Chapter Text
“Well you’re not the people I imagined I’d be hiding a body with. Except you Sash.” Tim was the first one to recover from the shock. The expression on his face betrayed the fact he was feeling bad, but wanted to cover it up with humor.
Jon realized that knowing he died in the portal was very different than seeing the proof. Martin was looking at him, a desperate sort of mix of fear and sadness in his eyes.
Jon slowly descended down the stairs, inching closer to the goddamned portal. There was a corpse lying in front of it. He crossed the lab slowly, feeling like his whole existence moved a few inches to the left for the second time that day. He stopped a few paces in front of it.
Seeing his own dead body was such a surreal experience.
He expected it to look more… damaged. Thousands upon million volts of electricity traveling through him should’ve left more of a sign. The body should’ve been charred and blackened, destroyed beyond recognition. It wasn't. In fact, the body looked practically pristine.
The only sign of a cause of death was a thin burned wound, arching from the hand he pressed the “ON” button with to his left cheek. It was shaped like lightning - a lichtenberg figure. He remembered seeing a picture of a scar like that somewhere.
The body didn't look any different from Jon, except for the fact that it was clearly, very obviously dead. Already prominent eye bags became even more visible, the sunken sockets casting deep shadows on its face. Jon flinched away in shock. The strange fascination that overcame him disappeared at once.
He heard footsteps behind him. It was Sasha. He spotted a flash of her yellow shirt out of the corner of his eye, and… he could feel her body heat, a stark warmth next to the cold aura radiating off of him. Jon already had poor circulation before, but now, with his newfound ghostliness, completely lacked any body heat.
“I guess we’re gonna have to hide it now, huh?” Sasha commented grimly.
“It looks like it.” Jon replied.
The whole situation felt like a fever dream. The lab, lit up by the toxic radiation-green mesmerizing swirls of the portal, him - a ghost and stuck with 3 people he barely knew.
Putting that out of his mind, he started to formulate a plan. FentonWorks was located on the edge of the suburbs, an abandoned back road just on the other side of the backyard fence. Just across it - corn fields and a forest. Jon figured it would be an okay place to bury a body.
Martin piped up from somewhere behind him.
“We need a tarp. Shovels, too.”
Seeing the rest of the group's stares, he shrugged defensively and nervously tacked on.
“What? Fanfiction takes you to weird places, okay?”
Tim cackled. The change in mood was welcome. Definitely would make all of this easier for them to repress in the future. At least no one was crying. (Yet.)
Jon turned around, looking for a tarp. He was positive his parents had one of those in the laboratory among all of the other bizzare things they kept in the basement.
“Right. Sure. There should be a tarp somewhere around here.”
The others took it as a sign to start looking. After turning the entire basement upside down for a few minutes, Tim emerged from one of the corners of the room, a large sheet of dark plastic held triumphantly over his head. He fiddled with it, finally flicking it open and waving it to get it to fully spread out.
Then came the next problem.
“Sorry Jon, but I don't really want to touch a dead body with my hands.. Gloves or no gloves.” Sasha remarked, a packet of blue rubber medical gloves held loosely in her hands. She decided the whole group should put them on so they wouldn't leave any fingerprints around.
And yeah, Jon could understand that, he really didn't want to touch it too, but kicking it onto the tarp didn't feel right. It seemed kind of like desecrating the corpse. With a huff, crossed his arms, aiming to postpone his reply.
He didn't have to though, because as soon as he opened his mouth, the corpse jolted. Kon jumped into the air, fully prepared to start screaming his head off about zombies (because those wouldn't be the weirdest things to happen to him today,) when Martin emerged from where he was crouched behind the body. He laughed at Jon’s reaction, small giggles turning into full blown cry-laughing, wiping invisible tears from under his glasses. His laughter doubled in intensity when Jon scowled at him.
“Sorry, sorry- it’s just that-” Another loud cackle rang out. “You looked like you were about to lecture her, Jon, so I wanted to get it over with.”
Deciding not to give Martin an answer, Jon wordlessly grabbed the edge of the tarp. He tugged once, twice, and stubbornly not relenting, thrice. The body, now wrapped up in the plastic, didn't budge. Deciding to show mercy towards him, Martin scooted up next to him to help.
Tim, who was too busy giggling to help before approached the group, two shovels grasped in his hands.
