For those who wondered, yes, I lived in this described dump for a few months and worked this job. Not at the same time, but. Drawn from real life experience here.
Chapter Four
When Nico woke up, startled by someone shouting from nightmares of fevered illness and screaming, he wanted to barf. He waited a few moments while he willed his stomach calm, listening to someone in a neighboring room yelling about money and being lazy. His head throbbed dully.
Once he knew his stomach would hold he looked around for Jason, but there was no blue glow. Good. His phone told him it was still early afternoon, and he figured he had time to put something in his fridge. He looked up a nearby grocery store and went to buy some canned soup, microwave burritos, and pop-tarts. A soda nursed away his headache, and for the hundredth time Nico contemplated kicking his caffeine habit.
Jason didn't appear when he got back, took a shower, or when he left for work with a pop-tart in his mouth. He hoped the ghost boy finally left for wherever he should be.
Of course, Nico figured the fates hated him.
The night shift had passed as quietly as it could when dogs were involved. An employee called out ill, so Nico agreed to extend his shift until Clarrise and Silena arrived. He was certain his life had returned to its weirdly somber normalcy as he enter his hotel room and began to strip off his dirty clothes, ready for the day off ahead.
Then Jason flickered in front of him. Nico swallowed down a yelp but couldn't stop his reflex to jump back as he yanked his pants back up. "Don't DO that!"
Jason sheepishly held up his hands. "Sorry, I can't help it. I just... Appear here when I stop thinking."
"So don't stop thinking," Nico ordered crossly. Of course Jason had to reappear.
"It's harder than you'd think. Sometimes I just... Blank out. And come to here." Jason rubbed at the back of his neck and sighed.
"Blank out?"
"Well if I stop concentrating or whatever, but sometimes even when I am focusing on where I am, I like... Fade?" Jason frowned. "And then come to later here. With time missing."
Nico shivered as he thought about that, hands moving for the pockets of his jacket he had already taken off. "When that happens, where do you go?"
Jason tried to settle on the spare bed, one leg in the mattress but he didn't seem to notice. "Nowhere. It's nothing at all. Like when you fall asleep and don't dream and just wake up, and all you know is that you were asleep."
Bianca's screams filled Nico's mind. Nowhere. Nothing. The words hung on Nico's mind as Jason voiced his thoughts.
"Sometimes I wonder if that's the other side -"
"I don't want to talk about it!" Nico turned away abruptly.
"...dude, you were the one who asked..." But it sounded like a coaxing instead of a reprimand. Nico wiped at his eyes and tried to repeat song lyrics in his head to cover up the pained screams.
"Stay out of the bathroom." Nico kept his back to Jason as he went for clean clothes. Well, cleaner clothes. He surveyed his meager T-shirt collection and realized his day off would be spent doing laundry.
He sighed, and showered quickly. The hotel room shampoo felt gross in his hands and the drain was slow, so he didn't want to linger long. Plus the creeping feeling of a stranger in the other room wouldn't let him relax.
Nico firmly reminded himself that Jason was a ghost - dead and gone and couldn't do anything to him.
...except annoy.
"Is this Pokemon?" Jason asked with interest, looking at the bundled cards Nico left out. Nico huffed as he left the bathroom barefoot and hair still damp.
"Its Mythomagic."
"I've played Pokemon."
Nico threw some clothes into his duffle, planning to go use the hotel's laundry room. He still had a roll of quarters left over in his bag.
"Will you teach me how to play?" Jason asked.
"How would you hold the cards?" Nico didn't turn around.
Jason groaned dramatically. "You can't believe how bored I am!"
Nico could, actually. He remembered the long days of dull staring and aimless wandering. He closed up the duffle of dirty clothes as Jason kept talking behind him, something about sky-diving and hang-gliding.
"Laundry?" Jason asked curiously.
Nico shrugged with one shoulder as he exited. Jason came right through the door as Nico shut it.
