Work Text:
The Gouligan’s Guide to Gayness
The first time it happens, Jeffrey Anderson keeps his cool.
Sure, he jumps a little as his pen pot goes skittering across the floor, but the window was open by a crack and it could've been a breeze. Scratch that, it was definitely a breeze.
“But what if ….” whispers Maureen, a friendly girl he sits by in class the next morning, “what if your dorm is haunted.”
After that, it’s like the floodgates have been left open. The evidence starts piling up: lights flickering, shuffling footsteps, and a lingering shadow in the corner of his eye.
‘My cousin has a ouija board,’ scribbles Maureen, sliding her notepad across the table whilst Professor Monroe’s back is turned, his attention on the chalkboard. ‘Maybe it’s friendly? We can see what it wants.’
Jeffrey snorts, quickly faking a cough as several heads swivel in his direction. He’s heard these tales before, and he tells Maureen that much in a hushed whisper. No matter how convincing her argument, the board was immediately out.
He may be a preppy, spice-avoiding white boy - the classic horror movie type - but Jeffrey had always prided himself on being too smart for the habits of fools.
XXXX
“I’ve seen you making peace offerings,” Ted leans back on his desk chair, boldly letting all but one leg leave the ground. “A portion of spaghetti bolognese on Sunday, red wine the Sunday before, and the last apple tator the Sunday before that. What is it tonight? Those bland Graham crackers of yours? I’m sure our resident poltergeist will love that.”
“Shut up,” Jeff glares, sliding a bookmark into his copy of Comparative Law. “I've been gathering data - don't make that face - and it indicates that our non-rent paying menace gets worse as the week progresses. Sunday snacks seem to keep it manageable and -“ he pauses as Ted snickers.
The mocking sound makes his stomach curdle like milk. Barbs of this sort had never bothered him before. It's an odd sensation, unpleasant, sickening, and one better acquainted with his younger brother.
“I don’t know why I bother,” Jeff scowls, his voice tight, ”you don’t even believe in ghosts.”
"No," Ted throws his hands up in surrender. "I'm listening, I swear!"
Jeff ignores him, hating the defensive set of his shoulders, "I'm going to bed."
"Come on, Anderson. You have no proof the dorms are haunted."
“Bed.” He repeats, flattening his palms and pressing them over his ears, “that means no talking.”
His roommate sighs, “yes, but I-”
Throwing himself childishly beneath the covers, Jeff winces as the god-knows-how-old-mattress springs dig sharply into his spine.
Ted opens his mouth, hesitates, then closes it again.
“Night.”
The muffled word brokers a fragile peace.
Ted drops heavily into bed, the frame squeaking under his weight. He peers across the room, his frown easing with the slow rise and fall of the body wrapped tightly in blankets. “Goodnight,” he whispers.
XXXX
It continues.
Three Sundays later, as the falling leaves turn from rust to ash, Jeffrey Anderson begins to haunt his own dorm room in a vicious cocktail of sleep deprivation, paranoia, and a very large helping of academic stress.
Todd’s latest letter occupies one side of his desk. The familiar, slanting script tells of a newspaper article and some new, hare-brained scheme of Neil’s to set his friend up with the new girl. It’s a shame, he thinks, that so little is said about Welton’s mad, new English teacher. Despite Todd’s initial doubts, Jeff rather likes the sound of the man.
Forcing his eyes open, Jeff pushes a half-written reply between the pages of his library book.
He’d once read somewhere that it took approximately seventy-two hours without sleep for the brain to start hallucinating. After six weeks of rattling windows, icy cold spots, and demented flashlights switching on at all hours of the night, Jeff figures his reality must be somewhat skewed.
Maybe he’s hallucinating the whole thing.
His eyes shutter, the dimple on his chin dips dangerously close to the sharp edges of his desk.
Silently, the door opens. Ted treads lightly, letting his eyes skate over the haphazard division in their dorm, before stopping on the fair head bowing low over a textbook.
