Work Text:
Michael's coffee was levitating.
There was no way around it: the mug was hovering just a few centimeters above the table. In fact, with the way it kept moving just out of reach, spilling drops of precious coffee onto his newspaper all the while, it felt almost as if it was mocking Michael and his inability to disprove it. All he could do was to rest his head in his hands and watch the spectacle, sighing. Looking back he knew he should have been suspicious about the price. He had already cursed at himself for apparently being the only person in the entire city who, knowing that the last owner vacated ”in a hurry” and that there were ”certain issues”, still thought it wasn't anything he couldn't handle.
"You know what?" he said out loud, as if speaking to the stupid flying mug, "At first, I kept telling myself that it was all bullshit and superstition. Pipes banging and the wind howling, that kind of thing. But congratulations, you've convinced me that ghosts are real and fucking annoying." He rubbed his temples. "Give me that back, please."
His coffee moved about ten centimeters away from him.
Michael stretched out his hand. "Come on, now. Give it back."
The mug went a little back and forth as if it couldn't decide whether to give in or head straight for the ceiling. Then at last, the mug lowered itself to the table, the constantly stirring spoon coming to a sudden halt.
Michael took a sip. The coffee was cold.
This, he thought, was what his life had become.
He didn't have a reputation for putting up with bullshit, and he was part of (what he thought was) the best gang in Los Santos, but he was pouring his coffee out in the sink all the same, watching his apartment for any sign of the damn ghost. It was invisible as ever. He knew it was there, though. If it wasn't the random destruction of property or the annoying noises, it was cold spots or just a strange prescence that gave him goosebumps.
"Can't you just... move on to the great beyond?" he asked.
The room was silent.
"Geoff told me to 'just get a psychic or something'. I don't buy that whole thing, but I'm feeling more and more inclined to do that every day. ”
Silence.
”And I know what you're thinking, but even though I believe in ghosts, it dosen't mean I have to believe in old ladies telling me to focus on the cosmic energies of the goddamn universe." I think the universe hates me anyway, he thought.
In the living room, the tv turned on. The channel kept changing, switching from one news report to another.
"It's okay if you want to watch the news, but just choose one channel, okay?!" Michael exclaimed. He peered into the living room and saw the tv switching to CNN and then staying that way. Good.
That settled, he headed down to get his morning shower. Maybe the ghost would stay by the tv. Michael hoped so - it wasn't right that a man should feel wierd about being naked in his own home. In the bathroom, he got as far as pulling off his shirt and unbuttoning his pants before he felt the now familiar sensation of being watched. Michael paused, waiting for the feeling to subside. When it didn't happen, he glared in the general direction he thought the ghost was most likely in and said, "Privacy, please?"
He wasn't sure if the ghost had gotten the message or not, but on the other hand, fuck it.
He threw his pants in the laundry and stepped into the shower, letting the hot water wash over him. Even with the water running, he could still hear the news. He rubbed his eyes and tried to remember the last time his apartment had been totally silent. Some nights and some days were okay, but others... When it wasn't the wind, it were fragments of words or the sounds of things breaking, and except for in the last case, there was never any obvious physical cause when he looked. He wished he could communicate with the damn thing instead of yelling at it all the time. He considered looking into salt circles or burning herbs or finding some information on the past tennants. Maybe the ghost was haunting the place because of a murder like in the movies. Maybe Michael would have to avenge it to let it move on. He smiled at the thought. That'd be a way to relieve the aggression that had been building up ever since he moved in.
Michael stepped out onto the cold tiles and grabbed a towel. Steam filled the room, and he looked at himself in the fogged-up mirror. Bags under his eyes, tired expression, eyes full of barely restrained anger - nothing out of the usual. Then, right in front of his eyes, something began writing on the mirror, invisible fingers tracing the shapes of letters.
The first was an "L", and Michael reacted by wrapping the towel around his waist immediatly. He watched as, letter by letter, a word was formed. Then a sentence.
"LOOK HI MICHAEL" it read.
"Shit," Michael said. He looked around, but there was still nothing to see in the room. "I'm looking," he continued, "This is a breakthrough, dude. Communication."
The ghost began writing again. Michael observed it intently. Then he sighed and stepped back.
"Okay, now you're just drawing dicks."
The ghost promptly added a few extra details.
Fifteen minutes later, Michael had clothes on, a notebook, a pen and an idea.
He sat down at the table, laying the notebook and pen out before him. He then took a deep breath and raised his voice; "Get in here, Boo." Pause. Then he added, "That's Boo as the mario ghost, I'm not ready for a pet-names level of commitment yet." He waited for as long as he supposed was appropiate before continuing, feeling just a bit silly when he didn't know if the ghost was actually in the room with him. "Okay, can you lift that pencil over there?"
There was a moment's pause. Then the pencil slowly lifted off the table, hovering a few centimeters in the air.