Nico followed the signs to the laundry room, where a sign on the door said to turn out the lights when people left to save energy with a smiling lightbulb someone had defaced to look like part of male anatomy. When he reached for the light switch, his sneaker splashed.
"Yuuugh-" The light came on as Nico looked down, and there was at least a good two to three inches of sludgy water on the floor. "God this place is a dump," Nico groaned.
"Yeah," Jason agreed. He floated easily over the water – annoying Nico – and called back, "Hey, all these machines seem to be busted. The sign on the wall here says to use a local Laundromat."
"Perfect." Nico pulled out his phone. "Does it say where?"
Jason didn't respond. It figures, the one time Nico wanted him to talk he wouldn't. "Hey!"
"I think I remember this," Jason said fuzzily, and flickered a bit. His clothes went to a swimsuit and back to his jeans and T-shirt.
"Didn't you stay here?" Nico asked.
"No…?" The uncertainty in Jason's voice piqued Nico's interest. He quickly scolded himself, thinking that getting more involved with the talking ghost was a bad idea. While Jason stood there, his glow weaker for a bit, Nico reasoned if he wanted to avoid more ghosts like Jason in the future, he should know how and why this kind of active ghost appeared.
"Ghosts leave imprints of their strongest memories," Nico called over to him. "Strong emotions get like…absorbed or something into the stuff around them. That's what makes the ghosts. So if you – whatever you are – is still here-"
Jason looked back at Nico, now annoyed himself. "I'm a person, Nico."
"Not anymore."
"I'm a person," Jason insisted. "I don't remember everything, but I remember. I can think. I exist, in whatever way this is. I can hear and talk, even if it's only to you. I am still here. I am a person."
Nico held his breath for a moment. He was certain if he approached, he would get hit with a wave of Jason's emotions overflowing from him. "I'm… I'm sorry."
Jason flickered again, to another set of clothes, then the tension ebbed. He looked back up with a crooked grin. "I know you didn't mean anything by it."
Nico wasn't so sure, but nodded. Jason rattled off an address he had to repeat so Nico could enter it into his phone. The route passed over an 'avoid' marker, so he made a mental note to cross to the opposite side of the street. "Let's go," Jason said amicably, and led the way out. Nico rolled his eyes.
The Laundromat was in an outdoor strip mall, with a grocery store and various other shops. Nico found that the place was pretty empty for midday, so he had the pick of machines. His clothes wound up in one machine together since they all fell in the category of 'darks', and whatever light clothing he owned had long turned a slightly dingy grey. Powdered detergent came from a small box in a vending machine and he spent the boring hour while they washed playing on his phone. Jason hovered over his shoulder with interest at first as he lined up plants to fight against zombies, but got bored and floated off somewhere.
When Nico switched over his clothes to the dryer, he decided to go buy a bottle of liquid detergent from the grocery store so he didn't have to buy the ridiculously priced boxed stuff again. He came across Jason in front of a pizza place, staring longingly.
"I miss pizza," Jason announced when he saw Nico approaching. "Then again, who wouldn't."
Nico's stomach tightened at the smell and he remembered another pizza, scavenged from a trash can, and the long miserable days afterward throwing up in a parking lot and the high fever. He mumbled some noise, and moved past the shop. Jason trailed after him.
He stopped himself outside a large shop where the windows were plastered with superhero posters and release dates, game tournament days listed on the door and a giant statue of the Hulk just inside. The new arrivals display listed a comic Nico remembered picking up from some discarded place at some point – still reeling from loss and betrayal – and being surprised to find a character coming out to his parents in that issue. It was… comforting. The comic had stayed in his bag that someone stole while he was sleeping one night.
"Are you into comics?" Jason asked when Nico moved closer to see what issue number it was. It had been a couple years already.
"Sort of," he answered vaguely. "I read them when I could." It was the same title, but looked like completely different art.
"Are you going to buy something?"
Nico shook his head. "It's just... Stuff. You don't get to keep any of it in the end, so why bother."
