Chapter Text
For what it was worth, the guys of Kappa Delta Phi knew how to have a fun Halloween, even when Halloween seemed to be against them. Despite a thunderstorm that had caused a city-wide power outage and the canceling of the biggest party of the school year, the six frat brothers had managed to throw together a last-minute celebration of their own. Sure, there were no girls and the alcohol they’d stolen from the local liquor store tasted bad, but there was still each other’s company. In hindsight, that was plenty enough for the boys to have a good time. After all, wherever KDP was, the party was, too.
Tonight’s impromptu party was particularly fun, at least more so than any costume kegger could have been. At one of those, the boys would have been dressed in uncomfortable togas and masks and suits. At the house, where it didn’t matter what they looked like, the boys sat around in jeans and tee-shirts, downing bottles of warm beer and busting each other’s balls with a game of Truth or Dare.
There were six of them in total, the brothers. Nick, the eldest, sat on the sofa, next to Shawn and Tom, both of who had spent half the night enthralled in Shawn’s handheld Gameboy. Across from them, in the two recliners, were Gavin and Dylan, passing a burning joint between the two of them. And on the floor, refusing to touch any of the recreations, sat Joshua. He was, as it was usually the case with new brothers, the most innocent of the six. And as such, he was the least interested in the game.
When it came time for his turn to choose, he clammed up. “I, uh…”
“Just pick one,” Gavin, who had prompted Joshua, said. “It’s not hard.”
The junior brother took a puff from the joint, held it in his mouth for a few seconds, then exhaled, the air around him filling with the discarded smoke. He then let Dylan have it as he continued, “Come on, truth or dare?”
“I guess truth,” Joshua finally answered, earning a chorus of groans.
“Be adventurous, Bassett,” Nick encouraged.
“Yeah, you haven’t picked dare one time,” Tom added, glancing up from an enthralling game of Mario.
“Fine. Dare,” Joshua said, then crossed his arms over his chest. “Just don’t be dicks.”
“Trust me, if we were dicks, we’d have you suck one,” Dylan said, laughing at his own joke. The sound caught on quickly. Everyone else laughed, too.
When there was, once again, a calm. Gavin said, “How about this. We dare you to spend five minutes in the attic alone.”
“Without any light,” Dylan said.
“And the door has to be closed,” Nick added.
Gavin frowned. “Actually, it might get stuck, then he’d be up there all night.”
“More reason to do it,” Nick said.
“No!” Joshua threw his arms out.
“Fine,” Gavin said, rolling his eyes. “The door will stay open.”
Joshua stood. “No, I mean, I’m not going up there.”
“Pussy,” Shawn mumbled, not looking up from his game.
A hush fell over the boys as Joshua made his way to the fireplace mantle. There were a few taper candles here and he grabbed one before announcing he was going to bed. This, of course, didn’t go over well with the rest of the frat.
They all stood, Nick taking the lead. “No way. You’re staying up with us. Halloween isn’t even over, yet. We’ve got another hour.”
“Yeah, the witching hour,” Joshua argued.
“What?”
Shawn harumphed. “The campus legend. The witching hour, when all the ghosts come out to play.”
“And it’s said that the attic of this house is haunted,” Joshua said.
“Says who?” Nick wanted to know.
There was a quiet. No one said anything. The only sounds came from the rain pelting the windows and the occasional crack of thunder. Eventually, Dylan cleared his throat and admitted, “I told him that. I thought it would scare him. Mission accomplished, I guess.”
Nick sighed. Though he enjoyed teasing as much as the next brother, as the oldest, he felt a responsibility for the newest among them. “The attic isn’t haunted, Bassett. God, I can’t believe I have to tell you that. You’re eighteen, not eight.”
Joshua opened his mouth to say something but thought better of it. There was nothing to say, anyways. Nick was right. There shouldn’t be any reason to be scared, maybe except for the fact that on his first night in the house, Joshua had heard footsteps in the attic, then moaning. He hadn’t told anyone, of course, out of fear of being made fun of. Now that he saw what the others thought of witching hour, he still wasn’t going to speak on it.
