Chapter Text
Finally, Lance had made it into the notorious Garrison high school. Why was this school important? It was a one-way ticket into flight school. Lance had always wanted to fly, and with the Garrison being so desperate for students he had a great chance at getting in. Once you finish Garrison High, you could be moved to The Galaxy Garrison where all the research and flight took place, granted the Galaxy Garrison was literally attached to the school. Basically the school gave you a certain amount off classes depending on your experience, Lance was lucky enough to have only 2 classes that were primarily about safety. Lance had wanted this forever, and to get were he was now he had to move from his comfy home to this really fucking old place with his sister. His sister only offered to move in with him because he wasn’t a legal adult yet, but Lance knew that she would be gone ninety percent of the time.
The house was beautiful and still somehow modern, as Lance could tell from the outside. It was a pale brown with tall doors and a nice spot for a garden. The back was big and tree filled with train tracks at the end of the property that intersected the road. As the door opened leading Lance and his sister inside they could both tell it had been a while since people had lived here. Who knew five years could make such an impact. Shelves where coated in a thin layer of dust as well as couch covers and cabinets. Lance was enthralled by the big kitchen that had the living room directly in front of it and the dining room to the side. A set of stairs led up to the bedrooms with a railing so you could view the large conjoined room that made up the majority of the first floor.
Lance was in awe and the amazing, and the rent wasn’t nearly as expensive as he had expected. The landlord really wanted to get this home off their hands.
“Melody!” Lance yelled from the upstairs over look, “This house is so nice! Do you see the sheer amount of space here? It’s amazing”
Melody laughed as her younger brother fawned over the place, “Less crowded then with mom for sure. You going to help me unpack or just stand there?” She found her way out the door again to presumably find the small amount of boxes that would need to be unpacked before the weekend was up, not that it really mattered because Lance had school tomorrow anyway. Lance watched as she exited the house before he explored the upstairs some more. Behind him there where two doors and an open doorframe. Through the doorframe Lance saw a small sitting room with a bunch of cabinets and junk in it. The behind the doors where bedrooms. The first one was bigger and second one had a bathroom connected to it; Lance picked the latter.
Unpacking was weird because Lance had to take the boxes out of the moving van, set them on the porch, then clean the house. Melody helped too, she was the one who had stated that there was way too much dirt and dust to live healthily there so it only made sense. Lance separated from his sister and opted to clean the upstairs first. The room that he had chosen was the smaller one with the conjoined bathroom. Back at home lance had to share a bathroom with all of his siblings, as well as his room with some of them, so he was really enjoying this home at the moment. Another yell from his sister reminded him to get to work and the two began to clean.
“Hey, Melody, how long do you think this home has been empty?” Lance asks as he meets up with his sister downstairs. He knew she had pretty much all the info there was on this house, but he doubted she remembered.
“Uh,” she started, “five years? The owner moved out after an incident happened, but I’m not sure what that incident was, apparently it wasn’t big enough to release to us.”
“That’s ok!” Lance chimed, “I was just wondering. This place is so cool I just don’t know how someone could leave such a nice place for so long.”
“It’s kind of in shambles Lance, “she laughed, “and you are just used to living in a small space with a million siblings. I bet that you would be just fine living in a one room apartment.”
Lance smiled at that, but quickly covered it up so she wouldn’t see. Instead he faked astonishment and complained that “he had standards” which resulted in a broom being thrown at him and a bunch of startled Spanish erupting from the younger sibling.
The house really wasn’t as bad as Melody has said, Lance figured out shortly. Most of it Melody had already cleaned, which Lance was very thankful for, and he had already mostly gotten the upstairs finished. Even with it not being so bad, weren’t houses supposed to be cleaned before they were sold? They were also probably supposed to fix all the broken stuff, but Melody said that the sink dripping was from it not being used for a long time.
