This was how Wash teamed up with Tom and started working as a ghost hunter and medium. Tucker often would accompany him, but he would keep himself in the background and only jump into action when they were dealing with the ghost of a child, for example.

Wash realized rather early on that Tucker had a knack with kids. Which was pretty obvious given the fact that he had been a dad himself and Junior obviously was a good child.

Wash got up from the sofa where he had been dozing for the last hour. He had a mission the day before yesterday and he still was recovering. Those missions threw his daily schedule for a loop and he often struggled to stay awake because he couldn't get enough sleep to recover.

Damn insomnia.

The ghost that had obviously decided to move into his house was sitting on the ground, watching some kind of cartoon about some Marvel heroes.

"Junior used to love these. He always got up extra early on Saturday to watch them."

Wash felt a strange urge to pat Tucker's shoulder, but refrained since he would be reaching right through the ghost anyway.

"He's doing good, Tucker." In want of other words to say, he just said what came to his mind then.

The dark-skinned man nodded, sending the man a quivering smile in appreciation of his words.

It was silent for a moment, an amicable one, before Tucker asked, "What's the next mission?"

Wash shortly contemplated what the date was today and what was coming, "Tonight. A client called Dexter Grif. He thinks he has a ghost in his house who is a stickler for order and sounds like a nerd."

"Wait, he can hear the ghost? Why did he call us then?" Tucker asked, turning his head to look at Wash.

"He just said that he hears someone talk to him, but that he couldn't hear someone walking around or hear any of the other sounds that someone makes when they are moving around. In any case, he thinks it's a ghost but he isn't sure, so we have to confirm if it is a ghost or not. He's blind. He has a tumor in his brain that is crushing the primary visual cortex."

"Sucks to be him." Tucker commented, "I am happy I am not blind. You definitely are a sight for sore eyes."

The ghost pointedly looked at the TV again, so Wash couldn't say if he was blushing. What he felt was his own face heating up and a question coming to his mind: could ghosts blush when they have no body anymore to provide the blood to rush up to their face?

Pushing his thoughts away, he got up from the couch. It was around three in the afternoon.

"We should get going. Tom is scheduled to show up around four to pick us up." Wash was well aware that Tucker didn't really need a car, but he couldn't help but speak in plural. It felt better than talking only about himself and treating Tucker as if he didn't exist.

Because for Washington, he was very, very real.

"Sure…" Tucker answered, although he sounded a bit distracted.

The blond man decided to leave him be and not prod any further, instead going upstairs and getting dressed and ready. He grabbed some extra clothes and put them in a duffel bag. One of the last missions that they had been on resulted in Wash becoming soaking wet because one of the child ghosts had decided to dump a bucket full of icy water on him.

Tucker couldn't stop laughing then and had almost missed his call to leave before the cleaning ritual started.

During the whole drive home, Tucker had been snickering while Wash was freezing. Tom had the heat in the car on maximum and was sweating like crazy, but Wash had still felt like he had been turning into an icicle.

Consequently, the ex-soldier had to take a break for a week because he came up with a flu right after that. Not all that surprisingly.

An hour later, Wash could hear Tom pull up into his driveway and soon after he was ringing his doorbell.

The owner of the house got up and opened the door for the man.

"Hey, Wash!" Tom was roughly around Carolina's age, and was a fair-skinned man with brown hair and hazel eyes. He was a bit shorter than Wash and had a stocky build.

In any case, when it came to reading the instruments he had his car crammed full with, he was a coryphée. It was crazy what he was able to read off of them.

"Hello, Tom." Wash greeted, grabbing his duffel bag, jacket, and keys to leave the house. While he was slipping into the jacket, Tom was looking around and then turned to the running TV.

"Hey, Tucker." He greeted.

Wash felt a warm, fuzzy feeling appear in his chest when he saw how Tom also greeted Tucker, although he couldn't see him. Sure, he had done some research in Wash's house and knew that there was indeed a ghost living there, but that didn't change the fact that he couldn't see the ghost.

Tucker only quickly waved at the man.

"Tucker says hello too." Wash supplied.

"I didn't, don't talk for me." The man quipped and Wash threw him a dirty glare which Tucker shrugged off.

"Is he joining us today?" Tom asked casually, waiting patiently for Wash to put his shoes on.

That was what the blond man was struggling with the most. Bending down. With a scraped knee and back, it's a bit more strenuous to do so.