“You know what?” Nick continued, uninterrupted. “I’ll prove it to you. I’ll take your dare. I’ll go into the attic…with the door open, of course.”
“What? Scared of being left in there all night?” Dylan smirked.
“Scared of being left in there all night?” Nick mimicked, following the insult up with a sharp, “Piss off, O’Brien.”
Together, each armed with a candle, the Kappa Delta Phi brothers made their way through the dark house, up the stairs, and beneath the attic door. With only candlelight lighting their way, it was difficult to really tell where they were going. It was eventually Nick’s hand grazing the ceiling that pointed them in the right direction. When he caught ahold of the string dangling from the attic door, he announced, “Okay, I got it.”
In one fell tug, he brought the door down. With it, a ladder came tumbling out, stopping a few inches off of the floor. Nick propped a foot on it and turned to address his brothers. “Five minutes, okay?” he said, his head bent and his eyes wide with expectance. “I’ll prove there’s no ghost.”
Joshua gulped. “What if there is one?”
“Then maybe he’ll have some booze worth drinking.”
Everyone except Joshua laughed.
“Time me,” Nick continued once everyone stopped, then ascended into the attic.
The next few minutes were torture. As Joshua silently awaited his frat brother’s return, the sounds of his other brothers’ breaths and footsteps above were all that kept him company. Those and his own thoughts, the ones making him believe that there truly was something living in the house. How else could he explain the sounds he’d heard? Unless someone broke in, there was no other explanation, and Joshua was certain a robber wasn’t trailing the side of the house, to the third floor.
“Holy shit, you guys,” Nick suddenly cried, cutting through Joshua’s thoughts, making his head snap to attention.
“What is it?” Gavin yelled into the attic.
Nick cried, again, and dropped to the ground. The thud was nearly as loud as the thunder still rumbling in the sky. “Oh, god! Fuck, no! No, it can’t be!”
“What? What?” Joshua wailed, nearly stepping forward, wanting to see for himself what had attacked Nick, but still too scared of who or what the attacker was.
Just as he wavered, almost ready to move, the eldest brother crawled towards the doorway. He hung his head over the side and breathed raggedly. Everyone watched him with their own breaths held. “Guys, you won’t believe this,” Nick gasped. “There’s…There’s…”
“What?” Joshua tried, again, his throat closing off from panic.
“There’s…a haunted sex toy!”
From behind his back, Nick revealed a phallic object, a cream-colored dildo. Surprisingly, it looked clean, though it was difficult to really tell under candlelight. Regardless, it was large, at least eight inches, and too thick for Nick to wrap his entire hand around. Still, he stroked it enthusiastically and laughed maniacally, like one of those mad scientists in the movies.
“Some ghost,” Shawn teased, crossing his arms and rolling his eyes.
“Guess that means you’ll be sucking dick, after all, Bassett,” Dylan said, bumping an unimpressed Joshua in the shoulder.
“I told you guys not to be assholes,” the newest brother whined.
“Oh, lighten up.” Tom threw an arm around Joshua’s neck. “We’re just winding you up, mate.”
“Yeah, well, don’t.”
Above, Nick had started to head down the ladder. He still clutched the dildo, prompting Gavin to ask, “Why are you bringing it down here? Who knows where it’s been?”
“It looks clean to me,” Nick said, joining his brothers on the upstairs landing. “And with it, I think Joshua can fulfill his dare. You know, since he never did this one.”
“What—?” Joshua began but found himself cut off by a chorus of mischievous laughter.
“You heard what Dylan said,” Gavin said.
“That’s right,” Nick said. “Now, open wide.”
Joshua’s brows knitted. “You’re fucking high if you think I’m putting that thing in my mouth.”
“Come on, you’ve probably had worse,” Tom said, his arm still draped.
That was probably true. Joshua was the only brother in Kappa Delta Phi who was openly gay. As such, he was the only one who had ever been with a guy. Sure, it had only been one and he’d been twice Joshua’s senior, but it was still experience. Out of the six of them, he was the only one bound to know what to do with the dildo, or, at the very least, know what to do with it beyond sticking it in his mouth.
