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Rule number one of being a ghost: never talk about how you died. It’s much easier to pretend it never happened.
It’s much easier for Lance to use all of his ghostly power to manipulate the energy around him to play music. He’s practiced enough to play “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” by Whitney Houston perfectly, as if it’s playing on the stereo his parents sold before they moved.
Once he gets the song going, he slides across the hallway in the loose cropped jersey and blue sweatpants he’s stuck wearing for the rest of eternity.
Not that he minds. It’s the outfit he wore most when alive, anyway. Johnny Depp in Nightmare on Elm Street was his fashion icon.
He spins around on the wood floors of the abandoned house, hands in the air as he shakes his hips to the beat. If he closes his eyes, he can pretend that the house is as clean as it used to be and it’s still 1987.
But then the music cuts off, and Keith’s sad, whiny music starts to play. Lance groans.
“Keeeeeith,” he pouts. “Not ‘Wonderwall’ again.”
The dark-haired boy saunters out of Lance’s old bedroom in his own eternity outfit: ripped jeans, black shirt, leather jacket, and a red flannel tied around his waist.
When Lance first met him, the only thing about Keith’s look that was in any way stylish was his mullet. But now, he’s grown quite fond of his “grunge style” (Keith’s words, not Lance’s). It just…fits him.
“It’s the only song I know how to make play,” he says, and Lance keeps pouting. “And it’s my turn, you just played ‘Video Killed the Radio Star’ for the 782nd time.”
“Fine,” Lance sighs.
“Don’t have a cow, Lance,” Keith smirks, and Lance rolls his eyes. He’s always making fun of the stuff Lance says, but it doesn’t stop Lance from saying them. “Dance with me.”
“Eat my shorts, Kogane,” he says, sticking his tongue out. Still, he lets Keith place his hands on his bare waist, and he wraps his arms around Keith’s neck.
Resting his forehead on Keith’s shoulder, he says, “We need to get one of those new devices that can play any music that exists.”
“What’s that?” Keith whispers. They sway as the lead singer wails about how someone is gonna be the one that saves him.
“It’s like…a stereo but really small,” Lance murmurs into his shoulder. “Remember, those teenagers that tried to stay the night all had one?”
“Oh, yeah,” Keith says. “Not sure what that was.”
Lance lifts his head. “Either way, we need one.”
“I’ve been trying to figure out how to get a pop song to play for you,” Keith says, adjusting his hands on Lance’s waist. The cool thing about being a ghost is that no one’s hands get sweaty.
“Like a ‘90s pop song?” Lance’s eyes widen, and Keith nods.
Just like that, “Wonderwall” stops playing, and Keith’s brows furrow as he tries to play whatever song he’s thinking of. Lance wonders if he’s heard it before – sometimes he’d hear the radio playing out of cars passing by the house.
“It’s not perfect, and I can’t play the whole thing,” Keith says, and then there’s some girl’s laughter, and his eyebrows perk up.
Yo, I’ll tell you what I want, what I really, really want.
Lance stares at Keith, stunned. He’s never heard this. Keith grabs both of Lance’s hands from around his neck and mouths along to the words as they both dance.
Abruptly, he pulls Lance into a spin. They trip over each other’s feet and topple onto the floor together. The song stops, and now they’re the ones laughing.
“What was that?” A frightened voice says from downstairs.
“It was probably just the pipes, Ryan,” Another voice says, much more chill.
“Oh god, not another amateur ghost hunter,” Keith giggles into Lance’s neck as they lie in a tangled heap on the floor. “Shall we mess with them?”
Keith stands, and Lance takes his hand. “We shall.”
The two descend the stairs, both making sure to press their feet down hard on the creaky step. Two boys are sat on the couch with a whole camera crew in front of them, and one of them jumps.
“Oh, Jesus Christ,” he says. It’s the one that was frightened by them falling before. The more chill one laughs at him. “Let’s start filming before I have a heart attack.”
The camera starts rolling, Lance assumes, as a red light turns on and the scardy-cat composes himself.
“This week on Buzzfeed Unsolved,” he says, and Keith turns to Lance, mouthing ‘B-buzzfeed?’ Lance shrugs. “We investigate the McClain House in San Antonio, Texas, as part of our ongoing investigation into the question ‘Are ghosts real?’”