"Haven't got any answer from him today." Wash replied, getting up after having put on his first shoe to breathe. A side effect from his back injury. When bending over and squeezing his chest together a bit, he often didn't get enough air into his lungs.

"And miss seeing a nerd in action? Are you fucking kidding me?"

The TV switched off, Tom looking over to it a bit startled but soon calming down when he realized that it was Tucker who did that. The ghost sauntered over to the two living men standing in the hallway.

Wash snorted a bit, "He's joining us." He informed Tom simply, deciding to not say what exactly Tucker said aside from joining them.

"Okay then. Better start now, we have a three-hour drive ahead of us. I'll brief you on the way." The leader of the group explained, observing Wash grabbing his duffel bag and keys before leaving the house.

Wash held the door open a bit longer so that the ghost could leave the house before the ex-soldier left it.

Tom couldn't see ghosts, so despite him knowing that Tucker was around and even knowing to a degree what he looked like, it was still weird seeing Wash acting rather normal around ghosts. When you couldn't see the ghost in question yourself, Wash looked as though he were simply bonkers.

Shaking his head a bit, Tom walked down the driveway and took up his place in the car as he waited for Wash to enter the vehicle. Tucker could enter the car without having to open the door and he had the time to do so as long as Wash was standing there.

Wash sat down in the passenger's seat in the front of the car and threw the duffel bag on the backseat.

Tucker was obviously complaining about something, to which Wash only rolled his eyes.

"Quit being such a baby, Tucker. You can't even feel the pain from the hit. Besides, you could sit on either of the other two seats there." He replied, a bit annoyed.

It was silent for a while until Wash again responded to something, "Not my problem. I am not playing snake men here for you to sit down exactly there."

Pulling out of the driveway, Tom laughed, "Your lovers' quarrels sure are interesting."

"We don't have lovers' quarrels!" Wash protested, and, given the way he looked to the seat behind Tom just then, Tucker must have protested the notion too.

Tom decided to give Wash some space given the way he was sinking into the seat with a sullen expression. He couldn't afford Wash being any more mentally unstable than he already was or he would become a pretty good target for ghost possession.

Driving along the road that his newest co-worker was living on, he observed the seat that Tucker was presumably sitting in.

For him as a ghost hunter, it was rather interesting to see that Wash had a ghost living with him and that neither of them obviously was minding the presence of the other.

He could also observe what kind of influence ghosts had on their surroundings. He often thought that they would cause car radios to go crazy or whatever, but if they realized that someone could see and hear them, they were less perky than they usually were. They still caused quite a bit of a ruckus, but it wasn't as bad as when no one could see them directly.

So, it was kind of a blessing to have Washington on his team and that Carolina had managed to persuade him to join.

After getting out of the city and driving on the interstate up to the place where their latest client was living, Tom started briefing Washington as well as Tucker on the particulars of the case.

Washington would often ask questions that came from Tucker. Since they had started working together, Tom had gotten pretty adept at telling if the question Wash asked was one from him personally or if he was playing the role of speaker for Tucker.

The place that they arrived at was a house that looked rather similar to Wash's, but was located in a far worse part of the city. The house itself was in a far worse state than his was in currently too, Wash could tell that already just by viewing the outside of the building. But given the fact that the inhabitant was blind, that didn't surprise him much.

He knew that the house belonged to Dexter Grif and that there were several rooms subleased in it. Wash suspected that one of the seeing inhabitants was taking care of the lawn and the house so that it wouldn't break down over their heads.

However, it currently looked as though Grif was the only inhabitant since the yard was growing out and the state of the house didn't look as well-maintained as it probably should be.

Ringing the door, they could hear shuffling from inside the house… followed by a loud bang and cursing.

When the door opened, a rather chubby, dark-skinned Hawaiian stood in the door frame with sunglasses perched on his nose.

He was rubbing his left knee.

"Yes?" He asked, annoyance clear in his voice no doubt due to his abused knee.

"Hello, Mister Grif. My name is Tom Myers. You called me and my co-worker to investigate paranormal activities going on in your house?" Tom greeted cordially, although he lowered his voice so that not everyone could hear what he was saying right away.

"Right, I recognize your voice." The man said simply, "I'm Dexter Grif. But I guess you already figured that out." He stated, pointing at his glasses before standing to the side and letting the ghost hunters in.