“Here you go buddy.” He said, while he handed one of the shovels to Jon. Sasha took the other shovel and Tim, now shovel-less, grabbed the tarp from the side opposite to Martin.
The final ensemble looked like this. Jon, at the front, on the lookout for Jazz, shovel clutched nervously in hand. Martin, holding the bagged body from one side and Tim, holding it by the feet. The parade was concluded by Sasha with another shovel.
Jon turned around, pressing a finger to his lips and then mimed zipping his mouth shut.
“No talking.” He whisper-shouted. “Jazz thinks we’re still in my room. She’s probably in hers, or she went out, but either way, stay quiet.”
“Sir, yes, sir!” Tim saluted, almost dropping the body in the process. The action was punctuated by Jon hiding his face in his hands with a smack and barely avoiding hitting his forehead on the handle.
The teens shuffled out of the door to the lab and walked out into the kitchen. Even after years of living in the house, Jon still couldn't comprehend why his parents thought it would be a good idea to put the lab entrance in the same place food is stored.
“The back door is next to the stairs.” Jon told the rest of the group.
Tim gaped. “You wanna bury it in the backyard?!”
“What? No! Are you out of your mind!? We’re sneaking out!”
“But… won't people see us?”
“That’s why we’re going over the fence. The suburbs end there, it’s just fields and the forest.”
“Ohhhh, okay.” Tim shot him a shit-eating grin. Jon just realized Tim might've been messing with him.
The quartet slipped through the door with only minimal noise (“Didn't you hear what I said?! Quiet!”). When Jon stopped to make sure there was no one looking out of the nearby windows, the group followed.
However,as soon as they got the all-clear, another problem followed. The fence was tall. Incredibly tall. The white stained wood planks rose over Jon’s head, ending nearly at eye level. Even though the rest of the teens were taller than him, Martin especially, there was absolutely no way they could climb over it, the corpse notwithstanding.
“Guys… I don't think we’ll be able to climb over this.” Martin motioned at the fence with a small frown.
“Okay wait here Marto, I have an idea!” Tim waggled his finger and ran off to the garden shed. “Maybe I can find a… chair or something!”
Sasha dropped her shovel and jumped to take the tarp, which was suddenly lacking support, with a yelp. After a few minutes of rifling through the shed, Tim emerged with a chair in hand and slightly singed hair.
“I got it guys!” He shouted.
Sasha threw a shoe at him. It hit his shoulder with a dull thump.
“Quiet!”
“Yep, yeah, sure, ok!” Tim nodded vigorously.
Once Sasha got her shoe back, the group scrambled over the fence, almost dropping the body in the process. They found themselves on an abandoned dirt road. The packed dirt coated his boots and, recently kicked up by the group.
The air smelled of ozone, the smell of a storm brewing. Jon noticed the sky was overcast, but it didn't seem like it would rain. In fact, the late summer air was surprisingly warm, cut through with only a slight breeze.
They stood just in front of a corn field, patches of soy and wheat rising out from behind it. Tim and Martin were already walking through it, the former idly chatting with Sasha, something about school gossip.
Jon followed them quietly, wrapping his brown sweater around himself, the act more for his comfort than anything else, especially because he didn't feel much of the cold anymore.
After ten or so minutes of walking, they emerged out of the fields into the meadow. The wind whistled through the blades of tall grass, a few straggling wild flowers popping through the dried green, angling their faded, colorful heads towards the setting sun. A horde of fireflies floated between them, their dim lights shining in the oncoming dusk like a hundred of tiny stars.
Looking at them closer however, Jon noticed that a few of the floating lights seemed to shine almost green or blue. Were those ghosts too? The will-o’-the-wisps added an eerie atmosphere to the already grim occasion.
For some unknown reason, Jon used to think about his own death a lot, as a child. He didn't know why exactly that was. Maybe his birth parents death's impacted him more than he realized? Or maybe it was an effect of the unrestricted books he read, a lot of them frequently being very dark.
Either way, he never thought his funeral (if whatever was happening could be called one) would look like this. He imagined rain coming down in heavy sheets, an overcast sky and a group of people clad in black, raising the monochromatic umbrellas into the sky like a flock of ravens.
He knew there wouldn't be a big crowd. He was always aware he wasn't a very sociable person, and people noticed.
