Jerome stared up at the ceiling from boredom, resting in a plush chair in the corner of the room while Mitch was asleep nearby. In actuality, he was in Mitch's room without his permission, but it wasn't like Mitch knew he was there.
He turned to look out of the window, where ice had formed against the glass outside. Snow was still falling as the sun rose, and while it was obviously very cold out there, he had to admit it looked pretty. He nearly jumped out of his skin when Mitch's alarm clock went off, and he turned towards the bed when said Mitch grumbled and rolled over, apparently deciding to ignore the clock.
"Mitch, you need to get up. You'll be late for work if you sleep in." His concern went unheard, of course. That was his curse now, that Mitch and his other friends couldn't hear him, couldn't see him. They had no idea he was still there with them. He sighed. This existence was so depressing.
Jerome shook his head. This was no time to feel bad for himself, Mitch couldn't be late for work again! He stood, and walked over to the side of the bed where the tangle of limbs that was his friend slept, tied up in a mess of blankets and sheets he'd thrown around while he tossed and turned last night. His hair was a mess, poking up in random directions and flattened in others, and his face looked tired, proven moreso by the dark circles under his eyes. Jerome cringed slightly, this was all because of him.
He thought for a moment, trying to figure out what he could possibly alter here. He wasn't strong enough to actually shove Mitch into the floor, and he probably couldn't steal the blankets off of him, either. He opted instead for poking at the alarm clock, making it go off again. Mitch groaned and slapped the snooze button, but wasn't fully awake still. So Jerome poked the alarm clock again, making it go off, and Mitch slapped the snooze button again. This went on for a few seconds before Mitch finally threw his blankets off and glared at the clock, muttering "Is this thing on the fritz again? What the hell is wrong with it?" Jerome chuckled lightly at that, if only he knew.
It was then that Mitch finally looked at what time it was. "Great, I'm running five minutes later than normal." His eyes then widened as he stared at the clock. "But if this thing hadn't gone nuts, I'd have slept way later..." The Canadian shook his head and stood, leaving the room to get ready for work.
Jerome followed him like a lost puppy around the house as he got ready, though he did leave the room when Mitch changed clothes. Now they were standing in the kitchen, Jerome staring at Mitch and Mitch staring at the wall while the toaster sat ominously behind the Canadian. Jerome almost jumped out of his skin again when the toast popped out of the evil machine, but Mitch didn't even seem to notice. There was a distant look in his eyes, and he looked sad.
"Aww, Mitch... You have got to focus on the present and forget the past. Forget me, biggums." Jerome mumbled with an equally sad look. "You really will be late if you keep this up, though." He added, and looked around the kitchen, trying to decide which appliance would be loud enough to snap Mitch out of his daze.
He chose to press the button on the microwave that made the door pop open. It had always annoyed them both, since it would usually hit either the fridge or the person trying to open it, so the sound always made Mitch jump. Jerome still hated the toaster, but to each their own.
As expected, Mitch jumped, and stared at the microwave in bewilderment. "What?" He shut the door, staring at it like it was a ghost. Jerome chuckled at the thought. "What is wrong with my appliances today?" Jerome smirked, and pushed the fridge door open with the heel of his foot.
"... Okay, THAT thing isn't automatic. What is going on? I must be going insane." Mitch shook his head and closed that door too, before turning to the toaster, and the toast sitting in it expectantly. He stared at it blankly for a moment before shaking his head and turning to leave.
"Mitch! You can't go without eating again!" Jerome whined as he trailed behind his friend, but again, went unheard. "If you continue on like this, you're going to end up here with me!"
He continued to rant at the Canadian as he trudged along to work, but his friend couldn't hear a word of it. What Mitch did notice, however, was the cold breeze that seemed to follow him during the duration of the walk. "Nah, it's just the weather." He muttered as Jerome yelled at him.
It wasn't long before they made it to the coffee shop Mitch worked in. He tossed his bag in the back room before grabbing one of the shop's red aprons and putting it on, and then he moved to stand behind the counter, looking just as depressed as ever. Jerome sat in the nearest chair he could find, and watched his friend's expression carefully, though he didn't need to because he was so in tune with Mitch's own spirit that he himself could feel exactly what Mitch did. The thick sadness was like an ocean, trying to drown them both, and Jerome wondered how Mitch still managed to go on when he was feeling like this.
