Fic: Inside Out: Gabe/Bill: Part One
Title: Inside Out: Part One
Authors: xrysomou and xaritomene
Rating: R
Warnings: Disturbing themes (ghosts, death, gay-bashing: past)
Word Count: 13 470
Pairing: Gabe Saporta/Bill Beckett (Cobra Starship/The Academy Is...)
Disclaimer: This isn't true; never happened, never will. And we're not worth sueing. If this fic is about you or your friends or family, please save yourself the pain and go away. Remember what curiosity did to the cat? Satisfaction won't help this time.
Summary: In which Bill is haunted, Gabe is his reluctant ghostbuster, Supernatural references abound, and things are never as clear-cut as they seem.
"Bilvy, Bill, there's no such thing as ghosts."
When Bill opened the door clutching a baseball bat, Gabe could just tell something was wrong.
“Um,” he said warily, “I - didn’t actually get that much over the phone, other than ‘please get over here now’, ‘bastard’, and ‘die, die, die’, so... I’m guessing it’s not a booty call. Is everything OK?”
“Come on in,” Bill said, ever the consummate host, swinging the baseball bat cheerily.
Gabe paused. “...thanks.”
Bill turned to him after shutting to door, and said, “OK, so, you’ve gotta hear me out before you have me committed, OK?”
“Oh, that’s never good,” Gabe said guardedly. “This isn’t like the time with the giant butterflies and the talking cat, is it?”
“No,” Bill’s expression was chronically unamused. “That was the time I had a fever of a hundred and four. And you thought I was high,” he added accusingly. “Which, thanks.”
“In my defence,” Gabe held his hands up, “there wasn’t much of a difference.”
“Well, that’s not my-” Bill suddenly stopped and spun round wildly, brandishing the baseball bat. His eyes scanned the empty air before he blew out a breath. “OK. OK. Right, look, this is different, and it’s gonna sound really weird, but - there’s something in my apartment.”
“Like... what, bats or roaches, or...?”
“No - no. Something - weird.”
Gabe opened his mouth to say something then shut it again, considering his options. “Like - you weird, or-”
“No, no, this is - really weird.”
“It’s, um-” Bill muttered something.
“It’s what?”
“I think it’s a ghost,” Bill said very quietly.
Having the devotedly unspiritual Bill Beckett tell him that his apartment was haunted was strangely unsettling. “Bill, you don’t believe in ghosts-”
“I know, I know - I didn’t, but-”
“Bilvy, Bill, there’s no such thing as ghosts.”
“Well, I don’t know what else to call it! I woke up this morning, at, like, three, and there was this -thing - at the end of my bed, which is, by the way, a lot creepier than the movies make it look. And it was-”
“Billy-”
“And it was staring at me! I mean, I think it was staring at me, I’m not entirely sure those things were eyes, but-”
“Bill!”
“There was really something there! I’m not making this up!”
“And you’re sure it wasn’t Carden?” Gabe asked carefully. A creepy figure at the end of Bill’s bed? One couldn’t be too sure.
“He’s not even in the same state! He’s down in LA with Chiz!”
“OK - then, don’t take this the wrong way, but...” Gabe rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. “Have you been taking your meds?”
Bill gave him a flat-eyed stare. “Yes, Gabe. I have been taking my meds. For depression. Not psychosis! I don’t have that!”
“Yeah, but you know how you get when you’re trying to write-”
“Gabe, I think there’s something dead in my apartment!”
“Where?” Gabe didn’t mean to sound as sceptical as he did.
“There is a ghost here, so, logically, there must be something dead here!” He caught Gabe’s dubious expression. “Somewhere!” he snapped, before Gabe could repeat his question.
“Sweetheart, exactly nothing about this is logical! And could you please put the bat down, it’s starting to make me nervous.”
“Sorry,” Bill said, and stopped swinging it absently, propping it up against his sofa.
Gabe took a deep breath and sat down. “Right. OK - let’s - let’s just sit down and talk this through. Logically.”
**
An hour later, Gabe was still trying to steer them onto the course of logic. “So why isn’t it here now?” he asked, for the third or fourth time.
Bill was sat on the kitchen table, feet propped on one of the chairs, chewing a hangnail. “I told you, it’s not dark. It never comes out in the day.”
“Wait, you’ve seen it often enough to work out a pattern?”
Bill stared at him. “Gabe, I didn’t ring you because I had a bad dream. If it had only happened once, I could just put it down to an overactive imagination and far too much time on my hands. This is like the fifth time I’ve seen it.”
Gabe paused. “Look, I don’t want to be the bad guy here, but - have you talked to someone about this? Someone - professional? Not just... me.”
“We’ve been over this,” Bill actually had the nerve to sound long-suffering. “I’m not having another breakdown.”
“No, no, I’m sure you’re not, but - you know, sometimes it’s helpful to-”
“Fine,” Bill said decisively. “If you don’t believe me, stay here tonight and see if you can see it, and if you can’t see it, I will go to any psychiatrist you like.” Gabe considered it. “I dare you.”
“Oh, for - alright, fine. I’ll stay.” There was, after all, nothing to worry about, and it was probably best for Bill to have someone with him. “But you have to promise me-”
“OK, yes, fine. Come with me.”
He turned away without waiting for a reply, and Gabe could tell that he was really pissed off by the tense line of his back. He followed him meekly into the bedroom, and Bill turned to him, hands on hips, apparently waiting for some kind of reaction.
Gabe glanced around. “Well, um. This is nice?” Bill waited. “I mean, normally we’re in here for totally different reasons.” Bill’s eyebrow crept upwards. “Look, I’m really not sure what you want from me. What am I supposed to be looking at?”
“That!” Bill pointed at the wall behind Gabe’s head, and Gabe noticed, for the first time, that his hands were shaking. He turned around to look. There was a single handprint burnt onto the wall and Gabe felt a cold shiver go down his spine. He was starting to think that maybe he’d been premature in promising to stay. Bill was still chewing meditatively on his nail. “They appear kind of randomly. I’m starting to think it depends on the day of the week.”