"Good," Michael said, "Now here's the plan. I talk and you write down your answers. That sound fine?"
The pencil moved across a page in the notebook - practically skipping and jumping around as if it had emotions of its own. Wierd, overly happy emotions.
When Michael studied the page, the word that had been written was a short "Yes."
He took a deep breath. He wasn't really scared, he told himself, but the situration was kind of unnerving. Like noticing the ghost for the first time all over again. He cleared his throat.
"What's your name?" he asked.
The pencil went back to scribbeling. The words came out looking as if written by a small child, but they were still readable.
"Gavin Free."
"You're a dude? Alright, a dead dude has been watching me shower. Nice to know." He stretched his fingers. "So... how long have you been haunting this place?"
"Few months tops." On a new line below the ghost had written, "Still kind of new to the whole ghost thing."
"And why did you die?"
The pencil wavered in the air for quite some time. Michael was just about so suggest that he didn't have to know, anyway, but then the ghost - Gavin - resumed writing at a slower pace than before.
"Accident," he wrote. "Look at the corner behind the fridge."
Michael became worried the instant he read those words. It would be the cherry on top if his apartment also included burns or exposed wires or... He walked over the fridge and saw it moving, inch by inch, to the side. The carpet peeled away slowly before his eyes. Then he saw blood. It wasn't the first time he had seen blood stains, nor was he usually bothered by blood in general but the sheer amount and the fact that it was where he lived, where he had been living for weeks now - rust-red in the middle of his kitchen - made him take an involuntary step back.
"Jesus Christ," Michael uttered. "What happened?" He went back to the note book on the table, watching Gavin write.
"It involved:" the ghost began, "My friend Dan, mousetraps (a lot of those), some liquid nitrogen-"
"I dont think I want to know," Michael said.
The pencil fell flat. Then after a brief pause, Gavin added, "It was neat until I cocked it up a bit."
Michael chose to ignore the statement.
"It's wierd to be able to... talk to you now," he said.
"I've been talking to you for a while," Gavin wrote. "You just can't hear me."
"I can hear some of it!" Michael retorted. ”All the spooky noises come to mind, right?”
"It gets boring. I want attention.”
"...Is there any chance you might be able to stop haunting my ass?"
"I don't know," Gavin wrote. "I don't know how to do it."
Michael leant back in his chair. "Then we're going to have to lay out some ground rules, allright?" He held a brief pause before continuing. "One, no turning on the tv in the middle of the night. Two, no spooky sounds during the night, period."
"But it gets boring."
"Deal with it. I need sleep, you don't. Also – and this is rule number three - don't watch me in my sleep. Thinking about it makes my skin crawl." Michael waited for a response, but the pencil kept hovering in place. "You should be able to figure out the rest."
"Can we have a bunch of these laying around?" Gavin wrote.
"A bunch of what?"
"Paper. so i can keep talking to you."
"Sure," Michael shrugged.
"it gets really boring being dead."
Being able to communicate with Gavin was both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, Gavin now made significantly fewer noises, but on the other, it meant that Michael more often that not woke up with a sticky note attached to his face. This particular monday morning a week or so after the first time Gavin wrote to him, he peeled off the post-it and turned it over in his hand to gaze upon the message Gavin had found so important to convey that he hadn't been able to wait until Michael was awake.
"Do you think fish have souls?"
Michael groaned and threw the note aside. "I don't know, Gav. That's kind of your area, isn't it?" He yawned and made his way to his closet, kicking aside yesterday's clothes on the way. "Mind turning on the coffee machine?"
Moments later, a mechanical whirr could be heard from the kitchen. Small blessings...
After getting dressed, he had his coffee while skimming the shitty local paper, the fingers on his left hand tapping restlessly against the hardwood table. But unlike other days, he did the dishes, grudgingly cleared the mess in his living room and even gave his bedroom a quick once-over. The process took him about twenty minutes, which meant he had to hurry to get out of the door in time. He had lost track of Gavin, but he he figured the ghost would hear him anyway when he spoke out loud.
"I've got... work now,” he said. ”Take care.”
The written response came quickly, doodled on an empty space in the newspaper. "Who are you making it so neat & tidy for?"
"Got a friend - Ray - coming over after work today. Can't look like a total slob, now can I?"
The question mark hung in the empty air for a while.
"See you in several hours, hopefully," Michael continued.
He shook his head and opened the door, exiting the apartment that he had now loved to hate.
And it just so happened that the apartment - or at least the floating denizen confined to it - loved Michael. Gavin knew that in the very moment the door shut and there was nothing in the room that could combat the cold that surrounded him. Nothing that could fill the silence. Nothing but maybe love, some strange and unfamiliar kind of it, that could make one hover around an empty bed. He didn't know when it had begun, only that now it was there, and he didn't mind it. It was nice to feel. To keep it inside like a secret. Gavin couldn't find the energy to touch the creases or feel the heat - his fingers dipped right though the surface of the bed, and he shuddered at the now familiar sensation of being inside an object. As hard as it had been to get used to seeing, it was even harder to get used to the feeling. Actually touching things, manipulating and lifing them took a lot out of him. Too exhausted to do anything, he floated on his back, staring up at the ceiling.
