Chapter Text
“He doesn’t have to die here, you know.”
Impulse is dying, though.
That’s the thing - Impulse is dying, and Skizz is desperately trying to hold him together. The driver - drunk, probably - has sped off into the darkness.
There’s no one else around. Anyone around would have heard Skizz screaming. Screaming, begging - for help.
The man who meets Skizz’s gaze as he looks desperately up - doesn’t look like he’s planning to help.
He’s settled on a wall - sprawled on it, really, legs hooked casually over one another as he leans back on the building behind him. He isn’t quite smirking - his face, in fact, is impassive - but Skizz can hear the smirk in his voice.
He can feel the blood pooling, hot and sticky around his fingertips, where he’s desperately trying to hold Impulse together.
“Please,” he says, and his voice is hoarse from screaming. “Please, please - call nine one one -”
“They wouldn’t get here in time,” the man says, with a tone that says even if I would. He - won’t, then -
And Impuse is so, so still. It’s - it would be better than the groaning, than the pain, if Skizz didn’t know that he was dying. That it meant that he was running out of time -
“I need some people,” the man continues, and he turns on the wall - jumps down, far enough that his legs should buckle, but he doesn’t even seem to notice the drop. He approaches, languidly, like a predator. “For a job.”
“What?” Skizz manages, the word small and raw and baffled. “Ple -”
“He would live forever.” The man cuts him off. “I’m generous. So would you.”
Skizz isn’t stupid. He was raised on his Nonna’s stories, and some of those stories were warnings.
But Impulse is dying.
“Sure,” he says, and he can feel the magic that twists around him, binding him to his word.
“Yes,” he says, and Impulse doesn’t die that night.
-----
The next thing he knows, he’s in a warehouse.
“Okay, guys,” crackles the voice over the radio, and Skizz - drags himself upright. The world is foggy around him - foggy and wrong. “I’ve got a job set up for you, when you’re ready.”
He drags himself to the radio, and keys it. “Who - who are you?”
The voice - isn’t the voice of the man from the night before, he’s pretty sure. On the couch behind him, Impulse stirs with a groan. “Skizz?”
“Xisuma,” says the voice on the radio. “It’s alright. Sorry. You’re new, aren’t you? Take a second.”
“Impulse -” Skizz starts, but Impulse is already rising -
- and he looks… intact. There’s a nasty scar on his forehead, right over his eye, but it’s healed. There’s blood on his clothes - there’s so, so much blood - but he gets up, and his innards aren’t spilling out -
And there’s only a moment before Skizz can get his head clear and run to him.
The tackle - almost sweeps Impulse off his feet, but only in the way it always does. And Impulse’s body - it’s real and solid and warm, and he’s alive -
“Shit -” Impulse says, and his hands are on Skizz, pushing him back just a little. “Skizz - what’s wrong -”
“You died,” Skizz tells him. “You were dying -”
“Fuck,” Impulse breathes. “That car -”
“There was - a man,” Skizz tells him, not sure how else to explain. “I - he saved you, but…”
“If you have any questions,” the radio voice says, “I’ll try to answer them. I’m - here to help you. Sort of.”
Skizz keys it again. “Where are we?”
Laughter bursts like static over the radio. “That’s the question, isn’t it?” A pause, then, “Ask something else. I can’t help you there.”
“Impulse died,” Skizz says, because that seems like - the next thing to talk about, even if it’s not a question.
“So there are two of you,” the radio echoes back. “Sorry. Sorry. They don’t give me a lot of information. Probably not, if he’s with you - I don’t think they can bring back the dead. Just - if he still had a bit of life in him, they can fix that.”
“He was - dying, yeah,” Skizz says, at the same time as Impulse says, “Who’s they?”
There’s a soft crackle, as if the man on the far side of the radio has keyed the mike too early. “I - wouldn’t know. One of you was recruited, right? I - don’t think they can take you, otherwise. You have to agree.”
“It was - a brown haired man,” Skizz tells him. “I…”
He tries to picture him, but there’s not much there. “Red,” he tries, unhelpfully. “I remember red. Like - clothing?”