Gabe swallowed. “And they - only appear in here?”
“Well, no, they just only stay in here.”
“Sweetheart,” Gabe grasped desperately at the fast-disappearing shreds of his sanity, “are you sure it’s not just - not just-”
“‘Not just’ what?!” Bill demanded. “Gabe, there’s a handprint on my wall, it’s really there, you can see it, right?” Gabe nodded dumbly. “I have gone over it again and again to make sure it’s not just - weird soot marks or something wrong with the wallpaper, and it’s not. They disappear, and then I’ll wake up and there’ll be more! If I wake up in the middle of the night, I can see them appearing!” Bill broke off, breathing deeply after his outburst.
“Bilvy-”
“It has fingerprints!”
“OK! I believe you, OK. I’ll set up the couch-”
“We’re not going to be sleeping,” Bill said, without a breath of innuendo in his voice. “Or if we are, it will be together. Get that look off your face, Gabanti, you’re not funny.” Gabe hastily smoothed the leer off his face. “Better.”
Gabe eyed him. “Hey, look, maybe we should just go back to my place tonight? So you can calm down, give you a chance to get your thoughts together-”
“No! I’m not gonna let you think I’m crazy. At least,” he amended fairly, “not without good cause.”
“But we could come back tomorrow night when you’re feeling a bit better and investigate all you want-”
“We’re staying,” Bill said, implacable, and that was that.
**
By dusk, Bill had actually managed to freak Gabe out a little. Under the fluorescent kitchen lights, Bill looked frankly unwell - though in all fairness, Gabe imagined he didn’t look so hot himself. Both of them, however, were outstripped by the thing which appeared by the fridge. Whatever it was, it did not look healthy.
“Bill, it hasn’t got-”
“Eyes,” Bill said with deceptive calm, “I know.” Hefting the baseball bat, he took step towards the Thing and swung the bat at it with the strength of the terrified - straight through the spirit and into the fridge door. “Get the fuck out of my apartment, you bastard!”
The thing flickered and disappeared, leaving behind nothing but the adrenaline pumping through them to show it had ever been there. “So,” Gabe said, gripping the back of the chair with hands that shook, “that’s it?”
“I’m sorry, was it not enough for you?”
“No, no, that’s - plenty enough. I guess I was just expecting... ectoplasm, moving furniture, shaking walls, flickering lights-”
“You’re giving it ideas,” Bill hissed, putting the baseball bat on the table, within easy reach. “And it really doesn’t need the help.” He pointed at the wall with a remarkably steady hand, and Gabe glanced back at it, then stepped hastily away from it. Handprints like the one in the bedroom were appearing thick and fast across the white paint, with no discernible pattern, and watching them appear and disappear as fast was one of the scariest things Gabe had ever seen.
It was scarier still when the lights buzzed and flickered out.
“Bill?” Gabe could hear him breathing in the darkness next to him.
“Sorry,” his voice floated out of the gloom. “I didn’t realise how dark it’s gotten.”
In the near darkness, they could still see the handprints appearing on the walls, coming slower now, but with almost deliberate regularity.
“OK,” Gabe said slowly, then more decisively: “OK, we’re going. I’ve seen enough.” He groped for Bill’s hand and yanked him in the direction of the front door, one hand out in front of him to make sure he didn’t walk into anything, trying not to touch the wall. “You were right, I was wrong, we’ll come back in the morning with specialists or something-”
“Mm, I’m sure craigslist will have a whole page dedicated to paranormal investigators,” Bill muttered. “But, seriously, wait-”
“No, we’re coming back in the morning, when things are less freaky!” He reached a hand out to grab the handle when another black handprint burnt itself into the wood of the door in front of him. For a moment, he paused, hand out - and then glared, grabbing the handle and yanking on it. When the door didn’t open, he frowned, and tried twisting the handle the other way. Nothing. The door didn’t so much as budge. “Where are your keys?” He demanded over his shoulder.
“Didn’t lock it,” Bill said, a detached, dreamy quality to his voice. “You don’t need the key from the inside. It just - won’t open after dark.”
“You could,” Gabe said, with admirable restraint, “have mentioned this earlier.”
“I told you, I didn’t notice how dark it was getting,” Bill said, snapping out of it and sounding a little defensive.
“Oh, this is great,” Gabe muttered. “Is this what you’ve been doing every night? Just sitting in here and watching those things appear on the wall?” Bill shrugged, Gabe could tell by the way his hand moved in his. Then he thought of a more pressing problem. “So - this means we’re stuck here?”
“Until daylight, yeah,” Bill nodded, still sounding a little detached.
“Well, shit,” Gabe dragged a hand down his face. “OK, so, we need salt.”
**
When the lights came on ten minutes later, Gabe jumped up from the sofa he’d been huddling on with Bill, and went to rifle through his kitchen cupboards. Bill trailed after him and watched him from the door.
“So - why the hell do we need salt?”
“We need to make a circle. One big enough to sit in.”
There was a moment of ominous silence before Bill skewered him with look. “Gabriel, there is a dead thing in my apartment, OK? Now is not the time for your ‘Self-Expression through Condiments’ class!” It was said with jazz hands and acid.
“You really need to watch more TV. What do you do at night when you can’t sleep?!”
“Oh, you know,” Bill said sweetly, “call my mom, read a bit - but recently, I’ve been connecting with the other side of the grave. It’s really easy, because they stand at the end of my bed staring at me with the holes in their faces which were maybe, one time, eyes.”
“There’s no need to get sarcastic,” Gabe said, on his dignity. “Anyway, your knowledge of pop culture is for shit.”
“I am pop culture,” Bill said stonily.
