I would like to thank my friend Night Yagami for helping me with this fic.
Pale Ghost
A young boy stood in his bedroom wondering if he was in fact alone. For the past few weeks he had been hearing noises throughout the house when he knew no one else was home. The noises seemed to grow louder when his father left for baking supplies and also when night fell. He would have chalked up the sounds as his imagination acting up if it had not been for the cursing that came with the noises.
The sound of glass breaking followed by one of many curses he heard over the past few weeks echoed throughout the house. He sighed; time to clean up another mess. Captchalogging the broom and dust pan he had leaning against the wall next to the door, he made his way downstairs to where he believed the object that broke was located. Standing on the last step he hesitated. When the noises first arrived he had been ecstatic to think a ghost haunted his house of all places, but now he was not so sure if he wanted a ghost anymore.
He tried on more than one occasion to find and meet said ghost, but that had proven to be difficult. First off, he had forgotten ghosts were invisible half the time. This was not like Ghostbusters where he could use the Proton Pack and capture ghosts in the Ghost Trap. He did not own any ghost hunting equipment, nor was he a brilliant genius like Egon Spengler or Ray Stantz to create any equipment.
Secondly, whenever he entered a room where he swore up and down the ghost was hiding, he would walk into some sort of prank the ghost had probably set up. He would hear laughter coming out of nowhere and taunts thrown at him that hurt more than the pastry that was thrown at his face. His prankster's gambit had been extremely low for the past week. He was not sure how much more he could take.
Taking the final step he scanned his living room, surveying the area to see what had been damaged. He hoped it was one of the many harlequin statues scattered around the room. He hated them so much; the fewer, the better. Staring at the mantle, he sighed in relief. At least the urn holding his Nanna's ashes had not been the object that broke.
His bright blue eyes shifted to the couch. Nothing looked out of place over here either. Had he just imagined something breaking? He was about to call it quits when a soft groan caught his ear. It sounded as if it was coming from the kitchen. He sniffed the air, which lacked the usual scent of baked goods. Right, his father left him home alone. However, he would be returning home soon.
He took a tentative step towards the kitchen when he felt something under his sneaker crush under his weight. Taking a step back, he saw the black shattered remains of one of his father's harlequin statues. Well, it was a good thing he wore his shoes. If he had not, his foot would have been in a ton of pain.
Taking out the broom and dust pan from his sylladex, he got down on his knees and carefully swept up the shards. Better to get rid of the evidence now and not get injured later. As he swept his eyes noticed a couple of tiny bright red spots of liquid scattered on the floor. Putting the broom and dust pan full of shards back in his sylladex, he began to examine the spots. His eyes widened in horror as he realized what the liquid was.
Blood.
But how and why were there speckles of blood on the floor!? He turned towards the kitchen as the same groan from earlier returned. Standing up slowly, he hugged the wall before tentatively peeking out from behind the doorframe. Sitting at the center of his kitchen's tiled floor, floating about three inches off the ground was a kid that looked to be about his age, a very odd looking kid.
Two small, nubby horns peeked out of the kid's messy black hair. His skin was the color of ash and the large charcoal sweater he was wearing bore the sign of cancer, one of the few celestial signs he could recognize in the night sky. He swallowed, he could see right through the kid. Was this the ghost that had been haunting his house for the past few weeks?
The transparent kid winced as his hand jerked away from his head. The hand was covered in blood from an open wound. Concern for the kid's well-being overrode his thoughts, "Hey kid, are you okay?"
The kid turned quickly towards him. His colorless eyes narrowed in anger, "IS YOUR THINKPAN LEAKING!? DO I LOOK OKAY? DO YOUR PATHETIC HUMAN GANDERBULBS FAIL TO ACKNOWLEDGE THE LIQUID SPEWING FROM-" his voice faltered and without another word, he disappeared.
Feeling a tad guilty for both startling and upsetting the ghost, he took a few steps closer to where the ghost had vanished, "Wait! Maybe I can help you."
"I HIGHLY DOUBT THAT," the voice of the kid echoed off the walls.
Not knowing where the source of the voice was coming from, he decided to be productive, "Stay here, I'll be right back," he dashed off as the ghost continued to yell at him from the kitchen. He ran up the stairs taking two steps at a time.
"GET BACK HERE! I'M NOT DONE YELLING AT YOU YET!"
As he ignored the screaming banshee and ran down the hallway, heading straight for the bathroom, his mind began swarming with questions. How the hell did the ghost get injured in the first place? Since when did ghosts bleed? And why did this ghost's blood look similar to his and not closer to the glowing ectoplasm he had seen in the movies and read so much about?
Skidding into the bathroom, he threw the shards he picked up earlier into the trash and leaned the broom and dust pan against the toilet. With his sylladex de-cluttered, he began to dig through the medicine cabinet. Once he had dug up some gauze and captchalogged a towel he soaked in water, he bolted down the hallway and without slowing down, ran towards the stairs. He felt his shoelace catch underneath his shoe and before his brain could register what was going on, he was falling. Dave had warned him about the stairs, but did he listen?
No.
He closed his eyes and braced for impact. As he fell, he felt the temperature drop around him as he felt someone tug on the back of his shirt. He was pulled back and the next thing he knew, he was sitting on the steps. He slowly opened his eyes and came face to face with the ghost kid. For a split second he swore he saw a hint of worry, but it was swiftly consumed by anger.
