Fic: The Roommate 2/3 (Chris/Steve AU, PG-13)
Title: The Roommate
Author: sheryden
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 7437 (this chapter)
Fandom: Kane RPS
Pairings: eventual Chris/Steve, mention of past Chris/OFC
Warnings minor language
Disclaimer: I do not own these people, and the story within is just the fruit of my vivid imagination.
Summary: Troubled Chris agrees to move into an old Victorian house with his best friend Steve, but little do either of them know that their new home is occupied by matchmaking ghost. Psychic!Chris, Skeptic!Steve, and Ghost!Jensen.
Notes: I don't even know, guys. This has been nipping at my brain for a while, and I have to get it out. I was going to do extend this for a big bang, but it wanted to be written now. Who am I to argue? I'm breaking it into three chapters.
Chapter 1
Chris stared at the contents of his shopping cart. It was already packed to the brim with groceries, but he and Steve had nothing in the house besides leftover pizza, some bottled water, and a candy bar. He was actually kind of excited to get home and start cooking dinner so he’d have it ready when Steve got home. It had been a long while since he’d had a real kitchen, much less a person other than himself to feed. Steve would probably laugh if he knew how much this little exercise in domesticity meant to him, but for Chris, this was a chance at having the normal, mundane things he’d been denied for so long. He’d even cleared the boxes off the of dining room table so he and Steve could eat a proper meal together.
As he picked up a bag of apples and placed them into the cart, he glanced across the produce section. Standing by the bananas and looking more than a little lost was a young woman in a spring dress. She was pale, and her hair was matted. She looked like she would probably have been pretty at one time in her life, but it was obvious that she’d seen better days. Chris knew by sheer instinct that she was one of them.
Fuck, he thought to himself. He averted his eyes and stared down his bread and lettuce. But it was too late. She had already seen him and was wandering in his direction. He glanced around at the other shoppers, mentally mapping out the best escape route. Before he had a chance to act, she appeared beside him and stretched out her bony hand to grip his cart.
“Excuse me,” she said in a delicate voice.
Dammit, dammit, dammit, he thought and pushed the cart forward with a jerk. He walked briskly through the produce section, past the women’s clothing, toward home and garden. Chris didn’t have to look back to know that the ghost was following him the whole way.
“Excuse me,” she called.
Out of desperation, he jerked the cart into the hardware section. It wasn’t completely deserted-an attendant was sitting at the counter scribbling something or other in a little notebook, and there was a husky guy an aisle away looking at lighting fixtures-but it would do. At least he wasn’t out in the open and surrounded by a crowd of other people. Tugging his cell phone out of his pocket, he spun and faced the ghost. “Look, I can’t talk to you here,” he whispered. “If you see a light, go into it.”
She gazed at him as though he hadn’t said a word. Cocking her head, she asked in the same feeble voice as before, “Do you happen to know what time it is?”
“For fuck’s sake,” he muttered. “It’s 12:15 pm.”
Covering her mouth with one hand, she said, “I was supposed to be home hours ago.”
“Well, if you see a light, head that way. That’s where you want to go.”
As the ghost continued to stare vacantly at him, Chris heard a cheerful voice from a few feet away. “I’m sorry, sir,” the voice said. “I didn’t see you there. Did you need something?”
Letting out a breath, Chris glanced over his shoulder at the attendant. Weakly, he held up his cell phone. It was a lame cover story, but he’d resorted to it before, and it hadn’t failed him yet. Satisfied, the attendant nodded, smiled, and walked back to his counter.
When Chris turned back toward the ghost, he was relieved to see that she had disappeared. Shoving the phone back into his pocket, he headed back to the produce section and made quick work of grabbing the rest of the items on his list.
After he had checked out, Chris headed out to the parking lot and loaded the groceries into his truck. Putting this stuff away was going to be a bitch, but for some reason, he was looking forward to it. With a satisfied smile, he climbed into his truck. As he was about to pull out into traffic, he glanced beside him, and there, in the passenger seat, sat the ghost from the grocery store.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he snapped. “I am not a taxi service, and you can’t come home with me.”
“I was supposed to be home hours ago.”
Closing his eyes, he did a mental inventory of every urban legend he could think of that involved a ghost hitching a ride with a stranger. He couldn’t think of one off hand that involved a fatality on the part of the driver, so he let out a breath and said, “All right, where do you live?”
The ghost stared straight ahead. “411 Brookdale,” came the weak reply.
“I’m not chauffeuring you around all day,” he said. “This is a one way trip.”
And so he drove the ghost to 411 Brookdale, keeping his eyes glued to the road in front of him the entire time. To his relief, she didn’t say a word to him during the drive. When they pulled up to the address, he was a little surprised to find that it wasn’t a graveyard or a decaying old shack. Actually, it was a nice little suburban place with blue siding and a child’s bike in the yard.
“This is 411 Brookdale,” he said to the ghost.
“I should have been home hours ago,” she said. Smiling pleasantly, she floated out of the car and vanished before Chris’s eyes.
White-knuckled, Chris gripped the steering wheel and watched the ghost disappear. He allowed himself exactly thirty seconds to ride out the wave of panic that suddenly washed over him. He didn’t imagine that he would ever get used to this sort of thing. After he was calm enough to drive, he glanced back at the house one more time, then drove down the road toward home, hoping inwardly that Steve didn’t ask him too much about his day.
***
Steve pushed the dishwasher door tightly closed and turned to Chris. “So this pimply-faced kid comes into the store today, and he wants lessons for-wait for it-the accordion.”
Shaking his head, Chris folded up the dishtowel he was holding and laid it across the center of the sink. “Well, at least it wasn’t the bagpipes.”
Making a face, Steve leaned against the counter. “Yeah, that’s a bright spot.” Squeezing Chris on the shoulder, he added, “So that was a great dinner. I’ve missed your cooking.”
Chris flashed one of his increasingly rare grins and Steve felt a sudden rush of warmth spread across his gut. He loved that smile, and the fact that such a small comment had brought it to the surface convinced him that moving in with Chris had been the right thing to do. He had been mildly surprised to come home to dinner and a stocked kitchen. Part of him had expected to pull into the drive and see Chris’s car missing, off parked in the lot of the bar where he usually spent his nights.
“Thanks,” Chris said, still smiling. “I had a blast. It’s good to cook for someone else for a change.”
“Trust me,” Steve said. “You can cook dinner for me all you want.” Flipping out the kitchen light, Steve headed into the living room, Chris trailing behind him. “So what else did you do today?”
Shaking his head, Chris rubbed his eyes. “I, uh, gave a girl a ride home.”
Collapsing onto the sofa, Steve frowned. “Tell me you didn’t meet the next love of your life.”
“Seriously?” Chris groused. “No, you old mother hen. It wasn’t like that.” He plunked down at the far end of the sofa and folded his arms across his chest. “The story of my life has enough love interests.”
“I was just asking,” Steve said, nudging Chris with his shoulder. “Anyway, now that I’ve just made everything awkward-”
Chris waved a hand through the air. “Don’t worry about it. You nag because you care.”
“I do care,” he said. After a few moments, of silence, he stood up and headed over toward the mountain of boxes that still littered the living room. “Hey, let’s watch a movie. DVDs are all we got until the cable’s hooked up.”
The two of them rifled through the still-unpacked boxes until they unearthed one filled with DVDs. After they’d found a couple they could agree on, they settled themselves back down on the sofa to relax. By the time Steve had put the second movie in, Chris was starting to droop sleepily against Steve’s side.
When Steve shifted to get more comfortable, Chris sat up and blinked several times. “Did I fall asleep?”
“Only for a few minutes. You want me to start the movie over?”
“Nah.” He stretched dramatically and snuggled back into the cushions. “You know, I could get used to this.”
“What?” Steve asked with a smirk. “Sitting in a jungle of boxes watching Die Hard for the hundredth time?”
Chris chuckled. “No. I meant having a reason to stay in. I like this.”
Looping his arm around Chris’s shoulder, Steve tugged him a little closer. “Yeah, it’s nice to stay in once in a while.”
“Listen to you,” Chris said. “When’s the last time you went out-and I don’t mean with Jason or one of them. When’s the last time you had an actual date?”
Steve let out a breath. “I don’t know. I just haven’t found anyone I want.” And in his mind, he added, as much as I want you.
“Well,” Chris said, closing his eyes. “I guess romance is overrated anyway. We’re better off just sticking together. Maybe we can become bitter old men who yell at the neighbor kids to stay off our lawn.”
Steve let out a laugh. “Maybe so. You want to head to bed or try to make it through Bruce Willis waging war on the guy that plays Snape?”
When Chris didn’t answer, Steve glanced down at the crumpled body in his arms. Sure enough, Chris was sound asleep, his head resting precariously against Steve’s shoulder. Pulling him a little closer, Steve flipped off the movie and drifted off to sleep himself.