“Actually, I think Pete’s pop culture-”
Bill interrupted him with a hysterical little giggle, standing up to pace the kitchen, rubbing his fingers over the dent in the fridge door. “Pete, why didn’t I ring Pete?! He’d have an entire brigade of emo ghost-busters in here by now. Instead of you, you’re so easily distracted!”
“Hey, that’s not fair! I’m n-” Gabe broke off, and Bill turned to him.
“See, that’s what I-”
“No, dude. The lights.” They flickered on cue with the same ominous low buzzing as before, then shorted out entirely. Something flickered in the corner of Gabe’s eye, and he edged closer to where he thought Bill was. “Billy, d’you have anything with iron in it?”
“Such as...?” Bill drawled, from his left.
“I don’t know - a-a poker?”
“Oh yeah,” icy sarcasm, “for that fireplace I don’t have.”
“I’m trying to help here.”
“OK, fine - I think I have a cast iron skillet.”
“Where?”
“Second cupboard down from the fridge to the right.”
Gabe felt his way into the cupboard, and grasped the skillet. “Right, OK. Now-”
“Something touched me!” Bill squawked and swung, thankfully unable to get up much momentum in the tiny kitchen. He still connected with Gabe’s side.
“Ow,” Gabe said pointedly. “That was me.”
“Sorry, Gabanti,” Bill said, contrite, and rested a hand on Gabe’s shoulder. And then warm hands, long-fingered and unmistakeably Bill’s, touched his face. Gabe went cold. “Are you OK?”
“There - are hands. Touching me.”
“Yeah, you’re OK, that’s me-”
“No...” Gabe was having difficulty getting the words out. “There are three hands touching me.” On cue, an icy chill fell over the kitchen, and Gabe’s head turned to the side almost of its own volition - and was met with the sight of dead, decaying flesh.
Gabe made a sound not usually heard in the natural world. The thing was glowing with a cold, eerie light. “Kill it!” he said in a tuneful soprano, and swung with the skillet. Bill was frozen, brandishing the baseball bat like a lightsaber, but at the first touch of the skillet, the spirit disappeared into a few puffs of smoke. The lights came back on, and Gabe collapsed against the cabinets, rubbing his side and wiping cold sweat off his forehead. “Thanks for that, you’re great in a crisis, aren’t you?!”
“I was scared I was gonna hit you! Again,” he added as an afterthought, putting the bat down on the counter.
“Well, next time, just - just - I don’t know. Do something.”
Bill slumped against the counter and forebore to snap back at him. There was a momentary pause, then: “I think I have water-softening salt in one of these boxes.”
Gabe eyed the huge pile of cardboard boxes against the far wall of the sitting room, evidence of Bill’s recent move to New York, and sighed. “Right. Let’s - get looking.”
**
“Billy, darling, we can’t live in a salt circle.”
“Yes, we can - it’s safe in here, there’s food, water, and we can lay a salt corridor to the bathroom.”
“OK, let me rephrase - I won’t live in a salt-circle. We don’t even know if it’ll work! The CW isn’t exactly a known authority on all things paranormal.”
“Why you gotta kill the fun, Gabe?” The note of hysteria was back in Bill’s voice. “It’s just like camping!”
“Well, it’s not,” Gabe pointed out.
“I know,” Bill took a couple of deep breaths. “I know, OK? I feel like a squatter in my own front room.” He stood and paced futilely round the confines of the circle. “Why now!? What does it want!?”
“Dunno, dude.”
Bill paced a little harder, kicking up little flurries of salt. “Why can’t it just leave me alone!?”
“I don’t - sweetheart, you’re damaging the circle, and we don’t have any more salt.”
“Why is it picking on me!?”
“Why don’t you come and sit down where it’s safe? Away from the edge of the circle?”
“Fine,” Bill stopped and glared at him, then stomped over and plopped himself down in Gabe’s lap. “Happy now?”
Gabe slung his arms around Bill’s waist and hugged him a little. “Dude, you’re shaking.”
“No, really? Dead stalkers will do that to a guy.” He wrapped his arms around Gabe’s neck and hugged back, holding the position for a long moment before pulling back.
Gabe managed a quick smile. “Yeah, about that... You know, to start with, I thought you’d just lost a few more of your marbles than you could afford-”
“Whisper me more sweet nothings.”
“-But now, I’d say I’m pretty convinced.”
Bill offered him a flat-eyed glance. “It always feels so special when you validate my delusions.”
“OK, now you’re just being bitchy.” It was a testament of how much the situation was getting to Gabe that he actually called Bill on it. He was cold, tired, hungry, had a mouthful of Bill’s hair, and he was actually waiting, like a sitting duck, for a dead guy to reappear.
“I am never bitchy!”
“Lies, Billiam. Lies.” Gabe spat out the hair and rested his head on Bill’s shoulder, letting it go for the moment.
“Why is this happening to me?!”
“Oh, here we go.”
“No, seriously - why is it happening to me?! Why not Mrs. Cunningham down the hall? She’s the scariest person I’ve ever met! She could cope with a creature of hell, I think she is one, it’ll be just like a family reunion for her!”
“Bill, you’re getting worked up-”
“I know I am! This is not how I planned to spend my evenings after moving in here! I’m young, I’m in my prime, I could be out having sex! With a different person every night if I wanted to.”
“Thought you already did that,” Gabe said, with a trace of bitterness. “I’m Wednesday.”
Bill unbent enough to snuggle a little. “Friday too,” he offered awkwardly, and Gabe hugged him closer, recognising that it had cost Bill something to say even that much aloud. It looked like it was going to be a nice moment - which was presumably why the spirit chose it to reappear.
Bill’s fingers closed around Gabe’s arms in a vice-like grip. Gabe decided to concentrate on breathing, but he could feel Bill ratcheting up the tension from the way he was all-but vibrating in his lap.