Jerome glared at the cheerful, red and green decorations hung about the small shop. He wasn't looking forward to Christmas at all, the closer to the holiday it got, the stronger Mitch's choking sadness grew. He knew that staying here all day with the constant reminders of the approaching holiday only made it worse for the Canadian as well, since every time he glanced at the decorations, Jerome could feel a spike in his sadness.
The day passed by without much happening, only a few people came in every now and then, and all they did was ask Mitch for a coffee before returning outside to continue their own little lives. None of them seemed to notice the depressed mood of the young man, or if they did they didn't pay it any mind. Jerome and Mitch both looked up in surprise when they heard a familiar voice say "You okay, Mitch?" Jerome's expression softened significantly when he recognized Ian, and was glad he had come to check on Mitch. All of their friends had been very understanding and supportive of Mitch ever since the accident, and Jerome was grateful that at least someone could try to help the Canadian since he himself could not.
"I guess." Mitch replied, his dead tone matching how he felt perfectly. Jerome cringed at the word 'dead', and made a mental note to try and erase it from his vocabulary. "Everything just feels so empty without him."
"I know, we all feel it." Ian said sympathetically. "We can't bring him back, though, as much as we wish we could."
"I should never have forced him to go with me that day." Mitch mumbled, and Jerome flinched at the spikes of regret and guilt, and of course, more sadness, in his friend's feelings. "It's my fault all of this happened."
"No!" Ian snapped with a sudden edge in his voice that made Mitch and Jerome both jump. "It is NOT your fault. You couldn't have predicted it would happen, neither of you could have. And neither of you deserved it, if anyone the other guy should have been the one punished like this. He got away with just a few scratches..." Jerome was nodding in agreement as Ian spoke.
"But so did I." Mitch said, touching one of the scars on his face absentmindedly. Jerome didn't like those scars, they marred his friend's pretty face and every time Mitch looked in a mirror, his emotions spiked again. "Jerome got the worst of it, and he was less at fault than me."
Ian shook his head. "Once it was over, for him, it was really over. He was free, he didn't have to deal with the pain anymore, and I doubt he even knew it was there in the first place. It was fast, remember?" Jerome gave Ian a hard stare. As if! This was not what he would describe as free and painless. "I think you got it the worst. Because you're still here, having to feel like this."
Jerome had to agree with that. While his own existence wasn't pleasant, Mitch's living one was currently much, much worse.
Mitch was silent, and Jerome could feel his emotions drop back down to a semi-neutral level. He was done arguing. "Look, our friends are getting together for Christmas, and we don't think you should be alone. You should come, maybe being with everyone will cheer you up a bit." Ian told him, and Jerome nodded enthusiastically, though he was still inadvertently ignored.
"I'll think about it." Mitch mumbled, and Jerome pouted at him. He needed their friends!
"I guess I'll be off, then. Take care, okay?" Ian said, and Mitch waved a hand dismissively.
Once Ian had left, it was like Mitch deflated. He slumped against the wall and sighed "I don't know if I can do it. Seeing all of them at once will just make it that more apparent that he's gone. Oh Jerome, why did this have to happen?"
"I don't know, Mitch." Jerome answered, but the Canadian, as usual, couldn't hear him.
Mitch was staring into space again as they both sat at the kitchen table in silence, the only sound being Mitch's faint breathing and the drone of the microwave in the background. It was snowing again outside, and Jerome couldn't see far out of the window past the little white flurries falling from the sky. Mitch didn't seem to notice or care, though, and he didn't move when the microwave finally beeped, announcing that his food was done.
Jerome thought about making one of the appliances do something to snap Mitch out of his daze again, but he didn't think he was strong enough to at this point. He reached for the vase that sat on the table between them holding long-dead flowers, and tried to move one of the flowers. Just as he'd expected, his fingers just sort of phased through it. He'd been here too long, and was losing his ability to alter objects in the living world. It wouldn't be long before he couldn't change anything, unable to do anything but watch.
"I'm running out of time, Mitch." Jerome mumbled. "I can't hold on much longer."
The Canadian was still silent, of course. Jerome shivered when he felt a breeze of cold air go right through his ethereal form, though Mitch didn't seem to notice the slightly open window it came from.
Eventually, his friend stood, and walked to the microwave, retrieving his food and moving back to the table. Mitch gave Jerome a long stare as he walked by, though he knew the Canadian was just looking at the chair.
