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There is something weird in the air, again.
Eddy can feel it, and it’s not just the time of year that makes him prickly. There is something weird in the air, and he can feel it under his skin. Or rather, his allergies seem to react to it.
“Isn’t it just your hay fever again?” Ollie asks, but Eddy scoffs.
“It’s not the season,” he says.
He scratches at his throat, an absent-minded gesture until it starts hurting a little. It’s always- “It’s weird,” he says, but stops mid-sentence, eyes widening at the horror of what he was about to say. It always starts feeling all tingly and scratchy right after he’s picked up his violin. Almost as if - but it can’t be, right? He can’t actually be allergic to his violin, right? Right?
“What?” Ollie asks, but Eddy just shakes his head, refuses to consider the possibility even for one more second.
He refuses to think about it and yet it’s all he does, in the following hours, days, weeks. It gets worse. He opens his violin case and suddenly his nose gets runny and he can’t stop sneezing, and the skin on his throat starts itching, red patches, blotchy. They test him for woods, varnishes, horse hair, anything, and yet nothing. It’s still only hay fever and pets, but it’s not the season and there are no cats or dogs in the house, he’d know.
Not practising is no solution, and besides, it’s only a temporary patch, until - wait is that a scratch on his forearm?
Eddy tries to put his violin back in its case through the sneezes, feels some weird resistance, and - there is definitely a scratch, there is definitely something scratching him as he does so, like a - cat? An invisible cat?
Just as he’s about to shake off the thought - probably just scratched himself on a door or something - he’s pretty sure he can hear a purr. Faint as it is, it’s definitely there. Are the practice rooms haunted or what? That was definitely a meow there, now.
“Kitty?” Eddy says before he can stop himself, thanks all deities in existence that no one’s here to witness him finally losing his mind. Maybe he’s practised so much that he’s made himself delusional, and his mum was right, he should’ve been a doctor instead.
He shakes his head. Too much practising and not enough sleeping truly did get to his head, but just as he’s about to try and put his violin away once again, something shimmers in the case, and this time, it’s not just the product of Eddy’s imagination. The shimmer dulls a bit, until it seems to turn into a veil, and then, something more tangible. A cat.
It sits snugly in Eddy’s violin case, vaguely transparent, cocks its head and blinks at Eddy once.
“Oh,” Eddy says, feeling stupid suddenly. Because ghosts aren’t supposed to exist, are they? Especially - cat ghosts? Is that even a thing?
The cat doesn’t seem to care whether ghost cats are a thing or not, and quietly lies down in the case, fitting perfectly, eyes closed and the hint of a purr in the air. It’s clearly not a kitten, by the way it behaves. More like an aged cat, maybe, quiet, placid. As Eddy hesitates, it opens its eyes and blinks twice. Eddy kind of wants to pet it, although he would probably regret it. Also, can you pet a ghost?
“You can’t stay here, buddy,” Eddy says with regret. “I can’t practise if I keep sneezing.”
“Why?” the cat asks, a grumpy frown on its face, and Eddy - screams. Something high-pitched and almost demented.
Speaking ghost cats. He’s lost it.
Just as Eddy screams, the cat jumps out of the case, toppling over on the floor. It gets up on shaky legs, letting out offended huffs and wheezes.
“Mate, what was that for?”
Eddy, who’s backed up all the way on all fours, then slumped against the wall, just stares at the cat.
“Hey, where’d you go?” the cat happily trots towards him, and rubs against Eddy’s calves with soft purring, tail happily going up. “Now that we’re here, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about your choice of pieces. Couldn’t we go for something a little cheerier?”
“You’re a talking cat,” is all Eddy can say. “Ghost-cat, thing.”
“Hmm, perceptive.”
“I’m allergic to cats.”
“Well, that’s unfortunate.”
Eddy takes a deep breath, discreetly pinches his thigh.
“Did you just pinch yourself?”
“I-,”
“You’re not dreaming,” the cat says. “Now. We’ve got to do something about those allergies.”
“We?”
The cat settles on Eddy’s lap, determinedly pawing himself a nice spot, ignoring Eddy’s soft ‘hey’ of protest. It lies down with its head on Eddy’s knee, curved into a tiny ball. It really is a small cat.
“I like sleeping in the case,” the cat offers as an explanation.
“But I need it! And I can’t-” as if to prove his point, Eddy sneezes spectacularly.
The cat stands up with a heavy sigh, and shakes, shakes until it vibrates so fast that at some point it disappears from Eddy’s vision, only to reappear with a loud ‘poof’. Only that now, it’s not a cat in Eddy’s lap but a full grown man.
“Hi,” he says, looking up with an almost drunken grin. “I’m Brett.”
Eddy is frankly too dumbstruck to answer anything of substance.
“You’re not allergic to human-ghosts, are you?” the ex ghost cat asks.
“Sorry, what?”
“Allergies. Me. No?”
“I - guess not?” He can’t believe what he’s seeing. The dude is still sitting in his lap, too, and doesn’t really seem inclined to move.
“Good, good. Now, where can I sleep?”
“You were a cat and now you’re not!” Eddy protests. What even is -
“Yeah, I’m aware. Can I sleep in your bed?”
“How? What!” He shakes his head. What the fuck? “What do you mean? How did you-? Cat?”
“Don’t be like that, all ghosts can do that,” he says, but Eddy isn’t convinced. “So, if I’m no longer allowed to sleep in your violin case, you’ll let me sleep in your bed, right?”