Dying is easier than he thought it would be, but then he's not sure he's really dying. He can hear and feel his molecules clattering together, rearranging and vibrating; death is supposed to come much more quietly than this. He breathes in a painful gasping breath and is rewarded with the taste of singed hair and something akin to living electricity. He coughs; it should be loud, but it doesn't make a sound. Abed feels himself beginning to sink, and wonders if the blast blew a hole into the floor, but then half of his body disappears into the ground; Abed realizes that he is the hole and it is the world that is curving into him. Then all of a sudden he feels a shift and his body has solidified; below his waist he is rooted into the floor.
Abed laughs; somehow he has subverted the narrative of both the living and the dead.
He wonders if this makes him a bit like Spiderman before he passes out to the sound of shouting and scuffling feet.
Abed is in the floor.
Like, in the floor.
Troy isn't sure whether to laugh or cry or freak the fuck out so he does all three and tries to muffle the half-desperate sounds he makes as his brain twists against his grasp on reality. He bends over and taps at Abed's face and arms; he figures if anyone would know what to do when reality is shifted it would be Abed, who has half a foot out of it at all times anyway.
Troy has to stifle a giggle at the fact that actually, both of Abed's feet are outside the realm of reality at the moment. He wonders whether or not that will make Abed extra meta and helpful when he wakes up, but then he starts crying again because what if it turns out they won't be able to communicate at all?
Above them, the floor creaks with footsteps; they're in the basement of a place they're totally not supposed to be in, and they're going to be found if Troy doesn't calm down and figure out how to get Abed's legs back. He wipes his eyes and nose off on his sleeve and gets on his knees so that he's eye level with Abed. He places his ear to Abed's chest and listens; he relaxes a bit when he hears breathing and a heartbeat. He places his mouth up against Abed's ear and squeaks out,
"Abed! You there, buddy?"
Abed doesn't respond. Troy laces his fingers in Abed's and says,
"Squeeze if you can hear me, ok?"
The response is immediate and forceful; Troy gasps involuntarily. Abed's forehead leans down to rest against Troy's shoulder; his eyelashes bat against Troy's sweater. He coughs.
"Isn't that trick usually reserved for the dying?" says Abed.
"I wasn't sure if you were," says Troy, now holding him tightly.
"I wasn't sure if I was either," says Abed.
The trick to moving fluidly about the world is to not think about it too hard; Abed has always been far too self- aware and far too removed to ever appear to move along with life instead of against the grain. Being a ghost suits him; all ghosts are made for is to be uncomfortably self aware and forever unchanging. That's not all Abed is or ever will be, but the new skin fits like a suit and the more he thinks about it the easier it is to wear it, like it's something that's been with him all this time. Abed's not really sure what the machine he used does, after all; for all he knows, it has been.
He's so far up out of the ground now that he's floating in the air and he has to forget how to think, but he can't remember how to forget-
"Abed!" Troy calls, and for a moment, Abed's head clears; he feels a pull on his feet towards the earth.
"Troy, grab one of those gun things from the corner and that thermos, I have a good feeling about it," says Abed.
Troy's face breaks into a grin.
"I'm pretty sure it's for catching ghosts. It's a thermos because it's for-" he says.
"Ectoplasmic soup," finishes Abed. He floats down even closer towards the ground, smiling. Above them, the noises have become more intense; growling and scratching has emerged and the footsteps have taken on a strange, hollow echo. Abed's breath is blue and his skin is tingling. He reaches a hand out to Troy.
"Ready to fight some ghosts?" he asks.
Troy grabs his hand tightly, nods, and runs after him into the unknown.