***
In nearly a week’s time, Chris and Steve had made precious little progress unpacking all the boxes. Steve was off running his store most of the week, and even though Chris worked at home, setting up the house was far too big a job for one person. Especially if that one person was dragging around like a zombie after yet another almost-sleepless night.
Most nights since he and Steve had moved into the old Victorian, Chris had lain awake listening to the sound of mysterious footsteps and banging from the attic. At one point, he’d managed to drift off only to wake up to the feeling that someone was watching him sleep. Needless to say, he was awake the rest of that night. In fact, the one time he’d actually gotten a solid few hours of sleep was when he’d crashed on the sofa with Steve. He’d woken up the next morning, stiff-necked and mortified that he’d spent the night wrapped around Steve’s body. But at least he’d slept.
Last night, though, had been a bad one, and now, Chris was wandering aimlessly around the house trying to get his brain to focus enough to be productive. Thus far, it wasn’t working. He’d managed to unpack one box and set up an end table he’d picked up earlier in the week for the living room. It was a little scuffed up, but it would look fine once a lamp was sitting on top of it.
Pulling out his cell, his punched Steve’s number. “Hey,” he said when Steve answered. “Where’s the table lamp for the living room?”
Steve cleared his throat. “Table lamp… Oh, I think I stuffed it up in the attic. The living room was already overrun, so I stuck a lot of the extra stuff up there.”
Closing his eyes, Chris bit his lip. “Yeah, all right. I’ll check there.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I’ll see you when you get home.”
After he hung up with Steve, Chris stared up the stairs toward the attic. He considered leaving the lamp where it was and working on something else, but shame compelled him up the steps. This is ridiculous, he thought as he stared at the attic door. It’s just a fucking room. He felt like he was kid again, and was about to enter his aunt’s rickety old barn. That had been his first real face-to-face with a ghost, and it had scared the shit out of him. Since then, he’d seen more than his share of creepy-crawlies, but they were usually at a hospital or in the woods or something, and he didn’t worry much about ever seeing them again. Sharing a space with one, though… that made his skin crawl.
Biting his bottom lip, Chris started slowly up the steps. Once he’d entered the room, he started to relax. It reeked of dust and musty air, as one would expect out of an attic. But Chris couldn’t sense anything out of the ordinary. As near as he could tell, he was completely alone. The tension in his neck and shoulders started to melt away as he spotted the table lamp over by the window.
As he was about to pick up the lamp, Chris noticed a couple of old boxes in the corner. They were labeled in neat blue marker, and both said the same thing: Jensen’s Stuff. Leaving the lamp where it was, Chris wandered over the tugged at the flap of the top box. It was bound pretty good, but Chris dug at the tape until it started to peel away from the cardboard. Part of him felt a little guilty about nosing around in someone else’s belongs, but the landlord had told him and Steve that they could do whatever they wanted with anything the previous occupants had left behind.
Inside the box were a handful of cassette tapes, a couple of t-shirts, an old PlayStation and a couple of games, and other assorted odds and ends. As he poked around the contents of the box, Chris felt a chill sweep over him. He wasn’t sure why, but suddenly, he was absolutely certain that he was invading someone’s privacy, sorting through the remnants of someone’s life. The box wasn’t exactly full of treasures or anything, but for all he knew, that’s exactly what this stuff had been to this Jensen guy-chick? Respectfully, he folded the flaps of the box closed, grabbed the lamp, and turned back toward the door.
Almost as soon as he hit the bottom step, he had the overwhelming feeling of being watched. Swallowing, he glanced up the stairs behind him and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw nothing but empty space. Still, the sensation persisted, and Chris tried to busy himself so he wouldn’t think about it.
With the lamp in place, he started to sort through boxes until he heard the distinct sound of footsteps coming from the dining room. “Dammit,” he muttered. He walked toward the sound, but no sooner had he pushed open the door to the dining room, the noise stopped. The air, though… it felt colder than usual, and Chris hugged himself for warmth.
As he backed out of the room, his cell alerted him that he had a text. There was a single text that read, Found your baseball cap and some other stuff. Give me a call.
Chris stared at the tiny words on his phone and chewed on his bottom lip. It was The Girl. He had been down this road with her before, and he knew damn well he shouldn’t call. But he also knew he would. Letting out a breath, he forgot about the footsteps and cold air and dialed The Girl’s number.
***
When Steve finally pulled into the driveway, he noticed that Chris’s car wasn’t there. This was the first time since they’d moved in together that Chris hadn’t been home when Steve got off work.
He knew that Chris was a grown man and that he had a couple of his own friends and every right to go out and have a good time on a Friday night. But it still stung a little that he wasn’t there. Steve had gotten used to spending most of his free time with Chris, and if he was being honest, he was starting to feel a little possessive of him. Maybe it was good that Chris was off by himself for once.
When Steve walked through the front door, he tossed his keys on the little table by the entrance and wandered into the kitchen. It was damn quiet without Chris in there bustling around. Glancing over at the table, Steve noticed one of Chris’s mangy old baseball caps hanging on the back of one of the chairs. On the table, there were two beers, and Steve made a mental note that they were both sitting on coasters.
He rummaged around in the kitchen, heated up some leftovers, and ate in silence. As he was about to head up the stairs to take a shower, he saw the table lamp Chris had phoned him about earlier lying in a pile of glass and metal behind the sofa. The poor lamp wasn’t just broken. It looked like someone had taken the time to kill it dead. A hollow feeling erupted in Steve’s stomach, and he walked back toward the door to grab his car keys. He knew where he would find Chris.
Once got to the bar, Steve stalked through the door into the smoky room and scanned the crowd of people. He finally found Chris hunched over the bar gulping down a glass of whiskey and playing with an empty ashtray. His worst fears confirmed, Steve walked over to Chris and slid into a chair beside him.
Chris looked at him for a moment, then went back to fiddling with the ashtray. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m fishing your drunk ass out of a bar. Again.”
“I’m not ready to leave.”
“Too bad,” Steve said, grabbing Chris’s forearm. “Come on.”
Chris shook Steve’s hand off and shoved him a little. “I said I’m not going anywhere. I’m a grown man, and I’m gonna sit here, and I’m gonna drink. You don’t like that, fuck off.”
Steve let out a breath. If Chris was going to swim in whiskey, Steve figured he might as well stick around. He gonna wind up coming back for him anyway. “I’ll stay,” he said and waved the bartender over so he could order a beer. As the two of them sat there and drank in silence, Steve did his best to nurture the one beer so he could have a clear head to drive and to handle a drunken Chris.
After a while, Chris turned toward Steve and slurred out, “Guess who I had the pleasure of talking to today.”
Feeling himself deflate, Steve said, “She Who Shall Not Be Named?”
“Man, don’t call her that.”
“Chris, I saw the lamp. I don’t know what happened between you two, but if you want to talk about it, I’m here to listen.”
Chris took a gulp of whiskey. “She texteded.” He made a face, then snickered. “Texteded. Does that sound right to you, man? Doesn’t sound right to me.”
“Chris…”
He put his arm around Steve. “Anyway, I called her back, and she’s still a bitch.”
“I could have told you that.”
“She found my baseball cap, though,” he said. “She even brought it over.”
“Your baseball cap.”
Chris laid his head on Steve’s shoulder. “I needed it.”
Steve pinched the bridge of his nose. “Chris, she finds stupid reasons to call you, because she knows you’ll call her back. You have to stop giving her power.”
Lifting his head, he scowled. “So wait. This is my fault?”
“No. Steve shook his head. “It’s not your fault. But she’s gonna hurt you as long as she knows she can. Why do you keep letting her back in?”
Chris swallowed the last of his drink, then dipped his index finger into the empty glass. “I keep thinking she’ll tell me what I did wrong.”
Steve had the urge or take Chris’s face in his hands, but he reminded himself that they were sitting in the middle of a bar. “Chris,” he said quietly. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Must’ve done something,” Chris said, his voice cracking. “There must be a reason why everyone leaves me.”
The pain he heard his Chris’s voice made Steve’s heart break. Putting an arm around his shoulder, he said, “Well, I’m not going anywhere.”
***
The sun gently caressed Chris’s bare arms as he ambled down the sidewalk, hands shoved deep into his pockets. Beth, one of Chris’s few remaining friends-and one of only two he didn’t share with Steve-was at his side. For the majority of their walk, she’d been chattering on about her latest client. Chris was happy just to listen and nod sympathetically every once in a while.
He’d invited her out this afternoon so they could catch up. But if he was being honest, he also had ulterior motives. Beth was more than a little open-minded about ghosts and psychic abilities. In fact, she and a couple of her whack job friends spent weekends investigating the paranormal with a local group of ghost hunters. If anyone would understand what was happening in the old Victorian, it would be Beth.
When she finally took a breather between stories, Chris cleared his throat and said, “So my house is haunted.”
Beth smacked him on the shoulder. “That is so cool!”
“No,” Chris said, kicking at a loose rock on the sidewalk. “It’s not cool. I’ve hardly slept since we moved in. I lie there at night, and I keep hearing footsteps. Banging coming from the attic. And some nights I feel like I’m being watched. Plus, there are cold spots all over the house. And he moves stuff.”