The cleaning continued until around five in the evening when the siblings both opted that the house was safe to live in. Lance hauled his stuff up the stairs and sat it down in his chosen room. It had cleaned up quite nice, and the room looked more modern then it had post-cleaning. The bed was a simple twin bed that Lance could lay on without his feet hanging over the edge. There was a simple window with a window seat looking out on the backyard, basic dressers with a shallow book shelf above it. The bathroom was basic and had a mirror, some drawers, toilet and a stand in shower; the bathroom almost exactly resembled the bathroom back at home, but now Lance had it all to himself! To anyone else, they would probably think that the room is really not that big, but Lance was still in awe of all the space that was now “his”, and that Melody let him have it. At the same time, it made sense because Melody would be too busy working to stay in her room much. His older sister, always trying to put others before herself; also if she had taken this room Lance probably would have fought her so that’s probably why she gave it up so easily.
Humming happily at his new room and excitement Lance pulls out his headphones and begins to un pack, happily humming along with his music. Storing all of his clothes, making the bed to the best of his ability, and putting his skin care products in the bathroom along with the small amount of makeup he owned for “emergencies”. Lance prided himself in having the best looking skin, and if something went wrong he had makeup to help. He tried to stay away from it though because make up clogs pores and he wants nothing to do with that if he doesn’t need it.
Returning from the bathroom, Lance was met with a weird sight; all of the drawers where open. Lance shook his head in disbelief, he was positive that he had closed them all! Even the ones he hadn’t put anything in were opened! He took a moment and plopped on the bed rubbing his eyes. What the fuck was that? He thought as he assessed the drawers. It didn’t make any sense… wait, what.
Lance’s eyes widened as a drawer slowly wiggled it’s way open and suddenly flew out of the dresser. Lance screeched and jumped up from the bed and down the stairs. He was horrendously freaked out, did stuff like that normally happen or? He looked for a moment looking for Melody, he couldn’t find her so he presumed that she was in her room, witch as the moment wasn’t very comforting. The clock read 12am.
Lance slept on the couch.
The sun streamed through the living room window, posing as a gentle alarm clock. The sky had few clouds despite one’s obscured vision by all the trees in the neighborhood. It was a beautiful day that anyone would have been happy to wake up to; Lance on the other hand was woken up by the screeching sound of his phone’s alarm from upstairs.
The teen scrambled off the couch in alarm and rushed up the stairs to silence the dreadful noise. He had almost entirely forgotten about the self-opening drawers until he reached the room to find them all closed. Was he just hallucinating? Was he hallucinating last night? Lance only became more confused when he realized that all of his bags and boxes where shoved from the middle of the floor to under the bed. Lance didn’t have time for this, he had already made the mistake of moving in to the house the day before classes, but now he had to deal with all of this freaky shit. Lance hoped he was just freaking out; if he wasn’t then he must be high on something. Maybe the guys who lived here before him smoked fucking space mushrooms or some shit and the stuff stuck around for five years. Yea, it was completely outrageous, but Lance needed something to calm himself with.
Despite the strange room, the morning went relatively smoothly. Melody had left to go to some job interviews and Lance had somehow made it on the bus. He really needed to invest in a car, that would make things so much easier. The Garrison was very big and could be easily mistaken for a very prestigious college. The campus was amazing with small statues of planes all over, there was a separate building for dorm rooms, and the main building was filled with classrooms. Connected to the building was a sky bridge that led to the flight simulators and flight hangers. Lance was loving it, his dream was right in front of him.
He would first start off with two classes on flight training and safety and all that stuff, it was required for newbies to make sure they actually knew what they were getting into. After those classes semesters were over he would go into actual flight simulators! Lance could hardly contain his excitement as he walked into the first class.
He was met with rows of tables and a teacher with a bizarre mustache that was orange just like his hair, he seemed to be around fifty, maybe less, but Lance didn’t have the patience to analyze, and there really wasn’t much more to see then what Lance got at a first glance. He sat down next to a large Samoan teen and behind a smaller person with round glasses; let the classes begin he thought to himself, smile never fading.