When Wash entered, he quickly stopped, "My name is David Washington. I am Tom's co-worker." He explained.

Grif nodded to him as a sign of understanding.

Closing the door behind the blond male, Grif turned around and walked past them. He entered his living room that, frankly, looked like a mess. There was trash lying around everywhere and a ton of boxes crammed into the space too.

It was no wonder that Grif couldn't find his way around in all of that mess.

"Holy shit, it looks like a pigpen in here. Even I didn't have so much junk." Tucker exclaimed loudly.

Wash felt like facepalming, but that urge was forgotten immediately when he saw Grif whipping his head around.

"What was that!?" He snapped, before turning to where he could hear Tom sigh, "I thought you were just two people? Why is there a third person in here? Are you trying to shit with me?"

"Not exactly." Wash interjected, "But… Technically, we are just two people. At least two living people." He explained.

It took a moment for the client to realize what Wash had just said.

"You brought another ghost to my house." He stated simply.

He turned in the general direction where Tucker was standing. The ghost had both of his hands clapped over his mouth and he was staring at the human with wide eyes, full of surprise.

Wash couldn't help but grin at that image. Tucker looked pretty idiotic with that expression on his face, but rather cute at the same time.

Calling himself to order in the back of his mind, the ex-soldier sighed again, "I guess I should start explaining then." He said with a look to Tom, who only nodded.

"I can't fucking wait." The client replied dryly, but the wariness from before was no longer evident in his voice.

Wash then started explaining the situation to Grif just as he did with all of their clients, however, he added one or more extra details into the mix since this particular client could actually hear ghosts.

"I am an ex-Navy Seal and due to several close calls and near-death experiences, I am able to see ghosts and talk with them. That's how I got on Tom's team. I am in charge of finding out what keeps the ghosts in this place and then I try to help them cross the bridge and enter the light." He explained.

Grif raised an eyebrow at that but did not say a word in response to his explanation.

"However, I happened to save a boy from a car about two and a half years ago. The ghost you heard is his dad who has since been more or less living with me because he wanted to thank me for that and somehow ended up staying."

Wash gestured over to the ghost, only to realize a moment later that Grif couldn't see the gesture. He threw the dark-skinned ghost a glance to silently ask for help.

"Yeah, dude, that's how I ended up becoming something like a ghost who hunts other ghosts." Tucker further elaborated.

"Huh, a ghost hunting ghosts?" The blind man muttered after a moment.

Tucker took that as a cue to ask, "So, you can hear ghosts?"

Grif made a motion with his head that none of the other men present could decipher, "Since the latest growth of the tumor… I happen to hear them, yes. I hadn't heard them before, but it is obviously pressing on one of the neural areas when it comes to hearing now and that gives me the ability to hear ghosts."

"That's why you think the guy living with you could be a ghost?" Wash asked.

Grif nodded, "Yup. Besides, no living being with standards would live in this house or neighborhood. He sounds like a fucking nerd, and I wouldn't accept someone like that as tenant."

"Figures." Tucker snorted and the client deliberately showed him the one finger salute.

Since their client was blind, Tom had decided that they both would explain even more than they would to seeing clients about what they were going to be doing to put the man at ease.

They were trekking through the house so Grif could explain about all of the rooms to them and say in which ones the paranormal activity was at its strongest. These rooms were Grif's bedroom, his office, and the living room where the activity was the worst. The other five rooms in the house he was renting out didn't seem to be as targeted as the three that were designated for his personal use were.

The leader of the group decided to set up instruments in Grif's bedroom first and observe everything from the living room since that room had the most space.

When they came back from upstairs, all three house guests stood there completely still. Even Tucker was frozen in his tracks.

Grif noticed that and turned around to face them with a raised eyebrow.

Tucker was the first to find his words again, "Dude, when did you clean up the room here?"

"I didn't?" Grif replied, and Wash felt as though he heard a note of insecurity in the man's voice, "Why?"

"Uh, because it's tidily clean in here." Tom added, still a bit baffled about the sight before them too.

"Oh, that." Grif replied, making a dismissive motion with his hand, "That happens all the time. This is why I said that the ghost or whatever it is has some kind of boner for cleanliness."

Tucker looked at Wash and only shook his head. Wash knew exactly what he wanted to say.

There wasn't someone else in the house. At least no living being.

Washington had long ago learned that ghosts tended to have some kind of enhanced sensitivity for other living beings around them.