“Gabe, it’s staring at me,” Bill muttered into his ear, and Gabe petted awkwardly at his hip.
“It’s staring at both of us,” he muttered back. “But It’s OK. It can’t get in. I mean. I really hope it can’t get in.”
“Thanks for the reassurance.” Bill muttered back “Leave me alone!” He snapped at the ghost, after engaging in a few moment’s staring competition with it. “Why the fuck won’t you leave me alone!?”
Gabe might have been overstating the case, but he thought the thing looked strangely - pensive. But obviously, it said nothing and disappeared. Gabe heaved a sigh of relief, only to realise that Bill was staring fixedly over his shoulder. “It’s - behind me, isn’t it,” he said flatly.
“Yeah,” Bill breathed, looping an arm around Gabe’s neck. “You stay the fuck away from him!” he addressed the spirit viciously.
“We’re in the circle, it’s OK,” Gabe chanted quietly under his breath. “It can’t get us in here, we’re in the circle, we’re in the circle-”
“It’s still staring at me.”
“Us, it’s staring at us, and it can’t get in,” Gabe said, and Bill hid his face in Gabe’s neck.
“I hate this, I hate it, I hate it,” he muttered, and Gabe rubbed a hand down his back.
“Can’t get in,” he repeated, and when Bill glanced back up again, the spirit was gone.
**
“How do you know about this stuff?” It was two in the morning, and they were still in the salt circle, with a long while to go before dawn. Bill was half-curled into Gabe's lap, legs bent awkwardly under him.
"What stuff?" he asked sleepily. Though Gabe was one of life's die-hard insomniacs, he was exhausted from a combination of terror and fast-fading adrenaline, and Bill's varnished pinewood floor was becoming increasingly comfortable. Only the knowledge that Bill would probably challenge the ghost to a duel while Gabe was asleep kept him awake.
"You know. The salt. And when it -" Bill shuddered before twisting around to settle his head more comfortably on Gabe's shoulder, "- appeared in the kitchen, you knew what to do. Have you been on some kind of Ghostbusting course and you just never told me?"
Gabe rolled his eyes. "Yeah. Me and Dan Ackroyd, we're like that,” he held up his crossed fingers. “No. I, er. Watch Supernatural when I can’t sleep."
"Super-what?"
"Natural,” Gabe said, suppressing a yawn. “It's a show about ghost-hunting. They show repeats at ass o'clock in the morning, and, y’know, it's something to do."
"Hang on," Bill sounded suspicious. "Is that the show with the brothers and the manpain and all the single perfect tears of-?"
"Yes," Gabe said quickly. He could feel himself drifting off and forced his eyes open.
"Far be it from me to judge your viewing choices in any way, but is that seriously all you can find to watch at two am?" It sounded suspiciously as though Bill was grinning.
Gabe poked him. "Are you really complaining?"
"No," Bill conceded with a sigh. "But - y'know, I thought better of you."
Gabe knew it was a joke, but he was tired and Bill's pinewood floor was digging into his coccyx and he was on edge waiting for a freaking ghost to appear. "Yeah, well, it’s been weirdly reliable, so forgive me if I'm not angsting about not watching something more high-brow," he snapped.
Bill shifted on his lap so he could face him. "Hey, where did that come from?" he asked mildly, surprisingly so given his earlier, on-edge behaviour.
Gabe let his arms fall from around Bill's waist and brought a hand up to drag it over his face. He would have killed for some coffee. "Sorry," he said tiredly. "I'm just... fucking exhausted, y'know, man? And this - thing, whatever it is, is lurking round here somewhere, and I’m waiting for it.”
"Yeah," Bill nodded. "I, er. I don't think I ever thanked you for coming round, by the way."
Gabe dredged up a smile from somewhere. "Every time, baby. Next time your apartment has some weird ghost infestation, I wanna be first on your list to get trapped in it with you. And beaten by you. And-"
"OK, I get it! And... you normally are," Bill added in a rare burst of romanticism. "Especially now I know you're the one with all the ghostbuster knowledge..." Gabe chuckled, earlier tension soothed back a little, and let Bill squirm around in his lap to kiss him. "We're gonna be OK," Bill promised, pulling back for a second, before pressing another quick, firm kiss to Gabe's mouth. "If I have to beat that motherfucker into a pulp myself."
Gabe pulled back to reply, and his eyes widened, then darted to the edge of the salt-circle - where Bill's flailing around had broken the line of salt. "Feel free to get right onto that," he said weakly.
Bill frowned at him, puzzled, before turning to follow his line of vision.
The spirit had reappeared once again. But this time it was inside the circle; Gabe couldn’t say it was a particularly welcome change. Bill had frozen completely and was staring up at the thing with an expression not a million miles away from terror. Somehow channelling the terror into anger, Bill was on his feet before Gabe had time to draw an unnaturally icy breath.
“Go away!” he yelled, waving his arms wildly as though he were trying to frighten off the pigeons that came too close in the park. “Leave me alone!” The spirit, less than a foot away, appeared to watch him thoughtfully.
Gabe shuddered. Could it think? Or was it now just a mass of ectoplasm, devoid of any emotion or empathy? Gabe shook his head to clear it, focusing instead on the standoff occurring under his nose.
“Just go away!” Bill yelled again. Surreally, Gabe heard the neighbours banging on the wall. “I don’t - want you here! Fucking -“
In less than a heartbeat, the spirit vanished and reappeared mere inches from Gabe, who suddenly found himself distracted from Bill’s monologue.
It stared at him for what felt like a short eternity, then reached a hand down to him, and Gabe, stuck in some weird, trance-like state, thought numbly that there might be something like entreaty in its eyes. And then Bill made an inhuman sound of rageterrorfrustration and threw himself at it.
It spun round, a strangely human move, and flung up its hands - or what had been its hands, the fingers were mangled and lumpy and just not right - and Bill went flying across the room, and smacked into the wall, his head ricocheting into it with a painful thud.
