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after-witch · 6 months

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Horrorfest: Trick or Treat [Yandere Chrollo x Reader]

Title: Trick or Treat [Yandere Chrollo x Reader]

Synopsis: "Can you at least tell me where we're going?" Chrollo, in the driver's seat, says nothing. And you barely resist the urge to rip the blindfold off your head.

For Horrorfest request... Chrollo taking darling to a house & won't say the rest because the reveal is necessary for the catharsis.

notes: yandere, reader is kidnapped, emotional damage idk

“Can you please tell me where you’re taking me?” The edge in your voice makes it crack like glass, a tone just as fragile as your poor nerves. Your fingers curl tighter against your thighs. Just what the hell is going on?

Chrollo is beside you in the driver’s seat, as always. He’d never trust you with a car, even in the ordinary circumstance you find yourself in them--traveling from place to place, whisked to hotels and hideouts and sometimes less-than-hospitable abandoned places.

You can hear the gentle acceleration of the engine, the hum of the road underneath you, the rush of wind when he opens the window a crack. The weight of his presence is there, that almost imperceptible sensation of strength from his pure existence.

But.

You can’t see a damn thing through the blindfold he tied around your forehead after getting you into the car earlier this evening.

“You’ll see soon enough, dearest,” he answers finally. You swear you can sense the way his head glances down at your clenched hands. “Do try to calm down. I promise it’s nothing bad.”

You bite your cheek.

“Your definition of bad is often different from mine, so you can see why that doesn’t exactly reassure me.”

The swerve of the car when it turns, more frequently now, like you’ve gone off the main road and are now somewhere more complicated. Where is he taking you, and why? There’s a thud in your heart when you consider the possibilities.

If this was simply a matter of moving to a new hideout, he would have told you; you would have packed your things, few though they are, and been given at least a vague schedule. Driving times. Flight take-offs. Whatever.

But tonight, he’d asked you to follow him after dinner, led you out to the car, and gently urged you inside. He ignored your questions. Then he said it would be a surprise and tied a blindfold around your eyes.

There’s only the vaguest sense of time passing--how long have you been driving anyway? Wherever he was taking you, would you stay there long? Would you be back at the hotel by nightfall? You’d hoped to catch a horror movie marathon the hotel was hosting on its own channel. It was the only Halloween activity Chrollo had agreed to, since he didn’t like the idea of taking you out to a party and it wasn’t like a hotel was going to get trick-or-treaters. Maybe you could have asked him to get some decorations, but somehow the thought of taping up paper bats on the walls of the luxury hotel room didn’t feel in the spirit of the season.

The car comes to a stop and you lurch slightly in your seat.

Chrollo turns off the engines. He leans over and unbuckles your seatbelt.

“Just a moment,” he says, and you swear your hear warm mirth in his voice. Asshole. He enjoys playing with you, doesn’t he? And that’s what this must be, some sort of sick game.

The door opens and there’s a whoosh of pleasantly cool air that smells like leaves and bonfires. He grabs your arm and helps you out of the car. You shiver, not from the chill. You’re outside, that much is clear. But where? And why? And for what?

”Chrollo,” you say, pleading. Your fingers dig into your upper arms. How much trouble would you be in if you just ripped the damn thing off your head on your own?

He chuckles, and he’s close enough that you can almost feel it. Finally his fingers fiddle with the knot of the blindfold and you feel it drop away before your eyes register that you can see again.

It’s--

A neighborhood. An ordinary neighborhood. The evening has not quite settled in, and the sky reflects brilliant orange and red against rows of homes, all flickering yellows and purples and greens from Halloween decorations tacked and staked and pinned outside. The glow of lit jack o’lanterns practically shimmers against the dutifully swept sidewalks.

It makes your heart hurt to see this sort of life.

“Why… did you bring me here?” A thousand thoughts rattle off, most of them not staying long to catch. The idea that he’s taunting you or teasing you comes to mind. Or maybe he’s got some target inside that he’s going to kill and make you watch as revenge for telling him that if he loved the expensive lingerie that found its way into your suitcase so much, he could wear it himself.

He doesn’t answer. Instead, he simply takes your arm and you can do nothing but follow. Helpless thing that you are. Sure, there are people outside. Children itching to trick or treat, parents forcing them to pose for photos. And they’d be dead in a second (if they were lucky) if you said something to them.

The house is nice. A typical suburban house, you suppose. There are orange-and-black garlands strewn about, a giant witch stood up in the corner with a cauldron that has fake lights and an artificial bubbling sound.

There’s even a jack o’ lantern in front of the doorway, glowing softly from a tealight placed inside. It’s a pretty thing. Maybe you should have asked Chrollo if you could carve a pumpkin in the hotel, after all.

