"Can't you just stay still for a minute?!"
"Uh, what do you think?"
The problem with Phantom, thought Valerie, is that he's so damn slippery. Oh sure, he sometimes forgot to dodge or go intangible, or got distracted by most random things, but then he got away from her for a moment, she lost sight of him for literally seconds, and suddenly it was as if he stopped existing. She was sure her radar had to be malfunctioning, because it was not possible for a ghost to disappear like that without a trace.
(Unless he could teleport. Or open his own portals. Or he could somehow nullify his ghost signature. Or–…)
She still had no idea how he managed to disappear so completely and it made her angry. And he'd already escaped her twice today, so she was determined not to give him an opportunity for a third time.
"Come on Val, can't you give me this one afternoon? It's my reverse birthday!" He gave her a grin and raised his hands, in either a gesture of surrender or half-hearted jazz hands.
She was long immune to his attempts at charm, but the phrasing gave her pause.
"What the hell is a reverse birthday?"
"Well, you know, the opposite of being born?…" There was a moment of silence. "…Dying?" Phantom finished, suddenly sounding unsure.
Valerie would be the first one to admit, that despite dealing with ghosts daily, she rarely thought about death. Or their deaths. Or a possibility of a person one moment being fine and alive, then suddenly not being that. After all, she was fifteen, teenagers rarely thought about death. Unless they had to deal with it themselves. Unless someone close to them died and they had no choice but to mourn them and come to terms with death. Unless … they themselves … died…
Valerie gave Phantom a horrified look. He, too, was looking a little freaked out, probably because she just froze on him in the middle of their fight (conversation?). That's right, they were talking, weren't they-
"Uh, are you alright?" said Phantom, in an gentle voice.
"No! I mean yes, I'm fine, great." Shit, was she really getting all flustered while talking to a ghost? She totally freaked out, oh god, right in front of Phantom, at the mere mention of his death. It was so embarrassing, but the worst part was, she wasn't sure it she should be more embarrassed about the freakout itself, or that she never considered where the ghosts fucking came from.
"Do you … wanna talk about it?" Phantom offered, tone still careful and gentle as if talking to a child. Valerie would normally get mad, but suddenly she felt as if the anger had left her and all that left was an empty shell.
"About what exactly?"
"Whatever has you, um, about whatever you need. I know our relationship is," he paused, trying to find more occasion-appropriate words to describe the dynamic between a ghost hunter with a grudge, and a ghost trying to not get double murdered, "is complicated, but I've heard that I'm a pretty good listener."
Valerie was still trying to reboot her brain, so instead of spending precious thought power on analysing his offer (What the hell, did he really just–), she flew over to the closest building and sat down on the roof. Phantom followed her, looking like a cross between a lost puppy and a kid about to be grounded by his parents. They sat in silence for a minute before she decided that, fuck it, she already embarrassed herself to hell and back, it's not like it could get any worse.
"So, should I wish you something on your reverse birthday?" Valerie started and cringed. Yup, turns out it could get worse.
"Uh, I don't think so?" He sounded like he wasn't sure if it was a serious question. It hadn't been, but now Valerie wanted to know.
"What? It's your reverse birthday, shouldn't you know how to celebrate it? You're the one who brought it up in the first place."
"Well, it is my first, and I'm not really all that familiar with ghost culture. I don't even know if other ghosts celebrate anything like that, it just… Well, it felt significant to me I guess."
Oh shit.
"You've been dead for a year?"
"Yeah?"
Shit, shit, shit.
"How old are you?"
"Fifteen now."
Shit.
She was talking with a dead teenager, a kid her age, who died exactly a year ago. She's been trying destroy him for months, and he was just a dead kid, who lost his life, lost his home, his family, his future.
"You're dead." The words escaped before she could stop them, before she could bury them back in the pile in her mind labeled "Do Not Touch".
"Well, yes, that's usually how one becomes a ghost." He was looking at her with even more concern, if that was possible. "Is that what got you so freaked out? The concept of death?"
She didn't respond, which was answer enough. Phantom sighed.
"I thought you subscribed to the Fentons' philosophy that ghosts are just an imprint of human consciousness on ectoplasm or whatever." He considered his words for a second. "Not that I agree with them, or think that you should believe them, but just, you never seemed like you cared about this stuff."
Yes, she had believed the Fentons, hadn't she. But now it didn't seem as convincing. After all, a teenager was still dead. He still counted the years since his birth and now counted the years since his death. He acted so worried about her, and in that moment she was no longer so sure the emotion she saw were an act.
He reminded her he was a ghost and suddenly she started seeing a human in him.
"You probably think I'm being childish." She knew she was. She was a ghost hunter who just had a meltdown about a ghost being dead. She's been running around town for the better part of the school-year trying to destroy ghosts without ever considering they were once alive human being. The word humiliating stopped covering this situation a while ago.
"Nah." She finally looked at him, surprised at his relaxed tone.
"What?"
"It's pretty normal to be freaked out by death, you know. It's part of being human. And being ghost. I mean, imagine having to deal with your own death, you think I wanted to get right on that and deal with it in a healthy and reasonable way? We all gotta face it somehow, and it's rarely pretty or graceful."
"Do you remember your…" She hesitated.
"My death or my life? Yes to both." It was Phantom's turn to hesitate, as he considered her. "Are you going to ask me about either? Because as much as I like you, I don't think I'm ready to share those details with you yet."
"You like me?" She asked, shocked.
"Yes, for some reason I do." He smiled, almost teasingly, as if Valerie was the unreasonable one here.
What has the world come to, a ghost just told her he liked her, and she hadn't even thought to shoot at him.
She stood up suddenly enough to startle Phantom.
"I should probably get home. Do my homework, get dinner, you know." Have some time alone to really think things over.
"Um, do you want me to walk, or, well, fly you home? Like, fly with you, of course, you can fly by yourself, but maybe you'd like me to–"
"Nah," she interrupted him, in gentler tone of voice than even she herself expected. "You can go back to celebrating your reverse birthday. I think we could both use an afternoon off for once." She smiled at him, before realising she still had her helmet on.
He still must have heard the smile in her voice, because he grinned back.
"Well then, I guess we'll talk later then?" He hesitantly asked and instantly brightened up at her nod. "Take care of yourself, Red." Phantom gave her a cheeky salute and disappeared from sight.
Valerie checked her ghost radar one last time before turning home. She would still have to finish her freakout, she knew. But first, she wanted to spend some time with her dad. They'd make something tasty for dinner, maybe his famous spaghetti, and then they can get some snacks and watch a movie together, like they used to.
She can think about death tomorrow, she decided. But today she will celebrate a life that still hasn't ended.