Though he didn’t expect it to look like this. Buried secretly in the forest by himself and a few practically-strangers.
At least it was nice outside today.
Jon led the group deeper into the forest. They veered through the trees, Jon trekking over dry leaves and roots, sticking out of the ground like petrified snakes.
Eventually, they arrived at a copse of trees. The clearing was covered in bushy and bright grass, with thin trees sticking out of the ground. Despite how late in the year it was, the leaves were still lush.
Jazz and him used to come here a lot, a few years ago.
She started taking Jon there oh… somewhere around May? when he was 11 and she was 13. Both of them could leave the house and disappear for hours at a time at that age. (Not that they couldn't do that before, but now they did not have to bear the weird looks aimed at an 8 year old and a 10 year old walking around town by themselves.)
That afternoon their parents were arguing again. Some sort of stupid spat about miscalculations on the portal or something like that. Jon couldn't exactly remember anymore. In an effort to get him out of the house, his big sister told him to get a book and took him to this clearing.
The forest was not a popular place for walks. Small towns tend to be very superstitious, and Amity Park was no exception. Jon had his suspicions that was one of the reasons his parents decided to move here to work on the portal. The town had many legends and one of them was the rumor that the woods were haunted.
It was said that there was a serial killer in town in the late 80’s. (That part was actually true. Jon went on a rabbit hole deep dive when he first heard about it.) The killer supposedly hid their earlier victims in either these woods or the dark corners of the town park, but no one was sure which of the two places it truly was, so the townsfolk largely avoided both.
That meant no one would find the body and no one would show up while they were hiding it.
“Okay. We’re here.”
Jon pointed at a big tree sprawled in the middle of the clearing. He still remembered reading books together with Jazz there.
“I want to be buried there.”
Sasha nodded. Martin and Tim set the body down nearby and leaned against the trees. Tim plopped down onto the ground, groaning.
“Oh my shit… I didn't know bodies weighed this much! Especially yours Jon! You’re built like a twig!”
Sasha excitedly launched into a lecture about rigor mortis while waving her shovel around.
Jon pried the top layer of dirt and grass off of the ground, setting it aside. Sasha joined him, giggling at Tim’s dramatic exhaustion.
“6 feet deep, right? Or should we go deeper? Sometimes, if a body isn't buried deep enough, it can rise to the surface after some time.”
“You know a lot about this.” Jon observed.
“Yeah, well, I always wanted to be an investigative journalist, you know, solving crimes and stuff, so I know a few things about hiding bodies.” Sasha was practically glowing with enthusiasm.
“That’s a terrifying answer, thank you!” Tim yelled from somewhere behind them. Jon just nodded in agreement.
Finally, after a few more comments from Tim, the hole was dug. Jon couldn't see over the edge from where he was standing inside it, and Sasha wasn't faring much better. Luckily, Tim and Martin stayed at the surface and helped them clamber out of it.
It was time to bury it. They unfurled the dark tarp like a burial shroud and each of them grabbed one corner of it. It was slowly lowered into the ground and then when they couldn't reach farther, they dropped the corpse into the ground with a resounding thump. A metaphorical final nail in the coffin, especially since Jon would never get one.
After covering the grave in dirt and topsoil salvaged from the surface, with grass still growing on it, the group all stepped back. To be truthful, this all still felt like some sort of weird dream to Jon.
Tim stepped forward.
“Look Jon… for what it’s worth, I’m really sorry for this. It was just meant to be a stupid dare, I didn't even think about how it could end. I really hope you can forgive me.” Tim’s eyes looked a bit misty. “Uh I hope your parents don't mind that I swiped a packet of seeds from the shed.”
He took something out of the pocket of his cargo shorts and showed it to Jon, who took it into his hands. White carnations.
“I thought we could plant them here.” Tim added, uncharacteristically nervous.
The idea seemed quite nice actually.
“Sure. I’d like that.”
Tim crouched down next to the grave, taking a surprising amount of care to not step on the rough area over the body. He dug a few small holes and dropped the seeds inside them. He covered them up and stood.
“Well,” Jon tried to take control of the group again. “Time to go back to FentonWorks.”
—
Dusk settled over Amity like a worn blanket. An early autumn chill snaked between the buildings. Four teenagers were sneaking back into the house.