Thump.
He slams a disposable cup on the desk. Hot coffee slops over its sides, brown liquid running into puddles over a discarded essay draft.
“Jesus Christ!” Jeff shoots up and whacks his elbow.
“I’m an enabler,” Ted says accusingly. “Look what you’ve done to me. You can’t run on espresso and I’ve told you that, repeatedly-”
Jeff blinks, the soreness of his eyes distracting from the ache spreading through his bruising elbow.
“Drink the damn coffee, Anderson.”
With a noise he knows he will be humiliated by later, Jeff gulps it down like a dying man offered ambrosia.
After a moment, Jeff acknowledges his roommate with a sheepish nod. “Thank you.”
“I should let you suffer,” Ted glowers. He fumbles through his satchel, pulling out a thick, orange hardback.
“Spectres or Spectacles: An Idiot’s Guide to Domestic Hauntings.” Jeff’s eyebrows raise, “is this a joke?”
He shrugs, “I’m a skeptic, and you’re severely sleep-deprived. I thought we needed a neutral third opinion.”
“And you're sure this is neutral?”
Ted smirks, “it was this, or The Ghouligan’s Guide to Ghost Hunting. I can go back for it if you’d like?”
“No,” Jeff shakes his head dazedly, “I’m sure this will suffice. I don’t know how you can sleep through hauntings like the dead.”
“Jeffrey, darling,” Ted lays a hand on his shoulder with mock sympathy, "going without sleep is starting to transform you into the undead.”
Jeffrey’s eyes narrow, his gaze drawn to the slope of Ted’s stupidly aristocratic nose. "Are you calling me ugly?"
"Never!" He exclaims, a cryptic half-smile on his lips, "I’m your roommate, I’m supposed to be supportive."
"Right."
His smile broadens, revealing a hidden dimple Jeff rarely gets to see, "is the great Jeffrey Anderson, darling of the Welton alumni, feeling insecure?"
Jeff’s heart jumps at the endearment. "Of course not. You’re my roommate," he reiterates.
Silence falls.
Ted glances out of the window, his face cast in shadows.
With a sigh, he slumps over his textbook. Not for the first time, Jeff finds himself wishing for a ouija board to communicate with the living.
XXXX
It is the first Friday of December, and Jeff returns to his dorm with the beginning of a migraine.
He gropes blindly for the lock, carefully shifting his stack of library books to balance on one knee. The stack sways precariously, almost toppling as he jams his key in, twisting it wildly until the door swings open with a click.
“Did you accidentally lock yourself in?” Jeff asks, his shoulders sagging with relief as he slings several books onto his bed. The amount of reading expected of college students is truly ridiculous, he laments, almost stumbling back as he catches sight of his roommate for the first time since breakfast.
“What the hell is that?”
Ted barely looks up from his crouched position, his body resting where a faded, blue rug used to sit. He clutches a dripping paintbrush in one hand, and a standed-issue canteen bowl in the other.
"Hell is correct. It's a pentagram."
A white substance marks the floor. Tiny stretches of pink stain the fluid alongside the occasional lump of…pasta.
“Is that carbonara?” Jeff drops his keys onto the desk before toeing off his shoes and kicking them under the bed.
"Yes," Ted says simply, leaning back to admire his ten-pointed masterpiece. "Now that you've finished flirting in the library, I'd appreciate some help with the candles."
"Flirting?" He splutters, “with who?”
His roommate purses his lips, blowing a strand of dark hair from his eyes.
"With Maureen from Introductory Law." He gestures loosely towards a cardboard box, "now grab the candles. We've got a supernatural squatter to catch."
XXXX
“Sorry, where did you find this psychic again?“ Jeff asks, flicking dried candle wax at Ted’s sweater.
The last hour of demonic arts and crafts had slowly given way to boredom. He’d never have guessed that ritual preparation could be done so quickly.