Part Two
Authors: xrysomou and xaritomene
Rating: R
Warnings: Disturbing themes (ghosts, death, gay-bashing: past)
Word Count: 13 470
Pairing: Gabe Saporta/Bill Beckett (Cobra Starship/The Academy Is...)
Disclaimer: This isn't true; never happened, never will. And we're not worth sueing. If this fic is about you or your friends or family, please save yourself the pain and go away. Remember what curiosity did to the cat? Satisfaction won't help this time.
Summary: In which Bill is haunted, Gabe is his reluctant ghostbuster, Supernatural references abound, and things are never as clear-cut as they seem.
"Bilvy, Bill, there's no such thing as ghosts."
When Bill opened the door clutching a baseball bat, Gabe could just tell something was wrong.
“Um,” he said warily, “I - didn’t actually get that much over the phone, other than ‘please get over here now’, ‘bastard’, and ‘die, die, die’, so... I’m guessing it’s not a booty call. Is everything OK?”
“Come on in,” Bill said, ever the consummate host, swinging the baseball bat cheerily.
Gabe paused. “...thanks.”
Bill turned to him after shutting to door, and said, “OK, so, you’ve gotta hear me out before you have me committed, OK?”
“Oh, that’s never good,” Gabe said guardedly. “This isn’t like the time with the giant butterflies and the talking cat, is it?”
“No,” Bill’s expression was chronically unamused. “That was the time I had a fever of a hundred and four. And you thought I was high,” he added accusingly. “Which, thanks.”
“In my defence,” Gabe held his hands up, “there wasn’t much of a difference.”
“Well, that’s not my-” Bill suddenly stopped and spun round wildly, brandishing the baseball bat. His eyes scanned the empty air before he blew out a breath. “OK. OK. Right, look, this is different, and it’s gonna sound really weird, but - there’s something in my apartment.”
“Like... what, bats or roaches, or...?”
“No - no. Something - weird.”
Gabe opened his mouth to say something then shut it again, considering his options. “Like - you weird, or-”
“No, no, this is - really weird.”
“It’s, um-” Bill muttered something.
“It’s what?”
“I think it’s a ghost,” Bill said very quietly.
Having the devotedly unspiritual Bill Beckett tell him that his apartment was haunted was strangely unsettling. “Bill, you don’t believe in ghosts-”
“I know, I know - I didn’t, but-”
“Bilvy, Bill, there’s no such thing as ghosts.”
“Well, I don’t know what else to call it! I woke up this morning, at, like, three, and there was this -thing - at the end of my bed, which is, by the way, a lot creepier than the movies make it look. And it was-”
“Billy-”
“And it was staring at me! I mean, I think it was staring at me, I’m not entirely sure those things were eyes, but-”
“Bill!”
“There was really something there! I’m not making this up!”
“And you’re sure it wasn’t Carden?” Gabe asked carefully. A creepy figure at the end of Bill’s bed? One couldn’t be too sure.
“He’s not even in the same state! He’s down in LA with Chiz!”
“OK - then, don’t take this the wrong way, but...” Gabe rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. “Have you been taking your meds?”
Bill gave him a flat-eyed stare. “Yes, Gabe. I have been taking my meds. For depression. Not psychosis! I don’t have that!”
“Yeah, but you know how you get when you’re trying to write-”
“Gabe, I think there’s something dead in my apartment!”
“Where?” Gabe didn’t mean to sound as sceptical as he did.
“There is a ghost here, so, logically, there must be something dead here!” He caught Gabe’s dubious expression. “Somewhere!” he snapped, before Gabe could repeat his question.
“Sweetheart, exactly nothing about this is logical! And could you please put the bat down, it’s starting to make me nervous.”
“Sorry,” Bill said, and stopped swinging it absently, propping it up against his sofa.
Gabe took a deep breath and sat down. “Right. OK - let’s - let’s just sit down and talk this through. Logically.”
**
An hour later, Gabe was still trying to steer them onto the course of logic. “So why isn’t it here now?” he asked, for the third or fourth time.
Bill was sat on the kitchen table, feet propped on one of the chairs, chewing a hangnail. “I told you, it’s not dark. It never comes out in the day.”
“Wait, you’ve seen it often enough to work out a pattern?”
Bill stared at him. “Gabe, I didn’t ring you because I had a bad dream. If it had only happened once, I could just put it down to an overactive imagination and far too much time on my hands. This is like the fifth time I’ve seen it.”
Gabe paused. “Look, I don’t want to be the bad guy here, but - have you talked to someone about this? Someone - professional? Not just... me.”
“We’ve been over this,” Bill actually had the nerve to sound long-suffering. “I’m not having another breakdown.”
“No, no, I’m sure you’re not, but - you know, sometimes it’s helpful to-”
“Fine,” Bill said decisively. “If you don’t believe me, stay here tonight and see if you can see it, and if you can’t see it, I will go to any psychiatrist you like.” Gabe considered it. “I dare you.”
“Oh, for - alright, fine. I’ll stay.” There was, after all, nothing to worry about, and it was probably best for Bill to have someone with him. “But you have to promise me-”
“OK, yes, fine. Come with me.”
He turned away without waiting for a reply, and Gabe could tell that he was really pissed off by the tense line of his back. He followed him meekly into the bedroom, and Bill turned to him, hands on hips, apparently waiting for some kind of reaction.
Gabe glanced around. “Well, um. This is nice?” Bill waited. “I mean, normally we’re in here for totally different reasons.” Bill’s eyebrow crept upwards. “Look, I’m really not sure what you want from me. What am I supposed to be looking at?”
“That!” Bill pointed at the wall behind Gabe’s head, and Gabe noticed, for the first time, that his hands were shaking. He turned around to look. There was a single handprint burnt onto the wall and Gabe felt a cold shiver go down his spine. He was starting to think that maybe he’d been premature in promising to stay. Bill was still chewing meditatively on his nail. “They appear kind of randomly. I’m starting to think it depends on the day of the week.”
