Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It was Halloween night, kids are screaming with joy as they ran down the streets with their big bags full of candy, the houses in the neighborhoods are covered with cobwebs and spiders to give off the eerie atmosphere, fitting for the season. Everyone is in the spirit of Halloween, except for one gentleman who works at the Candy Club, the local candy store in town.

Kevin usually doesn't like this time of year because of two spunky children, always dressed up in a skeleton and pumpkin costumes, every year they stop by the candy store to get their free candy cans that had been given out for free on Halloween, but almost every time they walk through the sugary store, they cause Kevin a lot trouble that he has to deal with. Kevin slumps over the counter with his head in his palm, waiting for this shift to be over. Behind him is his coworker Rick, who was recently hired a few weeks ago, stocking up the containers filled with candy.

"Hey Rick, do you have the time?" Kevin spoked tiredly as he watches the front door for customers. "8:55, why?" Rick replied. "Just hoping I can get my shift done without these annoying kids bothering me." Kevin stood up from being slouched over the counter and turns to Rick. "Do you mean those kids?" He asked as he points at the door. Before Kevin could get a word out, the front door dings as two kids in a skeleton and pumpkin costumes runs over to counter with enjoyment, bouncing up and down by the glass case.

"HI KEVIN!!!" Both of them yelled in unison.
"No no no no! You two need to leave right now!" Kevin shouted with anger as he walks over to small kids. "But we just want our free candy cans." Pump spoke in confusion. "No I'm not going to deal with you guys for another year! Every single year, you two have caused me a lot of trouble! Take your stupid cans and leave me alone, got it?" Both kids are too focused on the cans to understand why Kevin was so angry and both takes the cans from Kevin. "THANK YOU KEVIN!" They spoke in unison again and dashed out the door with their candies.

Kevin sighs with relief and rubs his head. "Do you do this every year?" Rick asked as he walks behind the tired store clerk. "Eh kinda?" He shrugs his shoulders and heads to back to close up shop for the night. "You know there is a haunted house down the street that just opened up. A lot of people says it's scary." Rick says to Kevin as they both clean up the store. "Really, I might check it out after we lock this store up." He chuckles. The two men manages to clean up the shop and made sure everything was in place for the morning. Rick heads out, first to leave while Kevin is the one to lock the doors. Kevin heads to his car and drives to haunted house Rick has mentioned earlier.

A few minutes goes by and Kevin pulls up to a run down house with boarded up windows, broken stairs, and cobwebs so thick that you can't see what's behind them. "Jeez this just looks like an abandoned house, hope Rick didn't send me off to random house." He carefully walks up the stairs to the front door, which has the door falling off its hinges. Before he can walk in, a flash of smoke covers the entrance and a small vampire lunges out of the smoke with a scream to scare whoever dares enter the house, making Kevin trip backwards and fall on the porch.

"AHH! Welcome to the hauntiest of houses gentleman!" The vampire screeched. He spots the gentleman on floor rubbing his back. "Oh shit! Are you hurt sir? Sorry I didn't mean for you to get hurt!" The man breaks out of character and steps out of the house to help Kevin up. "Yeah, just bumped my back a bit." He chuckled. The vampire helps him up to his feet and escorts him into the house. "Follow me sir, we need to take you to the first aid room to get you patched up. Hey Ethan! I need help with an injured person!" The vampire calls out to one of his coworkers. Another vampire walks out from one of the secret apartments stored behind the walls. "Bloody hell Strebs what did you do to him?" The other vampire walks over to help escort both men to the back area. "It was an accident! I spooked him too hard and he fell on his back." All three of them make it to the first aid room and they set Kevin on the bed while Ethan and the other vampire go gather the first aid kit and a water bottle.

"I'm sorry about this, I-I didn't think you would fall back like that!" The worried vampire said as he opens the first aid kit and patch up a small cut on Kevin's back. "It's fine, you was just doing your job. You did scare the hell out of me guess you're good at your job." Kevin said to lighten up the mood. The vampire chuckled at Kevin's response. "I guess you're right! I have only been working here for a couple of weeks and you're the first person that I had got injured while being scared. The name is Streber by the way." He smile at Kevin and hands him a cold water bottle. "Thanks, I'm Kevin." He opens the bottle and takes a few sips out of the bottle. After Streber made sure he's ok, he hops up from the bed and fixes his costume. "Since you're all better Kevin, you can hang out back here for a few minutes or you can take that exit over there to leave, I got to get back to be a spooky vampire!" Streber said with enthusiasm. "You have a nice night Streber." Kevin replied with a chuckle. "You too and come back if you want to get scared again!" He does his typical vampire pose with a maniacal laugh and runs out the room with his cape flowing behind him.

