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crastlefolke · 2 years

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Fic I wrote for @crastle-duo 's ghost au :]

“So,” Alex hopped down off the tree branch “You’re inheriting this place?”

Scott skipped a rock over the lake, “Yeah, when uncle kicks the bucket.”

“I thought Stephen was getting it?”

Scott shrugged, “I did too. I don’t know what he did to get into uncle’s bad books but whatever it was must’ve been bad.”

“Worse than breaking an antique viking battle axe?” Alex’s stone hit the water at the wrong angle and bounced into a patch of reeds.

“Clearly, or he wouldn’t have put me back in his will.”

Alex’s smile dropped from her face. “Heads up, cousin alert.” she muttered, flicking her eyes towards the woods.

Scott turned to see Stephen strolling out of the trees, his ridiculous fur jacket making him easily recognisable.

“He looks like he’s wearing a dead sheep.” Alex murmured. Scott clamped a hand over his mouth to stifle a giggle.

“Something amusing, Scott?” Stephen asked pleasantly.

“Nah. What brings you out to the lake?”

“I was just wondering if you were coming to the new year’s party at the house? You can bring her if you like.” With that last remark Stephen tilted his head towards Alex, who snorted but said nothing.

“Yeah,” Scott kept his tone polite, “Got to make sure you don’t completely trash my inheritance.”

Stephen’s jaw clenched momentarily, “Wouldn’t dream of it Scotty. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a party to prepare for.”

He turned and headed back to the house. When he was safely out of earshot Alex muttered a string of curses at his back.

“Did you see his face? He is this close to calling me a peasant I swear-” Alex trailed off, waving her hands in frustration, “I’m glad you're getting the house if it means he has to move somewhere. You are gonna take the house, right?”

Scott shrugged, “It’s a big creepy house on the hill. I’ll take it but honestly I’m probably just gonna sell it right away.”

“Scared it’s actually haunted, huh?” Alex idly kicked a stone into the lake, startling a flock of geese.

“You joke, but that game show guy did actually die there,” Scott replied, “He’s the reason my family even has the house. Y’know according to my uncle you could hear marching at night, and swords clashing. He even swears he saw a woman in white.”

Alex shook her head, “Mate, it was the seventies. No one was completely sober in the seventies, especially not people who worked on game shows.”

“Alex, I doubt they would’ve let him operate the lights if he was drunk or high or whatever.”

“Oh, ghosts are real and roaming about Upper Islington, but your uncle drinking on the job is slightly too unbelievable?” Alex flicked a pebble at him, “I suppose the Fen Tiger is real too?”

Scott kicked the pebble back at her “Yeah. Totally real. And the Beast of Exmoor. And the ghost of that daddy-long-legs you brutally murdered with your sandal last summer.”

“That daddy-long-legs had it coming, flying at my head like that.”

“Islington’s resident bug murderer still unrepentant.”

“Local rich boy drowns in lake.” Alex mimicked, waving a reed at him.

��Woah hey-” Scott stumbled backwards towards the lake, “If I die then you won’t get to go to the party.”

“Oh I’m distraught-”

“And Stephen will get the house.”

“Oh. Oh God.”

Scott smirked, “Yeah. So you better make sure I survive at least the next few years or you’ll have to put up with Stephen lording over the village for the rest of your life.”

----

Scott hoisted himself up onto the window sill and closed the curtains, leaning his forehead against the cool glass pane. The music was making his head hurt and he was glad he’d only taken a few sips of his beer. He wondered distantly if it would be rude to leave despite only having arrived an hour ago.

He didn’t notice his companion till a stifled groan nearly made him fall back off the ledge. Sucking in a breath, he turned his head to see a man about his age wearing a military style uniform gazing weakly out the window, palms pressed against the glass. From his stoop and clenched jaw Scott could see he was clearly in pain.

He gave an awkward cough, “You alright mate?”

The man froze up, before turning his head in a similar fashion to Scott. He had faded blue eyes and a shock of blond hair, matted and dirty. Scott’s first thought was that despite his ragged appearance the man was incredibly handsome. His second thought was that he looked like he was about to be sick.

As if to prove him right the man suddenly doubled over, clutching his stomach.

“Here, uh- you look in bad shape,” Scott hopped down from the windowsill and held out an arm. “Look, I know my way around this place, there’s an unused servants bathroom if you’re well enough to move.”

