Why so few fics about everyones favourite ghosthunter? I wanted to invent a girl to give him some lurve :) Hope you guys enjoy it and let me know what you think :)
"So, as the evidence, and our presentation suggests, tracking electrical anomalies in the house is clearly the way forward in the field of spectral investigation." Tucker finished his closing speech and nodded towards his associate Specs, who turned off the powerpoint presentation. No applause, no nothing. Tucker and Specs awkwardly exited stage left as one of the spectral investigation panel stepped up to the microphone.
"Well, that was... intriguing. Please give a round of applause for these two interesting young men, however... avant garde their approach may be."
There was a polite scattering of claps, Tucker defiantly stuck his chin out from the front row, Specs looked like he wanted the chair to eat him, his face slightly pink. The panel had called for a small recess of the conference and Specs was the first out of his seat.
"Tucker, if we can leave, like... right now, I'll buy you lunch."
"Burger King?"
"Yes, anything."
Tucker smiled and rose from his seat.
"I dunno why you get so insanely nervous at these things, they really aren't all that."
"I get 'nervous' because these are the people we need to impress, for funding, for recognition, not the people we need to be be laughed off the stage by."
"I'm pretty sure that was a cough, not a laugh." Tucker smirked at his friend. This is what they did, wound each other up, all day every day.
Specs was exasperated. Tucker was always so chilled, he felt like a coiled spring compared to him.
"Well, you can run along to Burger King, I'll wait here for our thesis girl."
"What?"
"I told you about her, Leanne or something, she emailed us."
"What are you babbling about?" Specs could feel a nerve twitching under his eye. Tucker had been replying to emails?
"This girl, PhD student, wants to follow us round on a few jobs. She's doing her thesis on haunted houses and apparently she thinks we're the best spectral investigators out there. Emailed us about... oooh... a week ago?"
"And we're meeting her here?"
"Yup."
"It would have been nice, to have been informed about this." Specs removed his glasses and cleaned them with his tie.
"I'm telling you right now."
"Yes. But before now would have been better, or better yet just leave all the admin stuff to me, ok?"
"I'm more than capable of doing it Steven, but whatever." Tucker saw the slight tensing of Specs's jaw when he called him by his given name.
"I'm not saying you're not, I'm just saying I would prefer to do it in future."
"And like I said, I'm capable of replying to an email, but whatever."
"Sometimes Tucker, I despair of you. Fine, I'll go get food, meet you back here somewhere."
-0-
Specs squinted as he looked around the foyer of the hotel the conference was being held in. Trying to find Tucker wasn't usually hard, the guy was like seven foot tall.
He finally saw Tucker's back and made his way over to the small table he was perched at. He set down the Burger King bag and his own messenger bag before looking up. There was a small girl sitting across the table, previously hidden from view by Tucker, watching Specs and his every move.
"Oh, um... hi" Specs gave her a quick smile and did a scan of her appearance. Shoulder length black hair with bangs, very pale. Typical 'I'm a little bit goth' parapsychology student.
"Hi, I'm Lenore, the PhD student?" she stuck out a hand across the table for him to shake, bangles clinked on her wrist as she did so. Specs shook it, her skin was warm compared to his.
"Wow, cold hands!" she exclaimed and then laughed lightly.
"Oh, um, yeah, I've been outside, I had to run across to get a happy meal for Tucker here."
"Burger King don't sell happy meals" Tucker replied dryly, without looking up from his burger. He was far too involved with removing the pickles.
"Oooh, you don't mind if I have them do you?" Lenore asked him, Tucker flicked them onto the paper at the side of the burger and nodded.
"Thanks," Lenore grinned at Tucker again and reached out for one.
Specs watched as she placed it in her mouth, he watched her fingers as she shot her tounge out to catch a drip of ketchup. Suddenly the room felt a little too close and he cleared his throat noisily. He was halfway between finding her perky goth persona excruciatingly annoying, especially the way she kept beaming at Tucker and finding her legs, wrapped in fishnet stockings extremely enticing. This was going to prove awkward.
"So, what is it that you hope to learn from working with us?"
"I was hoping to just really get a feel for what you guys at 'Spectral Sightings' do, the preliminary interviews, the technology you use... All of it would be useful for me to see in action, I'm studying the psychology of hauntings and the haunted" She gave him a slight and shy smile, different from the one she threw out to Tucker earlier. She seemed a little unsure of herself, that self doubt would disapear after she got her thesis published or her first book out there Specs thought, slightly bitter at his own academic bad luck. Then she would be one of the ones in the audience snickering at him, rather than looking up at him the way she was doing now. He noticed she was swinging her legs like a child. How annoying.
"So you want to just observe?"
"Yeah, at first, I mean to be honest I didn't think you would let someone with no previous experience or training get involved with your process" He noticed her head was cocked slightly to the side, like a puppy, interested in his thoughts and the noises he was making. Her eyes were almost yellow, they were such a light brown, he noticed quickly before realising he hadn't replied.
"Yeah, well... I mean. No, we wouldn't... Let's see how you get along with it first of all". Specs smiled at her, hoping to give off a friendly co worker vibe.
"Right, cool" Lenore stood up, throwing her brown satchel over her shoulder. "When do I start?"
So this chapter was very much from Specs's point of view. I wanted to put in some from Lenore's but every time I tried it didn't seem to sit right. So the next chapter I think will be from her point of view, with perhaps a little bit of overlap from this chapter. I like experiementing with point of views :D
