Chapter Text
“Oh for fuck’s sake-!” Lio slams down his geode for the fourth time in fifteen minutes. His saffron is on the floor, again. “This isn’t cheap, you asshole!” he shouts into the air of his apartment. There’s nothing to be done for it, though. He crouches to start delicately getting all the vibrant red blossoms into their glass vial, when all the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. An echo of an unkind laugh, a whiff of cloying old-man cologne, and his saffron scatters on a sharp gust.
None of his windows are open. Lio scowls and claps a hand over his neck. That’s it.
~~
“You got a ghost problem?” Meis looks skeptical. “You?”
Lio sighs and cards a hand through his hair. The question isn’t, of course, about the existence of a ghost. The pump of ambrosia in his coffee is helping a little, just to take the edge of stress off, even though he usually doesn’t indulge in the strong stuff. “The realtor didn’t mention anything about hauntings when I looked at it,” he growls.
Meis drawls, “Yeah, no, they wouldn’t have. You should’ve asked neighbors.”
He hides his dissatisfaction with that notion in his mug. Maybe he should’ve asked for a double pump.
The only reward he gets is a soft snort. “Boss, there’s some social situations - like talking to future neighbors - that can actually be good, y’know. Can save you a lot of hassle.”
“Don’t condescend to me,” Lio huffs, no heat to it. “I hate that you’re right. Fine, I leaped without looking."
“Again,” Meis supplies unhelpfully.
“Again,” Lio agrees stiffly. “Can you- do you know a- a- I don’t know, a diviner? Is psychic offensive again? It was fine in the eighties, but-”
“Quit digging.” Lio, gratefully, shuts up. “I got a kid you could call. He’s not an old-school medium, not exactly; he’s been advertising himself as an empath, but he’s not as BS as them.”
“Anyone,” Lio says, and means it.
~~
A very pretty bit of rhodocrosite stops struggling against him - finally - when Lio hears a knock at his door. He answers it, invites the diviner in without much fanfare. “Thanks for being available on such short notice,” he says. “You can make yourself comfortable, I just have to finish this up.”
The diviner - Galo, his business card had said, and the name he’d told Lio to call him at the door - takes a seat on one of Lio’s upholstered chairs in the living room and watches him with no small curiosity.
“Will you tell me about your spirit?” Galo asks. Lio doesn’t feel his eyes leave his back.
“I think it’s a he, and I know he’s an ass,” Lio says, succinct as he can. “I wish I could tell you more, but he laughs at me when he knocks my shit over while I’m working. I’ve lost nearly eighty dollars worth of saffron this month.” Finishing is only a matter of taking the wrapped crystal and tying the unbound end of the silk band somewhere it can charge - the bay window in the living room is decorated by a veritable windchime of such unfinished charms. Lio steps back and judges the placement before deeming it satisfactory and turning to face the diviner.
Instead of answering him, Galo hums. “Oh, I know those charms - you’re a love witch, huh?” It’s said without even a trace of derision, of malice; just a heaping dose of excitement and interest, innocent enough that Lio’s instinct to lash out barely even registers this as something to take offense to.
“No- it’s…” he amends, waving to the other charms glittering and basking in the sunshine as they charge. “I do a lot of different stuff. I’m not a “love witch,” just… a witch.”
“I’m not judging if you are!” Galo leans over to examine the charms without touching. “My ma used to have this really pretty wrapped carnelian after my dad passed away. Reminds me of that, except you’ve got like, a hundred.”
He’s very open, but Lio supposes that might just be part of the whole diviner thing. “So, the ghost…?”
Galo looks over his shoulder and grins, lopsided. “It’s been awhile since I took a client who was, like, in the know.” He nods to the space near Lio. “For what it’s worth, you’re right on the money. Older dude, he’s not real happy. Except when you mentioned the saffron, then he kinda laughed. Can I have a few minutes with him?”
Lio gives him the floor. He’s gotten nowhere with the Dead Asshole; maybe Galo’s so successful a diviner because he charms ghosts with sheer good looks.
And no, that does not mean Lio had looked. He puts on a pot of chamomile, and before it can even boil, Galo’s ducking into his kitchen.