The man groaned and nearly toppled off the ledge trying to get down. He didn't seem to be able to put any weight on his right leg, and Scott started to worry about how ill he really was.

“Listen, let’s get you to the bathroom, then you can lie down, alright?”

He hobbled over to the old servants corridor, trying to avoid the strange looks the crowd was giving him. To his dismay he saw Stephen approaching him with two cups in hand.

“Cousin! There you are!” Stephen clapped him on the shoulder and pressed a cup into his free hand, “You nearly missed out on the punch.”

Scott forced something resembling a grin onto his face, “Thanks,” he began, but Stephen had disappeared into the crowd.

The servants bathroom was blissfully quiet compared to the main hall. Carefully lifting up the toilet seat with one foot, he set his cup down on the sink and lowered the man to the floor.

“There you go, you’re alright.”

The man just clutched at his leg and gritted his teeth.

Scott’s level of anxiety was growing by the minute.“Look I’m gonna call someone okay? You’re gonna be fine.”

He reached for his phone only to remember that he’d left it in his jacket. His jacket, which was still on the windowsill.

“Shit,” he mumbled, “Um. Look I need to get my phone-”

“N-no,” A hand clamped around Scotts arm, “there’s nothing they can do for me,”

“What?”

Scott never got a response as the man curled up on the ground, a gasp of pain escaping through gritted teeth.

“Look, I should really call- oh Christ”

To his horror the man’s lower leg seemed to melt away, the trouser leg falling flat against the ground and the boot disappearing entirely. Staggering back against the sink, he watched with a terrified curiosity as the man sat up slowly, then hoisted himself to his feet- no, foot- against the radiator. He gave a gentle, shaky salute, then vanished.

Still gripping the sink, Scott stared blankly at the ground where the soldier had once been.

“Shit,” he mumbled, “shitshitshitshitshitshit”

Faintly he heard the grandfather clock start to chime. He took a shaky sip of punch. God knew he needed a drink after what he’d just seen. A ghost. A fucking ghost. An actual-

—--

“-he staying?”

“-y didnt he have his pen he always-”

“-uys I think he’s stayi-”

“-swear I told him to stay away from the punch-”

“-cant make up his mind this on-”

“-lot of allergies he always has his ep-”

“-elcome to hell, ki-”

Scott opened his eyes to see what looked like a historical recreation society in the midst of a creative disagreement staring intently at him, with smiles ranging from welcoming to wolfish. His opening question of what the fuck was interrupted by another, more professional question.

“He has a lot of allergies?”

“Yes, he’s usually scrupulously careful of what he eats and drinks, I don’t understand how this could have happened.”

“Stephen?” Scott called out, grateful to hear a familiar voice even if it was his prat of a cousin.

“And he knew not to drink the punch?” The woman was inspecting the cup he’d just been drinking from.

“I warned him that it contained several things he was allergic to when he arrived. I guess he got too drunk and forgot.”

“Liar,” Scott said, horrified. “I-I barely drank anything tonight- in fact you who gave me the punch, and you didn’t mention anything about my allergies-”

To his annoyance they both ignored him and left the bathroom. Scott followed them into the corridor, wondering what on earth was going on. He’d had an allergic reaction, that much he knew, but he felt fine now so he supposed someone had administered the epipen and this was a nurse called to make sure he was alright. There was another theory, of course, but he wasn’t going to think about it.

The corridor was filled with more uniformed people, nurses, he presumed, speaking with his cousin and other party-goers. None of them would look at him.

He went up to the nearest nurse, “Hi, sorry, what’s going on?” No response. “Did I have an allergic reaction?” Again, no response. He could feel the strange group in fancy dress staring at him.

“The hell are you looking at?” he snapped.

Wordlessly, the tallest of the group pointed over towards the end of the corridor, where someone appeared to be lying on a table, covered in a sheet. A funny feeling settled in Scott’s stomach.

“Sorry mate,” said another member, dressed like a viking.

“Sorry? Sorry for what-” Scott was trying very hard not to think about who was under the sheet.

“See for yourself. Go on.”