“You suck it and we’ll leave you alone for the rest of the night,” Nick promised.
“Rest of the week, even,” Gavin added, trying to sweeten the deal.
Joshua frowned. “There’s one day left in the week.”
“Take it or leave it,” Nick said.
Joshua considered the offer. On one hand, he’d be free from torment for at least an entire day, and the rest of the night, though there wouldn’t be much left of that. On the other hand, this was an intimate ordeal. He’d never done something like this in front of anyone before, let alone his heterosexual frat brothers.
In the end, the positives outweighed the negatives. Joshua nodded and said, “Fine, but just a few seconds,” then accepted the dildo from an overenthusiastic Nick.
“Are you guys really gonna watch?” Joshua asked squeamishly.
“How else are we going to know you did it?” Dylan countered.
Joshua supposed they had a point. So, with an audience of five, he brought the tip of the dildo to his lips and kissed it. When he licked his lips, he tasted nothing. When he licked the dildo itself, only silicone. It was clean, at least. Still, it was massive and the only other dick Joshua had sucked had been an average six inches. As he brought this one into his mouth, he squeezed his eyes shut in concentration. Though it was difficult, he managed to fit about three inches of the dildo inside.
“Impressive,” Tom said sarcastically.
“Yeah, come on,” Gavin urged. “Show us what you can do. We’ve all seen girls go down but never a guy.”
Maybe it was the being egged on or maybe he just missed the feeling of having something in his mouth, but Joshua gained a confidence he hadn’t felt all night. Dipping his head at an angle, he began to feed the rest of the dildo into his mouth, reaching all the way to the silicone balls. He paused for a moment after this, then started up a rhythm.
“Jesus, look at him go,” Nick breathed, his stomach churning.
“I know,” Dylan said, something else stirring that was a little lower than his stomach.
The boys of Kappa Delta Phi were, for a lack of better words, impressed. None of them had ever seen a guy suck a dick. At least, not in person. And none of them could argue that he was doing a good job. In fact, three of them—Dylan, Gavin, and Tom—thought he was doing a better job than any woman they’d been with. Joshua seemed to know exactly where to lick and kiss, how deep to go down, and how fast to suck. He even used his hands, which was always an advantage.
When a few minutes had passed—way longer than the time limit he’d originally set—Joshua came up for a deep breath, then said, “Satisfied?”
“I think he is,” Dylan said, smiling and nodding at the slick-with-spit dildo.
Joshua couldn’t help himself. He laughed. “Sorry, I guess I got carried away.”
“Nothing wrong with that,” Shawn said.
Nick nodded in agreement. “And see? You had fun. Nothing bad happened.”
Joshua opened his mouth to say something but before he could, thunder clapped deafeningly in the sky. It seemed to shake the entire house. The floorboards rattled and framed photos on the wall bounced. Every boy felt themselves vibrate. In their hands—maybe it was from their shaking—the taper candles went out, plunging everyone into darkness. Then, a few seconds later, lightning struck and the candles relit as if nothing had happened to them.
“What the hell?” Dylan cursed warily.
For a moment, nobody else said anything. Instead, they surveyed their surroundings. Nothing looked different, at least not anything they could see with the little light they had. The floor was still beneath them. The walls were still standing. Behind Nick, the attic ladder was still where it had been when he climbed down it.
Eventually, the silence was broken by Joshua who said, with his throat tight, “I don’t like this. We should all go back downstairs.”
Gavin sighed. “It’s just the storm.”
“Okay, and?” Joshua started towards the stairs. “If it was just that, I think I’d rather us all be safe downstairs than up here where something might crash down.”
“What? The sky?” Tom teased.
Joshua wasn’t very amused. He ignored his frat brother as he led the boys into the living room. There, he made them sit, then started a headcount. Clockwise, from the first recliner, he named them off. Gavin. Dylan. Tom. Shawn. Nick. “Wait,” he said when he’d gotten through them all. “There’s supposed to be six of us.”
