're both happy with their costumes, Tyler's mom insists on taking pictures. Then she drops them off. 

They spend the night walking around the neighboring town, as Tyler knows from personal experience that they can snag some of the best candy from there. Tyler even makes Josh go up to a few doors and say, "trick or treat." It's hilarious and adorable.

They decide it's much too cold to be outside when their lips start to get chapped and it hurts to kiss. Neither of them can see very well because of the contacts, so they end up walking to a little coffee shop. Tyler calls his mom and asks her to pick them up. He buys them both hot coco while they wait. The girl at the cash register looks horrified and tells them that they look very scary. They laugh and say thank you.

Josh had fun. He had a lot of fun.