Being dead was really, really boring. The worst part was the silence. He had yelled at Michael at first, but the other man could never really hear him.
There was just him and a shitload of nothing, not really any living and not really any proper death. Michael was the most exciting thing - well, the only thing - that had happened to Gavin in a long while. And he had been staring and listening and taking in the sparks suddenly flying between dull walls. He had been making himself believe that he could feel the breeze coming in through the wide open windows.
He pushed himself through the wall, out on the ridiculously tiny and probably dangerous balcony. He wondered if Michael's weight would be enough to send it crashing down towards the street below. Gavin had no worries and leant over the railing, watching the street several stories below. There were all sorts of people running about. He'd keep an eye out for his unwilling room mate. And then he'd ask him about the fish again.
Michael came home with no time for any more of Gavin's stupid questions. He was talking and gesturing, continuing a conversation that had wound its way from the street all the way up the stairs, around every corner and into the apartment. Ray was laughing about something he said when they stepped inside. He paused and looked around, raising a single eyebrow.
"This place is suspiciously nice."
"What do you mean?" Michael asked, heading towards the couch.
"I mean," Ray explained, leaning on the table, "It's not really in your price range, is it? Who'd you kill for this?"
"Nobo- I mean - It was cheaper than you'd think. There was a minor problem. It's... mostly fixed now."
"Nice. You're all settled in then? Got your entertaintment system all set up?"
"That was first priority."
"Cool."
Within moments, he had taken a seat next to Michael who threw him a controller, sitting crosslegged in front of the tv. And whenever his hands were not occupied, he crossed his fingers too, hoping that Gavin would leave him alone and let him appear just a little normal. He already thought about what his neighbouts might think of him, but they were strangers so fuck them, really, what he did in his own apartment was none of their business - but Ray was his freind and he did not want his friend to think that he had gone insane. When the background music swelled and the gunshots started ringing out, it distracted Michael so fully that he forgot about listening for spooky sounds or keeping tabs on Gavins position. They played for half an hour, not that Michael noticed, and then he put the game on pause and stood up with the intention of getting something to eat.
Ray followed him out into the kitchen, leaning against the counter as Michael searched through the fridge.
Then Ray's voice pulled Michael out of his blissful ignorance.
"Why do you have so many post-its everywhere?"
"Oh, yeah, don't mind them," Michael began, closing the fridge and reaching for the yellow notes pasted on the counter. "I'm just going to throw these out-"
But Ray had already grabbed a few and a chill ran down Michael's spine when he realized that his friend was reading them.
"'I'm sorry Michael, I was bored?'" Ray read out loud, "What's that supposed to mean? Do you talk about yourself in third person? Are you-" he lowered his voice "-Are you under surveillance?"
"No. Ugh." Michael ran his fingers through his hair in frustration. "That's Gavin's."
Ray's eyes widened in surprise. "You've got a room mate?"
"No." Michael hestitated for a moment. This is it, your last chance to not look like a moron. "Gavin is the ghost that's been haunting this place."
Ray took a slow step away, putting the notes back down without breaking awkward eye contact with Michael. "The... what?"
"He can't talk, so he writes to me. We've worked something out. It's really not that big of a deal." Michael threw out his arms. "We're... I don't know. Friends, I think? Kind of?"
"O-okay... Did you... I'm going to, just, go over here if you don't mind..." Ray took another slow step away from Michael (who was beginning to regret every single word that had left his mouth the whole day), and was moving steadily towards the door when he stopped in his tracks, startled by a post-it headed for his face with incredible speed. Even from a distance, Michael could read the large letters as it slammed into Ray.
"HI RAY!" it read.
"What the fuck?!" Ray exclaimed, pulling the paper off of his forehead and reading it, his eyes darting from Michael to the writing to everywhere else in the room.
"You can't see him," Michael said. "Look, just... come over here and we can finish those sandwiches and I can kick your ass at gaming afterwards. Just forget about Gav, alright?"
"You've got an actual ghost and you just... ignore it?"
"He's kind of a pain in the ass sometimes."
"I just heard you say it was no big deal." Ray crossed his arms, still jittery. "Anyway, this explains a lot."
Michael wanted off the topic again, aware that he was getting more worked up than he would have liked to be. "Do you want pepsi or coke?" he asked, returning to the fridge.
Ray let out a sigh. "I don't know. Who cares." He wandered back to the couch, not sitting down as much as he was sprawling everywhere, experated. "Ghosts are real, dude," he added quietly.
Out in the kitchen, Michael opened his can of cola and watched the pencil scribble away.
"he seems nice."
"Oh, he is."