Kevin finishes his water and heads out of the haunted house through the exit Streber told him about. He makes his way back to front where he left his car and saw Streber doing his vampire act he did before on other people. Streber spots him after escorting people into the house and waves at him a silly little goodbye wave. Kevin waves back to him as he steps into his car and drives home. "Maybe I should come back tomorrow, he was nice guy."

Chapter Text

A small little alarm clock goes off, making a quiet jingle once the clock hits it's time. Kevin groans in response of being woken up and rolls over to turn off his phone alarm. He checks the time and sits up in his bed, stretching his arms and back before getting out of bed. It's Kevin's off day so he doesn't have to worry about getting ready for work in the morning. He does his usual morning routine and heads downstairs to eat some breakfast. Kevin is too tired to actually cook something decent so he pulls out a box of cereal in the cabinet and pours that in to a bowl instead. He scrolls through his phone to check what other news has been going as he eats his breakfast.

"I wonder if that haunted house is still open. I wouldn't doubt if it's not since it's not Halloween anymore." He said tiredly. Kevin decides to search the haunted house on the internet to see if he can find the company's website. After a few minutes of searching, he learns that the house is opened for another few days after the day of Halloween. "Huh they are still open. Might has well go back to fully experience it instead of falling on my ass like last night." He cleans up his mess and gets ready to go out to see the haunted house again.

Kevin pulls up to the house and walks up the stairs towards the broken front door. Just like last night, a puff of smoke fills up the doorway and pops out Streber doing his scary vampire routine. "Ahh! Welcome back to the hauntiest of houses Kevin! Are you ready for a round two of being scared?" Streber laughs as he spins around Kevin. "Hope nothing jumps out at me and fall on my back again." Kevin chuckled. "Oh! There will be a lot of things that will come out within the shadows! They might want to eat your brains!" Does a little zombie impression "Possess your body! Or even they want to suck your blood!" Streber narrates as he hisses at Kevin and showing off his fangs. "Ooh I'm so scared." Kevin says sarcastically, trying not to laugh at the poor silly vampire trying to do his job. "Good you should be terrified! Now, follow me to get scared." Streber gestures Kevin in the house with his arm and Kevin follows the small vampire instructions.

Both of them go through the haunted house, Streber making sure Kevin doesn't accidentally hurt himself due to him getting hurt from last night. Streber gives Kevin a tour as a host vampire, showing him who all lives in the mansion. As they make their way through the house, Streber starts to look a bit unwell, but brushes it off as he continues to give the tour. "Uh- are you ok? You don't look so well." Kevin looks at Streber who looks like he's shaking a bit. "It's probably because I'm dead! I always look terrible from the pale skin and the dark circles around my eyes." Streber says in his vampire accent. "Cut the act, you don't look great. I think we need to sit for a bit." Kevin looks around the dark house for a place to sit before the vampire gets any worse. "I know t-there's a room around here somewhere. It's hard to see in this place." Streber spins and around and chuckles.

Both of them manage to find the break room. Streber flops on the sofa, almost tripping over his long cape and Kevin sits down next to him. "Heh sorry. I wanted to finish your tour, but my body thought we had enough for today." He chuckles and reaches for a small fridge next to the couch, opening it to a bunch of different snacks, drinks, and fruits. He grabs a bottle filled with a dark red liquid and a scribbled blood drop wrapped around the bottle. "Is that supposed to be blood?" Kevin questioned as Streber sits up to open the bottle. "Yeah, don't worry. It's just apple juice with red food dye it in. Needed to stay in character when I need to drink it, plus I thought it was cute." He smiled at the bottle and drinks the red apple juice.

"You can get something out of the fridge if you want, it might take me a while before I'm able to function properly." He chuckles, grabbing an orange out of the fridge. "Did you get overheated in there?" Kevin picks up a bag of chips. "Oh, no. I just have hypoglycemia, meaning I have low blood sugar so I always have this fridge filled with snacks and drinks to fix it whenever I feel like it's dropping." Streber explains as messes with some orange peels in his hands, making some origami thing out of the peels. "Oh that would make sense. I thought you got disoriented from the fog and that thick vampire costume." Kevin spoke, cleaning up his trash from the snacks. "Nah surprisingly I'm use to it. It can get hot, but that's rare." Streber sets his peels in the trash and stretches. "I want to keep talking, but I have job to do. Maybe we can hang out sometime? I like your company!" The vampire smiles at Kevin. "Oh yeah maybe we can." Gives him a soft smile back.

