Work Text:
Fyodor sat down on his desk chair with a long sigh. Winter was relentless that year. The only thing keeping his room warm was a small fireplace. He had just gotten up to get some firewood to feed the flames.
The fire and the candle on his writing desk were the sole light sources of the room. It was pitch dark outside. The wind howled violently.
Not one night passed without a snow storm in that place. But being in an old, creaking house on the outskirts of town was better than freezing to death on the streets.
At least, he had managed to buy that house for a decent price. Or, well, what he thought was a decent price before he started to live in the building.
Because the house was haunted.
The first night he spent there, he woke up in the middle of the night by a sudden sound. The bottle of writing ink he had on his desk had been thrown to the ground. He rubbed his eyes when he saw writings on the floor, as he thought he was still dreaming.
“Hello, pretty boy. I’m Dazai, your new roommate.”
And the ghost that lived there turned out to be a real menace.
He sighed again. He didn’t fear the spirit at all. If anything, Dazai was mostly harmless. They liked hanging around the bedroom, probably because they died there, but they sometimes wandered to the room Fyodor was in. The study.
Fyodor suddenly felt very cold. He turned around to see that the fire was still there, so that meant Dazai had decided to make a visit.
“Good evening, Dazai,” he said in a whisper. Dazai would be able to hear him anyway.
He didn’t get an answer. After all, the spirit had very limited ways of communicating with him. They could interact with their surroundings, but they couldn’t talk to him directly.
However, he had managed to form a relationship with Dazai. Although it was difficult for him to describe the kind of relationship they had.
Fyodor finished writing in his notebook. He kept a diary where he wrote what he did every day. It kept him sane during those days when he yearned for human contact.
He went shopping in the town weekly, but he didn’t have any friends. And he wasn’t planning on making friends, either. He knew what people said about him.
About the man who lived alone inside the haunted cabin in the woods. The same cabin where another man committed suicide a couple of years before.
Suddenly, the candle was blown out. Fyodor sighed yet again.
“Don’t blow out my candle, Dazai. What do you want?” he blurted out as he lit the candle again by using one of the matches from a box he kept close at hand.
The quill was taken out of the bottle of ink. Fyodor then knew Dazai had something to say. They liked to use his diary as a way of communicating, because they usually were more active in the evening and the night.
So Fyodor was alone during the rest of the day.
Dazai finished writing seconds later. The black-haired man looked at the words, quizzed.
“Are you mad at me? ” was written in unsteady handwriting.
“No, I’m not mad at you,” Fyodor answered. “I’m just… tired, I guess.”
He waited a bit to see Dazai’s response. They didn’t take long.
“Do you want a hug? ”
“Don’t be stupid. You can’t give me a hug,” he said in a low voice.
“I can’t give you a real hug, but I can stay next to you. I’m a bit cold, though.”
Fyodor’s eyes widened when he read those words. He blinked once, twice, three times and was left speechless the moment he felt a presence looming over his shoulder.
“I could sleep next to you if you don’t mind the cold.”
Something freezing brushed gently against his face. It was as if a corpse caressed his cheek. An invisible corpse.
Well, that wasn’t far away from the truth.
“I didn’t know you could… touch me.”
He felt it again. The cold on his face. He closed his eyes and enjoyed the fact that Dazai just… stood there. Unmoving. Unchanging.
Then, the quill moved again.
“Go to sleep, Fedya. I will take care of you.”
Fyodor left his things on the desk and he stood up, following the advice of the spirit. As he left the study, he noticed that Dazai blew out the candle and put out the fire.
At least, he could get ready for bed without worrying about starting a fire while he slept.
He got out of his working clothes he didn’t take off after he finished chopping wood earlier that day. Some days, he didn’t even have the strength to change his clothes before getting into bed.
But, that day, the cold chased him. He knew Dazai got upset when they saw him during one of his worse days.
So he made an effort and changed into some more comfortable clothes.
His bedroom wasn’t that cold yet. He guessed that Dazai was waiting for him outside.
Although they were a ghost, they had always respected Fyodor’s privacy. At least, he thought so.
“You can come inside now,” he said, raising his voice so as to make his intentions clear.
Dazai’s presence wasn’t as cold when they entered the bedroom. Fyodor was already lying down on the bed, covered by a few thick blankets.
The bed creaked, but nothing seemed to change with it. But Fyodor knew it was because Dazai was sitting on it at that moment.
“Goodnight, Dazai,” he said, his voice barely a whisper.
And he felt cold fingers tracing his face yet again. Carefully. Lovingly.
Like no one else had done before.
Ever.