“Alright class! I am Coran Hieronymus Wimbleton Smythe, but you can call me Coran!” The mustached man announced from the front of the class. “I will be your teacher for quite a while, so try to stay on my good side, which is my left.” He joked, twirling his moustache. Lance was beginning to like the guy, he didn’t seem very strict and had more of a playful attitude. He looked like the kind of guy to work at Starbucks and try to get you to buy one of those fancy ass Frappuccino’s, and succeed.
He continued on into the actual class info while adding some fun comments about his past witch really broke the strict atmosphere that most students expected. Soon enough the class was over and there was an hour break between the classes two classes that the students would have. Coran passed out papers that gave the over view off assignments along with additional information for reference. A lot of the students where chilling in the classroom while others went off to find their friends or vending machines.
Just as Lance was going to get out of his seat to go find some food, the round glasses kid spun around in their seat facing Lance and the larger guy next to him.
“Hi!” The kid chirped, “My name is Katie, but everyone calls me Pidge because I hate my original name and if you ever call me that I will turn you in for abuse. Might as well get to know each other while we have the same class for the next however long.” Lance smiled at the boy, girl? He was actually really unsure and was kind of intimidated, but that didn’t stop him from responding. “Hey I’m Lance, everyone calls me sharpshooter.” He states as he places his hand under his chin with his finger and his thumb in the shape of an L. The Samoan next to him casually introduces himself as Hunk witch Lance finds adorable. Pidge looks back over at Lance and gives a frown.
“You’re a lesbian?”
“What??” Lance screeches, “No! Where did that come from?” He questions, confused on how the child in front of him got “Lesbian” out of “Sharpshooter”. Pidge gives a confused look, and then just laughs and quickly says never mind after realizing something that Lance still didn’t understand. That Hunk guy also seemed mildly confused, but less then Lance was.
Lance quickly turns to Hunk and smiles, “Hey, Hunk. You, me, best bros? What do you say? We could make a good team?” Lance jokes as Hunk was even more confused from what Lance could see, but he seemed to quickly realize Lance’s plan to exclude Pidge. “How old are you anyway?” Lance questions Hunk, “Because I’m seventeen, I don’t think that you are twenty-five, but if you are that’s cool.” Hunk laughs again, “Same bro, I’m seventeen.” Lance could see Pidge’s stares as the two high five out of victory for being the same age, it really wasn’t a big deal, it was just fun. Also they had known each other for less than five minutes so they might as well get to know the other.
“Well,” Pidge finally piped up, “I’m fourteen so does that make me smarter then you two?” Lance’s jaw dropped. “How do you get in at fourteen? How is that even possible? You are like, a fetus!”
“Yeah!” Hunk agrees, “It took forever for me to get here, how did you get in so young?”
“Actually I was going to try and get in at thirteen, but they wouldn’t allow me so this year I hacked into the system, changed my name and gender, made an entrance letter and health record for the systems and made it seem like this new kid had been in the system the entire time. It worked, there was nothing wrong with my info, but I was caught in the office and I was basically kicked out. If it wasn’t for my dad I would probably be in Juvie. “Pidge explained with a sigh, “It was such a good plan too.” He mumbled.
“Wait, who is your dad then?” Hunk questions.
“Sam Holt.”
“Hunk, we have the child of one of the smartest men on earth and they could probably rewrite our entire history.” Lance whispered.
“So… what do we do?”
“Befriend him! Or her…them?” Lance got lost and realized he had no clue what the gender was of this child. Looking up at Pidge expectantly he got a smirk in return.
“Science.”
“That doesn’t help!!”
Lance quickly finds out that these people where really cool. Hunk was the same age as him, a mechanic, and a chef. Those are the only things Lance wants in a best bro, he also seemed super cuddly witch was a plus, if Lance somehow ended up single at forty then he was going to marry Hunk. Pidge was an unidentified super computer which could come in handy. What was even better was that they were all in the next class together as well! That seemed to surprise everyone but Pidge, who casually stated that he had already known. He had also revealed that he was, in fact, a male which was great for Lance because he didn’t think he could identify a child as science with a straight face.