“In a trashcan,” he replies, elaborating only when Jeff rolls his eyes, “the address, not the psychic herself.”
“You went dumpster diving!?”
Ted examines himself. His hazel eyes skate critically down from the starched collar arranged artfully out of his sweater, to his pressed trousers, and unscuffed, brown loafers, before bouncing back up to meet Jeff’s doubtful gaze.
“What? There’s no rule against it.”
Jeff steps closer, shooting a sideways look at the unstained newspaper clipping in his calloused hand.
“Alright,” he relents, holding out the ripped page. "It was stuck to an empty coffee cup next to a trash can.”
The grayscale clipping lays between them for a moment.
“I hate this,” Jeff mutters, crumpling up the ad.
Ted, who had begun to crack open a copy of Hamlet, looks up, his face painted with surprise. “Really? I think it’s oddly relaxing, even somewhat therapeutic with all of the art and ambiance.”
“Are those seriously your last words before meeting a ghost?”
“Why not? Am I supposed to be impressed by someone this needy?”
“Needy?”
“Yes, Jeffrey. Needy for attention,” Ted exchanges the play for his psychology textbook, one finger tapping the cover aggressively. “Besides, someone who holds onto a grudge while they decompose is not someone at the top of my list to socialise with.”
“So you admit it?” Jeff’s lips stretch into a slow grin, “you admit that you’ve been socialising with a ghost each time things go bang in the night, and each time you’ve yelled at me to buzz off for complaining.”
“I admit to nothing.”
“You admitted to it!”
A light rap sounds twice at the door.
The young men scramble into action. Jeff throws a blanket over the drying sauce, narrowly missing the handful of candles he had set up around its outline. While he dove towards the opening door, Ted hit the light switch, flooding the room with a harsh glare that smothers any trace of candlelight.
“Maureen!” Ted’s bright smile makes the good-natured girl chuckle politely, though Jeff can see the strain in his roommate’s jaw.
“Hey, Ted,” she greets him warmly. “I heard the rowing team won last Friday, well done.”
“We couldn’t have done it without Jeff stepping in last minute,” Ted says, his eyes darting briefly back to his roommate. “We’ve got a strong chance at the next regatta. ”
“I’m glad! Listen, sorry to bother you so late, but-”
“-is Jeff around?” He finishes, all charm and good manners despite the interruption.
“Oh, uh.” Maureen falters, pulling at the sleeves of her cardigan, “I guess.”
He ducks behind the door for a moment, then calls out as if his roommate isn't standing less than a ruler length away, “Jeffrey!”
Jeff counts to ten under his breath.
“Hey, Maur!”
“Are you alright,” she asks, concern twisting her dainty features. “You look a bit...frazzled.”
“Yes, just busy with homework. You know how the professors are,” he says diplomatically, knowing exactly which face Ted is pulling behind him.
He puffs his chest out - feeling uncomfortably like the football jocks he used to make fun of with his younger brother - and moves to block the inside of their room from view.
Her brows furrow, but Maureen makes no comment. In return, Jeff makes a mental note to send her a bottle of champagne at Christmas.
“Mhm,” she nods in agreement, “it’s awful. Anyway, there’s a visitor downstairs for you. I didn’t know if she’s family, but I let her in anyway.” Her green eyes flick towards the half-closed door. “If your RA asks…”
“The front door was left open. We all know how careless drunken college kids can be.”
“Underage, drunken college kids,” corrects a deep voice from behind the door.
Jeff winks at his classmate. “Exactly. It’s easily done by anyone.”
“Thanks,” Maureen flashes him a grin, “I’ll see you in Monroe’s class.” With one last, curious glance, she steps back, and an unfamiliar woman takes her place in the doorway.
“Ah, you must be the psychic.” Ted serves the hooded woman a gleaming smile, one constructed with all the elegance of money and practice, before ushering her into the room. He pokes his head out into the darkened corridor, and satisfaction settles into his features. He sends Jeff a thumbs up.
