“It's not Halloween anymore.” Hunter pointed at his phone. “It's 3:47 AM on November 1st.”
We all froze. The sun would be up in a few hours. Would Kris fade? Turn back into a ghost? Disappear entirely?
“I don't feel different,” Kris said carefully. “Still solid. Still here. Still have both your dicks in my ass, which is a weird way to have an existential crisis.”
“The magic might last until sunrise,” I said, though I wasn't sure. “We should make the most of it.”
“Or,” Hunter said quietly, “we could just hold each other. In case… in case this is all we get.”
The mood shifted from desperate fucking to something softer. We cleaned up with warm washcloths, Hunter taking care of Kris with gentle touches that made the ghost—former ghost—get misty-eyed. Then we curled together in bed, Kris in the middle, held between us.
“Tell us about your life,” Hunter said. “Before.”
So Kris did. Talked about growing up in a small California town, knowing he was different. Hiding who he was. Planning to come out after college, to move to a big city where he could be himself. The accident that stole that future.
“I thought I'd have time,” he whispered. “I was so careful, so patient. Waited for the perfect moment that never came.”
“You have time now,” I said firmly. “We'll figure this out.”
“What if I disappear at sunrise?”
“Then we'll find a way to bring you back,” Hunter said. “Every Halloween if we have to.”
“Or we'll find another way,” I added. “I know other mediums, other practitioners. Someone will know how to make this permanent.”
“You'd do that? For me?”
“Kris,” Hunter turned to face him fully. “You've been taking care of me for three years. You've loved me from beyond death. Of course we'd do that for you.”
“Both of you?”
“Both of us,” I told him. “This isn't just ghost fucking. This is... something real.”
Kris started crying then; not sad tears, but overwhelmed ones. The kind you cry when you realize you're not alone anymore.
We held him through it, pressed close, skin to skin to skin.
“I can't believe I deep-throated two dicks at once,” Kris said suddenly, breaking the emotional moment. “Is that my supernatural power? Ghost gag reflex?”
“Among other things,” Hunter laughed. “You literally licked my prostate from inside my body. That's not normal.”
“Nothing about this is normal,” I pointed out. “We just had a threesome with someone who's been dead for twenty years.”
“Best midlife crisis ever,” Kris said. “Except I died at 24, so technically it's more like a mid-death crisis?”
“You're terrible,” Hunter said, pressing a kiss to Kris's shoulder.
“I learned from watching you,” Kris shot back. “Three years of your dad jokes at the coffee shop. 'Espresso yourself!' Really?”
“My customers love those jokes!”
“Your customers are caffeine addicts who'd laugh at anything before 9 AM,” I said.
“Says the man who orders a cortado with oat milk,” Hunter teased. “Most pretentious order possible.”
“It's a perfectly respectable coffee drink!”
“It's the coffee equivalent of saying you're not like other girls,” Kris added.