Beth reached down and slipped her hand into Chris’s. “He moves stuff?”
“Yeah. This morning, he hid my keys.” He groaned inwardly at the absurdity of what he’d just said. “I mean, he must’ve. I had to hunt all over for them. At first, I thought Steve hid ‘em to keep me from going out.”
“Why would Steve hide your keys?”
He shrugged. “I got drunk over the weekend, and it pissed him off. Anyway, Steve said he didn’t do it, and I finally found them tucked under the couch.”
“Well,” Beth said. “Maybe you kicked them there by accident.”
He frowned at her. “You’re the one who usually believes all this crap. Why are you arguing with me?”
“I do believe it. I’m just feeling out the situation.” Beth tugged Chris’s hand and led him into a half-priced book store.
Chris pointed down the road. “I want to get coffee,” he whined.
“It’ll still be there after we browse. Anyway, why do you know the ghost is a guy?”
Glancing around at the other customers, he whispered, “I saw him when me and Steve first moved in. He was watching us from the attic.”
“Have you tried to talk to him?”
“What? No.”
“Well, you need to.” She stopped at a display of worn clearance-priced children’s books and started to thumb through one of the colorful volumes. “You have to establish boundaries.”
“Boundaries? Beth, it’s a ghost.”
She smacked him on the head with the book. “And if he can hide your keys, dummy, it’s an intelligent haunting. That means you need to claim the space and let the ghost know you’re willing to share the house, but that he has to respect your boundaries.”
“I’m not talking to the ghost.”
She scooped up a couple of easy-to-read chapter books, presumably for her kid, and tucked them under her arm. “And it should really be you and Steve together, since you both live there. Even if Steve can’t see the ghost, he can still speak his mind.”
Chris folded his arms across his chest. “Yeah…”
“You haven’t told Steve, have you?”
“Of course I haven’t,” Chris scoffed. “I’m already a burden to him. I don’t want him to think I’m crazy, too.”
Beth gazed at him for a moment, then gestured toward the counter. “Let’s check out and get your coffee.” After she paid for her books, she and Chris walked back out onto the sidewalk and headed toward the adjacent coffee shop. “So how are things going otherwise? How are things with you and Steve?”
Chris scowled at the line leading up the counter where he could order his coffee. “Well, it’s good for the most part,” he said. “We stay in most nights, and I cook dinner. When Steve gets home, we just chill and talk. He usually makes breakfast for me in the morning. It’s nice. It’s normal.”
“Hm,” she said.
Narrowing his eyes at her, Chris shook his head. “Anyway, this past Friday, my ex called, and I kind of overreacted, and he had to fish me out of a bar. I don’t know why he’s still with me.”
Beth grinned. “With you? As in…”
His eyes grew wide as it dawned on him what she was hinting at. “No. No, of course not. We’re just friends.”
“Well, you sound like you’re a couple.”
“We’re friends,” he said firmly.
“Steve’s bi, isn’t he?”
Chris ran a hand through his hair. “Theoretically. He told me that once after we met. It hasn’t come up since.” It was almost his turn at the counter, so he turned away from Beth and waited until the person in front of him to step to the side. “Okay,” he said to the barista. “I want an iced coffee with hazelnut.”
The barista, a petite young woman with fiery red hair, smiled at him. “Size?”
“Just the biggest one you have. If you have one as tall as you, that would be great.”
Beth ordered a mocha, then she and Chris stepped off to the side to wait for their drinks. “So be honest,” she said. “Do you have feelings for Steve?”
Chris made a face. “We’re still talking about this?”
“Okay, let me ask you. Why is he the one that always picks you up from the bar? I’d do it if you called me.”
“I don’t know. He’s the first one I think of. And that doesn’t mean I’m in love with him.”
“What does it mean?”
“I guess he makes me feel safe. Not that you wouldn’t.” He let out a breath. “Okay, maybe I feel something. But that doesn’t mean anything.”
When their drinks came up, they scooped them off the counter and headed out to a table on the sidewalk. Lowering herself into a chair, Beth said, “Maybe these feelings are something you should follow up on.”
“No, that would be a horrible idea.”
“Why?”
He took a sip of his coffee and savored the hint of hazelnut on his tongue. “I’m just confused, Beth. Steve makes me feel safe, and I’m confusing that feeling with something else. Besides, you’re ignoring the fact that I’ve never been with a guy.”
“Does being around Steve do things to your boy parts?”
Chris’s mouth fell open, and they both erupted into a fit of laughter. “I can’t believe you just said that.”
“Well, it’s a valid question.”
“Beth, I haven’t had sex in a while. Everything makes me horny. Believe me. If you weren’t seeing someone, I’d be trying to seduce you right now.”
“Cute.”
“What should I do?”
She flashed a grin. “I think you should find out how Steve feels about you,” she said. “But since you won’t do that… Okay, you need to do a little research on the house to find out who you’re dealing with, and you need to tell Steve about the ghost so the two of you can handle this together.”
“I can’t tell him. He’ll think I’m nuts.”
“If Steve cares about you, he’ll make an effort to believe you. Besides, bottom line. Do you feel comfortable in the house?”
Chris scrubbed his face with his hands. “No.”
She reached out and patted his forearm. “You shouldn’t feel uncomfortable in your own home. You need to handle this.”
***
When Steve pulled into the driveway, Chris was sitting on the porch steps waiting for him, sipping on a beer and picking at the cuff of his jeans. Steve climbed out of his car and wandered toward the porch. “Hey,” he said.
Chris looked up at him. “I need to talk to you.”
Well, Chris wasn’t mincing words tonight. That told Steve that whatever he had to say was probably serious. Usually when Chris got wound up like this it had to do with his ex. Steve reached down and squeezed Chris’s shoulder. “Sure. Let’s go inside.”
Chris looked hesitant, but he lifted himself off the porch and trudged into the house. Once inside, the two sat down on the sofa and Chris fidgeted in place. “I know how this is going to sound,” he said. “But I’ve been having some weird experiences lately. I’m not scared exactly, but I’ve been feeling kind of uncomfortable in the house.”
Steve sat up a little straighter. “Uncomfortable how?”
Squirming, Chris glanced toward the stairs. “I keep getting a feeling like somebody’s watching me or something,” he said quietly.
Watching him? Steve raised an eyebrow. Chris was not a man to be given to panic or fear. He was well-built and could fight more than enough to take care of himself. If he thought someone was breaking in or looking through the windows, Steve knew he would probably be brazen enough to try and confront them. But lately, Chris had been jumpier than usual, not to mention moody and depressed.
“Who’s watching you?” Steve asked. “Like a neighbor?”
Chris shook his head and stared down at his lap. “No, it’s nothing like that. Steve, did… did the landlord say anything about… deaths in the house?”
Steve pinched the bridge of his nose. “Oh, Chris. Come on.”
“We have a ghost.”
Running his fingers through his hair, Steve let out a breath. “There are no ghosts in the house, man. You’re just imagining things.”
Chris stood up and started pacing back and forth in front of the couch. “I’m not imagining anything. I’m telling you there’s someone in the house.”
‘It’s an old house,” Steve said. “It creaks. You’re getting yourself spooked just like that time we went on that ghost tour.”
Smacking his hand down on the arm of the sofa, Chris snapped, “There was a ghost on that tour, dammit. And there’s one in the house. It’s a guy. I saw him on the attic when we first got here, but-”
“Chris, stop it.”
“I didn’t see him after that. I just kept hearing footsteps and stuff, but this morning, my car keys went missing, and you-”
Steve let out a breath. “All right. How much have you had to drink?”
“What? I had a couple of beers to calm my nerves.”
“You told me you were gonna quit.”
“How did this suddenly turn into a conversation about my drinking?”
“Since you started seeing ghosts.”
“I wasn’t drinking, and I’m not making it up.”
“Then maybe you need help.” Steve took a breath. “It might be good for you to talk to someone. I can make some calls, and-”
Chris stood there with his jaw hanging open. Without a word, he turned on his heel and headed up the stairs.
Steve shook his head and followed after him. “Chris, I didn’t mean it that way.” He took the steps two at a time, but Chris walked into his bedroom and shut the door before Steve could reach him. Out of frustration, Steve pounded on the door. “Chris, talk to me.”
After a few minutes, the door swung open, and Chris poked his index finger into Steve’s chest. “I did talk to you. You told me I was crazy. This is why I don’t come to you about things that matter.”
The blood drained from Steve’s face, and he felt like he’d been slapped. “Hey,” he said softly. “I’m sorry. I… I’m just concerned about- All I was saying was that you’re anxious and moody, and-”
“No,” Chris shook his head. “This conversation is done, and so is our friendship. I’ll move out at the end of the week.”
The blood rushed to Steve’s head, and he had to grab hold of the door frame to keep from falling over. “I don’t want that, Chris.”
Chris glared at Steve, venom in his eyes. Just before he slammed the door, he said, “And I don’t want to live with someone who thinks I’m a liar or a nut job.”