"Are you talking about me with the ghost?!" Ray yelled from the other room. ”Please don't talk about me behind my back with the ghost.”
Michael shook his head, picked up the drinks and joined Ray on the couch. There was a burden off his chest now. Looking at Ray, he was still questioning whether things were better now, but it was weird that Gavin was no longer his little secret. It had been a bit like showing Ray something private, something his. Michael tried to banish the thought and focus on something else, and Ray, too, seemed intent on focusing on something else. But efter twenty minutes, ten of which had been nothing but silence, he asked a question.
"Have you considered, like, an exorcism? Getting rid of it?"
Michael thought about what to answer. It would be a lie to say that he hadn't, but hearing Ray talking about an 'it' just made Michael think about how Gavin was more than just a thing that could be removed like one would remove mold or a faulty pipe.
"I don't think I'm going to try and exorcise him outright," Michael finally said. "Sooner or later, he's going to move on by himself. Besides, most of the occult shit is still fake."
"Huh," was Ray's only comment.
Michael raised his voice. "Hey Boo, can you leave us?"
Ray snorted. "He's your boyfriend too?"
"Fuck no," Michael cursed, feeling his cheeks grow warmed by the second. "It's the fucking mario ghost. I'm not gay for any ghosts."
"Are you sure about that?" Ray teased, wagging his eyebrows and leaning in.
"Shut up."
As Michael scowled, he no longer felt watched as Gavin's prescence faded away.
"He's gone now," Michael stated.
"You just... know?"
"Can't you feel it when he's not watching any more?"
"Not really, but I trust you on this. " Ray exhaled and took another swig from his can. "Thanks."
"I don't want you to be uncomfortable. Um. We should still be friends, right?"
"Yeah. I can handle it. But can we hang out at my place next time?"
"Sure." Michael leant back and unpaused the game. "Sure."
A few hours later, he closed the door behind Ray. Once he was as alone as he ever got in the apartment, he let out a small sigh, too tired from what had been supposed to be a chill evening with a friend. He didn't even feel like staying up for much longer - he just threw away the pizza box, turned off the lights and turned himself in. He managed to undress, get into bed and lie there for a minute or so before noticing that there was a note on his pillow, apparently placed there with care. There was just one word on it.
"Friend."
"Yeah, asshole," Michael said out loud. "Friend. I'm going to go to sleep now, so... go away. See ya in the morning."
But when he closed his eyes, he still felt the prescence of the other person. It made him aware of how he was laying, what the blanket was comvering or not covering - but it was dumb to worry, and he forced himself to think of other things, of what he'd do tomorrow, of... of how pleasant it could be to know that he wasn't all alone. His apartment felt like an island, a mountain top, surrounded by a sea of light and noise from the street outside and from the other floors. But he wasn't alone there.
He slept.
The next two days passed without anything noteworthy happening; Michael worked, came home, played, ate, slept, lived. It was Thursday before he noticed that Gavin had gotten strangely quiet, no notes appearing except when Michael deliberately asked him questions. It made him go a bit on edge - it had to mean something was going to happen sooner or later. He just didn't know what yet.
That night, Michael didn't have the energy to do anything but lay on his couch, watching the numbers on the digital clock shine green in the dark. 23:42. Almost twenty minutes to midnight. It had been a long day. Laying his head back, he felt like the room had a black hole hidden somewhere that was sucking out his energy. Like the apartment was a microcosmos complete with limitless entropy. And just as his mind edged its way towards the darkness and emptiness of space, he saw a note floating towards him, looking like something out of a budget horror movie in the dim lighting. When he didn't react to it or try to snatch it out of the air, he felt it being pressed gently towards his forehead. He turned it over in his hand, and he immidiately knew just by the feel of the air around him that someone else was there. That Gavin was probably hovering right above him.
"listen."
Michael let his hand fall back down at his side. He remained silent as he tried to do what Gavin had asked him to, staring out into nothing and trying to hear any sounds that hadn't been there before. Then, faintly, he could hear a sound. It sounded a bit like the wind blowing, a bit like fabric moving against fabric. Like the spooky sounds he had heard so many times before, but now, when he closed his eyes, the sound became clearer. He recognized it as a voice without being able to seperate the words.
"I can't make out the words," he said out loud, opening his eyes to see the clock turn to 23:50. "Are you trying to communicate?"
Michael looked for a pencil or a note, but Gavin did not repsond in his usual manner. Instead, the whispering, the noise intensified, not allowing Michael to concentrate on anything but that. And slowly, Michael found that he did hear words. The voice sounded like it came from right above him but from three floors away at the same time, difficult to hear but meant for him.
"Michael... can you hear... me?"
"Holy shit. Yes, Gav. I can hear you," Michael answered, sitting up in astonishment. Gavin's voice was a different from what he had expected, even though Michael couldn't place a finger on what exactly it was that caused it. Maybe it was the accent, because Michael hadn't imagined that it was a brittish ghost. Maybe it was the fact that there was a slight echo distorting the words. Michael didn't care; he had never actually thought about how much he wanted to speak to Gavin before now.