“We exist,” Lance whispers, just as the chill guy shakes his head.
Scardy-cat snaps his head toward his co-star. “Did you hear that? I swear I just heard someone whisper something.”
The chill guy chuckles. “You’re really paranoid today, aren’t you, Ryan?”
Ryan takes a deep breath, shaking it off, and goes back on script.
“This house is known to be extremely paranormally active,” he says. “It seems to be a popular spot for ghosts to inhabit, most likely because it has been abandoned ever since…"
No. No no no.
"...the 1987 murder of the McClains’s openly bisexual son, Lan—”
Lance bolts up the stairs before he can hear the rest of his name, not caring how many times the steps creak. He sits on his old bed, sheets tattered and bitten through by bugs, covering his ears with his hands and closing his eyes.
Keith sits beside him and says something before resting his head on Lance’s shoulder. Lance waits a few minutes before he hesitantly puts his hands down.
“What did you say?” he asks softly.
“I said we can talk about it if you want,” Keith says.
“No,” Lance says automatically, and Keith lifts his head. Lance shifts around so he can lie down with his head in Keith’s lap, and Keith reaches down to run his fingers through his hair.
“I read about it,” Keith says. “When it happened. Those guys were assholes.”
“Keith,” Lance says. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Sorry,” he says, frowning.
Keith gets it. He never talks about how he died either – Lance doesn’t have a clue. To become a ghost, you typically have to die in some kind of fucked up way, so Lance never asks.
They stay there like that, Lance lying in Keith’s lap, until the ghost hunters come up the stairs and waltz into Lance’s room like they own the place.
“Still want to mess with them?” Keith asks, and Lance thinks for a moment before nodding. Those assholes had to remind him of the worst day of his life. The least he could do is mess with them.
“So, this was Lance’s bedroom,” Ryan says. “After his death, his parents moved out and left his room the way it was when he was alive.”
“This is pretty cool,” his costar says. He walks toward one of Lance’s posters on the wall, which are just as tattered as his sheets, and shines a flashlight on it. “Hey, it’s Rob Lowe! You’ve got good taste, Lancey Lance.”
“Told you he was cute,” Lance murmurs to Keith, who shakes his head with a laugh.
“Lancey Lance?” Ryan asks. “Don’t be a dick.”
“I’m trying to be nice,” the guy says. “Nicknames are nice.”
“Alright. Uh, wanna do a spirit box session?”
“Not this again,” Keith braces himself, but still jumps when the loud static comes out of the box Ryan is holding. Needless to say, Keith hates the spirit box. But Lance loves it – it’s the perfect way to mess with people.
“Hey, Lance,” the costar says. “My name is Shane, and this is Ryan. You can use this box to talk directly to us by manipulating radio waves or something. Could you say hey to us?”
Lance focuses, saying, “Shane, Ryan, you need to get out.”
The two boys stand there, listening to the static for a few minutes before Lance’s message comes through. As usual, because he said more than one word, it doesn’t come through all the way.
“Ryan, get out,” the box says instead.
“Ha!” Shane says. “See, I told you nicknames are nice.”
“This is where I’m sleeping tonight!”
“Well, he doesn’t want you here.”
“Is this, uh,” Ryan says, evidently more shaken than before. “Is this Lance speaking to us?”
“Garlic knots,” Lance says, causing Keith to snort. The short message comes through the box much faster than the other, and the two boys look at each other, confused.
“Garlic knots?” Shane chuckles.
“I think I read that that was Lance’s favorite food,” Ryan says.
“What?” Shane keeps laughing. “Is there just a profile online with every intricate detail about this guy’s life?”
No, Shane. Lance thinks. Some asshole kid took my journal in the early 2000s and said he was going to show the world.
“Someone posted his journal online a while ago.”
“Well, that’s kind of a dick move,” Shane says.
“I like this guy,” Keith says. Then, he focuses, and says, “Shane, you’re cool.”
It comes through the box as “Shane, cool,” and Shane leans back, crossing his arms over his chest. “Thanks, Lancey Lance.”
“Wait, it was a different voice,” Ryan says. “Is anyone else here with us?”
“My boyfriend,” Lance says, and a smile spreads across Keith’s face. He runs his fingers through Lance’s hair again, and Lance lets his eyes flutter closed.