Jason stared at him. "Nico, you act like you're going to die tomorrow. What if - and silly notion, stop me if you've heard it - you live?"
Nico looked at him, trying to say no duh with his eyes.
"If all that life was about getting from point A to point B, what would be the purpose of it?" Jason motioned to the display. "If you don't enjoy it, enjoy the little things and the big things that make you happy, why would anybody bother living at all?"
Nico blanched. "For some people," he muttered. "I just... I don't have anywhere to keep anything. I lose everything."
"Aren't you moving in with Hazel and Frank? They're gonna notice if you bring just one bag."
Nico chewed on his lip. It was a thought he'd been avoiding. Soon he'd have a permanent room, and could actually keep some stuff instead of his usual bare bones lifestyle. He could keep something. Something could be his.
It was a... frightening concept.
"As your self-appointment life coach, you must go in and purchase no less than three comic books." Jason moved towards the door.
"A dead life coach." Nico rolled his eyes.
"The irony is staggering." Jason gave a sweep of his arm and bowed, kind of like a butler.
Nico sighed, but went in. He browsed for a moment, turning down the offer of assistance. He poked around the Marvel section while Jason floated around, spying over people's shoulders at what they were reading.
"Hey! There's an Adventure Time comic!" Jason announced. Someone was right beside Nico but didn't jump at his shout. Nico had to remind himself others didn't hear Jason. "I love Adventure Time. I didn't know there was a comic."
Nico raised an eyebrow without looking at Jason and mouthed 'Adventure Time' as a question.
"Don't judge, dude." Then he started singing, "Adventure Time, come on grab your friends-"
"Can I help you with anything?"
Nico did jump that time, nearly dropping the comic he was looking at. "Ah, no, I'm good."
"Young Avengers fan?" The clerk asked, a curly-headed blonde with a wrinkle to his eyes when he smiled. "Have you read the new series?"
Nico burned with embarrassment and couldn't meet his eyes. "I haven't even finished Children's Crusade." Staring at the guy's tanned arms was not a good back-up plan.
"Ohhhhh no spoilers then. You'll like the ending."
A pig beanie bounced off his head. "WILL!" A girl behind the counter shouted. "Stop harassing the new customers or they won't come back!"
"But he's short!" Will complained back in a playful tone. Oh god, Nico needed the shadows to swallow him. He tried to stuff the comic back in its spot.
"Hey you promised three comics, at least," Jason protested.
Nico fled back to the laundry mat where his dryer still had twenty minutes. He jumped up on top of it and buried his face in his knees.
"Nico?" Jason's voice was soft.
"Go away."
"Hey, I don't know what I did but I'm sorry. Talk to me?"
"NO!" Nico jerked his head up, and through Jason's shoulder saw a woman staring at him, the shirt she had been folding hanging in her hands. She shifted to block her child strapped in a car seat from Nico's view.
He couldn't take it. He jumped down, slammed the stop button on the dryer and grabbed his damp clothes. He shoved them into the duffle as quickly as possible and ran out the laundry mat's door.
"Nico!" Jason held out his arms as if to try and stop him but Nico just ran right through him. Confusion clouded his mind, mixed with concern and a little remorse. But mostly, Jason felt-
Protective.
Nico slowed to a walk, feeling a little sweaty from his short dash in the afternoon heat. He looked back at Jason.
"I'm sorry," Jason repeated.
"I know you are." Nico ran his fingers through his hair. "It's not your fault I'm a freak."
"You aren't a freak, Nico." Jason looked shocked. "You just see things differently. Maybe the rest of humanity is behind you, you're the next step – kinda like an X-man."
Nico gave a snort. "That was a pathetic attempt at cheering me up."
"I had to try."
There was silence for a moment, and Nico idly wondered if anyone saw him just standing here and staring at nothing.
"You look exhausted," Jason said. "Let's go home."
Nico hesitated a moment, then nodded and followed.
