Chapter Text
It's not fun being dead. It's boring most of the time, and it's hard for her to touch things, and Jester's really really mad that she died in her stupid pyjama dress. She would have at least curled her hair if she knew she was going to die. The house is usually empty, and while she can leave and go out to the backyard, she can't feel the sun on her skin or the wind in her hair. So no, it's not fun being dead.
It is super fun to be a ghost, though. She stays quiet when the house is being showed, prospective couples looking around at the big kitchen, the four bedrooms, the three bathrooms, and wondering why it's so cheap. She watches them with budding excitement when they step onto the balcony and look over the beautiful land beyond the home and talk about raising a family there.
The longest a family has ever stayed is two months. She's gotten much better at moving things than she used to be, she thinks she's been dead for thirteen years now, maybe more, and at first, she couldn't even move a crumb. Now, she can open drawers and doors and draw dicks on the condensation in the bathroom. Once, she was even able to pick up a little boy's marker and dot the eyes on his drawings for him.
Sometimes Jester thinks about letting them stay, but then she has to watch them grow and get old and fight and be mean and cruel. And this is her house, even after all this time, and she doesn't like seeing other people picking colours to paint the walls when her mama had picked the nicest ones out there, or laugh at the zebra tile her mama put in Jester's walk in closet. She doesn't want more people living in this house than the dead people, anyway.
The best part of being a ghost, and the only good part about being dead, is Caleb.
-
They can always tell when a new real estate agent has been assigned to the house. A fancy black car will pull up in the windows and Caleb will float through the house, away from the attic where he tends to stay, and try and find her to watch the whole thing go down. Jester's out by the pond, watching the koi fish that the last family left behind, when a pebble whizzes by her head, making the water ripple. She looks over her shoulder to see him by the back door, right at the limit of where he can leave, waving excitedly.
"Really?!" She shouts, running as fast as she can. Jester is so jealous that Caleb can float. He's had a lot more practice being a ghost than her, and he doesn't mess with the people that move in as much, but he knows how to make sounds people can hear and once even made himself visible. She doesn't have to catch her breath after running like she did when she was alive, but she still forces the movements anyway. Old habits really do die hard.
"It is a man, thirties or forties. He is not in the house yet, I don't think." His coughs after, dry as ever, and Jester loops her arm through his.
"So, Caleb, who do you think will move in next? I hope they have a bird so you can teach it to say scary stuff!" She laughs, and he smiles, just a little, on his lopsided lips. Caleb looks like he died when he was in his early twenties, though he would have aged really well. He's very handsome, even with the ugly mark on his neck and the cuts that always bleed.
"I hope, for my sake, that they are readers this time. The last two I could only skim off two books, and they weren't even good books. If I could start a fire and know I would be able to not burn the estate down, I would have set New Moon on fire." He scoffs.
"Oh, but Caleb, it was so romantic! Jacob was so sweet and then Edward was back in Bella's life! And she had a big choice to make, especially with her papa and going to Italy! You know, I read the first one when I was alive, so it was really cool to read the second one!" She says, and he smiles again, a little more sincere. She read the book much slower than he did, having trouble turning pages and having to call him over to help more than once. It's a good book though, sappy and romantic, and so many pages that it filled her days when she scared the last people away.
"They were both very bad choices for her. I think Bella would have been good with Alice." Caleb nods and they both stop as the real estate agent fiddles with the locks, the door creaking open after a couple tries. He's just what Caleb said he would be, and the two ghosts walk arm-in-arm as they follow him explore the house that will stay theirs.
-
It's three years into their relationship that Fjord gets the balls to ask Mollymauk to move in with him. After the first year, he wasn't ready, and the second year was filled with anxiety as he finished university and Molly was offered a job at a design company, their days suddenly busy. Now, watching them load the last box of yarn into the back of Fjord's pick-up, he can't believe he took so long to ask.
Of course, they aren't staying in Fjord's dingy little apartment. It was fine when he was in university, but he's a grown ass man with a cool, decently paying job, and he fell in love with this weird, old house the second he saw the pond in the back. Granted, neither of them actually went to the open houses, but he's sure it'll be fine. It's a twenty minute drive out of Zadash, which isn't a terrible commute to the aquarium, but still fills Fjord's need to be near nature, and it's a huge house for the price, two of the bedrooms are big enough to be the master bedrooms, so they've decided to convert the one with the balcony into Molly's personal studio. It's exactly the type of place Fjord never would have thought he would be able to have.
The ride is short and lovely. Beau and Yasha loaded up a U-Haul and are following close behind, and Molly's got the aux cord, playing some weird folk music, which is at least better than the amount of Dua Lipa they tend to play.
"I never thought I would live in the country. You've domesticated me, you bastard." Molly teases, his head resting on the window. Their hair is purple right now, and shorter than usual, curly waves cupping their lightly tanned cheeks. They look relaxed, which reassures Fjord.
"I guess if you feed a cat, it really does keep coming back." Fjord chuckles, turning his eyes back to the road.
"We should get a cat!" Molly exclaims, jerking up in his seat. His jewelry clatters about.
"Absolutely not, I'm so allergic to those fuckers, and they don't do shit."
"A dog?"
"...I could do a dog."