Scott forced himself to walk over to the table, meticulously walking around every person and object in his path. He ignored how a jacket being slung over someone's shoulders accidentally brushed through his arm. He ignored the gnawing feeling that something was very, very wrong. He ignored his apparent invisibility to everyone but the strange group. Halfway there, someone jogged the table accidentally and the sheet slipped a little, revealing a lock of cyan hair. The scraps of denial Scott had been clinging to vanished.

“I’m dead?” He wasn’t sure why he’d phrased it as a question.

The group looked at him with something like pity. Scott stared past them to where Stephen was talking with another uniformed person, an exaggerated expression of concern on his face.

“I’m dead because of him?” he spat.

“Yeah. He murdered you.” One of the ghosts pushed their way forwards through the group. “I saw him in the kitchen, he put something in your drink. It said “wale-noots” on the bag.”

The yellow-haired ghost frowned, “Walnuts, Bdubs, we’ve been over this. Common snack food in England since… hey where’re you going?”

Scott had stormed up the corridor, walking through people and furniture as if they weren’t there. He reached for Stephen’s shoulder, but of course his hand went right through.

“Fucking bastard,” he snarled, and to his surprise Stephen jumped, looking around nervously.

“If you wanted this place so bad you could’ve just asked-” Scott slammed his hand onto a table and for a brief moment there was contact, and a thud echoed down the corridor.

“Hey-” Scott turned to see another ghost, dressed in off-white robes, materialise through a chest of draws. “Calm down, my dude.”

The medieval clothes and accent combined with the distinctly un-medieval “my dude” was enough to stop Scott mid-rant.

“Calm down?” he hissed, “I just got murdered.”

“Man, me too!” The ghost said cheerily, “The name’s Ren, I got stabbed here- oh gosh it was seven centuries ago at least. They always send me to talk to the new murderees, y’know, on account that we have mutual trauma of- well, being murdered. Now, on a scale of one to ten, how would you rate your rage?”

“Eleven.” Scott snapped, and returned to trying to stab Stephen with a biro.

“Mhm. And do you think attempting to harm your murderer with a… pointy glass implement-”

“It’s plastic. It’s a pen.”

“Ah! Yes, Tango did explain these “pens” to me, although I gotta say this one looks different to what he described.”

Scott froze, “Tango as in the game show guy? Who died here in a mysterious fire?”

“Yeah, that’s me.” One of the other ghosts, with yellow-orange hair and red glasses, walked through a huddle of nurses. Now he could see him clearly Scott recognised him immediately as the host of the game show his uncle worked on. “You’ve heard of me as well?”

“Um- My uncle worked on Dare to Flare. Thomas Major. You left him the house?”

Tango smiled bitterly, “Yeah. Nice guy, bit down on his luck I figured seeing as he was working as a cameraman for a gameshow for what was honestly terrible pay. Should’ve left the whole show to him, he couldn’t have done any worse than-” He cut himself off, shaking his head, and walked away through the corridor wall.

Scott stared after him. “What’s up with him?”

Ren sighed “You know the guy who’s running the game show now? Or running it into the ground as Tango always says?”

Scott nodded.

“And you know how Tango died in a fire?”

Ren mimed lighting a cigarette. Scott gaped at him.

“You mean- the guy who set the fire now runs his game show?”

“The law enforcement never confirmed whether the fire was intentional or not, and us ghosts were out on the lawn playing football with my head so none of us know, but either way it still sucks for him. Especially as that dude seems to be doing a terrible job of hosting it.” Ren glanced conspicuously behind him, before adding “To tell you the truth my dude I can’t tell the difference. I think the humour is a bit ahead of my time.”

Scott stared at the other ghosts milling about the corridor, trying to appear inconspicuous despite very clearly eavesdropping. “What about them? How did they die?”

“Oh of course! I almost forgot, we usually do a welcoming party in the attic on the day the recently deceased was… well… deceased. We’ll all introduce ourselves, explain the weird circumstances of this house, add you to the chore roster, all kinds of fun stuff.” Ren disappeared through a flock of party guests, “Come on!”

Scott made one last futile attempt to pick up the pen, but to no avail. With resigned sigh he gave Stephen the finger and followed Ren through the corridor.

#hiii sam for some reason it wont let me @ you so im just hoping ur online when i post this #also i have never been to a party or lived in a big fancy house or died so apologies for any innaccuracies #and if anyone sees any grammatical errors no u didnt <3

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