“Soooo… his name is Herman, and yeah, he pretty much hates you.” He delivers this with all the gravitas a waiter would tell a diner they’ve run out of tomato sauce.
Lio responds in kind. “Oh, comforting. What can I do to quell his rage?”
The diviner laughs openly. “He was pretty conservative in life, and is not wild about the whole witchery thing. He wants you to stop.”
The water is hot enough that Lio can hear the steam, so he pours two cups. “Or else…?” He hands Galo his. It’s delicate china on a matching delicate china saucer, and it looks nearly comical in Galo’s large hands.
“Mm, or else nothing. He’s just going to continue to disapprove, like a nasty Catholic grandfather.” He takes a loud sip and murmurs his compliments. “But I can’t imagine you want him sticking around.”
“It’s not that I mind cohabiting,” Lio says, joining Galo at the table. “I really wouldn’t mind him being here if he didn’t cost me extra money for materials. I’m new to the area, it’s important for me to build up a network right now. If charms are late, if spells don’t work…” He gestures with his teacup. “It’s bad for business.”
“Oh, totally.” Galo sets down his tea. “Look, I don’t charge till the spirit is gone. If you have time, I can do a seance, smudge the place a bit, break out some trade secrets? Won’t take longer than a couple hours.”
Lio’s brow pinches. “I’ve heard of charms that get smudged ending up duds.” He looks to his glittering window display. “I can get them to a friend’s before you break out the sage, but I can’t risk it right now.”
Galo beams. “I get it! Three visits to the love witch, I can do that. I’ll come by a couple days after the initial follow up to see if he’s moved on, too, free of charge!” He backtracks. “Wait, no, I mean - guaranteed or your money back!”
There’s no time to stifle a chuckle. “I appreciate that.” Lio’s lips waver, trying to stay polite and not outright laugh. “It’d be best if you could come by again tomorrow.”
~~
Lio’s charms and ingredients fit in a couple of Amazon boxes that he brings to Meis’ place (“Bring ‘em over whenever. You still have your key, right? Just don’t let Sunspot out.”)
Sunspot darts between his legs the instant he opens the door, but Lio catches the sleek yellow tabby again easily enough. What can he say? He’s a witch. He hangs the charms and hopes the interruption in sun wasn’t long enough to weaken their magic. As for the rest, he just tries to put the box somewhere a curious kitty won’t be tempted to bat it down from.
“You won’t knock anything over, will you?” he croons, hefting a reluctant Sunspot into his arms. “No, you’ll be a good girl.” She wriggles from his grasp and he scratches her ears one last time before he locks up behind him.
Without the colored silk and gems casting jewel-bright shadows onto his carpet and the vials cluttering up his desk, Lio’s apartment feels uncomfortably devoid of magic. There’s nothing productive to do with his hands, either, so he digs out an abandoned cross stitch from his very last moving box and plants himself in the kitchen with a cup of rosehip-mint tea. It seems to be the only place the Dead Asshole doesn’t bother him, and he doesn’t feel like “accidentally” getting stuck with a needle a dozen times.
At noon, his doorbell rings and Lio jumps up, never having been so happy to have a visitor. He sucks at cross stitch. That’s alright- he’ll just blame how many times he stuck himself on the ghost. It’s not true, but honestly with the Dead Asshole’s track record, Lio is pretty sure he won’t mind being blamed for yet more misfortune.
Galo grins at him from the doorway and Lio steps aside to let him in. “Morning!”
“It’s twelve,” Lio points out, chuckling when Galo waves that detail off. “Do I need to do anything, or should I give you two some space?”
“I’ll need you for the seance.”
It’s then that Lio notices the valise under Galo’s arm. “My only table’s in the kitchen, but I’ve never seen him wreck shit in there…”
“That’s alright. It’s still his space - according to him, anyway.” Galo follows him into the dinette and with a thunk, opens his case on the table. A pointed chunk of amethyst on a string, a few candles, some bound sage, a-
“Is that a Ouija board,” Lio asks flatly.