Gabe swallowed. “And they - only appear in here?”
“Well, no, they just only stay in here.”
“Sweetheart,” Gabe grasped desperately at the fast-disappearing shreds of his sanity, “are you sure it’s not just - not just-”
“‘Not just’ what?!” Bill demanded. “Gabe, there’s a handprint on my wall, it’s really there, you can see it, right?” Gabe nodded dumbly. “I have gone over it again and again to make sure it’s not just - weird soot marks or something wrong with the wallpaper, and it’s not. They disappear, and then I’ll wake up and there’ll be more! If I wake up in the middle of the night, I can see them appearing!” Bill broke off, breathing deeply after his outburst.
“Bilvy-”
“It has fingerprints!”
“OK! I believe you, OK. I’ll set up the couch-”
“We’re not going to be sleeping,” Bill said, without a breath of innuendo in his voice. “Or if we are, it will be together. Get that look off your face, Gabanti, you’re not funny.” Gabe hastily smoothed the leer off his face. “Better.”
Gabe eyed him. “Hey, look, maybe we should just go back to my place tonight? So you can calm down, give you a chance to get your thoughts together-”
“No! I’m not gonna let you think I’m crazy. At least,” he amended fairly, “not without good cause.”
“But we could come back tomorrow night when you’re feeling a bit better and investigate all you want-”
“We’re staying,” Bill said, implacable, and that was that.
**
By dusk, Bill had actually managed to freak Gabe out a little. Under the fluorescent kitchen lights, Bill looked frankly unwell - though in all fairness, Gabe imagined he didn’t look so hot himself. Both of them, however, were outstripped by the thing which appeared by the fridge. Whatever it was, it did not look healthy.
“Bill, it hasn’t got-”
“Eyes,” Bill said with deceptive calm, “I know.” Hefting the baseball bat, he took step towards the Thing and swung the bat at it with the strength of the terrified - straight through the spirit and into the fridge door. “Get the fuck out of my apartment, you bastard!”
The thing flickered and disappeared, leaving behind nothing but the adrenaline pumping through them to show it had ever been there. “So,” Gabe said, gripping the back of the chair with hands that shook, “that’s it?”
“I’m sorry, was it not enough for you?”
“No, no, that’s - plenty enough. I guess I was just expecting... ectoplasm, moving furniture, shaking walls, flickering lights-”
“You’re giving it ideas,” Bill hissed, putting the baseball bat on the table, within easy reach. “And it really doesn’t need the help.” He pointed at the wall with a remarkably steady hand, and Gabe glanced back at it, then stepped hastily away from it. Handprints like the one in the bedroom were appearing thick and fast across the white paint, with no discernible pattern, and watching them appear and disappear as fast was one of the scariest things Gabe had ever seen.
It was scarier still when the lights buzzed and flickered out.
“Bill?” Gabe could hear him breathing in the darkness next to him.
“Sorry,” his voice floated out of the gloom. “I didn’t realise how dark it’s gotten.”
In the near darkness, they could still see the handprints appearing on the walls, coming slower now, but with almost deliberate regularity.
“OK,” Gabe said slowly, then more decisively: “OK, we’re going. I’ve seen enough.” He groped for Bill’s hand and yanked him in the direction of the front door, one hand out in front of him to make sure he didn’t walk into anything, trying not to touch the wall. “You were right, I was wrong, we’ll come back in the morning with specialists or something-”
“Mm, I’m sure craigslist will have a whole page dedicated to paranormal investigators,” Bill muttered. “But, seriously, wait-”
“No, we’re coming back in the morning, when things are less freaky!” He reached a hand out to grab the handle when another black handprint burnt itself into the wood of the door in front of him. For a moment, he paused, hand out - and then glared, grabbing the handle and yanking on it. When the door didn’t open, he frowned, and tried twisting the handle the other way. Nothing. The door didn’t so much as budge. “Where are your keys?” He demanded over his shoulder.
“Didn’t lock it,” Bill said, a detached, dreamy quality to his voice. “You don’t need the key from the inside. It just - won’t open after dark.”
“You could,” Gabe said, with admirable restraint, “have mentioned this earlier.”
“I told you, I didn’t notice how dark it was getting,” Bill said, snapping out of it and sounding a little defensive.
“Oh, this is great,” Gabe muttered. “Is this what you’ve been doing every night? Just sitting in here and watching those things appear on the wall?” Bill shrugged, Gabe could tell by the way his hand moved in his. Then he thought of a more pressing problem. “So - this means we’re stuck here?”
“Until daylight, yeah,” Bill nodded, still sounding a little detached.
“Well, shit,” Gabe dragged a hand down his face. “OK, so, we need salt.”
**
When the lights came on ten minutes later, Gabe jumped up from the sofa he’d been huddling on with Bill, and went to rifle through his kitchen cupboards. Bill trailed after him and watched him from the door.
“So - why the hell do we need salt?”
“We need to make a circle. One big enough to sit in.”
There was a moment of ominous silence before Bill skewered him with look. “Gabriel, there is a dead thing in my apartment, OK? Now is not the time for your ‘Self-Expression through Condiments’ class!” It was said with jazz hands and acid.
“You really need to watch more TV. What do you do at night when you can’t sleep?!”
“Oh, you know,” Bill said sweetly, “call my mom, read a bit - but recently, I’ve been connecting with the other side of the grave. It’s really easy, because they stand at the end of my bed staring at me with the holes in their faces which were maybe, one time, eyes.”
“There’s no need to get sarcastic,” Gabe said, on his dignity. “Anyway, your knowledge of pop culture is for shit.”
“I am pop culture,” Bill said stonily.