***
Chris’s eyes fluttered open and he instinctively stretched out on the bed and rolled onto one side. His suitcase was lying open and empty on the floor, and the sight of it brought the pain welling back up to his chest. Despite his rant earlier, he didn’t want to move out. Haunted or not, this house felt like home now-Steve felt like home. But to hear him say those words: you need help hurt like a firepoker to the gut. The last thing he wanted Steve to think was he was crazy.
After he’d slammed the door, he had half-expected-hoped?-that Steve to keep knocking, but instead, he’d heard Steve’s footsteps on the stairs, the door slam, and Steve’s car peel out of the driveway.
As Chris lay curled up on the bed, his bladder started screaming at him to get his ass to the bathroom. Groaning, he dragged himself up and headed out the door and down the hall. After he had relieved himself, he washed his face and stared at his reflection in the mirror. Maybe he did need help. He was fucked up in more ways than he could count. Maybe it would be a relief to just let some guy in a white coat sort him out.
As he stood there ruminating on the matter, he heard the familiar sound of footsteps moving up and down the hall. The telltale chill started creeping through the air, and goosebumps formed on the skin of Chris’s arms. This is gonna end, he thought to himself.
Pushing off from the sink, he stepped into the hallway and froze. Five feet away was the ghost he’d seen in the attic window. He was a young guy, definitely younger than Chris and Steve. His hair was brown, and he was wearing a black t-shirt and jeans. But what really struck Chris was the ghost’s eyes. He had sad, earnest, lonely eyes.
The ghost took a step forward. “I knew you could see me!”
Chris shook his head and turned toward the stairs. “No way. I can’t do this right now. I just can’t.”
“Wait,” the ghost said. “Don’t go. I won’t hurt you.”
Chris stopped at the top step, his hand tightly gripping the railing. Cranking up his nerve, he turned back and took a breath. “Okay, I get that you live here, but my friend and I live here now, too, and you have to stop keeping me up at night and scaring the crap out of me when I’m alone.”
The ghost’s face fell. “I didn’t know I was scaring you.”
“Well, you are,” Chris said. “Now, just go do what you do, and let me live my life.”
“But… you’re the first person I’ve been able to talk to since I died.”
Chris closed his eyes. Trust a ghost to lay a guilt trip on him. “Fine.” He sat down on the top step and gestured for his companion to join him. Smiling brightly, the ghost hurried over and sat down, causing Chris to shiver involuntarily.
“I’m Jensen,” the ghost said. “And you’re Chris. I know that because I kind of eavesdrop.” Excitement practically emanated off of him. “I was pretty sure you could see me. Most people look right through me, but when I saw you in the yard, I knew you were different.”
Chris nodded. “My grandma called it the sight. She said was my gift, but it’s always made me feel like a freak.”
“Well, it’s gift to me,” Jensen said. “I’ve been alone for a long time. Now I have someone to talk to.”
“I guess I never really thought about it like that.” Arching an eyebrow, Chris pointed toward the attic. “Wait. You’re Jensen? So that stuff in the attic is yours.”
Jensen tugged on his bottom lip. “Used to be. I grew up in this house. The attic was my bedroom. After my folks moved out, I stayed here. You know. Until I died.”
“What happened to your family?”
“My parents moved back to Texas when I was 21, and my sister… well, she got married after I died-that was back in ‘95. I don’t know where she’s at.”
Chris gazed at Jensen for a long while, trying to think up some proper words of comfort. “You want me to try and find your family? Send your stuff to ‘em?”
Jensen shook his head. “No. They already took what they wanted,” he said. “That stuff in the attic is what my sister left behind. The sum total of my life boiled down to two boxes of junk. How is that even possible? I was thirty years old when I went. How can you put thirty years into two boxes?”
For a moment, Chris thought about laying a hand on Jensen’s shoulder, but it occurred to him that he’d never actually touched a ghost. He had no idea what would happen. Instead, he asked, “How… did you…?”
Jensen glanced off to the side. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Fair enough,” Chris said. He picked at a stray thread that was sitting on his knee. “So you’ve never met anyone else who can do what I do? I mean, there are others out there.”
“Nah,” Jensen said. “The last family brought in some lady in to communicate with me, but she was a fake. I stood right next to her, and she was raving about how I was a teenage girl.”
Chris bit back a laugh. “So no one knew you were here?”
Jensen grinned mischievously. “Well, I wouldn’t say that. I made my presence known.”
“You haunted them.”
“Maybe. In my defense, though, the last couple was talking about painting the living room walls pink. Can you imagine that?”
“Yikes.”
“I know, right.” Jensen paused a moment, then took a breath. “Listen, I’m sorry I’ve been keeping you up, and I’m sorry I hid your keys.”
Chris stared at him. “So it was you.”
Jensen leaned back on the balls of his hands. “I didn’t want you to go out and get hammered. I don’t like it when you two fight. And… I’m sorry I caused you guys to get into it today.”
“No,” Chris said. “You didn’t.”
“I was listening to the whole thing. I know it was about me.”
“No, it was about Steve’s damn stubbornness.” Chris swiveled his body so that he could look Jensen in the eye. “He can be the most open-minded man you could ever hope for sometimes, but over stuff like this, he shuts down. And this isn’t the first time I’ve gotten into it over these abilities.”
“Yeah?”
Chris nodded. “When I was thirteen, I told this girl I was sweet on what I could do, and that afternoon, I walked into the cafeteria and found her and her little friends giggling about it. I wound up getting into a fight with another boy and got suspended. My daddy was so pissed.”
Jensen cocked his head and for a moment. “You… want me to haunt Steve? I could give him undeniable proof of my existence.”
“No,” Chris said with a laugh. “I don’t want you to haunt him.”
“I wouldn’t hurt him.”
“I want him to believe me on his own.”
“No haunting the skeptic,” Jensen said firmly. “Got it. So… can we hang out sometimes? When Steve’s not here. It gets really lonely sometimes.”
Chris smiled. “Of course. I mean, you’re not so bad now that I’ve met you.”
The two sat there quietly for a few moments, and Chris found himself wondering what to do next. He figured he should probably think about making dinner so he could extend an olive branch to Steve when he got home. Or maybe tonight could be a pizza night, and they could just talk. He rubbed his eyes. He couldn’t imagine going back to living alone. Not anymore. He hoped Steve could find a way to forgive him for losing his temper.
***
Steve sat at his mother’s kitchen table and stared down at his now-empty plate. He was still turning his blow-out with Chris over and over in his head. He knew he should have stayed and hashed things out with Chris, but frustration and guilt and desperation all piled up on him, and he found himself skidding out of the driveway and running straight to his mother. He had no idea how he was going to repair this mess.
“You want some more?”
Glancing up at the sound of his mother’s voice, he smiled and said, “Nah. It was wonderful, but I’m really stuffed.”
She leaned forward and tucked her hands under her chin. “You seem kind of down. Want to talk about it?”
He took a breath. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I do. It’s Chris.”
“What’s wrong, honey?”
Steve pushed his plate to the side and leaned back in his chair. “We got into this huge fight, and I said some stuff I shouldn’t have. It’s just a mess.”
“Well, start at the beginning. What happened?”
Licking his lips, his said, “Okay, so you know he’s been drinking a lot. I figured that moving in together would help, and it has. But today, I came home, and he was rambling about the house being haunted.”
“Your house is haunted?”
Steve gave her a look. “No, Mom,” he said, not bothering to hide the exasperation in his voice. “My house isn’t haunted. Chris just lets himself get spooked over minor things. He did this a few years ago, too. We went on this ghost tour, and when we got to this one house, he got all jumpy. He said he thought he saw the ghost of this kid that supposed to haunt the place. At the time, I just thought he was freaking himself out, but now, I think he really believes it.”
“Maybe he does.”
“And maybe he needs to talk to someone.” He tapped his index finger on the table. “No, I’ll tell you what it probably is. He’s probably freaking out because we’re living together, and things are getting better, and Chris has this moratorium on being happy, so his mind has to find something to make himself miserable.”
“Maybe so,” she said. “Or maybe he really saw something. Is it so out there that the house could be haunted?”
“Oh, not you too,” he said with a tired smile. “To make matters worse, I told him he needs to talk to someone, and now he assumes I think he’s nuts. And I don’t. All I meant was that I’m worried about him. He’s just never happy anymore.”
“You know what I think you should do? Research the house a little. See if you can find out who your other roommate might be.”
“And why would I do that?”
“Because showing an interest in this would help Chris. Even if you don’t necessarily believe there’s a ghost, he does. It might make him feel more comfortable in the house, and it might show him that you care enough to accept what he’s saying as important to him, even if you don’t believe it.”
“I don’t know.”
“Has he shown an interest in anything other than this lately?”
Steve leaned back in his chair. “Not much,” he admitted. “Maybe you’re right. If he cares about this, I need to care about it, too.” Standing up, he leaned down and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “Thanks, Mom. I’m gonna fix this.”
