Kepler rarely ever got text messages. In fact, it was so exceedingly uncommon that whenever his phone did go off he always imagined it was to reveal something terrible. His text tone became a harbinger of doom, Pavlov’ing him into summoning dread at the sound of a bell.

He was hunched over a series of calculations that Lulu Flint ’d tossed his way about traveling to the Meteor. Atmospheric pressures, enthalpy figures, what time they’d have to bounce before they were obliterated. His was only a small portion of the mathematics, of course; all the bright minds were working on it, and they’d all come together to hextuple check their figurings before any plans were made.

His phone dinged and he froze, certain that was going to be Lulu saying you know what, never mind, you’re not needed anyway. It took a long time for him to force his muscles to reach out and drag the device back from where it was facedown on the lab table. He flipped it over and squinted at the screen.

The message takes its sweet time orienting in his brain. He doesn’t recognize it as an invite, at first. Actually, his initial, kneejerk impression is he must have sent this to the wrong person. The next one was, just, panic. Excitement? Panic. The last time he’d gone trick-or-treating he’d ended up covered in eggs and water balloons full of piss.

Panic.

But he was learning to work through his panic. He panicked his way through a halfhearted response (Sure, why not?) that was not nearly as revealing as to how he felt. He panicked his way through a costume that he overthought to an umpeenth degree. He panicked his way through the teleport as he and Mercury stepped out into the warm, Slateport night. Panicked his way through the directions in the dark, nervous and jumpy and certain someone was going to leap out at him at every possible junction.

His thoughts were a churning mire of what are we doing? Why are we doing this? What are we doing? as he clutched his pillowcase in white knuckles, boots a timid beat on the concrete. It was only when he finally saw Ashley standing under the streetlight that his brain reached a lovely homeostasis of blank static, like all the panic and stress had reached a tipping point and he was flatlining.

His costume was a buttoned lab coat and goggles, and a pair of black combat boots he’d bought for… some reason. Mercury had a headband with large screws glued to the sides and the characteristic Frankenstein’s monster hairline painted on his forehead.

“You dyed your hair,” is the first thing out of Kepler’s mouth. Not hey, hi, hello, or anything, you know, normal. “I almost don’t even recognize you.”

Ashley Shepard

☉

No one had ever called Kepler cute before, never in his whole life. Never, in his entire existence, had anyone even suggested a hint of anything positive about his appearance. He was too scrawny for sports; too pale, too gaunt.

No one in the history of the world has ever called Kepler cute and done it in such an embarrassing, stupid, sexy accent.

It makes him have whiplash. It is so at odds from the voice he has associated with Ash. It is so corny. It is, in the same breath, somehow, very much doing it for him. Which is astronomical in and of itself! How did he even come to this conclusion!

Say something back, you numbskull.

He doesn’t need to because Ashley is giggling apart in front of him. Kepler cracks a smile.

“Thank god,” he says, without thinking, “I’m not sure I would have made it through the night.” He blinks, then adds, “W-without laughing,” and it sounds convincing enough to make it seem like it was a complete, coherent thought.

Ash asks him if he likes his hair and Kepler tilts his head. “The grey suited you,” he said, conjuring fond memories of the lilac-tinged locks he thought of when he thought about Ash, “but the black is nice, too.”

He’d spoken without thinking. His tone was genuine. But he was terrified that he’d fucked up, because he’d kind of just told Ash that he liked his old hair better? Which wasn’t. That wasn’t what he meant!

“It’s nice,” he adds in haste, because it is. It does look nice. It’s just… different.

His own hair was tied back in his characteristic braids, the teal at their tips freshly touched up.

Mercury pointed at the Scorbunny in Ash’s jacket pocket, getting outrageously excited.

“Y-yeah,” Kep says, falling into step beside Ashley. “Um, aren’t you worried people are going to think we’re too old?” He looks down at his boots, adding (again, without thinking) “Well. You, maybe. I still look like a preteen.”

Ashley Shepard

☉

Kepler is starting to realize he has to re-consider a few crucial tenets of his life, namely that only old people had silver hair. And that it didn’t look good. Because it was usually on old people. Wow, how closed-minded had he been, up until this moment?

Merc and the little Scorbunny get to-- doing that thing that rabbits do when they’re happy, which is jumping spastically up in the air.

“Binkying,” Kepler says, unprompted and out of nowhere. His face flushes when he realizes it, because, it probably sounds dumb as hell. “That’s what-- it’s called. What rabbits do when they're happy.”

Ashley says the d-word-- date-- and Kepler freezes midstep, one foot hovering in the air. “Um.” Suddenly he’s forgotten how old he is. Suddenly he’s forgotten everything except for the fact that he’s apparently on a date.

He’s got two broken-brained seconds until Ash grabs his hand and he’s being propelled forward by the sheer power of shock and something bubbly in his stomach that he thinks maybe is what Disney princesses feel when they see the prince of the movie.

His hand shifts ever so slightly and their fingers lace together like they were meant to be that way.

“T-twenty three,” he stutters, face red as blood, “I’m twenty-three.” He can hold Ash’s hand but he can’t look at him because he might die.

They pause on the porch and Ash asks if they should take the whole thing. And, for a second, Kepler, feels his feet beneath him.

“Of course,” he says, in typical Kep brusqueness, “if they didn’t want us to take the whole thing they shouldn’t have been so lazy.” Every word he speaks brings him a little confidence, and he holds his pillowcase out and finally-- finally-- looks up at Ash.

“Bottoms up?”