After all the adrenaline started wearing off, Jon became aware of a sort of bone deep pain in his left arm, mingling with the expected exhaustion.
Jon has dealt with pain before. Since childhood he felt an aching in his joints, and since the only suggestion he got to get rid of it was “walk it off” he resigned himself to just live with it. He grew so used to it he barely even noticed it. But the pain in his arm was different.
It started in the centre of his left palm, snaking up his wrist, coiling on his shoulder and his neck and then down, across his back and side, encircling his hip and stopping just above his knee. He still felt the tingling sensation, along with an uncomfortable heat radiating off of it. Electrical burns.
He collapsed on the living room couch as soon as the group entered the room. In the process he felt his loose sweater slip off. Jon heard Martin gasp softly and rolled his eyes.
“Jon, are you okay? Those look serious!”
Martin fretted.
“I’ll be fine.”
“Nope! You’re getting patched up!” Tim emerged from the kitchen with a large first aid kit in hand. It was neon orange with a giant bright green lettering. He threw the first aid kit on the couch and winked at Martin.
Jon scoffed at Tim’s antics while Martin sat on the coffee table across from Jon. He gingerly took Jon’s hand and laid it on his lap before opening the overstuffed first aid kit.
“There should be some ecto-burn cream in there. Small green plastic container, no label, writing on the cap.” The cream was something his parents created to treat burns created by electrified ectoplasm, the injuries common enough in their house that the cream needed to be refilled every two months or so. It was mostly used by Jazz and Jon, since their parents had their HAZMAT suits and the house was stocked from head to toe by Fenton technology, which was often volatile.
Jon turned his head away to face the couch. He felt Martin’s hands traveling up and down his arm. Once the burns on Jon’s hand and forearm were covered in the cream, Martin tugged lightly on the sleeve of Jon’s t-shirt.
“Jon. Jon… um, the burns continue, up your arm. I can’t get to them.” Martin blushed, red as a tomato. “I think you should take off your shirt so I can dress the wounds properly.” He stammered out, clearly embarrassed.
Oh no. Luckily Jon had worn trans tape instead of a binder today (after Jazz decided his poor ribs needed a break), so maybe he could lie his way out of this? Who was he kidding, there was no way he could lie his way out of this one.
But Martin was queer, wasn't he? Or at least an ally. Jon spotted a rainbow pin on his backpack, so Martin would probably be okay with Jon being trans?
Jon’s frantic worrying was interrupted when he saw Martin scowling at Tim, who was winking at them both and slinking out of the kitchen, Sasha in tow.
Jon was once again glad his dark skin didn't betray blushing easily.
With a long-suffering sigh (to not betray exactly how nervous he was about the action), he slipped the shirt off of him, attempting not to aggravate the burns on his shoulder and back. He turned his face away from Martin, not wanting to see his expression. For being someone he just met today, he really didn't want Martin to judge me.
“Oh!” Martin’s surprised noise made Jon scrunch up his face, preparing for a comment from Martin.
“Oh, no Jon, I didn't mean it like that! I’m trans too!”
Jon whipped his head around in surprise. That was… nice to know. He smiled shyly, in spite of himself. Martin’s happy grin made something in his chest flutter. He begrudgingly smiled at Martin.
Already feeling more comfortable, Jon let Martin rub the burn cream on his injuries with no further comments, aside from a few pained hisses when Martin’s fingers brushed against a particularly painful spot. Martin delicately unrolled some bandages and wrapped them around Jon’s torso and left arm.
“Here you go.” Once finished, Martin smiled at Jon, who opened his mouth to say a thank you but was conveniently interrupted by Tim and Sasha walking back into the room.
“Okay gays,” Tim dragged out the ‘y’ in the word ‘okay’. “How about we hit the store now. I’m in the mood for some gas station pizza after this traumatic, harrowing, experience!” He dramatically swooned with a hand on his forehead, like a Victorian lady getting ready to faint.
“Did you know that the victorians did tend to faint a lot, but it wasn't from emotions - that was a literary trope and societal expectation. They actually fainted mostly from exposure to asbestos and mercury, which were everywhere back then.” Jon tended to things like that a lot. See something, associate it with a topic he went down a research rabbithole for and then say a fact out loud.
Jazz told him he was probably autistic.