-
They're not sure which is the couple that's staying. Most of Caleb's books are still in the attic, no one thought to check when he died that he would have anything up there, and when Jester is especially bored, he reads to her. It's a yellowed copy of Mrs Dalloway today, Caleb can't do much about the aging process of his books, even if he does his best to keep them in pristine condition. She's on the floor, mostly because the feeling of sitting is still nice, and the only thing up here is the wooden chair Caleb pushed close to the window three summers ago, when a cat had kittens in the field across the street. He's sitting in it, reddish hair falling in his eyes, always falling in his eyes, as he reads. He switches to German sometimes, and she has to gently remind him to translate.
They both became so engrossed in the book that they don't notice the people moving in until they hear yelling about a dropped couch. Jester watches as Caleb's eyes widen and he carefully sets the book down on the floor.
"I believe we have company. Ladies first." He gestures towards the door. She thinks it's very nice of him to follow her in walking when he could just float through the floor and be there so much faster.
"I hope they're cool!" She giggles, and takes off. Jester died wearing her fluffy Uggs, thank the Gods, because they're so comfy under her feet. Caleb is stuck in white socks, and even though he rarely goes outside, nor does he usually have his feet on the ground, it must suck for him. She wonders if his feet get cold. He doesn't like to talk a lot about his life or death, and she doesn't often ask.
There are two women, a man, and someone that Jester isn't quite sure about standing in the living room. The man, a tall, dark skinned guy with some lighter patches on his skin, is trying to help a buff, deathly pale woman straighten out the couch. If Jester hadn't already seen how white people look when they're ghosts, she would think that the buff woman is one. The other woman is squinting, reading instructions for a bookshelf with a hammer in her hands, while the purple-haired, tattooed person flops on the couch.
"I have never seen someone look like that." Caleb says.
"Like what?"
"The tattoos. They're pretty. And purple hair, I did not know anyone in my life with coloured hair that was not a natural colour." Sometimes Jester forgets how old Caleb is.
"Well, yeah! When I was seventeen, I begged my mama to dye my hair blue!" Jester says, and he nods, reaching out for the touch of blue forever left on her bob.
"I like it a lot." He admits, a blush coming to his face. She's never understood how they can blush when they don't have any blood, but Jester does her best not to question it. Caleb does that enough for both of them.
They watch the four of the living folks bicker, the short Asian woman dumping the purple-haired person off of the couch, convincing them to help. Fjord, as they find out, is one of the people who bought the house, the tall man who runs his fingertips over decades-old aqua paint and says that he doesn't want to change it, much to Jester's pleasure. Caleb wanders to the bookshelf eventually, watching with an eagerness as 'Molly' stacks books once it's done. He calls out books that he thinks Jester would like, just by name of course. She's especially excited for one called Life of Pie, whatever that is.
Another bookshelf is filled with crystals, a small statue of a dragon being placed upon it. Caleb crosses his legs, sitting on the floor as Molly also sets up a small shrine, with a bowl of water, intricately carved rocks, and dried flowers, the symbol of the Wildmother upon it.
"These... are these still banned religions?" He asks, looking over his shoulder at Jester. She walks over and shakes her head.
"I don't think so? There was a big thing about religious freedoms in the Empire in the sixties I think? Maybe the seventies? I didn't have to learn a lot about it in Nicodranas and I only went to school for a couple months here before..." She trails off, knowing he knows what she means. He reaches out and dips his finger in the water.
"It was not so bad as, ah, Germany when I left, I hope? So few families enjoy history novels, and mostly they are about that war."
"No, no, it was like, liberating I think? Like it was a civil thing, like when we had to fight for black people and women and gay people. I think gay people can get married now, though? I remember a few years ago one of the people who was here watched the news a lot."
"Gay people?"
"Y'know, like boys who like boys, and girls who like girls." She nudges him, and he falls with a puff of air. Molly looks over to the crystals with close-knitted eyebrows before going back to annoying the dark-skinned man.
"Ah, okay, I see. I didn't know there was a new word for it."
"It's, like, a really old word, Caleb."
They watch, shoulder to shoulder, as the women leave, and the two remaining smile, laugh, and hold each other. Jester's hands ball in her lap.
If there's one thing she missed out on while living, it's love.
-
The balcony looks out at a pond, likely a natural one, it's far too large to be manmade, and the woods beyond, a thatch of utterly untamed grass and weeds runs over the rest of the property.
"If you want this to be our bedroom, I'll survive without the balcony." Molly says, walking up behind him. He's changed into pyjamas now, hair pulled away from his angular face.
"I saw your face when you saw the zebra closet, I'll live with the balcony being a fifteen second walk away." Fjord wraps his arm around Molly's middle, pulling them close.
"You always know what I'm thinking, dear." Molly purrs, leaning their head on his chest. Fjord smiles, looking out again.
"I'm glad we both took a little time off work, I never thought puttin' a house together would be this much work."
"Hey! It's both of our proper first houses!" Molly says, looking up with dark eyes.
"Yeah, I guess it is." Fjord says, and leans down to kiss his forehead.
"Now, I believe that's a cause for celebration."
"Indeed. I'll get the wine." Fjord says, and starts to pull away. Molly's hand squeezes his forearm, and they point out towards the overgrown backyard.
"Ha! We have fireflies!"
With his love wrapped in his arms, Fjord has never felt more alive.