"Okay, we will take that into consideration. Let's now check the room." Tom decided.

Grif sat down on the couch and grabbed a coke that he was keeping besides the couch so he wouldn't have to move around too much. He emptied the last bit from the bottle and screwed it shut again.

"I'll be sitting here and listening to what you do." He said, throwing the bottle towards a bin standing beside the TV but missing it by miles.

What made Wash suspicious was the fact that he couldn't hear the clattering of the plastic on the ground.

When he turned around, he could see the bottle hovering in the air, or more accurately, he could see the bottle being held by someone standing there with an utterly pissed off expression on their face.

Elbowing Tom, the man turned around and he could feel him gape at the bottle, since he couldn't see the man currently holding it.

What broke the silence was Tucker starting to laugh out loud, which startled the other ghost so much that he let the bottle fall to the ground.

"Holy shit, dude, this guy doesn't only sound like a fucking nerd— he even looks like one!" he wheezed out between fits of laughter.

Wash also had to smile in regards to the display of Tucker laughing so openly and loudly as Grif threw him a smoldering glare.

"I am not!" the redhaired nerd-ghost then squeaked, disrupting the glaring contest between the blind man and the ghost.

"Uh-huh, whatever you say." Grif then quipped.

"Shut up, fat-ass!" The ghost shot back, grasping the bottle and throwing it in the bin.

"I am starting to ask myself why you want the ghost to be gone if he is cleaning up so well? I would want a cleaning ghost myself." Tucker asked with a grin plastered on his face still.

"You have a human to clean up your mess." Wash stated dryly.

Tucker made a dismissive motion with his hands at that, "Stop bitching, Wash, I am not that bad."

"You better not be." Wash replied, looking at Grif and saying Tucker's question for Tom aloud again.

"So then, why do you want us to clean the house and get rid of the ghost?" he asked, keeping the last part of Tucker's question to himself.

"It isn't about the cleaning." Grif replied deliberately, "I'd be fine with him staying if he just did that, but the asshole keeps bitching all the time."

"I wouldn't be bitching if you would just stop making a mess!"

"Shut up, Simmons." The Hawaiian shot back.

Wash blinked, "So your name is Simmons?" he asked the ghost directly.

Said ghost shot up in a straight position and saluted, "Yes, sir! Richard Simmons! It's an honor to meet you!"

"Fucking suck-up." Grif muttered, accompanied by Tucker's, "Nerd."

"Shut up, you unbelievable slob!" Simmons squeaked, and Wash could see his ears turning bright red.

"Well, I guess we don't need the equipment up in the room anymore?" Tom asked, looking over at Wash who nodded.

"I think so too. I don't feel another presence aside from Tucker and Simmons, so I am pretty sure that we won't get another surprise."

Tom nodded, turning off the equipment and looking to where Grif was sitting and bickering with the ghost who obviously was as pissed off as the living human was.

"What are they doing?" Tom asked, looking over to Wash who looked pretty done with the man and the ghost by now.

Wash groaned lowly, "They are arguing like an old married couple." he replied with a suffering tone.

"We aren't!" Grif and Simmons both shot back immediately, soon after falling into another bickering routine with one another.

"They're both denying it." Wash replied lowly, making sure he wasn't talking loud enough for the others to hear over their bickering.

"Anyways," Wash started, drawing both men's attention to him, "I actually wanted to ask you why you're here, Simmons?" He asked, looking at the redhead ghost standing there and fidgeting.

The man needed a moment before he replied, "I grew up here when my dad lost his job and we had to sell our previous house in the better part of town." He explained, looking pained and sad.

"Grif's bedroom was my bedroom and the office was my mom's sewing room where she used to sew things to earn at least a bit of money. And the living room… well I used to be in here when my dad wasn't around." He explained lowly, looking at the ground before adding quietly, "When he wasn't home to beat me up and force me to do "men's" stuff because he thought I was too girly."

"Sounds like your dad was quite a dick." Tucker muttered then, Wash seeing something akin to sympathy on the ghost's face.

Simmons nodded his head in response to Tucker's comment, "I got an infection with a flesh eating virus and my dad refused to bring me to a doctor because he thought I was just too much of a wimp and should man up." Simmons continued, "I died after they amputated my left arm and leg. My dad refused to acknowledge even at the end that it was his fault. If he had just brought me to the hospital earlier, they could have saved me."