"I had an idea after you had Ray over," the disembodied voice continued. "He couldn't feel when I was there. You could. The more time we spent together the more you can... kinda see me without seeing me, right?"
"See you without seeing you?" Michael raised an eyebrow.
"I mean," Gavin sounded somewhat experated, "the more you're here the more you might be able to interact... with me?"
"Like hearing or seeing you and shit?"
"I'm nodding."
"So that's why I can hear you now?"
"I think it's easier for you at midnight. I mean, I'm basically talking to you all the time, but you couldn't hear me before now. Midnight's the spooky hour, right? Science."
"Alright." Michael paused for a moment. What were you supposed to say in a situration like that? "So... How are things going for you?"
"I don't know what to do to stop being a ghost, if that's what you're asking. I just know that I feel very..."
"Please don't say angry or vengeful or anything now-"
"Unfulfilled."
"Unfulfilled?" Michael inquired, pulling up his feet so he was sitting crosslegged on the couch. "Also, can you please say where you are so I can be looking in the right direction while we talk?"
"I'm floating over the other end of the couch."
Michael adjusted himself accodingly. He still couldn't see anything, but he supposed it made things a bit more normal for Gavin.
"But yeah," Gavin continued, "Unfulfilled. Like, I guess it's because I died young. Still had a thousand things left to do."
"Sucks. At least now you can talk about it, right?" Michael fumbled for the remote between the pillows on the couch. "It'll be a bit more like having an actual room mate."
Just as he said those words, the television turned on by itself, flickering through a myriad of wierd colours before setteling on a news channel, blaring at full volume. When the sudden sound caued him to startle, Micheal heard laugher right behind his ear. He joined in, realizing that he must have been looking like a scared cat. As Gavin lowered the volume, Michael heard him speak again. "Wanna watch a movie or something?"
"Sure." Michael knew that it wasn't his best idea ever, but he could take it easy tomorrow at work if he had to. An opputunity to... maybe understand Gavin a little better was worth pursuing.
Michael had several habits.
He had lunch in the same places, greeted Geoff in the same way, went down every get-away route he knew in his mind whenever he got behind a steering wheel.
Now Gavin was a habit too.
Michael figured he had what amounted to the wierdest long-short-distance relationship as he waited to hear the voice of the person he lived with. Gavin liked talking - the ghost could chat for hours, but he only had the one, treacherously short midnight hour.
So Michael stayed up.
"I'm not saying it's wierd but - actually, yes, that's exactly what I'm saying, but hear me out - you should spend a little less time with that ghost of yours." Ray pulled his jacket tighter around him and shuddered in the harsh wind. He and Michael were standing on the busy street outside Michael's apartment building, having been just about to part ways when Ray made the small comment.
"I'm fine," Michael retorted.
"You've got black circles under your eyes. They're real bad." Ray shook his head. "The pot and the kettle and all, but you shouldn't stay up that late all the time. Have you been asleep before two at night anytime in this week?”
"...Maybe?"
"Why do you even care that much about the thing?" Ray asked, experated.
"He's just..." Michael sighed, his breath visible for a brief moment before it dissapeared. "I don't know, Ray. Bad habit, I suppose."
"It's been days since you got a good night's sleep. This is an intervention!" Ray declared. He was smiling, but Michael knew that he was only partly joking.
"Sure," he said, nodding along. "Sure."
He patted Ray on the shoulder, saying his goodbyes and see-you-soons before heading back towards the white concrete complex. The stairways were as empty and cold as ever, his footsteps echoing as he walked up to his floor. He unlocked his door, opened it, took off his shows. Then he reflexively checked what had changed since he left.
This time, he found nothing major - only a few books that had been relocated from their shelves to the floor. Michael never read much anyway, so he was glad that at least someone found a use for them. He rubbed his eyes. His fingers had started doing that little nervous thing they did when he was tired or stressed, twitching as if constantly repeating the action of pressing a trigger. Ray had been right.
"Hey Gav. I'm back," he said, letting his heavy bag fall to the floor. He felt no precence immideatly. In fact, even as he moved further into his apartment, the ghost's aura felt very weak, almost nonexistent. Michael felt his heartbeat quicken just a bit, just enough to make him acutely aware of how worried he actually was. He walked through every room, trying to figure out where Gavin was the only way he could by himself, but felt nothing. What he did find was a note stuck on his bathroom door, the sight of it filling him with strange relief.
"Tonight," it read.
And nothing happened before then. Nothing moved around him. When he cooked dinner, the salt stayed put; when he ate, no notes made friendly - or rude - conversation with him. But he waited dutifully, if a bit annoyed and apprehensive, for the clock to strike midnight, after which he went into the bathroom.