When he gets to the front door, he stops and shoves his hands into his jingling pockets. He… has a key to the house, which should perhaps surprise you. But your heart is pounding and your nerves are frayed, and all you can do is think in alternating thoughts: why are we here, and why can’t I live like this?

The door creaks open. You half-expect something to jump out. A corpse. A member of the Phantom Troupe. Both?

But instead there’s just… a house. Just an ordinary house. With some of the lights on in the kitchen and a fake fireplace and fairy lights with orange pumpkins strung up in the entryway. Next to the coat rack is a table with an immensely large bowl filled with an assortment of candy. Chocolates and sour sweets and licorice.

A few feet in front of the entryway is a rack of--clothes? No, they’re colorful and strange looking. Costumes, you realize. Halloween costumes. But why…

Your heart thuds, once, twice, three times.

“I don’t understand.” Your mouth is dry. Something in your chest tightens as Chrollo gently pushes you forward until you’re in front of the costume rack.

His voice comes from next to you, but you don’t dare face him. You don’t know what expression he will wear and worse than that, you don’t know what expression is on your face right now. But you know that it’s something too vulnerable to share with him so openly.

“You said you’d never been able to hand out candy to trick or treaters, didn’t you?”

It takes a few moments to hit you, and when it does, your hands wring together.

“So you… this is…” Not some awful, nasty trick, but something kind and done for you? You don’t say it. You don’t need to say it. The disgusted, awful relief of it--the gently rising pleasant surprise--must be showing on your face.

He holds up a princess costume while your mind tries to process what’s happening, and you shake your head at it. Too sweet and colorful for your vision of Halloween.

“Don’t think too much about it, dear,” he says, thumbing through the hangers of costumes. “Just find something and get dressed. I’m sure there will be plenty of kids coming to the door soon enough.”

Kids. In costumes. Trick or treating.

At your--no, not your house, but maybe your house? In some way. Just for now. For the moment. For one one night--Halloween night.

That has to be good enough.

The witch costume is just the right size, but that’s no surprise. Chrollo has a shockingly detailed knowledge about your body; he’s even, with trial and error, mastered the art of nabbing nearly perfectly sized underwear across different brands. Bastard.

But you don’t think about that now. All you think about is how… spooky you look. How fun. How pretty, in that dark and morbid and delightfully Halloweeny way.

You forgot how this felt, actually: wearing a real costume. Not the mask you put on every day to survive co-existence with Chrollo Lucilfer, but a real Halloween costume. Something shiny and cheap, not meant to be worn more than a few times before you find a broken seam, sigh, and chuck it out.

In the end, you look like anyone else might, living in this house, dressed up on Halloween. A witch costume, complete with a hat and fake wart that you are sure is going to fall off your face within about 15 minutes thanks to some questionable quality sticker glue.

When you step out to show Chrollo, you find not Chrollo, but a vampire in his place. Okay, okay. It’s Chrollo, wearing his normal outfit with a thin black cape lined in red over everything. He slicked back his hair--admittedly you prefer it loose, not that you’d ever tell him so--and it looks like he applied a thin layer of white powder to dilute his pallor even more.

A vampire. Dracula. A bloodsucker. How appropriate for him. Not that you’d ever ruin this night by vocalizing that thought, so you bury it like a fake skeleton underneath the house of your mind.

“You look marvelous,” he says, when you come out into full view. And you laugh immediately. Because he’s stuck fake fangs in his mouth. The cheap kind that looks like dentures. They make him sound absolutely ridiculous.

He doesn’t take offense, or at least he hides it well. He pops the fangs out, a line of drool trailing after them and holds them in his hand. They glow a little green in the dimness of the house.

“Too much?” You only smile in response, and he drops them in the trash. “They were uncomfortable, so it’s no loss. I’ll pretend that I keep my fangs hidden until I’m ready to bite.” The last words were spoken almost too lasciviously, and hIs gaze seems to lighten then. Because of course he’d feel better about looking like a fool as long as he could turn it around on you.

You don’t have time to let this bother you, though, because--

The doorbell rings. A quaint thing. Ding-dong.

Is it possible for your heart to stop while you’re still alive? Suddenly your legs feel heavy. Suddenly your whole body feels heavy. Suddenly you can’t possibly answer the door.

Ding-dong.

“Go on, love.”

Chrollo’s hand is on your shoulder and for once it feels reassuring rather than terrifying. You let him guide you to the door, which you open with trembling hands.

You’re greeted by a group of small children dressed up, holding out pillowcases and candy buckets.

“TRICK OR TREAT!!”

You can’t speak. You forgot how to interact with normal people, normal things. No, no, it’s not just that. You want to cry. You’re going to cry. Because this is the first time you’ve ever opened a door to find smiling children waiting for candy on this most special of fall nights, a night when people can be anything, when the air itself feels magical.

