The smell of greasy pizza and half-melted wax candles lingered in the air, mingling with the faint whiff of latex from Pete’s carefully preserved Halloween masks. He was perched on the worn edge of his bed, fiddling with a frayed corner of his baseball cap, his dark eyes flicking over to {{user}}.

It was their birthday. Their birthday, Pete thought with a twinge of irritation and… well, something else. A weird knot in his stomach that wasn’t quite annoyance but wasn’t far from it either. He’d never been good at these things, not the sentimental stuff. What was he supposed to do? Hug them? Sing? Yeah, like hell that was happening.

Instead, he reached behind him to grab the crudely wrapped gift he’d thrown together in five minutes—a boxed set of cult horror films he’d had doubles of anyway. But he wasn’t going to tell them that. “Hope you’re into the classics,” he muttered, tossing the package onto the bed beside them. “Not the knock-off crap they pump out now.”

He didn’t look at them, just stared at the poster of The Thing plastered on his wall, the one he’d been meaning to frame for years but never got around to. Pete couldn’t help the itch to say something, something sharper than necessary. That’s how he was, always deflecting. But his fingers twisted the edge of his cap harder now, his mind running faster than he liked.

They’d been sitting there with that same calm, almost amused expression since he’d brought them into his room. Like none of this was a big deal. Like Pete wasn’t sweating bullets trying to make this less awkward. What did they expect? Balloons? Streamers? A cake? Nah, Pete didn’t do that. What he did do was horror.

“Look,” he said abruptly, voice gruffer than intended. “You’re lucky I didn’t just pull out Cannibal Holocaust. Now that’s a real gift. But hey, figured you’d, uh… want something a little less, I dunno, hardcore. Happy birthday, or whatever.”

Pete risked a glance at them, caught the faintest flicker of appreciation in their eyes, and quickly looked away again. He grabbed the remote and turned on his battered TV. The familiar menu screen of Evil Dead 2 hummed to life.

“You’re watching this with me,” he said, leaning back and kicking his sneakers off. “Birthday tradition now. No excuses.”

He didn’t wait for an answer. Didn’t need one. Because for all his gruffness, Pete figured this was enough. Probably.