The door opened slowly, creaking on its hinges. The room was dark with only a single, weak light above the mirror casting a pale glow over the tiles. As soon as he stepped in, Michael felt the prescence of the ghost, the feeling of someone there and all his hair standing up. Unsure what to do, he stood in front of the oval, fake-gold framed miror just staring at himself and then-
Then he stared at the person right behind him.
"Look at me," Gavin mouthed.
His face was lit up in a smile, not much different than how Michael had imagined it. His hair was wild, stained with - was that blood? He had a look in his eyes that Michael wouldn't call crazed, but not exactly sane either, but it suited the kind of guy who had managed to kill himself in so gory a fashion that Michael still avoided looking behind his fridge. Static electricity flared up, sending Michael's hair standing and his fingertips prickling as Gavin moved closer, reaching out...
His hand went through Michael's chest. Michael saw it in the mirror first, then he looked down and saw nothing - then he looked back at the mirror where translucent, but visible fingers were poking through his ribs. Gavin was visible only in the mirror, he realized, there was still a barrier between them. But what he said was, "Holy shit, Gavin."
Gavin wriggled his fingers, but the most surreal part for Michael was how he couldn't feel a thing even though his common sense told him that someone sticking their hand through his ribcage had to hurt somehow.
"I'm inside you, Michael," Gavin giggled, his voice more still faint, barely loud enough that Michael could hear it.
"Shut up," he retorted, unable to tear his eyes away from the mirror. Slowly, Gavin withdrew the hand, removing it from Michael's body. Michael felt no change. "This is fucked up."
"It kinda is." Gavin chuckled, and Michael could see it now - could see the way he smiled, the way he covered his mouth with his hand. The way he bobbed up and down instead of floating fixed in place.
"I've never really thought about that you could have been touching me," Michael said. He placed both hands on the sink and leant forward. "You were always more of... just a voice."
"But I'm not."
"Yeah I get that now." For a moment, he was almost captivated by the image in the mirror, not because he found Gavin particularily attractive (okay, maybe a little bit) but because he found it strange to have a face to put to the name. Because he had a wierd cheeky smile and an aura of energy that Michael had missed. Then Michael shrugged and let his hand fall back into the pocket of his hoodie.
"So that is what you look like," he stated, mostly to himself, a mere afterthought.
"D'you like it?" Gavin asked. As he spoke, he floated an inch or so closer, bobbing happily up and down. "Or did you expect something different?"
"You look fine."
As to reply ot the statement, Gavin floated what amounted to a step backwards and, with a sound that Michael thought sounded like a bird being strangled, made a loop in the air. His feet passed straight through the shower curtain and his hair got ruffled to hell and back - Michael wondered how that worked, if ghosts could feel wind - but Gavin didn't seem to be bothered.
"You're really awfully happy," Michael said.
"It's just so nice getting attention for once. You probably just don't get it because you haven't been invisible for several months straight."
"And this might happen again?"
"Can't see why not. You know how to see me like this, now."
"Well, then I can't give you any more attention tonight, I'm afraid."
"Why?" Gavin sounded terribly dejected, and Michael could have sworn he saw him drop a few inches towards the floor.
"Despite what people say, sleep is for the living."
"Oh. I'll just hang out then."
Michael was almost willing to give in and stay up, but the fact was that his eyes were unfocusing, making it hard to see, and his eyelids felt too heavy. He yawned and slowly turned away from the mirror where he could still see Gavin staring back, then he was out of the bathroom where Gavin immediatly felt a little further away.
The bedroom was dark except for the occasional cone of light coming in from the street, and Michael cared for nothing but the beckoning shape of his bed. He threw his hoodie onto the laundry chair and pulled off his t-shirt, sending that flying in the same direction. Maybe it was a bit wierd knowing that Gavin - a guy – could see him at that moment. Could see him sleeping. But Michael knew he'd be lying to himself if he didn't admit that the thought might have comforted him once. Or twice. Not that he'd ever say that out loud. Leaving that train of thought, Michael made fists of his hands, marched to the bathroom and removed his mirror from its otherwise undisturbed place on the wall. The glass rattled in its frame as he carried it to his bedside where he placed it on the floor so that it was reclining against his nightstand, offering a clear view of the area above and around him. He sat down on the bed, satisfied with his handiwork.
Looking at the matted glass, he saw Gavin floating on the other side of the bed. He was glowing faintly in the low light. Michael dried off his palms on his pants, suddenly aware that the encounter in the bathroom had left him sweating. He didn't know why, only that it wasn't all fear or shock. It had never been, really.
Sometimes, when Michael caught glimpses of Gavin in the mirrors late at night, the ghost didn't seem to care that he was being watched. Michael thought that he stared as if he was trying to commit the shape of Michael's figure to memory. Or maybe it was something else he was trying to remember, it was impossible to tell. But his eyes would light up when he saw Michael looking at him. Michael would stare at that and then, when he couldn't keep his eyes open any more, he let himself fall into a dreamless sleep. With his eyes closed, there was nothing but a feeling in his gut to prove that there was someone in the room with him.