Ashley Shepard

☉

The rabbits were completely oblivious to the sheer amount of crushing that was happening as they jumped and ran and played. And as Merc drew further away from him, Kepler opened his mouth to order him back-- that was his only line of defense, after all-- but Ashley’s hand was a comforting weight in his own and he swallowed his words and just. Squeezed.

And you know what? It worked. It did make him feel better.

Ash dumps the bowl of candy into Kepler’s pillowcase and Kep resists the urge to twist it around and throw it over his shoulder like fucking sucralose Santa Claus.

“I’ve never had pocky,” he admits as they turn from the scene of their crime, thinking it’s the dumbest thing he could possibly say but also thinking that it was impossible that anyone could look that good when doing something as basic as eating.

Mercury accepts the small Scorbunny without question, falling back into step next to his trainer as they strike out once more into the night. Kep catches Ash checking on him every now and then, though he still can’t really look at him; the butterflies in his stomach were working to turn his skin a particular shade of pink.

So when Ash calls on him, tells him to take a breath, that’s exactly what he does, the exhale coming out a little bit more ragged than he expected it to. He feels a little lightheaded, and remembers he has to inhale, as well.

“Sorry,” he says, apologizing for-- for himself, for himself-- “I don’t. Um. I-I’ve never been on a date, before.” And honestly? If he’d known that’s what this was, before he got here? He may never have even come. Because he was a coward. He was a coward, and he liked Ash, and he wasn’t allowed to have things he liked, and keep them.

“Yeah,” he says, finally looking up at Ash, smile growing, “yeah. I’m-- I’m having fun.”

They step up to the door so Ash can reach up and ring the doorbell. Kepler squeezes his hand back. When the door opens, he holds up the pillowcase in his other hand.

“T-trick or treat?” he asks, voice barely a squeak.

Ashley Shepard

☉

The door opens and it’s a little old lady. Kepler releases another breath he hadn’t realized he was holding, relieved it wasn’t a snooty middle-class white mother or, even worse, a teenager. Ash is apparently on a first name basis with the woman (what?) who drops some candy into their receptacles and sends them on their way.

“Do you know everyone in your neighborhood?” Kepler asks, his innate curiosity worming its way out of the layers and layers of compact social anxiety detritus he has piled around him.

He finds himself then staring up at Ash like-- like a mooning, lovestruck moron.

“No,” he says, the admission coming on another exhale because, oh yeah, he has to keep reminding himself to breath. “I never… I’ve never really had friends, either. Human friends,” he adds quickly, glad Merc was out of earshot for that little slip-up.

It’s because I’m a parasite, his brain says, a litany of self-depreciation and low expectations, coupled together in a survival mechanism, I’m a little parasite and I don’t get to feel love or goodness or-- or anything like that. It’s all crashing together in waves as he scans Ash’s face, wondering if this-- if this is--

Then Ash says the rodeo line and Kepler laughs, a real, genuine laugh that ends in a tiny snort as he presses the back of his free hand against the bridge of his nose. “Oh my god,” he wheezes, as they turn, hands clasped, and continue into the night. “That was-- oh, my god.”

It was so cute and so corny and he was so done in for, wasn’t he?

Ashley Shepard

☉

Kepler is still grinning around loose giggles that threaten to spill.

“It was. Really corny, I mean.” He bites his lip, to stop from collapsing into laughter again. “But it was also… kind of cute? And very silly.”

And it was like his whole world was being shaken up from the simple notion that Kepler liked Ash being silly. Because he’d never-- he’d never gotten to know. He’d spent his whole entire life so wrapped up in his own head and no one had ever approached him to-- to flirt, or to hold hands, or to befriend him.

Kepler was a genius whose parents knew he was a genius. His whole life he was in advanced classes, higher level courses. The people he was with were also very intelligent. No one needed to even use him for his brain. He hadn’t even had fake friends.

“I… I like you, too,” he says, quiet, like a secret, like a dawn breaking. Like something precious, he’s giving away.

There’s a slackening in Ash’s grip and Kepler’s horrified that he wants him to let go. His fright translates into a knee-jerk increase of tension, where he grabs and squeezes Ash’s hand like his life depends on it for a few seconds before his willpower gets ahold of his frantic mind and he can regulate his clasp.

“Um,” he says, trying to hide his spike of panic by peering thoughtfully into his pillowcase of candy, “maybe just for a bit. We got a lot from that first house, you know? Then we can… go to your place.”

That had been the plan, right?

Ashley Shepard

☉

Kepler doesn’t think he’s smiled this much ever, in his life. Ridiculous. He felt like he could take on the world. If they ever learned to capitalize off of people’s energy-- bottle it directly from the source-- he was pretty sure he could power a whole city.

And, huh, had he ever realized that Ash’s eyes were silver? They were beautiful. He only belatedly realizes he can realize this because the taller man had pulled him closer. There’s a beat where Kepler’s hopeful (terrified?) that something more is going to happen and then Ash pulls away. The world rights itself, where it had been spinning dizzily. They continue to hold hands.

Merc and Sunny lead the way to the next house. Kepler barely notices the decorations, realizing he’s anxious for the out and about portion of this endeavor to be over so they can move on to what’s next.

Whatever that might be.

The big scary man on the porch oohs and awws over them and Kepler preens in it, beyond excited that people are calling him Viktor Frankenstein and not Frankenstein’s monster because there’s a key difference there and-- oh, they’re moving on.

“Do you normally do this?” he asked, jittery with nerves at the prospect of only one more house before Ash’s place. That had been the plan. “Go trick or treating?”

Ashley Shepard

☉