“Actually, I think Pete’s pop culture-”
Bill interrupted him with a hysterical little giggle, standing up to pace the kitchen, rubbing his fingers over the dent in the fridge door. “Pete, why didn’t I ring Pete?! He’d have an entire brigade of emo ghost-busters in here by now. Instead of you, you’re so easily distracted!”
“Hey, that’s not fair! I’m n-” Gabe broke off, and Bill turned to him.
“See, that’s what I-”
“No, dude. The lights.” They flickered on cue with the same ominous low buzzing as before, then shorted out entirely. Something flickered in the corner of Gabe’s eye, and he edged closer to where he thought Bill was. “Billy, d’you have anything with iron in it?”
“Such as...?” Bill drawled, from his left.
“I don’t know - a-a poker?”
“Oh yeah,” icy sarcasm, “for that fireplace I don’t have.”
“I’m trying to help here.”
“OK, fine - I think I have a cast iron skillet.”
“Where?”
“Second cupboard down from the fridge to the right.”
Gabe felt his way into the cupboard, and grasped the skillet. “Right, OK. Now-”
“Something touched me!” Bill squawked and swung, thankfully unable to get up much momentum in the tiny kitchen. He still connected with Gabe’s side.
“Ow,” Gabe said pointedly. “That was me.”
“Sorry, Gabanti,” Bill said, contrite, and rested a hand on Gabe’s shoulder. And then warm hands, long-fingered and unmistakeably Bill’s, touched his face. Gabe went cold. “Are you OK?”
“There - are hands. Touching me.”
“Yeah, you’re OK, that’s me-”
“No...” Gabe was having difficulty getting the words out. “There are three hands touching me.” On cue, an icy chill fell over the kitchen, and Gabe’s head turned to the side almost of its own volition - and was met with the sight of dead, decaying flesh.
Gabe made a sound not usually heard in the natural world. The thing was glowing with a cold, eerie light. “Kill it!” he said in a tuneful soprano, and swung with the skillet. Bill was frozen, brandishing the baseball bat like a lightsaber, but at the first touch of the skillet, the spirit disappeared into a few puffs of smoke. The lights came back on, and Gabe collapsed against the cabinets, rubbing his side and wiping cold sweat off his forehead. “Thanks for that, you’re great in a crisis, aren’t you?!”
“I was scared I was gonna hit you! Again,” he added as an afterthought, putting the bat down on the counter.
“Well, next time, just - just - I don’t know. Do something.”
Bill slumped against the counter and forebore to snap back at him. There was a momentary pause, then: “I think I have water-softening salt in one of these boxes.”
Gabe eyed the huge pile of cardboard boxes against the far wall of the sitting room, evidence of Bill’s recent move to New York, and sighed. “Right. Let’s - get looking.”
**
“Billy, darling, we can’t live in a salt circle.”
“Yes, we can - it’s safe in here, there’s food, water, and we can lay a salt corridor to the bathroom.”
“OK, let me rephrase - I won’t live in a salt-circle. We don’t even know if it’ll work! The CW isn’t exactly a known authority on all things paranormal.”
“Why you gotta kill the fun, Gabe?” The note of hysteria was back in Bill’s voice. “It’s just like camping!”
“Well, it’s not,” Gabe pointed out.
“I know,” Bill took a couple of deep breaths. “I know, OK? I feel like a squatter in my own front room.” He stood and paced futilely round the confines of the circle. “Why now!? What does it want!?”
“Dunno, dude.”
Bill paced a little harder, kicking up little flurries of salt. “Why can’t it just leave me alone!?”
“I don’t - sweetheart, you’re damaging the circle, and we don’t have any more salt.”
“Why is it picking on me!?”
“Why don’t you come and sit down where it’s safe? Away from the edge of the circle?”
“Fine,” Bill stopped and glared at him, then stomped over and plopped himself down in Gabe’s lap. “Happy now?”
Gabe slung his arms around Bill’s waist and hugged him a little. “Dude, you’re shaking.”
“No, really? Dead stalkers will do that to a guy.” He wrapped his arms around Gabe’s neck and hugged back, holding the position for a long moment before pulling back.
Gabe managed a quick smile. “Yeah, about that... You know, to start with, I thought you’d just lost a few more of your marbles than you could afford-”
“Whisper me more sweet nothings.”
“-But now, I’d say I’m pretty convinced.”
Bill offered him a flat-eyed glance. “It always feels so special when you validate my delusions.”
“OK, now you’re just being bitchy.” It was a testament of how much the situation was getting to Gabe that he actually called Bill on it. He was cold, tired, hungry, had a mouthful of Bill’s hair, and he was actually waiting, like a sitting duck, for a dead guy to reappear.
“I am never bitchy!”
“Lies, Billiam. Lies.” Gabe spat out the hair and rested his head on Bill’s shoulder, letting it go for the moment.
“Why is this happening to me?!”
“Oh, here we go.”
“No, seriously - why is it happening to me?! Why not Mrs. Cunningham down the hall? She’s the scariest person I’ve ever met! She could cope with a creature of hell, I think she is one, it’ll be just like a family reunion for her!”
“Bill, you’re getting worked up-”
“I know I am! This is not how I planned to spend my evenings after moving in here! I’m young, I’m in my prime, I could be out having sex! With a different person every night if I wanted to.”
“Thought you already did that,” Gabe said, with a trace of bitterness. “I’m Wednesday.”
Bill unbent enough to snuggle a little. “Friday too,” he offered awkwardly, and Gabe hugged him closer, recognising that it had cost Bill something to say even that much aloud. It looked like it was going to be a nice moment - which was presumably why the spirit chose it to reappear.
Bill’s fingers closed around Gabe’s arms in a vice-like grip. Gabe decided to concentrate on breathing, but he could feel Bill ratcheting up the tension from the way he was all-but vibrating in his lap.
“Gabe, it’s staring at me,” Bill muttered into his ear, and Gabe petted awkwardly at his hip.