He nods, pleased. No hawk-eyed RA in sight.
The psychic appears at Jeffrey’s shoulder. She’s younger than he’d expected, short and stout, but still somewhere within the realm of middle-age.
“I’m Jeffrey Anderson,” he holds out a hand.
She takes it, then flips it over to examine his palm. His skin brushes the boundary between the flowing material of her navy skirt and the crisp linen of her white blouse.
As eccentric as she appears, Jeff has to admit that her professional attire commands some level of respect - that is, if one ignores the sprigs of herbs poking out at all angles from her waistband.
She drops his hand with a searching look, “hmm.”
Ted looks on in fascination as she reaches up and draws the diaphanous scarf from her greying hair. In one, swift motion, she fills it with herbs from her pocket and then sets the bundle alight.
Jeff stumbles back as the concoction emits a smoky, green flash.
“I am Madam Z.,” the woman nods at them solemnly. Her deep-set eyes linger with disapproval on the gawking, long-limbed pair.
Likely disappointed, Jeffrey thinks, to find two young, rich college boys in oversized sweaters have placed the call for her services. Dumb, young, rich college boys if he was reading the tilt of her eyebrows correctly.
Her beaded heels are gaudy against the plain beige room. Even the incense Ted had bought did little to mitigate the strangeness of her presence.
In fact, the cloying, perfumed scent was more choking than calming.
“Put that out,” Madame Z. gestures to the source of the offensive scent. “You cannot scare a spirit with bad air.”
Tension drains from Jeff’s shoulders as he sweeps the incense into the trash. She’s staying, and he guesses she figures money is money. It’d be more hassle to walk out than to charge them for their idiocy.
Promptly, he deposits the trash in the corridor. Rude RA or not, it’s a problem for tomorrow.
He shuts the door firmly, then spins on his heel once he glimpses Ted approaching the psychic, his expression jovial.
“Theodore Rupert Livingston the Third.” He extends a hand to the frowning woman, “call me Ted, and what may I call you?”
“Madam Z.”
“Ah,” Ted’s eyes flick desperately to his hand but the woman remains unmoving. He withdraws it, quickly reaching for the half-empty carbonara bowl on the desk beside her.
Jeff smothers his laughter with a cough.
“You know Latin?”
Jeff nods, eyes sliding with dread to his roommate who looks both scarily and suddenly delighted.
“Don’t say a word,” he warns.
“Dilectus.”
“Ted, what did I say?”
“Oh, I see. It wasn’t a word when we played scrabble last night, but now it is.” His expression grows smug to the same measure that Jeff’s grows exasperated. “How convenient.”
“As I said, throwing in latin makes the game more complicated!”
“Or is it because I’m better than you? I think Mr. Valedictorian is jealous.”
Madam Z. ignores them, her long skirt swishing as she strides around the small room. She flicks water over the bedposts, slides a finger across the window ledge, then inspects the floor with an unprecedented level of disdain.
“Carbonara sauce?” She asks, her voice deep and rasping.
“It’s delicious,” Ted defends, gazing upon his handiwork with pride. “If anything, it’ll tempt the spirit out. I bet they’re just dying for a decent meal.”
“He brings bad energy. I do not deal with clients at risk of possession.”
“Possession!?” Jeff winces, consciously bringing down the pitch of his speech, “nobody mentioned a risk of demonic possession.”
“You say this presence is malevolent, yes?”
The boys nod silently.
Jeff remains stoic yet pale, while Ted begins to show a concerning enthusiasm for the night's planned activities.
“With a tendency for violence?”
“No serious harm.” Jeff chuckles nervously, “although a letter opener did come close to stabbing me in the foot.”
Ted scoffs. “Wow, Anderson. You have a real concern for your own safety.”
Madam Z. nods gravely, “the rude one is right. That is how it begins.”