Master Fic List
***
Author: sheryden
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 7437 (this chapter)
Fandom: Kane RPS
Pairings: eventual Chris/Steve, mention of past Chris/OFC
Warnings minor language
Disclaimer: I do not own these people, and the story within is just the fruit of my vivid imagination.
Summary: Troubled Chris agrees to move into an old Victorian house with his best friend Steve, but little do either of them know that their new home is occupied by matchmaking ghost. Psychic!Chris, Skeptic!Steve, and Ghost!Jensen.
Notes: I don't even know, guys. This has been nipping at my brain for a while, and I have to get it out. I was going to do extend this for a big bang, but it wanted to be written now. Who am I to argue? I'm breaking it into three chapters.
Chapter 1
Chris stared at the contents of his shopping cart. It was already packed to the brim with groceries, but he and Steve had nothing in the house besides leftover pizza, some bottled water, and a candy bar. He was actually kind of excited to get home and start cooking dinner so he’d have it ready when Steve got home. It had been a long while since he’d had a real kitchen, much less a person other than himself to feed. Steve would probably laugh if he knew how much this little exercise in domesticity meant to him, but for Chris, this was a chance at having the normal, mundane things he’d been denied for so long. He’d even cleared the boxes off the of dining room table so he and Steve could eat a proper meal together.
As he picked up a bag of apples and placed them into the cart, he glanced across the produce section. Standing by the bananas and looking more than a little lost was a young woman in a spring dress. She was pale, and her hair was matted. She looked like she would probably have been pretty at one time in her life, but it was obvious that she’d seen better days. Chris knew by sheer instinct that she was one of them.
Fuck, he thought to himself. He averted his eyes and stared down his bread and lettuce. But it was too late. She had already seen him and was wandering in his direction. He glanced around at the other shoppers, mentally mapping out the best escape route. Before he had a chance to act, she appeared beside him and stretched out her bony hand to grip his cart.
“Excuse me,” she said in a delicate voice.
Dammit, dammit, dammit, he thought and pushed the cart forward with a jerk. He walked briskly through the produce section, past the women’s clothing, toward home and garden. Chris didn’t have to look back to know that the ghost was following him the whole way.
“Excuse me,” she called.
Out of desperation, he jerked the cart into the hardware section. It wasn’t completely deserted-an attendant was sitting at the counter scribbling something or other in a little notebook, and there was a husky guy an aisle away looking at lighting fixtures-but it would do. At least he wasn’t out in the open and surrounded by a crowd of other people. Tugging his cell phone out of his pocket, he spun and faced the ghost. “Look, I can’t talk to you here,” he whispered. “If you see a light, go into it.”
She gazed at him as though he hadn’t said a word. Cocking her head, she asked in the same feeble voice as before, “Do you happen to know what time it is?”
“For fuck’s sake,” he muttered. “It’s 12:15 pm.”
Covering her mouth with one hand, she said, “I was supposed to be home hours ago.”
“Well, if you see a light, head that way. That’s where you want to go.”
As the ghost continued to stare vacantly at him, Chris heard a cheerful voice from a few feet away. “I’m sorry, sir,” the voice said. “I didn’t see you there. Did you need something?”
Letting out a breath, Chris glanced over his shoulder at the attendant. Weakly, he held up his cell phone. It was a lame cover story, but he’d resorted to it before, and it hadn’t failed him yet. Satisfied, the attendant nodded, smiled, and walked back to his counter.
When Chris turned back toward the ghost, he was relieved to see that she had disappeared. Shoving the phone back into his pocket, he headed back to the produce section and made quick work of grabbing the rest of the items on his list.
After he had checked out, Chris headed out to the parking lot and loaded the groceries into his truck. Putting this stuff away was going to be a bitch, but for some reason, he was looking forward to it. With a satisfied smile, he climbed into his truck. As he was about to pull out into traffic, he glanced beside him, and there, in the passenger seat, sat the ghost from the grocery store.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he snapped. “I am not a taxi service, and you can’t come home with me.”
“I was supposed to be home hours ago.”
Closing his eyes, he did a mental inventory of every urban legend he could think of that involved a ghost hitching a ride with a stranger. He couldn’t think of one off hand that involved a fatality on the part of the driver, so he let out a breath and said, “All right, where do you live?”
The ghost stared straight ahead. “411 Brookdale,” came the weak reply.
“I’m not chauffeuring you around all day,” he said. “This is a one way trip.”
And so he drove the ghost to 411 Brookdale, keeping his eyes glued to the road in front of him the entire time. To his relief, she didn’t say a word to him during the drive. When they pulled up to the address, he was a little surprised to find that it wasn’t a graveyard or a decaying old shack. Actually, it was a nice little suburban place with blue siding and a child’s bike in the yard.
“This is 411 Brookdale,” he said to the ghost.
“I should have been home hours ago,” she said. Smiling pleasantly, she floated out of the car and vanished before Chris’s eyes.
White-knuckled, Chris gripped the steering wheel and watched the ghost disappear. He allowed himself exactly thirty seconds to ride out the wave of panic that suddenly washed over him. He didn’t imagine that he would ever get used to this sort of thing. After he was calm enough to drive, he glanced back at the house one more time, then drove down the road toward home, hoping inwardly that Steve didn’t ask him too much about his day.
***
Steve pushed the dishwasher door tightly closed and turned to Chris. “So this pimply-faced kid comes into the store today, and he wants lessons for-wait for it-the accordion.”
Shaking his head, Chris folded up the dishtowel he was holding and laid it across the center of the sink. “Well, at least it wasn’t the bagpipes.”
Making a face, Steve leaned against the counter. “Yeah, that’s a bright spot.” Squeezing Chris on the shoulder, he added, “So that was a great dinner. I’ve missed your cooking.”
Chris flashed one of his increasingly rare grins and Steve felt a sudden rush of warmth spread across his gut. He loved that smile, and the fact that such a small comment had brought it to the surface convinced him that moving in with Chris had been the right thing to do. He had been mildly surprised to come home to dinner and a stocked kitchen. Part of him had expected to pull into the drive and see Chris’s car missing, off parked in the lot of the bar where he usually spent his nights.
“Thanks,” Chris said, still smiling. “I had a blast. It’s good to cook for someone else for a change.”
“Trust me,” Steve said. “You can cook dinner for me all you want.” Flipping out the kitchen light, Steve headed into the living room, Chris trailing behind him. “So what else did you do today?”
Shaking his head, Chris rubbed his eyes. “I, uh, gave a girl a ride home.”
Collapsing onto the sofa, Steve frowned. “Tell me you didn’t meet the next love of your life.”
“Seriously?” Chris groused. “No, you old mother hen. It wasn’t like that.” He plunked down at the far end of the sofa and folded his arms across his chest. “The story of my life has enough love interests.”
“I was just asking,” Steve said, nudging Chris with his shoulder. “Anyway, now that I’ve just made everything awkward-”
Chris waved a hand through the air. “Don’t worry about it. You nag because you care.”
“I do care,” he said. After a few moments, of silence, he stood up and headed over toward the mountain of boxes that still littered the living room. “Hey, let’s watch a movie. DVDs are all we got until the cable’s hooked up.”
The two of them rifled through the still-unpacked boxes until they unearthed one filled with DVDs. After they’d found a couple they could agree on, they settled themselves back down on the sofa to relax. By the time Steve had put the second movie in, Chris was starting to droop sleepily against Steve’s side.
When Steve shifted to get more comfortable, Chris sat up and blinked several times. “Did I fall asleep?”
“Only for a few minutes. You want me to start the movie over?”
“Nah.” He stretched dramatically and snuggled back into the cushions. “You know, I could get used to this.”
“What?” Steve asked with a smirk. “Sitting in a jungle of boxes watching Die Hard for the hundredth time?”
Chris chuckled. “No. I meant having a reason to stay in. I like this.”
Looping his arm around Chris’s shoulder, Steve tugged him a little closer. “Yeah, it’s nice to stay in once in a while.”
“Listen to you,” Chris said. “When’s the last time you went out-and I don’t mean with Jason or one of them. When’s the last time you had an actual date?”
Steve let out a breath. “I don’t know. I just haven’t found anyone I want.” And in his mind, he added, as much as I want you.
“Well,” Chris said, closing his eyes. “I guess romance is overrated anyway. We’re better off just sticking together. Maybe we can become bitter old men who yell at the neighbor kids to stay off our lawn.”
Steve let out a laugh. “Maybe so. You want to head to bed or try to make it through Bruce Willis waging war on the guy that plays Snape?”
When Chris didn’t answer, Steve glanced down at the crumpled body in his arms. Sure enough, Chris was sound asleep, his head resting precariously against Steve’s shoulder. Pulling him a little closer, Steve flipped off the movie and drifted off to sleep himself.
***
In nearly a week’s time, Chris and Steve had made precious little progress unpacking all the boxes. Steve was off running his store most of the week, and even though Chris worked at home, setting up the house was far too big a job for one person. Especially if that one person was dragging around like a zombie after yet another almost-sleepless night.
