Chapter Text
Melchior hasn’t left his bed in two-and-a-half days, which absolutely no one, let alone him, is complaining about. He’s created a hollow out of his blankets with his computer, some books, and a tangle of chargers. The last few hours have been devoted to watched every single of Hank and John Green’s YouTube videos, and he didn’t even like Fault in Our Stars . Looking for Alaska was better. Before that it was a marathon of Star Wars, which he didn’t like either, and before that he reread The Picture of Dorian Gray, which he says he likes because no matter how gay Oscar Wilde was, saying you liked his books gives you some kind of pretentious credit , and before that he scrolled all the way back to May 23rd, 2016 on Moritz’s instagram, and February 17th, 2017 on his twitter.
On February 17, 2017, at 2:34 in the morning, Moritz Stiefel tweeted: jesus fucjinf christ this sucks. i wish i was dead.
More recently, specifically, seven-and-a-half days ago, Moritz Stiefel tweeted: goodvbye
Goddamnit. Melchior should’ve noticed. Why didn’t he notice? He retreats further into his blanket cave, hitting his elbow against the backboard, which still hurts, even through a comforter. There’s a crash from somewhere in the room and it takes Melchior a moment to notice. He peeks his head of of the cave and glances around the room, his eyes finally settling on the pile of suits and multicolored plastic hangers now resting on the floor. Moritz used to tease him about how many suits he has: “You’re like a middle aged politician, Melchi.”. Melchior blinks the memory- and the fuzziness in his vision- away and stares at the mess. He’s going to have to go pick it up soon- his dad will kill him if he gets the suits wrinkly, but he just doesn’t, can’t make himself crawl out of the isolative cave of blanket he’s made.
“You really should pick those up,” Moritz signs, floating in the air a few feet away. The sudden movement draws Melchior’s eyes and he shrugs and looks back at the pile.
“There’s a lot of things I really should do. Go to church. Be heterosexual. Talk to-” Melchior stops, his hands still halfway through the next sign. “You’re dead,” he finally signs. “You’re… definitely dead.”
“And you’re an asshole. Which of us is better off?” Moritz looks unimpressed. He starts spinning slowly, turning in the air. Melchior can see his dresser through him, can see the paper mache cat Moritz had given him in second grade.
Melchior shrugs and tugs his blanket around him. “I don’t know.”
Moritz is wearing beat-up sneakers and a band t-shirt- not what he died in, if Ilse’s report is to be believed, and not what he was buried in, either. His hair’s messy. Melchior wonders idly if he can fix it, or if it’s just stuck like that for eternity.
“Can’t see myself in mirrors,” Moritz signs, stopping spinning and staring unnervingly into Melchior’s eyes. “Can’t touch anything but myself. I never fixed my hair anyway, you know.” Melchior does know- he was usually the one to mess with Moritz’s hair, combing it over to one side before school and screwing with it after.
“Oh.” Melchior tries to grasp for the right words, to maybe apologize, but all that comes out is, “You… can read my thoughts?”
Moritz shrugs. “Sometimes. Only you. So, you know, if you were hoping I could tell you some of Hanschen’s weird-ass secrets, that’s a no.”
“How do you know they’re weird?”
Moritz raises an eyebrow. “How do I know that Hanschen’s secrets are weird?” He repeats, sarcasm dripping off every gesture of his hands.
Melchior nods and goes back to YouTube. After a while of spinning- is it a ghost thing?- Moritz joins him, watching John Green talk about dogs. Melchior turns on the captions.
Moritz’s- rather, Moritz’s ghost, which doesn’t seem to be exactly the same as Moritz- doesn’t disappear the next morning, meaning that he probably wasn’t just a sleep-deprivation-driven hallucination. He pesters him until he finally gets out of bed and fixes the hangers.
“You never cared about messes. Did you even see your room?” Melchior complains as he gathers the suits.
Moritz stops spinning. “Yeah, well.” He crosses his arms, then uncrosses them like he’s going to sign something again, then crosses them again. Melchior takes the hint. He hangs up his clothes without signing anything, then moves to get back in bed. Moritz looks up and drifts into his path.
“Dude,” he signs, “you can’t get back into bed! Do you know how much effort it took to get those hangers on the floor?”
“What am I going to do out of bed?”
Moritz waves his arms for a second, looking upset, before he composes himself. “You’re supposed to live,” he signs vehemently.
Melchior scowls. “I thought I was an asshole.”
“You are,” Moritz signs automatically, then grudgingly adds, “But maybe you can get better.”
Melchior falls backwards onto the bed, spreading his arms and staring at the speckled ceiling for a few moments before Moritz’s face appears right above him. He can still see the ceiling through Moritz’s head.
“Come on,” Moritz signs. “Because as cute as you look in your boxers, that’s not a thing that you can go outside in.”
“Was it my fault?” Melchior asks, holding his hands just above his chest. Moritz ignores him.
“And I’m sure you’re eager to break all the girl’s hearts, but that’s not exactly-”
Melchior moves to place his hands over Moritz’s, but they pass right through. He takes them back, startled by how cold the air around Moritz’s hands are.
Moritz blinks down at him. “Side effect of being dead,” he signs, his face straight.
“Your hands are always cold,” Melchior says, remembering Moritz’s hands telling stories and burying themselves in Melchior’s pockets and paging through his math homework, remembering Melchior staring at them while signing “I love you”, remembering Moritz’s hands cupping his face a few seconds after.
“Were. Were always cold.” Moritz corrects dryly, snapping Melchior out of his thoughts. “And I have to read your thoughts, remember?”
Melchior can feel himself blushing, which is ridiculous, because this is the ghost of his best friend, his, well, his-
“You were a shitty boyfriend, too, you know.” Moritz says, leaning back so that he’s not above Melchior. Melchior props himself up on his elbows.
“We weren’t-”
“Bullshit.” Moritz signs sharply, and a gust of cold wind flies through Melchior’s closed window. “You don’t get to say that to appease your conscious. If you even have one.” He starts spinning, but stops halfway through so that Melchior can see the back of his head.
He really wants to comb down the tuft of hair sticking up.
“Don’t try to touch me,” Moritz signs, slower than before, and the tone is more Moritz-y, even if what he’s saying isn’t. Melchior can see him sign through his abdomen, which is kind of weird.
“Sorry.”
“Just- get dressed?” Moritz runs a hand through his hair, mussing it up even more. Melchior doesn’t say anything, and Moritz doesn’t say anything about whatever Melchior’s thinking.