"Hello, and welcome to my home." Lance sighed, sitting down on the couch. It wasn't even his couch anymore, but something the realtor had placed there to make the condo more "modern."
As always he looked at the realtor first. She had no response at all and completely ignored him while continuing to talk to the two men who had entered with her.
The older one was tall and muscular with a prosthetic hand poking out from his jacket. He had a large white streak running through his hair, and a scar across his nose. His impressive stature towered above the other two, clearly a man who worked out. He made Lance slightly envious. He looked like he could handle himself in a fight for sure. But there was no response from him either.
The other one was shorter, smaller, younger, but very attractive. He had a leather jacket pulled around his shoulders. His black hair was long, but pulled up in a ponytail at the moment, so that Lance couldn't quite tell just how much of it would fall around his shoulders. Lance didn't need more than a moment to tell this guy was a serious, loner type. The way he stood with arms crossed, barely paying attention told him everything.
Lance sighed again.
The shorter man flicked his eye towards the sound, and then immediately back toward the realtor. It was fast, but not fast enough to prevent Lance from noticing.
"Wait a second…" Lance stood up immediately and moved towards him. "Can you see me?"
The younger man made no motion, said nothing, just stared pointedly ahead.
"Hello? HELLOOO?" Lance waved a hand in front of the man's face.
He saw the man's eyes flicker for just a second to Lance's hands before focusing once again on the realtor.
"So you CAN see me!" Lance laughed. "Why would you try to hide that?"
The man frowned and ever so slightly shook his head back and forth, tightening his jaw.
"Ah, gotcha, don't want our pals here to know you see ghosties, huh?" He motioned at the realtor and the other man, who had gotten several steps ahead.
As though by fate, the bigger man chose just that moment to turn to look at them. "Keith! Don't lag behind. We have a schedule to keep."
"R-right, Shiro!" Keith quickened his steps, hoping the ghost wouldn't follow him into the next room.
This one was a large room set up as a bedroom. The realtor prattled on about its air circulation and access to the nearest bathroom.
Keith allowed his muscles to relax a bit. He always felt tense meeting a new ghost. There was of course the problem of accidentally talking to one like they were alive. He'd run into that problem on a few occasions. If he wasn't careful he'd start asking one for directions or something. Everyone else would just see a guy talking to himself. Keith had had enough time at psychotherapists to last a lifetime.
More than that was the problem of their temperament. Ghosts always seemed so real, so human-like until you got down to their emotions. Something about dying made a person lose control. Keith had met his fair share of ghosts who had nothing on their minds except causing harm. Once they fell into that evil there was no coming back, they became a ghost that could interact with the normal world, a poltergeist, a truly evil spirit. Keith would take accidentally appearing to have a conversation with a wall over a poltergeist at any time. The thought alone made him shudder.
Even if he seems normal now.
It didn't seem like this one was following him though, so at least that was something.
"So your name's Keith, huh?" The voice came from the ceiling.
Keith let out a small yelp. The realtor and Shiro turned to look at him. "I just tripped. I'm fine, sorry."
Lance looked down from the ceiling before dropping down into the room. "Sorry about that. Didn't mean to scare you. From the way you look, you'd think you saw a ghost."
The laugh Keith suppressed came out as more of a strangled yelping noise. Once again Shiro and the realtor turned to look at him. He held up his hands at them, sheepishly. "Sorry, again."
The ghost relaxed into the corner, lying sideways on the bed like he was straight out of some cheesy rom com Adam would force Shiro and him to watch. Keith stared pointedly ahead once again, refusing to look at the ghost or the oh so obvious hint of skin that appeared from under the shirt he was wearing, pulled up slightly from the way his arm was positioned.
"Ahhh...It's been so long since anyone laughed at my jokes. Thank you for that. The name's Lance by the way. I'd shake your hand, but obviously that won't work out exactly as planned."
Keith bit his lip to keep from smiling, even so his lip jerked upward slightly. At least this one was funny. He sighed as he followed the realtor into yet another room. Ghosts were so often sad or panicked when Keith met them. They were a whirlwind of emotions that were ready to get out of control at any moment. Keith almost shuddered again at the thought, he forced a memory down before it could show on his face.
But then he looked at Lance. Not a whirlwind of emotions at all.
Lance, off all things, seemed resigned, maybe a little bored. Keith could imagine that he would have been nearly the same while alive, constantly making jokes and cheering people up.
It also didn't hurt that Lance was attractive, although Keith didn't really want to admit that he had the hots for a ghost. If Lance was still alive, he'd be someone Keith would want to flirt with, even though he could already tell their personalities were in stark contrast.