Mitch sat back down again, though he didn't move to eat, instead choosing to stare at the plate blankly. Jerome was about to give another inaudible rant, but a sharp pain spiked across his entire body as he phased in and out of visibility slightly, the edges of his form blurring here and there. With a pained gasp, he grit his teeth and slammed a fist on the table, trying to make it go away. He couldn't disappear yet, he wasn't done here!
Mitch was staring at the vase. It shook when Jerome hit the table, and one of the dead flowers lost a few petals. "What is up with all the weird stuff lately?" He wondered.
Jerome relaxed slightly, leaning back in his chair and watching the confused Canadian. The episode had passed, so he didn't have to worry about vanishing accidentally for awhile.
Mitch shook his head, and looked back down at his plate for a moment before pushing it away and standing. "Mitch, don't you dare!" Jerome said as he stood as well. His friend didn't hear him, and started walking out of the room, inadvertently walking right through Jerome on the way. Jerome flinched at the feeling of phasing through a living being, before he felt a pang of sadness as he was reminded that he couldn't even touch Mitch anymore.
The Canadian went to bed, but Jerome didn't follow him into the room. Instead, he climbed the small set of stairs at the end of the hall and went into the attic, looking around for a specific box. Finally spotting it, pushed away into a corner, he steeled himself to try and move it. Putting a hand against the side, he was relieved to see that he could alter small objects again, for the moment.
He picked up the box and moved it to a nearby table, setting it down and rummaging through another box for a pen. Once he found it, he opened the first box and removed a blank piece of ornate letter paper, and set to work writing his letter. In the fanciest, prettiest handwriting he'd ever managed in his life, he wrote down the only thing he wanted.
Dear Santa,
All I want for
Christmas is to spend
one more night with him.
~Jerome
He shook his head sadly. Would this do anything? He hoped so. He folded the paper and forced it to phase through to his plane of existence, and then making it vanish in a puff of cold steam. Maybe he'd get lucky and someone would take pity on them.
He flinched when he turned back to the box. Inside, on the top of the pile of papers and various objects of importance, was a newspaper from two months prior. On the front page was a picture of himself, and above it, the title was in eye-catching bold letters. He read it and the top bit of the article for the millionth time.
"FREAK CAR ACCIDENT LEAVES MAN DEAD
Authorities are calling it a "Completely preventable tragedy."
Jerome shook his head and threw the paper back in its box, where it landed on top of his death certificate and a few documents from Youtube. He refused to look at those.
He folded his arms on the table and rested his head on them while his mind wandered, going over the memories of that day in his head.
"So then I put ice under the floor without telling anyone else, and I swear dood it was the funniest thing. It definitely made the chases a lot better, and it took them way too long to realize what was wrong with the map. They thought the game glitched!" Mitch was saying, laughing the entire time. "And then I put TNT in those cells at the top that you can't reach and ran a line to it from the pressure plates in the Warden's office, and Quentin tried to go in and blew the roof off the jail. And then we all escaped while Adam just kind of stared at the sky, trying to figure out where the roof went because he got disconnected right when Quentin set off the TNT, so when he came back there was no roof." Mitch's words disintegrated into laughs.
"I wish I hadn't missed that!" Jerome said, laughing along with him as he imagined the whole scene. "You should show me the footage when we get back."
"Sure thing." Mitch agreed. "How long do you think we'll be out, anyway?"
"Mitch, you're the one that wanted to go somewhere! Shouldn't you know?" Jerome chuckled.
"I don't have to know the time to be able to go somewhere." Mitch said.
Jerome smirked at him. "Mitch, time?"
"NO."
They both laughed. Mitch was never going to escape the jokes about time. They fell into a comfortable silence, and Jerome looked around at the buildings as he drove, trying to decide where to go. Mitch was looking out of his window at the line of trees that were planted in a small patch of ground between the road and a parking lot they were currently passing by, watching the multicolored leaves sway in the breeze.
Neither of them saw the truck barreling down the road towards them until it had collided with them, both vehicles sliding for a ways across the wide road until they came to a stop near the sidewalk. This was where Jerome's memory ended.
The next thing he knew, he was standing in a hospital room where all of his friends were standing around the bed, some sobbing and some staring blankly. Curious, he wandered closer, and peeked around Adam's shoulder to see who was on the bed. His eyes widened when he saw that it was him, but if he was over here, how could he also be over there?
"What is going on?" He asked Adam, but was ignored. None of them even turned to look at him. Why were they ignoring him?