Galo cracks up. “Look, I know what you’re thinking, and yeah, they’re mostly complete bullshit. BUT- they actually are a great way for spirits to communicate. Ghosts can’t hold pencils, but if we give them the letters, they can manifest enough to use the planchette.”
Lio squints at the board. “Did you get this from Toys R Us?”
“$8.95 plus tax, baby.” Galo winks, and Lio has to hide his open laughter in his hand.
~~
“-V… I… L.” The planchette stops there and Lio looks around at the darkened (not too darkened - it’s the middle of the day, after all, even if all the lights are off) air in irritated disbelief. “Evil? You think I’m evil? Me?” Under his hand, the planchette slides without hesitation to the “YES.” Lio huffs. “You literally live with me! I make- I make love charms-” he thinks he hears Galo breathe “love witch,” but he can’t be sure, “-and I spike my sugar bowl with thyme to ward away fruit flies!”
Galo places a hand over Lio’s, the one not feather-light on the planchette. “You’re yelling at him,” he says, not quite chiding. The candles flicker evenly, all at once.
“Well, he’s being very rude.” Was that defensive? Probably.
“Why don’t we try a calmer tone?” Galo suggests. “He can hear you just fine.”
Ghostly, disembodied laughing breezes in his ear and Lio whips to the side, his short ponytail keeping his hair from smacking him in the face with the force and speed that he glares. “He just-!” Lio meets Galo’s pointed look, and sighs, forcing the tension from his body. “Fine. Yes. It’s fine that he just laughed at me.”
Galo’s thumb starts stroking back and forth where it’s resting on Lio’s hand. That doesn’t seem like part of the ritual, but. It’s been… uh, awhile since Lio had a date. He’s so not above pretending, for two seconds, that someone as attractive as this diviner is interested in him. Even better is his encouraging voice. “Yeah, exactly! There you go!”
Lio watches past Galo as the stove flips on and the coil burner begins to heat. “You want tea?” he asks the ghost.
The planchette slides to “NO.”
Wryly, Lio looks at Galo. “Well, he doesn’t. Do you?”
“Pff.” Galo turns in his seat to look, the corners of his mouth turned up. “Can you tell us what you do want?”
Lio mutters aloud as the planchette moves. “C… O… F… E. Oh, coffee? You want- coffee?” It’s a weird request, sure, but-
The planchette starts again. W. I. F. E.
“Oh,” Galo murmurs, his grip on Lio’s hand tightening a hair.
“If I make you coffee like your wife used to make it, will you-“ leave me alone, he wants to say, but opts for, “uh, pass on?”
NO.
Lio has the strong urge to thump his head against the table.
Galo, at least, seems to be having a good time. He’s valiantly struggling not to laugh in the face of Lio’s pout, and does eventually reign it in.
He finds a matching smirk on his own face despite himself. They don’t get much more information from Dead Asshole (ugh, okay, from Herman) before Galo lights the sage and begins the smudge.
“Maybe make him some coffee tomorrow,” Galo suggests, packing up his accoutrements. “As a symbol of goodwill.”
Lio sets a mug out the next morning, feeling silly for even wondering how a ghost likes his cream and sugar.
Not that it matters, anyway. When Lio turns his back to get the sugar bowl, he hears a loud crash.
At least it wasn’t his good china.
~~
“I’m not too surprised,” Galo admits. Lio’s phone is shoved between his ear and his shoulder, until he remembers speaker exists. It’s easier to chop vegetables for the week’s meal prep with both arms free, but Galo’s voice is even tinnier on speaker and lacks its sweet richness that Lio remembers keenly from keeping his eyes closed during the incantation. “He’s pretty stubborn. Really bonded to that apartment, you know? Bonded to you, too.”
Lio’s glad he’s not holding his phone, or else he would’ve fumbled it. “Bonded to me? I haven’t even lived here two months.”
Galo’s laughter is light and mechanical over the phone. “Yeah, but he’s sort of fixated on you. Determined to make you move out.”
“He’s not gonna follow me around now, is he? Because I think giving him that coffee made him want to come into the kitchen more. Pretty sure he shook one of my seltzers. It exploded in my face.” He’d had to change his shirt, and also thank his lucky stars it wasn’t anything that could have stained the white. Galo laughs again, contagious. Lio finds himself chuckling at his own expense. “It wasn’t that bad,” he adds.