Even so, Keith definitely didn't want to live in this apartment. He couldn't stand the thought of having to work around a ghost each and every day. It was hard enough going through the day to day and not knowing if the strangers you meet were actually dead and wanted to cause harm. No way he needed a dead guy as a roommate. No thank you. Keith snuck a last peek at Lance before moving on. Even if that dead guy was exceedingly attractive and funny.
Shiro and the realtor had started getting ahead of Keith, and he hurried to catch up to them leaving Lance still lying on the bed.
It didn't take long for Lance to show back up. This time it was in the kitchen. Keith opened one of the cabinet doors and yelled as a familiar face stared back at him, making Keith jump backwards and slam into his brother.
"Aaagh!" Shiro yelled as he had to catch himself on the countertops. "Jesus, Keith, what's wrong with you today? You're white as a ghost."
"No. I'm not." Keith said, shaking his head, and letting out a slight chuckle, which he tried and failed to mask into a cough.
"What?"
"Nevermind." Keith said, shaking his head. "I thought I saw a mouse. It was just my imagination."
"Since when are you afraid of mice?"
Keith looked down and mumbled. "You would have yelled too if something had popped out of nowhere to surprise you."
He shot a glare into the cupboard where Lance, had he not already been dead, would have been dying of laughter. The laughs Lance made were light and airy, a joyful sound.
Keith liked the sound, but even if he was only in this apartment for another ten minutes, even if Lance was mostly harmless, he couldn't have Lance keep popping out of him from nowhere. With sudden inspiration he spoke to the two living people in the room. "I'm sorry, I need to head to the bathroom. Which way?"
The realtor pointed. "Down that hall, the second door on the left."
"Thanks." Keith said to her and squared his shoulders as he stomped past. He pulled himself into the tiny bathroom and waited. It didn't take long for Lance's head to pop through the door.
Keith jumped again, but this time he was more prepared for it. "And what if I had actually needed to use the bathroom?"
"Sorry, man," said Lance, pulling himself the rest of the way through the door. "I can't exactly knock." He demonstrated this by pantomiming a knock with his hand. His fist went straight through the door each time. There was no sound.
"Fair enough."
"So what's up?" Lance perched himself on the edge of the bathtub, waiting patiently. He spoke like Keith was an old friend who had come to him for dating advice.
"You need to quit it."
"Quit what?" Lance said, innocently blinking his eyes. Jeez, he had long lashes.
Keith shook it off. "Seriously, man, cut it out. Quit scaring me and trying to make me laugh in front of my brother."
"But I haven't been able to tease anyone in such a long time. You have no idea!"
"Well you have no idea what it's like for people to think you need a psychiatric ward because you see 'spectral apparitions'." Keith held up air quotes on the last words.
Lance frowned. "Fine. I'll stop." He started floating backwards, eventually through the wall. "It's not like you entered my home and started talking about renting my space."
Oh, god, now the ghost was gonna get mad at him. Keith pinched the bridge of his nose from the headache this was all giving him. He needed to backtrack and make sure everyone was calm or this was going to become one hell of a visit. "I'm sorry okay. I know it's hard being a ghost. I'm not trying to intrude."
"Nah, man, you're wrong." Lance said, only his head left inside the the bathroom, the rest of his body already moved through the wall. "It's not hard being a ghost. It's hard being dead."
And with that Lance was gone. He'd actually made Keith feel guilty. Keith sighed. But on a happy note maybe the ghost would leave him alone now.
Keith opened the door to go back to his brother, but Lance was standing an inch from his face with a wicked grin on his lips. Keith bit into his own hand to keep himself from yelling again. When he pulled his fist away he muttered, "fuckin' hell," under his breath.
"Well there's no need for such strong language." Lance pretended to pat Keith on the head. Keith got a shiver running down his spine when they touched.
"You said you weren't gonna do that anymore." Keith whispered, not wanting his brother to hear.
"I know. I'm sorry, but in my defense you did make me upset."
"That's not a defense. That's an admission."
"Ooohh, law student." Lance smirked.
"No, just annoyed citizen."
"Okay, fine. I'll cut it out for real this time. I'm not keeping that promise if you end up living here though. It's fair game at that point."
"Fine." Keith stomped back to the kitchen, but the realtor and his brother had already moved on to one of the other rooms. Keith stomped through the apartment, looking. It wasn't like he was going to live there anyway. He'd just have to convince Shiro he didn't like the place for some reason. He'd already said he thought he'd seen a mouse, maybe he actually had.
He finally found Shiro and the realtor back in the living room. There were papers over the coffee table.
"Good news, little bro! We've finally got a new apartment!" Shiro smiled, holding up the paper he'd just signed.
Fuck.
A/N: Ahhhh! I'm back!
The plan for this one is to post one chapter every day until Halloween. It's Happy Halloweek everybody!
7 Chapters. Which doesn't seem like a lot, but I've been working on this one all month long and I'm only halfway through...heaven help me...
Love you all! Thank you for reading!