A sudden cheer rings through the floorboards. Her expression softens as the young man flinches. "Do not be afraid. This can be dealt with.”
“Do not be afraid,” Jeffrey repeats, steeling himself for the impending ritual.
Unperturbed, the woman flings an object at each of them.
The young men hurry to catch them, sharing a look as they realise they each hold a necklace with a small crucifix hanging like a locket.
“Protection.”
A heaviness pushes down on Jeffrey’s chest.
“Our first demon,” Ted slings an arm over Jeff’s shoulders. “I feel like this is a college bonding experience.”
“Yeah, one I’ll pay a therapist to forget.”
“Your mind is your greatest enemy.”
“You’re not supposed to agree,” Jeff glares, leaning into his touch. ”That’s not very supportive roommate behaviour.”
Madam Z. makes an angry shushing sound, but the heaviness in his chest has vanished.
She kneels by the pentagram and pulls the tallest candlestick towards her. With a deep breath, she screws her eyes shut, fingers twitching as if they are reaching for something hidden from sight.
Then, she begins to chant.
Each word of latin seems infused with power from the rich timbre of her voice. The phrases swell, filling the room with a crackle of something ancient that raises the hair on Jeffrey’s arms.
The candles flicker.
Shadows creep in, and faint rustles skirt around the edges of the room. It circles them like the stalking of a predator.
Jeffrey stiffens.
Do not be afraid.
“If anyone is here,” Madam Z. asks, her tone firm yet polite, “please give us a sign”
A book comes flying off the shelf above Ted. Jeff shoves him, pain shooting through his wrists as he hits the ground.
BANG.
The heavy volume of Paradise Lost strikes the floor. It lays open, half an inch from where Ted had sat.
“Thanks,” he breathes, looking unusually unkempt.
Jeff swallows, his eyes stuck on the near-miss.
Madam Z. lifts the candle from the top of the pentagram and releases a torrent of Latin that Jeffrey can only half-decipher. The minutes stretch on, each second unfurling with lethargy under her commands until, finally, they draw to a close.
Her bracelets clink as she holds the flame beneath her chin, sharp eyes imploring her clients to copy. “Just as we snuff this candle, we snuff you from our mortal world.”
The young men extinguish the other candles, uttering the words in synchronicity. Their shoulders wedge together as they sit back.
“You have a distressed spirit,” she confirms, placing the candle back inside the pentagram. Smoke gathers around her, hazy, and curling like winter mist.
“The first stage of the ceremony is completed. I will be back next week.” The words hang as Madam Z. rises. In two quick strides she’s gone.
“She left,” Jeff points towards the door in disbelief. “She abandoned us. My last shred of sanity won’t last the night!”
Ted slaps his knees. “Right, I guess I’m acting as bait.”
“What?” Jeff spins around to face him, but his roommate has already dropped to the floor.
He stretches his body across the markings like a starfish. The motion causes his sleeves to bunch up, revealing toned arms as Ted moves to rap twice on the hardwood floor.
“You want to play games?” He calls out, his voice nearing a roar, “then come and get me!”
“Do not anger this demon, Ted. If we die, I won't forgive you. Not even in heaven with God as my witness.”
Ted snorts, his provocations coming to an abrupt halt. “Bold of you to assume I’ll end up in heaven.”
A smile tugs at the corner of Jeffrey’s mouth. “With your blasphemous language, likely not.”
“Shut it, Anderson. I have a demon to attract.”
Jeff complies, but he reaches under his bed to retrieve a thick, orange book.
Flipping through its pages, his eyes catch on diagram after diagram of colourful methods to summon hell spawns, or in his personal opinion, invitations for death.
“Scratch me!” Ted throws his arms up, waving as he shouts. “Singe my flesh! Throw me around!”
“Are you drunk?” Jeff mutters, smoothing down the exorcism page, “or just insane?”
Ted rolls his eyes theatrically. “Neither. He won’t do it, our demon’s a wuss.”