“I didn’t think he ever had a boyfriend,” Ryan says.
“Aw, he found a boyfriend in the afterlife,” Shane coos, and Lance hears Keith let out a breath of relief as they turn the spirit box off. “Well, we’ll leave you two alone to have ghoul sex.”
“Shane!” Ryan says as the two leave the room. “I still have to stay here tonight!”
Later on, Ryan comes back into the room and starts setting up a sleeping bag on the floor. He looks like he’s scared shitless, and Lance can’t help but laugh. Ryan must hear some semblance of it, because he jumps out of his skin.
He crawls under the covers and lies down. He pulls out a device that lights up his face as he uses it, and he slides and taps his fingers all over it.
“Is that the thing you were talking about?” Keith asks.
“Yup,” Lance says. Ryan puts it down, glowing side on his chest, and stares wide-eyed up at the ceiling.
“Um, hey, Lance,” he says, voice shaking. “Sorry I read your journal. But you seemed like a really smart and funny person.”
Keith nudges Lance with his elbow. “He’s right, you know.”
“It really sucks that you had to, um, die the way you did,” he goes on, and Keith groans.
“Why does this guy think talking about death is a personality trait?” he says, and he stands up, stomping over to where Ryan is lying. He crouches down, tapping Ryan on the shoulder.
“Okay, Ryan,” the guy mumbles to himself, closing his eyes. “You’re just imagining it. It’s all in your head.”
Lance laughs, loudly, and Ryan’s eyes snap open. Keith keeps tapping him, poking his shoulder and his neck, and he sits up, breathless. The glowing device falls into his lap.
“Okay,” his voice is shaking more now. “I’m going to, um, turn on the spirit box so you can talk to me.”
Even with the warning, Keith jumps back when the static starts. He scratches his head, contains himself, then says, “What’s that device?”
It comes through the box as, “Device.”
“This is the spirit box,” Ryan says. Lance can’t stop giggling at how much his voice shakes. “You can use it to talk to me. Is this Lance’s boyfriend?”
“The device on your lap, idiot,” Keith says. Lance is glad the word “lap” comes through so Keith doesn’t have to make the guy piss himself by pushing it onto the floor.
“Oh, this?” he picks it up. “This is my phone. Like to call people on.”
Both Keith’s and Lance’s eyebrows come together. Phones sure have gotten a lot smaller since he died. And weirder looking.
“Can you play music on it?”
“…Music,” comes through the box.
“You want me to play music?” Ryan asks. “What era?”
Keith rolls his eyes and just says, “Smiths.”
“The Smiths? Okay,” Ryan’s hands are shaking, and he taps on his ‘phone.’ Keith stares at it, amazed. “This is called Spotify. It’s like a…radio…but you can choose whatever you want to play, and it’ll play it.”
Keith reaches over, taps the phone himself, and soon a song starts playing. Ryan may stop breathing. His head falls into his hands, and he says, “Oh my god,” over and over again.
He calls Shane into the room as Keith joins Lance back on the bed. “This is called ‘There is a Light that Never Goes Out,’” he says, lying down. Lance lies down too, curling up beside Keith.
Keith wraps his arms around him, and they both close their eyes. They ignore the two idiots talking frantically in the room. As long as they let the music play, everything is fine.
“I think I’ve heard this,” Lance says. “I think my sister listened to it.”
“When I look at you, I hear this song in my head,” Keith mumbles. He tilts his head down and leaves a soft kiss on Lance’s neck. “You’re a light that never goes out.”
“That was a really cheesy thing to say,” Lance says, but he can’t deny that he has butterflies.
“Well, I’m really cheesy,” Keith chuckles.
How is this possible? He’s so much happier now after death than he ever was when he was alive. He’s happier in this abandoned house, on these dirty sheets. Because Keith still sees the light of his soul, even after everything bad that has happened.
He closes his eyes, almost glad he’s no longer able to sleep so he can revel in this moment for as long as possible.
Keith hums in Lance’s ear, softly singing along, “I never want to go home because I haven’t got one anymore … to die by your side; well, the pleasure, the privilege is mine.”
Lance cuddles up closer to Keith and breathes calmly now, easily.
He plans to stay this way forever with Keith, and under no circumstances will he ever talk about how he died.