Streber grabs a near by napkin and pen, writes something onto it and hands it to the candy clerk. "Let's chat sometime that isn't at work ok?" "Oh alright." The vampire hops up, gives Kevin small quick hug and runs back out to the main area of attraction. Confused by the sudden hug and looks down at the napkin he was given. It was a string of numbers, signed by the word Streb with a bunch of small bats next to the name. "Dork." Kevin says to himself as he happily puts the napkin in his pocket and heads out of the house.

Before Streber can get back to his position, another vampire stops him in the hallway. "Whose that Strebs?" The taller vampire asked. "Oh just a friend I made!" He replied, swaying his arms back and forth happily. "Possibly a boyfriend?" He smirks at him, trying to tease him. Streber gets red in the face. "N-NO! He's just a friend!" A bit flustered, that man might have a slight crush on any cute guy he meets. "Let's see if that don't change in 3 months." Ethan chuckles as he ruffles his hair. Streber groans and smacks his hand away from him. "I don't have a crush on him." He huffs and crosses his arms. "You're face tells a different story~" He pats him on the head and walks back to his station. "THIS ISN'T OVER ETHAN!" He yelled as he walks away from him. Streber mumbles something about Ethan embarrassing him and walks back to his station as well.

Chapter Text

After having a long shift yesterday, Streber is passed out on the couch almost sleeping past 3 pm. His ringer goes off and he groans due to being awake this early. He finally gets up, rubbing his eyes and checks his notifications on his phone. A few text messages has been sent to the vampire, mostly between from Ethan, but spots a few from an unknown number. Curious, he opens his messages and reads off the messages. It was Kevin!

Hey, this is Kevin. The dude you met yesterday at the haunted house. I was checking if you still wanted to hang out, maybe at the park or something.

The little vampire's face lights up with joy and bounces happily on the couch. He almost drops his phone from stimming with his hands and reply's back.
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Yeah of course!!! I would love to hang out with you again! Does 9 pm at the local park near the pond sound good?

Yeah sounds good to me.

Great!!! See you then! 🦇❤️
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Streber kicks his feet around and giggles to himself. "Got a date there Strebs?" Ethan asks behind him, reading the text messages. "AH! Ethan! Don't scare me like that!" Streber screamed, dropping his phone in the couch and turns over to his roommate Ethan who is laughing hysterically behind the couch. "It's not funny!" Streber scolds him, retrieving his phone that fell between the cushions. "It's hilarious! You scream like baby bat." Ethan teases his younger roommate. Streber doesn't say a word and heads upstairs to ignore his roommate. "Come on, you can't be mad at me." He follows him upstairs and Streber locks himself in his room. "It's not a date! It's just us hanging out at the park!" He shouts through the door, figuring out an outfit to wear. "Alright alright, hope you have fun with your hangout. I'll be here all day if you need me." Ethan replied, walking back downstairs.

Streber huffs to himself as he stands in front of his big closet filled with various of different outfits. After contemplating on an outfit for an hour or two, he finally settles on one. A dark red sweater, black leggings, light green scarf, and some fuzzy boots. The vampire looks into a mirror to check his outfit and his face lights up again. "This is the one!" He said giggly, flapping his hands up and down in excitement. Streber gets a bit too excited and accidentally shows off more of his vampire features, his bat wings fluttering behind him, longer fangs, sharper nails, some fur around his checks and wrists, and pointed ears. "Oh yeah, I'm not sure Kevin knows about these." Streber stops to look in the mirror at his features and starts messing with them, wondering how Kevin would feel finding out that he is a vampire. Overthinking about all of the possibilities and different outcomes, Streber's face turns into a more sorrowful look as he hides his features away, knowing Kevin might get scared if he found out he’s a vampire. He rubs on his sleeves for comfort. "Let's not ruin our good time by overthinking about the future." Streber quietly says to himself and looks back in the mirror. "We are going to have a good time with him!" He gets excited again and heads out to door with his belongings.

Streber rushes out the door and heads over to the park to meet Kevin. The sun as already settled and yet there are some people enjoying the park, either by taking the trails with their pets or laying in the grass talking to each other. The small vampire makes his way to the pond and sits in the grass. Fast footsteps comes closer to Streber, Kevin stops next to him very out of breath. "S-sorry I'm late! Forgot what time it was and I ran down here as fast as I can." He flops down on the grass trying to catch his breath. "Late?" Streber questioned. He looks at his phone to see the time and it shows 10 o clock. "Oh! I guess we are both late cause I didn't realize it was 10." He giggles and rubs the back of his neck.