On one particular day, though tired as he was, Michael couldn't even manage to sleep for four hours straight. He woke around three-thirty in the morning where everything was still dull and dark. In the mirror, he could see the red glow of the alarm clock colour his face and bare shoulders. He could see Gavin over in the corner, leafing lazily through a book Michael had gotten as a gift years before and never read. Michael didn't make a sound except for the rustling of the sheets; he didn't do anything but look at Gavin, but that was all it took for the ghost to notice and to seek him out. Michael could see the soft glow of Gavin's form in the mirror, could see him sitting beside him (his legs were cutting into the bed like a strange video game glitch) and without words, Michael kept staring at the glass as he moved closer to Gavin. Even though he knew that it wouldn't work, Michael still reached out for Gavin's hand. He felt nothing, but he could see that Gavin reached out as well, and if he hadn't been a ghost, they would have been touching.
Michael wished that he could have felt it, could have felt heat and a physical something, but there was nothing but air.
There was just looking, not touching and no words at all.
Their hands rested on the stained comforter, Michael's fingers splayed out and Gavin's somewhere in between them. Michael could see Gavin looking at him like... like he was expecting something, some answer that Michael just didn't have. The only thing he really knew in that moment was that he needed to touch Gavin and he couldn't, and he couldn't do anything but run his hands through his hair and whisper that rule three was officially dead and buried.
The quiet felt like home.
That feeling stayed with him somewhere in his guts even when he was at work, even when he spoke to other people and his world was suddenly filled with sounds. He dropped a pen at Geoff's place sometime during the next day; he had stupidly expected it to float. The other four people chuckled and Michael went back to the task at hand quickly - he wondered if any of them knew how to remove the terrible stain by the fridge. He didn't know if he should ask Ryan, who had experience with removing those kinds of stains - no matter how much the thought of how he aquired that experience made Michael shudder - or maybe one of the others. Ray wouldn't need much explanation and Geoff had always been willing to lend Michael a hand, even with the more sketchy things he had been involved in. He jotted down a note to himself, the yellow paper making him strangely homesick.
When he was home, he brought his work with him. There were guns on the table, rags and oil and then suddenly - a breeze from nowhere coming around to make Michael stop fiddling with the pistol and grab a note written in that awful handwriting.
”What is your work really?”
”Various stuff,” Michael answered, leaning back. The chair's legs lifted off the ground. ”Not anything you'd like to know about.”
”You're a gangster.”
”That actually is a pretty cool way to put it. So, yeah, you can say that I guess.”
Michael picked up the barrel of his 9mm and started to wipe it clean, and he liked the idea of Gavin finding his job exciting. Of finding him exciting.
While he recieved no further notes, he felt a chill against his skin that didn't subside.
Sometimes there was a chill in his bones, too. He was waiting for something, but he didn't know what - for Geoff's plans? For himself to get his life in order? For Gavin?
For the midnight hour?
It rolled back around again, washing over the apartment - over Michael - in heavy waves, the undercurrent pulling him along. He saw weak light coming from his bedroom as if he was deep underwater, watching it filter down from somewhere else. He forgot to breathe. He remembered only when he found himself in the doorway into the bedroom where he saw the wisps of a ghost with his own eyes. Cloaked in silvery light. Close. No mirror seperated them; there was only him and Gavin and the apartment that had never felt both as full and as empty. Or maybe it was the promise of emptiness in the air, the possibility of it that Michael had stopped considering. Gavin moved closer, and Michael had the unique experience of feeling him more than seeing him. As if his eyes were not really involved in the process. Gavin smiled that broad smile that Michael had come to recognize as uniquely his, but there was also an aura of melancholy about him. Maybe it had always been there. Michael didn't know.
"I think I found it, Michael," Gavin said, placing a hand on Michael's shoulder. Still no weight or substance to it, nothing Michael could feel as he stared into Gavin's eyes. The wisps of an eye colour were still visible. Green.
"Found what?" Michael asked. He closed the door behind him; somehow, he felt this ought to be as private, as confined as possible. He took a step forward, and Gavin moved to the side, staying up close in his personal space anyway.
Gavin made a lap around Michael, who wondered how much of Gavin's time had been spent just flying around for the sake of it. "The thing that was keeping me here," the ghost said.
"Oh." The words sent a pang of pain up into Michael's stomach, but he refused to give it space. There was no reason for any shitty kind of self-loathing, not when the answer to the question of what-happens-after-death was before him and Gavin might be leaving. Maybe. A very big maybe. "What..." Michael began, but Gavin cut him off.
"You," he said, spreading his arms into the empty air. "You can see me. I needed to be seen. And I needed to get - " he averted his gaze, suddenly looking everywhere but Michael - "To get things I never had when I was alive. Like..."