“Not as bad as the coffee?” Oh, that’s-
“Don’t be cheeky.” Speaker doesn’t feel right anymore. He replaces his phone on his shoulder, closer again to Galo’s voice - and pointedly doesn’t analyze that any further than sound quality. “The seltzer was worse than the coffee. At least that didn’t get all over me.”
“Hey, well, you’ve got a point,” Galo concedes. “I’ve got a consultation uptown this afternoon, but how bout I swing by later and we can regroup?”
“I’ll be here.”
It’s only a minute after he’s hung up that he realizes that a. Galo skirted his question, about Dead Asshole following him around outside his apartment, and b. his cheeks are starting to ache from smiling.
~~
Lio likes the way pink looks on Galo’s cheeks.
“I’m making stew,” Lio tells him as he lets Galo inside for the third time in as many days. “There’s plenty, if you haven’t eaten.”
He figures it’s the case, judging by the way Galo’s stomach growls the minute he smells the air. “Yes! If- if that’s not imposing?”
The innocent hope in his voice makes Lio grin. “Of course not. I offered.”
Galo stops in the living room to admire the crystals. “It’s a good thing you don’t have a cat,” he jokes.
Lio nods. “I cat-sitted once. That was a very bad decision.” He huffs a short laugh at the memory of shredded silk. “I love Sunspot, but next time Meis can board him. Tea?” It’s starting to feel like a routine, some kind of comedy of errors-groundhog’s day loop that he’s sort of alright with repeating a few more times.
More color blooms on Galo’s face. Of course Lio has been trying, really trying not to Notice, but it’s verging on downright rude the way Galo keeps rubbing in his face just how stunningly attractive he is. “If you’re making some. Sure!”
“Make yourself at home.” Lio smiles, privately, as he heads back into the kitchen. He doesn’t mind. Not at all.
It’s only a little while until the food is ready. When the timer goes off, they move into the kitchen to eat.
“So, it’s probably an item or a particularly strong memory binding Herman here,” Galo says as Lio portions out their bowls.
He hums, just to show he’s listening. Hm. A little more? Yeah, probably more for Galo. Two pieces of cornbread, too.
“The first step is figuring out what that might be. I- oh, thanks!” Galo beams at him as Lio sets down his food in front of him. Lio sits across from him, places his napkin in his lap, and takes a spoonful.
“How do we do that?”
“There’s a few ways.” Galo blinks down at the soup. “This looks good. What kind is it?”
Lio puts his spoon back in the bowl and rests his chin in his hand with a coy smile. “I got my hands on some genuine unicorn horn.”
Bright blue eyes go huge, double taking between the bowl and Lio.
He cracks almost instantly, doubling over the table with an inelegant snort. “It’s southwestern three-bean corn stew. I got the recipe online. Store-bought cornbread. You’re adorable, though.”
Galo goes bright red and mumbles a “thanks,” then tucks in with fervor. He ends up having seconds, but Lio still made enough to freeze the rest in a few big containers anyway.
“I did some research,” Galo tells him conversationally, once they’ve migrated back to Lio’s living room with fresh teacups, “on those crystals. Some of ‘em.” His smile is so easy that it makes Lio’s stomach flip. What wouldn’t he give for that kind of lightness, that level of carefree universal love?
“I can teach you some, too,” he offers, not quite knowing why.
The corners of Galo’s eyes crinkle. “I’d like that! All the pink ones are for love, I learned.”
“I still don’t know what a “love witch” is, you know. I couldn’t even find it online.”
Galo gesticulates wildly with his free hand. “Maybe it’s so secret that even when you are one, you don’t know!”
Lio smiles into his third cup of tea. “We keep getting off track. I hate to tie up your time like this.”
“What? Don’t say that - you made dinner! I can’t complain about a home cooked meal. Not that I would otherwise! The energy here is so rich, it’s nice just to soak it up.”