It was then that he noticed the chair by the bed, Mitch was sitting in it with his head rested against the bed and his shoulders were shaking, and Jerome could just pick up his very faint sobs, muffled by the blanket. A nurse stood by his side with a somber look on her face, stroking his back gently in an attempt to calm him.
Jerome looked up at the life support machine, noting that it had been turned off, probably to silence the drawn-out high pitched beep that everyone knew all too well what it meant.
"Oh god. I'm dead." Jerome whispered.
The days had passed by slowly after that. Jerome followed Mitch everywhere and never left his side, nudging him in the right direction whenever he had the ability to, and wishing he could do more. He saw everything that happened after his death, and heard every conversation his friends had about him or the wreck. As it turned out, the other driver was drunk, but was let off the hook without much penalty other than having his license suspended. This annoyed Jerome to no end, of course, since all he had lost was his license, but Mitch and Jerome lost everything.
Jerome shook his head, snapping out of his memories. He noticed a small slip of paper had appeared in front of him, and he picked it up, trying to read it in the dim light of the attic. When he did finally make out the elegant writing well enough to read, he almost screamed with joy.
"It will be done. You will have Christmas eve with him."
The day had come. Jerome paced anxiously around the room, wanting nothing more than for it to be evening already, when he would temporarily be made a part of the living world again. A slight twinge went through him, and he sat down, trying to ward off another episode. He didn't even want to think about if he disappeared just a few hours before he could talk to Mitch again.
Mitch was staring at a plate of food again, obviously trying to convince himself to eat it, but obviously not wanting it. The Canadian looked up and out of the window, watching the sun start to sink toward the horizon. While he wasn't looking, Jerome moved his drink and fork to the opposite side of the plate, and laid the vase on its side while he was at it. When Mitch looked back to the table, the utterly confused look on his face made Jerome grin like an idiot. "How...?" Mitch mumbled, setting the vase back upright.
His friend shook his head and stood, leaving the room to change into some slightly better clothes since he'd decided he'd go to the little Christmas party Ian had invited him to. He came back out of his room wearing the classic black and red checkered hoodie everyone knew so well, and left the house. Jerome followed him, as usual.
After a long, silent walk, they finally made it to Jason's house, where all of their other friends were already waiting for Mitch. Ian was the one to invite the Canadian in, and they talked for a moment, though Jerome missed the conversation because he was watching everyone else play the console version of their favorite game. He chuckled when he realized Adam had been shoved into lava by Ty and was making pig noises while he tried to escape, and failed.
Jerome looked back up again, and found Mitch curled up on the window seat in the kitchen, staring into the backyard. It was dark outside, but the path was lit up by Christmas lights, giving the area a warm glow.
He sat down by Mitch, watching their friends play the game in the other room. It was fun, watching them play that game again, something he hadn't seen since he died. His amusement at their in-game antics was interrupted by another spike of pain though, and he curled in on himself slightly, trying to hold on. Just a few more minutes, and everything would be fine.
When the pain finally subsided, he could feel a slight tingling in his hands. His eyes widened when he realized what was happening, and stood up from his spot next to Mitch. As much as he wanted to be in here with his friend, the others wouldn't be able to see him and he didn't want them to think Mitch had finally lost his mind. So he went outside, choosing to sit behind one of the trees while his wish started to take effect.
A few minutes later, he reached down and pressed his hand through the snow, and smiled when it gave way under his touch, just like when he was alive. He stood, and walked into sight, standing on the lit up path and watching the window he knew his friend was sitting at.
Mitch stared down at his hands, his mind blank. He didn't really want to do anything, but he didn't want to just sit here, either. He sighed. It was so lonely without Jerome.
The Canadian got the sudden feeling that something was off. There was something important he needed to do, right now. Looking up in surprise at the intensity of the feeling, he glanced out the window, and then did a double take when he spotted a familiar suit-wearing figure standing in the yard. He stared, not sure what to do or even feel, but after a moment he just had to go out there and see him.
He practically jumped out of his seat and ran through the other room to the back door, and the other guys all shared confused looks at his behavior. He shivered slightly when he made it outside, surprised by how cold it felt compared to the inside of the house, but he didn't really care much.
Mitch and Jerome looked at each other a moment, and Jerome gave him a soft smile before holding his arms out. Mitch took the invite immediately, and practically tackled Jerome. He was sobbing as he held onto his lost friend, and Jerome ignored his crushing grip, hugging him back gently.