"DIDN'T YOUR LUSUS TELL YOU NOT TO RUN ON THE STAIRS!? YOU ARE SUCH A GRUB."
He smiled, it seemed like the ghost was worried about him. As he listened to the ghost's rant, slightly puzzled by some of the terms being thrown at him, his gaze shifted to the ghost's head. Blood was beginning to clot, so the wound was not as bad as it had been minutes ago. "You're still bleeding." The ghost's expression changed from anger to fear. "I didn't think ghosts could bleed." The ghost opened then closed his mouth.
"YOU'RE NOT DISGUSTED BY MY MUTANT BLOOD?"
He stared at him, confused. "How do you have mutant blood? It looks pretty normal to me."
The ghost was taken aback. "MY BLOOD, NORMAL? HAVE YOU LEFT YOUR THINKPAN ON THE STOVE FOR TOO LONG? HOW THE HELL IS MY BLOOD NORMAL?"
He shrugged. "Well, I don't know what 'normal' ghost blood looks like, but by human standards it looks pretty normal." He pulled out the wet towel he had captchalogged earlier. "But I do know that you need to get that wound clean before it gets infected."
After looking at his face for a moment the ghost sighed in defeat. "FINE, I WILL ALLOW YOUR MISERABLE HUMAN PRONGS TO CLEANSE MY CUT."
He held the wet towel up and lightly dabbed the wound. "So uh…how did you die?"
The ghost tensed. "DON'T YOU KNOW HOW RUDE IT IS TO ASK A GHOST HOW THEY DIED!? IT'S A SENSATIVE SUBJECT! HAVEN'T YOU HEARD OF GHOST COURTESY 101?"
"Uhhh..."
"NO, OF COURSE NOT!"
He narrowed his eyes, and cleansed the wound a little harder. The ghost winced. "Ghost Courtesy 101 huh? Well what does it say about haunting someone's house?"
The ghost grabbed his wrist. "FOR YOUR INFORMATION THIS IS NOW MY HIVE TOO! I HAVE A RIGHT TO BE HERE HU-MAN!"
He stared at the ghost confused. "Wait what? What do you mean this is your home too?"
The ghost released his wrist and grumbled, "I CHOSE THIS PLACE TO HAUNT. WHEN A GHOST CHOOSES ITS HOME THE GHOST CAN DO WHAT IT WANTS!"
He frowned and stood up. "WHOA! Wait a god fucking minute! That's NOT right! I've lived here most of my life! You can't just claim my house and do whatever the fuck you want!"
The ghost narrowed his blank glowing eyes, "YOU SHOULD BE HONORED!"
"Well I'm not! You can't just waltz in here and claim something is yours! You're the one not being courteous here! I like a prank as much as the next guy, but you've overstepped your boundaries!" The ghost appeared to deflate under the weight of his words. He returned to his seat on the step, grumbling under his breath and threw the wet towel at the ghost's face. To his surprise it flew through the ghost and landed on the bottom step.
The ghost touched his face, then looked down the steps and back at him. "DID YOU JUST THROW THAT AT MY FACE!?"
He gawked at the towel down the steps. "Did that just go through your face!?"
"I'M A GHOST. WHAT THE HELL DID YOU EXPECT!?"
"I forgot you were for a second okay!? I-you felt real…I could touch you." His eyes scanned his hands, searching for something that could explain what had just happened. Were his hands magic or something?! No, wait, dumb idea, magic doesn't exist.
The ghost grumbled under his breath, "I CAN CHOOSE WHETHER OR NOT I WANT TO BE TOUCHED YOU NUMB-NUGGET."
He held up his hands in defense, "Okay, okay I believe you! You are the ghost after all."
"KARKAT."
He raised an eyebrow, "Wha-"
The ghost pinched the upper ridge of his nose, frowning at the boy's stupidity, "MY NAME IS KARKAT! ARE YOUR AURICULAR SPONGE CLOTS MALFUNTIONING!?"
"Oh uh…" he rubbed the back of his neck and held out his hand, "My name is John."
Karkat gazed at his hand, "YOU'RE NOT UP TO ANYTHING ARE YOU?"
John shook his head, "No, I promise I won't prank you. I kind of tired of pranking…for now." Karkat gingerly took his hand and shook it. John smiled. "See, nothing."
Karkat's scowl lessened. "GUESS YOU'RE NOT SO BAD."
John jumped up upon hearing the sound of a car door slamming, "Oh shit, Dad's home." Upon hearing the front door unlock, John stumbled up the steps and bolted for his room with Karkat in tow. Quickly shoving the bedroom door close, the duo felt something was...off. Looking down at their hands they realized their fingers were intertwined with the others. Without a second thought they both pulled their hand away from the other, their faces instantly turning scarlet.
"OKAY WHAT'S THE PLAN NOW GENIUS?" Karkat asked, still recovering from the touching of hands.
John looked around his room for an answer, "Uh…" his eyes stopped on one of his movie posters. "Do you like rom-coms?"
"THEY'RE OKAY I GUESS…" he said, obviously not wanting to fully admit that he adored them.
John smiled, "Okay then, how does Failure to Launch sound?"
An hour later John looked over to his movie watching partner and sighed. The ghost had curled up in a ball and fallen asleep next to him. A smile escaped John's lips. Maybe having his own ghost wasn't so bad after all.