The problem with Lio has always been how big of a sucker he is for earnest enthusiasm. Gueira was his first real friend in the city, which, to Lio, illustrates his point perfectly. Meis, to a different extent, is as subdued as Gueira is loud, but with the same arrow-straight focus on his business - and, obviously, his husband.
“Except for Herman?” Galo is another in a line of guilty pleasures
“Well, he adds to it. What’s a home without a little… spirit?” He grins like he thinks he’s clever. Damn him, he is.
Lio rolls his eyes when he finishes being duped into laughing. “I would think in your line of work, you’d get a lot of people asking the exact opposite.”
“I do,” Galo agrees, “And it’s a shame. Don’t take that the wrong way, of course. Disruptive spirits can be really troublesome, but I get a lot of house calls for people who just don’t like the idea of something sharing their home.”
“Hm. I see where you’re coming from.” He runs his tongue over his lower lip in thought. “Do you think, if I’d been nicer at first, Herman wouldn’t have given me so much trouble?”
Galo wiggles his hand in a gesture that says “ehh.” “Maybe. Probably not.” He smiles like persistent sunshine trying to get out from behind cloud cover. “Herman’s a crotchety guy. I think it might have been a foregone conclusion.”
A dry huff escapes Lio’s chest. “I guess a gay witch wasn’t his idea of a model tenant in his beloved apartment, huh?”
Galo- hiccups, or chokes, or something, his cheeks darkening. “Well, no, probably not.”
He chuckles and readjusts in his chair, cheek on his curled fingers. “Do you have experience coexisting with a non-troublesome ghost?”
A long breath precedes a long hum. “I… sort of? When I was little, my dad passed away. He was the greatest! My ma told me about ghosts and spirits to begin with, so I always hoped that my dad might have stuck around.” Galo shrugs. “Ma would say, “the keys are gone, your father must have hidden them!” Stuff like that, but it was always just regular human stuff. I used to-” he swallows and looks into his tea. “-I used to talk to my grandpa. I could see him, like he was standing in front of me, but I was too young to understand what that meant, till ma told me about… the way he used to be, and the way I am.”
Galo wipes at his eyes unabashedly, and Lio is too frozen with shared grief to offer him so much as a tissue. “I’m so sorry, you don’t have to-”
“No, no, I’m alright. I just- I never saw my dad. Not like I saw my grandpa. Then I lost ma, too. And I swear, just for the week they let me stay in our house after that - she was there. Not much, not clearly, but she was there. I wish I could’ve stayed long enough to know if she stayed, too.”
Lio opens his mouth, but nothing easy springs to his lips.
“Oh, man. That was too much, I’m sorry. I guess the answer to that is that it’s hard for me to see spirits in shades of ‘troublesome’ or not. My approach is usually more concerned with their individual ties and what pushes them to do what they do.” Galo shakes his head and offers some false cheer. “Anyway-”
He’s across the room almost before he realizes he wants to be. The teacup isn’t quite shaking in Galo’s grasp, but Lio takes it by the rim regardless and touches his shoulder firmly. “It wasn’t too much.” Lost for other words, he asks, “Would you like another cup?”
The clouds part again.
They never quite manage to get back on topic for enough time to finish their business. Lio doesn’t notice until he glances at the grandmother clock by the door, but truthfully, selfishly, he could burn a thousand hours more just talking.
Galo looks too, and with a sheepish grin stands. “I didn’t realize it was so late. I gotta go.”
Lio walks him out, embittered that time magic is all but impossible. “I hope you can come again soon, if you can stand more tea.”
Leather, worn and loved, creaks over Galo’s broad shoulders when he swings his jacket on. “Speaking of that, am I gonna have trouble sleeping tonight?” He knows Galo is joking, asking that, but it sends Lio’s mind in wistful directions.
“It was just tisane,” he replies, hoping against hope that his tone and expression don’t betray him, “but I can always make you something if you find yourself awake in the wee hours.” He’s teasing, oh, he’s teasing, but if Galo picked up the phone before dawn, he’d answer it.
“Thanks for having me.” Galo inhales like he’s about to say something weightier, but he just lets the breath out again and grins. “Goodnight, Lio.”
And it is.