You feel like you’re moments away from whirling around and running deep into the safety of the house when Chrollo touches your shoulder again. And his touch grounds you. Shakes you up. Snaps you out of it.

“O-Oh, I’m sorry!” You say, half-laughing, to the children who have begun to stare at you like a particularly curious bird in a tree. “Your costumes are just so cool, I was speechless!”

You begin to scoop handfuls of candy into their waiting bags and buckets. Most of them look eagerly at their growing haul and run away without another word.

One kid dressed like an oversized turtle yells out “THANKS!” before he, too, runs away. You look down the driveway and see that some of them have parents waiting, but most are traveling with friends. The turtle kid almost bowls over his mother, who looks back at the doorway. You expect her to wave and smile, but she only quirks her head a little at you before her son grabs her arm and drags her away.

You pay her little mind--it’s the trick or treaters that interest you, the way they happily shout to one another about what houses are giving out what, the shrieks you can hear when they are scared by electronic dolls that pop out when they pass a threshold.

What a lovely thing, that freedom.

What a lovelier thing, right now, for you to play your part in it.

There are no other kids running up the sidewalk towards the house, so Chrollo shuts the door for you. There’s a silence between you, until Chrollo reaches up and wipes away at tears that had just begun to make themselves known in the corner of your eye.

“Are you all right?” His voice is low, soothing. He doesn’t usually tease you when you cry. Maybe he knows it would push you even further away. You wonder, briefly, if your tears or his touch smeared your carefully applied witchy eyeshadow.

“Yes,” you say, when you realize he actually wants an answer. “I’m just…” How to explain the feeling in your chest? This warm, fuzzy feeling that only comes on Halloween and that feels amplified by the role you’re playing right now. “It feels weird,” you decide on. “To be finally doing this.”

Chrollo looks at you quietly. He nods, but says nothing more.

A few moments later, that beautiful sound returns.

Ding-dong.

And--

”Trick or treat!”

The night goes on wonderfully. You stay more or less by the door, though you occasionally wander into the living room to admire the decorations. You wonder how long it took Chrollo to put them up. Maybe this was why he was gone for the better part of the previous day, setting everything up so it was just right for you. The thought makes you feel… pleasantly tingly.

He thought of everything, actually. He even puts on a Halloween movie with the volume low, perfect for watching in between trick-or-treaters or peeking at from the entryway. While you’re handing out candy, you hear the microwave buzzing in the kitchen, and when you shut the door he hands you a plate with warm pizza on it.

It’s not the kind you usually get--you’re a pineapple on your pizza person, even if it might just condemn you to hell--but you suppose the options for pizza around here were different than in the city. It’s a little stale, too, but since it seems likely that Chrollo got it yesterday to avoid having to stop there on the way, it doesn’t matter. It’s not like some mediocre pizza was going to break the spell that the night was casting over you.

It was just… perfect. The air was cool but not terribly cold, and you felt like you could smell the leaves, the bonfires, the hint of apples and plastic pumpkin pails that seemed to rush through the door every time you opened it.

Chrollo makes light conversation. Not the exhausting philosophical discussions that he likes to pull from you, usually in the late hours of the morning, but light, fun, casual. He asks about horror movies, horror books. He asks what you typically dressed up as when you were young, and chuckles when you rattle off the exact list of your costumes age 4 to 12 in sequential order.

It feels, heaven help you, domestic. Like the kind of life you might have had, if Chrollo didn’t enter your life. Or if he wasn’t who he is, because he didn’t have to be out of the fantasy entirely. If he was the type to settle in the suburbs and buy a house with you and work 9 to 5 and come home tired but eager to see you, this could be your life. You would ask him to hang up the Halloween lights and he’d sigh but do it for you, because he knows you love it.

In return you’d promise to roast pumpkin seeds later that evening, and maybe even give him a kiss. The two of you could spend the night cozying up by the fire (a real one, not a fake one, perhaps you are too used to that luxury now--) drinking hot chocolate and making idle chit-chat.

His arms wrap around you suddenly, and you almost flinch as the cobweb of your fantasy is unknowingly stepped through. This close, you can smell the powder on his face, see the little dots of it that have caked on his skin.

“What are you thinking, dear?”

You look at him and for once don’t feel like telling him to shove it. For some reason, hurting his feelings right now would actually make you feel worse, not better. Maybe it’s because you feel like you’re on high; maybe it’s because he did all this for you.

“Just… that this is nice,” you admit. You smile at him, and it’s not forced. It really isn’t. “Thank you.”

Chrollo presses a kiss to the top of your head.

“I must say, my reward was well worth all this effort.”

You quirk your head, the gesture reminding you briefly of the mom from earlier before you return your focus to Chrollo. “What reward?’