Looking to the ground, Simmons stopped talking and obviously didn't want to continue any further.

Tom coughed a bit louder than normal, drawing the everyone's attention back to him. Both men and ghost.

"Well then, this went fast." He started a bit awkwardly, feeling oddly redundant since everyone else living in the room was able to either see or hear ghosts, "Now that we know that there's a ghost here, we need to know if you want us to clean the house and get the ghost, or Simmons in this case, to leave."

He looked directly at Grif who was sitting on the couch with a contemplative look on his face.

The blind man was staring at the place he had last heard Simmons talk from. Wash could see that the redhead was fidgeting with the hem of his maroon shirt, turning bright red again.

"Nah." The man said, smiles appearing on the three paranormal investigators' faces.

Simmons' head shot up with a surprised gasp, looking at the man still sitting there.

"I mean, his constant bitching aside, he cleans the place up… so why should I drive someone like him away?" He asked with a shrug.

Tucker snickered at that beside the ex-soldier and earned an angry glare from Simmons.

"So long as he doesn't freak out any potential new tenants or my sister, I am cool with him staying here." The blind man continued.

A soft expression appeared on the redheaded ghost's face that Wash couldn't help but define as fond.

What Grif said next, however, made Wash frown and smile at the same time, "I am not going to be living long as it is either. The tumor is growing. It's better that I don't piss someone off who could be my boss in the ghost world."

Wash couldn't help but smile because of Grif's fond wording towards the ghost. But he frowned because the man had obviously already finished with his life and wasn't even thinking that he would survive the next few months anymore.

"Okay then, we're clear." Tom said simply.

Washington knew that Tom had heard the words too and that they were bugging him as well. But he had learned from said man that they mustn't get too invested into the personal fates of their clients or they would end up snapping.

That's what Wash was doing. He was distancing himself, and he started putting things away and into the car with Tom while Tucker was giving man and ghost some advice on how to live together. He was advising them so that Simmons wouldn't freak the shit out of people entering the house and so that Grif would know how to prepare people on having a ghost living with them.

Wash was pretty sure that Tucker was suggesting that Grif write into the ad that he was putting up to rent out rooms that the house was haunted. He was pretty sure that there were enough people who wanted to live in a haunted house that he would still get renters.

After having put everything away, they gathered again.

"Okay, we are good to go." Tom said, "If you ever need help again, please call us." He was ever the businessman.

Grif nodded, looking over to Tucker who spoke up next, "Keep us up to date, will you? I wanna hear about how things are going now that the nerd is officially living with you."

A broad grin exploded on Tucker's face and Wash knew that he must have missed something during the time when he was putting the stuff away with Tom.

"I will come and haunt Wash's ass when I am dead." Grif noted dryly, with Simmons looking horrified at the prospect of haunting a higher ranked soldier of the American army.

"Sorry, pal," Tucker replied with a huge grin, "But this ass is taken by me, Lavernius Tucker. Bow-chicka-bow-wow!" Tucker sported the best grin he could muster.

Wash facepalmed and felt his face heat up at Tucker's words, wishing nothing more than to be able to leave already.

"Uh, I guess we better go now." Luckily, Tom seemed to have picked up on Wash's discomfort and started bidding his goodbyes to Grif and Simmons.

They left the house sometime around two in the morning to drive back. Tom insisted on driving so that Wash could try to catch some sleep.

Wash, however, wasn't able to sleep one single minute during their drive home. His thoughts were always drifting back to what Tucker had said. That his ass was already taken by the ghost.

Don't get him wrong! He didn't have sex with the ghost! How could he?

Point one: Tucker was a ghost. Point two: ever since the bomb explosion that Connie had died in and that York and Maine had gotten injured in, his sexual drive was gone for good.

Anyways, he tried to force the blood flooding into his ears back into his body while he continued to think.

As the drive home continued, Wash suddenly realized something.

He had fallen in love with a ghost. With a fucking ghost of all people. How crazy was that?

It wasn't the fact that it was a man–- he had known that he was gay even before he joined the army, but the "don't ask, don't tell" policy had made it easy for him to slip through and not be found out.

What threw him for a loop was the fact that he had fallen in love with a deceased person. That he was feeling those butterflies in his stomach you feel when in love when he thought about Tucker or was around him.

Pressing the side of his head against the cool window, he desperately tried to calm his burning cheeks and erratically beating heart.