“I would like to say I admire your confidence,” he deadpans, “but I don’t.”
“Come on, dead college boy!” Ted looks pointedly at his roommate, “time’s up. Jeffrey here is too polite to kick you out, but I’m not. Pack your bags and leave.”
“Don’t loop me into this,’ Jeff protests. The syllables bleed into the banishment chant as he hurries through its first lines.
“You’re the one being haunted.”
“I’m not here to judge their choices,” he murmurs, but the words are drowned by his roommate’s increasingly crude provocations.
It's as if Ted takes Jeffrey’s words as a challenge.
Several objects fly from shelves and surfaces around the room. A pillow slides from Jeffrey’s bed, slumping to the ground like it has been crumpled by a giant fist.
Ted’s comments grow more explicit as the maelstrom rages. His shouts heighten in fervency as ink pens begin to roll towards the pentagram, their nibs never quite crossing the gloopy, carbonara lines.
At least this demon has a semblance of decency, Jeff thinks, cringing as Ted’s monologue crosses several moral lines. He’s surprised the floor RA hasn’t come running. The thought snaps him into action.
“You can’t say that!” Jeff flushes, heat pulsing through his body as he ducks away from an empty soda can that seems to be launching at his head.
Ted looks offended. “Why not? I’m conventionally attractive. Any red-blooded American should be delighted to have me.”
“Red-blooded,” he repeats, “Ted. It’s a spirit, they don’t have blood.”
“Alive or dead, I’m still a catch.”
“For me, or them?” He confesses, half-teasing.
Ted freezes, the self-assured set of his shoulders is a contrast to the flurry of emotions that flit across his face. His lips begin to shape a reply, then stop. “Do you hear that?”
A beat passes. Their room remains still and silent.
“I think we scared it off,” Jeff marvels, his eyes wide as he studies the wreckage of what had been their inspection-ready room. “Two hundred dollars on a psychic, and all we had to do was flirt the spirit out.”
“So you noticed,” Ted croaks, his gaze both warm and exasperated.
Jeff nods, watching as his roommate sits up. Their faces are level, but Ted’s eyes flick downwards. The action stirs something inside him. “Eventually.”
Ted curls closer, one hand slipping from Jeff’s waist. It presses against his back and pulls him close.
“Definitely a catch,” Jeff murmurs, gently grasping the fine bones of Ted’s chin between his thumb and forefinger.
“Then kiss me,” Ted demands.
And he does.
When he received his acceptance letter, Jeffrey Anderson had expected many things.
He’d imagined lazy afternoon study groups in coffee shops, or fuzzy memories of spontaneous late nights spent dancing, and the thrill of building a life of his own.
Not one of his daydreams had featured Ted.
Arrogant, sarcastic, thoughtful, and gregarious. No, Jeff thinks, no imagination could conjure up someone as dizzyingly perfect as Ted.
Jeff groans as his forehead rests against Ted’s. The sound mingles with the sweet peppermint of the other boy’s breath.
“What?” He challenges, his eyes clear and bright beneath the shadow of his lashes, “is my kissing truly that atrocious?”
Jeff casts his eyes to the heavens. "No, your kissing is perfectly satisfactory.”
His cheeks grow rosy as Ted’s brow quirks.
“I’ve just realised,” he begins with a slow, deliberate breath, “how much money I need to spend on a French restaurant to inform my parents they’ve produced two gay kids.”
“Why not write them a guidebook? Todd gifted you a very nice second desk set.”
“The Gouligan’s Guide to Gayness ?” He laughs, his pulse jumping at Ted’s soft grin. “I’m sure that would go down a treat.”
“You’re a successful ghost hunter now, Anderson. Dealing with your parents should be a breeze.”
Jeff gazes at Theodore Rupert Livingston III. A smile blooms on his lips.
“Yes,” he says, his eyes fond. “I think it might.”