He realized that was probably not an expected response to Tim’s comment when he saw the blank stares of everyone in the room, so he quickly swooped in to do damage control.
“Uhh. I said that because you were miming fainting like a lady, so I, uh… remembered something I heard somewhere.” Jon hoped that wasn’t too awkward.
“That’s actually really interesting Jon!” Sasha beamed.
It was nice to see people appreciating Jon’s knowledge for a change.
So, punctuated by Tim’s shouts of frozen pizza, Sasha and Jon’s conversation about the Victorian era and all the weird things they did, and Martin idle commentary, the group set off to the nearest convenience store.
The suburbs around FentonWorks were pretty standard, all in all. Really, the only weird thing about them was the fact a town as small as Amity would have them. They were built in the early 80s and very clearly showcased that.
But now, in the early evening lighting, they looked downright eerie. It seemed like something out of a show like Stranger Things. Jon was used to these views, living in the Amity Park suburbs for almost 6 years at this point, but the unique feeling of them still tickled at the part of his brain that liked vintage horror movies.
The streetlight had just started flickering on and the sky had turned a light purple. A group of girls, looking to be about ten years old, were sitting on the sidewalk of one of the houses. Their parents probably forced them to go outside and get off their phones, something that had not worked clearly, since the group was filming something.
The sidewalk was too thin for the four teenagers to walk side by side, so they relocated to the basically abandoned road. It was infrequently used by cars, and it was occupied mostly in the early mornings and late afternoons, so they had nothing to worry about.
It was oddly nice to spend time with people like this, Jon thought. Talking about things that interested all of them, the open atmosphere. Was this what having friends felt like? He didn't have much of an experience with actual friendships, but he read books and watched movies, and what was happening now seemed pretty close to it.
“Oh! How about we watch ghostbusters!” Tim asked. “I saw that old ass TV in your living room and thought ‘wow! This can probably play VHS!’ and wouldn't that be a vibe! Watching ghostbusters on VHS after practically confirming the existence of ghosts!” He paused. “Erm… that TV still works, right?”
Oh, yeah, the TV.
See, technology produced after 2005 tended to malfunction in the Fenton household, at least the ones in the lower levels of the house. Jazz learnt that the hard way when she brought her laptop downstairs to study and it started smoking and smelling weird. Something something, ecto-radiation or whatever caused the issues.
The TV in the living room was an old one, complete with a VCR. Luckily a lot of the movies Jon liked watching could be bought on VHS so he never really complained. And, while not something he’d ever reveal, he had a soft spot for old horror movies and analog horror, so the old tech was right up his alley.
“Yeah it does. But it’s only cable or VHS, so unless you want to watch Family Guy reruns we’ll have to watch something we already have on tape.” Jon remarked. They probably had ghostbusters, it’s just that his parents preferred more… violent ghost movies. Watching ‘The Conjuring’ at eight years old probably messed up Jon more than he’d like to admit.
“Okay, so maybe now that I think about it, watching Ghostbusters now might be sort of tasteless.” Tim admitted.
“A bit.”
Jon could see Martin failing to stifle a grin.
—
In the end, the group's spoils from the store ended up being a family pack of chips and popcorn, gummies shaped like ghosts, an energy drink each, two litre bottles of soda and two frozen pizzas.
Tim and Martin busied themselves microwaving, while Jon put the movie on and Sasha watched. They ended up agreeing to watch ‘Paranorman (2012)’. Jazz bought it for Jon soon after he was adopted and it became a comfort movie of a sort for him.
Tim paraded in holding one of the pizzas, Martin close behind.
“Let the pizza-ing begin!” Tim yelled, setting the food down on the coffee table and plopping down next to Sasha.
He raised his energy drink up to the ceiling in toast while the movie's opening scene played. The rest of the group followed, cans clinking together.
“Let's go Team Phantom!” Tim beamed.
“Team… Phantom?”
“Yeah! Phantom, as in ghost, and also…” Tim smirked slyly. “Fenton - Phantom. It rhymes!”
Jon groaned. “No puns, please…”
“Too late bossman!”
Sasha started laughing. Martin soon followed.
If one were to look into the living room windows of the Fenton home later that night, they would see a group of teenagers snuggled together, asleep, with movie credits rolling by and junk food sprawled all over the floor.