Most nights since he and Steve had moved into the old Victorian, Chris had lain awake listening to the sound of mysterious footsteps and banging from the attic. At one point, he’d managed to drift off only to wake up to the feeling that someone was watching him sleep. Needless to say, he was awake the rest of that night. In fact, the one time he’d actually gotten a solid few hours of sleep was when he’d crashed on the sofa with Steve. He’d woken up the next morning, stiff-necked and mortified that he’d spent the night wrapped around Steve’s body. But at least he’d slept.
Last night, though, had been a bad one, and now, Chris was wandering aimlessly around the house trying to get his brain to focus enough to be productive. Thus far, it wasn’t working. He’d managed to unpack one box and set up an end table he’d picked up earlier in the week for the living room. It was a little scuffed up, but it would look fine once a lamp was sitting on top of it.
Pulling out his cell, his punched Steve’s number. “Hey,” he said when Steve answered. “Where’s the table lamp for the living room?”
Steve cleared his throat. “Table lamp… Oh, I think I stuffed it up in the attic. The living room was already overrun, so I stuck a lot of the extra stuff up there.”
Closing his eyes, Chris bit his lip. “Yeah, all right. I’ll check there.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I’ll see you when you get home.”
After he hung up with Steve, Chris stared up the stairs toward the attic. He considered leaving the lamp where it was and working on something else, but shame compelled him up the steps. This is ridiculous, he thought as he stared at the attic door. It’s just a fucking room. He felt like he was kid again, and was about to enter his aunt’s rickety old barn. That had been his first real face-to-face with a ghost, and it had scared the shit out of him. Since then, he’d seen more than his share of creepy-crawlies, but they were usually at a hospital or in the woods or something, and he didn’t worry much about ever seeing them again. Sharing a space with one, though… that made his skin crawl.
Biting his bottom lip, Chris started slowly up the steps. Once he’d entered the room, he started to relax. It reeked of dust and musty air, as one would expect out of an attic. But Chris couldn’t sense anything out of the ordinary. As near as he could tell, he was completely alone. The tension in his neck and shoulders started to melt away as he spotted the table lamp over by the window.
As he was about to pick up the lamp, Chris noticed a couple of old boxes in the corner. They were labeled in neat blue marker, and both said the same thing: Jensen’s Stuff. Leaving the lamp where it was, Chris wandered over the tugged at the flap of the top box. It was bound pretty good, but Chris dug at the tape until it started to peel away from the cardboard. Part of him felt a little guilty about nosing around in someone else’s belongs, but the landlord had told him and Steve that they could do whatever they wanted with anything the previous occupants had left behind.
Inside the box were a handful of cassette tapes, a couple of t-shirts, an old PlayStation and a couple of games, and other assorted odds and ends. As he poked around the contents of the box, Chris felt a chill sweep over him. He wasn’t sure why, but suddenly, he was absolutely certain that he was invading someone’s privacy, sorting through the remnants of someone’s life. The box wasn’t exactly full of treasures or anything, but for all he knew, that’s exactly what this stuff had been to this Jensen guy-chick? Respectfully, he folded the flaps of the box closed, grabbed the lamp, and turned back toward the door.
Almost as soon as he hit the bottom step, he had the overwhelming feeling of being watched. Swallowing, he glanced up the stairs behind him and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw nothing but empty space. Still, the sensation persisted, and Chris tried to busy himself so he wouldn’t think about it.
With the lamp in place, he started to sort through boxes until he heard the distinct sound of footsteps coming from the dining room. “Dammit,” he muttered. He walked toward the sound, but no sooner had he pushed open the door to the dining room, the noise stopped. The air, though… it felt colder than usual, and Chris hugged himself for warmth.
As he backed out of the room, his cell alerted him that he had a text. There was a single text that read, Found your baseball cap and some other stuff. Give me a call.
Chris stared at the tiny words on his phone and chewed on his bottom lip. It was The Girl. He had been down this road with her before, and he knew damn well he shouldn’t call. But he also knew he would. Letting out a breath, he forgot about the footsteps and cold air and dialed The Girl’s number.
***
When Steve finally pulled into the driveway, he noticed that Chris’s car wasn’t there. This was the first time since they’d moved in together that Chris hadn’t been home when Steve got off work.
He knew that Chris was a grown man and that he had a couple of his own friends and every right to go out and have a good time on a Friday night. But it still stung a little that he wasn’t there. Steve had gotten used to spending most of his free time with Chris, and if he was being honest, he was starting to feel a little possessive of him. Maybe it was good that Chris was off by himself for once.
When Steve walked through the front door, he tossed his keys on the little table by the entrance and wandered into the kitchen. It was damn quiet without Chris in there bustling around. Glancing over at the table, Steve noticed one of Chris’s mangy old baseball caps hanging on the back of one of the chairs. On the table, there were two beers, and Steve made a mental note that they were both sitting on coasters.
He rummaged around in the kitchen, heated up some leftovers, and ate in silence. As he was about to head up the stairs to take a shower, he saw the table lamp Chris had phoned him about earlier lying in a pile of glass and metal behind the sofa. The poor lamp wasn’t just broken. It looked like someone had taken the time to kill it dead. A hollow feeling erupted in Steve’s stomach, and he walked back toward the door to grab his car keys. He knew where he would find Chris.
Once got to the bar, Steve stalked through the door into the smoky room and scanned the crowd of people. He finally found Chris hunched over the bar gulping down a glass of whiskey and playing with an empty ashtray. His worst fears confirmed, Steve walked over to Chris and slid into a chair beside him.
Chris looked at him for a moment, then went back to fiddling with the ashtray. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m fishing your drunk ass out of a bar. Again.”
“I’m not ready to leave.”
“Too bad,” Steve said, grabbing Chris’s forearm. “Come on.”
Chris shook Steve’s hand off and shoved him a little. “I said I’m not going anywhere. I’m a grown man, and I’m gonna sit here, and I’m gonna drink. You don’t like that, fuck off.”
Steve let out a breath. If Chris was going to swim in whiskey, Steve figured he might as well stick around. He gonna wind up coming back for him anyway. “I’ll stay,” he said and waved the bartender over so he could order a beer. As the two of them sat there and drank in silence, Steve did his best to nurture the one beer so he could have a clear head to drive and to handle a drunken Chris.
After a while, Chris turned toward Steve and slurred out, “Guess who I had the pleasure of talking to today.”
Feeling himself deflate, Steve said, “She Who Shall Not Be Named?”
“Man, don’t call her that.”
“Chris, I saw the lamp. I don’t know what happened between you two, but if you want to talk about it, I’m here to listen.”
Chris took a gulp of whiskey. “She texteded.” He made a face, then snickered. “Texteded. Does that sound right to you, man? Doesn’t sound right to me.”
“Chris…”
He put his arm around Steve. “Anyway, I called her back, and she’s still a bitch.”
“I could have told you that.”
“She found my baseball cap, though,” he said. “She even brought it over.”
“Your baseball cap.”
Chris laid his head on Steve’s shoulder. “I needed it.”
Steve pinched the bridge of his nose. “Chris, she finds stupid reasons to call you, because she knows you’ll call her back. You have to stop giving her power.”
Lifting his head, he scowled. “So wait. This is my fault?”
“No. Steve shook his head. “It’s not your fault. But she’s gonna hurt you as long as she knows she can. Why do you keep letting her back in?”
Chris swallowed the last of his drink, then dipped his index finger into the empty glass. “I keep thinking she’ll tell me what I did wrong.”
Steve had the urge or take Chris’s face in his hands, but he reminded himself that they were sitting in the middle of a bar. “Chris,” he said quietly. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Must’ve done something,” Chris said, his voice cracking. “There must be a reason why everyone leaves me.”
The pain he heard his Chris’s voice made Steve’s heart break. Putting an arm around his shoulder, he said, “Well, I’m not going anywhere.”
***
The sun gently caressed Chris’s bare arms as he ambled down the sidewalk, hands shoved deep into his pockets. Beth, one of Chris’s few remaining friends-and one of only two he didn’t share with Steve-was at his side. For the majority of their walk, she’d been chattering on about her latest client. Chris was happy just to listen and nod sympathetically every once in a while.
He’d invited her out this afternoon so they could catch up. But if he was being honest, he also had ulterior motives. Beth was more than a little open-minded about ghosts and psychic abilities. In fact, she and a couple of her whack job friends spent weekends investigating the paranormal with a local group of ghost hunters. If anyone would understand what was happening in the old Victorian, it would be Beth.
When she finally took a breather between stories, Chris cleared his throat and said, “So my house is haunted.”
Beth smacked him on the shoulder. “That is so cool!”
“No,” Chris said, kicking at a loose rock on the sidewalk. “It’s not cool. I’ve hardly slept since we moved in. I lie there at night, and I keep hearing footsteps. Banging coming from the attic. And some nights I feel like I’m being watched. Plus, there are cold spots all over the house. And he moves stuff.”
