It's not exactly ideal, the apartment above a closed down fish and chips shop, but Uma says it smells like home. It's on the coast, and that's really enough for Harry and Gil, too. For once they aren't just the infamous kids of even more infamous characters. Uma is free of mandatory shifts at a restaurant that was more front for her mom's cast of unsavory friends than eatery. Gil, simple Gil, is just happy to be living with his best friends.
Harry- Harry is glad to be away from a father who's never impressed nor satisfied and the ghost-infested village James Hook dumped his family in between voyages. Plus, rent is cheap, and they'll be able to afford a skipper of their own in no time to travel the seven seas, free of their parent's legacy and free to be as wicked as they want.
They're misfits, it's scoured on their skin like graffiti. Gil, big and blonde and bright (but only in the most literal sense of the world) follows the girl like some lost puppy wherever she goes. Uma, cool and controlled and confident (but not always, not later when it's finally the three of them) approaches him first. And Harry, arrogant and angry and alone (looking for anyone to follow, anyone to accept him) takes her offer in half a moment. They're young, full to the brim with wide-eyed innocence and chests open to expose their trampled hearts, and they fashion themselves a little pirate band. Their hearts heal with jagged scars and innocence turns to bite, but the trio keeps a tight hold on each other. Uma as captain, Harry as first mate, and Gil the whole motley crew.
"Harry, your room's the one in the back," Uma informs him, knocking him square in the chest with a box of his junk as his eyes roam the living room walls.
"Aye aye, captain." he grunts under the weight. A huff of annoyance follows the sight of Gil carrying two huge boxes into Uma's room without breaking a sweat, their lovely leader following to direct him where to set it. So much for teamwork. He toes his door open with the tip of his boot and sets the load down with a grateful sigh. Looking up to survey his new room, kohl-rimmed eyes widen and a sense of annoyed dread shivers through his body.
She's running her fingers over his sheets, ensuring that they lay perfectly flat upon his bed. Midnight curls flow down her back like a curtain and frame a divine face. Her dress is cobalt, off the shoulder with long sleeves trimmed in gold thread, and a scarlet corset cinches her waist. She belongs in a fairy tale- but not his new home.
"Ye've got tae be kidding me," he breathes, pushing unruly black hair out of his face (almost as if he thinks a better look will change the reality before him). The young woman looks up then, crimson lips quirking into a saccharine smile, at least until she catches how his eyes bore into her rather than through her. Umber eyes widen and a hand goes to cover her mouth.
It's the cool grey veil over her that gives it away, even more so than her storybook clothes.
"You can see me?" Her voice is a sigh like velvet, too, but any words from her are just a thorn in his side. This is not happening. Not here. This is supposed to be a fresh start.
"O' course I can see ye. Hear ye, too, but not for long." His arms cross, jaw clenching as a familiar manic glint seeps into stormy eyes. "I am not sharing my new room with a wee ghostie. So get."
All sugar leaves her gaze at that, her eyebrows knitting as she lets out the hint of a scoff, not quite the same picture of a pretty princess as she was a moment ago. "Your room? This was my home far before it was ever yours." There's hurt behind the imperious words, but no sign of backing down. He's made a mistake, not crimson lips but blood red. "A lady doesn't get."
"I don't care if ye were the queen of Sheba, princess. Yer home is the great beyond now."
"Harry, who are you-" Uma's voice comes out of nowhere behind him, and he startles, looking over his shoulder to spot her peering at him and Gil peering beyond him. Meeting his eyes, her expression grows protective. "Another one?"
He trusts them like he trusts no one else, but it still isn't enough. He tried to tell his Da once. Told him about the pedestrians like grey smoke, the pleading eyes, and the fingers like ice that grasped at him when he couldn't give them what they wanted. They're spirits, and they can touch him and hurt him. They ask for so much, lost trinkets and cold revenge. His father, voice so polite and so terrible, tells him never to waste his time with ghost stories ever again. Harry doesn't. (No one else can see them. They can't touch anyone else, only objects. He's the only one. An abomination.)
Gil, for his part, waves into the room with a shy smile. "They made your bed," he comments, unfazed. The ghost eyes his crew warily, but even her face softens at Gil.
He won't tell them, he needs his crew too much to watch them walk away. (It's okay to be mad when it's just fits of rage, but this is beyond that.) But the ghosts don't care. They just take, and he can't exactly hide his secret from them when a particularly nasty apparition decides to try and jump him while the three are exploring together one day. He's punching the air and Uma's screaming at him to calm down. It's Gil that sees the the shadows of its punches on his skin and Gil that understands so easily when he spills everything to them later, hands gripping at his hair like a lifeline while purple bruises bloom on his skin. He yells at them to just get out already; it's better to make them leave than be left alone again. They don't leave. Gil crushes him in a bear hug he can't stand (one he desperately needs) and Uma eyes him warily for only half a moment before tentatively taking his hands. They're a crew, always have been always will be. They'll manage the spirits the same way they manage his awful temper, she teases.
"Aye, another one," Harry admits to Uma before smacking Gil upside the head. "And I don'nae want any corpses making my bed." It's a cruel thing to say, he knows, but cruel runs in his blood.
Their fearless leader takes the ghosts in stride like she does everything else, by taking charge of the situation. She makes them read up on witchcraft and exorcisms and ghouls. She's surprisingly good at it (mutters something about a sea witch in the family), and she keeps all the ingredients for at least one kind of ritual with her always. Gil is surprisingly tuned in from the very beginning. He might be as dull as a board when it comes to practical things, but he knows far more about the heart than the other two. He's an anchor, and he appreciates the spirits like they were any other person walking down the street. Sometimes it's almost like he can sense them, too.
He pretends not to see how her face crumples for a moment, or the sparkle of unshed tears that builds in her eyes. (Even he knows there's no honour in making pretty girls cry, dead or alive.) Voice resigned, and maybe even a little kinder, he gives the apparition his attention again. "Might as well show yerself, princess."
She sniffs primly, brushing away a tear when she thinks he won't see it, but her hands shift to her hips rather than stay vulnerable. "Evie. Call me Evie." To his surprise she actually does take a more corporeal form, or at least he imagines she does because Uma's breath catches behind him. Gil, golden retriever that he is, leans into him and stage whispers. "She's really pretty."
originally posted on ao3 and heavily based on the Mediator series by Meg Cabot ! please enjoy my disaster children, and I would beyond love it if you could tell me what you loved, hated, cried about, laughed about !