“Xelqua,” the man on the other end of the line says. “That was Xelqua, probably.”
“You’re not him,” Skizz says, just to confirm, and the man laughs again.
“No,” he agrees. “He - works for home office, you could say. Well - he. It.”
“That thing has a home?” It - might be rude, but the thought…
“Probably not,” the voice says with a snort. “Don’t - worry too much about Xelqua. It - doesn’t interfere, much. I think it’s more - a recruitment tool. It - didn’t tell you much, did it?”
“It told me that it would save Impulse,” Skizz says. “It - told me we would live forever.”
There’s a long, long silence on the other end of the line.
“I don’t think it can lie,” Xisuma says, finally. “But - well, let me tell you a little bit about the job?”
Skizz hesitates. “I don’t suppose,” he starts, “we can say no.”
The pause stretches again, and there’s something soft and quiet and like pity in Xisuma’s voice when he speaks again. Or - not pity. Sympathy.
“No,” he says, with a sort of grim finality to the words. “You can’t.”
-----
“So,” starts Impulse, who is - honestly, taking this better than Skizz expected. “We’re going to go into that house.”
“Yes,” Xisuma agees.
“And we’re going to wander around.”
“Sure.”
“And eventually, a ghost will attack us.”
“Pretty much,” Xisuma tells him, and Impulse pauses.
“So you’re telling me that ghosts are real,” he says, finally, and Xisuma laughs.
“That’s - I suppose that’s a good place to start,” he says. “Yes.”
They sit there in silence, for a moment, all three of them, processing that.
“Ghosts are real,” Impulse says, again, and then, “and we’re going to let it kill us?”
“Well - let is a strong word,” Xisuma says. “It’s going to kill you, probably. You’re - going to die a lot, if I’m being honest. It won’t stick.”
“And you - you’ve done this before?”
“Me?” There’s a moment’s hesitation there. “No. I - have a different job. I’ll do what I can for you - sending through data, observing, making sure your bodies get back to base - I -”
He falls off, for a moment, with a click, like he’s cut himself off halfway. His voice is quieter, when it returns.
“There’s only so much I can do to help.”
That settles uneasily around them. Skizz - can’t remember how, exactly, they got here - only getting in the van, eventually, and then a sort of long, staticky whiteness -
So he reaches out, and takes a flashlight off the wall. “These are…?”
“For you, yeah,” Xisuma says. “Your goal is to identify things about the ghosts in question. Ideally, figure out what they are, and collect some research data - that gets sent back to me. For now, though, there’s a journal - you can take a look, if you want. It’s got a lot of notes.”
The notes, as Skizz looks over Impulse’s shoulder, are - handwritten. Not all in the same hand, either - there’s heavy, blue ballpoint letters, with blunt, round curves, and a thin grey penciling-in of notes on top of that. Some of the writing looks older, even - faded, as if the ink has worn away, with thin lines crossing words out instead of scribbles.
“Over time, I’m sure you’ll remember more and more of it,” Xisuma tells them. “And - you can use this to organize your thoughts, too. Write all over, if you want - it won’t damage it. Only the stuff that’s true will stick around.”
“That’s - not how paper works, X -”
“Skizz,” Xisuma says, comfortingly, although there’s a touch of amusement to the way he says the name, “None of this works. Don’t worry about it. Write in the fucking book.”
-----
“It’s colder in here,” Skizz says, and Impulse leans in.
His breath crystalizes in a thin cloud as he does, and he looks almost - surprised. “Oh,” he says. “Yeah. Shit - does that mean anything?”
“Maybe,” Skizz tells him, although he’s not sure himself. “Um - did you figure out the lights?”
“They’re a little blinding,” Impulse warns, and then flicks the switch -
They are. That’s - not what surprises Skizz, though.
“Oh,” he says. “It’s - just a freaking house.”
It - the room he’s in looks like a child’s bedroom. It looks - safe, he supposes, even if the windows are sheet-black beyond the light reflecting in the glass. The bed is short, with blue sheets and a stuffed elephant on the pillow. There’s a picture of a dog on the table next to the bed.
There’s been - no other sign of a dog, so far.