Beth reached down and slipped her hand into Chris’s. “He moves stuff?”
“Yeah. This morning, he hid my keys.” He groaned inwardly at the absurdity of what he’d just said. “I mean, he must’ve. I had to hunt all over for them. At first, I thought Steve hid ‘em to keep me from going out.”
“Why would Steve hide your keys?”
He shrugged. “I got drunk over the weekend, and it pissed him off. Anyway, Steve said he didn’t do it, and I finally found them tucked under the couch.”
“Well,” Beth said. “Maybe you kicked them there by accident.”
He frowned at her. “You’re the one who usually believes all this crap. Why are you arguing with me?”
“I do believe it. I’m just feeling out the situation.” Beth tugged Chris’s hand and led him into a half-priced book store.
Chris pointed down the road. “I want to get coffee,” he whined.
“It’ll still be there after we browse. Anyway, why do you know the ghost is a guy?”
Glancing around at the other customers, he whispered, “I saw him when me and Steve first moved in. He was watching us from the attic.”
“Have you tried to talk to him?”
“What? No.”
“Well, you need to.” She stopped at a display of worn clearance-priced children’s books and started to thumb through one of the colorful volumes. “You have to establish boundaries.”
“Boundaries? Beth, it’s a ghost.”
She smacked him on the head with the book. “And if he can hide your keys, dummy, it’s an intelligent haunting. That means you need to claim the space and let the ghost know you’re willing to share the house, but that he has to respect your boundaries.”
“I’m not talking to the ghost.”
She scooped up a couple of easy-to-read chapter books, presumably for her kid, and tucked them under her arm. “And it should really be you and Steve together, since you both live there. Even if Steve can’t see the ghost, he can still speak his mind.”
Chris folded his arms across his chest. “Yeah…”
“You haven’t told Steve, have you?”
“Of course I haven’t,” Chris scoffed. “I’m already a burden to him. I don’t want him to think I’m crazy, too.”
Beth gazed at him for a moment, then gestured toward the counter. “Let’s check out and get your coffee.” After she paid for her books, she and Chris walked back out onto the sidewalk and headed toward the adjacent coffee shop. “So how are things going otherwise? How are things with you and Steve?”
Chris scowled at the line leading up the counter where he could order his coffee. “Well, it’s good for the most part,” he said. “We stay in most nights, and I cook dinner. When Steve gets home, we just chill and talk. He usually makes breakfast for me in the morning. It’s nice. It’s normal.”
“Hm,” she said.
Narrowing his eyes at her, Chris shook his head. “Anyway, this past Friday, my ex called, and I kind of overreacted, and he had to fish me out of a bar. I don’t know why he’s still with me.”
Beth grinned. “With you? As in…”
His eyes grew wide as it dawned on him what she was hinting at. “No. No, of course not. We’re just friends.”
“Well, you sound like you’re a couple.”
“We’re friends,” he said firmly.
“Steve’s bi, isn’t he?”
Chris ran a hand through his hair. “Theoretically. He told me that once after we met. It hasn’t come up since.” It was almost his turn at the counter, so he turned away from Beth and waited until the person in front of him to step to the side. “Okay,” he said to the barista. “I want an iced coffee with hazelnut.”
The barista, a petite young woman with fiery red hair, smiled at him. “Size?”
“Just the biggest one you have. If you have one as tall as you, that would be great.”
Beth ordered a mocha, then she and Chris stepped off to the side to wait for their drinks. “So be honest,” she said. “Do you have feelings for Steve?”
Chris made a face. “We’re still talking about this?”
“Okay, let me ask you. Why is he the one that always picks you up from the bar? I’d do it if you called me.”
“I don’t know. He’s the first one I think of. And that doesn’t mean I’m in love with him.”
“What does it mean?”
“I guess he makes me feel safe. Not that you wouldn’t.” He let out a breath. “Okay, maybe I feel something. But that doesn’t mean anything.”
When their drinks came up, they scooped them off the counter and headed out to a table on the sidewalk. Lowering herself into a chair, Beth said, “Maybe these feelings are something you should follow up on.”
“No, that would be a horrible idea.”
“Why?”
He took a sip of his coffee and savored the hint of hazelnut on his tongue. “I’m just confused, Beth. Steve makes me feel safe, and I’m confusing that feeling with something else. Besides, you’re ignoring the fact that I’ve never been with a guy.”
“Does being around Steve do things to your boy parts?”
Chris’s mouth fell open, and they both erupted into a fit of laughter. “I can’t believe you just said that.”
“Well, it’s a valid question.”
“Beth, I haven’t had sex in a while. Everything makes me horny. Believe me. If you weren’t seeing someone, I’d be trying to seduce you right now.”
“Cute.”
“What should I do?”
She flashed a grin. “I think you should find out how Steve feels about you,” she said. “But since you won’t do that… Okay, you need to do a little research on the house to find out who you’re dealing with, and you need to tell Steve about the ghost so the two of you can handle this together.”
“I can’t tell him. He’ll think I’m nuts.”
“If Steve cares about you, he’ll make an effort to believe you. Besides, bottom line. Do you feel comfortable in the house?”
Chris scrubbed his face with his hands. “No.”
She reached out and patted his forearm. “You shouldn’t feel uncomfortable in your own home. You need to handle this.”
***
When Steve pulled into the driveway, Chris was sitting on the porch steps waiting for him, sipping on a beer and picking at the cuff of his jeans. Steve climbed out of his car and wandered toward the porch. “Hey,” he said.
Chris looked up at him. “I need to talk to you.”
Well, Chris wasn’t mincing words tonight. That told Steve that whatever he had to say was probably serious. Usually when Chris got wound up like this it had to do with his ex. Steve reached down and squeezed Chris’s shoulder. “Sure. Let’s go inside.”
Chris looked hesitant, but he lifted himself off the porch and trudged into the house. Once inside, the two sat down on the sofa and Chris fidgeted in place. “I know how this is going to sound,” he said. “But I’ve been having some weird experiences lately. I’m not scared exactly, but I’ve been feeling kind of uncomfortable in the house.”
Steve sat up a little straighter. “Uncomfortable how?”
Squirming, Chris glanced toward the stairs. “I keep getting a feeling like somebody’s watching me or something,” he said quietly.
Watching him? Steve raised an eyebrow. Chris was not a man to be given to panic or fear. He was well-built and could fight more than enough to take care of himself. If he thought someone was breaking in or looking through the windows, Steve knew he would probably be brazen enough to try and confront them. But lately, Chris had been jumpier than usual, not to mention moody and depressed.
“Who’s watching you?” Steve asked. “Like a neighbor?”
Chris shook his head and stared down at his lap. “No, it’s nothing like that. Steve, did… did the landlord say anything about… deaths in the house?”
Steve pinched the bridge of his nose. “Oh, Chris. Come on.”
“We have a ghost.”
Running his fingers through his hair, Steve let out a breath. “There are no ghosts in the house, man. You’re just imagining things.”
Chris stood up and started pacing back and forth in front of the couch. “I’m not imagining anything. I’m telling you there’s someone in the house.”
‘It’s an old house,” Steve said. “It creaks. You’re getting yourself spooked just like that time we went on that ghost tour.”
Smacking his hand down on the arm of the sofa, Chris snapped, “There was a ghost on that tour, dammit. And there’s one in the house. It’s a guy. I saw him on the attic when we first got here, but-”
“Chris, stop it.”
“I didn’t see him after that. I just kept hearing footsteps and stuff, but this morning, my car keys went missing, and you-”
Steve let out a breath. “All right. How much have you had to drink?”
“What? I had a couple of beers to calm my nerves.”
“You told me you were gonna quit.”
“How did this suddenly turn into a conversation about my drinking?”
“Since you started seeing ghosts.”
“I wasn’t drinking, and I’m not making it up.”
“Then maybe you need help.” Steve took a breath. “It might be good for you to talk to someone. I can make some calls, and-”
Chris stood there with his jaw hanging open. Without a word, he turned on his heel and headed up the stairs.
Steve shook his head and followed after him. “Chris, I didn’t mean it that way.” He took the steps two at a time, but Chris walked into his bedroom and shut the door before Steve could reach him. Out of frustration, Steve pounded on the door. “Chris, talk to me.”
After a few minutes, the door swung open, and Chris poked his index finger into Steve’s chest. “I did talk to you. You told me I was crazy. This is why I don’t come to you about things that matter.”
The blood drained from Steve’s face, and he felt like he’d been slapped. “Hey,” he said softly. “I’m sorry. I… I’m just concerned about- All I was saying was that you’re anxious and moody, and-”
“No,” Chris shook his head. “This conversation is done, and so is our friendship. I’ll move out at the end of the week.”
The blood rushed to Steve’s head, and he had to grab hold of the door frame to keep from falling over. “I don’t want that, Chris.”
Chris glared at Steve, venom in his eyes. Just before he slammed the door, he said, “And I don’t want to live with someone who thinks I’m a liar or a nut job.”