"How are you here, Jerome? You died!" Mitch's voice cracked on the last word.
"I've been here the whole time, Mitch." Jerome said quietly. "You just couldn't see me."
"But you're physically here right now and I'm hugging you and you're really here and how?" Mitch's sentence ran together, but Jerome understood.
"It's temporary, but I was given my only wish for my last Christmas." Jerome told him.
Mitch was silent for a moment before suddenly saying "I'm sorry!" and hugging him tighter.
"What for?" Jerome asked, completely confused.
"It's my fault you died." The Canadian mumbled.
"Aww, Mitch, it was just an accident, one that you didn't even cause. Heck, I was even the one driving." He said.
Jerome pulled his sobbing friend over to one of the stone benches in the yard, sitting them both down on it. Mitch's grip never loosened, though.
"Look, Mitch, you need to stop blaming yourself and move on. You're going to end up joining me early if you keep this up." Jerome told his friend. "It's okay. I'm fine, and we'll see each other again, I promise. So until then, move on with your life. I don't have one anymore, so you should live for us both."
Mitch let him go, and sat back to dry his face for a moment. "Okay, I can do that." he said before giving Jerome a weak smile.
"That's my Benja." Jerome's own smile widened, and he hugged the Canadian again.
For the first time during his existence as a ghost, Jerome could feel Mitch's feelings completely change. He felt the sadness and guilt drain away, replaced instead by contentment and determination. He would've smiled if he wasn't already, realizing he had made the right choice. Coming back had definitely set things right.
They spent the next few hours just holding each other and talking about everything, from their past to their friends to their favorite movies and games. Mitch seemed to understand that this was the end, so he used the time they had to say everything he never got a chance to.
Eventually, Jerome looked out toward the rising sun. "Anything else we need to talk about? This is our last chance until you join me."
"I think I've said or asked everything I needed or wanted to." Mitch told him quietly.
"Me too." Jerome looked back at him, smiling again. "I'm out of time, Mitch. This is goodbye."
"I'm going to miss you, Jerome." Mitch told him, with one last hug.
"I'll miss you, too. But I promise I'll keep an eye on you, even if I can't be here. And when your time comes, I'll come back to get you." Jerome told him.
His form was starting to go ethereal again, and that form was vanishing. He looked down at his hands, watching them slowly disintegrate into little gold sparks that floated into the air before vanishing. The same thing was happening to his feet.
He looked back at Mitch, who had tears streaming down his face. "Does it hurt?"
"No, it hurt to stay here when I wasn't meant to. But this feels fine." Jerome reassured him.
"I'm glad to hear that."
"Don't be sad, okay?" Jerome asked.
"Okay." Mitch agreed, drying his face again.
Jerome could feel it, he was almost gone. "Goodbye Mitch. Thank you for being my friend."
"Goodbye, Jerome. Thank you for being mine." Mitch was fighting back his tears again.
Jerome relaxed with a smile, letting out a breath he didn't even know he still had, before the rest of his body followed his hands and disintegrated into little gold sparks. Mitch watched them float into the air, looking like stars above him before fading away slowly.
NOT SORRY.
I was watching Shane Dawson's music video "Maybe This Christmas" when this popped into my head, and I HAD to write it. The plot bunnies wouldn't go away! They demanded sadfic!
I had a lot of pairings I wanted to use, such as my favorite ships from things like Fairy Tail or Homestuck, but I JUST could not choose, so I took all the pairings, numbered them, and used a random number generator to choose. It came back with the number for Mitch and Jerome, so I wrote about them.
The video itself is about a boyfriend and girlfriend, but since Mitch and Jerome are real dudes, I didn't make this a shipfic. I made it friendshippy instead, but I suppose it could be considered romantically shippy if you stare at it through a telescope.
Whenever Jerome started to phase, I kind of imagined it somewhere between like a video game glitch, a twitchy hologram, and that one time in Fairy Tail where Leo almost disappeared.
You know, I originally had another scene in this where Mitch made a video about the wreck and losing Jerome and Jerome accidentally popped into the video (like in photos where you can see these weird people shaped smudges) and it had like how all the fans reacted and stuff, and when I proofread it I was like "Oh. This is WAY too realistic." So I cut it.
Anyway, I think that's everything. Sorry the ending sucks, my inspiration went byebye before I could finish writing. And if Mitch and Jerome are OOC, I apologize for that.