Impulse - crosses the room, and pulls back the blanket. “Did Xisuma -” he starts - “Did he say where we were supposed to sleep?”
“Not really, no,” Skizz tells him. “He - hasn’t said much, has he. I mean - I don’t know if he knows that much more than us.”
“That’s…” Disquieting, obviously. They’re quiet, for a little bit, as they search the room, not finding much.
“Do you think,” Skizz starts, when the silence gets to be too much, “That he meant it, when he said we were going to die?”
“That it wouldn’t stick?” Impulse looks over. “I think - he didn’t sound like he was joking, no.”
“Fuck,” Skizz breathes, and something else breathes back.
He’s over the bed before conscious thought can stop him, reflex alone enough to get him there. His heart is pounding in his chest, but it’s nothing next to the thunder of panicked blood in his ears as he stares at the open door that had been behind him -
“Skizz?” Impulse says, wide-eyed, and the lights flicker. “Skizz -”
There’s a low song, in the distance, and a woman stares back at them.
Her jaw hangs low and broken, as she smiles. Then she lunges, and there are hands around his throat -
Skizz isn’t alive even long enough to scream before watching his own body tumble to the floor.
Orange tunnel lights flash above him, and a train whistles low in the dark.
-----
“Fuck!” Impulse shouts, as cornered as he was by the ghost. She’s distracted, though, and Skizz can follow as he runs down the hall - slams into the front door like a linebacker -
And it’s closed.
It doesn’t open, even as he bangs on it, close-fisted, rattling the handle in his panic. Impulse slips through it - there’s nothing holding it, on the far side, and his immaterial fingers slide right through the handle when he tries to help -
Above him, the porchlight flickers wildly, and then, abruptly, goes dark.
The pounding ceases. Just for a moment - and then the handle turns.
“Holy fuck,” Impulse manages, as he staggers out into the rain. “Holy fuck, holy fuck - no -”
He makes it back to the truck. He makes it inside, and claws his way to the radio.
“Xisuma.” He rasps the word. “Xisuma, Skizz is dead -”
“Don’t worry about it,” Xisuma says, voice all business, but not panicked. “You don’t have to get the body back to the truck. I’ll take care of it.”
“Xisuma!” Impulse is shouting, now. “Skizz is - it fucking killed him -”
“Don’t swear at me, please,” Xisuma says, but the words are mild. “I - oh. One second. Skizz - you’ve made it back to the truck, right?”
“Yes,” Skizz manages - and how does his throat hurt if he’s dead? “I’m - I’m here -”
“I can’t hear you,” Xisuma says. “If you’re trying to talk. But - you should have enough energy to pick something up - the journal, maybe? Toss it on the keyboard if you’re here.”
It - he can do that. Maybe.
It takes more effort than he expects - or maybe he’s just frailer, like this. Dead, without a body to support him.
The journal lands on the keys with a thud, and Impulse stares at it, wild-eyed.
“Did he do anything?” Xisuma asks, and Impulse reaches for the mike.
“He did,” he manages. “He - it’s there. What -”
“I told you,” Xisuma says. “Death doesn’t stick. If Xelqua promised you’d live forever -”
He laughs, raking and raw and crackling with static.
“You will, probably,” he finishes, finally. “You - tell you what. Let’s get you back to the warehouse. Let you see - it’s harder, the first few times. I think most people have a hard time believing it. At the back of the van - go close up the trunk, and I’ll get you home.”
“And - Skizz will be alive again.” It’s quiet, like Impulse is looking for a promise. Xisuma’s next words are said like one.
“He will be.”
Impulse, doesn’t move, for a moment. A long, long time, actually. Then, slowly, he rises.
“You’re still here, right, Skizz?” he asks, and Skizz manages to tap the clipboard once against the desk. “I - won’t leave you behind.”
Then he reaches out, and the doors to the truck swing shut with an echoing thump -
The van around them rumbles, gently, although Skizz knows full well there’s no driver in the front, and no road under them - no road is so perfectly, surreally flat.
There’s silence, for a little while - and at the end of the silence, there is only LIGHT -