***
Chris’s eyes fluttered open and he instinctively stretched out on the bed and rolled onto one side. His suitcase was lying open and empty on the floor, and the sight of it brought the pain welling back up to his chest. Despite his rant earlier, he didn’t want to move out. Haunted or not, this house felt like home now-Steve felt like home. But to hear him say those words: you need help hurt like a firepoker to the gut. The last thing he wanted Steve to think was he was crazy.
After he’d slammed the door, he had half-expected-hoped?-that Steve to keep knocking, but instead, he’d heard Steve’s footsteps on the stairs, the door slam, and Steve’s car peel out of the driveway.
As Chris lay curled up on the bed, his bladder started screaming at him to get his ass to the bathroom. Groaning, he dragged himself up and headed out the door and down the hall. After he had relieved himself, he washed his face and stared at his reflection in the mirror. Maybe he did need help. He was fucked up in more ways than he could count. Maybe it would be a relief to just let some guy in a white coat sort him out.
As he stood there ruminating on the matter, he heard the familiar sound of footsteps moving up and down the hall. The telltale chill started creeping through the air, and goosebumps formed on the skin of Chris’s arms. This is gonna end, he thought to himself.
Pushing off from the sink, he stepped into the hallway and froze. Five feet away was the ghost he’d seen in the attic window. He was a young guy, definitely younger than Chris and Steve. His hair was brown, and he was wearing a black t-shirt and jeans. But what really struck Chris was the ghost’s eyes. He had sad, earnest, lonely eyes.
The ghost took a step forward. “I knew you could see me!”
Chris shook his head and turned toward the stairs. “No way. I can’t do this right now. I just can’t.”
“Wait,” the ghost said. “Don’t go. I won’t hurt you.”
Chris stopped at the top step, his hand tightly gripping the railing. Cranking up his nerve, he turned back and took a breath. “Okay, I get that you live here, but my friend and I live here now, too, and you have to stop keeping me up at night and scaring the crap out of me when I’m alone.”
The ghost’s face fell. “I didn’t know I was scaring you.”
“Well, you are,” Chris said. “Now, just go do what you do, and let me live my life.”
“But… you’re the first person I’ve been able to talk to since I died.”
Chris closed his eyes. Trust a ghost to lay a guilt trip on him. “Fine.” He sat down on the top step and gestured for his companion to join him. Smiling brightly, the ghost hurried over and sat down, causing Chris to shiver involuntarily.
“I’m Jensen,” the ghost said. “And you’re Chris. I know that because I kind of eavesdrop.” Excitement practically emanated off of him. “I was pretty sure you could see me. Most people look right through me, but when I saw you in the yard, I knew you were different.”
Chris nodded. “My grandma called it the sight. She said was my gift, but it’s always made me feel like a freak.”
“Well, it’s gift to me,” Jensen said. “I’ve been alone for a long time. Now I have someone to talk to.”
“I guess I never really thought about it like that.” Arching an eyebrow, Chris pointed toward the attic. “Wait. You’re Jensen? So that stuff in the attic is yours.”
Jensen tugged on his bottom lip. “Used to be. I grew up in this house. The attic was my bedroom. After my folks moved out, I stayed here. You know. Until I died.”
“What happened to your family?”
“My parents moved back to Texas when I was 21, and my sister… well, she got married after I died-that was back in ‘95. I don’t know where she’s at.”
Chris gazed at Jensen for a long while, trying to think up some proper words of comfort. “You want me to try and find your family? Send your stuff to ‘em?”
Jensen shook his head. “No. They already took what they wanted,” he said. “That stuff in the attic is what my sister left behind. The sum total of my life boiled down to two boxes of junk. How is that even possible? I was thirty years old when I went. How can you put thirty years into two boxes?”
For a moment, Chris thought about laying a hand on Jensen’s shoulder, but it occurred to him that he’d never actually touched a ghost. He had no idea what would happen. Instead, he asked, “How… did you…?”
Jensen glanced off to the side. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Fair enough,” Chris said. He picked at a stray thread that was sitting on his knee. “So you’ve never met anyone else who can do what I do? I mean, there are others out there.”
“Nah,” Jensen said. “The last family brought in some lady in to communicate with me, but she was a fake. I stood right next to her, and she was raving about how I was a teenage girl.”
Chris bit back a laugh. “So no one knew you were here?”
Jensen grinned mischievously. “Well, I wouldn’t say that. I made my presence known.”
“You haunted them.”
“Maybe. In my defense, though, the last couple was talking about painting the living room walls pink. Can you imagine that?”
“Yikes.”
“I know, right.” Jensen paused a moment, then took a breath. “Listen, I’m sorry I’ve been keeping you up, and I’m sorry I hid your keys.”
Chris stared at him. “So it was you.”
Jensen leaned back on the balls of his hands. “I didn’t want you to go out and get hammered. I don’t like it when you two fight. And… I’m sorry I caused you guys to get into it today.”
“No,” Chris said. “You didn’t.”
“I was listening to the whole thing. I know it was about me.”
“No, it was about Steve’s damn stubbornness.” Chris swiveled his body so that he could look Jensen in the eye. “He can be the most open-minded man you could ever hope for sometimes, but over stuff like this, he shuts down. And this isn’t the first time I’ve gotten into it over these abilities.”
“Yeah?”
Chris nodded. “When I was thirteen, I told this girl I was sweet on what I could do, and that afternoon, I walked into the cafeteria and found her and her little friends giggling about it. I wound up getting into a fight with another boy and got suspended. My daddy was so pissed.”
Jensen cocked his head and for a moment. “You… want me to haunt Steve? I could give him undeniable proof of my existence.”
“No,” Chris said with a laugh. “I don’t want you to haunt him.”
“I wouldn’t hurt him.”
“I want him to believe me on his own.”
“No haunting the skeptic,” Jensen said firmly. “Got it. So… can we hang out sometimes? When Steve’s not here. It gets really lonely sometimes.”
Chris smiled. “Of course. I mean, you’re not so bad now that I’ve met you.”
The two sat there quietly for a few moments, and Chris found himself wondering what to do next. He figured he should probably think about making dinner so he could extend an olive branch to Steve when he got home. Or maybe tonight could be a pizza night, and they could just talk. He rubbed his eyes. He couldn’t imagine going back to living alone. Not anymore. He hoped Steve could find a way to forgive him for losing his temper.
***
Steve sat at his mother’s kitchen table and stared down at his now-empty plate. He was still turning his blow-out with Chris over and over in his head. He knew he should have stayed and hashed things out with Chris, but frustration and guilt and desperation all piled up on him, and he found himself skidding out of the driveway and running straight to his mother. He had no idea how he was going to repair this mess.
“You want some more?”
Glancing up at the sound of his mother’s voice, he smiled and said, “Nah. It was wonderful, but I’m really stuffed.”
She leaned forward and tucked her hands under her chin. “You seem kind of down. Want to talk about it?”
He took a breath. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I do. It’s Chris.”
“What’s wrong, honey?”
Steve pushed his plate to the side and leaned back in his chair. “We got into this huge fight, and I said some stuff I shouldn’t have. It’s just a mess.”
“Well, start at the beginning. What happened?”
Licking his lips, his said, “Okay, so you know he’s been drinking a lot. I figured that moving in together would help, and it has. But today, I came home, and he was rambling about the house being haunted.”
“Your house is haunted?”
Steve gave her a look. “No, Mom,” he said, not bothering to hide the exasperation in his voice. “My house isn’t haunted. Chris just lets himself get spooked over minor things. He did this a few years ago, too. We went on this ghost tour, and when we got to this one house, he got all jumpy. He said he thought he saw the ghost of this kid that supposed to haunt the place. At the time, I just thought he was freaking himself out, but now, I think he really believes it.”
“Maybe he does.”
“And maybe he needs to talk to someone.” He tapped his index finger on the table. “No, I’ll tell you what it probably is. He’s probably freaking out because we’re living together, and things are getting better, and Chris has this moratorium on being happy, so his mind has to find something to make himself miserable.”
“Maybe so,” she said. “Or maybe he really saw something. Is it so out there that the house could be haunted?”
“Oh, not you too,” he said with a tired smile. “To make matters worse, I told him he needs to talk to someone, and now he assumes I think he’s nuts. And I don’t. All I meant was that I’m worried about him. He’s just never happy anymore.”
“You know what I think you should do? Research the house a little. See if you can find out who your other roommate might be.”
“And why would I do that?”
“Because showing an interest in this would help Chris. Even if you don’t necessarily believe there’s a ghost, he does. It might make him feel more comfortable in the house, and it might show him that you care enough to accept what he’s saying as important to him, even if you don’t believe it.”
“I don’t know.”
“Has he shown an interest in anything other than this lately?”
Steve leaned back in his chair. “Not much,” he admitted. “Maybe you’re right. If he cares about this, I need to care about it, too.” Standing up, he leaned down and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “Thanks, Mom. I’m gonna fix this.”
Master Fic List
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