Kevin sits up and looks at the pond. "So why did you pick the park at such late time?" The candy man asked. "Thought it would nice to see the stars as we chat with each other." Streber softly smiles at Kevin, showing a bit of his fangs. Kevin smiles back at him, noticing his fangs. "Did you forget to remove your fangs from last night?" He chuckles, points at Strebers small fangs. "O-oh yeah, I forgot about them." He laughs nervously, hiding his face in his scarf. "Do you have any other jobs besides being a vampire?" Kevin asks as he looks into the pond in front of them, watching the reflections in the water. "N-not really...just my haunted house one for the week of Halloween." Streber scoots back from the water a bit. "I know the candy store is always hiring for new people. I think Rick is going to quit his job soon anyways." Kevin spoked in a monotone voice. "Are you suggesting I should get a job there?" He giggles, looking back at Kevin. His face getting a bit red. "I- it's just a suggestion! N-nothing more. Just thought you might needed another job is all." Kevin saying nervously as he got caught up in a lie. "Sounds like a good idea actually! I might take the night shift though, I prefer the night." Streber lays back in the grass and looks at the stars above him.

"Wait really?" Kevin questions as he follows Streber in watching the stars. "Yeah! It's not a bad idea." Both of them sit in silence for a bit as they both watch the stars sparkle brightly in the night sky. Streber starts to tell Kevin what each string of stars look like, kind of like connecting each one to form a picture. A dog, bucket of candy, a duck, and some bats. Wait no, those are actual bats flying by. As they both watch the night sky, Streber holds Kevin's hand, not really noticing what he's doing.

Kevin on the other hand, does notices it and blushes from the vampire being cute. A phone rings and Streber sits up to see who is calling him. "Aw sorry I need to get home. My roommate is wondering where I am." He hops and dusts the dirt off of him. "I had fun watching the stars with you!" Streber pulls Kevin up to his feet. "Uh- yeah. I did too." He looks down at their hands holding, not really wanting to make eye contact. Streber pulls Kevin closer and gives him a quick kiss on the cheek. "I'll see you again soon sweetheart." He smiles softly at Kevin and runs back home. Kevin stands there stunned from the kiss and heads back home embarrassed, mostly flustered. Safe to say that Streber broke his bet with Ethan not even two days in.

Chapter Text

It was the next day and Streber has already applied to work at the candy club with Kevin. As he waits for his approval, he decides to take a walk around town with his umbrella so he doesn't get burned in the sunlight. Both of the vampire roommates can walk out in the sun with a special type of sunscreen, but Streber used the last bit of it not too long ago, so he has to get more.

Streber loves to take walks, he can't stay still and needs to move or it will drive him crazy. He spots two kids dressed in Halloween costumes run out of a store, giggling to themselves as they flew past Streber, almost knocking him over. Right behind them was Kevin yelling at them, probably something they got Kevin into trouble for as usual. He's too focus on the kids to notice Streber standing in front of him.

"Are you ok Kev?" Streber says has he waved his hand in front of Kevin. "Huh? Oh- yeah I'm fine. Just dealing with some dumb kids at the store." He huffs in anger. "What did they do exactly?" Streber asked as he twirls the umbrella in his hands. "These kids always come into my store and mess something up! Either it's them bringing a possessed killer doll or messing up the shop with their weird antics. This time they brought a wild animal into the store, saying it's their pet and now I can't seem to get it out without it trying to kill me." Streber looks behind him to see that the candy shop is trashed from the wild animal. "Hmm maybe I can help!" He looks back at the tired candy worker and smiles. "I would appreciate the help, but I don't think anyone can take that thing that's in there." "None sense I'll help you." Streber grabs Kevin's arm and walks over to the store.

Both of them walks into the store to see that the store has been destroyed, looking like a tornado came through and threw everything everywhere. "Sheesh what animal came in here and did this?" Streber asked with a concerned tone as he puts his umbrella away and looks around the store. "I don't remember. All I know that it's small and it can fly." Kevin puts up the close sign up on the door to let other people know that the store is closed. As the vampire looks around on the higher shelves standing on top of a step ladder, some shuffling can be heard in a candy box. "I think I found it Kev!" Streber yells from the back of the store. "WELL GET IT OUT OF HERE!" Kevin screamed back. Now we know someone isn't too fond of critters. Streber opens the box to see a small bat inside, terrified in the corner.