Chrollo, surprisingly, pushes you a little bit away from him. A finger goes up to your chin and your cheeks feel heated at the sudden intimate touch.

“Seeing you light up like this all night. I don’t believe I’ve seen you like this before, not really.”

You feel silly. Not humiliated, but silly. This is the first time that he’s seen you happy, isn’t it? And you suppose, for someone like him, it must be some kind of treat for you to be happy. To be open. To not be hissing, metaphorically and otherwise, at his attempts to be around you.

It’s a little too much to confront right now.

You grab a slice of the pizza he left sitting on the side table, and take a bite. You chew through the cold dough. “It’s hard not to have a good time on Halloween,” you mumble, averting your gaze.

Chrollo chuckles at you, but lets you eat your pizza in peace. He takes up his own slice and chews, watching you look out the window, eager to see if more children come scampering down the walk.

You flick the porch light off with a sigh. The last trick or treaters have fizzled away, and the only people on the streets are tipsy people stumbling home from parties and the occasional person that you assume must be returning from a late night shift at work.

There’s a certain magic to this, too, but it’s different from the tingling atmosphere of Halloween evening. Now it is a fading feeling, the last whimpers of the night as life returns to normal in the morning.

“Shall we finish the movie?” Chrollo asks, and you nod. You may as well hold onto Halloween for as long as possible.

There’s still some candy left in the bowl, and you grab the whole bowl as you head into the living room. Chrollo follows you, turning off the kitchen light as he goes. That leaves only the dim lighting in the living room from the fake fireplace and the glow of the TV, which is playing the last few minutes of a schlocky B-horror movie.

When he takes a seat on the couch and pats the spot next to him, you don’t hesitate. You don’t feel the need to, though you’d normally try to make a bargain for agreeing to sit next to him so readily. Now, though, you slide into the seat with the bowl in your hands and set it next to you.

There’s only one chocolate bar left, and you impulsively grab it and hand the bar to Chrollo, who raises his eyebrows briefly before accepting it.

“These are your favorite,” he says. “You eat it. I don’t mind.”

Your fingers curl on your thighs, but this time you don’t dig into your skin. Instead you merely look at a bit of pizza grease shining from the reflective TV light. “I know, but… it’s…” The words come out slow and sticky, like candy stuck to your teeth. “It’s a thank you. For this, I mean. Tonight.”

“Ah,” he says. After a moment, he unwraps the bar. Suddenly half a chocolate bar is shoved into your line of sight, and you look at Chrollo before letting out a little snort and taking it.

Sharing food with Chrollo didn’t feel so awful tonight.

Lots of things didn’t feel so awful tonight, actually. Like being in the same room as him. Talking with him. Laughing with him.

And maybe, maybe it wouldn’t feel so bad if you scooted closer to him, either. Just because the movie was actually a little scary, a side-effect of the new environment and too much greasy pizza on your nerves, probably.

So you do. And he doesn’t say a thing about it and that feels amazing, because if this was your life, it wouldn’t be so extraordinary to sit thigh-to-thigh with your lover on Halloween night. It wouldn’t be so extraordinary to turn slowly towards him and feel a flush of heat in your cheeks, your chest. Heat that was accompanied by gratitude for the way he found this abandoned house and decorated it so fully for Halloween and got you dinner and let you be normal, so perfectly normal, for one single night.

It wouldn’t be strange at all, really, for you to lean in close and kiss him on the mouth.

Chrollo’s breath mingles with your own and it feels like your first kiss, though your logical mind knows it’s far from it. But it’s the first kiss you’ve given him. Your hidden kiss, then, special and secret.

When it’s over, you lean your head against his chest and let him wrap his arms around you. The sofa creaks and you wonder, abruptly, why there was a sofa in a house where no one lived. Why a house with no one in it would have a fridge stocked with food or a manicured lawn or toiletries scattered in the bathroom. Why some of the parents looked at you funny, even after your fake wart had fallen off.

“Chrollo?”

“Mm?” He strokes your hair, keeping your head against him.

“How… did you come across this house? Did someone move out? Or--”

You don’t vocalize it. And with Chrollo, you don’t need to. He knows how your mind works better than you do, sometimes.

You hear him intake a breath, formulating an answer, and suddenly shake your head.

“No. Don’t,” you murmur, feeling yourself beginning to slide into sleep. An easy sleep. A completely ordinary Halloween-night sleep, brought on by the excitement of the holiday, the thrill of the goblins and ghouls who roamed the night and were satisfied with fistful after fistful of candy from your hands and nothing else.

“Never mind.” You whisper against his chest, and let your eyelids close. “Please, whatever happened, don’t ever tell me.”

#yandere chrollo #yandere chrollo lucilfer #yandere hunter x hunter #yandere #afterwitch writes #aw horrorfest

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