This class was run by a younger, but very well built man of the name Takashi Shirogone. Aka, the fucking pride of Garrison. Lance pretty much swooned when he walked through the door and Pidge looked so unimpressed. He was more on par with what students expected from the classes. He was serious, but in a non-threatening way. Lance’s first thought was that he wanted Takashi to be his dad, Pidge quickly shuts him up though.
The day goes by great with Lance quickly adopting Hunk as his bro, and making fun of Pidge. Lance was mostly amazed at how they really had absolutely nothing in common, but still managed to work ok together. Not great, not good, but ok. The last thing they should probably be is a team when the actual flying commences; that might be a blood bath. Lance is typically all for friends working together, but they would end up destroying something. He is typically labeled as oblivious, obnoxious, not the brightest, the list goes on and on, but he is intelligent! How else did he get into this school? Lance knows he goofs around a lot, but he knows when a group won’t work well together. But hey! They could all be friends, hopefully.
“Ok, but did you see Takashi’s muscles? Like holy hell I would let him strangle me.” Lance rants as Hunk pretends not to listen. Pidge makes a face, “Seriously Lance? That’s a little kinky.”
“I could have been talking about his thighs, I bet those are even better.”
“Does anyone have brain bleach? I need a gallon to burn that image out of my mind.”
“Yeah, I think I need that too.” Hunk agrees. “Not to mention he’s like, way older then you.” Pidge gives a small laugh at that, “Only by thirteen years, I’m sure that’s not pedophilia.”
“Oh my god Pidge no!” Lance protests, “I can just except that fact that some men are very attractive, I don’t actually want him to strangle me! Plus, that would be murder.” Lance insists hoping that they wouldn’t see though his blatant lie. He wouldn’t want to die from it… Pidge piped up casually, “Oh I just assumed that you were into that.” Lance did everything he could to hide his red face, but his attempts where in vain for nothing got past Pidge.
The house was quiet as Lance arrived from the obnoxious bus ride, Melody was probably still out in town getting food and other necessities. Lance still felt a little uneasy after last night, but he told himself if anything weird happened again then the house was haunted. Having a haunted house wasn’t that bad, right? He was told that an incident happened here, but it wasn’t that important so no one was murdered; probably. He just kept his eyes peeled as he walked up the stairs and looked over the balcony to see if anything was out of place. If the ghost was a normal ghost then it would do anything to get the occupants out, Lance confirms with himself, if the ghost wanted them out then he would attack the obvious spots. So far the ghost has only been in my room… He looks over at his closed bedroom door. If anything was different, there was a ghost. If everything is fine, then he’s hallucinating. Cautiously he opens the door…
Holy fuck his room is haunted and he hates everything about this ghost.
Many of the drawers were placed on the shallow shelf above the dresser and scattered randomly about, the bed sheets had been removed and folded, all of his clothes where color coordinated and scattered around the room in random, neatly folded, piles; it doesn’t even stop there. His miscellaneous bag had been emptied and appeared to be in a state of distress as if one had tried to organize the shit in there and then completely gave up. The window seat was stacked with pillows and blankets shaped in some kind of throne along with the few books Lance had brought. Finally, to top off the insanity that was now his room, all of the Christmas lights that Lance and his sister had brought where hung from the ceiling in sweeping motions, which would have been cool if the rest of them weren’t wrapped around his fucking mattress.
“You have got to be kidding me.” Lance mumbles, dropping his bag on the ground and covering his face. After rubbing his eyes several times and confirming that he wasn’t just going crazy (again, it seemed to be a theme in the past forty-eight hours) he actually entered the room to assess any real damage. To his surprise nothing had been broken or damaged in any way. It didn’t seem like the ghost wanted him out, it just wanted to annoy him? Lance thought that ghosts only wanted things to themselves and never wanted to be bothered, but with the pillow throne on the window seat it seemed that it was just having fun. Really Lance was just salty about having to clean all of this up.