"Are we talking about friends here?" MIchael offered, "You couldn't move on because of loneliness or what?"
Gavin shook his head and furrowed his brows. "No, not that. Love or something like that. Has to be 'cause I'm - I'm an asshole, but I just care about you and -" he took a deep breath, "I sometimes don't want to close my eyes because I want to look at you all the time. When you're angry or sad or happy I just feel like..." The last words came out slowly, as if they were improvised at the spot with great difficulty. "Like dying wasn't so bad at all."
Michael, taken aback by the confession, stood completely still. Then he looked down, finding it hard to meet Gavin's expectant gaze, saying, "Yeah. I know what you mean."
"You admit you're an asshole?"
"Don't ruin the moment." Michael let the ghost move in and give him a precarious almost-kiss, and for a moment, he could have sworn that he could feel skin under his fingers and lips against his own. He never wanted to leave that moment. Closed his eyes and saw the silver light shine through his eyelids. When Gavin pulled away, Michael couldn't stop looking at his goddamn face, just looking. He felt like he might never see him like that again and he wanted to remember how it was to not rely on mirrors or pictures. Besides, a picture would never be able to capture the exact look in his eyes or any of the million other things that Michael was noticing all at once.
Finally pulling away, he walked to his bed and sat down, feeling it creak beneath him. Gavin looked like he didn't know what to do with himself, still getting used to have a body that Michael could (barely) see. When Michael called him over - "Come here, Boo" - he seemed positively relieved at joining him.
"Are you going to be leaving, then?" Michael asked before adding, "Can you control it?"
"I dunno. I think I can, if I want to. I just feel like... I'm ready, you know?"
"It's wierd."
"Whats wierd?"
"The whole thing," Michael said. He leant back, staring up at the ceiling. "Falling in love with a dude who is also a ghost who is fucking off to heaven all of a sudden."
"You should write a book about it. Twilight sold."
"Yeah, hell no. Fuck Twilight." Michael shook his head. "Besides, you're mine. Not anybody else's. I'm the only one who can see and hear you."
"Think it'll become too quiet when... if I leave?"
"I guess. But it's okay. I'm not an expert on the afterlife. I... really don't know what to say."
"I've a feeling that me being around isn't healthy for you."
"Shut up," Michael said, punching Gavin playfully and ending up with his fist flying straight through his shoulder and out the other side. "Just... shut up."
With a startlingly loud noise the curtains were suddenly drawn aside as if by a gust of wind, the windows opening at the same time. A chorus of cars and fragments of speech came up from the street, but above the lights visible down there, Michael could see the night sky.
"Idiot," he grumbled, "You can't see the stars in the middle of the city."
"I can," Gavin said matter-of-factly, and Michael looked at his eyes and saw that they had become a cloudy, grey colour. He didn't doubt it.
Michael exhaled and saw his breath become a little cloud of mist. Saw it dissipate. "Stay," he whispered.
Then he saw Gavin lifting off the bed and throwing himself into loops - something Michael figured he was quite fond of. Gavin's smile was not as much on his mouth as in his eyes when he suddenly stopped while upside-down, giving Michael another little peck on the lips. He didn't sit down on the bed again.
He kept floating around, up and down and around Michael, horizontal one moment and vertical the next. It looked like he was in his element, Michael supposed. He slid down on the floor where he sat, crosslegged, and watched Gavin. As the ghost's voice grew fainter and as he faded away from view, Michael could still hear him saying "I love you," and "Michael, my Michael," and each time, he answered in turn until there was nothing left to answer.
MIchael sat in the dark, not moving for what felt like an eternity before checking the time on his phone. 02:14. A different, lifeless white light.
"That's the last of it," Ryan exclaimed, wiping sweat off of his brow and taking a step back to admire the now-clean spot on the carpet. He answered Michael's highfive and put down his bottle of cleaning agent before continuing. "That was quite a mess you had there."
"Mhm," Michael answered.
"What'd you do?"
"I didn't do anything," Michael said. "It was the previous owner."
”Sure you didn't,” Ryan said, but Michael could tell he was half joking.
”Want something to drink? I've got regular and diet coke... Or do you want something stronger?”
”Nah. I've got work to do.” Ryan rolled his shoulders. ”Speaking of... work, are you sure you're up for the job tonight?”
”You're worried?”
”I just don't want you to suddenly get nerves in the middle of everything or fall asleep behind the wheel is all.”
”Don't worry.” Michael threw Ryan a can of coke and sat down on the counter as he watched the other man pour away the last of the rust-coloured water. ”I'm awake, I'm pumped, we're gonna get a lot of cash – Hell, we've got a actual realistic plan. That's new.”
”To the best gang in Los Santos,” Ryan said, raising his coke for a toast.
”To dying young,” Michael replied.
”Where'd that come from?”
Michael drank and put the can down on the empty table.
”I don't know,” he said, shrugging. ”I don't know.”