For thousands of years, Macalaurë Fëanorion had lived a turbulent and lonely life, hiding among mortals. It was dangerous for him to be exposed as non-human, and that necessitated moving around whenever he'd been somewhere long enough that his lack of aging was becoming suspect. Yet it seemed worse to him to go back where he came from and repent to the Valar, who he found unjust tyrants; he would rather live free and alone, than be reunited with his kind and grovel under Manwë's boot.
Not merely because doing so would dishonor his family - especially Fëanor - but because he would be expected by the Valar and most of Quendi society to return to living as female. He had been done with that since before the First Age.
But once every few decades to few hundred years, he dared to let someone in past arm's length to know him and his secrets, to follow him as long as their mortal lifespan would allow. And for the last four years, he'd been reunited with a few of his kin who'd reincarnated as humans - who had, indeed, chosen to reincarnate as Men in Middle-Earth so he wouldn't be alone; Fëanor had chosen to reincarnate as a trans man in solidarity with Maglor.
They were living together as a polyamorous quad in a small town on the coast of Maine. All of them were immigrants - Sören from Iceland, Anthony from England, and Nicholas from Quebec. It was October now, and recently Sören had expressed interest in celebrating Halloween, which wasn't really a thing where he was from. It had come out that Maglor - living under the alias "Mark Lauer", though they knew who and what he was - had never really celebrated one either, despite having wandered around the United States since the 1970s.
"Every day is Halloween," Mark had quipped, "since I have to disguise my true appearance to blend in and I'm old enough to be considered an eldritch abomination."
"Well, we need to remedy this," Sören said. "You deserve to have fun and live a little."
It was now Halloween night, and Mark didn't know what his partners were planning other than "a surprise". Until it was time for them to unveil the surprise, he was treating this like any other day and doing what he usually did in the evening, going to his studio in the garage to practice music. The one deviation from the usual was that Mark was dressed up for Halloween, with teased hair and wearing tight pants and a glittery copper lamé top like he was in an 80s hair band. Mark had in fact had a hair metal career in the 80s, and an old outfit for the stage had survived that long.
It made Mark somewhat nostalgic for the 80s - though there were many things about that decade he didn't miss - and it was enough for him to find himself starting with a rendition of Michael Jackson's "Thriller" on the harp, after his warmup exercises. But he didn't get too far into the song before he was interrupted.
OOoooOOoooOO...
Suddenly, the lights went out in the garage and three figures walked in.
Glow-in-the-dark sheets with holes cut out for the eyes.
"OOoooOOoooOO," the ghosts said. "OOoooOOoooOO..."
Mark rolled his eyes, restrained a grin, and played along. "Oh no! Who are you?"
"We are the ghosts of Halloween Past, Halloween Present, and Halloween Future," came Nicholas's deep velvet voice with its French Canadian burr. "As you know, you have dishonored the spirit of Halloween by not celebrating it for as long as you have."
"We're going to teach you what... trick or treat... is all about," Anthony said, with emphasis on "trick or treat" in such a way that Mark had a feeling this was going to involve something sexual.
The "ghosts" circled around him. "OOoooOOoooOO. OOoooOOoooOO."
"Come with us, Mark." Sören's Icelandic accent was unmistakable.
"If you're good, we might let you have something sweet," Anthony said. "If you know what I mean."
Now Mark couldn't help laughing a little. "You guys are dorks."
Nicholas cleared his throat. "As you know, I am not a dork. And these shenanigans were not my -"
Sören elbowed him. "Shut it, Ñolo." Then he cleared his throat, louder than Nicholas had. "Come on now. You know you want some of this candy." Sören turned around and wiggled his ass even though it was covered by a sheet.
Mark gave an exaggerated groan as he got up. Sören led the way and Nicholas and Anthony flanked him to make sure he complied.
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