“Hey ghost person!” Lance shouts, “clearly you’ve got a problem with me, now I will try not to mess with you as long as you don’t throw a crazy stunt like this again.” He says as he points to the drawers and the light wrapped bed. “I’m totally fine with you sorting my clothes, but seriously this is just an asshole move.” Lance sighs as takes a moment to stare at the window seat throne. Out of all the ghosts that could have been in his house, the last one he wanted was an asshole. Now he doesn’t even have a valid reason to leave. It’s not like he can say, “Hey Melody let’s move out because there is a ghost who is a really big asshole who is haunting me.” It’s such a dumb statement, but its sadly accurate.
During Lance’s cleaning, he continued to glance over at the pillow throne in hopes of seeing any movement. Begrudgingly he never saw any movement making him think that the ghost had left the room. His thoughts were luckily interrupted as his phone starts flashing showing that he had a new notification.
Pidge has started a group chat with Lance and Hunk
Pidge named the group chat “Garrison failures”
Pidge: Sup nerds
Lance: if anyones the nerd its going to b u
Pidge: Apparently I am because I have the mentality to type out 2 letter words
Lance: rude
Hunk: we kind of all qualify as nerds since we are all going to garrison.
Pidge: Thank you hunk, that was what I was going for
Lance: no u wernt
Pidge: I will fight you lance jesus
Hunk: For a bunch of nerds, none of you guys seem to remember how sentences work.
Hunk: I’m going to buy you guys a dictionary.
Lance: thnx pigee really needs it
Pidge has changed the group chat name to “Y’all need jesus and a dictionary”
Hunk: accurate
Lance smiled at his screen as Hunk and Pidge began talking about their history with English classes. It was a random topic for a bunch of trainee piolets to be talking about, but it worked with the three of them. He sat his phone down on the floor and listened to the buzz of messages come though as he detangles the Christmas lights wrapped around his mattress. They were wounded around the mattress and bed frame causing the whole situation to be just a little easier. He pulled the bed away from the wall and began unraveling.
Pigeon: I know two languages! Of course one of them isn’t orally spoken but who cares
HunkOfSunshine: That’s cool.
HunkOFSunshine: what language is not orally spoken?
Sharpshooter: Nice name changes
Pigeon: They are accurate
Sharpshooter: Do you guys believe in ghosts?
HunkOfSunshine: YEs
Pigeon: Hellz no
Sharpshooter: Well I think my house is haunted.
Pigeon: I swear if your sink is leaking im going to cry.
Sharpshooter: Well its not only that
Sharpshooter: it messes with my stuff
Pigeon: you sure u arnt messing with your stuff?
Sharpshooter: Why r u like this
Pigeon: im skeptical of u
Pigeon: why u lie
HunkOfSunshine: Ok what even pidge? Also ghosts are freaky can we stop talking about them?
Sharpshooter: Why do u not believe me?
Pigeon: s c e p t I c a l
Sharpshooter: I hate you
HunkOfSunshine: don’t insult the child
Pigeon: R U d e lance
By this time the room had been restored to somewhat normal ways. The ghost had actually done a lot of Lance’s work for him. All of his clothes where folded, he had some neat decorations going on due to the lights he didn’t take down. It wasn’t so bad, but lastly Lance needed to dismantle the throne that he had yet to touch. It may have been all of his stuff thrown half hazardly into a vague shape of a chair, but he still felt uneasy about touching it.
As quick as he could he snatched a pillow from it and waited….
Nothing happened.
That was enough validation for Lance to know that the ghost was no longer there or going to hurt him if he moved the stuff. The day had been chaotic and tiring and Lance was very thankful when Melody came home with food. As he ate he wondered, who was haunting him and why did it not want him gone?