"Aww it's ok. I'm not going to hurt you." The vampire says in a calm and soft tone. He gently shuts the box back up and carefully picks it up from the shelf. He hops down and walks back towards Kevin. "Did you get it?" He asked nervously. "Yeah it's a bat. I guess the kids found it while it was sleeping in a tree." Streber sits the box outside and opens it. The small bat flies out and lands into a nearby tree. "There! Now it's out of the store." He throws the box away and walks back inside. "How did you not get bit?" Kevin asked. "Oh I just didn't stick my hand in there and it was already in the box. Now let me help you with the store!" Streber runs to the back of the store to get the cleaning supplies. Kevin just plays along and helps the small vampire clean up the store.

After about an hour, they both get the store cleaned up. Kevin reopens the store back up and Streber sits on top of the counter, snacking on a chocolate bar. "I should have ate something before cleaning, that took a lot out of me." He chuckles and sways his legs around. Kevin lends against the counter next to Streber. "We could have have taken a break if you needed too. You don't need to over work yourself again like last time." Kevin greets some costumers while Streber looks at his bar with a sad look on his face. Streber tends to not take care of himself when he helps out others. He didn't want Kevin to worry about him, but at the same time he should have taken care of himself first before helping Kevin with the store. Last time he did this, Ethan needed help around the house and Streber helped him out without checking in on himself, almost hurting himself.

"Sorry..." Streber quietly said as he messes with his sleeves, looking down at his feet. "Huh? Why did you say sorry for?" Kevin looks over to see Streber upset. "For not taking care of myself. I know I get tunnel vision when it comes to helping people, but I know I should have put myself first and not overwork myself. I didn't want to worry you." The vampire pulls his knees into his chest and hides his face a bit. All he wanted to do was to go home and hide in his room. Streber thinks he has upset Kevin and feels like he doesn't like him anymore. "Hey I'm not mad at you, I just wanted you to not get hurt is all. I didn't mean to make you upset." Kevin walks over to Streber and pulls him over for a light hug. "Are you sure?" Streber looks up at Kevin with some fur around his face and a bit more of his bat features showing. Kevin gets a bit freaked out over Streber, but doesn't want to upset him more. "Yeah I'm sure." Kevin smiles at him. Streber
gets a bit red in the face and smiles back.

"So when were you going to tell me about this?" He says as he points at Streber's fur and fangs. "U-uh." The vampire gets embarrassed and hides in his hoodie. "Strebs you can hid from me forever." Kevin chuckles and pokes the top of the vampires head. "YES I CAN AND YOU CAN'T MAKE ME COME OUT!" He hissed at the candy clerk. "Fine, I guess I'll just work by myself while you sit on the counter in your little vampire cave then." "Are you guys done being gay?" Rick asked has he clocks into work late. Streber wasn't expecting another person to be there and falls off the counter as he tries to get out of his hoodie, hitting the floor with a squeak. Kevin jumps and turns over to Rick.

"WHEN THE FUCK DID YOU GET HERE?!?" Kevin blurred out as his face was redder than a tomato. "Just a few minutes ago. I overslept and came into work late. Didn't know you brought your boyfriend here." Rick said in a dead tone as he walks over to the counter where the two men are. "Boyfriend?" Kevin gets cut off by Streber. "WE ARE NOT DATING DAMNIT!" He screamed from the floor, not really bothering on getting up at this moment. "I don't mind if you guys are, I couldn't care less honestly." Rick heads to back to go restock some candy.

Kevin leans over to counter to see if Streber is ok. He spots him on the floor still curled up in the hoodie. Kevin rests his head on his hand. "Are you going to come out now?" Streber sits there in silence for a bit, then finally getting up from the floor with his face still in the hoodie. "Out of the closet or the hoodie?" "Both." Streber pulls his hoodie back down and pulls Kevin over the counter to kiss him. "Happy candy boy?" Kevin is somehow more redder than he was before. "I'll take that as a yes!" The vampire chuckles, hopping back on the counter. "So- uh- do you want to...start dating?" Kevin rubs the back of his neck awkwardly. "What do you think the answer is dummy? Of course!" Streber giggles as he starts to stim with his hands. Kevin pulls Streber over and kisses him on the forehead. "I love you too much you dork." "I love you more sweetheart."

The both spend the rest of the day working at the candy store while Rick sits in the back as he be the third wheel to them. Around closing time, Kevin suggests they head back to his place to watch a scary movie. Streber, being the spooky enthusiast he is agrees happily to watching a scary movie. They spend the rest of the night cuddling with each other and getting scared from the horror movie.