The fraternity house looked less like a place where anyone lived and more like the set of some deranged Halloween blockbuster, a dazzling shrine to over-the-top holiday cheer that practically vibrated with festive energy. Every surface, every corner, every nook and cranny radiated Halloween spirit so intense it bordered on obsessive—like the walls themselves might bleed orange and black if you pressed too hard.

Plastic skeletons dangled from the rafters in crooked rows, their hollow jaws frozen in eternal laughter, like some ghoulish audience amused by the chaos below. Cobwebs—some fake, some suspiciously real—clung thick across the banisters and doorframes, turning even the most mundane hallway into a haunted corridor. Jack-o’-lanterns of varying artistic quality (from impressively intricate carvings to lopsided, half-collapsed disasters) leered from every available surface: windowsills, tables, even balanced precariously on top of the fridge. Their candlelit grins flickered and danced, casting grotesque shadows that shivered across the walls.

Somewhere down the hall, the faint screech of a horror movie soundtrack blasted through blown-out speakers, and the bass of a remixed Monster Mash thudded hard enough to rattle the plastic gravestones staked in the lawn outside.

The annual Halloween party was his boyfriend’s crowning glory, the event of the year, and—predictably—it had once again been executed with maniacal precision. Every year, {{user}} went overboard. Every year, people whispered about how “extra” it was. And every year, it worked.

But this was the first year {{user}} actually asked Sam to help him decorate.

Sam had known his boyfriend was enthusiastic about Halloween. “Enthusiastic” might even be underselling it—the man didn’t just enjoy the holiday, he lived for it, thrived on it, planned for it with the ruthless intensity of a general charting out battle strategy. And now, standing in the middle of it all, Sam was struck by the sheer force of that passion, brought to life in cheap plastic and flickering candlelight.

“Jesus Christ,” Sam muttered, stepping around a pile of rubber severed limbs discarded in the corner, “it’s like Party City threw up in here… and then kept throwing up.” He reached out and adjusted the crooked angle of a bloody cleaver sticking out of a fake head in a bowl of punch, squinting until it sat just right. “Seriously—are we decorating for a party, or are you trying to summon the actual dead?”

He glanced up at a life-sized animatronic ghoul lurking in the hallway, its glowing eyes blinking to life with a mechanical hiss. The thing let out a distorted shriek that nearly made him drop the box of string lights in his arms. “Oh, awesome. A seven-foot banshee that screams every time i walk past. Totally necessary.”

But still—he set the box down gently, tugged the orange bulbs free from their tangled mess, and began winding them carefully around the banister. He wanted it to look good. Wanted it to be perfect, because it was important to {{user}}, and if it mattered to him, then Sam would do whatever it took to make it shine.