“You didn’t count yourself,” Nick said, rolling his eyes, clearly annoyed with the theatrics.
“No, I did that,” Joshua said. “But I’m…counting seven.”
“Huh?” Gavin surveyed his brothers, counted out six of them, including himself. “No there’s n—”
Then he saw the man standing in the foyer archway. Tall and burly, with a chest the size of a brick wall, the man seemed unnerved. Whether he noticed that he’d be spotted or not was left to be determined. Just in case he hadn’t, Gavin slowly looked at Joshua and whispered, “You see—”
“Yeah,” Joshua answered without needing to hear the entire question.
“What the fuck?” Nick jumped to his feet. “Hey, asshole, this is private property. You’ve got to be a member of Kappa Delta Phi to enter this house, you got it?”
The man didn’t move.
“Nick, stop it,” Joshua begged. “Just call the cops.”
“Nah, this dumbass wants to mess with KDP? KDP is gonna kick his ass back where he came from.”
Before anyone could stop him, Nick skirted across the living room. He walked right up to the mysterious man and puffed his chest out. For good measure, he stood on his tip-toes—this man was at least six-foot-five, for Christ’s sake. “Listen here,” he began. “You’ve got three seconds to leave before I lay you out on the ground, you got that?”
“Nick,” Dylan tried, seeing just how stupid the eldest brother was being.
“One,” Nick said, ignoring Dylan, as well as everyone else who joined in the protest.
“He’s gonna get himself killed,” Tom whined.
“Two.”
“And here I thought I was the stupid one,” Gavin said.
“Three.”
“I can’t watch,” Joshua cried, ducking behind his hands.
Nick nodded assuredly, his lips pulled into a tight line, his eyes cut threateningly. “So, that’s how it’s going to be,” he said, then wound up to strike.
Unfortunately, Nick had never been very combative.
Letting the man see his fist pull back was his first mistake. The second was actually swinging. Nick’s fist flew, then stopped halfway towards the man’s shadow-covered face. A gasp filled the room as the man clenched down on Nick’s wrist, squeezing hard enough to make the eldest brother scream.
“What the hell?” he bellowed, trying his hardest to pull away.
He didn’t manage, though, and the man didn’t let go. Instead, he gripped Nick’s wrist tighter and revealed his other hand. In it, he held something that glinted as lightning filled the room with bright, white light. It took a moment for anyone to notice the object but when they did, they screamed.
“Fuck, he’s got a knife!” Joshua announced, pointing accusingly.
Nick gulped. His eyes never left the knife’s blade as he stuttered out, “L-Listen, buddy, we can…Let’s talk about this.”
But the time for talking had passed. Whoever the man was, he wasn’t very happy with having been attacked, or almost attacked, for that matter. Though his face was hidden in the darkness, Nick knew by the bone-breaking hold that he wasn’t dealing with just any home intruder.
“Buddy, seriously, leave us the fuck al—”
But Nick never finished his sentence.
The man slashed out. The blade connected with Nick’s chest, splitting open his shirt and a bit of skin beneath. Blood started to pool, soaking the damaged fabric. Nick gasped, not realizing he’d been cut until the man threw him to the ground. It was then that the pain radiated, shooting through his chest and stomach, then up into his throat where he swore he could taste blood.
Behind him, his frat brothers were frozen. They, too, were struggling with accepting what had just happened. Not five minutes ago, they were laughing and drinking, busting each other’s balls. Now, one of their own was laying on the floor with blood seeping through his clothes, maybe even dying.
“Who the fuck are you?” Gavin eventually cried, snapping everyone’s attention to the man.
But the man didn’t answer. Instead, he turned on the boys. With his knife still raised, stained with Nick’s blood, he stomped forward. All at once, the boys of Kappa Delta Phi screamed, then fled in all different directions, only stopping for a second so that Gavin could help their injured brother to his feet. As they ran, each said a silent prayer that they didn’t end up like Nick, despite not realizing that his injuries were mild compared to what was to come.