“It’s staring at both of us,” he muttered back. “But It’s OK. It can’t get in. I mean. I really hope it can’t get in.”
“Thanks for the reassurance.” Bill muttered back “Leave me alone!” He snapped at the ghost, after engaging in a few moment’s staring competition with it. “Why the fuck won’t you leave me alone!?”
Gabe might have been overstating the case, but he thought the thing looked strangely - pensive. But obviously, it said nothing and disappeared. Gabe heaved a sigh of relief, only to realise that Bill was staring fixedly over his shoulder. “It’s - behind me, isn’t it,” he said flatly.
“Yeah,” Bill breathed, looping an arm around Gabe’s neck. “You stay the fuck away from him!” he addressed the spirit viciously.
“We’re in the circle, it’s OK,” Gabe chanted quietly under his breath. “It can’t get us in here, we’re in the circle, we’re in the circle-”
“It’s still staring at me.”
“Us, it’s staring at us, and it can’t get in,” Gabe said, and Bill hid his face in Gabe’s neck.
“I hate this, I hate it, I hate it,” he muttered, and Gabe rubbed a hand down his back.
“Can’t get in,” he repeated, and when Bill glanced back up again, the spirit was gone.
**
“How do you know about this stuff?” It was two in the morning, and they were still in the salt circle, with a long while to go before dawn. Bill was half-curled into Gabe's lap, legs bent awkwardly under him.
"What stuff?" he asked sleepily. Though Gabe was one of life's die-hard insomniacs, he was exhausted from a combination of terror and fast-fading adrenaline, and Bill's varnished pinewood floor was becoming increasingly comfortable. Only the knowledge that Bill would probably challenge the ghost to a duel while Gabe was asleep kept him awake.
"You know. The salt. And when it -" Bill shuddered before twisting around to settle his head more comfortably on Gabe's shoulder, "- appeared in the kitchen, you knew what to do. Have you been on some kind of Ghostbusting course and you just never told me?"
Gabe rolled his eyes. "Yeah. Me and Dan Ackroyd, we're like that,” he held up his crossed fingers. “No. I, er. Watch Supernatural when I can’t sleep."
"Super-what?"
"Natural,” Gabe said, suppressing a yawn. “It's a show about ghost-hunting. They show repeats at ass o'clock in the morning, and, y’know, it's something to do."
"Hang on," Bill sounded suspicious. "Is that the show with the brothers and the manpain and all the single perfect tears of-?"
"Yes," Gabe said quickly. He could feel himself drifting off and forced his eyes open.
"Far be it from me to judge your viewing choices in any way, but is that seriously all you can find to watch at two am?" It sounded suspiciously as though Bill was grinning.
Gabe poked him. "Are you really complaining?"
"No," Bill conceded with a sigh. "But - y'know, I thought better of you."
Gabe knew it was a joke, but he was tired and Bill's pinewood floor was digging into his coccyx and he was on edge waiting for a freaking ghost to appear. "Yeah, well, it’s been weirdly reliable, so forgive me if I'm not angsting about not watching something more high-brow," he snapped.
Bill shifted on his lap so he could face him. "Hey, where did that come from?" he asked mildly, surprisingly so given his earlier, on-edge behaviour.
Gabe let his arms fall from around Bill's waist and brought a hand up to drag it over his face. He would have killed for some coffee. "Sorry," he said tiredly. "I'm just... fucking exhausted, y'know, man? And this - thing, whatever it is, is lurking round here somewhere, and I’m waiting for it.”
"Yeah," Bill nodded. "I, er. I don't think I ever thanked you for coming round, by the way."
Gabe dredged up a smile from somewhere. "Every time, baby. Next time your apartment has some weird ghost infestation, I wanna be first on your list to get trapped in it with you. And beaten by you. And-"
"OK, I get it! And... you normally are," Bill added in a rare burst of romanticism. "Especially now I know you're the one with all the ghostbuster knowledge..." Gabe chuckled, earlier tension soothed back a little, and let Bill squirm around in his lap to kiss him. "We're gonna be OK," Bill promised, pulling back for a second, before pressing another quick, firm kiss to Gabe's mouth. "If I have to beat that motherfucker into a pulp myself."
Gabe pulled back to reply, and his eyes widened, then darted to the edge of the salt-circle - where Bill's flailing around had broken the line of salt. "Feel free to get right onto that," he said weakly.
Bill frowned at him, puzzled, before turning to follow his line of vision.
The spirit had reappeared once again. But this time it was inside the circle; Gabe couldn’t say it was a particularly welcome change. Bill had frozen completely and was staring up at the thing with an expression not a million miles away from terror. Somehow channelling the terror into anger, Bill was on his feet before Gabe had time to draw an unnaturally icy breath.
“Go away!” he yelled, waving his arms wildly as though he were trying to frighten off the pigeons that came too close in the park. “Leave me alone!” The spirit, less than a foot away, appeared to watch him thoughtfully.
Gabe shuddered. Could it think? Or was it now just a mass of ectoplasm, devoid of any emotion or empathy? Gabe shook his head to clear it, focusing instead on the standoff occurring under his nose.
“Just go away!” Bill yelled again. Surreally, Gabe heard the neighbours banging on the wall. “I don’t - want you here! Fucking -“
In less than a heartbeat, the spirit vanished and reappeared mere inches from Gabe, who suddenly found himself distracted from Bill’s monologue.
It stared at him for what felt like a short eternity, then reached a hand down to him, and Gabe, stuck in some weird, trance-like state, thought numbly that there might be something like entreaty in its eyes. And then Bill made an inhuman sound of rageterrorfrustration and threw himself at it.
It spun round, a strangely human move, and flung up its hands - or what had been its hands, the fingers were mangled and lumpy and just not right - and Bill went flying across the room, and smacked into the wall, his head ricocheting into it with a painful thud.
Part Two